by Max Chase
‘It was the blaster,’ Diesel said, his hands shaking. ‘It malfunctioned!’
Otto took the blaster from Diesel’s hand and looked at it. ‘Stupid space-monkey!’ he said. ‘Nothing wrong with this blaster! But good choice! They’re perfect for our mission!’
Diesel took the cobra-shaped blaster back and handed the others to Selene, Onix and Peri. ‘We’re ready to blast our way to the nerve centre!’
Peri shook his head. ‘Diesel, this is still a stealth mission. The Meigwors don’t know where we are – let’s keep it that way. We need to get to the nerve centre and shut down the Extractor quietly.’
Diesel strapped his blaster to his belt. ‘I’m a hundred times stealthier than any of you!’ he shouted.
Peri sighed. ‘Come on, let’s go – before Diesel gets any stealthier.’
Otto and Peri slipped out into the corridor first. Otto slouched ahead to make sure the next turn was clear. Selene and Onix followed, with Diesel following at the rear. They ran through the dimly lit corridors, their space boots cushioned by the moss and debris littering the floor. As they skidded into a seven-corridor junction, Peri hesitated. He racked his brains trying to recall the route he thought he’d memorised.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
‘Hurry up, Peri,’ Prince Onix urged. ‘I hear crab-bots coming.’
‘Down here,’ Peri said, praying his instincts were right.
They were either running straight towards the nerve centre, or they were about to burst into a dining hall full of heavily armed, battle-hungry Meigwors.
Chapter 6
They stumbled into a section of corridor free of moss and Peri almost cheered! They were definitely heading in the right direction. The touch-screen map of the Extractor had shown the control centre surrounded by a ‘clean’ zone – although the Meigwors had a strange definition of ‘clean’. Despite the lack of moss, crabs or beetles, the walls were still grimy. Panels in the ceiling struggled to light the corridor through layers of dirt.
Peri noticed a short corridor off to the right and hid around the corner. ‘We’re close,’ he panted. ‘We need a plan. The nerve centre will be well guarded.’
‘How about,’ Diesel said, ‘we go in, weapons blazing?’
Selene shot him a withering look. ‘Even if we did that, we still need to know what we’re up against.’
‘Selene’s right,’ Peri said. ‘We need to scout ahead.’
‘Why don’t we use the air vents?’ Selene asked, pointing to a slatted panel above their heads. ‘They’re all connected to each other. It shouldn’t take long to find the nerve centre and see what’s what.’
‘Great idea,’ Peri said. ‘Diesel, help me boost her up.’
‘Wait! I didn’t mean me!’ Selene exclaimed.
‘You’re smallest.’ Diesel grinned as he grabbed one of her feet and helped Peri lift her up. Using the space-wrench she’d nabbed from the armoury, Selene removed the panel and handed it to Otto. She shone a torch down the duct and grimaced.
‘I get all the dirty jobs,’ she murmured, before sliding down the service duct. It must have been a tight fit as her elbows and knees made soft clanging sounds against the metal sides. It faded, then the noises returned. Moments later, Selene’s boots came into view and she crawled out of the duct, dusting herself down.
‘It’s going to be harder than teaching Diesel table manners,’ she said. ‘The only way into the nerve centre is guarded by a big, ugly Meigwor who has a whole armoury on his back. The door is locked. The vent is welded shut. But the three technicians in the nerve centre appeared to be unarmed.’
‘Maybe Otto could get close enough to the guard without raising the alarm and disable him,’ Peri said. ‘Then we can blast the door and overpower the controllers.’
‘I have a better idea, space-monkeys!’ Otto grinned as he pulled his blaster from his snakeskin belt. He aimed it at them. ‘Hands up! I take you as prisoners!’
A cold shiver crackled through Peri’s circuits. Diesel shouted, ‘I knew we shouldn’t trust him!’ He started to raise his own weapon, but Selene stood in front of him.
‘Lamizoid!’ Selene said. ‘Otto only wants to pretend he’s captured us – so we can overpower the guard and controllers together. Isn’t that right?’
‘That’s what I said!’ Otto boomed. ‘I tackle the guard, you storm the controllers!’
