Battle Moon 2075: Ramming Speed

  Chapter 6.0:

  Phantoms in the Dark

  Speed realized in those moments that these Vampires must own those space-dragons that attacked the moon, and these dragons might also have been real dragons mankind had fought long ago. Indeed, the Vampires themselves were probably just as evil as their dark reputation in fables of earth.

  Just as the “first father” Emperor Nero told Speed about his people, that mankind would have known them as “vampires,” their pleasant conversation slowly fell apart.

  Two things happened making it impossible for Speed to regain a sense of control over the environment. Firstly, all the lights went out. This was not a normal power outage, however. Of course to Speed, reality had abandoned “normal” long ago. The lights did not simply flicker  and go out. Rather, the lights slowly dimmed over the course of some fifteen minutes, during his talk with Nero. Nero did not notice. Speed did not notice until it was too late.

  Since Vampire craft are often dimly lit, none of the crew members realized the power drain, until the lights had been approaching darkness for nearly ten minutes. Most of the Vampires Speed had seen on the monitors in the dark room were wearing small green lights, and generally gave off a sickly green halo around their bodies. None of them noticed that the lights were slowly dimming.

  Speed was reminded of a frog his coach often mentioned who would boil to death, so long as the water was heated slowly enough.

  At the same time that Vampire crew members began noticing the decreased power levels, gravity shut down. This was less of a problem for Speed, since he was a MoonBall champion after all. Speed understood the way to move around in low gravity environments, and was actually more comfortable than his Vampire hosts, who, in turn were more comfortable in the dark than Speed.

  With no light and no gravity, chaos reigned aboard the Vampire asteroid. Nero’s high pitched voice could be heard shouting orders, most of which revolved around getting his royal body back into the royal throne. Speed realized at that moment that immortality might not be so great, if one had to live forever acting like a complete idiot.

  Speed’s private joke only lightened his mood for the briefest of moments.

  Then, sounds came through the walls, terrible sounds, from outside the ship. Vampires stood still, and grasped the nearest edge of their stony vessel, cringing. Vampires grabbed their ears, and Speed tried to shove his fingers into his. Somehow, he had to block out the sound, the screams.

  There were many sounds beside screams that Speed thought were like voices, although they didn’t sound human. Speed thought of two sounds that were close to what he was hearing: a cat’s meow, and his mother screaming.

  He thought of screaming because of the terrible sense of fear that came over him. The Vampires did not scare him in the way these sounds did. The Vampires were creepy, but they were not terrifying. No, this was something new. Something that even the Vampires did not control, and Speed desperately wanted the sounds, the fear, to end.

  Visions came into Speed’s mind of times when he had been most afraid. There had been an accident with an airlock when Speed was small. It might have been the same airlock that killed his father, but his mother had told him it wasn’t.

  He saw the airlock in his memory as if it were there in front of him all over again, cutting him off from the safe interior of Moon Base. Speed could remember his mother screaming and crying, as the great, round door rolled shut, separating them for those few minutes. Those few minutes seemed like years. He wanted to be calm, to help fix the problem, but he was afraid, so afraid.

  Speed no longer heard the crashes of a ship in chaos, with weapons and men flying around the cavernous chambers. The Vampires had become still and silent. They peered at the walls and viewports as though they were tracking, with their strangely shaped ears, the movements of these new shrieking beings, attacking with chaos and fear. Perhaps the Vampires were remembering times of fear from their youths, if they were every children.

  Then, through the viewports of the craft, Speed began to see blood red lights streaking through space. They lit up like the lightning bugs that Speed had seen in hydroponics on the moon. It seemed so far away, but they were like huge, evil lightning bugs, darting around the Vampire asteroid.

  Each light trailed a long, red streak. The lights swarmed around each other, winking in and out. When a light streaked directly by the closest viewport, Speed was deafened by another terrible shriek. Now the wails and moans began again, together in chorus. No matter how Speed pressed his hands against his ears, he could not get the terrible sounds out of his head, like fingernails against rusted metal, deep within his mind.

