Then, just as he was about to activate the jump to hyperspace, something happened on the screen that stopped him. Suddenly, the openings on the bottom of the Deathlord motherships surrounding the planet erupted with a bright white energy, sending pillars of it to the Earth’s surface.
Jack watched on the holoscreen as the columns of energy impacted the Earth, and the terrain around them rippled and charred. Jack’s eyes grew wide, and his breath caught in his throat.
“Wait a minute…” he said.
Jack made the holoscreen bigger and turned to his companions.
“What’s going on?” asked Jack urgently, pointing to the image before him. “What are they doing?”
“Jack, activate the hyperspace window,” insisted Shepherd.
Jack ignored Shepherd and turned back to the holoscreen. He was transfixed by the image before him. Every mothership had opened fire and hundreds of fiery white columns drilled into the planet like it was a giant pincushion. Where they impacted, a ghostly haze spread out, covering the Earth’s surface.
An alarm bell rang within Jack’s head. He remembered when Anna had told him about how the Deathlords were devastating the galaxy. When she’d said that, Jack didn’t quite grasp what she’d meant.
But now, a horrible realization descended upon him.
Oh my God… thought Jack. Earth… they’re destroying Earth!
Jack’s thoughts instantly went to his mother and then to his friends, and he felt an overwhelming sense of panic wash over him as he realized they were still down there.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Jack turned the ship around and sped up, rushing back toward the planet.
“What are you doing?” barked Shepherd. “We need to get out of here!”
“I have to save them!” yelled Jack.
“Jack, please, there’s nothing we can do…” he heard Anna say.
He ignored them. He ignored all of them. This ship was supposed to be some sort of kick-butt weapon right? Maybe he could stop this? Maybe there was something on the ship he hadn’t found yet that could wipe out every last Deathlord in the area. He had to try. He had to do something!
Before Jack could ask the ship about anything, however, Shepherd rushed up to Jack and clamped his hand down on Jack’s arm hard. Jack winced and looked up at Shepherd.
“Blast it, Jack, you’ll get us all killed! We can’t save anyone – we need to jump out of here now!”
“I have to try! My mom–”
“She’s dead!” yelled Shepherd. “They’re all dead! And unless we jump right now—”
“Inertial dampeners OFF!” screamed Jack.
Jack pushed the acceleration of the ship just as the inertial dampeners deactivated. The sudden thrust hurled Shepherd back, tossing him against the far wall of the bridge. Anna and Green were pinned against their seats. As long as the ship was moving, the others were helpless to do anything.
“Oh, dear…” mumbled Green.
The radar whined as more shards appeared, rushing up to meet them. Jack gritted his teeth and accessed the ship’s weapons. He unleashed a steady volley of plasma fire to clear the way in front of him. Dozens of bright red streaks rushed toward the ship as the shards returned fire, but he boosted all energy to the forward shields.
The blasts impacted the shields, sending dull thuds through the ship, but Jack did not change his course. He put as much power into the engines as he could spare and rushed forward, breaking through the wall of incoming enemy fighters.
As he shot by them, he knew they’d adjust course and come up from behind. Jack redistributed the shield power and hoped he was moving fast enough to give the generator time to recharge before the shards could catch up.
“JACK! STOP!!!” yelled Anna.
Jack paid no attention to her. All his focus was on getting to the planet. Mom should still be at the Fox Hole, he thought. If I can get there and pick her up or something, then I could go get Matt, and Chunk, and Peter, and the rest…
Jack could imagine the look on his mom’s face when he arrived. She’d be so happy to see him, so happy her son was able to come to the rescue…
“JACK!!!” yelled Shepherd.
Radar alarms started beeping. More shards had emerged from other Deathlord motherships, all moving to intercept him. There were so many of them, coming from all directions. Jack pulled all the power he could find and dumped them into his engines. He had to go faster! He had to get past the Deathlords and back to Earth!
It was directly in his sights. The ghostly haze had spread out over the entire surface by now, making the planet seem to glow. It almost looked beautiful in a weird way… until dark cracks began to form around the face of the planet.
“No…” said Jack, feeling his blood pound behind his eyes.
He was getting close; he just needed a bit more speed, a bit more time!
The cracks in the surface began to grow and spiderweb all across the face of planet.
“NO!” cried Jack.
Panic gripped his chest. His heart was racing, his breathing rapid.
Red plasma blasts streaked in from all sides as the shards came into range, thundering on the shields of the ship.
The dark cracks rippled through every inch of the planet and began to glow with a fiery golden fury. The surface of the planet started to char as the atmosphere swirled and blackened.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” screamed Jack.
And then, with a terrible, thunderous bang…
…the Earth exploded.
Chapter 16
As most people know, it’s a very rare thing for a planet to actually explode. It would be about as common as walking down the street and seeing a nearby rock suddenly blow up for no good reason. But when it does happen, it isn’t pretty. It’s not as if there is a massive explosion and suddenly the entire planet has vanished.
No, when a planet explodes, it tends to be violently ripped apart, shooting chunks of it with great force every which way imaginable. Such was the case when the Deathlord Planetkillers created an antimatter detonation in the Earth's core causing a chain reaction equal to the force of a hundred quadrillion nuclear weapons.
