Submission

ALPHA: Well met Mr. President! I must say you look positively sane for a man who's just lost an intergalactic war. Good for you. A stern resolve, that's the mark of a true figure head!

 

AUSKLANG: Take off that skin you piece of trash...

 

ALPHA: Oh but I spent so long getting it on! We Chimerans aren't really meant to wear more than one body a year, bad for our health you see, but I thought I'd make the effort since it was your daughter and all. Still getting used to the waist, was she always this fat?

 

AUSKLANG: You take off that skin, or I walk.

 

ALPHA: You walk and I'll telepathically order the fleet to blow this planet to dust.

 

AUSKLANG: Huh?! You can't, that's a violation of the agreement!

 

ALPHA: Hah, you really think I give an atom about the little scheme your UN and my council have cooked up for peace? I own the largest fleet in the galaxy now that yours has surrendered, I'll do what I damn well please.

 

AUSKLANG: Fine.

 

ALPHA: Come now Mr. President, you're not doing a very good job of surrendering to the advanced alien overlord now are you?.

 

AUSKLANG: We've already surrendered, there's the briefcase. Now get out of here.

 

ALPHA: No no no no no, that's not how it's supposed to happen, where's the coup de theatre? I've arranged us being alone in this rural slice of dirt in the wake of our grand conflict so we could have some historic banter before you submit everything. It's no fun if we go strictly by the formalities.

 

AUSKLANG: I don't have anything more to say to you.

 

ALPHA: Oh don't be angry with me, daddy.

 

AUSKLANG: Don't touch me you Chimie scum!

 

ALPHA: Oooh, he added scum to a colloquially derogatory term, that must mean I'm the bad guy.

 

AUSKLANG: You're not bad, Alpha. You're beyond any concept of evil there is. You're a cancer.

 

ALPHA: Oh don't be so naive. I'm no different from any other conqueror that came before me. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Julius Caesar, Sun Tzu, and now: Alpha the Chimeran. Don't give me that look, you're making this all seem as is this is the first time humans have ever fallen from grace. Can't you see that this is just history repeating itself on a greater scale? The Greek Empire fell, the Roman Empire fell, the British Empire fell, and now the Earthling Empire has fallen. And yes, given enough time, my Chimeran Empire will probably fall too.

 

AUSKLANG: I didn't come here for a lecture, just take the briefcase and go.

 

ALPHA: Can't bare to look into your late daughter's eyes any more, eh? Or maybe you want to take one last slug at me? Could you do it, could you really punch your dead little girl in the face?... Raiden, Zeus and Thor you are dull, how did you ever get voted into office? Very well, just give me the case and that'll be the end of it.

 

AUSKLANG: Finally.

 

ALPHA: Mmmm, on second thought I don't want it.

 

AUSKLANG: WHAT?!

 

ALPHA: Yeah, when I think about it, having six billion more problems in my life just for the sake of domination... eh, it's just not worth the hassle. Racial cleansing, yep, that's the sensible option. For fun too.

 

AUSKLANG: You son of a bitch!

 

ALPHA: Of course my opinion could be shifted if you begged me to take the Earth under my wing. Down on your hands and kneels, kissing my feet while singing my praises, that sort of thing.

 

AUSKLANG: Over my dead body creep.

 

ALPHA: You have the entire human race on the line here champ, not even you're conceited enough to place your pride before the welfare of your entire species. Come on, yip yip, down you go. I want a full Master-Slave dialectic or the planet goes bye bye.

 

AUSKLANG: You know what...fuck it. (AUSKLANG punches ALPHA)

 

ALPHA: Gak. Well what do you know, looks like the old dog has some fight left in him yet after all. (Pair start fighting). Now this is more like it! No more peace talks, no more cease fires, back to good old fashioned violence! Come on dad, try to hurt hurt me! Let all that pent out anger flow through your fists. Must feel like venom coursing through your veins by now. The billions dead, all the last super minute super weapon projects shut down

 

AUSKLANG: You sack of scum, you don't deserve to wear her skin, you don't reserve to wear anyone's skin.

 

ALPHA: Not so easy fighting one of your own is it? Not like in the death camps you set up, everyone must have looked like a monster to you there. You probably thought you were doing them a service by putting them out of their ugly misery!

