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#10
DEC 14 |
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“Galaxy’s Most Wanted”
Chandilar, Imperial Guardsman War Room
As Praetor of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard, the man known as Gladiator was not one for pacing the room. Instead, when frustrated, he folded his massive arms and stared intensely. The super intelligent guardsman Mentor took note of this when he played the holo-vid for his leader.
Gladiator stood silently, staring at the hologram until it finished, only then did he instruct his comrade to play it again.
The recording was taken by a hovercamera, floating roughly twenty feet above the ground, on the respite world of Daenris. The camera focused on an ornate building, a hospital, and the assortment of Shi’ar police gathering outside it. A moment later the main doors to the building blasted open and four figures charged out guns blazing. Kallark would recognise them anywhere: the Starjammers...the feline Hepzibah, the massive saurian Ch’od, the cyborg Raza, and their human leader Corsair.
The police were undertrained and unprepared for this attack and the quartet of aliens easily blasted their way through the flimsy barricade before being teleported away. Generally a petty crime such as attacking a Shi’ar hospital would have been below the Imperial Guard’s notice, but this case was very different.
The Praetor focused on the largest pirate, Ch’od, and the item he had slumped over his shoulder...the catatonic body of former Shi’ar Emperor D’Ken Neramani.
Mentor waited patiently as his leader thought. The Starjammers had long been under Empress Lilandra’s protection, but a crime of this magnitude cannot go unpunished.
“Find them, Mentor. Have the Guard searching every corner of this damn galaxy if you have to,” he ordered, “and put a bounty out, twenty million credits, to be captured alive.”
It wasn’t standard protocol to employ bounty hunters, but this case was not standard and this would help tighten the net. He had no idea what the Starjammers had in mind for D’Ken, but it couldn’t be good.
Aboard the Swooping Talon
Davan Shakari, more commonly known as Erik the Red, couldn’t help but grin as the ‘Starjammers’ walked through the air lock, pushing a floating stasis pod that held his catatonic master. The four pirates quickly changed their forms, revealing that they were, in fact, Warskrulls.
“You have done well, Wolloch,” said Shakari to the lead warskrull. “Araki was right in recommending you.”
The large warskrull merely nodded. “My payment?”
“The money is already in your account and my men are already transferring the weapons you requested to your ship. We will be moving to the next stage of our plan shortly, but in the meantime I have another mission for you. Your work to frame the Starjammers has proved more than successful, the Imperial Guard are focusing all their attention on capturing those meddlesome pirates on the other side of the galaxy, giving us room to breathe.”
“And what do you want for us?”
“The Starjammers can’t be captured alive. Find them before the Guardsmen or their bounty hunters do and we will pay double your usual fee. One amongst them is our agent; they will reveal themselves to you and are not to be killed.”
Wolloch smiled cruelly. Years ago the Starjammers, with the aid of the X-Men, had foiled the Warskrull’s plans to take over the Shi’ar Empire. He would happily destroy the pirates for free, the money was just the icing on the cake.
“It will be done, Shakari,” replied the Warskrull before abruptly turning and leading his men back onto their ship. There was no need for politeness amongst these men.
Admiral F’Dor, the rogue Shi’ar military leader upon who’s ship Sharaki was using as a base of operations, joined the master spy. As his men lead D’Ken’s body away to the infirmary the Admiral asked, “Do we have the other components yet?”
“Soon, F’Dor. Araki’s Death Commandoes are closing in on the scion and our agent has acquired the items needed to secure our ally’s support,” replied Davan.
“And the Starjammers?”
“As good as dead.”
The Forest, Milky Way Galaxy, Sector 4702
When working to form a galactic alliance, the Forest is not the world most would consider trying to recruit first. However, S.W.O.R.D had been insistent that the Starjammers engage with the residents of the planet, due to their strategic location in relation to Earth. The residents of the planet were a race of thirty foot tall giants known as the Tall. The Tall were a simple, pacifistic race resembling lanky versions of sasquatch. Presumably their large stature was evolved in response to the massive trees that covered the majority of the planet; towering hulks taller than Earth’s highest skyscapers.
While building relationships with the Tall was important it was actually the Forest’s neighbors from the planet’s moon, Pintiiros, that S.W.O.R.D was most interested in. The Pintiir, who stood waist high to a human, were positively pixie like in comparison to the Tall. The tiny blue aliens, who resembled lizards with luminescent eyes and large dragonfly wings, were light years ahead in technology when compared to the Tall. The two species could not be more different, and yet had formed a symbiotic relationship; the Pintiir protecting the agrarian Tall with their advanced technology, and the Tall’s trees providing an essential cocktail of gasses to Pintiira.
