by Tom Bradman
The three friends grinned at each other. But before they could say anything they heard the sound of heavy boots. Luke looked round and saw that Quint and his cronies had entered the dome. They were advancing on the science team’s area, their faces even grimmer than before, their rifles pointing at Milly!
Luke went cold all over and grabbed the small creature from the table. Milly must have sensed his fear for her – she instantly coiled into a tight ball, making herself as small as possible. Chung leapt forward to stand between the children and the men, her hands raised. ‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing?’ she said.
‘We’re just trying to protect everyone, that’s all,’ Quint growled, reluctantly lowering his weapon. ‘That there alien could be a pretty dangerous beast…’
‘Well, you’re wrong!’ yelled Luke. ‘The science team say she’s harmless.’
‘Oh, it’s a she, is it?’ said Quint, laughing. Leon and Biff smirked. ‘Ah, how sweet, the brats have got themselves a little pet! Well, at least we know now there’s something we can hunt on this poor excuse for a planet.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Yasmin. ‘She’s the only life-form we’ve found.’
‘Well, she must have a few relatives around here somewhere,’ said Quint, shrugging. ‘I’ll bet your little pet has got parents and quite a few brothers and sisters. Don’t worry, though – we’ll bring you a nice trophy or two to cry over.’
‘But… but… you can’t do that!’ spluttered Yasmin, outraged. ‘It’s not right.’
‘So who’s going to stop us – brats like you?’ sneered Quint. ‘Besides, it’s what our species is all about – humans have been hunters since long before the Stone Age. Now we travel vast distances, discover new planets, find new life-forms – and kill them!’ Quint laughed, and the men high-fived each other.
‘It’s people like you who ruined Earth,’ muttered Luke, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. He was glad Milly couldn’t understand what Quint was saying, although she had begun to wriggle against his chest almost as if she did.
‘OK, Mr Quint,’ said Chung. ‘This is a restricted area, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’ll also be speaking to Captain Riley about the way you – ’
She was interrupted by a deep rumbling sound that seemed to come from beneath the dome. The floor shook, and a huge bulge suddenly appeared in it, knocking over Asimov’s table, sending all his delicate equipment flying.
Luke staggered, holding on to Milly. But she had suddenly gone very still.
Chapter Five
Green Slime
Soon the whole dome was shaking. There was a horrendous screeching noise as the struts holding it up began to twist and buckle, and then a large equipment locker toppled over with a CRASH! ‘Quick, everybody outside!’ yelled Chung.
She hustled Luke, Yasmin and Yuri towards the door, Asimov and his team following. Chung didn’t let any of them stop until she thought they were all a safe distance from the dome. Luke saw Quint, Leon and Biff nearby, and Clarke leading the rest of Primary One out of another dome, the children looking scared. The ground was shaking even more, and the rumbling noise was getting louder.
‘I’m beginning to think I don’t like this planet after all,’ said Yasmin.
‘Me too,’ said Luke. ‘This tremor is definitely worse than last time.’
‘It’s interesting, though,’ said Yuri. ‘The movement seems localised…’
‘Hold on a second, brain-box,’ said Yasmin. ‘What in space is that?’
Yasmin was pointing at the frozen, snow-covered ground next to the research team’s dome. A new bulge had appeared there, one that grew and grew, the icy ground breaking and cracking, the rumbling almost ear-splitting now. At last something enormous burst into sight, a giant worm, like an immense living train, its long body dark grey and ridged, its eyes bigger than footballs.
The creature rose into the air, opening its mouth to reveal enormous, pointed teeth, and swooped down on the dome, biting a great chunk out of it, chewing and crunching the metal outer shell and spitting bits out. After a moment it turned its gaze on the humans, whose own mouths were wide open with shock. And then it dropped to the ground and headed towards them at incredible speed.
‘RUN!’ yelled Chung, and they all fled, most of them screaming in panic.
Luke ran with the rest, Milly in his arms, but he hadn’t got very far when he tripped over a rock and fell headlong into the snow. He rolled onto his back, still holding Milly tightly against his chest – and found himself looking up at the most terrifying sight he had ever seen, the giant worm looming above him.
