Doom 2099UG #15

The Tomb Island of Kurza.

Marissa stared down into the depths of the hidden chamber, her hand-held lantern illuminating a small circle of the narrow stone steps that plunged precariously into the dark underground vault. She felt cold, although a warm draft of air swept up out of the false coffin to caress cheeks brightened blood red by the frosty evening. The breeze brought with it the sound of laser fire, deep frightening explosions, cascading rock, and a voice that roared its wordless defiance to the forces that dared to stand against him. Doom was down there.

She bit her lip. What could she do? What should she do? She struggled with her conscience and battled with ancient instincts of self-preservation. She was hundreds of kilometers from any kind of help, and by the time anyone got here it might very well be too late. The sounds of sudden blasts ricocheting off of rock walls below made her jump unexpectedly. Her hand went naturally to the bright gold locket that hung from a chain around her neck. She tried to see into this murky future, calming her thundering heart as she closed her eyes and steadied her rapid breathing. But unlike the locket's former owner, the gypsy fortune teller Larinda, Marissa had not yet mastered the art of predestination. Try as she might, no visions came to her.

What use was this power, she thought with angry frustration, when it vanished at the very instant when she needed it the most?! She suddenly felt small and frightened, as the stone carvings on the walls of the mausoleum seemed to stare down at her with all of the anger of their thousand-year entombment, chastising her for being a weak and petty girl. As if her unspoken thoughts had maligned the sacred memories of her ancestors and belittled the gift she had been given. The tall statues glowered in their marbleized battle armor, their faces as fierce as their spears were blooded. She hung her head, remorseful now over her wordless betrayal and her silent cowardice. Her hand found the knife she had lifted off of the skeleton in the adjacent coffin. She pulled it out of its brown leather sheath once more. The blade was solid and pristine, eight inches from hilt to pointy tip, with a distinct temper line that followed the slight curve of the blade. Her reflection danced across the bright steel as she turned it in the light. There was another roar from the depths, and an explosion that brought with it the smell of dust and fallen rock. What good would a knife do? She felt her intellect questioning her apparent lack of judgement in the face of such a desperate battle. But her heart and her mind had already reached a decision. The stone statues of a distant and forgotten past stood in silent testimony as she climbed into the coffin, and made her way carefully down the steep stairway.

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Isla Tiburon

On the Sea of Cortes.

Sharp Blue walked quickly across the windy tarmac toward her waiting ship. The secret base of her mercenary elite was well hidden atop this high mountain island in the middle of the crystal blue Sea of Cortes. The island was a secure and isolated outpost that allowed them three hundred and sixty degrees of surveillance across the turquoise blue waters, from the sandy beaches of Baja California to the mountains and valleys of the mainland. The island had once been a nature reserve, off limits even to the Mexican fisherman who for centuries had longed to plunder her pristine valleys, and spoke fearfully of the legendary sharks that patrolled her deep waters. It had been easy for her mercenary crew to set up their secret base in the deserted mountains of the island. From here they had laid low following Herod's attack on the Doom Presidency and their subsequent flight from the US. She had gathered her forces closely around her, rebuilt their ranks, and stockpiled weapons and supplies. Then, she had waited.

She knew that if Doom was going to repeat his assault on the United States, that he would be in need of their services. Secretly, she had hoped that he would not seek retribution against them for having survived the attack of the wave spiders, or for having abandoned him to save their own lives. She knew that he had escaped the destruction of the White House. He would not have been completely beaten by Herod's attack. It wasn't his nature. Eventually, her contacts in East Africa had verified that he was alive and actively campaigning again. Her mercenaries had been anxious to join him there, but she held them back. Sharp Blue was cautious for her kind, which was why she had managed to survive as a leader for as long as she had in this deadly business of soldier for hire. She didn't want to farm out her corps to just any nascent revolution. When the fighting was to begin in earnest, she wanted to be sure that she was on the right side of Doom!

She had kept her signal corps busy monitoring all communications 24/7, in the hopes of contacting Doom, or better, of finding out what his next move was. Her plan was to place herself in the action at just the right time when Doom would need their help. That was what had brought her out onto the airfield this bright, sunny morning. A communication had been intercepted by one of her young hacks, a mysterious signal on a bandwidth that frankly didn't make any sense. The signal had been scrambled, and with encoding that was so sophisticated even her best techs were baffled. All they could get out of the message was indecipherable snow. But there was more than that. Their best guess on the recipient of that signal was somewhere in Western Europe, and that didn't leave them much in the way of solid information. However, it turned out that the sender was much closer! By using triangulation with a couple of known transponders on the peninsula and the mainland, they had managed to pinpoint with high accuracy the location of that signal. It was less than fifty miles away, across the bay somewhere near the sleepy fishing village on the mainland coast. And even though the point of origin was so close, because of the sophisticated nature of the signaling technology if they had been only a few miles further away, or hadn't been looking at the time, they would have missed it altogether!

"It's probably not Doom," Enrique was saying as he escorted her to the waiting jump jet.

"I'm not so sure," Sharp answered, tying her long while hair into a knot behind her head as she climbed into the single seat reconnaissance jet. "That signal was like nothing we've ever seen before. If it's not Doom, then it could be Herod."

"If Herod's tracked us down, we shouldn't be hanging out here like sitting ducks," Enrique protested. "We should be packing out, heading south to Delta base."

"We might want to do that even if it's not Herod, but I've got to be sure," Sharp pulled on her helmet and started up the engines on the Rapier 905. It hummed to life willingly, lifting slightly off the ground in a smooth hover.

"What do you mean, if it's not Herod?" Enrique shouted above the steady thrumming of the Rapier's engines. "If it's not Doom, and it's not Herod, then who could it be?"

Sharp Blue adjusted her visor as she settled her long, lean frame into the cockpit, and glanced meaningfully at her second in command. "Someone we should probably be worried about, if that signal is any indication of the kind of technology they have" she answered cryptically. "Get your troops ready to move out. If we've been compromised here, we'll have to abandon this post. But let me do some recon first, see what we might be up against. It can't be coincidence that the signal was so close! If by chance Doom is trying to contact us, then the time to be battle ready is now!" She waved to the ground's crew, and Enrique stepped back as the Rapier climbed vertically into the bright blue sky.

Enrique waved and shouted "be careful!" but he knew she couldn't hear him. So instead he said a quiet prayer, "Vaya con Dios," he muttered. "God be with you, Sharp Blue."

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Kurza.

The dark cave at the bottom of the stairs was musty and cramped. There was a narrow passageway that began where the stairs ended, with the path bearing the signs of the ancient iron axes that had carved it out of the thick stone, or perhaps had widened an existing passage. Still, Marissa had to stoop to traverse the path, and if it wasn't for her experience spelunking in the mountain caves of her native Latveria, the dark and narrow tunnel alone might have sent her scurrying back to the open spaces of the cemetery above. Her heart was racing quite enough already from the fear of what might lie ahead. The sounds of battle had faded further into the distance, but she soldiered on. The tiny but powerful lamp strapped to her wrist lit the way ahead, illuminating the silky cobwebs hanging from above, and the dry fine sand at her feet. She was getting a cramp in her neck from stooping when the cave finally opened up into a large, illuminated chamber. She stepped into the large underground room with a grateful sigh, but was met with a sight that set her back a step. The room within was lighted by some unnatural source, radiating luminescence from the stalactites and stalagmites that decorated the chamber, glowing gold and orange and red hues on the textured walls and across a gently sloping floor littered with thousands of stark white bones. The few complete skeletons she saw lay in various states of frightened repose across the floor. Some still clutched armored shields against an unseen enemy. Others crouched behind shattered stalagmites that had proven no shelter against whatever had ended their quest for treasure. The one that lay in the sand closest to her appeared to be crawling toward the sanctuary of the cave behind her, only the poor soul had never been able to reach it. The slaughter of these men uncounted years ago had been as complete as it was lethal.

