Chapter 37
Valedron Pirate’s point of view
Darkness shrouded the metallic walls
and doors of the abandoned orbital station. Our raiding party cautiously flew
through corridors and decaying rooms. There seemed to be no one and nothing
here except us.
One of the troops flew into the larger
cargo hold ahead of us. A minute passed, and he returned looking nervous and
shaken. Silence hung around the mysterious corridors, only disturbed briefly by
the Valedron speaking to our raid leader.
I paid no attention to his report
though. It was obvious there were no armed guards waiting in that room. I
unwisely turned my attention back to the eerie place we were in. Rumours hung
around this place – stories of ghosts from the time of the Two Empires, of a
demon seeking revenge from the conquests of our ancestors.
“We scanned four Heavy Mining lasers!”
our leader barked at the poor scout. “Are you telling me they’re all useless?”
The scout nodded fearfully: “The pulse
regulators have all been taken out….. recently…”
“Maybe those Skullsnapper pirates were
right: maybe this place is …… cursed!” I whimpered.
“Quiet!” the leader snapped. “There’s
nothing else here! The population of this place is zero plus the five of us!”
A moment of silence prevailed as none
dared to speak while his loud cries echoed creepily.
“What about the demon – the lost Soul
Creature?” another raider whispered. “Did you hear what that thing can do to
you?”
I’d heard about this: “It’ll bite your
wings off with its bare teeth!”
“Well actually, that would be a Void
Snapper,” a new voice corrected casually and loudly from behind us.
We all cried out in shock, spinning
around in mid-air. My jaw dropped in awe and terror. Standing in front of us,
at least 7 feet tall, was a humanoid creature. Yet, it had huge dragon wings
upon his back, his hands were Gecko paws, and his feet were Giant Gecko feet.
He wore a simple black cloak with dark brown leggings, and had a bandanna-style
cloth around his lower jaw that covered his mouth and nose. This masked his
identity, mystifying his stature further.
“But Soul Creatures?” he paused,
mocking thoughtfulness. “Oh, we’re much worse!”
Whimpering, he flew backwards a few
metres, too terrified to tear our eyes away from this legendary demon. He
stepped forward, beginning to advance on us at a steady, carefree pace, so we
began to fly further away, desperately keeping our distance.
“We’ll… make a trophy from your
hollowed out skull; we’ll string out your guts across orbital platforms…” he
stooped forward to an intimidating pose, narrowing his eyes, “…we’ll paint the
sides of ships with your blood!”
There was a single moment of complete
terror, total silence, as this demon’s words were digested. In stark contrast
to his current demeanour, he stood upright again, and rubbed his chin
thoughtfully.
“Though,” he added, “the Void Snapper
idea does sound pretty novel.”
The Soul Creature looked at us in
surprise: we were still gaping at him. Then, casually, as if used to this sort
of thing, he leaned forwards and whispered, with no hostility:
“This is the part where you run away,”
I found my voice then, as did the
others. I screamed in terror, turning tail and flying to our ship as fast as
possible, never looking back.
Kevin’s point of view
I laughed at their fleeing backs in
pure amusement.
“And stay away!” I added, grinning.
As the echoes died away, so did my
laughter. I sighed contentedly, toying with the pulse regulators I had removed
from the mining lasers before the pirates arrived.
“This never gets old,” I commented to
myself.
Yet, as I dwelled on this exaggerated
reputation of a terror of the void of space, my grin faded. An unfamiliar
observer would have concluded that this was like some sort of practical joke I
played on the Valedrons – a cheap laugh, an entertaining personal game. They
could never guess what it really was. To me, this was revenge.
After I had found those two graves on
the scorched remains of Earth, I became filled with a bitterness that couldn’t
be removed. A burning desire for redemption.
I had been left alone, solitary. My
family had been cruelly taken from me, and I had no one to turn to. Nowhere to
run. After that, I spent years travelling from place to place, trying to figure
out what had happened. When I had managed to piece together a brief history of the
time I missed, trapped in Oblivion, I felt only horror and isolation. I spent
more years wasting away in my pity.
Finally, I let my desire for revenge
to overcome me. I played out this role of a demon, terrifying the Valedron
pirates, just because it had exactly the right effect. I wanted them to feel
the same horror I had, seeing the grave of my wife, discovering what events I
had missed in my dark prison…
What better way to inspire such fear
and terror into their hearts and minds than to confront them with what they had
turned me into: a bitter, vengeful, soul-devouring, solitary demon?
The timeline I had gathered from the
few creatures that had not turned and fled from me in terror placed a heavy
burden on my shoulders. First of all, I had discovered that, 10 years after
Anubis had sealed me in Oblivion, he had led the Valedron Empire on a crusade
to destroy mankind. Humans had no idea what was coming, and were nowhere near
advanced enough to defend themselves. Within weeks of their arrival, everything
on the planet had been wiped out. By the year 2025, humans were extinct.
Anubis didn’t let his revenge end
there – he wanted total redemption. He sent the Valedrons back home, and when
they got there, he led them against every force that I had ever known.
Next in line in his campaign was the
Dragon Empire - he chose Flyer and my old pilot friends to suffer next. Yet,
there was a twist in the tale that I had not expected in the least. The Soul
Creatures helped him attack the Dragon Empire!
I couldn’t get much information about
it from anyone – most didn’t know much about Soul Creatures anyway. I had heard
of a powerful spectral dragon, which had fallen to the mercy of the Valedrons
and their Armbands, and was destroyed. There was only one being I knew this could
be, making things fit slightly. They had killed Fotuf – the Soul Creature’s
leader. That would explain a sudden unnerving of the Soul Creatures’
confidence. Yet, they wouldn’t all become turncoats and join the enemy. Least
of all Solin – she hated mortals, especially the Valedrons. Why would she have
betrayed me like that? I could feel little hatred for her – it didn’t make
enough sense for me to do that.
Well, after the Dragon Empire fell to
the allied Valedrons and Soul Creatures, Anubis took one last act of revenge,
this time destroying the Soul Creatures. After the long campaign, he had them
all executed without explanation. A thousand souls cut down at a single
command.
Like I said, everyone I had ever
known….
Anubis abandoned the Valedrons after that.
Without their leader, they fell into chaos and disorder, and so the last
civilisation fell into anarchy. The Ancients all disappeared from the mortal
realm. The survivors of Anubis’ revenge formed small, remote colonies to hide
in from the terror of the remaining Valedron soldiers-turned-pirates.
By 2075, all of civilisation had been
toppled, reducing all intelligent life to a few communities and pirate clans
living in fear of each other and legends of an all-powerful creature from old
prophecies.
The Universe had stayed this way ever
since. When I was pulled out of my prison of prevailing darkness, 200 years had
passed. I awoke in 2215. Since then, I spent my time rotting away in misery
until I decided to wreak some havoc on the descendants of the destroyers of my
family. I had returned from Oblivion over a century ago.
Right now, it was the year 2340.
And the burden I spoke of? To keep it
short, Anubis was only able to convince the Valedrons to follow him by showing
them I was a ‘demon’. He achieved this by giving me the symbol of demons – the
Blue Flame. He knew my curiosity would drive me to use it against them.
All of the horror, pain and death, and
the destruction of civilisation, following my imprisonment … were my fault…
***
