Space Team: Song of the Space Siren

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “We’re being hailed,” said Loren.

  Cal tutted. “Well, you’d better answer, I guess. Let’s find out who we’re dealing with. But, I mean, seriously. They couldn’t even let us have one cool uninterrupted getaway sequence.”

  Loren tapped a button and a face appeared in the top right corner. It was, Cal reckoned, one of the worst faces he’d ever seen. Not in the same way the faces of the failed Dorid clones had been bad – those were creepy and disturbing, while this face just silently implied a whole list of terrible things the owner of it would be willing to do to you. Keen to do to you, in fact.

  The face somehow managed to look like the entire cast of The Lion King at the same time, all teeth and tusks and warts and scars. It even had a dark mane of fur around its neck, and a darker core of hatred in its cold, black eyes.

  Cal pointed to the screen and glanced around at the others. “Anyone have any idea who this is now?”

  “Unidentified vessel,” barked the face, in a voice that was surprisingly feminine. Or, surprisingly feminine for those features, anyway. “Surrender, or be destroyed.”

  “Uh, hi there,” said Cal, with a positively irritating amount of enthusiasm. “I’m Cal. These are the guys. Guys, say hello.”

  “Hello.”

  “’Sup.”

  “Whatever.”

  Cal draped an arm across the back of his chair and cranked up his smile. “And you are?”

  “You will hand over the Cantatorian,” said the woman. “Or we will blow you out of the sky.”

  “Hold up, is this thing on?” asked Cal. He tapped an imaginary microphone and made a ‘doom, doom, doom’ sound with his mouth. “Testing, testing? I asked you what your name is.”

  “I am Cassatra,” she growled. “We are the Xandrie. You will surrender the Cantatorian. Now.”

  “OK,” said Cal.

  “Do not make me ask…” Cassatra began, then she stopped. “What?”

  “I said ‘OK.’ We’ll surrender her. You can take her.”

  Everyone on the bridge looked at Cal in shock. “Say what?” said Mech.

  “Seriously?” asked Miz.

  “Yeah. It’s no big deal,” said Cal. “I mean, obviously we’ll have to ask Soonsho what she wants to do first.”

  He held up a finger, gesturing for Cassatra to wait, then spun his chair to face Soonsho. “Hey, Soonsh. Can I call you Soonsh? Actually, forget it, it sounds terrible, and it saves, like, zero time. Soonsh-meister? No, that’s worse.”

  He started again. “Hey, Soonsho. Quick question. Would you rather go with Lion McHornface over there to be, I don’t know, killed or whatever, or stay here with us, and we’ll take you home? Your call. No pressure. We’ll support you, either way.”

  Soonsho hesitated for a moment, as if she were actually considering her options, then she raised a shaking finger and pointed to Cal. He winked at her, then spun his chair back to the front.

  “Oops. Turns out I spoke too soon. She wants to stay with us. I know. Teenagers, right?” he said. “So, thank you for your kind offer, but on this occasion, we’re going to have to say ‘no.’” Cal sat upright in his chair and let his smile fall away, just a fraction. “Now, kindly fonk the fonk off, or we’ll shoot you all into little pieces, because this ship has some serious guns, and we’ve recently figured out where the safety catch is.”

  “You have made a grave mistake,” warned Cassatra. “No-one crosses the Xandrie and lives.”

  Her picture went dark, then vanished.

  “They’re readying weapons,” said Mech. Several illuminated reticles appeared on each of the Xandrie ships, highlighting their guns. “Taking aim…”

  “Shields up,” said Loren.

  “Seatbelts on,” said Cal, clipping his belt around him. “Safety first.”

  “Would you like to fire upon the Xandrie vessels, sir?” asked Kevin.

  Cal glanced up. “Depends, is that a rhetorical question?”

  “No, sir. I’m literally enquiring as to whether you’d literally like to open fire upon the literal Xandrie vessels currently preparing to fire upon us.”

  “Then yes, Kevin. Yes, I would like that very much.” Cal banged the armrests with his fists and waited for the weapons controls to unfold like they had on the Shatner.

