“Uh,” Benny said. “Good question.”
“Do we . . .” Drue asked. “Are we supposed to . . .”
“We’re not killing them if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, no,” Drue said. “Of course not. Good.”
Zee pointed to a spot on the wall with one of his tentacles. “There. Benny. Open that up.”
Benny carefully made his way to the wall, making sure to avoid any thrashing blades along the way. Once there, he melted the rock as quickly as possible, opening up a doorway to another room.
“Perfect,” Zee said. “They’ll be fine inside.”
“Can’t they get out with a key?” Benny asked.
“They’re just guards. They don’t have them yet.”
And so, as quickly and carefully as possible, they placed the guards inside. Benny had a split second to close up the wall before they lunged out once the electromagnetic gloves were turned off, but he managed it. Afterward, everyone was quiet for a few seconds, the sound of their heavy breathing the only thing filling the chamber.
“Where’s Elijah?” Kira asked.
“Well, if he wasn’t in there . . .” Zee said, eyeing the wall Benny had just closed.
Ricardo took a few heavy steps forward. “You said he’d be down here. You were sure—”
“Relax,” Zee said, interrupting him. “If he wasn’t in that sealed-off room, he’s probably in there.” He pointed to another wall. “Or in there.” He pointed to another. “Or, somewhere else entirely,” he whispered quietly.
Benny rushed over to the nearest spot Zee had pointed to. He was starting to feel like they’d been on Tull’s ship entirely too long, like at any moment the walls around them might close in and trap them there, regardless of what key he had on his hand. As the stone in front of him fell away, he imagined them trying to leave, only to find that their Space Runners had been destroyed or that an army was waiting for them in the hangar or that Tull had—
The hole was opened, and slumped against the floor across from him was Elijah West, unmoving, a gold mask covering his face, his head leaning against the wall.
Ricardo pushed past Benny, the rest of the Pit Crew on his heels.
“Elijah,” Ricardo said, softer than Benny had ever heard him speak before.
Elijah seemed to be roused from sleep, looking around blindly. That’s when Benny realized that his hands were sealed together, encased in alien rock.
Ricardo got down on one knee in front of him and carefully pulled the mask off Elijah’s face. The man blinked a few times against the light, and Benny couldn’t help but notice the dark circles around his eyes. When Elijah finally focused his gaze on the leader of the Pit Crew, his mouth dropped open, a dry rasp escaping it.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked.
“That’s usually what gets you into trouble,” Ricardo said. “But not right now.”
A moment passed. Then Elijah smirked, and the charming, world-renowned explorer and inventor they’d all known him to be once upon a time reappeared. “Please tell me you brought coffee, at least.”
And in a flash, the three members of the Pit Crew were huddled around the most important person in the universe to them, tangled in an embrace that neither Benny, nor anyone else in the room seemed to want to break up, no matter how much danger they were still in.
16.
The Pit Crew helped Elijah to his feet as a tangle of half-formed sentences spilled out of his mouth.
“Just concentrate on moving,” Ricardo said, looping one arm through Elijah’s.
“We’ll explain everything later,” Trevone added. “Right now we need to get you out of here. You must be exhausted. Probably dehydrated, too.”
“Also,” Kira said, “evil aliens.”
Benny stepped into the cell, the rest of his friends following. “Let me see your hands.”
A bewildered Elijah West obeyed. Benny smashed his gold palm down against the alien rock and it crumbled, revealing a pair of black, studded driving gloves.
“What . . .” Elijah asked, his bloodshot eyes narrowed in confusion as he wiggled and stretched his fingers. He looked to Benny and then to the golden glove. “But where did you . . .”
“It’s good to see you, Elijah,” Drue said with a grin. “I’m Drue Bob Lincoln the third, just in case you forgot.”
“We didn’t get a chance to thank you for knocking us out of that tractor beam back during the attack on the asteroid storm,” Hot Dog said. Then, quietly, she added, “Even after everything that happened at the Taj before that.”
