Deadline
By Cheezey
Chapter One: Lightning Crashes
Upon the bleak surface of planet Doom around the royal fortress of the same name a fierce evening thunderstorm ravaged the landscape. That was not unusual on that world, for its harsh and humid climate precipitated such storms almost daily in some regions. That night however the storm was a little more violent than average, and while it gave the denizens of Castle Doom no cause for alarm—the old fortress had weathered far worse—it was not exactly the sort of night one would choose to be out and about. That was why Commander Cossack was holed up in the witch Haggar’s laboratory instead of out and about as he had originally planned to be that evening.
At the time Haggar was the most interesting company available in Castle Doom being that Prince Lotor was spending “quality time” with his harem girls and King Zarkon had left explicit orders with the robots guarding the throne room that he was to be disturbed only in the case of an emergency. Cossack did not really mind hanging out with the old witch; she was not the most personable individual on Doom but she was all right, plus she was in the midst of working on a rather promising robeast. He did not truly appreciate or understand what she considered the finer scientific points of robeast creation, but he did enjoy watching a “real ass-kicking monster,” as he phrased it, get made. If nothing else, Cossack was a good gauge of whether it would be a fierce foe or a face-palming flop so she tolerated him babbling at her while she worked for that reason alone.
A surge of blue energy not all that dissimilar to the lightning crashing all around outside traversed the robeast’s body inside the bio chamber, and she frowned as she glanced at the latest readings on the console. “How’s it going over there? Hey, is it waking up?” Cossack asked from where he leaned against a space of wall between her cabinets and shelves, just underneath a large torch in the shape of a fierce horned skull. He looked over at the bio chamber, its flashes of light distracting him temporarily from what he had been doing before, which was examining the weird things on the black iron shelves to his left. He had not been able to identify most of them and at least half of them he was pretty sure he was glad he could not.
“No,” Haggar replied irritably. “I told you before, it won’t be ready for a while yet.”
“You said that half an hour ago,” he retorted defensively. “That could be ‘a while.’”
“I wasn’t aware that I had to give you an exact time quote,” she snapped back sarcastically while Coba rubbed up against her legs. “You know, if you’re bored, you’re more than welcome to leave.”
Cossack smiled and shook his head. “Nah. The way it’s coming down, I’d be soaked through by the time I ran across the courtyard. I don’t feel like squishing up to my quarters in soggy boots and wet pants,” he said, and glanced out one of the few windows, a large circular portal up near the ceiling on the north wall. He tapped his helmet. “Besides, this thing’s its own lightning rod.”
“Gods forbid some sense gets shocked into you,” Haggar muttered under her breath.
“Ha-ha.” He made a face indicative of how seriously he took her grousing and took a few strides over to the closet on the south wall. “So you’ve got everything from frog toes to spider fur on your shelves, what does an old witch keep in her closet? Extra brooms and a few shrunken heads? Robeast socks?”
Haggar was about to respond when the generated lights flickered and dimmed for a moment, and the hum of her bio chamber lapsed into silence before a backup kicked in. Further annoyed, she muttered under her breath, “We’ve got some of the best technology in the galaxy and we can’t even keep the lights on.” She smacked a warty hand on the console. “I’m going to have to redo that whole set of calibrations because of that surge.”
There was another loud crash of thunder and the lights flickered again, although not as intensely as before. “Did you ever consider not doing this sensitive kind of stuff in the middle of a thunderstorm?” Cossack queried, only half joking, as he did wonder if she actually had not thought of that. The old witch was a genius, but she was still flaky.
She turned toward him, her yellow eyes narrowed with aggravation and impatience that was directed less at him than at the general situation, although his babble was wearing heavily on her patience. “I’m on a deadline, Cossack. Zarkon wants a new robeast to test in the arena tomorrow afternoon and it’s not going to build itself. Oh sure, I could whip up a run-of-the-mill roarer in an hour or two, but I’d like to give him something he could use against Voltron which means I need to put a little more time in. Besides, despite their inconveniences,” she glared at the console as she punched in the sequence to run the failed calibration again, “thunderstorms do pose a slight advantage in a purely robotic base with no organic component.”
“What’s that?” Cossack asked, distracted from her techno-babble by the shiny metal closet door handle and the burning curiosity as to what freakish things the eccentric old witch really did keep in her closet. Coba was also curious and left his mistress’ side to join the commander’s and investigate.
