31. For the War

At the top of the Lightning Twin Towers in the Southern Bloc, the representatives of the four power blocs joined to discuss the big terror which was above their head, as war was very close with Zeus declaring his objectives. The official declaration of war was rather quick and no incident directly followed it, as people actually wondered if there was actually anything going on. But the leaders and their representatives knew that the danger was there. There was the sale of weapons going on in the black market and the mercenaries were training by participating in the underworld fights. The scientists were getting special aid in developing weapons of destruction from some unknown forces. There were huge transfers of money going on between the blocs, and the business people were increasing the cost of their products. The atheist fundamentalists had started the propaganda that there is no God and death is coming in the form of humans while the religions had gone silent. The blocs had to make a stand as different groups and guilds had got a clue that the end is near with this World War.

“The North has declared the war officially. There are letters sent to every outpost” said the representative of the Southern Bloc.

“The battles had already started. The West and the Central Blocs are already on the battle with the Northerns on Titan and the atmosphere of Ganymede” added the Eastern representative.

“But the news about armed conflicts is not out yet. As of now, the Earth as well as the Moon are not part of the war. Neither are the colonies at Mars. None have joined the combat” said the Western representative.

“What do you have to say about it? You are better skilled to deal with the war related activities, right?” the Southern asked the Central Bloc representative who was present there as a hologram.

“Well, I have graduated in War Diplomacy and my elective was History of War. If you ask me, I don’t think that Zeus will go on a direct battle with all of us. It is too much of a risk. The result will be large scale destruction of his territories too. He should be planning an alliance” said the Central representative.

“What kind of alliance? We are the remaining three blocs here. The rest is just him and him only. He is going to create an alliance with himself?” asked the Western.

“There is this story, about the Northern Bloc contact with alien life-forms and their experiments related to super-soldiers. The earlier devastation and the economic problems is said to be a result of an experimentation related to a force unknown to mankind”.

“We would like to believe that it was just a story made to scare the others. If there was any alien life-form, we would have been in contact with them. We are not that far behind in development of technology. This should be part of that psychological warfare and nothing else” said the Southern.

“Is this a big risk that we are takng?” asked the Eastern.

“The only one taking the big risk is Zeus. He has gone mad, and is going at everyone other than that, declaring each and every known non-Northern as an enemy. It won’t do him any good anywhere and at any moment” said the Southern.

“We consider him mad, but even the sane dictators have created such big effect on the society that they are remembered forever. May be he wants something like that too. May be wants to destroy the world, and create that chaos which will be remembered by his name – he will be known as the man who changed the world, no matter for what” said the Eastern.

“Well, he is smart. So don’t think that he is underestimating any of us. He is a lot better than all the dictators, including his own father who could create more chaos than anyone else before him. He was the master of all evil, and everything that Zeus owns come from there. Yes, it was a long time ago. But the man was too much of an evil genius and has left enough for his son even with all the problems that he faced. You might think that he was defeated in the end, and his aim didn’t materialize. But that is a misconception. He did create the path to go there, and Zeus only has to follow that. It is us who are underestimating him. There is more to the Northern Bloc and Zeus than what meets the eye. Even his own people might think that he is mad, but I assure you that he is not” added the Central representative.

“Are you just just praising our enemy for no reason and making us concerned? Why would you do that?” asked the Southern.

“No, I am not praising anyone. I am just talking about the possibilities. The spies did inform that he is planning something big, like nobody has managed before, and that much is for sure. He didn’t just become the leader after his father died, for he did plan his way to the top. I will be very happy if it is nothing, but if it is something of gigantic terror, we have to be prepared. It is all I am talking about” added the Central rep.

“In that case, better be prepared than lose the war early” said the Southern.

“Let us be safe” said the Eastern.

“Lets take this to our respective blocs” agreed the Western.

Zeus was half-mad and still a better evil genius than anyone had imagined him to be. But there was still one thing which made him lose his focus, and it was his thirst for revenge. It was something unknown to the rest, which meant that he could continue to hope and strive for the revenge even during the war without giving others the idea of that weakness which he had. He had many heroes, and all of them had lost in their lives, and was all prepared to do better than them.

