by Steve Cole
“It is simply an entry hatch, child,” came a cool voice from behind him. “It allows me access to the workings of a most special machine . . .”
Niall spun round. Sam spun round twice.
Cleopatra stood before them.
“What machine?” Niall demanded.
“A machine I started building over two thousand years ago.” Cleopatra smiled. “It will transform this pitiful planet into my personal power-base – one that I shall use to plunder the galaxy!”
She pointed at Niall, and the ring on her finger glowed brightly, ready to do its worst.
Chapter Eleven
Dreadful Traitor Mummy
“Wait, your evil pharaoh queenliness!” Sam grabbed hold of Niall’s shoulder and pushed him down into the sand. “The boy jumped into my travel spell. I did not bring him on purpose! I am always your loyal servant.”
Niall gasped. “No, Sam, no!”
“Forgive me, my young friend.” Sam sighed as he looked down at Niall. “I told you, I must serve Cleopatra. A simple Secret Agent Mummy cannot disobey the commands of his mighty pharaoh, whatever she has done.”
“But she’s crazy, Sam!” Niall looked up pleadingly. “Evil—”
“Shh!” Sam clapped his hand over Niall’s mouth. “I am bound by my sacred codes of mummy conduct.” He smiled hopefully at Cleopatra. “I trust my dog-servant brought you here in comfort?”
“That mangled old mutt conked out the moment we arrived,” said Cleo sniffily. “Utterly useless. Much like you, boy.”
Niall braced himself for the deadly flash from Cleo’s ring. But suddenly, the familiar, high-pitched wail of the Snitch carried from somewhere in the trees close by. “Stop it, you horrible golden snake-thing! Ow! Bite me one more time and I’ll tell my mum! Helllllllllllllp! What’s going on? Where am I? HELLLLLLLLLP!”
“Niall IS of use, Great Terrible Queen!” Sam took his hand away from Niall’s mouth. “He can stop his small sister from making that terrible noise. She, er, respects him greatly and will obey him always.”
“Yeah. Right,” said Niall; if he hadn’t been so scared he would’ve burst out laughing. “Ellie will listen to me.”
“Well . . .” Cleopatra slowly lowered the ring. “Since I need the little girl, perhaps you may come in useful.” As she spoke, the ASP appeared in her hand, and she held the snake’s-head spout to her lips. “Ahhh . . . yes, I can feel the girl’s youthful essence making me strong again . . .”
“HELLLLLLLP!” Ellie wailed again from the trees. “The sand is too hot! This tree is too hard! If I’m not set free soon, I’m going to hurt somebody! Who’s first, huh? HUH?”
“I knew it!” Niall did his best to shut out his little sister’s din as he glared at Cleopatra. “You don’t need just one gulp of Ellie’s life-force to bring you back from the dead, do you? You need lots.”
“It is true.” Cleopatra scowled. “If I am to stay looking young and fit and beautiful, I must take your sister’s youth for myself.”
Niall felt his eyes widen. “You mean . . . your ASP will go on biting her until it’s sucked out all her life-force?”
“Eventually,” Cleopatra agreed. “Without her sweet strength, this body would return to dust.”
“HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!” shrieked Ellie, and Niall knew what she meant.
“I fear the human girl is close to exploding in big, big panic,” said Sam. “Niall, you had better calm her down at once.” He looked at Cleopatra. “That is, if we may go to her, your evil queenliness?”
Cleopatra nodded. “I have her tied to a tree outside the ruins of the Temple of Amun-Re. And I must go there now to activate my great machine. Come.” As she walked, she glanced up at the wide blue sky and smiled. “Yes, the time is right . . .”
Niall followed her gaze – and almost choked.
The sun up above had been joined by six more! The extra suns were paler, but they were definitely there in the sky. They were arranged in a kind of hexagon pattern, just as they’d been in his dream.
“Er . . . what is the meaning of those new suns in the sky, my dreadful queen?” asked Sam.
“They are a part of my purpose, Mummy. A purpose that began over two thousand years ago.” Cleopatra sneered at him as she led the way into the oasis. “All those times you used to escort me to the temple, I was secretly installing my alien systems . . . and over the centuries, while I slept, the machine built itself under the desert sands, growing like a living thing.”
