‘Wh-what...’ he said, looking blearily at us. ‘Was I gone long?’
‘Forever,’ Ebony said, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘And no time at all.’
Mister Okada drew back from Chad and fell into the nearest seat. Sweat rolled down the old man’s ashen face.
‘Dad,’ Quinn said, gripping his arm. ‘Are you all right?’
He forced a smile. ‘My beautiful daughter,’ he said. ‘I’m not so young anymore.’
The ship jolted, and I turned my attention back to the cockpit. We were already high above Tagaar, and the sky had started to turn black. Several Tagaar fighters were in pursuit and were firing at us. The ship was beginning to shake badly from the blasts.
‘Ferdy?’ Dan said. ‘We need to work out the calculations on how to get out of here.’
‘Those calculations have already been completed by the onboard computer,’ Ferdy said.
‘So, we can start back towards Earth?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘How long will it take?’ I asked.
‘Approximately thirteen minutes.’
We stared at each other in astonishment.
‘Thirteen minutes?’ Brodie said. ‘Are you joking?’
‘Ferdy rarely makes jokes,’ Ferdy said. ‘And the capital of Ireland is Dublin.’
‘But how—’
‘This vessel is an experimental test ship capable of rapid calculations and immense speeds. Its memory storage systems are already allowing Ferdy to increase his processing speed.’
‘I’m glad you’ve settled in,’ I said.
‘Set a course for Earth,’ Dan said.
‘Course set.’ Ferdy paused. ‘It is important that Ferdy’s friends realize there is a risk in using this technology. There is a chance that activating the FTL drive will cause the ship to become a multi-singular string, reducing the ship and its crew to sub-atomic particles.’
Chad lurched into the doorway behind me. ‘Sounds serious,’ he said.
‘Chad,’ Ferdy began. ‘This means—’
‘We’ve got to warn Earth,’ Chad said.
‘This may mean the deaths of everyone on board.’
‘I’ve been dead. It wasn’t so bad.’
I nodded to Dan. ‘Let’s do it,’ I said. ‘Let’s go home.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Mister Brown crossed over Fifteenth Avenue on the south side of Brooklyn towards a nondescript building halfway down the block. A sign across the front read:
Smith’s Self Storage
Pushing the front door open, he nodded to the woman at the front desk. She was almost sixty, with graying hair and a thin mouth.
‘Nice day for baseball,’ he said.
The woman’s mouth creased into a smile. ‘Every day is a good day for baseball,’ she replied.
‘I loved to pitch as a kid.’
‘Me too.’
The code words exchanged, Mister Brown continued onwards through a door at the back and into an elevator chamber. He knew the woman kept a loaded Glock 26 under the desk. He would have been gently repelled for giving the wrong answer. If he’d tried to force his way through, he would have been shot.
There was one unmarked button in the elevator. Mister Brown pushed it, and the lift descended. Seconds later, it arrived in an underground office. It had taken a team of engineers several months to carve this chamber out of solid rock. The whole office was partitioned glass. Twenty people worked in the office, but there was only ever one he spoke to.
The general’s office door was open. The general was inside, but there was a woman with him. Her back was to Mister Brown.
His receptionist waved Mister Brown into the office.
‘General Clarke,’ Mister Brown said. Glancing across at the woman, only now did he recognize her. ‘Agent Palmer?’
‘Brown,’ she nodded.
General Clarke stepped across to the door and closed it. ‘Thank you for both coming in so quickly,’ he said. ‘A possible Level Five issue has arisen.’
Level Five. Mister Brown swallowed. That was serious. Maybe end-of-the-world serious.
‘What is it?’ Agent Palmer asked.
‘We’re receiving a message on a secure Agency channel,’ Clarke said. ‘The sender is using an old encryption code, but it’s still valid.’ He pressed a button, and an image appeared on the screen.
Mister Brown looked up at a face he never expected to see again.
Surprise, surprise.
