“There’s a document here,” Pinky said. “It sounds like the original pitch to Project New Apollo. It is very long. Allow me to paraphrase: This weapon is actually several missiles, each with its own navigational system. Once deployed into Calam’s atmosphere, the weapon will break apart and strike the planet’s surface in a gridlike pattern. Each segment is equipped with a device that is capable of emitting high-level electromagnetic waves on a planetary scale. Nearby moons would be affected. Maybe even other planets in your solar system. No wonder they’re using this titanium pod as a carrier—they wouldn’t want their ship to be anywhere near this. Honestly, it’s overkill.” The AI’s voice got softer. “Without being too gruesome, suffice to say that a planet inhabited by people with metal bones would be particularly vulnerable to something like this. You’re basically walking magnetic conductors. And even if your bones could withstand something of this nature—which I highly doubt—the radiation levels would destroy your bodies.”
Vala said nothing, but her tentacles wound together into compact balls, her fingers quivering.
“How could he know all this?” Trevone asked. “It’s like he’s seen their planet.”
“He has,” Benny said. In his head, he was retracing their footsteps on the dark side of the Moon the day they’d first found Dr. Bale. “When we were at his camp he turned on some kind of hologram map. It looked like Alpha Maraudi tech. He showed us Calam and its suns.”
“Oh, yeah,” Hot Dog said. “There was something like that in the Maraudi base on the dark side, too. That hologram that Drue set off.”
Benny shook his head. “He’s had this information the whole time, and he just focused on how to destroy you. He didn’t do a single thing to try to figure out how to save the planet.”
“Neither of us did,” Elijah said quietly, staring at something in the middle distance. He blinked, setting his jaw. “But that’s going to change. As soon as we stop them on the Moon, we’ll put all of our minds to it. We’ll find a way for you to save your planet.” He looked to Vala. “I swear my life on it.”
But the commander did not look relieved. Benny couldn’t blame her.
“Okay, so we know what this missile is made up of, right?” Hot Dog asked. “Can’t we find it now?”
“No,” Trevone said. “This hasn’t changed anything. It’s still cloaked by Dr. Bale’s stealth drives, and we haven’t figured out a way to track anything protected by those.”
Jasmine shook her head. “I failed. I should’ve been able to figure them out.”
“Oh, no,” Hot Dog said. “You cannot blame yourself at all.”
“We could really use a giant metal detector right now,” Drue said.
“You’re talking about hundreds of square kilometers,” Pinky said.
“I wasn’t being serious. Mostly.”
“Well, you should be,” Kira muttered, her eyes not moving from the hologram.
“Okay,” Benny said, “So, we just look for the Orion.”
“Unless it’s got stealth shielding, too,” Jasmine said. Her voice was getting higher pitched, her face turning red. “Maybe they can do this whole operation without ever being seen. Maybe this was all for nothing because we couldn’t crack Dr. Bale’s stealth drives.”
“Pito’s still working on them,” Trevone said.
“Where are they?” Elijah asked. “I’ll go look at them now. Maybe I can help.”
“I guess it was too much to ask for us to be able to use his stealth to our advantage when sneaking around and use it to find this missile.”
“Hold on . . .” Jasmine said. “We use it to find the aliens because it homes in on the distinct makeup of their bones. And the Chevelle . . .”
Benny furrowed his brow. “What about it?”
Jasmine closed her eyes and started murmuring to herself. Then, suddenly, they sprang back open, wider than before. “I’m such an idiot!” And before anyone could ask what was going on, she was running off the bridge, out into one of the hallways.
“Jazz, wait!” Benny said, starting after her—the rest of the group right behind him.
They followed her to the hangar, where they found Ash McGuyver popping dents out of the electric-green muscle car. The dust had been cleaned off the tires, which were now shiny and looked like they were made of wet goop in places where the rubber had melted and then hardened again.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said as they approached. “What the heck has you fired up?”
“Good question,” Ricardo said.
“Benny,” Jasmine said. “Get in the car.”
