Mythicals

by Dennis Meredith

  The near-lethal weather—for his enemies—meant there would be no ceremonial exit onto the surface and procession into the meeting hall. The wormhole would not disgorge the Council members until it had sailed deep into the caverns, coming to rest in a protected hangar.

  The wormhole hovered before the steel hangar door as it slid ponderously upward. The wormhole drifted slowly inside, the swirling colored auroras playing about its shimmering surface.

  A fleet of hawk-like ogre aircraft sailed after the wormhole into the mountain, whose surface had been polished by eons of winds into a smooth, undulating sculpture.

  Flaktuckmetang took a last triumphant breath and allowed himself a full-throated howl, to energize himself for the meeting.

  He turned and shoved open the metal door back into the meeting hall, which had a floor-to-ceiling window looking out over the wind-whipped planet surface. He had chosen this hall, too. He could have requested a room nestled deep within the mountain city, where the Mythicals would feel more secure.

  But he wanted the hated enemies to be constantly reminded that they were on a planet that would kill them if they took one step outside. Their constant feeling of disquiet would work to his advantage. They would want to make a quick decision.

  The semicircular table in the hall was heaped with piles of ogre fare. As was the custom, guests were expected to grab chunks of meat, whole squirming creatures, vegetables, and other edibles from the common pile. Ogres paid little attention to their guests’ sensibilities or customs.

  The interior door opened, and the ogre Warden thumped into the room, his decorated testicles jangling, followed by his fellow Council members—vampire, fairy, troll, pixie, elf, angel, leprechaun, demon, gnome, bigfoot.

  Each took a place around the table, some choosing to dig into a food pile, others visibly unsettled by the undifferentiated mounds.

  As host, it fell to the ogre Warden to conduct the meeting. With a gargling rumble, he cleared his throat, and began.

  “You are an exile,” he said to the werewolf, his thick brow knitted in consternation. “Why are you here instead of a Warden?”

  “Two reasons,” answered Flaktuckmetang, pacing before the Council. “The Therans destroyed our aperture to their planet, leaving us stranded with no Warden. Many of us took refuge on the Pilgrim planet. And most damning, all of my fellow werewolves are dead at the hands of the Therans. I am the only one of my species that survived. And the only one that can safely remain there. They murdered all of my comrades by stealing the codes to our termination chips and activating them. My chip was accidentally neutralized some time ago.”

  “So, we will assume for the moment that you have some standing before us,” said the ogre. “What do you request of the Council?”

  “Justice,” declared the werewolf. “The murder of hundreds of our kind demands the application of our laws. So, I request you to give me the Wardens’ code for the termination chip for the one creature chiefly responsible for these evil acts. Its name is Jack March.”

  “How do we know that he was responsible for these crimes?” asked the ogre.

  “I have proof,” said Flaktuckmetang. “I captured a traitor.” He stepped over to the side of the hall, grabbing a large carrying case and hauling it to the center of the room. He unlatched it and hauled out a battered Meri, standing her up before the Council.

  “This creature entered our control center and planted a spying device in our system. It transmitted the termination codes that resulted in the mass murder of our praetorians.”

  “What have you done to this woman!” exclaimed the fairy Warden. “You have clearly tortured her. This is barbaric!”

  Flaktuckmetang snorted derisively. “It is an indenture, of little significance in our culture.” He flung Meri back into the case, slamming the cover and latching it.

  “This is not—” began the ogre, but Flaktuckmetang cut him off.

  “So, I demand the termination code for Jack March. And I further request that the vampires, the fairies, the pixies—all those Mythicals engaged in this crime—be punished to the maximum extent of your laws. We are magnanimously requesting only that justice for them be done according to their own species’ laws.”

  “Magnanimous?” exclaimed the fairy Warden. “So, basically, you are allowing us to apply our own laws to our own citizens. Instead of attacking them yourself, as you have been known to do. How civilized.” The fairy vibrated his wings in a sign of disgust.

