Zombie Galaxy- the Outbreak on Caldor Read online

  Once, a thousand years ago, this atmospheric processor had actually been one of the jets which had lowered New Jerusalem to Earth from its then-secret construction site on the dark side of the moon. Donny himself hadn’t been there on that glorious day to witness New Jerusalem’s arrival. He was barely five hundred years old, after all. But he’d talked to a few people who had witnessed it. They still waxed poetic at the memory of the sight of the gargantuan, gleaming new city descending from the sky on pillars of flame. They counted it as one of the greatest events of their lives, just below the Second Coming itself.

  Once the city was on the ground, the jets had been converted to atmospheric processors. After all, the Messiah’s city was 1500 miles tall, and despite the Death Cure which allowed them to live forever, the citizens of New Jerusalem’s heights still needed air to breathe. The atmospheric processors provided that air.

  As Donny hurtled through the clouds that clung to the sides of the city, heading toward the hangar out of which his company operated, he admired the sheer scale of the city. He’d been a maintenance worker assigned to its outer walls for the last three hundred years, and the sight still overwhelmed him. Its sheer wall plunged more than a thousand miles to the ground, a ground which was so distant Donny hadn’t visited it in years. A megascraper, they called this enormous beast of a city. There were dozens of them all across the planet, now, but New Jerusalem had been the first, the template upon which all others were built. But the others paled in size and beauty next to this one, which was the home of Christ the Messiah, the Lamb, Holiest of Holies, He will live forever, and bless His holy name. Only the Son could have conceived and built such a grand city, such a gargantuan megascraper.

  He raced along the sheer wall, riding the hoverstick like one of the pogo sticks he knew kids of the ancient world had used to play with. But no kid of the pre-Second-Coming world ever had a pogo stick like this one! He thrilled to the wind whipping past his face, thumping in his ears like a drum and ruffling his long golden hair. Along the sheer vertical wall to his left, a network of pipes and ventilation hatches whizzed past, a network often broken by large windows through which he caught brief glimpses of his fellow citizens going about their business. Occasionally, he had to swerve up or down, or left or right, to avoid an antennae cluster or a balcony that jutted out from the side of the building.

  He whipped along, hair streaming behind him, jowls quavering in the wind, slobbering like a dog with its head stuck out the window of an aircar.

  And then with the abruptness of a blow to the head, he was jolted sideways, tumbling head over heels, the hoverstick torn away from his stunned hands and feet. A dense cloud of smoke enveloped him in darkness. He was pelted by bits of metal that he was sure must be ripping open his skin, his clothing, creating jagged wounds that would leave scars when his body healed itself moments from now. Scars that he would have to petition the Lord Jesus to remove. And he didn’t want to go before the Lord, not today. He had fornicated yesterday, and had not yet made confession.

  Freefalling, he arced sideways and downward at an ever sharper slope. He dropped below the smoke that had enveloped him, and saw what had happened. The side of New Jerusalem had exploded just behind his recent flight path, and he’d been caught in the blast wave. He was now so far below the site, and falling faster with each second, that he could appreciate the scale of the explosion. It had taken out about twenty stories of the city. A gaping hole of twisted metal girders and broken, spurting water pipes now marred the Lord’s abode.

  For a second he wondered if it had been an accident. But no: even as he stared in horror at the jagged wound in the city’s gut, three more missiles came streaking in from his right, streaming white contrails marking their flight path. The missiles impacted the wall in rapid succession. Explosions fountained outward.

  And then he dropped into a cloud bank and for long moments the city was lost to sight.

  When he emerged from the bottom of the cloud, it was into chaos. The sky swarmed with aerial vehicles engaged in combat. Bolts of laser fire crackled past him. He tried to maneuver himself as he hurtled groundward, twisting and contorting himself in an inevitably vain effort to avoid being caught in crossfire or splattering against one of the combatant ships. This was the type of damage from which even his Death-Cured body would not be able to save him.

