Jack Strong and the Red Giant

by Heys Wolfenden

  If only I had a rocket pack or some rocket boots, Jack thought in frustration.

  WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

  Before Jack knew what was going on he was hurtling through space like a human comet.

  It felt like there were little rockets in his feet, though there were no flames or sparks of any kind coming out, just a faint blue blur.

  Jack rocketed past asteroids and little bits of space dust and quickly caught up with Padget who was still spinning wildly.

  “Padget!” Jack shouted, grabbing hold of him to stop him from spinning. “Padget it’s me, are you okay?”

  “No, of course I’m not okay,” he shouted. “I can’t stop being sick and I’m floating through space. If my father was here!”

  “Look he's not here okay,” said Jack. “You are going to have to get used to it and start doing things by yourself. We are in a lot of danger and we both need to stay calm.”

  Padget opened his mouth to say something, only for a small ball of yellow vomit to plop out instead. Jack dodged it just in time as it ballooned in size, splattering against a fist-sized ball of space rock.

  “Listen Padget, if we are going to get out of this you are going to have to stop panicking and listen to me, can you do that?”

  Padget nodded silently, his pea-green face looking even greener than usual.

  “Okay, I need you to close your eyes for a moment and think of rocket boots.”

  “What’s a rocket boot?” he asked.

  “You know ROCKETS?”

  Padget blinked, his face devoid of all expression.

  “You must have rockets on your planet if you have fireworks.”

  Padget’s face was blank.

  Where has he been living, in a cave?

  “Okay,” said Jack. “They are like little planes, but with fire coming out of the bottom. But I want you think of these in your feet.”

  “You want me to think of setting my feet on fire! Are you crazy?”

  “No, of course not. Just trust me on this, think of fire coming from your feet, but fire that moves you forward.”

  “Listen, if you seriously expect me to…”

  “Look, your princeliness,” said Jack, “we don’t have a lot of time here. We are floating through space towards our certain death and getting further and further away from the spaceship. You are just going to have to trust me on this. Close your eyes and think of those rockets on your feet. Now!”

  Padget had only just finished grumbling in agreement when his feet exploded with speed.

  WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

  Padget shot off like a huge green rocket, speeding further and further into space, Jack following.

  “Padget!” shouted Jack. “Turn around! YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!”

  But Padget wouldn’t listen. He continued to fly faster and faster and further and further away, twisting this way and that, over and under asteroids, dwarf planets and comets. He even caught some lumps of space rock and chucked them back towards Jack.

  In his ear Jack could hear him laughing and screaming with delight.

  It took a while but eventually Jack caught up with him.

  “What are you doing?” Jack shouted. “Stop being stupid. We have got to get back to the spaceship!”

  “Oh, stop being boring Jack,” said Padget. “Have some fun for a change.”

  “I'm not being boring. I'm just trying to get us out of this mess. Now come back to the ship before it’s too late.”

  “What ship?” asked Padget.

  “What do you mean what ship?” asked Jack, turning around and pointing back to where the spaceship was. “THAT SHIP!”

  But there was nothing there at all. Nothing but a shining sea of stars on a pitch black canvass.

  “It was there a minute ago,” said Jack. “I’m… I'm sure it was.”

  He checked again. Maybe he was looking in the wrong place. He looked everywhere with his space glasses. Zooming in and out, this way and that, over thousands, millions, even billions of miles. But there was still no spacecraft to be seen. It had vanished without a trace.

  They were lost in space, with no map and no idea which way to go next. All he could see now were the big, dark asteroids swirling all around them like a shoal of hungry piranhas. He didn’t even know how much air they had left.

  Chapter 10: Trapped

  The small asteroid crumpled into a million tiny fragments.

  “Will you please stop firing the weapons, Xylem? There could be life on those asteroids.”

  Xylem looked at Vyleria, his lips curled-up into a snarl. “Why should I? You're not the captain.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said, walking right up to his face. “But it’s the right thing to do. First of all, it’s dangerous. The ship could get damaged by all the exploding debris. Second, the life down there doesn’t deserve to be target practice for a numbskull like you.”

  “What life?” he hissed, pincers twitching.

  “Bacteria! Algae!”

  Xylem let out a few throaty clicks and whistles. He seemed to be laughing at her. “Bacteria cannot think. Not intelligent. No pain. Not alive.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Inferior.”

  “Oh yeah, and who’s the judge of that, YOU? How would you like it if someone stuck you in a jar or blasted your home to pieces?”

  “It would never happen,” wheezed Xylem. “We are too ssstrong. We would resissst!”

  “Well, maybe that’s what you think on your planet, but on mine we have different ideas about ‘strength’ and what constitutes 'life'. Like love, understanding, compassion, creativity, intelligence, science. It doesn’t take much of a brain to press the trigger, but it sure does not to.”

  Xylem made several more clicking sounds. He was laughing at her again. “You sssound weak. Our armiesss would crush you.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, stepping so close to him that she could smell his foul breath. “Try it! Now are you going to stop firing that gun or do I have to stop you?”

