Temples to Alien Gods - Episode XIII

Episode#13

Bracing itself against the ground, the titan made to stand up.

“Wait!” Adkara cried.

The beast paused.

“Who are you? What is your name? What is this…mission you speak of?” Adkara asked.

Rosario knew that projecting emotions onto emotionless beings was a human failing, but she couldn’t help but feel that the titan’s face had taken on a mirthful quality.

“My masters did not give me a name,” the titan rumbled, “but the lower lifeforms on each world I visited gave me a name...each different but all with the same meaning: Annihilator.”

“That’s…ominous,” said Rosario under her breath.

“I am no mere destroyer,” said the beast, proving it had heard her. “I was tasked with leaving nothing alive on each world I visited.”

An enormous hand scooped down and took a great handful of sand. The giant raised it to its face before allowing it to stream through its fingers.

“My masters send me on ahead of them to clear a way,” it said. “To prepare worlds for their imminent arrival, worlds with lifeforms to defend themselves, lifeforms my masters could not afford to waste time on.

“I drove my sword into the very heart of these worlds. I crushed their civilizations beneath my feet. I toppled mountains on top of them; I held their lives in my hands and made tight fists. My sword leveled their great forests and their mighty cities.”

Obadiah looked ill. Rosario was staring fixedly at the ground while Adkara stared upward at the titan, unable to conceal the horror on her face. Frank’s expression did not change; he remained fixed upon this monstrous creature.

“When the Great Sleep occurred, I was on this world,” said Annihilator. “My masters ordered all their servants to enter a dormant state and await further instructions. I did as instructed, and here I have slept.”

Annihilator picked up a piece of the ziggurat that lay on the ground, amused.

“Apparently, I did not clear this planet as thoroughly as I had hoped,” he remarked. “No matter. They could not have survived long.”

He tossed the piece carelessly to the side and stood once more.

“Stop!” Adkara yelled, walking toward the giant. “You can’t do this! This is abhorrent!”

“By your standards, perhaps,” he replied, now at his full height. “Not by the standards of those whom I have served.” With that, he turned toward the sky, as if trying to pick out a planet to destroy first.

Rosario plucked a grenade from her pack and threw it at Annihilator with a scream. The titan was so huge that missing him was impossible and the explosive hit his leg, the blast echoing across the plain.

Annihilator looked down at the blast mark and turned back to the others.

“Very well.” He strode away from them. At first the group was confused until it became obvious.

He was going to get his sword.         

They all turned and ran as if there was even the slightest possibility of outrunning Annihilator. Rosario tapped her headset frantically. “Gretel! Dammit! Gretel! Gretel! Where are you?”

“Captain, I am coming.”

“Oh, thank God! Where have you been?!”

“Captain, I had to get clear of the seismic disturbance to prevent being caught.”

“Well, get us out of here!” Rosario shouted.

A scraping sound echoed across the surface of Korla and the ground shook. Annihilator had seized his sword with both hands and was attempting to heave it out of the ground. The weapon was as tall as he was, but his hands fit around the hilt perfectly. With one roaring grunt, he pulled the sword free and took it in both hands. He turned back and moved toward the travelers.

Obadiah was practically tripping over himself as he ran. Adkara and Frank ran behind, firing at the titan while Rosario yelled into her radio.

“Gretel! Crap! I’m too young to die! Gretel! Hurry up, Gretel!”

As the giant drew closer, the ground was shaking so much that it became harder to run. The adventurers stumbled forward, trying to get as far away from the deadly colossus as they could.

Annihilator stopped. For a moment, they thought they were clear, but they were wrong. The creature slowly raised his sword.

“Crap! Gretel!” Rosario cried. “Gretel!”

They heard a whoosh. Adkara, Rosario, and Obadiah turned to look. Frank was flying directly toward Annihilator.

“Frank! No!” Adkara screamed.

But Frank wasn’t listening. He activated his chest-mounted disruptor cannon and circled Annihilator in an irregular flight path, firing when he could. At first, Annihilator ignored him, but Frank hit his neck with a high-powered blast and blew a small hole there. Annihilator roared and stumbled, throwing off the aim of his strike and dropping his sword.

“Yes!” Rosario punched the air.

“Brace yourselves!” Adkara called as the sword fell to the ground with a clang and triggered another earthquake.

“Captain! I am here!”

Gretel flew toward them as fast as she could, the door to her airlock open. The adventurers ran to meet her. Frank circled the Annihilator, who was trying to swat him out of the air like a fly. Frank’s strike on his throat had damaged the titan’s voice box and the beast could no longer talk, only roar.

Gretel hovered above the still-trembling ground as the party scrambled aboard. As Obadiah and Adkara pulled Rosario onto the ship, they heard a collision. Frank spiraled, out-of-control, toward the earth, struck by the god’s own crusader.

“No! Frank!” Adkara cried.

“Gretel!” Rosario said. “Get us over there!”

Gretel turned and flew to where Frank was falling. The hunter killer was trying to reignite his rockets, but his systems had all been stunned. Annihilator bent to pick up his fallen sword.

