Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “I’ll see you soon,” said Miz, her snout curving into a suggestive smirk. She gave his body another admiring look, then backed out of the door. “Handsome.”

  “Haha, yes! See you soon. Fully clothed,” laughed Cal. “Accompanied by others!”

  The bathroom door closed. Cal sighed and leaned both hands against the wall. “Yep,” he muttered. “What a fonking day.”

  * * *

  Cal strode through to the flight deck, ruffling his fluffed-up hair. Mech and Loren were both hunched over a control panel. Even though they had their back to him, Cal could tell the news wasn’t good. Draped across her seat, Miz winked at him as he slumped down into his own.

  “So? What’s up?” Cal asked.

  “We’ve got a problem,” said Loren, not taking her eyes off the controls.

  “So what’s new? We’ve always got problems,” said Cal. “That’s what makes it all so exciting.”

  “Yeah, well let’s see if this excites you,” said Mech, turning to face him. “The ship’s fonked.”

  Cal looked around at the flight deck. “Then we’ll fix it.”

  “Simple as that, huh?” said Mech. He tapped a few buttons and reams of text flooded the screen, moving too quickly for Cal’s visual translator chip to be able to do its job. “That there? That’s just the damage to the core systems.”

  “OK, so that’s a lot, but we’ll just work through and fix it all up.”

  “With what?” asked Mech. “You got a hangar full of spare parts stashed away somewhere that you ain’t told us about?”

  “No, but there’s bound to be somewhere round here we can go buy what we need,” Cal said.

  Loren swiped a hand across a touchscreen and a map of the sector appeared on the main viewscreen. It showed half a dozen suns, each with varying numbers of planets in orbit around them. A large red arrow with the words ‘You are here’ written on it pointed to a flashing dot somewhere near the middle.

  “This is what’s within reach,” Loren said. “Go any further and the ship’s going to tear itself apart.”

  “Cool, well there’s loads of planets there. Let’s go to one of them.”

  “Not counting the one we just left, there are thirty-six planets within range,” said Mech. “Thirty-five of them are uninhabited.”

  “OK,” said Cal, sounding less confident. “So one is habited?”

  “Inhabited,” Loren corrected. “And yes, it is. By these.”

  Something that was all eyes and teeth and shriveled transparent skin filled the screen. “Jesus!” said Cal, drawing back in horror. “OK. Promise me we’ll never go there.”

  “We wouldn’t make it through the atmosphere, anyway,” said Loren. “Or any atmosphere, for that matter. Heat shielding’s cracked.”

  “So, you see our problem,” said Mech.

  Cal turned his chair slowly left to right. “Can we Skype Graxan again? Ask him to send help.”

  “Skype?” asked Loren, raising an eyebrow.

  “The video thing. I’m sure we’ve been through this,” Cal said. “Can’t we do that?”

  “We tried,” said Mizette, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “I thought he just wasn’t answering, but it turns out the comms are down.”

  “Along with everything else,” added Mech. “So, basically, we’re totally fonked.”

  Cal nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, looks awfully like it,” he said. “What are the chances of someone just stumbling upon us?”

  “Billions to one,” said Mech.

  “And what are the chances of it being someone nice?”

  Mech snorted. “I can’t even calculate that.”

  Cal stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of his chair. “Right, let’s think about this. There are no planets around where we can get spare parts, except maybe the one filled with terrifying monsters,” he said, pointing to the monster on screen. “And I could be wrong, but they don’t exactly look like experts in spaceship engineering.”

  He stopped pacing. “Space stations?”

  “There’s a Zertex station just a little beyond range, but even if we could make it there, it’s unlikely to end well,” said Loren.

  “And we can’t just, like, bypass the… I don’t know, thermal couplings or whatever is damaged?”

  Mech frowned. “What you talking about?”

  “I don’t know, it’s what Scotty would do!” said Cal.

  “Who--?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Cal. He went back to pacing. “Right, so spare parts. Spare parts. There must be somewhere we can…”

  He stopped.

  He clicked his fingers.

