Loren gave a little nod of satisfaction as a squadron of Harvesters became a carnage of Harvester parts, then spun at the sound of a shout from behind her.
Garunk and several Nogems were on their knees, weapon-wielding Harvesters behind them. The hostages had their hands behind their heads, and were ducking low in an attempt to stay as far away from the chest-cannons as possible.
“Drop it!” one of the Harvesters commanded. “Or they die.”
Loren glanced past him to where thirty or more other Nogems were being shoved forward, their hands in the air.
“Shizz,” Loren muttered. She briefly wondered if she could shoot all the hostage-takers before they got off shots of their own, but quickly dismissed it.
Her gun clattered to the floor.
“Miz!” she called.
Mizette concluded a particularly impressive spell of sustained disemboweling, tore the throat out of a Harvester who had made the mistake of glancing in her direction, then flicked her gaze over to where Loren was standing, and to the hostage situation developing just beyond her.
Miz faltered, fell back a step, and didn’t react quickly enough to avoid the whip that coiled around her throat. Another wrapped around her legs before she could move. It yanked her sharply and suddenly, throwing her off-balance.
A triumphant cheer rose from what was left of the crowd as she hit the floor. Loren felt rough hands on her shoulders, then a series of prodding fingers reintroduced her to pain and dropped her to her knees.
“I’m sorry, Loren,” Garunk sobbed. “I messed up. They got me.”
“It’s fine,” Loren said through gritted teeth, then another finger-prod burned at her insides, silencing her.
A hand grabbed her by the hair and dragged her backward across the uneven floor. She kicked and fought it all the way, until she was dumped next to Mizette. Miz lay face down, a gun pressed against the back of her head, the energy whips still coiled around her throat and ankles.
“Oh, ‘You go in. Don’t worry, I’ll cover you,’” Miz said, doing a particularly whiny-sounding impression of Loren. “Ugh. Way to go, Loren.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Loren protested. “They had hostages!”
“Was it anyone we cared about?” Miz demanded. “Seriously?”
Loren’s mouth flapped open and closed. “It was Garunk and some Nogems.”
“Or, to put it another way,” Miz scowled. “No. It was no one we cared about.” She tutted. “You totally suck. I hope you know that.”
“You weren’t saying that when I got you out of that collar,” Loren snapped.
“So, you did, like, one thing right. Great,” said Miz. “What do you want? Like, a medal or something?”
“A ‘thank you’ might be nice!”
Miz rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Loren. I am, like, totally loving life right now. Seriously, I could never have wound up on the floor with a gun at my head without you.” She sneered. “Happy now?”
Loren gave a curt nod. “Weirdly, yes.”
“Silence!” barked one of the Harvesters.
Mizette tutted. “Do you mind? We’re trying to have a conversation here.”
“Kill them,” urged the not-boss, limping into the knot of soldiers. He slipped on something wet and knobby, frantically flailed his arms for a few seconds, then skidded to a stop by Loren. “The Greyx first. Make the other one watch.”
Miz sighed. “Great. So I don’t even get to watch you shooting her? That sucks.”
“Wait!” boomed a voice.
The Harvesters parted just as a bruised and bloodied Cal Carver landed on the floor next to Miz and Loren. He smiled at them, showing teeth caked with red.
“Oh, hey you two,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“We’ve been better,” said Loren.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know that feeling,” said Cal. He gestured to the gap in the crowd, where Mech now stood, carrying the glass tank containing a slightly sheepish-looking Splurt.
“What is this?” demanded the not-boss, gesturing quite vaguely at everything and everyone around him.
“He tried to trick me,” Mech said. He raised the container and gave it a shake. “Thought he could use this thing against me.”
“It was a solid plan,” said Cal. “No, wait. It was a great plan.”
“Clearly, it wasn’t all that great,” sneered the not-boss. “Seeing as how it failed dismally.”
Cal nodded. “Fair point, well made.”
He started to turn to Loren, then paused and turned back.
“Or…”
The not-boss’s nostrils furrowed. “Or what?”
“Or you just got totally Chewbacca’d.”
