“But why? I… I… don’t understand. He was harmless, gentle… He never did anything to anyone… He knew nothing.”
“Perhaps it was because he couldn't speak,” said Padget. “He couldn't tell them anything so Xylem had him shot. It happened during the takeover of the ship.”
“Oh yeah,” said Jack. “And what were you doing whilst they got rid of him, stuffing your face like usual?”
“No… no, I tried. They tortured me for days… I'm sorry Jack, but…”
“It’s not Padget’s fault,” said Vyleria, placing a hand upon his shoulder. Her voice was soft, calm, comforting. Jack immediately felt all his anger and frustration evaporate. “It was Xylem's and his alone. He was the one that killed him, not Padget.”
Vyleria was right, he knew it. He had to face facts; however hard and brutal it seemed. “Yes, you’re right,” he said, looking into her red, watery eyes. “It’s just that he was my first friend here and I guess I felt responsible for him. I wasn’t there when he died and I should have been. I let him down, Vyleria. If I hadn’t gone out in that spaceship, I would have been able to stop Xylem.”
“If you hadn’t come after me, you mean?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I… oh, I don’t know what I mean. I just want him back, Vyleria. I miss him.”
“I know you miss him. I miss him too. It’s sad, it’s horrible, it’s unfair, but you have to accept it Jack and try to move on.”
“But shouldn't we at least go back and make them pay for what they did to him? It would be worth it just to find his body and give him a decent burial.”
“Jack,” said Vyleria, putting her hand on his shoulder once again, “it’s not worth the risk. I know that sounds cold and detached but if we go back there we risk coming under attack or worse being captured again.”
“I don’t care!” said Jack. “We can take them. Our ship is unstoppable. We have so many weapons… more than they have… they wouldn’t stand a chance… they…”
“We don’t know that for sure,” said Vyleria, her hand still on his shoulder. “We don’t know anything about their ship’s weapons or defences to make an accurate comparison. They could be a lot stronger than us or a lot weaker. It’s a lottery really, and for the sake of revenge it’s not really worth it.”
Vyleria was right. He knew it. Grunt was dead and there was nothing that he could do about it. Even if they went back and tried to retrieve his body it would only result in more deaths and he didn’t want anyone else to die on account of Xylem.
“Yes, you’re right,” he said to Vyleria and Padget, putting his head in his hands. “I’m sorry for shouting at you both. I was just so upset about Grunt.”
“That’s why we didn’t tell you on the planet,” said Vyleria, sitting next to Jack as she put her arm around him. “I knew how upset you’d be and I couldn’t be certain he was dead until I saw the tapes of the incident.”
“So he’s really gone then?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
Jack thought of all the times he had seen Grunt eating fish and chips. He always looked so happy and content. That Grunt had taken so readily to one of his favourite foods made him miss him all the more. But that would be how he would remember him now: happy and no longer hungry.
Grunt’s death apart they had all been very lucky. The highly advanced medical facilities had allowed Vyleria to grow her leg back in just a few minutes, with Padget’s and Kat’s injuries taking a fraction of that. And as Padget had been given an entirely new stomach he had been eating ever since. Jack had also emerged from the ordeal covered in a variety of cuts and bruises and he’d even lost a little bit of weight. So like Padget he had wasted no time at all in investing in some culinary recuperation. He had had piles and piles of bacon and egg sandwiches, plate after plate of steak pies and Cornish pasties, as well as what felt like a million bowls of chocolate ice cream. But he hadn’t eaten any fish and chips. That was Grunt’s dish now. But one dish he did have was gooseberry crumble. He had just a little to remind him of home.
A few minutes later Ros entered the dining room. His face looked blank and serious.
“There is something else you need to know about what happened to Grunt.”
Jack looked up at once. “What is it?”
“I think,” he said, “it’s better if I show you.”
Jack and Vyleria followed Ros out of the control room and transported down to the first level. They walked along the winding corridor, eventually stopping outside a locked room. With all its locks and bars it looked like something out of Fort Knox. There they found Kat waiting for them, her face as grim and serious as Ros’.
“Are you sure he can handle this?” asked Kat.
“Handle what?” asked Jack. “What have you got locked up in there, one of the creatures from the planet or something?”
