by Max Chase
“NO!” Selene cried. “We’re too close, we’ll be sucked back in!”
Peri’s hands were straining toward the control panel. “We’ll just go superluminal again.”
“We can’t,” Selene said, checking the energy gauge. “Superluminal drains the ship’s energy and we can’t use it again until we’ve had time to recharge.”
The Phoenix shuddered under the force of the mighty vortex. They stood openmouthed and watched the vortex swirling ever faster until it seemed to reach top speed. Then it exploded into a chaos of white-hot light that rattled the entire ship.
KA-BLAM!
The colossal blast flung the Phoenix away from the vortex. It tumbled and whipped through space like dust in a solar wind—sideways, upside down, back to front. Thankfully, the bridge’s UpRighter mechanism kept it steady, no matter what. But Peri still had to turn his back to the monitors to avoid getting dizzy. He and Selene worked frantically to get the ship under control.
Together they managed to bring the Phoenix safely to rest.
“Phew!” Selene said. Peri wiped his brow and smiled.
Diesel lounged against the gunnery station. “We’ve saved our galaxy,” he boasted. “With the vortex gone, no more Xion ships can ambush the Milky Way.”
“I guess,” Peri said. Then a thought struck him like a laser beam: they might never know if the Milky Way was safe. Yes, they’d destroyed the Xions’ attack route, but the vortex was also their only way back home.
He sighed. They’d better face facts: this spaceship was going to be their home for some time.
Maybe forever.
Selene looked glum too. She was studying the navigation system. It showed no flight paths, no coordinates, no speed calculations … nothing.
“How can that be?” he asked her.
Selene shrugged. “We’re in a new galaxy on the other side of the vortex. Maybe even another universe, for all we know. Wherever we are, we’re in a place that hasn’t yet been mapped by Earth’s galactic cartographers.”
Panic vibrated through Peri. He and his crew literally had no idea where they were—and neither did anybody else.
“We’re cosmically lost,” he groaned.
He stared hopelessly at the boundless view on the monitors. They were in a planetary system all right, but it looked totally unfamiliar. For a start, several suns were blazing in the far distance. The huge planets he could see all seemed to be in pairs, and had no moons. And there were bright nebula clouds everywhere.
“Hey!” Selene said. “What’s that?”
A small purple orb had ejected from the hull of the Phoenix. It was whizzing around the constellations like a crazy robotic spaceball.
“No way!” Peri shouted excitedly. “It’s the Quikmap 7000! I heard my parents talk about it once, but I didn’t think they’d built the prototype yet. That little thing can chart a galaxy faster than a lightning strike.”
Diesel craned his neck for a better view. They followed the orb’s path on the viewing panel, which zoomed in with its millionfold magnifying lens.
Peri continued, “See, Quikmap 7000 takes thousands of infrared images that feed into the ship’s navigation system. We’ll have a map of our new terrain in under a minute!”
“Yeah,” Diesel said, trying to sound bored. “I’ve known about the Quikmap all my life …”
Peri rolled his eyes, squared his shoulders, and said, “Listen, Your Highness: we’ve got to work together if we’re going to survive out here. We need to get organized.” He ticked off a list on his fingers: “How much food and water do we have onboard? How about fuel? How long—”
“Wait a minute!” Diesel interrupted, his band of hair bristling. “Who died and made you captain? I mean, this ship just isn’t big enough for all three of us. I should eject the pair of you into space.”
“Actually,” Selene replied, “it’s big enough for all of us and a few thousand friends.” She leaned over and studied the control panel. “I only know a fraction of the expansion packs. But this”—she tapped a button—“and this”—she flipped a switch—“and this”—she clapped her hands with a flourish—“should do for now.”
Peri and Diesel watched in awe as the Phoenix transformed itself. The egg-shaped pod expanded, growing a bunch of hallways and compartments. In every direction new portals led to unexplored areas. It was like watching a spaceship being born. Everything gleamed in the rays of the galaxy’s many suns.