  Speed couldn’t take it anymore. He was alone, in the middle of space, his home destroyed, on a granite asteroid full of Vampires, under attack by something even more evil and hideous. This new life of his was no life at all. Amidst the screams, Speed began to cry. It didn’t matter though, no one would hear him in the chaos. Where was Coach? Where was his mother? Where was Ship? Everything was gone. Everything was lost.

  Speed wanted it to all be over.

  Then, Speed felt something else: something warm and protecting. The screams did not disappear, but they were muted and became somehow softer. It was a girl’s voice.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay, alien child. The Vampires are all fools, no doubt, but they can handle anything that comes between them and their precious vapor.”

  Speed did not understand what the voice was talking about, and he certainly did not like being called “alien child,” but the friendly present was soothing like a warm sonic massage after a tough game, and Speed knew that somehow, in the middle of space, he had found a friend.

  Soon, however, Speed saw exactly what the girl meant when she said inside his head that the vampires could “handle it.” He heard a barking voice scream out into the darkness.

  “Vampires! Transfigure!”

  “That’s general Petrarch. He imprisoned me here. Now you’re going to see something...” the girl said. She was older than Speed, perhaps fifteen.

  Speed was seated where he could see the red lights streaming by a near viewport. When he heard the command, green streaks of light began to glow around him, inside and outside the ship. They weren’t the same streaks of light that emanated from the engines, or the red lit aliens outside. Rather, the new lights seemed to pulse and throb. They were organic somehow, like glowing sea creatures on earth.

  As the green lights began to glow, Speed felt waves of air on his face and heard the distinct, slow flapping sound of hundreds of wings. Big wings. Far more wings than Speed could have imagined squeezing into the room were now flapping all around him. Great scaly objects knocked him from one side to the next. His hair seemed like it would be pulled off his head with the force of the wind. An odd, chemical smell filled the chamber.

  Then, the invisible chains which had held Speed against rock slab once more tightened and pulled him against it. Power was returning to the vessel, and Speed supposed he would soon be paralyzed again. He heard a crack and felt a swoosh. It felt like some bubble had clamped shut over him, and he could no longer feel the flapping of the wings. The floor began to shake.

  Bright lights from all directions filled Speed’s eyes, and he was blinded for just a moment.

  Red light from outside the ship flooded the whole compartment to clash with green, and Speed witnessed a sight he would never forget, as long as he lived.

  Where there had been a gaggle of wiry, pale men, all busy about the state of the vessel, as though  they were operating some tremendous oil rig, there were now at least thirty enormous, winged dinosaurs. The creatures were like those Speed had seen on the moon, and during Ship’s valiant fight in space.

  Most of these huge dinosaur-dragons were standing in the exact same positions as the Vampire crew, but the crew was gone.

  As though Speed were caught in some awful nightmare, the dragons began to speak to each other, through machines grafted onto their bodies. Green ga
s and liquid pumped through tubes connecting their bellies, legs and wings. The same irritating drawl that Speed had heard from Nero jumped from one creature to another.

  It finally hit Speed.

  The Vampires were the dinosaurs, or dragons or whatever. Green light shown everywhere around the creatures, but they were not all alike. Just like the creatures he had seen before, these dragons were each unique. Perhaps each crewmember had some choice over what his dragon counterpart looked like. Speed’s MoonBall team members had been able to choose their numbers. Maybe this was a similar system.

  Some dragons had great, intricate tattoos, while others had stripes of glowing light down their sides, and across their wings. All dragons were strapped to a combination of engines, weapons, and breathing or fuel tubes that criss-crossed along their bodies.

  Speed didn’t know how all of this worked, but he was sure about one thing: they were scary. Between the shock of the ghostly creatures outside the ship, the bizarre, comforting voice that turned on inside his head, and a pack of ferocious dinosaurs growling and roaring inside the ship, it was too much for Speed. He passed out, and darkness once again engulfed his fragile mind.

  Just as the darkness of unconsciousness consumed him, Speed felt himself being shaken to life again. The voice was familiar. It was the same voice that had come to him while he was practically wetting his pants, watching the screaming red lights streak past the asteroid viewports.

  “I’m Amy,” the girl said. “Well, Amastra, but Amy will work for you. I see that is a name among your people… Wake up! We have to get out of here. The battle seems to be going well for the Vampires, but most of the vapor beasts are far away from the ship. Now’s our chance to escape!”

