JOHN ROCKMAN AND THE
TRIALS OF
GALACTAR
BY THE PRINCE OF GALACTAR
BY RON JOCKMAN
Rockman’s eyes opened slowly. The virtual room he saw was rectangular, and yes, it was a room. Luckily it wasn’t the air-flight scenario. Rockman was even more lucky it wasn’t the Easter Egg-Hunt Challenge, which could take light-months to complete. The END SCENARIO button only making itself visible after all the colored eggs were discovered and placed into a small basket.
This room was closed off, save for a single door at one end. Everything was beige; the ceilings, the wall, the other walls, the floor, and four large pillars set up in a square formation; one near each corner. The room was lit by flames on aged brass dragon-shaped sconces which were lined along the walls.
In Rockman’s hand was a pristine steel dagger, a foot in length. The handle made of thick Grenadilla wood. The floor was covered in ash.
Ash?
It appeared as though something had been walking around in here, he could see footprints in the ash along the floor. The prints were small, like a woman’s, and they were deep in the ash, as though the person weighed a little more than an average woman.
“Maria.”
John knew he had to follow the prints to lead him to her. She probably had no idea where she was, and for all she knows, this is real life. If he had been in her position, however unlikely, he would know instantly that real life made sense. And if he found himself in a room littered with ash, he would easily conclude it wasn’t real life. One of the faults of the Femaiel race is they don’t rely on real life common sense, they rely strictly on emotion. Should she feel that she is in danger, then that is all the reality she needs - throwing all deduction and reasoning to the solar-wind.
This is the third time Rockman had ever been in a virtual scenario. The first one was a simple military-grade flight scenario, he remembered. If he was to deliver cargo for Earth’s rulers, then he was to train with the best. He remembered finishing the scenario and the look of complete awe on everyone's faces. He had finished the virtual delivery in record time. Even the President of Earth was amazed. The Vice President wasn’t there, but he was told the Vice President looked amazed, too, when he was told about it later.
The second scenario however, that one was worth un-remembering.
I couldn’t save them.
It was during his last mission, just five light-years ago. He was eighteen, a good age for a soldier. He was feared by every space-pirate and nuclear enemy across the universe. Rockman’s body was taught; his resolve was unmoving; his determination unwavering; muscles covered in a generous dusting of coarse hair. Just like now.
It was his 50th mission and his crewmate was Albert Flare. Albert was a medical technician. Every military flight required a captain and a medic to take care of that captain. Average military flights, however, usually had a crew of ten. A captain, a medical technician, and eight others to handle technical repairs and operation of various mechanical tasks about the ship.
Rockman didn’t need those men. Which is why it was just him and one medical personnel. Rockman was intelligent and more than an average man.
There is just something special about him, people would whisper.
He had just set out with Albert Flare on his mission to deliver important documents which discussed a treaty with the people of the planet Torrar. Earth and Torrar shared a long feud and it needed to come to an end to save lives, millions of lives. This was just the sort of task for which Rockman was designed for.
Everything was going smoothly until Albert had told Rockman that he had planned a virtual surprise party for him, for this, their 50th mission. They both entered the virtual birthday party scenario only to get lost in the thrill of presents and piñatas. Rockman completely missed piloting the ship to the destination, Torrar.
The planet Torrar was later destroyed by Earth’s army due to the treaty of peace never arriving.
Millions of people died because of me.
Albert Flare was later put to death for the war crime of interfering with, and preventing, the transportation of a Grade V military document.
No, this won’t be the same. I have to hurry.
Rockman snapped out of his memories with a silent snap. He took a moment to glance at his attire. He wore skin tight snakeskin trousers and a vest of black wool, parted in the middle to allow his coarse thatch of chest hair to spill out. On his feet were dark brown leather moccasins dangling beads of many colors from the laces. His lambskin cape was long and sci-fi gray, tied about his neck in a sailor’s knot. Rockman shook his head from side to side like a timber wolf, shaking ash from his medium length mahogany colored hair. On his hip was a sheath, probably for his dagger. He sheathed it deftly.
Rockman made his way to the door at the end of the room. The door was made of elm. It had carvings on it that reminded Rockman of a primitive tribe on earth. The image it displayed was of tribe members in supplication to a light in the sky. They knelt in what looked to Rockman like a pool of water. Rockman then assumed he was in some primitive temple. The temple seemed a bit too lavish for a primitive tribe, but Rockman stuck to his first assumption, because it was weak to change one’s mind too much. He pushed open the door.
The door opened to a long hall, unlit by any sconces. Rockman couldn’t even see down to the end. He suddenly wished he had his laser pistol. The floor was tiled here, in a beige color that left him feeling indifferent. Rockman left the hall and re entered the first room.
He came up to the nearest sconce and using his virtual strength, which was twice as strong as his real strength, ripped a dragon sconce of the wall with a shriek.
“This will do quite nicely for a torch,” Rockman assured himself. His voice echoed slightly off of his snakeskin trousers.
