He looked beneath him, his feet flailing as they searched for ground that was not there. Far in the distance below, a burning yellow glow began to form. It was rushing up toward him, a swirling mess of golden magma. The air around him began to shimmer, as though it were on fire, only there was no heat.
Then, Jack plunged through the golden liquid, and just like that, his feet were on solid ground again.
Anna, Green, and Shepherd all stood in the same positions they had been in back in the cornfield. As Jack’s brain tried to cope with what had just happened, the world around him began to swirl, and his stomach finally caught up with him. No surprise, it was not very happy when it did.
Dizzy, Jack fell over. He hit the ground, which felt like it was moving at odd angles compared to the rest of his surroundings. A wave of nausea crashed over him.
Don’t puke in front of Anna, he thought. Don’t puke in front of Anna, don’t puke in front of Anna…
Then, Professor Green was at his side. He took Jack gently by the face to steady him.
“Focus on my eyes, Jack,” said Green.
Green’s face separated into four fuzzy clones of itself and danced around Jack’s field of vision.
“Wha… why’m I…” stammered Jack.
“Don’t worry, my boy, it’ll pass,” Green said. “Your body just isn’t used to the portgating process.”
As Jack tried to focus on Green’s face and clear his head, he began to notice his surroundings. The cornfield had disappeared, replaced by a large cavernous chamber. The walls and ceiling merged into a dome and were alive with liquid gold magma that swirled and danced in a beautiful ballet of chaos. The light from the dome bathed the entire chamber with a yellow-orange hue.
Jack was on a circular platform, the same size as the clearing in the field above, made of a smooth, white metal that pulsed slightly, like a mirror catching sunlight. He turned and saw an ornate stone arch stationed behind the platform, with small crackles of energy dancing around it intermittently.
The platform had steps that led down to a surface consisting of cobbled stone. Two rows of stone columns formed a walkway, which led from the platform toward some type of temple, about a hundred yards away. The temple rose up like a pyramid but flattened out at the top, as if it were unfinished.
Suddenly, Jack realized just how huge the temple was, and the chamber it was housed in was even more massive than he had first noticed – probably bigger than the entire town of River Heights.
“Where are we?” asked Jack, his head clearing with the amazement of his new environment.
“We’re in the core of your planet,” said Green.
Jack turned and looked at him, eyes wide. “The core? Like, the Earth’s core? As in the center of the Earth?”
“Exciting, isn’t it?” said Green cheerily.
“How… how is this possible?” asked Jack, dumbfounded.
“Well, if you must know–” started Green. But before he could offer any further explanation, Shepherd stepped forward.
“Later,” he said in a tone that ended the conversation for good. He reached down and grabbed Jack by the lapel of his jacket and yanked him up to his feet. He turned to Anna.
“Activating the portgate will have alerted the Deathlords to its location,” said Shepherd. “They’ll be here any second.”
Anna nodded. “I’ll work fast,” she said. She turned to Green. “Professor, I’ll need your help.”
“Of course,” he replied.
With that, Green followed Anna as she began to run toward the temple. Jack was about to go after them when Shepherd’s hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“No, you stay with me,” he said.
“Why?” asked Jack. “What’s going on here? What is this place? Who are you people?”
“I know you have questions,” said Shepherd, his voice deadly serious. “But right now, you need to listen to me very carefully if you want to live.”
“Okay…” said Jack, uncertainly.
“Do you know how to handle a gun?” asked Shepherd.
“Um… kinda,” replied Jack. “I mean, I’ve never actually fired a real gun before…”
Shepherd grimaced.
“But, hey!” said Jack. “How hard can it be, right? Just point and shoot. Why? You, uh… got a gun?”
Shepherd knelt on one knee and put his hand before him, staring at it intensely. Jack raised an eyebrow. What the heck is he doing now? Jack wondered.
The air around Shepherd’s hand started shimmering, and suddenly, Jack’s vision blurred, as if his eyes could no longer focus correctly. Before he knew it, the air around Shepherd’s palm seemed to ripple, and a strange looking pistol had appeared from nowhere.
