Lethal Planet (5 page)

08—
VOWS

Jason adjusted his tie in the mirror. A US marine had lent him the shirt, which was still fairly clean. There had been no time to wash it. The tie was blue and had belonged to the President, whose family had asked Jason to wear it.

‘Okay, I’m done,’ Jason said. ‘That’ll have to do. My fingers started going numb on the fiftieth attempt. I swear, this is the last time I’m ever wearing a tie.’

Brandon flicked his fingers and the mirror dissolved from in front of Jason’s face. ‘You should be wearing a red one,’ Brandon said.

Jason ran his hair through his buzz cut. At least he didn’t need a stylist. ‘Why?’ he asked, kneeling down to polish his Doc Martens with a bit of spit.

‘I read it once. The President always used to wear a blue tie when he was entering peace talks. But when he wanted to assert his authority, he always wore a red tie. You want to show you are the dominant partner in this relationship, don’t you?’

Jason sighed. ‘I think that horse has flown. It’s a shame you can’t use the bionoids to rewind us back in time, so we can replay this thing again. The President wouldn’t have to die … and I wouldn’t have to get married to an orc!’

Brandon rubbed his chin. ‘Well …’

‘I was joking,’ Jason said. ‘Don’t tell me that it’s possible. The bionoids aren’t that powerful, are they?’

‘By themselves, no,’ Brandon said. ‘But remember the time-travelling possibilities of a fast spaceship. The superluminal drive that got us here probably uses warp technology rather than simple speed, because nothing can actually go faster than the speed of light, but …’

Jason stood like a statue. For once, he tried to concentrate on what Brandon was saying. It took all of his willpower and energy.

‘… but if we could get to, say, ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine percent of the speed of light, just a year in space would mean five hundred years pass here on Corroza. If we used the bionoids to slow down our bodily functions to compensate, we could go for a spin around the galaxy for what would seem like only a few minutes, but when we come back everything will have changed. The Arch Predicant will be long dead and gone. We could steal a ship in Perazim and simply skip over this war if we wanted to!’

‘That’s not proper time travel,’ Jason argued. ‘That’s called evading responsibilities. I’m not going to give the Arch Predicant the satisfaction of dying in a comfy bed of old age.’

‘It was just a thought,’ Brandon said. ‘I want to stay here too and help out with all the injuries that people are going to be picking up in this war of yours! But if things go wrong and we need a quick escape plan …’

‘Might be worth bearing in mind if I ever want a divorce,’ Jason said. ‘Now, have you got the rings?’

Brandon held out his palm. The rings were beautiful: thin, strong and shining like silver. They had been formed out of some of the bionoids.

‘I’ve made a necklace for Kat, and a bracelet for Hewson, too,’ Brandon said. ‘We’ll all be linked through the bionoids, so we can talk to each other wherever we are.’

‘One big happy family,’ Jason said. ‘Alright, let’s go and do this thing. Take me to church!’

* * *

Three miles out from the stronghold, an ancient temple to Zaal fought a losing battle with the jungle. Enormous building blocks lay strewn about, wrapped up tightly by vines and creepers. The only untouched relic was a twenty-foot-tall statue of Zaal—a horned monstrosity with the strange combination of a heavily muscled chest and arms and a saggy pot belly.

Even the grass around the statue refused to grow. ‘I bet some balaks creep out here every night to do a bit of gardening,’ Brandon said as he and Jason stood at the feet of the statue, waiting for Jason’s bride to arrive.

Jason was too apprehensive to reply. Above the dark, midnight jungle a powerful storm was making a racket. Storms on Corroza were immense, and the trees shook and the ground shuddered with every blast of thunder. The balaks seemed to think that this was a good omen, though. Jason hated to imagine what a bad omen looked like.

Kat worked her way towards them through the gathering congregation. She stopped every five steps to issues orders to a balak usher or a human marine in ceremonial dress. She waved the guests clear as an MTV rolled through and parked up near the statue, turning on its lighting rig to illuminate the proceedings. Jason blinked in the harsh light. He wasn’t too happy being the centre of attention while Kat ran around issuing orders instead of him.

‘TESTING ONE TWO THREE,’ Kat said into a mic. Across the clearing, Hewson had set up a PA. Kat’s voice belted out louder than the storm and everyone clapped their hands to their ears.

‘OH SOrry,’ Kat said, lowering the mic. ‘That system is actually a sonic cannon, used for crowd dispersal. How are you feeling, Jase?  Ready?’

