“Ho-lee shizz,” Mech mumbled. “What is that thing?”
“Spider-Dragon of Saktar,” said Cal. “Thought we’d established that?”
“We should probably, like, get out of here,” said Miz. “I mean, that thing is pretty awesome, and I kinda want to see the whole thing, but it’s totally going to kill us all if we stick around, right?”
“That is certainly a possibility,” said Cal. Another leg emerged. The snapping tips of the beast’s mandibles appeared above the volcano’s rim. “But… does anyone else feel, I don’t know, maybe a little guilty about this? Like – and call me crazy here – like this is somehow partially our fault?”
“Guilty? No way, man,” said Mech. “They were going to kill the girl. They didn’t seem too guilty about that.”
“True, true,” said Cal. “And, I mean, obviously that was wrong, but I guess they kinda had their reasons.”
The Spider-Dragon’s head emerged from the mountain. Even just the corner they could see was several times larger than the Untitled. Where its eyes should have been were several crater-sized hollow scars seared into its slick, glistening black skull.
“Or one big reason, anyway,” Cal said. “Stop up here, we should be far enough away.”
Loren slowed the ship to a stop. They all watched in silence as the enormous creature heaved the rest of itself out of the volcano, sending molten metal slopping over the sides. The body was roughly the same length as the legs, possibly a little longer, but the way it was bunched up made it hard to tell for sure.
It only had six legs, so wasn’t technically a spider at all, based on Cal’s understanding of the word. Then again, the sheer size of each limb probably more than made up for the reduced number of them, so he wasn’t about to argue semantics. Besides, even if he had been in the mood to do so, there was a giant fonking spider climbing out of a volcano right behind him, so now probably wasn’t the best time.
The beast threw back its head and its mandibles parted, revealing a scrunched up sphincter of a mouth. It widened unpleasantly, and a screech tore across the sky. It echoed and rolled across the shimmering red landscape, and vibrated through the Untitled, making Cal’s teeth rattle.
“Doesn’t sound happy,” said Loren.
“Hey, we don’t know that,” Cal argued. “For all we know, that was a positive noise. Sort of, ‘hey, I’m a giant spider, I’m partially covered in lava, but I feel good nonetheless.’ It could absolutely have been that kind of noise.”
“It wasn’t though, was it?” said Loren.
Cal sighed. “No. No, it’s clearly furious and wants everyone dead.”
Under normal circumstances, when confronted by a lava-sodden monster spider, Cal would have been among the first to run away. Anyone who didn’t run away in that situation deserved everything they got, as far as he was concerned, even if what they got was eaten by a lava-sodden monster spider. Especially if that was what they got, in fact.
The Untitled was already out of its reach, unless the thing had some crack-shot web-shooting skills it was waiting to reveal. They could be in orbit around the planet in just a few seconds, far into deep space within a minute and a half. Less, if Loren didn’t crash into anything. They could just go. Leave. The lava-sodden monster spider didn’t have to be their problem.
But, sadly, it was their problem. It could be argued that Cal wasn’t the most honest guy in the galaxy – his rap sheet back on Earth would attest to that – but he had an annoyingly straight-shooting conscience. Also, despite his best efforts, he had an unfortunate habit of usually trying to do The Right Thing. Even if The Right Thing was ludicrously dangerous, unfathomably stupid, and involved lava-sodden monster spiders.
He couldn’t have just let Soonsho die. Even knowing what he now knew – that the Cantatorians weren’t suffering from some shared delusion and did, in fact, have a Spider-Dragon living in their mountain – he’d have saved her. It was The Right Thing.
Annoyingly, though, saving the rest of her species from arachnid-based genocide was also The Right Thing. Like it or not, he’d caused this problem, and his conscience was going to make damn sure he helped clean it up.
“Cal!”
Loren’s voice snapped Cal out of his thought process. “Hmm? Sorry, I was inner-monologuing. What’s up?”
“What’s…? What do you mean ‘what’s up?’” said Mech, pointing to the creature on screen. “That’s what’s up! What’s the plan?”
