Hot Rods of the Gods

Across Corporate space, subscribers to the "Plan Nine" media feed sat down to watch the new episode of "Honor Guard", the continuing adventures of a super-powered space patrol.

A phrase from the theme music played, and the pre-title scene began.

Arsenal stood on the observation deck of the Nightstalker, looking out into space. His white-furred hands were clasped behind his back.

His captain, Jolt, approached him. Arsenal turned a little to face her. His eyes looked sad.

"Nice job on Leviathan back there." Jolt smiled a little. Arsenal looked like he could use some encouragement.

"Pity about the asteroid."

"Don't feel too bad. The explosion exposed the core, which should make it easier for the miners to get to the high-density goodies." Jolt examined Arsenal's face, but his expression was indecipherable to her. "How's Jinx doing?"

Arsenal frowned. "She won't leave our quarters. She's--"

Jolt rushed on to the important question. "What's her story?"

Arsenal looked at Jolt. "She claims that she had an OptCond practitioner perform an exorcism. Her powers and a good chunk of her memories are gone."

Jolt pinched her mouth together. "Why do you say 'claims'? I hope you didn't talk like that with her -- she needs your love and support right now."

"I understand, Captain. You're right. I need to take what she says at face value if she's going to get better."

Jolt laughed a little. "I said 'love and support', not a bunch of Optimizing Conditioning clap-trap."

Arsenal smiled. "You're a skeptic, too? That's reassuring. Jinx is a true believer -- she's convinced that the exercises help keep her hallucinations under control, but..."

Arsenal couldn't finish the sentence. He looked sad. He started to speak again. "...she's changed. She used to be fearless, and now she's terrified all the time. It's so sad."

Jolt looked down at the floor for a moment, hiding her face. Her mouth moved to say something, but she changed her mind. She looked up again, directly into Arsenal's eyes.

"She's done a lot of terrible things. She has a damned good reason to be afraid. You should accept that she needed to change."

Arsenal nodded. "Thank you, Captain."

Jolt tilted her head. "Uh-huh." She turned to Arsenal. "Get a move on, We've found the bogey."

"I'll see you on the bridge, ma'am."

The title credits rolled. These were the adventures of Honor Guard, a super-powered police unit responsible for keeping the peace in Corporate space. Short scenes depicted the core cast -- Jolt, the Captain, whose body generated vast amounts of static electricity, harness by her skin-tight cat-suit. Thresher, the living satellite, a fearsome space warrior cyborg. The Eye, precognitive acrobat and expert fighter with diamond knives, possessor of a magical amulet that grants her super-vision. Arsenal, unkillable energy manipulator only beginning to tap his vast abilities. Finally, their vessel, the Nightstalker, fastest corvette in the Corporate fleet.

Jolt entered the bridge of the Nightstalker, followed closely by Arsenal. A tiny dot was highlighted by a tracking reticule on the main view-screen. The Eye, sitting at helm, turned her head to talk to Jolt as she took her place in the captain's chair.

"We're on an intercept vector." The Eye made a small course correction as she talked to Jolt -- The Eye had a 360 degree field of vision, and looked at people more out of courtesy than necessity. "It's a small craft, under 2 tons displacement --"

Jolt interrupted the Eye. "Can we get an interrocitor fix? I want to see what we're dealing with."

"Working on it." Thresher was plugged in to the sensor console with thin cable running from the chest of his robot body. "Here we go."

The entire crew looked at the view-screen for a few moments in silence. The Eye finally broke the silence. "Now, that's something you don't see every day."

Jolt nodded. "Yes. Analysis?"

The view-screen displayed what appeared to be a motorized tricycle crudely adapted to space travel -- the wheels had been replaced with similarly sized thruster pods. The pilot, a scruffy-looking male, sat on the saddle of the space trike, grasping a pair of handle-bars. A single passenger, female, sat behind the pilot on the elongated saddle with her arms wrapped around the pilot's waist.

Arsenal spoke up. "Captain -- I think we can safely assume the crew is vacuum-proof. It is likely that one or both of them have powers."

Thresher looked up from the sensor read-outs. "The vessel doesn't have a transponder mounted, and its configuration doesn't match any known space-craft."

Jolt narrowed her eyes. "No transponder, eh? Like a pirate or a smuggler. I think we have probable cause for an inspection. Prepare for intercept!"

