Space Team

The Guns of Nana Joan

Barry J. Hutchison

Zertex Books

Copyright © 2017 by Barry J. Hutchison

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

Published worldwide by Zertex Books.

www.barryjhutchison.com

For Carrie Fisher

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

Afterword

Your Free Starter Library

Oh! I Almost forgot…

Also by Barry J. Hutchison

One

Commander Junta of the Symmorium stood on the secondary bridge of his Thresher battleship, staring down the approaching Zertex fighter.

In the four years he had spent in command of the ship, this was only the third time he had ever set foot on the secondary bridge. The first had been during his induction tour. The second time, he’d been playing hide and seek with his daughter, Tyrra.

His daughter, Tyrra, who had been sucked into the vacuum of space along with most of his crew, when the primary bridge had exploded.

The shark-like Symmorium, with their tough gray hide and dark, glassy eyes, were a warrior race, first and foremost. Junta was ready for death. He had always been ready for death – both his own, and that of his crew.

But not her. Not his little girl.

Still, he would join her, soon enough.

“What do we have?” Junta grunted, as the first Zertex attack ship was joined by another. The two of them had struck out of nowhere, ignored all attempts to hail them, and rejected Junta’s attempts to surrender.

On the deck behind him, Assistant Communications Officer Glorian – the only remaining crew member - rummaged in a spaghetti of sparking wires, trying to restore power to shields or weapons or comms, or anything useful. There was no urgency to her attempts, though. Why rush a lost cause?

She hadn’t had the heart to tell the commander that she had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to be doing with the wires. On a normal day, her job largely involved her pressing one of three clearly marked buttons, and very occasionally speaking into a microphone. Rerouting power through a damaged secondary systems console didn’t even fall within spitting distance of her skillset, but the commander had asked so nicely that she’d felt compelled to give it a go.

She spliced two wires together, just in case. They let out a brief fzzt and a tiny puff of smoke that somehow managed to make the whole situation feel just a tiny bit more depressing than it already was.

“We have nothing, Commander.”

The commander nodded, as if this had only confirmed what he already knew. He folded his hands neatly behind his back, puffed out his chest, and watched the Zertex ships’ weapons flash.

“Please,” he said, the distant glow of two incoming torpedoes reflecting in his glassy eyes. “Call me Junta.”

Glorian stood. She wanted to salute, but her hands were shaking too badly. She wanted to say something noble and memorable. Something befitting the situation. But her words betrayed her.

“I am afraid.”

The torpedoes streaked across open space, closing fast. Any moment now. Any moment.

“Between you and I, Glorian,” said Junta. “Me, too.”

From nowhere, the dark hull of a ship banked up between the Thresher and the torpedoes. Its shields flared as the energy projectiles hammered into it, and then the ship was gone, streaking upwards into a spinning climb.

Glorian’s jaw dropped, revealing all her many teeth. “Who…? Who was that?” she whispered.

Junta stepped closer to the viewscreen and ducked, peering up at the mystery ship as it looped and launched itself towards the Zertex ships on an intercept course.

“I do not know,” Junta admitted. He smiled, grimly. “But, whoever they are, I hope they know what they are doing.”

* * *

Cal Carver flailed around in his chair, his face buried in a paper bag that was filling at quite an alarming rate with vomit. The short, sudden burst of light speed, followed by some fonking insane maneuvering and the jarring impact of two photon torpedoes had played havoc with his inner ear, and his digestive system was currently paying a pretty hefty price.

“Incoming transmission from Zertex fighters,” announced a dry, upper-class British voice from somewhere up near the ceiling. “How should I respond?”

Cal lifted his eyes to roughly where he guessed the voice of the ship’s artificial intelligence, K-Seven-Zero Dash Nine-Three-Three-Zero-Seven Dash Zeta – or ‘Kevin’, if time wasn’t on your side - was coming from.

“Tell them to…” He buried his face in the bag. Hruuuuueeerk!

“I see. Very good, sir,” said Kevin. “How are you spelling that, in case anyone should ask?”

“Tell them to go fonk themselves,” barked the towering cyborg, Mech. He stood before the ship’s large viewscreen, his metal fingers darting across a touch screen panel below it. “In fact, don’t bother, I’ll tell them myself.”

He stepped back from the screen, made a hand gesture which Cal interpreted as something quite rude, then held the pose until the screen flashed and clicked.

“They’re firing cannons, hold on!” warned Loren, leaning left in the pilot seat and throwing her weight onto the controls. The ship rolled into a tight corkscrew spin as crackling red energy beams scorched the void around them.

“Oh, Jesus! Why do you always do this to me?” Cal spluttered, before his insides noisily tried to become his outsides once again.

“Mizette, any response from the Symmorium?” Loren barked, slamming the stick right and pulling out of the spiral.

Slouched in her chair, Miz picked a piece of lint from her fur, rolled it between two claws, then flicked it away before shrugging her broad shoulders. “How should I know?”

The ship dropped into a plunging dive, and Cal briefly remembered how much he’d always hated rollercoasters, before everything suddenly banked upwards again, compacting his testicles against the seat.

“Because you’re supposed to be trying to hail them,” Loren snapped.

Miz tutted. “Well, no-one told me.”

“Yes we did!” Loren yelped. She pushed, pulled and twisted the controls, sending the ship into a sequence of moves Cal couldn’t even begin to describe, and never wanted to experience again. The stars and ships on the viewscreen tilted and lurched. His stomach flipped and jiggled. His testicles, for their part, didn’t do very much. Although, to be honest, after that last maneuver he’d be surprised if they ever did anything noteworthy again.

As Cal heaved the last of his stomach contents into the bag, it occurred to him that it had, all things considered, been a pretty rough day. Or, not day, exactly, because they didn’t have days in space, so Mech kept telling him, anyway. A pretty rough day-length period of time, then.

He had started it dressed as a lizard, and ended it battling a city-sized spider that breathed fire. Many, many things had gone wrong between those two events, the most notable of which being his own violent death.

It hadn’t been all bad, of course. He’d discovered they had a machine on board that made banoffee pie – albeit after it literally tortured the recipe out of him - and the crew had all earned a share in a two-million credit fortune.

He was also no longer dead, which was a bonus.

But then, just as they’d been setting off across the nebula to escape the brewing Zertex vs Symmorium war, they’d picked up Junta’s distress call. Much as they were all against the idea of getting dragged into a galaxy-shaking punch-up, Cal had been even more against the idea of leaving Commander Junta to die. Since then, his empty, quivering stomach and pancaked testicles had both given him pause to reconsider, but he was still reasonably confident they were doing the right thing.

“Fine. I’ve called them on the comm-thing, or whatever,” Miz said. She scowled mostly at Loren, but partly at the universe in general. “Happy now?”

“Have they answered?” Mech asked, not looking back. Miz sat a little more upright in her seat. Her voice lost its surly edge.

“Doesn’t look like it. Want me to try them again?”

“Do it!” said the cyborg.

Miz shuddered. “Man, I love it when you take charge,” she told him, then she rolled a purring sound between her enormous teeth, before turning her attention to the control panel beside her.

“A scan of the Symmorium Thresher suggests a reply is unlikely to be incoming any time soon,” Kevin announced. “All systems are down. Only minimal life support is in place. And, if I may be so bold, their kitchen is a bloody shambles.”

“How many alive?” Loren asked, flipping the ship upside-down as a barrage of cannon-fire ripped past.

“Eighty.”

Cal looked up from his sack of sick. “Eighty?”

There was a moment’s hesitation from Kevin. “No, wait. Two. Sorry, I was thinking of something else. Oh.”

“Oh?” said Cal. “What? What’s ‘oh’?”

“Incoming transmission sir, relayed via one of the Zertex fighters. It’s from the president.”

“Sinclair?” said Cal. “Shizz. I hoped we could just duck in and out of this without anyone noticing.”

He looked to the others for guidance. “Any suggestions? Do we talk to him?”

“No,” said Mech.

Loren considered it for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”

Cal turned his chair to look at Mizette. She shrugged petulantly. “Whatever. How should I know?”

“Yeah, probably best if we don’t answer it, Kevin,” said Cal, turning back to the front. The tanned, square-jawed face of President Hayel Sinclair filled one third of the screen. “Oh, you already did.”

“My apologies, sir,” Kevin chimed. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Mr Carver,” said Sinclair in a voice that was so full of warmth Cal almost forgot all the times Sinclair had tried to imprison or kill him. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Hayel Sinclair,” Cal said, in a way that positively cried out for a Nazi salute. “Always a pleasure. Except, you know, when it isn’t. Which is always, because you’re a mass-murdering psychopath.” He smiled. “So. How’ve you been?”

“Better than you, it seems,” said Sinclair, his eyes flitting down to the bag clutched in Cal’s lap. “Space travel still not agreeing with you?”

Cal rolled the top of the bag closed. “What, this?” he said. “This is just… onions.”

On screen, Sinclair blinked. “Sorry?”

Cal had no idea what had possessed him to say the bag contained onions. It very clearly did not contain onions. A thick, lumpy onion puree, perhaps, but not onions in their native, regular form. Still, on the upside, Cal was almost certainly the only person involved in the conversation who had any idea what the fonk an onion actually was, so he reckoned he could bluff it.

“Onions,” he said. He gave the bag a shake, as if that somehow confirmed everything, then set it on the floor beside his chair. “Now, sorry, we’re pretty busy here. What was it you wanted?”

Sinclair smiled, showing off his perfect teeth. “Short term, I want you to withdraw from this encounter and allow my fighters to continue their engagement with the Symmorium Thresher,” he said. “Longer term, I want to have your head on a spike, and use your hands as back scratchers.” He shrugged. “But let’s focus on the immediate issue, for now.”

He leaned closer to the camera, so his face filled the whole right third of the viewscreen. The movement cast most of his features into shadow, but his eyes seemed to blaze in the darkness.

“You have intervened in an officially sanctioned wartime confrontation between Zertex and its enemy. Failure to withdraw immediately will only serve to draw you deeper into the conflict, and result in a redoubling of my efforts to detain you, torture you, then kill you.”

He leaned back, his smile returning. “You don’t want to get involved in this, Mr Carver. Trust me.”

Cal drummed his fingers on his armrest, staring blankly into space. When he realized Sinclair had stopped talking, his eyes widened and he sat up straight. “Sorry, were you talking to me? I was miles away, thinking about how awesome this ship is that we stole off you. You were saying something about back scratchers?”

Sinclair’s smile dropped away, revealing the true expression behind it. He opened his mouth to speak, but Cal reacted before the president could utter another word.

“Mech, mute this shizznod.”

“Done.”

Sinclair ranted for a few seconds, before realizing what had happened. Cal returned the president’s smile from earlier, plus interest.

“See, the thing is, Hayel, we’re already involved in this, since you used footage from our ship to set up the Symmorium and justify going to war with them,” he said. “We know what really happened – you blew up that moon, not them, and you used us to do it – so, unless you want us to tell everyone exactly what you’ve been up to, I’m going to have to ask you to back off.”

On screen, Sinclair laughed in complete silence. It went on for quite a long time. Cal signaled for Mech to cut the mic feed from their ship.

“Guess he doesn’t believe us,” said Cal.

“Oh, he believes us,” said Loren. “He just knows no-one will listen. Who’s going to take the word of a group of on-the-run criminals over the galactic government?”

Cal thought for a moment. “Crazy conspiracy theorists?”

“Great,” said Mech. “And that helps us how, exactly?”

“Incoming torpedoes,” announced Kevin.

“Son of a bedge,” Cal spat. He gave Sinclair the finger, then the feed snapped off, clearing the right side of the viewscreen in time for everyone to see an explosive ball of energy hurtling towards them.

“Brace!” Loren warned. Cal gripped his arm rests as the torpedo detonated against the ship’s shields, rattling his skeleton and making his bag of barf jiggle dangerously on the floor beside him.

A second torpedo struck somewhere off-screen, and the lights aboard the Currently Untitled flickered.

“I mean, did you even try to dodge those?” Miz barked.

“They appear to be readying more torpedoes, sir,” Kevin intoned. “Would you like me to retaliate?”

“What’s the alternative?” Cal asked.

“We get blown to bits.”

“Then yes,” said Cal. “Retaliate. Do that one. Jesus, why did you even have to ask? Fire torpedoes.”

“Missiles, sir,” Kevin corrected. “We don’t have torpedoes, we have missiles.”

“Whatever! Just fonking do it!”

“Very good, sir.”

There was a moment of silence, followed by two blinding flashes at either edge of the screen.

“All done, sir.”

Cal frowned. “What? That’s it? You blew them up?”

“Indeed.”

“They ain’t showing on the scanners,” Mech confirmed. “Looks like they’re dust.”

“Oh,” said Cal. He shifted in his chair, making the leather creak. “I mean, where’s the fun in that? When I did the guns, it was far more seat-of-your-pants, high adrenaline, ‘fonk, we’re probably all going to die’ space adventure. Now? Boom. Done.” He sighed. “I miss the old days.”

“I could deliberately miss next time, if you like, sir?” Kevin suggested.

Cal considered this. “No, it’s not the same,” he decided. “Well, I mean, maybe just once.” He slapped his hands on his thighs. “Anyway, Loren, bring us in close to the Symmorium ship.”

“Without crashing into it,” Miz added.

“Ideally, yes, without crashing into it,” Cal agreed. “I can’t wait to see the look on Junta’s big shark face.”

* * *

Cal stood outside the airlock door, waving at the two Symmorium through the little porthole window. The smaller of the two – the one who wasn’t Commander Junta – waved back, until Junta shot her a sideways look and she snapped her arm down to her side.

“There he is!” beamed Cal, as the inner airlock door slid aside and Junta stepped through. He wasn’t much taller than Cal, but his width, mannerisms, and the fact he was essentially a man-shaped walking shark all made it very clear which of them would emerge victorious from a fight.

Fortunately, Cal had no intention of fighting.

“C’mere, you,” he said, stepping in and giving Junta a hug. The Symmorium reacted by not reacting at all. He simply stood, looking impatient, until the ordeal was over.

Cal pulled away and beckoned the other Symmorium over. “Don’t think you’re getting away, either, mister!”

“Miss,” said Glorian, her gray skin blushing ever so slightly.

“Wow, seriously?” said Cal. He recovered quickly. “I mean, get in here, you!”

He hugged her. To everyone’s surprise, but mostly her own, she hugged him back.

“Welcome to the Currently Untitled,” Cal said, once he’d let the woman go. “Our brand new, state-of-the-art experimental prototype ship. Please, don’t touch anything, because we don’t know what ninety-percent of this stuff does, and there’s a good chance you’ll kill us all.”

Junta lowered his head in a bow of respect. “We appreciate your intervention,” he intoned. “Without it, we would surely now both be dead.”

“Hey, any time. We were in the neighborhood… What are friends for, right?” said Cal.

Junta’s shiny black eyes became dull, as if a cloud had passed behind them. “If only you had arrived a few moments earlier. Perhaps you would have been in time to save my crew.” He swallowed. His voice, when it emerged, was as rough as sandpaper. “My daughter.”

“Your daughter?” said Cal, thinking back to his and Junta’s first face-to-face encounter. “You mean Angry Testicles-Headbutt Girl? Oh, yeah...”

Cal tapped a button on the door directly across the corridor. It slid aside, revealing the kitchen area. Nine Symmorium stood by the food replicator machine, sniffing curiously at plates of banoffee pie.

“About that.”

Tyrra looked up from her plate. Her already wide eyes almost doubled in size, then she raced for Junta’s arms as he threw them open. Father and daughter collided, squashing the banana-based dessert between them as they hugged and rubbed their snouts together.

“Well,” Cal muttered. “That was a waste of a perfectly good pie.”

He watched a tear roll down the side of Junta’s face. “But, meh, I guess I can let it go, just this one time.”

Two

The Currently Untitled hadn’t been able to save Junta’s whole crew, but they’d put a sizeable dent in the death count, at least. Junta had greeted them all with considerably more stoicism than he had his daughter, but his relief at discovering they were alive – and their own relief at being alive – was as palpable as the aroma of toffee and banana that hung in the air.

Cal sat at the long kitchen table, digging into his third slab of pie with a homemade spoon. He was quite proud of the spoon, having fashioned it himself using a piece of scrap metal, a lot of brute force, and several minutes of creative swearing. Admittedly, it had turned out that the piece of metal wasn’t actually scrap, and was, in fact, quite an important part of the life support systems. But, other than a somewhat alarming period of asphyxiation, there had been no real harm done.

“Seriously, I can’t believe you guys don’t like this,” Cal said, masticating the sticky banana mush around in his mouth. He felt like he’d been chewing for quite some time now, and his jaw was feeling the burn. Still, there were four more pies on the table, and he was damned if they were going to go to waste.

Some of the Symmorium crew had gone off to explore the ship, or to use the comm-system to update the folks back home about their run-in with Zertex. Only Junta, Tyrra, and Glorian had remained in the kitchen. They all watched in growing disbelief as Cal pushed aside an empty plate, thumped the heel of his hand against his chest a couple of times, then reached for the next slice of pie.

They had been joined by Splurt, the shapeshifting green blob who, despite lacking the ability to speak or utter a sound, Cal now considered to be one of his best friends ever. Possibly the best, and certainly the most useful. Whether saving Cal from torture, killing a lot of bad guys in quick succession, or just generally looking fonking adorable, Splurt was Cal’s go-to ball of goo, every time.

Splurt sat on the bench beside Cal, only his two bulbous eyeballs visible above the edge of the table as he watched the Symmorium in silence.

“You have the eating habits of a gurslug,” said Tyrra, watching Cal shovel another spoonful of caramel into his mouth. “And a juvenile, at that.”

“Tyrra!” Junta snapped, but Cal held up a hand.

“It’s fine. It’s fine. Seriously. Kids, right?” He shrugged. “I mean, I don’t even know what a gurslug is, so I’m just going to go ahead and assume it’s something nice,” he said. “In my head, I’m picturing a baby panda, but with those, like… What are those things bugs have on their heads? Like fuzzy antennae. You know? Like pom-poms on little jiggly bits of wire. I’m picturing a baby panda rocking a couple of those. Only purple.”

“It is a parasite,” said Tyrra. “Of the anus.”

“Oh,” said Cal. He tried to picture this. “Well, I don’t see how that would fit up there at all.”

“You would not notice a gurslug enter,” Tyrra told him, enjoying his reaction. “It would slip in while you slept. You would not become aware until its first acid emission.”

Cal froze with the next piece of pie halfway to his mouth. He shifted on the bench. “Jesus.”

He continued eating the pie.

“Perhaps you have one inside you, even now.”

Cal put down his spoon. “Look, I’m sorry I punched you in the face and made you cry last time.”

“I didn’t cry,” Tyrra spat.

“Well, OK, then I’m sorry I made droplets of salty water come from your eyes, then. Is that better?” Cal retorted. “To be fair, you had very recently headbutted me in the balls, and then almost broke my neck, so – even though I felt bad about it at the time…” He shot Junta a wary glance. “And, you know, obviously still do – you kind of had it coming.”

“I have trained harder. I would best you now,” Tyrra told him.

Cal shot her a patronizing smile. “Well, I’ve been given a wizard’s magical life force. So, no. You wouldn’t,” he said. “I mean, he wasn’t really a ‘wizard’ exactly, but the point still—”

Tyrra lunged across the table. The next thing Cal knew, the tabletop was coming up fast. He barely managed to push the pie to safety before – WHUMP! – his face slammed into the metal. He grabbed for the wrist of the hand holding him, but her other hand caught three of his fingers and somehow managed to twist them all in opposite directions.

“Yield!” Tyrra hissed.

Cal raised the middle finger of his free hand. The girl’s teeth clamped around it, not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough to certainly imply that pain was a looming possibility.

“OK, shizz, tap out. You got me. Uncle.”

“Tyrra, that’s enough,” said Junta. “Let him go.”

Her various grips were released. She smirked across the table at Cal as she lowered herself back onto the bench. Cal flexed his fingers and rubbed his forehead where it had met the tabletop. He shot Splurt an accusatory look.

“So you just sat there and watched that, huh?” he said. “You didn’t think to intervene at all? I’m very disappointed.”

Splurt sunk lower on the bench. Cal sighed. “But I still love ya.”

Splurt straightened again. Cal turned to Tyrra. “Why do you always want to fight me, anyway? What have I ever done to you? Apart from punch you in the face, I mean, which – as we’ve already established – you totally had coming.”

“It is probably just your face,” said Glorian. She wilted a little as everyone turned to look at her. “Or your personality. I just mean… I am sure it is nothing personal.”

Cal raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Well that’s OK, then.” He stood up. “Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I think I’ll just pop next door and kill myself.”

Junta cleared his throat. “We do appreciate it.”

Cal blinked. “What, me killing myself? Jesus, what is wrong with you people? I mean, you try to help someone…”

“Your intervention. We appreciate you getting involved in the conflict,” Junta clarified. “The Symmorium owe you a second great debt.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, well, you know, not a problem. Just happy to help.”

“Your ship and your crew will be useful additions to our fleet.”

Cal began to nod, then stopped. “Uh, yeah, about that. This was a one-time deal. We saw you in trouble, and decided to pitch in. We’ll take you home, but then we’re out of here. We all had a chat about it, and it turns out – intergalactic war? Not really our thing.”

“So, you are a coward, as well as an imbecile,” Tyrra grunted.

“Jesus, what is with her?” Cal said. He held a hand up to Glorian. “And please don’t say my personality and face. Believe it or not, that doesn’t actually make me feel much better.”

“Your smell, then, perhaps?” Glorian replied. From the way she said it, Cal could tell she was genuinely trying to be helpful. She just wasn’t very good at it.

“What? I don’t…” He sniffed his armpit. “OK, maybe a little, but it has been a long day. Have you ever heard of the Spider-Dragon of Saktar? No. Well, I suggest you look it up. Splurt.”

Splurt twanged quietly as he hopped onto Cal’s shoulder and draped himself around his neck. With a flourish, Cal tossed one of the blob’s dangling ends across the opposite shoulder, like a scarf.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a shower.”

He picked up his spoon. “Oh, and Tyrra?”

Cal flicked the spoon. A blob of banana whistled through the air, then splattered across the girl’s face. “You’ve got pie on you.”

With a satisfied grin, Cal twirled the spoon like an old-west gunfighter twirling his six-shooter. He lost control of it almost immediately, and ducked for cover as it flew upwards, clattered against the ceiling, then dropped to the floor.

Mustering the best ‘totally meant that’ air that he could, Cal bent down, retrieved the spoon, then strolled in what he hoped was quite a casual fashion out of the kitchen.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Cal stood in the shower, enjoying the heat blasting from its many nozzles. It was, hands down, the best shower he’d ever set foot in. It had all kinds of built-in bells and whistles, from ultra-violet pulse lighting to a streaming music service. The throbbing blue light, which was supposed to be relaxing, hurt his eyes, though, and the music all seemed to be trippy instrumental shizz played on some kind of space panpipes, which made him want to pull his teeth out.

The joy of the shower wasn’t in its extras, but rather in the basics. Somehow, the shower knew exactly how hot he wanted it to be, what pressure he enjoyed, and precisely which crevices to aim for at any given time. The thing knew him better than he knew himself, and he’d spend his entire time in there alternating between getting clean and just giggling happily as another cascade of perfectly-targeted heat washed over him.

More than even that, though, the shower was his own personal escape pod. It was the one place on the ship that he could be alone and undisturbed. At least, now that he and Miz had had that conversation about privacy and the purpose of door locks. It was a sanctuary. A haven. His Fortress of Solitude.

“You missed a spot, sir.”

Kevin’s voice chimed so close to Cal’s ear that he screamed and jumped, then slipped and fell. His bare ass-cheeks slapped against the wet floor.

“Jesus fonking Christ, Kevin!” Cal yelped. He spluttered as the torrent of water rained down on his face. “What are you doing in here?”

“I’m always in here, sir,” said Kevin.

Cal sprackled himself into a standing position, trying – but not succeeding – to retain some semblance of dignity while doing so. He cupped his hands over his crotch. “What? What do you mean, you’re ‘always in here’? Not always, surely. I mean, you’re not here when I’m…?”

“I am, sir.”

Cal cleared his throat. “And what about when I’m…?”

“Alas, sir, yes.”

“Ooh, boy. From now on, you’re not allowed in here, OK?”

“Oh, thank you, sir,” said Kevin, and the relief in his voice was palpable. “Before I take my leave, however, I have been asked to pass on a message from Ms Loren. We are approaching the Symmorium’s requested destination. We should be arriving any moment…”

The ship lurched, slamming Cal face-first against the shower glass.

“Now.”

“Christ,” Cal hissed, rubbing his tongue across his bottom lip to test for blood. “Kevin, can you please handle landings from now on? And maybe take-offs?”

“She won’t let me, sir,” Kevin replied. “I’ve asked. Believe me.”

Cal sighed. “Fine. But next time, can you at least give me a little warning when we’re going to—”

A jarring impact shook the ship. Cal flew backwards against the opposite wall of the shower, jamming the control knobs into his back.

“Look out, sir,” said Kevin.

“Ow! Fonk. A little late there, Kevin,” Cal grimaced. “What now? Should I brace myself? Is it going to happen again?”

“We have now successfully alighted on the Symmorium landing bay deck, sir,” said Kevin. “I suspect even Ms Loren would have difficulty hitting anything now.” He paused, as his processors considered this. “However, I can’t guarantee it.”

Cal rolled his shoulders, flexing his aching back. The water felt good against it. “OK, tell them I’ll be five minutes,” he said. “And get out of here. I’m going to… You know.”

“Very good, sir,” said Kevin. “Enjoy.”

“Oh, I will,” said Cal. He waited for a reply, but none came. “Kevin?”

Silence. Cal smiled. “Alone at last,” he said.

And then, safe in the knowledge that no one was watching, he began to sing.

* * *

Cal strode down the ramp, his hair still damp, the greatest hits of The Bee Gees still replaying in his head. Loren, Mech, Miz and Splurt all waited for him, alongside Junta and two other Symmorium soldiers Cal didn’t recognize. Or didn’t recognize beyond, ‘hey, you guys all look like walking sharks,’ at least.

All of them, with the exception of Splurt, looked to be varying levels of annoyed at him. He smiled, hoping it would offset their irritation, but fully aware it would likely only make things worse.

“What kept you, man?” Mech demanded. “We been waiting here for forty fonking minutes.”

“Oh now, Mech. I think we both know that’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t we?” said Cal.

Loren shook her head. “It isn’t. I make it forty-two.”

Cal pointed to her and winked. “Meaning of life.”

“Huh?”

“Doesn’t matter. I was in the shower,” he explained. He glanced at Mizette, fully expecting some kind of lewd comment, but was both relieved and a little disappointed when none came. She seemed to be watching Mech, instead, and barely paying him any attention at all. Ever since her and Mech’s spider-slaying team-up, Miz’s lustful fascination with Cal had shifted its focus to the cyborg, instead.

And that suited Cal fine. Honestly. It was a weight off his shoulders, no doubt about it. He could walk past her in the ship without fear of molestation, and could turn round in his chair without knowing he’d find her staring at him, her tongue hanging out like a dog on a hot day.

And yet…

“Nice place you have here, Junta,” said Cal, stopping in front of the Symmorium commander.

The landing bay looked like pretty much any other landing bay Cal had been on. He supposed they all performed the same function, and there was little point in trying to make them all different just for the sake of it, but a little bit of variation would have been nice.

Metal walls? Check.

Metal floor? Check

Metal everything else? Check.

It had the same enormously high ceiling, the same rows of clinically fluorescent lighting, the same shimmering energy wall through which things could fly, while air and gravity and all that stuff were miraculously kept inside.

The Currently Untitled was one of six spacecraft parked in the landing bay. Cal had no idea what the other ships were, but their appearances ranged from ‘sleek and nimble’ to ‘this is the last thing you will ever see.’

The more aggressive-looking ships had a pointy-teeth pattern painted on the side, giving them a shark-like appearance that matched that of their crew. When Cal had first seen the design on Junta’s ship, he’d assumed that meant the Symmorium were the bad guys. It felt like the sort of thing the bad guys would do, he reasoned, like the Nazis with their little skull cap emblems.

But, as Cal discovered, you couldn’t judge a species by the terrifying shark’s head motif on their spaceship. Although he remained confident his views on the Nazis were pretty much bang-on.

Junta nodded. Or maybe bowed. He was kind of lacking in the neck department – or, more accurately, overabundant in the neck department to the point he appeared to move seamlessly from head to shoulders – and it made it difficult to tell.

“Subsent Takta requests your presence,” Junta replied. “He wishes to thank you personally for your intervention.”

Cal smiled and shook his head. “What? No. It’s fine. Seriously. He doesn’t need to thank us.”

“He has ordered the kitchens to prepare a feast,” Junta continued.

“Oh. Well, in that case…”

He looked across to Mech. The cyborg shook his head, just a fraction. Loren looked much more open to the idea, while Miz hadn’t been paying enough attention to have formed an opinion. Splurt was hard to judge. The little guy was keeping his cards close to his chest.

Also, he had no facial features, and his body language largely involved various types of shuddering, so he wasn’t easy to read at the best of times.

Cal shrugged.

“Sure, why not?”

* * *

To many people, a race of space-faring warrior shark-monsters might sound nightmarish, and Cal had been fairly alarmed when he’d seen them for the first time, himself. He’d recovered quickly, though, and discovered that despite outward appearances – and with the occasional child-sized exception – they were a pretty decent bunch.

Cal reckoned, though, that Subsent Takta would give even other warrior shark-monsters nightmares. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the high-ranking military leader was the Symmorium’s cultural equivalent of the Bogeyman. He could imagine generations of terrified Symmorium children desperately trying to get to sleep before Takta came to take them away. If the rest of the species were sharks, this guy was a prehistoric Megalodon.

Junta and his crew were powerfully-built, but just a little taller than Cal. Takta, on the other hand, stood a full head taller than Mech - and what a head it was. He had the same pointed snub-nose as the others, but his was a history lesson of old scar tissue detailing every conflict he’d ever been involved in.

A chunk of flesh had been removed – presumably not on purpose, although Cal wasn’t ruling it out – from the right side of his mouth. The result was that several dozen teeth were always on display, as if he had a sneer permanently etched on his face.

While all Symmorium had dark, glassy eyes, his were somehow darker still, like two tiny black holes on either side of his head that might suck you in at any moment, and never let you go.

His uniform was both splendid and immaculate. It was a carefully tailored fit, and he wore it well, badges and all. Despite that, he still looked utterly ridiculous, like a grizzly bear in a three-piece suit. This was not a creature designed to wear clothing. This was not a creature designed to do anything but fight and kill and… Well, probably just those two, actually.

The underside of his terrifyingly huge bottom jaw was ridged with hundreds of black cone-like spikes. Cal couldn’t imagine what purpose they possibly served, beyond to make him look even more intimidating than he already was. A few of the spikes were missing, their places taken by some tooth-shaped scarring that suggested something had tried unsuccessfully to bite Takta’s throat out. Cal imagined the cost for failing in that particular endeavor would have been a pretty steep one, and if that was the damage Takta was left with, he’d hate to see the other guy. Or, more likely, the bits of him that were left.

The stoic and reserved Junta was a shark-thing of few words, but Takta made him seem positively bubbly by comparison. He sat at the head of… the dining room, Cal assumed, although it felt more like a school classroom. Takta sat behind a table at the front of the room, while everyone else sat behind smaller individual tables, facing him. Cal had to fight the urge to raise his hand whenever he wanted to speak.

The ‘feast’ wasn’t quite what Cal had been expecting. He’d imagined a table groaning with food – probably fish of some kind, although he didn’t say that out loud in case it was racist. Instead, a single plate of something grim and gray was deposited unceremoniously on the tables in front of everyone, along with something that was either some kind of cutlery, or a bricklayer’s trowel.

He suspected it was probably the latter, because the stuff on the plate more closely resembled some sort of grouting than it did actual food.

“Please. Eat,” said Takta, eyeballing them all in turn.

Cal looked around at the others. Miz was giving the plate an inquisitive sniff, while Loren just stared blankly at it, as if waiting for it to do something interesting. Mech had raised a trowel full of the stuff to his mouth and was tentatively tasting it. He briefly recoiled in horror, smacked his fleshy top lip against his metal bottom one, then shrugged and carried on eating.

Splurt’s plate was already empty. Cal could see the entire gray lump just sitting inside the little blob’s semi-transparent body, right below his eyes. It did not make the heaped helping on his own plate look any more appetizing.

Junta and the two other soldiers stood at the back of the room. None of them were eating. They were, Cal couldn’t help but notice, standing in front of the door, but he tried not to read too much into that.

“What do you call this?” Cal asked, scooping up some of the mush. It quivered slightly on the trowel as he raised it to his mouth.

“Plok,” said Takta. There was a rasping quality to his voice, as if someone were rubbing gravel against Cal’s eardrums whenever he spoke. “It is dense in nutrients.”

“Which is what you want from a feast, isn’t it?” said Cal. “All this messing around with, you know, roast pigs and apples in the mouth, or whatever. Forget the decadence, I say. Give me density of nutrients.”

He deposited the slop into his mouth, coughed twice, exclaimed, “Jesus!” quite loudly, then chewed as fast as he could. Technically, it wasn’t really chewing, because that implied some sort of resistance. Instead, it basically involved rolling the stuff around inside his mouth until such times as he could work up the courage to swallow it.

Once he had, he coughed again and forced a smile. “Yum,” he said, his voice coming out as a wheeze. “That is good Plok. You really must give me the recipe.”

“The Symmorium is grateful for your assistance against the Zertex forces,” Takta said, cutting right to the chase. “Many lives would have been lost had you not intervened.”

“No problem,” said Cal. “Right, guys?”

Loren tore her eyes away from the Plok. “Uh, yes. Yes, it was our pleasure.”

Takta’s hollow-eyed gaze shifted across to Loren. “It must have been difficult for you. You are of Zertex stock, yes?”

Loren frowned, but countered the effect with a grim smile. “If you mean did I used to work for Zertex, then yes,” said Loren. “But I saw them for what they are, and there’s no love lost between us now.”

“But you have kin with them,” Takta said.

Loren shifted in her seat. “Brothers. Yes.”

Takta said nothing, but held his gaze on her until she felt compelled to continue talking.

“Two of them. So what? I mean, why? I mean, what’s that got to do with anything?”

Takta’s stare continued to bore into her for several seconds, but Loren resisted the urge to try to fill the conversational void. Eventually, the Symmorium nodded, as if the silence itself had answered some unasked question.

He turned his attention back to Cal. “We would appreciate your assistance in the conflict. I believe your ship would be of use to us.”

Cal shot Mech a sideways glance. There was that shake of the head again.

“Yeah, we get that, we really do,” Cal said. “It’s just, well, we don’t want to get any more involved than we already are. You know?”

He jabbed a thumb back towards Junta. “I mean, if we see some of you guys in trouble? You know, like, being blown up, or whatever? We’ll absolutely try to help out. It’s just the whole getting caught up in a full-scale war thing? It’s not really something we’re into.”

He smiled broadly. “But, you know, thanks for the offer, and everything.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as Takta leaned forwards in his chair. “Zertex is claiming we destroyed Pikkish. It was your vessel that caused the destruction of the moon, and the death of all those on it.”

“But we didn’t pull the trigger,” Mech said. “Zertex did.”

“Then you should help us fight them,” Takta said. “They betrayed you. They used you to strike at us.”

“Oh, we know. And, believe me, those guys are off our Christmas card list forever,” said Cal. “But we won’t get involved in your war. I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is.”

Cal did his best to hold the giant Symmorium’s stare. He found himself gripping the table, as if it was the only way to resist being dragged into that black-hole gaze.

“We could make you help us. Through force,” said Takta.

“You are welcome to try,” Cal said. He smiled with utter sincerity.

For a long time, nobody moved or said a word. Finally, there was a low scraping sound as Takta pushed back his chair and raised himself up to his full towering height. His teeth ground together as he chewed over his next few words.

“The Symmorium thanks you for your assistance today,” he said. “Now kindly leave. Some of us have a war to fight.”

“One, you’re welcome,” said Cal. “Two, good luck with that, we’re all rooting for you guys all the way, and three…” He pointed down to the sloppy gray mush on his plate. “I don’t suppose you have a doggy bag for this? I think I broke a bathroom tile earlier, and this would be perfect for sticking it back together.”

Three

Cal sat in his chair back aboard the Untitled, watching the Symmorium destroyer grow smaller on the viewscreen. Due to its sheer, mind-bending size, it was taking quite a while. They’d been flying on impulse power for a good twenty minutes, and the thing still filled most of the rear view camera feed.

“That is needlessly large,” Cal said, whistling through his teeth. “I mean, that thing has to be the size of Alaska, right?”

“Depends,” said Loren. “How big are laskas?”

“No, I mean… Doesn’t matter.”

“Anyone else think it was weird?” asked Miz. It was rare she voluntarily made a contribution like this, so everyone gave her their attention.

“What, their ship?” said Cal. He shrugged. “Seemed like pretty standard space workmanship to me, but then I’m not exactly an expert.”

“No, I mean them letting us go like that,” Miz continued. “I totally thought they were going to try to fight us, or whatever.”

“Like everyone else does, you mean?” said Cal. He shrugged again. “I guess even we have to get lucky sometimes. Besides, Takta isn’t a bad guy. Huge and terrifying, yes. But he’s got a heart of gold.”

“You literally met him for six minutes,” Loren pointed out.

“During which time he threatened to force us to fight in a full-scale galactic war,” Mech added.

“Yeah, but I get a feel for people, you know?” said Cal. “I have this, like, sixth sense that lets me see through all the outer stuff and shows me what they’re really like. It’s foolproof.”

“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” said Kevin. “I thought you might like to be aware that the Symmorium appear to have fitted a tracking device to the ship’s outer hull.”

Cal felt himself wilt under the gazes of the rest of the crew. “OK, it’s almost foolproof,” he said. “Can you get rid of it?”

“Sadly not, sir,” Kevin said. “We would have to land somewhere first, and then someone – I suggest Master Mech – would have to remove it manually.”

“Why Mech?” Loren asked.

“In case it should detonate,” Kevin said. “As well as a tracking device, it is also an explosive. Did I not mention that?”

“No,” said Cal.

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Trust me, Kevin, if you’d told us there’s a bomb stuck to the outside of the ship, we’d have remembered,” Cal said. “Well, maybe not me or Miz, but the others, definitely.” He shook his head. “Of all the ungrateful… I mean, why would they do that? That’s just mean.”

“Maybe they wanted to make sure Zertex didn’t get their hands on the ship,” Mech said. “It’s one thing us not helping them, but another if we turned against them.”

“Well, you know what? If you want us to stay on your side, maybe don’t stick bombs to our ship,” Cal said. He gave the slowly receding Symmorium destroyer the finger. “Any suggestions for where to land? Anything close by? You know, relatively speaking, I mean?”

Mech tapped and swiped at the display in front of him, and the rear view feed on the main screen was replaced by a star chart. It zoomed through varying levels, skipped past several large planets, then settled on a small blue dot orbiting a reddish-orange sun. “That’s the closest planet,” Mech announced.

“What about those other ones before it?” Cal asked.

Mech tutted. “OK, that’s the closest planet where we won’t be instantly vaporized or eaten.”

“OK, let’s do that one, then,” said Cal. “Is it inhabited?”

Mech nodded. “Says here it has a population of sixty billion.”

“How is that possible?” Loren asked, studying a smaller version of the map on her own screen. “It’s ninety-six per cent water. How can all those people fit on four per cent of the surface?”

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “Maybe they’re all really tall and skinny?” he guessed.

“They could be tiny, I guess,” said Loren, slightly annoyed at herself for not thinking of that. “Or incorporeal.”

Cal sat up in his seat. “You mean like ghosts? Are we going to the planet of the ghosts?” He drew in a sharp breath. “Space ghosts!”

Mech muttered below his breath, then tapped his screen a few more times. A picture of something with the face of a disillusioned sloth appeared on the main display. It was roughly humanoid in shape, but with curved, downward sloping shoulders and a stooped back that suggested it was carrying the weight of the world. It looked like it spent its life with painfully low expectations, yet was somehow still constantly disappointed. Since this picture was taken, Cal would be prepared to bet the poor bamston had killed itself. Or, more likely, failed to.

“That’s one of the natives,” Mech said. “A Parlooq, apparently. Ain’t seen one before.”

“Me neither,” said Loren. “Space-faring?”

“They got the capability,” said Mech, as reams of data scrolled past the slowly rotating image. “Just not the inclination. Seems they spend their lives in servitude to whatever else decides to set up home on their planet.”

“So they’re what? Like, slaves?” asked Miz. “They’re a slave race?”

“Look, we can’t swoop down there and liberate them all, if that’s what you’re going to ask,” said Cal.

“What?” Miz scowled. “No. I mean, can we get one?”

“Oh,” said Cal. “Right. I thought you were going to be all altruistic and…” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. No, we can’t. Anyway, we don’t need one. We have Mech.”

“Fonk you, man.”

“How long until we get there?” Cal asked.

Loren checked her display. “At full warp, two hours.”

“Right,” said Cal. “And at a level of warp that won’t force both my eyes out through my ears?”

“Six hours,” said Loren. “Assuming no problems.”

Cal stood up. “Problems? Us? I find that very hard to believe.” He jabbed a thumb towards the door. “I’m going to go get some shuteye. Some of us have been awake for… I have no idea. A long time. What day is this? Tuesday?” He looked around. “It feels like a Tuesday.”

He headed for the door. “OK, you all behave yourselves, try not to get us into any shenanigans, and wake me if you need me.”

“We won’t need you,” said Mech.

“Fingers crossed,” said Cal. He reached the door, then stumbled through it as Loren engaged the warp drive. There was a thud from out in the corridor, then Cal’s voice drifted through.

“You totally did that on purpose.”

Loren smirked, but didn’t reply. She eased forwards on the thruster controls and the pinpricks of stars became long, flowing streams of light.

* * *

Cal’s brain woke before his body. He tried to open his eyes, but the signal didn’t reach them, so he just lay there, biding his time as he waited for the message to filter through.

He thought he could maybe feel the faint humming of the ship’s engines, which would suggest they were still moving, but physical sensation was really his body’s department, so it was speculation, at best.

He wondered how long he’d been asleep for. Not long enough was the immediately obvious answer, but then he’d been awake so long prior to coming to bed that anything less than a full day’s sleep would meet that description.

He had an itch at the end of his nose. This was good because it meant his body was starting to send him signals, but bad because his arms were refusing all his suggestions to scratch. There was another sensation, too. It was a pain – or possibly a weight – on his chest, right in the center.

His first thought was, ‘Oh shizz, I’m having a heart attack,’ but he soon dismissed that as paranoia. He wasn’t aware of any tingling in his left arm, or any shortness of breath, so it almost certainly wasn’t a heart attack.

Cancer, then.

Or worse. Space cancer.

“Cal!”

The cancer shook him all the way awake, and when he opened his eyes quickly revealed itself to be Miz’s hand. She sat on the edge of his bed, staring down at him. Cal quickly looked her up and down, then glanced around his untidy bedroom, before coming to the conclusion that nothing was currently about to kill him. It was pretty much how he always woke up these days, although it was rare – but certainly not unheard of – for Miz to be sitting on his bed.

“What’s up? What time is it?” Cal asked, before remembering it was a pointless question, because of space time zones or something. Mech had explained it, but he hadn’t really been listening all that closely. “Everything OK?”

Miz nodded. She looked anxious and uncertain, and not her usual brash self at all. Cal sat up, remembered he was naked, then partially slid back down under the sheets again, in case she got any ideas.

“I just wanted to talk to you about something,” said Miz. She took a deep breath. “You might not have, like, noticed or whatever, but for a while there, I was kinda into you.”

“Oh,” said Cal. He cleared his throat. “You know, I may have picked up on something along those lines.”

“Right. I mean, when I thought you were a cannibal, that was pretty hot, then when you turned out to be all, you know, butt-kicking and in charge and stuff, that was pretty hot, too.”

“I do try,” said Cal.

“And it totally works,” said Miz. Her eyes blazed lustfully for a moment, but then she shook her head, as if pushing the thoughts away. “It’s just, well, I like someone else now. Like, like like, you know what I mean?”

Cal replayed the sentence in his head. “I think so?”

“But I didn’t want you to be, you know, like upset or whatever,” said Miz. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Cal blinked. “Wait… are you breaking up with me?”

“It’s for the best,” said Miz.

“But… We were never…” Cal caught the confused look on the wolf-woman’s face, and nodded. “Uh, yeah. OK. Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but them’s the breaks, I guess.”

Miz’s expression became one of relief. “We can still be friends, though, right?”

“Absolutely,” said Cal. “Always.”

He held out a hand for her to shake. “Put it there, pal.”

Miz brushed the hand aside. She hugged him, which involved her full weight flopping down on top of him. Cal wheezed beneath her as most of the air in his body was forced out through his nose.

“That’s it,” he said, patting her hairy back. “Two friends sharing a hug. Breaking some ribs. Causing lasting internal injuries…”

Miz straightened. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Cal squeaked.

A loud clang shook the ship. It was followed a moment later by a long, drawn-out screeeeech like a chorus of cutlery scraping across plates. Miz grimaced, her sensitive ears taking the brunt of it. Cal gritted his teeth until the ship shuddered abruptly to a stop.

“Kevin!” he groaned.

“I did try to take over, sir,” Kevin chimed. “But she insisted on landing us herself. She can be really rather stubborn when she wants to be.”

“So, I guess we’ve arrived?”

“Not yet, sir. We’re still making our descent. Ms Loren merely hit an orbiting satellite.”

Clung!

“Make that two,” Kevin continued. “You may want to join the others on the bridge, sir. It really is quite a sight.”

Cal stretched, and looked over at Miz. “I’d better get dressed.”

Miz nodded. “Want me to help?”

“I’m fine,” said Cal.

“Want me to watch?”

“Again, I’m fine, but thanks for the offer,” said Cal. “You head to the bridge. I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”

He stopped Miz before she reached the door. “Oh, and can you be really sarcastic about Loren’s flying on my behalf until I get there?”

Miz’s snout pulled into a smirk. “That, I can totally do.”

* * *

The sky of Parloo shimmered and danced in the sunshine, and Cal immediately understood how all those billions of people could live on just four per cent of the planet’s surface – by not living on the surface at all.

Thousands of city-sized platforms floated high above the world. Through the gaps, Cal caught glimpses of cloud and snatches of ocean, but they were few and far between, as the hovering metropolises (or possibly metropolii, Cal wasn’t quite sure) stretched all the way around the planet’s curve in every direction.

The cities themselves varied in design. Most of them stood tall and proud, with oblong towers and oddly-shaped domes. Twisting spires stretched elegantly towards space. Small, flying vehicles flitted like fleas above the streets. Holographic billboards flickered and danced in the air.

During other planetary stops, Cal had been disappointed by how… mundane most alien cities were. The ones he’d been to had been mostly drab, often violent, and could have passed as pretty much any decent-sized urban area on Earth.

Oh sure, the people living in there had more arms, or were eleven feet tall, or made of thousands of slugs all piled atop one another, but the buildings and streets all had a dull sort of ‘samey’ feel to them.

This place, though, was different. Each of the floating areas looked like it had come straight out of The Jetsons. There were long clear tubes zig-zagging across one, through which Cal could see people zooming around. On another, pedestrians were ferried around by a series of conveyor belt sidewalks, never having to take a step to get to their destination.

And it was all so clean! The buildings shone and gleamed, like recently polished family silver. Within each city was an expanse of pleasant-looking greenery, with a lake, river or other water feature taking pride of place in most.

And there were thousands of the platforms, all similar, but all different. There were smaller, more suburban-looking areas, platforms that appeared to be made up exclusively of shopping malls, and even some that carried nothing but carefully tended farmland.

“Oh, man, how come you never took me here before?” Cal asked. “This place is awesome!” He pointed to a particularly impressive-looking platform, with a spiraling tower that stretched miles into the air. “Let’s go to that one.”

