Space Team

The Wrath of Vajazzle

Barry J. Hutchison

Zertex Books

Copyright © 2016 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

For Douglas Adams, who first introduced me to the infinite ridiculousness of outer space.

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

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Afterword

Your Free Starter Library

Oh! I Almost forgot…

Also by Barry J. Hutchison

One

Cal Carver was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he didn’t like the ceiling. The first couple of times he’d hit it, it hadn’t been too bad. But now, after the eighth or ninth time of smashing face-first into the thing, the novelty had really started to wear off.

The floor was starting to lose a lot of its charm, too. As Cal’s stolen spaceship, the Shatner banked into an upwards roll, he plunged sharply down and thudded against the metal flooring. All the breath left his body in one big gasp, stealing away his opportunity to curse the Universe in general.

In the pilot’s seat, First Officer Teela Loren twisted and pulled at a variety of creaking levers. On the viewing screen, the stars blurred as the ship dived into a steep plunge. Cal managed a breathless, whispered, “Oh God, not again,” before he shot upwards off the floor and had a painful reunion with the now all-too-familiar roof.

A metal hand whirred and caught him as he began to plummet, then slammed him down into his chair. “Oh, and you couldn’t have done that two minutes ago?” Cal wheezed, hurriedly fastening the buckles of his seat belt across his chest.

“No, I totally could have,” said the cyborg, Mech, his metal jaw curving upwards into a grin. “But I was having way too much fun just watching you flailing around.”

Mech’s metal feet clanked across the floor, his powerful magnets holding him in place. Behind him, idly filing her claws, sat Mizette of the Greyx. Her powerful, head-to-toe-hairy frame was draped lazily across her chair. Her wolf-like ears pricked up, and she winked when she realized Cal was looking her way.

“Hey, handsome.”

Cal smiled weakly. It hurt quite a lot. “Hey yourself,” he said, gingerly prodding at one of the many patches of his face that had been introduced to the ceiling at high speed. “Ooh, that is gonna leave a bruise.”

Loren leaned on the sticks and the Shatner spun into a barrel roll. Cal’s stomach sloshed up to somewhere near his nostrils, before flopping back down again.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelped. “I think I just saw my kidneys.”

“Sorry, almost through!” Loren said.

“Are they following us?” Cal asked.

“Don’t look like it,” said Mech, checking the scanners. “No sign of Zertex ships on the short range scans.”

Cal spun in his seat. “Miz? What about the long range?”

Miz looked up from filing her claws. “What about them?”

“Can you maybe check them? Please?”

“Why do I have to check them?”

Cal gestured to the screen beside her elbow. “Because they’re literally right there.”

Mizette sighed and rolled her eyes, then turned her head the tiniest of fractions to look at the small screen built into her chair’s arm rest.

“Are they, like, lots of little red dots?”

“Yes!” called Loren.

“Just, like, hundreds of little red dots behind us? Is that what I’m looking for?”

“Yes! Do you see them?”

Miz shrugged. “No, I don’t see anything like that. There is a big green dot, though. Is that a problem?”

“No, that’s us,” said Cal. He shot Mech a sideways glance. “Right?”

“Yeah,” said Mech. “Yeah, that’s us.”

Cal could hardly believe their luck. “So… we lost them?”

“Looks like it,” said Mech.

The Shatner bobbed and weaved a few more times, before steadying onto an even keel. “And we’re through the debris field,” Loren announced.

“See? I told you you could do it,” said Cal.

“Yeah,” said Miz. “And we only hit, like, two hundred things. Great job.”

“Thank you,” said Loren, deliberately missing the sarcasm. “OK, going to warp.”

“Oh… good,” Cal grimaced, gritting his teeth and gripping his arm rests. He had been in outer space for less than a week, but seemed to have spent half that time hurtling around at faster than light speeds. Still, at least he didn’t throw up anymore. Or less often, anyway.

The stars became a shimmering lightshow of streaks as the ship lurched into warp. Cal felt his head swim and his stomach tighten. “The screen, change it, change it,” he urged.

Loren flicked a switch on one of her many banks of controls and the image changed to show a video of a kitten trying to climb out of a drawer. If you were being nitpicky about it, it wasn’t technically a kitten. Its eyes were a different shape, for one thing, and its ears were placed a little further back on the head.

It had more legs than a kitten, too, but that somehow just made it all the more adorable. Cal settled back in his chair and managed a smile as his stomach began to calm down. “Ah, baby space cat, what would I do without you?”

Miz glanced up at the screen. Her snout wrinkled. “Not this again. Where I come from, that thing would be dinner.”

“Yeah, well where I come from, we have a proud and noble heritage of watching cute cats do funny stuff,” Cal said. He smiled at the screen. “Just look at his little paws,” he said, then he tore his eyes from the kitten-thing long enough to glance at Loren. “Speaking of where I come from, how long until we get there?”

The ship screamed to a stop, hurling Cal, Miz and Loren forward in their seats until their belts snapped them back. Even Mech staggered as the ship dropped from warp speed to no speed at all.

Cal hissed. “Christ!”

“Sorry! My fault! Totally my fault,” said Loren. “Bit heavy on the brake there.”

Mizette shook her head. “Worst. Pilot. Ever.”

Loren flicked another switch and the alien cat vanished. It was replaced by a slowly spinning ball of green and blue. “This is it,” she said. She looked hopefully at Cal. “This is it, right?”

Cal didn’t answer. He didn’t even hear her. He just stared instead at the planet hanging in the star field before them. He’d only been gone a few days, and yet he felt like he hadn’t seen the place in forever. Longer than forever, even. In a way, it was like he was only now seeing it for the first time.

“Cal?” said Loren.

“Hmm?”

“Is this it?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice coming out as a hushed whisper. “This is it. Welcome to planet Earth.”

It wasn’t that Cal was a particularly big fan of the planet Earth. It had, until recently, been his favorite planet, but that was more a victory by default than anything else, as he’d never been to any others. In fact, it wasn’t until he was abducted from his prison cell in a case of mistaken identity and whisked halfway across the galaxy to do the dirty work of an evil galactic government that he’d even given the idea of visiting other planets any real thought at all.

Since then, he’d visited two other worlds. On the first one, a gangster made of living rock had tried to force him to eat himself, which didn’t really endear the place to him at all.

The second was better. The people – although he used the term loosely – had seemed friendly, and there had been an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet that he’d partaken of, but then a load of Zertex ships had turned up and ruined everything.

Between those two, he’d also briefly visited a moon, but as literally everything and everyone there had been fully committed to killing him, he hadn’t hung around to really get a feel for the place.

All things considered, Earth was probably still his favorite. Then again, he’d really enjoyed that buffet, so it was a tough call.

“It looks just the same,” said Cal. “I mean, not that I’ve seen it from this angle, but… it looks the same.”

“Well, it is the same,” said Loren. “Apart from, you know…”

“The trillions of evil alien bugs your boss sent to kill everyone?”

“Ex-boss,” said Loren, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “And yes. Apart from those.”

“Picking up lots of life signs,” said Mech. “Lots of life signs.”

“People?” said Cal.

“Some.” Mech adjusted the controls on the scanner. “Few hundred million,” he said, and Cal felt his heart soar. Mech frowned. “Wait. No.”

“No?” said Cal. “What does that mean, ‘no?’”

“They’re infected,” said Mech. “The bugs. They’re parasites. They bury inside and--”

“Yes, I know, thanks,” said Cal, his skin crawling. “How many not infected?”

Mech fiddled with the controls for a few more seconds. “One or two million. Maybe less.”

Cal blinked. “Right. OK.” He cleared his throat and shrugged. “The rest were probably all douchebags, anyway.” He brightened. “Hey, I can say ‘douchebags!’”

Shortly after he was first abducted, a translation chip had been implanted into Cal’s skull, right behind his ear. The chip listened for alien languages and seamlessly translated them on the fly, before feeding the English language version into Cal’s brain. This allowed him to understand any known language in the galaxy, and because almost everyone else had their own chip, they could understand him, too.

The only slight drawback was that Zertex, the manufacturer of the chip, didn’t approve of bad language, and all of the more interesting and expressive curse words had been censored. On the rare occasion Cal did manage to squeeze out an expletive, it felt like a tiny victory for freedom of speech.

Cal slapped himself on the side of the head, right where the chip was. “Eat that, douchebag-jerk-ballsack!” he said, combining all three of his available curse words into a devastatingly unimpressive insult.

“You still want to do this?” Loren asked.

Cal nodded and turned his attention back to the screen. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it.”

Loren adjusted the controls. “OK. What are the co-ordinates?”

“Co-ordinates?”

“Yes. The co-ordinates. So I know where to go.”

“By ‘co-ordinates’ do you actually mean ‘address?’”

Loren shook her head. “No.”

“Ah, well. It’ll be fine, just take us down,” said Cal, waving a hand. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

* * *

After four hours of criss-crossing the surface of the Earth, Cal had eventually spotted the United States. They’d actually passed over it six times, but due to the angle of their approach, he’d had trouble recognizing it.

“Seriously, it’s not my fault,” said Cal, as Loren brought the ship in for a landing. “It was upside down.”

“Man, how can it be upside down?” Mech demanded. “It’s a country. It ain’t got no right way up.”

“Yes it does! Like on the map,” Cal insisted. “Canada at the top, Mexico at the bottom. That’s the right way up.”

“It’s a motherfonkin’ land mass,” Mech hissed. “It don’t got no right way up!”

The Shatner touched down heavily, jolting Cal’s teeth together.

“Smooth,” muttered Miz.

“Thanks,” said Loren.

Miz tutted. “I was being sarcastic.”

“Yeah,” said Loren, smiling as she clambered out of her seat. “I know.”

Cal gazed at the screen. A little wooden bungalow with a wrap-around porch sat at the end of a red brick path. The lawn was as neatly cropped as ever, but the rockery was a new addition. It was a house he knew well, but one he hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

“Cal?” said Loren. “You OK?”

Cal flashed her one of his standard go-to grins. “Couldn’t be better.” He hopped up out of his seat and headed for the door that led into the rest of the ship. “Hey, has anyone seen Splurt?”

Ducking under the low door frame, Cal came face-to-face with himself. The other Cal smiled goofily and flapped an arm around in an overly-enthusiastic wave.

“Hey. Splurt. Buddy,” said Cal, putting a hand on the other Cal’s shoulder. “You’ve got to stop turning into me like this. It’s kinda creepy. OK?” He looked himself up and down, admiringly. He was still dressed in the same crumpled shirt, waistcoat and cargo pants combo he’d been wearing for the better part of a week. “Somehow, I still make that look good,” he said, then he stepped back as the other him folded in like melting marshmallow and became a gelatinous green blob on the floor.

“Hey, there he is!” said Cal, looking down into the bulbous, bloodshot eyes floating in the jello-like goo. “Stay here and look after the ship, little buddy, I’ve just got something I need to do, OK?”

Splurt’s surface quivered.

“Thanks, pal. I owe you one,” said Cal, then he stepped over the shapeshifter and headed for the exit ramp.

* * *

A few minutes later, Cal, Miz and Loren stood at the end of the path, watching Mech trudge along it towards the house. A cool Philly breeze rolled along the deserted street, carrying smells that made Miz’s snout furrow in disgust.

Yards which Cal had once torn across on his BMX stood empty and still. Loren eyed the grass warily, her hand on the holster slung across her hip.

“Hear anything?” she whispered. “Bug-wise, I mean?”

Miz cocked her head and raised one wolf-like ear. “Yeah. But nothing too close.”

Loren nodded, but didn’t relax. She turned to Cal. “How you doing?”

“What? Oh, fine. Yeah. Yeah, fine,” he said. “It’s just… weird, you know? I grew up here. I have a lot of good memories of this place.”

There was a loud crack as Mech’s foot punched through the porch. He grabbed for a hand rail and broke it in two. “Shizz,” he muttered.

“You know, before an eight feet tall robot man smashed it to bits,” Cal added.

Mech pulled his leg free and carefully opened the door. The top hinge tore free of the frame and the door sagged inwards.

“Jesus Christ, Mech, baby steps!” Cal called. “This is my childhood here.”

“Hey, fonk you, man, I’m doing my best,” Mech spat. “You build a house out of paper, what do you think’s gonna happen?”

He trudged on into the house. “Don’t see why I gotta be the one to check it for bugs, anyhow,” he grumbled, disappearing inside.

A moment later, a loud crash was followed by another round of angry muttering. Finally, after several destruction-filled seconds, Mech shouted the all-clear.

“OK,” said Cal, bouncing from foot to foot. “OK. So, I’ll just go in, get the stuff we’re here for, and get back out. You two stay here and watch for evil bug creatures.” He puffed out his cheeks. “Maybe we should come up with some sort of signal in case you see any. Some sort of, you know, like code word?”

“Argh, there’s fonking bugs everywhere, run for your life?” Miz suggested.

Cal clicked his fingers and pointed at her. “Bingo. That’s perfect. Let’s go with that.” He turned back to the house and took a series of deep breaths. “OK. OK, I’m doing this. I am so doing this.”

Loren put a hand on his arm. “You’ll be fine. I’m right here if you need me. I mean, you know, we both are.”

With a smile and a nod, Cal pressed on up the path. Mizette and Loren watched him until he was through the door.

“Wow. Well that didn’t make you look desperate at all,” said Miz, her eyes still fixed on the house.

“Uh-huh.”

“I was being sarcastic again, by the way.”

“Really?” said Loren. “You don’t say.”

Cal stood in the hallway, reeling under the sheer weight of the memories that had come crashing down on him the moment he’d stepped over the threshold.

He’d lost count of how many years it had been since he’d been back to visit his parents, but the house hadn’t changed a bit. The broken doors and damaged walls were different, of course, as was the hulking cyborg currently trying to untangle his head from the light fitting, but otherwise the place looked exactly the same.

His dad’s favorite coat hung from the same hook it always did. There’d be a random assortment of screws, bolts and washers in the right pocket, Cal knew, and a pack of cigarettes in the left, even though he’d quit back while Cal was in fourth grade.

“‘Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer,’” Cal whispered, and he could almost picture his dad patting the coat pocket as he said it.

Cal’s gaze went from the coat to a door a little further along the hallway. He made a move towards it, but Mech blocked his path. “I wouldn’t,” the cyborg said.

Cal stared at the door, as if he could force his eyes to see right through the gloss-painted wood. “What, are they in there?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I really want to know.”

Mech nodded. “They’re in there. But you don’t want to see.”

Cal rocked back on his heels, his chest feeling suddenly tight. “Right. Right. Are they… Is it bad? How did they… How did it happen?”

“My guess? Suicide. Overdose of something, there are empty packets all round the place. Probably saw what was happening with the bugs, and didn’t want to have to deal with it. They went together. Peacefully, it looks like, in each other’s arms.”

Cal reached for the door handle. “Oh. That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Then something got in and ate both their faces off.”

“Jesus!” Cal yelped, leaping back from the door like he’d been electrocuted. “What the Hell would have done that?”

“Nothing we want to stick around for,” Mech replied. “I say you get what we came for, and we get the fonk outta here.”

“Yeah,” said Cal, brushing his fingertips against his parents’ bedroom door one last time. “Yeah, let’s go with that plan.”

* * *

Cal lovingly set his guitar on top of his bed in the Shatner’s cramped sleeping quarters, and resisted the urge to tuck it in. It wasn’t particularly valuable, and he only knew four chords, but that instrument had brought him more action in high school and his two-and-a-half weeks of college than he could even remember.

Next to the guitar, he placed the one other object he’d taken from the house. It had been standing on his bedside table, in the same spot it had occupied for the past nine years. He looked at it for as long as he could bear, then turned and almost tripped over the suitcases.

He had been midway through packing up the clothes he had left at his parents’ house, when he’d had a better idea. One quick hop in the ship had brought them to the local mall, and after checking some of the abandoned clothing stores for bugs, he’d gone shopping.

Loren had grabbed herself several new outfits, too. Even Miz, who was taller than the average human by a clear foot, had managed to find one or two pieces that fit. They didn’t fit well, of course, but she’d be able to squeeze into them if it came to it. Taking them back off, however, would be much more challenging.

Now, there was just one thing left to do. It was the whole reason for coming back, if he were honest. He just hoped he was strong enough to do it.

The ship gave a jolt.

“Cal, we’re here,” called Loren from up front.

“Great! Just coming!” said Cal, his voice filled with far more enthusiasm than the rest of him.

He picked up the cuddly rabbit toy from beside his guitar.

He kneaded the fabric in his hand, then brought it to his face and inhaled deeply.

And with that, Cal turned towards the door.

Two

Cal stood alone on a hillside, on a patch of damp grass. He’d always prided himself on his ability to just… talk. No matter the company, no matter the circumstances, he always had something to say. Not always the right thing to say – that was actually pretty rare – but always something.

Until now.

The slab of black granite standing upright in the grass dared him to speak, but the words wouldn’t come – were afraid of coming, for fear of what else they might bring with them.

He looked at the dates, their gold leaf faded by rain and time. Not that he needed to look, of course. They were forever burned into his heart.

“Jesus, nine years.”

The words came out on their own, catching Cal by surprise. He glanced around, like he was worried anyone else might have heard, but the Shatner stood down at the bottom of the hill, beyond even Miz’s earshot.

“Hey, Princess,” he said. “Sorry I haven’t been to visit in… well. You know.”

He tried to look at her name, but his eyes refused. They went to the soft toy in his hand instead. “How you doing, anyway? Good, I hope. Happy.” He smiled, making his eyes blur. “You were always happy.”

Another few minutes passed before he could speak again. He cleared his throat, trying to loosen it off. “Things have been pretty crazy here. I’ve been to space! Actual outer space! Aw, man, you’d love it. The stars and everything.” He laughed. “I mean, I throw up pretty much all the time, but you were always tougher than me, right?”

He nodded and swallowed again.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice a whisper on the wind. “You were always tougher than me.”

He squatted down, picking loose flecks of fluff off the soft toy. “I brought Miss Flopsy. Grandma found her under the bed after you… After the…”

Cal shook his head, refusing to continue any version of that sentence. “Hey, say ‘hi’ to her and Grandpa if you see them, OK? Tell them I’m sorry about their porch.”

It took all his effort to set Miss Flopsy down on the grass, her back propped up against the headstone. Only then did his eyes agree to shift upwards to the name. Lily Elizabeth Carver.

Cal kissed his fingertips, then pressed them against the ornately carved first L. “I miss you so much,” he whispered.

His gaze shifted up a fraction, to the other name chiseled into the granite. Caroline Carver. “Both of you.”

Cal stood up. He inhaled deeply, then wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “You two look after each other, OK?” He cast a glance back at the ship. “I’m going to be going away for a while. I’ve made some new friends. Lily, you’d love them. Caroline, you’d totally hate them.”

He brushed his fingertips across the smooth top of the headstone. “I’ll see you guys later, OK?”

Cal turned. He’d only gone a few paces when he stopped. “Oh, and if either of you happen to bump into Tobey Maguire – you know, the actor? Tell him I said, ‘hello.’”

* * *

Loren turned in her seat as Cal arrived back on the flight deck. “You do what you had to do?”

“Sure did!” said Cal. He was wearing what he knew was an obviously fake grin, but couldn’t find a way to turn it into something more convincing. “All done.”

“What is this place, anyway?” asked Miz, flicking her eyes to the view-screen.

“Nowhere important,” said Cal. “We’re done here.”

“So, we can go now? We can get off this shizzhole?” asked Mech.

“Yes!” said Cal, flopping into his seat. “And no. There’s just one tiny thing I still want to do first.”

Mech grunted. “Oh great. What now?”

“Ladies, gentlemen, mysterious shapeshifting entities, fasten your seatbelts,” said Cal, his smile finally hitting its stride. “Space Team is going to Disneyworld!”

“What’s Disneyworld?” asked Miz. “Is it a planet?”

“It’s a planet of fun!” said Cal. “Except it’s not a planet, no.”

“So what is it?” asked Loren.

Cal pulled on his seatbelt. “As you’ll soon discover, it’s only the most magical fonking place on Earth!”

* * *

Cal stood just inside the main gate of the Magic Kingdom, feeling like he might have oversold things a little. He’d never seen so many dead bodies in one place before, and the few that he had seen hadn’t looked anything like these.

“This is the most magical place on Earth?” asked Mech.

“Well, obviously it’s not normally like this,” said Cal. “There’s usually music and people dressed up and, you know, far fewer dismembered corpses lying around the place.”

He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Anyway, who wants to go on Space Mountain?”

Mech scowled. “So, I guess we’re back to adding ‘space’ before everything, are we? I’m warning you, man…”

“That’s its name,” Cal said. “It’s called Space Mountain. It’s a roller-coaster, but in the dark. I’ve never been on it, because I have some issues with motion sickness.”

“We noticed,” said Loren.

“But I’ve heard it’s a lot of fun, and since this is probably my last chance…”

“Shh!” The hair on Miz’s neck stood on end. She turned her head, her ears raising. “Someone’s here.”

The others glanced around. Nothing moved but the occasional corpse-feasting crow.

“Is it, by any chance, a six foot tall talking mouse?” whispered Cal. “Because, believe it or not, that’s totally normal.”

“Mech, what have we got?” asked Loren, drawing her blaster.

“Lot of life signs,” said Mech, checking a readout on the scanning device built into his arm. “Bugs, mostly, but a few infected, too.”

He tapped the display. “Wait. Huh.”

“Huh?” said Cal. “What’s ‘huh?’ I don’t like ‘huh.’”

Mech’s arm whirred as he pointed along Main Street USA. “That’s ‘huh.’”

There, beyond the far end of the street, swarming out of Cinderella’s castle, were people. Lots of people.

Lots and lots of people.

“They look… annoyed,” said Cal.

“They’re all infected. Got bugs inside them,” said Mech. “We should go.”

“Oh, man, but I wanted to take you on It’s a Small World,” said Cal. “Seriously, it tells you everything you need to know about the planet Earth. It’s like Epcot, but all covered in five minutes by dancing robot dolls. You’d love it.”

“Maybe another time,” said Mech. They turned towards the gates, only to see a horde of people thronging past the Shatner, their mouths snapping hungrily at the air.

“That’s not good,” said Loren.

“Aw, man. You can say that again,” Mech groaned.

“I don’t know what you’re worried about, you’re a robot,” said Cal.

“Cyborg,” Mech corrected.

“Same thing.”

“No,” said Mech, turning to face him. “It ain’t. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m only part robot. I can still be infected, just like any of you. I mean, yeah, it’s less likely, because I’ve got less flesh for them to burrow under, but I ain’t safe. None of us are--”

“Uh, hello?” snapped Miz. “Hundreds of zombie bug people about to kill us?”

The people outside the park began hurling themselves over the gates. Mech had torn one of the turnstiles right out of the ground, leaving a wide path that was now letting the crowds rush in.

“In hindsight, I probably should’ve brought a gun,” said Cal.

“You ain’t got a gun?” hissed Mech.

“No! You never let me have a gun,” Cal pointed out.

Miz flicked out her claws and set her jaw. “I’ll deal with them.”

“No!” said Loren. “Don’t get close. They’ll infect you.”

“Closing at our back, too,” said Mech. Sure enough, the other horde was now halfway down Main Street USA, and coming up fast.

“This way,” Cal urged, racing towards a store to the left of the street. “We can go through here and get out behind them.”

Mech, Loren and Miz hurried after him. “Great. Then what?” asked Mech.

Cal puffed out his cheeks and shrugged. “Haunted Mansion, maybe?”

Miz sniffed the air just as Cal reached the store’s front door. The infected horde was coming up fast, hands clawing, teeth gnashing furiously. “Wait!” she yelped, but the warning came too late.

Cal pushed open the door and stepped onto a carpet heaving with fat, black insects. Loren caught him by the back of his waistcoat and yanked him clear, just as Mech stepped in, a jet of fire erupting from his right arm.

The bugs shrieked and squealed and howled as they ignited. Mech swept his arm higher, driving the flame deeper into the store. Novelty hats and over-priced plush toys were engulfed as the fire caught hold, quickly becoming an inferno.

“Look out!” Loren called, raising her blaster and opening fire on the first few rows of… Cal wanted to say ‘people’ but up close he could tell they weren’t people at all. They had been, once, but now they were something else. Something less.

Cal and Miz turned just as the other mob came rushing up to join the fun. “You had to take us here,” Mech snapped. “We couldn’t just have left when I said we should. Oh no.”

Before Cal could reply, the world exploded. At least, that was how it felt. Searing heat and blinding light erupted around them, and for a moment, Cal wondered if Mech had decided that enough was enough, and hit some sort of self-destruct button.

The noise was immense, like an earthquake at a Guns ‘N’ Roses concert. It filled Cal’s head, shaking him through to his bones and completely redefining his understanding of the word ‘loud.’

After the fire and the light came smoke, thick and black and choking. Cal was coughing and spluttering through it when he realized he was lying on the ground. He clambered to his unsteady feet. The world had fallen silent again, but the high-pitched screaming in his ears insisted otherwise.

“Loren? Miz? Mech?” he called, coughing out each name.

“Here.” That was Mech’s voice. He sounded completely unfazed by whatever the Hell had just happened.

“Yeah, over here,” said Miz from somewhere else in the smoke. It was starting to thin a little now, and Cal could just make out the wolf-woman’s outline.

“What about Loren? Has anyone seen Loren?”

“I’m here. Mostly in one piece, I think,” said Loren from over on Cal’s right.

Cal sighed with relief. It came out as a cough. “Great. What about the bug-people?”

“Dead,” said Mech. “All dead. Every last one.”

Cal blinked through the settling soot. “What? How? Was it you? Did you do that?”

Mech shook his head. “Not me,” he said. He extended a metal finger and pointed it straight up. “Them.”

Cal looked up, just as the smoke was pushed aside by the thrusters of a ship coming in to land. He cheered when he spotted the logo painted on the spacecraft’s underside. It was the now all-too-familiar logo of the former soda company turned galactic government.

“Zertex! Great. I love those guys!”

Miz leaned past him to look at Loren. “That was sarcasm, by the way.”

“Yeah. I know,” said Loren. “You don’t have to say it every time. I do understand what sarcasm is.”

“I ain’t no fan of Zertex, but they’re better than being torn apart by bug-people,” said Mech.

“That’s the spirit!” Cal said.

They backed away, making room for the ship to touch down. It was a small, sleek fighter craft, less than half the size of the Shatner. Its landing feet squelched through the partially incinerated remains of the infected, crushing torsos and sending blackened heads rolling in all directions. With a final hiss of landing thrusters, the ship settled on the scorched surface of the street.

“What’s the plan?” asked Miz. “I guess we attack them, right?”

“Well, technically they did just save our lives,” Cal pointed out. “Let’s at least listen to what they have to say before you turn their insides into their outsides this time.”

Miz grunted. “Spoilsport.”

A landing ramp descended below the ship. Three soldiers marched down it in unison – a male officer and two female grunts.

The officer was short and stocky, with a head that attached directly to his shoulders without so much as a hint of a neck. He nodded curtly at Loren while his companions brandished their blaster rifles in a way that was calculated to look as menacing as possible without verging into over-the-top levels of ridiculousness.

“Gunso Loren. So good to see you again.”

“Legate…”

“Filson,” said the officer, curtly. His head was almost completely square, but with a slight bulge on top, like a box containing something just a little bit too large to properly fit inside. His eyes were wide apart – he could’ve squeezed a whole other face between them, Cal reckoned – and his mouth was tucked down near the bottom of his head. Where his nose had got to was anyone’s guess.

Cal stepped forward. Both the troopers’ guns immediately locked onto him. He ignored them. “First up, nice to meet you, Filson. Any friend of Loren’s is a friend of mine.”

“Oh, we’re not friends,” said Filson. “In fact, I fully intend to arrest or kill her, depending on the choices she makes in the next few minutes. I intend to arrest or kill you all.”

“OK, we’ll get to that part shortly,” said Cal. “Secondly, I wanted to say thank you for blasting all those zombie bug people to pieces. I – we – really appreciate the save. I have to admit, it was looking a little hairy for a little while there. It’s lucky you came along when you did.”

“Personally, I’d have loved to watch you all perish, but President Sinclair would be disappointed if I didn’t bring back at least one of you in one piece,” said Filson.

“Oh, and thirdly,” said Cal, his smile shifting from ‘friendly’ to ‘unfriendly’ without apparently changing at all. “I know we just met, and you don’t know any of us particularly well, so I’m going to let you off this one time – but don’t ever threaten me or my friends again.”

Filson snorted. It was quite impressive, considering his lack of nose. “Oh, I wasn’t threatening, Mr Carver,” he spat. “I was making a statement of fact. I plan arresting you or killing you. I’ll let you choose which.”

Cal opened his mouth to reply, but Filson held up a hand. “But I wouldn’t take too long to think about it, or I may just have to decide for you.”

Mizette growled and moved to lunge, but Loren stepped in front of her. “Miz, don’t,” she warned. “There are too many of them.”

“Ha! There are three of them,” said Miz, extending her claws. “That might be too many for you, but I could fight them with my eyes closed.”

Loren shook her head. “There aren’t three of them.”

“She’s right,” said Filson. He gestured at the sky above them. “I have a whole squadron up there, weapons already locked on you. I’m sure your mechanical friend will be able to confirm.”

“I’m seeing eight ships,” said Mech, tapping his scanner. “They all got us on torpedo lock.”

“You see?” said Filson. “You may have led us on something of a merry dance over the past few days, but we were always going to catch you eventually. You can’t just betray Zertex, steal a ship, and expect there to be no repercussions.”

“Zertex betrayed us,” said Loren. “Sinclair left us no choice.”

“Yes, well, you won’t be surprised to learn that he views things quite differently,” said Filson. “Even though he’s currently hard at work trying to broker peace with the Symmorium, he was very insistent that you be caught. Very insistent. Particularly you, Mr Carver. He has a real bone to pick with you. In fact, he made it clear that he wanted you alive. Something about… wiping the smirk off your face?”

“OK, one, it’s not a smirk, it’s a charmingly boyish grin,” said Cal. “And two… Actually, there is no two. Just that first one.”

“I suppose he wants me alive, too,” said Loren.

Legate Filson shrugged, which was quite a feat with no neck. “No. Not really. He was quite open to your death. If anything, I’d say he encouraged it.”

“Ha!” said Miz, finding that highly amusing. “Burn.”

“Oh,” said Loren. “Right. I see. Fair enough, then.”

“This is all very well… Filson, was it?” said Cal. “I mean, you having all those ships locked onto us and everything, I can see why you’re looking so confident. At least, I think you’re looking confident, your face is pretty hard to read.”

“Oh,” said Filson. “I am.”

“Right. Yes. Understandable,” said Cal. He raised a finger. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”

Filson raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what’s that?”

“The Cross-Phase Electro Nulliblaster!”

Miz frowned. “The what?”

“The Cross-Phase Electro Nulliblaster,” Cal said. He waggled his eyebrows at her to tell her to play along, but the signal was completely lost on her. “That awesome weapon I picked up on that planet Mech made us visit.”

“You picked up lunch on that planet,” said Miz.

“Yes,” said Cal. “And after I did that I picked up the Cross-Phase Electro Nulliblaster.”

“Wait, is this a trick?” Miz asked. “Are we tricking him?”

Cal sighed. “Yes. Well, I was trying to.” He shrugged and hooked a foot under the decapitated head of one of the bug-infected. “Guess we’ll just have to try it this way.”

Flicking up his leg, he sent the head tumbling through the air towards Filson. The soldiers on either side swiveled their guns to take aim at it, and Loren quickly squeezed off two blaster rounds that slammed into their body armor and hurled them back against the hull of their ship.

“Mech, grab that guy!” Cal urged, pointing to where Filson was staring in confusion at his fallen guards.

“On it!” said Mech, snatching the officer up and throwing him over his shoulder.

“Wh-what are you doing? Let me go!” Filson demanded.

“No can do,” said Cal. “If we do that, your ships will shoot at us, and we don’t want them shooting at us, if it’s all the same with you.”

He led the way out through the gate and hurried towards the Shatner. Up on Mech’s shoulder, Legate Filson kicked and complained. “I’ll give the order for them to shoot. I’ll do it. I will!”

“Oh, shut up, Filson,” said Loren. “You’re not going to blow yourself up.”

At the back of the group, Miz stopped. She sniffed the air, picking up a scent on the wind. It was a scent she knew only too well.

“No,” she whispered, looking around. “No, it can’t be.”

“Halt!” commanded a voice that seemed to echo from all directions at once. It was a voice so powerful, so commanding, that Cal’s legs stopped running before his brain had even realized anything had been said. “Halt, or die by the snap of my jaws.”

Miz groaned. “No. Don’t tell me.”

“Tell you what?” asked Cal. “Who is it now?”

From behind the ticket stands and abandoned security stations, several figures emerged. They all stood seven feet tall or more, with broad shoulders and long snouts. They were covered in thick, dark fur, and wore long white skirts that stretched all the way down to their clawed feet.

“Hey, they look like you,” said Cal. “Do you know these guys?”

Miz nodded. “Yeah. I know them.”

“You defile Her Highness with your very existence,” barked one of the wolf-people. “Release her, or face an agonizing death.”

Mizette sighed. “I’m not their prisoner, Kannus. They’re my friends.” She jabbed a thumb towards Loren. “Well, maybe not her, or the guy over her shoulder, but these two.”

“Hey there!” Cal beamed, giving the largest of the wolf-creatures a wave. “Nice skirt. Or is it a kilt?” He leaned closer to Miz. “So, who’s this guy?”

“That’s Kannus,” said Mizette. She shifted around on the balls of her feet. “He’s my… Well, I guess he’s kind of my husband.”

Three

Cal’s crew stood behind Mizette, Legate Filson still draped limply over Mech’s shoulder. On the ground in front of Miz, Kannus knelt and bowed his head.

“My love. It is I, Kannus, your betrothed.”

Miz tutted. “Well, obviously. I’m not blind.”

“For the glory of the Greyx, I give you my life.”

“Oh great, this again,” Miz sighed.

“For the honor of the Greyx, I give you my soul. For the--”

“Yeah, yeah, triumph, blood, I get it,” said Miz. “Get up, how many times do I have to tell you, you don’t have to kneel?”

“But I must, Your Highness,” said Kannus. “Tradition demands it.”

“Wait, should we be kneeling, too?” said Cal. “I mean, if tradition demands it...”

“Silence, mongrel!” said Kannus, fixing his eyes on Cal and baring a worrying number of teeth. “You do not speak until the princess commands you.”

Cal’s grin widened. “Oh, I can already tell that he and I are going to be the best of friends.”

Kannus leapt to his feet, his claws extending like knife blades from his fingertips. “I said silence,” he hissed, lunging for Cal. Loren snapped her blaster up, taking aim between the Greyx’s eyes.

“Back off,” she said. “I’m warning you.”

All around them, the other wolf-people bristled, their claws and teeth slowly coming on show.

“Kannus. All of you. Cut it out,” said Miz. “Stand down. Cal is my friend, he can speak whenever he likes. Any of them can. Even her.”

“How generous of you,” said Loren. She lowered her gun. “That was sarcasm, by the way.”

“OK, so on second thoughts, she can’t,” said Miz. “But everyone else can.”

“Um… does that include me?” asked Legate Filson. “Can I speak?”

“No,” said Cal. “You don’t get to speak until you’ve had a good long think about your behaviour.”

“But I’m a legate in the Zertex Military!” Filson protested.

“Listen, I don’t want it to get to this stage, Filson, but Mech will spank you. Have you ever been spanked by a cyborg before?”

“What you talking about? I ain’t gonna spank him,” said Mech.

“Oh, believe me, he will,” Cal insisted. “He’ll spank you into next week. You won’t be able to sit down for… well, forever. And why? Because your butt cheeks will be a paste, Filson. They’ll be a paste.”

Filson didn’t reply. Cal nodded. “Wise move.”

He turned back to Kannus and flashed him another smile. “Now, sorry, what were you saying?”

Kannus growled, but resisted the near-overwhelming urge to bite Cal’s face off. Instead, he turned his attention back to Miz and dropped to one knee again. “Your Highness, your presence has been requested by Graxan of the Greyx.”

“Surprise, surprise,” said Miz. “Tell him he can forget it. I’m not coming.”

“It is imperative that you return with us to Kifo at once.”

“Look, I’ve told him before, I’m never coming back to Gre…” Mizette frowned. “Wait, Kifo?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” said Kannus, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper. “Your father is on Kifo.”

“What’s Kifo?” asked Cal. “Is it nearby? We could swing by and say ‘hi,’ couldn’t we?”

“Kifo is the death world,” Miz said, absent-mindedly, as if she were only barely paying attention to the here and now. “It’s where the royal Greyx go when… At the end.”

She gave herself a shake and fixed her gaze firmly on Kannus. “So you’re saying…?”

“I am afraid so, Your Highness,” Kannus said. “Graxan of the Greyx is dying. The time has come to take up the throne.”

Silence fell. Or something close to silence, at least. In the distance, Cal could hear a car alarm wailing. Now that he thought about it, it had been there since they’d arrived, nagging at the very edge of his hearing, but now that everyone had stopped flapping their lips and were just staring at Mizette instead, it finally got its moment to shine.

It was Legate Filson who finally spoke.

“Congratulations!” he said. “About the throne thing, I mean, not about your father…”

“Shut up, Filson,” Loren said.

Miz looked to the sky, then to the ground, before finally settling on Kannus. “No,” she said.

Kannus’s amber eyes widened in surprise. “‘No?’”

Miz nodded, growing more confident. “Yeah. No. I’m not doing it. I told him before, I told all of you before, I don’t want to be the stupid queen.”

“But… you must,” said Kannus. “Tradition demands it.”

“Your traditions sure demand a lot,” said Cal. Kannus growled at him, but Cal bounced it back with a devastatingly friendly grin.

“Cal’s right,” said Miz. “I’m sick of having to do stuff I don’t want to do all the time. Why do you think I left? Go back to Kifo. Tell them they’ll have to find a new queen. I’m not coming.”

With that, she folded her arms, sharply about-turned, and stropped off back towards the Shatner. Kannus moved to lunge after her, but Cal stepped into his path.

“Hey, what’s the time, Mr Wolf? It’s give the lady her personal space time,” said Cal. A brief frown flashed across his forehead. “OK, that sounded way cooler in my head. Out loud it sounded, I dunno, kind of stupid, I guess.”

“Stand aside, runt,” Kannus barked.

“Hey, I’m not a runt,” Cal protested. “Just because I’m surrounded by giant wolf-people and a huge fonking robot--”

“Not a robot,” Mech sighed.

“—doesn’t make me a runt. I’m actually pretty tall for a human. Above average, anyway. And I can do, like, upwards of twelve push-ups in a row, although I’d rather not demonstrate, if it’s all the same to you.”

Kannus moved to push past him, but Cal placed a hand on the hulking wolf-creature’s chest. “No, but seriously,” he said. “She clearly doesn’t want to talk to you. Let me go speak to her.”

Kannus’s eyes narrowed. If his face wasn’t covered entirely by hair, it’d probably have gone red with rage. “You will stand aside. Mizette is returning to Kifo with us, whether she wishes to or not. These are the orders of Graxan of the Greyx.”

“Hear, hear!” chimed Legate Filson from Mech’s shoulder. “Youngsters today really need to be taught discipline.”

“Shut up, man,” Mech growled. He shrugged, violently bouncing the officer around.

“See, that’s not going to work for us,” said Cal. “Miz is with us, and, well, we’re not going to let you just take her.”

“Yeah,” said Loren, stepping up. “Infuriating as she may be – and she really is - she’s one of us. If you want her, you’ll have to fight for her.”

Cal shook his head. “Whoa, whoa. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here and start picking fights with the giant space wolves,” he said. “Let me go talk to her and see what she’s saying first.”

“No,” spat Kannus. “I forbid it.”

“Yeah, well, forbid this,” said Cal, flipping the Greyx the bird.

“What does that mean?” Kannus asked.

“It’s a sign of respect and admiration,” said Cal. He raised his middle finger higher, waggled it in Kannus’s face, then put it away again. “You two OK out here?”

Mech and Loren both nodded. Cal gave Kannus a friendly wink. “Be right back,” he said, then he thrust his hands in his pockets and strolled back towards the ship, whistling happily and savoring the prickling sensation of Kannus’s furious glare on his back.

* * *

“Captain on the bridge!” announced Cal, ducking through the flight deck door. He gestured back at it. “Seriously, I don’t know how you and Mech aren’t bumping your heads on that thing all the time. We should get it raised, it’s an accident waiting to happen.”

Mizette was slumped in her seat, her arms still folded, her gaze fixed on her outstretched legs, watching her right foot kick impatiently.

“I’m not going,” she said, not looking up as Cal sat in his own chair and swiveled to face her. “I don’t want to be the stupid queen.”

Cal shrugged. “Then don’t be. They can’t force you to.” He used his feet to rotate his chair left and right a few degrees, then spun once all the way around. “Man, what a day,” he said. “I knew coming back here would be hard, but… Man, what a day.”

He drummed his fingers on his arm rest, then tapped out a short beat. “Going back to my parents’ house it was… weird. Really weird. I hadn’t been there in years. Hadn’t spoken to them in about as long.”

Cal turned and looked at a wall, as if he could see right through it and all the way back home. “I didn’t miss them. Not once. I mean, I thought about them sometimes, wondered how they were doing, but miss them? No. And they were good people. Both of them. They were good people, we just… we were different, you know? I always felt like I had disappointed them or something.”

Miz flicked her eyes up to him, just for a moment, then went back to staring at her feet.

“But, man, in that house… The memories. And then, knowing they were in there. In their room. Right on the other side of that door. It was like… Do you guys have Christmas?”

Miz sighed, like this was the most boring conversation she’d ever been a part of in her life, but then shook her head.

