Hatred

… It knows no bounds.

We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
- Eric Hoffer

Chapter One

            Pre’tu sighed, staring out of the starboard viewport of his father’s Rolls Royce gravity car. He was being dragged along on yet another one of his father’s diplomatic meetings. Of course, Pre’tu knew that he was only there as one of his father’s little maneuvers. Bringing family along will help him appear more like a normal person, putting other delegates further at ease around him. Vreeno, even his car was part of the scheme. Showing up in a vehicle of Terran manufacture would make him look better to all the human diplomats. A civilized alien, Pre’tu thought bitterly. He had noticed the way the Terrans all looked at his father, him, and others of non-homo sapien origins. They all thought that they were inferior to them. No, Pre’tu corrected himself mentally. Not all of them look at us like that. ‘Stereotypes’ as the humans call them, are to be avoided. I don’t want to be just as bad as the people I accuse of prejudice against us.

Vreeno, thought Pre’tu again. But why me? Why does my father always drag me into these ridiculous functions? Why not my mother? After all, she is his BondMate.

But he had also been smart enough to figure out the other part of his father’s sinister little plan. He wanted Pre’tu to stop with his ambitions of joining the Skree’Varian (the military of the Skree), and to become a diplomat like him. Not a chance in Yul’Ta. Why would anyone ever want to be something as boring as a diplomat?

The car came to a halt, setting down on a landing pad on the floating embassy. Pre’tu looked at it through the viewport, not impressed in the least. It had been built by Terrans, who evidently knew neither of beauty nor grace. The building was large and rectangular, stretching even further towards the sky than the hover platform that it sat on raised it up to. But it had no subtlety; no gently flowing lines, no streamlining, and no elegance whatsoever. Pre’tu snorted incredulously; Terrans had long claimed that they possessed the best artists in the galaxy. This building was testament to the otherwise.

His father gently tapped him on the shoulder, indicating he should stop examining the embassy, and that he should exit the vehicle. Pre’tu pressed the egress button, the door swinging upward gracefully. At least the Terrans knew how to build their cars right. He stepped down onto the red carpet, walking forward a few feet and waiting for his father.

“Now, son,” his father said to him as he exited the vehicle as well, “remember: speak English when around Terrans. Very few of these representatives would know Skree’Tulna. Most human brains are not as developed in the linguistic centers as ours are, so they have more trouble acquiring knew languages.”

Pre’tu could accept this, as he had learned English, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish all in under a year; the languages of Earth were ridiculously simple. The Asian languages weren’t all that bad though. Chinese had fascinated him for a while. He loved any language that, when it was printed, appeared to be art… and yet the Terrans insisted on using English, a clumsy language that possessed no intrinsic beauty, and was derived from many old languages that were stripped of all inflection. Not only that, but slang was so prevalent among the Terran people that their entire language changed daily, new words coming into play, and old ones going out of fashion. It was a confusing, disordered language to say the least.

They walked up to the entrance, where a human servant opened the door for the both of them. They walked through the main hall into the ballroom, where fifty or sixty diplomats of about ten different species were mulling around, examining the food laid out on tables that circled the room. Some were talking to each other in soft undertones, or were listening to the orchestra that was playing on the stage. Pre’tu thought he recognized the current song as belonging to a Terran composer known as Ludwig van Beethoven. It wasn’t too bad, but it had not been optimized for Skree hearing; Terrans only heard from about the twenty hertz to the twenty kilohertz range, whereas Skree hearing covered twice the frequency range. The song utilized no softly done high-pitched tones, or light extreme-bass tones as most Skree music would have.

Pre’tu narrowly dodged an incoming Bulkan diplomat as the man… or rather, as the being rushed past him to introduce himself to Pre’tu’s father. Bulkans could not be characterized as male or female, as they had six different genders, and an immensely complex mating cycle. It was a true wonder of evolution that they still existed, really.

“How be you, sir?” the Bulkan asked his father in somewhat slurred and confused English, “I be Pagma, the diplomat origin Bulka. If me be not very mistaken, sir, you be Takas’na Ecaep, the diplomat origin Skree?”

“I am the person whom you name,” Pre’tu’s father responded with the infinite patience born of a long career as a diplomat. “What can I do for you, diplomat Pagma?”

Pre’tu smirked, as he realized that his father had carefully avoided using the word “mister” and had instead replaced it with diplomat, as there was no way to know what gender Pagma was.

