Space Team

The Search for Splurt

Barry J. Hutchison

Zertex Books

Copyright © 2017 by Barry J. Hutchison

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Published worldwide by Zertex Books.

www.barryjhutchison.com

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

EXTRA BONUS CONTENT

Song of the Space Siren - Chapter One

A Word from the Author

Your Free Starter Library

Oh! I Almost forgot…

Also by Barry J. Hutchison

One

Cal Carver sat on a tall stool at a low bar, drinking uncomfortably.

He was alone, despite the crowds around him, and estimated he was roughly four-thirds of the way towards being drunk. Which said it all, really.

The sign above the bar’s front door translated as Mishak’s Tavern, which, despite having no idea who or what ‘Mishak’ was, Cal had thought sounded quite quaint. Inside, however, it was anything but.

Hundreds of weirdly misshapen aliens filled the place, flirting and fighting and – in the darker corners – doing other things that may or may not have started with ‘f’.

They laughed, shouted, cheered and roared all around him. He narrowed his eyes and peered over the top of his glass at the mirror behind the bar, trying to take it all in without drawing any unwanted attention to himself.

The bar’s clientele were like the assembled cast of all Cal’s more creative childhood nightmares. There were slug-like things with their eyes out on stalks, rough-skinned green things with nonsensical teeth, and something that looked like a cross between a spider and a fish, but with none of the good bits of either.

There were things made of rock, things that oozed pus from their empty eye sockets, things that took on a ghostly shimmer in the shadows, and faded completely when the light hit them. All it needed, Cal thought, was his second-grade teacher dressed like a clown and he’d have a bad-dream full house.

Voices rose over by one of the dimly-lit booths. There was the scream of blaster-fire, the splat of something wet hitting the wall, then the thud of someone heavy hitting the floor. A sarcastic cheer filled the place, like the kind a group of boorish drinkers might have made back on Earth when a bartender dropped a glass, and then everyone went back to the business of trying to talk more loudly than everyone else in the place.

Cal brought his glass close to his mouth and tried to take a sip, but his arm was swaying and his aim was off and so he sipped at the air, instead. He didn’t seem to notice, and it didn’t stop him smacking his lips together and letting out a satisfied, “aaah.”

With some effort, Cal turned and looked along the bar to his right. A reedy little yellow-skinned guy perched on a stool, nursing his own drink. He had bulbous white eyes that reminded Cal of Kermit the Frog, and a little curled mustache that positively screamed space-hipster.

His clothing, on the other hand, said casual sportswear. It was as close to a tracksuit as Cal had seen this side of Earth’s atmosphere, and made of something that looked like the unholy offspring of velour and nylon. He wore a wide-peaked baseball cap low on his head, although Cal knew it wasn’t really a baseball cap, because they almost certainly didn’t have baseball in space. They probably had something else. Space-ball, or something.

Cal spent a few seconds trying to devise the rules of Space-ball.

That done, he sipped his drink – successfully this time - drew back his lips in utter revulsion at the taste, and turned his attention to far more pressing matters.

“What the fonk is it with these stools?” he asked.

Tracksuit-guy didn’t answer, or even glance Cal’s way.

Cal leaned closer and raised his voice. “I said, what the fonk is it with these stools?” he repeated, shrugging heavily for added emphasis. “I mean… look.”

Cal sat up straight and tried to reach for his drink on the bar. Even at full stretch, he couldn’t get his fingers to the glass. “See? What’s the point in that?”

“I don’t know,” the yellow-skin replied.

“Hmm?” said Cal, pushing his ear forward and closing one eye, in the hope that the reduction in visual input would magically boost his hearing. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing. Forget it,” the guy said. He knocked back his drink in one gulp, shuddered slightly, then moved to get up.

“Wait!” Cal slurred, sliding off his stool in a quite breathtakingly undignified way. He shuffled closer to the stranger, leaning on the bar for support. “I’m Cal.”

He held a hand out for the little guy to shake. The alien looked at it, confused, then shook his head. “Whatever. Have a nice night.”

“Hold on!” said Cal again. “Here, let me… Bartender!” He tried clicking his fingers, but they refused to work for some reason. He glared at them through his one open eye, hoping to force them into making the noise.

A female alien with dark hair and faintly blue skin appeared behind the bar, as if from nowhere. “Yes?” she said, smiling too broadly for it to be natural. “How can I be of service?”

“Aha! You can be of service by getting my new friend here another drink,” Cal replied.

The yellow guy’s Kermit-eyes darted around the bar, looking for something. A way out, probably.

“Look, I ain’t your friend, mister,” he said, his voice coming as a low hiss. He lifted his tracksuit top to reveal the handle of a knife tucked into the waistband of his pants. “So, if I were you, I’d back off. Unless you want this.”

Cal shambled from foot to foot, trying to focus on the long handle. The bar’s dim lighting didn’t help. “Is that your penis?” Cal asked. “Are you… why would I want your penis? Jesus, is it supposed to be that color?” He raised his voice and looked around at the thronging masses in the bar. “Is there a doctor in the house? This man has something wrong with his--”

“It’s a knife,” the skinny guy hissed. “OK? It’s a knife. So, you’d better back away right now, man.”

Cal let out a very deliberate exhale. He looked down at the knife, then slowly raised his eyes. “I’m afraid I can’t do that… Narp, isn’t it?” he said, his voice now dangerously sober. “See, my friends and I would like to talk to you.”

Narp’s ping-pong ball eyes widened. He stared at Cal for a handful of seconds, then turned and hurled himself into the crowd.

“He’s running!” said the bartender.

“Yes, thank you, Loren. I’d noticed,” replied Cal, throwing himself after the fleeing Narp. Behind him, Loren vaulted onto the bar, sending half a dozen glasses crashing to the floor. The same sarcastic cheer as before rose up around Cal as he shouldered his way through a flailing forest of alien arms, legs and a number of other largely unidentifiable appendages.

“Excuse me, sorry, coming through!” Cal said, dodging and weaving through the tightly-packed throngs. Then, when that didn’t work, he tried a different approach. “Move! Out of the way! Space Police, clear the way!”

This technique turned out to be marginally less effective than the first approach, with everyone in the bar squeezing just a little closer together to slow his progress even further.

“OK, not Space Police. I hate those guys!”

Loren, meanwhile, raced along the bar top, scattering glasses and bottles and little bowls of nuts. An eight-fingered hand made a grab for her ankle, but she skipped over it, paused briefly to shatter the wrist with one quick stamp, then pressed on.

Narp was pulling ahead of Cal, but there was a knot of revelers in relaxed business wear gathered tightly near the door, ready to make a quick exit if needed. Narp collided with them, and they all went down in a tangle of limbs and a chorus of breaking glass.

Muttering and cursing, Narp kicked himself back to his feet. Loren launched herself off the bar, aiming for his back, just as Cal stumbled through a gap between a hippo-like thing and a little green creature with pointy ears and a walking stick.

Cal barely made it halfway through the sentence, “Hey, that guy looks like Yoda!” before Loren landed on him, knees first.

It was Cal who hit the floor first, his fall cushioned somewhat by the terrified office-worker he landed on. Loren tucked her head and shoulder into the beginnings of a forward roll, but the rest of the business-dress brigade blocked her as they all fell over one another on their mad scramble to the exit.

Several feet behind Cal, the creature whose wrist Loren had shattered produced a blaster pistol and began firing indiscriminately at the unsuspecting ceiling. Chunks of plaster and masonry rained down, and the bar erupted in a frenzy of anger and fear.

“Come on, move,” Loren hissed, grabbing Cal by the arm and dragging him towards the door. They were carried on a wave of heaving bodies all trying to escape from the gunman.

Cal caught a mercifully fleeting glimpse of the Yoda-a-like being squished beneath one of the hippo-thing’s feet, briefly thought, “Well, there goes my childhood,” then was slammed against the door frame before tumbling out onto the dark, rain swept street.

Despite being on a different world, the city had seemed more ‘foreign’ than ‘alien’ to Cal. There were no flying cars, people on jetpacks, weirdly-lit pods or any of that stuff, just dirty buildings that gave a nod in the direction of looking futuristic, and a lot of noisy traffic.

Cal had never been to Tokyo, but this place was how he thought some of the rougher parts of that city might look. Only, instead of millions of Japanese people, this one was populated entirely by the cast of a nightmarishly drug-fueled episode of The Muppets.

“Up there!” shouted Loren, over the roaring and screaming of the fleeing crowds. Cal followed her finger and saw Narp scrabbling up a ladder leading to the roof of a nearby building. It was four or five floors high, and Narp was already climbing quickly past the second.

“Oh Jesus,” Cal wheezed. The collision with Loren, then the door, had knocked most of the wind out of him, and an impromptu spot of ladder climbing didn’t exactly appeal. “Can’t we just shoot him?”

“We need him alive,” said Loren, hurrying towards the ladder.

“Then set your gun to stun mode,” Cal suggested, hobbling after her.

“What are you talking about?” Loren bent her knees and sprang upwards, catching the bottom rung of the ladder. “It doesn’t have a stun mode.”

Cal jumped, hands grasping for the ladder. He missed and slid down the wall. He squatted down low, then launched himself upwards. He hissed as he caught the ladder and his arms almost jerked out of their sockets. “It doesn’t have a stun mode? What sort of space gun doesn’t have a stun mode?”

“All of them. None of them,” said Loren, gritting her teeth and hauling herself up the ladder. “That’s a confusingly-phrased question!”

Cal’s arms burned as he clambered up the side of the building, leaving the worst of the city noise below. The rain lashed at him, prickling his skin with icy forks, and sticking his hair to his forehead. The wind, which apparently couldn’t decide which direction to blow in, battered him from every angle at once.

Even the one positive about the whole experience – an excellent view of Loren’s leather-clad butt – was ruined by the slicks of rain in his eyes. He shook his head and managed to blink the worst of the water away just as he arrived, panting and heaving, at the top of the ladder.

With a strangled, “Wah!” he toppled over the low wall that surrounded the rooftop, and fell heavily onto the roof itself. It was wide and perfectly flat, and as Cal clambered to his feet he saw Loren taking off after Narp, who was already more than halfway to the opposite side.

Sucking it up, Cal threw himself into a run. The storm protested, whistling and howling as it tried to slap him down. He gritted his teeth, muttered enough swear words to almost make the censorship module of his translation chip go into meltdown, and pushed on.

Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, Cal saw Narp throw himself off the edge. The little yellow guy bounded effortlessly across the gap between this roof and the next, paused briefly to glance over his shoulder, then broke into another run.

Loren threw herself after him, her arms flailing in the wind as she tumbled across the gap. She hit the other roof awkwardly, stumbled to one knee, then was off again in pursuit.

“You have got to be fonking kidding me,” Cal groaned, skidding to a stop at the rooftop’s edge. The gap was only five or six feet, and would have been easily doable with a run up. But the wall around the roof meant he’d have to make the leap from a standing start, and he was far less confident about that.

He leaned over the edge, hoping to see a trailer filled with feathers or mattresses parked right below him, but it wasn’t to be. There wasn’t even a garbage dumpster someone had conveniently left open for just such an emergency.

If he was jumping, he would be doing it without a safety net.

Which meant he shouldn’t jump.

Jumping was madness.

He jumped.

For a moment, there was no sound but the crashing of his heartbeat. Even the storm seemed to abate as Cal hurtled across the gap, arms outstretched, legs trailing behind him. And then…

WHAM!

His fingers found the edge of the roof, and the rest of him found the wall. He felt the last of the breath depart his lungs, and saw a tunnel of darkness closing around his vision. His fingers loosened, and he had to focus to make them hold on.

Cal’s legs kicked limply on the rough stone wall as he fought to pull himself up. “Come on,” he wheezed. “Come on.”

Sluggishly, awkwardly, he heaved himself up until he could hook one leg onto the roof. He clung there in that position for a moment, waiting for the world to stop spinning and the urge to vomit to pass. Then, with a guttural grunt of effort, he pulled himself the rest of the way onto the rooftop.

Cal laughed. He couldn’t help it. The lack of breath meant it came out as a series of short hisses, but it was a laugh, all the same.

“I made it,” he gasped, standing up. “I’m… I’m alive.”

He fired a salute towards the rooftop opposite, turned on his heels, then screamed as the roof collapsed beneath him.

Cal’s scream barely registered over the howling of the wind, but it was enough to make Loren look back. Shielding her eyes against the wind and rain, she scanned the rooftops. “Cal?” she cried, but her voice was stolen away by the storm. She stumbled back in the direction Cal should have been and tried again. “Cal, where are you?”

Further away, and getting further every second, Narp hurled himself across another gap, bounded across another rooftop, then half-climbed, half-slid down another ladder.

He dropped the last few feet into a narrow alleyway, glanced up to make sure no-one was following him, then allowed himself a smile. He had no idea who the people chasing him were, but they’d have to move quicker than that if they wanted to keep up.

Adjusting the collar of his tracksuit, Narp turned towards the alley’s mouth. A figure made almost entirely of metal blocked his path.

“Don’t even think about running, man,” warned the cyborg.

“I’d listen to him,” said another voice from behind Narp. He whipped around in fright and found himself staring into the tooth-filled jaws of a powerfully-built figure who was covered from head to toe in thick, dark hair. “Because no matter how fast you might be, I am totally faster.”

Two

Narp hesitated, one hand on the handle of his apartment’s front door. He glanced back over his shoulder at Loren, who had her blaster pistol pressed against the small of his back.

“Look,” he whispered. “You’re not… You guys aren’t going to hurt my mom, are you?”

“Of course we ain’t gonna hurt your mom,” said Mech. His face – one of his few remaining organic parts scowled. “What do you think we are?”

“I… I don’t know,” Narp admitted, shooting a nervous glance at the wolf-woman, Mizette. “I don’t know what this is about.”

“Then why did you run?” Loren asked.

“I thought you were the cops,” replied Narp.

Loren frowned. “Why?”

“Well, because he shouted, ‘Stop, Space Police,’” said Narp, nodding in Cal’s direction. Cal was nursing a cut above his left eye, and an ache that radiated upwards from his ass-bone.

“Oh yeah, blame it on me, why don’t you?” said Cal. He winced. “Does your mom have any, like, Aspirin in the house?”

Narp’s eyes flicked anxiously across the group. “Promise me you won’t hurt her.”

“Just open the motherfonkin’ door, shizznod,” Mech barked. “We ain’t got all day.”

Hesitantly, Narp pushed the door open and led them into a narrow hallway. The carpet was thin and threadbare in patches. It was a sickly green, with a pattern of zig-zags that gave the impression the floor was undulating quite unpleasantly beneath their feet.

The walls had been inexpertly painted in just the wrong shade of blue to be complimentary. Framed photographs hung on the wall, most of them showing Narp at different ages, wearing a number of variations on what looked like a school uniform.

“Hey, is that you?” said Cal, studying one of the photographs. “You looked so cute. What happened?”

“Narp? Narp, honey, is that you?”

An elderly woman with the same yellow skin and ping-pong ball eyes shuffled out of a doorway along the wall. She wore a floral-patterned robe and matching slippers, and her short, graying hair was tied up in curlers. She smiled warmly when she saw the four strangers squeezed into the hallway behind her son.

“Ah, yes. There you are.”

“It’s OK, mom, it’s OK,” said Narp. “They’re just, uh, they’re friends of mine.

Cal stepped forwards, all smiles. He took the woman’s hand and shook it. She matched his smile and flashed it right back at him.

“Mrs… uh… Narp’s mom. We’ve heard so much about you. I’m--”

“I know who you are,” she said. “You’re Cal Carver.”

She leaned past Cal and looked at the others in turn. Her smile dipped when she saw Mizette. “Oh, my poor thing, I’m so sorry to hear about your father,” she said, then a frown flitted across her face. “Or… has that happened yet? It’s hard to keep track of it all sometimes.”

“What?” said Miz, blinking in surprise. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“How do you know about that? How do you know who we are?” asked Cal. He looked back at Narp. “How does your mom know who we are? What is this?”

“I used to be a Nun,” said Narp’s mom.

Cal nodded slowly. “Right, well… that explains it?” he said. “Except, you know, not really. Or at all.”

“She was in an order of predictors. She can see the future,” said Narp. “In bursts. Not all of it.”

“You think my Narp can help you with something,” said the woman, still smiling. “You’re looking for your friend.”

“That’s right,” said Cal. “We are.”

Narp’s mom nodded and shuffled towards another door. “Then I’ll leave you to it and go rustle you up some snacks. You’ll enjoy my spit nibbles, Cal.”

“Spit nibbles? Uh, no, I’m pretty sure I won’t,” said Cal.

The woman hesitated at the kitchen door. “Trust me. You do,” she said, then she winked and stepped inside.

“Well that wasn’t weird at all,” Cal muttered, then he clapped his hands once and spun on his heels. “Now then, Narp, m’boy. Let’s get down to business.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Narp sat on the end of his bed, staring up at Cal and Loren. “You want me to do what?”

“We want you to hack into the encrypted presidential mainframe at Zertex,” Loren said. “We need to know where President Sinclair is.”

“President Sinclair is the friend you’re trying to find?” Narp asked, slightly taken aback.

“No. We think Sinclair has got our friend,” said Cal, munching on a spit nibble. It was a bit like a spicy spring roll, and – if you didn’t overthink the name – absolutely delicious. “He’s keeping him prisoner,” Cal said between bites. “He thinks he’s me. He’s a shapeshifter.”

Narp frowned. “President Sinclair is a shapeshifter?”

“No, our friend is a shapeshifter. Sinclair thinks he’s me.”

Narp’s frown deepened. “Sinclair thinks he’s you?”

“No.”

“Your friend thinks he’s you?”

“What? No! What are you talking about? No-one thinks they’re me.” Cal rolled his eyes. “Jesus, this kid is slow.”

“To be fair, you did explain it pretty badly,” Miz pointed out.

Cal leaned down and spoke very deliberately to Narp. “Listen. OK? It’s not difficult. Our friend, the shapeshifter – the one we’re looking for - has disguised himself as me.” Cal gestured to himself to demonstrate what he looked like. “In order to fool President Sinclair into taking him – our friend - prisoner, instead of me.” He gestured to himself again for emphasis.

“But we don’t know where Sinclair is holding him,” Loren explained. “So we need to track him down.”

“And he don’t exactly announce his movements in advance,” added Mech.

“Hence why we need you to hack the president server, or whatever it’s called,” said Cal.

“Encrypted presidential mainframe,” said Loren. Cal waved the words away.

“Or whatever it’s called, and help us find him.”

Narp slid both arms along the bed covers behind him and leaned back a little. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I can’t do that. Wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Yeah, you would,” said Mech. “You’re Narp Aktinmeed. You’re the only person to have broken Zertex presidential mainframe encryption. Or only one to do so and still be alive, anyway.”

Cal looked around the cramped bedroom. The walls and ceiling were plastered with posters of semi-naked women – or, more accurately, semi-naked females of varying species. The bed was unmade, the curtains were closed, and the very fabric of the place reeked of sweat, farts, and something not a million miles away from cannabis.

The bedside table was an upturned cardboard box. Three plastic pots containing what looked to be ramen noodles – space ramen noodles, Cal thought, but chose not to announce on this occasion – stood congealing on top. One of the half-empty pots had found a new lease of life as an ashtray.

“Are we sure this is our guy?” Cal asked. “He doesn’t look like the galaxy’s greatest hacker.”

“I’m not,” insisted Narp.

“He is,” growled Mech.

Cal clicked his tongue against his teeth and fixed his gaze on Narp. “Well, there’s one way to find out. Miz?”

Miz tutted with annoyance and looked up from picking her claw-like fingernails. “Yes?”

“Chew one of his legs off.”

“What?” yelped Narp, suddenly sitting stiffly upright. “No, wait. What?”

Miz drew her gums back, showing off her teeth. She flicked her tongue across them, hungrily, and lowered her eyes to Narp’s left foot.

“No, wait! Wait! What if I did know a way?” said Narp. “What if I could hack the mainframe? What’s in it for me?”

Cal shrugged. “Your legs?”

“Come on, man,” Narp protested. “Guy’s gotta make a living.”

“I agree,” said Cal, smiling broadly. “And doing so will be far easier if you still have your legs, don’t you think?”

He squatted down until he was at Narp’s eyes level. The smile stayed in place, but the humor had left it. “Look, we wouldn’t normally do this sort of thing. We’re nice, once you get to know us. But we don’t really have any money and, well, our friend is very important to us. So, what’s say you fire up your space laptop, or whatever it is you use, and get us Sinclair’s itinerary?”

Narp rolled his lip between his teeth, his eyes darting all over the place. “I don’t know, man. You’re asking a lot. I just think it would be fair if I was compensated in some way for--”

Cal stood up. “Loren, take off one of his shoes.”

“OK, OK, fine!” Narp groaned. He gestured to a sideboard that was half-buried under piles of dirty plates, empty cups and junk food wrappers. Beside all the mess, a space had been cleared for a single sheet of letter-sized paper. “That’s it. The itinerary,” Narp said.

“What? You’ve already got it?” Cal asked.

Loren picked up the paper and studied it. “Is this genuine?”

Narp nodded slowly. “My mom,” he sighed. “She knew you were coming, and what you were looking for.”

“Then why did you run?” asked Loren.

“I told you, because I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know that was meant for you.”

“Your mom is a fine woman,” said Cal. “A fine woman. And she makes excellent spit nibbles. You don’t appreciate her enough.”

Narp frowned. “What?”

“Well, I mean, look at this place,” said Cal, gesturing around. “It’s a pig sty.”

“What’s a pig sty?” Narp asked.

“It’s a very messy place, where no-one respects their mother,” Cal said. “You’d better start pulling your weight and tidying up after yourself, Narp,” he added, then he squatted down to Narp’s eye level again. “Or we’re going to come back, and this time, Miz really will eat your legs off. Understood?”

Narp looked up at Miz, just for a moment. She curled up her gums, flashing a tooth. Narp quickly turned back to Cal and nodded.

“Good man,” said Cal, clapping him on the shoulder. “You get tidying, and we’ll see ourselves out. It has been a pleasure. Seriously. Let’s do it again sometime.”

Leaving Narp to it, Cal and the others bundled out into the hallway and headed for the front door. “Thanks for the spit nibbles!” Cal called. “They were surprisingly tasty, although you may want to rebrand them.”

They left the apartment, and Cal was about to close the door behind them when Narp’s mom poked her head out of the kitchen and smiled at him.

“You’re welcome. Drop by any time.”

Cal nodded, and was about to close the door when a thought struck him. “Hey, uh, if you can see the future and everything, then… do you know if we find him? Splurt, I mean. Our friend. Do we find him?”

The woman’s smile faltered, then fell away. “Yes, Mr Carver,” she said, in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “Yes, I’m afraid you do.”

Her smile returned, but there was a sadness to it now. “And while I know you’d love to ask me exactly what I mean by that, you have more pressing problems at the moment.”

“Shizz!” spat Mech from somewhere along the corridor.

There was a screech of laser fire, followed by the unmistakable karuummaf of a wall collapsing. Cal turned in time for Loren, Mech and Miz to hurry past him. “Zertex!” Mech hissed. “Come on, man, let’s go!”

“Thanks again, Narp!” Cal shouted through the open door. He ran, ducking as a bolt of red energy tore along the corridor and blew out a window up ahead.

“There’s our way out!” said Loren, picking up speed.

“The window?” Cal groaned. He lowered his head and covered it with his arms. “Why is it always the shizzing window?”

* * *

One jump, fall, and possible fractured pelvis later, Cal slid into the captain’s chair of his ship, the Shatner, and winced with the pain it brought. “Remind me never to jump out a window again.”

“It was only the second floor,” Mizette pointed out.

“Don’t care.” Cal shrugged. “I don’t care if it’s the first floor. Hell, I don’t care if it’s in the basement, my window jumping days are done. No more.” He held a hand out. “Loren, the printout, if you please.”

Loren tensed. “What? I haven’t got it! I thought you had it.”

Cal shook his head. “What? No! I don’t have it! You have it! You were the last one to…” He broke into a grin. “I can’t do it. Just look at your face.” He fished in the back pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a folded-square of paper. “Just look at her face.”

“Funny,” said Loren, turning her chair away from him.

“Thanks, I thought so,” agreed Cal. He smoothed out the sheet while Loren started preparing the ship for take-off. “Now. Where are we?” Cal mumbled, looking the page up and down. The writing was messy and uneven. It sloped towards the top of the unlined page like it was making a break for freedom, before being reined back in and finishing just a little higher than where it started.

Cal nodded and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Right, then,” he said. He picked the page up and flipped it over, checking the other side. It was blank. “That all seems to be in order.”

“You don’t know what any of it means, do you?” asked Mech.

“Nope,” said Cal, holding the paper out to him. “I mean, I guess those numbers are space dates, but that’s pretty much where I get stuck.”

“Fonking space dates,” Mech muttered, snatching the page away. He glanced at it, just briefly. “Zertex Command Five,” he said, handing it back. “That’s where we’ll find Sinclair.”

Cal nodded sagely and steepled his fingers in front of his face. “Well, well, well. Zertex Command Five, where we were first brought together. How appropriate. Back where it all began. The circle is now comple--”

“That was Zertex Command Seven,” Loren pointed out.

“Oh. Was it?” Cal shrugged. “Forget I just said all that stuff, then.” He gestured to the screen. On it, a set of hangar doors slid jerkily open, revealing the towering spires of the city in the distance. “Chocks away.”

“Hey, Loren, you see all those buildings way over there?” asked Miz.

Loren let out a barely audible sigh. “Yes.”

“Like, waaaaay over there?”

“Yes, Miz. I see them.”

“Do you think you could, like, not hit any of them? You know, just for a change?”

Loren punched a few controls, then took hold of the thruster handle. “I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s find out.”

The Shatner shot forwards, forcing Cal back into his seat. With a grinding of metal and a shower of sparks, the ship scraped against the underside of the hangar’s vast doorway, shuddered like a plane in turbulence, then banked upwards towards the cloud-covered sky.

“Missed them,” said Loren.

“Yeah, but--”

“Miss those buildings,” Loren interrupted. Her blue skin blushed a faint shade of purple. “That’s what you said. Nothing about the hangar roof. Am I right?”

“Technically, yes,” Cal began. Loren stopped him before he could go any further.

“See? Exactly. So I missed them. Mission accomplished.”

She eased down a pedal below her bank of controls. The Shatner groaned as it picked up speed and pulled into a vertical climb. Cal gripped the arm rests of his chair and waited for the now-familiar shudder that rattled through the ship whenever they left a planet’s atmosphere.

The ship punched through the thick layers of gray cloud and the rattling of raindrops stopped. The sky above them was a lighter shade of bluish-gray, but became steadily darker as the Shatner continued its relentless upwards push.

Aaaaand there was the shuddering again. It rose up through the floor, rattling Cal’s bones and doing his sore back no favors whatsoever. His teeth chattered together. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the chair.

On screen, the gray became grayer, then grayer still, before finally becoming a cold, clinical shade of black. The stars winked, as if greeting an old friend, and Cal found himself tapping his forehead in acknowledgement.

“Ladies,” he said.

Mech glowered at him. “Say what?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing,” said Cal.

“Did you just salute and say, ‘ladies,’ to outer space?”

Cal shifted in his chair. “What? No.”

“He totally did,” said Miz. “He totally saluted and said, ‘ladies.’”

“Man, that is weird,” said Mech. “That is just plain weird.”

“It’s not weird!” Cal protested.

“It is very weird,” said Loren, engaging the auto-pilot and turning to face the rest of the crew. “I mean… it’s borderline creepy.”

“I just, you know, think of the stars as lots of individual women, that’s all!” said Cal. “Is that really so… I mean, yeah, when I say it out loud like that, I guess it does sound a little…”

“Creepy?” Miz guessed.

“Totally fonking insane?” said Mech.

“Quirky,” Cal corrected. “It does sound a little quirky. But there’s no harm in that, is there? The universe would be a very boring place if some of us didn’t think of the stars as lots of individual women, and acknowledge them accordingly.”

He gave the others a look which suggested he’d somehow won the argument, then turned to Loren. “How long until we reach Sinclair?”

“At this speed? A couple of hours.”

Mizette had unclipped her seat belt and was now slouching across her seat, her back against one arm rest, her long hairy legs dangling over the other. “And then what do we do?”

Cal spun his own chair a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, buying himself a moment to think. “Huh?” he said, once he’d finished the maneuver. “What was that?”

“She asked what we’re going to do once we get to Zertex Command Five,” said Mech. “I mean, it ain’t like we can just walk in and demand he hands Splurt over.”

“Oh, can’t we?” said Cal, smiling and raising one eyebrow. He twisted his hips, turning his chair from side to side a couple of times. “No, seriously, I’m genuinely asking. Can’t we? Because that was totally my plan this whole time.”

Mech groaned and clamped one robotic hand over his face. Miz snorted, then turned her attention back to her fingernails.

“Of course we can’t,” said Loren. “For starters, the ship’s serial code would flag up the security scanners the moment we asked for docking clearance. We’re wanted by Zertex, remember?”

Cal clicked his fingers. “Oh, so that’s why they were shooting at us earlier.”

“Even if we did somehow manage to get on board, we’d have to get through the station, past Sinclair’s security and get inside his office, then convince him to hand over Splurt, then get back out again without being captured or killed. Not necessarily in that order.

“So, in answer to your question,” Loren continued. “No, we definitely cannot go with that plan.”

“Right,” said Cal, nodding slowly. “Does anyone else have another plan?” He swung in his chair to look around the flight deck. “No? No-one?”

Cal slapped his thighs and pointed to the screen. “Then I guess we’re going with my plan. Loren, plot a course to Zertex Command Seven.”

“Five,” Loren corrected.

“That’s the one. And don’t spare the horses,” said Cal, gripping his armrests. “We’ve got us an adorable green blob to rescue.”

Three

The Shatner streaked through a shimmering star field, the laws of conventional physics slipstreaming in its wake.

Inside, Cal and Loren stood side by side, studying the viewscreen. On it was a collage of space station blueprints, video footage, photographs and maps. Cal was learning a lot about Zertex Command Five, none of it particularly interesting.

“This is nice. Very detailed. Well done.”

“Thank you,” said Loren, folding her hands behind her back and rocking on her heels ever so slightly.

“But I don’t want to build one,” said Cal. “I just need to know how to find Sinclair’s office.”

Loren sighed. “That’s what I’m trying to explain. You can’t just hop in a lift and hit a button. You need to navigate through over two hundred decks, get past potentially thousands of Zertex soldiers, bypass security systems, avoid cameras…”

“Right, right. Yeah. I mean, of course,” Cal said. He puffed out his cheeks. “That’s a lot to remember.”

“It is.”

“Remembering’s not really my strong point.”

Loren turned her head just a fraction to look at him. He was closer than she expected, his shoulder practically touching hers. She didn’t move away. “And what is your strong point, exactly?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that one,” Cal replied. Their eyes met. “But possibly xylophone.”

“Xylophone?” asked Loren. Her eyes flitted, ever so briefly, across Cal’s face.

“Yeah,” said Cal, his voice taking on a softer edge. “I’m a wizard. You should hear my Old Macdonald Had a Farm. It’s… beautiful.”

A series of loud clanks from the corridor snapped them out of the moment. Mech ducked awkwardly through the door, leaning on Miz for support. “Well, I’m afraid I have some rather bad news to share,” he announced in a high-pitched nasal whine. The dial on his chest had been turned so that most of his processing power was being diverted to his intellect. “It appears I am unable to alter the ship identification number, after all.”

Cal frowned. “I thought you said you could?”

“I said I thought I could, which is not the same thing at all,” said Mech. “Were we piloting an older vessel, making the changes would have been child’s play, but – alas – the hardware is too modern, the fail safes too advanced for any such tampering to be effective. At best, the warp core would no longer recognize the rest of the systems and would shut down. At worst, it would self-destruct.”

“Right,” said Cal. “Shizz. So, you’re saying… what?”

“We need a new plan,” said Loren.

Miz grunted. “Can you, like, turn your dial back, already? You’re annoyingly heavy.”

Mech looked to Cal and raised an eyebrow. Cal waved a hand. “Yeah, go ahead.”

There was a visible change to Mech’s facial expression and stance as he turned the dial’s knob back towards the center. He straightened, and Miz immediately slouched down into her chair again, muttering, “About time.”

“It’s like I told you,” said Loren. “It’s not a plan. If we go anywhere near the place, we’ll be captured.”

“Or blown up,” said Mech.

“Zertex wouldn’t shoot on sight,” said Loren. “We’d have to be pretty unlucky to be…” She caught Mech’s expression and thought back over the situations they’d found themselves in over the past couple of weeks, and how their luck usually went. “He’s right. We’d get blown up.”

Cal sat in his chair and drummed his fingers on the arm rests. “There has got to be a way to get to Sinclair.”

Mech sighed. “Look, man. I didn’t want to say nothing, because I know you and Splurt are… Well, I don’t know what you are, but you seem to have this weird relationship with him that kinda creeps me out – just saying.”

“What’s your point?” said Cal.

“My point is… Look, I want Splurt back. We all do. But we don’t even know where he is. We don’t even know if he’s on the station.”

Cal rubbed his forehead between his thumb and first two fingers. “We don’t need him to be on the station. We need to get Sinclair and make him tell us.”

“And you think he’s going to do that?” asked Mech. “You think he’s just going to give him up, just like that?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know!” said Cal, standing up. “But we have to try. Splurt’s only in this situation because he was trying to save me. He let himself be captured so that I – so that all of us – could get away. If it wasn’t for…”

He stopped, his eyes darting across the floor as an idea flooded his brain. He spun on the spot and grabbed Mech by both arms.

“Mech!”

“What?”

“You’re a genius! Even without your dial thingy. I could kiss you!”

“Just so you know,” Mech replied. “If you did that, I would punch your face off.”

“Thanks for the warning!” said Cal. He spun on his heels. “Loren! Zertex Command Five. What’s the docking bay like?”

Loren straightened her back and launched into a report. “There are nine docking bays located on the station, each one stretching eighteen-point-six miles along decks six through fourteen…”

“The doors. The entrance. How do you get in?” said Cal, cutting her off.

Loren frowned. “You fly in.”

“No, I mean do they have doors?” Cal banged the sides of his hand together, in case Loren wasn’t aware how doors worked. “Or those forcefield wall things?”

“Both,” said Loren. “I mean, they have a mixture of the two, depending on the security protocols for each individual bay. Why?”

Cal lowered himself into his chair, a smile widening across his face. “The only reason Sinclair has Splurt, is because he thinks Splurt is me,” said Cal.

“Yeah? And?” asked Mech.

“He doesn’t want Splurt. Not really. It’s me he’s after.”

Cal crossed his legs and fixed his gaze on the flashing red blip on the viewscreen. “So, let’s give the son-of-a-bedge what he really wants!”

He spun in his chair until he faced Mech. “Remind me. Do we still have a space suit?”

* * *

Cal hurtled through the cold, dark void, his arms stretched out ahead of him in the padded cladding of the space suit. He felt like Christopher Reeve at the end of the Superman movies, and had spent an enjoyable couple of minutes smiling and nodding to an imaginary camera in what he felt was a suitably super-heroic way.

The Shatner was somewhere behind him. Even if he could turn to look at it – and Mech had warned him not to in case the movement knocked him off course – it would be too far away to see. He was alone, soaring through space at a very precisely-calculated angle, and realizing he should probably have gone to the bathroom before he left.

He hummed the theme to Inspector Gadget below his breath. It was his go-to choice of humming tune. There was something about the slow build at the start that he found oddly pleasing. He’d never really understood why, but decided that some things were best left a mystery.

The humming made the glass of his helmet fog up, so he stopped.

He pretended to be Superman again, but the novelty had worn off.

He thought about counting the stars, but there were thousands of them, and they all looked more or less the same.

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

Several seconds passed.

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth again.

“Well, this is boring,” he said.

And then he saw it, looming out of the darkness up ahead. Zertex Command Five was shaped vaguely like a baby’s rattle, assuming the baby’s parents didn’t object to the four big pointy bits sticking out of the handle.

It started thin, curved upwards into a more bulbous, rounded shape, then tapered away again at the very top. The four pointy bits jutting out of the lower part were relatively short and stubby. Viewed from below, they’d form an X-shape, although they were actually set at different heights along the station’s length.

The whole thing was a glassy black, and while the thousands of lights dotted across its surface should have helped make the station stand out against the blackness of space, from this distance they could easily be mistaken for stars.

Cal assumed the whole place was camouflaged, until the station’s lazy rotation curved an enormous illuminated letter Z towards him. The rest of the Zertex logo followed, picked out against the darkness in bright red lettering that had to be several miles high.

“Subtle,” Cal mumbled, if only to break up the repetitive echo of his own breathing.

While Cal would have loved to be able to say the next twenty minutes passed in a blur, that would have been a lie. At one point, Cal contemplated trying to sleep, but decided against it. He always woke up grouchy and sluggish, and he’d have to bring his A-game if his plan was going to work.

Plan. He let out a snort, which didn’t help the helmet-steam situation at all. On the ship, it had seemed like a good plan. Great, even. Arguably in the top ten best plans ever.

Loren had said it was suicide, of course, but then she was always uptight about stuff like this, and so he’d ignored it. On this occasion, both Miz and Mech had agreed with her, which was less encouraging, but he’d still been utterly convinced the whole scheme was foolproof.

Now that he was hurtling through space towards the lion’s den, he was starting to feel those first niggles of doubt. Was this a great plan? Was it even a plan at all? It was the beginning of a plan, certainly. As set-ups for plans went, being launched out of a moving spaceship was rock solid. Definitely.

It was what happened after that part that now seemed a little shaky. Everything from the moment Mech’s hands released Cal into the abyss to the glorious reunion with Splurt he had envisioned – and quite vividly described to the others, with actions – was a bit… vague. He knew the order things had to happen in, he just wasn’t entirely sure how to make those things happen in the first place.

“Ah, fonk it, I’ll figure it out,” Cal muttered, then he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as he rocketed the final few feet towards the space station and passed through the electric blue docking bay energy shielding with a fzzzzt!

Cal hit the metal floor hard, bounced into the air, then skipped like a stone all the way to the back of the bay.

“Ow! Ooh! Shizz! Fonk!”

He skidded the last twenty feet on his stomach, slammed into a low step, and then rolled to a clumsy stop.

It took him barely a second to work through his mental pain checklist by bypassing the list of his individual body parts and just putting a tick in the ‘All of the Above’ box at the bottom.

He flexed his fingers and wiggled his toes. Both seemed to be responding, so that was good. His skull was still in one piece, although there was a spider-web of cracks on his helmet from one of the many occasions his head had hit the floor.

His skeleton ached. His skin throbbed. He had an itchy nose that was going to drive him insane if he didn’t get the helmet off in the next five seconds.

But he was alive. Somehow, he was alive.

Grunting and groaning, Cal managed to get onto his knees. The floor undulated beneath him like a stormy sea, and he almost threw up inside the suit.

Half a dozen Zertex weapons trained on him. Three different soldiers shouted three different things, but the ringing in his ears meant he couldn’t hear any of it. From their expressions, it wasn’t anything friendly.

“OK, OK, stop shouting,” said Cal. He held both hands up in surrender. “I come in peace.”

With some effort, Cal managed to get to his feet. Ignoring the shouts from the soldiers, he unclipped his helmet and yanked it free. He groaned with pleasure as he scratched his nose. “Aw, man, that’s the stuff,” he said, then he turned his attention back to the troops and flashed them a grin. “My name is Cal Carver. Take me to your leader.”

* * *

A hand shoved Cal on the back, sending him stumbling through the door and into Sinclair’s office. “Hey!” he protested, before he tripped on an expensive-looking rug and lost his balance. As his hands were cuffed behind his back, his fall was broken by his face. “That was just mean,” he objected.

“Leave us,” said a voice Cal recognized as Sinclair’s.

Behind him, the Legate who had personally delivered Cal to the president’s office looked confused. “But, Mr President, sir. He’s dangerous. He’s--”

“Handcuffed and completely unarmed,” Sinclair said. “I can handle it. Get out.”

After the briefest moment of hesitation, Cal heard the officer snap off a salute and crisply about-turn. There was a sshkt from the door as it slid closed, then a bleep from the control panel as Sinclair locked it.

“Well, well, I must say, this is a surprise,” the president said, once Cal had wrestled himself up onto his knees. Sinclair propped himself against the edge of his expansive desk and very deliberately began unbuttoning the cuffs of his pastel blue shirt. “This is most unexpected.”

President Sinclair was irritatingly handsome, like he’d just stepped out of Silver Screen era Hollywood. Other than his skin, which was just a shade too far on the green side of olive, he looked completely human.

“I aim to please,” said Cal. He started getting to his feet, but the floor was still moving in a way that made him queasy, so he decided to stay down for the moment. “How you doing, Hayel? You look tired.”

“Ha,” said the president, in what was possibly the most mirthless utterance of the sound in history. “Between you and me? I am. It’s been a difficult few weeks. Largely thanks to you.”

He neatly rolled one sleeve up to his elbow and refastened it there. Through the ceiling to floor windows behind him, Cal could see the same stars he’d been hurtling past just twenty minutes before.

“I’ve invested a lot of resources trying to catch you, Mr Carver, all to no end,” said Sinclair. “And yet, here you are, dropping in on me completely out of the blue.”

He began rolling up the other sleeve. “I mean, how did you even know where to find me?” he asked, then he shook his head. “In fact, forget it. Doesn’t matter.”

Sinclair reached across the desk and pulled a pencil holder towards him. He took a silver cylinder from the pot and took off the lid to reveal something shaped vaguely like a fountain pen. It was sharp and pointy-looking, and the president grimaced ever so slightly when he pressed his fingertip against the tip.

“The real question isn’t how you found me, it’s why you found me,” Sinclair said, setting the pen down next to him. He reached back into the holder and withdrew a small pile of metal paper clips. Cal watched as Sinclair began straightening them, one by one. “You came here for a reason, and I intend to find out what it is.”

“I’ll just tell you what it is,” said Cal.

“Shh,” Sinclair urged, straightening one of the metal clips with a theatrical flourish. “Don’t spoil it.”

He set the pieces of wire down on the desk beside his pen. “It’s amazing, you know? The damage you can do – the pain you can inflict - with just a few simple office supplies. Seriously. You’ll be amazed. I am going to open your eyes, Mr Carver.”

His face split into a lop-sided grin. “While you still have them, at least.”

“Look, Hayel, I’m picking up a vibe here that maybe I’m not your favorite person. And that’s fine,” said Cal. “I mean, you abducted me from my home planet, and killed… well, pretty much everyone on it in the process, so I doubt I’ll be inviting you to any of my birthday parties any time soon, either. But this little visit of mine, it’s not about you and me. It’s about Splurt.”

Something flashed behind Sinclair’s eyes, but was quickly covered up. “Splurt?”

“The entity, you called him,” said Cal. “Little green shapeshifter. Big eyes. Fonking adorable.”

Sinclair nodded curtly. “What of it?”

“I want him back.”

The president blinked several times. “You do?” he said.

“I do,” said Cal. “That’s why I’m here.”

“I see. How interesting. And Lady Vajazzle?”

“Heh,” Cal sniggered. “Vajazzle.” He wiped the smirk from his face. “What about her?”

“Where is she?”

Cal’s brow furrowed. “How should I know?”

Sinclair leaned on his desk. His eyes darted left to right, as if reading something written in the air. “How very interesting.” He stood up and shrugged. “An issue for a later date,” he said, absent-mindedly. “I’m afraid if you’ve come to trade your life for the entity, there’s one very big problem, Mr Carver.”

