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Last Gasp
Posted By: Triad<m.eelkema@student.tudelft.nl>
Date: 1 April 2005, 11:01 AM
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Last Gasp
By Triad
Yulen sighed and looked up from his lab-desk. He sighed because he realised his latest attempt to save his people had failed yet again.
"Damn it! These wretched things were supposed to be our rescue!"
"Don't worry, doctor Yulen. We will find a way to protect ourselves in time," his junior assistant said. Yulen didn't share his optimism. For five years now had he been the head of the government research team, and all the work he had done in those years had proven to be futile.
"And the worst is yet to come. Now I have to inform the supreme command about it."
Yulen left the lab and stepped into the elevator. As he ascended, he wondered how it had come this far. Fifty years ago, when he was still a little kid, things seemed prosperous for the Balean Dominion. The navy and the army had no trouble walking over their neighbours and the star systems next to those neighbours. So far it didn't seem like there was any mayor contender for the conquest of the entire galaxy. And that only 150 years after the old empire, which had existed for over five millennia and had spread one dominant race over the entire galaxy, had fallen apart.
But then they encountered the Feldor Kingdom. "Finally, a foe that offers a real challenge to our forces," Yulen's father, an admiral, rejoiced, along with some other generals and admirals. But their enthusiasm quickly turned into worry, as the following war proved to be a fierce one.
Both sides didn't offer each other an inch of space; every planet cost at least an armada of ships and millions of troops, and even then the outcome of the battle still wasn't sure. One of those battles had claimed the life of Yulen's father.
And so the war had been raging on for about 40 years, when six years ago the Feldors launched a massive offensive, bigger than any offensive any side had seen before. The Baleans lost the initiative, and from then on were only on the defensive and retreating side.
Yulen, eager to avenge his father's death and save his people, joined the army's research agency right after completing his study. He and all the scientist who worked alongside him spent all their lives developing new weapons for the vast armies and fleets.
Yulen reached the top floor, where the supreme command resided. As Yulen stepped into the conference room, he saw looks of hope on the faces of the senators and generals, but he could be mistaking: some would say it were looks of despair.
"I certainly hope you are bringing good news, doctor Yulen," said senator Pondec while Yulen was walking to the head of the table at the other end of the room.
"I'm sorry, senator Pondec, but I'm afraid I can't. My latest attempt to fabricate an inoculation has failed."
"Damn. I must say; when your predecessor, Doctor Grandec, made the Weapon from scratch in less than a year, I figured it would take you even less than that to make an antidote. Why was I so wrong, doctor?"
"My mentor constructed the Weapon in such a way, that it would be extremely resilient to attempts of the Feldors to destroy it. The same resilience is working against us," Yulen said calmly.
"Can't you make an antidote for a Weapon with a smaller yield?" an admiral asked.
"Making the Weapon weaker would only make it easier for them to find an antidote as well. But fear not, my leaders, I will continue my research, and I will find the solution to our dire situation."
In spite of his calm words, Yulen was sweating as if he was having a severe fever. He had always been extremely nervous reporting his progress to the supreme command, especially when he had to defend his failures.
"I heard the same thing the last time you were here, doctor. We may not have the time for that," the admiral went on. "According to the latest reports the Feldor fleet is about to invade your own birth-planet. That would place them just a stone's throw away of our seat right here."
"I still don't understand why we can't use the Weapon right now," general Maylen uttered. "If we wait any longer, there might not be anything left for the Weapon to save. We should hit them now with all we've got, and hit them hard!"
Maylen, a battle-hardened general of the old school, represented the hardliners of the army, always preferring the blunt force approach. Yulen had never liked him, and the feeling was mutual.
"Clearly you have never read the reports on the strength of the Weapon," Yulen replied in a harsh tone. "Even doctor Grandec underestimated its strength and paid for that mistake with his life. If we deploy the Weapon now, it might defeat the enemy, but we will most likely perish as well."
The tension between him and Maylen was almost tangible, and if looks could kill, both men would have been lying on the ground in smouldering piles of ash by now.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, please, let's save it for the enemy," senator Pondec intervened. "General, I must concur with the doctor; we can't use the Weapon yet. Doctor Yulen, you better get back to work fa.."
Suddenly the whole room trembled and the alarm in the room went of. Almost immediately a face of a navy captain appeared on the screen at the end of the room.
"report, captain, report, for goodness sake!" an admiral shouted.
"The Feldor, they have jumped out of slipspace and entered orbit! Their fleet is huge, even bigger than the fleet that launched the Big Offensive. They have already started to bomb the planet. They are firing at me! I'm hit! I'm going d........"
As soon as the screen switched of, a team of Feldor commandos appeared from the elevator and quickly took out all the guards at the entrance. Then they turned to the leaders;
"Give yourselves up! You have nowhere to go! We wish to take you alive!"
Some of the generals didn't plan on going down quietly and drew their side-arms. Then, all hell broke lose. The commandos opened up with every weapon they carried. Every general, admiral and senator got shot in a matter of seconds.
Yulen was still standing frozen at the end of the room watching his leaders getting killed, when he felt a sting in his abdomen. He looked down and saw a bloodstain on his belly, which started to grow bigger. He fell to his knees behind the conference-table, holding his gut.
"Get to your lab, doctor."
Yulen looked to his right and saw general Maylen lying face-down with several shots in his back.
"Get back to your lab. You know what to do there, doctor. All is lost anyway."
Yulen looked at the commandos and noticed they were still standing at the entrance of the room, checking whether everyone was dead. He managed to shuffle towards the emergency-elevator at the other end of the room without being seen. The moment he flung himself into it, the commandos noticed him, and quickly followed him in the main elevator.
Once he reached his level, Yulen stood up, nearly fainting because of the pain and blood-loss. He ran into his lab as hard as he could, almost falling over the corpse of his assistant.
There it was, the room where active prototypes of the Weapon were stored for testing. Yulen began the difficult procedure of opening the well sealed door. He was almost finished when he heard the shots behind him. This time, the wounds were much more fatal. As he fell to the floor, he hold on to the handle of the door, unlocking it.
The commando who shot him, crouched in front of Yulen, looking into his eyes with a triumphant smile on his face.
"Looks like we are all done with this war, boys."
Yulen returned his smile with a smile of his own and in his terminal breath he said: "No, your war has only just begun."
Suddenly the door sprang open, and thousands of spider-like creatures washed over the commandos, not much unlike a flood.
The End and The Beginning
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