Chapter 11:

They had only been able to get four of them on the ship. When the forcefield had been shut down, Finn had wanted to rush in, but Simon had wanted to wait and see if the aliens were going to leave the ship. They'd spent so much time arguing that, when the engines started up, they'd had to scramble to get aboard. Only Finn, Huntress, Banana-Man, and Rattleballs had made it. Cinnamon Bun, Simon, and Betty were still on the ground. Standing in the brightly lit hallway, Finn looked around him as he pondered what to do now. They were moving. That meant that Bonnie had probably had to give them something. There was an equal chance that she'd tricked them with a bad location or that she'd had to give them the real thing. They'd have no way of knowing until the fire-elementals attacked. Finn didn't even know how long he had to save Bonnie. "Ok," said Finn. "Get going. Find the control room." He was going to see if he could find Bonnie.

The ship was a maze, with passages curving in on themselves and cross-hallways leading off in a half-dozen different directions. Finn quickly lost sight of his friends and was quickly lost after that. The only thing that kept him going was the strange, throbbing sensation in the back of his mind. He could feel his father. The feeling was pretty vague now–at least compared with the tunnels around him. At the same time, it was really all he had, so he did the best he could with it.

Elsewhere, Huntress found herself struggling to focus as she led the way into the depths of the alien ship. Her mind was on the same thing it always seemed to be on these days. Finn. Finn the Human filled her waking thoughts and invaded her dreams at night. She had it bad, and right now she was terrified of what he was walking into all by himself. She didn't want to be sneaking through the bowels of this ship trying to find something to sabotage. She wanted to be with the man she loved, meeting fate head on, even if it cost her life.

The worst were the thoughts of Simone. Guilty thoughts. She'd been tempted. She'd felt a temptation to make the Ice-Queen disappear permanently. Her reflexes had saved her competition, taking the whole thing out of the way of personal choice, but she kept replaying that moment over and over in her mind. She'd have been able to comfort him. She'd have held him in her arms and let him cry on her the way he did down in that filthy vault. Then he would have been all hers.

"You are not paying attention," murmured the battle-droid. Huntress looked up to find herself walking into a door. This wasn't going to help her. She needed to get her head back in the game. The sooner they found this engine room or whatever, the sooner she could get after Finn and find out where he was. "This way," said Banana-Man. "The sign points this way..." He was pointing at a sign that hung over the other hallway. "You can read that," she rumbled? "Symbols," said Banana-Man. "That's the electrical symbol for a generator."

Without a word, Rattleballs walked into the hall and Banana-Man fell in behind him. Mocking him under her breath, Huntress fell in at the rear. The ship was much bigger than Huntress had imagined, with vast, seemingly endless halls. She couldn't imagine how many creatures were needed to run something so big. But Bonnie did kill a lot of them, thought the wizard. She and Finn had seen the corpses piled up all over the town on their way in. Things had been nothing short of horrendous when they reached the palace. Mercenary though she was, Huntress had never seen that much death before. Hope she killed enough that we don't have a fight, thought the wizard.

As they followed the signs, the corridors got darker and darker, and signs of habitation got sparser. It looked a lot like the aliens didn't come down here. That could be good and bad. They really didn't have a way of knowing which. If they were lucky, it meant that the ship ran well enough on its own that the crew didn't need to bother. That could see them get their dirt done and get out in short order, leaving Huntress to pursue Finn.

Following tunnel after tunnel, hallway after hallway, they finally emerged in a large room with a massive piece of humming machinery sitting in the middle of it. Pipes and ducting fed into the giant piece of alloy from the top, and more pipes and ducts led away from its base. Turning to Rattleballs, Banana-Man asked, "what do you see?" Frowning, the machine scanned across the array of spectrums it had access to, then announced, "large amounts of infrared, high magnetic field. Trace amounts of gamma radiation." "Bingo," said Banana-Man. The genius strolled up to the massive machine and began looking it over.