He leaned down until his face was close to Cal’s. “I already have you. How you can bargain with something that already belongs to me?”

Cal smiled. “Come on, Hayel. Did you really think I’d come here alone?”

He raised his eyebrows. Sinclair frowned. “Didn’t you?”

Cal had been hoping for something dramatic to happen at the end of his last sentence. It would have been perfect timing. Now, though, it just felt a bit awkward.

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” he said, stalling.

Sinclair straightened. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh, you will,” said Cal.

Several uncomfortable seconds passed.

“You will. Any minute… now.”

Nothing happened.

“Wait… now.”

Nothing happened. Sinclair glanced around.

Cal tutted. “Well, this is a little fonking embara--” he began, then the rest of the sentence was swallowed by the kraka-boom of the windows exploding, and the high-pitched howling of all the room’s oxygen being sucked into outer space.

Four

Cal fought the urge to hold his breath. It was difficult, but the detailed description Mech had given him about how doing so would make his lungs explode helped a lot.

Instead, he and Sinclair both gasped and wheezed in the cloud of floating glass, and watched as Mech came hurtling towards them. Behind Mech, the Shatner’s airlock stood open, Mizette’s face just visible through the window of the inner door.

Cal’s head was already starting to go light. He watched Mech approach through a narrowing tunnel of darkness, saw him silently mouth, “Hold on,” then felt the jarring impact of a metal hand grabbing him by the front of his space suit.

Cal’s arms and legs flopped limply behind him as Mech made a grab for Sinclair. The president had recovered quickly, and was attempting to fly towards the door controls. With a boost from his thrusters, Mech caught Sinclair by the ankle and spun. Like an Olympic hammer-thrower, he tossed the president out through the broken window and hurtling into the waiting airlock.

Mech fired up his thrusters again and rocketed back towards the ship. Cal’s tongue felt frozen. The pressure – or lack of pressure, he wasn’t sure which – seemed to be inflating his face. He felt movement. Jerky. Jarring. Abrupt.

He vibrated, every part of him flooded with a cold more biting and intense than he’d ever known. His heart raced, whooshing his blood around, faster and faster, out of control. He wanted to shout, to scream, but inside and out was a vacuum, and he had no more sound to make.

The airlock outer door closed. Cal and Sinclair both hit the floor in a coughing, spluttering heap. The inner door snapped open, and Cal felt a pair of hairy hands slide beneath him. They were warm. So warm. He liked warm. Warm was good.

“D-did w-we g-get h-h-him?” Cal managed to sob through his chattering teeth.

“Oh yeah, we totally got him,” said Miz, carrying Cal through the door. His head thudded against the thick iron door frame and he whimpered. “Shizz, sorry. Accident,” Miz said as she stepped into the corridor.

Swinging Cal’s legs down, she stood him against the wall, then turned back to the door. Cal immediately collapsed into a position that was somewhere between ‘sitting down’ and ‘vomited up’.

Miz closed the inner airlock door, then raised a hand to the window in a thumbs-up. She turned back to where she expected to find Cal standing, blinked in surprise, then helped him back to his feet.

“Thanks,” he wheezed. “I c-can’t believe that actually w-worked.”

“We’re not in the clear yet,” shouted Loren from the bridge. Cal felt the floor shift beneath him as the Shatner pulled away from the station. “Got fighters coming in fast. Weapons training.”

“Their weapons are training on us, or ours are training on them?” asked Cal.

“Well, since you’re the one who controls our weapons, take a guess!” Loren shouted.

Cal leaned against the wall. His insides felt jumbled up, like they’d been pulled out then stuffed back inside in a hurry. His skin tingled like bad sunburn, and his tongue was sandpapered meat.

“Can we send them the video feed of the airlock? Show them we’ve got Sinclair.”

“Yes. But another pair of hands wouldn’t hurt!” Loren called.

Cal shot Miz a hopeful look. She sighed and slumped off towards the front. “Fine. Whatever. But how come I never get to do any of the fun stuff?”

“Next time, OK?” Cal said to her back.

Feeling his way along the wall, he stopped at the airlock and leaned closer to the window. His arms shook uncontrollably, then gave out on him, resulting in his face smushing up against the glass. He considered moving, but that would take a lot of effort, and it was a pretty comfortable position, all things considered, so he decided just to stay where he was.

Beyond the glass, Mech was holding Sinclair by the front of his shirt, and had hoisted him a couple of feet off the floor. The president wasn’t struggling, but was instead glaring at Cal through the window, his eyes firing concentrated beams of pure hatred from one end of the airlock to the other.

With some difficulty, Cal pulled back from the window enough to smile and wave. “Hey, Hayel,” he said, and from the way Sinclair glanced up at the speakers, Cal knew he could hear him. “I’d normally do some funny small-talk here, but… well, I’m not in the mood. Where’s Splurt?”

Sinclair stared impassively at him through the glass. Cal shrugged.

“OK, let’s do it your way,” he said. “Mech.”

Mech jabbed the airlock control button and the outer door opened. Sinclair’s legs flew out behind him, but Mech’s grip held the rest of him in place. His face went from slight-green to almost-purple in the space of a breath, but he kept his gaze fixed on Cal throughout.

With another prod of Mech’s finger, the airlock door snapped shut. Sinclair gulped down air, and the color – the correct color – slowly returned to his cheeks.

“Where’s Splurt?” Cal asked.

Sinclair fired off a car-salesman smile. “I forget. Perhaps you should jog my memory?”

With a nod from Cal, Mech hit the button again. As before, Sinclair held Cal’s eyes as the moisture froze on his tongue and the oxygen was torn from his lungs.

Mech held the door a little longer this time, before letting it close again. “Where’s Splurt?” Cal asked.

Sinclair’s laugh was a dry crackle at the back of his throat. “You know, Mr Carver, I suspect my tolerance for being tortured is greater than your appetite for being the torturer.” He turned his head and looked very deliberately at the airlock door controls. “Shall we find out?”

“Hit it,” said Cal, and Mech opened the airlock door again. “You’re going to tell us where he is, Sinclair,” Cal shouted, as Sinclair’s face turned a deeper shade of reddish-purple. “You’re going to tell us where Splurt is, and you’re going to tell us how we can save him. You hear me, Sinclair? You’re going to tell us everything!”

The airlock door closed again. Sinclair spent a few seconds wrestling with his breath. “Sorry,” he said, through a series of wheezy rasps, “couldn’t hear a word of what you just said. Vacuum of space, and all that. I hope it was nothing important.” He grinned and gave his shoulders a shake. “You know, this is really quite exhilarating.”

Cal leaned his forehead against the glass for a moment. His numb skin told him it was either very cold, very hot, or somewhere between the two.

It wasn’t working. The main part of the plan – the most critical part – involved Sinclair telling them where Splurt was. That was the entire point of the exercise, and if Sinclair wasn’t going to play along, well… that wasn’t fair!

“Go on, just tell us,” Cal said. “You know you want to.”

Sinclair raised a perfect eyebrow. “Mmm, no. No, I don’t think I do.”

Cal sighed and shook his head. “Fine. You know what? That’s fine, Hayel. I didn’t want to have to do this, but… you leave me no choice.”

“Are you going to come in here and torture me yourself?” Sinclair asked, sounding surprisingly open to the possibility.

“Oh God, no,” said Cal. “I don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing. I’d be hugging you and saying we should be best friends after I broke the first finger. No, terrible idea.”

“That is a shame,” said Sinclair. “I was rather starting to enjoy testing my pain tolerance.”

“Then you, my friend, are in luck,” said Cal. He turned towards the front of the ship and shouted along the corridor. “Miz?”

“What now?” came the reply.

“How’d you like to do some of that fun stuff, after all?”

* * *

Eleven minutes later, Miz returned to the flight deck and slumped into her seat. Cal and Loren watched her, expectantly.

“Well?” asked Cal. “Did you get it?”

“What’s it worth?” asked Miz.

“My undying gratitude,” said Cal. “And a new chew toy next planet we go to.”

“I already got my eyes on a new chew toy,” said Miz, her eyes dropping very deliberately to Cal’s crotch. Cal shifted uncomfortably.

“There is literally nothing sexy about that phrase at all,” he pointed out. “You know that, right?”

Miz smirked, showing off her teeth. “Yeah. I know,” she said, then she held out a hand. There was a small scrap of paper between two of her fingers. Cal took it, and tried not to dwell too much on the blood stains.

The symbols on the paper swam, becoming some sort of mathematical equation Cal had absolutely no hope whatsoever of being able to understand. “Is this it? Is this where Splurt is?”

“So he says,” said Miz, shrugging.

“Is it… I mean, is it an address? What does it mean?”

Loren held a hand out, and Cal gladly handed the paper over. “Co-ordinates,” Loren said, tapping the details into her controls. The viewscreen, which was currently filled with a ring of Zertex fighters, changed to show a map of space.

“It’s there,” said Loren, zooming in on a patch of black.

Cal squinted at the screen. “I don’t see anything.”

“That’s because there’s nothing there,” said Loren. “It’s empty space.”

Cal thumped a fist on his arm rest. “He lied. He hasn’t given you anything.”

“I don’t know,” said Miz. “He was pretty convincing.”

“I’m going to find out,” said Cal. He jumped up from his chair and stormed through to the airlock. There was no damage to his face, but the expression on it told Cal that Miz had been very persuasive indeed.

“Oh man, thank fonk it’s you,” Mech muttered, when Cal entered. He shot the inner airlock door a glance. “That girl has issues.”

Cal stood over Sinclair, his hands on his hips. “The co-ordinates you gave us,” he said. “There’s nothing there.”

“I know,” said Sinclair. He wasn’t smiling now, and even those two words seemed to take the wind out of him.

“Miz!” Cal shouted, but Sinclair quickly raised a hand.

“No, wait, let me explain,” he said.

“Yeah?” called Miz from up front.

Cal waited a few seconds, making it very clear to the president that this situation could go one of two ways, and one of them would be harrowingly unpleasant. “Nothing. It’s fine.”

He raised his eyebrows in Sinclair’s direction. “Well?”

“It never made it back. The entity. The ship – Zertex’s ship – it never reached us.”

“You’re lying,” said Cal. “You have him.”

Sinclair shook his head and coughed. Something wet and black landed on the floor in front of him. “No. We lost contact at the co-ordinates I gave you.”

“So what did you find?” asked Mech. Sinclair looked at him, quizzically. Mech narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me you didn’t send someone to check it out. What did you find?”

Sinclair gritted his teeth and glared at them both. Cal jabbed a thumb towards the door behind him. “I can have Miz back here in five seconds,” he said. “And she’s just sat back down again, so she won’t be happy, will she, Mech?”

“No,” said Mech, crossing his arms across his chest. “She will not be happy.”

“We don’t know!” Sinclair bleated. “It’s a hole of some kind. A rip in the fabric of space. It’s something we’ve never seen before.”

“A black hole?” Cal asked.

Sinclair snorted. “Oh please, don’t try to sound like you know what you’re talking about, Cal,” he spat. He managed to rouse his grin a little, and Cal noted the dark blood on his teeth. “No, it’s not a black hole. It’s something else. Something new.”

Cal shifted his gaze to Mech. The cyborg shrugged. “Don’t look at me, man. I don’t know.”

“If you’re lying to us, Sinclair, we’re going to come back,” Cal said, squatting down beside the president. “We got to you once, we can get to you again. And this time, you’ll be begging me to hand you over to Mizette.”

With a smile and a wink, Cal stood and started back towards the inner airlock door. “Can you cobble together a full space suit from what we’ve got?” he asked.

Mech nodded. “Yeah. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll work.”

“Good, get him in it and get him off my ship,” Cal instructed. He stopped at the door. “Overarm throw. Really fonking fire him out of here.”

“What?” Sinclair sputtered. “You can’t do that. I’m the president!”

“My pleasure,” said Mech. “Give me three minutes.”

* * *

Two minutes and forty-five seconds later, Cal sat in his chair, smiling up at the face that filled the screen. The face wasn’t smiling back. It was quite a round face, and was wobbling a lot as the owner of it ranted and raged about penal code this and targeting systems that.

Cal wasn’t really listening, though. There was something else about the man that was concerning him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Wait. He’d got it.

“Dan Ackroyd!”

On screen, the Zertex commander’s words tumbled to a stop. His fuzzy eyebrows met in the middle. “Excuse me?”

“Dan Ackroyd. That’s who you remind me of,” said Cal. “Man, that has been annoying me for a full… ooh, three minutes now.”

“Now you listen,” snarled space Dan Ackroyd, but Cal held up an index finger to stop him.

“One sec. Loren, you all set?”

“All set.”

“Disabled the stupid proximity safety thing?”

“Stupid proximity safety thing disabled,” Loren confirmed.

“Excellent,” said Cal. He lowered his finger, but jumped in before the officer could continue. “Sorry to cut this short and everything, but you may want to take a look at our airlock door. The president is going to be coming out any second…”

A flailing white shape rocketed into view from somewhere behind the ship, and quickly grew smaller as it hurtled off into the depths of space. “Now!” said Cal. “Better go catch him. Loren, punch it!”

Loren gunned the engines. The floor shuddered and the stars became spaghetti as the Shatner shattered the light barrier and left Zertex Command Five far, far behind.

* * *

The co-ordinates Sinclair had given them pointed to a patch of space almost slap-bang between two solar systems. It was a two hour journey at full speed, but Cal had insisted they get there in ninety minutes.

Loren and Mech had both pointed out that this was impossible, unless they wanted the ship to blow up, and he’d agreed that, in hindsight, what did an extra half hour matter, anyway?

It had been a few weeks since Cal had first experienced faster than light travel, but his stomach, inner ear and – occasionally – bladder control still voiced quite strong objections to it. Watching the stars streaking past was out of the question, unless he wanted to spend the entire journey projectile vomiting into the glass container that had once contained Splurt, but which was now exclusively used for puke catching.

Instead of the star-streaks, Cal had been having Loren fill the viewscreen with footage of cute space cats doing adorable stuff. He’d gradually come to realize, though, that you could only watch space cats for so long before they got a little… samey.

“And climb out of drawer,” he muttered, a split-second before an on-screen kitten-thing did just that. “And look around. And fall out of drawer.”

On screen, the space cat gave a little yelp, then waved its legs in the air as it struggled to right itself. Cal sighed. He was going to have to find something else to watch soon. He wondered if Space’s Funniest Home Videos was a thing. Then he wondered if it turned out that it wasn’t a thing, whether he should claim the idea as his own and start a production company.

Finally, he wondered why the fonk he was thinking about starting a TV production company in outer space, and went back to watching the cats.

Loren turned her chair around to face him and the others. “So, tell me about this hole of yours.”

“Oh, yes please,” purred Miz, her tail twitching through the hole she’d torn in the back of her seat. “I would love to hear about your--”

“Mizette. Please,” said Cal. “Let’s not cheapen it.”

She licked her lips, smirked at him, then went back to studying her nails.

“I just know what Sinclair told us,” said Cal. “Hole in space. Nothing they’ve seen before.”

“And… what are we thinking?” asked Mech. “That Splurt’s through there?”

Cal shrugged. “Sinclair said it’s the last place they had contact with Vajazzle’s ship.”

“It wasn’t Vajazzle’s ship, it was a Zertex ship,” Loren reminded him. “The AX11. Largest ship in the whole fleet. Largest ship in any fleet, and what? It just fell through a hole? Must’ve been one big hole.”

“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” said Mech. On screen, a series of numbers flashed red and began rapidly counting down.

Loren spun her chair back to the front and began flipping switches. “What? Shizz! Arriving in ten… nine… eight…” The digits on screen blinked rapidly. “Uh, fivefourthreetwoon—”

The Shatner dropped out of warp with a jarring jolt that threw Cal, Miz and Loren forward, then slammed them back again.

Any other time, one of the crew would have passed comment on Loren’s piloting skills. Cal would have remarked on how far into his lower intestines his testicles had just been launched, for example, or Miz would have offered an apparently heartfelt compliment, before immediately pointing out that she was being sarcastic. Perhaps Mech might have cursed creatively, or just shaken his head while muttering below his breath.

Any other time, that’s what would have happened.

But not this time.

Cal stared. Loren and Mech stared. Even Mizette looked up from her nails and gazed in wonder at the viewscreen.

“What,” said Cal. “The fonk,” he added. “Is that?”

Five

Why Sinclair had called it a ‘hole,’ Cal had no idea. This thing wasn’t a hole. It was an abyss. It stretched all the way across the screen like a claw-mark in the curtain of space. Colors danced and fizzled inside it – reds and oranges around the ragged edges, becoming yellows then whites towards the center.

Just looking at the thing made Cal feel simultaneously like the single most important person in the universe, and the most utterly insignificant. A bubble welled up inside him, like he was about to burst into tears. He wrapped his fingers around the edge of his arm rests, then squeezed until the knuckles turned white.

“It must be thousands of miles across,” Loren whispered. There was a shake in her voice that told Cal she was feeling all the same things he was.

“What is it?” asked Miz. “I mean, like… what even is that?”

Cal didn’t tear his eyes away from the rip. He couldn’t. “Mech?”

Mech didn’t reply. Cal glanced at him, just briefly, and felt a pang of utter, heart-wrenching loss. “Mech?”

“Huh?” said Mech, snapping out of a daze.

“Any ideas what it is?” Cal asked.

“The fonk should I know?” Mech grunted. “Scanners ain’t showing nothing. Nothing that makes any sense, anyway.”

“It’s beautiful,” Loren whispered.

“It’s a beautiful big space thing,” Cal agreed.

They all watched the beautiful big space thing in silence for several pleasant seconds. It was Miz who eventually had to go and spoil it.

“Uh, should our shields be dropping like that?”

Reluctantly, Mech turned his attention to the shield integrity readout. His brow knotted. “We just dropped six percent.”

Cal practically spasmed in his chair. “We’ve only got six percent shields? That’s not nearly enough shield! Does that even cover the ship? Oh God, were going to die, aren’t we? We’re totally about to die.”

“Calm down, shizznod,” replied Mech. “We’re not down to six percent, we’re down by six percent, to ninety-four.”

“Oh,” said Cal. “Oh, that’s fine, then. That’s still more than enough shield.”

“Ninety-one,” corrected Loren. “And falling.”

“So that’s why there ain’t no ships around,” said Mech.

Cal frowned. “What?”

“Big exciting new space thing like this?” said Mech, gesturing at the flickering vortex of color ahead. “Should be science ships. Lots of science ships, with fighters patrolling to keep anyone else from getting too close.”

“Right…” said Cal.

“So where are they?” asked Mech. “Hmm? You see anyone else here but us?”

“You think they blew up?” Cal asked.

“I dunno. Maybe,” shrugged Mech. “Or they got the Hell out when they realized that thing was eating their shields.”

Loren’s hands went to the controls. “I’m going to back off and try to get out of its range.”

“Out of its range?” said Cal. “Have you seen that thing? Nothing is out of its range. And we can’t, we need to find Splurt.”

“We will,” said Loren. “But we need to figure out how first, and to do that we need the ship to be intact.”

“Fair point, well made,” Cal conceded. He sighed. “Fine, back up until the shields stop falling, and we’ll work out what to do next.”

“Uh, guys,” said Mizette, her voice taking on an uncharacteristically serious tone. “You know you sometimes get me to check this little screen thing in my chair, in case, like, loads of little red dots show up?”

Everyone turned to look at her. “Yes…” said Cal.

Miz looked up, her eyes wide with surprise. “Loads of little red dots just showed up.”

“Shizz,” Loren mumbled, tapping some buttons on the panel beside her. Cal felt that jarring sense of loss again when the vortex vanished from the screen, and was replaced by an area of space positively brimming with Zertex fighters. As they watched, another dozen or more came out of warp and stopped abruptly behind the first wave.

Cal leaned forwards in his chair. “Loren, please tell me that all these ships are not currently right behind us.”

The screen changed with a sudden jolt, like it was being forced against its will. President Sinclair’s face appeared. His smile had returned, but it was less convincing than ever, thanks partly to the blood drying across his front teeth.

“Do you know my big mistake, Mr Carver?” the president asked.

“Matching that shirt with those pants?” guessed Cal.

“Making it personal,” said Sinclair. “I wanted you brought to me so that I could torture you. So that I could break you. And why was that? Why the obsession with hurting you directly?”

Cal blinked. “Are you… are you flirting with me, Hayel? Is that what this is? Because – and no offence here, because you’re a very attractive man – but I am not into you at all.”

On screen, Sinclair’s face twisted in rage. He opened his mouth to shout, but snapped it closed before the words could come out. He smoothed down the front of his shirt, and his face fell into line again at the same time.

Sinclair smiled, and this time it was closer to the real thing. “Nice try, Mr Carver, but my interest in killing you slowly and face to face has waned. Now, I just want you dead.”

“Weapons locking,” said Loren.

“Ours or--?”

“Theirs,” Loren snapped. “How many times must we have this conversation?”

“Shields at eighty-five,” warned Mech. “Wait, eighty-two.”

“More of those red dots coming in,” Miz added.

On screen, Sinclair’s smile returned to its full gameshow-host glory. “Goodbye, Mr Carver. You were…” He searched for the correct word, then shrugged. “You were. And in a few more minutes, you won’t be.”

The Shatner rocked as a torpedo slammed against the shields, making them flicker erratically. Five, eight… eleven beams of scorching red blasted from the front line of Zertex fighters. Loren sent the ship into a dive, but the second wave of fighter ships were ready for it, and two more torpedoes found the ship’s exposed belly.

“Oh, man, that hurt us. That hurt us bad,” said Mech. “Shields in the twenties.”

Sinclair watched them from the screen, grinning broadly. Cal pointed to the president’s massive face. “Get that fonk off my TV!” he commanded, banging his arm rests with both fists. His weapons controls unfolded into two quarter circle control panels beneath each hand. Above him, a headset visor lowered down and snapped into place over his eyes.

Cal felt the now-familiar whooshing as his virtual reality viewpoint zoomed in to show the area around the ship. From this view, Cal could see around half of the Zertex ships – far too many to count – and a little over one tenth of the space-hole.

Despite the real and all-too immediate threat posed by the fighters, Cal couldn’t resist a peek at the vortex. Its colors pulsed and fizzled and swirled and danced. Loren was right, it was beautiful. More than that, it was mesmerizing. Hypnotic. He could look at that thing all—

A blast of laser cannon fire rocketed past him. The Shatner trembled with the impact, and Cal saw the shields become thin like plastic wrap around them.

“What are you waiting for?” Loren shouted. “Start shooting!”

Cal spun in his chair to face the Zertex fighters. Another thirty or forty of them had snapped out of warp, and were moving into what he guessed was attack formation.

“Shields at seventeen,” Mech warned.

“Maybe you should, like, warp us out,” Miz suggested.

“Can’t. Not enough power,” Mech grunted. “If I divert from shields, next hit will take us out. We’ll be in pieces before we can fire up the warp drive.”

“Cal!” Loren barked. “Return fire, now!”

Cal’s fingers tensed on the triggers.

Then relaxed again. What was the point? They were one ship – one heavily damaged ship – against an armada. He didn’t even know what half of the buttons on his gunner controls did, let alone have any experience of using them.

A fortnight ago, he’d been a petty criminal from Philadelphia. Now, he was being asked to single-handedly destroy an entire fleet of alien fighter ships. He was out of his depth. He wondered if anyone had ever been quite this far out of their depth before, in fact.

He was so far out of his depth it wasn’t just that he could no longer see the bottom, there was no bottom. He was treading water above an empty, endless abyss that could swallow him up at any...

At any…

Cal spun his chair back towards the vortex. He disengaged his targeting visor and his gun controls folded neatly back into his chair.

“What the Hell are you doing?” Loren screamed. “I can’t dodge them forever.”

“You’re not dodging them now,” Miz pointed out, as a series of cannon-fire blasts thundered across the hull.

“That thing,” said Cal, pointing to the rip in space. “Fly into it.”

Loren flicked a glance back over her shoulder. “Are you nuts? We don’t know what’s in there!”

“No, but we know what’s out here,” said Cal. “And it’s pretty fonking unpleasant.”

Loren shot Mech a look. He sighed, then shrugged. “Man’s got a point.”

“Oh, just do it, already,” said Miz. “Stop making it into such a drama.”

“Fine,” said Loren, gritting her teeth. She pointed the Shatner towards the swirling, sparkling void and hit the thrusters. “But you might want to hold onto something. This could get bumpy.”

“Unlike literally every other time you’ve flown us anywhere, you mean?” Miz said.

Cal clutched his arm rests as the vortex consumed the edges of the screen. The ship lurched and shuddered. Above them, a pipe shook loose of its mount, hissing out its contents in a cloud of hot steam.

“No,” Cal said, shouting to make himself heard over the creaking and grinding of the ship’s extremities. “This time might even be worse than usual.”

“The good news is, Zertex ain’t following us,” Mech said.

“And the bad news?” asked Cal.

“We ain’t got no shields left and we’re all going to die.”

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah, you’re right, that is bad news,” he said.

The lights flickered. Something high-tech and important-looking fell off the wall and hit the floor with a heavy thonk.

“Controls not responding,” said Loren. She waggled the stick left and right to demonstrate. The Shatner continued in a steady line towards the now all-encompassing swirling mass. “No backing out now.”

Something deep in the ship screamed. Mech studied the information flooding the screen. “Outer airlock door’s gone. Inner door holding for now.”

“It’s OK. It’s fine. We’re going to get through this,” said Cal. “We’ve got through worse.”

The screen flickered like static. The lights dimmed, became stupidly bright, then snapped off completely, all in the space of half a second. Cal’s voice seemed louder in the darkness.

“OK, so maybe not that much worse,” he admitted, then something unpleasant happened. He wasn’t quite sure what the unpleasant thing was, exactly, but it made his insides and his outsides swap places, and turned his eyes to Play-Doh. Or, at least, that was how it felt.

The flight deck was dark, yet simultaneously blindingly bright. It was crammed with light, like there wasn’t enough room to fit it all in, so some parts were overlapping.

At the same time, it was darker than any darkness Cal had ever seen. It wasn’t just an absence of light, it was an absence of anything. An absence of space and time and everything else in between. Cal was just starting to wonder if he was there, or if even he were absent, too, when the roaring and squealing that had been rising to a piercing, ear-splitting din stopped. Just stopped. Like that.

The non-light faded. The darkness lifted, becoming just the regular, run of the mill hey-who-turned-the-lights-off variety.

Cal cleared his throat, and was relieved to find he still had a throat to clear. “Is it my imagination?” he said, offering the words tentatively to the darkness. “Or are we still alive?”

“Yeah, man. I’m still here,” said Mech.

“Me too,” said Miz.

“Yes. Still in one piece,” said Loren.

Cal threw back his head and laughed. “I knew it! What did I say? I knew we’d get through it. I mean, yeah, it was touch and go there for a while, but… Oh, man, that was… That was… Did anyone else feel themselves turning inside-out, by the way? Or was that just me?”

“Not just you,” said Miz. “That was so not cool.”

A thought struck Cal. “Wait… we didn’t actually turn inside-out, did we? We’re not sitting here all, like, innards exposed?”

From somewhere in Mech’s direction, there was a flurry of keyboard tapping. A dim red light illuminated high in the ceiling, casting its crimson glow across the bridge and picking out four shaken, but very much not inside-out crew members.

“Oh, thank God,” breathed Cal. “That could’ve been deeply unpleasant all round.” He turned his chair towards the front. It creaked in protest. “Where are we?”

“Sensors still offline,” said Mech. “Trying to get us visuals on…”

The screen illuminated in a burst of static. It flickered and danced around, revealing... something. Definitely something. Something quite big, Cal thought. Or something very close.

Or possibly both.

Mech banged a metal fist on a control panel. The snow cleared, although the bottom half of the picture jerked off to the left, like an old VHS player in need of a tracking adjustment. It didn’t matter, though. They didn’t need the bottom half of the image to tell them what they were looking at. The top half spoke volumes, all on its own.

“Planet!” Cal cried. “Pull up, pull up!”

Loren heaved on the controls, but the Shatner’s course didn’t change. Cal realized he couldn’t hear the humming of the ship’s engines – a sound he had never actually noticed before, and was only aware of now by its absence.

“Can’t,” Loren hissed through gritted teeth. “Not responding.”

Beads of sweat formed on Cal’s brow. He tried to breathe, but his chest felt tight. “Is it me, or is it hot in here?” he panted.

“Atmosphere,” Mech grunted. “Ship’s burning.”

Cal watched as Mech knelt on the floor and placed his hands against it, fingers splayed. With a magnetic whine, both hands and both knees locked Mech down.

“What are you doing?” Cal asked.

“Brace position,” Mech explained. He nodded towards the screen, which was now completely taken up by a bird’s eye view of a dark green tree canopy, the thin blue pencil-line of a river, and not a whole lot else. “We’re going down. Hard.”

Cal snorted, but it was half-hearted, and barely a whistle through his nose. “What? No. We’re not. Are we? Loren, pull up. Quit messing around.”

Loren turned enough to look at Cal over her shoulder. She nodded, just once. “The ship’s dead. We’re going to crash.”

Miz tutted. “Oh, well way to go, Loren,” she said. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time.”

Cal reached across the gap to Mizette. After a moment, he felt her hand slide into his, and they both squeezed.

He nodded to Mech, and Mech nodded back.

He smiled at Loren. One of his good ones, too.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. You did great, OK? We all did great.” His smile became a devilish grin. “Well, I mean, maybe not Mech…”

And then, with a sound like all the thunder in all the skies, the Shatner hammered through the forest canopy, and hit the ground in a towering eruption of roots and soil.

Six

Time passed. Ten seconds. A lifetime, maybe. Cal couldn’t say for sure. But time definitely passed, in that way that time does.

More time passed.

And some more after that.

Cal couldn’t tell if his eyes were open. He tried to reach a hand for his face to feel, but his arms wouldn’t move.

Oh, shizz.

He was paralyzed.

Just his fonking luck.

Time passed.

Cal tried wiggling his toes. They wiggled. This was good news, he thought, although he couldn’t quite remember why. He couldn’t quite remember why he’d been wiggling them in the first place, in fact.

He stopped.

Time passed.

There was something important, he thought. He could almost remember it, but not quite. It was something big. Planet-sized. Planet-shaped, too.

It’d come back to him.

Time passed. A second. Ten lifetimes, maybe. Cal couldn’t say for sure.

He wondered if his eyes were open. He tried moving his arms to find out, but they refused.

Paralyzed.

Just his fonking luck.

A memory nagged at him, like déjà vu, or a half-remembered dream.

Could he wiggle his toes, he wondered?

Yep. They were fine.

He was oddly calm about the fact that he couldn’t move his arms, and wasn’t sure why this might be. Maybe he’d never been able to move his arms. Did he even have arms? He had toes, clearly. That was now firmly established. But arms?

He thought so. He definitely felt like he might recall having had arms at some point in his past. One, at least. Possibly two.

Three?

He thought not. Three felt like too many.

Time passed.

A planet! That was it. There was a planet, big and getting rapidly bigger.

He should warn the others!

But no.

Loren probably had it all in hand.

She had hands. And arms. Definitely. He remembered those pretty clearly.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he’d had arms at some point, too.

He tried moving them again.

Nope.

Maybe not, then.

Cal wrestled an eye open. It looked up, down, left right, swiveling in a full circle as it took in every last detail of where he was.

Except it was dark, so it saw nothing.

He opened the other eye to see if they’d have more luck working in tandem.

Nope.

Still dark.

“Hello?” he said, but all that emerged were a series of sputtering coughs and a wad of something that tasted like it belonged on the inside.

A light hit him full in the face. He hissed in through his teeth and inhaled a mouthful of dust. He coughed again and the light redirected to become an oval on the floor beside him. Cal saw that he was lying on a white, marshmallow-like substance. Embedded in it, in fact. The stuff was wrapped around him like a mallow cocoon.

“Hello?” Cal said, directing the word towards the light, as if it were a living thing come to rescue him. “What’s your name?”

“The fonk you talking about, man?” grunted a voice in the darkness. Mech crawled into the pool of light, and Cal saw it was being projected from a torch on the cyborg’s shoulder. “It’s me.”

“Mech!” Cal wheezed. “Are we… are we alive?”

“Yeah, we’re alive,” said Mech.

Cal let out a high-pitched little, “Oh!” of delighted surprise, but then grew suddenly serious. “Both of us?”

“We’re both alive,” Mech confirmed.

“Oh!” said Cal again, a woozy smile returning. “Can I ask you something?” he whispered.

Mech bent low, studying the white mallow substance that surrounded Cal. “Yeah, man. What?”

“Be honest,” said Cal. “Can you remember if I have arms?”

Mech’s eyes searched Cal’s face, but found only sincerity. “Yeah, man, you got arms. You’re just stuck in this safety putty.”

“I knew I had some! One or two. Not three, though,” Cal slurred, then he squinted as he tried to focus on the rest of Mech’s sentence before it slipped away. “Safety putty? Is that was this stuff is?”

“Yeah. The chair spits it out if the ship crashes.”

Cal gasped. “Did we crash? When?”

Mech swung the torch across a mangled tangle of wreckage. It took Cal a moment to recognize it as the Shatner’s flight deck. “Jesus. What about the others? Are they dead?”

“No, I got them out already,” said Mech. “Just you left.”

Cal let out a sigh of relief, then scowled. “Wait, you got me last?”

“Reckoned it’s what you would’ve wanted,” said Mech.

“Well you reckoned wrong!” said Cal. “In future, definitely get me first, OK?”

Mech shrugged. “Whatever you say, captain,” he muttered.

“Or is that mean?” Cal wondered. “Yeah, that’s mean. Get the others first. Just rescue me whenever.”

Mech nodded. “Like, now, for example?”

“Oh! Yes,” said Cal, brightening again. “That’s a great idea. Rescue me now.”

“Sure thing,” Mech said, then his arm whirred as he clamped a hand down on the mallow cocoon. “Now shut up and hold on. I’ll get you out of here in no time.”

* * *

Time passed. About ten minutes, by Cal’s reckoning.

He sat in his chair, still ninety percent covered by marshmallow and largely unable to move, gazing forlornly at what had once been the dread ship Shatner. Loren and Miz stood either side of him, watching Mech search through the debris for anything useful.

The crash had carved a twelve-lane-highway wide trench in the ground, uprooting trees and shattering rocks as the hull ploughed up the terrain. But if the damage to the ground was bad, the toll it had taken on the ship was even worse.

It wasn’t a ship any more. It barely even qualified as ‘the remains of a ship.’ It was metal. Lots and lots of bent, buckled and broken metal plates, with cables and pipes scattered like dropped noodles all across the ravaged ground.

A section near the rear of the ship – a part Cal tended to think of as ‘that sticky-out bit’ – was partly intact, but mostly on fire, so it was unlikely to stay that way for long.

“So,” said Cal. “Reckon we can fix it?”

“Maybe. If we can swap out a few parts,” said Loren.

“Which parts?”

“All of them.”

“That sticky-out bit is still--”

That sticky-out bit exploded. Shrapnel whistled past Mech and embedded itself deep into Cal’s safety putty.

“No, I tell a lie,” Cal said. “That bit’s gone, too.”

He looked down at the twisted piece of metal that had been stopped just inches from his heart. He looked up at Loren and Miz.

“Hey,” he realized. “How come I’m the only one sitting in a marshmallow?”

More time passed as Mizette used her claws to remove Cal from the safety putty in what he felt was a recklessly cavalier manner. The only area she spent any time lingering over was his crotch. She slowed right down and really took her time over that particular area, which Cal was both relieved and concerned by in almost equal measures.

By the time Cal was free, Mech had deposited just a single box on the ground in front of them. Loren squatted and rummaged in it.

“Is this it?”

“That’s all we got,” said Mech. “A few blasters. Couple of tools…”

“My guitar?” asked Cal, hopefully.

“Thankfully not,” said Mech. “So, at least some good’s come out of this.”

Loren stood up, a blaster pistol in her hand. She checked it over, then tucked it into the back of her belt. “It’s not much.”

“You can say that again,” agreed Mech. “There might be more, but I didn’t want to waste more time looking.”

“My guitar,” Cal sobbed. “My fonking guitar. I am going to kill Sinclair for this.”

“Yeah, well good luck finding him,” said Mech. “Because I have no idea where we are.”

Cal got up out of his chair for the first time since Miz had carved him free of the putty. His skin and clothes still felt tacky, and made a faint thack sound as he pulled himself off the seat.

“Wait, what do you mean?” said Cal. “What about your sensor things? I thought you had, like, GPS or whatever.”

Mech shrugged. “If you mean a location positioning system, then yeah. I do,” said Mech. He tapped his forearm. “This thing can pinpoint wherever I am in the galaxy, down to a few feet.”

“So, what?” said Cal. “It’s broken?”

“Naw, man, it ain’t broken,” said Mech. “We just ain’t in our galaxy anymore.”

Cal stared at him. After a moment, a smile split his face. He clapped his hands together and pointed at Mech. “Aha! You totally almost had me there. I was this close to falling for that.” He laughed and patted Mech on the arm. “No, but seriously.”

“Yeah,” Mech intoned. “But seriously.”

Cal’s face fell. “But seriously seriously?”

Mech nodded. “But seriously seriously. This ain’t our galaxy.”

“Well whose galaxy is it?” asked Cal.

“Fonked if I know.”

“How is that even possible?” asked Mizette.

“We flew through a giant wormhole thing,” Loren snapped, stabbing a finger towards the sky. Cal looked up, half-expecting to see the swirly vortex thing above him, but there was only a coppery-orange sky with flecks of purple cloud. “You think, I don’t know, maybe that had something to do with it?”

“The Hell should I know?” Miz sniffed. “I’m not a scientist.”

“Oh really?” spat Loren. “You do surprise me. With an intellect like yours?”

Miz’s nostrils flared. “Are you being sarcastic?” she said. She turned to Cal. “Is she being sarcastic?”

“No, not even a little bit,” said Cal, shooting Loren a look. “I get it, we’re all a little stressed out here, but that’s no reason for us to start fighting.”

“We always fight,” Miz pointed out.

“She’s right,” agreed Loren, the worst of her anger escaping her in one big breath. “It’s kind of our thing.”

“Then maybe it’s time it stopped being your thing,” said Cal. “Maybe becoming best friends and working together so we don’t all die should be your new thing?”

He looked beyond them to the edges of the forest that hemmed them in. The taller trees were gnarled and bent, each trunk made up of several thinner trunks, all twisted around one another like cables behind a TV.

Beneath those stood fatter, smaller trees. These ones had smooth, bulging trunks with two branches sprouting upwards from the top. They looked like giant slugs wearing leafy wigs, and Cal made a mental note to keep an eye on them, in case they started to move around, or made any attempt to eat him.

“Mech? Picking anything up?”

Mech tapped the controls on his arm. A stream of information flashed up on the display. “Lot of lifeforms in those trees.”

“Any you recognize?”

Another tap on the controls. Another flash of data. “Nope.”

Cal clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “Miz? What does your nose tell us?”

Miz tilted her head and sniffed the air. “Right now, it tells us there’s a burning spaceship ten feet away, and that we might be near some trees,” she admitted. “I need to get somewhere less smoky.”

“We should stay here,” said Loren. “Near the ship. Someone’s bound to have heard the crash, or seen us come down.”

Cal nodded. “Yes. But we don’t know if it’ll be someone we want to hang around for. I mean, out of all the people we’ve met since we were brought together, how many of them haven’t tried to kill us? Statistically, the chances of someone friendly turning up are pretty fonking slim.”

“Fair point,” Loren conceded. “We should move on.”

“Anyone got any preference of direction?” asked Cal, gesturing into the wall of woods around them. “Because I’m easy.”

“Oh, really? Well, in that case…” Miz began, but Cal held up a finger again.

“Miz. Please. Now probably isn’t the best time,” he said, then he bent down, grabbed a couple of blasters from one of the boxes, and limped towards a narrow gap in the wall of trees. “I guess this looks as safe a direction as any,” he decided.

But, as was so often the case, he was wrong.

Seven

They trudged through the trees, Mech leading the way. Branches whipped and tore at them, which didn’t seem to bother Mech or Mizette, but annoyed the other two immensely.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” Cal said to Mech’s back, as another thin branch slapped him in the face.

“Doing what on purpose?” asked Mech, not turning around.

Another branch stung Cal’s cheek. “That! You’re bending the branches back, then letting them go so they hit me in the face.”

Mech chuckled. “Oh, that. Yeah. Yeah, I’m doing that on purpose.”

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about, Cal. You’re doing it to me!” Loren pointed out from just behind him.

“Yeah, but when I do it it’s funny,” Cal explained. “When he does it it’s workplace harassment.”

They had been walking for an hour or more, headed vaguely east. Mech’s positioning system might not have been working, but his in-built compass helped them stick to more or less a straight line. What was at the end of that line, though, was anyone’s guess.

At first, the forest had been wonderfully terrible, or terribly wonderful, or some other combination of the two words. They’d taken it in turns to point out the pale blue illuminated berries on some of the larger trees, the red and yellow flowers whose tongues flicked like party-blowers at passing insects or, in Miz’s case, some interesting-smelling animal feces.

After a while, though, they’d stopped. It was hot in the forest, and those insects were beginning to tick everyone off. Even Mech, who barely had eight inches of skin to his name, spent half his time waving a hand in front of his face and muttering angrily.

Now, barely sixty minutes after they’d set out, the novelty of the forest had well and truly worn off. Even the chirping of the birds in the trees, which had seemed so joyous and carefree when they’d first heard it, was now the single most infuriating noise any of them had ever heard. Fortunately, Cal knew how to lift their spirits.

“What would you rather, right?” he began. “To be constantly followed by a hyper-critical ghost that only you could see and hear – one who’s giving it, like, ‘you’re rubbish, everyone hates you, you should just kill yourself,’ or whatever in your ear all the time. Or to be a hyper-critical ghost following someone else around?”

“Am I following Loren?” asked Miz from the back. “Is that why I’m hyper-critical?”

“You’d make an excellent hyper-critical ghost,” said Loren.

Cal smiled. “There you go! That was almost a compliment!”

Loren shook her head. “No. It wasn’t.”

“No, but it was almost a compliment. It was along the lines of a compliment, and that’s a start,” said Cal. Another branch whipped him in the face. He ignored it. “Personally, I’d have to be the ghost. I’m not sure I could handle being criticized all the time. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my self-confidence is pretty thin.”

All three of the others stopped walking for a moment and looked at him. “Yeah, man,” Mech grunted. “Whatever you say.”

They continued on. The forest floor was a tangle of vines and roots, but it was dry and more or less solid, so walking wasn’t too taxing. The further away from the ship they got, the more Miz’s nose was able to pick up.

She could smell trees, although that one was pretty much a given. She picked up bark and sap and berries and foliage. She could detect fruit in some of the higher branches, but not a kind she’d ever smelled before.

There was water ahead somewhere. A mile. Maybe two. She raised her nose and sniffed. Fresh, not salty, and clean enough. It was just as well, since they hadn’t been able to salvage any water from the ship, and Miz’s tongue was approaching sandpaper levels of dryness.

There was something else, too. Something beyond the water, which she could pick up just the faintest traces of when the breeze blew the right way. It was familiar, somehow, but try as she might, she couldn’t quite place it. It hung just out of reach, like the memory of a dream.

Whatever it was, it made the fur on the back of her neck stand on end whenever it wafted by, which made her think it was probably nothing good.

“Think Splurt’s here somewhere?” asked Cal, as they plodded on through the trees. They could hear the burbling of water ahead now, and had started to pick up their pace.

“Doubt it,” said Loren.

