HUMANUS RISING: CLASH OF THE GALAXIES

To Serve the Emperor

I found Rome a city of bricks and left a city of marble.

-Augustus, First Emperor of the Roman Empire

Suddenly Ollie ran out of a travel arch at the Imperial Palace Arrival Grounds. There were thousands of people in Nevronian Civilian Dress and many more thousands of people in countless forms of military uniforms. Ollie ran across the square through the bustling crowds to a Cafe, the Star Voyager Cafe. There was a huge line, but Ollie knew one of the coffee servers behind the counter.

"Give me the usual Joli."

"Sorry Ollie, we're all out of Zibriffian Coffee."

"What? You have got to be kidding me?"

"No, since our retreat from Zibriffia, there's no more coffee coming in."

 "Now what I am I going to do? I just drank the last of my Zibriffian Coffee at home."

"Would you like another type of coffee?"

"Oh, Gods No. Let me buy some Earthen Schokolade bars."

Ollie turned around and walked over to the other half of the cafe and stood in front a shelving unit covering the entire wall loaded with over a hundred varieties of Schokolade Bars, all produced by the planet Earth. The Barons of Earth had transformed the ancient home planet in to a Schokodom, a kingdom of Schokolade, where all economic activities were driven around the production and selling of Schokolade. It turns out the cocoa tree can only grow on Earth and cannot grow anywhere else in the universe.

So the Earthen Barons over the centuries eliminated all unneeded crops and grew only crops needed for Schokolade production. There was only one animal left on Earth, the Milk Cow, and there was one insect that still received Mankind's Thanks, the Honey Bee. Earth had become one enormous Schokolade factory and the people of Earth were the most well off inhabitants of any planet, even Cumulus. One of Ollie's major courses of study was Earthology. He loved the history & past cultures of Earth and he loved the Earthen pioneers, who founded his favorite planet in the Cumulus Galaxy, Balboa. He did not respect the planet Cumulus very much, he was just on Cumulus for the job.

Ollie opened up the black Bumel leather triangle shaped coin pouch fastened to his belt and took out an odd assortment of gold ducats. Imperial Humanus Ducats were round, oval, crescent, square, rectangle, triangle, diamond, pentagon, hexagon, & octagon shaped, each minted in gold with the Emperor Kuan Ti XVII portrait wearing a battle helm and gilded armor holding a blazing plasma sword. On the reverse side was the Imperial Seal of the Humanus Empire with the Imperial Motto, Semper Movetur Fortiter Deinceps (Always Moving Forward Bravely).

Ollie could of paid for the Earthen Schokolade bars by scanning his wrist link on his left arm to access his bank accounts through his WLO (Wrist Link Overseer), which was the main way of purchasing products and services. The wrist link was twelve centimeters long and was an Information-Entertainment Link and Personal Secretay-Accountant System (PSAS) all rolled into one. The WLO had long replaced the ancient wrist watch and hand held electrical devices first conceived on ancient Earth. Everyone in the Humanus Galaxy wore a WLO, but Ollie was different. Ollie wore the WLO, but never turned it on and did not want to deal with PSAS Yeoman named Warren. Dealing with Stella was enough, but dealing with a WLO Yeoman System wherever he went was intolerable. He wore the WLO just for emergencies.

Ollie preferred paying with physical money and many merchants enjoyed seeing the shiny bits of gold coins, so Ollie was a popular customer. Ollie gave Joli three ducats and selected ten different Earthen schokolade bars: Meiji, Chuao, Jacques Callebaut, Caffarel, Michel Cluizal, Cailler, Frey, Weinrich, Heidi, and Minor. These schokolade bars were all from the ancient schokolade making families of Earth, thousands of years old companies making the same high quality product from generation to generation. Tradition!

Ollie put the ten schokolade bars in his satchel and started walking back into the square rather disappointed that he could not buy his Zibriffian Coffee as he would every morning before entering the Imperial Palace.

