The Yississ War Read online

THE YISSISS WAR

  by

  Shawn O’Toole

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  Cover Art Illustrated by:

  Shawn O’Toole

  The Yississ War

  Copyright © Shawn O’Toole 2014

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this story, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Your support and respect for the property of this author is much appreciated.

  This story is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  The Yississ War

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  Chapter 1

  “Sowing the Seeds of Living Death”

  The Many of One were a society of women cloned from one woman and endowed with her formative memories. As the Concubines of the Great Seen Unseen they were an order of nuns devoted to the will of the Unheard Whisper. As Virgin Soldiers they were the relentless Virgin Armies whose might made them a Galactic Power.

  The Many of One were mortal and only human. Though skillful, efficient and equipped with advanced technology, their soldiers were prone to heavy losses when pitted against the strange and terrible races of the galaxy. The clone women were cheap and easy to mass-produce, however, giving them the overwhelming power of sheer, readily replenished numbers.

  The uniform of a Virgin Soldier was simple: an elastic garment that covered the torso, neck and head but left the shoulders, buttocks and limbs completely bare. The lower half of the wearer’s face was exposed but black, singular goggles fixed to the elastic hood covered her eyes. The Virgin Soldier wore nothing else, not even shoes, boots or a utility belt.

  A Concubine Sentinel wore the red version of the standard uniform. When armed and standing guard she held both vertical grips of her small, compact plasma weapon. The deadly artifice was advanced but simple and minimalist: rugged and reliable but with iron sights and no shoulder strap.

  Girls in Red guarded the Temple of the Great Seen Unseen. Their posture was erect, they remained silent and they did not fidget. They watched through their black goggles as their sister Lieutenant General Elzbeth approached and or passed them. The Sentinels had heard the grumbling whispers of the Priestesses concerning Elzbeth but such concerns were of no concern to the Sentinels of the Great Seen Unseen. The Priestesses commanded the Virgin Army. It was the duty of the Sentinels to obey without curiosity or question.

  The uniform of a Concubine Priestess was purple. Lieutenant generals wore a short, black, hooded cloak over the purple. Elzbeth Purple the Bold, however, had become Elzbeth the Favored of the Beloved Child. She was now the military attaché for Mistress Umbra, Daughter of the Great Seen Unseen. “Blue-green would look prettier on you,” Mistress Umbra insisted. “Wear it instead.” Elzbeth obeyed the command. Her skimpy uniform underneath her black cloak was now blue-green. Unfortunately, even this one small alteration stirred contention between Elzbeth and her sisters.

 

  Drusilla Purple the Wise was the commanding general of the Concubine Expeditionary Forces. Her hooded cloak was white rather than black. She was currently in the command-and-control room with her lieutenant generals. “Elzbeth,” one of the clone sisters whispered. The generals became tense as their sister Elzbeth entered the chamber. General Drusilla stepped forward, asking, “Have you come to issue orders from our mistress?”

  “Yes.” Elzbeth told her sisters, “It is the will of our mistress that her armies come to this world. They shall ravish it. They shall devour its inhabitants.”

  Zandra insisted, “We are the army of our mistress.”

  “No. My sisters, we shall provide for her soldiers that they may do the fighting and killing.”

  Drusilla fretted, “We are not to ravish this world. It must remain pristine for our master’s consumption.”

  “We shall not ravish this world. The soldiers of our mistress shall do so.”

  The lieutenant generals looked at Drusilla, ready to honor whatever she decided. The commanding general pondered for a long, hard moment… before declaring, “The Beloved Child is our mistress for she speaks with the authority of our master. We shall obey her commands.”

  Mistress Umbra was the only begotten child of the Great Seen Unseen. Though the material of her flesh was entirely human, half her nature was the inhuman spirit of Shadow. Umbra was a beautiful woman with fair skin, lustrous black hair and radiant, silvery gray eyes. As a creature of flesh and blood her mass was that of a human being. She was oft a giantess, however, when her corporeal frame was stirred by her spiritual nature.

