Chapter 13

Fred and Friday raced down the hall. The commotion continued to rave behind them. Fred couldn't help but catch a glimpse back as he ran. Brains was on the floor, clutching her stomach. Maverick turned his beady eyes from the girl to him. He went to step over the pained agent, but she grabbed hold of his ankle. Maverick tripped on fell flat on his face.

Fred stood on something loose. His foot slipped and he landed on his side. Friday stopped to lend a hand.

"Come on, come on!" Friday said. "We got to move."

"I'm moving. You don't have to rush me." Fred responded.

Friday flew down the hall. Fred stumbled to his feet and looked down to where he slipped. The only object to be seen was a blaster. It must have been the one Maverick had. Fred let out a hum while he reached down and picked it up. The blaster was small, but surprisingly heavy, and cold to the touch. He couldn't help but notice an uncanny resemblance the weapon had with the one the hero used in that movie he watched with his friends that morning, if only he could remember its title. He briefly wondered what time it was now. It had only been hours since Maverick met him face-to-face in his own bedroom, but today felt like an eternity.

Another strike from the two fighting brought him back to life. Maverick was trying his hardest to get past Agent Brains. His every move, however, was hindered by the girl. Fred continued moving, eventually they were far away from the fight. He caught up with Friday.

"What have you got there?" Friday asked. The duo slowed to a halt, and Fred showed him his findings. "A blaster? Where did you get that?"

"I found it when I stepped on it. I guess it must have belonged to Maverick." Fred held in gun upright like the guy in the movie, almost toppling over due to its weight.

The nozzle waved dangerously close at Friday. He brushed the blaster away. "Hey, watch where you point that thing. You could hurt somebody with that." He stared with a look of disapproval at Fred. "It may be a non-lethal weapon, but…" He paused and considered how to get back to what's important. "It looks pretty heavy, so don't throw it at anyone."

"Whatever." Fred said as he walked down the hall, the blaster held loosely at his side. "I hope you don't mind me using this. I'm hurt. I'm tired. I'm hungry. And quite frankly, I just want to see this finished so I can go home."

Friday stayed behind the boy and watched him, studying how he held the gun and the steps he took. This was a side of Fred he had never seen before. Fred was no stranger to perilous situations, whether it be from his average everyday life or from one of Braianna's missions. He may not have been the bravest, or the strongest, or the smartest, but he always had a tough spirit.

"Hey!" Friday rushed beside Fred. "That looks just like the gun that guy in the movie used."

"Yeah, I was just thinking that."

Finally, they turned a corner and were greeted with a big, grey door. A sign was illuminated above it: Engine room.

How convenient… Fred thought. Unlike everything else in this place.

The two of them approached the door and it opened. Behind the door stood an army of guards, enough to take up the entire span of the engine room. Everyone drew their eyes towards the door and stared at the boy and the robot that stood there. Everyone froze. Fred and Friday darted their eyes around while remaining as still as statues, seeing the hundred pairs of eyes that were trained on them.

"Ummm…" Fred murmured. He cracked a smile and waved. "Hi?"

"Hello there." One of the guards responded.

All of a sudden, all the guards trained their rifles at them. Before Friday could react, a barrage of shots hurdled towards him. He was struck several times by the beams, causing him to shake with electricity. He tumbled to the floor, hurt, dazed, and smouldering.

Fred's stone demeanour faded instantly. He watched as his friend fell in a heap of blue sparks. He looked back the battalion of men who were now training their sights towards him. He felt paralysed, locked in a cage of fear. His mouth was agape. Sweat trickled down his forehead. The dinky blaster in his hands became a million times heavier. His brain wanted to drop the gun, but his fingers refused to let go. His thoughts shot back to Brains, the girl who stayed behind to buy them time. He prayed that she was okay, but a deeper, darker side feared the worst. The massive engines stood behind the crowd of men; they were so close, yet so far away. If he gave up now, every single race in the galaxy would be doomed to extinction.

