The End of Infinity

by Matt Myklusch

  Jack went into another spiral dive and flew alongside the train as it went. “What is this thing doing?” Jack wondered as he pulled away from the track. “It’s running straight into the battle zone.” In his rearview, Jack saw the train level off and charge into an open-air station. He stopped the train there, and hundreds of people ran out screaming. Rüstov Shardwings flew overhead shooting at them, and Jack circled back to provide cover. He parked himself over the train and Allegra shot up at the Shardwing fighters in wide, sweeping arcs. They were saving lives on the train platform, but off the coast of the island, Jack saw Roka and Midknight both get blasted with direct hits. “No!”

  He was relieved to see them both punch out before their ships crashed into the sea. The ejection seats in the Maverick fighters didn’t pop parachutes. They transformed into jet packs for greater maneuverability, but Jack’s friends were still surrounded. He wanted to help, but flying out to them meant leaving the people on the platform defenseless.

  Just then several glowing streams of light shot past Jack’s ship. They looped back around and whipped their luminous tails into the Shardwings at the station. As the Rüstov fighters went spinning away, Zhi, Trea, and Lorem pulled up alongside Jack’s ship.

  “Everybody okay?” Allegra asked.

  Lorem beat out a small fire on her sleeve. “Close enough.”

  “Zhi, Roka and Midknight need help,” Jack said, pointing. “They’re sitting ducks out there in the open!”

  Zhi nodded and gripped the reins of his dragon. He became a brilliant blur as he raced out past the edge of the island. Two empty dragons followed close behind. Jack kicked his ship back into gear and did the same. “C’mon, guys, we’ve got a job to do.”

  “You’re telling us?” one of the Treas said, flying up next to Jack.

  “We’ve been training all year for this,” another Trea said, flying in on the other side. “You’re the one who’s been away on vacation.”

  Jack laughed. “Vacation! Yeah, right.”

  “Blah, blah, blah . . . ,” the third Trea said. “Enough with the talking already. Let’s go!” She dashed ahead of the group, and everyone followed her back into the fray.

  As Jack flew back across Galaxis, he saw that even more heroes had joined the fight. A glowing blue streak of energy was bouncing off buildings and into Rüstov ships, disabling them. Jack recognized the energy signature of Allegra’s old mentor, Ricochet. Chi’s ninjas were pouring in from Karateka, and Smart’s WarHawks were in the air too, fighting alongside the aliens of Galaxis. Jack saw Smart’s soldiers pulling people out of harm’s way, throwing their fists into Rüstov ships, and cutting Shardwings in half. Jack turned away from the city and headed back to Wrekzaw Isle. He didn’t think the WarHawks were going to bother with him, not with the Rüstov attacking all around, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  As Jack closed in on the blockade of Rüstov ships surrounding the island, he saw that Midknight and Roka had both ditched their jet packs in favor of Zhi’s dragons. The Shardwings were running interference for the giant battleship that lumbered toward the city. Once the ship got close enough, Jack realized what it was.

  “Guys, that ship!” he shouted into his radio. “It’s a carrier! The whole thing’s loaded with Para-Soldiers. We can’t let it reach the city!”

  No one heard him. Roka and Midknight weren’t on radio, and even if they were, it was going to take more than Zhi’s dragons to bring down a ship of that size. Jack aimed his ship at the carrier and went in on his own. The Shardwings and midsize gunships opened fire on him as he flew in to attack. Jack looped around a string of exploding shells from a Rüstov cannon and dropped down below the carrier, rolling into a controlled spin that danced directly through the ship’s laser fire. Allegra emptied the plasma cannons into the carrier’s belly, but the Rüstov ship sustained minimal damage. Jack’s friends on the dragons batted Rüstov ships into the carrier but failed to do any more damage than he had. They were denting the ship. That was it. They weren’t doing enough to stop it.

  The Rüstov carrier inched closer to Empire City, and a platoon of Valorian Guardsmen shot out to meet it. They tore though the carrier’s escort and hit the ship hard, but a second group of Shardwings came in to push them back. The Shardwings were flying right into Valorians, sacrificing themselves to drive them out of the carrier’s path.

