Space Team: The Search for Splurt

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “I’m always serious, Loren, you know that,” said Cal.

  Loren, Mech and Miz all opened their mouths at once, but Cal jumped in before they could speak.

  “Vajazzle said we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow, but she said it in this really ominous sort of way that makes me doubt she’s throwing us a surprise party,” Cal said. “If we’re going to get out of here, I think we’re going to have to do it soon.”

  Loren prodded at her food with her fork, then dropped it onto the plate. “Just so I’m completely clear, you want me to teach a bunch of people to be pilots, without any equipment to train them on or knowledge of what they’ll be expected to fly, in the next eight hours?”

  “It’s not like being a pilot’s difficult,” said Miz. “I mean, if you can do it…”

  “I’ll help,” said Mech. “We’ll do what we can do. Not saying it’ll be much.”

  Loren looked up at him and nodded. “Thanks. I guess we can give it a try.”

  With that settled, they spent the next twenty minutes thrashing out their plan. It broadly involved Cal, Miz and whoever else was lined up for Vajazzle’s Big Day taking control of the platform that came to collect them, scooting up to Vajazzle’s ship, grabbing as many weapons as possible, then killing all the bad guys.

  It wasn’t a very complex plan, but it was agreed – by Cal, at least, if no-one else – that complicated plans were overrated, and it was much better to come up with something simple, and then just hope for the best.

  If all went well, Loren would have all the time she needed to train her class of pilots aboard the actual ships they’d be flying. In the off-chance things went badly, though, Cal wanted them as ready to leave as they could be.

  Mech pointed out they still had to find Splurt, but Cal insisted that wouldn’t be a problem, and had quickly moved on.

  They were just winding down when another earthquake hit. The prison walls rumbled like thunder. All around the yard, Zertex troops hurled themselves to the ground and lay there, hugging it.

  Cal’s plate rattled across the tabletop and plunged over the edge. He was too busy staring at the sky to notice. Just as before, the vortex was trembling in time with the quake.

  From out in the entrance yard there came a cacophony of noise that managed, just for a moment, to drown out even the growling of the earth. From where they sat, the walls blocked the view of the tower, but the din could only have been the sound of it collapsing.

  The rock Miz was sitting on sunk several inches in one swift jolt. Miz jumped off just as the ground beneath the bolder splintered into jagged cracks. The stone fell a full four feet into the gap, then jerked to a stop.

  With a final few shudders, the quake passed. “They’re getting worse,” said Dronzen. “We used to get one every few weeks. Now they’re umpteen times a day.”

  “According to the Grimmash, it didn’t happen at all until you arrived,” said Mech.

  Dronzen looked surprised by this. “What, seriously?”

  “It’s a big ship,” said Miz. “Maybe the crash damaged, like, the planet or whatever.”

  “Nah. Surface impact,” said Dronzen. “I mean, yeah, it was a big one, but not enough to trigger quakes years later.”

  Cal was still gazing up at the hole in space. It had settled down again, right on cue.

  “Anyone else notice that?” he asked.

  “Notice what? The earthquake?” said Mech. “Yeah, man, it wasn’t exactly easy to miss.”

  “No, that,” said Cal, pointing upwards. “The vortex hole thingy. Whenever the ground shakes, it shakes, too.”

  Dronzen frowned and looked up. “Must be recent. It hasn’t always done that.”

  “Mech? Any thoughts?” asked Cal.

  “About what?”

  “The shaky sky earthquake thing,” said Cal, drawing on his scientific vocabulary. Which, admittedly, was quite limited. “Is the earthquake making the vortex shake, or is the vortex making the earthquake shake?”

  “How the fonk should I know?”

  Cal leaned across and turned Mech’s dial up a few notches. Without changing size, Mech seemed to shrink before their eyes. “Brainy Mech, what do you make of all this earthquake and space hole business?” Cal asked.

  Mech tapped his chin with a twitchy metal finger. “Hmm. Please give me a moment. Anaylyzing data.”

  Cal drummed his hands on the tabletop as Mech stared blankly towards the wall at the far end of the yard. The other Zertex people had all stopped hugging the ground now, and were starting to bed down for the night atop blankets on the ground.

