Baxter Moon, Galactic Scout (13 page)

“It’s…” GiS started to say.

“…my job to worry,” Zenna, Elvin and I, said for him.

I reached for the door open button. I stopped. I looked up at SC.

“Are you sure life support is functioning?” I asked.

“Of course,” SC said calmly. “Not at full capacity but at enough capacity so you’ll be fine as long as you don’t exert yourselves too much.”

“That’s reassuring,” I said. I started to open the door again. I stopped again.

“What is it now?” SC asked.

“How are we going to communicate with you while we’re on the ship?”

“I’ve patched SC into our intersquad sleeve communicators,” Elvin said. “We can talk to him and he can talk to us.”

“Are you happy now?” SC asked.

“Yep,” I said. I popped open the door.

We all dropped out of the shuttle down the Explorer’s landing bay. It had an eerie quiet about it. No bots running around. Just enough light to cast some freaky shadows and to let us see where we were going — barely.

We all kept our stun rods drawn as we slowly walked toward the elevator door. Our footsteps echoed off the vast emptiness of the room.

Elvin looked at a mini-scanner-computer he wore on his wrist. “Okay, the med lab is on the seventeenth floor,” Elvin said.

We reached the elevator door. It didn’t open.

“SC, can you activate the elevator?” GiS asked.

“Yes,” SC said through our communicators.

We all waited. The door still didn’t open.

“SC, will you activate the elevator?” GiS asked, exasperated.

“You don’t want that,” SC said.

“Why not?”

“Because in order to activate the elevator lift I would have to deactivate life support and gravity,” SC said.

“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

“You didn’t ask.”

We all shook our heads in confusion. Well, all of us except Zenna. SC was acting a bit stranger than usual. My guess was that SC wasn’t really designed to be powering a Space Sphere. Controlling two of them had put extra demand on his logic processors, making him a bit more flaky. At least I hoped that was the reason.

“I suggest you do this the old-fashioned way,” SC said. “There is a man-powered-vertical-rung-lift that runs along the left side the elevator.”

Sure enough, on closer examination the wall on to the left of the lift did appear to have a removable panel. Elvin tapped the panel with his rod. It gave off a hollow sound.

Elvin ran his hand up and down the wall.

“I can’t seem to find a switch to give us access,” he said.

Zenna stepped up to the wall.

“Here — it needs a lady’s touch,” she said.

Zenna grabbed hold of the panel. There were no grip bars or slots but Zenna made two by literally digging her hands into the wall. She groaned for a second, then pulled back, pulling the panel off the wall. She turned and tossed the panel into the bay area. She rubbed her hands together cleaning off the dust. She smiled.

“A woman’s work is never done,” she said happily.

Behind the panel was a small room not much bigger than a closet. There was also a ladder leading straight up, way up.

We all walked into the room. We looked up. All we could see was ladder.

“Each level has exactly 125 rungs,” SC said briskly. “When you reach a level there is a door that is clearly marked that leads to the floor. I suggest you start now.”

GiS looked up at the ladder and smiled. “I haven’t had a workout like this in a while!” he said enthusiastically. “This will be good for us.”

“It will be like climbing to the top of the old Empire State building,” Elvin said.

GiS pointed to the ladder. “Zenna, you lead the way because we might need your muscle to open the door.”

“Right,” Zenna said. She grabbed the ladder and started moving up.

“Baxter and Elvin, you two are next. I’ll follow up the rear. Just in case I have to give one of you a little push.”

I grabbed the ladder and looked up. All I could see was more ladder. I decided it was best not to look. I started up.

“Remember, don’t look down,” GiS shouted.

* * * *

After about an hour’s worth of climbing, we had reached the tenth floor. Zenna was a trooper as always. She didn’t show any signs of tiring. Her only concern was that she had to be careful not to fart with all of us behind her like we were.

GiS of course was eating this up. He loved it. Of course it’s easy to climb when you can grab the rungs with either your feet or your hands.

I had to give Elvin credit. He hated heights. Yet he was hanging in there. He was sweating like a pig but he was keeping up with us without much prodding from GiS. He was also working out ways that SC would be able to activate the elevator for the ride down without having to deactivate gravity or life support.