“We could really use your brain,” Jasmine added. “Things have gotten . . . difficult.”
“I’ve read a lot about you,” Zee said, tentacles arching out from his head and resting on his shoulders. “It’s great to meet you. I always figured you’d be dead before I got the chance to.”
Elijah noticed the alien for the first time and flinched, taking a step back and hitting the wall behind him.
“The squid kid is with us,” Hot Dog said. “Mostly.”
“Squid kid?” Zee asked, opening his massive mouth in shock. “Listen . . . female . . . child . . .”
“That’s not an insult.”
Elijah turned to Ricardo. “I have so many questions.”
“Trevone’s right,” Ricardo said. “We’ll get you out of here and then—”
“We’ve got company!” Jasmine shouted. Her focus had been on Elijah and the relief of finding him, but now her eyes were back on the radar. Her head snapped up, and Benny followed her gaze.
There was movement at the other end of the hallway as an Alpha Maraudi guard walked by. It stopped in the middle of the corridor and looked directly at Benny and the others. For a beat, everyone froze. And then the alien’s half dozen tentacles all shot out at once as it darted from view, charging in the opposite direction of the stairwell they’d come down.
“We have to stop them before they—” Zee started.
Red and purple lights flashed in the ceiling as a wailing siren blared through speakers hidden somewhere in the walls. Benny recognized what was going on—the same thing had happened when he and Hot Dog had been on the ship before.
It was an alarm.
Zee exhaled loudly. “Now that is not good.”
“Run,” Ricardo said.
“Now!” Benny shouted.
They darted through the hole Benny had made, all scrambling back into the main chamber where they’d fought the guards, the Pit Crew helping Elijah along.
“Wait, wait,” the man said as they were almost into the hallway.
He looked around, his eyes finally landing on what looked like a stone cube in one corner. He hurried over to it, kicking it with his gold-capped boot—and then cursed in pain when he failed to break it open.
“What’s the matter?” Kira asked.
“I need what’s in this box,” Elijah said. Then, there was a glint in his eye. “Hold on. Benny. That glove of yours. Do you think . . .”
Benny sprinted over and slammed his palm down against the top of the cube. It crumbled inward.
“Ah, wonderful,” Elijah said. “That glove seems quite useful.”
He reached in and pulled out a dark coat with a fur collar, quilted with maroon thread that pulsed with a light of its own. After shaking some stone and dust off, he put it on. It was the same thing he’d been wearing the first time Benny had ever seen him in person, when he’d stepped out of a custom car in front of the Lunar Taj right after the EW-SCABers had landed on the Moon.
“We had to stop for your coat?” Hot Dog asked, shaking her head. “Seriously? Even I would leave that behind.”
“Trust me, Ms. Wilkinson, it’s worth it,” Elijah said. “These pockets are full of important things. The keys to my favorite car and my safe at the Taj are in one of them.” He flipped the collar up. “Plus, it’s custom.”
“You’re in for a rude awakening about the Taj and your cars,” Jasmine murmured as they once again started
for the stairwell.
It seemed as though Elijah was fully awake now, or at least up to the task of matching the pace of Benny and the rest of his rescuers as they climbed the stone steps to the hallway that would lead to their exit. They passed the big red door, sprinting ever closer to the lower hangar and the vehicles waiting for them. Ricardo stayed at the back of the group, constantly glancing over his shoulder.
“I’ve got skeletons ahead!” Jasmine shouted through short breaths as she looked at the radar. “Lots of them.”
“Skeletons?” Elijah asked.
“We’ll have to power through,” Ricardo said, clenching a fist.
“Almost there,” Benny said, leading them toward the hole in the wall ahead. “We just have to—”
A thick black vine of tentacles swung around a corner and caught Benny in the stomach, sending him sliding backward, crashing into his friends. Hot Dog and Drue hit the ground alongside him.
