Chapter One
Somewhere in England, there was a quiet country village, lit not by street lamps as darkness clouded over the sky, but rather multiple candles placed in each and every window. There were few hints as to modern intervention in this serene haven; a satellite dish balanced on a roof, a television seen inside a lounge, a mobile phone abandoned on a coffee table. No teenagers stalked the streets. Occasionally a fox scampered across the road, but with minimal interruption.
Such a tranquil location could be deemed as being cut off from the world – closer to nature, indeed, for woodland surrounded the houses and roads, uniting the human civilisation with the wild, magical ways of the forest. A mysterious setting as this could not be passed by the wonders of the Netherside. Usually, the odd faerie flitted past a home or a will-o-the-wisp floated into somebody's garden, but rarely anything more.
Echoes of soft giggles intertwined with the whisper of gentle breezes, progressively becoming louder and louder, until anybody standing outside would surely catch ear of them. The laughter grew less mild; before long mischievous screeches drowned out the wind. Eventually, small shadows flashed past dustbins and flower beds. The shrieks became meaner, and were soon joined by collapsed washing lines, bin spillages, flowers being uprooted and so on…
This was most certainly not the work of a harmless elf or a hamadryade.
The village was in deep trouble.
There was only one magical being renowned for wreaking such devastating havoc.
Gremlins.
They were the naughtiest, most disrespectful, most hair-wrenchingly abominable of all the creatures of the Netherside (rivalled only by goblins, trolls and bogles) and they were right here on the doorstep of so many innocent victims, who were ignorantly slumbering through all the pandemonium that was being inflicted upon their lovely settlement.
Unfortunately, aside from being troublemakers, gremlins also had a terrible habit of drawing attention to themselves. They fed upon mischief, so anyone sensitive to enchantment could easily feel the amount of nourishment they were generating from their mayhem. Likewise, anybody who had programmed a scrying mirror or a computer to detect such powerful magic would soon be alerted that there was an abundance of it right within the town the gremlins had victimised…
The peaceful village was about to receive yet another unconventional visitor. A tall man clad in blue armour with yellow scaly skin and tentacles materialised onto a street, accompanied by several henchmen. He held up his arm, reading the data on a screen built into his gauntlet.
Varg directed the soldiers forward. The Nekross were truly going to feast upon a wealth of delicious magic that night!
Since all the villagers were in bed, no-one caught sight of the team of burly aliens striding toward the centre of the gremlins' play. It was not difficult to detect where each little monster was hiding, as they left a trail of destruction everywhere their feet trod.
Varg paced toward a cluster of bushes, as the guards got ready the containers in which they would carry their prizes back to their spaceship. The creature in the bush snickered merrily, totally oblivious of the fate that awaited him. Two of the crewman laid down the crate. Of course, a gremlin might not just walk into an empty box simply from curiosity. To ensure they were captured, bait had been positioned within – what more could a gremlin not resist than a machine just waiting to be ripped to pieces, in this case a blaster.
The prince bent down, his eye on the target. He beckoned to the henchmen, and they moved behind the rubbish bins, as to avoid being seen by their prey. Varg concealed himself behind a letter box, only to realise it was much too short to hide him properly, so he bent down, straining to stop his knees from jutting out.
Out of the vegetation crawled a small figure; in the dim light it was hard to distinguish his features, but he was somewhat akin to the Hobbledehoy, only with a smaller nose and ears and a humanoid body. He chattered in delight when he caught sight of the gun.
Varg hoped he wouldn't take long to fall for the trick, as his legs were killing him!
Whilst the little guy tore up the firearm, a glittering orange mist filled the air as he harvested more chaos. The prince had to restrain himself from dashing out and devouring the lot.
There was a shriek as the gremlin found his world plunged into darkness. The door on the container had automatically slammed shut, trapping him inside. Though he knocked thunderously on the walls, giving thwarted squeals, there was no way out.
Around the village, the Nekross caught many others in the same manner, and soon had an entire stack of rattling crates. Varg eyed the tower proudly and chuckled.
"Soon the Nekross will feast upon such exquisite magic!"
The king would be so pleased. Nothing had even got in the way of their-
"Let them go, Varg!" cried a voice from behind.
The prince swivelled round to see none other than his arch nemesis, accompanied by the hag Crowe.
"Tom Clarke! Enemy of Nekron. You are powerless to stop us."
"I wouldn't bet on it!"
Fast as lightning, Tom shouted an incantation and snapped his fingers, flinging a trail of fiery magic at the containers.
At exactly the same speed, Varg pressed his communication device and ordered the operator to beam everybody up.
The next thing Tom knew, his surroundings had dissolved to become the Zarantulus' transporter room, in which Varg was pointing his trusty weapon at his head.
"At last the Nekross shall feast on you and your delicious magic, wizard half-form!" he taunted, drawing his face near to Tom's, "When the king awakens from his rest, he will witness the magic being sucked from your very bones."
