Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Fiction
vr 3.00
2008-02-16
"Exodus" by Abraxas | 2005-05-12
Chapter Three
“Ahhh!” Jagga shouted as he lunged from the bed -- across the room -- to the floor with a thud. “The eye, Liono, use the eye,” he mumbled crawling through the shadows of the bedroom, while a bright wilderness of visions clouded his memory. Was it real? What it imagined? Confused and uneasy, the old jaguar could not tell the two apart. Over the past year his waking and sleeping worlds merged together into a seamless blur of wailing gasps, echoing footsteps -- and the menacing sense of dreadful despair that consumed his mind already at the end of its tether.
Clamoring up to his feet he stormed out of the chamber. Running down the passage -- lit only by the red glow of the emergency lights -- he came to the sealed doorway of the hibernation room. It had been barricaded with broken furniture, entangled metalwork and heavy crates all of which he had found aboard the vessel and through months of nonstop labor dragged into place right at the spot.
Yet the great, gnarled dam afforded no comfort for though he could hold back the spreading of his fear, he could not silence it -- the sound of it -- lurking within that quarantined chamber, knocking on the walls, pounding on the doors. And the whispering of it words that here and there were clear and meaningful. It was trying to escape; ever since he welded shut the door panels he knew it was trying to escape and despite his best efforts to hold it back he knew, too, he could not stop its breaking free from within its makeshift tomb.
He knelt and wept pleas of pitiful mercy for the doorway behind the pile of rubbish had been pried open.
The pod chamber was alit by a flash of blue light and the eerie ambiance seeped through the gaps of the barrier that he himself had formed and then --
Jagga awoke in the flight deck, wrapped in a red, royal blanket he had taken on as a shoal. Free from the nightmare, he shivered and panted -- cloudy mists of gray, bitter air spewed out of his nostrils. He rubbed his hands, old and frail, under his robes but it was a vain attempt to feel warmth.
A pool of drool marred the keyboard over which he had slept -- for how long he did not know, time, as it was, had no meaning in space. On the terminal’s view screen was part of the landing program -- part only because he had not finished it. He had not finished it despite the fact that he had started it a year and half to the day of Thundera’s demise.
He ran his cold, bony fingers through his untrimmed mane. “Not today, Grune,” he said to no one in particular. “Still worried about it?” he asked through a gruff tone of voice. “It’s not that, old friend,” he answered himself after a brief pause, “it’s me.” He leaned back and sighed. He scanned the room, left to right, but he could not find the saber lion. “But -- but he was right here,” he told himself aloud. “He was right here -- Grune? Grune?” And then it struck him -- Grune was gone. The Mutant Empire’s greatest spy had been banished, exile -- returned to the forces of evil that spawned him and urged his rebellion.
The ancient jaguar wailed and shook his head as he realized he was alone, completely and utterly alone.
The console flashed a red, blinking warning message. Shocked and enraged, he smashed the control pad, erasing the landing procedure and disabling the spacecraft’s navigation computer altogether. The bridge fell into the blackness of the void but for a monitor’s slant of gray, blue light: the innards of the suspension room were upon the display.
The unblinking, unerring eye of the camera had been fixed onto one, particular spot since first he heard it. It was his way of checking in on it -- morbid entertainment as it was -- but he could not zoom into view, he could not tell if his plan was indeed working. But the Sword of Omens had shrunk and moved out of place and he wondered if it was so because the danger was over or because the weapon was losing its power just as he feared -- yet another legacy of his disastrous meddling that tormented his already guilty conscience.
“It’s Mutants!” Jagga shouted, thrashing about an ornate stand in an equally-ornate room. In the sword chamber he stood above the raised platform in the center of the room, beneath the windows of glass and their views of space. “Get back you slimy worms!” He thrust the shiny, metal stand and jumped off of the dais -- his red shoal falling to his feet behind him. “I’ve beaten you before and I’ll do it again.”
A shadow moved about the distance.
“Ha!” He rushed toward the darkness, only to find that the Mutant figure had fled, that the only sign of its ever having been there was a pipe dangling from the ceiling. “Run, coward!”
