Finally, the man motioned to the others and the weapons were lowered.
“Pinky, connect us,” Drue said, handing the extra stealth drive to Benny.
“I’m already on it,” Pinky replied.
Drue slid off the bike and took a few steps toward his father. He straightened his back, standing tall. “Hi, sir.”
“Drue,” the man said, in barely more than a stunned whisper. Then his voice took a hard edge. “What do you think you’re doing? I told you to go back to Earth.” He glanced at Benny, narrowing his eyes as he gave him a once-over, and then turned his attention back to his son.
“I . . .” Drue started. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t. I tried to tell you, I’m helping up here, and—”
“Helping?” Senator Lincoln asked. He spread his arms wide. “Is this you helping? We’re in the middle of a war zone.”
“You don’t understand,” Benny said, getting off the bike, too, cradling the stealth drives in his arms. He stepped to Drue’s side. “We’re trying to find a way to save Earth without killing an entire species. To avoid all this.” He jerked his head up to the battle above them.
“Of all the . . .” Senator Lincoln started, keeping his eyes focused on his son. “You have a child’s understanding of how the world—the solar system—actually works. This is a matter of preserving the human species. We have no choice. We must do whatever it takes to survive. There’s no room for error or time to think about bleeding-heart alternatives.”
“Dad, please, if you’ll just listen to us—” Drue said.
“That’s enough.” His father cut him off, pointing a finger at his son’s face. “You don’t have a say in this matter. You’re going back to Earth whether you want to or not.” He motioned to one of the other men, who started toward Drue. “Get him on a course back to DC.”
Drue turned, darting for the Galaxicle.
But it wasn’t there. Or, rather, it was there—just invisible.
“Crap!” he said. “Stupid stealth works too well!”
The person Senator Lincoln had motioned to brushed past Benny and grabbed Drue by the arm, dragging him back toward the silver Space Runners.
“Let me go!” Drue shouted, squirming in vain against the man’s grip.
“This is for your own good,” his father said.
“Hey!” Benny said, running forward, but the other men were faster than him and were already holding his arms back, the stealth drives falling to the ground. He looked around, trying to figure out a way to help his friend.
That’s when he saw it: one of the Earth Space Runners was falling toward the courtyard, smoke streaming from its hood and leaving a thick gray line in the sky.
It was headed straight for them.
“Drue!” Benny shouted, struggling against the men holding him. “Incoming!”
All of them looked up at the silver missile of a vehicle rocketing toward them. There was no hope that they’d all get out of the way in time. Senator Lincoln cried out, raising his arms and covering his face.
Only, the Space Runner didn’t hit them. Instead, it froze in the air, its hood just a few feet away from the senator’s head. Through the windshield, Benny could just make out the face of the pilot, her mouth and eyes wide, trying to figure out what was going on.
Drue stood there, one arm still held by his father’s flunky. The other was outstretched, his gloved fist clenched, the band across the knuckles glowing.
No one moved for a few seconds, until Drue’s father finally looked up at the Space Runner, and then back at his son, baffled.
“This is me helping, sir,” Drue said as he set the Space Runner off to one side. “Ow, ow, ow,” he muttered. “This glove is totally overheating.”
The man who’d been dragging Drue toward the parked Earth SRs took a few steps back, staring at the boy’s glove. Benny managed to slip out of the hands of the guys who’d stopped him and hurried to his friend’s side.
“What did you do?” Drue’s father asked.
Drue shrugged. “I haven’t just been racing SRs up here, Dad.”
Before the Senator could respond, one of his men was shouting. Benny turned to see a dozen Alpha Maraudi soldiers swarming out of the front of the Taj. They carried black devices in their tentacles, and it took Benny a second to realize what they were: Dr. Bale’s weapons.
As Benny gasped, the Alpha Maraudi opened fire.
27.