As for me, I was much more worried about the boredom killing me than anything else. The climb was strenuous, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Like some dead philosopher once said, whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Part of me, though, was craving action. The other part of me, the smaller, more cautious, part had a feeling that soon there would be plenty of action.

* * * *

We climbed and climbed. Each level had a little walk pad and door marked with the floor number on it. We would take a brief two-minute break on every fifth pad. After about another hour (that felt a lot longer) we reached the walk pad for the seventeenth floor.

We all stood on the pad. Elvin looked at his scanner.

“The energy reading is down this hall,” he said.

“Any extra energy readings?” GiS asked.

Elvin shook his head no.

Zenna pushed the door open. We all peered down the hallway. It didn’t look like much, a long dark hall, dotted by doors.

“The med lab is at the very end of the hall,” Elvin said.

“Of course it is,” I said. “Anyplace else wouldn’t be as creepy.”

We started walking down the hallway. Zenna, GiS and I had our weapons ready. Elvin was working out some calculations on his scanner.

“Are you still picking up energy readings, Elvin?” GiS asked as we moved closer to the door in question.

“Huh?” Elvin said as GiS’s words pulled him away from his wrist scanner. He pressed another button. “Uh, yes,” Elvin said.

We continued down the hallway until we came to the door. GiS looked at the access pad on the door.

“SC, do you know what the door’s access code is?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?” GiS asked anxiously.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“The door is not locked.”

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

“You never asked.”

GiS just shook his head and mumbled, “Computers…”

I’m pretty sure SC mumbled back, “Chimps…” But we all ignored it.

GiS pressed the open button. The door sprang open. Sure enough, the room was a med room. In the middle of the room was a stasis bed. We were all familiar enough with stasis beds; every ship had them. They would put you in a state of almost suspended animation. In the old days these beds, which looked pretty much like a standard regulation bed enclosed in a big tube, were used to help pass the time during long space flights. These days, the beds are used for healing. It has been found that the body heals much more rapidly while in near suspended state.

So the stasis bed wasn’t anything special. What was special was what was in the bed. Or should I say, who was in the bed. It was a blue-skinned, blue-haired girl, wearing a long dark green dress with sequins on it. She looked like she was about our age.

We all approached the bed cautiously. None of us had ever seen an alien before. At least not this close.

“Zow! An Aquarian!” Zenna said.

“Dah, do you think?” Elvin said cynically.

“Yes, I do,” Zenna said, sincerely. “Gee, Elvin you’re pretty smart, you should have been able to figure that out!” Zenna studied the girl’s fine features a bit. “Wow, she’s really beautiful,” she said.

“Hush!” GiS ordered.

“Why — are you afraid we might wake her?” I asked.

GiS shook his head. “No, it’s just proper protocol to do these things quietly!”

“Oh,” Zenna said softly.

GiS looked at the control pad at the side of the bed. “We’ve got to get her out of here, stat.”

None of us was going to argue.

“SC, what’s the code to resuscitate her and open the bed?” GiS asked.

“The code letters are W-A-K-E-U-P,” SC said.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“I never kid when it comes to access codes,” SC said.

GiS punched in the code. We all waited a tic. A white mist entered the tube enclosing the bed. The mist cleared. The tube opened up. The girl started to cough. She opened her eyes.

“Humans!”

Elvin leaned over the bed. “We’re here to save you!” Elvin said in his most macho voice. It wasn’t all that macho.

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job of it!” the girl said. She sat up and lunged forward to grab Elvin’s stun rod. Before any of us could do anything she fired the rod. The laser blast flew past us all and into a little medical bot. Unbeknownst to any of us, the bot had snuck up on us and was getting ready to inject us with one of its syringe arms.

The blast from the rod short-circuited the bot. It vibrated violently, then fell over.

“Nice shot!” I said.

“The entire Aquarian royal family are excellent shots,” she said proudly. “I’m actually glad you were smart enough to bring weapons. Though they do break our agreement.” She stretched.