“OK. Well, it’s like this big day with presents and everything, and standing outside my parents’ bedroom, with them just right there inside… I felt like it was Christmas morning. But early, you know? Still dark outside. And I didn’t know whether it was safe to open my eyes yet or not. Like, there was all this excitement, this, this… joy just trapped inside me, waiting for a release.”

Miz tutted. “What are you even talking about?”

Cal replayed the last part of the conversation over in his head, then shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said. “I was trying to do some sort of clever analogy, but didn’t quite get there. My point is, I wished I’d seen them before they died. I wished I had just five minutes with them, even if it was just to go, ‘Hey, fonk you, I’m great the way I am.’ I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.”

He leaned forward in his chair and lowered his voice, as if imparting some great secret. “You should go see him, Miz. You should go see your dad.”

Mizette’s deep brown eyes lifted again.

“Is there a chance you might wish you hadn’t? Yeah. Sure. Maybe,” Cal said. “But I can guarantee you’ll regret it if you don’t go. Let him see that you’re out here doing you own thing. Let them all see.”

Miz shuffled in her seat and sighed again. She unfolded her arms just enough to let her study her claws on one hand. She’d painted them a glittery shade of purple using nail polish from one of the stores they’d visited. It somehow made them look even deadlier.

“Fine. I’ll go. But not with them, I want to go in this ship.” She looked almost embarrassed. “Our ship.”

“You got it! Wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Cal. He slapped his hands against his thighs, then stood up. “Now, I’ll go let your husband know the good news. You kept him quiet, by the way, you sly dog. Uh… no offence.”

“It’s another stupid royal thing,” Miz said. “As first in line to the throne, you get married young.”

“How young?” asked Cal, who had only recently discovered that the seven-feet tall hulking she-wolf was just six years old.

“In the womb.”

Cal whistled through his teeth. “Wow. That must be one cramped evening reception.”

“Kannus and I were pledged to each other as Lifebounds, which means he’s my husband, and I don’t even get a say in it. When my father dies, I’ll be queen, but Kannus will have all the power as king.”

Cal nodded. “Kinda getting a picture of why you left,” he said. He headed for the door, pausing to give her shoulder a squeeze as he passed. “I’ll go give hubby the good news.”

Striding along the corridor towards the back of the ship, Cal passed the open door of the Bench Room. They called it the Bench Room, because they had no idea what it was for, and the single padded bench was the room’s only distinguishing feature. Cal had discovered it was a useful place to come and vomit when the sensation of travelling at above light speed proved too much. The feeling of the bench’s cool vinyl against his cheek had become as comfortingly familiar as an old pair of shorts.

A few steps past the Bench Room, Cal stopped and backtracked. He was sitting in there, right on the edge of the bench, gazing blankly at the wall dead ahead. “Splurt, buddy! How many times?”

The Cal on the bench became a thick gloopy liquid, then compacted into a ball of green slime. Splurt’s eyes looped in opposite directions, coming together to gaze back at Cal. There was something almost apologetic in the expression, Cal thought, but as Splurt had no features beyond the bulbous bloodshot eyeballs, he was probably just imagining it.

With Splurt now back in non-Cal mode, the real Cal continued down the ramp and out into the Florida sunshine. He slowed down, deliberately closing the gap between him and Kannus in a sedate, casual stroll. He noticed Filson’s two grunts had arrived on the scene. They were taking it in turns to aim their guns at everyone, but no-one was really paying them any notice.

“Ladies. Nice of you to join us,” Cal said, giving them a friendly wave. He dodged past Mech and stopped in front of Kannus. “OK, so there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, Miz has agreed to go see her dad.”

“She has no choice,” Kannus said.

“Well, actually, she does, and she has chosen to go see her dad,” said Cal. “See how it works?”

Kannus twitched in irritation. “And what is the bad news?”

“The bad news, Kannus, old buddy,” said Cal. “Is that we’re coming along for the ride!”

“Unacceptable. No non-Greyx may set foot on Kifo. It is a sacred place,” Kannus said.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Cal. He turned to Mech and was met by Legate Filson’s ass, which was still hoisted up at the cyborg’s shoulder. “The question is, what do we do with him?”

“Should we kill him?” asked Loren.

Filson let out a little yelp. “What? No! D-don’t do that.”

“Tempting,” said Cal, stroking his chin. “But, I dunno, I kind of like him. There’s just something about his face that makes me want to pick him up and hug him. Is that weird?”

“Yes,” said Mech. “That’s weird.”

“Put him down,” Cal said.

Mech shrugged again, and Legate Filson shot backwards off his shoulder. The officer flapped his arms in frantic panic for half a second, then fell heavily to the ground.

Jumping up, Filson dusted himself down, as if it might help him restore a little dignity. It didn’t. “Yes. And about time, too,” he said. “I was very close to taking action there, and believe me, you’d have been sorry then.”

“Shut up, shizznod,” Mech barked, twitching in the legate’s direction. Filson let out a high-pitched shriek of fright and immediately stopped talking.

“So, Filson. I think one good turn deserves another, don’t you? We spared your life, even though we could have killed you at any time – any time. What’s say you tell your ships up there to let us through, and we’ll all pretend none of this has happened?”

“Never! You all belong to Zertex now!” said Filson, raising his voice so his approaching bodyguards could hear. He quickly lowered it again. “I’m sorry, I had to say that, please don’t kill me! Tell me you’re under protection of the Greyx,” he whispered.

Cal blinked. “Huh?”

“Do it!” Filson hissed.

“Uh, we’re under the protection of the Greyx,” said Cal, just as the two female grunts joined Filson.

“Ah,” said Filson, making a show of looking disappointed. “Curses. Well… that’s that, then. Well played, Carver. Well played. But I’ll get you next time, mark my words.” He wagged a reproachful finger in Cal’s direction. “I’ll get you next time!”

“Oh yeah? We’ll see about that, Filson!” said Cal, getting in on the act. Both men narrowed their eyes, squaring off. After a few seconds of unchecked machismo, Cal buckled. “Ah, what the Hell? I can’t resist,” he said, then he wrapped his arms around the horrified Filson and lifted him off the ground in a hug. “There’s just something about your face.”

Four

Hayel Sinclair, current head of the Zertex Corporation, and president of a substantial chunk of the galaxy, sat on the edge of his desk, pointing a polished smile at a screen that took up almost the entire wall in front of him.

On it, a grizzled, shark-like creature glared back at him with its dark eyes. The Symmorium were a warrior race, and Ambassador Druka bore the expression of someone spoiling for a fight.

“You defied the treaty, Sinclair,” he growled. “You attacked the Symmorium and defiled the Sentience. These were acts of war.”

Sinclair rolled up the sleeves of his expensive shirt and raised his hands, half in surrender, half in a calming gesture. “I understand how it may have seemed that way, ambassador, I honestly do. Hey, in your position, with the information you had, I’d be feeling the same way right about now.”

He picked up a ball that was just a little bigger than a baseball and passed it from hand to hand. “I mean, the Sentience gets – what, infected? Wow. Is it OK now? Back fighting fit?”

Ambassador Druka said nothing.

“Well, give it our love,” Sinclair said. “We’re all rooting for it here at Zertex.”

He tossed the ball up and caught it. “The truth is, Druka, Zertex was coming to help. We’d been chasing the pirates who infected the Sentience since they’d left the Remnants. We knew they were planning some kind of attack on the Symmorium, we just didn’t realize what it was. Of course, had we known the Sentience was in danger, we’d have alerted you at once.”

“You sent an invasion force,” Druka snarled, showing a flash of his pointed teeth.

“I sent a police force,” Sinclair said, his smile fixed in place. “To apprehend the pirates and offer help to the Symmorium. An act of friendship, not of war. I give you my word on that.”

Sinclair squeezed the ball, then set it back on his desk. “We’ve worked so hard. All of us. I – we - have put in hundreds, thousands of hours negotiating the treaties. Negotiating peace. How many days have we spent locked in rooms together, Druka? How many months have we - you and I - invested in bringing this pointless war to an end? Together. Why would I jeopardize that now? Why would I even want to?”

Druka’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t reply.

“I’m not going to be around forever,” Sinclair said. “I want to retire, hopefully not too far in the future, settle down, have kids. Do I want them growing up in a galaxy ravaged by a senseless war – a war no-one even remembers the reason for? Or do I want them growing up in a galaxy where Zertex and the Symmorium work together? Build together? I think we both know the answer to that.”

“Your imaginary future children aside,” Druka intoned, “there are many Symmorium who wish to see us retaliate. Swiftly. Without mercy.”

“I’m sure there are,” said Sinclair. He stood up and crossed his hands behind his back. “The question is, what do you wish, ambassador? What sort of galaxy do you want us to work towards?”

Druka ground his teeth together, considering the president’s words. “I shall talk to those above, and try to determine which way the tide is flowing,” he said. “But be warned, Sinclair, if I find out you were responsible for what happened to the Sentience, I shall wait until those future children of yours are born, then I shall eat them while you watch.”

Sinclair nodded, his smile widening. “Fair enough,” he said. “I assure you, we’re not your enemy, Druka. Those pirates you’ve been hailing as heroes? They’re the ones you have to worry about. Rest assured, though, I’m taking steps to deal with them, personally.”

At the corner of the screen, a little alert message flashed up. Sinclair glanced at it, just briefly, then turned his attention back to the ambassador. “Speaking of which, one of the squadrons I sent to apprehend them has just reported back. Hopefully, I’ll have some good news for you soon.”

Sinclair bowed his head. “Farewell for now, old friend.”

“Don’t push it, Sinclair,” Druka warned. The image of the ambassador cut off, and was replaced by a sweeping view of outer space. Sinclair blinked in the sudden glare of the nearest sun. It cast a flickering lens flare effect across the window’s glass. Any other time, he might have taken a few moments to admire it, but there were more pressing matters to attend to.

“Come,” he said, turning to the door. Legate Filson marched in, stomped to a stop, then pulled off a textbook salute.

Sinclair resisted the urge to sigh. Filson was well-meaning enough, and efficient in his own little way, but he was no replacement for Legate Jjin. Now that had been a right-hand man. Fiercely loyal, fiercely dedicated and just fierce in general, Sinclair could always count on Jjin to do what needed to be done.

Could. Past tense. The removal of Legate Jjin from the present tense was just one of the many reasons Sinclair was very keen to get his hands on Cal Carver.

The president crossed his hands behind his back again. This time, he crossed his fingers, too. “Legate Filson. So good to see you back. I trust you bring good news?”

Filson hesitated, just for a moment, then decided to spit it out. It was like pulling off a sticking plaster, he would probably have reckoned, had he even the faintest idea what a sticking plaster was. Best to get it over with quickly.

“No, Mr President, sir,” he said. “They escaped.”

Several seconds passed before Sinclair said anything. It wasn’t really worth the wait. “Escaped?”

“Yes, sir. We had them cornered on Earth, but then the Greyx turned up. Hundreds of them. All armed. They declared the pirates under their protection.”

“Did they? Did they really?”

“Yes, sir. We tried to object, but they were quite insistent. Any attempt to take the pirates would be considered an attack on the Greyx themselves.”

“So?”

Filson frowned. “Uh, well, like I say, there were hundreds of them, sir. They’d have killed me.”

“And I ask again,” said Sinclair, his smile losing some of its polish. “So?”

This wrong-footed Filson a bit. He tried to match Sinclair’s smile, but decided it was inappropriate, then went too far in the opposite direction and scowled instead. “Uh, I didn’t think I’d be much use to you dead, sir.”

“It appears you’re not much use to me alive either,” said Sinclair. He made a weighing motion with his hands. “Dead, I don’t have to pay your salary.”

“I did find out something interesting,” Filson said, scrabbling for the president’s approval. “Graxan of the Greyx is dying. The girl, his daughter, has been summoned to some death world or something.”

“Kifo,” said Sinclair. He nodded slowly. “Oh. That is interesting. That is very interesting. Well done.”

Filson brightened. His chest had been slowly deflating for the last minute or so, but a burst of pride puffed it back up for him. “Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you for the information, legate. You are dismissed,” Sinclair said.

“Very good, sir,” said Filson. He pulled off an extra-enthusiastic salute, then crisply about-turned. He was halfway to the door when Sinclair spoke again.

“On the other hand…”

Filson stopped.

Filson turned.

He was surprised to see that President Sinclair was standing less than an arm’s length away, his salesman-smile showing more teeth this time. “I sent you to carry out one specific task. You did not.”

“Well, no, sir, but I’m sure I can--”

Sinclair lunged, grasping at Filson’s throat. The officer gargled as the president’s finger dug deep into his windpipe. Blood sprayed in a crimson arc, bathing Sinclair’s face in its sticky warmth. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just smiled and stared and stared and smiled as he buried his fingers up to the third knuckle in Filson’s flesh.

Then, with a jerk, Sinclair tore the legate’s windpipe out of his body. Spluttering and choking, Filson began to topple backwards, but then the windpipe went taut and he just hung there, leaning back on his heels, Sinclair holding him up by the bloodied remains of his throat.

Filson’s gargling became a strained wheeze. His eyes rolled back. His legs went limp. Sinclair let the fleshy tube slip through his grip, then gave a nod of satisfaction when the officer sunk all the way to the floor.

“I’m sorry, Filson, you were saying?” Sinclair asked, pushing one ear forward as if straining to hear. He allowed himself a chuckle, then returned to his desk, wiping his hands on his clothing.

So, Carver and the others were under the protection of the Greyx. That could be a problem, even if Graxan was on his deathbed.

It was a problem that could be solved, of course, just like any other. A Zertex fleet could obliterate Kifo in a matter of minutes, but that would only agitate the Symmorium situation, and now wasn’t the time for that.

He could tread lightly. Try to make a deal with the Greyx. Take the diplomatic route.

But where was the fun in that?

No, the solution was obvious. Carver and the others – the Greyx, too – needed to be taught a lesson. As circumstances with the Symmorium prevented him doing so himself, that left only one option.

Sinclair flicked the comm switch on his desk.

“Yes, Mr President?” chirped a cheerfully efficient voice from the speaker.

“Hey, Janet. I’m going to need a cleaning crew and a fresh shirt in here,” he said.

“Right away, sir. They’re on their way now.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Janet,” Sinclair said. “Oh, and one other thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

Sinclair smiled. It was his first genuine one of the day. “Get me Lady Vajazzle.”

Hidden in the soft hiss of the speaker, Sinclair could hear his secretary’s surprise. “Are… are you sure, sir?”

“Quite sure, Janet,” Sinclair said. “Tell her I have a job for her, and it’s one I think she’s really going to enjoy.”

Five

Cal gripped his arm rest with one hand, and pointed ahead with the other. “Hey, watch it! You’re going to hit them.”

“I’m not going to hit them,” snapped Loren. “They’re over forty miles away.”

“But they’re slowing down,” said Cal. “Are they slowing down? I think they’re slowing down. They should have brake lights on that thing, it’d save a lot of confusion.”

Forty-two miles ahead of the Shatner, the Greyx ship was tilting a little as it skimmed past the tiniest moon Cal had ever seen. He’d only seen four, including this one, but he suspected if he saw a thousand moons, this one would still be the runt of the litter. It was a dusty white with veins of dark blue. If Earth’s moon were made of cheddar, this one was Roquefort to the core.

The Greyx ship was an OCD sufferer’s nightmare. Unlike every other space ship Cal had seen, this one wasn’t symmetrical. It had one long, swooping, eagle-like wing on the right, and a short, stubby one on the left. How it didn’t just fly around in circles all the time, Cal could only guess. Science, probably.

It had taken them several long, boring hours to get to their current position. The Greyx ship’s top warp speed was less than a third of the Shatner’s, and so Cal had tried with an astonishing lack of success to introduce the rest of the crew to Rock, Paper, Scissors. Eventually, he’d given up and gone to fetch his guitar.

Over the next hour, he’d performed – and taken sole credit for writing – every space-based song he could think of, from Bowie’s Starman and Space Oddity to I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper by Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip. Mech had stared impassively during the Bowie, but Cal had caught him toe-tapping during the Brightman, although he quickly stopped when he realized he’d been spotted.

Finally, the guitar was put away, Cal had declared himself the winner of Rock, Paper, Scissors by default, and both ships had dropped out of warp in the shadow of the tiny moon. Beyond it, an almost perfectly white planet shone against the stars. There were no oceans, no land-masses, just the same uniform whiteness wrapping all the way around the globe.

“Hey, is your death world made of marshmallow?” asked Cal, turning to Miz. She could usually be found slumped in her seat, but now she was oddly upright, her back straight, her jaw tense. She had seemed even more sullen than usual during the flight, but now she was alert and staring ahead at the planet creeping over the horizon of the moon.

“It’s cloud,” she said.

Cal swiveled his chair back to the front and looked again. “Yeah. Yeah, that makes far more sense,” he said, although he found it hard to hide his disappointment.

The image on screen changed and Kannus’s face filled the screen. “This is as far as non-Greyx may go,” he said. “Land on the moon. Mizette shall board our ship, and you may be on your way.”

Cal opened his mouth to protest, but Miz beat him to it. “No way, Kannus. Not happening. Just go ahead and land on Kifo, and we’ll follow you down.”

Kannus’s face darkened. “But… our traditions.”

“Blah, blah, blah. I don’t care,” Miz told him. “If my dad wants to see me, we’re doing it my way, or the whole thing’s off. Got it?”

Kannus tightened his jaw, as if fighting to hold back something that was trying to escape. After wrestling with it for a few seconds, he relaxed just enough to spit out an, “As you wish,” before ending his transmission.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen,” said Cal, “is why fetuses should never marry. You might end up with someone like him. You married, Mech?”

“Do I look like I’m married?” the cyborg replied.

“Shame. Wish I’d known,” said Cal. “I have this really high-tech toaster back on Earth I could have totally hooked you up with. Four slot. She’s a beauty.”

“It’s on a landing approach,” Loren announced.

Cal frowned. “My toaster?”

“The Greyx ship. They’re sending the co-ordinates.”

“Can you follow them without crashing?” asked Miz.

“Yes! Of course I can!” Loren snapped, adding the “hopefully” silently in her head. She adjusted the controls and the Shatner subtly shifted direction as it curved past the moon and began its descent towards Kifo.

Mech’s feet clanked on the floor as he turned to Mizette. “You OK?”

Miz blinked, surprised by the question. “What? Why are you asking?”

Mech scowled and began turning back just as the screen was filled with a wispy whiteness. “Forget I asked. Just trying to be friendly.”

“I think she was just kind of taken aback that you cared,” said Cal. “You know, you being a soulless robot, and everything.”

Mech shook his head. “Know what? I don’t. Forget I said anything.”

Cal and Miz exchanged a glance. Cal shrugged.

“I’m OK,” Miz said. “Thanks for asking.”

Mech grunted. “Whatever.”

“Breaking cloud cover in four… three… two… one,” Loren announced. On screen, the image remained steadfastly white. “Er… half… quarter…”

The cloud cleared, revealing a world that was both terrifyingly bleak and terrifying close. An alarm began to squeal as Loren’s hands and feet all flew to different controls, frantically trying to slow the ship’s descent.

“Shizz! Didn’t realize it was so low,” Loren muttered. The Greyx ship was on a landing pad below them, directly in the Shatner’s path.

“Pull up, pull up, pull up!” Cal cried, hooking his fingertips around the edges of his arm rests.

“I’m trying!” Loren yelped. She leaned back and to the left, dragging the stick with her. The Shatner’s nose swung upwards, then a harsh metallic screech vibrated through the ship, like the world’s sharpest fingernails on the world’s squeakiest blackboard.

The ship shuddered until the screeching stopped, then shot forwards, smashed through the top of a rock formation, and slid sideways down the slope on the other side.

With a final crunch, the ship slammed to an abrupt stop. “Everyone OK?” asked Cal.

“Oh, what, have we landed?” Miz said. “It was so smooth I didn’t notice.” She shot Loren a scowl. “That was--”

“Yes! I get it!” said Loren. “How was I supposed to know the cloud levels were so low?”

Mech pointed silently to several lines of data that filled the bottom right of the viewscreen.

“Well, yes, I mean… obviously I could have looked there,” Loren admitted, her blueish-white skin blushing a shade of lavender.

Cal unclipped his seat belt. “Still, no harm done,” he said. “You know, apart from the extensive ship damage and that mountain now being two hundred feet shorter. Oh, and I may have shizzed my pants, but aside from all that? Textbook.”

Loren’s blush darkened further. “It’ll be fine. If there’s any damage, I’ll fix it. Mech, I may need you for some of the more complex stuff. Can I turn you up if I need you?”

Mech glanced down at the dial fixed in the center of his chest. He used it to redirect his power supply to where he needed it most. Turning it to his right diverted the energy to his hydraulics, making him stronger, but with the side-effect of dropping his IQ a few dozen points.

Twist the dial to his left, and his processing power went through the roof, but at the expense of his ability to punch things, lift things, or – if turned up all the way – move around.

“If it means we ain’t stuck here, you got it,” Mech said. He looked at the dark, desolate terrain on the viewscreen and his hydraulics rattled as he gave an involuntary shudder. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“OK, you guys do that,” said Cal, giving them a thumbs up. He stood and extended a hand to Miz. “Shall we?”

Mizette stared at his hand for a long time, like she couldn’t quite figure out what it was for. At last, she took it, and allowed herself to be pulled gently to her feet.

The ship was tilted at an awkward angle, and they had to support themselves on the corridor wall as they made their way to the landing ramp. Splurt pulsed excitedly in front of it, his eyes shining with slime and hope. But mostly slime.

“Hey buddy, how’s it going?” Cal grinned. “You OK? Loren took a somewhat unorthodox approach to landing. Didn’t shake you up too much, did it?”

Splurt bobbed up and down, then turned his eyes very deliberately towards the closed landing ramp. Cal understood right away. “Ah, yeah, see here’s the thing, buddy. I’m not sure now’s the best time for you to come outside. The Greyx aren’t happy that we’re here, and if they see a slimy green blob – fonking adorable as it may be – they might freak out.”

Splurt shuddered and squidged around, quickly taking the form of a small ginger kitten. The tiny cat sat on the floor, its wide green eyes gazing hopefully up at Cal. “Man, that’s cute,” Cal whispered. “But we’re on a planet filled with alien dog people. That’s literally the worst thing you could have turned yourself into. You’ve basically disguised yourself as a between-meals snack.”

Splurt’s whiskers drooped as Cal and Miz stepped over him. “But we’ll hang out later, OK?” Cal called back over his shoulder, as he hit the button that lowered the ramp. “I can teach you guitar. I’ve had an idea for a new song I’m going to call Rocket Man. You’ll love it.”

Flashing one final smile at the sad little kitten, Cal stepped out of the ramp, let out a panicky, “Wah!” and immediately plunged several feet to the ground. The hillside was slippery gravel beneath him. He made a futile attempt to claw at it to slow his fall, but then just surrendered to gravity and let it roll him all the way to the bottom.

Coughing in a cloud of gravel dust, Cal wiped the grime from his face. A towering wolf-like figure loomed above him, its teeth and claws both bared.

“Who dares tread upon Kifo soil without the blessing of the Greyx?” the figure snarled, its hot breath rolling over Cal and filling his nose with the smell of raw meat.

Cal spat out a chunk of grit and tried his best to smile. “OK, firstly, I didn’t technically tread on Kifo soil, I sort of bounced on it on my face and upper body.”

The Greyx growled all the way at the back of its throat. “Whoa, whoa, and secondly, I’m here with Mizette! She asked me to come.”

The wolf-creature’s eyes widened in surprise. “Mizette brought you? Mizette is here?”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

The Greyx’s head snapped up at the sound of Miz’s voice. Mizette had her arms folded across her chest, and her weight slumped on one hip. She glanced at the other wolf-creature, but didn’t hold its eye.

“Oh thank God, you know each other,” Cal sighed, letting his head sink back into the gravel.

“Yeah, you could say that,” said Miz. “This is my friend, Cal,” she explained, gesturing to him. Cal waved.

“Hey.”

“Cal… this is my mom.”

With some effort, Cal stood up. He tried to brush the dust off, but as 95% of him was covered in the stuff, he quickly gave up. “Cal Carver,” he said, offering her a hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Mizette’s mom clearly had no clue why Cal was holding his hand out, and made a deliberate effort to ignore it. “Sorshi of the Greyx,” she said, bowing her head just a fraction. “Friend of my daughter or not, you are not welcome here. Non-Greyx are not permitted on Kofi.”

Miz huffed out a sigh. “Oh, give me a break, mom. If Cal goes, I go, too.” She held her mother’s gaze for several seconds, then raised her bushy eyebrows. “So, are you going to take us to see Dad, or what?”

Six

President Sinclair sat behind his desk, typing on a holographic keyboard projected onto the wood, and savoring the smell of carpet disinfectant. He could’ve moved to another office while the cleaners took care of Legate Filson, of course, but he’d told them he had too much work to be getting on with, and assured them their presence wasn’t causing him any problems.

The truth of it was, seeing Filson’s body being folded into the bag and carried away brought a pleasing finality to the situation. Sinclair was no stranger to taking a life, and while he’d sometimes had cause to kill-and-run, he always felt somehow deflated afterwards, like he hadn’t quite seen the act through to completion.

Now, though, with Filson’s body already on the way to the incinerators, and the dark, clinically-clean smelling stain still drying on the carpet, Sinclair allowed himself to bask in the feeling of a job well done.

There was still the matter of promoting a replacement, of course, and there may well be a wife and children to offer his heartfelt condolences to, but those were minor details that could be attended to later.

For now, there was the matter of the assassin materializing in the center of the room, just to the left of Legate Filson’s stain. Sinclair waved a hand over the keyboard, which became a line of light, then vanished. He clasped his hands on the desktop and smiled as the shimmering lightshow solidified into the shape of a woman in a flowing black robe.

She had a face that had known beauty, but wanted very little to do with it. The ravages of time were drawn like a roadmap across her skin. A puckered scar surrounded her left eye-socket, the eye itself replaced by something red and mechanical.

Her hood was back, revealing a head that was largely bald, but with the occasional wisp of thin gray hair.

When it came to the career choice most likely to result in your prolonged, agonizing death, ‘professional assassin’ was up there near the top of the list. The fact the woman who had appeared in Sinclair’s office had lived long enough to acquire her wrinkles and graying wisps, was perhaps the greatest testament of all to her remarkable skills.

“Lady Vajazzle,” said Sinclair, bowing his head in a rare gesture of deference. “I’m honored you have agreed to see me.”

Vajazzle’s expression remained impassive, her thin frame motionless beneath the folds of her midnight-colored robe.

“I mean, anyone else, I’d ask them to use the door, but it’s always impressive to see your… teleporting thing in action. You really must share the secret some time. We could make a lot of money together. A lot of money.”

“I was informed you had a job for me,” Vajazzle said. Her voice was as smooth as velvet, but with a sandpaper roughness around the edges. It was as if two voices were saying the same words at the same time, and neither one was particularly fond of the other. The way she said the words made them sound like the beginning of a sentence, but she left the end just hanging there, waiting for Sinclair to fill it in.

“I did. I do,” he said. “But first, can I get you anything? A drink, or…?”

“The job. Explain.”

Sinclair’s smile broadened. “Straight down to business. Of course.” He leaned back in his chair. “I believe you’ve had dealings with Graxan of the Greyx.”

Beneath her robe, Vajazzle’s body stiffened. A thin, frail arm emerged from the folds of the garment. She tapped a spindly gloved finger against the metal of her artificial eye. “He gave me this.”

“I had heard that rumor,” Sinclair said, wiping his smile away and replacing it with something that was a bit like concern, but wasn’t. “So I guess it’s safe to say that you’re not his biggest fan?”

“I cannot kill Graxan, if that is why you summoned me,” Vajazzle said in her dual-tone voice. “After our last encounter, we reached… an agreement. I am free to work within Greyx space, but in return the Greyx themselves are off-limits, as long as Graxan lives.”

“Aha! Then you are going to love what I’m about to tell you,” said Sinclair, leaning forward and tapping his fingers on the edge of his desk like a tiny drumroll. “Graxan is on Kifo. He’s dying.”

Vajazzle’s mouth drew tight, the wrinkled skin puckering around her lips, but she didn’t seem to have anything to say on the matter. “And you force me to ask you again. It will be the final time. The job. Explain.”

Sinclair nodded his apology. “Of course. We’ve worked together before, of course, and your reputation speaks for itself, but tell me, Lady Vajazzle,” the president said. “Have you ever hunted an Earthling?”

Vajazzle raised a graying eyebrow. “No,” she admitted. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

* * *

Several billion miles away, the Earthling in question was standing at an unassuming-looking wooden door in a cramped room, flanked on both sides by towering wolf-people. Mizette stood on his left, shuffling from foot to foot like she desperately needed to go to the bathroom, but was trying to not let anyone know.

Her mother, Sorshi, was on his right, angling her body in a way that suggested there was no way he was getting through the door.

“You will wait here while Mizette and I go inside,” said Sorshi.

Cal nodded. “OK. That’s fair.”

“No, Cal comes with me,” Miz said.

“Apparently I spoke too soon,” Cal said. “If Miz wants me to go in, I’m going in.”

Sorshi flinched like she’d been struck across the face. “Miz?” she said, spitting the word out. “You will address her as ‘Mizette’ or, preferably, ‘your highness.’”

“My friends call me ‘Miz,’” said Miz. “And Cal’s my friend.”

“I sure am,” Cal agreed.

“We’re practically lovers,” Miz added.

Cal coughed. “Well, I’m not sure I’d go that far.” He smiled at the suddenly even more furious-looking Sorshi. “But we’re all very fond of her back on the ship.”

“Your father will not approve of this.”

Miz shrugged. “So what’s new?”

Sorshi raised her eyes to the ceiling, just a few inches above her head. Like the door, it was made of simple, rough wood, although there was a yellowish tint to it unlike any Cal had ever seen on Earth.

“Very well,” she said. She nodded, but it was reluctant. Anxious, even. Her eyes went to Cal as she edged open the door. “But on your own head be it.”

* * *

Mech and Loren jumped down from the Shatner’s airlock hatch and hit the ground heavily and lightly, in that order. The landing ramp, as Cal had discovered, was tilted at the same angle as the rest of the ship and overhanging a steep drop, so coming and going via the airlock hatch was the best approach, for now.

The first thing they’d checked on had been the Warp Disk. Without it, the ship could only run on back-up power supplies, and faster than light travel was impossible. Faster than 150MPH travel was pretty tricky to achieve, in fact, and they’d both been relieved to find the disk undamaged.

Outside, the news was less good. “Aw man, that thing looks fonked,” said Mech, gesturing to a big sticky-out part he’d forgotten both the name and purpose of. “Is it meant to be hanging off like that?”

“No,” Loren sighed.

“Great. Can you fix it?”

“I can’t.” Loren pointed her eyes very deliberately at the dial on Mech’s chest.

“OK, OK. I got this,” Mech said, turning the control knob a few notches to the left. His hulking metal frame seemed to sag. There was a high-pitched drone, like the sound of a motor that had previously been running too fast to hear slowing down. The scowl which was a near-constant fixture on Mech’s face became something much lighter and less aggressive.

“Oh, my,” said Mech, his voice raising a full octave and a half. “The aft shield generator is in terrible shape. I fear it is quite beyond even my capabilities to repair.”

Loren threw up her hands. “Great. Awesome. Way to go, Teela.”

“I’m sorry, I am not familiar with a ‘Teela,’” said Mech.

“Uh, it’s me. I’m Teela. Didn’t I ever tell you my first name before?”

Mech shook his head. The movement was slow, like a toy whose batteries were on the verge of running out. “I do not believe so. From this position, I can access all 99% of my memory banks, and I can find no knowledge of your first name in there.”

“Uh, all 99%?” said Loren.

“Yes?”

“Well, it’s just… wouldn’t ‘all’ suggest 100%?”

Mech’s metal jaw opened, as if he were about to speak. He hesitated, a brief look of confusion flashing across his face. “I… do not understand,” he said. “According to my processors, I have full and complete access to my memory banks, and yet statistical analysis of the data shows it represents 99% of all data stored.”

Loren frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means I have a secret,” said Mech. “One that even I do not know.”

“What kind of secret?” asked Loren.

“You will recall, perhaps, the statement: ‘One that even I do not know,’ which I made but a moment ago,” said Mech. “The nature of the data is unknown to me at this time, and I suggest we have more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. We know the aft shield generator is in disrepair, but we are yet to ascertain the extent of the rest of the damage, I recommend we focus our efforts on that.”

“Makes sense,” agreed Loren, but before Mech could move off, she put a hand on his shoulder. “And I’m sorry. You know, that I never even told you my name.”

“Do not concern yourself,” said Mech. “My metal chassis makes it common for people to assume I am emotionless and detached, and that I therefore have no interest in the lives of those around me. It is something I have come not only to accept, but to expect.”

“Right,” said Loren. Suddenly feeling like the worst person alive. “Well, it’s Teela. My name’s Teela. Use it whenever you want.”

“I shall. Thank you, Loren,” Mech said. “Now, let us continue our investigation, that we may begin repairs in earnest.”

* * *

Since his first meeting with the rest of the crew in President Sinclair’s office, Cal had grown used to the feeling of being dwarfed. Miz towered over him, and Cal couldn’t stand close to Mech without risking some sort of neck injury brought on by too much looking up.

Despite that – despite the size difference between him and his two crewmates, he’d never truly felt small before. Short, yes. But not small. Never small.

Until now.

Graxan of the Greyx stood in the center of the room. Hell, he was the center of the room. He wasn’t as tall or as broad as Mech, yet he somehow seemed bigger in every way. It was as if physics had taken one look at his teeth and claws, announced the normal rules didn’t apply, then backed hastily out of the room while apologizing for any inconvenience caused.

Like the other Greyx, he was covered from head to toe in thick fur. The hairy coat was shades of charcoal and black, with a shock of white around his chin betraying his age. Had he been wearing a jolly red hat, he could’ve passed for a particularly hirsute Santa Claus, but there was nothing jolly about him at all.

He was dressed in a long skirt, like the one Kannus wore, although his was black, not white. His eyes were a dark, murky amber, and his teeth…

Cal swallowed and tore his eyes away from the rows of pointy canines. If this was Graxan when he was dying, Cal would have hated to see him at full health.

“What is this?” Graxan demanded. His voice was a breath of wind, crackling over dry Fall leaves.

“This is Cal,” said Mizette, more subdued than Cal had ever seen her. “He’s… my friend.”

“Friend?” Graxan spat out the word, as if he didn’t want it anywhere near him. “I had hoped you would have outgrown such childish things, daughter. You disappoint me.”

“Pleased to meet you, too, sir!” said Cal. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Nice skirt, by the way. Is that real leather, or artificial?”

Graxan looked Cal up and down. “It speaks?”

“He, Dad. Not it,” said Miz. “And yes, he speaks. A lot.”

“Too much, if anything,” Cal added.

Graxan shook his head, but turned his attention away from Cal. “It is… pleasing to see you, daughter.”

Miz crossed her arms. “Yeah. Whatever,” she said. “So, I hear you’re dying.”

Graxan nodded. Cal caught Sorshi glancing between her daughter and husband, apprehension in her eyes. “In time,” said Graxan. “Not yet.”

Mizette scowled. “What? Kannus told me you were at, like, death’s door. That’s the only reason I came.”

“And that is the only reason we said it,” Graxan replied. “I knew that you would not return without good cause.”

“So, you lied to me? You pretended to be dying so you could trick me into coming back?”

“Oh no. Rest assured, daughter, I am dying. But I have time. Not much, but time,” Graxan said, his voice tailing off into a throaty whisper. “Time to prepare you and Kannus for the roles and duties you are sworn to.”

Miz let out one of her now-trademark sighs. “Seriously, how many times do I have to tell you? I’m not--”

“You will do as you are told!” Graxan roared. It wasn’t loud, not really, but the anger in it creaked the floorboards and shook the wooden walls. “I have tolerated your infantile tantrums long enough. I have allowed you ‘space,’ as you put it, in the hope that you would realize who you are and where you belong, and return to us…” He regarded her with something close to disgust. “…better. But once again, as so many times before, you disappoint.”

“Hey, now wait just a minute, pal,” said Cal, stepping forward. “You’re way out of line.”

The dark fur on the back of Graxan’s neck bristled as he shifted his amber gaze to Cal. “What did you say?”

“Stop being so down on her. Miz is a great kid. Seriously, she’s awesome. She’s kind…” Cal frowned, just a little. “Well, I mean, maybe not ‘kind,’ exactly, but she’s… you know? She’s big. And funny! Remember that time you told us that joke?”

Miz shook her head.

“Actually, that may have been Loren,” Cal admitted. He rallied quickly. “But my point is, you shouldn’t speak to her like that. Is she perfect? No. Hell, no. But who is? And, with all due respect – which, by the way, is none whatsoever – with a father like you, what chance did the kid have? You’ve done nothing but criticize her since we stepped in the room. Seriously, five minutes in your company, and even my self-esteem’s so low I’m thinking about killing myself. How do you think she feels?”

Graxan blinked slowly. “You are right,” he said.

“Damn right, I am! Thank you,” said Cal. “Um… which part, exactly?”

“You talk too much.”

There was a knock at the door, sharp and urgent. Sorshi opened it to reveal Kannus, already kneeling in the threshold. “Great Graxan,” he said, stooping his head. “Trouble approaches.”

“Here? On Kifo?” Graxan croaked. “Who dares?”

“We do not yet know, Your Majesty,” Kannus said. “It is a single ship, but has yet to identify itself. It is, however, broadcasting a message.”

Graxan’s eyes narrowed. “And what is the message?”

Kannus raised his head. “Three words, repeating on loop, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Yes?” barked Graxan, growing impatient. “And what do they say?”

“They say, ‘surrender,’ Great Graxan,” said Kannus. His eyes went to Cal. “‘Surrender the Earthling.’”

Seven

Cal stood on an expanse of dark gray slate, a cool wind prickling his skin. The landscape was bleakly black in all directions, with the all-covering cloud layer offering the only real color contrast. In terms of picking the perfect world to go and die on, the Greyx had hit a home run. Kifo was the deadest place Cal had ever been to, and considering he’d once spent a wet Tuesday evening in a Belgian nightclub, that was really saying something.

He was flanked again by Miz and her mom, with Graxan and Kannus standing together a dozen or so feet ahead. Several other Greyx lined the flat patch of slate, their eyes raised to the clouds. The hill that Loren had decapitated loomed a quarter of a mile or so away on the right, the Shatner hidden on the other side of its slope.

“So… what’s happening?” whispered Cal.

“Someone’s coming,” said Miz. “Someone looking for you.”

“Zertex?”

“We have not been able to identify it,” Kannus said, without looking round.

Cal lowered his voice even further. “Wow, that guy has good hearing.”

“Yes. I do.”

“Donchenodssaywhat,” Cal murmured, but – to his disappointment – Kannus didn’t appear to hear that one.

“It approaches,” said Sorshi, taking Cal by surprise. It was the first time he’d heard her speak in Graxan’s presence. Graxan’s ears twitched, and Sorshi ducked her head, as if regretting saying anything.

Just ahead of the group, the clouds swirled into a tornado pattern. A pulsing red light appeared in the center of the twister, then a spinning silver disk the size of a large Merry-Go-Round descended through the fog.

“Hey, it’s a flying saucer!” said Cal. “It’s an actual proper flying saucer. Maybe all those rednecks were right all along.”

At the sight of the ship, Graxan stiffened. He turned, just enough to shoot Mizette an angry glare. “What trouble have you brought to our door this time, daughter?” he hissed, then he turned away before she could offer any reply.

The saucer slowed, coming to a stop twenty or thirty feet in the air. It hung there, spinning lazily, the bulbous red light on its underside throbbing with illuminated menace.

“OK, so what happens now?” asked Cal, then he gawped in wonder as a figure began to materialize beneath the ship in a shimmering aura of sparkles.

“They’re beaming down?” said Cal. “They’re actually beaming down? That’s a thing? How come we never beam down?”

The light show stopped. In its place stood a woman in a flowing black robe. The hood was up, casting her face in shadow, but tucked into the darkness was a single steady spot of red light.

“Graxan,” the woman said, an inflection of surprise in her voice. “I was informed that you were dying.”

“Then I’m very sorry to have to disappoint,” Graxan growled. His voice sounded stronger – a deliberate attempt to disguise his frailty. “What do you want, Vajazzle?”

Behind Graxan, Cal let out a loud snort. “What? No way! Seriously?” he said. “She’s not really called ‘Vajazzle,’ is she?”

“I am. What of it?” demanded the woman in the robe.

Cal looked at the faces around him, trying to figure out if they were winding him up. “Well, I mean… Vajazzle. You know what that means.” He did another sweep of everyone’s faces, and saw only confusion. “You guys do know what that means, right?”

“No. What does it mean?” asked Miz.

Cal shuffled from foot to foot. “Come on, you must know! It’s when someone – a lady – jazzes up their… private area.”

Miz frowned. “Their bedroom?”

“No, their…” Cal made a vague gesture towards his crotch. “…foo-foo. You know? Their special lady’s… region. Their personal frontal…”

The Great Graxan, ruler of the Greyx, raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean their vagina?”

“Yes. Jesus,” said Cal, wishing he hadn’t opened his mouth. “It’s when someone decorates their…”

“Vagina,” said Graxan again.

“Thank you, yes, with, like, fake diamonds and, I don’t know, stickers and stuff. Vajazzle.”

A near-silence fell on the clearing. The only sound was the low droning of Vajazzle’s spinning saucer.

“No,” said Graxan, at last. “It’s a new one on me.”

Cal cleared his throat and crossed his hands behind his back. “Anyway. You were saying? Carry on.”

A painfully thin arm extended from within Vajazzle’s midnight robe. A crooked finger pointed Cal’s way. “Him. I want him. The others, too, but mostly him.”

Graxan nodded ponderously. Beside him, Kannus watched the woman intently, trying to anticipate her next move.

