Captain Comet: Unholy Homecoming

[lawrenceliberty]

Captain Comet: Unholy Homecoming!
By libbylawrence
Captain Comet and Starman receive a rude reception when the Stellar Sentinel returns home!
1988
1
Prince Gavyn the Starman was excited to be heading home at last. The hero had known little peace or security during the last few years of his life and both of those precious traits were among the qualities he associated with his wife Princess Merria and their home Throneworld.
He was a handsome man with blond hair and a ready smile. Life had not soured him. He still found wonder in the cosmos around him and he relished the way his remarkable powers enabled him to soar through deep space itself and channel the stellar energies his unique metabolism absorbed into a variety of super powers. He wore a red and gold costume that included a cowl that covered his upper face while leaving the top of his head open to view. He no longer worried about concealing his identity; however, there was a time in which the young royal needed to allow the world and the subjects of his future empire to believe that he had died. Now, after the death of the former ruler his sister Princess Clryssa, the defeat of his enemies, and the dissolution of the 1000 planet Empire of the Onyx Throne, Prince Gavyn was free to be himself and to savor the simple pleasures of home and family.
He sat next to a man dressed in red, white, and blue as they rode through space in his friend’s red spacecraft. Captain Comet (Adam Blake) was a mutant hero with all the abilities of body and mind that might someday belong to an evolved humanity. Captain Comet seemed ageless and had in fact dedicated his life to a heroic career on Earth and to exploration of space itself. He savored learning new things and seeing new sights and he took his role as a cosmic champion seriously. The Man of Destiny had been selected by the enigmatic Guardians of the Clockwork Universe to help them repair the damage and chaos the cosmic Crisis had generated throughout time and space.
Now, Captain Comet smiled at his friend and said, “How does it feel to be home at last?”
Prince Gavyn said, “I am eager to be reunited with Princess Merria. We enjoyed such a short time together after our wedding before my supposed death during the Crisis! Even for a man destined to die and return several times, the whole experience of being trapped as pure energy for so long was troubling to say the least!”
Captain Comet said, “I’m glad you regained your physical form in time to help me stop the Dark Destroyer and the Starbreaker. I owe you a real debt of thanks!”
Prince Gavyn shook his head. “I owe you my freedom and my life. I meant it when I said that I want to help you with your own mission to defend the universe from cosmic threats. I will be happy to spend some time with my wife first though! She must believe that my death was final in spite of the prophecy about my multiple lives!”
A pretty blond woman with very short hair stepped forward from the back of the ship. She wore a solid black leotard and slippers. Kayla the Marvel Maid has suffered much loss and she had renounced her former heroic name. She had come to terms with the loss of her friends and her adopted world and now she sought to forge a new life for herself out among the stars with her new allies.
“So, that is Throneworld?” she asked as they approached a small planet.
Prince Gavyn said, “Yes, although it really should be called Kranaltine now since we were forced to dissolve the Empire of the Onyx Throne when Mongul tried to use my planets to extort power and cosmic relics from us. Once we dissolved the Empire, he lost his hold on us. I decided upon ascending the throne to leave that multitude of worlds to individual autonomy. My time as Starman changed all of my former views on monarchy. I now firmly believe in personal freedom for all!”
As the Cometeer landed on a wide docking station below, Prince Gavyn nodded in approval. He was truly home at last! He did wonder why he saw so signs of commerce or the normal bustle of interstellar trade at the space port. He only saw somber looking guards and he realized that he did not recognize any of them!
A burly man in red and green approached the craft in front of a dozen armed troopers. He greeted them as the trio emerged from the ship.
“I am Kalih San. I welcome you on behalf of the Lady Merria. She awaits you in the palace royal! Needless to say, once your unique energy signature was detected by the scanners, we alerted her Majesty! She has been praying for your return for some time now!” he announced.
Prince Gavyn said, “Scanners? I can hardly believe it! It sounds like she never gave up on me! She really believed the legend that said I would defy death!”
Captain Comet frowned as he noticed the guardsmen all wore helmets that shielded their minds from telepathy. He also knew that Lady Merria had reason to doubt her husband would ever return from his death because of an encounter she had had with his friend Will Payton the Starman of earth. This meeting had created the impression that Prince Gavyn’s essence had only lingered within a royal staff he had once carried and that in truth the hero was no longer among the living. After that experience with Will, Comet had not expected the young widow to resume her former hope that her beloved husband would return!
“I suppose true love like hope springs eternal! Still, the cynic in me, feels a bit uneasy about this whole welcome!” he thought.
As the troops led them into the Palace Royal, the number of guardsmen increased along with Captain Comet’s suspicions. Comet’s mind was powerful and even though the helmets or psi shields blocked some telepathic probing, he was able to pick up surface impressions from the minds around him. He noticed a lack of individuality and felt a sinister sensation.
“These men are scared to death. Something is very wrong here!” he thought.
He frowned as they entered the main throne room where a lovely but frail looking blonde woman sat on a throne.
“Merria! I have returned at last! We will never be separated again!” cried Prince Gavyn as he rushed toward his wife! The guardsmen glowered at him with undisguised malice but no one tried to block his approach!
Captain Comet projected his thoughts to Kayla as she watched the reunion with a smile on her face.
“Something is wrong! Be ready. I can’t explain it but I feel like this is too good to be true!” he thought.
Kayla nodded as her blue eyes widened in alarm. As Marvel Maid she had been her planet’s greatest defender and she was still amazingly capable and resilient!
As Prince Gavyn embraced his beloved wife and drew her close for a kiss, she raised one delicate hand and smiled malevolently at his friends.
“Yes, I can tell that you already suspect me! You have been a hero for too long to be fooled. However, I have been preparing a special welcome for you, Captain Comet!” she hissed.
As Prince Gavyn looked at her with dismay, Princess Merria gestured and Captain Comet and Kayla vanished in a burst of crackling energy!
She looked up at her startled husband, and smiled angelically.
“Welcome home!” she said sweetly!
2
Prince Gavyn stared at his wife in horror.
“What have you done? I know my return must be a shock to you but those were my friends? Your whole demeanor is different! What has happened here? “ he asked.
Princess Merria tossed back her blonde locks and laughed coldly.
“You dolt! This reunion was staged merely so I could see the pained look on your face! You will join your allies soon enough! I have banished them through time and space and you will soon follow them!” she said.
Prince Gavyn the Starman reached for the mocking woman only to draw back in pain as a black nimbus of energy irradiated his body.
“I have mentally activated my null-energy force field. It will ensure you do not overstep your proper place. You see, the energy it manifests is designed to react with your specific metabolism in a manner that will cause you considerable pain!” she said.
Prince Gavyn gasped as she casually kicked him to the ground at her feet. She moved like the woman he loved with girlish flounces accompanied each movement. She looked and sounded like her but clearly something was wrong. Some madness had robbed her of her senses. Was it grief for her husband that maddened her so?
He said, “Stop it! I love you! Let me help you!”
He fought through the pain and regained his footing. The guardsmen watched in awe. He was clearly a hero!
He said, “We can fix things. We can restore our old rapport. I will help you!”
Lady Merria said, “You will help me! I will make certain of that. You will help me by entertaining me and my true consort by combat in the arena!”
Starman hesitated for a second as he heard her speak of some new lover. He concentrated and flew skyward for a moment before crashing to the ground. She had drained him of most of his energy although it would return in time.
Lady Merria smiled as if she was a school girl who had just witnessed some childhood game. She almost clapped her hands with delight.
“Take him to the arena! Oh, and kill all the guards. We need not continue with the charade that things are as they were in the past! We were able to achieve our goal by lulling Starman and his allies into a false sense of security until we could dispose of Captain Comet and the female powerhouse!”
Suddenly, the entranced guardsmen who had ushered the heroes into the Palace Royal were attacked and brutally slain by hulking humanoids with grey scales on their skin who fought with a savage fury all their own. Two of them dragged Prince Gavyn into the darkness of the enormous palace.
Moments later squads of the alien monsters emerged from the shadows to line the walls of the throne room as their queen laughed girlishly.
“Well done!” she announced happily.
3
Captain Comet blinked as his eyes adjusted to the glare of a huge red sun that burned down over blistering desert sands that stretched out in all directions!
He concentrated for a moment and then shook his head in disgust.
“She caught us with some kind of teleportation ray although I can’t say that I recognize this place. It has an Earth-like atmosphere although that giant red sun is new to me. I detect a lot of primitive thoughts from all around me. I am certainly not alone!” he mused as bulky humanoids in heavy black robes and hoods emerged from the sand drifts in a circle and closed in on him.
“If you fellows are a welcoming committee, I’m in no mood for games!” he said as he prepared to fight off the newcomers.
“They don’t move like humans. They don’t speak. I can only pick up alien thoughts that strike me as vaguely insectoid in nature. I think these things are some kind of alien insect!” he said.
He easily deflected the first charge from the aliens with a TK shield. He deftly focused his mental powers beneath the nearest attacker’s cloak and ripped it aside to reveal a black/blue colored being with the shell-like exo-skeleton of a giant insect. The creature had three arms and it moved forward relentlessly in spite of Comet’s unseen attack!
He reached out and made contact with the primitive minds around him and almost casually stunned them all.
“I could only do that because their minds are a combination of some kind of insect-like hive intellect and an altered human brain. These things are mutated or genetically altered humans!” he said softly.
Captain Comet turned to see more of the aliens charging over a high sand dune and as he prepared to fight, several newcomers rode into view from the other direction! They rode massive red scaled creatures that resembled mutated salamanders and while he could see three of the riders were humans three others were green hued lizard people!
Their leader was a young blonde woman with short hair, a pretty face, and a brief light blue outfit consisting of a tunic and shorts. She charged past Captain Comet and brought a small sword-like weapon in one hand down across the nearest insect. A gleam of energy appeared as the blade sliced through the hulking creature. It reached for her but she swung over the other side of her mount and then flipped back to slice the alien in half.
The rugged dark haired man and sultry black haired woman who rode in the wake of their blonde leader dispatched two more aliens even as the large but somehow stately lizard people drove off the rest.
Captain Comet wasted no time. He scanned the minds of the newcomers and instantly learned their story and the background of this odd place.
“I’m on Earth but I’ve been teleported some six or seven thousand years into an alternate future. The eco-system is hostile and the sun itself expanded and turned red. There is almost no water on the planet and three races wage war for the scare resources that remain! The humans are allied with nomadic lizards called the Harahashan while the bug men are known as the Qlov. Apparently, the lizards, the insects, and a third mutated group called the Muldge are descended from genetically altered humans!” he thought.
The blonde woman dismounted from her scaly steed and sheathed the now dormant energy blade.
“I am Jinal Ne’Comarr. These are my friends Skinner and Rena!” she gestured toward the shaggy haired man and the dark haired beauty. She turned to the lizard men and said, “This is Barasha, Lur, and Honan.”
Captain Comet said, “I’m Captain Comet. Thank you for your timely rescue.”
Skinner whistled softly as he walked back and forth around the stunned Qlov.
“Jinal! This is the craziest thing I ever saw. All of them are asleep or something!” he said.
Jinal said, “I think our new friend here can explain that. Are you one of the Old Ones? Do you have some kind of super power over minds?”
Captain Comet said, “I do have certain abilities that I used to subdue the Olov and to learn exactly who you all are. I’m not from this era. Would you believe I was brought here against my will from around 5,000 years in the past?”
The looming lizard nomad called Barasha said, “Truth he speaks, Little One. The way of a hero he has!”
Jinal nodded and grinned abruptly.
“Okay. We could use a hero around here! We’ve certainly had more than our share of villains!” she said.
“Come with us. We’d like to hear more of your story before those Qlov aweken!” she said as she extended a hand and allowed Comet to climb up behind her on the scaly beast.
Later, back at a secluded camp, Captain Comet listened intently as Jinal told her story.
“Earth was largely abandoned thousands of years ago when it became so barren. Our ancestors headed into deep space and founded dozens of colony worlds. A remnant remained behind to maintain a few bases or outposts in case a race of insects called the Qlov returned to this universe. The Qlov had waged war on Earth for generations before being driven out of this universe but our ancestors always believed they would return so they wanted to be prepared, “ she said.
Comet said, “And yet the Qlov originated here on Earth. I can tell from the scans I did on their minds that they came from human stock eons ago. They still possess some human qualities but the insect nature was grafted on them.”
Jinal sighed as she glanced around the campsite.
“Yes, you are right. I only learned this a while ago. The group of Earthlings who remained behind starting calling themselves the Old Ones or the Ancients. They experimented and created several mutated groups of humanoids. The Qlov eventually developed technology and followed the humans who had departed from our world. Many space battles were waged and our ancestors only decided to send a scouting party back here to Earth to make sure the outposts were still secure when they detected Qlov battle globes heading for Earth. I was the only survivor of the ship that was send back here. I had a rude awakening when I discovered all the outposts had long since fallen into disuse and the Old Ones had retreated into floating cities where they could look down on those below and yet retain no feelings of kinship. The Qlov followed and I’ve been battling them ever since with help from my friends here!”
Comet looked at the beautiful warrior woman with genuine admiration. He could tell how difficult her struggle had been.
“You’ve suffered so much loss but you refuse to give up! I admire your resolve. I get the impression you’ve had more troubles recently!”he said.
Jinal nodded as she leaned forward intently.
“I had just driven the Old Ones away and claimed some of their lost technology. I had hopes of using it to somehow unite our people with the QLov and the other altered species so we might work together to turn this barren earth into a place we all could call home. Before I could do anything more than form that resolve, a ship appeared. For a moment I thought it was a Confederation starship sent to find any survivors of the ship which brought me here. It looked just like one of our crafts and then suddenly it changed shape. I don’t know if it was all some illusion or if one of our ships was ever here at all. The altered ship attacked my camp and decimated my followers. The newcomers aboard that ship somehow united the Qlov as well and they are working to destroy us. I’ve never been able to do more than regroup and avoid additional attacks since then!” she said.
