Countdown to Mindshatter
A "My Life as a Teenage Robot" Fanfic
Chapter Eight – No Turning Back
"This is General Brohammer to all units. All units, I am ordering Security Lockdown Level Three. I want every entrance to that ship closed off!" The tone of his voice added: and I want it done five minutes ago. He growled with genuine anger, but his granite face hid a feeling of dread deep in the pit of his stomach. Even as he marched towards the security checkpoint which guarded the ramp to the starship's bridge, his mind was putting together a situation analysis. He'd always had a talent for taking seemingly unrelated facts and stitching them together into the big picture. And he didn't like the picture he saw right now, not one bit. "General Brohammer to all units, I am ordering the immediate detention of Andrew Nabholtz. He may be on his way to the flight hangar. If he resists, use of force is authorized."
"What!?!" gasped Jenny, as she raced across the grounds to catch up with the grizzled old soldier. The general's order had sent the entire base scrambling into a frenzy of activity; sirens shattered the air with a piercing wail. Jenny suddenly found herself dodging and weaving through a crowd of soldiers sprinting towards pre-assigned positions – and carrying submachine guns. "Overreact much?!? General, what the heck are you doing?!? Okay, maybe Drew's acting a little crazy, but he's not dangerous!"
"Boy's hands can turn into giant blades that slice through concrete," he shot back. "That not dangerous enough for you?" Brohammer showed his ID to the checkpoint guard, and pressed his thumb against a fingerprint scanner. "Wouldn't you agree he's acting irrationally? Behaving suspiciously?"
"Well, yeah, but … I mean, come on! He's been through a lot, General!" Jenny clasped her hands together, pleading. "Just let me talk to him! We go to school together. He's my friend!"
"A friend who just attacked you and rendered you unconscious," Brohammer said matter-of-factly. He snapped his walkie-talkie to his mouth. "All units, begin a sweep through the ship …"
Everything was moving too quickly for her. "This is nuts! Why are you doing this?!?"
The general turned and stared at her with stone cold eyes. "The boy takes off, after hearing a detailed briefing on our defense strategy and secret plans for fighting the Cluster. He hoodwinks you into a supply tent so he can shut you off, then gives you a note saying that he's flying off to Cluster Prime of all places – on the day before they launch a massive attack against us. He's already committed a federal crime by impersonating a military officer. And you've said yourself, he's plum loco over that robot girl that was captured by Queen Vexus. It all adds up to one thing – he's a security risk. He has sensitive information that could be used to bargain for the robot girl's freedom."
"Bargain? Security risk?!? What are you saying?!?"
Brohammer checked the energy clip on his pistol, and switched off the safety. "I believe that Andrew Nabholtz may be trying to defect."
Jenny's jaw nearly came unhinged. "No! That's crazy! Drew would never betray us …"
"We don't know that for sure, and we can't afford to take the chance," he said, as he gestured for a pair of soldiers to accompany him. "My priority is the safety and security of the planet Earth. If you care about your friend, XJ-9 … then the best thing you can do for him is stop him."
Hangar Two was an immense, green-walled metal cavern that could have easily held two football fields, but it held something of much greater value to the Earth's military: a full compliment of fully functional Cluster spaceships. Workers and scientists prowled all around the insect-like craft, examining them for useful intelligence and scientific study. The task of guarding the ships and the scientists fell to a group of twenty soldiers, who had been grousing about their 'babysitting' duty until the security emergency had been declared. Their squad leader hadn't quite believed the general's order at first, but he sent back an acknowledgement on his radio, and confirmed that the hangar entrance was sealed, and the massive ten-story-tall sliding doors were locked shut. Now he and his men were fanning out over the huge hangar deck, scanning the shadows for anything that looked like it didn't belong.
"Keep sharp, boys," said the sergeant, walking between two rows of stacked barrels. "Just got word that the android attacked a pair of guards and left a drone prisoner babbling like a lunatic."
