Chapter 19
Everything about the planet Brenaria suggested peace. There was silence as Ned’s escort flew him over the cityscape of rounded, softly-colored buildings surrounded by placid lakes and forests of trees swaying in a gentle breeze. The few clouds in the sky were fluffy and white. The sky was clean, and the sun gave just enough warmth to the landscape to ward off any chill the wind might have caused.
I bet Dark Viper would like to rip this place apart, Ned thought to himself. Probably the only reason he doesn’t try is so he can use it to snare people like me.
Wrong. There are no people like you. The thought was born out of melancholy rather than pride, and Ned forced it from his mind.
His heart quickened as the transport shuttle neared a landing pad near the fringes of the city. He had spent the entire previous day practicing the use of the Plasma force, trying to increase its strength. The Brenarians would not allow him to detonate grenades in his hands as Koral had instructed him to do on Palandora, neither were there random targets to destroy aboard the Brenarian ship, but Ned had improvised, forming energy fields out of the Plasma and shooting them with his battle suit’s laser pistol. He had tried other methods of preparation as well, and he felt as confident in his ability now as he had when he had left Galactron.
The Brenarians were used to requests for private meetings such as this one, so there were several buildings of all sorts constructed along their cities’ perimeters. It was to one of these that Ned was being taken now. As Ned approached the building he saw out the viewport another shuttle approaching as well and got the immediate impression that he had made a mistake. What am I doing here? She wouldn’t come here if there was any danger to her! But Ned reminded himself that there was nothing Kayleen Rax or anyone else could do to harm him, and decided that he would be fine. Maybe she does just want to talk.
The two shuttles landed and opened their doors, and Ned stepped out onto the ground in front of the building. He was wearing his battle suit, but the helmet was disengaged. Kayleen Rax stepped out of her escort shuttle several yards across from him, and Ned saw that she, too, had her helmet off. That gesture of peace was a much greater risk for Rax than for Ned, and he realized that if he wanted to he could probably shoot her right then and finish the whole business. He knew that would be wrong, though, so he walked over to her.
“Ned Simmons,” she greeted warmly, shaking Ned’s hand. “It’s good to meet you.”
Ned noticed absently that it was a bit strange to shake hands wearing metal gloves. “Good to meet you too,” he replied, but there was not much diplomacy in his voice. He noted that the Brenarians were already leaving.
“Marnax and I agreed on this building,” Rax said. “I assure you, it’s completely safe. Let’s go.”
They walked in the door, down a hall, and through another door, and abruptly all the lights went out. Ned turned to fire of a bolt of Plasma, but before he did a shimmer of green light off to one side caught his eye.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Ned,” said a calm but chilling voice. “For a long time indeed.”
Ned could not see Rax, but she had not attacked, so he ignored her for a moment. The light on one side of the room increased just slightly, and Ned saw that he was actually looking at a viewscreen. There was no mistaking the identity of the man it showed. His green, plated armor gave the impression of snake scales, and he was wearing a black cape that billowed slightly. The man had a piercing gaze, and his mouth was twisted in a wicked smile. His right hand was throbbing with green light.
“Dark Viper.” The words fell from Ned’s mouth like acid.
“Nedward Simmons. Holder of the Crystal of Shield Plasma. Ambassador from the ancient mother land of Terrus. I welcome you.”
“What do you want?” Ned kept his voice so low that the question sounded like a dare.
“Only to speak with you. To tell you the truth.”
“And what truth is that?”
Viper’s smile disappeared. “The truth, Ned Simmons, is this!” He brought up his hand in a fist, and green light exploded forth, filling the room he was in, wherever that was. The light from the viewscreen became so bright that the room in which Ned stood was also bathed in green. Ned noticed Kayleen Rax standing off in one corner. Her helmet was still off.
“The truth, Ned Simmons, is that I am the Master. I have the power, and I will soon rule the entire galaxy. All who oppose me shall fall, for no one – not Gerran Marnax, not Kayleen Rax, not even you – have anything that can even compare to my power. I rule.”
“Is that all? Can I go now?”
“You have been lied to, Nedward. Rax has explained the matter, but you obviously do not believe her. Perhaps there are other questions you wish to have answered. I can explain everything, but it will take time. Come, meet with me here on Venom. Once you see the truth, I am sure you will join me. The friends you have made are commendable people, but their cause is wrong, and it is lost. And they do not have the power. Come, join me, and I will give you more power than you can imagine. If you refuse, then I shall be forced to take back what is mine, whatever the cost.”
