The Light Saga & Other Short Stories

PART 1

A sharp, twisting pain in his gut woke ten-year-old Alex from a deep sleep. Ambient light seeping in from the corridor outside his cabin allowed him to see the faint outline of a huddled form next to his bed. His sleep-fogged brain thought he was seeing things and dismissed the phantom unhesitatingly as an illusion.

The light also illuminated the boy’s features, revealing that he had light brown hair, fair to tanned skin and hazel-coloured eyes. He had an angelic face which was right then slightly spoiled by the bewildered expression he was wearing.

Another jolt of pain shot through his stomach, eliciting a cry of pain from Alex and causing him to sit upright. Outside, the stars sped past as the spaceship ploughed through them on its way to the far-flung and newly discovered planet, Janus. A sudden movement at the edge of his vision brought Alex’s attention back from outer space to the inner space of his room. The shadowy figure had grown taller.

“What the?” he exclaimed in disbelief. Once again he experienced a violent lance of pain in his abdomen, this one much worse than the first two and also lasting much longer. Alex doubled over in pain and groaned miserably, but he was still acutely aware of the unknown presence in his room. The shape moved closer to his bed.

“Who are you? How did you get into my cabin?” he managed to ask once the pain had subsided slightly. In response, the figure’s eyes became twin green dots of light, which frightened Alex much more than the shape itself. Then the thing spoke.

“Little one in pain, yes? Pain very bad?” it asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Mom! Dad!” Alex shouted in full panic. He scooted back up against the bulkhead and pulled the covers up to his chin. Then more pain rocked him, causing him to experience a hideous wave of nausea.

Alex instinctively put his hand over his mouth and heaved. Luckily, he managed to suppress the urge to vomit, but the pain was still riding like a wild, unbridled horse through his stomach, sending wave after wave of misery coursing through his body. The thing came much nearer to Alex, so close that Alex caught the faintest smell of mildew or moth balls wafting from it. The scent was doing nothing for his nausea, causing Alex to jump out of bed and sprint to the adjoining washroom like his life depended on it. He made it in time to the toilet bowl and vomited violently.

Behind him, the creature stopped and tilted its head to the side in confusion. It regarded Alex in silence for a few seconds before it raised what looked like a claw and made a small gesture. In the washroom, Alex abruptly stopped throwing up.

“Little boy,” the creature said, “have pain still?” it asked. It moved towards the door of the washroom and poked its head inside. Alex was sitting on the floor in front of the toilet bowl, but when the creature spoke to him, he turned around to look at it.

The strange being was not a monster, after all. It was definitely an alien, but unlike one Alex had ever seen. Since the galaxy had opened up to space travel, mankind had made contact with a variety of strange alien beings, but this alien was unfamiliar to Alex.

“Maybe I should have listened to Dad and read up more on recently discovered aliens,” he chided himself.

The creature had two brilliantly glowing eyes set in a dark, leathery face. Its eyes reminded Alex of exquisite emeralds while the colouring on its face and neck resembled soot or charcoal. It had a broad forehead and high brows; its scalp was covered by tightly curled fuzz or pieces of metal; Alex couldn’t see clearly in the gloom, but he could see it had a silvery cast to it. The nose looked lumpish, but it had two nostrils, and it was set above a small mouth with thin lips. The creature was showing its blocky white teeth in what Alex hoped was a smile and not a grin of glee.

“Small one, please. You come. Not safe here. Please, follow Stragos. Follow now,” it said in obvious consternation and made frantic gestures with its hands. Alex didn’t know what to do and he most definitely was not going to follow an alien stranger in the middle of the night, or in the middle of the day either, for that matter.

“Mom!” he shouted again. “There’s a strange alien in my room! Dad!” he yelled at the top of his voice. Instantly a new pain hit him hard, this time in his head. He fainted dead away from the punishing agony.

“Silly boy,” the creature said to itself before it picked Alex up and silently left his room. In a corner of the cabin, Alex’s dwarf hamster watched in fascination as the creature slipped out of the cabin, then it went back to running in its exercise wheel.

