SpaceBook Awakens (Amy Armstrong 3)

by Stephen Colegrove

  “No moving, dear Philip, or I might get nervous.” She glanced at the display. “Very interesting. The quantum attenuator seems to have reduced Three to the age of a month-old infant. This has incredible possibilities for the beauty industry.”

  The hatch whisked open and Wilson stuck his furry head inside.

  “My Lady, it’s very urgent! Code red situation!”

  One bent down and threw her other shoe at the cat.

  “Shut that door!”

  Amy took the empty cotton nightgown and wrapped up baby Three, then stood up with the infant in her arms. Amy kissed the baby’s soft cheek and Three giggled and tried to grab her hair.

  “Stand on the platform with the child,” said One. “I’ll do both of you at once this time.”

  “Leave them alone!” shouted Philip. “This is unbearable.”

  The deck vibrated and a loud rumble came from somewhere in the ship.

  “Sounds like you’ve got a little problem,” said Amy. “Don’t you want to take a break? Maybe find out what’s going on?”

  “That’s exactly my plan after I’ve dealt with the pair of you,” said One. She aimed the pistol at Amy. “Get on the platform or I’ll shoot the baby.”

  Amy held baby Three tight to her chest and stepped onto the silver disc with the infant. As the hum of machinery grew in volume and the circles of gems began to spin, casting colors over her and the baby, Philip dropped to his knees and covered his face with both hands. The smell of lavender became stronger.

  “Don’t worry, Philip,” shouted Amy. “I––”

  Unbearable heat and pain flashed through her body, and with a crackling burst of light everything in the universe disappeared.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After Amy and baby Three vanished, a booming crash shook everything in the room and the deck jerked up and down.

  One picked herself up from the floor and aimed the pistol at Philip. She stared at the display screen and sighed.

  “Blast and double blast.”

  Philip laughed bitterly. “What? Shocked that everything is falling to pieces, and you’re about to get your comeuppance?”

  One shook her head. “Not quite. The data I gathered from your two girlfriends is still not enough. I could have sworn those were the last copies I needed to find the location of SpaceBook.”

  The out-of-focus side of Wilson’s face appeared on the display. Cats and dogs were running back and forth in the background, and a low-pitched klaxon sounded.

  “That doesn’t matter, just override the video,” he said to someone off-camera. “I have to talk to her.” The black cat looked up. “Oh! My Lady, you must come forward at once!”

  “Just tell me what’s wrong, you dolt.”

  “Wits Hater and Hare Twist are firing at us! They said something about you killing Three.”

  “There’s no way they could have known about that,” said One. “But it doesn’t matter. Deploy countermeasures and raise the magnetic shields. Neither one of those idiots have missiles that can break through my shields. I designed it that way.”

  The screen filled briefly with static as another rumble shook the deck.

  “Shields and weapons are down,” gasped Wilson. “I can’t talk to Engineering at all, and the hatches have been blocked from the inside! We’re flying at top speed and barely staying alive.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  The black cat blinked at her. “Um … I tried.”

  “Hail them. Patch it to this console.”

  A few seconds later, the screen split into the faces of two women: a blonde in her thirties, and a young woman with her hair cut in a short black bob.

  “Where’s Three?” asked Two, the one with the bob. “Put her on screen!”

  “Stop firing at my ship and give me time to find the little scamp,” said One. “All of this damage is going to come out of your profits, you know. It’s not good for a working relationship.”

  “There is no relationship,” said Four, the older blonde. “Stop playing this game. We know what you did to her.”

  One held up her hands. “Gossip and lies. Girls, girls––let’s calm down. Can’t we talk about this without lobbing high explosives at my very, very expensive starship?”

  Four leaned close to the camera and sneered. “Someone in your very, very expensive starship sent us an unencrypted video feed of the quantum attenuator chamber. We saw everything, and saw you kill her! Did you know that Three was the closest thing I had to a sister?”

  One shrugged. “Oops?”

  “The pact is broken,” said Two. “Say your prayers to Crom, you she-devil. It doesn’t matter. I doubt you even believed in him in the first place.”

