Extract from "The Butcher of Barnard's Star" (approx. 2,000 words)
History would give him many names: the Monster of Medigror IX, General Genocide, the Butcher of Barnard's Star, The Killer of Light, Smasher of Galaxies. But Hoshi only knew him as his loving father. As with most tyrants, there was a clearly-defined dichotomy between the man General Ferisal Mo-Shabbath was in public, and the man he was at home. Hoshi was proud of his father, admired his strength and always took to heart the advice the General had given him as a boy: stand firm and nobody will stand in your way.
An outspoken critic of the government of Lavamite III, it was the General who had led the revolt against it and seized power in a coup which was far from bloodless. Setting himself up as the “protector of the planet” he swiftly moved to have his rivals and his enemies killed, having them publicly electo-flayed, a punishment he had come up with himself as the most grisly and painful imaginable, and which, once it was enshrined into the new constitution of the planet (written solely by the General, of course) and became the standard method of execution, saw crime fall across Lavamite III by eighty percent.
Another thing his son could admire about the General. He had brought law and order to a pretty lawless planet.
Down through time and across space, ordinary working men and women have risen from the ranks of the downtrodden to take on the powers that be, usually in the hope of supplanting those powers with their own and thereby changing their respective worlds. Whether for better or worse, well now, that really depends on the man or woman in question.
In the case of Ferisal Jemmeloth, this turned out to be decidedly the latter. Nobody can say what was in the man's mind when he began opposing the corrupt government of Aickbur Westling, though few would have disagreed at the time that a change was required. A popular candidate, admired by over ninety percent of the planet's voters, he was quickly swept into power while the people who had placed him there waited to see how things would improve. The views of General Ferisal, however, and those of the people, did not coincide with each other, and he had no intention of making their lives better, or even bearable.
Perhaps he had, at one time before taking power, valid motives and good intentions, but they were all forgotten, ignored once he took office, and he became not only as corrupt as Westling but infinitely more cruel. Anxious to consolidate his position he did so through the usual expedients of wiping out his enemies, rivals, in fact anyone who didn't agree with his policies in a series of purges. He then abolished all voting rights of the people, along with most other of their rights, and set about making himself as rich as possible.
Nobody stood in his way.
Hoshi's admiration for his father swelled. Other hearts swelled, too, but these soon burst, roasted or just stopped beating in his many torture stations, as the General continued to see enemies everywhere, conspiracy and treachery occupying his every waking moment. Even his most trusted advisor, arriving for work in the morning, could not be sure that he would still be alive in the evening. The paranoia of the leader grew like a bloated monster, and even some of his extended family felt the lethal kiss of the electro-flayer.
Nobody stood in his way.
__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
|