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here's the first part of my lex dizik chronicles. not quite finished yet, though!
The air was stale and tinged with a burning, metallic odor. Mutant 8706-200, also known as Lyz Dexyk, knew that the smell came from the walls and walls of machines that transformed mutants into cyborg slaves. As she was led down the wide corridor, she passed fellow mutants. They were being secured in humanoid-shaped receptacles. Above each eye of each mutant protruded a thick cable. The cables snaked their way up the walls to the ceiling, which they followed throughout the vast underground tunnels and collected in the center of the Carcanian Cyborg Transformation Plant (CCTP).
The CCTP was situated on Q’arap, the twelfth moon of Arzax, in quadrant 3 of the Nyastikan galaxy. Q’arap was entirely hidden behind the tenth moon and therefore existed in perpetual darkness. Arzaxican astronomers had only discovered Q’arap within the past 13 years due to its almost complete invisibility. It was the perfect location for the secret underground Plant.
Lyz’s Carcanian escorts stopped her before the last clear duraglass door and wordlessly gestured for her to step into the receptacle. Docile, she complied. The Dilinthian tranquilizers had done their work well; her mind was almost blank. She was able to observe and comply with orders, but not to process any real thought.
The duraglass doors slid shut silently and locked with a click. As Lyz leaned back against the wall, restraining cables appeared and strapped her curvaceous frame tightly to the wall. She did not panic. She did not, in fact, feel any emotion. Still able to turn her head, she turned it to the right. Not much to see in that direction; hers was the last receptacle along the wall, and the only thing she saw was a large metal door. She did not know where it led.
She turned her head to the left. The receptacle next to her was occupied by a male humanoid, slightly taller than she was, with long, black hair. He was staring straight ahead. As she watched him, he slowly turned his head in her direction and looked at her. He raised one eyebrow.
Suddenly Lyz felt her head being gripped by robotic hands. It was turned forward again. The wall on the opposite side of the corridor was covered with instrument panels and blinking lights. As she observed them blinking in simultaneous motion, the receptacle began to fill with greenish anesthetic gas. She felt two sharp twinges, one above each eye. Thick cables entered her head, invaded her brain. A disembodied, sexless voice spoke.
“All mutants secured. Repeat, all mutants secured. Mind programming will commence in T minus 10. 9. 8…”
For no reason at all, a thought flashed though Lyz’s head. She was fairly certain this was not supposed to happen. She was remembering blue and white. Sand and sea. The white beaches of Ollymya, her home world. How could she be having a memory in this time and place, 8 seconds from her mind being permanently altered by the Carcanian neural probes?
She observed that the green anesthetic gas was now pink.
“7. 6. 5…”
Without warning, an impossibly loud explosion was heard. Sudden and agonizing pain seized Lyz as the metal cables were yanked out of her head. She heard the sound of one hundred and ninety-nine other people screaming, and realized she was screaming with them. Through the pink haze, she saw Carcanian guards rushing through the corridors, shouting and firing their C-class energy blasters.
“3. 2…”
Another loud explosion sounded as the voice gurgled to a halt. The restraining cables released Lyz and the duraglass doors opened. Coughing, Lyz stumbled outside and immediately lost her balance again as yet another explosion shook the corridor. She only lost it for a moment, however. She had been programmed for cat-like balance the day before.
A loud siren rang out, and all the lights along the walls flashed red. A different and definitely sentient voice filled the air.
“Attention! We are under attack; the mind programming subunit has been destroyed! Terminate group 8706 immediately!”
The male humanoid who had been in the receptacle next to Lyz was crumpled on the floor outside his receptacle. The pink gas had neutralized the Dilinthian tranquilizer, and Lyz now recognized him as Valdar, a smart-ass acquaintance who had sat at her table in the dining area. A Carcanian guard stood over him, wielding an energy blaster. The business end of it was firmly pressed against the long-haired mutant’s skull. With superhuman speed and strength, Lyz leapt at the guard.
She crashed into him, knocking the blaster askew. The guard whirled around, his hand reaching towards the backup blaster in his belt. Lyz was much too fast for him. She twisted his arm and snapped it with a quick flick of her wrist. The guard screamed and fell to the floor, his blaster soaring through the air. Lyz’s hand darted up, caught the blaster, and pointed it at the guard.
“Bastard,” she murmured as she pulled the trigger.
Bits of skull and purple Carcanian blood flew everywhere as his head exploded.
Lyz quickly tucked the blaster into her own belt and knelt next to the inert mutant on the floor.