To be continued…

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22. Lost Shields

There was silence in the military camp, even as there was a huge presence of soldiers, more than ever in the last few years. But there was the need for the same to be broken, and after one of the ravens did the job from the window, there was a lot to follow as what came close enough to a discussion.

“This is a battle which we shall lose, and this the war which shall end us” said the commander.

“But there is nothing we can do” said one of his legionaries.

“Yes, when Zeus decides something, it has to happen” added another.

“His aim is to inflict pain rather than to win, so why would he bother?” asked the soldier in white.

“He is directly from hell, he is a minion of Lucifer or may be his real name is Mephistopheles, Leviathan or Beelzebub” said the more religious one.

“Keep those ideas with you, and you religious boy, watch your tongue; the only religion we allow here is the lack of it, and we shall do whatever we can to protect it – keep your heresy to yourself unless you wish to be far far away from humanity” warned the commander “we need all the soldiers that we can have, which might save you for now, but not for too long”.

“But can’t his advisers warn him against his war for pain and pain for war?” asked the man in white again.

“No, this is not about the nation, as there is more to this than it meets the eye. This is his personal war, and it has risen from his indoctrination against not only religion but also humanity by his parents. This is a bad medical condition if we look at it that way, but he is now the leader and there is no chance to deny him his thirst for blood right now”.

“So we go for war and most probably each and every soldier among us shall die?” they asked together.

“That is more than just a certainty. The other option is to come up with a military takeover for which we are currently not capable of, as most of our army are stationed outside Earth, and the lack of unity between our stations is huge. Even if Zeus had lead us to a certain victory, with this lack of co-operation, we might have still lost a lot of men and resources. We are a losing side, my soldiers, in each and every way. unless something of a miracle happens; but we don’t believe in miracles…such a shame”.

“Can I add something special to that talk about miracles?” the religious one raised his hands as much as he could.

“No you can’t. It is not miracles that we are looking for; we look for results, and there is actually no such thing as a miracle. We need some other intervention, not of divine nature which doesn’t exist”.

“Repentance and penance are still applicable, right?”

“Not at all. We do not believe in such things, as we are better and highly advanced people. The science has proved it, and we are coming up with more scientific evidences for the same. We have created a lot of the same in the past to support our holocausts. We don’t believe that God created us as equals, as we don’t believe in such an entity unless scientists decide to add Him to their discoveries. If we did, how could we have enjoyed all those torment of the others which we have been doing for such a long time? Just check those instances from history where irreligious people wearing the mask of people killed a lot of the fellow humans, and now we are doing it without any visage of such things, and we are more successful than all of them. You know how many threats we have neutralized? How much our empire had risen, even as we are having slight setbacks right now”.

“Every empire; every thriving civilization falls, like Assyria, Babylon, Sumeria, Persia, Greece, Rome, Ottoman…”

“Stop that, will you? The Northern Bloc is not comparable to any such little things. We are better than all of them together. They were plagued by religion, but we are not. We are self-sufficient without God. We are so superior that it troubles me; we might lose this battle, but with our superior intellect, we might still be able to come up with something to win the war or at least not lose it. I am doubtful about this war, bout not about the Northern Bloc as the powerful entity that it is, and we shall survive at any cost”.

“Ever heard about the Tower of Babel and what happened to that structure?”

“I shall know no towers other than the Northern skyscrapers which shall continue to rise above the clouds. We are the future. Why do you come up with a random story of the past about a failure which has never troubled us Northerns? We are not anybody else, for we are the superior ones”.

It was a common practice that the superiors never agreed to most of the things the lower class soldiers said. What Zeus had said was going to go out through his commander even if in a different tone. There was always blind obedience there for the taking, and the commander had passed over the baton to his fellow soldiers, or may be most of his fellow soldiers, as there was always going to be exceptions. The direction of wind was already changing in the Northern Bloc along with the shift in power which was going on throughout the world.

