Storm Over Saturn s-5

by Mack Maloney

"Do you know exactly where your friend is being held?" he asked Zoloff, eye still looking through the telescope.

  "As I said — in the Dungeon of the Doomed," he moaned again. "As deep as one can go in that horrid place."

  Hunter studied the palace and the mountain, or as much as he could see of it through the mist. It seemed impenetrable, at least from the bottom up. To him that meant that the only way to gain access to the place was from the air.

  He turned back to Zoloff. "Did you say there is a clock ticking here?" he asked.

  "Ping has vowed to kill our friend at the stroke of midnight," was Zoloff's breathless, anxious reply.

  Hunter thought a moment. "What time is it now?"

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth when "the sun" above them slid down to the horizon. Day turned to night, just like that. Annie hugged him tighter. Her father moaned again.

  "Night has fallen!" Zoloff cried. "We must hurry!"

  Hunter was astonished by the sudden sunset.

  "Yes," he said. "I guess we should."

  They were quickly back inside the flying craft — their only delay was waiting for Annie to do another costume change. She emerged wearing a stunning micro-miniskirt, tight silver blouse, and very alluring boots. Her long brown hair was now tied up by a piece of golden sash. She was mind-bogglingly beautiful.

  She was also holding another set of clothes. Long red leotards, purple shorts, a skintight tunic, and a cape. She handed them to Hunter. "I got some new clothes for you, too," she said sweetly. He would have done just about anything for her at that moment — she was so stunning. But he looked at the outlandish outfit and just shook his head. "Sorry," he told her. "But I ain't climbing into that."

  * * *

  They lifted off the cliff in good fashion, Hunter expertly manipulating the simple controls of the spacecraft as Zoloff worked the lightbulbs.

  Hunter had briefly studied the contraption's strings before climbing aboard, amazed at the long, thin lines disappearing up into the sky. What was going on up there? What would he find on the other end? Did he really want to know? Maybe not…

  The ship moved ever so slowly now across the divide between the two mountains. The windows at the front of the craft were small, Hunter could barely see what was in front of him, never mind the terrain below. He looked up into the sudden night sky but saw no stars, no other moons, and certainly not the gigantic mass of the planet Saturn or its rings. How did they do that? he wondered.

  It was more like he was driving a boat than some strange aerial machine. The air seemed thick, the going sluggish, and the rumbling whine coming from the faux power plant was beginning to hurt his ears. But Annie was right beside him, as always. She was radiating both beauty and innocent vulnerability. This had the potential of being a very dangerous endeavor once they reached the castle. Why then was she here? There was no reason. Yet here she was. Just another part of the plot.

  They were about halfway across the divide when Zoloff let out a cry.

  "The Wingmen!" he bellowed, nose pressed against the ship's tiny porthole. "They are coming to attack us!"

  Wingmen?

  Hunter looked left to see that, yes indeed, there was a squadron of winged men heading right for them. They looked just about as ridiculous as the tin soldiers they'd battled during their escape from the cliff. It's just that they all had wings.

  Now what?

  "Use the smoke gun!" Zoloff cried.

  Smoke gun?

  Annie unclenched from Hunter just long enough to point to a lever on the control panel. He would have sworn it was not there just a moment ago.

  "The smoke gun?" he asked her.

  She clutched him again. "Yes — the Wingmen hate it!"

  Hunter just shrugged and turned the ship to meet the incoming aerial attackers. They were firing some kind of weapons at them, but Hunter could see only tiny pebble-size shrapnel hitting the side of the spacecraft. The tin soldiers' spears had gone right through the craft's skin up on the cliff. That's how thin it was. Yet these BBs were bouncing off.

  The attackers were now just one hundred feet off his bow. Hunter pulled the weapon lever. There was a burst of smoke from a muzzle that had suddenly appeared on the ship's nose. Though seemingly in defiance of physical law, the puffy smoke traveled faster than the craft itself and soon covered the dozen or so winged men. That was all it took.

  Suddenly their tight formation was in great disarray. The Wingmen began streaking all over the sky, out of control, almost as if they were surprised to see this simple weapon used against them. They quickly regrouped, turned themselves 180 degrees, and beat a very haggard retreat.