Captain Comet said, “May I see your memories of that day? I won’t pry any further!”
Jinal hesitated and then said, “I suppose.”
Comet touched her face and concentrated for a moment. He carefully brought forth that particular memory and through her eyes he saw the strange arrival of one ship and then the sudden change that turned it from an ally to an enemy.
“The first ship was real but it was abruptly teleported away and replaced with a different ship. I wager the same technique that brought me here thought time and space switched those ships as well! I’d say getting back to Starman’s world will also enable me to help Jinal find the answers to who her new foes are and how to stop them!” he thought.
Renna raced up and said, “Sorry to beak this up but we’ve captured one of the Invaders!”
Jinal jumped up and said, “At last! We may finally get the answers we need!”
Captain Comet followed the rebel leader and frowned as he saw some of the lizard men bring forward a captive figure. The small humanoid looked like an anthropomorphized mouse!
The small creature glanced left and right and then broke free from his guards and hurled himself at Jinal! He snarled savagely and the battle erupted in the camp!
4
Prince Gavyn groaned in pain and pushed himself to his feet. He looked around and realized he was within a stylized arena that had once been his own private anti-grav polo field.
“Merria’s turned a sporting area into a gladiatorial combat arena! What has happened to her? Did my death drive her insane? I could almost swear that she was not in control of her actions. It was like she was being led by some unseen puppet master!” he mused.
He realized that his powers had not returned but he also felt their presence deep within his body. He was slowly regenerating his stores of stellar energy and he knew that when the time came, he would have little choice but to take back his throne by force!
He still possessed enough latent energy to see clearly through the darkness around the arena.
“I’ve never seen such an ugly lot in my life. They make the inmates of the Prison Planet Kronis look like pin-ups!” he thought as he saw the huge grey colored scaly warriors who surrounded the top of the pit.
“You can not fly nor can you release your customary energy bolts. Your life will depend on how well you may fight!” said a mocking Merria from above where she lounged languidly on a divan.
“Merria, please, don’t do this!” he cried as he saw a hidden panel slide open to reveal a woman who was clearly ready for combat.
She had long platinum blonde hair pulled back in what Earthlings called a ponytail. She was an exotic beauty with a dusky gray complexion that indicated a rich and diverse heritage. She moved with the agility of an acrobat and recovered her senses in seconds. She stood poised and posed- ready to fight!
She wore a red jumpsuit that was heavily lined with weapons belts or pockets and she had several markings or tattoos on her body including a crescent moon around one eye and the dagger- and staff-like pattern on her arms.
“Let’s get this over with! I’ve got things to do!” she said in a mocking tone of voice.
She flipped through the air and landed on Starman before he could react! She backhanded him across the face and then used his doubled over body to vault over and behind him where she dropped down and swung one leg to trip him!
“We don’t have to do this! I don’t want to fight!” he said as he grappled with the faster woman!
She said, “I don’t want to fight either but until I can get free of this crazy place I have no choice!”
Starman said, “You have weapons! Why did she allow you to keep them!”
The woman rammed a knee into his stomach and said, “Her force field protects her! She wants us to put on a good show for the Mygorgs who serve her! They like to see people bleed!”
Starman suddenly grabbed the furious fighter by the throat and shoved her off his body. He grabbed a small grenade from off her weapons belt and smiled with recognixition!
“My old enemy Captain Krydd used thermal grenades like this! He didn’t know how much good they could do a person with my powers!” he said as he broke the grenade against his own chest!
The woman gasped in shock as the energy within the weapon exploded between them and …failed to harm her as Starman absorbed it all eagerly!
Merria shrieked as she saw the blast!
“Get down there! Hurry! Prince Gavyn has outwitted us!“ she cried.
As the Mygorgs lumbered forward, Starman glowed with the stolen energy he had taken from the grenade and he reached out to the woman who crouched at his feet.
“I’m Starman! Join me, and I’ll get us out of here!” he said.
She smiled broadly and took his hand as the grey aliens called Mygorgs closed in on them!
Starman flew skyward and blinded all of the warriors as he carried the woman warrior in his wake.
“I will be back! I will return and we shall find the answers behind your conduct!” he vowed as Lady Merria scowled in fury and shielded her eyes from his gleaming nimbus.
He carried the red clad warrior out of the arena and exploded through the place itself like a human rocket until he had reached the outskirts of the royal estate.
“Thanks! You really are amazing!” said the woman in his arms.
“I’m Dart! Thanks for the save!” she said.
Starman nodded and said, ”You are most welcome! Now I need your help to solve the riddle of how my very world has come undone!”
5
Dart said, “I need to get back in there. You see one of my closest allies is trapped back there. I have not seen him in person but when we were last together along with several friends aboard our spacecraft, I was attacked. Before I blacked out, I felt a tingling energy surround me and the glow extended to Tempest. I think we were transported here when our ship was attacked!”
Starman said, “Merria used some kind of teleportation ray on my friends as well!”
Dart said, “I have certain gifts. I had a precognitive vision of Tempest. He was in pain and he was strapped within a strange device. I think your Princess Merria is using Tempest’s own power to transport himself as a means of powering some weapon of her own!”
Starman said, “I can only say that the woman I love would never imprison or torture anyone but clearly something has driven her mad! Can you tell me about where this Tempest was when you saw him in your vision?”
Dart said, “He was in a large room with an ornate tapestry in black and gold on one wall!”
Starman said, “That sounds like the East wing of the palace. It was largely empty when I lived there!”
Dart said, “I was aboard my spacecraft with my friends when we just appeared under a blazing red sun above a desert world. Before we could even react to our sudden change of course, this tingling energy struck me from behind! I woke up here and I’ve been used as a source of amusement for that witch in the ball gown ever since!”
Starman said, “She is my wife but as I said something is wrong with her.”
Dart said, “Your wife? I would hate to imagine life in your house! I was shot from the rear too. That had to mean one of my own friends did it. Perhaps this madness is catchy!”
Starman said, “I know a secret way inside the palace. My real name is Prince Gavyn. I used to play in every secret room there was. I had a rather lonely childhood!”
Dart said, “I had a rough time too. My mutant powers made me a bit of an outcast! That is one reason I became a mercenary when I was a girl! I had a loving family but I had to leave home for several reasons! Chris Champion or Tempest is like a brother to me. I have to free him and find my friends!”
Starman said, “I can get us inside. My powers are slowly recharging and that energy grenade gave me a boost!”
They flew down and Starman led Dart through an ornate floral maze that opened out near a series of elaborate monuments.
“Nice environment!” quipped Dart as she glanced at the various funeral monuments.
Starman said, “It was a place I always enjoyed. I played here alone. It was always quiet. It leads into the royal mausoleums.”
Starman whispered a prayer with his head bowed in reverence and then he opened a narrow panel and led Dart through a darkened passageway.
“This vault holds my ancestors or at least monuments to their lives. It is the custom of my people to secure the throne by eliminating all claimants to the monarchy except for the chosen heir of each generation. My sister Clryssa was named ruler when our father died. By law I was exposed to outer space to protect her throne; however, I didn’t die. Something in the void of space activated my latent stellar powers. I became Starman and protected my sister from a scheming murderer. Then, she was poisoned by yet another foe and I eventually became ruler.”
He led the agile woman past several crystalline tombs and stopped abruptly at one particular casket.
“Poor Clryssa! She was so lovely and so insecure! She refused to save me when she was named ruler. I forgave her though. She always was easily swayed by others who were more aggressive in nature!”
He touched her crystal sarcophagus and frowned as his glowing hand seemed to kindle a matching glow from within her silent form!
The yellow glow suffused her entire body and she opened her eyes and reached out to press her hands on the crystalline dome that encased her!
Prince Gavyn gasped and gently removed the cover as the awakened Clryssa fell into his arms!
“Starman! What are we doing down here? Why was I in that awful thing?” she said.
Prince Gavyn removed his mask and said, “You are safe now! I am your brother! Just as my death was not what it seemed, so were you wrongly pronounced dead!
The fiery haired woman clutched her brother’s arm and said, “Gavyn? I can barely believe it! All that time we were together I never knew your real name! I am so sorry for not protecting you! I have known such remorse since that time! I am sorry!”
Prince Gavyn wiped her tears away gently and said, “We have much to discuss! Something unique about our genetic patterns seems to have allowed us to each cheat apparent death! Before we investigate, we must reclaim your throne for it has been stolen!”
Dart said, “I hate to interrupt this touching reunion but we have to rescue Tempest!”
Starman said, “Clryssa, come with us and stay behind me. I can only explain briefly. Merria has fallen victim to some kind of insanity. She now rules with an alien legion and she seeks my death!”
Clryssa shook her head and said, “What madness? Is all I ever knew now turned false?”
They hurried through the passageways and emerged below a winding flight of stairs.
Three of the hulking gray hued Mygorgs were standing in silent vigil at the head of the steps.
Dart dropped to one knee and fired a small gun at the nearest alien! A beam of energy struck him on the chest and as he crumpled forward, she rolled toward him and knocked a second guard out with the handle of her weapon.
Starman deftly knocked the third guard flat and led the trio into the large room Dart had seen in her vision!
Below several large Onyx Throne tapestries stood a machine in which a blond man in red was bound. The device glowed a dim blue and beads of sweet dotted the young man’s face.
“Chris!” cried Dart as she rushed toward him and sliced through his restraints with a knife.
She helped him stand as he whispered, “Erin! Thank the suns you came! I could not move. That machine was forcing me to generate the energy that forms when I teleport. I couldn’t rest nor could I stop!”
She caressed his cheek and said, “Be calm, Chris. We won’t be staying long.”
The man had long blond hair and he was sensitive and intuitive.
“Erin, it is worse than you know!” he began.
At that moment the door swung open to reveal six Mygorgs and Princess Merria. Just behind her stood another figure in the shadows. His features were obscured by the dim light.
Princess Merria smiled maliciously and then stammered in shock as she saw Lady Clryssa!
“Clryssa? How can it be?” she cried. Her blue eyes widened and for a moment Prince Gavyn recognized the woman he loved! She had temporarily lost the madness and cruelty that had possessed her before.
“Clryssa? She is Prince Gavyn’s sister, is she not? I don’t know how she came back to life but we will soon return her to her grave along with her defenders!” said the large man who stood behind the lady Merria.
Dart said, “That voice! I can’t believe my ears!”
Chris Tempest Champion nodded in agreement as he pointed toward the red clad man.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you! We were both brought here and imprisoned by my father!” he said.
Professor Martin Champion, a handsome but balding blond man in a red jumpsuit, stepped out of the shadows with one arm around Lady Merria’s waist.
“You see this is a real family reunion! And shouldn’t families be together at the time of death?” he laughed.
6
When the furious little creature leaped at her Jinal simply ducked and then spun around to deliver a kick to the side of its head!
The impact did nothing to slow the odd being down since it merely bounced back up and crashed into the lithe blonde!
Captain Comet jumped forward and lifted the mouse into the air while projecting calming thoughts toward the berserk creature.
Slowly, it calmed down and raised its hands sheepishly.
“You got me! Put me down! Can’t we be civil about this whole thing?” he said.
Jinal stood up and brushed the sand off her tunic. She pulled out her energy blade and approached the odd being.
“You and your crewmates practically annihilated my forces. You can do that and dare to speak of civility?”she asked in amazement.
Captain Comet said, “He didn’t do it! He and his allies were duped by their leader who used their ship to attack your people and then exiled his crew to this barren earth!”
The mouse nodded rapidly in agreement!
“He’s right! I don’t know how he knows so much about it but he is right!” cried the alien.
Captain Comet said, “I read your mind, Pakrat. That’s his name, by the way!”
Jinal said, “Tell me your version of the attack!”
Pakrat glanced nervously from one human to another as he adjusted his flight jacket and began to shift his weight from one foot to another.
“My friends and I were trying to get to Earth. Old Earth that is, not the new one. We aren’t too popular on new Earth ‘cause we crossed some bigwigs. So, we set out for new Earth. First we used a teleportation device then Blackjak acquired a ship. He has his connections. We were on course for Earth when we abruptly ended up here thousands of years into a possible future. You see, we come from 2029. When we got here and saw the weird sun and the chronal readings, we knew something was way wrong. Then, our leader Professor Champion beamed most of us down here and started firing on you locals! We’ve been trying to survive while caught between the various tribes that roam these sands!” he said in a breathless gasp!
Captian Comet said, “I can tell that he is speaking the truth. Your true enemy is this Professor Champion who turned against his own crew!”
Pakrat said, “He was always a bit eccentric and kind of passionate but he never acted like this!”
Renna hurried forward and said, “The Invaders are coming! They must be planning to free this one!”
Captain Comet said, “Jinal, I think his friends could be of help to us! You see, something about his mental image of Champion strikes me as familiar. I have a theory that may explain what turned Champion into a killer!”
Pakrat said, “You got to believe me! We were as shocked you must have been when he turned on us and started blasting your army!”
The towering lizard man called Barasha came forward with five of his tribe members and several colorful captives.
“Speak of peace they do!” he announced as he ushered Pakrat’s allies into the dusty campsite.
Pakrat said, “Guys, we can work things out. These folks are okay too. I’m trying to convince them that we aren’t their enemies! I only attacked you before because when I get cornered something primal comes over me!”
A swaggering man in black leather stepped forward and bowed low to Renna as he kissed her hand.
“Allow me to do the honors, my Beauty! I am Blackjak a humble soldier of fortune. My allies are as follows: Morphea of Canopia an esteemed mental health specialist and empathy, the crafty and nearly ubiquitous Taz, and the lovable titan we call Babe!”
Morphea was an insectoid with a bright green complexion and the elongated but delicate limbs of a bug.
She radiated a warmth and humanity via her demeanor and her empathic talents.
“Professor Champion is unwell! He has been subject to obsessions and personal grief before. I fear this time our old enemy has used this turmoil to enslave him!” she insisted.
