by Rob May
After walking down endless corridors, past endless cells, they entered a hangar where another black insect-like prisoner transport lurked beneath a wide shaft that led up to the surface. This one was a large ship, designed to carry hundreds of prisoners: the holding compartments filled the undercarriage like a spider’s swollen egg sac.
On their knees in the shadow of the ship, surrounded by guards, were three balaks: one small and thin, and dressed in denim dungarees; the other two big and powerful, and clad in leather and metal armour.
‘Brug! Bunk!’ Doo shouted. Jason figured they were her cousins. He vaguely remembered dancing with them at the party the night they arrived on Corroza. The other guy must be the prison worker who had let them in.
‘You caught them,’ the zelf captain said. ‘Good. The punishment for entering the city, and for sheltering those who enter the city, is death.’
He gestured to the guards. ‘Execute them immediately.’
The guards put their laser rifles to the back of the balaks’ necks.
‘Wait.’ The captain held up a hand. ‘A swift death is no fun. Process them with the rest of the slaves and take them up to the temple. I doubt that the Arch Predicant will mind a few extras. You know what he’s like: when the sacrifices are done, you almost have to prise the knife out of his hand.’
The captain turned back to Jason, Doo and Brandon. ‘I wonder where the other two got to. Oh, we knew all about your friends’ little raid. The city guard have eyes and ears everywhere. Nothing gets past us. We thought we would watch and see what they tried to do first, though; the very idea that they could break you out of here was most amusing.’
A single zelf guard came running over from the far side of the hangar. He skidded to a halt in front of the captain and saluted.
‘Report!’ the captain snapped.
‘We cornered the humans on a maintenance gantry in the reactor ring, sir,’ the guard said, his voice coming out electronic and raspy from under his helmet. ‘But we ran into some, er, problems.’
A flicker of annoyance passed over the captain’s face. ‘What kind of problems?’
‘The male human took out almost our entire squad, sir. He had booby trapped the gantry with explosives.’
Jason couldn’t hide his grin. Hewson!
‘In the confusion, the girl managed to escape the city,’ the soldier continued. ‘I took out the male, however. His body fell into a laser crusher. Confirmed kill, sir.’
Jason’s grin was wiped off his face.
The captain seemed pleased with the report, all told. ‘It is of little consequence that the girl escaped,’ he mused. ‘After all, we heard every word of your conversation in the cells. We know where she, and all the remaining rebels, are heading for. I will lead an attack on this Brightroot Cave myself. Perhaps I can do the one thing that my old general, Dravid Karkor, failed to do twenty years ago. Perhaps I can finally wipe out the balaks for good!’
14—REVERSAL
Jason, Brandon, Doo and her cousins, Brug and Bunk, ended up crammed in one of the prison transport’s compartments. The cousins took up most of the room—they were big, muscly, sweaty and smelly. They were all squashed in so tight that Jason was face-to-face with one of them, almost touching noses.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Hey, thanks for coming here for us. Sorry it didn’t work out.’
Brug (or was it Bunk?) leered at him.
‘The rubber cloak thing,’ Jason said. ‘Pretty cool, huh? That was my idea, you know.’
Brug and Bunk shrugged and looked at each other.
‘What’s wrong with you guys?’ Doo said to them.
‘Nothin’, coz,’ one of them said. ‘We just real scared about getting sacrificed.’
‘Uh huh. Real scared,’ the other echoed. He didn’t sound like he meant it, though. The balaks were brave, Jason had to admit, or they were good at acting brave.
He thought of Kat, alone in the jungle, destined for a life of constant struggle and fear, trying to keep one step ahead of the zelf forces. She would have to be brave, too. He thought of Hewson, who had already given up his life to allow Kat to escape. Hewson, who had been the last adult left in the galaxy keeping an eye on them. Now they had no one; they were just a bunch of kids at the mercy of an uncaring god and an uncaring universe. It all made Jason want to scream in frustration.
He turned to Brandon, who he was jammed shoulder to shoulder with. ‘Come on, I’m not giving up yet. Hand me that claw thing Kat gave you. I’ll try and pick the lock with it.