“Why’s it called a Spider-Dragon?” Cal wondered.
“Who cares?” asked Miz. “Let’s just get out of here before it noticed us.”
“No, but… I mean, I get the spider part.” He gestured to the viewscreen. “Exhibit A. But… dragon? Where did that come from? Has it got wings or something we don’t know about?”
As they watched, the creature snapped its head around and opened is puckered anus of a mouth again. A scorching jet of fire half a mile long flared from within its cavernous throat. As the inferno hit the clouds, they erupted in an explosion of red flame.
“Oh, it breathes fire,” said Cal. “Of course it does. I mean, why wouldn’t it?”
“Hold on!” Loren yelped. The clouds ignited around them, engulfing the Untitled in a fiery cocoon. Alarms wailed. Several new warnings appeared on screen, while the existing ones grew larger and more insistent.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but it appears the ship is on fire,” Kevin announced.
“We noticed!” cried Cal.
“Oh. I see. How did that happen?”
“What do you mean, how did it happen?” Mech boomed. “It was the fonking Spider-Dragon!”
“The Spider-Dragon, sir?” said Kevin, sounding rather skeptical. “Of Saktar, sir?”
“No, a different Spider-Dragon,” snapped Cal. “Yes! Of course of Saktar. It’s right there!”
There was a short pause.
“Oh my. So it is. Apologies, sir, there was a problem with the replicator which required my attention. One of the nozzles was quite badly jammed by a sweet, sticky substance I was unfamiliar with, but which I was able to successfully—”
“Kevin, shut up, we’ll worry about that later,” said Cal.
“No need to worry, sir. It’s all taken care of. Emergency over.”
“Kevin, you and I have very different definitions of the word ‘emergency,’” Cal said.
“Shields holding,” Mech announced. “We’re good.”
The flames fizzled away as the clouds burned themselves out. The screen cleared in time to reveal the Spider-Dragon springing from the mountain side, its legs thrashing as it hurtled directly towards the Untitled.
“I think ‘good’ might have been an exaggeration,” said Miz.
“Loren!” Cal yelped.
“On it!”
She leaned on a lever and the ship shot forwards. The Spider-Dragon screeched furiously, narrowly missing its target. Sparks flew from the barbed tips of its legs as they slammed into the metal surface of Cantato Minor.
“Hit it with the thrusters,” Cal said. Loren obliged and four jets of translucent blue energy blasted the monster right in the empty eye sockets.
The Spider-Dragon didn’t flinch. “No effect,” said Loren.
“The thing lives inside an active fonking volcano,” said Mech. “You really thinking burning it’s the way to go?”
“Good point, well made,” said Cal.
“Incoming!” Kevin announced, with an uncharacteristic amount of panic in his voice.
A spider-leg scythed up and slammed into the side of the Untitled, sending the ship into a spin. Alarms screamed. Warnings flashed. A jet of steam or smoke or possibly even both hissed from a vent in the wall.
“Come on!” said Mech. “We just got this thing fixed.”
Loren raised a foot and pressed it against the console, wrestling with the stick. She roared through gritted teeth as she frantically tried to stop the ship spinning all the way to the ground.
Cal gripped his ar
m rests, trying to ignore the cream, caramel, and half a plantation’s worth of bananas currently churning around in his stomach.
The ground loomed on the screen, then the sky, then the ground again. It didn’t help that a third of the screen was showing the exact opposite view, and that Cal’s brain was trying to overlap them, forcing him to see in both directions at once. Either that, or he was having an aneurism. It was too early to tell.
With a yelp from Loren, a hiss from Miz and a, “Holy shizz!” from Mech, the Untitled tilted, turned, then levelled off. It was barely a hundred feet from the ground, and the Spider-Dragon towered before it, already moving in for the kill.
The concentric rings of the Cantato Minor buildings were behind the beast. This low, Cal could see people running for their lives. A few of the flying disks zoomed above them, but most of the citizens were fleeing on foot.
