by Don Cook
As Rick’s CTC team captured the action on video, Khraa/Astra fired her ray-gun again at Mephistula/Stanton and hit her on the horned area of her head, which caused the invader candidate to bleed pinkish-green blood.
“Now the entire Earth knows who you really are, Mephistula,” Khraa/Astra said with brave resolve, “because everyone with any sort of media reception and monitoring set of an audio or video nature, even if it hasn’t been used for ages, is watching you and I go at it now! They’ve seen the demonic farce of a convention here, not to mention the bloody violence that you have unleashed upon the entire state of Minnesota!
“The world knows now that you, Mephistula,” Khraa/Astra declared, “were behind the destruction of the world’s largest twine-ball in the small town of Darwin about 1.25 Earth-hours from here — even though it appeared to be completely vandalized and destroyed by two leftist punk-girls who cut it with hatchets! You were the one who planted that vile suggestion of destruction into their girl-power-ruined minds!”
Everyone present, generally aware of the shameful recent vandalism of the famed Minnesota giant ball of twine, gasped in exacerbated shock and revulsion at “Stanton’s” crimes.
“Like the good Earthman Abraham Lincoln said in a past century,” Khraa/Astra snidely chided Mephistula/Stanton as she zapped the evil alien’s head with another laser-ray burst and made her spurt more pinkish-green blood, “‘you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.’ Well, Mephistula, as these Earthlies would say, THE JIG IS UP!”
Mephistula/Stanton roared and gyrated violently in hellish anger and brutal pain, with the effects of the garlic powder sprinkled upon her taking a brutal toll on her!
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it, Beelzebub’s belle?!” Khraa/Astra said with a witty sneer. “That, and a good dash of garlic powder. No wonder many believers in Christ over the centuries used garlic to keep you and your big, bad ol’ devil-daddy off their backs!”
Mephistula/Stanton roared more loudly and more painfully, while most of the Earthlings still alive and conscious in the Exhibit Hall Theater became so terrified that many of them — members of Stanton’s party (including the mindless hacks), federal, state, and local security people, Randy Rae employees, people from the various media networks covering the convention and others — fell to their knees and prayed desperate prayers of repentance. These scared masses came back to faith in the Christ they had often abandoned in college, seeing that the person they thought was Mallory Stanton was actually a beast from the pit of hell.
“These repentant souls here have gotten wiser than Einstein to you, Mephistula Ignacia Stanton!” Khraa/Astra loudly sneered, as she flew overhead, bedazzling the Earthlings on the floor. “They’ve begun to realize that you are just Satan’s bad little girl. You’re simply one of the devil’s mega-legions of disciples whom Satan has used across time to woefully deceive people into becoming Satanists, Hitler Youth members, communists, terrorists, hateful feminists, Rosicrucians, Yippies, greedy Yuppies, anarchists, atheists and scores and scores of hundreds of millions of other kinds of fools lured to evil, governors and governed alike, with the promise of collective and/or individual absolute power, only to corrupt them absolutely and drag all of their souls down into the bowels of hell!”
“HOW DARE YOU TRY TO CRUSH MY PLANS!” Mephistula/Stanton snarled in pain, as she fired her ray-gun at Khraa/Astra, but missed.
“Such are the ways of the wicked, huh?” Khraa/Astra said, as she returned laser-ray volley after laser-ray volley at Mephistula/Stanton, with the rays striking her abdomen. “Take that awful Austrian-born political vampire Adolph Hitler!”
“YOU WILL NOT SPEAK ABOUT MY FAVORITE SON LIKE THAT, EVER!” Mephistula/Stanton snarl-screamed.
“So, my not-so-dear,” Khraa/Astra said in jesting mockery as she fired a laser-ray at Mephistula’s derriere and made the devil’s daughter howls-snarl in pain, “Der Fuehrer was your bad little beastie-boy? You mean, that wimpy-mustachioed, mega-multiple-mass-murdering, city-bombing, Earth-decimating ‘Sieg-Heil-aholic’ anti-Semite pipsqueak Adolph Schicklgruber Hitler? He was your brutally destructive little über-brat?! And here we all thought Hitler’s mother was someone named Klara Pölzl —!”
“I MERELY PROJECTED MY WILL AND MENTALLY PLACED MY DNA INTO THAT COW OF A WOMAN’S BODY, CAPTAIN!” Mephistula/Stanton snarl-shouted as she Marxist-waved a clenched fist at Khraa/Astra and fired her ray-gun at Khraa/Astra, only to miss again! “I FORGED MY ADOLPH IN 1880s AUSTRIA SIMPLY BY CONCEIVING HIM WITH MY MIND!