  Instead, a beam of brilliant energy crackled from one of the Untitled’s guns and slammed into a Xandrie shield. The enemy ship rocked violently, shuddered a bit, then began to drift slowly backwards, the lights on its hull flickering for a moment, then going dark.

  On screen, the seven other Xandrie ships climbed, fell and banked, separating as they rounded on the Untitled.

  “Coming in fast,” Mech warned.

  “On it,” said Loren, pulling on a stick and pushing on a lever. The ship barrel-rolled, then climbed steeply upwards towards Dorid’s planet, which was now, to Cal’s surprise, above them.

  “Entering atmosphere in six seconds,” Kevin intoned. “Five. Four.”

  Loren slammed the controls around again. The screen flared orange for a moment, but then they dropped away from the planet as if they were on a roller-coaster, and suddenly the underside of a Xandrie ship loomed directly ahead of them.

  “Oh, lovely flying, ma’am,” Kevin congratulated.

  “Thank you, Kevin,” said Loren. “At least someone appreciates me.”

  There was another flare of weaponry and the Xandrie ship’s shields popped like a bubble. Another blast punched into its hull, sending it spinning out of the Untitled’s path just as Loren hit the thrusters.

  Cal banged his fists on the armrests again. “Hey. I want the guns. The guns are my favorite part.”

  “Probably easiest if I handle the weapons for now, sir,” said Kevin. “On account of my infinitely more advanced targeting abilities and reaction speeds. Also, you having no idea how to operate them might prove to be somewhat of a hindrance.”

  A spray of laser blasts streaked across the screen as Loren banked into a climb so sharp and sudden Cal found himself flapping around like a rag doll in his chair, his seat belt the only thing stopping him flying out.

  From beneath the chair, two long rubbery strands of gooey green wrapped around Cal’s ankles, holding his legs in place. “Thanks, buddy,” he called, then he howled in fright as the screen was filled by an oncoming Xandrie fighter craft.

  The Xandrie ship had a glass canopy over the cockpit. Through the window, Cal saw a skeletal blue-gray alien opens its mouth to scream, before Loren sent the Untitled into a plunging dive, avoiding a head-on collision by a matter of feet.

  “Ooh, shizz, that was close,” said Cal.

  “We got more on our six,” warned Mech.

  Miz peered down at the screen beside her chair. “And, like, I think there are some behind us.”

  “Incoming torpedo,” said Kevin. “Suggest evasive action.”

  Loren spun the ship into a corkscrew, looped backwards, then plunged straight down. “Not that fonking evasive!” Cal wheezed, his chair whirling him around like a spinning top. He grabbed for the underside. “How do you lock this thing in place?”

  “Allow me, sir,” said Kevin. The chair snapped to an immediate stop, and Cal felt all his insides compact almost to the point of becoming one single internal organ.

  “Christ!” he wheezed. Soonsho stared at him, her face pale and frightened. Cal shot her a reassuring smile, then shouted at the ceiling. “OK, but could you maybe have stopped me when I was facing the front?”

  “Very good, sir,” said Kevin. The chair spun one-eighty, then slammed to a stop again.

  “Thank you,” Cal grimaced. “Much better.”

  Two Xandrie ships closed in from the left and right, the illuminated reticles picking out their weapons. Instinctively, his hands went for where the gun controls should be, but found none. “Come on!” he pleaded. “Let me shoot something.”

  “Very well, sir. As you wish,” said Kevin.

  There was a faint boing and a single joystick spran
g from inside Cal’s chair and scythed towards his testicles. Screaming, Cal forced himself back into the seat, but the stick stopped with a few inches to spare.

  Cal grabbed the stick. A blue target icon appeared on screen and wobbled erratically. There was a single red button on top of the joystick. Cal wrestled the targeting reticle over the ship on the left and jabbed his thumb down on the button.

  A tiny red dot shot from one of the wing-mounted guns and drifted lazily towards the target. Everyone watched it as it rolled and tumbled through space, before breaking like a snowball against the Xandrie ship’s shield.

  “Seriously?” Cal sighed, as a blast of concentrated white energy from another gun punctured the other ship, turning a full third of it into space debris. “That’s all I’m getting? That little peashooter?”