“We can’t,” said Loren. “We don’t have the landing fee.”

Cal frowned. “What are you talking about? We have two million credits.”

Mech gestured to some text on the screen. It was whizzing past far too quickly for Cal to read it, even if it had been in English. “Docking on any of these is gonna cost us six million,” Mech said. “And that’s if we pick the cheapest one.”

“Jesus,” Cal said. “So, this is like, for the ultra-rich? What if we just land anyway? What can they do?”

“Take all our money,” Mech said. “Except, all these places are shielded, so we’d have to get through them first, which would mean shooting the shizz outta the whole thing.”

“Which is going to bring us some unwanted attention,” Loren added.

“Oh. Yeah. Makes sense,” said Cal. “So… what? This was a total waste of time?”

Loren shook her head. “Not quite. The docking fee on the surface costs less.”

“How much less?”

“About five-point-nine-nine-five million less,” Loren said.

Cal’s lips moved as he tried to figure out what that equated to. It took him several seconds, but then – finally – he decided just to give up.

“Cool. Let’s go there, then,” Cal said.

“That’s the plan,” said Loren. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and Cal noticed the knuckles of the hand on her control stick were white. “We just have to find a way through.”

“Through what?” asked Cal. He pointed to the screen. “Through there? There’s got to be an entrance, surely?”

Loren shook her head. Cal heard himself gasp. “So, what? You just fly through one of the gaps? They’re all, like, six inches wide!”

“Yeah, what you’re looking at ain’t to scale,” Mech said. “It’s called ‘perspective’. Big things, when viewed from far away—”

“I know what perspective is,” said Cal. “You know. More or less. But those gaps still look tiny.”

He gestured to Loren with his eyes, reminding Mech who was piloting the ship.

“I know what you’re doing,” Loren said. “But trust me, I got this.”

“You did hit a number of orbiting satellites on approach, ma’am,” Kevin reminded her. “And those were spread out really quite far indeed.”

“Kevin, shut up,” said Loren. “Mech, patch me through the landing co-ordinates. I’m taking us down.”

The ship, which had already been descending, went into a steeper dive. Despite the artificial gravity, Cal felt himself falling forwards, and grabbed for his chair as he stumbled past. Heaving himself into it, he fastened the straps across his chest, gripped his arm rests, and braced himself for what was probably quite a high likelihood of death.

Loren lined the Untitled up with a gap between two of the platforms. The city on the right was the one with all the transparent tubes linking up its buildings. As they curved downwards past it, Cal saw hundreds of people shooting through the little tunnels at high speed, their arms pinned to their sides. He found himself wondering what happened when they reached the end, or met someone else coming the other way.

The platform on the left looked like some kind of business district, as most of the buildings had names emblazoned on them. The translation chip in his eye set to work deciphering the words as they streaked by, but by the time it had got its act together, the words were no longer available for him to look at.

Despite the Untitled flying within a decent-length stone’s throw of each platform, no one on either one paid the ship the slightest bit of attention. Presumably, ships zooming straight down past the platforms was a regular occurrence. Cal was heartened by that, although none of the other ships had Loren at the controls, so he didn’t relax quite yet.

The gap loomed right ahead of them now. It was wider than Cal had thought, but – again – Loren was flying, so it was far from a sure thing. He could see nothing but gray cloud through the opening, in stark contrast to the sunny blue skies up here.

“OK, here goes,” Loren announced.

“Bye, everyone,” said Miz. “Nice knowing you.”

“It’s fine. I got this,” said Loren, then she hissed as another ship emerged through the clouds and rocketed straight towards them. “Fonk it!” Loren cried, swinging the stick to the right and twisting a big twisty thing as far to the left as it would go.

The Untitled corkscrewed violently. Its wingtips came within spitting distance of the other ship, then just lightly clipped the edge of the city platform as the Untitled plunged through the gap and dropped through the ship-shaped hole in the clouds.

“OK, that totally wasn’t my fault!” Loren protested. “We almost crashed.”

“Technically, we did crash,” Cal pointed out.

“No, we gently scraped against the platform, that’s all,” Loren said. “If it hadn’t been for me, we’d have hit that—”

The Untitled dropped out of the cloud layer and directly into the path of another oncoming ship.

“Aah! Pull up!” Cal yelped, but Loren threw them into an even faster dive, instead, skimming below the other ship with just inches to spare.

“Relax, I got this,” she said, glancing back at Cal as they ploughed through another cloud bank. “Nothing to worry about. It’s all under control.”

They hit the water with a sound like crashing thunder. Immediately, the lights of the Untitled all went out, to be replaced a moment later by the gloomy red glow of the emergency back-ups.

“All under control, huh?” said Cal.

“I did not think the surface was that close,” said Loren. She tapped her console as if it was somehow to blame, then chewed on her bottom lip. “Yes, that did come as a surprise.”

“We’d have been safer just jumping out when we were still up there,” Miz said. “Like, if we’d just fallen out of the ship as soon as we entered the atmosphere, we’d probably be better off right now.”

“Kevin, what’s the situation?” Cal asked.

“We’re underwater, sir.”

Cal sighed. “Yes. Yes, I know that, but I meant, you know, more specifically. Do we have power? Is there a way we can make it that we’re not underwater?”

“What the fonk is that?” asked Mech, taking a clanking step closer to the viewscreen.

“What the fonk is what?” Cal began, and then he saw it, too. A large shape was cutting through the dark ocean towards them. From the way it was moving, Cal could tell it wasn’t a ship or anything mechanical. This thing – whatever it was – was alive, moving quickly, and headed straight for them.

“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir,” Kevin admitted. “Although, if I may be so bold, I suggest we don’t wait around to find out.”

In the darkness of the ocean, a set of vast, powerful jaws opened.

“Oh. Too late,” said Kevin, and then the teeth snapped closed with a crunch.

Four

Cal sat in his chair, gently twisting it from side to side, as a row of house-sized teeth tried to gnaw through the Currently Untitled’s viewscreen.

“Seriously,” he said. “At this point, is anyone even surprised by this? We try to land on a planet, almost crash twice, then plunge into the sea, only to be eaten by Godzilla, or whatever the fonk this thing is. How did this become just an average day in my life? If this is what space is like, how have any of you lived this long?”

“No, man, this ain’t normal,” Mech said. “This sort of shizz never happened to me before I met you. This is your fault.”

“How is it my fault? I wasn’t the one flying!”

“Oh, so it’s my fault?” Loren spat.

“Well, like, duh,” said Miz. “Of course it’s your fault. You literally plunged us into the ocean.”

“I thought the fog was another cloud layer!” Loren protested.

“Oh, well that’s OK, then,” said Mech. “I mean, it’s not like we got a hundred different instruments designed to tell you how far away the ground is or nothin’.”

“I didn’t hit the ground,” Loren pointed out. “I hit the water.”

“That don’t make no difference,” Mech said. “Those instruments tell you where the water is, too.”

“Guys, guys!” Cal said, holding up his hands for calm. “Let’s not go pointing fingers at anyone here, OK? Even if it totally is her fault. We need to figure out what’s got us. Kevin, analysis?”

“It’s a sort of fishy-thing, sir,” the AI reported. “A rather big one.”

“I mean, I was hoping for a little more detail,” said Cal. “But that’s a start. Any suggestions?”

“Well, we could simply warp out of its grasp,” Kevin suggested.

“Great! Let’s do that.”

“Were we not currently underwater.”

“Oh,” said Cal. “OK. Can we shoot our way out?”

“Yes, sir,” said Kevin. “Were we not currently—”

“Underwater. OK, I get it.” Cal sighed. “Is there anything we can do?”

“We could allow it to eat us,” Kevin suggested. “And then wait for nature to take its course. Although we would, unfortunately, be in a number of different pieces by that point.”

“Not fond of that plan,” Cal said. “Mech, how are the shields looking?”

Mech shook his head. “We ain’t got any. I mean, none that’ll stop this thing. They reflect energy weapons, not organics. This ugly bamston’s chewing down right on the motherfonking hull.” He tapped his screen. “And it is exerting a whole heap of pressure. We’re not going to hold up for long before something goes ‘pop’.”

Cal rubbed his forehead. “OK. Jesus. So we’re underwater. We can’t warp or fire weapons. A – and I quote – ‘big fishy thing’ is trying to chew through us and, from what you say, Mech, it’s doing a pretty stand-up job of it. Does that about sum it up?”

“There’s also an explosive attached to the outside of the ship, sir,” Kevin reminded him.

Cal brightened. “So what are you saying? That we can use that to fight this thing?”

“Oh my, no, sir,” said Kevin. “I was simply pointing out that it might explode and kill you all at any moment. Probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it, really.”

“What about impulse thrust?” Mech asked. “Can’t we just reverse out of this thing’s mouth?”

“Been trying,” said Loren. “It’s got us held too tightly. Reverse thrusters don’t have enough power.”

Miz frowned. “So, like, if reverse isn’t strong enough, or whatever, why don’t we go forward?”

Cal pointed to the screen. “Miz, honey, it’s great that you’re getting involved, but there’s a big fishy thing right in front of us. If we go forward we’ll…”

His voice tailed off. “Uh, what would happen, exactly, if we went forward? But, you know, really fast?”

Everyone thought about this, picturing the possible outcomes. Some of the possibilities didn’t end well for them, but none of them did the fish any favors, at all.

Loren shrugged. “Well, since the only other plan we have involves being eaten alive, much as it pains me to do so, I say we give Miz’s plan a try.”

“Full steam ahead?” said Cal. “Everyone OK with this?”

“I’m pretty fonking far from OK with it,” said Mech. “But we ain’t got a whole lot of choice.” He gripped the console in front of him. “So sure, let’s all fly inside a fonking fish and see what happens. Why not?”

“That’s the spirit!” said Cal. “OK, Loren, do it!”

Loren shoved the thrust lever forwards. The Untitled juddered violently, then lurched to a stop. With an embarrassed cough, Loren restarted the engines.

“Did you… did you just stall our state-of-the-art experimental spaceship?” Cal asked.

“Yes, yes, shut up,” said Loren, then she hit the thrusters again. The Untitled whined. The teeth holding it in place bent, then shattered, and suddenly the viewscreen was filled by a gaping black throat.

Then a slimy red stomach.

Then several hundred feet of fish intestines and a knobbly bit.

And then, following a loud, schlopping squelch, by the dark depths of the ocean.

A bloom of blood swooshed around the Currently Untitled as it burst free. Chunks of ruined fish anus bobbed and knocked against the hull. Cal cheered and punched the air as the now rectum-less corpse of the sea creature sank slowly towards its watery grave.

“Alright! Great work, everyone. Miz, excellent plan. Loren, fine flying. Mech, well done on just standing there, and way to go me for moral support.” He raised his voice. “Splurt, I’m not sure where you are, but well done, buddy!”

A green arm stretched down from the ceiling and gave a thumbs up, then retreated again.

Cal dropped his voice to a whisper. “He likes to feel included.”

“We got three bogeys, coming up fast,” said Mech, studying his screen. “Big ones.”

“Let me guess. Fishy things?”

“It would appear so, sir,” said Kevin.

“OK, Loren, get us out of here,” said Cal, but Loren was already propelling the ship through the water, the currents buffeting it around as it powered upwards. A gloomy haze danced on the surface as they drew closer, with just the occasional shaft of sunlight stabbing through the darkness.

The Untitled rose through the waves and banked steeply upwards. Below it, the surface erupted as something very big and very fishy made a desperate lunge for the ship. Cal barely glimpsed it, but got the impression of copious amounts of eyes and teeth, and then the thing crashed back into the ocean again and, with a flick of its mighty tail, was gone.

“I kind of want to make some sort of witty quip at this point,” Cal said. “But I’m busy trying to block out the memory of whatever the fonk that thing was, so if you could just think up a funny line of your own and attribute it to me, that would be awesome.”

Wisps of fog hung over the ocean. It was shades of black and gray, like cotton candy that had been twisted to the Dark Side.

The clouds overhead weren’t much better. They were brooding and ominous, with the occasional break where a thin shaft of sunlight managed to squeeze through. If Cal squinted hard enough, he could make out a faint blue glow from the city-sized platforms far above. Engines, presumably, keeping everything afloat.

Or maybe it was magic. He had absolutely no idea how it was done, and could only speculate at this point. Either way, the cities were way up there, and the Untitled was way down here, and there was nothing else for miles and miles in any…

Wait. What was that?

Something loomed in the distance, beyond the fog. It was another city, either floating on the ocean or – more likely – on one of Parloo’s few land masses. As they drew closer, Cal felt that sinking feeling of familiarity. There were no shiny towers or grand architectural wonders on display here. Instead, there was lots of concrete, lots of grime, and lots of industrial-looking buildings churning smoke into the air.

The clouds weren’t clouds at all, Cal realized. They were pollution from the smoke-spewing stacks of a thousand factory chimneys.

“Oh, but I wanted the nice bit up there,” Cal groaned. “Why do we always end up in space Detroit? Seriously. Every fonking time.”

“Docking request accepted,” Loren said.

“Well, of course it was accepted,” said Cal. “I mean, it’s not like they’re going to be inundated with requests, are they? Who the fonk would want to come here? It’s lucky they remembered how to work the radio.”

“Actually, sir, it appears to be quite a busy port,” said Kevin. “Despite appearances, Parloo – even down here – is a thriving civilization, with lots to offer travelers from all across the galaxy.”

Cal looked up. “What, do you work for the tourist board now?” he said. “Let’s just land, get the tracking thing off – ideally, but not necessarily, without blowing Mech to bits…”

“Fonk you, man.”

“And then get the Hell out of here before we all get poisoned. Sound like a plan?”

Miz shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. “But, I don’t know, maybe we should hang around for a while. Just, you know, to recover from Loren’s flying.”

Cal snorted. “Uh, no. Look at this place. There is nothing that could possibly make me want to stay here,” he said. “Trust me.”

* * *

“Oh my god, they have a Five Guys,” gasped Cal, as the Currently Untitled swooped low over a busy street and twisted awkwardly into its designated landing bay.

The fact that this alien planet had a Five Guys restaurant didn’t make any sense, he knew. It was impossible. While the Five Guys franchise had spread pretty far across the face of the Earth, the chances of finding one on a remote planet in the depths of outer space were slim, to say the least.

So, he reasoned, it couldn’t be a Five Guys. It had to be something that merely looked like a Five Guys.

A lot like a Five Guys. Same color scheme. Same logo. Same everything.

The ship landed heavily, jolting Splurt down from the ceiling. He rebounded like a rubber ball a few times, before splatting against the viewscreen. His bulbous eyes shot Loren an accusing look as he slid, very slowly, to the floor.

“Sorry,” she said, deliberately not meeting anyone else’s gaze.

Cal was the first to get to his feet. “OK, Mech, do the thing with the thing,” he said, heading for the door. “I need to go check on something. I think I just saw a Five Guys.”

“What’s a…?” Miz began, then she waved a clawed hand. “In fact, you know what? I don’t care. I bet it’s some stupid Earth thing.”

“It is,” Cal confirmed, and then he trotted along the corridor, lowered the ramp, and hurried outside, ignoring Loren as she shouted after him. “I’ll be right back. Just wait for me.”

Thanks largely to its floating overhead infrastructure, the planet of Parloo had branded itself, the ‘Planet of Ten Million Cities.’ It was not, it had to be said, very imaginative branding, but then the Parlooqs weren’t a very imaginative bunch, particularly those who had elected to work in the advertising sector.

It didn’t actually have ten million cities, either. In fact, it had slightly more, but even the literal-minded Parlooqs were quick to realize ‘the Planet of Ten Million, One Hundred and Seventeen Thousand, Six Hundred and Four Cities’ wasn’t going to easily fit on the posters, and so had rounded down.

Of all Parloo’s many cities, though, its only land-based one was undoubtedly the worst. It had no official name. Those living in it referred to it simply as ‘Down Here’ while those living above it rarely, if ever, thought of it at all. If they did have to make reference to it, it would usually be in the form of a crinkling of the nostrils and a slightly nauseated shake of the head, and that would be the end of it.

A generous way to describe it would be to say it was a lively place, full of interesting characters and intriguing opportunities for anyone with an open mind, a loaded blaster and, ideally, no sense of smell.

The less generous ways of describing it were far too numerous to mention.

A glum-looking Parlooq in an ill-fitting uniform approached Cal as he trotted down the ramp. The man moved slowly, as if his sloth-like qualities didn’t just dictate his looks, but his very way of life.

“They’ve got everything you need in there,” Cal said, jabbing a thumb towards the ship and skipping past the Parlooq. He was several steps past him before the guy’s expression changed to one of confusion, and pushing out through the swing doors before the Parlooq could utter a sound.

The sights and sounds and smells of the Down Here hit him all at once. Cal’s instincts all screamed at him to duck back through the doors and retreat to the ship, but he had to find out if he’d really seen a Five Guys.

What if he had? How was that possible? The only thing he could think of was that there was someone else from Earth here on Parloo. Someone – most probably – somehow connected to Five Guys. Maybe one of the five guys themselves! Assuming they actually existed, and weren’t just some clever marketing ploy.

The sidewalk heaved with bodies, most of them large, and all of them sweating. Although there was little in the way of direct sunlight, an oppressive heat pushed down on the city, like it was trying to smother it and snuff it out.

Undoing a couple of buttons on his shirt, Cal spent a few seconds trying to get his bearings, realized it was a completely futile exercise, then just pushed through the crowd in a random direction, hoping he eventually found what he was looking for.

As Cal ducked, dodged and forced his way through the tightly-packed procession, voices grumbled at him.

“Watch it.”

“Wait in line.”

“Quit shovin’ back there.”

Most of the people around him looked nothing like the Parlooqs he’d seen, either on screen or in person. They seemed to be all sorts of species, but all of them wore the same sour expression, and carried the same bitter, downbeat demeanor.

The heat had to be playing a part in it, Cal reckoned. He’d only been on the planet for a matter of minutes, but already he could feel himself becoming irritable. If only everyone would get the fonk out of his way, he could look for the restaurant, figure out if he’d imagined the whole thing (almost certainly, he thought), then get back to the ship where they at least had air conditioning.

He could hear traffic thundering past on the road, but a moving wall of oversized pedestrians meant he couldn’t see the cars themselves. From the rumbling he felt through his legs whenever something noisy went past, he could tell they were definitely traveling on the ground, though, and not hovering like the ones they’d passed in the cities above.

So, no flying cars, no moving walkways, no tube-based high-speed transportation. If Up There was the future, Down Here was the luddite present that was probably in danger of becoming a thing of the past.

The sidewalk traffic parted a little on Cal’s right. He made a dash through the gap, knocking aside two thin-limbed little bat-faced creatures, who chirped and cheeped angrily as they struggled to stay upright on their hooved feet.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there,” Cal lied.

He turned down a quieter side street, then crunched into the stomach of a hulking round figure coming the other way.

“Ow, watch where you’re going, man!” said Cal. Although the first part of the sentence had come out sounding quite aggressive, it eased up towards the end. This was because the person standing before him was very big, and while its torso looked like a gelatinous ball of peach-colored fat, that stomach had been as solid as a rock.

“What? What is ‘man’?” the figure demanded. “I is woman!”

“Well, I mean, obviously!” lied Cal, looking the figure up and down. This involved a lot of neck movement on his part, and quickly gave him a sort of reverse vertigo. “Uh, sorry. Listen, I don’t suppose you’ve seen a Five Guys around here anywhere?”

“I seen lots of guys around here,” the woman grunted. “Which ones?”

“No, not…” Cal sighed. “Doesn’t matter.” He looked along the street at the crowds and the traffic and the store signs. None of the signs mentioned any number of guys, let alone the five Cal was specifically searching for.

He’d only been looking for a couple of minutes, but the heat – that fonking heat – was draining the will to continue right out of him. It had been a mistake. He’d got it wrong. That was all there was to it.

“Thanks for your, you know, help, I guess,” Cal said. The hulking woman nodded slowly.

“You want good time?”

“No,” said Cal. “No, I do not.”

“Suit self,” she said, shrugging her planet-like shoulders. She waddled past him onto the main street, and was somehow lost in the passing crowds.

Cal undid another button of his shirt. It was open almost all the way to his stomach now, but the heat was still squashing him beneath its thumb, trying to turn him into a greasy spot on the sidewalk. He wondered, briefly, if it would be easier just to let it, rather than try to fight his way back through the crowds again.

The temperature climbed a few more degrees. Cal felt his head spin all the way around, and then there was an intense burning sensation on his face. And possibly some bruising and blood.

“Oh, shizz,” he slurred through his dry lips. “I’m on the ground.”

And then a hot, sticky darkness poured over him like molasses.

* * *

“Hey, Tobey Maguire,” Cal said.

Hollywood actor-turned-ongoing-psychotic-episode, Tobey Maguire, looked up from the table he was sitting at. A flicker of irritation darted across his deceptively youthful features, then was replaced by a welcoming smile.

“Oh, hey,” said Tobey Maguire. “I was just doing a jigsaw puzzle. What happened to you?”

Cal shrugged and looked around. They were in a bubble of dull light, beyond which lay nothing but darkness. It felt tight and oppressive, like the inside of a cave, but Tobey Maguire didn’t seem to mind too much.

“Not sure. One minute, I’m standing up, the next, boom. Sidewalk. And then here.”

“Oh. OK,” said Tobey. He gestured to the jigsaw. “You can help me find the blue pieces.”

Cal puffed out his cheeks and took another look around. If past experience was anything to go by – and he’d had a lot of experience of being knocked unconscious and/or murdered lately – he was here until he woke up. There didn’t seem to be much else to do while he waited.

“Sure. Why not?”

Cal crossed to the table and realized immediately that he’d made a mistake. Tobey Maguire’s jigsaw strategy was all over the place. He’d started building outwards from a random patch of blue in the middle, and was now ferreting through the box trying to find more pieces to join on.

“Jesus Christ, Tobey Maguire, what is this?” Cal asked. “Start with the corners and build up the edges first! That’s, like, Jigsaw Etiquette 101.”

“Some of these bits were already stuck together in the box,” Tobey Maguire explained. “So I thought I’d just start there.”

“Do you think that’s how the Taj Mahal was built? Hmm? Do you think that’s how they put together the Eiffel Tower, Tobey Maguire? Just found some bits that were already stuck together and built outwards? No! They had a structure. They followed a plan.”

Cal was surprised by how passionate he felt about the jigsaw. The last time he’d built a jigsaw had been with his daughter, back before… Back before. He didn’t remember getting nearly as worked up about that one. Admittedly, that one had only eight pieces, and each of them was numbered in the correct order, but still.

He rooted in the box and found two of the corner pieces. “Jesus. Blue. What is this supposed to be, anyway? Just a blue rectangle?”

Tobey Maguire shook his head and pointed to a couple of white pieces. “No. It’s a message.”

Cal stopped searching. “A message? What kind of message?”

Tobey Maguire nodded to the lid of the box. It was sitting upside-down on the table beside him, the image on front hidden from view.

“What kind of message, Tobey Maguire?” Cal asked, suddenly nervous about what he might find on the front of the box.

“See for yourself.”

Cal hesitated. He placed the two corner pieces down on the table in roughly the right position, wiped his sweating palms on his pants, then turned over the box.

There was, just like Tobey Maguire had promised, a message there. It was written in bold white text on an all-blue background.

You have been poisoned, it read. Wake up, or you are going to die.

“Oh,” said Cal. He dropped the box lid. It vanished before it could hit the floor. “Shizz.”

Five

Cal paced back and forth in the narrow space, convinced it was becoming narrower by the second.

“Come on, think, Tobey Maguire,” he said. “How do I wake up?”

“I don’t know,” Tobey Maguire admitted. “Open your eyes, maybe?”

“Yes!” Cal cried, stopping. “Wait. My eyes are open.”

“Oh. Yeah,” said Tobey Maguire. “Then I got nothing.”

There was a soft click as he slotted another piece into place. “Kinda wish you hadn’t lost the box, though. That’s only going to make this harder.” He looked up from the table. “It’s got almost five hundred pieces, you know?” he said, in quite an accusing tone, Cal thought, like this was somehow his fault.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Cal said. He flexed his fingers in and out. There was something burning through his veins. He could feel it churning around in there, boiling his blood.

How had he been poisoned? The Symmorium? It had to be. That gray mush must have been tainted.

“Never trust a big shark-person, Tobey Maguire!” Cal spat. “If I die, I want you to tell everyone those were my last words, OK? Never trust a big shark-person.”

Tobey Maguire nodded, then smiled slightly wistfully. “You know, that reminds me of a joke.”

“Oh?” said Cal, interested, despite the gravity of the situation.

Tobey Maguire waved a hand. “It’s too long. You probably wouldn’t get to hear the end.” He turned his attention back to the jigsaw. “Funny, though.”

A whisper rose from the darkness.

“Cal. Caaaaaaal.”

“Did you hear that?” Cal hissed.

Tobey Maguire continued with his jigsaw.

“This would be much easier with the box,” he muttered.

“Will you shut the fonk up about your jigsaw?” Cal spat. The more his blood boiled, the more explosive his temper threatened to become. “And help me get out of here! There must be something here that’ll help me get out, or wake up or whatever. Some sort of hint, or clue, or…”

“It’s a puzzle, alright.”

“You can say that again.”

“Yep. A real puzzle.”

Cal sighed. “I know! I heard you the first time. Now how do I get out?”

Tobey Maguire tutted and leaned back in his chair. “OK. I thought you’d have worked it out by now, but it looks like I’m going to have to step in.” He lowered his eyes very deliberately to the jigsaw. “Huh?” he said. “Hmm?”

“What? What are you doing? Stop looking at the fonking…” Cal gasped. “The jigsaw? Is that it? Is that how I get out? You have to do the jigsaw?”

“You have to do the jigsaw,” said Tobey Maguire.

“Cal,” wheezed the voice from the darkness. “Caaaaaal.”

Muttering below his breath about ‘stupid jigsaws,’ Cal hurried to the table. “Step aside, Tobey Maguire,” he urged. He flexed his fingers, cracked his knuckles, then he set to work hunting for the two remaining corner pieces. “And find me the flat edges,” he barked.

The shadows grew tighter. The thing that was out there shuffled closer.

“Cal. I am coming for you, Caaaaaal.”

Tobey Maguire began depositing flat edged pieces onto the table. As soon as he put one down, Cal snatched it up and clicked it into place. “You see how much more efficient this is?” Cal asked. “Corners, sides, work inwards. Every time.”

“I have so much to learn,” said Tobey Maguire.

“That’s the first step,” said Cal. “Admitting you have a problem.”

Cal was just reaching for another of the pieces when his hand melted. It dribbled like hot wax onto the table, spattering across the partly-made jigsaw puzzle.

“Ooh,” said Tobey Maguire, wincing. “That is… That is unpleasant. Does it hurt?”

Cal studied the glistening stump of his arm and shook his head. “Surprisingly not,” he said, reaching out for a jigsaw piece with his other hand. It, too, bubbled and blistered, then flopped onto the tabletop.

The thing in the darkness dragged itself closer. “Caaaaaaal.”

“Shizz. OK, Tobey Maguire, you’re going to have to finish the jigsaw for me.”

Tobey Maguire gazed down at the table in horror. “But… But I can’t. I’ve been trying for hours. I’m not ready.”

“Now you listen to me, Tobey Maguire, and you listen good,” Cal snapped, with such ferocity the former Spider-Man actor immediately sat to attention. “You can do this, OK? You can build this fonking jigsaw. You are ready, you hear me?”

“I was born ready!” said Tobey Maguire.

“Well, no, evidently you weren’t, but you’re ready now, and that’s what matters. I believe in you, Tobey Maguire. You can do this!”

For a moment, there was no sound except the wheezing of whatever loomed out there in the dark. And then – finally – there was a soft click as Tobey Maguire pushed another jigsaw piece into position.

“I can do this,” he whispered. “I can do this!”

“Great! Now that piece, on the right,” Cal urged, nodding towards a small spread of pieces on the tabletop. “No, not that bit. No. No. No. No. No, not that one. Other one. No. No. Other other one. No. Jesus. No. N— Yes!”

The circle of light had almost closed around them now. Cal eyed the wall of darkness warily, and edged closer to the table.

“Now, put it top left,” he said. “No. No. Left. No. No. No, not…”

“My left or your left?” asked Tobey Maguire.

“What are you talking about? It’s the same left. We’re facing the same way. No. No. No. That’s bottom left, top left. Top left. Jesus fonking Christ, Tobey Maguire, there’s literally only one place where it could… OK. Good.” Cal took a deep breath, composing himself. “Right, now that piece over there. By your hand. No, the other hand. No. No. No, that’s the same fonking hand. The other…”

Cal threw up his stumpy arms and shook his head. “Ah, to Hell with this,” he said, then he turned on his heels, and threw himself into the dark.

* * *

Cal opened his eyes. He was upside-down. Or back to front.

Possibly inside-out, although that one was less likely.

He could see… what? Stone. Lots of stone. Flat, well-worn stone.

And pistons. Two metal pistons. They pounded against the stone. Quite quickly, Cal thought, although he was not yet awake enough to be sure. His head throbbed and his body shuddered every time one of the pistons hit another bit of the stone.

He closed his eyes again. The throbbing and the pounding continued unabated.

“Fonking idiot,” said the pistons.

“Hey!” Cal protested, but as he couldn’t be sure the pistons were talking about him, he couldn’t really muster the enthusiasm to argue any further than that. He did manage to raise a fist and shake it in a sort of ‘why, I oughta!’ gesture, so he was quite pleased about that, not least of all because he had fists again, and he was pretty sure that meant he had hands, too.

He opened his eyes. The pistons were still pounding the ground.

The ground! That was it. The stone was the sidewalk. The pistons were… what? Could they be feet?

Cal rummaged through his jumbled memory, making a shortlist of everyone he knew with metal feet. As shortlists went, it couldn’t really get much shorter.

“Mech?” he grunted. He peered at the pistons. “Are you Mech’s feet? What have you done with the rest of him?”

It was somewhere around this point that Cal realized he was being carried over Mech’s shoulder. The cyborg pushed through the crowded streets far easier than Cal had done, and drew far fewer grumbled complaints along the way.

“Woohoo!” Cal cheered, although it probably sounded a bit sarcastic, he decided. It wasn’t meant to be, and it was the thought that counted, so he didn’t bother clarifying.

The way the ground was moving wasn’t very pleasant, now that he looked at it properly. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was lying on the floor of the landing bay, with several faces all leaning over him, looking down. Mech was there, along with Loren, Miz and a deeply concerned-looking Splurt.

A couple of Parlooqs leaned over him, too. Cal smiled and gave everyone a wave. Yep, his hand was definitely back.

“Hey,” he said, propping himself up onto his elbows. “Everything OK?”

“No thanks to you,” said Loren. “What were you thinking? You almost died.”

“I know,” said Cal, rubbing his head. It ached where it had been in contact with the ground, and he got the impression Mech hadn’t put him down gently. “I think the Symmorium might have poisoned me. Maybe all of us.”

“What the fonk you talking about, man?” asked Mech. “The Symmorium didn’t poison us.”

“Air toxins,” said Loren. “The pollution down here is off the scale. You skipped out on your vaccination. You’re lucky Mech found you when he did, or you’d be dead by now.”

One of the Palooqs reached veeeeery slooooowly towards Cal’s chest. It was only then that Cal spotted the hypodermic needle there, its point buried right through his chest bone.

“Jesus! What the Hell is this?” Cal yelped.

“They had to get the vaccination working quickly,” Loren explained.

“So they jammed that sucker right into your heart,” said Mech, his metal jaw curving into a grin. “Bang! Right in there good.”

“Take it out!” Cal said.

The Parlooq wrapped the leathery pads of its furry hands around the syringe and withdrew the needle at what seemed to Cal to be far too leisurely a pace. He felt every inch of it slide out of his chest, then let his head drop as the thin metal strike was finally pulled out all the way.

The first Parlooq passed the needle to the second Parlooq, who deposited it into a bag, which he then sealed. This relatively simple process took almost a full three minutes to play out, and by the time the bag’s zip-lock was fully closed, Cal was on his feet and bouncing on the spot.

“Oh, man. I feel… better,” he said. “I feel good. I was hot. Like, really hot. Was that normal?”

“The planet’s slightly warmer than you’re used to,” said Loren. “But not enough so you’d really notice. It was probably the effects of the toxins.”

Cal nodded. “And no one warned me about the toxins because…?”

“Because you left before anyone got the chance,” said Miz, crossing her arms across her broad chest. “You, like, totally could have died.”

“But I didn’t,” said Cal. “So, all’s well that ends well.”

He turned to the two Parlooqs. “By the way, do either of you two know if there’s a Five Guys restaurant in the vicinity? I could swear I saw one on my way in.”

The Parlooqs exchanged a glance. It was quite a lingering glance, and forty seconds into it Cal found himself regretting having asked the question.

“Know what? It’s fine. Forget I said anything.”

“No,” said the Parlooq who had pulled out the needle.

“No?” said Cal.

“No. We… don’t… know.”

“Oh. OK.”

“If… there is… one.”

Cal nodded. “Right. That’s—”

“In… the…”

“Vicinity. Got you,” said Cal. “Not to worry.”

“Vicinity.”

“Message received and—”

“Sorry.”

“Seriously, it’s not—”

“About… that.”

Cal waited several seconds until he was sure the Parlooq was finished, then nodded. “No problem. Thanks for your help.”

He quickly about-turned before the fuzzy-faced little alien could embark on a reply. “So, Mech. Get the tracking thingy off?”

Mech nodded. “We did. I disarmed the explosive and stuck it to a freighter. It’ll be halfway to Nush by now.”

“I have no idea how far away that is, but it sounds good,” said Cal. He headed for the Untitled’s ramp. “So, we done here?”

“Uh, no,” said Mech. “No. I… I mean, Miz and me, we thought we might take a look around. Maybe grab something to eat, or whatever.”

Cal stopped.

Cal turned.

Cal grinned.

“Shut up,” said Mech.

“What?” said Cal, feigning complete innocence. “I didn’t say a word!”

He looked from Mech to Miz and back again. “Is it a date?”

“It’s not a date,” Mech snorted.

“It’s totally a date,” said Miz.

Mech winced, but nodded. “OK, but it’s not a date date.”

“You be careful, Mech,” Cal said, putting his arm around the cyborg’s shoulders. Or partway around them, at least. “Remember, Miz is technically a married woman. Yes, through an arranged marriage, and her husband is an evil murderer who’s now trapped in some sort of Land of the Giants dimension, but still. People talk. That’s all I’m saying. People talk.”

Mech sneered and shook his head, then elbowed Cal away. “Come on, Miz,” the cyborg grunted. “Let’s go.”

“Have fun, you crazy kids!” Cal called after them. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Loren joined him in watching them go. “Is there anything you wouldn’t do?” she asked.

Cal thought about this for a while, then shrugged. “Mizette,” he said. “Which is probably why Mech ended up in his position, in the first place.”

Loren snorted. “You have a high opinion of yourself.”

“Well, come on. I mean, I’m clearly the looker on board, right? Among the guys, I mean.”

Splurt rippled at his feet. “OK, among the guys with legs,” Cal corrected. “Sorry, buddy.”

Loren shrugged. “I don’t know. Mech has that strong, brooding quiet type thing going on,” she said. “And his dial means you can have him smart and sensitive, or dumb and powerful. Best of both worlds.”

“Mech?” Cal spluttered. “Shut up. There’s no way you think Mech’s better looking than me.”

“I didn’t say he was better looking,” said Loren. “But maybe, you know, more attractive.”

“No way! Shut up!” said Cal. “Fine. You know what? If they can go on a date, we can go on a date.”

Loren shook her head. “No.”

“No what?”

“No, I’m not going on a date with you.”

“Well, I mean…” Cal began, but he sort of ran out of words at that point. He tried to make up for it by putting his hands on his hips and looking disapproving, but it didn’t really compensate.

“But I could eat,” Loren said. “And since we’re going to be hanging around here for a while, anyway…”

She pressed a button on a key fob. The Currently Untitled’s ramp raised and sealed shut. A moment later, the landing lights flashed twice, and the ship let out a high-pitched ch-cheep.

“I guess we might as well eat together.”

She gestured to the exit. The two Parlooqs were shuffling towards it, locked in tedious conversation. “Shall we?” Loren asked.

Cal blinked. He wasn’t quite clear on how they’d got to this point, but he was pretty sure it was a positive development. “Can we hold hands?” he asked.

Loren smiled. “Absolutely not,” she said, then she checked her blaster, ran a hand through her hair, and stepped out onto the street.

* * *

It took twenty minutes of wandering the city before they found somewhere they could both agree on. Cal had been trying to find them somewhere upmarket, but Down Here seemed to have a distinct lack of upmarket venues, and so he’d had to lower his sights a little. And then lower them even further, by quite a lot.

Loren, on the other hand, was content with a corner booth in a dark bar. She sat with her back jammed against both walls, so nothing could sneak up on her, and kept one eye on the door. It wasn’t that she was expecting trouble, exactly, but it never did any harm to watch for it coming.

Cal sat across from her, nursing a very small drink in a very large glass. Both the glass and the liquid inside it were a muddy shade of brown. The alcohol burned like cheap whiskey on the way down, then came back up as a series of short, mint-flavored burps. It was not unpleasant. It wasn’t pleasant, either, but he’d tasted worse.

Loren drank something clear and ever so slightly gloopy, like raw, watered-down egg white. She shuddered every time she sipped on it, but half a glass in and her body language had already started to relax.

Splurt perched on a stool at the end of the table, blowing bubbles in a soft drink through a long straw. It wasn’t actually a straw at all – he’d formed the red and white striped plastic tube from his own body – but it worked in much the same way.

The bar was dimly lit, poorly maintained, and sparsely attended. It was the kind of bar the cadets always went to during Loren’s Zertex training, although she’d rarely, if ever, been invited.

A screen was mounted above the seat backs on either side of the booth. The screen above Loren’s head showed a green-skinned woman in an expensive suit. She was standing before a largely blue map. Little cloud and rain icons appeared across the blue, and Cal realized he was watching the local weather forecast.

He glanced up at his own screen. It was showing a music video with a slim, long-legged but decidedly alien-looking woman dancing seductively on the hood of a spaceship. He wondered if it would be rude to ask Loren to swap seats.

“So,” Cal said. He tapped out a drumbeat on the scuffed and sticky tabletop. “Here we are.”

“We are here,” Loren agreed. She took two menus from the wall-mounted holder and passed one across to him. “Pick something. I’m hungry.”

Cal unfolded the menu. It was quite large and complicated, and he had to move his glass twice to make room. Once it was all the way open, he squinted and brought his face closer, trying to read the tiny typeface in the half-light.

For a small, seedy, backstreet bar, the range of food on offer was extensive. It was also, to Cal, at least, nonsensical.

“Twice-cooked Urph,” he read. “Noomnale stew. What the fonk is this stuff?”

Loren shrugged. “No idea. Local produce, probably.”

“Some pictures would be nice,” Cal said. “I mean, look at this one. It just says ‘Fauff’. That’s it. Just ‘Fauff’. What’s Fauff? Is it a soup? Is it a dessert? Will I have to tell them if I want it well done or rare? There’s not enough information!”

He scanned the menu for another few seconds, then began the process of folding it closed. “What the Hell,” he said. “I’ll try the Fauff.”

Cal raised a hand and beckoned for the waiter. To his dismay, he discovered the waiter was another Parlooq. With a leisurely nod of acknowledgement, the Parlooq began his epic journey across the room.

“We could be a while,” Cal said. “Decided what you’re having?”

Loren shook her head. “I’m thinking either the Toposh Surprise – although, I don’t know what Toposh is, so it’ll be a double surprise – or, yeah, maybe the Fauff.”

“It’s a fun word to say, that’s why I went for it,” said Cal. “Fauff. See? I’m just hoping it doesn’t turn out to be a baby on a spike or something.”

“That would be less fun,” Loren agreed.

She folded her menu up. Cal was still in the process of doing the same. It had gone well for the first few folds, but it was becoming less clear now what he needed to do next. He suspected he’d made a terrible mistake somewhere along the way, and so decided just to abandon the whole endeavor and force the partially collapsed menu back into the holder, instead.

Cal clicked his tongue against his teeth. “So.”

“You said that, already,” Loren told him.

“I know. I just don’t want to get started on the real conversation – you know, the good stuff – until the waiter arrives. Otherwise I’m going to be saying something really clever and witty, and he’s going to come in at the wrong time, and… well, it’s going to spoil everything, is basically what I’m saying.”

“Cal,” said Loren. She nodded to Cal’s left. The Parlooq stood there, slowly licking the point of a pencil.

“May I… take… your order?”

“Sure thing!” said Cal. “I’ll have—”

“Please?”

“Sure. I think I’m going to have the Fauff,” Cal said. “Although… it isn’t a baby on a spike, is it?”

An expression of surprise crept very slowly across the Parlooq’s face.

“No…”

“OK, great.”

“It isn’t…”

“Gotcha.”

“A baby…”

“On a spike. Good to know.”

“On a spike.”

“Yep. Way ahead of you,” said Cal.

Loren crossed her arms on the table and leaned forwards. “Can you tell me a bit more about the Toposh Surprise?” she asked.

“At-at-at, no!” said Cal, interrupting. He tapped the waiter’s notepad. “She’ll have the Fauff. Two Fauffs. That’s it.”

He physically ushered the Parlooq away. “Thank you now, that’s everything. Thank you.”

Cal sat back in his seat to find Loren grinning at him. “Nice save,” she said.

“You did that on purpose,” said Cal. He dipped a finger into his drink and flicked it at her.

“Of course,” Loren said. “But, uh…?”

She glanced sideways to the end of the table. Splurt was still perched there, blowing bubbles in his drink. Cal’s face fell. “Oh, shizz. Splurt, did you want something?”

Splurt’s blobby body briefly grew a neck, which allowed him to nod the part of himself that currently stood in for a head. Cal groaned. “Shizz. Seriously? Listen, buddy, I don’t think I can face talking to that guy again to change the order. You can have some of my Fauff, OK?”

Splurt sunk slowly back into his usual squidgy ball shape and resumed blowing into his straw.

Loren leaned back. “OK, so coast’s clear. Where’s this sparkling conversation you promised me?”

“It’s coming right up, that’s where!” said Cal.

His mind raced. Talking, under normal circumstances, was not something he had a problem with. Or rather, a lack of talking was not something he had a problem with. ‘Talks too much’ was something that many a school teacher had raised as a concern, and he was, generally speaking, a stranger to awkward silences.

But now, sitting in an alien bar on an alien world, trying to smooth talk an alien while another alien blew bubbles in his drink and watched on, Cal felt his smooth-talking charm dry up. He still had a range of winning smiles he could use, and he employed one now as a sort of distraction technique. It would only buy him a few seconds, though. He had to think of something to say, and fast.

“So, uh, how was your day?”

Loren raised her dark eyebrows. “Um, well, pretty much the same as yours,” she said. “Fighting a giant spider, hit by photon torpedoes, partially chewed by a big fish.”

“At least you didn’t die,” Cal said.

Loren shook her head. “True. You have me beat there.” Her eyes went to Cal’s chest, which not too long ago had been reduced to a scorched and gaping hole. It was back now, as good as new.

“I still don’t understand how that was even possible,” she said.

Cal shrugged. “The life force thing, I think. What’s his name – witch doctor, village elder guy, or whatever – gave me all the life force he had left. I don’t know, but I’m choosing to believe I won’t be able to die until it runs out.”

“And when will it run out?” Loren asked.

Cal shrugged. “No idea. But it’ll be interesting to find out.”

He drained his glass, hissed quietly, let out a series of toothpaste-flavored belches, then indicated Loren’s glass. “Come on, get that down you. I won’t have you holding me back.”

Loren swirled the contents of the glass around, then tipped the whole lot down her throat. She grimaced, shuddered, then placed the glass on the table, upside-down.

“Your round.”

Cal didn’t respond. She picked the glass up and waved it at him. “Cal? Hello? More drinks.”

“Loren.”

Something about the tone of his voice made her take notice. She’d thought he was looking at her, but he was looking above her head, his gaze fixed on the little screen mounted above her chair.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, but Cal just nodded at the screen.

Loren turned in her seat and saw her own face gazing back at her from the display. A moment later, the image changed to show Mech, then Miz, and finally Splurt. Splurt pulsed excitedly when he saw himself on the TV, but Loren knew it was nothing to celebrate.

“What about you? They didn’t show you.”

“I was on first,” Cal told her, glancing around and lowering his voice to a whisper. “Probably because, you know, I’m the most important.”

They sat in silence, watching the news report together.

“They’re upping the reward,” Loren said. “Twenty million credits to anyone who brings you in.”

“I thought this was, like, neutral territory?” said Cal. “Why are they showing this?”

“Because there are bounty hunters all over this sector,” Loren said. “Sinclair doesn’t know where we are, so he’s going to get the whole galaxy looking for us, and make finding us very worth their while.”

“Did I ever tell you how much I hate that guy?” Cal muttered.

“Once or twice,” Loren said. “We should get going before anyone recognizes us.”

“And miss out on the Fauff? Are you kidding me?” Cal said. “It’s fine. We’re tucked away out of sight. Trust me, no one is going to recognize us.”

“Well, well, well,” growled a voice. Cal and Loren both looked past where Splurt was sitting. Something monstrous stood there, a baton in its hands and murder in its eyes. “It appears we’ve got some celebrities among us.”

The thing placed a hand on Cal’s arm. Cal looked down at it, slowly and deliberately, then raised his gaze.

“You’re going to want to take your hand off me, pal,” said Cal. “Or I’m afraid I’ll have to do something we’ll both regret. But mostly you.”

The alien’s bat-like nostrils flared. “Oh? Is that a fact?” it said, revealing dozens of pin-sharp teeth. “Well, then, how about you show me just what you think you’re going to do?”

Six

The bar’s front window exploded as a flailing shape crashed through it, showering the crowded street in fragments of glass.

Pedestrians screamed and ducked and ran. The flying figure slammed backwards against the pole of a street light, spun around it, then landed heavily in the road.

Tires screeeeeched. Something that looked like a drug-fueled concept design for a new type of Hummer skidded to a halt just inches from the fallen man’s head.

“Fonk me,” Cal wheezed. “That was close.”

Huffing and groaning, he pulled himself back to his feet. Horns blared at him. The passers-by who hadn’t run for their lives scowled and shouted at him. Cal gestured to the broken window.

“What? What are you angry at me for? It’s not like I did it on purpose!” he protested.

There was a large sliver of glass wedged into his forearm. From the variety of stabbing sensations in his face, he guessed there were a few buried there, too.

“Ooh. Ow. This is going to hurt,” he whimpered, taking hold of the piece in his arm. It pulled free with a nauseating plok that made his legs go weak. Cal watched the wound shrink, then vanish, and quickly plucked the sharpest and most painful pieces from his face.

“OK,” he muttered, rolling his shoulders and cricking his neck. “Round two.”

Roaring, Cal launched himself through the broken window and into a full-scale bar fight. Almost immediately, an elbow crunched into his face, stunning him into silence. A fist like a Test Your Strength machine hammer whummed towards him. He ducked and fired half a dozen jabs into the ribs of someone large and bull-like, then yelped as someone else caught him from behind and flipped him onto the bar.

Glasses shattered. Pain flared. Half a packet of dry-roasted space peanuts scattered onto the floor. Cal kicked, hit nothing, then doubled up until his head and knees nearly met when the hammer-sized fist pounded down on his stomach.

He made a noise that he’d never be able to replicate again, no matter how hard he tried. Some of the burny-minty alcohol he’d recently consumed shot out through his nostrils, making his eyes water, then he unfolded again and his head hit the bar with a thonk.

The fight had started well enough. He’d managed to get in a fairly solid right hook before the ugly guy with all the teeth could react.

From there, though, it quickly went downhill, as it became apparent that the ugly guy with all the teeth was not working alone.