It was the Harvester’s turn to hesitate. “What?”
“You know? With Han and Luke with the stormtrooper outfits? And the handcuffs? ‘Prisoner transfer from Block one-one-three-eight.’ No?” Cal looked across the blank faces of the closest Harvesters, then shook his head in disappointment. “Forget it.” He pointed upward. “You might want to direct your attention up there.”
The Harvesters raised their nostrils in time to see a glass canister go sailing above their heads. Inside, a green blob pulsated gently, his eyes locked on the not-boss. As they watched, Splurt grew a tiny hand, waved once, then tumbled off toward where Garunk and the Nogems were being held hostage.
There was the sound of glass shattering.
Then the sound of something small, becoming something very large.
A number of other sounds followed. Harrowing, unspeakable sounds which, with the exception of the chainsaw, defied description.
While everyone was trying their best not to listen to any of it, Cal kicked the gun away from the back of Miz’s head. Miz turned in a furry blur and the guy holding the weapon suddenly found himself handless, then footless, then mostly inside-out.
It all happened so quickly that none of the other Harvesters had time to react before a succession of blaster bolts tore through them from behind, courtesy of a huge metal man with a grudge.
Loren kipped-up onto her feet, swung with a roundhouse kick, and reintroduced the not-boss to the heel of her boot, flooring him. Miz, meanwhile, removed the whips from her neck and legs. This she did by grabbing the arms of the Harvesters responsible, and pulling until they came off.
“Isn’t this great?” said Cal, crunching a knee into a Harvester’s stomach, then delivering a double axe-handle blow to the thing’s back. “Together again. Me, you guys, a chainsaw-wielding Kevin Costner.” He gestured over to where Splurt was still hacking through Harvesters. “No idea where he got that from. Between you and me? I’m not actually a fan.”
He ducked a scything blow, drove a punch into the Harvester’s throat, then shrugged. “I mean, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves was good. And I cried like a fonking baby during Field of Dreams. But the rest of his stuff? Meh.”
“Less talking, more punching,” Mech barked. “We got company.”
“You mean besides the dozens of bad guys trying to kill us?” asked Cal.
“Try a hundred more,” said Loren, twisting the arm of a Harvester until the bone snapped, then tossing him over her shoulder in the direction of one of the mine’s passageways.
Cal followed the Harvester’s flight and saw more of them flooding through, weapons primed and ready.
“Ah, fonk,” he groaned, then he shrugged. “Oh well, the more the merrier. Mech, Miz, Loren, you take the first wave, I’ll handle any you let through. Just, you know, don’t let any through, or I’ll be bringing it up at the next Captain’s Review.”
“The next what?” asked Mech, bringing a fist down on top of a Harvester and reducing his height by a full six inches.
“It’s a new thing I’m introducing,” said Cal. “Nothing to worry about, I’ll just be assessing every aspect of your performance.”
“The fonk you will,” said Mech.
Cal mimed writing on an invisible pad. “That’s going in the review.”
�
�Shut the fonk up and keep fighting,” Mech snapped.
“And that,” Cal said, licking the end of an imaginary pencil. “Loren, how do you spell ‘insubordination’?”
Loren was too busy dishing out punishment to respond. Cal shrugged.
“Fonk it, I’ll put ‘being a shizznod.’”
He replaced the imaginary pad in his pocket, shot Mech a disapproving look, then turned in time to receive what promised to be a brutal fingering to the face. Before he could open his mouth to scream, a set of claws carved out the Harvester’s throat from behind, spraying Cal in his warm, sticky blood.
“Uh, thanks,” Cal whimpered.
“Whatever,” sneered Miz, already elbow deep in another of the Harvesters.
The reinforcements were racing to join the fray now. They carried rigid batons which illuminated in amber as they drew closer.
“Holy shizz, they’ve got lightsabers!” Cal exclaimed. “Why did no one tell me we can get lightsabers?”
“There are too many of them,” said Loren. “We need to fall back.”
“Ugh. So lame,” said Miz. “I say we fight.”