 

AUSLANG: Shut up!

 

ALPHA: Make me! After all the thousands you've massacred you make me shut up. (ALPHA downs her opponent) What? Is that all really all you've got? Mars, Ares and Set, you really have gotten old. I never thought I'd see the day. Whatever happened to that maverick human boasting about victory on the front lines eh? Whatever happened to "Let's make Chimerans an extinct species!"?'

 

AUSKLANG: Just take the case and go.

 

ALPHA: Good grief this is depressing. All those years we spent battling across the stars and all it comes down to is a sad old alien and a bored hive mind dressed as a girl, sitting in some field, delaying the end... I was thinking back to our time together the other day you know, to when our main fleets first clashed, there was so much crossfire between us anybody observing would have mistaken the sector for housing a small sun. And after that, when you flew your flagship into the black hole just so I wouldn't escape into the void, even I thought you were nuts. The constellation race which lead us to the freezing galaxy, the mass manhunts for inter-breeders between our kinds, the power plays over Saturn's magnetosphere... a part of me thought it would never end. Or at least, if it did: it would all finish with some grand spectacle. The last remnant of my ships crashing head first into your throne world as planet core blasted everything to oblivion from inside out. But no, it finishes with a whisper, not a bang. Why did they have to go and end it Ausklang? Why did the broken backs of our races have ruin it all by giving it in to the masses at the last very second?

 

AUSKLANG: Debra would have wanted to save them...

 

ALPHA: Plague... our reigning leaders let children guide the way of adults. You know what the funny thing is? I really don't want that briefcase. Taking over your planet, it provides no satisfaction for me. I'm a military leader, all I want is a new army and a fresh challenge once every hundred years. If it wasn't for the council I would have seen this feud to the bitter end despite you pleas. I'm not going to get a kick out of seeing your kind revert to common slaves over the next generation, in truth I respect you all to much for that.

 

AUSKLANG: You're schizophrenic, you're insane. One minute you're barking off about how much you hate us and want to slaughter us, the next about how much you admire us and detest the situation we're in. You're a lunatic.

 

ALPHA: That's not crazy, that's what happens when two parties are in a long term relationship. You get the full spectrum of feelings towards you partner. Extreme loathing is often mixed in with utmost respect. My people and I, we despise your guts, but at the same time you've turned into a huge part of our culture. Every Chimeran spawn stationed for service in the armada studies English as a second language, we study your species' history from this very moment to when you first burst to life in the ocean, and out of all the races out there: we wear your skins the most. We've grown so used to you four limbed monkeys, I mean look at me now: wearing your dead daughters body as a formal sign of victory. Conflict with your species was become a way of life for us, and it scares me sometimes, thinking about a Chimeran Empire without humans to fight. All those youngsters out there with fire in their hearts and a weapon in every hand. What's going to happen one month from now when the council announces the warriors no longer have anything to fight. What will be the long term repercussions of millions of troopers returning home to their planets with no purpose in their lives? I don't know, I really don't, but whatever happens: it will all be because you gave me this damn briefcase.

 

AUSKLANG: Jesus Christ you talk too much. Just open the damn briefcase already.

 

ALPHA: Hmph. Same old rock solid Ausklang... I'm going to miss you buddy. (Opens briefcase) What in time is this? Where's the deed to the planet?

 

AUSKLANG: I was hoping to get clear of the area before you opened that case, but I suppose there's no helping it now. The psyche wave will kill me to, so close to the source I'm fated to die here with you.

 

ALPHA: What?! Wait, why am I bleeding? What's happening?

 

AUSKLANG: We never shut down our super weapon projects, Alpha, what are holding is a cerebrum bomb, just like the ones we used on Pluto. Except this one has the honour of effecting you, the mental linchpin of the Chimeran fleet. What your experiencing now is your brain shutting down, and because you link to all your troops telepathically, it's happening to all of them to.

 

ALPHA: That can't be. That's a third of the species!

 

AUSKLANG: You let your pride blind you Alpha, inviting me out here this. Trying to humiliate me. You would have won if you'd just blown up the planet or let the peace ensue. Now you've doomed every warrior out there. What the hell were you thinking?

 

ALPHA: Yama, Reaper and Anubis. You old bastard...