  Xylem glared at her with a face full of teethy rage. Vyleria wondered whether he was considering using the gun on her, but after a few seconds he stepped away from the space cannon, a huge smirk crossing his thin lips. “No need,” he hissed. “Want to be alliesss, yesss.”

  Vyleria didn’t trust him one bit. He shifted more than the sands of the Great Kalamarahi desert. Since discovering how to pilot the spaceship they had also discovered more weapons, as well as a 3-D map of the solar system and the rest of the galaxy. Somehow she suspected that Xylem had discovered these eons ago but had neglected to tell them. He was also probably the reason why she and Ros hadn't appeared in the control room in the first place. She would have to keep a close watch on him that was for sure.

  “Hey, where’s Jack?” asked Ros, tapping away at one of the consoles.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s vanished. I can’t find him anywhere.”

  “He can’t have just disappeared. Are you sure you’re using that thing properly?”

  “Of course I am. We discovered the ship’s on-board scanner at the same time, remember? I’ve checked every room and every floor. Grunt’s the only one on board.”

  “Well, where else could he be?” asked Vyleria.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hang on, what if…”

  “Yes?”

  “What if he’s not on the ship at all, what if he’s found his way off it. Could you scan for life forms in space?”

  “Yes, but really, I don’t think someone like him would be capable of…”

  “What is it?” asked Vyleria.

  “Life forms. Everywhere. All about us. Closing fast.”

  “Is it Jack?”

  “No, it’s something else. There’s so many. It can't be. That's impossible.”

  Suddenly a surge of oil-like material exploded out of one of the asteroids in front of them, engulfing the ship in a huge
, black wave.

  “What’s going on?” asked Vyleria.

  “I don't know,” said Ros. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  BOOM!

  Vyleria turned around. The weapons console vibrated around Xylem as he began to fire wildly into the black goo as it squidged, squirmed and swirled all around them. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  A few small gaps appeared in the sludge, but they filled up again in a matter of seconds.

  He flicked to the next weapon and then the next and the next, wildly firing sonic cannons, lasers, I-bombs and disintegrators as well as a great many others Vyleria didn't know the names of.

  BOOM!

  The spaceship shook like it had been hit by canon fire.

  BOOM!

  And again.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The vibrations were unceasing.

  “WILL YOU STOP FIRING YOU IDIOT!” yelled Vyleria, her eyes blazing. “Can’t you see you’re firing at us?”

  BOOM!

  Still he continued, unleashing a torrent of fire into the squirming black mass.

  “XYLEM!” She shouted again.

  He ignored her.

  “XYLEM!”

  Still he continued, his face contorted with glee, with rage.

  She had to stop this. Reaching under his arms, she wrenched him out of the weapons console and threw him roughly to the floor.

  He got to his feet, his face a mixture of pain, rage and embarrassment.

  “What are you doing?” he screeched. “How dare you!”

  Vyleria looked into the predatory depths of his eyes. “I’m not going to let you destroy this ship Xylem. The black stuff out there is reflecting our weapons’ fire. Fire one more time and I’ll throw you out into space with the rest of the goo. Do you understand me?”

  “Yesss,” he hissed, skulking away to the back of the control room, his burning eyes never once taking their gaze from Vyleria.

  “Do you have any ideas Ros?” she asked.

  “Oh, now you want my help,” sneered Ros. “You were quite content before to just please yourself.”

  “Look, I’m sorry okay,” she said. “I'm just trying to get us out of this mess.”

  “Well, we could try to fly out of this stuff,” he said. “How tough is it?”

  “Strong enough to repel weapons fire, but let’s try.”

  Vyleria tried to move the spaceship, but nothing happened. They couldn’t accelerate or reverse; they couldn’t even move the ship left or right.

  They were stuck.

  “Any other ideas?” Vyleria asked.

  “We could try some of the other weapons,” Ros said.

  “It's a waste of time. The others haven't worked so far, so I doubt they will. Besides, it’s not worth the risk. If we damage the spaceship we may be trapped here with no way to escape.”

  “Okay well, do you have any better ideas?” asked Ros.

  She thought for a moment. “Well first of all, we need to know where we are.”

  “That’s ridiculous. We’re where we were before, of course.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because. Where else would we be?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly what?”

  “That’s precisely my point, Ros. We could be anywhere.”

  “But how? We can’t have moved. We didn’t feel or see anything.”

  “This ship Ros, is the most advanced spaceship I’ve ever been in but we’re still trapped.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “My point is that if we can be trapped this easily, then it follows that we can be moved or taken somewhere else just as easily too, and still not know about it.”

  “Okay, then how do we find out where we are? We can’t use the weapons to blast our way out.”

  “What about the star map?” asked Vyleria. “That should tell us where we are. This ship probably uses some kind of advanced radar, echo-location technology. It's worth a try in any case.”

  “Fine, let’s do it.”

  Vyleria brought-up the star-map straight away. She saw the sun, the blue planet, several other gas giants, and an asteroid field. Their spaceship was nestled in the bowels of one large, cavernous asteroid, the black oil-like material swirling all around it.

