The dark lords may have been appointed by the dark one but they still didn't cooperate with each other unless it was for the dark one. On everything else they squabble and fought for every scrap of power to be had. This dark lord had been engineered for his ability to plan battles and utilize tactical information to the best advantage. He planned the tactics of the war or wars. When the other dark lords had learned of him when he was chosen they recognized the danger he presented with his mental powers and a fleet. If he had been given the chance he could have piece by piece seized every planet in the empire becoming the single most powerful dark lord in history. This possibility prompted the other dark lords to unite against him leaving him with nothing but this strangled planet to call his own and a hand full of derelict ships to patrol his system. He would have gone but there was nowhere for him to go to.
“Halt. You aren't authorized to enter the Dark Lord's palace.” A hulking drakken stepped out of the shadows and confronted Drovak.
“I need to repair the energy hub in the palace.” Drovak realized as he spoke that he hadn't been imprinted with any information about the power systems in the palace.
“We have workers to repair our own systems. Who are you?” The guard drew a long rapier.
Why choose such an archaic weapon, Drovak thought to himself. “I'm a wraith, born of countless lifetimes.” There was a confused flicker of comprehension as the guard lunged at Drovak with lightning speed. His charge was cut short by the throwing knife planted in his throat. He crumpled into a heap before Drovak pulled him back into the shadows. Drovak changed his clothes but realized his new disguise would only work from a distance. Each of the dark lord's guards were chosen personally and an imposter would be recognized quickly. The underlings working at the palace would give him plenty of space when they saw his new uniform.
Drovak was disgusted as he looked over the elaborate compound that was starkly contrasting with the rest of the planet. The dark lord was a clone and he was imprinted but he was not bound to anyone except for the dark one. It was his greed that had driven this planet to the brink of destruction. His thirst for power was denied by the other dark lords so he took what pleasure he could from flaunting his power over the drakken he controlled. Drovak swiped the guard's security pass and the doors quietly slid open.
On the other side of the door another guard assessed the situation and struck at Drovak. Meeting the metal clad fist with his force blade Drovak easily cut through the steel and sliced into the hand. Catching the other fist with his hand Drovak smashed his head into the drakken’s skull. The protectorate cloning process gave him a much stronger skeleton than normal drakken. There was a crack and the guard staggered backwards. Drovak followed the stunned guard pounding him with blow after blow. Something snapped and the battle was over nearly as quickly as it had begun.
Drovak shook his head and moved on. The trip across the cavern had given Drovak time to isolate connections to the power distribution system that could together draw enough to destabilize the core. By his calculations it would take days to become stable enough to draw energy off it again. By then it would be too late. A couple workers averted their eyes as Drovak passed them. He took a side passage when he saw a guard approaching. There were a couple near misses before he had to kill another guard. This time he was able to surprise him and break his neck without causing an outcry. The body was safely stored in a storage room and Drovak continued.
Drovak realized he was lost when he turned a corner that looked the same as the last. He wasted several minutes wandering a labyrinth before he spied a couple drakken carrying plates piled high with various foods. Drovak realized that foods that lavish could only be meant for one person. The workers almost dropped the trays when they saw Drovak following them through the maze. The guards ruled the rest of the drakken in the palace with fear. They disappeared through a small door as Drovak rounded a corner. Cautiously stepping through after them he found he had made a mistake. Eight or nine guards drew blasters before Drovak had a chance to move.
“How did you get that uniform?” The question was as much an accusation as an inquiry. Drovak glanced around the room at the lavish metal work that decorated the wall. Scenes of epic battles were depicted on the walls. Probably battles the dark lord had planned and won.
“I killed its owner.” Drovak held his hands over his head as he surrendered his blaster and blades. He didn't tell them about the hidden blades they missed or the force blades. He looked up to the pile of cushions where the dark lord was reclining.
“You want me to believe that you killed one of the dark lord's personal guard?” There was incredulity in the tone of the guard. Drovak scanned the dark lord with a glance. He showed signs of the physical defects from over engineering. Thin legs Drovak doubted could support much weight led to a thin bony body with scales that hung loosely. The spindly neck was topped by an enormous head. Frail hands with curled shriveled claws held a morsel of meat as he nibbled. Cloudy watery eyes strained to look at Drovak. Looks were deceiving though. His real strength wasn't physical. His intellect was what made him special.
“I killed three on my way here.” Drovak watched the glares that met his claim. “I have information for the dark lord.”
“You do have information I want.” The raspy voice of the dark lord broke the awkward silence. “When I had this place built I played out a thousand scenarios involving an infiltrator. None of them made it past the mazes. Few made it farther than the front gate. You must have followed the food servers. My guess is that they took a forbidden path through the maze to avoid the guards. I will have to revise the imprinting protocols preventing them from taking unsanctioned routes.” He flicked his hand at them and two flashes from blasters left smoldering corpses of the food servers. “If I do this to my own drakken what makes you think I will treat you any better?” Drovak noticed one eye drifted absently away from where the dark lord was trying to look.
“I told you I have information that you need.” Drovak eyed the guards that still held blasters on him.