Babe was a gigantic being who seemed to be made of some rocky substance. He moved slowly and with the halting gait of a toddler.
“Fuzzy okay?” he asked as he gazed down on Pakrat.
Pakrat grinned and said, “Yeah, yeah! I’m fine, kid!”
Taz was a small white skinned being in a black cape and hood. She moved rapidly and her tiny hands grasped at any number of weapons as she waited for word from her friends as to what to do next.
Renna jerked her hand away from Blackjack’s grasp and said, “Easy with the snake oil, slick!”
Jinal said, “I am Jinal. This is Renna. The man in red, white, and blue is called Captain Comet.”
Morphea said, “You are a powerful mentalist and a great hero! Your aura fairly radiates virtue!”
Captain Comet smiled and said, “I do my best! And with that intention, let me make a suggestion. Your leader Champion was possessed by an evil entity I’ve battled before. He called himself the Dark Destroyer!”
Pakrat said, “That’s it! That fiend loves playing with people!”
Morphea said, “He was tied to Martin in a manner of speaking. When Martin thought he had destroyed that monster’s material form, he managed to be reborn through by using Martin’s own DNA and Martin’s pregnant wife! In regaining life, the Dark Destroyer became Martin’s exact double and also killed Mrs. Champion!”
Blackjak said, “Look, I know how DD works! He made me his plaything before too. How do you know that really was Martin? Maybe, the Destroyer ditched his armor and took Martin’s place?”
Morphea said, “No. I would have detected such a palpable presence of pure evil. I fear, as Captain Comet suggested, our leader was being mentally controlled by a distant Dark Destroyer!”
Pakrat said, “So, how’d you know?”
Captain Comet said, “I’ve seen the Destroyer without his mask. His face resembled the image of Martin Champion I saw in your thoughts! When I last saw the Dark Destroyer, I had stopped him from destroying all of creation and we eventually took him to Kronis the Prison Planet. He repeatedly cried out that we had severed him from his truth form and robbed him of his senses. He was truly aghast at being trapped in a purely mortal form! I wonder now if he was literally too great a presence to be confined to one body. When we cut him off from his larger form, perhaps, some part of him retreated through time and space and dominated Martin’s body since in a sense Champion and his wife unwittingly gave birth to him!”
Morphea said, “He wants nothing more than to end all life in the cosmos! Where would he go for such an act and why did he bring us here to this Barren earth so far removed in time and space from the one we sought?”
Jinal said, “Perhaps because he sensed that this Earth is close to its own end? The altered sun, the lack of water and the hostility of the mutated races, all combine to make a bleak future for us!”
Barasha said, “We could try to follow him. It is clear that he left the united Qlov here to hasten our doom. We have not seen his ship in weeks.”
Pakrat said, “Yeah, he’d enjoy destroying a world just for the fun of it.”
Babe frowned and then pouted.
“Babe wanna find Chris and Dart!” he wailed.
Morphea said, “We shall find them. It is clear the maddened Martin took them with him. He hated them the most since he blames them for his past defeats more than he hates the rest of us!”
Captain Comet said, “I wonder if the Dark Destroyer’s real body is in prison still? I think the guards would have told me had he escaped!”
Jinal said, “I begin to think that this world is a prison for us all! I thought I could reclaim it and unite its people but when I see how easily this Dark Destroyer manipulated the Qlov, I feel like I was being foolish!”
“You were being what you have always been, Little One. You were a heroine and a leader!” said Barasha!
Captain Comet said, “Can you help us follow the trail of the Destroyer? He has such a powerful and decidedly other dimensional energy about him that I could detect it with the right device!”
Renna said, “The Old Ones left behind the only technology on this world. We reclaimed one of their mobile cities but it fell back into the hands of the Qlov!”
Jinal said, “Then we shall simply take it back from them or die trying!”
7
2128 One possible future of planet Earth!
As four uniformed Corporation Security Guards searched for him through the burning ruins of his Sky skimmer, the burly Irishman named Donovan Flint careened wildly through the thick bushes of the Corporation Botanical Gardens in search of a place to hide and gather his wits!
He was a big man with a thick head of blond curls and heavy sideburns. He wore a blue flight suit and his wrists were wrapped within his cybernetically controlled blasters. At a moment’s thought, the weapons would snap over his palms and flip into position for rapid fire! Now, it was his mind that raced as he caught his breath and relieved the events that had brought him down on a secretly enslaved earth under a sky marred by the energy bursts and machine screams of space warfare!
“Donovan, me Boyo, sure and you’ve landed square in the middle of the ever- lovin’ frying pan with nary a place to jump but into the fire itself!” he thought.
No one was really sure why the swaggering space hero spoke and even thought in the exaggerated colloquialisms of a fictional Irishman of the 19th century but be it affectation or genuine pattern of speech such was his manner!
“No sooner does the Corporation that runs the planet turn you and your mates aboard the Sunrider into their pawns but you find out that the whole crooked bunch is secretly being run by a pack of jackals under the thumb of some alien killers called the Blood Legion who want you to become their errand boy!”
“They told us we got no choice but to find the original source of all life on Earth for them or face banishment from earth for the rest of our natural lives! I persuade my pals to help me rebel against the bloody monsters and their corporate goons only to see my buddy Mac be shot down when we tried to enter Earth’s atmosphere! I barely had time to rally me crew and fight back when I crashed right here in the middle of the Corporation’s leafy little playground!”
He stiffened as he crawled through some brush and he grimaced in recognition of the source of his pain.
“When the Corporation lab jockeys put those nutty implants in us, they told us that we would turn into genetically mucked up mutates if we remained on Earth for over 24 hours! It ain’t been that long but I can feel something strange happening to me even as I sit here!”
He jumped up and confronted the four guards who whirled around only to fall as his wrist blasters fired in rapid succession and dropped them cold!
“No harm meant, lads! I just want to burn your bones to cinders for what you and your pals did to me friends!” he said.
He frowned as he thought of the remaining crew aboard the Sunrider. He had developed an attraction for the haughty Commander Darcy Vale once he had managed to get the arrogant Corporation loyalist to switch sides and join him in the rebellion. Now, he wondered if he’d ever see her again.
“Darcy, lass, I sure would like to taste your lips about now!” he said.
“I’m not Darcy but I’ve been called pretty kissable myself!” said a blonde woman who dropped down in front of him and deflected a sudden barrage of laser fire from a remote controlled mobile security unit that had detected him at last!
The blonde simply smiled as the lasers bounced off her body. She had short hair and wore a black leotard with slippers.
“How did you do that? Are you from the Entity? Are you my guardian angel sent from the Sornaii?” he said with a broad grin on his face.
He referred to a mysterious other-worldly being from a race known as the Sornaii who had restored him to life after an apparent death. With new life had come a new awareness of the world around him and of his role in it. The Entity had told him that beneath the greed and avarice of the Corporation was an alien race known as the Blood Legion who sought to find the source of life on Earth for some evil purpose. They stood for Chaos while Flint was chosen to become a champion of Order! The roguish Flint had accepted their offer and while at times he wondered if he had imagined the whole near post death experience, the evidence of a flying beauty who could shrug off lasers made him rethink his doubts!
She said, “My name is Kayla. I’m not an angel. Believe me I am far from perfect! A dead world full of people who counted on me to protect them could tell you that if they only had voices!”
Donovan grinned and said, “Thanks, lass! Whatever brings such a comely colleen here at me time of need, I do offer you my most sincere thanks!”
Kayla said, “I was teleported through time and space to this place. I learned a bit about what is going on through use of my super senses and a super swift scan of some computer files. I stopped that war above us. I’ve already saved your friends!”
Donovan blinked in surprise and said, “This must surely be me lucky day! Can you get me carcass off the ever-lovin terra firma? It has a rather unhealthy effect on me and that is no Blarney!”
Kayla scooped him up and soared into the sky.
“I don’t kill but I did bring down all the ships I saw. No one was hurt but neither will any of them fly again for a long time. I felt it was safer to just ground the whole lot of them!”
Donovan gasped as he saw rows of battered Corporation battlestars lining the huge grounds of the Corporation earth HQ!
He threw back his head and gave a bellowing laugh.
“Kayla, by any chance would you be a nice girl from the Emerald Isle?” he asked.
Later, as Kayla faced the crew of the Sunrider II as it orbited the moon, she fought to reconcile all that had happened since she and Captain Comet had been teleported off Starman’s world by the insane Princess Merria.
“This is not just the future. This is one of a million possible futures. How did that puny little princess do it? She had help. She seemed to expect us and to know us. The only people who saw us together before we landed were allies like Vartox or enemies like the Dark Destroyer or Starbreaker. I know Starbreaker killed himself after Captain Comet tricked him into passing through the morality altering energies of that odd nebulae but could the Destroyer have escaped from jail and somehow influenced Merria? “
She said, “I can’t stand to think it was Starbreaker back again. He destroyed my home world of Terra and I was helplessly to stop him. I was as useless then as I was when my cousin Marvel Man was murdered by a pair of villains!”
She looked at Donovan’s crew. Darcy Vale was a sultry, brainy black haired woman in a skimpy white outfit. She hid her vulnerabilities behind an icy manner and a fiery tongue. The rough looking and bearded Jake Hammermsith was a brute of a man with a surprisingly quick mind. Dr. Bruce Sellers was a gifted physician who hid his concern for his patients behind a cynical manner. Perky Mindy Yano had only recently returned to the crew after being freed from certain cybernetic surveillance devices implanted within her as more evidence of the ever-present threat of the Corporation.
“Why did this oversized beauty queen just bring down the ships? If she had a brain in her glamour girl body, she would have helped us end the reign of the Corporation and their Blood Legion masters?” cried Darcy.
Kayla ignored the jibes and said, “I don’t kill. I also don’t rush into things when I don’t know what is happening. As I told Donovan, my goal was to cease hostilities between both sides until I could learn where I was and what the fight was about!”
Donovan raised his hands in a placating gesture.
“Darcy, trust your ole pal on this one. Kayla is one of us now. She saved me hide!” he said.
Mindy said, “I have something to say. Just before my cybernetic implants were removed I had a brief flash of data from the other end. I saw and heard something that originated from within the Corporation itself. They want us to locate a specific relic of ancient power. It is believed by the Blood Legion to be the source of all life on Earth eons ago. They call it the Eye of Aramgeddon!”
Donovan snapped his fingers and said, “Aye! That must be what they sent us a questin’ for! Have you any idea where we could find such a doohickey?”
“And if they know what it is, why don’t they go get it?” asked Doc. Sellers.
“They are limited to use of pawns such has always been the way of such beings! The time to locate the Eye is nigh. It has been plucked through time and space and now it rests upon a planet called Kranaltine in the 20th century!” said Mindy.
“What is that, Darlin?” asked Flint.
The petite Mindy gasped and said, “I don’t know! What did I just say?”
Donovan said, “I think you were not the one speaking. That is, your sweet lips said the words but the real speaker was the same Entity who first told me about the Blood Legion and their war betwixt Order and Chaos!”
Mindy shuddered and she said, “No! Please! No! After being used by the Corporation I can’t become someone else’s puppet!”
Doc Sellers said, “It is okay. Mindy, I think Flint will agree that this time the one controlling you is not likely to do so again! Those Sornaii seem pretty remote from the workings of everyday life!”
Donovan said, “Aye! So, we have to find this Eye of Armageddon before it falls into the wrong hands or else!”
Darcy sniffed disdainfully and said, “Can’t our resident super woman find it? She looks a bit ill!”
Kayla said, “I will help you find it. I was startled by the name of its location. I was on that world when I was brought here. My friend Prince Gavyn was the ruler of that planet. I want to get back there anyway!”
Donovan said, “Time travel is a bit out of me range of talents, love!”
Kayla said, “I can fly through time. I will recover this Eye before your enemies can find it. All I need for you to do is stay out of their clutches! Perhaps, occupy them!”
Donovan grinned with vulpine cunning. “Darlin, distractin’ is what I do best!”
8
Back in the possible future time of the Barren Earth, a large group of the insectoid Qlov patrolled the borders of a domed city. While the city had clearly been built to accommodate their more humanoid ancestors, the mutated insect men had readily claimed it after the Dark Destroyer-controlled Martin Champion had stranded his crew on the blistering sands below their ship and compelled the aliens to unite against all other species on the doomed world.
The Qlov soldiers wore heavy black cloaks and cowls that concealed their appearances. Each soldier moved with a precision that suggested the creatures shared some kind of a Hive mentality and lacked real individuality of mind or emotion. They seemed immune to the terrible heat and continued their relentless patrols with no sign of hunger or fatigue.
Miles beneath the city, Jinal led Captain Comet, her original band of allies, and the stranded crew from Champion’s ship down winding tunnels and narrow passageways lined with a faintly glowing mold.
“I’m fascinated by the way an entire culture formed down here to escape the heat and light of the world above!” said Captain Comet.
Jinal shrugged and said, “As long as these tunnels get us inside one of the Floating Cities left behind by the Old Ones who first created the Qlvod and the other species on the planet, I will be satisfied. I lost my original enthusiasm for xenobiology long ago or perhaps I should say this world’s unrelenting savagery killed my former perky manner!”
Skinner said, “Blondie, you weren’t exactly a docile pleasure maid when you first crashed here!”
Morphea thought, “The manner in which a hostile environment alters one’s perspective would make a fine subject for study!”
Babe grunted as he shouldered his way through the tunnels and whined softly.
“Babe not like this place!” he whined.
Blackjak said, “I’m not overly fond of it either, kid!
The mercenary’s bluster hid his concern for Dart. He loved the missing woman and he realized all too well that she and Chris “Tempus” Chance had been separated from the others for some deliberate purpose. He sighed as he inched forward and tried to convince himself that she was still alive!
Barasha said, “We are not alone! The occupants of these underground tunnels are aware of our presence! I can sense the Mulge are all around us!”
