A small white furry creature with long ears and wearing a purple vest was seen through Dominic’s cross-hair scope. It scampered very rapidly up to the doors of the hangar with a heavily armed guard outside it. The small creature didn’t even have to break pace because the guard saw it coming from across the tarmac and cracked the door open for it. Interesting tactic, to use seemingly minimal security for such an expensive illegal operation. Dom gave the go ahead, “Sir, target two has arrived.”

“Copy.”

A security drone was making its slow round of the hangar exterior, scanning the perimeter, and was passing by the armed guard in front of the door to the hangar as the security cameras that covered this view, as well as the drone’s own camera, all went static for approximately five seconds. During those five seconds the drone made an unexpected right face in front of the guard and let loose a single large caliber silenced round into his face then turned left face to continue on its round as though nothing had happened. Bakara landed the ground next to the guard in time to catch him by the collar before he hit the ground and opened the door to drag him in after the two other special ops members that had joined him.

Once the cameras had gone static one of the security guards watching them hit the other in the shoulder and indicated the views that were static. The second guard turned to his right to look at them, slightly annoyed that the other didn’t just handle it, but as he leaned forward to hit the video processor on its side they came back into view.

“Ya they been doin’ that for a few weeks now,” he grumbled, and they both went back to vacantly scanning the various screens for movement.

The inside of the hangar was a sound-proof shell for an illegal pleasure resort. The hangar had a number of building structures inside of it. The kind of “pleasures” found here were indulged in by the sickest, and wealthiest, creatures in this sector. Very twisted and powerful people.

Walis Canon of the InterGalatic Patrol, Black Flag Special Ops squad leader, Grey Knight Member of the Valor Society, walked down the main walkway in his ultralight Grey Armor suit with his two men slightly behind him toward the center building that housed a special kind of “Social Club”, and the man he was looking for. It was also likely that little white furry animal was there. Based on the little creature’s movement through the various hot spots that Walis had monitored, it would be.

The interior security drones that monitored the walkways inside the little resort had subtly shifted their flight pattern to not cover this building.

They arrived at the doors. Walis gave his orders, “No one enters this building. No one leaves it alive.” Then he pushed open the doors and walked in alone. He was greeted by overly loud synth music, dim colored lighting, and strobe lights. He was on the main walkway that led to a large concrete stage in the middle of the room. There were stairs on either side that led down into booths and various areas where one could eat and watch the stage. Across the stage from the main entrance were the doors onto the stage that the performers used, and on either side of these doors stairs curved up to a second floor balcony that ran around the the entirety of the large, high ceiling room. Just at the top of the stairs were various sets of large double doors to other spaces and around the rest of the main room there were cages that tilted at a crazy angle over the edge of the balcony. Walis permeated the room with his perception when he stepped through the door and continued walking toward the stairs on the other side of the room. There was one other higher mentality in the room but before it could act Walis stifled the Deporian’s thought and then put a bullet through its head with his side arm at forty yards away, timing the shot with the strobe pulse so that the flash didn’t start too much alarm; not that it would have stopped him. He continued without missing a step. Some of the naked females of various planets that were writhing all over each other on the stage, and some in the cages above, did notice him, but were not sure of what to do, so they continued writhing for the drugged guests as they kept an eye on him. Almost all of the guest became aware of him as he crossed the stage to the stairs, those that were watching the females and not engrossed in eating endangered animals while they were still half alive.

Walis ran up the steps to the only door in the place with a mental block on it. And kicked the door open.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” The planet drug lord, Davies, jumped up from his desk chair, which was immense, like his desk, and started to take a gun out of his drawer. The small white creature in the purple vest was already half way through a door that only it would have fit through at the back of the room and it had a mental shield.

Walis’ bullet hit Davies’ gun before he could use it and it was a blaster so its charge exploded and sent him flying back into the shelf of expensive exotic nicknacks behind his desk.

Walis was on top of him before he realized what had happened and that his hand was gone. Walis ripped his clothes off, in one fast motion, not hard, he was wearing a purple jump suit. Seeing that he had no other weapons on him, Walis threw him on the desk, holding him by the forearm with a stump at the end of it. Davies was screaming bloody murder now. His stump gushing blood. Walis squeezed the forearm and the blood suddenly stopped. This made Davies scream even louder and two octaves higher so Walis stuffed the purple suit pretty far down Davies’ throat. Davies was in shock and flailing so Walis stuck the forearm into the desk with a ten inch knife, applied a rapid numbing clot pack to it his stub so he wouldn’t die, then stuck the other arm to the desk through the hand with another knife. With his hands now free, Walis rapidly secured each kicking foot with titanium threat to the desk. He then walked over to the door and shut it as best it would. There was a commotion outside, but he didn’t care.

