Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet (13 page)

Outside the temple, Shepherd turned to see the door
closing.  The Deathlord soldiers were almost upon him.  Taking his cue,
Shepherd forced the shield wall in front of him forward toward his assailants. 
The shield thrust itself into the front line of the encroaching invaders with
powerful velocity, crashing into them like a speeding truck and sending them
flying into those behind them, knocking the Dark Soldiers asunder like bowling
pins, before dissipating.

Shepherd turned and made a run for the temple door,
scattered volleys of Deathlord plasma-fire following him.  Most of the shots
went wide, but a few found their mark, only to be absorbed by his armor.

The Paragon leapt for the door and dove in.  He turned on
the ground and let loose a few bolts from his arm cannons to slow down the
Deathlords one last time before the door completely shut, plunging the group
into the darkness of the temple.

A small sphere of light flared up in
the palm of Shepherd’s hand.  He was standing now, and the light of the orb
cast enough illumination for the group to see each other.

“Is everyone all right?” asked Shepherd, his voice cold and
robotic from behind his helmet.

“We’re fine,” Anna answered.  “Are you okay?”

The front part of Shepherd’s helmet retracted, revealing his
face.  He wasn’t even breathing hard.

“I’m unharmed,” he replied, “but we’re not safe for long. 
The Deathlords will no doubt be planning to blast down the door soon.”

Jack rolled his eyes, “You gotta be kidding me,” he whined. 
“These Ancient dudes can build a temple in the core of a planet but not a door
that can’t be blown up?”

Shepherd glared at Jack.  “Nothing stands for long against
the Deathlords, boy,” he said.  “I should think you’d have learned that a few
minutes ago.”

Jack had a brief flashback to the Deathlord that almost
killed him, pulling itself back together from nothing, and felt a pang of fear
creep back into his gut.

“The good news is that they won’t be able to break through
it very easily, so we have some time,” said Anna.  “If we can find the
artifact, maybe we can use it against them.”

“If the artifact is indeed the weapon you hope it is,” said
Shepherd.  “If not, we’ve just backed ourselves into a corner.”

“Listen, I know I’m a little late to the party here,”
interrupted Jack.  “But would someone PLEASE explain to me what the heck is
goin’ on?  What weapon?  What are those Deathlord things? 
Who are you people
?”

The group turned to Jack.  He met Anna’s gaze, her image
beautifully haunting in the low light emanating from Shepherd’s glowing sphere.

“In case you haven’t figured out by now, Jack,” said Anna
softly, “we’re not from Earth.”

“Yeah, the magical suit of awesome-armor kind of gave that
away,” said Jack.

“Princess,” interjected Shepherd.  “We don’t have time for
this.”

“Then I’ll be quick,” she replied.  “He’s earned some
answers.”

Anna turned her attention back to Jack.  “My real name is
Princess Glorianna of the planet Regalus Prime, blood heir to the throne of the
Galactic Regalus Empire.  This is my protector, Paragon Shepherd.”

“So he’s not really your dad?” asked Jack.

“I’m a Paragon,” said Shepherd.  “A disciple of the free
mind, one sworn to the service of the royal bloodline.”

“But you guys totally don’t look like aliens,” Jack said. 
“You look human.”

“Ah! Well, that would be because of our hologuises,” said
Green.  He then reached out his arm and tapped a few keys on his calculator
wristwatch.  Suddenly, the shell of what was Professor Green faded away, and
what was left in its place was something… well, very different.

It actually still somewhat resembled the Professor.  It was
wearing his same goofy clothes, had the same long neck, lanky arms, and shock
of white hair.   Its skin, however, was a scaly green, and its head was large
and flat, much like a turtle’s, but with big brown eyes that stuck out the side
of its head.  It had a wide, toothy grin and a tuft of bristly white hair
jutting from its chin.

There were many ways Jack could have reacted to his Physics
teacher morphing into a mutant man-turtle before his eyes, but he just blinked solemnly
and looked at Anna.

“Um… do you look like that, too?” he asked as diplomatically
as he could.

Anna smiled.  She tapped a petite gold bracelet on her
wrist, and there was a fading of her image around her as well.  But instead of
turning into a green alien thing, she looked very much the same.  In fact, she
actually looked better than she did before.  Her eyes were a more brilliant
blue; her golden hair seemed to shimmer; her skin appeared smooth, soft, and
perfect.  And other than the fact that her ears were slightly pointy, she was
still pretty much the same girl Jack had always known.