Marissa stood shock still, taking it all in with a cautious assessment. For perhaps centuries the secrets of this tomb had been zealously guarded by an advanced technology that had been unknown to ordinary men. Doom had come this way, but whatever it was that had taken the men who had come before had proven no match for the Lord of Latveria. Still smoking blast marks against the walls revealed where he had destroyed targeting sensors, sparking wires that popped and crackled in the distant dark shadows revealed hidden laser guns now broken and useless. Whole chunks of the rock wall were turned to rubble, with the dust still settling over some unknown weapon that had been completely destroyed. Armor piercing rounds from a huge automatic Gatling gun had fallen harmlessly to the floor, ineffective against Doom's force field and adamantium lanxide armor. The rotating barrel of that weapon still spun uselessly in its empty mount, unable to reload itself through the severed feed chamber. There was an eerie smoky smell that pervaded this ancient chamber now, the sole remaining herald to the passing of Doom!

Marissa stepped forward cautiously, keeping her eyes on the walls, wondering if there were any traps that remained as yet unsprung. But the room did not attack, Doom had been thorough in his passing. Only the Gatling gun kept spinning, as the gun's metal barrel followed her across the floor, tracking her movement from some hidden sensor. She stared at it with a morbid fascination, even as she instinctively wanted to flee from its garrulous attention. She passed within a few feet of the end of the gun, staring down into the empty barrel, the chamber spinning feverishly. Finally she ripped her eyes away, and continued on through the large chamber toward a distant exit.

The sounds of fighting ahead had grown quiet, and she hurried her pace a little, wondering if the worst had come to pass while she had struggled with her inner demons. The cave narrowed again into a short passageway, before opening into a bridge over a deep chasm. The bridge was a natural span of limestone, arcing gently over the dark depths to connect the two sides. The bridge was narrow, but it was passable. She wished for a length of rope, since it was impossible to tell how stable it was, but it was too late to turn back now to search for any. Besides, Doom had come this way, and she certainly weighed less than he did. She stepped onto the bridge with one foot, pressing it gingerly to test its strength. Just when she thought it would hold, the bottom gave out with a thunderous roar. The bridge disintegrated before her eyes, turning into crumbling rock and sparkling yellow dust in a matter of milliseconds! Marissa was lucky, her center of balance was not yet fully on the bridge when it let go, and so she fell backward as it collapsed, catching herself on the rocky edge of the deep hole that threatened to suck her into oblivion. She held on with her arms as she looked back over her shoulder at the bottomless darkness below.

"Shock! Shock! Shocking stupid!" she chastised herself mercilessly, even as she kicked and struggled and pulled herself back onto the ledge. She sat with her back against the rock wall behind her as she watched the cloud of dust settle out over the deep chasm. She was breathing hard from the sudden fright and exertion, but she still had energy left to beat her palm against her head. "Doom can fly, you stupid worm!" she said, beating on her forehead with her fist, hoping that the pain would help to make the lesson sink in.

As she sat on the edge, slowly trying to regain her composure, she saw with amazement that the bridge was beginning to reform, right before her eyes! It started at the far end, and then miraculously knitted itself back together from the dust suspended in the air. The bridge was quickly reassembled, until it once more appeared as a solid path at her feet. Another clever trap!

"Oh no you don't," she told the bridge slyly, stepping away from the edge. "Not me, not this time!"

Her eyes searched the chasm for another way across. A part of her consciousness told her that she would have to turn back. There was no way she could go further. But another part refused to give up. There had to be a way! It didn't take her long to find it. The ledge she was standing on followed the length of the chasm north to south, becoming increasingly narrow where the chasm descended into this cave like a ripped seam in the earth's crust. Where the chasm was at its narrowest, there was a fall of rock forming a kind of wall that spread across the opening from the edge of the chasm to the roof of the cave. On the other side was a small round cave that opened up into the wall, reachable from the rock fall but high above the ledge that awaited her across the bridge. There was no way of telling whether that smaller cave was a dead end, or if it connected to another chamber further on, but there was only one way to find out. It was a difficult climb through the darkness, and there was a steady trickle of water that seeped over the rocks to disappear into the smothering darkness of the deep chasm below her, making her way dangerously slippery. Marissa inched forward carefully, at some points clinging to the rock wall with just the tips of her fingers as her feet reached for the next foothold. When she had successfully crossed the chasm several tense minutes later, she climbed into the round tunnel in the opposite wall with a grateful sigh. She was twenty meters above the ledge that the false bridge had led to, and there was no safe way down there that she could see. She looked into the small tunnel anxiously. There was a distant light coming through, and the air was still fresh, both of which were good signs, although the tunnel was very small, and probably too tight for most men to pass through. With her narrow shoulders and hips, it wasn't impossible, merely uncomfortable. She crawled forward, pushing her small light ahead of her and listening to the sounds ahead as she inched ever further into the darkness. The golden locket around her neck bounced lightly over the rough ground.

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The inner chamber had been nothing short of ingenious. Doom had been moderately impressed with the layout and sophistication of the various traps that had been set and had kept the tomb's secrets safe for hundreds of years, even as he was callously blowing them to bits. At first he had been circumspect, targeting specific installations with almost bored precision. But that had given way to contempt, as the weapons aimed at him became increasingly more sophisticated, as if the chamber was learning from its opponent and testing each weapon in a logical and increasing order of succession. He could have just as easily walked through the cave without bothering to raise a hand in offense, letting his armor and his force field protect him. But his ire tonight was easily tempted, perhaps due in part to his recent wounding and the dull pain that still throbbed in his side. He found himself testing the sophistication of the chamber's maker, daring the chamber to best him as he met each challenge and defeated it, reveling in the sheer force of his greater intellect and power! When the dust had settled, it was Doom that remained triumphant, and the golden chamber was quiet at last, silently kneeling before his superior might. He glared about the room defiantly, his green cape swaying softly behind him, awaiting the next challenge with clenched fist and blazing eyes. None came. He alone, of all these dead men who had come before, was the chamber's master. And that was as it should be.

Doom marched forward, and into the trap of his own arrogance.

Across the chasm with its ridiculously transparent false bridge, Doom crossed under a low arch and entered the final chamber of this underground maze. He suddenly sensed that he was standing on the threshold of a momentous discovery, and that the gaps of knowledge that had plagued him since his unexpected arrival in the year 2099 would soon be filled.

The passageway had opened into a large, spacious cavern, longer than it was wide, with a roof that disappeared into the darkness above. From where Doom stood he could see a bright steel door a hundred or more meters away on the opposite wall. That was his destination, and he felt a slight stirring in his breast and a lump in his throat that he could not explain with logic or reason. It was as if that door represented a doorway into the hidden memories he had been denied access to since his arrival in this time period. He buried his emotional response, refusing to let his eagerness to complete his journey cloud his judgement. The answers he was seeking would be waiting for him beyond that door, no matter how long the journey would take. Calmly now, he studied the room with a critical eye.

There were no signs of occupation in the cavern, the floor was clean and free of the debris of man or animal, covered by only a slight coating of dry limestone dust. The walls were smooth solid rock, with no hidden recesses or dark corners to provide refuge or to hide a weapon. It appeared to be completely safe, with the distant door beckoning seductively. His armor's sensors could find no energy sources behind the wall or floors. If there were any hidden mechanisms, they were thoroughly shielded from detection. It was an obvious trap, set to lure the unwary into a false sense of security. Doom would not be so tempted.

But neither would he stoop to granting the chamber's maker respect for the trap that lay ahead. It was beneath him to do so. He was Doom, and he was as far above such ignoble efforts as the stars above the moon. Let them try. They will only slink away again in hideous defeat as before! Little did he know exactly whom it was he was challenging when he walked boldly forward across the field of his imminent defeat!

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Mainland Mexico.

On the Sea of Cortes.

Sharp Blue put her little jet fighter into stealth mode as she flew slow circles over the fishing village on the mainland coast. The sleepy village was a simple little town, as old as the sea itself, with a cluster of adobe houses cluttered around a few barren streets and a small church that probably dated from the time of the Spanish missionaries. It seemed to be an unlikely place for the kind of technology she had seen that morning. She made one more pass over the village center, then headed east, toward the mountain.

