I came in subsonic, traveling sixty thousand feet above the ground to
avoid being seen or heard by the inhabitants of the planet below. As I
entered the atmosphere, I found myself enveloped in a vast cloud of smoke.
By the time I reached my desired altitude, visibility was down to one
klick, and steadily getting worse.
I went from 450 miles an hour to a dead halt in five seconds. This was not good. I hung, sixty thousand feet up, and tried to ignore the dread creeping up on me as my brain began to reach the inevitable conclusions.
Where there's smoke, there's fire. For smoke to be present this high up, at such density, one would need a truly immense fire. One large enough to engulf nearly the entire planet. Or a nuclear bomb. One packing literally hundreds of megatons. Either way, this planet was doomed. Every living thing on the planet would freeze to death in the resulting nuclear winter.
I took off at Mach 3, heading for The Wood.
The Wood was special. Not just to me, or to any particular group of people then living on this planet. It was special for the entire planet, the solar system beyond, and for every inhabited planet in every solar system in the local group of stars. It was immense, covering an area roughly equivalent to that of the British Isles. Food bearing plants were everywhere. A man could live indefinitely and comfortably in there just on the fruit, grain and nuts he gathered. The woods were a zoologist's dream. Literally thousands of animal species made their homes under its shady eaves, some of them found nowhere else on the planet. For some reason, no really bad weather ever visited the place. It was as close to the Garden of Eden as any place in the multiverse was capable of getting.
It was also inhabited by unicorns. They were the true owners of The Wood, the source of its remarkable fertility. In times past, these gentle creatures had been enslaved by an avaricious monarch. The efforts of the last free unicorn, an inept mage and a former bandit lady had freed them, and brought down the witch-built castle of the evil king. The herd had migrated across half a continent, spawning legends and miracles as they went, until they reached the last place in the world where they could live in peace. Having been absent for so long, all the woods where they had lived were gone, the trees cut down, the animals slaughtered for food or fur. Thus, these solitary creatures were forced into a herd, travelling the world to find a place to stay. The Wood became that place. Large enough that each could live in his or her accustomed solitude, yet be close enough to the others that they could band together for protection. I do not believe that they consciously considered this, but nevertheless, it was a major influence on their decision.
Obviously, it had done them little good.
I landed in what was left of a little glade close to the centre of The Wood. Half of the trees had been brutally toppled, torn up by the roots. The other half had been viciously mutilated, great gouges torn like giant claw marks through the living wood. Flames licked at the branches of several of them.
Something white beneath one of the fallen trees caught my attention. I went over. The unicorn's eyes had already glazed over. Its eyes were dilated from the terror and agony of its final moments. It lay at an unnatural angle, its back twisted from the tree that had fallen upon it. The legs to were broken. Whoever had done this had first rendered the unicorn unable to escape before toppling the tree onto its back. I forced my hands to unclench before closing the poor creature's eyes. I could do that much for it. Under my breath I swore to find the ones responsible for this atrocity and exact payment in full for their crimes.
From behind me, heavy footsteps pounded the ashen ground. I whirled. It took three seconds for the man to reach me. By the time the first second had ended, my eyes had taken in the man's blood red armour, gruesomely adorned with spikes, chains and skull motifs, and the humming chainsword in his right hand. In the next second, my memory had identified him as a Chaos Marine, a bloodthirsty inhabitant of the war-torn Universe 475WH. By the end of the third second, my left hand had closed over the wrist of his sword arm, and he was about to die.
Using the man's own momentum against him, I thrust his sword arm away from me, stepping inside his blade's arc as I did so. At the same instant my right elbow lashed out, crushing in the skull-faced helmet worn by my opponent--as well as the skull within.
