Wandita

Antagonist Short Story - Space Exploration

                        Antagonist GorVon
                       “Space Exploration”


     What looks like a large spaceship suddenly appears near a
green and silver planet. For a few seconds, it continues its
traveling. Then it stops. It’s hard to see whatever it is
because it’s as black Space itself. It even has a little white
on it to indicate stars. A closer look at it shows that it’s an
oval spaceship about the same size as a planet with several
smaller round globes floating a few hundred miles around it.

     GorVon stands in front of a large monitor that has an image
of the silver and green planet on it. He looks over at MaiPun at
communications. “We look too close to this planet. Did we come
out of invisibility too late.”

     “I don’t think so,” replies MaiPun. “It doesn’t appear that
they have detected us yet.”

     “Do they have what is needed to detect us?” GorVon asks.

     MaiPun looks at his control panel in front of him. He taps
a few buttons before he returns his gaze at GorVon. “They are
still the first stage of life planet during their violent part
of it. There’s no way they can know we are here.”

     GorVon looks over at JunNai at research. “This is the
correct planet, isn’t it? It looks different than the long
distances images of it.”

     JunNai doesn’t take her eyes off the small monitor in front
of her as her fingers continue to tap away at her control panel.
“It’s Rudith. This is just their cold time of year. The other
images were taken during their hot part of the year when their
planet is blue and gold from Space.”

     “As for how many there are, there are about two million
Rudiths on it.” JunNai taps a few buttons before she continues.
“There shouldn’t be any problems with us taking them over.”

     GorVon walks over and stands behind JunNai. He looks over
her at what she’s looking at. “Rudith is the closest planet to
Baindora, isn’t it?”

     “It is,” says JunNai. JunNai glances up at GorVon. “If we
float up a few hundred miles above it we will be able to see
Baindora from here.”

     “No need to do that,” responds GorVon. “We will be able to
see it very clear once we take over Rudith.”

     GorVon looks over at Rudith on the main monitor. “Anything
new about Baindora we don’t already know from our long scans?”

     JunNai returns to her monitor and control panel. “No, there
is nothing new. They’ve just started Space exploration. They
have only landed on their three uninhabitable rocks. At least
that’s what they call it. Most planets call them moons. They
have also sent Baindoraians to two of their nearest planets. One
planet is nearest their Sun. The other one is slightly behind
Rudith.”

     “Any reason why they haven’t come to Rudith?” GorVon asks
MaiPun after starting to walk toward him.

     MaiPun responds without taking his eyes off his monitor and
control panel. “According to their communications they haven’t
done it yet is because the other two are more advanced than
Rudith is. Studying those two planets secretly is a lot more
interesting to them.”

     “How advanced are they? Are they advanced enough to be
taken over?”

     Before MaiPun can answer those questions, JunNai answers
them. “Both of them are about the same. They have just started
their advancement. Neither one has even considered space travel
yet. It’s probably going to be at least another fifty years
before they need to be taken over.”

     MaiPun clears his throat loud enough to get everyone’s
attention. “I just heard something from Baindora. They have
decided to study Rudith after all. They’re sending up some
watchers in a few hours.”

     GorVon smiles evilly. “Good to hear. It’s perfect timing
for us taking over Rudith. When can get the Baindoraians to tell
us all we need about their world before we take it over.”

     Whether it’s a spaceship or something else suddenly grows
to twice its size. It starts moving slowly toward Rudith. As it
moves the front of it opens like it’s a gigantic mouth. The
inside of it looks like a small Sun surrounded by several dozen
visible barely seen planets. After it engulfs Rudith completely
the opening closes again. A few seconds later it shrinks down to
original size and changes its appearance to look like Rudith.

     “The Baindoraians are on their way here right now,” says
MaiPun. “They should be landing here in about twenty-five
minutes.”

     “That’s if they land,” says GorVon. “We don’t know how they
do their studying. It might be from their spaceship.”

     GorVon takes his eyes off the main monitor that now shows a
small spaceship on it and walks toward JunNai. “Do we know how
they studied the other two planets?”

     “According to what we have found and heard, they have done
both. First, they do it from Space for a few days. Then they
split up to study different parts of the planet.”

     “How do they do that?” GorVon asks.

     JunNai starts tapping her control panel and looking up at
her monitor every few seconds. About a minute later she stops
and looks at GorVon. “We don’t know exactly how they are doing
it, but it’s probably something like what we do. The only real
difference is that they use things on the planet like mountains,
water holes, or buildings to hide what they are really doing
there.”

     “Any idea how many Baindoraians are on that spaceship?”
GorVon asks.

     “I have already scanned that spaceship,” says JunNai.
“There are about fifty of them on it. The four who control it
seem to be the ones in charge there. If anyone can tell you
want, you want to know about Baindora it’s probably one or more
of them. As for the rest of the Baindoraians there, they appear
to be the watchers.”

     GorVon thinks about it for a few minutes. “We can’t wait
for them to land on Rudith. The sooner I get what I need the
better. Take them over now too.”

     Rudith opens to reveal its core deep in it. The Baindoraian
spaceship starts to turn away from it. It only gets a quarter of
the turn before a beam of red light comes out of the opening to
stop it from moving anymore. A few seconds later it’s pulled
into Rudith. Once it’s inside the opening closes again.

