the war has already begun, pt. 1

he could remember the landing only vaguely. there was not an altimeter in the escape pod, but he had felt the pod slow suddenly, and he had guessed that a parachute or several parachutes had been deployed automatically to retard his descent as the small craft felt itself drawing closer to Klin’s surface. at whatever distance the safety mechanisms had fired, they had worked sufficiently, and the pod had touched down on dry sand with only the slightest jostle. Issac remembered the door opening automatically and despite his dizziness and nausea from his spiraling approach to the surface, he had managed to exit into the open air unharmed.

it was then that things had started getting strange.

still disoriented, the vicious blast of heat had caught Issac off guard. he had spent two separate summers in two different tropical but equally humid and blisteringly hot regions of Dulvern in his teenage years. he had disliked the temperatures in both places. but what he felt upon exiting the escape pod made both resort islands from his younger years feel like the areas of permafrost he had also visited on his homeworld.

now, he heard a noise coming from behind him. he turned his head laboriously and saw sparks shooting from a corner of the escape pod. though his thoughts were delirious, he recognized the danger and took a few steps out into the sun. his head spun wildly and he collapsed onto his back, the penetrating light exchanging itself momentarily for a black curtain of unconsciousness.

the reprieve did not last long, however. a moment later, or at least he supposed it to be only a moment, his eyes flitted open, and he saw the escape pod now engulfed in flames only a few yards from where he lay. he felt the intense burning of the sand on his back and attempted to stand. he gulped air in a panic.

Issac gasped as the frighteningly hot air scorched his throat and lungs. he collapsed again, bracing his fall with his palms. his eyes stung, but more than that, his hands burned. he pulled them from the sand but, unable to bring himself to his feet a second time, crumpled onto his chest. he shrieked from the pain.

some unidentifiable memory told him to bury his hands below the sand. though he knew not why, exactly, he forced clenched fists below the surface of the sand and pushed his chest off the earth. he felt a brief moment of relief, feeling the cool — or at least, cooler – sand below the surface surround his fingers and palms. he breathed deeply again; it hurt a little less this time, though his eyes were still to teary to make out anything clearly.

he began to crawl. Issac had no idea where he was, where the ship, or what was left of it, was, but somehow his mind told him to move.

it was then that he saw them for the first time. they were shadowy figures, but they were human in shape. he called out to them, his voice shaking, spittle dripping from his lips. “hello!” they did not respond, but they were moving closer, slowly. there were four, or maybe five. “help!” they stopped for a moment, and he made his way towards them. “please, my ship crashed–”

he was cut off by an abrupt and unfamiliar sound. he froze. it was harsh and scraped against his ears like sandpaper on concrete. it lasted for only a second. he blinked hard, and his vision cleared slightly.

the shadowy figures, surrounded by impossibly bright light, moved closer. he could tell now that they were shorter than ordinary men. children? here? but they were thin, too. too thin. and their arms…

“where am i?” he called, almost weeping. “my name is Issac–”

he was cut off again by the raspy, violent sound. then, a clicking sound. Issac’s mind spun. the sound bounced between the group of them, as if they were talking. but it was no speech he had ever heard.

Issac pulled his left arm out of the sand and wiped his eyes with his forearm, leaving a layer of coarse sand across his brow. the heat was becoming more oppressive by the moment, if that was even possible, and he wondered if he was going to lose consciousness again.

he heard the pitchless screech again, but this time it carried greater force: they were all making it. his eyes snapped open, but it was too late; they were upon him.

in terror, he recoiled. he could see them more clearly now: they had red skin, and they were naked. they had the shape of men, but they were not men. their arms were long and boney, their eyes were thin, their heads and bodies hairless. and their teeth, long and dangerously sharp, with discernible gaps between each, were bared.