A door creaked amid the darkness.
“You!” he snarled at the silhouette that alternated in and out of existence.
The old one stormed into the room, mounds of dust attacking his eyes, stale air suffocating his lungs. It was his bedroom only he could not recognize it anymore. It had been two years since last he entered its once-stately confines. A light flickered at the sensing of his presence and he snarled again having forgotten the intense glare of such bright illumination.
“Where are you? Where --” he called but only the stillness replied. “There, there!” There, before him, eye-to-eye, toe-to-toe, was the horrid beast of the waking, sleeping dream that had become reality. Ragged face, sunken eyes as stone cold as death itself and loosened bones poking through ever-thinning layers of flesh.
And he realized that the grotesque image was his own.
He smashed the mirror with the sword he had made of the stand that also shattered within his hands. Through sparkling shards of metal, broken fragments of his face reflected up to his eyes from down on the floor. He let go of the slump that remained of the dull weapon and watched it dissolve into a million pieces that, too, showed his battered face in tiny bits back to him.
“No, no, no!” He clasped his brow with his hands, cut and bloodied. He smeared the thick, red substance onto his flesh like a gory crown of victory. He could not deny it, not now that it was so clear, so obvious -- ever for a mind as demented and as tortured as his. What had isolation wrought? What had the long, ominous voyage revealed to him about himself?
Though he could run, he could not hide. Though he would not believe it, he knew it was true. Years, months, weeks, the clock wound down in its glacial pace from day to day and how he had squandered it -- the time -- in the vain struggle against the unearthly powers of his conscience. At that moment he realized the absolute truth of what it was. It, that stubbornly persistent illusion, that formless nothing that haunted his every moment of existence, it was at the end his own guilty spirit.
His body had failed and his mind had waned. Half dead and half alive he wandered about the Thundercat flagship. He dwelt in its passages and roomed in its corridors like an animal without care for basic necessities or rudimentary decencies. He had bowed into the miasma of his innermost demons -- once confined to the single room of the hibernation chamber, now emerged to conquer the entire vessel.
A spark of his former self returned to his eyes the day he stepped into the bridge and saw in the large view screen the emerging image of Third Earth. Recalling the events of three, long years, he remembered that he had something to do. Something -- it was coming back to him -- the Thundercats, the fleet. He returned to the console -- broken, shattered -- it was something about programming the vessel’s landing but looking at the remains of the instruments his train of thought derailed. He had forgotten his duty, he had forgotten everything. Language, reason it was lost, all of it lost.
Jagga stared out into the blue planet. The swirl of bright, white clouds, the shape and form of green, brown land -- he mumbled incoherent syllables and drooled. He listed his head to the side and gasped his last breath. He slumped over the terminal -- dead.
* * * * * * * * * *
Fine mist, dense fog, chocking clouds of swirling dust. Torn spider webs quivered and putrefied skeletons rattled in rhythm to the currents of the wind-swept air. Focused energies of red fury gazed upon steaming waters below while above the vault of the immense black and secret midnight chamber groaned as if its very substance was rapt in fear and terror.
An image, singular and formidable, emerged out of the turbulent vapors of the circular pool that reflected against the glossy red eyes of its ancient master.
“Eye of Thundera,” the figure gasped, its voice echoing like vile laughter within the eerie darkness.
The lids parted and the full force of the mystical emblem revealed itself. An aura of blue-gray light engulfed the room -- it washed the faces of hibernating Thundercats with its brilliance -- yet the illumination seemed fixated onto a young lion.
The old one waved an arm over his face and turned away: “What? Will it torment me into the crack of doom?” He tried but could not blot the intense glare that fumed through the foamy crests of the immense cauldron.
Sirens -- the flight deck -- and with that abrupt change of vista the ever-living mummy relaxed. Jagga’s body was slumped along the console -- as it had for months since his death -- the remains were undisturbed but for the sway of its hairs caught within the vented currents of the vessel’s stale air. The monitor flashed a warning and the ship rocked violently as it descended into Third Earth’s atmosphere. The chaotic turbulence knocked the corpse aside onto the floor, breaking the leathery flesh and brittle bones into pieces that shattered across the ground.
