Asteroid Crisis

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Mira smirked, recognizing JJ. “This is the place, Mentor Toowun. See? I told you.”

  Behind them, the air crackled again, and the humming sound grew louder then faded. Two hideous tentacled Kylarn drones appeared behind Mira and Toowun. The man nodded and gave a thin humorless smile as Commander Zota emerged from the briefing room.

  “You’ve caused too many problems, old friend,” Toowun said. “Now it’s time to stop you for good.”

  ***

  Twenty-Two

  Hearing the commotion in the lobby, Dyl came out of the briefing room holding a root beer under one arm, so that he could maneuver on his crutches. He caught on to the situation, and groaned. “I thought we were done fighting the squidbutts!”

  The aliens loomed behind Mira and Mentor Toowun, ready to attack the Challenger Center.

  King couldn’t take his eyes from Mira. “You’re alive—I’m glad you got away!”

  “No thanks to you,” the girl said with a glare. “You tried to kill me.”

  “I never meant to hurt you,” King said. “We were trying to accomplish the mission while you were distracted.”

  “And this is my mission,” Mira retorted. “I gave you a chance to get away, and how did you thank me? You triggered the warheads!”

  “What we did was divert the asteroids,” JJ corrected. “That last one hit the far side of the Moon and took out the Kylarn base. You and your tentacled friends are out of luck.”

  “Fortunately, all of that can be undone,” Mentor Toowun said in his maddeningly disagreeable tone. “And that’s exactly what I plan to do.”

  Commander Zota stood stiff and threatening. “I never thought you would actually ally yourself with the enemies of humankind, Toowun. I knew we disagreed—but in your foolishness you are betraying your entire race.”

  “Ah, I’ve missed our philosophical discussions in the camps, Zota.” The other man’s smile was wan. “Yet we both know what’s at stake. I’ve only had contact a few times with the Kylarn. Most recently, Mira managed to deliver messages during her visits to the future. She’s a persistent young woman, one of my best recruits. I’m very proud of her.”

  Though Mira still looked angry, she flushed with pride at Toowun’s praise. “After you surprised me with the explosion on Asteroid 3,I located the alien base out in the asteroid belt, and after many attempts, I convinced the Kylarn queen to give Earth another chance. They were furious to hear about what you and your brainwashed rebels have done, Commander Zota.”

  “Fortunately,” Toowun added, “we have a chance to rectify things. In doing so, I’ll prove my worth to these drones, and they will then communicate to the Kylarn queen that some of us deserve a chance.”

  “Humans didn’t surrender in our future, and we cannot afford to surrender now,” Zota replied.

  The tentacled aliens lurched forward, moving like loose-limbed spiders, their milky eye patches glowing like undercooked eggs with flashlights behind them. The thin membrane across each smooth, blobby forehead pulsed.

  “It’s for the greater good, old friend,” Toowun said. “These Kylarn will take care of you. I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

  “Let’s see how well squidbutts fight in gravity,” JJ said defiantly. “They look a little squishy to me.”

  Zota growled at his former ally, the philosophy professor. “So that’s it? You brought alien assassins to murder these young people in cold blood—in the name of peace? How do you justify that with your world view?”

  “By assessing it as part of the big picture. It’s simple mathematics,” Toowun countered. “You know that millions—billions—will be killed if humans resist the Kylarn invasion. Young people, babies, parents, families. Remember your own family, Zota. There’s no way around it. It’s a terrible price to pay, but if I can prevent your protégés from mucking up the timeline, then I’ll have to be content to know that I saved countless others just like them.”

  Toowun stood aside, and the Kylarn shuffled threateningly forward, as if they assumed the Star Challengers would simply give up.

  Dyl gripped his crutches and took his warm, unopened can of root beer in one hand as if to hurl it at them; JJ balled her fists; Tony tensed for the coming battle, while Song-Ye and King took up fighting stances.

  Toowun continued, “If only you’d left well enough alone, Zota, your young friends could have grown up and had normal lives, never worrying about what might happen a century-and-a-half in the future.”

  “I prefer not to be selfish,” JJ said. “I won’t choose laziness and comfort at the expense of the next generation, and the generations after that. People should think beyond their own lives, and do what’s best for humanity.”

