Loren shook her head. “There aren’t three of them.”
“She’s right,” said Filson. He gestured at the sky above them. “I have a whole squadron up there, weapons already locked on you. I’m sure your mechanical friend will be able to confirm.”
“I’m seeing eight ships,” said Mech, tapping his scanner. “They all got us on torpedo lock.”
“You see?” said Filson. “You may have led us on something of a merry dance over the past few days, but we were always going to catch you eventually. You can’t just betray Zertex, steal a ship, and expect there to be no repercussions.”
“Zertex betrayed us,” said Loren. “Sinclair left us no choice.”
“Yes, well, you won’t be surprised to learn that he views things quite differently,” said Filson. “Even though he’s currently hard at work trying to broker peace with the Symmorium, he was very insistent that you be caught. Very insistent. Particularly you, Mr Carver. He has a real bone to pick with you. In fact, he made it clear that he wanted you alive. Something about… wiping the smirk off your face?”
“OK, one, it’s not a smirk, it’s a charmingly boyish grin,” said Cal. “And two… Actually, there is no two. Just that first one.”
“I suppose he wants me alive, too,” said Loren.
Legate Filson shrugged, which was quite a feat with no neck. “No. Not really. He was quite open to your death. If anything, I’d say he encouraged it.”
“Ha!” said Miz, finding that highly amusing. “Burn.”
“Oh,” said Loren. “Right. I see. Fair enough, then.”
“This is all very well… Filson, was it?” said Cal. “I mean, you having all those ships locked onto us and everything, I can see why you’re looking so confident. At least, I think you’re looking confident, your face is pretty hard to read.”
“Oh,” said Filson. “I am.”
“Right. Yes. Understandable,” said Cal. He raised a finger. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”
Filson raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what’s that?”
“The Cross-Phase Electro Nulliblaster!”
Miz frowned. “The what?”
“The Cross-Phase Electro Nulliblaster,” Cal said. He waggled his eyebrows at her to tell her to play along, but the signal was completely lost on her. “That awesome weapon I picked up on that planet Mech made us visit.”
“You picked up lunch on that planet,” said Miz.
“Yes,” said Cal. “And after I did that I picked up the Cross-Phase Electro Nulliblaster.”
“Wait, is this a trick?” Miz asked. “Are we tricking him?”
Cal sighed. “Yes. Well, I was trying to.” He shrugged and hooked a foot under the decapitated head of one of the bug-infected. “Guess we’ll just have to try it this way.”
Flicking up his leg, he sent the head tumbling through the air towards Filson. The soldiers on either side swiveled their guns to take aim at it, and Loren quickly squeezed off two blaster rounds that slammed into their body armor and hurled them back against the hull of their ship.
“Mech, grab that guy!” Cal urged, pointing to where Filson was staring in confusion at his fallen guards.
“On it!” said Mech, snatching the officer up and throwing him over his shoulder.
“Wh-what are you doing? Let me go!” Filson demanded.
“No can do,” said Cal. “If we do that, your ships will shoot at us, and we don’t want them shooting at us, if it’s all the same with you.”
He led the way out through the gate and hurried towards the Shatner. Up on Mech’s shoulder, Legate Filson kicked and complained. “I’ll give the order for them to shoot. I’ll do it. I will!”
“Oh, shut up, Filson,” said Loren. “You’re not going to blow yourself up.”
At the back of the group, Miz stopped. She sniffed the air, picking up a scent on the wind. It was a scent she knew only too well.
“No,” she whispered, looking around. “No, it can’t be.”
“Halt!” commanded a voice that seemed to echo from all directions at once. It was a voice so powerful, so commanding, that Cal’s legs stopped running before his brain had even realized anything had been said. “Halt, or die by the snap of my jaws.”
Miz groaned. “No. Don’t tell me.”
“Tell you what?” asked Cal. “Who is it now?”
From behind the ticket stands and abandoned security stations, several figures emerged. They all stood seven feet tall or more, with broad shoulders and long snouts. They were covered in thick, dark fur, and wore long white skirts that stretched all the way down to their clawed feet.
