“Worst. Plan. EVER.” repeated Scallywag.
Jack grimaced. “Transferring extra power to the shields,” he said, making sure the ship’s defenses were as reinforced as he could get them before pulling the ship into a tight turn. Alarms wailed as Jack watched the hefty swarm turn to match the ship, bearing down on it, ready to envelop it whole.
“Get ready!” yelled Jack, continuing his turn toward the swirling ball of impending death headed right for them.
“Yes, very good. A little closer…” said Heckubus.
The alarms grew louder and more insistent as Jack completed his turn, steering the ship directly toward the encroaching swarm.
“Closer…”
“Oh for the love of—” sneered Scallywag. “Jump the bloody ship already!”
Jack’s stomach tightened nervously as he flew his ship right into the thousands of tiny bugs, which surrounded the vessel, ready to feast.
* * *
On the bridge of the Deathlord Planetkiller ship Xenophon, Commander Vermunt stood gazing at the Ghost Planet on the ship’s massive viewscreen. Part of him wished he were on the planet with the Deathlord Supreme to witness their ultimate victory first hand. But another part of him was just glad to be in a position to witness any part of it at all. Even from his perch high above the planet, he’d be able to see the glorious return of their masters’ invincible armada, and to be by its side as it tore through all remaining life in the universe.
“Status report,” he growled toward his executive officer, a Deathlord named Himbalt.
“We sustained moderate damage from our journey through the minefield,” Himbalt replied. “Our Acolytes estimate the repairs will take several hours; however, no systems will need to be taken off-line.”
“And the Supreme?” asked Vermunt. “What of him?”
“Our sensors are indicating his ship has just landed on the planet’s surface,” replied Himbalt.
“Good,” said Vermunt. “It won’t be long now.”
“Commander,” said Himbalt. “We’re getting communications from the other ships in the fleet. Most of their temple’s power reserves were depleted maintaining the breach in the planetary shield. Since there were no life-forms to absorb during the attack, many ships are running dangerously low on energy. They are wondering when they’ll be able to replenish their temples.”
Vermunt grumbled. Peeling back the planet’s shield had taken far too much of his ship’s own power. He could only imagine how low on energy the others in the fleet might be. “We will wait until the Supreme has completed his task, and then he will let us know himself.”
Himbalt nodded. “And if the Supreme should not return?”
Vermunt glared at his second in command. “What?” he growled.
“My apologies, Commander,” said Himbalt. “But while the Supreme’s ship is on the planet, we have no way of communicating with it. If something should go wrong, or the Supreme should fail in his task, how long should the fleet wait?”
Vermunt stalked up to Himbalt and glared directly into his eyes. “You think the Supreme will fail?”
“No, Commander,” replied Himbalt. “I have every confidence in our Supreme. I am just asking a hypothetical.”
“Let me make one thing clear,” growled Vermunt. “There is no need for a hypothetical question such as yours. The Supreme is the ultimate Deathlord, destined to lead us to complete victory. He knows no such thing as failure. He has the power to overcome any adversity. And there is nothing – I repeat – nothing in this universe capable of stopping him.”
“Commander!” called out an Acolyte over a tiny alert bell.
Vermunt turned toward the Acolyte sitting at a nearby command console. “What is it?” he barked.
“I have a sensor contact off our port side,” the Acolyte replied. “It appears to be a ship.”
“A ship?” muttered Vermunt. “Here? Where did it come from?”
“Unknown,” said the Acolyte. “It just appeared out of nowhere.”
“Put it on screen,” Vermunt ordered.
On the large viewscreen, the image of the Earthship appeared, bucking and weaving directly toward the Deathlord’s vessel, a trail of black smoke billowing behind it. Commander Vermunt and Himbalt regarded it curiously.
“What is it doing?” wondered Himbalt aloud.
“Perhaps they realize what they’ve stumbled into and they’re panicking,” laughed Vermunt. “Let’s give them something to panic about. Launch a squad of fighters. Blow it out of the sky.”
“Launching shards now, Commander,” the Acolyte replied.
