A Silver Surfer story

[kozmikkommando]

By request, I'm going to do a fanfic story about the Silver Surfer. In my opinion there just aren't enough stories about good old Norrin Radd acting as the herald of Galactus - most if not all of his appearances are set in the final days before he turned on Big G, or sometime thereafter. So I'll be showing more of a Year One Surfer, if you will ...

Hope people enjoy it. Feedback welcome. More requests welcome also.

[kozmikkommando]

SILVER SURFER in

“TERRITORIAL CLAIMS”

The Silver Surfer stood at the peak of a grassy hilltop, gazing across a wide expanse of plains. He held his board to his side, its tail end resting near his right foot. Behind the far-off horizon, a pale blue sun was setting in the violet sky, and the fading light glinted off the surface of the herald of Galactus.

The grasses of the flatlands below the Silver Surfer were matted in numerous places with blood, some patches sticky and fresh, others long since dried to a brackish crust. Animal carcasses were scattered along the plain as well, in various stages of decomposition. The evident violence was not unique to the Surfer’s vantage point; although the planet was several times the size of Zenn-La, the widespread epidemic of slaughter covered its entire surface.

The planet had no name, for it bore no sentient life. The Silver Surfer had explored it thoroughly over the course of two days and made certain of that. It teemed with great diversity of lower lifeforms, some of which might have evolved to sentience given several undisturbed millennia. They would never have the chance, however, even if the servant of the Planet Eater chose not to lead his master to this world.

The dominant species were massive carnivores, towering eight-legged beasts with fused heads and abdomens and enormous mouths filled with sword-like teeth. The creatures’ sheer size, power and surprising speed kept them comfortably atop the planetary food chain. But the balance nature had slowly arranged over untold eons was now being torn apart by another natural phenomenon. The giant carnivores were afflicted by a virus which affected them neurologically, rendering them to a state of feral madness. The Silver Surfer had observed their behavior, floating silently overhead as disquietingly similar scenes played out again and again and again. The huge predators roamed across the lands, attacking anything that moved. Small amphibians were savagely attacked as if the carnivores were defending the lives of their young, but the young of their species were equally as likely to be torn to shreds. Herds of weaker mammals which had been the food supplies for the carnivores were gored and trampled, then left to rot uneaten. The carnivores showed no instinct for self-preservation, snapping at and swallowing birds which had evolved to produce biological poisons as defenses, or charging at entire packs of scavenger reptiles and perhaps killing two or three before being overwhelmed by the rest.

As the plague worked its way through the carnivore population, the entire globe was transforming into a charnel pit, a breeding ground for more diseases to play havoc with the disintegrating ecosystem. In a few years, perhaps only a few months, the unchecked damage would render the planet nearly lifeless. But the Silver Surfer had decided to hasten the planet’s impending doom by sacrificing it to his master’s hunger.

The man who had been called Norrin Radd realized that the viral holocaust leading to extinction of life on the planet beneath his feet was no absolute certainty. If Galactus did not consume the planet’s energies in a swift and fiery cataclysm, some natural reversal of the global plague, however unlikely, might occur. Yet the Silver Surfer’s time was short, for it had been long since Galactus had fed, and the Planet Devourer would soon grow impatient. If his herald did not lead him to a specific world before his hunger grew too fierce, Galactus would locate and destroy the nearest viable planet without the Silver Surfer’s regard for its inhabitants. So the Silver Surfer had, in his mind, consigned the sick and dying planet to its fate. In ways that increased with every shattered globe gone from the heavens, the Silver Surfer was a different entity than Norrin Radd, who could not afford such concerns as hope to heal a dying world.

All that remained was to return to the worldship Taa, and lead Galactus back to his next source of sustenance. Time was difficult to gauge while soaring among the stars, but the Surfer knew innately that the round trip would take between four and five days, as he had known them on Zenn-La. The Silver Surfer released his board from his hand, and it slowly lowered its leading edge while its tail rose from the ground, until it hovered parallel to the hilltop. Stepping onto his conveyance, the Silver Surfer angled the board into the wind and ascended rapidly like an argentine bolt through the darkening sky.

