“Hey,” she said over the comms, “I don’t guess you’ve scoped out a secret weak spot, have you, Jasmine?”
Benny narrowed his eyes as he fired several more times, staring at the floating orb of rock, scouring its surface, trying to find a hole, a crack—anything that might prove to be a flaw in the asteroid they could exploit.
That’s when he saw it. Near the top of the massive boulder, something was moving. The asteroid’s surface was shifting. It looked like part of it was sliding away, revealing a dark tunnel.
“Um, is anyone else seeing this?” Benny asked.
“What’s going on?” Jasmine asked. “The feed from your dash cams isn’t clear enough.”
“It looks like an opening up top on my side!”
“I see it,” Hot Dog yelled. “I’m going to take a shot! Don’t bother with targeting. I’ve got this.”
Benny watched her Space Runner circle around, until she was hovering near the front of the new tunnel. He crossed his fingers, murmuring “Come on, come on,” to himself, hoping that one well-placed shot might start some sort of chain reaction inside that could cause the whole thing to explode.
But Hot Dog didn’t shoot.
“Wait, guys,” she said, her voice wavering. “Something’s not right here. There are lights inside this thing. I see movement. It looks like . . . Oh, no . . .”
“What?” Benny asked.
“I—I,” she stammered. “I don’t think this is an asteroid.”
Suddenly her vehicle shot up, just in time to avoid dozens upon dozens of triangular, quartz-like shards shooting out of the tunnel, each hardly bigger than a Space Runner. They were mostly colored like the green stalactites from the alien workshop, glowing faintly. A few were darker, purple, blending into the background and making them harder to see. At first Benny thought there were flames coming out of the backs of each one, but then he realized the shards were just capped with some sort of shiny golden metal.
“And I don’t think those are just rocks!” Hot Dog shouted.
The strange shards broke into several groups, the darker ones leading as they moved together through space in intricate formations, a crystalline swarm.
“So that means they’re . . .” Benny started.
“Ships!” Drue shouted. “Holy crap, aliens!”
That’s when the shards started firing. Streams of crackling blue energy shot out of the metal prongs on the backs of the ships.
“Retreat!” Benny shouted. He panicked. Suddenly they were fighting actual aliens. Part of him couldn’t even believe it was happening. “Everybody get out of here! We’re not prepared for this!”
“Abort mission!” Jasmine shouted. “I’m having Pinky take over as many ships as she can, but there’s interference.”
Static replaced her voice on the comms.
Benny took the yoke, gunning the hyperdrive and flying past a group of purple ships. He’d have to get out of there himself—if that was possible. He dipped and dived, firing off his laser a few times when there weren’t any other Space Runners in sight but never actually hitting any of the aliens.
All around him, his fellow EW-SCABers were trying to escape. He watched in horror as one of the Vipers’ crafts was hit with the alien’s energy. Its antigravity shield held, but the Space Runner was sent spiraling away from what was now a battlefield.
Every ounce of hope he’d built up as they destroyed the smaller asteroids was starting to evaporate.
Benny was just about to get clear of the battlefield and turn around to see if he could help anyone when one of the alien ships hit him with a blast of energy. His Space Runner spun, finally slamming into the side of the giant asteroid.
“Not good, not good,” he whispered as he tried to get his bearings. His Space Runner had twisted around, facing open space, where his teammates were still frantically trying to escape.
He pushed on the flight yoke, but nothing happened. Red lights were flashing all over the dashboard—lights he didn’t recognize.
The alien ship that had attacked him came back around, until Benny was staring right at it through his windshield. Inside the ship, Benny could barely make out the silhouette of a head. And two horns.
“I’m stalled!” he shouted into his comm. “I think I’m about to get shot down.”
“Not so fast!” Drue shouted. “My laser’s damaged, but I’ve got an idea.”
Before the alien craft could fire at Benny, Drue gunned his Space Runner forward and slammed into the side of it with incredible force. Both of the ships spun out of control, rolling in opposite directions away from the giant asteroid.
