Drue tapped the wrist of the glove, turning it off. “Maybe you shoulda mentioned that up front.”
“I wonder if this is why the Alpha Maraudi tech seems to be so mineral based,” Jasmine said as she flexed her fingers inside a glove. “Encasing yourself in metal and electricity when your bones are metallic seems a little problematic.”
“Possibly,” Trevone said. “Just imagine what an electromagnetic bomb might do to them.”
Jasmine shuddered.
“How many more of these gloves do we have?” Benny asked.
“There’s a whole box of them back here,” Drue said, running over to the racks. “Maybe twenty? I’m gonna toss them in the back of the Comet Catcher and take them with us.”
“The what?” Hot Dog asked.
“We need to call it something.” He set the box down beside the specialized Space Runner. “It’s not just a normal SR.”
“Comet Catcher.” She nodded. “I like it.”
Ricardo walked down the row of Space Runner models against the wall, pulling dust covers off a few of them as he went. “Most of these are relics. They run basically the same as a modern Space Runner, but have different interface systems. Pinky can’t control them.” He paused, glancing at Trevone. “We should be the ones to pilot the older models. We know how they run.”
“Um,” Jasmine said, taking a step forward and raising her gloved hand. “I would kind of like to ride with someone. If that’s okay.”
“Same,” Ramona said. “I get carsick.”
“Of course,” Benny said. “You’re our strategist, Jazz. Just like with the asteroid storm. Keep your eyes on the radar and call our shots for us. Ramona, can you help her out?”
Ramona gave a thumbs-up.
“You two can ride in my car,” Trevone said.
“Hot Dog, you’re the best EW-SCAB pilot, so you’re going to take the lead in the . . .” Ricardo paused. “In the Comet Catcher. The controls are fairly similar to what you’re used to, with a few quirks, given the customization. Think you can manage it?”
“Ha,” Hot Dog said. “No sweat.”
“I’ll stay in your ear just in case you need a hand,” Pinky said.
“Okay,” Benny said, “so I can use my holographic band to sneak out, break into the garage with my alien glove, and steal the stealth boxes from Dr. Bale’s cars. We’ll go invisible and save the day.” He blinked, swallowing hard, thinking about how far a journey it was from the basement-level storeroom to the garage. “Easy.”
“Uh, no,” Hot Dog said. “You are not doing all this alone. Let’s just open up the ceiling and all go out there together.” She made a fist with her gloved hand. “We’ll watch your back.”
“That would give the aliens plenty of time to destroy the Comet Catcher,” Jasmine said. “Not to mention, we’d be exposing ourselves.”
“We need to do this as discreetly as possible,” Ricardo said. “And we need to be fast.”
Drue made a noise that was not quite a gasp, not quite a squeak. “Moon motorcycle,” he whispered. And then he was shouting. “MOON MOTORCYCLE!”
“Galaxicle,” Pinky said.
“Whatever. Benny! This is the best idea I’ve ever had. Please, please, let me drive you to the garage.”
“A vehicle that small could maneuver through the Taj hallways fairly easily,” Trevone said hesitantly.
“I should pilot it,” Ricardo said, his brow furrowing. “It’s a delicate piece of machinery.”
“No way.” Drue crossed his arms. “Benny and I got this. Besides, you need to stay down here and be ready to drive one of those dusty old models.”
“It’s not a terrible idea,” Benny said, though he wasn’t exactly sure about that. “And Drue’s right. Once we’re headed back with the stealth boxes, we’ll want to move quickly. You should be waiting in the driver’s seat.”
“I’ll remind you that the Galaxicle is not practical for space travel,” Pinky said. “It leaves the rider far too exposed. There’s no shielding.”
“It will totally make it up to that big rock ship I bet,” Drue said. “No prob.”
“We’ll jump in Hot Dog’s car when we’re back,” Benny corrected him.
“Fine.” Drue sighed. Then he smirked. “We’ll see what happens.”
Ricardo looked at the two boys for a long moment before finally nodding. “Okay.”
“Yes!” Drue said, slapping Benny on the back. “This is the best day of my life!”