Cal tutted. “Thanks for that, Negative Nancy.”

“Well, I mean, statistically, what are the odds? We don’t know the ship came through the wormhole or whatever it is. If it did, why would it land here?”

“Maybe it crashed,” Cal suggested.

“Yeah!” agreed Miz. “Do you have, like, a twin sister who is also a pilot? Because if you do, and if she was flying that ship, it totally crashed.”

“No, I don’t. I have brothers,” said Loren. Her eyes widened and her stomach went tight. “My brothers. I might never see my brothers again.” She considered this for a moment, then waved the thought away. “Ah, I never really liked them, anyway.”

“Wow,” said Cal. “That was the fastest one-eighty emotional turnaround I’ve ever seen. I’m impressed.”

The trees ended in a wall of branches, and Mech pushed his way through to a clearing beyond. A narrow river blocked their path, the water sparkling as it curved over two large oval rocks, before tumbling into a narrower, faster-flowing stretch of river below.

Miz and Cal both dropped to their knees by the bank and Cal scooped up some of the water. It was icy-cold, and zinged against his skin.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” asked Loren.

Cal paused with his hands halfway to his mouth, and gazed longingly at the little pool as it drained between the gaps in his fingers.

“Smells safe,” said Miz, leaning down and lapping hungrily at the liquid. “Tastes safe.”

“Maybe we should boil it first,” Loren suggested, but Cal couldn’t wait. He dug in for another scoop, brought it to his lips, and slurped.

It wasn’t until the liquid flooded his mouth that he realized what a barren desert it had been in there. The soil-dust from the crash had coated his tongue and gums, and the water didn’t just feel like a drink, it felt like a purification, washing away the pain of the past few hours.

It was the taste of hope. The taste of possibility. It was a taste that cradled him close and whispered, ‘You’re safe now. I’ve got this,’ into his ear.

“You know,” he began, sighing contentedly as the icy liquid cleansed his aching throat. “I have a feeling that everything’s going to turn out OK.”

And then, with a splash, something thin and luminous snaked out of the water, wrapped around his throat, and dragged him below the surface.

The water, which had been pleasantly chilly just a moment ago, now stabbed at him in a billion little pinpricks of pain. The vine, or tentacle, or whatever it was tightened around his neck like a garrote. He tried to dig his fingers beneath it, but there was no space to squeeze so much as a nail between the thing and his skin.

He thrashed and kicked, churning up a dark brown sediment from the river’s shallow bottom. It twirled like a tiny tornado, turning the water to murk. Through it, Cal could make out the luminous green thread that had tangled itself around him.

Another glowing tendril snaked towards him, this one moving more cautiously. It sniffed around his feet, then probed around the bottom of his pants. Cal flailed his legs around, trying to kick the thing away.

The murky water swirled up his nostrils. The tightness around his throat made him want to open his mouth to gulp down air, but an aversion to drowning made him think again.

The tendrils, whatever they were, were coming from cracks in the two big rocks. He could just make out where they emerged from tiny crevasses near the rocks’ curved bases.

A shape broke the surface of the river above him. Wrestling with the neck-vine, he turned himself around. He watched with both a growing sense of relief and a desire to shout, “Hurry the fonk up!” as Loren swam towards him with wide, powerful strokes.

The other tendril drew back as she approached. Cal pointed frantically towards the garrote around his throat, and Loren nodded. Her hand went to her belt and she brought out a short knife with a serrated blade.

Cal’s lungs were balloons filled with fire. They pleaded with him, screamed at him to open his mouth. The muscles in his arms and legs were cramping. A lightness was tickling across his scalp. If Loren didn’t get a fonking move on, then—Yes!

The knife hacked through the tendril and the tension eased across his throat. Loren caught Cal under the arm. She kicked off the silty riverbed and launched them towards the surface. It rippled lazily above them, a shimmering lightshow just beyond their reach.

Cal’s arms spasmed. His lungs shriveled away to nothing. Darkness swept in from all sides.

And then Loren’s hands were on his face, her lips pressing against his. Cal’s eyes went wide as he felt air – sweet, beautiful, Loren-filtered air – fill his lungs.

All too soon, she broke away. She kicked, and this time Cal kicked, too. They broke the surface together, Cal coughing and hacking and spluttering, Loren already vaulting up onto the banking.

Miz’s hand snagged Cal by the back of his shirt and heaved him onto dry land. He collapsed onto his back, gulping in lungful after lungful of oxygen, or whatever the local equivalent might be, and clutching the wound that ran around his neck like a thin red seam.

“What the Hell was that?” Mech demanded, as if being strangled by one had turned Cal into some sort of expert.

“Don’t know,” Cal wheezed. “Came out… of the rocks.”

Miz’s ears picked up. She tilted her head, just a fraction, listening for the sound she’d just heard to come again.

“The rocks?” Mech grunted. “How could it come out of the rocks?”

“How should I know?” Cal panted, heaving himself onto his elbows. The sun was pushing through the trees, and he had to squint to look up at Loren. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” said Loren.

Cal winced. “Bit quicker next time, maybe? That’s my only criticism. Literally, just ten seconds earlier would’ve been perfect. That’s all. Otherwise, faultless rescue.”

Miz’s ears twitched. There it was. A faint krick, like cracking porcelain. Close. Very close.

Right behind them, in fact.

Mizette turned to the rocks that she now knew were nothing of the sort. “Uh, guys,” she said, then jumped back as a dozen or more luminous vines stabbed outwards through the shell of one of the eggs in the water, and made a grab for her.

Swishing with her claws, Miz sliced two of the tendrils in half. They continued growing out of the shell, some of them whipping and snapping at the air, while several others snaked through the grass towards her feet.

Cracks splintered across the egg’s surface as more and more of the luminous threads forced their way free.

“To Hell with this,” said Mech, raising a metal foot and pressing it against the egg’s rapidly disintegrating surface. With a shove, he sent the whole thing tumbling over the drop and into the fast-flowing river below. Mech knocked the second egg in after the first, and they both bobbed on the surface a few times, then spun as the current caught them and dragged them downstream.

“Eggs,” Mech muttered, as they watched them float away. “Should’ve seen that coming.”

“Space eggs,” Cal corrected. “And yeah. I mean, based on our past luck, how could they not have been eggs filled with evil spaghetti?”

“You know what I want to know?” said Miz.

“Whether you can convince Cal to get himself out of those wet clothes?” Loren guessed.

“Well, that,” said Miz. “But, like, if those were eggs…”

“Space eggs,” said Cal.

“Shut the fonk up,” growled Mech. “They’re eggs, man. Just eggs.”

“Whatever,” Miz scowled. “If those were eggs, then what laid them?”

They all looked at each other in silence for a while. Eventually, Cal sighed.

“You had to ask,” he said.

And then he threw his hands over his head and ducked, as the surface of the water behind them exploded in a stinking mass of eyes, tentacles and razor-sharp teeth.

“Run!” Loren shouted, incorrectly assuming that everyone else hadn’t already thought of that. They backtracked into the woods, crashing through the undergrowth and dodging between trees, as the monstrous whatever-the-fonk-that-thing-was gnashed and whipped at the air in fury.

A luminous tentacle, no thicker than a piece of string, snapped past Cal’s face, splintering bark from a tree right beside him.

Another of the threads tangled around Miz’s tail and yanked back hard. She yelped, then turned, swiping with her claws. Behind them, the monster’s screech tore through the forest, sending birds scattering from the high branches.

The screech became an eardrum-shaking crash as the thing forced its way between two of the taller trees, forcing the trunks apart and bending them until they could bend no more. They both toppled, tearing up thousands of roots and tons of soil from the forest floor.

“It’s following us!” yelped Loren.

“Mech, light it up,” Cal instructed.

Mech’s top half spun, while his bottom half kept running forwards. He raised both arms and fired a series of bright red shots from his wrist blasters. They slammed into the creature’s front, eliciting another screech and a shambling stumble backwards.

It stopped chasing, but they kept running anyway. The monster wasn’t just hideous, it stank, too – a foul, acrid stench of fish guts and seaweed, and of things long dead. Although he’d only glimpsed it for a minute, Cal wanted to get as far away from the thing as possible. He’d love to know how big the planet they were on was, so he could run exactly half way around it, and stay there. Although, even that would still be a bit too close for his liking.

Despite his near-overwhelming desire to get away, it was Cal who stopped running first. This was partly because he felt they were safely out of the creature’s reach, but mostly because his lungs were cramping, his legs were burning, and he’d just been a little bit sick in his mouth.

Even more than that, though, was the fact that his toe caught on something hard lying in the grass, and he fell, head-first, into a bush.

“Ooh! Ow! Pointy! Pointy!”

The others slowed to a stop. Miz, who had been powering ahead, doubled-back just as Cal extracted himself from the shrubbery.

“Has it stopped chasing us?” whispered Loren, peering back through the trees. Mech tapped his scanners. Miz sniffed the air.

“Yes,” they both said at the same time.

Cal, meanwhile, had bent and pushed aside the grass to find out what he’d tripped on. “What the Hell?” he muttered, once he’d cleared enough of the undergrowth away.

It was a rifle. Cal thought he recognized it as being of a type he’d had pointed at him fairly recently, but this one was rusted in patches, and partially coated in a purple moss.

Loren peered over his shoulder. “That’s a Gloxom N7,” she said.

Cal nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Except for the ‘Gloxom N7’ part. It’s a gun.”

“A Zertex gun,” confirmed Loren.

“So maybe Vajazzle’s ship did come through here,” said Cal, but Loren shook her head and pointed out the obvious.

“Look at that thing. It’s been here for years.” She frowned and squatted down. “Except, that doesn’t make any sense…”

“Uh, guys,” said Miz. “I found something.”

Mech and Loren headed over to join Mizette, who stood a dozen or more feet away, gazing down at something in the grass. Cal moved to follow, then stopped when he heard a sound from high above them in the trees.

Using a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight that beamed between the leaves, Cal searched for the source of the noise. A sudden flurry of hops and jumps on one of the branches caught his attention.

There, skipping along a thin branch, was a little orange-furred creature with perfectly round eyes and a ludicrously fluffy tail. It stopped running when it spotted Cal and peered down at him, tilting its head in curiosity.

“Aw, a space squirrel,” said Cal.

Meanwhile, Mech and Loren had joined Miz in looking at the thing in the grass. It was a dead body. Or bits of one, at least. A partially-intact skeleton sat propped against a tree, the meat picked clean from its bones. Grass and roots had grown around the leg bones, while the ribcage was two-thirds covered in the same purple moss they’d seen on the gun.

“I just found this guy,” said Miz. “He’s dead.”

“Is he?” asked Loren. “Are you sure? Did you check for a pulse?”

Behind them, Cal waved to the space squirrel. Rather than wave back, though, the space squirrel instead launched itself from the branch towards him. It fell in slow motion, its light body buffeted by the breeze, but still too fast for Cal to move out of the way.

The space squirrel landed on Cal’s face and immediately clamped itself on, digging its claws into the sides of his head. Cal opened his mouth to scream, but a fluffy tail suddenly filled it all the way to his throat, silencing him.

Frantically, and unable to see anything but squirrel tits, Cal whirled around, yanking furiously at the creature as he tried to pull it free.

A pair of sharp teeth dug into his scalp, just above the hairline. Cal tried to scream again, but all that came out were a series of faint, muffled gagging sounds as the fluffy tail expanded to fill his entire airway, and Cal began to choke.

Eight

A few feet from where Cal was being silently murdered by a space squirrel, Mech studied the corpse. “It’s too clean. The flesh didn’t just rot away, it was stripped.”

“You mean he was eaten?” said Loren. “That thing from the river, you think?”

There was a faint whirr of a motor as Mech shook his head. “Look at the bones. You can see bite marks. Whatever ate this guy was small, but with sharp teeth and one nasty bite.”

Behind them, Cal tugged and wrenched at the rodent on his face, desperately trying to wrench it off. He made a grab for its head, his thumbs searching for its cartoonishly-wide eyes, but the nasty little fonker sunk its teeth into the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger, and he quickly yanked his hand away again.

Spotting something shiny in the grass, Miz knelt down. “That’s a Zertex badge,” said Loren, as Miz held up the silver emblem. “This guy was with Zertex.”

“So, what? Zertex were here years ago?” Miz asked.

“That’s what I thought,” said Loren. “But here’s the thing – the Gloxom N7. That gun? It was only manufactured in—”

“What the fonk is he doing now?” grunted Mech. He had looked back over his shoulder to find Cal jumping and jigging on the spot, his back to them. From that angle, they couldn’t see the creature that had attached itself to his head, and he appeared to be dancing.

“Cal?” said Loren. “Uh… I was saying to the others, the Gloxom N7?”

Cal spun in their direction, pointing frantically at the space squirrel. “Ooh, shizz,” hissed Loren. “What is that thing?”

“I don’t care what it is, get it off!” cried Cal, although only inside his head, due to his throat still being jam-packed with tail.

“How does this stuff keep happening to you?” Mech muttered, striding towards Cal and wrapping a hand around the squirrel’s body. He tried to yank it off, but its claws and teeth were holding on too tightly, and Cal remained attached. “Let go, you furry little shizznod,” Mech grunted, tugging on it again.

Cal screamed – internally again, because of the tail thing – and pointed to the thing’s head. Taking the thing, Mech placed a thumb on one side of the creature’s skull, and a finger on the other. He began to squeeze.

The space squirrel spun like a tornado of fur, detaching itself from Cal and whirling itself free of Mech’s grip. Screeching, it made a dive for the nearest victim that wasn’t made almost exclusively of inedible metal.

Unfortunately for the space squirrel, the target it chose to lock onto was Mizette. It launched itself towards her face. Its wide eyes widened even further as it saw her jaws opening, and realized it had almost certainly made a pretty significant miscalculation.

Mizette’s mouth snapped shut. There were a series of damp crunches as she chewed. “Huh,” she said. “That’s actually pretty delicious.”

Cal, meanwhile, had dropped to his knees, coughing and spluttering and hacking up a hairball. “Man, I hate this forest,” he wheezed.

There was a sound not unlike thunder and the ground trembled beneath them. Cal froze, clamping a hand over his mouth to stop himself coughing. Deeper into the woods there were a series of creaks and crashes as a number of trees were toppled by the tremor.

When the rumbling stopped, Cal cautiously moved his hand away from his mouth. “Was that me?” he whispered. “Did I annoy the forest?”

“Well, you manage to annoy everyone else, so it’s possible,” said Mech. He tapped the controls on his forearm and studied the in-built screen. “Looks like it was just an earthquake.”

“Oh, well as long as it was just an earthquake, and nothing serious,” said Cal, getting to his feet. He stuck out his tongue and plucked a few flecks of fluff from it. “Man, I am going to be tasting that thing for weeks.”

“Me too,” said Mizette, although she, unlike Cal, seemed pretty happy about it. “I hope we find some more.”

“I really hope we don’t,” said Cal, his eyes darting across the branches above them. “So, what did we find?” he asked, when he was confident no more space squirrels were preparing to hurl themselves his way.

“A dead guy,” said Miz.

“Zertex,” added Mech. “Been dead a while. Probably killed by one of those things that you found.”

“I didn’t find it,” said Cal. “It found me.” He hacked up another wad of fur and spat it onto the grass. “So, what are we saying? Zertex knew about this place years ago?”

“Looks like it,” said Mech.

“No, that’s what I’ve been trying to say,” said Loren, stepping over to the moss-ridden rifle on the ground. “This is a Gloxom N7.”

Cal nodded and resisted the urge to sigh. “Great. You know your gun types. Well done. How does that help us?”

“The Gloxom N7 was introduced as a replacement for the Wessal Flux, although in my opinion the Flux is the superior weapon, thanks to its twin coolant chambers that…” She caught Cal’s expression and cleared her throat. “Anyway, my point is, it’s new.”

“How new?” asked Cal.

“First manufactured eight months ago. First introduced to Zertex within the last six weeks.”

Everyone looked down at the gun. Rust had claimed most of the barrel, while most of what was left belonged to the moss. “That is not a six week old gun,” said Cal.

“Except it is,” said Loren. “It has to be.”

“Then you got it wrong,” said Mizette. “I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time you messed up. It’s a different gun.”

“No, you can tell by the shape of the stock and the way the trigger-guard curves forward to a point at the bottom,” said Loren, squatting beside the weapon and pointing to the various parts as she spoke. “Trust me, I know my firearms.”

Cal leaned on her back and looked down at the rifle. “Also, it says ‘Gloxom N7’ on that handle bit at the top.”

Loren’s pale blue skin darkened, just a shade. “Yes. That, too.”

Cal straightened and leaned one hand against a tree, taking a moment to gather himself together. The past few hours had been taxing, to say the least, with the last, oooh, eight minutes or so being particularly unpleasant.

He had a fiery red scar around his throat, two deep claw-marks on his temples, and a bite on his scalp that was currently weeping blood along the length of his nose. A chunk of the fleshy web between his forefinger and thumb was gone. He was wet, his face was crisscrossed with whip marks from branches, and his whole body still ached from the catalogue of bone-shuddering impacts that had been inflicted upon it.

Also, he could still taste squirrel.

He tried to ignore the pain and focus on the gun situation. So it was old, obviously – you could tell just by looking at it.

But it couldn’t be old, because it was new.

But it couldn’t be new, because it was old.

Cal decided to stop focusing on the gun situation, because it was making his headache worse.

“So, what are we going to do?” he asked. “Anyone have any suggestions? Anything at all?”

Miz’s ears pricked up. She sniffed the air.

“What is it?” asked Cal, then he grimaced as something tore into his shoulder. He looked down to find the wooden shaft of a short, stubby arrow protruding from his body, just to the right of his left armpit.

He stared at it.

For quite a long time.

Finally, he sighed.

“Man, I fonking hate this forest,” he said, then his legs went up, his head went down and he collapsed in a heap in the undergrowth.

* * *

Cal stirred. He wasn’t sure why.

He didn’t feel like stirring. Stirring was one of the last things on his mind. Being awake had proven to be almost exclusively awful of late, whereas unconsciousness had been pretty much plain sailing.

Nothing had tried to drown him or eat him while he’d been unconscious. Or not that he’d noticed, anyway.

He hadn’t been involved in any spaceship crashes while asleep, or almost asphyxiated in the cold depths of space. Or, again, if he had, he couldn’t recall any of it.

But still, he was stirring. And as he stirred, he felt the pain begin to peck at him. His head. His face. That bit between his finger and thumb.

His shoulder. Oh Jesus, his shoulder.

Cal stopped stirring and jumped awake with a sound that came from some animal part of his brain he rarely tapped into. It was a terrified sort of, “Waururgh!” sound, and was accompanied by some karate style hand slashes and a jerking kick from one leg.

Loren caught his hands and placed them gently by his side. “It’s OK. Everything’s going to be fine,” she said.

Cal’s eyes swiveled around him, taking everything in. He was lying on a single bed in what appeared to be a hospital where a riot had recently taken place. Half the equipment was toppled and broken, and the floor was a minefield of broken glass, empty IV bags and bloodied gauze.

None of the big overhead lights were on, but several gas or oil lamps had been set up around his bed, forming a barricade against the darkness.

“We’re going to get the arrow out,” said Loren.

Cal gawped at her, then turned to find the wooden arrow shaft still sticking out of his shoulder. “You woke me up to tell me that? Why didn’t you do it when I was sleeping?”

Loren blinked. “Huh. Actually, I guess that would’ve made sense.” She shrugged. “Still, done now.”

“Just knock me out again!” Cal suggested. “Find Mech! Get him to punch me unconscious. Trust me, he’ll jump at the chance. Assuming… can he even jump?”

“Course I can fonking jump,” grunted Mech, stepping from the shadows into the pool of light.

“We need you awake so you can push,” Loren explained.

“I’m pregnant, too?!” Cal spluttered, sitting up. “Jesus Christ. When did this happen?”

“The arrow. You have to push against the arrow,” said Loren.

Cal tried to make sense of what she was saying, but failed dismally. “What do you mean? You want me to spit it out of my shoulder? I don’t have that sort of muscle control. Is that even possible?”

“No, you push against the arrow while I push it in,” said Loren.

“In?” said Cal. “Why are you going to push it in? That’s the complete opposite of what you should be doing. We want it out, not in!”

“Here, I’ll push him,” said Mech. He placed his hands on Cal’s upper arms and braced him from behind.

“What are you doing?” Cal demanded. “Careful. And your hands are freezing, by the way.”

“We can’t pull it out,” Loren explained. “It’s barbed at the end, it’d rip a hole in your shoulder.”

“It’s already ripped a hole in my shoulder!”

“A bigger one,” said Loren. “We need to push it through, cut the barb off, and then pull it out.”

“Push it through where?” Cal demanded. “My back?!”

“It’ll just take a few seconds,” Loren promised.

“Yeah, but a few seconds of having a fonking arrow pushed through my back!” Cal pointed out. He took a series of short breaths and gritted his teeth. “OK, Jesus, just do it. Now. Get it over and done with.”

Loren put a hand on the arrow shaft.

“Wait! No! Don’t touch it!” Cal yelped. Loren took her hand away. “No, why are you stopping?”

“You told me to.”

“Of course I told you to, it doesn’t mean you should do it. When does anyone ever listen to me?” Cal said. “Do it. Now!”

Loren gripped the shaft.

“No, stop, don’t you dare! Don’t you even think about it, Loren, or so help me God, I’ll—”

A scream rose like a bubble in Cal’s throat as Loren pushed the arrow and Mech pushed the man. Agony slithered like a snake through his shoulder, then popped its head out through the skin of his back.

There was a high-pitched whine of a little circular saw, then Loren pulled sharply and suddenly on the arrow and an arc of blood spattered across her face.

“Ow! Ow! Son of a bedge,” Cal cried, gritting his teeth and collapsing against the bed. Loren flew at him with dressings and bandages. Mech forcibly heaved him onto his side. The fire in his shoulder rose into an inferno and Cal’s head began to swim.

“Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up,” he hissed.

He threw up.

The last thing he saw was a short, painfully-thin figure dressed in animal skins come gliding out of the darkness, then the lights went out one by one, and the shadows rushed in to devour him.

Nine

Cal dreamed. He dreamed of his old life, back on Earth, before any of this outer space stuff had happened.

Actually, no. Not his old life. His old old life. The one before his switch into self-destruct mode. Before the petty crimes and prison sentences. Before he turned his back on his parents, his home, and everything that reminded him of her. Of them.

He dreamed of a picnic on a hill. He dreamed of a woman and a girl. He dreamed they loved him, and that he loved them, and that nothing would ever take them from him. He dreamed that they would be with him forever. That they hadn’t both died in a tangle of metal and fire at the side of a road, miles from anywhere. Miles from him.

He dreamed of a hooded figure dressed in black, standing watching while they ate and drank and laughed on the hillside. The figure approached, passing through Cal’s family like he was a ghost. Or they were. Possibly both.

Time froze. Cal gazed up at the dark-clad figure, the thudding of his heart the only sound in the world. “Are you… are you Death?” he whispered. “Are you the Reaper?”

The figure shook his head. “Look upon my face, and knoweth my name,” he commanded, scraping his hood back over his head.

Cal blinked in surprise. “Tobey Maguire?”

Hollywood actor, Tobey Maguire, nodded solemnly. “It is I,” he intoned in an uncharacteristically deep timbre.

Some people, upon encountering former Spider-Man star, Tobey Maguire, dressed as Death at a picnic might react with surprise, but this was not the first time Cal had come face to face with the actor recently. In fact, since discovering most of the inhabitants of planet Earth had been killed by parasitic alien bugs, Tobey Maguire had been on Cal’s mind quite a bit. An unreasonable amount, even. He wasn’t really sure why, but quite frankly it was waaaay down his list of worries, and he hadn’t really bothered to dwell on it too much.

Besides, Cal knew this wasn’t Tobey Maguire. Not really. Tobey Maguire was dead, just like everyone else. Still, he was close enough.

“What do you want, Tobey Maguire?” Cal asked.

“I bring forth change. I seek an awakening,” said Tobey Maguire. “And one of those sandwiches, if it’s going. But preferably not the tuna.”

“An awakening?” said Cal, as Tobey Maguire helped himself to a ham sub.

“Yes. An awakening,” confirmed Tobey Maguire. “Does this have mayonnaise on it, do you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, did anyone put mayo on the bread when they were--?”

“Not the sandwich! The awakening bit. What do you mean?”

Tobey Maguire shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

Cal looked at his daughter and wife, both still frozen, mid-laugh. An icy frost spread across his chest. “Oh,” he said, then the dream world rushed away from him like sand through his fingers, and he awoke alone in a stark, empty cell.

Cal sat up, then hissed and braced himself for the pain. It didn’t come. He was naked from the waist up, and cautiously crept a hand across his chest, feeling for the arrow wound. His fingers found a few flecks of dried blood in his chest hair that told him he was headed in the right direction, but nothing else.

Reluctantly, he glanced down at his shoulder, just briefly, as he didn’t really want to see the damage this close.

Nothing.

He looked again, properly this time. His shoulder, where the arrow had been sticking out, was unmarked. No bandage. No hole. Not even a scar. There was a very faint reddish tinge to the skin, perhaps, but even that might have been in his imagination.

Cal checked the other shoulder, in case he’d got them mixed up, but that one was also undamaged. His hand, too, where the space squirrel had taken a bite out of him, had healed without a mark. Cal felt for the wounds on his face and scalp, but found none.

“That’s impossible,” he said. His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the narrow cell.

It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t have completely healed up.

Unless…

Cal swung his legs out of the single bed he was sitting on, and placed his bare feet on the floor.

What if this was the dream? What if the whole being abducted and going on adventures in outer space was the fantasy, and the picnic on the hillside was real?

But then wouldn’t that mean Tobey Maguire was real? Yes, but Tobey Maguire was real, he argued. He’d seen him in movies, and being interviewed on TV.

But why would Tobey Maguire be at his family picnic, dressed as the living embodiment of Death? That one was harder to explain, Cal accepted. For a laugh, maybe?

The cell door was thrown open. Cal jumped up and was surprised to find nothing ached. He felt good, actually. Physically, at least, he felt better than he’d felt in… ever, possibly.

“Hey, who do you think you are, keeping me locked up in here?” Cal started to demand, although he barely got four words into it before he stopped. A short, stocky man with black eyes and a painted face stood in the doorway, holding a spear in a way that suggested he knew any number of ways in which to use it, none of them pleasant.

He was a little shorter than Cal, but with twice as many arms. He was dressed like some sort of ancient tribesman, in that he wasn’t really dressed much at all. A colorful skirt was wrapped around his waist, and a matching neck piece covered the top part of his chest and one shoulder.

His second set of arms – much skinnier than what Cal was already thinking of as ‘the main ones’ – sprouted from a ribcage that had been smeared with thick, oily paints in swirls of reds and greens.

Gleaming white tusks sprouted from his bottom lip. Cal couldn’t be sure at this point if they were real, or just decoration, and he felt it was a little too early in their relationship for him to ask.

“Well hey there… you,” said Cal, eyeing up the spear. It really was very pointy.

“Nukshuk,” said the tribesman.

Cal tapped his head, just behind his ear, roughly where the translation chip had been implanted. “Sorry?”

“Nukshuk. Tamaro!” said the man, his voice becoming more aggressive. He gave the spear a couple of sharp jabs in Cal’s direction.

Cal pointed to his ear. “I think my chip’s broken,” he said. “I can’t understand you.”

“Badona nukshuk!”

“I know! I know! Listen, I would fonking love to nukshuk, believe me, I just don’t know what it…” Cal frowned. “Wait. Fonking. Fonk. Shizz. Bamston. Huh. The chip’s still working. So how come I can’t understand you?”

The tribesman thrust his spear forward with alarming force. It stopped, the metal tip wobbling ever so slightly, just an inch or so from Cal’s nose. “OK, that I understand,” said Cal, raising his hands.

Stepping back into the corridor, the man gestured for Cal to follow. Not wanting to disappoint – or, more importantly, to get a spear jammed through his face – Cal followed. The corridor they emerged into was drab and featureless, and all-too-familiar.

“Is this… is this a Zertex ship?” he asked, but the prod of the spear tip against his back made him stop talking and start walking, instead.

Despite the situation, Cal quickly developed a spring in his step. He seriously couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this good. In fact, it made him realize just what a mess his body was in the rest of the time. He’d never really noticed his nagging heartburn, lower back pain or dull, ever-present headache until now, when he could no longer feel any of them. Who knew getting shot with an arrow could have such positive health benefits?

Guided by the pokes and prods of the spear, Cal navigated his way through a maze of corridors. It was definitely a Zertex ship. The clinically uninteresting décor was his first clue. The Zertex logo emblazoned across the walls at regular intervals helped, too.

There was power to the overhead lights, but only one in three or so were lit, casting the corridor into erratic shadow. Even some of those that were working buzzed and flickered, suggesting wherever the ship was, it was in pretty poor condition.

As he walked, Cal trailed a finger across one of the Zertex logos on the wall. It looked duller, more muted than he remembered. His finger cut a line through the layer of dust that clung to it, revealing the crisper, more vibrant paintwork below.

“Someone’s cut back on the cleaning staff,” he remarked, but the only reply was a jab in the back, so he decided to shut up and keep walking.

Countless corridors and four sets of stairs later, they came to a set of imposing wooden doors with two worryingly lifelike human skulls partially embedded in the timber. Every other door on the ship was metal or glass, depending on which part you were in. Even without the skull decoration, these doors with their dark wood and old-fashioned hooped handles would have looked out of place.

“You want me to go in there, don’t you?” Cal sighed. “Scary big door. Skulls. Bound to want me to go in there.”

The spear prodded at his spine. “Yep. Knew it,” said Cal. He took hold of both handles, spent a second composing himself, then turned and pushed. The doors creaked ominously inwards, revealing a small theatre lit entirely by hundreds of candle-sized sticks. Each stick gave off a sickly-white glow, but the sheer number of them meant Cal could see all the way from the door, along the aisle, and to the raised stage at the far end of the room.

There, sitting on a golden throne, was a hooded figure. The words ‘Tobey Maguire’ flashed through Cal’s brain, but he pushed them away. This wasn’t Tobey Maguire. He knew exactly who this was.

“Lady Vajazzle,” he said. His voice was a whisper, but the acoustics of the theatre carried it all the way to the stage.

“Mr Carver,” said the elderly assassin, her eyes – one real, one robotically red - glinting in the shadows of her hood. “So good of you to join us.” She extended a withered hand and beckoned him closer. “Please. Come in, so that we may begin.”

Cal got the feeling that he couldn’t resist, even if he’d wanted to. He stepped through the doorway, but the tribesman didn’t follow. He hung outside, instead, half tucked out of sight around the corner.

Vajazzle waved a hand and the doors slammed closed. From inside, Cal could see they were not stock issue, and had been jury-rigged in place over the existing metal doors.

Two rows of the glow-sticks had been placed along the theatre’s central aisle, marking it like an airport runway. Cal paced along it slowly, his eyes falling on the imposing, broad-chested figure lurking just behind Vajazzle, its arms folded across its broad chest.

There was something… Jurassic about the creature. It stood on two legs and was vaguely human-proportioned, but there were spiky plates along the outside of each arm, and a curved horn jutting upwards from the center of its wide, flat face. If you genetically spliced a triceratops with the current heavyweight champion of the WWE this, Cal reckoned, would not only be what you ended up with, but would probably also be the last thing you ever saw.

“Where are my friends, Vajazzle?” Cal demanded, not wanting to look at the dino-beast any longer in case his eyes killed themselves in protest. “And what did you do with Splurt? And where are you taking me?”

Vajazzle pushed back her hood, revealing her bald head, now completely devoid of even the wisps of gray hair she’d had last time Cal had seen her. Her cyborg eye was nested in scar tissue, suggesting it hadn’t been implanted into her face without both of them putting up a fight, and her mouth was a puckered anus of a thing, tight and narrow beneath her long nose.

“Which order would you like me to answer those questions in?” she asked.

“Third, then first, then second,” said Cal, without hesitation. He stopped level with the front row of seats. Up close, he could see that Vajazzle’s throne wasn’t a real throne at all. It was a crudely made wooden prop, painted to look like gold. A white rectangle hung from the ceiling behind her, wider than it was tall. Cal hoped it was a surrender flag, but highly doubted it.

“Very well,” said Vajazzle. “I am taking you nowhere. The ship is not moving. We are still on the planet.”

“You crashed too, huh?” said Cal. “Bummer.”

Vajazzle’s nose scrunched, just for a moment, then she continued. “Your crew is quite safe.” She gave a nod to someone high up behind Cal. A thin, weak light shone down, visible only thanks to the dust motes and tiny bits of fluff picked out by its beam.

The screen behind Vajazzle illuminated. Cal gritted his teeth and dug his fingernails into his palms as a succession of images appeared. Mech, flat on his back, his eyes vacant. Loren, hands cuffed behind her, lying on the floor of a cell.

And then Miz. Oh God, Miz.

She was squashed into a small cage, chains running from her ankles to her wrists, then to a metal harness that had been built across her face like scaffolding. She was sitting, hunched over in the cage, gazing blankly down at the spheres of metal that had been placed over her hands, presumably to stop her using her claws.

“What have you done to them?” Cal demanded.

“Nothing. They are quite unhurt,” said Vajazzle. A smirk tugged at the corners of her puckered mouth. “Well, maybe not the Greyx, but she brought that on herself.”

Cal made a lunge for the stage, but the dino-creature bounded down and landed with a floor-shaking boom beside him. With a swipe of an arm that appeared to require precisely zero effort whatsoever, the thing launched Cal several feet through the air. Cal landed heavily in one of the theatre seats and gripped the arm rests to stop himself attempting anything stupid.

The dino-beast stood its ground in front of the stage, arms folded, yellow-eyed stare boring into Cal. From her throne, Lady Vajazzle let out a laugh that was as dry as the last leaves of winter.

“And as for your other question – ‘where is Splurt?’ You’re looking at him.”

Cal’s grip tightened on the chair. He looked the dino-thing up and down. “What? Bullshizz. That’s not Splurt.”

Lady Vajazzle leaned forwards in her wooden throne and leered down at her one-man audience. “He pretended to be you for six months, you know? Trying to cover for you, even after we crashed here. I knew, of course. I knew from day one, but I tortured him all the same. Every day, Mr Carver. Every. Single. Day.”

Cal swallowed back the urge to hurl himself at her again. “Oh, Splurt. Oh, buddy. I am so sorry,” he said, looking into the cold, impassive eyes of the dino-thing. He frowned. “Wait, six months? How could he have been me for six months? I only got away from you a few days ago.”

It was Lady Vajazzle’s turn to look surprised, but it only crossed her face for a second. “Interesting,” she said. “Very interesting. Because you see, Mr Carver, we’ve been here for almost nine years.”

Cal stood up. The dino-Splurt’s eyes narrowed, but he made no move to attack. “Nine years? What do you mean you’ve been here for nine years? How could you have been here for nine years?”

“Simple. We came through the wormhole. We crashed. Nine years passed,” explained Vajazzle. “Slowly,” she added. “Very slowly. There really isn’t much to do on this planet. Or there wasn’t, at least. Nowadays, we make our own entertainment.”

“You know what?” said Cal, glancing past Vajazzle to where the image of Miz had frozen on screen. “Informative as this is, I don’t really care. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to let Splurt go, I’m going to take him with me, and we’re going to go get the rest of our friends. Then – and only then – I’m going to come back and kill you with my bare hands.” He smiled at her, picking one of the more annoying grins from his extensive back-catalogue. “How does that sound?”

Vajazzle made a weighing motion with her hands. “Meh. There’s one slight problem with it,” she said.

“Oh?” said Cal, a little surprised that she’d only found one part to take issue with. “And what’s that?”

“The entity – your Splurt – doesn’t want to go with you. He wants to stay with me.”

Cal spat out a, “Pah!” which he quickly followed up with an, “As if!”

Turning to the dino-thing, he placed a hand on its broad, armor-plated shoulder. “Come on, buddy, it’s time to go home.”

Splurt didn’t move. Slowly – ever so slowly – his eyes crept to Cal’s hand.

“He was with you for what? A week? A fortnight at most?” said Vajazzle. “You barely know him. I, on the other hand, tortured him every day for three years. I know him. Intimately.” She raised her voice. “Hurt him.”

Cal shook his head. “Never. I’m not going to hurt him. He’s my friend.”

On stage, the assassin hissed out another dry laugh. “Oh, Mr Carver, you really are as idiotic as you look. I wasn’t talking to you,” she said, then all the air left Cal’s body in one big puff as a rough, scaly fist slammed into his chest and sent him tumbling into the second row.

Ten

Cal sprackled out of the second row and into the aisle. That upbeat, zesty, lust-for-life feeling had been driven out of him with one battering-ram punch, and now he backed away, palms open in front of him in surrender.

“Splurt. It’s me,” he said to the advancing dino-thing. Steam snorted from its flared nostrils, as its every footstep shook the floor. “Whatever she’s done to you, you can fight it, buddy. You can fight her.”

One of Splurt’s arms arced upwards over his head. Cal dived sideways, narrowly avoiding being pummeled on the top of his skull. He ducked under a scything backhand, planning to jump onto Splurt’s back, but the armored plates sticking out of his spine made it impossible.

For the first time, Cal noticed Splurt had a tail, too. He noticed this right before it swung upwards, the tip slamming into his chin like a hammer-blow.

Cal staggered, stars swooshing before his eyes. He clutched his jaw with one hand, the other held out in front of him, roughly where he guessed Splurt to be.

“Wait!” he said, his voice coming out a slur of vowels and consonants. “You don’t have to do this.”

His back thudded against something solid. Turning, he looked up, blinking away the stars until Lady Vajazzle’s face was revealed, looming over him. He had backed right up to the stage, and now the assassin was standing above him, gazing down. Something squirmed and wriggled beneath her long, midnight robe.

“He’d kill you, you know? If I told him to. He is fiercely loyal. Fiercely loyal. I see now why you liked him,” Vajazzle intoned. Cal heard a damp squelching from under Vajazzle’s robe, and the tip of a tentacle tentatively slithered out. “But like I said, we have to make our own entertainment around here.”

The tentacle crept around Cal’s throat and jerked him into the air. Cal’s feet kicked, searching for the floor. He tried to grab hold of the tentacle and take the weight off his neck, but his hands slipped on the slimy skin, and he could only gasp and choke as his lungs, once again, complained about the lack of air.

Lady Vajazzle tilted her head and watched his struggle. A thin smile parted her puckered lips. “And I believe that you, Mr Carver, are going to be very entertaining indeed.”

* * *

Tobey Maguire looked up from the picnic hamper in surprise, and hurriedly stuffed something white and half-moon shaped into his Death cloak. Cal’s wife and daughter were gone now, and the bright summer sky was swollen with dark, ominous clouds.

“Hey. I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” said Tobey Maguire.

Cal looked the imaginary Pleasantville actor up and down. “Were you… were you just eating a whole Brie?”

Tobey Maguire laughed. “What? No. Haha. What? Definitely not.”

Cal leaned over and peered into the hamper. “It’s just that there was a whole Brie in there, about this big,” he said, making a circle shape with his thumbs and forefingers that didn’t quite touch. “Were you just eating it?”

Tobey Maguire hung his head. “Dnt fnk cmg bck,” he mumbled.

“Sorry?” said Cal.

Tobey Maguire raised his voice. “I said, I didn’t think you were coming back. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Cal sat on a chair-sized rock. “I don’t mind. But have it with bread or something, for God’s sake, don’t just take bites out of it. We’re not animals.”

“I threw all the bread to the ducks,” Tobey explained, his head still bowed.

Cal looked around them. The once-grassy hillside was now scorched and blackened. “What ducks?”

Tobey Maguire shrugged, but said nothing. He reached into his robe and took out a half-eaten round of Brie.

“Jesus, did you eat the waxy outside bit, too?” asked Cal. “In fact, you know what, forget it, I don’t want to know.”

He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “So, I’m unconscious again, amn’t I?”

Tobey Maguire looked up and nodded. “Yes.”

“Am I going to see you every time I get knocked out from now on?”

Tobey Maguire shrugged again. “Dunno.”

“I hope not, because I seem to get knocked out a lot,” Cal said. “Are you, like, my spirit guide or something?”

“Uh…” Tobey Maguire began, then he fell silent for several seconds. “Maybe,” he eventually continued. “I mean, no-one’s said anything, but… I guess.”

Cal puffed out his cheeks and stared at Tobey Maguire for a while. Finally, he clapped his hands on his thighs and stood up. “Well, good talk,” he said. “Very insightful. Thanks.”

“Want some cheese?” asked Tobey Maguire, offering up the Brie.

“No. No, I do not,” said Cal, then he tucked his hands behind his back, clicked his heels together and – to his immense surprise – woke up.

He found himself lying on rough, rocky ground with a circle of purple-blue sky looking down on him from above. Sitting up, Cal realized he was in a hole. It was quite a big hole, as holes went – thirty feet from end to end, and pretty much circular – with one continuous steep, smooth wall that was polished like glass. A rusted metal hatch, maybe the size of shoebox, was embedded in the wall just above Cal’s head height.

The top of the hole was twice his height at full stretch, maybe a little more. Dozens of faces – some human-looking, others not - leaned over the edge, watching him with morbid curiosity. Cal recognized their faded, dirty outfits as Zertex uniforms, and realized none of them were likely to pull him out.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Good evening!” he chimed, getting to his feet and dusting himself down. He still had no top on, but the cool night air was made bearable by the dozen or so flaming torches positioned just over halfway up the wall, spread out at regular intervals around the circle. “Don’t suppose any of you happen to have a ladder? I appear to be stuck down a hole.”

Unsurprisingly, no-one answered. Cal glanced over at the metal hatch. If he could get it open, he could feasibly squeeze through it, he reckoned. Provided, of course, he didn’t mind leaving his arms behind. And possibly both feet.

“Or a rope, even?” Cal asked, turning his attention back to the figures crowding around the top of the hole. “Pogo stick? Trampoline? No?”

A voice reverberated through the night air, echoing around inside the pit. “Release the creature!”

A chatter of excitement passed among the faces above.

“What creature?” Cal asked. “Vajazzle, is that you? Release what creature?”

There came a series of metallic thuds and clangs from behind the metal hatch. Cal turned to it, a terrible sinking feeling sucking at his gut. “Oh Jesus, what now?”

There was another sound beyond the hatch, too. A low droning noise, like a circular saw chewing through stone.

“What is that?” asked Cal, bouncing anxiously from foot to foot. He brought his fists up, ready to punch the shizz out of whatever stuck its head through that hatch. “What’s in there?”

At the top of the pit, the crowds shuffled apart so a number of Zertex troops could lower Lady Vajazzle and her wooden throne into position. The people on either side didn’t close the gap again once she’d been set down, leaving a few feet of space on either side.

“What the Hell is in there, Vajazzle?” Cal demanded.

Vajazzle’s eyes flared beneath her lowered hood. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Something went plink against the other side of the metal door and the droning dipped, just for a moment, before picking up again. The hatch dropped open, becoming a rigid metal shelf sticking out from the wall, and revealing a shadowy passageway. From the darkness emerged… nothing at all.

Cal glanced up at the faces above. Other than Vajazzle, who was still staring at him, they were all chewing their lips, their eyes trained on the open hatchway. They were waiting. Definitely waiting. But waiting for what?

“Hello?” said Cal, squinting into the gap. Nothing moved in the silent dark.

Cal’s feet inched forwards, ignoring a number of quite forceful protests from his brain. He kept his hands raised, ready to strike.

