Starbounders

by Adam Jay Epstein

  “Okay, so maybe we will have to fight them alone,” Kaylee said.

  With Callisto’s undermanned defense squadron wiped out, the Clipsian armada’s distortion sensors seemed to have discovered the two additional pitchforks.

  “Activating the doppelform projectors,” Ryic said.

  “Me, too,” Quee said.

  A pair of identical-looking pitchforks materialized on either side of the two original ships, making it appear that there were now six.

  “Hold your fire,” Zachary said. “No reason to give up our cover until we absolutely have to.”

  A cloud of slicers enveloped them and immediately began their assault. Two of the Clipsian ships attempted to sideswipe one of the doppelform projections, but rather than cutting through the steel hull of an IPDL pitchfork, they collided with each other, causing both to be severed in half.

  Although the doppelform worked once, it would only serve as a temporary distraction. The Clipsians were able to deduce which ones were fakes by flying at all of them. A slicer nicked the back of Zachary and Ryic’s pitchfork, and now that they’d been exposed, every other Clipsian ship would be trying to tag them next.

  “Time for a new plan,” Zachary said.

  “Remember what we learned in flight class,” Kaylee said. “Tactical turn left.”

  Zachary recalled the diagram their flight trainer had drawn on the electronic whiteboard during his lesson on tandem combat patterns. He initiated the maneuver, perfectly pulling off a gentle roll to the left alongside Kaylee. When surrounded by enemy combatants, tactical turn left was meant to disarm the adversary with an unexpected change of direction. The Clipsians seemed to be not only prepared for it, but one step ahead of them. They had cut off any path of escape.

  “Tactical turn right,” Kaylee said.

  Zachary quickly gestured for his pitchfork to make an about-face, but as soon as the ship’s prongs began to rotate, several slicers were countering the evasion tactic. One slammed the side of Zachary and Ryic’s pitchfork, jolting Zachary forward in his seat. His nose smacked against the control panel, causing his eyes to water. The involuntary tears blurred his vision.

  “Ryic, take over steering from your cockpit,” he called.

  “What?” Ryic asked. “I-I can’t fly this thing.”

  Another slicer drove its blade into the pitchfork.

  “Now!” shouted the still-blinded Zachary.

  Zachary felt his ship lunge, and not in the graceful manner of an accomplished pilot. It twisted out of control, dipping violently. Slicers whizzed by the pitchfork without making contact.

  “I’m getting hit from every side,” Kaylee said over the lang-link. “I don’t get it. I’m doing everything exactly by the book. Ryic, you need to do a three-point vertical climb.”

  Even through his clouded vision, Zachary could see that Ryic wasn’t exactly pulling off the routine maneuver with finesse. The ship was ascending diagonally, making unpredictable moves every step of the way. But it was not Zachary and Ryic’s pitchfork taking enemy blows. It was Kaylee and Quee’s.

  And then it hit Zachary.

  “Kaylee, stop following IPDL protocol,” he said. “Whoever betrayed us must have given the Clipsians the pitchfork flight patterns.”

  “Roger that,” she replied.

  Kaylee began to fly erratically as well, and it proved instantly effective. Slicer pilots seemed to be at a loss. The two pitchforks zigged and zagged their way closer to the Callisto Space Station.

  Zachary’s eyesight was coming back, too. Although he immediately wished that it hadn’t. The first thing he saw was a black, prickly urchin heading toward them, its spikes looking even more deadly up close. And it didn’t appear that Ryic’s unintentionally bad piloting skills would save them from the ominous ship’s magnetic pull. In fact, Zachary could already feel them getting sucked into its grasp.

  “It’s pulling us in,” Kaylee said.

  Quee unloaded a barrage of cannon debris at the urchin. The chunks of metal flew from the barrels of the pitchfork, but instead of damaging the enemy ship, they merely embedded themselves into the first layer of armor protecting the orb-shaped spacecraft.

  The two pitchforks were being drawn closer to the spikes.

  “We need to reverse course,” Zachary said.

