The Beast

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

I couldn’t hear our men scream, but I could see the terror on their faces as they were ejected from the airlock and shot into the abyss of space.

Instead of surrendering, I made a foolish attempt at charging the Imperial soldiers holding their weapons on us.

I was knocked unconscious by the butt end of a laser rifle. My brother and half of my family were incinerated on the spot.

I wake up to the sound of the transport ship’s rumbling engines half a galaxy away from my home on Erde II. My first concern is for Ilsa.

“Where’s my wife?” I ask aloud.

The refugee next to me, a bearded, heavy-set man with a ready smile, leans forward on his bunk.

“So, sleeping beauty is finally awake.”

I look around the sparsely decorated transport ship. There are dozens of bunks stacked on top of one another with men sitting in them, conversing, sleeping, or crying. They all wear the same worn, dusty clothes. Many look as if they haven’t bathed or eaten in weeks and probably haven’t.

“Where are the women and children?” I ask.

“On a separate ship.”

“And Ilsa…Is she…?”

“She might still be alive. They haven’t executed anyone since we took off.”

“But I’m not a revolutionary,” I say.

“You’re a Hebron, and that’s enough. All Hebrons are now considered enemies of the Imperial Regime. What’s your name?”

“Dorian Donovan.”

“I’m Tobor Sokolov, from Saros. Apparently, we Gypsums are also considered enemies of the Regime. They’re sending us to the Duchfall refugee camp, the coldest, bleakest moon in the Regime.”

As we land on Proxima Centari we crowd around the same small window. As the guards march us to the barracks, I look up at the bright twin moons of Castor and Pollux. The two moons appear to be so close to one another that they practically touch, yet they’re far apart, just like my Ilsa and I.

There are at least thirty other Hebrons in the barracks. Hebrons are looked upon as the educators, politicians, and financiers of our society. Most of the men are like me, fair-skinned with blonde hair. There are many Gypsums here as well, marked by their swarthy complexion, inky black hair, and dark eyes that typify an adventurous, free-wheeling race of nomads. Their descendants and ours left Earth a century ago to avoid racial injustice and war, landing on Erde II.

Both races have lived for centuries in harmony with the Imperialists, status-hungry elitists who believe the Federov family should continue to govern the regime. But since the Imperialist King Constantin Federov has taken the throne of Erde II, his passion for acquiring territory and exterminating races he feels are inferior has become an obsession that has led to war. In the midst of negotiating a lasting peace, Constanin’s spaceships attacked key cities in the Regime. In a matter of weeks, Imperialist troops overran hundreds of Hebron and Gypsum settlements, taking control of our galaxy.

Most of the guards are Volks. They’re an abomination, with hard, metallic android bodies and humanoid brains. They were created with good intentions to preserve society’s great minds. But the King gave the military the technology to create a race of robot brutes with a talent for sadism.

Holstein is the head guard. Before his brain was pressed into a 6’ 6” suit of armor, cancer victim Marvin “Chuckles” Holstein was a lovable clown on a children’s show. He was chosen for the program by King Constanin, who hates clowns.

I am taken to a dark, dank room and questioned. The guards take great pleasure in interrogating me, insisting I know where the revolutionists are hiding. They kick in my ribs and blacken my eyes, beating me for twenty-four hours. Thinking about Ilsa keeps me from giving in to the pain.

Ilsa, my love... I met her when she was performing with a group of street musicians. I told her how I admired her playing, even though I didn’t know the difference between a violin and a fiddle. She was twenty, with wavy raven hair, a lithe figure, and dark intoxicating eyes. My parents reminded me I was twenty-four, still young, and I shouldn’t fall in love with a Gypsum because they’re irresponsible. But Ilsa is different. She’s devoted to her music, although I worry that her goal of playing in the great halls throughout the Regime is the dream of a naïve little girl.

We were only married for a month when the Imperial soldiers broke down my parents’ door.

Three days after our arrival, the guards herd us outside. Our thin clothing is insufficient to protect us from the frigid atmosphere. I’m still nursing my cuts and bruises, but I‘m overjoyed to see Ilsa again. She’s never looked more beautiful, even though she’s exhausted, her almond-shaped eyes are wide with fear and she’s caked with dust.