Of course I’m not ready! I’m only fifteen!

‘I’m fine,’ he said.

I’ve never even touched a girl before … at least, not with her permission.

‘Good,’ Kat said. ‘Just remember, this is the sort of thing you have to do in the name of peace and intergalactic relations. Like the Pres, you have to make sacrifices for the common good.’

‘Are you saying that Doo isn’t good enough for me?’ Jason challenged.

Kat’s smile was wiped off her face. ‘No! No, I just thought … erm … I’m just talking crap, really!’

Jason tried to hide his grin. This was how you won battles—by never admitting weakness or defeat.

‘Bring it on,’ he muttered under his breath as he scanned the ruins for any sign of his intended.

* * *

Drums rolled. Thunder rolled. Lightning flashed so bright that it filtered down through the canopy and floodlit the temple. In the brief flash, Jason spotted Doo emerge from behind a broken down colonnade. She wore a dress of vivid birds’ feathers, and a crown of twisted flowers.

Out in the jungle, an alien animal roared.

And suddenly Doo was running. Humans and balaks cheered and screamed as she hurtled towards her groom.

Steady on!
Jason thought. He braced himself to catch her, but she pulled up short at the last moment.

‘Dragons!’ she gasped, as the creature roared again out in the darkness. She looked confused and distressed. ‘Yet … yet that’s impossible—it’s their mating season, and they migrate to the lakes at this time of year—’

‘They’re coming!’ Brandon confirmed, clearly seeing something through the bionoids that the others could not. ‘
Something
big is coming, anyway. And I can sense … zelfs. I can feel their thoughts, their cruelty and … their
pleasure
 …’

Two dragons cried out simultaneously.

‘They’re torturing them,’ Brandon said. ‘Driving them in our direction!’

Panic started to spread through the crowd, but nobody seemed to know which direction to run. The dragon cries seemed to come from all around.

Jason turned to Brandon. ‘Kill them!’

‘Kill them?’ Brandon shook his head. ‘I can’t affect dragon DNA …’

‘Not the dragons. The zelfs!’

Brandon hesitated. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Kill them!’ Jason shouted. ‘That’s an ord—’

‘Too late!’ Kat said, pushing between them and breaking up their confrontation. Across the clearing, three gigantic beasts stepped out of the trees. They were twice as tall as the statue of Zaal—twice as tall as a house—and although they were clearly some kind of reptilian dinosaur type creature, the first thing that crossed Jason’s mind was that they looked like humungous featherless chickens: as ugly as anything, and with wide splayed out clawed feet and a frightening hooked beak.

They stampeded around the ruins of the temple, frightened and confused, and panicking as they tripped over the broken-down walls, and bashed into crumbling stone columns. Without even meaning to, the dragons crushed several people to death underfoot.

And then when one of them got itself trapped between a high wall and a group of equally-frightened balaks, all hell broke loose.

The dragon bent low and unleashed a jet of blue flame, like the discharge of a blowtorch. More than twenty balaks were burned to a crisp in an instant.

Jason recognised when it was time for a route. ‘Get out of here now!’ he shouted to the others, as a chicken-slash-dragon stumbled close, tripping over and colliding with the statue of Zaal. The towering jungle god rocked back and forth for a moment, then came crashing to the ground and broke up into several pieces.

Seconds later, another dragon crushed the MTV that held the lighting rig, and the clearing was plunged into a shadowy darkness, lit only by a few glowing plants and struggling flames that had managed to take hold despite the rain.

Jason held on to Doo’s hand, and together they crashed through the jungle. Brandon and Kat were lost in the chaos and confusion, and soon everything—the sound of the screams, the light of the dragonfire and the shaking of the ground—were lost too, as Jason and Doo were swallowed by the impenetrable jungle.

Jason realised that Doo was pulling him along; she was way stronger, faster and more sure-footed in the jungle than he was. And she could evidently see where they were going, so Jason daren’t let go of her hand. It took all of his remaining energy to keep up with her, and when she eventually stopped, he fell to the ground wheezing and groaning.

* * *

When enough time had passed for Jason to feel they weren’t in any immediate danger, he broke the silence.

‘Well, that was the most exciting thing I’ve seen at a wedding since uncle Dave’s, where my nan broke her hip dancing to Britney Spears.’

He waited for a response. It was pitch black wherever they were, but it felt closed-in. There was a tree root at his back. They were in a hole in the ground, or in a tree trunk, he guessed. In the almost total silence he thought he could hear Doo quietly sobbing.

