“I don’t have much longer. Please, do what I ask of you,” Abraxas whispered.
Alastor stepped back from the cot and sneered. “You old fool!You ruined everything. And now you ask me to give you my lifeblood? Why? So you can continue to blunder your way through another millennium?”
“Alastor, please, my son.”
“I am not your son, and you are not my father. You are a beast that deceived me in my darkest hour and turned me against all that I ever loved. I will listen to you no longer.”
As if in resignation, Abraxas’s head lolled to the side, exposing the weak pulse of his jugular vein. Alastor’s reaction was instant, involuntary. He opened his mouth and greedy feeding appendages spilled forth. Memories were flooding back. Images of his former self. He saw a young boy, garbed in fur and covered in his own blood, standing inside this very ship; he saw Abraxas’s feeding tubes slide forth and pierce the boy’s skin; he saw the injection of the poison that would transform that boy into the monster he was today.
How the tables had turned.
The barbs of Alastor’s appendages pierced leathery skin, and ecstasy filled him. Jets of a god’s blood spurted down his throat, filling his body with a world-shattering thrum. He felt ageless wisdom invading his brain, transforming it. Neurons exploded and multiplied, re-forming his brain as its matter expanded, ever folding and creasing. He saw everything that his master had ever seen, knew all that his master had known.
But, to his chagrin, it came at an unexpected price.
Behold, the price of your hasty decision. You and I are now one, Alastor. Wherever you go, so shall I. I shall haunt your every thought, scold your every decision. Now, look deep inside your mind. See our home planet. You must go there, and seek out the last of our kind.
“I no longer have to do as you say, Abraxas! You are nothing to me!” Alastor cried, looking down at the carcass of an ancient being that was already beginning to disintegrate.
You will do as I say!
A great spasm of pain raced through Alastor’s brain, as though someone had drawn a knife between the two cortexes. He fought it, and with all of his mental ability he managed to suppress the presence of Abraxas in his mind. The voice grew softer, and then altogether silent. The pain faded. He could hold Abraxas’s consciousness at bay, but he did not know for how long.
Alastor left the medical bay and headed to the ship’s navigation deck. There, he set a course for Tarsus.
SEVENTEEN - Hit Reset
The ground beneath Bayorn’s feet began to vibrate, and a strange, bloodcurdling howl filled the air. Cheers were replaced by looks of confusion and mounting terror.
A nearby manhole flipped open, and the hideous, malformed head of a mutant appeared. Bayorn looked around him, and saw more mutants pouring forth from every direction. They came from manholes and drainage ducts, scrambling to force their bodies through the small rectangular orifices, tearing the flesh from their own backs; they rushed from the buildings and climbed over the walls. It was as if a dam had broken, and wave after wave of mutants washed over its remains.
And then, a great explosion shook the very earth underneath their feet. The city streets were lit with plumes of fire that rocketed hundreds of feet into the air. Buildings all around the city center toppled and fell, and a wagon wheel of fire incinerated all who were unfortunate to be too close Many of the mutant creatures perished, and Bayorn counted each of their deaths as one more notch toward victory.
But despite the sudden chaos that had overtaken the battlefield, the Jolly Roger continued his withering fire on the army of Tarsi, hammerheads, and Eursans below. Among the smoke, cinders and ashes, the mutant creatures continued to swarm. Bayorn’s heart sank as he surveyed their numbers. The explosion had taken many of them, but there were still more than enough to outnumber the remaining fighters in his charge.
Bayorn hunkered down next to Maka, bullets spraying over their head, sending chunks of concrete in all directions. “That must have been Letho,” Bayorn said, nodding toward the smoke and fire that surrounded them.
“Yes, it is no doubt the work of our Eursan friend. But it does not help us against the metallic beast above.” Maka said. “And our weapons are ineffective against him.”
Just then a low rumble filled the air, and a great starship emerged from behind the palace. Abraxas’s ship. A brilliant red flash filled the air as the fabric of space-time was torn open—and the ship was gone.
“What?” Crimson Jim shouted in obvious confusion and anger. “Hey! Come back here!” Abraxas’s guard could be heard uttering similar sentiments. As if Alastor could hear them. He was gone.
“What an asshole!” Jim shouted, throwing his hands up. “Who needs him. Let’s finish this!”
The Jolly Roger cycled up its twin cannons and began to chew away the cover Bayorn and his troops cowered behind. He didn’t notice that the remaining Mendraga warriors were now abandoning him, disappearing into the temple entrance.
People were dying all around Bayorn. The Jolly Roger’s fire had begun to find soft spots. Bayorn watched helplessly as Eursan and Tarsi alike were torn to pieces.
The Jolly Roger was unstoppable.
Then the warbirds swooped in.
They turned their withering fire on the walking tank who stood on the temple steps. The stream of fire laid into the Jolly Roger, setting fire to the air around him, driving him to the ground. Maka cheered as pieces of the metal beast began to fly in all directions. The Jolly Roger tried to raise an arm cannon to fire back, but it was cut off by the angry storm the warbirds rained down on him. Jim shrieked, his mechanical body coming apart under the relentless assault.
Crimson Jim’s body, which had previously looked like a cross between an action figure, a jet, and a tank, now appeared to have a large helping of smoldering ruin thrown into the mix. He turned and fled. The curtain of molten lead followed him, pulverizing the ornate facade of Abraxas’s temple.
“Press forward into the temple!” Bayorn shouted.
“You want us to follow the Jolly Roger?” Maka said.
Bayorn gestured toward the endless mutant swarm. “We stand no chance out here in the open—we have no choice!” Bayorn said. “Move!”
All ran for the safety of the great temple as the swarm of gray, twisted bodies surrounded them, blotting out the ground as far as the eye could see.
****
“Hey, you gonna stand there all day, or are you going to get me out of these cuffs?” Thresha asked.
Letho turned, his face drawn. He summoned his strength again, and broke her cuffs.
“Thanks. You all right?” she asked, reaching to embrace him.
“I’m fine.” He allowed her to wrap her arms around him, but he didn’t reciprocate the gesture.
“Letho,” Saladin reported, “I am picking up communication from the sleepers. They are requesting your presence. It is urgent. Mutants are storming the temple. Your friends are in danger.”
“Let’s go then,” Letho said.
But before they could get going, a clanking and crashing commotion arose, and Crimson Jim emerged into Abraxas’s former vestibule. His massive metallic body crashed directly through marble, metal, and wood, blasting through doorways that weren’t designed for his size and girth. He cut an imposing figure even though he looked like someone had thrown him into an industrial sized-compactor, and then tossed him into an even larger wood chipper. Parts of his metal body were missing entirely, and the surface of his chest plate had been chipped and chewed away. His faceplate was gone altogether, and Jim’s green-smoke face, constricted in a snarl of terror and frustration, was on full display.
“What the hell?” Letho said. Instinctively, he dove to the side just as a blast of chain-gun fire chewed through the wall where he had been standing.
“I don’t have time for this!” Letho shouted as he jumped and rolled, moving too fast for Jim’s tracking systems.