“Valdar. Valdar! Wake up, man!” She shook him violently, and when he didn’t respond, pressed her fingertip into a point in the middle of his chest. His eyes flew open. Lyz pushed her shoulder length blonde and red hair back and spoke quickly.
“The whole place is in chaos – someone attacked the plant and destroyed the MP subunit. There are guards everywhere and their orders are to kill everybody in our group. We’ve got to get the frug out of here.”
“Know anywhere to go?”
“I was hoping you might.”
From somewhere down the corridor, a male voice shouted “Everybody follow me! I’m going to try to get us out of here!”
“Yo, that sounds like Lex!” said Valdar.
“Let’s go!” Lyz answered.
“Where the frug is he?!?”
From around the corner, about 50 fellow mutants came running at full speed towards them, led by a muscular mutant of average height with short, blue hair.
“There he is,” Valdar said unnecessarily.
“Lex!” cried Lyz.
Lex Dizik grinned insanely and flashed them a thumbs-up with one hand as he ran. The other was casually gripping a huge and evil looking weapon festooned with various switches and buttons. Lyz and Valdar joined the crowd of running mutants.
Suddenly the door that had been to the right of Lyz’s receptacle began to open. Carcanian feet appeared.
“Shit,” said Lex. Modulating his voice to a pitch so low it could only be heard by other mutants, he shouted “Everybody hold your breath!”
A throng of Carcanian guards was now emerging from the other side of the door, blasters blazing. Lyz instinctively backed up against a wall as an energy blast skimmed her shoulder. Valdar grabbed the stolen blaster from Lyz’s belt and began firing with precision back at the Carcanians. Lex turned a dial on his weapon and fired a jet of black smoke into the guards. The enemy blasts ceased abruptly as the guards collapsed onto the floor.
Still holding his breath, Lex waved a hand towards the door, gesturing for the mutants to follow him. They proceeded through the door, kicking the Carcanians and liberating energy blasters from their unconscious bodies. Lyz rolled her eyes at Valdar, who was still holding her blaster, and took a fresh one off of a particularly large guard. She recognized him as the scumbag who had continually leered at her in the dining area. She kicked him mercilessly in the face.
Several mutants had fallen in the scuffle, but there were still more than 40 left in the group. Lyz felt herself running out of air and hoped they would soon be out of the area contaminated by whatever black smoke had knocked out the Carcanians. They went through a second door, which closed shut with a bang after Lex pressed a button. Everyone gasped for breath.
“That’s OK, don’t anybody thank me or anything,” Lex wheezed. The mutants started laughing, surrounding Lex, hugging him and shaking his hand.
“I can’t believe it!” said Valdar, grinning. “Dude, what did you DO???”
“I saved your asses, that’s what I did. A lot of people didn’t make it, though. When I deactivated the neural probes, it killed anyone whose mind programming was more than 50% complete.” A look of pain and regret swept over him for a second. “There was nothing I could do. You know what 50% complete means.”
Valdar nodded. At 50%, the mind was, in essence, dead. At 75%, it was well on its way to being reprogrammed. At 100%, the mind was under complete control of the Carcanians, and the unfortunate mutant was an unquestioning slave to Gorvon, High Commander of the Carcanian military.
“Yo, guys,” announced Lex, “I accessed the specs from the main computer and I think I know a way out of here. The CCTP spaceport is right down this corridor and up the turbovator to the surface of this rock. Should be easy.”
“Yeah, right, should be easy,” said a stocky, bearded mutant with closely buzzed brown hair. Lyz recognized him as Zodor, a mutant who had been in one of her training groups. One corner of his mouth twisted into an ironic smile. “We might have a slight problem with group 8705. They haven’t left Q’arap yet. And there are 200 of them and only, what? 40 of us?”
“All right, all right, quit bumming me out and let me think.” Lex’s brow furrowed in thought. “OK, first things first. Group 8705 is frugged, ok? They’re slaves now, totally under control of the Carcanians. We’ll be doing them a favor by putting them out of their misery, plus we’ll be crippling the Carc army.” He looked around, but not everyone met his eyes.
“Look,” he said gently. “I know they used to be like us, but their mind programming is done.”
Lyz shuddered involuntarily. She had been only a few seconds away from suffering the same fate. Forever a slave of the Carcanians, a mindless drone. Killing children and unarmed civilians coldly, emotionlessly. Burning the cities of entire civilizations, destroying their culture and murdering their people for the sake of the Carcanian Empire.
She reached up, feeling the sore spots on her head where the mind programming cables had entered, and shuddered again.