Noticing his position she warned, “If you break anything I need in there, I’m going to take it out of your hide if it doesn’t kill you first.” Haggar was not especially offended considering she did not keep anything of highly personal value in her lab aside from spell books and she liked Cossack well enough to tolerate his nosiness, but she also knew that he had about as much intuition about magical artifacts and their properties as a wet sponge.
“And to answer your question, thunderstorms charge the atmosphere in unique ways and create tiny rifts between this plane and others that last only tiny fractions of a second. Through those, with the proper impulse timed with the lightning discharges, I can use those rifts to pull energies from the ethers of this realm and the others beyond it, catalyze them into a harnessable form, and bind them to a robeast shell to give it sentience,” she explained. “It’s a way to give the robeast an awareness without using a living being to create one since I don’t always have a cooperative beast, slave, or volunteer on hand. Besides, fragments of spirit energy are less likely to develop a personality and will of their own. I want it to think well enough to anticipate an opponent’s move, not well enough to get thoughts of rebellion.”
“Bet that’s a good way to get a few pissed off ghosts in your rafters if you screw it up,” Cossack surmised as he poked his head in the closet. He was not overly spiritual and hardly psychic, but he had seen enough of the supernatural over the years, between spending so much time in Castle Doom—reputed to house hundreds, if not more, restless souls on its grounds—and working with Haggar to accept their existence without question. As he peered inside the closet he was surprised to learn that it was a large walk-in containing many shelves and racks. His curiosity further aroused, he switched on the light and walked in while Coba hopped up onto the one of the shelves and padded along the edge beside him. “Wow, you’re a regular pack rat!” He picked up a folded piece of cloth that when he held it up was revealed to be a sturdy linen tunic of expensive material. “What’s this for, secret witch toga parties?”
Letting out a grumble, Haggar turned away from her once-more running smoothly bio chamber and saw Cossack holding the garment up in front of him with a dopey grin on his face while Coba leapt off the shelf behind him and slunk into the back of the closet. “It’s Prince Avok’s,” she informed him humorlessly. “When I transformed him, he asked me to keep his things aside for him so that when I changed him back he would have something that fit. His sword’s probably still in there too.”
Cossack snickered. “How long ago was that now that he got his ass kicked on Pollux and the old slice and dice from Voltron? Think it’s time to do some spring cleaning? Did you save his underwear and socks too?” He wrinkled his nose. “Maybe that’d explain the funny smell in here.”
As if on cue, Coba emerged from the shadows with a large dead and partly decayed rodent in his mouth. “Actually I think that would explain it.”
“Eeew,” Cossack said with a wince, just as Coba dropped it at his feet. “Give it to her. I don’t want it.” He kicked it aside. Coba meowed indignantly, incensed that his generosity had been rebuffed, and wandered back over to Haggar’s side. The commander meanwhile continued to entertain himself by rummaging through the closet.
“Wow, you really do keep shrunken heads in here!” he exclaimed, and held up a dried up miniature male head that appeared to have once been of Doomite, or possibly another Drule-blooded people, origin. “Who is this? An ex?”
“The last fool who thought he knew what he was doing when he started manhandling my things.”
To her chagrin Cossack was not deterred or insulted by the remark. “Ah, I bet he just shot you down for a hot date. Poor sap,” he said, and replaced the head on the shelf upon which he found it.
Haggar surveyed the readout on the console with optimism as she responded. “Fear not, me asking you out is something you’ll never have to worry about.”
“Thank the gods!” Cossack exclaimed melodramatically as something on a shelf a little further back caught his eye—a flash of shiny red metal. “Hey, what’s…?” His voice trailed off as he pushed a couple of boxes aside to reveal a piece of metal armor with a red, gold, and black pattern that he recognized instantly. “You have Yurak’s chest plate in here?” he said incredulously, and pulled it out, only to see the former commander’s gauntlet, boots, weapons belt, and cape neatly folded and tucked behind it. He began picking through it to examine it under the light. “You really don’t clean very often, do you? What am I going to find next? The dead queen’s hair band?”
She did not bother to look up from the panel as she continued her work, encouraged by the progress. “I told you, I’ve kept the personal affects of some past robeast subjects in there, among other things. To be honest, I forgot I even had it.” She frowned. “It’s not like I’m going to go to Princess Romelle or Prince Bandor and hand them their brother’s things. In fact if I ever see Bandor again it’ll be to feed him to a robeast, the annoying little brat. As for Yurak, if you think any of his family might want his things, feel free to pass them on to them. It’s not like I’ll see them; I avoid any nobility functions that aren’t a royal mandate. I don’t like to socialize.”