Pakrat said, “Mulge? What kinda name is that?”
Taz spun around and suddenly fired a small device that she clutched in one tiny hand. A beam of yellow energy struck a lumbering orange colored being who lurched to one side!
“Mushroom men! These things are some kind of walking plant life!” cried Pakrat.
Jinal nodded readily as she drew her energy-blade and its glow briefly illuminated the tunnel!
“The Mulge live underground but I figured using their tunnels might be the best way to safely get us into the Floating City!” she said as she darted aside from one Mulge and deftly sliced through it with her blade.
Renna was equally adept with her weapon. The raven haired woman dropped to one knee and fired a modified rifle at the looming creatures. They fell backward under her skilled assault.
Skinner shuddered as he fought with one of the Mulge. He had once been their captive and he had a particular revulsion for the weird beings.
Barasha and his tribe used their own combination of brute force and masterful fighting techniques to drive back the seemingly endless Mulge!
As Pakrat and Blackjat added their own skills to the fight, Captain Comet turned to Morphea and said, “You possess certain empathic abilities as well as what you call a mental sting. Can you sense any emotions that might suggest we are closer to the surface? Are we near the Qlov? I can’t detect any thoughts at all. These Mulge must be nearly mindless!”
Morphea nodded slowly.
“Detect the raw hatred that drives the Qlov, I do! Near their base, we are!” she said softly.
“Babe! Come here and try to break through where I tell you, child!” she said.
Babe grinned eagerly and stumbled forward to where his beloved “mother-figure” waited.
He obeyed her commands and smashed through the roof of a tunnel to reveal synthetic matter. They had penetrated the bottom of the floating city above them!
The group hurried forward as Captain Comet aided them by using his telekinetic power to help them rise upward!
Jinal said, “This is it! I recognize it! We’ve made it inside the city!”
Blackjak scowled as he glanced around at the advanced technology of the Old Ones and then saw the hoards of Qlov warriors approaching from all sides!
“You say that like it is a good thing!” he quipped!
0
Back on Kranaltine, Prince Gavyn the Starman, his sister Princess Clryssa, Dart, and Chris “Tempest” Chance were confronted by the maddened Princess Merria and her equally malevolent master Professor Champion.
“The boy knows his old man! Isn’t that how your kind refer to one another? Of course, he also knows that the only reason I kept him alive was to tap into his unique metabolic mutant energies to empower my teleportation device. I used him as a living battery to help me send my enemies through time and space itself and to acquire certain precious relics from said locations!” he said.
Dart said, “Martin, you’re not yourself! I know what’s happened! I recognize that expression on your face. You are under the control of the Dark Destroyer! That’s why you attacked us and imprisoned us here!”
Chris said, “I think that you are right! I just assumed…!”
Martin Champion interrupted his son and said, “You assumed your father had turned on you since he always blamed you for your mother’s death? How weak you mortal are! I readily admit that I am the Dark Destroyer and I have claimed my hated foe’s body for my own!”
Dart lashed out with a spinning kick and caught the villain by surprise. He was clearly not used to working through a purely mortal form.
He reeled backward as she rammed her knee into his stomach and brought him down to the ground.
The hulking gray brutes called Mygorgs rushed forward as Starman blasted at them with his stellar fire.
He glanced repeatedly at his wife. Her expression seemed devoid of any intellect or emotion. He wondered if she was no longer capable of either!
“Stay by me, Clryssa!” he yelled as his sister drew back from their foes.
Dart gasped as the fallen possessed Champion shoved her across the room with surprising strength.
“I brought you two here to punish you for your roles in my past defeat. I enjoyed the idea of using Martin’s body against you. I left your friends to die in an alternate future that I manipulated to be the place of their almost certain demise. I waited here so I could also gain revenge on Starman and Captain Comet since I knew they were headed here as well!” he said as he regained his footing.
Tempest hesitated for a moment. He had misjudged his estranged father and he felt guilty. He punched out at thin air and used his teleportation power to enable his blow to connect with a Mygorg who was across the room. He could not bring himself to engage the possessed Martin Champion.
Starman knew he could not touch his wife due to the null-energy field but he cried out to her as he battled the alien warriors.
“Merria! Fight him! I know you can resist! Our love is stronger than his evil!” he shouted. Prince Gavyn dominated the invaders as he flew back and forth and battered them with his super strength or blasted them with his stellar fire. He was fighting for more than his life. He was aging war for everything he valued! To the Dark Destroyer’s surprise, the hero was winning!
Dart said,” We can take him! We’ll free Martin from his grip! This is going to end our way!”
As the Dark Destroyer focused all of attention on the battle, Princess Merria screamed!
Starman dived through the air and caught her as she fell. The null-field was gone and she looked at him through teary eyes full of horror and disbelief!
“Gavyn! I can not believe you are here! I have lived through an unending nightmare since I lost you! I considered ending my own life and in doing so I allowed that fiend to control my mind!” she cried.
Prince Gavyn kissed her and he said, “We will be well again! I promise you! And we will never be separated again!”
The Dark Destroyer said, “I will ensure that promise is kept since I will unite you forever in death!”
Tempest and Dart began to tire as the Mygorgs closed in on them.
At that moment the palace erupted into flames as energy shattered one wall and Prince Gavyn looked up to see a domed city hovering in the clouds above!
“By the Onyx Throne! What new madness is this?” he whispered as he held his wife.
10

He started to shield the others with his own body when he felt a familiar mind touch his own thoughts.
“Prince Gavyn, it is me! We have secured this city and will use it to help you depose the Dark Destroyer!”
“Captain Comet! “he said with relief as he recognized his friend’s presence from afar.
As Captain Comet, Jinal, and their allies guided the floating city they had reclaimed from the Qlov, they used its weapons to rain down destruction on the Dark Destroyer’s forces!
Aboard the city, Babe clapped his huge hands and cried, “Tempest and Dart! I see them!” He waved his hand back and forth as Captain Comet piloted the city’s navigation system.
Pakrat shouted in victory as they drew closer to the scene of conflict.
“The way you and Morphea shut down those big men was amazing!” he said.
Captain Comet said, “She used her mind sting on one of them and I merely made sure all of them felt it through their own Hive mind link!”
Blackjak grinned and said, “For a hero, you sure are a modest fellow!”
Taz sat high on a computer table where her little hands furiously adjusted various controls The little being had been born with an innate skill for technology and gadgetry but it was purely instinctual. Once members of the odd alien race achieved maturity such precise knowledge was replaced with a more generalized talent.
As the heroes drew closer to victory, Martin Champion, under the sway of the Dark Destroyer, moved away from the battle as the gray skinned aliens fell beneath the floating city’s onslaught.
He gripped a curtain and ripped it down to reveal a gleaming orb that rested on a intricate network of wires. It glowed balefully like an evil eye!
“This relic is called the Eye of Armageddon. It has the power to allow the user to destroy all of creation with a mere thought!” he said.
“As I said, I toyed with all my enemies but my true purpose has always been the same. I will destroy all of creation with this magical relic that I drew from one of the myriad of dimensions my teleportation device and that brat’s energies allowed me to access!”
At that moment, Kayla flew into the room and charged at him. She had travelled through time and space to locate the very relic he now sought to use against all of creation!
She ignored everyone else as she focused on the Eye and she flew straight at it!
“This is what Donovan’s foes wanted him to acquire for them. It was what they called the source of all creation but it can also be used to destroy everything! I won’t let anyone else die! I’ve lost too much!” she thought.
As Starman carried Merria and Clryssa away from the Mygorg forces, he vowed to stop the Dark Destroyer by any means necessary.
“If I must die a final death, so be it!” he thought.
Captain Comet turned to the others aboard the city and said, “Keep fighting! I’m going to try to engage the Destroyer personally!”
He flew out of the dome and approached the mocking Dark Destroyer as Kayla was abruptly irradiated in the glow of the Eye!
She gritted her teeth and struggled forward as she thought once more of her lost homeworld and those she loved!
She was a true heroine but her courage was not enough as the arcane forces of the Eye found her weakness and generated a crystalline diamond that robbed her of all energy. She crashed to the ground at Champion’s feet.
Captain Comet could not reach them in time but he did project his impressive mental mind into Champion’s mind and fought to awaken the hero within! He ripped through layers of malice and the alien power of the Dark Destroyer to find the man called Martin Champion!
“Don’t let him use that thing!” urged Comet.
Martin’s eyes widened and he began to tremble. He recalled his late wife Trina. He remembered her death following the birth of their son Chris. He shouted with pain as he also heard the Destroyer’s gloating about how he had brought about her death and gained his first hold on his enemy!
Martin Champion felt the hatred within his own mind and he knew once more how the master nihilist vowed to wipe out all of creation by using the Eye!
For a moment as the aging hero felt Captain Comet’s mental presence doing battle with the Dark Destroyer and he saw his son’s pleading expression, he hesitated… and then Martin Champion used the Eye of Armageddon!
There was a bright flash of light and then the Eye itself flickered out of existence! As it departed so did the army of Mygorgs because the creations could only exist outside of their own realm through the energy generated by the presence of the relic!
Captain Comet, Starman, Jinal, Dart, and Chris closed in on Martin Champion as Kayla slowly stood up.
“I am myself again!” whispered Martin Champion.
“You freed me from him!” he added as he shook hands with Captain Comet and then reached out for his son.
“He’s truly gone now!” he said.
Captain Comet said, “You didn’t stop him from using the Eye. You used it instead to free yourself of him and to banish both the aliens and the Eye itself! That was an incredibly risky thing to do!”
“My husband is that kind of man!” said a pretty woman in a red and white flight suit. She had auburn hair and she fell into Martin’s arms as Chris and Dart gasped in amazement!
“Mom! That’s my mother!” cried Chris.
Trina Champion caressed his cheek and said, “Martin, brought me back! He used that relic to change history!”
Martin held his wife and said, “I didn’t really change history. You did die. I just made sure that I recreated you with the power of the Eye before I had it destroy itself!”
Dart said, “So what happened to the Destroyer’s real body? Is it still in that prison you took him to before?”
Martin said, “I banished him from all existence. I’d say he is truly gone for good!”
As the members of his crew rushed forward from out of the floating city, Martin Champion stood with his reunited family and brushed away a tear. For the first time in years he was at peace!
Captain Comet saw Starman and Merria embracing as well and he smiled. Then, as he turned to Kayla, he saw her own sorrow.
“I failed again. What kind of heroine am I?” she said.
Captain Comet said, “You did the best anyone could do. You always have!”
She said, “I wonder if the destruction of that Eye will mean anything to Donovan Flint and his allies in their time? Maybe I should rejoin them?”
Back in that era Donovan Flint and his Star Hunters had resumed their own war against the Corporation that ruled earth! Although the swaggering Irishman and his allies did not realize it, they had gained a vast advantage in their struggle since with the loss of the Eye, the human leaders of the Corporation had also lost all contact with their alien masters known as the Blood Legion! The battle for Earth was still ongoing but the fight would be one with odds Donovan Flint would have relished!
Jinal shook head sadly and she said, “The Dark Destroyer was so certain that the Earth I knew would die and he might have been right but I can’t abandon it. I have to go back. The controls in the city will enable us to return to our proper time and space where we can use it to reclaim our planet. Defeating one group of Qlov wasn’t enough to free that world. Plus, I still believe that there has to be some way to unite the mutated races on that sandy wasteland!”
Captain Comet said, “I respect your feelings. I believe in you. You’ll win that fight but come back to us if you need us!”
Jinal kissed his cheek and then walked toward the huge dome.
She waved goodbye and rejoined Renna, Skinner, and their allies within the floating city. It vanished through space and time at her command. She
Captain Comet said, “I started to join her but I think my mission for the Guardians of the Clockwork Universe has to take first priority.”
Starman said, “Now that I have my wife back, I can help you. We both can. You see, I intend to give the Onyx Throne back to my sister. It was hers to begin with!”
Clryssa nodded as she held her brother’s hand. She looked up at him as he held Merria.
“Thank you, Gavyn. I will make you proud. I owe you so much! You will always have a place here though. There is no longer a true empire but I will change the law of succession so that more than one heir may live at a given time! I should have done so long ago but I was afraid!”
Merria said, “As long as I am with you, I will be happy!”
Prince Gavyn nodded and said, “We will not be parted again!”
At that moment, Martin Champion said, “My family and my crew have some fence mending to do. I also used that Eye to recreate our ship. It is in orbit above this world. This may not be our era or our proper timeline but there is much to discover out there and I want to stay here to explore.”
Babe grinned and said, “We’re all together again!”
As Dart took Blackjak’s hand, she said, “There was no place for us on our former earth but now on the original Earth long before our proper time, maybe, we can prevent the corruption that led to our own exile!”
Blackjak smiled and said, “Sure, and in the meantime, we might make a tidy profit out there in the stars!”
Captain Comet said, “You and your crew are welcome to follow my ship. I think we could work together well!”
Martin Champion said, “After I repair the damage I did to my own loved ones, I’ll be pleased to join you!”
Epilogue:
Later, Captain Comet glanced over to where Starman sat with Merria. They were aboard the Cometeer and their ship was just leaving Kranaltine.
“Clryssa is better suited to the royal role than I ever was! She will bring stability back now that we’ve dealt with the threat of the Dark Destroyer!” said Prince Gavyn.
Captain Comet said, “I’m glad you two decided to join me. For that matter, Professor Champion and his crew will be fine allies too. He was amazed when I showed him that his own timeline is a divergent one from this one. There is no record of his ancestors on our Earth. It is a totally new world for him and for his crew!”
Starman said, “Knowing how busy the Guardians of the Clockwork Universe have been keeping us, I’d say Champion’s allies will come in handy!”
Captain Comet nodded as he gazed out into space.
“I know. I’m just sorry Kayla decided to depart. I she finds what she is looking for out there!”
Starman replied, “May she truly find the peace and joy I have once more!”
