May 15, 8057 AD

Trissite navy flagship Koh za in orbit of Shoro capital Harkonni homohowk

The sound of the Shoro phyx-batons echoes in the corridor. Sweat drips down my face as I sneak through the maintenance tubes in the walls.

I silently pray that my breathing isn't loud enough for them to detect me. I've only got one shot left on my raybeam emitter, so that's practically a zilch on defense, considering the number of Shoro aboard my ship.

I do some fancy maneuvers that would have made a contortionist flinch in sympathy to get onto the ladder in front of me. A single second stretches into eternity when my purple trousers snag on the hatch to the deck below, but I manage to remove myself without a sound.

Perhaps some introduction is in order.

I'm Korchikah Finsha, High Ghartah -- chief political and military leader -- of Triss'uaana, one of the largest superpowers on Mars, and I'm about to die.

Now, I don't say that lightly. I never do. We Marrissanse (that's my species) are a very durable and long-lived race. On average, we'll be alive and kicking well on our way to eight thousand years old.

As such, I was present when the Seventh Galactic Massacre began.

Three thousand years ago, the Shoro came out of hiding on their desert planet, known by them as Harkonni homohowk, and announced to the saner beings their schemes of galactic conquest. The declaration of war was signed by one Kulak Nevermore of Shorotara. We laughed at first -- ha ha, he thinks Kulak is such a cool word but it's actually Russian for peasant -- but then they destroyed Alpha Centauri.

By all rights, they should have won the war quickly. Their weapons were far more powerful than anything we'd seen before. The Trissites, however, are a huge spanner in the works, along with a few ragtag badasses like the Stok'staa, the Arcturans, and the Terrans. We're the backbone of the united fleets of the Milky Way.

However, my father, Shorkah Tai-cun, paid a massive price for spitting in the face of the so-called Holy Empire of Shoro Torn. I arrived at the execution stadium with the intention of saving his hide just in time for them to chain me up to watch as they ripped him apart and strung him through the trees for five miles around. Since then, I've pledged my rightful existence to making sure that no one else meets the same fate.

I'm punched out of my remembrance by the sound of heavy footsteps -- the unique clink-clonk of a Shoro's boots, made from strange alloys several hundred times stronger than anything we can mass-produce.

A haunting, operatic note rings through the hall and echoes into the vents. I think the Shoro's calling its buddies.

What are my options? I can continue up the ladder, but risk another snag. I don't think I'll manage complete silence a second time. Removing my trousers to prevent catching would also make too much noise -- but as it is, I'm mere inches away from a bloodthirsty Shoro, nothing between us but a thin steel wall.

If I stay, I'll be killed. They're getting ready to smash the barrier with a phyx-baton. Those things can electrocute an elephant with a single jab; who knows what they'll do to me?

There's nothing for it. I slowly pull myself up the ladder, being careful around the deck hatches. I'm a bit less distracted now, so I can calculate where my pants are going to be at any given moment.

I'm almost at the tenth deck's hatch, but I must have made a shuffle here or a creak there, because --

BOOM clatter clatter. The wall I was hiding behind a minute ago shatters with the well-placed jab of a phyx-baton. I frantically look downward, causing a great deal of pain to my tortured neck, and the hellish faceplate of a Shoro servant warrior looks back up at me.

We make eye contact, and my mind goes numb.

I begin to feel dizzy. My vision narrows to a tunnel. I see nothing but the eyes, the eyes, the eyes --

Snap out of it, pal. He's playing with you.

I wrest control of my rationality from the Shoro and hurry back up the ladder, forgoing any previous attempts at stealth. They've caught me. They think it's over for poor old Korchikah...

...but I might be able to change that.

My fist demolishes the hatch and I drag myself into one of the central-aft engine chambers. My muscles are screaming at me to give up, to give them a break. I never was that flexible, but you have to make do if it's the galaxy's life on the line.

I stand up, stretch my stiff limbs, and throw myself back on the floor as I hear something very, very loud beneath me.

