“Well, I mean, it just would’ve been nice if I’d been the one to end the call. That’s all I’m saying. More, like, authoritative, or whatever. It just would’ve been nice.”
“Do you want me to call her back up so you can end the call?” Loren asked.
Cal bit his lip. “Should we? Or would that look weird?”
“Yes, it would look weird! I was kidding,” said Loren.
“OK, fine! It’s not a big deal,” Cal said. “I just would’ve liked to—”
“Will you shut the Hell up about who ended the motherfonking call?” Mech barked.
Cal tutted and leaned forward in his chair. “I was just saying, that’s all,” he mumbled. “OK, Loren, plot a course for—”
“Already done it,” Loren said, then she pushed forward on a thruster stick and the Currently Untitled became a blur of warp speed among the stars.
TWENTY
TO DESCRIBE the Ka’Reth system as ‘a shizzhole’ would be to do a grave disservice to other shizzholes across the galaxy. For starters, the planet was a rather alarming shade of red that either suggested danger, or that the four orbiting planets were populated entirely by prostitutes, and they were all touting for business.
The planets themselves ranged from ‘I wouldn’t go there if you paid me’ to ‘is that even a fonking planet?’ with the hazy gaseous ball that was Ka’Reth falling firmly into the latter category.
The prison moon orbited worryingly close to the planet below, skirting the very edges of its opaque atmosphere. It looked as dead as anywhere else in the system, aside from a domed metal building that rose from the dark side like a blister.
“Is that it?” Cal asked.
“That’s it,” Loren confirmed.
Miz swung her legs off the arm of her chair and sat up a little straighter. “Shouldn’t there be, like, defenses or whatever?”
“Girl’s got a point,” said Mech. “Whole sector should be teeming with patrol ships. This place is supposed to be protected.”
“The moon does appear to be equipped with some rather heavy duty shield technology,” Kevin announced.
“OK. That’s more like it,” said Cal, relaxing a little.
“However, it’s currently switched off,” Kevin continued.
“Fonk. OK.”
“Would you like me to scan for life signs?”
“Do it,” Cal said.
“I’m afraid I can’t, sir. The roof’s too thick. Probably shouldn’t have offered, really. Rather got your hopes up there, didn’t I?”
“You really did, Kevin,” Cal said, then he spun in his chair. “Tim. Can you…?” He looked around. “Where’s Tim?”
From further back in the ship, there came the sound of a toilet flushing.
“Oh,” said Cal. He leaned on an elbow, drumming his fingers on his arm rest while he waited.
“Should I take us in to land?” Loren asked.
Behind her, Miz pulled on her seatbelt.
“Hmm? No, let’s wait to see what Tim has to say first.”
They waited.
The toilet flushed again.
“The Time Titan appears to be having some difficulty, sir. Should I activate the power flush?”
“We have a power flush?” asked Cal. “Then yeah. Do that.”
“Very good, sir.”
There was a sound like thunder. The Untitled shuddered violently, forcing Loren to grab the yoke until her knuckles turned white. Tim screamed, but the roaring of the power flush mostly drowned him out.
“Power flush completed, sir. That shifted it.”
Cal straightened in his chair. A moment or two later, the door to the bridge opened and an ashen-faced Tim shambled in, drying his hands on his smock. He stopped when he saw everyone watching him.
“What?”
“We’re here,” Cal said. “Can you sense anything?”
“Hmm? Oh.” Tim glanced up. “No. Nothing.”
He sat down.
“Sorry.”
“Well, that was worth the wait,” Cal muttered, turning back to face front. He puffed out his cheeks. “Should we call them? Or just arrive unannounced and keep the element of surprise?”
“The element of surprise? When she’s flying?” Miz snorted. “Because, like, they’ll be totally surprised when we come crashing through the roof.”
“To be fair, they probably would find that surprising,” Cal pointed out. “I mean, I know you were being sarcastic, but that would be pretty surprising. From their point of view, I mean. Depressingly predictable from ours.”
