by M. E. Castle
“I’m sure it took more than a little convincing, even from the president,” Veronica said, chuckling and waving back at her parents. “Not all parents are as cool as yours.”
“You hear that?” Alex said. “You two are cool! Up top!” He put up his hand for a high five. Mr. Bas sort of pushed his palm into Alex’s with a goofy smile.
They suited up. Amanda put on the strength suit, and flexed her arms with satisfaction. Fisher had brought his well-tested spy suits for himself, FP, and Alex, along with a new one for Veronica. In their sleek, black jumpsuits they certainly looked the part of heroes. Fisher wished they could’ve taken the ChameleoClothes to sneak in, but those had mini-generators and used a considerable amount of power. No matter what they looked like, the power signatures would be easy to track inside the pirate flagship. Fisher picked up his gear bag with one hand and his spy-suited pig with the other.
There was nothing else to do but board the ship. The inside was awash with shifting, flowing colors, like a million tie-dyed shirts in a whirlpool. The colors flowed across the walls, under their feet, and over their heads.
“Wow,” Fisher said. “What is all this?”
“Well,” Alex said, pointing to a flowing green line dotted with lavender splotches, “that’s the power usage meter. And that orange ball hopping around is the cooling system readout. The aliens that designed this ship before the Gemini stole it don’t visually express language with writing, but with color patterns. I can’t read it all … there’s only so much they were able to encode in the H2Info, I guess … but I’ve got a pretty good idea of what most of it means.”
BATTLE PLAN TO DEFEAT THE MECHASTACEANS AND SAVE PLANET EARTH AND THE HUMAN RACE FROM DESTRUCTION:
1. Fly Gemini ship to outer space.
2. Focus on the mission and not how cool space is.
3. Infiltrate Mechastacean mothership.
4. Destroy the ship’s core.
5. Don’t die? Victory?
Padded seats had been installed by the MORONS team. Fisher settled into his position and buckled himself in, watching the wild colors jump over his head. Alex sat in front of a pair of flat panels, which he set his arms onto, nodding that he understood how the controls worked. Fisher buckled FP to the side of his own harness.
Mason wheeled in Three on a hand truck. The clone had restraints at his wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles. He clipped the restraints into a pair of hooks set into the wall, and handed Fisher a tiny remote with a single button on a chain.
“Only if you need him,” Mason said.
“You can be sure of that,” Fisher said, slipping the chain around his neck, where it settled next to his portable hard drive.
“Okay, people,” Mason said. “Get the job done, and get home. That’s all there is to it.”
“Yes, sir,” Amanda said, nodding.
“You got it,” Alex said. Mason left, and a minute later they heard the airlock shut behind him. This was it. Once they were in space, nobody would be able to help them. Nobody would be able to rescue them if things went badly.
Fisher had a sudden idea, and he hefted the Three remote in his palm, took a miniature tool kit from his spy suit, and popped it open.
“What are you doing?” said Three in his normal chilly tone.
“Boosting the range,” Fisher said, unbuckling himself, taking a few cautious steps toward Three to adjust the little receiver on his restrains. Three’s perfectly even, calm breathing ruffled Fisher’s hair, and Fisher felt as if spiders were creeping down his back. “It’s … a big ship.”
“Hmm,” Three said, raising an eyebrow. Fisher tinkered with the transmitter and the receiver for another minute, then hastily returned to his seat, wishing he could shower.
“Perseus, this is control,” Mason’s voice came in over the ship’s comm system.
“Is that us?” Fisher said.
“My idea,” Veronica said. “The hero who braved unspeakable dangers to enter Medusa’s dark lair.”
“This is Perseus,” Alex said. “Ready when you are, control.”
“The Gemini have begun their attack on the Mechastacean scout ship,” Mason said. “You’re clear to launch, repeat, clear to launch.”
“Hey,” Fisher said, “how exactly do we launch, anyway?”
“Right now,” Alex said, “the top of this silo is opening like a convertible roof. Get ready, everyone.”
