“Uh… maybe,” said Cal. “I mean, not always, but… Well, here we are.”
“The ship. You stole it?”
“Well, that’s one way of putting it,” Cal admitted. “Another way would be that we saved it from an exploding planet. That’s how I like to look at it.”
Dorid chuckled. “Please don’t misunderstand me. The ship is yours now. Zertex took it from me, and if you took it from them, then I applaud you for it. I am not what you might call ‘a fan’ of theirs.”
“Preach, sister,” said Cal.
Dorid frowned. “I’m sorry?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Dorid hesitated, then continued. “Yes. Quite. The ship should be ready soon, I understand. The other Dorids, they are quite efficient. You will be free to leave at any time.”
“That is awesome. We really appreciate this,” said Cal. “Don’t we, Mech?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we really appreciate it.”
Dorid waved a hand. “Think nothing of it,” he said. “But there is, of course, the matter of payment.”
A moment passed in silence.
“Payment?” said Cal.
“The equipment being replaced on the ship is worth… Well, it’s priceless, in many respects. I’m afraid I can’t just give it to you free of charge.”
Cal nodded. “No, OK, OK, that’s fair. We don’t have much money now, but we’re about to bag a reward worth a mill… worth half a million credits. We’d be happy to pay the bill out of that.”
“No, it isn’t money I’m after. I have plenty of that,” said Dorid. “I want the girl. The Cantatorian.”
Cal and Mech swapped glances. “You want Soonsho?” asked Cal. “Why? So you can claim the reward?”
Dorid laughed. It was a dry, scratchy sort of laugh, almost like a cough. “As I say, I have plenty of money. I’m interested in her gift. Her ability. See, since you arrived, I’ve been researching the young lady, and, well, it seems she is quite unique.”
“In what way?” asked Mech.
“Her vocal range is… limited in some ways, unrivalled in others. Unlike other Cantatorian females, she is unable to use her voice’s hypnotic qualities. The tones she emits are far too destructive,” Dorid explained. “Were she to sing a note, the damage would be off the scale. Those within earshot would not fall under her thrall, largely because their intestines would erupt through their skin and their skeletons would be vibrated into dust.”
“Yeah, we saw something like that,” said Cal. “But I still don’t understand why you’d want her. You know, if she’s that dangerous?”
Dorid ran a hand down the dusty surface of another tank, then flaked the grime from his fingertips. “I have dedicated my life to pushing the frontiers of science and invention,” he said. “With this girl – with Soonsho – there is an opportunity to push them further. Her voice, weaponized, would be a remarkable thing.”
Mech stiffened. “So, what? So Zertex can come along and take it?”
“Precisely the opposite,” said Dorid. “With such a weapon, I could stop them coming. I could create an impenetrable shield and stop my work falling into their hands. I’m sure you’ve heard, we’re now at war. How long do you think it will be before Zertex comes here, looking for new weapons to give them an edge? And they’ll find them. So help me, we’ve built them, and they’ll find them.”
He lunged at Cal, moving surprisingly quickly for someone so old. His hand caught Cal’s arm, his fingers gripping like five tiny vices. “With the Cantatorian, I can stop them. I can stop them coming here. My work will be safe.”
“You make an excellent case,” said Cal. “Seriously, well done.” He gently pulled his arm free of Dorid’s hold. “But I’m going to have to say no. We’re going to take Soonsho home to her parents. We’ve already told them we’re coming.”
“I can give you the reward,” said Dorid, his voice clipped and urgent. “I’ll double it. Whatever they’re offering, I’ll double it right now if you leave her here.”
Cal made a point of not looking at Mech, who he knew would probably be considering the offer. To his surprise, it was the cyborg who answered.
“The girl’s not for sale, man,” Mech said. “We’re taking her home.”
“Oh,” said Dorid. He seemed to shrink slightly as he withdrew. “Oh. Yes, of course.” He nodded solemnly and wrapped his arms around his frail frame. “I wish it were different, I really do.”
“Thanks for being understanding,” said Cal. “We’ll find a way to repay you for the ship, don’t you worry about that. Anything you need – you know, that doesn’t involve leaving a kidnapped teenage girl in your sole custody – just name it.”
