The Full Circle Six

by Edward T. Anthony

  Freddie and Jaws were inspecting a quantity of quality made linens laid out on a table, with Priscilla on the other side. She was looking toward a barrel filled with a sweet smelling liquid.

  With no warning, Freddie let out a blood-curdling scream that tore through the bustle of life surrounding him and caused several beings, including Drake, to look in his direction in order to find out what had startled them. Freddie was pointing at Priscilla, who was being dragged away by two very large Dooghinians toward a ground transport vehicle. One of the brutes had its hand over his beloved’s mouth and all that he could see of her face were her crystal green eyes, wide and terrified.

  Sammy and Kraus sprinted full speed at the assailants, boots pounding up dust, and hands tossing aside any who tried to obstruct their path. Jaws could do nothing but stare in open-mouthed amazement. Drake nearly leapt from his crowd of supporters, which somehow had managed to stay around twelve, no matter how many times he had written his name. As he was running toward the commotion, he realized that none of them would reach Priscilla in time. The big animals were even now tossing her into the rear of the transport, as if she were nothing more than a plaything they had just tired of.

  The four original crewman of the number thirteen stood alongside Jaws as they watched the vehicle speed away, leaving nothing but a trail of dust, and two perpendicular tracks, leading away from the scene of the horror.

  “We have to do something! We got to go after her, we can’t let them get away!” Freddie screamed into Drake’s face.

  “There is another of those ground transports,” Drake pointed Freddie’s attention by turning his head with his hands. “We can use that, if you know how to work it.”

  Freddie’s eyes were puffed from crying and his chest heaved with his breathing. His movements seemed jerky and convulsive. He dropped to his knees, bringing his hands up to his face. There was nothing he could imagine that would be worse than having to watch his love dragged away to be sold into slavery or even worse. This thought slapped reality back into Freddie. He stood and walked calmly to the transport to inspect the engine. Never before had anyone seen Frederick Stallworth so serious. He found the engine underneath the paltry protection of a sheet of metal after a few minutes of searching. Just as he had expected, the engine was as rudimentary as the rest of it.

  Solemnly, the engine and fuel operator turned to Drake and announced the vehicle was fit for transport. Drake sent the other three back to the racecraft. He determined that Freddie could go along with him in the effort to rescue Priscilla from these foul beasts. In truth, he needed Freddie in case the transport broke, and to instruct Drake on how to drive the thing.

  The thing in question was called, on Dooghin, an automobile. There were other names for it on the planet they had stopped at for a forced visit, but according to the manual that Freddie had found inside, that was the name. Apparently made of steel, it sat upon four circles of rubber that were filled with air. The center of these circles was also filled with metal. On the front side of the vehicle, it appeared the manufacturer had constructed a face. On either side of the front, a circular bulb was placed, allowing the means of transportation to operate when the dual suns of the planet expired over the horizon. Slightly beneath and precisely in between the eye-lights, was wide, wickedly grinning mouth, made of a soft metal. There were also mirrors on both sides that gave the impression of ears. The rear had lights posted on both sides as well. These, however, were different from the lights in front in that they were covered in a red colored glass that was textured on the inside. As a whole, the automobile resembled a large bullet with glass surrounding those who would sit inside. It was even the color of a bullet.

  Drake was doubtful of this contraption. It looked to be something used to kill, rather than something used to get around. He knew, though, that he could waste no time, so he opened the strange hatch and slid in behind the navigation controls. Everything was different and nothing made sense to him. There were not enough knobs, buttons, and switches in here. Drake was not sure he would be able to drive it. He was saved from trying however, when Freddie opened the door and told him it would be easier if he were the one to navigate on this mission. Drake slid over on the seat. There were two seats in the transport, one in front of the other, that had to be benches wrapped in animal skin.