“And my daughter?” Graxan asked.

Vajazzle’s arm retreated into the robe. “Like the rest of the Greyx, she is off-limits, of course. I have not forgotten our agreement. I seek only the Earthling and his non-Greyx companions.”

Graxan nodded again. “Your request is fair,” he said. “But I am afraid I must refuse.”

“What?” said Kannus, his eyes widening. He shook off his surprise, and turned his focus back to Vajazzle. She still had her hood up, but the tone of her voice painted a pretty accurate picture of what her expression must be like.

“Refuse? Me?” Vajazzle hissed. “That is not wise, Graxan.”

“Perhaps not,” Graxan conceded. “My daughter has poor taste in companions, but her companions they are. They are under Greyx protection. An attack on them is an attack on us all.” He bared just enough fang to get his point across. “And attacking us all would not be wise.”

“That was not our agreement, Graxan,” said Vajazzle, and for the first time Cal heard what sounded like a second voice, speaking in time with the first. The first voice didn’t sound happy, but the second one even less so. “The Greyx are to be unharmed, but I have the freedom to pursue anyone else I like. We agreed.”

“You are right, we did,” Graxan conceded. “But while I live, my daughter’s companions are honorary Greyx.”

“Great Graxan, surely you can’t--?” Kannus began, but a low growl from Graxan stopped him going any further.

“They are honorary Greyx, and as such are permitted here on Kifo. The same cannot be said for you, Vajazzle,” Graxan said. “I would ask you to remove yourself from this place, or we shall be forced to remove you ourselves.”

The hood tilted left and right, as Lady Vajazzle surveyed the scene. The red radiance of her electric eye flared, then faded to a feeble glow. “Very well, Graxan. As you wish,” she said. “But know this - you have made a terrible mistake. I have been tasked with retrieving the Earthling, and retrieve him I shall. Whatever it takes.”

“Good luck with that,” said Cal, firing a toothy smile her way. “You don’t be a stranger, OK?” He shook his head and chuckled. “Vajazzle.”

The woman’s black robe became flecked with hundreds of sparkling white dots, like stars appearing in the night sky. As the others watched, she became semi-transparent, then faded completely in a shower of flickering lights.

“Well,” Cal breathed. “She seemed nice.”

Miz took a step forward. “Thanks,” she said, addressing Graxan’s back. He turned and shot her a look that bristled with irritation, then stumbled sideways. Kannus quickly caught him, taking the old Greyx’s weight.

“I have you, Great Graxan,” Kannus said.

“Take him to his chamber,” Sorshi instructed. She beckoned for Kannus to follow her. He strode past Cal and Miz, supporting the limping, wheezing Graxan on his shoulder.

“You want to go check on him?” asked Cal, as he and Miz watched them go.

Mizette shook her head. “No. Kannus’ll look after him.”

“That was pretty cool what he did,” said Cal. “You know, not handing me over to be Vajazzled. I didn’t expect that.”

Miz shrugged, but said nothing. Over on their right, there was the sound of hands and feet scrabbling over loose rocks. Loren and Mech appeared over the crest of the hill just as Vajazzle’s ship rocketed upwards into the bank of cloud.

“So,” said Loren, panting from the effort of the climb. “What did we miss?”

Eight

Sinclair leaned back in his chair, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for the comm-screen to light up with an incoming transmission.

Through his ceiling-to-floor office windows, he could see a planet. He wasn’t sure which planet it was. He wasn’t even sure which of the many Zertex Command space stations he was on. Zertex Command Four? Seven? He’d always counted on Legate Jjin to bother with such details, and now that Legate Jjin was nothing but dust, he was proving to be far less reliable.

Jjin had a brother, apparently, also employed by Zertex. When Sinclair had found out he’d been thrilled, thinking Jjin’s brother might make the perfect replacement, but he was currently deployed on an exo-galactic expedition and even if he turned the whole ship around, it would take years for him to get back. Besides, he was a scientist, and likely didn’t have the stomach for violence his brother had had. Then again, very few people did.

Sinclair was aware of seventeen different pressing issues he should have been attending to, but right then none of them mattered. All that mattered was getting his hands on the Earthling. In hindsight, abducting him from his prison cell on Earth was a mistake. Even without the case of mistaken identity – the troops he’d sent to carry out the abduction had grabbed the wrong man – it was a misjudgment on his part.

Earthlings were too unpredictable. He’d only met two – Cal Carver and one equally irritating other – but the pattern was clear. You could try to predict how they’d react in a given situation, but their sheer, unwavering stupidity would mean they’d completely confound your expectations every time. It was easy to assume that an intelligent person would always beat an idiot, but if the idiot had no idea of the rules and just made up his own, then it became a somewhat more difficult game to win.

Speaking of idiots, a thought struck him. He spun in his chair and pressed the intercom. “Janet?”

“Yes, Mr President, sir?”

“Did you send a sympathy note to Legate Filson’s family?”

“Yes, sir. You were very sorry to hear the terrible news, and offered particular sympathies to the children. It was quite touching, sir.”

“Excellent. Excellent. Did I enclose a gift?”

“A book token, sir. To help with the boys’ education.”

“Investing in our youth is so very important,” Sinclair said. “Very good Janet. Exceptional work.”

He flicked the switch and went back to reclining in his chair. Ah, Janet. What would he do without her? She was ruthlessly efficient. If only she were ruthless in other ways, too, she’d have made the perfect replacement for Legate Jjin.

The screen illuminated. Sinclair stood and perched himself on the edge of his desk. He straightened his collar. “On.”

Lady Vajazzle’s eight feet high face filled the screen. Sinclair welcomed her with his salesman smile. “Right on time, m’lady,” he said. “Always so reliable.”

“I do not have them,” Vajazzle said.

Sinclair’s smile faltered, just a fraction. “Oh. Perhaps I spoke too soon.”

“They have been made honorary Greyx, under the protection of Graxan himself.”

“Graxan? I thought he was dying?”

Vajazzle shook her head. “It appears not.”

Sinclair shot the dark stain on his carpet an accusing glare. He ruffled his hand through his hair, composing himself. “I see. I see. But – and please don’t take offense here – how is that my concern?”

Lady Vajazzle didn’t reply.

“I mean… this deal you have with the Greyx? How is that my problem?”

“It is your problem because it prevents me from carrying out your request,” Vajazzle said. There was an edge of menace to both her voices which suggested neither of them liked the way this conversation was headed.

“So… what? That’s it?” said Sinclair. “You’re going to give up? Let me ask you… what if Graxan made everyone honorary Greyx? Hmm? You’d be out of business. How is that fair?”

Once again, Lady Vajazzle said nothing.

“Seems to me that Graxan is twisting your agreement to suit himself. You agreed not to go after any Greyx, and in return he allowed you the freedom to go about your business with anyone else, even if they were hiding in Greyx space.”

“I know the terms of my own arrangement,” Vajazzle said.

“Do you? I’m not sure you do, because it sounds to me like he’s gone back on it. He said you were free to pursue any non-Greyx in any way you saw fit, correct? And yet now he’s saying you can’t do that? He’s saying, ‘oh, actually those non-Greyx I said you could go after? Yeah, they’re now off-limits, too.’”

Sinclair held his arms out at his side and snorted incredulously. “That’s fair how, exactly? And yet, you’re not going to do a thing about it.”

“I never said I wasn’t going to do anything about it,” Vajazzle said. “Graxan may not be on his deathbed, but he will not rule the Greyx forever.”

“So… what? You intend just waiting around for him to die? That’s your plan?”

A thin smile tugged at the corner of Lady Vajazzle’s wrinkled mouth. “Who said anything about waiting?”

Sinclair frowned. “I don’t follow. You’re going to kill Graxan?”

“I cannot harm the Greyx. Besides, his daughter would become queen, which would not improve the situation,” Vajazzle said. “I plan something a little less… direct. But be warned, it could have a number of repercussions.”

“What kind of repercussions?”

“It could tear the Greyx apart and plunge their whole sector into war.”

Sinclair lowered his head, considering this. “A war in which billions of Greyx could die. I’m afraid I don’t call that just a ‘repercussion,’ Vajazzle,” he said. He lifted his head and beamed at her. “I call that a result.”

* * *

Loren led the others onto the flight deck. Mech, who had re-centered his dial, summarized the damage situation. “So, all things considered – you know, what with smashing through a fonking mountain and all – we’re not in too bad shape. The rear deflector shield focusing arm is done for, so until we get that replaced we probably don’t want to get shot up the backside, and the torpedo launch chamber has come out of alignment.”

“What?” said Cal. “Aw, man, but I like shooting the torpedoes!”

“Oh, you can still shoot them,” said Mech.

“Hooray!”

“It’s just you’ll blow the ship to pieces and kill us all, so, you know, up to you, I guess.”

A blob of green gloop stretched down from the ceiling and fell across Cal’s shoulders like a scarf. Cal scratched Splurt where he’d decided his chin might very well be if he had one, then sat in his chair and turned it to face Miz. She slumped down into her own seat, and glanced self-consciously at the others, who were all now looking her way.

“What?” she sighed.

“Nothing,” said Cal. “Nothing. It’s just… what’s the plan?”

“The plan is we take off and get out of here,” said Miz. “He’s not dying. There’s no need for me to be here.”

“You’re right! Absolutely! Couldn’t agree more!” said Cal. He twisted his chair from side to side. “It’s just… since we are here, it might be worth just, you know, talking to him.”

“To Hell with that,” said Mech. “The man manipulated her into coming here. What sort of shizznod does that to his own daughter?”

“A desperate one?” said Loren. “I don’t know, maybe he has a good reason for it.”

“Besides being a total control freak, you mean?” scowled Miz. “Anyway, what do you care?”

“Hey, she cares,” said Cal. “She was ready to fight Kannus to stop him taking you away back on Earth.”

Miz’s scowl became even more pronounced. “Why?”

Loren shrugged. “Girls together, right? I didn’t want to be the only female on the ship.”

“Hey!” Mech protested. “I’m female.”

All eyes turned to look at the towering cyborg. Eleven different responses flashed through Cal’s head. He settled on the one fraught with the least potential danger. “What?”

Mech grinned. “Nah, I’m just messing with you. Thought I should try and lighten the mood.”

Everyone, even Splurt, continued to stare at him. At last, he sighed and threw up his arms. “Fine, know what, I’ll be through the back fixing stuff. Y’all just sit here and be miserable.”

He clanked off into the corridor, muttering below his breath.

“Is he malfunctioning or something?” asked Cal, once Mech was safely out of the room. “Should we be worried?”

“He’s fine,” said Loren. “I think… He just thinks we don’t take his feelings seriously.”

“Wait,” said Cal. “Mech has feelings?”

Loren rolled her eyes at him, then turned back to Mizette. “But seriously, you should at least find out why he was so desperate to get you to come back.” She tapped a few buttons on one of her control panels. “Besides, there’s no sign of her on the scanners right now, but we should probably wait a while until Vajazzle is out of range.”

Cal chuckled. “Heh. Vajazzle.”

Three loud hollow knocks rang out from the back of the ship.

“Is that… did someone just knock at the door?” said Cal.

Miz tilted her head, then sighed. “It’s Kannus.”

“Ah. Want me to get rid?”

Mizette stood up. “No. It’s fine. I’ll talk to him.”

Cal got to his feet and flicked one of Splurt’s drooping ends around his neck. “We’ll walk you to the door,” he said, holding his arm out. Miz regarded it curiously for a moment, then figured out she was supposed to hook her own arm through it. Once she had, Cal led her out into the corridor.

They reached the landing ramp and Cal reached for the button that would lower it. “Thanks,” said Miz.

Cal hesitated. “What for?”

“For that stuff you said. To my dad. I’ve never seen anyone else stand up to him before.”

Cal nodded. “Hey, no problem.”

“It made me hunger to have you inside me.”

Cal’s smile wavered just a little. He swallowed. “Not quite what I was aiming for, but good to know,” he said, then he leaned closer to the hatch and raised his voice. “Uh, you might want to stand back. This thing comes down like a fonking jackhammer.”

He gave Kannus a second to retreat, then hit the button. The ramp dropped and the dull, lifeless light of Kifo seeped in. When Kannus saw Cal and Miz arm in arm, his amber eyes darkened.

With a final squeeze of Cal’s bicep, Miz detached herself and trudged down the steps, giving Kannus a very deliberate cold shoulder at the bottom.

“Now, I want you to bring her back by ten, Kannus. This is a school night, and I won’t have her out any later than that,” Cal said. “I want no smoking, no drinking and no funny business, or you are grounded, young lady. You hear? Grounded.”

Kannus growled. “You dare give orders to the princess?”

Cal grinned. “You know, Kannus, I’m starting to think we have a very different sense of humor, you and me.” He gave Miz a final encouraging nod. “You two go have fun. If you need us, just shout. OK?”

“I will,” said Miz. “I’ll be back soon.”

Cal winked as he stepped back and hit the landing ramp button. With a whirr of mechanical parts, the hatch closed over.

Around Cal’s neck, Splurt gave a shudder. “Yeah, I know, buddy, I don’t like him either,” said Cal. “But I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

He turned away, then stopped and looked back at the closed hatch. He exhaled slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”

Nine

Lontho Oom had many wonderful qualities.

Known locally as ‘Papa Oom,’ due largely to his work with the city’s orphans and homeless children, he was renowned for his exceptional patience and kindness, and his willingness to put the needs of others before his own.

His wisdom was legendary. People would travel from all across the region – from beyond the Koth mountains and across the Sephur seas – in order to seek his guidance and advice. It gave him nothing but pleasure to provide it.

He was aged now, but his stooped back and balding head sat easy on him, as if he’d been an old man his whole life, just waiting to grow into it. But while the rest of his body had withered, his eyes – all four of them – had never lost their youthful, mischievous sparkle.

Perhaps Lontho Oom’s greatest attribute was his trustworthiness. Over the years, he had made many friends, forged countless alliances, and been entrusted with all manner of secrets. He had betrayed not a single one of them. His word was his bond, and that bond was unbreakable.

Yes, Lontho Oom had many wonderful qualities.

Unfortunately, a high pain threshold wasn’t one of them.

“P-please,” he babbled through his burst, swollen lips. “What d-do you want of me?”

The one-eyed woman in the long black robe looked Lontho up and down. Although, as he was currently hanging by a chain from his ankles, it was technically down and up.

“Who says I want anything?” she hissed in two distinct yet similar voices. Vajazzle made a twisting motion in the air with one hand, and Lontho screamed as something slack and squelchy inside him tightened almost to bursting point.

“Ssstop, please,” he slurred, gagging on his own backwards-flowing saliva.

Vajazzle twisted her fingers just far enough to make Lontho’s eyes bulge, then eased off. “Oh, but I’m just getting started,” she promised.

Lontho Oom’s home was modest by anyone’s standards. The wealth he had accumulated over the years had long since been spent on the less fortunate and under-privileged. The apartment was made up of just two rooms, one of which was the bathroom. Everything else Lontho Oom did, he did in the room he now dangled the wrong way up in.

It was part of an overcrowded complex in the poor end of town. On a clear night, with the wind blowing the right direction, you could hear people talking four stories above, and Lontho had never been a fan of the building’s paper-thin walls.

Until now.

“Lontho?” barked a gruff voice beyond the door. “Lontho, are you OK in there? I thought I heard you shout.”

Lontho’s eyes met Vajazzle’s. She shrugged. “Call him if you like,” she said.

He didn’t need telling twice. “H-help! Help me!”

The door shook under a violent impact. “Hold on! I’m coming!” shouted whoever was out there. His voice was deep and booming, and the way the door flew in on the second thud suggested someone large was coming through.

Sure enough, a hulking rock-like figure came stumbling into the room, his fists clenched into boulders. Even without looking, Vajazzle knew it had to be an Igneon. The smell was unmistakable. That was unfortunate. Igneons were tricky to kill. Not impossible, of course. There was nothing that couldn’t be killed. You just had to know where to apply the pressure.

“What the Hell?” the rock-creature growled, his voice like granite rubbing on some other, much rougher granite.

Vajazzle didn’t turn. Her hand went into a very specific part of a certain fold in her robe. It emerged quickly and flicked out in the direction of the Igneon in one fluid motion.

Something round and metallic stuck to the Igneon’s rock-face-like chest. He looked down. A circle of plastic on the front of the device lit up. “What’s this supposed to be?” he asked.

And then, he exploded.

At least, the top sixty percent of his body exploded, spraying chunks of hot red rock all over the place. His legs teetered around on their own for a few seconds, before toppling in opposite directions.

The flying slivers of stone whistled harmlessly past Vajazzle, changing course where necessary in order to avoid her.

Lontho Oom, on the other hand, was not so lucky. In fact, many of the pieces of flying Igneon seemed to home in on him. He screamed and thrashed as they struck his flesh like tiny meteorites, peppering his wrinkled skin with bloody craters.

Lontho’s home had always been modest, but now it was missing part of the wall, a section of ceiling and several square feet of floor, it was decidedly more so. The other inhabitants of the apartment block would have heard the blast. Local security, too. Even now, Vajazzle could hear the wailing of a distant siren, and the much closer thudding of footsteps in the corridor.

“I had hoped to drag this out a little longer,” she said, stepping in close to the hanging Lontho. “I had hoped to make you tell me what you knew in your own words. To hurt you so badly that you gave up everything. All those little secrets you’ve been entrusted with.”

She traced a fingernail down his naked, blood-soaked torso. “Sadly, I’m going to have to take a more direct approach,” she said. She squatted down until her shining red robotic eye cast its glare across Lontho’s tear-stained face. “Still, I can console myself with the fact that it is really going to hurt,” she whispered.

Then she extended a finger, pushed it through Lontho’s forehead, and buried it deep inside his brain.

* * *

Mizette leaned against an angular boulder, her arms crossed, her face very deliberately turned away from Kannus. He had tried to speak to her when she’d first stepped off the ship, but she’d told him to stay quiet until they’d found somewhere out of the way to talk. She hated the fact her old life and her new one had collided, and was determined to force them apart again as quickly as possible.

The rock she leaned on was at the top of the hill Loren had smashed the Shatner through. The Shatner itself stood down the hill on her left, although ‘stood’ was perhaps being generous. It sort of slouched, with one of the landing legs partially buried in a rocky crevice. It was a miracle it hadn’t toppled over.

Down the slope on her right was the flat area of gray slate where Vajazzle had confronted them all. The hut her mom had taken her to lay beyond it, and a short distance past that stood a squat stone building with an understated, yet somehow still grand doorway. Through that door and down the sloped path beyond it lay a maze-like network of rooms containing the bodies of all the Greyx kings, and the ashes of all their queens.

The Tomb of Kifo was a solemn place, a place where Greyx kings would often come to reflect and seek the guidance of their ancestors. It was also, as Miz had discovered on her first visit, brilliant for Hide & Seek. Unfortunately, no-one had ever tried to find her, so she’d eventually stopped playing.

To the right of the tomb stood a number of ships, one large and four much smaller. The royal transport and its guard ships. Kannus’s own craft stood apart from them, its dark hull appearing to absorb the thin light of Kifo’s sun.

“It is good to see you again, Your Highness,” said Kannus. “I have waited a long time for this moment.”

“Yeah,” said Mizette.

“I am just sorry it had to be under such grave circumstances.”

“What grave circumstances?” Miz snapped. “You said he was dying. He’s not.”

“But he is, Your Highness,” said Kannus. “He is not ready to face the Unshuk quite yet, perhaps, but face it he shall, and soon.”

Miz looked at Kannus for the first time since they’d walked away from the ship. “Why?”

“He has… an illness. He asked that it be kept from you.”

Mizette snorted. “No way. If he had an illness, he’d be right on giving me the guilt-trip, trying to get me back here. No way he’d keep it secret.”

“That is something I will leave you to discuss with him directly,” said Kannus. His wolf-like ears twitched. “But it is good to see you again, Mizette. It is good that we may now make plans for our wedding.”

Mizette clicked her fingers. “Of course, how could I be so stupid?” she muttered. “That’s why I’m back. So we can get married before the old man croaks. Can’t interrupt the lineage.”

Kannus nodded slowly. “That is correct. The ceremony will take place in two days, we have everything arranged. Graxan and I thought it best that you be impregnated before… Before he passes.”

“Ew, you two talk about that stuff?” Miz said.

“The thought of it gives him immense pleasure,” said Kannus.

Mizette’s eyes widened and her snout pulled up in an expression of horrified distaste.

“Of his grandchild, I mean,” said Kannus. “Not of you and I—”

“Yes, I get it,” said Miz, cutting him off. She nudged at a stone with her foot, pushing it back and forth across the slate. “Thing is, Kannus… I can’t marry you.”

Kannus blinked and smiled. “I’m sorry, Your Highness?”

“Just call me Miz, OK? Cut the royal stuff.” She sighed. “Look, you’re a great guy and everything, and it’s obvious my mom and dad totally love you, but… I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to be queen. I don’t want to stay here.”

“We would not stay here,” Kannus pointed out. “This is the death world. We would stay on Greyx Prime.”

“No, I know, it’s not… I just…” Mizette shook her head. This was harder than she thought. “It’s not you, OK? It’s me.”

Kannus frowned. “What is you? I don’t understand? We are Lifebound. We are pledged.”

“Yeah, but how is that fair?” Miz asked. “I mean, seriously? We got engaged when I was in the womb. In the womb. That’s not normal, right?”

“It is how it always has been,” said Kannus. “It is our way.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to be able to just choose who you hook up with?” asked Miz. “Wouldn’t you like to decide for yourself who you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

“I would choose you,” said Kannus.

“Would you?” asked Miz, weakly. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” said Kannus, sensing her uncertainty. “If I had the choice of all the stars in the sky, none would shine so bright as you. Were I not your Lifebound I would watch you from afar, lamenting every day a loss I never had.”

He placed a hand on the side of her face. She flinched, just a little, but didn’t pull back. “But we do not have to choose. Something bigger than us, something greater has chosen for us, and the choice that has been made is the right one, Mizette. I can feel it, deep in my soul.”

“Um, yeah. OK,” said Mizette. She cleared her throat. “See, the thing is, I don’t. Feel it, I mean.”

Kannus searched her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“Shizz, Kannus, how many ways can I say it?” Miz snapped, pulling away from his hand. She looked away and crossed her arms even more firmly than they had been. “There’s someone else,” she said.

The hair on the back of Kannus’s neck tingled as it stood on end. “Someone else? How can there be ‘someone else’?” he demanded, his voice dropping an octave. “We are Lifebound. We are pledged. You are mine. You have always been mine! It has been decreed.”

“Well I’m un-decreeing it,” said Miz. “I don’t want to marry you.”

Kannus stepped back, shaken. “But… But…”

“I swear, if you say ‘I don’t understand,’ one more time,” said Miz.

“I don’t understand,” said Kannus. “I am to be king!”

“And you can still be king,” said Miz. “Seriously, you’ll be awesome. You’ve been training and, you know, all that other stuff. You can totally be king.”

“How can I be king without a queen?” Kannus demanded.

Miz shrugged. “You’ll figure something out. How about what’s her name? Horri. From school, remember? She was totally into you. You should look her up. I bet she’d love to be—”

“Silence!” Kannus roared, his face twisting up in rage. “I will tolerate no more of this… this nonsense. You are my wife, and you will serve your king as you are duty bound to.”

Mizette spun on her heels and began walking away. “OK, I can see we’re done here.”

“Do not turn your back on me,” Kannus growled. His leg muscles bunched, his fingers splaying into claws. Before he could pounce a piercing bleep sounded from a metal cuff around his wrist.

“Kannus,” intoned the voice of Graxan. Mizette stopped and turned to listen. “Join me on the royal transport at once. There has been a development.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. At once,” said Kannus. His eyes went to Mizette. “Your daughter is with me.”

“Then bring her,” Graxan commanded. “This concerns her, too. The future of the Greyx may be in peril.”

* * *

“So, which do you think?” asked Cal, holding up two shirts on hangers. “The black one, which is probably more space piratey, or the blue one?”

Loren was on the floor of the bench room, rattling through a quite staggering number of push-ups. Cal had no idea how many she’d done before he joined her, but she’d hammered out a solid dozen in the few seconds since he’d arrived.

She looked up, not breaking her stride, and gave both shirts a cursory glance. “Black one,” she said.

“You think?” said Cal. He held it at arm’s length and studied it. “It’s not too David Hasselhoff?”

“I have no idea who that is,” said Loren.

“He had a talking car. Brought down the Berlin Wall,” said Cal. He lowered the shirt. “I wonder if he’s still alive.”

“Probably not,” said Loren, dipping into another push-up.

“I dunno,” said Cal. “If anyone could survive an invasion of alien bug parasites, it’s the Hoff.” He thought about this for a moment. “Actually, no. He’s totally dead.”

He draped the blue shirt over the bench and pulled off his heavily creased, food-stained purple one, taking great care to tighten his stomach muscles and stick out his chest. To his disappointment, Loren’s stride didn’t falter even for a second.

“Aren’t you going to take a shower before you put that on?” she asked.

Cal frowned. “Wait… we have a shower?”

“Of course we have a shower. How could you miss it? It’s in the bathroom right next to the toilet.”

Cal gasped. “We have a toilet?”

Loren stopped at the top of a push-up. “Of course. Why, what have you been doing?”

Cal smiled, but shifted on his feet. “I mean, yeah, I knew we had a toilet. Of course. I’ve been using it for, like, almost a week. It’s just out there on the…”

“Right,” said Loren.

“On the right. Exactly. Totally knew that’s where it was.” He clutched the black shirt to his chest as he backed towards the door. “I’m gonna be back in ten minutes,” he said, then he ducked out into the corridor, turned right and scurried towards a door he’d always just assumed for some reason was a closet.

Just as he reached the door, he heard a muttering from the engine room further along the ship. Cal hesitated, his thumb poised above the ‘open’ button on the wall.

With a sigh of disappointment, he shot the door a longing glance, pulled on the shirt, then followed the muttering.

“Hey, Mech, what’s up?” Cal asked.

Mech stood over by the warp disk containment unit, his eyes looping in tight circles as he watched the shiny white disk spin.

Cal leaned on the doorframe, fastening the shirt’s buttons. Annoyingly, there was a security tag on one of the cuffs which he’d forgotten to remove at the store. He fiddled with it, trying to pry it open.

“Nothing,” said Mech.

Cal shrugged. “OK,” he said, turning away.

“It’s just…”

Cal went back to leaning on the wall. “It’s just…?”

Mech looked up. There was very little of his face that wasn’t made of metal, but what there was of it looked pained. “They controlled me. Like a fonking puppet. Sinclair, Jjin, whoever. Zertex, they controlled me.”

Cal nodded. “Yeah. They implanted, what, some sort of space remote control or whatever? You got rid of it. It’s no big deal.”

He moved to walk away again.

“But what if I didn’t? What if they got another one? I mean, shizz, for all I know they’re controlling me now.”

Cal returned to leaning on the door. He sucked his bottom lip. “I can see why that might worry you. Could we transfer your brain to another body?”

Mech’s brow furrowed. “Say what?”

“You know, just to be on the safe side until we get that body checked out? We could, like, pop you onto a USB memory stick or something, then plug you into the ship’s computer. I’m assuming the ship has a computer, by the way? You could be a face on the screen, chiming in with wisecracks and stuff, and we’d all be drawing mustaches on you, and that sort of thing. I don’t know about you, but I am very excited about this idea.”

“I ain’t a robot! How many times do I gotta tell you?”

“Are you absolutely sure, though?” asked Cal.

“Yes!” He tapped a metal finger against his non-metal forehead. “You can’t move my brain to another body, least not without a hacksaw, a bucket and a whole lot of motherfonkin’ elbow grease.”

“OK, OK, you’re not a robot. Fine, I get it!” Cal said, raising his hands for calm. He couldn’t help but notice the white tag on his cuff. “Hey, do you have, like, some sort of robotic attachment or something that can take this tag off? I don’t want it shooting ink all over the place.”

Mech shook his head, his metal fingers curling into fists. “Fonk you, man.”

Cal grinned. “Hey, I’m kidding!” he said. “No-one’s controlling you, Mech. You cleared them out. If they were controlling you, would they have let you punch a hole in their ship like you did back at that breakfast buffet place?”

Mech’s metal shoulders raised and lowered in the galaxy’s noisiest shrug.

“They wouldn’t. You’re not their puppet, Mech. You’re, like, Robocop, Terminator and the donkey from Shrek all rolled into one.”

Mech opened his mouth. Cal jumped in before he could speak.

“I know, I know, you have no idea what any of those things are,” he said. “But trust me. They’re awesome. I mean, yeah, Donkey’s an annoying fonk at times and there’s a fifty-fifty chance the Terminator will try to go back in time and kill your kids, but…” Cal frowned. “I have no idea where I was going with that.”

He beamed. “Still, good chat!” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve recently found out we have a toilet.”

An urgent bleep rang out from the front of the ship. Cal sighed. “Oh, what now?”

He headed for the front. Loren stepped out of the bench room in front of him, her shoulders and the patch of her back he could see glistening with sweat. He resisted the urge to say something wildly inappropriate and followed her in silence through to the flight deck.

A flick of a switch later and Mizette’s face filled the screen. “Hey, Miz, how’s it going?” Cal asked.

Miz glanced back over her shoulder. She was on a ship Cal didn’t recognize. Behind her, he could see Kannus deep in conversation with Graxan.

“Everything OK?” he asked.

Miz shook her head. “No. Can you guys get over to my dad’s ship? There’s something you need to see.”

Ten

Lontho Oom was dead. That much was certain.

His normally rosy cheeks were almost translucently pale. His eyes, known for their sparkling kindness, were glassy and lifeless.

Also, he had a big hole in the middle of his forehead, through which his brains were visible. That was probably the biggest clue.

“Who’s the upside-down dead guy?” asked Cal, bending his neck to try to get a better look at the grainy, black and white picture.

“His name was Lontho Oom,” said Graxan. The king of the Greyx was sitting in a throne-like captain’s chair, raised up in the center of his ship’s bridge. The bridge itself was grand and opulent, but it was a tired and faded sort of opulence, like a palace that had been decorated in the 1970s and never updated.

Purple curtains draped over wood-paneled walls that were set with little gold lamps. The floor was covered in a vast brown carpet which, given the ship’s inhabitants, Cal thought, must surely be a magnet for dog hair.

“He was a… friend of both mine and my father’s,” Graxan said. “A long-time ally of the Greyx.”

“What happened?” asked Loren.

“He was murdered,” Kannus spat. He jabbed a claw towards Cal. “Because of him.”

“Me? What did I do?”

Mizette, who stood beside her mother at the bottom of Graxan’s throne platform, stepped forward. “They think Vajazzle did this.”

Cal snorted. “Vajazzle,” he said, then he realized everyone was staring at him and cleared his throat. “I mean… why? Why would she kill this guy?”

“Lontho was the keeper of secrets,” said Graxan, as if that explained everything.

“Right. OK. What kind of secrets?” Cal asked, when it was clear nothing else was being volunteered. “Like lotto numbers, or…?”

“Tell me, Earth man, what do you know of the history of the Greyx?” Graxan asked.

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Depends. If I say ‘a lot’ is there going to be a quiz? Because I don’t test well.”

Graxan’s ears twitched, as if flicking away a fly. “There is a… story of a Greyx named Rhaxus. He is the one said to have united the warring Greyx nations under one cause. Before Rhaxus, Greyx was much like your Earth. Nations at war, brother fighting brother over perceived differences that didn’t really exist. Rhaxus stopped that. Rhaxus made us one.”

Graxan’s voice had become a hushed, respectful whisper. “And then, he took us to the stars. Once he had, once he’d set us on our path, he vanished. His final resting place was never discovered.”

Cal glanced around the bridge. Mech and Loren stood on either side of him, but they’d left Splurt back on the ship. The moment Cal had spotted the carpet, he knew he’d made the right decision. If Splurt had been rolling around in that thing, they’d be picking hair off him for weeks.

There were four uniformed Greyx positioned at terminals around the room, and two over by the door. Kannus was with Graxan on his plinth, standing a half-step beside his throne. His amber eyes burned into Cal with an intensity that threatened to make him burst into flames at any moment.

“That’s a nice story,” said Cal. “I mean, it could’ve done with a car chase and a sex scene, but still.”

“It is not just a story,” said Graxan. “Rhaxus was very real. He was a great leader, and like all great leaders, his actions were not always noble.”

“Man, you are dragging this shizz out,” tutted Mech. “What’s it got to do with the dead guy?”

Mizette took up the tale. Clearly she was keen to get to the end, too. “The legend says he had this, like, spear thing.”

“The Bladestaff,” said Graxan.

“Or whatever,” said Miz. “That was, like, magic or something. It let him control the Greyx. That’s how he stopped all the wars, by forcing everyone to do what he said.”

“Nice guy,” said Cal.

“Leaders don’t have to be nice,” said Graxan. “They have to be effective. ‘Nice’ is a luxury they can rarely afford.”

Mech grunted. “I still don’t see what any of this has got to do with the upside-down dead dude.”

Graxan drummed his claws on the arm of his throne, then turned his gaze to Miz. “You’re certain they can be trusted?”

Miz nodded. “Yeah. Totally.”

Graxan inhaled slowly through his nose. “Very well. One of Lontho Oom’s many secrets was the location of a key. Or, more accurately, the location of an individual who knew the location of a key.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Cal. “I think. What’s the key open?”

“A lock,” said Graxan.

“You don’t fonking say,” Mech snapped.

“Don’t mind him,” said Cal, gesturing to the cyborg. “He’s having emotional issues. You were saying something about a lock?”

Graxan shifted on his throne. He rolled his tongue around in his mouth, as if wrestling the words out. Kannus placed a hand on the back of the throne and leaned closer.

“Great Graxan, I must advise…” he began, but Graxan waved a hand and dismissed the advice before it could be given.

“The lock is to a vault. The vault contains the Bladestaff of Rhaxus. Whoever possesses the Bladestaff…”

“Could rule the Greyx,” said Loren. “You think someone’s trying to find it?”

“I believe it is a possibility,” said Graxan. “The manner of Lontho’s death suggests he was probed by Vajazzle.”

Cal bit his lip.

“Who sent the footage?” Loren asked.

“We don’t know,” said Graxan. “Possibly the assassin herself.”

“That don’t make no sense,” Mech said. “If she’s going after this staff thing of yours, why’s she warning you? Why not just go get it?”

“Did someone turn your brainpower down?” asked Cal, making a show of studying Mech’s power diversion dial. “To lure them out. Or to lure us out, probably. It’s a trap.” He turned to Loren. “Right?”

“We agree,” said Graxan. “It is a trap.”

“So, you want my advice? You swoop in to wherever this Bladestaff is hidden, and you get it before she does.”

“It is not that simple,” said Graxan. “The location of the vault is known only to one person. Another ally of the Greyx. He does not know where the key is, and the keykeeper does not know where the vault is hidden. The Bladestaff is too big a secret for one person to hold. Not even I know where to find it.”

“They think Vajazzle is going to go after the key guy, kill him, get the key, then go find the vault,” said Miz. “So someone needs to go stop her.”

Cal rocked on his heels. “Good luck with that,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know the woman, but she looked pretty fierce, with that creepy eye and the robe and everything.”

“I said we’d go,” said Miz.

“Say what?” Mech said.

Cal frowned. “What… ‘we’ as in us four and Splurt? That ‘we’?”

Miz nodded. “Yeah. Our ship’s faster, we can get to the key guy before she does.”

“I will come with you,” said Kannus.

“OK, one, that’s not going to happen,” said Cal. “We’ve only got three seats. Mech already has to stand, and just look at how miserable that’s made him.”

“Shut up, man.”

“See? No, we’ve got a full crew already,” Cal concluded. “Still, thanks for the offer.”

“And what is ‘two’?” asked Graxan.

“Huh?”

“You said ‘one, that’s not going to happen,’” Graxan intoned. “Implying a ‘two.’”

Cal nodded. “You’re right, that totally implies a ‘two,’ but I can’t remember what it was going to be,” he said. He shrugged. “Ah, what the Hell? Yeah, we’ll do it. We’ll go.”

“We will?” said Loren.

“Just like that?” said Mech. “No discussion, no consultation…”

“I will take the princess’s place,” said Kannus, stepping down from the plinth. “Her place is here, with her father.”

“What? No way,” said Miz. “I’m going with them.”

Kannus bristled. “This is not open for discussion.”

“Know your place, daughter,” warned Graxan. “The time for your tantrums is past. Kannus will go.”

“No!” Miz protested. “They’re my friends, I’m going with them.”

“Kannus! Control your Lifebound,” Graxan barked, slamming a fist on the arm of his throne. Kannus’s orange eyes darkened. His muzzle raised, baring a staggering number of teeth.

Just before he could make his move, Cal stepped in front of him, a palm-sized device clutched between his finger and thumb. “Whoa there tall, dark and hairsome,” he said. “Let’s just calm down, shall we?”

Kannus flashed his claws, but Cal raised the device higher. “I wouldn’t,” he warned. “You ever heard of a Dead Man’s Switch? If I let go of this button, this thing goes off and it’s going to make a real mess of your carpet, drapes and everything within a ten mile radius.”

All eyes went to the device in Cal’s hand. “You’re bluffing,” said Kannus.

“You know something? Maybe I am,” said Cal. “Seriously, I have no idea if I’m going to let go of this thing or not. But I do know there’s only one way to find out. What do you say?”

The silence that followed was broken by Miz’s mother, Sorshi. “I am but a woman and know little of such matters,” she said, bowing respectfully to both Kannus and Graxan. “But might it make sense to send Kannus and his ship to whoever knows the location of the vault, while Mizette and her companions protect the keykeeper?” She bowed again, more deeply this time. “Forgive my impertinence.”

Graxan’s eyes narrowed. He sat that way for a while, before finally speaking.

“Very well. Both ships shall go. Mizette may go, on the understanding she returns in order to undertake her royal duties.”

“Oh, I have your permission?” Miz scowled. “Gee, thanks.”

“That was sarcasm, by the way,” said Loren. She and the others followed Cal as he backed towards the door, the explosive device still held in front of him.

“Send over the address or whatever and we’ll get on it,” said Cal. “We’ll find your key guy before he gets Vajazzled. That’s a Cal Carver guarantee.”

The door swished open at his back. “Which, by the way, isn’t actually legally binding or anything, just so we’re clear.”

With a final nod, he lowered his arm, grinned at the room in general, then strode out into the corridor.

A few minutes later, when they were safely off Graxan’s ship and making their way back up the hill, Loren shot Cal’s explosive disk a wary look. “Where did you get that? It wasn’t in the armory.”

Cal looked down at the circle of plastic, as if only just remembering he had it. “What this?” He flipped it like a coin and caught it. “It’s the security tag from my shirt. I managed to get it off when Graxan was talking.” He held it up and gave the pin a gentle tug. “See?” he said, then the disk went pop splattering his face with yellow ink.

“Huh,” said Loren. “You were right. That would have made a real mess of the carpet.”

Eleven

The shower had been magnificent. The toilet, even more so.

And now that his hair was dry and his bladder was empty, and the thing that was a bit like a kitten was playing on the viewscreen, Cal strummed to the end of one of his many number one hit singles.

“I call that one, ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,” said Cal, who had run out of proper space-based songs to claim credit for, and was really starting to clutch at straws.

He looked around the flight deck, hoping for some applause, then screamed when he spotted a complete stranger standing near the door. No, not a stranger, he realized. He’d know that lion’s mane of hair and eyeshadow overdose anywhere.

It was Bonnie Tyler.

Cal raised a hand and gave Bonnie Tyler a wave.

Bonnie Tyler waved back.

A moment later, she collapsed in on herself, becoming a gelatinous green ball on the floor. Splurt rolled towards Cal and nuzzled against his legs. Cal had almost forgotten about the little guy’s mind-reading ability. He wondered how accurately he could imagine a naked Jessica Alba, but then quickly pushed the thought away.

“Who the fonk was that?” asked Mech.

“Who? Oh, her. Just… someone that I used to know,” said Cal. He plucked out a chord. “Which reminds me of another song I wrote,” he began, but before he could inflict any more of his singing on the rest of the crew the Shatner dropped out of warp.

“Not again!” Cal groaned, as his belt tightened across his chest, slamming him back against the seat. His guitar flew forwards out of his hands until the strap went tight, then reversed sharply as the ship stopped. It hit his face with a thud and a twrang, both of which sounded better than his entire rendition of ‘The Final Countdown’ had, just a few minutes previously.

“What have you done this time?” snapped Miz, her claws digging into the arms of her chair to stop her sliding out.

“Is it the warp disk? I bet it’s the warp disk,” said Mech. “I bet you broke the motherfonkin’ warp disk again.”

“I didn’t do anything!” protested Loren.

“Yeah, you said that last time,” said Miz.

“And it wasn’t me last time!” Loren said. “Sinclair had sabotaged us.”

“So you say,” Miz snapped.

“Ladies, ladies, let’s take a deep breath and just calm down, OK?” said Cal. He smiled at them both in turn. “There. Isn’t that better? There’s no need to panic. I’m sure it’s just a…”

There was a clang as something metal hit the outside of the ship directly above where Cal sat. His eyes went to the ceiling. “OK, maybe we should panic a little,” he whispered. “What the Hell was that?”

Loren began frantically flipping the controls. “Oh no. No, no, no, no,” she muttered.

“That’s a lot of nos,” said Cal. There was another metallic clang from somewhere towards the back of the ship. “What is it? Loren, speak to me here!”

The image of the not-quite-kitten vanished and was replaced by the now-familiar view of outer space. What was less familiar to Cal was the almost perfectly rectangular spaceship floating just above them and to the right. Something about the ship’s blocky, functional construction, and the scorch marks that painted its sides like rust made him immediately think of a garbage truck.

“Who is that?” asked Cal.

