Lethal Combat

by Max Chase

  To the staff at King’s College Hospital, London – real heroes

  Special thanks to Brandon Robshaw

  It is the year 5012 and the Milky Way galaxy is under attack . . .

  After the Universal War . . . a war that almost brought about the destruction of every known universe . . . the planets in the Milky Way banded together to create the Intergalactic Force – an elite fighting team sworn to protect and defend the galaxy.

  Only the brightest and most promising students are accepted into the Intergalactic Force Academy, and only the very best cadets reach the highest of their ranks and become . . .

  To be a Star Fighter is to dedicate your life to one mission: Peace in Space. They are given the coolest weapons, the fastest spaceships – and the most dangerous missions. Everyone at the Intergalactic Force Academy wants to be a Star Fighter someday.

  Do YOU have what it takes?

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Can Peri and the crew defeat the Meigwors?

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  Purple.

  That was all Peri could see. He closed his eyes. He opened them again and turned 360 degrees. One moment they had been cruising in the Phoenix, watching the stars shining like tiny diamonds in space, and then this purple haze had descended.

  Purple all around. It was bright and blinding. Peri screwed his eyelids tightly shut. He could hear Selene, Otto and Diesel stumbling around the Bridge.

  ‘S’fâh!’ Diesel shouted. ‘What did you do, Otto?’

  ‘I did nothing!’ boomed Otto. ‘Everything’s just gone purple!’

  Peri felt a change in the motion of the Phoenix. It speeded up, and shifted course.

  ‘Something’s taken control of us!’ Selene shouted.

  ‘How?’ Peri asked. ‘How could they get past our shields?’

  Selene cleared her throat. ‘That may be my fault,’ she said. ‘I sent Boomerang messages on Ultrawave – to find out if anything’s left of the Milky Way after the Xion attack. It’s supposed to come back with replies attached. Something must be piggybacking on the return signal, using it to hack into our computer and control us.’

  ‘Who would do that?’ Diesel asked.

  ‘Take your pick,’ Peri said. ‘The Xions and the Meigwors have both sworn to destroy us.’

  ‘I don’t think any Meigwor is smart enough to pull this off,’ Diesel replied.

  Peri heard a swish and crack, then a bellow of pain from Otto. He must have swung a punch at Diesel and hit the wall – in retaliation for the comment about his home planet.

  ‘Missed!’ Diesel jeered.

  ‘We don’t have time for fights,’ Peri said. ‘We need to take back control of the Phoenix.’

  Peri had only recently discovered that he was part bionic with a special connection to the Phoenix. He would have to trust his instincts. Blindly, he beckoned to where he thought the control panel was hovering. He cheered when he felt it bump against his hands.

  Then he felt a bigger bump at his back. Otto, Selene and Diesel were jostling him – and each other.

  ‘Give me some room,’ Selene said. Peri felt her hands grabbing for the control panel. ‘I have to shut off the Ultrawave, so they can’t pinpoint us any more.’

  ‘Let’s go Superluminal,’ Diesel suggested, elbowing his way in.

  Peri brushed Diesel’s hands aside. ‘It’s not safe when we can’t see.’

  ‘Let’s give it a shot anyway!’ Otto boomed. Peri felt the Meigwor’s long, thick fingers fumbling over the control panel too. ‘Which one’s the Superluminal touchpad?’

  ‘It’s the red one,’ Diesel said.

  ‘But everything’s purple!’ Otto shouted.

  ‘Exactly,’ Peri said, holding the control panel close to his chest. ‘Just back off, and let me and Selene figure this out.’

  Otto and Diesel stepped back, muttering to themselves, one in Meigwor, the other in Martian.

  Peri forced his eyes open. His eyeballs ached. He squinted through the purple fog at the control panel in his hands. All the controls were shades of purple. The ship was pulsing forward under someone else’s command.

  They hadn’t come so far and escaped so many dangers just to be reeled in like a helpless fish. There had to be something he could do.

  Chapter 2

  Come on, Peri said to himself. You can do it.

  He nudged Selene aside.

