by Mike Ploof
I blasted it with missiles, but it flew through every explosion unharmed.
“If that thing hits us, we’re screwed!” Purshia warned.
“Val, fire multiple missiles fifty feet to the left of that thing! When they’re in range, detonate!”
She did so without question. I launched a barrage as well. When they were close to the missile, we detonated them. The blast sent the enemy missile off course, and a moment later Purshia confirmed that stealth mode had been achieved.
We changed course, and the fighters following us split up, going in different directions. Meanwhile, the big missile had recovered, but it could no longer sense us and simply continued on its programmed trajectory. Once we were safely away from the planet’s gravity well, we shot through space at hyperspeed.
Val and I joined Ella and Purshia on the bridge, and we celebrated our escape.
“Damn, that was close,” said Ella, fanning herself and laughing giddily.
“Isn’t it always?” I replied.
We set a course for Earth, which would take three days, even at top speed. I tuned into the weather channel and cringed when I saw the massive hurricane headed toward the Virgin Islands. ETA: 46 hours.
“Damnit!”
“Is it the hurricane?” Ella said with deep concern. She brought it up on her own screen.
“Forty-six Earth hours?” she said and glanced at me. “Our trip will take three Earth days, correct?”
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “I just hope they get everybody out of there in time.”
“Can’t you make this ship go faster?” she asked Purshia.
“We’re at max speed.”
“There are faster ships, right?” I said thoughtfully.
“Yes.”
“Let’s get one that can get us there quicker.”
“Harry, you’re talking about a starship with star-phasing technology.”
“So?”
“So… you’re crazy. Only highly-guarded military bases house those.”
“I don’t want to steal one from a planet,” I said as the idea formulated in my mind. “It would be faster to hijack one that’s already in space.”
“The crews on those ships number in the hundred sometimes,” said Val. “We are badass Harry, but not that badass.”
“Yes we are.” I scanned the systems around us for starships, and seeing what I was doing, Ella and Val did the same thing.
Purshia let out a huff. “How do you expect us to hijack a starship with our little craft?”
I couldn’t help but grin. “We’ll put out a distress call.”
Purshia and the girls went along with it, and I held the camera steady while they begged and pleaded for help. We’d ripped up some of their lingerie and made them look dirty with engine grease. Then we put the message out into the galaxy on a frequency that was often used for general communication, like warnings from planets about the protocol for ships entering their solar systems.
We put a line in the proverbial waters of the universe and continued toward Earth at our agonizing putt-putt speed, waiting for a bite. I watched the progress of Hurricane Olga the entire time, biting my nails whenever the projected track was updated and the fearmongers salivated at the mouth when they imagined the destruction it might cause.
“God, I fucking hate American news channels.”
“Why?” Purshia asked from the pilot’s chair.
“I won’t bore you with the details. Let’s just say they’re a bunch of psychic vampires.”
“You have those on your world as well?” Val asked at the station beside me.
“I need a drink. Anyone want anything?”
“I’ll take a Mischa Sour,” said Ella.
“Dhaer steak, rare, with aggalla roots and churned blood gravy,” said Val.
“Yummy. Purshia?”
“You know what?” she said. “I’ll take one of your Vodskeys, straight up.”
“Be back before you know it.”
I went to the galley and punched the girls’ orders into the food replicator one by one. A as I waited, I stared out the window on the other side of the room, marveling for the hundredth time at the stars streaking by like silver bullets, with comet tails in slow motion. Less than a month ago, I’d been a humble sheriff in a small upstate New York county, and now I was, well, I didn’t quite know what I was.
Since escaping the arena, I hadn’t had a moment to think straight. It had been one thing on top of the other. Now Earth was in danger for something I had done.
To be fair, I think Earth had been in more danger than we realized for years, and an alien species had directly broken galactic law by attacking them, not only deadly weapons but banned weather weapons.
Earth needed to wake up to the threat that was all around them. For some reason, Earth seemed to be a few hundred years behind all the other sentient beings in the universe, and I wondered why.
Hell, there were many thoughts going through my head. I felt smothered by the unknown. There was a weight of responsibility on my shoulders I had never felt. I had the entire weight of the world on my shoulders, because I was the only one who knew what was going on in the galaxy.
Or so I thought.
I wondered what would happen if I marched to the White House, used my nanosuit to break inside, and tried to convince the president what was going on. Maybe it was better to do something like that at a UN meeting. The president would probably just badmouth the greys on Twitter and get us all nuked.
“Harry?”
I just about jumped out of my skin when Ella put a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s all right. I’m just wound up like a fucking spring over this hurricane bullshit. Maybe I made a mistake blowing Zex’s brains out.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “You did what you thought was right in the moment. And it is true: American doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. They tell them to go fuck themselves. You know, like John McClane in Die Hard. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!”
I laughed, and Ella’s beautiful smile warmed my worried heart. I caressed her blue face, and she touched the back of my hand and pressed it to her face. She closed her eyes and gave a contented sigh. I wrapped my arms around her, and we stood in the galley in a tight embrace.
