They streamed down the highway, skyscrapers rising alongside, aerocars zipping back and forth above. The engine roared louder than any guitar Riff had ever played. The wind whipped his face. The 707 was massive, twenty lanes wide, rising above Cog City like a great concrete ribbon. Beneath the road, thousands of poor folk lived in hovels of scrap metal and tarpaulin, a sub-city lurking in the shadows like barnacles clinging to the bottom of ships. Alongside the road, electric billboards cast out blinding lights, advertising Android Girlfriends for You!, Happy Cow's Shawarma, and Cheap Bail Bonds, No Credit Checks! One billboard made Riff shudder; it showed the Cosmian sigil over the silhouette of a skelkrin, urging motorists to "Donate Now for a Skelkrin Earth." Riff quickly looked away, breathing a sigh of relief as they rode past the sign.
He took the exit off to Dune Plaza, one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods. No shantytowns lurked under the roads here, and the billboards advertised perfumes, jewelry, and pricey cyborg implants guaranteed to enhance, invigorate, and tantalize. Here was a place where rich businessmen, entertainers, and leaders lived in splendor. A place of green parks, glass towers, statues, fountains. A far cry from the dregs where Riff lived.
Finally he saw Serenity Tower ahead, a great structure of white steel and glass that soared skyward, its balconies topped with lush gardens. Nova's new home.
Sure beats the dump I made her live in, Riff thought.
He slowed down the bike. He was heading toward the parking lot when he saw the black starjets idling out front.
Riff sucked in air. Most people on Earth rode in aerocars, small flying vessels that couldn't breach the atmosphere. But here were starjets—small, two-seater vessels that could fly in both air and space. A dark planet with three moons, symbol of the Cosmians, was emblazoned onto their hulls. Inside one of the starjet's cockpits, a red eye blazed.
Grotter.
CHAPTER FOUR:
HOLES ON THE HIGHWAY
"Oh shenanigans!" Riff said, spinning the motorbike around.
Before he could complete the turn, the black starjets came blasting forward.
"What the frag?" Nova shouted, clinging to him.
"Cosmians!" Riff shouted, pushing down on the throttle. The golden scorpion roared down the street, heading back to the highway. "Damn Grotter tracked us here."
"Riff, you son of a bitch!" Nova clutched her whip. "I live here!"
"I know! They knew I'd come here for you." They blasted down the road, swerving between cars. "They're tenacious bastards. I—"
A blast of plasma roared and slammed into the road beside them. Another blast shot overhead, nearly searing Riff's hair.
"Fragging aardvarks!" Nova twisted around in the seat and lashed her whip. When Riff looked in the mirror, he saw the thong blast out electricity. The bolts slammed into one of the black starjets chasing them, cracking its cockpit. Three other starjets roared down the road in pursuit, hovering a foot above the tarmac, and three more flew above, raining down their plasma.
One blast slammed down onto the road ahead of Riff. With a curse, he swerved, nearly fell over, and kept riding. Behind him in the seat, Nova swung her whip again. Lightning bolts flashed out and slammed into a Cosmian starjet above. The vessel, several times the size of the Golden Scorpion, crashed down onto the road before them. Riff screamed, swerved madly, and managed to drive right onto the downed aircraft's wing. He shot up the ramp, soared above the hull, and slammed back down onto the road.
"Riff, some firepower would be nice!" Nova shouted, swinging her whip again and again.
He cursed. Struggling to control the motorbike with one hand, he drew Ethel from its holster. A starjet streamed overhead, dipped in the sky, and came charging toward them. Riff dodged a charge of plasma, fired his gun, and blasted a hole into the starjet.
He roared up a ramp and onto the 707. All around him, the Cosmian starjets still screamed. Plasma rained, shattering the road. Riff swerved around another hole, nearly tipped over, and managed to keep charging forward. He fired his gun again, aiming at the starjets' engines. Nova lashed her whip. Plasma, gunfire, and lightning bolts lit the night. A few police cars raced forward, seemed to notice the Cosmian sigils on the starjets, and quickly turned away; Grotter and his gang owned too many politicians and police brass.
