Mike Stellar (21 page)

The control panel laughed again.

Hubble walked proudly over to the mangle of blinking lights and black wires. “What we have here, Mike, is a very state-of-the-art Liberation and Rescue Cyborg. Or L.A.R.C., as you know it.”

The control panel harrumphed.

“Sorry.
Her.
As you know
her,”
Hubble said with a smile. “Larc is a very sophisticated piece of machinery, Mike. She’s equipped with the most advanced artificial intelligence, as well as miniaturized plasma-propulsion cells. She’s a walking, talking spaceship engine, with a lot of extras.

“It’s ingenious, really,” Hubble continued as he pushed buttons where Larc’s stomach used to be. “Her father, and your parents, knew they needed a way to get our ship moving again if a rescue was going to happen. That’s when they thought of smuggling plasma-propulsion cells onto the
Sojourner.”

“So Larc’s dad—Jim—figured out how to stuff the cells in a robot,” I said quietly as it began to make sense to me.

“A perfect Trojan horse!” David said gleefully. “The whole plan worked perfectly until …”

“My sweaty hand shorted out her—what was it?
Wormer?” I asked. “Now her plasma propulsion isn’t strong enough to power the wormhole,” I finished.

“She’s going to be destroyed,” David said quietly. “She’ll just barely be able to power the
Spirit
out of here.”

Hubble stopped pushing buttons and said, “I’m sorry, man. That wasn’t part of the original plan. We’ve lucked out with your RRE. But even with that she’s going to have to use every ounce of energy in her cells to power the
Spirit.
And we won’t even make it home. We’ll have to stop at the
Sojourner
and bunk in with you guys.”

I had a sinking feeling. “I don’t know if that’s—”

Captain Wink cut me off. “I trust you and Larc have said your good-byes, because the time is upon us.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Our window is here.” He walked over to Hubble and helped him with the last bit of button pushing.

Now that I knew Larc was a robot, a lot of things started making sense. No wonder she knew so much about the ship and the escape pod. And the glowing blue braces and blue veins under her skin must have been the plasma energy charging. Being a robot was a pretty good excuse for never eating or drinking anything. And it also explained why she couldn’t scan her eyeball to open her apartment door, and why her forehead hadn’t bled when she’d whacked it in the escape pod.

I shook my head in disbelief at my utter, well,
belief
of the situation. Of all the weird things to happen in the past few weeks, this one made the most sense. And David was right. Creating a robot to hide the fuel cells was ingenious. It made me think of my parents in a whole new light.

I walked up to Captain Wink and Hubble … and Larc, who was being trussed into some kind of closet at the back of the room. Captain Wink plugged Larc into several outlets in the wall. Her fingers snapped in here, a foot over there…. It was a very complicated process. By the time he finished, Larc didn’t even have a human form anymore. I could just barely make out where her face had been. It was the cool glow of the still-present braces that tipped me off.

“So you need my ear, don’t you?” I asked, feeling a surprising sense of pride.

“It’s really very simple,” Hubble said. He took one of Larc’s free fingers and tapped the tip. Her fingertip opened like a hinged lid, and a thin metal rod slid out about twelve inches. “This rod will channel your RRE into Larc. Hopefully it will jump-start her plasma propulsion, just like it did for the wormhole. It’ll only hurt for a second.”

I closed my eyes and said, “Go for it.”

“Here goes nothing,” Hubble said, and I felt the quick searing pain. I rolled my eyes to the side to see
what Hubble was doing. But the rod was already sliding out of my ear.

“All done,” he said, replacing Larc’s fingertip and snapping the finger into a small hole in the wall. “Anything you want to say to her before she powers up?”

I just stood there for a moment, staring at the mass of wires and blinking lights. It still wasn’t really registering that this was Larc. My friend. Even though I’d seen what had happened to her, I still couldn’t believe she had dissolved into piles of wires and chips. I felt awkward trying to talk to a mass of circuitry. It was weird.

“Sorry I acted like an idiot most of the time,” I said to the braces. “You were a good friend. Weird and everything, but now I guess I know why. And you helped me out a lot, which I appreciate. And … well, good-bye, I guess. Have fun doing whatever it is you’re about to do.” I reached out my hand to touch the braces, but Captain Wink held me back.

“Ooh, I’d think twice about that, Mike,” came Larc’s voice, sounding buzzy and hoarse. “I promise you don’t want the magnetic energy I’m creating right now to give you a zap.”

“No,” I said, withdrawing my hand. “No. I guess not.”

“Well, then, it’s time we got this boat a-rockin’,” Hubble said, slapping me on the back. “I’m gonna flick
this switch here and we’ll be on our way. Larc is gonna get us back to the
Sojourner
just fine.”

“About that …,” I said hesitantly, giving the blue braces one last look. “The
Sojourner
may have already turned around by now. My parents, Larc’s dad … creator … whatever—they may all be in jail. Or worse.”

“How’s that?” Hubble asked distractedly, jamming his hand onto a big red button. The contorted mass that used to be Larc’s body lurched and then started glowing a bright blue.

“I thought they were expecting us,” David said. The room began to hum loudly. I instinctively sat down and said, “Belt,” but the
Spirit
was too old to have voice-activated seat belts. The humming grew louder and louder and finally I grabbed the strap and pulled it tightly over my lap.

“Well, they are expecting us,” I said, raising my voice over the growing hum, “but it’s probably a different ‘they’ than you think.”

Even the crazy
ups and downs and brain-rattling curves didn’t stop me from arguing with Hubble all the way through the Fold. And he STILL woudn’t listen to me. He took me aside and put his hand on my arm. Quietly, he said, “Mike, I understand that you’re a little freaked out right now.”