“Well,” Pagma continued, “I possess query as to Section four, paragraph five of you proposed constitution. I be thinking if you could maybe re-thought line sixteen, which be granting equality to all genders of any race. Us Bulkans have us a gender where we be loosing most of our possessed faculties, sir. It be current Bulkan law the while in state of Trypa, an one week period out of interstellar year, sir, that majority of rights be taken from Bulkan in question. Otherwise, chaoses maybe ensue.”

Pre’tu’s father nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I have heard of the difficulties with the Trypa stage of life on Bulka. I shall propose an amendment during the preliminary ratification tonight. Thank you for bringing this to me, diplomat Pagma.”

Pagma bowed respectfully, and walked off to chat with other diplomats. Pre’tu, growing bored with eavesdropping on his father’s diplomatic banter, headed over to a mirror to check his appearance. He looked fine as far as he was concerned; his skin had a healthy blue glow to it, his slightly greenish head spikes were lying flat against his scalp as they should (Skree head spikes only extend upwards if the Skree in question was severely agitated), and his bright red eyes were clear and sharp. His spine was completely extended, as it should have been when he was calm, bringing him to his full height of just a little over two meters. Perfect.

He looked around, and unfortunately, saw no Skree girls. One of the few times he was dressed fancily in a Plik’mek scale suit, and there was no one he would be interested in asking out around him. Just great. He could have been air surfing, playing Rak’de’daj with his friends, or even just working on his genetic tailoring, but no, he had to be stuck here at a diplomatic function. He really needed to teach his father the true meaning of “father-son outing.” He was jostled from his thoughts as a strange Terran shoved him out of his way.

Pre’tu squinted at the human who had just pushed past him. This Terran was the most awkwardly dressed one he had seen so far. He was wearing what looked like a green military outfit, with a bright red arm band around the left arm of the man wearing it. It had a white circle in the middle of this band, displaying an ink blank symbol which was completely unfamiliar to Pre’tu. It looked sort of like the English letter “x,” but with sharp ninety degree bends at both of the ends of the two lines forming the letter. He watched with a complete lack of understanding as the man drew a metallic device of some sort, pointing it at his father. He thought the man was a reporter for a fleeting instant, and that the cylindrical end to the device was some sort of microphone. All of his thoughts froze though, as the man pulled a lever on the device, and a small explosion emitted from the tip of it. Blood sprayed from his father’s head as he fell to the ground.

Pre’tu heard himself shout “No!” as if he was outside of his own body. He rushed forward, the spikes on his head extending fifteen centimeters upwards, and hardening to the density of stone. In a typical Skree rage driven combat maneuver, his head connected solidly with the chest of the assassin. The man was hurled ten feet across the ballroom, blood oozing from the twelve holes in his torso. Pre’tu’s head spikes flattened, and he turned to look at the corpse beside him in complete despair.

He sunk down beside his father, simply staring at his prone body in utter disbelief. Shouts for medics were delivered across the ballroom, but he heard none of it. He didn’t see the security forces running around madly, barring the exits. He didn’t hear the screams of diplomats who had broken down into hysterics. He only saw his father, his ignoble death replaying itself over and over in his mind, torturing him for what felt like an eternity.

Chapter Two

“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.”

-Eric Hoffer

Six Months After Takas’na’s Assassination

With the ping from his speakers indicating a newly arrived TransNet letter, Pre’tu awoke, turning the chair he had fallen asleep in towards the computer monitor built into his room’s wall. He saved the progress he had made on the genetic tailoring program he had been using, and quickly pulled up his inbox. It was from the investigator in charge of his father’s assassination.

“Dear Ecaep Family,

I once again express my sorrow to your family. Takas’na was a great man that will be missed. We have, however, finally made some headway into our investigation. The man, named Gerald Hughes, that killed Takas’na, was invited to the preliminary ratification as a representative of the opposition to the formation of the Inter-Galactic Alliance. It was not known at the time, however, that he was also a member of the extremist Terran political group called the Nazis. Most Terrans seem not to care for this group, even some of the more prejudiced ones; it has simply represented too much pain and suffering over the course of Terran history. Over eight hundred years ago, in the 20^th Earth century, these Nazis took over Germany, which is now one of the twenty or so political powers on Earth. However, at that time, there were more than a hundred countries on the Terran home world. The Nazis then spread from there to most of the continent of Europe, using superior military tactics and technology to overcome most of their enemies. This was known as World War II, and I’m sure you all know about it from your Xenoculture classes. Anyway, the Nazis were defeated. They remained an ever-present force through the 22^nd Earth century, mostly in the form of teenage gangs, who styled themselves as Neo Nazis. They were not so much a military threat as a domestic threat, and were basically ignored. In the late 22^nd Earth century, however, when the first Terran encounter with extraterrestrial life occurred, the popularity of the Nazis increased ten-fold. There was another war, this one claiming only two million lives- insignificant compared to the number lost during World War II. It was thought, after this war, that the Nazis would be gone forever. Not so. They just managed to hide themselves better. They’ve existed as an underground cult now for several hundred years, carefully disguising themselves from public view. Their more influential members managed to purchase a small asteroid field in which they made their primary base about a century ago. Since then, they have operated completely separately from the United World Governments of Earth. This assassin, Gerald Hughes, must have been trying to send a message that the Nazis were returning; he used an old German Luger to kill your father- it is a very, very primitive weapon. The Skree Council is attempting to get authorization to assault their asteroid bases, but unfortunately, the Galactic Council is forbidding military action. It is saying that the Nazis are simply another political group, and are not responsible for the actions of one of their members. I will contact you if I receive any further news.

