Devika turned on the lights in the airlock. The walls were dark gray and the area was barren, as if the ship had been salvaged or reconstituted.
“Let’s go to the bridge,” Devika said.
Eddie walked past the alien, giving it one final look before following Devika down the length of the ship into a wide bridge where computer panels glittered in the semi-darkness.
Eddie had only seen warship bridges, never been aboard one.
Devika slid into a chair at the front of the bridge where the computers formed a V. The slanted windshield looked out over the desert sands.
Grayson climbed into a chair next to her and grabbed two joysticks—blue, the color of weapons.
Devika flipped a switch and the ship rumbled to life. Eddie stumbled and grabbed a nearby railing as Devika took the control joystick and lifted off.
Eddie heard footsteps next to him. Keltie stopped and laughed.
“You know, you two are very rude,” she said. “We haven’t even made formal introductions.”
“Would you prefer to get cozy with each other and die, or would you prefer to skip formalities for a moment?” Devika asked, annoyed. She steered the ship away from the patch of Planet Eaters. The ship rocketed through the sky and Eddie had to hold on.
“That’s Devika Sharma,” Keltie said. “She’s an ex-GALPOL agent. I haven’t known her very long, myself. But forgive her personality—she’ll be okay in a little while, I think.”
Keltie extended her hand. “And I’m Keltie Sheffield.”
“Eddie Puente,” Eddie said, shaking her hand.
“Nice to meet you, Eddie,” Grayson said, his eyes on a three-dimensional map of the moon.
“That’s Grayson McCoy,” Keltie said. “He just got out of the Galactic Guard Reserve. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my incredible good looks.”
Grayson laughed. “She’s kind of right.”
Devika ignored them as the ship rose into the air. The police pod grew smaller and looked like a ball-bearing in the sand.
“Want to help me keep an eye on the planetary navigation system?” Keltie asked.
Eddie followed her to a long computer panel full of analytics screens. Keltie strapped herself in and he sat next to her.
Eddie studied the instrument panels—it was nothing like the garbage ship’s.
“What is all of this?” he asked.
“Tools to help us study what we’re up against,” Keltie said.
“What exactly are we up against?” Eddie asked.
“Those things out there swallow entire planets,” Keltie said.
“Ah…I see,” Eddie said, gulping.
“I watched them destroy an entire planet,” Keltie said. “And I was the sole survivor. And now they’re about to try it again.”
Eddie’s heart beat fast. He thought of Papa Ito. He would be defenseless.
There was nothing Eddie could do to protect him. He had joined this team on a whim, not really thinking it through. Now the Planet Eaters might eat him.
“How do we stop these things?” Eddie asked.
“About that,” Keltie said, “there’s really no way to stop them.”
“We haven’t figured it out yet,” Devika said. “The best thing we can do is run.”
“So we’re just going to let them eat my home?” Eddie asked.
“I’m sorry, Eddie,” Keltie said. “Trust me, it’s not worth fighting them. It just makes them angry.”
Eddie glanced out the window and stared at the moving black mass in the sky.
“What exactly are they?” he asked.
“They’re a Grade A pain in the neck,” Keltie said.
One of the instrument panels beeped. A screen showed a wireframe model of Refugio, and a black mass covering it slowly.
“They’ve entered the atmosphere,” Grayson said, studying a three-dimensional map of Refugio. “I’d expect them to make landfall in the next half-hour.”
Devika swept the ship over a long row of dunes toward a small cluster of pods in the sand. Already, a few spaceships were rising from the settlement and gaining altitude.
“Some are already leaving,” Grayson said. “But damn, it’s not enough.”
“Keltie, open up the broadcast system,” Devika said.
Keltie flipped a few switches and put on headphones.
“Ready,” Keltie said.
Devika increased her speed and decreased altitude.