Peri nodded, but he was going to make sure he and Diesel were at the front with their weapons tucked behind their backs just in case.
With their hands up, Otto marched them down the corridor to the brightly lit area outside the nerve centre. Peri held his breath. The guard, as massive as Otto, charged up his electromagnetic zapster and barked, ‘Halt!’
‘I have prisoners to eject out of the airlock!’ Otto boomed.
The guard laughed. ‘Well done, but this isn’t an airlock!’ He pointed to the door behind him. ‘Only the controllers can open this!’
‘My mistake!’ Otto boomed as he clapped his hands over his head. ‘Long live Meigwor!’
As the guard returned the salute, Otto punched him. Smaccckkk. The guard staggered backwards.
Clllaaannng! The guard slammed into the nerve-centre door.
Shhuuuh! The door slid open. ‘Keep it down out there!’ A Meigwor controller stood in the doorway. ‘What the . . .’ he boomed, seeing the unconscious guard on the ground.
Diesel stuck his blaster in the controller’s face. ‘Don’t move!’
‘Let’s go!’ shouted Peri as he rushed into the nerve centre. Onix and Selene tackled the nearest controller, who had his hand stuck in a bug-o-matic.
Peri aimed his blaster at the others. ‘Step away from the equipment,’ he ordered.
The controllers were short by Meigwor standards. Peri guessed that they had no combat training – they didn’t even try to fight.
‘Move over there.’ Peri pointed towards the door.
Peri looked around the nerve centre. The room was filled with buzzing and beeping. Lights flashed across four different control consoles. Monitors covered every centimetre of the walls, and a massive plasma screen hung in the centre of the room. Peri could see more viper-ships joining the Extractor, more tentacles flying out to suck the life from Xion, and more images of the planet’s people suffocating in the dusty streets.
‘We’ve got to seal the door and work out how to disable the Extractor,’ Peri shouted.
Otto grabbed the controllers and tossed them out before slamming the door shut. ‘We must prepare for a counter-attack,’ he boomed. ‘Help me push this bug-o-matic in front of the door.’
‘Diesel, Onix,’ Peri said, ‘you two help Otto. Selene and I will figure out how to destroy the Extractor.’
As the others took up defensive positions, Peri and Selene studied the Extractor’s controls. But neither of them knew where to start. Selene turned a couple of dials hopefully.
Nothing happened.
Peri hoped his bionic half might know what to do, but he felt no connection with this alien ship.
‘It’s no good,’ Peri said. ‘It’s going to take for ever to work out what half these controls do!’
Bang-Bang-Bang! Explosions shook the door.
‘Hurry up,’ Diesel shouted. ‘It won’t hold for long!’
‘We’re trying,’ Peri yelled, flicking a series of zip-dials. ‘We need a short cut!’
‘That’s it,’ Selene said. ‘Not a shortcut, but a short circuit!’
Peri nodded. ‘Great idea.’ He slid under the main control console and ripped off an access panel. He grabbed the tangle of wires with his fist and yanked them out, shielding his face as hot sparks exploded around him.
He heard Selene sigh. ‘Nothing’s happening.’
‘Hold it,’ Peri said, sliding his head out from under the console. ‘Maybe I can overload the system, rather than pull it apart?’
‘But that would need another source of power,’ she replied.
‘I’m half bionic – I
can use my internal batteries as a counter-charge!’ Peri exclaimed.
‘That could kill you!’ she gasped.
‘There’s no other choice.’ Peri grabbed two wires. As they touched together, they sparked.
He took a deep breath, then pushed the wires into his forearm. He gritted his teeth against the pain as he forced them through his nerves and muscles to the circuits underneath. Something like plasma-lightning flashed through him, making his limbs spasm and his circuits burn. It was like fire ripping through his skin.
Alien computer code stormed his head. There was so much information, Peri could feel his brain heating up. He imagined melting grey matter dripping from his ears.
‘I’m not giving up without a fight!’ he muttered as he pushed back against the assault with his mind.
Kaboom! The door to the control room exploded, followed by a dozen smoke grenades.
‘Hurry up, Peri,’ Diesel shouted. ‘We’ve got company!’