“I’m sorry. I truly am,” said Dorid.
Cal frowned. “For what?”
“For this,” said Dorid as, one by one, the glass tubes lowered into the floor, spilling their fluid in wide pools around them.
The monstrous Dorids were revealed like gameshow prizes, their full horror now presented for all to see. Each one resembled Dorid in some way, but it was as if each one had been designed by children in Day Care, then assembled by a panel of psychopaths.
Cal felt Splurt slowly sink down his back, out of sight, as the dozens of deformed Dorid’s all snapped open their eyes and shambled forwards off their hooks.
“Uh, what are they doing?” asked Cal, his eyes flitting from one walking nightmare to the next. “Dorid?”
“I’m sorry,” said Dorid. “But I can’t let you leave with the girl. If you won’t give her to me, you leave me no choice.”
“How’s this for a choice, motherfonker?” growled Mech, raising his arms and taking aim at the two closest Dorid-freaks.
Nothing happened.
Mech clenched his fists and thrust his arms forward, as if trying to throw the laser blasts towards the oncoming monsters, but still nothing happened.
“My guns ain’t working,” said Mech. “What did you do to me?”
“So many apologies,” oozed Dorid. “I feared it might come to this. I couldn’t take the chance that you’d fight back.”
Cal looked across to Mech and sighed. “You had to take my gun, didn’t you? You just had to take my fonking gun.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cal ran. He skidded out into the corridor, slammed against the opposite wall, then launched himself towards the elevator.
From three of the five doors between him and the exit came several shambling Dorids, all twisted and groaning and bent.
Cal passed Mech in the opposite direction as the cyborg clanked out into the passageway. “Change of plan, this way!” he shouted, powering along the corridor away from the lift.
Mech hurried along behind him. It wasn’t that they couldn’t fight the Dorids, it was more that they really didn’t want to. They were nightmarishly ugly, with extra faces, twisted bodies, and drool. So much drool.
More doors slid open ahead of Cal. He heard the Dorids’ moans before he saw the monsters emerge.
“Shizz! In here!”
Cal slapped the button beside one of the doors and dived inside as it opened. It was the same room Mech had brought him to earlier, and the lights still blazed inside.
Mech reached the door at the same time as one of the faster Dorids. This one had the look of a Play Doh model left too long on a warm radiator. Its face had melted down its neck, and a mouth hissed and spat at Mech from halfway down the creature’s chest.
“Urgh! Fonk off!” Mech yelped, punching the monster in the center of its faceless head, and sending it stumbling across the corridor.
He ducked into the room, and Cal slammed the button to close it behind him. “Lock!” Cal yelped. “Is there a… how do you…?”
Mech slid a switch beneath the button and the door let out a reassuring ka-lunk as it locked. Even through the reinforced metal, they heard the groaning and shuffling of the Dorid-things filling the corridor outside.
“Well this is problematic,” said Cal. He looked the door
up and down. “How long do you think it’ll hold?”
“Against those things? Forever,” said Mech. “Except Dorid – the real one, not the dudes with their faces where their tits should be – will have the override code to open it.”
“Tits!” exclaimed Cal. “We can say ‘tits!’ That one’s totally going on the list.”
He caught Mech’s withering look and quietly cleared his throat. “Sorry. Continue.”
“There ain’t nothin’ to continue,” Mech told him. “Dorid will open the door, them ugly-ams motherfonkers will come in, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Can’t we fight them?”
“I mean, I guess we’re gonna have to,” said Mech. “But you saw those things. You seriously want to go touching any of them?”
“We’d be fighting them, not molesting them,” Cal pointed out. He shuddered involuntarily. “Although, I take your point. With the drool and the melty faces and everything. I’m not exactly over the moon about getting close to them, either. I just don’t see that we’ve got a lot of choice. Unless…”
He turned and cast his gaze across the room. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” he said, an idea forming. He crossed to the closest table and lifted the heavy white sheet that had been concealing the ultra-futuristic-looking gadget below.