  He grinned.

  “Guys! I’ve got it!” he said, puffing out his chest. “Once again, Captain Cal Carver has only gone and saved the fonking day!”

  He jumped into his seat. “Loren, plot a course.”

  Loren sat in her own chair and flicked a few switches. “To where? Where are we going?”

  “It’s not about where we’re going,” said Cal, interlocking his fingers behind his head and leaning back. “It’s about where we’ve been.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, the Shatner was rattling towards its destination. The others were pretty dubious that Cal’s plan was going to work, but as it was the only plan they had been able to come up with, they decided it was worth a try.

  On screen, the space-kitten frolicked with a piece of string, blocking Cal’s view of the streaking hyperspace star field. Cal had the Greyx’s key in his hands, and was turning it over and over, studying it. “So, it just… what? Slides into the lock? Is this what all space keys are like?”

  “No. That one’s old. Very old,” said Miz.

  “Only real backwater, ams-end-of-nowhere planets use metal keys these days,” said Mech.

  Cal opened his mouth to protest, then changed his mind. “Ha. Yeah. The idiots,” he said. He flicked the key over and caught it. “And it opens the vault where this staff thing is?”

  “The Bladestaff, yeah,” said Mizette.

  “Do you believe all that stuff your dad says?” asked Cal. “That it’s, you know, magic?”

  Miz shrugged. “I dunno. I mean… maybe. It’s one of the first things we get taught. It’s, like, a bedtime story all the Greyx get told.”

  Loren turned in her chair. ”Yeah, but… it’s just a story, right? A staff that lets you control an entire species? No offence, but it seems a little… unlikely.”

  “Hey, I was just inside a forty-mile long worm,” Cal pointed out. “A gangster made of rock has a bounty on my head because I wouldn’t eat my own arm, and one of my best friends is a green blob who likes to change into me in his spare time. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve been through ‘unlikely’ and out the other side for quite a while now.”

  “I don’t know if it’s true or not,” said Miz. “I don’t know if it’s really, like, magic or whatever.” She shrugged and looked at her claws, trying very hard to look disinterested. “But, like, it’s got this inscription on it. There are different translations but it’s basically ‘Whoever wields the Bladestaff rules the Greyx.’ So, I guess it’s kind of important. Like, historically, or whatever.”

  “Right,” said Cal. He waved the key, then put it into his back pocket. “And it’s safe, thanks to us. Just as soon as we fix the video thing, and assuming your dad is speaking to us, he can tell us what to do with it, and it’s another mission accomplished for Space Team!”

  “Please don’t call us that,” Mech grunted.

  “Hey, you came up with it,” said Cal.

  “Yeah, but in the heat of the moment,” sighed Mech. “I didn’t expect it to stick.”

  “Come on, embrace it,” said Cal. “Embrace the Space Team.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Embrace it!”

  “Shut up, man,” Mech tutted, then the Shatner creaked ominously as she dropped out of warp.

  Loren’
s fingers went to the control panel on her right. “We’re here. Putting it on screen.”

  “See you soon, space cat!” said Cal, as the image of the kitten-thing flickered and was replaced by a view of outer space.

  Cal leaned forward in his chair, studying the blocky rectangular hunk of metal rotating lazily a few miles ahead of them. If he squinted, he could just make out the inert octopus-things drifting along beside it.

  “There she is,” said Cal. “What did you call them again?”

  “Scrivers,” said Loren.

  “And that big tank of theirs is full of stuff they’ve stolen from other ships?”

  Loren nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Excellent,” said Cal. He slapped his hands on his thighs, then stood up. “Then let’s go shopping.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cal, Loren, Mizette and Mech stood in a semi-circle, looking into a wall-mounted metal wardrobe.

  “How can we only have one spacesuit left?” asked Cal. “Didn’t we have, like, twenty of them when were started?”

  “We had five,” said Mech. “You dissolved one inside the worm.” He pointed at Miz and Loren in turn. “They destroyed two of them fighting a few days back.”

  “She started it,” Miz muttered.