Chapter 7
As the smoke cleared, laserfire lit up the nerve centre. Zap-blam-blam-sssizzz!
Pulses of green and red pinged back and forth between the crew and the guards. The bug-o-matic prevented the guards storming further into the room than the doorway. Otto had a blaster in each hand and wasn’t even bothering to take cover. He faced the guards, dodging the zapster fire as the monitors exploded behind him.
‘Otto, use a flash grenade,’ Diesel shouted.
The bounty hunter flung a grenade from his belt at the Meigwor guards. Kaaa-boom! A bright light exploded, temporarily blinding them.
In the lull, Diesel sprinted towards Selene. The engineer crouched down with her hands linked together ready to lift him into the air. As he stepped on to her hands, she boosted him upwards. Diesel somersaulted across the room. He grabbed hold of the main monitor hanging in the middle and climbed on to it. Then he opened fire with his blaster.
As the Meigwor guards ducked, Selene rolled towards Onix. The Xion prince had built a barrier in front of Peri’s console made from pieces of computers, melted technicians’ chairs and charred manuals. Once she was safely behind the barricade, Diesel backflipped from his hanging perch and landed in a perfect crouch behind the chairs. He threw himself against the barrier and unleashed another round of blaster fire.
‘Mars ’rakk!’ Diesel taunted. ‘Is that all you got? I had better aim when I was a baby!’
The console behind Peri took a direct hit, showering him with molten sparks. It didn’t matter. He had to ignore what was happening in the control centre. His battle was with the Extractor itself. He used his bionic senses to weave through the Meigwor computer code. By mentally ducking and diving, sneaking and sliding, he navigated the alien system, searching for the main control functions.
But it knew he was there, and sent a surge of power to blast him away from the Extractor’s core. It swamped his mind with thousands of small computer codes and programs, making every nerve and circuit in his head feel as though it had been dipped in molten metal. The pain screamed at him to disconnect himself, but Peri kept dodging and twisting through the surge.
He caught glimpses of the Extractor’s own camera feeds, showing him the battle in the nerve centre from every angle. He didn’t understand how his bionic brain could hold so many images and information in one split second. He could see Onix firing wildly at the Meigwor guards. Selene and Diesel were shooting with extreme accuracy. He wanted to help his friends, but he had a fight of his own to finish first.
The Extractor dashed him away from the camera feeds, plunging him deeper and deeper into the program until it felt as though he was drowning in computer code. It kept crashing against his mind with blocks of data, rolling his brain around in a storm of alien symbols.
He was disorientated. He didn’t know where he was or how far he was from the core program. He pushed hard against it and surfaced back in his body. He took a deep breath then dived again into the Extractor with his mind. It pushed Peri back. The computer slammed everything it had into his body. Every nerve and wire inside him was under assault. His skin crackled with a white-hot web of electricity, each spark stinging him like a Martian-wasp. He had to pull the wires from his arm soon, or he was going to explode!
Kaaaa-boooom! Another grenade rattled the nerve centre. Diesel slammed against the console above him. The gunner’s Expedition Wear was in shreds. Peri looked down, seeing Selene and Onix pressed against the barricade. Wisps of smoke rose from their smouldering suits. He had to help his crew! Peri grabbed the wires to pull them out, but hesitated.
What am I doing? he asked himself. His friends were still fighting, risking their lives to help the dying Xion people. Millions of lives and an entire galaxy were at stake. It didn’t matter if all Peri’s circuits were fried.
The Meigwors had to be stopped.
Peri let go of the wires and traced the power throbbing through his circuits. The Extractor was trying to saturate his body with electricity. But instead of frying his circuits, he realised it was giving him greater power! The more energy that flowed into him, the stronger a weapon he became. All he had to do now was turn the power-flow in the opposite direction, back into the Extractor.
Starting at his feet, he reversed the current. He pushed a cosmic-wave of destruction through his body, adding as much of his own energy as he could. It coursed through him like a fireball before bursting from him. Every megawatt of power he could find flowed into the Extractor. He raced it towards the core, making it pick up more energy as it did.
Krrraaccckkk-BLLLAAAAAMMMMM!
