Dekker's Dozen #012

Dekker fell and tumbled through the air. He'd dived through the hull breach without a thought for himself, and he'd make the same sacrifice in an instant to give his friends—his family, a better chance at landing the spacecraft.

He tightly gripped the reliquary and fired the double-load. The enflamed magenta beam panned and expanded, writhing with hot, electric energy. The air crackled under the red gaze of the ancient weapon—heat lightning flashed and vaporized the cloud of pursuing gunships.

The force of the blast rocketed the Watchman towards the planet's surface, flinging him towards the ground faster than his terminal velocity warranted. Dekker's duster flapped around him like an impotent parachute as the powerful beam sputtered and subsided.

So this is how it ends! Dekker grinned. Have I cheated destiny? Was Ezekiel wrong? He flipped around and pointed his face to the charred Jerusalem landscape below. It rushed to meet him with slowing speed as terminal velocity gripped him; with the blast force gone, the physics of gravity resumed and slowed him: still dropping him with more than enough force to kill any human.

No. It doesn't end here. Not Yet. Not with Austicon undefeated!

Dead Planet

Inertial compensators failed aboard the Rickshaw Crusader as it screeched toward the planet. The cabin filled with smoke and the passengers felt the g-forces slam them back against their seats.

Matty screamed against the shuddering controls as he desperately tried to guide them to a relatively safe landing. He flipped switches, rerouting power to the VTOL engines and retro-thrusters, desperately trying to break their fall. The rear engines were gone, bleeding smoke and fire, but at the current velocity, survival without casualties didn't look likely. Matty frantically worked the flaps, but most of them had already burned away or broke off.

As the ground rushed up to meet them, Matty turned to look at Vesuvius. "At least they're not shooting at us anymore." He smiled as the ground reached up and kissed the Crusader like a prizefighter's mean uppercut.

Everything shook with such violence that it strained every molecule of the Watchmens' bodies; the crash tore through Matty's crash webbing and ejected him through the front view-shield of the Rickshaw Crusader, flinging him into the unknown faster than an eyeblink and leaving behind only a ragged streak of blood. The damaged ship skidded across the withered landscape, plowing a smoky, superheated furrow in its wake.

Finally slowing and barely remaining intact, the damaged craft jostled to a stop near a broken wall at the edge of the annihilated Jerusalem complex. The ruins of the once great fortress still smoldered.

Blood trickled down Vesuvius' face, pouring from her brow and streaming a line down past her eye. She felt certain she'd broken a rib; her breath came short and painful. Ignoring the pain, she unstrapped and ran into the Crusader's main hold.

Vesuvius found Corgan lying against a bulkhead, gritting his teeth against the pain. His broken fibula pierced through the skin, gruesomely twisted through his calf muscle. It took all his self-control just to breath.

"Medic!" she yelled. "Ahmed! Where are you?"

Corgan pointed to the opposite side of the room. Ahmed lay on his side, with his face swollen. Their medic's head lay turned at an odd angle, contorted with a bulging neck. His spine had obviously fractured when his body dashed against the unyielding steel.

"Status report!" Vesuvius screamed. "Who is still alive?" She ripped Corgan's pants at the knee and tore the fabric into strips. Wadding one piece up she jammed it into his mouth. "Bite down. This is going to hurt—a lot."

Vesuvius grabbed the foot of his broken leg and pulled. Corgan's eyes rolled back in his head as his muffled scream punctuated by sobs. She pulled the bone back inside where it rested against the other broken end and reset.

Corgan's ragged breaths came in painful snorts, like an angry bull, about to charge. "Thanks," he spat out with a wince. "There's no way I'm missing the big show."

While she wrapped his leg with a makeshift splint, Rock crawled down a ladder from the gunnery and bandaged the front and back of his shoulder with a spray-on adhesive bandage. He didn't say anything, but something had obviously punctured his torso.

As if nothing had happened, Rock picked up the heavy chain-gun with his good arm and slung the ammo canister over the other, along with a spare canister for backup. The others slowly crawled from the wreckage in various states of damage.

"Are you all ready for this?" Vesuvius challenged. The agonizing pain of the crash-landing still reverberated through their bones making the passing seconds feel like ages. "Push onward until we get to Austicon. Stick together and don't worry about the fallen—no time for that now. I'll see you all on the other side."

