by R.E. Rowe
Chapter 21
Inside the transport door, Nora kneeled down next to Jayden and stared into his eyes.
“We’ll come back for him, I swear," Jayden said.
"My brother will not die," Nora said. "Now, let’s get this transport out of here, okay?” Tears fell down her cheeks. “We have no choice.”
Jayden nodded, tears welling in his eyes. Losing Knifetango and Zebraguts stung, but losing Parker was on a whole different level.
BBgun helped them stand up. Then the three of them ran up the spiral stairway, hurrying toward Cleo and Rhea2 at the top of the stairs.
When Jayden reached Rhea2, he heard her groan, and noticed blood had soaked the left side of her uniform.
They quickly worked together to move Rhea2 to the cockpit door. Nora pressed a button on the voice cube, and it played the Ga audio: “Gsse-ta-aat-tez.” The cabin door opened revealing the transport’s cockpit.
“Stay with Rhea2,” Jayden whispered to Nora and Cleo. “BBgun, follow my lead.”
Jayden and BBgun eased into the cockpit, and then began to inch sideways along the wall of the flight deck. BBgun pointed to clicker devices hanging on the wall like keys at a valet station. Presumably for the pilots and crew. They both grabbed one.
Jayden went into the cockpit first. As he stepped inside, he noticed two older Space Command Earth boys standing at the far end of the room, focused on a control panel. Jayden jumped back into the hallway before the two teens caught sight of him.
The intergalactic transporter cockpit layout was similar to the galactic transport cockpit, only bigger with more rows of benches, a bus-sized steering wheel, and bucket pilot and co-pilot seats in front of a super-sized control panel.
When Jayden was twenty feet from the two older kids, BBgun painted one with a laser. Jayden squared his shoulders and painted the other boy.
“You two!” Jayden shouted. “Stand up. Back away from the panel.”
Both boys jumped, and their eyes went wide.
“Anyone else aboard?” Jayden asked.
“No,” one of the boys said. “Everyone’s been evac’d. We’re just shutting down—”
“You have two seconds to decide to join us!” BBgun shouted.
Go, BBgun . . . way to show some nerve!
“What?” the other boy asked. “Who are you?”
“You’re either with us or against us,” Jayden added. “It’s a simple question.”
The two boys glanced at each other. “You’re masons?”
He nodded. “Something like that.”
“Leader Nuk’ana announced rebels would be coming. Offered a reward in solid gold for a girl with green hair too. Is that her back there?” The boy nodded towards the open door. Jayden glanced back and saw Nora and Cleo helping Rhea2 lean against the doorway. They were ready to fight if necessary.
“Answer us!” BBgun yelled.
“I want to join you,” one boy said.
“Me too,” the other added.
“Where you from?” Jayden asked both boys.
One boy said, “Kansas.” The other said, “New York City.”
Jayden relaxed and put down his weapon. He pointed toward Rhea2. “Go help her. She’s wounded.”
“Right,” the boys said.
Jayden jogged over to Nora. “We need to get this bucket of rivets out of here. Do you know how to get the systems fired up?”
Nora nodded. “Yeah, Rhea2 showed me.” She sat down in the bus-driver bucket seat and strapped herself in, then started to play a drum solo on the control panel.
Jayden softened his voice. “Are you okay?”
Nora made two fists and sighed. “I guess.”
“Look, if Nuk’ana wanted Parker dead, those shape-shifters would’ve blasted him on the spot,” Jayden said. “We didn’t have a choice. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
“If we had stayed and fought, the Zepar would’ve captured us too.”
Nora wiped the tears from her face. “I know. It’s just that—”
BBgun showed up and stood behind Nora. He patted her on the back. “We’ll come back for him.”
Nora cleared her throat. “Hell, yes we will.” She returned to her drum solo to the control panel.
Suddenly a scream came from the back of the cockpit, then a zap of electricity. When Jayden looked back over his shoulder, one boy struggled with Cleo while Rhea2 lay still on the floor.
A laser flash grazed Cleo. She collapsed.
BBgun spun and painted the boy who’d downed Cleo. Jayden painted the other. They fired. Both boys collapsed to the floor.
Jayden peered at his clicker and quickly realized there was only enough laser power to stun them. Presumably because they were inside a transport cockpit, he thought.
“Get us out of here!” he roared at Nora.
Jayden and BBgun hurried over to Cleo, who had passed out on the floor next to Rhea2. But the blood-soaked wound to Rhea2’s side looked worse.
