Suddenly Aliens #original_content #scifi

WARNING: Impromptu scifi

 

“Two minutes past nine,” warned Artsakemi, caressing Nenksare’s uraeus with her sleek, forked tongue.

“Wait... Wait...”

Nenksare let out a raucous pant, brushing his face over Sitrisys’ neck. Her scales were smooth and oily, permeated with a pungent perfume. Nenksare closed his eyes, trying to exclude the impeding obligations looming over his head, and squeeze one last minute of pleasure out of that morning. He further tightened his coils around Sitrisys’ body, making her hiss in delight, but it was no use: the moment was gone; he could not manage to concentrate any longer.

He let out a long sigh, which turned into a grunt of frustration as he slid away from Sitrisys’ warm body, and gave a poisonous stare at his second wife. Artsakemi answered with a tender smile and a guilty look, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Can’t be late today, Excellency,” she justified herself. Her oval face bore the angular features of royalty, with narrow lips and bright, yellow eyes, while her scales shared the olive and sand-colored patterns of Nenksare’s own hide. Whenever he observed her, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had picked her specifically because she looked so much like him.

“Don’t the gods need to at the very least look at their chosen ones before blessing them?” she kept teasing him, scratching the outer auricle of Nenksare’s reddish uraeus.

“Yes, yes...” he answered, tiringly waving his hand at Sitrisys so that she would unwrap herself from him and slide away. She was younger than Artsakemi, smaller, with thinner and weaker coils, yet she had the most wonderful emerald shade of scales that Nenksare had ever seen on a She’ses.

Nenksare let his gaze wander aimlessly through the decorated bedroom, filled with pillows, carpets of red and gold, and hissing steam pools; he then shivered the residue of torpor from himself, and slithered away from his wives and towards the closest basin of hot water.

As he cleaned himself, Artsakemi and Sitrisys recovered his regalia and started to gently dress him up with his various necklaces, jeweled rings, and golden armbands.

“You’re frowning,” commented Artsakemi as she carefully painted his face. “Are you still upset, Prince?”

“Yes,” Nenksare absentmindedly answered, looking at his reflection on the closest mirror. “Although not for what you think. My sleep has been troubled by ominous visions.”

“That’s terrible,” exclaimed Sitrisys, holding Nenksare’s hand as she polished his fingernails. “What did the Gods show you?”

“I’ve yet to determine it,” he answered, flinching uncomfortably on the perch he had wrapped himself around.

“All the more reason to perform the rituals in a timely fashion,” cautiously suggested Artsakemi, tracing a black line below his eye, “isn’t it, Nenksare?”

“Hmpf. Maybe.”

Artsakemi could have been right: the Ascension was a delicate procedure; a single anomaly amongst the chosen ones could result in a world-spanning investigation. It was enough to make Nenksare tense every time.

And yet, he thought, it’s not this much... I think. Not usually.

Nenksare blinked a few times, gave himself a final look on the mirror, satisfied with his wives’ work, and then he slid towards the door.

 

“Blessings of Mekseret upon all of you, my pupils.”

At Nenksare’s words, many of the She’sesi in the control room bowed their head and hissed their thanks.

The ambient was even warmer than Nenksare’s chambers, almost to an annoying degree: the clerics needed to work at top efficiency and in order to do so their blood temperature was kept as high as possible. Unfortunately, being forcefully pushed into complete wake only made Nenksare more anxious. He quite enjoyed remaining at least one fourth asleep: it made him feel more connected to the Netherworld.

This day is simply not starting well...

A large holograph of Drutha’s orbit dominated almost half of the otherwise dull room. The gray and cracked plains of that barbaric world, covered in the candid stripes of clouds, were a remarkable sight to say the least.

To Nenksare, that planet was source of as much pride as it was of stress.

“High Priest,” addressed him one of the clerics, crawling down from one of the top perches to hand him a tablet with the last report on the impending Ascension. “You honor us with your presence.”

“Of course.” Nenksare gave a bored glance at the virtual wall of text brought under his eyes before passing the tablet back to the cleric.

“The chosen ones are inbound, Your Excellency,” the cleric explained after a pause. “They’ve already reached the palace, and are being brought to the processing room, so that you may examine them.”

“Good,” dryly commented Nenksare. “Send orders to start awaking them. It’ll spare us time. And have our breakfast delivered to the processing hall.”

The sooner this will be over, the better...