To her detriment, her instincts served her well. As she headed up the slopes of the steep mountain that cast its shadow over the village below, she immediately began to receive some strange signals on the telemetry readouts. She should have turned around right there, she would think later, but curiosity drove her to look just a little further. Her ship climbed higher toward a prominent notch in the sheer wall before her. When she first saw the sprawling ranch house in the wide valley near the top of the mountain, she didn't think much of it. It seemed no more sinister than any number of other similar spreads she had seen on previous forays into the mainland. Except that this particular ranch didn't seem to be occupied by any kind of rancher she had ever seen. There were no cows, no sheep, and no barns, and even though it was late in the morning, there was no visible activity on the ranch at all. Then there was that smell, like something dead and rotting, coming through the fresh air vents of her Rapier jet even from 250 meters above the ranch. She circled beyond the ranch out over the sea, and dropped in lower for another pass, and a closer look.

The bright red beam that hit her ship with a brilliant flash of light wrenched the controls out of her hands for an instant, and would have sent her into a deadly spin had she not recovered so quickly. All power to her vessel was suddenly dead, and she muscled the controls in a desperate attempt to put the vehicle into some kind of glide. She shot low over the ranch house at 250 kph, and though she had never seen her attacker, she caught a glimpse of some flying vehicle shadowing her on the right. There was no time for that though, as she barely got the nose up enough to glide the little jet up over the small rise on the ranch's eastern border. The controls were sluggish without power, but that grassy hill and the wind coming off it had given her a much-needed lift. She had a millisecond now to put the flaps down and try to slow her descent into the valley beyond. The little wings screamed in protest. Without the reverse engines to slow her down, there was little chance of a smooth landing. Not that the crash that was coming would resemble a landing of any sort. In the next second the wings were slicing through the branches of a grove of trees, and she no longer had any control at all. The belly of the ship hit the earth, launching her forward in her seat with a violent slam that knocked the wind out of her, and she blacked out.

When she came to a few minutes later, she was surprised to find that she was all in one piece. Her head throbbed, but the helmet had saved her skull, and she doggedly tried to gather her wits about her. Her heart was beating a staccato rhythm in her chest as the adrenaline was still pumping. She was not out of danger yet, whatever had hit her was still out there. She unhooked herself from her restraints, and manually lifted the jet's canopy.

The little plane had cut an impressive swath into the ground for the last 150 meters of its existence. The wings were gone and the nose was an unrecognizable accordion of twisted metal, but the reinforced fuselage had remained safely intact. Sharp Blue removed her helmet and stood unsteadily in the cockpit, when she realized that she was not alone here. She reached for her weapon, and whirled like a snake to point it at the wizened old man who was standing a few meters away.

"Senorita," he said quietly, "are you alright? I saw the crash from over there," he pointed to a burro standing patiently nearby. The little creature was harnessed to an ancient wooden two-wheeled cart, piled high with dry wood for the old man's fire. "I will go to the big ranch house for help, to get you a doctor," the old man continued helpfully.

"No, no," Sharp Blue answered, shaking her weary head, "don't go near that ranch house, old man, something's not right there."

"Oh, si," the old man nodded in agreement. "It stinks there," he said, holding his nose for emphasis.

Sharp Blue would have laughed at his parody, but there suddenly wasn't time. From over the wooded valley her secret pursuers had located her crash site. Two alien looking aircraft came screaming out of the empty blue sky and descended upon her downed ship with deadly intent. She could barely make out the pilots that sat atop the strange flying cycles. They appeared to be completely encased in a shiny black armor that was almost an organic part of the flying ships, as if the pilot and the ship were one being. The threat of the guns that pointed her direction was clear, however, and she immediately took the offensive. She got off six quick laser bursts from her pistol before her attackers had a chance to blink. True to her name, all six blasts were direct hits, however her weapon had little effect. The old man screamed "Madre de Dios!" as the ships rapidly bore down on them. Sharp grabbed the old man and sent him scurrying up the hill, as the alien vessels targeted her downed ship. Bright lasers singed the air, and the little broken plane exploded in a towering fireball that sent Sharp and the old man flying to the ground from the force of the blast. She looked back at her ship, and then at the enemy flyers. They were banking around for another pass.

"Run!" she ordered the old man, shoving him away as she adjusted the power level on her laser pistol. The old man was frightened and confused, but even though he recognized the threat, he would not abandon his morning's hard labor. He ran to the waiting burro, pulling on the reigns to urge the bleating animal to flee with him. Sharp ignored them, and stood to focus her efforts on the rapidly approaching enemy ships. She took careful aim and fired, but nothing happened. Just like her ship earlier, her weapon had been neutralized! Horrified, she stared into the face of the closest pilot bearing down on her. In a split second she realized that they were anything but human. What she had at first taken for a helmet visor was a pair of dark, bulbous eyes atop a wide crescent mouth. They had no nose that she could see, but a set of horny protuberances that circled their faces in front of their mouths like a second set of jaws. A rough textured bulky bump of a brow above their eyes gave way to a smooth, shiny forehead that swept back over a hairless head. Their arms were spindly, and covered with more of the same chitinous material, and they had more than two arms that she could see. A thick plate of armor covered their backs, and they seemed to melt into the vehicles they rode like some kind of techno-organic being. All this she saw in an instant, even as she sensed a sickly kind of grin on that inhuman face. Then, that brilliant red beam hit her, and there was nothing more but blackness.

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Kurza.

Marissa had been forced to abandon her overcoat several meters back when it got caught on some projection in the narrow tunnel. It hardly mattered anymore, for the cavern had grown increasingly warmer the deeper she went, fueled perhaps by some distant geothermal source. Her face was coated with grime and sweat, and the traveling in the tight tunnel was frustratingly slow, but she refused to turn back now. She retrieved the knife from her coat pocket and secured it in her waistband before continuing on. She kept her senses alert as she crawled forward, listening as she did for any sounds of battle or clues to hidden traps that may lie ahead.

Not far from where Marissa was crawling, Doom had sprung a deadly trap, and was dealing with it in his own inimitable fashion. The first assault from the final chamber was a squadron of battle robots. The robots launched themselves from the walls of the enormous cave, seemingly melting out of the barren rock itself, the moment that Doom had stepped out onto the floor. They were thick bodied creatures, eight feet tall and man-shaped, and they turned as a precise unit to train their bright sensor eyes simultaneously on their quarry. Their attack was quick, brutal, and unrelenting, but in the end, ineffective against the mighty Doom. Their movements were flawless, but Doom had to laugh inside his adamantium lanxide mask as they attacked. Their maker had obviously studied the works of Doom, and their design was familiar enough to him to be able to immediately pinpoint each machine's weakness, and put it out of commission with his offensive weaponry long before the robots had a chance to seriously threaten him. That however, was only the first wave, and as he had learned in the previous chamber, the defenses of the tomb seemed to learn and adapt to the foe it faced.

The second wave of robots descended from on high even before the last of the first wave was finished. Doom noted with chagrin that again his designs had been copied, but he had little time to curse their maker as he was immediately forced into a defensive position. These robots used their flying capabilities to quickly surround him and neutralize the effectiveness of his powerful gauntlet weapons through agile maneuvering and evasive action. However, by diverting energy to flight, their own weaponry was not as potent as the previous group of robots. Instead, their strategy was to overwhelm him with numbers, and chip away at Doom's armor and shields until final victory could be achieved. Assuming that Doom remained grounded, this technique might have worked. But Doom could also fly, and he confounded their attack by taking the battle to them! Doom was skilled in aerial combat, and despite his bulky armor, he was exceptionally nimble in flight. He brilliantly used their greater numbers against them, saving energy even as they wasted theirs. More than once Doom positioned himself in one robot's sights, then gracefully twisted aside like a consummate matador as it fired, only to have the missed shot strike one of its teammates. Doom easily halved their numbers in this way without having to take a single shot of his own!

"I tire of this pointless jousting," Doom growled at the remaining robots as they gathered to regroup and adjust their strategy. He dodged a blast and coldly dispatched another metal pursuer with an explosive beam from his gauntlets. "Doom is not one to waste effort on cannon fodder," he continued nonchalantly. "This dance of ours could go on all night, but I'd rather skip to the main course. Tell me, robot, what would it take to disable your master program?"

"Retreat!" - skizt!- one of the robots commanded in a panic, even as Doom used a magnetic beam to latch onto its back plate in midair. "Protect the core!" it ordered its cohorts as it struggled helplessly in Doom's grip.

"Yes, let's go to the core of the matter," Doom hissed, even as he ripped out the back plate of the robot and exposed critical components inside.

- skizt! "Integrity compromised!" the robot complained, "self destruct sequence initiated!"

