Space Pirates!

PROLOGUE




Strange how I find myself here, on this nearly deserted inter-planetary colony. That’s right I said inter-planetary; but don’t delude yourself. Its still 2006. What really happened was that MJ 12 (The Majestic 12 to anyone who knows out there) was keeping these certain cities fitted with huge, powerful rocket engines. This had been going on for about 50 years, around the time the cold war started. Of course the cities weren’t that large, nothing bigger than the size of Rhode Island. There where 5 of these crafts in 10 different countries of the world. You must have seen these towns; you’ve seen “that one town” that doesn’t get any bigger each time your family drives by it going to your yearly resort in the mountains or the beach. They where always far from anything in particular. In the states, the towns where in western Kansas, New Mexico, those sort of areas. Now I don’t know about your world, or your universe, but for this Earth, in this universe, the apocalypse has already happened. You’ll have to forgive me for using the oldest cliché in the book. I suppose it all began two weeks ago…


























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Chapter 1


“This is the pulse. Here is your finger, far from the pulse, stuck up your a-zzzt.” Mallrats. Great movie, in most respects. Kevin Smith’s films always were. I slowly lifted myself out of the couch in my basement. It was 11:00 in the afternoon, and I had been burning the midnight oil, mainly because I was bored. Anyway, I made my way upstairs, wading through countless energy drink cans. I don’t get any buzz of sugar, caffeine, or those –ine words in energy drinks; I find most of it to by psychological. I went to my room any got some different clothes, and went into the shower. I got out and dressed, and went into the kitchen for some coffee. I stared blankly out the window, as I often times do, and was pre occupied by a little red speck flying around playfully. If I was paranoid, then I might think that a sniper was tracking me. But then I remind myself of where I live. It was dreary and cold outside, as October should be, naturally a rare thing for Kansas. Looked like it was going to be “one of those days”. I saw that the red speck had come to a halt on the window. It didn’t really stay on my mind much. Other thing phased in and out, I can’t really name them. The red speck was still on the window. I stared at it, and it seemed to pulsate back at me. I blinked in surprise, and I looked closer and saw that it was uniquely shaped, like a snowflake. This was strange, as we never usually get snow until November, much less of the red variety. Intrigued, I went outside and to the window. I touched the flake, and it smeared on the window. I drew my finger back and smelled the red substance. It was blood. I immediately looked to the sky and saw a particular sight that froze my own blood. There where millions of red specks in the sky. It was snowing blood.


Chapter 2

Looking up to the sky, I was out of breath suddenly; lost for words. I traced one flake on its decent and watched it disappear as it landed on my forehead. Suddenly everything changed. Everything was some shade of blood red, and it seemed like thousands of nuclear bombs had been detonated. The sky was red, the trees where either charred black or nonexistent. I looked back to my house and saw…nothing. Only the foundation was left. Then I realized that the world had ended, and I had gotten unstuck from time somehow. I searched the ruins of my home for a weapon. I dug through where the guest room was and found an old combat knife. It was old, but still shiny. Always good to have something cold and steel in a post apocalyptic wasteland. I walked down my old street looking for some sign of life. There was none. I had gone about a mile east. East, I figured would be where Washington D.C. would still be. I was unconscious to the fact that I was hundreds of miles away, so don’t point that out. Anyway, I was walking and saw someone or something walking hunched over, as if in pain. I called out to the thing and it quickly turned its head and stared at me. But not with eyes; there where no eyes. The Thing let out a high pitched and inhuman scream and started sprinting toward me with surprising speed and agility, and before I could brandish my knife, I was on my back. I might have heard a click, but I’m still not sure. Just before the Thing took a bite out of my jugular vein, a high powered gas-propelled sniper bullet sailed through the being’s head. Before I could say anything else to the sniper who saved me, I felt a bullet penetrate my own flesh. Just before I blacked out I heard the sniper scream something obscene, and I saw the bullet lying beside my arm.

When I woke up hours later, I was on a rooftop with a man hunched over a box. Not trusting myself to speak in case it was another one of those horrible beings that nearly killed me, I tried to get up soundlessly. But as karma would have it, a shingle slipped off the rooftop. The man got up quickly, cocking an 8 mm. pistol at my head. When he saw that I was a normal human, he lowered the gun. “Oh, it’s only you, kid.” He said. “What the hell I going on?!” I replied. “The world is over, that’s what.” “How?” I asked. “Same thing we always feared. Some kid came to power, and eventually nukes where launched. Some say he was the Antichrist, but it doesn’t matter. The lucky ones escaped, but the rest of us are stuck here in this cesspool. Another one!” he said suddenly. He picked up a rifle and shot one of those things. “What are those? People?” I asked. “They where, once.” I looked up to the sky and saw that it was snowing again. Another snowflake landed on my head, and my blood froze. With that I promptly disappeared out that time and space. I guess snow doesn’t like me very much.

