Jack could feel the ship rock as the tractor beam engulfed it and began to pull it toward the immense mothership that ominously filled its viewscreen. An alarm sounded, alerting them to the obvious…
Things were about to get extremely bad.
“Princess!” exclaimed Shepherd urgently, the helm of his armor covering his face as he headed toward Anna.
Shepherd was on the move before any of the others even thought to react. From experience, the Paragon knew that the Deathlord soldiers would be teleporting onto the ship any second, and though he had managed to close half the distance between him and Anna, he just wasn’t fast enough.
In a flash of purple, Dark Soldiers appeared everywhere – two of whom had teleported in between the Princess and the Paragon.
Shepherd wasted no time. He grabbed his batons that crackled to life and made short work of the first Deathlord he saw. Unfortunately, that was all he had time for before the others opened fire.
Shepherd raised a shield just in time to deflect the blasts from the six other Deathlords on the bridge. Anna shrieked and moved behind her console for cover.
Jack hopped out of the control seat and grabbed his pistol from his jacket pocket. He was about to run to Shepherd’s aid when more Deathlords teleported onto the bridge, behind the safety of Shepherd’s shield.
Jack turned and fired on instinct, hitting the closest Deathlord and taking him down. Jack’s amazement that he’d actually killed a Deathlord with his super-cool laser gun was short-lived, however, when he saw the other soldiers level their rifles at him.
Only, they weren’t aiming at him. Jack turned and saw Anna, exposed to their line of sight behind the console.
“Behind you!” Jack yelled to Shepherd as he rushed toward Anna, firing wildly at the Deathlords behind him as he did so.
Shepherd took his attention away from the onslaught of the soldiers on his shield in time to see the new arrivals. He raised his free arm and unleashed his quad cannons, firing upon the soldiers and taking them out in a puff of dust.
The Paragon wasn’t able to hit all the Deathlords, though. Some of them actually evaded his fire. And one, in particular, dropped to his knee and steadied his weapon.
The Princess moved from behind her cover to run…
Jack saw the Deathlord soldier take aim…
“Anna!” he screamed as he leapt toward her.
Anna turned just as the Deathlord fired, unleashing a crackling ball of purple energy barreling toward her.
“PRINCESS!” screamed Shepherd.
Jack’s arms wrapped around Anna, his momentum carrying her forward with him, but it wasn’t enough. The blast hit both of them square on.
Jack felt a ripple of static electricity run through his body as his vision blurred in a swirl of purple light, and within seconds, the sensations disappeared, and he and Anna tumbled to the ground.
Jack looked up with a start. They were no longer on the bridge of the Ancient starship. Instead, they were surrounded by darkness, a harsh white light shining down from above them.
“This can’t be good…” muttered Jack.
“Oh, no,” said Anna as she rolled Jack off her and got to her feet, with Jack following suit. “Where are we?”
“You’re asking me?” whimpered Jack. He could feel his skin crawl as he gazed out into the darkness that surrounded them. “Like I’ve ever been shot with a ball of purple before.”
Then, the sound of footsteps echoed. Instinctively, Jack put himself in front of Anna and raised his pistol toward the sound. If that alarmed whoever was walking in the darkness, they did not break stride. The footsteps circled around them slowly, purposefully.
Jack could feel Anna pressed up against him. She was holding onto him tightly, and he could sense she was just as afraid as he was. Whatever was out there, it was a good bet it wasn’t friendly, and Jack didn’t exactly have a good track record when it came to fighting Deathlords… or anything else for that matter.
So Jack did the only thing he could do. He fell back to his patented strategy number three for avoiding a beat down – acting tough.
“Whoever’s out there,” said Jack, mustering up all the false bravado he could, “I just think it’s fair to warn you that on my planet, I am a warrior of great renown, with 5,689 wins in Arena Deathmatch. And I will totally kick your butt if you even think about hurting us.”
