by Gini Koch
She shrugged. “Someone has to open and close the door.”
“Oh. Ah. Good point. Carry on.”
Knew where I wanted to go first. But reality said that the place with the most guards on it would be where Chuckie and Jeff were. Ergo, needed to see where the others were first.
Focused on Serene, because I knew she’d be pissed off, freaked out about Brian, and probably a little scared, and therefore broadcasting. Also, she was the head of the A-C C.I.A., meaning that even though she might be losing most of her head, so to speak, she’d be keeping part of it occupied with figuring out how to get free.
Sure enough, managed to find her. Interestingly and somewhat unsurprisingly, she was focusing on me. It was a Meeting of the Mind Melders.
Because neither one of us was practiced with this form of communication, I only got a flash of information before I lost my mental grip on Serene’s mind. But that flash was enough.
“I know where the gals are. We’re going to get them first.”
“Why?” Fancy asked.
“Because the Rapacians seem to think that Earth girls are easy.”
CHAPTER 82
OF COURSE, no one got the reference, not even Abigail. As surprises went on the scale of one to ten, this shock rated at about a negative two. But I soldiered on.
“Are they in danger?” Fancy asked, sounding politely confused.
“Yes, though right now not quite as much as we are. They’re captured, and their guard is light. They haven’t been roughed up too much because the Rapacians seem to be looking to test out interspecies breeding.” And they’d chosen three hottie A-C women as test subjects. This meant the Rapacians’ had good taste, but not my friends and not on my watch.
“That’s horrible.” Fancy sounded appalled.
“Yeah, well, the girls will fight them if they have to. But they felt laying low and pretending to be helpless was the right way to go under the circumstances.”
“Will they do that with our females, too?” Fancy asked.
“We won’t let them,” Abigail said strongly.
Considered my reply as we mounted up. “I honestly don’t know.” Seemed like the safest answer. Besides, it was true.
“Then let’s stop them now and not have to find out,” Fancy said as she leaped onto her Matriarch.
“Here.” Abigail handed me her battle staff and took my baseball bat. Fancy handed her bat over, too, wisely choosing to hold onto her mace. “I think you’re going to need the staff more than the bat. Where did you get those from anyway?”
“Oh, you’d be amazed at what I can come up with.” Speaking of which. Looked into my purse. “If we need goggles or some such right now, I’d just love to reach in and grab them,” I murmured. Reached into my purse and, sure enough, pulled out aviator’s goggles. “Hey, look what I found.” Put a pair on, tossed another to Fancy, and the third to The Clarence Clone. “Good thing I pack for any and all occasions.”
“Yeah.” Abigail sounded slightly suspicious, not that I could blame her. Now wasn’t the time to cough up the “I asked the Elves to make my purse a portal” story. Later. If she remembered to ask.
The Clarence Clone put his goggles on, mounted up, and took the other bat from Abigail. “I think I can use both.”
She laughed. “Go for it.” Then Abigail opened the hatch.
After we weathered the first big gust of wind, we all took off. Waved to Abigail as we cleared the ship and she closed the door. Meaning we were officially on our own now, and there wasn’t much anyone inside this ship was going to be able to do for us.
Or, as we called it, routine.
Of course, there was nothing routine about what we had to do, which was get the hell away from the spaceship before Reader hit the gas.
Conveniently, we wanted to go low—the girls were in the ship that had been firing on the castle.
“Dive!”
The Matriarchs didn’t need telling twice. To a katyhopper, they nosedived.
I’d had no idea how fast a katyhopper could go. When I’d been riding on Pinky and the others, sure, we’d gone fast, but not hyperspeed fast. Now, either the Matriarchs had figured out how to turn it up to eleven on the speed factor, or else they were using gravity to help them reach escape velocity, only going down, not up.
I’d have bragged about my brilliance in asking my purse for goggles, but I was too busy holding on and not screaming. “Wheeeeeee!” Okay, maybe a little screaming. But in a positive way.