Almost the whole bar was in a state of violent upheaval now, with just two notable exceptions. The first of these sat on a tall stool just a few feet along from where Cal currently lay. He was a large guy with the worst skin Cal had ever seen on a living creature before. It was dry and parchment-like in some places, positively gangrenous in others. He wore a hat, not unlike a Fedora, pulled low on his head, and an overcoat with the collar turned up to the ears. He looked like an old gumshoe detective brought back from the dead, Cal thought.

And, as it happened, Cal was right.

The man sat sipping his drink and gazing blankly ahead as the chaos and violence exploded behind him.

“Hey. Little help here?” Cal wheezed.

“Sorry, pal. Ain’t my problem,” the guy replied, in a voice like gargling gravel. He raised his glass in a toast to Cal, then leaned back as powerful hands sent Cal sliding along the bar top, and crunching into the wall at the far end.

The other notable exception to the violence was also perched on a stool with a drink in front of him. Unlike the gumshoe, however, this one was blowing bubbles into his. Splurt gazed into the glass, marveling at how the liquid rolled and popped with each puff. It was, he thought – or not ‘thought’, perhaps, at least not in the conventional sense – the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

A few feet away, Loren blocked a punch, dodged a kick, then shattered an arm before it could reach for a blaster. Something with long metal dreadlocks and shorter-but-still-long-enough metal fingers slashed at her. She spun into a twirling kick, driving the heel of her boot into the thing’s bottom jaw and snapping its head to the right.

“Raaaaargh!” A dome-headed neckless brute charged at her, bent double. Loren leapfrogged him, then fired a kick out behind her, driving the guy head first into – and partially through – the wall.

Something large and crab-like dived at Loren from behind, his pincers preparing to snap shut around her head. A split-second before they could, a slimy green tendril swatted him to the floor, cracking the chest plate of his shell.

Splurt blew into his drink, and watched the bubbles dance and play.

Across the bar, Cal dragged himself upwards in time for a long-haired dwarf to headbutt him in the groin. Pain, nausea, and a vague regret for ever having been born bloomed upwards from Cal’s testicles, but he held himself together enough to grab his tiny attacker by the hair.

“C’mere, you little shizz,” Cal muttered. With a grunt of effort, he swung the guy around. The dwarf roared in a surprisingly deep voice as he flailed around in a wide semi-circle, knocking back an oncoming tide of attackers.

With a rrrip, the hair Cal was holding tore free and the little guy soared over the bar, crashed through a number of expensive-looking bottles, then rolled to the floor.

“Smooth,” said the gumshoe.

“Thanks,” Cal wheezed, and then a fist caught him across the cheek, spinning him around.

An arm wrapped around Cal’s neck from behind. A hand clamped down on his head, the fingers squeezing his skull as if testing it for ripeness. Cal heaved at the arm, but it was like an iron bar across his throat.

An iron bar that began, very deliberately, to squeeze.

“That reward didn’t specify dead or alive,” a voice hissed in Cal’s ear. “So guess what one I’m going for.”

The voice became a hissing giggle. Cal drove an elbow backwards. Once. Twice. The giggling continued. “That the best you got?”

The floor turned to quicksand. Cal ran through his list of options, realized it contained only two, half of which involved dying, and went for the other one. His thumbs found his attacker’s eyes, and he pushed.

The grip on Cal’s neck tightened for a moment, then went loose as the alien holding him pulled away, temporarily blinded. Cal turned and threw a few limp punches. There was very little power behind them, but his attacker was already off-balance, and the blows were enough to put him down.

Something gruff and orc-like in appearance marched purposefully in Cal’s direction. Cal made a letter T shape with his hands.

“Wait. Time out, time out,” he wheezed, then the orc’s foot hit him in the chest like a speeding car, launching Cal backwards across the bar. He hit a table and his momentum flipped him clumsily over it, before bringing it crashing down on top of him.

From his position on the floor, he saw Loren kick someone in the throat, then drop into a sweeping kick that knocked over two other mean-looking alien dudes. She made it look… poetic, almost, and were it not for the throng of violent bamstons closing in around him, Cal could have watched it all day long.

Groaning, he pulled himself out from under the toppled table. Five guys (but not those five guys) advanced menacingly on Cal. Any one of them could have torn him in half with their bare hands, and he suspected they’d very much enjoy doing so, reward or no reward. They just looked like the type.

He quickly calculated the odds of him beating them all in a fair fight – none whatsoever – and switched to Plan B.

“OK, fine,” Cal said. “I’ll order you something off the menu. Happy now?”

Five green tentacles whipped past him. Five hulking aliens were lifted off their feet and repeatedly slammed against the walls, floor and ceiling until they first stopped screaming, and then stopped moving.

Dropping the mostly unconscious, partly dead mob, two of the tentacles hoisted Cal to his feet, while the others fixed his collar, smoothed his hair, and pulled up his pants. The rest of Splurt, meanwhile, continued with the bubble blowing.

All fixed up, Cal turned to see Loren knocking out another of her attackers. The guy slumped to the floor, joining the piles of whimpering flesh already sprawled there. Cal nodded his approval and rubbed his hands together, as if wiping off dust. “And let that be a lesson to you,” he said, pointing to the fallen thugs.

Sirens blared in the distance. Cal groaned. “Looks like we won’t be getting dinner,” he said. Splurt pulsed unhappily, blew one final big bubble, then dropped from the stool and rolled across the floor to Cal’s side. Loren joined them, a little out of breath. Her pale blue skin glistened, just lightly, with sweat.

“So much for our date,” Cal said.

“Wasn’t a date,” Loren told him. “But if it had been…” She gestured to the unconscious figures on the floor. “Then best date ever. That was actually a lot of fun.”

“Ha. Yeah,” said Cal. His shoulder clunked as he relocated it back into its socket. “Fun!”

They made for the door, but were stopped by the gumshoe with the skin complaint. “So, you three got a sizeable bounty on your heads.”

Loren reacted first. She lunged with pointed fingers for the man’s throat. He caught her wrist without blinking, and pushed her hand away.

“I got no interest in collecting,” he said. “Your business ain’t my business.”

“Then why stop us?” asked Cal. “And sweet Jesus, what happened to your face? You do know you’re, like, decaying before our eyes, right?”

The gumshoe flicked out a business card. “You ever need new identities, I might be able to help.”

Cal took the card, looked at it, then snorted. “‘Dan Deadman’?” he said. “Seriously? That’s your name? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s perfect, but… Seriously?”

“Think about it,” said the gumshoe. He touched the brim of his hat, then stepped over a lifeless torso and returned to his stool.

“Uh, OK, then. We’ll keep that in mind,” said Cal. He gestured towards the front door and offered Loren his arm. “Shall we?”

To Cal’s surprise, Loren hooked her own arm through his. “Aye aye, captain,” she said. “Lead the way.” She burped, covered her mouth with her hand, then erupted into giggles.

“Wow,” said Cal, shooting Splurt a sideways glance. “What the fonk was in that drink?”

* * *

By the time Cal, Loren and Splurt made it back to the Untitled, Mech and Miz were already waiting for them.

“You’re back early,” Cal remarked. He looked at them both, expectantly. “Well? How did it go? Should I be in the market for a new hat?”

“Some shizznods totally attacked us for no reason,” said Miz. “Like, twenty of them, all with blasters and stuff.”

Cal winced. “Ooh. Those poor people.”

“Yeah, it was totally awesome,” Miz grinned.

“We got in a fight, too,” said Cal. “I dealt with most of them. But, you know, Loren and Splurt helped. Then we met a weird, very possibly dead guy who offered us new identities. So that was nice.”

“Cool,” said Miz. “We were going to go somewhere else, but then we heard cops, so came back here, and… uh…”

Her voice tailed off. She looked across to Mech, who stood in front of the viewscreen, his back to it. He seemed unusually somber which, for someone who had built an entire persona around being a miserable, glum-faced bamston, said a lot.

“Everything OK?” Cal asked, looking between Miz and Mech. “What’s up?”

“Y’all might want to sit down,” said Mech. He turned his gaze towards Loren. “Especially you.”

“What? Why?” Loren asked, her giggly, light-headed air solidifying into something much more rigid. “What’s happened?”

Mech gestured towards her chair. “I’ll stand,” she said, although she didn’t quite know why. “What is it?”

“When we got back, we got word of an attack against the Symmorium,” Mech said. “They lost eighteen ships.”

“Jesus,” said Cal. He let out a long breath. “Still, I mean, that’s war, I guess. Right? We knew this sort of thing was going to happen.”

“They weren’t military ships,” said Mech.

His words hung there in the air for a while, like no one wanted to take them in.

“Not civilian?” said Loren.

Mech nodded. “Refugee transporters. Women and children, mostly. Clearly marked, couldn’t have been a mistake.”

“So, wait. What?” said Cal. “Zertex deliberately blew up eighteen ships filled with women and kids? How many were on board?”

It was Loren who answered the question. “Must have been thousands,” she said.

“Pretty much,” Mech said. “Fighters intercepted. They took out most of the attacking fleet. Even managed to capture the Legate in charge alive.”

“Well… good,” said Loren. “It’s a war crime. He needs to pay.”

Miz raised a hand. “Wait, can I tell her?” she asked.

“Tell me what?” said Loren.

“The Legate they captured,” said Mech. “The one who ordered all those civilian deaths. It was your brother.”

Loren stared blankly back at him, like she was still waiting for him to speak. She blinked several times, frowned for a while, then raised her eyebrows. “Hmm?”

“Your brother,” said Miz. “And, like, I thought you had to be the worst person in your family. Shows what I know.”

“Miz,” said Cal. He said it so sharply that Mizette didn’t so much as tut or sigh or cross her arms in response. He put a hand on Loren’s shoulder. “Hey, you OK?”

Loren shrugged the arm away. “Get off me,” she said. She took a step towards Mech. “Which one? Which brother? I have two.”

Mech shrugged. “Didn’t say.”

Loren slid into her seat. “Then get them on screen. Hail the Symmorium. I want to know.”

“You think that’s the best idea right now?” asked Cal. “Maybe we should take a break, think this through, then—”

“Get them on the fonking screen!” Loren spat, pointing angrily at Mech. “Now.”

Mech looked to Cal, who shrugged. With a clanking and whirring of robotic parts, the cyborg turned and tapped his controls. Several seconds passed, and then the Megalodon-esque face of Subsent Takta filled the screen.

“I am surprised to hear from you,” the Symmorium growled, before anyone aboard the Untitled could open their mouths. “I thought you had made your position clear.”

“And yet you stuck a tracking device to our ship that could blow us up,” said Cal.

“A precaution, nothing more,” said Takta.

“Who was it?” demanded Loren. “Who attacked you?”

Takta’s black-hole eyes shifted just a fraction from Cal to Loren. “You mean who murdered our women and children?” His lips drew back, revealing a brief flash of teeth and gums before he was able to bring his anger under control. “Legate Dash Loren of Zertex.”

Loren closed her eyes. “Oh, no. No,” she whispered.

“And you’re sure?” said Cal.

“We are.”

Cal glanced at Loren, then back to the Symmorium. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“He will be found guilty of the slaughter of four thousand innocent people, and he will be executed,” said Takta.

Loren opened her eyes. “I want to be at the trial. You can make that happen, right?”

Takta snorted. “Trial?” he said. “There will be no trial. This animal does not deserve one.”

Loren stood up. “So, what? You’re just going to kill him?”

“Yes!” Takta snapped. He swallowed, composing himself again. “However, because of our debt to you, we will make his death quick. There are many of us – myself included – who find the very idea of mercy towards him to be… distasteful. But we are the Symmorium, and we always pay our debts.”

“Look, please, just let me see him,” said Loren. “I can figure this out.”

“He killed thousands of us!” roared Takta. Specks of spittle covered the screen. “Our women. Our children. They all died. Screaming. Burning. Helpless. And you think you can somehow change this? You can somehow ‘figure this out’?”

“No, that’s not what… Please, Takta,” said Loren. “Just let me see him.”

Takta breathed heavily for several seconds before he spoke again. When he did, his voice was much flatter and more controlled. “I will arrange a video feed,” the Subsent said.

“Thank you.”

“It will be visuals only,” said Takta. “You may watch him die.”

“What? No, wait!”

The feed snapped off, returning the screen to darkness. Loren stared at it, willing it to come on, willing Takta to come back, to change his mind.

“Wow, they’re going to broadcast his death?” said Miz, breaking the silence. She shrugged. “Guess I’ll get the popcorn.”

Loren spun in her chair. Her arm stretched out, her blaster pointed directly at Mizette’s head.

“Whoa! Whoa! Easy, tiger,” said Cal, raising his hands and stepping into the line of fire. “Loren, put the gun down. Miz, apologize.”

“What? No way!” said Miz.

Cal spun on his heels, his face darkening. The voice that came out of him was not one the crew had ever heard before. “Apologize now, or get off my ship.”

Miz blinked in surprise. She sneered and looked over at Mech for support. He shook his head.

“You were out of line, Miz,” Mech told her.

Mizette huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine. Whatever. I’m sorry, OK? There.”

Cal nodded. “Thank you.”

He turned back to Loren, hands still raised. She had already lowered the blaster, and was hurriedly keying co-ordinates into her console.

“Uh, whatcha doing there?” Cal asked.

“We need to go. I need to see Dash.”

“Uh-uh, no way,” said Mech. “That ain’t happening. I mean, I’m sorry and everything, but I think I made my position clear. I don’t want no part in no war.”

“This isn’t war. It’s family,” said Loren.

“Ain’t my family,” said Mech. “And anyone who can do what he did, sounds like he ain’t someone you really want to have in yours, either.”

“We’re going,” Loren insisted. The Untitled hummed as the engines ignited.

Mech tapped his controls. The engines died. “No,” he said. “We ain’t.”

“You tell her, Mech,” Miz purred.

“Miz, you’re not helping, shut up,” said Cal. He turned to Loren. “Mech’s right. We can’t go. What would be the point?”

Loren didn’t meet his eye. “Because Dash wouldn’t do this. Lokak – my other brother – maybe. But not Dash. Not Dashy. He wouldn’t.”

“But he did,” said Mech. “They got footage.”

“Like Sinclair had footage of the Symmorium destroying Pikkish, you mean?” Loren snapped. “I’m telling you, he didn’t do this. I know he didn’t.” She finally looked at Cal, her eyes blurred with tears. “I have to go. Even if he did do this, he’s family.”

Cal looked down at his feet for a moment, before raising his head again. “Family ends, Loren. Sometimes, you know? It just ends. One minute, everything's great, then ... gone. And you cry, and you drink excessively, and you make disparaging remarks about the god of your choosing, and then you move on.”

He squatted down beside her chair. “And that’s all you can do. You move on. You put it behind you, hard as that may be.” He reached for her arm, but she moved it away. “If we go, we’re in the war. Their war, not ours. We risk everything, and for what?”

“For my family,” Loren said.

“Sorry, not a good enough reason,” said Cal, more curtly than he’d meant to. “He killed children, Loren. Thousands of women and children.”

A tear rolled down Loren’s cheek. Her voice was barely a squeak. “But he’s my brother.”

Cal nodded, just once. “I know. I know. But he did something terrible, and painful as it may be, you have to let him pay the price.”

Loren wiped her eyes, then looked from Cal to Mech to Miz. She didn’t find the smirk she was expecting on Mizette’s face. Instead, the wolf-woman almost looked sorry for her. That was the final straw.

“Fine. You know what? Fine. Don’t help me,” said Loren, jumping to her feet and heading for the door. “I’ll find a way to get there myself.”

“Wait, Loren. Come back!” Cal called, but the only answer was the clang of the landing ramp dropping. He turned to the others. “Come on, help me get her back,” he said.

“Why?” Miz asked, but she stood up, anyway. She followed Cal and Mech into the corridor. “It’s not like we even need her now we’ve got Kevin.”

“Very kind of you to say so, ma’am,” Kevin chimed.

Cal led the procession down the ramp and into the landing bay. Loren was already gone, so he hurried to the exit and out onto the heaving street.

“Shizz. Can’t see her,” he said, standing on his tiptoes to try to get above the sea of heads. “Either of you two spot her?”

Mech peered above the crowds while Miz sniffed the air.

“Can’t see her,” Mech said. Miz tilted her head back and forth, her nostrils flaring.

“I got her scent, I think,” she said. “Failure and desperation. That’s her, right?”

“Where is she?” Cal asked.

Miz sniffed. “That’s weird. It’s like she’s—”

There was a sudden blast of heat and a high-pitched whine as the Untitled’s engines fired.

“No! Shizz, Loren, don’t!” Cal yelped, running for the ramp as it began to raise. Mech caught him just in time as the ship’s thrusters flared blue. The ship rose jerkily into the air, clanged against the landing bay wall, clipped the docking gate, then climbed vertically towards the clouds.

“Oh,” said Cal, as the Currently Untitled was lost to the layer of gray. “Well isn’t that just fonking marvelous?”

Seven

Cal stood in the center of the landing bay, looking up. He had been utterly convinced that the ship would reappear shortly after it had disappeared into the cloud cover, but several minutes had passed since then, and he was now considerably less confident than he had been.

“Try calling her again,” he urged. Mech sighed, but tapped one of the buttons on his arm. It let out a slightly irritated bleep.

“No response. She’s turned off the comms,” Mech said.

“Or she’s crashed and blown the ship to pieces,” said Miz. “Which is probably more likely.”

“Miz, will you cut it out?” Cal snapped. “Jesus. Be serious for one minute, OK?”

“Coming from you, that’s kinda rich, man,” Mech grunted.

“And I totally was being serious,” said Miz. “She nearly crashed, like, what? Three times on the way down? And that was before she was all angsty and boo-hoo, or whatever. I mean it, she’s probably crashed and died. We should move out of the way before the debris lands on us.”

“Just… just stop,” Cal said.

Miz sighed. “Fine. Whatever.”

Cal watched the clouds. “Come on, come on,” he whispered, so quietly even Miz’s ears didn’t pick it up. “Where are you?”

Suddenly, the underside of a ship’s hull appeared through the gray haze. “Yes!” Cal cried, but his excitement was short-lived. The ship coming down wasn’t the Untitled. It was older and clunkier, and could very well have been built in someone’s back garden. Probably a very long time ago.

The old rust bucket spluttered and coughed out plumes of black smoke as it dropped unsteadily onto three of its four landing legs. The fourth leg let out a long corroded-sounding screech as it partially unfolded, then it locked up, midway to the ground.

A moment later, the whole ship toppled sideways and fell over.

A square window in the side of the ship rolled down and a head covered in short black fur that was so shiny it looked soaking wet popped out. “Excuse me, is this Down Here?” it asked.

“Yeah,” said Mech.

“Thank you, kindly,” said the furry thing. It nodded, then began winding up its window.

“Wait!” said Cal. “Did you see a ship on the way down? Kind of four little wings, blackish-greeny-gray. Maybe silver depending on how the light’s hitting it?”

“Why, you know, I believe I did,” said the furry thing. “It was going up as I was coming down. Good and fast, too. Flew right on out there into space, like shizz off a shovel. Friend of yours?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Cal. “Yeah. I think so. Thanks.”

“Happy to oblige!” said the furry guy, then the window rolled up and he vanished further into his ship.

“So, what now?” asked Mech.

“We go after her,” said Cal. “We have to.”

“Well, uh, no. No, we don’t,” said Miz.

“Even if we wanted to, what we supposed to do?” asked Mech. “Flap our arms? She took the motherfonking ship!”

“Then we’ll get another one,” Cal said. “We’ve got the money, right? Two million credits. That’ll buy us something. It doesn’t matter what condition it’s in, we’ll just buy the first one we see and get after her.”

Behind him, the furry thing’s ship belched out a spray of sticky black fluid. “OK, we’ll buy the second one we see.”

Mech shook his head. “Our money? It’s tied to the ship. She’s got it all. We ain’t got shizz.”

“Really? Well, that’s… stupid,” said Cal, taken aback. He shook his head. “But we’ve still got some money. I’ve got maybe two hundred credits on me.”

“That ain’t going to buy a ship,” said Mech. “That won’t even buy you a bumper sticker.”

“OK, well we’ll steal a ship then. Anything at all.”

There was a clank as an exhaust pipe fell to the ground. “Again, obviously not that one,” Cal said. “But we’ll find something. We have to do something.”

“Says who?” asked Miz. “Whatever happens to her, she brought it on herself. Good riddance, I say.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Cal.

Miz shrugged. “Maybe I do.”

“Mech, tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“Tell her we have to go after Loren.”

“I already told you,” said Mech. “I ain’t getting dragged back into no fonking war.” He tapped his chest. It gave a hollow metallic ding. “I already got me more than enough battle scars. Don’t need any new ones.”

Cal stared at Mech, then at Miz for a long time. He shook his head. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this. This is Loren, guys. She is one of us.”

Mech’s eyes narrowed as he considered Cal’s words. “You know, maybe I was right the first time we met. Maybe it was right, what I said.”

Cal frowned. “What? When? What did you say?”

“There is no ‘us’.”

“What? What are you talking about?” said Cal. “Of course there’s an ‘us’. We’re a team. We’re Space Team.”

Mech grunted. “Since I met you, I have had pretty much the worst few weeks of my life,” he said. “I been shot at, I been blown up, I’ve been thrown into space, had ugly mutant freaks try to do all kinds of crazy shizz to me, been taken over by a virus, attacked by twelve feet tall spiders and almost eaten by a big motherfonking fish,” Mech said. “And half of that? Half of that was just today.”

“You think you’ve had it bad?” Cal spluttered, squaring up to him. “I was abducted by aliens. Everyone I knew before that? They’re all dead. Since then, I’ve been shot, tortured, and I almost choked to death on a squirrel’s tits. Trust me, Mech, my life hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park lately, either.”

“Well,” Mech said. “That just proves my point. This…” He gestured around at the three of them. “Whatever this is. It’s toxic. It ain’t good for anyone.” He looked down, just for a moment. “And it’s over, man.”

Cal shook his head. “No. No, it isn’t. We’re stuck here together.”

“We might be stuck here,” Mech agreed. “But we sure as shizz don’t have to be together.”

“Come on, Mech,” Cal pleaded. When he got no response, he turned to Mizette. “Miz?”

Miz shrugged. “I’m sticking with Mech.”

Mech shook his head. “I think it’s best if we all go our own ways.”

Miz’s eyes widened, giving a fleeting glimpse behind her usually apathetic mask. It lasted for just a split-second, there one moment, gone the next. She slumped all her weight onto one hip and crossed her arms even more deliberately than usual. “Fine. Whatever. See if I care.”

Cal nodded, utterly defeated. “OK. OK, then. Fine. If that’s what you guys want, then, I guess I can’t stop you.”

He lunged at Mech and grabbed his arm. “Aha! Or can I? Now we’ve got no choice but to stick together.”

Mech caught Cal by the back of the neck and hoisted him into the air. “Sorry, man,” said Mech, setting Cal back down on the ground. “It’s over.”

The cyborg’s neck whirred as he peered out onto the street. Sirens continued to wail in the distance. “Now, what was it you said earlier about ‘new identities’?”

* * *

“You sure this is the place?”

Mech looked down at the card Cal had given him, then up at the grimy, gray building before them. It was a tall, almost Gothic-looking construction with once-detailed cornicing that was now crumbling and decayed. Most of the windows were shuttered, and two grotesquely misshapen gargoyles perched up on the edge of the roof, peering out across the city.

Considering the size and shape of some of the things Cal had encountered recently, the fact he instantly applied the term ‘grotesquely misshapen’ to the statues really spoke volumes about them.

“This is it,” said Mech. He approached the heavy wooden doors. Several buttons were fixed to a metal plate on the wall, faded nameplates taped beside each one. The name next to the top button read: ‘Deadman Investigations.’

Mech peered at it, looked down at the card, then over his shoulder at Cal. “It says he’s some kinda detective. You sure about this?”

“He could get us new identities. That’s what he said.” Cal shrugged.

“How do we know we can trust him?” asked Miz.

“Trust him? I could barely even bring myself to look at him,” said Cal. “But I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

He pressed the button. Nothing appeared to happen.

He pressed it again. They waited.

“Maybe he ain’t home.”

Cal pressed the button again, and held it this time.

After a few seconds, a voice crackled angrily from the panel. “Alright, alright. What?”

“Uh, hi. We’re looking for a, uh, Dan Deadman,” said Cal.

“And?”

Cal’s mouth formed a few different word shapes before settling on one. “Have we found him?”

“Who’s asking?”

“We met in a bar,” said Cal. “While I was sliding along it, head first.”

There was another moment of silence. Cal looked back at the others and shrugged, then a buzzer sounded and the doors clicked open.

“Top floor.”

“Uh, yeah, OK. Thanks,” said Cal, but the intercom remained silent.

Mech leaned back and looked up at the towering Gothic construction. “You know something?” he muttered, as Cal and Miz vanished through the doors. “I have a very bad feeling about this…”

* * *

Six flights of rickety-looking, but surprisingly solid stairs later, Cal, Miz and Mech stood outside a door. It was a fairly old-fashioned door, even to Cal’s mind. It was mostly wood, but with a frosted-glass window taking up a pretty large portion of the top half.

Written large on the glass were a series of symbols. As Cal looked at them, the translation chip in his eyeball shifted the shapes around until they formed the words: ‘Deadman Investigations’. Below that, in smaller letters, was: ‘No case too weird*’ and smaller still at the bottom: ‘*Exclusions apply’.

“Should we go in?” Cal whispered.

“How the Hell should I know?” Mech whispered back.

“Maybe we should knock first.”

“Fine. Then knock.”

“You knock.”

“What? No, I’m not— Just knock on the fonking door,” Mech hissed.

Cal bit his lip. “I mean, he did say we should take a seat, and there aren’t any seats out here, which would suggest he meant for us to just come in and…”

“Guys,” said Miz in her normal volume. “Why are you whispering?”

Cal and Mech exchanged a glance. “I don’t know,” Cal admitted.

Miz rolled her eyes and pushed past him. She opened the door into a small reception area, albeit one distinctly lacking in receptionists. There was a small desk in the corner which looked like it had probably come flat-packed and been put together in a rush, an ancient filing cabinet that would almost certainly require mechanical assistance to open, and a row of worn-looking chairs with the padding poking out through rips in the fabric covers.

There were three hooks fixed to the wall just to the left of the door, with identical overcoats and hats hanging from each.

Directly opposite the door they’d come through was another one. This one had the same frosted glass, but with only one word printed on it this time: ‘Office’.

A shape moved behind the glass. The door opened, just enough for a head to appear. Without his hat and overcoat disguise, Dan Deadman looked even worse. Cal tried to smile, but as he was dry-heaving at the time, it wasn’t a particularly convincing one.

“I’m with a client,” Deadman said, in that voice like crumbling granite. “Take a seat. This won’t take long.”

The door closed. A blind was pulled down. “Now, where were we?” asked Deadman, his voice muffled.

Cal and Miz took a seat. The chair groaned worryingly beneath Mizette’s weight, but somehow found the strength to keep standing.

“You think we’ll get to choose our own names?” Cal asked.

Mech shrugged noisily. “No idea.”

From inside the office came a voice. It sounded like chanting.

Cal looked around the reception area. He drummed his hands on his knees. “I hope Loren’s OK,” he said. “D’you think maybe…?”

“We’re not going after her,” said Miz.

“Yeah, man, I thought I made myself pretty clear?” said Mech. “Besides, she’ll be OK. She’s got Splurt with her.”

Cal stood bolt upright. Inside the office, the chanting rose in volume. The blinds clacked against the door, as if moving on a sudden breeze.

“Splurt’s with her!” Cal yelped. He realized he couldn’t decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

He sat down again.

“Great, now I’ve got something else to worry about,” he muttered. “I hope they’re both OK.”

Miz shrugged. “We’ll probably never know.”

“What? What are you talking about?” said Cal. “They’ll be back. Or we’ll find a new ship and—”

“No, ‘we’ won’t,” said Mech. “I already told you, but I’ll say it one more time. I ain’t getting involved. I can’t, man. I just can’t.”

From inside the office there came a drawn-out roaring sort of sound, not unlike a chainsaw. Cal raised his voice to be heard above it.

“What are you so afraid of? I mean… I get it, I don’t really want to go to war either, but you’re an indestructible robot man. You’ve got a dial on your chest that makes you stronger. You’re practically built for fonking war.”

“I was built for war. What, you think I was always like this?” Mech roared. The chainsaw sound spluttered to a stop halfway through, and he lowered his voice.

“You think I was always like this?” he said. He clenched and unclenched his fists. The whirring they made seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. “I was a kid,” he said, picking a spot on the wall and fixing his gaze on it. “Fourteen. Barely. They… recruited us. Me and the other street kids. Most of them older. A few younger. Officially, they were ‘an independent militia organization,’ but they got their money from Zertex, same as the rest.”

Mech shifted on his feet. From inside the office there came a low howling moan, as if a large baboon was having something unpleasant done to it.

“Get your dirty hands off my stapler,” snapped Dan Deadman’s muffled voice. There was a crash, and silence fell again.

“They put guns in our hands, pointed us towards what they told us was ‘the enemy’,” Mech continued. “I watched kids I’d grown up with cut down. I heard their screams. There was one kid – I forget his name – he was standing right in front of me, holding his insides in his hands.”

“Jesus,” Cal muttered.

“Was he OK?” asked Miz.

Cal shot her a sideways glance. “I’m going to hazard a guess at ‘no’.”

“He died. Right there with me watching,” Mech said. His face twitched, as if resisting the memory. “Staring at me with this look that said, ‘Do something. Help me. Why are you just standing there?’”

Something thudded against the other side of the office wall, rattling the filing cabinet. “Oh, so that’s the way you want to play it?” Deadman growled.

Mech gave himself a shake. “Most of the kids I knew, they died in the first few hours. Sometimes, late at night, I’d wonder if they were the lucky ones. See, I got shot, same as the rest of them, ‘cept I lost a leg, not my life. And legs? Well, legs are replaceable.”

Cal looked Mech’s towering metal frame up and down. “So, what? You got shot in, like, every single part of your body? Man, that’s unfortunate.”

“Not quite,” Mech said. “But once I’d lost an arm and the other leg, I guess they figured they may as well go all the way.” He tapped himself on the chest. “This is how I woke up. I ain’t slept since. Ain’t needed to.”

Cal blew out his cheeks. “Well that was a pretty fonking horrifying story. Thanks for sharing.” He looked at Miz. “So, that’s his excuse for not wanting to go to war. What’s yours?”

Miz shrugged and examined her nails. “Because it’s, like, so boring.”

“Fair enough, then,” said Cal, and then a long, piercing scream from the office cut him off before he could say any more. It lasted almost a full thirty seconds, before fading into silence.

The blind behind the frosted glass rolled up. They heard the man on the other side clearing his throat, and then the door opened. Deadman’s shirt was half untucked, and splattered with oily black spots. He nodded at them, then beckoned them in.

“Next.”

Cal and Miz stood up. All three of them exchanged a glance, then Cal led the way into the office.

“Uh, nice place you have here,” said Cal, gazing around at the room. It looked like the bar fight from earlier had relocated here. A chair lay smashed on the bare floorboards. An ornate, vaguely star-shaped symbol had been scrawled on the floor in something red and sticky. Cal chose not to investigate it further.

A large, dusty desk had been toppled over, and more of the oily black substance that stained Deadman’s shirt was plastered across a wall, and across one of the room’s two small windows.

Whoever the guy had been talking to was nowhere to be seen. There were no power tools lying around either, but there was a door that probably led to a closet. Again, Cal decided not to investigate further.

“Sorry. You caught me at a bad time,” said Deadman, picking up the desk with one hand and nudging it towards the center of the room. Cal noted he only used one hand to pick up the desk, because he only appeared to have one hand. Or one arm, for that matter.

A quick look around the room revealed the other arm lying on the floor over by the window. Cal wasn’t sure Deadman was aware of this, but also wasn’t quite sure how best to let him know.

In the end, he settled for pointing, and saying, “Uh…”

Deadman glanced across to the arm and shrugged. Partially. “Huh? Oh, yeah, it’s fine. I’ve got spares.”

He looked around for his chair, saw it broken into pieces, and leaned against the desk, instead. “Now, what can I do for you?”

Cal glanced back at the others. They were both staring at Deadman in mute horror. Miz’s nostrils had clamped tightly closed in an attempt to block out the guy’s odor which was, even to Cal’s far less sensitive aroma palette, somewhat overpowering.

“So, ‘Deadman Investigations,’ huh?” said Cal. “So… what? You’re a space detective?”

“A what?”

“A space detective,” said Cal.

Mech sighed. “Don’t even ask, man. Just let it go,” he warned Deadman.

“I’m a Down Here detective,” said the gumshoe.

“Yeah, but Down Here is… well, it’s in space, isn’t it?”

Deadman frowned. “Only in the sense that everything is in space.”

“I tried that, man,” Mech said. “I tried to explain that, but he don’t listen.”

“Huh,” said Cal. “I guess you’re right. I never thought of it like that.”

“What?!” Mech spluttered. “I’ve told you that a hundred motherfonking times!”

Cal shrugged. “Maybe he just explains it better.”

“I used those same words. I used those exact same words!” Mech protested. “Man, I swear sometimes I want to…” He bit his fist for a moment, then crossed his arms in a sulk. “Just get what we came for.”

Cal turned back to Deadman. “Sorry about him. He gets over-excited. You said you might be able to get us new identities.”

Deadman shook his head. “I said I could get you and your lady friend identities. I don’t know these two.”

“You didn’t know me, either,” Cal pointed out.

“You can tell a lot about a person from the way they fight. And who they choose to fight against,” Deadman said. “I know you enough.”

“Oh. Right,” said Cal. “Well, these two are friends of mine.”

Deadman nodded slowly. Had it been any faster, Cal reckoned, his head might have fallen off. “And what about your lady friend from the bar?”

“She’s… gone,” said Cal. “For now.”

“Huh,” Deadman grunted. “Shame.”

“Not really,” said Miz. She frowned. “And, like, no offence to you, Mr… Stinky dead guy, or whatever, but what are we even doing here? Why do we need new identities?”

Cal opened his mouth to reply, then closed it. “Well,” he began, chuckling. “I mean… Mech? This was your idea. Remind Miz why we need new identities.”

“Let me guess,” said Deadman. “Because you’re stuck here with no way off planet. Because your metal man here, he’s done some reading up on this place. He knows ID is a must-have if you want to survive, and he knows your current identities are too compromised. That about the size of it?”

Mech nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Oh,” said Cal. “And here I thought you just wanted to change your name.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered theatrically to Deadman. “His name’s Gluk Disselpoof. Gluk fonking Disselpoof!”

“That is unfortunate,” said Deadman. He stood up from the desk. “I’ll take your pictures. I’ll make a few calls. We can get you set up within the hour.”

“Ooh! Ooh! Do we get to choose our own names?” asked Cal. “Because I’ve got a few ideas. Off the top of my head, Burt Reynolds, Buck Rogers or Bonnie Tyler. And before you say it, yes, Bonnie can be a man’s name, too.”

Deadman shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to choose.”

“Oh,” said Cal, deflating. “Right.” He pulled together a smile. “Ah, well. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be perfect!”

Eight

The door closed behind Cal as he stepped out onto the sidewalk, staring down at the laminated square identification card in his hand. His picture was on it, in a cool sort of hologram that showed him in 3D when he rotated it. He looked OK. Good, even. The picture was fine. The picture was not the problem.

“Nob Muntch?” he said. “I mean… what kind of name is ‘Nob Muntch’?”

“It’s a fine name,” said Mech. He stressed the next word quite emphatically. “Nob.”

“I’m just glad to be out of there,” said Miz. “That guy totally reeked.”

“To be fair, his arm had fallen off,” Cal pointed out. “That’s probably higher on his list of concerns than body odor. Although, he didn’t seem all that bothered about the arm thing, either, but…” He sighed. “Jesus. Nob Muntch.” He looked at the others. “What did you get?”

Mech glanced at his ID. “Thark Dandar.”

“What?!” Cal spluttered. “How come you’re Thark Dandar and I’m Nob Muntch? I want to be Thark Dandar!”

“Well you can’t. Besides, it’s got my picture on it,” said Mech. “Sorry, Nob.”

“Shizznod,” Cal mumbled. “How about you, Miz?”

Miz glanced down at her ID card, then looked again. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said. She held the card up for the others to see. “Lashanda Loren. I’m the new Loren!”

Cal winced. “That is an awkward coincidence,” he said. “Still, ‘Lashanda’ though. That’s got a certain ring to it, right?”

“Lashanda Loren,” Miz said. She scowled. “I sound like a—”

“Porn star?” Cal guessed. “I know, I didn’t like to say, but it totally does.”

“Like a fonking idiot,” Miz said.

“Oh. Yeah. Right,” said Cal. “That, too.”

“Still, it could be worse,” said Mech. “One of us could be called Nob Muntch.” He let out a little gasp. “Oh. Wait.”

“Very funny, Gluk Disselpoof.”

“You mean Thark Dandar.” Mech smirked.

“Whatever.” Cal slipped the ID into his back pocket. “Right. So… what do we do now?”

They stood for a while, listening to the sounds of traffic and footsteps passing the end of the alleyway. They were tucked down a narrow lane, well off the beaten track, but the ever present din of the city was never far away.

“Like I said, we go our own ways,” Mech told him. “It’s safer that way. Anyone looking for us, they’re looking for a group.”

“No,” Cal corrected. “They’re looking for a team.”

“Either way. They ain’t looking for us on our own. We’ve got more chance of blending in if we split up.”

“Uh, hello?” said Miz. “Blending in? Totally not my thing.”

Mech shrugged. “Place this size? They got everything and everyone. You ain’t the only Greyx. I ain’t the only cyborg. You…” He looked to Cal. “Well, you might be the exception. Don’t suppose they got many folks from Earth out here.”

“I think I saw a Five Guys,” said Cal. “But I don’t know if that means anything.”

“My point is, we stay together, we’ll be found. We split up and, I don’t know. Maybe we won’t be. It’s the best chance we have,” Mech said. “Besides, like I already explained, things have not gone well for me since I met you. I’m hoping that if we ain’t together, my life might improve.”

“Yeah, but, no,” Cal began, searching for the right combination of words that would change the cyborg’s mind.

Mech thrust out a hand. Cal stared at it blankly for a few seconds, then reluctantly shook it. “Good luck, man,” said Mech.

“Uh, OK. Yeah,” said Cal, too shell-shocked to say much more. “You, too.”

With a nod, Mech turned and marched along the alleyway. He glanced back, just once, then vanished into the crowd. Miz’s head tick-tocked between the alley’s mouth and Cal. With a sigh, she shot Cal a look that bordered on apologetic. “Sorry,” she said. “Mech, wait up!”

She hurried after him. Cal just watched as she elbowed several pedestrians out of the way and plunged after the cyborg, leaving him alone.

“See ya, guys,” he mumbled.

He looked up at the gray clouds overhead. Still no Loren.

He took out the ID and looked at it again. He wasn’t really sure why, exactly, but suspected it was because he had no idea what else to do, and this was as good a way as stalling as any.

Finally, once he’d studied every last part of the card, he put it back in his pocket.

He patted the pocket, checking the card was still there.

It was.

He interlocked his fingers and stretched, then yawned. It was quite enjoyable.

He tried the same again, but with less success this time.

He blew out his lips, making a sound a bit like a horse.

“Right, then,” he said, then he made his way towards the end of the lane, stepped out, and was swept away by the crowd.

* * *

Down Here was the biggest city Cal had ever visited in what was, by human standards at least, a relatively well-traveled life. He knew this because he was standing on yet another unfamiliar busy sidewalk, studying a van-sized metal billboard onto which was pasted a map.

At first, he hadn’t recognized it as a map. He’d thought it was some sort of modern art exhibit, with billions of randomly scribbled lines marking the page. There was a circle of wood and glass, about the size of a dinner plate, attached to the frame by a long, thin cord, and when he looked through it, the scribbles and marks became just large enough for him to make out streets, buildings and the occasional green park.

After twenty minutes of searching, he’d found a red arrow marked ‘You Are Probably Here’. When he moved the magnifying glass away, the arrow became a tiny red fleck he had to squint to find.

So, he knew where he (probably) was. That didn’t exactly help him figure out what to do next, though. He’d been alone for less than an hour, and already his problems were mounting up. He was getting hungry. He had no place to stay. His name was still Nob Muntch. This was not shaping up to be one of his better days.

He’d spent his last few credits on the fake IDs, but he wasn’t overly worried about that. Back on Earth, he’d always found ways to make money. Admittedly, it usually involved running a con on some unsuspecting rich mark, and the last time he’d tried it, he’d wound up sharing a jail cell with a semi-naked cannibal, but it wasn’t like he was exactly rolling in alternative options.

First thing first, he had to find someone that looked like they had money to spare. That ‘to spare’ part was important. Other grifters he’d known had been content to take everything from their marks, but that had never been Cal’s thing. He took only what he thought they could afford to lose. That was how he’d been able to justify it to himself, and how he could sleep at night.

The only problem was, based on what he’d learned about Parloo, Down Here was stuffed with poor people. Up There, in the vast, majestic cities in the sky, was where the action was. He leaned back and looked up. The cloud layer still blocked most of the sky, but he could see the occasional glimpse of electric blue from the engines holding the cities aloft.

“Uh, excuse me,” he said, stepping into the path of an anxious-looking woman with a head that instantly made him think of bananas. The woman darted around him, her expression turning to one of absolute terror before she was lost in the crowds.

“Hey. Hi. Sorry, can I…?” he asked another passer-by. The look this one gave him was far more aggressive than frightened, then he, too, was swallowed by the throngs.

Cal tried a few more times to get someone’s attention.

“Hey there!”

“Sorry to bother you…

“Look, don’t run, OK? I’m not going to… Wait, come back!”

He grabbed at thin air in frustration, like he could somehow choke the life right out of it. Then, once he’d realized this was making everyone give him an even wider berth, he stopped.

With a grunt of effort, Cal heaved himself onto the billboard map and clambered all the way to the top. Wobbling unsteadily, he looked out over the heads of the city’s pedestrians, clapped his hands several times, then cupped them around his mouth.

“Attention, please!” he called. Most people pointedly ignored him, but a few looked his way. “Can anyone tell me how I can get Up There? Is there, like, a cab service, or, I don’t know, an elevator or…?”

Something struck him in the center of the chest with a faint whump. It didn’t hit him hard, and it didn’t hurt, but it somehow stuck there, a few inches below his neck. It was the size and shape of a hockey puck, with a blinking green light right in the middle.

“What fresh Hell is this now?” Cal muttered, and then the device began to vibrate.

Something like an electric shock snapped him to attention and made his whole body go rigid. He felt his muscles contract uncomfortably, but it didn’t hurt, exactly. What did hurt, however, was when he toppled backwards like a fallen tree, and cracked his head on the sidewalk.

He tried to say something – “Ow,” probably – but his teeth were clamped together, his throat was tight, and there was a fluttering darkness rapidly creeping in from the corners of the sky. Cal saw the clouds go from gray to black. He saw a figure, all in white, step over him.

And then, he saw nothing at all.

* * *

Cal sat up with a start, a gasp, and a jumble of incomprehensible vowels tumbling from his mouth. He was in a perfectly white, almost featureless room, and had been asleep at a long white table made of some sort of space plastic, to which both his hands were currently chained. His chair was at one end of the table, while a female alien with a long, beak-like nose and beady, cynical eyes, sat at the other end, watching him. Unlike Cal, she appeared to be free to come and go as she pleased.

The fake ID sat almost directly between them on the tabletop. There was a jug of water and an empty glass beside it. Cal smacked his dry lips together. A drink would be good, right about now. It might help with the drum solo currently pounding inside his skull.

“The Jolter has that effect,” said the woman. Her voice was as clipped and officious as her face suggested.

Cal frowned. “Huh?”

“You’re thirsty. Everyone is always thirsty.”

“Oh. Yeah. Can I get a drink?”

“Yes. But not yet,” said the woman. She shuffled a small stack of what looked like index cards. “Tell me, Mr Muntch, have you been Down Here long?”

It took Cal a few seconds to remember that he was the Mr Muntch she was referring to. “Hmm? Oh, uh, no, not really.”

The woman nodded curtly. “Uh-huh,” she said, clicking her tongue against her teeth.

Cal could vaguely recall his skull smashing against the ground. That wasn’t the spot where his headache was stemming from, so he guessed any damage he’d sustained had healed up. He tried to reach back there to feel for any bumps, but the chain restraints were too short to get his hands high enough. It wouldn’t occur to him until several hours later that he could just have lowered his head.

“What is this about…?” Cal spotted a name badge on the woman’s pristinely white suit. “Uh… Cellophane?”

“It’s pronounced ‘Kellofeen,’” the woman corrected in a sort of dull monotone that suggested she had to say that exact phrase a hundred times a day. “And this was originally about you causing a public disturbance, but that was before we uncovered a much more serious matter.”

“Oh,” said Cal. He locked and loaded one of his more charming smiles. “Huh. Really? Did you? Interesting. I can’t imagine what that might be.”

He glanced at the fake ID and ratcheted the smile up another few notches. “I mean, how serious are we talking, exactly?”

“Very serious,” said Cellophane, and her expression definitely backed that up. “The most serious crime of all.”

Cal gulped. “Murder?” he asked. “No, wait. It’s not genocide, is it? Because that wasn’t my fault.”

“Worse!” Cellophane spat.

“Worse than genocide?” Cal thought for a moment, but came up blank. “Double genocide?”

“You are unemployed, Mr Muntch.”

Cal blinked. “Sorry?”

Cellophane leapt to her feet and slammed both hands on the table with a sharp, sudden bang that echoed around the starkly bare room. “Unemployed, sir! You are not in employment!”

She glared at him with such ferocity he was sure he shrunk a full inch and a half. “Uh, yeah. I guess. Is that a problem? I mean, you know, compared to genocide?”

Cellophane continued her glaring for several lingering seconds, then lowered herself back into her chair. “This is a city of full employment, Mr Muntch. Full. Employment. We are proud of that fact, and we do not tolerate shirkers or malingerers Down Here. Everyone in the city works. Everyone contributes. Everyone plays their part.”

“Gotcha,” said Cal. “It’s just, like I say, I haven’t been here long.”

“According to our records, Mr Muntch, you have lived here for several years.”

Cal’s eyes crept to the ID card. “Ha! Really? Has it been that long? Wow. Time flies, doesn’t it?” He shrugged. “Well, you got me. I’ll go out and find myself a job right away. If you could just…” He held up the chains and rattled them encouragingly. Along the table Cellophane stared at him and shuffled her cards.

“I have taken your education and experience into account, and matched you with some available opportunities,” she said. “As you have neither education nor experience, these opportunities are limited. However, I’m sure you’ll agree, any one of them is better than the alternative.”

“What’s the alternative?” Cal asked.

“Death, Mr Muntch. The alternative is death.”

Cal sighed. Yep. This definitely was not turning out to be one of his better days.

“OK, then let’s hear them. What have you got?” Cal asked.

Cellophane’s eyes flicked to the first card. “A position has opened up in the Mines of Poktar.”

Cal leaned back in surprise. “Oh! Huh. OK. That sounds… interesting. What does it involve? Like, walking into the wind, trapped in an invisible box, or whatever?”

Cellophane gazed impassively back at him. “It involves digging holes in the ground.”

“What? Oh, the Mines of Poktar? Sorry, totally misheard. God, no, not that one. What else do you have?”

She flicked to the next card. Her nostrils flared and her lips thinned in distaste. “Late night attendant at Schmargart’s strip club.”

Cal raised his eyebrows. “I’m listening.”

“Duties would include serving drinks, taking tickets, and mopping… organic fluids from the protective glass screens surrounding—”

“Nope! Next.”

That card went to the back of the stack. Cellophane read the next one. “Ship valeter.”

“Ship valeter?” said Cal. “As in…?”