“None of my beeswax,” it squeaked to itself as the spacecraft continued on its journey.

Stragos was perturbed; the Enemy had struck unexpectedly and decisively. If he had been seconds later to get to the boy, all would have been lost. As it was, he wasn’t sure if he had reached the boy in time, as he was still unconscious and not responding to anything.

Stragos once again placed his kabzii, a small ornate stone mined in the depths of the volcanoes on his home planet of Uttu, on Alex’s forehead and said the necessary activating words. This time, Alex stirred. Stragos quickly removed the stone and spoke to the child.

“Little boy, little boy! Wake up,” he said earnestly. He shook Alex slightly and was relieved when he opened his eyes. It looked like the Enemy had not harmed the boy permanently. Stragos said a quick prayer of thanks to his gods and helped Alex to sit up on the small cot he had found in an unused cabin on the lowest level of the spacecraft.

Pointing to himself, he said, “Stragos.” He then pointed to the child and asked, “Alex?” to which the boy nodded. He looked terrified but he was a brave one, thus he didn’t bawl or whimper but instead tried to stay calm.

“Please,” he said, “Stragos, right? Please tell me what is going on. Where are my parents and why did you kidnap me?” he asked, a tinge of hysteria creeping into his voice.

Before he had finished, Stragos was shaking his head and his face turned sad.

“Parents … parents no more. Stragos sorry. Not have time save them. Alex priority. Alex important. Save Alex Stragos sworn duty. Not kidnap Alex. Save. Stragos rescue Alex.”

Alex was stunned and sat absolutely still while he processed the devastating information Stragos had just shared with him. His parents were apparently “no more”; Alex’s mind tried to shy away from this truth, but his honest nature insisted that he face it. His parents were dead, and he had been “rescued”, not kidnapped.

“Whoa! Slow down, cowboy,” he said, reverting to his alter ego personality of Lucky Luke, the scourge of the wicked Edge Riders.

“Hold on just a minute, pardner, and back up. Whaddya mean ya ‘saved’ me? And from who, huh?” he added. In times of stress, this was his way of coping, even going so far as altering his voice and diction. Although his dad had tried to break him of this trait, his mom had always encouraged it, saying it was a “healthy and creative mechanism of dealing with challenges”.

Before Stragos could answer, a terrible shudder went through the spaceship and its speed slowed significantly. Klaxons blared all over the ship and emergency lights blazed to life.

Stragos was instantly up on his feet and swept Alex into his arms. Seemingly from out of thin air, a Pulser appeared in his hand. Alex had just a moment to admire and recognise it as the latest model of the light projectile weapon before Stragos fired it at the door. Instead of bullets, the Pulser fired light beams which vaporised any object it was aimed at. Alex cringed at the thought of what had happened to who or what had been standing on the other side of the door. He, she or it had indubitably been turned into less than dust.

“Got rid of them good,” Stragos seemed to echo his thought. “We go now, Alex. The Enemy close by. You ready?” he asked the rattled boy.

“Uh, as ready as I will ever be, I guess,” Alex quipped. “Lead on, pardner,” he said in an attempt to sound unfazed.

The corridor outside the cabin was not empty, to Alex’s dismay. At the end furthest from the now vaporised door, three hulking brutes stood waiting, the expressions on their cruel faces displaying their anticipation for what was to come. Alex could feel the bloodlust and desire for murder emanating from them in hot waves.

“Oh crap,” he said before one of the brutes whipped out a Barrel Blaster and fired at them. Stragos gestured and the wave from the blaster dissipated harmlessly. He already had his Pulser out and fired indiscriminately at the brutes. Two were vaporised on the spot; the third one was fast enough to avoid the lethal beams and ducked into a cabin. Stragos immediately dragged Alex in the opposite direction and soon they were both out of the corridor and running for their lives down what appeared to be a service corridor. It led them to a huge laundry room smelling of fabric softener and soap suds. A huge aircraft sat incongruously in the middle of the room.

