Godeena: SF Novel

by Stjepan Cobets

  Vallery and he grabbed their weapons, but Kir stated seriously, handing him the map which she had been reviewing on the ground, “This is my game now!”

  Henry nodded and followed her. We spotted the Being jumping wildly on a heap of metal and stone, looking at his favorites. Kir stopped and watched for a while and then turned towards them and commanded quietly, “Move away from me!”

  She sat on the floor in front of the hole, between the left and right branching corridors, and closed her eyes. Before long a tall apparition coated with a dark cape appeared before Neekulba and addressed him in a dead, icy voice. “You’ve lost your favorites, Neekulba!”

  Neekulba jerked – he hadn’t noticed her – and then he gazed at her and let out an angry growl. “You’ve hurt my favorites. Now you’ll feel my rage!”

  The apparition under the dark cape raised her hand and laughed loudly. “I’d like to see that!”

  Using his powers, Neekulba picked up a large piece of chopped Kazmarazat and threw it towards the apparition under the cape. It flew straight through her and then stopped, crunching and sparking a couple of meters further across the floor.

  “Is that all that you know?”

  Neekulba grew wild, and creatures appeared all around him and Kir’s projection, like those they had seen at the transporter and had fought against in the square. Blue lightning flashed from Neekulba’s eyes, bouncing off the walls, and then he directed it towards his enemy. The apparition under the cape watched quietly. Then she suddenly raised her hand and created a vivid red shield all around her. The lightning was repelled with a blinding flash, dispersing on the walls in a growing network of raging sparks. At the same time, the monsters that had materialized started to attack, but whenever the apparition raised her hand the creatures evaporated with a terrifying scream. When the final creature had disappeared, she turned to Neekulba, who was watching her, transfixed. Pointing to him with her finger, she concluded in an icy voice, “So you mean that’s all?!”

  Neekulba screamed loudly and with his telekinesis, he let fly a thick pipe that was lying on a pile of debris at his feet. It flew towards the apparition in the cape at a great speed, but it was repelled from the reddish shield and flew directly at Kir, who was sitting on the floor. Henry threw himself towards her and pushed her away towards one of the corridors. When she opened her eyes, she looked at him fiercely, and he flew back through the air. Henry fell down heavily on the floor between Vallery and Endy and hit his painful shoulder again. The piece of the pipe thrown by Neekulba stuck out of the wall exactly where Kir had been sitting a little while ago. Vallery and Endy helped him to sit up, and he only said, “This isn’t for me anymore!”

  At that moment, Neekulba began to cry wildly. The whole corridor echoed with his roars. “Where are you?! I’ll kill you! If you come any closer to my chambers, I’ll destroy you and your friends!”

  Kir looked at the pipe sticking out of the wall and then looked towards Henry. She nodded and her voice rang in his head. “Thank you, you’ve saved my life.”

  Then she sat down and closed her eyes. A moment later she again materialized in front of Neekulba and hissed in a voice so cold that even Henry and rest of the team shuddered. “You think you can run away this time? Your end has come, and it’s time to die, you monster!”

  “We’ll see!” shouted Neekulba and disappeared.

  Kir opened her eyes, stood up and moved towards Henry. When she approached him, she apologized quietly. “Sorry for your flight.”

  Henry shook his head and smiled. “I always feel like a bird whenever I try to save you.”

  Kir laughed. “You’ve had good luck; you only flew through the air.”

  “Luckily there was no wall in my way.”

  Vallery, who was looking at the pipe stuck deep in the wall, turned her head and concluded, “You must have made him very angry!”

  “That was my intention. When he is furious, then he doesn’t concentrate as well, and he doesn’t react in time. That gives us an advantage over this death play. That is his weak point, and that is when he’s the most vulnerable.”

  “I agree with you, Kir,” Henry concluded and got up from the dusty floor. He went out to the corridor and reviewed the remnants of the destroyed robots. “The dust has settled enough so we may move immediately.”

  “We have to be prepared for him to attack us with all that he has,” said Kir. “We have driven him against the wall.”

