Star Kitten (16 page)

The Nausties rampaged uncontrollably for
days, killing and mutilating, capturing and torturing to death, as
well as pillaging and vandalizing the terminal storage facility.
There were occasional pockets of resistance; and in a few cases,
Security Troops did make some heroic last stands. In the main lobby
of the Terminal complex, fully a thousand Nausties were mowed down
by Electrical Impulse Cannons mounted on balconies. In thousands of
offices and meeting rooms; inside the barracks and inside kitchens
or warehouses, Security Troops could barricade themselves and
decimate the assaulting rebels. But there was no stopping the
Nausties. Bloodlust and rage; suppressed in these violent beings
for so many years, was all being released in one big orgy of
frenzied violence.

Most non-prisoners attempting to surrender
were summarily executed when captured; but some of the Nausties
went way too far with it. Atrocities were quite common. Clearly no
one was in charge anymore, and in the absence of control, soldiers
of most any army (especially rioting prisoners) can become ravenous
beasts in the aftermath of a violent engagement. Whereas central
command had been both felt and recognized prior to Perry’s and
Hicks’ suicide mission, now it was apparent that no one was really
running the show at all.

Corpses of the slain Mine Engineers,
soldiers, and office staff were violated grotesquely and certain
species were offended by some of it; because in some cultures there
were specific rules regarding the treatment of the dead. Suddenly
Zorg Nausties noticed Human Nausties making helmets and bizarre
hats out of the severed skulls of their dead Zorg counterparts
who’d been working for the mine or serving in the Security Force.
This was offensive, because only in ancient Zorg tradition, did a
Chieftain ritualistically lop off the head of a slain rival warlord
and then form a hat out of the top of his skull. A common soldier
was not allowed to; and a Chieftain in ancient times would only do
that if he personally slayed the other Zorg warlord.

And other acts were culturally offensive to
some species, especially the Pumalars who believed that all
warriors had a duty to defend themselves to the death in combat,
and should never be expected to surrender. If wounded and captured,
a Pumalar warrior by tradition could and usually DID request
execution to avoid shaming their family breed.

Zorgs who captured Schpleeftii office staff,
Pokonji laborers, or Human mining engineers in the terminal,
delighted in torturing them to death and even staged bizarre
circus-like events where they dragged screaming, terrified,
defenseless beings out to be slowly burned to death, impaled on
stakes, or skinned alive until their bodies bled out. Spleef
Nausties were quick to connect this Zorg behavior with the
repulsive Zorg delicacy of eating infant rodents (Warden Ggggaaah
for instance, was reported to have kept a small mouse cage in his
office for occasional snacks).

Pumalar Security Troops, when wounded and
captured, were humiliatingly bound to big tables and SHAVED from
head toe by cruel Naustie Earthers or Spleefs. Then they were
forced in some cases to duel each other to the death with only
clubs or daggers in a makeshift arena constructed out of the lobby
of the main terminal.

The arena spectacle was
downright disgusting. It was degrading, and offensive too.
Thousands of Nausties attended these Roman Gladiator-style “games”,
as the Nausties came to call them. And these various offenses
gradually led to former rival gangs becoming once again resentful
toward each other. After all, shaving a Warrior Cat’s fur removed
his family breed identity, so when killed in the arena, he died in
shame, by Pumalar standards. In the afterlife, when his soul had
left his body and went to
Fukuoka
, as Pumalars called Heaven,
he’d not be recognized by his ancestors, and this was a grave
insult to the slain warrior.

Warden Ggggaaah was executed for all to see
as well, not long after the final battle in the terminal. This
occurred about a week after his surrender. In a fate befitting such
an evil and arrogant being, the Nausties merely dragged the
fiendish captured Warden out of the terminal building and onto the
center of the outside retractable cavern roof. They tied him to a
post and just left him out there to die of exposure in the searing
heat of the Rijel 12 afternoon, with temperatures soaring into the
150’s by midday. His stripped lizard-like body roasted in the
sunlight until it turned white and scaly, burning and flaking off
him as he suffered in the heat. By the next morning, after
temperatures had plunged into the teens the night before, he
appeared dead. The Nausties merely left him out there to rot and
disintegrate. No one felt like going out to retrieve his body.

