‘You are not Tagaar?’ he said, drawing near.
‘No,’ Mister Okada said. ‘We’re not.’
Looking relieved, the old man introduced himself as Rartus. ‘I was concerned when I saw you land,’ he said. ‘The Tagaar have left us alone, but there are rumors daily that they will invade.’
‘Gastara has always been a neutral world.’
‘The Tagaar don’t know the meaning of the word,’ Rartus said.
Mister Okada showed Rartus the parts he needed for the engine. The old man was able to suggest a few dealers before pointing them on their way.
‘I hope this doesn’t take too long,’ Ebony said to Chad as they followed a cobbled street through the town. ‘We have to get to Axel and Brodie.’
‘I know.’
The market was deafening, and Chad found himself not knowing where to look. The stalls were located either in the ancient stone buildings or under awnings. Aliens spruiked goods ranging from food to clothing and pieces of technology.
‘They sell everything here,’ Quinn said, staring at a stall where they were selling guns.
‘There are no regulations on what can be traded,’ Mister Okada said. ‘Even weapons. The traders of Gastara have done very well for themselves.’
A thin girl, wearing little more than rags, stood in a doorway. Ebony grabbed Chad’s arm. ‘It doesn’t look like everyone has prospered,’ she said.
Chad and Ebony went over to the girl as Mister Okada and Quinn spoke to a man at a stall.
‘What’s your name?’ Ebony asked the child.
‘Salia.’
‘Are you well?’
‘I haven’t eaten, and my mother is sick,’ the girl said. ‘She needs food.’
Ebony turned to Chad. ‘We need to help these people,’ she said.
Peering about cautiously, Chad wasn’t so sure. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we should get involved.’
‘We need to do what we can,’ Ebony said, picking up a stone and kneeling next to Salia. ‘Is gold precious here?’
Salia nodded.
‘I’ll show you a trick,’ Ebony said, covering the stone. Using her transmutation powers, she turned it into a lump of gold and revealed it to the girl. ‘This is yours.’
Salia’s eyes opened in amazement. ‘You are wonderful!’ she said.
Ebony spoke some more to the little girl as Mister Okada and Quinn crossed to a stall on the far side of the square. Chad watched the pair heading away. He wasn’t sure he trusted them to negotiate on their behalf. For all he knew, they were selling them into slavery.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Chad promised Ebony. ‘I don’t want to lose sight of them.’
He pushed through the crowded market. Mister Okada and Quinn were speaking to a stallholder who had tables piled high with pieces of technology. They spoke for a few more minutes before Mister Okada glanced at Chad. He asked about Ebony.
‘She’s helping a little girl,’ Chad said. ‘She looked like she was starving.’
Mister Okada frowned. ‘You must be careful,’ he said. ‘It is best not to engage the locals.’
‘We’re trying to help someone!’ Chad snapped. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘This is a foreign world with many dangers.’
‘I don’t need your advice!’
Quinn turned to Mister Okada. ‘Do you think you can buy the parts from here?’ she asked him.
‘This stall has everything we need.’
‘Then I’ll go with Chad.’
Chad and Quinn pushed through the crowd to where he’d left Ebony, but she wasn’t there. He looked about in confusion. ‘Maybe she’s gone to see the girl’s mother,’ he said.
They waited for a few minutes, but Ebony didn’t reappear. Mister Okada joined them with an armful of parts.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘Ebony’s not here,’ Chad said.
‘We think she went to see Salia’s mother,’ Quinn added.
Mister Okada nodded without speaking.
‘I’m sure she’ll be fine,’ Chad said.
But Ebony did not return.
Chapter Ten
Ebony awoke with a pounding headache. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring up at a gray, metal ceiling. She blinked. How did I get here? The last thing she remembered was stepping inside to see Salia’s mother. After that—nothing.
The floor vibrated.
What is this place?
The entire room was metal except for a small window. It looked like it was night outside. How is that possible?