The bastards are so well connected, Riff thought, they could nuke half of Cog City without the police even clucking their tongues.
"Where'd you learn how to fire that gun?" Nova demanded. "Aim, frag it!"
He spat and fired again, missing another starjet. "I'm trying to drive your damn scorpion at the same time!"
A starjet screeched overhead, swerved ahead of them, and landed on the road. It came charging toward them.
"Press the golden button!" Nova screamed.
"What?"
"Do it!"
Riff noticed a golden button on the bike's controls; he had thought it just a decoration. Now he pressed down with all his might.
In the mirror, he saw the scorpion's golden tail rise.
It blasted out a sphere of yellow energy.
The beam slammed into the starjet ahead, splitting it in two. Riff screamed as the motorbike raced through the wreckage. They drove through flame, flew into the air, and slammed back down onto the highway.
"I need to get a bike like this," Riff muttered, sweat dripping into his eyes.
Two more starjets still flew behind them. Nova swung her whip, blasting out electricity, knocking one jet down. It crashed onto the highway, veered offside, and slammed into a building. A blast from Riff's gun sent the other crashing down.
The Golden Scorpion drove on, its engine rattling. A scrap of loose metal scraped along the highway, raising sparks. The Cosmians were gone.
"Nova, is my guitar all right?" Riff said, twisting around to see. "Can you check?"
"Your guitar?" Her face twisted with rage. "They blasted my bike full of holes, you idiot! They were waiting outside my home. My home, Riff! What kind of trouble did you get me into?"
I wish I knew, Riff thought, driving onward down the highway.
He kept driving through the night. The 707 led them past several more kilometers of skyscrapers, then finally out of Cog City and into open country. Soon corn, wheat, and meat factories rose at their sides—towering metal buildings where grains, steaks, and burgers grew in boxes. The stars shone above. Riff looked skyward, wondering which star was Skelkra, home of the skelkrins, that cursed place the Cosmians worshipped. He wondered too which star Planet Ashmar orbited around—the place he had visited years ago, the place where he had met Nova . . . the place they had left together in better days. Yet driving here, all the stars seemed the same to him, distant specks, out of reach.
When dawn began to rise, Riff could no longer see the city behind him. He pulled over onto a dirt side road. Grass and shrubs rose around them, rustling in the wind, as morning's light spread across the sky.
Nova climbed off the bike too. She stood for a long time, staring into the distance, silent.
Finally she spoke in a strained voice, not turning to face Riff. "Why are they after you?"
"I don't know." He took a deep breath. "Grotter—he's the gang leader—showed up at my club. Was asking questions about a woman. What woman, I have no idea. Somebody he's after, somebody he thinks I'm sheltering." He reached into his pocket and felt the letter from his father, the letter he hadn't had a chance to open yet, the letter he felt he should be alone to read. "Grotter's the bastard who murdered my mother."
Was Grotter dead now? Had he burned in the wreckage of a crashed starjet? Riff didn't know, but until he saw a body, he would nurse his hatred, and he would stay on his toes.
Nova turned toward him. Soot stained her golden, form-fitting armor and her long blond hair. She narrowed her eyes. "Why? What happened back then?"
Riff sighed, the old pain digging through him. The scar on his cheek suddenly hurt again. "You know what the Cosmians believe, don't you?"
Nova spat. "S
kelkrin worshippers. My people fought the skelkrins once, years ago. They're nasty buggers. As warlike as us ashais but without honor. Cruel. Murderous."
"And Grotter and his gang worship them as gods. Call them superior beings. The Cosmians have a guy leading them—they call him the Seer—who preaches that the skelkrins will bring salvation to Earth. My mother spoke against them. She held rallies protesting the Cosmians and their plan to bring the skelkrins here. One day, when I was only five years old, Grotter showed up at our house. The Seer leads the Cosmians from a hideout; Grotter leads the brutes on the street. He grabbed my mother. When I tried to stop him, he gave me this." Riff touched the scar on his cheek. "He dragged my mother off to a prison his goons run. She came back to us a year later in a body bag."
Nova lowered her green eyes, and her face softened. She stepped closer, embraced Riff, and laid her head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Riff. You never told me."