Chapter 3

I woke up lying flat on my back staring at a blurry something-or-rather. In surprise, I rolled away, thinking it was another one of those once-people that nearly killed me. I saw that is was only Bree and Copper staring at me. I looked up to the grey sky and saw that everything was normal. No more red snow. I hope. Was all of that a dream? Or, rather, could it have been so? I looked at my left arm and saw a bandage there. Then it wasn’t a dream. Unless I went out and bought a .50 caliber high-precision rifle and somehow shot myself with it in a REALLY stupid dream. No. not that.

Chapter 4

Jhonas walked awkwardly down the ally, his vision blurred by rain and gloom. He was carrying an abnormally large pack on his back, sustaining a load it was never meant to handle. In his right arm where several blueprints and maps, and his other arm fumbled in his pocket to find his apartment keys. After an amazing feat of drunken acrobatics, he got the door to his complex open. He stumbled up the stairway to his room and somehow magicianed his way in. His apartment was big enough for a large middle space, a kitchen, and a bedroom/bathroom. He had the kitchen wall torn down to make more space, and he never spent any time in his bedroom, where he had a lovely view of the brick wall of the opposite building. The main room, however, was a delta hub for state-of-the-art technology and contraband software. He had a new liquid-cooling system installed around the borders of the room and in his desk, where he had seven alien-ware servers running constantly. At his futon, a good 2 feet from his servers, sat an apple Macintosh. In a re-enforced glass case above his bed, hung his most prized possession: a converted DVD of Pulp Fiction, signed by Quentin Terrentino. Jhonas hobbled over to the futon and dropped hid pack and maps on the couch. He then stood up straight, hearing his back crack a good 12 times. He then emptied the pack and inside was: about 70 cans of surge. The heavy bag was always worth the trouble for contraband snacks. He had just returned from a business transaction with a black market dealer. The drinks where of no real worry, but the blueprints where above top secret copies of a conspiracy dealing with MJ 12 and the cold war. He unrolled the prints onto an enormous flat-bed scanner and opened a fresh can of surge. This was to be a very long night.

Chapter 5



I sat in science class, bored and done with everything, as what usually happens in that class. One of the only good things about the No Child Left Behind program, is that it made teacher focus on one area far longer then what they would have if the thing didn’t exist. The good thing about this is that when the students where already done with their stuff, they had huge amounts of free time during class. During said free time I was busy staring intently at a particular speck on an unknown ceiling tile. With the events of the previous week still fresh in my mind, I reasoned that the end of the world had not yet happened, but judging by what that sniper on the rooftop said to me, it was coming nearer. Just then the teacher called attention to the class. Naturally, nobody listened, until she threw a meter stick against the wall, which got everybody quiet. “This is Giovanni Franccestico, a foreign exchange student from Sicily” “Hello, wonderful Americans” he said in perfect English, with no accent at all, which I found quite strange. “It is truly great to be here, and you may call me Frank, I hate Giovanni.” “Very well, Frank, you can sit in the back there, next to Kenny.” The teacher replied. “He sits right…” but Frank wasn’t listening, but instead scanning the class, trying to make eye contact with everyone, trying to find this Kenny person. Kenny sat a chair away from me, which I enjoyed the distance, because was one of those people that disproves the theory of evolution, prevent the country from winning the war, and generally smell funny. Eventually his eyes rested where I was, and for a split second, they where largish and oblong, like cats eyes, flaring red and piercing. Almost demonic, or alien. He then sat in the chair next to me and Kenny. “What is your name friend?” he asked. “Will” I lied. “Could I ask you a question frank?” “Well you obviously can, but that aside, of course.” He replied. “You are from Sicily, but you seem to speak with a perfect English accent, with no hint of Italian at all. Why is that?” “Suck up.” I heard Kenny say under his breath. Whirling around, I said “You know Kenny; I would think that by this time of the year, you would have learned to stop talking to me. You see, the same thing always happens, you say something stupid, I counter with a smart remark and call you by a girl’s name, and then we enter a heated debate on how you are somehow seamlessly able to switch between female and male gentelia.” I turned around to Frank, but he was already gone, then I realized that the bell had rung, and he had soundlessly exited the room. Extraordinary. A little too extraordinary, given those demonic eyes he used to somehow possibly lull the class into a sense to calming. This Giovanni character would be something to watch. Something to watch intently, given the circumstances, this Frank could very well be the Antichrist.