“Something like that,” said Ros, looking in the direction of Kat. “We’ve no choice – he’ll find out sooner or later.”
“Find out what?” asked Jack.
“Just promise me not to overreact, okay?”
“What are you talking about Ros? Of course, I’ll stay calm. It's me.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Promise?”
“Yes okay, I promise,” he said, laughing at him.
Ros put his hand to the giant door as the cool steel molded around his fingers. There was a flash of bright, yellow light, followed by the mechanical grinding of bolts and levers, before the door whooshed open with a gasp of air.
“YOU KILLED HIM!” shouted Jack, punches and kicks raining down on Xylem’s head. “YOU KILLED HIM!”
Xylem twisted and turned, the chains around his wrists and ankles preventing his escape.
“Jack, STOP!” yelled Vyleria behind him, trying to pull him off. “Leave him alone. He’s not worth it.”
Still Jack’s fists flung and clubbed away, his rage like a storm.
“Jack, you promised!” shouted Ros as he wrestled him to the ground. “Control yourself.”
“Please Jack,” said Vyleria kneeling next to him, her big red eyes locked on his. “This isn’t the way. You’re better than this.”
It took a while, but eventually Jack calmed down. “Yes, you’re right,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I… I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I know how you feel.”
“You do?”
“Sure. I want to hit him too.”
“Then why don’t you? He deserves it after what he did to Grunt.”
“Because it wouldn’t be right. Grunt meant a lot to me too, but I won’t let that pain manifest itself into hate. I’ve come too far for that Jack, we all have.”
Jack looked at his bloodied fists one more time. He remembered the time Gaz beat him up at the football pitch, when blood had poured from his nose like a leaky tap. Was that him now – a bully?
“This is all my fault.”
Jack turned towards Kat, feeling some of his anger evaporate. “How? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It was when we were fighting for control of the ship,” she said. “Vyleria told me to wish all non-crew members off the ship.”
“But that doesn’t explain why HE is still here,” said Jack.
“Yes, it does,” said Vyleria. “Don’t you see? The ship thinks he’s a member of the crew. That’s why he wasn’t kicked off with the others.”
“But how can he be a crew member? It makes no sense. He betrayed us!”
“Yes, but he’s still a crew member. Whatever force was behind us coming on board this spaceship also brought him on board too. Perhaps it’s for a reason, perhaps there’s good in him, perhaps…”
“Perhaps nothing Vyleria,” he said. “HE KILLED GRUNT! He deserves to die, he…”
“HE DOESN’T DESERVE TO DIE!” Shouted Vyleria. “No one does. Just because he has done something despicable doesn’t mean you have a right to kill him.”
“But, he tried to kil
l you too, he…”
“Yes I know, which is why he’s locked up in here until we can find out what to do with him.”
“So he’s our prisoner?”
“Yes, unless you have a better idea? Of course if you want to shoot him go ahead. But you will have to look into his dying eyes as you do it. Do you want to be as bad as him?”
“No, no… of course not, I just meant…”
“You meant what?”
“I just meant that there has to be another way. What about transporting him off the ship and leaving him on the first semi-habitable planet we find? It’s the least he deserves.”
“Because he knows too much,” said Ros. “He knows about us and where we come from, he knows about the spaceship and all of its capabilities. So we can’t just leave him in the middle of some desert because if his people find him then he can tell them all about us and the spaceship. And at least with him as our prisoner we can use him to find out more about them: what their ships are like, where their home planet is, what they want.”
“He won’t tell you anything,” said Jack. “He won’t go against his own race. One look into his eyes tells me that.”
“Yes, you’re probably right, but you never know, maybe he’ll come round.”
“Never.”
“Well time will tell. But the way I see it – no as WE see it – it is the only alternative.”
“Fine, but on one condition,” said Jack. “We’ve got to keep him securely locked up at all times. Those are my terms.”
“But,” said Vyleria, “surely he needs some space to move…”
“I don’t care about any of that humanitarian stuff,” said Jack. “He lost his privileges when he murdered Grunt. Grunt was my friend and I’m not prepared to risk having Xylem escape and then running around on this ship causing more mayhem.”
“I agree with Jack,” said Ros.
“Me too,” said Kat.