The low thumping of the engine became louder and higher pitched. Alex made a quick swipe at the controls and the front of the room became a screen, displaying the view in front of them. Only when Fisher saw the cave wall sliding downward did he realize they were already in the air. The ship must have a system to compensate for g-forces, necessary since they’d be accelerating to very high speeds.
Daylight became visible, and then they were in the open air, hovering just above the base.
“Here we go …” Alex said.
With a single twitch of Alex’s right hand, the Perseus shot across the sky like a cannonball. The ground became a greenish-brownish blur, clouds turned to white flashes in the sky, and Fisher could feel the ship rushing through the air. In seconds, the blue sky turned to navy, then to black, and the stars popped into brilliance.
They were in space.
WE WERE BORN OF THE STARS. EVERY ATOM IN OUR BODIES HEAVIER THAN HYDROGEN WAS CREATED IN A STAR. AND AS WITH ANY PARENTS, I’M SURE THEY’D APPRECIATE A VISIT.
—WALTER BAS, SPEECH EXCERPT
Fisher’s body bounced a little against his restraints as the Perseus freed itself from Earth’s gravity well and free fall set in. Stress and tension left his joints as his weight disappeared.
The girls’ hair drifted like seaweed, and FP flailed his legs in the air as he floated up on the tether connecting his spy suit to Fisher’s chair. He squealed happily as he spun himself.
“Wow,” Alex said. “Fisher, we’ve got to get one of these.”
Fisher couldn’t respond. He was speechless, gazing out across the stars. This was what he’d spent his whole life dreaming about. Sailing the void, skimming the edge of human advancement, and helping to guide civilization to its future. Or in this case, making sure that it had one.
“This is wild,” Amanda said, watching her hair drift around her face.
“I just wish we had more time to enjoy it,” Fisher said, reaching out to give FP a little push to help his spin.
“We’re approaching the pirate fleet,” Alex said. “This thing has a stealth system, but it can only help us so much. Let’s hope the Gemini have their attention … Control, do you copy?
“This is control,” Mason’s voice replied. “You’ll reach the edge of the pirate fleet in under one minute. One of their frigates should be directly ahead. Accelerate to seventy percent speed and stay as close to its hull as you can to avoid its scans.”
Dots that had looked like tiny stars became bigger and brighter. Moments later, the fleet was all around them, crowding out the sky. As Mason had said, one of the Mechastacean ships was dead ahead, and their weight briefly returned as Alex accelerated toward it.
“Hang on,” Alex said, and flipped the Perseus up and over the black and red hull of the colossal warship, skimming along its surface. A jutting weapon emplacement appeared right in their path. Alex executed a swift juke and Fisher clutched his seat as they missed it by less than a meter. A second later the vast vessel was left behind.
“Looks like somebody’s spotted us,” Alex said. “Fisher, could you scramble their comms for me?”
“Um, how?” Fisher said.
“With this jamming system,” Alex said smoothly. Fisher marveled at his mother’s H2Info, and wished he’d drunk from a glass of water encoded with information called How to save Earth from imminent alien destruction. “It’ll spit out a blast of radio interference that should overload its system for a few minutes.” A cable extended from the ceiling toward Fisher. The end unfolded into a screen that displayed the ships around them as gray dots. One of the do
ts turned bright white. It was following them.
Fisher didn’t need any further instructions. He grabbed the joystick, centered it so that a small crosshair lined up with the pursuing craft, and pressed the red button. The ship vibrated slightly. The pursuing ship slowed down, then peeled away.
“Nice shot!” Alex said. “Their sensors and comms are down. They’ll need to reboot before they can come after us again. By that time we should be aboard the flagship. Speaking of which …”
Fisher looked up at the main screen.
“Look at the size of that thing,” Amanda said, her jaw dropping open.
Even at this distance the flagship was too big for them to make out its shape. In seconds it had filled the whole screen. It looked like a wall at the end of the universe.
“Does it know we’re here?” Veronica asked in a hushed voice.
“I don’t think so,” said Alex, but he sounded uneasy. “The Perseus has been discreetly scanning it for the past few minutes. I see a few possible entrances. I’m taking us into one of the smaller docking bays. Amanda, if somebody’s waiting in there, you’ll need to act quickly.”