But the result is always the same – no more planet. Just a bunch of dust, debris, and rocks cluttering up the space where the planet used to be.
So it’s rather plain to see, the whole process is quite messy. But the Deathlord fleet somehow had the ability to remain in orbit around a planet as it blew up and not sustain the least bit of damage (another mystery of Deathlord technology whose answer had yet to be revealed at this time). However, the same could not be said for the ship Earthman Jack and his companions were on.
They had not yet reached Earth when the planet exploded, which was a good thing since if they had, that probably would have been the end of our story. But they were close enough that when Earth did explode, the impact of the blast hit them like a rampaging hukkah beast from the eighth circle of Levitahn – which is to say, extremely hard.
And had Jack not boosted the power to his shields as he made his mad dash back to the planet, it’s a very real possibility that their ship could have been destroyed, along with the Earth. Luckily, for the universe at large and everyone in it, this was not the case. But the ship did incur some extremely heavy damage.
The Ancient starship drifted among the remains of the destroyed planet, its engines off, its shields down, and its power barely functioning. Inside, things weren’t much prettier. The bridge of the ship flashed its red warning lights as sparks flew from damaged computer consoles. Half the viewscreen on the bridge was not working, and the other half flickered as if it were about to go out completely.
With the inertial dampeners turned off, it was not a very nice predicament for those who were in the ship at the time of the explosion either. Shepherd, Anna, and Green had all been tossed around, and even Jack was hurled from his chair, which seemed to be designed to keep the pilot firmly in its grasp as the ship flew.
As Jack came
to, he could feel the thumping in the parts of his body affected by the impact, which would no doubt become a fine collection of bruises in a few hours. He had a cut on his head, and his knee hurt, but other than that he was okay.
He heard Shepherd, Green, and Anna stir. He pulled himself up and looked at the piece of the viewscreen that was still working. What he saw there was an image that would haunt him for a long time to come.
Between the flickering of the screen, he could make out the Deathlord fleet, stationed exactly where it had been before, but they were no longer around Earth. Between them was nothing but a mess of charred rocks, twisting and twirling as they slowly moved through space.
In that moment, to his sheer and utter horror, Jack realized that his home – and everyone he loved – had been destroyed.
A cold chill washed over him and he felt suddenly light-headed. His brain struggled to comprehend what had just happened. After all, losing an entire planet… it was just such a BIG event, anyone would have had a hard time grasping it.
“Princess,” Shepherd croaked as he got to his feet. “Are you okay?”
“I’m all right,” Anna said, nursing her arm.
“Professor,” said Shepherd as he turned to Green who was wobbling around the frayed and battered consoles. “Damage report.”
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…” muttered the Professor, his big brown eyes fighting off the urge to roll every which way. He forced himself to focus on the ship’s systems console to get a reading on the state of their vessel. “Engines are down, as are shields, and weapons… pretty much everything is offline except for emergency life support at the moment. And even that is precarious.”
Anna saw Jack staring at the viewscreen and looked at the image on it herself. A wave of sadness washed over her. She had not been on Earth for long, but the time she had spent on it was pleasant. Everything from the cool autumn breeze, to the green grass and the blue sky had been beautiful and peaceful for her. And all those people who were now lost to them… she found herself somewhat grateful she had decided not to befriend any of them.
And then she thought of Jack. He did have friends and family there… friends and family who were now gone forever.
What must he be feeling now? What could she possibly say that would have any hope of comforting him? She didn’t know, but she approached him anyway and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Jack,” she said. “I’m so sorry—”
She felt a shiver run through Jack about a split second before he turned and sprinted away from her, making his way to the rear entrance of the bridge and into the rest of the ship.
“Jack! Wait!” Anna called after him and began to give chase.
“Princess, stop!” Shepherd called after her, but she ignored him and exited the bridge as well.
Jack ran down the curved hallway of the ship as fast as he could. He didn’t know where he was going or where the hallway would lead, but he gritted his teeth and ran as hard as he was able to. He paid no attention to the lights as they blinked in and out of working order, or the occasional spark from an exposed access panel, or even any of the doors he passed by that led to other areas of the still unexplored ship. His eyes were locked on the floor before him as he pumped his legs and arms, running, running, running…
Finally, his lungs were burning and his side began to cramp. He turned to an open door leading into a small empty room, which could very well have been some type of storage area. Tears were stinging Jack’s eyes and his breaths were ragged as he cried and gasped for air all at the same time.
A rage-filled scream erupted from deep inside him, and he turned and punched the wall of the room as hard as he could. His hand hurt as it made impact with the shiny metal surface, but Jack didn’t care. He punched it again, and again, and again, beating on it like it was a Deathlord, or J.C. Rowdey, or Mr. Shepherd, or anyone else he had ever hated in his life.
At last, when his knuckles burned with pain and he was unable to abuse the wall any longer, Jack stumbled into a corner of the room and slid to the floor, hugging his knees and weeping.
