“Three,” said Wilson.
“What? I had four dozen! Do you know how much those dogs charged for those flying metal monsters?”
“My Lady, the others were destroyed on Tau Ceti in the battle to recover Doctor MacGuffin.”
“Beta Scout approaching missile range,” said the beagle. “He is requesting permission to fire.”
“Fire away,” said One.
The beagle nodded. “Missile fired. Aaand … Alpha Scout is down, and crashed on land, not the sea. Impact location is close to the human village.”
One sighed and clasped her fingers together. “Send a squad of walkers to the crash location. I don’t care if they turn the place into a radioactive wasteland, as long as they find Philip’s body and bring it to me.”
Wilson rubbed his paws rapidly. “What about the transmission, my Lady?”
The communications officer spoke up. “The background modulation sounds like a Tau Ceti design,” said the white cat. “I strongly believe they are using cat military equipment, my Lady.”
“Load up every transport in the fleet with combat troops,” said One. “Get Two and Four on the line, and I’ll tell them myself.”
Wilson gasped. “Every soldier? Just to catch a pair of idiots who hijacked a radio?”
One gritted her teeth. She reached over and poked the black cat’s head with a red-painted fingernail.
“Every cat and dog who can fog a mirror is going to make planetfall with plasma rifles and full combat gear, and that includes you! Turn that filthy human village into a pile of ash and glowing cinders if you have to, but bring Three and the copy back alive. If a pair of morons survived the wreck, then so can a pair of smart girls.”
A SHARP PAIN jabbed Philip’s cheek.
“Wake up!” sobbed Nick. “Please don’t die, Phillie!”
Philip groaned and rubbed the side of his face.
“Is that you, Nick? Ugh … I feel like someone biffed me with a hammer.”
Nick tossed a metal pipe into the darkness.
“It’s your imagination,” she said. “Stand up!”
Philip groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position. The cat fighter lay a few meters away at the end of a long furrow of sand on the darkened beach. The ball of black metal was split open like a cracked egg, and smoke poured from the inside and streamed into the night sky. Sharp fragments of metal were scattered across the sand as far as he could see, each in their own tiny furrows or craters. A wave suddenly foamed white and crashed into the broken pieces of the cat fighter, pulling it toward the sea as if nature were trying to clean up the mess. A scatter of gun fire sounded in the night, faint enough that Philip confused it for a moment with waves striking off-shore rocks.
“Were those rifle shots?” he asked. “Even Americans wouldn’t hunt at this time of night. You couldn’t hit a goat tied to a fence in this darkness.”
Nick leaned forward and squinted at the teenager.
“You just survived a crash and now you’re talking about goats?”
“I’m talking about those rifle shots I heard.”
“It’s the ocean, silly!”
“I disagree. There’s another one! Wait a moment––how did you pull me from the wreckage?”
Nick stamped her foot. “Don’t make me hit you with that pipe again. We have to run!”
“Why?”
The tiny sprite pointed at the night sky and Philip tilted his head back.
“Polaris? The three sisters? I see nothing but the stars and the prosaic beauty of clouds swimming through the sky. What’s the point?”
“Not the clouds, you silly. Look closer!”
A section of the slate-gray clouds shivered like heat waves in the desert. Philip rubbed his eyes again and stared. The shapes of three mammoth, tubular starships flickered into existence and loomed overhead, dark and menacing.
“That’s scarface Amy,” said Nick. “She wants you back in a bad way!”
“No! I won’t have it!”
Philip climbed to his feet and ran south along the beach, the starships at his back.
“Not that way!” squealed Nick. She buzzed into the air after the teenager. “Sunflower’s signal is the other direction! Don’t you see the blue glowing thing? That’s him!”
Philip slid to a stop in the cold sand. “What a horrid bit of business this is,” he muttered to himself.
A slight movement down the beach caught his attention. He squinted and craned his neck at a jumble of tall rocks above the surf.
Nick fluttered to his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“How queer––I thought I saw something move.”