"Man, and here I thought the guy was kind of all right," said a young corporal, his voice sad with disillusionment. "Hey sarge – how the heck are we supposed to find a shape shifter, anyway? I mean … he could look just like me. He could look just like you. How am I s'pose to know that you're really you, anyway? I mean, you could say that you're you, but then even if you weren't you, you'd still say that you're you to make me think you're you …"
"Shaddup," groaned the sergeant, as he checked behind a pile of barrels stacked against the wall. He thought he'd seen movement in the pile … maybe even from one of the barrels itself. Then he realized that one of the barrels was a shiny, silver color – with green stripes. He nervously edged closer and closer, with his rifle drawn, half expecting it to come to life and pounce on him at any moment. He was just a few feet away now, and the android hadn't made his move. He gingerly reached out and tapped on the top of the barrel with the muzzle of his gun … then he inched closer and rapped on it with his knuckles …
"Just a stupid barrel of oil," he mumbled, shaking his head. He turned to resume his search …
And tripped over a long, twisting fuel hose that snaked out of the wall and twisted across the deck – a fuel hose that hadn't been there ten seconds ago. The sergeant spilled to the floor with a loud thud, and stared in amazement as the end of the hose raised itself off the floor and spawned a doughy, silver-green head with an annoyed face. "Oh, thanks a lot, Mister Dumb Luck!" shouted Drew. "Jeez, what's a guy gotta do to catch a break around here?"
So much for the element of surprise. He catapulted himself into the air to avoid another charging soldier. Now the rest of the guards, fully alerted, came running in his direction, yelling for him to surrender. He bounced over their heads in a surreal splash of shiny molasses, a living fountain of quicksilver that flowed between legs and through their fingers. The soldiers fumed in frustration – trying to catch Drew was like trying to scoop up a bucket of water with a pasta strainer. With every swerve and every bounce, he drew closer and closer to his target …
The captured Cluster Stealth Wasp. True to its name, the sleek, tapered alien craft bore an uncanny resemblance to a fifty-foot yellow-and-black-striped insect. Barbed fins and stubby, jagged wings jutted out from its nose and midsection at odd angles, and its bulbous canopy had the appearance of an ugly, swollen eye. Its sleek belly was marred by an ugly, thirty foot long steel barrel that had just recently been bolted on – the infamous Plink Pudding Cannon. But more importantly, the Stealth Wasp had two other features not present on any other spacecraft in the hangar; a hyperdrive engine, and a cloaking device that the scientists believed could render it almost completely invisible. That made it perfect for Drew's outrageous plan. And the soldiers knew that.
Drew reverted to humanoid form and froze in shock, as a semi-circle of soldiers surrounded the Wasp and took aim at him their rifles. They gave him one final warning to surrender peacefully, then he heard the click of safeties being switched off. Terror gripped his gooey insides like a cold fist – it was unnerving to see the good guys pointing guns at you. Well, it's not like I expected them to just let me take the darn thing. With lightning quickness, he tackled the nearest soldier and dissolved his rifle into nano-goo. Then he grew a long, curved blade out of his right arm, and swung it viciously through the air – cutting a neat slice out of a nearby barrel of lubrication fluid. Super-slippery oil gushed onto the deck, and disorientated soldiers crashed onto their backs with their arms and legs flailing wildly …
But not all of them. Four soldiers rushed between Drew and the Wasp, and their rifles barked to life with automatic fire. The teen android frantically twisted his body into a silver-green pretzel, but dozens of bullets slammed into his chest anyway, each ballistic punch kicking up a splash of silvery sludge. Drew's body was becoming pockmarked with tiny craters, and more guards were on the way …
Then out of nowhere, the high-pitched scream of a buzzsaw filled the air. Drew watched in bewilderment as a large rotary blade punched through the thick metal deck plating. It was carving a circle out of the floor, right beneath the soldiers' feet! By the time the soldiers realized that something funny was going on, it was too late. With a deafening clang, the floor suddenly disappeared out from under them, and they plummeted out of sight to the next deck below. As Drew's body bubbled with self-repair activity, he heard the roar of powerful rocket engines, and a large figure streaked up through the newly carved hole …
"Looks like you've gotten yourself into quite the pickle here," smirked the Silver Shell.
