Cerebral Thunder

I launch into consciousness; sleepy brain cells take a moment putting together the events that had brought me to this unfamiliar setting. My muscles twist in pain as I look down at the blue, lumpy chair I’ve spent the night in. Sterilized air circulates through my lungs, drawing my attention to the slowly beeping monitor towering over my mother’s hospital bed. Dilated purples struggle to focus on the silver haired silhouette resting peacefully under a mountain of white blankets. A smile stretches my tired face as I realize everything’s okay.

Just when I allow my eyes to rest once again, I hear mom mumble something. Sitting back up in the seat, I watch her slightly twitch in her sleep. Though still asleep, I hear her speak again; this time I make out what she’s saying, “Momma.”

I fight the resistance of my stiff joints and pull myself from the chair to join her at the bedside.

“Aunt Grace, Uncle Monroe,” she stammers.

“Mom?” I call, attempting to pull her from this dream.

“Timothy, Hellen, Mary,” her tone gains excitement. “Clyde, Horas.”

I start to recognize the names. These are all people who have passed away. My mom’s deceased family.

“Where to next?”

Glancing at one of the monitors, the cadet replies, “Sector 709, sir.”

“709? No one’s been there in ages. What are we going there for?”

“To visit another planet.”

“Inhabited?”

Long appendages press several colorful buttons floating in the air. “Yes, sir.”

“Classification?”

“57C.”

“Ugh,” his commander visibly shutters. “What’s our business there?

“Our mission is to determine if we should add them to the list.”

“No interstellar travel?”

“Nothing beyond their own moon.”

“Figures,” the boss grunts, expelling vaper from under his cheeks. “View of time?”

“Linier.”

“This gets better and better.” His head swells and contracts. “They at least know about the fundamental force in the universe, right?”

“Not yet, they’re getting close though. We could help them discover …”

“Help them? Have you seen these readings?” he asks, round face buried into his screen. “They use science and technology to build weapons of war against each other. They build walls to keep members of their own species out of arbitrary borders. They hate each other over differing passions, backgrounds, and beliefs. A select few live with more than they could ever need while others toil in poverty. They ravage their own ecosystem in order to fuel the construction of these temples to greed. Tell me, what is there worth helping?”

“With all due respect, sir, you’re only looking at the large scale. They’re not all like that. There are a few, several in fact, who know the value of life. Who give selflessly, love unconditionally, and dream without limitation.”

“If that is truly the case, they must be the unheard minority.”

“But is that any reason to turn our backs on them?” The brave underling questions. “I remember a time not so long ago when we were not so different.”

The commander’s cranium trembles in concentration. “What would we name it?”

“The resident’s call it Earth,” the excited cadet responds.

“Dirt? They call it dirt?” Large gray eyes smile up at the imperious officer. “You really think there’s hope here don’t you?

“There’s hope in all life, sir.”

Born third of eight children, he was surrounded by love. From an early age, he learned about morality, responsibility, and faith. His dimpled smile was known by everyone in his small, tight knit community. Those thin legs never ran out of energy, carrying him from one end of his town to the other, only pausing long enough to offer help to anyone he saw in need.

Time marched on, bringing with it new thoughts and feelings. Sharp features accentuated by his Roman nose caught the attention of the girls at school. His affections were only ever held by one though, the girl who’d saved him out of a frozen pond many winters ago. Their love bloomed, being underscored after graduation by one of the most beautiful weddings any of those in attendance had ever seen.

The draft called him away from his young bride and to the front lines of war. Service taught him honor, duty, and a new type of brotherhood. He stored every note from his wife under an old standard issue pillow, pulling them out every cold, lonely night to catch his tears.

A botched mission saw his platoon ambushed. Surrounded on all sides, the enemy opened fire. Presuming them all dead, he was left in the spilled blood of his friends. Finding his best friend groaning among the carnage, he held him in his arms as the injured warrior drew his last breath. 

After an honorable discharge and receiving a Purple Heart, he returned to the small town and his family. Home never felt the same after his experience overseas. The harsh reality of the world had changed his perspective. The once athletic man was forced to hobble down the streets with a cane. The looks he received during his daily strolls were now of pity, not gratitude.

After years of trying, the young wife was informed she could not have children. Though devastated, the couple clung to one another and moved on. They opened their home to people in need, taking strangers in as their own children. But, as kids often do, all of their refugees eventually moved on with their own lives.