"What," asked Huntress? "What is it?" "Reactor," replied Banana-Man. "Not sure what kind... Could be fusion. Could be something exotic like anti-matter. Man, that'd be cool..." Which made no sense at all to the wizard. "What does that mean," she demanded? "We've found their central power-source," said the genius. "Now I have to figure out how to shut it down in a controlled manner." "Why," asked the wizard? "Because the ship will fall out of the sky," rumbled Rattleballs. With them on board.

"Fine, fine," growled the wood nymph. "You stay with the spud..." "Where are you going," rumbled the robot? "You were ordered to..." "I don't take orders from anybody but myself," retorted the wizard. Without another word, she headed out the door through which they'd come.

Phoebe scanned the distant horizon again, feeling the slightest apprehension. They had been here two days, and, for many in her army, that was two days too many. They were all feeling it. The drain was palpable. This place was a blight on her kingdom, and she couldn't help feeling that it was slowly draining the life from the Fire Kingdom. If they didn't find a way to deal with this, sooner or later the blight would spread. It was mad to think of it, but the very reason for her kingdom's existence was slowly killing them.

"The numbers are better than yesterday, my King" rumbled the functionary. Frowning, Phoebe nodded. Taking a breath, the elemental announced, three drained completely and four turned into flambits. With rest and recuperation, those four may be restored. That didn't concern her nearly as much as morale. If the delay went on much longer, her army would be in no condition to fight. "The giants," she asked? She had two left. Right when she needed them the most–when all of Ooo needed them–Bonnie's sabotage had taken them away. She could have kicked the candy-girl's ass just then. "One is faltering," sighed the functionary. "They are working to restore it as we speak."

"That takes priority," growled Phoebe. The functionary reminded her, "we have many ill..." Grabbing his collar, her eyes blazing, Flame King growled, "the giants have priority!" Nodding, the functionary swore it would be taken care of. When he had gone, Phoebe returned to her lonely vigil. A twinge in her nose signaled something that made her very afraid. Trying to ignore it–trying to will it away–she wriggled her nose back and forth. Finally, though, she could control it no longer, letting forth a tremendous sneeze in multi-colored embers. "Great," sighed Phoebe. "Now I've got the sniffles too." So how long until I get sick, she thought. For some of the dead, it had only taken hours.

She felt a tremendous sense of frustration and fear just now. She'd been doing all she could to hold the army together, and she'd sent scouts in every direction, searching for the enemy. She'd even taken a patrol or two herself on Jake 2. They had nothing. They'd seen no sign of the mysterious enemy who'd attacked Bonnie's kingdom. She was running out of time. She couldn't keep the army deployed here forever.

Unrolling the map, she scanned it's crystaline surface, looking for alternatives. There were watchposts near here–abandoned fortresses that had served to watch the mysterious creature. Most had been abandoned due to its negative effects on the occupants, but they were far enough away that it would buy her army time. Reaching the aliens would take longer. They'd have some time to do their dirt. She'd be gambling that they couldn't free the creature all at one shot, but she couldn't keep the army here any longer.

As Phoebe was deciding on a fallback position, voices announced that something was happening. Rolling up her map, the Flame King strode towards the sound of the voices. She'd taken no more than a dozen steps when a shocking sight came out of the skies before her very eyes. Finn's mystery creatures had arrived. "To arms," shouted the Flame King! "To arms! The enemy's here among us!"

Aboard the ship, Martin Mertens settled the massive vessel into a hover over the site identified by the pink princess. Just as she'd said, the creature was there. He could see its strange, iridescent scales, flickering with plasma discharges. Unfortunately there was also a problem. There before him was an astonishing sight. The ground around the Devourer was covered with flickering shapes that reminded him of nothing so much as living candles. There were thousands of them.

Flicking on a switch, he turned on the loud-hailer and shouted, "whoever you are, you're trespassing on my property. I'd suggest you clear out before I clear you out." It was arrogant and abrasive, but it was also intimidating. After all, he was on a starship, and they were on foot in the middle of a continent-sized scar on some backwater planet. A voice from below, shockingly loud in spite of the distance, dared to reply. Sounding like stones grinding against each other, the voice replied, "it's you who're trespassing in my kingdom, Martin..." This thing knew who he was. "I know what you seek, and you'll not have it, even if it takes my life and that of my army," growled the Flame King.

