“I’ve been in touch with Sahar and the twins underground,” Trevone said. “They’re on standby, awaiting our status. Many of the EW-SCABers are reluctant to leave the Moon, but one of them named Iyabo has managed to talk almost everyone into thinking it’s a good idea. She is apparently really selling the fact that it would be bad to destroy an alien species. It also sounds like she has a deep-seated distrust for ‘a bunch of old dudes who think they’re always right.’”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Ricardo chimed in. “I don’t want anyone coming up here until we’ve secured the ship.”
“What are we going to do with the aliens that are inside?” Drue asked.
“Commander Tull spoke English,” Benny said. “We can try to reason with them.”
“That didn’t go so well with Dr. Bale.”
“This is different,” Benny said, staring down at his gloved hands. “The Alpha Maraudi are defeated. And we know about a superweapon that could destroy their entire planet. Well, we know it exists, at least. That’s got to count for something, right? We have to try to get them to listen to us. To work with us.”
“And if not?” Drue asked.
There was silence on the comms. Finally, Ricardo spoke. “Like Jasmine said. We’ll have to play a few things by ear.”
“I’m sending coordinates for what we believe to be the ship’s hangar to you, Hot Dog,” Jasmine said.
On the windshield in front of Benny, a blinking dot appeared.
“Got it,” Hot Dog said. “We’re going in.”
As she flew the Comet Catcher toward the hulking rock vessel, Benny kept his eyes on their target spot, looking for some sort of shift in the exterior or any indication that the Alpha Maraudi had spotted them. But there was no sign of movement as they approached—Dr. Bale’s stolen tech was working.
“You ready for this?” Hot Dog asked.
“No,” Benny replied. He smiled. “Let’s do it.”
She nodded as they approached the side of the rock, Jasmine’s ping mostly transparent and taking up the majority of their windshield as they closed in. With a slight rotation of the flight yoke, their car twisted, until the bottom of the custom Space Runner was parallel to the alien ship.
“Here goes nothing,” Hot Dog said as she hit a few holographic buttons on the dash.
There was a slight jolt from the bottom of the craft as the two metal disks shot off, embedding themselves in the side of the mother ship.
“And now I just have to . . .” Hot Dog murmured to herself as she tapped a hologram.
The Comet Catcher suddenly jerked through space, planting itself on the metal circles.
“Wow, okay,” she said after a moment. “Those are some really strong magnets.” She hit the comms. “We’re attached.”
“We’re right behind you, but hurry,” Ricardo said. “This thing is picking up speed.”
“Here,” Hot Dog said as she opened up the console between her and Benny and pulled out a silver wire. She handed it to him. “Just in case something happens and our car falls off, you won’t be stuck on the side of an alien ship for the rest of your short life. I’ll yank you back inside.”
“Thanks,” Benny said, wrapping the wire around his left wrist.
“Don’t thank me. Pinky told us about it.”
“You’re welcome,” the AI’s voice sounded in his helmet. “Would you like me to depressurize the cabin now?”
“Do it,” Benny said.
Both of their force field helmets powered on as the atmosphere inside the Space Runner changed.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Pinky said. “Be careful, Benny.”
He took a deep breath, opened the passenger door, and then slid out into the weightlessness of space, twisting and holding on to the bottom of the car in order to try to keep his bearings. He’d been weightless in the video game chamber at the Taj and while reverse bungie jumping on the first days of his EW-SCAB trip, but never like this, traveling at high speeds in actual space. Finally, he positioned himself so that he could get his golden-gloved hand onto the ship’s surface.
It occurred to him only then that he hadn’t really planned on how to get through. He’d imagined himself slamming his fist against the outside and breaking open a hole for them, but that might mean dislodging the Comet Catcher before he had a chance to make an entrance big enough for the Space Runners. So instead he paused for a moment, thinking about how he’d manipulated the rock—accidentally—around Sahar’s car, and how he’d melted it off himself just minutes before. When he’d been on the last alien mother ship, he’d watched an Alpha Maraudi control the doors with little more than a gesture—there had to be a way of getting in without breaking in. And so he placed his hand on the exterior of the ship and focused, visualizing the rock changing, giving way.
