“What? No!”
“I could say, ‘Remember how you had a daughter?’ Well—”
“Kevin, if you do that I will rip your circuits out with my bare hands,” Cal warned him. “No calling ahead. No calling anyone. Do you understand?”
“I understand, sir,” said Kevin. “And I apologize. I was only trying to help. To be honest…”
Cal flicked his eyes up at the speaker. “To be honest what? Did you call her? Is that what you’re going to tell me, because I swear…”
“No, not that, sir,” said Kevin. “To be honest… I am having difficulty.”
Cal leaned back in his chair. “What kind of difficulty.”
“I feel like there’s… a hole, sir. Like there’s a piece of me missing that I’ll never get back. Like something that was there is now lost. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I do. I understand exactly what you mean.”
“Also, Mizette is dead,” Kevin said, sounding a little surprised, like he’d only just remembered. “So that’s put rather a downer on everything, too.”
Cal puffed out his cheeks. “It has. Can’t argue with that.”
He stood up. “Anyway, great talk, Kevin. I’d better go… somewhere else.”
“Are you going to check how things are going on the bridge, sir?”
“Yes! Yes, I’ll do that,” Cal said.
Leaving the kitchen, Cal paused outside Mizette’s door and brushed his hand against it. With a nod, he moved on up to the bridge and sat in his chair. Splurt had cleaned the blood off the floor while the others were through in Mizette’s room, although Cal wasn’t quite sure how, and wasn’t convinced he wanted to know.
As soon as Cal had sat down, Splurt flopped down from the ceiling and landed on his shoulder.
“Loren, you called Zertex yet and told them ‘thanks for nothing’?” Cal asked.
“I’ve tried, but we’re getting no reply,” Loren said.
“Guess they’re keeping out of our way,” Mech grunted.
“Good. Let’s hope it stays that way,” Cal replied.
They sat in silence, watching space roll by ahead of them. Loren opened her mouth to speak a couple of times, but then closed it again. On the third time, she finally said what was on her mind.
“Miz spoke to me. After Krone… After she got hurt. She spoke to me.”
Cal and Mech both turned to her. “She did?” Cal asked. “What did she say?”
“She said that I was a terrible pilot.”
Cal nodded. He glanced at Mizette’s empty chair. “Yeah, that sounds like her.”
“And then she told me not to leave,” Loren continued. “And then she reiterated that I was a terrible pilot.”
Cal’s chair creaked beneath him. “And?”
“And I don’t think I’m that bad.”
“Not about the pilot thing. About leaving.”
Loren stared ahead for a while, then half-turned in her chair. “Of course I’m not leaving,” she said. “I belong here with you guys. Besides, I’ve had enough of arguing with Miz. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give her the last word this one—”
“About to crash into Greyx Prime,” Kevin announced.
“What?! Fonk!” Loren spun in her chair, frantically hammered a series of controls, and the ship screeched to a stop. They all pretended not to hear the thump of something heavy hitting the wall in Mizette’s room.
“Sorry. My fault!” Loren said.
“I don’t think anyone needed that pointed out to them, ma’am,” said Kevin.
“It’s OK. No harm done,” Cal said, although from the wheeze in his voice it was possible this wasn’t entirely true. He gestured down at the planet below. “Is that Greyx Prime?”
“Yeah,” said Mech.
“Does it look different?” Cal wondered, then a crackling filled the screen and the view of the planet was replaced by the surly sneer of a grey-furred wolf man.
“Unidentified vessel, you are in violation of Greyx Space,” the guy barked. Pretty much literally. “Leave this sector or face the penalty.”
“Uh, hi. We’re here to see Queen… Uh, Miz’s mom,” said Cal.
“You have five seconds to vacate the sector,” the Greyx continued. “Or you shall be put to death in the name of the King.”
Cal shook his head. “Wait. Hold on, what? You don’t have a king. He died. You have a queen.”
“Not the Greyx king, the king,” the wolf man snarled. “The King of All Space. The High Emperor of the Galaxy.”
Cal flicked his eyes to Mech. “What the fonk’s he talking about?”
“I got no idea,” Mech said.
“What’s his name, this King of All Space?” asked Cal.
“Do not toy with me,” the Greyx spat. “You know his name. The Universe knows his name. He has ruled us for generations, and we have been grateful for his guidance.”
Cal leaned forward in his chair. “Remind me.”
“King Krone,” said the Greyx, bowing his head in a show of deference and respect. “The High Emperor, Geronimus.”
The words rained like punches around Cal’s head and chest, driving him back into his chair. Lost in time and space, that’s what Tim had said. Krone had been cast adrift in the time stream.
Somehow, he’d found his way out.
“Loren, get us out of here,” Cal said.
“On it,” Loren replied, her fingers already flying across the controls.
“Mech, can you do, like, a space scan and try to pick up TV transmissions? Is that a thing?”
“Yeah, that’s a thing,” said Mech. He tapped at his controls as the Untitled jumped to warp speed, leaving Greyx Prime trailing in its wake.
“Getting something,” Mech said. He gestured to the view screen. The top left corner was replaced by what looked like some news footage showing Krone standing before a vast rally of people.
Another image appeared, this time showing the spikey-armored general they’d seen in the time hole striding through the burning wreckage of a ship.
“No,” Cal whispered.
More clips flashed up. Krone’s face on a palatial building. A group of placard-carrying protesters being torn apart by space wolves. People begging, people bowing, people dying.
And ships. A thousand thousand of them, advancing across the galaxy, obliterating all those who stood against them.
“We sent him back in time,” Loren realized. “He’s been building up. That’s why I couldn’t reach Zertex. There is no Zertex.”
“Man’s made himself the King of Space,” Mech said. “We thought we’d stopped him, but this is worse than ever.”
Loren turned away from the screen until she faced Cal. “What do we do?” she asked.
Cal’s gaze flicked from each video feed to the next, the swirling light patterns reflecting in his eyes.
“Cal?” said Loren, trying but failing to hide the shake in her voice. “What do we do?”
What should he say to her? What should they do? Something clever, probably. But then, clever was never his strong point.
Something dumb, then.
Cal stood up. He looked around the bridge until his eyes finally fell on Miz’s empty chair. He spent a moment saying a silent goodbye, then he turned back to face front and grinned. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but he grinned.
“We’re gonna need a bigger team.”
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Your Free Starter Library
Oh! I Almost forgot…
Space Team: The Time Titan of Tomorrow Page 25