  "That was easy," Hunter muttered.

  That's when the huge flaming arrow went by.

  Hunter's highly advanced sixth sense detected the crude missile coming about a second before it would have nailed them. It was just enough time for him to spin the steering wheel and push the strange little craft enough to starboard to avoid getting hit.

  Yet no sooner had he saved them from one arrow when another rose out of the palace, trailing smoke and weak flame, but heading right for them. Hunter stood on the brakes and spun the wheel at the same time. The craft fell off to the left; the missile just kept on going.

  The palace was now just a few hundred feet below mem, but it was obvious their arrival had been detected.

  "Fear not!" Zoloff cried. "We can defeat them because justice is on our side!"

  The third flaming arrow hit them an instant later.

  It came out of nowhere. Like the smoke gun and its muzzle, one moment it wasn't there, the next it was.

  The arrow rammed them head-on. The flames and wimpy smoke spurted through the cracked windshield, making almost no noise but causing Annie to scream and her father to groan. By instinct, Hunter looked down at the controls. All six lightbulbs had blinked out.

  We're screwed, he thought.

  But then he realized that although they had a big flaming arrow stuck in their nose, the ship's flying integrity didn't seem to be affected. He floored the gas pedal and put the ship into a dive.

  Their sudden increase in speed served to both put the fire out and dislodge the smoldering arrow from their bow. Trouble was, they were only about twenty feet away from the palace courtyard — and still heading nearly straight down.

  Damn…

  The slatternly dancers scattered as Hunter yanked back on the steering wheel and managed to hit both the gas and the brake at the same time. The corresponding jolt served to bring them to a stop a mere six feet from the surface. They hung here like this for just an instant; then the marionette strings above them finally snapped, and they crashed the last few feet to the ground.

  Annie screamed, of course, but Hunter had grabbed her at the last moment and was able to cushion her from the worst of the blow. Zoloff was tossed about, but he, too, was unharmed.

  The flimsy door fell off, and the three passengers tumbled out of the strange little craft. When they all looked up again, they were surrounded by tin soldiers.

  Hunter got Zoloff and Annie to their feet as the circle of palace guards closed in on them. They were similar in dress to the tin soldiers they'd fought on the cliff, except they wore larger helmets, and the tips of their spears were spouting weak tongues of flame.

  Hunter's priority at that moment was protecting Annie. She was stuck to him like glue as always, but he managed to put himself between her and the creaking guards. He didn't have time to think about what they should do next. Zoloff, however, was way ahead of him. The elderly scientist took a roundhouse swing at the nearest soldier, bitting him square in the face. The guy went over like a lead weight, hitting the man next to him, and the man next to him, setting off a chain reaction that toppled a dozen of the palace guards in a second's time.

  The unexpected bulge sent several of the guards falling right into Hunter. He dispatched each one with a solid punch to the jaw. The most ridiculous aspect of their battlesuits was their buckethead-style hel
met. It was a wonder that they could see anything out the two tiny slits provided for the eyes. Plus the helmets appeared to be very heavy, making the palace guards needlessly clumsy and slow.

  Zoloff kept punching, and so did Hunter. The guards were easy to hit. One punch usually did the trick, flattening them. With heavy armor weighing them down, it was hard for them to get back up. The problem was, they just kept on coming. There seemed to be no end to the ridiculously armored soldiers pouring out of the palace gate. Zoloff was punching them two at a time. Hunter's hands were becoming numb simply because he'd hit so many of them. Yet their slow-motion onslaught was relentless.

  This went on for more than fifteen minutes. The pile of incapacitated guards was soon twelve men high. Still the fistfight continued. Zoloff was very winded; Hunter's arms felt like they were going to fall off. It finally dawned on him that this was a fight they could not possibly win. Not when there was an endless supply of the tin men.

  So he just stopped swinging, and so did Zoloff. Annie screamed. Two tin men picked her up by the shoulders and carried her away.