They all turned and stared at him in silence.
“Well,” he continued, “I mean, if you took everything except this ride out of the picture.”
Benny glanced down at his golden glove. Jasmine was right: this could be their best chance of figuring out a solution to not only their problems but those of the Alpha Maraudi as well. And Benny wasn’t going to let anyone down.
There was a loud bang somewhere above them, followed by a wrenching sound of metal on metal.
“One of the Earth SRs just slid into the east wing,” Trevone said. “Minimal damage to the resort and the vehicle, but it’s grounded for sure.” He looked to Benny. “You should get moving.”
“Okay,” Ricardo said, coming up to the side of the yellow motorcycle-shaped vehicle Drue had already mounted. “So, these buttons—”
“I got this,” Drue said. “Trust me. In the time between finding out this baby existed and discovering that alien rock was growing over the Grand Dome, I was reading up on every spec and detail of this thing in Elijah’s prototype files.” He stroked the handlebars in front of him. “She’s perfect.”
Benny stood beside the slim vehicle. “You sure this’ll hold two people?” he asked.
“What, you want a sidecar?” Drue asked. “Climb on. There’s special gravity tech in the seat that’ll keep you from flying off.”
Benny slid onto the back of the seat. Drue tapped a few buttons on the small holographic display beneath the handlebars. A slight vibration shot through the Galaxicle, accompanied by a whirring noise as the two circular hyperdrive engines that were housed where tires would normally be came to life. They were rimmed in neon blue light.
“Guys,” Hot Dog said. “Please be careful out there.”
“Safety first,” Drue said, tapping the collar of his space suit and manually deploying his force field helmet.
“If we’re fast enough, we can come back, install the stealth drives, and then open the ceiling,” Benny said. “While we’re gone, maybe figure out what we’re going to do once we’re inside that ship?”
“The hallway outside is clear right now,” Pinky said.
Drue bent down low, hovering over the handlebars. “Open the door, Pinks,” he said. “Let’s see what this beast can do.”
“We’ll be ready when you get back,” Jasmine said.
The wall slid open on the other end of the room.
“Hang on, Benny,” Drue said, utter glee filling his voice.
And then they were zooming forward so quickly that Benny felt certain he would tumble off the back, despite whatever tech was holding him down on the seat. The Galaxicle shot through the opening in the wall and came to a complete stop in the hallway all in the span of a second.
“Oh, man, this thing handles like a dream,” Drue whispered as he rotated the bike. “You ready for this?”
Benny knocked on the back of Drue’s helmet with his fist. “Get us to the garage.”
Drue screamed with excitement as they raced through the hallway, the Taj around them nothing but a blur to Benny. In seconds they were in the stairwell, and as Drue pulled on the handlebars the Galaxicle reared back like he was popping a wheelie and flew up the steps. Benny couldn’t help but laugh—not because any of this was funny, but because in his anxiousness he couldn’t keep the sound from bubbling up inside him. Drue was doing a great job of driving them, no doubt, but it was still a terrifyingly fast ride. Benny thought about closing his eyes through the whole thing, but that seemed like it would make things even w
orse.
In the lobby, there were maybe five Alpha Maraudi soldiers milling about. It was hard for Benny to actually count, because Drue never touched the brakes. Instead, their bike sped out of the stairwell and toward the ceiling of the four-story room, only to dive once they were halfway across, like a bolt of yellow lightning cutting across the lobby.
Finally, when they were in the courtyard, Drue stopped.
“Holy crap,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” Benny agreed.
He’d watched the feeds of the courtyard from the secret storage room, but it was nothing compared to seeing what was going on in person. The dark gravel on the ground was littered with bits of broken Maraudi rock and the glittering shards that had once been a part of the Grand Dome. Farther beyond the grounds of the Taj, there were crashed vehicles—both human and alien—dotting the lunar landscape, embedded in the rocky terrain of the Moon, smoke and dust hanging around them.
