JOVA

Solar Year, 4264

Location: Great Jovian Desert         

     The view of the stars from the plains of Jupiter's desert looked immensely beautiful in the dim light of the dusk. As comets streaked across the sky and the warm light of dusk turned to an enveloping darkness, Arya could see the colorful mosaic of stars splattering the evening sky with shades of fifty shades of purple, blue, white and red. It was her last day on Jupiter and it would have been a most memorable one if not for the bloody corpses of her fallen comrades and the shattered remains of the enemy ship that littered the desert floor. She cried out, yelling at the top of her voice as tears streamed down her face. She wailed and wailed, her face contorted in sorrow. She hit the ground with her fists, even though the harsh Jovian desert sand ate away at her armor. As the moons of Jupiter made their appearance over the desert floor, she regained her composure and began her journey eastwards, heading in the direction of nearest jump-port, her movements being restricted by the charred alien 'corpse' handcuffed to her right hand. 

    She gazed at the stars as she walked, trying to distract herself from the bloody corpses scattered around. The fact that there was a clear contrast between the beautiful sky above and the ghastly plains she walked on gave her a bit of motivation to keep going. Tears welled down her face as she remembered the faces of those she had lost in her mission. Their mission.

      Space Ranger Arya Simmons, leader of the Earth Branch of the Jovian Resistance, had been assigned the mission of capturing delivering Conan, Emperor of Jupiter, and Grand Commander of the Jovian Solar Armed Forces to New Japan, the Resistance's base on Jupiter's moon, Callisto. 

          Should he be successfully captured, Conan was to be tried by the Solar Court for his crimes against the galaxy. The crimes against him included treason against the Jovian throne, seventy-two counts of murder, possession and indiscriminate use of weapons of planetary destruction, and three counts of mass genocide. Conan was a despicable ruler hell-bent on making the Jovian Empire the only civilization in the galaxy, so much so that he eradicated the lifeforms on planets Neptune and Uranus. The Jovians were by far the most naturally superior species in the galaxy; they possessed rock-hard skin, incredible reflexes and speed, and the ability to shape-shift. They also possessed high regenerative abilities, a natural ability that enables their bodies to survive the harsh Jovian climate. Taking those abilities into account, Conan's next plan was to eradicate the citizens of Saturn, one of Earth's allies.

     Arya and her squad were to infiltrate Conan's warship before it left the Jovian atmosphere. If he did, there would be nothing stopping him from destroying all life on Saturn. Using a small spacecraft, Arya and her twenty-four man team made up of humans and Martians successfully infiltrated the warship and managed to defeat a small percentage of the warships soldiers. Unfortunately, they were quickly subdued and brought to the emperor. When they were brought to Conan, Arya and Conan stared at each other the whole time, casting piercing glares at each other as if to see their innermost thoughts. After a few seconds of eternity had passed, Conan spoke in a low, deep voice:

"Execute them in order of height, starting with the tallest."

    Arya was surprised, not because of the execution order, but because of the order it was to be carried out. At 7 feet she was the second-tallest of the squad. If she was eliminated early it would be demoralizing for her team. In a fit of rage, Kodak, the tallest of the Martians on Arya's team broke loose from his chains and attacked Conan. Conan punched a hole on Kodak's abdomen and left him to die slowly. Just as Kodak drew his last breath, he pushed a red button on the underside of the one of the left arms on his suit. In the split second after that, the nuclear core powering the infiltration spacecraft blew up, causing a massive explosion engulfing the warship. The mission, at the expense of the team, had been accomplished.

    When Arya came to the charred body of Conan was hunched over her as if to offer protection from the explosion. She pushed the charred body away and sat up, examining the carnage and corpses that littered the floor. "The warship had crashed over the Great Jovian Desert and somehow I escaped virtually unharmed", she thought. It was nothing short of a miracle. She pulled out a chain from a compartment in her suit and attached one end to a latch on her suit and tied the other around the neck of Conan's charred corpse. Her priority was the capture of her target. After that she sat on the desert floor, gazing at the stars, her mind conflicted with a thousand and one thoughts, thinking of the events of the past that bound her to the monster chained to her arm.