Entering the hall once more, Rockman could now see more. He still couldn’t see all the way down the hall, but he could see a lot more than before. The walls and ceiling were beige. He strode on.
A few minutes later, the hall split into two directions: to the left and right.
“Maria?” Rockman shouted down the left tunnel.
“Maria?” Rockman shouted down the right tunnel.
No answer.
Sighing, Rockman played wootie tootie lilac-hee to randomly decide his next path. When he was done spinning, he found himself facing the right tunnel. He strode on.
A few strides, tunnels, and games of wootie tootie lilac-hee later Rockman was utterly lost. It was some sort of labyrinth, Rockman was almost positive. His sconce torch was getting low, and the rest of the labyrinth was pitch black. Rockman’s cape billowed triumphantly as he strode on, faster.
Just as Rockman was getting somewhere, his torch burned out completely. A lesser man would have given up and died; not Rockman. He sat still as a primitive temple, waiting for the inevitable eye adjustment.
Hooray.
There, down the hall he had just come from, was a faint light. It was emanating from the last fork. He took the wrong way there obviously, so he went back to take the other direction. Before he knew what hit him he was in a red hallway, lit up with more dragon sconces. The floor was still beige, but the grout between the tiles was red, and the walls were red.
“Hello?” Rockman yelled down the mostly red hall.
“-no answer-,” was what answered him, meaning no one said anything back.
Rockman was perturbed. He didn’t think Maria could ever have made it this far. She must surely still be back in the dark tunnels, clawing at her eyes in desperation. Pissing herself in a dark corner of a darker hall. Rockman had no choice but to give up on her. He couldn’t risk the mission. He strode on.
Rockman’s efficiently trained mind could easily get over Maria becoming a vegetable or even dying in this virtual world. He prided himself on having such a strong mind, where even a pretty face and large breasts could be forgotte-
Suddenly Rockman was falling.
Falling... falling more.
He was falling for what seemed like an eternity. How did he not see the hole in the floor? What vile sorcery was this? Rockman clenched his buttocks in anticipation of his death.
Rockman instead smacked into a slanted wall and tumbled down an angled tunnel. He reached his mighty arms out to stabilize himself as well as slow his fall. Rockman smelled burning hair as his knuckles scraped along the sides. Soon the walls disappeared and Rockman was in open air! Light-seconds later he landed with a splash into a large pool of water. It all happened in a virtual second.
Rockman got his bearings and began to do a strong, perfect backstroke. His snakeskin trousers were slippery and he was able to glide through the water like a tuna.
The room was very large, and the pool edges were not visible to Rockman. An unknown light seemed to light the center of the pool, where he was. As he swiftly glided through the water, the light followed him. He felt as though he were in some twisted space play.
Something moved by his legs.
Whatever it was, it was big. Rockman glanced a brown skin with orange splotches whisk by. Rockman began to backstroke harder, faster.
The light followed him, as Rockman was accustomed now. He still saw no end to the tepid waters. Rockman wished he had his underwater laser pistol right about now. His black wool vest was soaked and heavy, but Rockman wasn’t going to let some chafing and a little water weight make him take off his stylish vest. His triceps flexed with each stroke.
Finally, Rockman saw the end to the pool. A stone lip surrounded the body of water. A few more strokes would get Rockman safely to the dry ground beyond. He stroked.
As Rockman was only three backstrokes away from the edge (8 backstrokes for a normal person), a giant shape shot out of the water between him and his salvation. The groan from the beast shook the waters. The ripples in the water radiated from the creature’s slimy torso. It slammed back down directly on top of Rockman, pushing him under the water.
Rockman almost panicked. This was the worst possible scenario Rockman could be in. He was a fantastic swimmer to be sure, but Rockman hated drowning. Being cut off from precious air in any form terrified him. He almost gave up then and there.
The beast slid off of him as smoothly as a slab of custard in space. Under the water, with the light shining down, he got a good look at it.
“A Hellbender,” he would have said had he been able to breathe. Rockman almost panicked again. He finally shot back up to break the surface of the water. He weighed his options.
The Hellbender was at least fifteen feet long and it looked hungry. It looked almost like a giant snake with legs. The head was enormous, and the mouth could open to a size big enough to devour a space cow whole. Rockman knew that Hellbenders ate whatever would fit into their mouths if they were hungry enough, and it didn’t seem to Rockman that a food supply was very readily available in this virtual labyrinth. He also knew that they were fast underwater, but clumsy on land. They also couldn’t breathe on land.
Rockman headed for the edge again. To his dismay, Rockman noticed that he was swept out quite a ways away from the lip of the pool. He began to breaststroke, his back muscles creating whitecaps in the water as his hairy body cleaved the liquid like a big hairy stone wedge. It was a good thing that he was swimming so damn fast, because right behind him was the Hellbender, mouth agape and roar bellowing. Rockman’s bowels shook with the vibrations.
Rockman swam with all of his muscular might, which is a lot of might. The Hellbender was gaining on him.
A few more feet.