  Freddie had glanced at the operator’s manual, and knew the theory of how to drive this invention, but theory was incredibly different from real life. As he turned the key protruding from the ignition, the archaic style motor sputtered, choked, and then roared into life. Smoke discharged into the air, from behind, reminding Drake of the fog produced by the number fifteen craft. Freddie’s face was full of rage, something Drake had never seen, and did not really think to be possible until this moment. Determined to catch his beloved’s kidnappers, he slammed one of the two pedals on the floor with his foot. According to the manual he had just skimmed through, this was the accelerator. The engine howled, wailing in a high pitch, but the automobile stood still. The only change was the increase in smoke, coming from the rear.

  “Why are we not moving?” Drake asked. He was intrigued by the mood Freddie was in. Normally, the carefree Freddie had an arrogant air about him that could not be disrupted by even extreme circumstances.

  “It’s a basic motor, that uses a transmission,” Freddie replied without looking at Drake. “I’ve got to find a way to switch gears.”

  “Gears?” Drake was even more confounded. “What about those sticks?” he inquired, pointing to the levers protruding from the shaft that connected the steering circle to the engine compartment.

  Freddie grabbed the lever on his right and pulled. They could both feel the machine switch into a different gear, and Freddie gave Drake a look as if to say, good job. He again smashed his foot on the acceleration pedal, and the vehicle lurched backward, forcing both men to hit their heads. Freddie’s hit the steering wheel, and Drake’s crashed into the console separating him from the front window. Yelling in frustration, Freddie stomped both feet on the other pedal and they screeched to a stop, but not before demolishing the table of linens and cloth that some of the crew members had been examining just moments earlier. He noticed when he pulled the lever; there was a little screen that relayed to him the positions of the gears. Seeing one marked with a D, he pulled the lever into that position, thinking it to stand for drive.

  This time, when he pressed the accelerator, they shot forward, and just in time. The owner of the table was flying at the automobile in a fury, flailing his arms, one on which was wielding a long piece of metal that looked like it could do some serious damage, and screaming loudly. This disturbance rose quite a bit of attention from the surrounding Dooghinians. Many of them assumed the man was being robbed and joined him in chasing the culprits. The owner of the weapons shop, that so fascinated Kraus, Sammy, and Juhaen, fired several shots from an ancient blasting device, and threw one of his exploding balls. The detonation was behind the rapidly receding vehicle, and the blast only helped their forward momentum.

  Drake and Freddie let loose simultaneous sighs of relief as they drove over the rocky terrain, bouncing in their seats. Freddie followed the tracks of the kidnappers, keeping the pedal pressed as far as it could go to the floor. Soon, they were crashing through rows upon rows of tall plants. Drake recognized this as corn. It grew in many areas of his home planet, and he was quite fond of the vegetable. He made a mental note to remember it was here. If they could somehow procure some of this from the Dooghinians before they left, it would be a fine addition to the meat and bread they had been supplied with by the league. It would be almost a treat. The tracks made a sharp turn to the left, so Freddie followed suit. Bursting through the final row of corn, they entered a thick forest at too high of a speed. Freddie whipped the wheel to the right and the transport skid an entire rotation before taking off again though a path cut in the woods. The ride became increasingly more turbulent as they bounced over tree roots and uneven imperfections
in the path. It was obvious the attackers had fled this way. The transport they had used was much bigger that the one chosen by Drake and Freddie, and left deep tracks that were easy to follow. There were animals of some sort leaping through the trees. In fact, everywhere there were creatures of various sizes and skin. Drake had never seen creatures such as most of these species. He wondered silently if any of them would be good for eating.

  Sir Frederick saw nothing but the tracks left by Priscilla’s assailants. He had never felt this angry and did not have an idea of what he was going to do when he finally caught up to them, but he was not going to let them get away.

  A few minutes later, the two-man rescue team emerged from the forest into civilization. Paved streets crossed each other at intersection of blocks full of tall structures made of metal and glass. Freddie saw their targets nine streets ahead of him take another left. Weaving around the other automobiles on the road, he continually accelerated, refusing to let up on the pedal. When he turned on the street he had seen the evil Dooghinians take, a primal growl started in his gut and worked its way upward, morphing into a snarl that escaped his sneering lips. Drake was more and more impressed by the minute. He had always seen Freddie as a pretty boy, not fit for violence or fighting. The rage and fury coming from the robe wearing, usually peaceful, man was telling a different story.

