The Silence of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (book recommendations website txt) 📕

The few remaining members of Samael kept asking for new orders, and there were none.

- "How little does a man need to be happy?," asked Doom rhetorically, "Oh, how I miss you old rascals. It was a golden time for all of us - a lifetime long buried in the past!"

Then his criminal mind got the interesting idea of doing some things for the Cerberus outpost commander. That way the infamous Commander Brutus was always one step ahead of the rest.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: THE SECRET OF CERBERUS

Of course, Brutus had cremated Von Blask for a number of reasons - some of them, for example, were that his possible identification by third parties would bring him to the attention of the Galactic Federation, which could easily realize what Brutus was up to.

The Commander remembered everything that had happened in all the time he had been in charge of this colony - so much grief and suffering. The buried human soldiers who longed for freedom but would never make it back to their birthplaces on Earth.

Brutus liked to sing an interesting song to himself:

"I see, here and there,

Sin great on every vord[1],

Side by side here we are,

Like boats on some shore!

No noise, no sound!

Who buried these,

I know not, but I know Charon - not far off!

After him, Haumea - a haven for new life!"

The song was nonsensical, but inspiring awe in the others for being so colorful. He who was not acquainted with the strange character of Brutus knew not what might happen!

Soldiers were picked especially when something special had to happen.

To cover up his crime, Brutus prepared something interesting - the Earth Federation was expecting some very specific data about his transgressions.

So much pain had gathered in his eyes, and he remained the same predator. Secretly, he dreamed of getting out and going to Haumea. His desire was stronger than anything he could wish for.

To be among "his own" no longer pleased him. He felt his forehead once - as if someone had written some secret symbol in invisible ink. Someone who knew Brutus better than himself. And that someone knew his hour would strike soon. Darkness had enveloped the commander, and he struggled desperately to avoid the retribution that was coming.

- "Where are my former friends now?," he spoke somewhat strangely. - "Some of them are gone from this world too soon! And they might still have lived!"

The ancient scriptures spoke of death in strange gibberish. According to the Egyptians, there were two kinds of life force - Ka and Ba. One remained in the body at the moment of death, and the other afterwards.

Brutus knew the legends of the Styx River floaters. He was aware that there would be judgment and sentence in the underworld realm. But he feared he was a mere mortal, and as such had the bitter experience of suffering. Surely he would be sent straight to Hell!

In his colony death was ubiquitous. Too many people had died, and some of them were just doing their daily duties - as helpless as cattle hired to do a job without pay.

Women in Cerberus' outpost were scarce and even downright lacking, and it was something that could be felt in the lack of affection and the haggard faces of the soldiers populating the colony.

- "I am a happy slave to power," Brutus spoke to himself, "In all the years I have been here I have seen the face of death in its purest form. No one was forgiven nor mourned. Every one of those recruits was infamously forgotten! Forever!"

Brutus then set about sorting out his thoughts - what would be the eventual course of events with Von Blask?

Yes, he still didn't know about his mysterious killer, which worried him. He had learned though that Von Blask was an impressive fighter who had never lost a fight. But there were all sorts of rumors floating around the colony. And that meant that hidden forces had begun to hover around the commander.

Brutus went to inspect the cremation ward, where there must have been some ashes left of the sufferer.

Building a crematorium in open space was no easy task and Commander Brutus was proud of his accomplishment.

The body was undergoing a special treatment designed to erase all possible traces of its demise.

After Von Blask's remains were launched into open space, the commander breathed a small sigh of relief. But that feeling was fleeting. He had the feeling that someone was watching him and soon he would be next.

Erdemon Bonks was the second man after Brutus who was in a position to impose his will in his absence. Sometimes the commander had a habit of disappearing off somewhere, and he was only preparing his march to Haumea. Not that he intended to stay there forever, but this place was convenient for another reason. There were interesting places beyond the Kuiper Belt where a sustainable settlement could be established that would fit.

His deputy tried to make his boss shine every time and in the best way to hide some of his vices, and that was more than impressive.

Such a well-baked sycophant should have advanced up the hierarchy quickly enough, and that was exactly what happened - Erdemon Bonks managed to achieve it at the cost of some effort.

