STARLORD– A Pulp/Boy’s Own Adventure Story

Cor, blimey. You younguns today, eh? Think you know it all, don’t you? Think we old timers don’t know nothin’ ‘bout excitement or adventure.

Well, let me tell you about a good friend of mine who I met during my days working in the diamond mines of Sigma 12.

His name was Starlord. He didn’t have no Christian name ‘cause he weren’t no christian, see? He was a Starbarian from one of the old abandoned Earth colonies that had reverted to what you might call a more primitive style of living.

It was during the great Space Rush of 3012 and, back then, in them days, a lot of people were traveling from Mother Earth out to Andromeda looking for fame and fortune.

In them days, see, there was gold nuggets and diamonds big as your head just lying about on the ground. Rich pickings for an enterprising individual such as myself.

Starlord had had himself the same idea and, for a bloke built like he was, working in the mines of Sigma 12, well, it was a doddle.

You see, my Starbarian friend had biceps like bloomin’ watermelons, on account of him growing up on a planet with much higher gravity than that on Earth and, while other miners were sweating and straining, he was steaming ahead like a bleedin’ bulldozer.

In fact, the only time I ever saw him stop working was to pray to one of his heathen gods; Kagshag or Mishmash or whatever they were called.

You see, the people on his world had made up their own funny primitive religions, having lost contact with the Mother world for so long.

My friend Starlord was what you might call a fatalist, like the Vikings of old Earth.
He believed that the only way for him to enter Heaven was to die bravely in glorious
combat with a bloody sword in his hand.

Ofcourse, like any good Christian, I tried to tell him about the works of our Lord Jesus Christ but he was having none of it.

“It is from Mishma, the thunderbird, that Starlord gets his strength and his courage”, said Starlord to me one day in the quarry and then he took off his blue overalls and showed me his back and I saw his bleedin’ Mishma, the thunderbird tatooed across it; it’s bright blue wings stretched out over his muscular shoulders, its four talons clutching red bolts of jagged lightning and its curved beak spitting out orange fire with a look of murder in its eyes.

“It’s a frightening thing, is that”, I told him.

“Ah”, he said, his usually granite face melting into a smile and a look of pride, “Before one can see Mishma, one must be ready to roar in the face of ones fears”.

Then he took me to one side, away from the other men and he opened up his pack and showed me his sword. A long, double edged broadsword with a hilt made of silver which he partly unsheathed so that I could see its blue blade glisten in the hot Sigman sun.

“It is called Ravenclaw; the name given to it by the sword maker who baptised in the waters of the river Urk. It is made of pure blue draconium; a metal that only exists upon my world. Much harder than the metals of your world, Earther. It is the secret of my people; handed down to them by Marduk the sword maker after my people left their shelters and their technology behind and went into the forests. It is like me. No? Strong. My body, my mind and my warrior’s soul are forged like it, so as to be unbreakable”.

“Blimey”, I said. Then I showed him my crucifix and the silver St Christopher medal that I always keep strung around my neck for protection and, I tell you, he really had a good laugh at that.

“Better that you stay close to Starlord”, he said, taking my scrawny hand in his enormous bear paw, “Incase your St Christopher fails to protect you”.

Suddenly, there was a cry from one of the other men; a cry of agony and terror and, looking over, we saw the poor bleeder crouching upon the floor of the quarry clutching his head that was melting, and screaming.

I’ll never forget that scream. It made my bleedin’ blood turn as cold as liquid nitrogen, it did, and, round about him, the other prospectors were all ditching their pneumatic tools and running as fast as they could to get out of there.

Only Starlord and me stayed to face what come out of the crack that had just opened up in the quarry wall, squirting pure sulphuric acid from its mouth and moving these big, boulder crushing mandibles in and out and waving atleast six giant claws and other weird appendages that were like rotating drills for drilling through rock.