  Speed was confused. How were they going to get off the ship? Speed reasoned that Ship, his GoodBot, had been destroyed by the Vampires. He wouldn’t have time to look for Ship anyway. Surely the Vampires would catch him first, and do terrible things to him.

  “I have a ship,” Amy said.

  “If you have a ship, why haven’t you escaped already?” Speed asked, very confused.

  “We haven’t been close enough to Amazon,” Amy replied.

  “What’s Amazon?”

  “Haha, foolish alien child. Amazon is the greatest planet in the universe, and where we must go.”

  Speed was taken aback by Amy’s sudden bravado. She had seemed so concerned about his feelings earlier, but now it seemed like she had something to prove.

  “Fine,” Speed said, “Enough chatter. Let’s get to this ship of yours.” Amy seemed then like a talkative team mate, and they didn’t have time for that now.

  “Quick! I found this corridor while surfing the minds of the crewmembers,” Amy said cryptically.

  “Great… uh, Amy. Let’s go.”

  Speed was ready to get off of the frightening, stone vessel. He couldn’t imagine how Amy had come to be onboard or imprisoned there, if her planet “Amazon” was so great. Still, along with the list of things Speed didn’t really understand about the world, he doubted this question had a simple answer.

  “Why are you here on this ship?” Speed asked.

  “I was supposed to be traded for General Petrarch by my mother, but we were tricked. Nero might seem like a sniveling idiot, but he’s no fool. The Vampires let some lesser crony impersonate Petrarch. I have no doubt that my mother put the crony in prison, but now we must deal with both Nero and these new red aliens, who use fear as a weapon.”

  Speed was, again, confused. How far did the relationship between these two races, Amy’s people and the Vampires go? The only person from Amazon whom Speed had met was Amy, and she seemed nice enough. If the universe were to be divided into good and evil, then surely her people fell on the side of good. Speed couldn’t imagine that a dragon would have comforted him when the red lights attacked. He didn’t know what would have become of him without her and he had just now learned her name.

  “This way!” Amy hissed out loud, calling Speed from his thoughts.

  Crawling between hot tubes spouting green gas, Speed and Amy slowly made their way to the hangar where Amy’s sleek, silver craft was stored. It had a white, frosty glow and reminded Speed of a combination of a GoodBot jet fighter, and an ice crystal.

  “We made it,” Amy said.

  Then Amy grabbed Speed’s arm.

  “Wait, Speed, the guard!” Speed had never told her his name, how much did she know about him?

  One of the few Vampire crewmen remaining aboard was marching around outside the craft. The lights of the whole asteroid were beginning to flicker back on, and Speed figured that the guards were already looking for the two escaped prisoners.

  Then, the guard skulked off into a corridor.

  Speed and Amy took off for the entry ramp to Amy’s ship. When they finally arrived in the cockpit, however, Speed felt something was off. Someone else was there.

  “Going somewhere?” a voice asked cruelly.

  The voice sounded like Nero’s, but it wasn’t Nero. It sounded younger somehow, more fresh and maybe kinder, like someone who hadn’t quite figured out how to be evil. This voice was just, well, irritating.

  “Fiero, you idiot. Get off of my ship.”

  “You know, Amy, it’s really our ship now.”

  “I don’t think so, Prince.”

  Speed guessed that Fiero was Nero’s son. He did look like his father, and also bore a medallion around his neck. The prince’s medallion was smaller, and silver.

  Amy produced a vicious looking weapon from under her tunic. Speed assumed it was a weapon, although it reminded him of the surgical instruments he had seen in the medical bay, when he was first captured. He doubted that the Vampire in the lab coat had meant to give him a simple check-up.

  With the other hand, Amy pressed two fingers against her left temple. The Vampire in the chair howled in agony.

  “Now he can’t transform. The effect will last for several hours.”

  Transform? Did Amy mean that this young Vampire could also change into one of those hideous dragons. Had they been in that much danger for the last few moments?

  “Who is he?” Speed asked, although he already had a good idea.

  “No time, Speed, we have to get out of here.”

  Amy shoved Speed into a chair behind hers and jammed her left hand into a glove-like control beside her seat. The craft spun around sickeningly until it faced the hangar door, which was already wide open. Speed guessed that most of the ship was open to space, allowing the huge dragons to move in and out, as combat required.