“As in someone who valets ships,” Cellophane replied. “Duties include cleaning inside and outside of vehicles, dealing with customers, and the safe disposal of chemical liquids. Must have good attention to detail, and own sponge.” She looked Cal up and down, silently appraising how likely he was to possess either of these qualities. “Do you have your own sponge, Mr Muntch?”

“Are you kidding me? You know what people call me? They call me ‘the Spongeinator’. I don’t have a sponge, no. I have a hundred sponges.”

“Why?”

Cal hadn’t been prepared for that. “Why?” he snorted. He licked his dry lips. “Why what?”

“Why do you have a hundred sponges?” Cellophane asked. “That seems like too many.”

“Well… that may be. To me, it seems like not enough!” Cal said, fully committing to the sponge thing. “More sponges, I say! Sponges for everyone!”

“We could provide you with a sponge, if required,” Cellophane said.

Cal nodded and quietly cleared his throat. “OK. Yes. That would be helpful. Thanks.”

Cellophane set the other cards down on the table, retaining only the top one. She began to tap on the desktop beside her. As she did, symbols illuminated briefly beneath her fingertips. Her eyes darted back and forth between the card and the table, as her fingers continued to drum out the increasingly lengthy series of keystrokes.

“Can I get a drink now?” Cal asked.

“Not yet.”

She continued tapping.

Cal eyed the jug of water. Condensation clung coquettishly to the outside of the curved glass, teasing him. God, it looked good.

“It’s just… I’m really thirsty.”

Cellophane’s typing faltered, then stopped. She looked from the card to her keypad and back again a few times, then fixed Cal with a somber stare as she held down a single button – presumably the backspace – for several seconds.

“Not yet,” she said again, then she very deliberately returned her eyes to the card and went back to tapping.

A number of minutes later – fewer than ten, but more than five, Cal reckoned – Cellophane stopped typing. There was a snarky-sounding bleep from the tabletop, and the woman made a tutting sound with her nose.

“They require an aptitude test,” she announced.

“An aptitude test? For using a sponge?” said Cal.

Cellophane nodded. “I’ve arranged for you to take the test within the hour. If all goes well, that should be the last you ever see of me. If it doesn’t… Well, let’s just hope that isn’t the case.”

“OK, sounds like a plan,” said Cal. “Now, can I get some water?”

Cellophane placed her card on the table with a click and reached for the jug. “I’m afraid this is for me, Mr Muntch,” she said, pouring herself a glass. “But you’re going to work at a ship wash. Soon, you’ll have all the water you could ever need.”

* * *

A little over three hours later, Cal sat back at the same white table in the same white room, held in place by the same metal chains as last time.

“Well, Mr Muntch,” said Cellophane, as she slowly tore one of her cards in two. “That didn’t go well, did it?”

The aptitude test had started well enough. Tanso, the owner, had been impressed at how quickly Cal had grasped the main thrust of the business – ‘make dirty ships clean’ – and, Cal liked to believe, was suitably dazzled by his sponge-wrangling skills.

Cal, for his part, quite liked Tanso and the other guys on the crew. Most of them were native Parlooqs, and their meticulous slowness made the speed of Cal’s sponge-work appear almost supernaturally fast by comparison. They were a pretty fun bunch, though, as long as you weren’t in any kind of rush, and that had been the problem.

It was the third customer that had done it. He was short, but wide, and wore a suit that practically had, ‘Ooh, someone’s doing well for themselves,’ emblazoned across all four tailored sleeves.

He’d flown down in something that looked like a pond-skater, with long thin legs that somehow managed to sparkle in the weak, cloud-filtered light. As far as size went, it was considerably smaller than the Untitled, but could probably have held five or so people at a push, as long as none of them valued their own personal space too highly.

Cal knew absolutely nothing about the ship’s performance, but its insect-like legs and chunky curves immediately won him round. This was the ship he was going to steal, he knew. If it couldn’t get him to Loren, it could at least get him Up There, and from there he could make plans to get off-planet.

The problem started when the customer opened his mouth. The Parlooqs always did an excellent job, but they did it slowly. Tanso had even turned it into a gimmick - ‘Ships cleaned while U wait a long time!’ – and the first couple of customers had known exactly what to expect.

When the guy in the suit started first shouting instructions, then firing insults at the Parlooqs, Cal had tried to ignore it. He’d filled his bucket, soaked his sponge, and set to work.

But they were nice guys. Too nice to have to listen to the things being shouted at them from the waiting area. Cal had felt the shame and embarrassment radiating off them in waves as they’d tried to fight against generations of evolution and hurry up. They just didn’t have it in them, though, and after listening to one too many bellowed slurs, Cal had force-fed the guy his sponge.

Tanso had not been as understanding as Cal had hoped, given the fact the customer had been abusing his staff. Midway through the next clean, another hockey puck sized device had landed on Cal’s back. He’d snapped to attention as electricity had jolted through him, and then found himself back here, as if the whole episode at the car wash had been a dream.

“It could have gone better,” Cal agreed. “I don’t know what came over me. But, to be fair, the guy was a total shizznod, and deserved everything he got.” He shifted uncomfortably. “However, I’m afraid I’m unable to return your sponge at the present time. Sorry about that.”

Cellophane exhaled through her long nose. “Do you wish to die, Mr Muntch? Is that your goal?”

“What? No,” said Cal. “It was just a misunderstanding, that’s all. Can I try again?”

“No. No, you can’t,” said Cellophane. She opened her hands, then clasped them together, signifying the conversation had reached its end, and that Cal’s life wouldn’t be far behind.

“There must be something I can do. There’s got to be another job. What about one of those other ones you mentioned? I can do one of them.”

“Gone,” said Cellophane. “All gone.”

“There has to be something,” Cal said. He smiled the best smile he could manage. “Right?”

Cellophane rolled her tongue around in her mouth, as if trying to wrestle it into submission. Finally, she tapped the hidden keyboard in her table. Cal tried prodding around on his end of the table, in case he had one, too. He didn’t.

“Oh. It seems you might be in luck, Mr Muntch. Following an… unfortunate incident in the workplace, a position has, in fact, become available.”

“Great! I’ll take it, whatever it is. Miner. Jizz-mopper. I’ll do it. Is there an aptitude test?”

“Not for this.”

“Even better! When do I start?”

Tap. Tap-tap.

“Tomorrow morning. I’ll just need to take a few details, like your address.”

Cal hesitated. “My address?”

“Yes,” said Cellophane. She lowered her head and peered at him, as if over a pair of invisible spectacles. “You do have an address, Mr Muntch?”

“Not currently,” said Cal. “I’m kind of between apartments at the moment. You know how it is.”

“No. I don’t.”

Tap-tap. Tap.

“In luck again, Mr Muntch. The position offers optional accommodation. Shared, of course, and in the Stagnates, but better than nothing.” Her head tilted slightly left to right, as she weighed this up. “Although, perhaps only just.”

“It’s a tempting offer,” Cal admitted. “You know, since it’d mean I wouldn’t have to die, or anything.” He thought for a moment, then nodded. “Deal. I’ll take it.”

“Excellent,” said Cellophane. She began tapping again. Cal waited until she was finished, this time, rather than interrupt.

“One question,” he said. “What’s the job?”

The desktop let out its overly-critical ding again. Cellophane steepled her fingers in front of her, and leaned forwards onto her elbows.

“Tell me, Mr Muntch,” she said. “Are you familiar with ‘Nana Joan’s’?”

Nine

Loren checked the controls, watched the stars streaking across the screen for a few seconds, then checked the controls again. She was trying not to think too much about Cal and the others. This was being made more difficult by Splurt, who had taken the form of Cal, and was sitting in his chair, glaring at her accusingly, while drumming his fingers on his arm rests.

“Look, I had to, OK?” Loren said, for the fifth or sixth time since they’d left Parloo. “He’ll understand. They’ll all understand.”

Splurt/Cal continued to drum his fingers.

“And it’s not like I’m abandoning them. Once I speak to Dash – once I sort this out – we’ll go back for them. This time tomorrow, we’ll all be laughing about this. Trust me.”

“I’m not convinced he’s buying it, ma’am,” intoned Kevin.

Loren glanced back over her shoulder. Splurt glared at her through Cal’s eyes.

“Yeah. I think you’re right,” said Loren. She looked up. “You believe me, though. Right, Kevin?”

“Well, that isn’t really my place to say.”

Loren shrugged, then checked the controls. “OK.”

“But I will say if you want me to.”

“It’s fine.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you, anyway,” Kevin informed her. “Here’s what I think, since you asked.”

“I didn’t. Well, I did, but I changed my mind.”

“Well, let’s pretend that you didn’t change your mind. Here’s what I think. I think you most probably intend to go back for them. I think you have every intention of attending to matters with the Symmorium, then returning to Parloo to retrieve the others.”

Loren turned to Splurt and gave a satisfied nod. “Thank you, Kevin. See?”

“I’m not finished,” said Kevin. “I think you intend to go back, but I do not believe that you ultimately will. While I have not known any of you long, it is obvious that the only reason you have survived any of your more recent exploits is because you did so as a group. Together.

“Where would any one of you have been when confronted with Kornack, for example?” Kevin asked. “Would you have been able to return Miss Sooss safely to her parents by yourself? And then deal with the subsequent complications?”

“Well, no, but—”

“By which I mean the giant spider.”

“Yes, I know, but… I’m not doing anything like that. I just want to talk to my brother.”

“The Symmorium made it clear they would not allow it,” Kevin reminded her.

“I have to try,” said Loren. “He’s family.”

“And that, ultimately, is why I don’t believe you will ever make it back to the others, ma’am,” Kevin said. “You have forgotten who your real family are.”

There was a moment of silence while Loren considered this.

“Also, there are eight Xandrie attack ships in pursuit and preparing to fire,” Kevin said.

“What?!” Loren spluttered, eyeing the sensors.

“Sorry, I possibly should have mentioned those earlier.”

Loren gritted her teeth. “Oh, you think?” she snapped, gripping the controls. “Kevin, get ready on weapons. Splurt, hold onto something!” She lowered her voice, addressing the next comment mostly to herself. “This could be about to get messy.”

* * *

Several hundred million miles away, Cal plodded through a narrow, cave-like tunnel, a bundle of thin, grubby towels and face cloths in his arms. Metal doors lined both sides of the rocky passageway, and Cal was reminded of those long walks on his first day in a new prison, passing all the other cells on the way to his own.

Eyes peered out at him through the barred windows in the closed doors. A few others stood partly open, and Cal caught glimpses of metal bunks, or empty slop buckets or, on one occasion that would likely haunt him forever, a particularly full slop bucket. Quite what it was full with, he had no idea, and prayed to any and all available gods that he never had the misfortune of finding out.

A uniformed man strode a few paces ahead of him, a cattle-prod-like shock rod weapon held at the ready. He had introduced himself as a ‘Resettlement Specialist,’ presumably because ‘Concentration Camp Guard’ had already been taken.

The Resettlement Specialist stopped outside a metal door that looked exactly like every other metal door they’d passed – aside from a few that had been smeared with blood and excrement – and performed quite a complicated about-turn that involved lots of high-knee action and swinging of arms.

“Nana Joan’s?” he said, so sharply and suddenly that it took a full three seconds for Cal’s brain to recover from the surprise.

“Huh? What? Yes. I mean… yes. That’s right.” Cal looked the door over. “Is this it?”

“This is your assigned living space,” the official explained. “You will find the rules clearly displayed on the wall within, and at any of the Re-Education Centers through the Stagnates. Follow them to the letter, and your presence here will be permitted.”

“Jesus. Re-Education Centers?” Cal said. He’d clearly meant it as a question, but the Resettlement Specialist was now engaged in another turning procedure, and either didn’t hear him or chose not to bother answering. Perhaps, Cal thought, it was just as well.

“Ha-hip!” the man said, for reasons best known to himself, then off he went, arms and legs swinging as he marched back the way they had come.

“Thanks for all the help,” Cal called after him. “And good luck with everything. Keep reaching for those dreams. I’m sure you’ll make an awesome Nazi someday.”

His voice echoed off along the passageways, and then bounced back at him, as if in reply. Cal looked at the door in front of him. The metal was pock-marked with scratches and dents, but it was mercifully free of body fluids. The little barred window had been covered by something on the other side, making it impossible for him to see through.

“Well, here goes,” he said, tucking his towels under one arm and reaching for the door handle. It was only then that he noticed the door didn’t have one. In fact, it didn’t appear to have any means of opening it at all.

He tried to give it a push, but it didn’t budge. He knocked, but the metal was too dense to do anything but hurt his knuckles.

He leaned forwards so his face was as close to the tightly-spaced window bars as he dared get without risking getting his nose stuck. “Uh, hello? Anyone in there? New recruit out here.” He glanced along the dimly-lit and roughly-hewn corridor. “I’d quite like to get inside now,” he muttered.

“Please state your name.”

The voice emerged from somewhere behind the door. It was female, but completely lacking in anything even remotely resembling warmth.

“Oh, hi there!” said Cal, brightly.

“Name not recognized,” the voice said, and Cal realized he was talking to a computer.

“Cal Carver.”

“Name not recognized.”

“Shizz, no, wait!”

“Name not recognized.”

Cal sighed. “Nob Muntch.”

“Name recognized. Welcome home, Nob Muntch.”

“Jesus,” Cal muttered. “Please tell me you’re not going to say that every time.”

What followed was the sound of a large number of locks disengaging. It went on for a good twenty seconds or more. This was already a solid-looking door, and Cal didn’t want to think too much about why it needed quite so many locks.

With a final buzz, the door clicked off the latch and swung open a few inches. Cal pushed it the rest of the way, and was confronted by three anxious faces, all lined up in a row. Or rather, by two anxious faces lined up in a row, and a third, less-anxious face, three feet lower down.

All three of them were, he guessed, male. He got the impression they were young-ish, but couldn’t quite say why. The condition of their skin, maybe, or that slight awkwardness to them that suggested they hadn’t quite mastered how their faces and limbs all operated yet.

“Uh, hi,” said Cal.

The left-most face trembled violently, like it was about to explode, but was, in fact, just nodding very quickly. “Why, hello dere, Mister!” it said, in a suspiciously booming voice. “How be you be doing dere today?”

The other two turned to look at him. “Why are you talking like that?” asked the little one.

“Yeah, Higgsy, what gives?” asked the other. “You sound like a freaking idiot.”

Higgsy blushed. At least, Cal thought he did. His face was orange, pock-marked with angry red acne, and a full fifty per cent larger than his body size suggested it should be. It gave the impression he was in the midst of a serious allergic reaction to something, and just seconds away from full anaphylactic shock. His eyes – all four of them - were also oversized, although that could have been something to do with the lenses of the goggle-like double-decker glasses he wore.

“I don’t know,” Higgsy admitted in a much higher and more nasal tone. “I just panicked. I’m not good around new people.” He wrung his pudgy hands and shot Cal a look of absolute anguish. “I’m not good around new people.”

“Sorry, he’s a total freaking idiot,” said Higgsy’s slightly taller friend.

This one had one of the most interesting skull-shapes Cal had ever seen. From the front, it looked like a tall rectangle, but when he turned sideways, the top part of his head stretched backward until it formed a point, before curving back down until it met the top of his neck. He looked like a particularly aerodynamic cycling helmet had been implanted beneath his milky-white skin.

There were dark panda-like patches under his eyes, but Cal couldn’t tell if that was normal for his species, or if he’d just had a particularly late night recently. His lips were a matching shade of black, though, so probably the former.

Most striking of all were his eyes themselves. They were almost a negative image of an eye, with the white bit black and the black bit white. Between the two was a faint iris of silver that brightened and faded as he spoke.

“Jork. Jork Doost,” he said, giving Cal a complicated three-finger wave.

“Uh, OK,” said Cal. “Hi.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Higgsy fretted. “I’m just not good around new people.” He patted his chest a few times and breathed deeply.

Jork rolled his eyes. “Total freaking idiot,” he reiterated.

Cal looked down at the smallest of the room’s occupants. He looked almost ‘normal’ – right number of facial features, head the correct shape and in proportion to the rest of his body, eyes not in the least bit freaky or weird. Even his skin was a hearty olive sort of tone that would have gone completely unremarked upon on Earth, albeit with a slightly glittering green sparkle effect on his temples and below his jawline. The most notable feature about him was his height – or lack of it. The top of his head barely reached the middle of Cal’s thighs

“And what’s your name, little fella?” Cal asked, smiling down.

A hush fell over the room. The temperature seemed to drop a full degree, and Higgsy’s hand-wringing increased in both pace and vigor.

The little guy rubbed his tongue against the inside of his teeth, then clicked it against the roof of his mouth. “OK, here’s the thing,” he said. “You’re new. Going by that accent, you’re from out of town. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. Mistakes were made. These things happen.”

His doll-sized face scrunched up angrily. “But if you ever refer to me as ‘little fella’ or words to that effect again, I’m gonna make you eat yourself, feet first. You got me? You’ll be a circle, feet in your mouth, just gnawing on bone, on your own fonking bone, chewing yourself up, like nananan. Choking on your own fonking feet.”

“Jesus,” said Cal.

“And you know what I’ll be doing? I’ll be dancing. I’ll be watching, and I’ll be dancing.”

He began to jig on the spot and clap his hands to a rhythm only he could hear. “Like so. You like this? Huh, you like this?”

He stopped. “Well, let’s hope, for your sake, you never see it again, because if you do…” He drew a circle in the air with one finger. “Feet to mouth, newbie. Feet to motherfonking mouth.”

“OK, OK. Got it!” said Cal. He thought for a moment. “Is ‘Shorty’ acceptable?”

“Fonk you, newbie! That does it! Hold me back, Jork! Hold me back, I swear!”

“Leave it, Alan, it’s not worth it,” Jork said, putting a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder.

“Alan?” said Cal. “That’s your name? Alan?”

“You gonna start on my name now, is that it?” Alan snapped. He raised his toddler-sized fists. “Oh, you got it coming now, newbie. You have got it coming now.”

“Don’t do it, Alan!” Higgsy yelped.

“Yeah, Alan, don’t. It’s not worth it!” agreed Jork.

Cal looked across the three faces, one furious, two concerned. “Do what? What’s he going to do?”

“He’s a Kholo,” Jork explained. “He’ll get super big and super strong, and he’ll tear this whole place down.”

“I will tear this whole place down!”

Cal looked from Alan to Jork and back again. “What, like a midget Hulk? How big are we talking?” He held his hand around shoulder-height. “Like yay high, or…?”

Alan began to breathe deeply in through his nose and out through his mouth. “Oh, man, it’s starting. I can feel it. Oh, you’re in trouble now, newbie. Shizz just got real. You’re in trouble now!”

“We’re all going to die!” squeaked Higgsy.

“Calm, Alan, calm,” soothed Jork. “Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.”

“I know how to breathe!” Alan snapped. He continued inhaling and exhaling, all the while glaring up at Cal.

“OK, look, sorry,” said Cal. “I was out of line. Alan, I apologize. Higgsy, Jork, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Cal.”

Higgsy’s already terror-stricken expression became even more so. “You mean you aren’t Nob Muntch?” he gasped. “Stranger danger, stranger danger!”

Cal produced his ID. “No, I mean, yes, I am. But most people call me Cal.”

Jork looked down at Alan to make sure he wasn’t about to explode, then took the ID and examined it. As well as looking at it, this also involved sniffing it and licking one of the corners. “Seems legit,” he said. “So how come people call you ‘Cal’?”

“No idea,” Cal said. He shrugged. “Never thought to ask.”

He looked around the room. It was exactly as cell-like as he’d expected from the glimpses he’d viewed of the other rooms. Two sets of bunk beds stood against opposite walls, running almost the full length of the cell. Beyond the barred one in the door, there were no windows anywhere, but then the entire complex was a five minute elevator ride underground, so that didn’t exactly come as a surprise.

There was a large cardboard box which seemed to be full of clothes, two buckets in the corner – one large, the other much smaller – and a plastic shower curtain that was presumably designed to offer some modicum of privacy while using said buckets.

The floor was concrete. The walls were brick. The ceiling was rough, exposed rock that had been more or less untouched, beyond the occasional piece of graffiti etched into it above the topmost bunks.

“It’s not much,” said Jork. “But you get used to it.”

“Right,” said Cal. “But I don’t plan staying long. This is just a temporary thing.”

Jork and Alan both grinned. Even Higgsy stopped fretting for a moment and managed something resembling a smirk.

“Yeah. Sure,” said Jork. “Temporary. Got it.”

“It is,” said Cal. “I’ve got a friend, she’s… away right now, but she’ll be back.”

“Oh, the newbie’s got a friend!” said Alan. “Ain’t that nice? He’s got a friend.”

“Listen, Nob,” Jork began.

“Cal.”

“Listen, Cal. We get it. We do. When I first started at Nana Joan’s, I didn’t intend sticking around, either. I had plans, you know? I was going to get off-world, see the stars, have adventures!” Jork’s smile became a shade or two less convincing. “That was four years ago. Haven’t seen a single star, yet.”

“Yeah, well I have,” said Cal. “Lots, actually.”

“Well, I hope you made the most of it,” said Alan. “Because you ain’t going to be seeing any more of them any time soon.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” said Cal. He took another look around the room, then dumped his towels on the only unmade bed. It was one of the two bottom bunks. He’d have preferred to be up top, but it’d be fine for a night or two. Just until Loren came back, or he found a way to get Up There. “So, you guys all work at Nana Joan’s, right?”

Higgsy shrunk back at the mention of the name, which Cal reckoned probably wasn’t a good sign.

“We do,” said Jork. He glanced at Higgsy. “Some of us longer than others, but… yeah. We do.”

“What is it?” Cal asked.

The others looked confused. “What?” said Alan. “What do you mean? You ain’t never heard of Nana Joan’s?”

“No.”

“You seriously haven’t heard of Nana Joan’s?” Jork asked.

“No.”

“He hasn’t heard of Nana Joan’s?” Higgsy added, his puffy brow creasing in confusion.

“No! Jesus Christ. I haven’t heard of Nana Joan’s! I think we’ve now established that,” said Cal.

Higgsy blinked and backed off in alarm. Cal sighed and raised both hands. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped. It’s been a long day.” He smiled as warmly as he could. “What’s Nana Joan’s?”

Jork chewed his black lips for a moment, as if trying to find the right words. “If you’re a customer - I mean, if you’re dining there - it’s whatever you want it to be. You know, within reason.”

“And if you work there?” asked Cal.

It was Alan who answered that one. “Only the worst place in the whole galaxy.”

Ten

Following an uncomfortable and agonizingly short sleep later, that had somehow still seen him get up too late for breakfast, Cal stood on a city street, gazing up at the building before him. It was early – criminally early, Cal would have argued – but already the street was filling up with pedestrians, all rushing to get to wherever it was they were going.

“I don’t get it,” Cal said. The restaurant in front of him didn’t mention Nana Joan. Not unless she was actually a he, and was in business with four other men. “This is a Five Guys. How can it be a Five Guys?”

Jork shrugged. “I don’t know what that is, but like I said, it can be whatever you want it to be.”

“It uses some kind of… mind stuff,” Alan explained, with a level of technical know-how even Cal found a little sketchy on the detail front. “It reaches into your brain and plucks out your favorite food joint, and that’s what you see.”

“It’s a form of psychically-enhanced ultra-targeted personalized advertising,” explained Higgsy, who had calmed down significantly since last night, but still shot Cal the occasional wary glance if he moved too suddenly. “It probes your subconscious and formulates its appearance based on what it finds there.”

“Like I said,” Alan grunted. “Mind stuff.”

“So… what? It’s a mind-reading shop?”

“It’s a mind-reading food joint,” Jork corrected. “It looks the way you want it to look to draw you in, then replicators take your order and serve you up whatever you want to eat.”

“Aha! Right,” said Cal, seizing on a word he understood. “I know about replicators, we’ve got one on my ship.”

“Ha! Yeah. Sure you do, newbie,” said Alan. He began pushing the restaurant’s swing door with both hands. It barely budged. “Someone give me some help here before I freak out and smash this thing to pieces.”

Higgsy reached a puffy-fingered hand over and pushed the door open. “There you go, Alan.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Any time! Always happy to help a friend.”

Alan shrugged. “Yeah, well, I ain’t your friend. We’re colleagues. I thought I’d explained the distinction?”

“Sorry, Alan. Sorry, I forgot,” said Higgsy, lowering his head.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I forgot.”

“It’s done. It’s dusted. Forget about it. I will say this - you’re an exceptional colleague,” Alan told him. “I just don’t like you. You know, on a personal level.”

They stepped inside, with Jork and Cal following.

“So if the replicators take the orders and serve the food,” asked Cal, “then what do we do?”

“We clean,” said Jork, and Cal immediately concluded that this was the understatement of the fonking century.

There were two hundred or more tables in the place, surrounded by benches, chairs and – to a lesser extent – space chairs. This last category, Cal reserved for seating that had been designed with the more eclectically-built alien in mind. They were all different in their own ways. Some had spaces for tails to slot through. Others had twice as many arm rests, or were reinforced with metal girders, or had a place for a second ass to sit.

On top of each table were discarded trays, dirty dishes, crumpled napkins, empty soda cups, greasy food boxes, and a whole variety of food-related debris, from sauce-covered bones to congealing lumps of something that looked like meat, but smelled like cheese. And not good cheese, either.

Sticky soda puddles dotted the trash-strewn floor. Fat, hornet-sized flies buzzed around a little mound of something that might, at best, be vomit. The stench of the place was almost unbearable, and Cal had to cover his nose and mouth with his arm to stop himself giving the flies a second helping.

“Jesus. OK, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Seen enough. I’m out.”

“What? No! You can’t go,” Higgsy said. “It’s not allowed. You’ll get in trouble.”

“I’ll take my chances,” said Cal.

He about-turned towards the exit. A small, cheerful-looking woman with puffy hair that closely resembled pale blue cotton candy stood between him and the door. She was around five feet tall, with a football-shaped face that was far wider than it was high. A liberal application of make-up had been applied to it, possibly with some kind of trowel-like implement. The make-up was presumably designed to hide her wrinkles, but only served to draw attention to them.

She had appeared silently, with nothing to indicate where she’d come from. Cal, however, seemed to be the only one surprised by her presence.

“What the—?” he spluttered, before composing himself. “Um. Sorry. Excuse me, lady. I was just leaving.”

As Cal tried to pass, the old lady’s puckered lips curved into a smile, and she laid a hand against his chest.

“Not so fast, dearie,” she said, in a voice that made Cal think of every grandmother who had ever lived. “You must be Nob.”

“Uh, yeah, something like that,” said Cal. He pointed towards the door. “But, like I say, I was just leaving, so if you don’t mind...”

He tried to push past her, but her hand stopped him going anywhere. It was like pushing against an iron girder. The woman’s smile stayed fixed in place.

“I’m afraid not, dear. You see, you work for me now. You don’t leave until I say you can.” The woman looked past Cal to the other three. “Boys? Aren’t you going to get to work? Wouldn’t want to be late now, would you?”

“Yes, Nana,” said Jork, ducking and bowing as he backed away. “I mean, no, Nana.”

“Thank you, Nana,” added Higgsy.

Alan didn’t bow or scrape like the others, but he did make a hasty retreat alongside them.

“So, yeah, anyway,” Cal began, but the old woman held up a finger and waited until the other three had vanished through a door leading to the back.

“Now, then, dear,” she smiled. “What were you saying?”

“You’re Nana Joan?”

“I am.” She lowered her hand. “I’m sorry I had to stop you leaving like that. I understand, it can be a little overwhelming when you first see it. The morning clean-up is one of the worst aspects of the job, and last night was particularly busy. It does get better, I assure you.”

She ratcheted up her smile and gestured towards the door Jork and the others had gone through. “Now, if you’d be so good as to join your workmates, we can get this place looking ship-shape.”

Cal glanced back at the restaurant. It looked as if the whole place had been trash-bombed from orbit. He shook his head and side-stepped past the proprietor. “Yeah, I’m going to pass,” he said. “Thank you for the opportunity. It was a pleasure to meet you. Good luck with everything.”

He’d barely gone a single step when the heel of Nana Joan’s hand struck his chest. There was a brief but all-consuming moment of pain, then he was suddenly moving at a much higher speed than he had been just a moment ago.

Backwards, too. That was unexpected.

His brain had just begun to warn his body to brace itself when he slammed into one of the tables. To the dismay of Cal’s skeleton, the table was very firmly fixed to the floor. Something that felt important snapped in his lower back region as he flipped awkwardly over the table, kneed himself in the face with both knees, then flopped onto the gooey scattered remains of a deeply unpleasant-smelling meal.

“Ooh, that’s not good,” he grimaced. He tried to stand, but his lower body wasn’t responding. “Shizz. My legs. I can’t feel my legs!”

There was a tingling in Cal’s lower back as his body hastily repaired itself. “No, wait, I tell a lie,” he said. He got to his feet in time for a flying plastic tray to whang him across the bridge of the nose. “Ow! Jesus! What the Hell, lady?”

THUNK. Another tray struck him on the forehead, snapping his head back.

“Fonk! Cut it out! Last warning,” Cal said.

Nana Joan ran at him, moving surprisingly quickly for a woman of her advanced years. Cal dodged around the table, keeping his distance. She still had that smile plastered on her face, but it had become even less convincing than her make-up.

“Back off, you mad old cow!” he cried, shoving a two-assed space chair between them as he continued around the table. “Look, I’m just going to leave, OK?”

He turned and ran for the door, tossing a couple of chairs behind him to slow the old woman’s pursuit. He was halfway to the exit when he saw the shadow growing around him. A quick glance back over his shoulder confirmed his suspicions – Nana Joan had launched herself off a table and was hurtling through the air towards him, her grin almost splitting her face in two.

Operating on instinct, Cal caught her with both hands and used her own momentum against her. “Fonk off!” he cried, sending her sailing towards another of the rigidly-fixed tables. She hit it hard, slid across it, then clattered into a wooden bench on the other side.

A fleeting moment of guilt made Cal hesitate, but then he was hurrying for the door again, determined to get out of there before—

The bench slammed against the side of his head, sending him staggering into an overflowing trash can. Annoyingly, unlike the tables, it wasn’t fixed to the floor, and his attempts to use it to steady himself failed pretty spectacularly. He went down in an avalanche of food waste and cardboard, slid several feet on a tidal wave of soda, then scrambled back to his feet in time for the bench to hit him again.

It slammed into his stomach like a battering ram this time, ejecting ninety per cent of his oxygen, and sixty per cent of his will to live out through his mouth in one sudden gasp. Bent double, he managed to look up just as the bench swung down. It struck a hammer blow on the side of his head, buckling his knees and driving him against the floor.

Nana Joan tossed the bench aside and approached the motionless Cal. His eyes were closed, the whole right side of his face already purple and swelling.

“Now, dear, let that be a lesson to you,” the old woman said, then her eyes went wide as Cal jumped awake, grabbed her ankles, and pulled. She flailed her arms as she toppled backwards. As she hit the ground, Cal was getting up, his fingers still wrapped around the bottom of her stocking-covered legs.

“Right, you asked for this,” Cal growled. He turned on the spot, heaving Nana Joan off the floor. The old lady was heavier than she looked, but by the time Cal had done one full rotation, she was swinging freely by the ankles, her arms flapping along behind her.

Thwack-thwack-thwack. She ploughed through several chairs, sending them bouncing across the floor. Cal spun faster, each turn raising Nana higher in the air until she was spinning at his chest height, completely horizontal.

With a final grunt of effort, he let her go. She flew a full fifteen or sixteen feet before slamming so hard into a table it partially tore free of the floor fixings. She bounced off it like a limp rag doll, did a full flip in the air, then face-planted onto a heavily reinforced space chair.

Nana stopped with her legs in the air, her wrinkled stockings and sensible shoes pointing to the strip-lighting on the ceiling. Cal watched the legs for a few moments until he was sure they weren’t going to start moving, gave a satisfied nod, then headed for the door.

Just two or three paces from freedom, Nana Joan’s shoulder hit him in the lower back. Cal’s face battered against the glass door, temporarily breaking his nose. “Ow, shizz!” he grimaced. He tried to turn, but Nana’s arm was suddenly around his throat, her other fist pulverizing his kidney area with a flurry of jackhammer punches.

“Stop it!” Cal hissed. “Jesus, what is wrong with you?”

Placing his feet on the door, he pushed backwards, driving the old woman against another table. She held on tightly, but she stopped punching him, at least. Instead, she reached over his head, stuck a finger up each nostril and pulled.

“Aaargh! Oh God, that hurts! Cut it out!” he yelped. When it was clear she wasn’t going to, he held up his hands in surrender. “OK, uncle, uncle! I give up.”

Nana held on for a few long, painful seconds, then shoved him away. He stumbled against another trash can, almost knocking over a stack of filthy trays.

Cal rubbed his throat as he turned. “I mean, seriously, was there any need for all that violence?” he asked, then he swung with three stacked-together trays, thumping them across the old woman’s cheek. Her head snapped to the right, but her smile didn’t falter. Cal lunged at her with a kick, but she caught his foot and twisted. Something popped in his knee and he briefly babbled in tongues.

One of Nana’s brogues rose sharply between Cal’s legs, the solid, sensible leather finding a couple of soft, exposed targets just waiting there.

Cal crumpled. His brain tried to figure out which of his many pains to focus on first, but couldn’t decide, so gave its full attention to Junta all at once, instead. Fortunately, most of the damage was healing, and Cal could already feel his knee pulling itself back into place.

The ball-shot still stung, though. And not just physically – mentally and, if he were honest, emotionally, too. Since he’d first been dragged into space, those little guys had suffered so much. It was getting to the stage where he felt he probably owed them a written apology, or at the very least a couple of beers and shoulder to cry on.

He looked up to find Nana Joan standing above him, a chair raised above her smiling head. “Wait, wait, OK,” Cal wheezed. “You win. I’ll stay. I’ll stay.”

Nana nodded. “Good. You can start by tidying up the mess you made.” She tossed the chair aside and pushed her smile to its limit. “And if you try to leave without my permission again, I’ll kill you. Understood?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got it,” Cal said. Nana held a hand out to him. He eyed it suspiciously for a moment, then accepted her help. She hoisted him to his feet in one clean jerk.

“Welcome aboard, dear,” Nana said. She licked her thumb and wiped a smear of blood off Cal’s cheek. “I’m just certain you’re going to love it here!”

* * *

Commander Junta of the Symmorium knew his career was over the moment he allowed Loren aboard the battle cruiser. Subsent Takta hadn’t specifically told him not to allow her aboard, but Junta could read between the lines enough that no such direct order had been necessary. It was simply understood that this was the way things should be.

And yet, this woman, along with her friends, had saved his life, as well as that of his daughter and several good men and women from his crew.

More than that, even, she’d saved the Sentience, the closest thing the Symmorium had to a god. Without the calming influence of the Sentience reaching inside their heads, the entire species would have torn itself apart already, with no need for Zertex to lift a finger.

She was, as far as he was concerned, a hero. He owed her everything, and that was precisely what he was giving her. For what he was about to do, he would be stripped of rank. He would probably be expelled from the Symmorium forces. Depending on the judgement of the Subsents, even death wasn’t out of the question.

But he had made his peace with death, and the woman who had saved everyone he loved was asking for his help.

He stopped outside a cell door. Loren looked it up and down. “Is this it?”

“The murderer is in here,” Junta confirmed. “I am afraid you will not have long. The security protocols I have overridden will soon reset. Subsent Takta and the others will know of your presence then. You have approximately eleven minutes before this happens. If you wish to leave here alive, I suggest you conclude your business before then.”

Loren nodded. “I will. And thanks, Junta. I know you’re taking a risk.”

“Not a risk. A certainty. But it is my honor.” He pressed his hand against a sensor panel on the wall. The panel illuminated as it began its scan. “However, if you make any attempt to free him,” the Symmorium added, “then I shall kill you myself. Is that clear?”

Loren nodded. “Clear.”

“Then go,” Junta said, as the door slid open. “And may you find the answers you seek.”

The room beyond the door was dark, the only light spilling in from the corridor outside. As the door slid closed, the darkness became absolute, before the ceiling began to emit a dim white glow that gradually increased in brightness until the room’s contents were revealed.

Loren felt a gasp snag at the back of her throat. Her brother, Dash, sat on a mattress on the floor, his back stooped, his head hung low. His hands were behind his back, and Loren could only just make out the edge of a set of thick metal manacles holding his wrists together.

He was stripped to his underwear, his bare chest a dot-to-dot puzzle of purple bruises. His hair was shorter than she’d ever seen it, and well below the length Zertex regulations demanded. Had he done that himself, Loren wondered, or had the Symmorium done it to him?

“Dash?”

Dash mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Dash, it’s me. It’s Teela.”

More mumbling, but this time with a rising inflection that suggested a question. Slowly, ever so slowly, Dash raised his head. He tried to focus, but his eyes were red and bloodshot, and his pupils didn’t seem to want to play ball.

“Oh, Dashy,” Loren whispered. “What did you do?”

“N-no. They did this to m-me,” Dash managed to stutter. “Help me.”

Loren’s instinct was to run to him, hug him, tell him everything was going to be OK. He was a year older than her, but he’d always been the baby, the one everyone took care of. He’d never wanted to join Zertex, not really, but it had been expected of him, just as it had been expected of her.

She resisted her urges, and kept her distance.

“You attacked refugee ships. You killed their people.”

“Didn’t know,” Dash whispered. “Was j-just following orders. Didn’t know they were civilian targets. I swear.”

Loren nodded slowly. “OK. Well… That’s something,” she said.

“Help me, Teela,” he sobbed. His lips drew back as he cried, showing his blood-stained teeth. “They’re going to kill me, you have to help me get out of here.”

“I’m not going to help you escape. I’ll talk to them, OK? The Symmorium. They’ll listen to me.”

Dash’s expression changed to one of confusion. “Why? Why would they listen to you?” His frown deepened. “How are you even here? Is this a trick? Is that what this is?”

“No,” said Loren. Her brother was afraid. Agitated. That instinct to rush to his side and just hold him flared again, and this time she took a half-step closer. “They’ll listen because I helped them before. They’re not the bad guys, Dash. Zertex is. Sinclair has set this whole thing up.”

Tears cut tracks down Dash’s grimy face. “You helped them?” he hissed. “What are…? What are you talking about, Teela? Why would you help them?”

“Because, like I say, they’re not the bad guys.”

“Look what they did to me!” Dash roared, springing to his feet. “Look what they did to me, and tell me they’re not the bad guys!”

“You killed refugees. Thousands of refugees. Children, Dash. There were children on those ships.”

“Oh come on, Teela. There are children on every Symmorium ship. They take their kids into battle! And yet somehow I’m the monster here?”

“That’s different,” said Loren.

“How? How is it different?”

Loren’s eyes flitted across her brother’s face. “How can you not know?” she said, a crack in her voice almost betraying her. “How can you not see the difference?”

She stepped back, pulling herself up to her full height. “Sinclair engineered this whole thing. This war. The footage he’s broadcasting everywhere? The video that shows the Symmorium blowing up that moon? Didn’t happen. He faked it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dash spat.

“I know, because I was there. It was my ship that destroyed Pikkish. The ship President Sinclair gave us. He destroyed Pikkish, he killed all those people, not the Symmorium,” Loren said. “And then he sent an invasion force to attack the Symmorium Sentience. He tried to slaughter them all.”

Dash shook his head. “No. No, you’re lying.”

Loren looked away briefly, then met his eye again. “I’m sorry you think that,” she said. “I’ll talk to the Symmorium. I’ll try to convince them not to… I’ll talk to them. OK?”

Dash shrugged, but then nodded. “OK.” He rocked awkwardly from foot to foot, chewing his lip. His bloodshot eyes were suddenly blurred by tears. “Teela,” he said, his throat tight.

“What?”

“I could… I could kinda use a hug right now.”

He looked down at his feet, tears spotting his mattress like raindrops. The last of Loren’s resolve evaporated at the sight of her older baby brother standing there, his shoulders heaving.

“Oh, Dashy,” she said, crossing to him and putting her arms around his shoulders. He buried his head into her neck and sobbed. She pulled him in closer, and felt his arms slip around her as he returned the hug.

“I’m sorry, Teela,” he whispered.

“It’s OK,” she said, smoothing the barely stubble-length hair on the back of his head. “It’s OK. I’ll talk to them. I’ll sort it out.”

“No, not about that,” Dash said. Loren felt his arms move at the back of her neck.

Wait.

Her eyes went to the mattress. Dash’s shackles lay there, open. Loren tried to pull back, but a sharp pain, like a bee sting, plunged into the soft area at the base of her skull.

Dash pulled away, his tears replaced by a grim smile that was already starting to blur before Loren’s eyes.

“About this,” Dash said. He caught Loren before she dropped, then dragged her towards the door.

He knocked on the door three times and waited. Just a few seconds passed before it slid open, revealing two heavily armed Symmorium guards waiting outside. Loren tried to say something – anything – but her tongue was dead and her lips wouldn’t move, and all she could do was watch as Dash stepped between the guards and out into the corridor.

“Everything ready?”

“As you requested,” the Symmorium said. “We have a ship on standby. It has full authorization to leave. You will not be questioned.”

“Good work,” Dash said. “Then let’s go. And let the president know we have her.”

“As you wish,” said the other guard. He reached across to take Loren, but Dash pulled her closer.

“No! I’ll take her,” he said.

Hoisting the increasingly lifeless Loren onto his shoulder, he gestured along the corridor. “You two lead the way, and if anyone gets in our way… Kill them.”

Eleven

Cal stood at a large sink, elbow deep in what was now some pretty grubby water. He’d been given a pair of rubber gloves, but as they barely covered his wrists, they’d filled up the moment he’d stuck his hands in the near supernova-hot liquid.

As he scrubbed another plate – the hundredth? The two hundredth? – he muttered below his breath. He’d been muttering non-stop for an hour or so now, pretty much just the same phrase repeated over and over again.

“Advanced alien race, and they couldn’t come up with a fonking dishwasher.”

There was an old, square (space) television sitting on top of something Cal assumed was a big freezer. He hadn’t looked inside to check, though, just in case it contained more dirty dishes for him to clean.

The TV had presumably been provided to make the time pass more quickly, but it was having the opposite effect on Cal, who could feel the programming slowly driving him insane.

The morning schedule had been a tedious parade of terrible gameshows that appeared to have been produced with no budget whatsoever, and ranged from the confusingly complicated to the infuriatingly flashy. One involved some kind of slow-moving chess-like game, played between a team of utterly unlovable losers and a ruthlessly efficient brain floating in a glass tank.

Another combined general knowledge and fast reactions with moments of agonizing electrocution, while yet another just seemed to be a variant on ‘tag,’ but with the addition of swans. Or something like swans, at least.

Cal turned away from the screen just as the galley doors opened and Higgsy waddled in. He was much wider now than he had been earlier. Lumpier, too. Cal groaned at the sight of him.

“Seriously, more?”

“Sorry, Cal,” said Higgsy. He jiggled up and down and several dozen dishes, plates, mugs, and stuff Cal was assuming to be cutlery flopped out through his gelatinous orange skin and bounced on the soft, spongy floor.

Cal found himself watching the procedure in a sort of horrified fascination, just like he’d done each of the other five times Higgsy had done it. Higgsy’s internal workings dissolved any organic matter from the plates, from paper napkins to bones, making them much easier to clean. Sure, the thin layer of viscous orange fluid sticking to each dish wasn’t particularly pleasant, but it still saved Cal a whole lot of work.

“Is that the last of it?” Cal asked.

Higgsy nodded, shook his head, then nodded again, as if he couldn’t figure out the correct answer. “Maybe one more load,” he said, then he winked and lowered his voice to a whisper. “But I’ll try to break a few for you.”

Cal looked down at the pile on the floor. Thirty or so more dishes, not counting the cutlery, which he’d just swirl around in the sink for a few seconds, anyway. Another load, even accounting for breakages, would have roughly the same.

“So just sixty more to go.” He said it out loud, as if this made it more true, somehow. “Just sixty more.”

“That’s all,” Higgsy agreed. “Although doors will open in about twenty minutes, so it’ll start mounting up again.”

“What?” Cal spluttered. “No way. How long are we on shift for?”

“Until closing,” Higgsy. “About ten hours from now.”

“Ten fonking hours?! Well… I mean… What about breaks? Do we get breaks?”

Alan’s head emerged from behind a stack of clean plates he was loading back into a dispenser. “Oh, sure. Breaks,” he scoffed. “We also get a foot rub and our own weight in spizzcuits.”

Cal blinked. “What the Hell’s a spizzcuit?”

“Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about,” said Alan. “Because you don’t get any. Ever. Same with the foot rub, in case you were wondering. And the breaks. We do our jobs, we clock off, we go home. That’s it.”

“Jesus,” said Cal. “And when do we get paid?”

Alan and Higgsy exchanged a look. “Paid?” said Higgsy.

“What the fonk you talking about, ‘paid’?” Alan snorted. “We get room and board, what more do you want?”

Cal dropped a plate into the sink. It splashed down hard, spraying him with dirty water. He didn’t notice.

“Well how about money? You know, credits, or whatever? We must get some, surely?”

Higgsy shook his head. “No. We get somewhere to live and three meals a day. That’s it.”

“What? No! Seriously?” said Cal. He looked from Higgsy and Alan, then smiled. “Wait. Wait. Aaah, I get it. I see what’s going on here. Make fun of the new guy. Tell him crazy shizz and try to make him believe it. Good one.”

Cal wagged a reproachful finger at them, then plunged his hands back into the water. “Nice try, but I’m not going to fall for it. And before you even try, no, I won’t go and ask someone for ‘a long stand’ or ‘tartan paint’ or whatever other shizz you’re going to try to pull.” His grin widened. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get up pretty early in the morning to get one over on Cal Carver.” He checked himself. “And by ‘Cal Carver’ I obviously mean ‘Nob Muntch’.”

“We’re serious,” said Alan. “We don’t get paid.”

“OK, then I quit,” said Cal, removing his gloves and tossing them into the sink. Higgsy glanced at the door, then blocked Cal’s path, even though his face suggested it was absolutely the last thing he wanted to do.

“N-no, wait, you can’t,” Higgsy whispered. “Stay. Don’t go.”

“Why would I stay?” Cal asked. “So I can live in a cave and shizz in a bucket? What possible benefit could there be to staying here?”

Alan cleared his throat. “Know why there was an opening here? Why you got that job you’re bedging so vocally about right now?” he asked. “Because the last guy – Cramlin, nice guy, funny, excellent comedy timing – he died.”

“Oh,” said Cal, slightly irritated his dramatic exit had been halted, and that he now had to fake sympathy for someone he’d never heard of. “That’s a shame.”

“Real shame,” Alan agreed. “It was. Real shame.” He raised himself onto his tiptoes and fixed Cal with a cool look. “Ask me how he died.”

“How did he die?”

“Screaming. And slowly,” Alan said. He shrugged. “You see, those people who recruited you here? White outfit, white room, little stack of cards, unless the set-up has changed in recent years.”

Cal confirmed that it hadn’t.

“They’re the Tribunal. One part of it, at least. They exist to ensure everyone is working. ‘Doing their bit.’ Their job is to make sure everyone else has a job,” Alan explained. He picked up a small crate and carried it over to one of the kitchen’s heavy industrial refrigerators.

“Except, see, Cramlin didn’t want to do his bit,” said Alan, placing the box on the floor and stepping onto it so he could reach the refrigerator door handle. “He didn’t want to do anyone’s bit. He wanted to just coast along, doing whatever he wanted, whenever he liked.”

“I like him already,” said Cal.

“Good, then why don’t you say hello to him?” said Alan, pulling open the refrigerator door. It was dark in there, but then a light blinked on. Cal recoiled when he spotted the figure propped up inside.

It was dead. Very dead. It was easily in the top ten deadest things Cal had ever seen, and given that list included an entire gang turned into a meat-smelling mist, that was really saying something.

Compared to Higgsy, Alan and Jork, Cramlin had clearly been the looker of the bunch. He wasn’t exactly an oil painting any more, obviously, but his bone structure – which Cal was currently being afforded a particularly good view of – was exquisite, and his...