As the Silver Surfer’s trajectory through space took him out of the planet’s orbit, he became aware of several large objects entering the solar system on a direct course for the planet he had just departed. The Surfer altered his own path and sped toward the objects to investigate.

[kozmikkommando]

More to come, obviously ...

[kozmikkommando]

“TERRITORIAL CLAIMS” (part two)

As he closed the distance, the Silver Surfer realized that he was watching a fleet of starcraft, moving slowly but with obvious purpose to reach the large green sphere spinning around the blue sun. The starcraft were the spacefaring equivalent of the dominant carnivores on the doomed planet: large enough to dwarf most other ships, and heavily armed. The starcraft leading the approach was the largest of all, clearly a command vessel. The rest of the fleet, eighteen in all, were of varying sizes and in some cases specialized shapes. Unlike the diseased animals savaging the biome below, the ships moved in orderly, purposeful unison.

The Surfer brought his board to a halt and regarded the fleet of starcraft, curious as to why their crews had directed them to the plagued world. It was a simple matter to reach out and attune his power cosmic to the bands of the electromagnetic spectrum which the vessels utilized for communication. The Silver Surfer listened in on the transmissions.

“ --- terrabombs armed and ready on all ships, Captain,” a voice broadcasted across the channel. “Bio-scans complete. Final calibration for specific molecular make-up of indigent organisms ninety-five percent complete.”

“Preliminary calculations for total surface clearing time?” a different voice responded, this one sounding older and more authoritarian.

“We estimate less than half of one sidereal day, Captain.”

“Very well,” the older voice acknowledged, then continued, “Total time for extraction of mineral ores?”

A third voice was carried on the electromagnetic waves, “One-point-three sidereal days, Captain. Assuming planetary integrity is non-crucial.”

“This expedition is here for mineral ore,” the captain’s voice rejoined, “and will leave once it is extracted. Whether or not an intact planet or a belt of space dust is left behind is inconsequential.”

The Silver Surfer had heard enough. Despite his master’s impatience, the Surfer was now glad that he had delayed his departure long enough to witness the fleet’s approach. He chose not to contemplate the rage Galactus would have shown if led to a belt of space dust where a lush planet had once revolved. The Silver Surfer leaned forward on his board and approached the bow of the lead starcraft.

The command vessel, like the rest of its fleet, was designed for use within an atmosphere as well as in the vacuum of space, and as such its nose protruded from beneath a transparent canopy. The Silver Surfer brought himself to a halt just above the nose and stared through the canopy at the bridge crew of the starcraft. Still attuned to the broadcast frequency of the fleet through his power cosmic, the Surfer spoke.

“Attention, captain of this mining expedition. Direct your fleet to a different star system. This planet is not to be harmed.” Norrin Radd winced inwardly at the inherent falsehood of the words, but the Silver Surfer’s face remained impassive and he stood like a statue upon his board.

At the center of the bridge, one creature rose defiantly from its chair. The race to which the crew belonged was not one the Surfer had ever encountered. They were bipedal, built with low centers of gravity, wider in girth than they were tall. Their faces were dominated by avian beaks, above which four red eyes glared. The creature on its feet demanded, “How do you have access to this channel?” The voice was the authoritarian basso of the captain.

“That is of no consequence to you,” the Silver Surfer answered. “You will not destroy this planet. Find another.”

“You have no command over this fleet!” the captain sneered with mounting ire. “This is the 1st Squadron of Plunderbirds of the K’kuri Armada! The requisite minerals will be harvested to meet the needs of the glorious K’kuri war machine! Who are you to stop us from taking what we require?”

“I am the Silver Surfer, herald of Galactus.”