Hyper-thrusters engaged, and the Nightstalker skipped through hyperspace to a position a few hundred meters behind the strange vessel, emerging on a parallel course. The heads of the trike passengers pointed to the lower right quadrant of the view-screen. "Match their orientation and lock weapons!" Jolt commanded. "On my mark--"

There was a short moment of tense anticipation on the bridge.

"Do a barrel roll!"

The Nightstalker took a corkscrew trajectory around the space trike's vector. On the view-screen, the vessel rotated as the Nightstalker closed in.

"Still no response..."

"Activate the dome lights."

The space trike was illuminated by flashes of red and blue light from the Nightstalker's sirens. The female turned and tapped the pilot of the strange vessel on his shoulder. He then twisted the handlebars and turned away from the pursuit vector, accelerating rapidly.

"After them!"

"Wait a minute... their vector takes them into the gravity well of a nearby planet." The Eye brought up data on the planet on the main view-screen. "The vessel is decelerating. I think they're going to land."

"Pursue and land nearby."

The Eye proved to be right. The space trike landed at a point near the equator of a small, blue-green world with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, close to a automated filling station the Corporation had constructed on the world's surface. The planet's lack of a strong magnetic field and the periodic high-energy solar flares released by its sun had precluded further colonization. Frequent sterilization events had prevented native life from developing past algae, lichens and simple plants.

The Nightstalker set down on a field of fuzzy rocks behind the space trike landing site. A few simple flowers -- hardly more than colorful fronds -- poked up from the bed of lichen.

In the fore ready room, Jolt attached a grounding cable to a metal stud on her costume. Safely grounded, she peeled off her usual gloves, and replaced them with a pair studded with flat, shiny electrodes on the fingertips and knuckles. "All right, I'll start the questioning. I want the rest of you to cover me. Got it?"

The crew assented, and Jolt pulled a side-handle baton from an equipment locker. It was sheathed in insulating plastic and had a metal core and contacts on each end. She pointed one end of the baton at the grounding stud, and touched her thumb to the contact on the side handle. An arc of electricity jumped to the stud.

"Let's roll."

The pilot of the unknown vessel was busy picking almost-flowers. He was a rugged-looking type with a long black mane, dressed in leathers. His companion was a graceful female with golden fur, dressed in a simple white tunic. She smiled as she watched him put together his bouquet.

Arsenal and the Eye held back and took a position with a clear line of fire to the pair. Thresher continued a few steps, closing in to the range of his tether launchers, and moved out of Arsenal's kill zone.

Jolt closed in on the landing site. The pilot and his passenger smiled. He extended the bouquet of colorful fronds towards Jolt, and opened his mouth to speak.

Jolt interrupted him. "ID. NOW!"

The pilot smiled. "I am called Lowrider. Please accept--"

He looked into Jolt's eyes and stopped. His face looked crestfallen. Jolt repeated her demand.

"I want to see some identification. For both of you."

"As I said, I am called Lowrider."

The young woman in the white tunic also spoke. "And I am S'mb'lah. We come in peace to your mortal realm on a mission from the Most High--"

Jolt gave her a hard look. "Most High, huh? And how high are you two?"

S'mb'lah looked hurt and shocked. "Why so hostile? We--"

Jolt interrupted her. "You were about to fly into the Reyll blockade zone, with no transponder and no way to communicate with you. We're impounding your ship and taking you in."

Lowrider looked concerned, and took a step towards Jolt. "But you must let us complete our missARRGH!"

A shock from Jolt's baton interrupted his sentence. "ON THE GROUND, BOTH OF YOU! HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS!"

Lowrider writhed on the ground, and Jolt struck him again with her baton.

"Arsenal -- the girl -- now!" The Eye jabbed Arsenal with her elbow.

Arsenal complied. As the young woman brought her hands to her temples, a concussion bolt struck her in the face. The impact knocked her off her feet and bloodied her nose.

"BACKUP!" Jolt paced around the curled-up form of Lowrider. Thresher, Arsenal, and the Eye closed in.

She turned to face Arsenal. "Give their vessel a quick once-over. I don't want them smuggling weapons on the Nightstalker."

"Understood." He began examining the open-frame spacecraft, starting with the right rear pannier.

Thresher restrained the pilot and the passenger with his tethers while Arsenal worked. Arsenal examined two seemingly ordinary flight bags, one containing tolietries and a few neatly-folded white tunics, the other a fresh pair of leathers. An additional bag contained an inflatable tent.