“That’s amazing!” Peri exclaimed. “What’s in those extensions?”
“I’ll find out!” Diesel said eagerly. “I’ll report back when … when I feel like it.” He sauntered off, then called over his shoulder, “I mean, if I feel like it …”
Peri and Selene shared a look. Being lost in space with this big-headed bozo was not going to be fun.
“I’ll head to Engineering to assess the damage,” Selene said as she pulled on her ultraviolet goggles. “I’ll see if I can get superluminal working again.”
“Engineering? How do you even know where that is?” Peri wondered.
“This is the Phoenix. If I think Engineering is down here”—she pointed at the portal farthest from Peri—“that’s exactly where it will be.” The portal opened with a hiss. Selene smiled. “Get it?”
Peri nodded. The ship was designed to help out its crew. It could sense what they needed. “Awesome!” he exclaimed.
He watched Selene leave, then turned to the Quikmap 7000 and set their course for the nearest uninhabited planet. Until they figured things out, being safe from enemy attack was their first priority. And his current plan was to hide.
He collapsed into his captain’s chair. Now that he had a quiet moment, he realized his arm was throbbing. It still hurt where the alien’s claw had slashed it. He took off his torn space jacket. His shirt sleeve was stiff with dried blood, but he tugged apart the rip as best he could and looked in. It was pretty gruesome. His skin had peeled away from the bright red gash, showing the flesh and veins beneath.
But there was something else in there too. Something that pulsed with a faint blue light.
He looked closer. Wires? Tiny computer chips? His arm looked more like the inner workings of a computer than the inside of a human.
Now his own body felt alien.
Chapter 7
Peri was totally confused. His mind raced at superluminal speed. How could he have wires in him if he was human?
Or was he? Could he be bionic without knowing it? Was he actually a robot programmed to behave like an Earth boy?
No. No, that can’t be right, he thought, as he checked himself all over for signs—rivets, switches, any metal—that he might not have noticed before. He found nothing.
He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. “I can’t be bionic!” he whispered fiercely. “I have to sleep, eat, and drink like humans do.”
Peri shook his head—he just couldn’t be bionic. Bionic beings did not feel things like Peri did. He remembered being happy, scared, excited, and angry in his life—man-made robots did not have emotions.
“Plus, I’m bleeding,” he reassured himself. “Robots don’t bleed. So I can’t be all bionic.”
There was no time to figure out anything else because, when he looked up, he saw his mom and dad. He rubbed his tired eyes. I must be dreaming, he thought. Or maybe traveling through the vortex knocked us all unconscious? Maybe I’m not—
He looked closer at his parents, smiling and nodding. They were wearing their lab coats and standing in front of a wall covered with space-o-metric diagrams. He recognized that wall and all the equipment scattered around them. They were in their astro-lab, which, for reasons of intergalactic security, hovered in an unknown location over the Atlantic Ocean.
Peri was looking at a detailed hologram.
His mother spoke first. “Peri, if you’re receiving this message, something has gone terribly wrong.”
A lump caught in Peri’s throat. This was a prerecorded message, and it wasn’t very r
ecent either. His father didn’t have his beard, and his mother still had long hair. They were a lot younger.
Now his father was talking. He looked serious. “Son, you’re the only one who can handle this mission.”
“Me?” Peri said aloud. He’d only had twelve days of cadet training!
His father went on, “You see, your mother and I desperately wanted to give you the chance to escape if there was a Universal War. So we modified you.” He smiled affectionately. “You’re part bionic and part human. You can connect with this great ship on a human and robotic level. Your full name is Experiment, but everyone’s always called you Peri for short.” He gazed at Peri. “Now that you are onboard the Phoenix, the bionic part of you has been engaged. Son, you are vital to the running of the Phoenix. In fact, it can’t function without you.”
Peri felt as if the whole cosmos had been turned upside down. Then, slowly, everything started to make a kind of sense. “So that’s why I understand how the controls work,” he said.
Well, it certainly explained a lot. But it also raised about a million more questions.