"YOU!?!" babbled Drew, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. Of all the people in the world he least expected to see right now … "What the heck are you doing here?!?"
The Shell folded his arms with a cocky smile. "Me?!? You're one to talk, mister. Stealing an alien spaceship from the military, to fly on an illegal rescue mission to Cluster Prime? Boy, that's not going to look good on your college applications."
Drew pushed his way past the towering robot hero to get to the Stealth Wasp, and with a twist of a handle, its canopy pivoted open like a giant clam. "Look, I don't have time for this. Okay, so you know what I'm doing. Then you should also know, I'm not gonna let you stop me!"
"Stop you?" The Silver Shell leapt over Drew's head, and plopped himself down in the Wasp's rear seat. "I'm coming with you."
Drew was utterly flabbergasted. "Sheldon, have you completely lost what passes for your insane little mind!?! Get you big shiny butt outta there before I …"
He was interrupted by a fresh round of shouting and gunfire, as a group of reinforcements poured into Hangar Two. Drew cringed as he saw the soldiers closing in on him; this was all going bad in a hurry, but he had come too far to stop now. His arm stretched over to the hangar's wall, and flipped a giant orange knife-switch. With a sharp metallic growl, the massive ten-story panels cracked open, and slowly began to roll apart. But he still had to get the Wasp powered up, and the soldiers were going to be on him in a matter of seconds …
Then the Silver Shell deployed a short cannon from his massive forearm, and launched a salvo of canisters in a protective circle around the ship. The canisters struck the deck plating and burst apart with jets of pressurized gas, forming a thick curtain of obnoxious green vapor. The instant the soldiers came into contact with it, they started to cough and clutch desperately at their throats. Then they dropped to the floor like flies, with shriveled faces, watering eyes, and the occasional twitching leg.
"A little something I whipped up out of some month-old gym socks," chuckled the Shell, staring down at the stupefied android. "So are you getting on board this thing, or what? Because I'm not getting out. And its' not like you have time to argue with me …"
"Buy why do … but you can't … but you're not coming with … aarrrghhh!!!" Drew grimaced and pulled his silver-green hair in frustration … then swung himself up and into the Stealth Wasp's front seat. Sheldon was right, he didn't have time to argue with him now; he wasn't even sure that he had time to get the engines started. First things first. He plugged one of his fingers into a data socket on the Wasp's control panel – right below the 3-D radar, where the pilot-drone's downloaded memory files had said it would be – and transmitted the secret flight code. Suddenly the instruments glowed to life in hues of red and blue and green, and a deep thrum vibrated through the fuselage of the Wasp, as it went through an automated startup sequence. I can't believe that actually worked, thought Drew, fighting back a wave of nervousness. I just hot-wired a spaceship. Oh crap, what the heck am I doing?
"So do you … know how to fly this thing?" said the Shell, as he fastened himself into his seat.
