He lay on the cold, unforgiving floor, feeling sick to his stomach. He had betrayed his sacred trust, and he knew that there was no reason to keep him alive now that they had what they wanted. A million things raced through his mind – why did they want the Princess? Why hadn’t they asked about their mission? How were they able to find them in the first place?
“I know you have questions…” said the voice, as though it were able to read his mind. “Your kind always does.”
Rylack took that to be an invitation. He could have asked any number of things, but one question stood out above all the others, and he desperately wanted to know the answer before it was all over.
“Why?” he asked. “Why are you doing this? We did nothing to you – nothing! And you’re slaughtering us… entire planets… for what?”
The only response was the sound of his tormentor’s boots echoing in the room as he stalked around him. Then, the feeling of invisible hooks digging into his flesh assaulted him once again, and he was reeled up into the air like a fish struggling for release.
A figure emerged from the darkness – a shadow amongst shadows. Its two red eyes blazed at him, glowing brightly with pure malice. A taloned hand pointed toward the viewscreen.
“What do you see on that screen?” the figure demanded.
Rylack looked. It was the same blue-green planet as before. “Just… a planet,” he choked.
“You see a planet,” the figure responded. “I see an aberration. I see a great expansive void, littered with vile mistakes you call life. We are simply removing the clutter, making the void pure once again.”
“You’re insane,” growled Rylack.
“We are righteous,” replied the figure. “And we will sweep across the universe and lay waste to every abomination which crosses our path. Once we have your Princess, the final piece will be in place, and we will bring purity and balance back to the void.”
The words echoed in Rylack’s ears, and suddenly, he feared he knew why they were after the woman he’d sworn to protect.
“The Princess…” gasped Rylack.
“Yes,” purred the figure. “She’s the key, you see. With her, we will bring about the destruction of all. Every planet will be laid to waste, every star will be extinguished, and every life will be ended. We will march from one galaxy to another, leaving nothing in our wake. And all the universe will tremble.”
Cold, unbridled fear gripped Rylack’s stomach and twisted. “You can’t…” he cried. “She won’t…”
“She will,” said the figure. “Just as you did. She will not be able to resist.”
“Someone will stop you,” spat Rylack.
“Nothing can stop us,” said the figure. “Not a weapon, not an army... and certainly not you.”
With that, Rylack felt the cold razors return as they dug deep into his muscles, but this time, they hooked themselves into him, and he felt them tug at him violently. He writhed in pain, screamed in protest, but it was no use.
A wave of icy cold washed over him, and he could feel the very essence of his being as it was ripped from his body, as his very soul was torn from him.
And the last thing he heard before he died was the booming laughter of the voice from the darkness.
Chapter 10
A teapot whistled, steam erupting from its spout. Shepherd lifted it off the burner and poured the boiling water into a mug with the friendly words “World’s Greatest Dad” printed on it. He never felt right being referred to as a father, since he had no real children of his own. But Anna had insisted when she had given it to him that it was strictly for the sake of their cover.
He took out a small bag of black tea and began to steep it in the hot water, spilling a little on the bright gold granite countertops of the kitchen. He chalked it up to just more mess he’d have to clean after tackling the pile of dishes in the sink from his failed attempt at making an edible broccoli and cheese casserole. Shepherd was a man of many skills, but cooking was not one of them. Even the Professor politely passed on the meal, and he would eat practically anything.
Because of that, it was probably for the best Anna had not come down for dinner. Shepherd even went so far as to take a plate up to her, but she had refused to answer the door. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d ignored him when she was upset, which seemed to happen more and more lately. Because of the questionable quality of the food, he did not press the matter and decided to let her sulk uninterrupted.
Shepherd sipped his tea and looked thoughtfully out the window behind the sink, gazing off into the night. Perhaps I am being too hard on her, he thought. She was, after all, no older than any of the other children that he taught in class, and they were always up to far worse than simply wanting to go to a dance. He began to think about all she’d been through, and all she’d yet go through, and he felt the piercing pang of guilt gnaw at his stomach.
When did I become such a grumpy old man? he wondered. He hadn’t always been this way. There was a time when he had been carefree, when he had been rebellious, when he had known what it was like to have fun. For some reason his mind wandered to his student Jack Finnegan and to the realization that the boy reminded him much of himself back in his youth.
But that had been long ago, before the war. Its tragedies had made him grow up fast, and he was afraid Anna would have to do so even faster.
At least he’d had his time. He had known what it was like to be free from responsibility, to laugh and play, and not to worry about tomorrow. Anna, however, had been shouldered with the harsh burden of responsibility almost since the day she was born. And even if there had been hope that she would have a chance to live a somewhat “normal” life, it had been destroyed long ago, along with so much else.
Still, that would be all the more reason to let her have one day, wouldn’t it? A day when she could just be a kid, a day to have fun and forget about the horrors she would have to face after it was time to leave this planet?
Then again, to allow Anna to escape from the reality of her situation for such a short time only to drag her back into it might be crueler still. It was one thing not to know what she was missing. It was another all together to let her taste what freedom was like and then yank it away from her.
