Chapter 7: Bloodshed

They were all seated in what they assumed was the bridge of the Dark Star. Legionnaires were blocking all the exits and the councilman stood in the centre upon a raised dais that overlooks the entire room. Various consoles were laid out in the elliptical room, manned by various human crew members. He looked at them all, one by one and released a big sigh.

“Gentlemen, how did we get here?” He asked them. They all looked at him and then at each other incredulously.

“You’re kidding right?” Hanson asked.

“First you try to bring about the destruction of mankind; you ran with your tail between your legs and left us to our fate! You forced us to ally with the Athenai! Bracus roared.

“Yes well, a coup attempt tends to turn you slightly genocidal. It was a mistake yes, but under the current circumstances we all find ourselves in, I think it would be beneficial to work together yes?” The councilman asked them.

“Work with you? You shot us down on Mars. Killed Blanco! Work with you? I would much rather flay you alive! Jason yelled at him. The room started to shake as Jason’s rage started to manifest into the physical world.

Legionnaires responded by training rifles on him.

“Bracus, I suggest you calm him down. We have bigger problems than our little tiff.” He ordered Bracus, the psychotic edge now absent. Bracus just nodded at Jason and the shaking subsided.

“Hugs and bunnies for everyone!” He gleefully responded.

“Yes, certain actions I have taken could be considered questionable, but I think we can all agree that we are all in a bit of a pickle.” He concluded.

He took the silence as his queue to continue.

“You all have learned of the disappearances yes? Well, it’s a lot more sinister than you can imagine. By sending that little SOS of yours you invited a very dangerous situation upon mankind.” He paused to let it sink in.

“You mean the Athenai? Sure they are a little rigid and their laws a bit extreme, but if it weren’t for them the Creators would have snuffed us out and we wouldn’t be enjoying the benefits of what this alliance brought.” Jason replied, although everyone was now uneasy.

“We are in league with the Sons of Adam. We attacked Aegis Prime this morning.” They all got up, but legionaries held them fast.

“It looks bad yes, but there was a very good reason for it.” He said, gesturing for calm.

“Really? There was a reason for thousands of soldiers dying on a whim?” Hanson asked, baring his teeth.

“Yes, but it was not on a whim. We were not trying to attack you. We were trying to attack your allies. Not our fault if they threw you in front of us like cannon fodder.” The councilman replied, seemingly regretful. He continued.

“The disappearances, the reasons for the attack this morning it all ties in together. Bracus inhaled sharply, but said nothing, his face now pale.

“I see our friend Bracus here guessed what’s afoot.” The councilman smiled.

“Care to tell us?” Death asked with eyebrows raised. All eyes were on Bracus.

“The Athenai were never our allies.” He said softly. The councilman laughed raucously.

“My dear, sweet boy…they were never the Athenai at all.”

---

She awoke screaming, clutching at her neck. It felt normal. Perplexed she felt her face and found no broken nose or swollen lips or eyebrows. She was in a tub filled with a milky green sludge. Trying to get out she slipped a few times, naked and cold, Diane found herself in a dark room with only the tub offering any form of illumination.

“Glad to see you up and about my dear.” The voice of D’Nak pierced the darkness.

She started to shiver and developed gooseflesh. She covered her breasts and looked around, trying to find the source of his voice.

“Face me you bastard!” She screamed. There was a moment of silence before he spoke.

“Well you certainly do not lack for courage. But even a dog when backed into a corner will bite his tormentor. Are you going to bite me pup?” He replied, emerging from the shadows, a malicious smile gracing his fine lips.

A white-hot rage touched her mind and without thinking charged him, screaming like a banshee. He raised his hand and almost instantly she stopped dead in her tracks, frozen in stasis. Her muscles refused to obey and she stood like a slime-covered, naked statue. Only her eyes could follow him. He slowly took out the familiar vial of luminescent green fluid and slowly drank it. Taking his time, he replaced the cap and returned it to his pocket.

“You humans are so gullible. The moment we helped you was the moment you gave away your entire civilization. Do you know why we came?” All he heard was a muffled sound and he laughed.

“I will take the gag off, but behave yourself.” D’Nak said as he raised his hand once more and Diane found she could move her lips.

“You son of a bitch! You will never get away with this!” She spat at him.

“My dear, your current president is our puppet. Your mightiest heroes are now fugitives. The attack from this morning has depleted the only trained force on this planet you have. Pray tell, who do you think has won here?” D’Nak finished, the contempt clear in his voice.

“Do you know why we are here?” He asked her again, but her answer was to refuse to make eye contact with him.

He pulled another green vial from his pocket and shoved it under her nose.

“You and your whole misbegotten race are nothing but cattle. Once we take complete control of this world, you will be bred, farmed, slaughtered and processed to turn you all into this. Our sustenance.” The horror on Diane’s face delighted him.

