As he slid, Kevin left a large trail of sparks behind him. Time to use his ace in the hole.
BFG9000!
Doom’s iconic Big Fucking Gun 9000 was a plasma fireball-killing machine of a gun. He pushed its power even further by thinking of overclocking the internal gun’s charging circuitry, letting his inner geek come up with a holier-than-thou gun of ultimate destructive power. In his mind, he even added an explosive charge in the middle of the firing circle for kicks.
As Kevin approached the mech’s gap between its legs, time seemed to slow down to a crawl. Timing would be everything, and it seemed his armor knew that and helped Kevin reduce the perception of his speed so he would not miss his one shot at bringing the super-mech down.
The weapon’s feature and destructive powers now clear in his mind, the armor started building it in real-time. A holographic shape drew out of thin air in Kevin’s right arm. Meanwhile, a veritable multi-colored and slowed-down light show streak happened atop Kevin as the mech tried to correct for its initial targeting algorithm when Kevin entered both super-speed and bullet-time out of the blue. It was like watching a super-slow motion version of a fireworks finale on TV.
The mech did not know what hit him. The heavy weapon was fully formed in Kevin’s right arm, and he quickly used his left arm to provide additional stability and strength to align it upward in time.
To say that the moment the weapon was ready, aimed, and fired within a nanosecond was not an exaggeration. There was nothing Kevin couldn’t do as long as his smart armor would obey his every thought.
The moment he was under the mech, Kevin vertically aligned the souped-up BFG9000 perfectly and depressed the trigger. Because his smart armor sensed that he wanted to enjoy the result of his tactic, it kept Kevin’s perception of time in slow motion. And as Kevin streaked past the mech’s legs, a yellow-tinted plasma fireball shot up, and Kevin turned his head to watch the show.
The plasma fireball entered the crotch of the mech and shot upward, melting metal, wiring, and collapsing its shields. Kevin was exhilarated at seeing every nook and cranny while the once indestructible mech crumbled like an apple pie whose crust was too dry. The fireball burned through the upper half of the mech’s torso when its explosive secondary firing mode triggered.
Watching the mech explode in slow motion was a thing of beauty as flames engulfed the molten metal like a hundred fiery snakes expanding outward. Kevin ended his slide with a quick firing of his jetpack to regain an upward posture.
Time resumed at its normal pace as metallic scraps and liquified parts rained down around Kevin. His helmet vanished into nothingness and Kevin threw his hair to the side with a victorious head throw.
He smiled from ear to ear.
“Ballseye!”
14
Xonax circled around Kalliopy without saying another word for several minutes. Eventually, he opened his foul mouth.
“I think you’re going to regret not complying earlier. But, it’s too late now,” he said.
“That’s how much time it took you to come up with this?” Kalliopy antagonized. “Spit it out already; tell me how you’re going to kill me and let’s be done with it. I don’t know what I hate more, being immobilized or having to listen to you blabber on. Unless your idea of torture is me listening to your ego-driven evil ways, in which case…good job.”
Xonax growled as he stopped in front of Kalliopy and snapped his fingers.
A holo-screen came to life behind him. It was massive. At first it contained static but was soon replaced with the view of a girl with light brown-hair that Kalliopy knew all too well. Her heart started beating faster than it ever did before.
“What is this?” she said, her voice trembling.
“That would be Urania, your dear sister?”
Son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you!
Urania’s body had some bruises and a thin line of blood ran from her tiny nose to her upper lip.
“As you have already gathered, I’m sure, this is a live broadcast.”
“You’re dead!” screamed Kalliopy.
Xonax laughed. “Yeah, I can see that happening. Sure, keep dreaming, Princess.”
“Don’t you dare touch a hair on her.”
Xonax smirked and turned toward the holo-screen. “Take out as many as you can in one rip.”
The camera zoomed out and a Kregan warrior grabbed a large chunk of Urania’s hair and pulled. Urania screamed in pain as her hair was torn from her scalp.
“Stop! Don’t do this,” screamed Kalliopy, tears filling her eyes.
Perhaps her spies informing her that the Kregan were moving to get at her sister had not just been a decoy but a real part of their plans. Anger and hatred filled the princess’s heart. Unfortunately, there was no getting free from her shackles. The hovering cuffs could keep in place the strongest and most muscular races in the universe, so with her svelte and frail body, she didn’t stand a chance to even make them move a millimeter out of alignment.
“It’s up to you to make it stop,” said Xonax as he returned his gaze to Kalliopy. “We can do this all day, break every little brittle bone in her body while you watch it happen.”
Kalliopy had never hated someone the way she now hated Xonax. How dare he torture her little sister. Urania was such a sweet Arcadian, one that didn’t care about the politics of the Confederate and that had preferred taking a step back from the war, unlike their other siblings.
But even though she hoped that one day she would get the opportunity to strike back at Xonax and rip his heart from his chest, she was not stupid and she knew that today was not that day. Today she was not in a position to act on this impulse. All she could do is look at her sister and hope she could find a way to make sure she wasn’t hurt or worse, killed.
