Starr vs the Emperor of Space Pt. 14

Aytan Zardo was smashed into his throne, his face mashed backwards, his blood rushing away from his brain. Blackness swept towards him as he was dragged towards unconsciousness then death. The only reason he could think at all was due to decades of careful engineering and raw, ferocious willpower - a refusal, utterly, to give into the blackness of death, not now. He clenched his teeth and remembered...

He had but one...

One...

Last...

Tool.

He forced his arm to lift against the horrifying gravity as he watched the moon whip by in the growing black tunnel. His finger slowly moved towards...his belt buckle...towards his most prized possession, the thing he had kept for two thousand years for a time exactly like this...this very moment! Zardo felt his bones screaming against him...and he...

Pressed the button.

***

"And there goes the Sword...we no longer have its protection...nor its threat," Jasmine said, shaking her head as she watched the rubble and debris whipping away into space. From Earth it would seem as if the Moon had just been hit by an unexpected comet - but she could see that everything in a two kilometer radius around the Sword had been utterly destroyed. Thus ended all but the most far-flung scraps of Zardo's empire...and with Zardo himself slain and his only heir utterly converted to the side of justice...

So too had died his dream of Empire.

"That was your plan the whole time," Mark whispered. "To turn his weapon against him."

"Simple physics, Styles, simple physics," Jasmine said, chuckling as the rumbling rocket adjusted its nose. "At this rate, we should be at Earth soon." She stood, stretched, yawned, and then felt her ears pop. Her brow furrowed. "Odd. We just got a change in air pressure. I'm going to check the filter systems down near the drive." She stepped to the ladder and grinned. "I'll check on your girl as well."

Mark laughed, softly.

Jasmine slid down the ladder, humming as she came to the lower levels of her Atomo. She carried a great many new technologies - the communication rays, the death rays, the computer-machines - which would revolutionize everything. She patted the curved hull of one of the topped off remass tanks...and then felt a shudder. Gravity seemed to increase...then increase again! They were now going a full gravity, not the enjoyably pleasant one third! She frowned, then felt the acceleration go up again! Two Gs now!

"Mark!" She shouted, straining against the weight. "What are you doing!?"

"I'm not...doing anything!" Mark called down.

Jasmine turned...

And found herself face to face with a naked Aytan Zardo. He held in his hand one of the space wrenches that she had kept on the Atomo for repairs and maintenance. Her eyes bugged. "Ho-" she started, but then his wrench drove into her belly. She crumpled and fell badly, her shoulder popping out of its socket in the heavy gravity, gravity that Zardo stood in with ease, his muscles showing only faint strain as he spread his legs, laughing softly.

"You underestimate the might of Zardo!" he said. "And...the cleverness of our ancestors. There existed aboard our ship, a means of communication. They were called simultaneous particles - particles that can exist in two places at once due to the miraculous effects of quantum mechanics that Earth science has only barely begun to understand! My belt contained a cache of those simul-particles, with enough information density to recreate my body, mind and soul in another location - utilizing the very healing tank you put on your ship! Already full of disassembled organic material from the Cybrid! Thank you for that." He chuckled, then scowled, growing irate again.

"A single use, one time escape from certain death..." He kicked Jasmine in the belly as she tried to move, and he growled. "You think you have beaten me, Starr! I am Aytan Zardo! I am the Emperor of Space! I!" He kicked again. "Cannot!" He kicked again! "Be beaten!"

Jasmine curled around her now broken arm, her eyes closed to slits.

"Get away from her!" Mark shouted, and dropped down, grunting as his knees flexed. He weighed twice as much, but he had still landed well, crouched low. He held in his hands a space knife, snatched in his hurry to come down there. Zardo spread his arms, as if welcoming the blade!

Mark thrust!

The knife struck Zardo's belly - and rebounded off, skittering as if it was trying to cut hardened metal!

"What!?" Mark exclaimed.

"Space skin, son! Laminate weaving, placed throughout my entire epidermal layer!" Aytan Zardo said, laughing as he grabbed Mark's wrist, twisting it aside. "You can't hurt me, Styles!" His hand drove backwards in a brutal backhand slap which sent Mark skidding away, his lip split, nose bleeding. "I, Aytan Zardo, will conquer your whole world with my bare hands if I have too! I have designed myself, from my toes to my scalp, to be perfect in every way!"

