Out of This World

by Chris Wooding

  Jack tried to haul Thomas up, but he was way too heavy. There was another walkway not far below them. He could let Thomas drop and he wouldn’t be hurt. But then Thomas would be down there, alone, and everyone else would be up here.

  Thomas could see what he was thinking. He shook his head frantically. Leaving him alone in this place, he’d be good as dead.

  Jack looked up the walkway. Black smoke drifted across the junction. Clanking footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs.

  Scorch.

  He watched in terror as a hulking silhouette emerged from the murk, with a softly glowing dome where a head should have been. Chips of light like evil eyes floated in the gas trapped inside, which flickered with tiny sparks of lightning. In his gloved hands was the nozzle of a flamethrower.

  “Jack!” Mazzy shouted again from the other side of the walkway, where they had taken shelter behind one of the tanks. “Run!”

  But Jack couldn’t run. He was stuck hanging on to Thomas. Scorch raised his flamethrower. Jack began to panic as he realized he had no way to avoid the fire, nowhere to go.

  Nowhere but down.

  Scorch sent a blast of flames rolling along the walkway toward him. Jack couldn’t pull Thomas up, so his only choice was to go over with him. He dug his toes in and pushed himself forward, tipping over the edge. Thomas yelled as the two of them tumbled through the air. Jack felt the burning heat as the flames roared past above him. Then Thomas crashed down onto the walkway below, and Jack landed on top of him, and they both lay there gasping as the fire overhead snuffed out, leaving them singed and bruised but alive.

  “I think you broke my ribs,” wheezed Thomas. “All of them.”

  “Well, I think you gave me a hernia,” Jack replied. “Get up. Scorch is still after us.”

  He pulled Thomas to his feet as Scorch walked slowly onto the walkway above, his heavy boots clanking as he neared. There he stopped and tore away the railing with one metal fist. Mazzy and the others began yelling at him, calling him all kinds of names, trying to draw his attention toward them, but Scorch was not going to be distracted. He dropped down to the lower walkway where Jack and Thomas were.

  “Why’s he after us?” Thomas wailed as they took to their heels.

  “He’s after me,” said Jack. “He thinks I’m Gradius.”

  “Well, that’s just great!” Thomas cried. “What’s the point of him sacrificing himself if we die, anyway?”

  “I’ll pass on your disappointment when we meet him in the afterlife,” Jack replied.

  A few minutes. That was all they had. If they weren’t off the Firehawk by then, it would all be over.

  Things weren’t looking good.

  Gradius was fighting hard. Harder than he’d ever fought in his life. It didn’t make any difference. Vardis was winning.

  “While you were training to be a spy, I was training to be a killer!” Vardis said through gritted teeth, raining another flurry of blows down on Gradius. Gradius tried to hold his ground, but Vardis was too fierce and he was forced back. In desperation he rolled away and sprang back up onto his feet, only to find Vardis already swinging toward him. He barely blocked it.

  Vardis would beat him. It was only a matter of time. And time was something he didn’t have. He glanced over at the countdown. Only a few minutes left, and the rift gate was almost upon them.

  “What did she say to you?” he cried as he backed away desperately. “What did Kara promise you in return for selling us out?”

  “She persuaded me to be on the winning side. The Mechanics are coming, Gradius. They’re taking over the whole Nexus. I won’t be a victim.”

  “You won’t be anything if you’re dead! Don’t you know this aircraft is going to explode?”

  Vardis stopped his assault. His eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”

  “The cargo hold is stuffed with antimatter! This aircraft is one giant bomb, and it’s going to detonate as soon as it gets through the gate! With both of us on it!”

  “Kara never said anything about a bomb!”

  Gradius saw a chink of hope. “She’s using you, Vardis. She just wanted you to keep us busy so we didn’t derail the Kernel’s plans.”

  Vardis looked lost. “No … She wouldn’t!”

  Gradius held out a hand. “You can’t trust them, Vardis. You’re just meat to the Mechanics. Join me, and maybe we can stop all of this.”

  “Yes …” said Vardis. “Yes, you’re right. After all, we’re like brothers, right?”

  “Right,” said Gradius.