The End





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Captain Comet: Unholy Homecoming!
By libbylawrence
Captain Comet and Starman receive a rude reception when the Stellar Sentinel returns home!
1988
1
Prince Gavyn the Starman was excited to be heading home at last. The hero had known little peace or security during the last few years of his life and both of those precious traits were among the qualities he associated with his wife Princess Merria and their home Throneworld.
He was a handsome man with blond hair and a ready smile. Life had not soured him. He still found wonder in the cosmos around him and he relished the way his remarkable powers enabled him to soar through deep space itself and channel the stellar energies his unique metabolism absorbed into a variety of super powers. He wore a red and gold costume that included a cowl that covered his upper face while leaving the top of his head open to view. He no longer worried about concealing his identity; however, there was a time in which the young royal needed to allow the world and the subjects of his future empire to believe that he had died. Now, after the death of the former ruler his sister Princess Clryssa, the defeat of his enemies, and the dissolution of the 1000 planet Empire of the Onyx Throne, Prince Gavyn was free to be himself and to savor the simple pleasures of home and family.
He sat next to a man dressed in red, white, and blue as they rode through space in his friend’s red spacecraft. Captain Comet (Adam Blake) was a mutant hero with all the abilities of body and mind that might someday belong to an evolved humanity. Captain Comet seemed ageless and had in fact dedicated his life to a heroic career on Earth and to exploration of space itself. He savored learning new things and seeing new sights and he took his role as a cosmic champion seriously. The Man of Destiny had been selected by the enigmatic Guardians of the Clockwork Universe to help them repair the damage and chaos the cosmic Crisis had generated throughout time and space.
Now, Captain Comet smiled at his friend and said, “How does it feel to be home at last?”
Prince Gavyn said, “I am eager to be reunited with Princess Merria. We enjoyed such a short time together after our wedding before my supposed death during the Crisis! Even for a man destined to die and return several times, the whole experience of being trapped as pure energy for so long was troubling to say the least!”
Captain Comet said, “I’m glad you regained your physical form in time to help me stop the Dark Destroyer and the Starbreaker. I owe you a real debt of thanks!”
Prince Gavyn shook his head. “I owe you my freedom and my life. I meant it when I said that I want to help you with your own mission to defend the universe from cosmic threats. I will be happy to spend some time with my wife first though! She must believe that my death was final in spite of the prophecy about my multiple lives!”
A pretty blond woman with very short hair stepped forward from the back of the ship. She wore a solid black leotard and slippers. Kayla the Marvel Maid has suffered much loss and she had renounced her former heroic name. She had come to terms with the loss of her friends and her adopted world and now she sought to forge a new life for herself out among the stars with her new allies.
“So, that is Throneworld?” she asked as they approached a small planet.
Prince Gavyn said, “Yes, although it really should be called Kranaltine now since we were forced to dissolve the Empire of the Onyx Throne when Mongul tried to use my planets to extort power and cosmic relics from us. Once we dissolved the Empire, he lost his hold on us. I decided upon ascending the throne to leave that multitude of worlds to individual autonomy. My time as Starman changed all of my former views on monarchy. I now firmly believe in personal freedom for all!”
As the Cometeer landed on a wide docking station below, Prince Gavyn nodded in approval. He was truly home at last! He did wonder why he saw so signs of commerce or the normal bustle of interstellar trade at the space port. He only saw somber looking guards and he realized that he did not recognize any of them!
A burly man in red and green approached the craft in front of a dozen armed troopers. He greeted them as the trio emerged from the ship.
“I am Kalih San. I welcome you on behalf of the Lady Merria. She awaits you in the palace royal! Needless to say, once your unique energy signature was detected by the scanners, we alerted her Majesty! She has been praying for your return for some time now!” he announced.
Prince Gavyn said, “Scanners? I can hardly believe it! It sounds like she never gave up on me! She really believed the legend that said I would defy death!”
Captain Comet frowned as he noticed the guardsmen all wore helmets that shielded their minds from telepathy. He also knew that Lady Merria had reason to doubt her husband would ever return from his death because of an encounter she had had with his friend Will Payton the Starman of earth. This meeting had created the impression that Prince Gavyn’s essence had only lingered within a royal staff he had once carried and that in truth the hero was no longer among the living. After that experience with Will, Comet had not expected the young widow to resume her former hope that her beloved husband would return!
“I suppose true love like hope springs eternal! Still, the cynic in me, feels a bit uneasy about this whole welcome!” he thought.
As the troops led them into the Palace Royal, the number of guardsmen increased along with Captain Comet’s suspicions. Comet’s mind was powerful and even though the helmets or psi shields blocked some telepathic probing, he was able to pick up surface impressions from the minds around him. He noticed a lack of individuality and felt a sinister sensation.
“These men are scared to death. Something is very wrong here!” he thought.
He frowned as they entered the main throne room where a lovely but frail looking blonde woman sat on a throne.
“Merria! I have returned at last! We will never be separated again!” cried Prince Gavyn as he rushed toward his wife! The guardsmen glowered at him with undisguised malice but no one tried to block his approach!
Captain Comet projected his thoughts to Kayla as she watched the reunion with a smile on her face.
“Something is wrong! Be ready. I can’t explain it but I feel like this is too good to be true!” he thought.
Kayla nodded as her blue eyes widened in alarm. As Marvel Maid she had been her planet’s greatest defender and she was still amazingly capable and resilient!
As Prince Gavyn embraced his beloved wife and drew her close for a kiss, she raised one delicate hand and smiled malevolently at his friends.
“Yes, I can tell that you already suspect me! You have been a hero for too long to be fooled. However, I have been preparing a special welcome for you, Captain Comet!” she hissed.
As Prince Gavyn looked at her with dismay, Princess Merria gestured and Captain Comet and Kayla vanished in a burst of crackling energy!
She looked up at her startled husband, and smiled angelically.
“Welcome home!” she said sweetly!
2
Prince Gavyn stared at his wife in horror.
“What have you done? I know my return must be a shock to you but those were my friends? Your whole demeanor is different! What has happened here? “ he asked.
Princess Merria tossed back her blonde locks and laughed coldly.
“You dolt! This reunion was staged merely so I could see the pained look on your face! You will join your allies soon enough! I have banished them through time and space and you will soon follow them!” she said.
Prince Gavyn the Starman reached for the mocking woman only to draw back in pain as a black nimbus of energy irradiated his body.
“I have mentally activated my null-energy force field. It will ensure you do not overstep your proper place. You see, the energy it manifests is designed to react with your specific metabolism in a manner that will cause you considerable pain!” she said.
Prince Gavyn gasped as she casually kicked him to the ground at her feet. She moved like the woman he loved with girlish flounces accompanied each movement. She looked and sounded like her but clearly something was wrong. Some madness had robbed her of her senses. Was it grief for her husband that maddened her so?
He said, “Stop it! I love you! Let me help you!”
He fought through the pain and regained his footing. The guardsmen watched in awe. He was clearly a hero!
He said, “We can fix things. We can restore our old rapport. I will help you!”
Lady Merria said, “You will help me! I will make certain of that. You will help me by entertaining me and my true consort by combat in the arena!”
Starman hesitated for a second as he heard her speak of some new lover. He concentrated and flew skyward for a moment before crashing to the ground. She had drained him of most of his energy although it would return in time.
Lady Merria smiled as if she was a school girl who had just witnessed some childhood game. She almost clapped her hands with delight.
“Take him to the arena! Oh, and kill all the guards. We need not continue with the charade that things are as they were in the past! We were able to achieve our goal by lulling Starman and his allies into a false sense of security until we could dispose of Captain Comet and the female powerhouse!”
Suddenly, the entranced guardsmen who had ushered the heroes into the Palace Royal were attacked and brutally slain by hulking humanoids with grey scales on their skin who fought with a savage fury all their own. Two of them dragged Prince Gavyn into the darkness of the enormous palace.
Moments later squads of the alien monsters emerged from the shadows to line the walls of the throne room as their queen laughed girlishly.
“Well done!” she announced happily.
3
Captain Comet blinked as his eyes adjusted to the glare of a huge red sun that burned down over blistering desert sands that stretched out in all directions!
He concentrated for a moment and then shook his head in disgust.
“She caught us with some kind of teleportation ray although I can’t say that I recognize this place. It has an Earth-like atmosphere although that giant red sun is new to me. I detect a lot of primitive thoughts from all around me. I am certainly not alone!” he mused as bulky humanoids in heavy black robes and hoods emerged from the sand drifts in a circle and closed in on him.
“If you fellows are a welcoming committee, I’m in no mood for games!” he said as he prepared to fight off the newcomers.
“They don’t move like humans. They don’t speak. I can only pick up alien thoughts that strike me as vaguely insectoid in nature. I think these things are some kind of alien insect!” he said.
He easily deflected the first charge from the aliens with a TK shield. He deftly focused his mental powers beneath the nearest attacker’s cloak and ripped it aside to reveal a black/blue colored being with the shell-like exo-skeleton of a giant insect. The creature had three arms and it moved forward relentlessly in spite of Comet’s unseen attack!
He reached out and made contact with the primitive minds around him and almost casually stunned them all.
“I could only do that because their minds are a combination of some kind of insect-like hive intellect and an altered human brain. These things are mutated or genetically altered humans!” he said softly.
Captain Comet turned to see more of the aliens charging over a high sand dune and as he prepared to fight, several newcomers rode into view from the other direction! They rode massive red scaled creatures that resembled mutated salamanders and while he could see three of the riders were humans three others were green hued lizard people!
Their leader was a young blonde woman with short hair, a pretty face, and a brief light blue outfit consisting of a tunic and shorts. She charged past Captain Comet and brought a small sword-like weapon in one hand down across the nearest insect. A gleam of energy appeared as the blade sliced through the hulking creature. It reached for her but she swung over the other side of her mount and then flipped back to slice the alien in half.
The rugged dark haired man and sultry black haired woman who rode in the wake of their blonde leader dispatched two more aliens even as the large but somehow stately lizard people drove off the rest.
Captain Comet wasted no time. He scanned the minds of the newcomers and instantly learned their story and the background of this odd place.
“I’m on Earth but I’ve been teleported some six or seven thousand years into an alternate future. The eco-system is hostile and the sun itself expanded and turned red. There is almost no water on the planet and three races wage war for the scare resources that remain! The humans are allied with nomadic lizards called the Harahashan while the bug men are known as the Qlov. Apparently, the lizards, the insects, and a third mutated group called the Muldge are descended from genetically altered humans!” he thought.
The blonde woman dismounted from her scaly steed and sheathed the now dormant energy blade.
“I am Jinal Ne’Comarr. These are my friends Skinner and Rena!” she gestured toward the shaggy haired man and the dark haired beauty. She turned to the lizard men and said, “This is Barasha, Lur, and Honan.”
Captain Comet said, “I’m Captain Comet. Thank you for your timely rescue.”
Skinner whistled softly as he walked back and forth around the stunned Qlov.
“Jinal! This is the craziest thing I ever saw. All of them are asleep or something!” he said.
Jinal said, “I think our new friend here can explain that. Are you one of the Old Ones? Do you have some kind of super power over minds?”
Captain Comet said, “I do have certain abilities that I used to subdue the Olov and to learn exactly who you all are. I’m not from this era. Would you believe I was brought here against my will from around 5,000 years in the past?”
The looming lizard nomad called Barasha said, “Truth he speaks, Little One. The way of a hero he has!”
Jinal nodded and grinned abruptly.
“Okay. We could use a hero around here! We’ve certainly had more than our share of villains!” she said.
“Come with us. We’d like to hear more of your story before those Qlov aweken!” she said as she extended a hand and allowed Comet to climb up behind her on the scaly beast.
Later, back at a secluded camp, Captain Comet listened intently as Jinal told her story.
“Earth was largely abandoned thousands of years ago when it became so barren. Our ancestors headed into deep space and founded dozens of colony worlds. A remnant remained behind to maintain a few bases or outposts in case a race of insects called the Qlov returned to this universe. The Qlov had waged war on Earth for generations before being driven out of this universe but our ancestors always believed they would return so they wanted to be prepared, “ she said.
Comet said, “And yet the Qlov originated here on Earth. I can tell from the scans I did on their minds that they came from human stock eons ago. They still possess some human qualities but the insect nature was grafted on them.”
Jinal sighed as she glanced around the campsite.
“Yes, you are right. I only learned this a while ago. The group of Earthlings who remained behind starting calling themselves the Old Ones or the Ancients. They experimented and created several mutated groups of humanoids. The Qlov eventually developed technology and followed the humans who had departed from our world. Many space battles were waged and our ancestors only decided to send a scouting party back here to Earth to make sure the outposts were still secure when they detected Qlov battle globes heading for Earth. I was the only survivor of the ship that was send back here. I had a rude awakening when I discovered all the outposts had long since fallen into disuse and the Old Ones had retreated into floating cities where they could look down on those below and yet retain no feelings of kinship. The Qlov followed and I’ve been battling them ever since with help from my friends here!”
Comet looked at the beautiful warrior woman with genuine admiration. He could tell how difficult her struggle had been.
“You’ve suffered so much loss but you refuse to give up! I admire your resolve. I get the impression you’ve had more troubles recently!”he said.
Jinal nodded as she leaned forward intently.
“I had just driven the Old Ones away and claimed some of their lost technology. I had hopes of using it to somehow unite our people with the QLov and the other altered species so we might work together to turn this barren earth into a place we all could call home. Before I could do anything more than form that resolve, a ship appeared. For a moment I thought it was a Confederation starship sent to find any survivors of the ship which brought me here. It looked just like one of our crafts and then suddenly it changed shape. I don’t know if it was all some illusion or if one of our ships was ever here at all. The altered ship attacked my camp and decimated my followers. The newcomers aboard that ship somehow united the Qlov as well and they are working to destroy us. I’ve never been able to do more than regroup and avoid additional attacks since then!” she said.