As I let my opponent's lifeless body drop from my hands, the very trees around me seemed to sprout armoured warriors, all eager to avenge the death of their comrade. Depleted uranium bullets spanged off my quantum armour as the howling mass descended upon me. Dimly, I was aware of my own voice joining theirs, baying a bloody challenge to the pack of wolves in human form. I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to feel their blood seeping out through my fingers as I crushed their beating hearts within my hands. These animals would pay. They had destroyed an entire world, crushed entire civilizations who within a few centuries would have made their first steps towards the stars. They had destroyed a place of wonder and innocence, a haven of peace in a dark and violent multiverse, and now they would pay the price for their crimes.
The first man to reach me screamed as I pulled his arm, still clad in its armour, from his body. I swung the disembodied appendage round me in a wide arc, driving back the hordes about me. Still howling, I advanced into the crowd, swinging my improvised bludgeon. I felt the rage within me leap up, growing ever stronger with each foe I felled. My lips skinned back over my teeth, revealing a feral grin that had nothing in it of mirth, nothing but the joy of battle and the death that awaited my foes.
When once I was able to think coherently again, I found myself standing atop a mound of dead Chaos Marines. Sometime during the fight, I had discarded the arm and drawn my own sword. Blood was running down its length like a river. I felt exhausted. So this is what a berserker rage is like. I fell to my knees, using the sword to prop myself up. I'd never gone berserk this before. Then again, I'd never been as angry as I'd been a few minutes ago. It was not an experience I'd care to repeat. Using the sword, I levered myself upright. I stepped down from the pile of dead men. My mind was already forming a plan of action. There were certain to be survivors from whatever attack had laid waste the planetary surface. Now, these people would have to be evacuated to a safe place. My fortress, somewhere in the trackless voids of hypertime, would only be able to accommodate a few tens of thousands. Almost certainly, there would be many more. I sighed. Damn. I hated having to ask for help. The others would help, certainly. The Doctor alone, with his TARDIS, could host the entire remaining population of the planet, and still have room for billions more.
Out of the corner of my eye, obscured by the billowing clouds of smoke, something moved. I whirled, facing the oncoming shadow with my sword in hand. The stumbling shape resolved itself out of the swirling smoke, became more solid, and a unicorn, barely able to stand from her wounds, staggered toward me.
I knew this one. She was the outcast, the one who stood apart from the herd. Once a year, on the anniversary of the liberation, the unicorns would abandon their solitary habits and gather at this glade, at the very center of the forest. She made her home here. They would play and laugh and talk about the day of the liberation, when they had been freed from the grasping hands of the king and his unnatural servant, the Red Bull.
She did not resent the intrusion. They were, after all her people. But she could not find it in herself to join the gaiety, and so she would sit by a pool, staring at her reflection while the others played. The others found this strange. They kept coming, anyway. They came to honour the resident of that grove, to remember her story and her deeds. For she was the Last Unicorn, the one who had come to the dark king's castle, who had become a human woman and won the love of the king's son, the one who, restored to her original form, did battle with the dread Red Bull to avenge the man she loved and freed her brothers and sisters from their long captivity.
This remarkable creature now stood before me. A low cry of pain and grief escaped her lips. That cry tore my heart. She was mourning for her people once again. I caught her as without warning, her legs gave out on her. Gently, I lowered her to the ash-covered forest floor.
"Amalthea." That was her name. She was the only unicorn with a name.
Her eyes wandered, unfocused. Her breathing was ragged, shallow.
"Stalker? Are you there? I…I can't see you. Everything's a blur. I…I hurt so much!"
"Yes, it's me. You're safe. They won't get you."
"They killed my people, Stalker." The pain in her voice was heartrending. "I'm the last one again."
Something fell onto her silvery coat. It was a tear. I could feel others trickling down my face. I hadn't cried in a long time.
"I'm sorry, Amalthea," I cried, "I've failed you."
A heavy hand descended upon my shoulder. Instantly I was up, my blade in my hand and poised at the top of its arc for a mighty blow.
"DAMN YOU, YOU CHAOS-LOVING SON OF A B—"
The blade stopped, barely inches away from the neck of Hal Jordan, Spectre.
I stared at the man in incomprehension. It was impossible for him to be here. Yet here he was. The next thing I know, I was weeping against his chest.
