Oli, A Very New Moon

  *

  Oli had approached the moon on the light side, not for any other reason than he fancied surfing across the mountainous surface of the moon, skimming past rocks and diving in and out of craters. He accepted the urgency of the situation, but why not have some fun on the way to battle? He landed a little way from Cranus’ position and proceeded on foot to the edge of the open crater. The micro-drones had changed back into a humanoid form and had adjusted the gravity setting on Oli’s Go-ring to enable him to bound along in ten metre strides. They reached the edge of the crater and crawled to the lip to look down onto the tiny shape of Cranus, thirteen kilometres below. There were lights flickering in the bridge section, so he knew that the Throgloids were still on board. Oli stood at the edge, staring at the near-shear drop over which he was about to step. Woa, this puts dropping in on a five metre wave into perspective. But as he knew too well from his early days of surfing; he who fears never cheers.

  They bounded down the side of the crater, kicking up dust and leaping over huge boulders. Their descent was more akin to controlled falling than running. They were plummeting fifty metres with every step. Oli was fond of dune jumping in Cornwall. He would leap from the top of the dune and try to stay on his feet till he reached the bottom. Inevitably he would lose his footing and roll, face over base to the soft, golden sand on the beach below. This was similar to dune jumping, but a million times more intense. They didn’t want to alert the Throgloids of their presence so they weren’t using any torches and the side of the crater was littered with huge obstacles that tripped Oli, causing him to tumble after just a few seconds. He rolled head over heels, bouncing off rocks and ramping off ridges of dirt. He was completely airborne and upside down as he passed over the head of the drone, who was performing a perfect, slow-motion moon ballet, every leap a textbook move sending it closer to the bottom of the crater.

  As Oli flew through the vacuum, he managed to straighten himself up and land on his feet, still flying forward at a rate of knots. He attempted to copy the movement of the drone but instead, continued spiralling through space once again. It was exactly like dune jumping but without the pain. In the end, he gave up all attempts at dignity and let the enhanced gravity take over. He quickly but gracelessly reached the bottom of the crater, lying upside down next to the boulder that had halted his progress. He was picking himself up when, as though it had just stepped off a bus and with the merest hint of a plume of dust, the drone landed next to him and offered him a helping hand.

  “Remind me to take you dune jumping when we get back,” said Oli, graciously accepting the hand of the drone. They were now just a short walk from Cranus, and they set out towards a small round hatch on the belly of the ship. Cranus looked massive from here. It was like standing under a super tanker in dry dock. Hundreds of sets of enormous legs running down the length of the ship lifted it three metres from the dusty surface of the crater. The hatch was three metres above them so the drone had to jump up to it. As it reached the door, it placed one hand, which had morphed into a sucker, against the hull to fasten itself, it then released its index finger into the door mechanism and the door rolled to one side to reveal a small airlock.

  Oli gave a sharp push with his legs and floated towards the waiting drone, who caught him as he sailed passed. The drone opened a cabinet on the wall of the airlock and pulled out two small silver tubes. It reached out and placed one of the tubes next to Oli’s head. The tube produced a beam of light on the wall of the airlock. He instinctively turned to look at it, but it was no longer there. It was following his head movement. He looked up, the light shone on the ceiling of the lock, he looked at the drone and the light lit up the drone. It was a headlight, tuned to the brain frequency of the wearer. It would hover a few centimetres to the side of the head and follow every movement.

  Club toy, thought Oli.

  The drone moved to the door and released two fingers into the control panel, there followed a hissing noise as the airlock was pressurised. The door opened and they entered the bottom deck of the ship. The Throgloids obviously hadn’t succeeded in getting any power to the ship; not even the emergency lighting was working. Oli followed the drone to a lift door. The drone’s hand morphed into a large sucker again and it placed it on the elevator door. It opened the door just enough to allow them to enter. It could have sent drones in to the electronics to operate the lift, but any Throgloids who were on the bridge would have heard the movement. Oli was eyeing the ladder at the back of the shaft and was visualizing the impending climb with a certain amount of trepidation to say the least. He had just placed one hand on a rung, ready to begin the gruelling climb, when the drone tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Oh yeah, silly me,” he said.

  A platform, wide enough to support Oli’s feet, grew out of the lower back of the drone and a handle appeared at the back of its head. Oli climbed onto the drone’s back and grabbed hold of the handle with both hands. The drone lifted off and slowly made its way up the shaft. When they reached the doors to the bridge, it stopped and placed a finger against the joint between the doors, sending three micro-drones to survey the situation. Unbeknown to the Throgloids, who were frantically pushing every button in sight, in a futile attempt to prevent their imminent demise, the drones flew around the bridge, disarming all their weapons. They didn’t want the oafs shooting up Cranus’ bridge after all. The drones reported back that there were ten Throgloids, all armed to the teeth with totally disarmed and harmless weapons.

  “I hope you don’t expect me to go in there and start fist fighting,” said Oli, leaning round the head of the drone to speak to the featureless phizzog. “I’ve never punched anyone in my life, and I really don’t think that I could.”

  The drone shook its head and indicated for Oli to wait by the lift. Oli breathed a sigh of relief. He always found that he could talk his way out of any situation, but mainly people liked him from the start, so there was no need for fisticuffs. Even the bullies at school had left him unmolested, probably because he was no sport.

  The Throgloids on the bridge had been given instructions to continue with their fruitless efforts to get the ship running, but of course they’d had no success and were all preparing themselves for the usual reward for failure. They had talked about using the weapons to oust the Captain and take charge of the ship, but a Throgloid Commander only became a Commander because he had defeated all others in his path and the fate for the perpetrators of a failed mutiny was unspeakable. So they had resigned themselves to their slow and painful death. They all stopped as one and turned to see the lift doors slide open. In floated the ugly creature, on the back of the weird-looking robot thing. Oli jumped off the back of the drone and stood with his back to the wall, looking round the bridge at the fearsome collection of brutes.

  “Helloooo,” he offered, with a completely incongruous thumbs-up.

  It was all over in the blink of an eye. Before the Throgloids could even muster a thought to raise their weapons and point them at the enemy, in a blur of motion the drone flew around the bridge, killing each Throgloid with a single blow to the abdomen. All that Oli saw was a blurry streak darting around the bridge. It was all over in less than two seconds. Oli was still looking at the first Throgloid who was just hitting the floor in a heap, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He jerked his head round to see the drone standing next to him and in his peripheral vision the Throgloids were falling like dominos, in slow motion due to the low gravity.

  Now Oli deplored any kind of violence, but he found himself nodding in approval. He was definitely playing for the right team. The drone put two fingers up to its non-existent mouth and blew.