Chapter 3

Kelly stared out the ship's window as Acmetropolis faded from their view. She sighed. "You know, we're taking a big risk here, leaving the kids there without us. What's gonna happen if something happens to us and they're all alone?"

Daniella looked at her, understandingly. "They'll still have Austin and Archer…well, they'll still have Austin. Besides, there's really no other way we could've done it. We couldn't possibly have taken them with us; if something happened to us, we'd all die along with our only possible successors. And we couldn't have stayed down there; then no matter what, the planet would definitely be destroyed…unless, of course, there's some sort of spell we could've done to destroy the meteor from afar, but I doubt there is."

"There's a spell for everything," Ryan pointed out.

"Yeah, but this is a bit complicated for that," said Wendy, "Not to mention the fact that by the time it'd be in range of our spells, we'd be too late."

"Point taken."

"I just hope something doesn't happen to the ship," Tech said, messing with the controls, "I recalibrated it and everything, but every once in a while it just goes all kaflooey."

BANG! The ship lurched and the alarm started going off.

"Like that."

Sarah slowly turned around. "Dad…why does it sound like the engines just stopped?"

"Well, that would be because the engines just stopped." Tech got under the control panel and started messing with the wires. "Lucky we left the atmosphere already or we would be tumbling toward solid ground—or drowning waters—at over 500 miles per hour."

"Yeah, how lucky is that?" asked Jack, sarcastically, "Instead, we're stuck in the never-ending, icy-cold, soul-sucking darkness of space."

"Thanks for that," Lucy snapped.

Tech quit messing with the wires. "There's nothing wrong with the controls. Someone's gonna have to check outside."

Ryan sighed and got up. "I'll do it. At least I don't have to move too much in fighting against anti-gravity to access the engine controls." He grabbed a suit and left.

"Be careful!" Sophie called after him.

"I know! I'm only saving the world every other day!"

Tech looked at his wife. "He can handle himself, So."

She half-smiled. "I know."

Ryan left the ship in the space suit and turned on his intercom. "Can you hear me?"

"Reading-you-loud-and-clear," Rev's voice came out of the system, "And-I-gotta-tell-you-this-idea-was-genius-'cause-it-would've-been-really-hard-to-communicate-if-we-didn't-have-an-intercom-system-helping-us—"

"Just tell me what to do!" Ryan snapped, interrupting.

Tech pushed Rev aside and took over the intercom, giving Rev and Ace the controls. "OK, do you see the engine?"

Ryan looked around. Finally, his gaze rested on the engine. "I see it."

"OK, open the panel."

Ryan held out his hand and the robotics of the engine opened the panel for him. "Got it." He went over there and examined the wiring…and circuits…and… "Uh, Dad?"

"What?"

"HELP ME!"

"Don't worry, it's simple. Red goes to blue goes to green goes to yellow and if none of those are currently in the right contact, then red goes to yellow goes to green to blue. And if all the wires are already in place, then their must be something with the circuitboard, so—"

"Or I could just do this!" He tapped into his full power and grabbed all the wires. A surge of energy rushed through him and into the engine system, starting everything back up instantly. He smiled smugly and batted his hands together to get the static off. "That takes care of that. Now…WHOA!" He ducked out of the way of an incoming asteroid.

Sophie heard this. "Ryan, are you OK?"

"Yeah, but my life just flashed before my eyes." He thought about this. "Boy, I spent a lot of time in the library." He shook this thought off and went back to the concept of the asteroid. "What was that?"

Tech looked. "Asteroids. They tend to linger together, sometimes in the trail of comets. They're meteor fragments. We must be getting close. You have to get back in the ship now!"

"No problem." Ryan rushed over to the door and started tugging on it…but it wouldn't budge. "Problem!" He banged on the door and pushed his whole body weight against it, but it wouldn't move.

"What's wrong?" asked Sophie.

"When the engines restarted, it must have sealed the air lock. The door won't open! I can't get back in!"

Tech started finagling with the controls to reopen the door Ryan was so desperately fighting against, but he couldn't release it. "We can't reopen it if the air lock is what's restricting it; we'll lose our oxygen content. We'd have to melt the lock!"

Nadine's eyes snapped wide open. "I can do that!" She jumped up from her seat and raced to the door. As soon as she found it, she grabbed the lock holding the door. Her eyes glowed pink. Her hands eerily shimmered red as the fire escaped from her system and jumped onto the metal lock, melting it.

Finally, Ryan pressed against the door and it flew open. He fell on Nadine as it shut. He looked at her as her eyes stopped glowing. "Hello."

She pushed him off and helped him up. "Are you OK?"

"Just peachy."

"Good." She ran back to the main room, letting him follow.

Tech finished adjusting the system. "OK, everything checks out. All passengers are inside the ship, the engines are fine, there's no major body damage to the hull of the ship…" The ship lurched again, with another bang. "However, the stern is another story."

"There's nothing majorly important in the stern, is there?" asked Kelly.

"Other than our main air supply, no."

Nadine came up. "My melting the lock didn't damage the air controls, did it?"

"No, you're fine. But one of the asteroids that was chasing after Ryan hit the oxygen tanks and we have an air leak. Someone would have to go into the fuel reserve and tighten the locks."

Ryan hadn't even started to take the suit off yet. "I'm going." He started making his way to the stern of the ship to find the fuel reserve. After a few minutes, he came to it. He looked around and saw the problem: one of the pipes was letting out its oxygen content. He raced over there and fixed it. He then realized that there was another leak near the back…behind a whole row of pipes. He ran over there and reached between the pipes to get to the second leak. But, unfortunately, his armspan was not quite as long as needed. He ran back to the main room, taking off the space suit on his way.

Lexi heard Ryan coming and turned around as he threw the unnecessary spacesuit in the corner. "What happened?"

"There's a second air leak, but I can't reach it. If I can't get to it, I can't tighten it."

Benny got up and went over to him. "Did you try your powers?"

"The oxygen tanks aren't even monitored. I can't manipulate metal like Dad, just access computers. And even if Dad could get to it, it's not entirely metal and wouldn't exactly go by his powers' standards."

"There's gotta be something—"

"Benny, I can't reach it!" He started pacing, thinking this over. Then he realized something. "But you can."

Benny realized where he was going with this. "No, no, no! No! No, no!"

"Benny, you're the only one who can and we can't keep going with an air leak. You've gotta do something!"

Benny sighed, giving up. "Fine, but I'm not happy about it." He went off to find the fuel reserve when he got there, he found that air leak almost immediately. He went for it. He moved his arm between the pipes in the way and stretched it to reach the tightening handle. He pulled it until the leak stopped and got out of the way. "Glad that's over." He ran back to the main room. "Fixed it. Can we go now?"

"Hopefully, yes." Tech checked everything over one last time. "Good. Now all we have to worry about is…oh boy."

Everyone followed his gaze and saw that they were headed for a planet…wait. That was the meteor, wasn't it?

"That's one big rock," said Duck.