Commander Tull stomped in front of them, the alien’s sheer enormity causing everyone to recoil. Even Zee seemed to be in awe—and horror—of his size. Tull’s muscled arms and legs were covered in polished red plates, his chest protected by a thick layer of gold. Countless slick-looking tentacles curled up into two thick masses and formed looped horns on either side of the commander’s head. The roar that emanated from his belly was so loud that Benny almost had to put his hands over his ears.
“Children,” Elijah said, stepping over Benny as he balled up his fists. “You have to get out of here. Now. I’ll try to stall him. Just find another way to escape.”
“No offense,” Drue said, getting up to one knee and aiming his glove at Tull. “But we’re kind of way more prepared than you are.”
“Is that . . . ?” Elijah started, but he never got to finish his question.
Drue fired off a blast from his electromagnetic glove, sending Tull flying back into a wall. The commander hit it with a crash, then slid down to the stone floor. As Benny and Hot Dog picked themselves back up, the Pit Crew stepped forward and pressed their thumbs onto their trigger buttons as well. The giant alien was tossed back and forth through the air, slamming into the hallway walls.
“You think you’ll stop me this way?” Tull shouted. “I will make you watch your planet burn before I deal with you.”
“By the rings of Saturn . . .” Elijah whispered in astonishment, watching as his protégés got the upper hand on an alien commander.
“There are more coming down the hallway!” Jasmine said.
“Hey, Ricardo,” Trevone said. “You ever go bowling in Brazil?”
“No,” Ricardo said with a smirk. “But I know how to score a goal when I need to.”
“Less talk,” Kira said. “More throw.”
Benny got to Ricardo’s side just in time to watch the three members of the Pit Crew use the combined force of their electromagnetic blasts to send the alien commander rocketing down the hallway. His body rammed into the group of Alpha Maraudi guards sprinting toward Benny and the others, knocking them over.
But Tull was down for only a split second, and then he was on his feet again, barreling back toward Benny.
Zee shook his tentacles. “You’re just making him angrier.”
“Run!” Trevone said.
And they did. They were almost at the hole Benny had made into the hangar when suddenly it snapped shut—Tull was already behind them again, and must have closed it, intent on trapping them.
“Benny!” Ricardo yelled.
“On it,” he replied, pushing through the group and banging his fist against the wall. There was no time for concentration or precision. They needed out of there—fast.
And it worked. The rock exploded into the hangar, opening up a space big enough for them to get through one by one.
“Go, go, get inside,” he shouted.
They shoved Jasmine in first, followed by Drue and Elijah. Ricardo and the others shot blasts at the commander and the guards running toward them, but Tull weaved and ducked, as though he could spot the invisible electromagnetic beams and outmaneuver them. With a flick of his tentacles, sections of the walls jutted out, blocking their attacks.
“I got this,” Hot Dog said, stepping toward the oncoming commander, aiming dead center at his chest.
But in the split second before she pressed the trigger, Tull reached back with a tentacle and grabbed one of his soldiers, tossing the Alpha Maraudi forward. That’s who Hot Dog’s blast caught in the air; and before she realized what was happening, Tull batted the floating alien out of the way and lunged at her.
It was Zee who finally managed to land a shot. He held his silver glove with two of his tentacles and caught Tull in midair, sending the commander rocketing backward once again, crashing into more of his soldiers.
“That’s for trying to kill Vala,” the young alien said.
Tull’s growl was ferocious, filling the hallway.
“Inside,” Ricardo shouted. “Now. Now!”
When they were all finally back in the hangar, they darted toward their cars.
“A Star Runner?” Elijah asked, astonished.
“Long story!” Hot Dog shouted.
“Come on!” Ricardo said, pulling on Elijah’s coat sleeve. “You’re with me.”
In seconds they’d all piled into their vehicles and were floating in the small hangar, just as Tull and the rest of his guards were rushing through the break in the wall.
“We’re not going to get out of here using my glove,” Benny said. “You’re gonna have to make us an exit.”