  The vampire Warden stood, glaring at the werewolf. “Our information is that your soldiers were the attackers. The responses by the Therans and the human Jack March were defensive, to stop you from devastating their planet. This Palliation of yours, I might add, was not authorized by this Council. If so, you are requesting revenge, not justice.”

  “Devastating their planet? No . . . ridding the planet of the burden of the population that was devastating it,” declared Flaktuckmetang. “And I should point out that, as the Council requested, we gave the Therans time to save themselves . . . to mount a Remediation. But there was no other way but to save their planet with this extreme action. So, we ask for this limited justice for mass murder of our—”

  “ENOUGH!” bellowed the troll. “This Council will countenance no further killing, even if it is according to your code. I call for a vote.”

  As Flaktuckmetang stood transferring his glare from one Warden to another, each voted to refuse to give him the code he requested. And each Warden declared that their species’ exiles would not be punished.

  The Wardens then stood and exited the hall, leaving the werewolf with a strange smile. He had lost the vote. But he had another plan.

  Finally, only the ogre Warden was left, staring at Flaktuckmetang impatiently.

  “You may depart with the others now,” rumbled the ogre. “The decision has been made. I do not want you on this planet.”

  The werewolf folded his thick, furred arms, cocked his head, and grinned. “There is one small matter that should be settled . . . just between us.”

  “There are no matters between us . . . only Council matters.”

  “You have a son who is an exile. His Theran name, I believe is Mike. I believe he was wounded in a battle.”

  “He was sentenced for a youthful mistake. And the fact that he is my son has never compromised my duties as a Warden,” declared the ogre.

  “Do you love your son?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “And you would not want to see any harm come to him . . . even perhaps being killed.”

  The ogre vaulted the table between them and thundered forward, clutching the werewolf by the neck and slamming him against the wall. Flaktuckmetang merely raised his claws, offering no resistance.

  “You are threatening my son?” The ogre thrust his fanged, gray-green face into the werewolf’s, his black eyes narrowing with hatred.

  “Give me the code,” whispered the werewolf conspiratorially. “It is a simple thing to give me the code to kill Jack March. And no one will know how the human died. The Pilgrims are supplying an army of mercenaries, which I will command. They will protect your son from whatever danger, from whatever . . . source . . . he might encounter.” The werewolf hissed the word “source,” rendering it a dire threat.

  • • •

  “The other countries have multiple-warhead targeting,” said the Theran defense minister, a relieved expression on his face. “Six countries either have multiple-warhead targeting, or they can engineer their missile defenses to launch multiple missiles simultaneously. Aslandia had already taken out the generator that targeted its population. They had EMP-hardened missile facilities.”

  “It’s a good start,” said Jack. “But there are hundreds of generators. We have to target them, as well as make sure any werewolf engineers who try to trigger them are killed.”

  As he spoke, wall screens around the vast control room were showing missiles launched, and generator after generator exploding into whirling chunks of me
tal that careened away into the blackness of space.

  “Well, they have ceased attempting to trigger the generators,” said Steve, peering myopically at the wall screen map of Thera. It showed a mass of black icons overlain with X’s, marking where werewolf praetorians had been killed via their termination chips.

  “Now can we look for Meri?” asked Geniato pleadingly.

  Sam comforted him, placing her hand on his shoulder. “We know that the werewolf has her. Wherever they are, we’ll find them.”

  “But you don’t have a clue,” said Geniato.

  Jack shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry. We don’t know. Her camera and microphone are still in the cell.”

  An eerie, faint whine interrupted them, emanating from the ceiling of the control center.

  They looked up in horror to see a hole abruptly begin growing in the ceiling, expanding rapidly, the roof seeming to disappear into an utter blackness.

  Before any could react, a shower of grenades erupted from the hole, scattering across the expanse of the control center.

  “RUN!” shouted Jack, grabbing Sam by the hand and sprinting for the door. He slammed it open, and they dove through, followed by the two fairies—A’eiio yanking Ryan after her, and E’iouy clutching Steve.

