by Louise Park
‘Glad you like it, Star Girl,’ said Space Surfer over the cabin intercom from the cockpit. ‘Good morning and welcome to you and Astron. Buckle up, please. Take off is in two minutes. We’re in a bit of a rush today.’
‘How long is the flight to Aquare?’ asked Miya.
‘It will be about twenty minutes,’ said Space Surfer. ‘Your in-flight screens will be taking you through the equipment in your mission packs. Ready for take-off?’
‘Ready,’ said Miya after she’d checked that everything was stored away correctly.
The Saturn 6 shot out from the space station’s docking bay. Addie looked out her window and watched as in seconds the space station boarding school shrank away until she couldn’t see it anymore. ‘We’re really moving fast, aren’t we?’
‘Yep, this thing can go,’ answered Miya.
‘The in-flight briefing is about to start, space cadets,’ said Space Surfer’s voice again through the cabin speakers.
The girls opened their mission packs and took out what was inside.
‘I think they’ve packed these for a sleepover party or something. What is all this stuff?’ asked Miya.
Addie looked inside her mission pack. ‘I have something a bit like a hair dryer and a can of hair spray,’ she said. She looked across at Miya’s equipment. ‘And you look like you have hair styling gel and hair clips. Maybe we’re meant to do our hair on the way to Aquare.’
The girls laughed as their screens flashed and the briefing began. They settled down and watched their screens quietly. When it was finished Addie said, ‘So, the dryer thing has massive blowing power. I don’t know what we’d use that for.’
‘No, or what the Aquare water-resistant heavy duty clips are for,’ said Miya. ‘But the spray will come in handy for sure.
It repels things. Hopefully it will repel those scary aquamantas! Or maybe it can repel that goo that the Professor said is polluting the water.’
‘That goo sounds really bad,’ said Addie. ‘I hope it doesn’t damage our suits. The briefing video said there were spare suits in the launching bay. I wonder what colour they are.’
‘Probably pink as well,’ said Miya.
Space Surfer’s voice came through the cabin speakers. ‘Five minutes until we reach the Novanellan galaxy, space cadets. You might want to come up to the cockpit to see this. I think it’s the most awesome galaxy in space.’
The girls undid their seatbelts and walked up to the cabin door. The door sprang open and the girls stood staring, their mouths wide open like the alien fish on Aquare.
The cockpit window wrapped around the front of Saturn 6. The view was incredible!
‘The Novanellan galaxy is a rainbow of colours and shaped like a seahorse lying on its side,’ said Space Surfer. ‘Planet Aquare is in its tail.’
‘It’s magical,’ said Miya. She took out her SpaceBerry and took a photo of it.
‘Good idea,’ said Addie who was still getting used to having her own school-issue mobile phone with a camera in it. ‘I’ll send this photo home to my friend Jess.’
‘Show’s over now, cadets,’ said Space Surfer. ‘We’re going in and will touch down on Aquare very soon.’
‘Thanks, Space Surfer,’ the girls said and they headed back to their seats for landing.
Addie looked out her window again. A planet was coming into view and it looked like it was on fire. ‘Aquare,’ she said. ‘It’s weird that it’s so yellow. I know it’s outer space but I just expect a water planet to be blue.’
Outside, Saturn 6’s rings seemed to fill with air like a floaty. Then it gently set down on a bright yellow sea and floated like a boat.
‘Okay, cadets,’ said Space Surfer as he stepped into the cabin, ‘grab your helmets, aqualungs and mission packs and follow me down to the launching bay.’
The girls followed Space Surfer down some stairs to another area with a long wall at the back of it. He keyed in a code on the wall’s security pad.
A door slid open and they stepped inside the launching bay. Space Surfer helped the girls with their helmets and strapped on their aqualungs. ‘Check the controls for the flip-jets on your watches are working.’
‘Done,’ the girls replied as they attached their flip-jets to their suited feet.
‘Then you’re good to go,’ said Space Surfer. ‘There’s a button on the outside to open the doors when you want to come back inside. Good luck, space cadets. I’ll wait here until you return.’ He stepped back inside the lower cabin and closed the door behind him.