Shepherd sighed and ground his teeth. When did this become so complicated, he wondered. His job should be simple. All he had ever been required to do was to make sure no harm came to the Princess. That meant keeping her away from danger and killing anything that tried to harm her. That’s what he’d been doing for years, and it had always worked. But more and more lately, he’d felt Anna resenting his protection, insisting it was becoming over-protective to the point of being unbearable.
It certainly didn’t help things now that she was surrounded by beings her own age and who so closely resembled her own kind. In fact, he was surprised it had taken this long before she had given into the urge to start socializing with them.
Shepherd had known that it would be an issue the minute Anna suggested infiltrating Earth society. The original plan of rushing in and accessing the temple wasn’t as easy as anyone had thought. Anna should have been able to unlock the Ancient technology rather quickly, but after many failed attempts, she had become convinced the secret to doing so lay with the Earthlings. After all, there had to be a connection between the two, didn’t there? Looking back, he should have insisted on calling in the dig team immediately, saving themselves months of pointless research. But he was not in the habit of countermanding orders from his Princess when it came to matters of Ancient technology.
Despite it all, though, keeping her insulated was the safest course of action. But Shepherd struggled with the reason behind doing so. Was he really doing it to protect her? Or had he fallen prey to the trap of trying to keep her from growing up? In his mind, she was still the scared little girl he’d held in his arms while death and destruction erupted around them so many years ago – the same little pigtailed girl clutching a ragged Yuppi doll while everything she
’d ever loved had been savagely ripped away from her in a single day.
However, the Professor’s words were truer than he cared to admit. She was, in fact, a teenager. She was beginning to mature, and she was growing into her royal birthright as perfectly as anyone could expect. Soon, she would be old enough to claim her rightful seat of power in the Empire her ancestors had forged. But it still nagged at Shepherd that her childhood had been squandered, and he may have stolen her one chance to experience it before it was too late.
He took another sip of his tea and made up his mind. He’d allow her to attend the dance. This would, of course, mean he’d have to approach Principal Montgomery about being a chaperone at the function – a fact with which Anna would no doubt be less than thrilled. But there was only so much ground he’d be willing to cede for the sake of her excursion into teenagery. There would no doubt be temptations at the dance, which he’d have to prepare for. Things like alcohol, drugs, and, of course, the worst vice of them all – boys.
The question of with whom she’d be attending the dance suddenly leapt into his mind. No doubt she’d brought up the notion of going to Homecoming because there was someone she wanted to go with. He’d have to find out whom and quickly set the boy to rights about how he’d have to behave around her royal highness – if he wanted continued use of his limbs, that is.
A myriad of different and varied scenarios of intimidation played out in Shepherd’s mind for Anna’s yet-to-be-revealed date when Professor Green came bursting into the kitchen, clutching the boxy subspace communicator to his chest, his eyes wild and frightful.
“Oh, dear,” he muttered. “Oh dear oh dear oh dear…”
Shepherd put down his tea, instantly alarmed. “Professor?” he said.
Green swept his hand across the kitchen table, knocking off the homey little knickknacks meant to make the house look as normal as possible, and plopped down the shiny box he’d been fiddling with all day.
“We, uh… have a problem,” said Green.
“What?” demanded Shepherd.
“I was able to finally isolate whatever was interfering with our subspace pocket channel,” said Green. “It’s a very strong sequence of multi-dimensional frequencies that are being broadcast into subspace, effectively scrambling any communication being sent through there.”
“I thought it was impossible to jam a subspace frequency,” said Shepherd.
“Correct,” said Green. “It is impossible to block information from being transmitted and received through subspace channels. However, we’re not being jammed. We’re being overrun. So much noise is being broadcast into our designated subspace pocket at so many different frequencies, any message meant for us is getting lost in the clutter.”
“So our communications are cut off?” asked Shepherd. This was indeed a problem.
“Well, no,” said Green as he quickly plugged in a small data tablet into the communicator. “I was able to create an algorithm which separates much of the noise from our assigned frequency with the fleet. It’s crude, but… it works.”
“Then what’s the problem?” asked Shepherd.
“This,” said Green, as he hit a button on his data tablet.
The air above the communicator box began to shimmer and a holographic image of a tall, thin man wearing the proud crimson uniform of a Regalus Prime space officer came into focus. Small details of his environment were transmitted, as well – the familiar bridge of the starship Protector among them. However, along with that were the sparks of damage and the smoke of fire. Figures scrambled around behind him, frantically trying to control the chaos.
“Emergency Alert,” the man said. “Shepherd, do you read? Please respond!”
“Rylack,” Shepherd muttered under his breath, the cold hand of worry beginning to tickle his throat.
“We’ve been attacked,” Captain Rylack went on, his image flickering in and out of alignment. “They came…
Green furiously tapped on his data tablet, trying to clear the signal.
