Post by redsycorax on Apr 6, 2021 5:07:33 GMT
Earth-72 ceased to exist in 1975. Actually, its point of divergence probably occurred billions of years in the past. It involved a distant rogue planet which entered Earth's solar system on an oblique trajectory, high above the elliptic. Scathach was an ice giant, orbited by a ring analogus to that of Saturn although it was comparable in size to Uranus or Neptune. It was originally discovered by an Irish astronomer, and given the name of the warrior Cu Chulainn's mentor and trainer, a fierce warrior woman. It looked austere and beautiful from telescopes, a world banded with sea green, but then its trajectory was calculated. Unfortunately, although Earth-72 had mystery men and women, it did not have alien emigre metahumans akin to Kryptonians and Daxamites, given that neither world existed in that universe.
As for its mystery men and women, they were a patchwork. Marian Michaels was the senior heroine amongst the Justice Crusaders of America, as the winged Butterfly, who used a jet pack and blinding lights to mesmerise her enemies; from the lost civilisation of Samarkand came Moon Girl, whose metahuman abilities consisted of flight, invulnerability and prodigious strength and speed- but not enough to leave Earth's atmosphere or deflect the oncoming celestial harbinger of doom; Paris was an androgynous android from France; Lee Allyn fought crime during his hours of night-time invisibility as Captain Zero; Dr. Styx was a benign undead figure who counteracted the devastation and destruction resultant from human meddling in supernatural forces beyond their control; and Spaceman was Ian Stannard, an astronaut who protected Earth's vital trade with its lunar colonies.
Its history differed from those of many alternate Earths in some specific details. There was no Central Intelligence Agency in its United States after the Second World War, ironically with beneficial results for US trade with newly democratic nations in Africa and Latin America. Nikolai Khruschev held power for longer and presided over what would be called perestroika and glasnost on other alternate Earths and ended the single party rule of communism itself in 1960. This meant that the United States had more time to concentrate on the space race, due to the absence of a Kennedy assassination in 1964. The United States and Russian Republic both reached the Moon in 1967 and by 1970, there was a functional lunar base. Spiritualism became the dominant faith in the United States in the 1950s.
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1974:
"The question is, what can we do to prevent this? Clare, you're from an advanced civilisation. Can't you...?"
Moon Girl shook her head: "We abandoned nuclear power hundreds of years ago, Lee. And Samarkand is a pacifistic culture."
Dr Styx seemed reluctant to contribute to the JCA's emergency summit on the issue. Paris was not so reluctant:
"There is a reason that Scathach is on a coilision course with Earth. There is something within it."
"'Something'? I'd buy some form of coelenterid aliens akin to the Jovian medusaemorphs in its upper planetary atmosphere, Paris. Can you be more specific?" Spaceman asked.
The androgynous android shook hir head: "It is not a collective species of entities. It is a particular entity. I can detect its presence from here."
Dr Styx finally looked up:
"I...know it. Its name is the Unspeakable, Not to be Named, the Lord of Interstellar Spaces. Otherwise known as...Hastur."
Moon Girl frowned: "I know of it. Its existence is recorded in the Necronomicon, the unhoiy book of eldritch obscenities translated from the prehuman Enochian by the mad Arab Abdul al-Hazred in the eighth century and further translated by the paleontologist and geologist H.P. Lovecraft at Miskatonic University. So, what are you saying, Dr Styx? That this Hastur entity is deliberately using Scathach to consume the human species? What reason could it have to undertake such brutality?"
Dr Styx sighed: "Rationality and scientific knowledge is not an attribute associated with the Great Old Ones, Clare. At least, not in the sense of even Einsteinian physics. Scathach shows signs of having been ripped from its planetary system and flung onto its present course."
"Which might explain why an ice giant like that has no observable satellites. Which would also explain why its ring hasn't disintegrated. Styx, is there any way that Scathach can be deflected from its course, even given that creature within it?"
"I am afraid not, Ian. My precognition sees nothing beyond the next six months other than tentacles, dripping with ichor and multiple cavernous maws. And silence thereafter. If this were an asteroid, perhaps one of the more benign interstellar species in our vicinity might intervene on our behalf. But Scathach is a gas giant, almost four times the diameter of our planet."
"So we just sit here on our hands and wait for it to destroy everything just because some demonic presence out there wants to commit planetary genocide? No way." Butterfly interjected.
"No matter how many lives we temporarily save, it is pointless in the end. Some may survive on the Moon, but there would not be much hope of longevity on the surviving lunar bases. Given our time frame and limited technological resources, we could evacuate only a tiny fraction of humanity to our erstwhile satellite. Moreover, the impact will have drastic effects on the orbits of neighbouring Vanes and Maers, enough to throw them into more eccentric trajectories."
"Damn it all, Styx, you can be so cold-blooded at times-" Butterfly began to remark, but Moon Girl held up a placatory hand.
"Now is not the time, Marian. If we can save even a fraction of humanity through evacuation to the Moon through the construction of new lunar colonies, we have a duty to do so."
JULY 1975:
Marian waved to Moon Girl as the mysterywoman alighted on the ground next to her:
"Busy night?"
"Oh, just the usual. Laserwoman broke out of Pulchatraz and there was a light show over New York as we fought it out. You?"
"I've been drawing contingency plans up with Ian and Styx."
"Do you really trust Styx all that much, Clare? Sorry. It's just he and I had history before he reformed."