She turns to me, saying, “Give me strength, Dorian. Hold my hand.”

“Stay strong, Ilsa,” I say. “We may have to suffer, even sacrifice our lives in order to help the rebels preserve our way of life.”

Pushing, cursing, the brutish guards assemble the prisoners into rows. I’m aghast at how many people are here from our town. Old, young, children, babies – everyone has to stand in the cold as the wind tears at our faces.

They make us stand at attention for hours. I watch from the corner of my eye as Siobhan Reid, my late mother’s best friend, shivers and groans, falling to the ground.

“GET UP!” a guard shouts, pounding the butt of his laser gun against her face.

He turns the dead woman’s face into an unrecognizable expanse of gore.

Nessa Craven, six months pregnant, is the next one to fall to the ground. Her young son bends down to help her.

The Volks beat them both until the barren, sandy ground is dyed red with their blood. Then they take the seeping bodies and toss them on the commander’s porch for everyone to see.

Holstein announces in a droning, expressionless voice, “All traitors of the Imperial Regime will be eradicated. Obey, and you will be spared. Lie, resist, or disobey and…”

Holstein kicks both bodies off the porch. They roll in the dust, lying at our feet.

After five hours, our clothes are brittle from the cold and many of us have no feeling in our feet.

“I wonder when the Beast will come out of his lair?” the man next to me whispers.

I recognize him as Aiden Dennehy, a revolutionary sworn to topple the regime. He’s like most extremists, young, wild-eyed, and angry.

“The Beast?” I ask.

“Manfred Everhardt. He and his troops killed over two thousand of us at the battle of Annenberg. They chased us all the way to the sea. He sent a message to our commander saying he’d be eating his liver by suppertime.”

“So, you surrendered?”

“Everhardt never offered us the opportunity. When he captured us, he disemboweled our commander with a knife. The only concession he made was cooking his liver before he ate it.”

“The act of a ruthless savage,” I reply. “Is he a Volk?”

“No. He’s a Gypsum.”

“Then why is murdering his own people?” I ask.

“Revenge,” Aiden replies. “His father was the head of a rich Gypsum clan. His uncle murdered his parents when he was a little boy. He was forced to live on the streets but tracked down his uncle and his conspirators one by one. He was a wanderer, an assassin for hire when got into a fight with an Imperial guard, killing him. The judge took a liking to him. Instead of being executed, he was made one of the King’s bodyguards.”

“And then he worked his way through the ranks.”

“Yes. He’s an excellent commander and strategist. But his savagery comes from the injury he received during the siege of Saint Augustine,” Aiden says. “When the city was about to fall, a group of resistance fighters staged a counterattack. They got close enough to throw homemade bombs at Everhardt’s tank. He was struck in the face by one of the bombs. It melted away the left side of his face. From that point on, he took no prisoners and became the Regime’s most celebrated killer.”

“It’s ironic that a soldier who doesn’t believe in taking prisoners is now in charge of guarding them,” I say.

“The Regime’s allies took exception to his tactics of beheading innocent families and impaling their heads on pikes, vaporizing old men and women, and burning children alive. His acts were too barbaric, even for the Imperialists. So, for the time being, the Beast is caged here,” Aiden replies. “As long as he’s here watching us, we have a chance to win the war.”

Colonel Manfred Everhardt steps out onto the porch to audible gasps. His form-fitting black uniform is crisp and festooned with medals. He points at a group of old men, cripples, and pregnant women, turning his face to the left so we can see its deformed appearance.

The Volks lead them away.

“Where are they taking them?” I ask Aiden.

“To die,” Aiden whispers.

A frightened boy drops to the ground, clutching at an old woman’s leg.

Everhardt steps off the porch, drawing his laser pistol.

Grinning, his bright white teeth bulging out of his missing jawline, he kicks the boy in the ribs.

“Get up!” Everhardt yells. “Get up now!”

“No! I don’t want my grandma to die!”

“Then you can join her.”

Everhardt fires his laser pistol. For a moment, the boy lights up like an x-ray, then turns into ashes floating toward the hard ground.