He nodded. "And now Grotter's back. Looking for somebody. And somehow I'm involved, and now you're involved, and . . ."
He hesitated. He knew that what he had to say would toss Nova right back into her rage. He rather liked her embracing him. It was definitely nicer than the yelling, hitting Nova.
But his words, even if they enraged her, had to be spoken.
He took a deep breath and braced himself.
"Nova, they might be after my brother too. We have to go see Steel. Now."
As expected, Nova stepped back from him, and rage suffused her face. Her long, pointy ears reddened.
"No." She spat onto the roadside and squared her shoulders. "Just no. Not Steel."
Riff took a deep breath. Two years ago, Steel—always the man of stiff honor—had spent long moments lecturing Nova, telling her that a proper lady wore gowns, never cussed, and certainly did not spit. It had tossed Nova into a rage such as Riff had never seen. The ashai had nearly torn out Steel's throat, cursing and spitting all over his "antiquated" code of morality.
"Look." Riff reached out to Nova as the grass rustled around them. "I know Steel is a bit old-fashioned, but—"
"Old-fashioned!" Nova shouted, scaring crows out of a nearby oak. "My motorbike is old-fashioned. Grandfather clocks are old-fashioned. Your brother is a fragging dinosaur!" She laughed bitterly. "Who does he think he is, calling himself a knight? Knights died off thousands of years ago. The code of honor he speaks of was obsolete in the Stone Age. I'm not setting foot anywhere near that old relic with his righteous, sanctimonious rubbish."
The words shot pain through Riff's chest. He himself had often clashed with his brother. Many times, Steel had lectured Riff too, railing against the blues and booze that filled Riff's life. But damn it, Riff still loved the guy. Steel was his younger brother. Only a year younger, but a baby brother nonetheless.
"Nova, he's still family." He stepped closer to her. "And he might be in danger."
Nova raised her fist. "The only danger he's in is of me pounding his brains out."
"Nova! Please listen. If the Cosmians are going after the people close to me, they'll go after Steel too. He might need our help. If the Cosmians fly to his castle, he's likely to challenge them to a duel and die in their plasma fire. We drive up there. We check on him. We figure out what's next from there. Will you go with me?"
She tugged her hair, tossed back her head, and let out a roar. "Fine!" She glared at him. "But if he lectures me again, I'm still pounding his brains out."
They climbed back onto the scorpion motorbike. They roared down the highway through the dawn. As they drove closer and closer toward Steel's home, the fear only grew inside Riff.
Where was his father? Who was the woman the Cosmians wanted? And once he reached Steel's castle . . . would he find his brother alive and well, or would he find a corpse?
CHAPTER FIVE:
STEEL AND RUST
Riding through the countryside, Riff and Nova could see the castle from kilometers away. Like a Rigelian howler beetle in a bowl of soup, it was hard to miss.
Growing up, Riff had heard of castles. He had seen models of them in museums alongside spears, mammoth tusks, dinosaur bones, and other relics of the ancient days. As far as he knew, Steel Starfire, his little brother, was the only person left in the cosmos who still lived in one.
Granted, this hilltop castle looked a little different from the models Riff had seen. First of all, it wasn't much larger than a typical city apartment, barely large enough to house one person, let alone the army that most castles would contain. Secondly, the old castles Riff had seen had been built of stone. This one was half metal, a mishmash of bricks, iron plates, and spikes all bolted together. Steel had built it himself a few years back, spending an entire summer on the task.
Sir Steel Starfire was many things, but an architect he was not. The castle looked like it could barely withstand a herd of charging sheep, let alone a charging army.
Or charging Cosmians, Riff thought, stomach curdling.
The scorpion motorbike rattled along the dirt road—there were no paved roads out here—leaving the factory farms and heading up the grassy hill. Scattered elms and oaks rustled around them. Birds flittered overhead and white clouds floated in a blue sky. If not for the men out there trying to kill him, Riff might have almost felt at peace.
When he crested the hilltop, his brief moment of serenity shattered.
A large Cosmian starjet, several times the size of city jets, hovered outside the castle of iron and stone. Several of the cult's goons, clad in black hoods and robes, stood outside in the grass, guns raised.
