Galactic Battle

by Zac Harrison

  They checked the sprawling Junkyard, where salvaged technology lay in piles and spilled from trays, waiting for Master Tronic to sort it. They explored the Holo Auditorium, which was empty and unnervingly silent when it wasn’t full of students in an assembly, and the Library zones, which were crowded with students trying to fit in regular study between practicing for the Space Spectacular. Emmie was nowhere to be found.

  “Of course!” John said, snapping his fingers. “She’ll be in the hangar bay!”

  But she wasn’t, and Sergeant Jegger, the gruff three-legged Space Flight teacher, told them he hadn’t seen her since she’d taken the new t-dart out for a spin. Suddenly a nasty thought came to John — what if Mordant’s talk of “accidents” had been more than an idle threat? There was one place they needed to rule out right away, and John hoped against hope that he wouldn’t find her there.

  “But we do have to check,” he told Kaal. “She’d do the same for us. You know she would.”

  And so they rode the TravelTube to the very top of the ship, to the medical wing, where the Meteor Medics hovered back and forth tending to sick or injured students.

  But Dr. Kasaria, Hyperspace High’s doctor, shook her head. “Emmie Tarz? She’s not here, boys. What’s wrong? Has she had an accident?”

  “I was hoping you’d be able to tell us,” John said. “I guess no news is good news. Thanks for checking.”

  “This is getting us nowhere!” Kaal groaned as they headed back down. “Nobody’s seen Emmie. I wonder where Mordant is, for that matter!”

  “I guess we’d better call it a night,” John said, yawning. “At least we know she hasn’t been injured. Maybe she’ll be in a better mood tomorrow.”

  “Let’s get to the dorm, then — wait! Is that who I think it is?”

  The TravelTube’s doors had opened, to reveal a familiar Serve-U-Droid, caught in the act of taking a foil packet from one of the wall dispensers in the hallway.

  “There you go, G-Vez,” trilled Zepp’s voice from the dispenser’s speaker. “Thanks for your order!”

  G-Vez tried to hide the packet behind its little bulging back, but John had already seen what was written on it. “Yoko beans!” he exclaimed. “That’s Emmie’s favorite snack!”

  “Looks like someone’s trying to win her over,” Kaal said darkly, “and I think we both know who!”

  “Are those beans for Emmie?” John demanded.

  “I’m not telling,” G-Vez snapped. “Out of my way.”

  “No. Not until you tell us where Emmie is!”

  John moved to bar the way. G-Vez hovered for a moment, then suddenly shot between his knees and whizzed off down the hall, letting out an electronic raspberry as he went.

  “I can’t stand that droid,” Kaal muttered.

  “There’s only one more thing we can do,” John said firmly. “We’ll have to send her a Zip.”

  “Are you sure?” Kaal said, uncertain. “Zip Messages get projected in the air in front of you, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. What if she’s with a teacher or something? This might make it worse.”

  “I don’t think we have much choice,” John said miserably. “Besides, she’s already mad at us. This could be our only chance to make things right. Zepp, I need to send a Zip Message.”

  “Ready to take your message,” Zepp said, still speaking through the snack machine. “What do you want it to say?”

  John thought for a moment. “Emmie, what’s wrong? Kaal and I have no idea what we did. We need to talk. Come to our dorm as soon as possible. John and Kaal.”

  And now, John thought, I need to lie down before I fall over from exhaustion.

  But Emmie’s tearful rage was still filling his thoughts.

  Sleep would be a long way away.

  CHAPTER 7

  John woke to the sound of Zepp humming.

  “Huh?” he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Whazzat?”

  “Good morning, John,” Zepp said. “If you look directly above your bed, you’ll see a Zip Message.”

  John was instantly wide awake. “From Emmie?”

  “That’s correct.”

  John rubbed his eyes again and looked at the holographic letters scrolling above his bed, like a scrolling advertisement in neon light.