They rattled their guns to the ready, the most appropriate form of salute for this team. "Let's do this!" Juice yelled, ducking under the crumpled shell of the Crusader's armor; the damaged exit ramp couldn't fully open.

Rock lowered his chain-gun and opened fire, providing cover for his teammates as they escaped behind him, darting for the defensible ruins on the far side of the wreckage. The rotating gatling barrels sloughed off the heat and shook between his usually steady hands.

Bullets zipped by and ricocheted off the distant gravel, cutting down mechnar units that as they converged on the broken vessel. Rock sprayed deadly projectiles across the landscape. His last teammate escaped behind him as his hands faltered under the vibrations and his bandages ripped free. A laser blast struck him in the other shoulder, knocking him to his side. He staggered to his feet and whirled a drunken circle; the gunner tried to maintain his balance while firing wounded. His cover fire mowed down another group of cyborgs; he took three more shots to his midsection. Rock howled with rage and pain as he toppled again, maintaining fire until the bitter end.

Behind their valiant friend, the Watchmen skirted the edge of the ship, firing their weapons at the onslaught of mechnar warriors, using the broken terrain for cover. The noise of blaster and firearm reports were deafening. Vesuvius, Shaw, Nathan, Britton, and Juice each hopped over the crumbling wall. Corgan struggled to get over with his broken leg. He'd almost gotten over when he yelped like a kicked dog.

Corgan slumped and went limp; a hole smoldered in his back. His eyes rolled back in his head, this time permanently.

His friends howled with rage. Leaning around their cover, they poured hell and fire into their oncoming enemy even as a dark cloud overtook them.

The darkness rolled in like a sandstorm. Haze and ash blew all around them—the detritus and fallout from the death of Osix. Portions of the shattered moon hailed across the distance, falling through the horizon like massive meteors. Colossal chunks dashed themselves against the crust of the eastern continent, spewing dirt and debris across the planet in the aftermath: ripples of damage and darkness.

In the darkness, they fired blindly, aiming for the source of the blaster fire that targeted them. "Brit!" Vesuvius screamed as the warrior fell over, rocked backwards with a jolt, his neck torn wide by a disruptor beam. She screamed with righteous fury.

A bright light shone behind them, obscured by the blowing haze. It glowed crimson in the center of the Jerusalem crater behind them, shooting vertical like a powerful beacon and flinging lightning off its center like a malfunctioning reactor core.

* * *

Dekker plunged downward, belly to Earth, spreading his arms and legs to create as much resistance as possible. He reached into his satchel and pulled out two more shells from his dwindling ammunition pool.

He loaded the reliquary with the cartridges and aimed the weapon straight down. Praying the idea would work, he locked the chamber and fired straight into the middle of the Jerusalem crater.

The force of the blast slammed into the earth like a perpetual bolt of lightning. Resisting the descent, the reliquary's recoil pushed against the falling Watchman's velocity. He continued the descent, but at a much reduced rate, slowing the plunge.

The ground loomed, rushing up fast; Dekker gritted his teeth and braced himself for impact as he fell into the blast crater that the enormous erubescent beam pounded even deeper yet. Ground to air lightning shot skyward from the surface as he fell and an intense, hot updraft of wind blasted him into an awkward tumble. Dekker's back scraped against the jagged edge of the newly plowed hole, spun him into a roll, and sent him skittering down a deep ravine. He bounced down the jagged, stony gorge and clawed at the craggy stone; the friction tore his hands. Dekker finally seized an outcropping and hung over a ledge, dangling above a crack in the crust opened wide by the power of the reliquary. Below the overhang, a river of magma bubbled, swallowing the broken shale that slid past him.

He ached everywhere; the pain in his body reinforced the fact that he'd miraculously survived. Grabbing the earth with raw hands, he dragged himself up the slag-strewn blast well.

Nearing the top, Dekker braced against the ground and ejected the two emptied shells of his reliquary. He dug his hands into the satchel: three cartridges left. Ramming another two loads into the device, he looked at the last remaining cartridge and identified it by its alpheric character—the Omega load. He sprinted up past the mouth of the hole; he would save the final shell for his nemesis.

