Hollow Moon

by Steph Bennion

  “You didn’t need to warn us,” Endymion told her. “We know Fenris is up to no good. Remember how Taranis told him that special equipment was being brought to Hemakuta? We found some sort of brainwashing device in the conference hall control room.”

  “Brainwashing!” Surya screwed up his face in disgust.

  “There’s all sorts of false stories going around about your kidnap,” Philyra told him. “We could go to the Avalon news team with our very own scoop!” she suggested, seemingly inspired by a vision of herself fronting a holovid news report.

  “That’s a stupid idea,” retorted Bellona. “Ostara, what can we do?”

  Ostara opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated, not knowing what to say.

  “Sabotage the device,” Zotz piped up. “If you can get to it again. Do it in such a way that it doesn’t look obviously broken.”

  Endymion grinned. “No problem! What will you do?”

  “We are about to leave on a rescue mission,” Ostara said grimly. “If all goes well, we’ll see you again in Hemakuta tomorrow!”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Palace of Sumitra

  CONVERSATION WAS MUTED as the Sun Wukong touched down at Ayodhya spaceport. All aboard were preoccupied by his or her own thoughts, some more than others. Ravana sat quietly with her cat on her lap, tentatively exploring the multitude of images she could now call up at will inside her mind. The calibration programme Ganesa showed her on the holovid unit seemed little more than a random selection of pictures and symbols, but after a few minutes of watching Ravana felt new areas of her mind opening up in a way she found both daunting and empowering.

  On a more prosaic level, she had also made time for a quick bath in one of the palace’s sumptuous suites while Ganesa found her a change of clothes. The maroon and gold salwar kameez she now wore made a nice change from her usual flight suit. It was not as feminine as the traditional saree favoured by Yaksha or the Maharani, but trousers were infinitely more practical for the girl of action she had become.

  Ostara sat next to Ravana, alternating her gaze between the porthole at her shoulder and the slate in her hand. The latter had been entrusted to her by Yaksha and contained all the security information the royalists held on Sumitra Palace. Surya and Zotz sat together at the back of the passenger cabin, murmuring quietly to one another and giggling now and again at a private joke. Surya pointedly ignored Fenris, though shot the occasional wary glance at his once trusted companion. Fenris had gained a nasty-looking bruise above his left eye and kept his own stare upon Hanuman and Ganesa, visible through the open flight-deck doorway ahead.

  The spacecraft continued to roll for several more minutes. Finally, with a faint squeal of brakes, the Sun Wukong shuddered to a halt.

  “Looks like someone has come to meet us,” remarked Ostara, seeing a large hoverbus driving towards them. On the side of the vehicle were the words: ‘DHUSARIAN CHURCH OF YUANSHI – JOIN WITH US TODAY AND PRAY THE GREY WAY!’

  “That’ll be Namtar and Inari,” said Hanuman, stepping through from the flight deck. He pushed open the airlock door, took one look at the hoverbus and shook his head in exasperation. “A church minibus. They’re supposed to be keeping a low profile!”

  By the time they had all disembarked, Namtar and Inari were stood waiting at the door of the bus. Ravana instantly recognised the two men as the Raja’s kidnappers and was surprised at the amicable way in which Surya greeted them.

  “My dear Raja,” greeted Namtar, bowing gently. “It is indeed a pleasure to once again be in your service. You have picked a fine day to strike another blow for freedom.”

  “It’s raining in Lanka,” Ganesa told him, gazing into the clear blue sky over Ayodhya. A favourite whinge of the rebels was whether geography alone made Lanka such a dull, wet place, for many would not put it past Que Qiao terraforming teams to purposely make it so.

  “You two started all this,” Ravana said guardedly, regarding Namtar and Inari with suspicion. “I saw you take the Raja from the palace.”

  “These are the kidnappers?” asked Ostara. She sounded disappointed.

  “You’re from that crazy asteroid?” remarked Inari. “You’re a long way from home.”

  “Can you save the small talk until later?” interrupted Hanuman. “That includes getting chatty on your wristpads. If we need to pass on messages then Ganesa, Ravana and the Raja will use a secure channel via their implant headcoms. Is that clear?”