Moon Girl clasped her friend's shoulder: "But that was five years ago, Marian. He saw the error of his ways and changed."
Butterfly sighed: "Yeah, all right. But that deterministic crap he was spouting last week really got me hot under the collar."
"If it's any help, other precognitives have had alternative visions. The Earth still gets wiped out, there's no denying that, but they've witnessed some survivors on Mars. They'll still be there fifteen years from now and it looks as if Mars has shifted into a more habitable orbit as a consequence of the collision as well."
Butterfly grinned: "Hey, that's more like it! Never say die. Unless you're a depressing SOB like Styxie."
"What say we go out and bust some more criminal heads, amiga?"
"Hey yeah! The Worlds Greatest Duo, back on the street! Now you're talkin'!"
Paris didn't let the car get away, holding it up with hir inhuman strength so that Captain Zero could get in through the askew doors and knock out the gang:
"Thanks for the help, Paree. Much appreciated."
"Lee, do you really think it'll all be over in another six months?"
"I try not to think about it, Paree. Right now, we have to keep the peace. It's weird how numb people are, as if they've already accepted it."
"I can see it, you know. It's a green and white orb, just near Sirius. The rings are beautiful, but the particles are larger than Sat- I'm sorry. I didn't want to frighten you. Not you of all people, the only one who's accepted me as fully humanoid."
Captain Zero stepped up and kissed his colleague on hir forehead: "This is a quiet night. What say we grab a bite to eat and some oil for you and see what happens later?"
"I'd like that, Lee. Very much." And with that, they entered a fuller embrace.
"I'm not going to judge them, Ian. With all that's about to happen, they deserve some time together. None of us knows whether we'll still be alive six months from now."
"Yeah, but humans and humanoid robots? Sorry, I have some problems with that. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not a mechaphobe or anything like that, but Paris isn't flesh and blood."
"S/he may not have a conventional gender identity, but s/he has the emotions and compassion that render hir fully sentient as far as I'm concerned. That's all that matters." Moon Girl said as they poured over the plans for the Maertian colonisation fleet.
"There's another problem, though. At the most, these vessels can take only a hundred thousand people. Who gets to live and who dies? Talk about the Wisdom of Solomon."
"I know. We'd like to save all of them, but tragically, that isn't possible with the time constraints we have. And there's something else. I...won't be going with them, Ian."
"Clare, no. Whatever happens, we'll still need you after the end of all this. You're the strongest person on this planet. Wouldn't Samarkand-"
Moon Girl shook her head: "It's Mengu. He has cancer, Ian. It's at Stage III. He... won't be eligible for the selection lottery. My place is with the man I love."
Spaceman swallowed: "He wouldn't want you to throw away your future like this..."
"If it were Mary, Ian, wouldn't you make the same choice?"
Spaceman looked away: "Damn it. I guess I probably would. Do the others know?"
"Marian does. I don't want to ruin the happiness that Paris and Lee have found with one another. I think we all wanted it for them after what happened to Sonia."
Spaceman looked up at the heavens: "You're right. And I have no right to judge the choices another person makes, or deny them that happiness."
"I know Mary and you have been provided with pilot berths on one of the Maertian fleet. Congratulations. Humanity's survivors couldn't be in better hands."
"It'll be that much tougher without you, Clare."
"You have been amongst the most valiant of comrades, Ian. Survive and prosper, in my memory."
AUGUST 1975:
But then, something intervened. As Doctor Styx looked up into the evening sky, he was sideswiped by a vision:
"Styx to JCA! Please! Is something there?"
Butterfly and Captain Zero were on duty:
"What is it, Styx? Another vision?"
"There is no time to lose. It is Lionel (Mengu) Manning, Clare's boon companion! He is in imminent danger! It is Satana, her mortal nemesis! Do not ask me how, but he has discovered their covert identities!"
Captain Zero nodded: "How long have we got, Styx?"
"Less than five minutes, Lee. Please, hurry!" As Captain Zero ran for the JCA Skybase's teleporter unit, Butterfly joined him:
"Two heads are better than one-"
But as they materialised in the school hall where Mengu acted as an athletics coach, the green clad self-styled "Queen of the Underworld" had beaten them there:
"Don't even think about it, devilgirl. You don't get to ruin Moon Girl's life, not like this. Not my best friend and the man she loves."
Satana laughed: "Oh, you pitiful fools! Did you really think you could avoid detection for this long? For all the times that she and her minion have frustrated me, her doxy dies." Butterfly activated her lightshow, while Captain Zero dematerialised.
"Not so easy now, is it?" Captain Zero retorted.
"You cretin, Zero. I have infra-red vision. I can easily track you, despite the cheap arc light effects of your team mate."
"That's no good if you get visual interference, horntoad..." Butterfly interposed herself between Zero as he tried to get Mengu to safety:
"I am sorry, friend Ian, but I must refuse."
"What do you mean? Do you know what it'll do to Clare if that satanoid freak over there kills you?"
