by Simon Haynes
"You first," said Amy and Clunk simultaneously.
Hal swaggered to the doorway, swinging the weapon to cover the walls, the floor, the ceiling and - briefly, just before they ducked - Clunk and Amy. When he got to the door he leant into the corridor for a quick look, and the weight of the launcher promptly toppled him over. Hal landed with a clatter and a crash, which was nothing to the WHOOSH of the rocket launcher as it sent a missile hurtling down the corridor.
The projectile skimmed the walls, leaving a trail of acrid smoke and sparks as it vanished around the corner. There was a delay of several seconds before a deep BOOM echoed up the corridor, followed by a blast of warm air and the delicious smell of fried bacon.
Hal scrambled to his feet, blinking and coughing in the smoky haze. He cast a nervous look down the corridor, but fortunately there was no sign of B'Con troops. No pieces large enough to see at a distance, anyway. "I think we should go the other way," he said, setting off quickly before the others could relieve him of the awesome weapon.
The first room they encountered was an empty sick bay. They were about to move on when Clunk changed his mind and hurried over to one of the complicated scanners.
"What are you doing?"
"Gathering information," said Clunk, as he plugged a probe into the machine. "Biological information on the B'Con will be very useful if they ever attack our galaxy."
Hal waited in the corridor, nervously swinging the rocket launcher from one side to the other. The B'Con would have been alerted by his warning shot, and the flagship was supposed to be teeming with thousands of troops. Half a dozen he could cope with, but if they sent a hundred the fight would be a little tougher.
"Are you done yet?" he hissed, as Clunk connected to another machine.
"Almost. I'm accessing the crew records."
"Make sure you do it before the crew accesses us." Hal scanned the corridor, using the launcher's illuminated gunsight to pick out doorways and walls. He didn't know why the B'Con weren't flooding the area, but perhaps they had other methods to deal with intruders. Odorless gas, perhaps, or micro-droids which could administer knockout darts from a distance. Or perhaps the B'Con were having a party, and someone had put the explosion down as a particularly loud drumbeat?
Moments later, Clunk was done. He joined Hal and Amy in the doorway, and together they slipped along the corridor to the next room. This was a lab, with rows of delicate equipment and shelves full of chemicals.
"Why don't you download those while you're at it?" demanded Hal.
"It's not necessary." Clunk looked thoughtful. "However, it does give me a new idea. A fourth plan, if you like."
"Go on," said Amy.
"A scientist once devised a liquid which would burn through anything. They couldn't neutralise it, and eventually they had to evacuate the entire planet. It's still marked in the database as a no fly zone."
"What's your point?" asked Hal.
"I have the chemical formula for that liquid in my database." Clunk gestured at the shelves. "And here, arrayed before us, are the chemicals required to make up a batch."
"Assuming you mix some of this stuff up, what can we do with it? Use it to threaten the B'Con?"
"My plan is a little bolder than that," said Clunk gravely. "When released, this liquid would burn through the ship deck by deck, until it reached the gravity generators. They would be destroyed, and with their flagship severely damaged the B'Con would have no choice but to return to their home planet."
"Sounds great, but what about the rest of the fleet?"
Clunk pursed his lips. "What if we teleported a batch of liquid to each ship? We could disable the entire fleet with no loss of life."
Amy grinned. "The B'Con would be too busy to think about the D'eer!"
"It won't work," said Hal flatly. "As soon as we began the B'Con would notice this goo turning up in their teleporters, and they'd warn the rest of the fleet before we could finish. They'd disable their teleporter network, and we'd be stuck here with a blob of deadly chemicals."
"We'd have to work fast," said Clunk.
"Not only that, you'd need tons of the stuff to knock out the entire fleet." Hal thought for a second. "And there's another problem right there. Even if you could make enough of it, how are we supposed to carry it all to the teleporter? We can hardly lug this stuff around in plastic buckets."
"There's no need to be so negative," said Amy. "Clunk's doing his best."