“Guess the price on our heads was too tempting for these jerks.” BBgun scowled.
The raid had been a total disaster.
Rhea2 coughed. “You need to take me to my home. My father will help us.”
“Where? The rebel base?” Jayden asked.
“Andromeda,” she moaned.
“Andromeda? Another galaxy?” BBgun asked. “Are you crazy?”
“This is an intergalactic transport. It will make it.” Rhea2 moaned, struggling to whisper. “Tell Zeekmo to enter these coordinates: and01, z4322, x3111, a1233, da1378, ed9946, d8237.”
“Zeekmo!” Jayden yelled. “You almost ready?” The front wall of the cabin transformed into a viewport. Jayden saw the inside of the massive hangar. Hundreds of Zepar and Space Command kids ran in every direction around the rows of transports like ants in a hot pan. Blinking red lights pulsed throughout the hanger, but Parker was nowhere in sight.
Nora pointed to an opening at the far end of the hanger. Some sort of force field allowed UFOs to come and go, but it kept out the vacuum of space. “Engines engaged. We’ll be clear of the hub momentarily.”
“New coordinates for you,” Jayden turned to Rhea2. “Tell me again.” Rhea2 whispered the coordinates, and he relayed them to Nora.
“Got it. Coordinates set,” Nora said. “In three minutes we’ll punch in.”
BBgun helped Jayden lift the wounded girls on two of the bench seats behind Nora, and then strapped them in with seatbelts. They both searched storage cabinets along a wall and found what looked like twenty feet of cable. BBgun managed to drag the unconscious boys across the cockpit, and Jayden used the cable to tie them to a cargo hook. When they came to, they wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Jayden took a seat near Nora and buckled in for the ride. BBgun found a seat near Cleo. A moment later, the transport cleared the hangar and Nora flew it toward the system’s bright star.
A yellow light on the control panel began to flash.
Nora flipped a switch.
A hologram appeared over the control panel showing twenty UFOs chasing them.
“Almost ready to punch in.” She pushed a button and flipped another switch. A timer came on. It displayed one minute remaining.
“We better hurry,” Jayden said.
A second hologram showing Nuk’ana’s head appeared, hovering over the control panel. His jawline extended two inches, and then contracted back to normal. Jayden punched at the hologram face, passing his fist through the projected light beam.
“We were expecting you,” Nuk’ana said. His eyes narrowed, and jaw extended.
Jayden frowned at Nora. Expecting us? The whole thing was a trap?
Nuk’ana continued. “Your rebel colleagues have been captured and will be executed. Your rebel moon base has also been destroyed.”
The hologram changed to show Sigarr. The sprawling mason outpost was exploding.
“Honestly, you have nowhere to run. Give up now, or we will turn the ship you
stole into atoms,” the leader said. “But that would be a waste of an intergalactic transport.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Rhea2 said in a whistling whisper. “He wouldn’t dare fire on the intergalactic transport so close. The nuclear shock wave would blow up his entire hub.”
“Good to know,” Nora said.
The hologram changed, and the camera view widened. Parker had been tied up in a chair next to Leader Nuk’ana. He was already bruised and bloodied, but still alive and conscious. A muscular, bald Zepar stood next to him.
Nora gasped and Jayden bit his lip. Blood pumped hard through his veins. He wanted to do something, anything. But he couldn’t. Not yet anyway. He had failed his best friend.
“Return my intergalactic transport,” Nuk’ana said, his eyes glowing yellow. “Turn yourselves in. If you fail to do so, your comrade, the boy you know as G-striker, along with the other rebels we captured this day, will be executed.” He paused and sucked on his long smoking stick then released a column of smoke.
A display flashed on the transport’s control panel: “Space-between-space travel imminent.”
Nuk’ana’s jaw stretched then shrank back to normal when he heard the update too. “I see. You are determined to flee. Very well. I give you seventy-two Earth hours to return and give up. Not an Earth second longer. If you do as I say, I will let you all live. But I warn you. Don’t be late, rebels, or we’ll send you holo-highlights of their executions. Bring me back my transport!”
Parker lifted his head. “Don’t listen—” A hulky Zepar struck him across the face.
“Get out of here!” Parker yelled.
The holograms disappeared just as the timer reached zero. The portal view of the star near them went pitch black. They had made it to the space between the space, and were on the way to Andromeda.
Tears ran down Nora’s cheeks.
“Hang on, Parker,” Jayden whispered under his breath. “We’ll be back for you. I promise.”