Chapter 5

    "Aaron may I come in?"
Aaron looked up as he heard a voice at the entrance to his tent and raised an eyebrow when he saw Emiaj there. He nodded and beckoned her in.
"Emiaj? How'd you get here? Who's watching the kids?"
She held her hand up to quiet him before he started panicking.
"A friend that I would trust with my life is watching them. I came here because I feel there's something you should know. And I'm the one who should tell you."
Aaron frowned, but nodded and sat back down.
"All right. Have a seat."
He gestured to an empty space in front of his desk and watched her. Once she was settled, he nodded to her and she took a deep, steady breath.
"Gyirks and Cogians aren't a... cosmic coincidence. We aren't the subject of random evolution and we weren't created by some godlike being. But we were created."
She looked over at Aaron, waiting for his reaction. It took a moment for the news to sink in before his eyes widened and he sat forward.
"Wait. Wait. Wait. The Gyirks and the Cogians are... are escapees from The Island of Dr. Moreau?"
Emiaj frowned and shook her head as she tried to figure out his meaning.
"Oh, um... It's a book from Ancient Earth. A work of fiction. Dr. Moreau was a genetic scientist who isolated himself on an island and was trying to turn animals into humans. Basically his excuse was he was doing it because he could. He had his own methods for controlling the creatures he'd already created, but eventually he lost control and they all killed him."
Emiaj listened silently as Aaron explained his meaning and she nodded a little.
"Well then... In essence yes. Only our creator was trying to accomplish something specific. He was trying to create the perfect weapon. One that would kill without thought and reproduce at such a rate that it could never become extinct.
    We were a failed experiment. His first. So we became food for his later experiments. He altered us into fast breeders to keep populations up, but he also made sure we're naturally peaceful. We're still not entirely sure how, but it was many generations before we could even think about fighting anything once we colonized. But I've lost track..."
She closed her eyes, then nodded and continued.
"The creatures he created started becoming more and more complex. He would add arms, add heads, add anything he could. The Cogians are actually one of his more simple creations One head, four arms, two legs. He had actually attempted them once before, but the first died and he moved on from there. Eventually, he realized what he'd done wrong and tried again. That was when he successfully created the first mating pair of Cogians. He trained them, taught them, and began integrating all that into what he called 'genetic memory'. The skills and training he gave them became instinct. Kill what you're told to kill and do what you want with the corpses. But, to understand his commands, he had to give them intelligence. Because of this, the Cogians turned out to be too much of a success. They started to envy his science, his ability to create anything he wanted with a simple injection into an embryo. They ambushed him using his own plans and killed him.
    The biggest mistake our created made was to make them breed as quickly as we do. They spread like a plague. It wasn't long before they started to reverse engineer ships of their own from our creator's own crashed vessel. That's when they started to invade neighboring planets. At first, they conquered with just brute strength and strategies, preying on weaker planets. We continued to feed them for several generations, living on the planet we had started on while they moved their kind to the planets they had conquered. Our home had become a farm.
    After countless generations, the Cogians began experimenting with their new genetic serums using us as... I believe your term is 'lab rats'. The majority of the experiments were failures, ending in the death of the test subject. Sometimes it took the scientists with it. In the generation before my father’s, they finally managed to perfect their serum and started changing entire planet populations into their own kind. The plague became a Galactic Pandemic.
    At first, they only changed their bodies and the genetic instincts took over, leaving the creature’s mind trapped in a small corner. They were just mindless drones that followed the orders of the intelligent Cogians. They decided that couldn’t remain a permanent problem. They began working on... Cerebral altering. Manipulating the impulses in the brain to create a new personality. Independent, yet obedient and completely Cogian. There were several failings of course. The subject would be obedient, but the original memories would remain. I don’t know how... but they eventually made a breakthrough. The first several successful subjects worked perfectly. The only thing they needed were names. It took the Cogians a while to figure that out. The subjects just kept referring to themselves as ‘one’ or ‘servant’. It didn’t occur to the Cogians to name them until they started mixing them up. Once they were given names to imprint into their memories, they developed personalities.
    After that, the Cogians began to gather up large groups of Gyirks to transform them and make their army even larger. My... my husband, Darjan, was rounded up in one of the first. He resisted, so they injected him right then and there. I had to watch as my husband was turned into a monster. When it was finished, there was nothing left of the man I loved. Just a cold hearted killer. I memorized his new face, the name they addressed him with. And I vowed that if I ever find him, I’ll put him out of his misery.”
She was silent for a few moments, her eyes closed in silent respect, before she continued.
    “Those of us on the planet here only escaped because I managed to sneak aboard one of their... food transports. I wasn't meant to be in the shipment, so I managed to get on the bridge instead of the cargo bay. I killed the pilots, took control, and rescued those aboard the ship. It was all I could do for our people. The rest..."
She closed her eyes as her voice trailed off and she lowered her head in quiet respect. After a moment, she continued.
"We don't know what their fate was. How they were punished, but we do know that the Cogians would save some for food, maybe even cut them off from all things that could give them intelligence again. Make them idiotic slaves. I was revered as a hero once we arrived on this planet. They wanted me to lead. Take them into a bright new era. All I wanted was to live in peace and give birth. Raise my son in freedom."
She ran her hand over her lower back as she remembered her pregnancy. Aaron sat up a little bit as she mentioned that.
"You were pregnant when this happened? Then... Darjan's father..."
He didn't have to continue as Emiaj closed her eyes, tears of pain rolling down her cheeks.
"It's because he was taken that I finally gained the courage to try something. He never saw his son. I loved my mate. Darjan meant more to me than anything. We were planning on naming his son after my father."
She laughed, a bit of hysteria in her voice. Aaron stood and walked around to her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Thank you Emiaj. I know this must have been hard for you. I promise that your son, Darjan's son will be raised in freedom. We won't allow the Cogians to take your people."