“But what does it do?” Niall demanded.
“It draws energy from the Earth’s core and feeds it into those!” Cleopatra pointed through the palms to the circles of light. “Those are not real suns. They are sub-orbital planet-thrusters. You might understand them better as ‘rocket jets’ – powerful enough to push the Earth out of this solar system and away into space. What a getaway I shall make!”
“You’re fruit loops!” Niall cried helplessly.
Cleopatra threw back her head and laughed. “The Earth will become a planet-sized spaceship under my control, crewed by an army of human slaves.”
“No!” Niall shouted. “The armies of the world will unite and fight you. They’ll bomb you and fire missiles and turn you to mush!”
“The power of my planet-thrusters will melt any weapon they send,” Cleopatra gloated. “And it will destroy those who fire them. The survivors of this world shall fight for me, attacking alien planets, stealing their gold and loot . . . while I rule over all – Cleopatra, the Cosmic Pharaoh!”
“Goodness me,” said Sam. “Well, er, I shall look forward to the misery and terror ahead with much excitement.”
“Oh, Sam . . .” Niall looked up at his friend. “Sort your life out – please!”
Throughout the incredible conversation, the Snitch had kept up her combination of screams, threats and warbles for help. Now, as Sam marched Niall through a spiky bush, he saw that she had indeed been tied to a tree. Mumbum lay beside her, conked out on his side. The Snitch’s cheeks were red, and as her eyes fixed on Niall, her expression grew fiercer.
“Niall!” she bellowed. “I might have known! This is all some stupid practical joke, isn’t it? Is that Jake and Bradley you’ve dressed up in those stupid outfits?” She glared at Cleopatra. “I KNEW she wasn’t a real woman!”
“Woman? Ha! I am not even a real human!” For a moment Cleopatra’s regal form shimmered, and Niall glimpsed her true, terrifying shape – the shape of an intergalactic alien criminal. She had big black eyes and goblin ears, skin the colour of mouldy cheese, a huge belly and big, six-fingered hands. “I disposed of the real Cleopatra one night and took her place.” Her body snapped back into her Egyptian form, and she smiled smugly. “No one ever noticed the difference.”
“So you’re not the real pharaoh, after all!” Niall looked up at Sam and hissed, “That means you don’t have to do what she says!”
But Sam didn’t seem to hear – and then the Snitch let rip with the loudest shriek of all time. Sam sighed. After some fiddling, he tore a bandage off his arm and held it out to Niall. “Quickly. Make her be quiet.”
Niall snorted. “Can’t you just use a shaddap wrap?”
“Do it!” Sam commanded. “Um, please?”
Ears already aching, Niall scrambled over and put the bandage over Ellie’s mouth. She glared at him, but he shook his head with a warning look. “Shhh! As you might have worked out, we’re in big trouble!”
Cleo turned her back on them, and headed towards some crumbling sandstone blocks that lay in a clearing.
“The old Temple of Amun-Re,” Sam said. “This is all that is left?”
“Yes. But while stone has crumbled above ground, my machine has grown larger beneath it.” Cleo clapped her hands together. “And now the systems are primed. The sun-thrusters are lit. At long last it is time to activate them!”
Niall watched as she pressed a hand against one of the old blocks and it glowed blue.
Moments later, the oasis began to shake.
A horrible grating noise filled the air. Sam fell to his knees. Trees uprooted themselves and bushes rolled away like tumbleweed. Ellie gasped so hard she sucked Sam’s bandage gag right into her mouth. Only Cleopatra seemed entirely unfazed.
Goggle-eyed, Niall saw that a long metal aerial was emerging out of the ground beside the alien queen – and there was something else beneath it; something wider and sturdier, maybe ten metres across. The aerial was fixed to the top of a mighty tower made of sandstone blocks, and Cleo was riding it like some kind of crazy escalator. A grand ebony throne folded out from the summit of the tower beside the aerial, and strange control panels came into sight. Cleopatra sat there, smiling as the high-tech tower rose ever higher into the air.
“From here, I shall broadcast my demands to the people of the world,” she boomed, arms reaching up towards the new suns in the sky. “All shall bow to me! All shall die for me! The Earth is MINE!”