Mengu shook his head: "I have cancer. I will not survive the journey to Maers, nor will I be selected for it. Clare wants to throw away her life so that she can be with me at the end of this world. I refuse to let her do so." With that, he broke away and rushed Satana. The female satanoid grinned maleficently to herself as she brought her firemagickal wand up to fire at Mengu, and raked the valiant body of Moon Girl's true love and companion in battle with her eldritch fires. It was quick enough, and Mengu didn't even utter a cry as he pitched forward before he could reach her. Butterfly glared at her:
"You will pay for that, you cold-hearted martinet." Satana laughed, which turned to a cry of panic as her dimensional transference unit failed to function. She backed into the wall as the grim-faced woman on the far side of morality closed in on her, cracked her knuckle and prepared for a long and bruising fight. Satana cried out as her flame powers ceased to function. Captain Zero turned to face Clare as she ran into the hall and screamed as she saw Mengu's ravaged body:
"Mengu! My love!"
"He...tried to do it to save you, Clare. I've used the invisibility interface to short out her satanic powers. I know we don't kill, but..."
"But, this evil piece is about to get some good, old fashioned golden age payback for what she's just done." Butterfly started to pummel Satana as Moon Girl knelt by the corpse of the man she had loved more than anything else in this world. And although she was the strongest person on her world, there was no mending her utterly broken heart that day. However tragic though, it did remove a barrier to Moon Girl's survival through her companion's noble act of self-sacrifice. At length, Captain Zero walked over:
"Marian. It won't bring Mengu back."
"I know it won't, Lee, but it felt good. Damned good. It isn't enough for what she's done. We're not vigilantes. This scum deserves to face the courts and I won't rob Clare of that. Get up, you wretch. The police are here." Roughly, Butterfly forced the bruised and battered Satana to her feet and pushed her out toward the waiting law enforcement officers. Her fury was a contrast to the weeping Moon Girl, cradling her dead companion in her arms until Captain Zero gently touched her shoulder:
"It's okay, Clare. I'll do the autopsy and handle the funeral arrangements."
"Why, Lee? Why did she destroy such a good and noble man, with the time that we all have left?"
"Sadism? Insanity? Who knows?"
Butterfly came back: "I'll testify in court to what she did, Clare. Honey? You shouldn't be alone tonight. Come back home with me. We'll remember Mengu together."
"T-thank you, old friend. And thank you... for what you did to Satana. For making her pay like that."
"There are times when the difference in our respective moral codes comes in pretty handy." As the photographers somberly took in the spectacle, Butterfly and Captain Zero led their grieving team mate away. Within the greater apocalypse facing humanity, a more intimate and closed world had ended forever.
OCTOBER 1975:
"I am sure that we all share in the national sorrow that has engulfed our country in the wake of Moon Girl's personal tragedy, the loss of her long term companion, Prince Mengu. I am therefore surrendering my berth on the vessel Salvation One to our decades-long protector. As my wife has surrendered her place to a little girl with Down Syndrome in view of her commitment to the welfare of the intellectually disabled, and because I could not live without Muriel, I do so with no regrets."
US President Hubert Humphrey (1911-1975: 37th and Final President of the United States: In Office: 1968-1975).
"Oh, Mr President..." Moon Girl gasped as the JCA witnessed the disclosure at the Presidential Press Conference.
"Didn't vote for the guy, but I do respect him." Captain Zero commented.
Paris asked: "Clare, will you take up the offer?"
"The country needs a leader, but it's typical of that good and kind man that he'd concede his place for someone else."
"He must want to serve until the end. Go down with the sinking ship." Butterfly remarked.
"Which raises the question- which of us are going apart from Clare and Ian?"
"Styx? Are your visions any help with this?"
Doctor Styx cleared his throat: "I...have seen some of us perish confronting Hastur's assault on our world as it dies. I have also seen some of us survive to change Maers to a more habitable world. I am one of those who do not survive."
"Oh, Styx. I'm sorry. When were you planning to tell us?"
"Before the Salvation fleet left. In any case, I am undead. I have fought for right and justice for many long years, but all of us have a limited time on this plane."
Butterfly nodded: "In which case, I'll be staying with you. The FBI informed me that the Claw, my old enemies, are planning a coup d'etat in Washington with the proceeds from their heroin dealing. Unfortunately, their darkside business has been prospering since the announcement of that damned planet's collision course with Earth."
"Their presence and objectives are completely illogical. At best, their antics would only plunge the country into civil war, at a time that it can least afford it."
"Marian, no, please. I couldn't stand to lose you too, not so soon after Mengu."
"Clare, it's my decision. And Styx, I'm sorry for that outburst several months ago. I see how wrong I was."
"I have already forgotten it, Marian. We have served alongside one another for me to take offence at a comment in the heat of a single moment."
"Paris? Lee?"
The two of them looked at each other:
"I will be destroyed when the Earth impacts with Scathach. My programming compels me to serve humanity to the last moment of my existence."
"If you aren't going, Paree, then neither am I." Captain Zero said quietly.
Doctor Styx looked away: "Lee, the survivors will need your technological expertise."
"I love Paree. I am not leaving this world without hir safe and sound alongside me."
"Styx, have you seen either of them survive?"
"Do not ask me, Clare. Please."
"Why? They deserve to know."
"I... have Paris sacrifice her existence alongside Marian and myself. I have also witnessed Lee's survival on Maers."
"I refuse to accept that is some form of immutable destiny. If Paree is going to die, then I'm going to fight alongside hir to my last breath."
"Be that as you will, then, Lee."
NOVEMBER 1975:
In their Hargreaves versus Baulieu decision, the US Supreme Court has allowed the marriage of humans and sapient humanoid artificial intelligences, colloquially known as androids.
