Jack Blank and the End of Infinity (3 page)

“Jack, stop this. My father isn’t going to let you go.
Don’t try to be a hero. . . . You’re going to get us both killed.”

The voice put a layer of frost on Jack’s spine. It was Khalix, son
of the Magus and heir to the Rüstov empire, talking. Khalix was the alien parasite
who had infected Jack years ago, when he was just a baby. He was the dark reflection
Jack saw in the mirror whenever he thought about his future as Revile, the unstoppable
killing machine of the Rüstov.

“Hey, kid,” Roka said, placing a hand on Jack’s
shoulder. “You okay?”

Jack cleared his throat and shook his head, working to
power through the pain and shut Khalix out of his mind. “I’m fine,” he
said, brushing Roka’s hand away. “I’ve got this.”

Jack reached a hand out toward the Rüstov troops that were coming his
way. So much of their bodies were made up of machinery. Everything from the
microprocessors in their brains to the metal hinges in their knees was his to control.
Or so he thought. He tried to lock up the Para-Soldiers’ joints and jam their
weapons, but nothing happened. Jack looked at his hand as if it were a gun that had just
misfired. “Something’s wrong.”

“You think?” Roka grabbed Jack and pulled him behind a meteor
as the Rüstov opened fire. A salvo of laser blasts pounded against the other side
of the rock. “Don’t move!” Roka yelled as he reached over the top and
returned fire without looking where he was shooting. He didn’t hit anything, but
the kickback from his blasts helped push the meteor away from the Para-Soldiers. Jack
leaned around the side and reached his hand out toward the Rüstov attackers. Again,
his powers failed him.

“I don’t understand. Nothing’s happening!” He was
still trying to use his powers against the Rüstov when Roka
pulled him out of the line of fire for the second time.

“I said stay down!”

This time Jack did as he was told. He leaned back against the meteor,
pulling his arms and legs in close as laser blasts raced past him on all sides. It
didn’t make any sense . . . his powers worked on the space suit. They
should
have worked on the Rüstov. What was going on?

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve grown a lot stronger
over the last year,” Khalix taunted Jack. “You still have your powers, but I
won’t stand by and let you use them against my people. We control you, not the
other way around. Don’t ever forget that.”

Jack scowled. “Uh-uh, my powers keep
you
in check. That’s the way it’s always be—” Jack stopped short,
realizing what Khalix had just told him. “Wait a minute . . . a year?! What do you
mean, a year?”

Roka scrunched up his face. “Who you talking to, kid?”

Khalix’s cackling laughter rang in Jack’s ears. His stomach
tied itself into a knot and he looked up at Roka with frightened eyes.

A Rüstov laser blast just missed Roka’s head, and he
ducked back down behind the meteor. “We can’t stay here
much longer. We gotta move.” Roka looked around at the meteor field and then
tapped Jack’s shoulder. “There. Follow me.” He pushed hard off the
meteor with his feet and sailed out toward larger rocks in the distance. Jack burned a
few seconds trying to decide if Khalix was lying or not before he finally took off after
Roka. He kicked himself for wasting even that much time. Every second counted. He
couldn’t let Khalix’s verbal jabs psyche him out. That was just what the
Rüstov prince wanted. At least, Jack hoped that’s all there was to it.

Once Jack got going, the asteroids provided excellent cover as he and Roka
hopped from stone to stone. Jack got a handle on using his space suit and moved through
the field easily, even with the Rüstov space-troopers trailing close behind. The
real challenge was staying focused. Jack wanted to believe Khalix was just messing with
his head, but he couldn’t be sure. He tried to remember yesterday or the day
before. Nothing came to mind. He thought about the week before that, or the month even.
There was nothing there. No memories. Jack had no idea how long he’d been the
Rüstov’s prisoner or what they had
done to him during
that time. Only one thing was certain. Rüstov technology was off-limits for him.
Khalix was telling the truth about that. Jack was completely surrounded by Rüstov
machinery, and he couldn’t “feel” any of it. Giant dreadnought
warships filled the sky, blocking out the stars. The massive, cone-shaped battleships
were rife with exposed wiring, cable, and tubing that wove its way through every inch of
their exteriors. Sharp, spiky antennae jutted out at odd angles all along the hull of
each ship, but Jack couldn’t make contact with any of them. Bursts of static
drowned out any connection he tried to make. His powers couldn’t touch the
Rüstov fleet.

