A cracked and blasted wasteland blazing a blinding white shimmered beneath three suns, the jagged, faraway fangs of hulking, distant mountains shifting and rippling in the horrendous heat like broken dreams. The holographic figure before him was a bright, translucent orange, cloaked and hooded, phantom muzzle bared in a half snarl and ghostly eyes aglow with the light of a dominator who had never known want or defeat.

“How close?” the hologram asked him, its voice an insistent and eager whisper with a double echo, as if two were speaking to him instead of one. “Tell me, Saren…tell me all is finally ready.”

“Close, yes! Ready, no…” said the wolf, hiding his fear and struggling to control his shaking paws. “I’ve already decoded the genetic sequences and sent the signal however! The cabal has mobilized twenty battlecruisers and six capitol destroyers. They’ll rendezvous with the station in two weeks. By then the virus will be ready. I promise!”

The Prime Minister’s sigh was halfway a hiss, almost lost in the howl of a blistering wind. The hologram began to pace, its steps eerily silent on burning alabaster sand as its robes rippled, lips twitching and gaze fixed on something Saren could not see.

“You are certain you are correct?” the other wolf asked suddenly, turning, those terrible eyes transfixing Saren’s. His voice was a strange, sibilant whine.

The question was almost a plea. Something about its tone made him suppress a shudder.

The rumors were more than true. He’s gone insane. Be very, very careful.

“Certain,” Saren said simply, the confidence of steel in his voice even as a black and slimy claw of terror gripped his quaking soul.

The Prime Minister laughed exultantly as the searing wind lashed at Saren. “Excellent…I suppose we’re finished for now, then.” The hologram waved a paw. Reality seemed to melt and collapse in on itself, the image of the desert disappearing into grey, then black.

***

He tore the neural interface device from his temple, the electric crackle dancing through his fur and sending a shiver down his back. Tossing it down onto his desk he closed his eyes, trying to slow his hammering heart and his racing pulse by force of will.

I believed in eugenics. I thought it was destiny. I’m such a fool!

Reaching for a glass of water his gaze fell upon the far wall of the dimly lit laboratory. Lining it were glowing purple cylinders filled with a sedative and breathable formaldehyde. Foxes, reptilians, avians, felines and others occupied the glass tanks, floating unconscious in the thick, chemical laden solution.

He hadn’t lied to the Prime Minister, not exactly. The synthesis of the deadly pathogens was complete, the virus ready to strike down all but the lupine race, yet he had stalled the final preparations which would facilitate its mass delivery himself.

The only thing standing between completion and readiness was his conscience. It was a simple enough task to convert his creation to an airborne variant, he could have done that a month ago.

Once that happened, however, the dream of the cabal he belonged to would be realized.

After years of research, years of promises that he would be rewarded beyond all others, he had come to the awareness that the ultimate end he had worked so hard for was something he could never live with.

In the distant past there had been a dictator who had almost conquered the galaxy, the force of his evil will like the eye of a hurricane, gathering around him vast and grim lupine legions that had ruthlessly crushed all before them. Only when the rest of civilization had come together, proving that the idea of race itself was a lie and wielding the power of unity, had the tide turned. Shattered worlds and mega-death were things of the past now, but never forgotten.

That ancient dictator was the Prime Minister’s hero, his personal idol. The Wolf-God was dead, but the twisted thing Saren had met in the simulated desert dreamed of taking his place. If he acquired the pathogen Saren had made he would kill a trillion to make his dream come true.

He opened a drawer, the grape-fruit sized metal orb rolling towards his paw as if psychically summoned. Staring at the grenade, his mouth dry, he made his decision.

Picking it up, its weight cool and comforting in his grasp, his thoughts wandered back through the long span of his life. His daughter smiled, watching in wonder as snowflakes danced and swirled. His wife licked her lips and her eyes brimmed with love, bubbling champagne and crystal glinting as thunder rumbled paradoxically in the summer sun, dark clouds gathering in the distance. They had come together in the storm, that was the day he...

He realized he was grinning, his fangs bared even as tears poured from his eyes.

You know what you have to do, something inside whispered. Pull the pin. It’s all in this room. End it now.

As he was about to arm the grenade the door to the laboratory crashed open, a wolf in black battle-dress armed with an assault rifle taking aim. Saren dove behind the workstation as a beam vaporized the chair he had been sitting in, the room itself quaking and rumbling as a second shot blew away half the desk he sheltered behind in a storm of burning splinters, channeling its deadly energy into the plating of the floor and gouging a giant crater into the alloy.

“Come out, traitor!” snarled the gunman, spatters of white-hot liquid metal raining down and hissing like demons, “Your thought patterns were analyzed. We know everything!”

Saren pulled the pin of the grenade as grim knowledge and cold calculations flashed through his mind. If he threw it towards the door and the assassin its blast wouldn’t be enough to destroy the evil he had created.

But if he kills me first the Prime Minister wins. I have to survive, I have to undo this!

He threw it, watched it arc over the ruined, burning workstation as the assassin’s assault rifle barked and the room flared white.

***

Notes:
Probably the last thousand. The biologist mentioned in the introduction now having made his first appearance, every element of the beginning is in place. Time to get serious…