“I’ll get the food,” said Val, grinning at us as she opened the food replicator door.
“Thanks,” I said with a smile.
I returned to the bridge and gave Purshia her Vodskey. I didn’t need one anymore. I was resolute: find a starship, hijack it, then try to stop a hurricane.
A walk in the park, right?
We kept scanning the area while the distress call played on a loop every fifteen minutes. I fell asleep at some point, only to be awakened by Purshia’s excited voice.
“We got a response!”
I shot erect in my chair and brought up a vid screen. I tapped play on the message, then flung it onto the main viewing screen with a flick of my wrist.
“Valens 12, this is Captain Vorkoragagnar of the Jinnya starship Volcorra,” said a brown-skinned bald being with one eye in the middle of his forehead. “We have received your distress call and are on our way.”
“Sweet,” I said and dismissed the message.
“What’s the plan once they bring our ship in?” Ella asked.
“We do what we do best, yes?” said Val. “Shoot our way through.”
“No,” I said. “This one is going to take a little more finesse.”
The Volcorra arrived about an hour later, and by that time we had turned off all the lights and were letting the ship float listlessly through space. The girls and I sat slumped in our chairs, like we were sleeping, and waited for the boarding party to come to us.
They did so a few minutes later, given away by the lights that shone brightly on their spacesuits. They came with guns drawn, but when they saw us slouched in our chairs, a female rushed over to the girls and took rea
dings.
“This is strange,” she said when she saw the readouts from Ella.
I heard the small sound that Ella’s mind-control dart made, but I doubt the other Jinnyas did. The female that had been tending Ella suddenly went wide-eyed and shook her head.
“Help us,” said my blue-skinned beauty. “We must… speak with your captain.”
“They must speak with our captain,” said the female.
The largest male among them stepped forward and gruffly said, “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Purshia screamed and lurched drunkenly, then jumped into the tall Jinnya’s arms. “So strong,” she said and glanced up at him.
I don’t know when she released her dart, but the big guy in charge frowned, then nodded.
“They must speak with the captain. Move out of my way!”
“You heard him,” I said as I faux-staggered to my feet and followed.
Val and I followed Purshia, Ella, and the two officers they had mentally hijacked off our vessel and into their transport ship. It flew us to the mothership, and we took a series of halls, elevators, and more halls until we arrived on the bridge.
“These poor souls need to speak to you,” said the tall one.
Val and I shot the captain and the other five Jinnya officers on deck with mind-control darts, and boy was it a son of a bitch to control them all. But we had prepared for this, and we ordered them to fall asleep.
“Lock the doors to the bridge,” Purshia told her mental captive, and the big guy hurried to do it.
I approached the captain and prepared for his mental backlash. I had been the one to put a dart in his neck, so I was the one who must control him.
“Awake,” I said, and his eyes shot wide open. I put a gun to his head, because it was easier than wrestling with his mind. “First of all, I apologize for this, but it needed to be done. Second, I need you to set a course for the planet Earth, post haste. I need to stop a hurricane.”
“You need to stop a hurricane,” he said dreamily. He pushed my gun away and sat up, eyeing his crewmen. “I will need them.”
“All of them?” I asked.
He nodded.
“How can we be sure they won’t raise the alarm?” I asked.
“There is no alarm to raise. If their captain wants to fly to Earth, we fly to Earth.”
“Fair enough. Hey, Val, pull the darts out of the crewmen.”
She did so without question, and the crew slowly began to wake up. The captain went around and helped them up, with a little mental urging from me, although he didn’t know I was in his head.
Like I’d said, this one needed a subtle approach.
“We need to get these people to Earth,” he kept telling his crewmen.
Some of them were suspicious, but they obeyed their captain.
Set a course for Earth, I whispered in the captain’s mind.
“Set a course for Earth,” he said stoically.
Maximum star phase.
“Maximum star phase!” the captain bellowed.
We arrived in Earth’s solar system in less than twenty-four hours.
Without any explanation, we went to the hangar and returned to our ship, leaving the Jinnyas scratching their heads.
I tuned into the weather channel: Olga was bearing down on the Virgin Islands.
“We’re not too late,” I said, wringing my hands and pacing the bridge as Purshia guided the ship to the location. When the storm came into view, it looked like it covered an entire side of the planet. That was of course an illusion, but the bitch was huge!
Olga had turned into a category 6 hurricane, and the weather channel folks were beside themselves with glee as they spouted dire warnings and ran footage of past weather catastrophes. It was like Olga was their baby.
“Oh my god, we never thought it would get so big,” said one.
Another talking head, eyes gleaming, said, “If Olga remains on her current course, she will hit the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, graze the Dominican Republic and Haiti, smash through the Turks and Caicos Islands, and continue on to the Bahamas, followed by Florida. Some of those places are going to be wiped off the map, and all indications point to her not stopping there. After Olga destroys the Sunshine State, she’ll tear north along the east coast like a buzz saw. Currently, everything in her path is in a state of emergency and people are evacuating if they can.”