The flagship punched through the unstable, upper-layers of air. It gathered ions; it formed halos of rainbow-like sparks. Its rockets blasted -- its engines heaved past mechanical exhausted and exploded. Fire coursed its way through the cramped innards of the vessel. The hull cracked and glowed a dull, dusky shade of orange. The exhaust -- deep, inscrutable onyx -- traced the progress of the craft’s uncontrolled path as it plummeted, warbling and screeching sonic wails of dread, of its own proper death amid the cloudy blue yonder.
Protective tiles peeled away from the ship’s underside and the hull, fully exposed, was breached along one, narrow rent. Flames flickered out of the crack, like ravenous fingers flickering in the air that fanned and fed the fire. Whole sections of spacecraft ripped away; the cargo bay’s doors evaporated and its contents spewed out of the gash, into the air.
Arcs of whisking, blue plasma announced the death of the last, viable generator. But the great work of the vessel’s rockets at last gave it a stable orbit around the planet. The rocking ceased, the outer skin -- stripped clear of its armor plates -- cooled. Yet in the control room Jagga’s body acame to ash in the fires -- the fires that crept along toward the welded doors of the suspension chamber.
Automatic sensors within the confined room activated. One by one the hibernation capsules were raised and attached onto an internal conveyer belt. Very quickly and precisely the individual pods were readied for their emergency ejection.
The Sword of Omens growled and it seemed to the ageless ruler that all he had ever heard and known about that weapon might be true.
Circling the planet, one hundred-thousand feet above its surface, the ship appeared to be a ball, a tumultuous collection of red and black vapors.
A series of yellow blasts shot from the northern slopes of the upper continents to the area around the ship. The beams arrived too late and did not connect. Another set of blasts followed but only one skimmed the side of the vessel and did not result in any visible change. Yet a third attempt and that time two out of the three beams spliced the side of the craft.
The vessel stopped -- its inertial energy depleted instantly -- and spiraled toward the ground, its shroud of smoke vanished.
He turned away from the pool’s reflective waters. “But they’re dead,” he spoke to the red-eyed statues upon whose backs the whole of the vault was supported. “They cannot harm us.” He paused and clutched the red shoal around his neck with his withered, bandaged fingers.
His sarcophagus slid shut before him and the hideous icons of his demonic worship rumbled behind him.
“What is it you do?”
He was led by forces beyond even his control back to the side of the cauldron to gaze upon its unearthly visions.
“No!” he shouted. “It cannot be!”
The ship had crashed, just as he had thought, but the passengers survived. Strung along the gash the spacecraft had gorged into the earth were the containers of the suspension chamber it had ejected as it careened across a forest basin of rocky, loose soil. He counted five capsules upon the grass safe and free from the burning remains of the smoldering vessel. A sixth had been dropped amid patches of tall trees, far removed from the other who were only then at that very moment warily coming out of the pods.
The old one sighed; the wavering image of his own, glowing eyes shone back onto him off of the murky pool.
“Another ship?”
His attention turned from one sight to another that evolved out of the white, gray clouds.
The air was cool, the world amid the forests were green and shimmering with a dew that settled on the leaves of grass that shook in the oncoming wake of the latest interlopers to reach Third Earth. Bolts of lightning clasped in the distance; pangs of thunder echoed and alerted the awakening Thundercats. The shocked and bewildered exiles pointed their eyes to the storming skies above where the familiar and dreadful Mutant vessels greeted their arrival with its own.
“Hmmm.” He rubbed his chin and thought back to the yellow blasts that had come from the northern coasts. “Interesting.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Ejected from the flagship seconds before its impact, young Liono's suspension capsule skid across the forest floor like a hot knife cutting through butter. The missile smashed upturned roots that soil erosion already exposed, scattered rocks and stones that the last era of glaciation deposited and carved a trench in the ground a foot deep. The pod had fallen onto the planet with a great force of motion and though the impacts it suffered battered its metallic frame beyond repair, the miniature time machine was in no danger of catastrophic destruction -- over engineered, as it was, to resist and withstand such total disaster. And it was that series of collisions that would have otherwise been bone-shattering that provided the friction that brought it to a stop in the middle of that vast and uncharted wilderness.
