“Dr. Hawter is a valued member of our science division. We are not about to kill him because of some dispute with a being who claims to be part of a lost and sentient race. I’m sorry Melchior, but I will not give clearance to these two to meet him. Besides, they aren’t even citizens.”
Fabled Commander Resat Mc Cullin, or the other title he had earned from his peers, King Culler. Melchior hated the man with a passion, but he was his only ticket to win over the two beings. He knew them to be the Shandori, even if the other personnel refused to believe it.
He sniffed, as he descended to the lab section of the subterranean Vault, knowing full well the minute he met his fool brother that he and him would have to be enemies to save their race. They needed the Shandori to trust them, but Hawter had already botched it.
Not only had he destroy a chance for them to feel dependent on the Touak, but he tried to bioengineer one of the most powerful beings on the planet into a make-shift weapon. He could not forgive him for what he had done to that poor girl.
Touching that girl was the worse and most counter-productive thing Hawter had ever done, and Melchior was about to make him pay for it. Three initiates blocked the passage to Hawter’s Sanctum, the name of his lab in the undermost section of the Vault. It wasn’t much different from any other lab in the base, except that people, mostly the new ones, claimed that the lab was haunted with the souls of Hawter’s victims.
Melchior smashed right through their makeshift blockade and walked into the lab with a stride.
“Well, if it isn’t my brother the Great Atticus Melchior I’ve been buzzed about so much, the founder of the Cheruv! I’m so glad to meet you again sibling.”
“Save your breath, you heartless bastard, we both know what you did. Neither of us is a founder of anything save for the end of our kind, thanks to you. We’ll never get the help we need from the Shandori, and it’s all because you couldn’t see past your own ambition.”
“Don’t presume to be so high and mighty, you sorry excuse for a scientist. You were planning from the start to use them as weapons as well; I just got the idea to make them more efficient at killing those monsters. What have you contributed to helping our kind survive this war of survival, hmm? You took my creation from me, gave her a friend, and a reason to live! Had she been released against the Skiritix I guarantee she would have annihilated them without us losing a single soldier!”
“At what cost? You create a monster, just to kill another monster? And what if she did succeed? She would be our monster to deal with too. Your ‘creation’ has a name, came from a place we all thought was gone! We need them more than anything, and we can’t be treating them like their monsters too. We need them to stand with us, to want us to survive. We need them as allies!”
“The same could be said for the aftermath. Are we to allow these creatures to just exist, a species of beings in which the very ground quakes at their call? They are too dangerous! They already proven to be too much for our own people to take care of, and the more we allow them in, the deeper we dig our own graves.
We kill the Skiritix just to invite these monsters back? I’m sorry brother, but I did what I thought was right not because I’m ambitious, but because at least I knew how one monster works!”
Melchior collected his thoughts, knowing full well that Hawter was only covering up his crime with reasons that in the circumstances people would have overlooked. He knew though, the doctor’s career had brought up all sorts of horrid transgressions. Most of those were supported by the surviving Council members based strictly because they were afraid of the Skiritix, and like any politician, they just wanted to stay alive long enough to enjoy their office. He knew without the proper members on his side, he could never get the consent to dispose of Hawter’s research methods, so he hoped to provoke him. Too bad he was also clever as well as ruthless.
“Monsters, knowing you Hawter I would figure that you share that with the Skiritix, but we don’t know half of what we claim to when it comes to the two ‘aliens’ we have in our custody, and drilling them open is not going to help us learn what we need to survive.”
“On the contrary Melchior, with the girl I have discovered the very essence that combines the two beings into the Shandori. It’s a simple matter of getting my research back, and getting her back on the table. All I’ll have to do is wave a picture of the ‘Converts’ in front of the board and there she will return. However, I cannot rightly do that until you stop hampering me with these attacks. She has the secrets I need for our survival, and the moment you realize this, the better off we are when my research finally yields results!”
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“We’re no better than the Skiritix, if we start using the bodies of our friends to help us win this. It’s deplorable Hawter.”
“Wrong, right, it does not matter how we survive brother, just that we do. The moment you see that the faster I can finish my work.”
Melchior knew he wasn’t getting anywhere with his brother. The stubborn scientist was set to kill their last chance at surviving the end of the world.
So he left, not even acknowledging the old owl and his harrumphs at his leaving. He had no time, and the longer he and the other survivors kept the Shandori here, the more likely Hawter would get his approval, and to hell with the end of the world. He was ashamed with himself though.