I turned off the feed and stood, as tense as I’d ever been. “I guess it’s show time, ladies.”
I stood in the cargo bay holding the atmospheric vortex modulator and waiting for the all-clear from Purshia. Ella and Val stood beside me, faces glum.
“The storm hasn’t reached land yet,” said Ella. “Maybe we can figure out a way to detonate it from afar.”
“There’s no time, babe. There are hundreds of thousands of people on the islands, and they’re depending on me.”
“So brave,” said Val, and I swear she sniffled as she reached out and hugged me tight.
“Or stupid,” I replied.
“We’ll be right here waiting when you get back,” Ella said teary eyed.
“Set a place for me at the dinner table.”
“We’re in position,” Purshia said over the PA.
“Thanks, babe.”
“And Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“Good luck.”
The bay doors opened, and wind howled into the cargo hold. I inched over to the edge and looked down into the eye of the churning storm. That sucker was huge! Without a backward look, I cannonballed off the ramp. I had the canister tight under my left arm and held the top with my right, ready to twist and activate the device.
Despite the churning wall of gray clouds circling around me, the eye of the storm was peaceful and serene. I glanced up and saw blue sky. Weird.
When the reading on my helmet visor told me I was in the exact center of the hurricane, I enabled my jetpack and hovered, I performed the twist and held the canister out in front of me with both hands. The device vibrated, hummed, then crackled with lightning. Blinding light shot out of both ends of it, and despite a strong jolt of fear that left me breathless, I continued holding it tightly.
There was an incredible sucking sound, and the light spilling from the device was replaced by a strange darkness that surrounded me to the extent I could barely see the canister. The humming and vibrating intensified, and I felt crackling energy build. The edges of the hurricane pressed toward me. I looked up and saw the circle of blue sky that grow smaller and smaller until the angry clouds and wind slammed into me. It was so fierce, it sent me ass over teakettle as the storm eater gobbled up the incredible wind and sent it to a place with no name. A warning appeared on my nanosuit, but I was being jerked around so badly, I couldn’t read it.
I thought for sure I was a dead man, but I was only concerned with the device doing its job. Everybody dies, but not everyone dies saving the world.
The speed with which the wind was being sucked into the device grew so intense that I thought the pressure would tear me apart or crush me like a tin can. I clenched my eyes shut and prayed for a quick death as the storm was sucked into the black hole.
The pressure was horrifying, and I screamed to fend off my terror.
I must have blacked out at some point, because when I opened my eyes again I was under water. For a moment I thought I had died. The tranquil aquamarine ocean was beautiful, and colorful fish swarm around me, curious of the shiny creature that had joined them. I saluted a sea turtle, enabled my jetpack, and shot to the surface.
When I blasted through the surface I was greeted with clear blue sky. I still clutched the device, and I eyed it warily.
“Harry!” Purshia cheered in my helmet.
“Is it over?” I asked. “Did I do it? Is the storm gone?”
“Hurricane Olga is no more,” she said cheerfully.
The ship came into view high above me, and I flew up to it and landed in the cargo bay, where Ella and
Val were waiting for me. They about knocked me over when I landed.
“That was incredible!” said Ella.
“I know, right? I can’t believe that worked.” I regarded the cylinder. “But what the hell do we do with this thing? It’s got a hurricane inside it.”
“I just picked up a ship approaching Earth,” Purshia said over the PA.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“A Phaerkonian warship,” said Purshia.
“Son of a bitch!” I marched to the bridge with Val and Ella in tow and looked at the main screen.
The image of the ship had been enlarged, and the first thing I noticed were all the crazy-ass guns. It was about fifty times the size of our vessel, and I knew it would have no problem destroying us.
“How far away is it?”
“It has only just entered the solar system,” said Purshia.
“Set a course to intercept. I don’t want those bastards getting anywhere near Earth.”
We shot through the solar system like a blur. When we were in range to hail them, I told Purshia to open a channel.
The dark screen lit up, and the ugly mug of a Phaerkonian captain filled the space. He scowled at me, brow furled and nostrils flared in disgust. “Warwick,” he growled.
“Hi, you must be Captain Fucktard.”
His eyes widened with indignant rage. “I am Captain Xerratz!”
“Are you the piece of shit that was working for Zex? Did you drop a hurricane bomb on my planet?”
He nodded and grinned condescendingly. “We are back to make sure what was paid for comes to pass.”
“Zex is dead,” said Val. “Why would you care if the hurricane stops? You got your money.”
“We take pride in our work.”
“Earth has done nothing to you,” I said. “Why would you break Galactic Law for a piece of shit like Zex?”
“This planet has done nothing to me, but one of its people has. You broke into a military base and stole priceless equipment.”
“I only did that because you dropped a weather bomb on my planet!” I said.
“We will see our mission through,” he said, low and menacing.