Cal groaned inwardly. He hadn’t had a huge amount of experience of turbolifts, and what little he did have had been far from enjoyable. There was a technique to traveling by turbolift, everyone told him. Once you’d mastered it, it was easy. You barely even noticed it moving, once you’d mastered it.
Cal hadn’t mastered it. Not by a long shot.
Loren opened the door and shot furtive looks in both directions along the corridor. When she saw the coast was clear, she stepped out and beckoned to Cal.
“You coming?”
Cal winced. Turbolifts. He fonking hated turbolifts.
Then again, the thought of five hundred floors didn’t exactly have him dancing with joy, either.
Bathed in the light from the corridor, he nodded knowingly and gave his best Captain Kirk smirk.
“Agreed.”
Loren frowned back at him. Cal felt himself blush, just a little. “By which I mean, ‘yes,’” he explained, then he smiled sheepishly and scurried out of the cleaner’s closet and into the corridor beyond.
The lifts were situated close to the restaurant they’d recently left, and which had now become the scene of quite a lot of commotion. Cleaning droids and repair bots swarmed in and out through the open doors, fixing the damage and mopping up the brain matter inside.
A few Zertex guards were stationed near the doorway, idly diverting the few stragglers still roaming around this floor. There were sixteen other restaurants in this sector of the level, their names projected in bright colors in the air so they could be read from any angle.
The place Cal had taken Loren had been called Le Moops, which Cal had assumed meant it was French. It wasn’t. Le Moops, it transpired, was the name of the restaurant owner—an elderly disheveled gentleman who, judging by the painting of him on the restaurant wall, had eaten ninety-percent of lifetime profits, and three-hundred-percent of the dessert menu.
Le Moops was one of the higher-classed establishments in this sector. Or it had been, at least. Not so much now. Cal had assumed the numbers next to the menu items had been some sort of code. Telephone numbers, or stardates, perhaps. When he’d found out that they were prices, he’d almost choked on the complimentary bread, and been forced to wheeze, “Heimlich! Heimlich!” until Loren punched him in the chest.
On reflection, he was glad the place had been smashed up.
Hanging a right at Le Moops introduced eager food-lovers to a succession of other culinary hotspots. Boak served a hot, soupy stew in apparently limitless qualities. Gromworts was a fish restaurant, judging by the animated logo of a four-armed man shooting what appeared to be a dolphin through the face.
The logo of the next place suggested it sold spaghetti, although the name—Yumworm!—made Cal suspect he’d gotten the wrong end of the stick.
He was staring at the sign of the next building, waiting for the translation chip in his eye to convert the symbols into letters, when the turbolift doors opened and Loren pulled him inside.
The lift was the size of the bridge on Cal and Loren’s ship, the Currently Untitled, and easily large enough to accommodate fifty people, or ten of Mr Le Moops.
There were four other people already in the elevator car. All of them wore various uniforms that suggested they worked at one of the station’s many food establishments and entertainment centers.
A burly man at the back of the lift wore the matching shirt and helmet of one of the station’s shopping arenas. They’d passed the largest of these coliseum-style arenas on the way to the restaurant, and Loren had explained that visitors flocked from all over the system to battle it out for a limited number of lightly discounted goods. Shoes, mostly, and the occasional space TV.
Cal smiled and nodded at the other occupants, then faced front and braced himself as Loren gave the instruction.
“Eight.”
The floor fell out from below him, sucking his stomach down with it. He grabbed for the overhead handrail and held on until his knuckles went white.
The elevator stopped abruptly and shunted backward, throwing him off-balance and forcing him to grab the rail with his other hand.
Around him, Loren and the others stood their ground, apparently unperturbed by the speed or the sudden jerking movements. One of them was even standing on one foot while she picked something off the sole of her shoe. The bedge!
Cal was so busy watching her that he failed to anticipate the rapid deceleration and sudden plunge as the turbolift switched to another track and changed direction. His feet flew out from under him and he swung from the bar like a monkey, legs bicycling until the elevator car diverted onto another track and his heels slammed against the floor.