The tiny sprite giggled. “You’re afraid of everything, Phillie! Remember when we watched that documentary about the cat and sauro wars? You thought giant lizards were hiding everywhere and were afraid of the dark for a week! So cute.”
Three tall shadows separated from the rocks. A horrific bellow rolled over the beach, louder than the sound of the waves, and best described as the horrific scream of a leopard falling from a plane without a parachute, combined with the roar of a lion who has unfortunately jammed his paw into an electrical outlet. The shadows changed into three charging lizards, their muscular legs spraying huge gouts of sand and sharp teeth gleaming in their wide-open jaws.
“Sauros!” yelled Nick.
The sprite buzzed up the beach and away from the attacking reptiles, with Philip huffing and puffing after her.
A ROUND fired from a .30-06 Springfield 1903 rifle weighs eleven grams and has a muzzle velocity of 850 meters per second. The formula for kinetic energy is 1/2 mv2, giving the bullet an energy of 3,973 Joules. In layman’s terms, this has the same energy as a hockey puck traveling 450 miles per hour, or four times the normal speed.
However, even a bullet made of diamonds and rainbows shot from a cannon by unicorns wouldn’t have touched the overshield around the gigantic armored cat as it ran through the coastal pines and jumped a series of high parabola over the forest. The glowing blue sphere acted as a soapy bubble of magnetic energy and deflected the lead bullets harmlessly into the darkness. The pursuing soldiers saw a fiery shower of sparks as each bullet hit the shield. Mistaking the sparks for successful hits, the soldiers cheered and urged their horses faster through the trees even as the gigantic metal tiger jumped higher and faster.
In the navigator’s seat behind Sunflower, Betsy peered at the holographic data floating over his control panel. The cockpit shook from a heavy impact and his flight helmet slid over his eyes.
“Watch it, Sunnie!”
“You try driving this thing in the dark,” said the orange tabby in the front seat. “There are trees everywhere!”
“No problem for a qualified pilot,” said the flight computer.
Sunflower slapped the console. “I told you to turn that thing off!”
“But Sunnie, we need his help,” said Betsy.
“Anything from the sensors?”
Betsy shook his head. “Too much static. I think it’s the shield, and I can’t shut it off because somebody’s shooting at us.”
“Safety first,” said the flight computer.
“I’ll give you safety,” said Sunflower. “Can’t turn it off because of our new friends? I’ll show them.”
The cockpit shuddered as the armored cat leaped into the air, brushed past a pair of narrow redwood trees, landed on all fours, and slid through the wet ferns, leaving a trail in the mud a dozen meters long. Super-heated steam blew from vents in the sides of the giant steel beast. The energy bubble around the massive vehicle colored the trees an otherworldly, fantastical shade of blue, as if the entire forest were underwater. Sunflower spun the giant machine to face the horsemen galloping from the rear.
“Don’t hurt them, Sunnie,” said Betsy. “Maybe they want to be friends.”
“Friends don’t shoot at each other.”
“What about that one time? You said it was for fun.”
“Different situation,” said the cat. �
��I was the one doing the shooting.”
The dozen horses of the cavalry patrol slid to a stop ten meters away, the dark brown animals shiny with sweat and blowing clouds of steamy breath in the cold night air. The soldiers pointed their rifles at the giant metal tiger.
Sunflower pressed a button. The armored cat raised its head with a deafening roar, shaking the redwood branches with a sound like a Bengal tiger that had swallowed a jet turbine. The horses bucked and reared on their hind legs, throwing half the soldiers into the ferns. This shocking development motivated each and every one of the soldiers to turn tail and run.
The forest darkened as the glowing bubble snapped off.
“Overshield deactivated,” said the flight computer.
“Finally,” said Sunflower. “Tell me you’ve found something.”
“Give me a second, Sunnie,” said Betsy. “Everything’s covered with red jam back here.”
“Red jam? Are you hurt? Betsy, talk to me! Say something!”
“Why? I was just hungry and opened a jar of raspberry jam. Clumsy me, now it’s everywhere. I guess I’ll have to lick it up. Yum, yum, yum, get in my tum, tum, tum.”
