Battlefield Mine

But the weeds of hatred and prejudice could not be so easily killed, for throughout the time of great advancement and brotherhood, many small groups of hate mongers still sprang up from time to time. At first, no one took them seriously; they were considered 'unyielding and too set in their ways' and ignored for the most part. And every time a group of people who resisted the coming change of attitude was put down and disbanded, another would spring up to replace them.

As time went by, these 'resistors' would gain more power and influence despite the attempts of others to denounce them and their constant, hate spewing speeches. Somehow, their outmoded thinking started to gain ground again; the Mol Drak resistors convincing people with their narrow minded and outdated thinking that their former slaves were still a danger to decent society and must be subjugated again, while their Mol Bloc counterparts continued to rant and rave about their 'cause' and wrapping it up in old, musty, patriotic rhetoric to rally their fighters into action once again.

Giving up on trying to convince the Resistors that their 'utopia' had already come to light and that their way of thinking was nothing more than racial bigotry that was as old as Cheron itself, the Cooperative decided to take more direct action. The Resistors' headquarters were ordered emptied and destroyed by the new government, their leaders arrested and their followers disbanded.

But the seeds of hate had already been sown and grew into an ugly garden of revenge; its roots far reaching, farther than the Cooperative realized. They had found themselves in the middle of an all out battle between the factions and became one of three fronts in a war that lasted for centuries. Near the end, in an ironic twist that no one could have predicted, the Resistors actually combined their Mol Drak and Mol Bloc forces in an unbelievable act of cooperation to fight and defeat the Cooperative.

The shouts of victory were short lived; for once the Cooperative was no more, the Resistors immediately turned on each other and fought to the death, illogical and irrational hate driving their battle to a heated frenzy.

And now there were only a handful of people left to bear witness to the ultimate act of stupidity. The resistors, determined to keep their hate driven ideals alive, annihilated each other... totally. The only evidence of that stupidity being the remains of great cities and prosperous farmlands that were now charred relics of a hate filled past... and the almost eight billion corpses that were strewn about like dead leaves after a season change.

"We've started to collect the bodies so they can be disposed of," finished Malak. "There will be no threat of disease or bacterial infection from the corpses once they're cremated."

All Lokai could do was sit there and shake his head, sadly. Malak put his arm around him, trying to assure him of better times ahead even though he wasn't that sure himself.

"Everything you and I have fought for has come into being. We did it; we created a society of love and cooperation for all Cheronians, and it worked." Malak started to cry, "But those who refused to give up their hatred doomed us all. Because of that hate, we nearly destroyed ourselves."

"There's no more persecution? No more subjugation or oppression?"

Malak hugged Lokai tighter, "The 'cause' was victorious; equality came to light and the people flourished. You did it, Lokai; you started the revolution and won freedom for all."

"Not quite all, Malak!"

Everyone in the building looked around, wondering where the new voice they heard came from. Lokai and Malak scanned the area, then looked up.

Standing on a raised platform of catwalks and access stairs, with his arms folded behind him and a commanding, contemptuous smirk on his face... was Bele.

"Judging from the vast number of corpses, your 'revolution' didn't bring freedom and prosperity to everyone, now did it?"

"Yes," said Malak, narrowing his eyes at him, "I recognize you from the history records as well. You're Bele from the old Political Bureau; you used to be the High Commissioner, right?"

"What do you mean 'used to be'? I still am, as far as I know."

"Not anymore you're not," Malak said, carefully edging up to the bottom of the stairwell, "That bureau was dissolved centuries ago; none of the old departments exist anymore, because we no longer had any need of them."

"Well," Bele sneered as he slowly descended the stairs, "then it appears I've come back just in time to reaffirm my position." He casually sauntered up to Malak and gave him a once over look, then breezed passed him to face his 'prisoner' once again. "But first things first; I am here to dispense justice against this filthy, traitorous murderer for the crimes of treason and insurrection against the Mol Drak. Since there is no one left alive to prosecute and punish this half-white," the entire crowd of onlookers gasped in revulsion at hearing the outdated and bigoted reference to Lokai's character, "then it falls to me to deliver his judgment and sentence him accordingly."