The Clarence Clone was having the time of his life next to me. Fancy, on the other hand, was showing that she was a ferret who preferred to do her flying more sedately, if you could call fighting and jumping around on the backs of the katyhoppers sedate. But her expression shared she wasn’t a fan of the kamikaze style of flight.
On the other hand, this method meant we were going so fast that we zoomed around Rapacians and snakipedes both without much issue. Sometimes we were close enough to slam our weapons into a Rapacian and sometimes we weren’t. Holding onto the weapons was hard, at least for me. Fancy and The Clarence Clone didn’t seem to be having any issues.
In this manner, we zoomed past the main part of the aerial fight and reached the lower spaceship rather quickly. Of course, now the issue was how to get inside.
The Matriarchs whizzed us around the ship several times. Couldn’t spot an easy entrance and neither could the others. Which meant we were going to have to blast our way in. Only we had no blasting capabilities.
Was about to suggest we beat on the command center’s windshield when my iPod, which I hadn’t put back into my purse, came back to life, playing Sir Mix-A-Lot’s time-honored “Baby Got Back.”
“Head for the rear, let’s see if we can get in via this ship’s butt.”
My Matriarch waved her antennae to share that this was both a good idea and a description she didn’t recommend I use again.
“This from a people who spray butt juices out for any and all occasions and needs?”
My Matriarch admitted this was so and gave me a pass on my ship’s butt description.
We reached the rear and took a look. As we searched I risked a look up. Some of the Rapacians who were flying around had spotted us and were coming. But that wasn’t the real issue.
No, the real issue was that the ship Reader was flying was finally taking off, and the ship above the aerial fight was following. Got the proverbial bad feeling as I watched the ships gun it, because flames shot out of the rear of both.
“Gang, we need to find a way in, faster than fast. My fine Katyhopper Steeds, a little mind reading right now would not be taken as overstepping your self-imposed bounds. It’s hard for the cavalry to do the save if they’re burned to a crisp. So, wave those antennae in the air like you just don’t care and find someone who knows how we get in from back here.”
The Matriarchs moved forward quickly. There was a flap that looked like it was between and under the rocket exhaust pipes. Two of the riderless katyhoppers lifted it up, and the rest flew inside.
“What a wonderful smell we’ve discovered. I just want to say that us going in via a garbage shaft is exactly what I expect out of a mission.”
“Shealla, I believe our voices can echo in here,” Fancy said, proving who was the stealthiest, not that this was a shocker moment for me.
The Matriarchs flew quickly through the shaft, which was just wide enough for them to turn a full 360, but not really wide enough for us to fly side-by-side. The shaft was long and, even going fast, I didn’t see an exit coming up.
I wasn’t in the lead, a riderless Matriarch was. So when she spun and started spraying I got a good view of why. Apparently whoever captained this ship liked to dump his garbage before he slammed the pedal to the metal.
Always the way.
CHAPTER 83
AT THE SAME TIME as the Matriarch’s bu
tt juices created both a shield and began to flow over and around the rest of us, I heard the sound of angry Rapacian voices. They were coming from behind us, which was serendipitous.
The other Matriarchs moved up so they were all nose to butt, antennae straight up, legs extended out. This enabled the shield to flow around us but not on us, as it had when Saffron was covering and containing Usha. Wondered where Saffron and the other Beta Eight natives were and if they were okay. Also wondered where Usha was, and if she was helping the Rapacians or not. But not for long—the shield really demanded my attention.
Butt Juice Shield completed, miraculously without covering us like icky plastic wrap, the Matriarch in the lead flew backward, while the rest of us continued on facing front, still going hella fast, like the weirdest NASCAR lap ever. Garbage of all kinds flowed past us. Chose not to look as much as possible. But still, the Rapacians behind us were going to get hit with a lot of crap. Literally.
