Vajazzle hissed in pain or annoyance – or possibly both – and whipped around. She thrust out a hand and that invisible force slammed into Cal again. He wrapped his arms around the metal railing, but the pole itself sheared in two, bending outwards so Cal was now dangling over the toxic coolant from a length of rusty iron that was already buckling beneath his weight.
“Any last words?” the assassin asked.
Cal looked past her in surprise. “President Sinclair?!”
Vajazzle sighed. “Eyes on the back of my head.”
“Shizz, yeah. Forgot,” said Cal.
A violent shudder tore through the ship, shuddering up out of the world below. The railing bar Cal was gripping wobbled violently, the metal screeching as it bent still further.
The bridge itself rocked sideways, sending Vajazzle staggering towards the gap. Her tentacles thrashed towards the handrails on either side, but the welded joint of the floor beneath her came apart with a rending squeal and she stumbled, screaming, towards the gap.
The pole in Cal’s hands folded, swinging him down towards the underside of bridge. He had a second, maybe two, until it gave way. The edge of the walkway was three feet above him. Too far to jump. Way too far.
Cal heard that voice whisper to him again. That emotive, beautiful, Teen Choice Award nominated voice.
“Believe!” it whispered, oozing drama, then it added: “Also, the life force thing.”
“Fonk it,” said Cal. He jumped up and to the left, just as the bridge gave way on his right, spilling Vajazzle towards the bubbling mass of coolant.
Cal’s hands found a grip on the mesh floor of the walkway. The earthquake juddered the ship and the walkway tilted towards him, slipping his fingers back towards the edge.
“No, no, don’t you dare,” he hissed, making a grab for one of the vertical handrail bars. He caught hold, cheered briefly, then hissed in pain as a weight jerked his legs, almost ripping him in two.
One of Vajazzle’s tentacles had snagged around his foot, wrapping in a knot around his ankle. Vajazzle swung from the other end of the tentacle, upside-down, her neck craned so her red-eyed glare was fixed on Cal.
“It’s fitting, I suppose!” she hissed. The heat from the rolling pool of coolant was flaking her skin off. It floated from her flesh, becoming first ash, then nothing at all in the air. “We both die. Together.”
“Uh, Vajazzle,” Cal said. “Look out behind you.”
The assassin sneered. “How many times, Mr Carver? Eyes in the back of my…”
Her face fell as she saw, too late, the spout of liquid erupting upwards towards her.
“Oh no.”
The coolant column didn’t quite reach her. It didn’t have to. The weight on Cal’s leg evaporated. Pushed on by the rising cloud of heat, Cal heaved himself up onto the walkway, wasted half a second catching his breath, then ran for the only available exit, as the ground continued to shake, and the walls began to crack and crumble around him.
* * *
Loren’s fingers hammered angrily on another touch screen, eliciting another red flash and aggressive-sounding bzzzt. She’d deactivated three security protocols, and was now working on the fourth and, hopefully, final one.
“Maybe you should just leave it,” said Mech, shouting to make himself heard over the rumbling of the earth and the grinding of collapsing metal as the AX11 shook itself apart around them. “We ain’t got much time.”
“Get everyone to the other ships,” Loren instructed, not looking up.
“But we don’t know how to fly,” pointed out one of the Zertex crew.
“In those fighters it’s literally just one button to take off. You can’t miss it. It’s says ‘Take Off’ on the front in big white letters,” said Loren. She shot Miz a look. “And no, that wasn’t sarcasm.”
“And what then?” asked the Zertex man.
“You use the fonking stick and you point the ship towards the big hole in the sky!” Loren barked. “The transporter is much the same,” she continued, turning back to the screen. “Except instead of one button to push, there’s seventeen.”
“Seventeen?” spluttered three of the Zertex people at once.
“Eighteen if you also want to breathe,” Loren said. “Mech, show them.”
Mech took her by the arm. “We need to leave whatever’s in there, and get ready to go ourselves.”
Loren’s eyes met his. “There aren’t enough ships,” she told him. “Not for all of us. Whatever’s in there is our only way out.”