Lex spoke again. This time all eyes met his.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.”
The current occupants of Spaceport Bay 37 had not yet heard the news of the mass escape of mutants from the mind control sector. Carcanian commanders stood in groups discussing battle strategies amongst themselves. Group 8705 stood at attention in neat rows, each holding an energy blaster and carrying a heavy pack filled with supplies – a thermoheat blanket, an atmospheric life support unit, dehydrated food rations, and various other gear. In the center of the bay was a brand-new silver Carcanian battle cruiser, the Annihilator. It was designed to transport a division of cyborg mutants and accompanying Carcanian commanders to various locations throughout the galaxy, where they would wipe out cities, countries and sometimes entire continents that rebelled against the Carcanian mission of total universal economic dominance. For the Carcanians glorified wealth above all else, and had devised a plan to ensure domination.
The Industry Crusades had been going on for some time, but it wasn’t until the Cyborg Transformation Plant had been built that the Carcanians saw the tides turning in their favor. From each planet the Carcanians conquered, they took prisoners between the ages of 16 and 35 to the Plant, where their strength and motor skills were enhanced and they were programmed to be eternal slaves to the Carcanian Empire. These mutant cyborgs were then sent out to the far reaches of the galaxy, their orders to exterminate any civilization that refused to use the Carcanian pitnoss as currency or participate in the Carcanian economy. Most planets complied with the Carcanian demands after a few major cities were burned to the ground. Those that did not were ruthlessly invaded by more Carcanian divisions until either the planet surrendered, or every man, woman and child on the planet was exterminated and the planet was used for raw materials to perpetuate the wealth of the Carcanian Empire.
Since each cyborg mutant’s strength was amplified by 1500%, and the ship was equipped with a devastating arsenal of deadly weapons, this usually wasn’t a problem.
Now, Group 8705 and its Carcanian commanders were preparing to undertake a journey to the southern quadrant of Wrioxicon-6, where there had been reports of an uprising. Resaf, captain of the Annihilator glanced at his timeunit. The needed the final orders from High Commander Gorvon before they could depart, and Resaf was growing impatient. Finally his communication device beeped.
“Captain Resaf,” he identified himself.
“Resaf! This is Gorvon. Get your division down to the MP sector NOW! We’re under attack!”
“Yes sir, High Commander Gorvon! Right away, sir!”
“Quit your blathering and get down here, Resaf!” Lex yelled into the communicator. Despite the urgency of the situation, Lyz had to suppress a giggle.
“We’re on our way, sir.”
“Good. Gorvon out.” Lex snapped the stolen communicator off and held up a finger for quiet. Below them they heard the shout of a command and the sound of 220 pairs of heavy boots marching away. Lex flicked the communicator on.
“Valdar, are you ok?”
“Yeah, dude, we’re right where we’re supposed to be.”
“Have you been in contact with the others?”
“Yeah, just waiting for you to let us know when we can come down.”
“Ok, I’m pretty sure everything’s cool down there, but be on the lookout.”
“Ok. We’ll be right there. Uh, Valdar out.” There were snickers from the other end of the communicator, and the last thing they heard was Valdar saying “What?? That’s what you’re supposed to say, dude…”
Lex shook his head at the communicator and tapped in a different frequency.
“Zodor, you there?”
“WHAT?” Zodor shouted. Lyz could hear energy blasters being fired in the background.
“ZODOR? WHAT’S GOING ON?”
“HANG ON A SECOND.” The blasts stopped, and they could hear the faint yelling of Carcanian soldiers. “Lex?”
“Yeah, it’s me. How are you guys doing?”
“Ok, I guess. Just wreaking some havoc from up in the ventilation ducts, like you said. I think it’s going good. Everybody’s going frugging nuts down there!”
“Right on. Listen, we’re ready to go. Meet us in Bay 37. You know what to do.”
“Sir, yes sir!” answered Zodor snappily. “No problem, sir!”
“Shut up and get your ass up here. Lex out.”
Lex turned to the mutants squeezed into the ventilation duct alongside him. “Ok, we’re good to go. Let’s do it!”
Lex removed a panel in front of him and looked down into Spaceport Bay 37. Nothing in it except the glistening silver battle cruiser and 200 packs filled with survival gear. He jumped 20 feet down to the floor, landed agilely on his feet and surveyed the room. Deserted. He started to laugh. “Damn, are they ever stupid.” Glancing at the instructions posted on the wall, he tapped instructions into a small panel on the underside of the ship. As if by magic, a walkway descended from the cruiser.