Captain Comet said, “May I see your memories of that day? I won’t pry any further!”
Jinal hesitated and then said, “I suppose.”
Comet touched her face and concentrated for a moment. He carefully brought forth that particular memory and through her eyes he saw the strange arrival of one ship and then the sudden change that turned it from an ally to an enemy.
“The first ship was real but it was abruptly teleported away and replaced with a different ship. I wager the same technique that brought me here thought time and space switched those ships as well! I’d say getting back to Starman’s world will also enable me to help Jinal find the answers to who her new foes are and how to stop them!” he thought.
Renna raced up and said, “Sorry to beak this up but we’ve captured one of the Invaders!”
Jinal jumped up and said, “At last! We may finally get the answers we need!”
Captain Comet followed the rebel leader and frowned as he saw some of the lizard men bring forward a captive figure. The small humanoid looked like an anthropomorphized mouse!
The small creature glanced left and right and then broke free from his guards and hurled himself at Jinal! He snarled savagely and the battle erupted in the camp!
4
Prince Gavyn groaned in pain and pushed himself to his feet. He looked around and realized he was within a stylized arena that had once been his own private anti-grav polo field.
“Merria’s turned a sporting area into a gladiatorial combat arena! What has happened to her? Did my death drive her insane? I could almost swear that she was not in control of her actions. It was like she was being led by some unseen puppet master!” he mused.
He realized that his powers had not returned but he also felt their presence deep within his body. He was slowly regenerating his stores of stellar energy and he knew that when the time came, he would have little choice but to take back his throne by force!
He still possessed enough latent energy to see clearly through the darkness around the arena.
“I’ve never seen such an ugly lot in my life. They make the inmates of the Prison Planet Kronis look like pin-ups!” he thought as he saw the huge grey colored scaly warriors who surrounded the top of the pit.
“You can not fly nor can you release your customary energy bolts. Your life will depend on how well you may fight!” said a mocking Merria from above where she lounged languidly on a divan.
“Merria, please, don’t do this!” he cried as he saw a hidden panel slide open to reveal a woman who was clearly ready for combat.
She had long platinum blonde hair pulled back in what Earthlings called a ponytail. She was an exotic beauty with a dusky gray complexion that indicated a rich and diverse heritage. She moved with the agility of an acrobat and recovered her senses in seconds. She stood poised and posed- ready to fight!
She wore a red jumpsuit that was heavily lined with weapons belts or pockets and she had several markings or tattoos on her body including a crescent moon around one eye and the dagger- and staff-like pattern on her arms.
“Let’s get this over with! I’ve got things to do!” she said in a mocking tone of voice.
She flipped through the air and landed on Starman before he could react! She backhanded him across the face and then used his doubled over body to vault over and behind him where she dropped down and swung one leg to trip him!
“We don’t have to do this! I don’t want to fight!” he said as he grappled with the faster woman!
She said, “I don’t want to fight either but until I can get free of this crazy place I have no choice!”
Starman said, “You have weapons! Why did she allow you to keep them!”
The woman rammed a knee into his stomach and said, “Her force field protects her! She wants us to put on a good show for the Mygorgs who serve her! They like to see people bleed!”
Starman suddenly grabbed the furious fighter by the throat and shoved her off his body. He grabbed a small grenade from off her weapons belt and smiled with recognixition!
“My old enemy Captain Krydd used thermal grenades like this! He didn’t know how much good they could do a person with my powers!” he said as he broke the grenade against his own chest!
The woman gasped in shock as the energy within the weapon exploded between them and …failed to harm her as Starman absorbed it all eagerly!
Merria shrieked as she saw the blast!
“Get down there! Hurry! Prince Gavyn has outwitted us!“ she cried.
As the Mygorgs lumbered forward, Starman glowed with the stolen energy he had taken from the grenade and he reached out to the woman who crouched at his feet.
“I’m Starman! Join me, and I’ll get us out of here!” he said.
She smiled broadly and took his hand as the grey aliens called Mygorgs closed in on them!
Starman flew skyward and blinded all of the warriors as he carried the woman warrior in his wake.
“I will be back! I will return and we shall find the answers behind your conduct!” he vowed as Lady Merria scowled in fury and shielded her eyes from his gleaming nimbus.
He carried the red clad warrior out of the arena and exploded through the place itself like a human rocket until he had reached the outskirts of the royal estate.
“Thanks! You really are amazing!” said the woman in his arms.
“I’m Dart! Thanks for the save!” she said.
Starman nodded and said, ”You are most welcome! Now I need your help to solve the riddle of how my very world has come undone!”
5
Dart said, “I need to get back in there. You see one of my closest allies is trapped back there. I have not seen him in person but when we were last together along with several friends aboard our spacecraft, I was attacked. Before I blacked out, I felt a tingling energy surround me and the glow extended to Tempest. I think we were transported here when our ship was attacked!”
Starman said, “Merria used some kind of teleportation ray on my friends as well!”
Dart said, “I have certain gifts. I had a precognitive vision of Tempest. He was in pain and he was strapped within a strange device. I think your Princess Merria is using Tempest’s own power to transport himself as a means of powering some weapon of her own!”
Starman said, “I can only say that the woman I love would never imprison or torture anyone but clearly something has driven her mad! Can you tell me about where this Tempest was when you saw him in your vision?”
Dart said, “He was in a large room with an ornate tapestry in black and gold on one wall!”
Starman said, “That sounds like the East wing of the palace. It was largely empty when I lived there!”
Dart said, “I was aboard my spacecraft with my friends when we just appeared under a blazing red sun above a desert world. Before we could even react to our sudden change of course, this tingling energy struck me from behind! I woke up here and I’ve been used as a source of amusement for that witch in the ball gown ever since!”
Starman said, “She is my wife but as I said something is wrong with her.”
Dart said, “Your wife? I would hate to imagine life in your house! I was shot from the rear too. That had to mean one of my own friends did it. Perhaps this madness is catchy!”
Starman said, “I know a secret way inside the palace. My real name is Prince Gavyn. I used to play in every secret room there was. I had a rather lonely childhood!”
Dart said, “I had a rough time too. My mutant powers made me a bit of an outcast! That is one reason I became a mercenary when I was a girl! I had a loving family but I had to leave home for several reasons! Chris Champion or Tempest is like a brother to me. I have to free him and find my friends!”
Starman said, “I can get us inside. My powers are slowly recharging and that energy grenade gave me a boost!”
They flew down and Starman led Dart through an ornate floral maze that opened out near a series of elaborate monuments.
“Nice environment!” quipped Dart as she glanced at the various funeral monuments.
Starman said, “It was a place I always enjoyed. I played here alone. It was always quiet. It leads into the royal mausoleums.”
Starman whispered a prayer with his head bowed in reverence and then he opened a narrow panel and led Dart through a darkened passageway.
“This vault holds my ancestors or at least monuments to their lives. It is the custom of my people to secure the throne by eliminating all claimants to the monarchy except for the chosen heir of each generation. My sister Clryssa was named ruler when our father died. By law I was exposed to outer space to protect her throne; however, I didn’t die. Something in the void of space activated my latent stellar powers. I became Starman and protected my sister from a scheming murderer. Then, she was poisoned by yet another foe and I eventually became ruler.”
He led the agile woman past several crystalline tombs and stopped abruptly at one particular casket.
“Poor Clryssa! She was so lovely and so insecure! She refused to save me when she was named ruler. I forgave her though. She always was easily swayed by others who were more aggressive in nature!”
He touched her crystal sarcophagus and frowned as his glowing hand seemed to kindle a matching glow from within her silent form!
The yellow glow suffused her entire body and she opened her eyes and reached out to press her hands on the crystalline dome that encased her!
Prince Gavyn gasped and gently removed the cover as the awakened Clryssa fell into his arms!
“Starman! What are we doing down here? Why was I in that awful thing?” she said.
Prince Gavyn removed his mask and said, “You are safe now! I am your brother! Just as my death was not what it seemed, so were you wrongly pronounced dead!
The fiery haired woman clutched her brother’s arm and said, “Gavyn? I can barely believe it! All that time we were together I never knew your real name! I am so sorry for not protecting you! I have known such remorse since that time! I am sorry!”
Prince Gavyn wiped her tears away gently and said, “We have much to discuss! Something unique about our genetic patterns seems to have allowed us to each cheat apparent death! Before we investigate, we must reclaim your throne for it has been stolen!”
Dart said, “I hate to interrupt this touching reunion but we have to rescue Tempest!”
Starman said, “Clryssa, come with us and stay behind me. I can only explain briefly. Merria has fallen victim to some kind of insanity. She now rules with an alien legion and she seeks my death!”
Clryssa shook her head and said, “What madness? Is all I ever knew now turned false?”
They hurried through the passageways and emerged below a winding flight of stairs.
Three of the hulking gray hued Mygorgs were standing in silent vigil at the head of the steps.
Dart dropped to one knee and fired a small gun at the nearest alien! A beam of energy struck him on the chest and as he crumpled forward, she rolled toward him and knocked a second guard out with the handle of her weapon.
Starman deftly knocked the third guard flat and led the trio into the large room Dart had seen in her vision!
Below several large Onyx Throne tapestries stood a machine in which a blond man in red was bound. The device glowed a dim blue and beads of sweet dotted the young man’s face.
“Chris!” cried Dart as she rushed toward him and sliced through his restraints with a knife.
She helped him stand as he whispered, “Erin! Thank the suns you came! I could not move. That machine was forcing me to generate the energy that forms when I teleport. I couldn’t rest nor could I stop!”
She caressed his cheek and said, “Be calm, Chris. We won’t be staying long.”
The man had long blond hair and he was sensitive and intuitive.
“Erin, it is worse than you know!” he began.
At that moment the door swung open to reveal six Mygorgs and Princess Merria. Just behind her stood another figure in the shadows. His features were obscured by the dim light.
Princess Merria smiled maliciously and then stammered in shock as she saw Lady Clryssa!
“Clryssa? How can it be?” she cried. Her blue eyes widened and for a moment Prince Gavyn recognized the woman he loved! She had temporarily lost the madness and cruelty that had possessed her before.
“Clryssa? She is Prince Gavyn’s sister, is she not? I don’t know how she came back to life but we will soon return her to her grave along with her defenders!” said the large man who stood behind the lady Merria.
Dart said, “That voice! I can’t believe my ears!”
Chris Tempest Champion nodded in agreement as he pointed toward the red clad man.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you! We were both brought here and imprisoned by my father!” he said.
Professor Martin Champion, a handsome but balding blond man in a red jumpsuit, stepped out of the shadows with one arm around Lady Merria’s waist.
“You see this is a real family reunion! And shouldn’t families be together at the time of death?” he laughed.
6
When the furious little creature leaped at her Jinal simply ducked and then spun around to deliver a kick to the side of its head!
The impact did nothing to slow the odd being down since it merely bounced back up and crashed into the lithe blonde!
Captain Comet jumped forward and lifted the mouse into the air while projecting calming thoughts toward the berserk creature.
Slowly, it calmed down and raised its hands sheepishly.
“You got me! Put me down! Can’t we be civil about this whole thing?” he said.
Jinal stood up and brushed the sand off her tunic. She pulled out her energy blade and approached the odd being.
“You and your crewmates practically annihilated my forces. You can do that and dare to speak of civility?”she asked in amazement.
Captain Comet said, “He didn’t do it! He and his allies were duped by their leader who used their ship to attack your people and then exiled his crew to this barren earth!”
The mouse nodded rapidly in agreement!
“He’s right! I don’t know how he knows so much about it but he is right!” cried the alien.
Captain Comet said, “I read your mind, Pakrat. That’s his name, by the way!”
Jinal said, “Tell me your version of the attack!”
Pakrat glanced nervously from one human to another as he adjusted his flight jacket and began to shift his weight from one foot to another.
“My friends and I were trying to get to Earth. Old Earth that is, not the new one. We aren’t too popular on new Earth ‘cause we crossed some bigwigs. So, we set out for new Earth. First we used a teleportation device then Blackjak acquired a ship. He has his connections. We were on course for Earth when we abruptly ended up here thousands of years into a possible future. You see, we come from 2029. When we got here and saw the weird sun and the chronal readings, we knew something was way wrong. Then, our leader Professor Champion beamed most of us down here and started firing on you locals! We’ve been trying to survive while caught between the various tribes that roam these sands!” he said in a breathless gasp!
Captian Comet said, “I can tell that he is speaking the truth. Your true enemy is this Professor Champion who turned against his own crew!”
Pakrat said, “He was always a bit eccentric and kind of passionate but he never acted like this!”
Renna hurried forward and said, “The Invaders are coming! They must be planning to free this one!”
Captain Comet said, “Jinal, I think his friends could be of help to us! You see, something about his mental image of Champion strikes me as familiar. I have a theory that may explain what turned Champion into a killer!”
Pakrat said, “You got to believe me! We were as shocked you must have been when he turned on us and started blasting your army!”
The towering lizard man called Barasha came forward with five of his tribe members and several colorful captives.
“Speak of peace they do!” he announced as he ushered Pakrat’s allies into the dusty campsite.
Pakrat said, “Guys, we can work things out. These folks are okay too. I’m trying to convince them that we aren’t their enemies! I only attacked you before because when I get cornered something primal comes over me!”
A swaggering man in black leather stepped forward and bowed low to Renna as he kissed her hand.
“Allow me to do the honors, my Beauty! I am Blackjak a humble soldier of fortune. My allies are as follows: Morphea of Canopia an esteemed mental health specialist and empathy, the crafty and nearly ubiquitous Taz, and the lovable titan we call Babe!”
Morphea was an insectoid with a bright green complexion and the elongated but delicate limbs of a bug.
She radiated a warmth and humanity via her demeanor and her empathic talents.
“Professor Champion is unwell! He has been subject to obsessions and personal grief before. I fear this time our old enemy has used this turmoil to enslave him!” she insisted.