“We’ll do two circles around the pods,” Devika said, glancing at Eddie. “Relay the following message: the planet is under attack. Please evacuate and do not delay. I repeat: please evacuate and do not delay. Find the nearest spaceship and depart the moon as soon as possible. Seek shelter at the either Provenance or the nearest colony.”
“Could you not make that any harder for me to remember?” Keltie asked.
“I can remember it,” Eddie said. “And it’s not enough to deliver it in English. If the announcement isn’t from someone they know, they won’t listen.”
“Right,” Devika said. “I forgot that many here speak Spanish. Well, this is your first test. Can you do the announcement, Eddie?”
Eddie grabbed a nearby microphone. “Let’s do it.”
“On my signal,” Devika said, pushing down on the joystick. The ship jerked downward and Eddie’s seatbelt tightened around his chest.
He recognized the settlement.
Yuma Sands. His cousin Rafi lived there, and so did many of his aunts and uncles. If they heard his voice, they would obey.
Family. He had to look out for family.
“Now!” Devika said.
“Everyone, listen up,” Eddie said. “This is Eddie Puente. What you see in the sky are deadly aliens and they’re coming for us. You’ve got to get off the planet ASAP. Find the nearest spaceship and evacuate and seek shelter. They’re accepting people at Provenance. I repeat: get out of here before they eat us all! Run for your lives!”
Keltie’s jaw dropped.
Eddie repeated the message in Spanish.
“That wasn’t exactly verbatim,” Devika said. “You’re going to scare them.”
“You got to speak to people on their level,” Eddie said.
Devika pursed her lips as she made a quarter turn and flew low over more pods.
“Again, Eddie,” she said.
Eddie repeated the message in English and Spanish.
Slowly, more spaceships entered the air.
“Looks like your first test was a success,” Devika said, smiling at Eddie.
“Landfall in about twenty-eight minutes,” Keltie said.
“Time to go,” Devika said, nosing the ship upward.
“Why don’t you use auto-exit?” Eddie asked. “Flying manually is going to waste fuel.”
“When planet-eating aliens are chasing you, the last thing you want to do is be in auto-exit,” Devika said.
The ship rose ever faster.
But then the sky darkened. The black mass shifted and spread across the sky. The clear brown sky that seemed so expansive crowded with the Planet Eaters and their dark, blood-red eyes.
“Crap,” Devika said. “Not again.”
“What’s going on?” Eddie asked.
“They don’t want us to leave,” Grayson said, activating his guns.
Chapter 27
The red eyes of the Planet Eaters blinked in the sky. As the ship neared, Eddie noticed them in greater detail. Their insides swirled like a thunderstorm, and their eyes flashed like lightning. They covered the sky like a disease.
“My God,” Eddie said, crossing himself.
“See what we’re talking about?” Devika asked.
Devika turned the ship and steered for browner sky. But the Planet Eaters buzzed and crowded closer together, shrinking the clear pathway into space.
“I’m increasing speed,” Devika said. “Grayson, be ready.”
“On it,” Grayson said. On a screen in front of him, he trained a crosshair in the center of
the black mass.
“Keltie, what are we looking at?” Devika asked.
Keltie pointed to a screen of the wireframe moon. “We have authorities approximately five hundred miles away. I’ll call them and warn them to turn back. The Planet Eater cloud is approximately two miles thick.”
“Only two miles,” Devika said. “Good. I’ve seen worse.”
Then Devika turned the ship away from the brown sky and toward the center of the black cloud.
“Whoa!” Eddie cried. “We’re going to fly through them?”
“We need to give others the best possible chance to escape through clear skies,” Devika said. “We’ll create a diversion.”
“But if we fly into them, won’t they eat us?” Keltie asked.
Devika hit a button and a radiation ring appeared around the ship, twirling and humming.
“They respond to two things: heat and radiation,” Devika said. “We’re going to give them both.”
“That’s more than I knew,” Keltie said under her breath.