"Even his best isn't going to be enough this time," said Hal. "Let's face it, this melty goo plan sucks. The only way it would work is to teleport the stuff to all the ships at once."
Clunk nodded. Then he frowned. Then he looked thoughtful. Then his eyes widened.
"What's the matter?" Amy asked him.
"Either he's got a new idea," said Hal, "or his cooling pipes are blocked again. Last time it happened he left puddles all over my ship."
"That was a maintenance issue," said Clunk stiffly. "And this time it's a new idea."
"That's five plans now," remarked Hal. "Five plans, and we're still no closer to slicing up the B'Con."
Clunk shook his head. "This is plan four B, and it addresses all the problems with the original plan four."
"How?"
"We make up a single batch of Chloro-quad-etho-tri-carbonate-hexa—"
"Melty goo," supplied Hal, before the robot's speech synthesiser ran out of syllables.
"Er, yes. We make up a single batch of melty goo, but we simultaneously teleport it to every ship."
"All at once?"
"That's what simultaneous means," snapped Amy.
"But how would you do it?"
"It would involve reprogramming the teleporter network so that one send arrived at multiple destinations."
Hal and Amy exchanged a glance. "Is that even possible?"
"In theory."
"So let me get this right. If you tweaked the teleporter, I could step in one end and a dozen copies of me would emerge at the other?"
"Yes," said Clunk. "A hundred, even."
"God help us," breathed Amy, clearly overcome at the idea of multiple Hal Spacejocks on the loose.
"So why bother with the goo?" demanded Hal. "With enough multiplication, the three of us could become an instant invasion force."
"Not really," said Clunk. "There'd only be three of us per ship, so we'd still be outnumbered."
"Why stop at three? You could send each of us several times over, until there were three or four hundred on each B'Con ship."
Amy closed her eyes.
"Mr Spacejock, there's still the issue of, er, clearing up the duplicates later. Every one of them would be one of us, with just as much right to life."
"That's okay. They could set about liberating this galaxy from the B'Con, then populate it with humans."
Amy snorted. "In your dreams, buster."
"But I —"
Clunk interrupted before Hal was forced to explain. "It's not that simple, unfortunately. You cannot create matter from thin air, which means each clone would be less dense than the original."
"That wouldn't be a problem for him, given how dense the original is," muttered Amy, with a sidelong glance at Hal.
"Anyway," continued Clunk. "If you teleported one person to ten destinations, each copy would only weigh a tenth as much. I'm not sure you could even survive such a process."
"Wait a minute. What about the melty goo? Won't that be diluted too?"
"The strength will be greatly reduced, but I can compensate by making up a batch in highly concentrated form. I estimate we'd only need a small quantity of —"
"Melty goo," said Hal.
"— which would be trivial to mix up. We could carry it in containers within containers, to delay the escape of the liquid, and place it in the nearest teleporter."
"You'd want to reprogram it first. The last thing I want to do is stand around with this goo melting my hands off, while you tinker with alien technology." Hal frowned. "Hey, what happens if
you set up this duplication business, and the B'Con send more troops through the teleporter?"
"There'd be extra helpings of B'Con for all," said Clunk, and he waited for the laughter.
After a lengthy silence, Hal cleared his throat. "Don't try humour again," he advised the robot.
Somewhat chastened, Clunk outlined the rest of his plan. Since most of the words had more syllables than Hal had fingers, it was a pointless exercise, although Clunk seemed to benefit from the quick run-down.
"Are we clear?" he said at last.
"Not really," said Hal. "But if you're happy, I'm happy."
"Then let's get started."
Hal nodded. "And we'd better make it quick before the B'Con come to investigate."
* * *
Admiral Lardo had finally run out of volunteers, and yet the teleporter on the D'eer planet was stubbornly refusing to return her to the B'Con fleet. As her troops vanished, one by one, Lardo's cold-blooded determination had given way to boiling anger, then seething rage and finally, once she was alone with the malfunctioning chamber, incandescent fury.