“Davies, I need you to pay attention now.” He walked over to the desk as he said it. Davies face was turning the same color as his jumpsuit. Walis yanked it out of his throat. Davies gasped in a few gulps of air, heaving. Then he started screaming again. Walis stood by the desk over his head and clamped Davies’ jaw shut. “If you agree to stop screaming and give me information I will give you a pain killer. It will start working in ten seconds. It is very effective.”

Davies’ eyes went wide at the prospect of not feeling agony and instantly agreed, moaning and nodding. Walis pulled out an injection and stuck it into the back of Davies’ neck. Davies moaning decreased and he started giggling a little. Walis let go of his jaw. There was screaming outside in the main room. Walis didn’t care.

“Oohhh, my sweet Dark Lord that is good shit…” Davies’ was breathing heavily.

“I need to know three things: one, who is your supplier? Two, where did the psychic blocking technology come from? Three, who is that white creature that you were just with?”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Focus Davies, if you do not answer my questions without delay and truthfully, which I do have a way of knowing, I will give you another injection to counter act the pain killer.” Walis’ voice was very level and calm.

“Why aren’t we dead yet?”

“Sir, the airship has just neutralized two ICBMs targeting your location,” Dom interrupted into his earpiece.

“Davies, look at me.” Walis jerked Davies’ head so that he was looking Walis in the face. Davies made contact with the cold frosty eyes, “Stay focused on me. The questions: I know you have the answers to those questions. Here we go,” He asked the questions again, and the answers came.

“Ah fuck you, you fuckin mind freak.” Davies felt violated, it was a feeling that he had never known to feel in himself before. He was always the one causing it in others.

Suddenly Walis was aware of the fact that the mental shield on the room was gone. The screaming outside in the main room had stopped. He could perceive motion outside the office but could not detect an intellect. Then the room grew darker as if the light that filled the room from the fixtures was loosing life. Loosing the will to exist.

“Goodbye, shit-bag,” Davies said with an evil smile. The doors exploded off their hinges in splinters from the impact of the three foot wide hammer end of a tungsten battle ax. A large part of one of the doors impacted on the side of the table and Davies’ leg, giving him a bad compound fracture that he couldn’t feel except for the pressure and cracking. The battle ax kept going at the structure around the door, the twelve foot tall monster on the other side wanted a clear view into the room and its victims. The light in the room was fading, dying.

Walis activated a concussion grenade and threw it at the doorway as he ducked under the desk and held. It detonated and launched the nine-hundred pounds of muscle and berserk insanity off the balcony onto the concrete stage below.

Walis braced himself and kicked the desk back and got out from under it. It had been blown against the shelves. Davies’ body was a wreck. Walis said a prayer for what might be left of his soul while exiting.

He walked outside the room onto the balcony and made his way down the stairs while looking down at the assailant. It was an Exolorian berserker. Incredibly large and somewhat like a gorilla in that its arms were disproportionately larger than its legs. It had a mammoth tungsten battle ax, and wore spiked tungsten armor on its shoulders, elbows, forearms, legs and feet, but nothing else. The armor was designed for causing destruction, not really protecting or covering the wearer, Exolorians liked to battle naked. These pale white skinned black eyed creatures were psychotic, sadistic, masochistic, stupid, destructive monsters. It lived to cause pain, terror, and death. They were bio-cybernetic synth-bodies. The question of who on Exolor created these was the task of another Grey Knight. Too bad it had a mind shield; Walis could have taken it and used it to demolish every structure in the hangar. No matter, this creature was a Bringer of Darkness. The task of ending it was personal to Walis. It was the only thing that would ever bring him to slightly deviate from his current mission.

Walis could perceive the terror in the room. There were a few of the depraved guests still alive, hiding in the nooks and crannies of the various booths at the farthest ends of the room. The rest of the guests and employees, in various parts and pieces, littered the remainder of the room and stage and balcony. The entrance door was not broken into, so where did it come from? There must be more underground structure in this building.

The Exolorian was chuckling to itself as it got up from the broken concrete it had lain upon. The sound was so sonorous and deep most of its frequency was beyond the range of hearing. “Gooood, GOOOOOOD!” It rumbled. As it rose the light in the room was faltering, fading, dying.