"They destroyed the whole planet, Hal! I…I couldn't do anything!" I slid off him to fall to my knees. "Amalthea's the last one. She's dying, Hal. She's dying and I couldn't do anything to save her!"
Hal bent down. I could see the concern in his face. He'd been the same way before. That was why he was the Spectre now, not wearing an emerald ring and saving the galaxy with the Green Lantern Corps.
"Stalker, I'm sorry." He looked at the dying Amalthea. "I can save her. That's the least I can do."
He rose and went over to where the unicorn was lying. Gently, he laid his hands on the unicorn's breast. A gentle glow seemed to hover over Amalthea's broken body. When it lifted, she was sleeping peacefully. The great wounds that had been scored along her side were gone.
I got up and went over to him.
"Thanks, Hal," I said.
He looked me in the eye. "I know what it feels like, Stalker. It's what I can do to keep one of my friends from going the same way."
He looked down at the sleeping unicorn.
"This isn't an isolated incident, Stalker. Things like this have been happening everywhere. Some bastards jump in from out-universe, shoot up the unprepared natives, then leave. Not even the barriers placed around the interdicted universes are stopping them."
I nodded. By all rights, the Chaos Marines should not have been able to leave their native universe even if they tried. Gigantic energy barriers placed around realms like theirs, realms where the natives were particularly unpleasant or just unsuitable for contact with the multiverse at large, prevented anything from entering or leaving those areas of hypertime.
Hal went on.
"The multiverse is cancerous, Stalker. That's what's causing all this. If we don't stop it, it'll corrupt every timeline in existence. I came here to warn you. Apparently, I was too late. I'm sorry."
He took a deep breath, then continued.
"The others are meeting at the Linear Men's citadel as we speak. They're discussing the measures we need to take to stop this plague before we're all consumed.'
"I'll be there, Hal. Just as soon as I get Amalthea to safety." I looked around.
"The survivors need to be evacuated," I said.
"I'll take care of it. Just be on your way."
"Thanks again, Hal. I'll be seeing you, then."
With those words, I encased the Last Unicorn in a quantum bubble before flying up, up into outer space, where I teleported myself and my sleeping friend to the safety of my fortress.
I went from 450 miles an hour to a dead halt in five seconds. This was not good. I hung, sixty thousand feet up, and tried to ignore the dread creeping up on me as my brain began to reach the inevitable conclusions.
Where there's smoke, there's fire. For smoke to be present this high up, at such density, one would need a truly immense fire. One large enough to engulf nearly the entire planet. Or a nuclear bomb. One packing literally hundreds of megatons. Either way, this planet was doomed. Every living thing on the planet would freeze to death in the resulting nuclear winter.
I took off at Mach 3, heading for The Wood.
The Wood was special. Not just to me, or to any particular group of people then living on this planet. It was special for the entire planet, the solar system beyond, and for every inhabited planet in every solar system in the local group of stars. It was immense, covering an area roughly equivalent to that of the British Isles. Food bearing plants were everywhere. A man could live indefinitely and comfortably in there just on the fruit, grain and nuts he gathered. The woods were a zoologist's dream. Literally thousands of animal species made their homes under its shady eaves, some of them found nowhere else on the planet. For some reason, no really bad weather ever visited the place. It was as close to the Garden of Eden as any place in the multiverse was capable of getting.
It was also inhabited by unicorns. They were the true owners of The Wood, the source of its remarkable fertility. In times past, these gentle creatures had been enslaved by an avaricious monarch. The efforts of the last free unicorn, an inept mage and a former bandit lady had freed them, and brought down the witch-built castle of the evil king. The herd had migrated across half a continent, spawning legends and miracles as they went, until they reached the last place in the world where they could live in peace. Having been absent for so long, all the woods where they had lived were gone, the trees cut down, the animals slaughtered for food or fur. Thus, these solitary creatures were forced into a herd, travelling the world to find a place to stay. The Wood became that place. Large enough that each could live in his or her accustomed solitude, yet be close enough to the others that they could band together for protection. I do not believe that they consciously considered this, but nevertheless, it was a major influence on their decision.