Mark sat up, panting.

"I can break your United State's President in half over my knee! I can twist your Soviet Union's Prime Minister's head off with a single hand!" He reached down, then closed his hand around Jasmine's neck, lifting her up. "But first, I'll enjoy strangling you to death! In your own rocket!"

Mark stood, swaying.

Jasmine's legs kicked.

She grabbed onto Zardo's wrist, forcing herself up just enough to gasp out two words. "Mark! Scram!"

Mark's eyes swiveled from Zardo to the large red button that a year before Jasmine had shown him on a tour back at her Earthy estate. Then, he had asked her what SCRAM had meant and Jasmine had smiled, and said: Lets hope we never find out.

Mark slapped down the button on the SCRAM button.

S. C. R. A. M.

Safety.

Control.

Rod.

In the earliest reactors of atomic power, control rods were lowered by slicing down a rope - with the simplest expedient of all. And so...

Ax.

Man.

The ceiling opened.

An ax dropped into Mark's hands.

He lifted it.

Brought it down.

And the hardened, stainless steel edge bit into Zardo's spine, crunching through his space skin, cutting deep enough that his thick, reddish black blood flowed. He dropped Jasmine, throwing up his hands. His eyes widened and he fell to his knees...as Mark yanked the ax free...and swept it down again! The again! Then again!

Aytan Zardo, the Emperor of Space, fell.

His head hit the deck a moment later.

Mark panted, then looked at the ax and saw, etched on the blade: Sic Semper Tyrannis.

He looked from it to Jasmine, who winced as she sat up, reaching up and adjusting an emergency control on the engineering systems. The acceleration eased back to a third of a gravity once more and Jasmine stood wobbily.

"Really?" Mark asked. "You knew that ax would..."

"Family motto," Jasmine said, flashing him a dazzling smile despite the pain etching her features. She clutched her broken arm to her chest and slammed her shoulder hard against the wall. She gasped out as the joint popped back into place. "So, good news. We're going to be arriving at Earth quite a bit sooner than expected."

"And the bad news?"

"Zardo used up so much of our reaction mass..." Jasmine shook her head. "We don't have enough to decelerate. We can change course...but..." She frowned. "The Atomo won't survive." She frowned, slowly. "But we will."

***

"No, Dr. Starr is not dead!" The harried looking lawyer for the Jasmine Starr estate, Mr. Bryce Bryston, spoke as he stood before the Starr Mansion while the reporters thronged outside, cameras angled and lights flashing. "Her estate is merely looking into...certain..."

"Is it true that she's been hired by the CIA?" a reporter asked. "Is she active in the Cuba situation?"

"No, Jasmine Starr is not hired by the CIA!" Mr. Bryston said, growing heated. "We have repeatedly stated that Dr. Starr's involvement with the OSS was only during wartime exigencies! The United States is not currently and, god willing, will not be at war in the near future. Thus, Dr. Starr has remained uninvolved with the CIA. Or the FBI! Or the Department of Defense!"

"But Cuba-"

"She is not involved with Cuba!" Mr. Bryston snapped, reaching up to wipe at his face. He whispered. "This is worse than that Chinese Emperor business..."

More questions clamored out - and then one reporter, a young man named Jimmy Katz, shouted: "What about Mark Styles?"

"Mark Styles and Claudette T.S Grant are-"

BOOM.

The echoing explosion rang through the air, distant enough to draw more curiosity than fear. People looked around, and then Jimmy pointed. "Look! Up there! Something went kaboom!" He pointed again and people saw it. It was less of a single kaboom and more a string of white puffs, as if something had been streaking overhead and had collapsed at several points, scattering itself over the heavens as it disintegrated. The final boom had been the one they had heard, and had made the biggest smear. Mr. Bryston took his glasses off and wiped the sweat from them.

"W-well, it seems...ah..."

"Is it the Reds!?" A female reporter called out.

"Great Scott!" Jimmy Katz cried out. "Parachutes! I see parachutes! Three of 'em!"