The flickering torchlight sent an orange glow creeping along the tunnel, revealing nothing but empty space. The tunnel walls were metal and reminded Cal of a ventilation duct that a malnourished action hero might find themselves crawling through in a particularly derivative action movie.

Cal lowered his hands. “You bamstons. You totally had me going there. There’s nothing actually in there is--?”

Something small and fast-moving shot out of the hole and streaked past Cal’s head. It was roughly the size of a ping pong ball, only less round and more wasp-shaped. Its body was a lump of oily black fur, with four pointed wings blurring in the air above it.

It did not, as far as Cal could tell as it curved around the circle, have a head. Instead, it had an ass at both ends, each one the proud owner of a long, elegant stinger.

The wasp buzzed up towards the top of the hole, making a bid for freedom, but as it drew closer to the flames of the torches, it abruptly about-turned and swooped close to Cal’s head.

Instinctively, Cal ducked and let out a far from dignified, “Waargh!” sound. The wasp banked past him, droned all the way around the outside of the circle as if searching for the way out, then alighted on the ground.

Cal eyed it with suspicion for a moment, before raising his head and meeting Vajazzle’s gaze. “Is that it?” he asked.

From beneath the assassin’s hood came a light, melodic whistle. Instantly, the wasp took to the air. It buzzed around in tight circles for a few seconds, then launched itself in Cal’s direction. Cal backed away, flapping at the insect with both hands. “Argh. Fonk off,” he hissed. “I mean it, don’t make me squash you.”

His hand slapped down towards the wasp, in what would almost certainly have been an epic finishing move, had the wasp not moved. It rolled in the air like a fighter jet, then plunged a stinger into the back of Cal’s hand.

Pain tore through him like a bullet through butter. He thrashed his arm out to his left, sending the wasp careening through the air.

“Oh Jesus!” Cal hissed, staring in horror at his throbbing hand. The area around the sting was rapidly puffing up, like a balloon was inflating beneath the skin.

There was no time to dwell on it, though. The wasp made a bee-line for him again, and the crowd watching above laughed as Cal broke into a run. He sprinted around the circumference of the hole, the wasp in hot pursuit. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear its rasping drone at his back.

The pain in his hand now burned like ice through his veins, stopping halfway up his arm. He risked a glance at the spot where the bug had stung him, and saw his fingers were now thick and sausage-like. He could still move them, but it took a lot of effort, and the only thanks he got was more pain.

“Stand and fight!” cried a voice from above.

“Stop running!”

“Yeah, yeah. Bite me!” Cal responded, extending a chunky middle-finger in their direction. It was then that he realized he could no longer hear the wasp behind him. Still running, he risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the insect wasn’t there.

He turned back to the front in time for it to hit him in the face. A bomb of agony went off on his forehead. Another exploded against his ear. He staggered, howling, swatting at the bug with his fat hand.

One of the stings plunged into his palm. Again. Again. Cal yowled and pulled away, bringing up a leg and frantically kicking at the bug with his heavy boots.

A stinger stabbed through his sock and sunk into the skin around his ankle. Spitting out a series of heavily-censored curses, Cal hopped across to the other side of the pit, colors swimming before his eyes.

He realized, to his horror, that he could see his own face. Or bits of it, at least. Specifically, the bits that were doubling in size before his eyes. He’d never seen his forehead from this angle before, and hoped he never would again.

His right foot felt heavy and useless. His left hand was a glove full of jelly.

And the wasp was coming again, much to the amusement of all those watching above.

“Shizz, look at his eye. That’s disgusting.”

“That hand’s going to pop.”

“Get him in the throat!”

“No, in the balls!”

A laugh raced around the edge of the pit. Vajazzle herself may have joined in, but her hood made it impossible to tell.

Bending, Cal snatched up a rock. “Fonk off!” he said, the words coming out slurred as he tossed the stone at the approaching insect, missing it by a mile. “Well, that didn’t work,” he mumbled.

A weapon. He needed a weapon. Something he could…

His eyes fell on one of the torches on the other side of the pit. Turning, he found the closest torch and made a jump for it. He fell short by almost a whole foot.

Gritting his teeth against the pain in his foot, Cal squatted low and fired himself upwards. The fingers of his non-fat hand brushed against the bottom of the torch, but then pain drilled into his shoulder as the wasp burrowed its sting in his flesh.

Screaming, Cal spun around, frantically clawing at his back, trying to reach the bug. The wasp withdrew its sting and immediately plunged it in again and again, machine-gunning Cal’s back with its venom.

Roaring, Cal drove his back against the wall, trying to squash the thing. The wasp buzzed to safety just in the nick of time, and Cal felt his lungs contract as the impact with the wall drove the air out of him.

Head swimming, body failing, Cal sank to his knees. An expectant hush fell over the onlookers, as the wasp buzzed all the way to the other side of the pit, then turned the other ass-cheek and lined itself up for its final assault.

“Well, this is all a bit disappointing,” tutted Lady Vajazzle.

Cal looked up at her through his now freakishly swollen eye. He flexed his fat fingers and wiggled his tingling toes. His shoulder had inflated, giving him a hunchback. It would not, by any stretch of the imagination, be a dignified death.

“Yeah? Well Disappointing’s my middle name,” he retorted, which sounded much better in his head. As the wasp closed in, he summoned what was left of his strength and propelled himself into a limping sprint straight towards the oncoming bug.

An ooh of surprise went through the watching crowd. Cal closed in on the wasp then, at the last possible moment, spun like a clumsy ballerina to avoid it. He limped on, his gaze fixed on the open hatchway that stuck out at a right angle to the wall.

The wasp buzzed furiously behind him. It was closing in. There was no time to lose.

Slapping his fat hand against the hatch, Cal jumped and pushed, launching himself higher than before. His good hand wrapped around the handle of the fiery torch, and as his weight jerked on it, the torch tore free of its mounting.

Cal spun in an arc of fire, just as the wasp made another lunge. There was a hiss as its furry body ignited, then a series of panicky yelps from Cal as it dropped into the turned-up bottom of one pant leg, and almost set his foot on fire.

He swung his leg and the burning wasp was launched all the way out of the pit. The crowd around it scattered in panic, which gave Cal a brief moment of pleasure before he collapsed to his knees.

Silence fell, but was quickly broken by someone clapping, slow and steady. Cal tried to look in the direction of the sound, but his back was too bent, and his forehead too large for him to be able to. Still, he could probably guess who it was, he reckoned.

“How very entertaining. Just as I predicted,” said Vajazzle. Her voice took on a more commanding tone. “Go down and retrieve him. Take him to the pens.”

A series of ropes lowered into the pit around him, followed by a burst of activity from above.

“I can’t wait to see how he performs in the main arena.”

Eleven

After being tied up and dragged from the pit, Cal had found himself surrounded by jeering Zertex soldiers. As one, the crowd had escorted him away from the pit, still shouting and hollering and laughing in his face.

After a few minutes of this, the mob had thinned enough for Cal to see four semi-naked, colorfully painted tribespeople surrounding him, the tips of their spears all pointed at different parts of his anatomy – and some of his favorite parts, at that.

He had been blindfolded, although it wasn’t very effective, as one side of his head was a completely different shape and size to the other. Through the gap at the bottom, he could see his own feet. His right ankle now looked borderline elephant-sized, and his foot throbbed painfully inside his boot.

Through the gap at the top of the blindfold, he could see a sky filled with unfamiliar stars. Once, when he turned, he caught a glimpse of the tear in space the Shatner had flown through. It seemed worryingly close, although his limited grasp of space travel meant he couldn’t even begin to guess how far away it actually was. Ten miles? Ten light years? He had no idea.

He had been bundled onto some sort of metal platform. The tribesmen had climbed on beside him, and the whole thing had glided across the sand, whining gently.

With the men so close, Cal had briefly entertained the notion of launching a surprise attack, knocking them all off the platform, then steering it to freedom, but as he couldn’t see, could barely stand and was increasingly resembling a semi-inflated version of the Elephant Man, he decided to give it a miss.

Several minutes of gliding later, Cal had been bundled off the platform again. He heard hinges creaking. A spear had been pressed against his lower back and then a hand had shoved him. He sprawled onto the dirt, then the gate slammed closed behind him again.

“Nice to meet you,” he called after them.

Cal rolled onto his humped back. It hurt, but then it had already been hurting, and pretty much everything else hurt, too, so there was no point making special allowances for it.

Another gate opened somewhere ahead of him. Words were barked, possibly at him, possibly at someone else. He couldn’t understand them, either way.

Clawing hands grabbed him under the arms. “Hey,” he protested, as he was dragged across the rocky sand.

He was dropped again. He heard footsteps, then the metallic slam of the gate closing. Another voice came, and this one he did understand.

“Cal?”

He blinked as his blindfold was pulled free. Loren gaped down at him, a patina of dried blood across her pale blue skin. “Oh. Wow. What happened to you?”

“Holy shizz, look at his face!” said another familiar voice. Mech clanked into view, his eyes darting all over Cal’s body. “And, oh man, his hand! Check out the size of his hand!”

“Does it hurt?” asked Loren.

Cal swiveled a bulbous, bulging eye towards her. “Guess,” he croaked.

“Aw man, I think I might throw up,” said Mech. “And I don’t even have a stomach.”

“Mech, get Tullok,” Loren said.

Mech retched. “Look at his fonking leg!”

“Mech. Tullok. Now!” Loren barked.

“Who’s Tullok?” Cal whispered, as Mech hurriedly stomped off.

Loren gingerly touched the lump on Cal’s forehead. Pain ricocheted through him, but he was too exhausted to acknowledge it. “He’s a native. But a prisoner, like us. He helped you after we took out the arrow.”

Cal searched his fractured memory. Most of the recent parts were taken up by a wasp and Tobey Maguire, but there was a faint whiff of someone else in there, too. Someone new.

“Little guy? Skinny?”

“Uh, yeah. More or less,” said Loren.

Cal tried to raise his uninjured hand to Loren’s cheek, but the shoulder was too deformed, so he had to settle for lifting the bloated one instead. He wasn’t yet used to the size of it, and rather than gently brushing against her cheek, he thumped her on the ear instead. “Shizz, sorry!” he said. He traced the blood on her face with his hot dog fingers. “What happened?”

Loren smiled grimly. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

The effort of keeping his hand up proved too much. Cal let it flop down to his side. “Where’s Miz?” he wheezed.

Loren’s face seemed to grow thinner. “We don’t know. No-one will tell us.”

“She was in a cage. I saw her. Vajazzle showed me,” Cal said, heaving himself up onto his elbows.

“What are you doing?” said Loren, placing a hand on his chest. “You shouldn’t move.”

“We have to find her,” Cal mumbled, gritting his teeth as his brain became a spinning-top inside his head. “She needs us.”

“You can’t do anything for her. Not like this,” said Loren. “Wait for Tullok.”

Cal sunk back onto the ground, the sky swirling and twirling above him. He saw the colorful space-rip swooshing past and tried to focus on it, but everything was moving too quickly and so he screwed his eyes shut and swallowed down his nausea instead.

“They’ve been here for years,” he said.

“We know,” Loren replied. “Mech thinks time moves differently here, wherever this actually is. Either that, or the vortex sent them back in time, somehow.”

Half of Cal’s brow furrowed as he tried to process this. “Then wouldn’t it send us back in time, too?”

“Maybe it did,” Loren said, sounding almost excited by the idea. “Maybe it sent them further back, because they went through earlier, then when we went through we travelled back to a date sometime between their arrival and the present time – by which I mean the time we initially went through…”

Cal held up his fat hand. “Please stop. My head’s already in danger of blowing up. This isn’t helping.”

Loren kept her hand on Cal’s chest, making sure he didn’t move again. “Did you find him? Did you find Splurt?”

Cal hesitated, remembering the cold, dead eyes of the dino-creature. “No,” he said. “No, not yet.”

There was a squeaking from nearby. Cal twisted his neck enough to see a frail figure pushing himself towards him on a rickety-looking wheelchair. It was the same man he remembered coming gliding towards him out of the darkness after the arrow incident.

His arms were like withered sticks, the olive skin hanging off them like rags. His head was a parchment-covered skull, but there was a twinkle in his piercing blue eyes that took a full decade off him.

He wore a sort of sleeveless one-piece jumpsuit made of orange and green dyed animal hide. It stopped just below his knees which, coincidentally, was roughly where his legs stopped, too.

“That Tullok?” Cal asked.

Loren nodded. “He’s on our side. We think. He can make you better.”

“You think he can make me better, or you think he’s on our side?”

“Both,” said Mech, pacing slowly behind the old man’s wheelchair.

Tullok heaved the chair across the rough ground, then stopped when he drew close. With a sudden jerk he shot forwards and flopped, face-first, onto the ground.

“Jesus, Mech, did you just tip that guy out of his wheelchair?” Cal slurred.

“What? No! Of course I didn’t! He tipped himself out.”

With some effort, Cal managed to turn his head enough so he could see Tullok crawling towards him. With his shriveled skull and bone-like limbs, he looked exactly like a zombie, and Cal had to fight the urge to grab for a rock and smash the old man’s head in.

“Tullok!” chirped the man, raising himself up on one arm and tapping his chest with the other hand. “Moinsa Tullok.”

His voice had a light, floaty quality. It sounded like a child’s laughter, and made Cal feel a little better all on its own.

“Cal,” said Cal, flapping his fat hand against his own chest. “Cal Carver.”

“Eh! Toinsa Cal-Cal,” giggled Tullok, his mouth curving into a gummy grin that revealed precisely one-and-a-half teeth.

“No, not Cal-Cal, just… Ah, forget it,” said Cal. He offered back the best smile he could muster, and what was possibly the largest thumbs-up in the whole of human history.

Tullok brought one hand to his mouth and extended his tongue. He began to lick his palm, smearing his saliva into every wrinkled nook and cranny. His tongue worked between his fingers, coating the front and back all the way past his arthritic knuckles and across his cracked, dirty nails.

“Man, you’re really getting stuck in there, aren’t you?” Cal mumbled. He shot a glance at Loren. “What’s he doing?”

“Relax,” Loren urged. “It’s part of the process.”

“What process? What’s he going to do? He’s not going to lick me better, is he?” Cal asked, then he gasped as Tullok slapped the spit-slicked hand onto his bare chest, and warm syrup filled him up from the inside.

Joy. That was what it felt like. It was opening his eyes on Christmas morning. It was first love. A first kiss in the moonlight. His daughter’s first smile, first word, first steps. It was every perfect moment he’d ever had – every perfect moment he ever would have - flooding through him in a tidal wave of bliss.

It ebbed away again almost immediately. Cal felt a flutter of panic – he wanted so desperately to cling onto the feeling – but then that feeling, too, faded, leaving nothing but serenity. He exhaled slowly as the last of the pain drained out through some invisible hole in his back, then opened his eyes.

He could no longer see his forehead. That was encouraging. He raised both hands without any effort and studied them, back and front. They were perfect mirror images of each other, neither one bloated or swollen.

There was no pain. There was the opposite of pain, in fact. Cal felt great again, just like he had when he’d woken up in the cell. Better than that, even.

He sat up just as Loren and Mech helped Tullok back into his chair. The old man was still smiling, but it was strained now, like the act of healing Cal had taken a toll. The bottoms of his legs, where the flesh ended in stumps, was gray and withered. Had they been like that before? Cal couldn’t remember.

“Thank you,” Cal said, jumping to his feet in one big bound, just for the thrill of it. “This is…” He flexed his arms and swiveled his head so his chin brushed against his bare chest. “It’s amazing. What you’ve done. It’s incredible!”

“You know he don’t understand a word you’re saying, right?” grunted Mech.

“Parammie, Cal-Cal,” said Tullok, his cheerful voiced tainted just at the edges by tiredness. “Parammie-mok.”

With a nod, Tullok wheeled himself backwards. Loren moved to help, but a violent flap of his hand waved her away.

“Well, he seemed like a kindly older gentleman,” said Cal, giving Tullok a wave as the old man creaked his chair around and wheeled himself in the direction of a darkened doorway. “We should totally recruit him to the crew.”

For the first time since the blindfold had been removed, Cal looked around at his surroundings. He, Loren and Mech were fenced in on all sides by a welded patchwork of metal walls. Each fence panel stood between twelve and sixteen feet high, Cal estimated, and all appeared to have been salvaged from elsewhere, then assembled around them like a flat-pack prison.

A couple of doorways led off from the area they stood in, neither one boasting a door. The gate Cal had been dragged through was another cobbled-together Frankenstein’s monster of a thing, put together from half a dozen different-sized metal panels. There was no handle on the inside, Cal noted, and no gap at the bottom. It was a gate designed with the sole purpose of keeping people on one side of it.

In the center of it all stood a rickety-looking tower. It wasn’t particularly tall – barely higher than the walls, in fact – but was positioned well away from any of them, making leaping to freedom impossible. A ladder ran up one side of it to a narrow platform at the top.

“So, I’m assuming we have an escape plan?” Cal said, once he’d finished looking around.

“Not yet,” said Loren, dropping her voice to just above a whisper.

Cal tutted. “Well, I’m very disappointed in you both,” he said. “I mean, look at this place. Mech can punch through any one of these walls, we’ll kick shizz out of any guards we come across, then storm Vajazzle’s HQ and grab Splurt.”

“You saw him?” asked Mech.

Cal blinked. “What? Oh, no. I mean, we’d have to find him first, obviously. Then we’d grab him.” He shrugged. “There. Wasn’t so hard, was it? We’ll call that ‘Plan A.’”

Mech and Loren exchanged a glance, then Mech beckoned Cal with a mechanical finger. “Come here. There’s something you need to see.”

* * *

A few minutes later, Cal stood in front of Mech on the narrow platform at the top of the tower, gazing out over the wilderness. The tower was as pieced-together as everything else in the prison, and Cal had been amazed that the ladder had taken his weight, and then had a minor panic attack when Mech had climbed up behind him.

While it was too far from the walls to offer an escape route, it did provide an uninterrupted view of the area, and Cal spent several long minutes just staring out in silence.

Dirt and desert stretched out for miles in every direction, bordered by the beginnings of a forest over in what Cal decided was the east, but was actually nothing of the sort.

Dozens of those miles were taken up by a mind-bogglingly enormous spaceship. It lay partially-buried in the rock and sand, like the ground was trying to claim the technology for itself. “That’s the Zertex ship,” Cal realized. “The big one. The one Vajazzle was on. Is on,” he corrected. “So they did crash.”

“Sure looks that way,” said Mech. “Even Loren’s landings ain’t that bad.”

“I heard that!” called Loren from below.

Midway between the prison and the crashed ship were half a dozen holes in the ground. Some were barely a few feet across, while others looked large enough to park a bus in. One of them – the largest - was surrounded by tiered seating. Cal tried to figure out which one of them he’d been in, but couldn’t.

“So what’s the problem?” he asked. “Through the wall, up to the ship, blast our way in. Simple, like I said.”

Mech pointed past him. “See that?”

Cal cupped a hand above his eyes, shielding them from the sun. A lumpy, misshapen person-sized mound lay on the sand a few feet from something that looked like a silver mailbox. He was barely a five second dash away from the nearest wall. “Yeah. What am I looking at?”

“Last dude who tried to escape,” said Mech. “Watch.”

Cal jumped as a bolt of laser fire screamed from Mech’s wrist blaster. It struck the side of the box, but rather than explode, the box just shuddered with the impact.

A fraction of a second later, the air around it was filled with the same oily black wasps Cal had fought in the pit. There were hundreds of them, thousands maybe, swarming angrily around, hunting for whoever had disturbed them.

“Pressure plates,” said Mech, gesturing in a sweeping motion with his hand. Cal noticed forty or more of the same silver boxes scattered around the outside of the prison. “All over the place. Step on one, those things come out to play.”

“Then we don’t step on the pressure plates,” Cal suggested.

“Yeah. Makes sense,” agreed Mech. “Except we don’t know where they are, and also…”

He fired another blast, at the ground this time, a little further away. The sand shifted, and something a bit like a Venus fly-trap, only several hundred times the size and with unsettlingly human-looking teeth, erupted from beneath the surface and snapped shut with an audible clack.

“OK, so we don’t step on those things either,” said Cal. He whistled softly. “What the Hell are those things, anyway?”

“Hungry,” said Mech. “They’re hungry. Trust me. That guy down there? He ain’t the only one who tried to make a run for it. He’s just the only one there’s anything left of.”

Cal thought for a moment, then clicked his fingers and pointed at Mech. “Rocket boots.”

“Say what?”

“Your rocket boots. You can fly us over all that stuff.”

Mech’s brow furrowed into deep grooves. Cal sighed. “Come on, rocket boots. Remember? You use them all the time.”

“Yeah, in outer space,” said Mech. “Where there ain’t no gravity. Here, they wouldn’t even get me off the ground.”

Cal nodded slowly. “What if I wore them?”

“Wore what?”

“Your rocket boots!”

Mech looked down. “They ain’t boots. They’re my feet. You ain’t wearing my feet.”

“But--”

“You ain’t wearing my feet, man. You ain’t wearing them.”

“I know, but--”

Mech started climbing down the ladder. “I ain’t listening. You ain’t wearing my feet.

Cal leaned over the railing and shouted after him. “Spoilsport.”

Once Mech was clear, Cal slid down the ladder, declared himself, “the boss,” for doing so, then turned and looked at the two doorways leading off from where he, Mech and Loren all stood.

“So, apart from Tullok, anyone else here?” he asked.

Loren and Mech exchanged another glance. “Uh, yes,” said Loren. “One or two.”

Twelve

Cal stood in another, much larger area, watching twenty or more tribespeople, who were in turn watching two others pummel the shizz out of each other with wooden swords. Around forty blankets lay on the ground along the two longest walls, a few occupied by sleeping bodies, but most of them empty.

In one corner, a stocky native with paint markings daubed across his face and bare chest cooked something on the most home-made looking barbecue Cal had ever seen. He wasn’t sure it actually qualified as a barbecue, even. ‘Some junk over a fire’ was about as generous a description as it deserved.

Still, it seemed to be doing the job, and the smell of whatever the man was cooking reminded Cal that he hadn’t eaten in… well, he wasn’t really sure, but the rumbling from his stomach told him it wasn’t recently.

Normally, with a big fight going on right in front of him, Cal wouldn’t have noticed any of these other details, and would have given all his attention to the battle. But this fight, despite some pretty impressive toy sword handling being on display, was a bit… dull.

It wasn’t even the combatants’ fault, Cal realized. They were going at it Hell for leather, kicking and punching and thwacking each other like their lives depended on it – which, for all Cal knew, they did.

It was the crowd that was the problem. There was no cheering, or shouting, or cries of, “Kick ‘im in the nuts!” to provide a soundtrack to the battle. Instead, the other tribespeople just stood in silence, watching impassively as the fight raged on.

The silence was so oppressively dense, in fact, that Cal didn’t dare speak for fear of shattering it. He alternated between watching the fighting, staring longingly at the food, and looking around at the couple of dozen other tribespeople scattered around the place.

There were men and women. Young and old. No kids anywhere that Cal could see, but he estimated some of the tribespeople to be in their late teens or early twenties, or whatever the local age equivalent might be. At the other end of the spectrum was Tullok, who sat in his chair in a shady spot at the far corner, and smiled gummily at Cal when he spotted him.

It was only as he was looking around for a third time that Cal noticed around half of the tribespeople had an extra set of arms. Those that did were slightly shorter and squatter, with eyes that were completely black. Those with just two arms were taller and skinnier, with eyes that were, well, just eyes, really.

At what seemed to be a completely arbitrary point in the battle, one of the four-armed tribespeople – a woman – stepped forwards and clapped the top two hands together twice, stopping the fight. Cal could tell she was a woman because, just like the men, and just like himself for that matter, she was topless.

The woman barked out a series of commands in her alien tongue, and the onlookers paired up while the first two men stepped aside. Everyone who had been in the crowd had their own wooden swords, too, and after another bit of shouting from the woman, they all began to fight.

“What’s this all about?” Cal asked. “And by the way, is anyone else hungry?”

“They’re training,” said Loren.

“For what?” asked Cal, very deliberately pointing himself in the direction of the barbecue, and hoping someone took the hint.

“For battle,” said Mech. “Vajazzle makes them fight in the pits.”

“Against each other?”

“And against other things,” said Loren. “All for her own amusement.”

“Oh, like gladiators?” said Cal, making a show of sniffing the air and rubbing his stomach. “We had that. On Earth.”

Loren’s face crinkled in disgust. “That’s a bit barbaric.”

“Not recently,” said Cal. “Ages ago. Like, I don’t know, in Jesus times.” He gave up on dropping hints and started walking over to the barbecue, where the four-armed chef was tossing something else onto the grill. “Keep talking, but I need to eat.”

The chef raised his dark eyes and frowned suspiciously at Cal as he approached. When he spotted Mech, though, his face unfolded into a wide grin and he chirped happily in his native language.

“Someone looks pleased to see you,” Cal said, glancing back at Mech.

“Mech built his kitchen,” said Loren.

Cal snorted. “I think ‘kitchen’ is stretching it. It’s some stuff that’s on fire.”

“He likes it,” Mech scowled. “Before that, they were eating everything raw.”

“Maybe they liked eating everything raw,” said Cal, then he was shoved aside as the chef darted out from behind the grill and threw all four arms around Mech in a hug. “Or, you know, maybe they didn’t.”

“Toshop-tee kaipur?” the chef asked, once he’d detached himself again. He scurried back to the grill and indicated a variety of what Cal could best describe as ‘items’ smoldering on top.

Cal peered down at the red hot wire mesh, and the things cooking on it. There were a few lumps of crisped-up fatty gristle, six reddish-brown things that looked a bit like mutated carrots, one of the double-assed wasps with wings and stingers removed, and a whole space squirrel. Or rather, two halves of a whole space squirrel, cleaved neatly down the middle, right between the eyes.

Cal clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “Hmm. What to have? What to have?” He met the black-eyed gaze of the chef. “Do you have, like, a burger or a steak or…? No?”

He looked down at the grill again, then turned to his friends. “Any recommendations?”

“Actually,” Loren began, but Mech stepped in front of her.

“It’s all good, man. It’s all good. Knock yourself out.”

Cal puffed out his top lip, then shrugged and pointed. “Fine. I’ll have some of the squirrel and a bit of space carrot.”

“Bodon nanca. Purrup.”

“I don’t… What’s he saying?” asked Cal. “My chip’s on the fritz.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Loren. “This language has never been recorded before. At least, not by Zertex. The chip isn’t translating because it doesn’t understand.”

“I think he’s telling you to stick your hands out,” said Mech. The others shot him a quizzical look and he shrugged his metal shoulders. “What? I been picking up a few words here and there.”

Sure enough, the chef placed both hands together and held them together in a cup shape. He nodded at Cal, indicating he should do the same. Cal shot Mech a sideways look. “So, what? You couldn’t have made the guy some plates?”

He held out his hands, then watched in stomach-churning horror as the chef tore half the squirrel’s head off and plonked it into Cal’s waiting palms. One of the lumpy vegetables was deposited next.

Cal stared down at them both, blinking rapidly. There wasn’t a lot of meat on the squirrel’s head, but there was a fair amount inside it. The half-skull acted like a tiny bowl for some brain, a surprisingly large eyeball, and a decent-sized slice of tongue.

“Uh, I’m more of a leg man,” Cal said, but the chef just nodded enthusiastically at him, and gestured to the food in his hands.

“Oh man, he gave you the head. That is an honor,” said Mech. “It must be because you’re with me.”

“Yeah, but--”

Mech held up a hand. “No, please. Don’t thank me. Just eat your squirrel head. Enjoy.”

Cal sighed. “God, I actually really hate you sometimes,” he muttered, then he shuffled the food into his left hand, and swallowed down a mouthful of saliva.

Pinching the forefinger and thumb of his right hand together, he pincered out the half-tongue. It felt light and rubbery and looked a million miles away from appetizing. The best thing he could say about it – the only redeeming quality it had, in fact – was that at least it wasn’t brain or eyeball.

“Go on, man,” Mech urged. “Pop it in. Savor it.”

Cal set his shoulders and met Mech’s gaze. “Fine. I will.”

“Good.”

“I bet it’s delicious.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Here I go. I’m eating it now.”

“Enjoy.”

“Oh, I’m going to. I’m going to enjoy it. Right… about… now.”

Cal pressed his whole hand over his mouth, then pulled it away and chewed. “Mmm!” he said, his eyes widening in pleasure. “Tasty. I thought it was going to be terrible, but this is one of the nicest things I’ve ever--”

“It’s still in your hand,” said Mech.

Cal stopped chewing, frowned as if confused, then looked down at his cupped hand. “Oh, so it is!” he said. “How did that happen?”

He took a deep breath, stared down at the sliver of pink meat for a little while longer, visibly flinched, then tossed it in his mouth.

Cal chewed as quickly as he could, hoping to be rid of the thing before he could taste it, but it was like gnawing on a rubber band and it refused to break up between his teeth.

“Yum,” he said, but then the taste hit him like something had taken a dump in his mouth and he hurriedly spat it onto the floor. “Oh Jesus, no. No, no, no.”

He hurriedly took a bite of the space carrot, hoping to mask the taste of the squirrel tongue, but immediately spat that back out, too. “Christ, that’s worse. How can that be worse?”

Cal was frantically scraping at his tongue with his fingernails when he spotted Mech’s shoulders heaving. Tears ran down the cyborg’s cheeks as his metal body clanked and shuddered.

“Oh, man,” Mech wheezed. “Oh, man, your face.”

“You knew it was going to be terrible, didn’t you?” said Cal.

“Of course I did! Look at it. It came out of that thing’s head.”

“The vegetables didn’t,” Cal protested.

Mech wiped his tears with the back of a hand and composed himself. “OK, first up, those ain’t vegetables,” he said. “And second, you don’t want to know where they came from. Trust me.”

He erupted into another fit of laughter as Cal’s expression dropped into all new levels of confusion and horror.

Loren placed a hand on Cal’s arm, and he realized that she, too, had been laughing. “Come on,” she told him. “Let’s show you what’s behind door number two.”

* * *

After returning to the tower area, Cal discovered that what was behind door number two was Zertex. Sixty to seventy men, women and gender-unidentifiable aliens wearing Zertex gear turned, as one, when Cal and the others entered.

Cal’s first instinct was to punch them all in the face and set the place on fire, but it felt like that would be quite a lot of effort, so he settled for just glaring in their general direction and tutting quietly instead.

“Zertex,” he said, on the off-chance the others hadn’t figured it out from the uniforms.

“Relax,” Loren told him. “They’re on our side. Well, kind of. They’re no fans of Vajazzle, anyway, so that at least puts us on the same page.”

“But they’re Zertex!” Cal insisted. “They’re the bad guys.”

“Hey, I used to work for Zertex, too,” Loren reminded him.

“Yes, but you’re different,” said Cal.

Loren raised a dark eyebrow. “In what way?” she asked, and there was a slightly accusing tone to it that made Cal recognize he might be skating on thin ice. “How am I different?”

“Just, you know, in a good way,” said Cal. He gestured to the dozens of Zertex soldiers filling the yard. “You’re not them. You’re you.”

“Can’t argue with logic like that,” Mech said. He shouldered past the others, heading for a man who sat alone on an upturned crate, staring up at the hole in the sky. “Come on, there’s someone you should meet.”

Cal and Loren followed Mech across the yard. The other prisoners continued to watch for a few more seconds, then their attention returned to their conversations, their idle gazing into empty space and, Cal noticed, their eating.

“Hey, they’ve got food here. Real food!” Cal yelped, his stomach gnawing at him as he watched a woman tucking into some chunks of cheese and slices of salami.

“Yeah, they got a replicator. Basic model, but it works,” Mech replied.

They passed a couple of tables which had been made from bits of scrap. A few other people sat around those, too, munching on a variety of things which weren’t space squirrel.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Cal asked. “I ate squirrel tongue!”

Mech shot a grin back over his shoulder. “Aw, I guess I forgot. Sorry, man. My bad.”

“Yep, I totally hate you,” Cal announced, and his stomach loudly echoed the sentiment.

The man sitting on the box turned his attention towards them and stood up as they approached. He looked older than Cal, although that may just have been because his face was so thin and gaunt. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, and graying hair around his temples. He looked pretty much human, except for something about his nose Cal couldn’t quite place. Too thick, maybe? Too thin? Something was off about it, anyway. His chin came to a squared-off point at the end, like a flesh-colored Egyptian beard, but aside from those details, he could almost have passed for Cal’s older brother.

“Dronzen, this is Cal,” said Loren.

The man didn’t smile, but gave Cal what seemed like a not-unfriendly nod. “Galto Dronzen,” he said in what, to Cal’s surprise, was not far away from an Australian accent. “I’m glad to see you recovered from your ordeal in the forest. Sounded nasty.”

“What, being half-drowned, bitten on the face by a squirrel then shot with an arrow?” Cal said. “That’s actually one of my better days, of late.”

“Ha. Yeah, mate, I know the feeling.”

“Dronzen was one of the science officers on the ship,” Loren explained.

“Right,” said Cal. He gestured around at the prison yard. “So how come you ended up living the high life here?”

Dronzen sat on his box and placed his hands on his thighs, like he needed to support himself through what came next. “When we crashed – after we came through that thing – we lost hundreds of the crew. Some of them were killed on impact. They were the lucky ones. The less lucky ones died over the next few weeks. Burns. Radiation poisoning from a system breach we didn’t get locked down quickly enough. Nothing pretty.”

He stared accusingly at the vortex for a few moments, then gave himself a shake. “It was only a few hundred, though, out of a crew of thousands. The rest of us – the Legates and other officers, mostly – got together and made plans for getting off the planet and back through the wormhole, or whatever it is. It was good for people. We had a goal. We had something to work towards, you know?”

“So how come you’re still here?” Cal asked.

“Because Vajazzle had other ideas,” Dronzen said, and the way he spat the assassin’s name out told Cal all he needed to know. “She installed herself as, ah, I don’t know. As queen, I suppose. She decided we were staying put. Said she’d always wanted a planet of her own, and that this one would do nicely.”

Cal frowned. “Why? This one’s fonking horrible.”

“You’re not wrong, mate. I didn’t see the charm, either. But anyone who disagreed or tried to challenge her was killed. The important ones, anyway. Anyone in command. Anyone who could fly the ships. She slaughtered them like luntbeast. The rest of us, the nobodies, she stuck here. What you see is all that’s left.”

“Hang on. What?” said Cal, his ears practically pricking up. “What ships?”

“On the AX11,” said Dronzen. “There are decks and decks full of the buggers. Small fighters, mostly, but a few of the bigger science ships, too. They were all locked down during the crash. They’ve barely got a scratch on them.”

Cal’s jaw dropped. “Buggers! We can say buggers!” He jumped up and punched the air. “Eat that censor-chip!”

After a brief celebratory dance at discovering a new mildly-offensive word he could use, Cal composed himself and quietly cleared his throat. “Anyway, you were saying?”

Mech answered for him. “He’s saying that over there on that big ship are lots of smaller ships that can get us the fonk out of here and back to our own galaxy or, I don’t know, universe or wherever.”

Cal chewed his lip, deep in thought. “So, all we have to do is get over there, find Splurt, steal all the ships, ideally kill Vajazzle – or at least make her think long and hard about her actions – then blast off into the sunset like champs.”

“Except even if we get to the ships, we can’t leave,” Dronzen pointed out. “We’ve got no pilots. Vajazzle made a point of killing them all to keep us here.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my inexplicably Ozzie-sounding friend,” said Cal. He gestured to Loren, presenting her like a gameshow host presenting that week’s star prize. “We’ve got the best pilot in Zertex.”

“Top five, anyway,” said Mech.

“Based solely on simulator performance,” added Cal. “But she knows her stuff.”

“Except landing.”

Cal nodded. “Yes, except for landing, which is a weak spot.”

“And gradual deceleration,” Mech said.

“Oh God, yeah,” said Cal. “She stops on a dime or she doesn’t stop at all. Seriously, she’ll fire your eyes right out through the back of your head, given half a chance.”

Loren tutted. “I think we’re getting off track here.”

“Yes, sorry,” agreed Cal. “My point is - you want a pilot, Dronzen, you’ve got one!”

“Yeah, but we need about forty,” Dronzen pointed out.

Cal deflated, just a little. “Oh. Right.” He shrugged. “Well, in that case, we’re totally screwed.” He about-turned and inhaled through his nose, picking up just a faint whiff of something not too far away from French fries. “Now, where’s this food machine? I am starving!”

Before anyone could answer, a klaxon sounded and everyone in the yard jumped to their feet. “Now what’s happening?” asked Cal, just as four heavy-built alien figures in Zertex uniforms marched in through the door. Each of them carried an impressively large blaster rifle. They swept the weapons across the yard’s occupants with a precisely calculated degree of menace, then fanned out just as a fifth figure strode through the doorway.

“They’re picking people to go fight in the pits,” Loren whispered.

The fifth man was as unlike the other four as it was possible to be, while still being vaguely the same sort of shape. He was Hobbit-sized, with a bushy crop of curly ginger hair, and what was either an attempt at a beard, or a nasty rash.

His uniform was less worn and faded than any of the others Cal had seen, suggesting he avoided getting into trouble and relied on others to do his dirty work. This didn’t surprise Cal in the slightest.

He held a clipboard in one arm, cradling it to his chest like a baby. His eyes darted across the faces of the people watching him and he hummed quietly to himself.

At last, he raised a stubby hand and extended an even stubbier finger. “You,” he said, pointing at a random face in the crowd. “And you.”

“Me?” Cal groaned. “But I just got here!”

“He’s right. That ain’t fair,” said Mech.

The little guy scowled and flapped a hand, like he were brushing away a gnat. He pointed again, first at Cal, then the other man. “Him. And him. With us.”

“No, p-please. I don’t want to go,” sobbed a boy in an oversized Zertex hoodie. Cal doubted he was an actual boy, but he looked stupidly young. Late teens. Twenty at a push. “I don’t want to fight.”

Dronzen stepped forward. “Leave the boy be, Ajan. I’ll go,” he said.

“It’s Lord Ajan to you, Dronzen,” the little man spat. “You’re not my boss now. I’m in charge.”

“Shut your mouth, you little scrote. You won’t have your mates around you forever,” Dronzen warned. “And then we’ll see how tough you talk.”

Ajan glowered up at the bigger man, his lips twitching as he tried to think of a suitable retort. Nothing came to him, though, so he turned to an old classic.

“You and whose army?”

“That doesn’t even make sense, you drongo,” Dronzen spat at Ajan’s back as the little man smugly about-turned and headed for the door.

Two of the hulking guards caught hold of Cal, while the other two made a grab for the squirming younger man. Loren tried to intervene, but a blast of laser-fire exploded the ground in front of her, and she stumbled back.

Cal’s legs bicycled in the air as he was hoisted into it by the scruff of the neck. “Mech, get working on learning some more of those other guys’ language. It could come in useful,” he said. “Loren, now might be the time for you to start thinking about forming a flying school.”

“On it,” said Mech.

Loren nodded. “Be careful,” she urged.

Cal grinned as he was carried towards the exit. “Hey, don’t worry,” he said. “This is going to be a piece of cake!”

Thirteen

Cal slid down the glassy sides of another pit, and landed heavily at the bottom. The Zertex kid, Sessal, hit the ground next, followed a moment later by a capable-looking tribesman whose name seemed to be a complex system of clicks and guttural barks. Cal had decided to call him Gavin, instead.

This pit was bigger than the last one Cal had been in, and the metal hatch built into the steeply curved wall was larger, too. Worryingly large, actually. Whatever was going to come out of this one would almost certainly be bigger than a wasp but, Cal estimated, smaller than a baby hippo. That left quite a lot of scope, though, and didn’t really help him narrow it down at all.

Not that he really could narrow it down, anyway. He had no idea what sort of creatures inhabited this place. Or not beyond squirrels, insects, birds and big luminous spaghetti monsters, at any rate.

“Everyone OK?” Cal asked, getting to his feet. “Sessal?”

“I d-don’t like this,” Sessal stammered.

“Yeah, I think we pretty much established that on the ride over here, when you kept hugging the railing and crying. Like I said, I’m not exactly over the moon about it, either,” Cal replied. “But we’re going to get through it, OK?”

The younger man nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. Cal squeezed his shoulder, then looked across to where the tribesman was bouncing from bare foot to bare foot, his gaze laser-targeted on the metal door. He’d clearly done this before, and was getting himself together for whatever came next.

“Gavin?” Cal asked. “You good?”

“T’torros mossami-ne kisk,” said Gavin, beating his painted chest with a clenched fist.

“That’s the spirit!” Cal cheered. “See, Sessal? We need to take a leaf out of Gavin’s book. He’s loving this. I mean, I think he is. He looks pretty positive, anyway.”

“Just k-keep him away from me,” Sessal pleaded. “He’s one of them.”

“One of who?” asked Cal.

“You know. Them.”

Cal sniffed the air. “Is that…? Is that racism I smell, Sessal? Is that what I’m getting a whiff of right now? Because if it is, I’m very disappointed. You can’t judge people just because they’re different. Did you learn nothing from being part of an evil galactic empire?” He clicked his fingers. “Wait… Yeah, I think I probably identified the problem, actually.”

“D-didn’t one of them shoot you with an arrow?”

Cal’s eyes went wide. “That was those guys?” he gasped, turning to Gavin. Gavin looked back at him, quizzically.

“Roto dom?”

“You’re absolutely right. Wise words, Gavin,” said Cal. “Wise words.”

He redirected his attention back to Sessal. “If Gavin said what I think he might possibly have said – you know, despite having no evidence to support that - he raises a very good point. If you want to arbitrarily hate on a whole group, why not hate on that one?” Cal suggested, pointing up to the top of the pit.

It was lined by somewhere just south of a hundred faces – a mix of Zertex and tribespeople. They leered down through a hubbub of excited laughter and expectant chat, all squashing together to try to get the best view, while always maintaining a safe distance from the top of the pit.

The little guy – Ajan, was it? – was on his hands and knees, leaning over the edge to get the best possible view. Two of his bulky guards held him, one on either side, holding him securely in place.

On the other side of the pit, someone in a Zertex uniform was scribbling symbols on the scorched and oil-stained paper of a flipchart. After a moment, it swam around before Cal’s eyes, his implanted chip translating it.

It quickly became clear that the man doing the writing was a bookmaker, offering odds on the survival of all three of the pit’s current inhabitants. Cal’s chances of survival weren’t particularly great at ten-to-one, but far better than Sessal’s forty-to-one. Gavin, on the other hand, was a comparatively comfortable three-to-one. Cal shuffled a sideways step towards him, and hoped Sessal didn’t notice.

“So, do we get weapons, or…?” Cal shouted up to the crowd, right before the handle of a sword clonked him on the back of the head, and a roar of laughter went around the audience. Two other swords clattered onto the rocky ground beside him. He picked one up and studied the wooden blade.

“Very funny, guys,” he said, waggling the flimsy toy at them. “Seriously. Hilarious. But could we get the real weapons now? Thanks.”

Ajan let out quite a big snort for such a little man. “Those are your real weapons,” he sneered. “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”

Cal smiled and gave him the finger, then turned back to his pit-mates. Sessal was clutching his sword to his chest, his knuckles white. He breathed in short, shallow gulps, his face awash with sweat.

Gavin, meanwhile, was in the process of breaking his sword in half. The wood was flimsy, so breaking it wasn’t difficult, but the tribesman had managed to split it all the way down its length, which was pretty impressive.

“Uh, I don’t think you should be doing that, Gavin. You might need it.” Cal mimed hitting something with his own sword. “You know, like that.”