  A few engineers followed, as they barely made it through the doors, when a rapid-fire succession of blasts gutted the building. An acrid smoke burst from the door, and the roof began to smolder.

  “WE HAVE TO LEAVE!” Jack exclaimed as bursts of automatic rifle fire sounded from within the building.

  Sam wrenched herself away from him and ran back toward the building, following Theran soldiers, their rifles at the ready.

  “They’re killing the survivors!” she exclaimed over her shoulder. “Geniato is still there!” She glanced back at him, and he could see that her eyes now shone with a demonic red glow.

  Trucks began to rumble up to the building, carrying Theran soldiers, who began surrounding the center, preparing to breach.

  “What the hell happened?” asked Jack, as they watched the battle unfold.

  “The Pilgrim wormhole,” said A’eiio. “It’s the perfect assault weapon. It doesn’t reflect radio waves, it’s nearly silent compared to aircraft, and in its spherical form, it can slice through even the thickest armor.”

  “But who—” began Jack, who stopped, his eyes widening in fright.

  “What is it?” asked A’eiio.

  “A buzz!” he exclaimed. “There’s a buzzing in my head!”

  Jack stood paralyzed with fear, as the buzzing intensified, becoming a searing pain piercing to the depths of his skull. He realized he had only moments before the termination chip would trigger the explosion that would sever his brain stem, plunging him into the ultimate blackness of death.

  Immersed in the terror and the searing agony in his head, he was only vaguely aware of Sam emerging from the building, carrying Geniato. They were followed what appeared to be a mercenary, who leveled an assault rifle at the two, preparing to fire. But a gust of wind from gossamer wings swept past Jack, and the soldier’s head separated from his body, his corpse collapsing to the ground. More mercenaries poured from the control center, as the wormhole that had transported them lifted skyward from the building, hovering overhead, gunfire spewing from within it, raking the area.

  Jack collapsed to the ground in agony, as he saw Flaktuckmetang follow a troop of mercenaries out of the building, his eyes gleaming, holding a small control box, as he ducked behind a truck.

  As his mind clouded, Jack felt powerful arms lift him up, hauling him backward. Gunfire and explosions erupted, and as he was being carried away, his pain-dulled gaze shifted upward, to see a constellation of wormholes sailing into view above the base, billowing, multihued auroras playing about their edges. They sank rapidly to the ground, and legions of Mythicals poured from their depths—vampires, trolls, angels, ogres, fairies—to attack the growing horde of invaders. They joined the Theran soldiers in a tumultuous, bloody battle against the mercenaries.

  Fairies and angels swooped overhead in deft aerobatic maneuvers, evading the barrage of gunfire. They wielded gleaming swords that they slashed with brutal efficiency at the soldiers, cutting them down.

  Vampires sprinted across the battlefield, lightning-fast reflexes enabling them to evade a mercenary’s hail of bullets until they reached their target, their jaws gaping wide to clamp onto throats, tearing them out, leaving the mercenaries slumping to the ground, dead.

  Naked pixies, their eyes glowing crimson, darted through the turmoil of combatants, their petite bodies only flesh-colored blurs. A pixie picked a target mercenary, reached him before he could bring his rifle to bear, hoisted his body into the air, and slammed him to the ground with such force to shatter his body into a lifeless, broken hulk.

  Bellowing ogres were not so agile, allowing bullets to slam into their bodies as only annoyances, as they seized mercenaries, tearing their bodies in half.

  Then suddenly, he was no longer amid the battle on the sprawling military base; no longer engulfed in the melee. He had been pulled back through a wormhole, now resting against a large, gray-green body in its surrounding chamber, the noise of conflict now distant, peering back through the wormhole to a battlefield that rapidly shrank away as the wormhole vaulted upward.

  The pain, the buzzing, began to thankfully subside. He panted in relief, turning to see who had saved him.

  Coal-black eyes stared down at him, and Mike the ogre grinned showing his stubby fangs.