The footsteps continued, but this time they were joined by a voice. A voice deep and gravelly that echoed throughout the darkness with a menace Jack had never known could even exist.
“Would that be the planet I just wiped from existence?” the voice said simply.
Jack felt a lump catch in his throat, and his heart started to beat faster. The voice was strange, and Jack knew it wasn’t speaking English, but somehow he understood it, nevertheless. The way the voice mentioned the destruction of Earth, as though it were nothing, chilled him to the bone. Jack took a deep breath in an effort to steady himself.
“It was called Earth, jerk-wad,” said Jack, his voice cracking. “And you’re going to pay for what you did to it.”
Jack gripped his pistol tighter. The voice chuckled. “Your pathetic weapons are useless against me,” it chided.
“Yeah? Then you won’t mind if I do this!” said Jack, opening fire.
Plasma blasts shot forth from his gun but evaporated as they hit the darkness, as though it were a solid, impenetrable wall.
“You dare fire your weapon upon me?” growled the voice.
“Yeah, I dare,” said Jack. “Step out here and show me your ugly face, and I’ll do it again, too.”
“Strong words… from a frightened child,” the voice replied.
“Frightened? Me?” said Jack nervously, a sinking feeling welling up in his stomach. “I’m not the one hiding in the dark, loser. Why don’t you come out and face me like a man, and I’ll show you who’s frightened.”
“Okay, boy…” said the voice as a crack of light pierced the darkness surrounding Jack and Anna, rolling it back like a curtain to reveal a Deathlord unlike any other – standing seven feet tall, clad in ornate silver armor that seemed to almost glow with a ferocious red aura.
The metal of his armor dug into the jet-black, sinewy skin underneath, small spikes as sharp as razor blades protruding from the metal. A long black cape flowed around him, as if it had a life of its own, and two burning red eyes glared from behind a grotesque, angular helm that made him look like the Angel of Death himself.
“Show me,” he rumbled.
In future interviews with the Earthman, he’d explain how no words could describe the feeling he had experienced upon first meeting the Deathlord Supreme, other than to say that if it weren’t for the sheer, unbridled terror which had gripped his body at that very moment, there was an extremely good chance he would have, and I quote, “crapped my pants.”
Indeed, since up to this point in recorded history no one had actually met a Deathlord Supreme and survived to report his experience, we can only assume that seeing one for the first time in such a dramatic manner would be enough to make any sentient being soil himself soundly.
And had it not been for Princess Anna, there is a very good chance that our story might have ended there. But as things so happen, it didn’t, and the first meeting of these three historical figures would affect all life in the universe, as we know it, for ages to come.
Of course, with the imposing figure of the Deathlord Supreme towering over him at that very moment, Earthman Jack Finnegan could not possibly have known that.
“Um…” stammered Jack, “I may have been a bit hasty about the whole ‘showing you who’s frightened’ thing…”
The Deathlord Supreme’s eyes burned into Jack, bright and hot and red with fury. Without a word he reached out his clawed hand, and Jack’s body jerked as he felt the pain of a thousand invisible hooks burying themselves into his chest.
Jack gasped and dropped his pistol as his body was yanked into the air. He wanted t
o scream, but it felt as though his lungs were on fire, and the best he could manage was a feeble choke.
“NO!” cried Anna. “Don’t hurt him! Please!”
The Deathlord’s eyes never left Jack’s as the Earthman felt the searing pain of invisible knives slicing through his body and wrapping themselves around what felt like the very essence of his being.
“And why should I spare his life?” the Deathlord inquired. With a flick of his finger, Jack felt all the invisible knives and hooks tug at him at once, and it was almost as if his very consciousness were being ripped from his body. Only this time, he was able to scream.
“Please, I’ll do anything…” Anna pleaded. “Don’t kill him. You don’t have to – I’ll cooperate…”
Suddenly, the pull from the invisible hooks stopped, and Jack felt like he could breathe again.
