:: Unknown ::
Taiidan. So much was fused together in one
word: Hate, greed, ruthlessness, wealth, power, genocide,
annihilation. This simply couldn't be real. Taiidan. No, it
wasn't real, Taiidan was the stuff of childhood's, parents using
it as a threat to disobedient young ones. "Careful, or I'll
sell you to the Taiidans!" and "Listen to your parents,
or Taiidans will come and get you!" But this was not a
childhood threat. This was real, and it was happening now.
Jamis rushed down the long hallway, his
footsteps ringing with a hollow metallic clang that he had never
noticed before in all the times he walked down the familiar path.
He glanced at the portraits hanging on the wall even though he
knew each one by heart. There was Galach Triste, famous poet and
writer of his time, an abstract statue by Logona, and the all
known Normani Ferman, the great inventor that had kept their
planet, Brazzel, so cleverly hidden for all of these years from
the Taiidan. The invention itself was labeled simply "The
Shield" for obvious reasons, and the lack of ability to come
up with a better name. The idea behind The Shield was quite
simple actually and came from an old theory: An object was
visible because light reflected off of it. But what if light was
not reflected? Was there a way to make light Pass through the
object? Would that make it invisible? Normani began to experiment
and then produced a small black sphere to a skeptical society at
the yearly science and innovation convention. But once the sphere
was activated all doubts fizzled into sheer awe. It disappeared.
Simply disappeared. Of course everyone could FEEL it but they
couldn't see it. And what amazed them even more was when Normani
put a small rodent called Dibat into the sphere, All life
detectors, heat, motion, x-ray, could not detect the Dibat within
the sphere. Normani went on to explain that the sphere simply
used common transport technology to place anything coming at it
on the other side.
Jamis got to the end of the hallway, raced
around the corner and started down the stairway, almost tripping
on his way down. He could hear them firing against the door. They
almost had it down now and soon they would be after him again.
Jamis had blocked the door with an old Holzmann field generator
that gave him a sort of false sense of security because he knew
that about 3 minuets of handgun beams would destroy it. He
continued down to the cellar. It was not unlike the sense of
security all of Brazzel had felt when Normani's effect was used
to create the Shield all around the Blue in Blue of the planet's
surface. The need to create the Shield came about after
terrifying accounts of Total civilizations being destroyed by an
unknown that was called Taiidan. So To protect themselves they
started construction of the Shield nearly two hundred Standard
Years ago and over the decades, Brazzel faded into the lost
treasure planet, and myths told by Grandparents to their
Grandchildren. And it worked, the Brazzelis watched in their
isolation from the rest of the universe as The Taiidan swept
their iron fist through the galaxy, leaving behind a bloody pulp
of civilizations. Some were wiped out completely.
Jamis could hear their footsteps now, heavy and
beating on the ground as if to say "There! Take that! And
that!" With each step. As if cursing the floor for being
under foot. He reached another door and punched in the code
number. Damn! Wrong number!. Jamis punched the number in
again and the door slid open and then shut behind him with a
"Thank you" and "Have a nice day!" Damn
Those talking doors! Jamis slapped his forehead, but kept on
running. They were closer now due to his clumsiness at the
keypad, and they knew which way he went thanks to that talking
door, installed years ago with a personality, trying to make
people nicer in general but that no effect really except to annoy
others. Those Damnable smugglers! They were the ones that got
me into this position now. It was true. The smugglers lead
the Taiidan to Brazzel. Why? Because they probably paid them more
than Brazzelis did. You see, The people on Brazzel didn't finally
unite from their island countries, spend a monstrously large
amount of the planets resources, and many lives just for nothing
building this huge shield to create their "No-Planet",
they had a good reason. They knew from reports that Taiidan were
interested in a few things. Power and Wealth were among them.
Brazzel was the only planet known that produced the extremely
resource rich diamond called quand'sit, which was also an
expensive jewel to be sold off planet. So once Brazzel slipped
into isolation, the Quand'sit market skyrocketed and their price
soared. Nobody could find where to get these jewels anymore.
Except for a few bands of smugglers. The Council on Brazzel had
tried to shut them down but, it was impossible. If the Quand'sit
was there, so were the smugglers however small they were. At
times they only had one ship flying in and out with the precious
gem, but they were always their. So the Council decided to let
the smugglers be, and paid them handsomely with gems and
resources. This delicate balance was secure for many years. When
Smugglers sold the gems and they were questioned about how they
came about them, all that they could reply with was a smile. But
as the Smugglers sold the gems, their demands for keeping the
planet a secret grew and grew. Apparently some day a smuggler was
offered an extreme amount of money from the Taiidan, enough to
live the life of luxury for him and many of his generations to
come, so they sold out. Taiidan ships invaded and The Brazzeli
forces were barely enough to stop the first scout ships arrive,
and they fell soon after the capital ships arrived. The Taiidan
landed and Brazzel was brought out into the universe after nearly
250 years of isolation. And that's how I got here now.
Jamis rushed on and slipped on way to the pod. He could now
clearly see the attackers at the end of the hall. Shit!
He took a black cube out of his pocket, charged it, and hurled it
towards the attackers. Jamis was up and running so soon that he
didn't have time to see the look of surprise on the first two
Taiidans faces who the cube hit as they fell to the floor with
their eyes still wide open. But the others behind them didn't
seem to care as they trampled over the bodies of their dead
comrades. Jamis didn't have much time left. He saw his
destination at the end of the hall. The pod chamber. Once he got
inside he actually had a chance of surviving. Luckily Council had
anticipated that this day would come and built into the capital
city an escape system that was memorized by almost everyone.
There were about 5,000 pods all around the city, but Jamis
projected that only about 1,000 of them actually got manned and
only a fraction of them would get through the Taiidan ships up
above, but there was always the chance that at least some of them
would survive.
Smoke wisped up on the walls where the Taiidan
guns shot them. Jamis veered left and right trying no to get hit,
but as he entered the pod he couldn't avoid a hit to the leg. He
crumpled to the floor and hit the huge red button that would send
him spinning into space. As the whole room, (not very big, just
enough room for about two people) shook with the ejection
procedure, Jamis pulled himself up to the one plaz window to
look. What he saw made him cry, hundreds of pods were swarming
up, out of the city and into the big pink afternoon sky. There
were so many of them that the turrets on the Taiidan ships could
barely keep up with them all. Jamis wondered if any of them would
ever see Their planet again. Then again, he wondered if any of
them would survive long enough to.
