CHAPTER 1

WHEN AN EVIL PLAN IS SET

Space. It's so much more than a blanket of darkness dotted with tiny bright specks of light. Silent and empty, yet majestic and celestial, it is a vast, infinite domain of many possibilities never thought to be achieved but only dreamed of. So endless with absolutely no bounding lines to keep you at a stop, you could travel through it in any direction you go.

As you wander across the stars, you would find colorful distinct shapes spread out in the open as far as the eye can see. There are nebulae, which are enormous clouds of gas and dust giving off a vibrant blend of beautiful colors. This makes outer space look like a large abstract painting. And in some other places out in space, you will even see asteroids happening to orbit a solar system in any galaxy.

Speaking of galaxies, this one, in particular, is the Solana Galaxy. Home to all sentient species hailing from many planets in it, this galaxy prides itself on the good values of peace, prosperity, kindness, and harmony among its interplanetary citizens. Thanks to its galactic government, all worlds are ensured good relations through the benefits of unity, diplomacy, and trade.

However, not all worlds are joined as one in such an alliance.

Where there is peace, there is conflict. And where it is good, there is bad. We should always keep ourselves consciously aware of the latter, for we may never know when any form of it is bound to strike from one place to the next...

Planet Tenemule, Solana Galaxy
Year 5354
Local Time: 7:58 a.m.

In approach to the orbit of the planet Tenemule, a world rich with lush, green lands everywhere, is a fleet of large gray spaceships in a wedge formation. Twenty of them, smaller than the rest as they may seem, are missile cruisers with front sections having an almost insect-head-like aspect to them and engines attached to their bodies by pylons. The dreadnoughts are the eight heavy and wide ones, each with a round front view section, three cube-like components on both sides and two long engines attached under them. Four on the right side and the other on the left of the formation are armed with three pairs of dual cannons in the front and turrets on the hull's topside ready in every direction to blast away any unwelcome starships.

The twelve light cruisers have long, smooth oval cylinder-like bodies, front bridges shaped like half cones, rectangular components on the left and right sides, and two pairs of three engines found at the sides on the back. They function to carry passengers and cargo and, for that, are positioned inside the dreadnoughts' defensive perimeter. Both directly above and beneath the light cruisers are the heavily armored warships. There are twenty-four, roughly looking like dark red leeches but with two large wings pointing downward and slightly concaved upward on the sides at the front. Each one of them has a laser cannon beneath its frontside, a command bridge at the top with an orange window for the main front view, large stabilizers on the tailback, twelve engines in parts of the back, and a starfighter hangar in the middle of it.

Flying alongside the entire fleet is much smaller spaceships. They are saucers, each with a smooth round body with a yellow semitranslucent cockpit dome on top of it in which a pilot would be controlling the craft, a dark gray metal coat with green trims, a long red arrow pointing slightly down the curved front, two long wings, twin firing cannons below, and two engines in the back with green exhaust trailing from behind. Those spacecrafts patrol all around the fleet like flying little bugs buzzing over fields of tall grass.

In the back of the fleet's formation are two enormous vessels with ten spherical storage sections attached to each of their bodies and round front bridges having what resemble beetles' pincers on them, complete with half-circular observation decks in their rear sides. They seem to be capable of transporting payload the same way as the light cruisers. And not only that but also beaming two blue energy beams at a star resembling a really small sun and towing it in a whirly, somewhat violet field of energy projected from the beams. Wherever those vessels are towing the star or whatever they are taking it for, we do not know. But it does look important.

Directly in the middle of the wedge-formed fleet is the vast flagship bearing a resemblance to a hornet or a wasp, yet lacking the wings, antennae, six legs, insect eyes, mandibles, and stinger altogether. Its fuselage is all colored jet black with red accents, has the command bridge in the front with a wide window and two sets of pincer-like attachments outside it, four large engines in the back section, and is equipped with laser turrets on its sides. The middle section of the flagship has a much rounder and wider frame, where a hangar bay is located and a large steel-gray dome sits on top of it on the upper level.

There, the dome opens up to reveal a great translucent hemisphere, in which a large conference room is occupied by a circular black C-shaped table with all twelve black leather chairs seated by humanoid men and women in clean-cut business uniforms. By the looks of those said humanoids, they have orange-red skin, glowing eyes of different colors but with no pupils nor irises, only the sclerae remaining, hands with only three fingers instead of five, no nose of any kind at all, and pointy heads the shape of bosc pears.

One of them with a much shorter physique stands behind a black rectangular podium while elevated by a standing stool. His skin is much paler in complexion compared to his associates, giving him the mien of a wrinkled fruit with age spots, light blue eyes, thick eyebrows, sleek black hair, and a rather large mouth housing a set of straight teeth fit for a winning professional smile. His hair was straightly neat, had a sharp peak in the shape of a V, and was tied back by a gold ring into a refined ponytail.