Chief Inspector Taren’la”

Pre’tu sighed in resignation. So, they were going to let them get away with this. There was nothing Pre’tu could do, so he pulled up his genetic tailoring window, beginning to modify the genetic code displayed there. All Skree adolescents had to genetically modify themselves before they would actually be declared as adults. Most looked at it as non-important now, and just threw in standard strength augmenting lines, making them slightly superior physically. That was all Pre’tu was planning to do as well, until his father was killed. Now he planned to make many intricate and precise changes to his D.N.A., to make him not only stronger, but smarter. Normally, intelligence could not be modified through genetic therapy; geneticists did not like to mess with living brain tissue, and neither did computers for that matter. However, Pre’tu had devised his own way- he was going to create a small micro-sac in-between his shoulders that would include the biological equivalent to power lines, as well as a new nerve cluster. He could drop in a few computer processing chips, enhancing the resources his brain had to call upon. He had been working on his code tirelessly for a while now, and he was nearly finished. He had made a few changes that no one had even researched before… something that was outlawed under normal circumstances. He saved the code and logged out, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Tar’a smiled at him as she walked into his room unannounced.

“Working on your messed up genetic code again?” She asked him teasingly.

“My genetics are your genetics,” he replied jokingly, “did you get the letter from the investigator?”

“Yeah. You know, this really smells. The Skree’Varian should send out the fleet anyway and blow those freaks away.”

Pre’tu looked at his sister sternly. “You know that dad worked his posterior off to get the Galactic Council formed; we can’t very well go against their decisions when we are the reason they exist. Besides, the English expression is ‘this stinks,’ not ‘this smells.’ As long as you’re here, by the way, I would like to perform the Ritual of Adulthood.”

“You want me to be your witness?” She asked him in an incredulous tone. “And the expression is, ‘worked his ass off.’”

“Why not?” He replied. “I would have asked dad to do it, as I require a first-degree relative, but since he is not here, you seem as good of a choice as any. Our mom has no interest in helping me with the ritual; she doesn’t like how extensively I am changing my genetic code. According to the records, I am changing more than twice the genetic material as the currently most modified Skree.”

“Is that level of change legal?” Tar’a asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Nope.” He replied with a smile. “I’m going to become a felon just to be radical. Of course it’s legal; I requested special authorization from the Council. Apparently, they still feel bad enough about dad’s death to grant me a few privileges. Now, if you would please accompany me to the medical room…”

Tar’a nodded and followed him as he led the way to the small room down the hallway from his own. Most households would not feature a fully operational automated medical laboratory, but most households did not have funding directly from the Council due to a family member’s death in the line of duty.

Tar’a frowned as Pre’tu took his seat on a metal chair that was surrounded by more than twenty different types of medical instruments and monitors.

“You know, this could really be dangerous brother.”

Pre’tu’s expression became stony as he replied. “So was our father’s task, as was proven. I merely follow in his footsteps.”

Without another word, he pressed the sequence of buttons on a console beside him that began the procedure.

“Computer, load Pre’tu file one-one-four, and special Council overrides. Activate genetic modification.”

“Warning,” the computer intoned dully, “genetic modification will have an effect on more than sixteen percent of active genetic sequences. This is a level generally deemed as unsafe. The particular combinations present in this structure have never been tested before, and therefore probable results cannot be extrapolated from accessible data. If you choose to continue, undesired consequences may occur.”

“Continue.” Pre’tu ordered simply.

The lights dimmed to about half of their standard level, the chair leaning backwards as a metal slot opened in the wall. Pre’tu was slid into it on a gurney-style conveyor machine, the slot closing behind him.

************

Tar’a stood around, tapping her foot impatiently. Normally, even the most extensive genetic tailoring procedures would take no more than twelve hours. Pre’tu had already been engulfed in the belly of the powerful alteration machine for more than thirty-six hours.