Ned was not the slightest bit fazed. “Maybe, if you had come here yourself, I might be the slightest bit afraid of you. But seeing that you’re hundreds of light years away, you don’t give me much incentive.”
Dark Viper’s face froze into a frown. “Very well. Destroy him.”
The screen went dark, the lights came on, and Ned spun around just as Kayleen Rax engaged her helmet and extended her hand toward Ned, the Blast Crystal glowing yellow in her fist. Ned rushed to one side, gathered the blue light around his hand, and fired a bolt of sizzling energy at her.
It disappeared in a flash of purple light.
No!
There was another surge of Vortex Plasma, and Markan Dren appeared across the room. There was no time for Ned to dodge the blast from the rocket launcher Dren held, and the blast knocked Ned back against the wall. There was no Anacron Plasma associated with the blast, so there was no power to absorb.
“You are pathetic, boy,” Rax said, every trace of friendliness gone from her voice. “You really thought I would kill my own partner just to get rid of someone as insignificant as Koral? Markan teleported away as I finished off your worthless mentor, and now we’re going to finish the job.”
Ned tried again to hit Rax with his Blast Plasma, but Dren simply diverted his attacks into oblivion. Three more rockets tore into Ned’s shielding, melting away part of the wall against which Ned had been thrown.
“The walls in this place are celiuritium, and they’re eight feet thick. They’ll hold up for at least as long as you do.”
Ned tried to detonate the next rocket before it could clear the launcher, but his blast got only halfway across the room before Dren destroyed it. Despair washed over Ned like a tsunami and threatened to drown him. Markan Dren was alive. Projectile weapons were useless. What was he going to do now? Options were fading quickly, so the choice became simple. If projectile weapons won’t work, then I’ll just have to get closer.
Calling forth the power to swat away the incoming rockets, Ned rose to his feet. Blue Plasma flared all around him and dripped from his body like thick syrup. An instant later Ned burst into flame. The Plasma fire was too close to Ned for Markan Dren to get a good lock on it, so the fire burned on despite the Vortex Master’s attempt to quench it. Ned made a quick dash at Kayleen Rax, and she was so surprised that she was not quick enough to avoid him. Ned’s hands locked onto her shoulders, and wave after wave of Blast Plasma surged into her suit. Acting out of instinct, Rax fired back at Ned, almost dislodging him with her superior force, but Ned held on, and both combatants tumbled to the ground as Ned absorbed as much of the yellow light as he could. Rax’s attack diverted Ned’s power enough to let Markan Dren lock onto her, though, and in a flash of purple she was standing next to him, out of Ned’s range. Dren fired more rockets at Ned, but he smashed them apart with his fists.
&nb
sp; “You’re going to have to do better than that,” Ned called out defiantly, “or we’ll be here forever!” He sent out several pulses of energy, and although Dren was able to keep them all from hitting anything but the walls, Ned used the slight distraction to advance on the couple. He knew that they could escape if he got close enough to do anything, but he had a feeling that they weren’t going anywhere far away until this fight was over. For one thing, Dark Viper would probably punish them if they failed. Ned was really running out of ideas now, but he felt strong, so it seemed like the best thing to do would be to keep Rax and Dren thinking.
When Ned got close, Dren teleported Rax and himself to the opposite side of the room. “We need something stronger,” he said to Rax. “I’ve only got about ten more rockets stashed downstairs, and he’s not weakening fast enough.”
“Then think of something!”
Dren had only managed to teleport fifty rockets, plus himself, past the Brenarian guards. If he ran out he would have to resort to a hypercharged laser carbine. There was no telling how long that would take to wear Ned down, and before it did the Brenarians would probably come to check up on their guests. Rax would be forced to destroy them, and then things would get difficult. The Brenarians would attack with starfighters or worse, and Rax and Dren would be forced to leave without Ned. Dren did not consider that an option.
“Hold this,” he said, handing Rax the rocket launcher.
Ned had been gathering his power and was about to unleash it when he was surrounded by a suffocating blanket of fire. At least that was what it felt like. The purple light surrounding him told Ned that Markan Dren was trying to teleport him somewhere; probably underground or somewhere as unpleasant. At any rate it took a tremendous amount of energy to withstand the force of the Vortex Plasma. Ned fell to his knees, then onto his back, and still the purple light pulled at him, trying to carry him away. Ned was forced to put everything he had into resisting it.