"Well, if by 'know', you mean 'downloaded the manual', then … yeah, sure I know." Drew morphed a data screen out of his left forearm to display a checklist, and started to push buttons and flip switches as quickly and carefully as he could. The whine of the Wasp's turbines grew higher in pitch. Needles on power gauges snapped to flight status. Pressure monitors climbed to one hundred percent. The canopy lowered and locked into place. Drew's fingers hovered cautiously over a pair of yellow-and-black-striped switches … then he gulped hard, closed his eyes, and flipped them on. A eerie, warbling howl emanated from the engines, and he felt a shudder run through the ship's metal frame …
Drew could see soldiers outside, pounding on the canopy, shouting for him to turn off the engines. He clasped his hands around the twin control sticks, mumbled a prayer, and pulled back. Nice and gentle, just like on Brad's GameStation. Oh man, oh man, oh man …
And the Stealth Wasp surged into the air like a bucking bronco, surprising him with its hair-trigger stick response. Drew grit his teeth and clenched the control sticks too tightly, struggling to get a feel for how the Wasp handled – the new addition of the Pudding Cannon was throwing it off balance. A sharp jolt shook the Wasp as its tail fin collided with the ceiling. Oh jeez, I've been flying for five whole seconds and I already hit something! Then it lunged down again, and then it spun to the right, its motions growing wilder as Drew overcompensated with the maneuvering controls. Blasts of engine exhaust knocked the soldiers off their feet, and the engine stuttered intermittently for some unknown reason, like an old pickup truck that couldn't get out of first gear. Drew frantically scanned the instruments and tried to bring the Wasp to a steady hover. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon …
"Aaaaaahhh!!! How are you going to get us to Cluster Prime if you can't even get us out of the hangar?" screamed the Shell, holding on for dear life.
Drew gradually brought the rocking motion under control, and nudged the Wasp towards the hangar doors. "Hey, it's my first hijacking, alright? So why don't you just keep quiet and … oh, crap."
The way outside was blocked by a hovering robot girl, with a ten-foot wide aqua-blue stop sign deployed from her hand.
Jenny did not look happy.
She deployed a microphone from her chest, and her pigtails converted into a pair of bullhorns. "I'm only going to say this once, Drew … put the ship back down, right now." She propped her fists on her hips and glared right at Drew with a look that could have set an iceberg ablaze. She felt mad and hurt, upset and betrayed, and horribly worried all at the same time. She couldn't believe that the big idiot was actually going to do something like this! Didn't he realize how much trouble he was in?!? Didn't the soldiers with the machine guns give him a clue?!? And what in the world was the Silver Shell doing in the Wasp with him? How many more friends was she going to lose to the Cluster?
She saw him shake his head through the Wasp's canopy, while it bobbled and rocked in mid-air just a few yards in front of her. "I can't do that, Jenny. I am going back to Cluster Prime. Don't try to stop me." His eyes added, please.
"Have you two guys gone totally psycho?!?" she shouted over her PA, waving her arms in the air hysterically. "Drew, how do you expect to help Ally by getting yourself killed?!? Put the ship back down now, you big dummy, or I'll pull you out of there and kick your butt to Cluster Prime!" Come on, please, you're already in so much trouble, don't make it worse …
"No, XJ-9, you don't understand!" yelled the Silver Shell, hoping to persuade her. "I know this seems unusual, but I'm doing this for you … really!"
"For me?!? How could you possibly be doing this for me?!? You're as crazy as he is!!!" Why was the Shell going with him? Was he helping Drew? Were they both really turning into criminals now?!? Why did stuff like this keep happening to her?!?
Drew's hands tensed on the control sticks, and he gently nudged the Wasp backwards into the hangar, not liking any of his options at the moment. If he landed, he'd be arrested and thrown in jail. But how could he possibly get past Jenny without hurting her? His eyes flitted to a large red button on the end of the right control stick – the trigger for the Wasp's laser cannons. Just how badly did he want to save Ally? "Jenny, if you're really my friend, you'll get out of my way right now!"
She felt hot alcohol tears well up in her eyes; what an unfair thing to say! "If you two were really my friends, you wouldn't make me stop you! But it looks like you guys aren't giving me any choice!"
