STAR FIGHTERS BUMPER SPECIAL EDITION: Stealth Force

by Max Chase

  ‘Cool!’ Selene said, adjusting the belt around her waist and checking out her new gear.

  ‘Outstanding!’ Peri agreed. The outfit made him feel tough and adventurous – ready for anything. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Pathetic,’ said Diesel. ‘Do we really have to wear these old clothes?’

  ‘They aren’t really old,’ Selene said. She twisted and turned, and the Expedition Wear moved with her.

  ‘What about me?’ Otto boomed. ‘Do I look like a Westrenian cowboy?’

  Peri had to bite his lip not to laugh. Otto’s arms were far too long for Expedition Wear – the cuffs ended way above his double-jointed elbows – and the jacket didn’t even cover his weapons belt.

  Selene gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Sorry, Otto. I don’t think you’ll be able to come on this mission.’

  Peri nodded. ‘You just wouldn’t . . . blend in.’

  ‘But it’s not fair!’ Otto shouted. ‘That planet was made for someone like me – all that mindless violence!’

  ‘Entering Westrenia’s orbit,’ the Phoenix announced. ‘Take your seats. Final camouflage initiated.’

  The crew sat down and their astro-harnesses snaked around them. Peri felt something digging into his thigh. It was a holster. He removed the weapon. It was quite small and made of purple metal.

  ‘Funny-looking weapon,’ he said.

  Diesel tutted. ‘You couldn’t shoot through a spiderweb with that.’

  ‘Don’t you boys know anything?’ Selene said. ‘It’s a laser lasso.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Peri said. ‘It’s one of those ropes that cowboys use to encircle and catch cattle – or enemies. It could come in handy.’

  ‘Yes, but this one’s not made of rope,’ Selene explained and switched Peri’s weapon on.

  A sparking fuse of light shot out from the lasso, like a whip.

  ‘Mh’nak!’ Diesel yelled and snatched the weapon. ‘I definitely need one of these.’

  ‘Er, Peri . . .’ Selene’s voice was a panicked croak. ‘Why am I turning green?’

  Peri turned around as far as his astro-harness would let him. When he did, he gasped – Selene’s skin had definitely changed. It was now a pale, sickly green.

  ‘It’s happening to me too!’ Diesel said, pointing to his arms. His strip of hair had turned white with fright.

  Peri looked down at his own hands, turning them over and seeing that he had also turned a little bit green. ‘It must be the Expedition Wear,’ he said. ‘It must be configured to make us look like the alien species we’re going to encounter on Westrenia.’

  ‘You look like lizard-people!’ Otto laughed.

  Peri guessed Otto suddenly didn’t feel so bad about not getting to explore the alien planet.

  Peri turned back to face the 360-monitor. Westrenia now filled the whole screen. It was an Earth-type planet with oceans, ice caps, mountains, forests and large areas of yellow desert and green plains. A pulsing red light showed the location of the SOS signal, coming from what looked like a small town at the edge of a wide desert. Peri beckoned the control panel towards him, initiated the cloaking device and guided the ship down, being careful to keep a safe distance from the settlement. He couldn’t let the inhabitants of Westrenia see the Phoenix.

  The ship touched down gently. The doors opened to reveal a landscape of sand and rocks, with a few tall cactus-like plants growing here and there. In the distance, Peri could see a town and a mountain range behind it.

  ‘Let’s go and find the source of that distress signal,’ Peri said.

  Selene, Peri and Diesel ran down the ramp on to the sand. It felt good to be out in the open after so long aboard the ship.

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to stay here with the Phoenix,’ Otto grumbled from the top of the ramp.

  ‘I don’t think that would be safe,’ Peri said. ‘We can’t risk the Phoenix being found by someone on this planet. We’re going to have to shrink the ship and take it with us.’

  ‘But then I’ll be shrunk too!’ Otto shouted.

  ‘It won’t hurt,’ Peri told him.

  There was a dial labelled ‘Expansion Packs’ on the control strip on the wristband of his Expedition Wear. Peri twisted it anticlockwise. The door closed on Otto and, within seconds, the Phoenix was the size of a small car . . .

  Then the size of a rugby ball . . .

  Then the size of an egg.

