Part Five: Face To Face
RIPPER
We pulled out of the burn to see the space docks orbiting Nahara deserted…except for one thing:
A massive, spider-like Pool-Ship. The markings on the side, in ancient Yeerkish identified itself as Visser Ten's flagship, the Judicator.
Surrender, Antimorphs, came his thought speech, over our communication systems, as Spike slowed the Anubis down to circle the Judicator, Your friends are gone, and if you wish to live to see tomorrow, you will yield your weapons and surrender to the Empire!
"This is Aleks Stantford, Antimorph Air Commander. You want us to surrender, Visser? Did that work in Afghanistan?"
Then you wish to duel, again? You don't have your desert crawling allies to save you this time, human.
"Suck my cock."
How primitive.
With that, I let loose a barrage of Dracon fire from the belly turret, as the Judicator let loose Tiberium-tipped missiles, seeking the heat of our Blade Ship.
"We don't have a chance against that thing," Said Sara, looking very worried.
"Where did that big ship go?" Asked Aleks, "How did it leave so fast?"
Skorre and I were firing Dracon beams out, cutting through the missile shields, causing them to burst into greenish flames.
We must follow the ship, Spike said, To find David and LaRouche.
"But where the fuck did it go? I don't see a little note explaining everything, do you, Spike?" Aleks snarled.
The other human knows.
"Rico? Rico knows?" Asked Sara, confused.
Certainly. He was a Yeerkish Lord for years. He was to command that vessel. He knows perfectly well where it has gone.
I dropped out of the Dracon turret and pounced over to Rico Muerte, cowering in the far corner of the bridge, silent.
"Start talkin', you spic son of a bitch! Where in the fuck did 'ya send your blasted ship?" I growled, my claw like claws clasping his brown neck.
"Watch the racial slurs, Ripps," muttered Sara.
I ignored her, " Tell us or I gut your dog-hide and choke you with it."
"Gara…" gasped Muerte, "They went to destroy the rebels on Gara…that's where their going to test the superlaser."
Skorre jumped out of his turret, "The Judicator is launching its entire wing of Bug Fighters…if we are to make a decision, we must make it now!"
Aleks looked at Rico with contempt, and said, "We go to Gara."
Instantly, Spike jumped us into Z-Space. The last sensation we experienced before we tunnelled into that sub-dimension was the dog, Visser ten, yelling through the communication channels…
NOOOO!!!!!
DAVID
I awoke with my head feeling like a million elephants had trampled across it, leaving it a bloody, squishy mess. The last thing I remembered was Slip charging my body with Dracon energy, sending me spiralling into unconciousnes, with a very disturbing dream in which I shared my brain with a Yeerk…and there was some slutty girl with her tit poking out, and someone was calling me "Terrance"…and Dayangs and Korla and other wacky shit was happening to me…bogus.
I observed my surroundings: a tall, stadium like chamber was my location. The domed ceiling was transparent, allowing me to look at the stars, and the green-purple planet below. I knew this from my studies about the Yeerk Pool Ship orbiting Earth, so long ago, just after my cloning: It was Gara, the homeworld of the Garatron, and it was presently undergoing a very severe rebellion.
Only then did I become aware that I was strung to a giant metal post in the centre of this room. LaRouche, in the same predicament as myself, stirred beside me.
"Damn…" he moaned, "What the Hell happened?"
"Slip…knocked us out," I replied, my lips dry and cracked.
"How do you feel?" I asked, unsure I would get an answer I hadn't expected.
"I feel like the floor of a taxicab."
A booming, metallic voice spoke to us, "At long last! David Taggart, in my presence. So good to finally make your aquaintance, human." The voice belonged to the figure sitting on the black throne, dozens of meters along the room.
A Hork-Bajir by shape, something else by physicality, it was a patchwork of flesh and machine, interwining and growing into each other, the living contrast of it both beautiful and sickening to the eye.
Both arms were mechanical claws, though various appendages moved from the wrist to cover the hand, like a Swiss Army Knife. All three horns were robotic, as was the entire of its face, save for a few inches above and below the left eye, and the mouth. The right eye glowed a sinister crimson. The tail was identical to the Hork-Bajir natural form, through it moved back and forth between the creature's legs, not clunky, as nature had intended, but quick and sure, as science had perfected. The wristblades whirred like buzzsaws. The talons on the feet, made a hideous clank on the metal floor, only a few traces of green Hork-Bajir skin around the entire chassis…This was Sauron 001, the Yeerk Emperor, in the…flesh.
"Human?" I laughed, despite the situation, "I left my humanity behind, long ago."
Sauron was striding towards us, grinning, as only a Hork-Bajir could, with its metal eyes and beak in a jovial, albeit evil, manner.
"You simply cannot grasp this situation, can you, Taggart?"
"What about it?" Grumbled LaRouche.
"I, the Emperor, Warlord this Galaxy, have captured, YOU, David Taggart. The scourge of Taxxis, the challenger of Tak Sistranus, the destructor of Sirex, the final, and greatest Beast incarnate, has been outdone, by me. And this universe, now safe from your plague, will be held firmly in my iron claws."