‘My people,’ she sniffed. ‘Every one of their lives was my responsibility, and I failed them. We should never have left the stronghold.’

Jason groped about and put an arm around Doo’s shoulders. ‘Don’t be silly. It’s not your fault. You didn’t kill your people; the zelfs did. It’s going to happen. We’re at war!’

‘They were guest at our wedding, not soldiers!’

‘Innocent bystanders get killed,’ Jason shrugged. ‘Casualties of war … collateral damage … er, I’m not helping much, am I?’

This whole conversation was getting uncomfortable.
Where the hell was Brandon and the others?
Jason felt his own fingers for the bionoid ring that would let him talk to his friends. Then he remembered—Brandon still had the rings. He was supposed to hand them over during the ceremony.

‘But the worst thing,’ Doo said in a low voice, ‘is that Zaal seems to have deserted us. Do you know the history of the war between the balaks and the zelfs?’

‘No,’ Jason said. ‘I don’t even know much about human history. I used to sleep in Mister Fisher’s lessons.’

‘Three thousand years ago, the balaks were the most powerful tribe on Corroza. Zaal gave us strength. The zelfs had no gods; they were weak, disorganised and fractured. We were always beating them down, stealing their food and lands.’

‘Ha. Nice,’ Jason grunted.

‘But then the first Arch Predicant rose up and united the zelfs,’ Doo went on. ‘And how did he do that? By stealing our god for his own ends, naming himself a prophet and uniting the zelfs to crush us as heretics.’

Jason listened patiently. This was the point where, if this were a video game, he would usually press
skip cutscene
.

‘The Arch Predicant dictated that statues and idols of Zaal were forbidden—probably because Zaal looked more like a balak than a zelf—so all our temples and statues were torn down. The statue of Zaal we were to be married before was the last standing in the world. I’m scared that Zaal has finally given up, or deserted us, Jason.’

Jason had no words to console her. He had no words and no thoughts. Back on Earth, he never gave religion (or other people’s problems in general) even an instant of his attention. So the next words out of his mouth were impulsive, and probably sounded a lot braver and more significant then he intended them to:

‘You don’t need Zaal, Doo. You’ve got me instead. And the game is still on: we
will
take down the Arch Predicant even if it’s just you and me. I swear it. I didn’t get to make any vows to you at the temple, so I’m making one now!’

In the darkness of their jungle bolthole, Doo hugged Jason tighter than anyone had ever done before.

09—
SAVAGES

The rest of the night passed quietly. Most of the jungle animals were either keeping their heads down to avoid predators, or were predators themselves, silently stalking their prey. Jason was woken by the smell of cooking. By the light of the fire and the faint dawn sun, Jason could see they were in a cave of tree roots. Doo was cooking what looked like sausages. She had four of them spiked on the end of a stick, turning them slowly over the flames.

‘Smells delicious,’ Jason said. ‘What you cooking? Catron kebabs?’

Doo gave him a funny look. ‘Zams,’ she said.

Jason looked closer. The things on the end of the stick were like long thin potatoes. Some kind of tuber, he guessed. Suddenly he didn’t feel that hungry. The zams didn’t even smell as good as they did when he thought they were meat.

‘We should have set some traps before we went to sleep,’ Jason said. ‘We need to get proper meals whenever we can grab them.’

Doo’s expression went from puzzled to horrified. ‘You … eat
animals
?’ she said.

‘Of course,’ Jason said. ‘You don’t?’

‘All life if sacred to Zaal. Apart from the zelfs, obviously.’

Back on Earth, Jason had always been suspicious of vegetarians. He had also been suspicious of religious people. Religious vegetarians were more than he could cope with.

‘Weirdo,’ he said.

Doo sniffed. ‘Savage,’ she retorted.

Jason tried a zam to appease her. It was chewy, but had a kind of zingy flavour, a bit like an Indian curry. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘What’s that you’re mixing up? Sauce?’

‘Just mud,’ Doo said.

‘I am
not
eating mud!’

‘It’s not to eat,’ Doo said. ‘It’s camouflage. You’re a horrible pasty pink colour. Rub this all over your face and arms before we leave.’

Jason went one better. He tore off his shirt (which had been ripped half to shreds running through the jungle) and slathered they grey mud all over his torso too.

‘Now I look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in
Predator
,’ Jason said. ‘Awesome!’

‘Now you look like a balak,’ Doo said. ‘Ready to set off? It’s a long trip to Perazim.’