  ‘That should do it!’ Peri said, putting the miniaturised Phoenix into his pocket.

  Then Peri and his crew set off through the desert towards the town. He could feel it in the excited buzz of his circuits – they were heading for a real adventure.

  Chapter 3

  They soon came to a dirt track that led towards the huddle of buildings they’d seen in the distance. The sun was fierce and Peri felt the sweat trickling down his back.

  The sandy, cactus-dotted landscape stretched away as far as their eyes could see. A few whitened cattle-bones lay bleaching in the sun. Peri saw another road that joined the dirt track from the left – it was wide and pitted with wagon-wheel ruts.

  ‘That must be a trade road leading to another town,’ he said. ‘See those wheel marks? That’s where all the stagecoaches have passed along it.’

  ‘I wish we had a stagecoach,’ Diesel muttered, wiping blue sweat from his forehead.

  ‘Look,’ Selene said. ‘There are people working over there.’

  A group of aliens, stripped to the waist, were swinging sledgehammers. From here they looked like humans, with the right number of arms and legs, but as the Star Fighters drew closer, Peri saw that their pale green skin was scaly and wrinkly. Their eyes were a deep, dark black. They looked like a cross between a human and an iguana. They were hammering wooden sleepers into the ground while chanting a song in their alien language.

  ‘They’re building a railroad,’ Peri said. ‘Remember The Space Spotter’s Guide said that Westrenia has only just invented trains?’

  ‘I wish we had a train,’ Diesel grumbled again. ‘My feet are killing me.’

  ‘We’d better tune in our SpeakEasies,’ Peri said, touching the slight bulge in his neck.

  Once the Star Fighters had tuned in to the translator, they were able to understand and speak the aliens’ language. After a few moments, Peri heard the words of their chant come into focus. They were singing: ‘Hammer, hammer, hammer. Hammer all day. Hammer, hammer, hammer.’

  A boring song for a boring job, Peri thought.

  ‘Shall we go and talk to them?’ Selene asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Peri said. Some instinct was warning him to be cautious. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves until we’ve found out a bit more about Westrenia and what’s making someone send an SOS.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Diesel said. As they passed the men, he dipped his head and drawled, ‘Howdy, pardners.’

  The men broke off their chant. They raised their sweaty faces from their work and stared at him. Nobody spoke. The men’s gaze just followed them as the Star Fighters walked on.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Diesel said. He touched the bulge in his neck. ‘Do you think the SpeakEasy chip couldn’t translate “Howdy” into Westrenian?’

  ‘I think they heard you,’ Peri said, ‘but they didn’t want to respond.’ He had a feeling that strangers might not be too welcome on Westrenia.

  At last the town loomed large ahead of them. They passed a wooden sign that announced: Buckskinville. Population: 1,032. They followed the road between two rows of silent wooden houses, all with their blinds down.

  They came to a dusty, empty town square. On one side there was a stone well in the shade of a tree, next to a horse trough. Buildings stood all around the square. One of them had a sign over the door that said, Saloon. A ball of brown tumbleweed rolled through the square.

  ‘It’s quiet,’ Diesel said. ‘Too qui—’

  The double doors of the saloon bar went flying across the square, spinning and flipping through the ai
r, then hitting the ground and smashing into pieces. Two Westrenian lizard-like men stumbled out of the saloon, fighting. They fell and rolled in the dust, continuing their tussle. Occasionally, they lashed out their lizard-tongues, which made loud, snapping sounds.

  I bet those lizard-tongues can do some damage, Peri thought, hoping they wouldn’t get into any fights on this strange planet.

  ‘This way,’ Peri hissed, dragging Selene and Diesel into a narrow alley. ‘Until we know what this is all about, we should stay out of sight.’

  A third Westrenian crashed through an upstairs window of the saloon and bounced off the awning below. He was just picking himself up when a fourth jumped through the broken window and sprang off the awning to bundle his foe to the ground. The two of them started slugging it out in the street.

  Then a whole crowd of greenish lizard-men tumbled out into the square.

  ‘It’s a free-for-all!’ Selene said.

  ‘Ch’açh!’ Diesel said. ‘I take that back, about it being too quiet.’