Turning towards us, Everhardt screams, “I WILL NOT BE DISOBEYED!”

A sweet vanilla-like smell soon pervades over the camp. Prisoners are being executed.

Everhardt notices Ilsa. He also sees that I’m holding her hand.

He moves like a coiled cobra, slithering toward us.

Everhardt looms over us, a wall of a man with square shoulders and big, roughly hewn hands.

He reaches out, cupping Ilsa’s chin.

“Who is this beautiful creature?”

The right side of his face, as handsome as a fallen angel, beams at Ilsa.

I only see the left side, the melted death mask.

“You may speak.”

“Ilsa. I’m Ilsa Ivanova.”

He turns her head from side to side, inspecting her.

“Gypsum?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Revolutionary?”

“No.”

“Smart answer.”

He casts his wolfen left eye at me.

“And you?”

“Dorian Donovan.”

His gloved hand quickly smashes against my skull. My knees buckle. I stagger, but somehow remain upright.

“I DID NOT GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO ADDRESS ME!”

I let go of Ilsa’s hand. I didn’t know it then, but it would be the last time we ever touched.

When my senses clear, I see the Beast has his paw drawn back, ready to strike me again.

“Please…Please don’t hurt him,” Ilsa begs.

The Beast smiles giving us a half benevolent, half malignant grin.

“All right. Not just yet. Are you two married?”

“Yes,” Ilsa answers.

“But you do not share his name. You are either cunning, frightened, or both. What is your profession?”

“Dorian’s a teacher…I’m an entertainer… A violinist,” Ilsa blurts out.

“Ah, a musician,” the Beast says, his polite tone failing to mask his cruel intent.

He offers Ilsa the crook of his arm. “Come with me.”

I pull on his arm, trying to separate them, but I’m unable to move him.

“You can’t do this! She’s my wife!”

Everhardt bares his teeth, the left side of his face becoming a screaming skull.

“YOU MAY THINK THAT I ADMIRE BRAVERY IN MY ENEMIES, BUT I LIVE TO EXTINGUISH IT!”

I charge at him, hoping my fellow prisoners will join my fight. Only Aiden does. He’s gone, incinerated by Holstein before he can take a second step.

I’m too weak to win a fight. I feel the sharp, hard edge of Everhardt’s knuckles as they carom off my jaw and bury themselves in my stomach. I quickly find myself on the ground.

I hear Ilsa say, “No, please, Colonel. I’ll do anything you say.”

“Put that rebel in the isolation chamber,” Everhardt says.

I feel the heavy boots of the guards as they kick me in the ribs and face. Holstein takes a special interest in ruining my privates.

I’m thrown in an unheated box. Even in a sitting position, it’s barely bigger than I am. No food, water, or light for three days. Curling up, shivering, I moan, “Ilsa…Ilsa…”

Strong arms pull me out of the isolation box. I cover my eyes, grimacing as the cold light from the moons of Castor and Pollux explodes in front of my eyes.

Too weak to stand on my own, the guards drag me to the Beast’s lair.

Everhardt turns his hideous features in my direction as he speaks to me.

“Have you learned to be more cooperative?”

I open my mouth to speak, but I have no voice. The word “…Water…” finally ekes out.

Holstein pours me a glass of water. He puts it on the edge of Everhardt’s desk, far enough away so that I have to strain to reach it.

I have to use both hands to corral the glass and eagerly gulp down the water.

"Give him another glass.”

Holstein looks at Everhardt questioningly.

“I said, give him another glass.”

I finish it as quickly as the first.

After my second glass Holstein asks, “Should I destroy the glass, Colonel?”

“What?”

“He is a Hebron, Colonel, vermin.” Holstein drones. “He touched your glass with his lips. Shall I destroy it?”

Everhardt is amused. “Your programming is more thorough than I thought. Very well. Take the glass outside and shoot it if you wish. But leave us alone.”

"So long, Chuckles,” I whisper as Holstein turns to leave.

Looking over his shoulder, Holstein drones, “I am not finished with you, Hebron.”

Everhardt turns the right side, the benevolent side of his face toward me.