A quick look down the tube offers me one of the scariest sights of my life. The Shoro is climbing. It's utterly destroying the tunnels around it because it's so fucking large -- it's an ungodly centauriform four and a half metres tall, and God knows how wide and long -- and its horns leave three-foot gouges in whatever they scrape.

I run.

The floor crumbles behind me as the Shoro pulls itself onto the deck and I force my devastated limbs into overdrive.

I pray for a bit of distance between us --

Dead end. I should have known.

I whirl around and take my raybeam emitter from my aching mouth. The peaceful thump-tump of the warp drive slows my heartbeat and helps me think clearly.

Take aim.

Turn the dial to maximum.

Shut off the recoil dampers to boost the gun's power.

Pull the trigger.

The Shoro's neck is instantly liquefied. The body is left standing while the head tumbles down, hitting the floor with a wet schlap and leaking obscene amounts of butter-yellow blood.

"That's for Shorkah, notchla'swon," I whisper to the head as its helmet's nitrogen supply runs out. It's going to asphyxiate in a minute or two.

Natch, make that now. I give it a hard kick to the breath pipes, severing them and breaking the pressurised seal on the helmet. The Shoro's eyes glaze over and roll back in its head.

Damn it. My emitter's dead; that last shot completely drained it. I need to find a way to recharge it, and fast.

My eyes wander over to the battery packs on the armoured suit, and from there to the warp drive.

Bingo. Take out the cables! The warp drive, I recall, was stolen by Deneb commandos from a Shoro warship and reverse-engineered. It uses the same tech as the batteries. I can hook my raybeam emitter up to it, and use it as a funnel to siphon the battery.

Korchikah, you're a genius!

I know I am. You make me blush, Finsha.

I take the battery and find a port. I rip it open and solder a wire to it. I do a lot of fancy shit that involves my right ring finger getting sliced clean off.

The Shoro are getting closer. I can hear them clinking and clonking toward the hole in the deck.

At long last, the LED highlights on my emitter glow green, indicating a full charge. It should be ready for about two months' use.

Job done, I straighten my back, working out a few kinks in my spines, and turn to the dead Shoro. Its armour, detecting that its wearer has died, has locked up so as to permanently stand to attention -- the way a good Shoro always stands.

It has all the standard gear of a servant warrior -- a full armoured suit with red markings, a plasma cannon embedded in the right arm, an incredibly bulky repulsorlift pack -- but there's another machine I haven't seen before attached to its wrist.

"What are you...?" I murmur, unstrapping the strange device from its arm. It's a small, nearly featureless panel, with three buttons and corresponding dials, which are labeled in Shorotala (their beastly lingo) as Slipstream, Velocity, and Reflective Energy. I've no idea what any of those mean, but it looks like a new piece of tech to plunder.

I start to hear a nearly inaudible rumble from the Device. I hold it up to my ear, and it thrums in a way I recognize -- and it's decidedly not good.

It's using a cochlorophyne energy source. It's more dangerous than a nuclear bomb. In its unrefined gaseous form, cochlorophyne will break down any and all organic matter it comes into contact with -- slowly. Once it's started, it never, ever stops. You can't cure it; your proteins will already be contaminated. It's like a prion disease in the way it spreads. It's an excruciating process.

I've seen firsthand many beings die from cochlorophyne poisoning, and it's how the Plutonians finished off my homeworld twelve thousand years ago. That's why it's the Red Planet, not Terra's Twin.

Cochlorophyne is the bane of all morality.

I clench my fist around the Device with a low growl, attempting to crush it. This specific form of the hazard won't poison me, but refined cochlorophyne can still be weaponized with devastating results.

That's odd. I'm putting all the force I can on it -- about four and a half tons, thanks to my augmented muscles -- but it's showing no signs of buckling or even minor weakness. It must be made of the Shoro's precious alloys.

