“Ugh. Like, that was totally lame,” Miz snarled, which basically echoed what the others had been thinking.
“We got a problem,” Mech said.
“Oh, you think?” Cal replied. “What gave it away?”
“What the fonk happened to your face?” Mech asked.
“Space wasps,” said Cal.
“If you think it’s bad now, you should’ve seen it a few minutes ago,” said Loren. “It was hideous.”
Cal touched his bloated cheek. “I wouldn’t say ‘hideous,’ exactly…”
“No. You’re right,” Loren said. “It was… grotesque. Miz? Would you say ‘grotesque’?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t even bring myself to look,” Miz said. “I was like, ‘If I look at him, I’m totally going to throw up.’”
“I’ve seen you eat people’s faces off!” Cal yelped. “But just looking at mine was going to make you puke?”
“It was the eye,” Miz said. “It was so huge and so—” She heaved and gagged. “Ew. I don’t even want to think about it.”
Cal sighed and turned back to Mech. “So, that’s what you missed,” he said. “Now, what’s the problem? You know, beyond being slaves on a fonking mustard planet.”
“I overheard that Manacle guy talking,” Mech said. “I know why he wants the wasps.”
“Is it to ruin a giant’s picnic?” Cal guessed. “Because I’d actually kind of be into that.”
“He’s going to attack Zertex,” Mech said.
Cal raised his eyebrows, then lowered them, then brought them together in a knot above his nose.
Then he repeated all that, before finally offering a response.
“Is that bad?”
“I thought they were on the same side?” said Loren. “Konto said they were working together.”
“Guess they had a falling out,” said Mech.
“A double-cross!” Garunk gasped. “So cool!”
Everyone ignored him. Especially Loren, who made a point of ignoring him twice as hard as the others.
“Why wasps?” she wondered. “Zertex has thousands of fighter ships. What good are a few wasps going to do?”
“Can wasps even fly in space?” Cal wondered. “Space wasps, I mean. I know regular wasps can’t.” He shrugged. “Actually, I don’t know that. But I’m going to go ahead and assume.”
“They ain’t sending them into space,” said Mech. “They’re dropping them on some Zertex-controlled moon.”
Loren stiffened just enough for the others to notice. “What moon?” she asked.
“I couldn’t hear exactly,” Mech said. “But it sounded like Noosh.”
Loren and Garunk exchanged a look of horror. “Moosh?” Loren spluttered.
“Yeah, maybe,” Mech confirmed. “You know it?”
“It’s where the Academy’s based,” Loren said.
“Great!” said Cal. “Then he’ll take out all their troops before they’ve even qualified.” He nodded, almost admiringly. “You have to admit, it’s a smart move.”
“Kids go to the Academy, Cal,” Loren pointed out. “It’s a school. They’re children.”
Cal clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “OK, that’s less good,” he admitted. “Could he maybe just not be aware of that fact?”
“He knows they’re kids,” Mech said. “Hell, I think that’s why he picked it as a target.”
“Ah, fonk,” Cal muttered. “I was hoping we could just send him an anonymous note letting him know, but I guess that’s out the window.”
He puffed out his cheeks. “Well, someone’s going to have to stop him. Any volunteers?”
Garunk thrust up a hand. Cal grinned happily. “Oh, thank fonk. I thought it was going to be up to us.”
He took Garunk’s other hand and shook it warmly. “Best of luck, buddy. Go give him hell.”
Garunk’s squidgy features formed something like a frown. “Uh, I don’t have a ship,” he pointed out.
“That’s fine. Technically, neither do we. You’ll figure it out. You just have to believe.”
“Cal,” said Loren.
“And, you know, escape and find a ship. Just those three things,” Cal continued.
“Cal!” Loren said again.
Cal groaned. “Yeah. Yeah, I know,” he said. “Still, it’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Just once, to have someone else handle it?”
He turned back to Mech. “Where’s the Untitled?”
“Still on the Harvester ship,” Mech said. “But I don’t know how long it’s on-planet for. Looked to me like they were getting ready to leave.”