  Peri laughed. ‘It’s a shame Otto can’t see this. He’d love – Whoa!’ He ducked as a bar stool hurtled through the air and narrowly missed him.

  ‘Do you think we should do something?’ Diesel said, watching two furiously struggling bodies roll down the street.

  Beside him, Selene dived down as a bottle flew by.

  Peri felt a tingle of anxiety in his bionic belly. ‘Why isn’t there anyone charging in to arrest them?’

  ‘Maybe they don’t have any cops in this town,’ Diesel said.

  On the other side of the square, Peri spotted a two-storey building with a painted sign hanging outside, displaying a seven-pointed blue star.

  ‘That might be a sheriff’s office,’ Peri said. ‘Come on!’ He led them around the edge of the square.

  The Star Fighters managed to avoid the flailing fists and feet, the snapping tongues and spinning bottles. Finally, they made it. Peri stepped on to the creaking wooden veranda and pushed open the door.

  ‘Hello?’ he called.

  No answer.

  Peri beckoned to the others, and they went into the little office. Their boots sounded loud on the wooden floor. There were posters of wanted men on the whitewashed walls. Six cells with iron-barred doors stood open and empty. It gave Peri an eerie feeling.

  Beyond the six cells was another door.

  ‘Shall we try it?’ Peri asked.

  ‘There won’t be anyone there,’ Diesel said. ‘This place is obviously deserted.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Selene said. She knocked on the door and turned the handle.

  A tall, gangling Westrenian boy was sitting at a desk in the small back office. He was wearing a sheriff’s uniform that fit worse than Otto’s cowboy outfit. He was hunched over a metal box with a twisted antenna sticking out of it, tapping away at it with some sort of metal instrument. Peri thought it looked like an old-fashioned telegraph and a record player rolled into one.

  At the sight of Peri, Selene and Diesel, he leapt to his feet. His hat fell over his deep, black eyes as he groped for his weapon.

  Peri and Diesel ran round either side of the desk to grab the boy’s arms and keep him from drawing his weapon. His skin felt rough and ridged.

  ‘Easy,’ Peri said.

  ‘Get off, you bandits!’ shouted the boy. ‘You evil outlaws –’

  ‘We’re not evil outlaws,’ Peri said.

  Diesel removed the gun from the boy’s holster. When he saw that it was only a wooden toy, he threw it down on the desk. Peri lifted up the boy’s hat to see the boy’s face staring straight back at him. He was nervous but brave.

  ‘Did Wild Will send you?’ the boy demanded.

  ‘Who’s Wild Will?’ Selene asked. ‘We’re not from these parts.’

  ‘If you were, you’d know Wild Will. He’s the most evil, dangerous bandit in the whole of Westrenia.’

  ‘We’re here to help you,’ Peri said. ‘We heard your distress signal.’

  The boy looked with pride at the metal instrument he had been tapping. ‘You mean this thing actually worked? Wild Will’s gang smashed the machine my father uses to send messages to other towns. I tried to give this one a boost by building an amplifier on the roof. I wasn’t sure if it would work at all, let alone send my message as far as the next town. Are you folks from Dry Gulch City?’

  ‘A bit further away than that,’ Peri said, sharing a secret smile with Diesel and Selene. They let go of the boy and Peri offered his hand. ‘My name’s Peri and this is Diesel and Selene.’

  ‘Dexter.’ The boy shook hands with all three of them in turn. ‘I still can’t believe someone heard my message. I hope you don’t mind my saying but aren’t you a bit . . . young to be able to help me?’

  ‘You look a bit young to be a sheriff,’ Diesel replied.

  ‘My father’s the real sheriff. He was kidnapped by Wild Will and his gang.’

  ‘Is that why you were signalling for help?’ Selene asked.

  Dexter nodded. ‘My father, Sheriff Lexor, had finally caught Wild Will and locked him up in this jailhouse, but then Wild Will’s gang busted him out and kidnapped my father. No one knows what they’ve done with him. So the town has no sheriff, which means Wild Will and his gang are in charge. They’re unstoppable.’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ Peri said. ‘You’ve got us now!’

  Dexter’s story had woken Peri’s sense of justice. It just wasn’t fair for a villain like Wild Will to bully a whole town into submission. The IF code demanded that the Star Fighters put it right.