At first nothing happened. He groaned, pressing down harder, the soles of his boots on the Space Runner behind him for leverage. He swiped his hand across the surface, like he was trying to simply scrub the exterior of the ship away. And then, slowly, the rock began to change. It pulsed with energy and started to swirl, opening up.
He pushed off the Space Runner with his feet, hoping that adding some kind of force would make the rock open faster.
It did. In seconds there was a wide, circular hole in front of him, opening into a huge room made up of the same smooth, greenish rock as the secret alien base and the other mother ship had been filled with. Farther inside, he could see several of the purple Maraudi fighter ships. As far as he could tell, there was no movement. The place looked abandoned.
“It worked,” he whispered to himself, staring down at his hand.
Then there was a sudden jerk on his left wrist—Hot Dog was reeling him back in.
Once he was back in the passenger seat, he closed the door and found Hot Dog staring at him.
“You did it,” she said. “I kind of can’t believe something didn’t go horribly wrong.”
“Yet.” Benny grinned at her. “Let’s get in there.”
She hit the dashboard, and the Comet Catcher detached, along with the metal disks. In a flash she’d spun the car around and they were inside, parking near the new hole.
“We’ve landed!” Hot Dog shouted over the comms.
Benny hit the button on the stealth drive, causing the car to go visible again. “Make sure you turn off your stealth before you get out of your SR,” he said. “We learned that lesson the hard way earlier.”
“I’ll never forget about you, Galaxicle,” Drue said. “We’ll see each other again one day. I promise.”
As Trevone and Ricardo coordinated who would enter the ship first, Benny and Hot Dog got out, cautiously taking a look around. The hanger was huge, bigger than the garage back at the Taj, and the walls curved up to a high ceiling covered in brightly glowing stalactites.
“Jazz, there aren’t any aliens around here, right?” Benny asked.
“Not according to the scanner,” she said through the comms.
“You know,” Hot Dog said, taking a look at the handful of alien ships parked in the corner, “a few weeks ago if someone told me I’d be seeing the inside of an alien ship, I’d probably have freaked out. But this . . .” She motioned around. “After everything we’ve been through in the last few days, this is kind of boring.”
“I’ll remind you that you said that when we’re trying to get control of the ship from the Alpha Maraudi,” Benny said.
“You’re right. I take it back.”
Within a few minutes, Trevone and Ricardo had parked their Space Runners, and the original Moon Platoon and the two oldest members of the Pit Crew were gathered near the hole in the side of the hangar. Ramona wobbled a bit on her feet, but slowly the color began to return to her pale cheeks. Benny hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. Especially since her helmet was still activated.
“This place . . .” Trevone said, looking around. “I have so many questions. The first of which is why there don’t appear to be any doors.?
??
“This is what the other hangar was like,” Hot Dog said. “It was completely sealed off.”
“Perhaps for reasons of pressurization? Fascinating.”
“We should try to close the room up before moving forward,” Jasmine said. “I have no idea how the environmental systems work on the ship, obviously, but it probably isn’t a good idea to leave a gaping hole in the hull if we’re going to be breaking through walls.”
“Benny?” Ricardo asked.
He stepped forward, placing his hand on the rock, trying to focus like he had when he’d opened the hole. As he slid his hand across the surface, the wall again began to shift, closing slowly, until it appeared to be solid.
“You’re getting good at that,” Drue said.
“I’m getting good at having no idea what I’m doing,” Benny corrected him.
“Jasmine,” Ricardo said, “get us to the bridge.”
She held up Dr. Bale’s radar and twisted her lips for a moment. “This way, I think,” she said, leading them across the smooth floor of the hangar.