"Not before I get this!" Doom replied coldly, immediately locating the circuits he was searching for. Quickly he ripped out a crucial circuit board and turned his armored body in midair to shield it from the self-destruct blast that abruptly engulfed his captive. Doom emerged from the ensuing cloud of smoke unharmed, and settled gently to the ground. "Now," he snarled, "let us see how clever you really are!" He accessed the captured motherboard, and attaching it to his own armor's circuitry, began to retrieve a cache of stored data, including the frequency with which the robots communicated with the host computer, and with each other. Using some of the robot rubble that now littered the cave floor, he first disabled the remaining robots with a single command. Then he set up a static signal on the frequency used by the master computer to communicate with the attack robots, effectively blinding it. He tossed the quickly manufactured item into the rubble heap, confident that he would not be bothered any further.

"Pity," he said slowly, "I was almost beginning to admire you." He paused only briefly before turning back toward the door that beckoned him from the opposite wall. He marched defiantly and unimpeded across the floor, his green cape streaming out behind him. But the room's defender was not finished yet!

From inside her cramped tunnel, Marissa heard the new sounds of battle, closer now than before. The cacophony seemed to come through the very walls around her, quickening her heart beat. The light in the distance was closer, and the tunnel through which she crawled had begun to take on smooth, more regular dimensions. If she had time to think about it, she might have realized that the tunnel she was in was man-made. Instead, she merely accelerated her pace, hoping that in some way she might be able to save Doom from the deadly fate her dreams had foretold.

Suddenly, Doom was trapped! Impossible though it seemed, the jamming device he had constructed had not entirely disabled the room's defenses. As he had paced brazenly toward his goal, his armor had registered a momentary blip in the room's energy output. That had been enough warning for him to instinctively activate his shields, but that was all he had been able to do since. A powerful stasis field had shot out from the walls around him, freezing him in place like a statue. His personal shields had only saved him from being crushed by that invisible beam, but he could neither move forward nor turn to aim his weapons. The stasis beam even confounded his ability to phase shift his physical form with his armor, apparently operating on a sub-molecular level! He began to rapidly re-modulate the frequencies on which his shields operated in an effort to override the stasis beam, but the computer that controlled the beam had anticipated that move, and was modulating the frequency of the beam to match. As fast as he could counter move, his opponent was a millisecond ahead. Even though frustrated and growing angrier by the second, Doom was duly impressed.

"Do you think this will detain me?" Doom shouted to the unhearing walls. "Bah! This is a cowardly effort, beneath Doom's attention! In a moment, I will be free, and your restraints will be dust, like the rest of your contemptible little toys!" He boasted arrogantly, even as he struggled to find a way to neutralize the beam. "Show yourself, fiend!" he taunted boldly. "Let us face each other in battle like men of honor!"

His challenge went unanswered, for a moment. Then a small trap door opened in the dusty floor not far from his feet, and Doom wondered if he would at last face the guardian of the tomb! Instead, as if the stasis beam were not enough, a new horror was unleashed into the cave. A million small robotic black creatures streamed out of the trap door toward him, their spider-like bodies covering the floor in a thick carpet of fat torsos and swarming legs. With a deadly singular purpose, they rushed at Doom en masse, literally crawling over each other to reach him. His shields deflected the first few hundred easily enough, but the thousands that followed somehow managed to break through! There were too many of them! They were somehow able to penetrate his shields, and without being able to move he could not hold each one off for very long before another one took its place! It was as if his foe knew Doom's defenses as well as he did! Each one of the spiders that touched his armor latched onto the shiny surface with a sharp mouthpart and then hung there, motionless, while those that followed crawled over the top of its companions to do the same. Dozens more came after to join the next, until Doom's feet, and then his lower legs were soon covered in a growing, squirming mountain of shiny black bodies.

The spider robots' purpose was instantly apparent to Doom. They were sucking the energy out of his armor, bleeding the very life out of him! He felt the energy levels of his armor begin to plummet dangerously, even as he tried to isolate his lower body from the energy leeching spiders. He could feel his skin crawl, hot and prickly as if he had just run a marathon. Inside his blood stream, the microscopic nanite machines that formed the interface between him and his armor began to search for alternate energy sources, radiating rivulets of pain through his large muscles and his brain as they swarmed around the electrochemical impulses generated there. He shut out his discomfort with disciplined deliberation, and steadfastly concentrated on the primary task at hand. First thing was to neutralize the stasis beam that held him captive. There was a peculiar rhythm to the beam, like a throbbing that he could feel through the static it generated in his external sensors. At one point in the cycle, the faint pulse matched the lowest energy point of the beam. If he timed it precisely, perhaps he could move out of the beam when the energy yield was at its lowest level. He focused his efforts on moving his hands, inch by agonizing inch with each pulse of the beam. He felt the spider robots crawling further up his immobilized legs as his force fields weakened, and he realized with calm certainty that there wasn't much time left. But he had to dispel that ominous threat from his mind, for he could not let it distract him from his goal!

With a final herculean effort, Doom positioned his hands with outstretched palms facing opposite walls of the cave. He had pinpointed what he believed was the source of the stasis beam, and through a haze of imminent network failure inside his armor, he finally targeted the twin generators. Without hesitation, he routed all remaining energy to his weapon's systems, and in the instant that his shields were down he felt both the increased pressure of the stasis beam, and the persistent advance of the spider robots! He would have only one shot.

Marissa had reached the end of the tunnel, and recognized with sudden clarity that she had indeed been crawling through some kind of ventilation shaft. The end of the shaft was a metal grate, and she could see a brightly lit control room through the mesh. There were monitors, control panels, and brilliant colored buttons and gauges, but the room seemed to be unoccupied at the moment. She pushed at the grate, but it wouldn't budge. There wasn't enough room in the shaft for her to turn around to kick at it, and she couldn't get enough leverage using only her arms. She reached for the knife at her belt, and using it as a pry bar she found the edges of the metal frame. It slowly gave way as she pulled and jimmied at the edges. As she was working, she noticed one of the glowing monitors in the room beyond. She could see a large picture of Doom in some other cave, apparently caught in a trap with thousands of black creatures attached to his legs. It didn't look good for Doom. Desperately now, she used her legs to anchor herself from behind, and jammed her head and shoulders against the metal grate, pushing against it as she fervently pried at it with the knife. Suddenly, the grate gave way, and she was launched out of the shaft as it failed, falling headfirst down into the room.

She barely avoided breaking her neck as she fell nearly three meters to the floor, landing on her shoulder and rolling away as the grate came clattering down behind her. She groaned a little, and lay there on the cold tile floor in a moment of unrelenting agony. But her sense of foreboding wouldn't let her wait very long. She staggered to her feet, aching from the fall and the long crawl through the ventilation shaft, then stumbled to the control panel where she had seen the image of Doom. Yet no sooner had she struggled back to her feet than a terrific explosion rocked the underground vault, and sent her sprawling across the floor once more.

The full discharge of Doom's weapons had blown two enormous holes in either side of the cave walls, exposing the mechanism hidden there an instant before he completely annihilated them, and Doom was freed of the stasis beam at last! That effort however, was not without consequence. His shields were now gone, and unimpeded by that invisible barrier, the spider robots swarmed forward. Doom was not yet defeated, for even as the end seemed near, he had a back up plan. Between the spiders and the power needed to destroy the stasis beam, his armor's energy supplies were nearly exhausted. But the cooling systems were not reliant on electrical energy, and Doom quickly routed the cooling chemicals out of his armor in a single massive burst. The sudden release froze the very air that surrounded him, and the mighty monarch and everything that touched him was instantaneously encased in a cocoon of solid ice!

Marissa regained her feet, and shaking off the effects of the shockwave she hurried to the panel to see what had happened. Doom had disappeared from the screen, replaced by a block of what appeared to be solid ice, roughly in the shape of a man with both arms outstretched. The swarm of spider-like creatures she had noticed earlier had disappeared beneath that shroud of ice as well. She adjusted the focus on the monitor, and was surprised to see that it looked like Doom was inside that block of ice! Just as she wondered what to do next, studying the controls before her, the figure on the monitor began to shake and hum. Suddenly the ice shattered from within, sending ice shards and pieces of black spider robots showering over the cave floor. Doom emerged triumphant once more, and Marissa breathed an amazed sigh of relief.

