Lethal Planet
Authors: Rob May
It’s a pretty amazing day. From where I’m sitting, at the top of the hill, you can see for miles. The sun is shining through the mists, everything is green from horizon to horizon, and birds are flapping through the sky. Well, whatever those strange winged hedgehog things are, anyway. I’m not sure if you can count them as birds or not.
There’s almost nobody around. After all the chaos and fighting and explosions, it’s nice to just chill with a bottle of shandy and watch the world go by. There’s my sister, Kat, and her dorky boyfriend going for a morning stroll. Their little kid, Brandon Junior, is running rings around them as they go. He’s almost five years old now. I can’t believe I’m an uncle. It’s just so weird.
And Kat’s getting married next week, too. They would have done it sooner, but they wanted to wait for me to get back, so we could all be together. I was the last person to get here, after sorting out some unfinished business on the other side of the galaxy.
Once Kat is married, then it will be my turn next! That’s right—me, Jason Brown, the intergalactic hero with a girl in every port on every planet, is finally settling down. The new constitution they’re busy drawing up allows humans and aliens to get married, and you should see my alien girlfriend! Her name’s Doo. Okay, so it’s not the sexiest name ever, but she is hot hot hot. I will attempt to draw her:
*crossed-out scrawl*
Okay, that didn’t turn out too well, so you’ll have to believe me when I say that Doo is the girl for me. And we might even have a kid too, one day. Humans and aliens can’t actually reproduce the normal way, the
natural
way, you know … being different species and all. But the science boffins have come up with a way to combine DNA in a lab and create new babies that way, so I imagine our son (or daughter!) will grow up to be both hard as nails like me, and fast and smart like Doo … combining the best bits of humans and aliens.
I always dreamed of marrying a hot alien chick. There was this one girl, Saoirse, who I quite liked … only she turned out to be a killer robot, so things never really progressed. Before that, there was Brandon’s sister, Gem …She never really liked me, though, and I never got the chance to show her what I was really made of …
I can see Gem’s grave from here. She’s buried in a really nice overgrown spot at the bottom of the hill. There used to be a graveyard there once, when this place was a city, but now the city is in ruins and the old graveyard is just a dark, dense wood. There are a herd of rainbow deer that live in there these days. I like to think Gem appreciates it now there are no creepy gravestones and statues.
Amongst the ruins of the rest of the city, the settlers have started to grow crops. There are greenhouses where there used to be skyscrapers, and we have these amazing giant tomatoes that are as big as your head, taste really meaty, and contain all the vitamins and protein your body needs. They are also blue, for some reason, but don’t ask me why. Science and biology are not my strong points.
There’s one building we found still standing when we got here: a massive domed church or temple of some kind. The top brass (and that includes me—I’m a captain now!) are using it as an HQ. Well, praying didn’t do the people who once lived here any good, did it!
Everyone else—the thousand or so refugees, survivors of the biggest, craziest war the universe has ever seen—are still quartered in and around the spaceship they got here in. But that’s looking past its best now. It took so much damage in the final battle, it barely made it here; the landing gear and navigational instruments were all FUBAR, so they had to crash-land it in the river.
I don’t think it will ever fly again, so we’re pretty much stuck here now. The front section is not in too bad shape, and that’s become a kind of permanent living complex now, with schools and markets for the all weirdly-coloured fruit we grow here. The back half of the ship—the end with the engines and boosters—has been pulled apart bit by bit to build other useful things: generators, heaters and plumbing around the camp. Toilets that flush are more important than cooling systems for interstellar engines these days! The armoured hull of the ship has been torn off to make shelters and walls, too.
Well, I guess I’d better get down there and start mucking in. They say that life will be tough from now on as we rebuild and repopulate. There will be a teeming city here again one day, but not in my lifetime. Humans (and zelfs and balaks) have pretty much got to start from scratch and, with extinction breathing down our necks, try and get back what we all lost fighting each other in stupid wars.
But I’ll make time in all of this to write down my story. Kat insisted. She told her part, and Brandon wrote his, so now it’s my turn to finish the thing. I don’t mind, but it sucks that all the working computers and phones are being kept under close guard by the tech guys. I guess it would be a disaster if we lost them and had to invent them all up again! But of course that means I have to write all this down with a freaking pencil!
Anyway, enough for now. I’ll be back soon to write another chapter, starting at the point where we all escaped Earth and went to the alien planet, Corroza. Let me tell you, I can remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday.
When your life is as crazy as mine, the decades just seem to fly by!
Things started going wrong the moment the
Majestic
went superluminal. The spaceship shook like crazy, and all sorts of horrendous screeching and crashing noises came from within the superstructure. Jason was thrown to the floor. His brain immediately began to feel like it was bleeding out of his ears and out of his nose. The sensation reminded him of the time, aged ten, when he had raided his parents’ liquor cabinet and took a swig from every bottle in there.
He started sliding across the smooth surface of the map screen that filled the floor of the control room. Across the map, Brandon raised his hand and stretched out, jedi style. Jason kept on sliding though, and banged his head on a control panel at the edge of the map.
‘Good catch, idiot!’ he lambasted he friend.
