Starship Victory: The Mystery of Earth-Zero: Starship Victory, #8

By Joey Peters

It's been a long year for the crew of the Starship Victory. Golem, the alcoholic android who runs the Victory's engineering section wants to retire. Brahma, the energy being navigator of the Victory has met the last few members of his race and his heart has filled with wanderlust.

They are about to solve the strangest question in the history of the Galactic Union—why are there so many duplicates of the planet Earth in the skies? An ancient artifact hinted at the presence of an secret progenitor world, but it was locked near the center of the galaxy, on the distant side of a chaotic machine civilization.

Now Golem's “brother” Robert, another android from his product line, has arrived with terrible news. A war has broken out among the machines and it's only a matter of time before one faction or another unlocks the terrible secret of Earth-Zero and creates the most powerful weapon the galaxy has ever known.

With no time to waste, Galactic Union command dispatches the Victory and the last few energy beings they can contact. Danger is multiplying everywhere. Can the Victory reach Earth-Zero before it's secret is revealed? And if not, can they stop a doomsday weapon that could conquer all reality?

Find out in the startling conclusion to the first season of the Starship Victory saga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Studio Tacolicious
• Release date: Mar 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497787162

Joey Peters

Joey Peters is a writer, cartoonist and beauty contest champion. His comics have appeared in “In a Single Bound”, “Leftovers of the Living Dead”, the Boston Phoenix, and all across the internet. He is probably most well known for his reimaginings of public domain superheroes, most particularly Stardust the Super-Wizard. His other prose works include the “Starship Victory” series and “Moonlit Massacres”. Joey lives in Boston with his wife, Donna.

Book preview

The Mystery of Earth-Zero

Colonel Kylie Hayes charged through the halls of the Starship Victory. She had to get to the bridge—she had only moments—

The Victory circled the mausoleum world. Thousands of tiny shapes, mostly just scaffoldings with engines and weapons attached, shuddered and quivered around the planet.

A small figure lurched up and leapt off the surface of the planet. A cursory scan by the Victory’s sensors revealed that his tiny shape contained over a yottajoule of energy—enough power to boil a typical world down to cinders.

The door to the bridge slid open and Colonel Hayes hurled herself in.

"Charge the God Cannon—" she shouted.

Since she had taken command she had forced the crew through command drills every week—but they still hadn’t taken. It took Brahma about a second and a half to send the signal to engineering and another four seconds to shift the charge from the God Cannon’s batteries and into it’s singularity core.

But it was enough.

The tiny figure rose off the planet and lurched toward the Victory. Out of all the ships and satellites surrounding the planet it was the only threat. He built up a blinding burst of energy and cast it toward the starship.

The Victory’s shields crackled and failed in one shot.

The door to the shuttle bay opened and the barrel of the God Cannon slid out into open space. Automatically, controlled by the Victory’s computers it aimed at the tiny space-borne figure and it fired.

A blast of energy that could crush a planet, destabilize a star, splashed against the tiny humanoid body. Energy crackled around it. The being struggled—it fought—

But then it’s quantum structure collapsed.

They were safe. The danger passed. The Starship Victory would live to fight another day.

Or would it? Atom by atom, molecule by molecule, the figure reformed itself.

* * *

Golem ran his eyes over the crowd. He felt the flask in his pocket and more than anything he wanted to take a swig of his robot hootch. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. There was Colonel Hayes, there was the new security chief, Xhao, and who could forget the birthday boy Elorg?

Tea patted him on the shoulder.

It’s a party, she said, At least download a smile onto your face.

Most of the executive staff was there so Golem didn’t really have a choice. No matter how much work Junior Chief Burroughs did, Golem was still the Chief of Engineering Section. He spent his time focusing his eyes tightly on the seams and wall panels of the Ship’s Pub. He focused on the printers that spat out the various beverages that the little organics liked so much.

Golem thought that the balloons and streamers and ribbons all around the place made it look like an Earth girl’s sweet sixteen party.

The worst part was that Colonel Hayes knew what he was like after a couple pops, so as badly as Golem wanted to pull out his flask he couldn’t.

Tea said, Maybe you’ll feel better if you wish Elorg a happy birthday?

Ugh, said Golem, I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me. I’m not gonna bother him.

C’mon, said Tea, and she pushed Golem toward his superior officer.

A wide smile stretched across Elorg’s face. A collection of half full glasses sat in front of him—margaritas, cyrillian cyders, aurillian mead—every manner of disgustingly sweet booze.

Jesus, finish one why don’t you? said Golem.

Haha, said Elorg, Good old Robot Face. Why so sour?

Golem rolled his optical sensors.

Happy birthday, said Tea.

Ah, the lovely Tea Kismet, said Elorg, What are you doing still hanging around a loser like Golem?

Sir— said Golem.

Shut up. It’s true, said Elorg, You’ve been stuck at Chief Engineer—what? Twelve years?

I like my job, said Golem. That was a lie. A terrible lie. A lie that got worse every day.

I’m not entirely certain that’s an appropriate thing for a senior officer to say, said Tea, "It