Fourteen Days

Memo To: Lacuna Expanse Corp.
Receiving Location: www.LacunaExpanse.com
Subject: A brief history, My resignation

SD: 52366109
LD: 1295463
CN: Rendart

Fourteen days: to them, it’s called a ra’nu.  Fourteen days is one full orbit of Tel’dak.  Fourteen days: equivalent to one and three quarters standard Lacunan year.  Fourteen days.

I’ve been here for fourteen days and only now have a full understanding of their language. 

It’s funny; when I came, all I knew was the corporation.  They sent me here as a spy, but I can hardly remember my time on the old world.  Things are different here and yet oddly the same.  The same as all alien worlds I’d been sent to.  Oddly different, too.

As I write this, I realize that I’m still using the standard L.E.C. report heading, even though this is not really a report and I feel no need to return to my mission.  Yes, oddly different.

Since I’ve been here the A’dak have grown in strength and not been shy to show outsiders what they are capable of.  At first I thought they planned to aggressively expand, but now I’m not so sure.  They have a strong sense of pride and history.

I’d been learning from a local, named Dar’amn’sol’dre (The first son of Sol, who is named Dre), who works in the space port.  A spy’s dream contact: old enough to be in a high station, but young enough not to care about security, and willing to help with anything.  I was in the command tower watching them direct ships on my second day, before I could even communicate with most of them.

When I had completed my study of their language, I came upon two discoveries: first is that I had not reported back to L.E.C. since I’ve been here, and second that no A’dak uses the phrase “fourteen days.”  You see, they all say “ra’nu” like we would say “year,” so it came as a surprise when I told Dar’amn’sol’dre that it only took me fourteen days to learn the local language and he replied “Ren’dar, now that is a story of much renown.”  He then put down his work and gathered coworkers around to hear the tale of Yen’syr’dak, the Great King’s Great Divide. 

I will do my best to relate that story to you.  Know that this will be my last report filed, and that Rendart no longer exists.

“In the fourth day of ra’nu eight hundred, the Great King’s First dar was born.  In the ra’nu to come, another Second dar was born and so it came to be for nine more dar under the Great King.  On the fifth day of ra’nu eight hundred eleven, the Great King addressed his subjects: ‘This day is a great day for all my people,’ he boasted ‘for this day is the day that I shall remake our land in my image.  And I will use my own sons to do it.’ 

And the Great King did.  He divided the land and placed each dar as leader of a region, even the young Eleventh.  He placed his dar under his command, and kept a larger portion of the world for his personal control.

It was not two days before the demands started to come; changes in living arrangements, movement of great amounts material, restriction of the activity of individuals.  Each region was able to keep up with relentless demands at first, but soon the cost of life and fatigue was too great and one by one each of the Great King’s dar broke away.

By the sixth day of the Great King’s Great Divide, all control over the Dar-states was lost.  Despite the Great king’s demands, none of his dar would force the people of their region to put themselves at risk for the unreasonable requirements placed upon them.

It wasn’t until late the seventh day that word finally traveled the land.  At first, each dar believed himself to be a failure, or at worst a traitor in the eye of the Great King, but on the seventh day they all learned the truth: the Dar-states had become independent empires, separate from the Great King’s Great Divide and separate from each other.  It was then that they knew; not only were they all traitors, but each dar had grown apart from the others as not just a lost brother, but as territorial competitors.

The Fourth and Fifth dar had been the closest in childhood and were the closest in territory.  Their alliance was quick to act and strong in resolve.  But ninth and third dar became bitter enemies as their youthful disagreements turned to open war.

The First dar, believing himself to be the future ruler of all the land, was fearful to make enemies of his brothers and yet slowly pushed his borders out while talking of peace between the Dar-states.  This was, of course, much to the displeasure of his neighbors: the Second, the Third, the Eighth, and the Eleventh dar.  Now, the Second and Third dar were an alliance on account of their mutual fear of total chaos.  The paranoia they shared meant that they would never work with each other, or anyone else, without first being sure that they themselves were not being watched while they did so.  It was by their games and trickery that the First dar was contained, and by their games and trickery that they earned the distain of the Eighth and Eleventh dar.

The Tenth dar had been, at the point the conflict broke out, the leader of the most land and the fewest people.  His land had been called upon by the Great King to feed the peoples of all other Dar-states and, had the plan gone as intended, it could have.  As a result, with the demands of war and starving populous, each of the Tenth dar’s brothers had been forced to send for alliance.  This gave the Tenth dar the ability to watch and influence all that went on, without the need to dirty his own hands.

The Sixth dar had tried to remain neutral in the war between the Third and Ninth dar but, sharing a border with each of them, found that only hostility against both would prevent them from attempting to seek his aid in the fight against the other.

And what of the Great King?  In his darkest day, the fourteenth day, when his selfish plans of redevelopment had been dashed, he called upon his most trusted dar: the Seventh.  Through the streets and up the steps of the Great King’s Great City he walked, baring symbols of office and heritage high; and it is said that when the Seventh dar slew the Great King, not one of the royal guards moved to stop him.

Now, the tale of how the eleven Dar-states and the realm of the former Great King became the Federation we know today is another story; another story for another time.”