Escape From Asylonia Page 2

  Laser fire flashed all around, cutting vibrant streaks through a caramel coloured fog and ricocheting off the rim of a titanium fortress.

  Still the stealth warrior hung on. The pilot weaved between the lines of enemy fire. He soared high and again flipped his ship upside down. Refusing to let go, the stealth warrior hung from the roof with legs kicking high and wild above the seething inferno.

  There was only one thing for it.

  Remaining upside down, the Commander spun his ship in a continuous three-sixty, increasing both speed and altitude as he did so. The move succeeded where the earlier nosedive had failed. The warrior lost his grip, slipped through the fog and was promptly swallowed by a blast of lasers.

  Commander 4107 righted his ship and cruised casually, yet with unwavering vigilance, through the path of destruction. Breathing a sigh of relief, he lowered his Jet Fighter onto the landing dock, tucked his elbows behind his head and smiled at the two words flashing on the monitor in front of him:

  LEVEL COMPLETE.

  David throttled the control pad in his stubby fingers, saving his progress on Jetfighter 2: Battle of Attilia, then switched off his game console.

  'Till we meet again, punk,' he said in the brisk, playful voice that never seemed to quite fit him. His jaws prized open in a yawn. He lifted stiff fingers to his mouth to mask it, smirking as he did so. Here he was, all alone and still instinctively covering his mouth when he yawned. What would his mother say if she could see him now? He suspected it would probably the same kind of thing she always said, something that ignored completely anything he happened to get right and focussed instead on even the most minor of his flaws.

  Covering up a second yawn, David heaved himself out of his comfortable leather office chair and made for the window. He brushed a long, uncombed mess of sandy hair from the side of his portly cheeks and smirked again. In the empty house, he heard the echoes of his mother, speaking in a voice that had never quite lost its Yorkshire roots.

  Oh, David, you really need a bloody haircut, son. Look at the state of you!

  Reaching for something with which to tie his hair back, David thought that she may have actually been right for once. He let his eyes roll down his body. They moved over the grey Superman t-shirt which made a poor job of concealing the bulbous mound where once he had boasted of a flat, soft stomach. They continued downwards, along two beefy slabs of flesh dressed in tartan pajama pants, and they rested at the stubby toes on the ends of his bare feet. He needed more than just a haircut, he needed to lose weight, sort himself out and get a grip.

  He could still remember a time in the not-so-distant past when his weight was so typical of the average early-twenties male that nobody, himself included, ever paid any attention to it. He had worn his hair in a tidy, precise cut, just like his father, and in many ways had looked quite unremarkable. He could remember, too, when the natural restraint which had kept him that way had snapped. His stomach had grown fatter, his legs and arms chubbier, his hair longer and his sigh more exasperated, as if the thing that had cursed his family had deprived him of any thoughts as to his own well-being.

  After all, he thought, there were more important things to worry about now, and he drew back the curtains to face them.

  A burst of raw sunlight stabbed at his grey-blue eyes. Looking out over the wreckage outside his window, he drew a forearm to his face like a visor. There, beyond the wide country lane which ran directly past his house towards the nearest town, sat grassy banks and wet marshes all littered with upturned jetcars, the occasional severed human arm or leg, and neglected jet fighters, the aftermath of Earth’s latest losing battle against a returning Temüjin Empire.

  David’s gaze moved further still, across demolished cottages, over more scattered limbs, hands and feet, their loose flesh dancing in the wind like torn paper. He observed guns, lost in battle, and the rare instance of a dead Temüjin warrior lying face-down in a puddle, their once wet, green flesh now dry and cracked and ripped apart, with dark, clotted blood caked across their backs. He observed household goods, gadgets, clothes and limbless teddy bears, all discarded in the rush to escape from the line of fire. David observed the contrast between the silence which now fell over this scene, and the mess of gunfire and confusion that had reigned only a few days before. He felt his heart jump when that silence was disrupted by the cracking of laughter and cheer.

  David rubbed his eyes, yawned again, and blinked at the sight of three young men rambling down the country lane. Two of them held their arms around each other, singing happily. From the way they swayed drunkenly, linked arm-in-arm in support as much as friendship, and from the way their boisterous singing came out as little more than woefully off-key chants, David assumed they were making their way home from the Blackfriars Arms in town. He was about to draw the curtains on them when one staggered forward, almost fell into the ditch which separated the lane from the banks of grass, and was yanked back by his friend. They both laughed, then marched on and resumed their excuse for song.

  A third, gangly young man led the way, kicking about the severed head of a Temüjin warrior as though it were a soccer ball. David recognised him as Michael Mobaus, an old adversary from school. His two companions, Daniel Scott and Paul Beelah, were following behind him now much as they had done back then.

  As it was wont to do when he was tired, David's mind drifted. It took him back to school, where, thanks to his father’s status, he was bullied and respected in equal measure. Dreaming of one day achieving the same status his father had earned, David had studied assiduously, excelling in maths, science and technology.

  His mind played him a mental film of him sitting in a classroom, roaring through the examination papers en route to top marks. Without warning, his thoughts turned on him, kicked him in the chest and forced him to watch a second movie. This one was set four years later; same David, same classroom, different exam. He was struggling with this one, stumbling over questions, drowning in a sea of half-remembered knowledge, sweating, failing.