A smile spread slowly across his face. “I love it when a plan comes together.”
* * *
Mech and Cal barreled along the corridor, the sheet draped over their heads. Mech was in front, ducking low, his shoulders knocking the freaks aside like skittles. Cal scurried behind, holding tightly to the fabric to prevent it flapping loose.
“I cannot fonking believe this is the best plan we could come up with,” Mech grunted.
“Shut up and keep running,” Cal said. “And try not to bump into any more walls.”
He could hear some of the freaks racing along behind, squealing and hissing as they thrashed their twisted limbs around. Cal’s buttocks took it upon themselves to clench, as if they’d both come to the conclusion that something might be about to thrust a malformed appendage beneath the sheet, and jointly agreed they weren’t particularly in favor of it.
One of the monsters landed heavily on Mech’s lowered head and shoulders. He grunted, then slammed it against the wall, staining the sheet in blotches of red. The material jerked as something grabbed it from behind. Splurt transformed into a curved metal blade and scythed in an arc beneath the sheet’s trailing edge. The monster squealed, and the tugging on the fabric stopped.
“Why aren’t we at the elevator yet?” Cal yelped. “How fonking long is this corridor?!”
The question was answered immediately, when Mech slammed into the elevator doors. Throwing off the sheet, Mech jabbed at the call button, then he and Cal turned their backs to the door and waited.
The corridor heaved with a Who’s Who of monstrous deformity. Packed between its walls was a shambling horde of bulging skulls, bent backs, gnarled limbs and gawping, lifeless faces.
Cal reached past Mech and jabbed the button again. Several times. “Come on, come on. Hurry up.”
“Elevator override,” wheezed the real Dorid, and Cal just then noticed he was in there with the rest of them, so old and frail that he blended in perfectly with his army of freaks.
“Cancel that,” said Mech, perfectly imitating Dorid’s voice. Then, in his own voice, he added: “Open the shizzing door!”
The door swished open. Cal fell backwards inside, with Mech hot on his heels.
“Get them!” hissed Dorid. “Don’t let them get away!”
The doors began to close. Cal just had time to fire off a deeply sarcastic salute, then the elevator car began its descent.
“That was close,” Cal said.
“A sheet,” Mech muttered. “All that equipment, and we hid beneath a fonking sheet.” An odd sort of staccato hiss emerged from his throat. At first, Cal thought something terrible must be happening to him, but then he realized that – for perhaps the first time since they’d met - Mech was laughing.
“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” said Cal, grinning.
“I mean, state of the art weapons. Who knows what else? And we hide beneath a fonking sheet,” Mech chuckled. “Man, that is one for the books.”
“We’ll write it up later,” said Cal, as the elevator slowed. “For now, we need to round up the others, get the ship, and get out of here before Old Man Dorid and the Ugly Gang show up. I’d rather not see those faces again. You know, other than every time I ever close my eyes again, I mean.”
The doors began to open. “Remember,” said Cal. “Stride confidently, look like you’re engaged in something important, and whatever you do, don’t run.”
Dozens of Dorids turned to face the elevator as the doors pinged open. Their faces were twisted with rage, their hands clutching tools and pipes and other makeshift weapons.
“On second thoughts,” said Cal. “Let’s go with running.”
“Oh, man, what I wouldn’t do for my guns,” said Mech, as the Dorids began to quickly close in. He thrust an arm forwards and tried firing again, but the result was the same as before, in that there wasn’t one. “Nothing.”
“Did they fit a safety?” Cal asked.
“What? No!” Mech snorted. He glanced down at his arm, tapped a switch, then raised his arm again. A blast of fizzing red energy punched a hole through a line of Dorids.
Mech shot Cal a sidelong glance. “Don’t,” he said. “Do not say a fonking word.”
“Tell you what,” said Cal. “Get us to the ship, and your secret is safe with me.”
Mech brought his other arm up. Two beams of red scythed through another group of Dorids, carving them into three pieces each. “Deal,” he grunted, then he ran ahead, his metal feet shaking the floor as he blasted a path towards the Untitled.
