by Lucas Flint
“But Kevin, if you do that, Robert will kill you,” said Mom. “Even if you have that suit, you'll still be mostly powerless and defenseless. I doubt you'll last more than two seconds out in that environment against him.”
“I know, Mom, but the only other alternative is to let him break open the ship and kill us all,” I said. “At least if I draw him away from the ship, then you will survive so that Dad can find you again.”
“I know, honey, but—”
“Mom, don't worry about me,” I said. “I think you should worry more about yourself, anyway. This is my decision and my decision alone and if it will keep Robert away from you, then it will be worth it even if he kills me.”
I thought Mom was just going to keep arguing with me, but then to my surprise she nodded shakily and said, “Okay, Kevin. I understand. But please be careful. You know how powerful and ruthless Robert is.”
“I know,” I said. I looked at Graleex. “Take me to the lab. We don't have any time to waste.”
Chapter Thirteen
Graleex was right; the underwater suit was uncomfortable, even though I managed to fit in it all right.
It was large and clunky, making it hard for me to move around in, though in the water it was actually easy to swim around in it. But I could barely turn my head thanks to the way the helmet was designed, which heavily restricted my neck movement. The helmet itself was large enough to give my head some space, but it smelled awful, like sewage water combined with skunk stink. And, despite its size, it felt too tight; not enough to restrict my breathing, but enough to make movement uncomfortable. About the only good thing about it was that it was rather warm, which was good because the ocean water was incredibly cold, and the fact that it had a few gallons of air constantly pumping into my helmet so I wouldn't suffocate.
Of course, at least part of the problem with the suit was that I was having to swim in the very dark ocean water while wearing it. While I was a good swimmer in my own right, I had never been this far underwater before, nor had I ever swam in such dark conditions. The helmet had a small light affixed to the forehead, which helped me see where I was going somewhat, but the rest of the water was still very dark and the light itself only illuminated a few feet in front of me at most, which made it hard to see anything.
I also found the small rockets on the boots to be hard to use. They were meant to give me enough propulsion to help me move through the water faster, because you just couldn't swim very fast in this suit, but every time I activated them, they threw me off target and I had to swim back in the direction I had wanted to go. Graleex had warned me that the rockets were hard to use without practice, so I decided not to use them too much unless I absolutely had to.
As for weapons, the suit had a laser, a mini missile launcher, and not much else. According to Graleex, the suit hadn't been designed to be used in a fight, so it had only the most basic of self-defense weapons built into it. It didn't even have any of that blue glue that Graleex had, but even if it had, I doubted it would have helped, because I doubted Robert was going to stand still long enough for me to hit him with the glue.
Swimming upwards, I heard the pounding of Robert's fists against the exterior of the ship growing louder and louder. I knew that even if Robert managed to break open the roof to the control room before I distracted him, Graleex and Mom would be okay, because they had both moved to the laboratory and sealed the door to the control room to keep the water out. Even so, that probably would buy them maybe half an hour or so of extra time, depending on how much air they had and how much water poured in, so I had to stop Robert before he could get that far.
Soon I rose past the top of the ship and spotted Robert instantly. His back was to me and he didn't seem to notice me floating behind him, probably because he was too busy punching the ship's roof like it had insulted his mother. I hesitated to draw his attention, but that was only for a split second.
In the next second, I aimed my shoulder-mounted missile at him and fired. The small missile hurtled through the water toward him, the rebound from the missile sending me floating backwards a couple of feet. Robert didn't even seem to notice the missile until about a second before it hit him, at which point he looked over his shoulder just in time for the missile to strike him on the back.
A huge explosion erupted from the collision, much bigger than I thought a missile of that size should have been able to create. It sent shock waves through the water that sent me stumbling head over heels uncontrollably, which almost made me panic until I managed to regain control of my suit and stop and look back at the site of the explosion.
Robert was no longer there. The spot on the ship's roof that he had been pounding in like bread was blackened and smoking, but I saw no sign of Robert at all.
“Wow,” I said. “Graleex, are you there?”
“Yes,” came Graleex's voice from the helmet's built-in communicator, which was connected to the computers in his ship's lab. “What happened? We heard an explosion. Did you use one of the suit's missiles?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I shot it at Robert and it blew him up.”
“Blew him up?” Graleex repeated. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I said. “There's a big blackened spot on the top of the ship where Robert was, but I don't see Robert himself anywhere. You Pokacu sure know how to build powerful—”
I heard rushing water nearby and looked over in time to see Robert's fist coming at me. His fist slammed into my abdomen, which felt like getting hit by a ton of bricks, and I was sent flying through the water, screaming my head off as I spun uncontrollably in a random direction.
Then I crashed into the sandy ocean floor with a crunch, slamming my head against the back of my helmet, which dazed me for a moment. Then I shook my head and heard Graleex say, “Human, what happened? You were suddenly interrupted.”
“Robert punched me,” I said. I touched my abdomen, but the suit was not broken, though it felt cracked. “Guess he didn't get blown up after all.”
“Where is he now?” said Graleex. “Is he nearby?”