The short businessman's suit is specifically tailored to his liking and is dark gray with thin black stripes. The jacket has black shawl lapels, the left front flap covering most of the right front flap down to the midriff and ending with two gold rectangular buttons fastening it snugly in place, and the left top pocket holds a green satin silk handkerchief sticking out in a triangle fold. The green dress shirt under the jacket has a black necktie with a gold knot cover fashioned with a small cogwheel holding a round ruby in the center. The bottom part of his pants legs is cuffed, allowing for the visible presence of a black pair of rounded leather loafers he is wearing on his tiny feet.

"Greetings, esteemed Blarg members of the board," the businessman spoke in a deep and professional welcoming tone, addressing them all as Blarg, as named of their species. He continued while a wide holographic screen presented his proposal plan as he described it to the board of directors. "As you all know, we and our people have left behind our once beloved homeworld Orxon, a planet that is now plagued by heavy pollution, a highly toxic atmosphere, and more to our worries, overpopulation. All three concerning issues make the reasons why we can no longer live our lives on it. Orxon will be dearly missed and forever cherished in all our hearts."

With that last sentence declared, the short man placed his stubby little right hand over his heart in a solemn way, eyes closed. The board of directors had their eyes closed and lowered their heads down in grave agreement like they were attending a funeral.

"But fear not!" he proclaimed, suddenly lighthearted. "For I, Chairman Alonzo Drek, have a plan in motion to solve this problem." Chairman Alonzo Drek, as so named, pressed a button on the podium to reveal the contents of his plan for the Blarg on the holo-screen. "Behold... NEW ORXON!"

A holo-screened proposal plan image switches to another one that shows a planet that is named "New Orxon" three times the size of the original world. It even looks to have jagged lines on it like a jigsaw puzzle. Perhaps they are borders between every state of that planet?

"Tremendous in size, plentiful, and providing enough inhabiting space for all our people, this superplanet will support our lungs with a much fresher, healthier atmosphere, soothe us with the pleasures and luxuries of steady homes, and sustain us with lots of sources of fauna, vegetation, and drinkable water once constructed. Oh, and now that I mentioned vegetation, that's where this pristine planet we're traversing to at this exact moment comes in."

Drek proceeded to have the holo-screen set to cam-feed mode, focusing on the planet Tenemule. Just as he described, Tenemule is a fresh, clean world holding mainly grasslands, forests, and plant life growing fruits and vegetables, along with a few bodies of water. The board of directors looked at the image of the green planet and began to wonder what this has to do with the suggested New Orxon.

"Excuse me, Chairman Drek," said one of the directors with a tall and slim figure. "When you said New Orxon is to be constructed for inhabitation, you didn't exactly mean we're going to colonize an unpopulated world like this one, did you?"

This inquiry had Drek's attention drawn to the director with one eyebrow raised in intrigue to what his statement on building a world for the Blarg would be. After the question was asked, Drek formed a smile, ready to give his answer. "How right you are, director," he replied. "We didn't come all this way in the fleet to set foot on Tenemule and build houses on every portion of its lands to call it 'home sweet home.' You're all here to witness the extraction of one portion of Tenemule for our new planet."

The board of directors gasped at his emphasis on the word "extraction" and murmured to each other in shock at what they just heard him explain. Some were amazed by this idea of forging a brand new homeworld out of pieces from other planets. Some others were repulsed by it as it sounded highly illogical to waste one planet after another when the Blarg could just settle by colonizing one or two of them in the galaxy. Drek could not help but observe the mixed reactions.

"It seems that some of you are pretty excited about that," Drek spoke, satisfied by the more positive reception before changing his tone and expression in the notice of the uncertainty in some board members. "The rest of you... no? Any concerns you want to share?"

"Uh... y-yes," one director with a pair of eyeglasses replied before clearing his throat. "What I'm more unsettled about this is how you're going to take a piece of such a wonderful planet for this... thing," he hesitated for a second as he referred to New Orxon in the Chairman's proposal, then escalated his tone, "... and leave it without a piece of its layers to support its mass! Do you even realize doing so will cause it to orbit at a very unnatural rate and be completely decimated once it falls into the sun?!"

"Yes, I'm very aware of the predicament. And I'm glad you brought this up. Our top scientists at Drek Industries took the liberty of designing and producing the perfect machines for the job." Drek swiped his finger on a touch screen fitted on the podium and selected a file showing...

"Here we have... the Planet Harvester!"