Lardo was so far gone she barely knew what she was doing. All she knew was that Eumans had infiltrated her flagship, and were now causing who knew what kind of damage, while she was stuck on this flea-speck of a planet. Worse, before leaving the flagship she'd left strict orders with her second-in-command: he wasn't allowed to do anything unless he cleared it with Lardo first. This wasn't usual procedure, but then T'ker wasn't a usual second-in-command. He was barely old enough to hold a gun, but his uncle was on the Galactic Council, and had pulled strings to get the kid a plum posting. So, her flagship - no, the entire fleet - was at the mercy of the Euman intruders, since the thousands of loyal B'Con troops staffing the ships would be helpless without her input.
With this horrible thought reverberating through her mind, Lardo stepped into the chamber and smashed her trotter on the control panel, activating the teleporter. There was an intense flash, but instead of instantly reappearing aboard her ship, Lardo underwent an out-of-body experience which had her disembodied spirit drifting in a cold, grey fog. Then she heard the whispers, and she recognised the voices of the troops she'd sent through the teleporter before her. They were incoherent, each mumbling their final words over and over, as though the bulk of their personality had evaporated to leave only a tiny, semi-sentient speck.
The whispering got closer, and Lardo felt a chill up her spine. Pinpoints of light gathered around her, baleful sparks of blue and green, and although Lardo was a staunch atheist she couldn't help wondering whether the specks were fragments of her soldiers' souls.
Then, with a flash, the fog and the specks of light vanished, and Lardo found herself standing in a teleport chamber aboard her flagship. Instinctively, she took a defensive stance, and as she moved her feet she stumbled on the debris underfoot. She glanced down and saw evidence of a battle, with blackened fragments of furniture and office equipment scattered all over the room. Her frown deepened, and she drew a businesslike blaster weapon from her belt before moving towards the door. On the way she trod on a crumpled ball of paper, and she was surprised to feel it roll under her foot instead of flattening under her weight. Then she noticed a light, airy feel to her head, and when she raised her hand to her face she was shocked to see light right through it. It was only a dim gleam, sure, but it was still completely unexpected.
Lardo bent to pick up a discarded gun, and her blood froze as her fingers gently slipped right through it. She could feel the butt under her fingertips, but her body felt as intangible as a spirit - or a ghost. She glanced at the teleporter, wondering whether it had malfunctioned. If she went back through, would it return her body to its normal, solid state? No, there wasn't time. She had a blaster and a knife, and even in her ethereal state she was still more than a match for a couple of Euman spies.
Reaching the doorway, she stopped and raised her snout. There was a smell of death in the air, and she detected the after-tang of missile fire. So much for the puny Euman threat - from the evidence she'd seen so far, the creatures merited a lot closer attention from the B'Con in future.
But first, she had to eliminate the Euman's currently laying waste to her flagship. After another sniff of the air Lardo took a firm grip on her blaster and set off to the left, following the unmistakable scent of her prey.
Chapter 38
Hal, Clunk and Amy were back in the lab, having just returned from the teleporter room where Clunk had performed his magic on the controls. Initially the robot had been hopeful of hacking the software, but in the end he'd had to cobble together a custom circuit which he'd wired directly into the control panel.
Amazingly, there was still no sign of any B'Con activity, although they all knew their luck couldn't last.
Hal glanced at the bench, where three unmarked canisters stood in a row, each emitting a different coloured smoke. According to Clunk, the three liquids were safe enough on their own, but once blended they would create an unstoppable reaction which would result in a batch of the liquid Hal had dubbed 'melty goo'.
"Now we must transfer these to the teleporter," said Clunk, indicating the canisters.
"One each?" suggested Hal.
"Yes, but be careful."
"I thought you said it was safe until we mixed it?"
"Comparitively safe, Mr Spacejock. Each liquid is still very dangerous in its own right."