He clenched his teeth together, the beginnings of a scream were brewing in his throat. And then, his mind went blank. He shut his eyes, raised the blaster, and started pulling the trigger. He screamed as the blasts filled the air. His ears were drowned out with thunderous noise. He felt a hot, buzzing sensation all around him. Tremors travelled up his arms with each shot; the blaster jerked in every direction as if it were trying to get free. He fired shot after shot in a state of blind panic. He didn't move at all, he just stood glued to a single spot and pulled the trigger again and again

The blaster, many shots later, ran dry. Fred continued to pull the trigger, only to hear the audible sound of a harmless click. He worked up the sense to stop. His arms ached having held the heavy object outstretched. His fingers went slack, allowing the gun to slip from his grasp. He heard the clack as it hit the floor. For a long while, he remained where he was with his eyes sealed shut. Everything was eerily quiet. He hesitated to open his eyes, afraid of what was ready to greet him.

Working up the courage, he peeped an eyelid open. He opened both eyes and gasped at the sight. Every single guard was down. They were paralysed, in pain, but thankfully alive. The engine room was filled with agonised groans and whimpers. Fred glanced down at himself. He was untouched. He was surrounded by the smouldering, black holes where the crew had fired back. They had missed every shot, leaving a neat silhouette around where he was standing.

"Did I…?" Fred stuttered. He reached into his pocket and found his dice. "Did I do that?"

"…That was unbelievable…" Fred heard Friday's weak voice behind him. Friday was smouldering black, and looked worse than death. Friday swayed upright, but struggled to fly.

Fred rushed to him. "Are you okay?"

He helped Friday up. Friday tried to hold up his cannon for an arm, but it was fruitless. He switched it back to his hand. "I'm not feeling good, Fred." He said before coughing. "I can hardly lift my hands."

"You'll be okay." Fred gave him a shoulder to lean on. "We'll get you some help soon. You'll be up and about in no time."

Fred carried Friday into the room, climbing over the floor of navy uniforms. He carefully tried to step around them. With each man he accidentally stepped on, they grunted, and he apologised. They limped over to the huge engines. They looked big and menacing, but were as quiet as a whisper.

"You're doing great, Friday. But I need you to just help me with one more thing…" Fred reached the terminal at the foot of the engine. "Can you turn into something that can destroy this thing?"

Friday gaped upwards, taking in the extent of the cylinders. "Sorry, Fred. I don't have the power to transform…"

Mud cakes… Fred cursed in his head. "How about helping me shut this down instead? Can you help me with that?"

"I'll… I'll try…"

Brains staggered back as another strike landed on her. She fought against her protesting legs, which wanted to go limp like rubber. Her head was dotted with even more bruises. Every muscle screamed out in pain. But she couldn't give up, she had to keep fighting.

Maverick sought to run past her, but the agent worked up the strength to jump in his path. She charged at him with a side kick. Maverick caught her foot and twisted it away. Brains' body followed, and she was sent into a spin. She made several complete rotations in the air before crashing down hard.

"Get out of my way, Miss Robeaux!" Maverick hissed, his patience was being tested.

He made another attempt to get past. Brains jumped off the floor and drove two feet towards him. Maverick stepped to the side, grabbed her by the ankle and wrist, spun her around, and threw her down the hall. Brains slid across the carpet. The fibres rubbed against her suit, heating up with friction.

Suddenly, Maverick received a call from his device. He reached into his pocket to retrieve it.

"Captain. We are nearing the co-ordinates now. Everything is all set and we are ready to fire." The voice on the device spoke.

"Excellent." Maverick responded. "You may fire when ready."

Brains shot to her feet. "No!" She charged at Maverick. Before she could lash out, her adversary stretched his arm out. She ran straight into his waiting claw and was grabbed. His bony fingers, with their unyielding grip, wrapped around the entire circumference of her thin neck. Brains was hoisted off the ground. Her legs dangled helplessly above the carpet. She clawed at his fingers to no avail.

"However, I think I should mention that that boy, Fred, and the Annihilator unit have subdued all the guards in the engine room. They're attempting to shut it down, but I've sent back-up to apprehend them." The voice on the intercom continued.

Maverick brought the device, still clutched in his other hand, to his mouth. "All the guards are down? That's not possible." While he spoke, Brains continued to choke and squirm in his grasp. "It must have been Annihilator Nine-Oh-Nine-Oh-Nine-Oh-Nine-Er…"

"Believe it or not, Captain…" The voice paused. "It was Fred who did it."