  He looked around the group and saw seven heads nodding. Fenris did not look so sure.

  “There is no way you will get away with this,” he retorted sullenly. “Taking a prisoner from beneath the noses of Que Qiao! Your plan is preposterous!”

  “We’ll see about that,” replied Hanuman. “Everyone, get on the bus.”

  In no time at all they were hurtling along the elevated expressway towards the city centre, high above the vast rice paddies that surrounded Ayodhya as far as the eye could see. Ganesa spent the time teaching Ravana and Surya how to use their headcom, the inbuilt implant communicator, which fascinated Ravana no end until she accidentally switched off the privacy setting and was instantly bombarded by calling cards, advertising messages and recorded friendship invitations, all from total strangers on the local net.

  Unlike the compact city of Lanka, Ayodhya began life as a rambling series of linked domes and terraforming had allowed the low-density conurbation to spread further still. As the hoverbus neared the graceful towers and sprawling industrial facilities on the outskirts of the city, they passed a cavalcade of jet cycles escorting a large official-looking ground car, all headed in the opposite direction.

  “Governor Jaggarneth,” Hanuman remarked. “On his way to the conference.”

  The church hoverbus continued across a slender suspension bridge towards the island park in the heart of Ayodhya, at the centre of which lay the majestic Palace of Sumitra. The expansive gardens and surrounding lake were open to the public and in no time at all the bus was pulling to a halt in a small, tree-lined car park within sight of the palace perimeter fence.

  The low rounded towers of Sumitra lay beyond a stretch of open ground. Ravana was surprised at how tranquil the scene looked, for she had been expecting to find a fortified military base bristling with Que Qiao armed guards. One by one, they trooped off the hoverbus and walked towards the fence to get a better look.

  “That used to be my home,” murmured Surya, visibly moved.

  “The Platypus!” exclaimed Ravana. Holding up her cat, she pointed to the indistinct purple and white shape to the right of the palace. “Look, Jones! There’s our spaceship!”

  Zotz rummaged through the bag he carried and withdrew a pair of gyroscopic binoculars. Putting them to his eyes, he nodded in agreement, then offered them to Ravana. Inari was already attacking the fence with a laser cutter and within minutes had sliced a large ragged hole in the wire mesh. Ravana peered through the binoculars and examined the distant spacecraft, which looked rather forlorn standing alone at the end of landing strip.

  “There doesn’t seem to be anyone on guard,” she noted.

  “Governor Jaggarneth will have taken his security team with him to Daode,” Namtar pointed out. “A fortuitous situation which will no doubt aid our forthcoming enterprise.”

  “He means there won’t be many agents around,” Inari translated, limping past them with a pained expression. He had managed to shear off the end of his boot with the laser cutter.

  Inari led Surya to the back of the bus and together they started unloading a series of long canvas bags from the luggage compartment. Hanuman gestured to Ravana, Zotz, Ostara, Ganesa and Fenris to go through the hole in the fence, then turned to Namtar.

  “Give us ten minutes,” he said. “Then do your thing.”

  “You can count on us,” Namtar declared. “Or me, at least.”

  Hanuman grinned and quickly slipped through the hole to join the others. Moments later he was leading a breathless sprint across the open groun
d beyond the fence, towards a cluster of low-roofed storage huts on the edge of the distant landing strip. Before long they were all gathered against the back wall of one such hut, not far from the parked spacecraft.

  “Everyone okay?” he gasped. It had been a long time since he had last run like that.

  “We’re fine,” replied Ganesa, smirking. “But our poor gallant captain is not used to strenuous exercise and seems to be having a heart attack.”

  Hanuman gave her a withering look. Beckoning to Ravana, he crept to the end of the wall and peered around the corner. The cylindrical bulk of the Platypus loomed before them; the tips of its starboard wings, wavering gently in the breeze, were barely ten metres away.

  “There’s no one in sight,” murmured Hanuman. “That’s a bit of luck.”

  “The main airlock is on the port side,” Ravana told him, peering over his shoulder.