  Amy clenched her gloved fist, and the craft rocketed out into space. Just like that, Speed, Amy, and Prince Fiero were headed away from the Vampire flagship and toward the great planet of Amazon.

  “You’re not going to get away with this, Amastra. You know my father will send every single dragon under his command after you.”

  “If he does, then he’s a bigger idiot than Speed or I thought. You know very well what happens to dragons who attack this craft.”

  Speed had no idea what Amy was referring to, but he saw a spasm of pain flash across Fiero’s face. Apparently he did know what would happen to dragons who the craft.

  “Okay, enough of this nice crap,” Amy hissed. “I want you to tell me what those red lights were and why they were attacking the Virago.”

  Speed guessed that the name of the Vampire asteroid was The Virago,  and that it held some important position in the Vampire fleet. Nero did appear to be the leader of the Vampires, after all.

  “I’m sure I have no idea,” Prince said in his polished, but nasal, accent, “...and my only duty now is to attempt escape. So, you might as well give up these pitiful attempts at interrogation. Our doctor could show you a thing or two.”

  Speed remembered the Vampire with the lab coat, and how nervous he had been alone on that stone slab. Then, Speed realized that Amy was talking to him.

  “The process by which Fiero changes into a dragon is complicated, but
it’s basically the same for all vampires. It took me years to figure out exactly how it works on a mental level. There are only a few of us Amazons who can prevent Vampires from transmuting into their dragon form.”

  Amy’s tone of voice became darker.

  “The process can also work in reverse. Of course, it wouldn’t help us to have a huge dragon taking up the interior of this cockpit, but perhaps the enlarged stomach of a dragon could help us to...”

  Suddenly Fiero screamed out in pain. His veins were writhing underneath his skin, and his eyes were bulging out of their sockets. Each eyeball reminded Speed of a MoonBall about to emerge from the lower wall of the court. He hoped he wouldn’t have to see them pop out of their sockets.

  Speed became sick at the sight and had to look away. After a few moments, the screams subsided, and Fiero’s labored breathing was all that could be heard.

  “Alright. Just… don’t … do  that again.” Fiero rasped through his teeth.

  Speed was amazed that Amy could inflict such pain on another living thing. She seemed so… nice! But then, he didn’t really know Amy all that well. Perhaps Amazons were not intergalactic saviors after all.

  “I see that you and the alien are fast friends, Amastra,” Ferio said.

  Speed realized that Fiero was referring to him, and that he was about to spill the beans about the recent attack. Speed wanted to know about the red lights, and what they meant for him. At least, Speed thought he wanted to know.

  “We have known about the Machines for some time,” Fiero said. Speed didn’t like the way Fiero said “Machines.”

  “...or the red lights as you call them. We ran into them in the Marian nebula about three years ago. We were ...”

  “Let me guess, digging for vapor?” Amy interrupted.

  Speed laughed out loud, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. Amy seemed to be in complete control, and it was making Fiero miserable. Fiero gave Speed an intense look of hatred, and Speed figured it was best to shut his mouth.

  “Yes, we were charting the area for resources. There had been a recent battle, and the alpha emissions often reveal traces of vapor veins in nebulae of that type. But, we found something else instead...”

  “The red lights,” Amy interrupted again.

  “They are much more than lights. They are some combination of Machines and living beings, commanded by something that calls itself a ‘Vagus.’”

  To Speed’s surprise, the haughty Fiero became sullen. His eyes dropped, and his words became more difficult to understand. Fiero’s voice was husky and shaking.

  “There… was a battle. Thousands of Vampires were lost.”

  “Well, what happened?” Speed said.

  That’s not helping. Be patient. Speed heard Amy’s words inside his mind. Interrogation is an art!

  Fiero continued.

  “For hours, we couldn’t kill a single Machine. Their armor is, as far as we can tell, invulnerable… and, for the most part, invisible. My mother’s ship, the Zoroaster, was destroyed. My father was not at the battle, since he reigns over a different region of space.”

  Perhaps Fiero had lost his mother too. Speed thought he and Fiero might have something in common after all.