  Vardis’s sword flicked out, faster than a snake’s tongue. Gradius’s blade was sent spinning out of his hand. He drew his blaster, but Vardis was too fast, knocking it away, tripping him to the floor. Gradius landed heavily, with the point of Vardis’s sword at his throat.

  “You let your guard down, brother,” said Vardis, with a cruel grin. “Of course I know about the bomb. That’s why I had to hurry you along by pretending to believe your sob story. It’ll take me less than two minutes to get outside, and I have a parachute. By my count, I have just enough time to kill you and be off this barge before it hits the gate.” He grinned. “So let’s not waste any more of it. Goodbye.”

  “You think we lost him?” Thomas asked as he hurried with Jack through winding passageways in the depths of the Firehawk.

  There was a burst of flames from somewhere behind them, briefly lighting up the dark.

  “We didn’t lose him,” said Jack grimly. He was acutely aware that every passing moment brought them closer to the end, but no matter how they tried, they couldn’t get the Hunter off their tail. Jack indicated a doorway. “Down here?”

  Thomas shrugged. “Sure. Any way’s good when you don’t know where you’re going.”

  They stepped out onto a platform and found themselves in a large chamber with a walkway to another platform on the far side. Down below they saw that the bottom of the chamber was covered with dozens of cone-shaped projections. Lightning danced restlessly between them. At either end were large banks of blinking consoles joined by clusters of pipes that stretched along the length of the walls. Chains hung down from above on sliding pulleys, perhaps to lift and replace the cones when they were broken.

  “Is that a door on the other side?” Thomas asked, squinting into the gloom.

  “Looks like it,” said Jack, heading out across the walkway.

  Thomas looked nervously over the railing as he followed. Colored lightning snapped and crackled there. “Looks like a power chamber or something,” he said.

  “Let’s just get out of here.”

  They reached the platform on the other side, but when they tried the door, they found it locked. Jack stared at the keypad in frustration. “Where’s Mazzy when you need her?” he asked.

  Where was she? Probably on the Epsilon by now, with the others. It would be crazy for them to hang around, after all. They’d only known him and Thomas for a few days, and they were only Earthers. He’d been kidding himself really, thinking that he and Thomas were becoming a part of that crew. Still, it saddened him terribly to think that he wouldn’t see them again. Especially Mazzy. He’d miss her abuse.

  He had other things to worry about now, though. Like getting them off the Firehawk before they were blown to atoms.

  “Jack!” Thomas whispered, pulling at his clothes. Thomas was pointing to the doorway. Even over the noise of the engines, they could hear the clank of boots. “Hide!”

  They split up and crammed themselves behind the consoles on either side of the platform, where there was just enough space to fit. Jack watched fearfully as Scorch appeared at the doorway of the room, a small flame licking restlessly from the nozzle of his flamethrower. With that door locked, they were trapped.

  Scorch stepped into the room, scanning it suspiciously with his alien eyes. Slowly, his hands ready on the flamethrower, he approached along the walkway.

  “He’s gonna find us!” Thomas hissed frantically, from across the platform. The n
oise of the engines meant that only Jack could hear him. “Shoot him!”

  Jack felt for his blaster, and his heart sank. It was gone. He’d only had it stuffed loosely in his belt, and it must have come free when he and Thomas had fallen off the walkway earlier.

  He searched for a plan. If Scorch caught them here, it would be the end. They needed a way to escape. Frantically he cast about for inspiration. The machinery he hid behind provided cover, but only until Scorch got close enough. Unless …

  Suddenly he had it. “Thomas!” he whispered. “The pipes! Climb along the pipes!”

  Thomas saw what he meant. The consoles were joined by a mass of pipes that ran along each end of the chamber, enough to partially hide them. They could climb along them, and if they were lucky, they would remain unseen. If they weren’t, they would fall into the crackling power cones below, or Scorch would see them and they would be sitting ducks. But it was the best idea Jack had.

  “I can’t,” said Thomas, shaking his head. His eyes were wide with fear.

  “You have to!” Jack said. “You can do it! You’re braver than you think!”

  “But what if I’m exactly as brave as I think I am? Which is to say, not at all?”