-Washington Post, 12 November 1975
While many religious organisations have refused to accept the Hargreaves decision, one exception is the Unitarian Universalist Association. As Justice Crusaders team member Captain Zero is himself a Unitarian, he has asked his android team mate Paris to marry him. Although Paris has no human gender, this is not seen as an insurmountable objection by his faith. Irate conservative religious groups are threatening to picket the forthcoming ceremony in Hyannisport, Barnstable, Massachusetts."
-Washington Post, 20 November 1975.
"One man! One woman! No robots!"
"Let Zero marry the person he loves!"
DECEMBER 1975:
"It seems to be happening quickly now." From the crest of their initial Rocky Mountains headquarters, Scathach could now be observed with the naked eye, visibly growing larger with each passing moment.
"Yes. I have calculated that it will impact on December 31. We have a month to finalise arrangements and say farewell to those who are not making the journey with us." Doctor Styx said into the silence. Moon Girl looked wistfully over at the entwined couple of Paris and Captain Zero, idyllically happy together, living for the moment in the brief period of time that now remained. She wished that she could share their optimism and hope. There were still too many variables for her to consider to feel wholly comfortable and safe. When would Hastur make its move? Were there any Great Old Ones left on Earth that would challenge its rapacious greed and hunger? And in the midst of the angry inhuman gods of a prehuman era, what would happen to humanity in its wake? Fortunately, Samarkand had risen to the event as it loomed on the horizon of time and had completed ten giant space arks already. Astrophysicists in the lost civilisation that had birthed her calculated the thrust would be enough to overcome any attack from Hastur or any of its rivals. Or was humanity so insignificant to it that it would not even bother swatting the vessels from the heavens as they fled to Mars and hope?
THE END OF THE WORLD:
And then, all too quickly, it was December 31, 1975. Scathach loomed dreadfully in the night sky, several times as large as the Moon, or where the Moon would have been had it not been on the opposite side of the doomed world from the unwelcome attention of the deadly intruder. In the White House, President Humphrey watched as the Salvation refugee armada rose into the skies, thrusting away into the morning sky. On the vessel, Moon Girl, Spaceman and the woman he loved looked down on the already stressed Earth as volcanos began to erupt and earthquakes shook the land below them. Moon Girl felt numb and closed her eyes. It was almost too much to bear. She found herself thinking of Marian and Styx. And then, on a seat across from her own, a shrouded figure moaned:
"Uhhh.... Clare?! Oh, Spirits! I'm on one of the ark vessels, aren't I? Damn it! Paree must have drugged my drink last night. Clare? Clare, where is s/he?"
But the heroic android was there on the disintegrating world below, ferrying those who had missed out on vessel berths to relative safety until all at once, even from the distance of the rapidly receding armada of spacecraft, they saw them. In the blink of an eye, Hastur superimposed himself on the clouds of Scathach, rising above it, an impossibly massive cephalopoid with no eyes, shrivelled, an unearthly shade of black or perhaps a colour out of space and time itself, with razor sharp claws swinging from its multiple array of tentacles. And then, in what would have been a deafening roar, another...entity... arose from the Southwest Pacific, inundating the remnants of ruined New Zealand, now lost to volcanos, earthquakes and tsunami. For this was Chthulhu, the dreadest of the dread itself, simultaneously akin to a dragon, octopus and a grotesque caricature of a human being, with a pulped obscenity of a head, a scaly parody of a human body, festooned with tentacles and claws.
Moon Girl could almost hear the unearthly chant of the insane cultists of the behemoth as it flapped its immense batlike wings and with a deafening roar of fury, as the Earth below it began to distend and disintegrate into incandescence and immense meteoroids started to rain down on Scathach, Hastur rose to meet it. In a moment that seared the senses, Earth met its oblivion and four billion human beings died in its wake. The creatures grappled, roared and clashed, and the reverberations shook space and time in their wake. Miraculously, though, the Salvation fleet armada was unharmed, a last gift from Doctor Styx, as he had told Ian and Clare before the morning of doomsday. And there was something else-
"Maers! Look at Maers!" As space and time rippled and gave way, the red planet reverberated and faded from existence, to be replaced... by a green and blue and brown simulacrum of the Earth that was, Maers as it must have been billions of years in the past, or would be in the distant future. For whatever reason, the former fourth planet had abandoned its subarctic, abysmal cold and turned its face to the light. And then, now far behind them, there was nothing more than a mass of silent if not white-hot asteroid remnants from the destruction of Earth and the gaseous nebula that had once been Scathach, torn apart by the unearthly conflict that had beset it. And then, there was another miracle. From out of the chaos soared the former Moon, now liberated into a different, independent orbit. From the Salvation fleet radios came inquiring messages- so another outpost of humanity had survived. And then Clare realised that Styx must have enacted world changing magics of immense power to revive Chthulhu and bargained with the Great Old One to spare the former Moon and use its eldritch powers to cast it from orbit intact- but that Styx must have given his very life, sorcerous knowledge and soul to ensure that the Great Old One and Hastur were equally matched. At least it must have been quick for poor Marian and Paris. She looked over at Lee, silently weeping, unbelted herself and drifted across the cabin to embrace the suddenly widowed man.