“Hey, they look like you,” said Cal. “Do you know these guys?”
Miz nodded. “Yeah. I know them.”
“You defile Her Highness with your very existence,” barked one of the wolf-people. “Release her, or face an agonizing death.”
Mizette sighed. “I’m not their prisoner, Kannus. They’re my friends.” She jabbed a thumb towards Loren. “Well, maybe not her, or the guy over her shoulder, but these two.”
“Hey there!” Cal beamed, giving the largest of the wolf-creatures a wave. “Nice skirt. Or is it a kilt?” He leaned closer to Miz. “So, who’s this guy?”
“That’s Kannus,” said Mizette. She shifted around on the balls of her feet. “He’s my… Well, I guess he’s kind of my husband.”
CHAPTER THREE
Cal’s crew stood behind Mizette, Legate Filson still draped limply over Mech’s shoulder. On the ground in front of Miz, Kannus knelt and bowed his head.
“My love. It is I, Kannus, your betrothed.”
Miz tutted. “Well, obviously. I’m not blind.”
“For the glory of the Greyx, I give you my life.”
“Oh great, this again,” Miz sighed.
“For the honor of the Greyx, I give you my soul. For the--”
“Yeah, yeah, triumph, blood, I get it,” said Miz. “Get up, how many times do I have to tell you, you don’t have to kneel?”
“But I must, Your Highness,” said Kannus. “Tradition demands it.”
“Wait, should we be kneeling, too?” said Cal. “I mean, if tradition demands it...”
“Silence, mongrel!” said Kannus, fixing his eyes on Cal and baring a worrying number of teeth. “You do not speak until the princess commands you.”
Cal’s grin widened. “Oh, I can already tell that he and I are going to be the best of friends.”
Kannus leapt to his feet, his claws extending like knife blades from his fingertips. “I said silence,” he hissed, lunging for Cal. Loren snapped her blaster up, taking aim between the Greyx’s eyes.
“Back off,” she said. “I’m warning you.”
All around them, the other wolf-people bristled, their claws and teeth slowly coming on show.
“Kannus. All of you. Cut it out,” said Miz. “Stand down. Cal is my friend, he can speak whenever he likes. Any of them can. Even her.”
“How generous of you,” said Loren. She lowered her gun. “That was sarcasm, by the way.”
“OK, so on second thoughts, she can’t,” said Miz. “But everyone else can.”
“Um… does that include me?” asked Legate Filson. “Can I speak?”
“No,” said Cal. “You don’t get to speak until you’ve had a good long think about your behaviour.”
“But I’m a legate in the Zertex Military!” Filson protested.
“Listen, I don’t want it to get to this stage, Filson, but Mech will spank you. Have you ever been spanked by a cyborg before?”
“What you talking about? I ain’t gonna spank him,” said Mech.
“Oh, believe me, he will,” Cal insisted. “He’ll spank you into next week. You won’t be able to sit down for… well, forever. And why? Because your butt cheeks will be a paste, Filson. They’ll be a paste.”
Filson didn’t reply. Cal nodded. “Wise move.”
He turned back to
Kannus and flashed him another smile. “Now, sorry, what were you saying?”
Kannus growled, but resisted the near-overwhelming urge to bite Cal’s face off. Instead, he turned his attention back to Miz and dropped to one knee again. “Your Highness, your presence has been requested by Graxan of the Greyx.”
“Surprise, surprise,” said Miz. “Tell him he can forget it. I’m not coming.”
“It is imperative that you return with us to Kifo at once.”
“Look, I’ve told him before, I’m never coming back to Gre…” Mizette frowned. “Wait, Kifo?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Kannus, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper. “Your father is on Kifo.”
“What’s Kifo?” asked Cal. “Is it nearby? We could swing by and say ‘hi,’ couldn’t we?”
“Kifo is the death world,” Miz said, absent-mindedly, as if she were only barely paying attention to the here and now. “It’s where the royal Greyx go when… At the end.”
She gave herself a shake and fixed her gaze firmly on Kannus. “So you’re saying…?”