  Mistress Umbra was nude and levitating, her toes pointing towards the floor and her arms outstretched. Though her eyes were closed, she watched as little Elzbeth descended the winding steps that lined the wall of the deep, dry well of marble that was this sacred chamber. Umbra settled back onto the floor to greet her. “I told them,” Elzbeth reported. “I watched as Drusilla herself issued the order to plot the coordinates you gave to me.”

  “Good,” Umbra’s resonant voice rumbled as if a mighty whisper. She snuggled the little woman, telling her warmly in a human voice, “My father shall soon be avenged.”

  The loyal little Concubine wondered aloud, “Shall he return to us?”

  “First things first.” Umbra could hear the thoughts and feel the feelings of all about her. She watched and listened as the Concubine generals sat on the floor together to eat supper. “Eat with your sisters,” Mistress Umbra advised Elzbeth. “They must be assured that you are still one of them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they are weaker without you.” Mistress Umbra sat on the floor, folded her legs and pressed her hands together. Elzbeth wondered, “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting for Adam to sleep.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to find him and I’m going to kill him.

  Mistress Umbra went missing. Elzbeth implored her sisters to seek out the Beloved Child of the Great Seen Unseen but General Drusilla smirked and answered, “It is her command that we wait. We shall wait.”

  A naked, towering “woman” of rotting flesh and six breasts was the physical form of the demon General Yississ. The body was once the vessel of a human soul but had long since succumbed and corrupted into something hideous and inhuman. Yississ commanded Mistress Umbra’s army of polymorphic monsters. The demon general was also given command of twenty thousand human lives. Mistress Umbra instructed the demon, “I have given you twenty thousand of my father’s weaklings. Make them stronger than their feeble humanity. Turn them into living dead monsters.”

  Yississ cackled, “Give me all of the women and I shall make them all stronger than their humanity!”

  “No. You shall have only the twenty thousand I have given you.”

  The tall, rotting woman with six breasts grinned and bowed, assuring in a raspy voice, “I shall serve you as you command me, my mistress.” The loyalty of a demon is uncertain at best. Mistress Umbra was missing, perhaps dead. Yississ was now at liberty to do as she pleased. The demon would act quickly, lest Umbra return.

  Adam was a mortal man native to the planet Earth. Finding himself on the alien world of Telluria he was persuaded by its Oracle to accept the mantle of sovereignty. As the King of Telluria and the general of its army, Adam fought the invading Virgin Army of the Great
Shadow, Devourer of Worlds. He defeated the invaders by vanquishing their immortal, inhuman master. He vanquished the Daughter of the Great Shadow when she assailed him in his own dream. For now, there was a de facto armistice between the kingdom of Telluria and the invading Concubines of the Great Seen Unseen.

  Adam was lounging under a tree and eating an apple. He watched as a large, burly, hairy sasquatch hoisted a little half-goblin up onto branches. The human wondered, “What the hell are you idiots doing?”

  A resonant, feminine voice addressed, “Adam, we have much to do.”

  The man looked up at the tall, naked, greenish white, womanly form of a plant fairy. Her slanted eyes were a piercing emerald-green and her long, green hair was as if fine grass. A red, blooming flower was tucked behind her left ear (and fed from the artery in her neck).

  The man responded, “I’m eating… and Conjure and Hairy are busy playing monkey.”

  “Adam, an invading army remains on Telluria.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “My king, what shall we do to repel it?” The man shrugged. “Adam, King of Telluria, your subjects await the liberation of their world.”

  The man belched. The plant fairy scowled. Adam grinned, “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

  Flora, the plant fairy, insisted, “A king must do what a king must do.”

  Adam snapped, “There are millions of armed clone women on this planet! There are four of us! So long as the girls behave themselves we’ll leave them alone.”

  “The women merely await a command to do mischief.”

  Adam reminded, “I’d rather make peace with them.”

  “You cannot make peace with warlike slaves awaiting the command of warmongering masters.”

  The man mentioned, “Your know-it-all Oracle agrees with me.”

  Flora’s eyes bulged and her mouth gaped. She bowed her head, conceding in genuine submission and humility, “Then it must be done.”