Actually, that was pretty much the only good thing Cal could think of to say.

“Holy shizz,” he said, whistling through his teeth. “That has got to be in violation of, like, every hygiene code ever written. Did Nana do this?”

“No. The Tribunal,” whispered Higgsy. “They did it.”

“Right,” said Cal, nodding slowly. “And you’re keeping him in the fridge because…?”

“They ordered us to,” Higgsy said, close to tears now. “As a warning to the rest of us.”

“Jesus. And why? Because he quit?”

“Because he talked about quitting,” said Alan. “When the wrong folks was listening.”

Cal clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth a few times, then reached for another dirty plate. “Oh. I see. Well, then I guess it’s back to work we go!”

Cramlin’s skeleton chose that moment to topple forwards out of the refrigerator. His skull rolled across the floor and stopped between Cal’s feet.

“What did I tell you?” said Alan in a respectful whisper. “Excellent comedy timing.”

* * *

Splurt sat in Cal’s chair, pulsing gently and rolling himself from side to side. Cal was still not there. The other three – the Not-Cals, who Splurt still cared about, albeit to a lesser extent – weren’t there, either. He was alone, aside from a nagging voice that seemed to come from nowhere.

“Rather boring this, isn’t it?” said Kevin. “Ms Loren is taking rather a long time.”

Splurt, as ever, said nothing. His eyes flicked left to right as he tried to determine the source of the voice.

Kevin pom-pom-pommed tunelessly below his breath. Not that he actually had breath, of course, but it was the thought that counted. Splurt looked for that sound, too, but couldn’t find it, either.

“Oh! We could play a game,” Kevin suggested. “Froody Hoops, perhaps. Or… what’s the one with the little hologram monsters fighting? That one looks fun.”

He sighed – which was impressive, given the whole having no breath thing.

“Then again, we don’t have a board, do we? Or little hologram monsters. Or, for that matter, any Froody Hoops.” He went quiet for a moment. “Although, now that I think about it, that last one might actually be a breakfast cereal.”

He clicked his non-existent tongue against his equally imaginary teeth.

“Oh! Oh! Here’s one! We could play a guessing game,” he suggested. “How about you turn into things, and I’ll try to guess what they are?”

Splurt considered this.

He turned into a brick.

“Is it a brick?” asked Kevin.

Splurt changed back.

Some time passed.

“Well, I’ll be honest, that wasn’t quite as much fun as I had hoped,” Kevin admitted. “My turn, I suppose.”

Silence fell. Splurt’s eyes continued to scan the bridge.

It was almost three full minutes later when Kevin spoke again.

“Well, go on, then,” he urged. “Are you going to have a guess or not? I can’t keep this up all day.”

* * *

Cal clattered the last plate onto the drying stack and let out a strangled sob of relief. He’d done it. He’d worked his way through every fonking dish, every fonking cup, and every fonking piece of cutlery in the place.

It was only then that a question occurred to him.

“Wait a minute, since when did Five Guys use plates?” he asked. “I saw the trash, it was all cardboard and paper.”

He gaped at the stack of sparkling dishes. “Wait, is this… Was this the new guy prank? Holy shizzing Christ, I swear I will kill everyone in this room if—”

“What? No, of course it isn’t a prank,” said Jork. He’d spent most of the morning gathering up trash and feeding it into some sort of miniature recycling facility. The trash went in one end, there was a lot of clunking and flashing lights, and then pristine stacks of paper bags and cardboard trays emerged from a little slot on the front.

At the same time, a secondary opening around the back of the machine shizzed out a condensed pellet of foul-smelling food waste, which was promptly swallowed by a hole in the floor.

“Remember, this place can be whatever you want it to be,” added Higgsy. He was tucking his now even more baggy-looking orange skin back inside his regulation Nana Joan’s jumpsuit. Cal had been given one of Cramlin’s old uniforms to wear. It fit perfectly, if you ignored the holes on the back where Cramlin’s spinal plates had apparently once emerged through.

“So, you can get your burgers on plates and drink soda out of…” Cal held up an odd piece of crockery that looked like a cross between a teapot and a sex toy. “…whatever this is?”

“You ain’t getting it,” snapped Alan. “It ain’t just ‘burgers’ – whatever the fonk that is – it’s anything you want. Anything you can think of, you can order it.”

“OK, yeah, got it,” said Cal. It made sense, of course. The replicator on the Untitled could make anything, as long as you fed it the data – or, more accurately, as long as it could extract the data from your head, tongue and nostrils – but he’d been so caught up in the whole ‘Five Guys’ thing, it hadn’t occurred to him that not everyone would be eating fast food.

His stomach rumbled. God, he could really go a banoffee pie about now.

Cal jabbed a thumb towards the door. “I’m going to go get something to eat. Anyone want anything?”

Higgsy, Jork and Alan exchanged worried glances. “Where from?” Jork asked.

“From the thing. From the replicator.” Cal watched their faces. “What?”

“We don’t get to use the replicators,” Higgsy explained. He’d finished tucking his excess skin into his uniform, and now looked several months pregnant. “They’re for customer use only.”

“Oh. So what do we eat?”

Alan opened a hatch in the floor, lay down, and stretched inside. He grunted and grimaced as he tried to get a hand to whatever he was reaching for, then let out a little cheer of triumph. He stood up and held out one of the food waste pellets the recycling machine had produced.

Cal stared at the thing, his nostrils pulling up as if trying to make a quick getaway. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“They’re actually very good,” said Higgsy. His enthusiasm waned a little. “You know, from a nutritional point of view.” His enthusiasm fell away completely. “Not so much from a taste point of view, but nutritionally, you can’t fault them at all.”

Cal took the pellet and tentatively turned it over in his hand, like it might explode at any moment. He wasn’t sure if it had been deliberately designed to look exactly like human excrement, or if it was just an unhappy coincidence.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Jork. “Well, no, it is. But it’s not as bad as it smells.”

Cal brought the pellet higher and sniffed it. If his nose could have slapped him across the face, it would have. This thing smelled way worse than he’d been expecting, and he had literally been expecting it to smell like shizz.

Shaking his head, he tossed it back into the open floor hatch. He looked at the pile of drying dishes, then at the few fragments of Cramlin they’d missed while sweeping the poor guy up.

“Fonk this shizz,” Cal said, wiping his hands on his uniform. “We don’t have to put up with this.”

“Uh, yes,” said Jork. “We do.”

“Is this seriously how you want to live your life? Cleaning up after people? Eating…” He gestured vaguely at the trapdoor. “…that stuff. You can’t seriously be happy?”

Higgsy wrung his hands. Jork glanced nervously at the refrigerator which, along with the trash can, the floor, and a gap under the plate rack they couldn’t reach far enough into, represented the final resting place of Cramlin. Even Alan just sort of shrugged and pretended he was very interested in a spot on the ceiling.

“I mean… This is terrible. I used to be the captain of a spaceship,” Cal said. “Sort of. I had a crew. A team.”

“We’re a team,” Higgsy murmured. “I mean, we could be. We work together. That sort of makes us a team, doesn’t it?”

Cal shook his head. “No. I mean, kind of, I guess. I mean…” His voice tailed off. He looked across the faces of his three colleagues, then pulled himself up to his full height. “No. Wait a minute, wait a minute. We’re not a team,” he said.

Higgsy looked down heartened, but then Cal held out a fist. “We’re a space team.”

Jork frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Are you holding something?” asked Alan, eyeing the fist suspiciously.

“Yay! We’re a team!” said Higgsy, punching the air.

“I never agreed to that,” said Alan. “I never agreed to nothing.”

Jork crossed his arms. “I’m not completely against the idea. I’d just… I’d like a little more information, that’s all.”

“Jesus, guys, I can’t believe you’re leaving me hanging here,” said Cal. “Just tap my fist with your fist.”

“But why would…?”

“Just do it. Tap my fist with your fist,” Cal urged. “Come on. Just do it.”

Higgsy was first to bump fists. Jork and Alan both shrugged, then reluctantly bumped fists with Cal, too.

Cal grinned and lowered his hand. “There. Now you just swore absolute loyalty and devotion to everyone else in the team.”

“What?” Alan spluttered. “Wait a minute—”

“Too late, Alan. It’s too late,” said Cal, holding up his hands. “Legally binding. It’s just the way it is. You should have read the small print. My hands are tied.”

He kept talking, saying similar things until he was sure Alan had given up trying to interrupt. “OK, Space Team… Maybe Space Team 2, I haven’t decided yet. Whatever, we’re going to get off this shizzhole of a planet, and we’re going to have ourselves some adventures! Jort, you’re going to see those stars!”

“Jork. Not Jort,” said Jork.

“Ha!” said Cal. “Check us out, already bantering. This is great.”

“Uh, I don’t know…” said Higgsy, suddenly looking more worried than Cal had ever seen him, which was saying something.

Cal put his arm around Higgsy’s ample shoulders. “Hey, relax buddy. We can do this. Relax. So Loren has gone, Mech and Miz are off doing whatever they’re doing, so what? We don’t need them.”

“We have no idea who those people are,” said Jork.

Cal laughed. “That’s the spirit! You know what? I think getting stuck here is going to turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. To any of us.”

He pulled Higgsy closer and kissed him on his lumpy bald head. “All we have to do is get ourselves a ship,” he said. His grin widened. “And I know just where we’re going to find one!”

It was round about then that Cal saw the image on the little TV. It showed a sight that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time – the destruction of the moon of Pikkish. It was familiar because he’d been there to see it destroyed, first-hand, but unfamiliar because the way it was being shown on screen wasn’t how it had happened.

Jork spat on the floor. “The Symmorium,” he said. “How could they do something like that? To one of their own planets!”

“They didn’t,” said Cal, absent-mindedly. He watched the footage for a few more seconds, then stretched up and clicked the TV off. “That’s not what happened.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Alan. “You saw the footage. It was right there.”

Cal shook his head. “It’s fake. Zertex blew that place to pieces, not the Symmorium. The whole thing is a setup, because they want to go to war.”

Higgsy shook his head, making his saggy face flap around. “No. They wouldn’t. Why would they want war? No one wants war.”

Cal shrugged. “No one involved in the fighting part wants a war, generally-speaking,” he agreed. “But go high enough, and you’ll always find someone itching to start a fight. Sinclair wants this, for whatever reason. He wants to wipe the Symmorium out.”

Alan tutted. “Oh yeah? And how would you possibly know that?”

“He used my ship to blow that moon up,” Cal said. He puffed out his chest. “I’m kind of his arch nemesis.”

The others looked at each other, then burst into fits of laughter.

“Right,” said Jork.

“Sure you are,” added Alan.

“Good one,” Higgsy sniggered.

Cal waited until they’d stopped laughing, before continuing. “Fine. I’ll prove it to you. We’ll get off this planet, then you’ll see for yourself,” he said. “But first, we have to get ourselves that ship.”

Twelve

Loren awoke suddenly. This was partly because the drug she’d been injected with had worn off, but mostly because a high-pressure hose had been turned on, and was currently blasting her in the face with icy-cold water.

She gasped and gagged, choking on the torrent, unable to turn her head away. Her arms were spread horizontally, fastened to the wall behind her by the wrists. Her legs were similarly shackled, her ankles far apart so her limbs and head formed a sort of star shape on the wall.

The spray continued, finding its way into her mouth and down her throat. Panic flooded her even faster than the water, so she wasn’t sure which one would drown her first.

And then, as quickly as it had started, the flow stopped. Loren wheezed and coughed up half a lung’s worth of the ice-cold liquid. The water blurred her eyes, and she had to blink for several seconds before it cleared enough to let her see her surroundings.

She was in a Zertex cell. From the position of the cell’s single air vent, she knew it was a Zertex Command station, rather than a ship. The stations’ holding cells were all identical, so she couldn’t tell which one she was on. Logically, Zertex Command Six had been closest to where she’d been taken from, so if she’d been a betting woman, that’s where she’d have put her money.

A figure moved at the corner of her vision. She tried to turn her head to look, but it was gripped too firmly and she only succeeded in straining her neck.

“Dash?”

“Ah, I’m afraid not,” smarmed an all-too-familiar voice.

President Sinclair stepped into view, smiling warmly. “We felt your brother wasn’t perhaps best suited for this particular part of proceedings,” Sinclair told her, stepping closer. “You know, family loyalty, or whatever. Although, to be fair to him, he hasn’t exactly demonstrated much in the way of loyalty to you so far, has he?”

Loren said nothing. She tensed as the president ran a finger across her face, wiping away some of the water. He studied it on his fingertip for a moment, then rubbed the glistening dampness away with his thumb.

“Oh, Gunso Loren,” he said, smiling sadly. “I had such high hopes for you, you know? You were the best pilot in your graduating class.” He gave a little chuckle. “Once I had your scores altered, at least. Prior to that?” He winced. “Well, let’s just say your career might not have got off the ground. In fact, it would probably have crashed into it!”

He laughed at his own joke, then stepped back. “And yet, I saw potential in you. I saw a spark of something promising.” His smile fell away. “And how did you repay me? By turning against me.”

“You set us up,” Loren began. Sinclair took several quick paces back, and a spray of water hit Loren in the face again, catching her by surprise.

Sinclair watched her gag and splutter for almost a full minute, before waving a hand. “Enough.”

Loren’s lungs screamed at her in protest. She tried to swallow down enough air to satisfy them, but her throat felt like a bubble was blocking it, preventing the oxygen getting through. Sinclair tucked his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, waiting for her to recover.

“It isn’t your time to talk now,” he told her. “It’s my turn.”

He stepped closer again and ran a hand over her soaking-wet hair. She flinched, but the head restraint stopped her going anywhere. “Shh,” he whispered. “Shh, it’s OK. Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. Well, not yet, anyway. You think you’re important in all this, but you aren’t. Not really. You’re nothing. I don’t want you.”

He caught her hair and tugged it sharply, making her hiss. “I want Carver. And you’re going to help me get him.”

Loren gathered up all the excess moisture in her mouth – which was a lot, given she’d recently been blasted twice in the face with a power hose – and spat it into the president’s face.

Sinclair froze for what felt like quite a long time. Loren was just starting to wonder if she’d somehow broken him, when his expression darkened. He produced a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his face.

“Change of plan,” he said. He tapped her on the nose and made a little boop sound. “I am going to hurt you, after all. And, once I’ve done that, then you’ll help me get Carver.”

His smile became a threatening leer. “One way or another. Oh, and you know what I said earlier? About your brother not having what it took to stay here to watch?” He beckoned to the hose bearer. Loren gritted her teeth as Dash stepped smartly into view. “That wasn’t actually true.”

“Dash?” Loren mumbled, but there was barely a flicker of recognition on his face, let alone anything resembling empathy.

The president slipped an arm around Dash’s shoulders. “Loyalty, Teela. It’s important. Your brother has it.” His voice became an ominous whisper. “And now, allow me to show you what we do to those who don’t.”

* * *

Cal, Higgsy, Jork and Alan trudged along the sidewalk, keeping pace with the rest of the packed crowds. Cal’s whole body ached, partly from the full day’s manual labor, but mostly from the beating Nana Joan had given him when he’d tried to leave early. For an old woman, she knew how to deliver a mean full nelson.

And, to Cal’s lingering regret, an even meaner kick to the balls.

When the restaurant had finally closed and they’d been allowed to leave, Cal had taken a lingering look around the place. They were leaving it in exactly the same state they’d found it earlier – trash everywhere, soda waterfalls trickling over table edges, discarded food trodden into the floor. Cal had known, in that moment, that he was never, ever going back.

Night had fallen over the city, and the clouds above were illuminated by the blue glow of the platforms further above still. It cast a pale luster across everything, trapping the entire city in a sort of perma-dusk from which it could never escape.

Cal looked up at the glowing blue puffballs, but it made everything from his neck to the bottom of his spine ache, so he stopped quite quickly.

“I need a drink,” he said. “Are there any bars around here?”

“A few,” said Jork. “But we don’t have any money.”

Cal waved a hand dismissively. “Ah, that doesn’t matter. We’ll find some rich older women and Higgsy can charm drinks out of them.”

“What?!” Higgsy spluttered. “N-no, I don’t think… I’m not sure…”

Cal winked at him. “I’m going to teach you everything I know. Trust me. You’re going to be a natural. I mean, who wouldn’t be charmed by someone who can absorb their own body weight in kitchenware?”

Higgsy still looked terrified, but managed a sheepish smile. “Not just kitchenware. I can absorb most things. And not just my own body weight, either. More like… eight times.”

“There you go!” said Cal. “Who in their right mind could resist that? You’ll have them eating out of your hand.” His eyes flicked down. “Your massive, gelatinous hand.”

“Well, I mean, I guess it might be nice,” said Jork. “Going to a bar, I mean.”

“OK, I’m in,” said Alan. “But if anyone tries to mess with me, I’m just saying, I will fonk their shizz up. Just saying.”

“Why would anyone try to mess with you?” asked Higgsy. He shot Cal a panicked look. “Will someone try to mess with us?”

“No, relax. Don’t worry. No one is going to be messing with anyone. We’re just going to find a bar, have a few drinks, and, you know, plan our escape.”

Higgsy groaned. Cal patted him on the back. It made his neck ripple. “It’s going to be fine. When have I ever let you down before?”

“We’ve known you less than a day,” Higgsy said.

“Exactly! I haven’t let you down for as long as you’ve known me,” Cal said. He grinned. “Everything is going to be just fine. Now, someone please find us a bar!”

* * *

Ten minutes of lane-changing through the crowds later, Cal and his co-workers wandered along a street that was far less frantic, but several times more menacing than the ones they’d left. There were still lots of people here, but they were hanging around in groups, or lurking in doorways, rather than bustling along from A to B. The mobs of people elsewhere in the city hadn’t looked particularly friendly, but they hadn’t looked especially unfriendly, either. This lot, though, had ‘enemies-in-waiting’ written all over them.

Cal strutted past a group of leather-clad biker-types and tipped an imaginary hat to them. “Gentlemen,” he said. Their ears pricked up and they grunted gutturally, but they didn’t make any move to intercept.

“I d-don’t like this,” said Higgsy. “This feels dangerous.”

“Stop being such a coward,” Jork hissed, then his head whipped around and he screamed when a figure stepped from the shadows of a doorway.

“Looking for a freaky time, boys?” asked the woman – if, indeed, it was a woman. The sheer number of scales and legs and teeth and tails made it difficult to come to any definite conclusions.

“Not tonight,” said Cal. “But thank you for the kind offer, and you stay safe now, you hear?”

There was a small group of buildings ahead that Cal instantly recognized as bars. They had that certain quality that screamed ‘drinking establishment’. It didn’t, unfortunately, scream ‘quality drinking establishment’, but then beggars couldn’t be choosers. That said, these didn’t exactly look like the type of places you’d find the wealthy older women looking to give away drinks, upon which his whole getting drunk plan hinged.

They headed for the most promising-looking. It was only the most promising-looking in that it didn’t have bars on the windows or the sound of screaming coming from inside. On the way, they passed a door set back into the wall. An illuminated sign above it read: Schmargart’s.

Cal stopped. The name was familiar. “Where do I know that place from?” he asked.

Higgsy had to try very hard not to giggle. “It’s… It’s a place where ladies… Well. Where they…” He cupped his flapping great hands around his mouth and whispered. “Where they take off their clothes!”

He glanced around, anxiously, as if worried his mom might be listening, then allowed himself that giggle.

Cal clicked his fingers. Of course. The strip club. It had been one of the jobs he’d been offered before the car wash. Satisfied, he turned, and was about to leave when he heard the voice from inside the door.

“Listen, man, I told you, you ain’t got no ticket, you ain’t getting in.”

“Oh yeah? Try and stop me, robot!” barked another voice.

There was a sound of scuffling. Cal and the others ducked as a flailing shape flew over their heads, hit the ground, then skidded several feet on its face.

With a whirring and clanking, a hulking metal figure stepped out from the doorway. “I ain’t a motherfonking robot!”

Cal’s jaw dropped. “Mech?”

Mech blinked, glanced left and right, then settled on Cal. He stiffened slightly, looked back into the doorway, then plodded down the club’s stone steps. “Hey, man,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Just got off work,” said Cal. “You?”

“Uh, just started,” said Mech.

“You work here?” Cal asked, putting a weird sort of emphasis on the last word than he’d intended, turning it into something that sounded like an accusation.

“Turns out we all gotta work somewhere,” Mech grunted. He nodded to the others standing behind Cal. “Who’re your friends?”

Cal frowned, like he had no idea what Mech was talking about, then glanced back over his shoulder. “What? Oh! I mean, yes. Mech, meet Higgsy, Jork and Alan. These three – plus me, obviously – are the all-new Space Team.”

Mech’s eyes narrowed as he looked from Higgsy to Jork and back again. “I make two.”

“Alan’s down there,” said Cal, gesturing to the much smaller man. “Don’t make comment on it, though. He’ll make you eat your own feet, and then he’ll do this dance like… Alan, show him the dance.”

Alan glared menacingly at Mech as he began to jig on the spot. “You like this? Huh, big guy? You like this shizz?”

Mech watched him for several seconds, not quite sure how he was supposed to respond. “OK, then,” he said, tearing his eyes away. “That’s… I don’t know what that is.”

He turned his attention back to Cal. “New team, huh? You didn’t waste time.”

“Why should I have?” asked Cal, sniffing indignantly. “I mean, you made your feeling very clear.”

Mech opened and closed his metal jaw, then nodded. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

They stood on the sidewalk, a handful of feet and several light years apart, neither one saying anything. Alan, Higgsy and Jork watched them both, also in silence.

“Well, this is fonking awkward,” Alan muttered, after a while.

“I’d better get back to work,” Mech said, jabbing a mechanical thumb back towards the door. “Those perverts ain’t gonna police themselves.”

“Right, yeah. Of course. Good. We were just heading off. Plans to make. You know? Adventures to have.”

Mech gave a half chuckle. “Good luck with that,” he said, then he tapped a finger to his brow in salute. “Take care of yourself, man.”

“Always do,” said Cal, grinning. He stopped Mech before he could turn. “Uh, what about Miz? Is she around?”

Mech hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. She had to get a job, too.”

Cal snorted. “Mizette? Mizette has a job? Jesus. Wonders will never cease. Where does she work?”

Mech tilted his head back, indicating the door to the club. Cal looked past him, blinking several times while he tried to process this. His hands figured it out before the rest of him, and curled into fists, all by themselves. “She’s stripping?” he said, his voice become dangerously monotone. “Miz is a stripper?”

“What? No!” said Mech. “Hell, no! You think I’d…? Come on, man. She’s working the bar. Serving drinks. Not… She’s not… Hell, no.”

Cal exhaled with relief. “Oh! Oh, gotcha. Right. She’s a bartender. I thought… Thank God. Is she any good?”

Mech raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, stupid question,” said Cal.

Mech smirked. “She’s like the sun. She just stands there, not moving, while everyone else orbits around her, doing all the work.”

“Does nobody say anything?”

“One guy tried. She threatened to show him his intestines. No one’s bothered her since.”

“Ha! Classic Miz,” Cal laughed.

Mech chuckled along, too. Eventually, though, the awkward silence returned.

“These guys are great, too,” said Cal, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder and almost taking Jork’s eye out. “Rich personalities. Very funny, yet capable in a crisis. I think they’re going to do great. We’ve already started on the witty repartee, haven’t we, Higgsy?”

All four of Higgsy’s eyes squinted as he frowned. “What?”

“See?” said Cal, holding his arms out to his sides as if his point had been well and truly proven. “I have a really good feeling about these guys.”

“Well, great. I’m happy for you, man,” said Mech. He nodded to the others. “You three, uh, good luck. You might want to pack some barf bags, and if he starts putting the word ‘space’ in front of everything, please hit him on my behalf.”

With a final nod to Cal, he turned and clanked back up the steps. He was almost through the door when Cal stopped him.

“Mech, wait!”

Mech hesitated, weighing up his options. “Yeah?” he asked, not turning.

“Uh, have you heard anything from Loren?”

Mech shook his head. “No, man. Face it. She’s gone.”

He half-turned, as if about to add something else, but then he pressed on into the darkened doorway, and vanished into the club.

Just like he had stared at the clouds, waiting for Loren to reappear in the Untitled, Cal watched the door in case Mech emerged. He could almost picture him running down the steps in slow motion, arms wide, music swelling in the background as he—

“Do you know that guy?” asked Higgsy.

“Duh! Well, of course he knows him, you freaking idiot,” said Jork. He shot Cal a sideways glance. “I mean, you do, right? You do know him?”

“I did,” said Cal. “A long time ago.”

He turned and shrugged. “Well, I mean, technically it was yesterday, but…” He waved a hand. “Fonk it. Let’s go get drunk. Then, and only then, will I explain how we’re going to get a ship, and get ourselves off this shizzhole of a planet.”

They approached the most promising bar, Cal striding confidently ahead, the other three bunching together behind him, eyes darting at the scary-looking groups gathered in the doorways. As he approached the entrance, a lump of granite in a tuxedo blocked the path. Cal recognized the doorman as an Igneon. Well, technically he recognized him as ‘one of those Kornacky ones,’ since his only experience with the species was via the warlord Kornack, who had repeatedly tried to make Cal eat himself, but he knew what he meant.

“Evening, gentlemen,” said the doorman.

“And a very good evening to you, too!” said Cal, grinning as he attempted to weave around the hulking stone figure. The doorman had been expecting this, though, and executed a perfectly-timed sidestep that put him directly in Cal’s way again.

“I’m going to have to see your IDs.”

Cal’s smile locked in place. “Of course!” he said, reaching for his card and praying there wasn’t a quiz based on the information on it. He could remember the name. The date of birth, or any of the other details? Not a clue.

The doorman took the card and studied it. His rocky lips moved silently as he read, then his eyes widened and he looked up at Cal. “Nob Muntch?”

Cal nodded. “Yep.”

“That’s your name? Nob Muntch?”

“It is,” said Cal. “Let’s not wear it out.”

“Hey, Frank,” the doorman called back over his shoulder. A long thin face with eyes that had been put in sideways leaned out through the bar door.

“Yeah?”

“You know what this guy’s name is?”

Frank looked Cal up and down, then shrugged.

“Nob Muntch!”

Frank snorted. “Get the fonk out of here!”

“I’m serious!”

Cal sighed. “Haha. Yes. That’s me!” He reached for his ID, but the doorman didn’t hand it over.

“Hey, get T’kak. Tell T’kak,” the doorman urged.

“One sec,” said Frank. He ducked back into the door. Cal could hear murmuring from somewhere inside.

“Get the fonk out of here!” squealed a higher-pitched voice in delight.

“I’m serious,” Frank’s voice insisted.

“It’s true!” called the doorman. “Nob Muntch!”

“Get. The fonk. Out!” laughed what was presumably T’kak.

The doorman looked back at Cal, who had battled valiantly to keep his smile in place, but with little success. Reaching into a pocket, the doorman produced a device that looked not unlike an Earth smartphone. He pointed it to the ID card and chuckled. “I have got to get me a picture of this,” he said.

There was a flash. The doorman checked the device’s screen, then laughed. “Got it! Oh, man, I am sending that to everyone I know.”

“Yay!” said Cal. He held out his hand and his ID card was pressed into it.

“Thanks, Nob,” the doorman said, gesturing for the others to hand over their own cards. “Thank you for that. That’s made my night, that has.”

“I’m so pleased,” said Cal. He gestured to the bar. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’d like to go inside.”

“Whoa there, Nob Muntch, not so fast,” said the doorman. He nodded to Higgsy, Jork and Alan. “You can go in, but they can’t.”

“Why?” asked Cal. He pointed to the window, through which he could see some of the bar’s occupants. “There’s all kind of freaky-looking dudes in there, why can’t they come in?” He looked back over his shoulder. “No offence, fellas.”

“It ain’t nothing to do with how they look,” said the doorman. “If I was stopping people getting in based on how weird they look, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“OK, one, I resent that, and it’s probably racist,” said Cal. “Two… If it’s not how they look, why can’t they get in?”

“Because they ain’t old enough,” said the doorman, holding up the IDs. “They’re kids.”

Thirteen

The lower bunk squeaked as Cal slumped down onto it. Tempted as he’d been to head into the bar himself and get astonishingly drunk, he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the other three. As the only responsible adult, he felt a certain obligation to get them home safely.

“The doorman guy, what he said, that was an exaggeration,” Jork explained for the third or fourth time. “We’re not kids. We’re teenagers.”

Higgsy raised a hand.

“Well, Higgsy’s almost a teenager. But, like, literally in just a year or two.”

Higgsy raised a hand again.

“Or three.”

Cal threw up his arms in despair. “I mean… Why didn’t you tell me?” He sighed. “I knew you were young, but I thought, you know, maybe early twenties.”

This was a problem. He couldn’t very well take two teenagers and a – what? – ten-year-old into space with him. Yes, Mizette was technically only six, but then he hadn’t been responsible for putting her on the team. Anyway, the Greyx aged differently, and she was pretty much a fully-grown adult where she came from. No, she didn’t act like it most of the time, but… It was different. She was different.

Jork seemed to be reading his mind. “Are we still going to get a ship?”

Cal puffed out his cheeks. “I don’t see how we can. I mean, what about your parents?” He looked around the cell, then at Higgsy. “Actually, come to think about it, what are you even doing here? Why aren’t you at home?”

Higgsy shrugged. “They kicked me out. Not enough room, they said.”

“He’s been here longer than any of us,” said Jork.

“Five years,” Higgsy said. His brow furrowed. “Maybe six.”

Cal buried his face in his hands, then pulled them down to his chin. “It’s dangerous out there. In space, I mean,” he said.

“Ain’t exactly safe Down Here, either,” said Alan. “What, you think the metal doors are for decoration?”

“No, but it’s different out there,” Cal said. “There are pirates. Gangsters. These little octopus things that tear ships apart. And don’t even get me started on the fonking Spider-Dragon. And then there’s Zertex, and—”

CLANG.

A sudden single knock on the door startled them all. Cal jumped to his feet, smashed the top of his head on the edge of the upper bunk, swore loudly, then stumbled to the door.

“Don’t!” Jork whispered, his negative-image eyes darting anxiously from Cal to the door and back again.

“Why, who is it?” Cal whispered back, rubbing the top of his head.

“I don’t know,” said Jork.

Cal stopped rubbing his head and frowned. “Then why shouldn’t I open it? Shouldn’t we find out who it is?”

“No!” Higgsy squeaked. “It might be someone mean!”

“Then we’ll tell them to go away,” said Cal. “Besides, we’ve got Alan. If shizz starts going down, he can Hulk out, or whatever, and sort it out.”

Alan shook his head. “We do not want that. This whole place? This whole place will come down around your ears,” he said, pointing to the ceiling. “I’ll be fine, but you three? Uh-uh. No way.”

“I don’t want that!” Higgsy whimpered. “I don’t want this whole place to come down around my ears!”

CLANG. CLANG.

The addition of the second ‘clang’ seemed to send Higgsy into a full-scale meltdown. Jork was struggling to keep it together, too, and Alan…

Cal looked around the cell. Alan was nowhere to be seen.

“Look, it’s fine,” Cal said. “I’ll just open the door a tiny bit, and if it’s someone who wants to, you know, mutilate us or whatever, I’ll tell them to come back another time.”

Higgsy darted left and right, looking for somewhere to hide. When he realized there was nowhere, he just stood very still and upright, instead, as if this would somehow make him more difficult to spot.

Cal manually turned all the door’s many locks, then opened the door a crack. At first, he saw no one, but then an old woman’s face leaned into view and smiled at him. She was very familiar, and for a moment he thought it was Nana Joan, probably here to give him another beating. Instinctively, his free hand covered his testicles.

“Hello, Cal,” the woman said. She thrust a small brown paper bag towards the gap. “Spit Nibble?”

Cal’s jaw dropped. “Wait a minute!” he said. “You’re not Nana Joan. I know you! You’re that guy’s mom. The hacker. Nark?”

“Narp.”

“That’s the guy! You’re the mind-reader, right?”

“I see the future,” said the woman.

“Awesome!” said Cal. He pressed a finger against his temple. “Can you tell what I’m thinking now?”

“I see the future,” the woman repeated, in an impressive display of patience.

“Isn’t that—?”

“No, it’s not the same thing,” the woman said. “And it’s Ronda.”

“What is?”

“My name. You were about to ask.”

“Oh. Was I?” said Cal. He shrugged, reached into the bag, and took out a Spit Nibble. He opened the door wider. “Uh, come in.”

“No, thanks. I won’t be long,” said Ronda. “I wanted to give you something.”

Cal raised the Spit Nibble in a sort of toast. “Well… thanks,” he said, then he tossed it in his mouth. “Mmm. Oh! Jesus, I’d forgotten how good these taste.”

“No, not the Spit Nibbles,” Ronda said. “They’re a bonus.” She held a hand out to him, palm down. Cal looked at it for a moment, then held his own hand out, palm up. Something cold and metallic was pressed into it.

It was a button. Or rather, it was a small black box, about the size of a Post-it Note, with a single red button rising from its surface.

“Oh, cool,” said Cal. “It’s a, like a… It’s a doohickey. A thingy.” He met the woman’s eye. “What is it?”

“This belonged to Zertex. Some members of the Xandrie – you know, the gangsters? - made my Narp get it for them, but I decided they shouldn’t have it, either, so I took it off them.”

“You took it? From the Xandrie?”

Ronda nodded. Cal raised his eyebrows, partially to demonstrate his awe and respect, and partly to convey the fact he didn’t believe what Ronda had just told him.

“What does it do?”

“I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” said Ronda. “But you shouldn’t press it until—”

Cal pressed it. Nothing happened.

He pressed it again.

Ronda cleared her throat. “Yes. As I was saying, don’t press it until the time is right.”

Cal turned the box over in his hand. He studied the button for a moment, then pressed it again. This had precisely the same effect as the last two times he’d done so.

“How will I know the time is right?”

“You’ll just know,” said Ronda. She handed him the bag of Spit Nibbles. “Bye, then. I’d best be off.”

“Wait, that’s it?” said Cal. “You’re not going to tell me to protect it with my life, or warn me not to lose it, or whatever?”

Ronda shook her head. “No. I mean, I can if it makes you feel better, but I already know you don’t lose it.”

“Do I break it?”

“No.”

“Does someone else break it?”

“No,” said Ronda, her cheerful demeanor slipping just a fraction. “You press it. When the time is right.”

“And then what happens?” asked Cal.

Ronda’s smile returned. “Something spectacular.”

She gave him a nod, then set off along the corridor. Cal leaned out after her, and glanced in both directions. “Psst. Wait up. It’s not safe down here,” he said. “You, uh, you want me to walk you out?”

Ronda stopped and turned. “Well, that is very kind of you, Mr Carver. But trust me, I’ll be fine.” She raised her voice a little. “The gentleman lurking in the doorway just behind me, getting ready to pounce, on the other hand, is in for a very nasty shock indeed.”

The darkness seemed to hesitate. Ronda raised her voice even further. “That throat of yours is particularly soft and fleshy, isn’t it, Mr Trittz? Get their fingernails into that and someone could rip the windpipe right out, couldn’t they? Then, oh, I don’t know, beat you to death with the wet end.”

There was another moment of silence, then a shuffling in the shadows further along the passageway. It was followed by the sound of a door closing, and a number of locks sliding into place.

Ronda gave a little satisfied nod of her head. “Goodbye, Mr Carver,” she said, bowing slightly. “Goodbye, and good luck.”

“Thanks for dropping by. And for the Spit Nibbles. And whatever this thing is,” Cal called after her. He pressed the button again. Nothing happened. “Love to Narp. Tell him I totally forgive him for almost making me fall off a roof and… Oh, she’s gone.”

He closed the door, then was almost knocked over when Higgsy and Jork hurried to engage all the locks. “You invited her in!” Higgsy yelped. “I can’t believe you invited her in!”

“So? It’s not like she’s a vampire,” said Cal, through a mouthful of Spit Nibble. “I mean, I don’t think she is.” He glanced into the paper bag, as if suddenly doubting its contents, then shrugged and continued eating. “What’s the big deal?”

“She’s a… you know,” said Higgsy.

“Mind reader?” said Cal.

“No,” said Higgsy.

“I’m pretty sure she was.”

Higgsy cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered the next few words, almost silently. “A girl.”

“She’s not a girl, you freaking idiot,” Jork spat. “She’s a woman.”

“Same thing,” said Higgsy, defensively. “As far as the rules are concerned, anyway.”

Cal swallowed his Spit Nibble, idly clicked the button on the doohickey a few times, then slipped it into his back pocket. Only then did he summon the energy and willpower necessary to ask Higgsy what he was talking about.

“We aren’t allowed girls or women or… or… females in boy’s dorms,” Higgsy explained. He took a break from nervously wringing his hands just long enough to anxiously point at the list of rules fixed to the wall beside the door. It was a very long list, and Cal had only read as far as rule number four (“Impersonating Employers shall be punishable by death”) before deciding he wasn’t all that interested, and that none of them really applied to him, anyway.

“Right, gotcha,” said Cal. “See, the thing is, guys…” He looked around the room. “Where’s Alan, by the way?”

There was a scuffling from under one of the bunk beds, then Alan emerged, crawling on his belly. He stood up, dusted himself down, then fixed his face into an expression that tried to suggest none of the past few seconds had happened.

“Carry on,” Alan said.

Cal frowned, shook his head just a fraction, then continued. “The thing is, guys, who actually enforces these rules? I bet it’s no one, right? I bet they’re just put up there in the hope that you follow them, but with no actual consequences if you don’t.”

“Well…” began Jork.

“You know what I say?” said Cal, striding over to the wall. “Fonk the rules.”

He dug his fingernails under the edge of the laminated list and pulled. Unfortunately, it was quite firmly fixed in place, and didn’t budge. He spent several more seconds muttering under his breath as he tried to tear the thing off from a variety of different angles, before deciding just to give it the finger, instead.

“Doesn’t matter. The point is, these rules are here to control you. I mean, they’re idiotic. Look at this one: ‘Waste buckets must be disposed of in a hygienic manner.’ Well, OK, that’s actually a pretty good rule. That’s just sensible. But look at some of the other ones.”

He moved his finger down the list, past several equally sensible instructions. “Aha!” he said, stopping a few inches further down. “No tickling! What kind of rule is that? We should be able to tickle each other if we want to! I mean, I don’t, obviously, and if anyone here tries to tickle me I will punch you to the ground, but that’s not the point.” He frowned. “I don’t think. What was my point again?”

“You were saying no one enforces the rules,” said Alan.

“Right!”

“But they do,” Higgsy said. “The Re-Educators. They’re part of the Tribunal. They make sure everyone obeys.”

“Oh. OK,” said Cal. “And you’re scared of them? You just want to keep your heads down, do as your told, and stay out of trouble?”

Higgsy nodded enthusiastically, jiggling his saggy jowls.

“Pretty much,” said Alan.

“Works for me,” agreed Jork.

Cal smiled sadly at them. “And that, guys, is why I can’t take you into space. There are a million different rules on a million different planets, and the only way you survive is if you break them. Trust me. As a veteran of space travel, I know what I’m talking about.”

“How long were you out there for?” asked Jork.

“A long time,” said Cal. “I wouldn’t like to put a number on it, but, you know, a while.” He sat on the bed. “I can’t take you into space, guys. I’m sorry, but that’s final.”

“Aw, but you got us all excited about it,” said Jork. “We don’t want to stay here.”

“We hate it here!” Higgsy added.

Cal tossed a Spit Nibble into his mouth. “Really? Ah, well fonk it, then,” he said, standing up. “Let’s go.”

Fourteen

Thirty minutes later, Cal, Higgsy, Jork and Alan crouched behind a dumpster outside Tanso’s Ship Valet Service Stop, keeping to the shadows. The blinking neon sign above the lot boasted: ‘Open 32 hours!’ and Cal could see a couple of his former Parlooq colleagues laboriously scrubbing the outside of a ship. Their spongework was excellent. The ship, not so much.

It was the wrong shape, for starters. Cal didn’t know what shape it was supposed to be, but it definitely wasn’t this one. Surely no one would built a ship that looked like that on purpose?

It looked a bit like a fat triangle, but tapering backwards, rather than forwards, so the chunky end was at the front. Cal knew it was the front because it had a large windscreen that was tinted green at the top. Two names ran across the top of the windscreen – ‘Gurt’ and ‘Zandra’ – and there was something hanging from a hook on the other side of the glass that could feasibly have been a pair of furry dice.

Most of the ship was a sort of tan brown, aside from one panel on the left, which was blue. The corresponding panel on the right was the same color as the rest, suggesting the left one had been replaced at some point, but never resprayed.

There was no landing ramp that Cal could see, but a narrow ladder descended from beneath the ship, suggesting there was probably a hatchway at the top of it.

“OK, there’s our entry point,” said Cal. “We get over there, I’ll distract the Parlooqs, you all get on board, then I’ll join you.”

Higgsy’s voice was a warbling squeak. “Wait, we’re going to steal it? We can’t steal it! How can we steal it?”

Cal indicated for him to shut the fonk up. “Relax. It’s fine. I’ve basically stolen every ship I’ve ever owned. No one minds. It’s just what happens in space.”

“Yeah, you freaking idiot, it’s just what happens in space,” agreed Jork, like he was suddenly now an authority on the matter. “Chill out.”

“Everyone ready?” Cal asked. Jork and Alan both nodded. Higgsy rocked from foot to foot. Cal decided that was good enough. “OK, stick with me until I start talking, then make for the ship and don’t stop.”

Cal stepped out from behind the dumpster, and beckoned for the others to follow. He led them, like a mother duck with her ducklings, across the parking lot, headed straight for the cheese wedge of a ship.

“Guys!” he said, grinning at the Parlooqs as soon as he was close enough for them to notice. “Seriously, do you ever stop? Old Tanso’s going to work your fingers to the bone.”

He stopped beside the Parlooqs and gestured for the others to continue. Higgsy hesitated, but Jork caught him by the sleeve and pulled him towards the ladder.

“My friends here – you’re not going to believe this – they’ve never seen the inside of a ship. They’re considering moving into the valeting sector, inspired by guys just like you two, so I promised them I’d give them a quick tour. That’s OK, right?”

The Parlooqs finally turned around. “Oh,” said one. “Hey… Nob.”

“Hey… uh… you!” said Cal.

“What… brings… you… here?”

Cal glanced over to the ladder. Higgsy, Jork and Alan were whisper-arguing about who should go first.

“Uh, all that stuff I just said a moment ago. Remember?” He raised his voice. “About my friends wanting to go in the spaceship?”

“Oh,” said the other Parlooq.

“Yep, so we won’t be long.”

“I’m… not… sure…”

“Thanks, guys!” said Cal, giving them double finger guns. They were probably going to get into trouble for this, so ‘the double’ was the least he could do. He began backing towards the ladder. “We’ll literally just be in and out. You won’t even know we were here.”

“…that’s such… a good…”

Cal tapped his forehead in salute. “I owe you one,” he said, then he turned to Jork and the others and hissed. “Get up the fonking ladder!”

“They want me to go first,” said Higgsy. “Why should I go first?”

“Youngest first,” whispered Jork. “We decided.”

“You mean you two decided,” Higgsy said.

Cal pushed past them and grabbed a handhold. “Jesus, I’ll go first, but follow me up, and be quick. Even these guys are going to get suspicious soon.”

He gave the frowning Parlooqs a friendly wave, then scampered up the ladder. The air inside the ship felt old and stale, like a teenager’s bedroom. Cal waved a hand in front of his face, trying in vain to waft the smell away.

The hatch opened right into the main area of the ship. Cal stopped, halfway through it, to make sure the coast was clear.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

“’Oo the fack are you?”

Cal was taken aback, momentarily, by the use of the word ‘fack’. It didn’t sound much like ‘fonk’, but then it didn’t sound much like the pre-censored version, either, and he decided it probably existed as a curse word all on its own. He made a mental note to try it out later, but doubted he could do it the justice the accent of the man towering over him had just done.

He stopped being taken aback by the man’s word choice, and moved onto being taken aback by the man himself. He was mostly human-looking, with a chest-length red beard and teeth that were nasty-looking in every sense.

He wore an ensemble of metal, scuffed leather, and – Cal looked more closely – yes, severed fingers. They draped around his broad shoulders on a length of wire, only partly visible because of the beard.

Many of these elements were troubling. There were two aspects to this gentleman that Cal found more troubling, however. The first was the gun he carried. It was shotgun-shaped and shotgun-sized, and currently pointed directly at Cal’s head.

The second troubling aspect was that the man was not alone. Five other, similarly-dressed, similarly-bearded men rose from the beanbags they’d been sitting on. Most of them were missing body parts of some description. One lacked an eye, the other an ear, a third the lower half of a leg. Between the six, you could probably make four complete people, with some bits and bobs left over.

“Answer us, then!” the first man grunted. “’Oo the fack are you?”

“I reckons he’s trying to nick your ship, Gurt,” said another, swishing aside his long leather trench coat to reveal a long, curved blade hanging from his belt.

“What? No!” said Cal, laughing confidently. “I was just checking to see if you gents needed anything while you’re waiting? Coffee? Tea? Uh… prosthetics?”

“Hurry up!” hissed Alan from below. His voice rose up through the hatchway, and the inside of the ship acted as an amplifier. “If the Tribunal catches us stealing this ship, we’re done for.”

Cal smiled weakly as the ship’s other occupants produced an assortment of other weapons. “You know what? I think I’m just going to go,” he said, then he dropped down the ladder just as a shotgun blast sprayed the hatch with buckshot.

“What was that?” Higgsy yelped. “What was that bang?”

“Nothing good,” said Cal. He picked Alan up and threw him over his shoulder.

“Hey, let go of me. Put me down, or I’ll rip your lungs out through—”

“Alan, shut up,” said Cal. “Everyone else – run.”

He shoved Higgsy and Jork out of the way just as Gurt appeared at the top of the hatch and fired his shotgun again. Higgsy shrieked in fright and discovered a reserve of speed he hadn’t previously tapped into before. He took off like a rocket, knocking aside the Parlooqs and quickly pulling ahead of the others.

“Where is he going?” Cal asked. A blaster shot ricocheted off the hull of the ship, and he zig-zagged erratically, trying to stay out of the shooter’s sights.

“How the fonk should I know?” Alan yelped. “I can’t see nothing!”

“Nana Joan’s,” Jork wheezed, his voice a tremble of terror. “It’s closer than the Stagnates.”

Another shotgun blast tore through the night behind them, and Cal felt something hot whistle past his ear. “Look, this was all just a terrible misunderstanding,” he called over his shoulder. A blaster shot punched a fist-sized hole in the sidewalk just ahead of them in reply.

“I don’t think that worked,” said Alan.

“You don’t fonking say,” Cal muttered.

There was a road dead ahead of them. Even this late, traffic criss-crossed it at a pretty alarming rate. Higgsy had already navigated his way across, and was elbowing his way through the thinner night-time crowds.

Jork began to slow as they approached the curb, but Cal caught his arm and pulled him on. “Don’t think about it, just run.”

“But… the cars!”

“I know, but let’s all just assume they’ll stop and let us—”

A vehicle clipped Cal’s leading leg, flipping him into the air. He somersaulted twice, slammed down onto the car’s roof, then rolled to the ground.

Luckily for Alan, the initial impact had knocked him off Cal’s shoulder, and so he hadn’t had to endure the rest of the ordeal. He used Jork’s leg to pull himself up, but Cal was already up on his feet, dancing on the spot and shaking the pain out through his fingertips.

“Totally meant that,” Cal wheezed.

The side window of the now stopped car imploded as another shotgun blast peppered the vehicle. Cal pulled Jork into the traffic again, with Alan now scrambling along behind.

“We’re gonna die,” Alan said. “We’re all gonna die.”

“No, we’re not,” said Cal, darting sideways as an egg-shaped vehicle screeched to a stop right beside him. “Well, not all of us, anyway. I’m kind of immortal.”