  Speed remembered that he couldn’t see any armor on the red lights, although a larger structure had flickered around the red light itself, which resembled a deep, garnet comet. It was as though a veil were passing around this structure, like it was moving in and out of reality.

  “I’m not sure about the details of these battles,” Fiero said, “According to my father, I don’t need to know. Believe me, I’d rather not know, due to situations just like this.”

  Speed guessed that interrogation was something princes might need to prepare for on a regular basis.

  “Get on with what you do know,” Amy insisted.

  “Well, it seems that the Machines are fond of suicide tactics. They group together and dive toward the victim craft. We saw some of that behavior today.”

  “Yeah! When they flew right at the windows, before the dragons flew out to fight them.” Speed wished he could retract the comment as soon as he said it. He sounded like such an idiot compared to Amy and Fiero. They both looked at him blankly.

  “Sorry.”

  Speed stared at the floor.

  “Anyway, the Machines were destroyed somehow when they impacted a Vampire vessel, causing far more losses among the Vampires than the Machines.”

  “Which means that there was still some way to destroy the red… the Machines,” Amy offered.

  “Exactly. We had them far outnumbered, so victory was still possible if we could figure out how the collisions worked,” Prince Fiero continued. If our vessels could sustain ramming speed, they were effective weapons against these Machines.

  Our scientists observed data from the impacts, and soon found that the Machines were becoming sort of undone when they came into contact with our vapor.

  So, Speed thought, it was the vapor, the Vampire’s green chemical that flowed throughout their ships could fight these terrifying red lights, the Machines.

  Fiero continued. “Though we had no idea why, the time for research was over. We replaced the usual primal armaments with vapor emitters. It was the largest expense of vapor in at least fifty years, but we were victorious. Our ships were surrounded with shields of vapor, and we at last turned the tides of battle against the Machines, but at great loss.”

  “What do you mean, primal armaments?” Speed asked. He had barely caught the phrase. It wasn’t the only part of the discussion that he didn’t understand.

  “Go ahead, tell him Fiero,” Amy insisted.

  “As you may have guessed by now, Vampires have two forms. The primal form resembles what your primitive species refers to as dragons, or primitive reptiles of ancient earth. The “higher form” is made of our evolved selves, which resemble other anthropic species, like both of you underlings.”

  Speed resented the term. He wasn’t Fiero’s underling, and Speed doubted that Amastra deferred to anyone at all.

  Fiero went on.

  “Our scientists have determined that this primal form was retained as some kind of evolutionary defence mechanism, a way for nature to protect our great minds against the dangers of the universe. Our ability to transform is created by the vapor itself, which is why it is of such value to us. If we did not have the vapor, we would be forever doomed to our primal form, glorious, but unable to maintain a civilized society.”

  This discussion raised a myriad of questions for Speed. How could such a transformation be possible? Weren’t the dragons much bigger and heavier than the Vampires? Where did the extra mass come from? Speed’s engineering teacher would have a fit. How did they get those engines and weapons onto their bodies? Did it happen during the transformation?

  Speed was lost in these thoughts when the craft suddenly started to buck.

  “What’s going on?! What have you done to my ship?!” Amy shouted angrily.

  “It must be meteorites or some gravitational turbulence. Relax,” Fiero said.

  “There’s nothing like that on this course. We’re taking the safest and fastest route to Amazon in order to avoid capture by your horrible father,” Amy said.

  Speed decided it would be okay to contribute at this point, since the two teenagers seemed to be at a loss.

  “Maybe something’s wrong with the ship. It felt like there was a big bump right behind me, but from inside the ship. Is that where the fusion drive, or whatever you use, is installed?”

  Speed hoped he didn’t sound like a moron. He wasn’t concerned about impressing Fiero, who seemed like a snotty little jerk, but Amy…

  The ship bucked wildly again, spinning through space. Speed began to get sick to his stomach. There was no way that they would be able to make it to Amazon like this. What was the problem?

  Amy flicked her hand around inside the control glove, touched a few buttons on the ship’s console, then stuck her fingers to her head ag
ain.

  “There’s something in the cargo bay,” Amy said.

  Just then, Speed heard a terrifying screech, like the howls of a hundred wild animals.