Babe was a gigantic being who seemed to be made of some rocky substance. He moved slowly and with the halting gait of a toddler.
“Fuzzy okay?” he asked as he gazed down on Pakrat.
Pakrat grinned and said, “Yeah, yeah! I’m fine, kid!”
Taz was a small white skinned being in a black cape and hood. She moved rapidly and her tiny hands grasped at any number of weapons as she waited for word from her friends as to what to do next.
Renna jerked her hand away from Blackjack’s grasp and said, “Easy with the snake oil, slick!”
Jinal said, “I am Jinal. This is Renna. The man in red, white, and blue is called Captain Comet.”
Morphea said, “You are a powerful mentalist and a great hero! Your aura fairly radiates virtue!”
Captain Comet smiled and said, “I do my best! And with that intention, let me make a suggestion. Your leader Champion was possessed by an evil entity I’ve battled before. He called himself the Dark Destroyer!”
Pakrat said, “That’s it! That fiend loves playing with people!”
Morphea said, “He was tied to Martin in a manner of speaking. When Martin thought he had destroyed that monster’s material form, he managed to be reborn through by using Martin’s own DNA and Martin’s pregnant wife! In regaining life, the Dark Destroyer became Martin’s exact double and also killed Mrs. Champion!”
Blackjak said, “Look, I know how DD works! He made me his plaything before too. How do you know that really was Martin? Maybe, the Destroyer ditched his armor and took Martin’s place?”
Morphea said, “No. I would have detected such a palpable presence of pure evil. I fear, as Captain Comet suggested, our leader was being mentally controlled by a distant Dark Destroyer!”
Pakrat said, “So, how’d you know?”
Captain Comet said, “I’ve seen the Destroyer without his mask. His face resembled the image of Martin Champion I saw in your thoughts! When I last saw the Dark Destroyer, I had stopped him from destroying all of creation and we eventually took him to Kronis the Prison Planet. He repeatedly cried out that we had severed him from his truth form and robbed him of his senses. He was truly aghast at being trapped in a purely mortal form! I wonder now if he was literally too great a presence to be confined to one body. When we cut him off from his larger form, perhaps, some part of him retreated through time and space and dominated Martin’s body since in a sense Champion and his wife unwittingly gave birth to him!”
Morphea said, “He wants nothing more than to end all life in the cosmos! Where would he go for such an act and why did he bring us here to this Barren earth so far removed in time and space from the one we sought?”
Jinal said, “Perhaps because he sensed that this Earth is close to its own end? The altered sun, the lack of water and the hostility of the mutated races, all combine to make a bleak future for us!”
Barasha said, “We could try to follow him. It is clear that he left the united Qlov here to hasten our doom. We have not seen his ship in weeks.”
Pakrat said, “Yeah, he’d enjoy destroying a world just for the fun of it.”
Babe frowned and then pouted.
“Babe wanna find Chris and Dart!” he wailed.
Morphea said, “We shall find them. It is clear the maddened Martin took them with him. He hated them the most since he blames them for his past defeats more than he hates the rest of us!”
Captain Comet said, “I wonder if the Dark Destroyer’s real body is in prison still? I think the guards would have told me had he escaped!”
Jinal said, “I begin to think that this world is a prison for us all! I thought I could reclaim it and unite its people but when I see how easily this Dark Destroyer manipulated the Qlov, I feel like I was being foolish!”
“You were being what you have always been, Little One. You were a heroine and a leader!” said Barasha!
Captain Comet said, “Can you help us follow the trail of the Destroyer? He has such a powerful and decidedly other dimensional energy about him that I could detect it with the right device!”
Renna said, “The Old Ones left behind the only technology on this world. We reclaimed one of their mobile cities but it fell back into the hands of the Qlov!”
Jinal said, “Then we shall simply take it back from them or die trying!”
7
2128 One possible future of planet Earth!
As four uniformed Corporation Security Guards searched for him through the burning ruins of his Sky skimmer, the burly Irishman named Donovan Flint careened wildly through the thick bushes of the Corporation Botanical Gardens in search of a place to hide and gather his wits!
He was a big man with a thick head of blond curls and heavy sideburns. He wore a blue flight suit and his wrists were wrapped within his cybernetically controlled blasters. At a moment’s thought, the weapons would snap over his palms and flip into position for rapid fire! Now, it was his mind that raced as he caught his breath and relieved the events that had brought him down on a secretly enslaved earth under a sky marred by the energy bursts and machine screams of space warfare!
“Donovan, me Boyo, sure and you’ve landed square in the middle of the ever- lovin’ frying pan with nary a place to jump but into the fire itself!” he thought.
No one was really sure why the swaggering space hero spoke and even thought in the exaggerated colloquialisms of a fictional Irishman of the 19th century but be it affectation or genuine pattern of speech such was his manner!
“No sooner does the Corporation that runs the planet turn you and your mates aboard the Sunrider into their pawns but you find out that the whole crooked bunch is secretly being run by a pack of jackals under the thumb of some alien killers called the Blood Legion who want you to become their errand boy!”
“They told us we got no choice but to find the original source of all life on Earth for them or face banishment from earth for the rest of our natural lives! I persuade my pals to help me rebel against the bloody monsters and their corporate goons only to see my buddy Mac be shot down when we tried to enter Earth’s atmosphere! I barely had time to rally me crew and fight back when I crashed right here in the middle of the Corporation’s leafy little playground!”
He stiffened as he crawled through some brush and he grimaced in recognition of the source of his pain.
“When the Corporation lab jockeys put those nutty implants in us, they told us that we would turn into genetically mucked up mutates if we remained on Earth for over 24 hours! It ain’t been that long but I can feel something strange happening to me even as I sit here!”
He jumped up and confronted the four guards who whirled around only to fall as his wrist blasters fired in rapid succession and dropped them cold!
“No harm meant, lads! I just want to burn your bones to cinders for what you and your pals did to me friends!” he said.
He frowned as he thought of the remaining crew aboard the Sunrider. He had developed an attraction for the haughty Commander Darcy Vale once he had managed to get the arrogant Corporation loyalist to switch sides and join him in the rebellion. Now, he wondered if he’d ever see her again.
“Darcy, lass, I sure would like to taste your lips about now!” he said.
“I’m not Darcy but I’ve been called pretty kissable myself!” said a blonde woman who dropped down in front of him and deflected a sudden barrage of laser fire from a remote controlled mobile security unit that had detected him at last!
The blonde simply smiled as the lasers bounced off her body. She had short hair and wore a black leotard with slippers.
“How did you do that? Are you from the Entity? Are you my guardian angel sent from the Sornaii?” he said with a broad grin on his face.
He referred to a mysterious other-worldly being from a race known as the Sornaii who had restored him to life after an apparent death. With new life had come a new awareness of the world around him and of his role in it. The Entity had told him that beneath the greed and avarice of the Corporation was an alien race known as the Blood Legion who sought to find the source of life on Earth for some evil purpose. They stood for Chaos while Flint was chosen to become a champion of Order! The roguish Flint had accepted their offer and while at times he wondered if he had imagined the whole near post death experience, the evidence of a flying beauty who could shrug off lasers made him rethink his doubts!
She said, “My name is Kayla. I’m not an angel. Believe me I am far from perfect! A dead world full of people who counted on me to protect them could tell you that if they only had voices!”
Donovan grinned and said, “Thanks, lass! Whatever brings such a comely colleen here at me time of need, I do offer you my most sincere thanks!”
Kayla said, “I was teleported through time and space to this place. I learned a bit about what is going on through use of my super senses and a super swift scan of some computer files. I stopped that war above us. I’ve already saved your friends!”
Donovan blinked in surprise and said, “This must surely be me lucky day! Can you get me carcass off the ever-lovin terra firma? It has a rather unhealthy effect on me and that is no Blarney!”
Kayla scooped him up and soared into the sky.
“I don’t kill but I did bring down all the ships I saw. No one was hurt but neither will any of them fly again for a long time. I felt it was safer to just ground the whole lot of them!”
Donovan gasped as he saw rows of battered Corporation battlestars lining the huge grounds of the Corporation earth HQ!
He threw back his head and gave a bellowing laugh.
“Kayla, by any chance would you be a nice girl from the Emerald Isle?” he asked.
Later, as Kayla faced the crew of the Sunrider II as it orbited the moon, she fought to reconcile all that had happened since she and Captain Comet had been teleported off Starman’s world by the insane Princess Merria.
“This is not just the future. This is one of a million possible futures. How did that puny little princess do it? She had help. She seemed to expect us and to know us. The only people who saw us together before we landed were allies like Vartox or enemies like the Dark Destroyer or Starbreaker. I know Starbreaker killed himself after Captain Comet tricked him into passing through the morality altering energies of that odd nebulae but could the Destroyer have escaped from jail and somehow influenced Merria? “
She said, “I can’t stand to think it was Starbreaker back again. He destroyed my home world of Terra and I was helplessly to stop him. I was as useless then as I was when my cousin Marvel Man was murdered by a pair of villains!”
She looked at Donovan’s crew. Darcy Vale was a sultry, brainy black haired woman in a skimpy white outfit. She hid her vulnerabilities behind an icy manner and a fiery tongue. The rough looking and bearded Jake Hammermsith was a brute of a man with a surprisingly quick mind. Dr. Bruce Sellers was a gifted physician who hid his concern for his patients behind a cynical manner. Perky Mindy Yano had only recently returned to the crew after being freed from certain cybernetic surveillance devices implanted within her as more evidence of the ever-present threat of the Corporation.
“Why did this oversized beauty queen just bring down the ships? If she had a brain in her glamour girl body, she would have helped us end the reign of the Corporation and their Blood Legion masters?” cried Darcy.
Kayla ignored the jibes and said, “I don’t kill. I also don’t rush into things when I don’t know what is happening. As I told Donovan, my goal was to cease hostilities between both sides until I could learn where I was and what the fight was about!”
Donovan raised his hands in a placating gesture.
“Darcy, trust your ole pal on this one. Kayla is one of us now. She saved me hide!” he said.
Mindy said, “I have something to say. Just before my cybernetic implants were removed I had a brief flash of data from the other end. I saw and heard something that originated from within the Corporation itself. They want us to locate a specific relic of ancient power. It is believed by the Blood Legion to be the source of all life on Earth eons ago. They call it the Eye of Aramgeddon!”
Donovan snapped his fingers and said, “Aye! That must be what they sent us a questin’ for! Have you any idea where we could find such a doohickey?”
“And if they know what it is, why don’t they go get it?” asked Doc. Sellers.
“They are limited to use of pawns such has always been the way of such beings! The time to locate the Eye is nigh. It has been plucked through time and space and now it rests upon a planet called Kranaltine in the 20th century!” said Mindy.
“What is that, Darlin?” asked Flint.
The petite Mindy gasped and said, “I don’t know! What did I just say?”
Donovan said, “I think you were not the one speaking. That is, your sweet lips said the words but the real speaker was the same Entity who first told me about the Blood Legion and their war betwixt Order and Chaos!”
Mindy shuddered and she said, “No! Please! No! After being used by the Corporation I can’t become someone else’s puppet!”
Doc Sellers said, “It is okay. Mindy, I think Flint will agree that this time the one controlling you is not likely to do so again! Those Sornaii seem pretty remote from the workings of everyday life!”
Donovan said, “Aye! So, we have to find this Eye of Armageddon before it falls into the wrong hands or else!”
Darcy sniffed disdainfully and said, “Can’t our resident super woman find it? She looks a bit ill!”
Kayla said, “I will help you find it. I was startled by the name of its location. I was on that world when I was brought here. My friend Prince Gavyn was the ruler of that planet. I want to get back there anyway!”
Donovan said, “Time travel is a bit out of me range of talents, love!”
Kayla said, “I can fly through time. I will recover this Eye before your enemies can find it. All I need for you to do is stay out of their clutches! Perhaps, occupy them!”
Donovan grinned with vulpine cunning. “Darlin, distractin’ is what I do best!”
8
Back in the possible future time of the Barren Earth, a large group of the insectoid Qlov patrolled the borders of a domed city. While the city had clearly been built to accommodate their more humanoid ancestors, the mutated insect men had readily claimed it after the Dark Destroyer-controlled Martin Champion had stranded his crew on the blistering sands below their ship and compelled the aliens to unite against all other species on the doomed world.
The Qlov soldiers wore heavy black cloaks and cowls that concealed their appearances. Each soldier moved with a precision that suggested the creatures shared some kind of a Hive mentality and lacked real individuality of mind or emotion. They seemed immune to the terrible heat and continued their relentless patrols with no sign of hunger or fatigue.
Miles beneath the city, Jinal led Captain Comet, her original band of allies, and the stranded crew from Champion’s ship down winding tunnels and narrow passageways lined with a faintly glowing mold.
“I’m fascinated by the way an entire culture formed down here to escape the heat and light of the world above!” said Captain Comet.
Jinal shrugged and said, “As long as these tunnels get us inside one of the Floating Cities left behind by the Old Ones who first created the Qlvod and the other species on the planet, I will be satisfied. I lost my original enthusiasm for xenobiology long ago or perhaps I should say this world’s unrelenting savagery killed my former perky manner!”
Skinner said, “Blondie, you weren’t exactly a docile pleasure maid when you first crashed here!”
Morphea thought, “The manner in which a hostile environment alters one’s perspective would make a fine subject for study!”
Babe grunted as he shouldered his way through the tunnels and whined softly.
“Babe not like this place!” he whined.
Blackjak said, “I’m not overly fond of it either, kid!
The mercenary’s bluster hid his concern for Dart. He loved the missing woman and he realized all too well that she and Chris “Tempus” Chance had been separated from the others for some deliberate purpose. He sighed as he inched forward and tried to convince himself that she was still alive!
Barasha said, “We are not alone! The occupants of these underground tunnels are aware of our presence! I can sense the Mulge are all around us!”