With a final splintering sound, Gavin ripped the wood apart, leaving him with two long thin stakes, each one far pointier at the end than Cal’s blunt sword.

“Ooh. I want ones like yours. Do mine, do mine,” said Cal, but a sudden sound behind the metal hatch told him there wasn’t time. The crowd cheered and whistled. Gavin adopted a fighting stance. Sessal cried big, silent sobs and backed all the way up to the wall.

“So, what do we think it is? Any ideas?” Cal asked, his gaze fixed on the hatch, which was now rattling and shaking as something slammed against it from the other side. “Something big, I’d say.”

The hatch shuddered again, and this time it bulged outwards a fraction. “And angry. Big and angry,” said Cal. “Always a winning combination.”

“On my mark, release the beast!” bellowed Ajan, although ‘bellowed’ was pretty generous. He was aiming for a bellow, but landed somewhere between a squeak and a hoarse scream. “Three. Two. Drop the hatch!”

The audience erupted in cheers. Cal brought up his sword. The hatch didn’t budge.

Ajan tutted. “I said drop the hatch!”

“Oh. Sorry!” called someone a little further back from the pit edge. “My fault.”

The hatch dropped and an explosion of teeth and claws erupted from the passageway. Cal caught just the briefest glimpse of hungry jaws, then the thing was on him, knocking him onto his back and slamming him against the ground.

He looked up, first at a snarling mouth, then at a pair of narrowed brown eyes, which opened wide when they recognized him.

“Miz!” yelped Cal.

“Hey handsome,” Miz purred, adjusting her position on top of him. “Looks like I finally got you right where I want you.”

“Oh, man, are you a sight for sore eyes,” said Cal, then a sudden flurry of movement from his right demanded his attention. “Gavin, no!”

Cal rolled to his left, throwing Miz to safety just as Gavin drove both his wooden stakes towards her. Cal felt the rush of air as the sticks skimmed his back.

Scrambling to his feet, Cal positioned himself between Miz and the tribesman. Above them, the initial burst of cheering from the audience had quickly become a far less enthusiastic muttering.

“Wait, Gavin, don’t! She’s a friend,” Cal said. “Friend.”

“Bodano-na. Tossk!” Gavin hissed through clenched teeth. He feigned a lunge, but Cal frantically waggled his wooden sword at him until he backed away.

“Stop! Cut it out, Gavin, I’m warning you.”

“What’s going on?” Ajan demanded. “Hurry up and fight the beast, already.”

Cal grinned and shook his head. “Oh, Ajan. You beautiful tiny clown. This ‘beast’ is nothing of the kind. She’s my friend. She’s a princess, actually. You know the Greyx, right?”

Ajan scowled, but said nothing while he tried to think up a devastating retort. Cal interrupted before he could come up with anything.

“But, and just so we’re clear, if you call her a ‘beast’ again, I’ll kill you myself. OK?”

Miz shuddered with pleasure. “I love it when you get all protective.”

Cal was relieved to see that Gavin had lowered his weapons. He was still eyeing Mizette with suspicion, but he seemed to understand she wasn’t an immediate threat.

“See? We’re all friends down here,” said Cal. “So, I’m afraid if you wanted to see someone dying today, you’re going to have to look…”

Cal’s voice trailed away into silence as a dribble of blood coated Gavin’s chin. The tribesman’s eyes bulged and he staggered forwards, gagging and choking.

Gavin’s next step found nothing. He fell forwards, revealing a wooden sword wedged into the soft tissue at the back of his neck. Sessal was revealed, too. He stood directly behind where Gavin had been, his hands shaking, a spray of blood adding to the mask of horror he already wore on his face.

The audience found its voice again and their cheering reverberated around the inside of the pit. The bookmaker began making frantic adjustments to his flipchart as the last of Gavin’s life ebbed out onto the rocks.

“Sessal. What did you do?” Cal groaned.

“H-he was going to kill you. I saw him. You c-can’t trust them,” Sessal shivered. His whole body was vibrating, like he were two thirds of the way through freezing to death.

“No, he wasn’t, Sessal!” Cal snapped. “He wasn’t going to kill anyone. No-one had to kill anyone.”

“Uh… hello? Beg to differ,” said Ajan. “It’s kind of the entire point of you being in there.”

The audience laughed, and Ajan looked quite pleased with himself. “If you won’t kill the beast, then you can all kill each other. Everyone for themselves, last person alive is allowed back out.”

More laughter. More cheering. Cal stooped and picked up one of Gavin’s fallen stakes. “Hey, Ajan, remember what I told you?” he said. “Don’t ever call my friend ‘beast’ again!”

He spun and flicked his wrist, sending the sharp stick spinning up towards Ajan’s head. The crowd barely had time to let out a collective gasp before the stake hit.

Unfortunately, what it hit was a spot roughly two feet below where Cal was aiming. It bounced off the wall, sprung back, then hit the ground with a hollow thonk.

Cal sighed. “Well, that was disappointing.”

“Nice try, you… you… stupid idiot,” Ajan barked. The crowd chorused in with a collective, oooh, which only served to encourage him. “Yeah, you… dumdum. Get fighting. Either two of you die, or three of you do. We don’t mind, either way.”

“We’d prefer three, if anything,” chimed another voice from the audience.

“Exactly! Exactly!” chirped Ajan. “So get killing, or we’ll kill you ourselves.”

Down in the pit, Miz jabbed a thumb in Sessal’s direction. “I could eat this guy, if it’ll help?”

Cal shook his head. “No. I mean, thanks for the offer and everything, but he’s just a kid. He’s scared. Besides, even if he dies, one of us still has to die, too.”

“So what do we do?” asked Miz.

Cal lowered his voice to a faint whisper. “Still hear me?”

Miz’s ears twitched. She nodded, just a fraction.

“Don’t look, but the hatch you came through is still open. Is there a way out?”

Miz gave a non-committal tilt of her head. Cal sucked air through his teeth. “Better than staying here?”

Another nod.

“Hurry up!” called Ajan. “We haven’t got all night.”

“OK,” Cal whispered. “We get the kid, then we run for it. Get ready.”

He spun around and crouched into a fighting stance, fists clenched, eyes locked on Sessal. Miz approached from the other side, forcing Sessal to back away in the direction of the open hatch.

“N-no, please,” Sessal whimpered. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I was only trying to help!”

“I refuse to die in this pit, kid,” Cal growled. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Wh-what? No, but… Please, don’t kill me. I’m sorry!”

“Ready, Miz?” Cal asked, not taking his eyes off the boy.

“Ready,” Miz confirmed. Sessal’s head snapped left and right, trying to watch them both at once. He attempted to speak again, but all that came out was a sob, some tears, and a considerable amount of snot.

“Now!” Cal cried, and Miz pounced. The crowd cheered her on, but their delight turned to confusion when she threw an arm around Sessal’s waist and hoisted him over her shoulder.

Ajan realized, too late, what was happening. “The hatch! Close the hatch!” he yelped.

Cal heard a distant. “Oops, sorry, my fault again!” from above, but he was already through the doorway, with Miz and her squirming cargo right at his heels.

The hatch slammed closed behind them, casting the narrow passageway into near-darkness. Cal ran, doubled-over, making for a faint light source at the far end.

“Where does it come out?” he asked, his voice rolling off ahead of him and bouncing off the narrow walls.

“It’s a little, like, shed thing,” Miz said.

“Heavily guarded?”

“Oh yeah,” said Miz. “But now I’m out of that cage they put me in, that won’t be a problem.”

“That’s my girl!” Cal cheered.

They reached the end of the tunnel. Light flooded in from a rectangular hole in the ceiling, above which stood a shed, just like Miz had said. There was no ladder leading up, but the wall was rough and rocky, and Cal scrambled up it without any difficulty.

Sessal screamed as he soared upwards out of the hole, then landed on his back on the shed floor. Miz bounded up behind him, her eyes already fixed on a set of double-doors dead ahead.

A cage stood beside the hole, a tangle of chains and restraints lying on the floor. There were other things in the cage, too, Cal noticed. Fingers. Three of them, at least. Miz hadn’t gone into the pit without a fight.

“Come on, we don’t have much time,” Miz warned, bounding towards the exit on all fours. She exploded outwards through the wood, claws extending as she hurtled through the air. There was a grunt of surprise, then the two tribesmen who had been standing guard at the door lunged at her with their short spears.

Cal turned away until their screaming and thrashing and gargling had died down, then grabbed Sessal by the arm and pulled him towards the door. They stumbled out just as the first of the pit audience arrived, shaking their spears and drawing their blasters.

“Oh, shizz, they got here fast,” Cal muttered. Miz started to bound towards them, but Cal called her back. “No! This way!”

Spinning, he raced around the outside of the shed, pulling Sessal with him. The boy screamed as a blast of laser fire punched a hole in the shed right behind him, showering him in smoldering splinters.

“Stay where you are!” huffed Ajan, scurrying along surprisingly quickly between his four armed guards. Two blaster rifles trained on Mizette, while Cal and Sessal only merited one each.

Cal stopped running and raised his hands. “Aw, come on, guys. Could you just let us escape a little bit?”

“No, you stupid idiot,” Ajan said. He smirked and looked to the crowd for their approval, but it was much more muted this time, the insult having lost all the originality that had made it so entertaining the first time around. “Put them back in the pit!” he barked.

Before anyone could take a step, the ground gave a violent shudder. It rocked them all up and down, vibrating the walls of the shed as it rumbled upwards from somewhere far below.

As the world trembled, Cal noticed the big space vortex thing. Its glowing white outline seemed to shiver in time with each tremor. As the quake passed, the vortex steadied once again.

“What the Hell was that about?” Cal wondered, before a shout from Ajan snapped him back to the situation at hand.

“Well don’t just stand there! Chuck them in the pit!”

“Wait!”

The crowd parted in a sort of polite panic, revealing Lady Vajazzle. Her hood was up, her black robe drawn tight around her. “What is the meaning of this?” she hissed.

All eyes went to Ajan. He drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t really saying much, and managed to hold Vajazzle’s eye for a full half second before losing his nerve.

“We, uh, we had a pit fight, m’lady,” he said. “You said we could.”

“Yes. Yes, I did say that,” Vajazzle admitted, her voice taking on an almost sing-song quality as she glided through the gap in the crowd. “But did I say you could use them?” she asked, extending a withered hand from within her robe and gesturing towards Cal and Miz. “They were off limits until I say otherwise.”

Ajan shuffled anxiously on the spot. “Oh. Right. I see. I didn’t know. Sorry, m’lady. It won’t happen again.”

Vajazzle stopped before him. The red glow from her robotic eye painted his face as she glared down. “No,” she agreed. “It won’t.”

She loomed there for several seconds, as the audience watched on in silence. This was not the show they had been expecting, but it was entertaining, all the same.

At last, though, Vajazzle took a step back. “Return these two to the pens,” she instructed.

“Yes, m’lady, very good, m’lady,” Ajan babbled, practically sobbing with relief. “What about the other one?”

Vajazzle thrust out a hand in Sessal’s direction. There was an audible krik as his head twisted and his neck splintered.

“No!” cried Cal, but Sessal was already falling, his eyes halfway to the back of his head.

“What other one?” Vajazzle asked, savoring the look of shock on Ajan’s face. “Take them to the pens. Ensure they get some rest.”

She turned until the ruby red eye shone in Cal’s direction. “Tomorrow is going to be a very big day.”

Fourteen

Cal and Miz rode back to the prison on something that looked like a flatbed truck, but minus the actual truck part. It was a rectangular platform with a railing around the edges just a little higher than Cal’s waist, and glided noiselessly a couple of feet above the uneven terrain. One of the tribesmen steered it with a rudder at the back, while two others stood at the front, their spears pointed at the prisoners.

Cal leaned on the railings, gazing blankly out over the barren landscape. Night had drawn in now, turning the purple-blue sky black. The glow of the vortex danced and rippled across the sand, giving the impression the whole world was underwater. It was beautiful, in a way, but Cal didn’t notice.

“We should totally just kill these guys and jump off,” Miz suggested. “I’ll take the front two, you take the guy at the back.”

Cal shook his head and gestured at the desert around them. “You don’t want to jump off. Trust me. There are things.”

Miz’s snout wrinkled. “Things?”

“Yeah. Things. Nasty ones. Take my word for it.”

They continued the rest of the way in silence. The prison’s outer gate appeared to open automatically at their approach, but was, in fact, pulled by two tribespeople on the other side.

The platform edged to a stop between the outer gate and a heavier inner gate. Cal and Miz were barked at by one of the spear-holding aliens, and both jumped down as – they guessed – they had been instructed.

It took four of the tribe to open the inner gate. Cal strode through, not bothering to grin or salute or any of his usual shtick.

“Hey, you OK?” Miz asked, as the doors creaked closed behind them.

“No. Not really,” said Cal. He headed for the doorway on the right. “Come on, through here.” He stopped and turned to her before they stepped through. “Oh, and try not to freak out and kill everyone.”

As they emerged into a yard full of people in Zertex uniforms, Mizette’s claws extended all on their own. She dropped to her haunches, a deep, guttural growl rumbling in her throat. “Easy, relax,” said Cal. “This lot are on our side. For now, anyway.”

He spotted Dronzen sitting at a table, dipping bread into a bowl. The Zertex crewman was leaning on one elbow, staring blankly into a murky green soup. He looked up as Cal approached, smiled, then darted his eyes around. His smile faded.

“He didn’t make it,” Cal said.

Dronzen nodded slowly, then dropped his bread into the bowl. His fist banged down on the table, making the bowl – and several of his nearby crewmates – jump. “I shouldn’t have let them take him. I should have made them take me. What happened?”

“Vajazzle. She killed him,” said Cal.

A frown creased Dronzen’s brow. “Vajazzle? You mean he didn’t die in the pit?”

“No. He, uh, he survived the pit. He fought well,” said Cal.

“Oh,” said Dronzen. He looked surprised, but comforted by the information. “So… what? But then Vajazzle killed him anyway?”

Cal nodded. “I’m sorry. He seemed like a nice kid.”

Dronzen closed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, he was a good lad.”

“If it’s any consolation,” said Miz. “I totally love your accent. It’s hot. You know, for being one of the bad guys.”

Dronzen opened his eyes and peered up at her in surprise. Being almost seven feet tall and covered entirely in thick hair, Mizette wasn’t often the last person in a room to be noticed, but Dronzen reacted like he was seeing her for the first time.

“Uh, thanks. Are you… You’re a Greyx, aren’t you?”

“Princess Mizette of the Greyx, no less,” said Cal. “Wait, no. Queen? Princess? What are you these days?”

“I told you before, don’t call me that.”

“Which one?”

“Either!” She turned her attention back to Dronzen, and her tail wagged, just once. “Miz is fine.”

Dronzen stood and gave a brief but heartfelt bow. “I met your father once. Back in my cadet days. I was assigned to a research station on Mooship, on the border between Zertex and Greyx space…”

“OK, fascinating as this is,” Cal interjected. He pointed at the half-finished bowl of soup. “Are you going to eat that? Because I’m about to pass out.”

“What? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Of course, you must be starving. We can get you some food,” Dronzen began, but Cal picked up the bread and took a soggy bite. The soup tasted of vegetables. Not any vegetables he’d ever tasted before, necessarily, but it had a certain vegetableness to it that couldn’t be missed. It wasn’t bad, and a definite step up from what had been on the menu next door.

And speaking of next door…

“Go see Loren,” he told Miz, pointing to the other end of the yard where she was standing addressing a dozen or so of the Zertex people. “I’m sure you two will want to hug and catch-up and, I don’t know, go to the bathroom together like you girls do.”

“Why? What are you going to do?” Miz asked him.

“The tribe guy in the pit with us? Gavin? He came from next door. I’d better go break the news.”

“Be careful,” said Dronzen. “They’re savages over there.”

Cal didn’t mean to, but he let a sigh of irritation escape. It had been a long day. “And yet Vajazzle’s got them working for her. Alongside guys wearing uniforms just like yours, in fact.”

“Maybe, but they attacked us when we first arrived,” said Dronzen. “They killed scores of us.”

“And yet there’s a whole big bunch of them living two rooms away, with no doors standing between you, and I’m betting they’ve never bothered you once,” said Cal.

Dronzen had no response to that. “Word of advice. You might want to adjust your whole ‘them and us’ view,” Cal said, gesturing in the direction of the tribe area, then back to the spot he was standing on. “And start thinking about them,” - he pointed in the direction of the crashed ship – “and us.” He made a little helicopter gesture with his finger, indicating the whole prison. “Your enemies are out there, Dronzen. Not in here.”

He paused, squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw as the shimmering light of the vortex played across his face, then leaned closer to Miz.

“Did I sound, like, dead dramatic and wise there?” he whispered.

“Oh yeah. Totally,” Miz replied.

“Excellent,” Cal grinned. He winked at her, gave Dronzen a look that he reckoned positively screamed, ‘heed my wisdom,’ then turned and headed for the door.

Once out of the Zertex yard, Cal leaned against one of the tower’s legs and took a moment to compose himself. He couldn’t remember when he had last slept. Oh sure, he could remember periods of unconsciousness, but did they qualify as sleep? He was pretty sure they didn’t.

He’d feel better after some food and rest, but there was one thing he still had to do first.

Cal found Mech lying flat on his back, with the tribeswoman who had been training the others earlier standing over him.

Darting to the cyborg’s side, Cal held a hand up to the woman, indicating she should back away. “Mech? Mech, buddy? You OK? Are you hurt? Or, you know, broken or whatever you get?”

“Salutations, Cal,” chimed a lofty voice from somewhere inside Mech’s unmoving frame. “It is pleasing to note your safe return.”

Cal saw the dial on Mech’s chest had been cranked all the way up to ‘intellect’ mode, and slumped into a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. I thought you were dead.”

“Your concern for my wellbeing humbles me, and is duly noted,” the voice said. “I felt it best to dedicate as much processing power as possible to understanding the language of the Grimmash. While rudimentary in its basic construction, it contains some surprisingly complex syntax.”

“The Grimmash?” said Cal. He looked up at the woman looming over them, catching a full view of her bare chest. He did his best not to stare. “Is that what she is?”

“She is Sonsha. The species, collectively, is known as the Grimmash.”

“Kankaro,” said the woman. “Hansan cha?”

“She is enquiring as to the whereabouts of her son,” said Mech.

Cal frowned. “Her son?” he said. “How should I know where…?” His stomach tightened as the realization hit him like a sucker-punch. “Wait. Gavin. Was her son taken to fight in the pit?”

From within Mech came a stream of sounds Cal didn’t recognize. Sonsha replied with a short but definite, “Da.” Cal didn’t need Mech to translate, but he did it anyway.

“She says yes.”

Cal sighed. “OK. Can you still translate if I take you out of big brain mode?”

“Affirmative,” Mech said. “I am now fully fluent in the Grimmish, although there may yet be dialects I have not encountered which I would be less familiar--”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Cal, twisting Mech’s dial back towards the center. Mech’s eyes twitched and his hydraulics hissed and whirred as they came back online. He sat up, and Cal and the woman moved aside to let him stand.

Sonsha was watching Cal closely. She had a bodybuilder’s physique and short spiky crop of white hair. Any one of her four arms could have torn Cal’s spine out through his eye-socket, and yet she looked so utterly vulnerable as she anxiously studied his face, searching for news of her son.

“He’s dead, ain’t he?” Mech grunted.

“Yeah,” Cal sighed. “Yeah, he’s dead. Can you translate?”

Mech nodded, then began to garble something in Grimmish. Cal stopped him approximately one-point-four words in.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

“I’m telling her he’s dead,” Mech said.

“How? What are you saying to her?” Cal asked.

Mech frowned. “I’m saying, ‘Your son’s dead,’ is what I’m saying to her.”

“Jesus, you don’t just break that kind of news to someone like that,” said Cal. “Here, translate this.”

He glanced to the sky for a moment, then met Sonsha’s eyes. As he spoke, Mech translated. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but your son didn’t make it,” Cal said. The woman’s jaw tightened, but she otherwise remained completely still. “He fought hard. He was… brave and died, I don’t know, like a warrior’s death or…”

His voice tailed off and he looked down. Mech stopped translating. Sonsha’s features furrowed, her eyes narrowing. All four fists clenched at once.

Cal shook his head, muttered something only he could hear, then met her gaze again. “He seemed like a nice guy. I mean, I’m basing that on six minutes in his company, and not being able to understand a single word he said, but I got the impression he was a good man.”

“Tonta shar?”

“She wants to know what happened.”

“Jesus, does she? OK,” Cal said. “He was attacked from behind. He died quickly, without pain. The… thing that killed him is now dead, too.”

Sonsha’s face softened. Her fists unclenched, one by one. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Cal said, bowing slightly.

Mech finished translating and the woman returned Cal’s bow. “Roashie!” she called. “Roashie pakar.”

“What’s she saying?” asked Cal.

Mech bit his metal bottom lip. “Oh, man,” he said, fighting back a grin.

“What? Why are you smiling?”

“Roashie pakar! Oonto!” Sonsha shouted, then she fixed Cal with a sincere stare. “Mataska umash nontakko sa.”

“She wants to thank you for fighting alongside her son,” said Mech. “So she’s making you an offering.”

Cal looked down as half a space squirrel’s skull was thrust in front of him. The smell shot up his nostrils like a shotgun blast. He turned to find the barbeque guy grinning at him and nodding his encouragement.

“Oh. No, tell her there’s no need for that,” said Cal. “Tell her I’m good.”

“She insists,” said Mech.

Cal risked a glance at the squirrel brain and immediately felt his gag reflex kick in.

“Seriously. I’m fine. No thanks needed.”

“She still insists,” said Mech.

“Wait, you’re not even translating what I’m saying!” Cal yelped.

Mech grinned. “Nope! But seriously, I’d tuck in. Refusing an offering is deeply offensive in Grimmash culture.”

Cal groaned. “Shizz. Is it?”

“Fonked if I know,” snorted Mech, his shoulders shaking from trying to hold in his laughter. “But do you really want to take the chance?”

“Pakar chau,” Sonsha said, nodding insistently at the offered squirrel head. Cal’s skin crawled as he accepted it and cradled the half-skull in one hand. He turned to Mech.

“I’ve told you I hate you, yeah?”

Mech’s metal smirk broadened. “All the time.”

“Good. Just wanted to make sure,” said Cal, then he scooped out the squirrel brain, tossed it in his mouth, held his nose, and chewed.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Cal sat at the table back in the Zertex area, wiping the last of the vomit off his pants. A plate of something that looked like biscuits and gravy had been set in front of him, but his nausea was currently beating his hunger, hands down.

Loren sat across from him, with Dronzen on his left. It had turned out Miz was too heavy for the flimsy bench, and so she sat on a rock at the head of the table, with Mech standing nearby.

“Naw, man, trust me. It was funny,” said Mech. “I know funny when I see it.”

Cal shook his head. “No. It wasn’t. Someone falling over, or hitting their head, or landing balls-first on a fence – those are funny. A grown-man vomiting over the ground, himself, and a semi-naked stranger? That isn’t.”

“How did she take it?” asked Loren.

“In the chest and about halfway up her neck, if I remember rightly,” said Cal, scrunching up the puke-stained tissue and setting it on the table. Loren and Dronzen both moved their plates a little further along the table.

Taking a sip of water, Cal swirled it around his mouth a few times, before spitting it onto the ground. Only then did he begin to contemplate the meal in front of him.

“OK, so where are we?” Loren asked.

Cal, Mech and Miz all opened their mouths at the same time, but Loren quickly raised a hand. “Not literally. I mean what’s the plan? I assume we’re breaking out of here.”

“Plenty have tried,” said Dronzen. “They don’t get far.”

“Well, it’s that or wait to be killed in the pit,” said Cal. “And that, if I’m being completely honest, doesn’t really appeal.”

He broke off a piece of one of the biscuits and tentatively nibbled on the edge. It was bland and a bit doughy, but compared to space squirrel innards it was delicious, so he worked through the rest while he talked.

“So, we know there are ships up there on the bigger ship,” Cal began.

“Assuming Vajazzle ain’t destroyed them,” said Mech.

Loren shook her head. “She killed the pilots.”

“So?” asked Miz.

“So if you’re going to destroy the ships, why kill the pilots?” said Loren. “She killed them because they could have flown the ships, so we can assume the ships themselves are still there. It’s just logic.”

“Thank you, Mrs Spock,” said Cal through a mouthful of food. “How are we doing with the flying school?”

Loren leaned casually back in her chair, realized a little too late that she was sitting on a bench, and frantically grabbed for the table. “Uh, it’s going about as well as can be expected,” she said, once she’d composed herself and Mizette had stopped laughing. “You know, considering no-one has any flying experience, I don’t have any means of training them, and I’ve only been talking to them for about forty minutes.”

“How long until they’re ready?” Cal asked.

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

Cal nodded and smiled. “Yes. So how long? Roughly?”

Loren blew out her cheeks. “Forty years.”

“OK. Gotcha,” said Cal. “Could we cut that down a bit and have them ready sooner?”

“How soon?”

“Tomorrow morning,” said Cal.

Loren laughed. She watched Cal, pretty sure he was going to start laughing any time now, too. Any minute now. Aaaany second.

She stopped laughing. “You’re not serious?”

“I’m always serious, Loren, you know that,” said Cal.

Loren, Mech and Miz all opened their mouths at once, but Cal jumped in before they could speak.

“Vajazzle said we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow, but she said it in this really ominous sort of way that makes me doubt she’s throwing us a surprise party,” Cal said. “If we’re going to get out of here, I think we’re going to have to do it soon.”

Loren prodded at her food with her fork, then dropped it onto the plate. “Just so I’m completely clear, you want me to teach a bunch of people to be pilots, without any equipment to train them on or knowledge of what they’ll be expected to fly, in the next eight hours?”

“It’s not like being a pilot’s difficult,” said Miz. “I mean, if you can do it…”

“I’ll help,” said Mech. “We’ll do what we can do. Not saying it’ll be much.”

Loren looked up at him and nodded. “Thanks. I guess we can give it a try.”

With that settled, they spent the next twenty minutes thrashing out their plan. It broadly involved Cal, Miz and whoever else was lined up for Vajazzle’s Big Day taking control of the platform that came to collect them, scooting up to Vajazzle’s ship, grabbing as many weapons as possible, then killing all the bad guys.

It wasn’t a very complex plan, but it was agreed – by Cal, at least, if no-one else – that complicated plans were overrated, and it was much better to come up with something simple, and then just hope for the best.

If all went well, Loren would have all the time she needed to train her class of pilots aboard the actual ships they’d be flying. In the off-chance things went badly, though, Cal wanted them as ready to leave as they could be.

Mech pointed out they still had to find Splurt, but Cal insisted that wouldn’t be a problem, and had quickly moved on.

They were just winding down when another earthquake hit. The prison walls rumbled like thunder. All around the yard, Zertex troops hurled themselves to the ground and lay there, hugging it.

Cal’s plate rattled across the tabletop and plunged over the edge. He was too busy staring at the sky to notice. Just as before, the vortex was trembling in time with the quake.

From out in the entrance yard there came a cacophony of noise that managed, just for a moment, to drown out even the growling of the earth. From where they sat, the walls blocked the view of the tower, but the din could only have been the sound of it collapsing.

The rock Miz was sitting on sunk several inches in one swift jolt. Miz jumped off just as the ground beneath the bolder splintered into jagged cracks. The stone fell a full four feet into the gap, then jerked to a stop.

With a final few shudders, the quake passed. “They’re getting worse,” said Dronzen. “We used to get one every few weeks. Now they’re umpteen times a day.”

“According to the Grimmash, it didn’t happen at all until you arrived,” said Mech.

Dronzen looked surprised by this. “What, seriously?”

“It’s a big ship,” said Miz. “Maybe the crash damaged, like, the planet or whatever.”

“Nah. Surface impact,” said Dronzen. “I mean, yeah, it was a big one, but not enough to trigger quakes years later.”

Cal was still gazing up at the hole in space. It had settled down again, right on cue.

“Anyone else notice that?” he asked.

“Notice what? The earthquake?” said Mech. “Yeah, man, it wasn’t exactly easy to miss.”

“No, that,” said Cal, pointing upwards. “The vortex hole thingy. Whenever the ground shakes, it shakes, too.”

Dronzen frowned and looked up. “Must be recent. It hasn’t always done that.”

“Mech? Any thoughts?” asked Cal.

“About what?”

“The shaky sky earthquake thing,” said Cal, drawing on his scientific vocabulary. Which, admittedly, was quite limited. “Is the earthquake making the vortex shake, or is the vortex making the earthquake shake?”

“How the fonk should I know?”

Cal leaned across and turned Mech’s dial up a few notches. Without changing size, Mech seemed to shrink before their eyes. “Brainy Mech, what do you make of all this earthquake and space hole business?” Cal asked.

Mech tapped his chin with a twitchy metal finger. “Hmm. Please give me a moment. Anaylyzing data.”

Cal drummed his hands on the tabletop as Mech stared blankly towards the wall at the far end of the yard. The other Zertex people had all stopped hugging the ground now, and were starting to bed down for the night atop blankets on the ground.

“Any ideas?” Cal asked.

“Analyzing data. Please hold.”

Cal clicked his tongue against his teeth. If he’d been wearing a watch, he’d have made a point of looking at it, but he wasn’t, so he couldn’t.

“Any--?”

“Analyzing data,” said Mech, sounding just a tiny bit irritated. “Please hold.”

“Jesus, how long does it take?” Cal muttered. “I mean, it’s not like--”

“Analysis complete,” chimed Mech.

“Finally!” said Cal. “So, what have we got?”

“Insufficient data,” said Mech. “No hypothesis available.”

Cal hung his head, mumbled to himself, then raised it again and smiled. “Great! Well, that was worth the wait.” He cranked Mech’s dial back to the center. “Loren, you two go do what you can on the flying lessons front. Dronzen, your people, can they fight?”

“Some of them, yeah,” said Dronzen. “Some better than others.”

“Depending on how tomorrow goes, they might all have to,” said Cal. “Can you get them ready?”

Dronzen nodded. “Yeah. I can give it a go.”

“I’ll help,” said Miz. “I have a lot of experience of violence. Besides, your accent totally turns me on.” She looked at the others. “It’s not just me, right?”

“God, no, it’s not just you,” said Cal, relieved that someone else had found themselves in Mizette’s sights. “It’s, you know, dishy.”

He turned to Mech. “The Grimmash. They should be ready, too.”

“Why?” asked Dronzen. “We’re not taking them, are we?”

“Either we all escape or none of us do,” said Cal. “They’re prisoners here, just like us. They’ve lost people, too. Hell, if it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead by now. Twice.”

Dronzen hesitated for a moment, then gave a reluctant nod. “Fine. If you think that’s for the best.”

“I know it is.”

“What about you?” asked Loren. “What are you going to do?”

Cal yawned. “Me? I’m just going to sit here and think for a while,” he said, resting his head on the table. “I’ll just close my eyes for a few minutes and work out how we can…”

But the end of the sentence never came, as Cal – finally – drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Fifteen

Cal sat up with a start, snapping his head back from the table as if an electrical current had passed through it. With nothing but fresh air behind him, he toppled off the bench and grimaced as his bare back hit the rocky ground.

“Ow.”

Mech and Loren stepped over him, silhouetted by the morning sun. “They’re coming,” Mech grunted, as Loren reached down and helped Cal to his feet.

“Already?” Cal groaned, stretching his aching back and fighting with one of his eyes which was refusing to open. “What time is it?”

“Early. You’ve been asleep for about six hours.”

“Which is more than can be said for some of us,” said Loren, stifling a yawn.

“And yet you look great,” Cal lied. “Seriously. Fresh as a daisy. How did it go? Do we have pilots?”

“We have people who know what some of the controls of a Zertex short range fighter do,” said Loren. “That’s as good as we’re going to get.”

“Better than nothing,” Cal conceded. “Good job.”

The Zertex yard was deserted. Cal could hear a nervous hubbub of chatter from the main yard, and followed Mech towards the door.

To his surprise, he found both Zertex and Grimmash packed into the walled space, each group warily eyeing up the other. Miz prowled around near Dronzen who, to Cal’s even greater surprise, was standing beside the Grimmash tribeswoman, Sonsha.

“I got them talking,” said Mech. “You know, more or less.”

“So we’re all friends now?” Cal asked.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Mech. “But I think they understand they ain’t enemies.”

Striding over, Cal shook Dronzen’s hand, then shot Sonsha an apologetic smile. “Sorry again for yesterday,” he said. “The, uh, the vomit incident.” He caught himself examining her bare chest, and quickly snapped his eyes back to her face. “I see you got cleaned up. That’s good. Glad to… Uh… Anyway.”

He turned on his heels towards the double doors. Beyond it, he could hear the outer gates creaking closed.

“We need to get everyone out of here now, back into their own yards,” Cal said. “If they open the gates and see us all waiting here, they’ll know something’s wrong.”

“On it,” said Dronzen. He gestured to the Zertex crowd and ushered them towards their doorway.

“You should go, too,” said Cal. “This could be dangerous.”

“Come on, you think I’m letting you lot have all the fun?” Dronzen replied. “I’m going nowhere.”

“Fair enough,” Cal nodded. “Mech, tell the Grimmash to get back to their yard and wait there. If anyone comes in who isn’t you, me, Loren or Miz, Sonsha has my full permission to kick the living shizz out of them.”

Mech spun and hurriedly conveyed the instructions to Sonsha and the rest of the tribe. Cal spotted Tullok sitting in his wheelchair near the door, listening intently. He gave the old man a brief wave, then turned back to the gates. The heavy locks were being slid aside. Any second now, the gates would be pushed inwards, revealing… something. Cal had no idea what, and was the first to admit that this part of his plan was being made up on the spot.

“Miz, Mech, left and right,” Cal instructed. “Loren, Dronzen, stay with me and try to look interesting. We want their eyes on us.”

Loren clenched her fists and placed them high up on her sides, several inches above her hips, then spread her feet apart and squared her shoulders.

“What are you doing?” Cal whispered.

“You said to look interesting.”

“Yeah, interesting, not like you’re pretending to be Wonder Woman,” Cal hissed. “They’ll take one look at you and realize we’re up to…”

The gates groaned as they swung inwards. Loren dropped her arms to her side, which made her wide-legged stance look a bit stupid, so she shuffled her feet closer together, too.

Ajan’s four guards strutted through the door, followed by Ajan himself. The little man was practically bouncing with excitement, his face a picture of glee.

“How come you’re so happy, Ajan?” Cal asked. “Santa give you a pay rise?”

Cal glanced at Loren and Dronzen. “I know that joke doesn’t make sense to you guys, but trust me, where I come from, it’s hilarious,” he said. “I mean, it’s arguably quite offensive, but you know, still funny.”

“I’m happy because today’s the day I get to watch you die!” Ajan announced. His guards approached, fanning out ahead of him. Through the open gates, Cal could see three of the moving platforms, all standing side by side. There were tribespeople on all three of them, spears in hand. Whatever Vajazzle was planning, it was big.

“Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that is pretty exciting,” Cal admitted. “That’s why we’re standing here waiting so patiently for you. Also…”

He nodded to Miz. She pounced on Ajan with a single bound, pinning him to the ground. He screamed, but shut up quickly when Miz’s jaws snapped down on his throat, her teeth pressing against his skin, but not breaking it. Not quite.

All four guards turned, guns raising. Mech fired off a series of shots from his arm blasters that hammered into the guards’ armor and sent them hurtling through the air. Loren and Cal both pounced on the downed soldiers, driving almost simultaneous punches across their heavy-set jaws.

It took Dronzen another moment or two to get involved, but he soon jumped in, kicking and punching at one of the guards and wrestling the rifle from his grip.

With a creak, the inner gate began to close, pulled from the other side. “Mech! You can’t let them close those doors!” Cal shouted.

Mech turned and raised both arms, but a high-pitched warbling shriek suddenly echoed all around the yard.

Sonsha and a group of Grimmash raced out of their area and sprinted towards the closing gates. A spear whistled towards them, thrown from one of the platforms. Sonsha snatched it from the air, twirled it expertly above her head, then hurled it like a javelin towards one of the gates.

There was a screech as the spear punched cleanly through the metal, then a strangled, ‘Urk!’ as it buried deep into someone on the other side. The gate stopped moving, then was thrown open as Sonsha and the rest of the Grimmash powered through.

The battle on the platforms was one of the bloodiest, most stomach-churning things Cal had ever witnessed, and he was grateful it lasted just eight or nine seconds.

When it was over, the transport platforms were empty. The ground beneath them, meanwhile, was awash with blood, limbs, and the occasional pile of internal organs.

Blood-slicked and breathing heavily, Sonsha led the rest of her tribe back into the yard, grimaced furiously at Cal, then continued back through the door to their own area.

“Well,” said Cal, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He slammed the butt of the rifle into the guard’s face, knocking him out. “That was… terrifyingly efficient. And why did she do scary face at me? What did I do to deserve scary face?”

“It’s a sign of respect,” Mech told him, casually blasting the fourth fallen guard in the chest. “Kinda one warrior to another, sort of thing.”

“Oh. Right. Gotcha,” said Cal, sounding relieved. “I thought it was about the puke thing. She’s been surprisingly understanding about that. By the way, did you just kill that guy?”

“No.” Mech held up an arm and tapped it. “Stun mode.”

Cal’s eyes widened. He turned to Loren. “You said there was no such thing as stun mode! His gun has it.”

“No, his arm has it,” said Loren. “That’s not the same thing.”

“It’s absolutely the same thing.”

Loren drove a punch across her opponent’s jaw, knocking him out. “It isn’t,” she said, standing up and smoothing herself down. She performed a series of quick, noisy checks of the guard’s rifle, then slung it over her shoulder.

“Totally is,” Cal muttered, then he, Mech, Loren and Dronzen all gathered around the pinned Ajan. Miz still hadn’t broken the skin of his throat, but from Ajan’s expression it was clear he knew she could at any given moment. He was rigid and frozen, his face a mask of absolute terror, like he’d seen a ghost and died of fright.

“I think you can let him go,” Cal said. “He’s not going to try anything stupid. Are you, Ajan?”

Ajan didn’t dare speak and he definitely didn’t dare shake his head, so he waggled his eyes from side to side instead.

“Didn’t think so,” Cal said. He nodded to Miz and she unclenched her teeth from his neck, but growled in his ear for good measure.

“P-please, don’t hurt me!” Ajan squeaked. “N-none of this was my idea. It was Vajazzle. She made me do it! I didn’t even want to do--”

“Quit whining, you little ratbag, and on yer feet,” snapped Dronzen.

Ajan hurriedly did as he was told. He gazed nervously at all the faces looming over him. “Look, I can explain,” he began, but Dronzen cut him off.

“What’s to explain? That you sold us out? That you betrayed the rest of us in return for a cushy little number up there with your new queen? How you’ve come here all these times and taken so many of us to be killed for her amusement? Is that what you can explain, because if so, I am all ears, Ajan.” Dronzen’s grip tightened on his rifle. “And I’m desperately looking for an excuse not to shoot you where you stand.”

“Wait, no, don’t!” Ajan pleaded. “I can help you! You want to escape? I can help! I know the security codes for the docking bays. You want off here, don’t you? Off this planet? Then you n-need me!”

Dronzen’s jaw clenched. He pressed the butt of his rifle against his shoulder, the sights fixed on the narrow spot between Ajan’s eyes.

“He’s right,” said Cal. “If he’s got the codes, we could use him.”

“He’s a sneaky little mongrel. We can’t trust him,” Dronzen said, squinting along the barrel of the rifle.

“Miz will keep an eye on him. He won’t dare do anything.”

Dronzen grimaced. “Dozens are dead because of him. I want to shoot him.”

“I know you do,” said Cal. “I mean, I’ve only known the guy a few hours and I want to shoot him, too. But hey, how about this? Instead of shooting him, you kick him in the nuts.”

“W-what?” stammered Ajan.

“Just a God-almighty kick in the balls,” said Cal. “A proper toe-punt, square in the danglies.”

Ajan whimpered. “Now hang on…”

Dronzen considered this for a moment, then lowered his gun. “No. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to shoot him, either. Not yet. He’ll pay for what he’s done, but not like this.”

“Thanks, Dronzen!” Ajan said. “You won’t regret this! We’re going to make a great team again, you mark my—Oof!”

A hairy foot fired up between Ajan’s legs from behind. The force of the kick lifted him into the air, then he folded to the ground, clutching his groin and whimpering.

“What?” said Miz, when everyone else turned to look at her. “If no-one else was going to do it…”

* * *

A few minutes later, Cal, Loren, Mizette and Ajan stood – or, in Ajan’s case, lay – on one of the platforms, with Mech and Dronzen looking up at them.

“So, according to Ajan everyone’s gathering at the big pit, ready to watch us fighting or whatever,” said Cal. “So we’ll sneak up to Vajazzle’s ship, poke around a bit, then signal for you guys over the radio if the coast is clear.”

“You sure we can get everyone else on the other platforms?” Loren asked.

“It’ll be tight,” Dronzen admitted. “But we’ll manage.”

Mech stooped and studied a series of ports on the loading platform’s front end. “I think I can interface with these things. Maybe give them a speed boost.”

“Interface?” said Cal. “Do you mean have sex with them?”

“What? No, shizznod!” Mech barked.

“OK, just checking,” Cal smirked. “I mean, each to their own, but now probably isn’t the right time.”

“Shut up, man. And get going before they start getting suspicious and send more folks out here to investigate.”

“Good point, well made,” said Cal. “Make sure everyone’s ready to fight, and wait for the signal.”

“Good luck,” said Dronzen.

Cal tapped his forehead in salute, then Mech and Dronzen heaved on the ropes that opened the outer door, and Loren steered the platform outside, crashing into the gates just twice.

“Don’t say anything!” she warned.

“What?” said Miz, feigning innocence. “I wasn’t going to say a thing.”

After what should have been a three-point turn, but which instead took well over a dozen movements to complete, Loren aimed the platform towards the enormous hulk of the AX11 and sent it gliding across the sand.

“What’s with all those metal boxes?” Miz asked, as they whizzed by a few feet from one.

“They’ve got wasps in them,” Cal said, gazing ahead at Vajazzle’s ship. “Triggered by pressure pads beneath the sand, Mech thinks.”

“Ew. Is that what happened to that guy?” said Miz, as the platform passed the lumpy, misshapen remains of what had once been a man.

“Apparently so,” said Cal. He looked back over his shoulder at Ajan, who was still lying curled up on the floor, clutching his now comparatively balloon-like testicles. “Hey, Ajan. What’s the best way for us to get inside that thing?”

“Uh, everyone will be at the pit, so I’d g-go wide to the left,” he wheezed. “There’s a lot of damage to the lower decks there. You can get in that way.”

“How are we going to find Splurt?” Loren asked, raising her voice to be heard over the whistling wind and the low hum of the platform.

Cal considered telling them. He really did. He came very close to it, in fact, but whether it was because he didn’t want the others knowing what Splurt had become, or because he wasn’t ready to face the truth yet himself, he didn’t.

“We’ll find him,” he said, and he left it at that.

The closer they got to the ship, the more ridiculously huge it looked. It was practically the size of a city, several miles wide and with upper decks that stretched into the clouds like skyscrapers. There had been thousands of crew aboard – tens of thousands, maybe. And now there were what? Fifty or sixty on each side? Two hundred at most. Even though they were the bad guys, it still felt like a bit of a waste.

As they drew closer to the pits, Miz’s ears pricked up. “There’s a lot of people gathering over that way,” she said, pointing off to her right.