“OK, here’s the plan,” Cal said. “We get the fonk out of here before those toothy shizznods come back, we grab Splurt, we get the ship, we go stop Manacle doing whatever the fonk he’s going to do with his wasps.”
“And how do we actually do any of that?” Loren asked.
Cal waved a hand and pulled a face that suggested they shouldn’t worry too much about the details. “We’ll figure it out. Everyone good with the general plan?” He looked across their faces. “Loren?”
“Let’s do it.”
“Miz?”
“What?” Miz asked.
“Are you good with that plan?”
Miz shrugged. “I wasn’t listening. Do I get to kill a bunch of people?”
“Very probably,” Cal said.
“Then I’m totally in,” Miz confirmed.
“Nice,” said Cal. “Garunk, how abou—?”
“This is the greatest moment of my life!” Garunk squealed.
“I’m going to take that as a ‘yes,’” said Cal. He wafted his hands in front of his face for a few seconds, making a clearing in the gas fog. “OK, troops, let’s go find that Darth Vader knock-off and show him what happens when you fonk with—”
A metal fist smashed across Cal’s jaw, spinning him to the floor. Mech grunted his disapproval as his arm-blasters extended and took aim at Loren and Miz.
“Sorry, man,” he said. “I really am. But I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
Twenty-One
Cal manipulated his jaw back into position, opened and closed his mouth a few times to test its functionality, then curved it into a grimace of disappointment.
“OK, Mech. If that’s how you want to play it,” he growled. He made a move to roll up his shirt sleeves, then remembered he was wearing a t-shirt. He pushed the t-shirt sleeves up onto his shoulder, but the effect wasn’t quite the one he was going for, and they both immediately fell back into their original position.
Cal raised his fists and tucked his chin in close to his chest. “You want to do this? Let’s do it,” he said.
“Don’t, man,” Mech warned. “I’ll stop you. They’ll make me stop you.”
He cocked his head. Concern flickered behind his eyes. “Miz, look out!” he warned, then lights four and five illuminated on her collar and she fell to the floor, her fur standing on end, her eyes screwed into slits.
“Help her!” Cal yelped.
“On it,” said Loren, dropping to her knees at Mizette’s side. Miz’s back arched. Her claws carved trenches in the stone floor. There was nothing Loren could do but hold her head and stroke her fur and whisper words of reassurance.
“That wasn’t me,” Mech said, his voice cracking. “I swear, that wasn’t me.”
Cal ran at him, roaring. He jumped, hands grasping for the seam where Mech’s neck met his torso. That looked like a weak spot. Or a weaker spot, at least. If he could shove a hand down there and grab some wires, he might be able to slow him down.
An overhead fist-strike smashed Cal to the floor. All the air in his body was replaced by a sort of mute shock, and he lay there for a moment wondering why he was on the floor, and what had happened to put him there.
“OK, OK, that was a cheap shot,” Cal said, getting back to his feet. “But you’re going to have to do better than that, Mech.”
Cal ran at him again, fists windmilling theatrically. Little
did Mech know that this was merely a distraction. Cal was going to slide through his legs, clamber up onto his back, then—
WHAM.
A backhand from Mech lifted Cal off his feet and sent him hurtling across the cavern. He collided with the wall over by Orange Hat, then landed heavily on his ass.
“Ooh, my fonking coccyx!” Cal protested.
Beside him, Orange Hat made a very deliberate attempt to ignore everything and everyone, and continued hammering away at the wall.
“Give me that,” Cal snapped, wrenching the pick from the Nogem’s grasp. Orange Hat tried to grab it back, but Cal held it out of reach above his head.
“That’s mine!” the Nogem protested.
“I’m just borrowing it for a second. Jesus. You’ll get it back. Calm down.”
Orange Hat lunged, his mouth opening wide. Cal squealed as the Nogem bit him on the crotch. He turned, trying to pull free of Orange Hat’s bite, but only succeeded in lifting him off the ground and twirling him in a wide circle.
“Aargh! Fonk off! Stop that!”
“Gmme m’ pck bck,” Orange Hat mumbled.