Staggering to her feet, Ebony lurched over to the window.
‘Oh no,’ she gasped. ‘No.’
It wasn’t night outside—it was the inky blackness of space, and the world of Gastara was receding rapidly into the distance. She was on a spaceship!
Ebony ran to the door. Touching it with her hand, she transformed it into oxygen. A guard on the other side—a bear-looking man—turned in surprise.
‘Hey—’ he started.
Swinging a fist, Ebony slammed it into his chin, and he went down in a heap. Ebony ran. She had to get off this ship and back to the others! She dashed down a corridor as cries came from behind her.
A guard turned a corner and raised a weapon. Ebony formed a lump of metal in the air and hurled it. Through luck more than skill, it hit him square in the forehead, and he slumped. She raced down another corridor, but a shimmering barrier appeared. She touched it!
Bam!
An electric shock from the barrier threw Ebony backward onto the floor. Groaning, she sat up. That packs quite a wallop. She turned and staggered in the opposite direction, but another barrier had already appeared. Reaching for a wall, Ebony prepared to turn it to oxygen, but another of the bear-like aliens appeared beyond the force field.
‘I advise you not to do that,’ he said.
‘Why should I take any notice of you?’ Ebony groaned.
‘Because your friends will suffer a terrible fate if you don’t follow our orders.’
Ebony stopped.
The man looked supremely confident. ‘You are on board the Braxius,’ he continued. ‘And my name is Tardon. Your friends are on Gastara searching for you. What they don’t know is that my men are following them.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Their names are Chad, Okada, and Quinn.’
All right, Ebony thought. You’re not lying.
‘If you do not cooperate,’ Tardon said, ‘then I will have your friends killed.’
‘We’re superheroes on our homeworld.’
‘I believe you—one of my men saw you turn the pebble into gold—but believe me when I say that we can vaporize your friends in an instant.’ He fixed his eyes on Ebony. ‘Your friends may have superpowers, but they don’t have eyes in the back of their heads. I have men poised to kill them on my orders. If I give the word, they die.’
Ebony swallowed. The man may have been lying. Or maybe not. Either way, she couldn’t risk Chad and the other’s lives. She needed to play along until she could escape or was rescued.
‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘Is it gold? You want me to make gold for you?’
‘Nothing so petty. There is a bank vault on a nearby world—Devilia—containing some rather precious items.’
‘You’re a bank robber?’ This was incredible. She’d come thousands of light-years to be kidnapped by a bunch of bank robbers. ‘You want me to get you into a bank?’
‘That’s all,’ Tardon said.
Ebony couldn’t think of a way out. She had to play along until she could escape.
‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘What do I need to do?’
An hour later, Tardon, another man named Feliton, and Ebony stepped from the Braxius into the cold night of an alien world. They had landed in the middle of a desert. A light dusting of snow covered the ground. Distant hills surrounded them on all sides. The stars above were tiny pinpricks in the sea of night.
Ebony didn’t recognize any of the constellations. At any other time, she would have felt elated at being on an alien world, but she had too much on her mind to enjoy the experience. Her eyes searched the landscape. Even under the gentle starlight, it was obvious there were no buildings.
This makes no sense, Ebony thought. There’s no bank here.
Tardon seemed to read her thoughts. ‘The vault is here,’ he said. ‘It was hidden in this location to fool those who want its secrets.’
‘But you’re no fool,’ Ebony said, sourly.
‘We are not,’ Feliton said. He was obviously Tardon’s right-hand man. ‘You will help us, or your friends will die.’
‘I know the drill!’
Tardon turned on a scanning device and led them away from the ship. They walked about a mile before stopping. Pointing the scanner at the ground, Tardon spoke. ‘This is the place.’
He pressed a button. In the dark, Ebony couldn’t see a thing, but then a bright strip, about three feet long, appeared in the ground. Light streamed from it as the ground opened up, the sound of grinding rock breaking the desert silence.