“The Yellowtail, Guardian, and Javelin have all been destroyed…” the Captain went on. “We are being boarded. Don’t know how long we can hold out. Evacuate the planet immediately! Repeat, evacuate immed—”
Then, a fireball erupted. There was the sound of screams as dark shadows swept into the room. Captain Rylack turned, right before disappearing in a flash of purple light, and then the transmission went dead.
For a moment, Green and Shepherd were both silent, the gravity of what they had just seen settling in.
“Four warships… the best of the fleet… destroyed without warning.” muttered Green. “How is that possible?”
Shepherd’s mind raced. It didn’t make sense. There was no way anything could have snuck up on the fleet so completely as to have caught them unaware, not with all the precautions they had taken. There were sensor arrays spread throughout the entire planetary system to ensure they would see any danger coming from light-years away.
Shepherd turned and marched into the dining room. Against the wall was a very nice mahogany cabinet housing all types of fine dinnerware. With a wave of his arm, the cabinet shimmered, and with a ripple, its holographic camouflage dissipated to reveal a large screen, housed in a bright, shining metal casing with three access terminals mounted in it – a typical configuration for a standard sensor console.
Shepherd ran a quick scan of Earth’s planetary system, but all results came back empty. According to their long-range sensor array, there were no hostiles anywhere in the vicinity.
“The sensors would have alerted us of any unknown activity within the system,” Green said, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Maybe the threat has passed? A fluke encounter?”
“Professor,” said Shepherd, “You said the subspace interference was multi-dimensional?”
“Yes,” blinked Green.
“Is it possible the same signal is being used to fool our detection systems?” Shepherd asked.
Green looked thoughtful. “Oh, dear,” he said.
Green rushed up to a second access panel on the sensor console before them and began to enter his detection algorithm. Suddenly, the large empty screen flickered and red dots began to litter the system. A tiny alarm sounded, signaling the detection of multiple enemy energy signatures.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Green breathlessly.
Shepherd could feel his heart skip a beat. Not only were there more energy signatures than he could count, they were already beginning to encircle the planet, which could only mean one thing.
“Planetkillers,” he snarled.
“But… but how?” stammered Green. “How did they find us?”
“We’ll figure that out later,” said Shepherd urgently. “Get ready to head to the emergency shuttle. I’ll get the Princess. With any luck, we still have time to escape.”
Without a moment to lose, Shepherd sprinted up the stairs to Anna’s room. His mind was racing. All of the Empire’s high-level military communications were based around creating secure pockets within the subspace dimension that would not only allow instantaneous communication over vast distances but also could prevent the enemy from intercepting or interfering with it. If their foe had somehow figured out a way not only to corrupt their transmissions but also to render subspace useless, nowhere would be safe.
He reached the door to Anna’s room and pounded on it.
“Princess!” he yelled. Without waiting, he tried to open the door but found it locked. He pounded again. “Princess, open the door! We must evacuate!”
No answer. Without hesitation, Shepherd rammed his shoulder into the door, forcing it to fly open.
He looked around. The room was empty. For a split second, he was afraid that somehow the Princess had already been kidnapped, killed, or worse. But then he noticed the sheets tied to the post of the bed, leading out an open window.
He rushed to it and looked outside. The makeshift rope made it almost all
the way down to the ground. It would appear that Anna had successfully snuck out without him noticing.
Shepherd’s stomach felt like it dropped out of him, and he cursed himself for becoming complacent. He had allowed the relative peacefulness of the planet to fool him into relaxing his guard, and that had given the Princess enough opportunity to take advantage of it.
Now she was out there. Alone. Unprotected.
And the full might of the deadliest army the universe had ever known was about to descend upon her.
Chapter 11
Not far off State Route 380 was a homey greasy-spoon diner called “Emma Jean’s Burger Shack.” It was an old gas station situated in the middle of a large, empty, gravel-filled lot with a tall, well-lit sign that was a 24-hour beacon to all manner of night owls, late-shifters, and truckers on their way to the main freeway.
Long ago, the gas pumps had been closed down, but the food was still flowing. Emma Jean’s liked to boast “The Best Hamburgers In River Heights,” but they served everything from scrambled eggs to New York strip steak, and they did so at all hours.
Jack actually liked the food better at the Fox Hole Diner where his mom worked. Indeed, the Fox Hole did have better food, but it was all the way out by the freeway – which meant more customers and therefore more tips for his mom. But Emma Jean’s was closer, and he wouldn’t think of trying to make Anna walk all the way to the Fox Hole with him. Not to mention that the last thing he wanted was his mom spying on him and his date.
The idea that he was actually on a date with the most beautiful girl in school still amazed him. Jack was sure a huge, stupid grin was still plastered on his face as he watched Anna noisily slurp up the last of her third chocolate milkshake of the evening.
“Dang,” teased Jack. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve never had a milkshake before.”
In all actuality, Anna had never had a milkshake before, since cows (and therefore their milk) were rather unique to Earth, and she found she quite enjoyed it. But of course, how was Jack to know that? She covered her mouth shyly, as though to hide her sudden bout of gluttony.
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