“Not sure,” I said, looking around. “I don't see him. He could be—”
Then I saw him. Robert was rocketing through the water toward me, one of his fists drawn backwards, coming so fast that I was sure that I would get turned into paste if he hit.
So I activated the suit's rockets and went flying up and backwards away from the ocean floor as fast as I could. Just in the nick of time, because in the next second Robert slammed into the ocean floor and sent up a huge cloud of dirt and sea grime that obscured my view of him.
“What was that?” said Graleex. “Was that an explosion? Does this Robert human have missiles, too?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head as I came to a stop. “He just—”
Again, I stopped speaking because Robert suddenly burst out of the dirt and grime and shot toward me. I instinctively shot upwards, using the rockets on my feet to send me hurtling up as fast as I could. Robert passed underneath me before he could hit me and vanished into the dark water.
Turning around, I aimed my shoulder-mounted laser at him and fired it into the shadows. The laser hit something, but it was too dark for me to see it, though based on the fact that I didn't hear any screams of pain, I assumed that I must have missed him.
All of a sudden, Robert shot out of the darkness. This time, he came too fast for me to dodge. He grabbed me by the throat and pulled me through the water with him until he came to an abrupt stop and hurled me through the water. Once more, I found myself flying uncontrollably through the water, but this time I managed to stop myself before I hit anything and got into an upright position.
But then Robert was in front of me again and he slammed his fists against my chest. The blow knocked me down into the ocean floor again, but before I could get up, Robert landed on top of me, his legs spread so that they didn't crush me and instead landed in the sand on either side.
Robert was still smiling like a madman and
he raised his fists to bring them down on my face, but I wasn't going to let him kill me. I fired a laser at him, which struck Robert in the face and actually knocked him off me.
As soon as Robert was off, I activated the rockets in my boots and flew backwards away from him. The laser must not have affected him greatly, however, because soon Robert was in front of me again.
I aimed my laser at him, but Robert reached over and ripped the laser off my shoulder. He also ripped off the missile launcher for good measure, which left me entirely defenseless.
I tried to escape by rocketing away, but then Robert grabbed my legs and crushed the rockets in my boost. Alarmed, I tried to kick my legs out of his grasp, but Robert's grip on my boots was as tight as steel.
Robert then started spinning around and around, with me in his grasp. The ocean spun around my head like the Earth around the sun, which made me feel both sick and confused. I couldn't move or do anything to stop Robert and so just tried not to scream as we spun in an ever faster circle.
Suddenly, Robert let go and I went zooming through the water uncontrollably. I slammed into a rock wall so hard that my head smacked against the back of my helmet again and briefly knocked me out before I regained consciousness again.
In a second, Robert was in front of me and grabbed my throat. He pushed me harder against the wall while crushing my throat under his grip. My helmet protected my throat, but I could feel it starting to give way under Robert's strength. Yet there was no way that I could fight back. I could only just stare into Robert's maniacal smile as he strangled me tighter and tighter. I just hoped that after he killed me, that he would at least spare Mom, even though I knew he wouldn’t.
But then a huge, bright light illuminated all around us. It appeared so quickly that Robert actually looked around in surprise, though that didn't lessen his grip on my throat.
Then a huge laser shot out from the light above and struck Robert. The laser blast was so strong that it sent Robert flying away from me, leaving me in my spot in the wall. Robert crashed against the side of an underwater cliff, sending more dust into the air, and before he could recover again, dozens more lasers shot out of the light at him. The lasers just kept coming and coming, striking the cliff and sending tons and tons of dirt and grime all over Robert. It was like the light was hitting him with everything in its arsenal and it just kept coming for several minutes until it abruptly cut off, leaving the sea eerily quiet after that intense bombardment.
Breathing hard, I looked over at the spot where Robert had been blasted. There was nothing more than a huge pile of dirt and sand, but Robert did not suddenly burst out of it. In fact, the dirt didn't even stir, which I hoped meant that Robert was dead.
More importantly, however, I wondered who had managed to save me. Had Graleex somehow gotten his ship back into order and backed me up? Or did someone else save me?
I looked up at the bright light, but it was almost too bright to see through at first until it dimmed a little, enough for me to see the Spinner—still as large and alien-looking as ever—floating above me, with its cannons aiming at the cliff that Robert had been buried underneath.
Chapter Fourteen
That was when I heard my earcom crackle and then Dad's frantic, worried voice saying, “Kevin? Are you there? Are you still alive? Can you hear me?”
“Dad?” I said. I couldn't help but smile when I heard his voice. “Is that really you? What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you and your mother, of course,” said Dad. “Speaking of your mother, where is she? Is she safe?”
“She is,” I said. “She's in that other Pokacu ship, the one crashed into the ocean floor.”
“The other Pokacu ship?” Dad repeated. “What are you talking about?”
“It's a long story,” I said. “Can you bring me aboard the Spinner so I can tell you about what happened? I can't really move on my own here.”
“Okay, okay,” said Dad. “I'll see if I can get Mimic to use the ship's tractor beam to pull you aboard. Just hang on a moment and I'll have you aboard in a jiffy.”