‘This is Axel,’ the boy said. ‘According to Ferdy, you should be receiving this message. A Tagaar Dreadnought vessel is headed for Earth and will arrive within the day. Its intention is to poison the atmosphere before landing and stripping the planet of all resources.
‘You must take whatever action you can to defend Earth. This is the big one. If we’re going to survive, we’ve got to work together. Not just The Agency, but every nation on Earth. Every military force. Every superhero. Ignore this message if you want, but every second counts. Failing to work together will bring about the end of the human race.’
The picture faded to black.
Mister Brown sighed. ‘When did this arrive?’ he asked.
‘Just now,’ General Clarke said. ‘Thoughts?’
Brown stroked his chin before replying. ‘It’s real,’ he said.
‘I can’t see any other reason for him to send this message,’ Palmer said. ‘We’ve traced the signal to a ship in orbit. It’s a different ship to the one they’ve been using, but it appears to be a Tagaar vessel.’
General Clarke thrummed his fingers on the table. ‘Then we need to act,’ he said. ‘We’ve known for a long time that this was coming. Well, now it’s here.’
‘What’s the plan, General?’ Brown asked.
‘It’s like the boy said. We fight back with everything we’ve got.’ He clenched his jaw. ‘And God help us if it’s not enough.’
Chapter Forty
‘The Agency’s been busy,’ Chad said.
We were peering through the front window of our new ship. After sending our message to Earth, we had finally received an affirmative response. Not long after that, Flex craft had started entering orbit. It had started with dozens, then hundreds. Now there were thousands of them.
Among them were larger warships—obviously, a new design of Flex fighters. There were dozens of these. Flitting among them were tiny figures—superheroes who could withstand the rigours of space.
I shivered, remembering my own brief foray before we had headed to Tagaar. It had been a terrifying few minutes that I hoped I would not have to repeat.
An Agency ship was hovering several hundred feet away from us. Its commander was a woman named Jackson. Her only contact was a request for more information, and we’d told her all we could, but it wasn’t much.
Now it was a waiting game.
‘Hey,’ Ebony called from the cabin. ‘We need help.’
We turned to see her and Quinn sitting next to Mister Okada. The man was pale and clammy. His skin looked almost transparent. Beads of sweat traced a line across his forehead. Mister Okada had not recovered from saving Chad’s life. In fact, he looked worse.
‘I’m fine,’ he muttered, gripping Quinn’s hand. ‘There are bigger things to worry about.’
I wanted to take him to Earth to get medical treatment, but we couldn’t be seen running away from the fight. Our presence in orbit was the only thing keeping these ships here.
‘You’re not fine,’ Quinn said, ready to burst into tears. ‘We’ve got to get you help.’
Before he could reply, Dan gave an excited cry. ‘I’m getting something,’ he said. ‘It’s to our port side.’
We hurried to the windows and peered out. Baring a scattering of stars, the patch of space outside the windows had been empty a few minutes before. Now it was filled by an enormous battle cruiser. It was similar in shape to the tiny vessel we had stolen but unimaginably huge.
‘Brantaar said it was big,’ Chad said, his voice
hollow. ‘He may have underestimated it.’
‘How can we defeat that thing?’ Ebony asked.
‘Ferdy,’ I said. ‘Do you have any ideas?’
‘The Dreadnought is a new type of vessel recently developed by the Tagaar,’ Ferdy said. ‘This is the only one of its kind. It has a high-yield poisonous gas delivery system, multi-phasic cannons, detonation bombs, as well as a drilling chamber that allows it to fire a weapon deep into a planet to explode it from within.’
‘So you’re saying it’ll be easy to beat.’
‘No, friend Axel. Ferdy was saying—’
‘That was a joke.’
‘Oh.’ Ferdy seemed to think for a moment. ‘It would seem that we must destroy Dreadnought before it unleashes its poisonous gas into Earth’s atmosphere.’
‘How long before Dreadnought reaches the atmosphere?’
‘Fifty-nine minutes.’
‘So how do we destroy it?’
Ferdy didn’t reply.