“He does have a point,” mumbled Padget, who was busily scoffing down his umpteenth bacon and egg sandwich.
“Okay, I’ll go along with it then,” said Vyleria. “But Jack, don’t let this anger, this hatred consume you - because if it does then in the end Xylem will have won.”
“Don’t worry I won’t,” he said, before walking up towards a still smirking Xylem. “Did you hear that? We’re letting you off the hook. But if for one minute you try anything I’ll put you back on and twist out whatever life is left in those ugly veins of yours. Do you understand?”
“Yesssss!” hissed Xylem, followed by what sounded like laughter.
Jack nearly hit him again, but the thought of Vyleria held him back. He’d made a promise to her and he would stick to it… for now.
“Wait,” said Vyleria, walking up to Xylem. “I’ve got one question for you about our escape.”
“Yesss…”
“When you took over the ship why didn’t you block all other commands like you did before? If you had done that then we wouldn’t have been able to create another control room. Our escape plan would have been useless.”
“I tried,” he hissed. “Many times. But the ssspaccceship wouldn’t let me.”
“What do you mean it wouldn’t let you? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’m afraid it does Vyleria,” said Jack. “It means that this ship is not for any one of us to command. We are all in charge now.”
“But that means…” said Vyleria.
“That we all have to work together,” said Jack. “Each one of us is the captain now.”
Jack ran all the way home as fast as he could.
He went from Darnley reservoir, past flocks of startled sheep, leaping over stiles and fences, zipping across the football pitch and onto the main road. From there he sprinted along the footpath for several miles, until he arrived panting and sweating outside his small terraced house. Then he walked slowly up to the front door, the paint still flaking off, and held his hand over the bronze door handle.
His hand hovered over it like a drowsy butterfly. He stood there nervously for a few minutes before he abruptly turned round and trudged back the way he came.
He met a smiling Vyleria opposite the football pitch. “Hey, what are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I was… I was just thinking of going home. But I can’t - not with Xylem’s people looking for us - none of us can.”
“I was thinking the same thing myself. I miss my family too, but I think together we will be okay. Me, you, Padget, Ros, Kat – we are a family now.”
“Yes, we are,” he said, looking into Vyleria’s deep red eyes. “A space family, speaking of which where are they?”
“Ros is teaching Padget and Kat how to fly.”
“Still?”
“Yep,” she said, smiling.
“How many days have they been trying now? Nothing ever changes. Come on let’s join them, I need to stop coming here.”
A few hours later Jack put on his spacesuit and went for a spacewalk. The spaceship was hovering not far away from a nursery of stars, with huge swathes of blue, green and purple gas bringing new life to the cosmos.
In a way these infant stars mirrored Jack’s own life. He too felt like a child amidst the stars, trying to find his way around. It had been a few months since that fateful day in Rockingdale when he’d ran away from Gaz Finch, only to bump into this very spaceship. He’d changed so much since then. He was no longer a frightened little boy running away from the bullies. He was an adventurer, an astronaut, a space boy, and for the first time in his life he actually felt like his name - strong. He could go anywhere he wanted in the universe, and could be whoever he wanted to be. He just hoped that his mum and dad would understand. He missed them a lot but to go back now would risk their lives. If the Xenti were to track them back to their home worlds the results would be devastating.
“Are you sure you want to try this?” asked Vyleria, joining him on top of the spaceship.
“Yeah, why not?” he smiled. “It looks like fun.”
“Okay Padget, take us to the stars!”
And with that he did, the fabric of space time bending all around Jack and Vyleria, as they whooshed past the stars in a kaleidoscopic blur of light.
The End
The adventure continues in Jack Strong and the Prisoner of Haa’drath and Jack Strong in Dreamland, available now on Amazon.
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Acknowledgements
I could not have written this book without the help, guidance and friendship of the following individuals: Jane Cohen Campbell, Owain Lloyd-Williams, and Mathew Byrne for so assiduously reading and providing feedback and praise on the first draft as well as spotting a few niggling continuity errors along the way. Special praise must also go to Sigrid Roman and Sherry Ashworth to whom I showed the first three, extremely rough drafts: your constructive criticism and support at the time helped me realise what kind of novel I was writing and how I should write it. Thanks also to Michael (Tef) Lomas, who as well as being a great friend to me over the years also helped me to prepare and edit this e-book (table of contents!) for publication.
