The planet Araddor drifted quietly, peacefully along its flawlessly elliptical orbit. It shone through the void of space like a bejeweled medallion. The warm pale blue oceans hugged the planet against the cold blackness that surrounded it. The gleaming jade and evergreen of its pullulating continents sparkled with an ebullient madrigal that sang across the galaxy. Araddor was the birthplace of democracy. Settlers had emigrated from the planet and slowly ingratiated themselves into hundreds of other worlds, bringing the notion of republican governance with them. Araddor’s legacy was one of freedom and prosperity. The eyes spread across those hundreds of worlds all looked to Araddor for their lead. How her fortune turned so did the galaxy’s.
Her capital city was Aruluea. It was the sparkling jewel of Araddor and burned brighter in the hearts of the people than a thousand mercury lanterns. It was the cradle of their civilization, the living legacy of its august founders. The founding of the city, and the concurrent founding of the Assembly of States, marked the earnest beginning of Araddor’s history. It was in the original home of the Assembly that the servers for Araddor’s Communication Network were housed. It was in Aruluea, at the Utraxan Bridge, that the mighty nobles of old had repelled the barbarian hordes, turning the tide of the First War, and ensured for future generations the mastery of their collective destiny. It was on the Hundred Steps of the Mint of Aruluea that the Army of the Faithful had defeated the Oligarchs and the puppets they had placed in power. On that day Aruluea had cast off four hundred years of corruption and adopted a system governed by honesty and piety. It was at the heart of Aruluea, at the foot of the Golden Temple of Orhn, where the Army of Araddor’s fabled Ninth Battalion had obliterated eight hundred years of Theocratic tyranny and its commanding officer, the great General Trontaar, had planted the wicked High Priest’s head on a pike. With that noble act, Trontaar had ushered in a bright new age of sagacity and reason. And one hundred years later – to the day, on the very same spot – it had been Trontaar’s great-great grandson Zenofias who signed into law the annexation of the Northern Outliers, making himself the undisputed Sovereign of Araddor and birthing the Five Thousand-Year Peace.
Aruluea was the progenitor of stability and progress, the province of wisdom and strength. All that was right and good flowed through her gates – the lifeblood of the light of the world.
“Awaken.”
Meako Rhoth regained consciousness. His eyes stung as he struggled to open them, but the lids refused to part. Rhoth thought to wipe the adhesive grime of sleep from his eyes. He tried to raise his hand to his face but found his arms unresponsive. His breathing became stunted and confused as he found his legs immobile as well. His head was his only movable extremity. Blind, crippled and barely conscious he sucked in air erratically, desperately attempting to writhe free of whatever bonds were incapacitating him. He wined and cried as he helplessly thrashed about his head to no effect.
Rhoth felt a droplet of warm thick liquid fall upon his lower lip and snatched it with the tip of his tongue. It tasted salty, arid. Only after his tears had lubricated his eyelids could Rhoth identify the liquid to be blood from his eyes. His tears had saturated the dried blood and carried it in rivulets down his swollen lacerated face. He was able to wrench apart his eyelids and see through a pink blurring film.
He was in a dark acrid space, less a room than an architectural mutation. It was a harlequin patchwork of steel, stone, wood and earth. Roots and cables snaked along the windowless walls in equal proliferation. The floor was a solid slab of concrete adorned with the stains of years of spilt bodily fluids. The only source of light was a single blistering halogen lamp overhead.
Rhoth saw no one, heard nothing. Panic set in as he began to hyperventilate and his quivering gasps of protest grew thinner and garroted.
“Calm yourself,” a disembodied voice told him.
Rhoth immediately stopped squirming. His muscles relaxed. His breathing settled to a calmed tempo. His fright erupted, however, when he looked down and saw his body standing freely in the middle of the room, unshackled but nonetheless paralyzed.
Rhoth frantically looked around his cell for the source of the commanding voice. “Who are you?” he shouted in cracking speech. “Where am I? What…”
“Be quiet.”
Rhoth, despite his every effort and intention, shut his mouth.
From beyond the halogen’s penumbra sounded the soft deliberate encroachment of footsteps. A pair of Palatial Guards stepped into the light’s conical spread. The blue of the halogen bounced off the silver of their armor. It died against the black of their rifles. The Guards stopped, but from behind them another set of footprints drew closer.
Into the light stepped Zeno III, 16th Sovereign of Araddor. He was tall, muscular, barrel-chested and even more imposing than he appeared on the ComNet. His thick gray beard blanketed his face. He looked every bit the impregnable human bulwark capable of repelling human invaders and natural catastrophes alike. Draped in the crimson and purple finery of Araddor’s elite and replete with the regalia of the office of Sovereign, the man cut a genuinely mythic figure. Rhoth saw a man of impressive gravity, cunning, and lethality. He watched Zeno approach him with a numbing soupcon of fear, hatred and awe.
The Sovereign of Araddor stopped two feet from Rhoth’s unresponsive body and smiled. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Rhoth,” he said. “I’m hoping I can appeal to your sense of reason with what I intend to propose.”
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