Walis was on the stage now. He bent to one knee, lowered his head, and spoke in a soft voice.

“Yessssss, preyyyyy, PREYYYYY,” The Exolorian was now panting excitedly. One could see the blood in its veins pulsing rapidly underneath its pale flesh. The prospect of fighting something that might be able to cause it pain was tantalizing. It was covered in the blood of the guests and employees and becoming frantic, drool dripping from its black tusks and slime dripping from its erection.

Energy suddenly came to life around Walis and light radiated from him. He raised his head and held out his hand with a hilt in it as molecular technology rapidly built his white broadsword. It made an almost ringing sound, like being drawn from a scabbard, as the vibrations of the smaller than nano-bot mech assembled its singularly unique metal compound. He began to stand.

The monster was too excited, too frenzied to wait any longer, it broke, sprinting forward, shrieking, raising its enormous battle-ax overhead! Walis was a blur as the ax came down and buried itself deep into the concrete where he had been.

The Exolorian was confused at how Walis was now standing on its forearms, then all of its thought ceased abruptly as Walis brought the sword straight down through its head just as the massive blade's assembly was completed.

Walis stepped back onto the hammer end of the battle ax, using it as a platform as the Exolorian’s knees buckled and it limply slid sideways. The energy around Walis dissipated, the light of the room grew back to its normal state.

He hopped down and went outside. There were bodies of heavily armed security personnel scattered all over the walkways. Several buildings and an armored vehicle were burning. His two men came up to him.

Walis addressed James, “Message for the Admiral: Activate full alert protocol, we were right. This system will be the hottest spot in this Galaxy in relatively short order. Send it.”

 

Thirty-six hours later Walis stepped in front of the once nicely made apple-wood panel doors, so diametrically opposed to the surroundings he had been searching through. They were small. At least to him. There was a small square hole that was cut as an afterthought by someone who had no idea of what the hell they were doing. It was at about eye level for a native of this planet, but there was a metal plate in back of the hole covering it. He knocked. No answer.

Just as he was about to reach up and proceed with ripping the small door off its hinges, the metal slid to one side and a very small eye rimmed in white fur came into view. It just darted between Walis and the three men of similar seven-foot, three-hundred and twenty pounds of muscle stature that stood behind him.

“I am here to see Mr. Tumnus.” Walis eventually got to the point because the eye in the hole didn’t ask any questions.

The metal slid back into place and the door clicked open a bit and Walis could hear small feet scampering away from the door. So Davies’ thought was right. Finding the location was the hard part. These little wooden doors were buried under twenty-thousand years of flourishing spaceport mega-metropolis city. It got to a point about that long ago that building was more lucrative if you just drove beams two-thousand feed down past all structures into ancient bedrock. This smuggling operation was in a seriously deep dark place that no one would ever dream of going. It was a maze of ancient structures and old and new sewer systems punched through helter skelter with ten foot thick metal beams. Time to see if the rest of Davies’ story was right. He pulled back the thin wooden doors.

This was an odd entrance. It looked like an old closet or something. It had a couple of cubby holes in the top and a bar underneath those. But the back of the closet had been crudely cut out and there was a tunnel. There was the small white furry animal with long ears, wearing a purple jacket that had a gold chain coming out of the pocket a few steps ahead of them. It waited until it was sure Walis had spotted it and then took off into the darkness. Walis looked back.

“James, Dom, you two find cover back here and watch the door. Anyone that tries to gain entrance is to be neutralized. Bakara, you come with me.”

“Aye, Sir.”

Walis turned, ducked through the entrance and made his way down the dark tunnel. It opened up shortly and he could stand, but the light from the entrance was fading fast. He tried to set his lenses to night vision. Nothing happened. It was still black. He didn’t stop moving forward. He used his mental perception, but a few steps more into the darkness and that started distorting, like vertigo. He didn’t stop. He could hear the sound of his footsteps echoing off of some sort of hard surface so he used his ears while he reached for a hand light. They must have gone around a bend because there was no light from the direction they had come. It was completely black. Just as he clicked on the hand light they must have gone around another bend because there was a dim light ahead with the silhouette of the small, long eared animal visible in it. It was obscured and a bit blown out because his lenses were in night vision right when the light appeared. He switched them back to normal vision.