“We’re not!” said Jork.

“I know!” Cal replied. “Hence the running.”

They made it to the other side. A spray of blaster fire from the chasing group scattered the crowds a little, and Cal pushed through a gap that opened in the direction Higgsy had gone.

“No, wait, there’s a shortcut,” said Jork, gesturing towards the mouth of an alley that ran between two near-identical branches of the same clothes store chain. “That way!”

Cal ducked into the alleyway, and the others followed. On the plus side, it was much quieter down here, with no one to get in the way of their escape. On the downside, it was a single long passageway with nowhere to hide and, perhaps more importantly, no witnesses.

Behind them, more tires screeched. Metal collided with metal. Someone screamed.

“Go, go,” said Cal, gesturing for the others to go ahead of him. He gave them a five-second head start, then set off after them, deliberately trying to take up as much of the passageway as he could.

He braced himself for the pain. It didn’t leave him waiting. A shotgun blast bit at his back, punching holes in his jacket and digging into his flesh like wasp-stings. The impact sent him stumbling forwards, but he pushed himself off the wall and raced on, the wounds on his back already expelling the fiery lumps of lead.

“Ow! Ooh! Well, you got me,” he shouted back. “We’re even now, guys!”

Another blaster bolt took a chunk of out of the wall beside him, spraying his face with smoldering shards of stone. He almost took a moment to criticize the blaster owner’s shooting skills, but worried this might provide him with just the incentive he needed to improve, so concentrated on running at the correct speed, instead.

He defined the ‘correct speed’ as one that would allow him to keep Jork and Alan in view, while simultaneously staying far enough back to provide a useful human shield. Obviously, he couldn’t stay too far back, though, because lots of the men chasing them had big pointy implements, and while a shotgun blast to the buttocks was one thing, being shish-kebabed on a rusty metal spike was quite another.

Another spray of buckshot tore at him. He was far enough ahead that he was only getting the tail-end of each shot, but they still stung like a motherfonker, and he almost lost his balance again. He stumbled on, ignoring the pain until it healed up.

Up ahead, Jork and Alan emerged from the alleyway and immediately turned right. Now he was no longer on shield duty, Cal picked up the pace. The walls became a blur of streaking speed lines around him as he powered on, leaving Gurt and his gang trailing behind. Another shotgun blast rang out, but this time the buckshot fell well short of its target.

“Get back here, you facking nonce!” Gurt bellowed. Tempting an offer as that was, Cal raced to the alley’s mouth, skidded right, then hurried after Jork and Alan.

The street was busier than the alleyway, but still nothing like during the day. Cal passed a couple of dozen people as he closed in on the others, then stopped when he turned another corner and realized Jork and Alan were nowhere to be seen.

“Shizz,” Cal spat, turning on the spot. There was a fence beside him, just a little taller than head height. From the other side, he heard a panicky whisper.

“Over here,” Jork hissed.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching – or no one who currently wanted to kill him, at least – Cal jumped up, caught the top of the fence, then scrambled over. He dropped down onto the other side just as Gurt and his crew clattered around the corner.

“Where the fack did he go?” Gurt spat.

Jork and Alan were crouching in a nest of trash, their fingers pressed to their lips. They were in a narrow area between two buildings, which might once have been a passageway. The fence blocked access from the road, but the alley continued out to the back of the buildings. Jork and Alan crept towards it, keeping low, their feet swishing softly through the discarded paper, cardboard and plastic.

Cal held his breath and peered through one of the gaps in the fence. Gurt’s gang stood on the other side, looking around, just as he had done. They didn’t look the smartest bunch of guys Cal had ever seen – he’d seen herds of cows with better reasoning skills – but it was only a matter of time before one of them thought to check the fence.

He had to sneak away before any of them—

KABOOM! Gurt’s shotgun punched a hole in the wood right above Cal’s head. Jork and Alan both screamed, and Cal frantically kicked backwards as another blast of buckshot widened the gap.

“Oh yeah, you’d better run. You’d better facking run!” grimaced Gurt, his face leering through the hole. The fence began to rock violently as the gang got their weight behind it.

Cal kicked to his feet and raced after the others. Jork led them left, then right, then right again as he weaved through a twisting network of narrow back streets until, finally, they emerged into a wide clearing at the back of Nana Joan’s.

Despite never having been there before, Cal immediately knew this was the back of Nana Joan’s. Cal recognized a couple of broken chairs propped up against the back wall that looked remarkably like those he’d broken during his fight with the restaurant’s elderly proprietor.

There was a little sign above the back door. The writing on it made his eyes water, as it tried to say two different things at the same time. One of Cal’s eyes seemed to be interpreting it simply as the words ‘Nana Joan’s’ in stark, black-on-white lettering, while the other saw the white-on-red logo of Five Guys shining out at him.

As if those clues weren’t revealing enough, the third was the real clincher. A spaceship stood in the yard. It was a boxy-looking thing, designed for sturdiness rather than speed, Cal guessed. Emblazoned on the side in letters several feet high were the words: ‘Nana Joan’s Delivery Service.’

“She has a spaceship?” Cal hissed. “Nana Joan has a fonking spaceship?”

“Guys! Psst! Down here!”

Higgsy’s voice came from somewhere under the main body of the ship. Cal and Jork both folded themselves low and darted in to join him. Alan did the same, but without the ducking part.

They found Higgsy crouching behind one of the ship’s three landing legs, and all squeezed in to join him.

“Why didn’t you tell me she has a spaceship?” Cal whispered. “We could have taken this one.”

“Steal from Nana Joan?” Higgsy squeaked. “She’d get really angry!”

“Hello!” Cal spat, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the alleyway. Gurt and his gang had appeared, and were slowly fanning out into a search pattern. “Do you think those guys just want to hang out with us for a while?”

Higgsy didn’t reply. Cal felt a pang of guilt and bit his tongue before he went any further. The kid was scared. All three of them were scared. Cal wasn’t exactly having the time of his life, either, but this was still better than another day of doing dishes.

“OK, here’s what we’re going to do,” Cal whispered. “Alan, I want you to do your freak out thing. Make these suckers eat their own feet. Then, I’ll come out…” He caught the look on Alan’s face. “What? What’s the problem?”

“I just… I just don’t know if now’s the right time,” said Alan.

“Now is absolutely the right time,” Cal told him. “There will literally never be a better time than this to get big and angry and Hulk-smash the shizz out of people.”

“I don’t know,” Alan said. “I might cause too much damage. You guys could get hurt. Even if I don’t, strictly speaking, like any of you, I still wouldn’t want to see you get— Ulp!”

“Ulp!” was not the intended end of Alan’s sentence, but he was forced to improvise when a hand reached around the ship’s landing leg, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him away.

“Hey, get off me!” Alan barked. “I mean it, leave me alone, or you’re going to regret it.”

“Shizz!” Cal muttered. “Stay here,” he told the others, then he took a series of fast, deep breaths, and rolled out of cover.

“OK, easy! Leave him alone,” Cal said, raising his hands as two firearms and four pointy things all turned his way. Alan was being held by a long-haired man with either a few hundred very small tattoos on his face, or a face that had evolved to look like a few hundred tattoos had been etched onto it. Cal couldn’t think of an evolutionary advantage this might offer, so guessed they were probably tattoos.

The reason he bothered to think about it at all was because it gave an interesting insight into the guy currently holding a long, slender blade to Alan’s face. Having that number of tattoos on his face suggested a certain ability to withstand pain. It also showed a level of dedication and commitment, which would likely make him a determined fighter.

And, of course, it suggested he was a full-blown fonking lunatic, which didn’t exactly help Cal’s chances, either.

“It’s all my fault,” Cal said. “I wanted to steal the ship, no one else. In fact, the guy you’re holding there, Alan. He wanted to stop me. ‘Don’t do it, Cal,’ he said. ‘This ship probably belongs to some really awesome guys. It would be wrong to—’”

“Shut up!” Gurt hissed. Tattoo-face shook Alan roughly, making the little man yelp.

“I wouldn’t make him angry,” Cal warned. “You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.”

He glanced at Alan to find him frantically shaking his head, but by then the damage had been done.

“Oh yeah?” sneered Tattoo-face. “And why’s that?”

“Uh, he’s a Kholo,” said Cal. “I think that’s what he said, anyway. And you know what Kholos do, right?”

Gurt’s gang glanced at each other. It appeared none of them knew what a Kholo did.

“Make them mad, and they get bigger. And they get meaner. And then you get squished,” Cal said. He mimed squashing something under his thumb.

There was a commotion from behind him as Jork and Higgsy were both pulled out from under the ship by a couple of other gang members. They crowded behind Cal, and he could feel them shaking in fear.

“A Kholo, huh?” said Gurt. He squatted down in front of Alan and studied him, like that weird kid in class might study a fly before tearing its wings off. “Never heard of one. But man, I’d love to see it in action.”

“Y-you wouldn’t,” said Alan, puffing up his chest. “Trust me.”

“Trust him, like he says,” said Cal. “Let him go. Let them all go. I’m the one who wanted to steal your ship. These guys tried to stop me. I mean, they’re practically heroes.”

Gurt ignored him. He rubbed his tongue against the front of those nasty teeth and patted his beard as if it was a family pet. “No. I think I’d like to see this facking nonce turn big.” He looked up at his companions. “We’d all like to see that, wouldn’t we, boys?”

There was some cheering and whooping and a general chorus of agreement. Alan looked imploringly up at Cal, but a slap across his face snapped him back around to meet Gurt’s gaze.

“Look at me, not him,” Gurt growled. He slapped him again, harder this time. A cheer went up from the others. Alan’s tiny fists clenched, but not in a way that suggested he was on the brink of becoming an unstoppable killing machine, and more like he was trying very hard not to cry.

“Look, guys, I was kidding,” said Cal. “Of course he can’t get bigger. I was trying to scare you away. Just let him go.”

Gurt slapped Alan again. “Is that true, runt?” he said. “Are you just a little facking pile of shizz, what can’t do nothin’?”

Thack. Another slap, harder this time. Alan’s eyes blurred with tears.

“Is that what you is?”

Cal took a step forwards. “Hey. Leave him alone.”

Gurt wheeled around and stood up, his shotgun raised and ready. “You don’t facking tell me what do to, alright? You don’t facking try to tell me.”

“A-a-hum.”

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat. A small woman with blue hair stood behind Gurt’s gang. She was dressed in a robe and slippers, and tiny bug-sized pieces of metal climbed through her hair, removing the tangles and returning its light and fluffy puffiness.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” asked Nana Joan.

“This don’t facking concern you,” said Gurt.

“This is my property,” said Nana Joan. “By which I mean the ground you’re standing on, and the people you are threatening. They work for me, and I do not appreciate you manhandling my things.”

Gurt gestured for one of his men to deal with the old lady. He was the tallest of the six, with a bear-like physique and the only beard in the group bigger than Gurt’s.

“Get out of here, lady,” the brute growled, flashing his sickle-like blade.

His beard came off in a series of short, sharp yanks. His wrist bent and broke, and his blade entered his lower intestines at speed, then shot upwards to chest height which, coincidentally, was as high on him as Nana Joan could reach.

She removed the blade with a stomach-turning schlurp, then hurled it at the guy with the blaster, just as he started to take aim. Both his hands came off at the wrists, and he stared blankly at them for a while, as if trying to decide if this turn of events was good or bad.

He settled on ‘bad’ and was about to scream when Nana jammed his own blaster under his chin and pulled the trigger, turning the top of his head into a spectacular eruption of fire and brains.

“Wait, fack, stop, stop!” yelped Gurt. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an ID card. “We’re with the Tribunal. These four were caught in the act of trying to steal a ship. We’re arresting them under Penal Code Alpha 644-dash-9.”

“Wait… You guys are cops?” Cal spluttered. “You weren’t trying to arrest us, you were trying to kill us.”

“You broke the facking law!” Gurt spat.

“We didn’t!” Cal protested. “We didn’t steal the ship. We – I mean I, just me – looked inside a ship. Is that a crime? Looking inside a ship? Is that against the law?”

“Yes,” said Gurt.

“Oh,” said Cal, deflating slightly. “Seriously? Because that feels… That feels excessive.”

Nana Joan narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “You didn’t identify yourself. I was well within my rights.”

“Of course! Of course you facking were, sweetheart,” said Gurt, oblivious to the way Nana bristled at that last word. “But now I’ve shown you my ID, you’d best back off while we take this lot in.”

“I keep telling you, they had nothing to do with it,” said Cal. “It was me. They tried to stop me.”

“You heard him,” said Nana. “It was just him, not the others. Take him if you must, but not them.”

“No can do,” said Gurt.

Nana’s voice became low and menacing. “Take him if you must. Not the others. You already killed one of my staff. I won’t lose any more. This one is new. He’s not properly trained yet. He can be replaced. The others can’t be. They stay with me.”

One of the other men reached over to take Higgsy’s arm. The gun Nana was holding snapped up and very deliberately took aim between the man’s eyes. “Lay a finger on that boy and see what happens,” she said. “I dare you.”

No one moved. The man with the gun pointed at him didn’t move with a far greater level of intensity than the others.

“I don’t care if you are the Tribunal,” Nana said. “These three are off-limits. Understood?”

Everyone looked at Gurt, who sucked on his horrible teeth for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Seems to me like they weren’t involved. No need to bring them in and give ourselves any unnecessary facking paperwork, is there?”

There was a murmuring of agreement from the others, particularly from the ones standing closest to the two dead bodies.

Nana Joan nodded and lowered her gun. Cal felt arms grab him roughly from behind.

“We’ll go out the front way,” Gurt said, in a voice that suggested it wasn’t open to debate. Nana, to her credit, considered debating it, but then nodded, just once.

“If that’s what you want,” she said. “But one little thing first.”

She drove a right hook across Cal’s jaw. The punch had such force behind it Cal was wrenched from the arms of the men holding him, and sent spiraling to the ground.

Nana grabbed him by the hair and hoisted him onto his knees. At the same time, she lowered her head so she could whisper in his ear.

“I’m sorry. I tried,” she told him. “And thank you.”

“Any time,” Cal grimaced, then the old woman shoved him away from her and stepped back.

“Get him out of my sight,” she said, indicating the back door of the restaurant. She turned to Higgsy, Jork and Alan. “And as for you three,” she said, slipping the blaster into her robe pocket. “We are going to have some serious words.”

Cal was caught under the arms and dragged backwards towards the door. “Catch you later, guys!” he called back to the others, before a flurry of quick rabbit-punches to the head shut him up.

“Keep your facking mouth closed,” Gurt warned him.

One of the men passed his Tribunal badge before the security scanners, and the back door to Nana Joan’s slid obligingly aside. It opened onto the little storage room at the back of the kitchen area. Cal spotted bits of Cramlin’s skeleton scattered across the kitchen floor as he was pulled through it, and wondered if his final resting place would be somewhere more stately.

Probably not, he reckoned. Cramlin, after all, had merely owned up to being unhappy in the workplace, while Cal had… Actually, Cal was a little hazy on what the nature of his actual crime was, but he had a feeling the deaths of two Tribunal officers was likely to be added to the rap sheet.

The TV was still on. The light from it painted the room in cool shades of white and blue. Cal was almost through the door leading into the restaurant proper when he saw the face on screen.

Loren.

She was soaking wet and in her underwear, either one of which he’d normally consider a good thing. But she was also bruised, her lip bleeding, one eye all but swollen shut.

“Wait, no, stop!” Cal cried, kicking with his heels to try to get purchase on the floor. A fist smashed across his face, but he brushed it aside, trying to see past Gurt to the screen behind him.

The sound was off, but the scrolling news ticker at the bottom announced: ‘Known Symmorium terrorist apprehended by Zertex…’

Before he could be dragged out of the kitchen, Cal grabbed the doorframe with both hands. “Wait, just stop, please! I need to see this. I need to see—”

The butt of Gurt’s shotgun cracked Cal in the face. His head snapped back, but he kept his grip on the door. “One second,” he said, spitting a wad of blood onto the floor.

Gurt motioned to his men. “On second thoughts, it’ll be easier to bring this facking nonce in if he’s unconscious. Gentlemen, would you be so kind?”

A boot connected with Cal’s ribs. A knee slammed into his cheek. Cal fell back under a barrage of kicks and punches. He kept his eyes on the screen for as long as he could, until the welcoming arms of unconsciousness – and, to a lesser extent, Tobey Maguire – pulled him down into the dark.

Fifteen

Cal woke up. This meant he wasn’t dead which, if he were honest, meant things were far better than he’d expected them to be.

Less positive was the fact he was in a cell. At least, he was telling himself it was a cell. It wasn’t really a cell at all, though.

Oh, sure, it had certain cell-like qualities in the form of barred doors and a number of restraints, but the restraints were more imaginative than the simple handcuffs or shackles found in most prisons, and were attached to a variety of contraptions which, even though he was trying very hard to come up with an alternative explanation, Cal knew could only be intended for torture.

And not the clean, hygienic sort of torture he’d experienced at the hands of Lady Vajazzle recently. No, this looked like the wet, messy sort of torture which would see him get gradually smaller and smaller over several hours, as more and more bits of him were removed using a variety of unpleasant methods.

Still, ‘cell’ felt nicer than ‘torture chamber’, or ‘butcher’s shop’, so he decided to stick with that, at least for the time being.

There were two guards in the room, one standing on either side of the door. They wore matching white uniforms with red trim, and something that combined a helmet and metal face mask into one sinister and unflattering piece of headwear.

These were not the torturers, Cal reckoned. It wasn’t that they didn’t look capable – the utter disdain with which they were glaring at him suggested they were positively itching for the opportunity to ram something sharp into one of his fleshier areas – but their body language suggested they were waiting for someone else. Someone important, going by how straight they were holding their backs.

They held slim, elegant blaster rifles in a way that said, ‘Yes, we know they’re small, but that only means you’ll take a lot longer to die,’ which made them all the more worrying than larger weapons would have been. The guns were currently pointed at the floor, but ready to be raised to precisely the height of Cal’s face, should either man deem it necessary.

“Hey, guys,” said Cal, as brightly as he could manage. He felt better than he should do after the kicking he’d received, but he wasn’t yet healed up all the way. He was also strapped to a table with an assortment of corkscrews and blades sitting on a tray beside it, and this was going some way to dampen his mood, too. “Could one of you do me a favor?”

Neither guard moved, yet their hatred for him somehow became even more palpable. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to let me go, or anything,” Cal assured them. “Although you can if you want to. Seriously, I won’t object.” He waited for some sort of response. “No? OK, it’s fine, that’s not what I was going to ask, anyway – but, again, it’s always an option, just so you know.’

He tried to sit up, but his arms were fastened to the tabletop somewhere above his head, and the best he could do was to flop himself about like a fish, which didn’t really help his situation in the slightest.

“OK, here’s what I need you guys to do,” Cal said. “Find me a TV. Even just a small one. You know? Or… I don’t know, do you have newspapers? Space newspapers? See a friend of mine has—”

A jolt of electricity passed through him from his wrist cuffs, making his whole body go rigid. His eyes bulged as the voltage increased for several seconds, before cutting off as suddenly as it had started.

“No talking,” grunted one of the guards.

Cal gulped down a series of rapid breaths. “OK. OK. Gotcha,” he wheezed. He raised his head to look at the two men. “So, is one of you going to get me a TV or— Hnnnng!”

The electricity ripped through him again, tightening all his muscles and almost making him chew through his tongue. It lasted longer this time, and when it finally snapped off, colors swam and danced before his eyes.

“—am I going to have to come over there and make you?” Cal concluded.

He braced himself for more pain, but it didn’t come. Instead, from somewhere beyond the door there came the sound of blaster fire. It was a short, sudden burst that was followed almost immediately by several voices shouting, and then another volley of shots.

The guards fired each other matching looks of concern, then both trained their guns on Cal. “Whoa, whoa, what?” Cal protested. “Why are you aiming at me? I haven’t done anything.”

The gunfire continued somewhere outside. It still sounded reasonably far away, but closer than it had been a moment ago. A small explosion went off, the force of the detonation rattling the torture implements all over the room.

The guards turned their guns to the door. They muttered something to one another, then one of them took aim at Cal again.

“Seriously, I’m not going anywhere,” Cal said. “I’d concentrate on whatever’s out there. If you release me, I’ll help you fight it. Then, once we’re done, I’ll hop right back on here, I swear.”

“Shut up!” hissed the guy with the gun on Cal.

More gunfire. This time it was returned.

Something went boom, rattling everything again.

Lots of feet hurried along the corridor outside. Cal heard the sound of power packs being slammed into weapons.

Something monstrous growled, and the guard who had been covering Cal swung his gun back to the door, instead.

“What the fonk is going on out there?” Cal asked, as the footsteps that had hurried past a moment ago sprinted back in the opposite direction, screaming. There were far fewer of them this time.

And then, as quickly as it had all started, the noises stopped. The two guards pressed themselves against the walls on either side of the door, their weapons trained on it.

“Hey. Psst. Hey!” Cal whispered. “I’m in a direct line of fire from the door here. If someone comes in, I’m going to get shot, like, immediately. Can someone push me over to the corner or…”

He stopped talking when both guards turned their guns on him. Cal would have put his hands above his head, if they weren’t already.

“Hey, wait! Easy, guys. Whatever’s going on out there, it is nothing to do with me!”

A fist punched through the wall right by the head of one of the guards. It was a large fist, and made of metal. Cal recognized it immediately.

“Wait, no, I tell a lie,” Cal said, his face lighting up in delight. “Seems like it does have something to do with me.”

The guard screamed as he was torn backwards through the wall. He fired wildly, and Cal tried to make himself as small a target as possible. Thanks to the shackles, the best he could manage was to makes his hands into fists and curl up his toes, but luckily the blaster bolts came nowhere near him.

The second guard was less fortunate. As the first fired blindly, one of the shots ricocheted off the blade of one of the room’s many torture devices. It scorched a hole straight through the exposed part of the guard’s face, and he went down without a sound.

The guard who was now out in the corridor was being less stoic about the hand fate had dealt him. He screamed for quite some time before a heavy, immensely solid-sounding thud silenced him, save for the faint ssssshk of him sliding down the wall.

The door to the cell shook on its hinges a couple of times, then flew open. A hulking cyborg stood in the doorway.

“Finally,” said Cal. “What kept you?”

Mech said nothing for a moment or two, then: “What can I say, man? Traffic was a fonking nightmare.”

He clanked into the room, glancing down at the dead guard. “It’s OK, he got hit by a stray shot,” said Cal.

Mech grunted. “Weren’t no stray shot.”

“Shut up!” said Cal. “There’s no way that was on purpose.”

“Of course it—!”

Something detonated against the back of Mech’s metal skull, staggering him. He opened his mouth, and a little puff of smoke emerged. “See what I mean?” Mech scowled. “I literally been in the same room as you for three seconds, and already I been shot in the back of the head.”

His scowl curved slowly upwards into a smile. “But man, I’ve missed this shizz,” he said, then he turned the dial on his chest to his right, just a fraction. “Be right back.”

He turned with a surprising burst of speed and launched himself through the wall. “Who did that?” he demanded. “Who fired that? Was that you?”

“W-what? N-no! No, please, don’t!” wailed a man’s voice from a little further away.

“Get back here, shizznod!”

“Hey there, handsome.”

Cal looked to the door to find Miz looming there, her claws fully extended, her fur matted with blood.

“Miz! Are you a sight for sore eyes! Get me out of this thing,” Cal urged.

Miz strolled over and looked him up and down. “Oh, wow. This thing looks totally awesome.”

“Meh. From my point of view, not so much,” Cal said. “Wait, are you eating something?”

Miz stopped chewing for a moment, then started again. “Maybe.”

“Do I want to know what it is?”

Miz swallowed. “I doubt it.” She traced a clawed finger down Cal’s side, from just below his armpit. “So, like, you’re completely helpless in this thing, right?”

“Pretty much,” Cal said, squirming slightly. “Hence why I’m keen to get out of it.” Mizette’s eyes fell to his crotch. “Uh… whatcha doing there, Miz?” he asked.

“Like… completely helpless?”

“Yes,” said Cal. He swallowed. “Well, I mean, I guess I could still scream…”

Miz licked her lips hungrily. “There’s something I’ve wanted to do to you for a long time,” she whispered. She leaned in closer until Cal could see nothing but fur, smell nothing but blood and the unmistakable whiff of wet dog.

“Miz? What are you…? Miz?”

The restraints released. Miz snorted and leaned back, a grin curving below her snout. “Oh man, like, you should totally see your face right now,” she said.

Cal sprang to his feet, laughing a little too hard. “What? Oh! Hahahaha! Good one. You got me!”

“You totally thought I was going to, like, mount you or whatever, right there on the table.”

“Hahaha! Well, no, I mean…”

“I could have, if I’d wanted to,” Miz pointed out.

“Well, hahaha, yes. But you’re with Mech now, so I knew you wouldn’t.”

Miz waved a clawed hand. “What? Oh, no. That’s done. I’m so over that.”

“Oh,” said Cal, disappointed. He wasn’t sure whether he was disappointed for them, or for himself. Probably a bit of both. “That’s a shame.”

Miz shrugged. “We didn’t connect. You know, like, emotionally, or whatever? We both like, like, fighting and stuff, but beyond that, we didn’t really have all that much in common. Not enough to sustain a relationship, anyway.”

“I see,” said Cal.

“And he doesn’t have a penis, so there’s that, too.”

“Gotcha,” said Cal. “I can see why that would be an obstacle. Or, you know, not, as the case may be.”

Screaming and gunfire had been going on throughout Cal and Miz’s exchange. It stopped now, and was replaced by the thudding of mechanical feet drawing steadily closer.

“All clear,” said Mech, ducking through the door. “But reinforcements will be on the way. We should move.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Cal. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, or anything – I’m glad you guys are here – but how did you find me?”

Mech raised his forearm, showing off the display screen built into it. “I been tracking you this whole time,” he said. “You think I’d let you just go off and do your own thing without keeping an eye on you?”

“You were looking out for me?” said Cal, feeling genuinely quite touched.

“No, man. I wanted to make sure you didn’t end up living next door to me.”

“Oh.”

“Or I’d have moved.”

“I get it. Thanks for that.”

“Zertex has got Loren,” said Miz. “We have to go and, like, rescue her.”

“I know,” said Cal. He turned towards the door, then turned back. “Wait, you want to go save Loren?”

“Of course,” said Miz, sniffing as if offended. “She’s one of us. She’s one of the team.”

Cal smirked. “The job was that bad, huh?”

“Ugh, it was terrible,” Miz groaned. “They expected me to talk to people, give them drinks, or whatever. One time, they told me to clean glasses. Me! I mean, can you imagine?”

Cal shook his head. “No. No, I cannot.”

Mech beckoned for them to follow him out. “Come on, there are Tribunal ships out back, we can take one of them.”

“Wait! We can’t. I have to go back to Nana Joan’s,” said Cal. “Where I work. There’s something I need to pick up.”

“If it’s your paycheck, man, just leave it,” said Mech.

“No, it’s… wait. Paycheck? You guys got paid?”

Mech and Miz exchanged a glance. “Well, duh,” said Miz.

“Of course we did,” Mech confirmed.

“What?! Well why didn’t I get paid?” he demanded, then he shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not that, anyway, it’s a doohickey. You know, a thingy.” He mimed pressing a button, as if this would somehow make everything clearer. “That guy’s mom gave it to me. I slipped it into Higgsy’s pocket right before the Tribunal took me.”

“Man, I have no idea what the Hell you’re talking about,” said Mech.

“She told me I take it, so I must take it. I mean… right?” Cal said. “Which means we have to go back and get it, so I can take it with us. She said it was important.”

“That didn’t make it any clearer at all,” Miz pointed out.

“It actually somehow made it less clear,” Mech added. “Take what?”

“The doohickey!” Cal sighed. “Look, I’ll explain later. But we need to get back to Nana Joan’s and then—”

Everything after ‘and then’ was lost in the sound of an explosion, as the wall behind them erupted into dust and bits of gravel. Sunlight streamed in as Cal coughed and wheezed in the rubble-cloud.

“Hey, what time is it? How long was I in here for?” he asked. The cloud settled a little, revealing a large shape looming just beyond it. “And is that… Is that a tank?”

“Shizz. Move!” snapped Mech, pulling Cal aside and firing a salvo of blaster-fire from his arm cannon. Miz raced ahead, mostly upright, but occasionally using her arms as she bounded over rubble, debris and quite a staggering number of corpses.

“Jesus, how many people did you guys kill?” Cal gasped, but before Miz could answer the tank opened fire again. Another wall blew outwards. Part of the roof caved in, blocking their route. “Mech, we need an exit!” Cal cried.

“On it.”

Mech pivoted to one of the building’s more stable-looking walls and charged. His hydraulics hissed as he launched himself through the brickwork, leaving a gaping hole behind him. Cal urged Miz through it, then hurried after her just as the floor detonated behind him.

“You know what I said earlier about missing this shizz?” Mech called back over his shoulder. He charged through another wall and stumbled outside into fresh air. “I take it back. I want that on record.”

Sirens howled from every direction at once. The tank was hidden by the remains of the Tribunal building, but Cal could hear it trundling across the rubble. Voices shouted around it in a way that suggested they definitely weren’t on Cal’s side.

“Nana Joan’s,” Cal said. “Which way?”

Mech hurriedly tapped the panel on his arm. “That way, but it’s a mile or so,” he said, pointing along the street. Despite the gunfire and explosions, the sidewalks were still crammed with people. Most of them were hurrying away, but a good few had stopped to watch the excitement unfolding.

“Fonk it,” Cal spat. “We’ll never make it on foot.”

He threw himself into the road, directly in front of an oncoming… car, he guessed. It was the width of a moderately-sized 4x4, but twice as tall. At the front, it was fat and curved, but tapered to a sort of pointed tail at the back. It reminded Cal of a big silver fish, as it hovered just above the ground on a rippling cushion of air.

The vehicle hummed to a jerky stop just inches from Cal’s outstretched hand. “We are commandeering this vehicle in the name of Space Team,” he announced. The car tried to pull forward again, but Mech caught it by the tail and held it in place. Miz yanked the door open and pounced inside.

A moment later, a man in an expensively-tailored suit tumbled out and landed in the road. “Hey!” he protested. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry,” said Cal, hopping inside. “We’ll take very good care of it.”

Cal looked around at the cramped interior. Miz was already hunched up in the back, her knees almost at her chin. The only other seat was for the driver, and it wasn’t really a seat at all. It looked more like a mechanical bull, with an assortment of levers and control sticks jutting out from the front part.

“Mech, there’s no room for you in here. Can you…?”

The car bounced around as Mech clambered onto its roof. “I’m on. Go!” the cyborg’s voice boomed from somewhere directly above Cal’s head.

Cal swung his leg over the seat and onto the foot rest on the other side. His hands slipped naturally into the grooves of the two largest control sticks and he pushed them forwards in the hope the car moved.

It didn’t.

Cal yanked on another stick. Then engine screamed in protest and the vehicle gave a violent shudder. He quickly unyanked it.

“They’re coming, man! Move!” Mech cried.

“I’m trying!” said Cal. “Miz, have you ever driven one of these things?”

Miz indicated her ridiculously compacted frame. “Do I look like I’ve ever driven one of these things?” she tutted. “This looked way bigger on the outside.”

A blaster bolt ricocheted off something. “Ow!” Mech yelped. He returned fire. “Yeah, see how you like it!”

Cal’s eyes darted across the controls. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, but nothing that said ‘this will make you move’ immediately jumped out at him.

There was a glovebox in the front panel. Hoping to find some sort of manual in there, Cal stretched himself forwards. As his foot pressed on the foot rest, the vehicle screamed forwards, violently kangaroo-hopped a few times, then veered into oncoming traffic.

“What the fonk are you doing?” Mech hollered. “Go left, go left!”

Cal jammed the left stick forwards. This made him go right, and there was a jarring bang as another car clipped them.

“Sorry! My fault!” Cal said. He swapped the position of the sticks and steered himself into the left-hand lane, which was completely clear all the way to the end of the road. “Hang on to something!” he cried, then he pressed his foot down harder on the pedal and the car pulled away, building up speed as it hurtled along the empty lane.

The first corner took Cal by surprise. Technically, it wasn’t the corner that was the problem – he had seen it coming for quite some time – but rather the handling of the flying fish-car. While it was excellent at accelerating, it was less good at turning corners, particularly when travelling at high speeds.

Mech grunted and grumbled as the car slammed sideways into the front of an office-block. Cal gunned the pedal and the engine’s complaints drowned out Mech’s.

“Miz, are they chasing us?” Cal asked, powering back out onto the road. “Can you see?”

“I can see the tops of my knees and, like, a third of your head. That’s it,” said Miz.

An energy blast screamed past them and struck another car coming in the opposite direction. It careened off the road and smashed, nose-first, through a store front.

“They’re still chasing us,” Cal said. “OK, everyone hold on!”

Cal kicked harder on the pedal, but the car’s speed didn’t increase. From the sound the engine was making, they were going at top speed, yet the display on the dashboard suggested the thing had more to give.

“Wait,” said Cal. “Wait… is this thing stick shift?”

He yanked the lever he’d tried earlier. The engine’s whine became a throaty roar and the car shot forwards like a bullet from a rifle, weaving all over the road as Cal struggled to keep it under control.

Panicking, he pressed down his other foot. This turned out to be the brakes. The car stopped immediately, and Cal watched in a sort of stunned silence as Mech was launched off the roof. Despite flailing wildly and hurtling through the air at tremendous speed, the cyborg still found the time to shoot Cal an accusing look, right before he slammed into the back of a delivery truck, crumpling the bodywork like wet cardboard.

Cal pulled forwards again until he was level with Mech, just as he extracted himself from the wreckage. “Sorry! My fault again!” Cal said, then the car dipped again when Mech clambered onto the roof.

“They’re coming. Go, go!”

Cal pulled forwards again, weaving awkwardly around the partially-flattened truck. He flashed the driver an apologetic smile as he passed on the wrong side of the road, then they were off again, gliding along the empty lane, getting faster and faster as they closed on Nana Joan’s.

“How much further?” Cal shouted.

“Two corners, left, then right,” Mech called back, his instructions punctuated by a couple of pew-pews from his arm cannon.

The first corner came up fast. Cal touched the brake, just lightly this time, and swung them around the bend without hitting anything.

“Alright!” he cheered. “I’m a natural.”

The road curved into a swooping bend ahead. Cal powered towards it, but as he began the long turn, he realized he’d caught up with all the traffic that had pulled ahead of the car when he’d flagged it down. Cars chugged along slowly in both lanes, not quite nose to tail, but close enough to be a problem.

“Shizz. We’re blocked!”

“Well get us unfonking blocked!” Mech spat, firing off another volley of blaster bolts.

Cal searched for an exit. He spotted a fence between two buildings, and caught a glimpse of an alleyway behind. The gap was narrow, but just wide enough.

“Brace yourselves!” he warned, jamming the sticks so the car turned sharply in the road. He powered through a gap in the oncoming traffic, and then the fence was suddenly dead ahead, and rapidly getting closer.

The wood became matchsticks as the car smashed through it.

“Alright!” Cal cheered, before the vehicle stopped in a shower of sparks and a screech of metal on stone.

Once again, Cal could only watch as Mech was launched from the roof. This time, the cyborg managed to give Cal the finger before he hit the ground and skidded along the alleyway in a tangle of metal limbs.

“What happened?” Miz asked. “Why have we stopped?”

Cal forced a smile. “Well, it appears this alleyway wasn’t quite as wide as I had anticipated,” he said.

“We’re stuck?!”

“We… I mean… That would be one way of putting it, certainly.”

Voices boomed somewhere not too far behind. Cal tried the door, but it was jammed by the wall beside them. “OK, so we won’t be getting out that way,” he muttered.

Mech got to his feet and limped along the alley towards them. Cal could see him muttering below his breath, and was relieved he couldn’t hear what was being said.

“Keep back,” Mech warned. A single punch shattered the windshield, and the metal squeaked in protest as he tore out the whole frame.

Cal untangled himself from the controls and jumped down. Miz followed a moment later, stretching her legs and cricking her neck. “I am never going in one of those things again.”

“Oh, you think you had it bad?” said Mech. “Try being on the motherfonking roof!”

Cal darted ahead. “Guys, come on! Before anyone gets through. Which way?”

Mech checked his sensors. “Complicated. I’ll lead the way. You two watch our backs.”

‘Complicated’ was putting it mildly. Mech led them through a winding zig-zag of alleyways and back streets that Cal was sure was looping them around in circles.

Eventually, though, they reached the mouth of a passageway and there, standing across the road, was a…

“Dunkin’ Donuts?” said Cal. “What the…? Where did this come from?”

“It’s Nana Joan’s,” Mech insisted.

Cal shook his head. “No, Nana Joan’s is a Five Guys. This is a Dunkin’ Donuts. See, it reads your mind and figures out what you want to…” He stopped and thought for a moment. “Holy shizz, I’d actually kill for a Dunkin’ Donuts right now. My god, this place knows me better than I know myself. This is it, alright.”

He stepped out onto the street, only for a hail of gunfire to force him back in. “Shizz!” he yelped, dancing a retreat. “They must have figured out where we were going, somehow.”

“You literally announced it,” Mech reminded him. “You literally said, out loud, ‘We have to go to Nana Joan’s.’”

“What if we just make a run for it?” Cal said. He gestured across the road. “It’s literally right there.”

Miz took an empty soda can from the alley’s trash and tossed it into the street. Before it finished rolling, it had been obliterated by blaster fire.

“How fast can you run again?” Miz asked.

Cal sucked on his bottom lip. “Fonk. Not fast enough. Anyone have any ideas?”

Mech frowned. “Maybe. Do you still heal fast?”

“Yeah, why?”

“How fast, exactly?”

“I don’t know. Fast. Why?”

“I might have a plan,” Mech said. “But you ain’t gonna like it.”

“Oh. OK,” said Cal. “Are you going to like it?”

“Honestly?” Mech’s metal jaw bent into a grin. “It’ll be up there as one of the greatest moments of my life.” He tapped his arm. “Let me just activate recording mode. I’m gonna want to remember this for a long, long time…”

Sixteen

Cal rocketed through the air, laser-fire crisscrossing behind him, the wind turning his vision into little more than a blur. He was almost grateful for that fact, because it meant he couldn’t see the window approaching, or his own reflection that was rapidly growing larger in it.

KARAAASH!

Cal tumbled through the window in a chorus of shattering glass, breaking bones, and high-pitched shrieks. He clattered across a table, scattered a few space chairs, then left a lengthy blood trail across the floor as he slid to a stop.

“Ow.”

He rolled over and sat up. He was blind in one eye, and he was pretty sure he could feel his cheek resting on his chin. There were dozens of shards of glass embedded in his face and neck, and something flopping in front of his one working eye that he at first thought was a big spider, then realized was actually part of his scalp.

“Son of a bedge,” he muttered, flopping the scalp back into place and rearranging his face into what he hoped was roughly the correct position.

It was only then that he noticed Higgsy, Jork and Alan. They were standing eight or nine feet in front of him, staring at him in a mixture of horror, disbelief, and a bit more horror. They appeared to have been in the middle of giving a sponge bath to the fattest, single most revolting creature Cal had ever laid eyes on.

It looked like someone had inflated a sausage, and been having too much fun to know when enough was enough. It was completely naked, aside from a large white sheet wrapped around its waist. Its bare skin was covered in sores and boils, and it was these that Higgsy and the others were sponging down with a thick, gloopy liquid.

“Uh, hey guys,” said Cal, pulling the last of the glass from his face. He looked the fat thing up and down. “How’s it going?”

“Dude,” Jork mumbled. “How did you just do that with your face?”

“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” the naked guy said, his blubbery lips spraying spittle on the side of Jork’s head. The boils on his skin puckered up, and Cal realized they weren’t sores at all. They were hundreds of tiny mouths. “I paid for private dining.”

“Uh, s-sorry, Your Eminence,” said Higgsy.

“More soup!” the fat man demanded. There was a wet schlop sound as Higgsy slapped the sponge against him again, and set to work.

“Jesus,” said Cal. He whistled below his breath. “I am glad it’s my day off.”

“Muntch!” barked Nana Joan, storming through from the kitchen area. She no longer wore her robe and slippers, and was dressed in the same sensible outfit she’d worn yesterday, only now with an apron over the top of it. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you dead?”

“Well, nice to see you too, Nana,” said Cal.

“You know what I mean. They took you. They ought to have killed you by now.”

Cal shrugged. “What can I say? I guess they let me go.”

“You. In the building,” barked an amplified voice from outside. “Come out with your hands up.”

“Or, you know, I escaped,” Cal said.

Nana’s face became a mask of fury. “And you brought them here? What were you thinking? You have put everyone in here in danger!”

“What, even me?” asked the fat guy.

“Oh no, not you, dear,” Nana said, smiling warmly at the man. The smile fell away when she turned back to Cal. “But everyone else. They’ll think we’re conspiring with you. They’ll take us all in!”

“Shizz, seriously?” Cal winced. “Sorry, that was an accident. I didn’t know.”

He reached into Higgsy’s pocket, making the boy jump in fright. “Wh-what are you doing?”

Cal pulled out the doohickey and held it up. “I had to come back for this. I slipped it into your pocket before those guys took me away last night.”

“You have thirty seconds to comply,” the voice outside informed them. “Or we will storm the building and eliminate all threats within.”

“They’re going to kill us!” Jork yelped.

“Oh, great!” said Alan. “That’s just great! Thanks a bunch, Muntch.”

Cal backed towards the broken window. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ll explain you’re not involved.”

“They’re not going to believe you. Not after last night,” Nana hissed. “Anyway, they’ll shoot you dead the moment you step out there.”

The street was filled by the screaming of gunfire. Higgsy, Jork, and Alan all ducked for cover. “They’re shooting us, they’re shooting us!” Higgsy cried.

“Relax, they’re not shooting us,” said Cal. “They’re shooting at her.”

Miz bounded through the window with far more grace and style than Cal had, rolled across a tabletop, and landed on her feet with teeth and fangs bared.

This was a step too far for the customer, who decided to take his chances elsewhere. He waddled towards the exit, screaming, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” then was disappointed to be shot the moment he opened the door. Something wet and soupy hit the wall behind him. Probably soup. The impact made his towel fall off, affording everyone else in the room one of the most harrowing sights of their lives. Then, with a thud, he toppled backwards onto the floor, dead.

Mech used the distraction to make his own move. While not as fast as Miz, he had the advantage of being virtually invulnerable to blaster fire. He marched quickly across the street, bolts of energy rebounding off him as he sprayed gunfire of his own at anything that moved.

With a heave, he pulled himself in through the broken window and inside Nana Joan’s. “You get your thing?” he asked.

Cal held up the doohickey. “Got it.”

“It’s a button? What does it do?” Mech asked.

“Nothing yet. She told me it’ll work when the time is right.”

Miz scowled. “That’s stupid. How will you know?”

“She just said I’d know.”

“Well, press it now,” said Mech. “If that thing’s going to help us somehow, the time sure feels pretty fonking right to me.”

Cal pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, great!” Mech grunted. “So now we’re stuck in here with half the fonking Tribunal officers in the city closing in on us.”

“I don’t want to die!” Higgsy sobbed. “I don’t want to die!”

“And you won’t,” said Nana, drawing herself up to her full, unimpressive height. She pointed to Miz and Mech. “You two, watch the window.”

“Who’s she?” asked Miz, looking Nana up and down.

“She’s my boss,” Cal explained. “She’s tougher than she looks.”

Nana motioned to Cal and her other employees. “You four, with me.”

Higgsy, Jork and Alan both hurried to the old woman’s side. Cal hesitated. “You’re not going to put me back on dishes, are you?”

“No! Now hurry,” Nana snapped. “We don’t have much time.”

She led them through the kitchens and into the storage area by the back door. “Of course!” said Cal, reaching for the handle. “We can go out the back way and take your ship. Nana, you’re a—”

“No, don’t!” Nana yelped, but it was too late. A spray of blaster fire found its way inside. Cal yelped as it scorched his shoulder, then leaped aside as Nana slammed the door closed. She hurriedly keyed an override command into the panel beside it, activating the deadlock.

“They’re out there, you idiot,” Nana hissed.

Cal watched the wound on his shoulder close. “Then why did you bring us in there?” he asked.

Nana approached a large metal cabinet. It looked much like the other metal cabinets in the storage room and kitchen, but as she got closer, the old woman’s voice became an almost reverend whisper. “For this,” she said, then the cabinet doors parted before her, and a series of racks and shelves unfolded from within.

It was an arsenal. It was already the biggest arsenal Cal had ever seen in fact, and it was still growing as the shelves continued to unfold. Cal and the others stepped back as the racks continued expanding, locking themselves into place as more and more weapons were unveiled.

“What… What is all this?” Higgsy whispered.

“These are my guns, dear,” said the old woman, gesturing around the room, which was now almost completely covered by racks of weaponry. “These are the guns of Nana Joan. I didn’t always run a restaurant, you know?”

She reached for a short, stubby rifle with three vertically-aligned barrels and a frankly ludicrous scope on top. “Everyone take one. Take as many as you can carry. If we’re going down, we’re going down fighting.”

“Alright, Nana Joan!” cried Cal, grabbing himself a couple of blaster pistols and something that looked like a chain gun, minus the chain.

“We don’t want to fight!” said Jork. “Right, Higgsy?”

Higgsy blinked several times, then snatched a shotgun from the rack. “Just get a gun, you freaking idiot,” Higgsy said. “We either fight, or we die. Right, Nana?”

“That’s right, dear,” said Nana. She patted Higgsy on the arm and winked. “You stick with me, you hear?”

She looked down at Alan, who was staggering under the weight of a portable missile-launcher. “Seriously, Alan?” she sighed. She plucked the weapon from his grasp and handed him a pistol instead. “Here, start with this.”

“Huh? This thing is tiny.”

“Yes, well so are you,” Nana pointed out.

Alan opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it.

“We’re about to have company!” roared Mech from out front.

Cal crammed another couple of guns into his belt, slung two more rifles over his shoulder, and gestured to the missile-launcher in Nana’s hands. “May I?”

Nana took a moment to consider the request. “Very well, Muntch. I hope you know how to use it.”

“Oh I do. And please, call me ‘Cal.’”

“No,” said Nana. “And you’re pointing it the wrong way.”

A torrent of blaster fire rattled against the outside of the door behind them. Higgsy snapped up his gun, closed his eyes and fired. The bolt rebounded off the door and spent a terrifying few seconds ricocheting off every available surface, before punching a hole in the kitchen door.

“Jesus Christ!” Cal yelped. “Be careful with that thing!”

“S-sorry!” Higgsy whimpered.

“It’s shielded,” Nana said, gesturing to the back door. “Against both energy and physical assaults. No one’s getting in that way, at least not for a while.”

Cal led the way back through the kitchen and into the main restaurant. Mech was by the window, pumping round after round down the street. Mizette ducked low near the open door, ready to pounce on the first head that poked through.

“Miz!” Cal called, tossing her a rifle. She caught it, gave it an experimental sniff, then nodded her approval. Pivoting on her front foot, she pumped a pulsing blue ball of energy out through the door. A moment later, something made a loud whump sound outside, and a reassuringly large number of people all began screaming at the same time.

“Good choice,” said Miz, eyeing the weapon. “I am totally keeping this thing.”

Another window exploded, and a volley of blaster bolts obliterated a trash can. Cal joined Mech at the first window, while Nana led the others over to the second, gesturing for them to keep low.

“What’s the situation?” Cal asked. “You know, other than ‘we’re probably all about to die,’ I mean.”

“We got around a hundred agents out front,” Mech began, then Miz’s gun fired again, and several more people screamed. “We got around eighty-five agents out front,” Mech corrected. He sprayed blaster fire off to his right, then indicated in the same direction. “And some kind of tank rolling in.”