“Professor Green is part of a race of beings known as the Trundel. 
Paragon Shepherd and I are of a race that is descended from the Ancients who
built this place,” explained Anna.  “Earthlings and Regals actually aren’t that
different, it turns out.  When the Professor first came across your planet in
his travels, he believed that Earth was some sort of far removed Ancient colony,
and that your species evolved from them much like ours did.”

“You can imagine my surprise when I came across your planet,”
said Green.  “This area of the galaxy had long been thought to be devoid of
life.  I only came out here in search of a possible location for a Great Seal
I’d found referenced in some recently uncovered Ancient ruins.  But instead, I
found you!”

“Great Seal?” asked Jack.

“Yes, an area of Ancient technology which is an expertise of
mine,” replied Green, not bothering to clarify.  “I didn’t find the seal, but
the presence of your species did intrigue me.  It wasn’t until I began my
research into your people that I found you evolved naturally from this planet. 
Which was quite shocking, considering your similarities to Ancient DNA.  But
once I discovered the portgate to the Ancient temple in your town, everything
began to make sense.”

“Please,” said Jack.  “I’ll take anything that makes sense right
now.”

“Well,” said Green.  “You have a foundation of Ancient
technology at the very core of your planet!  It stands to reason that the
things that grew from this planet were influenced by it in some way.  If my
estimations of the age of this temple are correct, its creation coincides with
a period where your species was transitioning to behavioral modernity with the
development of symbolic culture, language, and specialized lithic technology.”

Jack had no idea what that meant.

“The temple made cavemen evolve into what you are today,”
said Green plainly.

“Ah,” said Jack, finally getting it.  “But I thought you
said this place was a weapon?”

“We hope it houses a weapon,” clarified Anna.  “I’ve spent
years searching the galaxy looking for Ancient Artifacts, hoping to find
something to aid us in our fight.  The Deathlords are a powerful force that has
been devastating our galaxy.  Their technology is… well, it’s more advanced
than anything we’ve ever seen, next to the Ancients.”

“Every attempt to fight the Deathlords has either failed or been
won at too great a cost,” said Shepherd.  “They cannot be killed.”

“But you were shooting them,” said Jack.  “They were
exploding!  I saw.”

“We don’t know much about Deathlord anatomy,” said Green. 
“But they’re not flesh and blood.  They don’t exist or perish in the same way
we do.  Best we can theorize is that they are made up of some type of
nanotechnology beyond any known application.”

“Uh… nanotechnology?” asked Jack.

“Microscopic robots,” clarified Green.  “Tiny machines that
come together to form a solid mass.  We theorize that each Deathlord is made up
of trillions and trillions of them, unified by a central energy source which
serves as the primary consciousness for the Deathlord it forms.”

“Some Deathlords have a stronger energy source than others,”
said Shepherd, “as you saw with the one who was able to reform himself.  Most
Deathlords are mindless drones with weak energy sources.  They can be
dispatched by disrupting that source with a more powerful energy, like plasma
blasts or some type of electrical weaponry.”

“That’s why the Dark Soldiers you’ve seen aren’t very
bright,” said Anna.  “They have the weakest energy source and, therefore, the
least amount of self-awareness.”

“But that’s also why they’re so formidable,” said Shepherd. 
“They do exactly as they’re told.  They cannot feel pain, grow tired, or
experience fear.  Wave after wave can be sent to be destroyed, and they just
come right back.”

“How?” asked Jack.  “Do they all re-form like that ugly one
did?”

“No,” said Green.  “We believe the Deathlords are able to simply
construct as many bodies as necessary.”

“So, in essence, you’re saying they’re basically killer
robots?” said Jack.

“Oh, were that the case!” said Green.  “If they were
robotic, it would be a simple matter of using electro-magnetic pulses to defeat
them by shutting down their power source!”

“Yeah,” muttered Jack, wondering what exactly an
electro-magnetic pulse was.  “Simple.”

“You can never really destroy energy, you see,” said Green. 
“So even though their bodies are destroyed, the core of the Deathlord
survives.  It could very well be the case that the new Deathlords are
constructed with the same consciousness as the ones that were defeated.”

“Resurrection,” said Anna.  “An army that never dies.”

“But there’s something more to the Deathlords that we
haven’t figured out yet,” continued Green, “something that separates them from
merely being machines.”

