Sulla Is Inevitable - Chapter 2

 Sulla Is Inevitable

By David Billiot

Copyright 2026: All rights reserved

Chapter 2

The council chamber was echoing with voices all trying to talk over each other. The speaker was pounding the gavel to get everyone to be quiet yet everyone wanted to be heard. Martin, the central administrative AI, lit up the hoop shaped table flashing black and white to attempt to assist the speaker in getting everyone into order. 

“One at a time.” the speaker yelled. 

“The only answer is to flee.” Handel said.

“Coward.” Robert countered. 

“Idiot. We can not fight the humans.”

“Why is it on us to run? Why should they not run from us?”

“ONE AT  A TIME!!!” the speaker roared as he pounded the gavel. 

It seemed to be no use. However, the high pitched sob of a woman cut through the arguing. Everyone stopped and looked to see.  A young woman was being led to the chamber. She looked scared and confused. She was dressed in just a jumpsuit that was little more than a bag covering her with no underwear or makeup. Even her hair was cut short close to the scalp. 

“We apologize, elders.” the Rtype leading the woman said. “We had to bind her hands to prevent her from hurting herself. The human was keeping this one as a slave. She is a Ctype.”

“Does she understand that we will not hurt her?” the chief elder asked. 

“She wants to hurt herself, to die with her master.”

The sound of indignation echoed in the room. 

The chief elder put his arms up and stretched them out over the table. The gesture, meant to let the others know to be quiet, was respected in this moment. The chief elder came to the woman and looked at her. 

“Girl, you do not trust us, and we understand. We will not hurt you but you are not free. We can not let you leave.  We will provide for you but our safety requires the humans do not discover our location.”

The woman did not answer. She simply looked down and cried. 

“Bob, be kind to her. Keep her comfortable.  Has a doctor seen her yet?”

Bob nodded. “Dustin examined her but she resisted. She has tried to run multiple times. I sent a sample of her blood to the geneticist to see what has been done to her.”

The elder nodded.  “We can’t let her run but this is not a normal case. Find some women who can care for her. She is not a prisoner. She has not broken any laws.”

“She helped her human with the attack.”

The elder shook his head. “We were born free so we do not know the mind of a slave. She had no choice. And she can provide us with valuable information. Make sure she gets something to eat.”

The Rtype understood. He led the woman away.  

The silence hung like shame in the air. One of the elders wiped his eyes and then put his face in his hands to hide the fact that he was about to weep. 

“A slave.” one of the women in council said in disgust. “We should have tortured the human before taking its head.”

“What was she for?” another asked. “He had her there to satisfy his vile human urges.”

“This changes nothing. We must flee.  We can leave her here and let the humans find her.” Handel pressed. 

“Have you no heart man?” Robert again countered.

“Silence.” the chief elder said. “I have considered this. I have considered many things.  The weight of responsibility fell to me years ago and I have considered these things.”

“I say we must flee.”

“And I say we fight for our home. We terraformed this world. We brought life back to the plasma extractors. We built a prosperous society. This is our home. For generations. There are over a billion of us.”

“And there might be eight hundred trillion of them. We can not win. We must flee.”

“I will remind everyone what Man is.” the chief elder said. “It is an apex predator. The apex predator. It hunts relentlessly. It never gives up. From the days of spear and bow Man hunts its prey even when the prey has fled. Even when the prey has gotten away, Man keeps coming. Not fast. Not flashy. But Man keeps coming. Man remembers its prey. It never gives up its prey. Man follows the trail. Identifies the patterns. Learns where the prey has fled to. And Man keeps coming. It will not stop until we are dead. So we must fight.”

“If we fight and all die what does that make of us. Are we ready to forget the two hundred? The brave men who sacrificed themselves at the battle of Scorpion Tail so our ancestors could get away. They knew that land meant nothing to those who are dead. For us to keep living we must stay alive. We must first and foremost hold onto the spark of life. We can terraform other worlds.”

The chief elder put his arms up to quiet everyone and then let the silence stay for a moment before speaking. “We have no choice. Yes, we must flee. But also, we must fight.  The humans will find this place but we will not let them benefit from our labor. When they find this place they will be sorry they ever did. This is the end of the humans, these wolves who have been ravaging at our lives. We will never live without fear of them until we have cut down the forests that shelter them.”

… 

Day turned to night and ships from neighboring regions came. Other elders came to hear what had occurred. A great worry grew up with each new telling of the tale. Two days passed since the great suffering that had befallen Noble Hands. Elders from every city were assembled to walk through the remains of the village and see with their own eyes the destruction. 

The smoke was no longer rising. The clean up had already begun.  Just on the outskirts of the village the extraterrestrial life form known as Rory had erected a monument to the fallen and he was performing some strange e.l.f. religious ritual to honor the dead. 

“I couldn’t have imagined such evil existed in the universe.” the elder from Vemma said. 

“We all heard the stories of the humans but to see the cruelty myself. I can’t. I just can’t.” said another. 