Doom's gambit had worked perfectly. Although remarkably resilient, the spider-robots' armor was not sufficient to withstand the sudden drop in temperature that accompanied the release of coolant around Doom's armor. Doom's adamantium lanxide armor on the other hand, was far more durable, and once he had used the sonic vibration to break out of his self-imposed cocoon of ice, Doom emerged unscathed amidst the debris of ice and tiny pieces of a million wrecked spider-robots. That effort, however, had drained the last of his remaining energies, and exhausted, he involuntarily dropped to one knee on the floor of the cave. He would not have sufficient time for his depleted power cells to recharge, however. From the back of the room, yet another robot lumbered forward out of the darkness, with deadly intent.

"Doom! Look out behind you!"

"What? Who?" Doom stood up and whirled around, to see the new robot that now stalked him

"It's me," Marissa answered him over the loudspeaker.

Doom delayed acknowledging her voice while he assessed this new threat. It was a giant compared to the others. Fully armored, and nearly twenty feet tall, it had thick limbs and heavy boots. Its eyes glowed behind its emotionless inhuman mask. Doom noted with disgust that its form was more like the Sentinels of the late 20th century, an inelegant design developed by mutant-hating Americans, albeit considerably smaller in scale. There was no telling how extensive its offensive weapons were, but given the history of this tomb, they were no doubt considerable. Doom appraised his own systems, and reluctantly backed away from the approaching monstrosity.

"Where are you?" Doom demanded of the disembodied voice, even as the lumbering robot slowly circled to cut Doom off from any retreat. Doom continued to keep his distance, but retreat was not his intent.

"I'm in some kind of control room," Marissa answered. "I have you on one of the monitors," she continued, "but I'm not sure where I am exactly."

"Gypsy . . . Marissa," Doom entreated cunningly. "You must shut down the auto defense systems that protect the tomb!" He stepped away from the robot, but without weapons, shields or the mobility of his fully functional armor, there wasn't a lot he could do. The robot would soon realize that. Doom calculated the shortest possible time that it would take his systems to minimally recharge, and he knew that it was too long.

"I'll try," Marissa stated, even as she tried to figure out the controls in front of her. She was normally quite handy around technical equipment, but the instruments before her now were more complex than any she had ever seen before.

"Skip the manual overrides," Doom instructed impatiently from within the adjacent cave. "Access the main power grid and disable it! If I have assessed my opponent correctly, there will be a number of redundancies and false circuits. You must find the main power grid and shut down the entire system!"

The weakened monarch backed away from his robotic pursuer, but the giant mechanoid had apparently completed its assessment, and found its opponent wanting! It no longer maneuvered for position, but swiftly and silently struck! Doom was barely able to dodge that massive fist that aimed for him, feeling it catch the corner of his green cloak as he slipped aside. But the impact of the fist into the rock wall behind him sent an explosive shower of debris cascading outward and down onto Doom's back. Doom hadn't the energy to fight it nor deflect it, and the rumbling deluge of rock knocked him to the ground. He hadn't the time to even struggle to his feet before the robot grabbed him by the arm and pulled him like a limp rag doll out of the pile of rubble.

"Marissa! Time is of the essence, girl!" Doom shouted, a tinge of desperation in his voice. "You must not fail!"

"I'm trying! I'm trying!" the gypsy girl answered. She was pouring over the control panels, flipping switches and entering codes almost at random now in hopes of stumbling across the right combinations that would shut off the power. So far her efforts had no effect. 'Maybe I'm at the wrong controller?' she thought with growing frustration. She moved over to the other instrument panels, sparing one last look at Doom on the monitor as she did, and cringing as he hung helplessly in the grip of the giant robot.

The robot's massive hand completely swallowed Doom's arm. Doom hung there unmoving, but far from helpless as he sized up his opponent with a defiant eye. "Unhand me this instant, you cretinous creation!" he ordered angrily. His own fists clenched in rage and his red eyes glowed menacingly.

The robot did not comply. "Your energy systems are depleted," it replied in a coldly clinical monotone. "You are powerless to resist. My programming will be completed. Now you will die."

The robot reached forward with its other hand as if to tear Doom limb from limb, but Doom twisted unexpectedly in its grip. As the robot's head came close, Doom zapped it in the face with a brief electrical charge designed to scramble its sensors. It wasn't much, but it was all his depleted armor could manage at the moment. It wasn't enough. The robot staggered briefly as its sensors reset from the surge, but it did not drop the resourceful gypsy. Doom had to come up with another strategy, and fast!

"Wait! Wait!" Marissa announced enthusiastically from the other room. "This is it! I think I've got it!" She leaned anxiously over the computer panel and started turning dials and switches. The machinery in the control room began to hum with a change in energy, and the lights flickered portentously. She was close to success, but was halted in her desperate crusade when a strong metal hand grabbed her shoulder unexpectedly from behind.

"No, young gypsy," a cold, almost familiar voice intoned from behind her, "there will be no more of that kind of devilment!"

Doom could not break free of the vicelike grip of his opponent, and so he took the battle to the giant robot with his remaining weapons. Doom lunged forward and dug one hand into a tiny flaw in the metal plate between the head and shoulders of the massive robot, and hung on for dear life. He anchored one boot on the robot's torso with a magnetic lock, and then pulled at the seam with his free hand, searching for a power source he could tap into. The robot assessed the threat immediately, but it was unable to dislodge the pesky armored one. Doom clung to the robot with the tenaciousness of a pit bull. The robot reassessed its options, and then changed strategy to match. Viciously it began striking Doom just below the ribs on his left side, in a place where its own sensors had detected a tiny, barely visible flaw in the Latverian's armor.

The blows from that mighty construct were like ten ton pile drivers burrowing into his wounded side. Again and again the creature hammered at Doom's body. His adamantium lanxide armor could withstand much worse punishment than that, even without the protective shields, but the recently repaired breach to his armor was not so resilient. The same was true for the wound that Marissa had stitched up earlier that evening. Doom felt each of the blows like the blood red rush of a raging river assaulting his every nerve cell within his battered armor. He felt a rib crack, then break under the relentless storm. He could taste the warm copper in his mouth as his blood burst forth out of damaged tissues. His head swam with a pain that he could not ignore, and his consciousness threatened to leave him in a black retreat to a safer place. But he refused to give up, still clinging to the robot with a tenaciousness that defied explanation or reason. His free hand plunged deeper into the jagged tear he had created at the robot's shoulder, blindly searching for his only salvation!

Marissa gasped in surprise and fear as she was torn away from the control panel. She looked up at the face of her captor, then back at the man on the monitor's screen. Doom was taking a terrible beating, he couldn't last much longer. But her captor, the man responsible for all this, was not going to let her intervene.

"I will tolerate no trespassers here," he stated without emotion. "Your companion's days will soon be over."

He still held her by the shoulder, seemingly as fascinated by the beating that Doom was taking as she was horrified by it. He didn't seem to think she was much of a threat, and she fingered the long knife she had placed back in her waistband after falling out of the ventilation duct.

"Please, stop this," she pleaded. "That thing is killing him!"

"As is my intention, my dear," her captor purred. "But don't worry, you will soon join him."

She wasn't ready to die. Nor was she ready to watch Doom die, either. Steely faced, Marissa braced herself, then pulled away from his grasp with an unexpected lunge. His metal glove tore her vest as she moved, but she was able to clear his reach as she whirled to face him, her knife bravely drawn. Her desperation showed in her eyes, as did her determination.

"Come now child," his voice warned smoothly, as yet unalarmed. He eyed the upraised knife with bemusement. "Surely you don't think you can hurt me with that pitiful thing?" He began to raise his armored glove toward her.

"No," Marissa admitted, eyeing the metal glove fearfully. "But you can't stop me from doing this!" She turned around again and leapt for the power control panel behind her.

"Stop!" her captor growled ineffectively. "Insolent brat!" But neither his curse nor his upraised gauntlet could halt her forward momentum as the gypsy girl aimed her knife at the final critical components of the energy modulation transformer.