He tapped a fingernail against his teeth as he started out at the prison moon. “Let’s put it to a vote. All in favor of calling ahead?”
No-one raised a hand.
“OK, then. Looks like element of surprise it is.”
“I already called ahead, sir,” Kevin said.
“What? Why?”
“I wish I knew, sir,” Kevin admitted. “Sometimes I just do things without thinking. It’s probably a form of mental illness.”
“Fonk. Fine. OK, did they respond?”
“It was an automated menu and queuing system.”
Cal shifted in his seat. “Jesus. This place is worse than I thought.”
“I’m still trying to navigate through the options,” Kevin continued, and there was a slightly hysterical edge to his voice that was hard to miss. “None of them seem to quite match our reason for calling. I rather feel like I’m going around in circles.”
“Then hang up!” Cal told him. “We didn’t want you to call them in the first place.”
“Oh, thank you, sir,” Kevin sobbed. “Thank you.”
It had taken under two hours to reach the Ka’Reth system, and the team had dedicated the time to coming up with a plan. As they had no real idea what they were walking into, though, the plan they had eventually settled on was, “Fonk it, we’ll wing it, and see what happens,” which had been proposed by Cal and quickly seconded by Mizette.
Miz had seemed more enthusiastic than usual, although this was not exactly saying much. It was the girl, she explained. The little girl back on the Odyssey, frozen forever in time, her life never to be lived. In a rare display of openness and emotion, Miz had told them that what had happened to the girl, “totally, like, sucked,” and vowed to take a bloody and violent revenge on whoever turned out to be responsible.
Cal hadn’t been able to bring himself to speak to Loren about her leaving, and had instead spent the rest of the trip torturing himself. This he did by imagining some of his favorite foods, while his stomach grumbled angrily in protest.
Even now, with the prison moon of Ka’Reth looming larger on the screen, and the fate of the galaxy almost certainly resting on his shoulders, he could murder some M&Ms.
“And we’re sure there are no defenses still active?” Cal asked.
“Don’t seem like it,” Mech said. “Looks like everything’s been powered down except life support, gravity and the vault locks.”
Cal chewed his lip. It didn’t feel right. Then again, a lot of things didn’t feel right these days. He mostly just put it down to being in outer space, and generally thought no more about it.
Something felt specifically wrong about this, though. He’d gone over everything they knew – or thought they knew, at least – a hundred times on the trip here, and couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something they were missing. Something that didn’t quite fit.
Dave had faked his death. He had either already freed or was working on freeing Geronimous Krone. The ball Cal had thought contained Krone was actually a bomb, designed to obliterate time and, by extension, the time prison holding the Four Horsemen of the Spacepocalypse.
That all fit. It all made sense.
And yet, there was something not quite right, he was sure of it.
“How are the shield repairs coming on, Kevin?”
A pause followed. “I’m sorry, sir?”
“The shield repairs,” said Cal, looking up at the s
peaker. “The repairs to the shields. How are they coming along?”
“I thought master Mech was doing that, sir?”
Mech turned, scowling. “What? No. I been standing here the whole time. You were doing it.”
“Was I, sir? Since when?”
“Since I said, ‘Kevin, fix the shields,’” Cal told him.
“Sorry, the shields? Yes, they’re all fine now. I fixed those,” Kevin said. “I thought you were asking how the ‘field’ repairs were coming along.”
“Why the fonk would I ask…? What fields?”
“Well, I mean, I didn’t know, sir. That’s where the confusion was stemming from,” Kevin explained. “I did think it rather odd.”
“Jesus. OK. So we have shields. That’s good,” said Cal. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Then I guess we go down there and put a stop to all these shenanigans. Everyone agreed?”
“Totally,” said Miz. She flicked her fingers, popping out her claws. “I can’t wait to get at these guys.”
“I like that energy, Miz. Keep it up,” Cal encouraged. “Everyone else should follow Miz’s example. Positive. Enthusiastic.”