Jason looked around. It was impossible to get a sense of direction in the jungle. ‘Alright. Which way, though?’

‘Up!’

* * *

The tallest trees in the jungle were over two hundred metres high. Climbing them made Jason feel like a kid again. No, more than a kid; he felt like he was reverting back to an ancient time when humans were monkeys. Or was it apes? What was the difference anyway? He felt wild and free as he leaped from branch to branch, using his bionic arm to easily pull himself upwards with little effort.

The tree they were climbing was like a redwood, only the bark had a tough, rubbery texture. ‘They’re called lightning trees,’ Doo told him as they climbed. ‘The trunk is as hard as metal underneath, and they can catch lightning and turn it into energy. Each tree always grows within touching distance of at least one other lightning tree, and they spread energy all around the jungle.’

‘Like an electrical circuit!’ Jason said.

‘If you say so!’ Doo shouted back from far above him. ‘We also use them as roads!’

They had arrived at a spot about halfway up where a wooden walkway had been constructed around an intersection of branches. The branches were wide, and their tops had been worn smooth by the passing of feet. Doo checked a map that had been carved into the bark. ‘I know where we are now!’ she said. ‘Between our stronghold and the zelf’s city.’

‘So which way? On to the city, or back to the stronghold.’

‘Up!’

* * *

From the crown of the lightning tree, Jason had his first real proper view of the jungle planet Corroza. From horizon to horizon, the world was a riot of lurid greens, violent purples and neon oranges. The sky was a weird pink colour, the massive sun looked white, and a multitude of pale blue moons hung in the sky like pool balls scattered after a break.

There were two landmarks: in one direction, about fifty kilometres away, there was a city. It was dominated by an incredible tower that must have been ten times the height of the tallest trees. The tower was surrounded by a forest of smaller towers, the highest of which was only half as tall. The whole city seemed to glow in a shimmer of electric blue.

Doo was looking in the opposite direction, where a thin black line was rising from the jungle. It took Jason a while to work out what it was.

Smoke.

‘The stronghold has been burned out from the inside,’ Doo said. ‘The zelfs must have forced the dragons over our defences. And they only breath fire when they are distressed or in danger.’

She sighed. ‘Damn it, Jason, the zelfs couldn’t defeat us with all their fancy weapons and flying machines, so they turned the jungle against us instead.’

‘Hopefully Brandon’s nearby,’ Jason said, ‘to help with the injured. He is good for something, you know.’

Doo actually growled through her teeth. ‘I hope he now sees what the zelfs are capable of, and decides to use Catron’s Claw to help take the fight back to them. Either way, our path is clear now.’

‘To the city?’ Jason said.

‘Yes, to Perazim,’ Doo agreed. ‘My warriors will make their way there, too, while those too young or old to fight will scatter and hide. Come on!’

She started the climb back down to the walkway. Jason took one last look at the view before following.

‘Doo,’ he hissed urgently.

She stopped and looked back up.

‘We’re being watched,’ Jason said.

Standing perfectly still in the next nearest lightning tree was a tall, black figure, with a long beak and long, long claws. Its body was decorated with strange throbbing blue lights that seems to move around under its skin.

‘Villaxx,’ Doo said. ‘Come on, let’s keep moving. It might be asleep. You can never tell; they don’t have eyelids.’

‘Okay, but hurry. I don’t want to lose another arm.’

‘Don’t panic,’ Doo whispered. ‘Follow me down, and take it slow.’

It was hard not to panic, stuck up a tree trying to make a slow escape from a creature that could snip off a limb as easy as clipping a toenail. Still, Jason kept his cool until they were almost back at the junction of branches the balaks used as roads.

As he lowered himself the final couple of metres, he lost his grip and landed on the branch below with a loud thump.

‘#&%$!’ he swore. The villaxx dropped down through the canopy and landed on the branch about twenty metres away. Its strange blue under-the-skin light show pulsed faster, sucking in Jason’s attention and holding him in a hypnotic trance.

He was faintly aware of something behind him making odd chirruping noises. The villaxx’s colours dulled and it released Jason from its spell.

He turned his head. It was Doo making the noises. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

‘Imitating a villaxx chick,’ Doo said between chirps.

The villaxx seems suddenly cautious, and was backing way down the branch, looking around as it did so.

Jason was puzzled. ‘Are villaxx chicks dangerous?’