Inside the cave, Doom was almost gone. One last thread of his mind pushed his hand deeper into the wound he had desperately carved out of the robot's armor, but the rest of his body had been pushed beyond its limits. Only his indomitable will kept him attached to the robot's chest, as it had ceased its relentless pounding and was now searching for a way to peel the armor off of his broken body. But Doom would not be denied, and when he finally connected with a power cord, he grabbed on like a falling man to a lifeline. With his free hand he melted the insulating cover of the main power cord and connected his armor directly to the robot's generator. The sentient machine sensed Doom's success as instantly as Doom felt the rejuvenating energy surge back into his depleted circuits. The robot now panicked, trying to disconnect Doom from its power source, but it was too late! Doom activated his shields, and powered up his weapons, pushing himself at last away from the edge of death once again.

"Now victory is at hand for Doom!" he cried with weary exultation, as he reveled in the power that was his once more. He floated a few meters away from the robot, and even though he was exhausted beyond measure, he unloaded his offensive weapons on the mechanoid. The robot squawked in surprise and terror, and its bombarded circuits could put up only a measly defense before being shattered into a million tiny parts of superheated metal and sparking wire.

Doom floated easily to the ground, noting with displeasure as he stood on his own once more, that he could barely stand. Inside his armor, his body was a bruised and battered wreck. He could still taste blood in his mouth, and his knees were weak and shaky. Only the solid frame of his armor held him upright. His senses were shaken as well, and he was having a hard time focusing his vision. In truth, if there were any more challenges left ahead, he questioned his ability to face them. But the room did not respond further to his victory over the last robot, and he cast off his weariness to focus on his next goal. The silver door at the end of the cave beckoned to him once more.

He had almost forgotten Marissa, but when the door opened unexpectedly in front of him and she and her captor were revealed before him, he remembered. The gypsy girl who had tried to help him was similarly staggering on her feet, the palms of her hands cruelly burnt by some explosion and her clothes soiled by her long crawl through the ventilation duct. Her eyes were filled with questions and doubt, as she stood between him and her captor. The tall one behind her stood steadfastly undeterred by Doom's presence, bolstered no doubt by the weapon he held to the girl's forehead. He met Doom's gaze arrogantly, unflinchingly. Doom assessed the situation immediately, and to his credit, he was less surprised than one might expect. He stood up straight, and matched his foe's unyielding stare.

"What cowardice is this?!" Doom criticized angrily. "Threatening this insignificant gypsy will not stop me, you incompetent buffoon! Release the girl now and face me, charlatan!"

"Impertinent dog!" his opponent growled back, his voice as deep and as intimidating as Doom's own. "You invade my sanctum and then dare to order me?! You are either insane or an outright fool! You will both perish for this affront! No one may trespass on the sacred domains of Doctor Doom!" His adversary's dark gypsy eyes glowered powerfully behind a mask of gray metal, as he stared into the red lenses of his would be successor. His heavy boots set defiantly in the doorway, and his armored fist clenched in anger. Gold clasps where the dark green cloak attached to the light green tunic reflected back the face of the new Doom, who's battered and soiled armor seemed substandard by comparison.

Marissa, who could only guess at what might come next, stood between two Dooms and wondered if she should have stayed on the surface after all.

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Mainland Mexico.

"La Ranchera de la Cabra Muerta"

Sharp Blue regained consciousness in a dark, warm, and musty room that smelled faintly like something had died. Dark shapes moved around her with strange clattering sounds, and her head throbbed from the effects of the beam that had accosted her. She was lying on a bed of clean dry straw that stuck to her unbound white hair as she sat up. There was more clattering in the dim distant reaches of the room, and four sets of strong arms suddenly grabbed her and lifted her off of the straw, propelling her forward through the darkness into a connecting hallway. The hallway was nearly as dark as the room she had been in, and the presence of her and her escorts was enough to send any other creatures in their path scurrying out of the way. She tried to get a glimpse of her captors, but they shoved her forward with more indecipherable clattering sounds that she was beginning to recognize as some form of speech. She caught sight of the hairless head, bulbous eyes, and bony protuberances she had seen in the pilots that had attacked her ship, as well as what looked to be two or possibly three sets of arms before the pair of guards pushed her forward again. They guided her to a closed door, and then waited there patiently.

The door snapped open suddenly, startling the captured mercenary. A bright pale blue light intruded on the gray dimness of the hallway, shooting out rudely from the room beyond. The guards pushed Sharp forward, as she struggled to see against the sudden brightness and stumbled uneasily into the larger room. She shielded her eyes for a moment against the glare. She was being led into an immense room with a large bank of windows that looked out over the dazzling blue Sea of Cortes. The crystal waters of the gulf shimmered with the reflection of the burning Mexican sun. She recognized the dark shape of her island, Isla Tiburon, where the rest of her mercenary elite were in hiding. The sight of it, so prominently in view of this alien base, sent an unwelcome tremor through her spine. From the angle, she could tell that they were very high up on the west facing side of the mountain, and she wondered how they had managed to hide this structure from their sensors, so close across the narrow bay. The other shapes in the room, of which she could make out three, were silhouetted by the brightness from outside, and she squinted to try to see them clearly.

"I was hoping that the light would make you feel more comfortable, Commander Blue," a strangely accented, decidedly male voice finally told her. "You on the surface are so accustomed to the light."

"Actually, I was just getting used to the dark," Sharp answered, following the voice to one of the three forms in the room.

"Ah, the dark is more suited to our kind," he continued calmly. "The stable temperatures of our underground vault, the carefully modulated light, the closeness of the hive, these are the things that remind us most of our home. I am attempting to acclimatize myself to the light, so as to be better prepared for what lies ahead."

"That would be, a real life?" Sharp cracked sarcastically, even as her eyes finally began to adjust to the light of the room.

"Ah, humor." The speaker turned away and made some short clicking sounds, whereupon the two others beside him made some synchronous sounds by rubbing their upper legs together. Sharp wondered if this was laughter. "Your world is a primitive one, but not without its attractions to our kind," the speaker continued smoothly.

"And your kind would be . . . ?" Sharp's eyes had begun to adjust, and she was beginning to see more details as the speaker moved in and out of the light. He was tall, more than 6 feet, and he moved easily on a pair of spindly, bent legs. If he straightened those legs, he would easily top eight feet tall. He had an insect-like torso, with a ribbed texture and the back covered by a thick black plate that could have been wings or a kind of exoskeleton. His abdomen appeared soft, but was protected by two pairs of limbs that he folded across it. All of his limbs were covered by more of the same black armor, thick in some areas, jointed in others. He gestured primarily with his upper set of limbs, which terminated in a pair of remarkably human like hands. His other limbs, with clawlike appendages, moved only a little as he spoke. His head was the same as the pilots she had seen earlier, smooth round foreheads, a thick, protruding brow, a small mouth, and thick articulated horns that came around the sides of his head to nearly meet just below his face. Sharp's initial assessment, that of giant mutated cockroaches, had born out this closer examination. They wore no clothing that she could see, but there were subtle differences in the color of their armor as well as marks on their shoulder plates that could have been rank insignia.

"Ah, curiosity," the Rantul continued. "That is one of the more annoying traits of your species," he hissed. "Certainly without it you would never have ventured up this mountain and found yourself in this predicament. We have a saying where I come from . . ."

"Curiosity killed the cat?" Sharp interrupted.

That earned her a slam in the ribs from one of the guards behind her, who hissed, "Do not speak over the Rantul, earth female!"

" . . . hmm," the Rantul grimaced within his heavy black armor. "Well, never mind. Suffice it to say, we are not from this earth. That much should be obvious to you by now. Although we have kept our presence here secret for many of your years, your world and your people will soon learn of the Vessans, and of their place in the cosmos."

"Great," Sharp groaned slightly over the pain in her side. "I hate secrets. So when's the big coming out announcement? Are we going to throw a mud wrestling party with all the crap you've got fermenting in the back room? Or do you Vessans just like to keep plenty of fertilizer on hand in case you decide to take up farming on the moon instead?"

"The weakness of your species," the Rantul growled with obvious annoyance, "is that you fail to recognize the value of organic material. What you don't flush out to sea, you bury in the ground. You consume the richness of the earth but you waste enough to feed billions. There is tremendous energy and value in that which you see only as trash because it does not fit into your limited definition of commercial goods. When the time of the harvest comes, our species will take back those organic resources, and utilize this planet's tremendous resources to its fullest extent."