“Fortunately, this ship’s radiation ring is almost full,” Devika said. “Grayson, let’s give them a warning shot.”
Grayson pressed a button on the joystick and two machine guns on the top of ship rattled gunfire into the cloud.
The response was immediate.
A strange roar. Like distortion. The sound of a thousand people wailing and moaning. Both low and high-pitched.
Eddie’s stomach knotted up.
“Here they come,” Devika said.
Chapter 28
The black cloud broke into pieces, exposing a patchwork of brown sky.
The Planet Eaters’ red eyes flashed as a black tendril of darkness and red eyes spilled from the remaining clouds, toward the warship.
“Steady,” Devika said. Though she was calm, Eddie could tell that she was nervous. Her hand twitched on the joystick.
“This is the part where we bite our nails,” Keltie said.
“Dios,” Eddie said, uttering a small prayer.
“Fire again,” Devika said.
Grayson rattled more gunfire into the oncoming tendril. He yelled as the joystick rumbled in his hand.
“Switch!” Devika said.
Grayson switched a knob on the joystick and then he pressed it.
An alarm sounded and red lights flashed on the bridge.
“A pulse blast?” Eddie asked.
Outside, a cannon on the ship sucked in air and light. The ship shook violently.
“Pulse blast charging,” the ship’s computer said. “Blast in thirty seconds. Thirty-nine, thirty-eight…”
“What the hell are you doing?” Eddie asked.
“Drop a bomb,” Devika said.
Grayson slammed his instrument panel.
On a screen on Grayson’s instrument panel, the camera switched to the artillery bay. A door on the side of the ship opened and a large cylindrical bomb fell out into the clouds below.
Grayson switched the joystick and the camera switched to a machine gun behind the ship.
“Waiting a few seconds,” Grayson said. “Don’t want to get hit by the blowback,” he said.
Devika pulled back on the joystick. “Can’t wait that long, Grayson!”
Grayson fired at the bomb.
BOOM!
Fire bloomed below the ship.
The Planet Eaters screamed in their distorted roar.
“Hey, um, guys,” Eddie said. “You dropped the bomb in the wrong direction. Weren’t you supposed to hit the aliens?”
The ship’s computer spoke again. “Pulse blast in three, two, one…”
An enormous blue electromagnetic blast exploded from the front of the ship. It reminded Eddie of a small star.
The blast slammed into the column of Planet Eaters, dispersing them. The blast carved through them and burst into hundreds of veins of lightning that surged through the alien mass.
The aliens roared.
“More gunfire!” Devika cried.
Grayson switched to the machine gun and fired more gunshots into the clouds.
The aliens roared again. Eddie couldn’t tell if it was from pain or anger.
“We’re almost in contact,” Keltie said, staring outside. “We’re either going to survive or we’re going to die a horrible death.”
“Don’t lose faith,” Devika said.
Another tendril of darkness broke off the Planet Eaters and slammed into the ship. Darkness swirled around the windshield.
Eddie watched as a giant eye blinked and scanned everything inside the ship.
It was like looking into the eye of a fly—Eddie saw the bridge a hundred times in crimson. The eye blinked and a bone-shaking roar surged through the ship, making Eddie scream.
Something grabbed the ship and pulled at it.
Shearing metal.
The ship jolted to the side.
The aliens roared.
Snapping. Crunching. Crushing. Roaring.
Beeping. Sirens.
Red lights flashing.
Eddie screaming.
Keltie screaming.
Grayson yelling.
Devika silent.
The red eye blinked again, and then it was gone.
Stars appeared in front of the windshield.
Eddie went weightless for a few seconds until artificial gravity kicked in.
Devika activated the ship’s boosters and the ship flew forward even faster.
“Activating hyperspace,” the ship said as purple energy pulsed around the ship.
“What the--” Eddie said.
The ship’s radiation ring was gone. Several metal parts on the shell of the ship sparked.