Finn's doing, thought the rogue. It had to be! Somehow he was responsible for this. Martin didn't think they could damage his ship, though. They were safe behind the forcefields. On the flipside, flame-creatures or not, he thought he could take them out. He'd have to. He couldn't land his survey team until they were gone. Only question was, where was his son? "Where the fuck is that kid," growled Martin?

"You mean me," announced Finn?

Turning in his seat, Martin said, "pretty clever, kid. You musta' sneaked on when that cunt dropped the shields." His boy stood there in the doorway holding a fucking sword. It made Martin laugh. "Who's the creep on the ground," asked Martin? "Friend of yours?" "Her name's Phoebe," growled Finn. "'nother cunt, huh," laughed the thug? Shaking his head, he said, "you don't get it. That fucking bitch, whatever she is can't stop me. Got these things called shields. Those little candles can't get through them. But I can hurt them." Reaching behind him, he keyed the intercom and calmly announced, "open fire. Kill them all."

To Finn's horror, the screen before him lit up with blazing bolts of light as the spaceship began pounding the ground below. Outside, bolts of incandescent plasma tore into the fire-elemental army, decimating the troops. The heavy guns blasted many elementals into nothingness on contact. The elementals launched volleys of fireballs. As Phoebe watched in shock and fear, those blasts of flame impacted harmlessly against an invisible barrier around the ship. No matter how hard they fired, the alien ship seemed to absorb the punishment. "We must retreat," shouted her general! "We can't stop them! We must retreat!" Grabbing him by the collar, she retorted, "to where?! You've seen what the creature does to us while it's asleep! If they succeed, we're doomed!" It wasn't time to retreat. It was time to go all in! "Release the giants," shouted Phoebe!

Gasps of terror alerted Martin to the fact that something shocking had just happened behind him. Turning slightly in his seat, he caught a glimpse of something impossible, just before the ship rocked. The massive spaceship lurched, as alarms blared and the shield generators strained. It was like the fucking robots all over again! Martin spun around in his chair, shouting, "kill that fucker! I gotta' deal with this!"

The shields were buckling under the assault, and the creatures were absorbing punishing hits from his guns. Adding to the danger, they were forcing the ship down towards the semi-molten ground. Martin added power, fighting the power of gravity and the force exerted by the blazing giants. As alarms blared, he stabilized the hover. Behind him, gunfire erupted as his crew tried to take out his son.

Finn had been afraid of this. He'd been afraid of coming up against the terrible weapons that had literally blown apart the Banana-Guards. Much to his surprise–and that of the aliens–his sword moved itself, blocking the first of the bolts of light. Then, proving that was no fluke, the Finn-Sword blocked the second and the third. The aliens lit up the hallway, but Finn deflected their wrath. "What the fuck's going on," growled Martin?! "Haven't you killed that fucking kid yet?!" A scream announced that things behind him were getting worse. One of his crewmen had just met his fate at the end of Finn's sword. Turning his head to see what was going, on, he shouted, "I said kill that fucker! What are you waiting on?!"

Outside, Phoebe watched as her giants grappled with the alien ship. The barrier was still there, keeping them from scoring a knock out blow. The ship was still firing, savaging her army and pounding the two giants. As she watched, one began to falter, and then, finally, it fell, collapsing into shards of molten stone. A tremendous cry of sorrow went up from her troops, telling her all she needed to know about morale. All in, Phoebe, she thought, as she gathered all her strength for one last effort.

The Flame King rose up, a fifty-foot geyser of flame with white-hot slashes for eyes. Her arms glowed neon-blue as she took swipes at the spaceship, battering it and causing arcs of energy to cascade around the hull. Some of the weapons went offline, damaged or destroyed by the terrible blows raining down on the ship. Alien crewmen died, crushed or burned by collapsing bulkheads and shattered machinery, and again the ship began to fall. Martin strained mightily at the controls. He was not fucking being taken out by a bitch!