  “Just trust me!” Jack hissed in exasperation. “It’s our only chance!”

  Thomas wavered, uncertain. Jack softened as he realized he was being too harsh. He heard his own words come back to him: Not everyone is cut out to be an action hero. Thomas was the kind of kid that gym class was invented to humiliate.

  “Hey,” he said. “I believe in you.”

  And that was all it took. Thomas’s quivering lip firmed, and he clambered up onto the console and squeezed behind the pipes. Jack climbed up the other side, creeping as quietly as he could through the small spaces. Slowly and carefully they made their way off the platform and out into the chamber.

  Scorch prowled down the walkway in one direction. Thomas and Jack crawled along the pipes to either side, heading the other way. If all went well, they could get behind him, slip through the open doorway, and run.

  Jack peeped out. Through gaps in the pipes on the other side, he could see Thomas moving. Scorch’s attention was fixed straight ahead, and he didn’t spot them as they slipped past him.

  Keep going. Keep going.

  He was so worried about Thomas that he didn’t see the chain hanging in his path until he brushed against it. It swung aside, bumping against a pipe with a clank.

  Scorch turned toward the sound. Jack crouched down behind the pipes, keeping still. Maybe Scorch wouldn’t see him. His heart thumped hard in his chest.

  Scorch, suspicious, lifted his flamethrower and aimed it. He’s going to torch this spot, just in case! Jack thought. Stranded where he was, he could do nothing to avert his fate. Then—

  Ponk. Scorch made a quizzical noise and put his hand on top of his domed head. Spinning away into the gloom was an inhaler that had just ricocheted off it. The Hunter turned away from Jack to where Thomas cowered behind the pipes on the other wall, wearing the expression of someone who deeply wished they could take back what they had just done.

  Scorch raised his flamethrower again, pointing it at Thomas. Flames tickled the nozzle as his finger reached for the trigger.

  Jack had no time to think, only to act. A memory flashed into his head, a memory of his home, and his dad, and that awful assault course that had been the bane of his life. Memories of swinging on a rope across a muddy pit, exhausted arms trembling as he did it again and again.

  He looked up at the chain that dangled near him. It hung from a wheeled pulley on the ceiling. Mom, Dad, this one’s for you, he thought. Then he stood up, grabbed it … and jumped with a cry into the air.

  Scorch whirled at the sound, alerted too late to Jack’s presence. Jack swung across the chamber on the chain, howling with fear and excitement, and planted his boots square into Scorch’s armored chest. It was like crashing into a wall, but it was enough to send the Hunter staggering. He hit the railing of the walkway and it buckled beneath his weight. Flailing at the air, he toppled over backward and dropped like a stone, right onto the energy cones beneath.

  Jack was already running for his life toward the door by the time Scorch hit bottom and the tank of fuel on his back exploded. Flames billowed up in a dirty cloud. The last thing Jack knew was being lifted up by an invisible force and thrown forward. Then he struck his head and it all went black.

  Gradius lay on the floor and stared up the length of the sword at the clone who would replace him. Desperate ideas flickered through his head, but none of them would work. His sword was on the other side of the Firehawk’s bridge; his blaster lay nearer, but out of reach. There was no way in the world he could move fast enough to avoid the blade that hovered at his throat. He was going to die.

  Then there was a noise like thunder, an explosion in the guts of the aircraft. A shiver ran through the whole of the Firehawk, and it tilted suddenly. Vardis stumbled backward, off balance. The tip of the sword wavered away from Gradius’s throat. Gradius moved without hesitation, seizing at his only chance, kicking Vardis’s legs out from under him. As Vardis crashed to the floor, his sword falling from his hand, Gradius was already scrambling to his feet, racing toward his blaster.

  He had only a second to act. He dived and shoulder rolled over the blaster, picking it up as he went. He came up facing the other way, back toward Vardis, ready to fire. Vardis, halfway up from the floor, already had his own blaster out and was aiming it.

  Two weapons fired at once. Two bolts of energy shrieked through the air.

  Vardis gasped, holding his chest. Smoke seeped out from beneath his fingers. His eyes lost their focus and his gaze went far away, and he slumped down on his back.