“I know,” Ricardo said. “It’s taking a second for the guns to warm up.”
Benny could hear Elijah speak from the backseat. “Who the devil designed this car?”
Benny looked out the window at Tull, who was now on one knee, a few gold-tipped tentacles against the floor.
“This does not look good,” he murmured to himself.
The entire hangar began to shake as, suddenly, sections of the floor and ceiling began to close in on them.
“Definitely not good!” Benny shouted.
“We’re almost ready!” Ricardo said. The weapons mounted on the front of Senator Lincoln’s Space Runner began to glow.
“Uh, if we blast a hole in the hangar,” Hot Dog asked, “what happens to them?” She nodded toward the Alpha Maraudi outside their car.
“Sudden depressurization,” Jasmine said. “They’ll be sucked out into space.”
The ceiling continued to press down on them.
“Firing in five seconds,” Ricardo said.
For a moment, Benny wondered if they should warn the Alpha Maraudi what was about to happen. After all, part of the reason they’d gone through everything they had in the last few days was so they could stop anyone from dying unnecessarily. But then, another part of him wondered if this would solve several of their problems. Commander Tull seemed so intent on destroying humanity—why not let this be his end? Wasn’t he their enemy?
Thankfully, Benny didn’t have to come up with an answer. It appeared that Tull realized what was about to happen, and after unleashing another roar, he barked at his soldiers. In seconds, they were back in the hallway. But Tull stayed, closing the wall of the hangar after the last of his guards was through. He stood, snarling at the humans. Benny noticed stone rising out of the floor and wrapping around his legs.
“Fire!” Ricardo shouted.
Gold bolts of plasma energy shot from the weaponized Space Runner Ricardo was piloting. The hull in front of them exploded out into space, the depressurization sucking all the debris into the vacuum.
Ricardo raced through, the others following. Benny and Hot Dog were the last ones out, the ceiling threatening to slam into their craft in the second before they escaped. Benny glanced back—he could see Tull for just a blink before the rock closed back up, sealing him inside.
As soon as they were clear of the ship, all their eyes were on the battle that continued to rage above Io. Benny could spot plenty of downed ships—h
uman and alien alike—dotting the rocky surface of the moon.
“Do we help them?” Hot Dog asked.
“I don’t know that we can,” Benny said.
“It would be smart to use this battle as cover,” Jasmine said over the comms. “To make sure no one follows us back to Vala’s.”
“She’s right,” Ricardo said. “We should get away from this ship as fast as we can, before Tull has a chance to send anyone after us.” He paused. “We just got Elijah back.”
A wobbly blue line suddenly appeared in the top right corner of the Star Runner windshield followed by a video feed. Benny immediately recognized the background as the bridge from Vala’s mother ship. The commander stood beside Ramona.
“Heyo, newbz,” Ramona said. “I’ve been tinkering with the ET comms.”
“Zee!” Vala shouted.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“We’re moving servers,” Ramona said, tapping on her HoloTek. “Too much malware around. No longer docked at Ganymede. Coordinates incoming.”
A new route appeared on their screens.
“Elijah!” Pinky said over the comms.
“Pinky!” The man’s voice was filled with astonishment. “I never thought I’d be so happy to hear you.”
“You’re always happy to hear me,” she said. “Even if you pretend otherwise.”
“That’s probably true,” Elijah replied. “Now, who wants to tell me what in the name of Orion’s belt is going on?”
17.
The coordinates directed them to Vala’s mother ship, which was moving away from Jupiter and its moons at a rapid pace—though slow enough that the four cars could catch up to it. Jasmine kept her eyes on the alien scanner, but as far as she could tell, no one was following them.
As they flew across the dark expanse of space, the largest planet in the galaxy slowly growing smaller behind them, they did their best to catch Elijah West up to speed. Benny, Drue, and Hot Dog said little, letting the Pit Crew do most of the talking, which seemed right to Benny. Zee initially inundated Elijah with questions, but a few stern words from Ricardo shut him up.
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