Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “In the name of Great Graxan!”

  “Wow, you’ve really managed to get them on-side,” said Cal. “You know, despite all the betrayal and murder stuff. I’m impressed.” He shrugged. “Well, I mean, kinda. There’s the loose end, of course. That’s what’s going to turn them against you.”

  Kannus’s eyes narrowed. “They are my people. They will never turn against me.”

  “Looking at them right now? I’d totally agree. These guys are behind you one-hundred-percent. It’s quite touching, actually.” He grinned. “But then, that’s right now. That’s not in a few seconds. Then, oh man, then it’s going to be a different story.”

  “Explain,” Kannus demanded.

  “Come on, where’s the fun in that?” Cal asked. “Let’s just wait and find out. We could count backwards from, I don’t know, twenty.”

  Kannus cleared the space between them in a heartbeat. Cal had barely seen the Greyx move when he suddenly found himself flat on his back, Kannus’s snarling snout just inches from his face. “Explain!”

  “Ow, ow, you’re kneeling on my leg,” Cal said. “Any chance you could move just a little to the right? I’d really appreciate it.”

  Kannus’s teeth snapped hungrily in front of Cal’s face. He jabbed down with a finger, and Cal let out a hiss as the claw stabbed into his shoulder.

  “Explain,” Kannus growled.

  “O-OK,” Cal stammered. “But first, I got to tell you, this is only, like, the ninth most painful thing that’s happened to me today.”

  Kannus twisted his finger and the blood drained from Cal’s face. “Well, m-maybe eighth,” he grunted. “But fine, I’ll tell you. You’re going to want me to whisper it, though. You won’t want your adoring fans to hear.”

  Kannus lowered his head the tiniest of fractions. His ears curved until Cal had their full attention. “We know she’s not dead,” Cal whispered. “And we know she’s on your ship.”

  It took a moment for the significance of this to filter through to Kannus. “No matter,” he said, his voice a low murmur. “The ship is heavily guarded.”

  “Yeah, thing is… did you meet my friend? The one who most definitely is not a robot,” said Cal. He frowned. “I realize that makes it sound like my other friends are robots, of course, which they aren’t, but…” He shook his head, getting himself back on track.

  “Anyway, my point is, he has some… temper issues, and doesn’t take too kindly to people kidnapping people he cares about. So, you remember when I said she was on your ship?” Cal tapped his ear, drawing Kannus’s attention to a tiny plastic earpiece he had wedged in there. “I’ve been reliably informed that’s no longer the case.”

  The hair on the back of Kannus’s neck stood on end. Cal smiled. “Oh, and three, two…”

  Kannus sat back and straightened, then something like a furry rocket slammed into him, sending him sprawling across the cobbles.

  Cal let his head drop back onto the ground with a clonk. “Oh,” he whispered. “Thank fonk for that.”

  The cheering of the crowd became murmurs of surprise as a tangle of hairy limbs rolled across the road, claws and teeth slashing and gnashing at the air.

  All around the plaza, the guards raised their rifles. With a bound, Sorshi leaped from the platform and landed in front of them. “Hold!” she cried, raising an arm. “That… That is my daughter!”

  The surprised murmuring became a chorus of full-on gasps. Kannus twisted free of Mizette’s grasp and jumped back out of her reach. A deep gash ran down the side of his neck, darkening his fur with his blood.

  “What trickery is this?” he demanded, raising his voice for the benefit of the audience. He pointed angrily at the panting Miz. “The shapeshifter. They have a shapeshifter. How dare you allow it to take the form of my Lifebound? How dare you?”

  “Oh, cut the shizz, Kannus,” said Cal, heaving himself to his feet. “That’s Miz. You didn’t kill her, you kept her prisoner.”

  “And now I’m totally going to kill you,” Miz snarled.

  “No, shapeshifter, you won’t!” said Kannus. “Guards!”

  The guards brushed Sorshi aside and formed a circle around Mizette. Her muscles tensed as she calculated her chances of reaching Kannus before the shooting started, but it was no use. She’d be dead before she’d made it halfway.

  “The shapeshifter and the pirate mongrel will be executed,” Kannus decreed. “Their companions will be hunted down and they, too, shall be put to death.”

  “You killed him, Kannus,” said Miz. “You killed my dad.”

  “And I can prove it,” said Cal. He turned and began to sprint across the cobbles, racing towards his abandoned backpack.

  Kannus leaped over the heads of his guards with a single bound. He powered along on all fours, eating up the gap between him and Cal in a few scant seconds.

  Cal could hear Kannus’s claws clicking across the cobbles as he threw himself at the backpack and frantically fumbled with the zip. “Come on, come on,” he hissed. Kannus was almost on him now. Just one more jump…

  Yelping with relief, Cal pulled the silver briefcase-sized box from inside the backpack. He lay it flat on his chest, his hands shaking as he felt around for the buttons.