He was not going to get answers, though—his parents were already giving their final recorded words of advice: “Trust your judgment,” encouraged his mother. “Use all your skills,” urged his father.
Then, together, they said: “We hope to see you again someday.” His mother’s voice trembled with emotion.
The image dissolved. Peri’s parents were gone.
He was overwhelmed. He needed more answers.
Peri slipped his coverall back on. The sleeve had already mended itself, and the tear was completely gone. “I don’t want the others to see my wires,” he said to himself. “Nobody can know about this till I’ve had a chance to—”
Blip! Blip! Something was coming into focus on the viewing panel. His jaw dropped.
“Oh, no!” Peri searched frantically for the intercom button, found it, and pressed it. “Selene! Get back here!”
Tsack! Selene materialized right next to his chair. Peri jumped so high it was like he’d lost gravity.
“Don’t do that!” he cried out in surprise. Then he looked at her in admiration. “Did you just beam yourself here? How?”
Selene didn’t reply. She just stared at the monitor, her face turning paler and paler …
Without a word, she grabbed the control panel from Peri. Her fingers were a blur of speed over the keys. Then she said in a rush, “I’ve got to shrink the ship to a more maneuverable size, or we’ll be in big trouble!”
Peri’s first thought was, But Diesel’s off somewhere … Before he could open his mouth, the expansion packs soundlessly retracted. Diesel tumbled back onto the bridge. He bounced to his feet, and the portal disappeared behind him.
“What the ar’ba’h is going on?!” he huffed. “What are you Oorts up to now?”
He got no reply. Selene zoomed in on the viewing panel, and all three of them gawked.
The scene was like something from the academy’s 3-D battle simulations, but a zillion times more frightening. Two awesome alien warships faced off against each other. One of the vessels was snaking back and forth across the floodlit sky like an immense viper. Its reinforced hull had hundreds of pulsing segments, each one loaded with deadly currents that rippled into the atmosphere. Even at this distance they made the Phoenix’s radioactivity gauge screech. The other warship was a metal orb with spikes and eyeballs and DeathRays. Peri had seen too many of these today …
“Xions again!” Diesel spat out. “Don’t these guys ever stop?”
The Xions unleashed a firestorm of DeathRays at the viper ship, which hissed back jets of crimson current. The galaxy was ablaze with blinding white flashes and scorching red blasts. Steel tentacles whipped out of the Xion vessel. The viper ship writhed back, then zapped them. Chunks of tentacle whizzed past the Phoenix.
Peri realized their ship was completely open to attack.
“Selene!” he shouted. “Switch on the cloaking device!”
She shook her head. “It’s out of order. We’ve got to think of something else …”
Peri was baffled. “Well, then let’s superluminal ourselves out of here!”
Again, she shook her head. “That’s what I discovered in Engineering. The vortex damaged our ship. I don’t know how badly yet, but those functions aren’t working.”
“So we’re a sitting target?” Diesel yelled. “I thought you were supposed to be a crack mechanic!”
All of a sudden the viper ship twisted around to face the Phoenix. Every one of the Xion ship’s eyeballs swiveled toward them as well.
Then, as Peri, Selene, and Diesel watched, both warships readied and aimed their weapons … right at them.
Chapter 8
The hull of the viper ship was pulsing with deadly currents. The hatches of the Xion warcraft gaped open, each one revealing a loaded DeathRay pulverizer.
The Phoenix was about to be wiped out.
Everyone sprang into action. Peri grabbed the control panel and twisted an expansion knob. “Selene!” he said urgently. “Get back to Engineering! You’ve got to give us more speed somehow, or make us invisible!” The girl saluted and sprinted toward the corridor that was just appearing.
Diesel was searching the gunnery station. “I know we’ve got better ammo than the xenon missiles,” he snarled, pulling levers and triggers. “But where in the prrrip’chiq are they?”
BOOM! Diesel paused, his finger hovering over the last button. The Xion ship was firing at them. BOOM! Peri stood still, his eyes warily scanning the monitors. He couldn’t see the enemies’ rockets. An eerie silence fell, like the calm before a meteor storm.