  “Any ideas?” Cal asked.

  “Analyzing data. Please hold.”

  Cal clicked his tongue against his teeth. If he’d been wearing a watch, he’d have made a point of looking at it, but he wasn’t, so he couldn’t.

  “Any--?”

  “Analyzing data,” said Mech, sounding just a tiny bit irritated. “Please hold.”

  “Jesus, how long does it take?” Cal muttered. “I mean, it’s not like--”

  “Analysis complete,” chimed Mech.

  “Finally!” said Cal. “So, what have we got?”

  “Insufficient data,” said Mech. “No hypothesis available.”

  Cal hung his head, mumbled to himself, then raised it again and smiled. “Great! Well, that was worth the wait.” He cranked Mech’s dial back to the center. “Loren, you two go do what you can on the flying lessons front. Dronzen, your people, can they fight?”

  “Some of them, yeah,” said Dronzen. “Some better than others.”

  “Depending on how tomorrow goes, they might all have to,” said Cal. “Can you get them ready?”

  Dronzen nodded. “Yeah. I can give it a go.”

  “I’ll help,” said Miz. “I have a lot of experience of violence. Besides, your accent totally turns me on.” She looked at the others. “It’s not just me, right?”

  “God, no, it’s not just you,” said Cal, relieved that someone else had found themselves in Mizette’s sights. “It’s, you know, dishy.”

  He turned to Mech. “The Grimmash. They should be ready, too.”

  “Why?” asked Dronzen. “We’re not taking them, are we?”

  “Either we all escape or none of us do,” said Cal. “They’re prisoners here, just like us. They’ve lost people, too. Hell, if it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead by now. Twice.”

  Dronzen hesitated for a moment, then gave a reluctant nod. “Fine. If you think that’s for the best.”

  “I know it is.”

  “What about you?” asked Loren. “What are you going to do?”

  Cal yawned. “Me? I’m just going to sit here and think for a while,” he said, resting his head on the table. “I’ll just close my eyes for a few minutes and work out how we can…”

  But the end of the sentence never came, as Cal – finally – drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Cal sat up with a start, snapping his head back from the table as if an electrical current had passed through it. With nothing but fresh air behind him, he toppled off the bench and grimaced as his bare back hit the rocky ground.

  “Ow.”

  Mech and Loren stepped over him, silhouetted by the morning sun. “They’re coming,” Mech grunted, as Loren reached down and helped Cal to his feet.

  “Already?” Cal groaned, stretching his aching back and fighting with one of his eyes which was refusing to open. “What time is it?”

  “Early. You’ve been asleep for about six hours.”

  “Which is more than can be said for some of us,” said Loren, stifling a yawn.

  “And yet you look great,” Cal lied. “Seriously. Fresh as a daisy. How did it go? Do we have pilots?”

  “We have people who know what some of the controls of a Zertex short range fighter do,” said Loren. “That’s as good as we’re going to get.”

  “Better than nothing,” Cal conceded. “Good job.”

  The Zert
ex yard was deserted. Cal could hear a nervous hubbub of chatter from the main yard, and followed Mech towards the door.

  To his surprise, he found both Zertex and Grimmash packed into the walled space, each group warily eyeing up the other. Miz prowled around near Dronzen who, to Cal’s even greater surprise, was standing beside the Grimmash tribeswoman, Sonsha.

  “I got them talking,” said Mech. “You know, more or less.”

  “So we’re all friends now?” Cal asked.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” said Mech. “But I think they understand they ain’t enemies.”

  Striding over, Cal shook Dronzen’s hand, then shot Sonsha an apologetic smile. “Sorry again for yesterday,” he said. “The, uh, the vomit incident.” He caught himself examining her bare chest, and quickly snapped his eyes back to her face. “I see you got cleaned up. That’s good. Glad to… Uh… Anyway.”

  He turned on his heels towards the double doors. Beyond it, he could hear the outer gates creaking closed.

  “We need to get everyone out of here now, back into their own yards,” Cal said. “If they open the gates and see us all waiting here, they’ll know something’s wrong.”

  “On it,” said Dronzen. He gestured to the Zertex crowd and ushered them towards their doorway.

  “You should go, too,” said Cal. “This could be dangerous.”

