Vyleria looked up at him, little rivulets running down her face. “Oh Jack,” she said. “Why do you have to be so brave, so stupid? I’ve lost my entire family, my entire civilisation has been consigned to the dustbin of history, I don’t want to lose you too, not after he…”
“I told you we will avenge Lava man, kill him if need be…”
“I don’t mean him, I mean Jorge,” she said, in between spouts of tears.
“But they were…”
“The same? Yes, I know,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “But he did things to me, things I shouldn’t have let him do and now I’ve changed, and you’ve changed too and now it’s all different and… and…”
“Vyleria,” said Jack, taking her chin in his hands. He looked into her tear-filled eyes. He felt like he could melt into them. “It doesn’t matter, it never did. I’ve got you back and that’s all that matters now, the rest is history.”
“But I wanted to still be fresh, to still be new for you… untouched.”
“Vyleria, you are everything to me. I fell in love with you the first time I met you – you were the most beautiful girl in the universe – and you still are, and you always will be. So please forget about Jorge. There’s only us, now and forever.”
“Oh Jack,” said Vyleria, bursting into tears again. She grasped him as if her life depended on it. She didn’t let go for a very long time.
“Should we say something?”
“Shh, don’t interrupt them.”
“What is it Padget?” asked Jack, wiping his eyes.
“Nothing, it’s just that when you – I mean Vyleria – was talking about her people and the dreadnuts well I thought that there might be something we can do.”
“Do what?” said Vyleria, still crying. “They’re dead. All of them.”
“Perhapsss not,” hissed Xylem. “Were there any other Elariansss left on other planetsss?”
“I guess so,” said Vyleria. “But they could have been turned into dreadnuts too.”
“But were those planets destroyed?”
“Not that I know of,” said Vyleria, rubbing her eyes. “Once the defences were attacked and the people subjugated the Scourge moved on. They were desperate to get to Elaria… to extract their revenge.”
“So, it’s possible that there could be survivors then?”
“Yes, I suppose so, there could be a few, though most of those would be dreadnuts.”
“But that’s exactly my point.”
“What is?”
“The dreadnut reversal process worked on you, so…”
“Oh,” gasped Jack. “Yes…”
“What?” said Vyleria, wiping her eyes and getting to her feet.
“What Padget is saying is that since the reversal process worked on you then it could be applied to other dreadnuts, to the other Elarians.”
“But it’s impossible, dangerous, and besides, many of the other Elarians have been dreadnuts for a lot longer than I was, the process might not work on them.”
“Perhaps not,” said Jack. “But it’s worth a shot. It’s something to hope for at the very least. We are fighting this war not just for the immediate victory but for all the generations who will come after, and if we can reverse the dreadnut process then that makes it a lot easier.”
“I only wish we had known of this sooner,” said Padget. “How many dreadnuts have we killed? Thousands? Millions?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack, “and it doesn’t matter. We didn’t know, besides winning this war is our priority, and if that means that we have put down a few dreadnuts who are in our way then so be it.”
“It’s hardly a few,” said Kat.
“Yes, you’re right,” said Jack. “But that doesn’t change a thing, we must prevail against all odds if the universe is to survive in its present state, otherwise we are lost to darkness.”
“He’s right,” said Vyleria, wiping the last streak of purple from her eyes. “We’ve got to end this thing, whether the dreadnuts are truly alive or not.”
“But Vyleria…” said Grunt.
“But nothing,” she said, voice shaking. “They are my people, I know that more than most. For every dreadnut we kill we enhance the chances that my civilisation will never survive, never recover. But it’s still the right thing to do. The only other option is to surrender and become dreadnuts ourselves.”
A chorus of shouts greeted her. “Never!”
She smiled. For the first time in what felt like ages. “Besides,” she said, “beaming the dreadnuts up to the ship for treatment would be too dangerous; all it would take is for one to escape and the results could be disastrous. To counter the dreadnut threat we would need to weaponize the cure somehow.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Jack. “It could take ages, if it’s even possible.”
Vyleria shook her head. “We proceed as planned as we agreed earlier; my people – if they are still alive – will have to wait, the stakes are too high.”
Vyleria was answered by murmurs of assent.
“Good,” said Vyleria, followed by another smile. “Now where is Lava man? Dead?”
Jack shook his head. “He escaped. Transported off the ship somehow. But he’ll be back.”
“How do you know?” asked Kat.
“Because he wants to finish us, end our little rebellion for good,” said Jack.
“And he wants to torture us,” said Vyleria, trying her best to sound calm, “cause us pain. It’s his way.”
Jack and the rest nodded. “What do we do now?” asked Grunt.
“We’ve got to warn Earth,” said Jack, “get things moving before it’s too late, see what shape the planet is in, then organize the resistance.”
“I think they may have heard you Jack,” said Vyleria.
“How do you know?” asked Jack.
“Turn around,” said Vyleria, looking intently at the view screen.
Jack spun around as the first heavy percussion missile thudded into their spaceship at ten times the speed of sound, knocking them off their feet.