A flight of stairs led down.
‘We are almost there,’ Feliton said, his eyes bright.
They hurried down with Ebony sandwiched between them. A corridor at the end continued for a hundred feet before meeting a door.
‘Is this the vault?’ Ebony asked.
‘This is only an access door,’ Tardon said. He keyed numbers into a control panel on the side, and it slid open. ‘Almost there.’
A walk down another corridor brought them to another door. Tardon entered a second code, and they entered a room that had a circular beehive-shaped chamber in the middle. Ebony peered at it in amazement. She had never seen a vault like this before.
‘What is this?’ she asked.
‘Don’t ask questions!’ Feliton snapped. ‘Just get it open.’
He shoved her towards an oval door set into the side of the chamber. Ebony longed to punch Feliton in the nose but stopped herself. Resisting could get Chad and the others killed.
Tardon pointed to the hatch. ‘Get rid of this,’ he ordered.
Sighing, Ebony raised her hand and touched the metal. It evaporated, and both the men gave a cry of triumph. They dived through the entrance, leaving Ebony outside. A moment later, they re-emerged, a triumphant expression on their faces. Tardon held a small, black box in his hands.
‘What is that?’ Ebony asked.
‘You’re better off not knowing.’
Ebony didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Tell me what it is,’ she insisted.
‘All right,’ Tardon said, as he and Feliton hurried back down the corridor. ‘It’s called Breakthrough. It’s an AI—an artificial intelligence.’
Ebony frowned. An artificial intelligence was a kind of robotic brain that could learn like a living creature.
‘What’s it for?’ she asked.
Ignoring her, the men increased their pace. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, they hurried up them and into the cold air of the alien night.
Ebony repeated her question.
‘If you must know,’ Tardon said, ‘we’re not exactly bank robbers, and this isn’t a bank vault.’
‘Then what’s going on?’
He refused to answer until they had reached the cargo hold of the Braxius and taken off. ‘Our world—Brall One—has been waging war with our neighboring world—Brall Two—for more than half a century,’ he explained. ‘The two planets are locked in a stalemate. The Brall One government wanted something that would give them an edge—an advantage—over the opposition.’
‘And this AI will do that?’ Ebony said, staring at the small black box.
‘It’s programmed to release an unstoppable virus into the Brall Two computer network. Within minutes it will crash every computer worldwide, leaving the planet defenseless.’
‘Then what?’ Ebony said, her voice hollow.
Feliton chuckled. ‘Then Brall One will launch their entire nuclear arsenal at Brall Two,’ he said. ‘The entire planet will be reduced to a burning cinder within a matter of minutes.’
Ebony found herself reeling.
These men are terrorists, she realized. And I’ve just helped them destroy a world.
Chapter Eleven
I stared at Twenty-Two in amazement.
The memories came flooding back to me as if it were yesterday. Our last contact with The Agency had been back at a compound in Las Vegas. We had been working with them when everything went haywire. Brodie had been taken by the Tagaar, and I had been coerced into kidnapping the Russian President with the intention of killing him. Eventually, I had realized I didn’t have it in me to murder him, and Brodie had escaped her captors without my help. Still, none of this had gone over well with the Russians. Or the Americans. Or anyone, really, for that matter.
We’d escaped and been on the run ever since.
Twenty-Two was the Bakari at the Las Vegas compound when everything had fallen apart. He hadn’t been our enemy, but neither had he been our friend. The Bakari were the ones who had given us powers but also stolen our memories.
Mister Okada was a Bakari, but as far as I was concerned, he was the only one who could be trusted. I focused on building up a tornado of air to slam into Twenty-Two with all my might.
‘You are wasting your time,’ Twenty-Two said. ‘Your powers will not work here.’
He was right. I could barely summon up a breath of air, let alone a tornado. Glancing up at the ceiling, I saw the reason why. It was lined with zeno emitters. These cute little devices stripped us of our powers. It was different for Brodie. She still had her martial arts abilities.