* * *

"Do any of you see Austicon?" Vesuvius screamed over the howling noises and rushing billows of haze. "He ought to be zeroing in on us!"

"I don't know about him, but his forces are all around us!" Juice yelled. He popped up and fired a flurry of shots, spotting Leviathan in the crowd. "Wait. I got something! That assassin that attacked us on the Salvation, the one that got away, he must be leading this army!"

"I took him out once before," Vesuvius challenged.

"I got him," Juice said. He grabbed a canister grenade from his belt and stood to hurl the explosive. Juice's entire body erupted with flames; the force of the detonation knocked his limp body backwards in a heap.

Vesuvius peeked over the wall. The psynar assassin knew exactly what to expect, even at that range. He lowered the scope-mounted laser rifle with body language that communicated glee.

"This is nuts!" Nathan shouted. "We've got to come up with a way to kill that thing! And we're running low on ammo."

"You got any ideas?" Shaw queried.

"No."

"Good," Vesuvius stated. "Cuz he'd already know em if you did."

"If only we could even the playing field," Nathan said.

Out of the dust behind them, a figure cloaked dust limped directly towards them. As the smoke cleared, Dekker leveled his flak cannon and dropped a group of flanking mechnar berserkers.

Vesuvius's eyes beamed. She simply nodded to him; hugs had no place on a battlefield.

Dekker collapsed against the crumbling wall and caught his breath. His tattered coat barely concealed the nasty cuts and scrapes he'd sustained. Both his hands had bloody rags wrapped around his palms.

"If we time it right, I've got that equalizer: one last double-loaded shot. I think the blast also emits an electromagnetic pulse."

"You mean we might be able to shut these things down?"

"That depends on how strongly they're shielded—and on how strong the EMP wave is. At the very least, we can kill their energy weapons—those blasters won't be good for anything but clubs," Dekker winked.

Dekker tried to whirl around the edge of the barrier; a flurry of blasts rang off the edge of his cover, sending him back for safety. He tried to pop straight up but met the same result. He went back the first way and the edge of the wall exploded into hot, blasted stone.

"They've got that psy-nar down there," Vesuvius warned. "He's pinning us down."

Dekker bit his lower lip with frustration, and then he furrowed his brow. His stubborn resolve won out and Dekker jumped straight up, but pushed back as Nathan jumped in front of him, taking the burst of laser fire to the chest in Dekker's stead.

"No!" Dekker screamed. He'd never anticipated such a sacrifice—and neither had the psychic. Dekker pulled on the trigger as the cyborg army futilely dove for cover against the titanic, crimson blast.

The colossal energy-wave arced and crackled as Dekker waved the beam back and forth, anticipating the duration of the burst from his previous experiences. He washed it in a wide ellipse, letting its vicious beam sow death and destruction across the enemy. The ground shook and split, cracking the ground like drying mud tiles in the springtime sun; magma boiled up between the shingles. Lightning erupted vertically from the Earth; it crawled across the ragged ground like hungry, electromagnetic snakes. The force of the blast pushed Dekker backwards steadily while he leaned into the deafening discharge. Shaking the Earth, the crater at Jerusalem's center erupted with lava; spewing molten rock skyward it bubbled to the surface. Then, the beam sputtered—and all stopped.

Dekker sank to his knees. The sudden silence was incredible. Even the wind died.

Rolling Nathan over, Dekker's blood boiled. Clearly a fatal shot, another friend had sacrificed himself for Dekker's cause. However worthy their mission, the heavy toll made him see red. "Austicon!" he howled into the silence.

A slow, mocking clap sounded just beyond them in the settling haze. As the smoke settled, the gnarled landscape came into plain view. The blasted warscape glowed with smoldering lines of magmic trickle; the bodies of deactivated and destroyed mechnar units littered the ground.

"Austicon!" Dekker spat again, plainly recognizing his archenemy. "It ends today!"

"I am Prognon Austicon no longer! I've evolved beyond that persona; I am Baal Dione—god of destruction!"

The cackling demon sauntered slowly towards them as the ground rumbled underfoot; the planet felt as if it were coming apart. Clad in a flowing white robe the androgynous Dione gestured to it and asked, "Do you like it? Is this what you expected your god to look like?"