  ‘Hey!’ Selene said. ‘What are you –’

  Peri’s hand touched a small lever at the bottom of the control panel. He didn’t know what it did. But his bionic half seemed pretty sure it was the right one.

  He pulled it.

  The ship juddered with a horrible, shrieking, grinding noise.

  Peri, Selene, Otto and Diesel were flung back across the Bridge. They landed in a heap against the far wall.

  ‘Ch’açh!’ Diesel shouted. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Look!’ Peri said. He got to his feet. The purple mist was thinning. Soon there were only a few wisps of it left.

  Through the 360-monitor, Peri saw the stars zooming away from them.

  Away from them?

  Suddenly, Peri realised what he’d done.

  He laughed. ‘I put us into reverse.’

  ‘That was a genius idea,’ Selene said as she got to her feet.

  Peri felt a crackling in his cheeks. Bionic blushing. ‘Oh, well – you know . . .’

  ‘So the purple tracking beam overshot us?’ Diesel asked.

  ‘Yes – but I’d better cancel that Boomerang message,’ Selene said. ‘Or they’ll lock on to us again.’ She pressed a few buttons, her hands a blur even to Peri.

  The purple haze had completely disappeared. The Phoenix was getting back to normal. Not that Peri knew anything about normal any more. The ship’s crew had been sucked through a vortex right into the middle of an intergalactic war, accidently kidnapped Prince Onix, rescued Selene from planet Meigwor and survived a crash landing on a moon-planet.

  ‘The sooner we drop Prince Onix back on Xion, the sooner we can go home,’ Peri said.

  Otto had tricked Peri and Diesel. They thought they had rescued a Meigwor prince, not kidnapped a Xion one. Returning Prince Onix had turned out to be harder than they’d expected. He was sedated in the Med Centre now because he couldn’t remember who he was.

  ‘If there is a home to go back to,’ Selene said. ‘I never got a reply to my Boomerang messages. Xion blew up the IF Space Station. Maybe Earth’s been destroyed too.’

  ‘And Mars,’ Diesel said.

  ‘Maybe the whole solar system – the whole galaxy is gone,’ Selene said.

  ‘But we don’t know that,’ Peri said. He felt a hollow sensation in his belly, when he thought of Earth no longer existing. ‘We have to hope.’

  ‘It’s worse for me than for you lot!’ Otto said. ‘I can never go home to Meigwor! I’d be arrested as soon as I touched down. And it’s all thanks to you Milky Way monkeys!’

  ‘Who are you calling a monkey, you massive . . . lumpy-necked . . .’ Diesel was so angry, he couldn’t even finish his insult.

  Peri heard a sound like two Jovian nose flutes playing a duet. Three lights were winking on the control panel.

  ‘That’s the Ultrawave responding,’ Selene said. ‘We’ve got messages. They could be from the Milky Way.’

  She reached for the control panel. Peri grabbed her wrist.

  ‘Wait!’ he said. ‘It might not be the Milky Way – it could be our enemies, trying to trick us . . . Better s
cramble our signal, so they can’t pinpoint us again.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Selene said. ‘I’ll use the Twister. Kind of old school, but it works.’ She pulled two long rubbery strings, like Martian sandworms, from a cavity next to the screen and knotted them together. ‘Now if they try to get a fix on us they’ll only get each other’s coordinates.’

  She touched each of the winking lights.

  One whole side of the 360-monitor filled up with the face of a Xion in full battle gear. Two spikes protruded from the mouth area of the black helmet, like insect jaws. A crown of some dull grey metal sat on top of the helmet, two antennae springing out from it. It was the king of Xion.

  The other 180 degrees of the monitor were taken up with the huge head of Meigwor General Rouwgim. His thick, wrinkled crimson neck was curved like a letter S. His beady black eyes gleamed with anger.

  ‘Not messages from the Milky Way, then,’ Peri muttered.

  The two giant heads began shouting at the top of their voices. Peri struggled to separate what each one was saying.

  ‘You evil space pirates –’

  ‘– double-crossing devils –’

  ‘– what have you done with –’

  ‘– do you really think you –’

  ‘– my son?’

  ‘– can get away with this?’