  Henry flexed painful shoulder and firmly asserts, “We have no choice. If we don’t destroy him now, he might recover and attack us anew.”

  Kir leaned a hand on his injured shoulder and a wave of warmth ran all through his body. He looked at her with surprise; pain in his shoulder had simply disappeared. She moved to the pile of the debris at the end of the corridor and said, “Now is the best moment, it’s true, and he knows it as well. I can feel his fear, but he is still ready to fight to the very end!”

  Henry watched her, perplexed, and then he shook his head. “I know that he is ready, but we’re ready too!”

  “Let’s go then!” concluded Kir, and once again she dipped into his mind and spoke. “I hope that your shoulder is much better. That is my gift instead of a kiss.” She stopped for a moment, and when Henry thought about thanking her, she added, “You’ll thank me later, personally.”

  Though he was completely confused by her behavior, Henry turned to Vandor and Endy and waved them to come closer. “You two are in front of me. Vallery, when we enter his chamber, order the others into position at the door.”

  “No problem, Commander.”

  Once more Henry looked at everyone present, checked the clip in his gun, and then concluded, “Good luck everyone. After this, there is no going back. Are you ready to finish it?”

  “Yes, we are!”

  “Let’s go put an end to this fucker!”

  *

  The corridor was ruined in the places where the mines had been laid; they had to struggle through narrow passages where the walls had fallen in, and in some places they had to clear the wreckage to be able to pass through. Parts of the Kazmarazats lay everywhere and made problems for them, for often they were as sharp as razor blades and team had to be very careful lest they should damage them suits. Descending to the last level, they found fifteen destroyed robots.

  An hour later they arrived at the passage to the very heart of Neekulba’s den. Henry halted the others and moved down it, carefully watching the area before him. They soon arrived at the place where Henry had hit the Kazmarazat with Hydra. It was lying on its side in front of the final door, still smoking, and sometimes it’s broken circuits sparked. Henry watched the smoke whirling up from the wrecked robot and floating like a light haze above the ground. Under the weak, vague illumination from the ceiling, a queer effect emerged; the haze rolled crazily over the huge rhomboid floor tiles. It all looked so surreal, like the presentiment of some suppressed threat.

  Henry slowly peeped through the half-open door and gingerly looked inside. The hall was huge: seventy feet tall, more than four hundredths feet wide and some nine hundred feet long. And one thing was for sure; it definitely was not like any of the parts they had passed through so far. Every seventy feet there was a smooth emerald column. The upper parts which supported the ceiling were Roman in appearance, and the bottom parts ended in seven-by-then-feet black square bases. These massive bases were finely polished, and on each plane, there were numerous silver-white colored symbols and letters, used by the civilization destroyed by Neekulba’s crazy mind. Besides these gigantic columns space was empty, but at the other end, Henry noticed a huge black, polished cylinder, illuminated by reflected light from the ceiling. Tens of tubes connected the top of the cylinder to the ceiling, and there were no pillars around it. Henry knew it had to be Neekulba.

  He called Vallery and gave her a hushed command. “Let the crew prepare their remaining Hydras! I’m not that sure that we have destroyed all of them. I
’ll enter first, and then the others should be posted in the columns left and right at my sides.”

  “OK.”

  Henry didn’t like the silence which reigned here; it could only mean that he was ready and waiting for us. He ran up to the first column and the hundred-year-old dust whirled up around his legs. He leaned on his back against the column and, signing with his hands, ordered Vandor and Endy to take their positions behind him. Henry also gave a sign to Vallery, and she sent Karl Malton to follow.

  A burst from a Khak cannon broke the silence. Karl, who had just been running across the area between Henry and Endy, flew towards the wall, limp as a puppet on a string, and collapsed on the ground in a heap, leaving a bloody trace on the wall. Although he was already dead, the shooting didn’t stop, and his body became a meaty mash.