Pakrat said, “Mulge? What kinda name is that?”
Taz spun around and suddenly fired a small device that she clutched in one tiny hand. A beam of yellow energy struck a lumbering orange colored being who lurched to one side!
“Mushroom men! These things are some kind of walking plant life!” cried Pakrat.
Jinal nodded readily as she drew her energy-blade and its glow briefly illuminated the tunnel!
“The Mulge live underground but I figured using their tunnels might be the best way to safely get us into the Floating City!” she said as she darted aside from one Mulge and deftly sliced through it with her blade.
Renna was equally adept with her weapon. The raven haired woman dropped to one knee and fired a modified rifle at the looming creatures. They fell backward under her skilled assault.
Skinner shuddered as he fought with one of the Mulge. He had once been their captive and he had a particular revulsion for the weird beings.
Barasha and his tribe used their own combination of brute force and masterful fighting techniques to drive back the seemingly endless Mulge!
As Pakrat and Blackjat added their own skills to the fight, Captain Comet turned to Morphea and said, “You possess certain empathic abilities as well as what you call a mental sting. Can you sense any emotions that might suggest we are closer to the surface? Are we near the Qlov? I can’t detect any thoughts at all. These Mulge must be nearly mindless!”
Morphea nodded slowly.
“Detect the raw hatred that drives the Qlov, I do! Near their base, we are!” she said softly.
“Babe! Come here and try to break through where I tell you, child!” she said.
Babe grinned eagerly and stumbled forward to where his beloved “mother-figure” waited.
He obeyed her commands and smashed through the roof of a tunnel to reveal synthetic matter. They had penetrated the bottom of the floating city above them!
The group hurried forward as Captain Comet aided them by using his telekinetic power to help them rise upward!
Jinal said, “This is it! I recognize it! We’ve made it inside the city!”
Blackjak scowled as he glanced around at the advanced technology of the Old Ones and then saw the hoards of Qlov warriors approaching from all sides!
“You say that like it is a good thing!” he quipped!
0
Back on Kranaltine, Prince Gavyn the Starman, his sister Princess Clryssa, Dart, and Chris “Tempest” Chance were confronted by the maddened Princess Merria and her equally malevolent master Professor Champion.
“The boy knows his old man! Isn’t that how your kind refer to one another? Of course, he also knows that the only reason I kept him alive was to tap into his unique metabolic mutant energies to empower my teleportation device. I used him as a living battery to help me send my enemies through time and space itself and to acquire certain precious relics from said locations!” he said.
Dart said, “Martin, you’re not yourself! I know what’s happened! I recognize that expression on your face. You are under the control of the Dark Destroyer! That’s why you attacked us and imprisoned us here!”
Chris said, “I think that you are right! I just assumed…!”
Martin Champion interrupted his son and said, “You assumed your father had turned on you since he always blamed you for your mother’s death? How weak you mortal are! I readily admit that I am the Dark Destroyer and I have claimed my hated foe’s body for my own!”
Dart lashed out with a spinning kick and caught the villain by surprise. He was clearly not used to working through a purely mortal form.
He reeled backward as she rammed her knee into his stomach and brought him down to the ground.
The hulking gray brutes called Mygorgs rushed forward as Starman blasted at them with his stellar fire.
He glanced repeatedly at his wife. Her expression seemed devoid of any intellect or emotion. He wondered if she was no longer capable of either!
“Stay by me, Clryssa!” he yelled as his sister drew back from their foes.
Dart gasped as the fallen possessed Champion shoved her across the room with surprising strength.
“I brought you two here to punish you for your roles in my past defeat. I enjoyed the idea of using Martin’s body against you. I left your friends to die in an alternate future that I manipulated to be the place of their almost certain demise. I waited here so I could also gain revenge on Starman and Captain Comet since I knew they were headed here as well!” he said as he regained his footing.
Tempest hesitated for a moment. He had misjudged his estranged father and he felt guilty. He punched out at thin air and used his teleportation power to enable his blow to connect with a Mygorg who was across the room. He could not bring himself to engage the possessed Martin Champion.
Starman knew he could not touch his wife due to the null-energy field but he cried out to her as he battled the alien warriors.
“Merria! Fight him! I know you can resist! Our love is stronger than his evil!” he shouted. Prince Gavyn dominated the invaders as he flew back and forth and battered them with his super strength or blasted them with his stellar fire. He was fighting for more than his life. He was aging war for everything he valued! To the Dark Destroyer’s surprise, the hero was winning!
Dart said,” We can take him! We’ll free Martin from his grip! This is going to end our way!”
As the Dark Destroyer focused all of attention on the battle, Princess Merria screamed!
Starman dived through the air and caught her as she fell. The null-field was gone and she looked at him through teary eyes full of horror and disbelief!
“Gavyn! I can not believe you are here! I have lived through an unending nightmare since I lost you! I considered ending my own life and in doing so I allowed that fiend to control my mind!” she cried.
Prince Gavyn kissed her and he said, “We will be well again! I promise you! And we will never be separated again!”
The Dark Destroyer said, “I will ensure that promise is kept since I will unite you forever in death!”
Tempest and Dart began to tire as the Mygorgs closed in on them.
At that moment the palace erupted into flames as energy shattered one wall and Prince Gavyn looked up to see a domed city hovering in the clouds above!
“By the Onyx Throne! What new madness is this?” he whispered as he held his wife.
10

He started to shield the others with his own body when he felt a familiar mind touch his own thoughts.
“Prince Gavyn, it is me! We have secured this city and will use it to help you depose the Dark Destroyer!”
“Captain Comet! “he said with relief as he recognized his friend’s presence from afar.
As Captain Comet, Jinal, and their allies guided the floating city they had reclaimed from the Qlov, they used its weapons to rain down destruction on the Dark Destroyer’s forces!
Aboard the city, Babe clapped his huge hands and cried, “Tempest and Dart! I see them!” He waved his hand back and forth as Captain Comet piloted the city’s navigation system.
Pakrat shouted in victory as they drew closer to the scene of conflict.
“The way you and Morphea shut down those big men was amazing!” he said.
Captain Comet said, “She used her mind sting on one of them and I merely made sure all of them felt it through their own Hive mind link!”
Blackjak grinned and said, “For a hero, you sure are a modest fellow!”
Taz sat high on a computer table where her little hands furiously adjusted various controls The little being had been born with an innate skill for technology and gadgetry but it was purely instinctual. Once members of the odd alien race achieved maturity such precise knowledge was replaced with a more generalized talent.
As the heroes drew closer to victory, Martin Champion, under the sway of the Dark Destroyer, moved away from the battle as the gray skinned aliens fell beneath the floating city’s onslaught.
He gripped a curtain and ripped it down to reveal a gleaming orb that rested on a intricate network of wires. It glowed balefully like an evil eye!
“This relic is called the Eye of Armageddon. It has the power to allow the user to destroy all of creation with a mere thought!” he said.
“As I said, I toyed with all my enemies but my true purpose has always been the same. I will destroy all of creation with this magical relic that I drew from one of the myriad of dimensions my teleportation device and that brat’s energies allowed me to access!”
At that moment, Kayla flew into the room and charged at him. She had travelled through time and space to locate the very relic he now sought to use against all of creation!
She ignored everyone else as she focused on the Eye and she flew straight at it!
“This is what Donovan’s foes wanted him to acquire for them. It was what they called the source of all creation but it can also be used to destroy everything! I won’t let anyone else die! I’ve lost too much!” she thought.
As Starman carried Merria and Clryssa away from the Mygorg forces, he vowed to stop the Dark Destroyer by any means necessary.
“If I must die a final death, so be it!” he thought.
Captain Comet turned to the others aboard the city and said, “Keep fighting! I’m going to try to engage the Destroyer personally!”
He flew out of the dome and approached the mocking Dark Destroyer as Kayla was abruptly irradiated in the glow of the Eye!
She gritted her teeth and struggled forward as she thought once more of her lost homeworld and those she loved!
She was a true heroine but her courage was not enough as the arcane forces of the Eye found her weakness and generated a crystalline diamond that robbed her of all energy. She crashed to the ground at Champion’s feet.
Captain Comet could not reach them in time but he did project his impressive mental mind into Champion’s mind and fought to awaken the hero within! He ripped through layers of malice and the alien power of the Dark Destroyer to find the man called Martin Champion!
“Don’t let him use that thing!” urged Comet.
Martin’s eyes widened and he began to tremble. He recalled his late wife Trina. He remembered her death following the birth of their son Chris. He shouted with pain as he also heard the Destroyer’s gloating about how he had brought about her death and gained his first hold on his enemy!
Martin Champion felt the hatred within his own mind and he knew once more how the master nihilist vowed to wipe out all of creation by using the Eye!
For a moment as the aging hero felt Captain Comet’s mental presence doing battle with the Dark Destroyer and he saw his son’s pleading expression, he hesitated… and then Martin Champion used the Eye of Armageddon!
There was a bright flash of light and then the Eye itself flickered out of existence! As it departed so did the army of Mygorgs because the creations could only exist outside of their own realm through the energy generated by the presence of the relic!
Captain Comet, Starman, Jinal, Dart, and Chris closed in on Martin Champion as Kayla slowly stood up.
“I am myself again!” whispered Martin Champion.
“You freed me from him!” he added as he shook hands with Captain Comet and then reached out for his son.
“He’s truly gone now!” he said.
Captain Comet said, “You didn’t stop him from using the Eye. You used it instead to free yourself of him and to banish both the aliens and the Eye itself! That was an incredibly risky thing to do!”
“My husband is that kind of man!” said a pretty woman in a red and white flight suit. She had auburn hair and she fell into Martin’s arms as Chris and Dart gasped in amazement!
“Mom! That’s my mother!” cried Chris.
Trina Champion caressed his cheek and said, “Martin, brought me back! He used that relic to change history!”
Martin held his wife and said, “I didn’t really change history. You did die. I just made sure that I recreated you with the power of the Eye before I had it destroy itself!”
Dart said, “So what happened to the Destroyer’s real body? Is it still in that prison you took him to before?”
Martin said, “I banished him from all existence. I’d say he is truly gone for good!”
As the members of his crew rushed forward from out of the floating city, Martin Champion stood with his reunited family and brushed away a tear. For the first time in years he was at peace!
Captain Comet saw Starman and Merria embracing as well and he smiled. Then, as he turned to Kayla, he saw her own sorrow.
“I failed again. What kind of heroine am I?” she said.
Captain Comet said, “You did the best anyone could do. You always have!”
She said, “I wonder if the destruction of that Eye will mean anything to Donovan Flint and his allies in their time? Maybe I should rejoin them?”
Back in that era Donovan Flint and his Star Hunters had resumed their own war against the Corporation that ruled earth! Although the swaggering Irishman and his allies did not realize it, they had gained a vast advantage in their struggle since with the loss of the Eye, the human leaders of the Corporation had also lost all contact with their alien masters known as the Blood Legion! The battle for Earth was still ongoing but the fight would be one with odds Donovan Flint would have relished!
Jinal shook head sadly and she said, “The Dark Destroyer was so certain that the Earth I knew would die and he might have been right but I can’t abandon it. I have to go back. The controls in the city will enable us to return to our proper time and space where we can use it to reclaim our planet. Defeating one group of Qlov wasn’t enough to free that world. Plus, I still believe that there has to be some way to unite the mutated races on that sandy wasteland!”
Captain Comet said, “I respect your feelings. I believe in you. You’ll win that fight but come back to us if you need us!”
Jinal kissed his cheek and then walked toward the huge dome.
She waved goodbye and rejoined Renna, Skinner, and their allies within the floating city. It vanished through space and time at her command. She
Captain Comet said, “I started to join her but I think my mission for the Guardians of the Clockwork Universe has to take first priority.”
Starman said, “Now that I have my wife back, I can help you. We both can. You see, I intend to give the Onyx Throne back to my sister. It was hers to begin with!”
Clryssa nodded as she held her brother’s hand. She looked up at him as he held Merria.
“Thank you, Gavyn. I will make you proud. I owe you so much! You will always have a place here though. There is no longer a true empire but I will change the law of succession so that more than one heir may live at a given time! I should have done so long ago but I was afraid!”
Merria said, “As long as I am with you, I will be happy!”
Prince Gavyn nodded and said, “We will not be parted again!”
At that moment, Martin Champion said, “My family and my crew have some fence mending to do. I also used that Eye to recreate our ship. It is in orbit above this world. This may not be our era or our proper timeline but there is much to discover out there and I want to stay here to explore.”
Babe grinned and said, “We’re all together again!”
As Dart took Blackjak’s hand, she said, “There was no place for us on our former earth but now on the original Earth long before our proper time, maybe, we can prevent the corruption that led to our own exile!”
Blackjak smiled and said, “Sure, and in the meantime, we might make a tidy profit out there in the stars!”
Captain Comet said, “You and your crew are welcome to follow my ship. I think we could work together well!”
Martin Champion said, “After I repair the damage I did to my own loved ones, I’ll be pleased to join you!”
Epilogue:
Later, Captain Comet glanced over to where Starman sat with Merria. They were aboard the Cometeer and their ship was just leaving Kranaltine.
“Clryssa is better suited to the royal role than I ever was! She will bring stability back now that we’ve dealt with the threat of the Dark Destroyer!” said Prince Gavyn.
Captain Comet said, “I’m glad you two decided to join me. For that matter, Professor Champion and his crew will be fine allies too. He was amazed when I showed him that his own timeline is a divergent one from this one. There is no record of his ancestors on our Earth. It is a totally new world for him and for his crew!”
Starman said, “Knowing how busy the Guardians of the Clockwork Universe have been keeping us, I’d say Champion’s allies will come in handy!”
Captain Comet nodded as he gazed out into space.
“I know. I’m just sorry Kayla decided to depart. I she finds what she is looking for out there!”
Starman replied, “May she truly find the peace and joy I have once more!”
The End





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