Chapter Twelve
Battle to the Last
“Yes, Great Queen! All must praise you!” Sam clapped his bandaged hands. “Niall, you should take out your sister’s gag, and let her praise Cleopatra.”
“No, thanks,” said Niall coldly.
“I strongly suggest that you do,” Sam persisted.
“No way.”
“Please.”
“N-O!”
“I will be being your best friend.”
“You were, once,” Niall said miserably. “Now you can stuff it.”
“Very well,” said Sam. He turned to face Cleo on top of her high-tech tower, raised his arms as if in worship . . .
And suddenly blasted her with high-pressure delta force from his right palm! The jet of water was so powerful it knocked Cleopatra off her throne. She fell face first onto the stone top of the tower.
“Sam!” Niall beamed. “You mean, you were just pretending to serve her?”
“A simple Secret Agent Mummy cannot disobey the commands of his pharaoh.” Sam shrugged. “But now I know for sure that this is an evil alien who killed the true pharaoh and took her place, I owe her no loyalty at all.”
“Besides, you’re not a simple Secret Agent Mummy.” Niall gave him a high five. “You’re an awesome one!”
But Cleo didn’t seem to think so. “Wretch! Traitor!” she screeched, looking like a drowned desert rat. “You will pay for that, Mummy!”
She pointed her finger at Sam, and her ring shone bright.
He jumped aside, and the next second the bushes behind him were burned to cinders.
Niall turned to Ellie, and saw that she was asleep – was it the bandage, or sunstroke, or had she simply fainted? He had no clue, but he knew that while Cleo would happily blast him to bits, she wouldn’t risk striking the girl whose youth she needed to stay alive.
“Sam,” he shouted, “take shelter over here!”
But Cleo’s ring-rays were driving Sam further away from Niall, Ellie and the fallen Mumbum. As the mummy stumbled about through the smoking undergrowth, he tossed pyramid-grenades up at the tower. Ka-BOOM! Ker-BLAMM! Huge explosions tore chunks of stone from Cleo’s stronghold.
“You pickled halfwit!” Through the smoke, Niall saw Cleo pull some control levers. “Let the power of my suns boil your bones!”
“Ellie’s gag, my friend!” Sam yelled. “Take it out!”
“It’s OK!” Niall yelled back. “She’s not even conscious.” Scurrying out from the cover of the bushes, he threw fallen coconuts at Cleopatra. One of them bounced off her throne, but he couldn’t get a clear shot at her. And meanwhile, the six suns were growing brighter in the sky, pulsing together as one.
“Uh-oh!” cried Sam, as sizzling bolts of crimson light rained down on him. He dived to the ground and hid behind one of the great sandstone blocks. But one of the fire bolts hit his left leg – he cried out as it blackened his bandages. Cleopatra cackled.
Swiftly, Sam peeled a strip of bandage off his wrist and shouted into the firestorm:
Fires of heaven,
Hit me no more –
Strike the foul alien
Who started this war!
At the mummy’s magical command, the crimson rays veered away from him and started to strike Cleopatra’s tower. Her controls sparked and smoked, and with a snarl of anger she turned off the searing sun-beams.
“I’ve got to give Sam some back-up,” Niall muttered. He crouched over the run-down Mumbum and pulled off the side-panel of the sparkling gold body-suit. Straight away he got to work on the controls inside – if only he could boost poor Mumbum’s energy again, perhaps the old robo-dog could join the attack . . .
With a BONG! Mumbum’s systems restarted: his eyes glowed green, and his bandaged tail wagged weakly.
“Did it!” Niall breathed.
“The gag, my young friend!” Sam shouted again. “Please!” Then he gasped as one of Cleo’s ring-blasts struck him on the backside, charring one cheek. “Owwwww!” He hopped around in agony. “Cursed be your sure aim and bottom-roasting ring! Niall – the gag, I beg of you!”
He’s gone crazy, Niall thought – but such was the urgency in the mummy’s voice, he finally tugged the bandage bundle out of Ellie’s mouth. Only then did Niall see that there were words on the bandage, scrawled in red ink; he must have missed them in his haste to keep Ellie quiet.
GRAB THE ASP WHILE I CLEVERLY DISTRACT HER, the message read.