Miz tutted and sunk back into her chair. “Whatever.”
“Short-lived…” Cal concluded. He nodded to Loren. “OK, let’s get this over with. Take us down.”
Mech shifted on his metal feet. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got it, too,” said Cal, then he forced himself to brighten up. “Still, just another day for the brave men and women of Space Team, right?”
Splurt lowered from the ceiling and shot Cal quite an accusing look. “Brave men, women, and shapeshifting goo blobs,” Cal corrected, which seemed to satisfy the little guy. Splurt flopped down into Cal’s lap, transformed briefly into an adorable space kitten, then squelched up onto Cal’s shoulder as a gelatinous green ball.
“There’s a ship on one of the landing pads,” Loren said, indicating a spot on the roof of the building currently growing larger on the screen. “Doesn’t look like a prison ship.”
“Is it from Funworld?” Cal asked, but Loren shook her head.
“Looks like a TNK class fighter,” said Mech, zooming that section of the screen into a separate overlay.
“It obviously is. You just have to look at it to see that,” said Cal. “Also, what’s a TNK class fighter?”
“They’re like mini battleships. Slow and hard to maneuver, but can take a ridiculous amount of punishment,” Loren explained.
“Anyone on board?”
“Don’t seem to be,” said Mech, checking the ship’s scanners. “Whoever it is, they must be inside.”
Cal pointed to another area of the screen. “Is that another landing pad?”
“It is,” Loren confirmed. “It’s a big one. Probably used for supply ships.”
“Big enough that you could land on it?” Cal asked.
“I could land on the smaller one,” Loren insisted.
Cal nodded. “Oh, of course! I know you could. I mean, past evidence doesn’t exactly support it, but I absolutely know you could do it. I just think that one will be better.”
Loren looked back over her shoulder. “Why?”
“Why?” Cal laughed, but only briefly. “Why what?”
“Why would that be a better one to land on?”
“Well, because… I mean…” He looked to Miz and Mech. “Guys?”
“Because we might not die on impact?” Miz suggested. “Because we might not overshoot it and, like, crash into that planet way over there?”
She sat up and her snout curved into a smirk. “Ooh, I like this game.”
“Because there’s a separate entrance next to that pad, which means we might be able to get inside without anyone noticing,” Mech said.
Cal clicked his fingers and pointed at the cyborg. “That one. That’s the one I was thinking of, not the mean stuff Miz said, which I totally disagree with.”
Loren sighed, then adjusted the controls. The angle of approach shifted, bringing the larger landing pad towards the center of the screen.
“Smoothly done,” Cal told her.
“Yeah, yeah,” Loren said. She raised her right hand at him and extended her index finger.
“Wrong one,” Cal said. “But I get the idea, so points for effort.” He leaned forward in his chair and studied the approaching pad. “And you’re sure you can land on it?”
“I could hit it with my eyes closed,” Loren insisted.
“We don’t want you to ‘hit it,’” Cal replied. “That’s literally the last thing we want you to do.”
Loren tutted. “You know what I mean.”
“OK, then let’s get down there, get inside, and we’ll figure out the rest as we go. Everyone happy with that?”
He swung around in his chair, looking from the crew to the Time Titan sitting up at the back. “Happy, Tim?”
“Far from it,” Tim said. “But what must be done must be done.”
“Great words of wisdom there, Timbo. Real profound. With your permission, I might get that put on a t-shirt,” Cal said. “You know, assuming the universe doesn’t get destroyed in the next fifteen minutes. In which case, I probably won’t bother.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Mech reiterated.
Cal leaned back in his chair and watched the landing pad grow larger on the screen. “Me too, big guy,” he muttered. “Me too.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE LANDING WENT SURPRISINGLY SMOOTHLY, although Cal did insist that Loren keep her eyes open, and had Mech watch her to make sure she didn’t shut them to try to prove a point.
The moon’s atmosphere was thin, but breathable. It smelled like burnt toast and nipped angrily at the edges of Cal’s eyes, but he could cope with it long enough for them to reach the hatch entrance leading into the prison below.