Chapter 6

Jhonas’ fingers sailed rapidly across his keyboard. He was posting his interpretations of the MJ12 map scans on a military resistance site, ShadowDowners.net, a small, but powerful organization that fought against the behind-the-scenes military and government operations. Perhaps some history of the Shadow Downers would be useful here. Jhonas was one of the founding members of the Shadow Downers, acting as their lead technical advisor and researcher. If it weren’t for Jhonas, MJ12 would have uncovered the truths and the top-secret, but state-of-the-art organization he was helping run. They had a good friend in the Armory division of the government, who supplied them with the latest technology, weaponry, and munitions. He would ship crates of ammo, weapons, and the like to the Shadow Downers headquarters in Oregon; and the “lost” goods would be written off as malfunctions that where being destroyed. Also, the organization was being funded by the government itself, with a leeching bug that Jhonas had written and installed on the government tax computers. The bug would siphon off small amounts of money, and wire them to a Swiss bank vault, where it could be deposited for anything the Shadow Downers needed it for. Also, the organization’s (sorry, I must be misleading you. The Shadow Downers only consist of about six people; I believe that “team” would be a better way to describe them) other key member, Lennon Adamson, came from an extremely rich and providential family on the east coast. When his parents where assassinated by MJ12 agents, he was left their entire fortune and estate, the likes of which where now a training ground for new Shadow Downer recruits. The trouble was, many recruits didn’t make it to their fist mission, since they where tracked down and killed by MJ12. This usually happened because they got sloppy and had large parties after graduating from training. Because of this, the Shadow Downers consisted of only Jhonas, Lennon, and a few assorted agents. The grand total came to: a whopping six people, excluding outside sources. Jhonas had recently finished posting his findings, and decided to search the message board to see who was online now. The usual people: Lennon, although he was probably in the shooting range right now, Miranda, his training protégé, and a certain Will, whom he had never seen before. He immediately paged Lennon in the shooting range. “Lenny, did you bring a new recruit back from Rhode Island named Will?” “Never heard of him Jhonas. You should have a nice little chat with him. He might just be a spy.” Lennon replied. “Right-o” Jhonas paged back.
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Jhonas: who are you, and how the hell did you get here?

Will: my name is will, and I got here by link from a supernatural site. I was reading through that “Red Snowflake Conspiracy” your publishing.

Jhonas: why where you reading that? It’s mostly bullshit from what my sources tell me.

Will: I can safely tell you that it is defiantly not bullshit, seeing as it happened to me a while ago.

Jhonas: shit, really?

Will: yes, and I didn’t like what I saw, the planet had gone to hell, and there where mutants roaming about. I was actually attacked by one.

Jhonas: you’re lucky to still be ali—wait, how do I know you’re not a spy?

Will: if I was a spy, I certainly wouldn’t tell you, and I would be shutting this site down instead of posting on it. How stupid do you think I am?

Jhonas: good point, sorry about that. Listen, if you can make it up here to our headquarters, we could sure use people like you.

Will: I don’t think that’s, possible, your way up in Oregon, and I’m here in Midwest Kansas.

Jhonas: don’t worry much about it; we have reason to believe that all hell is about to break loose in a few days.

Will: a few days?! You mean to tell me the world is going to end in a few days?

Jhonas: no, the battle for the end of the world is going to start in a few days.

Jhonas: sorry to tell you, but there was really no way to stop it in the first place. We’re trying to track the antichrist that could set this all off, but we haven’t found anyone yet.

Will: I might know who. His name’s Giovanni Franccestico and he just transferred to my school. There’s something about him I don’t like.

Jhonas: seriously, kid, this is really important information. Where do you live and what is your family’s surname?

Will: Saldorea, Kansas and its Wetzel.

Jhonas: shit, really? You’re just full of surprises kid. Your family had been funding us a long time.

Jhonas: they probably have a pretty nice armory somewhere in the house, if there’s a blank space anywhere, that’s where it is.

Will: I can’t believe this has been kept from me.

Jhonas: they would have had to tell you sometime kid, really it’s your own fault you found out, but it was just in time. We’ll send you a headset so when all hell breaks loose, we can keep in touch. Whatever you do, do not use it until we activate it. I’ll send you a text message when you need to turn it on, ‘till then, don’t touch it.

Will: when will that be?

Will: hello?

Messages could not be sent to or received from Jhonas. This conversation has been terminated

Will: damn

Messages could not be sent to or received from Jhonas. This conversation has been terminated

* * *


“Lenny” Jhonas paged. “What is it this time Jhonas?” Lennon replied. “Did you catch our little spy?” “Not really, but you had better get up here now, your going to flip when you read this” “Well, paint me intrigued pip, I’m on my way”