  Even amidst the chaos, his stunned mind reeled at the enormity of what was happening: the Lamb’s Peace had been broken! Christ Himself was under attack! Donny had always known that this day would come; it said so in the ancient Bible itself, a prophecy written three thousand years earlier by Saint John. A thousand years of peace under Christ, and then the forces of darkness would once again be allowed to challenge God.

  Everyone had always known the prophecies. But no one really believed them. Christ was King of the Earth! Son of God! His children flourished under His merciful rule. Surely the forces of Satan could not rise again. It was unthinkable.

  Besides, New Jerusalem had already descended, which wasn’t supposed to happen until after Satan’s forces had rallied for their final onslaught. Prophecies didn’t happen out of order! They just didn’t! So everyone assumed it had already happened; the prophecy had already been fulfilled, and the final onslaught had been so weak that it hadn’t even made the daily news. That’s what everyone told themselves, even though Christ himself had always been mute on the subject.

  But apparently today was the day of the prophecy’s fulfillment.

  Even as he twisted to avoid a spurt of blaster fire that sizzled past as he tumbled toward the Earth, a huge ship swooped in from the side like a great black bird and scooped him into a black maw that yawned in its belly. He hit the deck of a hangar bay with a force that knocked the wind from him and possibly damaged a few internal organs. He hit at an angle, and momentum carried him skidding across the slick deck until he hit a support pylon, cracking his skull.

  Darkness swallowed him.

  *****

  He awoke an unknown time later. He was lying on a cold metal gurney in a row of similar gurneys on which lay bodies in various states of physical trauma. They were healing visibly even as he watched. Half-severed limbs were merging back together. Ragged wounds were knitting themselves shut. Caved-in chests and skulls were caving back out as internal organs regenerated and exerted an outward pressure.

  These were all Christians, then, and the Death Cure was kicking in.

  Donny assumed he had been in a similar state and had finally recovered.

  The row in which his gurney sat was but one of hundreds of rows that filled a cavernous room. And the room was insufferably hot. Also, the only light was a fiery red glow that emanated from a door in the distant wall.

  Donny stood. He was completely naked. He padded across the cold stone floor to distant door.

  When he passed through the door, he emerged onto barren plain of grey regolith that stretched for miles in every direction, to a distant ring of encircling mountains. A clear glass dome arced across the sky from rim to rim of the crater. For that’s where he was: a domed crater. And from the fiery yellow orb of the sun looming across half the sky, he knew he was on Mercury, which was the only planet in the solar system that had not been instantly terraformed during the Second Coming. The dome high above must be filtering the sunlight, keeping his eyes from being flash-burned into permanent blindness. This close up, the hellish turmoil on the surface of the sun could be seen with the naked eye. Great solar flares erupted each second to shoot thousands of miles into space. Enormous searing tongues of flame lashed and danced, licking at the cold, black fringes of space. Sparks the size of small moons broke free and whipped away into blackness.

  Some said that Mercury was the entrance to Hell. And indeed this was where Jesus Christ had sent the Beast and the unbelievers a thousand years earlier. Into this very dome, as a matter of fact. For half a mile away, he could see a device hundreds of feet high, consisting of enormous concentric metal rings nested one inside the
other and rotating freely about a common vertical axis.

  Donny recognized the device from childhood history lessons.

  A miniature black hole hung suspended at the center of the spinning metal cage. It was visible only as an absence in the very fabric of the universe, an irresistible attractor swallowing light and the energy of life itself. Donny could feel it pulling at his very soul. Not a gravitational pull, no, for the rest of the universe was shielded from the crushing gravity of the black hole by the rotating rings, which had also served in the hole’s creation.

  Within the infinite space near the event horizon of the hole, billions of unbelievers were cut off from the rest of the universe, suspended in time until the Day of Judgment.

  Donny stood in the doorway, surveying the scene with a mixture of awe and horror.

  All across the plain, all around Donny, great milling throngs were being herded toward the caged black hole. As they converged upon it in impossible numbers, they each were required to pause before a massive white throne, on which sat a man whom Donny could recognize even at this distance: the man of lawlessness from the earlier age. A few words were exchanged which Donny could not hear, and then a long, fat tentacle lashed out from within the metal cage, somehow managing to pass untouched and undamaged through the spinning rings. The tentacle seized whatever person happened to be before the throne, curling around the person’s waist and yanking them back through the rings and into the black hole.