Mech held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Then what you waiting for? Get going.”
He spun around and addressed the anxious knot of Zertex troops. “Everyone who don’t want to die here, y’all better come with me.”
“Wait!” said Miz, holding up a clawed hand. Her ears pivoted. “Hear that?”
“I hear a lot of things,” said Mech. “None of them good. You might want to be more specific.”
“Shh,” Miz hissed. She closed her eyes and listened, then they flicked wide in surprise. “Cal! I can hear Cal!”
“What? Where? Go!” said Loren. “Find him.”
Mech felt a sudden squirming on his shoulder. Splurt launched himself onto Miz’s back, wrapping himself around her like a backpack.
“Want me to come?” asked Dronzen.
“Oh, you betcha, hot stuff,” Miz purred, eyeing him hungrily. He took a step towards her and she held up both hands. “Oh, wait, you mean to find Cal? No, you’ll totally slow me down. Like, I don’t know, get on a ship, I guess.”
Dronzen looked over at Loren and the increasingly impatient-looking Mech. “Right. Aye. Aye, I should do that,” he said, then he launched himself towards her, caught her by the arms and they kissed.
Mech’s nostrils flared as he watched Miz’s long, pink tongue explore Dronzen’s mouth. “Man, that is just nasty,” he muttered.
Miz and Dronzen’s kissing became more passionate, their hands exploring each other. Miz leaned over, bending the much smaller Dronzen beneath her.
Mech grimaced. “Seriously. That shizz ain’t right.”
Even Splurt, who was still clinging to Miz’s back, looked awkward.
“Miz,” said Loren. The smooching continued. “Mizette! Cal.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah,” said Miz, straightening and releasing Dronzen. His face shone with saliva. He shot Loren and Mech a sheepish look and blushed slightly, as he drew his sleeve across his spit-soaked chin. “See you soon,” Miz told him, then she winked, and spun on her heels.
Splurt’s bulbous eyes flicked across the group from the center of Miz’s back, then she was off and running, bounding on all four across the floor, as the deck rumbled and shook around them.
* * *
Cal raced along a corridor, his knees pumping furiously as the ceiling collapsed in a chain reaction of crashes and thuds behind him. As he drew closer to the door at the far end he launched himself towards it, tumbled through, then hit the wall on the other side.
He was off and running again at once, picking a direction at random and powering himself along as the ship vibrated itself to pieces at his back.
“Loren! Miz! Mech! Dronzen!” he shouted. “Er… or any of those other guys! Can anyone hear me?”
There was a sound like God himself groaning and a crack tore across the corridor dead ahead of him. Cal bounded across as the gap rattled itself apart, widening with each thunderous boom of the planet below.
“Cal!”
The cry came from somewhere up ahead. Cal hurried on, staggering into the walls on either side of him as the ship bucked around.
“Miz? Miz, is that you?”
He found her after two more turns. “Oh, thank fonk!” he cried, throwing his arms around her and hugging her for the scantest of seconds. Splurt flopped onto his arm and rolled up onto his shoulder, then nuzzled gently against his cheek. “Good to see you, too, buddy,” Cal said, then he yelped as Miz grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back the way she’d c
ome.
“Come on, we have to get out of here.”
“Shame,” said Cal. “I hear they have excellent gym facilities.”
A wall collapsed behind them, filling the corridor with dust and smoke and a tumble of electrical wiring all going fzzt.
“But another time, maybe,” Cal bellowed as he picked up the pace. “For now, run!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cal and Miz skidded, neck and neck, onto the landing deck, only to find it filled with choking clouds of black smoke.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Miz muttered.
“You sure this is the right place?” Cal coughed.
Miz nodded. She tried to sniff the air, but there was very little air to sniff. “Come on, this way,” she said, plunging into the smoke.
Covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve, Cal dived in after her. “Loren?” he shouted between hacks and splutters. “You here?”
“Cal? Over here!”