  ‘But what can you do?’ Dexter asked. ‘What can anyone do?’

  ‘If Wild Will has a gang,’ Peri said, ‘I guess we’ll have to get ourselves our own posse.’

  Chapter 4

  Diesel wiped the sweat from his bedraggled strip of hair. ‘Prrrip’chiq! Westrenia is hotter than that rubbish incinerator on Xion!’

  Early the next morning, the Star Fighters had gathered at the junction where the stagecoach road met the dirt track. Already the sun beat down pitilessly and the desert landscape shimmered in the heat haze. They stood in the small patch of shade cast by a giant cactus, which wasn’t nearly big enough for all three of them.

  ‘Why did we have to come out here?’ Diesel said. ‘Why couldn’t we stay in town?’

  Peri sighed. He’d only explained to Diesel ten times already. ‘With Wild Will running Buckskinville, we don’t know who we can trust. We need a safe place where we can make our plans in secret.’

  ‘Dexter should be here by now,’ Selene said. ‘Do you think he’s having problems recruiting for our posse?’

  ‘No way, loads of Westrenians will want to join so they can settle their scores,’ Peri said, trying to sound confident. ‘According to Dexter, the town has been terrorised by Wild Will for ages.’

  Peri checked the Mission Update screen on the control strip of his Expedition Wear: 109 hours, 24 minutes. Would that be enough time to help Dexter and return to the IF Space Station? Peri hoped so.

  He scanned the horizon and saw a short line of figures in the distance.

  Three of them.

  Peri’s heart sank to his space-cowboy boots. The two figures alongside Dexter weren’t much bigger than the sheriff’s son. Peri did his best to put on a brave face.

  ‘Here they come!’ he said. ‘At least Dexter managed to get a small posse together.’

  ‘Yeah, two kids,’ Diesel complained.

  ‘Plus Dexter and us!’ Peri said. ‘That makes six.’

  ‘How can six of us take on a gang of armed bandits?’ Diesel groaned.

  Peri looked at Selene for support, but his engineer friend was looking at the ground.

  ‘And it sounds like Wild Will has lots of bandits in his gang,’ she said.

  ‘So what?’ Peri said. ‘We’re Star Fighters. We’ve fought whole armies and survived –’

  ‘But we were in the Phoenix then,’ Diesel said. ‘If we had the Phoenix now, Wild Will and his gang would
n’t stand a chance. Without it, we don’t stand a chance!’

  ‘We didn’t have the Phoenix when we beat the Xio-Bot,’ Peri reminded him. ‘And anyway, we’re not going to turn our backs on those in trouble!’

  Dexter and his two friends had almost reached them now.

  Peri waved. ‘Howdy!’

  ‘Howdy!’ Dexter said. ‘These are my friends, Spike and Gunner.’

  They were tough, cool-sounding names, but the boys themselves looked neither cool nor tough. Gunner was taller and skinny, with a long neck and high shoulders. Spike was short and squat, with a thatch of bristly red hair under a little white cap. They both looked rather meek and distinctly worried. Their black eyes were wide and their lizard-tongues flicked in and out of their mouths nervously. Gunner’s hands seemed to be wrestling with each other, while Spike kept fiddling with his cap, trying to get it to sit right on his bristly hair.

  ‘Good to meet you,’ Peri said.

  ‘L-l-likewise,’ Gunner said.

  ‘Oh!’ Spike’s gaze was fixed on Selene. ‘I didn’t know girls could be in posses.’

  Selene glared at him. ‘I can fight as well as any boy.’

  ‘Fight?’ Gunner said doubtfully. He looked at Dexter. ‘But she’s a girl!’

  ‘Don’t worry about Selene,’ Peri said hastily, before Selene proved that she could fight by giving Gunner a blacker eye than he already had. ‘We’ve been in plenty of scrapes together and she can look after herself, I promise you. We just have to work out our first move against Wild Will and his gang.’

  ‘Are we really going to atta-atta-attack him?’ asked Spike.

  ‘Yes, but not head-on,’ Peri said. ‘That wouldn’t be smart. We’re outnumbered and outgunned.’

  ‘You got that right,’ Gunner said. ‘Wild Will’s gang have all the weapons in town.’