“Pito’s strength was draining even before the attack,” the commander said, turning to focus on Benny. “If we do this, I need your help.”
Benny stared up at Vala in confusion for a second before realizing what she meant. He looked down at his golden glove and then back up at her.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said. “I have no idea how to use this thing. Mostly I just destroy stuff with it!”
Vala pulled the top half of her red mask off with two tentacles, staring down at Benny with three eyes.
“Trust me, Benny Love of Earth,” the commander said. “You can do this. You must do this. For my people. And for yours.”
Benny swallowed hard—he wished so badly that he could look up now and see Earth above him. But he knew it was there, on the other side of the Moon. Still spinning.
For now.
Finally, he nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Vala motioned for him to follow, and then they were both kneeling on the ground around one of the circles of glowing Alpha Maraudi mineral. The commander placed two gold-tipped tentacles on top of it. Benny put his gloved hand on the other side. The key seemed to vibrate, growing warmer.
“Clear your mind of anything but what you feel under your hand,” Vala said.
He shut his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, trying to do as instructed. When he opened them again, he found that Vala’s bottom two eyes were closed, but the blue one on top was still wide open, staring at him.
“Now,” Vala said. “Focus.”
The commander’s eye began to burn, the intensity seeming to grow with every second, until it was all Benny could look at, all he could see, the blinding light coming from her head completely enveloping him. He cried out as the key started to burn—not with heat but with energy, as though Benny suddenly had a comet full of power in his palm.
And then, all at once, it was as if he could feel the rock below him, the rivers of light that coursed through the Alpha Maraudi mineral that had been planted in the ground—and the weapon container that it surrounded. As he focused, he pushed the energy he felt in his hand out, until he could sense that the rock below them was pulsing, growing, shooting farther and farther into the Moon.
But it wasn’t just underground. As the alien stone continued to dig deeper, it also spread over the surface, all around them, echoes of glowing light roiling through it and causing the crater to look as though it were being covered in some sort of cosmic thunderstorm.
People were yelling in Benny’s helmet—Trevone was shot down, the wing of Hot Dog’s Star Runner had been hit and she was losing control—but he could barely register the meaning behind the words.
The more energy he poured into the glove, the more he felt like he was slipping away, losing control, until just at the moment when he thought he might disappear into Vala’s glowing eye forever, something exploded between them. Suddenly, he could see again, all his senses flooding back in one overwhelming burst.
Vala fell to the ground hard, eyes closed, her tentacles splayed limply around her head. The glowing red ball rolled away, and Benny instinctively grabbed it as it came to a stop in front of him, shoving it into his pocket.
“Vala!” he shouted, trying to lurch forward, but in doing so, he realized he could barely keep himself upright.
“She’s breathing,” Elijah said. “I think. I don’t know. Benny—”
The alien radar was still in one of Vala’s hands, and Benny crawled over to it, scrambling to see what they had done.
Dr. Bale’s superweapon was so far beneath the surface of the Moon that it barely even registered anymore.
Benny collapsed, rolling over onto his back.
“Are you okay?” Elijah asked, at his side in an instant. “Benny, talk to me.”
Benny looked up. The Orion was above them now. Its remaining cannon was charging up. One shot and they’d be gone.
Would Dr. Bale risk shooting them? Did he know how far underground the weapon was? Could he still retrieve it?
Had they made any difference at all?
“How strong do you think this rock is?” Benny asked.
Elijah shook his head. “I just hope Vala was telling the truth when she said it wouldn’t explode.” He tugged at Benny, trying to get him to his feet. “Come on. We have to get you out of here.”
But, suddenly, Benny had an idea. Elijah’s fear from earlier. Dr. Bale’s collection of asteroids. All the tests they’d done on how to blow them up.
He shook off Elijah’s grip. “Ramona,” he said through heavy breaths, “patch me in to Dr. Bale.”
“Epic troll is on the line,” she said over the comms.
