Space Team: Song of the Space Siren
Page 23
A number of floating disks swooped down over the buildings around them, ferrying The Conductor and Conductress, Soonsho’s parents, and a number of official-looking men in uniform.
“Oh. Here we go. Look heroic, guys,” said Cal. “Space Team just saved the day.”
“You idiots!” boomed the Conductor. “What have you done? What have you done?!”
Cal hadn’t been expecting that. “Uh… saved the day?” he said. “Killed the Dragon-Spider—”
“Spider-Dragon!”
“Whatever. And all its little baby Dragon-Spiders so, you know, you can all live happily ever after.” Cal broke out one of his best grins. “You’re welcome.”
“You have doomed us all,” the Conductor seethed. He stabbed a finger at Soonsho, who drew back in fright. “She has doomed us all.”
“What are you talking about?” said Cal, still working on the theory that his smile was bound to prove contagious sooner or later. “She – well, we, but mostly her – totally killed that thing. It’s gone. Kaput. You don’t have to feed it children any more, which I would consider a definite win.”
“The Spider-Dragon of Saktar was our only defense!” The conductor roared, and the spider-slurry rippled in harmony with his tones. “For millennia, it was our protector. Our guardian. Resting, biding its time until it was needed. And now…”
He gesticulated towards the mountain-sized cadaver in the distance. “Now look at it! We are defenseless.”
“You gotta have guns, right?” asked Mech.
“Ooh, great question,” said Miz. “Even without your dial turned, you’re super-smart.”
“Uh… OK.”
“No, we don’t have guns! Why would we need guns?” the Conductor spat. “We had the Spider-Dragon of Saktar!”
“OK, first of all,” said Cal, “monster-spider based planetary defenses are notoriously unreliable. Seriously, it’s a miracle you guys weren’t wiped out centuries ago. We’ve totally done you a favor. And secondly, uh, hello? You’ve got something even better.” He put an arm around Soonsho’s shoulders. “You’ve got Soonsho.”
Cal squeezed and Soonsho let out a sharp hiss as pain shot through her wounded arm. One of the uniformed men, who had been hanging back on his disk, looking vaguely menacing, was flipped backwards off it, and plunged into the gunk.
The Conductor and Conductress backed away slowly. Even Soonsho’s parents watched her with fear in their eyes. Soonsho took a step towards them, but stopped when she saw them tense up in fright.
“She is powerful,” the Conductor agreed, lowering his voice like he was scared he might startle the girl. “Of that, there is no doubt. But she cannot be everywhere at once. She cannot protect Cantato Minor forever. Without the Spider-Dragon of Saktar, we are all victims, just waiting to meet our fates.”
Soonsho looked down at her feet for a moment, then tugged on Cal’s sleeve. She glanced across to her parents. Neither of them could hold her eye.
Her lips moved silently. Miz’s ears pricked up.
“What’s she saying?” Cal asked.
“She’s saying she’s sorry,” said Miz. She cocked her head a little. “And she’s saying she has an idea.”
* * *
“Are you sure about this?” asked Cal.
Soonsho nodded. Behind her, Dorid Tarkula – the real, genuine, accept-no-imitations original – stood in the doorway of his castle. He was alone. His failed clones, he assured them, had been put out of their misery.
“I mean, this is a pretty creepy castle, even with all the freaks gone,” Cal continued. “Look at it, it’s definitely haunted. And I bet even the ghosts are a tiny bit creeped out by the place.”
Soonsho’s lips moved.
“She says she’ll be OK,” said Miz. “She says she wants to do it, so her parents can be safe.”
“Not sure I’d bother with them myself,” Mech muttered. “Didn’t exactly strike me as a loving family.”
“I guarantee the girl’s safety,” said Dorid. “My behaviour earlier… that wasn’t me. I was desperate, but that does not justify my actions. Soonsho and I will develop the sonic shielding together. I will use it here and install it on Cantato Minor, also. Thanks to her – to her voice – her people will be protected. Always.”
“And Zertex won’t be able to steal your stuff,” said Loren.
Dorid nodded. “Perhaps we can all stay out of the coming war, after all.”
Cal looked to Soonsho, then made a clumsy waveform with his hand. “May your song carry long and carry far, kid.”
Soonsho smiled shyly at Cal, then threw her arms around him and hugged him. She pulled away after a few moments, waved to the crew, then scuttled into the castle. “I will protect her. You have my word,” he said.
“We’ll hold you to that,” said Mech.
“Yeah. We’ll totally be watching,” added Miz.