  All this Donny took in within the space of a few seconds after emerging from the cavernous room of gurneys. Then he was seized by a beefy guard whom he had not noticed standing beside the doorway.

  “Good, you’re awake,” the guard said gruffly. “You now have twenty-four hours to dwell upon your ultimate fate. You will go before the throne tomorrow, and choose either fealty to Satan, or eternity in the clutches of the Beast.”

  How typical, thought Donny. Giving the condemned one last chance to repent of their Christianity. Darkness had always propagated itself through an evil copycat version of the truth, to ensnare foolish and uninformed souls.

  Donny, still too weak from his recent recovery to resist, was dragged to a nearby stairwell and down into a stony catacomb beneath the crater. Through a twisting maze of dark tunnels, during which time he passed numerous people being dragged back the way he had come. Finally, a non-descript door in a non-descript tunnel lined with similar doors was yanked open, and he was unceremoniously tossed into a pitch-black room. The door slammed shut.

  In the darkness, Donny felt a comforting hand upon his shoulder. A deep and gravelly voice which he instantly recognized intoned, “Have hope, my friend. This is not the end. Great battles will be fought. Earth will be decimated.”

  The voice of Herman the Prophet! He had never met the Prophet, but had heard thousands of the man’s sermons over the course of hundreds of years.

  Donny was shocked to realize that he was hearing a prophecy from the lips of one the Apostles. He was blessed!

  Herman continued, “But eventually a balance will be achieved, and mankind will spread to the distant stars. An age and ages will pass before the dead are resurrected and Christ returns yet again. You thought these past thousand years were the Age of Light? Phaw! Wait until you see what Jesus Christ, may He rest in peace, has in store for us upon His return. Until now, His light has shone only upon the Earth. In times to come, it shall shine upon the entire galaxy, and then the entire universe shall blaze with His glory!”

  Donny trembled with awe, longing to see that holy future.

  Time passed. There was no one else in the small cell. He and Herman spoke of things Donny had not yet heard, of the complete destruction of New Jerusalem and the capture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Secret knowledge was revealed, and Herman charged Donny with a special destiny. But no further prophecies came from the man’s lips. Donny slept once.

  Then, about twelve hours after Donny had reawakened on the gurney, they came for Herman.

  In the darkness, Donny heard metal scrape against stone as the cell door swung open. Light shone in, blinding Donny. He shut his eyes, blinking against the glare, waiting for them to adjust.

  Herman leaned close, whispering into Donny’s ear, “Remember my words! Remember my prophecy!”

  The sound of footsteps shuffling across the dusty floor.

  Herman’s whisper became urgent, frantic. “Do not change them upon fear of the final death! Do whatever it takes to leave this place and survive to spread my prophecy! I hereby grant you a full pardon for any sins against God that you may commit in doing so.”

  The prophet was yanked up and away from Donny’s side. Donny’s eyes had now adjusted to the dim light shining in through the open door, and he watched as Herman was dragged from the cell. The prophet did not scream or beg for mercy. His eyes merely watched Donny until he was gone from sight, searing Donny with strength and hope for his mission.

  “Where is Jesus?” Donny cried out as the cell door slammed shut, leaving him once more in darkness. “Where is Jesus?”

  Eventually the guards came and escorted Donny back up into the bowel of the crater. He was forced to wait an interminable time in one of a thousand lines streaming at a snail’s pace toward the white throne near the black hole.

  At last he came before the throne, and as the man of lawlessness sitting thereupon regarded him with deeply evil eyes, Donny heeded Herman’s admonition and did what it took to survive. He renounced God and swore to serve the darkness.

  The man of lawlessness smiled, and instructed the guards to provide Donny with safe passage away from Mercury. Donny was cursed by other Christians as he passed them on his way out.