  David was so lost in this familiar nightmare that he failed to notice Michael Mobaus pressing his bony fingers into the bumps of the severed Temüjin head. Mobaus crouched low and shot up as though to jump, lifting the head above him like he was raising a trophy.

  David could only focus on the movie, watching as it played out in his mind exactly the same way it had done countless times before. It was a sad movie, about a boy who failed the examinations which ensured promotion from the United Earth Force engineering division to fully fledged fighter-pilot-in-training. As it progressed, David saw the thing that he had worked towards for most of his life slip further out of reach with every dismal exam result. He saw the sympathetic faces of his instructors and colleagues, heard them telling him not to worry, that he had done his best and nobody could have expected anything more from him, especially given the circumstances, especially given what had happened to his father, and then - their voices usually became softer at that point - the thing that had happened to his poor, dear mother, too.

  Take a year, David. Take a year or, hey, why not eighteen months? Take the time to get your head together. You’ll get over the shock of it all in that time, and then you can come back and try again and nobody will think any less of you.

  Deep down, David knew they meant well, but in between every kind and sympathetic word, he heard mocking and scorn. He heard 'Ha! Your mother was right! You're not cut out for this! You stick to your video games and leave the real work to those who can handle it.'

  David clenched his fists and cursed his fate. That year had almost passed. Those who had graduated the year earlier would be completing their training by now. They would be ready to follow in the footsteps of the great General Noah Fallon, fighting the good fight and kicking Temüjin ass.

  Outside, Michael Mobaus drew the severed Temüjin head behind him and lobbed it at David's window. David banged his fist on the window sill.

  The severed head of a Temüjin warrior smacked against his window. The dead thing hung in the air, staring at David through yellow eyes with black, oval-shaped slits for pupils. A layer of damp slime slobbered across deep green skin and caused it to stick to the window. The weight of the skull began to prize it away again. A gaping mouth, lined with blunt, triangular teeth, revealed the gash in the back of the creature's throat where the bullet had struck.

  A shiver overwhelmed David. He opened his mouth to scream but the sound became wedged against the lump in his throat. The three boys outside doubled over with laughter. Michael Mobaus sent Daniel Scott into David's garden to retrieve the head. David flipped them the finger, drew the curtains shut and returned to his seat.

  As much as the severed head had given him a fright, it had also reminded him of just how few slain Temüjin he had seen since the start of The New War. Dead humans greatly outnumbered dead Temüjin, adding to David’s conviction that his own efforts as an engineer for the United Earth Force were not enough to help turn the tides of war. Sure, he played his part, building and repairing jet fighters, weapons and computers, but that was little consolation for missing out on front line action, where he knew the real difference was made.

  It was not as if the Earth Force were getting on fine without the extra help. Having been defeated in the optimistically-named Final War, The Temüjin Empire had regrouped and returned. With no General Noah Fallon to stop them this time, the amphibious race were taking over Earth with apparent ease.

  David could still remember leaping for joy when it was announced that the war most had assumed to really be The Final War, the war to end all wars, was over. That was four years ago.

  United Earth Force General Fallon had led his men to a gallant victory in The Battle of Dimion, succeeding where other races had failed in defeating the un
defeatable. For a brief while, Earth had been united by peace, and most said that all the credit went to General Fallon.

  There were only two men whom David held in higher esteem than all the superheroes, mythical warriors and legendary military men immortalised in his books and video games. For leading Earth to victory in The Final War, Noah Fallon was one of them. Without The General's bravery, combat expertise, strength and resilience, David was certain that United Earth would not have prevailed.

  Yet now Fallon was gone. With him out of the way, The Temüjin had been able to catch the UEF off guard, and were busy waging a more successful campaign in The New War.

  David could barely comprehend the idea that The General had not taken a stand against his old adversary. Why had the UEF not demanded Noah Fallon to put his retirement on hold and lead Earth back to victory? Rumours implied that he had passed his skills and knowledge on to a band of would-be successors, but if that were true, those fortunate few had failed to live up to the expectations thrust upon them. This barely surprised David. He thought that the quality which had made his hero such a skilled leader was not something that could be taught. It was an intangible something possessed by Noah Fallon and Noah Fallon alone, something which could not have been ‘passed down’ even if The General had wanted to, and something which now, faced with the very real possibility of succumbing to Temüjin rule, Earth needed more than ever.

  Even if there had been some kind of contractual red-tape preventing the Earth Force from ordering The General out of retirement, why had Noah himself not volunteered? Why had he not insisted on returning to the front and ending The New War the way he had ended The Final War? The Noah Fallon whom David had heard about was a valiant, noble man with a deep, unwavering love for The Planet of United Earth. There had to be a problem. What it was he could not be sure, but there was something about Noah Fallon's absence from The New War that troubled David deeply, especially with time running out for Earth. Total victory for the Temüjin Empire could not have been far away. The last battle had ended some days ago when The Council of the British Order had agreed to surrender the Houses of Parliament. Even still, the occasional gunshot rang out in the dead of night, the echo of a losing battle. It would not be long before the Temüjin reigned completely.

