The End of Peace

Chapter 1

    The streets of Coscichi, the capital city of Taskiri, were nearly deserted as the curfew imposed by the occupying force began to come into effect. As the star Taskiri orbits was setting, it's light shone through the large glass dome covering the city, which protected it from the acid raining pouring down from the sky above, and bathed the streets in the last glow of light for the day. Mervo did not need to worry about being found by any peacekeeping squads, the nearest of which were three blocks of houses away, as he grabbed his former best friend by the collar and slammed him into the wall. Orva tried to struggle his way free but stopped squirming immediately when Mervo shoved a pistol into his throat, "Tell me Orva, why shouldn't I kill you right now, put a bullet straight through your head? All of them are dead because of you, every last one of them."

    "Please...Please Mervo, don't do this. You have to understand, they said they'd kill my family if I didn't help them. Anyone would do the same in my position." Mervo released his grip on Orva's neck and took a step back, watching the man sigh in relief and get his breath back, "Thank you, thank you s-" The rest of Orva's words were cut off as Mervo's knee slammed into his stomach which was followed by an uppercut that sent the man stumbling back into the wall.  Orva pulled himself to his feet but once again froze as he saw the pistol pointed directly at his face,"Don't you dare make it sound like you're the victim here Orva. We were a team, maybe if you'd told us what was happening we could have worked together to find a way out of it. But you were too selfish too see that and now all of our friends are dead."

    "I'm so sorry Mervo, I'm sorry," Orva sobbed in a last desperate attempt for survival but none of his words made any difference to Mervo who pulled the trigger of his pistol before Orva had a chance to say anything more. The bullet pierced the whole way through Orva's head and left a smouldering hole in the wall behind him while his lifeless body collapsed onto the floor at Mervo's feet. Mervo slid his pistol back into it's holster before leaving the alley without looking back. 

  Mervo wandered the streets of the city with no idea real idea of where he was going or what to do next. There was an emptiness inside of him which he'd hoped would have been filled with Orva's death, but now, his motivation was gone. He had nothing left. Realising that with the sun being fully set now, it wouldn't be long before peacekeeping squads would being prowling the streets in force and so he quickly ducked into a nearby diner which was still open. Finding a booth which was empty, Mervo collapsed into it before ordering the strongest drink available from the mallaph server who approached him.

  While sat in the booth, Mervo took the time to survey the people in the diner, nearly all of which were mallaph. His people had been described as larger, red-skinned versions of the new species to join the Galaxy, humans. Their larger size was due to the thick muscles and skin which protected them from the extreme environments and heavy gravity of Taskiri. Without this protection, they would have died out years ago. It even gave them a slight resistance to modern weapons without any body armour, a trait the Mallaph had found to be especially useful in the recent fighting. 

  It had only been in the last five hundred years that the Mallaph had stopped living in migrating clans and had instead settled down in cities, protected from the environment by the construction of immense domes. Despite them no longer being a tribal society, they still kept remnants of that time in their lives. At the coming of age of every Mallaph, their face is tattooed with the colours and pattern of their families' tribe. Coscichi had become the major city of the planet which dealt with alien species, and so it had become a major hub for Mallaph from all over the country. Even within this one diner, Mervo could see at least half a dozen different distinct styles of tattoos.

 When Mervo's drink eventually turned him, he accepted it with a grunt of thanks before proceeding to gulp the entire glass down in a single swig. The strength of the alcohol was already beginning to make him feel tipsy but despite that he still heard the notification ping of his data-com. Pulling the device out of his pocket to see who would want to bother him at this time of night, he was surprised to see a flashing red warning signal appearing in the centre of the screen with bold words printed underneath it: "WARNING! DATA TRANSFER IN PROGRESS!" Dismissing the text, Mervo pulled up every detail he could about the transfer in attempt to find out where it had originated from. To his surprise, finding it out was easy enough that it seemed like the hacker had put no security on their devise at all.