Zaigu: Part One

Nadai was a trained member of the Jamouru, and yet his desires had fogged his decisions. But the instinctive need of freedom was overwhelming under such conditions, and Nadai had endured terrible treatment for close to a year now at the Hawkanin prison camp. All prisoners were forced to work eighteen hours out of each day, eighteen hours of physical labor. The rest of the time was spent in a small spherical cell with low lighting and poor air flow. Only then could the prisoners consume whatever morsel of food or bowl of water happened to slide under the door, or perhaps fall into sleep briefly. Communication between cells was forbidden. This had caused some of the prisoners to go mad. The transition had been shockingly abrupt; many of the prisoners had only months ago enjoyed the naturally extravagant Zaigan landscape under freedom. Now, they were not even allowed to view the outside; everything was done under the dome.

The Hawkanins had been coming to Zaigu for many years now. Near the beginning they had simply wanted to barter, first serenely, and then, when the Zaigans failed to properly respond, coercively. Now they simply wanted to get what they were after at all costs, even if they had to destroy the entire planet of Zaigu in the process.

And what was the primary objective for venturing to Zaigu? Resources, of which Zaigu could produce in near infinite amounts. The Hawkanins had concluded long before landing on Zaigu that such a planet, one that distributed life so profusely, must have some sort of unknown substance below the surface. Something that would scientifically explain the many natural oddities of Zaigu’s environment. They were, of course, correct. The Hawkanin’s began drilling for this substance, which they named "Dalomnite" prior to finding it, upon their descent to Zaigu. Once it was discovered, the Hawkanin’s decided that they would continue extracting it at all costs, for it turned out to be the most potent fuel in the galaxy.

The people of Zaigu had agreed to unite as a whole and resist the Hawkanins, realizing that the fate of their beautiful world depended on it. In terms of warfare capabilities, however, the Zaigans were no match for the Hawkanins, and so they found themselves in the situation they were in now. Currently there were hundreds of prison camps not unlike the one Nadai found himself in scattered all over Zaigu. The people in the cells were of course all native to Zaigu. They were prisoners for treason (to one small district of the Hijil, the Hawkanins), and slaves for dalomnite extraction. The Hawkanins had not even made a serious attempt to negotiate with the Zaigans, for through an outlander’s eyes the Zaigans were mere children. Ignoramuses, even. They seldom even bothered to inform them of their purpose, or anything of the such. The Zaigans simply slaved away each and every day over heavy machinery, destroying their beloved planet. They all desperately wanted to be free, but knew that revolution would be no more than a dead end.

Nadai had been safe from the Hawkanin intrusion for many years. But eventually, a Hawkanin scout team came across the miniature society of Shumoi Forest, Nadai’s homeland. The people’s of Shuomi, all trained in the ways of Jamuoru, managed to resist the Hawkanin’s for some time using their amazing abilities to blend into the forest scenery and use their opponent‘s own energies against them. Ultimately, however, a breakthrough occurred, and Shumoi was shattered. Nadai’s father and mentor, Genedric, was taken to an unknown location, and Nadai found himself in a Hawkanin slave prison, the present predicament.