The Deathlord turned his fiery gaze toward Anna. “And what is this… creature… to you, Daughter of the Ancients?” he said, his gravelly voice dripping with malice.
Anna looked at Jack with tears welling in her eyes.
“He’s… he’s my friend…” she said quietly.
“A friend you’re willing to die for?”
“Yes,” said Anna, without hesitation.
The Deathlord studied Jack for a moment before finally speaking. “Then he might be of use after all.”
The knives and hooks all disappeared and Jack crumpled to the ground, clutching his chest and gasping. His head was screaming in pain, and his entire body felt like it had just been run over by twelve school buses.
Immediately Anna was at his side, cradling his head. Jack looked up and saw the fear and sadness in her eyes, and a feeling of hopelessness washed over him. In that moment, he knew there was nothing he could do to save her.
“Anna…” Jack croaked.
“Don’t worry about me,” she whispered. “From now on, just try and stay alive.”
“Your Highness,” grumbled the Deathlord Supreme, “you’re to come with me now.”
Anna leaned down and kissed Jack gently on the forehead.
“I’m sorry for getting you into this,” she said quietly.
Anna got to her feet, standing straight and proud, and looked at the Deathlord with an air of elegance and authority that was hers by birthright. “And what of my friend?” she asked.
“He will be held, unharmed, in exchange for your cooperation,” said the Deathlord.
Anna nodded. She didn’t trust the Deathlord, but she didn’t have much choice either. The Deathlord motioned for her to head toward a nearby door. Anna obeyed, taking one last glance at Jack before she left.
Jack looked up as she went, his body still racked with pain. Suddenly, he noticed the room around him. It was massive, maybe the size of a basketball stadium. A huge viewscreen looked out into space on the far wall, and hundreds of Deathlords manned various consoles and computer stations about the room.
The floors and walls were made up of a dull, silver metal, nothing resembling the rock-like exterior of the ships. The room was brightly lit, and Jack noticed he was on some type of circular platform in the center of the chamber. The darkness that had surrounded him earlier was peeling back, retreating into the platform as though it were a curtain being reeled away after a performance.
As the Deathlord Supreme walked Anna toward the massive circular door leading out of what was the mothership’s control room, he turned to another Deathlord, whose face was wrapped in a black cloth; two horns stuck out from his elongated head.
“Abraxas,” said the Deathlord Supreme.
“Yes, Supreme?” the horned Deathlord responded.
“Send the Earthman to the temple,” he dictated. “Let him linger there while the Princess and I get acquainted.”
The Deathlord bowed to his master. “As you command,” he responded.
Jack tried to struggle to his feet as Anna was led out of the room. His pistol wasn’t far. If he could reach it, maybe he could shoot his way out of here and get to her before they could do anything…
But all thoughts of escape were quickly dashed as the Deathlord, who had been referred to as Abraxas, stomped on the pistol, crushing it to pieces.
The Deathlord’s hand tightly gripped Jack around his neck and yanked him up. Jack grabbed onto the cold, hard gauntlet of the Deathlord to keep from choking, his feet kicking the air feebly.
The Deathlord pulled him close, its searing red eyes staring hard into Jack’s.
“Do you remember me, Earthman?” the Deathlord asked.
Jack tried to concentrate on the Deathlord before him, but he was somewhat distracted by his attempts to breathe. “Should I?” Jack gasped. “You all kinda look alike to me.”
“You shot me in the temple,” growled the Deathlord.
Sure enough, Jack suddenly recognized the Deathlord who would have killed him if not for Shepherd. “You…” said Jack. “I saw you blow up…”
“Deathlords do not die,” said Abraxas. “And if it weren’t for the Supreme’s orders, I’d harvest your life force right here and now.”
“You know, I may have shot you, but you guys just destroyed my entire planet,” Jack sneered. “I’d say if anyone has a right to be mad, it’s me.”