“Honey, this baby ain’t going anywhere,” Ash said.
“That doesn’t matter.” She turned to Benny, raising her eyebrows. “Please.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.” And then he was sliding into the passenger seat. “Uh, you want me to turn it on?”
Jasmine shook her head. “No, just the stealth drive. It’s still in there, right?”
“Uh-huh.” He reached forward and pressed on the red button. The Chevelle—and Benny—disappeared.
Ash whistled. “That trick never gets old.”
“Fascinating,” Elijah said. “So this is how Dr. Bale stayed off our grid for so long.”
“Exactly,” Jasmine said. “And none of your scans were able to pick him up, right?”
“That’s correct,” he said, reaching out and touching the invisible hood. “Though, I’ll admit, I wasn’t too keen on seeing him again.”
Jasmine grinned. There was an energy in her that seemed ready to explode. “That’s exactly how the Alpha Maraudi stealth ships were, remember? The purple ones. We couldn’t see them on any radars.” She paused. “At least, none of the Taj radars.”
Trevone took a deep breath. Then he started laughing, almost uncontrollably. “Oh my gosh, Jasmine. You’re far from an idiot. You’re a genius.”
“Let’s just hope I’m right.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. But, then, we didn’t know what to look for.”
“Uhhh,” Benny said from inside the car. “Am I missing something?”
“Like I said, we couldn’t crack the alien stealth,” Jasmine continued. She pulled out the radar they’d been using to track the Alpha Maraudi for the last few days and began tapping on it. “But Dr. Bale could. He figured out a way to scan for their bones, their ships—all kinds of things. And we have one of the radars he designed himself.”
Trevone clapped once. “He gave us the tools to find this weapon.”
“Well, didn’t give us,” Hot Dog said. “Drue kinda stole that radar from him.”
“You’re welcome,” Drue said.
Benny watched as Jasmine tapped and swiped on the radar a few times. Finally, she raised her finger, pausing just above the screen’s surface. She seemed to whisper something to herself, and then finally, she brought her finger down.
A little ragged breath escaped from her lips.
“Well?!” Hot Dog asked. “I have no idea what’s going on, but I feel like it’s something important.”
Jasmine grinned as she held the radar out to them.
Benny jumped out of the car, scrambling over to his friends.
There on the screen was a blazing orange series of tubes underneath the Chevelle, despite the fact that it was still cloaked in Dr. Bale’s stealth technology.
“What is it?” Benny asked.
“The titanium axels Ash installed after we busted the old ones on the dark side,” Jasmine said. She smiled wider than he’d ever seen her smile before. “We can track the titanium box holding the missile, even with the stealth on. We just needed to know what to look for.”
“By Halley’s Comet,” Elijah whispered. “You cracked it.”
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t me. This is all Dr. Bale’s handiwork. I just . . .” She trailed off.
“I’m gonna have to give you some lessons in how to take credit for things, aren’t I, Jazz?” Drue asked.
�
�Seriously,” Hot Dog agreed. “What would we do without you?”
“We know the ship is coming,” Ricardo said. “We know what the weapon is. We can scan for it, find it.”
“So, what’s our next step?” Kira asked.
“If we can get there fast enough, we could take the weapon and run.”
“We have the schematics,” Trevone said. “We could figure out a way to disarm it.”
“And if they try to stop us,” Hot Dog said, smashing a fist into her open palm, “we fight back.”
Benny looked around them, at the rows of Space Runners, prototypes—even a few of the Alpha Maraudi ships that were still docked on the far side of the hangar.
“We make a stand,” he said. “We stop Project New Apollo.”
He looked at Elijah West, almost instinctively. The others did, too. He stared back at them. It looked to Benny like he was trying his best not to grin. Finally, Elijah spoke.
“So, do I get to pick which car I’m driving or are they all spoken for already?”
21.