They were near the center of the room when Drue’s force field helmet automatically powered down.
“What?!” he shouted, grabbing at his neck and gasping, his eyes bulging out.
“Your designer space suit is malfunctioning!” Hot Dog said, rushing to his side.
But then Drue froze and took a few deep breaths. Within seconds, the rest of their helmets had disappeared as well.
“Incredible,” Trevone said, looking around. “There must be some sort of automated environmental system.”
“It’s not that impressive,” Pinky said through their comms. “I could do the same thing.”
They continued, until they were standing in front of a solid wall.
Everyone turned to look at Benny.
“Here goes nothing,” he said, stepping up.
“Make sure your magnetic gloves are turned on,” Ricardo said. “We want to be ready for anything.”
Benny raised his right hand to the wall, and after a few moments a hole appeared, jagged around the edges—not at all like the clean entrance the alien had opened and closed for them on the last big ship. He looked back at the others. Ricardo nodded to him, and he stepped through.
They found themselves in a long, curving hallway composed of pale blue, semitranslucent stone, and continued onward, Jasmine directing them. As they hurried deeper into the ship, they passed by several openings in the smooth rock that led into rooms full of computer terminals and equipment Benny didn’t recognize. They could have been offices or laboratories or even bedrooms—there was no telling, given the circumstances.
“Okay, we need to turn left as soon as we can,” Jasmine said, not looking up from the radar. “I think there’s a large room coming up that we can cut through.”
“I see a doorway ahead,” Ricardo said. He was at Benny’s side, leading the pack. “Let’s hustle.”
They picked up their pace, and charged into the room. Benny stopped a few steps inside, the others running into him.
“Whoa,” he murmured.
Before them was a sprawling chamber that looked nothing like the rest of the ship they’d seen. Trails made of purple gravel cut through what looked to Benny like yellow soil. Plants—he assumed they were plants—of fiery reds and oranges surrounded them, fronds bigger than Space Runners arching over the paths. They gave way to a rainbow of other, different vegetation. Bronze trunks were topped with glowing green teardrops. A tree in the distance appeared to be shedding gossamer threads, creating a prism-like cloud around it. In the center of the room, which Benny was pretty sure could house his entire caravan, was a mushroom cap that dripped gold fluid into a quartz-lined pool around it.
“This is incredible,” Benny said.
“This is gorgeous,” Hot Dog said.
“This is likely very dangerous,” Jasmine added.
“Oh come on, Jazz,” Drue said, starting down one of the paths. “They’re just flowers.”
As he passed a green pod twice as tall as he was, several stalks at the top unfurled, snapping the air. Drue screamed, raising his arms over his head to protect himself. But the plant didn’t attack.
“Be on your guard,” Ricardo said. “We’ll have plenty of time to check this out later.”
“Killer voice,” Ramona said as she waltzed past Drue. “Impressive range.”
He narrowed his eyes at her and scoffed.
When they finally made it to the other end of the alien garden, another wall waited for them.
“This is it,” Jasmine said. “There are ten skeletons showing up on the other side.”
Ricardo raised his silver glove in front of his chest. “We try to reason with them. But our main priority is stopping this ship and taking control.”
The others nodded. Benny stepped forward, raising his right hand to the rock, and clenching his other one into a fist, ready to protect himself and the others if it came down to it.
In front of them, the final wall melted away.
29.
The walls of the bridge were the same pale blue as the hallways, but marbled with deep red splashes. Veins of light pulsed within them, as though the room itself were alive. And it was, in a way. As soon as the wall separating Benny and the others from the Alpha Maraudi disappeared, the bridge was full of movement. Three aliens rushed for them.
“Stop, we don’t want to hurt—” Benny started, but the aliens were already upon them, their quickness astounding.