To be continued…

13. Not the End

Dion and his wife were to be publicly judged and most probably executed, as they could know from their prisonmates. The concentration camps were for the lesser creatures who posed no threat to the government. It was a necessity if the Northerns were to keep their control over the Southern Bloc at least for enough time to earn money and resources for another war. A scene of public shame was to be created in order to make the king and the queen subject to humiliation in front of millions of their own citizens before their execution so that the last memory of the most powerful figures of the nation would be that of misery and complete helplessness.

It was time. Both of them were taken from their respective cells, stripped and hung from the top, stretched to the full. They were to have the signs of shame on every part of their bodies and those were to be their clothing during their public humiliation. As this was done using the latest laser technologies, they were to stay on the bodies forever, until it decomposes. It was a painful procedure, and it is that pain with which death had to be called upon.

They were then strapped to the front and the back of a car which slowly moved through the streets so that everyone could see. The bare bodies exposed to a light which burned the writings caused excruciating pain. The judgement panel was ready and the two were taken to the stage, gagged, stretched and bound to an “X” sign which stood for eX-terminate, and were turned towards the crowd for their full view. The chief judge removed his helmet, and it was the leader of the Northern Bloc, Laga.

“For the people of the Northern Bloc and the Southern Bloc, I start this totally fair and unprejudiced procedure of ultimate justice. The two people you see on the stage, wearing nothing, but the signs of deserving public shame, are those who are responsible for all the destruction and the loss of life which has happened to us. One of them is referred to as ‘the protector of the weak’ while all the time, he has protected and served nobody, but himself and his family, and now he has surrendered his people and has put them to slavery just so that his daughter would have a life of luxury. He has had his own time of luxury – see how much weight he has gained during the last few months when he sat in his office and ordered deaths. He has sold you all to us, but we will make sure that he pays for it, and you all shall get your due. On his side, she is the first lady to wear these symbols of shame, and it is a shame that all such beauty had to be torn with these letters. It is not about who she is, as her crime is the big lie that is more of a fact. Their child is not their own, and due to your new Act of Legacy, her illegitimate daughter was to inherit this man and rule you all for the next five years. She has not only cheated her husband, but also your supreme leader and the nation as a whole. She is also the reason for his misbehavior, as Lady Macbeth did for her husband, and she has to bear double the shame, but it is obvious that she cannot take it any more”.

As the whip came down on her, she hardly made a move. She was separated from the “X” sign and as she fell down, a rope was tied to her neck and she was slowly lifted as her legs searched for land to ensure her survival, which was not there. The first execution was complete. Dion couldn’t look as he was turned to the other side.

“We both know that the first thing I said is not true. But the second thing is actually truth of partial nature. The child you have is not your daughter. To be frank, your wife was never pregnant, and all the time she spent to have that child was more of the time which was needed for her to help her sister give birth to an illegitimate child. She took the baby back with her after her sister’s death and you took her as your own. How do I know all these? I know the father of the child, and I might have let that little one live a great life, but as the people are already given an impression that she is your wife’s illegitimate daughter which I can easily prove, it shall bring more dishonour to you and your family if she lives a life of shame. Your type should end there, and nobody should jump in the way of the Northern Bloc in the name of saving the innocents, protecting weaker nations, safeguarding the human rights and all the similar stuff which makes me sick. It is your time to follow your wife, but in a different way”.

There was a countdown going on. When it reached zero, Dion was without his head which had flown towards the body of his wife after a scythe had moved through his neck. There was blood all over, and there was silence among the crowd. They had removed the plackards supporting Dion, and even as they were shocked by the public humiliation and the bloody execution, they were certain that Dion had sold them to the Northern Bloc, and the defeat was more of a created result rather than fought. They wanted their revenge, and as Dion and his wife had met the end, they needed to show their anger on someone, and the only candidate for that was the illegitimate daughter of Dion’s wife who had the blood of the partner in crime, and for that they had to wait, but they were ready. Laga had his own proof which were mostly fabricated, but rooted in the truth that the child was not Dion’s, and the treaty that he had signed, which had more additions to it than he had read. The child was the new enemy of the Southern Bloc, and Laga was its new protector, who could bring in anyone as his man to rule his new territory.