  A violent crash like a sudden earthquake broke the display and sent equipment flying through the room, including the control panel which fell on top of One. Philip felt weightless for a second, and then crashed back to the deck. He scrambled on hands and knees to the hatch, opened it, and squeezed through. Inside the small preparation room, Nick’s bird cage rolled around and banged on the walls as the decks pitched left and right. Inside the cage, the tiny sprite held on to the bars with all her might.

  Sunflower raised his head weakly from the floor. “Hail … the conquering hero …”

  Philip stepped over the cat. He cracked open the hatch to the corridor and carefully peeked through the gap.

  “Don’t do that,” said Sunflower. “Pirates … everywhere.”

  The sprite shook the bars of her cage. “Get me out of here, you fuzzball!”

  Sunflower held up a paw. “Does this look like a can opener?”

  “The hallway is empty and the ship is under attack,” said Philip, and pushed the hatch open.

  “Under attack?” squealed Nick. “From who?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

  He ripped off the door to Nick’s cage and she buzzed into the air.

  “Thanks, Philly!”

  “What about Amy?” asked Sunflower. “She take … a powder break?”

  Philip shook his head. “She’s gone.”

  Sunflower blinked. “Gone to the litter box?”

  “She’s dead,” said Philip, crouching through the narrow doorway into the corridor. “And so is Three.” He leaned down and took a plasma rifle from the deck. “I’ll probably join them before the day is out, but I’ll be damned if I don’t take a few of the beasts with me. How about you?”

  Sunflower’s yellow eyes grew wide and his lower lip trembled. The orange tabby scrambled to his feet, jumped into the corridor, and grabbed a plasma rifle. He stood on his hind legs and pulled back the slide mechanism of the rifle, loading an energy round into the chamber with a loud click.

  “Nobody kills my friends without my permission!” he roared. “Time to rock and roll!”

  The orange tabby screamed a high-pitched battle cry and charged down the corridor, firing his plasma rifle wildly. This could have been an epic display of cat bravery, if there had been anyone to shoot back, or anyone at all.

  Sunflower ran the length of the corridor, opened a pressure hatch, charged down another empty corridor, opened another pressure hatch, and kept running forward, firing his plasma rifle and screaming.

  “Die, you motherless pigs! Die!”

  A featureless metal bulkhead stopped his progress. The only possible exit was a round hatch in the floor, which the orange cat began to pound on with the butt of his plasma rifle.

  “Open up, you cowards!”

  Philip ran up to Sunflower, with Nick buzzing over his shoulder.

  “The one time in my life when I go mad with rage and want to kill something, and there’s nobody around,” said the dark-haired teenager. “Astonishing.”

  “Sunflower scared them away!” said Nick.

  “They’re below us,” said Sunflower. He set his rifle on the floor and tugged at the wheel of the hatch. “Can’t you hear them? There’s a magnificent battle going on below our feet and we�
�re missing it!”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Philip. “Your hearing is better than mine.”

  “Help me! I don’t have my manos bracelets.”

  Philip turned the wheel and pulled up on the hatch. As it cracked open, the corridor echoed with the ‘hissing-bee’ sound of plasma rounds being fired and the loud clang as they struck metal. The smell of ozone and burning hair also swirled up from the opening.

  Nick buzzed down and leaned over the edge. “Who are they shooting at? Each other?”

  “Who cares?” snarled Sunflower. “Eat plasma, you dirty rats! Yaaaa!”

  The cat grabbed his rifle and jumped through the hole in the floor.

  Philip slung the strap of his rifle over his head and slid down the ladder to the next deck.

  “For queen and country!” yelled the teenager.

  The corridor was thick with smoke and the blinding, blue-green flashes of automatic plasma fire. Bodies of cats and dogs were scattered along the floor, some wearing helmets and chest armor. The ones who were still alive had their backs to Philip and Sunflower, and fired their weapons down the corridor at an overturned metal cabinet, now blackened and half-melted from plasma rounds. Behind the makeshift barricade, a couple of hidden cats or dogs lifted their weapons sideways and fired back blindly at One’s soldiers.

