The Renegades were still being drawn forwards, down a walkway leading out over a drop too deep to define. It was swirling with mist and lit with a lava-red glow. The procession of captives continued along the walkway towards a circular platform overhanging the abyss, encircled on the near side with stone pillars that reached to the roof. The Renegades floated out onto the platform and began to fan out. Becca grabbed hold of Reece and tried to pull him out of the air, but only succeeded in skidding helplessly across the wet stone. She collapsed to the floor, panting, the vinegary air causing her to gag. Daisuke pushed his snout under her armpit, trying to heave her up.
“Molotov!”
Becca spotted the man inside a recess within one of the stone pillars, the size and shape of a coffin turned on its end. He was hanging upside down, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were open, vacant veiny white marbles, bewitched by the entity’s dark spell.
“The time has come for Mama to grant my vengeance,” Aleksi boomed. “Time to suffer.”
Becca watched in horror as Reece and the Renegades joined Molotov, taking up their vampiric poses in the semicircle of sarcophagi, turned on their heads, arms folding over their chests. In the shadows, hundreds of unseen spectators began whispering and jabbering excitedly, an auditorium of goblins.
“Stop it, Aleksi,” Becca begged, searching the platform, her skin crawling with fear. “Let them go. Don’t do whatever it is you’re thinking of doing. You don’t need to do this. I’ve only ever tried to help you, we all have! I tried to save your life, I nursed you. Please don’t do this.”
Becca lifted a blaster and circled on the spot, checking down the long walkway stretching over the volcanic abyss, towards the passage from where she’d entered, wondering whether she’d missed something. There was nowhere for Aleksi to be hiding. Ever more spirits seemed to be gathering in the rafters, vultures waiting to feed off Aleksi’s spoils. The echoing sounds from the creatures in the passageway was morphing into a hideous drone, shrieking cries, like hyenas jeering at a cornered, defenceless animal. It was madness.
“Show yourself, coward,” Becca yelled, trying to stay strong, not wanting to crumble. “You want me, here I am. Let’s give everyone what they came for. Come at me.”
“Aleksi is gone,” the madman hissed. “I am now Azekil, son of Uuhl.”
Becca turned and saw Aleksi rising through the smoke swirling off the bows of the circular platform, his shadowy form fluttering like a sheet on a washing line. Swirls of emerald smoke churned in his mad eyes and ragged pumpkin mouth. His demented grin widened as he rose higher. Daisuke began barking furiously.
“What have you become?” Becca breathed. “What have you unleashed, Aleksi?”
“Becca… autopilot…” Reece croaked from behind, then drawing a breath he bellowed. “RUUUNNN!”
Aleksi held out an arm and Reece span from his recessed prison, falling limp, his eyes becoming clouded and pearlescent once more.
“Sleeeep,” Aleksi whispered, smoke pouring from his mouth and wafting into Reece’s mouth and nose. “Stubborn one this one, heart full of hope, the last refuge for the weak. What else is there for bags of blood and meat, with your disease and death? Should I drop him?” The shadowy maniac continued, floating Reece’s body over the volcanic abyss. “I could burn him. We could watch.”
“No, stop! There has to be something human still inside you. Look at him, he’s never done anything to you. You shared meals together. You lived together. Whatever it is that’s talking to you, ignore it, you can’t trust it. It’s bad, all bad. This is crazy, all of it. Look around… it’s like the church that hell built!”
Daisuke was snarling viciously now. The dog appeared to sense that one way or the other, the end was coming.
“How could you possibly understand?” Aleksi hissed. “You will never comprehend the scale of my power, the scope of my coming reign. You are now truly goat, a lesser intellect. We all have destiny. Some are feasters some are fodder. I was like you once, but Mama saw my potential. I was embryo, gestated in human body, born a God by mother Uuhl. Now you will watch her feed. You will witness her power.”