Special mention must also go to one of my old students in Beijing, George Jia Hang. His generous praise of the first few chapters notwithstanding, it was whilst teaching him that I realised something about myself as a writer. When I first encountered George I would often find him writing story after story about plane loads of terrorists descending, machine-guns a-blazing, on Paris or New York until they were rather hastily and brutally dispatched by Seal Team Six or some other super-awesome American special forces unit. It went like this sometimes for a dozen pages or more with explosions and battles raging throughout the narrative; now whereas other teachers may have seen only violence and mayhem, I saw IMAGINATION and CREATIVITY – the product of a video-game obsessed generation to be s
ure, but a vital, informative product nonetheless. And what was I writing better at the time besides poetry? Nothing. I hadn't written a serious short story since that day in English class when I was eleven years old. We had been set a task to write about the colour 'Red'; and so given my action-movie obsessed life at the time I wrote about the Falklands war. If I remember correctly the whole class was stunned into silence as soon as I began mimicking the sound of a heavy machine-gun rapping off a few hundred rounds. Since everyone else rather predictably wrote about love and flowers and such, I looked like a bit of an idiot by comparison. In fact my mum to this day says that the teachers pretty much thought I was mad.
But what does all this have to do with George? Well, after the ridicule that followed my war story I stopped writing fiction, or at least I stopped writing anything that was remotely out-of-the-box or contained machine guns and tanks and generous amounts of action. That was of course until I became George's teacher. His stories, whilst being a product of his generation, took me back to when I was at school in the early 1990's and got me thinking about our respective writing processes. To me there was nothing inherently wrong with his stories and so instead of diverting him towards something else I encouraged him to explore and invest in his creativity, his imagination, his passion, because ultimately – and I'm talking to all teachers now – this is what writing is about: finding what moves us and excites us, and what as readers makes us want to open the book and keep on turning. So with this in my mind I began to write … and write and write (there was a LOT of writing), not about tanks and bombs because I'd left that behind years ago, but about this young boy called Jack Strong who I couldn't get out of my head (and I still can't), and all his incredible, life-changing adventures as he throttles around the galaxy.
The following people have also helped and supported me in non-literary ways (which in my mind is often just as important): my mum and dad, Jennifer and Allan Wolfenden for looking after my house in the U.K whilst I gallivanted and taught my way around South Korea and China. Benoit and Sandrine Janin thank you for your amazing hospitality and friendship when I visit you and your family in France. Robert Bigelow for all those times that you cooked for me in Seoul – yes, I might've brought the beer (Cash Fresh if you're wondering), but that in no way made up for your generosity, friendship, and let's be honest some amazing cooking! Andrea Joyce-Bhak and Jinsu Bhak, who despite the relatively small size of their apartment in Seoul, have never failed to open their doors to me – even after the birth of their first child. Hee Gyong Lee and her husband also deserve a mention for the same reason: I always appreciate it when you allow me to stay at your place in Munsan in South Korea and I most assuredly enjoy all those home-cooked Korean feasts that have lodged themselves quite securely in my memory. Something must also be said about Adrienne Tambone. I first met her at a barbeque restaurant in Bundang, South Korea in 2009 and then as the weeks and months passed our friendship grew and grew, until she became one of my best friends. Though the Pacific now separates us her dinner parties at her apartment will live forever in my mind, and sometimes I wish that a little bit like Vyleria I could have some kind of videographic memory, thus allowing me to go back in time and experience her company, laughter, and hearty food whenever and wherever I want. Qi Luan (aka Luanqi) also deserves special praise, because if it wasn't for his hikes around the Great Wall, Beijing, I would've left China eons ago, and my life would've been much the less for it. Tom Leu has always been a great friend to me, but a couple of years ago when a huge chunk of my salary was going towards paying off my MA and my ever-present mortgage he donated some much-needed clothes to me, much of which I'm still wearing today. Adrian Biarje, Andrew Chang, Ayse Ayan, Cameron Momeni and Stuart Jones also deserve special mentions. Sometimes, especially when the smog is down in Beijing and the nights are dark and cold, and the kids are acting-up, they are there for me when I need them the most. I couldn't do it without you.
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