  “Take cover!” Henry exclaimed. “Can anybody see an attacker?” At that moment he spotted Vallery, with a Hydra in her hand, hurling herself behind a column where Vandor had already been. She looked out and aimed, and six rockets flew towards the place from which the attack had come. At the last moment she threw herself down as a Kazmarazat fired at her; pieces exploded off the black base of the column she was hiding behind. Six subsequent explosions resounded and then the shooting silenced. The attacker was destroyed.

  I waved to the others to position themselves behind the pillars and follow him up the room. Miura Weng was the last one, but a second before he managed to throw himself behind cover a plasma blast tore a piece off the column, and a sharp chip stuck into his thigh. He shrieked painfully. Though the pain was excruciating, he didn’t stop. He dragged his bleeding leg until he reached the pillar’s base, where he sat down and peeped out. A Kazmarazat fired, but he took shelter at once.

  While the column was covering him, he had a look at the nasty chip sticking out of his thigh, and then he grimaced and grabbed his Hydra. When the shooting silenced, he adjusted his back against the edge of the column base and, aiming quickly, fired off his rockets and swiftly took shelter again. The floor at which he had fired flew up in the air; the greenish brunts of the plasma cannon turned it into a thick cloud of dust. He quickly moved towards the middle of the column’s base so as not to be caught by another tiny piece of mortar. Grinning, he leaned back against the base. “You won’t shoot again for a long time, you shithead!”

  While Henry was watching him, he heard the thunder of a Khak cannon behind his back. Instinctively he turned around and raised his rifle. Henry breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was Vandor. He was firing at a Kazmarazat, which was dashing and shooting towards the pillar behind which Keniko and Mark were hidden. Though Vandor had hit it a couple of times, he hadn’t managed to stop it. From Henry position he was able to follow its advance; Henry gave a loud shout. “Mark, lie down! When I shout, look out and shoot!”

  Mark nodded and lay down, and when the robot came closer to him, Henry shouted, “Now!!!”

  Mark fired only one precise shell. The blow hit the dashing Kazmarazat directly in its chest, completely tearing apart its internal structure of pipes and tubes. The blow threw it back towards the closest pillar, breaking the robot in two halves. At the same time, the plasma contained in the robot’s stomach exploded, turning it into a ball or flame, and everything fell silent.

  Henry waited for a while and then slowly peeped over the edge of the pillar and closely examined the room before him. Besides static crackling from the damaged robots, nothing moved or could be heard. The smoke, which had been spreading, diminished the already weak visibility, but they had to continue with his attack. Henry called to Keniko.“You should have a look at Miura’s leg!”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  When she had got across to Miura, Henry called to Vallery, who was just leaning out over the edge of her base, “Vallery!”

  Obviously, he scared her with his yelling; she caught her chest with a hand and watched him angrily, leaning back against the pillar’s base. Henry spread his hands apologetically, and she smiled.

  “Say it, Commander.”

  “Is all clear on that side?”

  “Nothing is moving.”

  “Good, I’m going forward.”

  She raised her rifle and leaned it over the edge. “I’m covering you.”

  Vandor called from the other side, “I’ll cover this side.”

  Henry had to run some seventy feet to reach the next column. He gripped his rifle firmly and ran over. Soon they had all crossed over to the next row of wide columns; only Vallery was left. As she was running towards him, a Khak cannon broke the silence and part of the floor behind her flew into the air. Her face assumed a lunatic expression, and she dashed as fast as her legs could carry her. She threw herself towards Henry in a forward somersault and, managing to regain her footing, landed against the column and came to a stop. Her body sagged to the ground next to him, and she started to examine herself all over with her hands. It was a wonder that no plasma blow had got her, and when she caught sight of the ruined floor behind her, she cursed loudly. “Fuck it!”

  Henry pulled her up with his hand. “You’re still in one piece. That’s good.”

  She got up and shook off the dust. “That was close!”

  Henry peeped over the edge of the pillar, but in the same second, he had to pull the head back because the Kazmarazat was firing and pieces of the wall were flying all over the place. He turned to Endy and shouted, “Endy, try to bounce some shells off the wall. It’s keeping us in a tight spot.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Endy adjusted the rocket launcher so the shells would have a delayed explosion and approached the edge of the pillar. “Commander…” he shouted, “...show me where it is!”