  Adam scoffed, “Yeah, because the talking tree says so.” Flora scowled at this disparagement of the venerable Oracle of Telluria. Then again, such was the casual insolence of the mortal man King Adam.

  Twenty thousand Virgin Soldiers stood in ranks at attention. Twenty of these clone women wore the purple version of the standard, skimpy, singular garment that was the uniform of the Virgin Army. One hundred eighty wore the brown of the Concubine Jockey. Six hundred wore the green of the Concubine Scout. Two thousand four hundred wore the blue of the Concubine Keeper. Fourteen thousand four hundred wore the red of the Concubine Sentinel. “So many,” the demon Yississ gleamed. She dismissed the assembly, calling for the twenty Concubine Priestesses to meet her… alone in the forest.

  The Priestess Natalia Purple the Discerning wondered, “Why are we meeting our new commanding general out in the forest?”

  Brenda Purple the Insightful, the senior Priestess of the twenty, responded, “Perhaps she doesn’t want Expeditionary Command privy to her business.”

  A chilling breeze rustled the foliage and washed over the twenty women, sounding as a voice that whispered, “Stop!” The breeze swirled around Brenda, telling her, “Come this way.” The chosen Concubine followed the guiding breeze until lost to sight in the shadowy depths of the forest.

  A towering, festering monstrosity of a naked “woman” with six breasts awaited Brenda the Insightful. The demon grinned, commanding, “Come closer, creature of soft flesh and warm blood.” The human swallowed and hesitated before obeying the command. The voice of the monster rasped, “I am ugly to you?” The Virgin Soldier snapped to attention and remained silent. The monster smiled, flaunting its yellow fangs. Brenda cringed as a rotting hand reached for her. She trembled as it caressed her cheek. The demon Yississ rasped, “I chose you, Brenda Purple the Insightful. I feel your strength, see your wisdom and hear your keen thoughts.”

  Brenda’s eyes were closed behind the black goggles fixed to her uniform. She whimpered as the rotting hands took hold of the goggles and pulled back the elastic hood. She shivered as the hands then caressed her smooth, bald head. The inhuman voice cackled. It rasped, “You remember long, dark, lustrous hair you never had. Look at me!” Brenda reflexively opened her eyes. The irises of a Concubine clone were ghostly white. The demon Yississ mocked, “Your eyes were never the lovely brown you remember. Brenda Purple the Insightful, you are but a mockery of the life from whence you came.” The clone remained stoic in demeanor but Yississ could feel her cold, sickening shame: the demon smirked.

  The monstrous, rotting, grotesque form of General Yississ stepped behind the little woman and gently massaged her shoulders. The demonic voice rasped, “You are a Concubine Priestess, the wisest of the Many of One. You command. Your sisters obey. I command. You obey.”

  “Yes… yes, milady.”

  The monster’s left hand produced a shiny black seed or pill as if from nowhere. “Open your mouth.” Brenda obeyed. She cringed and winced as the festering hand poked into her mouth. “Swallow it.” Brenda hesitated… but obeyed. The demon kissed the woman on the cheek. “Return to the others and send Natalia the Discerning to me.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  After the twenty Priestesses were called to Yississ one-by-one, the six hundred Scouts were called to the Priestesses. What remained of the twenty thousand was then called into the forest depths… only to be snatched en masse by the tentacles of what were once the Scouts!

  Yississ had been given twenty teleportation-communications relay stations, sixty entomopter aircraft and sixty bipedal main battle tanks. These technological things were changed into grotesque, partially organic magical artifices by what were now living dead Concubine Keepers.

  A thing of tentacles with a human head, arms and torso wearing the purple body shirt of a Concubine Priestess crawled swiftly and nimbly. The goggles and elastic hood were pulled back, exposing the bald head and now solid black eyes of what used to be Brenda Purple the Insightful. The writhing cluster of appendages dipped, the arms outstretched and the head bowed before Yississ. The demon asked its monster, “Brendaxa the Insidious, how goes my plans?”

  The once human thing rasped, “Milady, alive or living dead, your women serve you well.”