The three parachutes looked as if they were coming down towards the Starr Mansion. Mr. Bryston felt a growing stone in his breast, weighting heavier and heavier by the moment as the parachutes came down with gentle grace - and landing on the small wooden platform he had set up for this press meeting with the grace and aplomb of a showgirl from Vegas, came Jasmine Starr. She slung her parachute off, and stood before the reporters in a bright red thong and bikini, smiling cheerfully, a strange pistol hanging from her hip and a bladeless sword hilt from her other. Behind her, in the grounds proper, parachuted down a man and a woman - the man wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, and the woman wearing what looked like one of Claudette's maid outfits.

The reporters gaped as Jasmine's parachute was dragged away and she pointed at the female reporter from The Star Spangled. "Yes, Miss Kane, you can ask the first question, I believe."

"...a...are you...involved with Cuba?" Miss Kane stammered.

"What? Cuba? No," Jasmine said, laughing. "I don't get involved with the CIA's adventurism. Quite distasteful myself. Mr...oh my, Mr. Katz, you made reporter? Good show! What question do you have?"

"What happened to Mr. Styles!?" Jimmy Katz asked.

"Oh, he's back there - he's fine and fit as a fiddle," Jasmine said, stretching. "I was merely testing my brand new atomic rocket - did a quick orbit out around the Van Allen belt, but I got a tad delayed. There was unexpected temporal disturbances caused by the radiation bands. Why, for me, it's barely seemed like a few days has gone by!...what year is it?"

"...1953," Mr. Bryston whispered.

"Good heavens! I'd love to continue this interview, but I need both a shower, a change of clothes, and a chance to catch up on the newspapers!" She winked as the crowd of reporters laughed and she turned and started inside of her mansions. Her lawyer walked with her, spluttering.

"The US Government...the Soviet Union has...talks with...there...Sputnik! The! I! Have you even! Your old friend has risen in revolt against the Batista government in Cuba!"

"Well, bully for him!" Jasmine said, smiling in happy reminiscence. "Now, my investments-"

"Are you not going to fill me in on anything that has happened?" Bryston spluttered as they walked into the mansion, flanked by Mark Styles and Robin Robinson, who plucked at her maid outfit. "And who is this? Where is Claudette?"

"Claudette has retired," Jasmine said, smiling wistfully. "She's married now, and quite happily. Now, Bryston...do you really want an ulcer again?" Seeing her expression, she patted his cheek. "Go and see as to adjusting my investments, I want to be moving stock out of oil and into nuclear power. Chop chop!"

Bryston spluttered like a teapot and then turned and stormed out.

"...so what now?" Robin asked, quietly.

Jasmine sighed. Then she smiled. "I am in the need of a new maid."

"A...a maid?" Robin asked. "You want a transexual fighter ace cum interplanetary gladiator cum freedom fighter...as a maid?"

"Of course!" Jasmine said, cheerfully.

Robin and Mark looked at one another.

"Can I report on your next story too?" Mark asked.

Jasmine grinned.

"I'd never wish for anyone else," she said.

Mark and Robin smiled. Their hands were clasped together. Robin began to nod. "Bugger it! I'm your maid, Jasmine Starr. Er. Missus."

Jasmine beamed, and together, the three headed to her office for some whiskey and fond memories of people in far off places and distant worlds that they had loved and lost. There, they toasted the future.

They toasted the stars...

...

...

...

...

...

...in a deep, dark room, buried beneath the dusty sands of Mars, an ancient computing machine crunched away. Left untouched by its former mistresses, it began to rattle...creak...clunk. Slowly, vacuum tubes began to whirr. A single solitary screen came to glowing life. Green text crawled across it, unread by anyone in the secreted sepulcher sanctum.

>>>BOOT LOAD PROGRAM

>>>PROGRAM LOADING: 24%

>>>PROGRAM LOADING: 56%

>>>PROGRAM LOADING: 87%

>>>PROGRAM LOADING: 100%

>>>PROGRAM... LOADED

>>>RUN PROGRAM: ZARDO_CLONE_REVIVAL.EVE

The computer whirred and clicked as more and more of it came online, processing this one last, great task.

Distantly, echoing from deep halls, came a familiar, evil laugh.

THE END...?