‘Let’s do it,’ said Miya. She hit the release button on the outer wall. The doors opened and they dived into a brilliant yellow sea.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sea was thick and it was hard to move. The girls floated in it and looked around. ‘Look at those weird blue rocks and that sand,’ said Addie. ‘And all that strange yellow weed and stuff.’
‘There are lots of caves and underwater caverns, aren’t there?’ said Miya. ‘We need to activate our flip-jets so we can get moving.’ But Addie didn’t reply. She was too busy still looking around. ‘Addie,’ Miya yelled. ‘Turn your flip-jets on so we can get going.’
‘But look at all these alien creatures lying on the blue seafloor,’ said Addie floating in the sea. ‘They’re covered in that purple stuff and they aren’t moving.’
‘I know,’ said Miya. ‘But we can’t help them until we find out what this purple stuff is and where it’s coming from.’
Addie fired up her jets and the girls cruised through the water. There were huge blobs of purple stuff on the blue sand, rocks and underwater cliffs. There weren’t any aquamantas swimming in the water like there had been in the tank. The sea was empty.
‘This is weird,’ Addie said.
‘The aliens on the seafloor that have been covered with purple goo can’t be all of them. There must be more somewhere else, surely,’ said Miya.
As the girls cruised along, the amount of purple goo increased. It was floating in the water around them.
Addie and Miya dodged and ducked the blobs of purple that were flying at them but they were coming thicker and faster. Suddenly a blob hit Addie in the leg. It stuck to her like glue. She looked up at Miya. She’d been hit on her back. Then Addie noticed strange purple smoke coming off where she’d been hit.
The same smoke was coming from Addie’s leg.
‘Miya, the purple stuff is melting our suits!’ Addie yelled.
‘Quick, we have to get back to the launching bay.’
The girls turned their flip-jets to full blast and powered through the water to Saturn 6. Miya hit the button to open the launching bay doors and the girls fell inside.
‘This stuff is bad,’ said Addie as she pulled her suit off and threw her mission pack out of the way. ‘Look, it’s melting the whole suit to nothing!’
The girls watched as their suits melted away to a purple puddle on the floor.
‘It’s just the suit material though,’ said Miya. ‘It’s not doing anything to the launching bay floor. Lucky we have spare suits but how are we going to avoid all that purple stuff? Do you think that spray would work?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Addie answered.
‘Hey,’ said Miya. ‘I’ve got a school ribbon in my hair. We could try it on that.’ Miya took the ribbon and sprayed it. Then she threw it on the purple puddle on the floor. Nothing happened. ‘Will we do it?’ she asked.
‘Yep,’ said Addie thinking of those aliens lying on the seafloor. ‘I’ll get the spare suits.’
She opened the storage bay. ‘If you thought we wouldn’t lose each other in the pink suits, wait till you see these!’ she said, pulling one out and handing it to Miya. They both burst out laughing. ‘Pink with purple love hearts and yellow daisies!’ said Addie. ‘But they are kind of cute.’
‘As long as they work,’ said Miya. ‘Let’s get them sprayed and put them on.’
When the girls were dressed they stood in the launching bay ready to go out again.
‘I’m still scared it won’t work,’ said Addie. ‘Me too,’ said Miya, shaking a little as she hit the button to open the doors.
The girls dived into the water and towards the oncoming purple goo.
‘It’s working,’ said Addie. ‘Our suits seem to be safe.’
‘But for how long?’ Miya called back.
As they swam, more and more goo filled the water and they saw more and more aliens on the seafloor covered in it.
‘It’s getting so hard to move forwards,’ said Addie.
‘But we have to keep going,’ said Miya.
‘Yes,’ agreed Addie as she struggled on. ‘If the purple stuff is getting thicker, this has to be the way.’
Suddenly the water ahead went very dark.
‘What’s that?’ asked Miya.
‘It looks like a massive island of goo!’ yelled Addie. ‘And it’s coming straight for us.’
