In the royal palace, Princess Isadora's birthday was coming. A large party was being prepared to commemorate the young woman's 18 years and also erase the shadow of Mirov's escape and the kidnapped engineers. In order to resolve the case of the ex-councilor's release quickly, the king appointed a special investigation team to pursue Mirov and those who helped him escape, in addition to finding the missing engineers. Counselor Kenan was instructed to inform the king in person about the progress of the investigations, any time it was necessary.

Meanwhile, the king and his subjects had no idea that death was roaming the palace coming from one of their most influential contributors. As Croiff worked on the royal service, the chances of reaching his goal were great. He took advantage of the moment of distraction, caused by the anxiety of the party, to put his plan into practice. Before he went, Mirov had promised to give a good reward for his services, as well as a prominent position in court when the coup d'etat is given and he becomes the new monarch. Croiff was ambitious and decided that he would serve his new master. As a cupbearer of royalty, he walked freely in every royal chamber serving food and drink to everyone.

It was lunchtime, and the guards were watching over the royal family and the surroundings. Croiff took advantage of a moment when the hallways of the dormitories were empty, climbed the stairs sneakily, and entered the king's room with the statue. Even if he could walk all over the court, he could not be seen there, not to cause suspicion. For a few seconds, he stared at the statue, amazed at its beauty. Then he carefully placed it on the headboard of King Zador's bed. Without the protection of the box's lead coating, the invisible radiation would escape and gradually poison the ruler. The artifact would lie next to his bed and his body would absorb large amounts of highly lethal radiation.

As Croiff prepared to leave, he heard footsteps in the corridor. Someone came and the door opened:

"That's weird! I was almost sure that I heard footsteps inside the king's room," thought the maid, looking all around. She cleaned the room and left it quickly, for she had to finish cleaning the other rooms.

It was not until the steps of the maid disappeared in the hallway that the lid of an old chest opened in the corner of the room, and two wide eyes appeared, checking to see if the place was safe. It was Croiff, who had jumped into the chest as soon as he noticed someone approaching from the hallway. It was time to get out of there, and fast. He would allow death to touch the king gradually until the fatal hour.

It was only a few days before the king became ill. A battery of examinations was made and doctors at the palace discovered, unbelieving, that the monarch's cells were deteriorating. But as much as they tried, they couldn't find the cause of such evil. The only thing they could do was treat the symptoms to lessen the pain. Skin sores began to appear; the platelets acting on blood coagulation were ruptured, leaving purple spots all over the body, and in addition, the king had his immune resistance decreased. The servants began to get sick too, since they went to the king's room to fix it and exposed themselves to radiation. People began to think the symptoms were of a new, unknown disease. And a contagious one...

Meanwhile, outside the royal palace, the king's enemies were preparing for the great rebellion. Mirov executed his cunning plan in minimum detail. Dargan entered the royal palace database and scanned the holographs of three guards who did the security for the royal family. The soldier used nano-insects in the form of mosquitoes to fly at them and bite them, drawing blood samples that would serve as genetic material to be copied.

Captain Fizard's soldiers transmuted into these guards and neutralized the real officers. Thus, they began to watch over the routine of the royal family for a long time. Meanwhile, the attack robots were being prepared for "the great day of revenge," as Mirov liked to call. It would be at Princess Isadora's 18th birthday party, the perfect occasion for the invasion of the palace and imprisonment of the royal family.

The party would take place in the next weekend and everyone was distracted. Until then, the reign of the planet Life was peaceful and there were no threats, but Mirov was now loose and everyone should be careful. The king and the collaborators were isolated, near the regent's dormitory, while the disease was studied.

***

The big day came and everyone was celebrating the event. King Zador, although very sick, could not fail to attend the great occasion, wearing a special suit to avoid contagion. Even with a tired countenance, he came down from his quarters and went to meet his daughter who was descending the steps of the palace's stairs with beauty. The subjects cheered the princess, who smiled at all the citizens present.