Having just presented his proposed alliance to the Forest’s Elder Council, a group of the Forest and Pintiira’s highest political leaders and shamans, Corsair stood nervously awaiting their response. Having spent the last thirty years as a pirate, Corsair couldn’t help but feel like a fraud; he was a scoundrel not a politician! Give him a dog fight in an asteroid field over a public delegation any day.
The Elder’s chamber consisted of a massive dome-shapped room inside the hollowed out insides of one of their giant trees. The giant sasquatch-like Tall towered over the human Corsair, even while sitting crosslegged around the circular room. The pixie-like Pintiir meanwhile floated between the Tall like creepy little tinkerbells. One of the Tall rose from its sitting position and walked across the large room in just a few steps.
“Friends, the deliberations will take some time, I shall show you our walk of contemplation while we wait,” said the alien, in a voice that while booming, was never threatening.
It was just Corsair and the reptilian Ch’od who attended the meeting, the Council not wishing too large a group to attend. Hepzibah had opted to remain with the ship, having grown increasingly anti social since their brief stay on Earth, while Raza and Z’Cann had gone for a walk through the tranquil forest. Corsair couldn’t help but grin as he thought about how close those two had grown since the Skrull woman had joined the crew. It wasn’t a coupling he would have ever expected, but then again maybe a psychic was exactly what the emotionally closed of cyborg needed.
The Tall led the pair out through an archway and down a winding pathway that seemed identical to the other pathways they had followed on arrival. To Christopher, the Walk of Contemplation could double for the Path of Welcome they had walked upon arrival; skyscaper sized trees all around, knee high blue grass as soft as silk and the constant chirping of what he assumed was some sort of birdlike creature.
“Do you think the Council will consider my proposal seriously?” Corsair asked Ch’od, thinking his Tall guide would be too high to hear him.
His Saurian companion shrugged. “The Tall don’t sseem overly consserned about threatss.”
“The Pintiir keep us safe, yes, and the Forest sustains them. We have suffered no threats for eons, the Great Cycle continues,” boomed their guide, apparently hearing every word.
“But that doesn’t mean no threats will ever come,” replied Corsair.
The giant alien let out something that sounded like a chuckle. “You’re purpose is noble, small one, but no aggression has ever come to the Forest. This is a place of peace-URK!”
A beam of white hot plasma shot from somewhere in the canopy and pierced the Tall’s chest. The creature fell to its knees before slumping to his side on the ground dead. Corsair didn’t even know his name.
Ch’od grabbed him and pulled him behind a giant tree trunk and the pair drew their pistols. Neither had to speak, they had both worked together for over twenty years. Both scanned the canopy for the assailant, while remaining as safely behind cover as possible. They didn’t have the search long as a massive hoverbike came roaring through the branches, smashing them to splinters.
Aboard the bike sat what to Corsair looked like a love child of the Hulk and a Hell’s Angel. Greenish brown skin, long yellow-white hair and a face permanently obscured by unnatural shadow. Corsair had heard stories about this individual. “Lunatik,” he gasped.
A notorious bounty hunter and criminal, Lunaktik was an incredibly powerful individual, not to mention completely unhinged.
“Whoo-boy did that big bastard fall hard! Just a shame I can’t kill the rest of you,” laughed the bounty hunter.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” yelled Corsair, from behind his cover.
Lunatik leapt from his hoverbike and dropped twenty feet to the ground, unfazed. As he approached the two behind the tree he spoke, “Imperial Guard’s put a bounty on you Starjammers, twenty million big bucks, but they want you alive. Sissies!”
“You’ve made a mistake, Lunatik. Lilandra’s pardoned us on all charges!”
“Dunno why they want you and don’t give a damn,” spat the bounty hunter, “I’m just here to get my money.”
The bounty hunter’s heavy boots crunched through the long grass and as soon as Corsair decided he was close enough he leaned out and fired his plasma pistol. But Lunatik was quicker than he looked, and the beast was already close enough to grab Corsair’s pistol in his hand and crush it in one fell swoop.
“Captain run!” yelled Ch’od, grabbing Corsair by the back of the shirt and throwing him backwards.
The Saurian leaped at Lunatik and tackled him to the ground, the pair exchanged savage blows, the likes of which would have taken Christopher’s head clean off. As the pair wrestled, Ch’od seemed to be gaining the upper hand, managing to get the bounty hunter in a head lock and hopefully squeezing the alien’s throat until he suffocated.