  “Come on, you think I’m letting you lot have all the fun?” Dronzen replied. “I’m going nowhere.”

  “Fair enough,” Cal nodded. “Mech, tell the Grimmash to get back to their yard and wait there. If anyone comes in who isn’t you, me, Loren or Miz, Sonsha has my full permission to kick the living shizz out of them.”

  Mech spun and hurriedly conveyed the instructions to Sonsha and the rest of the tribe. Cal spotted Tullok sitting in his wheelchair near the door, listening intently. He gave the old man a brief wave, then turned back to the gates. The heavy locks were being slid aside. Any second now, the gates would be pushed inwards, revealing… something. Cal had no idea what, and was the first to admit that this part of his plan was being made up on the spot.

  “Miz, Mech, left and right,” Cal instructed. “Loren, Dronzen, stay with me and try to look interesting. We want their eyes on us.”

  Loren clenched her fists and placed them high up on her sides, several inches above her hips, then spread her feet apart and squared her shoulders.

  “What are you doing?” Cal whispered.

  “You said to look interesting.”

  “Yeah, interesting, not like you’re pretending to be Wonder Woman,” Cal hissed. “They’ll take one look at you and realize we’re up to…”

  The gates groaned as they swung inwards. Loren dropped her arms to her side, which made her wide-legged stance look a bit stupid, so she shuffled her feet closer together, too.

  Ajan’s four guards strutted through the door, followed by Ajan himself. The little man was practically bouncing with excitement, his face a picture of glee.

  “How come you’re so happy, Ajan?” Cal asked. “Santa give you a pay rise?”

  Cal glanced at Loren and Dronzen. “I know that joke doesn’t make sense to you guys, but trust me, where I come from, it’s hilarious,” he said. “I mean, it’s arguably quite offensive, but you know, still funny.”

  “I’m happy because today’s the day I get to watch you die!” Ajan announced. His guards approached, fanning out ahead of him. Through the open gates, Cal could see three of the moving platforms, all standing side by side. There were tribespeople on all three of them, spears in hand. Whatever Vajazzle was planning, it was big.

  “Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that is pretty exciting,” Cal admitted. “That’s why we’re standing here waiting so patiently for you. Also…”

  He nodded to Miz. She pounced on Ajan with a single bound, pinning him to the ground. He screamed, but shut up quickly when Miz’s jaws snapped down on his throat, her teeth pressing against his skin, but not breaking it. Not quite.

  All four guards turned, guns raising. Mech fired off a series of shots from his arm blasters that hammered into the guards’ armor and sent them hurtling through the air. Loren and Cal both pounced on the downed soldiers, driving almost simultaneous punches across their heavy-set jaws.

  It took Dronzen another moment or two to get involved, but he soon jumped in, kicking and punching at one of the guards and wrestling the rifle from his grip.

  With a creak, the inner gate began to close, pulled from the other side. “Mech! You can’t let them close those doors!” Cal shouted.

  Mech turned and raised both arms, but a high-pitched warbling shriek suddenly echoed all around the yard.

  Sonsha and a group of Grimmash raced out of their area and sprinted towards the closing gates. A spear whistled towards them, thrown from one of the platforms. Sonsha snatched it from the air, twirled it expertly above her head, then hurled it like a javelin towards one of the gates.

  There was a screech as the spear punched cleanly through the metal, then a strangled, ‘Urk!’ as it buried deep into someone on the other side. The gate stopped moving, then was thrown open as Sonsha and the rest of the Grimmash powered through.

  The battle on the platforms was one of the bloodiest, most stomach-churning things Cal had ever witnessed, and he was grateful it lasted just eight or nine seconds.

  When it was over, the transport platforms were empty. The ground beneath them, meanwhile, was awash with blood, limbs, and the occasional pile of internal organs.

  Blood-slicked and breathing heavily, Sonsha led the rest of her tribe back into the yard, grimaced furiously at Cal, then continued back through the door to their own area.

  “Well,” said Cal, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He slammed the butt of the rifle into the guard’s face, knocking him out. “That was… terrifyingly efficient. And why did she do scary face at me? What did I do to deserve scary face?”