“We fight, we die,” Mech said. “Ain’t no way we can survive against these numbers.”
Cal grinned. “We don’t have to.”
“What the fonk are you talking about?” Mech demanded, then he followed Cal’s gaze just as hundreds of little pickaxe wielding men came racing from another passageway, bells jingle-jangling as they ran.
“Looks like the tiny space cavalry’s arrived,” said Cal.
Leading the charge was Yellow Hat. He caught Cal’s eye as he ran, and gave a nod. “Nogems stand together!” he roared, then he and his army hit the Harvester reinforcements on their right flank, picks swinging with bone-crunching power and accuracy.
Cal cupped a hand around his mouth, tried another, “Hi-hooo!” then sighed when nobody took him up on it. “Ah well. Worth a try.”
The battle raged for a few more minutes, then lulled for thirty seconds or so, before fizzling away into little more than some running skirmishes and a lot of sobbing.
Cal, Mech, Loren, Miz, and Kevin Costner drew together and spent an enjoyable couple of minutes watching Harvesters having the living shizz kicked out of them by space midgets.
“Of course, this was my plan all along,” said Cal. “I knew these guys would come swooping in at the last second.”
“Bullshizz,” Mech snorted.
Cal tapped his top pocket. “Mech, do you want me to take out the notepad? Because I will if I have to.”
He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “OK, so what’s next on the list? Rescue Splurt, reprogram Mech, kill all these fonks… Done, done, and done.” He clicked his fingers. “Get the ship. Stop Manacle. Save the day.” He made a wavering gesture. “Maybe squeeze in lunch if we get the chance. Everyone set?”
Splurt boinged back into his usual ball-shape and rolled up onto Cal’s shoulder.
“Let’s do it,” said Mech.
“Like, the sooner we get out of this shizzhole, the better,” Miz sneered.
Cal looked around. “It’s funny. I might actually miss the old place.”
He considered this.
“No. On second thought, let’s go.” He gestured across the cavern. “Garunk! Let’s hit the road.”
Garunk gawped back at him, in something not unlike surprise, then shook his head. “You don’t need me messing it all up.”
“What are you talking about? Of course we do,” said Cal. “We can’t very well mess it all up on our own, can we?”
Loren, Miz, and Mech all opened their mouths.
“OK, silly question,” Cal admitted. “But come on. We need to go.”
Garunk looked from Cal to Loren. “I’m… not sure it’s a good idea. I’ll only get in the way.”
Loren sighed, unable to believe she was doing this. “Come on, Garunk,” she said. “You’re one of us now.”
“You… you mean that?” said Garunk. He puffed out his chest. “I mean, it would be an honor to—”
An energy blast punched a hole through him from behind, ricocheted off Mech, then exploded against the ceiling.
“Where the fonk did that come from?” asked Cal, as Garunk stood swaying slightly and prodding at the hole. Behind him, another squadron of Harvesters appeared from a side-chamber, chest cannons primed and ready to fire.
“Shizz, there are more of them,” Mech grunted.
“The Nogems can handle them,” said Cal. “Garunk, can you walk?”
“I can,” Garunk confirmed. He raised his eyes to the team, looked around at the Nogems and the Harvesters, then came to a decision. “But I’m staying here.”
“You are?” asked Cal.
Garunk nodded. “When they kicked me out of Zertex, they said I wasn’t good enough. Said I was useless. But you guys have made me believe that maybe… just maybe, I’m not.”
Cal glanced around at the others. “Did one of you guys make him believe that?” he asked. “I don’t think it was me.”
“So, I’m not going to run,” said Garunk. “I’m going to stay here and fight. I’m going to prove myself—prove Zertex wrong—by giving you guys a chance to—”
“OK, bye!” said Loren, grabbing Cal by the arm and pulling him away. “Good luck!”
“Oh,” said Garunk. “Uh… right. Yeah. Bye, then. I’ll just… Right. Bye.”
“Don’t be a stranger,” Cal called to him, as he was bundled toward an exit.
Cal kept watching as Garunk turned and went racing toward the Harvesters, muddy fists flailing above his head.