“I see her,” said Miz, grabbing Cal’s arm again and pulling him behind her.
They stumbled on and emerged in an area where the smoke was thinner and less toxic. Loren was still at her terminal, fingers still jabbing furiously at the screen.
“Ta-daa! Look who’s alive!” said Cal, grinning and gesturing to himself.
“Yeah, well not for long,” said Loren, putting a real downer on the moment. “Unless I can get this door open.”
Blinking away the smoke, Cal saw a towering set of metal doors standing fifteen feet beyond the terminal. “Isn’t there, like, a handle or something?”
“No!” Loren snapped. “I’ve disabled the security protocols, but I think the door is jammed.”
“And we need the door open because…?”
“Because there’s a ship in there,” said Loren. “The last ship. Our only way out.”
Cal swallowed. “Then why are you wasting time talking to me? Open the fonking thing!”
“I can’t, I told you, it’s jammed!” said Loren, slamming her fists on the screen in frustration.
She ran to the barrier and dug her fingers into the hairline gap where the two doors met in the middle. Gritting her teeth, she heaved. “Don’t just… stand there,” she grimaced. “Help me.”
Cal and Miz raced to join her. Miz took one side, while Cal positioned himself in the middle, digging his hands in back to back, so he could pull in opposite directions.
“On three,” he began. “One…”
“Just shut up and pull!” Loren barked. “There’s no time for countdowns!”
“OK, but I’d totally have been at three by now,” Cal pointed out, as they all heaved and pulled together.
The door didn’t budge.
“Mech, where the fonk is Mech?” Cal asked through gritted teeth.
“Here,” Mech grunted, emerging from the smoke with both arms raised. “Step aside.”
“No, wait!” said Loren, but it was too late. She, Cal and Miz dived for cover as Mech unleashed a volley of blaster fire on the doors. The laser bolts ricocheted off the metal and screamed past just inches from Cal’s head.
“You think I didn’t try that?” Loren shouted, but her voice was drowned out by an explosion from somewhere deeper in the ship. The floor undulated unpleasantly and the black smoke swirled in around them.
“Where’s everyone else?” Cal wheezed, covering his mouth again.
“Gone,” said Mech. “I got them onto the ships. They should be taking off right about now.”
Cal wheezed and spluttered. “Oh, well at least those nameless guys no-one cares about are all safe,” he said, sliding his back down the door as the smoke swirled into his lungs. “And that’s the main thing.”
“They do have names,” Miz coughed.
“What? Get out of town! All of them?” said Cal. He looked at his shoulder, which was about his full range of vision in the smoke. “Hey, where’s Splurt?”
The doors flew open with a grinding of gears. Cal toppled backwards into a room filled with fresh air. Wheezing, he gulped it down. From flat on his back, Cal saw a long strand of green strung between the doors, forcing them apart. A pair of wide eyes looked down on him.
Cal managed a thumbs-up, then Mech was scooping him up off the floor and half-dragging, half-carrying him further into the hangar. Splurt dropped into a ball behind them, and rolled along at Cal’s feet.
A ship stood before them, its landing legs clamped onto the hangar floor. Cal’s first thought was, “Ooh, that’s quite big,” because his appreciation of spaceship design was largely limited to size, shape and color, and not necessarily in that order.
The ship was twice the size of the Shatner, possibly a little bigger still. It had two wings, three legs and a couple of enginey-looking bits at the back. Despite all those, it somehow managed to look impossibly sleek, like it had been carved out of one solid piece of metal, then polished to within an inch of its life.
Cal had never wanted any object more than he wanted that ship, with the possible exception of a Castle Grayskull playset when he was six. Even then, he reckoned this would’ve come out on top.
The landing ramp was open, and Loren was already tearing up it, Miz hot on her heels. Cal scooped up Splurt, then hurried into the ship. Mech came last, closing the ramp behind him.
“Check this place out!” said Cal, gazing in awe at the smooth lines of the ship’s interior. The AX11 shuddered with the force of another earth tremor, and Cal grabbed onto Mech to stop himself falling over. “But, you know, later. Now’s probably not the time.” He pointed along the corridor ahead of them. “That way?”