“YES, CAPTAIN, I GAVE HIM THE HARDEST LIFE I COULD TO FORGE THAT AUSTRO-GERMANIC SON OF MINE INTO THE RULING GIANT HE BECAME! I TRIED MY BEST THROUGH HIM AND MANY, MANY OTHERS TO CAST BOTH YAHWEH’S CHOSEN KINDRED AND THE BRIDE OF THE SON INTO THE SEA OF THE PAST SO THAT THEY COULD NO LONGER BE REMEMBERED!”
“Sure, hell’s belle, sure!” Khraa/Astra said snidely, as she fired her ray-gun at Mephistula/Stanton’s tail and singed it! “And where’s your bad little boy Adolf now, ‘Braun’ cow?”
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” Mephistula counter-jested, while she fired at Khraa/Astra and missed.
“And you and your father always fail, and will ultimately fail!” Khraa/Astra said. “Why don’t you two just quit fighting the Good Lord’s Heavenly City Hall and —?!”
Khraa/Astra continued while she buzzed Mephistula/Stanton, “Oh, wait! Let me answer that! You and your hellish father know you can’t possibly win, so the best you can do is to drag as many human souls as you can down into hell with you! But you, Mephistula, fail to see that while Jesus Christ’s death at Calvary for the sins of all humankind looked like a defeat to the seculars, His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead actually paved the only way to salvation and Eternal life with the Lord God Almighty. As opposed to the eternal, living death of hell offered by you and your shyster-father, the Devil and Satan, deceiver of the entire human race from Eve and Adam on down! Even if just one single solitary sinner repents and makes a 180-degree life-turn, the Good Lord can and will win but good, and countless millions already have!
“WE ARE NOT THROUGH WITH EARTH YET!” Mephistula/Stanton snarled vulgarly as she fired her ray-gun at Khraa/Astra and missed again — but barely.
“And to keep up your useless fight, Baal-zee-butt,” Khraa/Astra shouted as she zoomed overhead and fired her ray-gun again at Mephistula’s backside, causing the devil’s daughter excruciating pain with every laser-strike, while Rick’s news team still bravely recorded the action, “you have to stoop lower than a snake’s belly and spread lie after lie after lie, including the compromising lie that would prohibit the reinstatement or passage of laws based on the Lord’s righteousness, no matter how God-fearing any given politician-believer in Christ is!”
Khraa/Astra fired another laser-ray at Mephistula/Stanton’s behind with the rays squarely striking home, which caused Mephistula/Stanton’s to howl-snarl in more pain!
“IN CASE YOU’VE FORGOTTEN, MY ALIEN FIEND,” Mephistula/Stanton snarled and hissed loudly, as she fired her ray-gun at Khraa/Astra, but hit another light-fixture instead, “AMERICA’S ALL ABOUT LIBERTY, DAMNIT!”
“Liberty is good only when it is coupled with God’s righteousness!” Khraa/Astra said, while firing her ray-gun at Mephistula/Stanton and frying a scalding burn into the back of the invader candidate’s head. “When the horse of liberty alone pulls the cart of a nation, it is like a wild bronco that will kick the nation’s cart to pieces! But when the horse of the Lord’s righteousness is the lead horse, the horse of liberty will be a calmer animal that will be of the best and biggest help to all freedom-loving humans, or do you refuse to see that, Mephistula Ignacia Stanton?!
“The masses of feminist Earthwomen and other power-lusting rotters you’ve controlled for centuries have tried to kill the horse of righteousness!” Khraa/Astra shouted further, as she flew over Mephistula/Stanton and fired a higher-radiat
ion ray at her lower left abdomen, which left a burnt gash from which more pinkish-green blood copiously spurted. “Even a tough guy like Trump had to compromise! You sure know how to scare males into doing only what is only half-right or all-wrong. But I’m giving the better Earthmen, the better Earthwomen and all of the Earth-children a chance to set things right by showing you up for what you really are, Beast-Mistress!”
Khraa/Astra flew behind Mephistula/Stanton and fired another ray on the invader candidate’s buttocks and brutally burned the evil alien’s hindquarters, which caused Mephistula/Stanton to howl and hiss in outrage and pain!
“ALRIGHT, YOU KANNATIKAN LOW-LIFE!” Mephistula/Stanton shouted. “YOU ASKED FOR IT!”
The seriously bleeding Mephistula/Stanton flapped her huge bat-like wings and flew swiftly towards Khraa/Astra, and began to brutally box and wrestle with her spacesuited enemy in mid-air.