  These same soldiers found themselves under attack from the rear, as Sunflower and Philip unloaded a full clip of plasma shells at their backs. In a matter of seconds, the soldiers dropped their weapons and fled into side corridors, leaving the smoke-filled passage empty.

  A furry gray paw lifted a plasma pistol over the barricade. A green bolt of energy cracked from the weapon and sizzled between Sunflower’s ears, forcing him to dive to the floor.

  The orange cat laughed and grabbed another plasma clip from the belt of a dead Pomeranian.

  “Ha! Missed me, you cross-eyed son of a poona!”

  A gray cat peeked over the barricade. “Sunnie?”

  Sunflower’s yellow eyes grew wide.

  “Andy!”

  He slung his rifle onto his back and sprinted over the bodies in the corridor and leaped over the barricade to hug the gray cat.

  “I thought I’d never see you again,” she said. “Never!”

  “Is it really you?” Sunflower stared at her. “Is it really Andy Nakamura?”

  “Of course! Don’t you know your own wife?”

  “I do, I do!” Sunflower glanced at Betsy. “Hey there, Betsy.” He did a double-take. “Betsy!”

  The brown and white terrier barked. “Hi, Sunnie!”

  Sunflower shook Betsy’s paw. “You did it! I thought you’d die in the first ten seconds, but you actually did it.”

  Betsy lifted a plasma rifle. “Sure, but Andy and MacGuffin are the smart ones. They’re the ones who figured out the hard stuff with the engines and the power.”

  The Siamese cat poked his head out from underneath an engineering panel.

  “What? An elementary problem. These matter turbines are ancient technology.”

  A dull boom shook the walls and floor, and a transformer blew inside the ceiling, showering sparks on their heads. Loud klaxons began to wail.

  Philip climbed over the barricade, followed by the buzzing sprite Nick.

  “I don’t wish to break up the quaint reunion with Betsy and Doctor MacGuffin, but this ship is falling apart. Find us a transport or a flying vehicle!”

  The Siamese cat MacGuffin shook his head. “Impossible. The last transport was sent to the surface and the cat fighters are gone. Deployed against the other two ships, most likely.”

  Philip slumped his shoulders. “So be it. I have nothing to live for, anyway.”

  “What?” asked Andy Nakamura. “Why would you say that?”

  Betsy grabbed a fresh plasma clip from the floor and jammed it into his rifle.

  “Doc, you said you had an escape plan. Or was I dreaming? I could have been dreaming. I do that a lot.”

  “You were not dreaming,” said the cat, typing fiercely at the keyboard of the engineering station. “We have temporary control of many systems of this vessel, and I have pre-programmed the thrusters to take us close to shore. At a low altitude, we can leap into the sea without any harm. Apart from getting wet, of course––a fate worse than death for some cats.” He stared at the group. “Several of you need a bath, so I consider a dip in the ocean to be a benefit.”

  Andy grabbed a leg of Philip’s trousers. “Why did you say you have nothing to live for?”

  “Yeah,” said Betsy, wagging his tail. “Also, where’s Amy?”

  “She’s dead,” said Philip, his voice breaking. “Both her and Three.”

  “Three?” asked Andy. The eyes of the gray cat grew round. “Not that awful machine on B Deck!” She leaped at MacGuffin and slapped his furry chest with her paws. “You said you cut the power!”

  MacGuffin cringed from her blows. “I said that I tried, not that I was successful. There’s a difference, especially when plasma rounds are zinging over my head!”

  The floor bounced and swayed from a thunderous boom. A handful of large metal panels fell from the ceiling and clanged onto the deck.

  Sunflower grabbed Andy’s paw. “My wife and I found each other after two years, Doc, so I don’t want to go to the big litter box in the sky just yet. Get us out of here, mister super-genius big brain!”

  MacGuffin tapped the console and a three-dimensional outline of the Hare Twist appeared on the display, flashing with angry patches of red.

