Jack Strong and the Red Giant

by Heys Wolfenden

  Chapter 16: Space-Racing

  Jack and Vyleria reached the North Pole of the asteroid less than an hour after setting off from the space station.

  They could see all around for millions of miles. Behind them were three dim orbs and a ginormous red gas giant, its clouds swirling angrily. In front was a massive swarm of asteroids and dwarf planets that stretched all around the whole solar system. Some were as small as a car, whilst others, like the one they were on, were twice as big as the Earth’s moon. Many were made of ice, whilst others seemed to be pure rock. Like a shoal of fish they glimmered in what little sunlight reached them in the shadows.

  “Come on, this way,” said Vyleria, pointing into the distance.

  “Will we be space racing soon?” asked Jack, looking at the asteroids as they dangled around him.

  “Shh patience,” said Vyleria.

  Jack did as he was told. He could do little else.

  They walked for about another hour, the enormity of space rearing up all around them.

  Then Jack saw something glinting in the distance.

  Bulging out of an enormous crater was some kind of space station.

  They got closer and closer until they came up against the crater's massive rim.

  It looked to be easily one mile high and was almost vertical.

  Just as he was contemplating climbing its rugged face Vyleria motioned him towards a large metal door at its base. It slid open as soon as they approached, revealing a large room that seemed to have been carved out of the rock.

  Once inside, the door hissed shut behind them, their movement triggering the lights to come on.

  Vyleria took off her helmet.

  She breathed deeply.

  Jack copied her.

  Then she motioned him towards another door on the far side of the room.

  They were now in some kind of small glass room.

  “Space Locker Level One,” she said.

  Instantly, the room they were in whooshed upwards through a dark tunnel, the asteroid blurring all around them. Miles of rock streamed by in seconds. Then they shuddered to a stop and the doors opened, light flooding the elevator.

  Jack had only just taken all this in when Vyleria tugged at his sleeve and directed him through a pair of large silver doors.

  There were lockers down one side of the room and what looked to be changing rooms down the other. A row of glass benches separated the two down the middle.

  “Okay Jack, I hope we can find something that fits,” said Vyleria.

  “Fits, what for?” he replied.

  “For the race of course, silly.”

  “The what? I’m... I’m not… I’ve never. I don't know what to do.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be okay. This is only a simulation remember. It’s not real.”

  “If it’s not real then what’s the point?”

  “Because it’s going to be EXCITING and besides, I’ve always wanted to do it.”

  “What? You mean to say you’ve never done this before?”

  “Well, I’m only thirteen Jack. You have to be at least sixteen before you can even start to learn how to Space Race.”

  “SIXTEEN? We aren't even allowed to drive cars at that age, let alone fly a spaceship.”

  “What you mean you can’t drive a car?”

  “Well I’m only thirteen, Vyleria. How old do you have to be to drive a car on your planet?”

  “Eight.”

  “EIGHT?”

  “Yes, what’s wrong with that?”

  Jack imagined what the roads of the U.K would look like if droves of kids were driving cars around like maniacs.

  “Don’t you have accidents?” he asked.

  “No, of course not, the computers do all of the driving. All we have to do really is tell the computer where we want to go and it takes us there.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Jack.

  “Why, isn’t that the same on your world?”

  “No. We still have to actually drive our cars.”

  “Oh, it sounds dangerous. Don’t you have accidents?”

  “Yes, all the time.”

  “Do people die?”

  “Yes, sometimes.”

  “Why isn’t banned then?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I suppose we don’t think of it like that.”

  “It seems like a strange planet, your Earth.”

  Jack and Vyleria soon found some racing suits that would fit them. They were similar to the space suits they had been wearing, only lighter and tighter and with a smaller, more compact helmet. They were also jet black with protective patches around the knees, shoulders and elbows.

  “Okay, now what?” asked Jack.

  “Now we go and choose our space cars!”

  Vyleria dragged Jack out of the changing rooms and back into the space elevator. This time Vyleria called out “Space Room One.”

  When they arrived some huge floodlights came on to reveal a giant arena.

  There were rows and rows of space cars everywhere.

  They looked a little bit like the spaceships he’d seen around Vyleria’s planet, only they were much smaller and more aerodynamic, with a simple cockpit, two short, streamlined wings and a huge engine that bulged out of the back. They were arrayed in all kinds of patterns and colours.

  Jack picked one that was white, with a black stripe extending straight down the middle.

  Vyleria of course chose one that was pure red.

  “Now what do we do?” asked Jack.

  “Now we RACE!”

  Jack clambered into his space car. The cockpit was small and quite cramped. There were a myriad of buttons, lights, gauges and instruments. He was just about to ask what he should do next when he heard Vyleria’s voice in his ear. “Press the big red button on the dashboard.”

  “Why, what does it do?”

  “Just push it and you’ll see.”

  He did what he was told.

  Suddenly the whole cockpit lit up like a Christmas tree.

  Then something even stranger happened: the space car began to float.

  It rose at a steady speed towards the roof, the vast banks of space cars getting smaller and smaller.