I finally give up and pocket it. I can safely dispose of it later, but it might come in handy if I have to shoot its reactor anytime soon. That would easily kill all the Shoro in the vicinity, although it might take me with it.

Is that a double standard? Perhaps.

Do I care? Of course not!

I hear a dull thunk behind me and, with a feeling of dread, turn my head to look.

The Shoro have arrived, and not all of them are lowly servant warriors. There's one, sure, but next to him is a warden commandant with mustard-yellow markings on its armour, and somebody I hoped never to meet face-to-face.

It's the unholy trinity -- the servant, the warden, and the Kulak Nevermore. My father's executioner, and by extension the indirect killer of billions of Shoro, terminated by the enraged Trissites.

I only have time for an eloquent "oh, fuck my life" before he calmly raises his hand, palm forward. The permanent grin on his face, forced by hooks pulling back the corners of his mouth, grows just a little bit wider.

He thrusts his hand forward and I fly backward towards the warp drive at breakneck speed. The Device flies out of my hand and gets crammed between my head and the starboard fuel rod. It shatters the pipe and superheated vapour burns my cheek.

Somewhere in the chaos, the Slipstream dial on the Device is turned, and a tiny switch on the side is flipped.

The Kulak signals for his cronies to capture me. The thrumming of the Device grows louder and louder, accompanied by a quiet beeping.

The Shoro grab hold of my shoulders.

The Device lets out a mechanical whine and I disappear with the Shoro in a flash of light, leaving nothing but a solitary finger and the stench of charred flesh and cloth.

Timeless

No location

Where am I? There's nothing. I see nothing -- no light and no darkness. I hear nothing -- no sound and no silence. When I look around, it's like I've gone blind.

Am I dead? I don't think so. I still have a body, so it's a no on that, unless -- no. I'm not dunking myself into religious nonsense. I know I prayed back on the ship, but my mind was falling apart, okay? I had no idea the Kulak was telekinetic.

I'm swiftly losing awareness. Scratch that. If there's a god out there to apologise to, I'm sorry. Now get me the cr'ihk out of here.

No beans. I start to feel something on each of my shoulders.

Metallic, heavy somethings.

I know what they are.

The Shoro have followed me into this void.

I'm paralysed and trapped, and there's nothing I can do about it, so I metaphorically shrug and accept my lot in life. I have no idea how long I'll be in here, or if I'll ever get out, or if time even exists here. My mental clock has stopped ticking. Perhaps all these thoughts are happening simultaneously -- or not at all! Maybe I'm just a character in some fucked up storybook! There's something to amuse you post-modernist philosophers out there.

I think I'm in pain.

Oh, shit! Yes, I'm in a lot of pain. It's like my soul is being ripped in two, and there isn't a single thing I can do about it.

It's stopped now. Blissful relief flows over me. I'm not even thinking about the Shoro.

I'm no longer blind. The world, or lack thereof, around me is illuminated softly with a blue light. If I listen, I can hear a quiet breeze. It's something aside from the Shoro that exists, so I'm pretty stoked about that.

The light grows brighter, the wind grows stronger, and I'm inexplicably aware that I'm moving through space.

I have surroundings now. A strange grey fog permeates the place, but I can make out shapes in the mist. A small house here, an utterly massive tree there.

I hear a sound like the entire universe is being blown apart, and the light goes out. I can move again! Hip, hip, hurrah! Let's go party! Except there's Shoro here! Never mind! I'm going crazy!

Okay, now that that little lapse in mental stability is out of the way, the fog is growing thinner. An admittedly beautiful purple sky is fading into view above me. The massive tree I saw earlier, about nineteen metres to the left, is blue and appears to be made of crystals.

Good God, it's gigantic. Its size could even compete with the titanics that grow in Triss'uaana's underground settlements.

WHAM!

Pain flares in the back of my head and I see no more.

Author's Note

The hiatus is finally over, and here's the revised prologue! Man, it feels good to be writing again!

Feel free to give me your harshest criticism. I'd love to hear it.