Mech had spent a full minute raining firepower on the circle of reinforced metal, but had barely left a mark. He had just cranked his dial two-thirds of the way towards ‘Hulk-mode’ when Loren had turned the hatch’s handle and it had immediately slid open.
“Go on, say it,” Mech said to Cal.
“Say what?”
“Whatever smart-ams shizz you’re about to say.”
Cal widened his eyes in mock surprise. “I resent that, Mech. You did your best and that’s what counts. Whether you failed spectacularly and embarrassed yourself or not is irrelevant. You tried and that’s the main thing.”
“I hate you, man. Have I ever told you that?”
Cal grinned. “You may have mentioned it.”
The gravity was a little heavier than Cal had been expecting, and by the time they’d made it down the ramp that led down from the hatch, his thighs felt like they were burning.
He’d been allowed to bring a blaster pistol on the strict understanding that he didn’t accidentally shoot any of them with it, and while he’d enjoyed holding it out in front of him like a cop on a TV show for a while, his arms had quickly begun to kill him, and he’d now tucked the gun into the back of his pants for safe-keeping.
Splurt had slung himself across Cal’s shoulders like a backpack, distributing his increased weight more evenly. Cal hadn’t asked him to do this. He wasn’t even aware of consciously thinking it, but the little blob had picked up some subconscious niggle, and adjusted himself accordingly.
It was kind of him, Cal thought. Granted, it would’ve been kinder still if he’d just grown legs and fonking walked, but it was a nice gesture all the same.
The prison complex was pretty much exactly what Cal had expected. It reminded him in many ways of the prisons he’d spent time in back on Earth, although this one was a little more… What was the word he was looking for?
Spacey.
It wasn’t that anything was particularly high-tech or futuristic-looking. Quite the opposite, in fact. The metal walls were pitted with rust. The floor was scuffed and lined with the deep grooves made by heav
y objects being dragged through the place every day for decades.
It was the little differences that made the place seem alien: the symbols on the wall that his translator chip took a few seconds to decipher; the weirdly-shaped doorways that were clearly built to accommodate people twice his size; the alien corpses lying dismembered on the floor.
Especially that last one, in fact.
“What happened to them?” Loren wondered, as they tip-toed around a small ocean of blood with an island of mutilated flesh somewhere near the middle.
“Nothing pleasant,” Cal said, tearing his eyes away from the ravaged face of a uniformed young woman. Her mouth was open. Her throat, even more so. “Miz, you getting anything?”
Miz shook her head and flared her nostrils. “Just blood. Walls are too thick to hear anything except us.”
“Same problem here,” Mech said, indicating his scanners. “Damn walls must be sensor-shielded. I got no idea what we’re walking into.”
“Come on, we never have any idea what we’re walking into,” Cal pointed out. “That’s what makes it exciting.”
A sound crackled from Mech’s arm. Cal screamed and grabbed for his gun, but recognized Kevin’s voice before he could open fire.
“Hello!” the AI called through the speaker. Mech frantically stabbed at the buttons.
“Shh! Shut the fonk up!”
“Sorry, sir? Having some difficulty hearing you,” Kevin said, raising his voice to a shout. “Can you hear me? Hello? HELLOOOOO!”
“Yes! Jesus, Kevin, we can hear you,” Cal hissed. “Keep your voice down.”
“Apologies, sir,” said Kevin, dropping his volume down to a more natural speaking level.
They waited for him to say more, but he volunteered nothing.
“What do you want?” Mech demanded.
“Oh. Yes. I called you, didn’t I?” Kevin said. “I made a rather interesting discovery I thought might be of interest.”
“I hope it’s something related to our current situation, Kevin, and not about how high cows can jump or your favorite color,” Cal warned. “Because now isn’t the time for that stuff. Although, mine’s blue, by the way. Sort of baby blue.”
Space Team: The Time Titan of Tomorrow Page 22