Authors: Rob May
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, poisonous 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.
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.
They hit the cloud like it was an inflatable castle, and spent the next minute or so bouncing up and down uncontrollably. Jason swore the whole time, while Grok chuckled and laughed.
‘Well, that was fun,’ Doo said, staggering clear. ‘Can we do it again?’
‘No need,’ Jason said, looking out over the city. ‘Here’s our ride.’
Something big was making its way between the skyscrapers: a huge grey shape that Jason first thought was a parade float. But that was just his eyes showing him what his mind expected to see. In actual fact, it was a
building
that was moving through the city: a building turned on its side and floating down the streets.
Jason stretched out his arms and slowly waved them up and down. ‘How on Earth did they get that thing moving again?’ he asked himself.
‘Is that the ship you came in on?’ Doo said. ‘The one you left crashed in the jungle?’
Jason nodded. It was indeed the
Majestic
: battered, battle-scarred and smoking from several orifices, but airborne nevertheless. Once it had been one of New York’s most iconic structures; now it looked like a long, crumpled silver bullet … but at this moment it was the most beautiful thing Jason had ever seen.
It pulled up alongside the building they were on, and a hatch opened up on the side. Doo’s cousin, Brug (or was it Bunk?) stood inside. ‘Get in!’ he yelled. ‘Hurry!’
There was another series of rumbling tremors from deep underground. The entire city shook, and just a few blocks away a building swayed just a little too much, and fell ponderously over, taking out several of its neighbours as it crashed to the ground.
‘Give me Grok,’ Jason said to Doo.
Doo was hesitant. ‘What, are you going to toss him across the gap and into the hatch?’
‘Yep,’ Jason said. ‘Come on, quick.’
There was no time to argue. Doo hand over the baby and Jason flung him across the gap between the skyscraper and the
Majestic
. Grok wailed the whole way across, but Brug caught him safely.
‘You used your bionoid things to guide him in, right?’ Doo said.
‘Of course,’ Jason said, who had intended to, but in actual fact had pitched the baby perfectly with his bionic arm.
‘Alright then,’ Doo said. ‘Bionoid
me
in then!’ And with that, she raced up to the edge and leaped into the air.
Jason gave her a mental shove when she was halfway across and sent her crashing into Brug. When he prepared to jump himself, he felt the building he was standing on start to shake wildly. The entire city was falling apart.
‘Come on!’ Doo and Brug shouted from the hatch. ‘Jump!’
He panicked and misjudged his leap. As the skyscraper he had just left collapsed like a Jenga tower, Jason found himself hanging out of the
Majestic’s
hatch, clinging on by just his fingers. Before he had chance to summon his strength and pull himself up, his fingers slipped and he fell.
Then a hand grabbed his; a tiny hand.
‘Grok!’ he spluttered. This was bad—now he was going to pull the king of the balaks down with him!
But Doo and Brug had each grabbed one of Grok’s little legs, and Jason was able to use the bionoids (the last time he would ever use them, as it turned out) to strengthen the limbs and muscles of all four of them, and allow Doo and Brug to pull them all in to safety.
They sprawled panting in the airlock. Brug crawled over to the hatch and pulled it shut.
‘As if the boss fight wasn’t hard enough,’ Jason gasped, ‘there’s always the frantic escape sequence to go through before you’re done with the game!’
‘Best get up then,’ Brug grunted. ‘You’re not done yet!’
* * *
They ran down the corridors of the
Majestic
, towards the cockpit. Brug carried Grok, and Jason followed, hand in hand with Doo.
‘How did you get this thing flying again?’ he called after Brug.
‘
We
didn’t!’ Brug shouted back. ‘The Resistance found out that the zelfs had recovered the wreck from the jungle and started repairs and refuelling. So me and Bunk took a gang of lads over and asked them nicely if you could have it back!’
‘Well, we’re lucky that you did,’ Doo said. ‘When we get back home, I’ll make sure you and Bunk get a heap of treasure and honours for this!’
‘Not Bunk,’ Brug said casually. ‘He got killed in the fight. But I’ll happily take his share of the treasure and glory!’
Jason was stunned. ‘Bunk died? How can you be so nonchalant about it? He was your brother!’
‘He died the way he wanted to!’ Brug said. ‘In the middle of a good scrap. I wish I had died at his side, but he told me I had to go see this girl he always fancied in the tribe.’
‘To pass on his dying words?’ Jason said. ‘Okay, that’s pretty cool, I admit.’
‘What? No! He always wanted to get off with her. He said that now that he wasn’t going to get the chance, I should try my luck! Apparently, she has really big—’
The
Majestic
suddenly tilted violently and dropped several hundred metres towards street level, sending Jason and the others tumbling around the corridors. Loud bangs echoed around the hull outside.
‘Sounds like a building just fell on us,’ Jason said. ‘What the hell is happening to the city?’