  “Women? Brendaxa the Insidious, perhaps the memories of Brenda the Insightful confuse you. My child, you are beyond the weakness of mortal women. Alas, you are born again but as something fearless and terrible.”

  Thousands of crystalline obelisks were planted all across planet Telluria. One hundred Virgin Soldiers guarded each of them at all times… until guards suddenly and mysteriously… vanished. Lieutenant General Elzbeth supposed, “Perhaps the natives of the planet are rising against us. This may be a major offensive.”

  “No,” Yazmin, the xenologist of the generals, dismissed. “We would have found bones or bodies. Besides, carnivorous plant fairies are less than a percent of a percent of the native population.”

  Zandra mused, “We lost sixty thousand women in a matter of hours at six hundred different locations.”

  General Drusilla stated, “We know this isn’t the Army of Four and it is doubtful Adam called the planet to rise against us.”

  “Do we?” Elzbeth challenged.

  Drusilla insisted, “This is not the Army of Four. I doubt it is a popular uprising, either. Another power may be invading Telluria.”

  “Who? What army snatches tens of thousands of us without leaving a trace?”

  “I don’t know.” Drusilla told her sisters, “We are under attack and we don’t know by whom.”

  Lieutenant General Olga noted, “None of the crystalline obelisks were damaged. Whoever is attacking us may consider them useful for their own ends.”

  “Maybe. Triple the guard for every obelisk.”

  Elzbeth fumed, “That will thin security at other locations!”

  “Our master’s obelisks are not to be compromised.”

  The next day, none of the women guarding obelisks disappeared. Contact was lost with several b
ases, however. The locations were looted and their personnel missing! “Three hundred thousand more of us disappeared without a trace!” Elzbeth blurted. “My sister,” she addressed Drusilla, “we must act quickly and decisively!”

  “And do what?” Elzbeth frowned as she struggled to offer an answer.

  Adam was called to the Tree of the Oracle. He brought his three soldiers of the Army of Four with him. The mortal man stared up into the leafy branches of the Oracle, asking her, “More bad news?”

  Wind rustled the leaves and answered, in a soft, feminine voice, “A storm is rising. Unless its eye is broken, the wind of it shall be the living death of all that lives.”

  “Spare me the mumbo jumbo and just tell me what you mean.”

  “My king, an army of living death is being mustered. Its soldiers are the breathing corpses of mortal women. Warriors of unnatural life shall join these undead women and together they shall devour the races of the worlds.”

  “Seriously: what are you talking about?”

  “Adam, King of Telluria, the Concubines of the Great Seen Unseen are betrayed! Their bodies are made into monsters. Their technology is made into magic. Warriors without shape are soon to join them. Together they shall scour our world and devour its inhabitants. Your subjects shall feed an army that shall devour the races of the worlds.”

  “Okay. What should I do about it?”

  “Adam, King of Telluria, hasten to make peace with the women of the Great Seen Unseen. Their Virgin Army must join us if the world and the races of the worlds are to survive.”

  The senior Concubine Priestesses General Drusilla and Lieutenant General Olga were alone together bathing. Olga mentioned, “We’ve opened the portals commanded by Mistress Umbra and are currently being reinforced by her army of polymorphs. I took the liberty of informing General Yississ of our dire situation and asked for her help. She assured me that the polymorphs and her twenty thousand Virgin Soldiers shall be committed to dealing with our problem.” Drusilla smirked. Olga noticed and asked, “What?”

  “Why would Yississ care about our problem?”

  “Whatever is assailing us may attack her forces as well.”

  Drusilla was sitting in warm, soothing water but she felt cold and sick. She considered ordering that the portals be closed and the polymorphs be immediately attacked… but as a Concubine of the Great Seen Unseen she was incapable of disobeying authority. As a Virgin Soldier she was absolutely obliged to follow the final command of the Beloved Child of the Great Seen Unseen. The powerless woman of great authority… sulked.