  Hunter tried to get to her again, but the sheer weight of a dozen guards piling on top of him was too much even for him to handle. Subdued more from exhaustion than anything else, he and Zoloff were bound by the wrists and led through the palace gate to the throne room, prodded all the way by the weakly flaming spears.

  No surprise, the throne room was ostentatious to the max. Very high ivory-like ceilings, gleaming golden walls. Shafts of bright light coming from no discernible source.

  Hunter couldn't help be impressed by the tacky grandeur of it all — but oddly, it looked a little familiar, too. Almost like…

  A guard shoved him forward, breaking his thoughts. "You must kneel before Ping!" was his muffled order.

  But Hunter just turned around and head-butted the guy. He went over in a heap. Zoloff did the same with his guard. Like Hunter, he was too proud to bend to anyone. More guards rushed forward, but a flash of light from the center of the room froze them in place. Suddenly, where there had been nothing a moment before, a huge throne had appeared, complete with a hundred or so steps leading up to it and an accompanying bank of greenish fog. Behind it was a banner of sufficiently tacky red and yellow colors, boasting a cascade of crests and scrolls and icons, all proclaiming how great the person seated on the throne really must be.

  When the last of the mist cleared, indeed a figure was sitting on the jewel-encrusted chair.

  He barely looked human. A long snout face, very beady eyes, pencil-thin mustache, heavily greased goatee. He was pale, with very feminine hands and long fingernails. He was wearing a silver lame robe and womanly sandals.

  This was Ping the Pontificator.

  He looked down at them with the appropriate disdain, but seemed bored and far away at the same time.

  Very weird, Hunter thought. And very familiar…

  Ping weakly clapped his hands twice. A new troop of tin soldiers waddled in. Annie was being led behind them. Though she'd only been out of Hunter's sight for a few minutes, she'd undergone yet another wardrobe change. She was now wearing a very low cut, see-through gown, white high heel boots — and nothing else. Hunter got a rush seeing her like this. She was both gorgeous and sexy.

  She also appeared to be hypnotized. Eyes wide and unblinking. Blank stare on her face. So stiff, she was having trouble walking. At this rate, the same would be soon true for Hunter.

  Annie was led to the bottom step of the throne and left there. A light from behind showed all her natural beauty. Hunter was getting very distracted. At least Zoloff's eyes were elsewhere. He was glowering up at Ping, his archenemy in the endless chapters of this place.

  "You have my daughter and her betrothed!" Zoloff thundered up at Ping. But the man on the throne simply waved away his protestations.

  "It's your constant meddling that is the cause of all this!" Ping thundered right back at him. "Your noodlings and your science! Once I've eliminated you and your kind, then can I rise to my proper glory!"

  Even the tin soldiers seemed to be rolling their eyes at the bad dialogue. Hunter was hardly paying attention though; he still could not drag his attention from Annie. Even in a near-comatose state, she looked very desirable.

  Finally he broke out of his own spell and contemplated the situation at hand. He had to rescue not just Annie now but her fiance as well. But how?

  "Is Ping not a man of honor?" Hunter suddenly heard himself bellow.

  Everything else happening in the throne room came to a crashing halt. Hunter could still hear his words echoing off the high ceiling.

  Ping turned his attention away from Zoloff and leveled his gaze on Hunter.

  "It is honor which is in such short supply these days," he said to Hunter in a very singsong voice. "What would a friend of Zoloff know of honor?"

  "Enough to know that an honorable man would allow another to fight for the woman he loves!" Hunter yelled back at him, surprised at the mossy words he was tossing out.

  Ping sneered at him but then pulled on his tiny goatee in an approximation of deep thought.

  "This woman is the one you love?" he asked Hunter, pointing down at Annie.

  "She is!" was his dramatic reply.

  "And a contest of strength for her freedom — this is what you propose?"

  "It is…"

  Ping thought a few more moments, men lifted his hand and gave a kind of royal wave. "Let it be," he said.

  A curtain off to the left opened, and no surprise, there was a small arena located here. A large cage covered it. The bars looked as flimsy as the tin men's armor. Inside was a monstrous figure, at least fifteen feet tall, arms already flailing, roaring loudly, its entire body covered with hair.