"This isn't over, Varg," retorted Tom defiantly.
The prince cackled wickedly and was about to say something even more dramatic, when abruptly his attention was drawn to some unnerving noises coming from the crates.
"What the-?"
The boxes were now beset by a storm of electrical bolts, causing their wires to fizzle and explode. One of the lids flew off, turning several somersaults. A gremlin zoomed out of it before anyone could so much as register what had happened.
There were more bangs and crackles, until several more containers had let their contents loose. The escaped gremlins whizzed through panels in the nearby machinery, vanishing out of sight.
The wizard and the Nekross exchanged horrified glances, and then the lights started flickering, as the air was filled with the gremlins' laughter.
"What did you just do, Thomas?" enquired Ursula, who had become completely lost at the swiftness of the events that had flown by in the last minute.
"I freed the gremlins," answered Tom, peering around the room, "And now they've got into the ship. Spectacular!"
"Gremlins are dastardly little scoundrels," observed Gran, keeping a lookout, "They have no respect for the un-enchanted, or anyone really! They're ghastly little mischief-makers; always causing havoc and making machinery break down." Her voice dropped to a low volume. "Just think what they could do with Nekross technology…"
WIZARDS VS ALIENS
"Spanner in the works"
"Enough talking, hag!" bellowed Varg, as two soldiers seized the prisoners.
"You need our help!" insisted Tom, "If those things get into the controls, they could be worse than that virus Benny put into your computer!"
The guards bundled him and Granny into the corridor.
"I have no time for this!" responded the prince, "You will remain in the holding cells until we are ready to extract your magic."
"If the gremlins start playing with your ship, you won't even be able to use the extractor! You heard what Gran said – they make machinery break down. Remember how the virus switched off life support? What if they did that again?"
"We will not be deceived by your tricks, wizard halfling!"
They had reached the brig, and Varg opened one of the doors. The wizards were thrust inside.
"The boy's right!" said Ursula supportively, "You can't handle them alone! They'll destroy everything on this ship!"
The prince locked the entrance.
Tom clasped his fingers round the bars. "Please! Listen, Varg! You are making a big mistake!"
Varg didn't appear to listen, and he strode away with the guards.
"Great!" cursed Tom, "We're stuck on the Zarantulus! Dad is going to be furious if I'm not there for exams tomorrow." He groaned.
Michael Clarke was aware that his son had swanned off with Granny at midnight to sort out a gremlin infestation, but he had no idea that their plans had backfired and now they were abducted by their enemies. Tom could visualise him cringing at the thought of another interference with his school life at the hands of a bunch of snake-headed aliens.
…
It wasn't long before Varg began to notice things weren't running smoothly on the Zarantulus as normal.
Automatic doors still opened, but regrettably never at the time when someone was actually trying to go through them. He ended up playing silly games with one while trying to make it to the bridge. As soon as he was able to get near as possible whilst the doors were not closed, he leapt through, barely making it before they shut again.
After he had picked himself off the floor and made his way to the next one, the prince realised in infuriation that it wouldn't unlock at all!
Officers working on the flight deck got a mighty surprise when the entrance started giving off a fountain of sparks, and Prince Varg kicked down a sizable hole.
The lights had been turned down a little bit, to signify that it was the night shift. Enormous snores came from within the king's chamber, which was sealed off by the door with the logo on it.
Varg was promptly greeted by Technician Jathro 15, who was rather flustered about something.
"My most Exquisite Excellency, I'm afraid I have to report there are some…slight malfunctions with the doors…the technician staff are assuredly working hard to resolve this error."
"The gremlins have escaped," reported the prince, going to a console.
Jathro opened his mouth to say something more but then froze in a look of horror, his tentacles curving upwards. Though he was not as knowledgeable as to human culture as his superiors, he had been told that the mission Varg had just returned from was to catch some beings that fed on trouble-making – more precisely trouble-making that involved messing with machinery. This was bad news, not only because they would cause severe problems, but he was an engineer and would be expected to fix them!
He dashed over to the control panel, observing what the prince was looking up. On the screen was a cross-section of the Zarantulus, which allowed the viewer to hone in on any part of the ship. In certain areas, there were flashing icons indicating magic, or more specifically, the magic the gremlins were creating.
"Do not worry, my Excellency…we can soon-"
All of a sudden, there was a tremendous bang from one of the computers on the other side of the room, knocking both men onto their backs, alongside every other hand on deck.
Emergency lights sprang onto every screen. The king stirred in his slumber, dribbling and muttering nonsense phrases.
Varg paced over to the console from which the noise came from.
"Do be careful, my Excellency!" called Jathro.
As he made his way, the prince became concerned that he could feel small thumps under his feet, coupled by occasional crackles and that irritating laughter, which by now he quite detested.