Frank crashed in a cloud of sand. The party were by his side in an instant. His head and one arm had come off, but the party grabbed his pieces and dragged him aboard.

“Why is he so HEAVY?” Rosario exclaimed as she fought with the torso.

“I will forward your inquiry to my manufacturers,” Frank said.

“Frank, shut up!” Rosario snapped.

After the airlock door shut, they raced to the bridge, Obadiah carrying Frank’s head, as Gretel fought to gain altitude. Annihilator had raised his sword and swung it. They could not avoid the blade.

Or so it seemed.

“Captain,” said Gretel. “Switch to auto-pilot and buckle your seatbelt.”

“Gretel, what—”

“Just do it.”

Rosario chewed her lip for a second’s hesitation and switched the auto-pilot on. No sooner had she done so when Gretel turned and barreled toward the giant’s swinging sword.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!?” Rosario yelled.

“Captain, have I ever steered you wrong?”

“I…”

“Captain, that was a rhetorical question.”

They were about to collide with the sword. They were all in their seats, belts tightened as tight as they could go. Obadiah dropped Frank’s head and covered his eyes, Adkara gripped the arms of her seat, and Rosario let loose a string of barely-related expletives.

But rather than colliding with the sword, Gretel avoided it by a hair’s breadth and magnetized herself to it. Then she fired her rockets at full blast and dragged the sword after her as she turned back toward Annihilator.

None of the others realized what was happening and it happened too fast for Annihilator to do anything about it. Using her rockets and the sword’s momentum, Gretel flew the sword back upon its wielder and, in one powerful blow, cleaved his enormous head from his shoulders. With a screech, Annihilator’s head fell from his body, but Gretel wasn’t done. She set her energy shields to maximum power and crashed through the falling head, scattering debris upon the ground below. She barely had time to get clear as Annihilator’s decapitated body fell to the ground with enough power to crack the earth.

*****

The party waited for the dust to clear before Gretel landed again, leaving her safety to walk amongst the ruins of Annihilator’s head. Obadiah carried Frank’s head.

“Sorry for dropping you earlier,” he said to him.

“Humans in high-stress situations often have dramatic emotional reactions,” said Frank, “and I would consider cutting off the head of a skyscraper-sized robot to be a high-stress situation. All is forgiven.”

“Don’t worry,” said Obadiah. “I’ll put you back together once we’re airborne.”

The inside of Annihilator’s head was a messy affair. Instead of brain there was a great mass of plastic cables as thick as ropes, which now lay in a tangled heap amidst all the pieces of broken metal. One of Annihilator’s enormous green eyeballs lay a short distance away, glowing no more. The other had been stabbed by a piece of metal and leaked a silicone fluid all over the place.

“Yuck,” said Rosario. “Just…yuck.”

They stood before the mass of cables, which lay in a heap taller than them.

“Annihilator’s central data storage unit will most likely be at the center of this mass,” Gretel concluded.

Adkara drew her blade and started hacking away. Clear fluid sprayed and oozed out as the last remaining sparks of life crackled and faded.

“Having fun?” Obadiah asked.

“You want to help?”

“I’d hate to deprive you of your fun,” said Obadiah. “I’ll stay back here.”

After great effort, Adkara’s sword finally clanged against something. Reaching into the mass with both hands, Adkara dragged out a crystal as tall as she was.

“Bring that aboard,” said Gretel. “Hopefully, a map of Annunaki space will be stored in the memory banks. We can cross-reference it with what little information of wild space we have.”

Adkara nodded and shouldered the crystal. Obadiah handed her Frank’s head.

“Here,” he said. “Rosario and I will see if we can find anything else that is useful somewhere among this mess…Rosario!”

Rosario was already running toward a piece of internal processing with every intention of calling dibs.

*****

The scavenging operation lasted till sunset and then they were off and away from the planet of Korla. Adkara had hooked Gretel up to the crystal, but the download process was slow, to say nothing of the map cross-referencing with Gretel’s existing star maps..

Annihilator was somewhat behind on system updates.

The rest of the crew sat around the table in the dining room. Rosario enjoyed a drink, Adkara was cooking in the kitchen, and Obadiah focused on reattaching Frank’s head.

“This is an unnecessary gesture of compassion, human,” said Frank, “but I thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Obadiah. “This isn’t overwhelmingly difficult; I’ve done battlefield repair to Unitron tanks.”

“You have my respect.”

Smelling food, Spike walked into the kitchen area and sat on the counter across from Adkara.

“Mewl?”

“I’m not even a little bit done,” Adkara chided the cat. “You just need to wait.”

Spike’s brow furrowed, but he remained where he was, watching Adkara as she chopped vegetables and fried something on the stovetop.

Obadiah set Frank’s torso upright on the floor and was trying to reattach his head. “What are you making?” he called to Adkara. “And how does it smell so good? I saw what food supplies we had. It wasn’t inspiring.”

“Spices, my friend. Spices.” Adkara replied. “Even the worst ingredients can be transformed into something magnificent.”

Adkara finished slicing her onions and scraped them into her pan, followed by a can of some cheap Union-processed meat product. Numerous sliced vegetables and spices slid into the frying pan and the aroma in the cabin grew more heavenly.