Above Benny and Drue, shiny chrome Space Runners darted through space, bolts of gold shooting from weapons mounted on their hoods. The Alpha Maraudi ships were weaving around them and firing back silver energy. Benny watched as one of them shot something dark and glowing that hit a Space Runner, knocking it toward the Moon. Rock began to grow over the car as it fell from the sky.
Looming over all this in the background was the giant rock mother ship, a good twenty miles away from the battlefield, at least. And farther back still, Earth, which felt much too far away for Benny’s liking.
As his brain struggled to take in the hundreds of ships above them, he could make out no clear indication of who was winning the battle—if anyone was. All he knew was that the sky was filled with complete chaos.
And then he realized that below them, the handful of Alpha Maraudi in the courtyard had noticed the yellow bike floating near the entrance to the Taj.
26.
The Alpha Maraudi soldiers on the ground bounded toward them, their tentacles thrashing around their heads.
“Look out!” Benny shouted as one of the aliens with gold on its armor threw a glowing rock at them.
Drue swerved to the left, narrowly dodging the piece of alien mineral. Drawing from his experience in the fight with the holographic robots he’d had a week before, Benny punched his left fist out in front of him and smashed his finger against the button on the side of his glove. The band across his knuckles lit up. For a second, he didn’t think anything was actually happening. Then he flicked his wrist to one side, and the alien went flying through the air, slamming against the side of the Taj.
“Ahhh!” he shouted, letting go of the button. “It works!”
And then debris everywhere, all around Benny and Drue—shards of the broken dome and pieces of alien rock that the Maraudi were grabbing with their tentacles and hurling at them.
Drue jerked the handlebars, the Galaxicle weaving around in a quick, irregular pattern. “Hold on,” he yelled.
They raced across the courtyard at such a speed that Benny was sure they were going to crash head on into the pulsing rock that had grown over the front of the garage, but Drue swerved at the last minute and hit the brakes. They came to an abrupt stop inches away from the front of the building.
“Do your thing,” Drue said as he held his silver fist out, tapping the button on his magnetic glove a few times and sending several aliens across the courtyard sprawling to the ground. “Oh, man, am I glad I played so many first-person shooters back on Earth,” he whispered.
“There are three Maraudi inside,” Pinky said through the comms. “I’ve just pinned them down with SR trainers, but you need to hurry. I don’t know how long I can hold them. The cars weren’t exactly meant to be used this way.”
Benny raised his golden glove and slammed it down onto the alien rock so hard that he couldn’t feel his palm—and immediately worried that he’d broken every bone in his hand. But he hadn’t, and as the rock began to crumble Benny kept punching at it. Drue dropped the Galaxicle closer to the ground, until enough of the door was free that Pinky could slide it open for them to get through.
“We’re clear!” Benny said.
Drue turned the handlebars with one hand and sent them flying inside.
Now that Pinky wasn’t diverting so much of the Taj’s energy into trying to keep the Grand Dome up and running, the overhead lights were back on, the huge space of the garage lit up and gleaming, like worlds weren’t at war above them. Drue hesitated for only a split second to look around, taking stock of his surroundings. Sure enough, Pinky had two Alpha Maraudi soldiers pinned to the walls—and one to the dark cement floor—using the laser-mounted Space Runners they’d flown into the asteroid storm days before. Drue shot the Galaxicle over to the end of the room where Dr. Bale’s temporary base had been set up and landed. It took Benny a few seconds to get his footing once he jumped off the bike—he’d been gripping the sides of the superfast floating motorbike with his legs so hard that his muscles were cramped up.
“I’ll take the Tank and the trailers,” he said as he hobbled over to Dr. Bale’s custom Space Runner. “You take the other two SRs. The cloaking devices are black boxes that should be stuck to the dashboards somewhere.”
“Gotcha,” Drue said, sprinting to the cars that Todd and Mae had driven in from the dark side.
It didn’t take Benny long to get inside the Tank and swipe the stealth drive. His legs finally starting to feel normal again, he bolted to one of the trailers, then the other.
When he came out of the second, thrilled with how well this all seemed to be going, the floor of the garage was shifting. Dr. Bale and his assistants were rising on a platform out of their hiding spot beneath the cement. All three were holding weapons, pointing them around the room cautiously. A drone floated above their heads.
