“Now we’re talking,” I smirked as I stared down at the skull-faced gasmask that lay on top of my black and grey combat armor.
Despite the constant rocking of the ship, I hopped into my body armor in record time and my hands trembled with excitement as I turned and reached for my menacing gasmask, which lay on top of my long, black trench coat. My heartbeat quickened with excitement as I held the mask before me and studied it as if that was my very first time ever seeing it. Throughout history masks have always served as means to hide our identities from view, but my mask served a far different purpose. The frightening skull-faced gasmask that was staring back at me in that moment was never used to hide who I was… because it was who I was. It was a vital part of my very being and it had ultimately become the last cog in the unstoppable machine that my enemies had come to know as The Reaper.
“Glad to have you back, buddy,” Howie said through the communicator inside my mask after I finally pulled it over my face.
“Howieeeee!” I cheered as the high-tech heads-up display inside my mask initialized, allowing me to see a small screenshot of him in the left of my field of vision.
“How are you feeling, Reap?” He asked as I grabbed my long trench coat and put it on.
“I feel good, man. Hey, did you cut your hair?” I asked as I noticed his fresh buzz cut from the thumbnail on my display.
“Yes. I needed to get rid of my hair for a project I’m working on. It’s no big deal. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
Yeah, I’m feeling great actually. Those machines they hooked me up to must’ve done a good job of patching me back together,” I said.
“Well that’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Having you at one-hundred percent should certainly bolster our chances of success. By the way I also took the liberty of making a few modifications to your gear. The upgrades should come in handy once you guys hit the ground,” Howie replied.
“What are we talking?” I asked.
“You remember the bats, right?” Howie asked.
“Hell yeah?! Where are my babies?” I grinned as I gleefully thought of the Anokian-Steel baseball bats that he had made for me.
“They’re in a long black case underneath the bed. I also fitted your coat with an electromagnetic holster on the back to keep the bats in place when you’re not using them.”
“Nice! Anything else?!” I asked excitedly as I walked over and pulled the slender case from beneath the bed in the back of the room.
“Well… you may find this next one kind of gross but I think I figured out a way for you to protect yourself against The Greater’s energy,” he said.
“Really? Awesome! But what’s so gross about that?” I asked.
“Jason and The Greater had a small scuffle not too long ago and Jason was able to slice him in the face with the tip of his sword during the fight. Luckily I was able to extract some of The Greater’s DNA from the small amount of blood that was left on Jason’s sword and… okay, this is where it gets kind of gross but just hear me out before you flip out,” Howie insisted.
“I’m listening,” I said cautiously.
“You know how The Greater’s energy burns through pretty much anything besides his own skin? Well I have this theory that his skin is somehow immune to the corrosive effects of his energy, so I used some of his DNA to synthesize artificial copies of his skin and then I used that in conjunction with actual leather to create a composite material that I sort of… made into the coat you’re wearing.”
My skin instantly began to crawl and my entire body grew tense as soon as Howie finished his sentence.
“Are you serious, Howie?! You’re telling me this coat is made of dead skin?!” I griped.
“Reaper, your regular coat was also made of dead skin, it just happened to be a cow’s skin. You’re certainly welcome to go back to the old genuine leather if you want but I can’t guarantee that it’ll keep you from getting roasted like your new one can,” Howie insisted.
“Couldn’t wait five minutes before you started proving me wrong, could you Howie?” I sighed as I shook my head and grinned.
“That’s what they pay me for,” he chuckled as I grabbed the two one-thousand pound Anokian-Steel bats from the case the stood straight up and stared at myself in a nearby mirror.
“I missed you, Howie, and I can’t wait to see you bro,” I smiled as I placed the bats on the magnetic holster on my back and silently marveled at how badass I looked.
“Same here, bud, but right now you need to move back to the front and strap in ASAP. Things are about to get a bit hairy,” Howie said, but before I could move our ship suddenly jolted to the right once again and threw me to the floor. I crawled into the narrow hallway as the violent impacts continued and I used a sturdy hand rail on the walls to pull myself up and navigate down the hall.
“Looks like they’re headed back to the mothership,” Tango said as I stumbled back into the control room.
“That’s a good thing, right, Howie?” Ace asked as the swarm of smaller Anokian ships sailed back towards the planet-sized mothership that loomed in the distance.
“No, it’s not— and Tango you need to punch it right now, and I mean with everything you’ve got!” Howie ordered.
“Howie, what’s going on?” I asked as I stared at the thumbnail view of him in my mask’s display.
“You’re about to be fired upon by The Pillar of Eden!” Howie warned.
“What does that—”
“Give me a second, Reap! I need to think!” Howie barked before I could finish my sentence.
“We still have thirty-two percent of our shields left. That should do something, right Echo?” Ace asked.
“That ship can destroy a planet, Ace! Even at one-hundred percent your shields would be useless,” Howie said firmly.
“So what am I supposed to do, Echo?!” Tango demanded as he frantically steered our ship onward.
“I have a plan. It’s risky but it just might work,” Howie responded.
“Well I’m all ears,” Tango replied.
“Is this that contingency plan you told me about?” Director Wells suddenly demanded over the intercom.
“Yes, Sir. It’s our only option at this point,” Howie confirmed.
“Are you sure there’s no other way?” Director Wells asked.
“They’ll be dead in less than two minutes if we don’t intervene, Sir. We need to send the signal now,” Howie responded.
“Fine. I’ll give the order to evacuate the moon base. I’ll see you on the ground, Echo,” Wells said.
“Hoss, I don’t know what kinda plan you’re cookin’ up but whatever it is you might wanna hop to it because that big ship’s gittin’ ready to bring the hammer down!” Charlie said over the intercom as our already damaged ship sped onward.
“What do you see, Charlie?!” Ace asked.
“Most of the pipsqueaks are out of the picture but the Boss Hawg just opened up and pointed a gun at us the size of Texas!” Charlie yelled.
“How’s that contingency plan coming, Echo?!” Ace quickly asked.
“I’m working on it! I just revealed the location of our moon base to The Pillar of Eden and the staff here is using the wormhole generator to evacuate the facility and jump back to Earth. I’m hoping the Anokians will use their Infinite Mass Weapon on the moon base instead of your ship. Not only would that save you guys but it would also buy the entire world some additional time because they wouldn’t be able to fire that weapon again for another three weeks.”
“What makes you think they’ll target the base instead of us?” I asked.
“They think Director Wells is still there, which makes the base a higher priority target to them,” Howie replied.
“Doesn’t look like it, Hoss, because that big gun just lit up like a chicken on a dadgum Junebug!” Charlie shouted from the gun chamber above the control room.
“Just give it a second! They’ll take the bait! I know they will!” Howie insisted as our entire sh
ip began to shake.
“It’s getting’ brighter!” Charlie replied as I gripped a hand rail to keep from falling to the floor as the ship continued to tremble.
“Howie, do something!” Ace yelled as intense blue light from The Pillar of Eden brightened the darkness of space around us.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing, Ace?! I’m the only one still left here! And I’m not leaving until they target this facility!” Howie barked.
“Is there any chance that we could survive the blast?” Tango asked as he did his best to steer our ship forward despite the ever-increasing turbulence.
“No… not a blast from The Pillar,” Howie said solemnly.
“So you’re saying we’re dead?” Ace asked.
“I’m trying, Ace, but they’re not— I guess they’re just not seeing the data. I’ve already sent it a thousand times but for some reason they’re still targeting you,” Howie groaned.
“What can I do, Howie? Tell me how to save us!” I insisted.
“There’s nothing you can do, Reap. If The Pillar of Eden fires even you wouldn’t survive the blast,” Howie reluctantly responded.
My life flashed before my eyes as our ship sped forward in vain and my heart grew heavy with grief as I realized that despite all that I was capable of I was still powerless to stop what was coming. I wanted to believe that we would somehow find a way to survive but in the back of my mind I knew we were finished. As much as I wanted to believe differently, I knew that there was no way we could evade the range of The Pillar of Eden.
22. DESPERATE MEASURES
REAPER:
“PUNCH IT, TANGO! PUNCH IT RIGHT NOW!” HOWIE SCREAMED as we all watched the rear monitors in fear.
“Are they firing?!” Ace demanded as our ship jolted forward so drastically that I nearly tumbled to the floor.
“Negative! They finally took the bait but you still need to get the heck out of there ASAP! When they fire that Infinite Mass Weapon the recoil will destroy anything in the vicinity that’s not as heavily fortified as The Pillar of Eden!” Howie warned.
“This day just keeps getting better and better,” Tango grumbled as our damaged spaceship accelerated even more.
“And just an FYI, Charlie, you still have three bogies on your six,” Howie added.
“You mean two don’t cha, Hoss?” Charlie boasted as he quickly rotated the main cannon and obliterated one of the triangular spaceships that was trailing us.
“Don’t get cocky!” Howie jokingly warned. “I’ll be offline for a few seconds while I make the jump to Earth but I’ll link back up with you guys as soon as I’m on the ground.”
“Faster, Tango,” Ace urged as our ship began to tremble once again.
“I’m flooring it, pal!” Tango shot back.
“Well why does it feel like we’re barely moving?” Ace asked.
“It ain’t just us, Hoss. Looks like the two pipsqueaks behind us are caught in it too. I think the Boss Hawg is pullin’ everything back in!” Charlie said from above.
“Just keep gunning it, Tango. Hopefully we can break away at some point,” Ace said.
“I’m giving it all I’ve got,” Tango confirmed as the turbulence around us increased.
“Echo, if you’re back online I need to know what’s happening. I think they may have caught us in some kind of tractor beam,” Ace called out.
“It’s just an effect of the IMW,” Howie suddenly said over the radio. “The force that’s pulling you in will rapidly expand outward as soon as they fire the weapon but if you time it right you may be able to use the outward expansion to sling shot your way out of the reach of The Pillar’s recoil.”
“Where are you broadcasting from, Echo?” Director Wells suddenly asked over the radio before any of us could reply to Howie.
“Oh sorry, Director. I’m at 3D. I didn’t have much time so I just used the last coordinates that were in my beacon when I made the jump. I’ve got everything I need to run the team from here, if that’s okay with you, of course,” Howie replied.
“That’s fine,” Wells confirmed just as our ship began to violently rumble harder than ever before.
“Hold on to your britches, fellas!” Charlie suddenly yelled from the room above as a bright blue light suddenly flashed through the darkness of space and filled the never-ending sky as far as the eye could see.
Adrenaline filled my veins as I zoomed across the room in a fraction of a second and leapt to the top rung of the ladder that led to Charlie’s level. In a flash I unsealed the air lock and leapt into the main gun chamber where Charlie sat, strapped into a pilot’s chair in the center of the dome-like room. That entire section of the ship was built on a swivel-like contraption and Charlie had spun the dome to the rear in order to take on the smaller ships that were still pursuing us.
We were already hundreds of thousands of miles away from The Pillar of Eden but the planet-sized ship was so colossal that it was still clearly visible through the gun chamber’s panoramic window. The thousands of small orb-like peripheral components that whizzed around the Anokian mothership were now moving so fast that they appeared to be nothing more than streaking rays of bright blue light. These much smaller machines picked up more and more speed as they whipped around the larger globe-like portion of the ship and the gaping barrel of the gigantic cannon that extended from the center of the gargantuan spaceship glowed with a fiery blue glare as the pulsating vortex around it threatened to pull us all back in.
My heartbeat pounded feverishly as the machines orbiting The Pillar suddenly glowed white-hot and the light within the barrel of The Pillar’s Infinite Mass Weapon rapidly intensified. Time around me seemed to slow to a crawl as even more adrenaline flooded my system and heightened my focus as well as my senses. A frozen expression of excitement and dismay lay upon Charlie’s face as he glared at the smaller ships behind us while gripping his black cowboy hat with one hand and the main gun’s firing controls with his other. Though I couldn’t see it clearly at the time, I knew the moon was somewhere tucked away within the vast emptiness of the space that surrounded us but a sudden glimmer amongst that eternal blackness nearly stopped my heart as I realized that The Pillar had finally found its target.
The world around me snapped back into real-time as a blinding wave of light suddenly engulfed the sky. I was thrown from my feet as the invisible force that had ensnared our ship suddenly released us, causing the ship to rocket forward as though it had been shot out of a cannon. My entire body crashed against the panoramic window in front of Charlie and my face twisted in horror beneath my mask as an unbearably bright projectile exploded out of The Pillar of Eden’s cannon and slammed into our moon in an instant, igniting the skies once more as fire and brimstone erupted amongst the blackness.
My eyes widened with terror as our world’s only natural satellite met its fiery doom, but it wasn’t the astounding destruction of our moon or the ever-spreading cracks in the glass that I was pinned to that had frightened me. Instead, I was frozen in absolute fear by the sight of a tidal wave of force and energy that was now raging towards us as a result of the Infinite Mass Weapon’s recoil.
Our ship as well as the two smaller enemy ships behind us rocketed forward for dear life as the rampant wave of devastation rapidly spread behind us. Fragments of the thick glass window that I was pinned to broke away as I pushed hard against our ships momentum in order to turn myself towards Charlie. His eyes were now wide with fear as the vacuum of space outside the window clawed at the spreading cracks in the glass and threatened to cave it in.
I pulled my feet upward and kicked off the thick glass with all my might just before the window shattered into a million pieces. The void of space yanked at my momentum and sucked out everything in the room that wasn’t bolted down, but luckily I had leapt from the glass with enough force to fall to the floor just in front of Charlie’s chair. Fired burned in my lungs as I held my breath and plunged my hands into the metal floor to keep from being yanked into the ra
ging void behind me.
Time slowed down around me once again as the thick metal bolts that held Charlie’s chair in place began to systematically snap like twigs. I threw my left hand upward just as the two-thousand pound chair sprang from the floor with Charlie still strapped to it and zoomed towards the shattered window that lay behind me. My heartbeat tripled as the chair almost zoomed over my head, but I gritted my teeth and firmly slammed my fingers into its metallic surface and gripped it tightly before it could sail away into the blackness.
Come on, Charlie! Grab my coat! I tried to shout but no sound came out when I opened my mouth. The tail of my black trench coat fluttered only a few inches away from him but Charlie was too busy struggling to unstrap himself from the chair to even notice. My heart pounded mightily as everything around us began to deteriorate and fly off into the abyss beyond the broken window. Still clinging to the chair and the hole that I had punched in the metal floor, I twisted my body toward Charlie and allowed the long tail of my coat to flutter into his field of vision.
Atta boy, Charlie! I thought as he finally latched onto my coat and coiled it around his right arm for extra leverage. Charlie quickly finished unstrapping himself with his other hand, but by the time he flashed me a thumbs up to let me know he was good to go the entire dome was threatening to collapse and completely break away from the rest of the ship.
The chair was instantly sucked into the void behind us as I released it, and I slammed my left hand into the floor just in time to keep us from slipping away as well. Charlie’s entire body flailed behind me as he clung to the tail of my coat while I set my sights on the air-locked entrance to the main deck that lay on the floor roughly fifteen feet away.
Inch by inch I clawed my way towards the air-lock as everything around us continued to fall apart and disappear into the void. Giant chunks of the ceiling caved in and collapsed as the entire chamber began to violently shake as I closed in on the entrance to the main control room, but luckily the debris was instantly sucked out into space before it could land on top of us. My heartbeat quickened as the entire chamber suddenly tilted and threatened to completely break away. I planted my feet and threw myself forward with all my might just as what was left of the gun chamber broke into pieces around us and separated from the rest of the ship. Debris and large metal chunks of the dome zoomed into the void as my body sailed forward with Charlie still desperately clinging to my coat tail. My already racing heart pounded even faster as the handle to the air-locked entrance lingered inches away from my outstretched hands while the pull of space clawed at my momentum.
Savior Part 3: Legion of The Godhand (The Savior Series) Page 19