The years took with them both sets of parents along with a few siblings. As hair turned grey, friends and family began to dwindle, plunging one by one into the great unknown. The soldier had to bury his wife just shy of their forty-fifth anniversary. 

One by one, everyone he knew passed away. Age became a curse. Time became an enemy.  Life became a burden. All of his friends along with his entire family live now only in his memories. 

He now sits beside me in the park, feeding the squirrels, telling me his stories. That once prominent nose now rests upon his chin. Broad shoulders and a strong back have degraded and shrank. The crack in his laugh matches the one running down the old wooden cane.

It burns bright in the night sky; a star plucked from its celestial home and brought in close for us to marvel at its splendor. I’ve watched it over the course of the past several weeks, slowly becoming more luminous. It’s the kind of light that allows your mind to slip back into a childlike wonder of life beyond our galaxy, while the more adult side posits more rational explanations such as satellites or space stations.

Though it stirred my curiosity at night, both the news and my friends remained oddly quiet about it during the day while it was tucked away behind the sunlight. That was until the we learned the unnerving truth. This brilliant light is being generated by what they call a "Rogue Planet". Approximately three times the size of our planet, this world was rejected by its parent star and launched into space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.

The powers that be decided not to tell us until they knew it's trajectory and exactly how we would be effected. Though the astrological bullet will miss us by twice the distance of that between us and the moon, its massive gravity will strip our planet of its protective atmosphere and pull us out of the orbit life here has found so accommodating for millennia.

We don't have the tools and resources here to do anything about our rather gloomy future, but that won't stop them from trying. A collaborative effort from each nation across the world will launch every weapon we have at the juggernaut. Even with this planned strike, most of our population has decided this is the end and chose to spend our last few months of existence doing the one thing our species has become so proficient at: Destruction. At the current rate, there will be nothing left of our home by the time our unfriendly neighbor passes through.

I can’t sit by and let it happen. If there's even a slight chance that we can make it out of this alive I'll fight to my dying breath to save our planet. That's why I’m reaching out to you; my father served under you in the war and now I and the rest of his people desperately need your help. Once he showed me your plans for a battle station. I need you to build your ‘Ultimate Weapon’; I need you to build the Death Star.

The steel blade scraped against the stubble on the captive's throat with each shallow breath. Trained to kill without mercy or remorse, the rabid man fought his animal instincts as this was his last chance to get the answers his more human side desired. A crimson stained lab coat added contrast to the dark concrete floor as the assassin dug his knee into the scientist’s sternum.

“Why am I here?” he demanded to know, finding the question as difficult to form with his lips as it was to think up.

“How did you escape?” The question clawed its way out of the pinned man’s mouth.

“Talk.”

“J, please.”

“Answer!” he growled, pressing the blade harder into the fragile neck, drawing forth several drops of blood.

“You’re part of an experiment.” he gurgled.

“More!”

“You were acquired as a child. We put you in the hardest and most violent conditions possible with the hopes of creating the world’s deadliest soldier.”

His mind cast him back to one of his earliest memories. Cornered by beasts, forced to kill or be killed. The remainder of his life had been no less gruesome.

“Parents?”

“Your parents?” he asked, gently repositioning himself. “Your parents gave you up willingly. They were well compensated though.”

“Others?”

“Yes, there’ve been others. You’re our tenth attempt.”

“Where?”

“Dead. All of the other subjects died early on. They couldn’t survive their environment. But you have. You’re our greatest accomplishment.” The experimenter’s eyes glistened with the light of a proud father. “I have monitored you your whole life. I’ve sat just outside your cell and watched you grow. I know the story behind every scar on your body. The more I threw at you, the more resilient you became. Your predecessors were weak and frankly deserved to die because here only the strongest can survive.”

“Monster!” he shouted.

“Aren’t we both monsters? Products of our environment I suspect. But we’re a necessary evil, damned to do the things that keep innocent people tucked safely in their beds at night.”

“I want out.”

“That’s impossible. The world doesn’t even know you exist. You wouldn’t survive out there anyway; you’re an interment of destruction, that’s what we’ve conditioned you to be. You’ve murdered everyone in this facility; what makes you think you’ll fare any better on the outside?”

“I want out,” he grumbled more slowly.

“You’re training is almost complete. Then we will set you lose to do what you’re built to do: kill.”

“No.”

“No? No is not an option. This is your destiny. You’re a soldier. That’s your job: to protect the ones out there. The ones who aren’t monsters.”

The experiment searched his captive’s eyes, pondering his next move.