The rest of Lex’s group dropped to the floor and started loading packs into the silver ship. Lyz, carrying 5 packs at once, was amazed at the stupidity of a battle cruiser captain who didn’t even check the frequency of his communicator to make sure it matched that of his High Commander before blindly following orders. He was almost a drone himself.
A ventilation duct panel crashed down onto the floor, followed by Valdar and his group.
“Hey now!” exclaimed Valdar, doing a double take at the Carcanian battle cruiser. “Sweet ride!”
“Yeah, dude!” replied Lex. “And it’s all ours. Zodor and his team should be here any second. They’re leaving a little surprise for the Carcanians.”
“What kind of surprise?”
Suddenly Zodor crashed through the ceiling and landed on the floor, followed by several other mutants and a few dead Carcanians who looked as though they had been used as blaster shields. Blood dripped down Zodor’s face and into his beard. He impatiently wiped it away and stood up. “Well, obviously they found us,” he said.
“Yo, let’s get the frug out of here!” Lex yelled. Everyone grabbed packs of survival gear and rushed up the ramp and into the ship. Lex and some of the other relatively uninjured mutants ran towards the ship’s bridge.
All mutants were predisposed to certain tasks after their initial programming, and the mutants of group 8706 were no exception. Lex instinctively sat in the captain’s chair, Valdar sat at the weapon ops station, Zodor went to the special functions console which controlled the ship’s cloaking device and signal disruptors, and Lyz took command of the main navigation guidance system. Other mutants went to the stations that controlled the ship’s thrusters, life support, intergalactic drive unit and other vital functions.
“Stengya!” Lex shouted to a tall redheaded female. “Give us as much power as you can!”
“Thrusters powering up!!” she yelled back. The ship shuddered as the thrusters were activated. Lyz squinted at the small screen on the console in front of her and hoped that the little triangle facing north represented the ship. What else could it represent? Clenching her teeth, she placed both thumbs on either side of the console and prepared to steer. The ship lifted in the air, and Lyz somehow held it steady.
“Valdar, activate shields!”
“Shields activated,” Valdar said in wonder as he correctly guessed which button to push.
“Do we have weapons?”
“Not yet, the ship needs to warm up.”
“Shit! Zodor, do we have a cloaking device?”
“Yeah, but it kind of works the same way as the weapons.”
“Ship needs to warm up?”
“Sorry, dude.”
“Shit!!! Ok, Lyz, get us out of here!”
“Which way??”
“Take us out a little ways and turn us back towards Q’arap. I want to see what happens.”
Lyz engaged the main navigation system, and then her mind reeled in horror as she realized they had made an incredibly stupid mistake. “Oh my God, we forgot to open the bay door!”
There was a loud explosion from behind the ship, and they all turned around. The aft viewscreens showed group 8705 and their visibly angry commanders pouring into Bay 37, all wielding class-D energy blasters. They began to fire on the ship.
“Ok, everybody prepare for impact!” yelled Lex. Lyz turned toward him incredulously.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You want me to…”
“Just do it! There’s no other way!”
“Just so we’re clear on this, you’re asking me to crash the ship through the bay door, right?”
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”
“Just checking.” Lyz exchanged glances with Stengya, who shrugged her shoulders. “Ok, ready? 1… 2… 3!”
The ship lurched forward. Everybody screamed. Lyz pushed the control lever forward with all her strength. It snapped off. Everybody screamed louder.
And with a spectacular crash, they were free.
Gorvon was pissed.
The High Commander of the Carcanian military ran through the corridors, closely followed by his third in command and other trusted officers. He reached into a pocket of his metallic dark red uniform and grabbed a communication device.
“Resaf! Come in!” he shouted into it.
“Whatever,” came the response, “I’m not falling for this again.”
“RESAF! Check your frugging frequency, you waste of oxygen!”
There was a slight pause, and then “Sir! I apologize, High Commander! We were deceived earlier by an escaped mutant using subversive tactics….”
“I know what happened! Give me your report!”
“The escapees have stolen the Annihilator and forced their way out of Space Bay 37! We’re there now but were unable to stop them.”
“Stand by, you worthless piece of Arzaxican slimemonkey shit!”
“Sir! Yes, sir!”
“Gorvon out!” The High Commander flicked the communicator off and was replacing it in his pocket as they reached spaceport bay 5, where his personal cruiser was located. He pounded the button next to the door, which opened obediently. They raced towards Gorvon’s ship and up the waiting ramp, onto the bridge.
Gorvon took his seat in the richly engraved and softly cushioned captain’s chair. “Did anybody analyze the voice patterns of the freak who had the nerve to try to impersonate me?”