‘Ferdy?’ Dan said.
‘Ferdy has calculated more than twelve thousand different methods. One would seem to be a viable option, but it is also extremely dangerous.’ He paused. ‘We would need to move our ship under Dreadnought and pierce the hull. Axel and friends would need to navigate upwards through three levels to the engine room. Turning the core housing to copper will cause it to weaken. This will lead to a chain reaction in the engine core, which will cause an explosion that will destroy the ship.’
‘Sounds almost impossible,’ Chad said, cheerfully.
‘Chad is right,’ Ferdy said. ‘A Dreadnought cruiser has more than ten thousand crewmembers.’
Brodie shrugged. ‘I need some exercise,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’
Dan called out from the pilot’s cabin. ‘Something’s happening with the Dreadnought,’ he said.
A line of turrets had appeared along the sides of Dreadnought. In response, a signal came over our ship’s intercom.
‘The Flex fighters have signaled our forces,’ Dan said. ‘Attack.’
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
Laser fire erupted from the Dreadnought. At the same moment, thousands of Flex ships started towards the vessel. I also saw tiny figures flitting through the ether towards the ship. Tiny pinpoints of light appeared on the dreadnought’s hull. It was taking fire, but it was like a hive of bees attacking a mountain.
Dan weaved our ship from side to side as laser blasts whizzed past.
‘This ship is amazing!’ he explained. ‘It’s so fast!’
A blast hit the side of our ship, and we rocked. Now the laser fire was all around us. It was like trying to avoid droplets of falling rain. I was in complete awe of Dan’s flying ability.
‘I’m angling us under the ship!’ Dan yelled.
An explosion ahead of us threw us sideways. For a moment, I saw our ship veering in the direction of the Dreadnought.
We’re crashing into it!
At the last possible second, Dan yanked us back under control. I glanced back towards Mister Okada, who looked gravely ill. He couldn’t go on this mission with us. Quinn was holding his hand to comfort him. Neither could she.
It would be up to the rest of us to make this happen.
‘We are approaching the entry point,’ Ferdy said.
The section of the hull looked identical to every other part.
‘What do we do?’ I asked.
Ferdy explained.
‘Oh, boy,’ I said. ‘Even I hate that idea.’
There was no airlock in this ship—it was too tiny—but I was able to embrace everyone in a bubble of air as we drew closer. Dan brought us under the ship until we were scraping against the hull. We were now so close that we could virtually reach out and touch it—which was what we intended to do.
Keeping everyone safely within the bubble, I ordered Ferdy to open the side door. It slid open to reveal the terrifying immensity of space. From here, we could see hundreds of Flex ships attacking the Dreadnought, but it was clear they were no match. Dozens of flashes appeared everywhere as Flex fighters were blasted apart in the cold vacuum of space.
‘We’d better hurry,’ Chad suggested.
He was right. I eased myself and Ebony from the ship, keeping the bubble of air extended into the vessel. Grabbing Ebony’s hand, I lifted her towards the underneath of the hull.
She touched it, turning it into oxygen. Expanding the hole into something our ship would fit into, we eased our way into the breach. Ebony touched another wall, and this time we found ourselves in a room filled with bunk beds. This was one of the many crew quarters for the Tagaar warriors.
Fortunately, it was empty. The crew was either busy attacking our defense force or preparing to land troops. I carefully transported us back into our ship, and Dan closed the door again.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ I told Dan.
‘This is the easy part,’ he said.
Dan fired a full barrage of weaponry at everything before us. Bunks, tables, and walls exploded in all directions. He lifted off again and fired at anything in our way. Seconds later, we were in a corridor big enough to contain our ship.
‘It looks like a force shield has gone up behind us,’ Dan said. ‘They’ve sealed the hull breach.’
‘We can’t worry about that now,’ I said. I told Quinn and Mister Okada to stay where they were, although it was clear they weren’t going anywhere.
Through the front window, I spotted a line of Tagaar warriors running down the corridor towards us.