Bele took one, maybe two steps towards Lokai, readying himself for confrontation and possible attack, when Malak interposed his body between the two.

"You won't be dispensing anything, Bele."

"That's 'Commissioner' to you, you..."

"Enough!" Malak roared making everyone jump, and even making Bele back off a step. "Your kind of judgment doesn't exist anymore! Your narrow minded thinking is old and tired, and has no purpose in our society! Your battle is over, Bele; your pursuit of justice has no meaning anymore!"

Malak pointed towards the large doors at the end of the warehouse, and continued, "Take a good long look outside, 'Commissioner'," saying Bele's former title with sarcasm dripping off his tongue, "We had a paradise on Cheron; you and everyone like you laid waste to it! Your hatred and bigotry is what destroyed our world, and now you've come back attempting to smash what's left of it?"

"I am here to save what's left of it," Bele fired back, "with the help of my fellow Mol Drak!" He waved his hand amongst the crowd, indicating his people scattered within it, "They are now free of your vindictive attempt to pervert their thinking and your influential means of subverting them into believing that they are intellectually equal to an obviously inferior race! We will take control once again and try to restore the natural balance and order of all things, starting with separating them from you half-whites and your subversive brainwashing!"

"You miserable, half-black maniac!" All eyes turned to Lokai, who advanced on Bele and was ready to strangle him right where he stood, "Your band of sadistic tyrants caused all of this! You destroyed Cheron just to prove your so-called superiority, and killed everyone around you in the process!" He turned to Malak and the crowd, "I warned you of their treachery! I warned all of you before I left that they would be the end of us, but you didn't listen! You let them lull you into a false sense of security under a disguise of fake friendship and the false promises of a grand alliance... and look where it got you!"

"You filthy liar!" Bele shot back, "Because of your savagery and inferior minds, the Mol Bloc destroyed Cheron! You'd rather destroy it all rather than try to co-exist with those who are obviously your betters!"

"And if we do, I make sure you're the next one to die, you half-black!"

"Impudent, murderous half-white!"

Everyone in the warehouse backed away as Lokai and Bele collided head on, each one with their hands around the other's throat. Their electrostatic power flared up and started to heat the surrounding area, threatening to melt anything near them. They both grunted and screamed at one another, until they felt themselves being pulled apart.

"That's enough!" Malak had Bele in a halfhearted headlock while two others had Lokai's arms pinned behind his back.

"What's wrong with you two? Our world is on the verge of dying... our whole civilization in on the verge of dying, and all you two can do is blame each other and try to kill yourselves?"

"Our civilization will die, as long as his kind continues to poison our way of life!" Bele yelled, pointing at Lokai.

"If you allow them to subject us to slavery again, our race will surely die!" Lokai screamed back.

Malak looked at both of them with contempt and pity, and shaking his head in sorrow, muttered, "You're two of a kind; completely and utterly hopeless. You disgust me, both of you. You," he faced Bele, "with your high and mighty, oh so superior attitude. The only thing superior about you is your bigoted arrogance and your closed minded ignorance." He then turned to Lokai, "And you... to think we admired you for your sacrifices and your so-called heroism. You wanted freedom and justice, but only for the Mol Bloc; you're just as bad as he is, showing your true nature to us and spitting out nothing but hate."

Malak turned his back on the battling relics and paused for a moment, then, "You two need to see something; follow me."

The pair, along with most of the crowd, got in step behind Malak, still spitting at each other with sour looks. He led them to a room at the rear of the warehouse and quietly opened the door. What Bele and Lokai saw almost made their hearts stop beating.

It was a nursery, with six or so cradles fashioned out of small barrels cut length wise and propped up on makeshift supports. Inside each one was a baby, wrapped in smudged swaddling cloths and sleeping and/or mewling for attention. Their skin was colored the same as the Mol Bloc and the Mol Drak, white or black on either side of their bodies; however the tones of the colors were faded. The white coloring had a tinge of ash added to it, and the charcoal black coloring was now a hull metal gray.

Lokai and Bele just stared, dumbfounded.

"These children were born of both of our races, and none of them will ever know of the horrible stigma of hate that nearly killed us. We won't allow that kind of backward thought to stain their future."