“I am afraid so, Your Highness,” Kannus said. “Graxan of the Greyx is dying. The time has come to take up the throne.”
Silence fell. Or something close to silence, at least. In the distance, Cal could hear a car alarm wailing. Now that he thought about it, it had been there since they’d arrived, nagging at the very edge of his earing, but now that everyone had stopped flapping their lips and were just staring at Mizette instead, it finally got its moment to shine.
It was Legate Filson who finally spoke.
“Congratulations!” he said. “About the throne thing, I mean, not about your father…”
“Shut up, Filson,” Loren said.
Miz looked to the sky, then to the ground, before finally settling on Kannus. “No,” she said.
Kannus’s amber eyes widened in surprise. “‘No?’”
Miz nodded, growing more confident. “Yeah. No. I’m not doing it. I told him before, I told all of you before, I don’t want to be the stupid queen.”
“But… you must,” said Kannus. “Tradition demands it.”
“Your traditions sure demand a lot,” said Cal. Kannus growled at him, but Cal bounced it back with a devastatingly friendly grin.
“Cal’s right,” said Miz. “I’m sick of having to do stuff I don’t want to do all the time. Why do you think I left? Go back to Kifo. Tell them they’ll have to find a new queen. I’m not coming.”
With that, she folded her arms, sharply about-turned, and stropped off back towards the Shatner. Kannus moved to lunge after her, but Cal stepped into his path.
“Hey, what’s the time, Mr Wolf? It’s give the lady her personal space time,” said Cal. A brief frown flashed across his forehead. “OK, that sounded way cooler in my head. Out loud it sounded, I dunno, kind of stupid, I guess.”
“Stand aside, runt,” Kannus barked.
“Hey, I’m not a runt,” Cal protested. “Just because I’m surrounded by giant wolf-people and a huge fonking robot--”
“Not a robot,” Mech sighed.
“—doesn’t make me a runt. I’m actually pretty tall for a human. Above average, anyway. And I can do, like, upwards of twelve push-ups in a row, although I’d rather not demonstrate, if it’s all the same to you.”
Kannus moved to push past him, but Cal placed a hand on the hulking wolf-creature’s chest. “No, but seriously,” he said. “She clearly doesn’t want to talk to you. Let me go speak to her.”
Kannus’s eyes narrowed. If his face wasn’t covered entirely by hair, it’d probably have gone red with rage. “You will stand aside. Mizette is returning to Kifo with us, whether she wishes to or not. These are the orders of Graxan of the Greyx.”
“Hear, hear!” chimed Legate Filson from Mech’s shoulder. “Youngsters today really need to be taught discipline.”
“Shut up, man,” Mech growled. He shrugged, violently bouncing the officer around.
“See, that’s not going to work for us,” said Cal. “Miz is with us, and, well, we’re not going to let you just take her.”
“Yeah,” said Loren, stepping up. “Infuriating as she may be – and she really is - she’s one of us. If you want her, you’ll have to fight for her.”
Cal shook his head. “Whoa, whoa. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here and start picking fights with the giant space wolves,” he said. “Let me go talk to her and see what she’s saying first.”
“No,” spat Kannus. “I forbid it.”
“Yeah, well, forbid this,” said Cal, flipping the Greyx the bird.
“What does that mean?” Kannus asked.
“It’s a sign of respect and admiration,” said Cal. He raised his middle finger higher, waggled it in Kannus’s face, then put it away again. “You two OK out here?”
Mech and Loren both nodded. Cal gave Kannus a friendly wink. “Be right back,” he said, then he thrust his hands in his pockets and strolled back towards the ship, whistling happily and savoring the prickling sensation of Kannus’s furious glare on his back.
* * *
“Captain on the bridge!” announced Cal, ducking through the flight deck door. He gestured back at it. “Seriously, I don’t know how you and Mech aren’t bumping your heads on that thing all the time. We should get it raised, it’s an accident waiting to happen.”
Mizette was slumped in her seat, her arms still folded, her gaze fixed on her outstretched legs, watching her right foot kick impatiently.