Sure enough, heard the screams and shouts of disgust as we flew on. In this bizarre fashion we sailed along, while “Bicycle Race” from Queen played in my ears, the sounds of Rapacian disgust getting weaker and farther away as we went. Apparently our shield was working like a drain plug, in that what got past us was going through in a supercharged kind of way.
Felt the ship start to move while we were still in the garbage shaft. This coincided with the flow of garbage stopping. Always nice to be right, in that sense.
Our lead Matriarch spun around and broke through the shield. She sailed through the opening but the shield stopped moving with her. The rest of the Matriarchs flew a little lower as the shield sank, and all of them flew a bit faster, too.
We reached the exit in time to surprise a couple of Rapacians. Despite the screaming in the shaft we’d caught them unawares. I readied my battle staff but before I could do anything my music switched to “Up in Arms” by the Foo Fighters and the lead Matriarch stood up on her back legs and proceeded to do some incredibly impressive kung fu-like moves on both Rapacians at the same time.
They went down and I jumped off, grabbed the circlets on their heads, then went to the shaft door. “That was amazing! Can all of you do that?”
The Matriarchs in the area shared that, yes, they could. It was something a katyhopper learned over time, and therefore the eldest were the most adept and dangerous.
“It’s like you’re the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles! Only you’d need to be called the Ancient Katyhopper Kung Fu Masters.”
Antennae waves shared that they felt this was an appropriate and pleasing title.
The moment our last Ancient Katyhopper Kung Fu Master was in the room I slammed and locked the garbage chute’s door. The last Matriarch through sprayed it with butt juices for good measure.
“Awesome. We need to split to cover as much ground as possible. Clarence, I want you finding whatever and wherever this ship’s holding cell is. Figure it’s in the same place as the one from the ship we just left. Once you find it, knock out all the Rapacians you find, take the circlets off their heads, and lock them in there. Then destroy the circlets.”
“Just like last time, yes, Shealla.”
“Super. If you find the prisoners—pretty much anyone who isn’t a Rapacian or isn’t obviously working with them like a loose Free Woman or an Amazonian Ancient, like those who were protecting Ronaldo—find me immediately and let me know.”
“Should I stop anyone trying to hurt them?”
“Absolutely. Just realize that they won’t know that you’re not the Original Clarence and probably won’t trust you.”
He nodded and zipped off.
“What about me, Shealla?” Fancy asked, as one of my favorite songs to fight to—Clutch’s “Electric Worry” —came on.
“You’re sticking with me. Clarence is the fastest and, of the three of us, strongest, and he’s used to sneaking around without being seen. So are you. I’m not as smooth at it, but it won’t matter because what I want us doing is busting heads, both literally and figuratively. It’s the Matriarchs who have the tough job because they don’t have hyperspeed.”
Antennae waved. They weren’t sure they should leave us, for our protection, not theirs.
“Yeah, I know you can help, but I don’t think most of this crew left their ship, meaning we have a lot more Rapacians on board than we did with the ship James and the others are on. We appear to be in hot pursuit—and that means that someone has to ensure that this ship doesn’t blow the ship we captured out of the air. And other someones need to help us get captured and hopefully unconscious Rapacians into the holding cell. Plus, let’s face it—you guys are going to kick more Rapacian butt than the three of us have any hope of doing, hyperspeed or no hyperspeed.”
More antennae waves. They’d do what needed to be done. Then they all stood on their back legs and did a kick and hit in unison, much like a form in martial arts. Antennae waved again, then the Ancient Katyhopper Kung Fu Masters took off and scattered.
“Ninja katyhoppers. I’d say that now I’ve seen everything, but I know that will be proven incorrect in less time than it takes to drink a Coke, so I won’t.”
Really wanted a Coke. Resisted the desire to ask my purse for a nice can of delicious refreshment—there would be time for that later, after I’d saved my family, friends, the solar system, and the galaxy. But no pressure.