Aleksi tossed Reece’s body onto the platform where he tumbled awkwardly, coming to rest askew. Becca tried to dash to his side, but found herself becoming stuck like tar, rock oozing across her boots and ankles, welding her to the spot. Daisuke dashed forwards and was blasted back with a simple flick of Aleksi’s wrist. The dog came to rest on its side, ribcage unmoving, head lolling over the platform’s edge. Ever so slowly, the combination of the slick rock and the weight of the poor creature’s head was dragging Daisuke over the lip.
“Stop it, Aleksi,” Becca pleaded.
“There is no Aleksi!” The shadow man roared. “I am Aezkil, son Uuhl, Mama the feeder, destroyer of realms. Time to meet her, little goat. She is so hungry and you will have the honor of watching her feed.”
Becca was sure she was in a trance, hallucinating something impossible. A tornado of chaotically whirling galactic light was rising behind Aleksi, spirals within spirals, incredible twisting power. The raging cone of swirling might rose ever higher, its leading face expanding into a gaping disc of spinning chaos, at the center of which was a dark orifice, pulsing with sucking hopelessness. Reece writhed on the floor as the tornado leaned over him. His suit began decaying, becoming sucked up as blackened fragments. When his skin became exposed, he shrieked in agony, writhing, pieces of charred flesh flaking away.
“Stop it!” Becca cried. “Take me instead.”
“I will let him live if you feed yourself to Mama,” Aleksi hissed. “You must do this freely and of your own will. Give yourself to her.”
“Wh… aat?”
“You heard. Feed yourself to Mama and I will let your goat mate leave, so he can scurry in fright on planet of monsters. I would take pleasure in that. It would be your gift to me, for your new king’s inauguration.”
Becca threw a glance towards Daisuke. The poor animal was gone, likely slipped to its death. The whirling devil had ceased feasting off Reece, who lay moaning on the ground, clutching his red-raw chest. Uuhl towered beside Aleksi, making a shrill grating noise that pierced Becca’s soul, sounding like a fingernail chainsaw attacking the face of existence.
“Okay… if that’s what you want, I’ll do it,” Becca agreed. “Let them all go and I’ll do it. I’ll feed myself to your Mama, you sick bastard. Just let them go.”
“There is no barter, goat. He must have no companions. His suffering would be less. He must die alone, legs failed, belly empty, in terror as he’s eaten, dragged screaming from pathetic little escapey hole. Everyone else’s fate is sealed, but you can extend his life, for what it’s worth.”
“You’re sick… We don’t deserve this. Why are you doing this?”
“Because darkness will always win,” Aleksi moaned. “The stars will die, the cosmos smothered by unending voids. In the end, there will only be Mama the feeder and me her champion. Your puny insignificance is on a scale you could never understand, as expansive as time.”
The speakers on Becca’s collar crackled. She looked towards the Renegades. They were all still unconscious. The static steadily morphed into something intelligible.
“Becca, its Nori,” a quiet voice said. “Do you read?”
“What are you doing?” Aleksi hissed. “You’re doing something."
“Just saying goodbye,” Becca said, dropping her eyes from the Renegades. “Let’s get this over with. I accept your terms. You can have me. Reece goes free.”
“I understand, you’re in trouble. EMP in five seconds,” Nori continued. “Get ready to run. That station’s gonna drop like a stone.”
The rocky restraints securing Becca’s feet crumbled and she staggered to the front of the platform, below the whirling abomination. Aleksi floated down beside her, his mad eyes growing wild with perverse delight.
“Kneel,” he demanded.
“No final request?” Becca said, playing for time.
“No,” Aleksi hissed, sucking at his ragged lips. “I’m going to enjoy this. Now kneel. Let me watch Mama feed.”
Uuhl leaned over Becca, dark orifice winding. The thing seemed to be squeezing the air, crushing her skull, an incredible oppressive force. Becca kneeled as Uuhl leaned in, winding chaos, inhaling fragments of her suit away, her face burning like it was being held to a furnace.
Becca saw the EMP coming before the monster devouring her had a chance to react. A wall of electric light was racing through the chamber. The moment it struck, Becca reached for her waist and tore free her grenade. In her peripheral vision she saw Daisuke leaping through the air and plunging into the heart of the monster’s winding vortex. The instant the dog was in, the whirlpool collapsed into millions of wriggling eels and worms. They fell across Becca’s head and shoulders, slapping down around her.
