Space Wars! (5 page)

‘Cheer up!’ replied the other. ‘We’re hunting intruders! If we capture them, we can slow roast them and pickle their fingers!’

Peri looked at Diesel. Blue sweat had plastered his narrow band of hair against his head. Prince Onix was keeping silent. But there was no way to hide his nerves – with each bead of sweat came a strong fishy stench.

Surely the Meigwors would smell him soon.

‘Don’t let me delay you!’ boomed Otto. ‘Go ahead! I’ll grab some kit and join you soon!’

‘Hold it!’ the other guard shouted. ‘The more I think about what you said, the more I realise . . .’

Oh no
,
thought Peri, pressing his eye to the door,
they don’t believe Otto.

‘What?’ Otto demanded.

‘I wouldn’t want an intruder to laugh at my blaster being so small!’ the guard said. ‘I need a bigger one!’

The guard stepped forward to come into the armoury, but Otto stepped in front of him. ‘No!’ Otto shouted at the puzzled guard. ‘Take my blaster! Get after those intruders!’

‘Good thinking!’ The guard snatched the blaster from Otto’s hand and licked his lipless mouth. ‘All that talk of pickled fingers is making me hungry! We’re going to eat well tonight! Come on, this way!’ he shouted, leading the crab-bots away.

The
clank-clank-clank
faded as Otto closed the door.

‘Wait until they’ve gone, space-monkeys! Then we go!’ Otto growled.

‘That was close,’ Diesel said. ‘I thought for a second you were going to give us away.’

Otto made a strange noise in the back of his throat, like a strangulated cough. It sounded deeply uncomfortable. The lumps on his throat twitched. ‘Never mention it again!’ he boomed. ‘You may not be so lucky next time!’

Peri gulped. It must have been difficult for Otto to betray his own people. He changed the subject before Otto reconsidered. ‘Otto’s right. We won’t be so lucky next time. Diesel, we’ll need more weapons to make sure we can defend ourselves. Otto can help.’

Diesel looked like a kid in a sweet shop. His band of hair fluttered with excitement, flickering electric blue as he grabbed the nearest metallic crate from the shelves. It was a case of zirconium grenades. But as he opened it, Otto pushed him aside and started stuffing them into his Expedition Wear.

‘Hey! I found them first,’ Diesel objected, reaching for them.

Otto swatted him away. ‘I need to restock! Worry about the others!’

Diesel’s eyes flashed yellow, but he snatched a different case and unbolted it. He found a set of weapons in snug grey foam. They looked like snakes, curled ready to attack. He pulled one out and examined it in his hands.

Suddenly, to Diesel’s surprise, the top of the weapon lurched forward like a cobra, spitting out a fierce tongue of laserfire.

Shhhaaablam!
It exploded centimetres from Otto’s backside.

Otto spun round. ‘Watch it!’ he boomed as the black patches around his eyes darkened and he reached for a weapon on his belt.

‘It was the blaster,’ Diesel said, his hands shaking. ‘It malfunctioned!’

Otto took the blaster from Diesel’s hand and looked at it. ‘Stupid space-monkey!’ he said. ‘Nothing wrong with this blaster! But good choice! They’re perfect for our mission!’

Diesel took the cobra-shaped blaster back and handed the others to Selene, Onix and Peri. ‘We’re ready to blast our way to the nerve centre!’

Peri shook his head. ‘Diesel, this is still a stealth mission. The Meigwors don’t know where we are – let’s keep it that way. We need to get to the nerve centre and shut down the Extractor quietly.’

Diesel strapped his blaster to his belt. ‘I’m a hundred times stealthier than any of you!’ he shouted.

Peri sighed. ‘Come on, let’s go – before Diesel gets any stealthier.’

Otto and Peri slipped out into the corridor first. Otto slouched ahead to make sure the next turn was clear. Selene and Onix followed, with Diesel following at the rear. They ran through the dimly lit corridors, their space boots cushioned by the moss and debris littering the floor. As they skidded into a seven-corridor junction, Peri hesitated. He racked his brains trying to recall the route he thought he’d memorised.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

‘Hurry up, Peri,’ Prince Onix urged. ‘I hear crab-bots coming.’

‘Down here,’ Peri said, praying his instincts were right.

They were either running straight towards the nerve centre, or they were about to burst into a dining hall full of heavily armed, battle-hungry Meigwors.

Chapter 6

They stumbled into a section of corridor free of moss and Peri almost cheered! They were definitely heading in the right direction. The touch-screen map of the Extractor had shown the control centre surrounded by a ‘clean’ zone – although the Meigwors had a strange definition of ‘clean’. Despite the lack of moss, crabs or beetles, the walls were still grimy. Panels in the ceiling struggled to light the corridor through layers of dirt.

Peri noticed a short corridor off to the right and hid around the corner. ‘We’re close,’ he panted. ‘We need a plan. The nerve centre will be well guarded.’

