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CHAPTER TWO
The Race of the Rockets
The amazing adventurer JASMINE STARR, inventor of the atomic rocket, has blasted off into space, in the company of her ever suffering maid CLAUDETTE T. S. GRANT and ace reporter MARK STYLES.
To their shock, the trio have found that space is not the final frontier but rather the boarder between EARTH and the EMPIRE OF SPACE, ruled by the merciless tyrant AYTAN ZARDO THE TERRIBLE.
Now, our heroes are trapped aboard one of ZARDO'S many IMPERIAL WAR ROCKETS, blasting towards his foreboding PLUTONIAN ICE CASTLE...
Jasmine tapped at the door and found that it opened quickly -- they clearly had not expected an escape to be so quick and efficient. Claudette tensed as the door opened...and then sagged in relief. "Oh Missus!" she exclaimed.
"Never fear, Claudette," Jasmine said, then found the controls to the magnetic restraints -- which switched off with a series of loud clunks. The restraints popped open and Claudette almost swooned against Jasmine. Jasmine swung her arm around her after holstering her pistol. "Come on -- we must find our reporter friend." She stepped out...
And froze.
For standing in the corridor was five of the guards. Each held in their hands large, boxy looking rifles.
Skar stood behind them.
"Open fire."
The rifles roared with flames and smoke!
***
Commander Vile watched through the forward view-screen as the raylight tugs began to lock into position. His finger rubbed along his chin as his mind thought to the orders he had been given by his lord and master, the Emperor of Space.
Bring them to me. Keep the male in ultra-sleep. He is the most dangerous one.
The raylight tug was a majestic sight indeed. Nearly a hundred thousand tons of intricately interconnected wires and cables all for the sole purpose of spreading tens of thousands of kilometers of reflective material that could catch and reflect away starlight -- in the inner system -- and travel-rays in the outer system. The sails themselves provided a mere fraction of the thrust as his war rocket's nuclear engine -- but while that war rocket could only spew forth its might for a short time, the raylight tug was capable of pushing continually at a steady rate for as long as travel-rays were fired at them or the light of the sun would shine upon them.
If he was forced to rely merely upon the water in his war rocket's tanks, he'd have arrived at Pluto only with the help of an ultra-sleep injection...and even with the effects of ultra-sleep, he would be a withered old clone, able to but breathe his last words to his mighty Emperor. Such a fate would be one that Commander Vile would gladly accept, for his loyalty to the Emperor of Space could not be questioned...but it seemed like a waste to him, when he would far more gladly give his life for the Empire of Space in the field of battle.
As it was, the raylight tug would turn a voyage of years...into a voyage of a mere forty Star Days, which were approximately the same length as the foolish Earth Days used by the petty humans.
The faint reverberations and clunks of the attachment systems rang through the hull and Vile smiled to himself. The idea of a mere forty days being all that was between him and his waiting love-slave harem of beautiful lizard-women was enough to warm even his cold, dark heart...but then came the alert trill of his communication wand. He snatched it from his hip, aiming the wand at his lips. "Report!"
"This is Lieutenant Tailscorn," the low rumble of his second in command, the ever dependable Skar Tailscorn. "The females attempted an escape. One of your clone marines has been slain."
Commander Vile scowled. "By the mount of Mars!" He wished he was under thrust, so he could stand from his command throne. As it was, he tore the straps keeping him to the chair from his body and thrust himself towards the deck hatch. "Are they restrained?"
"Yes, they are, Commander Vile."
When Vile had reached his prison cells, he saw that the two females had been restrained, back to back, against a magnetic shackle, their arms bound behind their backs. The curvier one looked terrified, while the slender one looked defiantly smug. Vile realized now his mistake -- he had taken her expression for guarded nerves...but he could see now the intellect flashing behind those piercing eyes. He considered...the pain-scourge could, via the use of induced microwave beams, break even a will such as that with prolonged exposure and when combined with other instruments of torment.