"I present you Princess Isadora, daughter of our monarch, King Zador." Announced the royal master of ceremonies.

She felt everyone watching her as she descended the stairs, becoming the center of attention. The princess wore sparkling pink clothing with a beige belt. His blue eyes gleamed, showing her happiness. The King, when he received her, praised her saying:

"You have no idea how your mother would be happy if she were here! She would see the most beautiful young woman on the planet being admired by all the subjects."

"Dad, thank you. She must be seeing us from somewhere right now."

"Let's enjoy the party. Have fun, my daughter."

Everyone started dancing and having fun during the party. The songs were soft and beautiful flowers adorned the environment. The main hall of the palace was large and pleasant; the ideal place for large receptions.

Although the princess was happy to celebrate her eighteenth birthday, she also shared in her heart a feeling of sadness over her father's state of health. She felt that underneath that clothing he was too thin, his face pale and his eyes sore, showing his weariness and the advanced stage of the "illness." The princess had to do something to help her father, she just didn't know what. King Zador could barely walk! The doctors could not restore his health, despite all the efforts made.

People were distracted by the party, but there were guards who were not in the same mood. They were monitoring the palace and its surroundings. Meanwhile, Fizard's assault team was preparing to occupy the court. A group of rebel soldiers stormed the control room, surrendering the officers that were there, shutting down the protection systems, and opening the access gates, knocking down the force fields.

Fizard's ship stood over the palace and they all were teleported to the party site. The explosions of rocket and laser launchers and on both sides of the conflict began. Clouds of sparks covered the skies. The sirens and warning lights warned of the attack, but the soldiers were too busy to promote resistance.

There was no time for the government's defense system to recover for a reaction at the time of the attack. The robots with high military power, which armament had been boosted by Mirov's engineers, landed in the palace with a great crash. They destroyed the robots of government forces and threw lightning bolts from their red eyes. Gradually they were destroying with all their power, killing the people and blowing up the defense androids. Meanwhile, Fizard's soldiers fired at the guards and cleared the way for victory. The court officials protected the king and the princess by trying to take them away from there, but were surrounded with the monarch and his daughter. The element of surprise was decisive for the victory of the rebel forces.

When Zador was surrounded, he could see Mirov enter the royal palace. They all stopped to look at the figure of evil, startled, and the last soldiers were falling at the entrance to the ballroom. The King and his former adviser looked at each other, eye to eye.

"How dare you return, Mirov?" Said the king angrily.

"For revenge, of course. Don't forget that I was your most brilliant adviser, and yet you despised me."

At this moment, Mirov, with a superb look, turned to all the guests present and said:

"From today on, I, Mirov I, declare myself king of this planet. Everyone should pay tributes and homage only to me. Whoever does not submit to the new reign will be annihilated. Kneel before me, your new monarch," he cried out insanely.

"How dare you be so infamous and insolent, Mirov? So many years in prison and you did not understand that this is the wrong way to conquer things in this life? You're overriding the rights of others." Said the king.

The subjects of the kingdom looked at each other in bewilderment, not knowing what to do. However, the whole royal guard was under control and now served the interests of the new king. There was no other way than to obey the tyrant's orders.

Four robots entered the palace and stood two by two in front of the main door. They raised their mechanical arms and pointed their rockets at everyone present.

"No use teaching morals, Zador. You're old and done. Your end is near! Captain Fizard will be the new commander of the military forces. Guards, take the former king and Princess Isadora to prison. There both will remain until death." Mirov ordered, narrowing his eyes.

Mirov then approached and came face to face with the object of his hatred. It was then that he whispered in the ears of the deposed king, as the latter rose from the royal throne, escorted by two soldiers.

"Don't worry Zador... You're about to die. At this point, your whole body is seized with a deadly poison. My spies in your palace have served you something that is making you weak and unable to live much longer."

"So, it was you who caused me this sickness! You will pay dearly for this daring, you great traitor!"