  Sarcastically, Mentor Toowun clapped his hands. “You’re quite a scrappy debater, Cadet Wren. I’ll have to remember that speech. I might even write it down so that others can read it—other survivors, after everything turns out all right.”

  The Star Challengers spread out, ready to defend themselves. “It’s five of us against two aliens,” Tony said. “Not bad odds.”

  “Six of us,” Zota corrected. “I will not stand by and watch while others fight.” He glanced at Mira and her mentor. “Though I doubt Toowun will want to get his hands dirty.”

  “I’ll do what’s necessary for the mission,” the other man said with a cold smile. “But there is a reason why I summoned the Kylarn drones here. They’re bred to fight.” He pursed his lips. “You’re lucky they didn’t consider it necessary to bring their laser shredders.”

  “What—this is a job for tentacles only?” JJ asked.

  The pair of hideous aliens squished forward, snapping and lashing out in all directions with their whiplike tentacles to grab the Star Challengers. They squirted a sticky goo that looked like elastic snot in every direction. The friends scattered, dodging the elastosnot. Song-Ye hit the floor and the sticky strands barely missed her.

  Some slime hit one leg of Dyl’s jeans, but fortunately didn’t glue him to the wall. Before the creatures could spurt again, Dyl balanced himself with his left crutch, vigorously shook the can of root beer, and popped the top, spraying a pressurized jet of brown sticky foam across the leathery face and soulless eyes of the nearest creature. The Kylarn recoiled with a bellow and flailed its tentacles.

  “You showed up at the wrong Challenger Center, Squidbutt,” Dyl announced.

  ***

  Twenty-Three

  Enraged, the alien creature lurched toward Dyl, lashing out with its tentacles. For some reason, goo was no longer squirting from their ends. The young man was sure he could read murder in the Kylarn’s cloudy eyes.

  JJ, Tony, and King scattered in the Challenger Center’s large lobby with its space exhibits. The second Kylarn moved to confront them.

  Song-Ye bounded back to her feet and grabbed Dyl by the shoulder. “Quick, into the briefing room—it’s safer there!”

  “Safe? We’ll be trapped.” He stumbled as the Korean girl pulled him toward the room.

  “In Earth’s gravity, you can’t move as well! We have to buy some time!”

  The squidbutt threw itself at them, but Dyl raised one of his crutches. “Sure, go after the slow kid first.” Balancing on one foot, he swung the metal crutch hard and brought it down on the alien’s squishy head sac. The sound was like somebody stepping on a rotten watermelon, and a dark oily stain seeped beneath the leathery membrane. Dyl saw that his little victory would be short-lived. “Uh-oh, I was hoping to knock him out.”

  Song-Ye added a hapkido kick for good measure. The Kylarn hooted and burbled, reeling as Song-Ye pulled Dyl into the room and swung the heavy classroom door shut just as the creature whacked the door hard with two tentacles.

  “It doesn’t lock,” she exclaimed in dismay, looking out through the windows on the upper half of the door.

  The Kylarn flailed its tentacles wildly. One tentacle smashed into a display case, sending shards of glass flying everywhere. A model of the Space shuttle Challenger
and pictures of her crew went flying, breaking as they hit the floor. Another tentacle smashed the fluorescent lights that hung above. Sparks showered everywhere. A loose wire dropped down from the light fixture. Sparking, it landed on a wooden picture frame that had fallen from the display case. Suddenly, the frame ignited in a small fire.

  The Kylarn slid back from the door Dyl and Song-Ye sheltered behind. Together, they leaned their weight against the door. Dyl tried to wipe the drying elastosnot from his jeans. It didn’t work.

  “It could be a lot worse,” Song-Ye assured him. “I got sticky-globbed to a wall on the space station, and it hurt!’

  “Never say, It could be worse’!” Dyl said. “Don’t you know what happens in movies if you say that? Things always get worse—that’s what happens.”

  Outside, they heard heavy wet rustling sounds as tentacles smacked against the door, but they couldn’t see where the Kylarn was anymore.

  Song-Ye gulped and turned pale. “Do you smell smoke?”