  “There’s a Machine in the cargo hold!” Fiero screamed. “You moron girl, how could you leave the asteroid with one of those horrible creatures trapped in your hold! We are doomed!”

  “I didn’t know it was there, coward. What am I supposed to do about it now?”

  “Why don’t we just open it up and take a look inside?” Fiero asked sarcastically. Amy took the question seriously.

  “Marcus, you can’t open the cargo hold while in space. Everything will be sucked out, and rendered useless by the lack of pressure. Besides, what if it’s not a machine and someone is alive back there? They’d be killed.”

  That didn’t sound reasonable to Speed. Had Amy not been paying attention?

  “Alive? That doesn’t sound like a someone to me,” Speed said. Their stowaway was definitely not human, but then Speed had no idea what other creatures outer space had in store for him.

  “Regardless, there’s no way for us to find out now. The cargohold can’t be opened in the middle of space.”

  The strange hissing and clicking continued to emanate from the cargo hold, but the three new acquaintances decided to focus on escape.

  “Amazon is the nearest planet. It seems that these new creatures are attacking the Vampires, but we don’t know about Amazon.”

  “Very well, set a course for Amazon. You can stabilize our course by activating a grav-field around the cargohold.” prince Fiero declared.

  Speed wondered if Fiero was in the habit of telling people to do things they were already doing. Given Nero’s haughty attitude, Speed decided this was a distinct possibility.

  Amy addressed Fiero’s bizarre declaration: “I already did that you vapor nerd, we’ve been flying there for hours. You’re not in charge here. This is MY ship.”

  Speed had noticed the bucking had stopped, but the shrieking racket continued from the cargo hold. Speed probably could have dealt with the noise, but it was so disturbing. He was not afraid like he was when the whole fleet of red Machines had attacked, but he was feeling a small piece of the same fear, a pang of paranoia.

  “I can quiet the noise with my mind,” Amy said aloud.

  “Well do it then. This is the worst service I’ve ever had on an interplanetary flight,” Fiero said sneakily.

  “Calm down, you two.” Speed was apparently falling into the role of the go-between. He’d been there before.

  Amy and Marcus reminded Speed of his MoonBall team mates when they would start fighting about the best strategy. Speed was often the team captain because he could “see the big picture,” resolving fights through compromise. Speed wondered if that’s what his mother had been trying to teach him all along...

  “We all agree that we need to follow your father’s example and get away as quickly as possible,” Amy said.

  “We don’t even know if Nero is still alive,” Marcus pointed out.

  Speed was surprised that this didn’t seem to upset Marcus. Speed was certainly upset that his mom had probably been killed or captured by Marcus’s people, by the collision with the earth, or perhaps even by the GoodBots who were supposed to be looking out for humanity.

  It was all very confusing.

  The ship was shaken around again, although the jostles were becoming fewer and farther between. Speed thought about the smooth ride aboard the new GoodBot vessel.

  Where is Ship?

  Amy’s tiny silver vessel sped towards the Amazon homeworld. The engine thrummed loudly, as though it had been badly neglected, but Speed had seen that the ship was spaceworthy. Amy noticed that Speed was uncomfortable.

  “You’re such a wimp, Speed. You would never survive an Amazon summer.”

  “Thanks a lot, Amy,” Speed said sarcastically.

  The sound quickly disappeared.

  “What happened?” Speed asked.

  “Psychic, remember? The engine is still making the sound, but I’m preventing you from hearing with my mind.”

  “You must get a lot of reading done if you can tune out sounds like that!” Speed said.

  “Reading? What’s that? Get ready for entry!”

  Flames blazed around the small craft, which shook violently. Speed grabbed the rails near his seat, as an entry harness automatically buckled around his waist, chest, and arms. For a moment, Speed felt his stomach churn as he was pressed against the back of the chair. The ship rotated into position for entry.

  Speed closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. The sight before him was amazing, although the ship was no longer in space. What had happened?

  “Did you black out?” Fiero asked, incredulously.

  “Your ships are so rickety!” Speed said to Amy, “Our cruisers eliminate G-forces.”

  “Oh, your noob-cruisers you mean.”