The Planet Harvester is an immense flying disc-shaped mothership with six mechanical arms folded inward underneath it. As demonstrated on the holo-screen, when extended, each arm releases a long metal claw with razor-sharp, expandable talons for gripping a large component from a planet. Before that, the arms release a powerful cutting laser beam that cuts into a planet's surface and carves into a specific shape to make it easier to fit that piece with another.

"Highly sophisticated in the latest of planetary construction technology, the Harvester will simply outline the shape of how a planet's portion should be shaped for extraction and proceed with cutting it and extract that piece, which will soon be ready for its integration with another to fabricate New Orxon's structure," Drek explained with pride. "Think of it as a... surgical procedure, but for planets."

"This is ABSURD!" the director shouted in revolt, much to the Chairman's shock as much as to the fellow directors at the table. "We can't go through with this! Do you not have any common sense, Drek?!"

"My common sense is well placed, director," Drek responded with clear sternness in his tone of voice and crossed eyebrows. "If you're so apprehensive about this proposal, then why don't you share with us your idea of a home for our people?"

"As I said before, it's unwarranted to just blow up any planet you see and make one out of them in your sick, brutish image. It'd be a lot easier if—"

"Sick? Brutish?! UNWARRANTED?!" Drek interrupted, clearly getting angry and raising his voice at him from the podium. "I decide which course of action is warranted! You and every single one of your colleagues here may have been in charge of my company while I was just its chief executive officer. But I am now also the Chairman, of not only this board but of the ENTIRE Blarg race in the Confederacy! You may think that's too much responsibility for me to bear, but I'm more than happy to do so. Furthermore, I will not tolerate insubordinate behavior of any kind, even from you."

This made the director get up from his seat immediately in fury, throwing his Drek Industries badge down onto the floor in front of the short Blarg leader and beginning to gather his things. "To hell with it, I quit this company! I'd rather take up residence on any other planet than live in some abomination pieced together from unconsented donors!"

Drek felt his blood boil at this insurgent act. His face scowling at the now-resigned director soon formed into one of calm—if he ever meant to render himself calm about this situation.

Closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, Drek fixed his tie before exhaling. "If that's what you want, then at least let me help you with your leave," he told him in an ungenuine calm tone, pressing a button on a remote controller he grabbed from inside the podium.

As the resigning executive gathers his belongings into his briefcase and gets ready to leave the conference room, a large mechanical tube vacuums him up on the spot, much to the surprise of the remaining board members. The screaming ex-director is then carried away through the ceiling and into a nose-cone-shaped space pod in a matter of five seconds. The space pod shuts its doors closed as the bespectacled Blarg man frantically tried to get out, banging his hands on it and pleading to be freed. It then launches straight from a cannon on Drek's flagship, flying straight for the surface of Tenemule faster than a speeding comet. Drek has marooned him on the very planet he intends to have harvested of its portion!

All the eleven remaining directors just sat in their chairs, frozen in shock at what they witnessed on the holo-screen. Their colleague, who proclaimed renunciation of his upstanding position in Drek Industries, was sent to be stranded on the selected uninhabited world by Drek himself. They were unable to decide whether they should stick with his plan or rebel against him the same way. However, the last option would mean they'd end up suffering the same fate.

"I apologize you all had to see that," Drek spoke, getting their attention. "But I do hope you now know what happens when you deviate from this noble cause. Everything we've given up and what we're doing here right now is for the greater good of all Blarg-kind. So, does anyone else feel like... opposing?" He glared at them in a serious and near-threatening way. "Hmm? Show of hands."

Not one Blargian hand had been raised in response to the question, only with brief reluctant glances at each other. They relented by turning back to the cruel Chairman and shook their heads sideways, clearly fearful for their lives.

"No? Splendid," he added with a pleased nod.

"Chairman Drek?" asked the female board member with bright teal eyes and wearing a gray business dress.

"Yes?" he responded.

"When do we expect this 'Planet Harvester' to be here at the moment?"

"Good question, madam." Drek checks his black and gold watch to find it is already seven past eight o'clock in the morning. "8:07 a.m., already? Oh, where in the Blargian god's mighty name are they? They better be here right this minute or I'll personally have them released from their jobs and their lives," he muttered annoyedly. How it utterly peeved him to put up with a bunch of lousy, incompetent excuses of Blarg scientists being behind schedule to pilot the Harvester to his fleet's approximate location near a single planet.

Right on cue out from warp drive lightspeed, the Planet Harvester comes to a halt near the Blargian fleet, much to Drek's breath of exasperation mixed with relaxation. He recollected himself, straightening his jacket and turning to face the board of directors.