She practically jumped for joy when the computer began speaking; she automatically assumed that it meant that the procedure was over. She almost forgot to listen to the words until she caught the phrase ‘intruders within household.’

“What! How many of them?” She couldn’t see how anyone could get inside the house. The only entrances were underground (as was the entire house), and all of the tunnels could be collapsed at the merest hint of a threat.

“Counting fourteen intruders currently within the outer walls,” the computer reported, “and eight possible hostiles holding position in the tunnels. Outer defenses are completely non-responsive, and several of the data lines are down. No communications are available outside of the local network. A large increase in the local electromagnetic field intensity has been registered by the available sensors. The house’s security force is responding.”

There was no way that Ecaep Manor’s guard force of four would be able to handle fourteen people in a head on fight. Regardless of the fact that one extra would hardly help, Tar’a quickly headed out of the medical laboratory and towards the armory. She quickly arrived, finding the four guards strapping on Mag rifles and armor.

“I’m helping you,” she stated simply as she began suiting up as well, “and don’t even try to stop me. If these are the same guys that killed my father, then they are probably heading after Pre’tu. We can’t let that happen.”

A massive Quartien (a four armed species built like miniature tanks) that was the head of the force nodded. “While I doubt your mother would approve, I also doubt if we could hold them off on our own anyway. Better to face them together than to let them pick us off individually. Come on, most of them are in the library right now. We’ll head in through the alternate entrance.”

They all scrambled to the other side of the armory, where a thin metal wall separated them from fourteen armed assailants.

“Okay,” the Quartien whispered, “now!”

With one massive shove, he knocked the wall aside, the bookshelf on the other end going flying across the room. They all opened up with everything they had, dropping six opponents in the first volley- one by a precise shot from Tar’a’s Mag rifle, three by the Quartien’s four pistols, and two by rifle shots from the other guards.

All five of them quickly ducked back into the armory as a wave of return fire, from various types of weapons, blew through the location where they had just been standing. One of the four house guards was unfortunate to have moved just a millisecond too late, and now had a gaping hole in his chest as he lay bleeding to death on the floor.

“Can anything be done for him?” The Quartien asked as Tar’a checked his pulse. “If not, then leave him be. Triage: worry about our survival first, and everyone else’s later.”

Tar’a wished to rebuke his statement, but unfortunately knew that he was correct. This man was dying if not dead, as they were going to be if she didn’t keep her concentration on the here and now.

“Okay,” the Quartien said as he prepared his four pistols, “I say we throw in a couple of grenades, then go in and sweep them out. We better get to it before they decide to throw a grenade first.”

They were just about to charge into the library again when they were all thrown off their feet by an explosion that managed to launch flames through the doorway.

“What the hell was that?” One of the guards asked.

The computer immediately replied. “Several power conduits within the confines of the library just overloaded. The subsequent explosion managed to take out seven more intruders. However, the other eight intruders have entered the library, and are in the process of retreating with their last man from the intrusion squadron.”

“Hell no!” Tar’a shouted. “They aren’t getting away that easy! This needs to end here… come on!”

Before the guards could argue with her, she charged into the smoldering ruins of the library, knocking debris out of her way so that she could get at the line of soldiers in green and black uniforms.

She realized her mistake only as five of the men turned around, leveling their heavy rifles in her direction. Several blasts cut through the air.

It was quite a surreal moment. She knew she was about to die. She closed her eyes, waiting for the pain. She wondered for just a moment if her life would actually flash before her eyes like in the holovids.

And she waited. And she waited. Finally, she opened her eyes to see a massive mountain of a Skree male standing in front of her. Apparently, all of the blasts had impacted him instead of her. Yet he was still standing, larger than life. He had to be a good fifth of a meter taller than Pre’tu.

That’s when it hit her. He was Pre’tu! Standing before her like some kind of indestructible knight, her brother was no longer the same person he used to be. This was proven even further when with one powerful bound he closed to ten meter distance between him and his targets. He landed flawlessly on the chest of one of the Nazis, completely crushing the bigot like the insect it was.

None of the others were given time to react. Both of his fists swung out wide, catapulting four of the soldiers at once into the same wall. They would most definitely not be getting up again. With another powerful leap, he slammed the other four directly into the ground, delivering blow after blow upon their limp bodies even after they had stopped breathing.

Pre’tu looked as impressive as any mythological figure as he stood and turned towards Tar’a.

His first words made her laugh, despite the seriousness of the situation.

“Mom’s going to kill me.”