  “I’m trying,” Ryic said.

  “The ship’s too strong,” Kaylee said. “There’s no chance we’re going to be able to get ourselves out of this.”

  “Not unless we figure out a way to turn off the magnetic pull,” Quee said.

  Zachary looked out through the cockpit window and could see the urchin pilot’s charcoal skin glowing orange.

  “I just might have a way to do that,” he said.

  “Get us out of this, and I’ll do your laundry for a week,” Kaylee said.

  “Make it two,” Zachary said.

  Zachary’s warp glove created a hole in space, allowing him to reach through. His hand, armed with a sonic crossbow, came out the other side of the hole, but he hadn’t judged the distance appropriately. He came up a little short, still outside the urchin.

  Zachary retracted his arm back through the hole and into his pitchfork. The magnetic pull was getting more powerful, and his ship was just moments away from getting turned into a shish kebab by the urchin’s spikes.

  He recalibrated his glove and opened another hole. This time, when his hand emerged it was inside the urchin’s command deck. From the cockpit of the pitchfork, Zachary could see the Clipsian pilot react quickly. The alien reached out and grabbed Zachary’s hand. Zachary had to hold on tight to the crossbow as the pilot tried to wrench it free. Zachary pulled away for a second, and it was all the time he needed to fire off a series of bolts. The round of sonic blasts reverberated throughout the cabin, knocking out the Clipsian and making impact with the enemy craft’s control panel. The urchin’s magnetic pull deactivated.

  No longer trapped by the ship’s unbreakable hold, Zachary and Kaylee immediately steered their pitchforks out of the way.

  “Woo-hoo!” Ryic shouted.

  “Just so you know, I like my T-shirts pressed,” Zachary said for Kaylee’s benefit.

  “Don’t make me wish I was killed by that urchin,” Kaylee replied.

  With no one helming the Clipsian ship, it tumbled into a pack of slicers, demolishing all of them. The urchin went spinning toward Jupiter, leaving the two pitchforks with a clear route to Callisto. In the distance it appeared that the alien armada was getting closer to Earth. If the hangar doors weren’t unlocked soon so the IPDL ships could be released, Zachary’s home planet would surely be destroyed.

  “I’ll take us in the rest of the way,” Zachary said to Ryic.

  They were about to make their final approach when from above another urchin dropped into their path. The pitchforks were instantly caught up in the Clipsian ship’s deadly pull.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Zachary said.

  He didn’t hesitate, reaching out his warp glove to repeat the same trick as before. A hole opened in the urchin’s flight deck, and Zachary’s hand emerged with sonic crossbow in his grip. But the charcoal-skinned pilot swatted the weapon out of Zachary’s glove. Zachary fumbled, trying to grab it before it was out of reach, but to no avail.

  Zachary pulled his hand through the warp hole back into his own pitchfork.

  “I lost the crossbow!” he shouted. “Kaylee, do something!”

  The spikes of the urchin were coming at them quickly.

  “I can’t reach mine,” Kaylee replied frantically. “It’s in the storage compartment!”

  Zachary braced himself as the tip of one of the spikes threatened to impale his cockpit window. But just before the piercing blow, the urchin was split in half as an IPDL battle-axe cracked the Clipsian ship open like a coconut, using its own sharpened blades. Zachary was elated. Backup from the IPDL had arrived. Yet it seemed there was only one of them.

  “I’m starting to make a habit of saving your but
ts,” said a voice over the lang-link. Zachary didn’t recognize it at first. Then as he caught a glimpse of the battle-axe flying past, he saw who was piloting it.

  Skold.

  The alien fugitive was manning the very same craft they’d all shared on their way to the Fringg Galaxy Void Market.

  “What are you doing here?” Zachary called back.

  “I figured you guys could use some help,” Skold said.

  Zachary had suspected there was a part of Skold that was good, and he couldn’t have picked a better time to show it.

  “I thought you said you sold the battle-axe,” Kaylee said.

  “I lied,” Skold said.