"I am quite ready to begin the torment, my Commander," Skar growled -- his eyes flashing with ire. Clearly, he had a bone to pick with this feisty female. Commander Vile considered ordering him to leap to it -- but something held him back...
Commander Vile knew that the Emperor had been seeking one thing above all else -- the way to at last, finally, conquer Earth and the earthlings that knew not his magnificence. But there was another emptiness in the Emperor's life, one that even fifteen long years of domination over the rest of the solar system had not yet salved. He smirked, slowly, then reached out, taking hold of the skinny female's chin, lifting her head upwards.
"Are you, perchance, any form of royalty?"
She spat in his face -- the glob of spittle having just enough momentum to splash against him, even in the freefall of the prison chamber. He groaned and recoiled, clutching to ceiling strap with one hand, his other pressing to his befouled cheek. "You wench!" He snarled, and Skar, leaping to the unspoken command, held out his pain-scourge. The impudent female clenched her jaw, trembling as the induced microwaves blazed through her flesh, cooking her from within!
Skar drew the pain-scourge backwards and she shuddered, then hissed out through her teeth, as globes of spittle merged and split within the air. The entire ship shuddered and the globes began to drift to the floor -- they were under acceleration. Commander Vile shook his head, slowly, then snapped his gaze to the curvaceous woman. "And you?"
"T-Take yer eyes off me!" she snapped. "I'm a
gentlewoman!"
Vile huffed, then took hold of Skar's shoulder, drawing him close. "Do not harm them overmuch. I wish to...check something with the Emperor."
Skar growled. "Can I at least take my vengeance on Starr?"
"No," Vile said, knowing what said vengeance might entail. Considering the virility of the lizardfolk, that was the last thing he needed, if his suspicions were true. Seeing the flash of emotion on his second's face, he sighed, then said: "Not a second time. And pray your seed did not take, my scaled subordinate, or else you may end up facing the lava mines of Io!"
He turned, then stalked from the room in the sliver of gravity provided by the unfurled beamtug sails.
***
Within the vast corridors of the foreboding Plutonian Ice Castle, Aytan Zardo, the Emperor of Space, Lord from Beyond, Protector Regent of the Solar System, and High Dominion of Earth regarded the astro-map of his star domain that hung above his viewing pool, and considered a million variables as the stars slowly swung beneath his gaze.
His pointed eyebrows were turned into a narrow V, while his bald pate gleamed from the torches that flickered within his room. In the privacy of his chamber, Zardo allowed himself the comfort of a bright red jumpsuit, clinging to his lean and limber body, with a golden cape that draped about his shoulders. A flute glass filled with shimmering green liquid from a distant solar system that could only be fabricated in his Nuclear Alchemy Engine was clutched between his fingers.
Zardo shook his head, then downed a gulp, feeling the warm burn of the immortality wine as it slid through his throat and struck his belly like the warm glow of a distant star. With the growing energy of his monthly imbibing of the immortality wine flowing through his mind, plans and schemes began to slot into place within the mazelike mind of the man who would be the ruler of all the solar system.
"If we can but keep the Hawkmen and the Faemen at one another's throats..." He growled under his breath. "And secure those Jovian moons and their Trojans...then the Sword of Heaven will have no allies at all. Yes." He stroked his chin beard. "Yes, it is all coming into-"
"Father!"
The door to his contemplation chamber opened and the only being in the whole of the solar system who could dare disturb the contemplation of the Emperor of Space entered -- trailed by her handmaidens. If Pluto had been as Zardo had found it, centuries before, the way that his daughter, the Space Princess Zella, entered into the chamber would have launched her into the very ceiling. But Zardo, aware of his preferences and future dominion, had spent many centuries hollowing the planetoid and spinning the dwarf world, so that gravity could be provided via rotation rather than the trifling mass of the obscure orb.
Such was the might of Aytan Zardo!
"Father!" Star Princess Zella said, her long, flowing red dress being held in train by her handmaidens -- both hawkgirls from distant Venus -- as she strode towards him. "How could you have atomated him!?"