“Scrivers,” groaned Mech. “It had to be Scrivers.”

“Who or what are ‘Scrivers’?” Cal asked, then he jumped as something the color of old copper landed on the viewscreen. “Jesus Christ, what the fonk is that?” he yelped.

If he had to describe the thing in one word, Cal would have said, ‘robot octopus,’ even if only to annoy whoever had asked him. It had more legs than an octopus – twelve, he thought, although they were moving too quickly to say for sure – and unlike your more traditional Earth octopus, this one was made of metal.

Before anyone could get a closer look at the thing, the screen flickered. The image of the octobot was replaced by rolling lines of static, as half a dozen other thuds and clanks vibrated through the hull of the ship.

“They’re scavengers,” Loren said, hurriedly flipping more switches. “They intercept ships in deep space then tear them apart for scrap.”

“Yeah, but… they wouldn’t do that to us, would they?” Cal asked.

“They’re doing it to us right now!” Mech barked. “Sensors show a dozen on the hull. More incoming.”

“What do we do?” asked Miz.

“Wait, I’ve got it!” announced Cal. “Do we have a thing where, like, we shoot an electrical charge out of the ship in all directions at once, frying those things before they can do any real damage?”

“No,” said Loren.

“Shizz,” said Cal. “Then I’m out of ideas. We should really invest in one of those things, though. It’ll pay for itself in no time. Assuming we survive.”

The lights flickered, and the ship plunged briefly into darkness.

“Which, I’ll admit, is looking increasingly unlikely,” Cal said.

“Can’t we go to warp and shake them off?” asked Miz.

“No, they’re jamming most of our systems,” said Loren. “That ship’s loaded with tech stolen from all over the galaxy.”

“So what do we still have?” asked Cal. At his feet, Splurt trembled gently. He reached down and scratched the little guy’s head. “Easy, buddy, we’re not done yet.”

“I make life support, shields and weapons,” said Mech.

“They’re on a protected circuit. Makes sense,” Loren said.

“And what don’t we have?” asked Cal. He watched as his guitar and Splurt both lifted into the air and bobbed towards the ceiling. “I’m no expert, but I’m guessing gravity isn’t working?”

“Gravity, impulse engines, warp, sensors, communications…”

“Is the shower still working?”

Loren flipped another switch. “Doubt it.”

“Son of a bedge!” Cal sighed. Somewhere above his head, metal legs scuttled across the hull. “What if we blow up the ship?”

“Then we’d all die,” said Miz.

“No, not our ship. The other ship. What if we blow up that one? Would that stop the octobots?”

“Yeah, that’d stop them,” said Mech. “But how do you suggest we do that? We can’t see it.”

Cal turned his chair to face him. “Can’t we use the scanners to find it?”

“I told you, sensors are down,” said Loren.

“Yeah, sensors are down, but what about the scanners?” asked Cal. His brow furrowed. “Wait… they’re not the same thing, are they?”

“Yes!” said Loren.

“Sensors and scanners are the same thing?” Cal groaned. “Well, we need to decide on a naming convention so no-one gets…” The lights went out again. This time, they didn’t come back on. “OK, so that’s not good. We need to blow that thing up right now.”

“I told you, we can’t see the ship. How can we shoot what we can’t see?”

Cal thumped the arm of his chair and raised his arms as his control console unfolded. The panels locked into place, forming a quarter circle beneath each arm. The chair gripped his neck, holding him steady as a visor slid over his head and adjusted to size across his eyes. For a moment, he felt like he were seeing a bird’s eye view of the universe, then he gasped as the virtual reality image rushed towards a spot just left of the center.

It stopped in a disappointing blizzard of static. “Fonk it. The gun helmet screen thingy is blocked, too.”

The Shatner creaked and groaned as the octobots scrambled around on the outside. Cal slammed the heel of his hand against the headset, trying to clear the image. “What do we know about these guys? The ones flying the ship, I mean. Anything?”

“They’re scavengers. Scrivers. They track down ships--”

“Yeah, you said that already, anything else?” asked Cal. “So they send their little robot pals to tear the ship a new one, then what?”

“They take the salvage back to their own ship, then they blow whatever’s left to pieces to cover their tracks,” Mech explained.

A screech of metal on metal vibrated through the hull. “They’re going to come through,” warned Loren. “They’re going to tear their way in. We need to suit up.”

“Wait,” said Cal. “They blow the ship up?”

“We’re totally going to be dead by then,” said Miz.

“Yeah, they blow it up,” said Mech.

“Excellent!” said Cal, grinning beneath the visor.

“In what reality is that excellent?” Loren cried.

“We’ve still got shields, right?” said Cal. “And they, the other ship, the Scriver guys, they’ll have sensors or scanners or whatever the fonk we’re calling them today. Yes?”

“Right,” said Loren. “So?”

Cal spun in his chair. “So I know where they are.”

Mech snorted. “What? No way. How can you know where they are? You can’t see nothing.”

“Because if he can scan our shields, he knows we don’t have any at the back,” Cal said. “He’s going to shoot us right up the shizzpipe.”

Cal found the joysticks that let him control the weapons. “Which is torpedoes again?” he asked.

“You can’t fire the torpedoes!” said Mech. “The launch tube ain’t fixed.”

“Fonk it,” Cal muttered. “OK, which one isn’t the torpedoes then?”

“Cannons are on the left,” said Loren.

Cal gripped the left stick. His thumb found the button. “OK, eat this you shower-wrecking shizznod,” he growled, then he opened fire.

“Uh, you know you ain’t facing the back, right?” said Mech.

Cal stopped firing. “No, I did not know that,” he said. “Could someone point me in the right direction?”

He heard the sound of metal footsteps, then his chair was quite forcibly spun to the left. “There,” said Mech. Something up near the ceiling went bang then fzzzt and Cal felt hot sparks rain down around him. “And hurry up!”

Cal’s finger hovered over the trigger. Through the headset, he was lost in a sea of static interference that flashed and flickered erratically all around him. And yet… There was a shape. No, not a shape. A suggestion of a shape that loomed somewhere ahead. He squinted, trying to focus, but the outline – if it even was an outline – was so blurry and indistinct there was nothing to focus on.

It was nothing. A whisper of nothing. But it was the only target he had.

He took aim with the stick. He held his breath. He squeezed the trigger.

Outside the ship, the octobots continued their assault.

“Missed,” said Loren.

“If it’s even out there,” said Mech.

“Hey, wait a minute,” said Miz. “Don’t we have, like, a window at the back?

“The airlock!” yelped Cal. “Of course! Someone go back there and shout directions.”

“I can do better than that,” said Mech. Cal heard the steady clanking of the cyborg’s feet as he rushed out into the corridor and raced towards the airlock.

The Shatner shuddered as several more octobots landed on the hull. “Whatever you’re doing, do it fast!” Cal shouted.

“I see it. Motherfonker, you were right, it is out back!”

“Where? Tell me where,” said Cal, then his eyes widened as a video feed of the view from the airlock window overlapped the snow scene.

“Got you patched in,” Mech said. “You’re seeing what I’m seeing. Shoot that sucker down!”

“Mech, you’re a fonking genius!” Cal cheered. He took aim and squeezed the trigger. The beam of fiery red energy missed the Scriver ship by quite a considerable distance.

“Remember, you’re seeing from Mech’s view,” said Loren. “It won’t line up with the sights.”

“Great! Then how am I supposed to hit it?”

“Use the last shot as reference. Aim based on that,” Loren urged.

“Hurry up, man!” Mech snapped. “They’re onto us. They’re charging their weapons.”

Cal gritted his teeth. He’d been low and to the… left? Right? Which was it? He couldn’t remember. He hazarded a guess and another beam of laser fire punched through space, missing the Scriver ship. Closer, this time, though. Much closer.

“They’re almost in!” said Miz. “I can hear them.”

“He’s gonna fire!” boomed Mech’s voice through the headset.

With a roar, Cal adjusted his aim and jerked back on the trigger. The Shatner’s laser cannon scythed upwards through space, carving a trench into the side of the Scriver ship. Rocked, the enemy craft flipped into a lazy spin. Cal fired again, holding the beam steady and letting the spiraling Scriver vessel spread the damage across all four of its sides.

The clanking and scrabbling on the Shatner’s hull stopped. The virtual reality static vanished. Cal found himself in the unenviable position of seeing the same image from two different directions at the same time, and had to fight to stop his brain shutting itself down through sheer confusion.

“Mech, turn it off!” he shouted, then he sighed with relief as the overlapped image blinked away, leaving just the panoramic original.

The ship let out a rising electronic whine, and even through the headset Cal could tell the lights had returned.

“Systems coming back online,” Loren announced. “Impulse engines ready.”

Cal turned in his seat. He couldn’t see any of the ship itself from his virtual viewpoint, but as he turned he saw the octobots drifting off into space one by one, their snapping, wriggling tentacles now limp and lifeless, like the ‘before’ hair in a shampoo commercial.

“Finish them off,” said Miz. “Tear their ship apart.”

“Meh.” Cal shrugged. He blinked as the visor lifted away. “Let’s just leave them spinning. Maybe they’ll spread the word and tell their buddies not to mess with us again.”

He spun in his chair as his gunner controls folded away. “Can we warp yet?”

Loren clicked a few buttons and checked the readings. “Good to go.”

“Then punch it,” said Cal, gripping his arm rests. He swallowed the nausea he could already feel building. “But do not – I repeat, do not - forget the space kitten,” he added, before a guitar dropped from the ceiling and thumped him on the top of his head.

Twelve

Kasheeshaktek Shasheeshketak – ‘Kash’ to his friends, of which he had none – stood knee-deep in warm manure, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when it had all gone wrong.

Last season, by this point in the cycle, he’d have been waist deep in the gelatinous slurry. Output was down, and if he didn’t find a way to bring it back up again, he’d never make his quota.

The worm wasn’t eating. That was the problem. Every week, Kash had made the trek across the blazing sands until he’d reached the head end, pushing his trolley laden with high-fiber roughage. Every week, he’d brought most of the previous delivery back again, untouched.

It was simple biology, really. In order for output to increase at the bottom end, input had to increase at the top end. No matter how enticing he tried to make the offerings, though, the worm wasn’t interested.

Was it dying? Was that it? If so, he was in trouble. There were so few of the creatures left now that finding one to harvest could take months. Years, even. He wasn’t even sure there were any others after this one. The other shizzfarmers had all packed up and left this barren ball of sand long ago. Kash had just been too stupid, too broke and – if he were honest - too damn stubborn to follow their lead.

The valve in the floor of the collection tent groaned. Kash stepped out of the way, hope fluttering its gentle wings in his stomach. “Come on, gimme an eruption,” he whispered. “Gimme a volcano!”

The slurry stirred. The slurry rolled. A disappointing burbling sound bubbled on the surface, and the gloopy brown stew crept an inch past Kash’s knees.

“Shizz,” Kash muttered. And it was. Just not enough.

He took longer than usual to strip, shower and redress on the other side of the tent door. His limbs were heavy with disappointment and worry and everything in between. The heat didn’t help matters, either. The sun was well up in the sky, its boggle-eyed glare staring down at him with rapidly increasing intensity.

It would soon be too hot to be outside. Kash rolled up his coveralls and dropped them in a biohazard bag. Technically, he was supposed to incinerate them, but he’d run out of replacements months ago, so had taken to just hosing the outfit down twice a week, and giving it the occasional airing. He hadn’t died yet, although he had developed a worrying rash on his inner thigh that smelled like old soup, and which forced him to walk with bowed legs.

Still, he wasn’t one for grumbling, and even if he was, who was left to listen?

The water tank sounded almost empty as Kash poured himself a cup full. A new delivery was due any day, but as ‘any day’ may not necessarily be any day soon, he’d have to ration it. He sipped just enough to moisten his mouth, dabbed a few drops on his black, bulbous eyes, then turned and headed for a ramshackle cottage that stood on its own a few hundred feet away. Two teetering wooden constructions leaned over it, groaning in the virtually non-existent breeze. They kept the cottage itself in the shade for much of the day, deflecting the worst of the sun’s effects.

A few years back, after a particularly productive season, Kash had spent most of his savings on a single solar panel, which he’d attached to the top of the tallest tower. The advert had promised unlimited power around the clock, and Kash had relished the idea of having lights in the dark evenings, and an electric blanket to see him through the cold desert nights.

The day after Kash had set up the solar panel, it melted. What was left of it was still up there now, after he’d decided not to replace it, and to instead spend a considerably smaller amount of money on some candles and wooly socks.

Yes, it was a tough old life, shizzfarming. Still, this season was bad, but he’d survived worse. The Great Constipation of ’42 had almost brought the whole industry to its knees. If he could get through that, he could get through anything.

As he headed home, Kash almost managed a spring in his step. The situation was bad right now, but you never knew what was right around the corner. Things could always get better.

He was halfway to his house when a ship landed on it.

He stopped. He stared. Two jets of steam hissed out from beneath the ship in a billowing white cloud. There was a screech of feedback from a hidden speaker, followed by a crackled announcement.

“Sorry!” said a woman’s voice. “I think that was partly my fault.”

* * *

“Did you just land on the guy’s house?” asked Cal.

“The landing gear jammed. I overshot,” said Loren.

“A whole planet to land on, and she picks the one building a thousand miles in any direction,” said Miz. “Smooth.”

“It’s not my fault! The Scrivers must have knocked something out of alignment.”

“Like what? Your sense of direction?” said Mech.

They all left the bridge and headed for the landing ramp. Splurt hadn’t come down from the ceiling after the gravity malfunction, and was busy squeezing himself into vents and ducts. He seemed to be having fun, so after warning the little blob not to break anything, Cal left him to his own devices.

The ramp shook as the crew piled down it. “Maybe we didn’t land on all of it,” said Loren. “It might not be that bad.”

She stopped when she saw the remains of the cottage. “No,” said Cal. “It’s totally that bad.”

The house wasn’t a house any more. It would barely even qualify as ‘bits of a house,’ as there was really no way of telling what, if any of it, had been walls or roof. Something that might once have been part of a door could just as easily have been any number of other things, provided all the other things in question were A) made of wood, and B) broken beyond any possibility of repair.

A short, skinny figure with an unusually tall forehead stood in the sand a short distance away, saying nothing. His eyes – two round, shark-black balls – went from the wreckage to the crew and back again, his narrow mouth curved downwards into a frown.

He was about the height of a seven-year-old human, but thinner across the shoulders. His head was completely bald, and his nose had either fallen off, or never been there in the first place. Miz was beginning to wish she could say the same for herself.

“Ugh, what is that?” she wheezed, clamping her hands across her nostrils.

“Nothing pleasant,” said Cal, blinking away tears that nipped at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, that stinks.”

Loren gave the figure a wave. “Sorry again! We had some problems with the ship.”

“Yeah, the pilot being the main one,” Miz muttered.

Cal stepped down onto the sand and shot the little guy a smile. “Hey. Are you Kashee… Kashees… Mech, help me out here.”

“Kasheeshaktek Shasheeshketak,” said Mech.

“Yeah. Are you that guy?” Cal asked.

The little figure blinked. His eyelids made a faint scraping sound as they licked across his eyeballs. “Me ‘ouse.”

“Uh… sorry? Didn’t quite catch that,” said Cal.

“Me ‘ouse. Me bleedin’ ‘ouse!” said Kash. “You’ve flattened me bleedin’ ‘ouse!”

“Again,” said Loren. “Huge apologies. We can probably fix it.”

She caught Mech’s look. “Well, I mean, no, we obviously can’t fix it, it’s completely ruined, but…”

The sentence tailed off into an apologetic smile. She blushed and looked around, suddenly very interested in the acres of sand in all directions.

“Thirty years I’ve ‘ad that ‘ouse!” Kash protested. “Thirty bleedin’…”

He stopped when he spotted Mizette. “Oh my,” he said. “Oh my, my, my. Oh my.”

Kash dropped to his knees in the sand, realized to his horror how uncomfortably hot it was, and immediately got back up again. “Your ‘ighness,” he said, bowing repeatedly. “Your actual bleedin’ ‘ighness.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Miz. “I guess you’re Kashea…”

“Kasheeshaktek,” said Mech.

“Oh yes, yes, I am that, that I am,” he babbled. “But it’d please me greatly if Your ‘ighness was to call me Kash.”

“Thank fonk for that,” Cal whispered.

“Welcome, ‘ighness, to my ‘umble ‘ome,” said Kash, bowing even more deeply. He shot the wreckage a sideways glance. “I’d invite you in, but, er…”

“You can stop bowing,” said Miz. Her tongue flopped out and she found herself panting heavily. The stench that had been filling her nostrils since they’d landed was rapidly being overpowered by the sour tang of sweat.

“Man, it is hot,” said Cal. He wafted the neck of his shirt and shot Loren an accusing look. “Whose idea was it for me to wear black?”

“You know why I’m here?” asked Miz.

Kash resisted the urge to bow again. “Of course, ‘ighness, of course. I knew this day would come. It’s the key you’ll be after.”

“That’s right,” said Cal. “Do you have it?” He winced. “It wasn’t in your house, was it?”

“Oh, if only it were. If only it were,” Kash fretted. “Had I but known you were coming, ‘ighness, I’d have fetched it, but, well, the thing is, there ain’t exactly a lot of what you might call ‘iding places round ‘ere. An’ Graxan, ‘e said I ‘ad to keep it ‘idden.”

“So… where is it?” asked Cal.

“In the safest place what I could think of,” said Kash. “Somewhere no-one would ever think to look. Somewhere no-one would ever want to look. No-one what was in their right mind, any rate.”

“Right. Good,” said Miz, although she wasn’t entirely sure where the conversation was going. “So… where is it?”

Kash swallowed, his eyes darted towards a steep hill that rose up from the sand a few hundred feet away. “It’s in the worm,” he said.

Cal frowned. “It’s in a worm?”

“No,” said Kash, shaking his head. “It’s in the worm.”

Thirteen

Mech stood gazing into the gaping, cavernous maw of an enormous sand worm, wondering if it was too late to turn himself in.

Prison hadn’t been that bad. He’d been given three square meals a day, whether he wanted them or not, and being a seven-feet tall armored cyborg meant he had rarely, if ever, found himself on the receiving end of any unwelcome shower-based advances.

There had been books to read, a gym to use, even games to play. What there hadn’t been was a forty-mile long invertebrate with breath like an abattoir’s garbage can.

“You cannot be serious,” said Mech. “I ain’t going inside that thing.”

“Why not?” asked Cal.

Mech scowled. “Why not? What do you mean ‘why not’? Because – I don’t know if you noticed – but it’s a giant fonking worm. That’s why not.”

“Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Mech’s voice became dangerously high-pitched. “What’s the worst that could happen?” he spluttered. “Well, hmm, let me see… It could eat me, maybe?”

“Yeah,” said Cal. “But that’s, like, absolute worst case scenario.”

“You want me to go in its mouth!” Mech pointed out. “That’s the almost guaranteed to happen scenario.”

“Nah, doubt it,” said Kash. “He ain’t been eatin’ much of late.”

“Oh, so he’s hungry? That’s what you’re saying?” said Mech. “He’s been holding out, waiting for some juicy and delicious snack to come along and hop right in his mouth? That’s what you’re telling me?”

“Well, if that is what he’s saying, you should be fine,” said Cal.

“Hey, fonk you man,” Mech snapped. “I’m both juicy and delicious.”

“Not so loud,” said Loren. “You might give him ideas.”

Mech glowered at her as she tried without much success to hide her grin.

“Know what? Fonk y’all,” he said. “Fonk the whole lot of you. You want to climb inside a worm and get your stupid key? Be my guest.” He pointed to the sand at his feet. “I’m gonna plant myself right here. Y’all go right ahead.”

Cal sighed. He looked into the worm’s mouth. It was wide enough to swallow the ship and almost completely dark from somewhere just beyond the tonsils.

He looked back at the Shatner standing on the sand a short distance away, bits of Kash’s house still wedged in the landing legs.

“OK then,” he said, then he whistled through his teeth. “I guess I’m going to need a space suit.”

* * *

Cal’s breath rolled upwards across the inside of the helmet, fogging the glass. The torch mounted on the helmet’s side pasted a thin circle of light onto the darkness, and reflected quite unpleasantly on the slick, glistening walls.

The floor – which was how he’d chosen to think of it rather than the more accurate ‘throat’ – squelched beneath his boots as he trudged onwards into the smothering gloom. “You guys are there, right?” he whispered, his voice echoing around inside the helmet.

“Yeah, we hear you and we’re seeing what you see,” said Loren. “Which isn’t much.”

“Yeah, I think the torch needs new batteries,” Cal said. He blew upwards onto his face. “Man, it’s hot in here.”

“You know which direction you’re headed right?” Loren asked.

“I’m assuming I don’t have a lot of directions to choose from,” Cal replied. “Isn’t it just ‘up’ or ‘down’?”

“It’s going to branch off in two somewhere up ahead.” That was Kash’s voice, shouting to be heard from the back of the flight deck. “One way’s lungs, the other’s guts. You want the guts.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course I do,” Cal sighed. “And you can tell me which is which, right?” he said, his feet squidging across the spongy, uneven floor.

“Oh yeah,” said Kash, then, “More or less,” then, “Well, no, not really.”

“What do you mean ‘not really’?” Cal demanded.

“Well, I ‘aven’t been down in years, ‘ave I? ‘ow is I supposed to remember what way to go?” Kash said. “You’ll know it when you see it.”

“How? Will there be a signpost?” asked Cal. “Because I suspect one fleshy worm tunnel looks pretty much like any other fleshy worm tunnel.”

He trudged on, slipping and sliding through a puddle of clear, gooey ooze. “You know, this reminds me of a joke I heard one time,” he said, grimacing as the torch light picked out something purple and fleshy dangling down in front of him. He ducked it and bent forwards into the oncoming headwind of the worm’s breath.

“So, there’s this guy, OK? And he’s at the movie theater, watching… I don’t know. I don’t remember. Let’s say it’s the Godfather. No, wait. Let’s say it’s Big Momma’s House. Both classic movies in their own right.”

Cal stepped over a quivering mound that might have been some sort of pustule, then continued.

“So he gets his snacks, you know, popcorn, a drink, whatever. Hot dog, maybe. And he takes his seat. He’s all excited for the movie to start, but then he notices that in the seat next to him there’s this glow worm. Just sitting there by itself, looking up at him.”

The worm’s throat rumbled as a gust of air rose up from the darkness ahead. It was warm enough that Cal felt it through the insulated suit.

“So the guy’s, like, totally amazed. I mean, he’s quietly sort of freaking out, too, because what’s a glow worm doing at the movies, right?” Cal said. “He’s polite to start with, trying not to look, but then the curiosity just gets too much. So he asks it. He turns to it and just comes right out with it. Just turns to it and says, ‘what’s a glow worm doing at the movies?’”

A string of gloop fell from above and landed with a splat on Cal’s helmet. He tried to wipe it away, but mostly just succeeded in smearing it across the glass.

“Jesus, that’s not pleasant,” he whispered, shuddering involuntarily. “So anyway, the glow worm looks up at him with these big eyes and it says, ‘Because I want to see how it compares to the book.’”

Silence hissed softly over Cal’s earpiece.

“Yeah, I didn’t get it either,” he admitted. “I think maybe it was supposed to be a book worm. That would’ve made more sense. You know, in the context of the joke. Not in reality.”

More silence.

“Because in real life, either way would be crazy. You know, a talking worm and whatnot?”

Yet more silence.

“Hello?” said Cal. “Anyone there?”

He tapped the side of his helmet. “Helloooo?”

The silence was getting pretty repetitive now.

“Well, that’s just great,” he sighed. He looked back the way he’d come. A lopsided circle of light stood at the end of the tunnel, but the world beyond was too bright for him to make out any details. A little voice inside his head told him to go back. A much louder voice agreed with it.

He ignored them both and pushed on through the worm’s glistening innards, watching for the fork in the road.

“I’ll be honest, this is not how I imagined my life panning out,” he said, hoping by talking he could keep the rising feeling of dread from filling him all the way to the top. “I mean, flying around in outer space as a devilishly handsome spaceship captain? That I buy. I’m sure that was always in the cards.

“But trudging through a giant worm, looking for a way into its guts? That I did not see coming,” he said, then he stopped as the one enormous flesh-tunnel became two slightly smaller ones.

Cal leaned left and right, using the torchlight to examine his options. On the left, he had a lumpy purple passageway that oozed with a clear viscous liquid, while on the right he had a lumpy purple passageway that oozed with a clear viscous liquid. It was like the world’s most revolting game of Spot the Difference.

“They’re exactly the same,” he muttered, then he tapped the side of the helmet and tried again, louder this time. “Hey, there’s nothing different about the tunnels. I need a little help here.”

Once again, the only reply was a gently hissing silence. “I swear, if you guys are doing this on purpose to try to freak me out, I am not going to be happy.”

He held a hand out in front of him, gave himself – and his head camera – the middle finger, then picked a passageway at random.

Four paces in, he realized he could still feel the worm’s breath through his suit, so he about-turned and headed down the other tunnel, instead. He was no expert on alien biology, but he was pretty sure breath probably equaled lungs, no matter where you were in the galaxy.

Just a few steps along it, the passageway leading to the stomach became sticky. Thick strands of mucus clung to Cal’s boots. It was like the whole floor was made of Splurts, but without any of the little guy’s more endearing qualities.

Even through the suit, he could smell something acrid and toxic. He was pretty sure that wasn’t good. Space suits, to his knowledge, were supposed to be air tight. That was pretty much the entire point. So, if it was air tight, how was the smell getting in?

He pressed on, trying to will his nostrils closed. The inside of the helmet was fogged up with breath, the outside still smeared with the goo that had dribbled on him from above. Cal raised a hand to try to wipe the rest of the gunk away, and that was when he saw the hole on the tip of one finger.

It was small. Barely the size of a cigarette burn. It shared some other characteristics with a cigarette burn, too – the scorched and blackened outline being the main one.

As Cal watched, the tips of the glove’s other fingers, and a dime-size patch of the palm turned brownish, then blackish, then pink and fleshy as the fabric was eaten away.

Acid.

The gloop that had landed on his helmet was acid.

Cal looked down at his boots, which were inch-deep in the see-through slurry. They were lined with metal, he knew, but would the acid eat its way through that, too? Was it munching its way towards his helpless feet, even now?

He hurried on.

Then slowed down again.

What if he fell? What if he slid on the slippery floor while running and went skidding through the acidic slime on his front?

Or his back?

Or any other part of himself, in fact?

He slowed down even more, remembered his feet might be about to melt, said, “Fonk,” under his breath several times, then marched onwards into the dark.

Fourteen

As well as not being an expert on alien biology, Cal wasn’t exactly the world’s foremost authority on Earth biology, either. That said, he was pretty confident that food generally went down the throat and directly into the stomach, and so he’d been surprised to stumble upon a second junction in the fleshy passageway a few dozen feet after the first fork. This one branched off to the right, and was a little narrower than the main path.

The torch barely scratched the surface of the darkness as Cal leaned in and peered along this potential new route. The slick, slimy walls curved away almost immediately, making it impossible to see more than a few feet along it.

While he couldn’t see much, he could hear… something. It was a soft squelching sound that seemed to be coming from a long way down the tunnel. It was so faint he couldn’t be convinced he wasn’t imagining it, but something about the sound made him retreat back into the worm’s throat.

Best to stick to the main path, he reckoned. The last thing he wanted to do was get lost, or accidentally stumble upon the bowels or something. Things were already quite bad enough.

The stomach was several miles away, but fortunately he didn’t have to go that far. Kash had told him the key was hidden a few hundred feet past the lung-junction. He hadn’t mentioned anything about a second junction, though, and Cal was starting to get a little concerned.

He tapped the side of his helmet again. “Helloooo? Anyone home?”

As expected, no-one answered. Either the radio had malfunctioned, or the worm’s insides were blocking the signal. That was assuming, of course, that the others weren’t just playing a trick on him. He wouldn’t put it past them. Especially Mech.

The hand in the ruined glove was starting to itch. He hoped he was just being paranoid. He’d take paranoia over flesh-eating acid any day of the week. He pulled what was left of the glove off and tossed it away. It landed in the viscous liquid with a faint splot, then sunk out of sight.

The visor was cloudy where the acid had landed, but it didn’t seem to be eating through the glass. His boots, too, were holding up. If he could avoid getting any of the stuff on the rest of him, he should be fine.

He could taste the acrid stink at the back of his throat. The cuff of his sleeve was tight around his wrist, but it wasn’t a perfect seal. He suspected a lungful of the air down here wouldn’t do him any favors.

“He couldn’t just have hidden it under his bed like a normal person,” Cal muttered. “He had to stuff it inside a giant fonking worm monster.”

The torch flickered across the fleshy walls as Cal waded on through the gunge. The key had to be around here somewhere, assuming it hadn’t been dissolved by digestive juices years ago. He pushed ahead, sweeping the thin light left, right, up, down, hunting for…

WHANG!

Cal’s helmet connected with a shoebox-sized metal canister. It hung in the air, supported by nothing at all. Cal passed his hand above and below it, searching for wires, but finding none.

“OK, that’s pretty impressive,” he admitted. He wrapped his gloved hand around the container and pulled.

It didn’t move.

He took hold of the canister with both hands and pulled again. Again, it didn’t budge.

Cal scratched his head. “Huh. OK. Awkward son-of-a-bedge, are you? How do you like this?”

He battering-rammed the canister with his shoulder. The impact sent a shock of pain rattling through his shoulder and down his spine.

“Ooh, ooh, ow, ow. That was a bad idea.”

He hammered his fist on top of the container.

He pushed it.

He pulled it.

He caught the bottom and tried to shake it around.

Throughout it all, the container remained steadfastly fixed in place.

Cal sighed. He tapped the side of his helmet. “Hello? How do I move this fonker?”

There was a long moment of silence. Then, to Cal’s surprise, Kash’s voice rasped in his ear. “You don’t. You open it,” he said.

“Aha, there you are!” said Cal. “Where have you been? I lost you for a while?”

Kash didn’t reply. Cal tapped his helmet again. “Come on. Hello?”

When he was met by yet more silence, he tutted, shrugged, then brought the light in for a closer look at the canister. There were a few symbols etched into the front of the metal. The chip embedded in Cal’s eye set to work. As he watched, the symbols swam and formed themselves into something less cryptic.

“Press here,” he read. A little arrow indicated a tiny button the same color as the rest of the container. Cal used the pinkie finger of his ungloved hand to push it, then jumped back when a hatch in front of the container flipped down with a loud hydraulic hiss.

A black cloth bag lay nestled inside the metal tube. Cal eyed the canister suspiciously as he moved closer. He held his hand poised, like a snake getting ready to strike. It’d be just his luck if the door slammed shut again while he was reaching inside, so he was determined to be in and out as quickly as he could.

“OK, let’s do this,” he said, taking a series of deep breaths. He waited another few seconds in case the door started any funny business, then snapped his hand forward and yanked the bag free. The door didn’t move.

Cal let out a sigh of relief, then jumped back and let out a little yelp when the hatch slammed itself closed a moment later. “Aah! Son-of-a-bedge!”

He about-turned and tapped his communicator. “I got it, I’m headed back now,” he said, then he stopped as a high-pitched squeal trembled the walls ahead of him. “OK, what the Hell was that?” he whispered.

The sound came again, accompanied this time by a series of gloopy squelches. It was definitely coming from somewhere up ahead. Which was unfortunate, as ‘somewhere up ahead’ also happened to be Cal’s only exit.

Cal shoved the cloth bag into one of the pockets on front of his suit and set his jaw in determination. “Totally should have just stayed on Earth and let the bugs get me,” he muttered, then he strode onwards through the throat, darting his torch from side to side.

As he drew level with the mouth of the mysterious third passageway, he heard the sound again. It screeched from somewhere down that tunnel, echoing damply off the fleshy walls. The squelching was louder here – the squirming wriggle of something moving around in the passage.

And not just moving. Moving in itself wasn’t a problem. It was the fact the sound was moving closer that Cal didn’t like.

“OK, I’m out,” he said, turning his back on the passageway and hurrying on. He didn’t need to know what was down there. In fact, he actively did not want to know what was down there.

Unfortunately, what was down there seemed to have other ideas. The purple walls of the worm’s throat quivered as another screech echoed along it. Without even glancing back, Cal broke into a run, whispering, “Fonk, fonk, fonk, fonk, fonk!” in time with his crashing heartbeat.

“There’s something in here!” he yelped, hoping for some words of comfort to bounce back at him over the radio.

Nothing.

He raced on. Another squeal rang out, and the floor bucked and heaved beneath him. Cal stumbled, tripped, felt his feet slip and the ground come lurching towards him. There was barely enough time for another round of hissed fonks before he splashed into the acidic slurry and slid, face-first, through it, his right arm twisted awkwardly to keep his bare hand out of the liquid.

Kicking and scrambling, Cal fought back to his feet. The thick stench of burning fabric filled his helmet. The glass was so clouded now he could barely see a thing. He stumbled towards the vague oval of light that lay ahead, which he had to assume was the worm’s open mouth.

How close was it? He couldn’t tell. Not fonking close enough for his liking. He stumbled blindly on, the space suit disintegrating around him. As the light grew brighter, he wrestled with the catch that held the helmet in place, and coughed as he pushed the glass dome off.

The blazing sunshine of the world beyond was blinding, but he drove himself towards it, squinting as he threw off his rapidly-melting left glove. Whatever was behind him squelched and squealed again, and Cal was tossed into the air as the worm shifted its immense weight.

He screamed as he was hurled through the air, then almost sobbed with relief as he hit the dry, dusty planet’s surface. The space suit had all but disintegrated, and as he stood up what was left of it fell away, leaving him completely naked aside from an ill-fitting pair of shorts, and an even more ill-fitting pair of space boots.

The scorching mid-day sun prickled his skin. Stooping, he picked up the cloth bag containing the key. Thankfully, the pocket had protected it from the acid. “Ha. Must be my lucky day,” Cal said, straightening again.

It was then that he saw Loren, Mizette and Kash. They knelt on the sand near the Shatner, their hands behind their heads. Mech was nowhere to be seen, but a fourth figure stood right behind Loren, a long, slender blade pressed against her throat.

“Vajazzle,” said Cal, and this time he didn’t find the word funny at all. He tried to smile, regardless. “What brings you way out here?”

“The key,” said Vajazzle, her red eye flicking down to focus on the bag in Cal’s hand. “Bring it to me.”

“Key? What key?” asked Cal. He held up the bag and shook it. “I don’t know anything about any key. This is my lunch.” He shifted his gaze to Loren. “Seriously? You couldn’t handle one old woman?”

“She shut down our weapons,” Loren said. “And she powered down the Shatner’s systems.”

“And your robot friend, too,” said Vajazzle. “That’s the problem with computer brains. So easy to switch off.”

“Again, she’s an old woman,” said Cal. “Even without guns, you couldn’t handle her? I’m very disappointed in you guys.”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” said Mizette. Cal could just make out some sort of handcuff-like set of bands around her wrists.

“Yeah, but that’s not exactly saying much, she looks like she’d blow over in a stiff breeze,” said Cal. He flashed Vajazzle one of his most winning smiles. “Look, I think there’s been a misunderstanding here. We’re just out here, minding our own business, exploring a big worm. We don’t know anything about any--”

Vajazzle yanked sharply back on Loren’s hair and pressed the blade more firmly against her throat. “Whoa! Wait!” Cal protested. “Don’t! OK? Just… just don’t.”

“She wouldn’t dare,” spat Miz.

Cal raised a hand in front of him, trying to calm the situation. “I don’t know, she looks pretty daring to me.”

“You have an agreement with my father,” Miz said. “They are all under his protection.”

“We’re a long way from the Greyx’s reach,” said Vajazzle. “Even so…”

She released her grip on Loren. Kash spluttered in fright as she pressed the knife against his throat, instead. “Perhaps this one.”

“OK, him I’m less concerned about – no offence,” said Cal, honestly.

“None taken.”

“But I’d still rather no-one got hurt here.”

Behind him, a series of wet squelches farted out of the worm’s throat. Cal glanced sideways, partly hoping to see something in his peripheral vision, but mostly hoping he didn’t. He took a few steps away from the mouth, just in case.

He could feel his skin burning in the sun. If he listened closely, he could probably hear it sizzling and crisping up under the full force of the harsh UV rays. Loren, Miz and Kash were kneeling just beyond the line of the Shatner’s shadow, while Vajazzle herself stood just inside the shade’s edge. If she wanted them dead, she wouldn’t have to kill them. She’d just have to wait.

“OK, let’s say this is a key, and let’s say I give it to you, what then?” Cal asked.

“I leave,” said Vajazzle. “Much as it goes against the grain, I leave you all alive, and I go.”

Cal looked down at Loren and Miz. Their faces were giving nothing away. “It’s tempting,” said Cal. “But how do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t, and you can’t,” said Vajazzle. “But I’d consider your other choices carefully.”

Cal considered his other choices carefully. It didn’t take long as it wasn’t a particularly long list to get through.

“Fine,” he said. “You can have it.”

“Throw it to me,” Vajazzle instructed.

Cal held the bag by one corner, drew back his arm and tossed it over his head. It fluttered through the air, then landed with a soft paff in the sand halfway between him and Lady Vajazzle. They both looked at it for a few seconds.

“Throw it to me, I said. Not in my general direction.”

“The wind must’ve caught it,” said Cal. “I can throw way further than that normally.”

“Pick it up. Toss it over.”

Cal shot the worm’s mouth another worried glance as more squelching squirmed around inside it. He set off towards the bag, the heat pressing down on him with every step. His feet felt like they were melting inside the boots, but he knew the bare skin wouldn’t last long in the scorching sand.

As he bent to pick up the key, he staggered and clutched at his head. “Whoa,” he muttered, toppling over and landing heavily on top of the bag. The sand stung his exposed flesh, and he frantically struggled back to his feet, trying to flick the worst of it away.

“Ow! Ow! Hot!”

He wiped the sweat from his brow and held up the bag. “I don’t know if I can throw it again,” he rasped. “I’ll bring it over.”

“No need,” said Vajazzle. She held a hand up, forming a claw with her fingers. Cal gasped in surprise as the bag was torn from his grip. He watched it zip through the air towards Vajazzle, who caught it in one swift grab.

“Wow, that’s impressive,” Cal said. “Was that the Force? That was totally the Force, wasn’t it?” He breathed heavily and lowered his voice. “Join me. Together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.”

Everyone stared at him, blankly.

“No?” he said. “Empire Strikes Back?” He sighed and shook his head. “Forget it. You’ve got the key, Vajazzle, so go.”

Vajazzle’s eyes narrowed. “Of course, you could save everyone a lot of trouble by coming with me,” she said. “If you let me bring you to Sinclair, he may even let your friends live. Or some of them, at least.”

Cal shifted around on the hot sand, considering this.

“Let me make it simple for you,” said Vajazzle. “I am going to take you to Sinclair. It can be now, and no-one else needs to die, or it can be later, after many, many deaths. The choice is yours.”

Cal looked first at Loren, then at Miz. They both shook their heads, ever so slightly. He looked at Kash, too, but all his attention was on the knife at his throat.

Just as Cal opened his mouth to reply, a movement on the Shatner’s ramp caught his eye. “Just before I answer that, I want to ask you something. You said that you’d shut down our weapons and ship’s systems and… what else was it?”

Beneath Vajazzle’s hood, her non-robot eye twinkled. “Your robot companion.”

“Ah yes, that’s right, that was it,” said Cal. He clicked his fingers and smiled back at her. “But, well, you see, the thing is…”

The ramp creaked behind Vajazzle. She spun to find Mech looming over her. “I ain’t no fonking robot!” he growled, then he drove a fist into the center of her face, sending her sprawling, head-first, onto the sand.

Loren, Miz and Kash got quickly to their feet. Cal joined them, and they all stood around the motionless Vajazzle, looking down.

“Dude, you just punched an old woman right in the face,” said Cal.

“She was asking for it. And at least it wasn’t no little girl,” said Mech.

Cal raised a finger. “Hey, I’ll have you know that that little girl was very aggressive, and much stronger than she looked,” he pointed out.

“What kept you?” Mizette demanded, holding her cuffed hands out to Mech. He took hold of the restraints and snapped them in two, then did the same with Loren’s. Kash hadn’t posed enough of a threat to be wearing any.

“Whatever she used to scramble the electronics messed some of my stuff up, too,” Mech explained. “I got moving again as quick as I could.”

“Is she dead?” asked Loren.

Mech realized all eyes were on him. “How should I know?” He tapped one arm. “Her system scrambling shizz shut down my scanners.”

Cal bent at the waist so he was leaning over the fallen assassin. “You alright, sweetheart?” he asked, raising his voice. “You’ve had an accident.”

He waited for a moment, shrugged, then reached for her hood. “She’s totally dead,” he said, pulling the hood away.

A twisted, grotesque face leered up at him from the back of Vajazzle’s bald head. Cal leaped back as it hissed at him through its rotten teeth.

“Jesus Christ!” he cried. “She’s got another face! Did we know she had another face?”

Vajazzle’s lifeless body suddenly became much less so. Her legs bent, folding her upright into a kneeling position. The bulbous, bloodshot eyes of her second face glared angrily as something thrashed and wriggled beneath her midnight robe.

She shuffled jerkily towards Cal. He shoved her away and danced back. “Argh! Fonk off!” He shot Mech a sideways glance. “What are you waiting for? Punch her again.”

Mech raised his fist, but a long, tentacle-like limb whipped out from inside Vajazzle’s robe, swiping his legs out from under him. For a moment, he went horizontal, then slammed down onto the sand with a ground-shaking thud.

Miz flicked out her claws and lunged, but another swiping tentacle cracked like a whip across her face and she stumbled against the side of the Shatner, blood trickling down her fur.