  “Look!” shouted Ros.

  Vyleria looked at the view screen. The black goo that was caked all around the spaceship was now starting to solidify and turn into some kind of rock.

  They were being buried alive, entombed.

  Hours passed like days.

  Vyleria wished she could say that they came together in a time of crisis, but they didn’t. Vyleria ran her hands through her hair as all around they yelled and argued, bickered and fought. What was she going to do? How was she going to get them out of this mess? Were they going to be stuck here forever?

  Then without warning the rock-like material suddenly turned into a black soup again and careered off into space.

  They were free.

  Released from its iron grip, they at once shot out of their asteroid-prison at maximum speed and headed for the stars.

  Chapter 11: Lost in Space

  Jack and Padget stood on a peanut-shaped asteroid, dim silhouettes against a huge blue spot that loomed ever larger on the horizon. The darkness seemed to swallow them up. Even with the gas giant and billions of stars for company, space felt dark to Jack. And lonely too.

  They had been on this asteroid for ages now and still there was no sign of their spaceship. How long had passed since they'd gotten lost? Hours certainly. Days? His stomach rumbled with hunger, his lips were rock-dry with thirst and his eyes drooped for sleep.

  Lucky for them though his fears about the oxygen supply had failed to materialise. It seemed like it would last forever. Their mag-boots still worked just as fine on the hard rock of the asteroid as they had done on their spaceship. Which was handy since they were currently hovering above a one-thousand-foot precipice with a bunch of jagged rocks at the bottom. They also weren’t in the slightest bit cold, a wave of warm air coursing about their spacesuits.

  As time passed Jack grew more and more worried. He would have panicked and fallen into a slum of despair, but for the fact that Padget was doing all of his panicking for him. And the more he panicked the more he talked, and the more he talked the more he panicked.

  “Jack,” he whined, his thick lips blubbering, “Jack, if you get me out of this I’ll give you some money, I swear.”

  This was nothing new. So far in between Padget’s cursings and protests he’d promised Jack an absolute fortune in land and wealth from the vast and limitless treasuries of Paldovia. Whether he could deliver on any of his promises Jack wasn’t sure.

  “Jack,” he sobbed again, “I’m hungry.”

  “I know,” said Jack. “I’m starving too, but talking about it won’t make it any better, it will only make it worse. If we are to get out of here then we have to keep calm and stop panicking.”

  “Well, it’s your fault we are here in the first place,” sulked Padget, his bottom lip dropping almost to his chin.

  “How do you work that one out?” asked Jack. “I was trying to rescue you!”

  “Some rescue! We’re completely lost.”

  “That’s not my fault. If you hadn’t flown away we wouldn’t have lost sight of the spaceship.”

  “If we were back on Paldovia my father would have had you sent to one of the ore refineries for this.”

  “Well we are not on Paldovia, your Princeliness,” said Jack. “And your daddy isn’t here. So until then you are just going to have to be PATIENT. Can you do that?”

  “I guess,” Padget mumbled.

  Jack wondered how long this new-found patience would last. Probably as long as all the other times.

  The large asteroid they were on gave them a great view of the asteroid field that ringed the blue gas giant. Jack’s faint hope was that if their spaceship went in front of the blue planet then they would s
ee its silhouette as it did so. The problem with this theory though, was that even if they did happen to see their spaceship they probably wouldn’t be able to get there in time before it flew off again. Their rocket boots might be fast, but they couldn’t travel hundreds of thousands of miles in a few seconds and then there was the incredible speed of their spaceship to think of and the fact that they had no way of communicating with them. Ever since they had gotten lost Jack had tried on numerous occasions to contact Vyleria and Ros, but so far no one had responded. It was like they had completely vanished.

  But a bad plan is better than no plan at all, Jack thought, and besides, Padget’s only strategy was to crumple up into a big ball of despair and wait tearfully for the end.

  So there they waited, arguing and edging ever closer to despair, two silhouettes set against the giant blue canvass behind them.

  Hours passed like days, fear rising in Jack's chest like a tidal wave.

  Every now and again he would look as far as he could with his space glasses in the hope of catching sight of their spaceship. Jack had lost count of how many times he’d done this. It was unlikely that he’d see anything, but he had to try.

  Then he saw something.

  There was a glowing light on one of the larger asteroids further off to the right.

  At first he thought that it was the sunlight glinting off the ice again.

  He focused his glasses.

  Whatever it was it seemed to be moving.

  He thought he was seeing things, that the hunger and fatigue had gotten to him, that he was seeing some kind of space mirage. “Padget,” he said, “can you have a look at that asteroid over there?”

  “Food… food… all mine… food,” Padget muttered to himself.

  “Padget, wake up,” said Jack, shaking him by the shoulders. “I need your help.”

  “Fooooood…”

  “PADGET!”

  Padget’s eyes slowly opened. “Oh no, it’s gone, its gone – Jack what do you want?”

  “Have a look at that over there will you?”

  “Have a look at what?” he asked grumpily.