But on that first day, literally thousands
watched from inside the safety of the tinted windowed main terminal
as he pitifully kept looking to the sky on occasion for rescue from
Interplanetary Authority forces. He’d look up searching the sky
mournfully, then squint his lizard-like eyes in the oppressing
sunlight, wincing and bowing his head in agony. He groaned and
cried out every once in a while, struggling to breathe in the thin
air, while painfully baking in the incredible heat. It was a
horrifying death that many witnessed and absolutely no one would
ever forget.

It was the end of an era. An end to not just
the life of their tormentor and captor, it was technically the end
of the rebellion itself. After all, with the final capture of the
entire five square mile terminal facility, there were warehouses
full of high quality food, gallons of purified water, kitchens,
comfortable barracks, new clothing, and sanitation facilities that
many Nausties had not seen the likes of in over a decade.

Gang leaders sensed the need for stability
again; and began re-forming their membership; as military units
disbanded and Nausties returned to their original territories
within the mine network. Some even moved into sections of the
Service Tunnel near newly discovered Food Warehouses which were
located every few miles throughout the globe; and spider-webbed
across the planet. One big problem had now been eliminated: The
Nausties had won their freedom. But with the victory came two new
sources of conflict; and both were caused by the elimination of the
prison system, as well as the atrocities committed after the
victory….

Cultural insults remembered from the
aftermath of the battle led to minor squabbles between gang
members. Memories of the ill-treatment of captured Security Troops,
mining engineers, workers, or office staff in the Arena, led to
resentments between rival gangs. Resentments led to minor
squabbles. Minor squabbles led to open conflict, and gang members
occasionally teamed up to avenge some of the things done to their
fellow species in the Arena.

Now skilled at warfare, and now also
experienced with military organization, many gangs which were made
up of the same species, began to return to their identities as gang
members, no longer seeing themselves as fellow Nausties and
comrades of all newly liberated prisoners on the planet. It was
only natural, after all. There was no common enemy anymore!

Architeuthis was the SPIRITUAL LEADER, not
the military commander anyway. That meant his job as the
inspiration for the rebellion had already been performed. He was no
longer needed as the supreme leader of the planet’s army. No army
was necessary any more either. General Hicks was dead, and there
was no need to name a successor. Warden Ggggaaah had been
defeated.

Gangs re-formed as military discipline faded
away and all Nausties searched for some sense of normality again.
The mine and the guards ironically had been the only source of
structure in their previous lives in the first place. Without the
mine labor, and the production quotas to determine who got to eat
and who might die, there would have been no need for the formation
of gangs in the first place. So now, with the planet completely
captured and beings competing with each other for captured plunder,
the gangs took on a brand new role. Members now needed protection
more than ever. Hoarding supplies after the fall of the prison
system became the new mode of survival for gangs.

It was now time for species of the same
origin to become protective of their own kind -with the exception
of the Schpleeftkorkii tribe, of course. This was nearly the oldest
gang on the planet, and it was made up of many different species,
but that was rare on New Australia. Most other gangs were all from
a single species. And gradually rivalries began to develop or
re-emerge. Both old ones and new ones, that is.

Disputes occurred over access to supplies,
territorial dominions, and then control over distribution. Then
these disputes evolved into organized confrontation. It was only
natural after all, given the barbaric nature of their existence;
and the violent circumstances of the achievement of their
independence. The gangs had always fought for their survival, then
they’d fought with the guards for their freedom. The only thing
left for them to do now was to fight each other… for the only two
things left on New Australia that had value: Food and Water.