“Well, Ajan, looks like you were telling the truth,” said Cal. “I knew you could be a team player if you wanted to be. Good for you!”

Loren steered the platform to the left. Cal held his breath as she came within a foot of bumping against one of the boxes, but she slowed down until they were safely past, then twisted the throttle grip and sped them up again.

From a distance, the ship had looked in pretty good shape. Half-buried in the sand, obviously, but otherwise not bad. From this angle, though, the damage was obvious. Entire decks had been compacted into the ground, collapsing like a concertina beneath the ship’s immense weight. There was one enormous hole that stretched over several floors, the edges scorched and blackened like the rooms and corridors beyond.

It looked dead, Cal thought. Like a once-noble elephant now reduced to an undignified heap of nothing by a hunter’s rifle. Only, you know, a spaceship.

“Looks like we can get in through there,” said Loren. “Hard to tell from here, but that looks like one of the lower science decks.”

Cal shot Ajan a questioning look. He nodded.

“Which means… wow. It lost a lot of decks when it crashed,” said Loren. Even over the wind and engine drone, Cal heard her gasp. “The prison decks were below science. Splurt would’ve been on one of those.”

“He wasn’t,” said Cal.

He felt Loren’s frown without looking. “How do you know?”

“I just… I just know,” he said. “Splurt’s alive. I can feel it.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Loren, steering the platform towards a burned-out gap in the wall.

Mizette’s ears twitched again as they drew closer. Tilting her head, she sniffed the air.

“What is it?” asked Cal.

“Trouble,” said Miz. “They’re waiting. They’re waiting in there.”

Cal frowned, then he spun on the spot and made a dive for Ajan. The little man was clutching something to his chest, and Cal had to wrestle it from his fingers. He studied the little gadget, flipping it over in his hands. “What the Hell is this?”

“It’s a transmitter,” Loren said, twisting the throttle in the opposite direction and sending the platform into reverse. “A radio. He’s been broadcasting our conversation the whole way over here.”

Cal raised a fist. “You sneaky little--”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Ajan squealed, holding up his hands in protest. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident!”

Grabbing him by the front of his faded uniform, Cal hoisted the squirming Ajan into the air. “You want to see an accident? Here’s one. You’re about to accidentally fall off this thing and be stung to death by angry wasps.”

Cal was just about to toss the traitor overboard when a shimmer of purple light lit-up the deck, and a familiar figure in a hooded robe teleported in. “Let him go,” Vajazzle instructed.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes!” Ajan hissed. “Thank you, m’lady. Thank you.” His little face turned from an expression of gratitude to one of rage. “You heard her. Let me go, you worthless piece of--”

Cal let him go. Ajan screamed as he plunged over the side and bounced on the ground. Immediately, shapes slithered beneath the sand.

“N--!” Ajan cried, but that was as far as he got before an enormous plant-like head erupted from beneath the dirt and devoured him in one snapping bite.

As it exploded upwards, the creature slammed into the platform, rocking it. Cal used the momentum to hurl himself at Vajazzle, shoulder lowered, teeth clenched.

“Get her!” he barked, then his muscles tightened and pain buzzed through his skeleton as Vajazzle hit him with the end of a shock-stick. He flopped to the deck, convulsing, and barely registered when Loren did the same.

Miz, meanwhile, was ensnared in a tangle of tentacles that had crawled from beneath Vajazzle’s robe. She struggled against their grip, trying to slash at them with her claws, but her arms were pinned and her mouth was clamped shut and she could do nothing but snarl and hiss.

The assassin’s shadow fell over Cal. He strained to look up, but his body didn’t appear to be paying his brain any attention whatsoever.

“In case it isn’t patently obvious by now, Mr Carver,” Vajazzle told him. Another of her tentacles crept from beneath her robe and stroked his cheek. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Sixteen

Of the three pits Cal had been tossed into over the past twenty-four hours, the one he had been tossed into most recently was by far the most impressive. It was deeper than the others – four times his height, maybe – with glassy smooth sides that were practically vertical.

The ground was made of a hard ash-gray rock, while the metal hatch set into the hole’s one continuous wall was much larger and more ominous than the others had been. He didn’t think there were any animals back on Earth that wouldn’t be able to fit through that hatchway, although this was largely because he had always refused to accept the fact that whales weren’t fish.

Unlike the other pits, where spectators stood around and peered over the sides, raked seating had been custom-built all the way around the hole. Eighty or so people in Zertex uniforms watched from their seats, while a couple of dozen Grimmash grimaced down from a standing-room-only area at the front.

Behind the Grimmash was a grand, imposing chair with a high back, thick arm rests, and luxurious padding. It was a chair fit for a king. Or, in this case, a self-made queen.

“I blame you,” announced Vajazzle, standing in front of the chair, her robotic eye burning beneath her shadowy hood.

Cal glanced at Loren and Mizette. They both shrugged. “For what?” Cal asked.

“For this. For all this. For everything,” Vajazzle replied. “If it weren’t for you, we would never have been following the route we were on. We would never have warped into the vortex. We would never have been stranded here.”

“Yeah, but you’re not stuck here, are you?” said Cal. “You’ve got ships. You can leave any time you want.”

Vajazzle nodded slowly, then raised her eyes to the vortex. It sat like a scab on the purple-blue sky. “Do you know what’s through there, Mr Carver?”

“Home,” said Cal. “Well, maybe not home, exactly, but our galaxy, at least.”

“No, that’s what you think,” said Vajazzle. “You assume it leads back to where we came from. That’s a guess. I asked if you knew.”

Cal looked at the vortex and frowned. “Well, I mean, it’s a door, right? Doors go both ways.”

Vajazzle lowered herself into her seat. “Is it? You know that, do you? How do you know it isn’t one way? How do you know we wouldn’t be vaporized by it? Or that we wouldn’t come out somewhere truly terrible?”

“This place is pretty terrible,” Cal pointed out.

“It sustains life,” replied Vajazzle. “Next time, we may not be so lucky.”

A murmur of agreement went around the audience.

“You know what I think?” said Cal. “I think you want to stay here. I think you get a kick out of being emperor or queen or whatever you’re pretending to be. You’ve got no reason to think that hole up there doesn’t just take you right back to where you left. Back to these people’s homes. Their friends. Their families.”

“Perhaps. But I think friends and family are overrated,” said Vajazzle. There was a clanking from the hatch as something heavy approached the door. “Don’t you agree, Mr Carver?”

It was the inflection in her voice that told Cal what was coming next. That smug, superior-sounding edge to her words. Cal’s heart dropped in time with the hatch. He heard Loren gasp in shock at the sight of the hulking dinosaur-like creature that stomped through, each footstep trembling the ground.

“Oh no,” Cal whispered. “No, no, no.”

“Leave this thing to me,” Miz growled, launching herself at the monster Cal knew was Splurt.

“Miz, no!” Cal yelped, then he grimaced as a crunching backhand fist struck her across the jaw, smashing her against the wall. She dropped to the ground, tried to get up, then collapsed as her legs gave way beneath her.

Something swished past Cal’s ear. He and Loren both turned to find a spear sticking out of the ground behind them, the wooden shaft still vibrating from the impact.

“Perhaps that will help balance things up,” Vajazzle said.

Loren wrenched the spear from the ground and spun on the spot, forcing Cal to duck out of the weapon’s path. “Wait, Loren, don’t!” Cal protested, but it was too late. She made a lunge for the dino-Splurt, stabbing with the spear’s sharpened point.

Splurt grabbed for the weapon, but Loren was too fast. She yanked it back then drove it into the monster’s side, jamming the tip beneath one of the armored plates that covered his back.

But the dino-thing either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. He turned and the spear was yanked from Loren’s grasp. She made a lunge to grab it again, but Splurt carried on turning, his tail sweeping across the ground.

Loren jumped just in time to avoid the tail, but a fist clubbed her in the ribs, doubling her over. She landed awkwardly, her lungs rapidly filling with fire. Staggering, she grabbed for Cal, who caught her before she could hit the ground.

Through all this, the crowd above had cheered and clapped and stamped their feet, loving every minute. Only Vajazzle looked less than enthused by it.

“Don’t finish them too quickly. Take your time. Make them suffer,” she instructed. She jabbed a withered finger at Cal. “Him especially.”

Instinctively, Cal reached for a witty response – that perfect arrangement of words that would both mask his growing sense of terror and get right on Vajazzle’s nerves. He couldn’t find it, though. The words weren’t there.

“We have to kill that thing,” Loren wheezed.

“No, we can’t,” said Cal.

“There must be a way!” Loren insisted, unwrapping her arm from around Cal’s shoulder and taking her weight on her own two feet. “You go high, I’ll go low. Maybe if we both attack at the same time we can take him down.”

“No, that’s not what I mean!” Cal said. “We can’t kill him, because that’s--!”

“RAAAAAAAAAR!”

Mizette flew at the dino-thing, claws and teeth both bared. She slashed wildly. Once, twice, again, again, cutting grooves in its leathery-hide. Surprised, the monster stumbled and Loren raced to join the fight. Diving into a roll, she grabbed the shaft of the spear, twisting it deeper beneath the armor plating.

“Stop! Guys, leave him alone!” Cal shouted. “It’s Splurt!”

Miz and Loren both hesitated, just for a moment. It was long enough. Splurt lashed out, driving a granite-like fist into the side of Mizette’s head. As she fell, he turned, cracking Loren across the jaw with an open backhand slap that stung Cal’s skin from several feet away.

Cal stepped into the monster’s path, his hands raised in front of him. “Splurt. Buddy. You have to stop this,” he implored. “I don’t know what she’s done, but this isn’t you. This isn’t my little pal.”

Splurt’s dino-muzzle pulled up into a silent snarl, revealing some ludicrously large teeth. Cal flinched, fighting the urge to burst into tears and run away.

“Come back to me, buddy. You belong with us.”

An expectant hush had fallen over the crowd now. Loren and Miz were both back on their feet, but both were dazed, bloodied, and keeping their distance.

“Well, this is boring,” Vajazzle announced, and a ripple of laughter went through the crowd. “Kill them.”

At once, Splurt reared up to his full terrifying height. His hulking fists clenched and his yellow eyes blazed with fury. Cal thought about standing his ground, but to do so would be suicide. He jumped back just as Splurt brought both fists swinging down, missing Cal by inches.

The ground rumbled beneath them. At first, Cal thought it was another earthquake, but then part of the stadium seating exploded, spilling screaming Zertex troops into the pit.

Vajazzle was on her feet, leaping to safety just as a crackling bolt of energy detonated her throne. Hissing with rage, she vanished in a flash of purple sparkles, as a rain of spears fell across the seats around her.

Chaos spread through the crowd like head lice through a kindergarten. Some of the less panicky Zertex troops drew blasters and returned fire, but most of them ran for cover as another barrage of laser beams punched holes in the arena.

The metal hatch slammed closed. Cal turned away from the top of the pit and saw that Splurt and the Zertex men were gone. Miz and Loren were leaning on each other, each one holding the other up. “What’s happening?” Loren coughed, grimacing as pain poked at her ruined ribs. “Mech?”

“Got to be,” said Cal. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Mech! Down here!”

Another part of the stadium exploded, showering Cal in fragments of stone and wood. He blinked through the dust cloud until he could make out a broad-chested figure standing at the edge of the pit.

“So much for sending a signal,” Mech grunted.

“We got a little distracted,” Cal said. A group of Grimmash raced behind Mech, chasing down two fleeing Zertex grunts. “Think maybe you could give us a hand up?”

“One minute,” said Mech. He clanked away. Cal heard blaster fire, then screams, then more clanking.

“How could that be Splurt?” Loren demanded. “And why didn’t you tell us?”

“I was going to,” said Cal.

Miz snorted. It hurt, but she didn’t let on.

“No, I was. I wanted to,” Cal insisted. “It’s just… I don’t know. I didn’t want to believe it myself.”

A coil of rope hit him on the head, braining him. “Ow!”

“Look out!” Mech called.

“Thanks for the fonking warning,” Cal hissed, rubbing his head. He looked up to see Mech standing at the edge of the pit, the other end of the rope wrapped around his outstretched arm. Cal gave the rope a couple of sharp tugs, then stepped aside and gestured for Loren and Miz to go first. “Can you make it? Can you climb?”

Loren nodded, just once. She brushed frostily past Cal, took hold of the rope, and began to climb using just her arms. Halfway to the top, the pain became too much and she was forced to use her legs for the rest of the climb.

Miz went next, scrambling up the rope in a matter of seconds, then springing off onto solid ground. If she was hurt – and she had to be – she wasn’t about to show it.

Cal grabbed the rope and began to heave himself up. It was trickier than it looked, and he spent the first few seconds just dangling from both hands and twirling gently. He stretched out a leg, trying to get a foot on the wall.

After a few more seconds of this, he managed to get a foothold. “Bingo!”

His foot slipped off again.

“Could you maybe just pull me up?” Cal asked. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”

Mech retreated from the pit edge, and Cal thudded against the wall. He clung on tightly as his bare back and one shoulder were dragged slowly up the wall, then he rolled onto solid ground again, still holding tightly to the line.

After enjoying a few moments of not being dragged up a wall, Cal got to his feet. Huge chunks of the stadium seating area were now just smoldering ruins. Running battles were taking place between groups of Zertex and Grimmash, but Cal couldn’t really figure out who was on whose side, or who he should be cheering for.

“Thanks for the rescue,” Cal said.

“Any time,” Mech grunted.

“Look out!” Miz warned, just as a series of explosions blasted what was left of the stadium to pieces. She and the others – even Mech – covered their heads and ducked as the debris hurtled past them.

“Jesus, did our guys do that?” asked Cal. “Where did they get the firepower?”

“Uh-uh. Not us,” said Mech. “Them.”

Cal and the others followed Mech’s finger. Cal’s jaw flopped open. “What the fonk are those?”

Three low, squat tank-like vehicles emerged from a hole in the front of Vajazzle’s downed ship. They plodded along on four legs, cannon-fire screaming from a roof-mounted gun.

The ground erupted a few hundred feet away, filling the air with rock, sand and bits of burning Grimmash.

“Thunderfoots,” said Loren. “Those are Thunderfoots.”

Cal frowned. “Thunderfeet, surely?”

“Call everyone back,” Loren told Mech. “Hurry, if they’ve got access to the Thunderfoots—”

“Thunderfeet.”

“Then they’ll also have access to…”

Three flying vehicles, each one about half the size of a family car, buzzed through the gap in the ship’s hull. A circle of blue light on their bases seemed to be keeping them aloft, while a worrying number of guns on each one swiveled in search of something to target.

“Oh shizz,” Loren croaked, her blue-tinged skin turning almost all the way white. “Get everyone back. Now!”

Too late. The drone ships erupted into spinning wheels of death, laser bolts spraying from them like sparks from a Catherine Wheel. All around them, Zertex and Grimmash alike fell, their bodies smoking, smoldering, and far less intact than they had been just a moment before.

“Pull back!” Mech bellowed, amplifying his voice through his in-built PA system. “Everyone back to the platforms. Retreat!”

Across the battlefield, a handful of Zertex troops scrambled back towards the stolen loading platforms. Dronzen urged them on, raining covering fire at one of the Thunderfoots to keep it distracted.

Mech repeated the message in Grimmish, but the tribespeople ignored him. They were too invested in the battle to stop now. They hacked and stabbed and slashed at anyone they didn’t recognize, howling and screeching with banshee-like glee.

The Thunderfoot returned Dronzen’s fire, erupting the ground into a wall of rocks and dirt. He stumbled on, legs pumping like pistons, racing to get clear of the debris.

“Run, Dronzen!” Cal shouted, as if Dronzen couldn’t have figured that one out for himself.

The cloud of dirt rolled up behind him. They all saw the panic flash across Dronzen’s face, and then he was gone, swallowed by the sand fog.

And then he was out again, powering on like a champ, coughing and spluttering as he zig-zagged to safety.

“Come on,” Mech urged, hurrying as fast as his metal body could manage towards the waiting platforms. They both stood side by side, turned and ready for a quick getaway. One of the platforms was empty, while Tullok sat in his wheelchair on the other, watching the battle with wide eyes and tightly-drawn lips.

Cal and the others all leaped, vaulted or clambered awkwardly onto Tullok’s platform, with a handful of the Zertex troops jumping aboard right behind them. “I’ll take this one,” Dronzen shouted, making a run for the other platform.

It ignited in a fireball as a blast from a Thunderfoot struck it. The heat hit Dronzen like a shockwave, launching him backwards off his feet. Cal and Loren both grimaced as the heat blasted them, too. Even Miz gritted her teeth, then hurriedly patted down a patch of fur that began to smoke. Tullok, who had been shielded by Mech, didn’t seem to notice the explosion. He just watched in grim silence as the Grimmash were blasted to pieces by laser fire.

“On second thoughts, get on this one,” said Cal, beckoning for Dronzen to join them.

There were seventeen of them on the platform, with Dronzen making eighteen. “Anyone else coming?” Loren asked, scanning the battlefield. The fighting had died away to an eerie not-quite-silence. Bodies and body parts littered the ground as far as the eye could see.

“Nashko. Naskho parrap,” Tullok whispered.

“What did he say?” asked Cal.

“He says there ain’t no-one else coming,” said Mech.

“Uh, except those things,” said Miz, pointing to where the flying drones were banking towards them.

Loren jumped on the controls and twisted the throttle. The platform rocketed forwards, knocking over Cal, Dronzen and all the Zertex crew like skittles. Cal thudded against the metal floor, then looked up to see that Miz had caught Dronzen before he could fall all the way.

“Hey! Thanks for the save,” Cal said, picking himself up. “And yes, that was sarcasm.”

“What? He was closer,” Miz said. “Besides, I want to hear him thank me in that accent.”

Dronzen blinked a few times in surprise. “Um. Yeah. Thanks, mate.”

“No problem,” Miz purred, her tongue flicking hungrily across her lips. “I’ll be your mate any time you like.”

“Coming up fast!” Loren barked.

Sure enough, all three drones were closing in from behind, their weapons squirming around, trying to lock on. Mech raised an arm and unleashed a volley of laser fire, but the blasts ricocheted harmlessly off the drone’s gun-metal gray hull.

“They’re shielded,” Loren and Dronzen both said at the same time.

“Jinx!” announced Cal, but everyone ignored him.

“Blasters won’t take them down,” Loren continued. “Least, not with the firepower we’ve got.”

One of the lead drone’s guns locked on. It spat concentrated bolts of fire at them, and Loren was forced to jam the rudder hard left, sending the platform skidding sideways above the sand.

Everyone who had fallen over last time fell over again. Miz grabbed Dronzen. Cal hit the deck.

“Back for more, huh?” said Miz, gazing hungrily into Dronzen’s eyes.

“Not now, Miz!” Cal grunted, jumping back to his feet. “And it’d be nice if someone would catch me for once!”

“Go right!” Mech warned, as another screech of laser fire peppered the ground behind them. This time, Cal was ready. He gripped the railing and held on tightly as the platform’s front end weaved right, throwing the back end out behind it.

The edge of the platform skimmed past one of the wasp boxes, and Cal held his breath waiting to see if the insects were about to come swarming after them. Dying from a thousand stings to the head and torso, he figured, would really round the last few hours off nicely.

“I can’t shake them off!” Loren cried.

“I thought you could make this thing go faster?” Cal yelled at Mech.

“I did. It is going faster!”

“Well it’s not going fast enough. Look out!”

Loren weaved again. Something large and important looking was obliterated by the drone’s blaster-fire and the platform shuddered noisily.

“What do we do? What do we do?” whimpered one of the Zertex crew.

“Uh… any ideas? Anyone?” asked Cal.

Unnoticed by anyone, Tullok unclipped a pouch on his belt, and withdrew five small white stones. Each one had been carved and whittled until it was almost perfectly spherical. Tullok weighed all five in his hands, then slipped two back into the pouch.

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the first pebble so it landed just a few feet in front of the closest drone. The sand churned and writhed, then one of the huge plant-like creatures was vomited up from below the surface, its jaws opening hungrily.

Snap! Its teeth clamped around the drone. Cal and the others watched in a mixture of shock and delight as the plant-thing dragged its prey below the sand.

“Whoa!” Cal whispered. “That was awesome!”

Tullok smiled grimly. Balancing the remaining two marbles on the palm of his hand, he flicked them both, one at a time. They hit the sand. The sand mushroomed upwards. Two monstrous things devoured the drones, then vanished once more beneath the sand.

“Did we get them? Are they gone?” Cal asked, scanning the ground for any sign of the drones re-emerging.

“Seems like it,” said Mech.

Dronzen also peered over the edge, studying the sand. Once he was sure nothing was coming back, he turned to Tullok. “Thanks,” he said. “That was pretty amazing stuff.”

Tullok raised his eyes, just for a moment. “Tosha.”

“He says, ‘you’re welcome.’” Mech translated.

Cal and the rest of the crew looked back in the direction of Vajazzle’s ship. Smoke billowed from the battlefield. The enormous Thunderfoots stomped around, patrolling the area, searching for trouble. A few Zertex troops – on Vajazzle’s side, Cal guessed – prodded at piles of debris, searching for survivors, prisoners, or both.

“Well, in hindsight, that was not a great plan,” said Cal. “I mean, literally nothing went right, really, did it?”

“How long did you know about Splurt?” Loren demanded.

“Splurt? What about him?” asked Mech.

“Tell him,” said Miz.

Cal sighed. “He’s… I don’t know. Vajazzle brainwashed him. She tortured and brainwashed him. And then turned him into a big dinosaur-man. Not necessarily in that order.”

“And now he doesn’t remember us,” said Loren.

“He does remember us!” Cal insisted. “He’s just… confused, that’s all. I can get through to him. I know I can.”

“He tried to kill you,” Loren pointed out. “He tried to kill all of us.”

“I totally had the situation under control,” said Miz.

Loren shot her a sideways look. “Was that sarcasm, or…?”

“Uh, sorry to butt in,” said Dronzen. “It’s just, now that we’ve escaped, what’s our plan? Where are we actually going?”

Cal and the others stopped arguing and peered ahead of them across the dry, barren terrain.

No-one said anything, but Cal broke the silence by making a series of irritating clicking sounds with his tongue. Mech was about to punch him in the head, when Cal finally spoke.

“That,” he said, “is a fonking good question.”

Seventeen

It took almost three hours to get back to the Shatner. Or what was left of it, at least.

They rode the trolley around in a wide semi-circle, keeping as far from Vajazzle’s ship as possible, until they hit the edge of the forest. From there, they walked in single file, with Mech leading the way, and Tullok perched on one of his shoulders.

Everyone else, on Cal’s insistence, watched for squirrels.

Cal had been partly hoping that the ship might be fixed, somehow. That they might realize the damage wasn’t as bad as it had first looked, and that it was nothing a few dozen screws and a bit of elbow-grease couldn’t fix.

But no. The Shatner wasn’t simply beyond repair, it was beyond recognition. It looked less like a spaceship, and more like a terrorist attack on a junk yard.

“Wow,” was all Cal could say at first. He picked across the blackened scrap until he found something he recognized. It was a bench. No, not just a bench. The bench. A bench so important they’d named an entire room on the ship after it. He tried to stand it up, but it only had two legs, and it immediately toppled over again.

He tried again. Four times. The result was always the same.

“OK, so what’s the bright idea?” asked Loren. “Why did you bring us back here?”

Cal watched the bench fall over for the last time, then clambered up a mound of warped metal and buckled flooring. Kicking through a tangle of wiring, he dug around in the wreckage, searching for something.

“Where is it? Where is it?” he whispered.

“Where’s what?” asked Miz, who was the only one to have heard him.

“The case. The one I got from the Scriver ship,” Cal said. “The one that makes the portal thing.”

Mech tapped some controls on his arm. “Over there,” he said, pointing to a dented metal rectangle half-hidden beneath a snake of flexible piping. Cal hurried towards it, then stopped when Mech spoke again. “And over there. And there are a few pieces over there. Must’ve got torn apart on impact.”

“But we can fix it,” said Cal. “Right? We can fix it, jump through, and see where it leads.”

Mech shook his head and carefully set Tullok down on one of the smoother bits of wreckage. “It’s broken, man. It’s no good. Let it go. Besides, didn’t it lead to some freaky shizzhole filled with, I don’t know, giants or whatever?”

Cal sighed and slumped down onto the mound of ship bits. He slid down the side until he landed in a sullen heap at the bottom. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Although, giants would be pretty awesome. You’ve got to admit. We could make grappling hooks out of paper clips and, like, live in a shoe.”

Mech shook his head. “There’s something wrong with you, man. I don’t know what it is, but there is definitely something wrong with you,” he muttered. “Also, you and me? We got a very different understanding of the word ‘awesome.’”

“So, now what do we do?” asked Miz.

Dronzen scanned the trees that stood on three sides around the crashed ship. Behind the wreckage, the furrow of its impact ran for a few hundred feet, then disappeared over the brow of a hill.

He pointed to a number of the Zertex crew, who had been making themselves busy by standing off to one side, looking awkward.

“You, you and you, search through the debris, see if we can salvage anything useful. Weapons, equipment, any kind of supplies.”

The three crewmen and one woman – who was either of extra-terrestrial origin or had a debilitating skin complaint – all nodded and set to work.

“I already checked,” said Mech.

“Won’t hurt to check again,” said Dronzen. He pointed to the remaining nine Zertex crew members. “The rest of you, fan out, check the perimeter. We need to know none of them buggers have followed us. We need to make sure this place is secure.”

The fur on the back of Mizette’s neck stood on end. “Ooh, I love how you just took charge like that.”

Cal stood up. “Oh yeah? Watch this,” he said. He cupped a hand to his mouth and called after the nine Zertex crew as they set off for the woods. “And keep your eyes open for space squirrels. That’s an order.”

No-one acknowledged him. He did his best to smile, all the same. “They probably just didn’t hear me.”

Loren let out a hiss and clutched her side. She lowered herself onto what had once been part of the Shatner’s bulkhead and screwed her eyes shut.

“You’re hurt,” said Dronzen, kneeling at her side.

“I was just going to say that,” said Cal, squeezing himself in between them and forcing Dronzen to shuffle aside. He looked at the hand that clutched her side. “What is it? Headache?”

Loren opened one eye to glare at him.

“Heh. Just kidding,” he said. “Can I take a look?”

After a moment’s consideration, Loren sighed and moved her hand away. “Fine. But be careful.”

“You won’t even know I’m here,” said Cal. He carefully took hold of the bottom hem of her vest top and lifted it to reveal the lower half of a violently-colored bruise. “Ooh. Jesus! Oh, that’s… that’s horrible. Seriously, that’s disgusting. That’s the worst thing I ever saw. You’ve definitely been hurt.”

“I know I’ve been hurt!” Loren snapped. “I’m painfully aware of that fact!”

“Dromma ska,” said Tullok. “Patooro ama mansko ska.”

“What’s he saying?” asked Dronzen.

“He’s saying to let him take a look at her,” Mech translated.

“Homuro tatoon manoin beh.”

“Now what’s he saying?” asked Cal, jumping in before Dronzen could say it.

“He’s saying… Wait, I have an idea,” said Mech.

Cal frowned. “OK. What’s his idea?”

“No, I have an idea,” Mech replied. He tapped a few controls on his arm.

Pain exploded like speaker-system feedback inside Cal’s head. Loren, Miz, Dronzen and the Zertex crew members all clamped their hands to their ears and hissed, groaned or flat-out screamed.

“Whoops, sorry, my fault,” said Mech, although no-one heard him over the din inside their heads.

He tapped some more controls and the feedback loop stopped. “There. That’s better.”

“What the fonk did you do that for?” Cal panted. “You nearly blew my head off.”

“Let me look at woman. Please. I help.”

Cal blinked, trying to ignore the ringing in his brain enough to concentrate on what he’d just heard. He turned to Tullok.

“I help,” the old man said. “Yes?”

“Hey, I can understand him!” said Cal. “Can everyone else understand him?”

Mech nodded. “I patched everything I got on his language through your translator chips. It ain’t perfect, but it’ll do the job.”

Cal took one of Tullok’s hands and shook it, smiling at him. The old man smiled back. “Tullok, I just want to say a huge ‘thank you’ for helping fix me up earlier. Seriously, I…”

“He don’t understand you, shizznod,” Mech pointed out.

“Oh. Well can’t you patch his chip with our languages?”

“He hasn’t got a chip,” Dronzen pointed out.

“Oh,” said Cal again. “I mean, yeah. Obviously. I knew that.”

He gave Tullok a thumbs up, then backed away. The old man beckoned Loren closer. Gritting her teeth, she slid across the debris until she was within his reach. Tullok smiled gummily at her.

“This will take pain away,” he told her, then he clamped his long crooked fingers around her forearm.

Loren stiffened. A groan – but a good one that made any number of inappropriate thoughts whirl around in Cal’s head – burst from her lips and a shudder passed through her.

She seemed to fill up, as if she’d been partially deflated and was being restored to her former glory. At the same time, Tullok seemed to shrink. His skin became paler, more gray. His breath came in deep rasps, and…

“Look at his legs. What’s happening to his legs?” said Miz.

All eyes went to Tullok’s stumps. Half an inch or so of the flesh and bone of each one was crumbling to ash, burning up like the end of a cigarette.

“Stop. That’s enough,” Loren urged, trying to pull her arm free. The old man’s grip held firm. Another few layers of skin and sinew wafted off on the breeze, then he unclamped his hand from Loren’s arm.

“Better?” Tullok coughed, gesturing to Loren’s side. She lifted her vest top to reveal the bruise had gone.

“Yeah. I feel… I feel great, actually,” said Loren. “But your legs.”

Mech translated, and Tullok flashed a beaming smile in return.

“I am old. You are not. It is fair trade, I think.”

He sagged back against a piece of the hull, his sunken chest heaving in and out.

“Thank you,” said Loren, taking his hand and squeezing it. He nodded at her, but didn’t speak.

A clatter from behind Cal made him spin, fists raised. “Waargh!”

The three Zertex troops Dronzen had sent to pick through the wreckage set a couple of trays fashioned from bits of ship down in front of the others. “This is all we found,” the woman with the skin-complaint announced.

It was meager pickings. Highlights of the salvage included three blasters, a few tools and the neck of Cal’s guitar, which they’d only picked up because none of them knew what it was. Cal snatched it up and hugged it to his cheek.

“Oh, my poor baby. Look at you,” he whispered, stifling a sob.

“Will it still play?” asked Mizette.

Cal looked at the broken slat of wood. All the strings had snapped off, and three of the metal bits at the end he always thought of as ‘the turny things’ had been sheared in half.

“Probably not,” he admitted, then he tutted when Mech, Loren and Miz all collectively sighed with relief.

He gently kissed the fretboard, then tossed the broken neck piece over his shoulder. His eyes fell on something poking up through a spaghetti of wires. “Hey, look!” he chirped, scrabbling across the debris and taking hold of a piece of purple fabric. With a series of heaves and some angry muttering, he pulled the garment free. “It’s one of my shirts.”

Twirling it over his shoulders, he pulled the shirt on. “How do I look?”

“Like you just pulled your shirt out of a crash site,” said Miz, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

Cal looked down at the garment as he buttoned it up. Sure, it was spattered in oil, burned in places, and there was a big hole torn in the back, but it was still a pretty nice shirt. If you ignored the creasing. And the food stains. And the smell.

“What should we do now?” asked the Zertex woman.

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Well... Good question. What should you do now? I’ve got a few ideas.”

The woman shifted an awkward look in Cal’s direction. “Uh. Sorry. I was asking him.” She pointed at Dronzen.

“Yeah. I mean, yeah. Of course. Makes sense, you being, you know, all Zertex together and everything,” said Cal. “It’s just, FYI, I’m pretty much in charge. Overall, I mean. Sure, Dronzen can be in charge of you, that’s fine. Just that I’m sort of the main one in charge. Overall.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry, I didn’t know,” said the woman. “So… what should we do?”

Cal’s smile remained fixed in place, but his eyes darted ever so slightly left and right, searching for an answer that refused to come.

“Uh… Dronzen? What do you think?” he asked.

Dronzen looked to the sky. “Be dark in a few hours,” he said. “We should probably eat.”

Cal’s smile widened. “Do you know something?” he said. “That is exactly what I was going to say.”

Eighteen

The campfire flickered and sputtered, spitting embers into the darkening evening air. Around it, Cal and most of the others munched on an assortment of things Tullok had insisted were fruit, but Cal wasn’t entirely convinced.

The thing he was eating had a prickly yellow outside, with a dry, husky flesh the color of tar. Fruit, as far he was concerned, should be either pleasingly sweet or refreshingly bitter. The leathery strips he was gnawing on now were neither of these things.

“Steak sauce,” he announced, mid-chew. “That’s what it tastes like. Steak sauce. But, like, waaay past its date.”

Still, it was better than squirrel by a large margin, so he didn’t complain too much.

“You know what I miss?” Cal asked.

“Earth?” guessed Loren.

“Everyone you ever knew who’re now all dead?” suggested Miz.

“Well, those, obviously, yeah,” said Cal. “Spit nibbles. Remember? Narp’s mom? They were amazing.”

They ate in silence a while longer. Miz sat next to Dronzen, alternating between being mesmerized by him and hypnotized by the elaborate dance of the fire. The Zertex people were grouped together, with Tullok sitting between Loren and Cal. Mech paced around the circle, keeping his sensors peeled for trouble.

It was Dronzen who asked the question on everyone’s lips. “So. What do we do?”

Cal had just taken another bite of his steak sauce fruit. He pointed to his mouth to indicate this, and made a show of chewing as fast as he could. Thankfully, this gave him an opportunity to think. His mind raced even faster than his mouth, plotting and strategizing as the fruit slowly turned to mush between his teeth.

With some difficulty, he swallowed what was left of it.

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I thought it’d just be a case of us all piling up to the ship, having a bit of a fight, then storming inside, but we all saw how that worked out.”

He gestured around them at the forest. “I’d say we should just live here but, you know, fonking space squirrels.”

“This world is dying,” Tullok announced, taking everyone by surprise. The old man was staring into the fire, wringing his wrinkled hands together as he watched the dancing flames. “Since the great destroyer fell from the skies, the ground shakes. At first, not so much. Now, every day.”

“He’s right. The quakes have been getting more regular,” said Dronzen. “But I didn’t know they started when we crashed.”

Cal pointed up to where he knew the vortex would be. “And what about that thing? Is it connected? How long has it been there?”

Tullok followed Cal’s finger. He joined him in pointing to the swirly space hole.

“You wish to know of this? Always there. Always. Before my time. Before my people.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” said Cal. He stood up, scattering chunks of yellow husk onto the churned-up soil. “Always there. He’s right. It is always there.”

Loren followed his finger and saw the vortex. “Yeah. So?”

“So I mean it’s always there. In that exact spot,” said Cal.

“What’s it supposed to do? Go flying around?” asked Miz.

Cal sighed. “No, but I mean - and science isn’t my strong point, so I really hope I’m not the one being an idiot here – it’s evening now. It’ll be night soon. That means the planet’s turning, right? That’s how it works. But the vortex…”

“Stays in a fixed point in the sky,” said Mech. “Shizz. You’re right.”

“So?” said Miz. “What does that mean?”

Dronzen explained. “It means it’s following the planet’s rotation. It is, in fact, flying around, like you said.”

“Oh, so I was right?” said Miz. “Go me.”

“Which means it has to be connected. The vortex and this planet, I mean. They’re somehow linked,” said Loren.

“Exactly!” cried Cal. “And that means…?”

He grinned at everyone, waiting for someone to respond. “That means what?” asked Mech.

Cal deflated. “I thought one of you might know. It has to mean something, right?”

“I know what it means,” said Dronzen, capturing everyone’s undivided attention. “It means that if this planet really is dying, there’s a good chance that thing’s going to die, too.”

One of the Zertex crew piped up. “But if that closes, how can we get home?”

“We can’t,” said Cal. “But on the bright side, we’ll all be dead, so we won’t really mind.”

He sat down again, picked up the other half of his fruit, gazed into its black, dry innards, then tossed it over his shoulder. “So, looks like we’re back to Plan A,” he said. “Getting those ships, grabbing Splurt, and getting out of here before it’s too late.”

“Splurt?” said Loren. “You’re not serious.”

Cal looked up at her. “Of course I’m serious. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Uh, maybe because he tried to kill us,” said Miz. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but Splurt isn’t on our side anymore.”

“He’s part of the crew,” Cal insisted. “We’re not leaving him behind.”

“What are you talking about?” Loren spat. “He was part of the crew, but that was several years ago, as far as he’s concerned. You saw him. He didn’t even remember us.”

Cal jumped up. “She tortured him, Loren. He pretended to be me, and so she tortured him. Every day. And he kept pretending. He kept trying to cover for me. For six. Whole. Months.”

Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the crackle of the campfire. Cal looked at the faces around the fire. Hardly any of them met his gaze. “So if we leave, Splurt leaves. That’s just how it is.”

He turned back to Loren to find her smiling sadly at him. “I’m sorry, but that thing’s not Splurt, Cal. Not anymore.”

* * *

Cal stood at the edge of the clearing, leaning against one of the fat, slug-like trees and gazing vaguely into the darkness that lurked beyond. Night was closing in fast, but despite how little he’d slept over the past few days, Cal was wide awake.

Another earthquake had rocked the forest a couple of hours previously, bringing down trees and churning up the ground. Afterwards, the woods had fallen into absolute silence for what felt like forever.

Gradually, the sounds of the forest had returned. Insects now chirruped in the undergrowth. Frogs – or something like them – croaked from the direction of the river. Something honked deeper in the trees. Cal pictured a cross between an owl and a goose, then spent the next few seconds wondering what it would taste like.

God, he was hungry.

Footsteps approached from behind. Cal waited until Loren spoke before turning.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You OK?”

Cal shrugged. “Yeah. You?”

Loren nodded. “Fine. Feel great, actually. Whatever Tullok did… Yeah, I feel great.”

“Good stuff,” said Cal. “Glad to hear it.”

“Right. Yeah,” said Loren. She pointed with a thumb back towards the fire. “I was thinking of turning in. Mech’s going to keep watch. You should probably get some sleep.”

“I’m OK,” said Cal. “I’m not tired.”

“Right. Right,” said Loren. “Well, goodnight, then.”

She started to turn away, but stopped. “Look, I’m sorry. I know what Splurt meant to you, but… It’s just… I mean, you know what I mean, right?”

“Oh yeah. Of course,” said Cal. “You’re right. He’s not Splurt anymore. Not our Splurt, anyway. She broke him.” He turned to her and tried his best to switch on a smile. “He’s gone. I have to accept that.”

Loren nodded slowly. “I wish it were different.”

“Yeah. Me too,” said Cal, then he jumped when a shape lunged at them out of the shadows.

“Hey. What’s up?” asked Miz.

“Christ! My blood pressure, for one thing,” said Cal. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Oh,” said Miz. She shrugged. “Sorry. What you guys talking about?”

“Splurt,” said Loren.

“Right. Gotcha. So, anyway, I wanted to talk to you,” said Miz, fixing her deep brown eyes on Cal. “It’s about Dronzen.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” said Cal.

“You do?”

“Absolutely. And I agree. He’s getting a little too big for his boots,” Cal said. “He needs to remember who the captain is around here, am I right?”

Mizette shifted awkwardly. “Uh, well, actually I was going to say that – and don’t take this too hard – that I kinda like him,” she said. “You know, like like him. And I think maybe he likes me.”

“Like, like likes you?” Cal asked.

“Yeah. I think he does,” said Miz. She folded one arm across her midriff and chewed on the thumbnail of the opposite hand. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Cal raised his eyebrows. “Hmm?”

“Well, I mean, obviously we had a thing between us – and I totally still dig you in a big way, and everything – it’s just… I like him.”

“You like like him,” said Cal.

“Exactly,” said Miz. “Do you mind?”

Cal didn’t know if he minded or not. On the one hand, he wanted to run in circles and cheer that he was no longer the main focus of Mizette’s affection, but on the other hand… it had been quite nice, in a way.

In the end, he hugged her, almost choking in her fur. “Go get him, Sexy Chewbacca,” he whispered, then he grimaced as she squeezed him tightly in return.

“Thanks. It means a lot,” said Miz, releasing him and stepping away. She gestured to Loren. “Besides, now you two will be able to… whatever.”

“Us two?” Cal spluttered. “Ha! What? As if!”

“I’d rather cut my own hands off!” said Loren.

“Jesus,” said Cal. “That’s a bit harsh. I’m not that bad, am I?”

Loren blushed. “What? Well… duh. Yes,” she said, snorting out a half-laugh, then abruptly stopping.

Mizette looked at them both in turn, then shrugged. “You two are weird,” she said, before turning and loping off towards the camp.

Cal watched her go. “Think it’ll work out?”

“What, us?” Loren snorted again. “Ha! As if!”

“No, them,” said Cal.

Loren cleared her throat. “Yes. Of course. Uh, I don’t know. Maybe.”

Cal patted her on the shoulder. “Useful insight. Thanks.”

“I’m going to go get some sleep,” said Loren, walking away. “Try to get some rest.”

“I will. Oh, and Loren?”

Loren stopped and turned.

“Would you really chop your hands off?”

Loren’s silhouette hid her half-smile. She shrugged. “One of them, maybe.”

“Right or left?”

“Goodnight, Cal,” said Loren. She backed away a couple of paces, then turned and walked away. Cal kept watching her until she vanished behind the glow of the fire.

“Hey.”

Cal jumped again as another voice came at him through the darkness. A blinding flashlight shone in his face and he stumbled back, shielding his eyes.

“Ow! Jesus. Switch it off.”

“Sorry, man,” said Mech. The light faded to a dull glow, picking out Mech’s chest and face against the gloom. “You OK?”

“Yes. I’m fine,” said Cal. “Or I was until you blinded me. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“I heard what you said to Loren.”

“About which hand she’d cut off?” Cal asked.

“About Splurt,” said Mech. “About how you ain’t gonna try to get him.”

“Oh. Right. That,” said Cal.

“Ain’t true, though, is it?” Mech said. “Ain’t no way you’re not going to sneak off to try to find him.”

“What? No! That’d be crazy. I mean…” Cal’s voice trailed into silence. “I told him I’d come get him. When he helped us escape Vajazzle’s ship. I told him I’d come back. I promised him.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

A moment of silence passed between them, before eventually being broken by a cheerful, “Hello!” from Mech’s back.

Cal jumped in fright again. “Jesus! Will people please stop doing that!” he said. Mech increased the strength of his torchlight enough for Cal to see Tullok’s grinning face over Mech’s shoulder. The old man was hanging onto the cyborg’s shoulders like a backpack.

“Tullok wants to talk to you,” said Mech.

“Uh, OK. What about?” Cal asked, then he remembered Tullok could understand him and said, “What do you want to talk about?” to him, instead.

Then he remembered that Tullok couldn’t understand him at all, and directed the question back to Mech.

“Fonked if I know. He won’t tell me,” said Mech. He turned side on to Cal, and Tullok scrambled across onto Cal’s back. For an old man with nothing much to speak of in the way of legs, he was surprisingly agile.

He was also surprisingly heavy. Cal had to lean forwards to stop himself toppling backwards. Tullok extended an arm out ahead of him, pointing into the forest. “This way. Ahead. Yes? Go now.”

“Uh, right. OK,” said Cal. He shot Mech a quizzical look, but got only a shrug in return.

“Metal man wait. We go,” Tullok instructed. He bounced on Cal’s back like a jockey in a horse race. “Quick. Quick. Go. Go.”

“OK, OK, I’m going,” said Cal. He leaned closer to Mech. “But if you hear a scream, you come running.”