The console exploded, throwing Peri backwards into the air and ripping the wires from his skin. His bionic self instantly took control of his muscles, turning him in a twisting somersault. He landed safely next to Diesel and he grabbed a spare weapon from the half-Martian’s holster and started firing.
‘Glad you could join us,’ Diesel said.
Peri, Onix, Selene and Diesel ducked more shots from the Meigwor guards. Molten plastic sprayed up from the chairs. There was no way to escape now – they had no choice but to fight, and hope that they survived.
‘For the Milky Way!’ Peri shouted.
The ship shuddered as though there was a spacequake and the laserfire stopped.
Raaaa-eeee! Raaa-eeee! Raaa-eee! Sirens blared as an electronic voice screamed, ‘Extractor dismantling! Emergency! Emergency!’
The Meigwor guards dropped their weapons and dashed into the corridor and out of sight.
‘What’s happening?’ Selene shouted.
Otto edged around the barricade to look at the only undamaged monitor. ‘The Extractor’s breaking up into separate viper-ships again!’ he boomed. ‘We’ve done it!’
‘Time to get out of here,’ Peri shouted.
They pushed through the throng of panicked Meigwors. But it wasn’t the clean escape they hoped for. A new battalion of guards appeared in the corridor ahead, pounding towards them with their weapons blazing.
Diesel set his blaster to Continuous Pulse and opened fire, but his aim was thrown by another shudder rocking the Extractor. His laser melted a small hole in the deck.
‘Fire at the floor,’ the gunner barked. ‘Continuous Pulse!’
Peri and Otto joined him in firing at the same spot. The three beams made the floor dissolve like a sun going supernova. Before the Meigwor guards had time to do more than scream, the floor simply melted away and sent them tumbling down a huge hole in the deck.
They had no time to cheer. Yet another explosion shook the Extractor. They slipped along a narrow ledge around the hole and then sprinted down the corridor.
‘Which way?’ Selene asked at the junction.
Instantly, Peri could see the layout of the whole ship in his mind’s eye. It took only nanoseconds to see the best route back to the mini-pods. He couldn’t believe it. During his fight with the Extractor, he must have absorbed the design of the whole vessel.
‘This way!’ he shouted.
They raced as fast as they c
ould. It didn’t matter about the guards. They just had to make it back to the pods before the Extractor dismantled or exploded. Peri rounded the corner and saw two crab-bots hanging from the ceiling.
The robot-guards barely had time to say ‘In-troo-DAH!’ before he, Diesel, Selene, Otto and Onix blasted them into a gazillion smoking fragments.
‘Keep going,’ Peri shouted, racing down another corridor. The vent hatch was still open. Otto boosted him and the others into the shaft and climbed up last. It was still hot and cramped in the ventilation shaft, but it didn’t matter. They crawled as fast as they could towards the pods. They could hear the shouts of the Meigwor guards following behind them, ‘Take them dead or alive! For Meigwor!’
Peri was the first out of the ventilation shaft to where the mini-pods were waiting.
‘Otto, you were the last one in, go!’ he ordered. ‘You next, Onix, then Diesel, and Selene.’
Peri crouched by the shaft and fired his blaster towards the attacking Meigwors to buy his friends some more time. One by one, the mini-pods sealed themselves and then shot off into space. Now, it was Peri’s turn. He knew as soon as he stopped firing he wouldn’t have long to escape. He counted under his breath, ‘Three, two, one!’ Then he dropped his weapon and leapt into his mini-pod. It sealed around him as he engaged the thrusters.
But even at bionic speed, he wasn’t fast enough. As Peri cleared the vent, he saw the Meigwor guards reach the narrow chamber and open fire.
Baaammm! A blast shuddered through the mini-pod.
Chapter 8
Peri’s mini-pod spun away from the Extractor. He jammed the Nav-wheel left and right. Nothing. He tried firing the manoeuvring thrusters and slamming on the hyper-brakes. Nothing worked. The Meigwor guards had scored a direct hit as he tried to escape. The pod’s controls were wrecked. He could see the other mini-pods heading for the Phoenix and tried to radio for help, but that was dead too.