The art of being a baked sycophant brought advantage, but it also earned enemies among those soldiers who tried to write letters of complaint to the Earth Federation. Bonks' job was to disorient, fix and crush them and thus keep his boss in power long enough!

[1] A futuristic recruit of the Earth Federation.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: THE COMMANDER'S ESCAPE

Commander Brutus kept one more secret. Besides the fact that the Ervanans had hidden ten whole ships under the ice of Charon, they had built a small underground city on Haumea. But this important detail was known only to him.

The underground facilities were at least a hundred earth meters deep, and there were tons of solid rock above them. Yes, the Ervanans had built this Knowledge Center, which was supposed to help them learn more about human civilization.

Soon Brutus became very valuable to them, and they gave him enormous power. Every thing that came into the colony in arms, or every valuable find of the smuggling syndicates, was telepathically described by Brutus, and sometimes he had to travel to Haumea to bring them some valuable exhibits. It wasn't that they couldn't use quantum teleportation, which was the ideal solution for transporting disembodied objects through space, but they wanted to test his loyalty. And Brutus didn't fail once. He was giving his all, but also getting excellent things in return. At first, they revealed to him some of the details they had learned about the human race. Brutus was aware of some of Korolan Bru's plans before any more high-ranking associates were instructed to implement them.

One of those plans was precisely the exploration of Proxima B, where the Ervanans were hiding!

The Ervanans communicated through telepathy, but this communication was not as rudimentary as transmitting information from point A to point B. A parapsychic phenomenon such as it could of course be augmented by appropriate training, and Brutus regularly practiced his skill.

Telepathy could also be developed when two or more people coexisted. It was for this reason that Brutus had spent some time on Haumea in the Undercity of the Ervanans. In this way the Ervanans could communicate with Brutus and the information transmitted was independent of so-called space-time.

Many would question how big this city was and how they had built it, but that was a bit of a peculiar question. Let's clarify that the Ervanan battlecruisers had special probes that could do this job and quite a few other things.

There wasn't much room to build on Haumea, so underground facilities were preferable to the alien space race.

The foundations that were laid on the rocks were of neon alloy.

After building what they called kuvuneri[1], where a certain number of Ervanans could be housed, they proceeded to the next stage of building the structure that would envelop and insulate them from the cold. They used a Zemonari lining, which, when placed over the neon alloy, did not give off heat to the environment and thus protected them from the cold.

The Ervanans had promised to house their secret agent Brutus for a while, and he would provide them with some interesting benefits. For instance, the heomon pump for water extraction, which was a marvel of engineering thought.

The Ervanans had built a settlement that could hold approximately three hundred soldiers to survive the conditions of this harsh world.

On one of his last journeys, one of the enemy's old warriors who had stayed with his fellows told him through telepathy, as Brutus did not understand their language. It was not that he did not know a single word, but in general he found it difficult to pronounce some of the squeaky sounds peculiar to their race, though they had a masculine timbre and sometimes resembled guttural human speech.

A warrior is known, not by his race or descent, but by his merits on the field of battle! Morality is the determining factor! You earthlings have a rather hazy idea in this regard! You regard us as a cosmic scourge, but it may turn out after a while that the monsters you imagine us to be turn out to be yourselves!

Brutus pretended not to hear this remark, which he could hardly tell from its tone whether it was malicious or neutral. There, somewhere in the back of these creatures' minds, lurked an insurmountable barrier that he would likely never, ever unravel.

An Ervanan could live an average of about three hundred years, if not more, which was three whole human lifetimes. Their height was slightly above average for humans, and they were physically comparable - perhaps even with a slight edge for Earth humanoids.

After that night, upon Cerberus' return, he began to consider how to finally escape

One night, Brutus simply ran away. He had staged everything in a way that would draw everyone's attention to Von Blask's mysterious killer.

He knew that a scoundrel of the rank of Erdemon Bonks would do his best to take his place, given that the Earth Federation had promised - albeit implicitly - to eliminate Brutus at the first opportunity and he would follow the fate of Venrol Zeke, who had headed Cerberus' outpost before him.

- "So my escape will speed things up