To be continued…

10. Final Sacrifice

Elysium, the largest city of Southern Bloc. In the year of our Lord: 2060.

“This is your last chance. Surrender or face the consequences. We have a copy of the treaty which has been approved by our council. Give up now and save what you love” thus repeated the loudspeaker from the battle tanks.
“This surrender is more of your need than hours. Kindly co-operate and stay alive with your loved ones” added the loudspeaker.

The buildings were collapsing, and chaos was everywhere. They had a last look at their child before they surrendered themselves to the invading Northern Bloc army. It was the only way to save the kid, as they had thought. But, how much that worked out is something that they would never know about. It will be another story, and whether it would have a good run is a question they would fail to answer. It would also save the city or whatever is left of it from further destruction. The whole Southern Bloc was nothing better than the wasteland that T.S. Eliot had talked about long ago. “APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain”. – explained the situation of the bloc perfectly.

Dion was the leader of the Southern Bloc when the Third World War started. The Southern Bloc had taken the wrong side in the war, with the smaller nations around the powerful Northern Bloc which cherished their independence. But the Northerns were not that kind of people who liked seeing little ants wandering around their legs and their obvious decision was the crush the little insects. The small city-states had asked help from Dion which he was ready to provide. He has always been the champion of the weak and the voiceless subaltern. It was clearly opposed by the ministers of his chamber, but he was not a man to back away. But at a time when there were only two power blocs, the Northern and the Southern, Dion was asking for a lot more than he could handle considering the collection of arms and manpower which the Notherns have been collecting for ages.

Elysium had fallen, and so had the last hope for freedom. Does the Third World War end there with the fall of the Southerns? No, it doesn’t, as the unholy alliances has kept forming even among the weakest nations, while the Northern Bloc has concentrating its full army, navy, airforce and the special forces on bringing destruction to the Southerns. What would become of Southern Bloc is a question that remains, as no building is left standing. As the Royal Palace has been taken over and Dion and his wife taken prisoners of war, the Northerns can now fix a puppet government there which they can control from a distance. The leader would be a Northern, who would marry from the Southern Bloc so as to maintain his neutrality on paper and so that the new appoinment would be justified in the pages of history. It is more of a temprary contract rather than anything else. To add to that, all the natural resources can be harvested from among the destruction. The rivers from the South shall now flow towards the North, and whatever flows towards the South shall have dams in their path. The annual tribute might be in millions and that amount will have to be paid by the last remaining citizens of the Southern Bloc who number in thousands.

The total loss of life of the Northerns is estimated to be twenty thousand five hundred troops and fifty five civilians while that of the Southerns is estimated to be ninety five thousand troops and ninety nine thousand civilians, with about hundred thousands of civilians captured alive as the prisoners of war, and Dion and his wife has become one of them. They were stripped off their richness and clothed in drags, and put in concentration camps – considering their high status and Dion’s role in the war, their chances of survival in such a hostile environment would be absolutely zero. The only best thing that they can wish for, is a comaratively painful death, as there would be agony and there should be suffering immersed in brutality. He had quoted Eliot before he surrendered: “I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones”. He was not that much of an admirer of The Wasteland, but the situations create different likes and dislikes. What he would have asked in the face of the Northern brutality would have been a few other lines from the same poem: “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?” He knew about the war crimes the Northerns had committed, and he knew he would become a victim, and the question about his survival was not a relevant one.

There would be the last question that can remain. It would be about their child. Barely an year old, the child has been identified and taken to the Northern Bloc’s capital city of Asgard. From what is known about the Northern brutality, all the Southerns who knew about the same could be sure about only two things. One is that the child will not die easily, and the second is that the child shall grow up and when it does, there is going to be the brutality of the highest order that awaits. Dion chose to make the sacrifice and not run away by making a deal that his child would survive. But what would this kind of survival mean for the child? Is it any better than the realms of Hades and the being caught by a hellhound at the gates of inferno?

To be continued…