“Judas priest!”, I said, “What the blinkin’ ‘ell is that?!”, covering my mouth in shock and, I was about to scarper myself, pretty sharpish and was strongly suggesting that Starlord do the same when the Starbarian let out an inhuman, ear-splitting yell, a sound which I later learned was the battle cry of his strange, neo-primitive people, before drawing his sword, Ravenclaw, with one swift movement, out of his pack and launching himself with panther like power and agility upon the acid squirting monster termite.

What could I do? I would like to say that I picked up my pneumatic pick-axe and waded in there to help my musclebound mate but, to tell the truth, I just found a large boulder to hide myself behind and watched while the modern berserker leapt past the creatures acid squirting proboscus and hacked into its shiny, metallic green exoskeleton with the same ferocity and force that he had earlier used while hacking into the quarry.

Then, from behind me, I suddenly heard the sound of machine gun fire and the monster screamed as it was hit with wave after wave of armor piercing rounds.

It was the other prospectors who had returned and brought some heavy artillery with them, including a neutronite charge which one of them lit, hurling it at the beasts bulbous, enormous green, metallic head.

Fortunately, Starlord was able to leap clear just in time as the neutronite exploded and scattered the ugly, great termite monsters scaly body all over the walls of the cavernous quarry.

“Jeez! What was that thing”, asked an astonished greenhorn, fresh off the ship from Earth.

“That was a Sigman mine bug, boy”, said an old time prospector from way back before the Rush, “They really make them big on this planet, yessir”.

Starlord got up off of the quarry floor and brushed the mine dust and bug slime off of his rippling torso and I was relieved to see him panting and sweating like an ordinary man.

“Flippin’ ‘eck”, I said to him, “I aint never seen anything like that before. Are you alright?”.

“Yes”, he said, somberly, “But my victory over the bug beast would have been more noble and glorious had the miners not stolen it from me with their guns and their explosives”.

“Never mind, old chum”, I said, patting Starlord upon his broad, shire horse like back,
“Theres bound to be more bug beasts where that one came from”.

“No”, he said, his face suddenly seized by a grim severity, “The minebug was a sign. An omen from Mugda, the goddess of the rocks and soil, that she does not want us to rob her of her ancient riches and I have decided that a prospector is not an honorable job for a warrior of my noble race . My katha; my destiny; lies upon some other path”.

Then Starlord strode out of the quarry and into the fresh air and sunlight and left me wondering if, perhaps, I too was wasting my life working as a prospector.

Digging for diamonds would certainly make me a wealthy man but, from what I had just seen of Starlord, wherever he went he was bound to run into adventure and perhaps adventure and not wealth was what had really brought me to a new world in a new galaxy.

“But you are not a Warrior”, said Starlord, when I asked him if I might travel with him, “And the path that a Warrior must travel is not for an ordinary man”.

“But, I have skills, old chum”, I said, slightly hurt by Starlords instant rejection of me,
“I know things that might come in handy to a Warrior, along the way”.

“Like what?”, said Starlord, picking up a coffee vending machine and shaking it angrily.

“Like knowing how to get coffee out of a machine without tearing it apart, for one thing”, I said, swiping my credo card in the machine and pressing the button for a white coffee, “Brute force doesn’t get you everything you know”.

And that’s how I came to meet Starlord and join him upon his fabulous journey across Sigma 12 and the Earth colonies beyond. Now what do you think of that?

But his grandson wasn’t listening; too busy lost in the virtual worlds of his game helmet to bother with the ramblings of an old man, at least, that was, until he heard an ear splitting, blood curdling, inhuman and horrendous scream.

“Woww! What was that,grandpa?”, said Billy, slipping off his blue game helmet, in a state of wide eyed amazement.

“That, Billy, my boy”, he said, smiling proudly, “Was the deathscream; the battle cry of Starlord’s primitive people. He taught it to me, you know. Puts the fear of god into your enemies, I can tell you”.

Suddenly, Billy’s Mum came into the living room with new Game Helmet cartridges that she’d bought from the Mega-Mall but Billy wasn’t interested in them anymore, he only wanted to listen to his grandfather’s amazing tales.