"Stargate-Crossed" - Part Four (Second Half)

Part Four (Second Half)

            Rania stood paralyzed in shock, realizing that the most dangerous figurehead in the Cyber War – the extraterrestrial cyborg called “Brainiac” – was aboard that ominous alien pyramid looming over the battlefield of one of many Cyber Wars. She could hear him in her head, taunting her in his sickening way: “I’ve found you, Time Lord. You will be my greatest specimen.” The very sound of his voice pounded like an aluminum bat to her skull.

            “Yo, Aznavorian!” For once, she welcomed the sound of Rick. “How ‘bout you get us out of here before Brainy launches a full-scale attack!” She followed Rick’s advice and retreated back into her TARDIS with both Sanchez and Craig.

            With Rick’s help, she quickly brought them back into the infinite dimensional corridor, which was the safest haven to be at the moment. Still reeling from Brainiac’s telepathic call, Rania wilted to the floor, grasping her head. “I can still hear him,” she grunted.

            “Who? That Brainiac guy?” Craig asked her. “He has mental powers?”

            Rania nodded. “The worst kind.”

            “What does he want from you?” Craig kept the questions coming.

            “He wants to dissect her,” Rick bluntly answered on Rania’s behalf. “Ever since he went toe-to-toe with her and Neas, two of the few Time Lords across the multiverse, Brainy’s been anxious to get his hands on one of them, cut ‘em open, and find out what makes them tick.”

            “Thanks for that unnecessarily in-depth explanation, Rick,” Rania patronized.

        She was suddenly struck with another massive headache – another psychic call from Brainiac: “You cannot escape me, Tinkerer! No matter what dimension you go to, I will be there!”

            That call was more painful than the last. It drove Rania into a state of desperation.

            “Craig, where did you last see Maureen in the dimension we took you from?” she asked. The urgency in her voice was evident; but, she kept it in check, so as not to scare Craig.

            “Near this pyramid that we came out of the Stargate in,” Craig said.

       Rania had him touch a specific section of the control console while she linked his subconscious to the navigation system of her TARDIS. As soon as it locked on the location Craig visualized in his mind’s eye, they materialized back on the desert planet, just a short distance away from the pyramid entrance.

            All they found was the empty, abandoned camp set up by Colonel O’Neil’s men.

            “Ugh! Taking a whiz is worth more time than this!” Rick complained.

            “Would you at least try to be positive for once?” Rania scolded him.

            “Alright…I’m positive that we’re wasting our time,” Rick countered, already on his way back into the TARDIS. “I’m gonna establish some contact with Neas across the D.C., give him an update on our situation and maybe get help from an actual adult.” That last stab was clearly directed at Craig.

         Rania hated how much the old, alcoholic inventor harped on the boy. “Don’t listen to him, sweetie,” Rania encouraged him. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

          “But what if he’s right?” Craig cynically questioned. “All I’m doing is messing up things. I jumped through the Stargate, got me and my friends stuck here, I couldn’t bring the TARDIS with Neas’s crystal, and now I can’t help find anybody.” Craig hung his head in despair. “Some leader I am. I’m no Neas.”

          Hands on her hips, Rania smirked at him, trying not to laugh. “You think Neas never once messed up herself? Honey, I’m his father. I’ve watched him make several mistakes, ever since she was a little girl.”

            Craig’s head spun from all the gender-swapping in her pronouns. “Man, I don’t think I’ll ever keep up your family.”

            Rania let out that laugh she kept stifled, playfully rubbing Craig’s head. “Why don’t we use that amazing nine-year-old brain of yours for something a little less complicated – like that Stargate you all jumped through. I’ve been anxious to get a look at it since you told me about it.”

            “That I can do,” Craig smiled, regaining a little confidence.

            He brought Rania into the pyramid to get a closer look at the Stargate. Although she was excited to see it up close, it nonetheless unnerved her. “Stargates are the most dangerous constructs ever built throughout the multiverse,” she said while placing a hand against its ice-cold stone structure. “But this one…was designed by Brainiac himself.”

            “How can you tell?” Craig asked.

            Rania moved her hand away from the Stargate and gazed on the residue it left on her palm, finding hints of purple crystalline specks amid the bits of black rocks. “Because it’s laced with kryptonite.”

            Craig knew the term all too well. “The stuff that kills Superman?” It then dawned on him, “That’s the ‘Brainiac’ you were talking about?! But…he’s not real! He’s a comic book villain!”

            “Not in the world where we found him,” Rania said. She took a careful analysis of the kryptonite specks on her palm. “Purple kryptonite. If I remember what one of the Jor-Els told me about its properties, it’s supposed to…” Rania’s body went rigid, coming to a distressing conclusion: “Disrupt the flow between dimensions in space and time!”

            Craig didn’t understand. “Huh?”

            Rania turned to him. He saw the horror in her beautiful hazel eyes, which scared him a little. “Brainiac’s intended use of the Stargates is to trap Neas on this planet with all of his greatest allies. This is where he intends to kill the Gladiator of Gallifrey!”

            Upon this shocking revelation, a loud roar resounded all around Rania and Craig. It soon followed with a tremendous quake. “What’s going on?!” Craig bellowed, looking around nervously.

            Rania felt her head aching again. “It’s Brainiac! He’s caught up with us!”

            “What’re we gonna do?!” Craig panicked.

            “You have to get out of here, Craig. Get back to the TARDIS and tell Rick to find Maureen. Tell them about the purple kryptonite in the Stargates.”

            “What about you? I can’t leave you!”

            “Brainiac only knows that I’m here. He’s only after me. Now please go!”

            Craig wasted no time in arguing. He despised the idea of leaving Rania alone in the pyramid to the wrath of Brainiac, but he knew Maureen would find a way to save her. He ran as fast as he could out of the pyramid. Looking back, he was stunned to see that alien pyramid-shaped spacecraft descending on the other pyramid and engulfing it completely, with lightning locking the two together.

            There was no way for Rania to escape.