  Kannus pounced.

  Cal pressed the box’s three hidden switches.

  The lid flipped open and a rectangular frame snapped together. Kannus and everyone standing behind him caught a brief glimpse of blue sky inside the frame, but then an enormous staring eye blocked the view.

  “What the fon—?” Kannus managed, before he sailed through the center of the frame, flapped frantically in the air for a moment, then dropped out of sight on the other side.

  Cal pressed the buttons and the lid snapped shut. With some effort, he pushed the box aside and sat up. “I’m sorely tempted to make some sort of ‘that’s what you call putting the dog out’ quip right now, but I think it might be quite racist, so I won’t,” he said.

  He stood, and quickly found himself surrounded by armed guards. “Hey, easy fellas,” he said, raising his arms. “We’re all good. I’m on your side.” He pointed to the largest of the guards. “Well, maybe not that guy, he looks quite mean, but the rest of you for sure.”

  A little way across the clearing, Sorshi cautiously approached her daughter. “Mizette?” she said, softly, like she was scared the word might break. “It’s you.”

  Miz nodded. “Yeah, mom. It’s me,” she said, then they collapsed into one another’s arms as the crowd erupted in a fresh chorus of cheers.

  Cal wiped one eye on his sleeve and put an arm round a guard’s shoulder. The guard was much bigger than him, so this wasn’t easy, and involved Cal standing on his tiptoes. “Man, I am a sucker for a happy ending,” he said, then he looked up as the Shatner came shuddering to a stop in the sky overhead. “Oh and look, here comes the cavalry. In the nick of fonking time, as usual.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes of hugging, explanations, hugging, a bit of crying, and some more hugging later, Cal and the rest of the team stood with Sorshi at the foot of the steps leading up to the podium. The crowds had watched on in a thrilled half-quiet, eagerly waiting to find out what was going to happen next. Very few of them had ever been to a coronation before, but even those who had would agree that this one was by far the best.

  “So, what happens now?” Cal asked.

  Sorshi and Miz exchanged a glance. “A new king will be chosen,” Sorshi explained. “From the guard ranks. It is not ideal, but they shall rule.”

  “What? That’s crazy,” said Loren. “Why don’t you do it?”

  Sorshi blinked in surprise. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you’re still queen, right?” said Mech.

  “Well, I mean… yes, but I am but a woman and know little of such--”

  “Bullshizz!” said Cal. “I watched you on Kifo, figuring out what needed to be done. And back there when Kannus was trying to get the guards to
shoot me, and you were all, like, ‘no, don’t do it!’ and everything. Thanks for that, by the way. If Graxan really was great like everyone says, then I’ll bet he was only great because of you standing beside him, keeping him right.”

  “He’s right, mom,” said Miz. “You’d be amazing. Way better than some dumb guard or whoever. You know everything.”

  “No-one knows everything,” said Sorshi. “We just know what we know.”

  “See!” said Cal. “That’s like some full-blown Yoda wisdom there.” He smiled and bowed his head, just a little. “That, if you ask me, is a queen talking.”

  Sorshi hesitated, but then shook her head. “The Greyx are ruled by kings. I am not the king.”

  “But you’re the queen, and you’ve got the Bladestaff,” said Loren.

  “The Bladestaff is not meant to be wielded by a woman,” Sorshi said. “‘He who wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx.’ He.”

  “Except that might not be what it says, is it? That’s just one translation,” said Cal. He looked at Miz. “That’s what you told me before, right? I’ll be honest, I was only partly listening.”

  Miz nodded. “Whoever wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx,” she said.

  “Not he. Whoever,” said Cal. He gave the queen a playful punch on the shoulder, and tried to ignore the dozen or more energy weapons that snapped up and took aim at his head. “So why not you?”

  Cal skipped down the steps two at a time, and thrust both hands above his head as the crowd began to cheer. If asked, they probably wouldn’t have been able to explain why they were cheering, exactly, but everyone else was doing it, and no-one wanted to be left out.

  “What are you doing?” asked Miz, leaning over the edge of the platform.

  Cal picked up the Bladestaff and hefted it in his hand a couple of times. “Tell your mom to catch!” he called, then he drew back his arm and tossed the weapon like a javelin. The crowd, the guards and everyone on the platform held their breath as the staff soared up, up, up. They followed it with their eyes, tracking it as it sliced through the air, almost in slow motion.

  Then, it fell back down again and landed with a clank on the ground in front of Cal. He looked down at it, disappointed. “That was supposed to be really cool and dramatic,” he said. He stooped and picked up the fallen staff. He thought about throwing it again, but then shrugged. “I’m just going to carry it up,” he said.