Rockman’s arms were burning with the strain that would kill a normal human. His multi colored beads clacked as his feet left the water with each kick. Rockman could feel the groan deeper in his bowels as the creature was right behind him.
Both Rockman and Hellbender seemed to reach the edge of the water together, both bodies crashing over the lip in a roar of various noises. When the Hellbender landed however, Rockman was nowhere to be found.
The Hellbender licked his lips, his long slimy throat working to ingurgitate a large, hairy mass. The hall was silent as the Hellbender slithered around towards the pool once more, to hide in wait for its next virtual meal.
KATHUNK!
Just as that noise happened, a foot of polished steel emerged from the back of the Hellbender, near where its stomach would be. A hairy hand, save for the knuckles, pushed its way out of the inside of the Hellbender, holding a pristine steel dagger. A bit later, John Rockman’s head emerged toting a primal scream that set the Hellbender’s bowels to shaking this time. Rockman’s bowels shook a bit too at his own scream.
ø
Later, Rockman was completely out of the now dead Hellbender and taking a bath in the pool, completely naked, to rinse off the Hellbender guts. His muscles were a thing of beauty, glistening the way they were wont to do.
Rockman gathered up his things, slithered into his snakeskin trousers and wrung out his black wool vest before donning that too. He had to find his way out and get that disgusting slug man off of his ship as soon as possible. He noticed a staircase not far from where he was, spiraling up through the ceiling. He strode and climbed.
Suddenly, light assaulted his face and head.
Sunlight.
Rockman had emerged in a wooded forest, stone huts surrounding him. He was in some virtual village square, Rockman realized. The stone huts were made of stone blocks, big as a space dog, stacked neatly on one another with straight, red grout lines going all the way up to their red clay shingle roofs. The single story huts were so primitive. Rockman was sweating a bit.
A horn blew. Most likely it was made of some animal horn. Rockman looked around for any sign of life, or the END SCENARIO button. None were to be had. Except life. Life emerged from the huts and from behind the huts in the shapes of humans. They wore beige button-up shirts and trousers, dark brown moccasins on their feet. The tribal leader wore a black top hat ornately decorated with ancient American political buttons. He kept adjusting it as it fell down over his eyes with all the button weight. The tribal leader approached Rockman.
“Where y’all from?” he spattered towards Rockman.
“Ya’ll?” Rockman grew a little more impatient.
“Ya’ll ain’t with the little lady we found?” the top hatted human spoke questioningly.
Rockman didn’t have time to decipher this ancient dialect, he had an END SCENARIO button to find. He started to walk away when something caught his attention. There, in the distance, at the end of the village by an unlit pyre. It was Maria! She was in a cage dangling ten feet from the ground, but it was her to be sure. Rockman spat, then turned back to the primitive leader.
“I need you to give me that woman you have in your primitive cage,” Rockman bellowed with the authority of a judge’s gavel.
The tribe all shrank back with a gasp. They were clearly amazed and awed by this hairy beast of a man. The top hatted man spoke timidly in reply.
“Well son, I reckon she’s fit for our offering ritual. We’re about to take her down that there hole you came from to give her to our God, ya’ll.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Rockman answered with a large hint of threat.
“I don’t reckon ya’ll have much a choice.”
Suddenly a very primitive, yet indestructible net fell on Rockman. He was suddenly rendered as helpless as Maria, before she was even caged. He heard Maria scream a little in the distance.
“Kill this one here on the spot, ya’ll. We’ll take her down after he’s dead as a billy goat.”
Rockman looked on, helpless, as a random tribal member pulled out a wicked looking axe with red coloring on it. He lifted it feebly into the air. Rockman knew that it was probably so sharp that even a weak tribe member could easily chop his head off. Rockman squirmed with all of his might, to no avail. The axe came down as quick as a varmint. Rockman screamed primally.
Then he woke.
He was back in his ship’s VERSATILE DORMANT WARD. Rockman sighed a relief sigh, but it was cut off short. Before him stood unfamiliar faces, in front of a shattered emergency hidden door.
One of the faces made Rockman want to retch all over himself. Its body was hairy and slimy, and the odor radiating from it was offensive. His arm was still pressing the EMERGENCY END SCENARIO button that got Rockman out of his dream in the nick of time. This must have been the slug man who commandeered his ship. Beside him, to either side, were two giant boar people from the planet Boardom. That race was notorious for being able to bust through any door with ease. Rockman was ready to fight them all. As he began to move, he noticed they had already bound his hands and feet, as well as Maria’s, with unbreakable comet alloy shackles. He tried to speak then, but realized his mouth too had been shackled.
Rockman looked over to Maria. A single tear was dripping from her eye. Rockman grew stern.
“Welcome to Galactar,” the pig man spewed.
Maria and Rockman both dry heaved.
- LOOK FOR THE FULL EBOOK TO BE RELEASED SUMMER 2012 -
Like what you’ve read? Follow @RonJockman on twitter for updates!
https://twitter.com/#!/RonJockman
Text copyright © 2012 Justin Lucas and Mitchell Lucas
All Rights Reserved