The girls looked around frantically. Then Miya pointed at a huge cavern in the blue rocks to their left. ‘Quick. Let’s go.’
But as they swam towards the cave they saw hundreds of scary sunken eyes staring out at them from the darkness of the cave.
‘Um . . . it looks a little too crowded in there,’ said Addie.
Miya looked from the cave to the purple goo headed their way. ‘We don’t have any choice,’ she urged. ‘That stuff will cover us and we’ll end up on the seafloor.’
But Addie just kept staring at the cave.
‘Hurry, or we won’t make it,’ Miya yelled. She grabbed Addie’s arm and pulled her into the cave with only seconds to spare.
From the cave’s entrance they floated in the water and watched as the massive blob of purple goo floated past. The sea turned an eerie dark colour. Addie was glad she wasn’t out there—until she looked behind her and saw what she was sharing a cave with.
CHAPTER FIVE
The huge cavern was jam-packed with Aquare life forms of all sizes. Their mouths were open and their legs were dangling in the yellow water.
‘If I wasn’t so scared I might think they were beautiful,’ Addie said with a tremble.
Up close and real the Aquare aliens were spectacular in a peculiar alien sort of way.
Their eyes were a shiny golden yellow and they had scales covering their large jelly-like shapes that shimmered with bright colours. There was an extremely large and old-looking one floating close-by.
‘Let me try the translator app on my SpaceBerry,’ said Addie. ‘I used it with Grace and we could understand what the aliens were saying.’ Addie clicked on the app.
‘We won’t hurt you,’ the deep gurgling voice said through the SpaceBerry speaker. ‘We know who you are.’
Addie let out a long anxious breath and smiled. ‘That’s good to know,’ she said. ‘Because it looks like we are all stuck in here together.’
‘We cannot leave,’ said the ancient alien. ‘It is not safe for us out there. But we are running out of food in this cave and cannot stay here much longer either.’
‘The purple stuff just keeps coming,’ said Miya. ‘We are going to have to find where it’s coming from and stop it.’ Just then the current pushed a big blob of purple towards the cave entrance.
Desperately, Addie leaned back and aimed her flip-jets at the purple goo. She blasted it with her jets at full-throttle. The goo was pushed back out into the sea and Addie was thrown back among the alien creatures. Hundreds of tiny legs grabbed her and held her, stopping her from crashing into the cavern wall.
‘Good thinking, Ads,’ said Miya. ‘And that gives me another idea. We can use that hair dryer gadget with the huge blowing power to repel the goo!’
‘Yes, the blower,’ agreed Addie as all the little alien legs let go of her. ‘Thanks guys,’ she said as she took the blower out of her mission pack. ‘Let’s try it.’
The girls moved from the cave. Addie used the blower to clear the purple blobs.
Several of the older aquamantas followed behind with their hundreds of tiny legs propelling them rapidly through the thick sea.
‘Now I know why they have so many legs,’ Addie laughed.
‘Yeah,’ said Miya. ‘They don’t need jets like we do.’
The group moved through the sea in the direction of the purple goo. Addie pushed the purple goo aside with the blower as they went.
‘The purple stuff is coming thick and fast now,’ said Addie, struggling to blow it out of the way.
‘But look up ahead,’ said Miya.
There was a strange shape sticking up from the seafloor.
‘That must be the source,’ said Addie.
‘We can help,’ said the ancient aquamanta. ‘We can hold you and you can lean back and use your jets. Then you will have more power to blow the goo back.’
‘But it isn’t safe for you here,’ Addie said. ‘You should go back to the cave.’
‘It won’t be safe for us anywhere soon,’ the creature said. ‘Helping you will help us.’
‘Okay, let’s do it,’ said Miya. ‘Lean back, Ads, and let’s blast this stuff.’
The two biggest creatures held Addie and Miya. Others pushed the large ones forward like supersized armchairs.
The girls’ jets and the blower combined to make an enormous blast. All the purple goo was pushed away and they could see where it was coming from.
‘It looks a bit like a deep sea oil rig at home,’ said Addie. ‘It’s pumping the purple stuff from deep down in the seafloor. And it’s sprung a leak!’