“Ow, fonk!” he grimaced, the impact serving as a painful reminder that he only had one boot on.
Loren raised an eyebrow and looked him up and down. “What’s the matter?”
“What the fonk do you mean, ‘What’s the—?’” Cal began to ask, but then the lift went one way and he went the other.
He clung on, completely horizontal against the ceiling, G-Forces flattening his cheeks against his ears.
Over in one corner, the woman stopped examining her shoe and put her foot down. In the corner opposite, the man from the shopping arena fiddled idly with a set of brass knuckles, then gave a barely interested glance in Cal’s direction.
The lift slammed to a stop then climbed suddenly. Cal had been bracing himself for pretty much every possible direction except up, and immediately lost his grip. He managed to yelp, “How are you all still standing?” in one big gulp, then walloped into the rapidly rising floor.
He wondered, momentarily, why this sort of thing always seemed to happen to him, and then the elevator stopped sharply and his back met the ceiling. Then, a moment later, his front met the floor again.
The door opened.
“Level One-Three-Eight,” chimed an electronic voice. Cal watched two of the elevator’s occupants leave, then came to a decision.
“Fonk it,” he groaned, grabbing Loren by the wrist and hobbling her toward the door. “Close enough.”
Four
In many respects, the rest of the journey was far more enjoyable. Once they’d struggled their way through the lines of combatants in home-made armor waiting impatiently outside a store proclaiming, ‘30% Off All Rugs – Today Only!’ they’d found a staircase and began the long climb down.
Generally speaking, nobody ever used the stairs on a space station. There was no need, thanks to those extensive turbolift networks which transported passengers around the place in a fraction of the time it took to walk.
That was all well and good if you’d mastered the knack of being able to balance on the fonking things, of course. Which, had Cal not seen it with his own eyes, he’d have said was physically impossible.
So, the upside of taking the stairs was that Cal and Loren were all alone, away from the chaos of the rest of the station. Also, Cal wasn’t being hurtled around the place, and/or smashed into things at tremendous speed. Both were definitely a positive, he thought.
On the downside, it was a very long way to the ship, and stairs were—not to put too fine a point on it—shizzing dull.
The thrill of being chased, coupled with the sheer indignation of being tossed around a lift like a ragdoll, had taken Cal’s mind off the whole situation with Loren. Now that the immediate drama had passed, he could feel his hands becoming clammy and his brain running out of things to say again. Loren trudged just ahead of him, her ponytail swishing behind her like… Well, like a pony’s tail, he thought.
“Holy shizz, I just got that,” he said aloud. His voice reverberated up and down the stairs, and Loren looked back at him over her shoulder.
“Just got what?”
“Ponytail,” said Cal, pointing to her hair. “It’s like a pony’s tail. Like an actual pony’s tail.”
Loren regarded him blankly.
“You know? Pony.” He made a clip-clop sort of sound out of the side of his mouth, but this didn’t s
eem to help clarify things. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, and they continued downward.
Cal limped on his mismatched feet, desperately trying to think of something to say, but coming up blank. Once again, he found this very perplexing. He’d never had any problems speaking to Loren before. If anything, he’d said too much to her over the past few months. Now, though, nothing was coming. His usual stream of verbal diarrhea had all dried up.
They arrived at a small landing, turned at a right angle, then continued down the next flight.
Cal’s mind raced. He had her alone. No Mech, no Miz, no Kevin or Splurt. No one was actively trying to kill them, and he wasn’t vomiting himself inside-out through travel sickness. It was a rare opportunity to have a proper, honest-to-god conversation. To really get to know each other. Who knew when he’d get another chance like this? And yet, his mind was empty.
And then, it came to him. The perfect conversation starter. The ideal thing to say. He’d have her eating out of his hand in no time.
“Are we nearly there yet?”
Bingo!
“Nearly,” Loren told him.
She continued down the stairs. He followed behind.
“Good,” he said.