“I want you to convince Ilsa to eat.”

"I can’t force her.”

"This is not a subject up for debate. I will make this as simple as possible for your small mind to comprehend. She cannot play for me if she does not eat, and if you do not tell her to do so, I will kill both of you.”

"And if I talk to her and she still refuses?”

“Then I will kill one prisoner per hour until she complies. Few can live with that guilt for very long. Do you love her?”

“Yes.”

“So do I,” Everhardt says.

Laughter slowly churns at the back of my throat. It spills out in loud, mocking guffaws.

When I look again, I see the mutilated left side of Everhardt’s face.

His fist hits my wide-open mouth, breaking my front teeth.

When he pulls his hand away, my teeth are embedded in it.

I feel the blood gushing down my throat.

“No longer laughing I see.”

“You have to have a heart in order to love,” I manage to say before he hits me again.

“HOLSTEIN! BRING ME THE WOMAN!”

The door opens. Holstein pushes Ilsa into the room. Weak, paler than the last time I saw her, Ilsa cowers, dodging my gaze as Holstein shoves her into the chair next to me.

"Tell her,” Everhardt commands.

"You have to eat, Ilsa. They’ll kill our friends if you don’t. Then they’ll kill us.”

Her mellifluous voice is but a whisper.

“I thought you wanted me to resist, to be prepared to die for the cause.”

I sheepishly look up at the mangled side of Everhardt’s face.

"You swore you were not a revolutionary,” he growls.

"We’re not! She’s confused! This isn’t the time to draw a line in the sand, Ilsa. Innocent people will die because of us!”

Ilsa’s voice is weary, yet strong with conviction. “They’ll understand. We can’t let the Imperialists break us. If we do, they’ll erase our history and destroy both our cultures.”

Tears stream down my face. “If I have to make a choice between our people, our cause, and you, I choose you, Ilsa.”

"Enough,” Everhardt commands. “Your decision, Ilsa.”

“No.”

Everhardt calls for Holstein.

“Assemble the prisoners. Have them stand at attention. Pick one of them, a pretty young girl, if there are any left, and vaporize her. Then inform the prisoners that as long as Ilsa refuses to eat, they will die at a rate of one per hour. If she does not agree to eat after six hours, start killing three per hour. Take her back to her room.”

We stand and watch as twelve-year-old Claire Rainey is murdered. An hour later, twenty-five-year-old Maura O’Toole dies.

I hang my head between my knees and wretch.

“That’s right,” a male voice behind me whispers. “Hide. It is your fault Everhardt is killing us.”

"What about your precious cause?” I ask. “What about overthrowing the regime? Does that still mean anything to you?”

“You can’t fight the Regime if you’re dead.”

The man spins me around to face him. Although he’s unshaven and twenty pounds lighter than when I knew him as a cook, I recognize him as my former neighbor, Connor Mahony.

The guards look away as Connor, his brother, and two other men surround me. They curse and spit at me, raining blows down on me.

"You fools!” I shout. “Can’t you see she is braver than all of us! Resistance is your only hope for survival!”

It seems like an eternity before I’m able to stand again. Still bleeding from the beating Everhardt administered, I’m now bleeding from cuts around my swollen eyes and lips.

After four hours and four deaths, the executions stop.

Everhardt and Ilsa come out onto the porch of his office. He has his arm around her waist.

As he speaks to the camp, he tilts the handsome, placid side of his face in our direction.

"I have a reward for all of you. Perhaps now you will understand that your cause is lost, and your fate is in the hands of King Constanin.”

A guard brings out a violin and a chair. Ilsa sits down and begins to play.

Everhardt closes his eyes, swaying side to side, a smile breaking out across his conflicted features.

We all close our eyes, breathing in the intoxicating beauty of Ilsa’s music. For forty minutes, Hebrons, Gypsums, captors, and captives are one.

Later that day, Everhardt gives us extra food and water.

Our ripped mattresses and torn, grimy uniforms are soon replaced. Families are allowed to gather in the yard and visit with one another.

The sweet vanilla smell of men and women being reduced to ashes at the end of laser guns ends.