So with disgust filling her soul, she stared back at Xonax and said the words she would have rather swallowed all the way to her grave if that had been an option.
“What do you want?”
“Unconditional surrender.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then you can watch your sister die, slowly.”
“No! You don’t understand! I can’t give you what you want. I’m not refusing to, I just can’t. Now that I’ve been away from the throne for so long, by now one of my sisters is in charge. That’s how our constitution works.”
Xonax ground his teeth. “That’s unfortunate, for both you and your sister. But fear not, I’ll make sure you see every one of her bones being snapped before you join her.”
“Please, don’t do this, there has to be something I can give you in exchange for our lives.”
Xonax rubbed his chin for a moment. “Perhaps there is.”
“Whatever I can give you, I will. Just don’t hurt Urania.”
“I want the boy.”
Kalliopy’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “What boy?”
“Don’t play dumb. He’s no longer on Earth.”
Perhaps he was on his way to free her. She could only hope. In fact, she wished he were here already. And perhaps, in time, Ziron would be successful, with Kevin’s help. But that hope was thin and Kalliopy knew why. Xonax had an entire battlegroup with him. One that was not only made of the Kregan flagship they were in but also an army of rag-tag pirate ships and other allies he must have assembled behind his father’s back.
While in her quarters, she had seen many such ships fly in formation around the flagship. She had recognized some of them, but others were of a design she had no recollection of seeing before. Though it begged the question, had that vision been real or part of the deception? Her instincts told her to trust the former.
“I think you’re going to have to spell it out for me, because I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“Alright. The one called Kevin, the boy whose mind you used to defeat us in the last battle. I want him. He’s special. I don’t know how or why yet, but he clearly turned the tide of an assured defeat of your forces, and I want t
o know how he did it.”
“Oh…him,” said Kalliopy, trying to deflect a connection between them. “We haven’t exactly kept in touch. I actually never met him in person.”
“But you will, and soon.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“You don’t need to. You just need to obey my every order or your sister will pay the price, and when I’m done with her, I’ll space you myself.”
* * *
“That was amazing!” cheered Mira. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Thanks. But we need to find a way to get to the next level, we’ve wasted enough time fighting aliens and tin cans alike. Not to mention that my power levels are below twenty percent now. So the last thing we want is to give the enemy more time to send reinforcements.”
“Let me scan the room. Hang on.”
Energy levels aside, Kevin was seriously spent, both physically and mentally. He needed a soft bed and at least a couple of hours of rest before dealing with the next crazy plot to save Kalliopy. And perhaps a shower too.
“I wasn’t gonna say anything,” whispered Mira.
“Stay out of my head!”
“Apologies, Kevin. I didn’t mean to be nosey.”
Right. And yet you and Ziron are at every chance.
Mira had the good sense to not say anything more. Kevin had no idea if she was still listening to his thoughts or not. But the first thing Ziron would do upon his return would be to install a privacy mode in his neuronal interface, even if Kevin had to skin his long blue fur to make him comply.
Speaking of Ziron, he is getting his ass kicked to Neverland if anything has happened to Boomer.
“Still no communication with the Osiris?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“What the hell is Ziron doing?”
“I’m sure everything he can. He’s a real genius, but sometimes, you know.”
“Yeah, I got the message, his tech has bugs.”
Kevin thanked the stars he hadn’t encountered one with his smart armor, he probably wouldn’t be breathing otherwise. So better hope Mira was right and Ziron would fix whatever problem he had when trying to beam both Kevin and Boomer on Omicronia.
Kevin was not a stranger to lingering bugs. Some felt like they never got fixed, no matter how many updates and operating system upgrades he had put on his computer. Every so often his CTRL key would act up and feel like it was stuck, wrecking havoc as he tried to use his computer.
According to one of his schoolmates, this bug existed before they were born and was still triggered every now and then. For Kevin, it was so often that he wondered if perhaps his body’s electro-magnetic field had something to do with all this bug triggering.
“So?” said Kevin when he ran out of meaningless inner-chitchat. “Did you find a way for us to go higher?”
“Yes and no,” answered Mira.
“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”
“I have found an electro-magnetically sealed trap door on the ceiling. But there’s no way for me to open it.”
“And I take it you tried hacking it already?”
“Tried and failed.”
“That’s just great, I go through all this and you’re telling me I can’t get any higher?”
“My deep scans and hack attempts do seem to tell me that there is a code, probably more like a frequency, that will open this door.”
“And you’re trying frequencies, right?”
“Yes, but it could take hours or days for me to find the right one, as its dependent on patterns as much as the frequency itself and the encryption on this thing is—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s unhackable.”
“Well, it would probably take more time than we have or want to spend here.”
On their own, the lights in the room turned back on, and Kevin had to blink multiple times to allow his eyes adjust.
“What the heck?” he said.
The deep resonating voice spoke again. “Impressive how you’ve dispatched so many enemies. But I’m afraid that won’t give you an audience on the seven-hundredth floor. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Kevin’s tone was sharp.