"Find anything?" Jolt demanded impatiently.

"Not yet."

Arsenal walked to the other side of the space trike, and opened the left pannier. It was empty, except for a single, ornate box. "Wait a minute."

He extracted the heavy box from the cargo container. "It's a hammerspace box."

Jolt looked at him. "What?"

"A hyperspatial container. The inside is bigger than the outside. There could be anything in here."

Lowrider began to panic, and screamed, "You MUST NOT open it!"

"It's filled with EVIL!" the young woman piped in.

"I think you mean DRUGS," snarled Jolt. "Now SHUT UP!"

"I'm going to open it now." Arsenal took a few steps away from the landing site.

He held the box in his right hand, and flipped the latch holding the box closed with his left thumb.

His team-mates each took a step backwards.

The lid flipped open.

"Guys?" Arsenal was a little nervous. "I'm going to look inside now."

"You do that." Jolt took another step back.

"Oh NO!" The Eye screamed.

The opening began to vibrate, forming a sound like a word. "NNNNN...."

An instant later, a dark mass hurled itself out of the box, mantled in cold flame. Arsenal reflexively put his free hand up to shield himself.

Normally, Arsenal was invulnerable -- but this fire burned. He fell and screamed, "ARR!"

The dark mass stuck the ground and assumed the form of a five meter tall blue-furred monstrosity. Instead of a head, it had what looked like an old-fashioned animal trap. The vibrations became louder, and deepened. "MMMMMMM!"

The girl with too many apostrophes in her name writhed on the ground, yelling, "Now you've done it! NYQUIL IS FREE!"

Arsenal looked up at the blue-furred monstrosity. It was naked, and had no genitals. It took a step towards him.

The jaws of the trap opened, and a burning hand holding a gigantic eye rose from the torso of the dick-less abomination.

"ALL-WORLD-ALL-ONE-ALL-MINE!" The words echoed like a great brass gong. The burning eye-hand fixed its gaze on Lowrider, cowering before the evil god. Mystic flame burst from the eye-hand, and Lowrider writhed as his rib cage began to swell.

"EXCEPTIONS--"

Lowrider exploded as a vast tumorous mass consumed his chest.

"--NONE!"

Arsenal looked at his ruined hand. His fur and flesh had not burned -- instead, a tentacled thing was growing inside him. His forearm split open, and a deformed eye stared back at him through the gash in his corrupted flesh.

"ETERNALLY--"

He grit his teeth, and blasted off his left fore-arm. Behind him, the monstrous meat god turned its burning hand to the girl with too many apostrophes in her name.

"--NONE!"

Her skull exploded, and a tentacled thing skittered from the shattered remains into the underbrush. Arsenal cradled his amputated arm and activated his comms implant. "Captain -- get everybody clear, I'll try to keep him busy."

"ALL-ONE-FAITH-NEW-FLESH-ONE-MIND-ONE-HEART!"

Jolt, Thresher, and the Eye retreated into the Nightstalker as Arsenal stood up slowly. The monster stared at the ruined bodies of his captors.

Arsenal concentrated for a moment as the Nightstalker'e engines spun up. The monster seemed oblivious. In a moment, Arsenal would restore his body's previous thermodynamic state -- good as new.

At least, that was how it was supposed to work. He looked down at the back of his hands, and both of his thumbs pointed left.

The burning hand turned towards him.

The Nightstalker, now hovering, brought its forward batteries to bear on the monster.

Arsenal took off as a beam of fire struck the ground.

The batteries discharged, striking the monster in its chest.

It absorbed the blasts, turning black as night.

No obvious effect. Not even the collateral damage one would expect from a point-blank main battery blast inside a planet's atmosphere. The monster had seemingly eaten the blasts.

Arsenal set down behind the monster. His mind raced. How could he--

The monster arched its back, and began to scream. Its body collapsed in upon itself, and it disappeared in an instant.

Arsenal set down and tried to get his bearings. He heard a skittering noise near the space trike.

A tentacled lump of pink-gray flesh shuddered as another lump of brick-red muscle thrust what was once an aorta between its hemispheres. Arsenal watched the two tumor-masses moved against each other rhythmically.

The pace of the copulating tumors quickened, and a ventricle spasmed in the thing that was once a heart.

Arsenal realized what he was looking at.

Stepping back, he did the only thing that seemed to make sense.

Kill it with fire.