“I’m an idiot!” Niall groaned. “Sam wanted my help from the start. Of course – if we threaten to destroy the ASP, Cleo can’t use it to suck energy out of the Snitch. And without that, she said she’ll turn to dust. She’ll be at our mercy!”
“Woof,” Mumbum managed quietly.
“Hey, boy.” Niall looked at him. “Do you have enough energy to fly up there and grab Cleo’s ASP?”
Mumbum shook his head sadly.
“Then it’s down to me,” Niall realized, “while Sam’s keeping her busy . . .”
The Secret Agent Mummy was darting through the sand dunes, chucking ostrich eggs at Cleopatra. She blasted each egg that came her way in mid-air, so that it rained sticky goo all around.
Niall took a deep breath and charged towards the tower. Using the holes blasted in the wall as hand- and footholds, he climbed up the old stone as quickly as he dared. Finally, he swung himself over the parapet behind Cleopatra, peering about for the ASP. She noticed nothing; all her attention was fixed on Sam.
“You are slowing down, Mummy!” she sneered, blasting another couple of oversized eggs with her ring. “Soon my powers will destroy you.”
Gotcha! At last Niall spotted the golden gleam of the ASP, lying half hidden beneath a control panel. He crawled towards it, hands outstretched . . .
“You are slowing down too, Cleo-cow-pat-ra!” Sam lobbed a surprise grenade in her direction, but again she blew it apart with a blast from her ring. “You are worn out, yes . . .?”
“I can go on for ever,” Cleopatra retorted. “I need only tell my ASP to draw more energy from the girl and feed it to me . . .”
Niall grabbed the ASP – just as Cleo turned round and caught him red-handed.
“YOU!” Her face twisted into a mask of hate. “You dare to try to steal the ASP from me?”
“Uh-huh. And I dare to chuck it away too!” Niall hurled the ASP over her shoulder with all his strength.
Cleo turned, making a grab for it – but she was a fraction too slow. Before it hit the ground, Mumbum jumped up valiantly and caught it – not with his golden jaws, but with his bandaged butt-cheeks. Suddenly, the robo-dog became the target for Cleo’s ring-rays. While he kept her busy, Sam approached the tower, then hurled out a bandage lasso that looped around Niall and yanked him over the edge.
“Aaaaaargh!” yelled Niall as he fell.
At the very last moment, Sam rolled a truly enormous ostrich egg into Niall’s flight path. KKRACK! SPLOOSH! The sticky, sloppy yolk broke the boy’s fall.
“Good boy, Mumbum! Well done, my young friend!” Sam did a weird little victory
sand dance. “We have your ASP, Cleopatra. Surrender or else.”
“You fools,” Cleo snarled. “Stealing the ASP will get you nowhere. It responds to my thoughts. Allow me to demonstrate . . .”
All at once, Mumbum whimpered as the ASP jerked and headed straight for the sleeping Ellie, dragging the bionic dog’s-butt along behind. Weakened as he was, he couldn’t stop it or change its course.
Cleo laughed nastily as the ASP bit Ellie on the ankle.
“Hold onto that ASP, boy!” Sam called. “You must. You must!”
The mummy ran to help Mumbum, but another blast from Cleo’s ring knocked him off his feet. CLANG! He landed on another metal hatch that was half hidden in the desert sand – just like the one they’d found when they arrived.
Niall was still trying to climb out of the massive, gloopy egg. He knew he could never reach the ASP in time.
It was all down to Mumbum. Despite his exhaustion, the robo-dog rose to the challenge, gripping the golden figurine more tightly between his cheeks. He jumped up and down on it, as if trying to squash it into the sand. He yelped and woofed and wrapped his bandaged tail around the handle, refusing to surrender his prize . . .
But then, with another well-aimed ring-blast, Mumbum was blown out of his body suit. As the bum went rolling away like a storm-tossed coconut, the ASP blinked out of sight and reappeared in Cleo’s hand.
“Ha!” Greedily, she placed the golden snake’s head to her lips and drank. “There. Already I feel my strength return . . . ing . . . URRRG!” Clutching her throat, she staggered to the very edge of her towering tower. “Something . . . is wrong. That was not . . . the girl’s life-force . . .” Cleo coughed, and black dust exploded from her mouth. “It was . . . it was . . .”
