Antarctic Attack

by Adrian C. Bott

  These defenceless little guys are the ones at risk from Grabbem, he reminded himself. There was no sign of any oil, though, and the penguins didn’t look troubled at all. In fact, there were no ships, no buildings, no tents … no sign at all that anyone had ever been here.

  ‘This is where Agent Omega meant us to go, right?’ he asked.

  ‘THESE EXACT CO-ORDINATES,’ said BEAST.

  ‘Let’s shift to standard form. It’s less noisy than SKYHAWK. I need to get in for a better look, but I don’t want to scare the penguins.’

  BEAST resumed his robot form as they hovered close to the beach. Axel still couldn’t see anything unusual – just rocks, snow and lots of penguins. Maybe Agent Omega was wrong, and the area was completely desolate.

  And then one of the penguins waddled away from the others. It stood stiffly for a moment, spreading its wings out in a strange way.

  Next second it shot up into the air. Its beak stuck out like a spike and a plume of rocket exhaust roared out of its bottom.

  ‘What the heck?’ yelled Axel.

  The penguin streaked through the air like a missile. It was heading straight at them …

  There was only one chance to get out of the penguin missile’s path in time. Axel flung BEAST into a sideways roll.

  As BEAST flipped over and over, Axel felt the Liqui-Nums sloshing around in his stomach, fighting to come back up. He swallowed hard and levelled BEAST off again.

  ‘BEAST, track that penguin, fast! Where did it go?’

  A distant KA-THOOM! in the sky behind them told him the answer. He checked the rear-view screen and saw white smoke blooming against the blue, flecked with fiery fragments.

  Axel stared at it in disbelief. He’d watched nature documentaries before. Emperor penguins did some incredible things. They went on long marches to their ancestral breeding grounds, braving the elements and surviving against the odds. But no nature documentary had ever mentioned penguins exploding before.

  ‘Okay. Things just got weird,’ he said. ‘Looks like Grabbem have been here after all. At least the other penguins are okay … oh, no!’

  The other penguins were not okay. They were all doing that same stiff-standing, wing-spreading wobble-on-the-spot that the first one had done. And there were hundreds of them all along the beach.

  ‘BEAST, we need to leave now!’

  ‘ENGAGING FULL THRUST,’ BEAST replied.

  One by one, the penguin missiles took to the air. They flew towards BEAST in a black-and-white swarm, smoke spewing out behind them as if their tails were on fire. The entire sky seemed to be filled with them.

  A penguin rushed right at them. Axel glimpsed two little red dots where its eyes should have been. BEAST flew up out of the way in time, but only just. The explosion shook Axel around in his pilot’s compartment.

  ‘We can’t dodge this many,’ he gasped. ‘Only one thing for it. Shift into SHARKOS. We’re heading for the sea.’

  ‘ROGER!’

  BEAST’s arms flattened out and shortened, turning into fins. A smooth dorsal fin rose from his back. His legs clamped together and extended tail flukes above and below.

  SHARKOS couldn’t fly, of course, so Axel and BEAST were now plunging out of the sky. Axel crossed his fingers and hoped he’d gotten the angle right, or they’d bellyflop. SHARKOS dived gracefully into the water, sending up a spout like a fountain. Axel breathed out in relief.

  Now they were in a watery world of streaming bubbles and huge, half-visible masses of ice. Axel saw the flashes and bangs of exploding penguins above, and was glad to be out of the firing line.

  ‘They looked so cute,’ he said miserably. ‘I still can’t believe penguins tried to kill us.’

  ‘THEY ARE STILL TRYING,’ said BEAST.

  ‘What? Show me!’

  Ranks of penguin rockets were hopping up to the edge of the ice and plunging in. As soon as they entered the water, they whooshed through it like miniature torpedoes. Axel let out a yell of frustration. ‘I’m an idiot. Penguins are aquatic! We’re not safe from them under the water. If anything, they’re even more dangerous down here!’

  As if to prove him right, the horde of penguin missiles curved like planes in formation flight, arranging themselves into a pointed V-shape and coming directly at them.

  ‘THESE ARE PROBABLY NOT NATURAL PENGUINS, BUT ROBOT REPLICAS,’ said BEAST.

  ‘You think?’

  Axel fired up the turbines that propelled SHARKOS through the water. There was no way to outswim the penguin torpedoes, and electric pulses were too short-range. He’d just have to think of something else, fast.