Brandon shrugged and lifted the claw from around his neck. Jason took it and started scratching around the door about halfway up its edge. He wasn’t really sure what he was doing—there wasn’t actually any sign of a lock, let alone a keyhole.
‘The catron’s claw is an amazing thing,’ Brandon said as Jason worked on their escape. ‘Not only is it harder than diamonds, but it’s almost perfectly resistant to heat, electricity and X-rays. It’s a perfect weapon, and would make even better armour if you could synthesise it somehow.’
‘Yeah, well maybe if you get some free time after being beheaded on the altar,’ Jason growled. He gave up on his escape plan. All he had succeeded in doing was make a nice pattern of scratches in the door. He briefly considered signing off the work with a four letter word.
The compartment jolted and rocked as the prison transport lifted off the hangar floor. To reach ground level, it would have to fly vertically half a kilometre up a wide shaft. After that, it was another two kilometres up to the temple: the last trip they would ever make.
‘I’ve got a plan!’ Jason said. He squeezed past Brandon and Doo to the opposite side of the compartment, where there was a door to the inside of the prison container. He banged on it with his metal fist.
A narrow slot in the door opened. There was a visored helmet on the other side. ‘What?’ the zelf soldier said.
‘I need the bog,’ Jason said. ‘Real bad.’
The soldier considered this request for several long moments.
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No,’ Jason said, trying to add a note of panic into his voice. ‘I need a number two!’
The soldier looked up and down the corridor that ran between all the compartment doors. ‘Hold it in,’ he said. But for some reason he didn’t immediately slam the slot shut. Jason kept up the pressure:
‘Look, if you don’t let me go right this minute, I’m going to fill my pants in the middle of my execution. Do you want to be the one responsible for clearing up that mess?’
The slot slammed shut.
Jason turned to the others. ‘Well I had to try, right? I think this means we are officially out of options.’
Brandon actually cracked a weak smile. ‘I can’t believe you sometimes,’ he said to Jason.
Then, with a soft click, the compartment door opened.
‘Down the end of the corridor and turn left,’ the soldier said. ‘Don’t be long.’
Jason couldn’t quite believe it. Was this a trick? And what was his play now? Attack the soldier? Or do what he was told, then try and spring a surprise later? The soldier had his laser rifle trained at Jason, so he decided to play it cool and walk slowly down the narrow walkway.
‘Don’t fall in!’ Brandon shouted from back inside the compartment, and Jason had a flashback to an earlier time and place: a train ride out of a meteor-stricken London.
That trip to the public conveniences had been interrupted by a mass shootout involving Hewson and some alien enemies, followed by a massive explosion and crash.
Jason had a horrible feeling that this was going to end with a five minute sit down and a last chance to wash his hands before meeting the Arch Predicant for the final time …
A second guard rounded the corridor. When he saw Jason loose and walking about, he stopped dead in his tracks.
‘What the hell?’ he said, reaching for his laser rifle.
Those were his last words, however, because a laser bolt flew over
Jason’s shoulder and hit the guard straight in the chest, burning away the top layer of his amour. A second direct hit burned away his heart.
Jason spun around on the spot. The soldier who had let him loose reached up and pulled off his helmet. The face beneath didn’t have the pale, elegant features of a zelf, but rather the dark, craggy features of—
‘Hewson!’ Jason exclaimed.
‘Take that guy’s gun, Jason,’ the lieutenant ordered. ‘All hell is about to break loose.’
‘About damn time!’ Jason said, as two more zelf soldiers arrived on the scene to see what all the commotion was about. Jason and Hewson fired as one. Then they fired again, and again. Thanks to the zelf’s advanced armour, just because they were down, it didn’t mean that they were dead.
Brandon stepped out of the compartment. ‘Nice job,’ he said, looking at all the bodies. ‘Remember you have to get the second—killing—shot in before the armour reforms around the breach. My father designed those suits, remember?’
