There was a spinning sensation which came to an abrupt and sudden stop. The cry of the alarm was gone, replaced by another cry—this one from Ash. He screamed in terror as the last of his atoms reformed in a spectacular shimmering light show.
"Welcome back, Riley Harper, Daryl Elliot, and Ash Stone," chimed Yufo, which only served to make Ash worse.
"Wha--? Who said that?" he spluttered, looking around him. "Where is this? What the Hell's happening?"
"That's Yufo," beamed Riley. She waved. "Hi, Yufo. She's alive."
"It isn't," said Hath, turning away from the command console.
Ash took one look at Hath's bat-like features and let out another squeal. He stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet. The floor rose up to catch him. He thudded into it, then sprang forward in fright. Ash spun, raising both hands, his fingers splayed wide.
"It's a chair," said Hath. "I strongly advise you don't shoot it."
Ash's eyes were bulging in barely-contained panic. His breathing came in deep, unsteady gulps. "Wh-why? What'll it do?"
"It won't do anything. Again—it’s a chair," Hath said. He stepped in front of Ash, looming over him. "I, on the other hand, will be very upset."
"How did you beam us back?" asked Riley. "I thought you had to see us?"
"He could see us," Daryl explained. "He hacked the camera. Right?"
Hath nodded, not taking his eyes off Ash, who was still gibbering in panic.
"I don't… What is… I mean, this isn't—"
"It's a lot to take in," said Riley. "Aliens, superpowers, and whatnot. By the way, is anyone else hungry? I'm hungry."
"Incoming attack vehicles," announced Yufo. "Engagement expected in thirty-seven seconds."
"Impossible," said Hath, still keeping his gaze trained on Ash. "We're cloaked."
"Thirty-four seconds. Missile lock detected."
Hath scowled. "They don't have the technology. How could…?" His voice trailed off. "Damn it!" he roared. "How could I be so stupid?"
With one hand he caught Ash by the back of the neck and yanked him clean off his feet. Ash yelped and pointed his hands at Hath's face, but the alien batted them away like he was swatting away a fly.
"Ow, stop!" yelped Ash, before Hath shoved him toward the floor. A bloom of black material swelled up beneath him like a bed. Hath kept his hand on the boy's neck, pinning him down.
"Engagement expected in twenty-one seconds. Twenty. Nineteen."
"You!" Hath barked, jabbing a finger at Riley. "Hold him down."
Riley chewed on a fingernail. "Me? But I don't know if—"
"Hold. Him. Down," Hath growled.
"Fifteen. Fourteen."
Riley darted over and pressed both hands on Ash's chest. "Not my fault," she said, shooting him an apologetic smile.
Hath spun and reached for an unremarkable looking section of the wall. It parted like a pair of curtains, allowing him to reach inside and pull out what looked like a toy raygun.
As he turned back he gestured to Daryl. "You! Get us out of here."
Daryl almost choked. "What? How?"
"Ten. Nine."
"Fly the ship," Hath said. He jammed the gun against the side of Ash's head, making the teen's eyes go wide in horror.
"N-no, don't! Please!" Ash yelped.
"Seven. Six."
"Fly the ship?" Daryl spluttered. "I can't!"
"As of a few hours ago, you are the most intelligent human being on the face of the Earth. So learn. And quickly," Hath barked. He clamped a hand over Ash's face. "Now hold still."
"Four. Three"
“You’re not going to shoot him, are you?” asked Riley.
"P-please," Ash sobbed. "Don't shoot me!"
"I'm not going to shoot you. I'm going to save you."
"One. Attack crafts are now within range."
An impact shook the ship, sending Riley stumbling across the floor. "I'm OK! I'm OK!" she chirped, steadying herself against the wall.
Daryl staggered, but crouched low so as not to fall. Hath's holographic keyboard floated freely a foot and a half above the floor at the front of the ship.
Another blast slammed into the ship's hull. It knocked Daryl forward and he half-ran, half-fell over to the control panel.