And elsewhere, across unimaginable reaches of time, space and yet other unimaginable dimensions, dread Chthulhu and enraged Hastur still fight their battle, the planets destroyed in their rivalry now forgotten- except to the five hundred thousand humans who had escaped the planetary collision to colonise a new sanctuary and the one hundred thousand colonists on Earth's former satellite. It was only a remnant of humanity, but it was enough. Unlike the celestial debris that had once been Earth-72, humanity had survived the demise of its immolated homeworld, now reaching out beyond the cradle to the stars beyond. Billions had perished, but yet, almost a million had survived doomsday.
THE END
As for its mystery men and women, they were a patchwork. Marian Michaels was the senior heroine amongst the Justice Crusaders of America, as the winged Butterfly, who used a jet pack and blinding lights to mesmerise her enemies; from the lost civilisation of Samarkand came Moon Girl, whose metahuman abilities consisted of flight, invulnerability and prodigious strength and speed- but not enough to leave Earth's atmosphere or deflect the oncoming celestial harbinger of doom; Paris was an androgynous android from France; Lee Allyn fought crime during his hours of night-time invisibility as Captain Zero; Dr. Styx was a benign undead figure who counteracted the devastation and destruction resultant from human meddling in supernatural forces beyond their control; and Spaceman was Ian Stannard, an astronaut who protected Earth's vital trade with its lunar colonies.
Its history differed from those of many alternate Earths in some specific details. There was no Central Intelligence Agency in its United States after the Second World War, ironically with beneficial results for US trade with newly democratic nations in Africa and Latin America. Nikolai Khruschev held power for longer and presided over what would be called perestroika and glasnost on other alternate Earths and ended the single party rule of communism itself in 1960. This meant that the United States had more time to concentrate on the space race, due to the absence of a Kennedy assassination in 1964. The United States and Russian Republic both reached the Moon in 1967 and by 1970, there was a functional lunar base. Spiritualism became the dominant faith in the United States in the 1950s.
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1974:
"The question is, what can we do to prevent this? Clare, you're from an advanced civilisation. Can't you...?"
Moon Girl shook her head: "We abandoned nuclear power hundreds of years ago, Lee. And Samarkand is a pacifistic culture."
Dr Styx seemed reluctant to contribute to the JCA's emergency summit on the issue. Paris was not so reluctant:
"There is a reason that Scathach is on a coilision course with Earth. There is something within it."
"'Something'? I'd buy some form of coelenterid aliens akin to the Jovian medusaemorphs in its upper planetary atmosphere, Paris. Can you be more specific?" Spaceman asked.
The androgynous android shook hir head: "It is not a collective species of entities. It is a particular entity. I can detect its presence from here."
Dr Styx finally looked up:
"I...know it. Its name is the Unspeakable, Not to be Named, the Lord of Interstellar Spaces. Otherwise known as...Hastur."
Moon Girl frowned: "I know of it. Its existence is recorded in the Necronomicon, the unhoiy book of eldritch obscenities translated from the prehuman Enochian by the mad Arab Abdul al-Hazred in the eighth century and further translated by the paleontologist and geologist H.P. Lovecraft at Miskatonic University. So, what are you saying, Dr Styx? That this Hastur entity is deliberately using Scathach to consume the human species? What reason could it have to undertake such brutality?"
Dr Styx sighed: "Rationality and scientific knowledge is not an attribute associated with the Great Old Ones, Clare. At least, not in the sense of even Einsteinian physics. Scathach shows signs of having been ripped from its planetary system and flung onto its present course."
"Which might explain why an ice giant like that has no observable satellites. Which would also explain why its ring hasn't disintegrated. Styx, is there any way that Scathach can be deflected from its course, even given that creature within it?"
"I am afraid not, Ian. My precognition sees nothing beyond the next six months other than tentacles, dripping with ichor and multiple cavernous maws. And silence thereafter. If this were an asteroid, perhaps one of the more benign interstellar species in our vicinity might intervene on our behalf. But Scathach is a gas giant, almost four times the diameter of our planet."
"So we just sit here on our hands and wait for it to destroy everything just because some demonic presence out there wants to commit planetary genocide? No way." Butterfly interjected.
"No matter how many lives we temporarily save, it is pointless in the end. Some may survive on the Moon, but there would not be much hope of longevity on the surviving lunar bases. Given our time frame and limited technological resources, we could evacuate only a tiny fraction of humanity to our erstwhile satellite. Moreover, the impact will have drastic effects on the orbits of neighbouring Vanes and Maers, enough to throw them into more eccentric trajectories."
"Damn it all, Styx, you can be so cold-blooded at times-" Butterfly began to remark, but Moon Girl held up a placatory hand.
"Now is not the time, Marian. If we can save even a fraction of humanity through evacuation to the Moon through the construction of new lunar colonies, we have a duty to do so."
JULY 1975:
Marian waved to Moon Girl as the mysterywoman alighted on the ground next to her:
"Busy night?"
"Oh, just the usual. Laserwoman broke out of Pulchatraz and there was a light show over New York as we fought it out. You?"
"I've been drawing contingency plans up with Ian and Styx."
"Do you really trust Styx all that much, Clare? Sorry. It's just he and I had history before he reformed."
Moon Girl clasped her friend's shoulder: "But that was five years ago, Marian. He saw the error of his ways and changed."
Butterfly sighed: "Yeah, all right. But that deterministic crap he was spouting last week really got me hot under the collar."
"If it's any help, other precognitives have had alternative visions. The Earth still gets wiped out, there's no denying that, but they've witnessed some survivors on Mars. They'll still be there fifteen years from now and it looks as if Mars has shifted into a more habitable orbit as a consequence of the collision as well."