  “I did not!”

  “Ladies, please,” said Cal. “That still leaves two. Where’s the other one?”

  “We traded it,” said Mech.

  “We did? What for?”

  “For that breakfast buffet a couple of days ago,” said Loren.

  Cal smiled wistfully at the memory. “Right. Yeah. Totally worth it. That was awesome.” He puffed out his cheeks. “So, who’s going over?”

  “I don’t need no suit,” said Mech. “I’ll go.”

  “But you’ll need someone to help you,” said Cal. “Loren better stay here in case anything happens and she needs to move the ship. Miz, your dad might call us back, best if you were here for that.”

  He grinned and clapped Mech on the arm. “Guess it’s me and you, buddy.”

  “I can do it on my own,” said Mech. “I know what we need.”

  “You know what you really need, Mech? Companionship,” said Cal.

  “I really don’t.”

  “Cal Carver and his trusty robot sidekick, saving the day!”

  Mech rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Fine. Whatever. Just hurry up.” He ducked so he could peer out through the airlock hatch at the slowly spiraling Scriver ship. “Sooner we get over there, the sooner we get back.”

  Cal glanced over at Miz and Loren. “He’s secretly very excited,” he said.

  “You’re going to need something to carry everything back,” Loren pointed out. “Unless you want to make two hundred different trips.”

  “What, like a box?” said Cal.

  “It’d have to be a fonking big box,” said Mech.

  Miz’s brow knotted for a moment, then her eyes went to the vents and pipes in the ceiling. “It’s fine,” she said. “I think I know just what you need.”

  One quick-change later, Cal and Mech stood in the airlock, listening to the inner door sealing shut behind them. There was a pressure on Cal’s chest that was making it difficult to breathe. He prodded the spot where the pressure was at its worst with one finger, and the tightness squirmed around inside the suit’s front pocket.

  “Much better. Thanks, buddy,” Cal said, and he felt Splurt vibrate briefly in reply.

  “So, you jump when I say,” Mech instructed. “Not before, not after. You jump when I tell you.”

  “Right, of course,” said Cal. “But what if I don’t?”

  “If you don’t, then you’ll either smash into that ugly-amsed hunk of scrap, or you’ll go sailing off into outer space forever.”

  “And they’re both bad?”

  Mech scowled. “Yeah. Of course they’re bad!”

  “Just checking,” said Cal. “This is my first space jump.”

  “You could always stay here,” Mech suggested. “Seriously, I’ll be just fine.”

  “What, and miss our special bonding time? No way! I am going to stick to you like glue, my friend. Like glue.”

  “Great,” Mech grunted. “That’s just great.”

  He hit the button to open the main airlock door, a little harder than was strictly necessary. Cal felt gravity suddenly abandon him, and lifted a foot or two off the deck. “Whoa!” he said. “I’m flying.”

  “Focus,” said Mech’s voice, echoing inside Cal’s helmet. Mech’s metal legs tensed, the hydraulics spinning into position. “Get ready to jump.”

  “Jump? How can I jump? My feet aren’t on the floor!” Cal pointed out.

  Mech looked him up and down. “Huh. Yeah. Good point,” he admitted. Five metal fingers clamped around Cal’s wrist. “I guess I’ll catch you up.”

  “Catch me up? What do you mean--?” Cal began, but then Mech’s whole upper body twisted suddenly and Cal wailed as he sailed backwards through the airlock, and hurtled, out of control, through the empty abyss of space.

  He flapped and flailed, trying to twist himself around, but there was nothing to push himself against, and he could only watch as the Shatner grew smaller and smaller in his visor.

  “Quit screaming,” said Mech’s voice in his ear.

  “I wasn’t screaming!” Cal protested.

  “You were totally screaming.” That was Loren this time. “We heard you from here.”

  “Well no fonking wonder!” said Cal. “Was tossing me into space really necessary?”

  “Necessary? No,” admitted Mech, as two jets of something purple ignited under his feet, propelling him out of the airlock. “Fun? Hell, yes!”