“Our ticket out of here,” Stragos said with a smile.

“A full sentence. Wow,” Alex responded and then berated himself under his breath for being so flippant in dire circumstances.

And then their circumstances became much more dire, a thing Alex hadn’t thought was possible.

Standing smack bang right in front of the access portal of the craft was the Enemy. Alex didn’t need to be told that it was the Enemy; the creature could be no one and nothing else.

It was black; light-swallowing, hope-erasing, crypt-interior black. Dark as sin and twice as ugly, it stood on two muscular legs which supported its massive body. Its arms were covered in red spikes while its face was a nightmare made real. Before Alex could fully register the creature’s monstrous features, he screamed in horrible agony as indescribable pain suddenly bloomed like a poisonous flower throughout his body.

“Alex!” Stragos shouted in alarm and grabbed Alex close to him in a warm hug. “Fight him, Alex! Fight him,” he said, pointing at the Enemy who had extended one spike-bristling arm in Alex’s direction. The claw at the end of the limb was emitting a barely discernible yellow light towards Alex, but it was also accompanied by a high frequency that was affecting Alex in awful ways.

The pain intensified and Alex felt as if he were about to explode in a mess of blood and guts. Through his pain he could still hear Stragos telling him to fight back, but he didn’t know how. Then an amazing thing happened.

Lucky Luke took over and Alex was shoved aside as if he didn’t exist. The pain vanished like morning mist burned off by the power of the sun’s rays. The Enemy was targeting Alex, but Alex had simply disappeared. Lucky Luke faced the enemy and laughed at the confused expression on the monster’s visage.

“Dang, pardner,” he drawled, “looks like ya lost something or you’re all colicky-like. Ya need to be taught some manners, sir, and I’m the one who’s gonna do just that,” he added. Stragos gaped at Alex/Lucky Luke and the Enemy in disbelief.

Lucky Luke turned to him in annoyance and said, “What? Ya just gonna stand there an’ look pretty, or are ya gonna send that dirty rat to infinity and beyond?”

Stragos quickly recovered from his stupefaction, turned to the Enemy and said, “So, corrupt spawn of Rafael Nadal, Tennis Champion of the Universe, have you met your match?”

Lucky Luke smiled from ear to ear to hear Stragos suddenly speaking in full sentences until he realised that Stragos was speaking another language, but he could understand every word.

“Double dang it all. This here showdown is turnin’ into a real epic one,” Lucky Luke said. The Enemy was still standing silently opposite them, but he suddenly spoke in a guttural voice. Again, it was another language, but Lucky Luke understood it as if the monster were speaking English.

“My ancestor was a weakling because he was a hero, a model and an exemplar to his followers. He was loved by millions of adoring fans, but if he had been like me – merciless, unforgiving, sadistic, tyrannical – he would have reached far greater heights. But he believed in ‘sportsmanship’ like a pathetic pansy,” the Enemy sneered.

“Only the Powerful and the Heartless emerge victorious in this universe. There is no place for kindness, for feeble fools or bleeding hearts! Take what you want, when you want it, or die!” he thundered.

“Wrong,” Stragos stated flatly. “The downtrodden might seem weak or submissive, but they are not. They have far more power than you can imagine because they have love and compassion, qualities that are alien to a creature like you,” he shouted at the Enemy.

While Stragos was speaking to the Dark Lord, Lucky Luke felt something stir in his breast. It felt like a warmth that was spreading out from his heart to the rest of his body. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant, but it was disconcerting because the boy didn’t understand what was happening to him.

Abruptly, his mind was transported to a vast realm of open spaces. He found himself standing on a huge clay tennis court, and a handsome young man was facing him.

The man was dressed in a cerulean sleeveless vest and pink shorts. Around his head was a pink headband that sported a black sign that looked like a tick mark, while he wore an armband that had the same sign on his left arm. His arms bulged with muscles and his legs looked powerful. The most striking feature of this man though was his smile, and he seemed very confident in his athletic body. His light brown eyes were focused on Alex and as soon as he caught the boy’s eye, he beckoned him closer.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I have only a small window to speak to you, but I will do my best to clear up your confusion,” he promised. Alex noticed that the man was speaking English with a slight accent, which he couldn’t quite place, but which he thought was Spanish.

