The glory of a sunrise on fog laden rolling
hills was in stark contrast to the
miserable 'sunrise wake up call' that
greeted the boys the following morning.
Togo, a six and a half feet tall brute of a
Terran man with a shiny bald head, stands
partially hunched over on the grey wooden
slats of the front porch of Building Ten
fiddling with a thin black metallic bracelet
around his muscle bound right arm. The
black metallic bracer ignites with a brilliant blue flash and a metallic liquid
encases Togo's massive fist. He then pulls
back his arm and unloads his heaviest
punch into the sunbleached double doors
of the wooden building. Shred, a deaf man
of equal stature to Togo wearing a tan
denim jacket and matching pants, rips his
baton from its holster on his right hip and
follows Togo's lead through the hole
where the front doors had stood just moments ago. Wooden shrapnel lines the entryway of the building as Togo and
Shred scream and prod the slave children
from their sleep.
"Zro found the carcass of the new skulker smoldering in the Hideki Forest this
morning!" Togo shouted while the boards
creaked and whined below his platemail
covered boots as he paced the floor. "He
wants to know who did it or else everyone
gets punishment quarters and restricted
diet for two seasons!" he continued
angrily but the frightened boys didn't
whisper a word.
"Hmmummtiponkmmm." Shred exclaimed
to Togo while imitating a person
whispering.
"Yes, I know." Togo responded while giving him a sweeping hand gesture as if to brush off his comment. "Zro and the
Dvenin mine overlord will be here in just a
few minutes and someone will confess,
understood?" Togo continued yelling.
"Not a chance." Darrius squeaks from his
top bunk in the back corner of the
building.
"What?! Who said that?!" Togo inquired furiously. "You little worms will do as I say
or you'll get beat!" he screamed. The
dozen or so sleeping slave boys instantly
snapped out of their bunks and were
dressing before Togo could begin another
sentence.
"I think I hear them... coming... right now."
Togo eagerly teased the frightened boys
while the thumping and rusty squealing of
a heavy armored truck approached. The
boys' nerves were at a fever pitch by the
time Zro and the Dvenin arrived outside. Zro, an obtuse, balding, filthy Terran man,
sat perched delicately on a teetering
benchseat mounted within the truck's bed.
Next to him, a near featureless, grey
skinned creature of immense height and
slender build covered by purple and black
silken robes sat with its gargantuan
obsidian eyes wide open staring into the
hole of building ten, as if to pick victims out before moving from the old truck. The
Dvenin are a widely feared and despised
race throughout the galaxy even without
their strange physical appearance being a
factor.
"Bring them outside Togo! Quykig has a surprise for them!" A nasal yet horsed
male voice thunders through the building
as Togo shoves the enslaved teenagers
out the door one by one.
"What happened last night?" Edul mouths
to Darrius. But Darrius just smirks and
winks his dark hewd left eye at Edul.
"Is this all the slaves we have left in this
building, Togo?!" a different, deeper voice thunders from Zro's throat and into the microphone that the fat man is holding.
Zro's blue eyes crossed over his bulbous
nose as the words carried from his
chapped lips. Any new slaves would have lost
their mind when Zro stood, his large gut
stretched out above his spindly legs and
tiny dress shoe covered feet, his limbs
contorted wildly while he slowly floated to
the slightly frosted ground outside the
topless truck. Edul and Darrius, however,
knew that this was a Dvenin control
technique by which the mouthless and voiceless creature is able to communicate verbally with other verbal
beings by taking absolute control of the
symbiote. Quykig had used Zro as his
personal symbiote for years before Zro
became unable to travel due to failing
health.
"Eighteen left since last season's
executions, sir." Togo answered rapidly.
"I must order more." The Dvenin's 'voice'
exploded out of Zro again....