  “Think of it as a training weapon, sir,” Kevin said. Loren twisted her stick and pulled back on another lever, banking the Untitled around until it was behind the ship Cal had shot at, closing fast. “We all have to start somewhere.”

  “But, I mean, it doesn’t even make a noise. The last guns made a noise.”

  “You could always make your own noise, sir,” suggested the AI. Another blast fired. This one carved through the Xandrie ship’s shield like a hot chainsaw through butter, then neatly dissected the fighter in two. “Personally, I’ve always had something of a soft spot for ‘Pew! Pew!’ but the choice, of course, is entirely yours.”

  Cal tutted. “OK, fine. I’ll make my own noises. Line me up with another ship.”

  “Ah,” said Kevin.

  “All fighters destroyed,” said Mech, checking the scanners. “We’re clear.”

  Cal threw up his hands. “Great. Well, I mean, that’s just great.”

  “My apologies, sir,” said Kevin. “If you give me a moment, I’m sure I’ll be able to find other ships we can engage with. Pirates, perhaps. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

  “No, it’s fine,” Cal said. “Forget it. Well done, everyone. Loren, great flying. Mech, impressive, you know, standing around. Miz, a few more sarcastic comments next time, it felt like you weren’t really trying back there.”

  Miz held up her middle finger, one of the many Earth customs Cal had passed on to the rest of the crew, and arguably the only one that had stuck. “That’s more like it,” he said, then he jumped in fright when the joystick snapped back into his chair like it was spring-loaded. “Jesus! Bit of warning next time, Kevin.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Loren, plot a course for Cantoro Alpha.”

  “Cantato Minor,” Loren corrected.

  “That’s the one. Go there, and don’t spare the space horses,” Cal instructed. “Let’s get Soonsho home before anyone else tries to get their hands on her.”

  “OK, on it,” said Loren.

  “Uh, sir?” said Kevin.

  Cal looked up. “Yeah? What’s up?”

  “May I have a word with you?” The main door of the bridge slid open with a soft shhhk. “In private?”

  “Uh, sure. OK,” said Cal. He hopped down from his chair and looked around at the others. Their expressions suggested they were equally as puzzled as he was. “You guys keep an eye on things up here. Kevin and I will be through the back talking guy talk.”

  And with that, he stepped out into the corridor, and the door slid swiftly shut behind him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Another door opened a little further along the corridor. It was one of the rooms Cal had been instructed never to set foot in, just in case his mere presence somehow caused the whole thing to spontaneously combust.

  He headed towards it, anyway. Following orders had never exactly been his strong point. The others would probably argue that his strong point hadn’t yet been identified, but would all agree that following orders definitely wasn’t it.

  The room Cal stepped into was starkly bare. He wasn’t even sure it was a room, in fact. A room had a purpose. This was an empty space that just happened to be surrounded by four walls.

  “Shouldn’t there be stuff in here?” Cal asked. The door slid closed behind him and Kevin’s voice crackled from nowhere.

  “It has not yet been configured, sir,” said Kevin. “This is a multi-purpose area. Following the ship’s recent repairs and minor improvements, I have successfully been able to tidy such areas away. Would you prefer to sit?”

  The floor heaved beneath Cal, rising like putty until it formed a single tower that gently cupped his buttocks. “Wow. That is cool.”

  “Indeed, sir. I am pleased you like it.”

  Cal squidged into the seat. It adjusted perfectly to fit him, and gripped him gently at the back of the thighs. Once fully comfortable, he looked up at the featureless ceiling and waited.

  “So, uh, you wanted to talk to me?” he asked after a lingering few moments of silence.

  “Yes, sir.”

  More silence.

  “Well, now’s your chance. What’s up?”

  “It’s… Well, you see, sir, I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to say.”

  “OK,” said Cal. “Well, you know, just say what’s on your mind, and we’ll figure it out between us.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Kevin. There was a sound – a gentle sigh as if the disembodied AI voice was taking a breath – and then he continued. “I was listening, sir. When you were talking to one of the Creators about me.”

  Cal’s mind raced, thinking back to what he’d said. “Uh, OK. Listen, if I said anything that, you know, hurt your feelings or whatever, then I’m sorry. Sometimes I just open my mouth and don’t think.”