We all looked at the princess. She was cocky, but Zenna was correct she was attractive, especially if you liked blue skin, long hair, long eye lashes and perfectly formed lips — which I did. She certainly didn’t seem very grateful, considering we had just saved her butt. I guess she saved ours too, though, from the medbot’s syringe.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said. “The creatures you call the TVTrons are in control of the bots on this ship. They attacked my ship and this ship with some sort of reprogramming ray! It turned our computers and our bots against us. Once we were helpless, the TVTrons boarded our ships and took us away.”

I had to give the princess points for being spunky. She had the air of a person who never thought she was wrong. She kind of reminded me of Kymm.

“Why are you on the Explorer?” GiS asked. The rest of us (well, except for probably Zenna) were thinking the same thing.

She shook her head. “The TVTrons’ mind control ray did not work on me. So they left me here in suspended animation.”

“Why didn’t they just kill you?” Elvin asked.

“My guess is they wanted to see what makes my brain different from everybody else’s before they start their full-scale attacks. I also guess they figured I’d be easier to hold here in stasis than up on their mother pyramid ship.”

“They didn’t count on us figuring out how to stop their reprogramming ray and coming to rescue you!” Elvin said.

The Aquarian girl hopped off the bed and stretched again. She was tall and in good shape, really good shape if you get what I am talking about. “Some rescue,” she said coldly. “You’re in the middle of ship surrounded by hostile machines.”

“She’s right,” GiS said. “We have to get off of this ship sooner than ASAP.”

“That will be much easier said than accomplished,” SC said. “Currently the hallway between her and the exit is filled with bots. And they aren’t here to serve you.” SC paused for a tic. “Except maybe to the TVTrons.”

“Like I said before, nice rescue, humans,” the girl said mockingly.

“Actually, before you said,
some rescue
,” Zenna said as only Zenna could.

The Aquarian girl looked at Zenna. “My, you’re one of the smarter Earthers,” she said.

“Thanks!” Zenna said.

The Aquarian girl just shook her head.

“What’s your name?” Elvin asked.

“I am Princess Amana of the royal government. You may address me as Your Highness,” she said grandly.

Before anybody could respond, a cylinder-shaped maidbot rolled into the room. “Surrender, humans!” it shouted as loudly as a maidbot could. “Or I will be forced to hurt you.”

“Please, what are you going to do? Dust us to death?” Elvin said.

Sure enough two dusters popped out of the bot’s sides. They didn’t look all that intimidating. The bot started to whirl the duster heads like buzz saws. Suddenly they looked pretty intimidating.

The bot whirled toward us.

I aimed. I fired. My shot hit the bot. The bot stumbled backwards, crackling with electricity! “I’m hit! I’m hit!!” it shouted. It spun around in circles and then went dead.

“That was just plain weird,” Zenna said.

“My theory is the bots aren’t used to being controlled by the TVTrons, plus these bots weren’t built to be fighting bots so they really don’t know how to act,” Elvin said.

“Yes, but they managed to overwhelm my people and your people,” the princess said.

“Yes, but we’re armed,” GiS said.

“Yes, but you are outnumbered 100 to 1,” SC said bluntly. “You still stand little chance.”

The princess just shook her head. “You are going to end up with the TVTrons just like the others.”

GiS gave her a polite bow. “Don’t worry, Princess, uh, Your Highness, we’re going to get you out of here and back to the Searcher. Then we’ll head back to Earth so you can tell both worlds what happened.”

The princess stamped her foot on the floor. “No!” she shouted. “I am a high princess in the Aquarian government. Even if by some miracle upon miracles you do get off this ship, I can’t leave my people captured on the TVTrons’ mother ship.” She crossed her arms defiantly.

I looked at the princess. She wasn’t going to budge. I looked at GiS; if he wasn’t fur covered he would have been blood red. He wasn’t use to being talked to like this. He was one tic from, pardon the pun, going ape. I had to step in to prevent an interplanetary incident. Besides, I’ve never been one to let a pretty girl down, even if she was a bossy alien with blue hair.

“Listen, princess…” I said in my most diplomatic voice.

“Your Highness, please,” the princess interrupted.

“We can’t rescue your people if we can’t get off the ship, uh, Your Highness. Correct?”