  Drake thought to himself it would be prudent to keep quiet while Freddie drove. He didn’t look like he would handle distractions very nicely.

  The city fell abruptly away and they were speeding through a meadow of flowers whose beauty could not be ignored, even in this dire situation. Brilliant purples, oranges, reds, yellows, blues, greens, and several colors beyond the spectrum of what Drake had ever seen, loudly demanded attention from any who wandered into their midst. Freddie tore through the gorgeous plants without so much as a glance toward anything but the now visible ground transport that held his darling against her will.

  Flowers and fragrance gave way to an open field of lazily rolling hills, covered in grass. In the distance was something that even Freddie, in his temper, could not ignore. A gigantic castle with towers reaching toward the clouds was sitting on top of the largest hill in the area. Circling the castle in the sky was a prehistoric looking bird thing, with an enormous chain that stretched down to the roof embattlements of the castle. Even from this distance, they could see the beak of this monster was large enough to swallow both of them whole at the same time. Freddie approached to within a kilometer of the palace and stopped the engine. The kidnappers had gone into the castle by way of a drawbridge that closed as soon as they were over it.

  The castle turrets were armed. There were rapid-fire lasers posted every six meters all the way around. In front of where the drawbridge came down, two ancient looking racecrafts, with large, out of date cannons were strategically set down, with their foundations buried in earth. Drake saw all of this through his holoscope, that he kept in the inside pocket of his leather Future Fuels jacket. The holoscope was little used since Drake had acquired, as a prize from his first race, the remarkable holochart gazers. It was a small device that unfolded to be about a meter in length. When Drake looked through the holoscope, he saw images projected with a forty five percent magnification.

  They stepped out of the ground transport. Drake did not want them to be heard as they approached. To the left was a portion of the forest they had ripped through. Neither of the race team members could figure out how the woods could be so close, when they had gone over two different terrains since last seeing it. This was not the time to try to figure it out. They could see insects the size of small aircraft, sluggishly roaming the outside edges of the trees and the flowers. Drake wanted to get into a position to view whatever was flying around, chained by the neck to the castle, but he certainly did not intend either of them to be seen by it.

  Drake ducked down low opposite the fortress behind the silent monster of transport, with Freddie by his side, sitting with his back propped against the transport, and raised his holoscope to his eye. The beast was approximately thirty feet long, but had no girth to it. Wide, leathery axe shaped wings beat continuously in the air to keep it aloft. Its tail appeared feathery, but scales glinted in the sunlight, some hidden in the layers of the feathers, and others grew on the outside, giving it look of having holes. The neck was the majority of the creature. Expanding nearly twenty feet, the skin was decorated in wavy patterns such as one might see on a serpent. The head was immensely disproportionate to the whole body. Out of the back of the cranium stretched a long, tapering spike-like horn. The eye was the only part on the upper portion of the face. It was so large; there was no room for anything else to grow. While the iris was diamond in shape, its pupil was vertical in the style of a feline or dragon. Its mouth began right below the eye. The teeth were too big for its beak, so that it could never close all the way, and were protruding a good length from the head at different angles. The tongue was also snake-like in appearance, and hung from the mouth between the teeth, dripping drool or poison, it was tough for Drake to tell which. The lower jaw was covered with more feathers, but the designs, continued from the neck, made it appear as if the monster had extra rows of teeth.

  Drake lowered his holoscope to the base of the castle to confirm what he thought he had seen. There were some rich individuals who would purchase old racecrafts for decoration or, in some cases, sentimental value. The crafts posted where the drawbridge would come down had no markings, either sponsorships or otherwise. Then, something else caught his eye. There was a river blocking the front door. He could only assume that it encircled the entire castle. He relayed the information of what he saw to Freddie.

  “What are the guns and the dragon-bird for, do you think?” Freddie asked Drake when the commander had finished speaking.

  “I imagine the beast is just a pet, though I wouldn’t want to get near it,” Drake replied. “It doesn’t seem to have enough room for much of anything but the circle it’s flying in. The guns are probably there to shoot down anything that’s foolish enough to enter their range.”

  Freddie paled at this, and looked crestfallen. He had not come all this way to be stopped by a river and some guns, however, and was confident that Drake would find a way inside. If he could not, Freddie would die trying. He intended that Priscilla would know how much he cared for her, even if it meant his sacrifice. He didn’t care about anything anymore, as long as she was aware of that. Freddie stood up and gave Drake a fierce glance. Drake knew that this was not directed toward him, but at their common enemy. Freddie was the one to initiate advancement on foot, Drake following closely behind.

  They had covered half the distance, when the ground became sand. It was a relief to them both, for the sand had much more give, and was comfortable to their legs. Freddie had never seen sand before, and was momentarily curious, and a bit nervous, at the substance. Minute pebbles were all it seemed to be made of, and this fascinated him, but he did not feel like it should be a surface to walk on. Drake, on the other hand, knew sand quite well. There had been a beach not too far from his home growing up. He had forgotten the rough texture of it falling through his fingers. It even had its own scent that flooded him with memories. He quickly pushed them away, though. He had to concentrate on how to get inside that seemingly impenetrable fortress.

  Drake had led them as close as he dared to the edge of the forest, and its huge butterflies, bigger than a horse. He also made out what he thought to be a bee, though it was twice as large as the ground transport that they had used to get here. Hoping they were not near that thing’s hive, Drake led them a little more distance away from the forest. After about a dozen more steps, Drake saw Freddie kneel down. Confused he called out.

  “What are you doing?” Drake sounded incredulous. “There is no time for prayers, let’s go.”

  “I’m stuck,” Freddie, said, nervousness turning to fright. He was slowly sinking into the ground, which was still covered in sand. Underneath this portion of
the sand, there was a very thick, black, sticky substance that made movement difficult and escape by one’s own power impossible. The more he struggled, the quicker he sank, and the area of softness surrounding Freddie expanded. Drake was starting to become frightened himself, this was something entirely new to him, and he had no clues as to how to rescue his teammate. He had tried to approach Freddie to pull him out, but when he felt the suction pulling his boot, had to retreat even further away.

  Drake ran to the forest, looked around, and sprinted back carrying a tree branch. He held it out as far as he could, while holding the very bottom of the branch, but Freddie had not ceased his struggles and was now waist deep. As a consequence, the area of black adhesive had expanded farther than Drake could hope to reach. The only options left were to watch sir Frederick Stallworth sink all the way down, or to try to carry on the mission himself. He could not, in good conscience, leave the race team member he had known for so long. Drake decided to stay and pay his respects. Out of the corner of his eye, Drake saw one of the gigantic butterflies fluttering directly toward Freddie.

  “Hold your arms up!” He had to scream because Freddie was also yelling and may not have heard him. “Lift up your arms and grab that big bug!”

  Freddie turned his face as much as the tar-sand would allow, and a spark of hope winked inside of him. He stopped moving and held his arms straight up. Already, he had sunk to his armpits. The butterfly was three meters away and idly covering the gap. Both men thought that there was not enough time. Freddie’s sinking had slowed, but was still steady. Freddie’s chin slowly dipped into the muck, and the insect had not yet come close enough to grab. Priscilla’s smiling face appeared in his mind, and a calm serenity enveloped him. Just as his eyes were following his nose down, he felt a powdery something brush against his left hand. Anxiously, he clapped both hands together and squeezed. Drake shouted a cheer and raised his fist in the air. Freddie was not so excited. He could feel the bottom of the butterfly’s abdomen wanting to cave in under his grip. When he tried to loosen his hold, his hands wanted to slide all the way off. The extraction was an even slower process than the plummeting was. Freddie gasped frenziedly as his chest ascended above the level of the killer sand. To his utter amazement, and his extreme disbelief, his rescuer started into the sky. He was weeping with joy and relief when his feet finally emerged.