"Well, I'm all for recycling," Sharp quipped. "It's just that 'harvest' part that I'm not clear about."

"All in good time, Commander," the Rantul moved away from the windows and stepped nimbly toward the machinery that lined the far wall. His bare feet made a light clicking sound against the tile, in stark contrast to his apparent weight and bulk. "You see, your visit here this morning was most fortuitous. It seems that we have been watching an associate of yours lately, the man who was your leader, one . . . Doom . . ."

"Ah," and Sharp suddenly understood why she was still alive.

"You were one of his closest advisors, during the coup on the United States, isn't that correct?" Sharp didn't answer, so he continued. "Yes, you were his Minister of Order, I believe. We have lost touch with our old comrade, Doom, I'm sure he must have mentioned us to you?" Sharp was silent, not trusting this Rantul. It wasn't just his insect body that made her skin crawl. "No? How, disappointing. You see, so much of our technology was shared with him," the Rantul opened a panel on the wall, which slid back to reveal a giant cage. Inside was a huge pair of wave spiders, gently tending a small brood of young. They clattered to the edge of the cage expectantly, as the Rantul extended a bony hand through the bars to pat them affectionately like one might greet a favorite pet. The huge creatures dipped their heads in response to his attentions.

Sharp was horrified, and could not disguise her fear at the sight of those monstrous creatures. The wave spiders had carried the necrotoxin that had destroyed Latveria. She had heard that they had also been fitted with the weapons that had been used to destroy the White House. It seemed improbable to her that Doom was allied with these terrifying creatures. She had thought that they had all been exterminated before Doom had left the US, but that was obviously an erroneous assumption.

"As one of Doom's inner cabinet, surely you were privy to information about us?" the Rantul continued easily. "Doom's nanotechnology was one of our early exchanges, in the interest of free trade, of course. We'd like to continue our arrangements with Doom. He had seemed so willing to . . . cooperate."

"If you mean lay down and watch you bugs take over this planet, I doubt it," Sharp answered.

"Are you doubting my word, Commander?" the Rantul replied, with mock hurt in his voice.

"I'm calling you a bloody shocking pathetic liar, Mr. Rantul or whatever your name is!" Sharp returned his bulbous eyed stare with a scowl.

"Hmmm . . ." Kesaal Rantul turned back to the cage. At some unspoken order, another prisoner had been brought into the room.

"Que quires con migo?"

Sharp turned toward the voice and recognized the old man she had met on the hill outside. He was squinting and shielding his eyes against the light, and two Vessan guards were pushing him forward. Sharp shuddered deep inside, knowing what must be coming, but powerless to do anything to stop it.

"Senorita?" the old man asked as he was pushed past her toward the Rantul. "Madre de dios!" he gasped as he suddenly stood in front of his captor. "No es un hombre - es un monstruo!"

"These people, so innocent, so fragile," Rantul spoke coldly, poking the old man with his bony fingers through the threadbare clothes he wore. "Doom has cloaked himself in a hard shell, like us, because he recognizes that frailty. He knows that the people of this world are merely tools, and that the true path to power lies in transcending these inferior shells, and surrendering to the natural order of things. Doom would not be one to let sentiment and loyalty get in the way of the opportunity to rule the world. Surely you recognized that Doom only valued your participation while you were of some use to him? Like this old man is of use to me, now."

"If we are so frail, then why are you so afraid of him?" Sharp asked astutely.

"Doom is inconsequential," the Rantul replied evasively. "He is an inferior species. He will either recognize our claim to this planet and use it to his own benefit, or he will oppose us and be crushed. It is merely the depths of his commitment that interests us."

"Yo soy un pobre ranchero," the old man pleaded desperately, but nobody seemed to be listening. "Que quires con migo?"

"Then you'd have to ask Doom himself," Sharp answered, trying to pry the Rantul's attention away from the poor rancher who pleaded with him now. "I can't give you any more than that," she added quickly, desperately hoping to evade what was next.

"Oh, Commander," Kesaal began to guide the old man gently toward the cage of the wave spiders, "that is the answer I expected you to give. Surely though, you can do better than that."

"Por favor, no me mates!" the old man cried. Then he saw the wave spiders and backed up against the Rantul, who continued to push him toward the cage. "Aiyee!" he cried in terror as the spiders rushed forward, hungrily reaching for him through the bars with their hairy limbs. "Ayudame! Salvame!" the old man screamed as the Rantul pushed him up against the cage.

Sharp couldn't bear to watch, and turned away. The sound of the old man's screams pierced her bones, and then there was a noise that would haunt her for the rest of her days. It was the sound of flesh being rendered like beef in a butcher shop, bones broken with a hideous snap and crack, the slosh of guts spilling forth onto the floor and an inhuman gnashing as meat was consumed by creatures that were not meant for this world. There was a horrible clatter of the spiders fighting between themselves and ripping apart the meat. The guttural clamor of their barbarism echoed the scraping laughter of the Vessans who watched the slaughter with gleeful contempt. When the sound of the carnage was over, she turned back to glare at the Rantul in revulsion. The spiders had retreated to a quiet corner of their cage, and all that remained of the old man was a greasy spot on the floor, blood dripping on the iron bars, a scrap of dirty clothing, and the piece of bone that one of the baby spiders was sucking on in the corner.

"You will have no better," Sharp answered defiantly, "only your just reward when you are crushed beneath Doom's steel boots like the pathetic bugs that you are!"

"That is assuming of course, that Doom is still here to stop us," the Rantul answered coldly. He was about to gesture the guards to take her away, when a small brown creature entered the room. The Rantul was surprised, and a little angered, but the juvenile bowed profusely even as he rushed forward.

"Rantul," the messenger said breathlessly, "urgent notice, from the substation on Io," he added.

"What?!" Rantul snatched the recorder out of his hand, and pressed a button that operated the small holo-projection unit.

Sharp saw what appeared to be a rendition of the planets, and a blip that was being tracked on the outer edges of the solar system. Then there was a view of Jupiter, recognizable by the giant red spot on its surface, and what looked to be a small planet which was passing rapidly by the gas giant. It was too regular in shape to be a comet or an asteroid, and too large to be any kind of ship that Sharp had ever heard of. Yet it was perfectly round and smooth like something that was manufactured. Text was scrolling through the display below the picture, but the characters were indecipherable to Sharp Blu. Whatever the message, that and the picture had dramatically changed the demeanor of the Rantul. He stared at the image for many long seconds before the whole of it must have suddenly sunk in.

"No no no no no no no no no noooooo!" he finally howled in pain and angry frustration. He turned to his lieutenants and showed them the picture, clutching the holo messenger in his bony hand with a furious grimace on his narrow lips. "The world devourer," he told them tersely in his own language. "Galactus has returned!"

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Kurza.

"Stand aside," Doom told his 20th century counterpart. His voice was smooth and calm, deep and irresolutely commanding. He stood toe to toe with the other Doom, their complimentary face masks separated only by Marissa, held in front of the other like a human shield. Neither appeared willing to give an inch.

"No one may enter the private domain of Doom, infidel! I will have your head on a pike for this insolence!" But the Doctor Doom who held Marissa captive appeared to be indecisive in the face of this stoic, enormously powerful opponent. He hesitated even as his hand was raised to strike.

"I am Doom," Doom stated imperiously. He was unmoved by the other's threat. Even though inside his armor he was weak, barely able to stand, and his armor's defenses depleted, he stood bravely undaunted in the face of his armored double. He repeated, "Stand aside."

"Impossible! I am Doom! I am . . ."

"Stand aside!" Doom ordered in an angry shout. "Stand aside and stand down, number 359!"

The Doombot blinked once, and then in a dramatic turn, it released the girl and turned away from Doom to let him pass. It stood obediently at attention, while Doom stepped slowly past it, grabbing Marissa and forcing her away from the robot and into the room. Doom turned back after he had passed.

"And, number 359?" he stated, not expecting a response. There was none, only the sound of a peculiar humming and a popping of wires and grinding of gears inside the ancient robot. Suddenly, the mechanism exploded in a contained cloud of dust and fire, leaving only an empty husk.

"Doom does not use hostages as shields," Doom critiqued acidly. He turned away from the smoking debris and walked back to where Marissa was waiting.

"What was that, exactly?" Marissa asked.