  “Cover us until we make it onto Callisto safely,” Zachary said.

  “You got it,” Skold replied.

  The two pitchforks raced for the space station’s open bay doors, as Skold blasted attacking slicers out of their way. Zachary steered his ship inside, landing roughly on a platform. Kaylee did the same.

  Zachary unbuckled himself from his seat and retrieved a voltage slingshot from the cockpit’s underbin. After the bay doors sealed shut, he exited and found that the station’s environment recreated the gravity of Earth. Zachary took a moment, a brief moment, to suck in a deep breath. He was just happy to be alive.

  Ryic, Kaylee, and Quee departed the pitchforks and joined him on the platform. Ryic and Kaylee carried sonic crossbows. Quee held a pair of robotic hacking hands. Sputnik sat on Kaylee’s shoulder.

  “All the emergency evacuation ships have been launched,” Ryic said. “Callisto is empty.”

  “Not entirely,” Kaylee replied.

  She gestured her chin at a single IPDL pitchfork docked on the far side of the hangar.

  “Right now, we just need to find that mainframe,” Quee said, reminding them of why they were all here.

  They ran to the iron doors leading into the hallway. Zachary inserted his warp glove into the fist-sized indentation. But unlike the times before, this door didn’t open.

  “It’s not working,” Zachary said.

  Quee slipped into her robotic hacking hands. She slid a thin metal rectangle the size of a credit card a quarter of the way into a barely visible slot below the indentation and began reading data off the exposed edge.

  “Someone jammed the entry clearance,” Quee said. “The previous glove imprint belonged to an IPDL officer. Someone named Excelsius Olari.”

  It took Zachary a second to realize that she was talking about Indigo 8’s lone Clipsian resident: Professor Olari.

  They had found their traitor.

  «FIFTEEN»

  “The IPDL should really consider hiring a security consultant,” said Quee. “A six-year-old with a stick of gum could break through this.”

  She punched a sequence of binary code into the same extended portion of the metal card sticking out from the slit. With a click, the iron door opened.

  Zachary, Kaylee, Ryic, and Quee hurried into the long, white hallway. Zachary’s mind was racing faster than his legs. How could he have been so naive about Professor Olari? Once they discovered that Nibiru and his armada were planning an attack on Earth, there should have been no question about who the saboteur was inside Indigo 8.

  Zachary still couldn’t figure out why they were targets, though. Maybe it had something to do with Kaylee’s father or Zachary’s parents or even Jacob. Could he have known something about Olari? Information he could have learned on one of his Elite Corps missions and passed on to Zachary? Or maybe it was something Zachary had witnessed in Professor Olari’s morphology class.

  Every question led to more questions. But Zachary didn’t have time to put together all the pieces. He just knew they had to stop Professor Olari.

  “The mainframe is located a half mile around the ring,” Quee said, staring down at a map she’d apparently downloaded off the entry door’s computer system.

  “You realize there’s a very good chance that Professor Olari already knows we’re here,” Ryic said.

  Zachary and Kaylee readied their weapons. The group’s footsteps echoed down the long hallway as they ran past room after room of abandoned scientific research. There were laboratories filled with test tubes still bubbling, refrigerator doors hanging open, and Bunsen burners left aflame. It was obvious that anyone working inside had fled.

  Following the map, Quee led them to a junction point where the hallway split in three different directions.

  “This way,” she said, pointing to a staircase.

  Quee began taking the stairs up to a platform three floors above. Once they reached it, they started down another circular hallway, which led to an open doorway.

  “That should be the station’s command center,” Quee said.

  As they got closer, Zachary could see through the open doors. Professor Olari was standing before a panoramic window overlooking Jupiter and the still-strong Clipsian armada orbiting it. Skold’s battle-axe was blasting its way through more slicers.

  Zachary and Kaylee moved to the front of the pack. Each took aim at Professor Olari as they entered the room. The Clipsian morphology professor slowly turned around.

  “You’re too late,” Professor Olari said. “Everything’s already been set into motion. Earth will be as barren as any other lifeless planet within the hour.”