As he turned his eyes on Sitrisys, who was silently waiting by his side, his wife gave him an encouraging smile. As much as he wanted to believe that his bad mood was entirely the result of his preternatural visions, Nenksare couldn’t deny that, the more time it passed, the more he felt annoyed that the ritual had forced him to interrupt his business with Sitrisys. Maybe it wouldn’t have bothered him as much had she been already pregnant, like Artsakemi, but that was not the case.

“Your Excellency...” The cleric’s call disrupted those menial thoughts and forced him to focus back on his duty.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Ambassador Xoltecatl has been very insistent about his desire to join you for the ritual today, and-”

The cleric had not even completed the phrase that Nenksare was rolling his eyes in exasperation.

“He cannot,” he hissed back. “That is the end of the story. This is a sacred procedure, not some crass spectacle for starcrossers.”

The cleric bowed his head in agreement and slid away, and snapped his fingers to summon a few guards to accompany them.

It must be that obnoxious lizard from the Crescent upsetting my peace of mind, Nenksare concluded to himself as he followed the cleric to the processing room. He has been nothing but trouble since his arrival.

There was little doubt in Nenksare’s mind that his brother had sent that insufferable creature to Drutha’s Star Palace exclusively not to deal with it personally, yet Nenksare knew that he could not simply keep ignoring and antagonizing what could have been a powerful ally in the future.

I’ll worry about this after the Ascension, he assured to himself, I’m sure I can work something to win the graces of that barbarian. Starcrossers are simple creatures after all...

Despite all those many reassurances, Nenksare felt his mood souring more and more as he and his wives moved closer to the processing room.

This is not right, he thought. No mundane worry should upset me so.

If he hadn’t been so tired and bored, he might have tried to reach out with his mind, and see if his divine senses could help him achieve a clearer understanding of that elusive foreboding that was troubling him.

I’m just so annoyed, I could-

Nenksare’s trail of thought was suddenly interrupted as he approached the door to the processing room. He could feel that there was something wrong, a distorted ethereal note banging over his thoughts. It was too much for him to ignore it this time.

“Wait,” he whispered, raising his hands to call the guards to a sudden stop.

“What is it, my Prince?” asked Artsakemi, already with a twinge of worry in her voice. The possible danger had better attuned Nenksare’s divine senses: he could hear that even his wife understood his state of mind. Sitrisys, was more confused, simply looking at him while leaning on his arm.

“Guards first,” he ordered, gesturing at two of the soldiers accompanying them. “Wands at hand.”

“Yes, your Excellency,” the She’sesi promptly answered, readying their weapons and sliding to the doors.

While the guards preceded them, Nenksare glanced back at his wives.

“Stay here,” he said. He could see that both of them were confused and eager for explanations, but he had none to give yet.

“The platform is clear, oh great Prince,” stated one of the guards from the inside. “You may come.”

Nenksare cautiously slid through the door, keeping low, covering behind the body of his cleric aide. His eyes quickly moved through the entirety of the large hall they were overlooking. All the processing pods were there, turned on and ready for use, sprouting from the floor and sparkling with white light, but they were empty.

“Empty?” One look at the cleric was enough to realize that the She’ses was as surprised as Nenksare was of that discovery.

“Call the control room,” he ordered, moving his attention back to the pods. “Isolate the Palace and order them to scan for-”

Nenksare’s voice was abruptly cut off when the lights went off and an automatic alarm started echoing through the corridor.

“What is happening?!” he heard Sitrisys scream. A few rays of light pierced the darkness as the guards promptly turned on the torches of their weapons.

We’re under attack.

Nenksare couldn’t tell if he felt angrier or more scared about that realization. In truth, confusion ruled over all of his sensations at the moment. Who could have dared to attack the Technosethi so close to Zephrek-tan? And what was their end goal?

Whatever it is, it has to do with the barbarian brats, and those cannot be allowed to leave the Palace. They CANNOT.

Nenksare closed his eyes, covered his earholes, and silently invoked the dead gods of Zephrek-tan, increasing the reach of his mind beyond the limits of his physical form, searching for the cause of his tribulations. The alarm was an irritating distraction, but just thinking about what losing the chosen ones would have meant for him gave Nenksare all the resolution that he needed to maintain his focus.

There.

“Two of you,” he called, “escort the consorts back to my rooms. The others with me, quickly. And call for reinforcements.”