Jenny's robotic arms ratcheted out to her sides, stretching over a hundred feet in length, and grabbed onto the massive, sliding hangar doors. The big nutjob will have to land the ship if he doesn't have anywhere to go! Grimacing with intensity, she deployed a pair of clamps from each wrist to lock onto the giant doors. Then she pulled on them with all her might, reeling her arms back into her body, and sealing up the hangar bay once more. With the extra boost of power she got from the Z-Pack, the doors felt as light as a feather to her. But then she realized that the doors were closing too quickly; in her stressed condition, yet another power surge had supercharged her servos. The building-sized doors slammed together with a horrific crash, like a pair of colliding trains, sending a thundering vibration through the entire hangar …
And the ten-story panels heaved and buckled as if they were made of tinfoil. With an ear-splitting screech, the giant sliding panels broke free from their guide rails, and ripped away from the starship's hull. The panels, each larger than a baseball diamond, dropped towards a crowd of army technicians working underneath the ship, two hundred feet below. Jenny gasped in horror … oh, cripes, it happened again … and those poor men were about to be flattened like insects! In a blaze of Z-Pack assisted super-speed, she rocketed out of the hangar and dove past the falling door panels like they were falling in slow motion. She knocked over fifteen men and two trucks when she landed, just from the force of the hurricane winds in her wake. But she was in time to extend her arms, and expand her hands to twenty times their normal size. She caught the fifty-ton metal plates with half a second to spare …
But now Hangar Two was completely open to the outside world. With Jenny busy on the ground, there was nothing standing in Drew's way. With the twist of a yellow handle, magnetic clamps released along the belly of the Stealth Wasp, and the Plink Pudding Cannon detached and smashed into the hangar deck. Then Drew slammed the control sticks forward, the Wasps's engines whined to full power, and the yellow-and-black spaceship shot out of the hangar like a bullet from a rifle barrel.
"Hoooo-leeeeee crap holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap holy crap …" Trees, telephone poles, electrical towers, and a forest of other urban hazards screamed past them at insane speed, seemingly only inches away. The acceleration from the Wasp's engines mashed the robots deep into their padded seats; Drew felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest. He hadn't expected everything to happen so dang fast. And unlike Brad's GameStation, there was no "Pause" button on the console of this spaceship. Roads and parking lots and buildings flashed by on either side of him in a blur of brick and asphalt, and the magnitude of what he'd just done began to sink in …
The Silver Shell lunged forward and pounded on the front seat. "LOOK OUT!" he shrieked, twisting Drew's head to face forward …
To see the glass-and-steel office towers of Tremerton's business district looming in front of him like a brick wall. Drew's fists wrapped around the control sticks in a death grip, and he yanked so hard that he nearly wrenched them clean off the instrument panel. The Wasp's nose snapped up with stunning agility, and the alien craft yanked itself skyward into a vertical climb, almost surfing the plate-glass windows of the Bank of Tremorton Building. The Shell grabbed onto his seat's armrests and screamed like a little girl; it was an effort of willpower for Drew just to keep his eyes open, and he could only imagine what was going through the minds of the terrified people inside the building. In seconds, the Wasp screamed past the building's antenna, punched through a scattering of puffy white clouds, and arced over into steady, level flight … except for the fact that it was upside-down.
"Why don't you watch where you're flying, you big dummy!!!" shouted the Shell, shaking his fists in mortified rage. "You're gonna get us both killed! Here, let me drive!" He reached for the back-seat control sticks and gave them a twist … sending the Steath Wasp through half a dozen gut-churning barrel rolls before finally coming to rest right-side-up.
Drew snapped his head around and stretched his neck to get right into the Shell's metal face. "Touch those sticks again and I'll eat your stupid tin can suit for lunch, Sheldon! If you don't like it, you can jump out of the cockpit right now! What the heck were you thinking when …"
His rant was cut short by a shrill, buzzing alarm on the instrument panel. Multiple colored blips flashed angrily on the radar scope, coming in fast at ten o'clock. Drew stared at the radar, not quite understanding or believing what he was seeing … then the sky around them lit up with a blinding green light. Bolts of seething plasma energy screeched across the nose of the Stealth Wasp, and seconds later they saw where the shots had come from: two huge, ominous-looking Skyway Patrol hovercraft. Their black-and-purple silhouettes emerged from a bank of clouds, like a pair of ravenous sharks on the lookout for their next meal. Except these sharks had plasma cannons deployed from their bellies.