  The light-hearted comment did not trouble Speed. He thought for a moment about how none of those ships even exist anymore. They used to be so majestic, traveling in tight formations around the atmosphere, GoodBots at the helm, always ready to help.

  “I’m sorry, Speed. I didn’t mean to...”

  “Whoa!” Speed breathed.

  As the blast shield opened, revealing the landscape of Amazon, what Speed saw took his breath away. As far as Speed could see in every direction was the bright red sand of Amazon. Rolling hills gave way to sharp drops and crevices. Deep canyons jutted in every direction, and the ground appeared to smudge into the sky at several places. Speed realized those must be storms, like the atmospheric storms of jupiter he had learned about in ecology.

  “Don’t worry, noob. The storms can’t penetrate this baby’s mind shield. I’ve been playing with these shields since I was a little one.”

  Speed figured that a mind shield could be an electronic device enhanced by mental powers. What else could these Amazons do?

  While passing through the storm, it was difficult to see anything. The shield momentarily flickered orange and purple as the sand was deflected away. The play of light on the shield resembled the ripples of ponds in the simulated park on Moon Base, where Speed had once skipped rocks on a holographic pond. The ripples moved much faster than the ripples of relatively still water, and Speed sat mesmerized, until they were out of the storm.

  Then, the two suns of the Amazon binary system shone through the storm. Again, Speed lost his breath.

  Before him was a gleaming city of silver spires. Tall, thin needles of metal jutted from the cracks in the ground and shot directly toward the sky. The needles became rounder toward the top, where windows of bright blue and white lights could be seen.

  They were beautiful, but Speed was confused. How could people who built such rickety little engines have also built enormous cities of tall gleaming spires?

  “Stop thinking about Betty that way. She is not rickety.”

  “Sorry. It’s going to take me a while to get used to this habit of polite thinking, Amy”

  “But, since you asked, let me fill you in a little bit about Amazon. Fiero hopefully knows all of this. Our greatness is no secret.”

  “From what your mind has shown me from earth,” Amy continued, “I can tell you that Amazon has many fewer natural species. But, the animals who do live here are very good at surviving. That’s because the planet is constantly bombarded by asteroids which themselves carry other forms of life.”

  Speed didn’t get her point, but he kept listening. What was the connection between a thin atmosphere and amazing psychic powers?

  “The point is that Amazons had to develop powerful adaptations in order to survive. Our planet is hostile. Any species that exists on Amazon has powers which would never exist on your plush, blue world.”

  “Okay, so where did the cities come from?” Speed asked.

  “They’re not really cities. They’re natural metal formations which are exposed and covered up as the planet's crust is tosse
d around by storms.  We have to pay careful attention to the storms, in order to know where the next outcropping is going to appear, and when we need to move on.”

  Speed banished images of advanced construction techniques and realized that the beautiful silver spires had always been there. Perhaps Amy’s ship was a natural geological formation as well. That explained it’s beautiful crystal pattern.

  “So, the Amazons are nomadic?”

  “That’s exactly right. But, it takes as much effort for us to move from one city to the next as it would for your culture to build an entire city. Each time we move, we have to fight off the other life forms, too. That’s one of the dirtiest, but most honorable jobs on Amazon. Some Amazons spend their entire lives learning about the other species of the planet, so that they can keep us safe, moving from one mineral cluster to the next. We call those Amazons builders, since they make our homes possible.”

  A bright white streak appeared across the sky, connecting space to the cluster below.

  “What was that?” Fiero screamed like a girl.

  “That was a comet, baby prince. It happens every day, and our protectors must constantly divert giant rocks from space, or break them apart altogether. Actually, most species on Amazon have the ability to detect magnetic fields, so they can know when to dodge a huge space rock.”

  Speed wondered about the full extent of Amazon powers.

  “Some of us actually have the power to move huge space rocks with our minds. One of the most powerful Amazons in history could teleport asteroids to other areas of space! We haven’t had anyone with that power for quite a while. Usually we just break them apart so no one gets hurt. The asteroids cause great storms. Great suffering.”

  “Well, enough of this history,” Amy said. “It’s time to land. My mom will be happy to see me, she’s probably going to cry or something, Fiero has to face the music for his father’s terrible actions, and you, Speed...”

  “If I know my mother Riva, you will have to start training...”