Maverick went white as if he'd seen a ghost. He tried to picture how the scene played out in his mind; a scene where a short and skinny teenage boy waltzes into a room filled with a hundred heavily armed and highly trained guards, and at the odds of a million to one, somehow defeated them all. He used to be frightened of that boy, now that boy scared the living daylights out of him.

A chuckle snapped him back to reality. Agent Brains was smiling, even though she was forcing herself to breathe. She managed to say, "What's wrong? Are you scared?"

"Silence!" Maverick tightened his grip. Her smile vanished. Her red eyes started to roll back in their sockets. "He may have reached the engine, but he won't shut it down in time." He spoke those words with self-assurance, ignoring a small, nagging feeling in the back of his mind. "I assure you, the new universe is inevitable."

Fred was just mashing the buttons on the terminals, hoping that if he pressed enough, and in a particular order, something would happen. Friday floated close to one of the many monitors, watching the many shapes, numbers, and letters go by. The symbols on screen didn't mean a thing to either of them.

"How are you doing over on your end, Friday?" Fred asked.

"No luck…"

The robotic voice booms once again from everywhere. "Target location reached. Weapon charging. Firing in thirty seconds." Even though they couldn't see it, but outside the dreadnought, the artefact was being aimed. Several planets in the Calara system were in its line of fire. In just half a minute, those planets would turn from thriving metropolises to desolate wastelands.

"Oh, that's not good…" Friday murmured.

Fred swallowed a huge gulp at those words. He began to pound at the keys faster and stronger. He was in danger of breaking his own fingers at the rate he was going.

"Firing in twenty seconds."

As if things couldn't get any worse for the duo, they picked up the familiar sounded of marching footsteps. They were coming from the entrance. Friday spun around and spotted a steady line of reinforcements funnelling down the hall. Just like all the rest, these guys were driven by the same spark as everyone in Maverick's crew. The entered the room, unfazed by the newly paved floor of their comrades. They set their sights on the two people standing.

"Freeze!" The guy at the front spoke. "Step away from the terminal and put your hands where I can see them."

"Firing in ten seconds. Nine. Eight-"

The duo stopped. Fred looked back and saw the tide of men and their rifles pointed in both his and Friday's direction. He could hear the seconds ticking down from above.

Friday took one glance with tired eyes at his friend, and sighed. He slowly flew in front of Fred. He stretched his arms towards the soldiers, as if he was trying to push them away.

"Stay back." Friday called out.

"-Seven. Six. Five-"

Fred's thoughts turn once again to Brains. All he could think about was what she could be feeling. She stayed behind because she believed that he could succeed. Now that the doomsday clock was mere seconds away, she must feel let-down, betrayed that he had failed. Every single negative thought and emotions rolled into his mind. They would never be friends again. She would have no family or friends. She would be alone. She would be a failure.

Fred turned back to the console with a head hot with anger and eyes swelling with tears. He took one final look at the symbols on the screen. He balled his fists. The symbols were nothing but gibberish to him. He had come so far only to let a few shapes and colours stop him. If only he was smarter.

"-Four. Three-"

The guards, with their weapons drawn, approached the two. They grabbed Friday and dragged him away from Fred. He was too weak to resist. More guards surrounded Fred.

"Come on, kid." One of them said.

"-Two. One-"

In an outburst of anger, Fred raised both his fists and slammed them into the keyboard. Pain shot up his arms as his knuckles smashed into the keys.

Words appeared on the console, accompanied by a voice. "Engines offline."

Fred's eyes shot to life with those words. The guards were equally as surprised.

It went on. "Navigation offline."

Just then, the entire dreadnought spun to the right. Everyone was thrown to the side as the ship rotated.

"Fire."

The artefact discharged its incredible power. A blinding beam of white pierced the black vacuum. Thankfully, because the ship had changed course at the last moment, the blast shot off into deep space, hitting nothing.

The console continued to churn. "Artificial gravity offline."