     “Bring the four in charge to my questioning rooms,” says
GorVon who is looking at the Baindoraian spaceship as it lands
on a small rock ledge. “The others you already know what to do
with them.”

     GorVon gets up and heads for the entrance that slides open
as he approaches it. It slides back shut after he leaves the
room. A few minutes later GorVon is sitting behind six monitors
with the same interior in each one of them. Four of them have a
different Baindoraian in it. “I think I will let them worry
about what has happened to them and what is going to happen to
them now.”

     After leaning back in his chair, GorVon smiles. GorVon
continues to watch the four occupied monitors. First, he watches
them all together. Then he looks at each monitor one at a time.
His smile gets even bigger as he sees how nerves and scared they
are getting. He smiles as all of them get up out the only thing
in that room, a metal chair, and start pacing around that tiny
room. Mumbling to themselves as they do it. GorVon can listen in
on their mumbling, but he prefers to get what he wants out of
them the most painful way he can think of.

     About an hour later GorVon goes to the question rooms to
talk to the Baindoraians. He leaves the first one. GorVon walks
to the next entry as it slides open the screaming and yelling
can still be heard coming from the first one. As GorVon enters
the second one a female throws both fists at him. First one and
then the other one. He easily avoids them both.

     GorVon pushes the female Baindoraian toward the chair in
the center of that room. “Sit down. We have a lot to talk
about.”

     The female stumbles as she heads for the chair. She almost
misses it but catches the arm just as she’s falling. GorVon
pushes her arm toward the direction of the chair she finally
sits in. Suddenly a thin wire traps her arms to the arms of the
chair from the wrist to the inside elbow joint. It looks like an
animal twisting itself around her arms. The same thing happens
to her legs too. Only the wire animal only goes up to her knees.

     “What was that screaming that I heard when you first came
in here? Why are we here?”

     “That screaming was coming from you fellow Baindoraian. I
tried to ask him a few questions, but he didn’t want to answer
any of them. He didn’t even want to tell me his name.”

     GorVon walks around her. She follows his movement as best
she can with her head. “I’m hoping you will be more willing to
answer my questions.”

     “What are you going to do if I don’t want to answer them
either? Are you going to make me scream too? You can’t do that.
I’m a female.”

     “Of course, I can. I do it all the time to everyone who
doesn’t answer my questions.”

     The female does look scared, but she also looks angry. “I’m
not going to answer any of your questions either. So, you might
as well kill me now too.”

     GorVon smiles evilly. “Oh, your fellow Baindoraian isn’t
dead yet. He just hopes that he is.”

     “There are a lot of ways for you to answer my questions.
You can do it the easy way or my way. Which is very painful.
Just ask your fellow Baindoraian.”

     The female thinks about that for several minutes. “What
have you done with the others on our space shuttle?”

     GorVon’s evil smile gets even bigger. “They have already
been killed. You will be too once you are finished answering all
of my questions.”

     “If you are going to kill me anyway, why should I answer
any of the questions? That’s if I can answer any of them.”

     “There are almost as many ways for you to die than there
are ways to make you answer my questions. It all depends on how
long it takes you to do it.”

     GorVon’s smile turns into a frown. “As for you not being
about to answer them, you might not know all the details, but
you will be able to answer them.”

     “I want to know all there is to know about the weapons
Baindora has, especially your space weapons. Also want to know
about what kind of fighters that you have. We can’t take you
over if we don’t know who you are.”

     “Why do you want to invade us? We haven’t done anything to
you.”

     GorVon’s evil smile returns. “You have done something to
me. You’ve ventured out into Space. If you are advanced enough
to that then you are a threat to me.”

     “We aren’t any threat to you. We’ve only started exploring
Space. If you really want an advanced planet, you should take
over the planets not too far from here. There are nine of them.
the one in the center of the other eight surrounding it is the
main planet.”

     “How do you know about these other planets if you are just
starting to explore Space?” GorVon asks.

     The female thinks about that for a minute. “We sent out
Space Recorders almost fifty years ago in all directions. That's
how we know. We’ve never actually been to those planets.”

     “Why are you telling me about this planetary system? If it
to stop me from taking over, your planet it isn’t going to work.
All you have done is given me someone else that needs to be
taken over.”

     A few hours later GorVon and his assistant, WenDei, are
standing on a floor above a large group of about two thousand
other males and females who are looking up at them from the
floor below. GorVon and WenDei step to the end of their floor,
but it’s GorVon who talks to those below.

     “I have just found out that there is a planetary system not
too far from here that we need to take over. What I want you to
do is go there and find out all that you can about them before
we get there. We still have the Baindorians to take over. So, we
won’t be going there for a few months. That should be plenty of
time for you to learn all there is to know about them.”

     As GorVon and WenDei leave and start walking down a long
corridor, WenDei has a couple of questions for GorVon. “Have you
decided how we are going to approach these planets?”

     “I’ve been thinking about that. I think I will use a small
SpaceCity to do it with them. That should get us close enough
before they know what is about to happen to them.”

     “Have you decided on what kind of weapon we will be using
against them?” WenDei asks.

     GorVon stops and looks at WenDei. “No, I haven’t. I’ll
decide that once we know all about them.”


                       Word Count = 2,233