If it had been Kayleen Rax attacking him instead of Markan Dren, Ned would have simply absorbed her power. That was why she had stayed out of the fight. Ned understood the Blast Plasma; he had used it before he had even known about Rax. But the Vortex Plasma was completely different, completely foreign. Everyone understood destruction, but until Koral had told him about Markan Dren, Ned had not even known teleportation was possible. How was he supposed to control it?
Once again a wave of despair swept over Ned. He was weakening fast, and before long he would be so weak that his enemies would be able to simply pick him up and drop him in space where no one would ever find him until it was far too late. He had failed. Marnax had failed. Smardwurst, X, and Jenara would all perish. Earth would be destroyed. Dark Viper was going to win, and it was all because of Ned’s gullibility and foolhardiness. It was all his fault.
No! The word rung out like a battle cry in Ned’s mind. No! I won’t let this happen!
Then, just like it had back on Earth when Jared had touched him after the alien attack, something inside Ned snapped. The reasoning that had been coursing through his mind and the despair that had been throbbing in his heart gave way to anger. The Plasma flared up inside him, pressing at his skin, and then it exploded outward with violent force. Ned felt like a mere spectator as the Plasma from within reached out and crushed the purple energy beam directed at him, breaking it apart, draining it away. The Vortex Plasma swirled about Ned in a purple haze, devoid of direction or impact. Then it turned blue.
An azure fire tore back along the purple line extending from Markan Dren’s clenched fist. The light entered the stone he held in his hand like water flowing into a sponge. The Vortex Crystal’s facets flared for an instant with the power of Ned’s attack, and then the Crystal simply flew apart. Purple light filled the room, throwing Ned back against the wall once more, and everything disappeared for an instant. Then the light retracted, imploding back into the space where the Vortex Crystal had been. Bits of metal that had been blasted loose from the walls fell into the vortex, along with pieces of the room’s viewscreen that had been torn apart by the Crystal’s explosion. Ned, too, was pulled in, but the Shield Plasma around him kept him from being engulfed by the rift the Vortex Crystal had left. At last the purple light disappeared completely, and the room was still once more. Except for Ned, it was completely empty.
Ned lay there on the ground for a moment, trying to catch his breath. Even now he was not sure what had happened. It was as if the Plasma had acted on its own. Certainly he had done nothing consciously that would have enabled him to absorb Dren’s power. It took a minute before Ned realized the implications of what had just happened. The Vortex Crystal had exploded, and everything in the room had been pulled into an endless void. Perhaps that final vortex had led to somewhere other than empty space, but that was not likely. It did not matter. As the Shield Plasma had protected Ned, he had been able to sense what the collapsing Vortex Plasma was doing. Everything pulled into the vortex had been crushed down to the size of the Vortex Crystal before being pulled through. Ned would have been killed if not for his Shield Plasma. And Markan Dren had not had the luxury of Shield Plasma.
Ned felt like he was about to throw up, but a homeostatic regulator in his suit prevented it. You killed him! You killed them both! Tears came to Ned’s eyes, and he rolled over, holding his head in his hands. Yes it had been necessary, and it had not even been a conscious effort, but that did not make it any more bearable. You killed them! Ned decided that he needed to get his mind off the subject. He needed to find someone to get him back to General Marnax before he lost control of himself completely. Shaking off as much of the irrational feeling of guilt as he could, Ned climbed to his feet and walked toward the hole in the wall the door had left when it had been sucked into the vortex.
“Freeze!” Kayleen Rax shouted as Ned stepped into the hall. Ned whirled to his right and instinctively let out a stream of Blast Plasma. It knocked Rax to the floor, but she jumped back to her feet. The stone she held in her fist was pulsating with light. “Don’t move!”
Ned could have attacked her, but the very thought made him sick again. “You survived,” he muttered instead, trying to sound emotionally stable.
Rax’s voice sounded harsh through her suit, but that was not enough to mask the emotion in it. Kayleen Rax was terrified. “I ran out of the room when I saw what you were about to do. Markan …”
“He’s dead,” Ned finished for her. “Now hand me that Crystal and get out of here. I don’t want to kill you too.”
The yellow light in Rax’s fist intensified. “I can’t. Dark Viper will torture me if I return now, unless I kill you first.”
“Run away.”
“He’ll find me. We fight to the death.”
“Kayleen, listen to me.”
She didn’t. The full power of her Crystal came streaking out at Ned in a searing blast of yellow energy. Ned jumped away and Rax’s attack missed, completely destroying the wall behind along with the several rooms beyond that. Ned sent a blast of his own toward the Blast Crystal, and it hit dead-on. But Ned did not allow the Crystal to explode with the violence Markan’s had. He enveloped it with an energy shield, and since most of its internal energy had been expended in Rax’s blast, the shield held. Ned absorbed a great deal of the explosion, and the Plasma that did escape ripped into the metal of Rax’s battle suit, but it did not reach her body.
