Jack Strong and the Red Giant

by Heys Wolfenden

  “I don’t know, but it’s going to take a lot more than these cheap, tacky magic tricks to convince me.”

  “Trust me,” said Jack. “After all I've been through since I came aboard: getting attacked by Ros, meeting Vyleria, finding Grunt, riding on the hover seats, and seeing the corridor disappear you'll be convinced in no time.”

  “Wait,” said Padget. “Who are Vyleria and Ros?”

  “They’re my friends… I think. I met them soon after I came aboard. What's wrong? You look confused.”

  “So Vyleria and Ros are from Paldovia, like you and I right?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jack.

  “You know Paldovia – OUR planet, where WE are from.”

  “What do you mean WE?” asked Jack. “I'm not from your planet, I'm from Earth. It's… well I'm not sure where it is, it could be at the other end of the universe for all I know.”

  “You mean you're an A-L-I-E-N?”

  “Well yeah, I guess so,” said Jack, thinking it strange to regard himself as an alien.

  “URRRRRRRRRRGH!” screeched Padget, backing away from him.

  “Well, what did you think? We don't even look alike. You're green… and I'm… err not.”

  Padget’s face had turned pale green. He was absolutely silent. They could have heard a pin drop but for the sound of Grunt chomping through another plate of fish and chips.

  “What do you want from me – my money, my palace, my buddy-bots? No of course not, that's silly - you're an alien so you probably want to eat me or something… oh no, do you want to harvest my organs?”

  “No, of course not,” said Jack. “Don’t be silly. I don't want anything from you, except perhaps a calmer head and a little courtesy.”

  “Okay well, if we are on a spaceship where are we?”

  “I'm not sure.”

  “What do you mean you're not sure?”

  “I mean that we are as lost as you. We are probably a gazillion miles from Paldovia. The only thing I'm sure of right now is us, this spaceship and that big blue planet down there.”

  “Well, if we don't know where we are, how are we going to get home?”

  “I don't know, I...”

  “You don't know?”

  “No of course not, I'm in the same boat, or should I say spaceship, as you are. Actually, I was hoping that you would be of some help to us. Have you seen anything that we might be able to use to get off this spaceship or at least gain control of it?”

  Padget shook his head.

  “Well, have you seen anyone else, a little girl perhaps? She has brown skin. I thought I saw her earlier.”

  “No, I’ve just been in here the whole time. You’re the first… alien… I mean boy I’ve met.”

  “What? You’ve just stayed here the whole time?”

  “Yeah, I mean I was sooooooo hungry… and the food here is delicious, perfect in fact.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” said Jack, eyeing all the empty plates. “Hey, that gives me an idea. Come with me. I want to try something.”

  “What alone?” he asked.

  “Well of course, do you expect to be carried?”

  “Sure, that's what the Servo-bots are for; that and cleaning and cooking and bathing and getting me dressed and brushing my teeth and cutting my hair and taking me to the toilet and...”

  “What? You mean to say that your robots do everything for you?”

  “Well yes, is that not how it's done on your world?”

  “No, of course not,” said Jack.

  “Is it because you are a skav… I mean poor?”

  “No, there aren't any robots on my planet, well not yet anyway.”

  “What – no robots? How do you get stuff done?”

  “We do things ourselves mostly,” said Jack. “Don't worry though; we still have quite a lot of technology on our planet.”

  “Doesn't sound like it.”

  “Well, we have computers and TVs in our homes, and cars, buses and trains to get from one place to another and telephones to call people. What do you have to get around?”

  “I don't know.”

  “What do you mean you don't know?”

  “Well, I've never left home.”

  “YOU'VE NEVER LEFT HOME!”

  “No, and I don't want to either. I have everything I need in my palace, thank you very much. I have my servobots, my buddy-bots, my virtual reality games.”

  “What, you mean to say you've no friends?” asked Jack, forgetting for a moment that he had none back home either.

  “Yes, but that's what the buddy-bots are for, to keep me busy and amused.”

  “Buddy-bots?”

  “Yes, they look like me, talk like me, do what I want.”

  “What everything?” asked Jack, imagining what it would be like having some virtual friends of his own.

  “Yeah, what’s the point of a friend who doesn’t do what you tell them? Besides, if they displease you in any way you can always send them to be incinerated. You can’t do that with normal people.”

  “I think that’s kind of the point,” said Jack.

  “Please yourself,” said Padget. “But until then you can be my servant. I'll pay you. Well, when I get back to Paldovia of course. My father has loads of money. He will reward you handsomely.”

  “I haven’t come aboard an alien spaceship and traveled billions of light years to be the slave of some slob,” he said. “Besides, you’re too heavy!”

  “Well, of course I’m heavy,” said Padget. “My Father says Direktors' sons are supposed to be heavy. Large and heavy. The Skavs need someone to look up to in authority.”

  “Well, I don't care,” said Jack, wondering who these poor Skavs must be. “I'm not going to carry you. You are going to have to do it yourself for once.”

  “Oh come on Jack, please.”