Rather than chocking though, Lunatik laughed. He grabbed Ch’od’s wrists and pulled them away from his head easily. In one quick movement he flipped Cho’od over his head and slammed him on the ground like he weighed nothing.
“You’re a strong one, but I’m stronger,” he picked the Starjammer up by his wrist and hurled him up into the canopy.
Nearby
Z’Cann and Raza walked hand in hand through the forest in silence. They didn’t speak often, they didn’t need to. With Z’Cann’s gift their minds were linked. She understood things about him that no-one else could; the destruction of his people, losing his family. Likewise, she was able to share with him her pain at being labelled a freak all her life, and losing the only family she ever had, Cadre K, to the Brood.
Z’Cann’s telepathy was no help though when then robot dropped from the canopy and stunned her into paralysis. It struck out at Raza a split second later but, thanks to his cybernetics, he managed to resist the powerful electric shock and knocked the machine backwards with a swift kick.
The robot recovered quickly, it was a lanky thing, with a large glowing oval for a ‘face’, and didn’t appear too intimidating, but it was fast.
“Unit designate ARCH-E 5920. Assignment: acquire using non lethal force,” stated the machine.
“Good to know,” Raza quickly drew his saber and slashed at the robot, who blocked with its right forearm. It retaliated quickly with a swift quick to Raza’s chest, knocking him a few steps backwards, and landed an additional punch to the head before he had time to recover.
This thing was fast! Raza reached for the pistol on his holster but the android grabbed his wrist in a vice like grip. This was exactly what the pirate wanted though and he plunged his sabre into the machine’s shoulder joint and activated the weapon’s electro pulse, a one-time-only weapon. Electromagnetic energy surged down the blade and into the robot, causing it the thrash wildly. Its large oval faceplate flickered and it stumbled backwards, releasing his wrist. Raza’s pistol was out in an instant, blasting the machine repeatedly. It felt to the ground a smoking mess and Raza clutched his aching ribs, where the robot had kicked him.
Z’Cann groaned as the paralysis began to wear off and Raza bean down to help her up.
“That thing really blindsided me,” she sighed and she rose stiffly. “What did it want?”
“Us, it would seem. It said it had to capture us without killing us,” he replied. “Thankfully its scrap metal now.”
The Skrull woman stretched her stiff muscles and, as she rotated her head she froze, looking up in the canopy. Another dozen ARCH-E robots stood in the treetops, ready to attack.
“Raza...run!”
The Starjammer
His name was Korguuth the Uncontested, legend of three galaxies, and he had managed to sneak on board the Starjammer, bypassing all securities, completely unmolested. There were corners of the galaxy where his name was whispered in fear by the highest ranking officials of the mightiest militaries in the darkest most dangerous corners of the cosmos. His skills in camouflage, espionage and assassination, not to mention his strength enhancing cybernetics, made him an extremely dangerous opponent.
He hung upside-down from the ceiling, his prehensile feet griping the water piping with ease, waiting for his prey. The Mephistoid, as a female, was the weakest of the group and was his first target. He would capture her easily and wait until the remaining Starjammers enter the ship and take them out one by one.
His prey walked below him, completely oblivious, and he took his moment. He dropped to the floor behind her, not silently but with a thunderous crash. With more dangerous opponents he could move as silently as a fallen leaf, but in this instance he was not bothered instead opting to terrify the helpless female.
She spun about to face the hulking foe; like a demon with leathery skin so dark green it was almost black, razor sharp talons and long forward facing horns Korguuth was certainly intimidating.
He swung his clawed hand, intending to shred her face; not killing her but incapacitating her brutally. Instead his swing was blocked by a casually upraised hand. The bounty hunter was so dumfounded that he failed to block when the feline woman punched him in the jaw so hard it snapped in three places. The punch was followed by a kick to the knee that nearly snapped his lower leg clean off.
Korguuth screamed in agony and fell onto his back. “What are you?!” She was no mere Mephistoid.
The woman merely looked at him coldly and kicked him in the throat, snapping his neck and killing him instantly. A moment later Hepzibah pulled a pistol like weapon from a pocket of subspace on her hip, the Neutraliser she had stolen from the S.W.O.R.D. base. The weapon was raised, aimed at the corpse and fired, transporting it to Limbo in a flash of light.
As quickly as it hard started the ordeal was over, with no evidence it have ever occurred, none save a small dragonfly-like alien that had witnessed the entire thing from a small net hanging from the ceiling the bounty hunter had trapped him in earlier.
The Walk of Contemplation
“Ch’od!” Corsair called out in shock as his friend was hurled through the air into the canopy like he weighed nothing.