Not only that, but there were disturbing noises coming from the device. Though he would hate to admit this, Tom and Ursula's words sprang back to mind with chilling reality…
"They'll destroy everything on this ship!"
"If those things get into the controls, they could be worse than that virus Benny put into your computer!"
Varg reached out slowly to touch the machine. He gave it a small tap. There was that laughter again! Not to mention a strong scent ofintoxicating magic…
It was then bridge began dropping rapidly in temperature. Before anyone could blink, it was joined by a soft snowfall.
"Oh, my!" uttered the stunned technician, scrambling to a console, "It appears…the environmental controls have been tampered with!"
Two of the crewmen had already begun building a snowman.
…
Meanwhile, in another room on the Zarantulus, Lexi was lying fast asleep on her bed, the lights dimmed. At first, there was utmost silence, but faint mutters disturbed the peace.
Lexi's tentacles writhed a little.
Something knocked over a metallic object, which fell with a soft 'clang'. The princess awoke forcefully and sat bolt upright, stopping dead when she realised what seemed to have woken her up.
Whilst she waited for her pulse to go down and her snakes to stop trembling, she reasoned that the noise couldn't have been anything more than her imagination. She'd obviously been reading too much information on humans lately. Their halflings were always supposing there were monsters under the bed or hiding in the closet. She had nothing to worry about.
Lexi tried to settle back to sleep and was just about to nod off once more, when an enormous 'CRASH!' made her jump out of her scaly skin.
RIGHT! That did it!
Lexi flung off the bedclothes and stomped over to the wall from which the racket had come from. However, as though it had anticipated her coming, the noise had inexplicably gone.
This was just too strange! The princess decided to go back under her cosy quilt, but she would not return without a…certain item. She made her way to the wardrobe and fumbled around in the dark for a box at the bottom, accidentally getting attacked by one of her boots, which seemed to think it was morning again and wanted to go walkies.
Finally, she managed to fish out the object she was after and made her way back to bed with it in her arms. Tucking herself under the covers, she started to relax again, ready to drop off at any minute…
CRASH! BANG! WALLOP!
This was the last straw! Lexi sat up and scanned the room. She wasn't going back to sleep until she solved this exasperating mystery. Whilst she was on guard, she became conscious that gradually she was feeling…rather weightless. She told herself that this was yet another delusion – until, that is, she discovered that her bed was about half a metre below her body.
Crying out in fright, she found herself tumbling head over heels in mid-air. The entire room appeared to be upside-down. Once she had figured which way up she was, she steadied herself by keeping a hand pressed to the ceiling, working out what was the best thing for her to do in this situation.
Crewmembers manning the passageway were startled when one of the doors opened and out toppled the princess, landing in an awkward heap on the floor. One of them helped her up, trying not to stare at her…unusual outfit, or the small item she held close to her chest.
As soon as she had straightened herself, she reported to the officer, "There are some malfunctions with the gravity in my quarters."
It was then she noticed one of the guards was struggling to get through a certain door, which never was open whilst he was trying to pass through it.
Lexi snatched the nearby crewman's firearm and blasted it down. Brandishing the gun, she stepped over the threshold, spotting a flurry of white particles coming through a hole on a wall in the corridor she was now in, which she knew lead to the flight deck. Peering inside, she saw the bridge was enveloped in a thick sheet of fluffy snow.
Technician 15 was frantically fiddling with the consoles, trying to sort out whatever the gremlins had been up to, whilst Varg rubbed his hands together in an effort to stay warm. Several officers were making snow angels on the frosty blanket.
"Aah!" exclaimed Jathro, his breath visible like steam, "Do not be alarmed, my most Exquisite Excellency! It appears it is simply a matter of altering the temperature and humidity…nothing we cannot fix!"
He pressed several keys but a negative sound told him he couldn't override the controls (although how the gremlins were able to in the first place, we shall never know!)
He explained to the prince that the commands could only be overruled by the highest ranking officer on the ship – none other than the king!
The prince hated to rouse him, but this was a serious emergency and extreme measures had to be taken.
Jathro caused the doors to slide, allowing everyone to see the snoozing king, drooling green saliva.
"Father!" called Varg, "We need your assistance! The gremlins have caused the environmental systems to malfunction and we cannot override them."
The king didn't seem to notice – he just snored harder, slobbering over the deck.
"FATHER! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! If you do not interfere, they will have access to life support, and will pose a threat to us all…FATHER!"
Sharply, the king's eyes snapped open.
"Who dares disturb the king of Nekron in his very slumber!?" he bellowed.
"Father, the gremlins have infiltrated the environmental systems. We need you to override them before they gain access to life support!"
The king's antennae arched as he examined the disaster the gremlins had already caused. The crewmembers had now finished building their snowman, complete with tentacles, and had given him a blaster.