The three of them took a canister each, and Clunk led the way to the door. Then, without warning, he stopped dead. Hal bumped into him, spilling a few drops of brilliant blue liquid on the robot's back. There was a hiss and a splutter as they etched streaks into Clunk's plasteel skin, and Hal was relieved he hadn't got any on himself. "Why did you stop?" he hissed.
"Footsteps," muttered Clunk. "Quick. Hide under the benches!"
They did as he suggested, crouching under the work surfaces with the canisters of volatile material smoking and smouldering in their faces.
Then Hal heard the footsteps himself - a light tread, as though someone were tip-toeing up the corridor towards them. He imagined a squad of B'Con troops moving in near silence, and could almost feel the deck trembling under his hands and knees, but he told himself he was just imagining things.
The footsteps paused in the doorway, and Hal was tempted to sneak a look. Then he heard sniffing, and he tried not to breathe. It was possible the B'Con had a better sense of smell than humans. It was also possible their hearing was superior.
Hal eased the rocket launcher off his shoulder, angling it towards the doorway. If the footsteps entered the lab, his plan was to leap up and fire his weapon without warning, hopefully taking the B'Con by surprise.
As it turned out, the rocket launcher wasn't needed. The intruder sniffed the air again, then sneezed explosively. Clunk's chemicals weren't just emitting smoke, they were also masking the humans' scent.
The gentle footsteps receded, and Hal allowed himself a deep breath or two. Unfortunately, he was still facing the canister of chemicals, and he wheezed and gasped as the noxious cocktail brought tears to his eyes and a fiery sensation to his throat.
"Mr Spacejock, are you all right?" hissed Clunk.
"Yeah, I'll manage," croaked Hal. "Come on, let's move out before they come back again."
The others emerged from hiding, and together the three of them hurried down the corridor to the teleporter. Without ceremony, Clunk tipped the first canister onto the floor, where the reddish liquid spread out in a smooth, even puddle.
"What about the rest?" asked Hal, when he realised the container wasn't empty.
"We'll need a second batch to disable this ship," said Amy. "If he teleports all of it, the flagship will be unscathed."
"I knew that," said Hal quickly.
Clunk added the second liquid, then the third, and the three blended into a silvery pool which reflected the mirrored walls. Then the reaction began, and Hal stepped back as clouds of orange smoke poured from the teleporter. "Quick," he hissed,
as the pool began to burn through the floor. "Get rid of it!"
Clunk obeyed, hitting the send button just in time. There was a drawn-out flash which blinded all three of them, and when their vision recovered the pool had disappeared … along with a circular section of floor about four centimetres deep.
"Did it work?" demanded Hal.
Clunk checked the display. "I believe it did."
"So right now, that goo is melting its way through the entire fleet?"
"Correct."
"That's really going to stir the B'Con. We'd better get out of here before they discover where it came from." Hal nodded towards the controls. "We jump back to the D'eer planet, right?"
Clunk shook his head. "Not yet. First I have to undo my modifications to the teleporter network."
Hal glanced towards the door. "All right, but be quick about it."
"Give him a break," muttered Amy. "There's just the one of him, you know."
"Not if he gets the next bit wrong," remarked Hal.
* * *
Lardo was a hundred metres past the lab when she realised what had been bugging her. The lab had efficient filters which were supposed to sweep away any lingering scent of the chemicals stored there, so why had the smell in the corridor been so strong? Had someone tampered with the ventilation system? Or worse, were the tricky little Euman scum mixing up a batch of home-made explosives?
Lardo spun on her heel and trotted back down the corridor, her boots barely touching the floor. She slipped into the lab with weapons drawn, and immediately saw the evidence she was dreading. Someone had been careful, but there were half-empty containers on the shelves, light dustings of chemicals on the benches, and - when she sniffed really carefully - traces of Euman scent.
Lardo almost squealed with rage, but she fought the urge down. Instead, she turned for the doorway, intent on pursuit and elimination. Then she paused. She was aboard her own flagship, with countless troops at her beck and call. All she had to do was order a sweep, and once the Eumans were caught she could finish them off herself.