Obadiah fixed Frank’s head onto his body.

“What next, Frank? Arms or legs?”

Frank considered this. “I should find arms more useful than legs,” he replied. “Legs are only useful for walking. If you reattach my arms, I can assist in reattaching my own legs.”

“Makes sense.”

Captain Cortez walked through. She had changed out of her jumpsuit and thrown on a flannel shirt and jeans. “Adkara! What are you making in there?”

“Stir-fry,” Adkara replied.

Cortez sat down at the dining table across from Obadiah. “You’re much more imaginative with that junk than I am.”

“Confirmed. The captain has been known to eat straight out of the can on uninspired days.”

Obadiah sniggered. Cortez looked unamused.

“No one asked you, Gretel.”

“I was supporting your claim, Captain.”

Cortez shook her head as she reached under the table for a bottle. “Anyone up for a drink?”

“I always am,” said Obadiah.

“I got rum, and I got rum,” said Cortez.

“Hard choice, but I’ll go with the rum.”

“I’ll take a glass, too,” Adkara called from the kitchen.

Cortez poured out some glasses of rum while Adkara dished dinner out into bowls, adding some meat in a separate bowl for Spike. All of this occurred just as Obadiah reattached Frank’s right arm.

“All right, Frank. I’m taking a break now,” Obadiah said.

“Understandable. I will see what else I can do while you feast.” Frank said.

Cortez ate a spoonful and moaned. “Goddammit! Where did you get the spices? None of mine taste this good!”

“I carry some of my personal effects around at all times,” said Adkara. “It’s just common sense.”

Obadiah nodded his head appreciatively. “This is good.”

“Tomorrow, it’s my turn to cook,” said Obadiah. “I have a chili recipe that’s absolutely killer. We’ll need to replace whiskey with rum, but—”

“How is that a bad thing?” Rosario interjected.

Obadiah laughed.

“Captain, I have finished downloading Annihilator’s memory banks into my system,” said Gretel. “I am now ready to pull up the relevant star charts.”

“Proceed.” Rosario waved her spoon.

“Here is the map of wild space that we are familiar with, brought to you by cross-referencing pirate maps with official charts from numerous planetary governments and probes.”

A floating hologram of Korla blinked into existence. Then other celestial bodies appeared: stars, planets, nebulas, asteroid fields, etc. There were not many. It was clear that the existing planetary governments were cautious about exploring too deeply into wild space. Only a few lost probes appeared seemingly out in the middle of nowhere.

“Now, here is the map of the Annunaki empire I pulled from the Annihilator’s brain. I am adjusting certain orbits and celestial bodies to account for the time that has passed since the Annihilator was asleep.”

The air around the travelers lit up with holograms. The Annunaki empire spanned galaxies, with millions of stars and billions of planets, under the rule of one powerful race.

The adventurers were agog.

Rosario pointed to one baseball-sized hologram that was slowly moving past her head. “Gretel, what is that?”

“Captain, that is a Dyson sphere.”

“A what?”

“A sphere constructed around a sun to harness its power.”

“Impossible!” said Adkara. “You’d have to strip-mine several planets to have enough materials for such a construct.”

“The Annunaki had several Dyson spheres throughout their empire,” Gretel went on. “According to the Annihilator, many of these spheres had combative capabilities. They could harness solar energy into focused beams with the power to destroy planets or ignite nebulas.”

“Where did they live, though?” Obadiah asked.

“Gretel,” said Adkara. “Mark routes for trade and supply lines.”

“Confirmed.”

Red and purple lines appeared through the maps, forming highways that connected the systems and planets. Once the lines stopped, there was a network of important planets, but...

“The Annunaki didn’t have a single capital world,” Captain Cortez remarked.

“Clever,” said Frank. “If there is no centralized command, it would be incredibly difficult to launch an effectively crippling attack should another race decide to make war against the Annunaki.”

“They may not have a centralized world,” said Obadiah, pointing, “but they do have a centralized galaxy, see? This galaxy is near the center of the empire and it contains the most hub worlds.”

“So if we journey to this galaxy,” said Cortez, “we could just land on any hub world and find the information we need!”

Adkara nodded. “Leave it to other explorers to reach the summit of Everest. We’ll be paid just for making it this far.”

The ship lurched.

“Gretel! What was that?”

“A shift in gravitational force, caused by our departure from Galaxy Z-333. We have officially entered wild space, Captain.”

Captain Cortez uncorked the rum and topped everyone up. “This calls for a toast!”

“Captain Cortez, I am unable to consume alcohol,” Frank reminded her.

“Just raise the glass, Frank,” said Rosario. “I’ll drink it for you! It’ll be fine!”

Spike leapt up on the table and sniffed his glass.

“Wait, Spike! Not yet!” Rosario scolded.

The four travelers raised their glasses. Spike sat beside his.

“To the perilous journey that lies ahead!” Rosario said. “And to the treasures that wait for us at the end of our journey!”

“Cheers!”

Adkara and Obadiah clinked their glasses and chugged them down. Frank gave his to Rosario, who downed both hers and his, while Spike licked his and decided he didn’t care much for it.