Mech nodded. “I won’t be far away.”

“You’d better not be,” said Cal, then he hoisted Tullok higher on his back, took a deep breath, and pushed on into the forest.

Nineteen

It took almost fifteen minutes of trudging blindly through the woods before Tullok told Cal to stop. The darkness was absolute, and although they’d walked for quarter of an hour, Cal reckoned that his slow shuffle to avoid tripping over anything meant they couldn’t be more than a few hundred feet from what was left of the Shatner.

“Here. Here is good,” Tullok chirped.

“OK. Well, I can’t see shizz,” said Cal. “So I hope you know the way back, or we’re completely…”

There was a sound like a number of babies sighing. A few hundred tiny pinpricks of blue light rose into the air, illuminating the forest floor beneath them. They drifted upwards from buttercup-sized purple flowers which budded into bloom below them.

Cal stepped back to get a better view of the flowers and their lights, and the sighing spread like gossip behind him. Thousands of the tiny flowers unfurled their purple petals, each one spitting a floating ball of light into the air.

“Whoa,” Cal whispered. “That is incredible.”

“Log,” said Tullok, pointing to a fallen tree which was now picked out in shimmering shades of blue. “Sit. We both sit. You. I. We sit.”

Cal lowered the old man onto the fallen tree’s trunk. He slid off Cal’s back, hobbled along the tree on his stumps for a few paces, then flopped into a seated position. Grinning, he tapped the trunk beside him. “Here. You sit with me.”

“What are these things?” Cal whispered, still watching the balls of light as he lowered himself onto the trunk. The glowing spheres had risen four to six feet off the ground, then all stopped. They hung there now, casting their glow, as the flowers beneath them closed their petals and went back to sleep.

“One of this world’s many wonders,” said Tullok. “Wonders that will be no more. Soon, I fear. Very soon.”

“Yeah, that last quake was pretty rough,” was all Cal could think to say. He shook his head and turned away from the lights. “You wanted to talk to me?” He was halfway through the sentence when his eyes widened. “Wait. You understood me! When I asked what they were, you understood me.”

“I understand many things,” said Tullok. “Not your words. Your words are a mystery. But their meaning? Yes. The way you talk. The way you look. The way you move.”

Cal frowned. “So… you do or you don’t understand what I’m saying?”

“I understand your pain,” Tullok said. “You have lost much, I think. Too much.”

Cal said nothing.

“So very much. This is why you will not lose your companion. Why you cannot. Yes?”

“I told him I wouldn’t leave him. I promised him,” said Cal. His voice became uncharacteristically quiet. “And he’s my friend.”

Tullok tapped Cal on the chest. “Good man. Young man.” He placed his hand against his own skinny torso. “Old man. Old enough.”

“Hey, you’re not that old,” said Cal, taking in Tullok’s wrinkled face and turkey-like neck. “I mean, you can’t be more than… what? Ninety? A hundred and ten, tops.”

“I am alone now,” said Tullok. “My tribe – my friends – are no more. Gone.”

“You don’t know that,” said Cal, having a stab at sounding positive. “Some of them might have survived. And there must be others out, you know, in the woods or whatever.”

“I am the last,” said Tullok, tapping his chest again. “I feel it. In here. And I do not wish to be alone.”

Cal slapped his hands on his thighs. “Well, OK, then. You can come with us. You can be, like, the ship’s doctor. Once we get a ship. We’ll have adventures. You’ll love it.”

“I would like to give myself to you,” said Tullok.

Cal hesitated. “Uh… OK. That’s, I mean, I’m flattered. Honestly. It’s just you’re not really my type.”

Tullok lunged for Cal, his long fingers splaying out as his hands clamped around his head.

“What the fonk? Are you trying to kiss--?” was as far as Cal got before his brain was filled with sweet, golden syrup. It swelled his skull and dribbled down his spine, filling him all the way. Cal’s arms and legs became heavy, so he couldn’t fight back, even if he wanted to.

“I am old. I am alone. You are not. You need not be,” Tullok said, his voice whispering like a winter’s breeze. “All that I have, I give to you. All that I am, is now yours.”

Cal was immobile now, his body refusing to respond to his brain’s commands. Not that his brain was commanding all that much. It was too busy savoring the sensation of pure liquid joy that currently flooded its nerve-endings and pathways.

Right at the edge of his eye line, he saw Tullok’s leg stumps darken and crumble. Layers of skin broke up like burnt paper, drifting into the air as flakes of ash.

“S-stop,” Cal managed to slur, the word coming out as a dribble of spit on his chin.

Tullok smiled, even as the blackness spread up over his hips and groin, burning him to cinders. Still the syrupy goodness bubbled inside Cal. He felt like he was being dragged down by the stuff now, frantically treading water as he fought to stay afloat.

“My life force is yours,” the old man wheezed, even as his chest became ash. “Use it. Save your friend.”

His mouth opened to say more, but his throat was now gone. The arms crumbled to dust, freeing Cal from their grip.

“MECH!” Cal bellowed, then his face twisted in an expression of terror as Tullok’s kindly-looking head landed in his lap. Instinctively, he tucked his hands beneath it and launched it across the clearing, then gasped in horror at what he’d done.

“Shizz! Sorry, Tullok. I am so sorry,” he babbled, scrambling through the grass to where the old man’s head had landed. He picked it up, realized it was upside-down, and turned it the right way. Tullok was still smiling, although his eyebrows suggested he was ever-so-slightly annoyed.

Mech shouldered aside a tree and crashed into the clearing, just as Tullok’s head crumbled to dust in Cal’s hands.

“What the fonk did you do?” Mech asked.

“Me? I didn’t do anything!” Cal protested. He stood up and brushed some of Tullok off his shirt. “I mean, I guess from your point of view it might have looked a little…”

“Like you’d cut off his head and then set it on fire?” said Mech. “Yeah, maybe a little. What the Hell happened?”

“I don’t know. One minute I thought he was coming onto me, the next… poof. Gone,” said Cal. “He said he was giving me his life force.”

Mech looked him up and down. “And what does that mean?”

“Fonked if I know.”

“You feel any different?”

Cal put his hands on his hips and flexed them from side to side. He squatted, stood up, arched his back then flexed his arms. “Not really. I mean, I feel good. Healthy. But that’s it.”

Mech about-turned. “OK. Then let’s get back to camp. We should probably tell the others.”

“I’m not going.”

Mech turned back. “Say what?”

“Like I said, I can’t just leave him. I promised.”

Mech let out a long, slow sigh. Which was impressive, considering he didn’t have lungs. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

Cal nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“You ain’t gonna listen to me if I tell you not to go, are you?”

Cal shook his head. “Afraid not.”

“I could stop you,” Mech pointed out. “I could pick you up and haul you back to camp.”

Cal nodded. “You could. But you won’t,” he said. “Give me an hour, then tell them where I’ve gone. I’ll try to cause a distraction so you guys can get to the ships.”

“You want us to leave without you?”

“What? No!” Cal spluttered. “Jesus, you think I want to be stuck here? Wait for me, I’ll find you. And I’ll bring Splurt.”

Mech sucked air in through his metal teeth. “I don’t like this, man.”

“I’m not exactly dancing with joy here, either, but I have to do this,” said Cal. He backed into the woods. “One hour, then head to the ship.”

“I got it,” said Mech. He watched Cal turn and run a few paces into the forest. “You know that’s the wrong way, right?”

Cal stopped. He turned to his right.

“Nope.”

Cal turned another hundred and eighty degrees. Mech tutted, then raised an arm and pointed. “That way.”

“Gotcha,” said Cal. He fired off a salute. “Catch you later, Mech.”

“Yeah, man,” said Mech. “You’d better.”

* * *

Cal bounded from the forest, landed on a patch of rock, had a fleeting but all-too-vivid vision of a big monster snapping up at him from below, then frantically scrambled back to the safety of the trees.

After he’d left Mech, he’d spent the next several minutes picking his way through the darkness, occasionally stumbling upon patches of the illuminating flowers that helped light his path.

Gradually, Cal’s confidence had begun to grow. The next ten minutes had been spent jogging through the woods, dodging branches and leaping roots. He’d tripped twice in the first minute, once in the second, then hadn’t fallen again, even when he broke into a sprint, leaping and bounding through the trees, and occasionally swinging from branches he couldn’t even see.

He peered out past the forest’s edge now, panting from the exertion. But only panting – not rasping, wheezing, or wishing he were dead.

Which was nice.

The city-sized ship was a few hundred feet away, the pits a little closer. The whole area was bathed in the shimmering light of the vortex, and the faint glow of a slightly oblong-looking moon Cal hadn’t really paid much attention to before.

He couldn’t see anyone lurking around, but he could hear at least one of the robot tank things stomping around on patrol somewhere.

The terrain between the edge of the forest and the pits was the same featureless rock and sand that had been around the prison. There were none of the metal boxes here, though, much to Cal’s relief. Those were designed to stop anyone escaping the prison, not approaching from the tree line.

Hopefully that meant there were none of the big-mouthed monsters here, either. Cal rooted around in the grass until he found a rock, and tossed it onto the sand half a dozen feet away.

At first, nothing happened, but then Cal saw it – a snaking, heaving beneath the sand just twenty or so paces to the right.

Cal shrunk back as the tooth-filled head burst from below the sand, chomping the rock to pieces. Up close, the smell of the thing was choking. If Cal was forced to describe it, he’d probably settle on ‘burnt vomit,’ but not without running through a few alternatives first.

The monster sunk into the ground again, leaving a hole behind that was quickly filled in by the sand around it. Cal saw nothing to suggest the thing had moved off, and suspected it was lurking around down there, just waiting to pounce again.

“OK, so that’s not good,” he muttered. He crept as close as he dared to the edge of the forest and studied the ground. It was mostly sand, but with occasional outcrops of rock sprouting up from below.

Since the sand-things hadn’t eaten anyone in or around the pits, Cal guessed they couldn’t get through stone. Or not easily, at least.

He spent the next few minutes gathering up some stones and pebbles, and cramming them into his pockets.

Once he’d done that, he took one of the stones and tossed it onto a patch of sand over on his left. The ground in front of him churned as the sand-creature shot off. Seizing his chance, Cal leaped onto the first patch of solid rock, wobbled slightly, then froze.

The sand-monster exploded out of the ground twenty or thirty feet away, then sunk again. Cal stamped his foot on the rock. Once. Twice. The monster didn’t react.

“Well, alright then,” Cal said, grinning from ear to ear. He lined himself up with the next lump of rock, swung his arms, and jumped.

On the third jump, he stumbled and his heel slammed into the sand, just for a moment. Cal heard the ssssslisk of the monster cutting through the sand towards him. Frantically, he pulled a stone from his pocket, spun, and tossed it into the creature’s path.

A spray of sand spewed upwards as the thing exploded from the ground, rolling that wave of stink over Cal again. Moving quickly, he aimed himself at the next safe spot, then made three quick jumps, one after the other, hopping from rock to rock.

The next gap was wide. Too wide. Cal thought back to the rooftop where he and Loren had been chasing Narp, and how he’d barely scraped across it.

The space between this rock and the next safe area was wider than that by a couple of feet, if not more. Cal turned, looking for another route, but short of backtracking right back to the start, there was no obvious alternative. Even if he did turn back, there was no saying he’d find a better route.

He shuffled his toes right up to the edge of the stone platform, then fished in his pocket for another rock to throw. It landed thirty feet away. Cal heard the monster streak off, just as he dropped to his haunches and powered himself off the platform.

The world lurched. Cal’s arms flailed in the air as he soared cleanly over the next rock, somehow overshooting it by three or four feet. He landed awkwardly on the sand, and heard the unmistakable swish of the worm-thing changing direction.

Kicking and scrabbling on the soft ground, he threw himself up onto a jagged boulder, just as the spot where he’d landed exploded like a bomb blast of fury and teeth. Cal lay on his back, holding his breath and trying desperately to maintain bladder control as the monster thrashed hungrily at the air, then slowly retreated back below the surface.

Once he was sure it was safe, and confident he wasn’t about to soil himself, Cal got to his feet. He looked back to the rock he was supposed to have landed on, and the one he’d launched himself from. How could he have even made that jump, much less have overshot it?

Probably best not to question it too much, he decided. Not right now, at least.

He turned back towards the ship. The solid ground around the pits was close now – barely a stone’s throw away. Between Cal and it, though, lay nothing but flat, uninterrupted sand.

He looked back to the previous rock, the one he’d missed. Even if he somehow managed another super-jump, it was too far away to reach. He was stranded on this one narrow sliver of stone, adrift on a sea of monsters.

“Houston, we have a problem,” he announced to the world at large. The sand shifted behind him and he clamped a hand over his mouth.

Cal took stock of his situation. He was stranded on a rock, with a monster waiting to eat him the moment he stepped off it. He had a pocketful of stones which would distract the creature, but not for long. Would it buy him enough time to run all the way to the solid ground ahead? Probably not.

Was he going to try anyway? Hell, yes.

Taking aim, Cal threw one of the larger stones as fast and as far as he could behind him. It clacked off a boulder, skipped on, then landed in the sand with a faint paff. The ground churned as the monster snaked off in search of whatever had made the sound.

This time, Cal waited until the creature’s head had just broken the surface of the sand, then he ran. His feet pounded on the soft ground, which seemed determined to drag him down with each step. The sand slipped and slid beneath his boots. He stumbled, tripped, touched his fingertips to the ground then was off again, sprinting with everything he had for the safety of the ground ahead.

Cal felt the rumbling of the monster giving chase. He hurtled on, his legs a blur, his heart rattling like machine-gun fire in his chest. “Please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me,” he sobbed.

He risked a glance back over his shoulder. The thing was still a dozen feet away. He spluttered out a half-laugh. It would be close, but he was going to—

A second monster burst through the sand right at his heels, tossing him into the air. He flapped his arms frantically like a character in a cartoon, then sprawled face-first onto the desert floor.

Spinning onto his back, he saw the worm-thing flick its enormous head towards him. He saw the cavern of its mouth. He saw those absurdly human-looking teeth.

And then, right before the thing could strike, the first monster reared up behind it. The fresh on the scene worm-creature emitted a terrible high-pitched screech as teeth sunk deep into its flesh.

Cal’s arms and legs all tried to do their own thing at the same time, but as their general consensus was, ‘Let’s get the fonk out of here,’ the result wasn’t pretty, but it was effective, as Cal beat a less than graceful backwards retreat across the sand.

He collapsed onto solid ground, patted it to make sure there were no monster-sized gaps around him, then sat up and watched the worm things bite lumps out of each other for a while, until they both sunk beneath the sand.

With that, Cal stood up, rolled up his sleeves and gave a single nod of his head.

“Right then,” he said. Then he put his hands in his pockets, hummed the opening bars to Inspector Gadget, and set off in search of Splurt.

Twenty

Loren slung a blaster rifle over her shoulder and tucked a pistol into the back of her pants. “How could you just let him go?” she demanded. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

“I told him that,” said Mech. “That’s what I said, but he didn’t listen.”

“Then you should have made him listen!”

Mech shrugged. “Come on. What was I supposed to do? Throw him over my shoulder and carry him back?”

“Yes!” Loren snapped. “If that’s what it took.”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but he’s a grown man,” Mech pointed out. “The guy makes his own decisions, and his mind was made up. He was going for Splurt, and that was all there was to it.”

“Did he take the trolley?” asked Dronzen. “Because if he did…”

“He didn’t,” said Mech. “He went the direct route, to the edge of the forest then across the sand.”

“Then won’t he, like, get eaten by those worm things?” said Miz.

“Not if he’s careful,” said Dronzen.

“Maybe we can catch him,” said Loren. “Everyone ready to move?”

A few of the Zertex troops yawned and rubbed their eyes. They shuffled their feet, reluctant to travel through the night.

Loren swung her rifle down into her hands. “Sorry? Didn’t catch that,” she said.

The Zertex crew snapped to attention. Loren nodded. “Better,” she said. “We’re going to be headed through the woods, and apparently the one person who knew his way around this place has turned to dust. Don’t ask. Everyone stick close. If you fall behind you stay behind. Is that clear?”

A hand went up. Loren turned to the Zertex man. “What?”

“I, um, I need to go to the toilet.” He lowered his hand, wilting under Loren’s gaze. “Sorry.”

“Fine. Go,” Loren sighed. The man nodded gratefully, then darted behind a bush. Loren swept her gaze across the rest of the group. “Anyone else need to use the bathroom?”

Four more hands went up. A woman raised her hand midway, then tilted it from side to side, indicating she wasn’t sure. Loren pinched the bridge of her nose between finger and thumb.

“You’ve got two minutes,” she announced. “Then we leave. So pee quick.”

“Actually, it wasn’t a pee I—” the woman began, but Loren held up a hand to stop her, mid-sentence.

“Two minutes,” Loren told her. “Time’s ticking.”

* * *

Cal was passing the pits when he saw her. It was the robotic eye that gave her away, blazing like a red sun when she scraped back her hood. She stood in the wreckage of her stadium seating, the front of her robe trailing over the edge of the hole below.

“I knew you’d come back,” Vajazzle said. Her voice was a whisper, but it carried cleanly through the still night air. “I knew you couldn’t leave him.”

“Where is he?” Cal demanded.

“Where do you think?” asked Vajazzle, a smirk tugging at her puckered mouth.

Cal paused. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “In the ship?”

“In the pit, you imbecile,” Vajazzle hissed. “He’s in the pit.”

“Right, right. Gotcha,” said Cal. “Yeah, that’s good. That’s really dramatic.” He shrugged. “Or, you know, it would have been if I hadn’t messed it up. Sorry about that. We can try again, if you like? You go from ‘Where do you think?’ and then I’ll jump in with my line. It’ll be fine. No-one will know.”

“What are you talking about?” Vajazzle spat. She shook her head, as if annoyed at herself for even asking the question. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. Just get in the hole.”

Cal approached the pit. “I bet you say that to all the guys,” he said, stopping where the ground fell away. The dino-Splurt stood in the flickering torchlight of the pit, grimacing up at him and showing more teeth than Cal could count.

“Hey, buddy,” Cal called, waving down at him. “I’ve come to rescue you. What’s say we team up and kick shizz out of this crazy space witch? It’ll be just like old—Wargh!”

Vajazzle yanked a hand towards her, and Cal felt an invisible force pull him forwards. He tried the arm-flapping thing again, with exactly as much success as before, then plunged to the bottom of the pit.

His feet hit the ground and he dropped to his haunches, then stood up. It would’ve been an impressively dramatic entrance, had he not immediately started to bounce up and down on the spot, crying, “Whoa, did you see that? I landed like a champ,” and giving himself high-fives.

When he finally stopped celebrating, he turned to Splurt. He made it as far as a hopeful, “Now, buddy,” before a fist the size of a boulder smashed into the side of his head, crumpling his legs beneath him.

“Ow,” Cal groaned, clutching his jaw. He was on his knees. He couldn’t quite remember when that had happened, but he suspected it wasn’t the best place to be. His feet? Now, his feet would be an excellent place to be. Better than his knees, anyway.

If only he could remember where he put them.

Splurt lunged.

“Wait!” Cal wheezed, then another hammer-blow struck him across the cheek and the ground followed up with an uppercut to his chin.

Coughing and spluttering through a mouthful of blood, Cal flopped onto his back. “I’m not going to fight you, Splurt. I know you won’t hurt me. Not really.”

Splurt caught Cal by one leg and spun. “Or maybe you will,” Cal managed to splutter, and then he was hurtling through the air. His back met the pit wall. His body went one way, while all the air in his lungs went the other. He hit the ground hard and tried to push himself up on his arms, but his arms had obviously gone off to find his feet, and he just lay motionless on the ground, instead.

There was a ringing in his ears. Not that this was his most pressing problem, but it was fonking annoying, all the same. Over the high-pitched whine, he could hear Vajazzle cackling and shouting something to him, but his brain was too scrambled to figure out any of the words. Probably nothing complimentary.

He could hear – or possibly just feel – Splurt’s thunderous footsteps getting closer. They weren’t far away. He had two or three seconds, maybe a little more.

There was another sound, too. A voice. Nagging and incessant, right at the edge of his hearing. “Get up, Cal. Get up right now!”

Familiar. Definitely familiar.

Mech? No, too high-pitched.

Miz? Too animated.

Loren? Possibly, but… no. It sounded too concerned.

“Get up! Hurry!”

Wait. He had it.

With a Herculean amount of effort, Cal tilted his head, just a fraction. A man stood there, dressed in a lilac bath robe and slippers. “Tobey Maguire?”

“Yes! And you need to get your shizz together, ASAP,” Tobey Maguire urged. “I mean it, you’re about to be trampled into a paste here.”

Cal looked around him. He was standing up now. Or, more specifically, he was floating in an upright position above his own fallen body. Splurt and Vajazzle were both frozen, as if time itself were standing still.

“Jesus. Am I dead?” Cal asked.

Tobey Maguire shook his head. “No. I mean, not yet, but any second now. This isn’t real. You’re about to pass out.” He gestured around them. “This is all in your mind.”

“Right. Right. Gotcha,” said Cal. He looked Tobey Maguire up and down. “What are you wearing, by the way?”

Tobey looked down, tightened the belt of his robe, then folded his arms. “No time for that,” he said.

Cal shrugged, then pushed his arms out straight in front of his chest, scooped them around like he was doing the breast stroke, and swam over to Splurt. An immense feeling of sadness and regret washed over him as he looked the dinosaur-like figure up and down. “I think I may have made a mistake,” he admitted. “I thought I could talk him round.”

“That thing?” Tobey Maguire snorted. “Are you nuts? Look at it! With the spikes and the teeth and everything. That’d chew you up and spit you out, that thing. And it’s going to, too. In about… ooh… four seconds.”

Tobey Maguire caught the expression on Cal’s face, and sighed. “Look, I know how you love the sound of your own voice, but maybe talking’s not the right approach. You think Vajazzle bent him to her will by having a chat? She broke him.”

Cal frowned. “What are you saying, Tobey Maguire?”

Tobey Maguire shrugged, then raised his fists and shadow-boxed the wall. “I’m saying, maybe you need to beat some sense into him. Give him the old Cal Carver one-two.”

“Are you insane? Look at him! I can’t fight that!”

Tobey Maguire smiled. It was meant to look learned and wise, but actually made him look a little bit simple. Cal chose not to mention it. “You can if you believe,” he said, packing the line with such pathos and drama that Cal felt momentarily outraged the guy had never bagged an Oscar. Or even, as far as he could remember, been nominated.

Sure, he had Teen Choice Award nominations coming out of the wazoo, but…

“Cal!” Tobey Maguire snapped. “Are you listening? I said you can if you believe.”

“Believe?”

“Yes. Believe,” confirmed Tobey Maguire. “Also, you just got about thirty to forty years of Grimmash life force pumped into you. That’s also going to be helpful.”

Cal’s ghost or soul or whatever the Hell it was rushed across the pit, zooming back towards his body. “Oh, looks like you’re up,” said Tobey Maguire. He winked. “Go get him, Tiger.”

Tobey Maguire vanished.

Then reappeared again.

“Oh, and duck,” he blurted.

Time sped up. Cal rolled backwards just as Splurt’s rhino-like foot came smashing down on the spot where Cal’s head had been.

Cal realized, to his surprise, that he was on his feet. The sensation he’d felt when Tullok had grabbed him by the face warmed his bones again. Concentrated joy.

But no, not joy. That was just how it felt. Concentrated life.

Concentrated power.

Splurt’s fist arced through the air in an overheard smash. Cal raised a forearm, blocking the blow before it could strike home. He, Splurt and Vajazzle stood in silence, all three pairs of eyes locked on the spot where Cal’s arm was keeping a towering dino-monster’s at bay.

“Haha!” Cal flexed the fingers of his free hand, feeling the strength pump through them. He clenched them into a fist. “Well this is fonking awesome.”

THWACK!

Splurt’s tail whipped around. Cal saw it, but had no time to react. It caught him just above the knees, spinning him around in the air.

To everyone’s surprise – mostly his own – he flipped a full three-sixty and landed on his feet. “Oh man!” he ejected. “Vajazzle, please tell me your robot eye thing was recording that. Otherwise, no-one is ever going to believe me!”

Splurt swung with a vicious backhand strike. Cal ducked it, and a deep-rooted fighter’s instinct drove a punch into the monster’s exposed side. It was a left-hand blow, and not particularly well executed, but it was enough to make Splurt’s face contort in silent discomfort.

Cal bounced back a few paces, fists raised.

“What is this?” Vajazzle demanded. “How are you doing this? Tear him apart!”

Splurt pounced, both arms outstretched, grabbing for Cal’s throat. Cal saw the attack coming in plenty of time – possibly even before Splurt had even moved, he thought – and side-stepped out of his path.

Placing his hands on Splurt’s armored back, Cal ran forwards, using the dino-thing’s own momentum to slam him hard against the pit wall. The impact cracked the rock, sending a mini rockslide tumbling to the ground.

Splurt bounced back, only to find Cal on all fours directly behind him. As his legs met Cal’s side, Splurt’s heavy tail and armor-plating dragged him backwards. He hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud, and then Cal was on him, kneeling on his chest, driving a devastating right hook into the side of his head.

“Get up!” Vajazzle hissed from the top of the pit. “Get up and finish him. Now!”

“Alternatively, stay down,” Cal urged, smashing another fist across Splurt’s cheek. It was like punching solid rock, and his knuckles would probably have something to say about it in a couple of hours, but for now they weren’t complaining too much.

Splurt twisted, sending Cal sprawling off him. Cal tucked and rolled as best he could, and got to his feet while the dino-thing was still trying to get up off his back. Splurt jerked and struggled, like a six-hundred-pound man trying to do his first sit-up in decades. Cal’s instinct was to help him, but there was only one way to help his buddy now.

“Get up, you… freak!” Vajazzle hissed.

Cal kept his gaze on her as he stooped to pick up a chunk of rock that had been knocked loose when Splurt had hit the wall. He found a fist-sized pieced with a sharp, jagged end, then strolled over to where the dino-thing was still attempting to sit up.

“You know you can get up any time you like, don’t you?” Cal said, tossing the stone into the air and catching it. Splurt’s eyes fixed on him, his mouth curling into a noiseless growl. “You know this isn’t actually you?”

Cal saw something flicker behind the monster’s eyes. He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. She’s got you thinking you’re a dinosaur Hell beast, but you aren’t. You’re an adorable blobby little bamston. You’re my adorable blobby little bamston, Splurt.”

Cal gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his rock. “And while it pains me to do this, it looks like it’s going to be up to me to jog your memory.”

* * *

Miz led the way through the trees, her nose low to the ground, her ears pivoting like radar station satellite dishes. “He went this way,” she said, between sniffs. “The scent’s recent. He can’t be far.”

“Getting across the sand is going to be the difficult bit,” said Dronzen. “The worms will be all over us.”

“Can’t we, like, just send some of your people out to distract them, while we make a run for it?” Miz suggested.

There was a worried murmuring from somewhere near the back of the line. “Can we not do that, please?” a Zertex voice suggested.

“Yeah, I think that might be a bit… er, inappropriate, maybe,” said Dronzen.

“Why?” asked Miz. “It’s not like they’re important. They don’t even have names.”

“Of course they’ve got names,” said Dronzen. “Why wouldn’t they have names?”

Behind them, Mech shot Loren a sideways glance. “They got names?” he whispered.

Loren pulled a beats me face and shrugged in response.

“I just been calling them ‘Zertex Guy One,’ or whatever,” Mech continued. “Not one of them even tried to correct me! Man, now I just feel awkward.”

Miz looked back over her shoulder at the sea of faces trudging through the dark. “Seriously?” she frowned. “All of them?”

“Of course, all of them!” Dronzen cried, but there was a hint of amusement in it. “They’re not just a nameless group of victims-in-waiting, they’re people. They’re good people.”

“Huh,” said Miz. She tutted in annoyance. “Well that sucks. That totally makes things more difficult.”

“We’ll deal with it when we get there,” said Loren. “Now hurry. We need to find Cal. Before it’s too late.”

* * *

Cal slammed the rock against the side of Splurt’s face, widening the gash that had already split across the dino-thing’s cheek. With each blow he rained down, Cal stifled the urge to sob.

“Come on! Stop me doing this!” he pleaded, smashing the rock down again. Dark blue blood pooled on the ground behind Splurt’s neck, as his eyes swam in their sockets. “Come on, this isn’t you, Splurt! This isn’t you!”

He hammered the rock down again. Again. The wound widened. Cal fought the rising urge to throw up and dug the pointed end of the stone into the gouge. “You can stop this, Splurt. You can stop me!”

Roaring, Cal leaned his weight on the rock, pushing it deeper into the open flesh. Splurt’s hulking frame convulsed beneath him. “Please,” Cal begged.

As he pushed, the texture of Splurt’s head changed. The rough, scaly hide around the wound became green and slick. It wobbled and quivered like half-set jello.

Cal gasped. His face filled with hope. “Yes. Come on! There’s my boy! There’s my--”

Splurt’s head exploded, spraying green goo across the ground. Suddenly finding himself with nothing to lean against, Cal fell forwards, sprawling onto the cold hard rock.

Without getting up, he turned. Splurt’s dino-like body lay still. Inert. Not moving. His head was… well, his head was gone. A smear of green gloop on the ground, nothing more.

“Splurt?” said Cal. His voice echoed strangely around the pit. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Splurt? Buddy?”

A slow clap rang out from on high.

“Well done, Mr Carver. You won,” said Vajazzle. “Not in the way you intended, I’m sure, but you won all the same.”

She was suddenly right there, standing over him. Her hood was up and things writhed and wriggled beneath her robe. He barely noticed.

Cal let the rock fall from his fingers.

“Splurt?” he croaked.

“You know you couldn’t have beaten him, don’t you?” Vajazzle said. “In a fair fight, I mean. Even with whatever you’ve done to make yourself stronger. You couldn’t beat him. See, I’ve used him to take down whole armies of those savages. Dozens of them, all at once. He’s fought creatures four times his size and he has killed them all, and yet you – Cal Carver, a lone Earthman with a lump of rock – were able to beat him to death single-handed.”

Vajazzle squatted down, blocking Cal’s view of the body. “You know how you were able to do it, don’t you? You know why you were able to?” she whispered. “Because he remembered. Not all the way, of course. Not rationally. But deep inside somewhere. Deep down, where it counted, he remembered you were his friend, and he couldn’t bring himself to fight back.”

She watched Cal’s face fall, then she pouted her bottom lip like a sad toddler. “I know, it’s upsetting, isn’t it? Poor thing. After all he’s been through.”

The ground rumbled, but it wasn’t an earthquake. Not this time. Vajazzle pointed upwards just as the shadow of a Thunderfoot tank passed by the top of the pit. “Your other friends are going to die, too, you know? They’ll be coming after you, following your trail. When they reach the edge of the forest they’ll be so busy worrying about the sand worms they won’t have time to react to my tanks. Then – boom! Gone.” She leaned in good and close. “All of them.”

Cal shook his head. “N-no.”

“Yes. You think you feel alone now, last Earthman in the universe?” Vajazzle sneered. “Give it five minutes and you’ll grasp the true meaning of the word.”

She stood up, then a sharp laugh ricocheted around the pit. “Relax, I’m kidding! You have nothing to worry about,” she said. A tentacle snaked out from beneath her robe and wrapped around Cal’s throat. “Because you won’t even be alive in five minutes.”

Twenty-One

The tentacle drew tight across Cal’s throat, squeezing so sharply and suddenly he felt his head was going to pop like the cork of a Champagne bottle. He grabbed for the tentacle, but it was oily and slick and impossible to hold onto.

“I’d long given up hope of ever seeing you die,” Vajazzle told him. “Years ago, in fact. The day you turned up… Well, it was like all my Kroyshuks had come at once.”

She tightened her grip further. “The annoying thing is, I don’t even know why I despise you quite as much as I do. What was his name? The president? I forget. He said the same thing. There’s just something about you that brings out the worst in people.”

“I… try,” Cal gargled.

“You thought you could escape, didn’t you? You thought you could come here, rescue your friend, and get away. Were you going to kill me? Was that part of your plan?”

Cal tried to find a reply, but they all floated out of reach somewhere in the oncoming darkness. The tentacle jerked and the assassin’s voice took on a scolding tone. “Look me in the eye, Mr Carver. Don’t turn away. I want to see you go.”

Cal almost didn’t give her the satisfaction, but he was damned if he was going to die with her thinking him a coward. He met her gaze, angry and defiant to the last.

And he was glad he did. Because if he hadn’t looked, he wouldn’t have seen the cartoonishly-huge green hand clamp down over her head and lift her off the ground.

Nor would he have seen the brief but brilliant expression of absolute terror on her face right before a gloopy green fist cocooned her whole upper body.

The tentacle on Cal’s throat slackened. He ripped it free, just as Vajazzle began to shimmer with purple sparkles.

She vanished, revealing the owner of the hand in all his full squidgy glory. Two bloodshot eyes gazed unblinkingly back at Cal from within a foot-high blob of lime-colored jello.

“Splurt?”

The massive hand waved, became a thumbs-up, then twanged back into Splurt’s body like elastic. Cal was on his feet in an instant. He ran towards his little pal and scooped him up in his arms.

To the casual spectator, it would’ve looked pretty strange - a grown-man spinning around at the bottom of a hole, excitedly hugging jelly. Cal didn’t care. Splurt probably didn’t, either, although it was hard to read his expressions at the best of times.

“I knew you were in there, buddy. I knew you’d come back to me,” Cal said. He pressed his nose against Splurt’s head and inhaled deeply. “Silly Putty. Christ, I’ve missed that smell.”

The ground shook, sending pebbles clacking down the side of the pit. “The tanks,” Cal realized. “We need to stop the tanks shooting the others to bits.”

Splurt wrapped himself around Cal, then launched a rubbery appendage that quite closely resembled a string of snot up to the top of the pit. Cal felt a sudden sense of acceleration as Splurt propelled them up and out of the pit.

Two of the tanks stood facing the forest, guns trained on the tree line. Cal looked from them up to Vajazzle’s ship and back again.

“She knows we want out of here. She’ll destroy the ships,” Cal said. “I have to go after her. You think you can handle the tanks, buddy?”

Splurt flopped to the ground and gazed up at Cal, impassively. Cal grinned. “That’s my boy. Go get ‘em, then bring the others and meet me inside. We’re getting off this shizzhole. We’re going home.” He began to turn, then stopped. “You know, ish. Not my actual home, because everyone there’s dead and its full of monsters, but that sort of area, at least. That neck of the… forget it, doesn’t matter. Fonk those tanks up, buddy. Splurt-style!”

Without a sound, Splurt formed himself into a ball, rolled in a circle around Cal, then shot off towards the tanks. Cal wasted a few seconds watching him go.

“God, I love that guy,” he said to the world in general, then he turned towards the city-sized AX11, lowered his head, and ran.

* * *

Miz, Loren, Mech and the others arrived at the edge of the woods to find two tanks on fire. And one of them upside-down.

“What is that thing?” asked Dronzen, taking aim with his rifle as a thin green shape wormed its way into the sand, and vanished below the surface.

“Oh man, he did it,” Mech said. “He actually did it.”

Loren frowned. “Was that…?”

“Oh yeah,” said Miz. “It was.”

Mech gestured for the Zertex crew to join them up front. He’d spent the past five minutes finding out all their names but, despite having access to Zettabytes of onboard memory, had immediately forgotten every single one of them.

“What is it? What are we looking at,” asked one utterly unremarkable woman.

“Something awesome,” said Miz.

The ground rumbled. “Quake!” said Dronzen.

“No,” said Loren. “Look!”

A sand worm flew upwards out of the sand, twisting and wriggling, its mouth open wide as it screamed. It flipped in the air a few times, then landed with very little in the way of grace or dignity on its face.

For a moment, the worm went limp and flaccid, but then it twitched back into life, started to burrow beneath ground, thought better of it, and zig-zagged off towards where the sun was starting to peek over the horizon.

The ground rumbled again, as six or seven enormous shapes churned along below the surface, following the first worm’s lead.

A patch of sand directly in front of Miz began to tremble. Dronzen took aim with his rifle. “What is that? What the Hell just did that? What’s coming?”

“Chill out, handsome,” said Miz, gently nudging Dronzen’s gun away. A ball of green goo popped out of the ground. “The little dude’s with us.”

* * *

“Vajazzle!” Cal’s voice echoed along the empty corridor. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”

Silence.

More silence than he had been expecting.

He’d been anticipating a fight when he’d gone charging into the wreckage of the crashed ship. He’d almost been hoping for one, actually. The scrapes and bruises he’d earned in his battle with Splurt had completely healed. If anything, he felt even better than he had before it, and was very open to the idea of getting into a punch-up with some Zertex bad guys.

But the corridors were empty, and there was no-one for him to fight.

He had no idea where he was going, either. He knew that somewhere on the ship were lots of other smaller ships, but where they were located was anyone’s guess. Even running at full speed, it would take him weeks to search the place.

He thought about searching for a computer terminal that still had power to it, and trying to pull up a map, but he doubted the maps would take into account the fact that a third of the ship had been reduced to scrap, and so probably wouldn’t have been helpful.

Still, ‘when in doubt, have a shout,’ that was his motto. It hadn’t been his motto long, he’d admit – a bit less than fifteen seconds at that point – but he felt it was a solid one, all the same.

“Yoo-hoo! You want me, old lady? Come get me!” Cal listened to his voice fade away into silence. “Come on, don’t make me make fun of your name, because you know I will.”

An earth tremor rumbled through the ship. Cal staggered, bracing himself against a wall as the whole ship vibrated, then plunged several feet.

“Ooh, shizz,” Cal yelped, the floor beneath his feet bucking him around like an unhappy horse. The corridor tilted sharply, and Cal suddenly found himself halfway up a steep slope. His boots slipped. His hands slapped against the smooth vinyl flooring trying, but spectacularly failing, to find a grip.

Another tremor gave him a nudge and he began to slide, hurtling faster and faster towards a particularly solid-looking corridor wall that waited below.

“Ow, ow, ow, gonna hurt, gonna hurt,” he winced, then a cloud of purple sparkles enveloped him and he was no longer sliding but falling instead.

He hit a metal walkway, bounced once, and rolled towards the edge. A gust of raw heat blasted up at him. Hissing with the shock of it, he hooked an arm around the walkway railing, stopping himself tumbling into a churning bit of white liquid below.

Pain seared his skin in a thousand places at once, and he hurriedly flopped his whole body back onto the walkway, shielding it from the blazing heat.

“You’re wondering where everyone is,” said Lady Vajazzle. She stood a few feet along the walkway, her hood pushed back to reveal the full wrinkled horror of her face. There was a second face on the back of her head, Cal knew. This one was bad, but unless he was very much mistaken, the other one was worse.

The assassin had raised herself off the ground on a squirming mass of tentacles. She balanced there, swaying gently back and forth and giving him the evil eye. Two evil eyes, in fact.

Possibly even four, although it was impossible to tell from this angle.

“I’m wondering a lot of things,” said Cal, pulling himself upright. “That’s actually pretty far down the list. But yeah,” he admitted. “Where is everyone?”

“Dead,” said Vajazzle. “After they let you escape, they had to be punished. And, to be honest, they were all a bit boring.” A smile tugged the corners of her mouth. “And, if I’m being completely truthful, it was just plain amusing to watch their little faces as I snuffed the life out of them. Hilarious, actually.”

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Jesus. And Mech thinks my jokes are bad. What about the tanks?”

“On auto-pilot,” Vajazzle said. “Set to kill anything that wasn’t me or the shapeshifter. Or you. I wanted to kill you personally.”

“Very considerate of you,” said Cal. He jabbed a thumb towards the bubbling morass of liquid below. “What’s that stuff?”

“Warp drive coolant, they tell me,” said Vajazzle. “The warp disk’s somewhere down there, too. The whole thing ruptured when the ship crashed. Terribly radioactive, of course.”

“Haha. Yeah,” Cal said. “Wait, you’re serious? That stuff’s really radioactive?” He shuffled to the center of the walkway and cupped his hands over his testicles.

“It’s been seeping into the ground for years,” Vajazzle said, sounding genuinely delighted about it. “Between the impact and the coolant burbling around down there, they say that’s what’s causing the quakes.”

“Who says?”

“Oh, just they,” said Vajazzle, waving a withered hand. “They’re dead now. Everyone’s dead now.”

“Before you killed them, did they tell you the planet is shaking itself apart?” asked Cal. “It doesn’t have long left.”

“It has long enough,” Vajazzle spat. “Long enough to watch you die.”

She grasped the air and yanked it towards her. Cal flew across the walkway towards her, but he’d been ready for it. He used the momentum to drive a shoulder into her stomach, sending her teetering backwards on her mass of tentacles.

One of the assassin’s thinner tendrils snapped out for his neck, but he threw up an arm, blocked it, then wrapped it around his wrist and tugged. Vajazzle hissed in pain and rage as the appendage snapped off in Cal’s hand.

“Whoops,” he said. “You lost one.”

He tossed the still-twisting tentacle over the railing, then hurled himself at the assassin, fists and feet flying. He moved like he’d never moved before, Tullok’s life force making him faster, stronger, more agile.

Vajazzle’s tentacles were everywhere, swiping and striking and slashing at him from every direction at once. He dodged them all, ducking and weaving through their rubbery mass, hammering her with knees, elbows, and anything else he could think of.

The assassin wrenched a blaster from inside her robe. Cal caught her wrist before she could fire, twisting her grip until her withered fingers were forced open. The gun clattered on the walkway. Cal kicked it out of reach of her tentacles and slammed a shoulder into the old woman’s stomach.

“You’d think I’d feel bad about this,” Cal said, leaping to drive an uppercut into her wart-covered chin. “You know, with you being a thousand years old, or whatever.”

Two tentacles grabbed at him. He stamped them both against the walkway, one after the other. “But guess what? I really don’t. I mean, seriously, not even a tiny bit. If anything, I’m actually enjoying kicking your—”

Vajazzle thrust out both hands and an invisible force battering-rammed into Cal’s chest. He hit the railing hard, then continued over it in a full flip.

The heat howled at him as he rolled over the top railing and plunged towards the churning lake of coolant. A sulfurous stink snagged in his throat, tightening it. Resisting his ‘third time lucky’ instinct to try flying again, Cal threw both arms out in front of him. The fingers of the right hand brushed uselessly past the bottom of the walkway, but the left hand caught, jerking him violently.

Cal’s legs swung down beneath the bridge. The coolant’s heat swirled around him, biting at his skin and slicking him with sweat.

Grimacing, he threw up his right arm until he found the walkway’s edge. His muscles bunched, but before he could pull himself up, Vajazzle stepped up to the edge, blocking him. She scowled down at Cal, her red eye flickering like there was a faulty connection in her head.

“Well, well, well,” said the assassin. “What are we going to do with you?”

Cal grinned hopefully. “Help me up and let me go?” He watched the expression on Vajazzle’s face darken further. “No, I guess it was a bit of a long shot,” he sighed, then he braced himself as the tentacles beneath the assassin’s robe began to roll and heave.

Twenty-Two

“Cover me!” whispered Loren, sprinting from cover and racing in a zig-zag pattern towards a docking bay control terminal.

Mech looked around them at the vast, empty deck. Splurt, who was sitting on his shoulder, looked around, too. “From what? There ain’t no-one here,” Mech called after her. “Hellooooo? Bad guys?” He listened for a reply. None came. “See? Nothing.”

“Why is she running like that?” asked Miz, slouching on one hip and crossing her arms over her chest. “She looks like an idiot.”

Across the deck, Loren dived into a forward roll, twisted mid-maneuver, and stopped with her back against the free-standing terminal, blaster pistol raised in front of her.