"Attention stolen alien craft, this is Skyway Patrol," bellowed a powerful speaker. "That was your one and only warning shot. Land immediately, or we will be forced to destroy you!"
The Silver Shell's faceplate nearly fell off. "Destroy us?!? Boy, they're not messing around, are they? M-m-maybe we better do as they say!"
"Not a chance. We're making a run for it. If you want to do something useful, see if you can get that cloaking device to work!" Drew brought a new file up on his data screen, tossed another row of switches, and the Wasp's fusion engine howled to life. A surge of raw power kicked him in the butt; it was as if the sun were exploding behind his back. The Wasp's nose pitched up into another vertical climb. A hail of lethal plasma bolts danced around the canopy like green rainfall, but the fusion engine was rapidly putting distance between the spaceship and the Skyway Patrol. The plasma bolts soon faded away, as did the deep blue color of the surrounding sky. Drew glanced sideways in awe, watching the horizon fall away into a brilliant blue curve that glowed starkly against perfect, infinite blackness. If he hadn't been so terrified, he might have thought it was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen in his life …
A pale blue streak blazed past him at terrific speed, nearly scaring him half to death. He curled the Wasp into a tight, lurching turn to get away from it, but the mystery object performed a stunningly loop-de-loop and nimbly pulled into a parallel course. Drew and the Shell twisted around in their seats, trying to see what was chasing them … then they looked straight up to see Jenny against a backdrop of stars, with her boosters deployed, frantically waving her arms to get their attention.
A speaker on the control panel crackled to life, and he heard Jenny's voice pleading with him over the radio link. "Drew, this is insane! Turn around and bring the spaceship back to the park! Guys, this is serious! The army thinks you're trying to defect to the Cluster!"
He looked up at her with a pained expression – he knew he was betraying a good friend. "I don't care what they think, Jenny! Ally risked her life to help us, and all those people, and nobody was going to do a thing to help her back! That is such a …"
Another new alarm cried out from the panel, and Drew's eyes nearly leapt out of their sockets. "Incoming missiles?!? Geez, I didn't think they were gonna be this ticked off at me!" Two air-to-space missiles had just boosted out of the atmosphere, and were rapidly closing on the Stealth Wasp. He grew another pair of silver-green arms, and desperately scanned his downloaded piloting files. "Hang on back there, I'm going to try to get the hyperdrive fired up! Crap, wish I had more time to do this …"
"Omigosh, guys, now they're shooting missiles at you! You're going to get yourselves killed!"
Drew's four hands were flying madly over the controls. "Thanks for the news flash, Jen! Hey, Shell-dude, it sure would be nice to have a cloaking device right about now, wouldn't it?!?"
The Silver Shell was frantically flipping switches on his own set of consoles. "I'm trying! Look, none of these controls are labeled in English! I don't speak barcode, all right?!?"
A new voice on the radio joined the tense conversation. "Attention Andrew Nabholtz, this is General Brohammer of the Space Defense Forces. You have two missiles locked on to your tail, and they are closing fast. Surrender and turn off your engines, and we'll abort the missiles. The XJ-9 will tow you safely back to the base. I can't let you go off to Cluster Prime, son. Come back home."
"Not gonna happen, general. I'm sorry." Drew activated the hyperdrive's power up sequence …
"General, you can't do this!" interrupted Jenny, desperate for some sanity. "He's not trying to defect!"
"All right, XJ-9," crackled the general's voice, "if you can disable the Wasp's engines, we'll abort the missiles. But I want him stopped by any means necessary. Is that understood, little lady?!?"