Images flashed into his mind. He thought of his small room in the trailer at 7 Eagle Hill. He thought of visiting his mom at the Fox Hole and getting a free slice of cherry pie. He thought about hanging out with Matt, Chunk, and Peter at Big Jim’s and eating really crappy pizza. He thought about school, and the Juniper family cornfields, and all the other things that made River Heights home.
And then he thought about how he’d never see any of it again.
Sadness welled up in his stomach, making it feel as heavy as a bowling ball. What had happened? Why didn’t somebody stop it? What was he going to do now?
Jack gave in to his sorrow and allowed himself to cry uncontrollably. He felt like all this was his fault somehow. He felt like instead of joyriding in a spaceship and thinking everything was so cool, he should have known what was going to happen. He should have done something! Anything!
“Jack?” came Anna’s voice.
Jack looked up and through his tears saw Anna standing in the doorway. She walked over to him and knelt down beside him.
“Jack, I’m so sorry about what happened…” she said.
She reached out to him, but Jack jerked away.
“Don’t touch me!” he hissed.
Anna pulled back from him, a look of surprise on her face. “I – I just… wanted to let you know that I know what you’re going through, and…”
An angry laugh escaped from Jack. “You know what I’m going through, huh?” sneered Jack. “But what do you care? You still have a home. You have a place you can go back to. You’re royalty or something, right? You can just go back to you’re big ol’ space-castle and tell all your space-friends about how you got to see some lame planet blow up before playing space-polo or space-cricket or whatever the heck it is your highness does for fun!”
“Jack–”
Jack pushed Anna away from him. She stumbled back, a mortified look on her face.
“This is your fault!” screamed Jack. “They came looking for you! I wish I’d never helped you! Maybe if they had gotten you at that diner, they’d have left, and they wouldn’t have blown everything up!”
Jack’s words cut into Anna. “Please, Jack… you don’t understand…”
“I don’t care!” snapped Jack. “I don’t want to understand! I have nothing anymore! NOTHING! My mom, my friends, they’re all dead because of you!”
Anna was about to say something when she heard a voice at the door.
“Princess,” said Shepherd.
She looked up to see the armored Paragon standing in the doorway. He was looking at her with that look he so often wore, the one that said, “I know what’s best for you.”
“Leave him be,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Jack. “Leave me be. Get out of my sight. Both of you.”
Anna got to her feet and joined Shepherd in the doorway. She glanced back at Jack as he buried his face in his knees, right before Shepherd closed the door.
When they got back to the bridge, Professor Green was busily rushing from one console to another, trying to interface with the ship.
“What’s our status?” asked Shepherd.
“Improving!” said Green cheerily. “The ship seems to be repairing its systems and hull quite nicely.”
“How?” asked Shepherd.
"Hard to say exactly without further study. From what I can tell, the ship is somehow able to regenerate anything that has been damaged or destroyed - everything from its hull, to its engines, to its computer systems. It's really quite fascinating."
"Regenerate?" asked Shepherd. "Are you saying the ship is able to... regrow parts that have been lost?"
"Exactly!" said Green. "It's not like there is a nanobot repair system that's rebuilding the ship like the Imperial Fleet uses. The repairs almost seem... well, organic for lack of a better word. Much like the way one's body can heal after an injury. However, it’s far more advanced than
that. I'm unable to determine where the material the ship is using to repair itself comes from, and there seems to be some artificial intelligence associated with how it chooses to prioritize its repairs. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this ship was... well, alive!”
“A living ship?” said Shepherd.
“In a sense,” replied the Professor. “I haven’t had much time to analyze it, obviously, but there is an unmistakable stamp of intelligence here, what with how it's able to interact with Jack and adjust itself to suit his needs. Then there's the whole idea behind how it's able to use Entanglement - which, by the way, is still in the process of blowing my mind.”
Shepherd's own mind raced at Green’s revelations. There was a lot about the ship that intrigued him, as well, but as much as he would have liked to have dwelled on its wonders along with the Professor, the direness of their situation had won out over his intellectual curiosity.
“How long until she can fly?” asked Shepherd.
“Hard to say,” said Green. “It depends on when it gets around to the engines. Right now it seems to be focusing on life support and hull integrity.”
Shepherd looked at the viewscreen. The image had stabilized enough so that he could see Deathlord shards spreading out, slowly moving amongst the debris.
“They know we were caught in the blast and they’re searching for us,” said Shepherd. “It’ll only be a matter or time before they find the ship. If our engines aren’t repaired before then, we’re not going to have a chance.”
“I will see if I can re-prioritize the repairs,” said Green.
“While you’re at it, see if you can unlock the flight controls. Someone other than Jack needs to be able to fly this thing.”
“That might be a bit tricky,” said Green. “Keep in mind, dear Paragon, this ship is something most of my ilk would trade their entire lives to study. It’s the single most advanced piece of machinery I’ve ever seen. Asking me to interact with it is one thing, but to actually re-program it? Alter it? I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Shepherd grimaced. “Just see what you can do,” he said. “I don’t want to rely on Jack to get us back to Imperial space, do you understand?”
Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet Page 17