"Shield integrity at seventy-six percent," Yufo informed them, a bit too matter-of-factly for Daryl's liking. He peered down at the controls. A confusion of cryptic symbols stood out across the shimmering keys.
"The shields are designed to repel energy weapons, not those primitive fireworks. Get us out of here!" Hath bellowed. He pressed the muzzle of the ray gun harder against the side of Ash's skull, then moved it down over his cheek and around the back of his head.
Daryl swallowed hard. He'd seen Hath flying the ship before, but had been too busy trying to come to terms with the fact he was aboard a spaceship to pay much attention. How did he--?
BOOM! An explosion rocked Yufo hard, tilting the whole ship to the left. Riley was sent stumbling across the floor in the opposite direction, arms flailing wildly like a character in Star Trek.
"Not enjoying this!"
"Um… visuals?" said Daryl. The walls wobbled, then vanished. Daryl yelped and ducked as a fighter jet screamed by overhead.
He looked back over his shoulder. Hath still had Ash pinned down, the gun now pressed in below his jaw. Beyond him, the jet banked sharply right, revealing a second fighter bearing down on them.
Tentatively, Daryl held his hands out above the floating keyboard. The floor oozed upward over his legs, holding him securely in place. "Right, then," Daryl said to himself. "Here goes."
He touched one of the cryptic symbols. There was a soft whum from somewhere near the back of the ship. The world outside darkened as the walls once more became opaque.
And then, with a low whine, the ship began to fall.
Twelve
“We’re falling! I think we’re falling. Are we falling?” babbled Riley.
Hath moved the muzzle of the gun down Ash’s neck. “Yes, we’re falling,” he confirmed. His eyes flicked to Daryl. “Stop us falling.”
“I don’t know how!”
“Then figure it out!” shouted Hath and Riley at the same time.
“Jinx!” said Riley.
The gun in Hath’s hand let out a series of high-pitched bleeps. They started slow, but grew more urgent as he moved the gun around on Ash’s neck. “There you are,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing.
“Can’t speak when you’re jinxed,” said Riley. Hath, Ash, and Daryl looked at her as one. She stuck her thumbnail in her mouth and chewed. “Maybe we should revisit this at another time.”
“There what is?” asked Ash. “What are you doing?”
“I told you, I’m saving your life,” Hath grunted. “Now stop squirming.”
Daryl turned back to the controls. The floating keyboard was a much duller shade of green now. Synapses sparked in his brain. He’d placed the whole system on standby. He could see that now. The symbols still didn’t make any sense, but by reversing what he’d done…
His fingertips glided across the keyboard’s non-existent keys. Somewhere, near the back of the ship, the engines began to hum. Yufo’s walls slipped away again, and Daryl gasped when he saw the ground. It filled his entire field of vision, stretching out in all directions. It was close, and getting rapidly closer as the ship plunged toward it.
“Oooh, probably better pull up,” suggested Riley, appearing at Daryl’s side. “You think? I’d pull up if I were you.”
Daryl’s gaze went from symbol to symbol. “I don’t… I’m not…”
“I’d definitely be looking into pulling up. Like, now.”
Daryl thought back to the tunnel when they’d almost hit the train. Hath had sent them hurtling skyward without touching any of the controls. Was that the key to it?
The air around his fingertips pulsated with green light as he held his hands in front of him. “Here goes,” he whispered, then he threw both arms up above
his head.
Riley screamed. Ash screamed. Even Hath spat out something in a language Daryl couldn’t understand as Yufo stopped falling and climbed sharply at astonishing speed.
A split-second ago the Earth had filled Daryl’s vision, but now there was nothing but blue sky ahead.
From down on the floor, Riley let out a groan. “I think you just shattered my pelvis,” she said, but then she pulled herself to her feet and dusted herself down.
“Gentle movements,” Hath said. “Don’t flail your arms around or—”
He stopped as the bleeping of the gun became a single long tone. “Got it,” he said. He tapped a button on the side of the device and a series of digits were projected into the air from the back of it. The alien let out an irritated snort. “Wrong one.”
“Missile lock detected,” announced Yufo. “Impact expected in twelve seconds. Eleven. Ten.”