“I’ve been through the Fold
twice
, Hubble!” I shouted, my stomach still churning from the second time.
“Twice in one day!
Plus wormholes! Of
course
I’m freaked out!” I wanted to grab him by the throat and throttle him. “But just because I’m freaked out doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about!”

“I understand you are concerned, Mike, but you need to just let us carry out our plan, okay?” Hubble continued calmly. “We’ll make sure your parents are
safe. Once they’re safe, we’ll worry about everything else. All right?”

I could feel my eyebrows go as pointy as they’d ever been. I’d just spent what felt like hours explaining to Hubble and Captain Wink and David what was happening on the
Sojourner.
Even as we felt the
Spirit
attain air lock with the
Sojourner
, I repeated, in detail, how evil Mr. Shugabert was and how he would stop at nothing to prevent my parents from saving the people on the
Spirit.
And now Hubble was telling me to stay out of it. To let the big boys do the fighting.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a baby, Hubble,” I growled. “I want to help. I need to help. I’m the only one who’s seen what these goons can do—”

“Mike,” Hubble said, turning from the computer terminal where he’d been accessing the security cameras on the
Sojourner.
“Listen. After everything I’ve been through—after everything
you’ve
been through—I just can’t let you get hurt. I will not be responsible for putting you in any more danger. Plus, I need you to stay here. Help us from the flight deck. I’ve asked Meridiani here to assist you.”

A rumble of throat clearing came from the doorway. I turned and saw a gigantic man with a bald head shining, even under the low, sick light of the
Spirit.
His flight suit was tattered, but it still clung to the muscles on his arms.

“That
guy?” I frowned. “He’s supposed to
assist
me?”

Meridiani crossed the room and put a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t cause trouble, Mike,” Hubble said shortly. “Just stay here on the ship. Once things are settled, we’ll come for you. Besides, if something was really wrong, we’d know about it. We’ve had weekly updates from Albert and Marie and Jim and Venus for almost a full year now. If something was sketchy, they would have let us know during our last contact.”

“When was your last contact?” I spat.

Hubble sighed. “A couple of days ago, Mike. Don’t worry about it.” He ran his hand through his beard. “We’re taking precautions, okay? We’re armed. We’re ready for anything they might throw at us. Plus, we’ve already contacted the ship. See? They’re sending some guys to meet us at the air lock.” He motioned to the terminal screen. It showed an image of four black-suited men marching down the
Sojourner
air lock hallway.

“But, Hubble, those are
bad dudes.
And there are a billion times more than four of those guys on the ship.”

“You still have a tendency to exaggerate, don’t you, kiddo?” Hubble laughed. “We may be a little scraggly, but the
Spirit
crew is still more than seventy-five strong. We outnumber those guys.”

“This is all such a load of—” I said, disgusted. “They all have
weapons
, Hubble! They—”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to let you down.” Hubble typed a few commands and some more security camera images appeared. He frowned when he saw several huge men walking down a hallway. He turned and looked at me. “Don’t
you
let us down, either. Stay here, big guy We need you to monitor the air lock connection with Meridiani.”

Hubble tapped the terminal screen with his finger, turning it off. He stood up, hugged me, and walked after David and Captain Wink, who had already left the room and started down the hall toward the air lock. I could hear the crowds of
Spirit
crew members waiting to join them as they boarded the
Sojourner.

“
‘Big guy’?” I shouted after him.
“‘Big guy’?!”
Meridiani grabbed my shoulder to steer me out of the room. Hubble, David, and Captain Wink were already out of sight but I tore loose from Meridiani’s grip and ran, trying to catch up to them. As soon as I made it to the air lock, the door slid shut. It had no keypad. Just like the rest of the
Spirit’s
doors, it required an actual key. No chance to hack into it. Low-tech always trumps high-tech.

Breathing heavily, I slumped against the closed air lock. This Meridiani guy wasn’t going to assist me with anything. He was just a babysitter … maybe even a bodyguard or something.

I sunk my head onto my knees. What was I going to
do? Just sit there and wait for them all to be creamed? Even with what was left of the
Spirit
crew, they were easily outnumbered two to one. And with the strength of the Project goons compared to the raggedy-ass weaklings these slop-eating
Spirit
crew members had become … it wasn’t even going to be close.

I looked up. Meridiani had found me. His hands were placed tightly at his hips.

“Get up and come with me,” he said sternly.

We walked to the flight deck and Meridiani pulled out a chair for me. “Watch that screen,” he said stiffly. “If this level goes into the red part, you holler. Got it?”

I just glared at him. He was having way more fun bossing me around than he should have.

It had been about a half hour since Hubble and everyone had left. I was still staring at the stupid air lock monitor, doing absolutely nothing to help. Meridiani was on the other side of the room, cleaning out his ears with a key. I felt a creeping panic and I gripped the slats of my seat, willing myself to stay calm and think.

I decided to find a computer terminal to see if I could still see the
Sojourner’s
security cameras.

“Meridiani! Come quick!” I shouted. “Something’s wrong!”

He dropped his keys and came running. Before I could think about it twice, I reached into my pocket
and pulled out the extra grasshrinker I’d discovered earlier. I covered my hand with my sleeve and slapped the grasshrinker on the back of Meridiani’s neck as he bent down to look at the monitor.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I said. “Just don’t move and you’ll be back to normal in a few minutes. I think.” He just stood there, mouth agape. Then, in a blink, he was two feet shorter. Then another two feet, and another. He stood barely eight inches off the ground now. I picked him up and put him next to the air lock monitor. “I really am sorry,” I said as I moved to the other side of the room and used his dropped keys to turn on a mainframe terminal.