“We call it ambrosia. It keeps us young and strong and sharpens our mental acuity. We tried harvesting from lower caste life forms, but it seems the subject needs to be sentient. The subject’s soul is the catalyst that provides us with this marvel. Highly addictive, but we never run out. And your species have a unique, diverse genome which makes ambrosia so much more potent than anywhere else in this universe.” He finished as he hungrily slurped down the second vial.

Diane had so many questions, but indecision stopped her from asking anything.

“Where is David?” She stammered eventually.

“He is where he needs to be, at your president’s side. They are busy drafting the details of your execution.” He replied smiling.

Diane was stunned. Surely the breakup with David hit him hard, but to willingly stand by and help them expedite her execution was beyond belief.

“My friends will come for me.” She said softly, hoping that they actually will. He quickly walked up to her and roughly grabbed her face and slowly brought his eyes to meet hers.

“And why would they? What are you to them?” He asked. Then it hit him.

“Ah, the clone. You are hoping he remembers the time you shared. Rest assured he won’t. Who would love a thing like you? So desperate for a bit of companionship, you had to create one? Pathetic!” He spat.

“Stop it.” She sobbed.

“They will not come. So rest assured, by this time tomorrow your final resting place will be my belly.” D’Nak finished and laughed as he left the room, leaving Diane in the dark, naked and afraid.

---

They all just sat there in stunned silence. Bracus was the first to stir.

“So if they are not Athenai, who are they?” Remus asked the councilman.

“That’s the thing, we don’t know. When we found the ship in the nebula, it took us weeks to figure out the archive systems and there are so, so many races listed in its data banks. Whomever this ship belonged to studied us in the Paleolithic era as well. But these beings were not in the database. They are either newcomers to the cosmos, or just very well hidden.” He replied.

Death stood up from his chair and walked over to the councilman. He sized him up it seemed like.

“What is your name.” He finally uttered.

“Pardon?” He asked, very confused.

“Look we have to call him something. Councilman is an awful bloody mouthful.” Death moaned.

“The council of Seven have no names. They gave them up when they started their little cabal centuries ago.” Bracus informed him.

He seemed to ponder on it seriously for a moment.

“I was the youngest of my brethren.” He replied sadly.

“What happened to the rest of you lot?” Jason asked.

“We had a bit of a falling out in the nebula. Sort of a little civil war. I won. They didn’t.” He replied.

“Look, call him King Fruitcake for all I care, we didn’t come here to have tea. He obviously needs us for something. So stow the little history lessons and your war stories. What do you want?” Hanson shot at him, clearly irritated.

“Seven.” He said.

“What?” Hanson asked exasperated by all the interruptions.

“Call me Seven. The last of my kind. It fits.” He said with a sad little smile.

“Whatever. What do you want?” Hanson asked.

“That little shoe factory you guys nearly stumbled into, has the proof we need to open up mankind’s eyes to the truth.” Seven informed them.

“You are in no physical shape to lead an attack.” Bracus told him flat out.

“I know. I am going to need to lie in my vat for an hour or so. I will be ready for combat. In the meantime, take a tour of the ship, we have refreshments prepared for you in the galley.” Seven said, clearly tired. They all stood up as he left the room.

“Ok, who’s hungry?” Death chirped, rubbing his stomach.

---

Bracus wiped the salty spray from his face before voicing his displeasure of being on another boat. Death just sniggered. Hanson and Jason just rolled their eyes at the twins. Seven authorized them to outfit themselves as they saw fit from their armoury and to Death’s great delight he found a massive six barreled machine gun that was belt-fed from an ammo pack strapped to his back. Hanson, Remus and Jason were more partial to the run-of-the-mill rifles that the legionnaires carried, but Bracus only took a sidearm and a sword of alien design. Four boats were launched from the Dark star, but Seven was nowhere to be seen on any of the attack vessels.

They landed on the beach a mile or so down from where the factory stood on a bluff, so eighty men scrambled across the patch of exposed beach to reach the top to reconnoitre the factory. They lay on the ground and used high-powered binoculars to assess the area.

“Where the hell is Seven?” Death whispered.

“I’m right behind you Death.” A familiar, yet younger voice piped up behind him.

The man he looked at was muscular and had a tiny hint of grey at his temples, bulging rock-hard muscles also draped his form and when he smiled he had all his teeth. He was clad in a similar fashion to his legionaries except he had an old-style Roman plume on his helmet.

“My, my don’t we look all young and spiffy. You were quite fit in your younger days.” Death chirped. Seven just smiled.

“Oh no, this is just one of many body templates I designed over the years. This is my fighting form. I am as strong as Bracus and yourself. Add enhanced senses to the mix and moderate psyonic ability and you have a war machine as good as you folks.” Seven added bragging with a wide grin.

