by R.E. Rowe
Chapter 16
Dressed in a freshly pressed black Space Command uniform, Jayden sat in a wrap-around style bucket seat next to Nora. The rest of the gang sat behind them in a two-seat-wide row of bucket seats.
Nora flipped switches and pressed buttons on the dashboard control panel. “All systems are green.” She gripped the sports-car steering wheel. “We’re a go.”
“Roger, Zeekmo,” Rhea2 replied over the speaker from the rebel base. “Your mission will be easy in, easy out operation. The transport hub will be distracted by the battle on the pink creature’s world, Zeta109b. You should go unnoticed.”
Jayden took a long, deep breath when he remembered the strange pink aliens on Zeta109b. When his thoughts shifted to losing Zebraguts and Knifetango, his stomach soured. “Let’s hope so.”
“You are clear to launch,” Lorcan added over the speaker. “You’ll find your weapons in two boxes in the back of the cockpit. Green, green, green.”
“We’re away,” Nora replied.
“Happy hunting,” Lorcan said.
Right, Jayden thought. Hunting with no blasters? Perfect. He gazed up through the transparent UFO roof that was nearly the size of a green house. The stars moved outside the UFO’s view portal, but he didn’t feel any moving sensation. “How do you know how to get there?” he asked Nora.
“Rhea2 already configured the coordinates,” Nora said. “It’s flying on autopilot using the Ga’s weird navigation system.” She glanced at Cleo, then at Parker and BBgun. “Hey guys, come up here. Time for everyone to learn how to fly this thing.”
Everyone huddled in behind Nora.
For the next hour, Nora gave a flying lesson. As far as Jayden was concerned, it was essentially like driving a car. The only difference was how the steering wheel pulled up and pushed forward to make the UFO go up and down.
“That’s the end of UFO 101. Get back to your seats,” Nora said, checking the readout. “We should be at the raid coordinates in a three minutes. We’ll approach from the rear of the hub, and then transport down. Everyone ready?”
“Ready,” Jayden said.
“G-striker ready,” Parker replied.
“What am I supposed to do again?” asked BBgun, his eyes wide.
Jayden turned around in his seat. “Just follow us into the hangar. We’ll pick four of the newest looking UFOs, then get the heck out of there. Easy.” Even though he sounded convincing, he wasn’t so sure it’d be so easy.
“Should be a snap,” Parker chimed in. “You listened to Nora, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” replied BBgun.
“Good. Stay close,” said Parker. “We’ll point out the UFO for you to snatch.”
“ZapperGirl, sit up here,” Nora said, gesturing to Cleo, then pointed to the control panel. “Press this red button to transport us down when I tell you. Then press this button to get yourself back to the base. We’ll meet you there.”
Cleo nodded, worried. “But I thought—”
“I’m going to the hub instead of you,” Nora said. “Someone’s gotta watch these three.” She smirked.
“Cool,” Cleo said, trying to conceal a grin. “I’ll meet you peeps back at base.”
Jayden turned his attention to the two boxes of weapons, and checked the first box. “Here are the electromagnetic disrupters that Rhea2 told us about.” He handed out what appeared to be hockey pucks. Each disrupter included a snap to attach it to the matching snap at the waist of their uniforms.
The second box contained black gloves, elbow pads, and kneepads that looked as though they could be used to play a football game. But instead of pads, each wearable device was made from an odd, squishy metal. “It feels like a diver’s wetsuit,” Jayden said, “but it looks like some kind of weird metal.”
Parker grabbed a set. He quickly slid them on his knees and elbows. Then he slipped his hands into a pair of gloves. “How do you fire them?” he asked Nora.
Crap, Jayden thought. They’d forgotten to ask.
“No idea,” she replied. “But they look like the ones I used in that online game back home. Once I had them on, all I did was flex. You know, make a fist, throw an elbow, or lunge a knee.”
“Let’s not try them inside this UFO,” Jayden said. “We’re liable to shoot each other.”
Parker smirked. “We have bad memories about doing that, huh, Killgeek?”
Jayden grumbled as he remembered the last online game they had played with Nora. He shook his head in disgust as he put on the wearables. “Any idea what the transport hub will look like?” he whispered to Nora.
“Nope. But we’ll find out soon enough. Let’s go UFO shopping.”
Nora led the way onto a platform of glowing white tiles.