Another couple of blasts carved chunks out of him, but didn’t slow him. A third blast missed him completely. Before the shooter could get off another shot, he found himself buried under Garunk’s sludgy bulk. And, a moment after that, beneath a growing mountain of Nogems shouting, “Pile-on!” at the top of their voices.
“Good old Garunk,” said Cal, facing front again. “Stopping those bamstons for us. What a guy. For a second there, I actually thought we might be in…”
From behind him came the drone of wings. Lots of wings. Some of them quite large.
He and the others turned in time to see space wasps come pouring through a smoking hole in the hard foam the Hazmat Harvesters had deployed. They buzzed furiously in the air, antennae twitching as they hunted out their stolen queen.
“We’re in trouble,” Cal squeaked. A cloud of hornet-sized wasps rose from the hole, followed by nine or ten of the cat-sized versions.
A furry head pushed through the hole next, squirming as it struggled its way through. The moment it was clear of the foam, it took to the air, its stinger extending telescopically from inside its stripy body.
Its antennae spun around for a few seconds, then locked onto Cal, as if recognizing him. The droning of the thing’s wings took on a higher-pitched tone, and the other wasps all hurriedly aimed themselves in Cal’s direction, falling into formation behind the larger one.
Cal swallowed. “Yep. Definitely in trouble,” he confirmed.
And then, he ran.
Twenty-Four
Cal was halfway along the passageway when the ground shook, cascading dust and pebbles down from the ceiling. He staggered, bouncing between the walls like the ball in a pinball machine, and then called breathlessly back over his shoulder to where Loren and the others were racing along behind him.
“What the fonk was that?”
“Aw, shizz. It’s what I was worried about,” Mech groaned.
“What? You mean you weren’t worried about all the other stuff?” Cal yelped, gesturing frantically in the direction of the pursuing wasps. “Great. So, what is it now?”
“The Harvester ship is taking off,” said Mech.
Cal slowed for a moment, remembered the wasps, and picked up speed again. “Wait, the Harvester ship? The ship with the Untitled on it?”
“I think so,” said Mech. “We’d better hurry.”
“Already
fonking hurrying, Mech!” Cal puffed. “Ain’t a lot more I can offer in the old hurrying departme—”
While Cal was talking, Splurt had rolled down his back and wrapped around his waist. Cal felt a sudden rush of acceleration that didn’t so much steal the end of that last word from his mouth as ram it forcibly down his throat. The tunnel walls blurred as he zipped along it on all four legs, his feet skipping lightly across the…
Wait.
What?
Cal counted his legs.
Four. Definitely four.
He regarded the new set. They looked, to all intents and purposes, just like his existing legs, only a little leaner, a little longer, and made entirely of green slime. They moved like snapping elastic, hurtling him along the passageway so fast that only Mizette could even come close to keeping up.
It took him several seconds to notice that his own legs weren’t actually contributing anything to this turn of speed, and a few seconds more for him to stop moving. He felt he should still make some effort, though, so pumped his arms for a while until that, too, felt pointless.
There was a wall ahead. It looked, from this rapidly decreasing distance, to be quite a solid wall. Cal glanced down at his legs, then back to the wall. The eye-flick had taken less than a second, but the wall was now looming much closer than before.
The hard, solid wall.
“Uh, Splurt,” he said. “You might want to slow down a little there, buddy, before we… No! No, that’s speeding up! That’s the opposite of what I said!”
The wall was twelve feet away. Eight. Four. Cal threw his arms in front of his face, screwed his eyes shut, spoke briefly in tongues, and braced himself for an impact that never actually arrived.
He risked a peek, and immediately regretted it. He was running backward up a vertical passageway that rose up from the corridor like a chimney. Mech, Loren, and Miz clattered to a stop down below, stared up at him in disbelief, then jumped aside as the wasp swarm buzzed past them, locked in pursuit of Cal.
“Oh, great, they’re only after me,” Cal groaned. He pointed insistently past them. “The metal one! Get the metal one!”
Space Team: Sting of the Mustard Mines Page 24