“Drue!” Benny yelled.
“I’m okay!” Drue said. “I think. I . . . I might barf.”
Jasmine’s voice crackled through the comms. “Hello? Drue, your navigation systems are fried. Hang on out there. I’m sending Bo in to get Benny, and then Ash’ll pick you up once she’s dropped her last haul off in a safe spot.”
“No,” Benny said. “It’s too dangerous in here. Get Drue. I’ll figure something else out.”
“Don’t worry, Benny,” Hot Dog crackled into the comm. “I’ve got you.”
Hot Dog’s Space Runner was suddenly right in front of Benny’s, their front bumpers almost touching.
“What are you . . . ?” Benny asked.
“I’m just gonna give you a little bit of a love tap to push you away from this mess.”
She pressed forward, picking up speed, her Space Runner pushing his back, away from the giant rock. He could see the other Space Runners in the distance, already jetting toward the Taj.
“Jasmine, what’s the status?” he asked.
“Um,” Jasmine said. “I think we’ve got everyone out. They don’t appear to be following us.”
“What do we do?” Benny asked, more to himself than anyone else. “Is this thing still going to crash into Earth? What is it, even?”
Before anyone could answer, his and Hot Dog’s Space Runners both came to a sudden halt.
“Benny, did you hit an emergency brake I don’t know about?” Hot Dog asked.
“I thought you stopped!” Benny said.
Across their hoods, he could see her frantically tapping on her dashboard and pulling on the flight yoke.
“It’s not me!” she said.
“Pinky?” Benny asked. “What’s happening?”
The AI’s voice flooded his cabin, but crackling static made her nearly indecipherable. “I’m det . . . new energy sig . . . around . . . Runners . . . appears to . . . magnetic prop . . . interfering—”
And then the line went dead, just as their Space Runners began to move again, heading sideways—straight for the giant asteroid.
“Oh crap,” Benny muttered. He turned to Hot Dog. “It’s a tractor beam!”
He wasn’t sure if she could hear him or not since his communications systems seemed to be on the fritz, but he had no doubt she understood what was happening. Her eyes went wide as she began to shake her head.
Benny pulled on his flight yoke again, but it was no use. An opening was forming in the side of the asteroid, and they were being sucked right into it.
28.
As they were pulled into the giant alien rock, Benny saw that the inside was familiar. It looked similar to the base they’d found on the Moon—the floor and walls made up of smooth greenish stone while the ceilings dripped with glowing stalactite lights.
The asteroid closed behind them as they floated through, sealing them inside.
Their Space Runners came to a stop at the far end of an empty cavern. Benny and Hot Dog stared at each other, neither one knowing what to do. There didn’t seem to be any movement, any sign of life around them. Benny looked around frantically, trying to come up with some sort of plan, cylinders firing in his mind. Outside, the rest of the Space Runner fleet was retreating. Would they try to rescue him? Should they?
How could they when they’d been so unprepared for the aliens, much less this giant asteroid—t
he mother ship—that was still careening toward Earth.
He knew one thing for certain: he wasn’t going to stay buckled in to his broken-down car waiting for something to happen.
As he opened the door of his Space Runner, he was surprised to note that his emergency helmet didn’t appear. The inside of the giant asteroid actually had a breathable environment.
“Are you nuts?” Hot Dog asked as she stepped out of her vehicle. “Get in my car. Even if it can’t move, we can at least hide out and try to blast anyone who comes in.”
“By shooting through my Space Runner?” he asked. “We’d probably blow ourselves up. Besides . . .” He glanced around. “If this is the end, I’m not hiding in a car. I’m going down fighting.”
Hot Dog stared at him, biting her lip, eyes full of worry.
The smooth rock wall beside them opened up. Not with a panel sliding away or a door appearing—the stone itself simply parted like curtains, leaving a diamond-shaped opening to a brightly lit corridor.