  Hanuman waved to the others to follow. When Fenris hesitated, the pilot withdrew his plasma pistol, moved back to provide the necessary encouragement and motioned to Ravana to lead the group out across the airstrip. After a hurried dash beneath the purple belly of the ship, they arrived breathless at the cargo bay ramp. Ravana punched in the access code as quickly as she was able with a wriggling cat in her arms, then after what seemed an age the airlock opened and they all tumbled inside.

  “My word,” murmured Ravana.

  She lowered her pet to the floor. The walls and roof of the cargo bay were covered in thick tendrils, all sprouting from the main cable duct in the ceiling. Her cat nibbled at a nearby frond and gave a violent sneeze.

  “What’s with the crazy plant life?” asked Ganesa, somewhat bemused.

  “Woomerberg Syndrome,” Zotz told her, earning a blank look in return.

  “Zotz, come with me,” said Ravana. Her foot was already on the ladder leading to the crawl tunnel. “I need to give you access to the flight systems.”

  Leaving the others in the cargo bay, Ravana and Zotz hurriedly made their way to the flight deck. The strange tendrils had also spread around the cabin and part of the console, which she noticed was still minus the hatch covering the AI unit.

  Ravana pressed a switch on the console. “Ship? Confirm status.”

  “All systems on standby,” came the familiar female tones of the AI unit. “It is good to see you back aboard, Ravana. How may I serve you today?”

  Ravana regarded the console curiously. The AI unit had generally always referred to her as ‘Miss O’Brien’ until now.

  “This is Zotz Wak,” she said, introducing him to the ship. There were cameras in the cabin, but she could not remember where and gestured to Zotz to do a slow pirouette. “Please add him as a registered member of the crew and grant him co-pilot access to all systems.”

  “Welcome to the crew, Master Wak. I look forward to learning your voice print.”

  “Quite,” murmured Ravana. The tendrils were one thing, but a chatty spacecraft was something else entirely, especially now she knew the AI’s thoughts were the product of alien brain cells. “Ship, run pre-flight checks for a short interplanetary hop to Hemakuta spaceport, Daode. I have one last thing to do before we leave, but be ready for a quick getaway.”

  “Good luck,” said Zotz quietly. He suddenly looked quite distraught.

  Ravana leaned over and gave him a kiss. “Look after Jones and the Platypus for me.”

  Before Zotz could reply, she quickly dropped into the crawl tunnel and returned to the cargo bay. With a wary eye upon Fenris, Hanuman was showing Ostara how to use his plasma pistol, which she held as if it were a dead fish.

  “Zotz has access to the AI unit,” Ravana reported. “What now?”

  “Now we wait for the diversion,” murmured Hanuman.

  *

  Surya stood at the control panel of the rocket launcher, awestruck by the simplistic yet savage lines of the weapon created from the contents of the bags. It had taken Namtar and Inari just a few minutes to assemble the device, which was essentially a barrel and flare shield fixed to a tilted frame. The battered shield had one new dent where Namtar had hit Inari with it after the fat man accidentally caught Namtar’s shins with part of the frame.

  “This is amazing,” murmured Surya. He idly brushed his fingers across the panel.

  “No touching!” snapped Namtar. “The firing circuits are live.”

  “I haven’t loaded a rocket yet,” Inari muttered, limping towards them.

  The black cylinder in his arms was half a metre long and oozed malevolence from the red cone at one end to the small rocket nozzle and guidance fins at the other. Inari lifted it to the open end of the barrel, pressed a concealed lever to make the fins retract and then dropped the rocket smoothly into the launcher. There was a soft thud as the missile slid inside and linked with the ignition mechanism at the bottom of the barrel.

  “Is this what you two do in the war?” asked Surya. “Terrorist attacks?”

  “We are not terrorists!” Namtar declared indignantly. “We are freedom fighters, with the right of the Dhusarian Church on our side!”

  Surya was quite taken aback at this sudden outburst. Namtar frowned, well aware of how the rebels’ activities looked to Que Qiao. His own motives for joining the Dhusarian Church and Kartikeya’s royalist army were questionable, for Namtar had done so purely for personal gain, admittedly with little success.