The Deathlord began walking toward a rectangular alcove nestled in a nearby wall of the control room, holding Jack out by the neck as though he weighed less than a rag doll. “I have fought in many battles,” said Abraxas. “And I have faced many opponents. Those were all glorious struggles against worthy adversaries. But you… a child who distracted me from my mission… you shame me.”
“Gee, I’m sorry,” said Jack. “How about I kill you again, this time for good? Would that make you feel better?”
Abraxas stopped at a control console and began typing at it with his free hand. “If all your species were as petulant as you are, I’d say we did the universe a great service by wiping you out.”
“Trust me,” said Jack. “No one’s more petulant than I am.”
The Deathlord looked Jack in the eyes again. “Then I will have to be satisfied with the knowledge that where you’re going, you will suffer a fate far worse than that of your people.”
With a flick of his arm, Abraxas threw Jack onto the rectangular platform nearby. Jack hit it hard and had just enough time to look up at the Deathlord as he tapped the final key on the console.
“Good riddance,” Abraxas growled.
Jack felt a jolt of static electricity course through him. Then his vision blurred in a haze of purple, the world around him disappeared, and suddenly he was falling.
It didn’t take long for him to hit the ground, knocking the wind out of him. Jack lay stunned on the cold, unforgiving floor he had just slammed into. After a few seconds, he recovered enough to look around.
It was dark, but there was a bit of light – a pale, white illumination, which reminded Jack of moonlight – coming from somewhere. Jack looked down at the floor and saw the same material that seemed to make up so much of the Deathlord’s technology – hard, course, black rock-like matter spidered with veins of green and purple that glowed and pulsed ever so slightly.
The air around him was cold, though not like being in a meat locker or out in the snow. This was a different kind of cold, one that chilled him to the bone even though his skin could not feel it. There was something off-putting about Jack’s new location. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but he just knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.
Then Jack heard the noises. They were quiet, almost distant, but they were there. Moaning, cries of anguish and despair, and sounds of choking and retching. As Jack got to his feet, the sounds seemed to swirl around him in the darkness, and he had a sudden, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Wherever he was, it was definitely not good.
Oh crap, he thought. I am so screwed.
A noise, louder than the others, found its way to Jack’s ears – the sound of feet scuffing the rocky floor behind him. He turned a
nd could see a figure in the darkness walking toward him. Fear rose inside Jack, and he quickly looked around for something, anything, to help him defend himself. There was nowhere for him to hide, and he could see nothing but rubble around him.
Desperate, Jack picked up a nearby rock and hurled it as hard as he could at whatever was coming toward him.
The rock hit the figure straight on, causing it to stumble.
“Gragh!” came a voice, followed by a series of words in a strange language. Jack’s ears picked up on it quickly, though, and instantly he knew the figure was saying something along the lines of “What the bloody – creekers tha’ hurt!”
Jack didn’t know who the figure was, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He ran straight for it and tackled it as hard as he could, bringing it to the ground. The two of them hit the floor with an Oof, and when they did, the figure let go of what looked to be some type of rifle.
Jack grabbed the rifle and got up quickly, aiming it at whatever he’d just brought down.
Lying there was a creature unlike any Jack had ever seen before. It had an oblong head with spiked ridges running down either side. Its skin was green and scaly, tinged with yellow and brown. It had no nose to speak of, and two small, beady eyes with no pupils. Its mouth was wide, with rows of sharp teeth. It was dressed in what looked to be leather armor of some type, though it was so tattered it was barely holding together.
The creature put its three-fingered hands up to shield it from the rifle, large black nails protruding from them.
“Blimey!” it cried. “Don’ shoot!”
Jack hesitated. For something that looked like a monster out of a horror movie, the thing seemed genuinely scared of him.
Suddenly, Jack felt something hard and barrel shaped pressed up against the back of his head. Another voice came from behind him.
“There now, mate,” said the voice. “Not that a plasma blast ta the face wouldn’t improve our friend’s looks here, but we’re gonna have to have ya drop that blast-stick yer holdin’ nice and slow like, savvy?”
Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet Page 21