Mephistula attempted to smash the faceplate on Khraa/Astra’s helmet, but Khraa/Astra, having telepathically seen it coming, sent a mental electrical charge into Mephistula/Stanton’s right arm, and deflected her fist back into the devilish assailant’s face.
Mephistula tumbled backwards towards several people below, only to regain her aerial “footing”, flap her large wings and fly back at Khraa/Astra to resume her attack.
As Rick’s news team caught all the action that could not be recorded or broadcast by any other media network, Rick exclaimed on-camera, “This is straight outta… can you believe this?!”
Khraa/Astra gave Mephistula/Stanton a blow from her fist right between the eyes, which phased the devil’s daughter enough to send the winged villainess flying backward, only for Mephistula/Stanton to dash back upward and charge back at Khraa/Astra with ray-guns blazing. Khraa/Astra sped sideways out of the way while returning ray-gunfire, and with well-aimed laser-beams, badly burned Mephistula/Stanton’s wings, which sent the bat-winged invader candidate tumbling downward. Mephistula/Stanton then hit the floor and crushed several people below to death.
Mephistula/Stanton knew she could never fly again, but she also knew she could still fight. She fired her ray-gun at Khraa/Astra at full intensity, only for the spacesuited flying space-femme to zip sideways, then on an up-and-rightward angle, then down-and-leftward, then straight upward, dashing over Mephistula/Stanton’s head behind and over her, before Khraa/Astra zapped the back of Mephistula/Stanton’s wings and then her head! As Khraa/Astra zipped through the air, Mephistula/Stanton snarled, hissed, and screamed, and staggered for a few steps among the dead people crushed by her fall.
Khraa/Astra, seeing that her foe was growing lamer and lamer, lightly touched down before the invader candidate, holding her ray-gun as if to fire.
“We needn’t continue this anymore,” Khraa/Astra said, as she put her gun back into its charger-holster, “so let’s shed some light on all this from the Father…” The white-light cross in the rear-left corner increased to its full ten-foot-tall size and lit to its brightest luminance, as Khraa/Astra went on, “…and from the Son…” as the second cross behind the podium increased to its right ten-foot size and lit up with the same fierce brightness, before she concluded, “…and from the Holy Ghost!” The third white-light cross in the rear-right corner completed the white light-cross trio as it, too, expanded to ten feet tall and shone brightly! Mephistula/Stanton snarled and hissed as the light began to burn her to death!
“And now, for a nice, hearty little wooden-stake dinner!” Khraa/Astra shouted in triumph, as she leapt and charged at the beast-marauder who killed her family, friends and quadrillions of others across the universe, stabbed Mephistula/Stanton with the wooden cross-like stake and drove it straight into her satanic heart!
Mephistula/Stanton hissed and screamed as she fell onto her back with her feet facing the cross at the podium. The fallen marauder gyrated and writhed in deathly agony with a shrill, deafening scream that would curl the hairs of even the baldest of creatures.
“YOU MURDEROUS HARLOT!” Mephistula/Stanton snarled and screamed out her infamous last words. “YOU SHALL PAY FOR THIS, KHRAA-VEH! FOR WHERE THERE IS ONE OF ME, THERE IS ANOTHER! AND ANOTHER! And you WILL pay… Khraa-Veh… ven…”
With those vain last intelligible words of infamy and one prolonged shrill, hissing final death-scream, Mephistula jerked her back upward sharply, and then finally collapsed into unconsciousness. At the very stroke of 12 Noon Central Time, Mephistula/Stanton, daughter of Satan by Eve, über-butcher of octillions of lives across time, annihilatrix of quadrillions of planets and destroyer of countless civilizations, had died.
Mephistula/Stanton’s exoskeleton and flesh ignited and burned up in the same kind of flames that consumed Eggers’ body until all that remained was an eerie, satanically frightening skeleton that looked like a terrifying hybrid between that of a woman and a bat. Its bony hands were open, each with seven evil talon-like fingers pointing to the ceiling.
Khraa/Astra, still spacesuited and with her gold opaque visor down, slowly walked over dozens of people who were either unconscious or dead to the skeleton that was Mephistula/Stanton and used her comcorder to determine if the bones were indeed those of the monstrous despot-terrorist. When her comcorder confirmed, based upon past DNA data on the infamous mass-murderess, that the skeleton was indeed that of Mephistula/Stanton, Khraa/Astra was satisfied that justice was done at long last… even though she was far too weary to celebrate.
And as was the case with Eggers, the skeleton of Mephistula/Stanton turned to powdery dust… and, even though the skeleton was indoors, a wind of mysterious origin blew all the dust away with an eerie, mildly loud gust.