the first one reached Issac and grabbed his shoulders with his long, craggy fingers. its slavering mouth clutched for Issac’s torso, but at the last second, Issac managed to hold him back with his left hand. he dug his right out of the sand, where at had remained buried and had twisted awkwardly after Issac had attempted his small and fear-fueled retreat. with his right fist, he punched the creature in the temple, and it released him, howling caustically and falling backward. two others were at him now, one at each arm. they held him firmly for a split second, while a fourth jumped upon him, straddling him. for the briefest of moments, the creature paused, eyeing Issac almost wonderingly. then it showed its teeth and spread its mouth into devilish smile, twisted with rage, and moved in to bite.

just before its dripping maw reached Issac’s gut, the red creature was inexplicably yanked away, dragged through the air, spinning. the creature was sent off to Issac’s left, and the two that were holding him looked to Issac’s right; it had not been dragged, it had been propelled. they released him and fired off a series of clicking sounds between them. then, rapidly, they scampered away, at first on all fours before running upright. Issac looked after the retreating bunch — there were two others along with them, and the body of his would-be killer still laid on the sand, twisted awfully.

Issac felt his head rush, and his eyes blurred with tears again. he looked back to his right in search of the source of the creatures’ assailant. he could see figures, but again, they were nothing more than dark shadows against a blinding backdrop. he wondered distantly if they had only chased off the original monsters to eat him themselves…but he barely made an effort to stand. he faintly made out the shape of what could have been a gas mask before losing consciousness entirely.

*

green. the florescent light washed through Issac’s vision as his eyes fluttered open. his eyes burned, and he moved his finger tips towards them. but they would not reach. he realized then that his hands were bound, tied together behind the back of the wooden chair in which he found himself sitting. he set all his effort to focusing his eyes. it worked, at least a little, and the grey brick of his enclosing walls grew sharper. grey brick?

as far as he could tell, being equipped only with unfocusing eyes and a dull wit, the room was no bigger than perhaps fifteen by fifteen feet. but it was cool, or at least cooler, than the debilitating heat Issac had experienced just before losing consciousness. on Dulvern, he might have been uncomfortably warm in a room of such a temperature, but his memory was coming back, and its most predominant sensation was that of unbearable heat. so, for the moment, he did not mind being imprisoned, so long as it was an alternative to the lethal and supremely agonizing temperatures he had sustained after the crash of the Lathan Devers.

he had only a minute to fortify his senses, however. presently, a door slid open — a door that was both directly in front of him and as yet completely unnoticed by him — and a tall, muscular man entered. his dark, tightly fitting clothing displayed his finely tuned anatomy and laid bare the entirety of his powerful arms. he was followed by two men who were of only slightly less impressive stature, but who clearly deferred to the first man.

the impressive man stopped a few feet away from Issac. his head tilted amusedly, and he appraised Issac’s weakened and half-conscious figure. he smiled a toothy grin.

“welcome to Klin,” the impressive man said sardonically, forcing his voice out from between barely parted incisors. he took two more steps towards Issac and crouched down, drawing his face only inches away from Issac’s. his loveless grin faded and his eyes turned cold. “we know what you’re doing here, you little fuck,” he said darkly, spraying bits of moist particulate onto Issac’s face.

Issac drew his head up stolidly. he opened his eyes wider than they had been opened since the escape pod’s door had opened. he began to comprehend the details of his captor’s face. “well,” Issac said with a sarcastic hint of a smile, “that makes one of us.”

“they’re all dead, you know,” the man said after a moment’s pause, his face still inches from Issac’s. he smiled. Issac looked into the impressive man’s eyes. the statement had struck him like cold water. he realized that he was all alone, imprisoned on a foreign world. the fear began to creep in.

“how do you know?” Issac asked. his dry mouth formed the words laboriously and clumsily. he attempted to fight back the terror that was beginning to rise in his gut.

the man’s response was a shrug. “no one could have survived that crash. not even the great Lathan Devers,” he added with a sneer.

somehow, the man’s answer calmed Issac. he didn’t actually know that anyone was dead. they might have survived the crash by some miracle, or made it to an escape pod.