“We’re in position,” Nora said to Cleo. “Ready for transport.”
“Ah, um—” Cleo stammered as she stared at the control panel.
“The red button I showed you, remember?” Nora shouted. “Press it!”
The next thing Jayden knew, he was standing in a UFO hangar with Parker, BBgun, and Nora.
For a couple seconds he felt a little dizzy and off balance. That transport trick is pretty handy, he thought.
The air inside the hub was thin, but Jayden could still breathe. The place was larger than a pro football stadium and fifty stories high. He gazed upon row after row of UFOs filling most of the hangar and noticed the hanger opened at both ends, leading out to space. Groups of ten UFOs in formation flew out of the hangar at one end while two or three beat up UFOs wobbled in from the other end. Wow, Space Command’s war effort was seriously not going well.
Other kids wearing Space Command uniforms scurried about pushing carts of replacement parts to Zepar, apparently repairing dismantled UFOs. With all the activity in the hanger, no one noticed them.
Nora pointed to the middle of the hangar at a steel support beam the width of a house. The beam went straight up to the ceiling. Adjacent to the steel support stood a one-story, glass-walled room the size of a greenhouse with red, blue, and green lights blinking inside. “Let me see the tablet,” she said.
“Uh, sure.” Jayden replied, and snatched it from his t-shirt and handed it to her. “What are you going to do with it?”
“See that room?” Nora asked, pointing to the giant glass booth.
“Good idea,” Jayden said, assuming Space Command was about to be hacked.
“Buy me some time. I’ll be back.” Nora said, and then casually jogged to the glass room, stepped inside, and went to work on a panel with flashing lights.
Jayden knew Nora was good. But as he watched her working and moving with precision, he thought she looked like a super hero. “Let’s spread out and divert anyone going toward that room.”
He pointed to two different UFOs within the hanger about one hundred feet away. “You guys take position there and there. Try to act like the other Space Command kids. Pretend you’re inspecting a UFO or something.”
Parker and BBgun quickly spread out.
Before long, Nora had connected a rigged-up cable to the tablet attached to the panel. She continued pressing on the tablet and pushing buttons on the control panel. Whatever Nora was doing, Jayden could see the information on the tablet’s display changing every two or three seconds.
Suddenly, she started moving quicker, and then let out a blood curdling scream.
Jayden’s stomach dropped. "So not good."
The entire glass room flashed bright red. A wavering siren blasted.
Nora bolted out of the room in a sprint. She arrived at Jayden’s position nearly at the same time as Parker and BBgun.
“What happened?” Jayden asked her.
“Encryption was harder than I figured it’d be. But I did it. The tablet will connect to their systems now.” Nora handed it to him. “Hide it back in your t-shirt. I’ll mess with it later. Let’s get out of here.”
BBgun’s face turned pale. “Uh, great,” he said, as the siren continued to wail. <
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Jayden saw what BBgun meant. Twenty shimmering Zepar in black uniforms were fifty yards away and closing on them. He glanced around and scoped out the four closest UFOs. Each one was a little smaller than the UFO they’d just flown in, but they would have to do. “Let’s take those. Fly it straight up and hover.”
“Good idea,” Nora said. “Pull back on the steering wheel to go straight up fifty-feet. Watch the control panel. It will show you how high to go.”
Jayden pointed toward an open hangar door. “Let’s bug out that way.”
“Wait for me to move forward first, and then fly behind me,” Nora added. “They won’t expect us to fly out through the entrance. Just try not to crash into one of the UFOs coming in.”
Parker frowned towards the distant, smooth side panel of one of the UFOs. “How do we get inside?”
“Look for a white triangle with a circle around the bottom edge of the UFO,” Nora said. “Just push. It’ll open a hatch.”
The Zepar were getting closer.
Parker opened and closed his fists. “Let’s go!”
They scattered and each jogged to one of the four UFOs.
Jayden reached his ship, found a triangle, and pushed. Sure enough, it opened the front hatch. As he entered the UFO, the lights came on, and then the hatch closed automatically behind him. He jogged up the circular metal stairs to the control room, sat in a bulky leather chair behind a wooden steering wheel, and inspected the control panel.
After tapping in the punch-in and punch-out coordinate numbers from the paper Rhea2 had given each of them, he turned on the outside cameras, pressed a large green button, and pulled back on the steering wheel.