More followed, casting space with an eerie green glow.
Jack’s finger hovered over the sonic cannon trigger, prepared to fire.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Executive Decision
“What are you waiting for?” hissed Xylem. “Dessstroy them!”
Another missile slammed into their hull, their spaceship reverberating like a big bass drum.
“Quick,” said Kat. “Before it’s too late.”
“I can’t,” said Jack, staggering to his feet. “Not now, not after what’s happened to Earth. The Scourge are our enemy, not them.”
“But Jack…” said Grunt.
“They can barely even hurt us anyway,” said Jack, fiddling with one of the consoles. “Watch.”
The shaking ceased immediately. All they could see now were the dull green flashes before the view screen. They looked like cheap fireworks at a fair ground.
“What did you do?” asked Vyleria.
“I enhanced our shielding, by a factor of about a hundred,” said Jack. “We’ve barely even touched the potential of what our ship can do.”
“Great Jack,” said Padget, “but what can we get them to stop firing and actually listen to us?”
“I didn’t say I was letting them off that easily,” smirked Jack.
Two electric blue pistols appeared in front of him, the material completely transparent. They looked like normal sidearms, only bigger, meaner.
“What’s that?” asked Vyleria.
“The new sonic cannons,” said Jack, winking in her direction. “Something else that I’ve been working on; it links with our space lens’ to give us enhanced targeting and firepower. This way we all become weapons; we’ve just increased our offensive power fivefold.”
“How does it work?” asked Vyleria.
“I hoped you might say that,” grinned Jack. “All you do is place your hands into the pistols, then get a lock on the target with your
lens’. It feels like you are in a VR game back on Earth, like you are actually stood in space.”
“Then what?” asked Padget.
“Then you shoot.”
Blue lightning shot from the tips of Jack’s pistols, out through the view screen, before cannoning into a huge black triangle in space. Sparks flew, smoke swirled. Jack fired again. Another TR3-b was hit, then another. It was like being in a giant video game. He aimed next at a flotilla of flying saucers, as space rained molten silver. More explosions. Pow. Pow. Pow.
“I can’t believe you destroyed your own ships, killed your own people,” said a voice that issued through the walls and ceiling. “YOU TRAITOR!”
“I’ve heard that voice before,” said Vyleria.
“Who said anything about destruction?” said Jack, replying to the voice.
The voice thundered again. “LIAR! I just saw… we all did at NORAD.”
Jack smirked. “You only saw what I wanted you to see General Stormborn.”
“Stormborn?” said Vyleria. “Still? I thought he had been incarcerated?”
“I expected as much,” said Jack, “snakes like him have a way of surviving, on the bones of their old victims if necessary.”
“What do you mean?” thundered the General’s voice.
“Exactly what I said,” said Jack. “Check again, contact your fleet.”
“I…”
“You’ll find they’re unharmed… for the most part anyway, I disabled their engines, weapons systems, that’s all; they are completely harmless now. I can help you re-activate them later if you wish?”
“That was more than you did for Earth, cities are burning, fields turned to ash, the carnage…”
“That wasn’t us,” said Jack. “If I could just speak to the President then I could explain…”
“Down here I am the only President, this is my base, I’m the one calling the shots.”
“Nice try,” said Jack. “Where is President Walker? I was talking to her only weeks ago.”
“A lot has happened since then or haven’t you noticed?” said Stormborn. “If you don’t believe me why don’t you go down to the White House and ask her?”
“This isn’t a trap?”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“I…” Even in space Jack could sense him scheming, plotting.
“Oh, come on Jack,” said Vyleria. “You don’t believe him, do you? He’s a snake; it has to be a trap.”
“I’ve got to,” he said, looking into her deep red eyes. “I’ve got to talk to the President, explain what’s happened, tell her it wasn’t us that attacked Earth and then get the re-building process underway. After that we need to boost the armed forces, organize the planetary defences; I can’t afford to waste time talking to General Stormborn.”
“Okay, well then I’m coming with you,” she said.
“No, not now,” said Jack. “It could be dangerous. I don’t know how bad Washington D.C was hit in the Scourge attack. And there’s Stormborn to consider too.”
Vyleria took Jack by the hand. “I’ve already lost you once, I’m not going to lose you again.”
“And you won’t, I promise.”
“But…”
“I’m sorry Vyleria, I’ve made up my mind. You’re too precious to me to lose.”
He vanished.
Jack looked at the blackened corpse and collapsed.
The White house was a smoldering ruin. Piles of glass, masonry and wooden beams lay in heaps on the grass. A fire was still burning, feeding on the charred skeleton of a wine-red sofa. Slippers, shoes and a few dresses were cast about like confetti at a wedding; the chests and cabinets looked like tombstones in an old graveyard.
“The President?”
“That way,” said the General looking out towards a bank of half-burnt trees. In the interests of national security, Stormborn had insisted that he accompany Jack to the White House. Jack had been in no mood to argue.
Jack followed his gaze, heart thumping away in his chest. He walked towards a giant elm tree, several of its branches lying limp beside its desiccated trunk, others swaying nonchalantly in the wind.