"You are no god!"

"No? Then I shall kill him and take his place!" Dione bent over the body of his fallen psy-nar general and removed the unit's onyx faceplate revealing a surgically twisted and mutilated visage. "Foolish mortals. You cannot kill my beautiful Leviathan. He cannot be permanently switched off by an EMP, no matter how powerful. This cage of flesh houses my brother."

The demon prodded the beast's sutures until the silent Leviathan spastically awoke and stood to his feet. Leviathan drew his blaster pistol on Dekker and ineffectually squeezed the trigger. Tossing the useless device aside, he drew his swords from their scabbards.

"I am quite surprised," Dione continued, "that you've managed this long, Dekker Knight. I hadn't expected a toy powerful enough to disable my shielded units. The newer mechnar units were shielded against that, you know. But I shall quite enjoy one final feast—the blood of Watchmen tastes almost divine, and how long have I prepared for you?"

"You've got it backwards," Dekker called over the wall. "All these years I've been hunting you."

"Well, then that's settled. The onus is on you—the failure is not mine, but yours. All have served my purposes: the arboleans, the Watchmen, the foolish MEA. Today was inevitable. Today I claim my destiny. Today I destroy the great machine and claim my own throne—built upon the rubble of its destruction!"

Shaw poked his head over the wall. "They're just standing there," he whispered to Dekker. "Blast them with the big gun," he urged.

"It's the last cartridge. I've got to be sure," Dekker said. "They'll get closer. They won't leave until we're dead—and dying's just not an option for me."

Dione continued, "Do you know the taste of blood, son of Jude, husband of Aleel? I tasted the blood of your loved ones while you were too impotent to stop me! Just as you were too feeble to prevent the annihilation of the off-world colonies—I've sent my forces to mop up those stragglers you sent to Mars. Can you feel it? Do you taste the despair in your soul? Your precious book was destroyed; I felt it an hour ago: the sudden absence of light." She cackled, trying to draw Dekker out into the open.

"At least your father succeeded in protecting the book. You failed him... his mission. You couldn't even keep a single book from destruction—no wonder you couldn't protect your unborn child!"

Dekker whirled around the edge, drawing the archaic, illegal firearms he always kept strapped at his lower back in reserve. Firing from each hand, Vesuvius and Shaw followed suit. They emptied the last of their ammunition as their bullets trailed after the two enemies.

The demons ran wide, opposite circles around the Jerusalem wreckage, their own blades in hand. Dione leapt across the pile of stone and sliced through thin air—where Dekker had just stood.

Leviathan jumped, flipping over Shaw and Vesuvius. He bent backwards inhumanly, swinging his blade at the Watchmen's vitals. Vesuvius blocked and pursued. Shaw threw his empty weapons aside and drew huge knives from their boot sheaths, each the size of a forearm, and ran to press the attack.

Dekker yanked Solomon's sword from its scabbard and clashed with his enemy. Dione eyed the pommel. "I recognize that weapon—the bane of all my ilk—but even it can't save you. That old technology is long since forgotten; no one alive can wield the Ring of Aandaleeb."

"I only need the sharp, pointy edge," Dekker spat, lunging for the demon.

Dione swatted the attack away. "Yes? And what if you kill me? What then? What of your race, your species?"

"There are others! Humanity has dispersed over these last three hundred years—you can't possibly find us all."

"No? But you forget that I only need to kill you—to silence the last Watchmen." Dione blocked Dekker's blow and kicked him backwards. "Or perhaps you believe you can just restart the human race with her?" Dione glanced at Vesuvius.

The redheaded fury was a flurry of motion; her and the psychic Leviathan traded blows. Leviathan countered and blocked, trading attacks as if the motions had been perfectly rehearsed. Shaw stepped in and out of the fray—his assaults more easily read by the psynar.

Leviathan blocked Vesuvius's overhead strike and batted her aside momentarily. Redirecting, he delivered a roundhouse kick to Shaw's face. Shaw collapsed for a second and Leviathan backed Vesuvius off again with a quick step, trying to fletch her with his blade, and then he whirled and leapt back towards Shaw, plunging his blade through the stunned warrior's sternum before Vesuvius could even react.