As if in a daze, Peri threw a switch to activate the SeeAll. Instantly, the viewing panel blacked out everything—planets, stars, spaceships—except the two enemy stealth charges. Both were hurtling on a direct course for the Phoenix. They were invisible to the naked eye.
“Gotcha, you Xion sneaks!” Peri cried.
He seized the Nav-wheel, and in one swift movement steered the spaceship out of their line of fire. The stealth charges raced past into the darkness.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Immediately, dozens of new stealth charges appeared on the SeeAll, alongside tons of DeathRay lasers.
Peri flexed his fingers. This was going to be like bumper-car pods, but even messier …
“All engines firing, Captain!” Selene called up on the intercom. “We’ve got more speed, but no superluminal yet.”
Peri couldn’t reply. He was counting down to his next countermaneuver, “Three … two …”
His hand froze. What looked like a massive wave was sweeping over the map on the SeeAll. The stealth charges detonated midflight. The DeathRay lasers splintered into harmless sparks.
Peri’s mouth fell open. “But …,” he stammered.
Diesel snickered. “I found the sonic boom and sent our Xion friends a whopping wave of noise!” he said. He patted a large zip-dial that had sprung up from his console. He was still guffawing when he stuck his fingers in his ears. Peri looked at him, puzzled.
“What are you doing that for?” he asked.
Diesel shrugged. “No reason,” he replied.
Seconds later, a head-splitting roar washed over them, practically lifting Peri out of his seat. It was so loud it was like being inside a supercharged turbo engine. He gawked at Diesel. He could see the half-Martian laughing and laughing until blue tears ran down his cheeks. Diesel mouthed, “Feedback!”
But Peri couldn’t hear a thing.
All at once the Phoenix began pitching and rocking as a new round of Xion lasers smacked into its defense shield. Direct hits! Peri could see from the control panel that the shield’s protective power was dropping to dangerous levels. The bridge lights flashed red. Peri guessed an alarm was going off too. Diesel’s smirk was gone. While the sonic boom reloaded, the gunner fought back with xenon missiles.
“If the viper ship attacks us now, we’re history!” Peri said loudly. H
e was still deaf, and his head felt fuzzy. “We’ve got to let them know we’re on their side against those Xion bullies.”
Peri felt a rush of air as Selene materialized next to him. Then he saw her shout, “Heat-seeking rocket!” and she shoved him out of the way.
Peri watched as Selene deactivated the SeeAll and spun thermo-dials to rapidly cool the Phoenix. On the monitors he could see that the rocket had been launched from the viper ship.
Peri groaned. “They’re the enemies of our enemies. That should make them our friends! I mean, we’ve been trying to help them …”
The Phoenix bucked and swerved. Selene was accelerating hard to stay ahead of the rocket. Peri’s eardrums popped and his head cleared. He had an idea.
“My turn!” he said, grabbing the controls. Diesel was still at the gunnery station, rat-tat-tat-ing some weapon or other toward the rocket, without success.
Peri steeled himself and then charged the Phoenix right at the Xion warship. The vessel flew so effortlessly under his command that it felt like an extension of his own body. He headed into the lightning storm of pulverizer beams and stealth charges. Selene called out directions: “Go left!”
“Pull up NOW!”
“Bank right!”
With her help, Peri dodged everything the aliens threw at them. He skimmed across the spikes and whipped around the eyeballs, until he dropped the Phoenix like a falling star right behind the Xion warship.
The heat-seeking rocket was fooled. Instead of the Phoenix, it homed in on the nearest molten-red pulverizer. There was an eye-scorching flash, an immense BANG, and then a mass of swirling debris. The Xion warship was obliterated.
Peri punched the air. “Nice work, crew!”
The viper ship seemed to be retreating. Its crimson hull had stopped pulsing, and its thrashing tail finally lay still. Peri held his breath. Maybe everything was going to be okay.