  “It’s a sign of respect,” Mech told him, casually blasting the fourth fallen guard in the chest. “Kinda one warrior to another, sort of thing.”

  “Oh. Right. Gotcha,” said Cal, sounding relieved. “I thought it was about the puke thing. She’s been surprisingly understanding about that. By the way, did you just kill that guy?”

  “No.” Mech held up an arm and tapped it. “Stun mode.”

  Cal’s eyes widened. He turned to Loren. “You said there was no such thing as stun mode! His gun has it.”

  “No, his arm has it,” said Loren. “That’s not the same thing.”

  “It’s absolutely the same thing.”

  Loren drove a punch across her opponent’s jaw, knocking him out. “It isn’t,” she said, standing up and smoothing herself down. She performed a series of quick, noisy checks of the guard’s rifle, then slung it over her shoulder.

  “Totally is,” Cal muttered, then he, Mech, Loren and Dronzen all gathered around the pinned Ajan. Miz still hadn’t broken the skin of his throat, but from Ajan’s expression it was clear he knew she could at any given moment. He was rigid and frozen, his face a mask of absolute terror, like he’d seen a ghost and died of fright.

  “I think you can let him go,” Cal said. “He’s not going to try anything stupid. Are you, Ajan?”

  Ajan didn’t dare speak and he definitely didn’t dare shake his head, so he waggled his eyes from side to side instead.

  “Didn’t think so,” Cal said. He nodded to Miz and she unclenched her teeth from his neck, but growled in his ear for good measure.

  “P-please, don’t hurt me!” Ajan squeaked. “N-none of this was my idea. It was Vajazzle. She made me do it! I didn’t even want to do--”

  “Quit whining, you little ratbag, and on yer feet,” snapped Dronzen.

  Ajan hurriedly did as he was told. He gazed nervously at all the faces looming over him. “Look, I can explain,” he began, but Dronzen cut him off.

  “What’s to explain? That you sold us out? That you betrayed the rest of us in return for a cushy little number up
there with your new queen? How you’ve come here all these times and taken so many of us to be killed for her amusement? Is that what you can explain, because if so, I am all ears, Ajan.” Dronzen’s grip tightened on his rifle. “And I’m desperately looking for an excuse not to shoot you where you stand.”

  “Wait, no, don’t!” Ajan pleaded. “I can help you! You want to escape? I can help! I know the security codes for the docking bays. You want off here, don’t you? Off this planet? Then you n-need me!”

  Dronzen’s jaw clenched. He pressed the butt of his rifle against his shoulder, the sights fixed on the narrow spot between Ajan’s eyes.

  “He’s right,” said Cal. “If he’s got the codes, we could use him.”

  “He’s a sneaky little mongrel. We can’t trust him,” Dronzen said, squinting along the barrel of the rifle.

  “Miz will keep an eye on him. He won’t dare do anything.”

  Dronzen grimaced. “Dozens are dead because of him. I want to shoot him.”

  “I know you do,” said Cal. “I mean, I’ve only known the guy a few hours and I want to shoot him, too. But hey, how about this? Instead of shooting him, you kick him in the nuts.”

  “W-what?” stammered Ajan.

  “Just a God-almighty kick in the balls,” said Cal. “A proper toe-punt, square in the danglies.”

  Ajan whimpered. “Now hang on…”

  Dronzen considered this for a moment, then lowered his gun. “No. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to shoot him, either. Not yet. He’ll pay for what he’s done, but not like this.”

  “Thanks, Dronzen!” Ajan said. “You won’t regret this! We’re going to make a great team again, you mark my—Oof!”

  A hairy foot fired up between Ajan’s legs from behind. The force of the kick lifted him into the air, then he folded to the ground, clutching his groin and whimpering.

  “What?” said Miz, when everyone else turned to look at her. “If no-one else was going to do it…”

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Cal, Loren, Mizette and Ajan stood – or, in Ajan’s case, lay – on one of the platforms, with Mech and Dronzen looking up at them.

  “So, according to Ajan everyone’s gathering at the big pit, ready to watch us fighting or whatever,” said Cal. “So we’ll sneak up to Vajazzle’s ship, poke around a bit, then signal for you guys over the radio if the coast is clear.”