  Suddenly, three pods shot out of the carrier and went blasting by Jack’s ship. He knew in an instant that they were filled with Para-Soldiers who were itching for new hosts. Jack chased after them and Allegra opened fire. The plasma cannons were empty, so she switched to missiles, sending the last of their ammunition out after the Rüstov transports.

  “This is it,” she said. “Let’s hope they find their mark.”

  “They will,” Jack said, using his powers to make sure of it. He drove a missile into the first pod and blew it out of the sky, but he was too close to the blast. The shrapnel from the explosion hit his ship before he could take out the other two. The momentary distraction was enough to make him lose control of the remaining missiles, and they sailed off in wild, erratic routes that missed the Rüstov pods entirely and struck Hero Square instead. The massive Legendary Flame Monument toppled over and cracked at the neck as it hit the ground. Jack grumbled as the last two pods raced toward the city.

  “You know people are gonna think I did that on purpose.”

  Midknight, Lorem, and Zhi took out the second pod with their dragons and knocked it into the sea. Roka and the three Treas chased down the last one, but it was too far ahead of them.

  “Jack, they’re not going to make it,” Allegra said, pointing ahead. The pod struck Hero Square, and Rüstov parasites without hosts started crawling out like ants from a crack in the wall.

  Jack heard a sound like a cannon firing and saw that the carrier had launched another pod. “Got another one over here,” he said. Without any more ammo in his guns, all he could do was watch as it reached Galaxis untouched. Seconds later, Para-Soldiers were running through the spaceport. Chi’s ninjas were there fighting them, but their numbers were already severely depleted from the air raids. “Is Stendeval with us yet?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know,” Allegra said.

  Jack looked at the horizon and started getting nervous. Sunrise was still minutes away. That meant Stendeval’s power was as well, and those few short minutes made all the difference in the world. Rüstov Para-Soldiers had deployed on the ground. Parasites were taking fresh hosts and there were thousands more on board the carrier. “If that ship makes landfall, it’s game over,” Jack said to himself. He shook his head. “Can’t happen.” He took his ship back into Hightown and headed straight for the mile-high train station he’d defended earlier. “Allegra, grab a headset. I need to make sure everyone’s off that train.”

  “What?”

  “No time! Just do it!” Allegra snapped a communicator over her ear, and Jack ejected her from the ship without warning. He kept flying forward toward Galaxis, and Allegra morphed her silver body to flap out a pair of wings. She swooped down toward the train station like an eagle. On his way through Galaxis, Jack took control of every ship he could and pointed them all at the Rüstov carrier. HoverCars, cargo ships . . . anything that could fly got turned on and sent out at the blockade. It didn’t matter that most of them had no weapons. For what Jack had in mind, the ships were weapons all by themselves.

  “Jack, the train is clear,” Allegra said on the search-and-rescue ship’s internal channel. “Now what?”

  “Get off,” Jack said. “Get somewhere safe.”

  “Whoa! The train just started moving.”

  “I know. I’m moving it.” Jack pulled up and looped back around the city, going all the way past Varagog. Once he passed the Flying Shipyards, he turned around and rocketed back across Empire City, building up speed as he went.

  “Jack, what are you doing?” Allegra asked.

  “Yes, Jack, what are you doing?” Khalix chimed in
.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jack said. He was focused on so many different things at the moment, he couldn’t muster up the mental discipline required to shut Khalix up at the same time.

  “I see what this is,” Khalix said after a moment. “It won’t work. The train, those other ships, this ship . . . you can’t keep all these balls in the air, Jack. You’re not that good.”

  Jack smiled to himself. He’d been underestimated his whole life and somehow always managed to prove people wrong. He sped across the city, hoping to keep that streak alive. He darted around skyscrapers and shot beneath MagLev roadways, going faster and faster. He was flying way quicker than anyone could safely go through a busy city that was under attack from hostile invaders. It didn’t matter. After his light speed run across the galaxy, this flight was like a Sunday drive.