“Yes, sir,” replied a nervous officer. “Lex Dizik, mutant 8706-1, predisposed to leadership.”
“Leadership?!?” Gorvon shouted furiously. “Leadership? We were going to have that freak LEAD a cyborg division?”
“Yes, sir. Any traces of rebellion would have been permanently wiped out by the effects of the final mind programming. Unfortunately that process was never completed due to the disturbance in the MP sector.”
“So what you’re telling me,” Gorvon said slowly as the cruiser’s thrusters shook the ship, “is that we have a cyborg mutant warrior, with superhuman strength, speed and reflexes, who is still in control of his own mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, with the help of an unknown number of other cyborg mutant warriors in control of their own minds, he stole a Carcanian battle cruiser. He was also responsible for the destruction of the mind control subunit and the slaughter of several guards.”
“Yes, sir.” The nervous officer, who had been staring down at the control panel in front of him, now looked up at Gorvon. Knowing the usual fate of Gorvon's bearers of bad news, he cowered in his seat.
Amazingly, Gorvon didn’t shoot him. Instead, he tapped a button on the armrest of the gilded captain’s chair. A steaming blue drink appeared. He took a sip and leaned back in his seat.
“Get me the coordinates of the Annihilator. We’re going after them.”
“Yes, sir!”
Lyz recovered from the shock of the impact quickly and swung the ship out and around until they were facing Q’arap.
“Now what?”
“Just wait,” said Lex.
Without warning, a huge explosion rocked the twelfth moon of Arzax and fiery rifts appeared across its surface. Lyz was awed. Zodor was grinning like a madman.
“It worked!” he said.
“What worked?” asked Valdar, swiveling around in his seat.
“Remember that little surprise I was talking about?” said Lex.
“Aaaaaaah.”
“How about filling the rest of us in?” Lyz asked impatiently.
“Well,” said Lex, “the internal power systems of the CCTP operated at a frequency of 8.796 megagurks. When a class-C Carcanian energy blaster is programmed at the same frequency and set to self-destruct...”
“Holy shit!”
“Exactly.”
The watched as more rifts appeared in the moon’s surface. Suddenly a siren blared throughout the ship.
“What’s happening?” Lex yelled over the din.
“There’s a cruiser approaching, and fast!” Valdar yelled back.
“They’re hailing us!” called the mutant at the communication station.
“On screen!”
The face of High Commander Gorvon appeared on the main viewscreen. He was a tall, heavily muscled Carcanian in his late 40s. His dark purple skin was impressively scarred from years of battle, and this uniform was adorned with badges of rank and “honor.” His black eyes glared at them darkly.
“Lex Dizik and company. Your little escape plan was pointless. You are all going to die.”
“I don’t think so,” Lex answered. “End communication!” Gorvon’s face twisted into an even darker grimace, then disappeared from the viewscreen. His image was replaced with that of a sleek, black and heavily armed black battle cruiser. It was headed straight for the Annihilator. Green laser beams shot out of either sides as Gorvon attacked. The ship shook with the force of the impact, but shields were holding.
“Evasive maneuvers! Lyz, get us out of here!”
Lyz pulled the broken control lever backwards, turned, and the ship shot forward at full speed.
“Valdar! How are we doing with those weapons?”
“Not so good; they’re still offline.”
“Guess I won’t bother to ask about the cloaking device, then. Ok, we need the intergalactic drive unit, and we need it now!”
Machinery whined into life as the drive unit powered up.
“They’re gaining on us!” Valdar shouted.
“Intergalactic drive unit online!” reported the mutant at its control panel.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Lex said frantically. “Go go go!”
With a flash of blinding light, the Annihilator jumped forward through space.
“What happened? Where are they?” screamed Gorvon.
The nervous officer who had addressed his earlier questions about Lex Dizik answered dejectedly. “They made an intergalactic space jump. We lost them.”
Gorvon threw his drink against a bulkhead, where the glass shattered into tiny pieces. They disappeared as the cruiser’s self-cleaning mechanism was activated. No one looked up. Then Gorvon turned to the officer who had answered him.
Officer Natigho could have chosen employment as a Jerithisan wine merchant. He could have operated a brothel on Carcania-4. Instead he had followed his dreams of battle and glory and joined the Carcanian military.
He raised his head and found Gorvon looking at him, smiling almost tenderly, pointing an energy blaster directly at his head. The last thing Officer Natigho thought was “I could have opened a gourmet Daranese restaurant.”
Then the blast.
Then oblivion.