She cried out and shook them off, tearing away the wriggling horrors trying to burrow into her hair. She heard the Renegades dropping to the floor behind. Daisuke was snarling under a clump of wriggling nightmares to her left.
“What!” Aleksi shrieked. “Mama! You killed Mama! HOW?”
“Was it worth it?” Becca growled, watching the maniac’s powers of flight failing, his shadowy form floating down to the platform.
“I was supposed to be protected,” Aleksi whimpered. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. What have you done?”
“If you make deals with the devil, you’ll only get burned,” Becca panted. “And just to correct you, darkness will never win over light. Eventually, the light wins every time.”
Daisuke emerged from the worms, growling and dragging a festering blob, like an oily rag with a gasping mouth, warts and pustules oozing stinking filth, many bloodshot eyes roving in wet sockets, maggots and unidentifiable things squirming and swimming through the slime on the creature’s flabby body.
The Renegades were standing up and shaking themselves off. Reece staggered up and ripped at the worms winding round his limbs, throwing them down.
“Becca, you alright?” He called, checking the wounds across his chest. “Ow...”
“I will be, you?”
“Just about, I think,” he replied, beckoning to Daisuke. “That’s a good boy,” he said, stooping and ruffling the dog’s cheeks. “I think you helped too, didn’t you?”
Daisuke panted and licked Reece’s face.
“NO!” Aleksi, shrieked, shrinking to the edge of the platform. “I am your God! I was supposed to win! You were supposed to fear me, obey me!”
Commander Blake staggered forwards. He lifted a blaster and fired at Aleksi, freezing him solid, cowering arms raised.
“We’ve had just about enough of your noise,” the Commander growled.
Molotov stumbled to Aleksi and wound back his arm, delivering a shattering uppercut that blasted the shadow man into a shower of icy fragments.
“Rest in pieces, asshole,” Schweighofer said, moving up beside Molotov as the glassy fragments skipped and tumbled across the platform, some bouncing into the lava abyss below.
“Damnit, why didn’t I think of that one,” Fang said, moving up beside Schweighofer and slapping a hand down on her shoulder. “I will not miss that guy.”
The two women chuckled and bumped fists.
“Now that’s the line for the history books,” Scarlet said, chuckling approvingly. “That’s the one they’ll remember. And you too Becca, nice job buying us time. Absolute badass!”
A weightless feeling took hold and Becca felt her body becoming light. She noticed lava beginning to seep from the dark stone walls.
“Uh, don’t wanna spoil the mood, but this ain’t over,” Hadley said, looking around. “I get the feeling this whole station just lost power. So, uh, how about we amscray back to the Shinrai before this whole thing slams into the deck. I’m ready to go already, you know, since this is basically hell and everything.”
“You heard the man, people,” Commander Blake called. “Toss your grenades and let’s get out of here. Let’s go home.”
In unison, the Renegades, Becca and Reece twisted their grenades and threw them towards the flabby, oozing atrocity Daisuke had dragged from the whirlpool of death. The monster gargled and bubbled, eyes roving as electric charge raced across its repulsive body.
“Don’t leave me,” a little voice whimpered.
The part that had comprised Aleksi’s mouth was thawing into a sludgy puddle, crying out as it was sucked towards the expanding electric discharge surging across the bubbling entity.
“You made your bed,” Commander Blake growled. “Looks like you’re in one for Hell of a time. Renegades, on me.”
“I missed another one,” Fang grumbled. “I must be getting slow in my old age.”
“Old isn’t gonna happen unless we go, like right now,” Hadley urged.
“Please… Noooooo,” Aleksi begged as the group and Daisuke charged down the walkway towards the passage leading up to the Shinrai.
Behind the sprinting warriors, wild bolts of electricity were now lashing the walls and rafters, cleaving chunks which tumbled inwards, shattering the platform. The lava oozing from the walls was now gushing as waterfalls, the entire chamber collapsing and becoming sucked into the forming vortex the spectral grenades were creating. The Renegades poured into the passageway as the walkway behind collapsed into the lava abyss, huge chunks the size of skyscrapers coming down from the roof, Aleksi and Uuhl shrieking abysmally as they were swallowed up.