Bele backed away from the sight of the children in the cradles and simply uttered, "What have you done?" His accusation was directed at Lokai. "Your race of savages have infiltrated our beautiful society and spawned an indecent herd of inferior, bastard offspring."

Lokai turned to his persecutor, an incredulous look in his eyes, "Your race of tyrannical, dictating overlords are the ones that forced my people to sire the next generation of hate spewing war mongers!"

With that, the pair again engaged in combat, their power crackling around their bodies and heating up. Malak and the group once again tried to separate the dueling duo, but they both intensified their shields and forced their referees to back away. Malak ordered them to stop, but neither would pay any heed and continued to assault one another.

"You'll pay for this abomination, you disgusting half-white throwback!" Bele shrieked as his hands tightened around Lokai's throat.

"I'll take you with me, you murdering half-black animal!" Lokai managed to choke out.

Everyone backed off the battling pair, knowing their power was insufficient in overcoming their disruptive electrostatic fields, as Bele kept up his assault and not giving an inch. Lokai tried to increase his power output and gain the upper hand against his relentless pursuer, but started to falter. His vision was becoming blurry and his grip around Bele's neck was beginning to slip. He called out to his fellow Mol Bloc for help in defeating their enemy.

No one moved.

Bele twisted his hands and, with one last grunt of determination and cry of triumph, jerked them sideways. He heard and felt the telltale crack of bone and cartilage, and relaxed his grip when Lokai's body went limp under him, his shield sputtering and winking out in a flash of orange light and his widening eyes rolling back into his head.

The crowd of Mol Drak and Mol Bloc circled the still form on the floor, not believing what they had just witnessed.

Lokai was dead.

Bele stood up and was about to declare his superiority over all when a flash of power flared up around his shoulder. He turned towards his new adversary.

"If one side of hatred dies," said Malak, poised and ready to strike again, "then the other side must die with it." He lunged for Bele, reaching for his neck... and then cried out as Bele threw out power from his hands and engulfed Malak in a haze of bright orange pain. Weakened by the years of conflict and the lack of sufficient power to energize his body, Malak discovered that he was no match for Bele's power.

Surrounding Malak with electrical death, Bele simply smirked at the Mol Bloc writhing in agony at the end of his hand clutched at his throat. Within seconds, his power fried him from the inside out, and Bele merely dropped his dead body to the floor when it went limp in his grip.

"Now that this ordeal is finally... finally over," he sighed, facing the crowd, "we can get back to the business of rebuilding our society... the way it should be. All Mol Drak will take stock of our supplies and dispose of those," he turned towards the nursery with an ugly sneer, "creatures, while the Mol Bloc will begin forming work details. I will give you your duties and assign your tasks as soon as we..." Bele halted his domineering and arrogant ordering.

The bodies of the crowd... all of them... were starting to glow. Mol Drak and Mol Bloc alike slowly advanced on Bele, raising their hands and preparing to attack.

"What are you doing?" asked Bele in an almost panicked voice, pointing to the Mol Bloc members, "Get back to your places and obey my orders!"

Not one of them heeded his commands.

"You!" he shouted, "You are my countrymen, my fellow comrades in our struggle against the inferior! You must follow me!"

The pleas to the Mol Drak were ignored as well.

Bele tried to back away from the advancing horde, but was trapped against the catwalk scaffolding and surrounded by angry survivors.

"This world has no place for your kind anymore." said one Mol Bloc.

"The hate must end, here and now." said another, a Mol Drak this time.

"No... no, you can't do this! No! NO!"

Bele shouts of denial turned into screams of anguish as the mass of Cheronians enveloped him in a nova bright haze of blinding pain. Any one of them had no chance of subduing Bele, their weakened condition the same as Malak's... but combined, they delivered a powerful blast of energy that permeated every pore and fiber of his body.

One last defiant cry leaped out of Bele's throat as the unforgiving energy licked at his smoldering, two toned skin, then his body was lost in the assault as the light intensified and engulfed the crowd. It widened out to encompass the rest of the warehouse, the nursery being the last to go.