  Just as he was about to enter an elevator at the rim of the crater that was to whisk him up to a waiting spaceship, a hush fell across the low roar of a thousand conversations that had been a constant backdrop. Utter silence spread beneath the dome.

  Donny and his two guards turned and looked back.

  All eyes were upon a lone, slumping figure that was being dragged toward the spinning rings that encaged the black hole. Even brutally beaten and only half-conscious, the distant figure was quite obviously divine. Donny felt wave after wave of love and mercy, of wrath and presence, radiating from the man.

  “Oh, my lord Christ,” Donny whispered, and fell to his knees.

  The two guards flanking him looked at one another, uncertain what to do about Donny’s seeming betrayal of his recent oath.

  Jesus was not brought before the throne. He was simply dragged to the rings and tossed inside the spinning cage. Like the tentacle which Donny had earlier witnessed pulling Christians into the black hole, Christ too passed through the spinning barrier unimpeded.

  The bloody and beaten body of Christ vanished into the shining black nothingness at the center of the cage of spinning rings.

  And at that same instant, the entire planet quaked. The sun flickered and went momentarily black before flaring back to life. The spinning rings stopped spinning and crumpled inward toward the black hole. The device flattened to the floor of the crater, which split open, and a wide crack spread outward, racing around Mercury until the entire planet was nearly split in two. At the same instant, a great explosion of light flashed outward, blinding all those present except for Donny, and which was instantly and for a few brief seconds visible across the entire universe. When the light had faded, a core of molten energy hung suspended in the air where the black hole had been. Then it dropped to the crater floor and melted its way to the core of Mercury.

  Twelve minutes later the planet exploded, just moments after Donny had ejected away into space inside an escape pod from the ship that had been waiting to take him away from Mercury.

  And he went out into a war-torn solar system to spread the prophet’s words of hope. Earth was consumed by nuclear fire, and her solar system was brutalized by the Second Apocalypse War. But eventually a stalemate was achieved. Lola was born from the ashes, and became the new caretaker of Earth in place o
f Jesus Christ, who was pronounced dead.

  Scientists visited the warp in spacetime that now orbited where Mercury once had, and they studied it. Subspace, they learned—a realm of which they had been previously unaware—had been cracked open to its deepest depth by the death of Christ, and then caved in upon itself so that in the beginning only the topmost channel was accessible. Thus humanity learned to manipulate subspace, allowing Man to move to the stars amidst an uneasy peace, riding great starships propelled by hyperdrives which drew their power from subspace.

  And thus began the Galactic Age.

  An age passed, and men, as they always did, forgot the past…

  From the Galactipedia:

  Jesus may refer to:

  1. An inhabitant of pre-Galactic Earth, founder of the Christian religion, believed by followers to be the divine Son of God and the Christ. [Full entry] [see also: Christianity, Holy Bible, Christ, Messiah, Old Earth … ]

  2. An inhabitant of pre-Galactic Earth, follower of the Islamic Mahdi, head of the Final Islamic Caliphate that briefly ruled pre-Galactic Earth. Believed by many Christians to be their prophesied Anti-Christ. [Full entry] [see also: Islam, Isa, Mohammed, Quran, Final Islamic Caliphate, Kaliphate, Mahdi, Anti-Christ …]

  3. An inhabitant of pre-Galactic Earth, leader of the army that overthrew the Final Islamic Caliphate, believed by some to be the Second Coming of the founder of Christianity [see 1]. Distinct from the Islamic Jesus that lived during the same time period. Jesus ruled the first United Earth during the Golden Age, which lasted for a thousand years, until his assassination just prior to the Galactic Age. Believed to be the first recipient of the Death Cure. [Full entry] [see also: Christianity, Anti-Christ, Messiah, Golden Age, United Earth, Galactic Era …]

  Death Cure: One of the Lost Sciences. The Death Cure is an immortality serum that was discovered during the Golden Age. Some believe all knowledge of it was erased in order to stem the massive overcrowding that it engendered on pre-Galactic Earth. Re-discovery of the Death Cure is one of the major lines of research at most Galactic universities. [Full entry] [see also: Golden Age, subspace, FTL travel, Lost Science … ]