“OK, that’s not good,” Cal said. Spotting the key bag on the ground, he made a diving grab for it, ducking just as a tentacle-arm scythed above him. “You want this?” he cried, waving in the assassin’s general direction. “Come get it.”

And then, with the sun burning his back, his metal boots pulling him down and a two-faced tentacle-monster grabbing at his heels, he ran.

Fifteen

Back on Earth, Cal had spent quite a lot of time running. He’d run from girlfriends. He’d run from their husbands. He’d run from the police, from criminals who took their careers far more seriously than he did and, on one particularly memorable afternoon in 1996, from the singer, Ozzy Osbourne.

Even then, despite all that practice, and despite the metal boots he currently wore on both feet, he’d never run as fast as he was running now. He tore across the sand, powering towards the gaping mouth of the worm. Behind him, Vajazzle gave chase. She ran backwards, her body twisted awkwardly as her knees tried to bend themselves the wrong way. Things writhed and wriggled beneath her robe, while her two visible tentacles snapped and whip-cracked the air.

Back by the Shatner, Loren and Miz launched into sprints of their own, chasing Vajazzle down. “No, stay back!” Cal cried. “Get Mech into the ship! I’ve got this!”

The worm’s mouth loomed dead ahead. In the darkness of its throat, Cal could just make out something moving. Something large.

“You want your key, Vajazzle? Be my guest!” he yelped. He tossed the bag so it landed just a few feet away from the worm’s mouth, then dived sideways out of the assassin’s path. She sprawled onwards, her limbs impossibly bent, the frail fingers of her human-like hands grabbing for the bag.

From inside the worm, there came something that sounded partly like a scream and partly like a violent rectal prolapse. A shiny blob the size of a school bus erupted from the worm’s throat in a river of stinking green mucus, and immediately began to wail.

Vajazzle tried to stop, but the newly-born worm slid towards her like an out-of-control juggernaut. There was a pained hiss from the assassin and a damp flomp from the worm as the two met, then Vajazzle vanished beneath the creature’s undoubtedly immense weight.

“Whoa,” said Cal, watching the worm slide to a stop in the sand. “That had to hurt.”

“It’s a little ‘un,” cried Kash, hurrying over. “Lawks alive, it’s a little ‘un! So that’s why she weren’t eatin’ nothin’! She were up the duff!”

The shizzfarmer hopped and danced around, laughing and whooping and clapping his hands. “Oh, what a beauty! What a little beauty you is!”

“Wait, so if that’s a baby,” said Cal, eyeing the bigger worm’s mouth suspiciously, “are you sure I went in the right end? That’s definitely the mouth, right?”

“Of course! Where else would it bleedin’ well come out?” asked Kash.

Cal blinked. He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

Loren, Miz and Mech joined them. “Great. So how are we supposed to get the key?” asked Miz.

Cal reached into one of his boots and pulled out a flat piece of metal with a series of square holes and notches cut into it. “What, this key?” he asked, grinning. “Swapped it when I pretended to fall over earlier. Vajazzle just got flattened for a bag with a bit of half-melted space suit inside.”

He tossed Mizette the key. She caught it, turned it over in her hands, then smiled. “Not bad,” she admitted. “Not bad at all.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, a fully-dressed Cal sat in his chair, waiting for Loren to fire up the engines. All the ship’s systems had needed to be reset after Vajazzle disabled them – a process which seemed to involve nothing more technical than switching them off, counting to five, and then switching them back on again.

They’d offered to give Kash a lift back to the wreckage of his house, but he’d insisted on waiting with the newly-born worm to make sure it survived. They’d left him all the water they could spare, a few blankets for shade and a Twix Cal had picked up on Earth, then waved him goodbye.

“What a day,” said Cal, leaning back in his chair. On the viewscreen, he watched Kash lovingly stroke the side of the baby worm as if it were his own child. He smiled and shook his head. “Yep. What a day.”

Loren fired up the engines. Or, to be more precise, she tried to fire up the engines. The Shatner coughed like it was clearing its throat, shuddered briefly, then fell silent.

“Everything OK?” Cal asked, even though it very clearly wasn’t.

“Yeah,” said Loren. “It’s just…”

She flicked the controls again. The ship wheezed and shook, then… nothing.

“Something’s not working,” said Loren.

“You don’t say?” tutted Miz.

“Mech, can you take a look?” asked Loren, giving the engine another try. Cal gripped his arm rests as the whole ship vibrated. For a moment, it felt like the thrusters were about to kick-in, but then they whined down into silence.

“On it,” said Mech, clanking out into the corridor.

Over on Cal’s right, Mizette slowly sat forward in her chair. “Uh… did you just see that?” she said.

Cal glanced over at her, then followed her gaze. Outside, Kash had stepped away from the smaller worm, and was looking it up and down in something that looked – from this distance, at least – like shock.

“What?” asked Cal. “What am I looking at?”

“There,” said Miz, pointing. There was no need. Cal saw it at the same time she did – a movement from the baby worm. It rose up for a moment, as if it were being pushed by something beneath it.

Or someone.

“Mech!” Cal called over his shoulder. “Whatever you’re doing, you might want to do it quick.”

“Hold on… try now.”

Loren turned the engine over again. It vibrated and stuttered. “Come on,” she grimaced. Outside, the baby worm tilted a few degrees to one side. “Come on.”

“Hold on, hold on,” shouted Mech. “Let me try something.” There was the sound of something being kicked. “OK. Better or worse?”

Loren tried the engine again. The lights flickered and grey smoke poured in from a vent near the ceiling. “Worse! Much worse,” said Cal.

“It’s moving. The worm’s moving!” said Miz.

Sure enough, the smaller of the two fonking enormous worms had rolled almost all the way onto its side now. A thin tentacle whipped around on the sand, reaching out from beneath it.

“Try now!” Mech bellowed.

“This time, this time, come on,” said Loren. She gunned the engine. It let out a high-pitched whine. “Come on, come on, come on!”

Two strands of gloopy green goo descended from the ceiling above one of Loren’s control panels, stretching down until they were almost at floor level. Splurt wriggled around beneath the largest of the panels. There was a spark, a crackle and a fzzt, then the Shatner shot up and backwards, banking sharply away.

The back of the ship hit the ground and scraped across the desert, churning a path through the sand. Loren gritted her teeth and wrestled with the stick. The ship’s hull grumbled in complaint as it lifted free of the sand and raised onto an even keel.

Cal managed to prise his fingers from his arm rest long enough to give Splurt a thumbs up, just as the shape-shifter retreated back up to the ceiling. “Thanks, buddy,” he said. “Loren, get us out of here.”

“What about him?” asked Loren. “What about Kash?”

“What about him?” asked Mech, ducking onto the flight deck again.

“Are we just going to leave him with Vajazzle? What if she kills him?”

Cal shook his head. “Trust me, if I know Vajazzle like I think I know Vajazzle, she won’t be interested in him.”

“But you don’t know her,” Loren pointed out. “You know literally nothing about her.”

“You make a very valid point,” Cal admitted. He shifted uncomfortably and looked at the others. “All those in favor of assuming he’s going to be just fine?”

He, Mech and Miz all raised their hands. Loren shook her head. “You’re all terrible people.”

“Honestly, he’s going to be OK,” Cal said. “Vajazzle’s a reasonable… whatever the fonk she is. I want to say ‘monster’ but that doesn’t do my case any favors at all.”

“He’s hiding, look,” said Mech, pointing to the viewscreen. Sure enough, Kash had darted inside the larger worm and was tucking himself into the shadows of its gaping maw.

“What did I tell you? He’ll be perfectly safe in there,” said Cal. They all watched as the worm’s mouth snapped shut. Its throat quivered as it swallowed. “See? Safe as houses,” Cal added, weakly.

“Guess it got its appetite back,” said Mech.

“Yes,” agreed Cal. “I guess it did.”

The smaller worm rolled suddenly all the way over onto its side. A figure… no, not a figure. Not quite. A shape unfurled itself from the sand where the worm had been. Cal glanced from the crumpled outline of Vajazzle to the dusty terrain around her.

“Where’s her ship?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” said Loren. “She just materialized on the deck behind us while you were inside the…”

Her voice tailed off. Everyone on the bridge gave everyone else on the bridge a worried look.

“Go, go, go!” Cal yelped, gripping his arm rests as Loren’s hands flew to the controls. Cal’s eyes were shoved deeper into their sockets as the Shatner screamed vertically upwards, putting as much distance between them and Vajazzle as possible.

“How far can she do her beam-up thing?” he hissed.

“Fonk knows,” said Mech. “But let’s not find out.”

Loren looked up at the screen as it began to swim with a rainbow of colors. “Leaving the atmosphere in five… four… three…”

A tremor shook the ship from bow to stern. Steam hissed from several vents in the floor that Cal had never noticed before. His stomach dropped down to somewhere near his knees, then twanged back up again until he felt it hitting the back of his throat.

“What’s happening?” he cried.

“The ship’s in bad shape,” Loren said, frantically trying to hold it together as they punched out of the atmosphere. “It’s taken a lot of punishment in the last few hours.”

“Most of it your fault,” Miz pointed out.

“Some of it my fault,” Loren corrected. “Not most, some.”

Another jet of steam erupted from the ceiling. Splurt shot out of a length of pipe like a pea from a peashooter and hit the viewscreen with a noisy splat. He oozed down it slowly, his eyes staring ever so slightly accusingly at Loren.

“That wasn’t my fault, either!” she insisted, but Splurt kept his gaze fixed on her until he’d slid all the way to the floor and out of sight.

With a series of worrying groans, the Shatner tilted sideways and limped out of the planet’s atmosphere. It drifted into a lazy orbit and one by one the billowing clouds of steam grew smaller and less terrifying.

“Are we still in one piece?” asked Cal, glancing around. He had one eye closed and had tucked his chin down against his chest in the hope it somehow made him safer.

“Just,” said Loren, studying her controls. “We must be more beat-up than I thought.”

Mech tapped a few controls and studied several hundred lines of text that scrolled upwards over the right of the viewscreen. “Shields are almost out, weapons barely functioning, life support compromised but holding steady…”

“Is the shower still working?” asked Cal.

Mech frowned. “It was, but I don’t know, it’s not on the list of critical systems.”

“Well, it should be,” said Cal. He jumped up out of his seat. “I’ll go test it. I can still smell worm phlegm on me.”

“Shouldn’t we contact my dad first?” asked Miz.

Cal stopped on route to the door. “What? Uh, yeah. You can do that, can’t you?”

Miz nodded. “Yes. I mean, totally, yeah. No problem.”

Cal noticed her hands. She was twisting her fingers together in her lap, over and over again. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, then raised an arm and gave his pit a deep sniff. “Know what? I actually quite like this smell. It’s… mulchy. Who doesn’t love mulchy?”

He flopped back down into his seat and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Loren, let’s give Graxan a call. I can’t wait to tell him we’ve got his key. Maybe we’ll finally get to see him smile.”

* * *

On screen, Graxan of the Greyx’s brow pushed down into a scowl. “What did you say?”

Mizette and Cal stood side-by-side in front of Cal’s chair. Miz shot Cal a sideways look, and he nodded encouragingly.

“I said we’ve got the key,” she said. “Like you asked.”

Graxan’s fur bristled. “I asked no such thing. I told you to protect the key, not to get it. You were to stop it being removed from its hiding place. You were to stop it falling into the wrong hands!”

“Yeah, well we did stop it falling into the wrong hands,” Miz protested.

“Did you, daughter? Did you really?” Graxan snapped, gesturing at the Shatner’s crew. He gritted his teeth and shook his head. “I should have known not to send you. I should have known you’d mess it up.”

“Hey, now wait a minute,” Cal protested. “Nothing is messed up. Everything is good.”

“Is Kasheeshaktek with you?” Graxan demanded.

Cal hesitated, just for a moment. “Hmm?”

“Kasheeshaktek, the key keeper. Is he with you?”

“Is he with us?” said Cal. “Right now, you mean?” He glanced around the deck, as if looking for him. “No.”

Graxan’s eyes narrowed. He stepped closer until his face was almost completely filling the screen. “I trust he is safe?”

Cal swallowed. “Who?” he said. “Kasheeshka… thing? Oh man, yeah. He’s fine. He’s totally fine. We gave him a Twix. He seemed quite excited. Probably more excited than he should’ve been, actually. I mean, I like a Twix as much as the next man, but--”

“Silence!” barked Graxan, then he exploded into a fit of coughing that lasted several seconds.

“You should drink some water,” Cal suggested. Graxan just glared at him while they waited for the coughing to pass.

“Where is the key now?” asked Graxan, when he was finally able to. Cal smiled and held a hand out.

“Mizette, the key, if you please.”

Miz looked at his hand and frowned. “I haven’t got it.”

Cal’s smile didn’t change. “What do you mean, you haven’t got it?”

“I mean I don’t have it,” said Miz.

“Yes, you do. I tossed it to you before we got on the ship, remember?”

“And then you took it back after we got on board. You said you wanted to use it to get the tag off your other shirt.”

“Oh, yeah, so I did,” said Cal. He held up one arm for Graxan to see. The blue sleeve of his shirt was marked with a yellowish-green stain. “It didn’t work.”

He fished in his back pocket, then produced the key. “Got it. See? It’s perfectly safe.”

“It was safe where it was. All you had to do was stop Vajazzle,” said Graxan. “I trust you at least managed to accomplish that?”

Cal and Miz shot each other another sideways look. “More or less,” said Cal.

Even through millions of miles of empty space, Cal and Mizette felt Graxan’s stare grow colder. His nostrils flared and his eyes became dark, threatening slits. “What do you mean,” he intoned, “more or less?”

Sixteen

Cal stood in the shower cubicle, his mouth shut tight as he held his face in the jet of warm water. He’d had to turn the temperature down soon after getting in, the hot water proving too painful against his sunburnt skin. It was barely above lukewarm now, but he still found himself letting out little yelps when it hit the back of his neck and shoulders.

There was no soap, which was disappointing. There was a wall-mounted dispenser containing something that looked like wet tar, but he hadn’t risked trying it out. It looked like it belonged more in the oil filter of a truck than smeared across his body.

There were no towels, either, and after his first go in the shower he’d been forced to try to shake the water off like a dog, then dry what was left on his dirty shirt and pants. They were both so filthy by that point that rubbing them on himself had probably negated the entire point of the shower in the first place.

“Shizz,” he muttered, remembering that he didn’t have a towel this time, either. He’d just have to drip-dry, and make a point of visiting a planet with a good selection of homeware stores sometime soon.

It took him a full four minutes to figure out how to switch the shower off. Admittedly, most of that was taken up by him accidentally turning the water all the way to cold, so he had to press himself against the shower’s back wall to avoid being hit by the spray, but even when he’d got the water to run warm again, getting it to stop had proven to be quite the challenge.

Once the stream had been reduced to a slow drip, he opened the cubicle door.

Mizette stood just on the other side, watching him. Cal stared at her in surprise for a moment, then hurriedly covered his genitals with both hands. He realized immediately that one hand was more than ample, and moved one of them up to cover his right nipple, instead.

“Miz,” he said. “Uh… hi.”

“Hi,” she replied. Her eyes drank him in from head to toe and back again.

“I’m… I’m in the shower,” he said, gesturing at the cubicle with the thumb of his right hand, while still keeping his nipple concealed. “Maybe you didn’t notice?”

“Oh, I noticed,” she said. “Loren wants to talk to you.”

“Does she? OK, then!” said Cal, more enthusiastically than was natural. “I’ll be right along just as soon as I’ve dried off.”

Mizette looked him up and down again. Her tail flicked from side to side. “OK, but there’s something I want to show you first…” she said, then she stepped closer and reached a hand out towards him.

Cal retreated into the cubicle, grinning awkwardly. “Well, now, hey there… you! What are you—?”

Miz tapped a button on the wall just inside the cubicle. Cal jumped and let out a little shriek of shock as warm air blasted at him from all directions at once.

“I’ll see you soon,” said Miz, her snout curving into a suggestive smirk. She gave his body another admiring look, then backed out of the door. “Handsome.”

“Haha, yes! See you soon. Fully clothed,” laughed Cal. “Accompanied by others!”

The bathroom door closed. Cal sighed and leaned both hands against the wall. “Yep,” he muttered. “What a fonking day.”

* * *

Cal strode through to the flight deck, ruffling his fluffed-up hair. Mech and Loren were both hunched over a control panel. Even though they had their back to him, Cal could tell the news wasn’t good. Draped across her seat, Miz winked at him as he slumped down into his own.

“So? What’s up?” Cal asked.

“We’ve got a problem,” said Loren, not taking her eyes off the controls.

“So what’s new? We’ve always got problems,” said Cal. “That’s what makes it all so exciting.”

“Yeah, well let’s see if this excites you,” said Mech, turning to face him. “The ship’s fonked.”

Cal looked around at the flight deck. “Then we’ll fix it.”

“Simple as that, huh?” said Mech. He tapped a few buttons and reams of text flooded the screen, moving too quickly for Cal’s visual translator chip to be able to do its job. “That there? That’s just the damage to the core systems.”

“OK, so that’s a lot, but we’ll just work through and fix it all up.”

“With what?” asked Mech. “You got a hangar full of spare parts stashed away somewhere that you ain’t told us about?”

“No, but there’s bound to be somewhere round here we can go buy what we need,” Cal said.

Loren swiped a hand across a touchscreen and a map of the sector appeared on the main viewscreen. It showed half a dozen suns, each with varying numbers of planets in orbit around them. A large red arrow with the words ‘You are here’ written on it pointed to a flashing dot somewhere near the middle.

“This is what’s within reach,” Loren said. “Go any further and the ship’s going to tear itself apart.”

“Cool, well there’s loads of planets there. Let’s go to one of them.”

“Not counting the one we just left, there are thirty-six planets within range,” said Mech. “Thirty-five of them are uninhabited.”

“OK,” said Cal, sounding less confident. “So one is habited?”

“Inhabited,” Loren corrected. “And yes, it is. By these.”

Something that was all eyes and teeth and shriveled transparent skin filled the screen. “Jesus!” said Cal, drawing back in horror. “OK. Promise me we’ll never go there.”

“We wouldn’t make it through the atmosphere, anyway,” said Loren. “Or any atmosphere, for that matter. Heat shielding’s cracked.”

“So, you see our problem,” said Mech.

Cal turned his chair slowly left to right. “Can we Skype Graxan again? Ask him to send help.”

“Skype?” asked Loren, raising an eyebrow.

“The video thing. I’m sure we’ve been through this,” Cal said. “Can’t we do that?”

“We tried,” said Mizette, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “I thought he just wasn’t answering, but it turns out the comms are down.”

“Along with everything else,” added Mech. “So, basically, we’re totally fonked.”

Cal nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, looks awfully like it,” he said. “What are the chances of someone just stumbling upon us?”

“Billions to one,” said Mech.

“And what are the chances of it being someone nice?”

Mech snorted. “I can’t even calculate that.”

Cal stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of his chair. “Right, let’s think about this. There are no planets around where we can get spare parts, except maybe the one filled with terrifying monsters,” he said, pointing to the monster on screen. “And I could be wrong, but they don’t exactly look like experts in spaceship engineering.”

He stopped pacing. “Space stations?”

“There’s a Zertex station just a little beyond range, but even if we could make it there, it’s unlikely to end well,” said Loren.

“And we can’t just, like, bypass the… I don’t know, thermal couplings or whatever is damaged?”

Mech frowned. “What you talking about?”

“I don’t know, it’s what Scotty would do!” said Cal.

“Who--?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Cal. He went back to pacing. “Right, so spare parts. Spare parts. There must be somewhere we can…”

He stopped.

He clicked his fingers.

He grinned.

“Guys! I’ve got it!” he said, puffing out his chest. “Once again, Captain Cal Carver has only gone and saved the fonking day!”

He jumped into his seat. “Loren, plot a course.”

Loren sat in her own chair and flicked a few switches. “To where? Where are we going?”

“It’s not about where we’re going,” said Cal, interlocking his fingers behind his head and leaning back. “It’s about where we’ve been.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the Shatner was rattling towards its destination. The others were pretty dubious that Cal’s plan was going to work, but as it was the only plan they had been able to come up with, they decided it was worth a try.

On screen, the space-kitten frolicked with a piece of string, blocking Cal’s view of the streaking hyperspace star field. Cal had the Greyx’s key in his hands, and was turning it over and over, studying it. “So, it just… what? Slides into the lock? Is this what all space keys are like?”

“No. That one’s old. Very old,” said Miz.

“Only real backwater, ams-end-of-nowhere planets use metal keys these days,” said Mech.

Cal opened his mouth to protest, then changed his mind. “Ha. Yeah. The idiots,” he said. He flicked the key over and caught it. “And it opens the vault where this staff thing is?”

“The Bladestaff, yeah,” said Mizette.

“Do you believe all that stuff your dad says?” asked Cal. “That it’s, you know, magic?”

Miz shrugged. “I dunno. I mean… maybe. It’s one of the first things we get taught. It’s, like, a bedtime story all the Greyx get told.”

Loren turned in her chair. ”Yeah, but… it’s just a story, right? A staff that lets you control an entire species? No offence, but it seems a little… unlikely.”

“Hey, I was just inside a forty-mile long worm,” Cal pointed out. “A gangster made of rock has a bounty on my head because I wouldn’t eat my own arm, and one of my best friends is a green blob who likes to change into me in his spare time. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve been through ‘unlikely’ and out the other side for quite a while now.”

“I don’t know if it’s true or not,” said Miz. “I don’t know if it’s really, like, magic or whatever.” She shrugged and looked at her claws, trying very hard to look disinterested. “But, like, it’s got this inscription on it. There are different translations but it’s basically ‘Whoever wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx.’ So, I guess it’s kind of important. Like, historically, or whatever.”

“Right,” said Cal. He waved the key, then put it into his back pocket. “And it’s safe, thanks to us. Just as soon as we fix the video thing, and assuming your dad is speaking to us, he can tell us what to do with it, and it’s another mission accomplished for Space Team!”

“Please don’t call us that,” Mech grunted.

“Hey, you came up with it,” said Cal.

“Yeah, but in the heat of the moment,” sighed Mech. “I didn’t expect it to stick.”

“Come on, embrace it,” said Cal. “Embrace the Space Team.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Embrace it!”

“Shut up, man,” Mech tutted, then the Shatner creaked ominously as she dropped out of warp.

Loren’s fingers went to the control panel on her right. “We’re here. Putting it on screen.”

“See you soon, space cat!” said Cal, as the image of the kitten-thing flickered and was replaced by a view of outer space.

Cal leaned forward in his chair, studying the blocky rectangular hunk of metal rotating lazily a few miles ahead of them. If he squinted, he could just make out the inert octopus-things drifting along beside it.

“There she is,” said Cal. “What did you call them again?”

“Scrivers,” said Loren.

“And that big tank of theirs is full of stuff they’ve stolen from other ships?”

Loren nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Excellent,” said Cal. He slapped his hands on his thighs, then stood up. “Then let’s go shopping.”

Seventeen

Cal, Loren, Mizette and Mech stood in a semi-circle, looking into a wall-mounted metal wardrobe.

“How can we only have one spacesuit left?” asked Cal. “Didn’t we have, like, twenty of them when we started?”

“We had five,” said Mech. “You dissolved one inside the worm.” He pointed at Miz and Loren in turn. “They destroyed two of them fighting a few days back.”

“She started it,” Miz muttered.

“I did not!”

“Ladies, please,” said Cal. “That still leaves two. Where’s the other one?”

“We traded it,” said Mech.

“We did? What for?”

“For that breakfast buffet a couple of days ago,” said Loren.

Cal smiled wistfully at the memory. “Right. Yeah. Totally worth it. That was awesome.” He puffed out his cheeks. “So, who’s going over?”

“I don’t need no suit,” said Mech. “I’ll go.”

“But you’ll need someone to help you,” said Cal. “Loren better stay here in case anything happens and she needs to move the ship. Miz, your dad might call us back, best if you were here for that.”

He grinned and clapped Mech on the arm. “Guess it’s me and you, buddy.”

“I can do it on my own,” said Mech. “I know what we need.”

“You know what you really need, Mech? Companionship,” said Cal.

“I really don’t.”

“Cal Carver and his trusty robot sidekick, saving the day!”

Mech rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Fine. Whatever. Just hurry up.” He ducked so he could peer out through the airlock hatch at the slowly spiraling Scriver ship. “Sooner we get over there, the sooner we get back.”

Cal glanced over at Miz and Loren. “He’s secretly very excited,” he said.

“You’re going to need something to carry everything back,” Loren pointed out. “Unless you want to make two hundred different trips.”

“What, like a box?” said Cal.

“It’d have to be a fonking big box,” said Mech.

Miz’s brow knotted for a moment, then her eyes went to the vents and pipes in the ceiling. “It’s fine,” she said. “I think I know just what you need.”

One quick-change later, Cal and Mech stood in the airlock, listening to the inner door sealing shut behind them. There was a pressure on Cal’s chest that was making it difficult to breathe. He prodded the spot where the pressure was at its worst with one finger, and the tightness squirmed around inside the suit’s front pocket.

“Much better. Thanks, buddy,” Cal said, and he felt Splurt vibrate briefly in reply.

“So, you jump when I say,” Mech instructed. “Not before, not after. You jump when I tell you.”

“Right, of course,” said Cal. “But what if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, then you’ll either smash into that ugly-amsed hunk of scrap, or you’ll go sailing off into outer space forever.”

“And they’re both bad?”

Mech scowled. “Yeah. Of course they’re bad!”

“Just checking,” said Cal. “This is my first space jump.”

“You could always stay here,” Mech suggested. “Seriously, I’ll be just fine.”

“What, and miss our special bonding time? No way! I am going to stick to you like glue, my friend. Like glue.”

“Great,” Mech grunted. “That’s just great.”

He hit the button to open the main airlock door, a little harder than was strictly necessary. Cal felt gravity suddenly abandon him, and lifted a foot or two off the deck. “Whoa!” he said. “I’m flying.”

“Focus,” said Mech’s voice, echoing inside Cal’s helmet. Mech’s metal legs tensed, the hydraulics spinning into position. “Get ready to jump.”

“Jump? How can I jump? My feet aren’t on the floor!” Cal pointed out.

Mech looked him up and down. “Huh. Yeah. Good point,” he admitted. Five metal fingers clamped around Cal’s wrist. “I guess I’ll catch you up.”

“Catch me up? What do you mean--?” Cal began, but then Mech’s whole upper body twisted suddenly and Cal wailed as he sailed backwards through the airlock, and hurtled, out of control, through the empty abyss of space.

He flapped and flailed, trying to twist himself around, but there was nothing to push himself against, and he could only watch as the Shatner grew smaller and smaller in his visor.

“Quit screaming,” said Mech’s voice in his ear.

“I wasn’t screaming!” Cal protested.

“You were totally screaming.” That was Loren this time. “We heard you from here.”

“Well no fonking wonder!” said Cal. “Was tossing me into space really necessary?”

“Necessary? No,” admitted Mech, as two jets of something purple ignited under his feet, propelling him out of the airlock. “Fun? Hell, yes!”

Once Mech had caught Cal and saved him from hurtling into the endless void, they found a way into the Scriver ship. It wasn’t exactly difficult. The Shatner’s cannons had gouged gaping wounds in all four sides of the thing, and they quickly found a hole big enough for even Mech to squeeze himself through.

“Wait, so there’s no gravity in here, either?” asked Cal, bouncing around somewhere near the ceiling. Or the floor. The inside of the ship was completely dark, and he wasn’t really sure which way was up and which was down. He wasn’t even convinced up and down even existed in space, regardless of how much he currently might like them to.

“The ship’s dead, of course there ain’t no gravity,” said Mech. “Hell, there’re barely walls.”

“So, what, I just float around the place like a balloon? That doesn’t exactly seem dignified.”

Mech, who was standing without any apparent difficulty, reached up and pulled Cal down. A metal finger prodded a control on the suit’s sleeve and Cal felt his feet turn to lead. He dropped the final few inches to the floor and his feet hit the metal with a jarring clang he felt all the way up his spine.

“Magnetic boots,” Mech explained.

Cal looked down at his feet, now firmly attached to… he chose to call it the floor. “So, what? Now I’m just stuck here on this one spot?”

“Shizz, you really don’t know nothin’, do you?” Mech tutted. “Walk. Just walk. The boots will keep you from floating off.”

Cal gave the footwear a doubtful look, then took a few paces forwards. “Hey! It works,” he said. “That’s very clever. Someone could make a fortune selling these.”

“I think that ship might have sailed,” Mech said. Two powerful flashlights illuminated on his shoulders, cutting a swathe through the darkness of the ship. Broken fragments of scorched metal bobbed around in the corridor. Something that was possibly a chair – but just as possibly not – bounced lazily from wall to wall as the ship rotated around it.

“Think there’s anyone alive on here?” Cal asked.

“Doubt it,” said Mech. “The loss of atmosphere would’ve been too quick. They’d have suffocated in seconds.”

“Way to make me feel bad,” Cal muttered.

“Don’t,” said Mech. “Scrivers are animals. They’ve killed millions. Families. Kids. They don’t care. Good riddance, I say.”

“Well, then yay for us, I guess,” said Cal. “Now, where do we find the stuff we need?”

Mech tapped a few controls on his arm, muttered under his breath, then slammed a fist onto the buttons. “Still not working properly. Vajazzle’s shut-down voodoo screwed them up.”

“Great. So how do we know which way to go?” asked Cal.

Mech looked along the corridor to his left.

He looked along the corridor to his right.

He shrugged. “This way,” he said, picking a direction and starting to walk.

“What, that’s it?” Cal shouted after him. “No plan? We’re just going to go that way and hope we find something interesting?”

Mech stopped at a door and pressed the switch to open it. As he expected, it didn’t budge. “Pretty much. The inside of most of these boats is taken up with storage. Shouldn’t be difficult to find something,” he said, drawing back a fist. He powered it through the metal, then tore the door free of its hinges. It floated towards Cal like a surfboard on the tide. He stepped aside to let it continue along the corridor, then turned back to Mech.

Mech stood in the doorway, staring into the room beyond. “What is it?” asked Cal. “What’s in there?”

Mech’s voice came as a hushed whisper in Cal’s ear. “Something interesting,” he said. “Something really fonking interesting.”

Eighteen

Loren and Miz both sat on the flight deck, watching the viewscreen. “They’re in,” Loren said, as Cal and Mech clambered in through a hole in the Sciver ship’s hull.

“Yeah, I can see that,” said Miz. “I’m not blind.”

“OK, OK, I was just saying,” said Loren. She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “We won’t be able to radio them. Transmitters are too damaged. Signal won’t get through the hull.”

“Well, duh,” said Miz.

Loren sighed. “Seriously, what is your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem,” Miz scowled.

“Well, obviously you do.”

“Well, obviously I don’t.”

Loren shook her head. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Maybe you’re my problem.”

“Oh yeah? Yeah? Well maybe I am!” said Loren.

“Exactly!”

“Fine!”

“OK, then!”

They both turned away and went back to staring at the screen. Nothing much was happening.

It was Miz who eventually spoke.

“Think they’ll be OK?”

“I hope so,” said Loren.

“Yeah,” Miz grunted. “Me, too.”

* * *

Cal and Mech stood together in a room that looked like the inside of a large warehouse. Neither of them spoke. If Cal was asked to estimate the size of the room, he’d have guessed around two football fields long by about one wide. Mech, on the other hand, having never seen a football field before, wouldn’t.

It was only possible to estimate the size of the place thanks to a murky red glow that seemed to seep from the walls all the way to the room’s far end. Emergency lighting, Cal guessed.

An impossible amount of… stuff bobbed listlessly in the space between the floor and the ceiling, rotating slowly in the zero gravity. It varied from tiny nail-sized pieces of metal to complex-looking machinery the size of a small house. Standing looking up at it all, Cal felt like a diver at the bottom of an ocean teaming with marine life of all shapes and sizes. It was pretty awe-inspiring, until something that looked a bit like a microwave oven thudded into the back of his head.

“Ow!” he muttered, rubbing the helmet. He gestured up into the shimmering shoal of ship parts. “You think we can get what we need here?”

Mech squinted, his eyes scanning the room. “Yeah. Yeah, I can see some of it from here. I’ll go collect it. Gimme Splurt.”

Cal undid the pocket on the front of his suit and looked inside. He was surprised – and really quite horrified – to find his own face slumped inside it like a discarded Halloween mask. Splurt quickly dissolved back into blob-form, guilt flitting across his bloodshot eyeballs.

“Come on, dude, cut it out!” Cal said. “It’s bad enough when you turn into me all the way, please don’t start turning into my amputated face.”

He scooped Splurt out of the pocket and passed him to Mech. The green goo wrapped around Mech’s metal hand and twisted up his forearm.

“You sure this is gonna work?” Mech asked.

“Yeah! Of course!” said Cal. “You know… possibly.” He shrugged. “Worth a try, right?”

Mech’s lips moved, but whatever he said he chose not to broadcast to Cal’s radio. “OK, I’m gonna go round up our supplies,” he eventually said.

“Cool! What should I do?” asked Cal.

“Wait here. Touch nothing,” Mech instructed.

“What? That’s it? I can help!” Cal insisted.

“This’ll be much easier if I handle it. You just stay here and out of trouble.”

Cal sighed. “Fine. But what if something comes in?”

“Ain’t nothing gonna come in,” said Mech. “There ain’t nothing or no-one alive in here ‘cept us.”

“OK. Well… just give me a shout if you need me, I guess,” said Cal.

“Thanks,” said Mech. “I won’t.”

The soles of his feet ignited, propelling him off the deck. He lifted up through the floating debris. Pieces of scrap bounced off his hulking metal frame. Cal watched them roll off into the dimly-red darkness, before he lost sight of them.

Mech was up near the ceiling already, the glow of his boosters the brightest thing in the room. “How’s it going?” Cal asked.

“Man, I been gone for twenty seconds. It ain’t started going anywhere yet. It’s gonna take a while.”

“Want me to tell you a joke or something to help pass the time?”

“No!” Mech said.

“OK, so there were these three Mexicans…” Cal began, then there was a soft click in his ear and he knew Mech had switched the radio off. “Well, that’s charming,” Cal said.

He watched Mech for a while, zipping up, down, and around the room. It soon became boring, though, so he tried to find other ways to pass the time. This was quite difficult, as there was nowhere he could go and nothing he could really do.

He stood on one leg for a while, but it didn't do a lot to relieve the boredom.

Standing on the other leg wasn’t much better.

He thought about standing on no legs, but was worried that he’d float away and wouldn’t get back down, so he decided against it.

He stamped his foot on the floor to see if he could hear anything. He couldn’t, but he did feel the impact in his ankle and knee, so decided to knock that on the head, too.

There were a few small bits of metal bobbing around him. He poked and prodded at them, sending them spinning off in different directions. He tried to set up a race between a bulky fuse and a small circuit board, but he misjudged the prods and sent them both off in slightly different directions.

Something that looked like a metal briefcase drifted towards him. At first, he thought about dodging it. He’d spent a quite enjoyable thirty seconds or so dodging other things a few minutes ago, before the novelty had worn off. Then he considered kicking it to see how fast he could send it hurtling up towards the ceiling, but it was coming in just a little too high for him to be able to swing his leg without risking some sort of groin trauma.

Besides, something about the case caught his interest. He caught it, then ran his gloved hands around the outside edge, searching for some sort of clasp or lock. After four complete circuits of the thing, he had to accept that there wasn’t one.

It looked like the type of hard-bodied case that might be used to transport something valuable. Diamonds, maybe. Space diamonds.

Cal flipped the case over in his hands. As well as not having clasps or a zip, it also didn’t have a handle. Cal tapped the top so he could listen to try to figure out if the thing was hollow, but sound’s inability to travel in a vacuum foiled his plan.

He was about to send it floating on its way again when he spotted the buttons. There were three of them, all the same color and texture of the metal. They were each about the size of his thumb-print, and spaced several inches apart.

Cal glanced up into the cavernous warehouse. Mech was darting around somewhere near the middle, paying him no attention whatsoever. Cal looked back at the case.

“OK, let’s see what you’re hiding,” he said, then he pressed one of the buttons. Nothing happened, so he pressed the other two.

“Shizz,” he muttered, when the case remained steadfastly shut. He pressed them again, in a different order this time, with exactly the same effect.

Stretching the fingers on his right hand, he pressed two of the buttons, while jabbing the third with a finger from his left.

The lid snapped open suddenly, flicking the case out of Cal’s hand. He watched it drift upwards beyond his reach as something dark and shiny unfolded itself from within. In the space of less than a second, a series of short metal poles locked together to form a rectangular frame fifteen or more feet high, and seven or eight wide.

A thin beam of white light projected upwards from inside the case, stopping when it hit the inside top of the newly-sprouted frame. The light fanned out, spreading until the whole inside of the rectangle was illuminated in white.

No, not white. Not anymore. As Cal watched, the light became a picture of a blue sky dotted with clouds. He tilted his head, following the image as it drifted further and further away from him.

Was that Earth? He could only see a relatively small patch of sky, so it was difficult to tell, but while there was nothing in the view that told him it was definitely his home planet, there was equally nothing that told him it wasn’t.

“Hey, Mech?” he said, but Mech’s radio was still turned off.

Cal looked at the patch of cloudy-blue again. It was a screen, that was all. It had to be. And yet…

He plucked a cigar-sized bolt from the air as it floated past him, placed it flat on the palm of his hand, then flicked it towards the rectangle of sky. The bolt tumbled, end-over-end, spinning towards the image.

The patch of sky rippled as the chunk of metal passed through the rectangle’s center. It immediately began to spin more quickly, then plunged out of sight as it suddenly found itself under the pull of gravity again. Cal watched for it falling from the other side of the rectangle, but it didn’t reappear.

“It’s a portal,” Cal whispered. “It’s a motherfonking space portal.”

There was a sudden movement on the other side of the portal that snagged his breath in his throat. Something pinkish, and pockmarked with craters, blocked out the sky as it swept down from the top left of the rectangle.

And then, just as suddenly, it stopped. Cal blinked. The enormous eye that was now staring back at him blinked, too.

It looked human – well, apart from the size. It had a white bit, a brown-ish bit, and a shiny black pupil in which Cal could now see himself reflected. He would have said it was definitely a human eye, had it not been several hundred thousand times too large.

“Um… Mech,” Cal said again, hoping he’d reopened the comms channel in the last few seconds. To Cal’s disappointment, he hadn’t.

Cal thought long and hard about what to do next. Unfortunately, no matter how long and hard he thought about it, nothing particularly inspiring came to mind. In the end, he settled for waving. If the owner of the eye waved back, Cal didn’t see it.

The eye moved again, and the view of the sky returned. Cal kept watching, the thumping of his heart and the rasping of his breath the only sounds in the universe.

Seconds passed. The eye didn’t return. “OK, OK, nothing to worry about,” Cal whispered. “Panic over. Whatever that was, it’s…”

The last few words caught in his throat as something else moved on the other side of the rectangle. It wasn’t an eye this time. It was a finger. An enormous human finger with a cracked, dirty nail.

And it was reaching through the gap towards him.

Nineteen

Cal backed away from the probing finger, his magnetic boots snapping him to the floor after each hasty step.

“Mech!” he shouted, as if raising his voice could somehow find a loophole in the laws of physics. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. Mech, who was currently several hundred feet away in an airless vacuum-filled room, didn’t respond.

The finger wriggled as it tried to squeeze through the rectangular frame of the portal. The tip was easily a dozen feet across the widest point, and Cal could see every loop and whorl of the fingerprint. It reminded him a little of the baby sandworm, only without the mouth or glossy mucus coat.

The underside of the nail was caked with grime, the nail itself chipped and uncared for. It was a fingernail that had never seen a manicure and, more important, one which was currently rapidly approaching Cal’s head.

“Hey, fonk off, you big finger,” he said, jabbing a punch at the end of the fingertip. He didn’t expect to hurt it, but he hoped the impact would send the floating frame tumbling away into the warehouse-like expanse around him. No such luck. Whatever was forcing the enormous finger through – an even more enormous hand, Cal assumed – was holding the portal frame more or less steady. Cal fired off another few jabs as the finger probed closer, then retreated another couple of steps.

He shot a quick glance in Mech’s direction. Mech was way down the far end now, the light from his boot-boosters bobbing around near the ceiling. It reflected, just for a moment, on a bulbous green sack that drifted along behind him.

The finger lurched forward almost a clear foot. Cal screamed as it poked his helmet, leaving a greasy smudged fingerprint on the glass. He stumbled back, hands reaching for anything he could find to fight the determined digit.

He spied a sliver of blueish-green metal with a ragged edge, and snatched it from the air. As the finger reached for him again, he drove the pointed tip of the metal into the rounded tip of the finger. With a jerk that was almost as sharp as the metal fragment, the finger drew back.

A blob of dark crimson squeezed itself through the gap where metal met flesh, and rolled into a pulsing ball. It drifted towards Cal, and he instinctively tried to bat it away. This only resulted in the single large pulsing ball of blood becoming several dozen smaller pulsing balls of blood, and Cal spent the next few seconds dodging them as if they were a swarm of angry wasps.

For a moment, it looked as if the finger was going to withdraw all the way through the portal, but then it stopped and began to squirm forward again, more tentatively this time.

“OK, fonk this,” Cal muttered. He ducked the finger, crouched low, then jumped. Arms outstretched, he flew towards the metal briefcase from which the portal had sprouted. Slamming into it, Cal, the portal, and the massive finger all went spinning upwards towards the distant ceiling.

Cal reached around behind the frame and tried to pull the lid of the case closed, but it wouldn’t budge. He fumbled for the three buttons, spreading his fingers wide again as he pressed all three at the same time.

The slight vibration Cal only now realized he had been feeling stopped. Even through the vacuum of space, Cal could have sworn he heard a distant scream, then the rectangular frame of the portal snapped shut, and the tip of the giant finger went sailing upwards.