Hot, foul-smelling breath wafted from the creature’s mouth, and green slime dripped onto him from the worm’s nostrils. The beast slowly lowered its face until it was almost close enough for Luke to touch, and for a moment he was utterly convinced it was about to gobble him up. Then he saw its eyes were fixed on Milly, and he began to worry that it was her the worm was after.
Milly, however, didn’t seem worried. In fact she was looking straight back at the worm and making lots of those yip-yip noises. The worm moved its head from side to side – then turned and plunged into the snow, its whole incredible grey length disappearing like a whale diving deep in the sea, a trail of cracks in the icy ground marking its passage as it rumbled off towards the mountains.
Luke let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and looked down at Milly, who was purring now. There had been something strange about what had just happened. It had almost seemed as if Milly had spoken with the worm…
‘Are you OK, Luke?’ said Yasmin, running over to him with Yuri. ‘I was going to save you till I saw all that alien, er… snot. Not good for the hair.’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ said Luke. ‘And obviously your hair must come first.’
‘But what an amazing creature!’ said Yuri. ‘It’s absolutely magnificent!’
‘You got that right,’ said a voice behind the three friends. ‘It looks as if there might be something worth hunting on this frozen lump of space rock after all.’
Luke whipped round and saw that Quint had come over with Leon and Biff. It had been Quint who had spoken, and all three men were smirking.
‘You cannot be serious,’ snarled Yasmin. ‘It will eat you for breakfast.’
‘I think we’ll be the ones doing the eating, if it tastes any good,’ laughed Quint. ‘It’s only the size of a whale, and humans didn’t have any trouble hunting whales on Earth, did they? Right lads, we’ve got a trail to follow.’
Quint led his two henchmen to their vehicle, and soon it roared off in a cloud of black smoke, heading in the same direction as the giant worm, towards the mountains. Milly squirmed in Luke’s arms, and had long since stopped purring. She was making a sad little noise instead, a kind of unhappy, low moaning.
‘I know, Milly,’ said Luke, softly stroking her. ‘We don’t like them either.’
‘Huh, that’s putting it mildly,’ muttered Yasmin. ‘I hope they do get eaten.’
‘But what if they don’t?’ said Yuri, his face full of concern. ‘What if they track that incredible creature and…’ He stopped speaking, unable to carry on.
‘We can’t let that happen,’ said Luke. ‘We’ve got to stop them, somehow. Come on, let’s go and ask Chung if we can get in touch with my mum.’
He heard a deep rumble in the distance as he spoke, and felt a faint tremor beneath his feet.
Chapter Six
A Storm Coming
They didn’t have to go and find Chung, however – the Buzz Aldrin’s second-in-command found them instead. She had seen Luke fall in front of the worm, but she had fallen at the same time, tripping over another rock in all the panic and getting stuck in a deep snowdrift. It had taken her a while to dig herself out.
‘I’m so relieved you’re OK, Luke!’ she said. ‘And of course you must talk to your mum. I need to speak to her as well, let her know what just happened.’
‘At least w
e know now what the strange readings were,’ said Yuri. ‘I’ll bet the scanners were picking up the movements of those worms underground.’
‘Good thinking, Yuri,’ said Chung. ‘We’ll have to see what Asimov says.’
Asimov had already come to the same conclusion, although he was having a lot of trouble confirming it – most of the science team’s stuff had been destroyed or badly damaged in the giant worm’s attack on the dome. But they did manage to salvage enough radio equipment for Chung to report to Captain Riley. Then Luke spoke to his mum and told her about Quint’s intentions.
‘You have to stop them, Mum,’ said Luke. The screen in front of him showed Mum’s face. She was on the bridge of the Buzz, crew members at consoles in the background. Even though the screen crackled and fizzed with interference, Luke could tell she was worried. ‘There must be something you can do.’
‘I’m sorry, Luke,’ said Mum. ‘There isn’t really, not at the moment, anyway. Besides, I’m more worried about everybody’s safety down there. Of course I don’t want Quint to kill that creature, but it does sound pretty dangerous. And if Yuri is right, the readings could mean that there are plenty more under the ice.’