“It worked,” Devika said, sighing with relief. “Radio to the police, Keltie. Tell them that a combination of fire and radiation will draw the Planet Eaters away from human life. They’ll eat that instead, and you can use that to escape.”
Keltie opened a radio and began to communicate with someone.
On Eddie’s instrument panel, Refugio appeared. The Planet Eaters swarmed around the moon like clouds. They feasted on the moon like cockroaches. Several other spaceships had escaped from the aliens and were firing up their hyper cores.
“Take one last look at your home,” Devika said softly. “Soon, it will no longer be.”
Eddie choked.
He thought of Papa Ito. “My…my grandfather is down there.”
Keltie put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
Eddie shook his head. “No. He would have wanted me to go.”
He thought he would cry. But he didn’t. He grew calmer.
“He would have wanted me to go,” Eddie said again. “He would have wanted me to save the family.”
The ship jumped forward into hyperspace. Refugio disappeared in a swirl of purple and Eddie punched the instrument panel.
His home.
He might never see it again.
And for what?
Who were these people? Did he make the right choice?
“Successful entry into hyperspace,” the ship’s computer said.
Devika unstrapped her seatbelt and put the ship on autopilot.
“I’m sorry about your family,” Devika said. “But it looks like we’re in the clear now.”
“We’re going to find them, so it’s going to be okay,” Eddie said. “So where are we headed?”
“To find a new spaceship,” Devika said. “The Planet Eaters ate our radiation ring.”
“Yeah, we can’t go to the Garbage Star without one,” Eddie said.
“The question, is where do we find one,” Devika said.
“I have another garbage ship at the Intermedial Colony,” Eddie said. “It’s about two hours from here.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Grayson said.
“So who are we chasing?” Eddie asked. “Who is the guy that kidnapped my family?”
“He’s a man who once had great promise,” Devika said. “But corruption got the better
of him. He’s irredeemable now.”
“Are you going to tell us his name?” Grayson asked. “You never told us.”
“Yeah,” Keltie said, chiming in.
“Wait, I thought you guys all knew each other,” Eddie said.
“We just met Devika, too,” Keltie whispered.
Devika stared into hyperspace. Her eyes were sad.
“The person we’re chasing has the power to destroy our galaxy,” she said. “And he’s already started.”
“Great,” Eddie said.
“His name is Florian,” Devika said. “Florian Macalestern.”
“Wait, what?” Keltie asked.
“Macalestern!” Eddie shouted. “Corporate greed—”
“He’s no longer part of the company,” Devika said. “He’s the nephew of the founder, Bessie Macalestern. He was supposed to inherit the business, but the board had other plans. Now the entire galaxy is going to suffer.”
“Imagine that,” Keltie said, sighing; “My former employer is out to destroy the galaxy.”
“You work for Macalestern?” Eddie asked.
“Worked,” Keltie said. “I’m not your enemy.”
Eddie didn’t recognize the name. Florian Macalestern. But already he hated him.
“Well, I don’t care who he is,” Eddie said. “I’m going to stop him.”
He thought of his family. Their faces flashed across his mind and he vowed to protect them.
“We are going to stop him,” Devika said.
“Whatever we have to do,” Eddie said.
“There’s much to do,” Devika said, walking into the depths of the ship and motioning for everyone to follow.
Grayson and Keltie followed, leaving Eddie on the bridge.
Eddie stared outside, into hyperspace.
He couldn’t believe that a single action had brought him here.
An abandoned ship. A dead body.
He smiled as he thought of Alma.
“You’re playing the part of a hero,” she would say.
“I’m going to save you,” he said. “When I married you, I promised to always protect you.”
He imagined her smiling face, and her hands cupping his cheeks.
“I know you will, mi amor. You’ve always put me and the family first.”
“Coming, Eddie?”
Grayson and Keltie stood at the entrance to the bridge.
Garbage Star (Galaxy Mavericks Book 4) Page 11