[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/2D38s61.png[/img][/center] [b][color=#ffffff]Mota-Tovi, Denuvi-VII[/color][/b] [color=#ffffff]The cockpit of Jack Knight’s weathered ship vibrated as the sound of Nirvana’s “Something in The Way” passed through it. In the pilot’s seat, the Opal City product sat strumming along as best he could on a guitar as battered as the scavenger’s ship. The cracked and peeling sticker on its body was innocuous enough at first glance but on further inspection marked the instrument out as special. It had belonged to Woody Guthrie once – and as out of practice as Jack was, resistance still seemed to ring out with its every chord. [/color] [color=#ffffff]Lights flashed on the console in front of Jack. “A watched pot never boils,” his father used to say to him. It was one of the few pieces of advice his father had given him that he had taken onboard. It would be another hour or so until the ship’s scans were done. Until then, Jack intended to do little else but sit back and relax. Or so he thought.[/color] [color=#ffffff]Jack’s body tensed as he felt the shock of cold metal against his neck. [/color][color=#8e7cc3]“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t slit your throat where you stand.”[/color] [color=#f9cb9c]“Cal’syee, is that you?” [/color][color=#ffffff]Jack laughed nervously.[/color][color=#f9cb9c] “I mean, [i]of course [/i]it’s you. I’d recognise that sweet voice of yours anywh-”[/color] [color=#8e7cc3]“I’d sooner cut that silver tongue out of your mouth than listen to more of your lies, Jackson Knight.”[/color] [color=#ffffff]Cal’syee Nerami, the Shi’ar princess known to friends and enemies alike as “Deathbird”, clutched the back of Jack’s seat with ole hand and held her blade against his neck with the other. The human had no idea how she had snuck onto his ship without setting off an alarm, but she was with him now – and the sudden knick she gave him with her knife was a sign she meant business.[/color] [color=#ffffff]With a slight grimace, Jack let the antique guitar in his hands fall from his grasp onto the floor of his cockpit. With his mind he called out to his cosmic rod. He could feel it stashed against the wall on the other side of his ship. He felt it travelling through the air towards the pair of them and stuck out his arm to collect it.[/color] [color=#f9cb9c]“What th-”[/color] [color=#ffffff]A moment too late he realised that the rod had stopped short of his hand. Not only that but it rested between the long slender fingers of Deathbird’s left hand. A thin, cruel smile appeared on her face as she brandished the rod in Jack’s direction triumphantly. Try as he might to beckon it to him, the rod seemed completely unresponsive.[/color] [color=#ffffff]Sensing Jack’s confusion, Deathbird’s grin grew and she let the knife slide from his neck.[/color][color=#8e7cc3] “What’s wrong, my love? You look surprised.”[/color] [color=#f9cb9c]“That doesn’t make any sense,” [/color][color=#ffffff]Jack murmured as he backed away from Deathbird. [/color][color=#f9cb9c]“You shouldn’t be able to do that.”[/color] [color=#ffffff]In one swift movement Cal’syee slid her knife back into an unseen slither and placed both hands around Jack’s rod. She pressed a button and it seemed to hum its approval. Again Jack shook his head, trying to make sense of what was happening, but was too alarmed by the threatening energy the rod began to emit at Deathbird’s direction. She thrust the rod closer and closer to him.[/color] [color=#8e7cc3]“My entire life men have presumed to tell me what I can and cannot do, Jackson, and I have proven them [i]all [/i]wrong. You think this rod of yours answers only to you? How could it? I spent months sleeping beside you at night. It sensed our bond. I am as bonded to it as you are – and whilst [i]you [/i]have no sense of loyalty, it seems your rod is not as disposed to betrayal.”[/color] [color=#ffffff]Jack had inched so far back that he was almost sat on the console when one of Deathbird's hands snaked towards his groin. [/color][color=#f9cb9c]“What are y-”[/color] [color=#8e7cc3]“Perhaps I’m wrong?”[/color] [color=#ffffff]A wave of heat seemed to run up Jack’s leg and suddenly he realised his pink face had become a flushed red with embarrassment. Within seconds, Cal’syee’s fingers had exposed the buried desire he felt for her touch. She drew closer to him, near enough that Jack could feel her warm breath on his face. He was willing to endure the point of his rod thrusting into his neck just to be near her again. The Shi’ar had almost placed her lips on his when clarity shook Jack from his stupor and he pushed her away from him.[/color] [color=#f9cb9c]“No, this can’t happen, Cal’syee,” [/color][color=#ffffff]Jack said as he straightened himself out.[/color][color=#f9cb9c] “The last time I saw you, you tried to kill me. Have you forgotten that? Because I sure as hell haven’t. You don’t get to try to murder me and then just waltz back into my life. Not again.”[/color] [color=#ffffff]Deathbird threw the rod to Jack dejectedly. [/color][color=#8e7cc3]“I told you that I would not share you. Did you think I could not smell them on you? Those perfumed whores you took to cavorting with on Korugar?”