  Henry hurriedly fired a couple of bursts towards the place where he supposed the robot might be. A moment later the wall shook from the plasma blows, and he shouted, “Is that enough?”

  “More than enough,” said Endy, firing six shells one after another. His first shell hit the column and bounced off in the wrong direction, but the others found their aim. When the robot exploded, a terrible howl tore our ears. Kir appeared instantaneously behind Henry back like a ghost and leaned her hand on his shoulder.

  “Now I will perform!”

  “But it is…”

  “That was the last Kazmarazat.”

  “Do you want us to cover you?”

  “There is no need. You simply have to stay a respectable distance from me and him.”

  Henry took her hand and looked straight into her eyes, “We’ll take care of that.”

  She gazed down the chamber. “Everything is being OK. At last, we have arrived at the end of the play.”

  Henry drew her closer to him; she smiled and looked directly into his eyes. Leaning his helmet against her, he whispered worriedly, “Take care of you, my love!”

  She gave him a playful wink and sat down on the floor behind the pillar. Soon her apparition appeared and moved to the giant cylinder at the end of the huge room. When she was far enough away, Henry signaled with his fingers to Vallery and the others to cross over behind the next row of columns, to be closer if anything should go wrong.

  Kir’s apparition stopped some fifty meters before the cylinder and turned with her head. It was as if she was preparing for a duel, which was, in fact, true. A dense whirl of smoke surrounded her; Henry was embarrassed that he hadn’t expected it. The fog made her appear as though she was wearing a fluttering cape, though there was not a breath of wind. For a moment she gazed at him and flashed her bright red eyes, grinning with long, sharp fangs. He shivered at the sight of the scrawny, wrinkled face, but then he heard Kir’s voice, which resounded like a bell in his head. “You shouldn’t be afraid of him, my love.” She gazed then towards Neekulba’s last sanctuary and roared loudly, spreading her bony arms. “Where are you hiding now?”

  While her voice echoed throughout the entire room, Neekulba appeared, materializing before his chamber. He cried out loudly before
he began his attack.

  “Die!”

  A huge blue bolt of lightning flew out of his hand towards the apparition, who raised her hands indifferently and made a shield of herself. When it clashed with the shield, the lightning reformed itself into a sphere and illuminated the surrounding area with a dazzling light.

  “Can’t you do any better?!”

  Neekulba went mad and, with an expression of fury on his purple-red face, he threw out bundles of lightning from his hands. They all had to cover their eyes against the dazzling light that flashed at them. Before long he stopped, comprehending that he was unable to do her any harm; he narrowed his eyes to a thin line and said in an icy voice, “This has been merely a warm-up. Now you’ll die.”

  The caped figure only laughed and started to make circles with her bony fingers, enticing him to attack her. “I’d like to see that!”

  He swung his arms in the air and two large floor tiles, each weighing several tons, popped out like champagne corks and floated some three meters above the ground. The cloud of dust that emerged began to whirl excitedly around his legs. Neekulba only grinned with self-satisfaction and started to spin the tiles in a circle, and then with his almighty strength, he threw them towards the apparition. Tiny parts fell off the tiles as they flew directly at her, but she didn’t make any move. Just when Henry thought it was inevitable that they would hit her, she evaporated and materialized again several meters to the right, and the large tiles crashed against one of the pillars. Neekulba spread his hands and the whole area around him shook, and the floor tiles began to pop out with a loud thunder. Kir’s apparition didn’t move even an inch when the tile beneath her began to rise. Then she turned towards Henry, and he heard her warning voice in his head. “Right away, hide behind the columns!!!”

  Henry hid behind a column base and shouted, “All of you hide yourselves!”

  For the first time, Neekulba spoke in his robot voice, which echoed metallic in the huge hall? “It’s high time I cleaned away the garbage in my chamber!”