Obviously, it had done them little good.
I landed in what was left of a little glade close to the centre of The Wood. Half of the trees had been brutally toppled, torn up by the roots. The other half had been viciously mutilated, great gouges torn like giant claw marks through the living wood. Flames licked at the branches of several of them.
Something white beneath one of the fallen trees caught my attention. I went over. The unicorn's eyes had already glazed over. Its eyes were dilated from the terror and agony of its final moments. It lay at an unnatural angle, its back twisted from the tree that had fallen upon it. The legs to were broken. Whoever had done this had first rendered the unicorn unable to escape before toppling the tree onto its back. I forced my hands to unclench before closing the poor creature's eyes. I could do that much for it. Under my breath I swore to find the ones responsible for this atrocity and exact payment in full for their crimes.
From behind me, heavy footsteps pounded the ashen ground. I whirled. It took three seconds for the man to reach me. By the time the first second had ended, my eyes had taken in the man's blood red armour, gruesomely adorned with spikes, chains and skull motifs, and the humming chainsword in his right hand. In the next second, my memory had identified him as a Chaos Marine, a bloodthirsty inhabitant of the war-torn Universe 475WH. By the end of the third second, my left hand had closed over the wrist of his sword arm, and he was about to die.
Using the man's own momentum against him, I thrust his sword arm away from me, stepping inside his blade's arc as I did so. At the same instant my right elbow lashed out, crushing in the skull-faced helmet worn by my opponent--as well as the skull within.
As I let my opponent's lifeless body drop from my hands, the very trees around me seemed to sprout armoured warriors, all eager to avenge the death of their comrade. Depleted uranium bullets spanged off my quantum armour as the howling mass descended upon me. Dimly, I was aware of my own voice joining theirs, baying a bloody challenge to the pack of wolves in human form. I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to feel their blood seeping out through my fingers as I crushed their beating hearts within my hands. These animals would pay. They had destroyed an entire world, crushed entire civilizations who within a few centuries would have made their first steps towards the stars. They had destroyed a place of wonder and innocence, a haven of peace in a dark and violent multiverse, and now they would pay the price for their crimes.
The first man to reach me screamed as I pulled his arm, still clad in its armour, from his body. I swung the disembodied appendage round me in a wide arc, driving back the hordes about me. Still howling, I advanced into the crowd, swinging my improvised bludgeon. I felt the rage within me leap up, growing ever stronger with each foe I felled. My lips skinned back over my teeth, revealing a feral grin that had nothing in it of mirth, nothing but the joy of battle and the death that awaited my foes.
When once I was able to think coherently again, I found myself standing atop a mound of dead Chaos Marines. Sometime during the fight, I had discarded the arm and drawn my own sword. Blood was running down its length like a river. I felt exhausted. So this is what a berserker rage is like. I fell to my knees, using the sword to prop myself up. I'd never gone berserk this before. Then again, I'd never been as angry as I'd been a few minutes ago. It was not an experience I'd care to repeat. Using the sword, I levered myself upright. I stepped down from the pile of dead men. My mind was already forming a plan of action. There were certain to be survivors from whatever attack had laid waste the planetary surface. Now, these people would have to be evacuated to a safe place. My fortress, somewhere in the trackless voids of hypertime, would only be able to accommodate a few tens of thousands. Almost certainly, there would be many more. I sighed. Damn. I hated having to ask for help. The others would help, certainly. The Doctor alone, with his TARDIS, could host the entire remaining population of the planet, and still have room for billions more.
Out of the corner of my eye, obscured by the billowing clouds of smoke, something moved. I whirled, facing the oncoming shadow with my sword in hand. The stumbling shape resolved itself out of the swirling smoke, became more solid, and a unicorn, barely able to stand from her wounds, staggered toward me.
I knew this one. She was the outcast, the one who stood apart from the herd. Once a year, on the anniversary of the liberation, the unicorns would abandon their solitary habits and gather at this glade, at the very center of the forest. She made her home here. They would play and laugh and talk about the day of the liberation, when they had been freed from the grasping hands of the king and his unnatural servant, the Red Bull.