“On it,” Amanda said, punching her palm.
An opening appeared in the side of the ship, and the Perseus made for it. They slipped soundlessly into the gaping dark mouth, touching down on a loading bay that held several small spacecraft and a number of huge storage tanks set into the walls.
“Bringing us in,” Alex said tensely. “Amanda, there are two Mechastaceans in the bay, and they’re coming toward us. If you could get over to the airlock, please?”
Amanda released her restraints and disappeared into the corridor.
“We’re inside!” Alex said. Two Mechastaceans were now visible on the main screen, walking right up to where the ship was about to land. A dark shape flew in from off camera and landed on one of the aliens. After a second Fisher realized it was Amanda.
She moved so fast his eyes could barely follow. She leapt onto one alien, fists flying. The suit pumped up her strength so much, she could bust pieces of steel carapace into shards with every impact. A final strike went straight through the thing’s body and it fell. She hurled herself onto the second alien, and with a single double-handed wrench tore a tangle of cables and wires from its midsection. By the time the ship had powered down completely, both of the robots were on the floor, motionless.
Alex, Fisher, Veronica, and FP disembarked to find Amanda standing over the second pirate with her fists on her hips.
“Well done,” Veronica said, kneeling down next to one, running her hand along its exoskeleton curiously.
“Thanks,” Amanda said with a triumphant smile. “What about Three?”
“I’m leaving him on the Gemini ship,” Fisher said. “I’ve got the remote with me.”
He took a close look at one of the Mechastaceans, examining the busted-up areas that Amanda had created, and reaching in under a hole she’d put near the thing’s head. Just as he’d suspected, he felt the thick, insulated cable of heavy power conduits. “Looks like these robots have power line clusters here, here and here,” he said, pointing to the two other spots on the pirate’s side he’d identified earlier. “Aiming to disable those spots should help.”
They surveyed the room cautiously. It didn’t seem any alarms had sounded, but Fisher couldn’t be sure. A pair of shuttles sat on either side of the bay. There was a single large door opposite the force-field-covered opening to space, and a number of small hatches along the sides. FP sniffed at the floor, then at the inert Mechastaceans. Veronica opened up Fisher’s backpack and distributed radio earpieces to everyone. Almost immediately, their earbuds crackled, indicating a transmission.
“The Gemini have retreated,” Agent Mason said in their ears. “Diversion’s over.”
“Perfect timing,” Fisher said. “We’re on the flagship.”
“Good,” Mason said, “get CURTIS set up and go find the core.”
“On it,” Fisher said.
Fisher walked back into the ship and hooked his portable hard drive to a special port that Dr. X had built onto the Perseus’s controls. The hard drive woke up, hummed, and beeped as Fisher’s AI was transferred into the ship’s memory. “CURTIS, you there?”
“Am I!” the AI said, voice booming from the ship’s speakers. “The hardware in this thing is amazing! The kind of processing power I’m working with—”
“Well, we need you to work with it right now,” Fisher cut him off. Getting two completely different systems of computer hardware to mesh wasn’t a task he envied the team of MORONS programmers and hackers who’d been given it. “Hack in as quietly as you can and find us the central core on this beast, would you?”
“Working!” said CURTIS. “I’m using the Perseus’s antenna to access this ship’s mainframe. Getting some resistance, hang on …” A low hum emanated from the hard drive. Fisher imagined his AI frowning. Every second felt like an eternity. “Got it,” CURTIS said at last. “It’s a bit of a trip. Go through the middle hatch on the left. I’ll talk you there by radio. Make it snappy, okay? I don’t know how long I can hang around without getting booted out of their system.”
They lined up at the hatch: Amanda first, then Alex, then Veronica, with Fisher bringing up the rear, gear bag slung across his back, FP snorting excitedly at his feet. In one sense, they were lucky the ship was so enormous. There were probably millions of Mechastaceans aboard. Two disabled Mechastaceans might not raise an alarm for quite some time.
“All set?” Amanda said.
“Pop it,” said Fisher.
There was a lever in the hatch’s center. Amanda pulled it. The hatch clanked but didn’t budge. Fisher’s heart dropped.