  “Now listen, it’s like this, me and Grunt are going next door. So it’s up to you: you can either stay here without your servo-bots and buddy-bots and carry on eating or you can come with us. It’s your choice.”

  Padget looked at the food one more time, his large hazel eyes gazing hypnotically at a huge fat steak, draped in gravy.

  “Come on, it will still be there when you get back,” said Jack.

  “It better be,” said Padget wrenching himself off his chair and hobbling towards the door. “Where we are going anyway? My legs are aching already.”

  “You’ll see soon enough.” said Jack. “I want to try something out.”

  “Think of something,” said Jack, as they entered the next room along the corridor.

  “Such as what?”

  “Anything at all. Something that the room could be used for.”

  “Okay,” said Padget, closing his eyes.

  The room transformed in an instant. Gone were the blank white walls and bright white lights and in their place appeared… FOOD… tables and tables of it. Temptation beckoned from every corner.

  Padget rushed into the room at once and proceeded to shovel handfuls of pork pies and baked beans into his mouth.

  “Do you not have cutlery on your planet?” asked Jack.

  “Yes, of course, but they’re…”

  “Don’t tell me, the servo-bots have them?”

  “Well, they do.”

  “Well you could try and use a knife and fork. After all there aren't likely to be any servo-bots here to clean-up after you.”

  Suddenly a giant, white napkin appeared out of thin air, wiping Padget's hands and face.

  “See, I told you,” said Padget. “I'm fine.”

  Jack had to admit that he had a point. “Yes, but we don’t have time for this, I want to try something else.”

  “You promise to let me come back in here when we’re done?”

  “Sure. If this works we’ll come back at once.”

  “If what works?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Jack remembered that he’d been thinking of taking a shower right before the shower room appeared so
he closed his eyes and thought of the same thing again.

  Sure enough Padget’s feast disappeared instantly and in its place appeared a shower room just like the one that Jack and Grunt had used earlier.

  Then he thought of a football stadium.

  A Wembley-sized football stadium appeared next. It came complete with the greenest turf Jack had ever seen and it was surrounded by row upon row of screaming, adoring fans.

  Then he thought of Earth.

  A huge image of the Earth appeared next. Jack looked down at the sunbaked Sahara desert and smiled. It looked absolutely beautiful.

  Then he thought of a telescope.

  Sure enough a huge telescope appeared next, large enough to peer into the deepest realms of the universe. With this he could peer into black holes and scan even the most barren plains for signs of life.

  Then he thought of an equipment room.

  Jack had never seen so many uniforms and different pieces of equipment before. They were all kinds of colours, shapes and sizes. Jack was drawn instantly to a black spacesuit. He put it on. At first it was too big for him. He was just about to take it off and try on another one when it suddenly shrank to fit him. He then put on a large black jacket. This too shrank to size. He tried the same again with a pair of black boots and the same thing happened again. If only it was like this at Marks and Spencer’s, he thought…

  Then Jack heard shrieks of alarm. Turning round he saw Padget clambering around in some kind of spacesuit similar to his. There was also some sort of metal device covering his mouth and nose and a pair of orange glasses obscuring his eyes. He looked like he was struggling to breathe.

  “I want to get out!” he shouted. “Jack help me, please.”

  Then he vanished.

  Chapter 7: Vyleria

  “We’re going the wrong way,” said Ros, his black eyes cutting into Vyleria’s like knives. “We’ve been going around these floors for hours now and we still haven’t found the control room.”

  “You can go back if you want,” said Vyleria, her bright red eyes returning his stare. “But I’m going to keep on searching. The control room must be around here somewhere. There can’t be that many floors above us now.”

  “Why should I take orders from you anyway?” asked Ros, his small nostrils crinkling-up into thin slits. “It’s your fault we got lost in the first place.”

  “No it wasn’t,” she said. “We both thought of the control room when we went into the transportation room.”

  “Then why didn’t we re-appear there?” asked Ros. “Perhaps you made a mistake. Perhaps you got confused, perhaps…”

  “Maybe it was your fault,” said Vyleria, her cheeks a bright shade of violet. “Or don’t you make mistakes on your planet?”

  “That’s right I don’t,” said Ros, his grey, lipless mouth widening into a tooth-filled snarl.

  “Look, this is stupid,” said Vyleria. “There is no point arguing. We are both in this together. We both thought of the same thing, but for some reason we didn’t re-appear in the control room. Perhaps we can’t access it through the transportation booth.”

  “Well if I was the leader things like this wouldn’t happen,” said Ros.

  “Oh yeah, why should you be the leader? Why not myself?”

  “You?” said Ros.

  “That’s right, me!” she said.

  “Well, you’re a girl for a start.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “On my planet men make all the decisions,” said Ros. “They’re the best at it. It’s been scientifically proven.”

  “Well, on my planet women make all the decisions,” said Vyleria. “We’re the best at it. It’s been scientifically-proven too.”

  “A planet governed by women? That’s impossible. It would never work. Society would collapse.”

  “Well, that’s what we think of male-governed societies. How do you ever stop arguing?”

  “I could say the same about you,” he said. “Why do you think we are here anyway?”