“Yeah, I don’t like going to those schmooze fests either. A bunch of boring people making an already stuffy room stuffier with all the hot air they trade back and forth impressing each other.” He set the chest plate down when he noticed a flash of gold in the weapons belt, and he extracted the shiny object out of curiosity. “Hey, his custom crafted light sword! You know, I always wanted one of these.” He turned it over in his hands and walked out of the closet into the main chamber of the laboratory, content enough with his new toy to stop closet mining for the time being.
“Why didn’t you just requisition one when you made fleet commander?”
“Well, I was always a little better with a whip than a sword. I did great in most of my weapons training, but whips always came easier to me than blades. Plus it was hard to beat the offer for this,” he said, patting the electrolash on his own belt. “Best military grade model available, built and customized to my specifications, all complementary with my promotion. Couldn’t turn that down for a shiny sword, and accounting’s too cheap to approve a second customized weapon. I know, because I tried to get one for my buddy Yaklitz and they rejected it. Even after I promoted him to admiral! They said,” and he adopted a prissy nasal voice in imitation of the accountant, “‘only the fleet commander gets a customized weapon.’” He resumed his normal tone and went on to explain, “and you can’t buy military grade on the private market without getting ripped off. Odds are it was probably stolen from here anyway, it still wouldn’t be customized, and I got better things to do with my cash.”
Haggar snorted incredulously. “Like what, stuffing it into the thongs of scantily clad barmaids on your nights off?”
A piggish grin spread across Cossack’s face. “Yeah.” He switched the light sword on and watched as it blazed to life with a soft hum and a brilliant white flash. “Hey Haggar, who am I?” he called out, striking a decidedly Yurak-esque pose with it and assuming a humorless snarl on his features much like the one the former commander often wore. “Destroy everything that lives! Blow them apart and blast them into rubble!” He finished his melodramatic imitation of Yurak’s gruff voice with a loud snarl.
She was not nearly as amused with Cossack’s antics as he was. “Not bad, but you left out the insufferable bragging and the rude digs at my magic,” she replied coolly, and flipped a few switches. “Now be quiet, because my calibration’s done and I’m going to try the lightning rip on this robeast. If it works and I get a consciousness reading I’ll be able to let it incubate all night.” The lights flickered again in tandem with a loud thunder crash. “Assuming the power stays on, that is,” she added irritably.
Cossack watched her work for a few moments in the hopes that he’d get to see some dramatic change to the robeast, but after only a few electric surges in the chamber he became bored and went back to amusing himself with the light sword. He had not trained with a sword in some time, but he remembered most of the basic moves and entertained himself by executing them in open space of Haggar’s laboratory until he bumped into a shelf. The loud rattling of the assortment of glass jars and vials contained thereon earned him a subsequent glare from the old witch, and he then quietly moved toward the north wall where there were fewer things to hit.
Haggar in the meantime grew anxious. The storm was intensifying and lightning striking all around the castle grounds, which meant more opportunities for portals to exploit. However, the timing of her technique had to be very precise and unfortunately the static that remained in the air made her sensors twitchy and less reliable so she missed harnessing her first attempts by milliseconds. “Oh Ancient Ones, just give me one good bolt that I can get a clear reading on,” she muttered with exasperation.
Although it had been more a statement made in annoyance than a faithful supplication, the dark spirits Haggar served chose to honor her request anyway, in spades. Just as Cossack took a few steps toward the console with the light sword thrust out directly in line with it a short distance away, a jagged bolt of lightning came from the clouds above Castle Doom right through the thick glass window on the north wall of Haggar’s laboratory and struck the highest nearby conductive point—the left horn on Cossack’s metal fleet helmet. The commander never knew he had been hit until well after it happened, and his body flew forward several feet until the end of the light sword plunged right into the side of the console. A blinding flash of light filled the laboratory and the nearly deafening crack of thunder that accompanied it shook everything in the area and even shattered a few fragile vials on Haggar’s shelves. The old witch cringed as she got her bearings while Coba dove under the bench, his fur sticking straight up from the static charge. Cossack meanwhile slumped to the floor in a stunned heap.