  *

  David shook his head and snapped out of his somber reverie. He sat up, moved wearily across the room and crashed onto the bed. There, he lay flat on his back, looking up at the two large photographs on the far wall. The first bore the strong jawline and piercing blue eyes of General Fallon. The other presented the defined features, deep green eyes and narrow, emotionless smile of the only man David held in greater reverence than Noah Fallon; the late, great United Earth Force Wing Commander, Alan Attreus.

  He looked at this second photograph and thought of his mother. One day, she would come back, he was sure of that. If she did not come home of her own accord and carry on as though nothing had happened, he would find her and, somehow, he would get her the help she needed.

  A thunderous yawn prized his mouth open and tugged on the stomach muscles he kept hidden beneath a roll of flab. His eyes closed. He willed them open and fixed his stare on the picture of Alan Attreus. David felt love in the Wing Commander’s eyes, and swore to himself that the thin, impassive lips in the photograph were smiling at him. Smiling back, his eyes closed and his body drifted towards sleep.

  'Don't worry Dad,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll fix this.’

  III.

  Ignoring the putrid pool of vomit at his feet, Noah hurled himself into an unwelcoming sofa and plucked his favourite bottle of whiskey from its hiding place under the cushion. Fumbling with the cap, barely able to get a steady hold, he regarded the bottle with a sense of mourning.

  The sprawling madness had already swallowed him in her fiery caress following several days and nights at the bar. One more drop and she would spit him out into the path of insanity. Using his teeth as a last chance bottle opener, he knew he had to take that one drop, and that one drop would never really be one drop at all. It would come like a tidal wave, crashing over his gullet and further down, until it filled every part of him. It would come whether he wanted it to or not. The Disease was a cunning and persuasive adversary. She tricked his mind into obsessing over something it knew to be lethal to him. If he tried to resist, she punished him, made his veins shake and his skin crawl until he relented, downing heavy gulps that sent him over the edge into blackout. Drink convinced Noah that they were friends just so that it could impeach his system and set him up for a fall, down into a world ruled by fear, paranoia and physical damage. It was then cunning enough to convince him another drink still was the only way to escape that world and find some semblance of normality.

  It pained him further that he knew of a solution, and had once applied it successfully. With help, he had overcome his drink problem, and had gone on to lead mankind to victory in The Final War, slaying enemies and conquering demons both physical and personal in the process.

  In sobriety, he had been feared by opponents and revered by allies. Honours and accolades had been bestowed upon him, and he had been happy.

  Now, glugging whiskey as though his body would explode without it, he was reviled by most folk he met, had horrors and night terrors thrust upon him, and was, in every possible way, miserable.

  Most of those night terrors were of The Final War, of those under his command being blown to pieces, and of the most harrowing moments of battle, brought back to life, amplified and exaggerated in Super 3D-HD vision, complete with surround sound and a free sweat shower. In his waking hours, he often wondered if the booze felt it had something to prove, filling enough fear and chaos to rival anything the movies of his sleep had to offer. He could always wake up from a night terror. The only way to keep the daytime terrors away that he know of was back on Earth. Without access to the support he needed to keep her at bay, The Disease had taken just one single week, three years ago, to lure him back to her evil embrace.

  Whether or not it was the planet’s fault, Noah cast all of the blame for his relapse upon Asylonia itself. Since the very dawn of its creation, he had found something sinister and ugly about The New World, something utterly bleak that hung in the air and refused to lift.

  As one of the leading figures in the United Earth Force, Noah had been among the first to step foot on the artificial planet during its early days, when it was still being developed as a kind of Earth 2.0, a planet kept in reserve should the Temüjin succeed in occupying Earth, leaving humans with little choice but to flee elsewhere. Back then, Noah despised the pessimism implied by the creation of The New World, as though the United Earth Force doubted their own capabilities. Even when it had been explained to him that having a sound emergency plan implied not pessimism, but good old fashioned common sense, Noah still felt ill at ease on The New World. Man’s own version of Earth lacked the divine spark which gave his home planet her natural beauty. The result was that the whole place felt fake and ugly, like a crudely-built model town, slapped together by a preschooler using nothing but cut-up cereal boxes and ribbons of glue.

  As success for the United Earth Force grew into a certainty, it became apparent that they would not need The New World after all. Left with what Noah often thought of as an expensive monstrosity, Earth had instead handed the planet over to the millions of refugees who had been forced away from their home planets by the countless wars born of the Temüjin Empire's quest for survival. This furthered Noah’s resentment for the planet, not because of anything the refugees themselves had done, but because some pigheaded oaf in the United Earth Force had thought it a good idea to provide them with salvation on a planet which held little regard to their habits, traditions or beliefs. At the time, he had likened it to saving eskimos from a war on Alaska and rehoming them in the middle of Australia.

  Not that the many of the settlers themselves would ever say such a thing. Though some were sore that, given the option between helping them to fight and helping them to flee, the United Earth Force had chosen the latter, most were at least glad that their multiple hearts were still beating, and did their best to keep things that way on their new planet.