  ‘– if my son’s been harmed –’

  Peri faced the Xion king. ‘Your son is fine. He was just – well, knocked out, that’s all.’

  ‘Who knocked him out?’ roared the king. ‘You will suffer for this!’

  In the background, Peri heard Otto trying to calm General Rouwgim. ‘I didn’t mean it to turn out like this –’

  ‘Last time, I saw you, Otto,’ said General Rouwgim, ‘you insulted me! You told me to stick my head under my armpit and take a deep breath!’

  ‘No, that was a lie. I was imprisoned –’

  ‘You, a Meigwor bounty hunter, imprisoned by those inferior life forms? I don’t believe it!’

  On the other side of the Bridge, the Xion king leaned in close, his nose and eyes nearly filling his half of the screen. ‘Who’s that?’ he said. ‘Is it that Meigwor pile of snake-dung, Rouwgim?’

  ‘What?’ Rouwgim boomed. ‘Did I hear the squeaky voice of that crawling Xion king of the insects?’

  ‘I’m going to obliterate you and all your kind!’ the Xion king said.

  ‘I’ll squash you like a bug!’ General Rouwgim shouted.

  ‘Enough!’ Diesel cried. He jumped forward and pulled out the two long rubbery strings, which created Selene’s Twister. Instantly the voices stopped. The faces disappeared. The 360-monitor was once again blank.

  ‘There’s no point talking to them,’ Diesel said. ‘The Xions won’t believe the prince is OK until we drop him on their doorstep. And the Meigwors will never listen to reason – they’re just a bunch of dumboids. Let’s dump the prince on Xion.’ He jerked his thumb at Otto. ‘We’ll maroon this loser on an empty moon somewhere, then head back to the Milky Way and see what’s left of it.’

  Peri nodded. Diesel had spoken sense for once. ‘I’ll reset the course for Xion.’

  ‘Wait a minute!’ Otto said, very slowly, and very loudly. ‘You lot wouldn’t be alive without me!’

  Peri noticed the black splotches around his mouth and eyes spreading over his face – a sure sign that Otto was getting angry. ‘I can’t go back to my own world, thanks to you – and now you want to maroon me?’

  Otto shoved Diesel and Diesel shoved him right back. Otto’s long tongue shot out and gripped Diesel by the arm. Diesel yelled in pain.

  ‘Should we stop them?’ Peri asked Selene.

  ‘Let them get on with it,’ Selene said. ‘If we try to break it up we’ll probably only get an elbow in the face.’

  ‘Or Otto will give us a death bite,’ Peri said. ‘Or get us with his tongue.’

  ‘Eee-ew!’ Selene said.

  The Bridge door slid open. Prince Onix came in, accompanied by a smell of Saturnian squid. He walked slowly, his eyes unfocused, as if he was sleepwalking. He was carrying a long red and white weapon.

  ‘Look what I found,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  Peri looked at the weapon more closely. His heart did a somersault and a couple of cartwheels. It was an Orgmelter. He remembered it from weapons training at the IFA. One of the deadliest weapons ever invented, the instructor had said. A one-second blast from this and your heart, liver, lungs and kidneys melt into porridge.

  ‘Just put it down, Prince Onix,’ Peri said, backing away from the prince.

  ‘Who’s Prince Onix?’ said Prince Onix.

  ‘Where did he get it?’ Peri whispered to Selene.

  ‘Who cares?’ Selene said. ‘We just have to stop him using it.’

  The prince fiddled with the controls on the side of the Orgmelter. It lit up, shining silver and crimson.

  Diesel and Otto stopped fighting. Otto’s neck craned round to stare at the prince. His eyes bulged as he saw the Orgmelter. ‘No, you don’t!’ He lunged at Prince Onix, trying to swipe the weapon from his grasp.

  Prince Onix pressed the trigger.

  A laser beam fizzed just past Otto’s head. It hit one of the captain’s chairs. The chair melted into a green puddle.

  Otto held up his long, double-jointed arms in surrender.

  Prince Onix inspected the Orgmelter curiously. Then he pointed it at Peri. ‘I want to go home.’

  Chapter 3

  Prince Onix looked puzzled. He kept the Orgmelter pointing at Peri, although his finger came off the trigger. ‘But how can I go home when I don’t know where I come from?’