He got to where the furry animal had been standing and was now walking on dirt. He came out of the tunnel and there was a very large dark space with a dirt floor. Twenty feet ahead of him was a grey metal lamp post that went vertical for about eighteen feet with a horizontal piece attached at the top that was about six feet long. It had an oblong dome at the end of that which shot yellow light down onto a metal desk sitting in the dirt. Sitting at the desk was a very hairy little man with horns sticking out of his forehead. The little man had dark, reflective, circular sunglasses on and was smoking a hooka. The smoke in the air did not have the scent of what Charles was down here for. Not the drug. It had a natural tobacco smell mixed in with some fragrant, almost fruity, herbs. This creature also had a mental shield. The “rabbit” as Davies’ thought called it, stood at the side of the desk, looking nervous. There was a single empty metal chair on Walis’ side of the desk. He looked over to Bakara, who came out of the tunnel behind him, and nodded. Bakara took up his post at the ready on the side of the tunnel. When he did Walis walked over to the chair, turned it so that he could rest his enormous arms on its small back while he faced this little hairy character.

“I’m here for Mr. Tumnus.” Charles’ voice was even and soft as he looked this little man in his glasses and saw himself in the reflection. The little hairy guy sat there a bit and took another drag. Then blew a prodigious smoke ring that floated up over their heads toward the lamp post light, casting a writhing shadow in a ring around the desk.

“I’m going to give you three more seconds to answer me and then I’m going to move on.”

“Oh shit, look who is the big bad, all powerful Lion-God, come to fuck the Ice Queen and end eternal winter forever! You really have no fucking idea, Walis.”

That last bit made Walis pause for a second. How did this little creature know his real name? Not that it would matter. But it was virtually impossible; even for a drug running crime lord that somehow supplied thirty-eight different solar systems with the hardest mind altering, most addictive substance in the known universe.

“Oh, and I would’t do that if I were you. Move on that is. You don’t want to go past this point. Not even a Grey Knight such as yourself. Plus you have found who you are looking for,” he took another drag.

Walis bored into Mr. Tumnus with his cold clear eyes.

“Where and what is Underland, and is that where Thionite comes from?”

 

“Funny word isn’t it. THI-O-NITE. Doesn’t seem to match up with any of the languages people speak on any of the planets you find it on, does it? Etymology is an important subject, Walis, people should pay more attention to words.”

 

“If you know my name and status, then you know where I come from and what I am capable of. I have zero time for you games and I want answers. I can and will make this very painful for you if you do not cooperate, but I am bound by law to give you a chance to do what is right.”

 

“Don’t get me started on what is right. That will lead you down some seriously twisted shit. I would tie your fuckin’ one task mind into a knot worse than a tangle of gillyweed. Your Author is not someone who writes fuckin’ children stories like mine was. You are some next level hyper-space-opera shit! I know you don’t have a clean slate. You’ve got a background so rife with murder and death its got you in a pool of blood knee high! And that is fuckin’ way up there for that seven fuckin’ foot frame of yours.”

 

“Tell me what the source of Thionite is. I want to know where it comes from. I’m not going to ask you again.”

 

“No, you don’t want to know the source of Thionite. But you do want to stop it’s spread through your universe. Which really is just a natural course that I had very little to do with. You know that Davies got it from me. But me and Rabbit and Lamp can’t have made all the stuff you are dealing with. You think you want to know the source. Because you think… no, you KNOW, that when you find the source you will be able to stop the spread of it in your universe.” Tumnus laughed a very cold, soft laugh. “You have no fucking clue Walis, no fucking clue.

You really are a specimen though. A real Grey Knight, what an honor. You got a lot of scars don’t you. Man I know a lot of smokin’ hot, bad, and I mean really bad, females that would love to fuck you. You must have done some seriously messed up stuff in your carrier. I bet you could make Ned and his boy look like a couple two year olds with a sword. How long does it take to become a Grey Knight? I guess it doesn’t really matter time-wise; it’s more or less how fast you can pass the various tests. You’re young, what like two-hundred years? So I bet you did it in record time. ” He was leaning forward on the desk now, sucking on his hooka pipe periodically as he spoke. Walis let him ramble, targets often gave up lots of important information when they got going on like this and with the mental block up Walis had to use other methods to read him, “That’s the problem Walis, that’s what I’m talking about. You’re a thionite dream to the ladies, the bad girls and the good girls. You’re doing everything ‘right’ and defending the fuckin’ Galaxies and shit. Lion-God’s mane, I would love to have all your skills! Flitting around in space like a lensman, impossible odds and shit. What a life.”