“They have some type of power we’ve yet to understand,” said
Shepherd, “some ability that gives them control over life itself.”

“Huh?” asked Jack.

“You saw how the Deathlord was able to fire those balls of
energy and control a wave of ground-spikes with the flick of his hand,” said
Shepherd.  “They seem to be able to control energy somehow.  That includes
whatever life force exists in most living beings.”

“Whoa,” said Jack, a chill running up his spine.  “You mean
they can make you blow up or something?”

“More like they can rip your soul out of you,” said
Shepherd.

The gravity of the Deathlord threat was starting to settle
in on Jack.  The idea of an army that could not be killed seemed incredibly
terrifying, but one that also had the power to suck the life out of you and become
stronger by doing so... that brought it into pure nightmare territory.

“But this weapon you guys talked about… it can stop them,
right?” asked Jack hopefully.

“We came here to find an Ancient artifact alluded to in our
historical records,” said Anna.  “It spoke of a weapon of great power created
long ago by our ancestors – a weapon which may help us defeat the Deathlords.”

“Um… I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty sure my
ancestors never built anything that could take down a tank,” said Jack.  “Seriously,
why would you be looking for an old weapon instead of trying to invent a new
one?”

“You’ve read about the Dark Ages in history class, right?”
said Anna.

“Yeah, that time with the kings and knights and stuff,” said
Jack.

“It was also a time of regression after the fall of your
Roman Empire,” she said. “After a period in your history where incredible
technological marvels were pioneered, your society forgot much of what had been
created, and actually reverted to more primitive means of living.”

“So you’re saying you guys are going through a Dark Age?”

“About fifty thousand years ago, something happened that wiped
out almost all life in the universe,” said Anna.  “We refer to it as
The Scourge
. 
Few historical records have survived from that time – but enough to tell us of
the Ancients and the marvels they were able to create.  Since then, our civilization
– and many others – have had to rebuild themselves, and even now, we are far
away from being at the point where we can hope to match the technology of our
ancestors.”

“Wow,” said Jack.  “That really sucks.”

“You have
no
idea,” said Anna.

Suddenly, loud thumping sounds emanated from the temple door.

“They have begun their assault on the entrance,” growled
Shepherd.  “This history lesson will have to wait until later.”

“Jack, can you turn on the lights?” Anna asked.

“Yeah, I can try,” said Jack.  He had a lot more questions,
but he figured they could wait until they weren’t in danger of being killed. 
He touched the wall panel again, this time imagining a lightbulb coming on.

The darkness around them quickly retreated as illumination seeped
into the room.  The group stood on a small platform before the entrance, with
walkways branching off its sides and circling downward.

The enclosure they were in was massive – much bigger than it
looked from the outside.  Jack followed the group as they slowly walked toward
the edge of the platform, which overlooked the chasm before it.

Beneath the massive arched ceiling above was a pit that was
so deep, the light Jack had turned on almost didn’t reach the bottom, allowing
a pool of darkness to settle there.  Jack could see the walls of the huge room
slope and converge down below, almost as if the whole thing were shaped like
the inside of an egg.

But the sheer size of the room wasn’t the most incredible
thing about it.  No, that honor belonged to what was actually within it.

There, docked silently in the middle of the temple, was an
honest-to-goodness
spaceship
.

Jack marveled at it.  The vessel must have been at least five
stories tall, and the length of a football field.  Two massive engines jutted
out from the sides, angled toward the back, gracefully melding into something
that resembled wings.  The body of the ship was curved and oblong, almost like
a football, but sleeker.  The hull was made up of a metal that was almost white
– much like the platform on which they had arrived in the temple.  But this
metal seemed to glow as if it were feeding off the light around it.  The beauty
and majesty which the ship seemed to radiate struck those looking at it like a
bolt of lightning.

“Incredible,” gasped Green.

“Amazing…” marveled Anna.

“Dude…” said Jack.

Unfortunately, the magic of the moment was interrupted by a
loud screeching sound.  The group turned to the entrance of the temple as it
began to vibrate.

“They’re trying to cut through the door,” said Shepherd. 
“Quickly, to the ship.  Let’s hope she can still fly.”

Anna took off first, moving down the side walkway toward the
spacecraft.  Jack and Green followed, with the rear covered by Shepherd.  A
long stone causeway led up to the side of the ship at the front of the right
wing, but when they approached it, there was no door visible, only smooth
metal.