  JOHN AND KAAL. DON’T PLAY ALL INNOCENT WITH ME. YOU KNOW FULL WELL WHAT YOU DID. YOUR STUNT COULD HAVE LANDED ME IN THE MEDICAL WING. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? DO YOU WANT TO SPEND SPACE SPECTACULAR IN DETENTION? I’M BUSY WITH MY TEAM. BACK OFF AND DON’T BOTHER ME AGAIN.

  John felt as if someone had emptied a cold bucket of water over him. “That’s it?”

  “I’m afraid so. No attachments, no other messages. Sorry if it wasn’t what you wanted.”

  “Not your fault, Zepp. Thanks anyway.”

  Troubled thoughts raced through John’s mind as he dressed. “Stunt? Land her in the medical wing?” he said to himself. “How could she ever think we’d want to do that? I know she takes her zero-G acrobatics seriously, but this is way over the top!”

  Mordant must have poisoned her mind against us somehow, he thought. And if there was one thing the half-Gargon boy was good at, it was competitiveness. John had thought the Galactic Battle team, Zero-G Acrobatics team, and all the other teams were all on the same side, and everyone would get a chance to shine at the Space Spectacular. But now Mordant was trying to make it all about one-upmanship and my-team’s-better-than-yours.

  John punched his pillow angrily. “She’s my friend, you doofus! Leave her alone!”

  Kaal wandered out of the bathroom. “Are you having a fight with your bed?”

  “Just wishing it was Mordant’s face,” John grumbled. “Listen to this . . .” And he told Kaal about the message.

  “But we’re friends!” Kaal said, looking hurt. “She couldn’t possibly believe we’d hurt her on purpose — could she?”

  “She sounds pretty convinced to me.”

  “I wish we could speak to her,” Kaal said. He sighed. “We could talk it through, sort it all out.”

  “Me, too,” John said. “But we don’t have time to chase her down now. We need to practice.”

  Do we ever, he thought, as he activated the team sheet. The team needs all the practice it can get. Tomorrow all the families will be arriving for the Space Spectacular, and we’re still a total mess.

  “So what are we practicing with today?” Kaal asked. “LaserPros again, I hope?”

  “No,” John said, “the team sheet says we’re supposed to practice something called SonicArrows. Look.”

  The screen showed a holo-image of a slender, platinum-colored spear, covered with the imprint of fine circuitry. It began to vibrate, its entire length becoming a blur.

  “Looks more like a SonicJavelin,” Kaal said uneasily. “How do they work?”

  John clicked on the HELP icon, and Ton-3 appeared, holding one of the weapons. “The SonicArrow is one of the coolest weapons ever invented, an energy weapon that takes the ancient technology of the spear to new heights! Like the old-fashioned spear, it has to be thrown by hand, but once in the air, it flies using the power of refluxing diatronic sound waves, which are so high-pitched, you can’t hear a thing! SonicArrows speed up after they are thrown, so be careful where you launch them.”

  “That does sound pretty cool,” John said. “So you just pick them up and lob them at the target?”

  “It’s not as simple as that!” said Ton-3, wagging a cautionary finger. “SonicArrows have to be thrown in a single steady movement, so they do not wobble down their length. A wobbling SonicArrow is bad news!”

  “Why?” Kaal asked, suddenly looking very worried.

  “It sets up a feedback wave in the SonicArrow’s flight path. And it sounds like this.”

  The screech that came out of the team sheet made John’s knees b
uckle. It sounded like a cat eating a chili pepper while dragging its claws down a blackboard.

  “Ugh,” he said, turning off the sound. “Okay, I get it. If we throw them properly, we can’t hear them flying, but if we screw it up, they burst our eardrums.” That should encourage the team to learn pretty quick, he thought.

  “Come on, Kaal. It’s almost nine. Let’s go and meet the others.”

  “Do you think Kritta is still speaking to me?” Kaal asked. “After yesterday?”

  “Of course she is,” John reassured him. “We’re all part of a team!” He really hoped that what he was saying was true.

  Kaal paused as they left the dorm room. “Did you get oil on your hands down in the Belly last night?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  Kaal pointed at their dorm door. There were smudgy, oily handprints around the control panel. “I guess one of us must have gotten our hands dirty and not noticed,” he mused.