Alex was beyond the point of disbelief and said, “Sure, mister. Lob it at me and let’s see if you can serve up an ace or two.” Inwardly, he rebuked himself yet again for his flippancy.

“The pangs you were experiencing were caused by the Enemy, who to my utter chagrin I have to admit is one of my descendants. I’m sure you’ve already surmised who I am, but just for verification: yes, I am Rafael Nadal. As for how I’m able to address you now when I’ve been dead for over a century: this is an interactive recording.”

“I get it,” Alex responded quickly. “You recorded this message when you were alive and it was probably saved in a Cloud with instructions to have it sent to me at this particular time. What I don’t understand is how did you know to send it to me now, and how did you know what to say?”

“Good questions. What very few people ever realised about me was that I had psychic abilities that allowed me glimpses of the future. Mind you, I could only see the future, but I was unable to change it. However, I could take action to enable others to change events, as in your case.

“I knew one of my descendants would become a monster, and he would attempt a grand slam of controlling worlds and galaxies in his monstrous quest for absolute power. I couldn’t just stand aside and not try to intervene and prevent him from turning our world into a nightmarish hell.

“But time is running out. Let me get to the point of this message: you have the advantage. Your ability to hide your true identity behind the façade of an alter ego is your greatest strength. The Enemy can’t find you and thus he can’t put his plan for world domination into effect. Ironically, it is this very power of yours that he wishes to harness for his own devious use, but you have foiled him. You need to engage him as your alter ego so that you can make good your escape, with Stragos’ help. He will tell you more.”

While Rafael was speaking, he (or rather, his projection) was slowly starting to fade. As he ended his speech, Alex was rudely thrust back into his confrontation with the Enemy, in time to hear Stragos end his speech.

“You will never capture Alex, for he is my Ward and under my protection!”

As he said the last word, Stragos flung some black powder at the Enemy’s face, simultaneously grabbing Alex by the hand and rushing with him towards a side panel of the spacecraft. While the Enemy was struggling to clear the powder out of his eyes, shouting his fury all the time, Stragos touched the panel, which slid open smoothly, and the two of them quickly entered the spacecraft.

“Kevin,” Stragos addressed the ship’s AI, “engage Shift Spectrum now!”

Instantly, the ship shimmered and within a heartbeat it had vanished, leaving the monstrously furious Enemy raging impotently at a vacuum. His roar reverberated throughout the ghost ship as it floated aimlessly in dead space.

PART 2

Alex came to himself with a jolt, his alter ego gone to ground somewhere within his brain. Stragos was at his ship’s controls, alien digits doing alien things to the control panel in speeds too fast for the human eye to follow.

As soon as he became aware that Alex was back as himself, he turned to him, engaging the spaceship’s AI with a curt, “Kevin, the ship’s yours,” and smiling at Alex.

“Ship on autopilot,” the AI responded.

“Where are we?” Alex asked nervously. His senses were threatening to become overwhelmed, but he held his emotions under control. He told himself that he needed to remain calm if he wished to live through this ordeal.

Stragos got up from his seat and moved over to an alcove on the right side of the control panel. It was obviously a seating area for guests, although Alex wondered why there would even be such an area in the control room of the ship. He dismissed it as probably being some alien thing.

“Come, sit,” Stragos invited him as he seated himself on one of the leatherette benches. On the table two glasses of lime green liquid suddenly appeared, followed by a bowl of fruit. Alex suddenly realised that he was ravenous, and a loud grumble of protest from his stomach confirmed it. He went over to the table and sat down opposite Stragos, who was regarding him with something akin to worship or reverence.

“What’s this?” Alex asked as he pointed to the glass.

“It’s apparently one of your favourite drinks,” Stragos said, “or at least a very close approximation of it. It is a lime milkshake,” he explained and smiled.