  Once Mech had caught Cal and saved him from hurtling into the endless void, they found a way into the Scriver ship. It wasn’t exactly difficult. The Shatner’s cannons had gouged gaping wounds in all four sides of the thing, and they quickly found a hole big enough for even Mech to squeeze himself through.

  “Wait, so there’s no gravity in here, either?” asked Cal, bouncing around somewhere near the ceiling. Or the floor. The inside of the ship was completely dark, and he wasn’t really sure which way was up and which was down. He wasn’t even convinced up and down even existed in space, regardless of how much he currently might like them to.

  “The ship’s dead, of course there ain’t no gravity,” said Mech. “Hell, there’re barely walls.”

  “So, what, I just float around the place like a balloon? That doesn’t exactly seem dignified.”

  Mech, who was standing without any apparent difficulty, reached up and pulled Cal down. A metal finger prodded a control on the suit’s sleeve and Cal felt his feet turn to lead. He dropped the final few inches to the floor and his feet hit the metal with a jarring clang he felt all the way up his spine.

  “Magnetic boots,” Mech explained.

  Cal looked down at his feet, now firmly attached to… he chose to call it the floor. “So, what? Now I’m just stuck here on this one spot?”

  “Shizz, you really don’t know nothin’, do you?” Mech tutted. “Walk. Just walk. The boots will keep you from floating off.”

  Cal gave the footwear a doubtful look, then took a few paces forwards. “Hey! It works,” he said. “That’s very clever. Someone could make a fortune selling these.”

  “I think that ship might have sailed,” Mech said. Two powerful flashlights illuminated on his shoulders, cutting a swathe through the darkness of the ship. Broken fragments of scorched metal bobbed around in the corridor. Something that was possibly a chair – but just as possibly not – bounced lazily from wall to wall as the ship rotated around it.

  “Think there’s anyone alive on here?” Cal asked.

  “Doubt it,” said Mech. “The loss of atmosphere would’ve been too quick. They’d have suffocated in seconds.”

  “Way to make me feel bad,” Cal muttered.

  “Don’t,” sa
id Mech. “Scrivers are animals. They’ve killed millions. Families. Kids. They don’t care. Good riddance, I say.”

  “Well, then yay for us, I guess,” said Cal. “Now, where do we find the stuff we need?”

  Mech tapped a few controls on his arm, muttered under his breath, then slammed a fist onto the buttons. “Still not working properly. Vajazzle’s shut-down voodoo screwed them up.”

  “Great. So how do we know which way to go?” asked Cal.

  Mech looked along the corridor to his left.

  He looked along the corridor to his right.

  He shrugged. “This way,” he said, picking a direction and starting to walk.

  “What, that’s it?” Cal shouted after him. “No plan? We’re just going to go that way and hope we find something interesting?”

  Mech stopped at a door and pressed the switch to open it. As he expected, it didn’t budge. “Pretty much. The inside of most of these boats is taken up with storage. Shouldn’t be difficult to find something,” he said, drawing back a fist. He powered it through the metal, then tore the door free of its hinges. It floated towards Cal like a surfboard on the tide. He stepped aside to let it continue along the corridor, then turned back to Mech.

  Mech stood in the doorway, staring into the room beyond. “What is it?” asked Cal. “What’s in there?”

  Mech’s voice came as a hushed whisper in Cal’s ear. “Something interesting,” he said. “Something really fonking interesting.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Loren and Miz both sat on the flight deck, watching the viewscreen. “They’re in,” Loren said, as Cal and Mech clambered in through a hole in the Sciver ship’s hull.

  “Yeah, I can see that,” said Miz. “I’m not blind.”

  “OK, OK, I was just saying,” said Loren. She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “We won’t be able to radio them. Transmitters are too damaged. Signal won’t get through the hull.”

  “Well, duh,” said Miz.

  Loren sighed. “Seriously, what is your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem,” Miz scowled.

  “Well, obviously you do.”

  “Well, obviously I don’t.”

  Loren shook her head. “Fine. Whatever.”