  They met the rest of the team in the Sonic Sports Hall (It will certainly deserve that name today, John thought), which had been reconfigured to a new shape.

  Instead of yesterday’s wide-open arena, it was now a long, narrow hallway. At the far end loomed the shapes of six Defendroids, but these ones weren’t made from metal. They were flat, plastic-looking targets, with little point values marked on their body parts in glowing numerals, like archery targets.

  John saw a row of SonicArrows lined up in a rack on the wall. Obviously Zepp had arranged the room for them before they even got here. Monix and the others were looking warily at the SonicArrows, clearly unsure what to make of them.

  I guess I better give them a demonstration, John thought.

  “Morning, team!” he said. “As you can see, we’ll be using SonicArrows today. You’re probably wondering how they work.”

  Feeling confident, John grabbed one of the slender shafts. It felt as light as a soap bubble and as flexible as a length of bamboo. “It’s very simple. All you have to do is pick one up, take aim, and throw!”

  He flung the SonicArrow as hard as he could. As it left his hand, it wobbled.

  An ear-piercing shriek rang out from the flying arrow. The members of the Galactic Battle team covered their ears and made pained faces.

  John’s arrow thwacked into the wall, a good ten feet away from the target he’d meant to hit, before falling with a clatter.

  “. . . being careful not to do that, of course.” He tried to laugh it off. “As you’ve just seen, you have to throw a SonicArrow just right, or it’ll wobble around and make a horrible noise. Here, watch how I do it this time.”

  He went and fetched the SonicArrow, took a deep breath, and aimed. He flung it. And again, the same awful noise tore through the air. Again, he missed the target completely.

  “Thanks, John. I think we all know how not to do it by now,” Monix said coldly.

  John shrugged while going to collect the SonicArrow. “Just because I’m team leader doesn’t mean I’m perfect!”

  “You can say that again,” muttered Monix.

  “Okay, why doesn’t someone else have a go?” John said. “How about you, Kritta?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” She smiled.

  Kritta gently took the SonicArrow from John’s hand, then spun on the spot and threw it with blinding speed, straight at the target.

  The arrow struck home, quivering in the Defendroid target’s head. Its entire flight had been totally silent and so fast it almost seemed to teleport there.

  “Wow,” John said, impressed. “You’re a natural!”

  “I was the champion under-twelves’ Stingshot thrower back on Hive-Seventeen,” Kritta admitted. “SonicArrows are a lot like Stingshots. Except less venomous. And more sonic.”

  “Okay, team, change of plan. Kritta’s going to teach you all how to throw a SonicArrow! Is that okay with you, Kritta?”

  “It’ll be my pleasure,” she said, batting her multifaceted eyes at him. Kaal shot John a jealous look.

  “It’s not my fault,” John whispered to him as the rest of the team lined up. “I haven’t done anything to encourage her!”

  “I know,” Kaal sighed. “I just wish she’d look at me like that, that’s all. Just once . . .”

  “All right, listen up!” Kritta yelled. “We’re going to start with the throwing stance. Hold your SonicArrow like this . . .”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, John was wishing he’d popped to the Junkyard to borrow some ear protectors. Hardly any member of the team could get the knack of throwing a SonicArrow properly. The noise was ear-splitting. Screeches, squeals, and screams echoed off the walls as arrow after arrow wobbled through the air. A rare few struck their targets, but most went glancing off the walls and rattled to the floor.

  This team was just plain bad. Despair was beginning to gnaw at the pit of John’s stomach, like a bad case of indigestion. Kritta was outstanding, of course, but Kaal was so distracted, he could barely remember which was the right end of his SonicArrows, Monix threw them with sheer brute force and no precision at all, and poor Dyfi had to use both hands to even pick them up. When she threw them, they traveled about ten feet, making a pitiful squeak like the air being let out of a balloon.

  Tarope, though, was learning. He was nowhere near as bad as the others, and with Kritta patiently helping him, he was even getting to be pretty good. More of his arrows were hitting than missing, and the ones that weren’t thrown right sounded more like mewing kittens than screeching tomcats.

