Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet (21 page)

One could only imagine what was going
on in the minds of the Deathlords as they had set about on a course to leave
the Earth’s planetary system after their prey had dramatically escaped into
hyperspace, only to have those who had evaded their clutches not a short while
ago suddenly appear before them out of the blue.

However, if the Deathlords were indeed surprised to see the
Ancient vessel, it did not last long.  Moments after detecting the Earthship
almost directly in front of it, the Deathlord Flagship – known to those aboard
as
The Inferno
– promptly engaged its tractor beam, ensuring that this
time, the ship would not execute any type of sensational exit.

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 to 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.”