"I already paid dearly for serving you! Now it's my turn to collect the vengeance I deserve so much. Just you wait. You won't have grandchildren, because your daughter will also rot with you in jail throughout eternity."

Isadora ran to her father and hugged him, while another soldier was already holding her by her left arm, pulling her to take her to the prison as well:

"Don't be like that, my child. We'll find a way to change this situation."

Many present that watched the princess's drama began to cry and shout:

"Get away, Mirov. Get out!"

Mirov took a weapon from the hand of a soldier beside him and shot mercilessly at one of the men who had shouted. Then he looked at the military:

"Get everyone out of here now! Or you'll see the fury of my robots," Mirov ordered the soldiers as the robot's eyes turned red and ready to shoot laser beams over the crowd.

He continued, irritably:

"Fizerd, take the former king and princess, and show them how good it is to see the sun rise from within a cell."

At this moment, counselor Kenan entered the main hall of the palace, drawn by two soldiers, and seeing all the movement, said:

"You, Mirov! How dare you sit on the throne of King Zador, ruler of the planet Life? Drop me, soldiers. Take away these hands dirty with innocent blood from me."

They threw him down and Kenan stood, staring at the tyrant's face.

"Finally, counselor Kenan! You are late for my party. I prepared it with so much zeal and you did not arrive at the best part."

Some of Mirov's men seized Kenan as he tried to approach the new king to assault him.

"You don't need to hold him. You can release him. This old man won't be able to do anything against me."

"We've arrested you once, and we'll be able to do it again," Kenan said.

"You won't, for you will be imprisoned for the rest of your life with your friend, the old king, and the princess, in the royal dungeon."

"You arrested the king and Princess Isadora? What an outrageous attitude! Next time, we will have no mercy in punishing you."

"I won't be the one who needs compassion... No one will remember you where you are going," said the villain, savoring his vengeance. "Guards, get him out of my sight. Arrest him."

Counselor Kenan left with his head down, and half disoriented, couldn't think of a way to reverse that situation.

The soldiers took him to prison, from which he would hardly escape. He probably wouldn't even have a right to a fair trial. Mirov sat on the throne of the king and savored his victory. His servant, Radof, approached him and said:

"Master, the people are dissatisfied with your possession of the throne. They're saying he usurped it. You must be very careful, for freedom and insurrection are things that walk together. Humans without freedom are able to give their own lives to regain it. Many will try to kill you."

"First: I want to be called Your Majesty, servant. Secondly: I have planned much more than simply getting here, and I am not afraid of death. I will reign and dominate the planet until the end of my life..."

"Yes, Master, I mean, Your Majesty." Radof uttered those words, then withdrew from the room with his head bowed.

Mirov sent for Fizard and ordered him to install a communications blocker around the prison, so as not to allow prisoners to contact anyone, as he had done.

"I will not make the same mistake that my enemies have made," he finished.

"Yes, Your Majesty. I'll do that immediately."

***

Meanwhile, Isadora heard the drops falling from the ceiling in one of the corners of the cell, contrasting with the silence of the prison. She looked at her father and began to talk to him:

"Dad, it's not fair to be stuck here while that tyrant usurps your throne. Is there any chance we can get out of here?"

"Easy, my daughter. I'll figure out some way to get out of here and rid the kingdom from Mirov once and for all. I shouldn't have underestimated him. That bastard! It's all my fault, for I should have ordered him to be pursued and imprisoned by all our military forces. Because of that we are here: I, sick, unable to do anything, and you, my dear daughter, who didn't have to go through this situation."

"No father, don't blame yourself. You could never have imagined that a man like Mirov would be so cunning and evil as to murder people, poison the king himself, and take over power."

Zador spent hours thinking about how they could escape from that place and hopes were few since it was incommunicable. In addition, his army was subdued to the new king.

Isadora retreated to a corner of the cell, her face sad and her eyes filled with tears. The laser grids glowed with a red shade in a menacing way on her face. Her father was staring at her, lost in thought.