They weren’t dressed in the full armor that the Taj invaders had been wearing, but instead in undulating chain mail, with shiny black masks covering the top halves of their faces, allowing them to open their jaws—those mouths that were too wide to be human, stretching nearly to the backs of their heads. One of them let out a sound like someone had pressed all the buttons on a keyboard synthesizer at once.
“Look out!” Ricardo shouted, jutting his fist forward as the screaming alien came within feet of Benny, a blade-tipped tentacle arched in the air above it like a scorpion’s tail. The alien shot backward, sliding across the polished white floor and crashing into one of the stone computer-like terminals that lined the sides of the room. Drue raised his glove, and another flew through the giant hologram in the center of the chamber that showed the battle taking place above the Taj. The third hung in the air as Hot Dog stepped forward, her finger held down on the side of her glove. Its body was frozen, but dozens of thin tentacles whipped around its head frantically.
“Uh, Benny?” Hot Dog asked. “Maybe try that again?”
Benny stepped through the hole in the wall. The two other aliens who had come at them were picking themselves up now, looking around the room, seemingly confused as to what had just happened. The rest of the Alpha Maraudi in the bridge were dressed differently. They stood at the workstations lining the walls, their hands at chest level as their tentacles squirmed and coiled. They wore metallic robes and masks, which reflected the weaving ribbons of light that hung in the air above the terminals—the same sort of patterns, perhaps writing, that Benny and the others had seen in the hidden alien base. Several of them made accordion-like noises. Clipped, staccato wheezes.
It seemed to Benny like they were scared, which was a reaction he’d never even considered.
He took a few more steps inside the room, the frenetic fight above the Taj playing out in silence in front of him. The others followed, Ricardo at his right side.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Benny said, glancing at the alien Hot Dog was still holding in the air with her magnetic glove.
The only response was more of the wheezing sounds. The two aliens—guards?—who had attacked them bounced on their feet, looking back and forth between Benny’s group and each other.
“Uh, guys,” Jasmine said. “Did we maybe take it for granted that one of these aliens would speak English as well as you said Commander Tull did?”
“So you are the same humans who destroyed part of Tull’s ship,
” a voice came from the other end of the room. It was similar to that of the alien commander Benny and Hot Dog had met, sounding as though a host of people were talking, ranging from a reverberating bass to a high, almost imperceptible whine.
On the far side of the bridge, in front of a nearly see-through section of the rock looking out onto space, was a huge egg-shaped mound of opaque purple quartz. It spun around slowly, until Benny could see the inside of it, hollow and lined in gold—a throne occupied by one of the Alpha Maraudi.
“Are you in charge of this ship?” Ricardo asked.
The alien stood, and Benny got his first good look at it. The being was tall and thin, with gemlike plates of armor on its body. Its mask was gold, and its dozens of slender tentacles were piled high above it, slithering around a glowing ball of polished red rock.
“I am,” the alien said. “Vala is what you will call me.”
“Vala,” Benny said. “Uh, Commander Vala, I bet. My name is Benny Love. I’m from Earth. I mean, obviously. Like I said, we don’t want to fight you. We’ve come to talk.”
The alien guards’ tentacles whipped around their heads. Vala let out a grunting noise, and they reluctantly seemed to relax.
“You may put them down,” Vala said, motioning to Hot Dog’s frozen Maraudi. “You have shown your power. We will talk.”
Benny took a deep breath and then nodded to Hot Dog. She took her finger off the trigger button on her glove. The alien dropped to the floor and hurried away, taking its place beside the other two guards. Drue watched, then turned his wide eyes back to the commander.
“I kinda think one of those plants is making me hallucinate,” he said.
“I can’t believe we’re talking to an alien,” Jasmine whispered.
Ramona tapped on her arm HoloTek, unimpressed.
Benny glanced at the hologram, where tiny Space Runners and alien ships made of light were fighting one another.
“We knew you were destroyers,” Vala said, focusing on the hologram as well. “We should have been more prepared. These ships of yours, with the golden beams of light were . . . I believe unexpected is the word.”