“and before you ask,” the man said, “there were no other rescue signals. that means no other escape pods.”

in his mind, Issac deflected the statement neatly. this man wanted something from Issac, and he wanted Issac to feel as hopeless as possible.

before Issac could reason out what he might actually want from a Dulvernian post-graduate, the impressive man stood to full height slowly, his mouth twisting into a grimace. he pulled his left arm above his right shoulder, his biceps flexing grotesquely in the green light. his fist clenched, and he brought the back of his hand and knuckles down violently against Issac’s cheek. Issac’s lower lip, already parched by Klin’s furious heat, split open, and blood spattered onto the floor.

Issac spit. saliva and sweat and blood landed half on his pant leg and half on the concrete surface of his holding chamber. the impressive man smiled bitterly. “you don’t seem scared,” he said with a humorless chuckle.

Issac shrugged, insofar as he could do so in his weakened state. strangely, the impressive man’s blow had given Issac courage. he was resorting to violence almost immediately, which meant that he was probably desperate, incompetent, or both. “i don’t know who you are,” he rasped, “but i’m a Dulvernian citizen on a mercy mission. you’ll probably get demoted just for holding me. strike me again, and your career will almost certainly be forfeit.”

“you talk like a poet,” the impressive man said. “but i know what you are. i know you. i know your family.”

Issac looked up at him. “then tell me who you are.”

“my name is Kantor Sefrin.” then, the impressive man suddenly brought a knee to Issac’s midsection. Issac doubled over, oxygen shooting from his lungs, his wrists pulling fiercely at his bonds. the rope dug into his flesh painfully. he gasped futilely for air. “and your name is Issac Devers, nephew of the pirate Lathan Devers, son of the Aurorist cleric Mellor Devers. i know you.”

Issac gagged on recklessly inhaled air and spit.

Issac had been alone for what felt like forty five seconds, but was probably closer to ten minutes. his breathing had nearly returned to normal, and it was significantly less of a struggle to swallow. his head was still spinning, and the terror he had fought off moments before in the face of assault was, in his solitude, regaining a foothold like a Pavnorian mountaineer, shoespikes driving into a sheer wall of ice.

the camouflaged door in the wall before him slid open once more, and the muscular figure of his interrogator, Kantor Sefrin, reentered. his presence struck a new fear in Issac’s bones, and he thought that a few inches had added themselves to Sefrin’s height since his last appearance in the room.

Sefrin, followed once again by a pair of dimwitted muscle rigs, stopped a few feet away from Issac. his lips curled grotesquely around clenched teeth, forming a violent smile. “did you have a good nap, sweetheart?” Sefrin mocked. “i guess i got after you a little too hard…for a second i thought i was going to lose you completely. you must have been out for at least half an hour.”

half an hour? Issac thought. he hadn’t even realized that he had lost consciousness. then again, from what little he knew of Sefrin, he could be lying in hopes of disorienting and intimidating Issac. as a response, Issac only looked up at his questioner.

Sefrin stepped closer. “so let’s get a few things straight,” he said. “first, you’re not getting out of here until we let you out of here, and that might be never. second, i’m going to fucking hurt you. and third, you’ve got a lot to tell us, little man. and the sooner you start chirping, the better chance the cage door gets opened and you get to fly out of here.”

if Issac had been watching this exchange occur from a removed, safe location, or had read the dialogue in a visiscript novel, he would have laughed aloud as Sefrin’s archaic and scripted choice of vocabulary. as it was, even the silliest forms of intimidation were becoming more effectual. the inquisitor smiled his ugly grin again, as if Issac were telegraphing his thoughts through his face and Sefrin were reading every word.

“tell me about the captain,” he ordered. “tell me about your uncle.”

“i don’t…know that much about him,” Issac said weakly, lowering his eyes.