‘I remember,’ Jason said. Brandon didn’t seem too surprised about Hewson’s sudden reappearance. Come to think of it, he had been pretty unflustered by a lot of recent events, including their imminent death sentence.
Suddenly, it dawned on Jason.
‘You knew!’ he said. ‘You’ve got some kind of plan!’
Brandon grinned. ‘Of course there’s a plan! You didn’t think I was going to let us get this far from home only to wind up on the altar of an alien god, did you?’
‘I did, actually. But … if you had a plan, then why didn’t you say?’
‘Couldn’t,’ Brandon said. ‘There’s not a word spoken in this city doesn’t get reported back to the Arch Predicant. And besides, you not knowing and getting mad every five minutes made it easier to hide what we were really up to.’
‘Which is what?’ Jason said, picking up the laser rifles from the fallen zelfs and handing them to Brug and Bunk.
‘We can explain everything later,’ Hewson said. ‘Right now, you all have to get Brandon to the cockpit of this ship if we’re going to stand any chance of escape.’
Doo had frisked the bodies of the guards and come up with a couple of long combat knives. ‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘Jason doesn’t need a complicated explanation. He’s better when he doesn’t need to think, and just acts on instinct.’
Was that a compliment? ‘Thanks, I think,’ Jason said, following her up the corridor, around the corner and up the ladder that connected the prisoner container to the ship that lifted it.
A zelf soldier looked down the shaft. Doo let one of her knives fly. The zelf had thought it safe to remove his helmet; it was an oversight he must have regretted as he tumbled down the ladder with a blade stuck between his eyes.
The next guard made exactly the same mistake, and Jason had to dodge a second body as it crashed down past him, almost knocking him off the ladder. At that point, the zelfs must have figured out that something bad was going on, because a hatch started to close at the top of the shaft …
But not before Hewson had lobbed something up and into the deck beyond. There was a loud bang and a flash of light before the hatch had chance to fully shut. Doo managed to scramble up and put her hand to it before it locked them out.
She pushed it back open and climbed aboard the zelf ship. The others followed, and on the main deck they found half a dozen soldiers rolling about on the floor. Another three zelfs had managed to get their helmets on and avoid the effects of Hewson’s flashbang grenade. They hadn’t quite had time to bring their weapons to bear, though, and had to resort to fighting Brug and Bunk hand to hand.
The two balak brothers had obviously never handled a laser rifle before. They gripped the weapons by the barrel and beat their opponents to death as if the guns were clubs. Jason winced as he heard bones breaking inside the zelfs’ flexible suits.
Doo collected a couple more knives and went around finishing off the others. ‘Bastards,’ she hissed at the corpses when she was done.
Brandon was at the cockpit door. ‘Get this open!’ he said urgently.
There was no way they were going to blow their way through. Jason banged on the door. ‘Open up!’ he shouted. ‘Or we will blow this ship up and take us all out.’
Silence from beyond.
‘You think we’re bluffing? Just remember where you’re taking us. This will be a good way to die! Open up and we’ll let you live.’
The cockpit door opened. Jason stepped in and shot the pilot and co-pilot dead.
‘That was a bit harsh,’ Brandon said, slipping into the newly vacated pilot’s seat.
‘I do it so you don’t have to,’ Jason said, taking the co-pilot’s seat. He watched Brandon play with the controls. After a brief few seconds of wild swinging, Brandon was as comfortable as if he had owned the ship for years. They continued their ascent up the shaft to the surface. Lightning flashed and rain splattered the windscreen; they were almost out.
‘You think this escape plan’s still a secret?’ Jason asked his friend. ‘How are we going to get past the force field around the city?’
Brandon flashed Jason another wicked grin. He was clearly enjoying the mystery and surprise. ‘What force field?’ he said.
They rose out of the shaft and emerged over a rain-soaked concourse at the foot of the Tower of the Moons. Dark buildings loomed all around them. It was almost impossible to see anything but shadows and shapes. Had there been a power cut? When lighting flashed, Jason could see the jungle beyond the furthest buildings.