  “You are getting better?” he asked.

  “What happened?”

  “The werewolf got your termination code,” he explained in his guttural voice. As the atmosphere thinned with the increasing altitude, the ogre helped him through the inner airlock door, through the outer door, and into the control room of the wormhole. They appeared to be on the ogre planet, although an elf was hunched over at the controls, his small hands busily operating the controls, his goggled-eyes staring intently at the view screen.

  The hulking ogre carried Jack gently over to a chair, hefting him as easily as a child would a doll.

  “Why am I still alive?” Jack asked woozily.

  “It was the fairy. A’eiio. She called us when the attack began. We got here quick. Wormholes can move pretty fast. You rest. We go back when things have settled down.” Mike then turned to complain to the elf about the too-fast ascent, to which the elf replied with an annoyed screech that was obviously an insult.

  “Are they all right . . . Sam, A’eiio, the others?” Jack called after the retreating ogre. “

  The ogre turned back briefly, shrugging his massive shoulders and chuckling. “They might be a little tired. And the other ogres will have to have some bullets removed.”

  • • •

  “You failed!” snarled the Alpha, as Flaktuckmetang slumped on the floor of the Pilgrim warehouse, leaning against the steel wall of the vacuum chamber containing the Pilgrim wormhole.

  Flaktuckmetang looked dully up at the huge werewolf, raising the control box in weak triumph. “But I’m sure I killed the human, Jack March. I saw him in agony. I’m sure his brain is destroyed.”

  Roberson the mercenary emerged from the outer chamber door, hauling a fellow mercenary whose chest oozed with blood from a bullet wound. Roberson himself limped from a deep, bleeding gash in his thigh. He pulled the other soldier across the floor of the warehouse, to join a bedraggled, wounded group of other mercenaries being tended by their medic. Binding a clotting pad against his wound, he returned to the two werewolves, thrusting his battle-grimed face into the Alpha’s.

  “Your intelligence was shit!” he spat. “You sent us into a killing field!”

  He clutched the Alpha’s battle harness as if to attack him, but the much larger werewolf easily ripped his hands away.

  Christopher hurried up to them, waving his pudgy hands in an attempt to calm the two.

  “They did the best they could,” he said. “They
could not have known the Mythicals would be so quick to respond.”

  Not taking his furious gaze from the Alpha, Roberson commanded, “Pilot your wormhole to your main colony. We have operatives there. We will launch the missiles . . . now.”

  “Missiles?” asked the Alpha. “Those electronic components were missiles? Is that what you were transporting to your colonies? What do you plan to do with them?”

  “We will destroy the Mythicals’ wormholes, eliminate this threat,” said Roberson.

  The Alpha unleashed a furious bellow and reached for his pistol. Christopher backed away, panic rising on his face. But before the Alpha could draw his weapon, Roberson leveled his sidearm at the werewolf, snapping off the safety. His comrades, seeing his action, snatched up their weapons. Flaktuckmetang struggled to his feet, his eyes widening at both the news of the missiles and the threat to his Alpha.

  The Alpha’s sergeant leaped forward to intervene, and Roberson’s gaze briefly diverted from the Alpha. Taking advantage of the distraction, the Alpha slipped a small object into Flaktuckmetang’s claw.

  The diversion was short-lived, as a mercenary slammed his rifle butt against the sergeant’s head shattering his skull, and he collapsed, dead. Flaktuckmetang took the opportunity to slink away, ducking behind a pillar and out the door.

  “Find him!” commanded Roberson, his gaze still riveted on the Alpha. “Secure the other beasts!”

  A platoon of mercenaries rushed from the building to the praetorian encampment in the Pilgrim compound. The Alpha stood in furious impotence as shouts, snarls, and bursts of gunfire arose outside.

  “This is unconscionable!” exclaimed the Alpha. “You know those missiles will not only close the wormholes. You will destroy the vacuum chambers . . . the entire terminal complexes . . . entire cities of the Alliance.”