  Meanwhile, he had already launched the first part of his attack on the Rüstov carrier using every ship he could take control of. It was hard to keep everything straight in his head and make sure the ships didn’t hit friendly targets, but that was helped along by the fact that he wasn’t trying to fly the other ships. He was trying to crash them. Jack was throwing ships at the Rüstov as if they were stones. He fired them into the Shardwings, breaking down the defenses around the carrier and crashing them into the carrier itself. He took out enough Shardwings to clear a path to the carrier and started hitting its hull, but the ships were still tiny compared to the carrier’s massive size. Jack needed to hit the carrier with something heavier. Through the gaps between the buildings he could see the bullet train racing toward Galaxis. It was almost there.

  Jack kept pace with the train on its way through Galaxis. It was running up to a broken bridge, but Jack pushed the ship harder and pulled out ahead. “Deploy rescue cable,” he told the ship’s computer, and a cable with a large claw at the end shot out of the back of the ship. “Good thing I picked this ship, huh, Khalix?”

  Khalix was silent.

  Jack raced down the tracks in front of the train, trailing the cable behind him as he went. He lowered himself right in front of the engine. “This is the tricky part,” he said as the iron claw at the end of the cable grasped at the train. The tips of the claw scraped against the iron hoop of the train’s coupling, just shy of hooking onto it. It was hard because Jack couldn’t slow down. He needed all the speed he could get. “C’mon, latch on. Latch on . . .” The train closed in on the break in the bridge. Just before it reached the severed tracks, Jack heard a loud clack as the claw grabbed hold of the train. “Yes!” he shouted as he pulled the train forward, up off the tracks, and out toward the Rüstov carrier.

  Alarms immediately started sounding inside the cockpit. The words “WARNING: MAXIMUM TOW CAPACITY EXCEEDED” flashed on the screen in front of Jack. The ship started to vibrate. It was straining, but it kept going forward, riding the force of its own top speed and the train’s forward momentum. “C’mon, girl . . . I need everything you’ve got.” Jack increased the ship’s power, trying to get close enough to the carrier as he crashed ships into the Rüstov fighters all around. His ship started to rattle hard. He knew he was pushing it all the way up to its limit and beyond. Red lights started blinking alongside new alarms in the cockpit, and the computer’s voice spoke: “WARNING: ENGINE FAILURE IN NINE SECONDS, EIGHT SECONDS, SEVEN SECONDS . . .”

  “I just need four seconds,” Jack said as he pulled the train past the city’s edge. “C’mon, just a little bit longer . . . Release cable!”

  The ship’s claw released the train, and Jack pulled up and away as the speeding locomotive went crashing into the center of the Rüstov carrier. The train nearly cleaved the carrier in two, and the resulting explosion finished the job. The added velocity Jack got from releasing the train was the only thing that kept him from being burned to a crisp in the massive conflagration. He shot up into the sky as the broken pieces of the carrier fell into the ocean. The giant ship swirled into the endless maelstrom below the Imagine Nation, dragging thousands of Para-Soldiers to a watery grave. Any remaining Shardwings that were still flying turned tail and flew back to Wrekzaw Isle, spurred on by the sudden reversal of fortune. A mighty cheer rose up from Empire City, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief. The war was far from over, but this battle was going down in the win column. They’d held off the Rüstov . . . for now.

  Allegra’s voice came over the radio. “Jack, that was amazing. Looks like that old instinct’s coming back.”

  Jack could practically hear a smile in Allegra’s voice. He leaned back in his seat and breathed another sigh of relief. “Fight or flight,” he agreed. “Maybe Roka knew what he was talking about after all.”

  “You know you forgot something,” Allegra said.

  Jack’s ears perked up. “What’s wrong? What’d I miss?”

  “Don’t you know when you do something like that, you have to have a line ready? You have to say something cool, like, ‘Time for you guys to catch the train.’”

  Jack allowed himself a laugh as he turned his ship back around toward Empire City. “I can do better than that. How about ‘You don’t mess with a hero . . . in training.’ Or maybe ‘This is what I call training hard.’”

  “All right, those are terrible. You’re ruining it.”