Sefrin’s wrath overtook his sardonic humor without hesitation. “don’t lie to me,” he shouted through gritted teeth. “i know who you are, and i know what you’ve done, you rotten slice of Dulvernian grindmeat. so don’t you fucking lie to me.” he knelt close and thrust his hands on Issac’s neck, not choking him, but nearly doing so. his next words were irresistible in their certitude. “tell me who your uncle was working for.”

Issac breathed in as deeply as he could. he considered giving a name, any name, even a fabricated one, if only to get the thick-jawed oppressor’s hands off his neck. but he realized that he had not the wits to maintain any such lie, and that the repercussions of such a lie would be all the more devastating. so, he said apologetically, “i don’t know.”

“tell me who!” Sefrin shouted. in a flash of motion, his right palm slapped Issac’s cheek. “tell me who!” came the repetition, followed by a similar strike from the left hand. then a final demand, pregnant with fury and desperation, “tell me who!” he attended the last iteration with a crushing delivery of his right elbow, sharp and hard, to Issac’s jaw.

Issac shrieked. “i don’t know! oh, Christ, i don’t fucking know. please, i don’t know.” sobs erupted bitterly between supplications.

Sefrin stood erect briskly with a huff. he inhaled noisily for a moment, and then all at once, he was calm, and that same nasty grin forced itself on his face. Issac remembered dimly a primitive idiom he’d once heard: good cop, bad cop. slowly-clotting blood oozed from Issac’s lower lip like a sludge. Sefrin said with a voracious smile, “your friends will go looking for the wreckage. of course, there’s nothing to find. we both know that. you were on the ship, Devers. i’m sure you saw it rip away from your escape pod. i’m sure you saw your uncle and his friends going down.” he sighed with facetious concern. “but, those friends of yours from dayside, well, they’re desperate, aren’t they? they’ll take the chance.” his patronizing tone turned darkly. “and we’ll be following them.”

as he had before, Issac began to follow the pattern; his fear waned, and his composure invigorated itself. his captor gave away too much. Sefrin was in supreme control of this room, to be sure, but he was reaching, and his desperation betrayed him. he was trying to get Issac to lash out in defense of his “friends.” if indeed these people, whomever it was that Sefrin was talking about, were Issac’s friends, he probably would not have had the wherewithal to convincingly feign ignorance. as it was, he knew nothing, but thought he might play the advantage. he was hardly in a state of lucidity to engage in a battle of wits with even the dullest of opponents, but Sefrin’s muscle was entirely below the neck, and Issac thought he could withstand a little more of its physical abuse.

“how will you track them?” Issac asked with more daring than he felt.

Sefrin turned on him sharply. “so you admit it!” he said.

“you seem surprised,” Issac said, with as much wryness as he could muster.

Issac thought he detected the beginnings of a smirk at the corner of one the brutish guards’ mouth. so they were indeed listening; they had ears as well as fists.

the inquisitor bristled. then he said, “only that you admit it so readily. you’re weaker than i thought.” Sefrin’s parry was hollow, and Issac, despite his weakness, seized his opportunity.

“am i?” Issac spat insolently. “you slap, punch and strike me every time you hit a dead end. if you had the slightest idea what was going on, you wouldn’t need to beat it out of me. why bother questioning me if you knew where they were going to be and what they were going to do? why beat me if you even knew who they were?”

incited, Sefrin made to strike another blow at Issac. he withheld, relaxed, and lowered his arm. and, once again, that twisted, loveless smile spread across his face.

“i haven’t been entirely honest with you,” he said, turning his gaze fully and unflinchingly on Issac. “i see my mistake now. i thought that telling you this might make you fight harder. but now i understand your weakness.” he paused, seemingly only for effect. “i told you that no one survived from your ship. that wasn’t entirely true. one crew member did make it out, and we have her. i’m glad we waited to kill her. gentlemen,” he turned to the guards. “bring in Gamne, bagged, and have your weapons ready. let’s do her now.”

a moment later, they brought her in. the choked, muffled sounds of her voice proved that she was gagged beneath the black shroud that covered her head.