"There it is, ladies and gentlemen," he declared delightedly in anticipation of the demonstration of the Planet Harvester's power. "The Planet Harvester has just arrived, and now the scientists aboard it are ready to show us how planet constructing is a fantasy made into a reality. So, sit back and enjoy the show!"

The Blarg Chairman adjusted the glass dome's translucency to transparency for a much clearer view with the remote controller so that everyone can watch the demonstration from the conference room, and placed it inside his jacket pocket. Next, he activated a communication panel on the podium and commanded the flagship's pilots to turn it around on its side so that he and the board members could watch the Harvester extract from Tenemule. Drek then switches the comm over to the frequency from the machine's command bridge and orders its pilots to, "Commence extraction!"

The Planet Harvester
Built by Drek Industries

The Harvester begins its task, lengthening its mechanized arms, spreading its sharp taloned appendages, and readying the lasers protruding from them. The six lasers beamed powerful bright streams of red heat upon the rich green planet and moved ever so effortlessly as they carved a piece of it into a specific part for New Orxon that Drek had envisioned by design. Once the cutting of Tenemule's layers through the crust was finished, the laser turrets powered down and retracted back into their claws. The claws' talons reached the planet's surface, seeping deep into the crust and drilling into the layers where the laser-created gaps meet to get an adamantine hold on them.

Three Blarg scientists monitor the extraction process inside the machine's command bridge through a holo-screen projecting from the center of the long, curved control panel. When the screen indicates the claws' talon drills have bored into the layers and are ready to remove the whole piece from Tenemule, one of the scientists grabbed a handle switch and pulled it back slowly and gently so the Harvester's claws don't lose their grip as they pull the piece out.

The Tenemulean portion for New Orxon gets lifted out of the lush green planet with great ease. The grounds outside the removal marks tremored at the sheer movement of the piece breaking away from its native world, shaking some trees into collapsing and causing nearby mountains to rain their loose rocks down on the ground. Bits of the planet's crust and layers broke off into rocky fragments and fell onto the rest of the world's untouched surface. The grounds stopped shaking as the stolen piece left through the atmosphere, forced to part ways with its rightful owner.

As the arms bring the planet's piece up close to the Harvester, a round compartment underneath it in the center opens up to reveal a powering-up generator focusing a bright blue light upon the load. Then, the generator flashes a beam at it and envelopes over it with a purplish energy field, making it easier to haul the Tenemulean chunk next to the Blargian fleet until they reach another planet chosen for harvesting.

Back in the meeting room of Chairman Drek's flagship...

The grinning Chairman Drek stood at the window, pleased as he watched the Planet Harvester complete its extraction from Tenemule for the construction phase of the Blarg's new world. And the board members behind him stood still, mouths agape, eyes widened, and gasping in awe at the marvel of how unchallenging it was with the most top-notch planet engineering technology Drek Industries could put its time, money, and resources into. The short Blarg president turns to the board directors, seeing their faces bear astonishment.

"Well, what do you think?" he asked, eagerly yet coolly awaiting an answer from either one of the executives.

One Blarg director, paunchy, white-haired, and deep-blue-suited, cleared his throat and responded sophisticatedly, "I say that was a remarkably spectacular unveiling of everything we hoped for, Chairman Drek."

"Thank you, I'm glad you think so," Drek nodded courteously.

"And I look forward to seeing the next step of progress for building New Orxon to its fullest functionality and hospitability for all Blarg citizens." The stout director extended his hand towards Drek, who respectfully shook it and did the same with all other members of the board.

"As do I. That uninhabited planet was only the beginning. We might have to go to the ones that are currently inhabited by their respective peoples, and I'll figure out ways to manage their withdrawal from their homes, towns, and cities so our workers can begin separating a piece each from them."

"Of course. Be sure to keep filling us and every single one of our people in every time we go to a planet in the galaxy."

"I will," Drek assented. "All right, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you all again for coming, and have a good day." He waved them goodbye as they exited the conference room through the tall doorway, with the doors sliding and closing from the sides.

The room was now silent. About ten seconds later, Drek breathed a sigh of contentment at how the meeting went more smoothly than he desired before letting out a low sinister chuckle. He grabbed the remote controller from his jacket pocket and readjusted the dome's window view back to its translucent state, closed the metal dome cover over it, and had the conference table, chairs, and podium descend into the floor, which closed their hidden spaces and formed itself into a fine and even flat surface. He walked through the doorway on the opposite side of the room where the board of directors left and began his saunter to his ship's command bridge with his hands behind his back.

"Everything is going just as I perfectly planned," he said to himself, eyebrows arched evilly and lips curled into a devious smirk. "When my new planet is built and ready for habitation, all else will come to fruition, one step at a time. Who in the galaxy will ever stand a chance against me when I have all the power at my fingertips? Who is going to stop me...?"