“You must be the pilot of the frigate that warped in earlier.” The dark lord was silent for a few seconds before continuing. “You can't be from the other dark lords offering an alliance. They fear me so they hate me. They wouldn't give up a single ounce of power for fear I would defeat them all. You might have been sent to kill me but you have failed in that besides the dark one speaks to me and would kill anyone that harmed me. A defective drakken might be a possibility but they are called defective for a reason. If it was something important that the other dark lords knew I would know. My spies have been deep within their command for years. Tell me what are you then?”
“I escaped from the protectorate.” Drovak decided a half truth was more believable than a straight lie. “They raided a cloning facility and stole equipment and my clone sequence. They used the equipment to implant memories but they didn't know the memories made me a loyal drakken. I overpowered my feeble captors and used their technology to teleport through the portal onto one of the ships about to pass through.” Drovak resisted the urge to shiver at the sight of the smile that crept onto the face of the dark lord.
“That explains a lot. You must have been implanted with the memories of one of my spies. That would explain your skills and loyalty to me but not everything.” The drakken paused as he thought about the information. “This means there could be other clones in the hands of the protectorate and that they have the ability to send agents into our universe. They must have a ship near the portal for you to teleport through. If you could use their tech to teleport to a ship on this side it means that they have technology capable of scanning between dimensions.”
Drovak used the opportunity to disable one of the nodes on the distribution network. The lights went out for a couple seconds before the loss was compensated for. By then three of the guards were dead and a fourth soon followed. Drovak was strong and had heightened reflexes but the guards were also enhanced. Another guard fell with a thro
wing knife sticking out of his face before Drovak was engaged in hand to hand combats with the remaining four. Drovak blocked one blade against a force blade on his right while he sliced through another blade into the gut of one of the guards. He ducked and missed a swing at his head but felt a blade slice across his back leaving a burning cut into his muscles. He lunged forward and ripped through the neck of another guard leaving two circling on both sides.
He saw a blaster jerk on one side in time to duck. The blast took the other guard full in the face vaporizing half his head. Drovak was acutely aware of the hum of his force blades, the pain across his back and the green blood splashed over him head to foot, some his and some not. He swung his blades at the blaster before it had a chance to recharge for another attack. There was a spray of sparks as his blades sliced through metal. The guard recovered remarkably fast and countered with a short blade in either hand. Drovak saw the opening in the charge and planted a force blade through his opponents face even as he felt the blade slicing through his shoulder. Looking around at the corpses strewn around the room as he did a damage assessment. He was already feeling weak from the loss of blood so the cut on his back must be deep. His arm hung uselessly at his side and more blood streamed from the gash in his shoulder.
“You don't fit into any of my scenarios. Something is wrong.” To Drovak's surprise the dark lord still didn't comprehend his situation. “You can’t defeat eight of my guards. The odds are too high that you die. You died. This isn't possible.” The raspy muttering stopped with a piercing scream as Drovak planted a blade in the drakken's chest. Rays of dark shadows began flashing from the drakken's eyes and wound. The drakken came to his feet to the surprise of Drovak. Shadows played from his fingers. He waved his hand at Drovak and lashes of blackness reached out and burned Drovak throwing him across the room. Drovak landed with a thud and a crack. He gasped for breath and tried to struggle to his feet. One leg refused to support his weight and the burning in his side told him his ribs were broken. Combat in this state was impossible. He pawed at the computer activating the protocols he had preprogrammed. The lights began to flicker as the drain on the power grid increased.
“I will feed on your life force and pry all your secrets out of your pathetic mind. The voice was not that of the dark lord but another more sinister.” One of the guard’s blasters lay nearby and in an instant Drovak grabbed it and fired it at the advancing dark lord with what little strength he had left. The blast barely phased the dark lord as shadows poured out of the blaster burns. Lights flashed and flickered as the power drain increased. A black hand reached out and Drovak felt like his head was being crushed and exploding at the same time when the hand touched him. The last thing Drovak heard as the lights went out was a scream filled with rage and frustration.
The room was light again and the pain was gone but it was different. The white walls greeted him as he glanced around the room. Drovak moved his arm finding all signs of the debilitating injury gone. There was a glimmer and both Kiyan and Prometheus appeared out of thin air. Realization began to dawn on Drovak as the implications of his surroundings sunk in.
“It was all a lie! You didn't send me there.” Drovak felt the taste of victory changing to an empty achievement. “I didn't kill him.”
“Actually we are pretty sure he is as good as dead.” Theo offered Drovak a hand getting up. “You weren't actually there but you were in a way.”
“It all felt so real. I was dying.” Drovak had died many times before so he knew the feeling. “How was that not real?”
“You physically were here the whole time.” Kiyan tried to explain. “We made a nanite construct of your body. It was as real as it could be without being alive. We connected your mind to it and sent it to the drakken universe in your place. You experienced everything that happened to it like if you were there.”
“I didn't kill him. He was too powerful.” Drovak confessed his failure.
“You killed him with the knife in the chest. Even if that hadn't killed him all the dark energy flowing through him from the dark one would have killed him.” Silence filled the room before Theo continued. “We think you got disconnected because some sort of shielding was raised.”