Before them, protecting his castle, stood Steel Starfire.
Steel was a year younger than Riff, but he looked a decade older. His long years of solitude, of pain over the corruption of his order, had left him with a lined face, with graying temples, with sad-yet-hardened eyes. His long brown mustache, his pride and joy, drooped all the way down to his chin.
Though banished from the Knights of Sol for daring to speak against its lords, Steel still wore his old armor: thick, bright plates of ancient steel. In his gloved hands, he still held his old weapon, a massive antique sword named Solflare. Since his banishment, Steel could no longer wear the sigil of the Knights of Sol upon his breastplate, and he could no longer call himself "sir." But standing outside his castle, facing his enemies with calm determination, he seemed a knight through and through.
"Who the frag still uses a sword these days?" Nova muttered as their motorbike screeched to a halt outside the castle. "Swords are for crusty old dinosaurs."
The Cosmians noticed the new arrivals. They spun back and forth between Steel, Riff, and Nova, guns raised, as if uncertain who posed the greater threat.
If Steel noticed his brother and the ashai gladiator arrive, he gave no sign of it. The gaunt knight raised his sword, and he spoke in a deep voice, a voice yearning for days of old.
"By my honor as a Starfire, by my honor as a Knight of Sol, I challenge you to battle. For Sol!"
Shouting out those last words as a battle cry, Steel raced toward the enemy.
The Cosmian monks all spun toward him, forgetting about Riff and Nova, and fired their guns.
Steel swung his massive sword, deflecting one blast of plasma. Another blast slammed into the knight's chest, dispersing across his armor like waves around a tor.
Steel thrust his sword forward. Light streamed across the blade and blasted out in a great beam. The ray slammed into one monk, tearing a hole through his body.
Nova stared with wide eyes. "I want a sword."
Riff raised his gun and aimed at a monk. "For now use your whip!"
He fired. His blast slammed into a monk, knocking the man down. At his side, Nova cracked her whip. A lightning bolt flew from the tip, slamming into a second monk.
Three monks knelt, turned toward Riff and Nova, and began blasting.
Riff cursed, ducked behind the scorpion bike, and leaned over the seat. He fired his gun, his blasts leaving trails of rippling air. He hit one monk.
Another Cosmian fired his gun, and the blast slammed into the motorbike, shoving it against Riff. Sparks showered. Riff fired again and hit the man.
Nova meanwhile stood in the open, flailing her whip. A bolt of plasma flew toward her, and she ducked backward, letting it stream above her chest and head. Another blast flew toward her feet, and she rolled sideways, leaped back up, and swung her whip. Lightning flew from the golden lash, streamed through the air, and slammed into another monk. The man cried out as his robes burst into flame.
Closer to the castle, Steel was swinging Solflare in wide arcs. The blade deflected one plasma blast. Another slammed into Steel's armor and ricocheted, tearing a hole into the grass. The knight refused to dodge for cover but advanced, taking the monks head-on. He thrust his sword forward again, casting another beam of white energy. The light slammed into a monk, tearing through him. The body thumped onto the grass. Another monk, out of ammunition, charged forward, screaming. A swing of Steel's sword cut him down.
The last two monks cursed and leaped into their black, oversized starjet.
The vessel began to rise into the air.
Its guns began to glow red, aimed right at Steel and his castle.
Riff fired his gun.
His blasts shot out, slamming into the starjet's engines.
Fire roared. The starjet swirled madly in the air. Its guns fired, slamming into the castle. Bricks rained. Metal sheets bent and crashed down.
Riff fired his gun again. Nova swung her whip, casting out lightning.
The projectiles hit the starjet, and it exploded into countless chunks of metal.
A hail of fire and scrap metal pattered against the grass.
The last of the Cosmians was dead.
Riff straightened from behind the bike. The battle had burnt a hole in his jeans, and shrapnel had drawn an ugly red line across his arm, but he was otherwise unharmed. Nova stood among the wreckage, brushing burning scraps off her golden armor; the ashai material showed not a scratch. Steel's armor was blackened and dented, but otherwise the knight seemed no worse for the wear.
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