  ‘You come from a planet called Xion,’ Selene said. ‘We’ll take you there.’

  Prince Onix turned to look at Selene. His eyes widened. His mouth dropped open, then curved into a foolish smile. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Selene, don’t you remember?’

  ‘If I’d met you before, I’m sure I’d remember,’ the prince said.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Selene said, shuddering. She clearly hated the prince’s attention. ‘Listen, will you do me a favour?’

  ‘Anything for you, sweet Celery!’

  Selene growled. ‘It’s Selene, not Celery,’ she said. ‘Give me that Orgmelter.’

  As if in a trance, the prince handed over the weapon. Selene placed her free hand on the wall. ‘Bits and bobs,’ she said to the Phoenix. A drawer popped out. It held all kinds of useful things. Selene popped the Orgmelter into the bits and bobs drawer. ‘Lock it,’ she said and the drawer disappeared into the smooth wall of the Bridge. The prince grabbed her hand and bent low, as if to kiss it. Selene snatched her hand away.

  Peri saw her take an adhesive patch out of her pocket. The Sleepez! She’d already knocked the prince out once with it.

  ‘No!’ Peri said. ‘If we’re taking him home, you can’t knock him out.’

  Selene shrugged and put the Sleepez back in her pocket.

  ‘You’ve already knocked me out,’ the prince said adoringly.

  Selene turned away and mimed being sick. Peri gave her a warning glare. He touched a button on the control panel and zoomed in on Xion. It was still a few million miles away, but it came up bright and clear, filling one side of the 360-monitor. The huge twisting orange ribbon of the space highway curled around it. In between its coils glistened the deadly blue Cos-Moat. Peri had hoped the sight might trigger memories for the prince. But he didn’t even look at it. He only had eyes for Selene.

  ‘Hey, Prince,’ Peri said. ‘Don’t you want to see your home planet?’

  The prince continued to gaze into Selene’s eyes. ‘Could I hold your hand?’

  ‘Why don’t you hold your own hand and pretend it’s mine?’ Selene said and tried to hide a smile.

  Obediently, Prince Onix clasped his own hands together.

  ‘I’m sick of this messing about,’ Diesel said. He grabbed the prince’s arm and pulled him round so he was facing the monitor.
‘That’s your planet. How do we get on it without being stopped on the space highway or caught in the Cos-Moat and chewed up by space-sharks?’

  The prince’s eyes flitted over the screen for a couple of nanoseconds. ‘Rubbish,’ he said. Then he stared at Selene again.

  ‘What?’ Diesel’s strip of hair was turning red and sticking up like the bristles of an angry porcupine. ‘How dare you –’

  Selene stepped in between the prince and Diesel. ‘Don’t you see? He’s solved the problem.’

  Peri looked at her, baffled.

  She went over to the control panel. The prince trotted behind her like a puppy at her heels. She twiddled a dial on the monitor controls. She’d switched it to infrared vision – that meant the monitor picked up heat traces. In this new view, the space highway and the Cos-Moat were hardly visible, because they gave off little heat. But a giant red column could be seen clearly, spewing out flame, smoke and ashes from the planet.

  ‘Xion incinerates all its rubbish and blows it out into space,’ Selene said.

  ‘What’s so great about that?’ Otto said. ‘We do it on Meigwor; everybody does it.’

  ‘They did it on Earth, way back,’ Selene said. ‘Until they banned it with the Clean Space Act of 2098. It had got so polluted they could hardly see the Moon.’

  ‘Get to the point,’ Diesel said impatiently.

  ‘Instead of going down the rubbish chute, we go up it,’ Selene said. ‘Top marks to Onix.’

  The prince grinned at her. ‘I live to serve you.’

  ‘I think that sonic dart must have frazzled his brain,’ Diesel muttered. ‘And, if we try and go up the chute, we’ll be burnt to a crisp,’ Diesel said.

  Peri watched a column of flame erupt. The fiery red glow faded. ‘See how it comes and goes?’ he said. ‘If we time it just right, we can zoom to the planet in between the bursts.’