Cal was propelled in the opposite direction, and hit the ground after just a few seconds. Clutching the now-closed case to his chest, he frantically tried to plant his feet on the floor before he bounced upwards again.

He felt the reassuring tremor through his foot as one of his boots locked on, then hurriedly planted the other one beside it just as Mech weaved through the debris towards him, dragging a marquee-sized green balloon.

“Everything OK?” Mech asked, looking Cal up and down.

Cal nodded, a little too quickly, and tried not to look up. “Aye, laddie!” he said, in a fierce Scottish accent. He shook his head. “I don’t know why I said it like that. Yes. Everything’s OK,” he said. He smiled too broadly. “Nothing to report.”

Mech looked him up and down again, more slowly this time. “OK, then. Well, I think I got everything we need.” He nodded towards the case. “What you got there?”

“Where?” asked Cal. He looked down, appearing surprised to discover his arms wrapped around a bulky metal briefcase. “Oh, this thing. It’s… I thought I’d take it with us. You know, like a memento of our Boys’ Day Out?”

“What is it?”

Cal’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “Trust me,” he eventually said. “You do not want to know.”

* * *

It turned out that Mech did want to know. In fact, he refused to let Cal go anywhere until he’d explained in detail what was in the case. He hadn’t believed any of Cal’s story, until Cal had sent him to find the fingertip. He’d switched the radio back on by that point, and shortly after Mech had gone in search of the decapitated digit, Cal’s earpiece had been filled with some really quite inventive swearing.

Cal had assumed Mech would insist they left the case behind, but to his surprise, Mech agreed he could take it. A hole appeared in the side of the Splurt-sack, just big enough to fit the case through.

“Thanks, buddy,” said Cal, posting the box through the slot. Splurt’s gooey green surface squidged together again, so seamlessly it was impossible to tell there had been a hole there at all. And then, with everything they needed floating around inside the little slime-ball’s innards, they’d all headed back across space to the Shatner.

“Miz, I have to hand it to you,” said Cal, when he and Mech stepped out of the airlock, “using Splurt as a big stretchy sack was genius. Genius. Also,” he added, “it gave me an opportunity to say the words ‘big stretchy sack.’ Those don’t come along very often.”

Mizette shrugged, trying her best to look disinterested, but an involuntary wag of her tail gave her away. “Whatever.”

“Anything interesting happen while we were out?” Cal asked, looking from Miz to Loren and back again.

“Nope,” said Loren.

“No space monsters, big shark people…?”

Loren shook her head. “Not that we noticed.”

Cal exhaled. “Well, that’s a first. Good job!”

Miz tutted. “Why? She didn’t do anything.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking to her, I was talking to you,” Cal said. He winked, and Mizette’s tail went into full-on windshield wiper mode, swishing happily left and right.

Mech clanked past him and stopped beside Loren. He jabbed a thumb back in the direction of the airlock, which was now cluttered with the parts he’d taken from the Scriver ship. Splurt bobbed around on the floor at Cal’s feet, weaving between his legs like a pet cat might do, were cats actually capable of demonstrating genuine affection.

“We should get started,” said Mech. “The odds of someone finding us drifting along out here should be too high to even matter, but we got a bad habit of attracting trouble.”

“Agreed,” said Loren. “We should get to work.”

“Ship repair montage!” Cal cried, thrusting both hands in the air above his head. Then, he unzipped his space suit, wriggled it off, and shot the rest of the group a grin. “You two get your tools. I’ll go fetch the guitar!”

* * *

What Cal had hoped would be a fun, three-minute ship repair montage turned out to be a laborious sixteen-hour process that grew tedious within the first twenty minutes or so. With his knowledge of spaceship maintenance limited to the point of not existing, Cal was relegated to the job of handing Mech and Loren their tools. As he couldn’t tell a Syphoid Wrench from a Thromm Hammer, he was then relegated further to fetching hot drinks, before eventually being demoted to just keeping out of everyone’s way and not touching anything.

After a while, he headed for the sleeping quarters. Once he was sure no-one had seen him, he slid the metal case he’d taken from the Scriver ship out from under his bed and looked it over. Based on Cal’s description, Mech had agreed it was some sort of portable portal, although where it led was impossible to tell. Cal had vague memories of an old TV show called Land of the Giants, but after giving him a particularly withering look, Mech had quite strongly voiced his opinion that it was unlikely to lead there.

And yet, that eye and the finger had both looked human. Or mostly human, anyway. Just bigger. Much, much bigger.

Cal ran his hands along the case, being careful to avoid the three buttons that had made it spring open last time. The last thing he needed right now was for the giant on the other side to come looking for his missing fingertip.

He turned the briefcase-sized box over, searching for any markings that might reveal where it led to, or who made it, but there was nothing but a few scuffs and scratches on the thin metal plating.

Hearing movement out in the corridor, Cal quickly slid the case under his bed, just as Loren entered. She hesitated when she saw him down on his knees, a frown crumpling her brow.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m… kneeling down,” said Cal.

Loren raised an arm to the level of her head and leaned against the door frame. “I can see that. Why?”

“I’m praying,” said Cal, after just a moment’s pause. He clasped his hands in front of him, and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “So, as I was saying, if you could help us get the ship fixed, that’d be great. Love to everyone. Amen.”

He made a series of sweeping motions in front of him which very roughly approximated a cross shape, then stood up. “There. That’s a weight off,” he said. “Both knees and, you know, soul or whatever.” He smiled. “Now, what was it you wanted?”

Loren regarded him quizzically for a moment, then shrugged. “We’re patched up. Or as patched up as we can get out here. We really need to spend a couple of days in dock somewhere to fix everything properly.”

“And can we do that now? I thought landing was going to make us blow-up or something?”

“Not anymore,” said Loren. “Mech’s been out and managed to reseat the heat shielding. The shields are holding stable, warp and impulse engines are good – not great, but good. We even fixed the torpedo tubes.”

Cal let out a little cheer. “I have torpedoes back! We should go blow some shizz up,” he said. “What about the video comm thing? Is that back?”

“Guys!” shouted Miz, before Loren could answer. “You might want to get up here. We’re getting a message.”

“Well, I guess that answers that,” said Cal, following Loren out of the room and onto the flight deck. The screen was filled with rolling static, and a stuttering hiss spluttered from the speakers.

“Oh, great job, guys,” said Cal, giving Loren and Mech a double thumbs-up. “Really stellar work. Is this HD? That picture quality is incredible.”

“It ain’t our side, it’s their side,” snapped Mech. “Whoever the fonk they are.”

“Try to boost the signal,” Cal suggested.

“Already on it,” said Mech, fiddling with some controls to the right of the screen.

Cal smiled, his eyes widening in surprise. “What, that’s actually a thing we can do?” he asked. “That was, like, a total guess! Go me.”

A few snatches of audio crackled over the speaker. “… under attack. Assist…”

Miz sat forward in her chair, her ears twitching. “That’s Kannus.”

Cal looked from her to the speaker and back again. “You sure?”

“Positive.”

The voice came again. Miz was right. It was Kannus’s voice, but he sounded panicked. Scared, even. “… jazzle…”

A burst of static.

“… all dead…”

Another static squeal.

“… help. Someone …”

And then, with a final crackle, silence.

The rolling static blinked into darkness. A moment later, the screen changed to show a view of outer space. The Scriver ship had drifted off, and was now just a grey speck against a black background.

“What do we do?” asked Loren, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.

Miz was still staring up at the screen, her mouth hanging open a little. Realizing this, she closed it and gave herself a shake. “Cal?” she asked, although she wasn’t really sure why.

Cal spun in his seat. “We go help. We got the guy into this, we’ll get him out. Mech, lock onto the source of that signal!” he announced.

Mech frowned. “What? I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” asked Cal.

“Well, ‘cause it’s impossible, for one thing.”

Cal deflated a little. “Oh. Is it? But I thought… You were able to boost the signal.”

“So? It’s two completely different things,” said Mech.

Cal shrugged. “Radio?” he said, his inflection raising at the end as if to suggest the word was some sort of question.

“What’s that mean?” asked Mech. “Why you just saying ‘radio’ like that? ‘Radio’ what?”

“I have no idea,” Cal admitted. “It’s just… it feels like we should be able to lock onto his signal. It feels like someone should have invented a way to do that by now.”

“Well they ain’t,” said Mech, pinching the bridge of his nose between a metal finger and thumb and trying not to lose his temper.

Cal turned his chair back to face the others. “So, slight problem, we have no idea where Kannus actually is right now.”

“No,” agreed Mizette. She took a deep breath, then let it out as a shaky sigh. “But I know a Greyx who does.”

Twenty

“I forbid it,” growled Graxan, his scowling face filling the Shatner’s screen. “You are not to interfere.”

“Interfere? It’s not interfering. He called us for help,” said Miz, crossing her arms across her powerful chest. “Tell us where you sent him and we can go help.”

“You would do well to listen more carefully, daughter,” Graxan snapped. “I forbade you getting involved. You have made quite enough of a mess of things as it is. I and a squadron of guards shall attend Kannus.”

“He called us. We should help. I should help. He’s my Lifebound,” Miz protested.

“A fact you were all too quick to forget when it suited you,” said Graxan, his eyes flicking just momentarily in Cal’s direction. “You will journey to Greyx Prime and await further instruction. I will bring Kannus back to you unharmed.”

“No!” said Miz, the ferocity of her voice taking everyone – even Graxan – by surprise. “Kannus called us. He needs help now. Our ship is faster than any of yours. By the time you get to him, it’ll be too late. Tell us where he is, or I swear you’ll never see or hear from me again.”

Cal raised a hand. “Uh, excuse me? Graxan?”

The old Greyx’s gaze lingered on Miz for a few seconds, then slowly shifted across the bridge. “What do you want?”

“It’s just…” Cal began, then he stood up and cleared his throat. “It’s just, I feel like I’m sort of partly responsible for this whole mess.”

“Partly?”

“Or, you know, mostly,” said Cal. “Vajazzle just wants this staff thing of yours so she can get at me. It’s not fair that anyone should get hurt. Even Kannus, who – and no offence to the guy – is a total shizznod.”

“What are you saying?” asked Miz.

Cal sighed. “I’m saying – and I don’t quite believe that I am - that if Vajazzle’s attacking Kannus, I’ll hand myself over to her. She can take me to Sinclair. I mean, what’s the worst he can do?”

Mech and Loren both opened their mouths to speak. Cal quickly dismissed them with a wave. “Rhetorical question. Don’t want to know.”

Miz shook her head. “No. You can’t. I won’t let you.”

“Come on,” said Cal. He tried to smile, but it was a shadow of his usual grin. “It’s the right thing to do, and you know it. How many people has she killed to get at me?”

“Just one that we know of,” said Loren.

“Wait, seriously? That’s all?” said Cal, sounding genuinely surprised. He counted on his fingers. “The guy she hung upside-down… I guess Kash accidentally fed himself to that worm, so we can’t really pin that one on her… Shizz, yeah, you’re right. Just that one guy whose name I don’t even remember.”

He looked up and realized Graxan was glaring down at him. “But, I mean, obviously that’s still one too many,” he quickly added. “So it’s time I ended this. Tell us where Kannus is. I’ll go hand myself over to Vajazzle and put a stop to this whole thing right now. No-one else needs to get hurt.”

Graxan rolled his tongue around inside his mouth. This went on for several seconds, and Cal had just begun to suspect the Greyx leader was secretly eating a toffee when he spoke again.

“Very well,” Graxan intoned. “We have been unable to contact Kannus to verify the situation, so I will have the co-ordinates transmitted to you, on the understanding that you turn yourself over to Lady Vajazzle.”

“No, you can’t!” said Miz. “You’re under Greyx protection!” She spun to face the screen. “You said he was under Greyx protection!”

“He is. That still stands,” agreed Graxan. “But if he willingly chooses to turn himself over into Vajazzle’s custody, no harm has been done.”

“No harm has been done?” Miz spat, but Cal laid a hand on her shoulder before she could continue.

“Hey, hey, easy, OK? I know this isn’t what any of us wanted, but… well, it’s just the way it has to be. I have to do this, Miz. I have to.”

On screen, Graxan’s face darkened, horrified by this demonstration of affection. “The co-ordinates have been sent. Do not mess this up,” he said, then the image changed to a panorama of stars.

“Got the co-ordinates and punched them in,” said Loren. She glanced back over her shoulder. “You’re not really going to turn yourself over to her, are you?”

Cal snorted. “Christ, no. You think I’m an idiot? That’d be suicide.”

“So, what’s the plan?” asked Mech.

“The plan is that we’re going to go find that ugly two-faced space witch and test out the torpedoes,” Cal replied. He jumped into his seat and winked at Miz. “Buckle up, darlin’,” he instructed. “We’ve got us an unwanted husband to save!”

* * *

Cal leaned forward in his seat. On screen, a planet hung against the shimmering background of space. It was a nice planet, he thought. There was lots of green and blue, and it reminded him quite a bit of Earth.

Two thirds of the world were bathed in varying degrees of sunshine, before it all gave way to a slice of darkness. Thousands – millions, probably – of lights pinpricked the gloom as towns and cities began embracing the oncoming night.

“Finally, a nice-looking world to visit,” said Cal, nodding appreciatively. “This is way better than the usual dumps we end up at. Bet no-one’s farming the shizz out of giant worms down there.” He glanced over at Loren. “They’re not, are they?”

“No,” said Loren.

“I knew it!”

“But we’re not going there,” she continued. “We’re going there.”

To call the thing she pointed at ‘spherical’ would be generous. It was a misshapen chunk of dark rock, barely visible against the segment of night-time that was spreading across the planet’s western hemisphere. It was a moon, but it didn’t really look much like one. Instead, it looked more like a growth – a cancerous tumor on the face of the world that was probably infecting everything around it.

Cal exhaled slowly through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “That figures.” He turned to Mech. “Scanners picking up any sign of trouble?”

Mech shook his head. “No.”

Cal tapped a fingernail against a front tooth. “What about the sensors?” he asked. “Or did we decide they were the same thing?” Mech’s expression told him all he needed to know. He nodded. “We decided those were the same thing.”

“I don’t like it,” said Loren.

“I know, right? We need to settle on one name or another, we can’t keep using both,” said Cal. “I vote for ‘scanners.’” He raised a hand. “All in favor?”

“Not that,” said Loren. She gestured at the malignant-looking moon. “We’re picking up life signs, but nothing that suggests anyone’s under attack.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” said Miz.

“Unless we’re too late,” said Mech.

“Or in the wrong place,” said Loren.

“Jesus, ever the optimists, eh, guys?” said Cal, dropping his hand. “If we were too late, we wouldn’t be picking up life signs. And why would Graxan send us to the wrong place?”

“Because he didn’t want us coming here and screwing everything up?” said Mech. “His words, not mine.”

“Son-of-a-bedge, he’d totally send us to the wrong place!” said Cal.

“Hold on, I can probably get us an image,” said Mech, busying around the controls. On screen, an illuminated rectangle appeared around the cancerous moon-growth, then the highlighted section zoomed until it filled the entire display.

“I don’t see anything but a nasty-looking rock,” said Cal.

Another rectangle appeared. This one highlighted a chunk of the moon just south of its equator. Again, the image zoomed in until it was just possible to make out a pixelated shape on the rocky surface.

Cal squinted and tilted his head. “I see something, but I have no idea what. What are we looking at?”

“One sec,” said Mech. He tapped a few more buttons and the heavily pixelated image became a marginally less pixelated image. The change was just enough to reveal the outline of an asymmetrical craft with one wing bigger than the other.

“That’s Kannus’s ship,” said Mizette.

“Seriously, how does that thing not just fly around in circles?” Cal wondered. He shook his head. “Any sign of our two-faced elderly friend?”

“Nothing,” said Mech.

“I’m not seeing her, either,” said Loren. “That’s the only ship down there.”

“Can we Skype him now that we’re closer?” asked Cal, quickly adding: “And please don’t say ‘Skype?’ and do that face again, you know what I mean.”

“Been trying since we came out of warp,” said Loren. “Nothing.”

Cal studied the screen for a few moments, then slapped both hands on his thighs. “OK, then. In that case, I guess we go down and ask him what all the panic’s about.” He flashed Miz a smile. “You ready?”

Miz nodded. “Ready.”

“OK, taking us down,” said Loren. She inched forwards just a fraction on the thrusters. Over the next several seconds, the image of Kannus’s ship grew ever so slightly larger.

“You know that thing’s still zoomed in, right?” said Cal.

Although he could only see the back of her head, Cal saw the surprise flit across her face. “What? Yeah. Of course! I absolutely did know that,” she said. The screen flicked back to showing the moon in its actual position, several hundred miles away. “I just thought we might want to… take our time?” Loren continued. The question mark at the end of the sentence was unmistakable.

“Well, given that we were called here as a matter of urgency, that makes absolutely no sense,” Cal pointed out. “It’s literally the opposite of what we should be doing.”

“Alright, alright, fine,” Loren grumbled. “I forgot we were zoomed in.” She eased down her foot, and the Shatner hummed as it picked up speed.

“Holy shizz,” Miz muttered. “Literally, worst. Pilot. Ever.”

As if to prove Miz wrong, Loren steered the ship on a surprisingly graceful descent through the atmosphere in which very little in the way of shaking, shuddering or panicky, wild-eyed screaming from Cal took place.

Just seven or eight minutes after dropping out of warp speed, the Shatner’s landing thrusters fired up and it lowered more or less steadily to a landing beside Kannus’s ship.

Up close, the moon looked even less hospitable than it had from space. If Kifo looked dead, this place looked like it had died, come back as a zombie, then been killed all over again. The ground was a dark rainbow of blacks, grays and pungent greens. Bush-sized clumps of fungi sprouted in patches all around the ships, presumably continuing beyond the ridges of a volcanic-looking crater ring that fenced them in on all sides.

A dozen or so feet beyond Kannus’s ship was… no, not a house. To call it a house would be ludicrously kind. To call it anything would be generous, Cal thought. It was really just a pile of rocks with a hole for a door and something that looked like a piece of tarp weighted down as a roof. It had presumably been put there on purpose, but it was so roughly built that it might just have landed that way by accident.

Cal shuddered and glanced at the blue-green planet up there in the sky. It seemed to be taunting them with its good looks and sunny demeanor. From here, Cal could see a stretch of beach along one coast that had to be five or six thousand miles long. That was a complete guess, of course – for all he knew, it was anywhere between a quarter and fifty times that size – but it was beautiful, either way.

He turned his attention back to the shizzhole of a moon they were parked on. “Can we breathe out there? We’ve still only got one space suit.”

“Atmosphere’s tolerable,” said Mech, checking his readings.

“Tolerable, eh? You’re really selling this place, you know that?” Cal clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth a few times. “We should all gun-up before we go out there,” he said. “Just in case.”

“You promise not to shoot any of us or pretend to be a… what did you call it? Cowboy this time?” said Mech.

“I promise to try,” said Cal. He looked up into the shadowy vents and pipes of the ceiling and whistled. “Here, Splurty, Splurty.”

A goo-covered eyeball extended from inside a pipe on a long strand of slime. It lowered from the ceiling like a legless spider on its thread, turned slowly as it gazed around the flight deck, then it and the rest of Splurt’s quivering body plopped into Cal’s lap.

Cal scooped the shapeshifter up and placed him on his shoulder. Splurt balanced there effortlessly, pulsing happily as Cal stood up. “Just in case we get into trouble, he can do that battle armor thing again,” he explained. Splurt began to shift around, but Cal stopped him. “Not yet. Just if I give the signal. So we’re clear, the signal will be me getting badly beaten or shot at. That’s when you do your thing, OK?”

Splurt twitched.

“OK, then,” said Cal. He rolled up his stained shirt sleeves and cricked his neck a couple of times. “Let’s gun-up, then go save the day.”

Twenty-One

Cal stepped down from the Shatner’s landing ramp, and immediately found himself at the business end of several mean-looking weapons. They weren’t all guns – he’d have preferred it if they were – but a mixture of rifles, pistols and long-handled spears with angular metal tips that looked like they’d take very little effort to go in, but need a whole lot of yanking and twisting to get back out.

“Whoa, whoa, easy!” he said, somewhat regretting his decision not to wear the Splurt-armor. It was only when he saw the amber eyes and fuzzy snouts at the other end of the weapons that he relaxed a little. He focused on one of the figures just a few feet away on his right. “It’s us, Kannus. Chill out.”

“He’s not Kannus. I am,” growled Kannus, from somewhere over on Cal’s left.

“Oops. Sorry,” said Cal. “You guys kind of look the same to me. But, you know, not in a racist way,” he added, hurriedly. He tried to laugh, but it came out as a hoarse wheeze in the thin atmosphere.

“Lower your weapons,” Kannus barked, as Mizette trudged down the ramp. As one, the eight or nine other Greyx all pointed their guns and blades to the ground, then lowered their heads and dropped to one knee. “Your Highness,” said Kannus. “You grace us with your presence.”

“Yeah, whatever. Just get up,” said Miz, as Mech and Loren exited the ship behind her.

Cal put his hands on his hips and looked around them, nodding slowly. “So,” he said, once the Greyx were all back on their feet. “What’s the big emergency?”

“Forgive me, Your Highness, but why have you come?” asked Kannus, ignoring Cal completely. “I understood we were to protect Savvon, and you were to attend the keykeeper.”

“Yeah, but… you called us,” said Miz.

Kannus’s hairy brow furrowed. He glanced at the other Greyx, then back to Mizette. “No, Your Highness--”

“I told you, quit calling me that,” Mizette sighed.

“Forgive me. No… Mizette,” Kannus said, the word sounding awkward in his mouth. “I did not.”

“Yeah, you did,” Miz insisted. “You called us and told us you needed help. We all heard it. Right, guys?”

Cal swallowed. “Oh… shizz,” he muttered. His eyes crept to the sky.

“What? What’s the problem?” asked Mizette. “He called us. We heard him.”

“We heard someone, sure,” said Cal. “But looks like it wasn’t him.”

The penny dropped. Miz’s eyes widened. “She tricked us.”

“Who? Vajazzle?” asked Kannus.

“She totally tricked us,” Cal agreed. “Man, she’s clever.”

“Who?” Kannus snapped, his fawning subject act fading fast. He caught Miz by the shoulder and forcibly turned her to face him. “Who tricked you? What is going on? Is Savvon in danger?”

Miz tried to pull back, but Kannus’s grip was too strong. Cal stepped into the larger Greyx’s line of sight. Splurt pulsed threateningly on his shoulder. “OK, one, who’s Savvon?” said Cal. “And two, take your hands off my friend. Not necessarily in that order.”

Kannus’s gums curved upwards, showing his sizeable collection of teeth. Behind him, the other Greyx adjusted their grips on their weapons.

A metal hand clamped down on Kannus’s wrist. “You heard the man,” said Mech. “Let go. Now.”

Kannus’s eyes narrowed. He held his grip, but relaxed it just enough for Miz to be able to yank her arm free.

“Amshoop,” she muttered, rubbing her arm, flexing her fingers and shooting Kannus a furious glare all at the same time.

“There, now we all need to play nice here,” said Cal. “In answer to your question, yes, it’s possible that Vajazzle may have tricked us into coming here, so that she could follow us.” He held up his hands before Kannus could react. “But I’m sure it’s pretty unlikely. Mech, what are the chances it was Vajazzle who set us up?”

“About ninety-four percent,” said Mech.

Cal blinked. “Fonk. That high? Seriously?” He sighed and dropped his arms. “I mean, couldn’t you have lied and said, I don’t know, even seventy percent or something? Now everyone’s worried, and – let’s be honest - it’s probably for nothing. If there was another ship up there, our scanners would have picked it up long before--”

A boom rolled across the sky like thunder as a ship punched through the atmosphere high overhead. Cal clapped his hands once and rubbed them together, as if trying to drive out the cold. “OK, good pep talk, everyone. Now, I’m afraid we’re probably all going to die.”

“It’s not Vajazzle,” said Miz. To Cal’s surprise, she almost sounded disappointed.

“What?” he said.

“It’s not Vajazzle,” Miz said again. She pointed up to the ship growing in the sky above them. “It’s my dad.”

Cal squinted up at the ship. It was flanked by two smaller ships, and he recognized them all from Kifo. “Hey, that’s great!” he said. “But how did he get here so soon after us? I thought we were, like, five times faster?”

“He was four-and-a-half times closer,” Loren explained.

They all craned their necks, blinking in the swirling dust as the ships came in to land. “What a sensible but dull explanation,” said Cal. “Still, better Graxan than Vajazzle.”

“Except we’re going to look like idiots,” Mech pointed out. “We told him Kannus was in trouble, and Kannus ain’t in no trouble.”

Cal looked over his shoulder at Miz’s Lifebound. “Could you maybe pretend to be in trouble?” he asked. Kannus’s expression made the answer to that question very clear. “No? No, thought not.” Cal went back to watching Graxan’s ship. “Yeah, we’re going to look like idiots.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Cal spotted an eerie white figure with a head like a half-finished skull. Its eyes were set in deep shadow, while its nose was a single triangular hole. It had no mouth to speak of – or to speak with, for that matter – but the skin where it should have been was scarred and puckered, as if there had been a mouth hole there at one point, but it had long since healed up.

“Wah!” Cal yelped, scrabbling for the blaster pistol slung at his hip. “What the fonk is that?”

The creature shrunk back, tucking himself behind one of the Greyx soldiers. It was almost naked, aside from a dirty curtain of cloth around its waist, and judging by its concave chest and protruding ribs, was badly in need of a good meal.

“What are you doing? Stop!” Kannus commanded. “That is Savvon. The keeper of secrets.”

“I thought the other guy who died was the keeper of secrets?” said Cal.

“Lontho Oom,” Kannus said. “He was. But there are many secrets to be kept.”

Savvon peeped out from behind the Greyx and eyed Cal warily. “So, what?” said Cal. “It’s a franchise?”

“Is that why he doesn’t have a mouth?” asked Loren.

“He cut off his lips and held the wounds together until they sealed shut,” said Kannus.

Cal grimaced. “Jesus. That’s deranged.”

“That’s dedication,” Kannus corrected.

“Yeah, except if someone really wanted to get info from him they could make him write it…” His voice tailed off as his gaze fell on the scarred stumps at the end of Savvon’s arms. “OK, yeah,” he said, shuffling uneasily. “That’s dedication. I guess.”

While they had been talking, Graxan and his guard ships had settled on the moon’s surface. A dozen guards – six from each of the smaller ships – raced to meet Graxan’s landing ramp as it slammed into the shale with a vaguely threatening paff. They all marched alongside the Greyx king as he walked down the ramp and picked his way unsteadily across the moon towards Cal and the others.

Miz looked her father up and down, something like disbelief etched on her face. “He looks so weak,” she said, louder than she intended. Graxan’s ears twitched, but he otherwise showed no indication that he’d heard her.

“I was not lying,” said Kannus, a softer edge to his voice now. “He is dying.”

“But I am not dead yet,” Graxan boomed. He stopped several feet from the rest of the group and looked Kannus up and down. “It seems I am not the only one.” His head shifted a fraction as his eyes locked on his daughter. “Mizette. Explain.”

Miz scratched the back of her head and shifted awkwardly on the balls of her feet. “Um, well, you see, the thing is…”

“Spit it out, child!”

“There’s a chance it all might have been a trick.”

“But just a chance,” said Cal. “Statistically, quite a high chance, granted, but still just a chance. Nothing definite.”

“Silence,” spoke Graxan, not bothering to even so much as glance Cal’s way. He narrowed his eyes at Mizette. “Explain.”

“OK, so we got this message from Kannus,” Miz began. “Asking for help, like we told you.”

“It wasn’t me,” said Kannus. “I am not in need of help, and if I were, it would not be from…” He looked over at Cal, Mech and Loren. “… the likes of them.”

“Charming,” said Loren. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

“Anyway,” said Miz, annoyed by the interruptions. “We spoke to you, then came here expecting to find Vajazzle killing everyone, but…” She gestured around them. “She’s not here.”

“She’s not here yet,” Graxan growled. “Of course this is a trick. She will have tailed your ship all the way here.”

“Or… maybe she tailed your ship,” said Cal.

“Either way, it is your fault we are both here,” Graxan pointed out. “Regardless of whose ship she has followed, the blame lies squarely at your feet.”

“Fair point, well made,” Cal conceded.

“We don’t even know if she followed anyone,” said Loren.

“Of course she did,” Graxan grunted. His gaze shifted to Cal for the first time since he’d arrived. “I assume you haven’t brought the key?”

Cal raised his eyebrows. “Hmm?”

“The key,” said Graxan. “The key we wish to keep out of Vajazzle’s hands. I assume you put it somewhere safe?”

Cal rotated his hips just a fraction until he could feel the sliver of rectangular metal in his back pocket. “Um… funny story,” he began, but a powerful clawed hand was around his throat before he could say any more. He kicked and struggled as Kannus hoisted him cleanly into the air.

“Tell me you didn’t bring it!” Kannus barked. “Tell me even you aren’t that stupid!”

“Kannus, that is enough,” said Graxan. “Put him down.”

“He has jeopardized everything. All of us!” Kannus growled, flecks of foam forming at the corners of his mouth. “He has put our entire species at risk.”

“Cut it out, Kannus!” Miz snapped. Behind her, Mech and Loren raised their weapons. All around them, Kannus’s guards raised theirs, too.

Graxan’s guards, not quite sure what to do or who to aim at, decided to do nothing whatsoever and just hope it all worked itself out in the end.

Cal hacked and coughed, his fingertips trying to force their way between Kannus’s hand and his own constricted windpipe. The tiny gulps of air he could get were weedy and thin. Breathing in the moon’s ‘tolerable’ atmosphere was hard enough without a massive wolf-man choking the life out of him.

“We should send him to Zertex in pieces,” Kannus said, still holding Cal aloft. “It would be simpler. We owe him nothing.”

Graxan took a single step forwards. He shot Kannus’s guards the briefest of glances and they lowered their weapons at once. “He is under my protection,” the Greyx king said, the words rumbling from his mouth like thunder. “I gave you an order. Do you dare to disobey me?”

Kannus’s eyes narrowed until they were little more than slits. He released his grip and Cal fell, gasping and wheezing, onto the hard ground.

“That… that was the signal,” he croaked, giving Splurt a prod. “What happened to the battle armor, buddy?”

“Cal, are you OK?” Miz asked, dropping to her haunches beside him. “Are you hurt?”

“Only my pride,” said Cal. “And my throat. And, to a lesser extent, my buttocks and most of my torso.”

Kannus snorted, but there was no humor in it. “Look at you. Crouching in the dirt with that mongrel. You shame yourself. You shame me.”

“OK,” puffed Cal, using Mizette’s arm and Mech’s leg to pull himself to his feet. “OK, that does it.” He raised his fists in front of his face. “Come at me, you big jerk. Let’s see what you got.”

“Enough,” said Graxan, his snout wrinkling in irritation.

“He challenges me, Great Graxan,” said Kannus, eyeballing Cal and baring his teeth. “He must be put in his place.”

Graxan’s face twisted into a grimace of fury. “I said that is enough!” he roared, then a fit of coughing wracked through his body, rasping in his lungs. Tentatively, Miz reached out to take his arm. At first, he yanked it away, but then he rested his elbow in her grip.

“Your passion does you credit, Kannus,” Graxan said, once he could speak again. “Your disobedience does not. I am still your king, and you will do as I say.”

Kannus seemed to chew on his tongue, then lowered his head in a sharp bow. “Of course, Your Majesty. My apologies.”

“We will speak no more of it,” said Graxan. He began to turn away, but then turned back. “Oh, and Kannus?”

“Your Majesty?”

Graxan leaned closer. “Lifebound or not, if you speak to my daughter in that tone again, I shall tear out your throat with my bare hands.” He watched him for a moment, making sure he wasn’t about to argue, then gave a single nod.

“Now,” Graxan said, sweeping his gaze across the sky. “Have we picked up any traces of Vajazzle?”

“No, Great Graxan,” replied one of his guards.

Mech checked the scanner on his arm. “I’m patched into the ship. I’m getting nothing.”

“Maybe she didn’t follow us,” said Loren.

“Then why set up the fake SOS?” asked Cal.

Loren shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t. There might be a perfectly straightforward explanation for it.”

“For us getting a distress call from Kannus that he didn’t send?” said Cal.

“I said there might be a perfectly straightforward explanation,” Loren pointed out. “I didn’t say I knew what it was.”

“She’s definitely not up there,” said Mech, rechecking the scanners.

“Could she be cloaked?” asked Cal.

Everyone’s brow seemed to furrow at once. “What does it matter what she’s wearing?” asked Loren.

“No, I mean her ship. Could it be cloaked? As in, like, invisible?”

From their expressions, it was clear everyone was still confused. He pressed on. “Like, she presses a button and the ship goes all shimmery then disappears.” He waved his arms in front of himself in a way designed to convey the word ‘shimmery,’ but which was ultimately unsuccessful. “You know? Cloaked.”

“What is he talking about?” said Kannus, asking the question on everyone’s lips. “How can a ship turn invisible?”

“It’d have to be a pretty big cloak to cover her entire ship,” said Loren.

“No, not an actual cloak!” Cal said, then he sighed. “Forget it, doesn’t matter. If she isn’t cloaked, then I guess she’s not…”

He spun towards Savvon. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You! Creepy mouth guy.”

Savvon shrunk back, his sunken eyes darting around at the others. “You know where the vault is, don’t you? Don’t you?”

“He can’t speak,” Kannus reminded him.

“No, but he can nod or something, can’t he?”

“He cannot,” said Graxan. “In order to prevent himself revealing his secrets, he has metal rods fusing his neck so he cannot move his head.”

“OK, then blink once for yes, twice for—”

“He has removed his own eyelids,” Graxan said. “That he may not inadvertently reveal that which has been entrusted to him.”

“Holy shizz, that is all kinds of messed up. There’s such a thing as taking a job too seriously, you know?” Cal said. He dodged past Kannus until he was standing in front of Savvon. “OK, you’re on an uninhabited moon, living in a…” He gestured to the rock and plastic tarp construction. “… whatever that is. It’s got to be here, hasn’t it? The vault. That’s why you’re here. It’s not like you’d be able to give detailed directions to its whereabouts if it was somewhere across the galaxy, so it has got to be here, right?”

Kannus tutted. “He can’t speak.”

“Raise your right arm for yes, left arm for no,” Cal instructed. “Is the vault with the bladestick here on--?”

“Bladestaff,” Graxan and Miz corrected at the same time.

“Whatever,” Cal said. “Is the vault with the blade thing nearby?”

Savvon didn’t do much to suggest he understood, and Cal was about to ask the question again when the shriveled figure slowly raised his right arm.

“OK, yes, that’s a yes,” said Cal. “Where is it?”

“He can’t tell you, you imbecile!” barked Kannus. “He can’t speak!”

“No, but he can fonking point!” said Cal. He glanced at the scarred stumps where Savvon’s hands had been. “You know, in vaguely the right direction, at least.”

“He shall not. I forbid it,” said Graxan. “The location of the Bladestaff must remain a secret.”

“But that’s just it, it isn’t a secret,” said Cal. “Vajazzle messed up our communications and faked that message from Kannus because she knew we’d lead her here.”

“But she’s isn’t here,” Mech pointed out.

“No, her ship isn’t here,” said Cal. “It’s out there somewhere, just beyond scanner range. Only, her scanner is better than ours, or maybe she does have a cloaking device, or… I don’t know. Whatever. Her ship’s there somewhere, but she’s not on it.”

“How can you possibly know any of this?” Kannus demanded.

Cal spun to face him. “Because it’s literally the only way any of this makes sense!” He stood back, waiting for everyone to realize he was a genius. When they didn’t, he tutted. “You’re not getting it, are you? Vajazzle isn’t up there. She’s already here!”

The others looked around them. “Where?” asked Graxan.

“The woman can teleport!” yelped Cal. “She’s already inside the fonking vault!”

It took a moment for the significance of Cal’s words to settle in. Graxan’s eyes widened. “Where is it?” he demanded, rounding on the terrified Savvon. “Where is the vault?”

Savvon stared blankly, his mouthless face a picture of confusion. “Where is the vault?” Graxan roared, his teeth and claws flashing furiously.

“Uh, Dad…”

Graxan snapped his head around. “What?”

“I think we found it,” Miz said.

“How? Where? Oh!” said Graxan. “Oh no.”

There, walking towards them across the green-black shale, was Lady Vajazzle.

And also there, clutched in one withered hand, was the Bladestaff.

Twenty-Two

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “This might not be too bad,” he said. “Maybe she’s just… bringing it to you. As a gesture of peace or something.”

“That was sarcasm, by the way,” Miz muttered, her gaze fixed on the approaching assassin.

“Actually, it wasn’t,” said Cal. “But I can see why you might make that mistake.”

“Take aim!” Kannus ordered. There was a well-organized clattering as his troops raised their rifles, blaster pistols and spears in Vazazzle’s direction.

“Hold,” Graxan commanded. “Lower your weapons.”

Kannus’s head snapped around. “But… Great Graxan…”

“Do not question me, pup,” Graxan warned. He looked past him to where the soldiers were trying to decide whose orders they should be following. “Lower. Your. Weapons,” he said, and the tone of his voice made their minds up for them.

They lowered their weapons.

“Sensible,” said Vajazzle, stopping around fifteen feet away from the group. “Keep your people on their leash, Graxan. I’d hate for our agreement to fall apart on us now.”

Graxan took a step towards the assassin, nudging Kannus aside. “The Bladestaff. Give it to me.”

Vajazzle looked down at the weapon in her hand. If she stood it on one end, it would be taller than Cal by a clear foot. Most of it – the ‘staff’ part was a simple pole made of dark wood. Attached to the top end was a silver-colored blade in the shape of a crescent moon, while a corkscrew-like metal spike had been fixed to the bottom.

It was, as far as Cal could tell, nothing special – a sentiment seemingly echoed by Lady Vajazzle.

“Ah yes, the Bladestaff,” she said, giving it an experimental twirl like a baton. “I thought it would be more impressive. Not magic, of course, that would be ridiculous. Just… better. There’s nothing special about this thing, at all.”

“Then give it to me,” said Graxan, extending a clawed hand. “And go.”

Beneath her hood, Vajazzle smiled. “Now Graxan, you know that isn’t going to happen.”

“Take the Earthling,” Kannus blurted. “That’s what you want. A trade. Him for the Bladestaff.”

“Kannus!” Graxan snapped. “Keep your counsel.”

“I don’t want the Earthling,” said Vajazzle.

There was a moment of silent surprise. “You don’t?” asked Cal. He smiled. “Well that’s the first bit of good news I’ve had all day.”

“Sinclair does.”

Cal’s smile fell away. “Oh. Gotcha.”

“As for what I want,” Vajazzle continued. “I want to make an example.”

There was a sudden flurry of movement beneath her robe. Cal ducked and tucked his head under his arms as the air was filled with the high-pitched whistle of several small objects slicing through the air.

There followed a series of ‘Urks.’

Then a series of thuds.

When Cal looked up, both Graxan’s and Kannus’s guards lay on the ground, their long tongues lolling from their open mouths. Graxan, Kannus and Miz were the only Greyx left standing. Even poor Savvon, who seemed incapable of harming anyone beyond himself, lay crumpled at Kannus’s feet.

Graxan’s snout furled up. The hair on his shoulder stood on end, making him appear even larger than he was, as his fingers balled into fists. “What have you done? Our agreement--”

“Still stands,” said Vajazzle, with a dismissive wave of a hand. “The deal states only that I do not harm the Greyx. They are unharmed. Unconscious, but unharmed. You see, I am a woman of my word. When I make a deal, I stick to it.”

She hefted the Bladestaff in her hand a couple of times, feeling the weight of it. “The same cannot be said for you. Honorary Greyx?” Anger seethed below her hood. “How dare you attempt to alter our arrangement Graxan? How dare you?”

“You would be wise not to question my decisions, Vajazzle,” Graxan warned.

“And you would be wise not to mistake me for one of your groveling minions,” Vajazzle replied, shooting Kannus a very deliberate look.

“We shall see who ends this day groveling, assassin,” Kannus growled. He dropped onto his haunches, preparing to lunge, but Graxan shoved him hard on the shoulder, sending him sprawling onto the shale.

Kannus raised his eyes in shock. Graxan snarled down at him, just briefly, then turned his attention back to Vajazzle.

“I could have insisted, of course,” said Vajazzle. “I could have pointed out that our agreement does not extend to ‘honorary Greyx’ and taken them anyway.”

“You could have tried,” said Miz.

Vajazzle let out a mirthless, “Ha,” sound. “You are your father’s daughter, child. I would have succeeded. You could not have stopped me.” She exhaled slowly. “But that would not have sent a strong enough message to the others I have entered into agreements with. And I am a firm believer in strong messages.”

She nodded to Kannus as he got back to his feet and dusted himself down. “I have watched this one with interest. You have taught him well. Ruthless, ambitious – a little unruly and arrogant, perhaps, but he’ll learn. He would have made a fine king.”

Vajazzle’s robotic red eye flared in its socket. “Of course, that’s not going to happen.” She smiled across at Mizette. “Is it, dear? You have no interest in being his queen. Your heart belongs to another.”

Miz looked at Cal.

Kannus looked at Cal.

Pretty much everyone looked at Cal, in fact.

Cal, for his part, appeared to be deeply fascinated by a small patch of cloud drifting through the sky a few miles. He watched it, his cheeks reddening, until Graxan spoke and everyone turned their attention to him, instead.

“Lies. Kannus will be king. Mizette shall be his queen,” Graxan intoned.

“No. She won’t,” said Kannus. “She told me herself.”

“She is your Lifebound,” barked Graxan. “It has been decided.”

“But… that’s not fair,” said Mizette. “It shouldn’t be decided. Who decided? You? Mom? Some ancient tradition that nobody even knows how it started? It should be up to me to choose. Me. No-one else.”