Vermunt crossed his arms and watched the viewscreen as five shards shot toward the Earthship, guns blazing. The Earthship continued heading toward the Planetkiller, though, expertly banking and weaving out of the way of the oncoming plasma blasts.
No sooner had the Earthship barreled by the squad of fighters than the Deathlord shards suddenly disintegrated into the trailing smoke of the ship.
Vermunt blinked, as if his eyes had just played a cruel joke on him.
“What? What just happened?” he demanded.
“Unknown, Commander,” the Acolyte replied. “It would seem that all fighters have been destroyed.”
“How?” Vermunt growled.
“Undetermined, Commander. We detected no weapons fire from the ship.”
“Commander,” said Himbalt urgently, “that vessel is closing in on us.”
“Fire all port side cannons,” Vermunt ordered. “Don’t let it near the ship!”
On screen, the Earthship continued to bank, weave, and corkscrew its way toward them, even as needles of red blaster fire from the Xenophon’s cannons lit up the blue and purple backdrop of the nebula.
“Such maneuvers!” said Himbalt. “I’ve never seen anything like it before!”
As the Earthship closed in, it turned and skimmed the exterior hull of the Deathlord Planetkiller, weaving back and forth along its surface.
Suddenly, the entire ship shook and alarms began to howl, echoing throughout the large command chamber.
“What’s happening?” screamed Vermunt. “Report!”
Himbalt ran to a nearby console, checking readouts as they popped up. “Massive damage being reported on our port side,” he replied. “It appears as though our outer hull is being stripped away!”
“How are they doing this?” growled Vermunt. “Stop them!”
“They are too close, Commander,” said Himbalt. “They’re inside the minimum range of our cannons. We cannot hit them.”
“Reports from the outer decks, Commander,” said the Acolyte at his station. “Whatever weapon they’re using is penetrating multiple areas of the ship. At this rate, we may have critical breech in a matter of minutes.”
“No, no, NOOOO!!!!” raged Vermunt. “Launch every fighter we have. Contact every Planetkiller in the fleet. Tell them to launch all shards from their hangars, to focus all their weapons on that vessel, and not to let it near their ships!”
As the Acolyte carried out the orders, Vermunt and Himbalt looked up at the viewscreen, watching the Earthship bank and weave across the surface of their vessel.
“Who are they, Commander?” asked Himbalt with a hint of awe. “A single ship, capable of destroying a Planetkiller?”
“I do not know,” said Vermunt quietly, as alarms raged, signaling the impending death of his ship. “But whoever they are, they are the fiercest, bravest, and most skilled warriors we have ever faced.”
* * *
Onboard the bridge of the Earthship, Jack, Scallywag, and Heckubus were all screaming in terror as alarms wailed and the ship banked and weaved uncontrollably.
Heckubus had been correct when he theorized that the ship’s shields would offer them some protection from the space bugs. However, the shields had not lasted long after flying directly into the swarm. Though the quantum jump had worked as planned and had brought a sizable number of the voracious critters along to the coordinates of the Gh
ost Planet, they must have eaten something rather important before the Earthship had escaped from them because for the life of him, Jack could no longer fly the ship in a straight line.
Which, as one can imagine, made being charged by a squad of Deathlord shards while being chased by a swarm of ship-eating space bugs quite a harrowing experience. And now, it was all Jack could do to keep from crashing the ship right into the massive Deathlord Planetkiller that was right in front of them.
“This is the worst plan everrrrrr!!!!” cried Heckubus.
“Oh, now ya agree with me!” yelled Scallywag.
“Repair the steering!” screamed Jack as the ship narrowly avoided flying into a massive cannon jutting up from the Deathlord’s hull. “Hurry up and fix it!”
“I’m trying, I’m trying!” responded the robot with a slight sense of annoyance as he frantically urged the ship’s auto-repair systems to get their work done.
Jack focused as hard as he could on trying to pilot the ship, but it was responding sluggishly and erratically. Everything was upside down, control-wise. It was a miracle to him that they weren’t dead already.