‘You mean, like a herd of those things?’ said Yasmin. Yuri glanced at her, his eyebrows raised. ‘What?’ she said. ‘I watch nature programmes too.’
‘But there’s another problem,’ said Luke’s mum. ‘We’ve analysed the weather scans Asimov sent earlier, and we think there’s a storm coming in your direction, a big one. I want you kids off the planet and back on the Buzz long before it hits. You’d better tell Clarke I need a word with him. See you soon.’
The friends walked off a little further behind the destroyed dome so they could talk privately, Milly scampering at their feet. Yasmin was not happy.
‘Grrr… typical grown-ups!’ she growled. ‘No offence, Luke. But we can’t let Quint get away with it. I’ll never, ever forgive myself if he kills that creature.’
‘Neither will I,’ said Luke. ‘Especially as it might be Milly’s mum or dad.’
Yasmin and Yuri looked at him and then at the little alien, their eyes wide and mouths open. Milly was making sad noises, and Luke picked her up.
‘Whoa, brain overload!’ said Yasmin at last. ‘How did you work that out?’
‘But it’s obvious, Yasmin!’ said Yuri before Luke could reply. ‘I should have seen it myself. The grey ridged skin, being in the early stages of a change…’
‘Exactly,’ said Luke. ‘But it was only when I saw the two of them together that I realised how much they looked like each other. And it was Milly the big one was interested in, not us. I’m sure Milly was talking to it somehow, too.’
It took a while for the boys to convince Yasmin. Yuri pointed out that in most species on Earth the young were small and grew into something much bigger, and that Milly wouldn’t need her legs once she was the size of the giant worm.
‘OK, OK, enough of the geeky stuff already!’ said Yasmin eventually. ‘I’ll take your word for it. The question is – what are we actually going to do?’
‘We’ll just have to stop Quint ourselves,’ said Luke with a shrug.
‘Oh yeah?’ said Yasmin. ‘We don’t even know where they are.’
‘I can track them on my laptop,’ said Yuri. ‘I’ve got a special app.’
‘We’ll never catch them,’ said Yasmin. ‘They’ve got a big head start.’
‘You’re right,’ said Luke. Then his eyes fell on the vehicle parked nearby. ‘Hey, what if we used the science team’s hover car? It’s pretty fast, isn’t it?’
‘Definitely!’ said Yuri, grinning. ‘It’s a lot faster than Quint’s old banger.’
‘So, let me get this straight, Luke,’ said Yasmin. ‘You’re suggesting we steal the hover-jeep, drive across an alien planet in the middle of a huge snowstorm instead of going back to the Buzz Aldrin as we’ve been told to by your scary mum, and confront a bunch of killers with guns. What happens then?’
‘We’ll work something out,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘We always do.’
Yasmin scowled at her friends for a moment. Then she grinned too.
‘Count me in,’ she said. ‘On one condition, though – I get to drive the hover-jeep. Girls are better drivers than boys, it’s been scientifically proved.’
‘No problem,’ said Luke before Yuri could start arguing with her. The sky was darkening and they didn’t have any time to waste. ‘Let’s get going.’
Chapter Seven
Real Danger
There wasn’t much room inside the hover-jeep. The three friends were squeezed together on its single bench seat – Yasmin in the middle at the controls, Yuri to her left with his laptop open, and Luke to her right, with a restless Milly on his lap. They were skimming quickly through a snowy waste, more snow swirling in the air around them, a strong wind buffeting the hover-jeep every so often.
‘How much further, Yuri?’ said Yasmin. ‘We’re almost in the mountains.’
‘Not far,’ said Yuri. Luke could see a detailed map on the laptop’s screen, and guessed that the hover-jeep was the blue dot moving swiftly across it. The stationary red dot it was heading for had to be Quint’s vehicle. ‘They don’t seem to be moving,’ added Yuri. ‘We should be able to spot them quite soon.’
‘Huh, you’ll be lucky,’ muttered Yasmin, frowning. ‘I can hardly make out anything in this snow. But hey, hold on a second… what’s that over there?’