---

     The year 2164 was the apex of human civilization, ushering technological advancements the likes of the 21st century had yet to fathom. The rapid progress Earth experienced was not, however, completely due to the innovation of humankind. This advancement was made possible through the passing of the Alien Peace Treaty, proposed in 2102 as an agreement between the leaders of planets Earth, Mars, and Saturn.  

              Just before the discovery of lifeforms on Mars in 2064, at a time when the Martians considered themselves a very crude civilization, humankind had finalized plans to make life on Mars a reality. This led to the Great Human Migration, an event involving the transporting of 20 million souls across the vast reaches of space to the planet Mars, which was given the nickname Earth II. That was the year 2063.

     Not long after, on September 11th, 2064, communication with the humans on Mars ceased. On that very day, a man named Adam Simmons appeared in the White House making claims that he was the last survivor of Earth 2. He reported that the majority of the humans there were murdered by creatures he believed to be Martians; green humanoid organisms with three arms, two arms on one side, and one on the other. He also claimed to have been sent back to Earth by portal. The US president ordered an investigation to be carried out on these claims. NASA made use of Mars Rovers to investigate the Earth II's site. Of the seventeen Rovers sent to investigate the site, the data retrieved from two of them were ghastly; human corpses littered the Martian plains for miles around. The other fifteen Rovers were believed to have been destroyed by Martians. That event led to the beginning of what was then referred to as the War of the Worlds, popularly referred to as the Worlds War. After the war, Earth made peace with her planetary neighbors.

        Adam Simmons, meanwhile, settled down to life on Earth. Or so it seemed. Martian intelligence had captured him and detained him for questioning after suspecting him to be the person behind the murder of the humans on Earth II. A month later, a comet fell to the Earth somewhere over the Sahara desert. The sand around the impact zone had turned into dunes of glass due to the immense heat emitted from the comet during impact. All that was found on the site were the charred remains of Martian bodies, and an unscathed human arm bearing numerous black dots believed to be birthmarks.

    Not much was known about Adam Simmons and not much was discovered about him. After his disappearance, the only thing he left behind was his house and his little daughter, Arya, who had black-dotted birthmarks all over her right arm. 

---

A loud noise above interrupted Arya's train of thought. She looked to the sky and saw what she recognized to be a Jovian Resistance ship. At that moment, she could feel nothing but relief. However, she couldn't rest until she had successfully delivered Conan to the Court. The ship landed a few kilometers away from her, so she held tightly to the chain and dragged her captive along. Arya gnashed her teeth as she noticed the body of Conan healing; the regenerative prowess of the Jovians were nothing to be taken lightly. 

  As the ship drew nearer in sight, Arya noticed something squirming on the desert plain. Upon inspection, she found a Jovian soldier crawling on the floor, trying to reach a teleportation device just a few feet in front of her. The lower half of her body had been torn off, a severe injury from the explosion. She had crawled a far distance from the crash site. Arya picked up the device and placed it in the hands of the Jovian. 

 "I admire your tenacity and will to survive", she whispered to the alien. "Heal yourself and use this device to leave this place. This is no place to die." Having said that, Arya walked away and headed towards the ship that would take her to Callisto.

---

        Conan hung weakly from the chains holding him up in the center of the Solar Court, bluish blood sprayed out where his arms and legs used to be and staining the huge emblem of the Sun under him. On the ground below lay about twelve pairs of arms and legs. Each time his limbs regenerated they were quickly cut off, not as a means of torture, but to prevent him from ripping them off himself. It was rumored that Conan could summon unfathomable weaponry by ripping off his limbs. Nonetheless, the Solar Court did not wish to take any risks and so did the dismembering for Conan.