‘No,’ Doo said. ‘They are harmless until they learn how to hunt. But they are still pretty big, and they are extremely tasty …’

‘How would you know that? You don’t eat—’

At that moment, and without warning, a massive catron launched itself up from somewhere below, and floated in a twisting arc over the wide branch of the lighting tree like it was doing the high jump. The tiger-like alien took the villaxx with it, clamped tightly in its immense jaws.

‘No,’ Doo said. ‘We don’t eat villaxx chicks. But
he
does.’

Jason was too stunned to talk for a minute.

‘So catrons can climb trees,’ he eventually said. ‘You learn something every day.’

‘You learn or you die,’ Doo said. ‘Come on. Let’s get moving before the catron realises it’s been tricked into catching a stringy old adult villaxx. It’s going to take us a day to wark wrug knutz.’

‘Pardon?’ Jason said.

‘Bigga hoo druk wark wrug knutz! Oh Gubz!’

Doo unclipped a small metal pin from her dress. Jason guessed it was the translator they had been using to understand each other. Probably a piece of zelf tech she had nabbed from somewhere, that now had run out of juice.

‘Gubz, gubz, gubz!’ Doo said. Then she shrugged. ‘Gnoot!’ she said, pointing along the branch and striding off.

‘Now who’s the savage,’ Jason muttered, walking after her.

* * *

Eight hours later, they made it to the last lightning tree before the city. They had snacked on nuts as they walked, taken from stashes left by other travellers in knot holes in the tree trunks. Jason would still kill for, or die for, a quarter pounder with cheese, but he kept his spirits up with the hope that there might be a few fast food restaurants in Perazim he could loot.

They clambered down to the jungle floor, and crept through the undergrowth until they reached a demarcation line, where lush living plantlife became hard concrete. There was half a kilometre of flat grey nothingness between the jungle and the walls of Perazim, which were also featureless concrete, and fifty metres high. In front of the wall, and rising above it, a shimmering blue haze extended all the way up the length of the tallest tower, and curved over its top.

Perazim was protected by a force field.

Jason turned to Doo and spread his palms, the universal gesture of
now what
?

She gave a brusk reply. Jason translated it as something like,
You tell me. Taking the city was your idea!

He thought for a minute.
Tactics!
Figure every problem as it presented itself. How did he usually approach a situation?
Head on!

At the base of the wall were a series of small metal squares. Service hatches? He could tear one of those open with his bionic arm … if it wasn’t for the force field covering everything. How Jason wished that Brandon was here—he would know some boring, obscure fact about the properties of electricity that they could exploit to get past the barrier.

All Jason could think of was that a pair of rubber wellies would help if they wanted to kick through the force field. Or a pair of giant wellies that they could turn upside down and cover themselves with …

‘I’ve got an idea!’ he said, and led Doo back into the jungle. She stood and watched while he walked up a root to the trunk of the lightning tree. He held the fingers of his bionic hand out like he was going to do a karate chop … and then attacked the tree.

The tree had a circumference of perhaps forty metres, so there was plenty to work with. Jason dug his fingers deep into the bark until he could feel the metal core underneath, and then dragged his hand along. It was as easy as peeling the skin off a satsuma. In no time at all, he had two large blankets of rubbery bark.

Doo had figured out his plan before he had finished, and had helped him pull down the big floppy offcuts. They rolled them up and carried one each back to the city.

‘Ready?’ Jason said to Doo. ‘We’ll walk right up to the walls, smash our way through, then think of some way to let Brandon, Kat and the rest inside, when they eventually turn up.’

Doo didn’t rely. She must have got the gist of what he said though; she gave him a peck on the cheek and started off across the concrete no man’s land.

Jason followed. Five hundred metres of emptiness was like walking across the world’s biggest car park. He had never felt so exposed, but the city seemed indifferent to their approach. There were no weapon installations or guards on the wall. Did anyone even know they were here?

As they got closer to the service hatch, Jason shook out his rubber sheet. There was a tingle of electricity in the air, even several metres away from the force field. This was going to be either the most brilliant thing Jason had ever done, or the stupidest …

Then the small service hatch opened. The force field was pulled towards this new breach, creating a small tunnel leading to the square entrance. A voice called out from inside the darkness beyond:

‘Jason! Get in quick!’

He recognised that voice. ‘Brandon?’

‘Yes, come on!’

With Doo hot on his heels, Jason ran and dived into the small hole. He crawled through a tunnel that ran between the thick building blocks of the wall, and came out in a large, dark open space: an engineering room of some kind filled with lots of big humming machinery. Jason could just about make out Brandon standing in the shadows.