Directly ahead was a slope with enormous rocks poking up through the deep snow. Luke could see a dark, square shape at the foot of the biggest boulder.
‘Yes, it’s them!’ said Yuri, excited. ‘I’d recognise that old banger anywhere.’
‘They’re not much good at parking, are they?’ said Luke. He realised the vehicle must have crashed into the rock. One of the tracks had come off and its front end was totally smashed. ‘I suppose we’d better find out if they’re OK.’
‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ said Yasmin. ‘I hope they’re frozen solid.’
‘No problem!’ said Luke. ‘You stay here while us boys bravely rescue some grownups. I mean, you don’t want your hair to get frizzy or anything, do you?’
‘Very funny,’ snapped Yasmin. ‘Go on, then. The things I do for you two…’
Luke and Yuri grinned at each other, but their grins vanished when Yasmin opened the doors. The icy wind instantly leapt into the hover-jeep like some frantic beast, swirling and whirling and filling the interior with snowflakes. The friends climbed out, pulling their hoods tightly round their faces, and trudged over to the big boulder. Milly scampered ahead, not bothered by the weather.
‘They’re not here!’ said Yasmin, peering into the vehicle and yelling to make herself heard above the wailing of the wind. ‘Maybe they started walking…’
‘But why walk when you can ride?’ yelled somebody else. ‘Hello, brats.’
Luke whipped round and saw Quint, Leon and Biff emerging from behind the boulder. The men took up a position between the hover-jeep and the kids, and stood facing them. ‘Looks like we got here just in time, Quint,’ said Luke, pointing at the hunter’s broken vehicle. ‘Did you run into some trouble?’
‘Nothing major,’ said the big man, smirking at the children. ‘Just a mishap. It looks like we’ll be all right now though, eh lads?’ His two friends laughed.
It suddenly occurred to Luke that he and his own friends were in real danger. He’d gone up against alien armadas and psychotic super-computers before now. But he’d never faced anyone so completely mean as Quint and his pals – three nasty adults armed with hunting rifles and bad attitude. There was only one thing to do. He would have to bluff it out.
‘Er… I’ll make you a deal,’ he said.
‘What are you doing, Luke?’ whispered Yuri. ‘You can’t bargain with him!’
‘If you promise not to hurt any of the animals out here,’ said Luke, ignoring Yuri, ‘then we’ll go back and get you some help. You’ll
freeze if we don’t.’
‘Well, what a gentleman!’ said Quint. ‘What a kind young man!’ The three men all roared with laughter. Suddenly, Quint became deadly serious. ‘But I’ve got a better idea,’ he hissed, getting close enough for Luke to smell his bad breath. ‘Me and my pals are going to take that jeep, and you three can walk.’
‘Then we’ll freeze to death,’ cried Yasmin, eyes wide and unbelieving.
‘Yes, at this temperature we’ll have… less than an hour!’ yelled Yuri.
‘So you’d better get a move on,’ Quint called out as the men climbed into the vehicle. Yasmin ran over to the car and started banging on the door, but the men just laughed through the window. They gunned the engine and zoomed off. The children watched in dismay as the hoverjeep drove away. Above them the sky seemed to darken and a cold gust of wind blew into their faces.
‘Less than an hour?’ asked Yasmin, turning to Yuri. ‘Are you sure?’
‘It could be a lot less,’ said Yuri, shrugging. ‘But Chung will realise we’re still out here when they arrive without us in the hoverjeep… won’t she?’
‘She might not,’ said Luke. ‘We stole the hover-jeep, remember? And I don’t think the security cameras were working. So nobody knows where we are.’
Milly had hidden while Quint was about, but now she was yip-yipping and jumping up and down. For a second Luke thought she might be trying to tell him something, but then she dashed off into the snow, disappearing quickly.
‘Well, at least Milly will be safe,’ said Yuri. His lips were turning blue.
‘We have to move,’ said Luke. The three children started walking into the freezing cold wind. The snow seemed to suck at their feet and Luke’s legs were soon aching. The blizzard was really blowing now and they couldn’t see more than a few metres ahead. Luke realised pretty quickly they had no way of knowing if they were even going in the right direction.