Fearful of the prospect that the oxygen et cetera could cut out any second, thus endangering his life, the king immediately began ordering the computer to stop the snowfall on the control centre, but it didn't give the impression that it was responding.
Jathro investigated the matter. "The computer says you need higher authority."
"There is no higher authority!" shouted Varg in astonishment.
Technician 15 managed to get the computer's response on audio.
"Registered: King of Nekron, lowest ranking officer on ship."
"WHAAAAAAT!?" erupted Varg.
"THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!" exploded the king.
The snowfall had become heavier, and many of the guards were shivering.
Jathro pressed just about every button on the console, desperately trying to turn the climate back to normal. Eventually, he gave up and slapped the machine. There was nothing he could do.
A crewman hurtled a snowball at the king, and it landed with a splat on his nose. Varg gave them a look.
Holding his head in the same manner a human might tear their hair out when they were frustrated, Jathro explained, "The controls cannot be overridden! No-one has higher authority than the king!"
Just as everyone was concluding they were in deep trouble, a pair of bare scaly yellow feet tiptoed their way through the hole Varg had created earlier onto a patch of the floor that wasn't buried beneath the thick snow.
"Do not be concerned," interrupted Lexi, "If the king has been demoted to the lowest ranking member of staff, then perhaps the lowest ranking member of staff has been promoted to the highest."
Animation came back into Jathro's tentacles. He went back to the computer and began searching the crew archive.
Meanwhile, Varg took to teasing his little sister. It was amusing enough she had entered the flight deck in nothing but her pyjamas, which consisted of a long-sleeved top and trousers made of cotton, coloured the same blue as her uniform, with miniature indigo Sydney Opera House shoulders, but what really took the biscuit was that she had forgotten to conceal the special object clasped tight in her hand…
"Dear sister," he taunted, "I see you have not parted with the toys you played with as a half-form."
Hugged close to the princess' chest was a small, yellow, tentacled doll clad in a purple velvet ball-gown, with shoulders alike her sleepwear.
Dread flashed upon Lexi's eyes as she realised Varg knew her secret.
"That is not important, brother!" she snapped, "What is causing these infuriating malfunctions?"
The prince didn't answer at first. He had no need to. It was easy to distinguish the giggles and clunks beneath her toes.
Lexi's antennae squirmed. She hadn't imagined it after all! There was something in the machinery.
"The gremlins have escaped," Varg informed her.
"Gremlins…" mulled the princess, as her face morphed into a look of absolute horror.
"Technician Brook 50!" announced Jathro out of the blue.
"Excuse me, Technician 15?" responded a bewildered Lexi, who by now was hugging her chest to conserve heat.
"…the lowest ranking member of staff! Everything will be fixed shortly, my Exquisite Excellencies!"
He pressed a few keys and upon the screen came a picture of an officer in a helmet…which quite frankly looked the same as every other officer on the Zarantulus, but Jathro recognised it as the person they were after.
"Technician Brook 50, report to flight deck," he ordered, forgetting how difficult such a route might be, considering the aggravating behaviour of the doors.
Brook tried to reply but somehow his words became scrambled and indistinct.
"I cannot understand you, Technician 50! Repeat what you said!"
Brook probably did so, but nobody could make any more sense of what he stated the second time as they did the first.
"It appears the communication system is now also defective," concluded Jathro with a wince.
At that moment, the low temperature was joined by soft winds, which rapidly became more forceful, until eventually it turned the thick snowfall into a raging blizzard.
"EVACUATE THE FLIGHT DECK!" shrieked Lexi.
Crewmembers bolted through the breach. Jathro bent his head down and braved the storm as he used the computer to seal the king from the turbulent weather, before diving out through the hole into the corridor.
Lexi sat on the floor and pressed her hands to her mouth as she removed the numbness from her fingers. Reptilian Nekross skin was definitely not geared up for the arctic!
"Relocate to transporter room!" commanded Varg, shaking the frost from his tentacles. He had noticed on the computer screen that no gremlins had yet infiltrated it, even though it had been the place where they were initially released.
Huddling together, they all made their way down the passage, stopping briefly at a storage facility to grab some computers that they would set up to monitor the gremlins, before resuming the journey. It was not long before they ran into a major obstacle.
Whilst at the frontline of the procession, Jathro's attention was drawn to some wild bloops coming from his gauntlet. He checked to see what the fuss was…and his face fell. Already the group had made it through several tunnels, often having to demolish doors, and by now they were approaching yet another entrance. Varg had his weapon in position and was just about to shoot it down…
"Excuse me, my Exquisite Excellency," interrupted Technician 15, "The readings from my device indicate that the environmental controls have been tampered with beyond that door. It is not safe to enter. The oxygen levels are below breathability."
"Then we cannot reach the transporter room!" exclaimed Lexi, "The only route that will lead us there is through the next corridor!"