Ollie started walking down the great avenue leading from the Arrival Grounds to the giant Imperial Palace. Thousands of people were walking with him making their way to work just as Ollie was. Everyone was in quite a rush to make sure they made it on time into the main courtyard to attend the daily morning ritual ceremony praying for victory.

Today is the official anniversary date of the beginning of the Great Animon War.

They only had 10 minutes left until the ceremony began, but Ollie was in no rush. He was tired of going through the motions of pretending he wanted victory. Ollie was not a defeatist, but he just did not see why so many people had to die on both sides, the Humanus Empire and the Animon Empire. This war had been going on for exactly 517 years now and the Humanus Empire has lost 37 billion people. That means an annual loss of 71 million humans. The Humanus Empire had a total Galactic population of around 170 Trillion people, but the Animon Empire had an estimated population of over 500 Trillion People and had lost around 70 billion people during the war. It just seemed to Ollie that both sides were beating a dead horse and they both needed to be stopped.

Ollie had been reading as much as possible about the Animon Empire, which was made of an alliance of over 40 thousand different races, while the Cumulus Empire was made up of only one race (After countless Anti-Alien policies, wars, and exiles.) What kept the Animon Empire unified was not a great emperor or dictator, but a state religion centered upon a Legendary Being called the Monsu Rae, which was viewed by all Animons as an Immortal God. The Monsu Rae had ruled the Animon Empire for 5,000 years and had met several hundred challenges to its divinity. Ollie found out that if anyone could defeat the Monsue Rae in combat then that challenger would become the new divine god of the Andromeda Galaxy. Ollie thought this might be the key to stopping this idiotic war.

As Ollie was walking down the great avenue he noticed how beautiful the Imperial Banners were hanging from black colored nevronian style 5 meter tall light poles. The flag of the Cumulus Empire had a silky blue background with a large golden ring in the middle with a gold colored four pointed star in the center of the golden ring. In the middle of the star was the Imperial Motto, Semper Movetur Fortiter Deinceps (Always Moving Forward Bravely). Then within the golden ring were four white colored quadrants each containing a black colored symbol. The first symbol was a black book opened up ready to be read. The second symbol was a black Caduceus, a short staff entwined by two serpents surmounted by wings. The third symbol was a black fork and a black spoon crossed against each other in the shape of an X. The fourth symbol was a black rocket ship. These four symbols represented the empire's conviction to provide for its people the four essential services of information and education, medical health services, prosperous food and nutrition, and modern transportation technologies. Finally outside the golden ring in large capital sized gold letters was written, Humanus, above the ring and below the ring was written, Galactic Empire.

It was a beautiful flag, a flag he believed in and was willing to die for, but Ollie also noticed standing between each light pole hanging the Imperial flag were guards in silent sentry duty. These were not ordinary guards or patrolman, but the Emperors Imperial Guard, The Askari. Ollie hated the Askari. He served along side the Askari at Zarma and saw their zealous brutality first hand.

There they stood with bejeweled gold helmets with owl wings on either side of their helmets and their bodies were covered in elaborate decorated gold armor as they carried in their left hand a long blazer javelin and in their right hand an oblong shaped plasma shield that contained on the front of it the words, Ad Mortem (To The Death). On the left side of each Askari's belt was a long plasma sword with a Red Gemcite Stone Handle in a golden scabbard and on the right side of the belt was a curved dagger with a Red Gemcite Stone Handle in a gold scabbard.

The Askari were the warriors elite trained as soldiers starting at age 10 and brainwashed to be merciless killing machines to serve the emperor. To serve only the emperor. They are the reason why the Animons had lost 70 billion people in the war. There are 30 Mega Legions of Askari, 27 Mega Legions served in the field fighting the Animons to the death, while the three remaining Mega Legions served the emperor guarding the Imperial Palace and his personal safety. Three billion Askari guardsmen trained to obey and kill at the emperors personal pleasure.

Ollie thought to himself that one man should not have that much personal power, not even an emperor.