  “Yeah,” Dyl said, trying not to give in to panic. “I don’t think that it could be a big fire, yet. I hope. And I doubt the squidbutts will pull the fire alarm in the hall!”

  While Dyl sat on the floor with his back to the door, Song-Ye ran to the front row of chairs, grabbed one, and jammed it under the knob. “That’ll make it sturdier. We can hold out here for awhile.”

  “And then what?” Dyl asked. “They’re still out there with JJ, King, Tony, and Commander Zota. And if the fire spreads.…”

  Song-Ye triumphantly produced her cell phone. “Now’s as good a time as ever to bring in reinforcements. I’m calling the police and the fire department.”

  “You’re going to dial 911 Alien Rescue? They’ll never believe our story.”

  “Excuse me, Junior? How many questions are the police going to ask when they see those two blobby tentacled things in the lobby? And don’t forget, I’m the daughter of a diplomat—I have the police and our consulate on speed-dial.” Grinning, Song-Ye punched a button on her phone as the Kylarn continued to batter against the door.

  “Um, maybe it’s best if you don’t mention aliens in the call,” Dyl said. “They’ll think it’s a prank.”

  “Remember who you’re talking to, Junior. I can get them here in a hurry just the same.” She put the phone to her ear. “911? Hello, my name is Park, Song-Ye, and my father is Park, Young-il, the ambassador from South Korea. I need to report a fire and a burglary in progress at the Challenger Learning Center.”

  When the other hulking Kylarn moved after her, JJ yanked the bright-red cylinder from the wall. All her life, standard fire extinguishers had always been there in public buildings. Normally, she avoided looking at them, because they were a painful reminder of her father’s death, but right now she needed a weapon.

  “Your sluggy cousins didn’t like this on the space station. Here, try some.” She aimed the nozzle toward the Kylarn, and the blast of white powder and fumes startled it even more than Dyl’s root-beer spray had infuriated the other one. The alien scrambled backward, reacting reflexively, thrashing and writhing.

  At the briefing room door behind which Dyl and Song-Ye had barricaded themselves, the second Kylarn was in a frenzy. JJ ran toward it, still blasting with the fire extinguisher. “You leave my brother alone!”

  Both aliens went reeling, on a rampage as they knocked pictures from the wall, tipped over a bookcase. JJ saw the fire that was spreading. A lump formed in her throat. Ever since her father, a firefighter, had died in a blaze, she’d been terrified of fire. Her one weakness. The flames spread, licking at the books on the ground and engulfing the fallen bookshelf. JJ was paralyzed with fear. Terror. The two Kylarn moved away from the blaze, and their movements jerked JJ from her paralysis.

  Snap out of it, JJ, she told herself. At her dad’s funeral, Uncle Buzz had said, “Heroes are people who choose to do the right thing, even when they’re scared.” This is one of those times, she decided. Everyone’s in trouble, but somebody’s got to stop this fire and that somebody is you!

  Biting her lip, she stepped forward and sprayed with the fire extinguisher. White foam blasted from the canister, covering the growing blaze. Smoke in the air burned her eyes. The cylinder felt heavy in her hands, but JJ kept spraying in a wide arc over the flames until the extinguisher was empty.

  The fire was out.

  The root-beer-stained alien collided with the transparent habitat that held Newton, the hamster they had rescued from Moonbase Magellan, and the cage broke apart. Squeaking, the former lab animal scurried across the floor.

  The loose hamster seemed to intimidate the aliens more than all of JJ’s defiance. The Kylarn dodged and skittered away on its tentacles, moving back and forth in a panic. JJ suddenly thought of the old myths about how elephants were frightened of mice. The first Kylarn sidled up the wall and clung to a light fixture.

  She tried to give the second alien another blast of the offensive chemical, but only a few gasps of fumes came out. Mira threw herself upon JJ and knocked the fire extinguisher out of her hands. Tony joined in the pileup, tearing Mira away, and now both Kylarn came back at them.

  From down the hall, Mentor Toowun watched with interest, but detached, as if he was used to letting other people do his work for him.

  Commander Zota glared at Toowun. “Do you think I will let you just eliminate these young people? They are the future!”