The captain’s beak opened wide, then snapped closed as his red eyes narrowed suspiciously. A moment later the captain responded, “No civilization of any worth still believes in the Planet Devourer. Galactus is but a primitive myth. And even the myths make no mention of a herald.”

“Your beliefs are not the issue here,” the Silver Surfer responded stoically. “I have no quarrel with your K’kuri Armada, and no desire to see your fleet come to harm. But I will not allow the destruction of this planet. For the last time, I tell you to change course and seek out another planetary system to mine.”

The captain let out a derisive squawk of laughter. “If you assume your words, your tales of the monster Galactus, will deter the Plunderbirds, you are a fool.” The captain turned away from the canopy to return to his seat of command. “Helmsman, proceed,” he ordered.

[kozmikkommando]

“TERRITORIAL CLAIMS” (part three)

The command vessel began to float toward the large green planet more rapidly, and the Silver Surfer’s board rose and skimmed along the topside fin of the starcraft. As the mammoth vessel moved beneath him, the Surfer turned in a wide arc behind it, raising his arms before him. Facing the stern of the command vessel, the Silver Surfer clenched his fists, and the metallic skin of his hands seemed to glow a fiery magenta. Twin lances of solid power cosmic erupted from his fists, slamming into the first portside thruster of the command vessel. The gargantuan starcraft lurched from the impact, and fragments of debris scattered weightlessly from the damaged thruster.

“Systemic damage to Thruster Alpha, Captain!” the Silver Surfer heard one of the K’kuri crew members report urgently. “Structural integrity at eleven percent and falling!”

“View astern onscreen!” the captain barked.

The Silver Surfer saw two panels above the row of six thrusters angle upward, revealing electronic eyes trained on his figure. Again the magenta energies of manifest cosmic power burst from his fingertips, slashing through the empty space and decimating the surveillance equipment. The resultant explosions were silent, but the Surfer could hear the startled, angry cries of the K’kuri on the bridge.

“All ships, the 1st Squadron is under attack!” the captain announced on the expedition’s broadcast frequency. “Converge on the enemy and destroy!!!”

Slowly, the eighteen starcraft accompanying the command vessel began to alter their trajectories, turning and maneuvering to form a ring around the herald of Galactus. The Silver Surfer waited patiently, his fists glowing bright with power cosmic. Momentarily the fleet surrounded him.

To the Surfer’s right, one of the smaller ships began to nose toward him. It was conical in shape, its top deck a wide, flat circle and its hullsides tapering down to a lowermost deck one-quarter of the top’s size. A black cylinder protruded from the bottom of the lowest deck. As it approached the Silver Surfer, dwarfing his humanoid form despite its lesser size compared to the rest of the fleet, cannons emerged from the hull and began firing forceblasts at the Surfer.

The Silver Surfer’s shining armor absorbed the forceblasts easily, and he in turn unleashed the power cosmic upon the attacking ship while his board flew toward the starcraft. Much to his surprise, however, the herald’s assault had little effect upon the conical vessel. Its heavy exterior plating seemed impervious to damage. The Surfer realized that the ship’s mining purpose likely involved descent into the core of planets, where it would require shielding from intense heat and pressure. The Silver Surfer adjusted accordingly, channeling even more of the spectrum of the power cosmic through his hands. The sprays of energy from the Surfer’s fingers were now deep violet at the center, fading to magenta and then a pale pink at the edges. The sheer impact stopped the ship’s further progress, and its hull began to dent along certain seams, but overall the ship’s resilience continued to hold.

At that point, the Silver Surfer was knocked off his board by a blow from behind. As he tumbled away from his conveyance, the Silver Surfer saw another of the fleet ships cruising past. This one was long and boxy, save for its bow, which was a ######## drillbit covered in sharp, knobby spikes. It had rammed the Silver Surfer from his stance upon his board, and was now banking in a slow turn to make another attack.
The Silver Surfer raised one hand in summons and his board zoomed through the blackness, coming to rest directly under the Surfer’s feet. No sooner had he been reunited with his slender transport than he took flight, swiftly putting distance between himself and the drilling vessel. He mentally directed the board to drop at an angle that put him below the perimeter of the mining ships’ formation, and the drilling vessel followed.