He expected to find a twisted, bloated corpse. He found a small white cross instead. The writing had been done by hand and looked hurried.
Here lies President Janet Walker, born 2 May 1954, died 4th July 2027.
“Independence Day,” said Jack, wiping his eye. “What happened?”
“You did.”
“What?”
“As soon as we detected your ship in orbit we tried to contact you. The President was overjoyed, relieved. She said you had finally come back to finish what you had started, to help the planet heal. I urged caution, others did too… You had been gone too long, had been out of touch for no good reason, it didn’t make sense.”
“She wouldn’t listen?”
“No, she was a stubborn one, I’ll give her that. From what I’ve been told, she kept trying to get through to you, even when your ship was positioned over the White House. They had just started evacuating when the first sonic cannon rounds hit. She was killed instantly. Others weren’t so fortunate however. They died long, slow, miserable deaths, looking up at an uncaring sky awash with fire. They had few medical staff and even fewer supplies and medicines. By the time I arrived it was too late; we didn’t have time to bury them individually, we buried them in a pit behind the White House.”
Jack didn’t say anything for a while, how could he? “I’m sorry for your loss…” he said finally, looking the General straight in the eyes.
“Our loss? Is that what you call it?” said Stormborn, gesticulating towards some buildings on the street opposite. They were blackened husks too, columns of smoke twirling lazily into the sky.
Jack saw the rest of D.C then. Smoke was everywhere, rubble too; the streets were eerily deserted, like every human had been removed from the city. The horizon was tinged with a deep fiery glow; gunfire, screams and occasional sirens pervaded the air. It was the corpse of a metropolis that had had its heart ripped out.
“This is your fault,” said Stormborn. “All of it. You have sown the seeds of our own destruction, you and your pathetic band of… aliens.”
“No, it was the Scourge, I’ve already...”
“And who brought them here? Who allowed the most powerful spaceship in the universe to get taken over by the most hostile force known to Man?”
“But…”
“But you didn’t mean it? It wasn’t your fault? Is that what you were going to say? Well, it’s done now, over, you’re fin…”
“With respect General,” said Jack placing a hand on Stormborn’s shoulder. “It’s not over, it never is, not with the Scourge. They’ll be back, sooner rather than later; we got lucky today, if we hadn’t re-taken our ship when we did…”
“Luck? Is that what you call it? Millions are dead, entire cities decimated.”
“And I regret that – more than you can possibly know – but that doesn’t change the fact that the Scourge are coming again. I know Lava man – you know him too after what happened at Area-51 – he’ll be back – soon – and in considerable force.”
“No.”
“What did you say?”
“You heard me boy. I refuse to subpoena the armed forces of the United States to your foolish, idiotic and costly struggle. You can take your begging bowl elsewhere.”
“This is outrageous. I demand to see the President, to get an audience, you can’t stop me.”
“Oh, but I can dear boy,” said the General looking up at him, his eyes green fire. “I am the President now.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Home Truths
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am Jack,” said Stormborn, smiling like a rattlesnake about to strike. “I was elected by the surviving members of Congress in a near-unanimous vote.”
“But… you had been arrested after the Asvari attack on Earth, for faking their involvement in the Nevada attack.”<
br />
The General smirked. “All true, but with the right words in the right ears I was able to dismiss the President’s baseless accusations out of hand.”
“But we had evidence.”
“So, you did. But I convinced my confidants to look the other way and see the dangers of my incarceration and ruin. There’s always a legal technicality around when you need one.” Stormborn smiled again. “I had thought that I would spend my days on the Fox network belittling liberals and other centre-left stooges; until your ship turned up that is, until YOU killed the President.”
“No!
“Yes. You know it’s true, Jack. Face up to your guilt, accept the charges.”
“The charges?”
The General smiled again. Like a serial killer before he carves up his next victim, Jack thought. “Guards!” he shouted. “Arrest him. Shoot him if he tries to flee.”
Jack spun round as several camouflaged figures sprung from the trees, rifles pointed at his head.
He summoned his space pistol, pressed down hard on the trigger. He heard gun shots – lots of them – smelt gunpowder. Something hit him in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He looked down. Blood gushed from a pen-top sized hole just below his left shoulder.
He tasted blood, felt weak, dizzy. The ground rushed up to meet him.
Darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Six: New Avenues
Jack felt a tingling sensation spread across his chest, shoulders, arms and abdomen. He opened his eyes.
Slowly, he took in the floating panels, the chairs, the view screen, the holo-maps. There was a group of people surrounding him, a girl dressed in red at their centre.
“What happened?”
“You got shot,” said Vyleria, wrapping him in a tight embrace. “I told you not to go down there.”
“I had to,” said Jack, rubbing the place where the bullet had entered. There wasn’t even so much as a scar now, it was like it had never happened. “We need the President on our side if my plan is to work.”
“Well, from where we were stood it looked as if she wants you dead.”
Jack Strong and The Last Battle Page 9