  “You’re wrong,” Zachary said. “We’re going to override the lockdown. Once those IPDL ships are freed, all of you Clipsians are going to be sent running.”

  “I highly doubt that,” Professor Olari said.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a photon pistol.

  Zachary fired first, sending a lightning ball from his slingshot. But Professor Olari got off a shot of his own. A bright burst of light came at Zachary so fast he only had a millisecond to recognize this was most likely the end for him.

  Yet the photon bolt didn’t hit him. It was as if it didn’t exist at all. Then Zachary realized that the electrical blast he had fired at Professor Olari had gone straight through him.

  “Drop your weapons,” said a voice from behind Zachary.

  Zachary turned to find himself face-to-face with the barrel of a photon cannon. And the individual holding it was Loren.

  Zachary let the voltage slingshot fall to the floor. Kaylee released her grip on the sonic crossbow as well.

  “I don’t understand,” Zachary said. “Why are you helping Professor Olari?”

  “That’s the thing,” Loren said. “I’m not.”

  Keeping his photon cannon fixed on Zachary, Ryic, Kaylee, and Quee, Loren glanced at a thumbtack-sized device with an LED light on it, positioned on a nearby shelf.

  “Cancel doppelform,” Loren said.

  The LED light went off and Professor Olari disappeared. Zachary’s head was spinning. Then Loren kicked open an underbin at his feet, revealing Professor Olari bound and gagged inside.

  “He hasn’t been so cooperative,” Loren said.

  “You’re the traitor?” Zachary asked. “The one who hired Quee to create the virus that locked down Indigo 8?”

  “That’s not the half of it,” Loren said. “I’m the one who sabotaged the dreadnought and hired Hartwell to kill you.”

  “Why us?” Kaylee asked.

  “That night in the laundry room,” Zachary said. “Of course. You weren’t washing those Chameleon jerseys. You were tampering with them. So they’d ignite during the game. And you were in the Qube when it malfunctioned.”

  “I couldn’t risk having you expose me,” Loren said.

  “So you put my virus into the aux-bot to infect Cerebella,” Quee said. “To initiate the lockdown.”

  “Nice work, by the way,” Loren said. “You’ve got a real knack for programming.”

  “Your father’s death,” Zachary said. “You never intended to honor his legacy, did you?”

  “No, I chose to avenge it,” Loren said. “I told you. My mother said I could either get angry or be a hero. I guess now it’s pretty obvious which one I picked.”r />
  “Your father wouldn’t have wanted this,” Zachary said.

  “The IPDL stole him from me. Now they’re going to pay for it.”

  “And all the innocent people on Earth?” Ryic asked. “What about them?”

  Loren shrugged.

  “They’ll suffer the same way I did.”

  Loren pulled Professor Olari out from the underbin and removed the binding covering his mouth.

  “I need you to translate something for me,” Loren said.

  He gestured to a small portion of the panoramic window, and a holographic display appeared showing another Clipsian. His charcoal outer layer was more cracked than that of any Clipsian Zachary had ever seen before, and his inner ember glowed brighter.

  “Nibiru, I’ve handled the young Starbounders,” Loren said. “There shouldn’t be any more unforeseen disturbances.”

  Professor Olari stood there silently. Loren shoved the photon cannon into his back. Olari proceeded to translate, relaying the message to Nibiru.

  Nibiru responded in the same off-planet Clipsian tongue.

  “He says that the ships heading for Earth will be there within minutes,” Professor Olari said.

  “You would have been better off on that lava planet I redirected the dreadnought to crash into,” Loren said.

  “Technically it’s magma,” Ryic said.

  “I think you just made the decision easy for me,” Loren said. “I’ll kill you first.”

  He pointed the photon cannon at Ryic. Just as he fired, Professor Olari lunged at him, taking the brunt of the blast and tackling Loren to the ground. Professor Olari grabbed hold of Loren’s shoulders and slammed his head into the metal floor, knocking him unconscious.