“OK, OK, here!” Cal cried. The pickaxe fell to the floor with a clank, and Orange Hat released his grip.
“Thank you,” the Nogem said.
As he bent to retrieve the pick, Cal grabbed him, hoisted him above his head, ran several feet toward the cloud of mist, then tossed him with all his might.
“Little bamston,” Cal grunted, as he watched the startled Nogem go tumbling into the fog. Grabbing the pick, he gestured to Garunk. “If he comes back, kick the shizz out of him, OK?”
Garunk saluted. “Yes, sir!”
“I mean it, Garunk. I’m trusting you here. My balls are in your hands.”
“Ooh, cheeky!” Garunk sniggered.
Cal sighed, gave the pick a twirl, then lined himself up with Mech. Miz’s screams had abated for now, and Loren was cradling her head, rocking her back and forth.
Loren’s eyes met Cal’s. Something seemed to pass between them and a look of horror flitted across Loren’s face, before being swept aside by a grim acceptance. She nodded, just once, then turned her attention back to Miz.
“OK, big guy. You’ve been asking for this for a long time,” Cal said. He raised a finger. “Wait. Let me correct that.”
His eyes narrowed. A smirk curved the corners of his mouth. “A long space time.”
Mech groaned. “Aw man, now you’re making me want to hit you.”
“Good. Then bring it on, you robotic piece of shizz,” Cal said, gripping the handle of the pick with both hands. “Let’s do this.”
He raced at Mech, somehow managed to duck under a scything hook, and swung the pick at his back. Metal sparked against metal, and Cal let out a little cheer of triumph before Mech’s top half rotated one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, and an arm clothes-lined Cal to the ground.
“Don’t do this, man,” Mech said. His foot raised. “Look out!”
Cal rolled clear just as Mech’s foot slammed down. He swung up with the pick, but the angle meant he didn’t have the leverage to get any power behind it. Mech caught the weapon, wrenched it from his grip, then bent the metal points together until they formed an uneven oval shape.
With a whirring of hydraulics, he tossed the pick off into the gas fog. Cal heard it clatter somewhere in the distance.
“Ooh, Orange Hat is not going to be happy about that,” he grimaced.
“Stay down,” Mech warned, but Cal completely disregarded this and got to his feet.
Breathing deeply, Cal held a hand up. “Just give me a second here,” he wheezed. “I just need a minute, then we can get right back to it.”
Mech’s foot jackhammered into his chest, sending him cartwheeling into the mist. His fading screams reverberated around the side chamber, then ended with a crunch.
For a moment, there was silence. Then, faintly:
“OK, so that was just mean.”
Mech turned to Loren. “Make him stop,” he pleaded. “You gotta make him stop.”
Loren gave a sad smile, then a shake of her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Cal emerged from the fog, eyes streaming, shoulders lowered. He collided with Mech’s back and lashed out with a flurry of punches, all of which were entirely ineffectual.
Mech’s elbow smashed into his face, shattering his nose. Now fully blinded by tears, Cal staggered back, choking on blood and gas. He swung wildly with a right hook, missed Mech by a clear foot, then was floored by a backhand slap.
“Please, man. They won’t let me stop until you do,” Mech said, his metal bottom jaw trembling with the effort of fighting the effects of the control chip. “They’ll kill you. I’ll kill you.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to kill me, Mech,” Cal said, standing again. “Because you know you can’t hurt me, right? Not really. Because, I don’t know if you remember?”
He twitched his face and his broken nose cricked back into place.
“But I heal really fast. So, if you want to put me down, you’re going to have to try a whole lot harder than that.”
A fist smashed into Cal’s ribs like a wrecking ball, shattering bone and all but turning his lungs inside out. Instinctively, Cal raised both arms to cover his head, but another hydraulic-assisted punch broke through his defenses, and pain exploded inside his head.
He swung—blindly, hopelessly—and grimaced as his fist connected with Mech’s chest plate. The effect was like an egg hitting a tank, and with almost identical repercussions for both parties. Cal blinked through the tears and the brain fog and saw that his hand was no longer the shape it should be.
Fonk. His poor fingers. They’d had a hell of a day.