They made it to the cockpit—a small, cramped room full of machinery and navigation equipment that was situated just below (if the
Majestic
had been standing upright) the large control room that had taken up the top floor of the ship when it had been a building. Hewson was squeezed into the pilot’s chair, wrestling with the controls. Beside him was a zelf woman who was looking intently at readouts on a monitor.
‘Structural integrity at fifty-three percent,’ she was saying to Hewson. ‘We’ve got about half an hour until the whole thing blows apart.’
‘What, the ship?’ Jason said as he and the balaks entered the cockpit.
‘No,’ the woman said, looking up at him. ‘The
planet
.’ She gave him a weak smile. ‘Hello, Jason. I’m Rana—Brandon’s aunt.’
He took her hand and shook it. He had so many questions, and his mouth flapped open and closed for a moment. ‘Where’s Bran and Kat?’ he said eventually.
‘They’re safe. They made it to the Firebath Caves, with the rest of the balaks and the Resistance. Don’t worry, we’re going to go and pick them up right now.’
‘The Arch Predicant set off some kind of self-destruct system before he died,’ Hewson said. ‘He reversed the flow of the geo-thermal energy pumps that power the city and … something about the core of the planet, right Rana?’
‘Right,’ she confirmed. ‘The core is being overloaded. It’s venting into chambers throughout the rest of the planet that can’t take the extra pressure. Corroza is going to tear itself apart.’
Jason shook his head. ‘He can do that just by flipping a switch?’
‘He
designed
the whole system to do that,’ Rana said. ‘Zaal often threatened a worldwide apocalypse. The Arch Predicant wanted to make that threat a reality.’
‘Huh,’ Jason grunted. ‘Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.’
‘Look down there!’ Doo shouted. On one of the other monitor screens, they could see thousands of people all gathering in one of the wide public plazas that hung between the buildings in the residential sector.
‘Can we pick them up?’ Jason asked.
‘We haven’t got time and we haven’t got room,’ Hewson said from between clenched teeth as he concentrated on guiding the
Majestic
out of the city.
Jason saw Doo and Rana exchange a concerned look. He realised that if the entire world was on the brink of destruction, then it didn’t matter if you were balak or zelf.
He leaned over Hewson’s chair and put his hand on the man’s shoulder, in a firm vice-like grip. ‘If we don’t save at least
some
more of the zelfs, then the entire race will most likely go extinct. So take us down there,
now
!’
* * *
They made it to the Firebath Caves almost twenty minutes later. This (and not Brightroot Cave) was the real balak sanctuary—the place where the tribe had fled after the wedding, and where Brandon and Kat had led the slaves after escaping the city.
However, following recent events, the caves now looked just as dangerous a place to be as the lair of the glowing white worms had been. The Firebath Caves were overflowing with lava, which gushed out of cavern mouths and surged along valleys like rivers. Churning clouds of black smoke billowed out of fissures in the rock, and the surrounding jungle was on fire.
‘There!’ Jason said, pointing to where a crowd of people were gathered on the high ground of a flat plateau. Lava was sloshing around the edges and looked like it could spill across any moment. Hewson took the Majestic down as low as he could, then flipped a switch that opened one of the hangar doors.
Doo and Brug rushed out of the cockpit to go help get everyone on board. Rana remained at her monitor. ‘Core integrity at eight percent,’ she reported, a trace of anxiety in her voice.’
Hewson’s hand was hovering on the throttle. ‘We’ll have to go soon, whether everyone is on board or not.’
‘Nobody’s going anywhere until I say so,’ Jason said. ‘Seriously, Hewson; we already left too many people behind back in the city. I’ll smash the controls up if you try to leave before everyone is on board. Either we all escape, or we all go down in flames.’
Hewson gave a tight grin. ‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got a few more minutes. Hey, look at that—seems like we’re going to have some pets on board.’
Jason looked at the monitors showing an outside feed. He could just about make out Kat running around organising the loading of several large cages. A pair of catrons prowled around in one, while a flock of villaxx shook the bars of another. The largest cage held two sleeping dragons.
‘Trust Kat to want to save the animals too,’ Jason said. ‘This is just like the ark.’
Rana gave him a curious look.
‘It’s something biblical,’ he explained. ‘Just like a lot of things that have gone down today!’
Brandon came rushing into the cockpit. ‘Let’s go,’ he snapped. ‘We’re ready; we’re just closing the doors. So let’s hit it … punch it … whatever!’
Hewson nodded and calmly engaged the thrusters. The
Majestic
lifted away just as a nearby cave belched forth a fresh helping of lava, which sloshed over the plateau, covering it from view.
Rana slumped back in her chair in relief. Jason punched a console in triumph. Brandon turned to him and, after an awkward moment, they embraced.
‘You did it, Jason. You did what I couldn’t, and defeated the Arch Predicant.’
‘It’ wasn’t all my doing,’ Jason said. ‘Wait til you hear the full story. But what about
you
? You masterminded the whole plan. I couldn’t have done it without you and the bionoids. Hey, cheer up—we’re safe now!’