“No way…” said Jack, amazed.
The pistol was, for lack of a better word, awesome. It looked like a nine-millimeter handgun from one of Jack’s video games, but the barrel was like a flattened oval, with no opening in the muzzle. Instead, a glowing red line followed the middle of it, from one side to the other. Shepherd got to his feet and shoved the pistol toward Jack.
“Take it,” he said.
Jack didn’t need to be told twice. He snatched it up and looked at it like he’d just found a million dollars.
“What the heck is this?” he asked.
“Not a toy,” said Shepherd dryly. “In a few seconds, some very bad things are going to show up. I’ll try to hold them off as long as I can, but if any get past me, I’ll need you to shoot them down.”
Jack snapped out of the trance the gun in his hand had created and looked at Shepherd with surprise.
“Dude,” he said. “Are you asking me to kill people?”
“They’re not people,” said Shepherd. “Now go take cover. No matter what happens, make sure none of them reaches the Princess.”
“Right…” said Jack. “And just so I’m clear, are you her dad, or aren’t you? Because I’m still not sure exactly–”
Suddenly, the arch behind the portgate platform came to life, trails of electric power sparking around it. A blue ball of energy formed under its arms, groaning and shouting, as if it were being forced to open. Shepherd turned and looked at it intensely.
“Go now,” yelled Shepherd over the sound of the newly opened portal.
Jack began to retreat back behind the nearest pillar when he stopped.
“Wait, what about you?” he asked.
Shepherd turned his back on Jack, facing the slowly growing portal fully. Tendrils of blue and white electricity began to snake around him, moving to his spine and forming into a metal brace.
From that brace, more metal grew around Shepherd’s body, brilliant silver and blue. It formed around his shoulders, moving to his arms. It crawled down his legs, to his feet. Jack watched in amazement as a sleek and powerful looking suit of armor encased the man, making him look like some type of butt-kicking superhero from the comic books Jack had grown up reading.
Finally, a solid metal helmet covered Shepherd’s face. It was smooth, with no slits for his eyes or mouth. It formed into an obscure shape of a man’s face, lacking any details, and glowing slightly.
Shepherd tightened his hands into fists, and from the sides, top, and bottom of his forearms, long, cylindrical cannons snapped up, their barrels glowing with restrained fury.
Jack gazed upon Shepherd in utter awe.
“Wicked…” he breathed.
Shepherd raised his arms, aiming his quad-cannons toward the blue portal as it screamed and grew to its full size.
The portal crackled, and with a thunderous clap, two Deathlords leapt through. Both were armed with their standard obsidian rifles. Before they had a chance to use them, Shepherd unleashed his cannons.
The blasts tore into the two Deathlords, causing them to erupt into a cloud of black dust. No sooner had those two fallen, than two more Dark Soldiers shot through the portal.
They fired a few shots off before Shepherd bombarded them into oblivion. Some shots went wide, but on
e hit Shepherd full on. However, instead of harming him, the blast seemed to be absorbed by his armor. The man did not even flinch from getting hit.
Jack backed away and hid behind a nearby stone pillar, aiming his plasma pistol toward the portal as more Deathlords emerged. However, Shepherd’s furious cannon attack was so brutal, none of the invading Deathlords were lasting that long. For a second, Jack thought he wouldn’t have to fire a single shot, since it seemed Shepherd had the whole situation under control.
Until the next group arrived.
Two more Deathlords emerged, this time followed closely by a third. The first two were like the others who had come before – foot soldiers with obsidian rifles. But the third one was taller, more lithe, and carried no weapon.
His head was wrapped with a black cloth that coiled around his face like a mummy, covering the area where his nose and mouth would be but leaving room for two brutal, glowing red eyes. Small horns crowned his slightly elongated head, and his arms were armored with guards mounted with large serrated blades.