  SHARKOS was armed with mines, but they could drop only one at a time. There was no way to stop so many attackers with one mine. Unless …

  ‘Find the nearest patch of sea ice and head for it,’ he told BEAST.

  SHARKOS wrenched itself around and swam full-tilt. The penguins veered around to follow.

  Up ahead, Axel saw what looked like a bluish-grey wall. As they drew closer, he saw it was something like an upside-down mountain, its peak lost in the shadowy depths of the sea. It must be the underside of an iceberg – and there was much more ice under the surface than there was above.

  ‘Get ready to drop a mine when I give the word.’

  ‘MINE ARMED.’

  With the penguins racing after them, Axel steered SHARKOS on a steep plunge under the iceberg. The craggy ice rushed by overhead. Axel waited until they were right under the iceberg’s heart.

  ‘Steady … okay, drop!’

  A tiny sphere – the mine – flew out of SHARKOS’s tail with a soft ploop. Axel boosted the turbines to maximum and roared away through the water.

  The oncoming flock of robot penguins paid no attention to the mine. Their glowing red eyes were on SHARKOS. One of them brushed against the mine with a wing, and –

  KA-BLAMMO!

  An explosion tore through the water, shattering the underside of the iceberg. Three of the robot penguins were blasted to scraps of metal on the spot. The others were buffeted, but kept coming – only to run straight into the huge chunks of ice that came drifting down into their path.

  The water was suddenly full of ice fragments and the penguins couldn’t stop. They yelled electronic squawks as they smashed into the ice boulders, one after the other. Only one was still coming, rocketing out of the storm of debris.

  Axel spun SHARKOS on the spot, twisting the flexible robot body around as if it was a real shark. He yelled, ‘Electric pulse, now!’

  From between SHARKOS’s jaws came a piercing screaannnnggg, like a rock guitarist turning the volume up to eleven. A cone of electrical energy frazzled the water in front of them. The penguin missile shuddered and then blew itself to bits as the electric pulse overloaded it.

  Axel fell back against the seat cushions, gasping. ‘Oh, man. That was not what I was expecting. Rocket penguins? Who came up with that?’

  ‘YOU NEED TO RELAX,’ said BEAST. ‘I SHALL PLAY SOME SOOTHING SOUNDS SPECIALLY CHOSEN FOR OUR CURRENT SITUATION.’

  Sloshy wave noises began to play in Axel’s ears. Then came the strange, echoing cry of a humpback whale.

  Axel flinched. ‘Thanks, BEAST, but please don’t. It makes me think you’ve sprung a leak.’

  In the silence, he gathered his thoughts. Grabbem are definitely here. Those robot penguins must be sentinels, put there to keep any pesky intruders out. Nobody would spot that they weren’t normal penguins until it was too late. So what are they protecting?

  ‘LIFE FORM APPROACHING,’ said BEAST.

  ‘What? Did we miss one of the penguins?’

  ‘NO. THIS IS SOMETHING ELSE.’

  ‘The Devastator?’

  BEAST said nothing.

  Axel held his breath. The ‘life form’ BEAST had mentioned was coming at them through the water, a ghostly grey shape with dark eyes …

  Axel watched the creature emerge from the darkness. There was something silvery in its mouth.

  ‘Is it
another robot? Can you scan it?’ ‘THE CREATURE IS NATURAL,’ said BEAST.

  The creature swam closer and closer. It seemed curious, not angry or scared. It swam right up until it was nose to nose with them. The thing in its mouth was a fish.

  Axel stared at the sleek, inhuman face looking into his own.

  ‘It’s a leopard seal,’ he said in awe. ‘I’ve read about those. They’re dangerous.’

  Even inside the armoured safety of BEAST, Axel felt uneasy. The seal’s body was thick and muscular.

  As he watched, uncertain what he should do next, the seal opened its mouth. The dead fish floated between them. The seal’s mouth yawned wide, and inside Axel saw two terrifying rows of teeth – huge, curved and sharp. This wasn’t a cute, fluffy seal, but a powerful predator. In these waters, only the killer whale was more deadly.

  This animal belongs here, Axel thought. We don’t. We’re strangers in its hunting ground. It’s trying to scare us off.

  ‘Don’t make any sudden moves, BEAST. I think it might be getting ready to attack.’

  ‘SHE,’ Beast said softly.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘NOT “IT”. SHE.’

  ‘You can tell?’

  ‘SHE TOLD ME.’

  Axel’s mouth fell open. ‘You can speak seal?’