Dialing in more power, he fought the ship to higher altitude. He had to get out of reach of that thing! If he could get out of their range, he could take them out at leisure. Behind him, more screams announced that his son had killed another couple of his men. As the ship gained altitude, tearing itself out of the reach of the creatures below, he had the space to deal with his worthless shit of a kid. "What the fuck," growled the older man?! "You fuckers can't take care of a kid with a fucking sharpened stick?!"

"Why don't you come and take care of me yourself," hissed Finn, as he held his sword in a loose guard? He'd been nicked a couple of times, but he was in good shape. The only problem was that he couldn't quite advance. They had the room, and there were enough of them that they could get through his defense. He had the hallway. They had kind of a stalemate. "You can't win, dad," rumbled Finn. "Flame King will never let you get the serpent." "I'll bomb that bitch from orbit," laughed Martin. "She can die just like everybody else here. How many cunts you tappin' anyway, kid?" Then, "and how'd you keep from burning your dick off?" Face gone hot, Finn retorted, "fuck you!"

Rising, Martin stepped forward, his hand on his side-arm. "You can't win this, kid," said he. "That was a good try, I'll grant you that. You caught me by surprise. Didn't think creatures like that existed..." "You can't win," growled Finn. "Give back the Princess, and you fuckers can leave..." "Nah, kid," laughed Martin. "She's my new bitch. Gonna' bust that snatch wide open until it won't close up." Grinning, he said, "maybe I'll let you watch..." Raising his pistol and aiming at Finn's face, he laughed, "nah..."

Much to his shock, Finn's sword, moved to block that bolt of malice, even deflecting it back at his feet. The bolt of light nearly pierced his boot. Jumping back, he shouted, "kill that fucker! Kill him now!" His men stared at him and then at the boy. "Now," shouted Martin. "He can't stop you all! Charge!"

And that's when the alarm went off.

'Shields failing,' announced the computer! 'Power conduit severed! Shields failing.' Martin rushed to the controls. The conduit feeding the shield generator had ruptured down in engineering! Keying the intercom, he shouted, "get those shields back on line!" No sooner had he said that, than a bolt of incandescent plasma tore into the ship from above. A glance to the screen revealed a slim figure circling around his ship, darting and dodging around blasts of plasma from his guns. This bitch was persistent, and she was doing real damage now.

"Give it up, dad," shouted Finn! "You can't win!" "Watch me," growled Martin. Powering up his heaviest weapon, he took aim at the creatures still below. Cutting loose with the weapon, he killed three-thousand of the elementals at one shot. Keying the loud-hailer, he said, "Get lost, bitch, or I'll fucking kill them all!" Phoebe's answer was another bolt of plasma. Alarms blared, announcing loss of structural integrity. He was losing segments of his ship! Martin put the ship into a climb, hoping she couldn't pursue.

Phoebe focused all her will. Something was going on in the ship. She was sure of it! Finn must have gotten aboard after all. That meant he was now in danger. After all he'd done for her, she couldn't just let him die, and she knew Martin wouldn't give up. It was now or never. Climbing, fighting the thinning atmosphere, the elemental chased the ship, hurling bolts of fire at its engines and weapons.

Martin felt a chill of fear as the fire-woman kept on coming, dodging gunfire as she did. Strangely, he couldn't tear his eyes from her. She was weirdly beautiful, and he'd have had to admit his son had good taste in females, even if he didn't have the balls to make use of it. She was doing terrible damage to his ship, cutting their vitals out, and if she wasn't stopped, they weren't going to make it. Behind him, another of his men died, and another. A sudden feeling of weightlessness told him that the gravity controls were faltering. He wasn't going to make orbit. Changing course, he aimed for a patch of clear ground outside the lava-fields. If he could get the ship on the ground, there was a hope of making repairs. Fighting the erratic controls, the human tried to correct the course of his ride home from a precipitous fall into as shallow a glide as he could manage. All the while, the fire-creature kept up her assault.