Butterfly grinned: "Hey, that's more like it! Never say die. Unless you're a depressing SOB like Styxie."
"What say we go out and bust some more criminal heads, amiga?"
"Hey yeah! The Worlds Greatest Duo, back on the street! Now you're talkin'!"
Paris didn't let the car get away, holding it up with hir inhuman strength so that Captain Zero could get in through the askew doors and knock out the gang:
"Thanks for the help, Paree. Much appreciated."
"Lee, do you really think it'll all be over in another six months?"
"I try not to think about it, Paree. Right now, we have to keep the peace. It's weird how numb people are, as if they've already accepted it."
"I can see it, you know. It's a green and white orb, just near Sirius. The rings are beautiful, but the particles are larger than Sat- I'm sorry. I didn't want to frighten you. Not you of all people, the only one who's accepted me as fully humanoid."
Captain Zero stepped up and kissed his colleague on hir forehead: "This is a quiet night. What say we grab a bite to eat and some oil for you and see what happens later?"
"I'd like that, Lee. Very much." And with that, they entered a fuller embrace.
"I'm not going to judge them, Ian. With all that's about to happen, they deserve some time together. None of us knows whether we'll still be alive six months from now."
"Yeah, but humans and humanoid robots? Sorry, I have some problems with that. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not a mechaphobe or anything like that, but Paris isn't flesh and blood."
"S/he may not have a conventional gender identity, but s/he has the emotions and compassion that render hir fully sentient as far as I'm concerned. That's all that matters." Moon Girl said as they poured over the plans for the Maertian colonisation fleet.
"There's another problem, though. At the most, these vessels can take only a hundred thousand people. Who gets to live and who dies? Talk about the Wisdom of Solomon."
"I know. We'd like to save all of them, but tragically, that isn't possible with the time constraints we have. And there's something else. I...won't be going with them, Ian."
"Clare, no. Whatever happens, we'll still need you after the end of all this. You're the strongest person on this planet. Wouldn't Samarkand-"
Moon Girl shook her head: "It's Mengu. He has cancer, Ian. It's at Stage III. He... won't be eligible for the selection lottery. My place is with the man I love."
Spaceman swallowed: "He wouldn't want you to throw away your future like this..."
"If it were Mary, Ian, wouldn't you make the same choice?"
Spaceman looked away: "Damn it. I guess I probably would. Do the others know?"
"Marian does. I don't want to ruin the happiness that Paris and Lee have found with one another. I think we all wanted it for them after what happened to Sonia."
Spaceman looked up at the heavens: "You're right. And I have no right to judge the choices another person makes, or deny them that happiness."
"I know Mary and you have been provided with pilot berths on one of the Maertian fleet. Congratulations. Humanity's survivors couldn't be in better hands."
"It'll be that much tougher without you, Clare."
"You have been amongst the most valiant of comrades, Ian. Survive and prosper, in my memory."
AUGUST 1975:
But then, something intervened. As Doctor Styx looked up into the evening sky, he was sideswiped by a vision:
"Styx to JCA! Please! Is something there?"
Butterfly and Captain Zero were on duty:
"What is it, Styx? Another vision?"
"There is no time to lose. It is Lionel (Mengu) Manning, Clare's boon companion! He is in imminent danger! It is Satana, her mortal nemesis! Do not ask me how, but he has discovered their covert identities!"
Captain Zero nodded: "How long have we got, Styx?"
"Less than five minutes, Lee. Please, hurry!" As Captain Zero ran for the JCA Skybase's teleporter unit, Butterfly joined him:
"Two heads are better than one-"
But as they materialised in the school hall where Mengu acted as an athletics coach, the green clad self-styled "Queen of the Underworld" had beaten them there:
"Don't even think about it, devilgirl. You don't get to ruin Moon Girl's life, not like this. Not my best friend and the man she loves."
Satana laughed: "Oh, you pitiful fools! Did you really think you could avoid detection for this long? For all the times that she and her minion have frustrated me, her doxy dies." Butterfly activated her lightshow, while Captain Zero dematerialised.
"Not so easy now, is it?" Captain Zero retorted.
"You cretin, Zero. I have infra-red vision. I can easily track you, despite the cheap arc light effects of your team mate."
"That's no good if you get visual interference, horntoad..." Butterfly interposed herself between Zero as he tried to get Mengu to safety:
"I am sorry, friend Ian, but I must refuse."
"What do you mean? Do you know what it'll do to Clare if that satanoid freak over there kills you?"
Mengu shook his head: "I have cancer. I will not survive the journey to Maers, nor will I be selected for it. Clare wants to throw away her life so that she can be with me at the end of this world. I refuse to let her do so." With that, he broke away and rushed Satana. The female satanoid grinned maleficently to herself as she brought her firemagickal wand up to fire at Mengu, and raked the valiant body of Moon Girl's true love and companion in battle with her eldritch fires. It was quick enough, and Mengu didn't even utter a cry as he pitched forward before he could reach her. Butterfly glared at her:
"You will pay for that, you cold-hearted martinet." Satana laughed, which turned to a cry of panic as her dimensional transference unit failed to function. She backed into the wall as the grim-faced woman on the far side of morality closed in on her, cracked her knuckle and prepared for a long and bruising fight. Satana cried out as her flame powers ceased to function. Captain Zero turned to face Clare as she ran into the hall and screamed as she saw Mengu's ravaged body:
"Mengu! My love!"