  The seal pushed her head forwards, nudging the fish at them. It floated past BEAST’s head. Then she swam after it, grabbed it and pushed it at them again.

  ‘MY SHARKOS FORM CAN SCAN THE BRAINWAVES OF AQUATIC CREATURES,’ BEAST explained. ‘THIS ALLOWS ME A LIMITED FORM OF COMMUNICATION.’

  ‘Wow. So what’s she saying?’

  ‘I BELIEVE SHE IS TRYING TO FEED ME HER FISH.’

  Axel was dumbfounded. How wrong could he have been? Here they were, far from home, strangers in this icy sea … and the leopard seal was trying to help them. She hadn’t been getting ready to attack at all. ‘She thinks we’re hungry,’ he said. His stomach rumbled again. He wondered how the seal could possibly know something like that.

  ‘NO. SHE THINKS WE ARE RUBBISH AT HUNTING.’

  Axel laughed. ‘What?’

  BEAST paused, scanning the seal’s mind.

  ‘Well? What’s she thinking?’

  ‘SHE SAYS: EVEN A PUP SEAL WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT THOSE WERE NOT REAL PENGUINS, AND YET WE ATTACKED THEM. CLEARLY WE ARE USELESS HUNTERS AND NEED HELP. BUT WE ARE TOO STUPID EVEN TO EAT A GOOD FISH WHEN IT IS BROUGHT TO US.’

  The seal had given up trying to feed BEAST the fish. Axel thought he saw a look of frustration on her face as she turned and began to swim away.

  ‘You should talk to my mum, Seal,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a lot in common.’ He sighed and rested his head on the seat cushion. ‘Maybe we are rubbish hunters, BEAST. There are thousands of square kilometres of Antarctica out there and we’ve got no idea where Grabbem’s base is. Those robot penguins looked just like the real thing! If they’re that clever, how are we supposed to find them?’

  ‘EVEN A PUP SEAL WOULD HAVE KNOWN,’ repeated BEAST.

  ‘So what can a baby seal do that we can’t?’ Axel pondered. ‘BEAST, follow her, please. We need to talk to her some more.’

  They kept a respectful distance from the leopard seal as they followed her along the coast. Axel wasn’t sure this was sensible, but it was the only lead they had.

  After about a kilometre of swimming, they reached a long ice shelf jutting out of the land. There were more seals here, and they swam up to look at the strange newcomer.

  The leopard seal swam back to BEAST and bonked him on the head with her nose.

  ‘SHE IS WARNING US NOT TO COME TOO CLOSE, BECAUSE THE CUBS MIGHT BE SCARED.’

  ‘That’s fine. I just want to know how she could tell the penguins weren’t real.’

  ‘SHE SAYS THEY SMELT WRONG.’

  Of course! Seals had an excellent sense of smell when they were out of the water. His excitement growing, Axel said, ‘Please ask her if she’s smelt anything else like that lately … anything wrong, man-made.’

  BEAST was silent for a long time. Axel realised he had no idea how BEAST was asking the seal a question in the first place. Understanding them was one thing, but actually talking to them was something else. ‘SHE IS VERY UPSET. THE SMELLY MACHINES HAVE BEEN POISONING THE FISH. I HAVE TOLD HER THAT WE ARE HERE TO STOP THEM, AND SHE IS GLAD.’

  ‘Smelly machines? That’s got to be Grabbem. Can she show us where they are?’

  ‘LOOK, AXEL. SHE ALREADY IS.’

  The seal was heaving herself out of the water and onto the ice shelf. Axel shifted BEAST back into his robot form, and they pulled themselves out after her. The ice shelf creaked ominously under their weight.

  The seal shuffled herself along, leading them away from the sea and into the snowy landscape. They followed her around the side of a rocky mound that hid the land beyond from view.

  That must be why Grabbem picked this place, thought Axel. Passing ships wouldn’t suspect a thing.

  They hadn’t gone far when a mountainous shape came into view across the snowfields. ‘Hrooooonk,’ said the seal.

  ‘Don’t think I need you to translate that,’ Axel said. ‘That’s where the smelly machines are. And that’s where we’re going next.’

  BEAST said ‘THANK YOU’ to the seal, who harrumphed, sniffed the air and wriggled her shoulders before shuffling away again. Axel wondered what she might be saying. He waited for BEAST to translate. He didn’t. The moments ticked by.

  ‘Well, what did she say?’