And that was that.
He tried again.
“Which level is this?”
Loren tapped the wall beside her and a symbol illuminated. The chip in Cal’s eyeball quickly translated it.
“Eleven!” he cheered. “Holy shizz, we’re on eleven? We’re almost there.”
“Not long now,” Loren confirmed.
Cal felt elated for a full ten seconds, before the realization crept in. They were almost back at the ship. Their date—if that was even what it was—was over. In a few minutes, they’d be back on the ship, surrounded by the others. Everything would go back to normal.
And that was… what? Good, he guessed. Normal was OK. Fine, actually. He liked normal. You knew where you were with normal. You could get comfortable in it.
But she’d kissed him, and he hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.
“Hey, Loren,” Cal said, shuffling to a stop.
Loren trudged down the last couple of steps and turned when she reached the landing. “What’s up?” she asked.
Cal’s lips were dry. He sucked them in and ran his tongue across them, buying himself a moment before he had to speak.
“So, see, the thing is,” he said, and then a loud, panicky shout shook the door beside her, and something heavy thumped against the other side.
Loren moved to tap the button that would make the door slide open, but Cal stopped her.
“Wait, wait! Just let me say this first,” he said.
There was another thump, more solid-sounding this time.
“Where is it?” demanded a voice from beyond the door.
Another thump.
“We know you’ve got it!”
“See, the thing is, Loren,” Cal began, trying his best to ignore whatever the fonk was happening outside.
The sound that followed, he couldn’t ignore. It was somewhere between a scream and a sob—a short, sudden wail of despair. It was heartbreakingly raw-sounding, the sort of noise a terrified child might make when they realized their parents weren’t coming to save the day.
Cal groaned. Loren jabbed a thumb in the direction of the door.
“We should do something.”
Cal nodded grimly. “Go.”
Loren tapped the button to open the door, and a short, squat shape tumbled backward into the stairwell. It landed on the floor at Loren’s feet, its round black eyes wide and staring, its mouth open revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“It’s a Symmorium,” Cal said, quietly pleased with himself for recognizing an alien species by name. Normally, he relied on physical characteristics—the pointy-head ones; those guys with the four asses—and someone else filled in the blanks.
As he looked at the fallen figure, he became acutely aware that this wasn’t just any Symmorium, either.
Before he could dwell on this, though, two Zertex guards stepped through, batons clutched low and ready at their sides. One of them was so tall she had to duck to get under the doorframe. Her skin was wrinkled and leathery, but Cal guessed this was a species thing, rather than an age-related one.
The second figure was smaller than the first, but taller than Cal. He seemed thin and wiry beneath his armor, and gripped his baton with more relish than seemed strictly necessary. The guy could’ve passed for human, were it not for his slightly elongated face, and the fact he had a neatly groomed and freshly waxed mustache on each cheek, half an inch or so below his bulbous eyes.
“Is there a problem, orifices?” Cal asked. He snapped his fingers. “Sorry. Officers. I’m always making that mistake.”
“No problem,” said Cheek-Mustaches. His voice was exactly the sort of officious nasal whine that Cal had been expecting. “Just Zertex business. Move along.”
“What are you doing in here?” asked Leathery-She-Hulk.
“We were taking the stairs,” Loren explained.
The Zertex guards exchanged glances. “The stairs?” said the man. “Why would you take the stairs? What’s wrong with the turbolifts?”
“We just thought we’d get some…” Cal gestured vaguely around them, failed to come up with a satisfactory conclusion to the sentence, so said, “…fresh air,” and smiled.
The guards looked up at the enclosed stairway.
“Right,” said Cheek-Mustaches. “I see. Well, go about your business. This one is coming with us.”
He stepped aside, gesturing for his larger companion to step forward. Her ill-fitting uniform creaked in protest as she bent down, a comically large hand grasping for the fallen Symmorium. Judging by the Symmorium’s reaction, she didn’t see the inherent comedy in the giant hand. She squealed, babbled out a series of distressed animal sounds, and then sobbed when the hand caught her by the front of her torn and dirty uniform.