Suddenly, the ship began to become more responsive, and the minute he could, he peeled away from the Planetkiller. Nervous laughter erupted from Jack as relief washed over him like a splash of cold water.
“I got it!” exclaimed Jack. “Control is back!”
Scallywag and Heckubus slumped back in their seats, relieved, as Jack turned off the ship’s alarms. Jack looked at Grohm who had been standing stoically beside him the entire time.
“Settle down, big guy. The worst is over,” joked Jack.
Grohm simply glared at Jack in response.
“I think I just about browned meself,” muttered Scallywag.
“Well, before you change your pants,” said Heckubus, “you may want to feast your eyes on… this!”
On the ship’s viewscreen, Heckubus put up the image of the Deathlord Planetkiller as the space bugs tore through it, causing it to break apart and disintegrate before their very eyes. Even the shards that tried to launch before the ship was completely consumed couldn’t escape from the deadly, and now growing, swarm of space bugs.
“Blimey,” said Scallywag. “Yer bloody horrible plan is actually working!”
“Was there ever any doubt?” snooted Heckubus, completely disregarding the last couple of chaotic minutes. “Bask! Bask in my genius! Mwuhahaha!”
“Wow, that was fast,” said Jack as he checked his sensors. “It’s like… the space bugs are multiplying…”
“Yes, it seems the more they consume, the more they are able to reproduce,” said Heckubus. “That would explain their hibernated state near that nebula. They probably are quite active while there’s material around to help them increase their numbers.”
“Which means, hopefully, they’ll be right busy with all the other Deathlords while we make it to the planet,” said Scallywag.
An alarm beeped on Heckubus’s console. “Uh-oh,” the robot said.
“Uh-oh?” sneered Scallywag. “I don’t like ‘uh-ohs.’ ”
“Sensors say the other Planetkillers have launched their fighters to intercept us.”
“How many?” asked Jack.
“From these readings,” replied Heckubus, “I’d have to say… all of them.”
“Perfect,” frowned Scallywag.
“Battle,” rumbled Grohm.
“No, no battle,” said Jack as he turned the ship toward the planet. “We’ll let the bugs deal with them. We need to get on that planet. Heckubus, are the hyperspace calculations ready?”
“Yes,” said the robot. “I’ve estimated how far the shield is from the planet. We should be able to pull this off.”
“Great,” replied Jack. “Get ready to open the hyperspace windows.”
“Not so fast,” said Heckubus, as he pulled up a star chart on the holoscreen. “We need to be approximately right here if we’re going to make this work.”
A red dot appeared on the edge of the blue nebula’s oasis. Scallywag scratched his head.
“Um… that’s in the nebula cloud,” he said.
“Yes, it would appear so,” replied Heckubus.
“The one that’s full of mines and booby-traps,” Scallywag clarified.
“The very same.”
“We don’t have any bloody shields, ya twit!” sneered the pirate.
“Well, nobody said this plan was perfect,” replied Heckubus.
“Yes, you did! Many times!”
“Look, you simpleton, we’re too close to the planet to open a hyperspace window to bypass the planetary shield. If we do it any closer than that, we’ll be flying right into its gravitational shadow, and if we do, we’re dead.”
“Yeah, and if we fly into that bloody minefield, we’re dead!”
“And if we wait for those shards to reach us, we’re dead,” said Jack. “So we don’t really have many other options, do we?”
“Yeah, we do,” said Scallywag. “Let’s hyperspace out of here and come back after the bugs have eaten all the Deathlords.”
“I doubt the space bugs will be much friendlier than the Deathlords,” said Jack. “Besides, we can’t waste any more time. Who knows what they’re doing to Anna down there.”
Jack turned the ship and began heading for the cloud.
“This is suicide!” protested Scallywag.
“The Ancients put those mines out there, right?” said Jack. “Well, the Ancients also made this ship, so I’m willing to bet our sensors are going to be able to tell us where those mines are. So stop whining, get ready to shoot at anything that attacks us, and Heckubus…”
“Yes?” replied the robot.