Shots of gold energy filled the courtyard as the Alpha Maraudi fired Dr. Bale’s weapons at them. Benny darted for the stealth drives he’d dropped on the gravel as Drue and the group from Earth took cover behind the parked Space Runners. He managed to grab the devices off the ground without ever slowing his stride, and in a flash he was back with Drue, crouched behind one of the silver vehicles.
Drue’s father yelled at someone through his comm, which was still linked to Benny’s helmet. “Get me air support!”
Benny searched for the Galaxicle, but it was no use—the stealth technology had worked too well. With aliens spilling out of the resort’s front entrance, Benny realized there was only one way of getting back to his friends now, even if it was dangerous.
“Pinky!” Benny shouted. “Change of plans. Tell the others to get in their cars and then open the ceiling. Hurry!”
A line of Earth Space Runners swooped in from above and fired on the aliens, forcing them to retreat for a moment. Benny looked toward the statue in the center of the courtyard. The big chrome hand was mangled now, but it was still able to move, along with a large section of the courtyard ground around it. As older, slightly scuffed-up black Space Runners flew out of the new hole, Benny handed half of the stealth drives to Drue, keeping two for himself.
“I’m on it,” Drue said, looking over his shoulder at the Alpha Maraudi.
“Where do you think you’re going?” his father asked from behind one of the nearby Space Runners.
“I’m gonna help save a couple of worlds,” Drue said.
“Drue, we don’t have time for this.” The man slammed his fist against the side of the car he was crouched behind. “You are a Lincoln. One day, when we’ve molded you into a commander worthy of your name, you’ll understand that your place is not as a grunt on the front lines trying to talk peace with an enemy.”
“I may be a Lincoln,” Drue said, flashing his perfect white teeth at his father, “but I’m also a founding member of the Moon Platoon.”
He sprinted toward the Pit Crew’s vehicles that were now floating by the fountain. Benny was on his heels, glancing back to try to make sure he stayed out of the sights of the aliens.
“Pinky,” Drue said, his breath short as he ran. “I know this is weird, but make sure my dad’s okay up here. Please.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” the AI said through the comms.
Hot Dog’s Comet Catcher was the last of the cars to fly up. Benny headed straight for it. Meanwhile, Jasmine opened the passenger door of Trevone’s car. Drue tossed one of the stealth drives to her, which she juggled for a few seconds before closing the door again. And then, the car was gone. Invisible.
“Incredible,” she said over the comms.
Another line of Earth’s forces flew by, raining gold bolts of energy on a back section of the courtyard near them.
“We can’t stay here like this,” Trevone said. “We’ll get caught in the crossfire.”
“Head for the mother ship,” Ricardo crackled over the comms. “We’ll regroup there.”
Hot Dog opened the pilot-side door as Benny approached.
“It is insane up here,” she said as he handed her a stealth drive. “Get in.”
He started around the car just as another wave of attacks erupted around him. Hot Dog slammed her door shut as gold beams of energy bounced off the side of the car. Benny looked back—the Alpha Maraudi were firing on them, charging from the garage and the main entrance to the Taj.
“The antigravity shields are holding for now,” Hot Dog said, “but we ne
ed to go.”
Benny was rounding the front bumper when something hit his back, causing him to stumble. His suit didn’t seem to be leaking oxygen as he regained his footing, but a small spot between his shoulder blades was buzzing and felt suddenly hot—and the feeling was spreading over his shoulders.
By the time he realized that there was alien rock growing over him, his upper arms were already frozen in place.
“No!” Hot Dog shouted, opening her door.
“Don’t come closer!” Benny yelled. “It might get you, too.”
He turned his head to look at her while he still could. Her big eyes were wide as she stared at him. Farther behind her, Drue jumped into Ricardo’s car before the Space Runner seemed to blink out of existence.
“Go,” Benny shouted. “I’ll be fine, just get out of here. I’ll take another SR. There are trainers in the garage.”
She blinked at him. And then the rock grew over the front of his helmet, until finally he was enveloped by darkness.