‘The force field’s down! But how—’
When lighting flashed again, he saw a small figure standing on the concrete below them, frantically waving. Brandon angled the ship so that the figure was caught in the beam of the headlights.
‘It’s Kat! Why is she still in the city? Let’s pick her up!’
‘No,’ Brandon said. ‘We’ll put down the prisoner container and let Kat lead the balaks to safety. But we’re not leaving just yet …’
A swarm of zelf fighters suddenly zoomed into view from around the Tower of the Moons. They were small ships—just a tiny cockpit flanked by two laser cannons. The designer had obviously favoured firepower over looks.
‘We have dorsal gun turrets left and right,’ Hewson said. ‘Jason, come on!’
‘I’ll go with the balaks,’ Doo said. ‘Keep those zelfs off our backs!’
She kissed Jason before she left. ‘Kill them all for me,’ she said sweetly.
With Doo’s words ringing in his ears, Jason hopped up to the portside gun turret. Right now, he didn’t care how Brandon, Hewson and Kat had engineered their escape; he just wanted to let off some steam and shoot things.
He fell into the turret’s bucket seat, grabbed the joystick with one hand and pulled down the targeting visor with the other. The layout and operation was intuitive: Jason pounded the trigger, taking out several of the swarming enemy fighters with bolts of red hot laser, until the overheat bar started flashing. He eased up on the trigger and waited for the chance to make a more considered shot.
Brandon had set down the prisoner container, and was now banking away in order to present a moving target. A single zelf ship was hurtling towards them down the canyon formed by nearby buildings. Jason could predict the point its dive would turn into a zoom climb, and his finger hovered on the trigger, waiting …
For a brief moment, before its kinetic energy carried it up to safety, the zelf was a sitting duck. Jason pulled the trigger …
… and missed.
He swore in frustration as the ship passed overhead, raking them with a hail of laserfire.
‘What’s wrong?’ Brandon’s voice sounded in the earpiece connected to his visor.
‘I can’t shoot with only one eye! I can only see 2D, not 3D!’
‘Of course,’ Brandon agreed. ‘You must be stereoblind, with no depth perception.’
‘That’s what I said, dumbass!’
‘Alright, well let’s try a different t
actic. Let’s find some help.’
Brandon took the ship down, until they were hurtling through the maze of buildings almost at ground level. To Jason, it looked like a dark blur; but Brandon had the sharp eyesight and reflexes of the zelfs: he was more than a match for the best of their pilots.
Still, there were at least twenty enemy ships on their tail. The occasional laser blast hit home, battering their already weakened armour plating. ‘They’re getting closer,’ Jason said, letting loose a few ineffectual blasts of his own.
‘We just have to keep them busy long enough for Kat, Doo and the balaks to escape,’ Hewson said over the comm.
‘Oh great,’ Jason moaned. ‘So not only am I going to die anyway today, I’m not going to have time to hear how you all cooked up this secret plan!’
‘Nobody’s going to die today,’ Brandon said, cutting a sharp left down an alleyway. ‘Now hold your fire, both of you.’
Jason let go of the sweaty joystick and flopped back in the comfy gunner’s seat. There was silence in the turret as Brandon cut the engines and they drifted slowly down the dark corridor between buildings. Through the targeting visor, Jason could see a web of strange silvery cables criss-crossing across the alley. Brandon put the ship through some extremely careful manoeuvres to avoid them.
Their pursuers had no time to avoid the trap, though. Jason watched incredulously as all twenty zelf fighters hit and got snagged in the cables, which bent like they were elastic, and held their catch as if they were sticky.
Like a spider web! Jason thought, looking around for proof of his theory.
It came from above, scuttling down the side of one of the skyscrapers: a giant black and blue tarantula-like monster that, from spiny leg to spiny leg, was large enough to span twenty floors of the building it was crawling on. Jason saw one of the zelf pilots on top of his stuck ship, looking for a way down to the ground. The spider was on him in an instant, stabbing him in the back with one of its spear-like fangs, injecting him with a venom that would presumably turn his insides almost instantly to jelly.