“Stop this,” Mech grunted, but Cal stumbled toward him, blood oozing from various holes in his face, many of which hadn’t been there a few moments before. “You’ve got to stop this.”
“Fonk you, you big shizznod,” Cal said, spitting blood and something more solid. A tooth, maybe, or possibly part of his jaw. He didn’t care to know which. “That the best you got? Magic-healing power, remember? You can’t stop me!”
Mech’s fist hammered the top of Cal’s skull, compressing his head into his shoulders and shaving a full three inches off his height.
Cal performed a series of crab-like sideways staggers, crisscrossing in front of Mech for a moment. The floor undulated beneath him, rising like storm waves under his feet.
And then, he was horizontal. He wasn’t quite sure how that had happened, but he figured he could probably work it out, given enough time.
There was, he reckoned, not a part of him that wasn’t currently in pain. Sure, some parts were worse than others—his elbow, for example, had gotten off pretty lightly, and the toes on his left foot were only lightly throbbing—but there wasn’t a single part of him that was entirely pain-free.
He should lie there for a minute, he thought. Just for a moment while he got his breath back and the pain ebbed away. He didn’t want Mech to hit him again. More than anything, he thought, he didn’t want Mech to hit him again.
And yet, more than anything, he had to.
Cal rolled onto his front, spat out a wad of something that belonged firmly inside him, then started to get up. “My grandmother hits harder than you,” he said.
“Stay down, man,” Mech hissed. “I’m begging you.”
Cal made it to his knees and raised his mangled hand. The fingers, while still twisted, were gradually easing back into place.
“Be right with you,” Cal muttered through his bloated lips. “Then you’re in for it, you big metal—”
“No,” Mech whispered, as his fist came up all by itself and bludgeoned Cal to the ground.
“Please,” he said, watching his foot raise, hearing the hiss of the hydraulics as it prepared to stomp.
“Don’t.”
The foot came down on Cal’s back. Again. Again. Again. Bone cracked. Organs ruptured. Mech tried to screw his
eyes shut, but they wouldn’t let him. They wouldn’t let him look away as he stamped on the now lifeless body, punishing it for its defiance.
At last, he stopped. They stopped.
Mech took a few staggering steps back and stared in mute, helpless horror at what he had done. Because it had been him, he knew. Sure, the Harvesters were pulling the trigger, but he was the weapon. It was his hands and feet that had committed the actual act.
“Ah… fonk,” Mech croaked. He turned to Loren, eyes wide and imploring. “He didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop! Why didn’t you make him stop?”
Loren didn’t look at Mech. She didn’t look at Cal, either. She couldn’t. She just whispered quiet reassurances in Mizette’s ear, rocking her head gently back and forth.
“Uh… what does this mean?” asked Garunk, his voice uncharacteristically flat. “Is this supposed to happen? It, uh, it doesn’t really feel like a fun adventure anymore.”
A voice crackled from Mech’s forearm. “Was he telling the truth? About the healing?” it demanded.
Mech ground his jaws together. “Yeah.”
“Intriguing,” said the Harvester. “His remains may be worthy of study. Bring the body.”
Mech tensed. His eyes went to the broken rag-doll figure on the floor, blood pooling in a puddle around him. “I… I…”
“Bring it,” the Harvester hissed, and Mech’s towering frame snapped to rigid attention. He bent and caught Cal by the back of his pants, then hoisted him a few feet off the ground. Cal folded limply, his arms and feet dragging across the stone floor.
“I’m sorry,” Mech whispered, although it wasn’t clear who he was aiming it at.
And then, he went clanking out of the chamber, and was swallowed by the gas.
Garunk waited until the sound of Mech’s footsteps had faded, then turned to Loren. She hadn’t looked up from Miz.
“What’s happening?” Garunk asked. “This… I don’t…” He cleared his throat. “I think I want to go home.”
Loren nodded slowly. “You’re not the only one,” she whispered.
The lights on Miz’s collar dropped back to three. She opened her eyes with a gasp, scowled briefly at Loren, then noticed the wetness on her cheeks and the redness in her eyes.
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