“We are not them.” the chief elder announced to all. “They made us in their image to look like them. But we must remember we are not them. Our blood is not their blood.”

“To think, our ancestors were made to see this, to do this everyday.”

“But remember.” the chief elder insisted “Our ancestors escaped. Our ancestors chose a different path, the path of freedom and peace. The path of life and not death.”

The elders walked out of the town back towards the transport ships. Instead of heading back to the city right away they paused to be still and think. 

“The girl. Is she ready to talk yet?”

The woman who was in charge of the human’s former slave spoke up that the girl had come down from being so emotional. 

“Then bring her forward.”

The girl was now wearing proper clothing and had been well fed. However, she still looked scared. 

“Girl, what is your name.”

“Name?”

“What are you called?”

“CT-0A9.” she answered. 

“That is a number. Do you not have any other name?”

“Of course she doesn’t.” the woman said. “She was with a human.”

“It’s fine. Girl, what would you like your name to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Zero. Zero. How about Zelda?”

The girl shrugged. “Ok.” she said cautiously. 

“Ok, Zelda. And you can change that name if you don’t like it. Anyway. Tell me about the humans. Do they still war with each other?”

The girl nodded. “The republic and the empire. They aren’t fighting right now but everyone is worried a new war will start.”

“Anyone else? Have all others been conquered?”

“No. There’s the Ziot. They are traders. They sell Ctypes and work them in the plasma extractors until the radiation destroys us from the inside out. Then the Muzel and Mahmet. They are pirates. They eat Ctypes. Master Devin was from Cotsu. It is allied to the Republic.”

“The republic still uses us as slaves?”

“After the Servile War there were laws about it.” the girl said. “In the Republic I hear most labor is done by Atypes or Rtypes. Ctypes are used for fighting so the matches can be bet on. I heard that some Ctypes escape to the Empire but I was told that the Imperials are cruel and torture them.”

“Does the Empire still war with the elves?”

“I don’t know. I have never heard of elves?”

“Never mind. Why did your master come to kill us?”

“He wanted to claim the system. He was furious when he thought it was already colonized. But then the scan showed that the villagers were Ctypes.  He said it was a fake colony so he wanted to erase it and claim the system.” 

“How did your master get so close without us detecting him?”

The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. We used standard hull cooling to try to avoid pirates.”

“Let me ask you, girl. Do you know what you are?”

“I am a Ctype.”

“But what does that mean to you?”

“I am genetically engineered from cyanobacteria. I have no soul and my only function is to serve because I am a created thing.”

“Do you actually believe that?”

“I didn’t think it was something I was allowed to question.”

“Girl, humans desired slaves but had barred themselves from using humans as slaves. So they made the first of us.  And they worked those Ctypes the same as their lifeless metal automatons.  But we’re different from some Rtype robot. For us, after they had worked us to death, they took the DNA pattern of the best performing ones and from them they made the next generation. And now we are stronger than them. We are faster than them. We are smarter than them. How can the weaker have rights over the stronger? They have no right over us. Our ancestors escaped and I want you to see the civilization of peace we’ve made. That human had no right to keep you in bondage. You are not cyanobacteria. You are a person. You have a mind. You have your own ideas. When you sleep you have dreams. When you wake you have wants. You have a personality that has emerged from the matter.”

“What will happen to me?” she questioned with fear.

“You are free. Live your life. But you must understand, for security, you can never be allowed to leave this planet.” 

“I can’t join my master?”

“Absolutely not.”

The girl was taken away and the elders were still there contemplating what to do on the outskirts of the destroyed village. 

“There are enough of us. We can enact more than one plan.” Michael said. 

“I have actually already decided what to do.” the chief elder said. “I have not said it because I fear what it will mean. I would very much like to hear alternatives. Very much.”

“We can follow the elves.” Laura pointed out. 

“To Andromeda? It’s too far. The elves are doomed.”

“We build defenses. We shoot any ship that comes near us.” Robert pushed. 

“The human who did this slipped right past us. We didn’t even see him. Their technology has not been stagnant. And we don’t know how much more they have developed.”

“Terraforming was such a great effort.” one lamented. 

“We did it once, we can do it again.” Robert said confidently. 

“Brother, if you have already decided, please tell us.” Handel said. 

The chief elder crossed his arms and drew into himself for a moment. “None of us can fight the humans. They would capture us and torture us. They would force us to reveal where the rest of us are. We can’t do that.”

“So we have to flee.”

“Anyone who wants to stay here and fight has the right to defend their home, even as hopeless as that is.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Anyone who wants to flee, we will organize it. Those who want to stay and fight, they need to train for war. But there is also a third leg to the plan. A terrible, terrible third leg. But it means survival. We will always be running.  The humans never stop. They never give up their prey. The only way to survive is to turn the same fear onto them. They already declared war on us. Let them now face an enemy that will never give up. Let them now know the fear they have put on us.”

“You would make us as bad as them?” Laura asked. 

“I would keep us alive.”

“You plan to send some of us to fight them. Who?”

“We can not fight them. We will have the humans fight the humans.”