"O-o-okay, sir," she stammered, as she eased into another loop-de-loop to drop behind the Stealth Wasp. Now she was cruising just behind the insect-shaped ship, safely above the fiery plume of its fusion engine, easily matching its movements as they hurtled deeper into space. Jenny gulped hard, her eyes quivering slightly as her elbow cracked open. The familiar segments of her laser-limb slid out and snapped into place, and she took aim at the alien spaceship. I'm about to shoot down my friends, she winced to herself. The Wasp banked desperately left and right, but there was no way that it could possibly outmaneuver the teen super-robot. She could outfly anything in the air or in outer space, even more so now with her Z-Pack and all its limitless energy …
"Oh no …" she gasped. "General! I can't do this! What if I have another power surge from the Z-Pack when I fire?!? I'll blow them up!"
"Don't do it, Jen. Don't do it." Hyperdrive power levels crept past fifty percent. They were climbing too slowly. Drew wasn't sure whether they could jump before the missiles hit …
"XJ-9, that ship is to be stopped by any means necessary. That's a direct order!"
"There's got to be some other way …" Jenny looked behind her, and saw twin fiery pinpricks moving through the stars at spectacular speed. The missiles. "Drew, shut off the engines!"
"Locking in course and navigation vectors … uh, is that supposed to be a four or a nine? Aw, screw it. Hyperdrive at seventy-five percent … Yo, Double-S! Make with the cloaking device already!"
"It's not working!" yelled the Silver Shell, in a near panic. "I don't think you can use it at the same time as the hyperdrive. Missile impact in twenty seconds!"
"You'll be labelled a thief and a traitor, Andrew," said Brohammer. "Deserting your friends and family on the eve of alien attack – is that how you want your parents to remember you?"
Drew cringed from the general's words, and flipped the safety cover off of a large red button. "Hyperdrive at ninety percent. Hang onto your lunch, Shell, I got no idea if this thing is going to work."
"Will you guys just come to your senses?" Jenny shouted in a frenzy. "There's still time! We can work this out! General, please, just stop the missiles!"
"Negative, XJ-9. Either fire on that ship or get out of the way."
"Missile impact in ten seconds!" shouted the Shell. "Turn on the hyperdrive!"
"It's not ready yet! Jenny, don't shoot! I've gotta do this!"
Jenny's arm shook nervously as she pointed her laser-limb at the Wasp's engine. Firing on her friends might be the only way to save them from themselves, and from the missiles … or it might kill them right now in the depths of space. "Drew, turn those engines off right now! Turn them off! Please!"
"Okay, full charge on the hyperdrive. Oh, crap, here we go, here we go …"
"Son, you take that ship into hyperspace and you will be charged with treason. You'll be tagged as a Cluster spy, and a collaborator, and an enemy of the World Senate. You will never be able to set foot on the planet Earth again. Never."
"Five seconds to missile impact! Gaaah, I can't look!" The Shell clamped his hands over his eyes …
Alarms and sirens blared through the cockpit, and Drew closed his eyes, and jabbed a silver-green finger down hard on the red button. I'm coming, Ally. I'm coming. Oh, crap, I must be out of my mind …
Jenny grimaced with gut-wrenching agony, torn between her duty to protect the Earth and her loyalty to her friends. She watched the death-bringing missiles slice through space with amazing speed, homing in on the stolen Cluster Stealth Wasp … then they disappeared into a pair of explosions two seconds prior to impact. A pair of precision shots from Jenny's laser-limb had destroyed the weapons in the nick of time. Now, if she concentrated hard enough, maybe she could shoot out the spaceship's engines before …
The Stealth Wasp was suddenly enveloped in a cocoon of brilliant light and distorted space. A surreal kaleidoscope of color raged into existence around the ship, quickly swirling into a Technicolor vortex. The Wasp had the briefest appearance of being stretched, as if it were made of silly putty … then with a snap and a flash, it flung itself into the vortex, and disappeared from sight. The space-distortion dissipated away into nothingness. And there was nothing left but the stars.
Continued in Chapter Nine / Twenty-three Hours to Cluster Dawn