Issac looked at her, and the terror now completely overcame him. one of the men passed Gamne off to Sefrin, who grabbed her by the arm and forced her to her knees, grinning cruelly at Issac.

“now,” he said slowly, drawing his weapon and pointing it at the back of her head. “i’m going to give you one last chance to tell me who that spacescum uncle of yours worked for. listen to me. there are people out there on dayside who want to kill me, everyone i know, and everyone i work for. they want to kill me because we are rich and happy and they are poor and stupid. do you understand me? and your uncle and this bitch–” he struck her on the back of the head with his firearm, eliciting gagged sobs from beneath the bag– “are bringing them weapons. so, for the last time, tell me who your uncle works for.” his eyes glinted savagely, and he dug the barrel of the pistol into Gamne’s skull.

Issac was paralyzed. he looked up at Sefrin with blurred eyes. his mouth hung open but he could not speak.

Sefrin stood erect. he closed a contact on the side of the gun with his right thumb. a bright blue light appeared on the side of the handle, and was accompanied by a high pitched mechanical squeal that trailed off momentarily. the meaning of this action was obscure to Issac, but he guessed that Sefrin was not lowering the power of his weapon.

“who?” Sefrin said with as much finality as death.

Issac’s paralyzed voice fumbled its way into action. “i don’t, i don’t, um–” he stammered. Sefrin stiffened, and his index finger clenched the weapons trigger. “wait, wait!” Issac exploded. he was trapped into his last resort. “he works for–” his mind went blank for a moment. he was trying to concoct a name, any name, a real one, a fake one, a name of one of his friends, any combination of syllables that sounded like a name. he mumbled, “it was, he works for–” and then, with his eyes flashing wildly, he said, “Menkar Mankkar.”

“oh,” Sefrin said sarcastically, “really?”

and he pulled the trigger on his weapon. the barrel emitted a soft blue light which instantaneously cut a line through Gamne’s enshrouded head, splattering brain and blood on the cell’s floor, and against its walls.

Issac screamed his disbelief. he looked from the body on the floor to Sefrin’s mocking laugh. but a moment later, Sefrin’s haughty laugh twisted into a painful grimace. he growled savagely. Issac heard the clink of metal on metal, and then a loud hiss, as if gas were being forced at high pressure through a small hole. a strong scent struck his senses, and he began to lose consciousness. before he blacked out completely, he became aware of the sounds of struggle taking place in the room. another weapon fired. and then Issac was unconscious.

*

when Issac began his ascent back to awareness, he thought vaguely that he had experienced this particular feeling more in the last twenty four hours than he ever had in his life. he’d been knocked out once or maybe twice in his whole life; it was starting to become routine to him now.

his eyes slowly opened and began to focus even more gradually. he was in a vehicle. he felt something tapping him on the head. when he tried to sit up, he realized the object was actually stationary — it was a piece of steel tubing that was presumably part of the vehicle’s reinforced structure — and that it was in fact his head that was moving. the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed down a very uneven road, and the jostling movement bounced his head off the support.

he managed to move himself into a half-sitting position, propped up on his right elbow and rubbing his head with his left hand–his hands were no longer bound, he noted with interest. whether these people were rescuers or simply new captors, they apparently trusted Issac enough to untie him.

it was very bright outside, but a fog still enshrouded his vision. from his position in the back seat, he made out two figures in the front. they were speaking hurriedly.

the man on the left, the driver, had long, sandy hair and his face was covered with dirty stubble. he spoke harshly. “it’s gotta be Tarshall’s. we ain’t gonna make it to the tunnel.”

“Tarshall’s not going to be happy,” commented the other. he spoke more smoothly, though none of the first man’s urgency was absent with the second. his hair was short, dark, and his face was smooth. Issac could not see the eyes of either man.