The two Deathlord soldiers who emerged before him served as human shields and absorbed Shepherd’s blasts before disintegrating, giving the third time to roll out of the way.
As the surviving Deathlord rolled to his knee, he swung his arm upward gracefully in one quick motion – causing glowing white spikes of energy to shoot up through the ground before him.
More spikes erupted in front of the last, screaming toward Shepherd with frightening speed. As the spikes behind them evaporated, the new arrivals grew larger and more deadly the farther they traveled, like a tidal wave of jagged death.
Shepherd leapt to the side, but he was not fast enough.
The wave of floor spikes turned, as if it knew his reaction, and impacted his side, sparking off his armor and sending him flying backwards.
Shepherd hit the floor, rolling from the force of the impact, as the Deathlord leapt into the air and closed the distance between him and his foe.
Just as he landed, two more Deathord foot soldiers emerged from the portal. But instead of carrying rifles, these two bore a large black box between them, their taloned hands wrapped around its handles.
Ignoring the new arrivals, Jack took aim at the Deathlord near Shepherd, who was getting ready to make another attack.
“Prepare to get owned, jerkwad,” he whispered.
He leveled the pistol.
He took careful aim.
He squeezed the trigger.
A red blast of plasma erupted from his pistol, streaking across the air, heading powerfully and forcefully directly toward the Deathlord’s head…
…and completely missing him.
The Deathlord, noticing the plasma blast as it passed harmlessly by, looked over in Jack’s direction, his red eyes burning with fury.
“Oh, crap…” said Jack.
The Deathlord quickly swung his arm in Jack’s direction, sending another wave of ghostly floor spikes screaming his way.
Jack ducked behind the pillar, and braced himself. Fear suddenly found its way into his gut. Before, when it was just Shepherd doing the fighting, the whole thing seemed cool, like he was watching the greatest sci-fi movie ever.
But now, things were shooting at him, and that was totally not cool.
The Deathlord’s spikes slammed into the pillar Jack was hiding behind with incredible force. The pillar crumbled instantly and the blast sent Jack flying forward. He hit the ground hard; pieces of stone from his previous cover showered painfully down upon him. Jack curled up and covered his head to protect himself from the falling debris.
While Jack was getting his first taste of battle, the two Deathlords who emerged during the fight set the box they were carrying on the ground. Spikes shot out of its smooth undercarriage, burrowing into the floor. The top of the box began to grow, morphing into a tall, twisted spire, its peak shaping into four even blades.
Taking advantage of the distraction Jack had provided, Shepherd rolled to his knee and aimed his quad-canons at the Deathlord before him and let loose.
This Deathord was tougher than the others. He took the shots Shepherd threw his way, stumbling back as the blasts tore through him and his armor.
Reacting quickly, the Deathlord flung a ball of ghostly white energy from his hand, rocketing it at Shepherd like a cannonball.
Shepherd rolled, the blast impacting the ground he had occupied seconds before, creating a small crater where it hit.
In one fluid motion, Shepherd reached behind him, pulling two long, straight batons off the back of his armor while rolling to his feet. No sooner did his hands grip the immaculate white sticks than they crackled to life with a furious blue and white energy.
The Deathlord flung another ghost ball, which shot directly toward Shepherd. Swiftly, Shepherd batted it away with his batons, a wisp of the death energy snaking up his arm as the Deathlord’s attack dissipated from the blow.
Not missing a beat, Shepherd rushed toward his foe, attacking the Deathlord with amazing speed.
He swung the baton in his right hand low, catching the Deathlord in his gut.
The next blow went high, the baton crashing into the back of the Deathlord’s head.
The strikes from Shepherd’s weapons sent ripples of electricity coursing through the Deathlord, causing him to cry out in pain.
Gracefully, Shepherd spun, landing both batons in a powerful blow on the Deathlord’s back. The Deathlord buckled to his knees and disintegrated into a puff of black dust.