  Jack could see some kind of pulley system attached to the roof. When he was within twelve feet of this a robotic arm abruptly descended and grabbed hold of his space car, before attaching it to the pulley.

  The same thing happened to Vyleria’s car.

  Then they began to move.

  He was being towed towards a large gap near the top of the arena. It was deep and dark, like a giant bat’s cave. It loomed larger and larger the closer he got, until eventually it devoured him.

  He was now in a long, black tunnel. There wasn’t so much as a speck of light anywhere.

  He wanted to ask Vyleria where they were going, but he was sick of asking questions and sounding scared, so he kept quiet.

  Five minutes later he emerged from the tunnel, Vyleria in tow.

  There were stars everywhere.

  Jack looked down as the space station shrank away beneath them; its outstretched metal tentacles making it look like some kind of giant space octopus.

  Then they came to a stop, after which they were picked up by another far larger spacecraft that looked a little bit like a beetle.

  It took them deeper and deeper into space, towards the ring of asteroids Jack had seen earlier.

  They loomed ever larger, until eventually they penetrated deep into their icy midst.

  Deeper and deeper still they went, past thousands upon thousands of black and white hulks, swerving here and there to avoid a collision, until finally Jack saw it.

  A giant race track.

  It was marked by millions of little space buoys, all blinking green, white and red, with a moon-sized silver object at its center. The whole thing looked to be easily thousands of miles long, if not longer.

  “What’s that?” asked Jack, pointing at the silver moon.

  “It�
�s a relay station,” said Vyleria through his helmet. “It records the race and sends back the images via the deep space communication network. It’s then watched by three hundred billion people on holo screens all across ten solar systems. Amazing eh? Shall we race?”

  “But I… don’t know how to fly it.”

  “Don’t worry. Most of these instruments you don’t need. See that controller in front of you?”

  Jack looked around the cockpit.

  There were two black palm-shaped handles attached to the panel in front of him.

  “Yes, I’ve found it,” he said.

  “Okay, now listen carefully. If you want to go right, turn it right and if you want to go left…”

  “Turn it left,” he said.

  “Yes, but that’s the easy part,” she said. “There are no gears in this spaceship like the earlier models; no rocket injection for take-off. If you squeeze down on the handle to the right you will accelerate. The left applies the brakes. The longer and harder you squeeze the sharper the brake or acceleration. It may take some getting used to.”

  “Okay, I’ll give it a try,” he said, not knowing if this was a smart thing to do or not.

  “Right, let’s make our way to the starting point. Just take it easy, Jack. Don't do anything you're not comfortable with.”

  Jack grasped the handles and squeezed hard on the accelerator.

  WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

  He shot through space like a flaming arrow, narrowly missing one of the space buoys. Before he knew it he had travelled hundreds of miles and had zoomed past the starting point. He swerved one way and then the next, but all this seemed to do was fling him further and further off course.

  He was heading straight for the asteroid field on the edge of the race track.

  He tried to swerve, but his space car crashed headlong into a boulder-sized asteroid, ripping off one of the wings, squashing the nose and smashing a hole in the black tinted windows.

  Jack panicked.

  He expected the vacuum of space to come rushing into the cockpit at any moment.

  But nothing happened.

  His space car just hung there suspended, the black rock spinning rapidly in front of him.

  “You’re lucky this isn’t real,” chuckled Vyleria, pulling up next to him. “Otherwise you’d be in a million pieces and making news all around ten solar systems by now. Oh, and next time use the breaks!”

  It took a while but Jack finally got the hang of space racing, though he was still nowhere near as good as Vyleria.

  “Fancy a race Jack? We can race at easy level for now.”

  “What do you mean easy?”

  “This circuit can be changed and made harder, depending on the skill of the driver. At intermediate there are sharper turns and the odd asteroid to navigate around, but at expert, which is what most professional pilots race at, there are a lot more asteroids and even planets and comets, some of which appear at random or else explode, and there are also lots of loop-the-loops as well as some vertical and horizontal twists.”

  “Okay, what level do you race at?”

  “In the simulations I’m pretty good at intermediate. But even that is really hard. One day I hope to be able to get to expert. Then I can have a shot at becoming a professional space racer.”

  “Let’s go then,” said Jack, imagining himself beating Vyleria.

  Jack started off well, accelerating rapidly and even leading for a time, but eventually the turns and the speed became too much. She beat him by ten thousand miles.

  “Well done,” she said. “Not bad for a beginner. You’ll get better. Do you want to go around a second…”

  Vyleria stopped what she was saying.

  Another space car was coming their way. It was deathly black with a bloody red streak down the middle.

  It got closer and closer, until eventually it pulled up alongside them.

  “Want a raccce?”

  “What are you doing here, Xylem?” demanded Vyleria. “How did you get in?”

  “Think you can beat me?” he rasped, ignoring her question.

  “You, you’re a good racer?”

  “The bessst.”

  “Yeah well, we’ll see about that,” she said. “Come on Jack; let’s show Xylem a thing or two about space racing.”

  A few seconds later and they blasted off.