“Shields,” said Jack. “I don’t care how you do it, just get me those shields back!”
Heckubus and Scallywag both slumped at their consoles and grumbled. Jack looked at his viewscreen as the overwhelming blue cloud of the surrounding nebula rushed up to greet him. C’mon ship, he thought. Don’t let me down now.
Jack called up the long-range sensor readings on his holoscreen. A group of Deathlord shards was closing in behind him fast. He tried not to get distracted by that, however, focusing his attention instead on the readings in the nebula cloud. Sensor data was going to be limited, that much Heckubus had made clear to him before they had set out. But he was hoping that his ship’s sensors were advanced enough to navigate the cloud without hitting any of the mines.
Can you see anything? Jack asked his ship. Where are the mines?
Tiny red blips began to appear intermittently on his sensor readout, indicating the positions of the mines hidden in the heavy blue cloud. The red indicators flickered in and out of existence, though, no doubt due to the interference of the nebula. But they were there, and that meant there was hope Jack wouldn’t get them all blown up.
“Yes!” exclaimed Jack. “Sensors are picking up the mines!”
“Sensors are also picking up five shards closing in fast,” said Scallywag as he opened fire using the Earthship’s rear plasma cannon.
Jack pulled up another holoscreen right next to his sensor readings, giving him a rear view of the ship. Sure enough, five Deathlord shards were within firing distance and red needles of death were coming right toward them.
Jack banked the ship and weaved through the thick dust and gas of the nebula, hoping the Deathlords’ sensors were useless enough to keep them from getting a good enough bead on the ship.
“Heckubus…” groaned Jack, trying not to take his attention off his screens.
“I know, I know,” said the robot. “Ha! Shields at 15%! That should be enough to—”
Suddenly, a red blip appeared on Jack’s screen directly in front of him. He jerked the ship as quickly as he could, but they still hit the mine, a loud boom bouncing off the hull and causing the entire ship to shake.
“Ugh. Never mind,” muttered Heckubus.
“I don’t care what you have to do, Heckubus,” yelled Jack. “Get
me more shields!”
“Well, try to stop flying into mines, you twit!” yelled Heckubus back.
Scallywag continued to fire as the Deathlord shards pursued them, but he was having a hard time locking-on with Jack maneuvering the ship all over the place. The pirate was just about to get annoyed when one of his blasts hit the mark and a shard exploded in a puff of sickly green fire.
“Got one!” Scallywag cheered.
Jack glanced at his screen and saw the other shards spread out as they continued their pursuit. One of them was trying to come up on his wing. Jack glanced at his sensor reading and adjusted his ship a little. The shard turned along with the Earthship, just as Jack hoped he would. Suddenly, there was another green-tinted explosion as the shard ran smack-dab into a mine.
“Got another,” said Jack.
“Good flying, lad,” said Scallywag, still focused intently on firing at their pursuers.
Jack looked at his readings. They’d flown far enough into the nebula to make the turn for their trajectory toward the Ghost Planet. Keeping a watchful eye on his read-outs, Jack began to bank the ship. If they could make the maneuver to bypass the planetary shield soon, it wouldn’t matter if they still had a few Deathlords on their tail.
“Shields at 30%,” reported Heckubus. “And don’t ask for more, because unless you want to stop breathing for a while, there’s no more power to redirect.”
“That should be enough,” said Jack. “Moving for approach to the Ghost Planet now.”
Jack rolled the ship into a tight turn, allowing the three remaining shards to shoot past him further into the nebula. He glanced at his rear readout and saw a flash of green puff up in the deep blue mist, signaling another win for the mines.
We just might pull this off, Jack thought to himself with a smile… right before his ship’s alerts started going crazy.
Scallywag and Heckubus looked up at the alarm and Jack glanced at his sensors. Two red blips were now moving across his screen and heading straight for him.
“Uh-oh,” said Jack.
“I told ya I don’t like ‘uh-ohs,’” said Scallywag.
Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet Page 43