  Gradius picked himself up and walked over to his clone, clutching his shoulder where he had been shot. He kicked Vardis’s blaster away and looked down at him, his face tight with grief. No matter what he’d done, shooting Vardis had been like shooting his own family.

  “I just …” Vardis gasped, trying to raise his head. “I just wanted … to be … number one …”

  He lay back and said nothing else.

  Jack awoke to a painful slap across the jaw. He put a hand to his cheek and glared up at Mazzy.

  “Is that the only way you know to wake people up?”

  She broke into a relieved smile. “We thought you were dead!” she said.

  “I thought you’d left us.”

  “What? And give up the chance to die looking for you? No way!”

  Jack lifted himself onto his elbows and saw Thomas being helped into the corridor by Dunk. He was woozy and looked like he’d fallen into a barbecue but otherwise okay.

  “What was that explosion?” Mazzy asked.

  “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Thomas bellowed. “I CAN’T HEAR! THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION!”

  “It was Scorch,” said Jack as Mazzy pulled him to his feet.

  “You took out one of the deadliest Hunters in the Nexus?” Ilara asked. She looked dangerously close to being impressed.

  “We did,” said Jack, putting his arm around Thomas. “Don’t mess with Earth, right?”

  Thomas gave a double thumbs-up and a cheesy grin. Jack was pretty sure he hadn’t heard what he said and didn’t know what he was agreeing with, but it was nice all the same.

  “Can we congratulate each other later?” Boston asked, looking harassed. “Have we all forgotten we’re on board a flying bomb?”

  “Epsilon’s waiting,” said Mazzy. “Lead on, Dunk.”

  They raced through passageways and up stairs. Jack was battered and bruised, but his heart was light and he wore a big grin on his face as he went. Mazzy and the others hadn’t abandoned him, after all. Just like he hadn’t abandoned Thomas. Just like Thomas hadn’t abandoned him. Because that was the kind of thing that friends did.

  Real friends. The kind he wouldn’t have to leave behind. The kind who wouldn’t leave him behind.

  That’s so sweet, I think
I’m going to be sick, said Ilara in his head.

  Yeah, even you, Ilara, he thought. You could have run, but you stayed to look for us. So you’re my friend, too. Deal with it.

  I’m trying, she thought back, with amused scorn. It’s not easy.

  At last they reached a ladder and a hatch, which Dunk threw open to let in dawn light and rushing wind. They climbed out and onto the roof of the Firehawk, staggering against the flurrying gusts blowing along its hull. The rift gate had almost entirely swallowed the sky, a terrifying hurricane waiting to suck them in.

  Nearby, the Epsilon sat with its skids clamped to the hull, her ramp lying open. They stumbled across the surface of the Firehawk toward it. In the distance brooded the Mechanic battleships, but they dared not fire. When they reached the ramp, they hurried inside. Boston was screaming, “Epsilon! Go, go, go!” even before the last of them were halfway up.

  “Retracting ramp,” the Epsilon informed them calmly.

  “Combat Mode! Combat Mode!” Boston yelled.

  “YEEEEE-HAAA!” the Epsilon screamed, blasting forward so violently that Dunk almost tumbled out of the half-open ramp. Boston and Jack grabbed on to him long enough for the ramp to close, at which point the Epsilon’s big thrusters opened up and sent them all skidding along the cargo bay to gather in a heap at the end.

  Jack felt a sensation like he was a rubber band being pulled too hard apart. Then the rift gate closed around them, and they were gone.

  The rift gate was now so huge in the Firehawk’s viewscreen that the edges could no longer be seen. Gradius sat in the pilot’s seat and watched the Epsilon disappear into the sucking hole at its center. For an instant, the aircraft seemed to stretch out like putty, becoming impossibly long and thin, and then it disappeared, carrying Jack and the others with it.

  Alarms blared and the Firehawk shook as it struggled to keep its course after the explosion. Gradius smiled to himself. He was calm now. They had gotten away, and his own course was set. From memory, he tapped in the coordinates for Arcturus Prime on his console. The DESTINATION screen changed to show a huge white planet floating in space.