Cal hoisted the missile launcher onto his shoulder. “Leave the tank to me,” he said, then he pulled the trigger before Mech could spoil his fun. To his immense relief, he was pointing it in the right direction. He was also pointing it down at a much steeper than intended angle, and the road just a few feet ahead of them erupted in a ball of fire, singeing Cal’s eyebrows, and knocking him onto his back.

“OK, my bad! My bad,” Cal wheezed, returning to his spot. “Totally misjudged that.”

A rain of laser fire slammed into the window surround from outside. Cal and Mech both ducked as it screamed over their heads, shattered the remaining shards of glass, and punched holes in the walls.

Across the room, Nana Joan gestured for her staff to stay back, then stood up at the window, and fired several times with two blaster pistols. She ducked back down before the bodies of the Tribunal agents had even hit the ground.

“Whoa. Nice shooting, Nana,” said Jork, peeking up over the window ledge. Nana pulled him down before a volley of return fire tore past them.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, smiling warmly. “Now, try not to get shot in the face, if you can possibly avoid it.”

“I want to shoot something!” said Alan. The little pistol looked enormous in his hands, and he had to jam the butt of it against his shoulder like a rifle stock.

“You’ll get your chance,” said Nana. She stood up, killed several people, then crouched down again. “If anyone gets in here, that’s when you three strike, OK? You three are my secret weapon. Nana Joan’s secret sauce. Got it?”

She squeezed Higgsy’s bloated cheek, then got back to shooting people. As she stood up, a puff of smoke emerged from the turret of the tank.

“Everyone down!” she screamed, hurling herself away from the window, knocking over her three employees on the way.

At the exact same moment, the doohickey in Cal’s pocket let out a loud chime, and Ronda’s voice emerged. “The time is right,” she said.

As Cal fumbled with the device, Mech spun, shoving Cal to the ground. Miz bounded towards the center of the room, and they all hit the deck just as the wall and part of the roof erupted, filling the restaurant with fast-moving rocks, glass, and scrap metal.

There was a ringing in Cal’s ears when he opened his eyes. The floor lurched beneath him as he tried to get up, blinking and coughing in a cloud of dust. “Everyone OK?” he wheezed.

Mech’s arm sparked and popped, but he ignored it. “Fine.”

“We’re OK, dear,” said Nana Joan.

“S-speak for yourself!” Jork sobbed, although he appeared to be more scared than hurt. Alan pulled himself upright, then helped Higgsy up as far as he could.

“They broke my cool gun!” Miz grumbled, holding up the weapon. A sliver of metal was buried in one side, and a glowing blue fluid dripped from the entry point.

There was a series of metallic clattering sounds, as several metal disks sailed in through the damaged wall. Mech raised his damaged arm to blast the closest one, but his cannon refused to fire.

“Oh,” Cal whispered, his eyes going wide. “Shizz.”

The disks exploded. What came out of them was not the fiery death Cal had been prepared for, but a gloopy, gelatinous white fluid that coated them all from head to toe. Cal tried to stumble back, but the gloop became stringy, then solid around his body. The stuff on his face squidged aside, locking his head in place, but leaving his face and airways clear.

“Jesus,” he grimaced, struggling against his bonds. “Well, I guess that was the money shot.”

Mech and Miz were both cocooned, just like he was. Higgsy, Jork and Nana Joan, too. There was a number of Alan-sized lumps on the floor, but from Cal’s angle, he couldn’t see a face on any of them.

“What is this stuff?” Miz asked.

“Restraining fluid,” Nana Joan said. She struggled briefly against the bonds, but stopped quickly. “Virtually inescapable. Don’t try to use your weapons, unless you’re keen to lose a hand or two.”

“Did I hear your thingy going off?” Mech asked.

“The doohickey?” said Cal. “Yeah. I’m pressing it right now.”

Mech’s eyes darted around the room. “And?”

Cal tried to shrug, but failed. “Doesn’t seem to have done anything.”

“Oh, well ain’t that just great?” Mech sighed.

“Well now, what the fack does we have here, then?”

Gurt strolled in through the door, a couple of his henchmen behind him. Although the cocoon muffled the sound, Cal felt the vibrations of the tank rolling along the street in the direction of the restaurant.

Kicking through the rubble, Gurt stopped in front of Cal. “This is becoming a habit. Ain’t it?” he said. “You know what I do with habits?”

“Put them on and pretend you’re a big nun?” Cal guessed.

Gurt looked momentarily confused, but rallied quickly. He leered, showing off his revolting teeth. “I break them.”

“Ha! Good one,” said Cal. “I see what you did there. Clever.”

Gurt rabbit-punched him in the face. It wasn’t particularly hard, but because Cal’s head had nowhere to go, it hurt more than it otherwise might have.

Cal licked the blood from his burst lip. “Well, that felt a little unnecessary.”

Gurt hit him again. Cal grimaced, then wrinkled his nose as a trickle of blood emerged from each nostril. “As did that.”

The Tribunal agent drew back a fist to hit him again. Cal didn’t blink, and Gurt realized he was wasting his time. “Hit one of the other ones,” he said, gesturing to Nana Joan’s group. “Maybe that’ll stop his smart mouth.”

“OK, OK, I’ll stop,” said Cal, but one of Gurt’s men had already picked his target.

Higgsy’s bulbous face looked comically huge in the cocoon, as if it were being squeezed out through the gap. His bottom lip trembled, and Cal could see the boy was holding back tears.

“Hey, come on, he’s just a kid,” Cal said.

“You leave him now,” Nana Joan warned the agent. “You hear me? You don’t touch him.”

Gurt sneered. “Yeah. That one’ll do,” he said, holding Cal’s gaze. “Make it a good ‘un.”

“N-no, please, don’t, don’t!” Higgsy whimpered. The agent raised his fists, bobbed and weaved a couple of times, enjoying the moment, then struck with a jab at Higgsy’s puffed-up cheek.

FLOMP.

His hand sank into Higgsy’s flesh, all the way up to the wrist. “Sommy,” said Higgsy, his mouth squished to one side. “I twied to wan oo.”

The henchman screamed. He leapt back, the skin of his hand sizzling as it dissolved into raw, wet flesh. That, too, was eaten away by the thin veneer of orange slime, becoming bone, then dust, then nothing at all.

Gurt and the other agent snapped up their weapons as Higgsy’s attacker passed out in shock.

“It… it wasn’t my fault,” Higgsy sobbed. “I didn’t do it, it’s not my fault.”

“Don’t hurt him!” Nana protested.

“Yeah, come on, guys, it’s me you want,” said Cal.

“Leave the kid alone,” Mech added.

But Gurt was advancing on Higgsy now, regarding him with a sort of morbid curiosity that suggested he wanted to find out what was inside the boy, and didn’t mind how many holes he had to make to do so.

Handing his shotgun across to his remaining henchman, Gurt slid a knife out from a concealed sheath below his beard. “Well now,” he breathed. “Ain’t you a facking interesting one?”

He brought the knife closer to Higgsy’s bloated face. The boy tried to draw back, but there was no way for him to move.

“P-please,” Higgsy whispered, but the word was lost in a mess of tears and snot, and Gurt just kept coming closer.

“Hey, back off, you big jerk.”

Alan emerged from behind Higgsy’s cocoon, his arms shaking as he pointed the gun up at Gurt. “Leave him alone, or I shoot.”

Gurt took a step back and slowly raised his hands.

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Alan. “Ain’t so tough now, are you?”

With a flick of his foot, Gurt kicked the gun from Alan’s grip. “Yes, I facking am,” he said, then he toe-punted the little man in the stomach with such force it lifted him off his feet.

Alan fell to the floor, doubled over, coughing and wheezing. Gurt turned his attention back to Higgsy. “Now, where was we?”

“I said,” Alan spat, forcing his legs to lift him. “Leave him alone.” There was a shake in his voice that was impossible to miss, but to his credit, he carried on. “Or you know what I’m going to do to you? I’m going to make you eat your own feet.”

The other agent decided it was his turn to kick the little guy this time. Alan flipped in the air and his head hit the ground with a crack.

“Stop it!” Nana Joan said, her face contorting in rage. She struggled against the bonds. “Leave him alone!”

“Alan, stay down,” pleaded Jork, but the little man was already pulling himself up again. Blood ran from a gash in his forehead, partially blinding him.

“And you know what I’ll be d-doing?” he managed. He spat a wad of blood onto the floor. “I’ll be watching, you piece of shizz. And I’ll be dancing.”

“Oh my god, he’s going to do it,” Cal muttered, as Alan began to jig and prance on the spot.

“Like this. You’ll be chewing on your own feet, and I’ll be—”

Gurt’s knife entered Alan’s stomach and emerged through his back, cutting his dancing short. “Oh, facking think so, do you?” the Tribunal man hissed. He leered, showing off those teeth again as he withdrew the knife, then rammed it home a second time.

“No!” Nana roared.

“Alan!” Jork cried. Higgsy just stared, open-mouthed, too numb to say a word.

Gurt let out a little gasp of pleasure as he stabbed Alan a third time. The little man’s eyes were wide and staring. He didn’t scream. He couldn’t scream. He just went limp and lifeless as Gurt placed a hand on his face and shoved him to the floor with the rest of the debris.

“You… You fonking piece of shizz!” Cal growled. He struggled against the cocoon. “You worthless fonking piece of shizz!”

Gurt coolly regarded the blood on his blade, then wiped it on Jork’s cheek. The streak of red looked even more vibrant against Jork’s snow white skin.

“Now, then,” said the agent, turning his attention back to Higgsy again. “Where did we get to, boy?”

A hand wrapped around Gurt’s ankles. It was a big hand. And it was getting bigger.

“What the fack?” the agent managed, before another hand – even bigger than the first – caught him by the head.

There was the sound of several bones all snapping at the same time, and a scream that quickly became a damp, gargling wheeze.

Alan stood up, but it was a version of Alan that had been filtered through a nightmare. He was several times his original size, and still growing. Rather than an Incredible Hulk-like physique of bulging muscles, though, his diminutive frame was mutating into a sort of dark, oily putty that wriggled and writhed as if a living entity all on its own.

“Hol-ee shizz,” Cal whispered. “There’s something you don’t see every day. Thankfully.”

With an inhuman screech, Alan bent Gurt backwards, twisting him into a full circle. If the Tribunal agent wasn’t killed by his first foot being rammed down his gullet, the second one almost certainly finished him off.

Alan hurled the mangled wreckage of the man at the other agent, who stood rooted to the spot in terror. The force of the impact slammed the agent against the partially-collapsed wall, and a rain of rocks and other debris toppled down on him, trapping him below.

“Wahey! We’re saved!” cried Cal. “You did it, giant monster Alan, you…”

Throwing back his head, Alan let out another terrifying screech, then he hurled himself through the wall and galloped away, using his enormous front arms to propel him along the street.

“Uh, he’s going to come back, right?” said Cal. “He hasn’t just left us here?”

“I fonking hope not. He needs to break us out of this stuff,” said Mech.

“I was thinking more about his little dance, which we didn’t get to see,” said Cal. “But, sure, there’s your thing, too.”

Growling, Miz managed to force her claws through her cocoon. She scraped them up and down, her movements becoming bigger and more violent as she made space for her arm to move.

Finally, with a roar of triumph, she tore herself free. “Hold still,” she told Cal – quite unnecessarily, he thought, what with him being completely immobile – then she hacked and slashed at his cocoon until he was free.

While Miz freed Mech, Cal took Gurt’s knife and began cutting through Nana Joan’s restraints.

“The boys. Get the boys out first,” the old woman told him, but Miz and Mech were already working on them, and soon all six of them were free.

Although ‘free’, Cal realized, was something of an exaggeration. The turret of a tank pointed at them through the collapsed wall. Two squads of agents – one dressed all in white, the other wearing the same dirty, worn-out old outfits Gurt and his men were dressed in – flanked the tank, their rifles raised.

“So, what now?” Mech grunted.

“We could take them out,” Cal suggested. “I’ll get the guy over there with the wonky eye, you two take down the tank and everyone else. Deal?”

Mech held up his damaged arm. “I’m down to one cannon,” he said.

Cal sighed. “Fine. You take the guy with the eye, then. You’re such a drama queen.”

“Ready!”

The voice roared from somewhere out in the ranks. The guns, which had already been pointing into the restaurant, pointed even harder.

“Aim!”

“Wait, hold on now!” Cal protested. “Can’t we talk about this?”

“Fi—” boomed the voice, but before the commander could reach the end of the word, the sky exploded.

Seventeen

The doohickey bleeped in Cal’s hand, and Ronda’s voice chimed out once more. “Signal detected,” it announced. “Colossobot has arrived.”

With a sound like all the thunder in human history rumbling at once, a foot landed atop the tank, instantly pancaking it, and anyone unfortunate enough to be inside.

The agents who had been pointing their guns at Cal and the others decided this was a much more pressing target to be focusing their attention on. They swiveled their rifles up above the foot, to where, presumably, there was a full leg, although what was left of the roof made it impossible for Cal to see anything above the thing’s ankle.

“Colossobot defensive measures initiated,” the doohickey announced, this time in soulless computer tones instead of Ronda’s voice.

A number of energy beams sliced down from somewhere well above ankle-height, and carved through the Tribunal guards like a concentrated high-intensity laser weapon through quivering, unprotected flesh.

A near-silence fell over Nana Joan’s, broken only by the distant wail of approaching sirens, the panicky screams of Down Here citizens, and the distant screeching of whatever the fonk Alan now was.

Miz’s ears were also able to pick up the faint hiss of sizzling flesh, but as she didn’t mention it, no one else was any the wiser.

Mech cautiously peeked out at the foot, leaning down so he could see past the knee, and a good way up the thigh. There was another foot, too, much the same as the first, positioned a little further along the street.

“Tell me this thing’s on our side,” he said.

“Well, like, it totally killed everyone who was about to shoot us,” Miz said. “So I’m guessing it doesn’t hate us.”

“Maybe,” said Mech. “But it’s got Zertex written all over it.”

Miz nodded. “It does look like the sort of thing they’d build.”

“No, I mean it literally has Zertex written all over it,” said Mech. “I can see it from here.”

Cal stepped out into the street, glancing around quickly just in case there were more tanks or people with guns lurking around. When he was sure the coast was clear, he leaned back and looked up.

He couldn’t, however, look up enough. The head was hidden behind the bulky chest, and Cal could only really get an impression of the thing.

It was big. But that was a given. It was a giant robot and giant robots were, by their very definition, usually on the large side.

Cal had no idea quite how big it was, but even the tallest buildings around it barely reached its waist, and its broad, stocky frame fit onto the street with just a foot or so to spare between it and the buildings on either side.

“What’s her name? Narp’s mom. She said she stole it from Zertex. Or from the Xandrie, who’d stolen it from Zertex, or something,” Cal said.

“Isn’t she, like, an old lady?” asked Miz.

Cal shrugged. “Yeah, but…” He gestured with a thumb to Nana Joan, who was sweeping the area with her rifle.

Miz nodded. “Yeah. I guess.”

“And Lady Vajazzle,” said Cal. “Actually, what is it with space old ladies? Are they all butt-kicking ninja-types?”

Mech shrugged. “My mom once killed an Ejaculating Thunce with a hair clip.”

Cal turned to him. “What the fonk is an…? In fact, no. I don’t want to know.”

He jumped as a hatch suddenly slid upwards in the robot’s foot, revealing an elevator beyond. It would be a tight squeeze, and barely enough room for three of them.

“OK, Nana, you take Higgsy and Jork up first, then send the elevator back down,” Cal said. “Mech, Miz and I – mostly those two, if I’m honest – will shoot at any bad guys who show their faces.”

“No,” said Nana.

“’No’?” said Cal. “Which part?”

“We’re not going with you, dear,” said Nana. “We’re going to find Alan.”

“Alan?” said Mech. “You mean…?”

“The big scary monster guy,” Cal explained. The expression on Nana’s face told him he probably shouldn’t argue. “You sure?”

Nana nodded. “I have an obligation to keep my employees in check. All my employees. I must, by order of the Tribunal, know where they are at all times.” She adjusted her grip on her gun. “Which, you’ll understand, prevents me from letting you aboard that… thing. However…”

“Hey now, Nana, we don’t—”

“How. Ever,” Nana barked, glaring at him with a boggle-eyed intensity that made his mouth stop talking of its own accord. The old woman’s face softened as she continued. “As of right now, you, Mr Muntch, are fired.”

“Aw, seriously?” said Cal. “And I thought it was going so well!” He smiled at Nana, then glanced over to Higgsy and Jork. “You’re going to take care of those two, right?”

Nana nodded, just once. “Always.”

“Guys, it has been a pleasure from start to finish,” said Cal. “You know, apart from maybe ninety per cent of it. But you three made it all bearable.”

He patted Jork on the shoulder, and Jork responded with his three-fingered salute. “Be safe, Nob Muntch,” he said. Over Cal’s shoulder, Mech and Miz both snorted.

Cal gave Higgsy the same friendly shoulder-pat, but the blob-faced boy threw his arms around him, almost smothering Cal with his bloated head. “I’m going to miss you,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll come back one day,” said Cal. “You know, if I ever fancy a Five Guys.”

Nana glanced at the ruins of her restaurant. “Oh, I don’t think we’ll get the old place fixed up any time soon,” she said.

Mech and Miz stepped into the elevator, and Cal joined them. “Oh? What will you do?”

Nana looked up. “We have a ship,” she said. “Maybe it’s time we had some adventures of our own.”

Cal grinned. “God help the galaxy,” he said, then the door dropped closed, and the elevator launched Cal, Mech and Miz towards the sky.

When the door next opened, they were presented with a bird’s eye view of the city, assuming the bird was sitting inside the head of a giant robot, rather than actually flying. Down Here stretched out for hundreds of miles ahead of them, a jumbled mish-mash of architectural styles that Cal broadly categorized into ‘that one looks like something from the future’ and ‘that one doesn’t.’

Beyond the edge of the city was ocean on all sides. Cal remembered the sea-monster that had attacked the Untitled, and briefly contemplated going down there for some giant robot vs Godzilla type action, but decided it would have to wait.

There were thirteen seats inside the robot’s head, positioned in front of various screens, terminals, and flashy things that went beep. To Cal’s disappointment, there wasn’t an obvious Captain’s chair he could jump onto and claim before anyone else. Every seat seemed to bring with it quite a lot of responsibility, and they were clearly a full ten people short of the recommended staffing levels.

Two screens curved around the wall ahead of them – possibly one screen, with a strip down the middle to create the effect of the robot’s eyes. The gray cloud layer was only a couple of hundred feet above them, and Cal could clearly make out the engine glow of the floating cities beyond it.

“So, hands up if you know how to fly this thing,” Cal said. He looked hopefully at Mech in particular. “Anyone…? Anyone at all?”

“Man, I ain’t even seen one of these things,” Mech said. He studied a terminal, and cautiously poked a switch.

From somewhere over by the screen came a series of pleasant chimes, like a little xylophone ditty composed with the sole purposes of being reassuring and calming.

“Self-destruct sequence initiated,” announced an equally pleasant, yet less reassuring voice. “Detonation in T-Minus Ten Seconds.”

“Mech!” Cal yelped. “What the fonk did you press?”

The voice from the speakers let out a little chuckle. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

Ronda appeared on the right hand screen, smiling. “Oh, your face is going to be a picture,” she said.

“Narp’s mom?” said Cal.

“Ronda. And yes, it’s me. I hope you like your present.”

“It’s awesome!” said Cal. “No, more than that – it’s space awesome.”

“That don’t even make sense,” Mech muttered.

“And the name!” said Cal. “I mean, ‘Colossobot’? That’s totally what I would have called it.”

Ronda smiled. “I know. And you did. I see the future, remember?”

Cal frowned. “I thought you read minds?”

“No,” said Ronda. “No, I don’t.”

“How do we fly this thing?” Mech asked.

“I should point out, this isn’t live,” said Ronda. “This is a pre-recording, and while I have predicted most of what you say, I can’t see all of it.”

“Why not?” said Cal. “Do we die? Is that it? Is that why you can’t see our future? Do we die?”

“No,” said Ronda. “You don’t die. Well, not all of you, anyway.”

Cal, Mech and Miz’s jaws all dropped simultaneously.

“Sorry, kidding again,” said Ronda. “None of you die, as far as I can gather. At least, not in this thing. But… It’s complicated. My point is, I know where you need to go, and I’ve pre-programmed it into the auto-pilot. You will be lifting off momentarily.”

As if on cue, the Colossobot began to vibrate, just faintly. The buildings below them trembled as the ground beneath the robot’s feet rumbled like thunder.

“Good luck,” said Ronda. “I’m afraid you’re going to need it.”

She gave them a nod, then her image disappeared.

It reappeared again a second or two later. “Oh, and no, Cal, I won’t send you the recipe for Spit Nibbles. It’s a family secret. You can try the replicator aboard your ship, of course – and you do - but you ultimately find them a bit disappointing.” She smiled brightly. “Sorry about that.”

Her image disappeared again, just as the floor lurched beneath them. Cal and Miz both hopped into the nearest seat. Unfortunately, it was the same seat, and Cal lost the ensuing fight for it almost immediately.

He slid into the next seat over, instead. It was beside a large panel that positively swarmed with interesting-looking buttons. Twenty or more of them had been covered with some sort of paper-like tape. Warning messages were written on each one in studious, old-lady handwriting.

‘Do not touch this.’

‘Or this.’

‘This will kill you.’

‘You don’t want to know.’

Cal resisted the urge to press them all, and fixed his attention on the screen, instead. The city was just beginning to fall away below them as the Colossobot rose towards the clouds, steadily picking up speed as it went.

The screen became a haze of gray for a few seconds, and then the sunlight returned, brighter than below, even with the shadow of the floating cities above them.

That was a point.

“Uh, how are we going to get past all those platforms?” Cal wondered. “I don’t see a gap big enough.”

The Colossobot continued to pick up speed. The fiery blue glow of one of the cities was directly overhead, quietly minding its own business.

“We’re not… We’re not just going to ram it, are we?” Cal asked. He reached for his seat belt, but found none. “Mech? Are we going to ram it?”

“How the fonk should I know, man?” Mech snapped. Judging by the way he was gripping the frame of the viewscreen, though, Cal reckoned he at least had a few suspicions about what was going to happen next, and there was very probably a certain amount of ramming involved.

Cal tried to grab his arm rests, but the chair had none. He grabbed his knees instead. He wasn’t quite sure why, or how it would help him, but his instincts told him it was better to be holding onto something at times such as these.

“We’re going to ram it!” Cal cried. “We’re definitely going to ram it!”

They didn’t ram it.

Instead, the Colossobot’s arms raised above its head, and two enormous hands pressed against the underside of the floating city. The robot continued upwards, but more slowly than it had been, being careful not to tilt the platform as it hefted it up towards the atmosphere.

“We are… Are we lifting a city?” asked Cal.

“We’re lifting a city,” Mech confirmed.

“Wow. Pretty cool, huh?” said Cal, turning to Miz. She shrugged.

“I guess.”

Once it had cleared enough room for it to squeeze through, the Colossobot extracted itself from beneath the city and let it go. By the time the robot had reached the edge of space, the city had already drifted back down into its starting position.

Beyond the robot’s eye-screens, colors swirled and danced. More and more stars appeared, as if the atmosphere were being gradually wiped away, revealing the reaches of space beyond.

“Well,” said Cal. “I am not going to miss that place. Anyone else?”

Mech shrugged. “It wasn’t all bad.”

“It was mostly bad,” Cal argued. “Like, ninety eight-point-five per cent bad, and the other one-point-five was just average.” A thought struck him. “Wait! I’m not Nob Muntch anymore!”

Miz looked up from her nails. “That means I’m not Loren.”

“And that you are Gluk Disselpoof,” said Cal, turning to Mech. “Unlucky.”

“Fonk you, man,” said Mech. “I liked being Thark Dandar.”

The Colossobot left the atmosphere and pushed onwards into space, turning slightly as it aligned itself to its new course. “Think this thing’s going to take us to Loren?” Cal asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mech. “Narp’s mom seemed to know what she was doing.”

Cal nodded. “You, uh, you know what this means, right? If we’re going to get her back, it means we’re going to war.”

“I know,” said Mech.

“Right. Right,” said Cal. “It’s just, you know, you seemed pretty against that idea. Before, I mean.”

“Still am,” said Mech. “I don’t want to do this, but Loren’s one of us.”

“She’s family,” said Miz, much to Cal’s amazement. Miz shifted uncomfortably when he gaped at her. “But, like, someone in the family you hate. Like a racist uncle, or whatever.”

“Gotcha,” said Cal.

“Or a cousin who’s a sex offender.”

“Right. I’m sure she’ll be delighted with those comparisons,” Cal said, then a shimmering bubble of energy appeared around all the chairs on the deck, sealing both Cal and Miz inside. “Great, what’s this now?” Cal muttered, then the engines in the Colossobot’s feet kicked in, and space became a mind-bending blur of speed around them.

Eighteen

One short – and, thanks to the bubble things around the chair, surprisingly pleasant space flight later, Cal gazed out through the eyes of his giant robot at an even more giant space ship. The Symmorium Destroyer filled space in all directions, its vast, Alaska-sized hull pockmarked with blaster fire and scorch marks.

“Coo-ee. Anyone home?” Cal asked, leaning down and speaking into what Mech assured him was the intercom. “This is the Colossobot – I know, awesome name, right? – requesting landing clearance from, uh, needlessly huge Symmorium space ship.”

He sat back and waited for a response. Almost a full minute passed, and he was about to try again when the face of Subsent Takta appeared on screen. The high-ranking Symmorium looked like someone had taken a shizz in his cereal. Then again, considering the foul-tasting gray paste he had served up earlier, that would probably come as a welcome change.

“You,” he spat, baring a significant number of teeth. “You dare show your face?”

“Uh, yeah. Hi!” said Cal. “Sorry, are you angry about us taking your tracking device off our ship? Because, I mean, I don’t know. It feels like we should be angry at you for putting it on there, in the first place.”

“We were taking precautions,” Takta said. “And well we should have, given your subsequent betrayal. Your companion – the Zertex woman – gained entry to this vessel in order to free her kin. She betrayed our trust. You betrayed our trust.”

“Actually, we tried to stop her,” said Cal. “She took the ship, and now she’s in trouble.”

“I am aware of her current situation, but I see through the pretense,” Takta said. “Her incarceration is Zertex propaganda. She is in no danger.”

“With all due respect, sharky, that’s bullshizz,” said Cal. “Look, can you just put Commander Junta on? I’ll talk to him, we’ll sort some things out, then be on our way.”

“There is no Commander Junta here,” Takta replied. “You will turn around now, or be destroyed. This is your only warning.”

“What do you mean, there’s no Commander Junta?” Cal asked. “There is. We know there is.”

“He has been demoted. He is fortunate not to be in prison.”

A text box flashed up on screen, filled with a number of alien symbols. As Cal watched, his eye chip translated them until they formed a series of equally cryptic numbers, and an additional line of text at the bottom.

‘Ronda. X’

They were co-ordinates. Even Cal could tell that much. Quite where in space they pointed to, though, he had no idea. Luckily, Mech was already tapping at a console.

“OK, OK, you know what? On second thoughts, you win,” said Cal, as the Colossobot slowly began to orbit around the outside of the Symmorium destroyer. “We’ll just get out of your hair. Not that you have hair, but… You know what I mean. We’ll go, is the point I’m trying to make.”

“Then go,” Takta responded. “You have one minute to clear the area, or you will discover just how dangerous an enemy I can be.”

“Sounds fair,” said Cal. He glanced sideways at Mech, who gestured for him to keep the Symmorium talking. “So, wait. Is that a minute starting now, or once we’ve stopped talking?”

“It has already begun.”

“Right,” said Cal. “It’s just… The Sentience granted us the freedom of Symmorium space.”

Takta’s black eyes somehow found it in themselves to darken further. “Your point?”

“Well, my point is, isn’t this Symmorium space?” Cal gestured around him. “You know, all this?”

Takta ground his teeth together. “It is.”

“Then, I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but doesn’t that mean we can just sort of hang around? Your boss pretty much came right out and said so.”

“I represent the will of the Sentience,” said Takta. “I have the power to alter and amend decrees on its behalf, and I am telling you to leave. Now.”

Cal puffed out the area between his top lip and the bottom of his nose, then let it out in a long farting sound. “Fair enough, then,” he said. “But can we reset the timer? We want to leave, but we’ve chatted so long I’m worried you’ll blow us to bits when we’re turning around. How about you give us another minute, starting now?”

“No!”

Cal glanced across to Mech. He was still giving the stalling motion, but indicating they were close. “Uh… Um…” Cal fumbled for something to say.

“Can you smell trunyuns?” Miz asked. Cal blinked in surprise. On screen, the Symmorium leader looked confused.

“What?”

“Trunyuns. You know, the vegetable?” said Miz. “Can you smell them?”

Subsent Takta shook his head angrily. “No! No, I can’t smell trunyuns.”

“Oh,” said Miz, hooking a leg over her chair. “Like, not even if they’re up really close?”

Takta scowled. “What are you talking about?”

Cal sat upright in his chair as the Colossobot rounded one of the Symmorium ship’s many sticky-outty metal bits.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice becoming a whisper. “We found what we’re looking for.”

There, behind the glowing energy wall of one of the ship’s docking bays, was the Currently Untitled.

* * *

Splurt thought for a moment, then shifted his shape until he resembled a small tree.

“No,” said Kevin.

Splurt became a warp disk.

“No,” said Kevin.

Splurt became a Thundercats pencil case.

“No,” said Kevin. “Getting colder.”

Splurt became a series of things in rapid succession: a rubber duck; a space chair; a shock rod; a small but potent jar of pot pourri; something that was a bit like a gerbil, only with more heads and a tail made of fire.

Kevin dismissed all of them with a simple, “No.”

Splurt was considering his next move – either a towel or a dolphin – when he felt Cal inside his head. He pulsed excitedly and bobbed up and down a few times, before transforming into another new shape.

“Nope,” said Kevin. “I’m not being a big arrow.”

Splurt stretched himself until his arrow-shaped head was practically touching the viewscreen. It took Kevin a moment to catch on.

“Oh, my. It appears there’s a rather large robotic figure out there. I wonder where that came from?”

Splurt squidged around, becoming an identical duplicate of Cal. He pointed to himself, then gestured out to the Colossobot.

“Are you sure?” Kevin asked, sounding skeptical. “I don’t recall Master Carver ever mentioning owning an enormous robot.”

Splurt nodded enthusiastically, and pointed again. Kevin’s artificial intellect considered their next move carefully, then he gave an entirely digital shrug. “Very well, let’s investigate,” he said, firing up the ship’s take-off thrusters.

The Untitled lifted off the deck, dipped its nose, and pulled towards the glowing energy wall ahead of them. Splurt hopped into Cal’s chair, changed himself back into his default green ball form, and wobbled excitedly on the spot.

“Oh, and in case you were wondering, I was also a brick,” said Kevin, as the ship passed through the barrier. “But I’d already planned to do it before you did it. So, if anything, you copied me.”

“—vin? Can you hear me? Helloooo?”

Cal’s voice came over the comm-link as soon as the Untitled was beyond the energy wall. Splurt rippled with joy as Cal’s face appeared on the right of the screen.

“Hey, I see… There’s my little guy!” Cal said, grinning from ear to ear. “Splurt, buddy, you are a sight for sore eyes.”

“I think I speak for both of us when I say it is a pleasure to see you, too, sir,” said Kevin. “But I’m afraid Ms Loren is—”

“Gone, yeah, we know. Any idea where?”

“I’m afraid not, sir,” said Kevin.

“OK, not to worry,” said Cal. “Listen, Kevin, the Symmorium are going to start shooting at us very soon, and it turns out there aren’t enough of us to fly this thing above, like, ten miles per hour.”

“I see,” said Kevin, even though he didn’t really.

“Mech says there’s some kind of, like, umbilical cord we can hook up to you guys, so we can jump aboard.”

“Extending it now,” came Mech’s voice from somewhere off screen.

“Can you see it?” asked Cal.

In the viewscreen of the Untitled, a long, snaking hose extended from the crotch of the giant robot. Splurt’s eyes widened a little, then raised to the ceiling. Although he couldn’t see the owner of the magic floating voice, Splurt was pretty sure he looked back down at him.

“Uh, yes, sir,” said Kevin. “It’s quite… prominent. We shall connect with you in a few moments.”

* * *

Aboard the Colossobot, Cal nodded to Mech, who flicked the controls that brought Subsent Takta back on screen. “You cut me off!” the Symmorium roared. “How dare you! I am dispatching Thresher ships to your location. You will be dealt with swiftly!”

“OK, here’s the thing, Takta,” said Cal. “Shut up. Not only do we have an experimental – if, admittedly, highly unstable – ship at our disposal, we’re also, you might have noticed, currently inside a giant fonking robot which my colleague assures me has a lot of guns.”

Mech leaned over into shot. “A lot,” he confirmed, then he leaned back again.

“Also, and this is what I want you to keep in mind here, Takta,” Cal continued, leaning forwards as if about to impart some great wisdom. “We are not your enemy here. Our friend… A member of our family, is in trouble, and we just want to get her back. To do so, we are going to blow up a lot of Zertex ships.”

Mech leaned in again. “A lot.”

“And, with a bit of luck, kick the president square in the nuts,” Cal continued. “So, you can either try to stop us doing these things which, again, I don’t recommend, or you can stay the Hell out of our way, and let us get our friend back.”

He leaned back and idly traced a finger over something he hoped looked suitably threatening. “So. What’s it to be?”

Takta ground his teeth together, very slowly and very deliberately. Just as he reached the stage when Cal was starting to worry about the guy’s orthodontist bill, the Symmorium spoke.

“Very well. We will not engage,” he said. “But if we discover you have betrayed us, we will consider you an ally of Zertex, and our war will be with you, too. Is that understood?”

“Loud and clear, sharky,” Cal said. He indicated for Mech to turn off the feed, but then stopped. “How’s it going, anyway? The war, I mean?”

Takta’s expression told Cal everything he needed to know. “That bad, huh?”

“They had been planning for some time,” Takta said. “With the footage they fabricated for the destruction of Pikkish, they have been able to rally otherwise neutral systems to their cause. A fight against Zertex alone, we could conceivably win. A battle against the entire galaxy? That is another matter.”

“Oh. Right,” said Cal. He brightened. “Well, good luck with it all!”

Mech shut down the feed as Cal jumped to his feet and strode towards the elevator. “OK, let’s get back to the Untitled, then go get Loren.”

Miz stood up. “Don’t we need to, you know, like find out where she is first?”

“I know where she is,” said Cal.

“You do? Since when?” asked Mech.

“Since I saw her on TV,” Cal said. He hit the elevator control and the door slid open.

“Well, care to enlighten us?” Mech asked.

Cal beckoned for them both to join him in the elevator car. “Air lock,” said Mech, once he and Miz were inside, and the door closed again.

“Where is the most stupidly obvious place she could be?” Cal asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mech. “A Zertex Command station?”

“Bingo,” said Cal. “Whichever one’s closest, that’s where she’ll be.”

Miz frowned. “But why would they do that? They’d know we’d figure that…” She nodded. “Oh. Yeah, I get it.”

“That’s exactly what Sinclair wants. Us,” said Cal.

“Well, mostly you,” said Mech.

“Yes, granted, mostly me,” said Cal. “I don’t know quite why he’s got such a hard-on for me – hey, I can say ‘hard-on’! – but luckily for us, it makes him predictable.”

The elevator stopped and the door slid open again, revealing a long white plastic tunnel ahead of them. Cal gestured towards it. “Now let’s all slide down this giant robot penis, and go get our friend back.”

* * *

As soon as Cal stepped aboard the Untitled, Splurt bounced into his arms. Cal rubbed his knuckles against the little goo-ball’s head (or the top part of his almost spherical body, at least) and grinned.

“Hey, I missed you, too, buddy!”

“It is so good to have you all back aboard,” chimed Kevin. “Although, Master Splurt and I invented rather a fun game.”

Splurt’s eyes rolled slowly upwards to meet Cal’s gaze. It was a look that spoke volumes. Cal made a mental note never to ask Kevin about the game again.

“OK, let’s get to the bridge. Kevin, best detach from the big space penis and get us ready to go. What’s the nearest Zertex Command station?”

“Zertex Command Six, sir.”

“Then that’s where we’re going, all guns blazing if we have to,” Cal instructed. “Mech, Miz, did either of you remember to bring Nana Joan’s guns over from the Colossobot?”

“Shizz,” Mech muttered. “They’re still over there.” He waved a hand. “It’s fine. We got plenty.”

“Cool, then break them out and get them ready. Again, we may need to go in all guns blazing.”

Miz was gazing out through the airlock at the flapping plastic tunnel which still connected the Untitled to the Colossobot. “It’s kind of a waste, not taking that thing,” she said. “I mean, for something built by Zertex, it was pretty awesome.”

“You mean pretty space awesome,” Cal said, much to Mech’s annoyance. “But yeah, it could have come in handy.”

“Pre-programming it to take us here is one thing,” said Mech. “But if we wanted to take it into battle, we’re gonna need a crew of at least ten.”

“Yeah,” said Cal. “Or someone who could operate ten terminals at once.”

He gazed out through the airlock for a while.

He blinked, very slowly.

And then, with the beginning of a smile creeping across his face, he looked down at the pulsating ball of slime in his arms.

“Oh, man. I just came up with a plan,” he said. He grinned at Mech. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

Nineteen

Loren allowed her weight to sag forward on her chains. She was mentally drained and physically exhausted, and the pain of the restraints cutting into her wrists was the only thing keeping her awake. Her head had been unclamped, but only because the head restraint had made hitting her more difficult.

She was standing in wet underwear, and was cold and hungry. Not so much thirsty – the hundreds of gallons of water blasted into her face at regular intervals was keeping her pretty hydrated – but her hunger was making her legs weak and her head light, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to concentrate on anything else.

One thing she was keeping a close eye on, though, was the door. It was closed now, and she was alone in the room, but it never stayed that way for long. It would open again soon, she knew, and Sinclair, Dash, or possibly both at once, would come in to talk to her, hose her, or – again – possibly both at once.

When her brother had first come in alone, she’d felt a swelling of hope. He was there to rescue her, surely? The sight of his younger sister tied up and helpless had proved too much for his conscience to deal with.

But no. He’d ignored her pleas for help, reiterated his loyalty to Zertex, and told her how ashamed of her their parents were, before hitting her with the water cannon. Now, whenever the door opened, she hoped it was Sinclair. Her feelings about him were far less mixed.

Her stomach twisted itself into knots. Fonk, she was hungry. Were they going to starve her to death, she wondered? That would seem unlikely. It certainly wasn’t in any of the Zertex manuals she’d studied at the academy. Then again, nor was blasting your own sister in the face with water until her brain screamed at her that she was about to drown, so it was always a possibility.

Loren’s eyes closed.

Some time passed.

When her eyes opened, President Sinclair was standing in front of her. Instinctively, she tried to lash out at him, but the chains stopped her immediately. He skipped back all the same, making a show of it.

“Whoa there, you almost got me, slugger,” he said, laughing in that fond, slightly patronizing sort of way a parent might laugh at their child’s first attempt at a joke. “Do you have any idea how much this shirt costs?”

Loren spat on the shirt and felt a brief moment of satisfaction, before the back of Sinclair’s hand cracked her across the jaw.

“That wasn’t nice,” he said. “That is going to come out of your back pay, young lady.”

He contemplated brushing the phlegmy wad away, but decided against it. “Anyway, here’s something that might put a smile on your face,” Sinclair continued. “A ship has just entered the quadrant and is on a direct course here. And not just any old ship, because why would I come in here to tell you that any old ship was on its way?”

Sinclair pointed at Loren and winked. “Your ship,” he said. “Well, technically it’s my ship that you and your friends stole from me, but… Ah, you get the point.”

Loren blinked several times. The pain in her face was helping her focus, but it wouldn’t last long. “Cal?” she mumbled.

“The very same!” Sinclair crowed. “At least, I assume it’s him. I mean, who else is it going to be, right? Your knight in shining armor, riding to the rescue. I knew he couldn’t resist.”

He looked Loren’s taut but bruised body up and down. “I mean, who could?” Sinclair said, then he winked again in a way that made Loren want to throw up.

It didn’t make sense. She’d taken the ship. She’d left them behind. It couldn’t be them. How could it be them?

And yet, at the same time, she knew it was. Even though she’d left them stranded hundreds of light years away with no money and no means of transport, she knew they’d find a way. That he’d find a way.

Loren found the strength to pull herself into a standing position. She met Sinclair’s eye and matched his smile with one of her own.

“Oh, Hayel,” she said, tilting her head slightly as she gave the president a sympathetic look. “You are so totally fonked.”

* * *

“We are so totally fonked!” cried Mech, steadying himself against his console as a crackling ball of energy exploded against the front shields.

“Kevin! Jesus Christ, can you at least try to avoid the missiles?” Cal yelped.

“Torpedoes, sir.”

“What?”

“Torpedoes, sir. We have missiles, they have torpedoes. Would you like me to explain the distinction?”

“No! Just stop flying into them!”

“Very good, sir.”

The ship rocked as another torpedo slammed into it, making the shields flicker and flash.

“I can’t believe I’m even saying this,” Miz muttered. “But, like, even Loren was better than this.”

“You hear that, Kevin?” Cal called. “Even Loren. Even Loren.”

“Sorry, sir. It’s just, well, there are rather a lot of targets, and I’m having to split myself between piloting the ship and operating the weapons,” Kevin explained. “Not to mention all the other little jobs that must continue as usual, such as remembering to leave the oxygen on, and flushing the automatic toilet.”

“Wait, you flush the toilet?” asked Cal. “Next time, could you maybe not do it when I’m halfway through? It’s kind of off-putting.”

Two Zertex fighters screamed past, their cannon-fire hammering the Untitled’s shields.

“OK, give me the guns,” said Cal.

A single joystick twanged from below his seat. Cal shook his head. “No. I mean all the guns.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

Another torpedo erupted at the front of the ship, close enough to make Mech instinctively duck. “Just give him the fonking guns!” the cyborg snapped.

“Very good,” chimed Kevin.

The joystick retreated into the floor. Meanwhile, the headrest of Cal’s chair unfolded itself until it gripped his skull like a brace. Cal’s eyes widened as two sharp pricks pierced his temples, and a coldness rushed to fill his brain.

“Whaaa duuuu fooooonnn?” he managed to dribble, then he was suddenly alone in outer space, surrounded by hundreds of Zertex fighters, all of which were approaching in a variety of attack formations.

Zertex Command Six, the vast space station where Loren was almost certainly being held, hung in silhouette against a dim red sun. It looked almost close enough to touch, and as Cal reached for it, a ball of fire erupted from his palm.

“Jesus! Did I do that?”

“Indeed, sir,” said Kevin. “The weapons systems are currently merged with both your conscious and unconscious brain. They take their commands from your actions and intentions. To all extents and purposes, you are the weapons.”

“Also,” said Mech’s voice. “I’m pretty sure you just wet yourself. I ain’t judging or nothing, just saying.”

Two Zertex ships came banking towards Cal, their torpedo tubes glowing white hot. Cal raised both hands, palms open, and two long beams of white energy carved through their shields, slicing both ships in half.

“Alright!” Cal cheered.

The universe spun as Kevin climbed and turned sharply. Cal instinctively tried to grab onto something, but he was floating in the endless void, and could only flail around at nothing.

“More fighters, coming in fast,” Mech informed him.

Cal twisted his head, searching the sky. “I see them,” he said. He pumped his right arm forwards, firing torpe… No, launching missiles at the approaching ships. They turned to dodge the projectiles, and flew straight into another of the white energy beams, scything themselves neatly in two.

“I love this!” Cal cried.

“That’s good man, because I think you may have also now shizzed your pants.”

Cal didn’t care. Well, he cared a bit, obviously, but it could wait until he was back in his body. Right now, he felt like a superhero. No, more than that. He felt like a god.

A torpedo tumbled towards him. He detonated it with a sweep of his hand before it could get too close. With the other hand, he punched at the approaching Zertex craft, and five little flares spat from his fingertips. They swarmed the enemy ship, circling around it like wasps, then vanished into its various orifices.

A moment later, the ship went dark and drifted over Cal’s head, rolling slightly as it sailed on into the abyss.

“Zertex fighters pulling back, sir,” Kevin announced, and Cal actually felt a little disappointed.

“Of course they are,” he said. “They know when they’re beat. Also, this whole thing was just for show. They want us on board that station.”

“Uh, look to your left, man,” said Mech.

Cal turned and his virtual jaw fell open. The smaller fighter craft weren’t pulling back, they were moving into formation. A formation that involved three Zertex Battle Cruisers, each one the size of several large cities all bolted together into one.

“OK, that’s not good,” Cal said. He looked down at his hands. “Kevin, do we have anything that could take out those big guys?”

“The beam cannons could,” Kevin said. “Given enough time.”

“How much time?”

Kevin contemplated this. “About eleven months, sir.”

“Eleven months?”

“Give or take.”

Cal eyed the approaching armada, and suddenly felt like a tiny ant. A tiny ant that was about to be shot to pieces by a lot of very big spaceships. “And there’s nothing else?”

“No, sir,” said Kevin. “Although… There is the Omega Cannon.”

Cal winced. “Do you know what it does yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Can you figure it out in the next forty seconds or so?”

“No, sir.”

Cal almost considered using the weapon, but without knowing what it did, or what the consequences of firing it might be, he knew he couldn’t.

“If we survive this, we really need to figure out what that thing does,” he said.

Across the divide, the Zertex ships were readying their weapons to fire. The Zertex Command station was off to the right, almost midway between the Untitled and the armada.

“Can we reach the station before they blow us to bits?”

“Not without a distraction, sir,” said Kevin. “Should I alert Master Splurt?”

He flexed his fingers in and out, then sighed. “I guess we’re going to have—”

“We got another ship coming in,” Mech interrupted.

“Great,” said Cal. “Someone else to shoot at us.”

The ship that warped to a sudden stop in front of the Zertex fighters was small and boxy-looking, and didn’t really seem to be much of an additional threat. Cal had just made the decision to ignore it, when Kevin spoke again. “They’re sending a broadcast. All frequencies. Should I put it through?”

“Go for it.”

A voice crackled from nowhere. It was a voice Cal recognized, although it took him a second to place it.

“Uh, food delivery,” said Higgsy. “I have an order here f-for a Mr Zertex.”

There was silence for a moment, presumably while someone from the Zertex side replied.

“Oh, no, it definitely says Mr Zertex here. Uh, please hold, while I get my supervisor.”

There was a crackling sound, as if someone was handing a headset to someone else. Nana Joan’s voice spoke with far more authority than Higgsy.

“This is Nana Joan of Nana Joan’s restaurant. To whom am I speaking?”

“What are they doing?” Miz asked.

“Giving us our distraction,” said Cal. “Kevin, can we make it to the station while they’re busy?”

“They got a hundred ships,” said Mech. “You don’t seriously think they’re all so focused on one fonking food truck that they ain’t going to notice us?”

“It’s worth a try,” said Cal. “Kevin, punch it.”

The Untitled banked towards Zertex Command. Almost immediately, thirty or so fighters broke off in pursuit.

“No, they definitely noticed us,” said Cal. “We totally screwed that up.”

“We?” Mech spluttered. “Who’s this we you’re talking about?”

“Perhaps not, sir,” Kevin said. “Perhaps we, too, are part of the distraction.”

“How?” Cal asked. “What are we distracting from?”

“From them, sir.”

Behind the Zertex fleet, several hundred pinpoints of light stretched out and became ships. Even at that distance, Cal spotted the shark-like design painted onto the more aggressive-looking fighters.

“The Symmorium!” said Cal. “The fonking Symmorium are here.”

The Alaska-sized Symmorium Destroyer appeared behind the other ships and immediately opened fire on the nearest Zertex Battle Cruiser. The Zertex fighters pulled back from the Untitled and focused their efforts on the Symmorium fleet, instead.

“Transmission from Subsent Takta,” said Kevin. “Would you like me to patch him through, sir?”