“Dr. Bale?” Benny asked.
“Have you called to plead for your life?” Dr. Bale asked. “Or for the lives of these monsters you have decided to betray your species for?”
Benny shook his head a little, exhaustion threatening to take him over. He didn’t want to talk or negotiate. He just wanted to end this here while he could.
“You’re right, doctor. I am a traitor. I’ve sided with the aliens against you.”
“Whatever you just tried was futile,” Dr. Bale said. “Nothing has changed. I will carve that weapon out of the side of the Moon and take it from you.”
“No, you won’t,” Benny said. “Are you forgetting what happens to alien rock when it’s shot? Think hard. One stray laser or blast—one downed Space Runner—would blow this whole crater and your weapon up. Think of what that would do to the Moon. Think of what that would do to Earth.”
Elijah stared at him as he spoke, shaking his head, pointing to Vala. The commander had just given her word that this wasn’t the case.
But as Benny finished talking, he winked at Elijah, and he seemed to understand.
The rock was harmless. But Dr. Bale didn’t know that.
“You fools,” Dr. Bale said. “Do you have any idea how dangerous—”
Benny took a deep breath and let out one of the explosion noises Ramona liked to make. “If I were you, I’d call off your goons and maybe stop firing your weapons anywhere near this crater.”
There was silence on the comms for a long time. Finally, Dr. Bale spoke again. “Cease firing, you idiots,” he yelled to his troops. “You’ll kill us all. Retreat.”
Elijah stared at Benny, his head shaking slightly.
“You won’t get away with this,” Dr. Bale said.
A smile crept across Benny’s face as he rolled his head toward Elijah.
“Can you handle the rest?” he asked. “I think I need a nap.”
24.
Benny woke up in a room made of smooth, glowing stone that he’d never seen before, on a bed that had grown out of the floor. He was groggy, not really sure he wasn’t dreaming. His body felt so heavy that he could barely move anything but his head. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep, to rest until his brothers woke him by jumping on his bed and begging him to get up. Or until his grandmother poked his side, telling him he needed to have breakfast.
Or his father tousled his hair, warning that he was missing the best hours of the day.
He almost did fall back asleep, but as he turned his head, something glittered in his peripheral vision. On the table beside him—among several pouches of food and water—sat a golden glove and a silver hood ornament.
In a single jolt he was awake, eyes wide, trying to sit up in bed as everything that had just happened on the Moon began to flood his mind.
“Whoa, whoa,” Elijah said from a chair near the foot of his bed. “Take it easy. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Wha . . . ?” Benny started. “Whe . . .”
Elijah pulled out a HoloTek and tapped on it. “Let me just tell Pinky you’re awake. She was very worried about—”
Before he could finish, the AI appeared beside Benny’s bed, causing him to jump a little.
“How do you feel?” she asked. “Where does it hurt? We’ve run some scans and you don’t appear to be injured, but trust your body. What do you need? Wha
t can I get you?”
“Um . . .” Benny said, looking around. “Where am I? How long have I been asleep?”
“The sick bay on Vala’s ship,” Elijah said, standing. “And not that long. Just a few hours since we got back. Whatever you and the commander did down there completely wiped you out.”
“The commander . . .” Benny whispered, slowly starting to remember. “Vala! Is she—?”
“Okay,” Pinky said. “We think. Pito has been taking care of her.” The AI bit her lip. “The commander expended a lot of energy in a way that frankly I don’t understand. It may take some time for her to recover. Zee is with her now. He’s hardly left her bedside.”
“The kid is growing on me,” Elijah said. “Especially after saving my butt.”
“Oh!” Pinky exclaimed, perking up a bit. “I should tell the others you’re up.”
And then she blinked out of existence.
Benny just stared at Elijah. “What happened back there?”