"He...tried to do it to save you, Clare. I've used the invisibility interface to short out her satanic powers. I know we don't kill, but..."
"But, this evil piece is about to get some good, old fashioned golden age payback for what she's just done." Butterfly started to pummel Satana as Moon Girl knelt by the corpse of the man she had loved more than anything else in this world. And although she was the strongest person on her world, there was no mending her utterly broken heart that day. However tragic though, it did remove a barrier to Moon Girl's survival through her companion's noble act of self-sacrifice. At length, Captain Zero walked over:
"Marian. It won't bring Mengu back."
"I know it won't, Lee, but it felt good. Damned good. It isn't enough for what she's done. We're not vigilantes. This scum deserves to face the courts and I won't rob Clare of that. Get up, you wretch. The police are here." Roughly, Butterfly forced the bruised and battered Satana to her feet and pushed her out toward the waiting law enforcement officers. Her fury was a contrast to the weeping Moon Girl, cradling her dead companion in her arms until Captain Zero gently touched her shoulder:
"It's okay, Clare. I'll do the autopsy and handle the funeral arrangements."
"Why, Lee? Why did she destroy such a good and noble man, with the time that we all have left?"
"Sadism? Insanity? Who knows?"
Butterfly came back: "I'll testify in court to what she did, Clare. Honey? You shouldn't be alone tonight. Come back home with me. We'll remember Mengu together."
"T-thank you, old friend. And thank you... for what you did to Satana. For making her pay like that."
"There are times when the difference in our respective moral codes comes in pretty handy." As the photographers somberly took in the spectacle, Butterfly and Captain Zero led their grieving team mate away. Within the greater apocalypse facing humanity, a more intimate and closed world had ended forever.
OCTOBER 1975:
"I am sure that we all share in the national sorrow that has engulfed our country in the wake of Moon Girl's personal tragedy, the loss of her long term companion, Prince Mengu. I am therefore surrendering my berth on the vessel Salvation One to our decades-long protector. As my wife has surrendered her place to a little girl with Down Syndrome in view of her commitment to the welfare of the intellectually disabled, and because I could not live without Muriel, I do so with no regrets."
US President Hubert Humphrey (1911-1975: 37th and Final President of the United States: In Office: 1968-1975).
"Oh, Mr President..." Moon Girl gasped as the JCA witnessed the disclosure at the Presidential Press Conference.
"Didn't vote for the guy, but I do respect him." Captain Zero commented.
Paris asked: "Clare, will you take up the offer?"
"The country needs a leader, but it's typical of that good and kind man that he'd concede his place for someone else."
"He must want to serve until the end. Go down with the sinking ship." Butterfly remarked.
"Which raises the question- which of us are going apart from Clare and Ian?"
"Styx? Are your visions any help with this?"
Doctor Styx cleared his throat: "I...have seen some of us perish confronting Hastur's assault on our world as it dies. I have also seen some of us survive to change Maers to a more habitable world. I am one of those who do not survive."
"Oh, Styx. I'm sorry. When were you planning to tell us?"
"Before the Salvation fleet left. In any case, I am undead. I have fought for right and justice for many long years, but all of us have a limited time on this plane."
Butterfly nodded: "In which case, I'll be staying with you. The FBI informed me that the Claw, my old enemies, are planning a coup d'etat in Washington with the proceeds from their heroin dealing. Unfortunately, their darkside business has been prospering since the announcement of that damned planet's collision course with Earth."
"Their presence and objectives are completely illogical. At best, their antics would only plunge the country into civil war, at a time that it can least afford it."
"Marian, no, please. I couldn't stand to lose you too, not so soon after Mengu."
"Clare, it's my decision. And Styx, I'm sorry for that outburst several months ago. I see how wrong I was."
"I have already forgotten it, Marian. We have served alongside one another for me to take offence at a comment in the heat of a single moment."
"Paris? Lee?"
The two of them looked at each other:
"I will be destroyed when the Earth impacts with Scathach. My programming compels me to serve humanity to the last moment of my existence."
"If you aren't going, Paree, then neither am I." Captain Zero said quietly.
Doctor Styx looked away: "Lee, the survivors will need your technological expertise."
"I love Paree. I am not leaving this world without hir safe and sound alongside me."
"Styx, have you seen either of them survive?"
"Do not ask me, Clare. Please."
"Why? They deserve to know."
"I... have Paris sacrifice her existence alongside Marian and myself. I have also witnessed Lee's survival on Maers."
"I refuse to accept that is some form of immutable destiny. If Paree is going to die, then I'm going to fight alongside hir to my last breath."
"Be that as you will, then, Lee."
NOVEMBER 1975:
In their Hargreaves versus Baulieu decision, the US Supreme Court has allowed the marriage of humans and sapient humanoid artificial intelligences, colloquially known as androids.
-Washington Post, 12 November 1975
While many religious organisations have refused to accept the Hargreaves decision, one exception is the Unitarian Universalist Association. As Justice Crusaders team member Captain Zero is himself a Unitarian, he has asked his android team mate Paris to marry him. Although Paris has no human gender, this is not seen as an insurmountable objection by his faith. Irate conservative religious groups are threatening to picket the forthcoming ceremony in Hyannisport, Barnstable, Massachusetts."