He knew deep down that if the scales tipped and it seemed loss, he would sacrifice those two for his people, for the Touak. It was what he would do, but his character wouldn’t let him, not until he was absolutely sure there was no other way. As he left the lab, knocking out a few security personnel in his stride, he felt sure there was at least one way that might work.
…
“Pepper, we need to talk.” Melchior stood over the cot, of the archeologist, as she awoke to consciousness. Sure enough, she opened her huge eyes and screamed like a banshee as Melchior grabbed the tiny doctor from her bed.
Stuffing a pillow into her mouth, Melchior motioned her hands for silence as the eddy of Dr. Pepper’s voice slowly muffled to a squeak. “Better now?”
“Ofm corfs nop you ifidit.” She struggled under the weight of the pillow on her face.
“Good, tell me Pepper, what you know about the ruins of Talrodeon.”
“Well, that’s a great one Mel, 'hey Pepper, what do you know about the one thing you studied your whole life?' It's a damn miracle site, and the markings that ancient Cheruvian society have there predate any other site that we know of, all of them indicating that site as a place of origin. It's likely one of their capitals, but still, you’re going to have to be more specific!”
“I was talking about the ruins that lay near the sight I located, our first Cheruvian ruin, site c-12”
“Talrodeon alpha? It’s one of the few places we were able to secure from the Skiritix, thanks to you… what’s this about?”
“I’m leading a team to scout the ruins, Command’s requesting me to get a team assembled for the job, and I need you to convince them that we need the Shandori on our mission.”
“What? Why in the goddess' name would I risk those two for a reconnaissance mission? Especially since we both know they are too valuable.”
“Simple, I can’t risk them staying here in the base, not with Hawter around. You and I both know that mad man will kill those two, so help me to help them.”
Pepper shivered, her tiny form ruffling too quick for Melchior to make out.
“You know what will happen if I ask that, don’t you? Hawter’s already on my ass for the archeological digs; he says they’re a waste of good scientists and mind power, a waste! He’s had the Council on my ass for the excavations for the past five years, and this… if I did this, he would bury me as fast as he can.
He knows I’m close Melchior, he knows I can show the board that the Cheruv are not gone. They’re at the very least dormant, and the sooner I can prove it to them, the better we have at a chance to recruit them. The moment that happens, his research into making Cheruvian weapons is as good as dead. If I have proof, then I’m as good as dead.”
Her shivers began to slow, but Melchior could tell she feared for her life.
Hawter did have a reputation for having his fellow colleagues meet unfortunate accidents whenever they interfered with his research. In the past, he looked over each file in regarding his brother.
It was apparent that he was behind it, but due to the crisis of the invasion most of the Council ignored these transgressions. They claimed, when he went to them about the murders that Hawter was a valued member of the scientific division and his contributions to the People were necessary to the survival of their kind. It gave Hawter a nickname from the other scientists, Dr. Hawter Slaughter. He told himself after the meeting that it was because of fools like the Council, that murderers like his brother roamed the world still.
Pepper wasn’t wrong. If she did request the sanction for the two Shandori to join them, Hawter may come after her.
“Pepper, I know the risk. I know you have no favor you owe me and I know how much I’m asking from you in order to get this put through. We need your help; The Touak need us right now.”
“Save your patriotic crap Mel, I know. Guess a little paranoia is good every once and a while, but yes I’ll get the sanction for them to join you. There’s just one thing,” Pepper looked at him, her eyes trembled and shown little of the fear she had expressed before.
It turned swiftly to a frigid gaze. “Take me with you when you go out with the Shandori.” Melchior held the gaze of the doctor, and with a nod he spoke, “Make sure you’re ready for it, we’re more than likely heading into a burrow, that ruin hasn’t been searched in over a year and even with our security forces it’s not likely well get out without meeting a few converts along the way. It won’t be a cake walk Pepper.”
Pepper waved a hand in the air, dismissing it, “strange as it is to say, even those bugs don’t scare me half as much as Hawter does. Besides, I have you and the two unstable progenitors, I’ll be fine.” She smiled, a tinge of sadness peeked through her eyes. Melchior grimaced to himself. He knew she’s doing this because she’s scared, and she wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t right to put her in the position where she could lose her life.
“I’m out of options I can’t let them kill our only chance of survival.”