  “Not bad!” Kritta said, as Tarope’s latest throw thudded into the Defendroid target, right in the middle of its chest. “Let’s try something a little bit more advanced for your last shot, okay?”

  “Fine with me!” Tarope said, hopping from one foot to the other in his excitement.

  “Okay. Try jumping up in the air and throwing right at the top of your jump. If your opponent’s blocking, you can sometimes hit them from above.”

  Tarope leaped, sailing into the air on his long, froggy legs, and threw.

  The SonicArrow never made a sound. One moment it was leaving his hand, the next it was jiggling on the target.

  Tarope did a second leap, this time punching the air. “YES!”

  “Nice one, Tarope!” John called out. Too bad he couldn’t be that good with the LaserPros, he thought. He’s really cheered up now.

  Next, Kritta moved to Kaal. “Time for your last shot,” she told him. “Just relax. You’re bound to hit the target sooner or later.”

  But Kaal didn’t look relaxed. He glanced at Tarope, who was still celebrating, and a determined look came over his face.

  He crouched down, holding his SonicArrow tight, then leaped up into the air like Tarope had. He threw the SonicArrow with a wild yell.

  Obviously, in Kaal’s imagination, the SonicArrow was somehow meant to fly miraculously straight and wham into the target’s head, scoring maximum points and impressing Kritta.

  In reality, however, John could only watch in horror, as the arrow screeched up through the air, banged off the ceiling, flipped over, and fell point-downward into Kritta’s foot. The screech that came out of her mouth was louder than the sound from any of the SonicArrows.

  “Oh no!” Kaal stammered. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen . . .”

  “You IDIOT!” she howled, clutching her foot and hopping up and down. “You big, clumsy, Derrilian oaf!”

  “I was just trying to do a jump shot like Tarope. I thought you’d be pleased!”

  “Um,” John said, as he saw the door slide open. “Guys . . .”

  An Examiner hovered into the sports hall and made straight for Kaal.

  “KAAL TARTARU, YOU HAVE ENDANGERED A FELLOW STUDENT WITH A WEAPON. VIOLATION OF RULE EIGHT-TWO-SEVEN. PUNISHMENT IS DETENTION.” It swiveled on the spot and hover
ed back out again.

  John had to wonder how the Examiner had found out so quickly. Were the robots watching every single room from some mysterious central security station?

  A second white robot came scooting into the room, but this wasn’t an Examiner. John recognized the fireball insignia on its chest. It was one of the Meteor Medics, the trauma team of Hyperspace High.

  The Meteor Medic scanned Kritta, and then said gravely, “She needs immediate treatment. I’m taking her up to the medical wing.”

  “Shouldn’t one of us go with her?” said Kaal.

  “Absolutely not,” the medic said coldly. It lifted Kritta gently onto a stretcher made of a manipulator beam, then backed out of the room, taking her with it.

  “This seems like a good time to take a break,” John said wearily. “Get some lunch, everyone. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”

  After Kritta’s injury and the failed SonicArrow attempts, John’s team was more than ready to stop.

  Alone in the empty hall, John wandered down to where the targets stood. They had recorded the number of times they’d been hit and by which student. Kritta and Tarope had scored over twenty each, but Monix had eight, John five, and Dyfi and Kaal had no hits at all.

  It was too much. He spread his arms wide and yelled at the top of his voice, “Aaaaaargh! The Space Spectacular is TOMORROW! AND THIS TEAM IS A TOTAL WASHOUT! WHAT ON EARTH AM I GOING TO DO?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Leaving the Sonic Sports Hall, John set off toward the Center, then paused and turned back in the other direction. It was no good; he couldn’t face spending even more time with his useless team. What he needed right now was to be on his own.

  Angrily, he strode toward the dorm room he shared with Kaal. Why is he so obsessed with Kritta, and being such a girl-crazy goof? he thought. Doesn’t he know a lost cause when he sees one? Was it really only two days ago that Kaal had been so determined to impress his parents, and not this insect-like girl? There had to be some way to snap Kaal out of this.