The last thing any of them saw was a blinding flash of pure energy.

***

"What the Hell was that?"

Captain Anthony Dupree bolted from the command chair, staring at the screen in surprise. All eyes on the bridge turned to the main viewscreen, surprise plastering their faces as well.

"Ronnie?"

At the captain's beckoning, Commander Veronica Sheldon immediately adjusted the sensor controls at the library computer station and peered into the hooded viewer.

"Checking, sir."

"Ulex, adjust our orbit; keep us above the disturbance."

"Aye, sir; adjusting." was the response from the Saurian helmsman, his three arms playing over the helm controls like a concert pianist.

"Mr. Pak, contact the scout ships and have them move into position over the disturbance. The more sensors we've got looking, the better."

"Aye, Captain," the lieutenant flipped a few switches, then, "U.S.S. Revere, this is the El Dorado; come in."

The sensors of the U.S.S. El Dorado, a Constitution class sister ship of the Enterprise, began battering the area of interest, sending readings back through its relays and into the computers for analysis. The Asian communications officer immediately contacted the U.S.S. Revere and Sacagawea, two scout/survey cruisers in orbit with them, and ordered them to scan the surface for anymore disturbances.

"The reports said that there wouldn't be any activity on this world," Captain Dupree threw over his shoulder.

"If the reports were accurate, there shouldn't be any," replied his science and first officer. She adjusted the hood viewer controls again to fine tune the incoming readings.

After receiving the official findings and mandatory reports from the Enterprise, Star Fleet Command ordered an investigation of the planet Cheron and report on any discovery of raw materials that could be used for future ship construction. Captain Kirk reported that Commissioner Bele's scout ship was sheath in, what he said was, 'special materials', rendering the craft invisible to conventional sensor detection. Star Fleet's response to this report was the El Dorado and the two scout ships, sent to scan the planet and retrieve a sample of this 'special material' for further study and possible replication.

Kirk's report also mentioned what the ships would find on the surface: ruined cities, an abandoned traffic system, plant and animal life encroaching on the empty towns, a high concentration of residual radiation possibly due to extensive battle... and absolutely no sentient life forms, whatsoever. The planet Cheron, along with all of its humanoid inhabitants, was for all practical purposes... dead.

But just as the ships finished their survey and procured their 'special' sample, Captain Dupree's eyes, as well as the eyes of the rest of the bridge crew, widened at the sight of an explosion on the planet surface. Merely a dot from their vantage point, it flared bright orange and ballooned out like a mushroom and, after about five seconds or so, faded to nothing.

"Captain," this from Sheldon, "Readings indicated a high concentration of electrostatic energy, a build-up of some kind and released with great intensity."

"Source?"

"Unknown, sir. Possibly a power plant overload; since there's no one left to keep their engineering and technology maintained, I suspect that it was a power installation. With no one to monitor and maintain its reactor and safeguards..."

"...the installation went into 'overload' and... boom." Captain Dupree leaned on the red deck railing and shook his head, staring at the lifeless and dark surface of Cheron. "You're certain there was no one there?"

"Confirmed, sir; no sentient, humanoid life form readings. We could send down a landing party with protective gear to double check."

Dupree shook his head again, sadly, "No... there's no one there the explosion could have endangered. What would be the point?"

Sheldon nodded solemnly, "Agreed, sir."

"So... that's that. Status report?"

"We have the samples from the surface, as do the Revere and Sacagawea, both report ready for departure. All decks report ready to leave orbit, sir."

Dupree nodded to his science/first officer and wearily sat down in his command chair, taking one last, sorrowful look at what was left of a world that should have been thriving and vibrant with a prosperous people... and wasn't.

"Mr. Ulex, break orbit," he turned to the navigator, and, "Mr. Randle, set course for Starbase... Four."

Dupree leaned his head against his hand, resting his elbow on the armrest, and sighed as the mighty starship tilted away from the dead world and left orbit. He had seen his share of death on many levels, but to see it on a planetary scale... and worse, knowing it was caused by its inhabitants, for no intelligent, logical reason...

He doubted he would ever get used to it but, in a flash of insight, he hoped he never would; he never wanted to be that unfeeling.