"A relic," Doom answered cryptically, "from another time. It only confirms what I suspected all along."

"And that was . . .?"

Doom didn't answer, but stepped eagerly across the hall. They had left behind the rough walls of the cave, and had crossed the threshold into a modern, well-lit underground vault. The anteroom where they stood had adjoining hallways leading to the equipment room where Marissa had been captured, and another minor hallway to the left. Neither one interested Doom. He walked straight toward the main room, separated from them now by a massive doorway. The huge double doors reached ten meters high at least, with every inch of their surface decorated with intricate baroque carvings. They were stunningly beautiful, but more than that, they were virtually impassable. Unless one had the key.

Doom quietly removed the glove from his right hand, and stood stoically in front of the door with his bare fist raised. On his finger he wore a simple silver ring with a white crystal. Inside the crystal was a brilliant blue star that pulsated with a living energy. In the presence of the door, the light from that blue star grew stronger and brighter, enveloping Doom's fist in a halo of energy. That halo spread from his fist, to his arm, until his whole body was encased in a brilliant cascade of light. Marissa backed away, amazed and enthralled, but a little afraid. The giant door responded to that magical light, and ancient motors creaked to life. With a great, moaning sigh, the two doors slowly swung open.

The energy around Doom had barely receded before he had replaced his metal glove and was anxiously marching into the room. Marissa followed guardedly, but there was no further need for caution. They had passed the test of the tomb, and now they faced only their reward. The room they entered was a magnificent gallery of priceless treasures hidden from the world above for decades. There was a library of books - real books! - on stacks to the right, and beautiful works of art lovingly displayed on walls paneled with rich dark wood. There was a step down to a central seating arrangement of comfortable chairs and couches around tables with antique lamps and marble statues, and a warm fireplace with weathered brick. The fire was burning there as they entered, as if prepared for their arrival. There was a circle of stairs that circled the wall to the left, with a banister of dark polished wood leading to a more modern collection of data processing and imaging equipment on the upper level. There was a grand piano by the fireplace, the polished black surface reflecting the portrait of a beautiful gypsy woman that was hung above the mantel. Ahead of Marissa, Doom had quickly crossed the room, promptly heading toward a door on the far wall.

Marissa wanted to linger in the great den, its warm and comfortable surroundings inviting her to stay, to take in the priceless works of art that adorned its walls, to curl up with a book by the beckoning fire. But her sense of foreboding had not yet abated, so she hurriedly followed Doom into the other room.

Doom had passed through the great den with a deep sense of regret that furrowed his brow beneath his stony metal mask. His time spent in this room, surrounded by things of beauty, had it been a mistake? Was he really protecting the things of the world that those above had destroyed in their wantonness and arrogance? Or had he in truth been hiding from that which he had created, and like Doctor Frankenstein before him, loosed upon an unsuspecting world? In looking back at the dim remembrance of his past, Doom only now began to question his motives. But it was more than that, he feared. He glanced up at the portrait of his mother above the fireplace, but he cast his eyes down again. No, they would not have understood, he thought. They never understood. It was for him and him alone to carry the burden.

The jagged pieces of his memory were fitting together now, induced by the familiar things around him. He marched stoically to the far room, and paused briefly at the threshold before cautiously opening the door. He entered the dimly lit room slowly, solemnly. Inside the small room was a sarcophagus on a raised altar. As he approached, the torches on either side lit, lending their flaming brilliance to the shadows of the room. The grey marble coffin at the center of the tomb was decorated in ancient symbols and carvings of mythical beasts, and there was a wreath of flowers that lay withering along its base. He approached it respectfully, and with great trepidation stirring his usually calm demeanor.

"Perhaps there was a reason why these memories lay buried for so long," he spoke softly to himself. He did not hear Marissa quietly enter the tomb behind him. He raised a hand, and held it for a moment above the coffin's cap. "It is not for Doom to regret," he continued solemnly, "but by the gods above I wish . . . I wish . . . things had been different."

He placed his gloved hand on top of the coffin, and the solid marble gradually turned as clear as glass, like a window that slowly dries from the morning's mist. Inside, there lay a beautiful young girl, with long hair as black as night, her face serene in its eternal rest, her cheeks touched with a rosy brightness as if she had just run in from the cold. Her eyes were closed, but she looked as if she could open them at any instant, and yawn and laugh at the game she had played. She was perfectly preserved, forever 23, carefree and eager to discover the world. Only the silver armor she wore, and the great sword clutched in her delicate and fragile hands upon her chest betrayed the hardship she had faced in her too short life. He stood there for a moment, lost in her image, battling the tremors of his heart that threatened to bring the mighty monarch to his knees.

Finally, he stepped away, and releasing his hand from the coffin returned it to opaque, shrouding the girl inside in darkness once more. He grabbed one of the torches from the back wall, and carried it toward the opposite wall, walking stoically past where Marissa stood in the doorway without a word to the gypsy girl. He placed the torch on an empty holder at the back of the room, and the stone wall of the tomb moved aside on silent tracks, to reveal another secret chamber.

Inside was a great cache of machinery and equipment, scattered about the room in a state of unusual disarray, as if the caretaker had just been summoned away unexpectedly in the middle of some project. There were the makings of a Doombot, and the automatic equipment that would repair the one outside if needed. There were other robot parts, some incomplete, some strictly experimental, propped up on stands for testing and study. On a large wall was a series of electronic strategic maps, still plotting the seats of power and monitoring paranormal activities on a worldwide scale, endlessly inputting data into the computers that filled an adjoining room. There was one map that showed all of the hidden transport sites where Doom had kept his secret stockpile of equipment and resources across the planet. There was a schematic of the Pacific Citadel on one wall, the impenetrable fortress that had served him as a secret base during his exile from the outside world. Doom walked toward a large work station, and picked up a small gold disk, lying inconspicuously on the metal desk. It was the original memory implantation program, the one his robots had used on that boy, Kristoff. Next to it was a newer one, it was marked "Margaretta". He didn't pick it up.

There was a black metal case on an adjacent lab bench, and he stepped toward it cautiously. A chill ran through his spine, and all the pain he felt in his battered body was as nothing to the welling up of sorrow that now consumed his heart. It was certainly more than any one man could bear, but he knew that he could not change what had happened. He opened the box and lifted out its contents.

He held in his hands a robotic head. It was skillfully rendered, lifelike in every detail, with jet black hair neatly tied in a bun on the back of her head, and a brightness to her rosy cheeks that denied her artificial origins. Her face was the face of the silver warrior who lay in the coffin beyond. He held her gently, and as he did, her circuits responded automatically. She opened her eyes and looked up into the face of Doom. She smiled, and in a gentle, childlike voice, she spoke.

"Hello, Father," she said.

Doom was silent in response, until he noticed at last that Marissa was standing at the doorway. His demeanor changed to one of outrage. "Out!" he ordered angrily, and Marissa was startled to find some unseen force pushing her back out through the doorway behind her. The stone door slammed shut in her face as Doom's enraged command, "This is not for the likes of you, gypsy!" followed her into the silent tomb.

Marissa stared at the blank wall with its burning torch for a moment, then walked sadly back to the sarcophagus. She placed her hand on the top like she'd seen Doom do, and the stone cap turned suddenly clear. As she had suspected, the girl in the coffin indeed wore the same face as the robot head that Doom had been holding. This was the reason for his coming here then, and this was what he'd been looking for. But was this also the same silver warrior she had heard legend of? She wasn't sure what it all meant. Then she saw what she had not seen before, the plaque that was visible only from inside the coffin. Like a headstone, it named the dead and the dates of birth and death.

It read in bold letters, "Margaretta Elena Von Doom. Beloved Daughter."

The End of the Beginning.

    "And it shall come to pass afterward,
            that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh;
                    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
                            your old men shall dream dreams,
                                    your young men shall see visions."
                                                The Holy Bible, the Book of Joel 2:28.

NEXT: Ok, so, Doom and Marissa are stuck in this cold dark hole in the ground, Sharp Blu is captive of these buggy aliens, Galactus is on his way (see the Galactus 2099 miniseries!), and Doom is gonna have some quality time with his long lost . . . robot? So what exactly did happen to Doom all those lost years ago? The answer is forthcoming, true believers! Stay tuned!