‘I wasn’t trying to
catch
you!’ Brandon shouted back over the sound of all the chaos. ‘I was using the bionoids to level your vestibular system, and restore your equilibrioception!’
‘My what?’
‘Your sense of balance!’
Jason crawled closer to Brandon, holding on to the edge of the map as he went. ‘Well, thanks! Now stop my bones vibrating, my toenails curling and my teeth itching! And do it fast, cos I’m about to barf in your face!’
With a sudden series of deafening clunks and shudders, the violent movement stopped, and everything went quiet.
Kat staggered over and flopped down on the floor between her brother and her boyfriend. ‘That was fun,’ she said.
Jason could only shake his head as he recalled all the other things his sister had described as ‘fun’ over the years: school detention; getting stuck at the top of the roller coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach; the time they had capsized while out on a row boat on the Serpentine … not to mention all the crazy nonsense they had been through since aliens invaded Earth.
‘It wouldn’t have been fun if it had gone on for much longer,’ Brandon said, the voice of reason throughout their adventures. ‘The
Majestic
wasn’t built to take the superluminal drive. Alien tech in a human spaceship: we were almost torn apart!’
Jason pulled himself to his feet, and started over to where everyone else—the President and all his staff and crew—were gathered at the triangular windows on one side of the control room. ‘Did we make it, then?’ he wondered aloud. ‘Are we near Corroza?’
I’ve never been this far from home!
Brandon was still blabbering on as he followed. ‘Another good reason that it was all over quickly is that at superluminal speeds there’s going to be a hell of a lot of time dilation. Going superluminal for thirty seconds could mean thirty hours have passed on Earth, or maybe even thirty days or months! I’ll need to find out how the drive works to know how much—’
Jason clamped a hand over Brandon’s mouth as they reached the window. ‘You can sit down and do the maths later,’ he said. ‘For now, just look!’
The three of them stared out at the planet hanging in space outside the window. It was a bright, lurid green, as if it were overflowing with lush, vibrant jungle and plantlife.
And dangerous creatures,
Jason thought, remembering the tales they had heard of the vicious clawed
catron
, and the terrible unspeakable things called
villaxx
.
‘That’s definitely Corroza then?’ Kat said. ‘And not Venus or Pandora or somewhere?’
Brandon shook his head. ‘Corroza was the only course programmed into the superluminal drive. Well, as well as Earth and Icicube—planet of the silver bikini girls.’
‘Silver bikini girls!’ Jason exclaimed, realising that it was a joke the minute the words had left his mouth. He swallowed a curse and tried to laugh it off. Brandon had a fast mouth, whereas Jason had fast fists. Only problem was, much as he would like to, Jason couldn’t show off his skill without getting them all into trouble.
‘Hey, Bran. Get over here!’ It was the President speaking.
The President of the United States.
Although now they had left Earth for good, it was unclear if the title was still valid. ‘You’re the only alien amongst us,’ he said. ‘Tell what we can expect to find on your home planet!’
Brandon turned to the President and just shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t really think of it as home. I was born back on Earth just like everyone else here …’
While Brandon seemed lost in thought, Jason stepped up and took over. ‘Perazim—the capital city—has powerful ground to air defences,’ he told the President, remembering Brandon’s father’s story of his escape to Earth. ‘The city is ruled over by the Arch Predicant. He a mad religious racist, by all accounts, so if you want my advice, let’s make sure we land a safe distance away from the city!’
I’m sure this Arch Predicant will listen to reason,’ the President said. ‘Diplomacy is my job, after all. They even gave me a Nobel Peace Prize for my
extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people
.’
Jason fixed the President with his best cold steel stare. ‘With respect,
sir
, your Noble Prize means sweet FA out here. The Arch Predicant ordered the use of a deadly weapon to almost wipe out the balaks—the other tribe of aliens who live here. And the balaks are just as warlike: they chased that very same super weapon to Earth to grab it for themselves and, well … we know how that all turned out. The time for diplomacy is long gone, Mister President. If we want to make a new home here on Corroza, we’re going to have to
fight
for it!’
The President raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Jason Brown,’ Jason said, mildly annoyed that the President didn’t already know who he was.
‘Well, I like your way of thinking, Jason,’ the President said. ‘Have you thought about joining the US Marine Corps? Since my general was strangled by a killer robot, I could do with some more experienced guys on the team.’
A new voice joined in. ‘Corporal Brown is assigned to MI Zero … as my second in command.’
It was Lieutenant Hewson. The man had followed them throughout all of their adventures, and had helped them out of a tight spot more than once. Jason’s ego started to return, even though he knew that MI Zero at this moment consistent of only Hewson, himself and Kat.
‘Hey, if Jason is second in command,’ his sister piped up, ‘does that mean I’m third?’
‘Joint second,’ Hewson said, proving he was just as skilled in diplomacy as the President.
* * *
The
Majestic’s
operations engineer—a small, weedy guy named Morse—gave an update as they approached the planet.
‘We took a battering travelling faster that light. Structural integrity is at forty-nine percent. The landing gear is completely wiped—we’re going to have to put his thing down on its side. Could be rough. Our biggest problem, though, is that the medical bay is operating at one percent capacity.’