Amazingly, the UFO wobbled straight up, jerking to the right, then to the left. He groaned as he fought the controls and turned the steering wheel while figuring out how to stabilize the UFO. Finally, he was able to proceed upward until the display showed fifty feet.
“Dang it,” Jayden said. He noticed on the control panel display that BBgun was heading straight toward him. He pushed on the display of BBgun’s UFO. A hologram appeared over the panel showing BBgun fighting the steering wheel. Luckily, he managed to straighten it out before he collided with Jayden.
Jayden pushed on the display until an image appeared of all four of them hovering side-by-side.
Nora’s UFO inched forward and took the lead.
Jayden pushed down the accelerator and followed. He wobbled and grazed Parker’s ship, then BBgun’s, but didn’t inflicting any major damage. A few seconds later, they all slowly flew in a V-formation towards the back entrance with Nora in the lead. Even BBgun managed to get it right and maintain his position.
Not bad for rookies, Jayden thought with a tinge of pride.
The plan worked until the massive hangar door began to close. Red lights flashed all around the gaping opening in front of them.
Jayden’s dashboard display showed other UFOs rising up behind them. His heart pounded as the hangar door closed faster. This was going to be close. He stepped on the accelerator.
Nora, Parker, and BBgun must have been reading his mind. They all sped up at the same time and wobbled side-by-side.
Jayden kept his eyes on the hangar door and realized they weren’t going to make it in the current formation. He jerked the steering wheel to position his UFO above Nora’s craft. Parker took position above his UFO. BBgun moved below Nora’s UFO.
With only inches to spare, they made it out before the hangar doors closed. Jayden’s rear cameras showed the pursuing UFOs disappear behind the closed hangar door.
“Whoo hoo!” he shouted and gave a fist pump.
Once they were clear, Nora took the lead again, speeding out from the hub.
Then a voice blasted out of the speaker on Jayden’s dashboard. “Halt, Space Fighter! Failure to comply will result in death. Self-destruct sequence started.”
Red lights on his control panel blinked rapidly, and a beep began to pulse. Panic gripped his shoulders, as he searched frantically for a way to turn the lights off.
“Can you boys hear me?” Nora asked.
Jayden shouted in harmony with Parker and BBgun, “Yes!” He slapped at the control panel until live holograms of Nora, Parker, and BBgun floated over his dashboard just like the holograms in the robo pod.
“Don’t have a cow,” Nora said. “It’ll take me a second.”
Suddenly, the lights on the dashboard stopped blinking. Thank goodness.
“Easy to override,” Nora said. “They used a stupid microwave beacon pointed at our UFOs. I jammed it. Easy peasy.”
Jayden felt his face twitch. That was close. Lucky for them Nora had more talents than just being a hacker.
“Follow me,” she said, then explained how to punch in the coordinates. When Jayden did, the starlight disappeared, and everything went pitch black. Jayden realized they’d just entered the space within the space. He couldn’t see the others flying near him.
The space between the space is seriously strange.
Before long, his UFO automatically punched-out and returned safely to the Sigarr base with the other three. The autopilot landed all four ships next to each other in the open hangar.
Rhea2 and Cleo waited for them as Jayden walked down the ramp of the UFO he’d jacked. He noticed Rhea2 was biting her lip, her brow furrowed. The Andros girl’s face had turned hunter green again, but this time a shade darker. She glared at Nora. “We heard the alert on Space Command communication channel. Did something go wrong?”
“Nope,” Parker said, holding out open hands. “We didn’t need to use our weapons.”
“What did you do?” Rhea2 asked her fists on her hips.
“Guess we tripped some auto-alarm beacon or something. No problem, we made it out, didn’t we?” Nora said. “Now you have four more precious UFOs to add to your rebel UFO collection, courtesy of us.”
Rhea2 glared at Nora. “Get some rest before your next mission. It is tomorrow.” She turned and walked away.
“Great, thanks!” Parker shouted to her back. “Love how you watered your fern today.”
Jayden gave Parker a slight shove. “Chill, man.” Agitating Rhea2 was the last thing they needed to do.
BBgun frowned. “We have another mission tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Sounds like it,” Jayden replied.
“Let’s hurry, I have a system to hack,” Nora whispered, and then ran off, leaving a light jasmine fragrance in Jayden's nose.