Daryl looked around frantically beyond the ship’s transparent walls, searching for… there! One of the jets was hurtling up behind them, a missile rapidly closing the gap.
Panicked, Daryl dropped his arms. Riley flew upward and thumped against the ceiling as the ship plunged once more. A bloom of black material wrapped around her, holding her securely.
“Hey,” she wheezed, shooting Daryl a dirty look. “What did I ever do to you?”
“GENTLE MOVEMENTS!” Hath roared.
Daryl adjusted his arm position, easing their descent. “Sorry, sorry!”
“Revised impact expected in four, three, two…”
With a yelp, Daryl swooped his arms in opposite directions. The earth and sky flipped and rolled overhead as the ship spun. Daryl heard the whoosh of the missile streaking past, then watched in horror as it banked around for another attempt.
Sparks exploded in the air right beside him as bullets hammered against Yufo’s hull. The other jet was bearing down on them, guns blazing. Daryl gently pushed one arm forward and one back, like he was doing the world’s slowest Hokey Pokey. The ship turned sharply but smoothly and despite the danger, Daryl found himself smiling.
He was doing it. He was flying the ship! In the Top Trumps scale of most epic things ever done, this had to be the full ten points.
“I’m actually flying an actual spaceship,” he said.
“Well fly us out of here,” suggested Riley from up near the ceiling.
“No! Not yet,” Hath barked. The gun was bleeping again. He moved it roughly through Ash’s scalp, his brow furrowed in concentration. “If we leave, they’ll be able to follow.”
“Revised impact expected in eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen.”
Daryl groaned. “Not again!”
“Secondary missile lock detected,” Yufo announced.
“What?!”
The computerized voice sounded gratingly cheerful, considering the circumstances. “Ground to air defenses also moving into position.”
“Oh great. How are the shields?” Daryl asked.
“Shield integrity at twenty-eight percent. Recommended action: avoid further damage.”
Daryl gritted his teeth. “Thanks for the advice. Really useful.”
The bleeping from Hath’s gun became a solid tone again. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, studying the readout. “Yes! There it is.”
“There what is?” demanded Ash. “What have you found? What the Hell is in my head?”
Hath squeezed the trigger of the gun. Right at the very edge of his hearing, Daryl heard the faintest ripping sound, and Ash yelped in pain. A tiny microchip, about half the size of a baby’s fingernail, was attached to the end of the gun. Hath plucked it free and held it between his finger and thumb, studying it.
“Impact in Five. Four. Three.”
Hath squeezed his finger and thumb together. The missile skimmed past the ship, going wide by a few scant feet.
“Primitive,” Hath said, blowing the remains of the chip from his fingertips.
Ash straightened up, clutching his scalp. “What the Hell was that? What did you do to me? Do you know how much this haircut cost?”
“You were tagged with a tracking chip,” Hath intoned. “That is how they knew where we were. We are safe from their missiles now. They can’t see us.”
Ash’s eyes widened. “They chipped me? Like a dog? I am going to sue their asses off.” He backed away, eyeing up the group. Both arms came up slowly, his palms pointing at each of them in turn. “I’m going to sue all your asses off unless you take me home right now. I’m warning you, I will mess you guys up. Don’t make me--”
An explosion rocked the ship, hurling Ash against the wall.
“I thought they couldn’t see us!” Daryl cried.
“I think that was the problem,” Riley said. She pointed down to where one of the jets was spinning toward the ground, fire spewing from where a wing had once been. “He flew right into us!”
They watched as the jet’s canopy detached and was caught by the wind. Flames rolled up through the cockpit as the pilot ejected. His parachute deployed just as the rest of the plane’s damaged wing came away. Shards of debris tore through the chute, filling it with holes and tangling it in knots.
“Hath, do something,” Daryl urged.
“It’s not our concern,” Hath said, taking his place at the controls. “We have problems of our own.”
“What?” Daryl spluttered. “You can’t just let him die!”
“Hey, like two seconds ago he was trying to kill us,” Ash pointed out. “Screw him. He brought it on himself.”