‘How about,’ Diesel said, ‘we go in, weapons blazing?’

Selene shot him a withering look. ‘Even if we did that, we still need to know what we’re up against.’

‘Selene’s right,’ Peri said. ‘We need to scout ahead.’

‘Why don’t we use the air vents?’ Selene asked, pointing to a slatted panel above their heads. ‘They’re all connected to each other. It shouldn’t take long to find the nerve centre and see what’s what.’

‘Great idea,’ Peri said. ‘Diesel, help me boost her up.’

‘Wait! I didn’t mean me!’ Selene exclaimed.

‘You’re smallest.’ Diesel grinned as he grabbed one of her feet and helped Peri lift her up. Using the space-wrench she’d nabbed from the armoury, Selene removed the panel and handed it to Otto. She shone a torch down the duct and grimaced.

‘I get all the dirty jobs,’ she murmured, before sliding down the service duct. It must have been a tight fit as her elbows and knees made soft clanging sounds against the metal sides. It faded, then the noises returned. Moments later, Selene’s boots came into view and she crawled out of the duct, dusting herself down.

‘It’s going to be harder than teaching Diesel table manners,’ she said. ‘The only way into the nerve centre is guarded by a big, ugly Meigwor who has a whole armoury on his back. The door is locked. The vent is welded shut. But the three technicians in the nerve centre appeared to be unarmed.’

‘Maybe Otto could get close enough to the guard without raising the alarm and disable him,’ Peri said. ‘Then we can blast the door and overpower the controllers.’

‘I have a better idea, space-monkeys!’ Otto grinned as he pulled his blaster from his snakeskin belt. He aimed it at them. ‘Hands up! I take you as prisoners!’

A cold shiver crackled through Peri’s circuits. Diesel shouted, ‘I knew we shouldn’t trust him!’ He started to raise his own weapon, but Selene stood in front of him.

‘Lamizoid!’ Selene said. ‘Otto only wants to
pretend
he’s captured us – so we can overpower the guard and controllers together. Isn’t that right?’

‘That’s what I said!’ Otto boomed. ‘I tackle the guard, you storm the controllers!’

Peri nodded, but he was going to make sure he and Diesel were at the front with their weapons tucked behind their backs just in case.

With their hands up, Otto marched them down the corridor to the brightly lit area outside the nerve centre. Peri held his breath. The guard, as massive as Otto, charged up his electromagnetic zapster and barked, ‘Halt!’

‘I have prisoners to eject out of the airlock!’ Otto boomed.

The guard laughed. ‘Well done, but this isn’t an airlock!’ He pointed to the door behind him. ‘Only the controllers can open this!’

‘My mistake!’ Otto boomed as he clapped his hands over his head. ‘Long live Meigwor!’

As the guard returned the salute, Otto punched him.
Smaccckkk.
The guard staggered backwards.

Clllaaannng!
The guard slammed into the nerve-centre door.

Shhuuuh!
The door slid open. ‘Keep it down out there!’ A Meigwor controller stood in the doorway. ‘What the . . .’ he boomed, seeing the unconscious guard on the ground.

Diesel stuck his blaster in the controller’s face. ‘Don’t move!’

‘Let’s go!’ shouted Peri as he rushed into the nerve centre. Onix and Selene tackled the nearest controller, who had his hand stuck in a bug-o-matic.

Peri aimed his blaster at the others. ‘Step away from the equipment,’ he ordered.

The controllers were short by Meigwor standards. Peri guessed that they had no combat training – they didn’t even try to fight.

‘Move over there.’ Peri pointed towards the door.

Peri looked around the nerve centre. The room was filled with buzzing and beeping. Lights flashed across four different control consoles. Monitors covered every centimetre of the walls, and a massive plasma screen hung in the centre of the room. Peri could see more viper-ships joining the Extractor, more tentacles flying out to suck the life from Xion, and more images of the planet’s people suffocating in the dusty streets.

‘We’ve got to seal the door and work out how to disable the Extractor,’ Peri shouted.

Otto grabbed the controllers and tossed them out before slamming the door shut. ‘We must prepare for a counter-attack,’ he boomed. ‘Help me push this bug-o-matic in front of the door.’

‘Diesel, Onix,’ Peri said, ‘you two help Otto. Selene and I will figure out how to destroy the Extractor.’

As the others took up defensive positions, Peri and Selene studied the Extractor’s controls. But neither of them knew where to start. Selene turned a couple of dials hopefully.

Nothing happened.

Peri hoped his bionic half might know what to do, but he felt no connection with this alien ship.

‘It’s no good,’ Peri said. ‘It’s going to take for ever to work out what half these controls do!’

Bang-Bang-Bang!
Explosions shook the door.

‘Hurry up,’ Diesel shouted. ‘It won’t hold for long!’