Rax lay on the ground, groaning at the sense of loss that the destruction of her Crystal had left her with. She tried to deactivate her broken armor, but without the Plasma force she couldn’t. Instead she released the helmet and pulled it off by hand. It was only then that Ned realized that he had never activated his own helmet. Rax’s eyes met his, and he smiled slightly.
“You meant to do that. You couldn’t hide from Dark Viper while you held the Crystal, and you couldn’t get rid of it by yourself. You knew that if you expended your full strength first I would be able to protect you.”
“Maybe you’re not such a fool after al
l, boy. So now what? You take me prisoner of war?”
“I guess so.” Ned was disgusted at the prospect of Rax sitting out the war in peace after everything she had done. Better that then having to kill her here, though. “Come on. Cooperate, and I’ll make sure you’re protected from whatever Viper tries to do to you.” No promises about Marnax though, he added to himself.
Ned turned and walked her toward the exit, but when he turned a corner a bolt of black fire streaked out of the air in front of him and hit him full in the chest. There was no response from his Shield Crystal. It was as if it did not exist. The battle suit blocked the damage, but Ned was jolted several steps back. Kayleen Rax was completely forgotten. The black “light” fired into him again, and though Ned fought consciously to protect himself this time, his assailant’s power burned into him without regard for his Shield Plasma. Ned quickly tried to activate his helmet, but before he could do so something closed around his neck and forced him back against the wall.
A harsh, unembodied voice hissed at him from the air. “Don’t move, don’t speak. I could kill you where you stand. And leave your helmet off.” The thing slowly withdrew from his neck. A hand? But that was impossible! There was no one there!
Then the air in front of Ned darkened, and the darkness increased and coalesced until it formed the black silhouette of a human. Or something like one. No light reflected off of it; it was as if someone had cut a hole in existence in the shape of a person.
The hissing voice came again. “You are a very powerful one indeed, Nedward Simmons. But you are nothing compared to me. I am the Shadow Master, and your Plasma is of no consequence to me. I serve Dark Viper occasionally, but my motives are my own. That is why you are still alive.
“You interest me, Ned. I would hate to see power like yours go to waste. But Dark Viper was right when he said that your cause is a lost one. You could go to him now and he would make you his prince, and you would truly have more power than you can now imagine. But I know you will not. You are stubborn, and you will see the StarBlazer cause through to the end, even if it kills you. And you certainly can be killed, Shield Master. The Shadow Plasma cuts through your shield with ease. Never forget that.
“Fortunately, I have other plans for you. You will serve me best back among your friends and allies, filling their minds with false hopes of victory and fears of the invisible Plasma Master walking in their midst. You will serve me best by speeding them on their way to their doom.
“But you do interest me, and I hope that you will eventually see the light – or the darkness, as the case may be. It would be a shame to let such power as yours go to waste, inferior though it is. Then know this: even now the Emperor is constructing a starship with enough power to make Devastator look like a child’s toy. I have even added an enhancement of my own! If you go into battle against this ship, it will destroy your fleet and leave you to perish in the cold emptiness of space. Heed my warning, Shield Master. If you value your life more than StarBlazer’s freedom, join the Empire, and do it soon.
“I leave you with this reminder of my power and what it can do to you.” The Shadow Master struck Ned across the face with its fist, sprawling him on the floor. For the first time in longer than he could remember he felt physical pain, and the feeling was excruciating. It was as if he were being hurt for the first time. Ned lay there for a moment, half-expecting to be struck again, but nothing happened. “Hello?” he called out, feeling foolish but needing to know if his visitor was still there. There was no response. Ned had heard no departing footsteps, but perhaps the Shadow Master could walk in silence. He rose to his feet and looked around. Kayleen Rax had long since fled.
The enormity of what he had just experienced nearly overwhelmed Ned as his escort flew him back to where he was to meet with Smardwurst following his so-called “interview” with Kayleen Rax. He felt devastated inside after what he had done to Markan Dren and after what he had been told by this new enemy, the Shadow Master. What did it all mean?
First of all and most importantly, Ned told himself, the Blast Master and Vortex Master were gone for good. And, to a certain extent, Ned had discovered the spy who had leaked information about the particle beam to the Empire. As for a method of catching the culprit, that was up to Marnax. In any case, Ned had survived, and that in itself was no small feat at all.