“What the devil is going on?” Dr. Bale asked. When his eyes landed on Benny, he frowned. “The Earth forces are supposed to be taking back the garage and liberating us. I thought that’s what all this noise was.”
“Doctor!” Mae shouted.
“The Maraudi!” Todd said.
Dr. Bale’s eyes widened when he saw the closest of the Alpha Maraudi pinned against the wall. He took a deep breath, shifted his weight, and raised his weapon to aim at the alien.
“No!” Benny shouted. He shoved his left fist forward and tapped the button on his index finger. Dr. Bale’s gun flew from his hands. Behind him, Drue must have been using his magnetic glove, too, because Todd and Mae were just as quickly disarmed.
Dr. Bale looked at Benny, his lips curled up in a sneer. “You still don’t get it, do you?” he growled. “They would kill every last one of us.”
“Yeah,” Benny said. “And you’d do the same thing to them. Guess you’ve got that in common. Come on, Drue. Let’s get out of here.”
Dr. Bale darted over to one of the tables where his gear had been spread out earlier—but now there was nothing there.
“My weapons,” Dr. Bale said. “What have you done with them?”
“We didn’t take your weapons, dude,” Drue said.
Then who did? Benny wondered, but there wasn’t time to worry—they needed to get back to the others, fast.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but whatever it is, you’re wrong.” Dr. Bale was shouting now. “You’ll find out soon enough. This universe is full of terrors you couldn’t even comprehend. You’re just children, and your mucking around is going to get us all killed.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Drue said as he hopped back onto the bike. “I kinda seem to remember us beating these alien punks before.”
“This isn’t over yet,” Dr. Bale said. “Not by a long shot.”
“Pinky,” Benny said, “I don’t want to hear him anymore.”
“We will save humanity no matter what the—” Dr. Bale continued, but his voice stopped piping through Benny’s collar midsentence.
“There you go,” Pinky said. “If only I could do the same for myself.”
Benny jumped on the
back of the bike floating a few inches off the ground as Drue attached one of the stealth boxes to the front of the handlebars.
“Let’s get invisible,” he said, pushing the button on the device. It blinked red for a split second.
The Galaxicle disappeared.
Unfortunately, they did not.
“Oh,” Drue said. “Not cool.”
“Well, I guess this is less obvious than a big yellow motorbike,” Benny said. “It should work on the SRs, though. Let’s get back down there.”
Pinky slid the door open as they jetted across the garage.
“Okay, Pinky, tell the others we’re—” Benny started.
There was an explosion outside as golden bolts shot from above—the Earth Space Runners were raining havoc on the courtyard. Drue twisted the handlebars and hit the brakes, bringing the Galaxicle to a halt in the doorway. As the assault continued the ground shook so violently that the Taj itself seemed to sway. The alien ships parked on the dark gravel were completely obliterated, leaving nothing but the smallest pieces of wreckage. Benny’s stomach clenched—his friends were just below the heart of the attack.
“Pinky! Hot Dog! Jazz!” he shouted. “Is everyone okay?”
“We’re fine, but it felt like bombs were going off above us,” Ricardo said. “What happened?”
Benny watched as four silver Space Runners descended, parking beside the garage. There were emblems on the hoods that Benny didn’t recognize.
“Let’s go,” Benny said.
But Drue didn’t move. His eyes were locked on the new arrivals from Earth. Five people emerged from the Space Runners and began marching toward the garage—toward Dr. Bale, he assumed. Benny recognized the man leading the pack.
“Dad,” Drue said.
“Oh, boy,” Benny whispered.
“Dad!” Drue shouted. And then their Galaxicle sped forward, out of the garage, coming to such an abrupt stop a few feet in front of the approaching adults that Benny thought they might flip end over end.
There were immediately four weapons trained on them. Senator Lincoln stood there with his brow furrowed, hands at his sides, trying to process what was happening. Here was his son, seemingly floating in midair in the Taj’s courtyard. Benny assumed it wasn’t at all what he had expected to find seconds after landing on the Moon.
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