“No! We can’t just let him fall,” Daryl insisted. He tried to send Yufo into a dive, but the controls were no longer responding. “It’s not working. Why isn’t it working?”
“Because I’m back in charge,” Hath said.
“If anyone cares, I’m leaning toward Daryl on this,” Riley announced from above them. “I don’t have much more to add. Just, you know, in case anyone was wondering.”
Daryl looked down. The pilot was spinning end over end in his chair, hurtling toward the ground far below. A vision of a young girl at a birthday party flashed up in Daryl’s mind. It was fleeting, like a subliminal frame in a half-remembered dream, but he knew immediately what it meant.
“He’s got a daughter,” Daryl realized. “He’s got a young daughter.”
“How can you possibly know that?” asked Hath.
“Oh boo-hoo,” said Ash, miming rubbing his eyes. “The guy who was trying to blow us all up is a daddy. Who cares?”
“I care! We can’t just let him die!” Daryl snapped. He gestured toward the plummeting pilot, hand open, fingers splayed. “He’s falling, Hath! Catch him, catch him, catch him!”
With a jerk, the man stopped falling. Just stopped. Dead. In mid-air.
Daryl stared, first at the pilot, then at his own hand.
“Did… Did I do that?”
Hath sighed. “Well, you caught him. Now what?”
“Wait, he did that?” asked Ash. “How did he do that? How did you do that?”
Daryl ignored him, and instead kept his eyes fixed on the pilot, his hand held rock steady. One wrong move and he could launch him like he’d done with the basketball back at school. “Beam him up,” he said, then immediately felt like an idiot for saying that out loud. “Or, you know, whatever you call that thing you do.”
“I agree,” chimed Riley. “Side note: also, I’d quite like to get down.”
The black material that held Riley in place stretched until she was back down on the floor. “Thanks, Yufo,” Riley said, as the gloop retracted back into the ceiling.
“We don’t have time for this,” Hath muttered.
“Please,” said Daryl.
For a long time, the alien didn’t reply. Eventually, though, he shook his head and gave a loud tut. “Very well. But the consequences of this are on you, Daryl Elliot.”
“OK, fine, that’s fine. Whatever you say, just do something before I drop him.”
Turning away, Hath’s fingers glided across the s
himmering surface of the ship’s holographic keyboard. Outside, the pilot faded away in a haze of twinkling lights, leaving his ejector seat to continue on its downward plunge.
On board, the air began to move, like ripples on the surface of a pond. “You may want to step back,” Hath advised.
The rippling air formed the shape of the pilot, standing upright in the middle of the room. “It’s OK,” began Daryl, before the man had even fully materialized. “Don’t panic, we’re not going to hurt you. You’re going to be--”
The pilot appeared. A spray of blood spattered like warm drizzle across Daryl’s face. The man went down hard, wheezing and gargling through what was left of his mouth. A chunk of shrapnel had cleaved part of his face clean off. Blood spat from the wound, oozing into pools in the holes in his exposed skull.
They had saved the pilot from falling, but now he was going to die right there on the floor in front of them.
And Daryl had no idea how to stop it.
Thirteen
Ash took a step back to avoid the expanding pool of blood and let out a low whistle. “Yikes.”
Riley didn’t move, just stood there, staring at the dying man on the floor, flapping her mouth open and closed.
The pilot’s eyes were bulging, his chest rising and falling in fast, frantic gulps as he stared helplessly up at Daryl and the others.
Daryl dropped to his knees beside him. He reached tentatively for the man’s exposed skull, but pulled back, completely clueless as to how to help.
He looked up at Hath, helplessly. “Do something.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know. Something. Anything!”
Ash squatted down for a closer look, but kept enough distance that he wasn’t hit by the spurting blood.
“Aw, man. Half his face is gone,” he pointed out, tilting his head to get a better look. “That’s gross. Look at it.”
“Hath, please,” Daryl begged. “You didn’t bring him on board just to let him die.”
“I didn’t want to bring him on board at all.”
“Well, you did,” said Daryl. “So now he’s our responsibility!”
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