At Vala’s command, Griida set the ship to fly as fast as possible toward the dark side of the Moon. While Pinky, Trevone, Jasmine, and Elijah tried to dissect the plans for the electromagnetic missile as best they could, the rest of Benny’s group gathered in front of Vala’s throne. Benny and Ricardo paced back and forth in front of the commander, who had remained quiet since Pinky’s explanation of the weapon. Kira stood looking out into space, arms crossed over her chest.
“All this pacing is freaking me out a little,” Drue whispered to Hot Dog.
She nodded, crinkling her nose. “Seriously. It’s like they’re VR simulations that got stuck in a loop.”
“We can hear you,” Ricardo said.
Hot Dog shrugged. “I wasn’t trying to be quiet.”
Benny ignored them. “Commander, when do you think we’ll be back near the Moon?”
“Our current projections put us there shortly after this Orion ship is set to arrive at the Lunar Taj,” Vala said. “Assuming it will have to stop there to transfer supplies or people, we should be able to make it to what you call the dark side before it does.” She paused. “I assure you we’re traveling as quickly as our engines will go.”
“Oh, it’ll definitely stop at the Taj,” Benny said. “I can’t imagine Dr. Bale would leave this up to anyone else. Assuming he survived Tull’s attack, that’s where he’ll be.”
“Maybe my dad will be there,” Drue said. “Maybe if he sees us, we can talk to him, like we did at the meeting. We had an armistice. We were doing good stuff!”
“Let’s hope he is,” Hot Dog said, looking at Drue with sad eyes.
“Once we’re close to the Moon,” Benny said, “we’ll have a better idea of where, exactly, this missile is. We can boot up the radar and fly straight to it.”
“The mother ship is way too big a target,” Jasmine said, climbing the steps to join them. She turned to the commander. “Without knowing what the Orion can do, I don’t think it would be smart to have it close to the dark side.”
“Oh, the Orion is totally covered in death rays,” Drue said. “I mean, that’s technically just a guess, but, guys, we’ve met Dr. Bale. The dude is crazy but he’s smart when it comes to knowing how to blow things up. He’ll be prepared.”
“Drue is right,” Ricardo said. “If his ship is built to travel across the universe, it’s going to be fast and well armed.”
“You are correct that this vessel was not designed to enter direct combat,” Vala said. “We can stop at a relatively safe distance and deploy ships from there.”
“How’s it going, Jazz?” Benny asked, gesturing to the holographic blueprints hovering on the other side of the bridge. “Give us some good news.”
Jasmine sighed. “Please don’t put that responsibility on me.”
“Eesh,” Drue said. “Looking that great, huh?”
“Actually, we’ve learned a lot so far in terms of how the weapon itself works.”
Drue crossed his arms. “And here’s where things get bad.”
“Don’t jump ahead,” Jasmine said, glaring at him. “We think we can disarm it!”
“Really?” Benny asked, a smile spreading across his face. Finally, something they could work with.
Hot Dog put an arm around her. “Way to go, Jasmine!”
Jasmine didn’t return the hug.
“But . . .” Ricardo said.
Jasmine sighed. “But, it looks like disarming the weapon is going to take a lot of really delicate work. And time. It’s not exactly what we want to be doing when the clock is ticking and we’re looking over our shoulders waiting for some kind of approaching”—she struggled to find the words—“galaxy-hopping Death Runner.”
“Right,” Benny said. It seemed like around him, everyone deflated again.
“I like Death Runner,” Drue whispered after a few seconds of silence. “I mean, I would under different circumstances.”
Vala stood. “Then we will take this weapon aboard my ship and flee,” the commander said. “The only thing that matters is that it is out of the hands of New Apollo and far, far away from Calam, or any Alpha Maraudi innocents.”
They all turned to look at Vala.
“You’re sure you want to bring that thing up here?” Ricardo asked.
The commander nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “I will fly this ship alone and take the missile to a dead system—or a black hole—if that is what it takes to destroy it.”
“You won’t have to do it by yourself,” Benny said, trying to reassure her—and himself—in some way that this was doable.
“They’ll come after us,” Kira said.