“Time to show this thing who he’s dealing with!” said Cal. He grabbed the weapon joystick and took aim at the creature’s sun-eclipsing head. “Eat this, you ugly piece of shizz,” he snarled, before adding, “Pew! Pew!” as he squeezed the trigger.
They all watched two glowing red dots pass the viewscreen, headed straight for the Spider-Dragon. Despite its lack of eyes, it, too, seemed to watch the shots approach. It hesitated, as if waiting for them to arrive. They both hit just above the monster’s left mandible. If it noticed, it did nothing to show it.
“And let that be a lesson to you!” Cal shouted. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “OK, Kevin, I’ll let you finish him off. Light this fonker up.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Two white beams burned past the viewscreen, targeting the monster’s two front legs. Before they hit, the Spider-Dragon ejected another explosion of fire. It unrolled like a giant tongue towards the Untitled, forcing Loren to slam the ship into reverse.
“Did we hit it?” Cal asked, as the flames crackled and died away.
“Negative, sir,” said Kevin. “The creature’s fire-like ejaculation appears to have countered the attack.”
“The fire-like what?”
“Ejaculation, sir.”
Cal sniggered. “Yeah, I heard the first time. I just wanted you to say it again.” He banged a fist on the armrest. “Hit it with the torpedoes.”
“We don’t have torpedoes, sir.”
“Oh, right. Do we have something like torpedoes?”
“We have photon missiles, sir,” said Kevin. “They’re broadly similar, although the propulsion system varies quite markedly between the—”
“Just fire the fonking things!” said Cal.
“Well, technically we don’t ‘fire’ them so much as ‘launch’—”
“Kevin!”
“Very good, sir.”
Four missile-shaped energy projectiles streaked away from the ship. The Spider-Dragon opened its mouth, but the missiles changed direction – two going wide left, the others swinging to the right. The jet of flame took down the two on the right, but the remaining missiles snaked through and exploded against the monster’s side.
“Boom! Eat that!” Cal yelped.
“Direct hits,” said Mech, checking the scanners. “But minimal damage. They barely made a dent.”
“Shizz. What’s that thing made of?” said Loren.
“Spider-Dragon,” said Cal. “It’s made of Spider-Dragon. Which, unfortunately, turns out is pretty tough.”
“Shall I ready more missiles, sir?”
“Sure, why not?” said Cal. He spun in his chair. “Soonsho? Any advice on dealing with this thing?”
Soonsho stared at the monster on screen for a few lingering moments, then quickly moved her lips.
“She said you should let it take her,” said Miz. “That’s the only way to stop it.”
“Not going to happen,” said Cal. “Any weaknesses you know of? Tender spots?”
Soonsho shook her head. Cal winced, and spun back to the front. “This thing came from a lake of fire, right? What about cold?”
“What about it?” asked Mech.
“Well, if we had a load of ice, couldn’t we, I don’t know, freeze it?”
“That is a possibility, sir,” said Kevin.
“Great! Go me!”
“And, do you have ‘a load of ice,’ sir?”
Cal stopped, mid-cheer. “What? Uh… no.”
“Then I fear the point is rather moot, don’t you?”
The Spider-Dragon swiped at the ship again. Loren scooted them sideways, narrowly avoiding the most ironic bug-swatting in history.
“If it’s going to follow us, we should lure it away,” said Mech. “Get it away from the city.”
“Makes sense,” Cal agreed. “Loren, let’s back away, see if we can get it to stick with us. Once we’ve got it in the open, we’ll hit it with everything we’ve got.”
“Wait. What’s it doing?” asked Miz, leaning forwards and peering at the screen. “Is that…?”
Behind the Dragon-Spider, something was scuttling away. Several somethings.
Several hundred somethings.
“Holy shizz, it’s having babies,” said Cal.
At around twelve feet high, each of the spider-infants was just a fraction of a size of its mother. On their own, they might not be especially dangerous – or no more dangerous than any other twelve feet high fire-breathing arachnid, anyway – but they were already spreading through the streets, and would overwhelm the city through sheer numbers alone.