-Washington Post, 20 November 1975.
"One man! One woman! No robots!"
"Let Zero marry the person he loves!"
DECEMBER 1975:
"It seems to be happening quickly now." From the crest of their initial Rocky Mountains headquarters, Scathach could now be observed with the naked eye, visibly growing larger with each passing moment.
"Yes. I have calculated that it will impact on December 31. We have a month to finalise arrangements and say farewell to those who are not making the journey with us." Doctor Styx said into the silence. Moon Girl looked wistfully over at the entwined couple of Paris and Captain Zero, idyllically happy together, living for the moment in the brief period of time that now remained. She wished that she could share their optimism and hope. There were still too many variables for her to consider to feel wholly comfortable and safe. When would Hastur make its move? Were there any Great Old Ones left on Earth that would challenge its rapacious greed and hunger? And in the midst of the angry inhuman gods of a prehuman era, what would happen to humanity in its wake? Fortunately, Samarkand had risen to the event as it loomed on the horizon of time and had completed ten giant space arks already. Astrophysicists in the lost civilisation that had birthed her calculated the thrust would be enough to overcome any attack from Hastur or any of its rivals. Or was humanity so insignificant to it that it would not even bother swatting the vessels from the heavens as they fled to Mars and hope?
THE END OF THE WORLD:
And then, all too quickly, it was December 31, 1975. Scathach loomed dreadfully in the night sky, several times as large as the Moon, or where the Moon would have been had it not been on the opposite side of the doomed world from the unwelcome attention of the deadly intruder. In the White House, President Humphrey watched as the Salvation refugee armada rose into the skies, thrusting away into the morning sky. On the vessel, Moon Girl, Spaceman and the woman he loved looked down on the already stressed Earth as volcanos began to erupt and earthquakes shook the land below them. Moon Girl felt numb and closed her eyes. It was almost too much to bear. She found herself thinking of Marian and Styx. And then, on a seat across from her own, a shrouded figure moaned:
"Uhhh.... Clare?! Oh, Spirits! I'm on one of the ark vessels, aren't I? Damn it! Paree must have drugged my drink last night. Clare? Clare, where is s/he?"
But the heroic android was there on the disintegrating world below, ferrying those who had missed out on vessel berths to relative safety until all at once, even from the distance of the rapidly receding armada of spacecraft, they saw them. In the blink of an eye, Hastur superimposed himself on the clouds of Scathach, rising above it, an impossibly massive cephalopoid with no eyes, shrivelled, an unearthly shade of black or perhaps a colour out of space and time itself, with razor sharp claws swinging from its multiple array of tentacles. And then, in what would have been a deafening roar, another...entity... arose from the Southwest Pacific, inundating the remnants of ruined New Zealand, now lost to volcanos, earthquakes and tsunami. For this was Chthulhu, the dreadest of the dread itself, simultaneously akin to a dragon, octopus and a grotesque caricature of a human being, with a pulped obscenity of a head, a scaly parody of a human body, festooned with tentacles and claws.
Moon Girl could almost hear the unearthly chant of the insane cultists of the behemoth as it flapped its immense batlike wings and with a deafening roar of fury, as the Earth below it began to distend and disintegrate into incandescence and immense meteoroids started to rain down on Scathach, Hastur rose to meet it. In a moment that seared the senses, Earth met its oblivion and four billion human beings died in its wake. The creatures grappled, roared and clashed, and the reverberations shook space and time in their wake. Miraculously, though, the Salvation fleet armada was unharmed, a last gift from Doctor Styx, as he had told Ian and Clare before the morning of doomsday. And there was something else-
"Maers! Look at Maers!" As space and time rippled and gave way, the red planet reverberated and faded from existence, to be replaced... by a green and blue and brown simulacrum of the Earth that was, Maers as it must have been billions of years in the past, or would be in the distant future. For whatever reason, the former fourth planet had abandoned its subarctic, abysmal cold and turned its face to the light. And then, now far behind them, there was nothing more than a mass of silent if not white-hot asteroid remnants from the destruction of Earth and the gaseous nebula that had once been Scathach, torn apart by the unearthly conflict that had beset it. And then, there was another miracle. From out of the chaos soared the former Moon, now liberated into a different, independent orbit. From the Salvation fleet radios came inquiring messages- so another outpost of humanity had survived. And then Clare realised that Styx must have enacted world changing magics of immense power to revive Chthulhu and bargained with the Great Old One to spare the former Moon and use its eldritch powers to cast it from orbit intact- but that Styx must have given his very life, sorcerous knowledge and soul to ensure that the Great Old One and Hastur were equally matched. At least it must have been quick for poor Marian and Paris. She looked over at Lee, silently weeping, unbelted herself and drifted across the cabin to embrace the suddenly widowed man.
And elsewhere, across unimaginable reaches of time, space and yet other unimaginable dimensions, dread Chthulhu and enraged Hastur still fight their battle, the planets destroyed in their rivalry now forgotten- except to the five hundred thousand humans who had escaped the planetary collision to colonise a new sanctuary and the one hundred thousand colonists on Earth's former satellite. It was only a remnant of humanity, but it was enough. Unlike the celestial debris that had once been Earth-72, humanity had survived the demise of its immolated homeworld, now reaching out beyond the cradle to the stars beyond. Billions had perished, but yet, almost a million had survived doomsday.
THE END