“You go, girl!” said Mech. He brought his hands together a few times, trying to start a slow hand-clap. When no-one else joined in, he stopped, tutted loudly, then muttered below his breath.

“How must it feel?” Vajazzle purred, her gaze now firmly fixed on Kannus. “Your whole life planned for you from childhood. Every hour of every day spent studying, training, learning to become the king you were born to be. And then…” She blew on her fingertips and mimed them drifting off on the breeze. “Gone. Your destiny taken from you by her. By him.”

“Hey,” Cal protested. “None of this is my… OK, some of it might be my fault, but… I forget where I’m going with this.” He cleared his throat. “Carry on.”

“You know, I almost wish this thing was magic,” Vajazzle said, holding up the Bladestaff. “He who holds the Bladestaff rules the Greyx. That’s the legend, isn’t it? I almost wish it were true.”

“You?” Graxan snorted. “Ridiculous. How could you rule the Greyx?”

“Oh, not me,” said Vajazzle. She tossed the staff towards Kannus. Instinctively, he caught it. “Him.”

Graxan nodded slowly. “Thank you for returning the Bladestaff, Vajazzle. Now, be on your way.”

Vajazzle ignored him. She spoke directly to Kannus, and this time that whispering second voice chimed in to echo her words. “I suppose it is magic, in a way. Because what is magic? Illusion. Trickery. Deception. The suspension of disbelief just long enough to make the unreal appear real.”

Kannus stared down at the staff, its curved blade glinting in the sun’s light.

“Don’t get too used to it, boy,” said Vajazzle. “It isn’t yours. It will never be yours. All you have done, you have done for nothing. All that training, that isolation, that pain. Pack it up. Lock it away. You are not king. You shall never be king.”

“Give me the Bladestaff, Kannus,” said Graxan, extending a hand.

Kannus glanced up, but then felt his eyes be drawn back down again. There were symbols scratched deep into the staff’s wooden handle. It was one of several ancient texts, back from before the Greyx was united. He was only passingly familiar with the runes, but he knew the translation well enough.

“He who wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx,” he whispered.

“It is not yours to wield!” Vajazzle hissed. “It shall never be yours. The Earthling has seen to that!”

“Give it to me,” Graxan demanded. “Now!”

“Kannus?” said Miz, her brow furrowing in concern. “Give it to him. What are you--?”

She stopped as a spray of blood spattered across her face.

Time seemed to grind into slow motion as the crescent-moon blade of the Bladestaff emerged like a shark’s fin through Graxan’s back. Mizette could only stand. Stare. Her limbs frozen by the weight of this endless unmoving moment.

“NOOO!” she cried, her scream becoming a roar as she hurled herself towards Kannus. An invisible force wrapped around her, jerking her to a stop in mid-air.

“Down, doggy,” said Vajazzle. With a flick of her fingers, she slammed Miz against the ground, just as Graxan toppled backwards onto it.

Blood pumped from the hole in the old man’s chest. His eyes rolled, as if searching for something – anything – to focus on.

“Loren, help him. Mech, with me!” said Cal, drawing his blaster and putting himself between Kannus and the fallen Greyx king. The blade of the staff was awash with crimson. The blood trickled along the wooden handle and fell like rain on the shale. Kannus watched it, his chest heaving as his breath came in short, gulping pants.

“OK, easy,” said Cal, the arrival of Mech at his side providing a much-needed confidence boost. “Put down the staff, Kannus. Don’t make me shoot you.”

Down on the ground, Loren thrust a leg out in front of Mizette. “Claws. I need a bandage. Now.”

Miz blinked a few times, like the words were in the wrong language and she couldn’t figure out the meaning.

“Mizette!” Loren said, shaking her by the shoulder. “Cut me a bandage, or he’s going to die!”

That did it. Miz flashed her claws and tore a long, thick strip from Loren’s pants. Folding it, Loren pressed it against the wound in Graxan’s chest. Blood seeped through it and over her fingers almost immediately.

“Shizz,” Loren spat. “OK, think, think.”

Graxan’s eyes stopped swimming and, after a few false starts, focused on Loren’s face. “Thank you,” he said, the words wheezing from his mouth. “That won’t be necessary.”

With a grunt of pain, he shifted his head until his gaze fell on Mizette. He tried to smile, but coughed instead. A bubble of blood burst across his lips. “Mizette,” he whispered. “My Mizette.”

“I’m here, Dad. It’s me. You’re going to be OK,” she said, taking one of his hands in two of hers. It felt heavy and limp, like the life had already left it. “You’re going to be OK. Loren’s going to help you. Right?”

Loren’s mouth flopped open and closed. She watched the blood pumping through her fingers. “I… I…”

A sound like a burbling brook bubbled from the wound in Graxan’s chest. He shook his head, just a fraction. “It… is the way of things,” he managed.

Miz clutched his hand tighter, pressing it against her face. “No, no. It’s my fault. I’m sorry, dad. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

Graxan coughed again. His eyes rolled back in his head as pain filled all the parts of him that had until very recently been filled with blood. “There is s-something I always wanted to t-tell you,” he said. “A secret of my own. Should have told you… long ago.” Gritting his teeth with the effort, he raised his other hand and beckoned her to him. “C-come closer.”

Miz lowered her head until there was nothing to see but her father’s face, and nothing to hear but the strained whisper from his lips.

“You were never a disappointment.”

He pressed his snout against her cheek and held it there for as long as he could. And then, before Miz could find the words to reply, his head sunk back, his arm dropped, and the last of what had been Graxan of the Greyx ebbed onto the cold dark ground.

“Father? Dad?” said Miz, shaking the hand she still clutched in hers. “Daddy?”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Loren. “There was nothing I could do.”

Miz nodded, just once. She rested Graxan’s hand across his chest. She whispered a private, “goodbye.”

And then, with the blood of her father matting her fur, she got to her feet.

Twenty-Three

Kannus was still looking down at the Bladestaff when Mizette stepped between Cal and Mech. The sound of her voice finally made him tear his eyes from the weapon’s bloodied steel.

“You killed him,” she said, her tone flat and hollow. “You killed him, Kannus.”

Kannus frowned, as if this was the first he’d heard of it. “He… I… It was not my intention.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have rammed that thing through his chest, in that case,” said Cal, keeping his gun trained between Kannus’s eyes. “Just a tip for the future.”

“Give me the Bladestaff,” Mizette said. The growl deep in her throat suggested this wasn’t a request.

Kannus looked down at the weapon again. He seemed even more surprised to see it than he had been to hear of Graxan’s death.

“The Bladestaff?” he said.

“Give it to me, or I’ll take it from you,” Mizette said.

“I’d do what she says, man,” said Mech. “Otherwise this ain’t gonna end well for you.”

Kannus’s lips moved silently.

“What was that?” asked Cal. “What did you say?”

Kannus’s grip tightened on the wooden handle. “He who wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx,” he said, then he twirled the bloodied end of the weapon into a spin. There was a shink as the blade sliced through the end of Cal’s blaster.

Cal groaned as half of the gun’s barrel clattered onto the ground. “Aw man, am I ever going to get to fire one of these things?” he muttered, before Mizette knocked him aside as she hurled herself at Kannus.

She was too close, moving too fast for Kannus to react. He could only throw up an arm and wait for the pain as her teeth and claws tore towards him.

And then, just like before, she stopped. Vajazzle kept a hand raised, holding Miz motionless in mid-air. “Kannus, control your Lifebound,” she told him. “Do not make me intervene again.”

Giving a shove, she sent Mizette bouncing across the ground. Miz yelped and hissed as she rolled clumsily across the rocky ground, then tumbled to a stop.

Growling, she leaped back to her feet, but a shout from Kannus stopped her. “Don’t!” he warned, pressing the point of the Bladestaff against Cal’s throat. “Try that again and you can say goodbye to your… pet.”

Loren and Mech moved to flank Kannus, their weapons trained. “I wouldn’t,” he told them. “All I have to do is twitch.”

“Hey, let’s just relax,” Cal croaked. He tried to swallow, but the tip of the blade stopped his Adam’s apple bobbing all the way down. He glanced sideways, searching for Splurt, but realized the little blob wasn’t perched on him anymore. He was on his own. “Nothing is completely fonked here. Kannus, you can still recover from this.”

“Recover?” Kannus snorted. “Recover from what? From being king? From taking my rightful place?” His lips curled into a snarl and he spat out the next few words. “From getting what I deserve?”

“Oh, you’re going to get what you deserve,” Miz snapped. “That’s a promise.”

“You’re right, you know?” said Vajazzle. “You do deserve to be King. It is your birthright. It is your destiny. No-one need know what happened here. They just need to know that Graxan is dead, and they will accept you as his rightful successor.”

“Except we know what happened,” said Mech.

Cal groaned. “You had to go and point that out to him,” he said, the pressure of the blade making his voice sound unnaturally deep.

“As the new ruler of the Greyx, I trust you will honor the agreement I had with Graxan?” Vajazzle said. “And that you will allow me to take these non-Greyx with me when I depart here? Without their interference, your transition to ruler should be relatively simple.”

Kannus glanced across the faces of Cal and the others. He lingered on Mizette for a few moments. “Whatever happens, she stays with me,” he said. “The Greyx are to remain off-limits.”

“Of course,” said Vajazzle.

“And you have a ship? You can take them now, before the others awaken?”

“Oh yes. I have one right here,” Vajazzle replied.

On some unseen signal, a patch of air that was easily half the size of Manhattan began to shimmer. A moment later, a vast battle cruiser filled the space that had previously appeared empty.

Very aware of the tip of Kannus’s blade, Cal shifted his eyes left and right to look at his friends. “See?” he said. “Cloaked!”

“Man, that is one big ship,” Mech said.

“It’s the Zertex AX11 war cruiser,” said Loren, a little breathlessly. “It’s the biggest frontline battle ship on the fleet. I’ve read about it… a lot, but I’ve never seen it in real life before. The cloaking thing must be some kind of proto-tech.”

“I like the color,” said Cal, gazing up at the completely black hull. “It’s pretty.”

“You will hand Cal Carver and his associates over to me, and I shall deliver them to Zertex,” Vajazzle said, in the voice of someone who knew exactly how the next few minutes were going to play out. “You may keep your Lifebound, but – if you don’t mind some advice – I’d keep her out of the public eye until you’ve… broken her in a little.”

“But… Graxan,” Kannus said. “What shall I tell them on Greyx Prime?”

“Tell them whatever you like,” said Vajazzle, shrugging beneath her cloak. “Tell them the Earthling did it. Tell them I did it. Tell them he and I were working together, and that Graxan died so that others may live. You’re a bright boy, Kannus. You’ll think of something.”

Behind her, dozens of small, saucer-shaped ships detached themselves from beneath the AX11 and swooped in for a landing approach. Even in the shadows of her hood, Cal could see Vajazzle’s grin of triumph. “He who wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx,” she said. “So go, Your Majesty. And rule.”

One of the saucer-ships stopped in the air directly above Cal. A beam of crackling purple light engulfed him, making his hair stand on end. From other ships, two more beams of the light locked onto Mech and Loren.

“What the fonk is this?” demanded Mech. He tried to step free of the beam, but a jolt of pain tore through his synapses, forcing him to stand still.

“Don’t worry, Miz, it’s going to be OK,” said Cal, shouting to make himself heard over the high-pitched whine that was suddenly screaming in his ears. “We’ll find you. I’ll find you.”

“No, mongrel,” growled Kannus. “You won’t.”

He lunged, smashing the wooden handle of the Bladestaff across the bridge of Cal’s nose. The last thing Cal heard was a roar from Mizette, then the swirling purple light around him gave way to a deep, suffocating black.

Twenty-Four

There was a pressure in Cal’s head. That was the first thing he noticed.

The second thing he noticed was that his hands and feet were tied. He could feel something cold and metallic against his wrists, and a deeply uncomfortable tightness around his ankles.

The third thing he noticed was that he’d possibly wet himself. He shifted his legs a little, rubbing his thighs together.

Correction: he’d definitely wet himself.

The fourth thing he noticed in what was now becoming quite a long list, was that his eyes were closed. Just out of interest, he opened them. What he saw confused him immensely.

He was barely two feet from the ceiling in a small, cell-like room. The bit of the ceiling that was directly above him had been covered in plastic sheeting, although he couldn’t quite figure out how it was attached, or why it wasn’t flopping down.

The room had one door, but it extended downwards from the roof, not upwards from the floor, flying in the face of tradition. A thought nagged at Cal, but it was trapped by the pressure throbbing around inside his skull and couldn’t quite manage to make itself heard.

There was a small black leather bag sitting on a table nearby. The table was upside-down and, like pretty much everything else he’d spotted so far, attached to the ceiling. Despite this, the case didn’t fall off.

Craning his neck, Cal saw that the room was lit by a single dome-shaped light fitting. It was fixed to the center of the floor, which seemed to be quite a long way away.

The nagging thought finally managed to battle its way through. “You’re upside down,” it told him. And it was right, he was.

The door slid open with a sudden clank, making him jump. The rope attaching him to the ceiling – the real ceiling – creaked as he swung slowly back and forth.

“Ah. You are awake.”

“Oh, hey, Vajazzle,” Cal said, making a valiant stab at sounding casual. “Fancy seeing you here. Nice boots. Never noticed them before. Of course, I’ve never been hanging upside-down in front of you, so that might explain it.” He smiled warmly. “So… how have you been?”

A rectangle of the wall directly ahead of him illuminated. A face appeared. To Cal, the man on the screen looked to be the right way up, which meant that the image, like Cal, was upside-down.

“Eugene Adwin!” said President Sinclair. He tapped himself on the forehead. “No, wait, I mean Cal Carver.” He wagged a playfully reproachful finger. “I still can’t believe you had us all fooled, you old shyster! Did I ever tell you the story, Lady Vajazzle? About Mr Carver here and Eugene ‘The Butcher’ Adwin?”

“No, and I have no interest in hearing it,” she said.

“Fair enough,” said Sinclair, with a chuckle. “But if you ever change your mind, you just let me know.”

“Hey, Sinclair,” said Cal, cocking his head just a little. “Is it just me or… have you put on weight?”

A flicker of concern flitted across the president’s face, but then was gone. He laughed and wagged his finger again. “This guy!” he said. “You know, Cal, you have caused me – and this is no exaggeration here – you have caused me no end of trouble.”

Sinclair began listing on his fingers. “You ruined my plan to integrate Zertex more closely with the Symmorium.”

“By ‘integrate’ do you mean when you tried to mind-control them all?” asked Cal, but the president ignored him.

“You made Kornack very unhappy when you didn’t deliver the organism—”

“Splurt,” Cal corrected.

“—and now I’ve got him and half the Remnants giving me so much grief about it, you wouldn’t believe. You killed Legate Jjin, one of my most trusted advisors, and – to my mind, at least - a truly great man. You stole a very expensive ship. Oh… did you get it back, by the way?”

“I did,” said Vajazzle. “It’s aboard.”

“Great! That’s great news!” Sinclair said, giving the assassin a double thumbs-up. “And has he told you where the organism is?”

“Splurt,” Cal said again.

“I haven’t asked,” Vajazzle said. “Would you like me to?”

“Oh my, yes!” laughed Sinclair. “I would like that very much. If we can get it back, it’ll help smooth things over with the Remnants. Feel free to do whatever you need to do to get him to talk. In fact… just warm him up a little in general, will you?”

“That’d be awesome,” said Cal. “It’s kinda chilly in here. I think I can see my breath.” He breathed out a few times, putting more effort into it each time. “No, turns out I can’t. Thought I could. Sorry for wasting everyone’s time.” He frowned, just for a moment. “Anyway, what were we talking about again?”

Sinclair twitched with irritation. “Go ahead. Put on your show of bravery, Cal. Please. It’s admirable, it really is. But just know this,” he said, leaning closer to the camera so the top and bottom of his face were cut off by the screen. “Lady Vajazzle is bringing you to me in order that I may hurt you. I have been hurting people for a very long time, and that’s exactly what I intend to do to you, Cal. Hurt you. For a very long time.”

Cal bit his lip. “Are you going to monologue at me?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Please, no, I beg you, anything but that.”

Sinclair’s smile faltered. He leaned back from the camera and very deliberately ticked the final finger off his hand. “And finally, on a more personal level, I just don’t like you very much.”

“Is it my face?” asked Cal. “It’s my face, isn’t it? Because I get that a lot.”

“Haha, yes,” said Sinclair. “I’m quite sure you do.”

He crossed his hands neatly behind his back and rocked on his heels. “You see, the thing you need to keep in mind, Cal, is that you don’t exist. Out here, I mean. The only records of you are on Earth, and even before I killed everyone – apologies again for that, by the way – no-one ever went there. No-one important, at any rate. You are a ghost. A nobody. A nothing. I can keep you for years, and no-one will even know.”

Cal squirmed uncomfortably, making him pendulum gently back and forth. “OK, Sinclair, listen. I know something, OK?” he said. “I’ve got information you need. I can give you it right now.”

Sinclair smirked. “I don’t care. To be honest, I’d rather Lady Vajazzle got it from you the hard way.”

“No, but trust me, this is important,” Cal insisted. “It’s something you’ll want to know.”

Sinclair sighed impatiently, but his curiosity soon got the better of him. “Well? What is it?”

Cal nodded towards the president’s image on the wall. “You’ve got a stain on the front of your shirt. I think it might be mustard.”

Instinctively, Sinclair glanced down.

“Ha!” said Cal. “Made you look.”

The president’s face darkened, but then he forced a smile and wagged his finger again. “Very good. I’ll see you soon, Cal,” he said. “Very much looking forward to it. For now, though, I shall leave you in Lady Vajazzle’s very capable hands. Please, m’lady… take your time.”

The screen blinked off. Vajazzle approached the table. There was the sound of a zip being undone, as she opened the leather bag.

“Secretly, I think he likes me,” said Cal. He watched as she reached inside the bag and pulled out a slim metal case. It looked like a tin that might be used to hold cigars, but Cal had a sinking feeling that Vajazzle wasn’t about to light up. “What you got there?” he asked.

Vajazzle said nothing. She zipped the bag closed and placed it on the floor, then set the metal case in the spot it had occupied. Unfastening a clasp, she opened the case like a book, unfolding it until it lay flat on the tabletop. As Cal’s head was hanging lower than the table, this made it impossible for him to see what was in the case. On balance, he decided he was grateful for that.

“You know, I feel like we haven’t had a chance to really connect. I feel like I hardly even know you,” said Cal. “The real you, I mean, warts and all! Not that I’m suggesting you have warts – I’m sure you don’t, and if you do, then that’s fine, too. Nothing wrong with a few warts or, you know…” He glanced at the bottom of her robe. “…tentacles, or whatever. What I mean is— Ooh, Christ, that looks sharp.”

Vajazzle had taken a long sliver of metal from the case, and was studying it. Her robotic eye whirred quietly as it focused on the blade’s razor-sharp tip. After a moment’s consideration, she set it down on the tabletop with the faintest of clinks, then turned her attention back to the case.

“What’s it like having two faces?” Cal asked. “Does the other one have, you know, like its own personality or is it just a sort of spare that you use sometimes if you get bored of using your main one? Like a back-up face?”

Cal licked his lips, which were suddenly very dry. “Do you two ever argue? ‘Hey, I want us to go this way!’ ‘No, I want us to go this way!’ That sort of thing?”

Vajazzle held up something that looked not unlike a corkscrew, but one that had been specifically designed for dealing with very stubborn bottles. It had three spiral prongs at the end, which all turned slowly when the assassin squeezed the handle.

“Look, what’s Sinclair paying you? Or is that unprofessional of me to ask?” Cal said, starting to babble now. “Ballpark figure. Maybe I can match it. I have, I don’t know, upwards of eight hundred dollars in my account back on Earth with your name on it.”

There was another clink as the tool was set down on the table.

“I mean, it doesn’t literally have your name on it, that would be weird,” said Cal. “Also, I’m pretty sure that scribbling the word ‘Vajazzle’ across a dollar bill is probably a federal crime of some kind, so there’s that, too.”

Vajazzle continued to ignore him. Her hand returned to the case.

“What have you done with the others?” Cal asked. “Are they alive?”

“For now,” said the assassin.

“Are they the right way up?”

Vajazzle said nothing.

“They are, aren’t they? They’re the right way up! Those lucky fonks.” He raised his voice. “Thanks a lot, guys! Way to show solidarity.”

“They can’t hear you,” said Vajazzle. She held up something that looked like a tiny pizza cutter. “No-one can hear you. No matter how loud you may scream.”

“Is that a challenge? Because I don’t know, I can scream pretty loud,” Cal boasted.

Vajazzle nodded. “We’ll find out,” she said. She set the slicing tool down on the table. “They provided me with these tools. I did not ask for them. I am not going to use them on you.”

Cal made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “You aren’t? Well, let me tell you, that’s quite a weight off my mind. I was starting to get worried there, watching you wave all that pointy stuff around.”

“I do not require tools,” the assassin continued, stepping around the table. Cal watched her feet as they brought her closer. When she stopped, her knees were level with Cal’s head. “I have my own methods for making you talk.”

“Talk? Listen, sweetheart, I will talk all day, no torture required. My mom used to say I could talk the hind legs off a donkey which, in retrospect, doesn’t really make any sense, but the point is--”

Something deep in Cal’s insides suddenly tightened, strangling the rest of his sentence before it could get out. Vajazzle twisted two fingers in the air, just a fraction, and pain erupted like fire behind Cal’s ribs.

“Feel that? That is your left lung under compression. Hurts, doesn’t it?” said Vajazzle. “And it will continue to hurt until you answer my questions.”

“You… h-haven’t… asked a-any,” Cal wheezed.

“No, but I will,” said the assassin. “Eventually.”

She knelt down and pushed back her hood, revealing her bald head and its wispy patches of gray. “I want you to know that I take no pleasure from this,” she said. The tip of her tongue flicked across her dry, chapped lips. She leaned in until Cal could feel the warmth of her breath on the side of his face. “Well,” she whispered. “Perhaps a little.”

Twenty-Five

Cal’s scream did a few laps of the room, then faded away into a rasping, wheezing, not-quite-silence.

That had been a rough one. He wasn’t sure exactly where Vajazzle had targeted that time, but it was something just a little below the belly button that he suspected was probably quite important. It had writhed and twisted inside him, then stopped just in time to prevent him blacking out.

He was pretty sure he had blacked out once or twice already, but he hadn’t been taking notes. He thought he could remember brief moments without pain, although that could easily have been his mind playing tricks on him.

The rope creaked as he swung slightly from side to side. The plastic sheet that had been spread out on the floor beneath him was still spotlessly clean, and he almost felt disappointed that he had nothing to show for everything he’d been put through.

Emphasis on ‘almost.’

“Question one,” said Vajazzle, tracing a withered finger downwards across his bare stomach and chest. “Where is the organism?”

The act of speaking proved both difficult and painful. His throat was fine – she hadn’t reached that part yet – but the effort of pushing air from his lungs made his already aching head ache more, and his whole chest constrict from the effort.

“His name,” Cal managed, “is Splurt. And I don’t know.”

Vajazzle grasped at the air. Cal tried to scream as his insides lit up in agony, but all that emerged was a burbling bubble of bloodied spit.

“P-please, I don’t know where he is,” Cal insisted. He convulsed and thrashed as Vajazzle brought her fingers together.

“Do you remember where you last saw it?”

Cal nodded. “Yes. Y-yes.”

“And where was it?” Vajazzle asked.

Cal gulped down a few desperate breaths and swallowed. Groaning with the effort, he nodded towards his left shoulder. “There.”

Vajazzle raised a second hand. Cal’s eyes widened in fright. “No, wait, no don’t, don’t, I didn’t mean it. He wasn’t there, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you!”

The assassin kept both hands raised, but held them steady. Cal let out a sob of relief, then nodded towards his right shoulder. “I think it was actually that side,” he managed, then he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as his internal organs thrashed and twisted inside him.

* * *

Mech lay on the floor in his cell, the power-diverting dial on his chest turned all the way to ‘brainpower mode,’ making it impossible for him to move.

His eyes were open, staring blankly at the domed light in the center of the ceiling. There was a speaker system somewhere in the cell. He couldn’t move his head to see it, but he could calculate the exact location by plotting the path of the sound waves. He had chosen to focus on the waveform in an attempt to block out the actual sounds themselves. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working.

“P-please, I don’t know where he is.”

Cal’s scream was so loud it made the speaker crackle and pop. Unable to so much as lift a finger, Mech focused all his brainpower on analyzing the shape of the distortion’s waves until the sound of torture faded into the background.

* * *

Loren’s arms were beginning to ache. Or, to be more accurate, they were continuing to ache, but she was finally beginning to notice.

She was attached by a series of cuffs and chains to the ceiling, her arms raised so her body formed a Y-shape. Had she known of the singer, Michael Jackson, she might have likened her position to the one he adopted on the cover of his posthumous two-disc album, This Is It, but as she was in no way aware of him, she didn’t. And, even if she had heard of him, she probably wasn’t in the right frame of mind to draw any such comparison.

The speaker that had been mounted high on the wall on her right now lay in pieces on the floor. She’d tried listening to the screams at first. She felt she owed it to Cal, somehow, like it was her duty to listen.

She’d listened as Vajazzle had asked him about Splurt, and she’d listened to his replies. It was soon after that she decided she couldn’t listen any longer, and she’d managed to bring her legs up high enough to kick the speaker from the wall.

As the speaker fell, so too did the silence. Loren regretted it almost immediately. Now that she had no idea what was happening, her imagination rushed to fill in the blanks.

She tugged on the cuffs that were locked around both wrists, rattling the chains attaching her to the ceiling. “Stop it!” she bellowed, thrashing the chains around. “Let him go! Let him go!”

Her voice echoed back off the featureless walls and thick metal door as, inside her head, Cal screamed and screamed and screamed.

* * *

Time passed.

Quite how much time, Cal couldn’t really say. He remembered very little except the pain. It had filled him from top to bottom, flooding his lungs and drowning him in its fire.

So yeah, that hadn’t been much fun.

And then… what?

He blinked and looked around him. He was still upside-down – of course, the fact his head felt like a balloon filled with wet sand had already told him that – and still in his cell. The protective sheeting below him was no longer clean. Far from it, in fact. A variety of bodily fluids painted the blue plastic in a rich palette of reds and… well, mostly just reds, actually, with a hint of brown that he vaguely recalled was vomit.

At least, he hoped it was vomit.

He was alone in the cell. That was nice, although it was almost certainly a deliberate attempt by the assassin to let him ponder his fate. By leaving him alone, she no doubt hoped his imagination would fill his head with terrifying notions of what fresh Hell awaited him when she returned, and in doing so make her job that much easier.

Leaving him alone, though, was a mistake. It was a mistake that would be Vajazzle’s undoing. She might have him tied up, but there wasn’t a trap in existence that could hold Cal Carver for long!

Gritting his teeth against the pain in his… well, everywhere, really, Cal squeezed his knees together and twisted his ankles where the bonds that held him to the ceiling were tightly tied. At the same time, he pressed the backs of his hands together and pushed his elbows outwards. The cuffs binding his wrists were tight, but escaping them would be child’s play.

He wriggled his arms.

He twisted his legs.

He let out a sigh.

“Nope,” he said. “I’m completely fonking stuck.”

He dangled for a while, doing nothing, then launched into a frenzied fit of squirming and struggling, as if trying to take the handcuffs by surprise. If they were surprised, they didn’t show it, and when Cal eventually stopped struggling, he was exactly as trapped as he had been moments before.

He was just building up to having another go when the door opened. Lady Vajazzle strode in, her face partly obscured by the hood she had pulled back into place.

“Finally!” said Cal. “I was about to send out a search party.” He tried to smile, but his face had forgotten how to, and he pulled a weird sort of upside-down grimace, instead. “Honestly, I’m not sure you’re taking this whole torture thing seriously at all.”

A long tendril snaked from beneath Vajazzle’s robe and wrapped around Cal’s waist. It tightened sharply and he hissed, more with the anticipation of the pain to come than with actual pain itself. “Well, this is new,” he said, trying to hide the tremble in his voice.

Vajazzle’s withered hands took hold of the chain around Cal’s legs. The fastenings rattled as she unclipped him, then a second tentacle-like appendage tangled around him and hoisted him onto the assassin’s shoulder.

That done, Vajazzle about-turned and marched towards the door. “Yay, field trip!” said Cal, watching the ceiling roll by above him. He was closer to being the right way up now, and his legs prickled as all the blood that hadn’t been evicted from his body rushed to be reunited with his feet.

“So… where are we going?” he asked, but Vajazzle didn’t reply.

Cal twisted his neck, trying to get a better view. They were in what was surely a contender for the world’s most boring corridor. It was long and straight with a number of doors on either side. In that regard, it was much like any other corridor, but it was the almost-gray walls that gave it its tedious edge.

He thought of them as ‘almost-gray’ because while they were gray, they were the wrong gray. They were a shade of gray so boring, so utterly bland and monotonous, that Cal had to assume the decorator had been aiming for a different, more interesting shade, but missed. No-one would pick that exact shade of gray through choice. No-one who wasn’t utterly filled with bitterness and self-loathing, anyway.

The corridor was empty, although it was too soon to say if that was because of the paint color. Vajazzle continued along it past a few other doors, then stopped outside the next one.

“Are we here?” asked Cal, craning around to see where they were. “What’s this room? Is it the spa? Tell me it’s the spa.”

A frail arm extended from within Vajazzle’s robe, and her thumb brushed against a sensor pad on the wall. A small light blinked from red to green, and the door slid open. The assassin stepped through, and Cal had to turn his head to stop his nose being smashed against the top of the door frame.

“Hey careful, you almost hurt me there, and I know how much that would upset you,” he said, then he yelped as Vajazzle’s tendrils hoisted him off her shoulder and stood him in the corner of a room that was not unlike the one he’d just come from.

His legs gave out beneath him and Cal slumped down against the wall. When he hit the floor he discovered he wasn’t the only one to have done so.

“Mech?” His head snapped up to Vajazzle. “What have you done to him?”

“I assure you, I am quite functional,” chimed Mech’s voice. It was higher-pitched than usual, and even though he was speaking, his lips didn’t move. “She merely used my chest-mounted dial to assign all my battery power to my intellectual capacity, rendering me temporarily immobile.”

“Oh,” said Cal. “OK. So… she didn’t torture you until you vomited and-or shizzed yourself? Well aren’t you the fonking teacher’s pet?”

One of Vajazzle’s tendrils snaked out and tangled around the dial on Mech’s chest. It gave a twist, and Mech’s hydraulics let out a series of short hissing sounds as the power returned to them.

Moving surprisingly quickly for someone made almost entirely of metal, Mech tore the tendril off his dial, while simultaneously pointing his other arm at Vajazzle’s face. Cal shrunk back against the wall, keen to avoid being splattered by Vajazzle’s exploding face and torso, but before Mech could fire, the assassin’s head folded in on itself like a collapsing soufflé.

Two large, ominous eyeballs stared impassively down at Mech from a squidgy green mound. Beneath it, Vajazzle’s body broke down, until only the goo-ball remained.

“Splurt!” Cal cried, then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Buddy! Man, are you a sight for sore eyes. I could kiss you!”

He forced his trembling legs to push him into a standing position against the wall. “In fact, hold that thought – I totally am going to kiss you, but at a more appropriate time.” He jumped around on the spot until he was facing the wall. “Mech?” he said, waving his cuffed hands in the cyborg’s direction. “Would you do the honors?”

Mech got to his feet, being careful not to trample on Splurt. “With pleasure,” he said.

“Hey! What is… What is the meaning of this?” demanded a voice from just inside the doorway. A heavy-set, mostly human-looking man in a Zertex uniform glared at them, his hand moving swiftly to the blaster on his belt.

Mech’s elbow snapped back. It smashed into the guard’s cheek, spinning his head around to the left. The man pirouetted on the spot, then collapsed like a puppet whose strings had all been cut.

Cal looked back over his shoulder at him. “Did… did you just snap that guy’s neck?”

“Uh… maybe,” Mech admitted.

Cal shrugged. “Huh. Oh well,” he said. “Cut me free. You just gave me an idea.”

* * *

When the door to Loren’s cell opened, she was ready. She had spent the last several minutes at full stretch, her feet flat against the room’s back wall. As the door slid aside, she kicked forward with all her might. Her shoulders screamed at her, demanding to know what the Hell she thought she was playing at, as she swung on her chains, flicked her feet up, then wrapped them around the neck of the guard who stepped into the cell.

The guard gagged and choked as she tightened her scissor lock around his throat. “You’ve got five seconds to get me down, or I swear I will pop your skull like a zit.”

Frantically, the guard pointed to his face. The first thing Loren noticed was that it was turning a pleasing shade of purple. The second thing she noticed, was who it belonged to.

“Cal?” she asked. “Is that really you?”

Cal let out a sort of gaak sound and pointed quite emphatically towards his throat.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Oops,” said Loren. She released her grip and swung back to the floor just as Mech entered and closed the door behind him. Splurt was nestled in one of Mech’s robotic hands, quivering gently, but somehow managing to look quite pleased with himself.

Cal coughed and rubbed his throat. “That’s not how I pictured your legs ending up around my neck,” he said. He stopped rubbing and quickly shook his head. “Not that I have ever pictured such a thing.”

“You’re alive. How are you alive?” Loren asked, as Mech snapped the chains that attached her to the ceiling. “I mean, it’s great, obviously, but… how are you alive?”

“Splurt,” said Cal. He thought about explaining more, but realized that he’d pretty much summed it up. “Yeah. Splurt.”

“Then way to go, Splurt,” said Loren. She nodded, and the little goo-ball rippled in response.

Slipping her wrists from what was left of her shackles, Loren looked Cal up and down. “So, you joined Zertex?”

“Well, you know, I hear they have a great dental plan,” he said.

“The uniform’s a little big.”

Cal held up an arm. Only the tips of his fingers emerged through the end of the sleeve. “Yeah, I took it from a larger gentleman.”

“Still, good idea,” said Loren. “It should help us move around unnoticed.”

“Hmm?” said Cal. “Oh yeah. Actually, I only took it because my own clothes were covered in blood and I’d repeatedly soiled myself, but the sneaking around thing is a nice bonus, too, I guess.”

“Yeah, ‘cept where we supposed to go?” asked Mech. “We’re on their ship. Ain’t nowhere to sneak to.”

“They’ve got the Shatner,” said Cal. “I heard Vajazzle tell Sinclair they’d brought it aboard.”

“Then it’ll be in impound,” said Loren. “The AX11 has a whole level for storing captured enemy ships. One of its original primary purposes was as an anti-piracy vessel, so it was fitted with tractor-beam technology that would allow it to--”

“OK, OK, we don’t need its Wikipedia entry,” said Cal. “Do you know how we get there?”

Loren snorted. “Are you kidding? I spent pretty much every single day during my teenage years studying the schematics of this thing!”

Cal and Mech exchanged a glance. “Damn, girl,” said Mech.

“What?” said Loren. “They were very interesting schematics.”

Cal rested a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll talk about this at a later date,” he promised. “But for now…”

He turned to the door and hoisted up his oversized pants. “…let’s go get our ship back.”

Twenty-Six

Thanks to Loren’s quite tragically detailed knowledge of the ship’s layout, the first nine-tenths of the journey to the impound deck went without a hitch.

They’d navigated the prison deck, ducking out of sight when a couple of guards had emerged from a staff room on their way to the canteen. They’d made their way to one of the ship’s elevators, where Mech had quickly and efficiently overridden the security system by punching a big hole in it and sparking a couple of wires together.

They’d got out of the elevator one deck early and taken the stairs from there. Halfway down, the narrow stairwell opened onto a viewing platform, giving them their first look at the ship’s impound level.

When the Zertex ship had first appeared in the sky, Cal had been struck by the size of it. To call it ‘fonking enormous’ was to do it an injustice. It was city-sized, and nowhere was this more apparent than on the impound deck.

Hangar after hangar stretched off for ten miles or more in each direction. There was room for hundreds of ships. Thousands, maybe. And yet…

“Empty,” Cal whispered. “They’re all empty. Where’s the Shatner?”

“It’s here somewhere,” said Loren, peering in both directions. “It’s got to be.”

“Mech? Any sign?”

Mech first tapped, then jabbed at the controls on his arm. He shrugged. “Either too much interference or this thing’s still on the fritz,” he said. “I got nothing.”

Loren pointed to a computer terminal that stood outside the airlock of one of the hangars. “We can find it with that,” she said.

Cal leaned over the balcony and looked in both directions at the deck below. There were a couple of Zertex types working at other terminals, but the closest was a good quarter of a mile away, and seemed pretty engrossed in whatever he was working on.

“How long will it take?”

“Not long. Couple of minutes to get in, another few seconds to run the search.”

Cal nodded. “OK, then. Let’s do it. Space Team assemble!”

Mech rolled his eyes. “And to think, for a minute there I was actually happy to see you.”

“I love you too, Mech,” said Cal. He blew the cyborg a kiss, then followed Loren over to a second set of stairs that led down onto the deck.

Cal ducked low and began darting across the deck in a zig-zag pattern. Mech and Loren walked beside him. “What are you doing?” Loren asked. “You know that makes you look more suspicious, right?”

“Does it?”

“Of course it fonking does!” said Mech. “You look like you’re dodging sniper fire.”

Cal stopped zigging and zagging. He straightened up. “In a way, aren’t we all dodging sniper fire?”

“What does that mean?” asked Loren.

Call puffed out his cheeks. “No idea. Just thought it sounded good. You know, like wise or whatever.”

They stopped at the terminal and Loren immediately set to work. Her fingers tapped and swiped across the touch screen. “OK, this is good, they haven’t changed from the stock software. One of the really interesting things about the AX11 is that it’s only partly designed by Zertex. Almost a full third of the security protocols were actually devised and supplied by an independent…”

She glanced up and caught the look that passed between Cal and Mech. “I know what you’re thinking, but knowing this stuff isn’t actually that sad.”

“It’s a bit sad,” said Cal.

“And disturbing,” added Mech.

“Sad and disturbing,” agreed Cal.

Loren tutted. “I hate you guys, sometimes,” she said, then she turned her attention back to the screen. “Argh! How can I have been so stupid?”

“In your defense, you were young, you couldn’t get a date - there’s no shame in studying ship schematics every night for--”

“Not that!” said Loren. “I forgot the hangars are double-decker to create more storage space.”

“Right, because if there’s one thing they’re running short of…” said Cal, gesturing at the miles and miles of deck stretching away from them. It was only then that he spotted the Zertex officer striding towards them. “Oh, shizz,” Cal whispered. “We got company.”

“You there!” barked the man. He was tall and skinny, with legs that seemed to bend backwards at the knee. His skin was a queasy shade of green, but he could probably pass for human, assuming the lights were low enough and he was sitting behind a large desk. “What are you doing?”

“Maintenance detail,” Loren whispered, her fingers still flying across the screen.

“Uh, we’re on maintenance detail,” said Cal.

The officer snapped to a full halt just a pace or two away. “Maintenance detail?” he echoed.

“Yes, uh, sir. This computer thing needs… maintained. In a detailed way,” said Cal. “And so that’s what we’re doing.”

The officer’s eyes went from Cal to Loren and Mech. “I see,” he said. He raised a watch-like device on his wrist until it was level with his mouth.

“Communicator,” said Loren.

“Oh, sir, one thing,” said Cal. He pointed to the front of the man’s immaculately neat uniform. “You’ve got something there.”

Instinctively, the officer looked down. “Haha. Made you look,” said Cal. His uppercut caught the officer on the chin, snapping his head back and sending him crumpling to the floor. The officer’s backwards-pointing legs stuck up in the air at two different, yet equally awkward-looking angles.

“Man, I’m glad I don’t have to steal that uniform,” Cal said. He spun to face Loren. “Found it yet?”

“Yes, five hangars that way,” she said, pointing off to the right. “But if I call it up, everyone’s going to know about it. It’s going to get busy in here. We won’t have much time.”

“I just punched a guy unconscious, we already don’t have much time,” said Cal. He grinned. “Did you see that, by the way? It was pretty awesome.”

“Right, calling it now. Here goes,” said Loren.

She swiped the screen. It flashed red for a moment, then the floor beneath Cal’s feet began to rumble.

“Go, go, go!” Loren urged, setting off at a sprint towards the source of the rumbling. Cal dashed after her, with Mech thundering along behind, Splurt quivering in his hand with every step.

“Halt!” barked a voice from somewhere overhead. A squadron of troops arrived at the balcony ahead, blaster rifles training on the three figures running below.

“Take Splurt,” Mech called, lobbing the little gloopy guy underarm towards Cal. Splurt’s eyes rolled as he arced through the air, before Cal caught him and tucked him under his arm like a football.

Mech swung both arms and launched a volley of laser blasts up at the balcony. An explosion ripped through it, sending large chunks of fiery metal and smaller chunks of soggy Zertex soldier flying in all directions.

Loren and Cal dodged sideways, avoiding the rain of flaming debris as a volley of blaster bolts screamed towards them from behind.

“You call this ‘busy’?” Cal yelped, covering his head with one arm as he leaped a broken handrail. Behind him, Mech opened fire again, scattering the second squadron and sending them scrabbling for cover.

“Next hangar. Almost there!” Loren called.

“Thank fonk for that,” Cal wheezed, but his voice was drowned out by another burst of covering fire from Mech.

Skidding on the metal floor, Loren stopped at the next set of doors. They were large and thick, and made almost entirely of metal with just a small window slotted in at head height. Loren pressed the button to open the door, waited a fraction of a second, then frantically started stabbing at it.

“Come on, open up!” she hissed.

Cal arrived behind her and let out a little involuntary gasp as he saw what lay beyond the glass. The Shatner stood in the hangar, its landing ramp lowered. “Oh, there’s a sight for sore eyes,” he said. “Come on, hurry. Get us in there.”