Elijah shrugged. “You saved the day, kid. Quick thinking with that bluff. I think Dr. Bale might have wet his pants. I probably would have if I hadn’t heard Vala promise it wasn’t exploding rock we were all standing on.” He got quieter. “And even then, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure we weren’t all going to blow up.” He grinned at Benny. “Don’t worry. I took some samples and tested the mineral. The commander was telling the truth.”
Benny shook his head, trying to figure out where to begin. “What about Dr. Bale?”
Elijah shook his head. “I demanded that he surrender the Orion and all his ships to us. Which he refused. And then, he and his entire fleet just . . . left. I think he was so worried about being caught up in the hypothetical blast that all he cared about in that moment was saving his own skin and his toys. We tracked him as far as we could, but we lost him eventually. He’s a madman, but he is a genius.” Elijah sighed. “Those ships are fast. I can’t wait to pore over the blueprints.” He seemed lost in thought for a beat before shaking his head. “Anyway, he was headed into deeper space, not toward Earth. And, if he thinks there’s a ton of volatile alien rock surrounding his superweapon, I don’t think he’s going to be too keen on trying to mine it out.” He paused. “Hopefully.”
Benny nodded. That was at least one thing he had an answer to.
“Everyone else made it back okay?” And then fear seized his guts. “I remember something on the comms. Trevone was shot down? Or Hot Dog?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Elijah assured him. “More or less. There were some bumps and bruises and . . .” He got quiet. “Maybe a concussion or two.” Then he plastered a grin on his face. “But for the most part, A-OK. Trevone’s not even here right now. He and the rest of the Pit Crew went to scout out the resort and see how many people are left there.”
Benny opened his mouth, but Elijah kept talking. “Don’t worry. They’re scanning from far away and not engaging if they see anyone.” Creases formed on the man’s forehead. “They’d better bring back pictures like I asked.”
“Why didn’t you go yourself?” Benny asked.
Elijah looked away for a second and then back at Benny. “I had to make sure you were okay, didn’t I?”
Before Benny could even begin to figure out how to respond to that, Hot Dog and Drue burst through the doorway.
“Benny!” Hot Dog shouted.
“Nice of you to rejoin the living, man,” Drue said with a smirk that quickly grew into a full-fledged smile.
“How are you?”
“You look like a zombie.”
“I’m okay,” Benny said. “Just really tired.”
Hot Dog tossed her hair back as she sighed in relief, and Benny noticed a bandage near the top of her forehead.
“Whoa, are you okay?” he asked.
“Oh, this?” she asked. “It’s nothing. My head just smashed against the window a little when I accidentally got too close to one of those enemy SRs.”
“That . . . sounds like a normal day,” Benny said.
“It’s weird, right?” Drue asked. “It’s like she’s indestructible.”
“Please don’t jinx me like that,” Hot Dog said. “Also, my Star Runner got shot twice. I mean, just the wings, but still.” She turned to Elijah. “Really smart, useless decorations, by the way. Those cars run on hyperdrives! They don’t need wings. Not to mention the fact that all the shiny gold paint makes them incredibly easy to target.”
“My cars were never meant to be flown into a battle, period,” Elijah said. “Plus, those are prototypes.”
“I’m fine by the way,” Drue said to Benny.
“Yeah, well, you did spend half the fight spinning around in space,” Hot Dog said, looking at her nails.
“Hey! I blew up that cannon! I’m collecting so many medals that my space suit is going to be too heavy to wear. Just as soon as I’m back on Earth and can get them made.”
“Wait, where are Jazz and Ramona?” Benny asked.
“Jazz got superexcited about something she found when she was looking at the design of Dr. Bale’s weapon,” Hot Dog said. “Pinky went to grab her. I think she’s down in Pito’s lab.”
“And Ramona sends her best,” Drue said. “I think. She said something about hoping your system didn’t get defragged? I don’t think she’s much of a stop-in-and-see-a-sick-friend kind of person, if you know what I mean.”