“Are you serious? We’re about to die in an apocalyptic battle with the forces of evil clone Amy, and you’re licking your control panel?”
Betsy looked up, his jaws covered with red. “I can’t ‘not’ lick it. Use your head, Sunnie!”
“If I used my head I’d be running away from a fleet of blood-thirsty dimensional pirates,” said Sunflower. “Not sending out a message to get their attention!”
“Uh … you could be right about that.”
Sunflower sighed. “Please tell me that sudden beeping is a contact on the sensors.”
“What? Oh, you’re right! One, two, three … I see three pickle-shaped things on the display.”
“Magic pickles that learned to fly?”
“If that’s true, these are the biggest pickles I’ve ever seen,” said Betsy. “Pickles two hundred meters long and strapped to giant engines with radiation signatures. Wait––the three pickles had babies! Four, five … six more pickles on the screen, all tiny! I wonder if they have names already.”
Sunflower tapped his console with a furry paw. The holographic image in front of his nose shivered and changed to a transparent orange projection of three pickle-shaped starships. Six white dots appeared below the ships and dropped toward the surface.
“Landing craft, just like I told you,” said Sunflower. “I love it when a plan comes together.”
The orange tabby moved his paws in the control pits, spinning the giant armored machine in the damp redwood needles and sending it on a rocket-assisted leap through the forest. Both Sunflower and Betsy might have been thrown around the cockpit and broken a few bones from the violent acceleration, if it weren’t for the safety harnesses strapping each to his seat.
“Looks like the baby pickles are coming down,” said Betsy. “Do you think they want to make friends like the horse people?”
“Of course. Exactly like that.”
With a crash of splintered trees, Sunflower piloted the steel tiger out of the forest and charged across sand dunes covered with thick, scrubby bushes. Ground squirrels with long, stringy tails fled for their lives across the sand, and white seagulls sprang into the sky and screamed quite a few seagull bad words at the noise.
“See that big rotating light? I’ll drop you off there,” said Sunflower. “That’s also our meeting place if anything goes wrong.”
“Nothing will go wrong, Sunnie! Everyone likes dogs and wants to be my friend.”
“Right. Shove a hat on a poona and he’ll be emperor.”
“What did you say?”
“I said your fur looks nice today. Now, don’t forget the plan––find a transport and get on board. Are you ready?”
“Sure!”
A low tone sounded in the cockpit.
“Warning,” said the flight computer. “Multiple craft with no identifier beacons on intercept course. Gamma radiation detected. Recommend increasing speed and changing heading to ninety-four degrees.”
“We’re not doing that,” said Sunflower. “I want them to intercept us.”
“Really?” scoffed the computer. “It’s your funeral.”
“Yours, too, if you don’t move faster, you over-engineered trash can!”
“No need to be mean about it. I’ve got feelings, too, you know.”
Sunflower rolled his eyes. “I really doubt that.”
The steel beast thumped and tore through the dunes like a steam train with Roger Bannister’s legs, leaving a wide trail of broken trees and cracked branches. Sunflower pulled the controls and the armored cat slid to a stop on a trimmed lawn behind the slowly rotating light. The navigational beacon was actually a two-story house of white brick with a round tower sticking up from the roof. Inside the windows of the tower, a brilliant flash of light rotated slowly.
Sunflower pulled a lever and the jaws of the giant steel tiger split horizontally, the top half of the head folding back over the neck to reveal the twin seats of the cockpit.
The orange tabby felt a mist of rain on his whiskers, and immediately closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath of fresh air. His feeling of peaceful calm was destroyed by Betsy climbing over the seat and shoving his doggie bottom in the cat’s face.
“Hey!”
“Sorry, Sunnie!”
The brown-and-white terrier clambered over the side and dropped two meters to the sandy lawn.
“I left my helmet under my seat,” he said, tail wagging.
Sunflower leaned over the side. “Thanks for that information, Captain Obvious. I’ll mail it to you first thing in the––”
“Incoming fire,” said the flight computer.