Commander Blake blasted the stone door at the top of the ascending passage and the squad charged for the Shinrai, the ground quaking, the obsidian tunnel raining dust. By the time they reached the alien landing bay, they could see flames streaking outside as the station punched through the upper atmosphere. The group practically floated up the loading ramp, weightless, pulling themselves into the cockpit along the walls with their hands, pushing with their toes.
Dings and spatters rained across the craft as Reece hastily strapped in and powered up, the exit ahead crumbling.
“Gotta go, it’s coming down,” Hadley urged.
“I got it,” Reece said, lifting the Shinrai and edging forwards.
Reece engaged the thrusters and the Shinrai blasted forwards, streaking into space. He weaved through a sea of dead alien drones, which were floating listless around the crumbling hive. When he cleared the debris field, the surviving Earth Defence Forces grouped alongside, perhaps twenty crafts in total. Commander Blake saluted the pilots, who returned the gesture.
“Nori, you ready for pickup?” Reece said. “Let’s head home. Time to put this horror story behind us. And they all lived happily ever after.”
“I won’t be making that journey with you,” Nori replied. “But I wish each of you all the best. I hope your lives are long and prosperous. Yamamoto Industries will furnish you all with everything you need, forever more. It’s been an honor, truly, the best days of my life.”
“What, no… Nori, we won. Time to go home. Mission success.”
“I had to download to the star portal. I can’t leave, it’s not possible. I’m doing everything I can to keep the gateway from collapsing. It’s badly damaged. You need to go now. I won’t be coming with you. There’s no time.”
“Okay, so we’ll send someone back.”
“No, no one can come back. When you’re gone, I’ll collapse the gate. There’s enough of my consciousness stored on Earth to help the digital entities we spoke about to evolve in positive ways. I’ll still be with you.”
“But it won’t be you,” Becca said.
“Different, but same,” Nori offered.
“No, different but different,” Reece said. “All we’ve gone through, all of this, it’ll be lost. You’re… you’ll be lost… I can’t leave you all the way out here on your own. You’re my friend.”
“And you are mine,” Nori’s peaceful voice came. “Nothing is ever lost or can be lost. You will be a part of me always, as I will always be a part of you.”
“But you’ll be alone,” Hadley said.
“No,” Nori replied. “I’m thinking I’ll stop by our friends, say thanks for the help. I’ll fire my thrusters and blast to infinity and beyond, as that great philosopher once said. I believe the greatest adventure of my life is only just beginning.”
“It’s been an honor serving you,” Commander Blake said.
“The only thing you’ve ever served is the people you love,” Nori replied. “And they love you too. Try to remember that. Don’t lock them out forever. You’ll miss out on the most beautiful part of life. Now go, the portal’s injectors are failing. There’s no time.”
“Thank you, Nori,” Reece said again. “I’ll leave a seat open at the wedding, just in case you decide to swing by in a hundred and forty-eight million years.”
“I’ll try not to miss it,” Nori said, chuckling. “Now go. And Reece, take care of my dog.”
“I will, safe travels, friend.”
Daisuke whined and placed a paw on the console as Reece kicked the thrusters to maximum. The Shinrai and the Earth Defence Forces plunged into the star portal for the last time, leaving Jurassic Earth just as it was meant to be, free and untouched by human interference, just as Mother Nature and Father Time intended.
Kagoshima Knights
T he ceremony took place in Kagoshima, Japan, Noriyuki Murakami Yamamoto’s birthplace. He was spoken of with great reverence, and as the sun dipped behind the volcano on Sakurajima island across the bay, and cherry blossoms floated on the warm evening breeze, the opening celebrations began drawing to a close. Becca, Reece, the Renegades and the surviving Earth Defence Force pilots had been cheered as heroes as the world looked on, as their respective nation’s leaders had presented them medals. It had been a joyous affair, filled with smiles and laughter. The leaders of the world had all agreed the day would be forever commemorated as the first true global holiday.
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