Instead, dug around in my purse for a waterfruit, pulled one out, and ate it. Felt refreshed and better and really worried that these were addictive. Well, probably no more addictive than Coke, right?
Finished up, took Fancy’s paw in mine and, “Electric Worry” on repeat, for which I sent a thank you to Algar, we headed off.
I missed my baseball bat almost immediately. It was a lot easier to maneuver than the battle staff. Probably why Algar had given it to me. However, this just meant I had to let go of Fancy—who seemed, to the clutch of Rapacians we’d found, to appear out of nowhere—and spend my time knocking them out without them being able to see me, due to the speed I was going.
This actually worked far better than I’d expected, and we ended up doing it all through the ship as we worked our way forward toward the command center. This time, though, we destroyed the circlets as we found them, just as I’d told Clarence to do, in part because there were going to be so many and in other part because they’d make noise and alert the Rapacians to our presence.
Hyperspeed being what it was, between us and The Clarence Clone—who’d found the holding cell that was not holding anyone we were looking for—it only took us about ten minutes to clear the back half of the ship.
“We are out of room in that cell, Shealla,” The Clarence Clone informed me as we met up and took a short breather. “I haven’t searched the forward part of the ship, though.”
“Let’s move forward, then. We’ll have to leave the bodies where they fall, at least for a little while.”
We moved on as a group, which was convenient because we didn’t find any Rapacians for a little while, and that way when we came upon the room the Matriarchs were using for their prisoner holding—the mess hall—we were together.
They’d moved all the heavy equipment to block all exits but one, and then sprayed the butt juices over them, on both sides, to ensure they remained closed.
“That can’t hold forever,” I pointed out to the Matriarch I’d been riding, who I decided to call Boz for no reason other than it was a cool name and the only other Boz I knew of was Scaggs. All the Ancient Katyhopper Kung Fu Masters needed cool rock star names. I didn’t have time to assign them all yet, but that was definitely on my To Do List, right after all the Save The Husband, Save the Daughter, Save the Besties, Save the Worlds stuff.
Boz shared that she liked the nickname and also that the older a katyhopper got, the stronger the shields. So this would hold long enough. Plus two of the Ancient Katyhopper Kung Fu Masters were staying outside t
he room, to keep a mental eye on the prisoners.
Thusly reassured, we all headed off again. Most of the Matriarchs scattered again, but Boz stayed with me, Fancy, and The Clarence Clone.
Boz led the way, but not toward the command area. Instead, we went into the bowels of the ship. Clarence had already done half of this area since this was the section the prison hold was in. But he hadn’t finished the front half, and clearly Boz felt this was an oversight that needed immediate rectification.
Found out why pretty quickly. This front area wasn’t loaded with Rapacians but it was indeed holding something else in addition to food stores.
“Katyhoppers, strautruch, and Lecanora, oh my.”
CHAPTER 84
SURE ENOUGH, the missing Beta Eight natives were here. Did a fast headcount—five strautruch, three katyhoppers, and two Lecanora. No partridge in a pear tree, but that was probably somewhere else on the ship.
No Peregrine either. Really wondered where Bruno was, because I hadn’t seen him when I’d seen the Earth males and he wasn’t with the other “animals.” Hoped he was okay, just like everyone else we were trying to rescue.
The prisoners all looked uninjured, but there was a weird glow around them.
Boz used three of her legs to hold the three of us back. All the natives seemed frozen in a kind of stasis, but I could see their eyes and they were awake and aware, because they all blinked when they saw us.
“Got it. That’s some kind of energy cage, isn’t it?”
King Benny, sans antlers, blinked his eyes three times. Wondered what had happened to his antlers, but figured that was low on the Worry Totem Pole.
“Three times for yes, got it. Is anyone hurt in this group?”
He blinked twice.
“Twice for no and thank goodness. Okay, hang on, King Benny and Friends. We’ll figure this out.” I hoped. Turned to Boz. “I think it’s time to use the impressive mind-reading skills again.”