During the fight, the spire that the other two Deathlords had activated from the mysterious black box began to charge to life with purple energy. Shepherd looked up just in time to see the spire emit a brilliant flash of purple light. Suddenly, ten Deathlord soldiers were around the spire, having just been teleported there without the use of the portgate.
Wasting no time, Shepherd threw himself into the fray.
His fighting sticks whirled with skilled fury as he rushed into the thick of the enemy alien force, each blow destroying a Deathlord Soldier with a single strike. But even as one soldier fell, two more arrived from the portgate’s portal, and if Shepherd didn’t act quickly, the transport spire would recharge and teleport in even more.
Jack squirmed on the ground, covered in dust and a little blood. His back screamed from the impact he had received, and his head hurt from being knocked down. Jack looked up wearily to see the army of Deathlords who had just arrived and Shepherd’s frantic attempt to fight them off.
All of a sudden, the situation was too horribly real. The pain in Jack’s body alerted him to the idea that this was not a movie, this was not a game, this was actually happening, and if he weren’t careful – he could really, truly die.
Then, Jack noticed trails of black dust slowly gathering together on the ground and slithering toward him. The dust began to form into the shape of a clawed hand, its taloned fingers crawling on the floor like a spider’s legs.
More dust gathered to it, forming an arm with familiar-looking serrated armored blades. In sudden horror, Jack realized that whatever Shepherd had done to that last Deathlord had not actually killed him.
Jack looked over and saw the plasma pistol not far away. He reached over and grabbed it, training it on the dust just as it was forming shoulders and a head. Red eyes peeked out from the bandages wrapped around the face the black dust had rematerialized into.
Jack began to fire at the reforming Deathlord who was quickly crawling toward him. He fired the weapon repeatedly, sending hot bolts of red death at the monstrosity.
However, as soon as the blasts passed through the Deathlord, more dust crawled up to fill the wounds they had left. The lithe, muscular demon that was wreaking havoc mere minutes before was coming back to life, and there was absolutely nothing Jack could do to stop it.
“Help!” Jack screamed as he began to crawl backwards from the steadily gaining alien menace, firing his pistol repeatedly as he did so. “Someone, HELP!”
Jack’s blasts w
ere finding their mark now, most likely because his target was much closer than before. But other than making the creature angrier with every shot, the plasma blasts did not seem to be doing much damage.
The Deathlord was now fully reformed. He towered over Jack, and the boy could do nothing but look up in terror as the figure before him created a ghostly ball of energy in his clawed hand, readying a killing blow.
Jack braced himself, fear coursing through his veins.
“No!” screamed Jack. “Don’t! PLEASE!”
Suddenly, a blue-white baton erupted from the Deathlord’s chest. Energy crackled through the alien as it screamed in twisted agony.
Another baton crashed down on its neck, and the creature exploded in a puff of dust, this time for good.
Shepherd stood where the evil alien had been moments before, powerful and terrifying in his own right. Relief washed over Jack, looking up at the armored hero who had just saved his life.
Jack’s eyes wandered past Shepherd as more Deathlords teleported in. There were now dozens of Dark Soldiers, and Jack realized Shepherd must have disengaged with them to save his life, leaving the door open to bring in a bigger force – cutting Jack’s joy at being rescued painfully short.
The platoon of Deathlord soldiers coming toward them lifted their rifles, taking aim at Shepherd and him.
“Behind you!” cried Jack.
Shepherd turned as the Deathlords unleashed their first volley of fire – not purple balls of light this time, but angry red streaks of plasma.
Shepherd raised his hand, projecting a large shield wall of golden light before him. The blasts hit the shield, which absorbed them. Jack marveled at just how awesome Shepherd was. Not only did he have a suit of armor with cannons on it, he could do all sorts of ninja moves and create energy shields! Suddenly, he felt really guilty for not liking the guy for so long.
“Jack,” said Shepherd. “I won’t be able to hold them off much longer. We have to get out of here. Get Green and the Princess. We’ll have to fight our way back to the portal and escape.”
Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet Page 12