“Hello?” he called out, but there was no response from the comms. Not even from Pinky. The rock was blocking all his communications.
Benny tried to take a deep, heaving breath, but his chest couldn’t inflate because of the minerals he was now encapsulated in. Oxygen continued to pour through his helmet, but that didn’t help with the claustrophobia and sheer terror coursing through him as he realized he wasn’t able to move a single muscle. He could hear his blood thrumming in his ears. All around him, the rock buzzed, like at any moment it might constrict. He thought of the Grand Dome, and the sight of all that superdurable polymer shattering. The only thing he had protecting him was a thin space suit.
He tried to move the alien glove, but he couldn’t. His hand and wrist were just as stuck as the rest of his body.
The ground below shuddered. Around him, the battle continued.
He felt light-headed, and his heart hammered so hard he thought it might break the alien rock off him on its own. But he wasn’t that lucky—he remained a statue in the middle of the Taj’s courtyard, completely unaware of what was going on outside. Utterly helpless. He may as well have been stuck in a sandstorm in the Drylands, completely lost.
What he needed to do was calm down and focus. He knew this, but it was difficult to imagine actually doing it with his pulse firing like a fission engine in overdrive, thoughts flying through his mind at Star Runner speeds. Still, he tried. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing, trying to get it back on track before he completely hyperventilated and passed out. He tried to center himself, imagining that he was sitting on top of the RV and looking into the horizon of the Drylands. He imagined, too, that Justin and Alejandro and his grandmother were all in the little house on wheels below him, getting dinner ready or sleeping, lost in dreams.
Somewhere up on Earth, they were in the RV. Benny knew this, but he reminded himself of it over and over again. He wasn’t going to let this be the end of his fight to save them.
As his pulse began to slow down, he was able to think more rationally. Apart from all the buzzing around his body, his right hand was warm. There was no use trying to move, but he focused on his palm, attempting to wriggle the muscles in his hand as best he could. He still had no idea how this alien technology strapped to his hand worked, despite Dr. Bale’s hypotheses, and so Benny just hoped for the best and concentrated every ounce of his energy on the glove.
It felt like it was heating up.
There was a stirring in the rock around him—something shifting—and suddenly he could wriggle his fingers and move his hand. He didn’t have much range of motion but, straining, he managed to touch his chest—just barely. The alien substance seemed to melt off him, freeing more and more of his muscles. He could take deep breaths again. He brought his hand to his head, and suddenly light was pouring through his helmet. He blinked, his eyes readjusting, and then looked down to find that the bottom half of his body was still encapsulated in the alien minerals, as though he were an ice cube that had partially melted only to be refrozen.
“Come in,” he shouted as he slammed his hand down against the rock, causing it to crumble. “Anybody there?”
“Benny!” Hot Dog shouted. “Thank goodness. I was just about to come try to ram you or something to break you out of that thing. Are you okay?”
There was another barrage of golden bolts from the sky. The Alpha Maraudi were still surging out of the Taj. Across the courtyard, two of the Earth Space Runners had been covered in the alien rock. He could see several of the men still hunkered down there, trying to fight back.
“Sort of,” he said, dashing for the cover of the Space Runners.
“Everyone else is on their way to the dark side,” she said. “But I’m still here. Don’t die. I’m coming for you.”
Benny’s eyes landed on a rock figure a few feet away from him—one of the men from Earth had been encapsulated. He darted over to it, slamming his palm against the statue’s chest and causing the rock to crumble.
As the mineral fell away, he realized it was Drue’s father. The man was wide-eyed, his chest heaving, but he didn’t shake or stumble.
“What in the name of . . . ?” he started as he and Benny took cover behind one of the SRs.
“The aliens can cover you in rock,” Benny said. “You gotta watch out for that.”
“I’m coming down,” Hot Dog said over the comms. “I’ll stop and turn off the invisibility and you can jump in.”