  When Conan was asked if he had anything to say in his defense, he lowered his head and said something in a loud voice, something Arya remembered him saying from when he destroyed the old NASA base:

"And I saw a star fallen from the heavens to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit."

  As soon as he had said that, he bit off his tongue and collapsed, weak from the dismemberment and blood loss. The Council looked shocked, each of them wondering why he did what he did. Arya felt uneasy, as if a shadow loomed over her, waiting for the right moment to snuff her out. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The oldest of the council members, a Martian, rose from his seat. He had deep-set eyes and a protruding forehead. He wore a long, white robe and something about the way he moved gave the impression of a Jedi master. The wrinkles all over his face did nothing for his looks, yet his flowing white beard gave the impression of an extremely knowledgeable elder.

   He walked slowly to the center of the emblem of the Sun, directly under the spot where Conan's butchered body hung. The whole room went silent. No one moved, whispered, or even coughed. He spoke in a loud, deep voice; a voice quite unusual for a man of his age:

"We, the elders of the Solar Court have declared Conan guilty of various treacherous crimes against the galaxy. I am sure you do not need to be reminded of his atrocities, as his actions have led to you all being in this court one way or the other. As punishment for his crimes, we intended to sentence him to twelve-thousand counts of life imprisonment. However, after taking the long lifespan of the Jovians into account, we have decided to have him freeze to death in the far reaches of space. The galaxy, nay, the universe shall have his despicable existence erased from its memory" 

    Everyone got on their feet and gave a standing ovation. There were cheers everywhere; in the court, on the base, on Earth. Everyone was pleased with the outcome. Everyone except Arya. She put on her space helmet and used the visors to zoom in to the face of Conan's body. She froze, staring in horror, her mouth and her voice failing her.

"No!" she yelled.

The cheers in the court subsided, and all eyes turned towards her. She raised her arm slowly, her body trembling. She pointed at the body and said in a shaky voice, "That's not Conan." For a second, everyone paused, then all heads turned to the body hanging from the chains.

"Did you hear me?" she yelled, louder than before. "That's not Co-"

---

"-nan!"

Arya looked around her, taking in her environment. Once again, she was surrounded by dead bodies. The same dead bodies that she had seen just a few hours ago. She was back on the Great Jovian Desert. 

"You were right", a voice said. "That wasn't Conan."

She turned back and saw the Jovian she spared not too long ago, standing about 20 feet away. Her lower body had completely regenerated. Arya pulled out a blaster from her holster, ready to attack when necessary.

"Where's Conan?" she asked. "I'll count to three. I'm running out of patience. Speak now before I blow your brains out."

 Her alien foe stood there, casting a smug look on Arya.

"One…"

There was no movement from either person. Arya had reached her limit.

"…Three!" Arya pulled the trigger and in one swift movement it was all over. Before Arya knew it the Jovian's hand was gripping her neck like a vice while the other one held the blaster down. Arya held her breath. One wrong movement and her life would be over. The Jovian smirked and pushed her on the floor. 

"Where's Conan?" she yelled.

The Jovian turned around and begun to walk away. Arya scurried to her knees.

"Where is he?" she yelled again. "I need to find him. He has to die!" Arya sobbed loudly. Her mission was a failure. The Jovian stopped walking and in a voice lacking the slightest iota of feminity said:

 "You're a hundred years too early to think of killing me."

Arya looked up, the tears streaming down her face stopped flowing. The Jovian looked at her once more and kept walking.

"If I were you I'd be more worried about your friends on Callisto", the Jovian said.

  Arya looked up into the sky and saw a very bright ball of light heading towards Callisto. At that moment she remembered the words of the fake Conan at the Solar Court. A split second later, a loud explosion shook the planet. Callisto had exploded upon the stars impact and a thick cloud of black smoke covered the night sky. She fell on the desert sand, too weak to cry anymore, and watched as the beautiful stars of the desert sky disappeared behind the thick dust clouds of Callisto's ashes.