“Please.”

A square appeared in the air in front of Cal, like a window opening in space. Subsent Takta appeared, looking none too pleased.

“On the orders of the Symmorium Sentience itself, we are tasked with offering you whatever support we can,” he grunted. “We will provide cover while you extract your companion, then we will blast this station out of the sky. If Zertex wants a war, then we will give them one.”

“Thanks for the save, sharky,” said Cal. “But don’t worry about the war thing. We’re going to take care of it.”

Takta’s gray hide brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to,” said Cal. “You just have to keep everyone busy out here, and trust us.”

“I do not trust you, Mr Carver,” Takta said. He sighed. “But the Sentience does. We shall do as you request.”

The Symmorium leader’s image vanished, revealing the beginnings of a full-scale space battle. Ships whizzed past, lasers blasted, torpedoes fired, shields flickered and flared. Cal was transfixed for a moment, before another face appeared, blocking his view.

“Hello, dear,” said Nana Joan.

“Nana. How the fonk did you find me?” Cal asked.

Nana smiled, then tapped the side of her nose. “My little secret. Like I said, we employers have to know where our staff are at all times, and you’re still technically on the books.”

“Hi Cal!” said Higgsy, leaning into shot behind the old lady. Jork popped his head in from the other side, followed a moment later by a now normal-sized Alan at the bottom.

“The gang’s all there,” said Cal. “That’s great. Really. But, uh, we’re about to storm an evil lair, so now’s possibly not the best time for reunions.”

Nana tapped a few buttons on her console. “This ship has a standing authorization for food transportation access via the cargo decks. Haven’t used it in a few years, but pretty sure we could just sail right through any defenses back there.”

There was a bleep from her terminal and Nana’s smile broadened. “And now so can you. I’ve cloned our ID and transmitted it to you. Spoof it, and you’re in.”

“Seriously?” said Cal. “Kevin, is that a thing?”

“Applying it now, sir,” said Kevin. “Zertex scanners now see us as a food delivery vessel.”

“Alright!” said Cal. “I mean, that’s good, right?”

“Most useful, sir.”

Behind Nana Joan, Higgsy cheered. “Go Space Team!”

“Thanks, guys!” said Cal.

Jork and Higgsy did a complicated sort of fist-bumping exercise. “Secret Space Team handshake!” Jork cried.

“Space Team is the best!” added Higgsy.

“Yes, we are!” agreed Jork.

Cal blinked. “Uh… wait. What? No, but…” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, we’ll discuss it later.”

There was a sudden pain at his temples and Cal found himself back in his chair. The same image of Nana Joan’s ship was now on the viewscreen. And, to Cal’s relief, he hadn’t actually soiled himself at all, front or back.

Well, maybe a little bit at the front, but not enough so that anyone would notice.

“OK, uh, you guys stay out of trouble,” Cal said. “And thanks again.”

“We will,” said Nana. “Good luck, Nob Muntch.”

The screen snapped off. There was a long, pregnant pause before Kevin spoke.

“Oh, so no one is going to comment on the ‘Nob Muntch’ thing?” he said.

“Later,” said Cal. “Now take us to the loading bay, and let’s go get Loren.”

Twenty

Just as Nana Joan had promised, the Untitled glided onto the cargo deck without so much as a twitch from the defensive turrets. The actual job of ferrying cargo around had long-since been given over to robots and drones, so there was no one to so much as glance their way when Cal and the others scurried down the ramp, laden with weapons.

Mech’s right arm was still occasionally going fzzt, but as his fingers didn’t fit through the trigger guards of any of the rifles in the ship’s armory, he was going to have to rely exclusively on his left arm cannon. If all went to plan, though, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Cal stopped at the bottom of the ramp. “You sure this is going to work, Kevin?” he asked.

“Oh yes, sir,” Kevin replied. “My systems were purposely adapted to interact with Zertex systems. Now that I am inside, I can interface with their cameras and patch the feed through to Master Mech, as and when instructed.”

“OK, great,” Cal said. “Keep them looping while we’re moving. Cover our tracks so we don’t get spotted.”

“Will do, sir.”

Cal turned to Miz. “And you’re sure you’re up for this?”

Miz had a particularly large rifle, even by giant wolf-woman standards, hanging from a strap across her shoulders. “Get to the cells, get Loren, take her back here. It’s not difficult,” she said.

“Uh, yeah, but there might be hundreds of guards between you and her.”

Miz shrugged and extended her claws. “Like I say. Not difficult.”

“OK, good,” said Cal. “Kevin has already found where she’s being kept. He’ll guide you.”

Across the bay, an elevator door opened. “Step this way, ma’am.” Kevin’s voice chimed from inside the elevator car. “I’ll have you there in a jiffy.”

Miz glanced at the elevator, then back at Cal and Mech. “Like… You know,” she said, shuffling awkwardly on the spot.

“Yeah,” said Mech. He put a hand on her shoulder. “We know. You, too.”

“Be careful,” Cal told her.

Miz nodded once, swung her rifle into her hands, then ran for the lift. Cal and Mech waited for the doors to ping closed, before heading for a second elevator.

“And you know where we’re going, right?” Cal asked.

“Yeah, I know,” said Mech. “But you were right.”

“About what?”

“I don’t like this plan.”

Cal smirked. “Relax. I have got this all worked out.”

The doors started to close behind them.

“You know. More or less.”

As Cal and Mech’s elevator went up, Miz’s headed down. She paced in tight circles, the gun in her hand, her eyes fixed on the numbers above the door. “How long until we get down there?” she asked.

“Twenty seconds or so,” Kevin told her from the elevator terminal. “It’s not too late to back out, you know?”

Miz stopped pacing. “Like, why would I do that?”

“Well,” began Kevin, trying to find the most diplomatic way of putting it. “I always got the impression you weren’t Ms Loren’s biggest fan.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Miz sneered. “I totally hate her guts.” She pulled back the mechanism on the rifle, and the weapon hummed with energy. “But she’s one of us. And I’m taking her home.”

“Very good, ma’am,” Kevin said. “I shall loop the camera feed, and endeavor to help where I can, but for the moment, at least…”

The doors opened, revealing a starkly-lit corridor beyond.

“I’m afraid you are on your own.”

* * *

Cal and Mech stood in the elevator, waiting. Mech was tense and ready, his eyes fixed on the numbers above the door. Cal danced lightly from foot to foot, tapping out a rhythm on his gun barrel.

“You know what this reminds me of?” Cal asked.

Mech shrugged. “One of the many other times we’ve done something stupid?”

“Christmas Eve,” said Cal.

Mech looked at him, but said nothing.

“You know how Kroyshuk is, like, space Christmas? Well, Christmas is like that, only not in space.”

Mech continued to look at him, still saying nothing.

“It’s Earth Kroyshuk, is what I’m saying,” said Cal.

“OK, I get it. But how is this like that?”

“It’s the anticipation,” said Cal. “The not knowing. Will we bring down an evil government and stop an intergalactic war? Will I get a bike? It’s the same thing.”

“That don’t sound like the same thing,” said Mech.

“Well, no, OK. But it’s a similar thing.”

“It don’t sound like a similar thing, either.”

Cal considered this. “No, I suppose you’re right. It’s completely different. It’s the day before Hallowe’en, if anything.”

But before he could elaborate any further, the elevator stopped. Cal took cover behind Mech just as the doors opened, revealing a room full of…

Nobody.

Just a few rows of empty desks and chairs where there presumably should have been people, and a door at the far end of the room standing open.

“Man, this is weird,” said Mech. He tapped the controls on his arm. “Scanners say there are people at every desk.”

Cal peeked over the vertical divide in front of a desk. There was a ‘Zertex Corporation’ coffee mug on it, a holographic keyboard, and a soft focus picture of a smiling woman with four eyes. The chair, however, was empty.

Cal stiffened. “He knew we’d come straight here. This is a set up. This whole thing is a set up.”

From beyond the open door came the sound of a slow handclap. “Well figured out, Cal,” said Sinclair. “Please. Come in. Join us.”

Cal and Mech exchanged a look. “Any mileage in running away, you think?” Cal asked.

Mech shook his head. “Don’t think there’s a whole lot of point.”

Cal nodded his agreement, then led the way into the room. For what the place was, it was a relatively small space. Racks of glowing cubes covered the curved walls, connected together by thin, tangled wires and lengths of thick cable.

Sinclair stood in the center of the room, flanked by four of the most ludicrously armored guards Cal had ever seen. Their shoulder-pads alone were wide enough to land a small helicopter on, and their full-face helmets were a health-hazard of spikes and pointy edges.

They carried weapons that looked part blaster, part industrial power tool. Saw blades sat nestled between two long, thick barrels. They weren’t currently moving, but Cal assumed a single quick button press would likely change that.

“The main server room,” Sinclair said, sweeping his arms around him. “Always the first port of call for any would-be terrorist planning an attack. From here, a competent hacker could take over the whole station. They could create chaos.”

He put the back of his hand to the side of his mouth and whispered theatrically. “But, uh-oh, big secret reveal time. That’s not true! See, the main server room, it isn’t actually all that important at all.”

Seeing the expression on Cal’s face, the president laughed. “Wait, wait… You actually thought I’d mark a place that vital on the station maps, and leave it guarded by admin staff?” He looked from Cal to Mech and back again. “You actually bought that? Ha!”

He looked to his guards for affirmation, but none of them seemed to be amused. “So… what was the plan?” Sinclair asked, rubbing his chin. He clicked his fingers. “Wait, I know! You were going to dig through my files to find the original footage of Pikkish being destroyed, and… What? Show it to everyone? Try to convince everyone that I’m the bad guy?”

Cal shifted uneasily on the spot. “Ha! No. What? As if!” he said. “It definitely wasn’t that.”

“Oh, really?” smirked Sinclair, putting his hands on his hips. “Then why don’t you enlighten me?”

Cal fumbled for a few moments. “Uh, how about you keep guessing, and I’ll tell you if you get it right?”

“How about you hand over your weapons and surrender?” Sinclair said. “If you do, I might let your hairy friend make it as far as Loren’s cell before I have her killed. If not, they both die in the next five seconds.”

He held up a phone-sized device and pressed a button. Symbols flashed on it, changing every second or so. Cal didn’t need to wait for the translation chip to tell him it was a countdown.

“Four. Three.”

Cal tossed his rifle onto the floor at his feet.

“Two. And the others.”

Moving quickly, Cal pulled two pistols from the back of his belt and let those clatter to the floor, too.

Sinclair pressed the button and fixed Cal with a devastatingly charming smile, as one of the guards retrieved the weapons.

“Very sensible,” said Sinclair. “Mature, even. I’m impressed. Space seems to be agreeing with you.” He held up the device again. “Or, it’s making you gullible.”

“No!” Cal yelled, as Sinclair pressed the button and the countdown completed. He lunged towards the president, but a whirring saw blade blocked his path, almost chewing his face right off.

“Relax, Carver,” Sinclair laughed. He tossed the device over his shoulder. “It’s a stopwatch. Your friends are fine. I don’t care about them. They can leave, for all I care. It’s you I’ve been longing to get my hands on.”

The president’s face twisted into a grin of dark delight. “Of course, some of my employees may have other ideas.”

* * *

Miz slashed out with her claws, tearing a large enough hole in the armor of the trooper in front of her to wedge the rifle barrel inside. She squeezed the trigger, launching him along the corridor, and scattering the other three soldiers who had, until that moment, been running towards her.

Someone grabbed her from behind. It was a decision he lived to regret for almost a full four seconds, before his innards became his outtards, and he wheezed and burped his way to the floor.

The rifle vomited out three more shots, disintegrating the other soldiers before they could get up. Or bits of them, at least.

Miz bounded over their remains just as a door slid open along the corridor directly ahead of her. More soldiers raised their weapons. They fired, just as the door slammed closed again, and Miz heard their strangled screams as the rebounding shots punched holes in them.

“Thanks, Kevin,” she said. Another door slid open up ahead on the right. Miz sniffed for trouble, then followed her nose into a wide room with three other doors leading off from the other walls. Two guards stood in front of one of the doors. This was not a state of affairs that lasted long. Miz fired at one, slashed at the other, and they both went down in synchronized fountains of blood.

Miz waited until the door slid open, then darted inside. Loren whimpered, just a little, at the sound of the barrier rising, then raised her head and blinked when Miz entered.

Miz made it just a few paces, then stopped. Loren’s pale blue body had been decorated in dark, brooding bruises. A string of bloody spittle hung from her bottom lip, half-hidden by the curtain of wet hair hanging in front of it.

“M-Miz?”

Miz nodded, not quite sure what to say. “Uh, yeah. I mean… Yeah. It’s me.”

She found Loren’s clothes in a heap in the corner of the room, and grabbed them before hurrying to Loren’s side. “It’s, like, I mean… It’s OK. I got you,” she said.

The cuffs around Loren’s wrists were too tough to break, but a series of quick shots from the blaster broke first the leg chains, then the ones on her arms. Loren fell into Miz, and the wolf-woman instinctively caught her.

“It’s OK,” Miz said, her voice wobbling in a way she wasn’t used to. “Like, don’t worry. No one’s going to hurt you.”

Loren rested on her for a few moments, her arms heavy as her blood rushed to be reunited with her numb fingertips. She mumbled something, but the words were lost in Miz’s thick coat of fur.

“What did you say?” Miz asked.

With some effort, Loren raised her head. “I said,” she whispered. “You’re totally hugging me right now.”

Miz scowled. “Ew. As if. I am so not hugging you,” she spat. A smile tugged at Loren’s bloodied mouth and Miz rolled her eyes. “Well, maybe just a little,” Miz admitted. “But if you tell anyone else, I’ll totally kill you.”

Loren gave Miz a pat on the back. “Deal,” she said, then she took her clothes and stumbled towards the cell’s narrow – and as yet unused – bed. “Just let me get dressed. Then we can go help Cal.”

“Why d’you think Cal needs help?” Miz asked.

Loren slumped down onto the bed. “Because he’s Cal. He always needs help,” she said.

Miz shook her head. “Not this time. This time, he’s got everything totally in hand.”

Loren paused with one leg in her pants. “He has?”

“Yep.”

“You’re sure? Cal – Cal Carver - has everything in hand?”

Miz hesitated. “Uh, yeah,” she said. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”

* * *

Sinclair rocked on his heels, his hands behind his back. The guards had moved into a flanking position around Cal and Mech now, with just one keeping his position next to the president. This was not going exactly as Cal had intended.

“So, come on, Cal. Put me out of my misery. Explain your plan,” Sinclair said, as if reading his mind. “You break in here, hack the system, find the footage that showed the Symmorium didn’t blow up Pikkish, then what? What did you hope to do with it?”

Cal chewed his lip for a while, then his shoulders sagged as he sighed. “Then we would show it to everyone. Prove you’d faked the whole thing. Get everyone else on the Symmorium’s side. Maybe even some of your own people.”

“That might have worked,” Sinclair conceded. “My own people, I mean. There are all kinds of factions within Zertex, and many of them would love to see me replaced.

“But you forgot one thing,” the president continued. “I faked the Pikkish footage, granted, but what’s to say anyone would believe your version over mine? A known fugitive showing off their ‘alternate footage’ of an event that has now been broadcast thousands of times in every system? Why would anyone believe you over me? I am the president of Zertex space. You are a small-time crook with delusions of grandeur.”

“Yeah, well what about these guys?” Cal said, gesturing to the guards. “Now they know the truth.”

Sinclair rapped his knuckles on the closest guard. It let out a hollow clang. “Robots,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to be gossiping about this any time soon. I’ve also had almost everyone aboard this station shipped out elsewhere, leaving only a few trusted soldiers.”

“You think you’ve thought of everything, don’t you?” said Cal.

Sinclair nodded. “Pretty much.”

“But there’s one thing you haven’t thought of, Hayel. You’ve made one tiny mistake, and that will be your undoing.”

“Oh, have I?” said Sinclair. “And what might that be?”

Cal shrugged. “Fonked if I know. Mech, now!”

He ducked as Mech raised his right arm. There was a sound like a blaster bolt almost firing – a sort of abortive Ppppp that never quite made it to ew – and then Mech’s eyes went wide in horror.

“Shizz, wrong hand. Look out, it’s gonna—”

Mech’s arm exploded, launching him backwards across the room. He slammed hard into the glowing cubes, vibrated violently as electricity tore through him, then slumped into a heap on the floor.

Still ducking, Cal glanced back at the fallen cyborg. He straightened up slowly, clearing his throat and lowering his hands to his side. “And let that be a lesson to you, Sinclair,” he said, smiling weakly. “Can we try that again?”

Sinclair’s laughter was sharp and sudden. It was nothing like the laughter Cal had heard the president emit before now, and he realized this was the first time he’d ever heard the man genuinely laugh. It was not a particularly enjoyable sound.

“Oh, Cal,” the president said. “Oh, that’s priceless. That’s brilliant. The look on your face right now is truly a sight to behold!”

He gestured to Mech lying on the floor, smoking slightly. “That’s it? That was your great hope of stopping me? Wow, I’m disappointed. I mean, I kind of love it, too, but… wow. I don’t know, I guess I just expected something with a bit more panache.”

“I wasn’t aiming for style points,” Cal told him. “I just wanted you dead.”

Sinclair’s smile broadened. “Yes, I bet you did.” He unbuttoned one of his shirt cuffs and began to roll it up. “Very well, then. I’ll give you a chance.”

Cal’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“I’ll fight you. Just you and I. One on one.”

Cal glanced at the robotic guards. “Yeah, right.”

Sinclair finished rolling up his second sleeve. “No, seriously. They won’t intervene. You have my word.”

“You won’t blame me if I don’t think your word is worth shizz,” Cal said.

Sinclair smirked. “Understandable. But it’s either I have them take you away for me to torture and kill at my discretion, or you take your chances.” The president’s smile fell away, replaced by a deranged, boggle-eyed leer. “So, come on, Carver,” he growled. “Take your best shot!”

Twenty-One

Miz stepped out into the hallway, one arm around Loren, the other holding the blaster rifle. Loren hobbled along at her side, focusing on moving her legs, which were not taking well to being in use again. She was dressed now, at least, but the hunger still gnawed at her insides, making her head light. The thought of the replicator aboard the Untitled gave her the strength to press on.

Something was different about the room outside the cell. It took Miz a moment to realize what it was. The extractor fans were on, cycling the air out and replacing it with a fresh supply.

“We might have a problem,” she said.

“Another one?” Loren mumbled. “Oh, good.”

“They’re changing the air. They’re trying to mess with my sense of smell.”

“Why would they do that?” Loren asked.

Miz started to turn, then howled in pain, her spine bending backwards as all her muscles contracted. Loren felt a jolt push through her, sending her staggering clear as Miz hit the deck, her fur standing on end and smoking lightly.

“Shock rod,” Miz managed to hiss. Loren limped towards her, then was sent staggering when a punch came out of nowhere and cracked her across the jaw.

From down on the floor, Loren saw the air ripple. For a moment, it just looked like a blur in her vision, but then it solidified, becoming a figure she knew only too well.

“Hey, sis,” said Dash. He gestured towards a device on his wrist. “Personal cloaking tech. State of the art. You see the toys you could be getting to play with if you hadn’t betrayed us?”

Miz snarled, showing all her teeth. She rose onto her haunches, but before she could make her move, Loren stopped her.

“Miz, wait!”

With some effort, Loren struggled back to her feet. She cracked her knuckles, arched her back, then cricked her neck. “He’s mine.”

“You can barely stand,” said Miz.

Dash nodded. “You should listen to your… what is she? Pet?”

“Of course she isn’t.” Loren’s eyes met Miz’s. “She’s my friend.”

“Technically, we just sort of work together,” said Miz, but then she sighed huffily. “Fine. I guess we’re, like, friends or whatever. Just hurry up and kick his butt.”

“Ha. I’d like to see her try,” snorted Dash, then he pirouetted on the spot as Loren’s heel whipped round and slammed into his jaw.

“Trust me, Dashy, this is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you,” said Loren, dropping into a fighting stance. She ran the sentence over again in her head. “Wait, no. Flip that around. This is going to hurt you a lot.”

* * *

All Cal’s pain, all Cal’s hatred and, more importantly, all Cal’s power went into the punch. It was a swinging right hook that started fast and rapidly built momentum right up until the point when it twisted Sinclair’s head around by a handful of degrees, and left no obvious mark whatsoever.

Sinclair smirked. “Go on, have another one.”

Cal fired an uppercut into the president’s jaw. Sinclair’s head tipped back, but his feet remained planted on the floor and the smirk on his face didn’t falter.

“Again.”

“Raaaah!” Cal rained blows on the president, hooking and jabbing and crossing Sinclair’s relentlessly smug face, as he tried to wipe the smile right off it.

“That’s it, Carver. Do your worst,” Sinclair said. He still hadn’t moved back a step, but there was some swelling around his chiseled cheekbones now, and a suggestion of blood on his bottom lip.

Cal swung again, putting everything he had into a lunging jab designed to break the president’s perfect nose.

A hand came up and caught Cal’s fist. He tried to pull it free, but the president’s grip was too strong. “Cybernetic enhancements,” Sinclair said, as if that explained everything. “The best that money can buy. I could keep this up all day.”

His other hand came up, the fingers balling into a fist that almost took Cal’s head off. Cal’s cheek split open and the floor turned to marshmallow beneath his feet. Annoyingly, it hardened again right before he fell onto it, clunking his head.

Cal sat up quickly, fought the urge to vomit, and got back to his feet. He enjoyed the look of surprise on the president’s face as the gash on his cheek sealed itself over.

“Yeah. So could I,” Cal said, then he ran at the president, shouldering him in the stomach.

Sinclair took less than half a step backwards, before catching his balance. He caught Cal around the waist and flipped him into the air, before slamming him down again on his back.

“Ow!” Cal wheezed. “Fonking power bombing motherfonker!”

He thrust out a foot, connecting hard with Sinclair’s groin. The president didn’t flinch. Cal groaned.

“Come on, seriously? You bought yourself a robo-winky?” He thought for a moment. “Do you have, like, a number for the store, or…?”

Sinclair caught Cal’s foot and swung him around. The guards shuffled aside as Cal sailed through the air, then smashed against one of the cube racks. He glanced across at Mech, still lying motionless on the floor. The cyborg had come to rest facing the cubes, and Cal could only see his back, and the ruined remains of his right arm.

"Just any time you’re ready, Mech,” Cal wheezed. “Join in whenever you like.”

Sinclair motioned for Cal to get up. Cal thought about staying down, just to be annoying, but decided that possibly wasn’t the wisest course of action.

“Tired, Carver?” the president said, grinning. “Have you realized yet what a mistake you made by coming here? How you played right into my hands?”

“Jesus, why are you such a shizznod?” Cal asked. “With the gloating and everything. What is it with you bad guys and the sound of your own voice?”

“I’m not the ‘bad guy’, Carver,” Sinclair said. “Oh sure, I may have wiped out your planet, destroyed Pikkish and deliberately started a war with the Symmorium, but does that make me the bad guy?”

“It absolutely makes you the bad guy,” said Cal. “Those are all terrible things.”

“Ah! But are terrible things done for the right reasons still terrible things?” Sinclair asked.

“Yes! Absolutely. The answer was in the question. It’s in the name. ‘Terrible things.’ That’s pretty concrete.”

Sinclair shrugged. “Ah well. You may have a point.”

He lunged, driving the flat of his foot into Cal’s chest and hammering him into one of the guards. The robot’s arm wrapped across Cal’s throat, and the president’s eyes blazed. “But being the bad guy is just such fun!”

* * *

Loren ducked, barely avoiding a punch she should have seen coming a mile off. Dash still had the Shock Rod, and getting that off him was priority number one, but only by a nose. Priority number two was not passing out through hunger or exhaustion, but first she had to get rid of that stick.

She waited for him to lunge with it, and sidestepped the attack. Moving in close, she hooked her arm around his, trapping it, then hammered two solid punches into his midsection, bam-bam. Twisting, she forced his wrist back on itself, and prized the Shock Rod from his grip just as he caught her by the hair and pulled her back.

“Teela, fonking quit it!” he told her, throwing her to the floor. “You can’t beat me. I’m stronger, faster and—”

Loren’s leg swept out, taking Dash’s feet out from under him. He hit the ground hard, and Loren moved to pin him down. His boot crunched into the side of her head, making her ear ring and her brain slosh around like a crouton in soup.

She fell awkwardly across his legs, holding her hands up to protect her head as he sat up and rained blows on it. “Just stay down,” he commanded. “Stop making me do this.”

He put a foot on her shoulder and shoved her off him. Loren rolled to the wall, and used it to get herself up.

Miz tensed, ready to lunge, but Loren held up a hand to stop her. “No! He’s mine.”

Under any normal circumstances – meaning circumstances in which she hadn’t spent almost a full day chained to a wall, being tortured, beaten and starved – Loren was confident she’d kick Dash’s ass. Yes, he was bigger and stronger than she was, but not by much, and he didn’t know how to use what little advantage he had. He’d done the same basic fight training as anyone else, of course, but Loren hadn’t just come top of that class, but top of the optional advanced-level module, too.

She’d even enrolled in a home study course or two, but had knocked those on the head after accidentally kicking her TV through a wall while attempting to copy some of the techniques.

It was safe to say, though, that she wasn’t at her best. Her legs were heavy, her head was light, and no part of her body was responding as effectively as it should. She should let Miz get involved. That was the sensible thing. The logical thing.

But he was her brother. And if anyone was beating him to a pulp with their bare hands, it was going to be her.

Dash kept his distance, watching Loren’s movements. “Mom cried, you know?” he said. “When she heard you betrayed Zertex. She cried, Teela. And you know how I know? Because I had to tell her. Me. I was the one who had to break her heart.”

“Shut up,” Loren said. She pounced with a kick, but Dash skipped sideways, avoiding it, and pushed her hard in the back. She stumbled, but managed to stay upright.

“And Dad! Wow. You should have seen him. I honestly thought it was going to kill him. Hell, it still might.”

“I didn’t betray anyone,” Loren seethed. “Sinclair used me. He set me up. He killed millions of people. Billions.”

“You’re a liar, Teela,” said Dash, as they both began circling each other again. “You can’t admit what you’ve done, so you try to blame the president. You’re pathetic. Listen to you. Listen to what you’re saying. I know a traitor when I hear one.”

Miz sighed. “Seriously, can’t I just gut this guy and we can go?”

“No,” Loren said. She dived for her brother, but he stepped aside. Unfortunately for him, Loren had anticipated this, and spun on the spot, driving the tip of her elbow into the much less rigid tip of his nose.

Dash’s hands flew to his face as his eyes filled with tears. He stumbled back, and Loren helped him on his way with a snapping side kick to the abdomen.

“You helped him torture me,” Loren said. “I’m your fonking sister, Dash, and you helped him torture me.”

“You think I wanted to?!” Dash roared, blood and snot bubbling from his nose. “I had to, Loren. You left me with no choice. You didn’t just betray Zertex, you betrayed me. You betrayed your family.”

Loren stopped. She looked Dash up and down, then slowly shook her head. “You’re not my family. Not anymore.”

Covering his nose with his hands again, Dash tapped a device on his wrist. The air around him shivered, and he vanished into thin air. Loren lunged for the spot where he’d been standing, but found it empty.

“Fair enough,” Dash’s voice hissed from somewhere over her shoulder. “In that case, I guess I can finally stop playing fair.”

Twenty-Two

Cal squirmed in the grip of the robot guard, then huffed as Sinclair drove a punch into his stomach, right below his ribs. The president pounded him with a series of blows, like a boxer working the heavy bag, then finished with a left cross to the head that split the skin just below Cal’s temple.

“There’s something so… exciting about moments like this. Or is that just me?” Sinclair asked. “Something so primal. So feral. I look at all our progress, all our advances, and it’s amazing, it truly is. But deep down.” He tapped himself in the center of the chest. “Somewhere in here, we’re all just animals.”

Cal winced as his head wound healed itself up. “I think you’ll find you mean ‘space animals’.”

“You know what I mean, though,” said Sinclair. He hit Cal across the face again. “This. Facing off. Man to man.”

“Man and armored robot to man, you mean,” Cal pointed out.

“Oh, come come now, Cal. The battle was won before this one got involved. He’s making sure you remain upright, that’s all. If anything, he’s helping you.”

“I’ll be sure to add him to my Christmas card list,” said Cal, then he grimaced as Sinclair hit him again, temporarily busting open his top lip. “Look, before you hit me in the face again – which we both know you’re itching to do, and I can kind of understand that – I just want to know one thing. Why?”

“Why am I hitting you in the face?”

“No, like I said, I get that part. Hell, if I were literally anyone else, I’d probably want to punch me in the face, too,” Cal said. “I mean, why everything else? Why start a war?”

“A hundred reasons, really,” said Sinclair. “Profit being the main one, of course. Go high enough and most wars are about profit. But also respect.”

“Respect?”

Sinclair nodded. “The Symmorium, they don’t respect me. Not like they should. It’s the same with you, really. You didn’t respect me, either.” He grinned and indicated the robot holding Cal by the throat, and the unresponsive Mech on the floor. “I bet you do now, though, right?”

“Hmm? God, no. Less, if anything,” said Cal. “I will admit, though, you’ve played everyone pretty well. Launching a full-scale attack on a completely innocent species while making yourself look like the good guy. That’s impressive. I mean, I used to con people for a living, but even I will give you props for that.”

Sinclair nodded. “And well you should.”

“And, I mean, you even managed to get other governments on your side, is that right? Mech told me all about it. The D’uzen and… What was the other one again?”

“The Tallash,” Sinclair said. “A fine race. Both fine races, actually. A little… backwards, perhaps, but dependable.”

“And when you don’t need them anymore?” Cal asked.

Sinclair laughed. “What are you talking about? I don’t need them now! But what’s that saying your people have, about keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer?”

Cal nodded. “Make sense. And how would they react, do you think, if they found all this stuff out?”

“And who’s going to tell them?” Sinclair asked. “You?”

“Well, if you tell this guy to let me go, and give me a ten second head start, I’ll see what I can do,” Cal said.

Sinclair laughed, almost fondly. “Oh, you humans. You really are rather amusing.”

He punched Cal across the face again, hard enough to break his jaw. Cal waited for it to heal up before continuing.

“Speaking of finding things out, I’ve found a few things about Mech recently,” Cal said. “Like the fact he wasn’t always made of metal.”

“Fascinating,” said Sinclair. He powered another punch into Cal’s ribcage.

Cal spent a few seconds wheezing, then carried on. “That – for very good reason – he hates war, and would do anything to not have to get involved in one. Including deliberately blowing himself up and pretending to be unconscious.”

Sinclair brought back his fist again, then hesitated as Cal’s words filtered through.

“And, most interesting of all,” Cal said. “He also has a ‘record’ function.”

Sinclair’s smooth brow furrowed, his eyes darting left and right as he thought back over everything he’d recently said. “No,” he hissed. “No, no, no.”

He darted to Mech’s side and, with some effort, flopped him onto his back. The dial on the cyborg’s chest was turned all the way to his left, diverting all his power to his intellect. A cable from one of the blue boxes was plugged into a little sliding panel on his intact arm.

“No!” Sinclair cried. “No, no, no, no, no!”

He flew at Cal, swinging with a punch that would have shattered bone, had the robot holding Cal not raised its hand to block him. It wrapped its metal fingers around the president’s fist, holding him in place.

The president stared at the robotic guard. All the cocksure confidence was gone from his expression now, as it was rapidly replaced by rising terror. “What? What are you doing? Step down, unit. Release me and step down.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Cal said. “See, this might not actually be the main server room, but apparently if you know what you’re doing, you can get to it from here. And we know what we’re doing. Well, Mech does. That’s something else I learned about him. He’s smarter than he looks. We’re in the system now. All this?” He gestured at the station. “This is us. Right, Mech?”

The robot’s mouth flashed with red LEDs as Mech’s voice crackled from within it. Well, one of Mech’s voices, at least – the faster, higher-pitched one he spoke in when his dial was turned left. “That is quite correct, Cal. I have integrated myself with all the Zertex systems we need.”

“Need?” Sinclair demanded. “Need for what?”

When the robot next spoke, it was the president’s own voice that emerged.

“Oh sure, I may have wiped out your planet, destroyed Pikkish and deliberately started a war with the Symmorium, but does that make me the bad guy?”

Sinclair’s jaw dropped. “I… I didn’t say that. That isn’t me. No one will believe it.”

Cal shrugged. “Hmm. Let’s find out. Mech, can you show us outside?”

A stack of nine glowing cubes went dark, then changed to show an image of outer space. Zertex and the Symmorium were still locked in battle, but the image zoomed in past them, revealing two more fleets approaching.

“The D’uzen and… Sorry, what was it again?” Cal asked.

“Tallash,” said Sinclair, almost robotically.

“Oh, and hello!” said Cal. “What’s this at the front, leading them here? Why, it’s only a giant fonking Colossobot, being piloted by my good friend, Splurt. Mech, tell Splurt to give us a wave.”

There was a moment of silence. Then, on screen, the Colossobot raised an arm and waved.

“There he is!” said Cal. “I asked him to go fetch your buddies and bring them along.” He frowned. “Although… what was it you said about them again?”

The robot’s mouth lit up. “Both fine races, actually. A little… backwards, perhaps, but dependable.”

“That was it! Thank you, Mech,” said Cal. He cracked his knuckles and shot the president a smile designed to utterly infuriate him. “I’m going to give you a choice, Hayel. You can either call off this war, step down, and live out the rest of your days in peace, or we can show the whole fonking universe everything you’ve said. Oh, along with the original footage of what really happened to Pikkish. Thanks for that, by the way, that idea hadn’t occured to me at all.”

Sinclair ground his teeth together, contemplating this. He opened his mouth to reply, but Cal stopped him.

“Actually, that first one was never going to happen. Mech, send it all!”

“No!” Sinclair roared. He frantically tried to pull his hand free, but the robot guard held it tight. “You can’t do this. You can’t do this!”

“Actually, Hayel,” said Cal. “I’m pretty sure we just have.”

* * *

Loren swung wildly with a punch, found nothing, and almost lost her balance. Miz’s nostrils flared, her ears twitching as she tried to pinpoint Dash’s location. The cycling of the air and the droning of the extractor fans made it difficult, though, and she could only make rough guesses, at best.

She raised her rifle and fired. The bolt exploded against the wall directly across from her. “Shizz,” she muttered.

“What are you doing?” Loren wheezed. “Don’t shoot him.”

“Then find him and kick his butt,” Miz said.

Something hit Loren in the kidneys. She twisted, flailing with a backhand strike, but Dash was nowhere within reach.

A kick struck the side of Loren’s knee. She limped clear, turning in the direction the strike had come from, hoping to see some flicker of movement, or something for her to direct her attack at.

A punch connected with her from the other side, rising upwards, as if Dash had been crouching there, waiting to strike. Loren made a grab for where she hoped he’d be, but found only empty space.

This was getting her nowhere. She stopped moving, closed her eyes, and focused. She knew Dash. They’d fought every day as kids, and again during Loren’s training. She’d beaten him then, not because she was better – although she was – but because he was predictable. He was strong and fast, yes, but he lacked imagination. She had beaten him because no matter how spontaneous he tried to be, she had learned to predict what he’d do next.

Loren turned, blocking Dash’s kick with her left arm, and grabbing for him with her right. She found the fabric of his uniform and knotted her fingers up in it so he couldn’t pull away. Then, with a cry of triumph, she slammed him against the wall, kicked out one of his legs, and dropped him to the floor.

Hissing and spitting with rage, she found his wrist and pulled off the cloaking tech. Dash appeared instantly, his eyes wide with fear, his face still awash with blood, spittle and snot.

“Wait, Teela, don’t!” he pleaded, but her hands went around his throat and she put all her weight behind them, pushing down until his pale blue skin started to turn purple.

“I didn’t betray anyone, Dash. I just saw what was happening and picked the right side,” she snarled. Dash’s eyes bulged, and Loren eased off on the pressure enough for him to catch his breath. “I want to kill you, but I won’t. I won’t.”

“You should have,” Dash coughed, then he raised his hand and sprayed something green and toxic into Loren’s eyes. She fell back, her hands clamped over her face, as her brother got to his feet.

Miz was on him in a heartbeat, her claws fully extended, teeth bared. She was about to introduce him to his own chest cavity when Sinclair’s voice came over the speakers.

“Oh sure, I may have wiped out your planet, destroyed Pikkish and deliberately started a war with the Symmorium, but does that make me the bad guy?”

Miz and Dash both looked up. Loren pulled her hands away from her face, blinking through the pain and the tears.

There was a high-speed zzzzip noise, like a tape rewinding, then Sinclair’s voice came again.

“So, come on, Cal. Put me out of my misery. Explain your plan. You break in here, hack the system, find the footage that showed the Symmorium didn’t blow up Pikkish, then what? What did you hope to do with it?”

ZZZZZIP.

“I faked the Pikkish footage, granted, but what’s to say anyone would believe your version over mine? A known fugitive showing off their ‘alternate footage’ of an event that has now been broadcast thousands of times in every system? Why would anyone believe you over me?”

Dash swallowed. “What is this?”

“Come on, Dashy,” said Loren, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I thought you knew a traitor when you heard one?”

“No, but… But… This isn’t…” Dash shook his head. “But he told me… He showed me…” Swallowing, Loren’s brother tried to pull himself together. “I was just following orders,” he whimpered. “I was just following orders.”

“Tell it to the Symmorium,” Loren said. She lunged forwards and smashed the heel of her hand into his face. His head snapped back, thumped against the wall, then Miz stepped away and he fell like a broken doll to the floor.

“Nicely done,” said Miz. “Want me to, like, eat him now, or whatever? Because I totally will.”

“Tempting,” said Loren. She made a weighing motion with her hands, then shook her head. “But maybe another time. Let’s get back to the ship.”

Miz nodded. “I can get behind that plan.”

“Good,” said Loren. “Oh, and one more thing.” She sunk to the floor as her legs finally gave up the ghost. “You’re going to have to carry me.”

Twenty-Three

Cal and Mech stepped from the elevator, just as Miz reached the bottom of the Untitled’s landing ramp. Loren was over her shoulder. She managed a half-hearted wave when she saw Cal, then stared in concern at Mech’s missing hand.

“Talk about timing,” said Cal. “Everyone OK?”

“Been better,” Loren admitted. She gestured down at Mech’s hand. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, he blew himself up,” said Cal, before Mech could open his mouth. “Don’t make a fuss, he’ll only milk it.”

“Hey, fonk you, man!”

“You fit to fly us out of here?” Cal asked.

Loren blinked in surprise. “Uh, maybe I should let Kevin do it.”

“Like, no way,” said Miz, carrying Loren up the ramp and into the ship. “He’s even worse than you are. And that’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear myself say.”

Cal hit the button to raise the ramp, and followed the others through onto the bridge. As soon as he stepped on, there was a loud fanfare and a sound like a party blower. With a puff, a spray of glitter fell from somewhere near the ceiling.

“Surprise!” said Kevin.

Cal hesitated and glanced around the bridge. “What is?”

“You had to sort of imagine me jumping out from behind a chair there,” Kevin explained. “Or possibly out of a big cake.”

Miz lowered Loren into the pilot’s seat.

“What is he even talking about?” she asked.

“It’s a sort of welcome home party,” Kevin said. “Albeit without the party elements. Surprise!”

Mech approached the viewscreen and took up his usual position. Miz slumped into her chair and immediately became disinterested in everything else around her.

Cal lowered himself into his own seat. “Still not getting the surprise part,” he said.

“Well,” said Kevin, but his voice tailed off into a lingering silence. “You’re all still alive. That’s quite surprising.”

Cal nodded. “Yeah. Well, you got us there,” he said. “Loren, if you’d do the honors?”

“OK, but it’s going to cost you,” she said, groaning slightly as she pulled the controls closer to her. “I never did get to try the Fauff.”

Cal blinked in surprise, then nodded. “OK, then. Sounds fair. It’s, uh, it’s a date,” he said, then he clung to his chair as the Untitled lurched off the landing pad, and wobbled out through the shimmering force field into the dark void beyond.

The battle between Zertex and the Symmorium had all but stopped. The transmission Mech had made of Sinclair’s confession – along with the real footage of the destruction of Pikkish showing the Symmorium had nothing to do with it – had likely taken the edge off the fighting. But it was the Colossobot standing between the two fleets, reproachfully wagging a finger at both sides which had probably ended it properly.

It didn’t hurt that the D’uzen and Tallash fleets were gathered around it, forming a blockade between both sides.

“Looks like the message got out,” said Cal.

“What message? What did you do?” Loren asked.

Mech’s metal jaw creaked into a smile. “I think we just stopped a war.”

The Untitled banked towards the amassed armadas, gliding over on impulse power. Loren tapped a few controls on her console and part of the viewscreen changed to show Zertex Command Six behind them.

“We should totally blow it up,” said Miz, lifting her eyes for the tiniest fraction of a second. “We could do that, right?”

“We could,” said Cal. “But Sinclair isn’t going anywhere. We’ll let someone else handle him. I’d like to see him talk his way out of this one. Besides, Loren’s brother is still on there, right?”

Loren shifted in her seat. “He is,” she said. “But don’t let that stop you.”

“Hey, come on now,” said Cal. “Whatever he did, he’s still your family.”

Loren shook her head. “It’s like you said. Family ends. You move on.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I was wrong,” Cal said. “Maybe family is what you’re stuck with, for better or worse. Sure, they mess up sometimes.” He stared very deliberately at the back of her head. “But that doesn’t mean you turn your back on them.”

He looked around at the others. “I mean, where would we all be then, right?”

“Right,” Mech agreed.

“Besides, I guess the Symmorium are totally going to kill him,” Miz said.

“There is also that,” Cal said.

There was a loud bleeping from the viewscreen. “Message from the Symmorium,” Mech announced.

“On screen,” said Cal. “Oh, you already have. Subsent Takta! Nice to see you. How are things at your end?”

Takta’s usual expression of borderline hostility was replaced by something marginally softer, although you’d have to look very hard to notice. “Am I correct in my assumption that the broadcasts transmitted from the Zertex Command station were your doing?”

“Well, that seemed like a complicated way to ask that question, but yes. That was us,” said Cal. “Spread the word. Use it however you see fit. Sinclair is currently being manhandled by a robot back there on the station somewhere. I’m guessing there’s a queue of people who’d like to talk to him.”

Takta nodded slowly. “Indeed,” he said. “It appears the Symmorium once more owes you a great debt.”

“Seriously, any time,” said Cal. “To be honest, we kind of enjoy it.”

“Speak for yourself,” Mech said, waving his arm stump.

“Wait, actually, can we collect on that debt right now?” Cal asked.

Takta’s dark eyes narrowed. “That depends. What do you require?”

“Make Junta a commander again. He’s a good guy. He didn’t deserve Loren fonking up his life like that.”

“Thanks for that,” Loren muttered. “But he’s right,” she said, raising her voice. “It’s my fault Junta got involved. He doesn’t deserve to be punished.”

“We’ll even throw in a giant flying robot,” said Cal, indicating the Colossobot. “Although we’re taking the pilot back, because he’s adorable and we all love him so much it hurts.”

He looked around at the others. “Well, that last part’s mostly just me.”

The expression on Takta’s face changed, almost imperceptibly, until there was just the faintest hint of a smile about it. “Leave it with me,” he said. “I shall see what I can do.”

The Symmorium bowed, then the image of him blinked off. “OK, then,” said Cal, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s fly over there and get Splurt, then I think that’s another action-packed Space Team adventure all wrapped—”

BLEEP.

“We got another transmission,” said Mech. Before Cal could respond, Nana Joan’s face appeared on screen. Higgsy, Jork and Alan were crammed in behind her. The boys all waved excitedly at the camera.

“Nana,” said Cal. “I thought you’d be long gone.”

“Not yet,” said Nana. “These three wanted to say goodbye first.”

“Did we help?” asked Higgsy.

Cal nodded and smiled. “You helped.”

“Yay! Go Space Team!” Higgsy cheered, as he and Jork exchanged a high-five, then a low-five with Alan.

“Uh, yeah,” said Cal, shifting in his seat. “See, the thing is, I know I said you guys were the new Space Team but, well, that was before the old Space Team got back together.”

Higgsy and the others exchanged glances. “What do you mean?” Alan asked.

“Just that… Well, there’s no easy way of saying this, because it seems like you’ve become pretty invested in the idea in what feels like quite a short space of time, but… You guys can’t be Space Team. We’re Space Team.”

“I have no objections to them being Space Team,” said Mech.

“Don’t listen to him, he’s injured and lost a lot of… wires,” said Cal. “We’re Space Team. Sorry.”

Jork raised a hand. “Could we be Space Team 2?”

Cal pulled a concerned face. “My worry is that then everyone would think the original Space Team – us – were all dead, and you were our replacements.”

“Again, I have no objections to that,” Mech said.

“Oh, I know!” said Higgsy. “We could be ‘The Other Space Team’.”

“No, you freaking idiot,” said Jork. “That’s too long.”

“Space Geeks!” said Cal. He wrinkled his nose. “No, that doesn’t work. Space Friends. Star Buddies. Astro… Pals.”

“Former Restaurant Employees Turned Space Adventurers,” suggested Kevin.

“Bit long-winded,” said Cal.

“Uh, incidentally, who are these people?” Loren asked.

Cal ignored her and rattled off some more suggestions. “Space Guys. Cosmo Dudes. Old Lady and the Star Boys. Three Men and a Little Lady! Wait, no, that’s a film. Steve Guttenberg’s in it.”

“Space Teens,” said Miz, without looking up from her nails.

Cal snorted. “Space Teens?” he said, then he raised his eyebrows. “Actually, that’s not bad.”

“I’m seventy-three years old,” Nana pointed out.

“OK, then, Space Teens plus Nana.”

“Nana and the Space Teens,” the old lady suggested.

“Bingo!” said Cal, pointing to the screen. “I mean, granted, it’s probably a doo-wop band from the fifties, but what the Hell? They’re all dead now, anyway. Nana and the Space Teens it is.”

Cal tapped his fingers to his brow in salute. “You guys be careful out there.”

Nana Joan nodded. “You too, Nob Muntch.”

The screen went dark and she ended the transmission. Loren turned in her chair and fixed Cal with an expectant look. “’Nob Muntch’?” she said.

“Trust me. It’s a long story,” said Cal, leaning back his chair and placing his hands behind his head. “Now, then, Ms Loren,” he said, “about that date…”

“It’s not a date,” said Loren, taking hold of the throttle. The stars stretched out as the Currently Untitled shot off into the far reaches of space.

And then, several minutes later, they came back for Splurt.

THE END

Afterword

Hello there, little one! Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you.

Thank you for reading the fifth Space Team adventure. The fact you’ve made it five books into the series speaks wonders for your stamina, tenacity and – arguably – your self-loathing. I have had a blast writing these books, and hope to churn them out continue writing them for a long time to come!

That said, Space Team will be taking a break after the sixth book, as I’ll be starting an all-new series starring one of the characters from this here book you just read. Dial D for Deadman will be the first book in the Dan Deadman, Space Detective series, and I’ll be inviting you back to Down Here in October 2017 to reunite with Dan and the cast of misfits and criminals who populate his world.

But there’s still another Space Team to go before then, and I’m aiming to make Space Team: Return of the Dead Guy the biggest and best yet, and have some pretty explosive twists lined up. (Mech is Cal’s father! Mizette has been dead the whole time! It has all been a crazy dream!*)

If you really want to make my day, you could leave a review of this or any of the other Space Team books on Amazon. Seriously, I’ll love you forever if you do. Unless it’s a one-star, of course, in which case I’ll only love you briefly.

Thanks for reading!

Best wishes,

Barry J. Hutchison

*None of these are true. Or are they?**

**No, they aren’t.

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Oh! I Almost forgot…

Got a spare few minutes? I’d really appreciate it if you could leave me a review. Reviews help other lovely readers like you discover the book, which in turns helps keep my children clothed and fed.

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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