  “We both saw the future destroyed!” Toowun snarled.

  Zota approached Toowun slowly. “We can change it! We are changing it!”

  “It’s too late!” Toowun shouted. “Surrender is the only option. And I’ll stop these kids from meddling however I have to!”

  Zota curled his fingers into a fist. With great force he punched Toowun’s jaw. Toowun fell to the ground in an unconscious heap. “I’ll stop you and the Kylarn however I have to!” Zota spun around and ran back toward the attacking aliens.

  Nearby, one Kylarn wrapped a tentacle around King’s waist, and he furiously tugged on the flexible appendage. Kickboxing his captor, King threw himself backward with all his weight, but couldn’t break free. Dyl and Song-Ye emerged from the briefing room.

  Dyl and Song-Ye exchanged looks. “Junior, I need your crutch,” she said, taking one from him while he leaned on the other.

  “What are you doing?”

  She aimed the crutch at a specific spot on the Kylarn that was holding King and threw it like a spear. The crutch slammed into the Kylarn’s body. Bullseye!

  The alien emitted a pained squeal, and suddenly let go of King, then collapsed to the ground, stiffened from the blow.

  “How … how did you … ?” King gasped, pulling himself free from the twitching tentacles.

  “We discovered a sensitive nerve cluster during the autopsy we performed back on the station. The Kylarn’s Achilles’ heel,” Song-Ye explained as King handed Dyl his crutch back.

  “Is the paralysis permanent?” King asked.

  “Don’t think so,” Dyl said as the stunned Kylarn began to move again. “Let’s get out of here while we can.”

  Down the hall, Zota raced toward the transport room that connected the hall with the space-station setup on the other side of the wall. “Cadet Vasquez, we have to get to the control room and protect the Kylarn time machine!”

  Questions raced through JJ’s mind. Why would Zota go into the simulated space station room to protect the time machine? That wasn’t where he kept the alien device. With a hard shove, she pushed Mira from her and scrambled away.

  Zota shouted, “Cadet King, hold them off as long as you can.” He turned and looked meaningfully at JJ. “Cadet Wren, keep yourself safe, in my office.”

  Angry and resolute, and slowly climbing back to his feet, Mentor Toowun called to the two Kylarn. “Leave the others. Go after Zota—we have to take care of him first. Don’t let him get to that time machine!”

  Zota and Tony raced through the first door into the connecting transport room, and JJ suddenl
y realized what the Commander meant to do: He was acting as a decoy, so she could get to the real time machine. “Yes, sir!” Knowing she had only a few seconds, she bolted toward his administrative office.

  The two aliens scrambled after Toowun into the transport room.

  King planted himself in front of the door and faced Mira. “You’re not going in there.”

  Tony kept up with Commander Zota as they raced through the transport room that contained benches and jumpsuits. The heavy door on the far end, which was made to look like a spaceship hatch, led into the adjacent chamber with the medical station, computers, waldo arms, glove boxes, and the comm station. Tony wondered what the commander was up to.

  As soon as they passed into the space-station room, he heard the opposite door open—Mentor Toowun leading the two Kylarn after them. Zota tried to push the hatch door closed while Tony grabbed another fire extinguisher from the wall. When the Kylarn attempted to squeeze their tentacles through the half-closed door, Tony sprayed them with the white mist. The tentacles flinched as if he had scalded them with acid, and they withdrew just enough for Zota to slam the hatch shut.

  Breathing heavily, Tony said, “Well, you got them to chase after us, but why? The time machine isn’t even in here.”

  Zota had a bright sheen in his normally shadowed gaze. “I know that, and Cadet Wren knows that—but Toowun and the Kylarn don’t.”

  Tony grinned, understanding. “And they’re in the same room that you use for transporting us into the future!”

  The aliens began throwing themselves against the hatch, thumping and scraping. Tony could hear Mentor Toowun through the walls. “They’ll break it down in a few moments, Zota. You’re boxed in.”

  Tony lowered his voice and looked at Zota. “Boy, I hope JJ hurries.”

  Mira faced off against King. “I’ll fight you if I have to.”

  “I was about to say the same thing.” He didn’t budge, blocking her way.