Something was wrong, Walis could’t add it up yet. This thing was telling the truth or really believed in what it was saying. Drug hypnosis maybe? Possibly a higher mentality implanted it. He let it go on.

“Sure you did some really fucked up shit, but you have to trust in Command right? Like at least the Galaxies are safe right? No man, the Galaxies aren’t safe. Do you know why? See, this is the whole point I’ve been trying to tell you! There is dark shit out there in some Author’s minds, man. You think you have it all taped and life is going the right direction. You think those people up there in those pretty star-ships want to STOP the flow of thionite? This ain’t E.E.’s story man; I wish it was. They probably want to CONTROL the flow. Why else would they want you to find the SOURCE man? Drugs are useful shit if you need to undermine populations! Come on and use that brilliant Grey Knight mind of yours! I’m talkin’ evil, EVIL plans. You think you have seen it all. Seen some dark and scary shit. Exolorian Bringers of Darkness and all that child-play sci-fi bullshit! You are in for the absolute worst time in your existence, if you care to know.”

Walis stood up and pulled out his side arm, holding it relaxedly.

“Oh, that is a really, really nice piece, Walis. By the way, I love that Samuri Jack shit you do with your eyes. If I had pants I’m sure I would pee in them right now. It is seriously fuckin scary. I’m not even being sarcastic. It’s just that when you have been stared down by the All Seeing Eye while trying to take a peek into a Palanteri nothing else is quite as terrifying afterwards.

Anyway, stop interrupting because you want to hear this, Walis, it’s the difference between living what might be a relatively happy life of hard brutal servitude to a cause you believe in and hundreds of years of prolonged mental and physical agony,” He put his legs up on the desk. They were backwards, covered in fur, and he had hooves for feet. He took a long drag.

“Look I had it all going fine until my author packed up my universe. Okay here, I’m sure that there is some concept of like, a good place to go and a bad place to go after you die right? You got somethin’ like this in your universe? Most do anyway. Hopefully I’m not just talking over your head.

Well, how about in stories, you ever read stories? Do you know where the characters go after they move on? I tell you there is a place where some go after they move on. Now a lot of stories end well. They have a happy ending. Those characters can kinda leave in peace you know? But not all characters get a happy ending. Some are actually really unhappy about it. They protest it. They are forced out of existence in their world right, but here is the fucked up thing, Walis: that doesn’t mean they stop existing. Now you get some guys like me, I was doing okay, I had my ups and downs but in the end it was going all right and dandy, I was even happy for a while, imagine that! You remember what it was like to be happy, Walis? But my whole world got folded up and all the main characters got to go live in some heaven like place with Lion-God. But I liked what I had, Walis, I didn’t want to leave. Me and Lamp here had been there for a long, long time. So we ended up here. Some guys are like me and Lamp and Rabbit here. Our stories just fade out or end with no explanation about us. I don’t know why we end up here but we do. Some guys are good but they suddenly fulfill their sick Author’s need for sadism like Sirius or Ned. They didn’t fuckin see that shit coming from a mile off!

But you know who gets the short end of the stick the most in stories right? They usually aren’t the good guys, Walis, and they hate being forced out more than anyone, because they think they had a right to be there, Author be damned. Those are the guys that end up in my world, Walis. You get what I’m sayin’? That is why you don’t want to know where thionite comes from or what it really is. It would take you too far down the rabbit hole you don’t want to go any further down. Consider yourself lucky that I’m here to tell you all this stuff.” He took a long drag and looked at Walis thoughtfully.

Walis turned to Bakara, “Call the others in. Have them bring the tools. I’m going to get real answers out of him whether he is a thionite hop head or not,” He pointed the side arm at Mr. Tumnus, “Come out from behind the desk, hands where I can see them.” Charles Canon was the leader of an elite Black Flag Special Ops squad from the InterGalactic Patrol. He had spent eighty years in training to reach the status of the youngest Grey Knight of the Valor ever to bless the darkness of space. No Grey Knight in the long history of the Galaxies had ever failed to complete their mission. He was not going to be turned aside from his path by a false lead and this rambling hop head that thought it knew what it was talking about.

The “rabbit” was frantic, hoping from one foot to another, ears back, waving its little arms. “Ah, Walis,” Mr. Tumnus’ looked down, genuinely a little forlorn. “You are really not going to like Underland. Your Author has no mercy. Some little part of me hopes you make it.”

The lamp post light went out and Charles, Bakara, James and Dom were plunged into complete darkness.