She did not resent the intrusion. They were, after all her people. But she could not find it in herself to join the gaiety, and so she would sit by a pool, staring at her reflection while the others played. The others found this strange. They kept coming, anyway. They came to honour the resident of that grove, to remember her story and her deeds. For she was the Last Unicorn, the one who had come to the dark king's castle, who had become a human woman and won the love of the king's son, the one who, restored to her original form, did battle with the dread Red Bull to avenge the man she loved and freed her brothers and sisters from their long captivity.
This remarkable creature now stood before me. A low cry of pain and grief escaped her lips. That cry tore my heart. She was mourning for her people once again. I caught her as without warning, her legs gave out on her. Gently, I lowered her to the ash-covered forest floor.
"Amalthea." That was her name. She was the only unicorn with a name.
Her eyes wandered, unfocused. Her breathing was ragged, shallow.
"Stalker? Are you there? I…I can't see you. Everything's a blur. I…I hurt so much!"
"Yes, it's me. You're safe. They won't get you."
"They killed my people, Stalker." The pain in her voice was heartrending. "I'm the last one again."
Something fell onto her silvery coat. It was a tear. I could feel others trickling down my face. I hadn't cried in a long time.
"I'm sorry, Amalthea," I cried, "I've failed you."
A heavy hand descended upon my shoulder. Instantly I was up, my blade in my hand and poised at the top of its arc for a mighty blow.
"DAMN YOU, YOU CHAOS-LOVING SON OF A B—"
The blade stopped, barely inches away from the neck of Hal Jordan, Spectre.
I stared at the man in incomprehension. It was impossible for him to be here. Yet here he was. The next thing I know, I was weeping against his chest.
"They destroyed the whole planet, Hal! I…I couldn't do anything!" I slid off him to fall to my knees. "Amalthea's the last one. She's dying, Hal. She's dying and I couldn't do anything to save her!"
Hal bent down. I could see the concern in his face. He'd been the same way before. That was why he was the Spectre now, not wearing an emerald ring and saving the galaxy with the Green Lantern Corps.
"Stalker, I'm sorry." He looked at the dying Amalthea. "I can save her. That's the least I can do."
He rose and went over to where the unicorn was lying. Gently, he laid his hands on the unicorn's breast. A gentle glow seemed to hover over Amalthea's broken body. When it lifted, she was sleeping peacefully. The great wounds that had been scored along her side were gone.
I got up and went over to him.
"Thanks, Hal," I said.
He looked me in the eye. "I know what it feels like, Stalker. It's what I can do to keep one of my friends from going the same way."
He looked down at the sleeping unicorn.
"This isn't an isolated incident, Stalker. Things like this have been happening everywhere. Some bastards jump in from out-universe, shoot up the unprepared natives, then leave. Not even the barriers placed around the interdicted universes are stopping them."
I nodded. By all rights, the Chaos Marines should not have been able to leave their native universe even if they tried. Gigantic energy barriers placed around realms like theirs, realms where the natives were particularly unpleasant or just unsuitable for contact with the multiverse at large, prevented anything from entering or leaving those areas of hypertime.
Hal went on.
"The multiverse is cancerous, Stalker. That's what's causing all this. If we don't stop it, it'll corrupt every timeline in existence. I came here to warn you. Apparently, I was too late. I'm sorry."
He took a deep breath, then continued.
"The others are meeting at the Linear Men's citadel as we speak. They're discussing the measures we need to take to stop this plague before we're all consumed.'
"I'll be there, Hal. Just as soon as I get Amalthea to safety." I looked around.
"The survivors need to be evacuated," I said.
"I'll take care of it. Just be on your way."
"Thanks again, Hal. I'll be seeing you, then."
With those words, I encased the Last Unicorn in a quantum bubble before flying up, up into outer space, where I teleported myself and my sleeping friend to the safety of my fortress.