[/color] [color=#f9cb9c]“They were [i]not [/i]… women of the night. I told you a hundred[i] [/i]times, they were doctors. Doctors! That fever I picked up on Sakaar was going to kill me and, surprise surprise, being tied to your bed without food or water was [i]not [/i]helping.”[/color] [color=#ffffff]The scowl that had been plastered on Deathbird’s face softened but Jack knew better than to mistake that for acceptance. He had never once known the Shi’ar princess to concede. He had watched her cut down six Kree for suggesting that she had been cheating at cards. She had, of course, but to Cal’syee that hadn’t mattered. It was only in the rarest of moments that she allowed for even a suggestion of vulnerability to slip through.[/color] [color=#8e7cc3]“You left me on Korugar with those ghastly people, Jackson,” [/color][color=#ffffff]Deathbird purred with uncharacteristic softness.[/color][color=#8e7cc3] “I could have been killed. Worse, I could have been captured by that bore Sinestro. What then? You would have let me languish in the Klyn whilst that child rules over my empire?”[/color] [color=#ffffff]There it was, Jack thought, as Cal’syee returned to the subject closer to her heart than any other – even now she contended that the Shi’ar throne ought to be hers, long after her failed coup, and her subsequent banishment from Shi’ar space. Having her birthright rent from her was the source of Deathbird’s seemingly unending desire for retribution. So far from his own home, the thought of it never seemed to convince Jack to plum to new depths in order to find sympathy for his former companion.[/color] [color=#f9cb9c]“Look, I shouldn’t have left you there without saying goodbye. That was wrong of me. I know that, but … I just didn’t see any other way out. You can be very [i]intense [/i]sometimes, Cal’syee.”[/color] [color=#ffffff]Deathbird’s avian features seemed to narrow with disapproval at the suggestion she was anything but dispassionate.[/color][color=#8e7cc3] “Intense?”[/color] [color=#ffffff]Jack’s response was cut short by a sudden banging from the far end of the ship. Both he and Deathbird’s heads turned to face it in confusion. They stood in silence and waited for several moments until the banging commenced for a second time. Jack sighed and pressed a button on the console and a small screen appeared. He squinted as he tried to make out the blurry images on them. The loading dock looked almost as if it was covered in a glistening blanket of snow – or at least, he had thought it was snow, until he saw a white figure step forward and strike the butt of an unlit torch against his ship.[/color] [color=#ffffff]With a nervous smile, he prompted Deathbird to look at the Solaris worshipers surrounding them. [/color][color=#f9cb9c]“You aren’t expecting visitors, are you?”[/color] [color=#8e7cc3]“Pathetic cultists,”[/color][color=#ffffff] Cal’syee spat.[/color][color=#8e7cc3] “This whole planet is [i]crawling [/i]with them. Huddling together in prayer like grieving widows. If they had any honour at all they would accept that their planet is doomed.”[/color] [color=#ffffff]Eighteen months, Jack remembered, as his thoughts drifted back to Shirax and all the other hoarders and junk traders he’d befriended on Denuvi-VII. His head dropped as he tried to imagine the sense of loss they must all have been feeling. Finally, he reached for his rod and strode along the length of his ship to open the landing ramp. He could feel Deathbird stalking behind him like the bird of prey she was and this time was sharp enough to hear her blades slip free when the ramp began to lower.[/color] [color=#ffffff]The screen had been wrong. Though the Solaris-worshipers were dressed in white tunics they were [i]not [/i]snow-like, far from it. They were heat. A white hot flame that stretched as far as the eye could see and made even Mota-Tovi’s grimy streets seem bright. They stood in silence, observing Jack and Deathbird wordlessly, their torches flickering. Jack looked to Cal’syee for some kind of instruction and when none was forthcoming he stepped forward gingerly.[/color] [color=#f9cb9c]“”[/color] [color=#ffffff]Jack’s broken Denuvi didn’t move them at all. For a second time, the human looked towards the Shi’ar for advice and found only that she had lifted her blades in preparation. He was about to protest when he noticed a hulking figure making its way through the crowd. His skin was not yellow like the others, but a cascade of yellow, white, blue and pink light, that seemed to ebb and flow like liquid. He screamed in a language Jack didn’t recognise and the army of worshipers poured into the ship. [/color] [color=#ffffff]Within seconds, something struck Jack on the head and he folded to the ground. His vision began to fail him, but he could still make out Deathbird striking out at their attackers. One by one they fell at her feet until eventually even she was overran. Another blow hit Jack and this time he slid into unconsciousness – but what he saw was not blackness, but white.[/color]