“i know he ain’t!” the first man retorted. “but we ain’t got no other choices right now, ‘less this truck’s got wings and a thermal engine you never told me about.”

“watch it!” the second man shouted. the truck decelerated rapidly and centripetal force propelled Issac against the door: the truck was turning sharply to avoid some unseen threat or obstacle.

the first man swore loudly, but maintained control of the truck, and it continued rapidly down its path. Issac could not get his head high enough to see anything other than the very top of the windshield: the tops of short buildings danced wildly as the truck bounded from peak to trough of the road’s rough surface.

“i think we lost ‘em,” the first man said, swiveling his head rapidly. the second man craned his neck to the right and looked in a single direction for a long moment.

“for now,” he said. “that updown’s still up there. they’ll spot us before too long.”

“hang on, we’ll be at Tarshall’s in three minutes.”

“so it’s decided then?”

“you’re goddam right it’s decided,” spat the first man. “that updown just decided it for us.”

Issac slumped back down onto the seat, unable to hold himself upright. the second man noticed, and looked at Issac. “i think he’s awake,” he said. to Issac, he said, “you alright, kid?”

Issac’s mouth was parched, and he was barely able to speak. “Gamne,” was all his scratchy voice could say.

“Gamne,” the first man repeated. “she the dead chick at the detention facility?”

“Cillian,” the second man chided.

“Where is she?” Issac managed to ask. the second man had to ask Issac to repeat himself; the high volume of the truck and the thinness of Issac’s voice prevented clarity. Issac managed a repetition.

“she’s still at the dentition facility,” the second man said sympathetically.

“we have to go back,” Issac said. “we can’t let them — we have to go back.”

“i’m sorry, Issac.” the second man said. “i understand why you want that, but we’re lucky enough we got you out of there once. the last thing we can do is go back.”

“who are you?” Issac asked.

“my name is Sorensen,” the man said.

“shut up!” Cillian barked. “we can’t trust him. and keep your eyes on that updown. is it getting any closer?”

Sorensen turned away from Issac and looked out the window. “it’s closer,” he said, “but i don’t think they’ve seen us yet.”

“good. we’re almost there.”

a moment later, the truck drove into a dark shadow and came to a stop. “get him inside,” he heard Cillian say. “i’ll cover the truck.” presently the door opened and Issac felt Sorensen’s arms extract him from the vehicle.

“just take it easy,” Sorensen said reassuringly. “Tarshall is a friend. we can rest here for a while.”

they were under a thick awning that was attached to a small house. the bare earth that surrounded them was light brown in color, with only intermittent patches of green interrupting the otherwise unending sand and gravel. there were other buildings nearby, all similar in size and appearance, and all had attached awnings. there was another vehicle under the awning. it was smaller, but Issac could not make out any of its features: it was covered by a grey fabric elasticized at the bottom. Cillian was stretching a similar covering over his own truck.

when Sorensen reached the door, he kicked it several times. a moment later, Issac heard a gruff voice bark from within, “who is it?”

“it’s Sorensen. Cillian’s with me, too.”

there was a short pause before a small panel on the metal door slid open. peering through was a round, rough face covered by a long, dark beard. from behind bushy eyebrows that nearly combined into one, the man’s beady eyes scanned from Sorensen to Cillian and down to Issac.

“and him?” the man asked impatiently.

“the third is one we rescued from StarEx’s detention facility. he was held by Kantor Sefrin.”

“Sefrin’s after you?” the man said with understated alarm. “he better not have followed you here.”

“i lost ‘em,” Cillian said as he approached, having finished disguising the vehicle. “nobody knows we’re here.”

the man looked around suspiciously, and finally sighed. “fine,” he said. the door creaked into a half-open position, and Cillian, Sorensen and Issac entered the home of Tarshall Yandrake.