“No way!” Alex said and took a greedy sip of the drink. It was delicious. He then reached for one of the fruit and selected what looked like an apple. It was equally delicious and very crisp.

Around a mouthful, he said, “So, that dude... the Enemy, as you called him. Why is he after me, and how can I defeat him when I’m just a ten-year-old boy?” he asked in perplexity.

“Well,” Stragos began, “to answer your first question: the Enemy hunts you because you hold within your mind a weapon to which he has no defense. It is your alter ego that can defeat him because it is immune to the Enemy’s powers, to answer your second question,” Stagos clarified. “As to how you can defeat him, I have to admit that I do not know,” Stragos said and looked crestfallen. “But,” he suddenly said with a cheerful expression on his face, “if the Enemy fears you, then I am sure you will discover how exactly you can defeat him, Alex,” he said and nodded his head for emphasis.

“Dude, this is all too much for me, okay? I don’t even know who or what you are, where we are right now and why that evil creep thinks I candefeat him. All I know is that I am an ordinary kid who just lost his parents and everything he’s ever known and now I’m in some craft going to who knows where and I’m being told I’m the saviour of the universe. Brain overload to the max!” he declared and lost his appetite instantly.

He held his head in his hands and started to cry silently. Thinking about his parents had brought his awful reality home to him. He was an orphan, lost and adrift in space with only a strange being for company.

He felt kind arms embrace him gently and the tears turned into a flood. After a while, he managed to get himself under control again and lifted his tear-streaked face up to Stragos.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely to the alien.

“Alex, you are not alone. There are others like you on this craft. Four more, to be precise,” Stragos revealed. “I saved them before I came for you, and that’s why I was nearly too late,” he continued. “Come, let me introduce you to them,” he said and led the dumbstruck boy out of the command centre.

It turned out that the others were all children ranging from seven to nine years of age, and Alex was the eldest. Their parents had also been killed in an attack on them, thus they were orphans, too. Stragos introduced each one to Alex and also explained what made each one special and vital to their mission to save the universe.

“This is Garth who has telepathic abilities, and this is Roshni, a seven-year-old clairvoyant,” he said of a pretty Asian girl. Alex shook hands with Garth and felt a pang of grief at the sorrowful look on the boy’s otherwise handsome features. His white skin was paler than usual, and his green eyes spoke volumes about his heartache. Alex remembered that Stragos had said that Garth was nine. Roshni did a quick head bow, her hands steepled in front of her, and Alex returned the greeting.

“And these are the twins, Leonard and Lyle, and they possess a unique skill: they can teleport,” Stragos said with obvious awe in his voice.

“Wow, neat,” Alex said as he took turns to shake each eight-year-old boy’s hand.

“Children, this is Alex the Ace, the one who has an alter ego called Lucky Luke, and on whose shoulders the fate of our worlds rests,” Stragos solemnly declared, making Alex feel decidedly uncomfortable and embarrassed. Which caused his alter ego to take over, of course.

“How ya doin’, pardners?” Lucky Luke greeted the astonished and amused children. Stragos beamed as he looked upon the change that had come over Alex. He seemed taller than before, his shoulders looked broader and his stance radiated confidence. His voice had taken on a deeper timbre and his eyes had changed from brown to turquoise.

“We’ve got ourselves in a real pickle, if ya ask me, but I’ve never been one to cut and run from any fight,” Lucky Luke stated and smiled at the company of children. Leonard was the first to respond.

“Wassup? I’m also no coward, and neither is my bro. We’re with you till the bitter end,” he said, to which Lyle agreed.

“Count me in,” Garth added and Roshni said, “I’m also with you,” in her language. Once again, Lucky Luke’s special internal translator allowed him to understand her perfectly while the others just looked at her as if she were speaking Hindi. Which, of course, she was.

After the small talk was out of the way, the children and Lucky Luke bonded as if they had known each other from birth. Stragos silently observed them and smiled in relief.