“Probably,” Jasmine said. “But I don’t know how much they’ll attack us if the weapon is onboard. They need it intact. It’s not the kind of thing you can just whip up in a day. Shooting at the mother ship would risk detonating it.”
“Yeah,” Benny said, his lips twisting—the idea was growing on him. “In a weird way, bringing that weapon to the ship is kind of like making us untouchable. Like how we wouldn’t have launched a full-scale attack on Tull while Elijah was his prisoner.”
“Okay, so how do we get it?” Ricardo asked.
Jasmine grinned. “There is some good news: the outside of the case is actually made up of a titanium alloy that we’ll be targeting with the radar. Without getting too scientific—”
“Thank you,” Benny murmured.
“—that means it’s magnetic.”
“Sweet!” Drue said, holding up his silver glove. “We’ll just float it outta there.”
“Not with that you won’t,” Jasmine continued. “The missile itself is the size of three Space Runners parked back to back, and that’s not counting the container. It weighs a ton.” She paused before adding: “I mean that figuratively, not literally. It weighs many, many tons.”
“Okay,” Benny said. “So, we get a bunch of people with gloves together.” His eyes lit up. “Like back when we were fighting those video game robots and we had to all work as a team to pull those rocks out of the ground! No sweat.”
“Those rocks were designed to be pulled out using teamwork,” Ricardo said. “It was the whole point of the simulation. You can’t apply that here.”
“Plus, if the Orion shows up, I don’t think we’ll want to just be hanging out around this missile like it’s a campfire, trying to get it up on to the mother ship somehow,” Hot Dog said. “That’s how you lose in two seconds.”
“And the mother ship isn’t supposed to be near the Moon anyway,” Kira added.
“Okay, okay.” Benny shoved his hands into his pockets. “I get it. Bad idea.”
“Right idea,” Jasmine said. “Wrong tech.” She grinned a little and looked around, as if waiting for someone to speak. Finally, she let out a breath and widened her eyes. “Ash’s oversized SR! It was built to tow superheavy things around.”
“Yes!” Benny practically shouted. “You’re ri
ght! That thing is a monster!”
“We can totally do this,” Hot Dog said. “It’s like capture the flag except, you know . . . the flag is a civilization-destroying superweapon.”
Benny started pacing again. “We’ll take the core Moon Platoon and the Pit crew down—the rest of the EW-SCABers will just be in the way or, worse, in danger.”
“What about Dr. Bale taking control of our SRs?” Ricardo asked.
“Ramona seemed pretty confident after the last attack that she could counter a hijacking,” Jasmine said. “I think I’d be more help up here. Ramona can cover the comms, and I’ll keep track of the radars.”
Benny nodded. “Perfect, we’re counting on you, Jazz. We’ll snag the missile, fly back up here, and bam. We’re outta there. No more superweapon.” He turned to Vala. “You can send word back to Calam that not only is the weapon gone, but a bunch of humans helped you get it. Then”—he took a deep breath—“we’ll work on saving your planet. And ours.”
“Imagine Dr. Bale’s face when he rolls up to grab his precious electro rocket of doom and finds out there’s nothing there,” Drue said with a smirk.
“We will aid you in this mission,” Vala said. “Pito has long protested that he be allowed to fly into battle. I am certain he will be thrilled at the opportunity. Should something happen and your vehicles fall out of your control, our ships will remain in play.” The commander lifted her chin a bit higher. “I will fly with you as well.”
“Are you sure?” Benny asked, a little taken aback. “What if they need you back here or something?”
Vala raised her mask. “This is the fate of my people, Benny Love of Earth. I cannot sit by and leave it to the hands of others, no matter how capable they have proven to be in the past. No more than you can sit by and rely on others from your planet to protect humanity.”
“But, if something happens to you—”
“Griida is more than capable of flying the ship. He knows what this means for the Alpha Maraudi. I trust in his abilities enough to leave him in charge.” The commander brought several gold-tipped tentacles before Benny’s face. “Besides, this weapon will likely be buried, yes? I can unearth this object of devastation if you will transport it for us.”
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