For a tense moment I looked deep at the Emperor.
"What the flying pig-fuck are you babbling about?" I spat.
The Emperor simply laughed, a cold, dead sound, mechanical and sinister.
"You have been shown enough times what you truly are, Taggart. You know of what I speak. And it is all true."
The things that I had been able, until now, to pass off as nightmares and hallucinations, were being preached by something all too real.
Still, no time to think about that now. More pressing business at hand.
"Yeah, well," I said, trying to play along, "I am the Beast. I am great and I am powerful. I am protected by forces greater than you and your kind, one thousand fold. Release us from our chains, or you shall learn why I am not a fan of allowing my foes an easy death!"
The Emperor laughed in my face, yet again.
"Your power is not that great. And though I do not doubt that that meddler, Puck, is assisting you, your greater master has withdrawn his investment."
"Huh?" said LaRouche, confused.
Sauron sneered, "Just because I have not taken up the aid of the dark powers, does not mean that I am ignorant of them. Where do you think I got the parts for the Demonoids? I know where they like to hide, and I have dealings with the lesser Drac-kinds, though Puck has yet to gain this soul," he patted his metallic chest, "I am well aware of the more subtle things in the designs of the Machine, how it plans to…End things, if you know what I mean. Pity it has to act through it's Dark Lord, because I'm about to do what even IT cannot."
Within a breath, The Emperor's hand was covered by a fearsome looking Dracon cannon, taking its aim to fire at my head.
"And with this, I make myself the messiah," he said triumphantly.
Then, the whole world, for a split second, went a deep blood red, and Sauron fell back, keeling in pain, screaming in his terrible metallic voice. The metal posts that we were chained to split at the middle with a great crack, letting me pull my hands over the back and free myself, just as the world returned to normal.
KABOOM! KABOOM!
The outer hull of the Eye of Akdor rumbled. We were under attack!
"Emperor! The Antimorphs are attacking the ship!" Came a panicked voice over the intercom, but the Emperor did not respond, instead pulling himself back to his feet.
"Morph to that little Kestrick-thing, that we found a few weeks ago!"
Kestricks were from the second moon of Pentasera. Little things, about the same size as dragonfly, with eyes like bifocals and little bat-wings. They were pests at a small Skrit Na outpost we'd landed on, and had aquired them during our stay.
"Morph!" I called out.
The Emperor was clutching his eyes, rubbing them, firing at the place where we had once been stuck to the poles, missing even that wide target.
"Blast! Where the FALCMAR are you little vermin?!"
Get to the vent, I called in thought-speech to LaRouche, who was just finishing his morph, Get into the ventilation system!
LaRouche didn't need to be told. He had scrambled into the vent up on the ceiling , just as I was jumping into a vent port on the ground.
David…go…parents… spoke the thought speech of LaRouche, breaking up over distance and through the thick hull of the ship,I'll…control…I can…on this thing…blow the planet…up.
He was going to try to take control over the ship before it could fire! If we could hijack it from the Yeerks…we could use it against them. WE would be the ones to fear, at last!
I scrambled through the vents, reading signs in the halls below, making my way to the detention block. Time to free my parents, at last.
ALEKS
"It's turning around!" Called Skorre, looking at the giant Yeerk vessel, the huge cone on one end, shifting to face Gara below us.
We had come out of Z-Space to find the giant Yeerk ship, (identified by Rico as the Eye of Akdor) orbiting Gara. I had ordered us to strafe the engines, but they were heavily shielded, so our Dracon blasts only pierced a few remote and unimportant sections of the hull.
"We have to stop it from attacking the planet!" Said Sara, rushing to my side.
"Yeah, be a real shame if all those fuckin' Garatron rebels got wasted," I muttered, my sarcasm highly evident.
"They could use it on us, dude!" Ripper jumped in.
It poses a threat to the entire galaxy. It must be crushed now! Spike agreed.
Rico laughed, "You don't get it, do you?" he asked, his handsome Hispanic face bent into a sinister smile.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You CAN'T destroy it, slag-brain! Do you know how much of that ship is the power plant? That thing is mostly pure, unprocessed and highly volatile Tiberium!"
"Your point being?" Responded Skorre.
"If you even try to destroy it-which I highly doubt you can-you will, almost certainly, kill us all."
Then we board it, take control of it from the inside! Spike countered.
"Impossible! If you even managed to land in it, you'd have to fight through an army of Hork-Bajir and human controllers. You'd have all the chance of Frosty the Snowman running for Mayor of Hell!"
"Skorre, shut this bastard up," I muttered.
Skorre didn't waste any time smacking his elbow down on Rico Muerte's head. He went out like a light.
"We have to take control of the Eye of Akdor," I said, "Land in it, hijack it, rescue David and LaRouche, and put the whole thing under control."
Ripper cackled, "That's fucking SUICIDE! Are you INSANE?!?!" He laughed like a man in a mental asylum.
"It's just been activated. It's probably not fully manned yet."
"Still…us against a thousand Yeerks?" Sara said with doubt.
"Spike?" I said, ignoring her.
Yes, Air Commander?
"Ram the hanger bay doors."