  ‘BEAST DOES NOT WANT TO TELL YOU.’

  Axel frowned. This was new. BEAST sometimes had his own private thoughts, but he’d never clammed up like this before.

  ‘Come on, BEAST. You can tell me anything. You know that.’

  ‘YES. BEAST KNOWS. BUT THE SEAL WAS NOT SPEAKING TO BOTH OF US JUST THEN. ONLY TO BEAST.’

  ‘Oh.’ Axel hadn’t expected that. ‘So it was personal.’

  ‘YES.’

  ‘That’s fine. You can have secrets. I don’t mind.’

  BEAST hissed softly and his body sagged a bit, as if he were sighing in relief.

  Axel smiled to himself. ‘We’ve got some more travelling to do. Let’s give this SNOWDOG form of yours a try – oof!’

  The ‘oof!’ came as BEAST fell forwards onto all fours. His arms and legs folded like an origami trick, becoming triangular caterpillar tracks. Tiny spikes extended from each slat of the track, ready to get a strong grip on the ice.

  Axel yelled in surprise as the entire pilot compartment rotated up and through BEAST’s body, leaving him sitting on BEAST’s back looking out over the featureless plain.

  BEAST’s antennae became two tall, pointy ears. His face became long and wolf-like. His eyes became searchlights, casting two bright cones of misty light over the ground ahead. The background hum of his power reactor changed to a low growling sound.

  ‘SNOWDOG TRANSFORMATION COMPLETE.’

  ‘Cool. Let’s get to that iceberg, fast. Looks like the sun’s setting.’

  ‘IT IS. AND WE HAVE ONLY THREE HOURS UNTIL THE DEVASTATOR IS UNLEASHED.’

  ‘And we still don’t know what it is.’ Axel squeezed the throttle. SNOWDOG’s tracks bit into the ice and they set off, picking up more and more speed as they went. ‘I guess we won’t have to wait long to find out …’

  Meanwhile, in a hangar deep inside the Grabbem base, Gus Grabbem Junior looked up at the Devastator. It was a towering giant of a vehicle, with a cylinder-shaped body and three long thin legs. On the underside of the cylinder was Gus’s favourite part, the blaster cannon. Cables were plugged into it, throbbing with light.

  Gus wore a black leather jacket and a T-shirt covered in printed bullet holes. The scientist next to him wore a white lab coat and an anxious expression.

  ‘Can’t you charge it up any quicker?’ Gus snapped. ‘I want to start shooting holes in the ice. And anything else that gets in my way.’

  ‘We’re charging it as fast as we can,’
stammered the scientist.

  ‘You’d better be.’ Gus stuck his finger deep into his left nostril and worked it around. There was something gluey wedged up in there and he wanted to eat it.

  The scientist licked his dry lips. ‘I must say, we were all, um, very surprised when your father informed us that you were to be the pilot. We were expecting someone with, ah, a little more experience.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m not good enough?’ Gus snarled.

  ‘No!’ squeaked the scientist. ‘It’s just that the cost … that is, the Devastator is worth billions, and you do have a reputation for …’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Um … for crashing. A lot.’

  Gus grabbed the scientist by the scruff of his white coat and lifted him until he was standing on tiptoe.

  ‘My dad says I’m the best pilot in the whole company,’ Gus leered. The gum he was chewing didn’t cover up the stink of his bad teeth. ‘His opinion matters. Yours ain’t worth squat. Now go and get me a can of soda.’

  As the scientist scurried away, Gus looked longingly at the gigantic door that led out of the base. Soon he could drive the Devastator out and start blasting mammoth holes in the landscape. His palms itched; he couldn’t wait. The Antarctic ice sheet would look like Swiss cheese once he was finished with it …

  Every time Axel got to try out one of BEAST’s forms for the first time, he got as excited as a kid waking up on Christmas morning. You never knew quite what you were going to get.

  No two forms ever felt the same; flying SKYHAWK, which tore through the clouds faster than the speed of sound, was completely different to flying BLACKBAT, which glided silently and stealthily above the Earth, invisible to all below.

  All the forms had different tools and weapons, too. SHARKOS dropped mines and fired electric pulses, OGRE used its heavy fists and GOPHER its sharp digging claws.

  SNOWDOG was noisy. Axel knew that much now. They roared across the open Antarctic plain, sounding like a squad of stunt motorbikes putting on a show. Did SNOWDOG have any weapons? Axel wondered. Hopefully they wouldn’t need to find out.