“Maybe there is a chance for us, after all,” he said softly to himself.

No sooner had they finished getting acquainted and bonding when the ship suddenly gave a very familiar lurch, and then slowed down considerably. In short order, it came to a stop.

“The Enemy is here,” Stragos declared just as the AI announced, “Intruders aboard!”

Once again, all hell broke loose, but this time Lucky Luke was present and he instinctively organised his band of newly-formed adopted siblings. Within seconds they each knew what to do and turned to face the assault.

The Enemy entered the chamber with a crash, as the third brute that had survived the earlier encounter blasted the door off its hinges. Leonard and Lyle transported instantly to behind the brute and deftly unarmed him, and transported out of the room. While the brute was still slack-jawed in astonishment, Stragos vaporised him and turned towards the Enemy.

Quick as a striking serpent, the Enemy sent out a blast of heat that struck Stragos full in his chest and sent him careering to the back of the room, where he slumped in an immobile heap. Lucky Luke didn’t know if Stragos was dead or just unconscious, but he knew he couldn’t worry about that now. He had to focus all his concentration on the monstrosity that was arrogantly and slowly approaching him.

For the first time, Lucky Luke could clearly see the Dark Lord’s features and he was shocked to his core, which caused him to lose his concentration and allow Alex to take over. The Enemy had the face of Rafael Nadal, but a twisted replica of that hero’s visage. While the real Rafael was handsome and noble in appearance, the Dark Lord’s face was scarred on the left side and ripped with gouges on the right, as if someone had poured acid on the left side of his face, and then he had ripped the other side himself. He wore a triumphant smirk on his nightmarish face as he came to within an arm’s length of the terrified boy. Just as he was about to grab Alex by his shirt front, Garth spoke in Alex’s mind.

“Snap out of it, pardner!” he screamed at Alex, hoping to bring back Lucky Luke. He could see inside Alex’s mind why he was turned to stone, thus he said, “He isn’t Rafael Nadal! He’s a fake, a wannabe. Pardner, we need you and we ain’t up to this on our own,” he pleaded with Alex.

As the Enemy finally snagged the boy’s shirt, Lucky Luke took over.

“Hold yer horses, ya ugly mutt. Take yer hands off me or I’m likely to kick yer behind till ya cry ‘Uncle’,” he said and kicked the Dark Lord right between his legs.

The Enemy’s eyes crossed over as he went down on his knees and said, “Now that isn’t fair,” and fell on his face.

Lucky Luke followed up his kick with another, this one to the seat of the Enemy, who was obligingly bent over, his behind held high up and perfectly aligned. That power kick was no ordinary one, as it had all of Alex’s/Lucky Luke’s anger, fear, sorrow, fury and desperation behind it. It sent the Dark Lord sailing through the air to land in a heap next to Stragos. Leonard and Lyle instantly appeared next to the groaning Dark Lord and covered him with the blaster they had taken off the brute. Just then Stragos stirred and sat up painfully.

When he saw the trembling twins standing over the prostrate Enemy, he found a reserve of strength inside his core and quickly took the weapon from them. They sighed in relief and stepped back to stand next to Alex/Lucky Luke.

“Your nefarious reign has reached its end, Dark Lord,” Stragos declared as he unhesitatingly fired a searing blast at the Dark Lord’s head. Not one of the children averted their eyes as they watched their parents’ murderer meet his just end.

News of the death of the Enemy spread throughout the universe like a welcoming wildfire. What followed this was the announcement of the coronation of a new Universal Ruler, and it surprised very few that he was a ten-year-old boy named Alex Luke, as prophesy had long foretold that peace would be brought to all worlds by a young child with two names, and two distinct personas.

If you’re wondering what Roshni’s purpose was in this fight, it was simply this: she became Alex’s most trusted adviser, as she could always tell when any emissary was truthful or not, and if there were any threats or dangers lurking around Alex.

As Alex was wont to say about her, “Roshni always knows what you’re thinking way before you even thought of thinking it,” and he said it in perfect Hindi, of course.