The lion tossed and shivered in his pod -- it had come to rest askew on a large boulder -- clouds amassed with a distant, muffled roar, blocking the trickle of rays that filtered through the branches, covering him in the cloak of shadows. A stiff breeze ruffled the parched greenery and rang in the air like a shrill sound of abject terror -- as if the entire forest had awoken from a vision of horror. Coldness -- shrubs and the delicate leaves of flowered hedges trembled.
The youth brushed his face with the side of his hand. No bits of glass were in his fur, around his head, on his body. No cuts, no abrasions. No shards of that clear, sharp material of the window of his capsule's lid marred the innards of the capsule for it had been smashed inside out while still within the mother ship.
He felt a warmth -- hands clutching his shoulders but for a brief, rousing moment.
“NO!”
He sat up suddenly in his capsule and though he could not feel the physical form of the clutch, the phantom memory of the firm clasp lingered.
Little by little, his senses returned from the stasis of the past three years of sleep to the reality of that time and place. The smell of burnt wood came to him and in a short time he regained his sight. He opened his eyes and despite the veil of darkness that blanketed the world, even that autumnal dimness showed him a picture that was too surreal and dreamlike to take in at once. In time, too, his immature mind realized the gravity of his situation. He was alone and, looking around him, he saw smoke and the hint of flames but found none of his friends, the Thundercats.
The lid of metal and glass was on the ground, neatly placed next to his pod. It had not been torn or shredded in the treacherous course of the crash, rather, it had been cleanly and carefully removed from its supports and hinges. The Sword of Omens and claw shield had been placed conspicuously over its frame.
He reached over to grab the items and as he extended his arm, his shirt -- or part of it -- came off and landed precariously balanced on the jagged edge of the container's outer skin. He clasped it -- the fabric was still connected by thick strands of fiber to the rest of his outfit. That was the moment he noticed that his clothes had torn: his shirt had shredded, only its collar remained intact, up above his neck, just under his chin, his shorts had vertical gashes, its belt broken in three places, but it was so tight and firm that it would not come off.
All the better, he thought, for it was dreadfully cold.
Liono eased himself out of the pod and set foot on the brown, airy soil. It enveloped his flesh -- all that had remained of his boots were straps of rubber that clung onto his ankles and shins. He was immediately struck by two singular and uncomfortable sensations. First, he was cold -- very cold. Second, his body was weary, achy and tired. Joints stiff, muscles lagged.
"Jagga said I'd age a little," he mumbled, "but just a little, I don't understand why I'm all grown up now. I don't feel all grown up. How did this happen?"
Claw shield and sword in hand, it dawned on him just how fully his body had changed. He recalled quite vividly how the sword once almost dwarfed him but now -- still, his muscles were atrophied and he hat to stop often to rest and catch his breath, to let his metabolism adjust to his condition. Hormones had worked to develop his feline build -- as it came naturally to all of his breed, the larger races of cats -- but he had not trained or used his massive physique for more than breathing and in result his stature was useless. Even his hands lost their grip occasionally.
"Snarf!" Suddenly he recalled what had happened earlier -- the feel of the warm hands, the lid beside his pod, the treasures of Thundera that lay in wait. "SNARF!" He shouted again but only the echo of his voice and the cackle of birds answered. At last he remembered everything, the whole past and its every detail that he had thought a dream had returned to him -- but why had his friend not shown himself? Why was he alone?
"Run!" a voice called -- a voice that was but was not, more an effect of the air than a true utterance -- "Run!"
"Jagga?" He was confused for he understood then that Jagga was dead.
The planet rumbled.
Was there danger? He looked at the sword but the eye remained unchanged.