The glue holding everyone to the floor failed on them. Fred flew up into the spacious room and spun head over heels. He waved his arms in a desperate bid to gain stability. He saw the floor and then the ceiling spin past his vision. He spotted an incoming wall and managed to kick his leg into it, using the wall to push himself outwards.

"Power offline." The lights went out. "Life support offline. Systems offline." Everyone could do nothing but wait in complete darkness and listen to the consoles non-stop drone. "Emergency power online. Life support online. Artificial gravity online." As soon as gravity kicked in, everyone dropped. Fred fell and landed on something soft in the darkness. "Power online."

The lights flicked back on. The sudden light was almost blinding after the unexpected blackness. Fred peered down to what he landed on: a small mountain of guards. He attempted to climb off them, but he had no ground to touch on.

Okay, enough with the falling down already! Fred muttered in his mind.

He gaped across the sea of navy, the waves churned as they got up. Friday emerged from under the surface, pulling a lone guard with him. The man balanced on Friday's cracked visor before slipping off.

"I'm okay." Friday waved his hands towards Fred.

The uniforms surrounding Fred began to ripple. One by one, the men rose. He could only watch as he was fenced in with nowhere to run. One of them stepped forward.

Fred shielded himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. My finger slipped."

The guard reached up and removed his helmet. "It's okay, kid." He said in a soft tone. "You've shut down the mind control. We're free."

Fred took his eyes off the man and looked at the others, they too showed no signs of hostility. Several of them began to help the paralysed victims, helping them up.

The man continued. "You may not realise it, but you just saved the universe." His tone changed. "But now's not the time to get comfy. We need to find that madman and end this."

The sudden shift in navigation and loss of gravity caught the ex-protector of guard. Maverick lost his grip on Brains' throat. The two of them fell apart and crumpled against the wall. The loss of gravity lifted them into the air, the lights went off then back on before they were pulled back down again.

The chandeliers rocked and clanked and smashed during the intense turbulence. One of them snapped off the chain and smashed to the floor when the gravity came back.

Maverick immediately got up, the discomfort that sparked in his hip (the body part that hit the ground first) was only a mild irritation thanks to all those years of physical training. He brushed strands of royal blue fluff off his attire. He fixed his shirt collar and sweater vest.

He found his device. "What in heaven's name just happened?" He waited for a response from his loyal crew, but received none. He repeated his query into the device, only to be met with silence again. A sudden though sprang to his head, making him tremble with fear. He used the device to scan the surrounding planets, and found that they had not been touched.

He did it. Maverick mused as he let the device slip from his grasp. Mr Luckpuig actually did it. He's ruined everything. What's worse: I knew this was going to happen.

Agent Brains lay where she lied, face down. Her slim body was unresponsive; she was not moving, she was still. Her head was facing the side and her eyes were closed. Maverick approached her, cautious for any sudden movement.

"Are you still alive, Miss Robeaux?" Maverick stood beside Brains. He wedged his shoe under her torso and rolled her so she was facing up. Brains' body remained limp, her head slumped in the other direction. Maverick looked down at her, wondering whether she was still in the land of the living. At first glance, anyone would have mistaken her for a cadaver.

He knelt down and brought his index and middle finger to Brains' neck. He pressed tight and felt the beat of a pulse. He checked her airwaves and heard the distinct sound of breathing. She was alive, but unconscious. It was of no surprise to Maverick. This little girl had received so much punishment in less than a day it was no wonder. However, the thing that did surprise Maverick was how she could take so much damage and yet still be able to stand and fight.

Maverick pondered for a while, considering his evaporating choice of options. His ship was running on emergency power, just enough to run vital systems. His once faithful crew would be free from his mind control, now they would be his enemies. The artefact cannot be fired, therefore his plan has come to a complete halt.

Looks like the new universe is going to have to wait… Maverick devilishly considered. Maybe it's time for a new plan.

He reached down and seized the agent by the hands. He dragged her comatose body over his shoulder. Her arms hung loose down Maverick's back. Up close, he could smell a mixture of charcoal and sweat on Brains' umber jumpsuit. With the agent in tow, he strolled down the hall.

"I'm glad you're still alive." Maverick whispered to the sleeping girl. "I'd hate to see you perish before your new role was complete."