‘One percent?’ the President echoed.
‘The only thing that’s working is the flashing red light that indicates everything else is damaged.’
‘I’ll handle medical emergencies,’ Brandon said. ‘Just get us down there as safely as you can.’
Morse threw up some displays showing a closer view of the planet surface. On the dark side, near the equator, a bright glow indicated the city of Perazim.
Looks like it’s the only city on the planet,’ Brandon said. ‘The zelfs—my people—all live there. The balaks live in the jungle. They obviously don’t even have electricity.’
Where are we going to try and land, then?’ the President asked, deferring to advice from the experts. ‘On the opposite side of the planet to the city? Maybe we can establish our own permanent home there, and live without drawing the ire of this Arch Predicant.’
‘No,’ Jason said. His brain was racing ahead, thinking of scenarios and strategies. ‘We have armoured transports on board, right?’
‘Caimen MTVs,’ Hewson confirmed. ‘They can cut through jungle … Earth jungles, at least.’
‘And what’s their range? How much fuel have we got?’
‘We can adapt rocket fuel,’ Morse said. ‘We won’t be needing it for the
Majestic
. Once we touch down, this heap of scrap is never going to fly again.’
‘So what’s our radius? How far can we move everyone once we land?’
‘All two-hundred of us? We would need every vehicle and tank. Fuel supplies would get us …’ Morse swiped through a few screens of data. ‘… I’d say around five hundred miles.’
‘Then don’t land us any more than five hundred miles from the city,’ Jason said. ‘Because we’re not going to survive in the jungle for long. Sooner or later, we are going to need to get inside those city walls.’
He threw a glance at the President. ‘Like I said, we’re not going to be able to avoid a fight.’
* * *
The protective shutters went down on the windows as the
Majestic
prepared to enter Corroza’s atmosphere. On a schematic on one of the screens, Jason cold see an array of flaps opening up around what was once the Chrysler Building’s multifaceted spire. Presumably, they were heat deflectors. All Jason knew about atmospheric entry was that things got very hot.
On the screen he was watching, several of the panels turned flashed red, then disappeared. The ship was shaking like crazy again, and it was indeed getting very warm.
‘Do you think the aliens had these problems getting from here to Earth?’ Jason asked Brandon.
‘A massive flying saucer is actually the best shape for dissipating heat and slowing the speed of entry,’ Brandon shouted enthusiastically over the noise. ‘A sphere is even better, but that can slow down too fast, crushing the crew. The shuttlecock design that they’re employing here is really better suited for sub-orbital travel. It’s just not designed for …’
Jason tuned out Brandon’s technobabble. He grabbed his friend and Kat by the arm and marched them out of the control room. They took the central staircase down the spine of the ship. Every few steps, Jason found himself losing his footing; the already weak artificial gravity was starting to fail.
Kat shook off her brother’s grip. ‘Where’s the safest part of the ship?’ she said, hanging on to the rail as she went down.
‘No idea,’ Jason said. ‘I’m taking us down to the hanger. We’re going to sit in the cockpit of
Discord
, and then Bran is going to throw up one of his protective bubbles around us. Whatever happens to the rest of this ship, we know we can be invincible for a few vital seconds. Right, Bran?’
‘Right!’ Brandon agreed.
‘Right!’ The President said. He and Hewson had followed close behind.
* * *
As it turned out, the
Majestic
didn’t crash and burn. Instead, it hit the jungle at a low angle and proceeded to carve a furrow ten kilometres long through the alien trees. Only three people were killed—including Morse, who was still in the control room when the heat shield disintegrated on entry.
The three-hundred-metre-tall tower that had once been the Chrysler Building in New York, one hundred thousand light years away, was now lying on its side. The artificial gravity—which Jason had learned had been dependent on forces generated by the movement and rotation of the ship through space—had powered down, and now everyone gathered on what was once the wall of the
Majestic’s
main hanger. Several vehicles—tanks and MTVs—had come free of their moorings and lay piled about like toys. The President was sat on tank with his wife and daughters, talking to Brandon who had wrapped them all up in a protective bubble of bionoids as the ship came down. Now he appeared to be conducting a medical scan on the First Lady.
Jason turned to Kat as they wandered through the clutter of displaced weapons and supplies. ‘I hope
Mister Nobel Prize
doesn’t commandeer Brandon for his own family’s personal protection and healthcare.
We
need him more than they do.’
‘To fight the Arch Predicant?’
‘Of course.’ Jason caught his sister’s doubtful expression. ‘Come on, Sis. Don’t get all
diplomatic
on me too. Remember our parents. Remember Gem. We need to finish this fight for them.’
‘The balak king wrecked out planet and killed our parents,’ Kat said. ‘He’s dead now. And it was Saoirse who killed Gem. She’s dead now, too. Sure, this Arch Predicant sounds like a right piece of work, but maybe he will just leave us alone and let us live here. There’s no point going looking for a fight.’
Jason heaved a machine gun from up off the floor. He couldn’t quite articulate how he felt, but he
wanted
to fight, whether it was personal or not.
Any
bad guy would do,
anywhere
in the universe.