“We mean it,” said Loren. “You don’t want to mess with us.”
“Especially him,” said Cal, jabbing a thumb towards Splurt, who pulsed on the landing ramp, watching on in cheerful silence. “Seriously, he has issues. You don’t even want to know.”
With a final warning glare from each of them, the crew turned and headed up the ramp. Cal stopped at the bottom.
“Oh one question, what’s the Omega Cannon?” he asked, turning. But Dorid was gone, and the door was closed. Cal shrugged. “Ah, what the Hell? It’ll be more fun to figure it out.”
And then, he marched up the ramp, strode along the corridor and onto the flight deck.
“Captain on the bridge!” he announced, but no-one paid him even the slightest bit of attention, much less snapped to salute.
He slid into his chair just as Loren fired up the thrusters. The dark slate landscape lurched as the Untitled lifted into the air and headed for orbit.
“OK, so what’s the plan, troops?” Cal asked. “We’ve got money in our pocket, a ship under our feet, and a whole lot of stars in the sky to choose from. Any suggestions?”
The screen flared a rainbow of colors as they left the atmosphere.
“I got one,” said Mech. He picked an apparently arbitrary direction and pointed. “Head that way, and don’t stop until we’re waaay at the other side of the nebula.”
“One suggestion,” said Cal. “Miz?”
“I want to do whatever Mech wants to do,” she said.
A flicker of a frown passed over Cal’s face. “Uh, OK. What about your boat?”
Miz shook her head. “Mech doesn’t like boats.”
“That is true,” Mech agreed.
Cal looked from Miz to Mech and back again, then shook his head. “Loren? Any suggestions?”
“Picking up a transmission.”
It took Cal a second to realize she wasn’t making a suggestion and was, in fact, picking up a transmission.
“Is it Dorid? Soonsho?”
Loren shook her head. “No. Symmorium.”
“Ha! Yeah, right, like we’re going to fall for that one again,” said Cal. “Nice try, Kornack.”
“Not this time, sir. I have been able to establish a video feed with the Symmorium ship and, well, it isn’t good news,” said Kevin. “Certainly not if you’re on board it, at any rate.”
“On screen,” said Cal.
A box appeared in the top right corner of the screen. It was black, and at first Cal thought the video hadn’t started to play, but then sparks flew in the darkness, illuminating a heavily damaged corridor. One of the ship’s crew – a particularly stocky and shark-like older Symmorium – lay sprawled on the floor, his body folded in such a way that it was immediately apparent he was dead. And not just a bit dead. Top level dead.
A wall had exploded beside him, filling him with shrapnel. When the damaged circuitry sparked, the light showed clouds of white air being siphoned through the hole in the wall, and out into the vacuum beyond.
“This is Commander Junta of the Symmorium,” wheezed a voice.
“Junta?” said Cal. Th
e crew and the commander had a short but eventful history together and one which, miraculously, had seen them part as friends. “Can he hear me?”
Loren shook her head. “This is a pre-record. It’s one way.”
“We are under attack. Half of my crew is dead. My daughter… Tyra… is gone. If you are within the sound of my voice, please… help us. We don’t have—”
The transmission cut off.
“That’s all there is of it, sir,” said Kevin. “I have been able to ascertain the last position of the ship that sent the message. Putting them on screen.”
“Zertex did this,” said Loren. Her words hung heavily in the air.
“Like I said, ain’t nobody getting out of this one,” said Mech. “This war of theirs – of Zertex’s – it’s gonna tear the galaxy apart.”
“So, like, what do we do?” asked Miz.
More silence fell.
Cal looked at the blinking red dot on screen, showing the location of the Symmorium ship.
He looked out at the stars, far off in the direction Mech had pointed, and the universe of possibility that lay that way.
They would all be looking to him, he knew. They would all be waiting for an answer. But he didn’t know the answer to that question. Not the right one, anyway.
What would Cal Carver do?
Now that one, he did know the answer to. Right or wrong.
“Loren,” he said, leaning back in his chair and gripping his armrests. “Plot us a course.”
THE END
A Word from the Author
Woohoo! You made it to the end. Thank you!
I’ve been a full-time author for a decade now, and it still amazes me that people actually read this stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, it just still catches me by surprise sometimes, like when you open a fridge to find it full of tiny unicorns, all skipping around. It’s a shock, but it’s a good one.
Although, they do tend to make a mess of the vegetable drawer.
But, I digress.
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Bye for now, and thanks again!
Best wishes,
Barry J. Hutchison
8th March 2017
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