Kodos The Executioner
Experimenting with different styles of writing. Tell me how you like it? I'm completely stuck on my other stories, but of course this comes right to me…
Dark, by the way. Don't say I didn't warn you.
A different take on the events of the infamous Tarsus IV massacre.
"...Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV."
His colony was dying around him.
It had started with a fungus - a fucking fungus, that was all, just a little disease that took out some of their crops, a fungus they didn't have the resources to stop. What need did an 8000 people farming colony need of such technologies, after all?
A fungus - just a fungus - on earth, food could be bought, from other parts of the world, other planets, other solar systems… no one would starve. The government wouldn't allow it, not in this age.
But they weren't on Terra, and they had no way of getting quick help. And if the governor of Tarsus IV might not have been a genius, he could do the math. By the time the ships they'd sent for had arrived, everyone, every man, women and child on his beautiful planet, everyone would be dead.
Or…
A terrible, chilling thought came to him. His mind rejected it. He turned his attention to other alternatives.
Could he further cut rations? There was no way to stretch the limited food supply to everyone, even giving people only the bare minimum. Could they use the planets plants and animals? But plants were scarce, none digestible to humans, and only the smallest of animals and insects could be found. That was what made it such a prime farming spot, after all. The few animals were all equally inedible, too.
There had to be something. Another wisp of a thought, dark and grim, flickered through his head. He shook himself rapidly.
Perhaps - perhaps - his mind was blank. Help would come too late for the colony. They were all going to die, gods, they were all going to die.
All of them.
Every single one.
…
Or…
It was too terrible to imagine.
Or…
Or… or some of them… could live.
A convulsive shudder wracked him - how could he contemplate - but…
They would all - if he didn't… everyone…
He sat at his computer, slowly. Six hours to the next rations hand-out. For everyone's sake, he needed to be done before then… But, no, this was just… curiosity. He wouldn't actually, he was just… seeing. Just because.
He brought up medical files, read.
He gave the computer commands, specifying how they should be listed.
Five hours later, he stood staring sightlessly at two even lists, four thousand on either side.
He couldn't - but -
Four thousand. Eight thousand.
Four thousand. Eight thousand. Numbers. These were lives… But lives, numbers… taking away four thousand was still preferable to eight thousand, wasn't it? Wasn't it?
He spoke to the head of the council. The man was stunned. The man called him insane, a lunatic, a monster. But he was saving them. It was the only way - the only option - couldn't he see it?
Monster.
He realized they wouldn't help him. He left.
He placed calls. Rounded up officers, told them nothing - pretended that he didn't recognize the name of one of them from the left-hand list, and told them who to gather into the meeting area. He told the one officer, a casual friend of his, to join the colonists afterwards. There were no questions asked, the hunger-fatigued guards still dutiful, still loyal, still trusting he would see them through this.
He called others. Lock up the others in the government, he told them. They are destroying us all, he said. I must have power. I can stop this. I can get you food, once they're gone. Then come in the meeting-place with me. Bring phasers, do as I say, he told them.
One asked what they should do to the other leaders.
The governor looked at him, almost puzzled, and it took a minute for him to understand the question.
Wasn't it obvious? They were to be killed.
He realized he couldn't see the people without having anything prepared. That wasn't professional at all, now was it? Not at all, not at all. He wrote a speech. Brief. It would do.
The colony was small, his people quick. It was half an hour past the time for rations to be handed out. The people on the left-list were confused when he met them. What was he doing? Why were they there, they asked. They were hungry. Would this take long? They were so hungry.
He quieted them, and they listened, because they trusted him. They all trusted him.
Young, old, middle-aged but weak. The strongest survived, wasn't that how it worked? He was just speeding along nature.
They looked up at him, silent, complacent. From one of the first rows he saw his beautiful wife, looking curious.
Around the perimeter, a hundred puzzled colonists from the right-list stood, all discreetly holding phasers, not knowing why.