Not that it would help us much. I couldn’t imagine Twenty-Two succumbing to a karate chop.
‘Why are we here?’ Brodie demanded.
‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, too,’ Twenty-Two said.
Well, at least he had a sense of humor.
‘What’s this about?’ I asked. ‘Why have you brought us here?’
He stroked his chin. ‘I congratulate you on securing the Tagaar vessel for yourself,’ he said. ‘They are notoriously hard to capture. What have you christened it? Liber8tor?’
I said nothing.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘We’re still watching you. My people are very good at that. Watching others and saving them from themselves.’ He paused. ‘And others that wish them harm.’
‘Then you know about the Tagaar,’ Brodie said. ‘That they are going to attack the Earth?’
He nodded. ‘Invade your world, strip your planet of its resources, and leave it a broken shell.’ He indicated the display behind him. ‘The red zones are planets that have already been enslaved by the Tagaar. Only the green areas remain free.’
I looked at the board. ‘There’s not a lot of green up there,’ I said.
‘Our calculations show that the Tagaar will have taken over every civilized planet within seven years—including our own. Unfortunately, my own people have been complacent when it comes to such an enormous threat. They have underestimated the warlike capabilities of the Tagaar, thinking that the seeds that we have sowed across a hundred worlds would be sufficient in holding them back.’
I frowned. The Bakari had not only been modifying humans, but also other races on worlds across the galaxy. I thought of my own powers. How many individuals across how many planets had been turned into superheroes against their will?
‘You haven’t answered our questions,’ Brodie said, catching my eye. ‘What’s this about? Why have you stopped us?’
‘You are here because of your plan.’
‘What plan?’ I asked, playing for time. He couldn’t know what we were up to. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I used to know your friend—the man you call Okada—very well. I know how he thinks. I know he
would have tried to find a non-violent solution to stopping the Tagaar. No doubt, he has hatched some scheme to induce the Tagaar to lay down their arms by making real the prophecies of Rastron the Great.’
I said nothing.
‘The plan will not work,’ Twenty-Two said flatly.
‘I’m guessing you’ve got another plan,’ Brodie said. ‘A better plan.’
Twenty-Two nodded. ‘There is a bomb in the loading bay of this ship,’ he said. The screen changed, and a square, gray cylinder appeared on the screen. Across the top was a display in an alien language. ‘Once activated, this device will create a singularity that will reduce the Tagaar homeworld to something the size of a grain of sand.’
I stared at the screen. That something so powerful could exist made me speechless. A bomb existed that could destroy an entire planet. ‘Why are you telling us this?’ I finally asked. ‘What are you saying?’
‘You must take the bomb to the Tagaar homeworld and detonate it. I am not asking you to kill yourselves. After activating the device, you’ll have an hour before it explodes.’
‘How many people live on Tagaar?’ I asked.
‘More than thirty billion,’ Twenty-Two said.
Brodie shook her head in horror. ‘That’s murder,’ she said. ‘Mass murder.’
‘We won’t help you,’ I said. The Tagaar may have been evil, but we weren’t about to murder thirty billion people. ‘Our plan may not stand much of a chance of success, but I’d rather try it than committing genocide.’
‘I think you should reconsider,’ Twenty-Two said.
‘We don’t need to,’ I said.
‘Our minds are made up,’ Brodie added.
There was a flash and a whiff of something burning. When I awoke, I was lying on the floor with Brodie next to me. Gone was the chamber containing Twenty-Two and the robot. I had no idea how long we’d been unconscious. I checked my comm bracelet—and yelled.
Forty-one hours!
We had really been knocked out. I tried communicating with Ferdy, but the signal was being jammed. I also tried using my powers.
No luck.
I gave Brodie a hard shake, and she moved. Groaning, she sat up. ‘Twenty-Two doesn’t like to take no for an answer,’ she said.
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 84