Two beings stepped through the new doorway.
Benny’s breath caught in his throat as he looked at them. They were both twice as tall as he was, thin and lanky. Their arms and legs were too long to be human, their skin an incredibly smooth icy blue that seemed to reflect a prism of other hues under the lights. One of them held up a delicate hand composed of four slender, jointless fingers. Its palm was encased in some kind of gold device that glowed.
Red rock masks seemed to have grown from the top halves of their faces, a faint light pulsing behind them. The creatures’ mouths were too wide, stretching back where ears would’ve been on a human. But strangest of all were the tops of their heads. The shorter one—the one with a hand still raised—had two gleaming black ram horns curled up on either side of its face. The other one had something entirely different growing from the back of its head, a thick, glossy braid, flicking halfway down its back.
Aliens.
“No way,” Benny said, realizing he’d been holding his breath.
“I’m not going to faint,” Hot Dog said. “But I kind of wish I was.”
The closest one lowered its hand and turned to the other. When its lips parted, a noise like someone had squashed an accordion came out. The pitch changed a few times, dotted with smacks and clicks.
Benny took a few steps toward Hot Dog’s Space Runner, reaching for the door. Maybe there was something inside he could use for a weapon.
In an instant the taller alien crossed the ten yards separating them. It stood between Hot Dog and Benny with its arms crossed. The thick braid down its back had unwound, and Benny’s eyes widened as he realized what he was seeing. It hadn’t been hair after all, but a rope made of prehensile tentacles. He could tell there were four of them now that the braid was undone, each tipped with razor-sharp pieces of metal held up to Benny and Hot Dog’s faces.
“Oh my God,” Hot Dog whispered. “We’re facing space Medusas. I’m going to be killed by a bad hairstyle.”
Benny looked over at the other one, who still stood in the doorway. The two tentacles he’d had mistaken for horns unrolled around its head, then curled back up again. It barked some sort of wheezing harmonica sound, and the alien in front of Benny nodded its head toward the doorway, pointing one of the blades in the same direction.
“I think we’re supposed to go that way,” Benny said.
“Sure.” Hot Dog said.
And so they marched.
Once they were all through the doorway, the short alien raised its hand again. The gold device on its palm pulsed with light, and the rock wall came together once more.
“So if we want to get out that way—” Benny started.
Suddenly there was another blade-tipped tentacle in front of him. He stopped talking, but Hot Dog nodded. The shorter alien walked ahead of them, a fluid movement to its long appendages. The being wore a flowing tunic that looked at first like chain mail to Benny, but the dark, shiny links were all moving, slithering, like the strange patterns they’d seen in the lights at the Moon base—the hems unraveling into wisps before weaving back together again.
They were led through a series of hallways, all of which appeared to have been created out of rock, only most of the inner structure was translucent, allowing them to see shadows in other rooms as they passed. Benny could make out the silhouettes of other creatures who seemed to be watching them from the other sides of the walls. Some appeared to have elaborate, writhing mounds on their heads. Others had two or three long tentacles whipping back and forth.
Some of them weren’t shaped like humans at all.
Benny kept an eye out for anything in the hallways he might be able to use, but there was nothing except smooth stone and overhead lights too high up to reach. He glanced at Hot Dog, whose jaw was clenched so tightly he thought she might break her own teeth.
Finally, they came to a new, cavernous room, the walls a deep, gleaming purple. Streams of greenish-yellow light floated overhead, just as they had in the Moon base. A giant hologram of the mother ship’s exterior filled the center of the room—made up, Benny guessed, of the same advanced light technology they’d seen when Drue accidentally turned on the star maps a few days before.
The two aliens stopped at the entrance but pointed forward. Benny and Hot Dog continued on. There were several others lingering around terminals molded into the walls, though they were dressed differently, in metallic red robes. Some had head tentacles that were tapping on screens, others woven together in elaborate bejeweled headdresses.