“At least he has all his teeth.” Hanson muttered. Seven signalled for them to move and they all silently converged upon the factory.

They heard shuffling, halting quickly and listened. Death looked at Bracus apprehensively. Bolts of emerald energy pierced the darkness and six men went down instantly.

“Fan out!” Seven yelled and the group needed no second order as they scrambled to evade enemy fire and return some of their own.

“Death, the roof! Let them have it!” Jason yelled over the gunfire. He grinned and spun up the fearsome cannon, the barrels whistling to a crescendo before unleashing a torrent of tracers and bullets at them. The defenders on the roof fell in droves. One of the tracers struck, what seems like a gas canister and it erupted in a massive ball of fire, ripping open the roof like a sheared tin can.

“Careful! We need the building intact!” Seven roared as he used his power to crush two of them firing from the door. Jason was surprised at this.

“Moderate?” He yelled at Seven.

“I don’t like bragging!” He yelled back, putting another round into another hapless Athenai face.

“Clearly!” Jason roared back as he rammed another clip home.

From an outsider’s perspective, the battle lasted a few minutes, the white-hot magnesium tracers soon overpowering the number of green flashes being fired from the Athenai until the emerald presence was extinguished. There were not many of them. Counted twenty-five dead. The Earthling’s forces' losses were grievous. From the eighty men that stormed the factory only thirty remained. This was no victory, but Seven seemed to think it was.

“Follow me boys. Who has the recorder?” Seven barked. A soldier raised his hands and quickly ran up to Seven handing it over to him.

“How do you win a war?” Seven addressed them at large, but before they could answer he prattled on.

“Hearts and minds folks, hearts and minds. When Earthlings see what goes in this factory, there will be open revolt everywhere. See then if they can compete with the combined might of Earth.” Seven finished smugly.

"Uhm...has everyone forgotten their fleet in orbit?" Death asked. Seven just smiled.

"I wouldn't be so concerned about that. There is a plan in place to deal with them.

“What about Diane. She must be freed.” Remus insisted.

“In due course my boy. For now, one objective leads to the next. We need to get this footage to the Sons and cause major upheaval. In that chaos we can attempt a rescue.” Seven told Remus.

“Why would you rescue her at all? How does she fit into this plan?” Jason asked. Seven looked at Remus and then knowingly to Bracus. He let out a sigh of exasperation.

“Bracus please explain to these younglings.” Was all he said.

“We need Diane to help us unblock Remus’ mind so he can be fully reincarnated, although I do not understand why this is so important. He is effective as he is right now,” Bracus explained as they started walking into the factory.

“All will be revealed in good time boys.” He said as he started to fiddle with the video recorder.

The sight which greeted them was ghastly beyond comprehension. One of the hardened legionnaires threw up. The smell alone would have been a clue, but seeing dozens of humans hanging naked, dead and bleeding from meat hooks from the gantries was more than anyone here could guess. Seven seemed to be unaffected. Every few seconds the mechanisms on the gantry pushed forward and dropped a person into a tube of a creamy, pale liquid. The body, which appeared dead to start with, spasms and the tube inside flickered with a rapid sequence of flashing lights.

“What the hell is this?” Hanson gagged as he asked.

“Watch.” Was all Seven muttered, through clenched jaws.

Slowly the tube with the dead woman inside took on a green luminescence and slowly before their eyes, she dissolved like an effervescent tablet, the remains poured into the ever-familiar tube that the so-called Athenai openly walk around and ingest. Seven recorded the entire process.

“My God…they are harvesting us!” Jason gasped.

“You knew about this?” He growled, grabbing him by the throat.

Seven grabbed his arm and shoved him away. Clearly, he was not lying about his strength. Bracus seemed very surprised, almost impressed actually, as he calmed down and eyed him warily. Seven cleared his throat, smiling at him.

“Two things. Number one, don’t ever do that again or I will rip off your head and take a crap down your gullet. Number two, not entirely. I suspected, but had no proof. Now we do.” He replied, rubbing his throat.

“So what is the next step?” Remus inquired.

“I know a guy that can hack the Athenai broadcasting signal so we can transmit the proof to every household in the world.” Seven said as he tucked away the video recorder into his backpack.

“Why not just use a pirate signal from one of our own satellites?” Hanson asked.

“Because, my witless friend, all signals from our own satellites are routed to theirs. As soon as we send it, they will block it. We need to use their system and lock them out long enough for the message to get through.” He explained to Hanson. He just raised his eyebrows in reply.

“Listen guys, I don’t want to whiz on our parade here, but shouldn’t we be getting out of here? Jason asked, peering around the doorpost.

“Our psyonic friend here is correct; we shall regroup on the Dark Star and start the next phase of the plan.” Seven answered. As silently as they had landed, they stealthily slipped away into the night across dark waters, leaving nothing but victory in their wake.