Benny nodded. “Yeah. I do.” He pushed his hands against the bed, trying to sit up straighter. “Okay. So, the weapon is safely stuck in the middle of the Moon and everyone’s alive. That’s good. Now . . . we just have to deal with the Alpha Maraudi.” Benny shrugged. “No big.”
“If possible,” Elijah said, “I wouldn’t mind going back to the Taj. It makes a fine base of operations, and if Senator Lincoln was telling the truth, most of Vala’s crew is there. I’m sure the commander would like to have them back.” Elijah bobbed his head to one side. “Also, I miss it.”
“I’m down for that,” Drue said. “And, you know. My dad’s there.” He took a deep breath. “We’re so close by. I should make sure he’s okay.”
“And we can talk to Earth from the resort,” Hot Dog said. “That’s useful. We have no idea what’s been going on back home.”
“Definitely,” Benny said. “Oh, man. My family must be so worried about me.”
Elijah nodded. “You’ll get the first call. You’ve earned it.”
Benny smiled. “Let’s do it, then. As soon as Ricardo and the rest are back and tell us what’s going on there. We’ve survived aliens and the New Apollo forces a few times. We can totally take back the Taj.”
A shadow appeared in the doorway across the room as Pito walked in. His once-shiny gold plating was smudged and dented in a few places.
“If I may have a moment,” he said.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Benny asked. “That was a heck of a blast.”
“I’ve been through much worse,” Pito said. His voice was grim, lips pulled tight across his face. Something was wrong.
“What is it?” Elijah asked, obviously noticing.
“Is Vala . . . ?” Benny started.
“The commander remains unconscious,” Pito said. “I believe she will make a full recovery. I just do not know when.” The scientist hesitated. “We have received a message from Calam.”
Silence fell over the room.
“I am unsure of what Tull told our leaders, exactly, but they seem to believe Vala has been completely manipulated by the children from Earth. And with the commander unable to defend herself right now . . .” He trailed off, and then sighed. “Tull has been given full permission to attack Earth again. It will take some time, given the state of his ship, but he will no doubt begin making more asteroids. At the very least. I would not be surprised if reinforcements are called in as well.”
“No!” Benny said. “That’s not . . . But we stopped the weapon! That was supposed to show that we can work together.”
“Your home world is being cautiou
s,” Elijah said. He clenched his jaw, shaking his head. “I can’t say I blame them.”
“Hey, we beat this ET twice already!” Hot Dog said. “What’s a third time?”
“Yeah,” Drue agreed. “Plus, if we can go back to the Taj . . .” His head whipped around to Elijah. “Tell me you’ve got crazy-secret stuff there we’ve never even dreamed of. Things that weren’t in your prototype files!”
“Tull is prepared for us now, though,” Benny said, worry starting to settle in his chest. “He didn’t know about our lasers the first time. Or our electromagnetic gloves when we busted Elijah out. But there’ll be no surprising him now.”
“That’s not true,” a voice came from the doorway. Jasmine stood there, a smile painted across her face. “Remember what Dr. Bale said on Io? With science, anything is possible.”
Benny’s face scrunched in confusion for a moment before slowly relaxing.
“Jazz,” he said. And then he grinned. “What’ve you got for us?”
About the Author
PHOTO BY DRUE DAVIS
JERAMEY KRAATZ is the author of the Space Runners series and the Cloak Society series, and he is a graduate of the MFA writing program at Columbia University. He’s actually pretty scared of outer space. Jeramey lives in Texas, where he sometimes teaches, sometimes writes cartoon scripts, and is always up for queso. You can find him at www.jerameykraatz.com or on Twitter @jerameykraatz.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Books by Jeramey Kraatz
Space Runners #1: The Moon Platoon
Space Runners #2: Dark Side of the Moon
The Cloak Society
Villains Rising
Fall of Heroes
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Copyright
SPACE RUNNERS #3: THE COSMIC ALLIANCE. Copyright © 2018 by Full Fathom Five, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Space Runners #3 Page 23