Thirst and an unquenchable urge to replenish his nutrients drove him to alleviate his biological needs. He walked through a well-defined trail quasi-parallel to the scar his pod had carved into the fuming, smoldering ground. Heightened senses alerted him of the splashing waddle of birds fluttering their wings over --
"Water!" he gasped, lips unusually dry and crisp.
He had discovered, amid a throng of moss-covered trees, a small pond, the scene darkened only by the shades that obscured the clear water's shallow depth. Lilly pads crowned with delicate white flowers lined the edge of the nearest bank. Toward the distance, where it snaked into tiny streams, the limb of an ancient tree skirted across its surface -- stringy vines dangled from the branch to the pool where the strands danced in the gentle currents. He caught his image over the quivering pool but it was at once destroyed by the flight of a small bird that hovered above and drunk the water. He was shocked by the intrusion and drew back. Realizing what it was, he laughed, thinking about the twins and the pranks they played on him.
He wondered, too, if they had grown up like him, in their pod.
Relieving his need for the moment, he returned to the path and followed it to a bend that, it seemed, would lead him away from the gash he knew by instinct would take him to the flagship. He stopped and contemplated what to do. He thought he could tread through the earthly wound but the substance of the earth was too hot for his bare feet to tolerate. So he opted to continue on into the underbrush. The prickly underbrush.
A short field of waist-high grass greeted him. He was in a cleared-off section of the forest, an acreage that had stumps only and not trees. Strange, he mused, his mind unfamiliar even with the ways of Thundera and Third Earth was already too alien, for it occurred to him that the trees -- their stumps -- had been cut down. He pried apart the thicket of reeds and in that action inadvertently tore a dewy web upon which a spider fed on a cocooned dragonfly. Studying the small creatures, he was at that moment aware that the strange planet was brimming with life forms of every size imaginable.
If only Tygra was there, he said aloud, he could make sense of it.
Hoards of deer-like animals stampeded into the area. Frantically hiding behind a tree at the edge of the clearing, he held the sword in his hands. Despite his terror it remained silent and unextended. Cowering as the herd fled from one void of darkness to another, he wondered if Panthro -- had he been with him -- would have hidden in fear, too?
“RUN!”
And he was not walking anymore -- but was he running? Where was he going? It was as if forces beyond his control or understanding directed his path. And so, he came to a field where large molted fragments of the Thundercat flagship littered the earth. Already the more curious animals of the forest had gathered into their respective social groups around the scattered, mangled pieces, exploring with their eyes the cooling scraps of metal. The ship had careened across the land but it had not formed an impact crater. There was the start of one -- the raised lip of turf shaped like a crescent moon -- but from that spot where it kissed the ground it extended a great, deep slash to a point far off in the distance.
"Run to the others, boy, you don't have much time."
"Where are the others?"
"RUN!"
Liono turned his face up, sword growling and extending. A clear and unobstructed view of the sky revealed that it was not the clouds that covered the sun, it was a spaceship. A craft on whose side was a picture, an icon, of a reptilian --
He was brought back to a moment that, though years in the past, to his consciousness was no more than hours ago -- the Mutant in the sword chamber, the one with the waving, thrashing tongue --
Darkness -- shadows engulfed the scene as he emerged out of the space under the branches of trees. Leaves brushed against one another as birds soared up to their nests in the canopy. The grass around his feet bowed close to the soil and shivered in the wake of the breeze as well-hidden animals in the fallen foliage sought shelter within the hollows of decayed trees. He wanted to run, too, as fast as Cheetara to hide as a newfound sense of dread came to him.
He paused. “Be brave.” He shut his eyes and sighed.
In body he was an adult but in mind he was a child yet he knew, as if by instinct, that he would have to learn better than to give in to wry emotion. He could not fear, those days, those luxuries were over. So he stirred onward, not in queasy fear but in firm acceptance. And as he hurried toward the distressed cries of his fellow Thundercats, toward the battle of survival that awaited that day forever, plunging deeper and deeper into fate, he knew, too, that everything lay ahead of him.
END
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