  Jack laughed again as he made his way back to Galaxis. He was coming in for a landing when three WarHawks flew right into his ship, going in one side and punching out through the other. They left behind a gaping hole where the engine should have been, and the ship dropped like a stone. Before Jack even had a chance to scream, the ship was caught by more WarHawks, who threw it across Empire City. Just before Jack crashed into the ground, the cockpit filled with a white foam that dried rapidly into a soft cushiony substance and helped him survive a very bumpy landing. When the ship came to a halt, Jack punched his way through the foam and fell out onto the cobblestone streets of Varagog Village. He looked up to find an army of medieval warriors standing over him with their weapons drawn. Jack groaned with frustration and put his hands up in the air.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Captured

  The next thing Jack knew, he was tied up and hanging upside down on a rail. The crowd hoisted him up and paraded him through the streets of Varagog like a pig on a spit. None of the people there had seen him fighting the Rüstov. They only knew that an enemy attack had just come down from the sky, and so had he. It came as no surprise that they all figured he’d been fighting for the other side.

  Hovarth’s subjects took Jack to a vast cobblestone plaza at the center of the village. From his upside-down vantage point, he saw the massive fortress of Castle Varren come into view. Jack’s captors marched toward a wooden stockade near the drawbridge of the castle. Skerren stopped them.

  “Not the stockade,” he said. “Modern technology may not work here in Varagog, but Jack’s powers still do. Use something without any moving parts.” Skerren scanned the plaza. “There.”

  Jack craned his neck around and saw that Skerren was pointing at a stone obelisk at the center of the square. Jack grunted as he was tied to the stone pillar with knots that were tight enough to cut off the circulation in both of his hands. “Skerren, this is ridiculous. Where am I gonna go?”

  Skerren tugged on the ropes, making sure Jack was bound securely. “I’m not taking any chances with you. Not this time.”

  A messenger sprinted through the crowd and ran up to Skerren. “The king approaches.” Skerren nodded, and the people gathered around, calling for Jack’s head. Only the king’s mercy could save him from the executioner’s ax, but Jack knew that Hovarth’s idea of mercy would be to put him down like a rabid dog. He searched the crowd for someone to help him. There was no one there. No one but Khalix.

  “They’re going to kill you, Jack,” the Rüstov prince whispered. “Look around, there’s only one way out of this—me. Do it now, before it’s too late. Join with me. Become Revile!”

  “Shut up, Khalix.”

  Skerren spun ar
ound on Jack with a look that made him wish he hadn’t said that out loud. “Who are you talking to? The Rüstov? What are you telling them?”

  “Nothing,” Jack told Skerren. “This is crazy. All of you, there are Rüstov soldiers in the city right now. You need to be fighting them, not me!”

  “You say that like there’s a difference between you,” Skerren said.

  Jack took a deep breath and tried to keep calm. He wasn’t going to get himself out of this one by losing his temper. “Look, Skerren, you don’t trust me. I get that. But just because I’ve hidden things from you in the past, that doesn’t mean I’m lying now. You can’t just discount everything we’ve been through. I was fighting for the Imagine Nation up there. I want to help. I want to keep fighting!”

  Skerren sighed and looked Jack dead in the eyes. “All this time, and you still don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what either of us wants. This isn’t about what you’ve done. It’s about what you are. I didn’t want to kill my parents, either, but that didn’t change the fact that somebody had to.”

  “Skerren . . .”

  “This is war. We harden our hearts and we do what’s necessary. We sacrifice. It’s the only way the enemy inside you can ever be defeated.”

  Jack stared Skerren down. “Stendeval says it’s what’s inside me that’s going to defeat the Rüstov.”

  Skerren snorted. “Stendeval is living in a dreamworld. Don’t waste your breath trying to convince me to let you go, Jack. In Varagog, the king decides who lives and who dies, not me.”

  The crowd parted, and Hovarth entered the square, followed by Noteworthy and Smart. Skerren and the other people in the square all took a knee and lowered their heads. Hovarth walked toward Jack and made a slight lifting motion with his hands, telling his subjects to rise. He reached the obelisk and looked Jack up and down with weary eyes. Jack could see he was bruised and bloodied from battle. The look on his face told him Hovarth had lost people during the attack. Jack wondered how many.