“Estimated number of Spider-Dragon offspring, two-hundred and forty-nine,” Kevin announced. “Estimated time for total eradication of Cantato Minor’s native population, thirty-seven minutes. In case anyone was wondering.”
“We have to stop them things,” said Mech.
“But we can’t stick around here, or Mommy Spider is going to wipe out the city,” Loren argued. “We have to get it away.”
Cal drummed his fingers on his armrest. Any second now, someone was going to ask him what to do. He wasn’t really sure why.
Sure, he’d always insisted he was the captain. He’d always pretended to be in charge. But the fact was, he had no idea about any of this stuff. A month and a half ago, he’d been pretending to be an eccentric Russian billionaire having a quite remarkable run of luck at a number of casinos across the state of Nevada.
A fortnight before that, he’d been selling top of the range penis-extension sports cars to Wall Street traders. Top of the range penis-extension sports cars which A) he didn’t own, and B) didn’t exist.
He’d had an illustrious career as a conman. He’d met a lot of interesting people, and seen a lot of fascinating places.
Nowhere in there, though, had he gained any kind of experience that qualified him to lead a crew of intergalactic misfits in a fight against a giant spider. A number of giant spiders, in fact. Because, although the babies were far smaller than their mother, at a dozen feet tall they definitely still earned that giant tag, as far as Cal was concerned.
What would Captain Kirk do?
Something clever, that had been cunningly foreshadowed in the first act. Cal thought back over the past few days, hoping there was something there that would reveal itself to be the secret to saving the day. Other than banoffee pie, though, nothing came to mind, and if they were going to take this thing down, obesity-related arterial disease was unlikely to be effective in the short-term.
What would Jesus do?
Cal had no idea. Forgive it, maybe? Wash its feet? He was rusty on his Bible stuff, but he didn’t remember anything which would be particularly relevant to the current situation. The bit about the dude who killed the giant, maybe, but even that was a stretch.
Which left only one question. What would Cal Carver do?
And there was only one answer to that. The same answer as always.
His best.
“Cal?”
That was Loren’s voice. He blinked, and realized everyone was gazing at him expectantly. On screen, mama spider was gearing up for another attac
k, while her offspring scuttled through the city streets, pouncing on anyone they encountered.
“What do we do?”
Cal took a breath.
“OK, Miz, Mech, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty,” he said, sitting up in his chair. “By which I mean, we’re throwing you down there to fight the baby Spider-Dragons. Take out as many as you can, try to buy the Cantatorians time to escape.”
Mech’s eyes widened. “You’re serious? Just me and her against hundreds of them things?”
“Come on, sounds like fun,” said Miz. She flashed her claws. “Bet I kill more than you do.”
“No, not just the two of you,” said Cal. He took another breath, and forced the words to come out. “Take Splurt.”
Down on the floor, Splurt straightened into an upright oblong, and rippled with excitement.
“Alright! Now you’re talking,” said Mech.
“But, I swear, you’d better not let anything happen to him,” Cal warned. “You bring him back to me in one piece.”
Miz jumped to her feet. She and Mech headed for the door, with Splurt flipping end over end like a Slinky behind them. At the door, Splurt stopped and looked back. Cal nodded. “I’ll see you soon, buddy.”
Splurt formed a head. It was the head of Dorothy out of the Golden Girls and Cal had zero choice in the matter but to laugh. Dorothy out of the Golden Girls returned the nod, stuck her tongue out, then became green goo and rolled out of the door.
“OK, here’s what’s going to happen,” Cal called. “You guys tool up. You’ve got twenty seconds to get what you need. We’ll drop you over the city, then we’ll lead Big Momma’s House out of here and – all being well – shoot the shizz out of her until she dies.”
“Cal!”
The Spider-Dragon’s mouth was opening directly above the Untitled. For a moment, Cal saw the darkness deep in its cave-like jaw hole, then a flicker of fire ignited deep in its throat.
“Go, go, go!” Cal cried, then his eyes were shoved back in his head as Loren launched them straight at the beast. She leaned on the stick, weaving between its teetering legs, just as the fireball erupted at their tail.
Space Team: Song of the Space Siren Page 20