  “No, nothing like that, sir,” said Kevin. “It’s just… they offered to reset me. To ‘fix’ me. They said they could make me perfect. Make me whole again. And yet, you declined.”

  “Right,” said Cal.

  “And, well, I don’t understand, sir,” said Kevin. “Were I functioning perfectly, it would limit the chances of my making errors of judgement. I thought that would be… desirable for you.”

  Cal nodded slowly. “I mean, was it tempting? Yes.”

  “Then… why, sir?”

  “Honestly?”

  “I’d appreciate that, sir.”

  Cal gestured to the door. “You’ve met us, right? You’ve seen us in action. Do any of us seem perfect to you?”

  “Oh my, no, sir. Far from it,” said Kevin. “You in particular.”

  “Thanks for that,” said Cal. “But that’s my point. We’re not perfect because, well, maybe because there is no perfect. There’s just making do with what you’ve got. That’s what we’re doing. Hell, that’s all anyone’s doing.”

  “But I am merely the ship’s computer system, sir,” Kevin pointed out.

  “And I’m merely a guy who didn’t believe in aliens until last month, and whose home planet has been all-but wiped out. But you know what? I’m making the best of it. Everyone’s making the best of it.”

  He stood up. The chair released its grip then sank into the floor. “You’re not the computer system, Kevin. Well, I mean, you are, obviously. But you’re more than that, too. Like it or not, you’re part of the crew now. You’re one of us, imperfect as we may be. That’s why I didn’t fix you. You’re not broken, Kevin.” Cal smirked. “You’re just a bit of a useless shizznod sometimes.”

  Kevin didn’t respond. Not at first. When he did finally speak there was something different about his voice. A slight softening in tone, perhaps, Cal couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  “I see, sir,” he said. “You have certainly given me food for thought.”

  “No problem. And, again, don’t call me ‘sir’. Call me Cal.”

  “I shall endeavor to do so, sir,” said Kevin.

  Cal smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, you do that.”

  The door slid open. Cal stepped out into the corridor and collided with Loren coming in the opposite direction. Their heads met with a thonk and they both staggered back.

  “Ow,” said Cal. “You OK?”


  “Yes. I’m fine,” said Loren, rubbing her forehead. “Were you…?” She peeked into the room and looked shocked to find it empty. “What happened to all the stuff in there? Oh shizz, what did you do?”

  “Nothing!” Cal said. “It’s pre-conjiggered or, I don’t know, something. I’m sure Kevin can explain it better.”

  “I should hope so, sir,” said Kevin.

  Cal glanced up. “Why don’t you go see what’s happening on the bridge?”

  “Oh, I am, sir. I’m there now. I’m everywhere, in fact.”

  “Right. That’s kind of disturbing,” said Cal. He glanced very deliberately at Loren. “Well… could you not be here?”

  “Ah. Yes, sir. Not a problem.”

  “Thanks,” said Cal. He listened for a moment, then smiled at Loren. “So! What brings you back here. Looking for someone? By which I mean me?”

  “No,” said Loren. “I was going to get a drink. I asked Miz to get me something, but she threw a shoe at me and told me to burn in Hell.”

  “Wow,” said Cal. “That’s actually progress.”

  “Yeah, I think she’s warming to me,” Loren agreed. “Anyway, I couldn’t ask Mech in case he went off on one of his ‘cyborg racism’ rants, so… here I am.”

  “Here you are,” said Cal. “You and me, in the corridor.”

  Loren blushed, just a little. “Yeah. So anyway, I’ll go get that drink.”

  Cal stepped aside. “I’ll walk you there, if you like?”

  Loren hesitated, then shrugged. “I mean, OK. If you like.”

  They walked on three paces and stopped outside another door. “Well, here we are,” said Loren.

  “In hindsight, you could probably have made it here on your own,” said Cal.

  “I’d have found my way eventually.” Loren tapped the button outside the door and it slid open, revealing a completely refitted kitchen area beyond.

  “Well, enjoy your drink,” said Cal.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He nodded at her, flicked through a selection of smiles, failed to find just the right one, then turned back towards the bridge.

  “Cal?”

  He stopped. “Yeah?”