“Unless you’re willing to destroy the thing.”
“What thing?”
“Believe me when I say you don’t want to know.”
Kevin let out a long frustrating breath.
“Yeah, well, what’s one more thing at this point. And if I don’t want to know, how am I to destroy it? Anyway, bring it on and make sure you open the goddamn door once I recycle it.”
“Such feistiness, is it courage? Or stupidity.”
“I guess we’re about to find out,” said Kevin.
“We are indeed. If you defeat the thing, the access will be revealed. If you don’t, well…”
That female voice was really getting on Kevin’s nerves.
“Yeah, yeah, death, blah blah blah.”
“It’s your funeral.”
“Can we get a move on? I’ve officially gone through my own personal threshold of the numbers of clichés I can deal with.”
And I want that bed and shower, sooner rather than later.
Hundreds of pieces of metal scattered all over the large battle arena started moving and floating on their own, merging into a metallic blob that morphed into a giant robot the height of the room. Kevin noticeably swallowed hard.
“Ahhh, shit.”
15
The massive robot didn’t look like it would be as easy to bring down as the large mech, which in comparison now looked tiny. Teeny-tiny, in fact.
“How the hell am I supposed to kill that thing?”
“Size doesn’t always matter,” Mira smirked.
Yeah, well, in this case it kind of does!
“Make sure those words are engraved on my tombstone if I fail, will ya?”
“I’d rather not.”
“I was trying to be…sarcastic.”
“Oh.”
When both of the giant robot’s red eyes lit up and two powerful lasers shot toward Kevin, he knew that was his cue to move away from his location. His helmet rematerialized on the fly, not that Kevin had any doubt that this thing could crush it like a soda can.
I guess I need to step up my game.
That thought alone gave Kevin an idea. A while back, when his life was just a meaningless ‘get up and go to sleep’ routine, he had discovered an old Japanese robot anime program. UFO Grendizer. The question was, could his armor morph in size to match the image he had in his head.
He was about to find out as he dodged away from his current position to avoid three-dozen plasma bolts intent on blowing him into the next life. Something he wasn’t too keen on experiencing.
Before he realized it, his thoughts started materializing, and he sat in the pilot’s chair of the giant-horned robot he had watched defeat Golgoths (giant monster robots also known as Saucer Beasts & Vega Monsters), during his seventy-four episode binge watch.
The chair swiveled on its axis as he ascended to the cockpit of the robot warrior that was located in the head. Everything materialized as he remembered it, even the old school buttons on the armrest of his pilot’s chair.
“Now we’re talking.”
His enemy was still bigger than his large UFO-fighting robot. At least now they were on somewhat fair footing.
Before he knew it, his robot was shooting lightning bolts from its yellow horns, sending high electric current toward his enemy. He then shot his detachable rocket-fueled right fist dead center in the Thing’s chest. The velocity at which it impacted made the robot stumble backward and fall on its metallic ass, making the entire top-tier levels of the massive building tremble. The metal fist returned to Kevin’s giant robot.
Time for the killing blow!
Kevin’s robot reached on his back to grab two crescent moon-shaped blades at the end of a long metallic fighting stick. He merged both together to create double-sided axes that he swiveled around h
is head before smashing it toward the Thing that was struggling to get back up.
But at the moment the blade should have decapitated it, everything in Kevin’s cockpit blinked red and his weapon vanished out of thin air. Kevin’s robot ended up looking like he was doing a badly executed dance move instead of finishing up the Thing.
“Power overload” flashed on the console in front of Kevin before it cracked and sparked.
“Uh-oh, and things were going so well until now,” said Kevin out loud.
By the time Kevin ended his sentence, the robot blinked a couple of times as if it were a flashing hologram and disappeared entirely. Then gravity did its thing.
“Noooo! Kevin!” shouted Mira’s hologram before also vanishing.
The nano-armor was all but disabled now, covering Kevin’s skin in a black bodysuit with no armor properties or augments at his disposal. He was in a free fall toward the hard floor at speeds he knew he should never be unless he was diving into a pool.
* * *
That’s it! This is how I’m going to die.
The floor approached rapidly, and it looked like Kevin would hit it and break every bone in his body. He mentally asked for a parachute, but nothing happened.
Of all the times for the nano-suit of armor to run out of power; why couldn’t it last just half a second longer?
But that was a moot point, and Kevin was about to feel like Douglas Adams’ whale plunging toward the ground. Kevin already knew he and the ground would not make friends in any sense of the word.
About ten meters before impact, the ground exploded with a loud roar that filled the battle arena. The resulting shockwave made Kevin feel, for a moment, like he was floating in zero gravity, and before he realized what happened, he was sitting on a scaly surface.
Is that a dragon?
He saw the head of the dragon reposition itself before roaring again and spraying fire at the Thing, making sure it did not get back on its feet.
Across the Galactic Pond - Box Set: The Complete FAR BEYOND Space Opera Series Page 14