-
About half an hour later, Mom and I were inside the Spinner's cargo hold, which was a lot warmer and drier than the ocean. Dad was here as well, though Mimic—who had apparently survived their fight with Ring Out and Tornadess—was still at the controls and was piloting the Spinner away from the scene of the battle.
Dad was way more worried than I had ever seen him before. He asked me if I was all right, checked every inch of my body for any injuries or wounds I might have sustained (though I think I mostly suffered some mega bruises than anything, surprisingly enough), and even hugged me, which was the strangest part of it all because Dad wasn't really into hugs. I almost thought that Mimic might have taken on Dad's appearance and was just playing some kind of weird practical joke on us, at least until I heard Mimic’s voice over the Spinner’s intercoms announcing that we were heading to the Compound.
He also did the same to Mom, except he actually kissed her when he saw that she was okay and he hugged her far longer than he hugged me. I always knew that Mom and Dad loved each other, so seeing them hug and kiss like that didn't surprise me, though it made me slightly uncomfortable anyway. I also noticed that Mom had her purse again, which made me assume that she had somehow gotten it back from Graleex during my skirmish with Robert.
“I am so glad that you two are all right,” said Dad, draping an arm over Mom's shoulders. “For a while there, I thought … well, it doesn't matter what I thought. You two are alive and well, but I have no idea how you survived like that.”
“We were captured by a Pokacu named Graleex,” I said. I dropped the helmet for my underwater suit onto the floor and started to press the buttons that would take the suit off me. I could already feel it starting to loosen around my body, which made movement in the dry air of the Spinner much easier.
“A Pokacu?” said Dad in astonishment. “That can't be right. We killed all of them during the invasion fifteen years ago and we haven’t seen any others since.”
“He said he was the only survivor,” I said. “Said he had been hiding under the sea for fifteen years. He captured us because he intended to use the escape pod to leave Earth and return to the 'Mother World,' as he called it.”
“Really?” said Dad. He looked at Mom. “Is Kevin telling the truth?”
“Yes,” said Mom, nodding. She shuddered. “That alien was so disgusting and ugly. I'm just glad he's gone.”
“Gone?” I said. “What do you mean? Isn't he still on his ship?”
“Not anymore,” said Mom. “During your battle with Robert, he left the lab and told me to stay there while he did something, though he gave me back my purse because he said he didn't need it. I thought he was going to go help you or something, but when the Spinner connected with Graleex's ship and I went to go find him, I found that the escape pod was gone and the hold was filling with water.”
“You mean he escaped?” I said.
“Escaped? To where?” said Dad. “To the surface?”
“No, I don't think so,” said Mom. “I think he left Earth or is in the process of leaving Earth.”
“He must have seen an opportunity to escape while I distracted Robert,” I said. I shook my head. “No surprise there. He was never really much of a friend or ally. I imagine he's probably already forgotten about me.”
“Why does he want to return to his home world?” said Dad. “Did he say why?”
“He wanted to request a new invasion fleet,” I said. “He said that the invasion hadn't 'really' ended and that he was going to share everything he had learned about Earth with his leaders so that the next invasion would go better than the last.”
Dad frowned. “Then we'll have to send a message to the G-Men and NHA and let them know about it. Maybe they will be able to stop Graleex before he leaves orbit.”
“I hope so,” I said. “But maybe he won't get that far. Maybe he'll run out of fuel halfway there and die in the voi
d of space.”
“Maybe, but regardless, there's nothing we can do to stop him at the moment,” said Dad. “I'm just glad that you and your mother are still alive.”
I nodded. “Same here. But what about you and Mimic? What happened to Ring Out and Tornadess?”
“We managed to beat them, but they fled before we could arrest them,” said Dad. “I don't know where they ran off to, but I'm guessing that they didn't see any point in staying around without you there.”
“Okay, but how did you and Mimic find us?” I said. “Even we didn't know where we were or where we were going.”
“The Spinner can track the location of its escape pods,” Dad explained. “So when Ring Out and Tornadess left, Mimic used the ship's tracking feature to find you. And when we saw Robert, well, we shot him without hesitation.”
“Yeah, I remember,” I said. I frowned. “Is Robert dead?”
“I don't know,” said Dad. “Those laser blasts and the resulting avalanche should have been enough to kill almost anyone, but Robert's powers could easily have saved him, though I doubt he'll be able to dig his way out of there for a while.”
“Why don't we go back and check?” I said. “Why are we just leaving him behind like that?”
“Because Mimic told me that the Spinner lacks any sort of digging equipment,” said Dad. “Besides, if it turns out Robert is alive, we don't want to help him out and give him a chance to kill us all. Remember, we're supposed to be at the Compound, not going toe-to-toe with Robert or any of his friends or allies.”
“Okay,” I said in disappointment. “But how will we know if Robert escapes?”
“Mimic left a probe that is keeping an eye on the spot where Robert was buried,” said Dad. “It also acts as a beacon for the G-Men to use to locate the cliff underneath which Robert was buried. He said that he has already sent a message back to Washington about Robert, so they will probably send someone down here to make sure he’s dead or capture him if he isn’t.”