The Silver Surfer’s board came to an abrupt stop and swung 180 degrees so that the Surfer faced the oncoming starcraft. He raised his arms overhead and crashing waves of power cosmic cascaded from them, battering the drilling ship and propelling it backwards. The Silver Surfer had positioned himself so that the seemingly invulnerable conical ship was on the opposite side of the drilling vessel. As the deluge of cosmic energy continued to accelerate the drilling ship away from the Silver Surfer, it smashed the spinning spiked nose of the starcraft directly into its planet-coring counterpart. A shower of hot metal sparks exploded from the point of impact and quickly faded to nothingness. The conical ship began to list to the side like a derelict hulk with a gaping wound in its lower hull, while the body of the drilling vessel was crumpled from being caught between the nearly immovable object and a truly irresistible force.

[kozmikkommando]

“TERRITORIAL CLAIMS” (part four)

The Silver Surfer wasted little time, soaring upwards to face the fleet yet again. He released another lance of cosmic energies at the captain’s command vessel, scoring a direct hit on the centermost of the starboard engines. A wedge-shaped starcraft flew closer to engage the Surfer, robotic arms fitted with grasping claws uncoiling from portals along its hull. The Surfer easily flew circles around the slow-moving mechanical limbs, and sheared the claws from their moorings with precisely aimed strikes of the power cosmic. While the maimed robotic arms flailed uselessly, another ship began an assault from a distance, training its laser turrets on the herald of Galactus. The turrets fired a continuous beam of sapphire-blue laserlight, which was absorbed by the Silver Surfer’s platinum carapace at first but slowly drove him onto his back upon his board by its sheer intensity. Resolutely, the Surfer climbed to his hands and knees on the board, and raised one open hand into the path of the laser beam. Calling upon the deepest reserves of his power cosmic, the Silver Surfer concentrated on repelling the attack. The blue beam of laserlight shifted to red and reversed upon itself, striking backwards into the heart of the turreted ship. The feedback of energy ripped a jagged hole in the ship’s hull.

Across the communications frequency, the captain screeched with inarticulate rage until he finally formed the words, “Release the autosentries!”

The second-largest ship in the fleet consisted of a large sphere bisected at its midpoint by the backswept curves of a crescent-shaped hull. Immediately after the captain’s order, hundreds of doors slid open along the underside of the vessel, and from each of those doors five man-sized droid units emerged. The autosentries would float weightlessly beneath their mother ship momentarily, then activate rockets that sent them hurtling toward the Silver Surfer. Within moments a swarm of over one thousand autosentries was making its way toward the Surfer.

The Silver Surfer had regained his feet upon the board and stood motionless upon its surface as the stream of droids approached. He unleashed brief but potent bursts of the power cosmic, each one racing like a runaway magenta comet toward the autosentries, then striking a target and nearly atomizing it. Still the autosentries drew closer, their front line advancing faster than the Silver Surfer’s power could mow them down. The Silver Surfer’s board began to float slowly backwards, while the Surfer himself fired cosmic blasts faster and faster. The rocketing droids began to fan out, each individual unit homing in on the Silver Surfer and ignoring any autosentries obliterated by the slashes of magenta light in their midst. The Silver Surfer leaned back on his rearward leg and spun the nose of his board around, then leaned forward, now trying to rapidly elude the autosentries while firing power blasts backward over his shoulder. Still the autosentries gained velocity, inexorably overtaking the Surfer.

The Silver Surfer found himself in the center of a mass of droid units, each one wielding onboard energy weapons as well as powerful mechanized cutting and digging implements. The autosentries pressed in on the herald from all sides; for every unit destroyed in a flash of magenta light, three more rushed to fill the gap. Soon, the crush of autosentries from all sides completely enclosed the Silver Surfer in an impenetrable prison of droid shells and limbs.