‘Time to fight,’ Chad said.
Chapter Forty-One
I led the way with Chad behind me. As I fired a series of air balls at the approaching warriors, Chad rounded the ship and shot icy spears at another group coming at us from behind. Both groups fell back. Ebony created metal walls that shielded us from further attacks as Dan emerged and warped a section of the decking into a makeshift stairway. Racing up the stairs, Ebony created a hole in the floor above.
‘Come on!’ she yelled.
The rest of us charged up to the level above. This corridor was already full of Tagaar warriors. Chad fired blasts at them as Brodie fought hand to hand with a group of them. Everywhere I turned was another warrior.
How long can we keep this up?
Dan constructed a metal wall to one side, cutting them off from us, but there were dozens of them charging down the corridor from the other direction. Creating a cyclone of air, I fired it at them, driving them back.
‘Don’t these guys ever stop?’ Chad grunted as the warriors started towards us again.
‘They might be unhappy about us destroying Shogarth’s tomb,’ I said.
‘Plus, Dan blew up that star.’
‘Can’t we all just forgive and forget?’
Dan and Ebony created another escape hatch for us, and we ascended to the next floor. I expected another full-scale attack by Tagaar warriors, but what we found was far more surprising.
‘Dead Tagaar,’ Dan said in surprise. Dozens of them were strewn about the corridor. ‘What happened to them?’
‘Was it another attack?’ Ebony asked.
‘No,’ I said, crossing to one of the bodies. ‘There’s no sign of a battle here. No wounds. There’s froth around their mouths.’
Chad rubbed his chin. ‘On Tagaar,’ he said, ‘Brantaar the Executioner said there was an illness stopping people from going to the arena.’
I shook my head. ‘It makes no difference now,’ I said. ‘Keep moving.’
The others agreed. Ebony and Dan created another staircase to the level above. Before we could go through, a barrage of laser fire spat down at us. I created a cyclonic wind to drive back the warriors as Chad followed up with cannonballs of fire. We eased our heads over the edge of the hole. The interior of the room was like a vast warehouse. Running the length of it was the engine reactor that Ferdy had told us about. Less than twenty feet away lay the reactor. Cylindrical in shape, it was cased in solid blue metal. Oddly, the air smelt vaguel
y of cooked bacon. A high-pitched whine echoed about the interior.
Chad and I combined our powers as we scrambled free of the hold. We drove back the approaching warriors, building up a storm within the colossal chamber. Within seconds, the interior was covered in snow and ice, and the Tagaar warriors had been pushed back.
I paused momentarily, amazed that we had gotten this far. Somehow, our audacious plan had worked. The Tagaar probably hadn’t expected anyone to have such intimate knowledge of their Dreadnought ship and its weaknesses.
A stray laser shot slashed through the air.
‘Ah!’ Ebony yelled, falling to the ground.
‘Ebony!’ Chad said.
‘I’m all right,’ she said, clenching her teeth in pain as she gripped her shoulder. ‘Keep moving!’
The shot had winged her. We raced over to the engine, where Ebony placed her hand against the housing. Within seconds, a huge section of it had turned the red-brown color of copper.
An ominous groan came from within the reactor.
‘That doesn’t sound healthy,’ Ebony said.
‘It’s time to leave,’ I said.
We raced over to the gap in the flooring. I created a raft of air beneath everyone and flew us down through the decks. Within seconds, we were back on the level where our ship awaited. Tagaar warriors had breached the makeshift metal walls. Still, Chad was able to drive them back with a series of fireballs.
Leaping back aboard ship, the door slammed shut behind us. ‘Get us out of here!’ I yelled at Dan.
The ship lifted off, we swung around and headed back towards our entry hole. I watched the black sea of space drawing nearer with every passing second.
Oomph!
We were thrown out of our seats. My face slammed into the bulkhead.
‘What—’ I started.
‘The force field enclosing the hull breach is still active,’ Dan explained. ‘I can’t get through.’
‘Can you use the lasers?’ I asked.
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 94