“I’m not going,” she said, not looking up as Cal sat in his own chair and swiveled to face her. “I don’t want to be the stupid queen.”
Cal shrugged. “Then don’t be. They can’t force you to.” He used his feet to rotate his chair left and right a few degrees, then spun once all the way around. “Man, what a day,” he said. “I knew coming back here would be hard, but… Man, what a day.”
He drummed his fingers on his arm rest, then tapped out a short beat. “Going back to my parents’ house it was… weird. Really weird. I hadn’t been there in years. Hadn’t spoken to them in about as long.”
Cal turned and looked at a wall, as if he could see right through it and all the way back home. “I didn’t miss them. Not once. I mean, I thought about them sometimes, wondered how they were doing, but miss them? No. And they were good people. Both of them. They were good people, we just… we were different, you know? I always felt like I had disappointed them or something.”
Miz flicked her eyes up to him, just for a moment, then went back to staring at her feet.
“But, man, in that house… The memories. And then, knowing they were in there. In their room. Right on the other side of that door. It was like… Do you guys have Christmas?”
Miz sighed, like this was the most boring conversation she’d ever been a part of in her life, but then shook her head.
“OK. Well, it’s like this big day with presents and everything, and standing outside my parents’ bedroom, with them just right there inside… I felt like it was Christmas morning. But early, you know? Still dark outside. And I didn’t know whether it was safe to open my eyes yet or not. Like, there was all this excitement, this, this… joy just trapped inside me, waiting for a release.”
Miz tutted. “What are you even talking about?”
Cal replayed the last part of the conversation over in his head, then shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said. “I was trying to do some sort of clever analogy, but didn’t quite get there. My point is, I wished I’d seen them before they died. I wished I had just five minutes with them, even if it was just to go, ‘Hey, fonk you, I’m great the way I am.’ I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.”
He leaned forward in his chair and lowered his voice, as if imparting some great secret. “You should go see him, Miz. You should go see your dad.”
Mizette’s deep brown eyes lifted again.
“Is there a chance you might wish you hadn’t? Yeah.
Sure. Maybe,” Cal said. “But I can guarantee you’ll regret it if you don’t go. Let him see that you’re out here doing you own thing. Let them all see.”
Miz shuffled in her seat and sighed again. She unfolded her arms just enough to let her study her claws on one hand. She’d painted them a glittery shade of purple using nail polish from one of the stores they’d visited. It somehow made them look even deadlier.
“Fine. I’ll go. But not with them, I want to go in this ship.” She looked almost embarrassed. “Our ship.”
“You got it! Wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Cal. He slapped his hands against his thighs, then stood up. “Now, I’ll go let your husband know the good news. You kept him quiet, by the way, you sly dog. Uh… no offence.”
“It’s another stupid royal thing,” Miz said. “As first in line to the throne, you get married young.”
“How young?” asked Cal, who had only recently discovered that the seven-feet tall hulking she-wolf was just six years old.
“In the womb.”
Cal whistled through his teeth. “Wow. That must be one cramped evening reception.”
“Kannus and I were pledged to each other as Lifebounds, which means he’s my husband, and I don’t even get a say in it. When my father dies, I’ll be queen, but Kannus will have all the power as king.”
Cal nodded. “Kinda getting a picture of why you left,” he said. He headed for the door, pausing to give her shoulder a squeeze as he passed. “I’ll go give hubby the good news.”
Striding along the corridor towards the back of the ship, Cal passed the open door of the Bench Room. They called it the Bench Room, because they had no idea what it was for, and the single padded bench was the room’s only distinguishing feature. Cal had discovered it was a useful place to come and vomit when the sensation of travelling at above light speed proved too much. The feeling of the bench’s cool vinyl against his cheek had become as comfortingly familiar as an old pair of shorts.
A few steps past the Bench Room, Cal stopped and backtracked. He was sitting in there, right on the edge of the bench, gazing blankly at the wall dead ahead. “Splurt, buddy! How many times?”
Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle Page 3