The guards stop listening to our conversations. It allows me to talk to the others about escaping but worrying about what could happen to Ilsa prevents me from following through. But as long as their stomachs are full, as long as Ilsa plays for them and the Beast shows them the handsome side of his face, I know they’ll stay as peaceful as docile pets.

Ryan Darby, a political leader on Erde II, devises a daring plan of escape and recruits a dozen men to carry it out.

"You should go with us,” he urges.

“I can’t. Not as long as the Beast has Ilsa.”

“She’s lost to you,” Ryan says.

“And your mission is suicide, yet you’re going through with it.”

"We have to try, even if there’s only a small chance of success,” Ryan replies. “We can’t sit on the sidelines while our fellow revolutionaries are dying. Once a month, Holstein and most of the Volks go into stasis to recharge. Tonight’s the night. Their places will be taken by humanoid guards. Humanoid guards can be killed.”

I wake up to the sound of an explosion. The chamber where Holstein and the other Volks are in stasis is on fire, and two dead humanoid guards lie in front of it.

I scramble outside. It gives me immense pleasure to see many of the Volks blown apart like broken dolls. There are wires, bolts, cracked domes, and artificial limbs everywhere. I smile when I hear their automated distress signals drone for help over and over again. I look for Holstein’s body, but sadly, he’s not among the destroyed Volks.

Squinting, waving aside the acrid smoke I see the men running toward the deactivated fence. Rubbing my eyes, I watch as the humanoid guards try to chase down the escaping prisoners.

I notice Everhardt standing on the porch of his office, watching the chaos with bemusement. A female -- my Ilsa -- stands in the shadows nearby.

I remember that whenever Everhardt is happy, someone else is going to be miserable.

"NO!” I shout at Ryan as he and his men cut through the fence.

The escapees run across the field toward the shuttles.

Ryan is the first to be torn to pieces when he steps on a mine. The man next to him has time to turn his head and gasp before his legs are blown off.

Terrified, knowing what awaits them if they turn back, the men continue to run toward the shuttles. Their bodies are torn asunder by mines.

Three men manage to get to one of the shuttles and take off. We’re conditioned not to cheer, but our hearts race as the shuttle speeds away.

It’s blown to bits by a laser cannon stationed on the other side of the planet before it reached the atmosphere.

In my enthusiasm to recruit more rebels, I talk to the wrong men, and I’m betrayed. Holstein is thorough in punishing me. He breaks my jaw and ribs, leaving me to bleed on Everhardt’s porch. “Chuckles, eh,” he rasps, “The joke is on you, Hebron.”

Everhardt comes out to view my prone body. “Tsk, tsk,” he laughs, kicking me hard enough to snap my shoulder and rupture my spleen.

"I promise you new frontiers of pain if you continue to rebel,” he says. “It is only for Ilsa’s sake that I have not turned you into ashes.”

I’m in the infirmary for a month. When I get out, they put me in the isolation chamber for another week.

They think they can finish me. I laugh at their taunts and insults as they smash their rifle butts against the box’s rotten wood to wake me up each morning.

Ilsa’s playing keeps me alive. Even though I can’t see her from inside the box, I can hear her.

When I’m finally released, I’m brought before the Beast.

It’s the first time he looks directly at me, showing me both the beauty and the horror of his features.

He studies me. “I know you think the rebels will win this war, but ultimately, you are doomed.”

"They must be winning for you to say something like that,” I reply.

"It is only temporary. But you and I have a personal battle to finish. You must divorce your wife.”

“Never.”

“As always, you seek to make life harder for yourself. Your wife loves me. She knows she will live a much better life with me than with you. I could have you executed and still marry her. But I do not want her to resent me. She prefers being a divorcee rather than a widow.”

Everhardt pauses, looking over my battered body. “Despite the beatings, the isolation, you still remain defiant. You have been an admirable advisory, teacher, so I will treat you with the respect you deserve. If you divorce Ilsa, I will see to it that you and the men in your barracks are able to leave here. I will give you a shuttle to take to Pollux. Perhaps, someday, your fellow revolutionaries will rescue you.”