  Crowds of what were once Concubine Sentinels had been gathered to a secret place in the forests of planet Telluria. The “women” stood at attention, holding both vertical grips of their small, compact, plasma minicarbines. The elastic hoods of their skimpy red uniforms had already been cleanly cut away; the hoods and black goggles already disposed of. The eyes of what were once Concubines of the Great Seen Unseen were now solid black and their skin dark, sickly yellow.

  Yississ and Brendaxa were in the forest, viewing the crowds of yellow “women” in red body shirts. The demon told her monster, “Unlike you and the other chosen, the bodies of these remain human. Though as smart and nimble as they were in life, they are mere zombies. Unlike our precious Keepers, these Sentinels are mere foot soldiers: they are expendable. When our murders become battles throw these useless weaklings into the fray. May their bodies absorb the fury that would otherwise harm our true warriors.”

  “Our true warriors, milady?”

  “Come,” Yississ led Brendaxa away from the crowds of undead Concubine Sentinels. “Our true warriors are coming. You, my beloved Brendaxa, you and my other Priestesses shall command them.”

  A horde of shapeless things crawled and slithered through the forest to gather in the presence of General Yississ. “My children!” the demon greeted them. “I have made you sisters! They shall lead you to gluttonous victory!” The things rose and writhed in agitated enthusiasm. Yississ cackled maniacally! Brendaxa grinned.

  The attacks were sudden and overwhelming! Bases and stations were overrun. Countless Virgin Soldiers were slaughtered or went missing. The Virgin Army responded swiftly and forcefully, storming and blasting the unexpected enemy into a scattering retreat. The Concubines pursued their fleeing foe, only to stumble into murderous ambushes! The mortal women fell back to their bases. More Virgin Soldiers went missing. Contact was lost with more bases. The Yississ War had begun.

  The Army of Four snuck their way through the forest, zigzagging along their way as they avoided the stomping of bipedal battle tanks and the booming, thunderous roar of nearby combat. They ducked when assailed by wayward streaks of glowing, whitish blue plasma bolts. Adam remarked, “They started the war without us.”

  Flora added, “May they slaughter each other to the last.”

  The loud, humming buzz of entomopter aircraft above shook the forest below. Adam glimpsed what looked like a swarm of giant dragonflies speeding overhead. “Bombers,” he deduced.

  Conjure the half-goblin worried, “Are they going to bomb us?”

  The loud humming disappeared into the unseen distance. “No,” Adam was relieved. He supposed, “We’re too close to their ground forces to worry about that.”

  The Army of Four trudged onward. Eventually, all but the wind and birds was quiet. Adam asked Flora, “How far are we away from the Temple?”

  “Perhaps a day’s walk.”

  “What?! We were a day’s walk away when we stepped through your portal!”

  “Yes, Adam, and we have meandered much.”

  The Temple of the Great Seen Unseen was also the headquarters of Concubine Expeditionary Command. The structure was an immense, pyramidal edifice of marble and glass. Concubine Sentinels tightly guarded the perimeter. “We don’t need to get in,” Adam reminded his three soldiers. “We just need someone to deliver our message.”

  Concubine Sentinels patrolled the forest that surrounded the Temple. A squad of these Girls in Red was doing just that… when one of the women was snatched by vines and plucked away from the others! The rest of the squad continued onward, unnoticing.

  The captured Virgin Soldier struggled feebly and her cries were muffled by the thick leaf over her mouth. A man appeared: Adam of Telluria! The Concubine Sentinel struggled vainly all the more. The man smiled and assured, “We’re going to let you go if you stop for a moment and listen.” The woman still struggled… but soon relented. “I am Adam, King of Telluria. We have a common enemy. Tell General Drusilla that the Army of Four wants to team up with the Virgin Army. Tell her I want to meet with her to make the arrangements. Do you understand?” The captured Sentinel nodded. “Good. Tell her I will meet with her at the base of the Temple steps at noon tomorrow.” Adam told whatever was holding the woman, “Let her go.”

  The vines released the woman and coalesced into a naked, tall “woman” with white, greenish skin and long, bright green, grassy “hair.” Every Concubine on Telluria knew who this entity was: the carnivorous plant fairy! When it winked at the Sentinel, the Concubine fled! Flora smirked, delighted.