Another wave of bolts fired from above.
“No, it’s too risky,” Benny said. “You might get hit by one of the Earth SRs if they can’t see you.”
“Okay, so I’ll come in without any stealth, no problem.”
“The aliens might hit you with one of their rocks!”
“Psh,” she said. “Benny, I don’t call myself an ace pilot for nothing.”
Benny looked down at the silver glove on his left hand. A piston fired in his brain.
“Okay,” Benny said. “But don’t stop. Just blaze through the courtyard.”
“What?” she asked. “But how . . .”
He clenched his fist. “Just trust me, Hot Dog.”
“Okay. I’m going to make a pass by the fountain, then. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Benny said.
He spotted her red Comet Catcher in the distance, shooting straight for the courtyard. He started toward the fountain, but someone grabbed his arm.
It was Senator Lincoln. “Wait,” he said.
Benny looked back at him. The man was shaking the last remnants of the rock off his shoulders.
“Make sure my son is safe,” he said.
Benny stared at him for a few seconds before nodding. “I will. But that means I have to go. Now.”
And then he was sprinting across the courtyard as Hot Dog’s custom SR dipped and weaved, avoiding shots from the Alpha Maraudi and friendly fire from the Earth forces.
“I see you!” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re going to jump on the hood or something. I don’t want to kill you.”
“Just don’t stop!” he said.
He raised his left hand and mashed the button on the side of the magnetic glove twice as the Comet Catcher shot past him. In an instant, he flew through the courtyard, yanked so hard that he thought his fist might be ripped from his body. But it wasn’t, and within seconds they were flying above the Taj, Benny magnetically attached to the trunk of the Space Runner. He climbed on top of it as best he could and took one look back to the courtyard, where Drue’s dad was staring up at them. Seconds later, the man was too small to make out.
“You are insane,” Hot Dog said as she turned the stealth back on so that Benny looked like he was flying on his own, like some kind of cosmic superhero jetting through space. “Are you okay back there?”
“I think so,” he said. Then he shivered. “Uh, maybe set us down somewhere away from the battlefield before we go all the way to the mother ship? It’s really cold out here.”
28.
/> They parked briefly so Benny could hop off the trunk and into the passenger seat, and then they soared invisibly through space toward the giant floating hunk of rock. Benny couldn’t help but remember that the last time he was riding shotgun in a Space Runner Hot Dog was piloting, they were trying to get away from an alien vessel almost just like the one they were about to attempt to board.
“This is a crazy idea,” Hot Dog said.
“Yeah,” Benny agreed. “I know. But I don’t want to back out now.”
“Well, of course not. Just because it’s crazy doesn’t mean it’s not good.” She twitched her nose. “I hope.”
Ahead of them, the giant alien ship, which had seemed to be floating stationary above the Moon, began to shoot forward—away from the Taj.
“What’s going on?” Benny asked.
Hot Dog reached forward and tapped on the dashboard. “Come in, Moon Platoon. We’re closing in on the ship, but it looks like it’s flying away!”
“I hope you’re close,” Trevone said. “We’ve been monitoring the battle above the Taj. I think the alien fighters are actually losing to the Earth forces. I imagine they were unprepared for such a counteroffensive. At this rate, their entire fleet will be taken out.”
“They’re leaving without their fighter pilots?” Benny asked.
“It’s possible they want the Earth forces to stay distracted by those smaller ships while this larger one escapes,” Jasmine said.
“They’re sacrificial pawns,” Drue said.
“Like I said, it’s possible. We’re not sure. The radar is picking up a dozen alien life-forms inside the larger ship. Most of them are gathered in one area—probably the bridge. I’m trying to map a route inside as best I can with the various scans I’m collecting, but we might be playing it by ear once we’re in there.”
“Push your hyperdrives, boys,” Hot Dog said, tapping on the dash. “Let’s get onto that ship before it goes into light speed or something.”
Space Runners #2 Page 21