What Jack’s powers could touch and feel were the small metal disks
that Roka had left behind on key meteors as he made his way through the field. They
snapped onto the surface of each rock, magnetically attracted to the minerals inside.
Jack scanned the disks as Roka laid them down and saw that his newfound friend was
setting a deadly trap for the Rüstov. Jack and Roka reached the other side of the
meteor field and took cover behind a giant rock fragment as the Rüstov steadily
advanced.

“End of the line,” Roka said as the Para-Soldiers came
in, guns blazing. Jack took aim at the Rüstov, but Roka pushed
his hand down. “Let ’em come,” he told Jack, holding up a remote
control. “I got a little surprise for them.” Just as he was about to push
the button, a Rüstov laser blast shot the remote out of his hand. Roka stared at
his empty hand in silent disbelief. “Okay, that’s a problem.”

“Don’t worry. This one I really do have.” Jack held out
his hand and activated the electro-disks Roka had planted on the meteors. A net of blue
lightning bolts cast itself through the meteor field, catching the entire company of
Para-Soldiers in its lines and frying them. The mummified husks of their hosts’
infected bodies shook violently, and their cybernetic scrap-metal components blew apart
from the electric current. When the bolts finally blinked out, they left behind scores
of lifeless Rüstov bodies drifting off into space.

Roka raised an eyebrow. “Good with machines, huh?”

Jack shook his head. “Not as good as I used to be.”

A pair of Shardwing starfighters angled on Jack and Roka. Rüstov
voices crackled into the open frequencies on their helmet radios. “Halt in the
name of the Magus,” the voice ordered. “Surrender or be
destroyed.”

“I hope there’s more to your escape plan
than this,” Jack said, putting his hands up.

“Relax, kid. I do this for a living.”

A flash of light ignited behind Jack, and two large plasma blasts tore
through space. The Shardwings exploded, and the resulting force sent Jack and Roka
flying backward. Jack used his suit’s thrusters to stabilize his position and
looked up as a new ship appeared on his internal radar. He used his powers to quickly
scan the ship’s logs and found out it was Roka’s ship, the
Harbinger
. Jack breathed a sigh of relief as it swooped in above
him and dropped its cloak. The
Harbinger
was a sleek, mid-size
warship with a long fuselage and sharp, curved wings that made it look like a bird of
prey.

“Nice ship,” Jack said. “Is it fast?”

“Is it fast?” Roka repeated. “What kind of question is
that?” Jack used his powers to look through the
Harbinger
’s systems, taking note of the ship’s powerful twin
warp engines. He gave Roka an impressed nod. A cargo bay door opened up on the
ship’s belly. “Let’s go, kid, we’re not out of the woods
yet.”

Jack followed Roka inside the ship, where Roka
immediately sealed the doors, pulled off his helmet, and shouted into the intercom,
“Outer bay doors are locked, let’s move!”

“Moving,” a voice called back as the ship surged into gear.
Roka grabbed hold of the cargo bay netting to keep himself standing upright as the ship
rocketed away. Jack was knocked clean off his feet, but even if the
Harbinger
’s sudden takeoff hadn’t sent him reeling, the voice on
the intercom would have done it all by itself.

“Is that who I think it is?” he asked Roka, getting back up on
his feet.

Roka didn’t answer. He was already running through the ship,
presumably headed for the bridge. Jack took off after him. The ship tilted from side to
side as they ran, taking hard turns and extreme nosedives.

“What’s going on?” Jack shouted.

“They’re not letting you go without a fight,” Roka said
as more Shardwing fighters were scrambling to chase them down. Jack got a good look at
them through the ship’s windows as he ran. Waves of Rüstov starfighters flew
after them in attack formations. Their sharp, irregular shapes made them look like metal
splinters that had broken off
the larger dreadnought gunships, and
they swirled around the
Harbinger
like a swarm of killer bees.
“We’re in it now, kid,” Roka said as he opened up the door to the
ship’s cockpit. Jack barely heard him. His attention had been completely hijacked
by the sight of the ship’s pilot:

“Jazen!” Jack yelled, his earlier suspicions confirmed. He ran
ahead of Roka. Sure enough, Jazen Knight was at the ship’s helm.

“Jack!” Jazen yelled back.

Roka ran in after Jack, motioning for Jazen to let him at the controls.
“Up,” he ordered, sliding into the chair to trade places with Jazen, who
happily sprang out of the seat to wrap his arms around Jack.