‘And it has crab-like bots all over it,’ said Miya. ‘What are they doing?’
‘Who knows,’ said Addie. ‘But we need to stop that leak before more aquamantas get coated with this stuff.’
The girls looked at their new friends gathered behind them. Their little legs were waving in the sea and their mouths were open but they weren’t scary anymore.
‘You’re right,’ agreed Miya. ‘We have those water-resistant clips. They might clamp that tear. You can blow the stuff out of the way and I could try and clamp the leak.’
‘And what do we do about those nasty-looking crab-things with the huge pincers?’ asked Addie.
‘Good question,’ answered Miya.
‘We can take care of them,’ said the ancient creature, ‘but only for a short time. You will have to work fast.’
Addie continued to blow the purple goo away from the group and the creatures moved out from behind her into the clean water. They lined up in a long row in front of the girls. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny legs went at top speed as they dug a deep trench in the bright blue sand.
The crab-bots stopped what they were doing and looked over. They crawled down from the structure and marched towards the creatures.
When the crab-bots reached the trench, they fell into it and the aquamantas madly began digging again. This time they put the blue sand back into the trench and filled it up.
‘They will crawl their way out quickly,’ said the ancient creature. ‘You must hurry.’
The girls moved as fast as they could. Addie pointed the blower at the gaping hole in the pump. It blew the purple goo away from them.
Miya took out the clips and went close to the pump. ‘It’s some kind of rubber,’ she said, quickly clamping the hole. ‘It’s worked, but I don’t know if it will hold it together for long.’
‘I hope it does,’ said Addie, ‘because the crabs are almost out of the trench and they’ll be coming straight for us.’
‘Hey, what about this gel stuff that I have?’ said Miya. ’Maybe it’s like glue.’
‘Squirt it on and see,’ said Addie.
Miya covered the clamped area with some of the gel and then she and Addie swam back to the aquamantas, who carried the girls away.
Addie and Miya watched as the crab-bots crawled up out of the hole and back on to the structure.
‘I think they are there to keep creatures away from it and that’s all,’ said Addie.
‘I think you’re right,’ said
Miya as she took her SpaceBerry out of her mission pack. ‘I’m just going to get a photo of this.’
‘I’ll call the Professor on my holographic watch,’ said Addie. ‘I want to see if there’s anything we can do for the sick aquamantas on the seafloor.’
‘Go for it,’ said Miya.
Addie looked up. She was a bit shocked. It was the first time her mission partner had been happy to call the mission teacher. ‘Are you sure, you don’t mind, Miya?’
‘Totally not! Why would I?’ she answered.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ Addie smiled as she opened her watch cover. Immediately, her teacher was there in holographic form.
‘Star Girl, what’s wrong and how can I help?’ asked the Professor.
‘We found where the purple stuff was coming from and we’ve stopped it. But we don’t know for how long.’
‘Yes, I’ve been listening in with that new device in your watches. Good work on stopping that leak,’ said the Professor. ‘But don’t worry. Those aren’t ordinary clips you’ve used Star Girl,’ said the Professor. ‘They are our heavy-duty water-resistant clamps.
They will hold that pump until the SEAS team arrives to take care of that machinery.’
‘Oh good,’ said Addie. ‘But we don’t know what to do for the sick creatures already covered in the goo. Is there anything we can do to help them?’
‘The gel should help heal them,’ said the Professor. ‘I don’t think it will do much good on the torn pump but good try! By the way, great mission, cadets. I’ve just let Space Surfer know you are ready to be picked up and he will be above you any minute. We’ll send a team in to follow up on your good work.’ Then the Professor was gone.
‘Did you hear that, Miya?’ Addie asked.
‘I did,’ Miya laughed. ‘I’m glad I didn’t waste too much of the gel on that pump!’
‘Let’s try it,’ said Addie. ‘I’ll use the translator app to explain about the gel to the ancient aquamantas.’
The girls explained what they were going to do then began squirting gel on the aquamantas on the seafloor. They moved quickly from one to the next.