“It won’t open,” said Loren. She pressed the button another ten times in four seconds, just in case one of those would do the trick. “It’s sealed shut.”

“Mech, can you override it?”

Mech spun, blasting the shizz out of a third group of soldiers that had appeared from a door up ahead. “Little busy,” he grunted.

Splurt squirmed beneath Cal’s arm, then plopped down onto the floor. He wriggled past Loren, then stretched himself up, changing into the shape of an amputated gray arm. With one finger, he prodded the button. The door slid open immediately.

“Now do you see why I love this fonking guy?” Cal asked.

“Starting to,” Loren admitted. She darted through. Mech went next, while Cal reached to grab Splurt. The arm drew back, then violently shoved Cal in the chest.

“Hey?” Cal said, stumbling backwards into the hangar. Splurt tapped the button and the doors locked closed between them.

“Splurt?” Cal yelled, pressing himself against the glass. Back out on the deck, he watched as Vajazzle’s arm became a green blob again, then quickly started to turn into something else. “What are you doing? Open the door. Come on, buddy, we need to go.”

Splurt grew until he was roughly Cal’s height. No, not roughly, Cal realized. Exactly.

“No, no, what are you doing?” Cal demanded. He banged a fist on the glass as Splurt sprouted arms and legs, and a face Cal was very familiar with. “No, don’t!” Cal said, his voice cracking. “You can’t!”

On the other side of the glass, an identical duplicate of Cal Carver smiled. Splurt raised an arm and waved as Mech caught Cal by the same arm and began dragging him towards the ship. “Come on, man, we have to go.”

“We can’t just leave him!” Cal protested, struggling against Mech’s grip. “They’ll torture him!”

There was a roar as the Shatner’s thrusters ignited. “They won’t find him. He’ll hide.”

“He won’t!” Cal insisted, turning away from his double for the first time since Mech had started to pull him. “He’s pretending to be me because he knows it’s me they want. He’s trying to help us get away.”

He turned back, but there was no-one on the other side of the glass now, just the sound of shouting and the screams of blaster fire.

“If we’re going to go, we have to go now,” Mech said, hoisting Cal off his feet. “I’m sorry, man.”

“We’ll come back!” Cal shouted, as Mech ran with him up the ramp. “You hear me, Splurt? We’ll come find you!”

The landing ramp raised behind them, locking into place. The floor rolled as the Shatner lurched upwards, then Cal’s stomach flipped as the ship shot through the docking shield and sped out into space.

Twenty-Seven

Cal slumped down into his seat and fastened his belt across his chest.

“You OK?” Loren asked, busily flicking switches on her control panel.

“No. I’m not OK,” said Cal.

“Well, things ain’t about to get any better,” warned Mech. “We got company coming. A whole lot of those saucer ships just detached.”

“Good,” said Cal, slamming his fists down on his arm rests and flipping out the weapon controls. “I really want to shoot something.”

The headset dropped down into position and Cal found himself zooming through virtual reality space. He pushed back in his seat as his view was filled by dozens of swirling saucer-ships. They criss-crossed towards him, weapons unfolding into position beneath them.

“Wow… that is a lot of spaceships,” he muttered. His hands found the weapon control sticks. “Everything’s working, right?”

“Everything’s working,” Mech’s voice said in his ear. “Knock yourself out.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Cal. He squeezed the trigger in his left hand and a beam of red energy scorched through space. He arced the beam in a sweeping loop, taking a potshot at any and all of the countless ships whizzing around him. The ships parted as the beam passed, then closed ranks behind it.

“You missed,” said Loren.

“I know!” said Cal. He tried again, spraying cannon-fire into the fast-moving throng. Again, the ships weaved out of the beam’s path, even when Cal banked it sharply in the opposite direction, then erratically waggled the joystick from side to side.

“Man, they’re fast,” he said, then his eyes widened when four ships all opened fire in a perfectly synchronized attack. “Incoming!”

The Shatner shuddered as the saucers’ energy blasts hammered the shields.

“Bit more warning next time!” Loren hissed, fighting the vibration that rattled through the controls.

“Switching to torpedoes,” Cal announced. He swung the right stick, sending a targeting icon swooping across his field of view. He swung it towards an oncoming ship, but it zipped through the reticle before he could get a lock.

He tried again, tracking another of the oncoming saucers. The targeting sight flickered as it tried to get a fix, but the saucer banked into a loop before the lock-on could complete.

“They’re too fast!” Cal said. “How can they be this fast?”

“Scanners not showing anyone on board,” Mech’s voice chimed. “They’re AI controlled.”

“Watch out!” Cal warned, then he gripped the arm rests as Loren sent the ship into a plunging dive. A volley of cannon-fire flared narrowly past them, then the ship rocked violently as a torpedo slammed into its exposed belly.

“That just dropped our shields to forty percent,” Mech warned.

“Just go, get us out of here,” Cal said. “Hit the warp!”

“Can’t, they’re too close. The fail-safes won’t let us,” said Loren.

“Mech disabled them last time,” Cal said, blasting a beam of cannon fire that hit nothing whatsoever. “Do it again.”

“Last time wasn’t like this,” said Mech. “Ain’t no way we can warp with all these things around.”

“Well, I can’t shoot them, they keep moving out of the fonking way!”

“We need to shut down the control ship,” said Mech.

Cal spun in his seat until the enormous Zertex ship they’d just escape from filled the sky. He swallowed. “We’re going to need more torpedoes.”

“Not that one,” said Mech. “One of the saucers is telling the rest of them what to do. The control ship. Take it out and we take them all out.”

“Is it slower than the rest of them?” Cal asked. “Or, ideally, completely stationary?”

“Afraid not,” said Mech.

“Then how do we stop it?”

“OK, I got an idea,” Mech’s voice intoned. Cal blinked as the headset was lifted away, revealing Mech’s face just inches from his own. “But you ain’t gonna like it.”

* * *

Cal stood in the airlock, stiflingly hot inside the ship’s one remaining space suit. His arms hung by his sides, weighed down by the spare pair of boots he had wedged his hands inside.

“I’m totally going to die,” he said.

“That outcome is certainly a possibility,” Mech admitted. His dial was turned all the way into brainpower mode, and he was propped up against the outer airlock door, his face pressed against the window. “However, if my calculations are correct, there is a very real chance that you might survive.”

“Well, that’s encouraging,” said Cal. “And are your calculations correct?”

“We shall find out.”

Cal grinned and shook a boot in Mech’s direction. “I know you’re kidding. You’ve totally got this nailed.”

“On the contrary,” said Mech, his voice echoing inside Cal’s helmet. “To the best of my knowledge, such a feat has never been attempted before. Or, if it has, then it has not ended well. Now, please excuse me while I make the necessary calculations. Take your position.”

“OK, but remind me why I’m in here doing this and not you?” Cal asked.

“I require my full intellectual capacity to calculate the exact launch window,” said Mech. “Now, please. Position.”

Cal clanked over to the outer airlock and fumbled into a kneeling position. “How do I let myself get talked into this stuff?” he wondered, as he shuffled right up to the door. “OK, I’m here. So you’re going to… what? Open the doors when it’s time to--?”

The door opened and a blast of pressurized gas erupted from a tank on Cal’s back. He screamed as he was sent hurtling into a fever-pitch frenzy of laser fire and spaceships.

“Jesus Christ!” he howled, instinctively screwing his eyes shut.

“Please remember to hold absolutely still,” Mech’s voice chimed. “Any deviation from your current trajectory will mean your path will not intersect with the anticipated path of the control ship.”

“If I get back, my foot is going to intersect with your fonking… Hey, wait a minute. What do you mean ‘anticipated’ path? I thought you had worked out where it was going to go?”

“I have calculated to within an acceptable margin of error the control craft’s most likely flight path,” Mech said. “However, it remains a possibility that the craft may deviate from its--”

“Acceptable margin of…? So you mean you guessed?” Cal gasped. He opened his eyes, then yelped as a saucer rocketed past above his head, weapons blazing.

“In a sense,” Mech admitted. “But it was an educated one.”

“You know what? Forget it. I don’t want to know,” Cal said. “But we’re sure the shield won’t tear me a new one?”

“The shielding deflects energy-based weapons,” said Mech. “You are not an energy-based weapon.”

“Fine, fine, OK,” Cal grumbled. “But if I don’t hit this fonking ship, then you and I are going to have a long serious--”

Cal hit the fonking ship. Or, more accurately, the fonking ship hit him. The curved edge slammed into his torso so he folded at the middle, his legs flailing around beneath the saucer’s hull, his head and arms flopping about above.

“I thank you,” said Mech, sounding far more pleased with the situation than Cal currently was.

“I think… my balls just exploded,” Cal wheezed.

The ship shifted course and he began to slide. Frantically, he tried to plant the sole of any one of the four boots he currently wore against the saucer’s metal shell, but he couldn’t turn his hands or feet enough to get traction, and as the ship spun into a dive, he felt himself being thrown outwards away from it.

“Oh no you don’t!” Cal grimaced, contorting his left leg in a way he’d never contorted it in before, and hoped he’d never contort it in again. He felt the reassuring clank of the magnet locking onto the hull, then he flailed around like a ragdoll as the ship climbed into a spiraling loop.

“Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up,” he whispered, repeating the words over and over like a mantra.

Flicking his wrist, he eventually managed to shake free one of the boots and fumbled in the pocket on the front of the suit. He pulled out the grey disk Mech had given him, flipped it over a couple of times in case there was a right and a wrong way up, then decided he’d better check.

“So I just… what? Stick it on?”

“You just stick it on,” Mech said. “And then you jump.”

Cal’s eyes widened. “Jump? You never said anything about jumping? Why do I have to jump?”

“Technically, you don’t have to,” said Mech. “But I’d strongly advise you to, otherwise you will be killed by the implosion.”

“Fine, I’ll jump,” Cal sighed. He pressed the disc against the hull of the ship. He drew his hand back slowly, half-expecting the circle of metal to float away, but it remained fixed in place. A moment later, a red light pulsed across its surface. “OK, done. So, when should I jump?” he asked.

Mech’s voice sounded worried. “You mean you’re still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here! You didn’t tell me not to still be here. Are you saying I should--?”

“JUMP!” Mech barked, his voice back to being filled with its normal gruffness.

Cal jumped. He didn’t waste time picking a direction or watching out for oncoming spaceships, he just bent his legs, kicked with his feet and launched himself into space, just as the saucer began to collapse in on itself.

It reminded Cal of Splurt turning back after one of his transformations. The saucer’s shiny exterior crumpled up like a ball of paper, as all the outside parts raced to see which of them could get to the inside first.

Cal spun away, flipping and twirling like a stuntman on the high-wire. Behind him, the control ship was already barely the size of a child’s roundabout.

Then a hula hoop.

Then Cal struggled to decide on any more comparisons, and before he was able to come up with ‘dinner plate’ it had shrunk away to nothing.

It was only then that Cal noticed the other saucer ships had all stopped. Well, technically they hadn’t stopped, as they were still hurtling through space, but they were drifting aimlessly now, with no way of correcting their course.

Much like Cal himself, he realized.

“Mech, tell me you’re coming,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m coming. I see you.”

“Good, then pick me up and get me aboard,” Cal said. “We’ve got to save Splurt.”

Ahead of him, the Zertex war cruiser made the leap to full warp. One moment it was there, the next it was stretching out like old elastic, and then it was gone.

“On second thoughts,” said Cal. “We should probably go and rescue Miz first.”

“He’ll be fine,” said Mech. “The little guy’s probably tucked away somewhere safe already.”

“Yeah,” said Cal, staring at the empty spot in space the ship had just moments ago inhabited. “Yeah, probably.”

* * *

President Sinclair leaned against his desk, kneading the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. His lips moved in silent frustration for a few moments, then he raised his head to the screen.

“Escaped? How can they have escaped?”

On screen, a Zertex legate puffed up his already overly-puffed chest. “It was the cyborg, Mr President, sir. It breached security and freed the others, then they made it to their ship. I… I mean, we, generally, it wasn’t specifically my decision or anything, have sent drones in pursuit.”

Sinclair stood. “Do not destroy them,” he said. “I want Carver alive.”

Behind the officer, a door slid open. Lady Vajazzle strode through, shoving a shackled figure before her. Sinclair’s smile lit up the whole room. “Speak of the devil!” he said. “I’d heard you had escaped!”

“He was captured by the hangar,” Vajazzle said. “It appears his companions left him behind.”

“Oh, how disappointing for you,” said Sinclair, sticking his bottom lip out in a mocking sad face. His smile quickly returned. “What’s the matter, Cal? No witty comebacks? No devastating quips?”

Cal smiled, raised a hand, and waved. This seemed to tip Sinclair over the edge. “Enough of this,” he snapped. “Forget the others, they’re irrelevant. Bring Carver to me. Now.” He rolled up a sleeve and buttoned it in place above his elbows. “I think it’s time he and I got ourselves reacquainted.”

Twenty-Eight

Greyx Prime was not the largest planet in the Greyx sector. Nor was it the nicest. Almost a full third of the land masses were covered by swamp, and it boasted no less than eleven different types of worm that could eat you from the inside out.

In the north, the winter lasted for most of the year, while the area around the equator would often get so hot in the summer the trees would catch fire, the roads would melt, and some of the more liberal Greyx would shave themselves bald.

But while it wasn’t the largest or nicest of the Greyx-run planets, it was the first, and sometimes that’s important.

For the Greyx, Greyx Prime was where it all started. They all knew the history, from the vague stuff about bacteria and swamps, to the more recent stuff about the warring factions and their unification under the leadership of Rhaxus.

The Greyx living on other worlds might have better infrastructure, less lethal weather and fewer opportunities to be devoured from within by a ravenous invertebrate, but they didn’t have history like they did on Greyx Prime.

All the Greyx kings had been crowned on Greyx Prime, from Rhaxus to Graxan. It had been several decades since the last coronation, which was why a few hundred thousand Greyx had flooded the streets of Greyx Prime’s greatest city (which was also, thanks to a quite startling lack of imagination by all concerned, called Greyx) hoping to catch a glimpse of the crowning ceremony.

High above the city, the Shatner drifted along behind a bank of grey cloud, its scanners – or sensors, depending on your naming preference – working overtime.

“So,” said Cal. “What we got?”

“We got a whole lot of people, that’s what,” Mech replied, reading the lines of data that swooshed up the screen like movie credits on fast-forward. “I got no idea how we’re supposed to find Miz in all this.”

“What about Kannus? Have you found him?”

“Yeah, he’s easy,” said Loren. She tapped a few buttons and the image on screen magnified to show a bird’s eye view of a large building with an ornate roof. The image shimmered for a moment, then the heat imprint of several figures appeared inside the building.

“That’s him in the middle,” said Loren. “Those other six around him are guards. We don’t know who the other one is standing off to the side, but whenever Kannus and his guards move, it moves, too.”

“Miz?” Mech guessed.

“Is she trying to tear his throat out?” asked Cal.

Loren shook her head. “No.”

“Then it’s not Miz.”

Cal leaned forward in his chair and studied the screen. “He’d have to hide her, or she’d tell everyone what really happened.” He gnawed on his lip. “But where?”

“Walk it through,” Mech suggested. “He gets her on his ship. Before the guards wake up or after?”

“Before,” said Loren. “Even if his own guys were loyal to him, Graxan’s wouldn’t be.”

“OK, then. So he stows her on the ship somewhere no-one’s going to find her, then he flies here, sends the guards away and takes her… where?”

All three of them studied the screen. “We don’t know enough about this place. About Kannus,” Loren said. “There’s no saying where he might have taken her.”

Cal sat up straight. “Unless…”

“He didn’t take her anywhere,” said Mech.

“On it,” said Loren, her fingers flying across her controls. “Where is it…? Where is it…? Got it!”

The image changed to show an overhead view of Kannus’s lop-sided ship. The screen shimmered again for a moment, then a single heat signature flickered into life inside the back of the craft.

“Alright!” cheered Cal.

“So what’s the plan? We just swoop down there and get her?” said Mech. “Everyone’s gonna be busy with the coronation thing.”

“The coronation,” said Cal, below his breath. He rubbed his tongue against the front of his teeth. “So Kannus hasn’t been crowned yet?”

Loren shook her head. “No, the ceremony doesn’t start for a few minutes. Why?”

“Does anyone else really not want that guy to be king?”

“You can say that again,” said Mech.

Loren turned in her chair. “Do you have a plan?”

“Plan is a strong word for it,” Cal admitted. “It’s more… an idea.” He shook his head. “No, it’s not really an idea, either. A notion, maybe? Ah, let’s just call it an itch.” Cal sat back in his chair. For once, there wasn’t even a hint of a grin on his face. “And I’ve got a real urge to go scratch it.”

“So we go kick his ass, then get Miz,” said Mech. “I like this plan.”

“No, that’s not going to work,” said Cal. “If we just go there and start kicking the shizz out of him in the middle of the street, we’re going to be torn apart by, well, everyone.”

“Well… what, then?” said Loren.

“Mech, you go get Miz. Loren, stay on the Shatner and keep her ready. We might need to get out of here in a hurry,” said Cal. He flexed his fingers, then balled them into fists. “Leave Kannus to me.”

* * *

The streets of Greyx had been torn down and rebuilt countless times over the years. There were a number of reasons for this.

Way back when, the settlement that would later become the planet’s greatest city, had come under attack on an almost weekly basis, and burnt to the ground roughly once every three months.

Since the in-fighting had ended, the city had mostly thrived, despite the occasional earthquake, tornado and – some years back – flesh-eating sentient clouds.

The city’s most recent incarnation was designed to stand up to pretty much anything the weather might throw at it. The buildings were low and stocky, the streets were wide and straight, and everything was heavily reinforced. It wasn’t pretty, but it was quite a lot less likely to collapse, and that was the main thing.

The wide streets brought other benefits, too. Today, for example, they allowed thousands of excited Greyx to gather around the palace, waving flags, wagging tails and – as Kannus emerged through the palace's towering double doors – roaring their approval.

Accompanied by his guards, Kannus approached a raised platform that had been built outside the palace and stopped at the bottom step. All around the clearing, military musicians blasted a fanfare on their trumpet-like instruments, and the roar of the crowd reached fever pitch.

Kannus glanced back at his guards, then at the other figure who followed beside them. Sorshi, Queen of the Greyx, gave him a nod of encouragement, then turned her eyes towards the top of the steps.

A rattling drumbeat echoed around the clearing, keeping time with Kannus as he made his way up the staircase. When he reached the top he cast his gaze across the cheering masses, then thrust the Bladestaff high above his head.

The crowd, which had already been in a frenzy, somehow found the energy to up their noise levels even further. The palace windows rattled in their frames with the force of their adoration.

Kannus lowered the Bladestaff, and raised a hand instead, calling for quiet. It took almost a full minute before the cheering faded enough for him to speak. He didn’t shout, and yet the words he spoke were heard all across the city. This was partly due to the Greyx’s enhanced hearing, but mostly due to the extensive PA system that had been set-up all around the place.

“My brothers and sisters,” Kannus said. The crowd went wild. He let it die down again before continuing. “By now, you will all have heard the news. Graxan – Great Graxan – has gone to face the Unshuk.”

No-one cheered at that. The excited murmuring of the throngs became a respectful silence. Kannus nodded approvingly – gratefully, even – then pressed on.

“Graxan was like a father to me. More than a father, even. His daughter… my Lifebound… was also taken from us by the same pirates who killed her father. Mizette, like Great Graxan before her, died in my arms.”

The crowd made not a sound now.

“Her final words, before she, too, set off on her journey across the Unshuk’s dark realm,” Kannus said, grinding his back teeth together as if keeping his emotions in check. “Were, ‘lead them. Help them. Be their king.’”

Kannus cleared his throat and raised his eyes to the sky. “Even at the end, her thoughts were only for her people,” he said. “For all of you. For all of us.”

A wave of applause rippled through the gathered crowds. A few cheers rose up.

“And so, it is with a heavy heart that I assume the mantle of king,” Kannus said. “I have trained for this moment since childhood. I have dreamed of this moment since before even then. But not like this. Never like this.”

His voice cracked and he hung his head, making a very good show of composing himself. The applause and cheering rose up around him. He let it build for a good minute or more, drinking their love for him in.

“And now, Queen Sorshi, wife of the late, great Graxan, mother of Mizette, shall join me and pass over the reins of power.”

The crowd went wild again as Sorshi took to the steps. In her hands, she carried a small cushion of finest Onkl silk. On it sat a small, unassuming-looking crown. It was fashioned from a dull base metal, with a single strap of black leather around the circumference the only attempt to jazz it up a bit.

Kannus watched her approach. He held the Bladestaff in one hand, the spiral end of the handle resting on the floor. He had thought about returning it to its hiding place, but he liked the symbolism of it. He who wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx. And wield it he would.

Sorshi was almost at the top of the stairs when the sky went boom. All eyes raised in time to see the Shatner punching through the clouds and dropping into a stationary hover in front of Kannus’s podium.

“No, but… How?” Kannus growled. He gestured to the guards stationed around his platform. “What are you waiting for? It’s the pirates! Open fire!”

As one, the guards raised their blaster rifles and squeezed the triggers. Hot blasts of fiery energy streaked towards the Shatner, bounced harmlessly off its shielding, then ricocheted away. Part of the palace exploded as an energy bolt tore through it. Three more of the blasts streaked into the audience, and the crowds pushed apart in panic as two unlucky Greyx found themselves on the receiving end.

“Stop!” cried Sorshi, hurrying onto the platform. “Stop this, people will get hurt!”

Kannus shot her an angry glare, but bit his tongue. “Cease,” he commanded. The guards stopped firing, but kept their weapons raised.

The panicked crowd quickly calmed down now that the chances of them being blasted by lasers had significantly lowered. They gawped up at the ship that had come swooping down through the clouds. They’d been excited at the thought of seeing a coronation. Seeing a coronation and a shootout with space pirates was twice as thrilling.

A murmur of anticipation rippled through the audience as a ramp folded open at the back of the pirate ship. A human strode down the ramp, waving and smiling. He stopped at the end, looked at the ground quite some distance below, and took a step back.

“Down a bit,” he called.

From inside the ship, those near the front of the crowd could just make out some muttering.

The ship dropped quite sharply. The man on the ramp let out a surprisingly feminine scream, bounced off his feet, then tumbled over the edge.

The crowd gasped as the man threw up an arm and caught the edge of the ramp. He dangled there for a few moments, his legs swinging, his mouth spitting out a string of heavily censored curse-words, the last of which – “Oh, fonking fonk it!” – coming just before he released his grip and landed heavily on the ground.

“I’m OK, I’m OK!” Cal wheezed, rolling onto his side and clambering to his feet. He wore a large Zertex-issue backpack, which almost made him stumble off-balance as he turned to face the crowd. “Uh, hi there!” he said. “Sorry to interrupt.”

There was another boom as the Shatner’s engines ignited it, propelling it away from the palace. Cal gave the ship a wave, then turned back to address the audience. “I know this is probably not the best time, but I wanted to have a chat with Kannus and, well, I think you guys should hear what I have to say.”

He winked at no-one in particular, then spun on his heels and tucked his thumbs into the straps of his pack. “Hey, Kannus,” he said, as a dozen armed guards rushed to surround him. “Miss me?”

“This is the murderer who killed Great Graxan,” Kannus announced.

A growl of resentment swelled through the crowd. Cal’s jaw dropped in mock surprise. “So that’s what you’re telling them? Pin it on the plucky and loveable space adventurer, eh? That’s just… well, it’s just mean, Kannus. It’s very mean. Frankly, I expected better of you.”

Cal shrugged. “Because we both know what really happened, don’t we? You killed Graxan.”

Kannus’s laugh came as a sharp, sudden bark, but it fell away just as quickly. “How dare you?” he spat. “Graxan was like a father to me. You killed him, just like you killed my Mizette!”

“She was never yours. And do us both a favor,” Cal said. “Don’t ever say her name again.”

“Murdering mongrel,” Kannus said. He gestured to the guards. “Kill him.”

“Wait!”

Cal, the crowd and Kannus all turned to look at Sorshi. She bowed her head, but only a little. “I am but a woman, and know little of such matters,” she said, quickly. “But would it not befit the king to deal with this murderer personally?” She raised her eyes and met Kannus’s piercing stare. “An attack on the royal family is an attack on all the Greyx. And you, Kannus, you are now all the Greyx, and all the Greyx are you. Justice must be served, and you must be the one to serve it. It is our way.”

“Kan-nus! Kan-nus! Kan-nus!”

It started as a few lone voices in the crowd.

“Kan-nus! Kan-nus! Kan-nus!”

Quickly, it began to spread like a virus through the throngs, until thousands – tens of thousands – of Greyx all chanted and punched the air in unison.

“Kan-nus! Kan-nus! Kan-nus!”

Cal held his arms out and grinned up at the platform. “Your people have spoken. Cal versus Kannus. Adorable-yet-rugged space captain vs murdering hairy shizznod.” He slipped the bag off his shoulders and tossed it aside.

“Bring it on,” Cal said, raising his fists and firing a succession of jabs at thin air.

Kannus glowered down at him, then looked out across the chanting crowd. His snout curved upwards into a smirk. “Very well,” he said, then his legs twitched and he sailed through the air, the Bladestaff still clutched in one clawed hand.

The ground trembled when he landed, dropping down to his haunches and pressing his free hand against the cobblestone road. When he stood, the crowd went wild.

“Kill him!”

“Tear him apart!”

“Avenge Great Graxan!”

Cal bounced from foot to foot, breathing quickly in and out. He nodded towards the Bladestaff. “You’re not going to use that, are you?” He held his hands out at his sides. “I’m unarmed. You don’t need that to beat me, surely?”

Kannus’s grip tightened on the staff’s wooden handle. He rolled it around in his palm for a moment, then, with a sudden downwards jab, embedded the metal tip in the ground.

“There, isn’t that better?” said Cal, then he lowered his shoulder, roared at the top of his voice, and charged.

Twenty-Nine

Cal’s shoulder slammed into Kannus’s stomach. A jolt of pain travelled the length of Cal’s spine, making his legs go weak. Kannus, for his part, remained unmoved.

“Wow,” Cal grimaced, tilting his head to look up at the towering Greyx. “Those are some serious abs.”

Kannus’s fist hammered Cal on the back, and Cal’s knees folded neatly beneath him. It was only by wrapping his arms around the Greyx’s waist that Cal stopped himself falling over all the way.

Legs burning with the effort, he sprang himself upright, driving the top of his head into Kannus’s chin. Agony exploded through his skull and he stumbled back, hands pressed flat on top of his aching dome.

“Ow, ow, ow! Deeply regretting that one,” said Cal. “Totally going to have a concussion.”

Kannus advanced. “You are pathetic, mongrel,” he said. “It is bad enough that Great Graxan and my Lifebound were cut down, but to be cut down by the likes of you is doubly insulting.”

“Yeah, but they weren’t, were they? I thought we’d established that,” said Cal, backing away. He noticed Sorshi standing up on the platform and gave her a nod. “I’m sorry for your loss, uh… Miz’s mom,” he told her. “Rest assured, I’m going to kick seven shades of shizz out of this guy on your behalf.”

He lunged forwards, swinging wildly with a punch. Kannus leaned backwards, avoiding the blow. Cal spun, off-balance, then tripped over Kannus’s outstretched foot.

The crowd laughed and cheered as Cal rolled on the ground. He stood up and dusted himself down. “Nicely done. Impressive. You saw that one coming,” he said. “But how about this?”

He threw himself into a sloppy flying kick. It was a move he’d seen Captain Kirk pull off with devastating effect many, many times. Unfortunately, Captain Kirk had never fought a fonking huge wolfman before.

Except maybe in the animated series. Cal had never seen that.

Kannus caught Cal’s leg in one hand and swung him around. The crowd let out a collective, “Whoooooa!” sound that started low, went higher as Cal sailed through the air, then ended in a cheer when he hit the cobbles again.

“OK, OK, you saw that one coming, too,” Cal wheezed. He held up a hand, indicating that he needed a second to catch his breath.

Once he had, he stood up, placed his hands on his lower back, and cricked his spine. “Oh, man, I don’t know if that made it better or worse,” he said. He took a few hobbled steps. “Worse. Definitely worse.”

Kannus began to circle him, his claws extending from the ends of his fingers. Cal limped around in the same direction, matching Kannus’s pace.

“Finish him!” roared a voice from the crowd.

“In the name of Great Graxan!”

“Wow, you’ve really managed to get them on-side,” said Cal. “You know, despite all the betrayal and murder stuff. I’m impressed.” He shrugged. “Well, I mean, kinda. There’s the loose end, of course. That’s what’s going to turn them against you.”

Kannus’s eyes narrowed. “They are my people. They will never turn against me.”

“Looking at them right now? I’d totally agree. These guys are behind you one-hundred-percent. It’s quite touching, actually.” He grinned. “But then, that’s right now. That’s not in a few seconds. Then, oh man, then it’s going to be a different story.”

“Explain,” Kannus demanded.

“Come on, where’s the fun in that?” Cal asked. “Let’s just wait and find out. We could count backwards from, I don’t know, twenty.”

Kannus cleared the space between them in a heartbeat. Cal had barely seen the Greyx move when he suddenly found himself flat on his back, Kannus’s snarling snout just inches from his face. “Explain!”

“Ow, ow, you’re kneeling on my leg,” Cal said. “Any chance you could move just a little to the right? I’d really appreciate it.”

Kannus’s teeth snapped hungrily in front of Cal’s face. He jabbed down with a finger, and Cal let out a hiss as the claw stabbed into his shoulder.

“Explain,” Kannus growled.

“O-OK,” Cal stammered. “But first, I got to tell you, this is only, like, the ninth most painful thing that’s happened to me today.”

Kannus twisted his finger and the blood drained from Cal’s face. “Well, m-maybe eighth,” he grunted. “But fine, I’ll tell you. You’re going to want me to whisper it, though. You won’t want your adoring fans to hear.”

Kannus lowered his head the tiniest of fractions. His ears curved until Cal had their full attention. “We know she’s not dead,” Cal whispered. “And we know she’s on your ship.”

It took a moment for the significance of this to filter through to Kannus. “No matter,” he said, his voice a low murmur. “The ship is heavily guarded.”

“Yeah, thing is… did you meet my friend? The one who most definitely is not a robot,” said Cal. He frowned. “I realize that makes it sound like my other friends are robots, of course, which they aren’t, but…” He shook his head, getting himself back on track.

“Anyway, my point is, he has some… temper issues, and doesn’t take too kindly to people kidnapping people he cares about. So, you remember when I said she was on your ship?” Cal tapped his ear, drawing Kannus’s attention to a tiny plastic earpiece he had wedged in there. “I’ve been reliably informed that’s no longer the case.”

The hair on the back of Kannus’s neck stood on end. Cal smiled. “Oh, and three, two…”

Kannus sat back and straightened, then something like a furry rocket slammed into him, sending him sprawling across the cobbles.

Cal let his head drop back onto the ground with a clonk. “Oh,” he whispered. “Thank fonk for that.”

The cheering of the crowd became murmurs of surprise as a tangle of hairy limbs rolled across the road, claws and teeth slashing and gnashing at the air.

All around the plaza, the guards raised their rifles. With a bound, Sorshi leaped from the platform and landed in front of them. “Hold!” she cried, raising an arm. “That… That is my daughter!”

The surprised murmuring became a chorus of full-on gasps. Kannus twisted free of Mizette’s grasp and jumped back out of her reach. A deep gash ran down the side of his neck, darkening his fur with his blood.

“What trickery is this?” he demanded, raising his voice for the benefit of the audience. He pointed angrily at the panting Miz. “The shapeshifter. They have a shapeshifter. How dare you allow it to take the form of my Lifebound? How dare you?”

“Oh, cut the shizz, Kannus,” said Cal, heaving himself to his feet. “That’s Miz. You didn’t kill her, you kept her prisoner.”

“And now I’m totally going to kill you,” Miz snarled.

“No, shapeshifter, you won’t!” said Kannus. “Guards!”

The guards brushed Sorshi aside and formed a circle around Mizette. Her muscles tensed as she calculated her chances of reaching Kannus before the shooting started, but it was no use. She’d be dead before she’d made it halfway.

“The shapeshifter and the pirate mongrel will be executed,” Kannus decreed. “Their companions will be hunted down and they, too, shall be put to death.”

“You killed him, Kannus,” said Miz. “You killed my dad.”

“And I can prove it,” said Cal. He turned and began to sprint across the cobbles, racing towards his abandoned backpack.

Kannus leaped over the heads of his guards with a single bound. He powered along on all fours, eating up the gap between him and Cal in a few scant seconds.

Cal could hear Kannus’s claws clicking across the cobbles as he threw himself at the backpack and frantically fumbled with the zip. “Come on, come on,” he hissed. Kannus was almost on him now. Just one more jump…

Yelping with relief, Cal pulled the silver briefcase-sized box from inside the backpack. He lay it flat on his chest, his hands shaking as he felt around for the buttons.

Kannus pounced.

Cal pressed the box’s three hidden switches.

The lid flipped open and a rectangular frame snapped together. Kannus and everyone standing behind him caught a brief glimpse of blue sky inside the frame, but then an enormous staring eye blocked the view.

“What the fon—?” Kannus managed, before he sailed through the center of the frame, flapped frantically in the air for a moment, then dropped out of sight on the other side.

Cal pressed the buttons and the lid snapped shut. With some effort, he pushed the box aside and sat up. “I’m sorely tempted to make some sort of ‘that’s what you call putting the dog out’ quip right now, but I think it might be quite racist, so I won’t,” he said.

He stood, and quickly found himself surrounded by armed guards. “Hey, easy fellas,” he said, raising his arms. “We’re all good. I’m on your side.” He pointed to the largest of the guards. “Well, maybe not that guy, he looks quite mean, but the rest of you for sure.”

A little way across the clearing, Sorshi cautiously approached her daughter. “Mizette?” she said, softly, like she was scared the word might break. “It’s you.”

Miz nodded. “Yeah, mom. It’s me,” she said, then they collapsed into one another’s arms as the crowd erupted in a fresh chorus of cheers.

Cal wiped one eye on his sleeve and put an arm round a guard’s shoulder. The guard was much bigger than him, so this wasn’t easy, and involved Cal standing on his tiptoes. “Man, I am a sucker for a happy ending,” he said, then he looked up as the Shatner came shuddering to a stop in the sky overhead. “Oh and look, here comes the cavalry. In the nick of fonking time, as usual.”

* * *

Ten minutes of hugging, explanations, hugging, a bit of crying, and some more hugging later, Cal and the rest of the team stood with Sorshi at the foot of the steps leading up to the podium. The crowds had watched on in a thrilled half-quiet, eagerly waiting to find out what was going to happen next. Very few of them had ever been to a coronation before, but even those who had would agree that this one was by far the best.

“So, what happens now?” Cal asked.

Sorshi and Miz exchanged a glance. “A new king will be chosen,” Sorshi explained. “From the guard ranks. It is not ideal, but they shall rule.”

“What? That’s crazy,” said Loren. “Why don’t you do it?”

Sorshi blinked in surprise. “Me?”

“Yeah, you’re still queen, right?” said Mech.

“Well, I mean… yes, but I am but a woman and know little of such--”

“Bullshizz!” said Cal. “I watched you on Kifo, figuring out what needed to be done. And back there when Kannus was trying to get the guards to shoot me, and you were all, like, ‘no, don’t do it!’ and everything. Thanks for that, by the way. If Graxan really was great like everyone says, then I’ll bet he was only great because of you standing beside him, keeping him right.”

“He’s right, mom,” said Miz. “You’d be amazing. Way better than some dumb guard or whoever. You know everything.”

“No-one knows everything,” said Sorshi. “We just know what we know.”

“See!” said Cal. “That’s like some full-blown Yoda wisdom there.” He smiled and bowed his head, just a little. “That, if you ask me, is a queen talking.”

Sorshi hesitated, but then shook her head. “The Greyx are ruled by kings. I am not the king.”

“But you’re the queen, and you’ve got the Bladestaff,” said Loren.

“The Bladestaff is not meant to be wielded by a woman,” Sorshi said. “‘He who wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx.’ He.”

“Except that might not be what it says, is it? That’s just one translation,” said Cal. He looked at Miz. “That’s what you told me before, right? I’ll be honest, I was only partly listening.”

Miz nodded. “Whoever wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx,” she said.

“Not he. Whoever,” said Cal. He gave the queen a playful punch on the shoulder, and tried to ignore the dozen or more energy weapons that snapped up and took aim at his head. “So why not you?”

Cal skipped down the steps two at a time, and thrust both hands above his head as the crowd began to cheer. If asked, they probably wouldn’t have been able to explain why they were cheering, exactly, but everyone else was doing it, and no-one wanted to be left out.

“What are you doing?” asked Miz, leaning over the edge of the platform.

Cal picked up the Bladestaff and hefted it in his hand a couple of times. “Tell your mom to catch!” he called, then he drew back his arm and tossed the weapon like a javelin. The crowd, the guards and everyone on the platform held their breath as the staff soared up, up, up. They followed it with their eyes, tracking it as it sliced through the air, almost in slow motion.

Then, it fell back down again and landed with a clank on the ground in front of Cal. He looked down at it, disappointed. “That was supposed to be really cool and dramatic,” he said. He stooped and picked up the fallen staff. He thought about throwing it again, but then shrugged. “I’m just going to carry it up,” he said.

The crowd made a non-committal sort of noise as Cal trudged sheepishly up the steps, then applauded politely when he managed to reach the top without dropping anything.

He stopped in front of Sorshi. “Whoever wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx,” he said. He held the weapon towards her. After a moment, her fingers wrapped around the wooden shaft. Cal grinned. “Go wield the shizz out of this thing.”

“Thank you,” said Sorshi. “The Greyx owes you a great debt. But, forgive me, I am afraid I must ask you one more favor.”

“Name it,” said Cal.

Sorshi glanced across at Mizette, and smiled. “Take good care of my daughter.”

Miz frowned. “What?” she asked. “You mean… you’re not going to make me stay here?”

“Since when could I make you do anything?” Sorshi asked. “Besides, you are free. You have no Lifebound now.”

“Wrong,” said Cal, putting his arms around Loren and Mech. “She has three.”

Miz scowled. “Ew. Shut up, or I swear I’m gonna throw up in my mouth.”

“Yeah, man, that was pretty fonking cheesy,” said Mech.

“Four, if you count Splurt,” said Cal, then his jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. “Splurt! We forgot Splurt!”

“Where is he?” asked Miz, looking around.

“Long story,” said Cal. “But we have to go.” He grasped Sorshi’s hand and shook it. “Queen, uh, Miz’s mom, lovely to see you, we must do this again some time. Well, not this exactly – let’s never do this again – but you know. Bye!”

He bounded down the stairs and beckoned for the others to follow. “Come on, hurry up! We have to go get Splurt.”

And with that, he raced over to the Shatner and darted inside.

* * *

Cal gripped his arm rests as Loren fired up the thrusters. “OK, is it me, or did we just shatter the glass ceiling and totally cure sexism back there?” he asked.

“Well, I think that’s a bit of an over-simplification,” Loren began, but Cal silenced her with a wave.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s quite enough out of you, little lady. How about you leave the thinking to us menfolk?”

Without turning, Loren raised a hand and gave Cal the finger. It was the wrong finger, but at least she’d tried.

Cal spun his chair until he was facing Miz. She gazed past Loren at the scene outside. There, standing on the platform with the Bladestaff in her hand, was her mom. The Queen of the Greyx.

“You OK?” Cal asked.

She blinked, as if waking from a dream. “Yeah,” she said. She nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. I’m really good, actually. But what the fonk was that thing you used on Kannus?”

“Oh, shizz, I left it out there!” Cal said. He jumped up, then saw Mech waving the box at him. “Ah, you’ve got it.”

“Yeah, I got it. And I’m keeping it,” Mech said. “There’s no saying what you’d get up to with it.”

“That’s fine. That’s totally fine,” said Cal. He held up his hands then turned to face the front. “There are only so many hiding places on this ship, anyway.”

“Says the guy who didn’t know we had a bathroom,” said Loren, smirking as she eased the Shatner into the air.

“Good point, well made,” said Cal. He fastened his belt across his chest.

“So… what now?” asked Mech.

“You know what I always say, Mech?” Cal asked.

“Some bullshizz about songs you didn’t really write?” Mech guessed.

“Something that sounds dramatic but makes little or no actual sense under closer scrutiny?” Loren suggested.

“No! I always say that rescue missions are like busses. You wait ages for one, then two come along at once.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“See?” said Loren. “No sense.”

“He’s saying we go get Splurt back,” said Mech.

Loren looked around from her controls. “You do realize that means flying straight into the heart of Zertex space and probably breaking into one of their space stations, right?”

Cal nodded and grinned. “Pretty exciting, right?”

Loren sighed, but she smiled with it. “Never a dull moment,” she said, then she punched the controls and the Shatner rocketed away from Greyx Prime, and off in search of Splurt.

Afterword

Hello there!

Thanks for taking the time to read Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle. I hope you enjoyed following along on the adventures of Cal and the rest of the crew.

When I wrote the book you’ve just read, I had absolutely no idea if anyone would be interested. The first book had attracted a small but enthusiastic group of fans, but I wasn’t sure if there was much demand for comedy scifi nonsense. Turns out, I needn’t have worried.

There are now several more books in the Space Team series, and you’ll find links to them coming up. I am constantly humbled by the support there is for the series, and hope I can now count you as an official member of Team Space Team.

Finally, I love hearing from my readers, so if you want to give me your thoughts on this or any of my books, ask questions, share family recipes, or just hurl insults my way, you can reach me at barry@barryjhutchison.com.

Looking forward to hearing from you. Well, maybe not the insults.

Best wishes,

Barry

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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