Part Two: Anyone For Doomsday?
DAVID
I had heard of Ceri Bumeros Gafaustus before, on Styx. Tak Sistranus, the traitorous, wicked Bounty Hunter who had tried to kill us all, had told me that he had sponsored something called the Bounty Hunter Guild Wars, pitting the most merciless Hunters and mercenaries of the galaxy against each other. A wealthy scientist and businessman, he was considered a genius by many, and a madman to others.
When I came out of my stupor after the final battle with the Yeerks, I knew I needed to destroy them once and for all. After all, everyone must get what they deserved, and the Empire deserved nothing less than total destruction.
I put out a call to Gafaustus, signalling a want and need for him to lend his services to our cause. Ceri then told me of his marvellous device, a machine that could, and would, destroy anything we used it on. Entire armies would crumble, Empires would falter, we would have the galaxy at our fingertips.
Then again…why stop there? Everyone should suffer as I have been made to…my life, all traces of a hope for a normal existence…are now gone, replaced with an eternity of bloody guerrilla warfare, terrorism and piracy.
No…first things first, meet with Ceri, get my device, plot where to go from there.
And
it was just the time to do so. A short communication from the Anicatron and I
called my troops up to the bridge. Ceri was waiting outside.
Within ten minutes, we had assembled, and LaRouche opened the gangplank, allowing us to set foot on the warm Galafurn soil.
The creature that awaited us there was a strange sight indeed. Green skinned, it hovered a few feet above the ground, suspended from six gossamer wings. It had two arms, but each arm split itself at the elbow, giving it two more half-arms, each ending in a hand like a humans. Upon it's torso was a six-eyed head, a human-like mouth, and accented with two antennae. From the back of it's head waved six tendrils. Finally, a sixth tendril snaked from it's waist, breaking into three small spaghetti-like tendrils, studded in spikes.
An Anicatron. Dr. Ceri Bumeros Gafaustus.
Greetings, David Taggart. I hope your flight went well? It asked in thought speech.
"As well as can be expected. How are things, Doctor?"
Bah! The blasted Yeerks have set up a garrison several parsecs from here, and the primitive tribesman on the shore have been engaged in petty raiding, so all I hear at all hours of the night are Dracon flashes. Still, they leave me alone, for now. I worry that Doctor Kryston has betrayed my good nature.
"That sucks," I said, not really giving two shits about this aliens personal problems, "Could you take us to your base now? My men are anxious to see the device."
Of course.
Ceri led us through the desolate and water-logged bog, into a small, metal bunker situated in the exact centre of the island. It was his laboratory, underneath, situated in a vast warren of warehouses and tunnels, a relic of a war millennia past.
I'd play along with this eccentric old Anicatron for now, as he was needed for my plans.
For soon, my ultimate hour would be at hand, and this Doctor was going to bring me to it.
SKORRE
As we arrived in the central laboratory of Ceri's complex, our initial curiosity at this side-trip had blossomed into a full fledged, infectious, need to know.
Gazing around at the various computers and lab equipment, I wondered with a deep fascination at what David and Ceri were going to show us.
Observe, if you will, this primitive tribe-child from the mainland, Ceri motioned to a large plexiglass-like wall, showing a large white room on the other side, a small Anicatron sitting on the ground, playing with it's tendrils, A slave, an old colleague of mine used him to help pay off his gambling debt.
Ceri continued, looking at the young Anicatron, He will be the test subject for today, in my most recent-and potent-demonstration of my Time Displacement Technology.
"What? You mean that you can shift time?" Asked Sara.
That is correct. Time is just another dimension-the fourth, to be precise. Like anything around us, it can be manipulated. My technology uses Z-Space to move, manipulate, or delete, objects from the fabric of the universe.
He spoke on, The Time Displacement Technology emitters have been rigged about the entire room. In the flick of a button, everything outside the Time Displacement Field will be…removed.
None of us spoke as Ceri pressed a large red button on the wall.
There was a slight popping sound, and a short, green flash.
And the small Anicatron that had been inside the cell…was gone!
"Where did it go?!" LaRouche said, not believing what he had just seen.
It has been erased from existence. It is gone, beyond recovery.
