OMEGA CONQUEST
Episode 1 - "Collision Course"
By,
Jamal Green
To be human(oid) means to experience the illusion of separation from source. With this illusion of separation comes free-will. In the unenlightened spirit, free-will breeds a desire to remove or severely limit the free-will of others. Ironic.
****
1.
The door to Shok’aan’s quarters slid open. He stumbled inside, his powerful body dropping to the floor like a sack of rocks. His breath quickened. His heart raced. His vision blurred, fluttering between thermal heat signatures and the normal visual spectrum of an average human. His jaw clenched involuntarily. The change was coming. He needed his medication but could barely concentrate on a single thought for more than a split second. He stopped fighting it, realizing it was going to happen and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
The door slid open again. Commander Dezik Rune rushed in and knelt over Shok’aan, turning Shok’aan’s face toward him to examine his eyes. They were red.
“Stay here, Shok. Don’t let it come,” said Dezik. “Where’s your medication?” Dezik noticed Shok’aan’s eyes dart toward the desk before they morphed into a vertically slit reptilian pupil. Dezik rushed over to the desk, waved his hand over the security scanner to open the locked compartment. ‘access denied, access denied,’ a digitized voice repeated. “Override,” yelled Dezik. ‘please enter your command-level security code’. Dezik grumbled at the scanner and released a surge of electricity from his palm which short-circuited the security protocol and blew open the locked compartments. He rummaged through the drawer and grabbed a med cartridge, loaded it into an injector and rushed back to inject the medication into Shok’aan’s leg. Shok’aan’s body tensed, then relaxed. He began breathing more slowly and opened his eyes, which were no longer red with vertical slits and instead had a normal human appearance.
“Took you long enough,” said Shok’aan.
“Lucky for you, the ship monitors our vitals. You should have told me,” Dezik said.
“I thought I could make it,” said Shok’aan.
“It’s been a long tour and you’re running out of meds. You’ll need to feed eventually.”
“That’s why we brought you and the rest of the crew,” Shok’aan said trying to lighten the mood.
“I will blast you into space before I’d let that happen, my friend.”
“You could try,” said Shok’aan as Dezik helped him to his feet.
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Both Dezik and Shok’aan’s c-link communicators they wore on their wrists chimed. Dezik touched c-link to answer. “Go ahead.”
“Commander, we’re approaching the target,” a female voiced beckoned.
“Confirmed. On our way,” said Dezik.
****
ON THE BRIDGE…
Shok’aan and Dezik took their usual command-level seats that were on a raised platform just behind the helm and forward viewscreen. Starship B.L.I.S.S. (BLISS) was a luxury cruise vessel currently travelling in sub-space, which caused the main viewscreen to be awash with multicolor data streams.
Meccai’s eyes darted back and forth swallowing up data as he sat at the helm piloting the ship. Some believed a speckle of light was etched into a pilot’s eyes for every star system visited. In Meccai’s case his shiny eyes were barely noticeable at casual distance, but closer inspection revealed the beginning of a celestial map of the galaxy. He had seen a lot. Meccai was a Saggen, a humanoid race that lived up to five times longer than most other humans. He was barely middle-aged by Saggen standards but had already visited more sectors of Omega Star System than most non-Saggens would ever see in an entire lifetime.
Of the many beings Meccai encountered during his travels, none were more annoying than his five current crewmates aboard Starship BLISS. What annoyed him most was the way he was teased into allowing himself to care so deeply for this mishmash group of non-Saggens. After all, this unlikely team of fellow convicted criminals would die so soon of old age that ‘it was barely worth learning their names,’ Meccai thought when he first joined up. In the end, Meccai would out-live everyone else leaving him to be the one to tell their story. That was the way of a Saggen living amongst the short-lifers.
Tasked with combating the Interstellar Slave Trade, each crew member would receive time off their prison sentences in the unlikely event they survived the high-risk tour. The experiment was code named NOOBeing, where a team of native Omegans, each of whom possessed a special N.O.O.B. ability would form an elite fighting unit capable of covert missions where ‘normal’ soldiers couldn’t go for political and logistical reasons. The only non-NOOB on the team was their leader, Shok’aan, who derived his talents from the mysterious Oto dragon. NOOBeing was an unofficial project of the New Order Federation (NOF), an ‘enlightened’ anti-slavery sect that broke off from the Royal Empire (RE), the main colonizing force from Alpha Star System.
Meccai relished the irony. They fought for the freedom of others but lacked freedom for themselves. ‘Only people deprived of freedom fully understand its value…and its price,’Meccai thought. Those wise words spoken by Shok’aan often played in Meccai’s mind at times he needed a reminder why it was all worth it. Freedom was worth the risk. And so was the maneuver the was about to pull. The maneuver was worth the risk in his own mind anyway. As for the opposition he’d face if his less ‘experienced’ teammates knew of his intentions, Meccai concocted a simple solution. He wouldn’t tell them.
A warning beacon flashed on the main console. Meccai quickly shut it off, hoping his two commanding officers seated on a raised platform behind him didn’t notice. MayJay, Meccai’s unofficial copilot/apprentice, did notice. She was sitting at the helm just to Meccai’s left and became mildly concerned as she looked at Meccai for an explanation. He continued staring forward at the main view screen pretending he couldn’t feel her gazing at him and acting as if the beacon hadn’t gone off.
“It’s the subnav,” said MayJay as she studied the control panel in front of her. “It shutdown. I’ll reset.” MayJay tried to press one of the tactile buttons on the console, but it wouldn’t move no matter how hard she pressed it. She quickly realized Meccai was using his NOOB ability and wasn’t allowing the button to be pressed. Although the ship could be piloted in several configurations, Meccai preferred to use a tactile control board because he could move levers, buttons and other tactile controls with his mind, which allowed him to pilot ships that normally required multiple pilots all by himself.