Loren’s own hand clamped over Leathery-She-Hulk’s wrist. Over. Not around. Nowhere even close to around.
“I can’t let you do that,” Loren said. With the female guard bent over, she and Loren were face to face. Loren held her gaze, not glaring, exactly, but making it very clear that the next few moments could be very difficult for everyone involved.
Cal sighed, dreamily.
Fonk, she was beautiful.
Cheek-Mustaches gave his baton a flick. Energy crackled along its length. “You have placed your hand on an officer of Zertex. This is punishable by pain. You have three seconds to unhand my colleague before—”
Cal jumped on him from four steps up, bellowing, “Geronimo!” as he landed knees-first on the guy’s chest. They hit the floor like a startled octopus, all eight limbs waving and thrashing as they both raced to be first to scrabble upright.
Grabbing the little mustaches, Cal tugged. The man’s skin stretched like old elastic, then snapped back into place when Cal let go. His cheeks twanged into his eyeballs, temporarily blinding him. Cal let out a little cheer of triumph, then spasmed violently when the baton was jammed against his ribcage.
“Fnk!” he hissed, ejecting foam through his teeth. He tried to knock the baton away, but his arms were curling up against his chest, his internal organs were blending into a soup, and his testicles where nowhere to be found.
Leathery-She-Hulk crashed to the floor beside them, snoring lightly. Cheek-Mustaches’ vision cleared just in time for him to see Loren looming above, and just in time to feel the bone-shattering crack of her boot stamping on his arm.
The baton clattered onto the floor. Cal gasped in relief. The pain had passed. The ordeal was over. For once, he hadn’t soiled himself.
Well, perhaps lightly.
Cheek-Mustaches regarded his mangled, misshapen arm with a sort of morbid fascination for a while. Cal clambered backward off him, smoothed himself down, then gave Loren a nod.
“Thanks,” he said. “I mean, I totally had him right whe
re I wanted him, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Loren agreed.
“But thanks.”
Down on the floor, Cheek-Mustaches concluded his examinations of his injury, and decided on the best course of action. He screamed. It was a loud, piercing sort of scream, almost as if someone had implanted a car alarm in the back of his throat. Unlike every car alarm in history, though, Cal had a feeling that this one wouldn’t go ignored.
“We should go,” Loren urged, coming to the same conclusion as he had. She squatted by the sobbing Symmorium and took an arm. “Help me.”
Cal took the other arm. The girl’s dark eyes screwed tightly shut and she thrashed around on the floor until they were both forced to let her go.
“Hey, hey, it’s OK,” Cal said soothingly. “I know you. I know who you are. You’re Tyrra, right? You’re Junta’s daughter.”
Loren’s eyes widened. “That’s her? You sure?”
“The girl headbutted me in the balls,” Cal said. “That’s not someone you forget in a hurry.”
He looked down again to find Tyrra squinting at him through one barely open eye. “That’s right. It’s OK. We’re friends of your dad’s. We’re going to help you. You just have to trust us, OK?”
Behind him, Cheek-Mustaches fumbled at something attached to the side of his armor. Loren noticed and sprang to her feet.
“Shizz! He’s got—”
The stairwell was filled by the rapid chirping of a security alarm. It spat from hidden speakers, so piercingly loud that it forced Cal to clamp his hands over his ears.
“Jesus, what is that?” he bellowed. “A fonking migraine ray?”
“Full station emergency alert,” Loren shouted back. “He’s called for full reinforcements. This place is going to be swarming with Zertex.”
Cal turned to see Cheek-Mustaches sneering at him. Something about that twisted, smug little smirk made him temporarily forget his dislike of violence. He took a momentary pleasure from the way his fist met the guard’s face, and nodded with satisfaction when the jumped-up little fonker fell unconscious.
That done, he looked up at Loren. “Is there a way to switch it off?” he shouted over the din.
Space Team- The Collected Adventures 4 Page 34