“Clear!” she shouted.

“Wow. She really likes this sort of thing, doesn’t she?” said Dronzen. He set off after Mech and Miz, beckoning for the Zertex troops to follow him. They all shuffled out of cover behind him, close together, so they looked like one enormous multi-headed entity.

By the time they all reached Loren, her fingers were flying across two different touch screens, tapping and swiping, her head tick-tocking back and forth between each display.

“What’s the situation?” asked Mech.

The left screen flashed red and let out an angry buzz. Splurt quivered uneasily.

“I’m guessing it’s not great,” Mech added.

“There are only a few viable ships,” Loren said, not lifting her eyes from the screen, or slowing her tap-tap-swiping. “Most are damaged, some are stuck, a few just aren’t where they’re meant to be.”

“What about the other decks?” asked Dronzen.

“Worse than this one,” Loren replied. The screen on the right flashed green and let out an altogether more friendly ting. “OK, I got one transporter. It’ll take ten.”

A murmur went around the Zertex group. “Leave him,” one man suggested, pointing to another. “No-one likes him, anyway. Sorry. No offence.”

“Er… quite a lot taken.”

“No-one’s getting left behind,” said Dronzen. He looked to Loren and lowered his voice. “Right?”

Loren’s fingers flew across the screens for a few more seconds. “I have that transporter, and enough one-man fighters for the rest. Unlocking them now.”

She frowned and moved both hands to the right screen. They worked together, blurring as she drilled through screen after screen of data.

“Problems?” asked Mech.

“No, there’s… I think there’s another ship,” said Loren. “But I can’t see what it is. It’s like it’s hidden.”

“A test project, maybe?” asked Dronzen.

The screen blinked green. Loren let out a sharp, “Ha!” of triumph. “Guess we’ll find out,” she said, drawing her blaster again. She nodded to Mech. “Cover me!”

“Sure,” Mech replied, as Loren tore off along the deck. “Whatever you say.”

* * *

Cal’s fingertips ached. His arms burned. His legs burned, too, but that was more to do with the searing pit of liquid beneath him than the effort of holding onto the walkway.

Vajazzle’s tentacles inched towards him, wriggling like vipers across the metal bridge. Cal shuffled his hands sideways, trying to put distance between himself and a particularly unpleasant-looking purple appendage, but stopped when he saw something thin and gray, like an eel’s tail, slithering in from the other side.

There was nowhere to go. Nowhere but down, at least, and he was keen to explore all other possible options before settling on that particular route.

“So… how’s it going?” he asked. “Anything you’d like to get off your chest or anything? Considering, you know, I’m probably going to be the last person you ever talk to. It’s going to get pretty lonely here, all on your own.” He raised his eyebrows and gasped. “Wait, here’s an idea. Don’t kill me.”

Vajazzle’s withered lips pulled into a mirthless grin. “Nice try, Mr Carver. Utter isolation will be an endless joy, compared to another moment in your company.”

“OK, I know you probably didn’t mean it to be, but that was actually quite hurtful,” said Cal. “And, of course, you’re forgetting one thing.”

“And what might that be?”

“Now, Splurt!” cried Cal.

Vajazzle didn’t react.

“Attack her from behind!”

Vajazzle tutted in disappointment. “I literally have eyes in the back of my head, Mr Carver,” she said, turning to reveal the horrifically misshapen face protruding from the back of her skull. It hissed at him, showing what he felt was an unnecessary number of teeth.

As she turned, her robe brushed across his fingers.

“Ah, fonk it,” Cal mumbled, then he grabbed the robe and jerked hard on it, heaving himself up onto the handrail.

Vajazzle hissed in pain or annoyance – or possibly both – and whipped around. She thrust out a hand and that invisible force slammed into Cal again. He wrapped his arms around the metal railing, but the pole itself sheared in two, bending outwards so Cal was now dangling over the toxic coolant from a length of rusty iron that was already buckling beneath his weight.

“Any last words?” the assassin asked.

Cal looked past her in surprise. “President Sinclair?!”

Vajazzle sighed. “Eyes on the back of my head.”

“Shizz, yeah. Forgot,” said Cal.

A violent shudder tore through the ship, shuddering up out of the world below. The railing bar Cal was gripping wobbled violently, the metal screeching as it bent still further.

The bridge itself rocked sideways, sending Vajazzle staggering towards the gap. Her tentacles thrashed towards the handrails on either side, but the welded joint of the floor beneath her came apart with a rending squeal and she stumbled, screaming, towards the gap.

The pole in Cal’s hands folded, swinging him down towards the underside of bridge. He had a second, maybe two, until it gave way. The edge of the walkway was three feet above him. Too far to jump. Way too far.

Cal heard that voice whisper to him again. That emotive, beautiful, Teen Choice Award nominated voice.

“Believe!” it whispered, oozing drama, then it added: “Also, the life force thing.”

“Fonk it,” said Cal. He jumped up and to the left, just as the bridge gave way on his right, spilling Vajazzle towards the bubbling mass of coolant.

Cal’s hands found a grip on the mesh floor of the walkway. The earthquake juddered the ship and the walkway tilted towards him, slipping his fingers back towards the edge.

“No, no, don’t you dare,” he hissed, making a grab for one of the vertical handrail bars. He caught hold, cheered briefly, then hissed in pain as a weight jerked his legs, almost ripping him in two.

One of Vajazzle’s tentacles had snagged around his foot, wrapping in a knot around his ankle. Vajazzle swung from the other end of the tentacle, upside-down, her neck craned so her red-eyed glare was fixed on Cal.

“It’s fitting, I suppose!” she hissed. The heat from the rolling pool of coolant was flaking her skin off. It floated from her flesh, becoming first ash, then nothing at all in the air. “We both die. Together.”

“Uh, Vajazzle,” Cal said. “Look out behind you.”

The assassin sneered. “How many times, Mr Carver? Eyes in the back of my…”

Her face fell as she saw, too late, the spout of liquid erupting upwards towards her.

“Oh no.”

The coolant column didn’t quite reach her. It didn’t have to. The weight on Cal’s leg evaporated. Pushed on by the rising cloud of heat, Cal heaved himself up onto the walkway, wasted half a second catching his breath, then ran for the only available exit, as the ground continued to shake, and the walls began to crack and crumble around him.

* * *

Loren’s fingers hammered angrily on another touch screen, eliciting another red flash and aggressive-sounding bzzzt. She’d deactivated three security protocols, and was now working on the fourth and, hopefully, final one.

“Maybe you should just leave it,” said Mech, shouting to make himself heard over the rumbling of the earth and the grinding of collapsing metal as the AX11 shook itself apart around them. “We ain’t got much time.”

“Get everyone to the other ships,” Loren instructed, not looking up.

“But we don’t know how to fly,” pointed out one of the Zertex crew.

“In those fighters it’s literally just one button to take off. You can’t miss it. It’s says ‘Take Off’ on the front in big white letters,” said Loren. She shot Miz a look. “And no, that wasn’t sarcasm.”

“And what then?” asked the Zertex man.

“You use the fonking stick and you point the ship towards the big hole in the sky!” Loren barked. “The transporter is much the same,” she continued, turning back to the screen. “Except instead of one button to push, there’s seventeen.”

“Seventeen?” spluttered three of the Zertex people at once.

“Eighteen if you also want to breathe,” Loren said. “Mech, show them.”

Mech took her by the arm. “We need to leave whatever’s in there, and get ready to go ourselves.”

Loren’s eyes met his. “There aren’t enough ships,” she told him. “Not for all of us. Whatever’s in there is our only way out.”

Mech held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Then what you waiting for? Get going.”

He spun around and addressed the anxious knot of Zertex troops. “Everyone who don’t want to die here, y’all better come with me.”

“Wait!” said Miz, holding up a clawed hand. Her ears pivoted. “Hear that?”

“I hear a lot of things,” said Mech. “None of them good. You might want to be more specific.”

“Shh,” Miz hissed. She closed her eyes and listened, then they flicked wide in surprise. “Cal! I can hear Cal!”

“What? Where? Go!” said Loren. “Find him.”

Mech felt a sudden squirming on his shoulder. Splurt launched himself onto Miz’s back, wrapping himself around her like a backpack.

“Want me to come?” asked Dronzen.

“Oh, you betcha, hot stuff,” Miz purred, eyeing him hungrily. He took a step towards her and she held up both hands. “Oh, wait, you mean to find Cal? No, you’ll totally slow me down. Like, I don’t know, get on a ship, I guess.”

Dronzen looked over at Loren and the increasingly impatient-looking Mech. “Right. Aye. Aye, I should do that,” he said, then he launched himself towards her, caught her by the arms and they kissed.

Mech’s nostrils flared as he watched Miz’s long, pink tongue explore Dronzen’s mouth. “Man, that is just nasty,” he muttered.

Miz and Dronzen’s kissing became more passionate, their hands exploring each other. Miz leaned over, bending the much smaller Dronzen beneath her.

Mech grimaced. “Seriously. That shizz ain’t right.”

Even Splurt, who was still clinging to Miz’s back, looked awkward.

“Miz,” said Loren. The smooching continued. “Mizette! Cal.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah,” said Miz, straightening and releasing Dronzen. His face shone with saliva. He shot Loren and Mech a sheepish look and blushed slightly, as he drew his sleeve across his spit-soaked chin. “See you soon,” Miz told him, then she winked, and spun on her heels.

Splurt’s bulbous eyes flicked across the group from the center of Miz’s back, then she was off and running, bounding on all four across the floor, as the deck rumbled and shook around them.

* * *

Cal raced along a corridor, his knees pumping furiously as the ceiling collapsed in a chain reaction of crashes and thuds behind him. As he drew closer to the door at the far end he launched himself towards it, tumbled through, then hit the wall on the other side.

He was off and running again at once, picking a direction at random and powering himself along as the ship vibrated itself to pieces at his back.

“Loren! Miz! Mech! Dronzen!” he shouted. “Er… or any of those other guys! Can anyone hear me?”

There was a sound like God himself groaning and a crack tore across the corridor dead ahead of him. Cal bounded across as the gap rattled itself apart, widening with each thunderous boom of the planet below.

“Cal!”

The cry came from somewhere up ahead. Cal hurried on, staggering into the walls on either side of him as the ship bucked around.

“Miz? Miz, is that you?”

He found her after two more turns. “Oh, thank fonk!” he cried, throwing his arms around her and hugging her for the scantest of seconds. Splurt flopped onto his arm and rolled up onto his shoulder, then nuzzled gently against his cheek. “Good to see you, too, buddy,” Cal said, then he yelped as Miz grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back the way she’d come.

“Come on, we have to get out of here.”

“Shame,” said Cal. “I hear they have excellent gym facilities.”

A wall collapsed behind them, filling the corridor with dust and smoke and a tumble of electrical wiring all going fzzt.

“But another time, maybe,” Cal bellowed as he picked up the pace. “For now, run!”

Twenty-Three

Cal and Miz skidded, neck and neck, onto the landing deck, only to find it filled with choking clouds of black smoke.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Miz muttered.

“You sure this is the right place?” Cal coughed.

Miz nodded. She tried to sniff the air, but there was very little air to sniff. “Come on, this way,” she said, plunging into the smoke.

Covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve, Cal dived in after her. “Loren?” he shouted between hacks and splutters. “You here?”

“Cal? Over here!”

“I see her,” said Miz, grabbing Cal’s arm again and pulling him behind her.

They stumbled on and emerged in an area where the smoke was thinner and less toxic. Loren was still at her terminal, fingers still jabbing furiously at the screen.

“Ta-daa! Look who’s alive!” said Cal, grinning and gesturing to himself.

“Yeah, well not for long,” said Loren, putting a real downer on the moment. “Unless I can get this door open.”

Blinking away the smoke, Cal saw a towering set of metal doors standing fifteen feet beyond the terminal. “Isn’t there, like, a handle or something?”

“No!” Loren snapped. “I’ve disabled the security protocols, but I think the door is jammed.”

“And we need the door open because…?”

“Because there’s a ship in there,” said Loren. “The last ship. Our only way out.”

Cal swallowed. “Then why are you wasting time talking to me? Open the fonking thing!”

“I can’t, I told you, it’s jammed!” said Loren, slamming her fists on the screen in frustration.

She ran to the barrier and dug her fingers into the hairline gap where the two doors met in the middle. Gritting her teeth, she heaved. “Don’t just… stand there,” she grimaced. “Help me.”

Cal and Miz raced to join her. Miz took one side, while Cal positioned himself in the middle, digging his hands in back to back, so he could pull in opposite directions.

“On three,” he began. “One…”

“Just shut up and pull!” Loren barked. “There’s no time for countdowns!”

“OK, but I’d totally have been at three by now,” Cal pointed out, as they all heaved and pulled together.

The door didn’t budge.

“Mech, where the fonk is Mech?” Cal asked through gritted teeth.

“Here,” Mech grunted, emerging from the smoke with both arms raised. “Step aside.”

“No, wait!” said Loren, but it was too late. She, Cal and Miz dived for cover as Mech unleashed a volley of blaster fire on the doors. The laser bolts ricocheted off the metal and screamed past just inches from Cal’s head.

“You think I didn’t try that?” Loren shouted, but her voice was drowned out by an explosion from somewhere deeper in the ship. The floor undulated unpleasantly and the black smoke swirled in around them.

“Where’s everyone else?” Cal wheezed, covering his mouth again.

“Gone,” said Mech. “I got them onto the ships. They should be taking off right about now.”

Cal wheezed and spluttered. “Oh, well at least those nameless guys no-one cares about are all safe,” he said, sliding his back down the door as the smoke swirled into his lungs. “And that’s the main thing.”

“They do have names,” Miz coughed.

“What? Get out of town! All of them?” said Cal. He looked at his shoulder, which was about his full range of vision in the smoke. “Hey, where’s Splurt?”

The doors flew open with a grinding of gears. Cal toppled backwards into a room filled with fresh air. Wheezing, he gulped it down. From flat on his back, Cal saw a long strand of green strung between the doors, forcing them apart. A pair of wide eyes looked down on him.

Cal managed a thumbs-up, then Mech was scooping him up off the floor and half-dragging, half-carrying him further into the hangar. Splurt dropped into a ball behind them, and rolled along at Cal’s feet.

A ship stood before them, its landing legs clamped onto the hangar floor. Cal’s first thought was, “Ooh, that’s quite big,” because his appreciation of spaceship design was largely limited to size, shape and color, and not necessarily in that order.

The ship was twice the size of the Shatner, possibly a little bigger still. It had two wings, three legs and a couple of enginey-looking bits at the back. Despite all those, it somehow managed to look impossibly sleek, like it had been carved out of one solid piece of metal, then polished to within an inch of its life.

Cal had never wanted any object more than he wanted that ship, with the possible exception of a Castle Grayskull playset when he was six. Even then, he reckoned this would’ve come out on top.

The landing ramp was open, and Loren was already tearing up it, Miz hot on her heels. Cal scooped up Splurt, then hurried into the ship. Mech came last, closing the ramp behind him.

“Check this place out!” said Cal, gazing in awe at the smooth lines of the ship’s interior. The AX11 shuddered with the force of another earth tremor, and Cal grabbed onto Mech to stop himself falling over. “But, you know, later. Now’s probably not the time.” He pointed along the corridor ahead of them. “That way?”

“That way,” Mech confirmed.

By the time they reached the bridge, Loren was already sitting behind a long curved bank of controls. As she slid forwards on her chair, the control desk drew in closer, forming a horseshoe shape around her.

Miz had quickly worked out which chair had the fewest controls around it, and made a bee-line for that one. She slouched down into it, bounced up and down to check it would hold her weight, then draped a leg over the arm rest.

“Not bad,” she said. “Not bad at all.”

“Which one’s the gunner’s seat?” asked Cal, taking in the chairs on the bridge. Unlike on the Shatner, there were more than enough chairs for everyone, but Cal wanted to make sure he was the one who got to shoot the guns.

“No idea,” said Loren. “Just pick one. Hurry up!”

She flipped a switch and a holographic display appeared in the air above the controls. Loren’s eyes darted across them, her fingers flexing nervously.

“Tell me you know how to fly this thing,” said Cal, sliding into the chair closest to her.

“It’s… I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Loren. “I mean… I don’t know where to start.”

“Start by getting us the fonk out of here,” Mech suggested, stomping up behind her. “This whole place is about to shake itself apart, and I don’t think we want to be here when it does.”

“I know!” Loren yelped. “I just… These controls aren’t like anything I’ve ever used before.”

“What about that one?” asked Cal, leaning over and jabbing a finger through a holographic symbol. The lights flickered, and the bridge was suddenly plunged into absolute darkness. “OK, so maybe not that one.”

“Self-destruct sequence activated,” intoned a stiff, dusty-sounding voice from somewhere above them.

“What?” Loren cried. “How?”

“Detonation in five… four…”

“That wasn’t my fault!” Cal protested. “OK, obviously it totally was my fault, but let’s not dwell on that right now.”

There was an electrical hum and the lights returned. “Sorry,” said the voice from the ceiling. “Just my little joke.”

Cal looked up, half-expecting to find an elderly English butler dangling from the roof. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t.

“Uh, hello? Who said that?” Cal asked.

“I am K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta,” said the voice. “An experimental – and, if I may say, groundbreaking - artificial intelligence installed upon--”

“Can you start the engines?” asked Loren, interrupting the voice.

“Would you like me to?” asked K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta.

“Yes!” shouted everyone else at the same time.

“Very well. As you wish.”

The ship hummed. The viewscreen illuminated, revealing a narrow strip of light ahead between the hangar bay ceiling and the shuddering ground below.

“OK, can you fly us out of here?” Loren demanded.

“Indeed I can, ma’am.”

Nothing happened.

“Er… then do it,” said Cal.

“Very good, sir. Calculating launch trajectory,” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta.

Nothing continued to happen. The gap between ceiling and ground grew smaller.

“Apologies, my calculations may take some time,” the AI informed them.

“How much time?” asked Cal.

“Seventeen hours,” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta. “Ish.”

“What?! Are there manual controls?” Loren cried.

“It will take longer if everyone keeps asking me questions,” the AI pointed out. Quite snippily, Cal thought.

“Manual controls. Now!”

“Very well, ma’am. If you insist.”

The bank of controls in front of Loren reformed like a Transformer, becoming something much more familiar.

“That’s more like it!” said Loren. One of her hands went to a lever, the other to a control stick. She hit the launch thrusters and the ship did nothing at all.

“Way to go,” said Miz. “Seriously. Good job.”

“The docking clamps!” Loren realized. “Disengage the docking clamps!”

“Oh, you want me to do that bit, do you?” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta. Cal was sure he heard the AI sniff. “I’m qualified to handle that part, am I?”

“Just do it!”

The docking clamps disengaged and the ship streaked towards the narrowing gap. Loren gritted her teeth. Splurt hopped into Cal’s lap. Even Mech braced himself and closed his eyes as the ceiling raced down to meet the floor.

“This is going to be tight!” Loren grimaced. She instinctively ducked as the ship scraped by beneath the collapsing roof, then yanked back on the stick as they screamed out into the open air. The ship banked upwards at a skeleton-shaking right angle, just as the ground beneath the AX11 opened like a set of hungry jaws, swallowing the entire city-sized wreck and dragging it below the surface.

“Oh man, check out the vortex,” groaned Mech.

On screen, they could make out the transport shuttle and fighter ships outlined against the shimmering colors of the space hole. The hole itself, though, was shaking and rolling like a bad TV signal, its once-smooth edges now jagged and angry-looking.

“Hit the gas!” Cal instructed. “The planet’s about to fall apart, and if that thing really is connected, it’s not going to stay open for long.”

Loren let out a breath she’d been keeping inside. “OK. Hold on,” she urged, pushing forward on the thrusters.

The sky blurred. Everyone screamed. Loren inched back on the lever. Everyone screamed some more.

The vortex filled the viewscreen now, with the transporter and fighter ships all just a few miles ahead.

“Holy shizz, this thing’s fast,” Loren gulped.

“You can say that again,” said Cal, once he’d successfully dislodged his tongue from the back of his throat.

“I feel I should draw your attention to the pursuit ships which are currently approaching,” announced K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta.

“Pursuit ships?” said Cal. “How can there be…?”

A torrent of laser fire tore past them. On screen, one of the fighter craft exploded in a tornado of fire and debris.

“They appear to be automated,” the AI informed them. “They launched from the AX11 just as we did.”

“Looks like Vajazzle had one last trick up her sleeve,” said Cal. “Let’s blow those things out of the sky.”

“An excellent plan, sir, save for one minor detail,” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta. “Weapon systems are currently non-operational.”

Another stream of blaster fire howled past, narrowly missing the transport ship.

“Incoming transmission,” K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta announced. “Should I display it, or tell them you’re not in?”

“On screen,” said Cal.

“Very good, sir.”

A rectangular overlay appeared in the top right corner of the viewscreen, showing a frantic-looking Dronzen. “Where the fonk did that pair of bamstons come from?” he yelped. “We just lost… uh… you know. Whatsisname. With the beard.”

More laser fire scorched past the transport ship, jerking it to one side. “We need to stop those fighters, quick flaming smart!” Dronzen said.

“We can’t,” Cal explained. “We’ve got no weapons. Just keep going. Get through the vortex before it closes.”

Dronzen didn’t reply. Not for a long time. When he did, it wasn’t really anything to write home about.

“Right then,” he said, then he leaned heavily on his stick. In the main view, one of the saucer-shaped Zertex fighters banked sharply, wobbled erratically, then rocketed past right above the top of the screen, making everyone but Mizette duck.

“What are you doing?” Miz demanded. “Dronzen? Galto? Do you want to get in the hole or not? Because if you do, you had better get yourself through that vortex first.”

“No can do, gorgeous,” said Dronzen. “If I don’t do this, any one of these ships could get blown to bits. Including yours. And I’m not about to let that happen.” He gritted this teeth. “Tell my wife and kids I’m sorry.”

“No, but… wait, wife and kids?” said Miz.

On screen, Dronzen grinned. “Nah, just kidding,” he said. He fixed the screen with a look of such sincerity, Cal had to bite his lip to stop himself bursting into tears. “Take care, Miz,” Dronzen said. “I love you.”

Miz blinked. “Uh… what?”

“I think he said he loves you,” Cal said.

“Yeah. Like, uh, sure, whatever,” said Miz. She shifted in her seat. “But, I mean, I’ve only known you for a day.”

“What?” said Dronzen. His face reddened. “Eh, yeah. Yeah. What? That’s… I’m not…”

“I mean, I like you, and everything,” said Miz. “But, no offence, that’s a bit stalker-ish. I think maybe we should, you know, like take a break?”

“What?” said Dronzen again. “Oh. I mean, yeah. Right you are.” He puffed out his cheeks. “Well, uh, OK. I guess I’ll see you, then. Take care of yourself.”

Mizette nodded. “Will do.”

“Right,” said Dronzen. He hesitated, then leaned forwards and tapped a button next to his camera. His image remained fixed in place. He smiled awkwardly and tried again. “Sorry, I don’t know how to switch this--”

His picture snapped off. Miz relaxed into her chair. “Wow. What a weirdo,” she said.

“The total weirdo has successfully engaged the pursuit craft,” announced K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta. “Transporter and fighters are passing vortex event horizon now. I suggest we increase thrust before…”

Behind them, the planet exploded.

“…that happens,” concluded the AI.

As the shockwave raced up behind them, the vortex launched into its final thrashing death throes.

“Loren, punch it!” Cal cried, gripping his arm rests and holding his tongue between his teeth.

Space stretched as Loren pushed forward on the throttle. A pair of invisible thumbs pressed against Cal’s eyeballs, swimming them with swirls of color.

And then, in a flash of blinding white, the sky was filled with dozens of Zertex ships. “We made it!” Cal cheered. “Holy shizz, we made it!”

He looked out across the fleet of ships. “Wait, these are the guys who chased us in here,” Cal realized. “Have they just been hanging around here this whole time? Don’t they have homes to go to?”

“Time difference,” said Mech. “Vajazzle was in there for years but to us it was just a few days. Based on that, we probably just went through the vortex a few minutes ago.”

“So Sinclair’s still there?” said Cal. A grin lit up his face. “And he won’t know this is us! We can sneak away without him noticing.”

“Oh,” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta.

Cal looked up. “Oh?”

“No, it’s nothing, sir,” said the AI. Cal continued looking up. “It’s just, I may have transmitted a full status update to all Zertex vessels within range, including details of the ship’s current occupants,” he said. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

Another overlay appeared on the screen. This one was filled by President Sinclair’s face. “Carver!” he roared. “How? How are you on that ship? That’s my ship!”

Cal pointed to the floor. “What, this ship? This ship right here?” He turned, and was delighted to find he had a spinny chair. “Any of you guys know this was the space president’s ship?”

“Nope,” said Mech.

“Not me,” said Loren.

Miz shrugged. “Whatever.”

Cal turned back to the viewscreen. “Sorry, we didn’t know.” He frowned. “Wait, hold on,” he said, then he lifted Splurt to his ear and pretended to listen. “Yeah… Uh-huh. You don’t say?”

“The entity!” Sinclair growled. “You have the entity. They have the entity!”

“Turns out Splurt knew it was yours,” Cal said, setting the blob back down on his lap. Splurt wriggled around, like a cat getting comfy. “So, you know, I can only apologize.”

“Surrender,” Sinclair seethed. “Or be destroyed.”

“Yeah. I don’t think so,” said Cal. “You see, the, uh, Currently Untitled is our ship now. Hope you don’t mind.” He leaned back in his chair. “Loren, warp us out of here!”

Loren stared blankly down at the controls. “Um… Warp. Warp, warp, warp, where is the…?”

“Perhaps this one, sir?” suggested K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta. A single green circle appeared in the air in front of Cal.

Cal pushed it.

Nothing happened.

“What does it do?” he asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t recall, sir.”

“What? What do you mean ‘you don’t recall’?”

“Precisely that, sir,” said the AI. “I don’t recall. Presumably I was, once upon-a-time, aware of the button’s purpose, but it appears to have slipped my mind. However, I do have a nagging suspicion you probably shouldn’t have pressed it, sir.”

“You told me to!” Cal spluttered.

“Did I sir?” K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta reflected on this for a moment. “Oh.”

“Is that thing, like, all there?” asked Miz, shooting the ceiling a glance.

“It’s funny you should ask, ma’am,” said the AI. “My experimental nature, coupled with the damage I sustained during the AX11’s crash – as well as several years of forced solitude – means I have possibly gone quite mad.

“And by ‘possibly,’” he continued, “I in fact mean ‘probably.’”

“Great,” said Cal.

“And by ‘probably,’ I mean ‘quite categorically.’”

“Excellent,” said Cal. “Even better.”

“Now, if I may be so bold, I suggest you all hold on.”

“Why?” asked Cal, gripping his arm rests. Through the viewscreen ahead of them, they all watched as space ballooned outwards and inwards at the same time, bulging and contracting all at once. “Oh, that’s why,” Cal said. “What happens now?”

“An excellent question, sir,” said K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta. “In fact, it’s so good, I was about to ask you the same one.”

Cal gritted his teeth and glanced around at the others as the inny-outty space blister engulfed the ship.

Maybe he didn’t know what was going to happen next. Maybe no-one did.

But, man, he thought, it was going to be fun finding out!

You know, assuming they didn’t die, or anything.

EXTRA BONUS CONTENT

Want a sneak preview of the fourth Space Team book, Song of the Space Siren? Read on…

Song of the Space Siren - Chapter One

Dogan Murt was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a brave man.

He wasn’t technically a ‘man’ at all, in fact. He was a Talpan – a race of wide-eyed humanoid, yet somewhat mole-like creatures who traditionally lived deep underground, and smelled ever so faintly of kitty litter.

Not content with spending the entirety of his adult life in a dark cave (or overly keen on the kitty litter thing), Dogan had struck out on his own, determined to make his way in the world. That had been several years ago. Of late, things had not been going well.

Dogan looked down at the scrap of paper he clutched in his shaking hands, then up at the flickering neon sign above the door. His reading ability was low at the best of times, and a full third of the letters in the sign were in darkness, but he was pretty sure this was the place.

He pushed open the door. Sweat and smoke and noise and movement all rushed out through the gap.

He closed the door again, alarmed by the brutality of it all.

“Do it, Dogan! Do it, Dogan!” he whispered. It had become a sort of personal mantra of his over the years, and he called on it whenever fear threatened to thwart his attempts to better himself.

‘Do it Dogan,’ had even been his nickname for a while back in the caves, although it was usually said in mocking tones, and followed swiftly by a sharp punch to the testicles. He had no nicknames now, of course. To have a nickname, first you needed a friend. Or an enemy who knew you well enough.

Siphoning some air in through his sharp front teeth, Dogan pushed the door all the way open, clenched his fists down at his sides, then stepped into the bar.

Even before getting the measure of the place, Dogan knew he didn’t approve. The Talpan were fiercely moral, and public venues where people got into fights, drank excessively and did the sort of things the three-legged gentleman on stage was doing were very much frowned upon.

Despite himself, Dogan looked more closely at the man on the stage, and came to the conclusion that the third appendage wasn’t actually a leg at all.

Horrified, Dogan turned away, blinked several times to try to erase the images he’d just witnessed, then headed for one of the bar’s empty booths.

“Sorry. Pardon me. Can I just squeeze… thanks,” he mumbled, weaving his way through the crowds. He reached the dimly-lit booth, only to find a hulking green figure lurking in the corner, nursing a drink.

“Oh. Sorry,” said Dogan. “I just… I didn’t…” He smiled hopefully at the booth’s occupant. “Would you mind?”

The creature stared impassively at Dogan for several seconds, its eyes glassy and black. At last, it waved a clawed hand at the bench across the table, and Dogan slid gratefully onto the ripped and threadbare padding.

“Thank you,” said Dogan, nestling into the shadows. The lizard-creature nodded once, but said nothing.

Now that he was out of the crowds, Dogan took a moment to scan the place. A horseshoe-shaped bar took up around a quarter of the floor space, with the raised stage over by the far wall taking up a much smaller chunk. Clearly people came for the entertainment, but stayed for the booze.

The lights were low, the volume was high, and while there were a few groups hanging out together, most of the clientele seemed to be in pairs or on their own.

Dogan felt the lizard-creature’s eyes on him, and smiled shakily. “I’m looking for someone,” he explained. “I was told I might find him here.”

He glanced around the bar again, anxiously picking at his black fingernails. “I need his help. I am in trouble,” he explained, his voice dropping to a whisper.

Dogan caught himself just in time. He regarded the green-skinned alien cautiously. “You are not with the Xandrie, are you?”

The creature shook its head slowly.

“Zertex?” asked Dogan, eyeing up the exit. “Are you law enforcement? Because I’m not allowed to talk to them, the Xandrie made that very clear.”

The creature shook its head again.

“And you have to tell me if I ask you. It’s the law,” Dogan insisted.

The creature growled deep down in its throat, then shook its head again.

Dogan nodded, relieved. “Good. Good. I apologize. I had to ask, you understand?”

The creature said nothing.

“You understand,” said Dogan, answering on its behalf. He rubbed the tabletop that stood between them, feeling every scratch with the pink, wrinkled skin of his fingertips.

“The problem is, I do not know what he looks like,” said Dogan, gazing out across the bar again. The genetically blessed young man had been joined on stage by two alarmingly supple women, and many of the bar’s occupants had started to gravitate towards that end of the room.

Dogan clicked his tongue against his teeth in disapproval, then angled himself for a better view so that he could really disapprove if things went the way he thought they were probably going to go.

“But I am in trouble, and I believe he can help me,” Dogan said, tearing his eyes from the stage. “The Xandrie, they want money from my business. In return, they have offered to ‘protect’ it. ‘It’s a nasty part of town,’ they tell me. ‘Wouldn’t want anything happening to you,’ they say.”

The mole-man’s eyes moistened, and he lowered his head for a moment, composing himself. “I paid. For a long time, I paid, but now the cost has gone up, and I can no longer afford to do so. Besides,” he said, getting angry. “It is my business. My money. My hard work. Why should I pay these… these… gangsters?”

He banged a fist on the table. It very clearly hurt, but he tried not to let on. He glanced around nervously, and the anger left his voice in a long outward breath. “I just want someone to make the Xandrie understand that I cannot be pushed around. That they cannot continue to do as they please.”

Dogan’s eyes swept the bar again, searching for someone he didn’t know, but on whom he’d pinned all his hopes. “I am told this man and his crew may help me. I was told he might be here.” He sighed. “It appears my information was incorrect.”

Drumming his hands on the tabletop, Dogan met the gaze of the lizard-creature and had another attempt at a smile. “My apologies. None of this is your concern. Forgive me for bothering you.”

As Dogan spoke, one of the alien’s clawed hands fumbled at a spot halfway up its scaly throat. Dogan watched in amazement as the claws dug into the spongy flesh, then blinked in surprise as a square flap was peeled aside, revealing a sweat-soaked human face inside.

“Holy shizz, it is fonking hot in there,” gasped the man. He grabbed for his glass, shut his eyes, then tossed his drink in his face. “Oh, yeah. That’s the stuff,” he sighed. “Wow. That’s better.”

Dogan’s face crumpled in confusion. “I… I do not understand. Who are you? What are you?”

“Oh. Yeah. Forgot that bit. Sorry. Name’s Cal. Cal Carver,” said the man in the suit. He gave a rubbery thumbs up. “And, mister, you just hired the Space Team.”

Cal swept the clawed hand across his face, wiping away his drink. “I mean, technically it’s just ‘Space Team’ not ‘the Space Team’ but, well, there was this TV show where I came from, and every week the leader, Hannibal, would…” He shook his head. The rubbery lizard head shook, too. “Know what? It doesn’t matter. The main thing is, you’ve got a problem, no-one else can help, and you’ve found us.”

“Uh… ‘us’?” said Dogan.

The back of the bench behind Dogan shook as someone moved in the next booth over. There was a whirr and a series of clanks, then a scuffed and dented metal figure stepped into view.

Cal looked the cyborg up and down. “Mech! I thought I told you to find a disguise?”

“I did,” said Mech. He ducked a little and pointed to the top of his head.

“A tiny hat,” said Cal. “That’s your disguise? A tiny hat.”

“I’m a seven foot tall cyborg. What the fonk should I have disguised myself as?”

“I don’t know, maybe a different seven foot tall cyborg?” Cal suggested. “One who isn’t on a list of the galaxy’s most wanted.”

Dogan looked between Cal and Mech, his mouth hanging open. A sudden movement at the edge of the booth caught his attention, and he almost screamed when a wolf-like creature in a tightly-fitting leather outfit slid onto the seat next to Cal.

“Hey,” she said. “Who’s the wrinkly pink guy?”

“Uh, D-Dogan,” the wrinkly pink guy stammered, silently adding the “Please don’t eat me,” part in his head.

“Miz! Why aren’t you disguised, either?” asked Cal, turning to look the wolf-woman up and down. Because of his costume, this wasn’t easy, and it took several attempts before he could twist his body enough to let him see her properly.

Miz shrugged. “I don’t know. Seemed kind of lame. Besides, look at me. Blending in? Totally not my thing.”

Cal tutted and shook his head. “How hard would it have been to pop on a pair of glasses or something? You know? A fake nose. A mustache! You couldn’t even give me a mustache.”

“Why are you disguised?” Dogan asked.

“Because we’re wanted by the government for a crime we didn’t commit,” said Cal. He caught the looks from Mech and Miz. “OK, OK, we’re wanted by the government for a crime we did commit. A number of crimes, actually. Mainly, abducting the president, ejecting him into space, and stealing an experimental ship, but it’s a pretty big list.”

Cal pointed a clawed finger at Dogan. “But we’re not here to talk about us. We’re here to talk about you.”

He leaned across the table, but it made his costume ride up and forced his cheeks up into his eyes, so he leaned back again. “Tell us more about these Xandrie guys. And, more importantly, just where we might be able to find them.”

* * *

Cal, Mech and Miz stood in a darkened doorway, watching the building directly across the street. Cal had ditched the lizard costume in an alleyway behind the bar, and now wore the black shirt, cargo pants and scuffed brown boots he’d picked up on their recent trip back to the Bug-infested wasteland that was now the planet Earth.

“So, if I had to say who was who,” said Cal, rubbing his hands together to drive away the cold, “I’d be Face, because, you know, I’m the smooth-talking one who always charms his way out of trouble. But – and here’s the thing - I’d also be Hannibal, because I’m the leader.”

Mech raised an eyebrow. “Leader? You ain’t the leader. We ain’t got no leader.”

“Well, we do, obviously, and it’s me, but that’s OK, because you’re B.A., and everyone loves B.A.!” Cal said, patting Mech on the chest. “‘I ain’t goin’ on no plane, sucka!’ You know?”

Miz wrinkled her nose. “What is he talking about?”

“I have no fonking idea,” Mech admitted.

“Loren’s Murdoch, because they’re both pilots, not because she’s got undiagnosed PTSD or whatever Murdoch had, and Miz…” His mind raced. “Miz is the sexy werewolf lady they rarely spoke about.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned his attention back to the doorway across the road. “I mean, we’re not exactly the same, but there are broad similarities is the point I’m trying to make.”

It had been over a month since Cal had been abducted from his prison cell and whisked into outer space, and while lots of it was all still new and exciting, there were a few parts which were already losing their novelty.

Streets like this, for example. He knew he couldn’t have seen this street before – they’d only arrived on the planet a few hours ago – and yet there was something tediously familiar about it. The shadowy nooks. The grimy windows. The flurries of litter tumbling along it on the whims of the breeze.

There were streets just like it back on Earth. Streets you didn’t walk down if you valued your wallet, your kneecaps or your life. Cal had seen more than his fair share back on his home planet, and was amassing quite the collection on other worlds, too.

“Think that’s the place?” he asked.

Mech tapped the screen on his forearm and scanned the doorway opposite. “Door’s heavy. Reinforced. Take a tank to knock that thing down.”

“Can you do it?” Cal asked.

Mech snorted and clanked his way across the street. “Just watch me.”

Cal hurried to keep up, with Miz stalking along behind him.

“OK, so let’s just go in there, throw our weight around a little – well, your weight, mostly,” Cal said, looking from Mech to Miz in turn, “and give them a warning. Let’s try not to kill anyone this time, if we can avoid it. Mizette, I’m looking at you here.”

“Fine,” Miz sighed. “But what if they deserve it?”

“If they genuinely deserve it, it’s totally fine,” said Cal. “But you said that last guy deserved it because he was wearing yellow pants.”

“He totally did deserve it,” said Miz.

“Girl’s got a point,” agreed Mech. “Those were some nasty pants.”

A car blared its horn at them as it hovered past. Miz gave it the finger, and Cal felt a swelling of pride that he’d taught her the gesture. They stepped onto the sidewalk and positioned themselves by the reinforced door.

“We should have brought Loren on this,” Cal whispered, drawing a blaster pistol from the holster on his belt.

“Why, so the two of you could hold hands?” asked Miz, the fur on her neck sticking up ever so slightly.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Cal whispered. “There’s nothing going on between us.”

“Oh, please,” said Miz, then she jabbed a thumb towards the door and glowered at Mech. “Are you going to kick this thing down or not?”

“Get ready,” Mech said. He adjusted the dial on his chest, just a fraction, diverting additional power to his hydraulics. Then he raised a leg and thrust it out in front of him like a battering ram.

The doors flew apart with a screech of tearing metal.

“Oh, man,” Cal whispered. “That was so B.A.”

He took cover behind Mech as the cyborg ducked through the doorway and stomped into the starkly gray hallway beyond. A fluorescent strip light flickered on the ceiling, sending shadows dancing over the gloss-painted walls.

“Attention, uh, the Xandrie,” Cal began, but his voice trailed away when he spotted the blood. It pooled on the vinyl flooring and dribbled down the walls. It dripped from the light fitting and seeped from below the door at the far end of the hall.

And, perhaps most significantly of all, it oozed from the quivering, gelatinous remains of what had presumably once been a living creature, but was now nothing more than gristle and flesh.

Cal’s grip tightened on his blaster. “Uh… hello?” he said, poking the fleshy lump with his shoe. He backed off a little and waited.

“Nope. I think it’s dead,” he announced.

“What do you…? Of course it’s fonking dead!” Mech growled. “Look at it.”

“Well I don’t know, do I?” said Cal, pointing to the bleeding meat. “I saw someone who looked almost exactly like that back on that last planet. The guy giving out the parking tickets. Remember?”

“That was the planet before,” said Mech.

Cal tutted. “Whatever. My point is, how am I supposed to know it’s dead if I don’t gently kick it, say ‘hello,’ and wait to see if it responds?”

Mizette’s nostrils flared. “It’s worse in there,” she said, nodding towards the door.

“Worse?” Cal squeaked. “There’s blood pouring from the ceiling and, I don’t know, a fonking hip lying on the floor. How can it be worse?”

Miz met his gaze and held it. “Trust me,” she said. “It’s worse.”

Cal took a deep breath. It tasted like pennies. “Fine. I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t handle. Let’s go check it out.”

“Why?” asked Mech. “Let’s just turn around and get back to the ship. This shizz right here? This shizz ain’t our problem.”

Cal shook his head in disgust. “And you have the nerve to call yourself B.A. Baracus,” he said.

“I don’t! You called me that,” Mech pointed out. “I don’t even know who that is.” He threw up a hand. “Come on, man. Where are you going?”

Cal had about-turned and now strode purposefully along the hallway, doing his best to look like the man in charge. This was marred slightly by him slipping in the blood puddle and skidding several feet along the corridor, while waving his arms in a panicky flap.

He stumbled the last couple of feet, then steadied himself against the doorframe. “Totally meant that,” he said, then he turned the handle, opened the door a fraction, and poked his head inside.

A moment later, he took it back out again. He turned to Miz, all color draining from his face. “I take it back,” he said. “It’s waaaay worse.”

Continue Reading

A Word from the Author

Thank you.

OK, that’s technically two words.

You have made it to the end of the third Space Team book and could, theoretically, stop here. These first three books make a fairly complete standalone trilogy, and you can always just imagine the ongoing adventures of Cal and the crew.

But you don’t have to.

Thanks to lovely readers just like you, the Space Team universe continues to grow. At the time of writing there are now seven Space Team novels, one short story collection, and books 8-10 on the way.

There is also a spin-off series - Dan Deadman Space Detective - and a Space Team comic book mini-series in the works.

None of this would have been possible without the army of dedicated (and possibly insane) readers giving me their support by buying, reading, sharing and reviewing the books.

Maybe you’re one of them. Or maybe you will be. Either way, thank you for making it this far. I hope you’ll stick around for more of the team’s adventures, but if you’ve reached the end of your Space Team journey, then I’m glad to have had your company this far.

Book four is awesome, though. Seriously. You don’t want to miss it…

Best wishes,

Barry

Your Free Starter Library

Looking for more reading material? I’ve got your covered. Just click here or on the the image on the left to download an exclusive starter library featuring 3 short stories including Space Team: The Holiday Special and a Doctor Who story I wrote for a charity anthology.

Oh! I Almost forgot…

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Also by Barry J. Hutchison

SPACE TEAM SERIES

Space Team

Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle

Space Team: The Search for Spurt

Space Team: Song of the Space Siren

Space Team: The Guns of Nana Joan

Space Team: Return of the Dead Guy

Space Team: Planet of the Japes

Space Team: A Lot of Weird Space Shizz

DAN DEADMAN SERIES

“Dial D for Deadman”

“Dead Inside”

EVERYTHING ELSE

The Bug