Fights over food depots, terminal storage
facilities, and also the recently discovered massive food
warehouses located throughout the global service tunnel, evolved
out of the need to reestablish gang "territories" after the fall of
Warden Ggggaaah. Some gangs were stronger than others. Some gangs
merely became absorbed into other stronger gangs. Some merely got
wiped out entirely. But as about fifty major gangs rose to the top
and began vying for complete control, the planet gradually began to
descend into a devastating civil war.

Amazingly enough, after all they'd gone
through by uniting together to defeat the prison authorities; they
still fell into the natural trap of fighting for their own survival
at the expense of the planet’s future. This is precisely what
Warden Ggggaaah predicted would happen to the rebels eventually.
Just like mutineers on a pirate ship, they’d eventually distrust
each other and kill off one another until only a handful of ragged
survivors remained.

The leaders of the bigger, stronger gangs
knew that only those gangs who controlled the most resources, could
then vie for power over the whole planet. Yet they knew in their
hearts… it was a zero-sum game. To capture resources meant war with
other gangs, and engaging one gang in battle, meant becoming
vulnerable to attack from another.

This foolishness and depravity went on for
many months. It was incredible how quickly things degenerated. The
heroism and sacrifice demonstrated by so many Nausties so very
recently, meant nothing now with the harsh reality everyone had to
accept: that the planet, almost a year later, had only a limited
amount of food, and no central governing authority to control its
equal distribution. What had happened instead was tens of thousands
of warriors fighting for control of it all. Alliances were formed,
and then broken. Truces would be established, then violated. Shared
control agreements would be penned by a few warring gangs and a
little progress would be made; but with no real means of proper
enforcement, those agreements failed to secure any kind of global
peace.

It was over a year before the top fifty
gangs finally began to realize that if they didn't stop fighting
over food depots and warehouses, they might very well starve out
the entire planet and then everyone would die. Controlling access
to the limited amount of food ON the planet would soon mean
nothing. Even with tens of thousands dead from fighting and
starvation already, there was still only a limited amount of food
left on the planet for still a very large population of Nausties to
have to share. They had to stop all the fighting immediately and
band together once again; otherwise the entire planet would die
out.

It really almost seemed like it would
eventually come to that, at one point; with rival gangs beating
each other to a pulp; only to have another gang sweep in to capture
the spoils. It was like they knew better, but just couldn’t come to
terms with the harsh truth about what they were doing to
themselves.

A very similar bizarre thing occurred on the
planet Earth way back in the 23rd century. Like many industrial age
planetary cultures, Earthers had learned to burn their own planet’s
fossil fuels to generate power to run their machines, appliances,
devices, and vehicles. But climactic change occurred on Earth,
which was exacerbated by the carbon dioxide emissions from burning
these fuels; sending the whole planet into centuries of violent
weather pattern changes, rising sea levels, and gradual extinction
of both plant and animal species. Governments at first denied there
was a problem, while scientists warned of disaster to come. The
public for the most part remained oblivious to the truth or didn’t
really want to believe it. Each generation merely left the problem
to the next one until finally the net results were becoming
overwhelmingly clear.

Starvation followed years of massive climate
change and repeated crop failure. Governments toppled. The nations
of the planet warred on each other for control of limited
resources, rather than coming together to devise solutions.
Dictators and tyrants rose and fell. Armies fought and killed and
destroyed and wiped out entire regions of the planet. Nothing was
accomplished. Just thousands and then millions of deaths, until the
few surviving nations of the earth joined together and instituted
massive reforms in the way food and electrical energy were produced
and distributed.

Populations were redistributed via forced
emigration programs, and females were limited to a single offspring
per household to control overpopulation. Massive space stations
were developed too for the mass production of crops in floating
perpetual Galactic hydroponic farms. Even the dietary intake of
Earth citizens was controlled and dictated by central governing
bodies to avoid overconsumption and conflict over shortages. Within
a few decades, the whole planet had changed considerably, with some
coastal cities located near oceans ending up being abandoned
entirely to the rising sea; and populations settling into the
interior of the continents to reestablish society and begin a new
civilization.