Sunflower chuckled. “A few little bullets won’t hurt us.”
“I SAID INCOMING FIRE!” screamed the flight computer.
The cockpit snapped shut with a ferocity that almost took off Sunflower’s right paw, and Betsy scampered away into the darkness as if the little dog had been shot from a gun. A nano-second later, the two-story lighthouse exploded in an earth-shaking ball of flame, scattering white bricks, lumber, and glass for hundreds of yards.
Sunflower was thrown against his harness as the cockpit spun wildly and a storm of debris clanged against the steel skin. The machine stopped moving at last, but the view outside was blocked by the irregular fragments of orange clay bricks.
Sunflower pushed back his helmet. “Damage report.”
“You actually think that little blast of plasma would hurt me?” chuckled the flight computer. “It wasn’t even a direct hit. Oh, wait. The damage report module was damaged, eliminating my ability to report damage. This could be bad.”
“That’s a joke, right? I know you’re just a flight computer, but that’s got to be a joke.”
“Battle damage is very serious.”
“What are you talking about?!!”
“Let me be clear––the idea of battle damage is very serious. Apart from the damage to the damage reporting module, we’re perfectly fine. One hundred percent!”
Sunflower sighed. “Blessed Saint Mittens and his three legs.”
He piloted the giant beast out of a pile of bricks and wooden beams, and tromped to the smoking hole in the ground where the lighthouse had stood only a moment before.
“Can you see Betsy? Is he okay?”
“Navigator is currently hiding under a bush, point three kilometers to the east,” said the flight computer. “He was outside the blast radius. Note: action required. Incoming fire.”
“Turn on the overshield!”
Sunflower twisted his paws in the control pits and the steel tiger leapt into the air, side thrusters burning brightly, as a second energy blast shook the cockpit and turned night into day.
The armored cat landed on all fours in a meadow near the destroyed lighthouse. Sunflower squinted at a pair of black domes on the beach to the south. Lines of ti
ny figures streamed onto the pale sand from each of the transports. With a bright gleam of landing jets, two more domes skimmed over the waves and settled on the beach. The doors slammed down and even more cat and dog soldiers charged out, with a faint “hup, hup, hup” carried by the cool ocean breeze.
“Retreat is recommended,” said the flight computer. “Walker radiation signatures detected.”
Sunflower jammed his paws in the control pits, his furry face curled into a snarl.
“Running away isn’t part of the plan!”
He turned the armored beast toward the transports and charged, zig-zagging through the dunes with great leaps that left four huge trenches in the sand when the giant machine landed. The soldiers saw him coming and fired brilliant cobalt beams of plasma from their rifles. Many of the shots of crackling energy missed but a few burned through the overshield and cut deep lines across the skin of the steel tiger. Where it was hit, the edges of the damaged steel turned bright orange.
The smells of melted plastic and heated metal tickled his nose, and Sunflower grimaced.
“Bad kitties,” he growled.
He toggled off the weapon safety. At the apex of the next jump, a barrage of tiny rockets burst from pods on the back of the armored cat and curved through the night sky, almost scraping the bottom of the clouds. Like a shower of Roman candles, the miniature but highly explosive missiles rained down on the transports, blowing apart two with several dull booms and flashes of heat.
The giant steel tiger landed in the middle of the soldiers. It roared with a tremendous, sand-shivering sound and charged back and forth, batting at the astonished cats and dogs with razor claws and armored tail. Not expecting to face a military-grade Tau Ceti battle tank, hundreds of cooks, technicians, and laundry workers dropped their rifles and ran down the beach away from the gigantic, red-eyed horror. Several brigades of trained soldiers gathered in the dunes and reformed their fire teams, but Sunflower landed in the midst of each, scattering hundreds of cats and dogs in all directions. The ones still alive fled into the night.
“Damage report,” said Sunflower.
“Did you forget already?” asked the flight computer. “The damage report module was damaged.”
SpaceBook Awakens (Amy Armstrong 3) Page 14