  “We need an exit from the ship,” said the cat. “The closest undamaged portal is located inside the starboard observation room.”

  Philip leaped over the barricade. “I know where that is. Follow me!”

  “Wait!” said MacGuffin, and hastily searched through a cabinet on the wall. “The smoke in the ship has reached asphyxiation levels. Take these.”

  He tossed clear oxygen masks connected to bright orange canisters to each of the group, who snapped the masks around their faces.

  “What about me?” squealed Nick. “I don’t want to die.”

  Philip opened a flap of his shirt pocket.

  “I’ll share mine,” he said. “Ride inside here.”

  “Cool!”

  The group charged out of the engineering section and into clouds of oily black smoke. Philip took the lead, holding a plasma rifle in one hand and guiding himself along the corridor with the other.

  As they stumbled over the pitching and rolling floor of the stricken ship, eyes stinging and tearing up from the poisonous smoke, no crew members appeared to challenge them with anything even as dangerous as a wet fork.

  “The crew must have already fled in escape pods,” shouted MacGuffin.

  A sudden lightness of being caused Philip to drop his rifle. Everyone grabbed onto bundles of cables on the wall or door openings as the ship’s deck angled down sharply and the loud hum of the nearby engines became a deafening roar. A hurricane of air rushed through the corridor and whisked away the deadly smoke.

  Gravity returned as the ship slowed. Philip untangled himself from the cables on the wall and pointed at a hatch down the corridor.

  “There it is! Starboard Observation.”

  He spun the metal wheel and pulled open the door. The dark-haired teenager stepped back, mouth open and oxygen mask falling from his fingers.

  A gale of howling wind shuddered and whirled through the burned, twisted remains of the room. A powerful force had ripped away the floor-to-ceiling windows and left only fragments of bent metal where the vertical frames had been bolted. The ends of loose wires and cables whipped around in the powerful air current, which clawed at the broken edges of the deck, ceiling, and insulation and continued to rip away pieces in a blackened stream of dust and debris outside the ship.

  Philip pointed at the distant smudge of land outside the broken window. The coast was simply a line of brown on the horizon.

  “We’re too high!” he sh
outed. “And too far!”

  MacGuffin pushed by Philip into the room. “What? I set the flight computer for fifty feet!”

  Betsy, Sunflower, and Andy Nakamura joined him.

  “We can’t jump from this high!” yelled Sunflower. “We’re at least a thousand meters above the ocean!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know!” shouted MacGuffin, against the roaring air current.

  Andy shielded her eyes from the wind and looked around the room. “We need a command console! I can hack into the system!”

  “Why does Philip have his hands up?” asked Betsy.

  Philip walked slowly into the damaged observation room, his hands at eye level and palms empty. One shuffled behind him, dripping blood from her fingers and holding a pistol at the teenager’s back.

  “Drop those weapons,” she screamed.

  The shreds of her jacket and skirt were covered in soot, with patches of deep red soaked through in a dozen places. She held the pistol with the silver fingers of her right hand, using it every few seconds to wipe away the blood that dripped from her scalp into her left eye. One’s human left arm was jammed inside her jacket, like she was a wounded female Napoleon on the battlefield.

  MacGuffin, Sunflower, and Andy dropped their plasma rifles and pistols. One’s assistant, Wilson, appeared from behind her and tossed the weapons into the wind tunnel of the broken window, where they tumbled into the sea far, far below.

  One stared wide-eyed at the cat. “Why did you do that, you idiot? Those cost me thousands of woolongs on the black market!”

  Wilson glanced left and right nervously. “I, um … you’ve lost millions of woolongs already from the damage to the ship. What’s a few thousand?”

  “Brainless fish-face! You’re going to the punishment cube as soon as it’s fixed!”

  Wilson frowned. The cat opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind and simply bowed his head.

  “Of course, Your Prettifulness.”

  Philip lined up with his friends. The group faced One and turned their backs to the blue sky.

  “You’ve lost,” Philip shouted over the roar of air. “Your ship is damaged. Leave us alone and you’ll never see us again.”