“Thank goodness you’re safe,” Jazen said, clutching him
tight. “I can’t believe he got you out!”

“I can’t believe
you’re
here!” Jack replied. “How did you even know where to find me?”

“What are you talking about? We’ve been getting your SOS
signals for a month now.”

Jack furrowed his brow. “SOS signals? What?”

“You didn’t think we’d just leave you out here, did
you?” Jazen let go of Jack and took a good look at him,
smiling from ear to ear. He tried not to let it show, but Jack noticed a widening
of his android friend’s eyes when he saw the Rüstov mark on Jack’s
face. Jack looked down at his shoes, and Jazen leaned over to catch Jack’s eyes.
“Hey. It’s gonna be okay, Jack. We’re gonna get you out of here.
We’ll deal with the rest later.”

Jack ran a hand through his hair and let it drop. “I don’t
know, Jazen, I—”

“Jack!” a voice called out from overhead.

“Allegra!” Jack shouted. His face lit up as he turned to look
at her. She was busy manning one of the
Harbinger
’s
guns. The young Valorian girl craned her liquid metal neck around the firing controls to
smile down at Jack. Her eyes bugged out at the sight of the scar on his eye, and
Jack’s smile evaporated.

“No time for hugs and happy reunions!” Roka shouted. “We
still have to fight our way out of here. There’s two more guns that need gunners,
and a lot more unfriendlies out there.” Roka pulled the ship into a spiral dive,
flying through the asteroid belt with the Shardwings hot on his tail. “Jack, you
think you can fire a plasma cannon as well as you work a space suit and rig electric
webs?”

Jack nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“These two tell me that’s pretty good. Get going.”

Jack ran to the gun turret on the starboard side of the ship and climbed
in. Jazen took the cannon on the port side, and Roka took evasive action as the
Harbinger
’s crew all did their best to outrun and outfight
the Rüstov.

Jack went to work blasting away at the enemy fighters. Just like outside
with the space suit’s wrist cannon, his powers worked fine with the
Harbinger
’s weapons. He’d never used a gun like this
before, but after a quick “conversation” with the targeting system and
firing controls, he became an instant expert. Jack sat in the gyroscope chair, spinning
around at target after target, scoring direct hits. He fired relentlessly and took out
every Shardwing that came anywhere near his range.

“Looking good, kid!” Roka shouted across the ship.
“I’m starting to see what the Rüstov wanted with you.”

Jack grunted. He doubted Roka had any idea. It felt so good to be using
his powers to fight back again. It made him feel a little bit more normal. More like
himself. Of course, that door swung both ways. It bothered Jack that he couldn’t
use his powers against the Rüstov. That made
him feel much less
like himself, and he worried about what that might mean.

Jack held on tight as the ship rolled to the left, dodging a volley of
Rüstov missiles. “Hey, Jack!” Jazen called out. “How ’bout
you tell these Rüstov fighters to lay off, so we can get out of here?”

Jack felt a sharp pain in his head and heard the voice of the Rüstov
prince. “Yes, Jack, tell them. Better yet, tell your friend over there that
you’d blow all these fighters up with a single thought if you could . . . but you
can’t. I won’t let you.”

Jack shivered as Khalix snickered at him. He’d never get used to
hearing that voice in his head. It shook him every time he heard it. Khalix had always
been there, but now he had a real voice. A strong voice with an unbearable personality.
Jack felt violated. It was like he had an intruder in his brain eavesdropping on every
word he said.

“Jack, what’s wrong?” Jazen asked.

Jack shook his head. “I’ll tell you later.” A nearby
explosion rocked the ship. “If there
is
a later,”
he added under his breath.

“Jack, can’t you just take these guys out
with your powers?” Allegra asked.

“I wish,” Jack told Allegra. “Gotta do this the
old-fashioned way.” Jack spun his chair around to blast five Shardwings in
succession.

“I can live with that,” Roka said, clearly pleased with
Jack’s deadly accuracy. “Glad you’re on our side, kid.”

Jack smirked. Again, Roka couldn’t have realized how funny that
statement was. If they ever got back home, the subject of which side Jack was on was
sure to be a hotly debated topic. The Rüstov had been trying to turn him into their
ultimate weapon ever since they kidnapped him. As Jack was thinking about that, he
remembered he had no idea how long ago that really was. He thought about what Khalix had
told him. He couldn’t have been gone that long . . .