On a clear quartz throne across the room was an alien whose muscled arms were dotted with patches of polished red plates, the front of its tunic covered by a sturdy, gemlike breastplate. Countless black tentacles formed two giant horns on either side of its head, each one curving toward the other in the air, almost touching several feet above the alien’s head. The mask hiding the top of its face was gold, shining. The alien was bigger, thicker than the rest, and when it saw Benny approaching, it stood, walking down into the hologram below. Yards of slithering fabric, attached to its shoulders, dragged across the ground behind it.
“This is all just a nightmare.” Hot Dog whispered. “I never woke up from that Space Runner crash, did I? This is some kind of terrible coma dream.”
“English,” the thick being said. Its voice was stranger than anything Benny had ever heard, like three people were talking at once, ranging from a deep bass to a chirping soprano. There was a dissonance about it, like someone speaking in a minor chord. “Of course. One of the common languages. Welcome.”
Hot Dog and Benny looked at the alien in front of them, dumbfounded.
“Do not be surprised,” it continued. “We have watched your world so long that we understand some languages that have been dead on your planet for many cycles. Your mouths physically can’t speak our language, but you will call me Tull of the Alpha Maraudi. I am commander here. You have names?”
“Benny.”
“Hot Dog.” She shook her head. “Uh, Grace.”
“Benny. Hot Dog Uh-Grace. Your people have waged an unexpected resistance. But now you have retreated. Wise. I acknowledge your attempt at stopping us, and respect the impulse you have to fight for your people.”
“You monsters,” Benny said. “Elijah told us what you’ve planned for our planet. You think you can just take any world you see and turn it into, what, some kind of vacation spot for your people? There are billions of lives on Earth. My family is there. Millions of families are there. And you think it’s okay to just take it over because you want other worlds to play with?”
“Is that why you think we have come?” Something like an electric crackle escaped the being’s mouth, but Benny couldn’t tell if it was laughter or something else. “That we’re some kind of warmongering people who’ve come to your planet for entertainment?”
“Why else would you attack us?” Hot Dog said. “You’re evil.”
The commander turned to look at the holographic projections. A long tentacl
e unwound from its horn and tapped on one of the lights. The entire hologram shifted, until the three-sunned star system Benny and the others had seen at the base on the Moon was floating in front of them. Only this time, something was different. The middle of the three stars was larger, pulsing.
“Our solar system is on the brink of collapse. We’ve known this for some time. We’ve tried to figure out ways to save it. But despite our best efforts, there are forces here we have not been able to tame. We must evacuate.”
“Then take some other planet,” Benny asked. “Head for Orion’s belt. You get three stars again that way!”
“Would that it were so simple. Your atmosphere and your sun are the closest twins we can find to our home. We have searched far and wide, but there are many variables you cannot begin to comprehend. My people possess the power to transform planets on a surface level, but not to move them or completely change environmental conditions. Yours is the only planet we can inhabit. There is no other way.”
“There’s always another way,” Benny said, stepping forward. There was a whipping sound beside him, and suddenly a blade-tipped tentacle was hovering in front of his throat—the alien from earlier was at his side.
Tull raised a hand. The weapon fell away.
“Realize that we could have taken Earth centuries ago, but did not. We waited, weighing the importance of our survival against yours. Looking for other options. There is no personal hatred toward humanity. Make no mistake of that.”
“Really?” Hot Dog asked. “Because you’ve got dudes with knife hair who seem pretty hateful to me.”
“Just because we do not make war does not mean that we do not breed warriors,” Tull said. “We have always made sure there are those among us who could serve as protectors should the need arise. Surely you are not foolish enough to think that we are the only two forms of life in this universe. The warmongers you mistake us for do exist out there among the stars. They are one of the variables I spoke of earlier.”
Hot Dog’s mouth dropped open.
“How can you pretend what you’re doing is okay when you’re going to kill so many people?” Benny asked. “Just blink us out of existence.”