  The crowd made a non-committal sort of noise as Cal trudged sheepishly up the steps, then applauded politely when he managed to reach the top without dropping anything.

  He stopped in front of Sorshi. “Whoever wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx,” he said. He held the weapon towards her. After a moment, her fingers wrapped around the wooden shaft. Cal grinned. “Go wield the shizz out of this thing.”

  “Thank you,” said Sorshi. “The Greyx owes you a great debt. But, forgive me, I am afraid I must ask you one more favor.”

  “Name it,” said Cal.

  Sorshi glanced across at Mizette, and smiled. “Take good care of my daughter.”

  Miz frowned. “What?” she asked. “You mean… you’re not going to make me stay here?”

  “Since when could I make you do anything?” Sorshi asked. “Besides, you are free. You have no Lifebound now.”

  “Wrong,” said Cal, putting his arms around Loren and Mech. “She has three.”

  Miz scowled. “Ew. Shut up, or I swear I’m gonna throw up in my mouth.”

  “Yeah, man, that was pretty fonking cheesy,” said Mech.

  “Four, if you count Splurt,” said Cal, then his jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. “Splurt! We forgot Splurt!”

  “Where is he?” asked Miz, looking around.

  “Long story,” said Cal. “But we have to go.” He grasped Sorshi’s hand and shook it. “Queen, uh, Miz’s mom, lovely to see you, we must do this again some time. Well, not this exactly – let’s never do this again – but you know. Bye!”

  He bounded down the stairs and beckoned for the others to follow. “Come on, hurry up! We have to go get Splurt.”

  And with that, he raced over to the Shatner and darted inside.

  * * *

  Cal gripped his arm rests as Loren fired up the thrusters. “OK, is it me, or did we just shatter the glass ceiling and totally cure sexism back there?” he asked.

  “Well, I think that’s a bit of an over-simplification,” Loren began, but Cal silenced her with a wave.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s quite enough out of you, little lady. How about you leave the thinking to us menfolk?”

  Without turning, Loren raised a hand and gave Cal the finger. It was the wrong finger, but at least she’d tried.

  Cal spun his chair until he was facing Miz. She gazed past Loren at the scene outside. There, standing on the platform with the Bladestaff in her hand, was her mom. The Queen of the Greyx.

  “You OK?” Cal asked.

  She blinked, as if waking from a dream. “Yeah,” she said. She nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. I’m really good, actually. But what the fonk was that thing you used on Kannus?”

  “Oh, shizz, I left it out there!” Cal said. He jumped up, then saw Mech waving the box at him. “Ah, you’ve got it.”

  “Yeah, I got it. And I’m keeping it,” Mech said. “There’s no saying what you’d get up to with it.”

  “That’s fine. That’s totally fine,” said Cal. He held up his hands then turned to face the front. “There are only so many hiding places on this ship, anyway.”

  “Says the guy who didn’t know we had a bathroom,” said Loren, smirking as she eased the Shatner into the air.

  “Good point, well made,” said Cal. He fastened his belt across his chest.

  “So… what now?” asked Mech.

  “You know what I always say, Mech?” Cal asked.

  “Some bullshizz about songs you didn’t really write?” Mech guessed.

  “Something that sounds dramatic but makes little or no actual sense under closer scrutiny?” Loren suggested.

  “No! I always say that rescue missions are like busses. You wait ages for one, then two come along at once.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “See?” said Loren. “No sense.”

  “He’s saying we go get Splurt back,” said Mech.

  Loren looked around from her controls. “You do realize that means flying straight into the heart of Zertex space and probably breaking into one of their space stations, right?”

  Cal nodded and grinned. “Pretty exciting, right?”

  Loren sighed, but she smiled with it. “Never a dull moment,” she said, then she punched the controls and the Shatner rocketed away from Greyx Prime, and off in search of Splurt.

  Thank you for reading!

  Hello there!

  Thanks for taking the time to read Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle. I hope you enjoyed following on the adventures of Cal and the rest of the crew.

  Since you’ve made it this far, I’m hoping I can persuade you to leave me a quick review – partly to let others know what you thought of the book, and partly because every time someone reviews the book, a fairy gets its wings. Probably. I mean, I have no evidence one way or another, but I’m guessing that’s what happens.

  Also, if you want to get your hands on some free ebooks, like an exclusive prequel to my Space Team spin-off serial, The Bug or my short horror story, The Bone House, head over here and grab them now.

  Finally, I love hearing from my readers, so if you want to give me your thoughts on this or any of my books, ask questions, share family recipes, or just hurl insults my way, you can reach me at barry@barryjhutchison.com.

  Looking forward to hearing from you. Well, maybe not the insults.

  Best wishes,

  Barry

 

 
>