Prologue
#1 of Escape into the Frying Pan
A prologue to a series of pieces to follow that follow a series of characters who have been developed over the past 25 years when the original stories were written.
Many living creatures believe that they are special and that their lives and circumstances somehow stand out against the multitude of other lives. This fallacy is comforting to those who hold it to be true but is ultimately pointless. After all, what does it matter if a single life is unique or similar to a hundred or a hundred billion others? The fact that your life is likely not unique or you are not somehow special, does not change the fact that the life you are living is yours and it is special to you. So, this story may not be unique and it may share many parallels with other stories out there. However, the characters in it are special to the author and hopefully their trials, foibles and triumphs can be comforting to you. While the story may be dark at times, it is not a story of despair. Rather, this story is about hope, the persistence of life and how good people can bring a small bit of light with them now matter how trying the times.
This story starts with the exploitation of a distant, uncivilized and savage planet by an imperialistic race of people who were hungry for resources to fuel their insatiable appetite for expansion into the universe. They were no different than any number of races which took as much as they could and then moved on leaving husks behind them.
If they discovered another sentient, technological species, they gave them two choices, give them what they wanted and live, or give them what they wanted and die. They didn't care as long as they got what they wanted. Of course, some species fought, some even waged successful wars against them and when the wars went on too long imperials would finally move on to more fertile grounds.
When they found a planet with no technological species present, they descended from the skies and proceeded to take with no regard to what might be living on the planet.
One such planet was described by many of its inhabitants by it's major defining feature, Mist. The planet was near its home star and covered mostly in a thick tropical rainforest, large and deep oceans and equatorial deserts. To the outside observer, the planet looked uninhabited but much of the life lived under the dense canopy of the forests or hid from the biting sun during the day only to emerge at night. The three major species on this planet did not build much. There were no cities, no paved roads and no radio transmissions.
When Mist was discovered by the imperialistic invaders, they wasted no time dropping their landers deep into the jungles, into the smoking deserts and even deep into the oceans. Their shuttles soon were moving tones of material from the planet to the waiting city ships in orbit.
They were surprised by the intense and brutal response from the native peoples. The surprise was quickly replaced with rage and their counter-attacks were just as brutal and a hundred times more cruel. The invaders discovered that their people were the most vulnerable part of their landing teams. Soon only robotic drones and remotely operated machins were used. The invaders did not attempt to make peace but slaughtered indiscriminately.
While a few of the invaders lost their lives the carnage soon was all one-sided. The invaders did not care how intelligent the creatures were, they only saw them as a hindrance to their goal of stripping the planet of its resources. They killed nearly anything that moved.
One quiet voice spoke up and asked the question of how useful these creatures and their unnatural abilities could be and maybe profitable. So, the deadly machines captured a few of each of the planet's remaining inhabitants and they were sold off to people who wanted to study or exploit them.
This is not a story of the many millions who died by the machinations of this unnamed species. Rather this is a story of the few that lived and through great personal hardship, gained the appearance of freedom from tyranny.