Everhardt walks to the door leading off his office. Opening it, he calls for Ilsa.

It’s the first time I’ve seen her in months.

The Beast has turned my love into one of them. Her luxurious raven hair is now dyed blonde, her nose has been shortened, and her body is more voluptuous. Her bright blue eyes are hazy, and her smile is more courteous than radiant.

I hear them whisper to one another as they hold each other.

"When we first met, I couldn’t even look at you,” Ilsa says to him. “I thought I would rather die than be anywhere near you. But you gave me a world filled with art, literature, and music. Now I can’t imagine being apart from you.”

"And I never thought a Gypsum woman would change me. I am a better man because of you, Ilsa. But Dorian not only stands in the way of how I treat your people, he also stands in the way of our love.”

Everhardt turns to face me. “I will give you two a moment to decide,” he says, departing.

I run to Ilsa, desperate to hold her in my arms.

She pushes me away.

"He’s drugged you, brainwashed you.”

“No, Dorian. I really do love him.”

"But he’s a mass murderer. He’s the Beast!”

"He’s also everything you’re not. Do you want to live?”

“Not without you, Ilsa.”

Ilsa shakes her head. “This war has changed us. Perhaps we married so quickly we never noticed our differences. Maybe we never really knew each other to begin with. You say you love me, but you love the thought of revolution more.”

"And you’ve convinced yourself you love him in order to protect me.”

"You don’t know Manfred the way that I do. He loves music.”

“So do I.”

"When this war is over, Manfred can arrange it so I can perform in the most prestigious halls in the regime.”

“He’s lying, Ilsa. Don’t believe him.”

"If I hadn’t met Manfred, I might have stayed with you. But he’s opened my eyes to what it’s like to be a Gypsum and the exciting life we can have after the war. You’re content to be a teacher. It’s a simple, grounded way to live. You want a stay-at-home wife to bear your children.”

“Is that such a horrible life?

"There’s so much more to life than that. With Manfred, I can shoot for the stars.”

“It’s more likely you’ll just be shot.”

That night, Everhardt and Holstein come to our barracks.

"It is time,” Everhardt declares.

I eye him suspiciously. “The last time someone tried to leave, they were blown to bits.”

“The security grid is turned off.”

“Given our history, Colonel, I hope you’ll understand why I hesitate to trust you.”

“Then, by all means, stay. I just received a new directive from the King. He has decreed that all Hebrons and Gypsums at the camp are to be executed.”

“Including Ilsa?”

“Ilsa is my wife.”

Pollux became my new home. There were many new dangers, such as indigenous scorpions that spit acid, large vulture-like creatures that could carry a man off, and three-headed, ravenous wild boars.

An Imperial scout ship crashed landed a few months later. We took our frustrations out on the three surviving crew members, salvaging their provisions and communications system.

We weren’t able to talk to our fellow rebels, but we could monitor how the war was going. Shortly after Everhardt allowed us to escape, everyone in our camp, over 1,500 innocent refugees, was executed. Everhardt was recalled to the front, promoted to General, and given overall command of the Imperial Army. In a matter of months, he killed over 50,000 resistance fighters. Within six months he’d driven us from Erde II. Within a year, he killed nearly every rebel in the universe and the war was over.

For his barbaric gallantry and efficiency, General Everhardt was named First Viceroy to King Constanin, the second highest position in the regime.

He kept his promise to Ilsa. She played in the finest venues in the galaxy, as well as for the King and the royal family.

Over the next four years, the fourteen of us that had left Proxima Centauri became six, while the Imperial Regime flourished and found peace.

Five years after landing on Pollux we intercepted a transmission sent to Imperial outposts throughout the galaxy – King Constanin was dead. Manfred Everhardt was now King of the Imperial Regime.

His coronation was broadcast for all to see. When King Everhardt moved to the podium to accept the royal scepter, his face restored to its striking beauty through plastic surgery, his queen stood nearby, smiling in admiration.

Ilsa, my Ilsa.

Three ships with fifty families landed today, carrying materials for new homes, equipment, and weapons. Their leader, Ryan Darby’s son, shook my hand saying, “Death to King Manfred and Queen Ilsa.”