...


    It was quiet in the cell. All the creatures there had quickly learned that there was no point to screaming and begging for freedom and mercy. Their captors were nothing more than animals bent on following their genetic programming. Xander looked around as the Cogian guards paced through the halls between cells. Jasu was curled up in his arms, trembling from fear and wariness.
    The Cogians had been interrogating the Milky Way creatures all night, trying to find the secrets of the Between technology. Jasu had gotten the worst of the interrogation, being one of the techs. Xander had yet to be interrogated, so he didn't know what the Cogians had done to his friends. He just knew that the Risous had broken easily. That frightened Jasu and himself more than anything, as the Risous had a reputation for being the strongest and hardest to break out of all the Milky Way species. It also didn't help that Jasu was so broken that she could hardly speak comprehensive sentences.
    Xander looked down at Jasu as she shifted in his arms and whined a little. He gently put his hand on her shoulder and shook her.
"Wake up, Jasu. It's just a dream. You're not in there anymore. You're here with me. You're ok."
Jasu whined a little and opened her eyes and looked up at him, blinking with her large blue eyes that were slightly darker from her crying. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him close. Xander closed his eyes and held her gently. The small creature reminded him so much of one of his twins in her size that he was comfortable with comforting her like this.
"Jasu, I need you to be strong ok? They're going to come for me soon."
"No! No no no no no! Jasu need Xander! No good without Xander!"
"I'll be fine, Jasu. I'll be back soon."
He looked up as he heard clawed feet approaching his cell and looked down at Jasu, gently unwrapping her arms from his neck. He lay her down in the pile of sheets the Cogians called a bed and wrapped them around her snugly to help her feel safe. Jasu looked up at Xander, her eyes wide and sad like she was saying goodbye to a friend on their death bed. Xander sighed and stroked Jasu’s tiny head gently.
“I’m going to come back, Jasu. I promise. And when I do, I’ll be myself. Ok?”
Jasu closed her eyes, but nodded and curled up in the blanket, trembling fearfully and sadly. Xander sighed a little and paused a moment, then leaned over and gently kissed Jasu’s tentacle ears, a sensitive area that Danu used to show affection. She looked up at him, surprised. He smiled and pat her arm as the door opened.
“I promise.”
His voice was a whisper as he made the promise. He grunted as he was yanked back, his arms restrained by four strong, clawed hands. They tightened cuffs around his wrists, making him wince, and dragged him out of the cell. He was a little surprised that they didn’t blindfold him, but then it occurred to him that it didn’t matter if he saw them in the long run. They were planning to change him anyway.
    He was taken to a small dark room that smelled like blood, vomit, and feces. His nose wrinkled a bit at the smell, but he was used to it after years of working as a nurse. They chained his arms behind him to the wall and forced him into a chair. Xander looked back as he felt the back shifting and changing. As he watched, the back of the chair opened up, creating a hole for his arms. The Cogians pushed him back and held him there as the chair closed around his arms, locking them in place. He pulled a couple times as the Cogians released his wrists, experimenting. His arms were firmly, but painlessly locked in place.
“Fascinating...”
He yelped as his hair was grabbed and his head yanked back. A soldier came into his line of sight holding his neck microphone. It reached down and secured it around his neck. The microphone activated upon contact with Xander’s DNA. He understood now. They were going to interrogate him. He had to keep it together. Jasu held the secret to Between technology. That wasn’t really very useful since they had a ship equipped with the technology. But he knew every species in the Milky Way and how their systems worked. He was the key to making the change into Cogian faster and more efficient. His hair was released, but the same hands grabbed his chin and held his head in place as a halo was placed around his head.
    He looked around as the lights started to get brighter and he could see a winged Cogian standing in front of him. There was a control panel behind It with another Cogian standing at the controls. The winged one cleared its throat to get his attention. He looked up at it and it walked closer. Its voice came out distorted through his damaged ear bud, but the translation was perfect.
“I am Chrak. I am the leader of the Cogians on this base. The small blue one told us you are something called Human. Is that correct?”
Xander nodded as he examined Chrak. He compared it to the one behind the control panel. Other than the wings, he noticed shorter horns and a slimmer form, but also longer claws and sharper teeth.
“And you... would be the female of the species am I correct?”
He looked up at her and a baring of teeth that could only be a smile or smirk crossed her face. She nodded and started pacing around him, eying him curiously.
“You learn quickly, Human. Tell me, how did you figure it out?”
Xander narrowed his eyes suspiciously and looked up at her.
“It doesn’t take much to tell male from female if you know what to look for. You’re slimmer than he is, your horns are a bit shorter, plus you have wings. Females mostly have the best traits of the species.”
The female smirked and chuckled a bit, walking closer to him.
“One might think you’re trying to compliment me, Human. But I know better. You’re trying to stall aren’t you?”