  “I've been thinking about that ever since I got here,” said Vyleria.

  “Me too,” said Ros. “Perhaps it's a test of some kind. Maybe we all have to work together to solve some puzzle or accomplish a task or a goal.”

  “Then why haven't we been told what to look for? We could be crawling around the spaceship for centuries at this rate. And why was there no one around to greet us when we came aboard?”

  “Perhaps they are dead,” said Ros.

  “If that was true, then how did the ship know where to go and who to come for? None of this makes any sense at all.”

  “It could've been an accident. Perhaps the ship is out of control, malfunctioning somehow.”

  “I don't believe that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because something here doesn't add up. There's a reason we are all here, I'm sure of it.”

  “Even Jack and Grunt?”

  “Yes, them too. Something or someone will reveal itself to us sooner or later I'm certain.”

  They found the control room about a hundred feet further up the corridor. It was a hive of flashing lights and display screens. And in the centre of all this like a big blue smudge was a huge gas giant ringed by a chain of moons.

  Vyleria approached the planet on the screen in front of her. The planet was so close she could run her red finger nails across its surface, white storm clouds shimmering under her touch.

  Then she saw a black blur moving towards her.

  She spun around at once.

  Two razor sharp pincers bulged out of a hideously blistered head. It looked like it had been dowsed for an hour in boiling hot water. A set of yellow eyes regarded her as a spider might a fly. What was this thing?

  She couldn’t breathe. Both her hearts were pounding wildly.

  She took a step backwards, and then another and another, until finally she collided with Ros behind her, falling to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.

  “Don’t be afraid,” it said in a rasping, scraping voice. It sounded like one of the fire snakes from the hell cracks of Marr.

  It edged closer, its jet black armour flowing as it moved.

  “What do you want?” asked Vyleria, Ros cowering behind her.

  “Pleassse,” it hissed. “There’sss no need to be ssscared.”

  “Then why did you sneak up on us like that? What are you doing here?”

  “Want to be your friend. To co-operate. My name is Xylem.” Again that snake-like sound.

  “That’s good,” she said, not knowing if she believed him or not. “We want to work together too. I’m Vyleria. This is Ros. Do you know where we are?”

  “Sssorry,” said Xylem, whistling every time he sucked in air between his jagged teeth. “No time.”

  “Okay well, have you found out how to control the ship?”

  “Not yet,” he hissed. “The computer sssystems are hard to figure out.”

  “Well we have to find out sooner or later,” she said, pointing in the direction of the big blue planet. “If we get too close to that gas giant we might not be able to escape.”

  “Yesss, you’re right,” he wheezed.

  Vyleria looked around the control room. The whole thing was lit-up like New Varda at night. There were a variety of floating control panels in all kinds of shapes, colours and sizes. They all appeared to be touch sensitive.

  “Have you checked this one?” she asked, pointing to the electric blue panel directly in front of them.

  “Not yet,” he rasped. “I’ve only just arrived.”

  Vyleria went over to the control panel and clattered away at some buttons.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed some more.

  Same result.

  The spaceship didn’t move, the space-lasers didn’t fire, no 3-D map of the ship or the solar system popped-up before her. Not even the lights turned on and off. The control panel didn’t seem to do anything. She moved along and tried the panel next to
it, but still nothing happened. It was the same with all the rest too; no matter what she did nothing worked.

  “It makes no sense,” she said. “You have a go, Xylem.”

  “I’ll try,” he rasped, slowly moving over to where she was standing, his large boots stomping across the floor.

  His claw-like hands stabbed and poked at the buttons. Lights blinked and flashed on the panel, but other than that there was no response.

  Then Ros tried to wake up the sleeping spaceship.

  Again nothing worked.

  Then Vyleria had an idea.

  “SPACESHIP FORWARD!” she shouted.

  Still the spaceship slept.

  “SPACESHIP ON!” She commanded next.

  Nothing.

  Then Vyleria had another idea. She closed her eyes and imagined the spaceship moving through space. She opened her eyes expecting to see the spaceship buzzing towards the blue planet, but it hadn’t moved an inch.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Why would it fly to all our planets, pick us up, come all the way to this planet and then stop working?”

  She slammed her fists down against one of the panels, but even this failed to wake the sleeping giant.

  They were adrift with no hope of rescue and spinning hopelessly, helplessly through the dark vacuum of space.

  Then Vyleria saw something flickering on the screen. It was large and black and speeding uncontrollably towards them, a blue/white tail trailing in its wake.

  Either Vyleria got the spacecraft to work or the comet was going to smash into them within the next few seconds.

  Chapter 8: First Flight

  The comet exploded into a million tiny splinters of rock and ice.

  Vyleria turned around and saw Xylem inside some kind of semi-invisible machine. His body shook with delight as he fired a rapid stream of tiny blue dots into the shattered remnants of the comet.

  She couldn’t believe it. “You lied to us!” she shouted.

  For a second or two he didn’t seem to hear her, as the dark vacuum of space continued to rain lightning, his white fangs bared like rocks. Then he stepped out of the machine, its transparent blue panels folding-up into nothing.