As it turned out, the light sword completing the circuit with the metal console saved his life as it made him merely a conductor of the surge rather than what ultimately absorbed it, which happened to be the bio chamber. A second later the sound of more glass breaking was heard as sparks arced across the chamber and the console, and a small fire broke out on the circuitry on its base. It was just as well, for that and the two wall torches in the room were the only light left as everything else in the room shorted out the electricity completely.
“That’s not what I meant,” Haggar hissed angrily at the sky, furious that her work had been impeded in such a way. It was then that she noticed the Cossack-shaped lump on the floor and the fact that he was not moving. “Cossack?” Coba came out from his hiding space as the old witch hobbled over to him. “Cossack, are you all right?” She bent over and poked his body with the end of her staff to make sure there was no residual charge, and then reached for his face. She noticed that he was still breathing, which was a welcome sight, and that his frizzy hair was poufed up to a laughable degree, which was an amusing one. “Cossack, can you hear me?”
The stun of the lightning began to wear off and Cossack blinked. He rolled over and felt a strange tingle and ache in his body, although he could move just fine. “Yow,” he groaned. “What hit me?”
“Enough wattage to flash fry you to a crisp,” she replied with some relief when she saw he was still able to speak. Though she found Cossack irksome at times—all right, much of the time—she did like him in a way, a strange way admittedly, and she would have regretted not having him around to annoy her. “Look what it did to my bio chamber. You’re lucky it didn’t do that to you.”
Still wincing, he sat up as he followed her gesture to the bio chamber and the robeast within that were for all intents and purposes destroyed. “Shit,” he said with a shake of his head. “Guess you’ll have to whip up a quick robeast in an hour after all unless you keep one of those in the back of your closet.” He reached to rub the back of his neck and caught his hand in the staticky mess that was his hair, and it sank in fully what had happened. “Wait… are you saying I was struck by lightning? Inside?” His voice was incredulous and more than a little shaken.
She nodded, and he looked to her for elaboration. Tapping his helmet, she explained, “Like you said, this is its own lightning rod. That last bolt came right through the window for it. Why it didn’t hit the metal components of the roof I’m not sure, but maybe something in this alloy is more concentrated. Or maybe it was drawn to the ionization on that thing,” she surmised, gesturing to the light sword that was still impaled in her now non-functional console.
“I was struck by lightning,” Cossack repeated in disbelief. “And I’m here to talk about it. What’re the odds?”
“Don’t calculate them; just be grateful. Apparently some deity with a sense of humor likes you.”
“Good thing I made the rounds with the sacrifices at the temples in Darhin-Kal last holiday,” he remarked as he surveyed the damage to the bio chamber. He blinked a few times to clear the fuzzy feeling out of his head and sat up while Haggar looked at him curiously.
“How do you feel? Can you move all right?”
Cossack frowned and drew up his legs, and then stretched out his arms. “Yeah, I’m fine. A little tingly and weird, and I think I need to change my underwear, but all right.” He got to his feet, and suddenly felt a fleeting sensation of disorientation, as if adjusting to a new depth and height perception. It lasted only a few moments, however, and then passed leaving him feeling nothing but a bit charred and tired.
Haggar also frowned. She knew first hand that electricity could do all sorts of strange things to cellular structure and function; she had spent years capitalizing on that in robeast construction. “Maybe you should go over to medical just to be sure.”
“Nah, I think the lightning bolt did enough unwanted probing on me today, I don’t need some medical techie with a needle adding to it. I told you, I’m fine,” he insisted as he walked over to the console. He leaned over, pulled the light sword out, and switched it off. “I do think I’m gonna head back to my quarters though. The rain’s slacked up and what’re the odds of me getting struck twice?” He then noticed the edges of his yellow cape were scorched. “Aw man! I just had this cleaned.”
“When? Last month?” she scoffed as she glanced at the oft-worn garment. “And yes, go back and take a shower and get some sleep. It’d do you good.” She scowled at her ruined equipment. “If only that was enough to fix my bio chamber.”
Cossack nodded and absently stuffed the golden hilt of the light sword into his belt. “Well, give a call down to the command center. That’s what we keep our high tech robots around for. Anyway, have a good night Haggar!” he said with a wave, and left, closing the door behind him.
“Easy for him to say,” she muttered irritably, and with a resigned sigh hobbled over to her closet and withdrew a broom.
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