“That makes him dead on three counts.” Drovak rubbed his shoulder where he had been stabbed. “One of the systems I activated must have been the planetary shields. That much energy drain without several reactors would be many times more than the geothermal generators could handle. It would destroy the planet.”
“There shouldn't be any traces of what we did then.” Theo mused on the implications.
“I should return to my cell.” Drovak made for the door before Kiyan stopped him.
“I don't think that is necessary. We can find some better quarters if you would like. Theo needs a tactical officer on his ship and we think that you are more than qualified for the position.” Kiyan watched as Drovak’s face lit up.
“I am honored. I will serve to the best of my ability.” Drovak saluted both of them with a fist clenched over his chest.
“We are the ones honored by having you join our ranks.” Kiyan returned the salute. “So how did it feel killing one of you old masters in cold blood?”
“It felt liberating.” Drovak smiled at the memory. “Besides drakken are reptiles so we are cold blooded. I always kill people in cold blood. Don't you kill people in warm blood or is it the other way around?”
“Feeble captors eh?” Theo teased Drovak as they left the simulator.
“I lied. I was trying to add credence to the theory that I could have escaped if I tried.” Drovak's grin revealed a row of sharp pointed teeth.
“Another thing is that we don't go around killing everyone that annoys us.” Kiyan activated the transported and they found themselves in the mess hall.
“Ahh, no worries. I only kill drakken that annoy me.” Drovak asked Alec for one of the dishes he saw.
“Well we have some plans to make since the dark lords are in disarray.” Kiyan watched Drovak sample the food he had ordered.
“There are several drakken held planets that could be liberated.” Drovak paused to speak between mouthfuls. “That would eliminate some of their capability to crew their fleets. They have limited clone sequences but they could very well be trying to hybridize new sequences to supplement their numbers.”
“That reminds me why haven't they already developed new clone sequences?” Kiyan inquired.
“The drakken have always been a warlike people. We left our home world in ruins and conquered several worlds. The other races united against us and a huge war was started. At that time we reproduced with conventional means. They began to lose the war as drakken numbers began dwindling. They took drastic measures to regain the edge in the war by cloning warriors and using an artifact we had discovered to transfer the memories from their best warriors to the new warriors. They had to use the DNA of living drakken in order to make a functional clone. Every drakken clone out there came from a normal drakken that was born lived and died many many years ago. They may be able to enhance a clone but they haven't found a way to change the base DNA without corrupting it and making it useless. We can no longer reproduce without cloning.” Drovak finished the last of his food and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “Now is the best time to take advantage of the chaos left in the wake of the dark lord's death. News should be filtering out about the incident.”
“You are right. What do you recommend we strike first?” Theo spoke to Drovak but he was looking at Kiyan as Terra came into the mess hall. He remember the same light coming into his eyes those days so long ago on earth when he had met Kendra. “Hey Kiyan if it’s all the same to you I can debrief Drovak by myself. I will fill you in later.”
“What? Oh yeah that sounds good.” Theo thought to himself that Kiyan would have been next to useless in the debrief anyway with his mind elsewhere. “I will catch up with you in a bit. I just have to talk to Terra about, uh, something.” Theo laughed as he watched Kiyan w
alk across the hall to Terra.
“We may once have done it ourselves but the mating habits of humans are beyond me.” Drovak was proving to be fairly observant. “It seems to be a very inefficient way of reproducing.”
“Indeed, just don't tell him that.” Theo activated the transporters and they were back in the simulator surrounded by a map of the known universe.
Chapter Seventeen: Armada
It was a balmy summer morning on the coast of England. The earth had that fresh wet smell after a night's rain. Arthur stood on his balcony looking over the waves sparkling in the low sun. Some low clouds lazily moved across the sky. Arthur furrowed his brow as he intently looked for the figurative cloud brewing on the horizon. The year was 1588 and Elizabeth the first sat on the throne of Britain. The stranglehold of the dark ages was crumbling. The church was losing its power over the minds of people. It had been nearly a hundred years since Columbus had opened the Americas for exploration. It would be nearly another hundred years before the young nation would be born.
There were powers afoot that would stifle the infant in its crib if left to their own devices. Spain was one of these powers. With the blessing of the church they had a foothold in the vast lands beyond the oceans and had discovered riches untold in both gold and merchandize. Their treasure ships laden with gold, gems and exotic spices plied the Atlantic fattening the purse of king Philip of Spain.
The storm that was brewing today had many catalysts and triggers. The queen had commissioned numerous pirates into her services giving them the new title of privateers. They were still pirates if you asked the Spanish but if you asked the English they were defenders of British waters. The distinction was blurred by any third party onlooker. Philip had been king of England when he had wed Elizabeth's predecessor. He had lost the crown when his wife queen Mary had died. The young Elizabeth had spurned his proposals as he attempted to regain the control of Britain. The enmity between the thrones was planted when Philip was instrumental in having the church declare Mary queen of Scots the legitimate heir to the throne. She was as catholic as he was and would have undone all the heresies Elizabeth had unleashed on the world.