"Besides having lost her mother at birth, my sweet little princess has yet to go through this drama of fate. Being arrested on her birthday and me, an old man, stuck here too, unable to do anything. What will become of her when I leave? He repeated to himself.

After a few days, the king felt tired and said to his daughter in a trembling voice, the face pale:

"My dear, I'm not feeling well. Ask the guards to send a doctor."

"Please, somebody help me! My father is sick and needs a doctor urgently!" The princess went to the door of the cell, desperate.

One of the soldiers approached and, without the least good will, murmured:

"We have orders to leave you unassisted. You will only receive food and water."

"But... This is inhuman, an absurd and an injustice! My father never treated the prisoners with such contempt."

The king coughed blood and barely breathed, as well as being psychologically downcast with the possibility of leaving his daughter alone in the world. Yet he managed to utter a few words, knowing that his hours there were numbered.

"Isadora, I believe that the poison to which I was exposed has done a great deal of damage. My health is gone... And I will soon say goodbye to you. But do not forget, me and your mother will always be by your side in your spirit to protect you. Trust no one in the kingdom. When you get out of here, look for Counselor Kenan. He was always faithful to me."

"Did I hear you talk about about Councilman Kenan, King Zador?" One of the guards said in an ironic tone. "I'm sorry to inform you that he's also stuck in a lonely cell down the hallway."

"What an insolent keeper!" Isadora said, indignant at the indifference of the soldier who was in charge of the jail.

In fact, Mirov had ordered the jailers not to aid the king and the princess in any way and to feed them only. Otherwise, they would be punished.

The king, hearing of Kenan's arrest and knowing that the guards were watching them, realized that he could not converse freely with his daughter. He touched her bracelet with his hand and said, telepathically,

"We'll only use telepathy from now on. Direct your thoughts to me and we can talk. Hold this ring on my finger and take it off carefully. It is your only hope of being saved."

"Dad, we'll get out of here and I'll get the help of a doctor."

"Do not waste any more time, for this ring is your only chance to get out of here. There will be no medical help for me, for Mirov planned my death very well. He knows that here in prison we are isolated from the rest of the world."

"How will this ring be useful to us?"

"He's a powerful laser wave communicator. I gave an equal to Nicholas when he traveled to Earth. Open the red compartment and lift the top part. Push the button and an intermittent light will flash sending a signal to him on planet Earth. Merko will surely discover Mirov's plans and come to save you."

The contacts between the galaxies with different dimensions of time space were made by a sophisticated system of communication by electromagnetic laser waves, able to trace wormholes and to penetrate them to arrive at its destination. The ring was a mobile device capable of accessing this system.

The princess immediately did as request and a red light blinked, sending a signal to Nicholas' communicating ring. But something was wrong and the communication didn't reach its destination. The signal blocker Mirov had ordered to be set up around the prison didn't allow them to contact anyone. Unable to communicate and without adequate treatment for his illness, King Zador died.

"Dear Father, please say something! Answer me, dad... Don't die, come back! We need each other," cried the sad Princess Isadora, crying.

The princess tried unsuccessfully to call her father to life and cried out for help, but the guards did not care about the king's death and ignored the situation, fulfilling Mirov's orders. Meanwhile, the princess shed the tears of a life without a mother and now without a father, each time more unhappy and hopeless to live better days.

***

"Your Majesty, King Mirov. King Zador finally passed away," said Colonel Fizard, who had been promoted.

"It's about time. I counted the minutes for this day to arrive and I could savor the taste of victory," said the new king of the planet Life. "Bury him in a mass grave. There will be no funeral or pomp; he will be buried as a mere mortal and it is better that the people don't know about it. They will hear only rumors of a possible death of King Zador and, with the shadow of uncertainty, won't demand that the princess ascend to the throne as his successor. I don't want to hear about rebellions."

Finally, the power was his.

________________________