  Jack tried to keep up with Vyleria and Xylem as best he could, but all he could do was watch as they screeched off into the distance like a pair of fireworks. They became distant specks of light zipping about in space until eventually he lost sight of them as they zoomed into a dark cluster of asteroids.

  By the time he went past the finishing line the race was over.

  He had come last.

  But at least Vyleria had won, albeit narrowly.

  “I told you I was better than you!” she shouted at Xylem.

  “Well, if you’re confident…”

  “I am that confident! I can beat you any time, any place!”

  “We should raccce at expert,” he hissed.

  “Expert?” she queried. “I’m… I'm not qualified to race at that level. I’ve never done it before.”

  “Are you ssscared?”

  “I’m not frightened of you Xylem; I can beat you any day. We can race at intermediate level again – ten laps this time.”

  “No, you’re ssscared,” repeated Xylem, seeming to laugh.

  “I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU!” she shouted. “I can beat anyone and I can certainly beat an obnoxious little slug like you.”

  “We ssshould bet then… yesss.”

  “Bet?”

  “Of courssse. If you’re sssure.”

  “Okay then,” said Vyleria, hesitating slightly. “What do you want to bet?”

  “If I win I’m captain.”

  “CAPTAIN?” said Jack. “Vyleria, you can’t be serious. This is a trick. Don't race him. He's up to something, I know it.”

  “It’s okay Jack, I’ve beaten him once already and I can beat him again. I'm a far better racer than he is and he knows it.”

  Jack tried to protest, but Vyleria ignored him.

  Vyleria’s and Xylem’s space cars lined up at the start. The course had been set to expert level and they had agreed to do five laps.

  It went well for Vyleria at first. She went into the lead and deftly avoided an exploding asteroid that suddenly appeared in front of her car. Xylem trailed her by only a little however, and Vyleria was unable to extend her lead. It didn’t matter how quickly she went through a loop-the-loop asteroid or one of those fashioned like a vertical twist, Xylem stayed stubbornly behind her.

  One lap quickly became two, and three and then four, until eventually they entered the final lap.

  Still Vyleria led.

  They entered the final straight.

  Jack was just about to begin celebrating when Xylem pulled level.

  They were neck and neck as they zoomed towards the finish line. There were only a few miles left. It would be a tie.

  Then all of a sudden Xylem rammed his space car into Vyleria’s, causing her to lose control, spin off the track and crash into an asteroid in a flurry of smoke and flames. He crossed the finish line soon after.

  Xylem had won. He’d cheated, but he’d won.

  Then the simulation abruptly ended and the room was as white and as bare as it was before.

  “YOU CHEATED!” shouted Vyleria, cheeks burning. “I can’t believe it.”

  “No, it was fair,” wheezed Xylem, standing right up to her.

  “What? You are not allowed to ram another space car off the track. THAT'S CHEATING!”

  “Not on my planet,” he cackled.

  Vyleria’s eyes and cheeks were purple fire and her teeth and her knuckles were clenched.

  For a moment Jack thought she was going to hit him like she had Gaz Finch.

  Then she opened her mouth. “Okay, you can be captain,” she spat. “But don't expect me to follow any of y
our orders!”

  Then she stormed out into the corridor, kicking over a hover chair on her way. She didn’t come back.

  Chapter 17: Brave New World

  “Hey, are you okay?” asked Jack, running down the corridor. “Don’t worry about Xylem. He probably won’t be captain for long.”

  “What makes you think that?” said Vyleria, her cheeks still glowing with anger. “Because of my stupidity I have let the whole ship down.”

  “No, you haven’t. It will sort itself out, I’m sure.”

  “How Jack? How will it sort itself out? In case you haven’t realised Xylem is power-hungry. He’s not exactly going to cede control willingly. We are going to have to take the ship back.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jack.

  “I mean that when the time comes you and I are going to have to mutiny.”

  “M-mutiny?” said Jack, imagining having to stand up to Xylem all by himself.

  “Yes, when the time comes. But first we must wait and see what he does. It would help if we had the others on our side. Do you think the rest will help us?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure about Ros. He definitely doesn’t like me and I’m not sure if he likes you either. Rebellion is not in Padget’s nature and besides, he’s not very brave. And as for Grunt forget it. He can barely look after himself let alone take part in a mutiny.”

  “Yes, you’re right Jack. We must bide our time and wait until he makes a mistake. Perhaps he will do something to one of the others.”

  All this plotting and conspiring made Jack very nervous. He was scared of doing something that might land him in trouble, but at the same time he was excited to be a part of Vyleria’s plans, to be part of a team of sorts. For the first time in his life he felt like he had a genuine friend.

  They bumped into Grunt five minutes later. He was eating another plate of fish and chips. By the look of it he had already eaten three plates and was now busily scoffing down the fourth. Maybe I should introduce him to the whole Earth menu? Jack thought. I wonder how he’d take to spaghetti, pizza and curry?

  “Hi there,” said Jack, causing Grunt to jump and spray half-chewed bits of food all over the room. “Do you want to try something else?”