Another hundred were placed between them, eyes bright. They were hungry.
He met the eyes of his wife, blankly. She smiled at him. He rose his head above their silent faces, unrolling a piece of paper. He had not reread it after writing, but it was burned into his mind. He knew the words. His eyes never looked at the paper.
He felt light, not tethered to the world. Everything would be fine. He was saving them. He was just doing what had to be done. He would give them life.
"The revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV."
Shots rang out.
Shrieks filled the air as a hundred people vaporized instantly.
He took out a phaser and shot his wife, eyes lingering on her staring, uncomprehending face as she vanished.
I love you.
More screams. People were trampled. But there was only a small exit to the area, and it was guarded. Some from the right-list dropped their weapons and fled. One turned the gun on himself, and Kodos wondered if he could grab one of the left-list people in time. A spot had opened up.
Finally, some of the colonists joined the officers in firing.
Except then - something happened. The firing stopped, but the colonists were still screaming. So were those on the right-list.
Kodos, perched on the pedestal, could still see across the area. Blood. Corpses.
A vague puzzlement. No, no, they were supposed to be vaporized, what was this, what was this…
They were escaping. The left-list people were escaping. No, no, no. Didn't they see? They were killing them all!
No!
MURDERERS! MURDERERS! He was screaming it at them, though he didn't know it. Murderers -his colony would die, what were they doing?
They were gone. His officers were the only ones left, dazed and confused among a dozen corpses, the sick scent of ozone in the air in place of three-thousand bodies. The rest had escaped.
No, no…
He went to them. Some wandered around, or sat on the ground. Four were weeping.
He looked at the bodies.
They had been stabbed. But that wasn't how it was supposed to happen - it was supposed to be quick, clean -
And what were they - Oh.
Oh.
They were - six of them were -
Oh.
They were eating the bodies.
No. No, they weren't. His mind was playing tricks on him. He was hungry, too, after all. Probably hallucinating. He turned to the guards, and they looked at him with desperate hope.
He gave them new orders. They were to pursue the colonists who had fled. Once those on the left-list were all dead, their survival was assured.
They agreed, left.
Most of them. Two of the weeping ones lunged for him. The others attacked them in his defence. Kodos was a great man, they told the two, harshly. He was wise. He was saving them all.
The two just wept.
A moment later they were gone, and there were two more bodies that the cannibals in the group turned their attention to.
But Kodos' mind was just playing tricks on him. Really.
He returned to his home. Smoothed out the bed, where his wife lay, and he smiled and told her all about how they would be just fine now, and she wasn't there but it was alright, he would leave and others would live and maybe she'd come back to visit some day? Because he thought he might start to miss her, and things were confusing. He was feeling a little odd.
His people called, and he smiled as he read their reports, and the numbers shrunk. A hundred left. Seventy-six left. Fifteen left on the list. Eleven. Ten. No, eleven again, that was the wrong person, but it was alright. That one was helping them too, now, surely he wouldn't begrudge the colonists his bo - his food.
Nine left, it was reported.
Another report came in.
….
There were ships.
He didn't understand.
A terrible fear and horror welled within him, and he couldn't understand that, either, but he ran, and he ran, and he ran. He fled his home and barrelled through wild vegetation, and he stumbled and fell and rose to run again, desperate sobs escaping him, branches catching on his clothing. He was bleeding everywhere, but he didn't notice. He had to get away, get away, get away, it hurt so much…
They found him, cornered him. Took him to their ship as he shook and sobbed and scratched to get away, but they just watched him with pity as others shook and sobbed and screamed around him.
And, over time, he remembered. And he closed his mind against it, because he had saved them, even if they didn't know it - Starfleet had been early, but somehow he had saved them. He wasn't a murderer. They were wrong. But if he said who he was, they would think he was a murdered, and that wasn't right.
Three weeks after it all began, he finally spoke his first words to the medical staff.
"My name… is Karidian."