The Legend of Kraxis

Cerryn launched her campaign to free the known galaxy from the tyranny of the haves over the have-nots. Though many worlds had risen up to imprison or execute their false leaders, the victories had so far been only pyrrhic, and most worlds remained firmly in the grip of the tyrant rich.

Stories were smuggled down from some of the liberated worlds to our dark, wet little valley, re-lazered by the local resistance onto Vractor-Skin Parchment and distributed in every village.

I was sold into servitude to the local celebutante apothecary, who caught me reading those parchments. They saw in my eyes an eagerness; one that could not be contained, to join such a rebellion. They threatened me with impalement using a bone stick, then beat me into submission. This only served to fuel my desire for freedom, and I decided those strikes would fall upon my body no longer.

The next time I served the apothecary their supper in the laboratory, I endured the usual facile lecture about accepting my place, until I reached for a Bunsen burner and drove it savagely deep into the socket of their eye, exhaling five years of bottled-up spit and rage over the foetal-shaped oligarch now bleeding on the floor.

I ran then, following my rebellious convictions, and vowed to free the galaxy, just like Cerryn.

Barely a month had passed before I stood before Cerryn on another world. The crowd in the city market was swept up in their brilliance and slightly odd sense of humour. There Cerryn stood, like a towering deity on a soapbox, reminding us that it wasn’t always the haves who experienced privilege, honour, and freedom, that there had once been a place where all were created equal: an ancient planet called Mars, where the colonists rose up against yet another oppressive empire from a neighbouring cruel world.

Several months after that speech, I found myself riding on Cerryn’s dusty coattails on the desert moon outpost of Kraxis; the place where it had all begun. Our base of operations was surrounded by interstellar ships full of nobles and warriors of the Court of St James, salivating at the chance to crush us in hand-to-hand combat. I was assigned as part-time soldier, part-time science assistant, and as I looked into Cerryn’s steely gaze, I knew they had a plan to eliminate the threat of this immeasurable tyrannical power.

A part of me wondered if all this bloodshed was necessary. But after seeing the Court of St James, with its “Holy Mandate”, waste so many of their troops with little strategic purpose at the Battle of Tsu-Brine, we were adamant that this empire must fall. We clung to our shielded fortress as if it were our own sacred temple.

St James them self commanded the battle and ordered the navy to stand fast. They wanted a “catastrophic victory,” a tale for the ages, and they didn’t care how many soldiers they lost to achieve it.

And so the battle began.

Waves of troops landed on the rusty shore in flying wedge formations as they approached the outpost. Mired in the latest kinetic-powered, gender-fluid battle armour and the stink of overconfidence, they began their charge. Their battle cries could be heard from the command barracks as we watched the approaching armada below.

As the kinetic charges volleyed against our protective escutcheon, Cerryn calmed them self and closed their eyes. The command personnel looked on with confusion, and a little fear, stepping back as a strange vibration emanated from Cerryn. Then warmth filled the room, and I heard Cerryn’s voice in my mind: commanding, terrifying.

“Tulta munille!”

The whole planet rumbled. Thousands of the legendary creatures of Kraxis burst out of solid rock, leaping high into the air before landing amidst the warriors, devouring entire battalions in a basso profondo of savagery. St James them self looked over the battlefield in rage as their armies were consumed.

“Fire on everything!” they exclaimed.

But it was too late. One of the creatures looked up at Cerryn and lowered its head as if bowing, and Cerryn reciprocated. Instantly, a massive dust storm swept overhead, forming spires out of thin air that pierced the hulls of the ships hanging in the sky. I had no idea such a creature could command the heavens it was terrifyingly beautiful. St James’s own ship was impaled as though it were made of butter, and the prince them self was shattered into red mist before their terror could even take form.

When the dust storm finally calmed, the creatures feasted on the bodies strewn across the battlefield. The rest of us in the command centre were left in a shock that could only be described as prostration.

Cerryn turned to me with a wry smile and said:

“Don’t fuck with nature.”