The hulking bounty hunter turned to Corsair. “I’ll pick that one up later. Big guy like that, the fall’ll tenderise him but he’ll walk it off...sadly,” he grinned savagely, “let’s see which of your limbs we can remove without killing you.”
Corsair’s plasma bolts were ineffectual as he fired on the brute, even blasts to the face didn’t seem to bother him. What was this guy made of? Just as the pirate was about to make a break for it a streak of gold swooped down from the canopy towards Lunatik’s face, followed by a blinding flash.
“Gaahh! Sunova...my freakin eyes!” yelled the bounty hunter, clutching his eyes.
The air shimmered between the bellowing hulk and Corsair, and a flamboyantly dressed man materialised from the shimmer. He looked human, with an athletic build and shoulder length black hair. His apparel consisted of a purple and blue body suit, golden gauntlets and full length purple cape, complete with a high collar. Not the most subtle get up. In his right hand he held a long ornate rapier that would have made Raza envious while he held his left wrist up at shoulder height. A moment later a golden robotic falcon swooped down and settled there.
“Christopher Summers, come with me if you want to keep your limbs.”
Corsair instead chose to punch the man in his square jaw. This guy was clearly another bounty hunter looking to cash in. His punch failed to land though, as a silvery cloud of nanorobots blocked his fist just inches away from the bounty hunter’s face.
“I’m not here for a bounty, Summers, I’m here to save you! Run!” the enigmatic man shoved Corsiar in the chest and insticnt kicked in. He ran through the forest, with his protector following quickly behind.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked as he ran.
“Monark Starstalker; gun for hire and best Bounty Hunter in three galaxies...”
Corsair stopped suddenly, levelling his pistol at the man. “So you are a bounty hunter after all? I won’t be played, Starstalker.”
“This isn’t the time or place, Captain,” Lunatik’s shouts could be heard nearby, followed by the smashing of vegetation as he blindly stumbled through it. “His eyes will heal soon.”
“How can I trust you’re not here for the bounty?”
“Oh, I’m here for a bounty all right, but mine’s a bounty to save you, twice the one to capture you.”
“Who’s paying you to save me?”
Lunatik chose that moment to smash through the undergrowth, rubbing his bleary eyes.
“Starstalker you sunovabitch! Nanocloud or not I’m gonna squish you like old fruit. No one snakes a bounty from me!” The hulking criminal took a menacing step forward, but stopped when the trio were bathed in a bright blue light from above.
“Down!” yelled Starstalker, grabbing Corsair and throwing him to the ground.
An intense last of energy rained down from above, incinerating everything around them from several metres. Strangely, both Monark and Corsair were unaffected by the blast, protected by a shimmering wall of energy. In fact, Corsair couldn’t even feel any heat. He’d seen nanocloud technology before, but nothing this advanced before.
The blast dissipated within seconds, leaving a perfectly circular patch of incinerated earth and vegetation about ten feet wide. Monark and Corasir were completely unharmed but Lunatik had been reduced to a charred skeleton; however, his hyperregenerative flesh was already starting to nit back together, albeit very slowly.
The blast had also burned a circle straight up through the miles of canopy, revealing a small Skrull ship above. A blue glow from the front of the ship revealed they were preparing for a second attack.
Monark rose to his feet and said, “A little help please, Ullysses.”
Far above Corsair could see the golden robot falcon swoop in towards the ship, and drop something towards the ship’s laser. A second later a small explosion rocked the front of the ship, blasting the laser off and sending the Skrull ship plummeting towards the ground.
The ship smashed through the thick canopy and slammed into the soil a hundred feet away. Starstalker handed Corsair a spare blaster, and said, “You’re probably going to need this.”
A hatch blasted out of the ship and four angry looking Warskrulls climbed from the wreckage of the ship. Corsair instantly recognised the group: they were the same Warskrulls that had impersonated the Starjammers and the X-Men several years ago and tried to take over the Shi’ar Empire. The leader, who had called himself Warlord, had copied Charles Xavier’s phenomenal mental powers to devastating effect. Last Corsair had seen them they were being marched on board a prison ship on their way to life in prison labour.
As the Starjammer lifted his weapon to fire he suddenly found himself paralysed, only his eyes able to move. To his left Monark also appeared to be frozen too.
I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, Summers, said a voice in his head.
At that moment he knew, Warlord somehow still had Xavier’s powers.
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To Be Continued... Next: In Starjammers #11: What the hell is going on with Hepzibah? Who hired Starstalker? What is Erik the Red’s end game? One or two of these things will be answered.
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