The She’sesi obeyed without question, as it was expected from them, and, without a second glance to Artsakemi and Sitrisys, Nenksare separated from his wives and moved with the soldiers through the corridor, heading towards the closest elevator.

He had felt a disruptive presence in the Star Palace. It was coming from one of the secondary hangars, not the central station that was usually employed to welcome chosen ones.

The specimens had likely been detoured there while on their way to the processing hall.

To be smuggled out of the station no doubt.

Nenksare frantically pushed himself forward with his coils, inciting the soldiers to slide faster. That system failure that had left them in the dark was almost certainly intended as a distraction to cover the abductor’s escape, which meant that they had very little time to stop him.

Still no answer from the control room, he thought, pushing the interlink back in the hands of his aide. Nenksare was no expert in technology, but he was well aware that such a pervasive sabotage of their systems was appalling to say the least, and it made him wonder about the possibility of a conspiracy of some sort, plotted by some of his own pupils. Who else but a She’ses could have been able to hack their own systems so thoroughly?

No reason to bother thinking of this now, he chided himself. I’ll extract all I need to know directly from the traitor’s skull.

The She’sesi guards burst into the hangar’s loading room by short-circuiting the lock.

“I’m fine with maimed,” reminded them Nenksare, “but do not shoot to kill. And careful about the chosen ones.”

Nenksare remained close to the door, near one of the guards, while the other two moved inside, scanning the room with their torches.

“Do keep your light always on the loading hatch,” he ordered, addressing the She’ses at his side.

Gods, how long until we get the lights back on?

He could barely see anything outside the illuminated streams of the soldiers’ weapons, shining over old crates and loading machinery. At a first look, what little they could see of the room would have led one to believe that it was empty, but Nenksare did not doubt the efficacy of his own clairvoyance: the saboteur had to be there.

“Keep watch.”

He closed his eyes again, and started to focus, but he was immediately interrupted when a flash of light, so bright to be felt even through his eyelids, startled the troops. Nenksare immediately retracted behind the guard next to him, keeping his eyes closed until the flash subsided. He heard hisses, shots, and the clangs of machinery being put into motion, and, when he finally dared to peek, he saw the loading hatch open, with its carriage in motion, transporting a line of cryopods through it.

The chosen ones!

 Nenksare couldn’t tell if either of the soldiers inside the room had been killed, their lights had went off; the She’ses next to him was still moaning, blinded by the flash, barely managing to keep his light pointed at the loading hatch.

“They’re getting away!” Nenksare complained, shaking the soldier by his shoulder. “Do something!”

He didn’t want to get in that room, or abandon the cover given by the guard’s own body, but he couldn’t let the frozen specimens slip right through his coils.

As he angrily watched the first pods disappearing through the hatch, Nenksare noticed a little shadow, perched on the last of the moving containers.

“There’s the thief!” he shouted, moving the guard’s armed hand in that general direction. “Shoot! Shoot!”

If only I could look at it in the eyes, he thought, I could-

The She’ses, although clearly still dazzled by the flash, finally obeyed, blindly shooting inside the room. The shadow ducked and squeaked, with a repulsively vibrant voice, the kind primates were known for, and it found cover behind the pod that it was carrying it away.

Then, the thief shot back, and Nenksare startled seeing his last guard crawl on the ground, bleeding from his arm.

Nenksare’s first instinct at that point was to retreat and find a safe place to wait for reinforcements. He wasn’t ready for his ethereal travel to the Netherworld yet. However, at the same time, he didn’t want that squealing little monster to gain such an easy victory, and he absolutely didn’t want to deal with all the trouble losing an entire generation of chosen ones would have wrought him.

Shaking nervously, he pushed himself completely on the ground, grabbed the weapon abandoned by the guard next to him, and quickly slithered forward, zigzagging from crate to crate.

Nenksare felt the bang of a couple more shots, but he was so scared that he didn’t even stop to check if he had been hit. He swiftly crawled around some of the dusty machinery, and suddenly jumped forward, pointing the torch of his wand against the creature. He shot two laser bolts at that bald primate covered in leather, but with little success.

He caught a glimpse of the little humanoid smirking, winking at him, and sticking out its obscene flat tongue as it was being carried through the cargo hold.

In a last desperate attempt to stop it, Nenksare lunged forward, trying to cover the distance between the two of them, but the hatch sealed itself before he could pass through.

He had lost them all.

 

 Go to Part 2: https://www.minds.com/blog/view/685429467446779912