  Hunter took one look at it and murmured, "What the fuck is this?"

  It was too big to be a man, so, he surmised, it must be a robot, one covered in fake hair.

  He'd just assumed he'd have to battle it out with some of Ping's tinny guards; he could fight them all day, if they came at him one at a time. This thing, though, might be a bit more difficult.

  He was led to the cage by a clutch of soldiers. With little ceremony they opened the gate and threw Hunter in. Zoloff was screaming at him not to do it. He was so animated more tin men had to hold him back. Ping, however, was smiling fang to fang. Annie remained immobile.

  Hunter turned to face his opponent. It looked even bigger up close. His first thought, that this might be a mechanical man of sorts, was dashed as soon as he was in the arena. Robots made noise, even in a crazy place like this. Whirring, motor-driven. Robotic. He could detect no sounds like this from the monster. Instead, he heard a lot of heavy breathing, along with a fair amount of grunting and whispering.

  Hunter rolled his eyes, walked up to the creature, and just stood there. The creature looked down at him, smoke coming out of its nostrils on cue. He heard a roar — no, two roars, one right after the other — and it was apparent that neither originated from the monster's mouth.

  Hunter held up his fists like an ancient boxer, ready to fight. More smoke. Most out-of-sync roars. Hunter believed now he knew what was going on here.

  He was deciding exactly where the best place to hit the beast might be, when the beast hit first. Its right arm swung around with such speed and force, it sent Hunter reeling through the air before crashing him to the hard stone floor below.

  The crowd in the throne room gasped, then cheered. Zoloff cried out, "Stop this madness! We are men of peace!"

  But no one was paying attention to him. Ping meanwhile never lost his detached grin. Annie was still a statue.

  Hunter slowly got to his feet. He boldly walked up to the beast again. The snorting and smoke-blowing was drowned out by the sounds of an angry, whispered, unseen argument going on between two people. The monster had hit him with a lucky shot, but Hunter knew at that moment that the creature had blown its load.

  He taunted it to hit him again, pointing to his chin and dancing ar
ound a bit. Once more there was a wild swing, but this time Hunter was able to limbo himself out of its path with seconds to spare. More smoke, more snorting, and even more heated unseen arguing.

  Hunter stuck his chin out even farther, once again daring the thing to hit him. There was yet another swing, another nimble move by Hunter to avoid it, but this time as the arm went by, Hunter grabbed onto it and yanked it back toward him. Two near identical yelps could be heard, followed by some deep groaning.

  Those in the throne room just gasped now. They'd feared the monster since… well, since their existence here had begun. No one had ever really hurt it before. Even Ping looked concerned.

  The thing swung again, and Hunter repeated his earlier action. He ducked as the punch went by, and then grabbed onto the arm and yanked it back toward him before once again letting go.

  This time the pair of screams coming from the beast could be heard by everyone in the throne room. Hunter almost laughed; it was funny. But he was getting tired of this game. The next time the thing took a swing, he grabbed onto its arm, and this time he held on.

  The beast began flailing wildly again, trying to get him off, but Hunter hung on tight. He cracked the arm near the elbow, then threw himself at the beast's chest. He heard two successive thuds, and then two short cries of pain.

  Time for the revealing act, he thought. He climbed up onto the beast's shoulders even as the thing tried to reach up to grab him, a distinct impossibility. Hunter threw two roundhouse rights into the beast's mug. This stunned the creature long enough for Hunter to reach around the back of its neck, where his hands found just what he knew would be there: a zipper.

  He gave it a yank; he heard it start to unclasp. He gave it another pull, and that's when he heard it rip. He jumped over the head of the beast and, still clutching the top of the opened zipper, dove for the floor, taking the creature's hairy overgarment with him.

  A louder gasp went up from the royal court. Even Zoloff let out a cry. The hairy overcoat was just that — a prop to make the creature look more menacing and to hide its secret. With this outer garment torn away, what lay beneath was revealed for all to see. This was not some space being or something from one of the really low-rent dimensions. Instead, it was two short royal guards, one with his feet on the other's shoulders, each with a different hand control to operate.