Suddenly, inexplicable thunder rattled across the world, with crashes and rumblings that shook the foundations of all of Earth’s structures, even the sturdiest! Khraa/Astra knew it could only be the work of one evil entity.
“YOU MURDERED MY DAUGHTER!” bellowed Satan in angry grief at the death of his daughter and staunchest ally among fleshly rotters. “YOU, CAPTAIN KHRAA-VEH, YOU BRUTAL BUTCHERER! YOU DIRTY SLAYER!”
“Ah... C’est dommage!” said Khraa/Astra, in mock sympathy at the disembodied voice. “SATAN! That’s right, Baal-zee-butthead! I know it’s you, Prince of Darkness! You tried to have your bad little girl take over the White House and become the Jezebel-In-Chief! But by the grace of the Lord God Almighty, you have failed yet again! What a hellish loser thou art, O son of the Morning Star. Anyone who knows what the morning star planet Venus is really like has a crystal-clear-cut idea of what hell is like, too!”
“I WILL VANQUISH YOU!” Satan snarled with a reptilian hiss that sent chills of dread up the spines of everyone present, even Khraa/Astra. “MY SON KUURALLAAN IS MORE VICIOUS THAN HIS MOTHER. AND I AM STRONGER THAN ANY —!”
LAY NOT YOUR HANDS UPON KHRAA-VEH OR THE CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS, SATAN, Jesus shouted. OFF WITH YOU — NOW!
The thunder subsided briefly as the disembodied voice of Satan snarled in anger at Khraa/Astra, “I am not through with you yet, Jesus Christ — or you, Captain Khraa-Veh ven-Elheem!”
One more shuddering crash of thunder sounded around the globe, and then… silence. Dead, deafening, worldwide silence. The storms that always raged on one part of the globe or another oddly held their winds back. Even Antarctica’s fierce, wintry July winds were inexplicably stilled.
Khraa/Astra, knowing fully what she had to do next, radioed to Mike in space, “Shepherd-Girl to Blue 1. Shepherd-Girl to Blue 1. Do you read?”
COCKPIT OF FIGHTER-SPACECRAFT “BLUE 1”
“Shepherd-Girl,” Mike said, “This is Blue 1. I read you, Khraavie. I saw the whole thing! Thank the Good Lord we won!”
“Yes, Mike. Thank God we did” Khraa/Astra said, as her image was displayed in a picture-in-picture manner in the main viewscreen’s upper right-hand corner. “I assume the Kannatikan fleet is now totally disabled, and that the Amkerians have surrounded the energy-remains of the invading Kannatikan flag-starship with anti-radiation probes.”
“That’s
a yes, Khraavie. So, dear, what’s next?”
“Look at your main viewscreen.”
Mike looked at Blue 1’s main viewscreen and saw that the Karsarvan was deploying a sphere to the Earth that came to rest over the intersection of Earth’s 0-degree longitude Greenwich Prime meridian and the 0 degree-latitude Equator. The sphere then split into two smaller spherical probes that flew to each of the Poles, and each of them divided into three yet still smaller ovular probes, two of them flying to 45 degrees latitude north and south of the Equator and the third one remaining over the oceanic 0 degrees latitude/longitude point. Each of the three elongated probes then split into six smaller versions of the polar-hovering probes. Each group of probes dispersed themselves along their respective lines of latitude over 180 degrees longitude, as well as 120 degrees and 60 degrees longitude both east and west of the Greenwich meridian.
The entire Earth was covered by the Amkerian network of evenly-spaced orbital probes, as the shuttlecraft USS Dingharton, a yacht-sized three-pointed saucer-shuttlecraft emerged from the Karsarvan’s underbelly spacecraft-hangar and sped towards Earth in the general direction of Minneapolis.
“Like I said,” Mike radioed, perplexed into a dumbfounded state, “what’s next?”
“Shepherd-Girl to Karsarvan. Shepherd-Girl to Karsarvan,” Khraa/Astra radioed the Karsarvan, as Mike listened in, “do you read?”
“Karsarvan to Shepherd-Girl,” Nimmax radioed, “we read you.”
“Activate Operation Klaatu, Phase Alph, Sub-operation Shut Up.”
“Karsarvan to Shepherd-Girl,” Nimmax radioed, “we acknowledge. Activating Operation Klaatu, Phase Alph, Sub-operation Shut Up… now.”
Mike watched as all over the planet, every media outlet, every cellular communications network, every telecommunications and Internet provider, and anything to do with broadcast or webcast media or media of any sort was silenced and deactivated. All manner of video media displaying a slate whose language changed every two seconds and which read: