Lethal Planet

by Rob May

  Jason looked around. From between a crack in the stones of a cylindrical stone column, a red spot of light glowed like an eye. Doo had seen it too; she took aim with her dagger and let fly. Her aim was perfect: the blade stuck between the stone blocks and extinguishing the light.

  ‘Well, he knows we’re here now,’ Jason said as the evil laughter died away. ‘And he doesn’t sound too worried about it.’

  ‘Oh, he’s worried,’ Doo said, pulling her dagger from the column. ‘You think he wouldn’t just keep quiet if he didn’t want to try and scare us off? Think about it: when we are out in the jungle, hunting zelfs, we don’t blow trumpets to announce our presence.’

  ‘Good point,’ Jason said, as they moved deeper into the temple. ‘So he knows we’ve as good as got him, and the only bargaining chip he has is your brother, King Grok.’

  ‘So we have to make sure Grok is safe before we start beating on the Arch Predicant,’ Doo said.

  Jason furrowed his brow. This was in danger of becoming one of those delicate situations—the kind he’d need to use wits and negotiating skills to deal with. Wits and negotiating skills he didn’t have.

  ‘Stuff it,’ he said loudly. ‘Grok will have to take care of himself. I’m going to go and sort out the Arch Predicant. You stay here where it’s safe until I come back.’

  Doo’s mouth gaped in disbelief. ‘What?! Are you serious?’

  ‘I’m going to call the Arch Predicant’s bluff. He won’t be able to threaten Grok if he sees that I don’t give a damn. If you’re around, things might get too emotional and girly, so stay put!’

  Jason could see disappointment and anger on Doo’s face. ‘That’s your plan?’ she spat. ‘You are heartless, Jason Brown.’

  He shrugged. ‘Someone has to be. Someone has to get on with the tough jobs that no one else is cut out for.’

  * * *

  And so it was that Jason came out on top of the Tower of the Moons alone. The pyramid rose before him: hundreds more steps that would sap the strength of most of the Arch Predicant’s visitors. The channels either side of the steps overflowed with rain water. Would they run with blood later on tonight?

  This high up, the thunder was deafening. Lightning turned the world black and white for brief, spine-tingling moments, and every now and then the entire tower shook as some explosion rocked the city below.

  Perazim was now possibly the most dangerous place in the entire universe, and Jason was in the eye of the storm, closing in on a reckoning with the universe’s most feared villain. Well, I asked for this, he told himself. I wanted to prove to everyone how tough I was. Now is the time to find out.

  The Arch Predicant was sitting alone on his throne under the many-columned roof at the apex of the pyramid. He was dressed, as always, in his intimidating black armour, with the beaked helmet that made him resemble one the deadly jungle birds, the villaxx.

  He waited patiently as Jason approached. Then, when Jason had stopped, huffing and puffing from the climb, just metres in front of the throne, the Arch Predicant spoke:

  ‘Welcome back, General Brown. I am pleased you are here. You are just the man I need—the man the city needs—in this challenging hour.’

  Jason almost laughed. ‘Didn’t you have me lined up for execution earlier?’

  ‘Never let it be said that Zaal is not a merciful god,’ the Arch Predicant said. ‘He needs a strong, firm warrior like yourself to restore order to the planet before all zelfs and balaks are massacred battling each other. So I renew my offer to you, Jason: be my general!’

  Jason did actually laugh this time. ‘Oh, so it was fine when it was just the balaks that were getting killed, but now that everyone’s in danger then it’s a whole new story? You certainly are a piece of work. Here’s my counter offer: surrender to me, and only then will I take charge and sort this mess out!’

  The Arch Predicant stood up. ‘I can’t do that, I’m afraid. My position, high priest of Zaal, is a constant—a permanent role that is bigger than any petty war between zelfs and balaks. Even if Perazim falls tonight, I will seek refuge in a far off, hidden place, and continue my work. I will train Grok to take my place and raise a new city in the name of Zaal.’

  Jason understood completely: the Arch Predicant was not a man to be reasoned with. He was the worst of all religious zealots: someone whose position would not budge, even while the world was falling down around his ears.

  ‘I thought you might say that. So … where is Grok, anyway?’ Jason asked casually.

  ‘Never you mind,’ the Arch Predicant said. ‘If you want to help him, then help me, Jason. End this war, and take your place with Grok at my side.’

  ‘Never going to happen,’ Jason said. ‘I’m here to do what Brandon couldn’t do when he was last up here: finish you off!’

  The Arch Predicant stood firm in the face of this challenge. ‘Brandon was a fool,’ he said. ‘He could have submitted to me and been the second most powerful man in the universe. Instead he destroyed the bionoids and instantaneously became the most insignificant person in the universe.’

  Jason was pleased. The Arch Predicant still figured that the bionoids were destroyed. Jason stepped forward. The Arch Predicant didn’t even flinch. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘If you touch me, Grok dies.’

  Jason kept moving, stopping only when he was chest to chest with his foe. Still, the Arch Predicant held his ground. His supreme confidence was unsettling. ‘I know that even you wouldn’t hurt a baby,’ Jason said, flecks of spit spraying over the Arch Predicant’s glossy black helmet.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ the Arch Predicant said. ‘But Grok is hidden in a place where only I can retrieve him. If you kill me, then you kill Grok. So the question is, would you kill an innocent baby, Jason Brown? I think I know the answer to that.’

  Jason bared his teeth as he made a face that was half crazy grin, half scowl. ‘You know nothing about me at all,’ he said, jabbing the Arch Predicant in the chest with a finger. ‘Your evil schemes killed my family … my entire planet. Do you think I’d let one alien sprog stop me from killing you?’

  As Jason continued prodding, the Arch Predicant finally reacted, moving back half a step in revulsion. ‘Get your hands off me, you filthy human,’ he hissed.

  Jason was on the verge of striking the Arch Predicant down. He had put Grok’s fate to the back of his mind now, and was focused instead on the bigger picture: taking down the scourge of the universe.

  But then the Arch Predicant stepped away, breaking the tension between them. ‘Report, Captain,’ he said out loud.

  Jason looked around as suspended video screens suddenly flickered into life in the spaces between the columns. They blocked out the view of the sky and the storm, and turned the open-plan temple into a small, enclosed control room. Video feed showed aerial views of the jungle, and zelf gunships flying in formation. The zelf captain, the same man who had shot Jason down earlier as they escaped the prison, appeared on one of the screens.

  ‘We’re approaching Brightroot Cave now, sir,’ he said. ‘The entrance is wide enough to fly inside. We’ll bomb the place to oblivion before the balaks even realise we are here.’

  The Arch Predicant rubbed his hands gleefully. ‘Good work, Captain. Wipe them out. But don’t bother returning to the city afterwards. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point in orbit.’

  He turned to Jason. ‘You arrived here just in time to witness the annihilation of the balak race. It will take no more than a few seconds. Then Grok and I will be leaving, and you can stay here and watch as the city falls around you. Two disasters for the price of one, and both of them your fault. If you hadn’t interfered, the balaks would still be alive, under my protection.’

  Under your control, you mean! Jason was furious. ‘You sent your entire army after the balaks, rather than have them protect your own people here in the city?’

  The Arch Predicant shrugged. ‘Like I said, we can rebuild. There are other primitive tribes out in the jungles on t
he other side of the planet we can enslave. A select few of my most useful and devout citizens have already left Perazim in priority escape craft. The rest of the population can be food for catrons, for all I care. It’s one way of purging this resistance, this corruption that has infected our once holy city.’

  The Arch Predicant turned back to the screens. ‘Now watch,’ he said, ‘as Zaal does his work.’

  Once more, Jason’s bionic fist twitched as he fought back the urge to smash the back of the Arch Predicant’s helmet in. He could do it, easily and swiftly. The Arch Predicant was confident that Jason wouldn’t risk Grok’s life—he wouldn’t expect or see the killing blow.

  And, in a way, the Arch Predicant was right …

  Jason would never do anything unless Grok was safe. But what the Arch Predicant didn’t know was that Jason had already implemented a plan to save the infant king of the balaks …

  ‘Brightroot Cave is a pretty dangerous place to be,’ a voice said from nearby.

  The Arch Predicant and Jason both looked around. They were alone in a small space at the centre of the temple, surrounded by video screens. But then one of the screens fizzled and dissolved as someone stepped through it.

  It was Doo, and in her arms was her baby brother.

  For the first time, the Arch Predicant looked surprised and unsettled. ‘What?’ he gasped. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘Under the twenty-seventh step from the left, on the west face of the pyramid,’ Doo said. ‘Forty-eight levels down. You should have chosen a better hiding place … and then cleared your own mind of the memory.’

  The Arch Predicant’s expression turned from surprise to confusion.

  ‘That’s right, idiot,’ Jason scoffed. ‘I read your mind. Did you really think I’d order Doo to stay put while I took you on alone? She’s just as tough as I am! While you thought she was cowering down below, she was getting tips from me on where to look for Grok.’

  ‘The bionoids?’ the Arch Predicant stammered.

  ‘Right here,’ Jason said, tapping his skull. ‘You were a fool to believe that Brandon would ever destroy them. Hell, I believed him—I was a fool, too!’

  ‘Just like your soldiers are fools,’ Doo said, ‘to believe that Brightroot Cave is where my people will be seeking sanctuary.’

  The Arch Predicant froze for a moment, then spun around to the screens. ‘Get out of there!’ he barked at his men. ‘Now!’

  But it was too late. ‘Just give us a minute, sir,’ the captain said from his cockpit. ‘I’m picking up large life readings in the cavern ahead. It must be the balaks … oh shi—’

  The captain’s cockpit video feed was plunged into darkness, but Jason, Doo and the Arch Predicant could see clearly what was happening on the other screens all around them. Hull-mounted cameras on the other zelf ships captured the moment in spectacular high-def clarity.

  An enormous glowing worm had hauled itself out of a crack in the cavern floor. No, enormous didn’t do its size justice—the creature was as thick as one of Perazim’s skyscrapers, and possibly about as long. It had lunged forward and swallowed the zelf captain’s ship whole.

  And now, all around Brightroot Cave, smaller worms were wriggling onto the scene. Smaller, but still big enough to bite down on the zelf gunships, or to wrap their bodies around them and crush them. All the worms glowed white, and sparks of electricity flickered along their bodies and arced between the bodywork of the zelf ships.

  ‘Zoboros,’ Doo breathed, watching the carnage with awed satisfaction. ‘The great white worm. She made her nest in Brightroot Cave three centuries ago: it’s the place where the roots of twelve lightning trees converge, and she feeds off the energy that flows down into her lair.’

  Jason could only laugh. ‘I knew Kat wouldn’t be so careless as to reveal where the balaks were really hiding out. She told us they were going there because she knew that your soldiers would fall for the trap!’

  The video feeds fizzled out one by one. The final screen was black, but abruptly flickered back to life as the zelf captain turned an emergency torch on in his cockpit. He looked desperately around as the hull of his ship buckled and cracked. Then the cramped space started to crumple inwards as his ship was devoured by the great worm. As the walls closed in, he turned to the camera and screamed:

  ‘Zaal! Zaal! ZAAL! ARRRRGGggggghhhh …’

  Then the final screen died. The Arch Predicant turned back to Jason and Doo, his masked face expressionless, but with a sad slump in his posture.

  ‘It’s over now,’ Jason said. ‘Surrender and get ready for your trip down to the dungeons.’

  The Arch Predicant straightened up, and Jason instantly sensed that this wasn’t going to end easily. So he was ready when the Arch Predicant made a sudden charge at Doo and Grok. He stepped between them and grabbed the Arch Predicant around the waist, then he boosted upwards and they both smashed through the stone roof of the temple.

  They landed in a heap on the flat stone square roof. The Arch Predicant should have broken a thousand bones, but his advanced armour had saved him. And so, on the very peak of the tallest structure in Perazim, under a storm-wracked sky, Jason and the Arch Predicant went toe to toe in a fight to the death.

  They had fought before, but now the odds were tipped in Jason’s favour. He absorbed the Arch Predicant’s blows with his field of bionoids, while pumping energy into his brain, heightening his senses and channelling his focus. But it was his bionic right arm that did the real damage, striking at the Arch Predicant’s armour again and again and again, right under the beak where the helmet was secured to the neck.

  Something had to eventually give, and Jason howled in triumph as the Arch Predicant’s helmet popped off, crashed to the stone tiles and rolled to the gutter at the edge of the roof.

  The Arch Predicant lay flat on his back. Jason stood astride his body and looked down at his vanquished opponent, ready to deliver the finishing blow.

  The Arch Predicant stared back at Jason with sad, defeated eyes. Ancient sad, defeated eyes.

  Jason sucked in a breath through his teeth, and held back his killing blow. The Arch Predicant was an old man!

  ‘Go on …’ the elderly zelf wheezed. ‘Finish me off.’

  Jason hesitated. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill this pathetic creature. ‘Can’t you just … die by yourself?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ the Arch Predicant croaked, and closed his eyes.

  Jason kicked at the air in frustration, then turned back to the hole in the roof. Doo and Grok were looking up at him? ‘Everything alright?’ Doo asked. ‘Did you get him?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Jason said. ‘Come up and see.’

  Doo started clambering up the broken chunks of stonework to get to the roof. Jason turned back to his fallen opponent.

  But the Arch Predicant wasn’t there.

  Jason swore, then fell forward hard as something hit him in the back of the head. He cracked his skull on the stone roof as he landed. He had not been ready to soften either blow with the bionoids. As he looked up through blurred vision, he saw the Arch Predicant back on his feet, beaked helmet back on his head, stalking towards him.

  ‘You weak fool,’ the old man said. ‘I am the hand, voice and law of Zaal, and he is immutable and eternal. You cannot defeat me!’

  Jason felt sick and disoriented, but he prepared to throw himself back into the fight.

  But then he heard a noise: a weird chirruping noise.

  The Arch Predicant heard it too, and stopped to look around curiously. Doo was up on the roof, with Grok in her arms, and she was making the odd cheeping noise as she held the Arch Predicant’s gaze.

  Her eyes and smile were the last thing he saw. Behind him, a giant shape reared up over the edge of the temple roof. It was an enormous catron, surely the alpha of the pack. When it saw the Arch Predicant, tall, black and beaked like the villaxx chicks it loved to hunt, it fell upon him with greedy enthusiasm, tearing at his body with sharp, p
oisonous claws. Blood sprayed everywhere, faster than the rain could wash it away.

  Doo helped Jason up and led him away from the gory feast. ‘I guess the law of the jungle trumps the law of Zaal,’ she declared with grim satisfaction.

  19—ARK

  Finally, and for what would be the last time in its history, blood was running down the channels cut into the pyramid steps. Jason, Doo and Grok hurried down, racing the blood to the bottom.

  From up above them, they heard a chilling voice: ‘For Zaal!’

  Jason stopped dead on the steps and turned to Doo. ‘Surely he can’t be still alive?’

  Doo hugged Grok closer and shook her head. ‘The catron’s poison is fatal within minutes. If he’s not dead by now, he will be before we can get back and check.’

  ‘I know a quicker way to find out,’ Jason said. He squeezed his eyes shut and waggled his fingers in the direction of the pyramid’s apex. Through the bionoids, he could sense the Arch Predicant’s life draining away to nothingness.

  ‘He’s definitely dead now,’ Jason confirmed.

  ‘But what did he just do?’ Doo said. ‘What did he mean, For Zaal?’

  As if in answer, there was a muffled boom as if the whole planet had been hit by an underground earthquake. The city shook, and the Tower of the Moons rocked alarmingly.

  ‘That didn’t sound good,’ Jason said. ‘Come on, let’s get down as fast as we can!’

  At the foot of the pyramid, Doo made for the next set of stairs that went down into the tower. ‘Not that way,’ Jason said, grabbing her arm. ‘We’ll jump down. Hold on tight to me, and don’t drop the baby!’

  And with that, he hopped off the temple and into thin air. It was a drop of over five hundred metres to the top of the next-highest skyscraper, but Jason wasn’t planning on spreading the three of them over the city like jam; he willed the bionoids to control their descent—each of the tiny robot’s motors powering away in a battle against gravity—and just before impact, he laid down a dense cloud of nanobots to cushion their fall.