The Executioner of Cobonar XI

You asked if I ever spoke with Adam Strunkow. I did once. Here, at this bar. I was sitting in this very seat. He just walked up to me and asked ‘Do you want to know why?’ and I said ‘Tell me everything.’ It’s not every day you get to hear the galaxy’s most famous vigilante confess. Adam was untouchable. The ever-righteous warrior. The Cobonarian Executioner, as the media nicknamed him.

I was playing it cool. But my heart was pumping, my mind spinning. I wanted to hear everything. As you do now — understandably. So I’m going to tell you all I know.

Cobonar XI wasn’t my first appointment as planetary environmental administrator. A stint as a field agent on Dragonite asteroids got me a job in land administration on Venus Beta. Then I got promoted to head administrator on Cobonar X. A decade later, Cobonar XI was the next step. It was a beautiful planet. Cob X was just a piece of grey rock. Now, Cob XI was a beauty — no wonder it got colonized early. Those coppery-red rolling hills and crystal-clear lakes… All that’s left of them now are photographs. Like this one… Such a lush flora, right? See the forest? It’s all tree ferns — some at least thirty feet tall!

Adam was a third-generation Cobonarian. He saw home where everyone else saw a profitable mining opportunity. Three generations is long enough to set roots. Adam was born to a poor pioneer family. His childhood was probably uneventful, just the day-to-day existential grind of your usual planetary settlers. He lived in a hamlet by the Northeastern Lake Gamma. If you’re familiar with Cob XI’s history, that’s 150 miles from the central quarry, where the drilling began. Well, that’s where it ended, too.

Cob XI shrank by 15% of its mass three earth-years into the mining operations. That didn’t stop us. We kept stripping the planet bare of its ores, taking its lifeblood. Five earth-years in, the geomagnetic polarity dispersed. And you know what happened next. All that’s left of Cob XI’s natural beauty is this picture… and maybe a new asteroid shower from the planet’s leftovers in about a million years.

We have built an empire on the bones of planets, forgetting there once was a pulse, a community, a living ecosystem…

The first murder took place on Cobonar XI. Oh dear… If we’re really talking about it now, I’m gonna need another glass. Sir? Two more whiskeys. Much obliged.

I witnessed the explosion. The ship blasted seconds after take-off. I was waiting in the transporticle to board a ship myself. You know how media speculated how Adam gained the necessary intel — travel plans, organizational structure, departure times, security… No one knows how he pulled it off. But he killed fifteen of the twenty folks on his list in the very first execution: the former governor of Cob XI, both planetary trustees, and the entire C-suite of Darren-Zhang, the holding company facilitating Cob XI’s mining operations.

Did I say execution? Apologies. Of course, I meant murder. I should be more careful not to let my word choice grant a false blessing to Adam’s revenge. He was, after all, a ruthless killer. Though, to be fair, he played the part of his planet’s avenger impressively. I mean, I don’t condone his actions, of course. But he got the point across, don’t you think?

After the explosion, Adam gained a cult following. Remember the Unity Square protests? I had a work assignment at the Galactic Archives on Unity Square that year. No one could leave the building without the safety shield set on maximum density and a bodyguard. Of course, I feared Adam and his followers. All the while, I was growing intrigued by Adam’s story. I read everything I could get my hands on. Why? Maybe out of guilt from being partially liable. Maybe it was survival instinct. Maybe just curiosity. Maybe a feeble attempt at expiating my sins — or the search for information to extinguish the illusion of nobleness of Adam’s quest and confirm he was, after all, an evil-doer, a butcher of the innocent. So I kept searching…

Adam went on to poison the three land brokers hired by the planetary administration that mediated his hamlet’s removal. All three were found dead on separate occasions and different places. But each clutched a photograph of Cob XI in their right hand. This photograph. Numbers on the flip side: 16/20, 17/20, 18/20. A macabre countdown. It was never proven that Adam did it. He moved like a shadow. Some thought he was no longer running the movement he — perhaps unknowingly — started. Was it outgrowing him? Were the executions the works of a nascent terrorist network? No one knows.

But back to the point — I saw him. I spoke with him at this very bar. I offered him whiskey and drank to his health. I listened to his every word. People can’t believe the truth because it’s unbelievable. It still is true. It was all the work of a single man driven to unbelievable actions by his quest for vengeance and justice. Adam fully believed he and his planet were wronged and was determined to get justice.

The nineteenth victim was the head of military operations on Cob XI. As you know, he was shot in the forehead at his home on Ganymede. A photo in his hand, 19/20. There were signs of struggle and blood on the floor — which the authorities claimed was confirmed to be Adam’s. How did Adam breach the security system? No one knows. And how badly was he injured? Did he even survive?

Now, the galactic government already answered the last question. Adam Strunkow, the executioner of Cob XI, has been proclaimed dead. I don’t believe a body was ever recovered. The government just needed to close this unfortunate chapter of interplanetary exploitation. Who is in the wrong? Who do you side with? The government endorsing exploitation of utmost greed — to the point of crushing an entire planet, or the underground vigilante murderer?

I carry this photo with me as a reminder of the dilemma.

One more question remains unanswered: Who is the twentieth name on Adam’s list? Are they still out there? Do they live in fear? What life can it be…

Sometimes I think it’s me. That I am the twentieth name on Adam’s list. I was there, after all.

And at other times, I think it’s all of us. Everyone who stood by and watched as a planet was being massacred. An entire world reduced to copper and oil. Pulverized. Decimated. And we just stood by and watched.

When the time comes, I will be buried with this photo in my hand. I will look him in the eyes and say: I’m ready and, for what it’s worth, I am sorry. I deserve what’s coming and I accept my verdict — with the deepest respect for your world that was taken from you.

And he will look me in the eye — Wait, your eyes… We’ve met before, haven’t we?