“That way,” Mech confirmed.
By the time they reached the bridge, Loren was already sitting behind a long curved bank of controls. As she slid forwards on her chair, the control desk drew in closer, forming a horseshoe shape around her.
Miz had quickly worked out which chair had the fewest controls around it, and made a bee-line for that one. She slouched down into it, bounced up and down to check it would hold her weight, then draped a leg over the arm rest.
“Not bad,” she said. “Not bad at all.”
“Which one’s the gunner’s seat?” asked Cal, taking in the chairs on the bridge. Unlike on the Shatner, there were more than enough chairs for everyone, but Cal wanted to make sure he was the one who got to shoot the guns.
“No idea,” said Loren. “Just pick one. Hurry up!”
She flipped a switch and a holographic display appeared in the air above the controls. Loren’s eyes darted across them, her fingers flexing nervously.
“Tell me you know how to fly this thing,” said Cal, sliding into the chair closest to her.
“It’s… I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Loren. “I mean… I don’t know where to start.”
“Start by getting us the fonk out of here,” Mech suggested, stomping up behind her. “This whole place is about to shake itself apart, and I don’t think we want to be here when it does.”
“I know!” Loren yelped. “I just… These controls aren’t like anything I’ve ever used before.”
“What about that one?” asked Cal, leaning over and jabbing a finger through a holographic symbol. The lights flickered, and the bridge was suddenly plunged into absolute darkness. “OK, so maybe not that one.”
“Self-destruct sequence activated,” intoned a stiff, dusty-sounding voice from somewhere above them.
“What?” Loren cried. “How?”
“Detonation in five… four…”
“That wasn’t my fault!” Cal protested. “OK, obviously it totally was my fault, but let’s not dwell on that right now.”
There was an electrical hum and the lights returned. “Sorry,” said the voice from the ceiling. “Just my little joke.”
Cal looked up, half-expecting to find an elderly English butler dangling from the roof. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t.
“Uh, hello? Who said that?” Cal asked.
“I am K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Z
ero-Seven Dash Zeta,” said the voice. “An experimental – and, if I may say, groundbreaking - artificial intelligence installed upon--”
“Can you start the engines?” asked Loren, interrupting the voice.
“Would you like me to?” asked K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta.
“Yes!” shouted everyone else at the same time.
“Very well. As you wish.”
The ship hummed. The viewscreen illuminated, revealing a narrow strip of light ahead between the hangar bay ceiling and the shuddering ground below.
“OK, can you fly us out of here?” Loren demanded.
“Indeed I can, ma’am.”
Nothing happened.
“Er… then do it,” said Cal.
“Very good, sir. Calculating launch trajectory,” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta.
Nothing continued to happen. The gap between ceiling and ground grew smaller.
“Apologies, my calculations may take some time,” the AI informed them.
“How much time?” asked Cal.
“Seventeen hours,” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta. “Ish.”
“What?! Are there manual controls?” Loren cried.
“It will take longer if everyone keeps asking me questions,” the AI pointed out. Quite snippily, Cal thought.
“Manual controls. Now!”
“Very well, ma’am. If you insist.”
The bank of controls in front of Loren reformed like a Transformer, becoming something much more familiar.
“That’s more like it!” said Loren. One of her hands went to a lever, the other to a control stick. She hit the launch thrusters and the ship did nothing at all.
“Way to go,” said Miz. “Seriously. Good job.”
“The docking clamps!” Loren realized. “Disengage the docking clamps!”
“Oh, you want me to do that bit, do you?” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta. Cal was sure he heard the AI sniff. “I’m qualified to handle that part, am I?”
“Just do it!”
The docking clamps disengaged and the ship streaked towards the narrowing gap. Loren gritted her teeth. Splurt hopped into Cal’s lap. Even Mech braced himself and closed his eyes as the ceiling raced down to meet the floor.
Space Team: The Search for Splurt Page 21