The K’kuri captain cackled as he watched the swarming clot of autosentries continue to constrict. The Silver Surfer and his board were no longer visible, hidden at the center of the dense cloud of droid units. “As soon as the autosentries return to their battery pods,” the captain declared smugly on the communications frequency, “return to course for the target mineral ore source. Ready the terrabombs.”

Suddenly, all of the autosentries were flung outward on the edge of a rapidly expanding globe of dazzling white light tinged with pink. The droid units that had been on the outermost edges of the cluster were cracked and dented; those nearest the center were torn to unrecognizable shreds. The globe of light exploded with such force that the command vessel and all of the other Plunderbird starcraft reverberated in its wake. When the light subsided, the Silver Surfer stood placidly atop his board, looking up at the K’kuri captain’s ship. The K’kuri captain was seized by the notion that the Surfer was staring directly at him.

“B-be … belay my last order,” the captain gurgled through a throat clenched with fear. “The 1st Squadron will depart this star system and seek our quota of mineral ore … elsewhere. Able-bodied ships, prepare to tug damaged ships. That is all.”

The Silver Surfer watched as the fleet of mining ships broke their circular formation. The crescent-winged ship deployed two sets of cables, which attached themselves to the drilling vessel and the conical vessel. Another ship, this one slender and missile-shaped, deployed its cables to secure the gutted laser turret ship. With significantly less orderly purpose than they had entered, the fleet departed the planetary orbits.

The Silver Surfer allowed himself a moment to feel some satisfaction and pride at having driven off the would-be pillagers of the planet’s mineral beds. His gaze turned upon the green surface of the massive planet, which would not be charred and blackened to ash by K’kuri incendiaries to make way for the mining vessels. It would, however, crumble to dust under the bootheels of the Devourer of Worlds. The Silver Surfer remembered his mission and felt a hollowness within himself, a gap resulting from Norrin Radd shrinking further and further from him. He had saved a dying planet from one swift death so that days later it could be sacrificed in a slightly different manner. Even the thought that he had spared a sentient-inhabited world by finding the nameless planet for Galactus did not comfort him, for the K’kuri would surely rain hell upon the next living world they encountered to supply their armada with resources, perhaps regardless of sentient life found there.

The Silver Surfer aimed his board at the edge of the star system and began to soar away from the blue sun, returning to the worldship Taa as an instinct-driven animal would find its way to breeding grounds. But the Surfer knew that the only thing he would ever breed as the herald of Galactus was despair, destruction and death.

END

[urlmaker]

Gotta love a good Surfer story. Very appropriatly conflicted and brooding yet powerful. Thanks for granting the request line!

[kozmikkommando]

Thanks, urlmaker!

Any other feedback or story requests?

[chrisherr]

Wow Kozmikkommando,
You story has some fresh ideas. I had some time at work today and I checked out FauxDC, what a wealth of crative tallent. (I saw your similar JLA story in Faux DC, and went from there to your Bad blood stories. Really good!)
Why don't they set more comic books in the New Orleans area? It's a vibrant location to place your team.

Make mine FauxDC!

[kozmikkommando]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you visited FauxDC - I admit that I posted a story from my work there in this forum in hopes of driving some traffic in that direction. I agree there is a wealth of talent by many writers better than me at that site. I'm also glad you liked Bad Blood! That's my favorite stuff, honestly, but since all the characters are original (even though it's set in the DCU) I didn't think it was appropriate for this fanfic forum. Still, I appreciate the positive response!

[spidergirl1]

I'm rating this the best!!! ;)


Thanks!
~spidergirl~

[kozmikkommando]

Thanks, spidergirl!

[spidergirl1]

Your very welcome!

[kozmikkommando]

Hey, if you like the cosmic-power outer-spacey stuff and you like the Year One type of approach, check out another thread I have in this forum:

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=84188

It involves a certain emerald-clad ring-wielder ...