“Locked,” Amanda said. “Hang on …” She wrapped both hands around the lever, braced her legs against the bulkhead, gritted her teeth, and with a strong exhale, ripped the hatch right out of the wall. Fisher’s confidence returned, along with a newfound appreciation for the MORONS engineers and the way they’d improved on his own technology. Amanda set the hatch down neatly on the ground. “Let’s go.”
“Hold up,” Fisher said. “I have a little scout for us.” He reached into the gear bag and pulled out a small metal ball. He tapped a button and it unfolded into a hovering robot with a tennis-ball-shaped body and a single arm. It was his pickpocket drone, which he’d initially designed to commandeer his parents’ Loopity Land passes—and it was finally getting some use. “I’ll send this ahead of us, so we don’t get any unpleasant surprises.”
The hatch would be small for a Mechastacean, but the four kids slipped through it easily, following the little drone, which buzzed quietly in front of Amanda. They found themselves in a long, black hallway with very low lighting.
“You’re in a maintenance corridor,” said CURTIS over the radio. “Keep going straight.”
The sounds of the ship in operation pattered and rang distantly. The creaks and groans of the immense vessel’s structure drifted down the corridor as they walked. Fisher’s own breathing got louder in his ears. At any moment, a Mechastacean could emerge from almost anywhere in the darkness ahead. Or maybe they stayed out of here because something even they were afraid of dwelled in the dismal space. It looked just about right for some kind of huge, toothy worm.…
Fisher shook his head to clear the primal terror from it. He had plenty of real things to be scared of without his imagination piling on more. He focused on staying alert and moving quietly. Amanda stayed in a crouch, ready to spring. Two minutes later, the drone stopped, hovering low over a spot on the floor. Amanda put her hand up, and they came to a quick halt.
“What is it?” Fisher whispered.
“Something in the floor,” Amanda whispered back. “Could be a pressure-sensitive plate.”
“Here,” Fisher said, handing forward a multi-tool from his bag that was basically an excessively large Swiss Army Knife. It was small, heavy, and expendable, since he had two more just like it.
“Back
up a little,” Amanda said, and they did as she wound up for an underhand toss. The tool landed on the floor in front of them with a clatter. Instantly, three white beams lanced from one wall to the other, at ankle, waist, and head level. The drone barely avoided them, zipping up toward the ceiling. Fisher could feel the heat from the beams even from the back. The lasers winked out, and they heard a whine as the beams started to recharge.
“Let’s mark this spot so we don’t accidentally step on it later,” Fisher said, giving Amanda a small can of luminescent spray paint. Amanda tiptoed up to the pressure plate and marked it with neon green. They stepped over the plate one by one. Fisher picked up FP and held him carefully to his chest. The tool hadn’t been damaged, but Fisher didn’t want to risk disturbing the plate again, and left it where it was. The drone continued buzzing on. No further traps marked the corridor.
“Hold here,” said CURTIS in Fisher’s earbud. “I’m going to open a hatch in the floor in front of you.” The AI was true to his word, and a piece of floor slid aside. “There’s a circular room down there. It’s a power substation, I think. From it you’ll be able to get to an elevator.”
“An elevator to what?” Fisher said, looking into the dim blue light glowing up through the hatch.
“Not sure, kid,” CURTIS said. “Still working on that. I’m having a harder and harder time dodging their cyber security. If this ship’s computer didn’t have so many things to do at once, it probably woulda found me already.”
Unless, of course, it already had found him, and reprogrammed him to guide them all right into a trap. The idea occurred to Fisher suddenly, and he felt his stomach pool into his shoes. Fisher stared at the big hatch. Every decision now meant the difference between life and death.
“Let’s send the drone in first,” Fisher whispered. The pickpocket drone buzzed down through the hatch.
Instantly, three high-energy beams lanced out and turned the drone to a puff of glittery smoke.
“Now!” Fisher shouted. “Before the lasers recharge!”
Amanda and Alex dropped in, followed by Veronica and Fisher, who gripped FP tightly. The room was lit a deep blue, with control consoles set all along the walls.