  “My father, Ravana’s mother and other innocent people have died in your fight for freedom,” Surya said at last. “Perhaps my place is here on Yuanshi. If I can help bring peace to the moon then I should. I am sure this would have been my father’s wish.”

  “Honourable words indeed, my dear Raja,” said Namtar, though they all knew the late Maharaja had been far from innocent as far as the war was concerned. “It is time for us to select an apt target for creating our diversion. I am reliably informed there are a number of official transports on the far side of the palace that should serve admirably.”

  Surya took this as a cue to step away from the launcher’s control panel. He watched with interest as Namtar switched on the guidance system and brought up a satellite image of Sumitra Palace and the surrounding park on the console screen. Various dark blobs were marked by a green square, with a large group of them on the other side of the palace and a further solitary one very close to their own position. Earlier, Namtar had suggested it would be better if Inari personally took a homing beacon to the car park but Inari had refused, for he was slowly becoming wise to Namtar’s homicidal tendencies.

  “You’re right,” observed Inari. Surya joined him in peering over Namtar’s shoulder at the cluster of green squares on the screen. “There’s a whole convoy parked over there.”

  Namtar pressed the green square at the centre of the cluster and the symbol marking the distant Que Qiao ground car began to flash red. Satisfied, he lifted a cover next to the screen to reveal a large red button. His finger moved to press it, then paused.

  “Would you care to have the honour, my Raja?” he asked.

  Surya’s eyes lit up and he nodded greedily. Extending his own hand, he put a finger to the button and gave it a firm press. With a deafening whoosh, the rocket erupted out of the launcher and soared into the air, leaving a white vapour trail in its wake.

  “Wow!” he exclaimed. “That is fantastic!”

  Surya stared in delight at the missile speeding towards its target. As he stepped back for a better look, he accidentally trod upon Inari’s laser-damaged boot and was promptly deafened by an agonised shriek as the freedom fighter felt the boy’s weight crushing down upon his charred toes. Blinded by pain, Inari half-hopped, half-staggered away, then made a grab for the launcher to stop himself from falling. His fingers barely managed to brush the control panel and then he was on the ground, sobbing gently as he clutched his wounded foot.

  “Sorry about that,” murmured Surya.

  “You fool!” roared Namtar. Surya looked at him in alarm, but it was to the fallen Inari he spoke. “You imbecile! You
’ve reset the guidance control!”

  Inari slowly staggered to his feet and looked at the console. Surya saw the target was no longer that selected in the heart of the far-away cluster; instead, it was the square closest to them that now flashed red. As one, they looked up into the sky and saw the rocket begin to loop around and head back in their direction.

  “It’s locked onto the bus!” Inari glanced over his shoulder in horror to where the church hoverbus was parked. “How do I stop it?”

  Namtar did not reply. Mesmerised by the rapidly-approaching missile, he was dumbstruck and rigid with fear. Inari started hammering at the console screen but the pain in his foot and his growing panic thwarted his efforts to change the target back again. Surya took one look at the situation and quickly came up with a plan of his own.

  “Run!” he yelled.

  Not waiting for a response, Surya sprinted towards the trees at the edge of the car park. Namtar uttered a strangled cry and quickly followed, abandoning Inari to limp to safety alone. They had barely reached the shelter of the surrounding woodland when the missile struck the unsuspecting hoverbus with a mind-numbing bang. Surya yelped as a huge blast of hot air swept them off their feet.

  The bombardment of flaming shreds of church minibus came a split second later. Soon the surrounding undergrowth was ablaze, forcing them to scramble further into the trees. Once clear, they staggered to a halt and looked back at the scene of devastation on the car park. The explosion had torn the hoverbus apart and scattered the pieces far and wide, leaving nothing but the charred and twisted remains of the chassis and a plume of black smoke. Incredibly, all three of them had escaped with no more than a few cuts and bruises from where they had been thrown to the ground.

  “All in all, not a good week for the Dhusarian Church,” remarked Namtar. At his feet lay a smoking fallen panel inscribed with the words: ‘PRAY THE GREY WAY!’.