A swarm of armed Dorids appeared from behind the ship. Rather than the makeshift hitty and stabby things the others had, this lot were equipped with rifles and blasters and, unless Cal was very much mistaken, a bazooka.
As the Dorids rushed past the ship, Loren appeared at the bottom of the hatch, the laser turret strapped across her chest. She squeezed the triggers and the weapon poured hot, fiery death into the backs of the Dorid horde, reducing them to quivering chunks of gristle and meat.
Cal beamed at her as he ran past. “Loren, I could kiss you!” he said. He hesitated briefly on the ramp. “Seriously, I mean, if you want I could—”
“Get on the fonking ship!” Mech said, shoving Cal up the ramp and blasting holes in a few more Dorids. Loren fired in a wide arc, driving a few dozen more clones back, then she darted into the ship and tossed the turret aside.
“Close the hatch,” she cried. “We’re getting out of here.”
Cal dropped into his seat and hurriedly fastened his belt. “Is everything fixed?”
“So they said,” Loren told him, clambering into her own chair. Miz and Soonsho were already strapped in – Soonsho looking terrified, Miz borderline bored. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“Hatch closed!” Mech called, hurrying onto the bridge. “But there are more of those guys coming. We should get going.”
The Untitled’s engines whined and the viewscreen flickered into life. Sure enough, the hangar was now full of Dorids. They emerged from doors like insects from cracks in the soil, tumbling over one another as they rushed to close in.
The elevator Cal and Mech had used opened, and a pack of Dorid’s freaks stumbled into the fray. “What the Hell are those things?” Loren yelped, but then she shook her head and focused her attention on the controls again.
“What happened? When did they start acting crazy?” Cal asked.
“Just, like, a minute ago,” said Miz. “I’m guessing this is all totally your fault.”
“Yes,” said Cal. “No. Kind of. They wanted Soonsho, we said no. There were monsters, we wore a sheet, it was a whole complicated thing. Can we please just get out of here?”
&nbs
p; “Here goes!” cried Loren. She pulled back on the controls and the Untitled rose rapidly, lurched backwards, then scraped up the inside of the cavern wall. Cal held tightly to his armrests as the ship vibrated violently around them.
“You’re aw-w-ware this is ha-a-appening, yes?” he said.
“I’m on it,” Loren said. “Do something about the roof.”
Cal glanced up at the ship’s ceiling. “Wha-a-t’s wrong with the roo-oof?”
“Not that roof,” said Loren. The ship tilted and pulled free of the wall, revealing a circle of metal blocking the cavern’s only visible exit. “That roof.”
“Ooh, OK. Kevin!” Cal cried.
There was a brief, high-pitched electronic whine, then a worrying few moments of silence. Finally, a voice emerged from a speaker overhead.
“You rang, sir?”
“Oh, thank God,” Cal muttered. “Kevin, we got us a problem. We need to get out of here, and there’s a door in the way. What do we do?”
“Opening the door would seem like a logical first step, sir,” Kevin suggested.
“Awesome!” said Cal. “Yeah, do that!”
“Oh, no, I can’t do that, sir. I’m not connected to those systems. I was merely offering a hypothetical solution.”
The metal disk almost filled the whole screen now. They were going to hit!
“Were you looking for a more practical solution, sir?” Kevin asked.
“Yes!” Cal shouted.
“Very good, sir.”
A blast of white light zipped from one of the wing-mounted weapons, almost blinding them all as it streaked past the screen. The circle of metal glowed brightly for barely any time at all, then vanished, exposing a sky full of stars waiting beyond.
“Will that be all, sir?”
“Yes, Kevin, that will be all!” Cal cheered, then the Untitled rocketed through the gap, sonic-boomed upwards across the sky, before punching through the atmosphere with the faintest of faint pops.
“Wooohooo!” Cal cried, thrusting a fist into the air. “We are outta here!”
The Untitled banked left. Ahead of it, eight fighter ships trained their weapons. “Oh Jesus, what now?” Cal sighed. “Who are these people? More Dorids? Kornack’s men?”
Space Team: Song of the Space Siren Page 11