Ripper managed an audible "Woah…"
Aleks's eyes went wide, probably imagining the things such a device could bring us.
I was appalled. Superweapons were not meant for mortals, surely anyone could see that? The Bug biological weapons, nuclear devices, Quantom virus's, the Eye of Akdor… such things, to me, were hideously barbaric and vile, exactly what made the galaxy a war-torn Hell hole.
But David's eyes were flaming with excitement.
"Build us a Time Displacement bomb!" He said, staring vividly at the empty cage.
It is well within my ability… Said Ceri, seeing an opportunity, To build you a Time Displacement weapon…with a degree of power that you could set yourself, to destroy a city…a planet…a system… he said, enticingly.
David looked happy. The possibilities were endless!
"How much?"
Hmm….how many do you need?
"One to show the Yeerks what we can do…and one to use as a bargaining chip."
Let's see…for two such bombs, I'd say It'd cost you…three million galactic credits…each. But since the Yeerks are here, on my planet, posing a threat to my research and my facilities, I'm going to say…a million, total.
"Done," David said, quickly. We had plundered some ten million credits from various sources, such as Imperial garrisons on the various planets we stopped on, shops and bars, and of course, the mighty load on the Sehkmet, over six hundred thousand credits.
"When can they be ready?" Asked Aleks.
Hmmm… give me two weeks. That's about enough time.
"We'll keep a watch on your island, make sure no Yeerks fuck with you…and us."
Thank you. It is much appreciated.
We settled in on the island, moving some of our supplies to Ceri's base, setting up drone-controlled Dracon guns in the ancient pillboxes.
Did the Yeerks even know we were here? I doubted it. David always knew best, even though I didn't always agree with his actions.
I just hoped he knew what he was doing, this time.
RIPPER
JANUARY 20th, 2001…
David set us up on the island easily enough. We all took a few of the native life-forms DNA. I took a handsome, heavily bladed creature called a Scythe-Gak. LaRouche and Sara opted for plain old Vercon morphs. They had poisonous stingers, like big Bee's. Skorre took on a big, white gorilla-like morph called a Gorbash. It made him very intimidating, not that any oversized ape would be a match for me!
David set LaRouche and Sara up on patrol, combing the air above the jungles and grasslands of Galafurn as flying, versatile, Goblanic.
Besides a few Bug Fighters, we didn't see much. Once, Sara came back and claimed to have seen an Earth-Hawk, but it was just a fleeting image.
Little manipulative bitch. Kept trying to be friendly with me, and I didn't mind her, mostly because she kept her mouth shut and was a good listener when I wanted to talk, but she was of dog-blood all the same.
And she should be treated as such.
We also got word of the Empire's status, via the YNN. About two weeks ago, Nodnarb 395, Visser Ten, had been promoted. The dog/Yeerk/Andalite was now Visser Seven.
Good for him.
Finally, on the twentieth day of January, Ceri and David came out of the enclosed laboratory. The bombs were finally finished.
Time to shred some dog meat. David immediately gave the order, and LaRouche took us up into space.
LaROUCHE
I was pretty uneasy, all things considering. David had ordered me to go into orbit of the Yeerk-occupied planet of Taloraan. They mined it for it's gas's, used to power Dracon beams and other weapons.
It was a two day Z-Space flight to the Taloraan system. I killed time, mostly by reading.
Ceri had come with us, the specialist on how to operate the bomb.
We were to give the Empire a few minutes warning, then destroy the system. Then we were to begin bargaining for Earth. Something just didn't seem right about this plot…David was babbling about how he would end it once and for all, deluded rants that he was "just doing his job."
Maybe he was. Sara seemed to share me suspicions, as did Skorre, who, for the first time, seemed to be questioning his involvement with us.
Whatever was about to happen was going to be big. One way or the other, we would win. If the Yeerks caved in, we would hold the entire Empire in the palm of our hands. If they resisted, their homeworld would be…removed from existence.
The two days passed relatively quickly. On the 22nd, I pulled us out of Z-Space over the pale, gaseous planet of Taloraan.
It's showtime.
AUTHORS NOTES: Look for the next chapter(s) up tomorrow!