JMJ

Chapter Six

Tight Squeeze

The Transport Chambers.

Near the royal docking bay with its private ships and cruisers, this was the place of advanced transportation. A traveler could install a temporarily space vortex device with limited power or use one in the ring of teleporters lining the round chamber wall like booths. The teleporters could double as hovercrafts bound to limited travel, but the traveler could just teleport if the need to go further was necessary. These all took up a lot of power. The chamber itself took up more power for its standby mode than the whole rest of the palace together.

In Vexus' reign such power had been trivial with all the outposts and slave labor, but now with Prime in relative chaos and the outposts left to fend for themselves, it was a little bigger of a deal.

Smytus was surprised the Transport Chambers were still left on standby mode unless it was an error on someone's part to keep track of such things, just as it had been an error to not keep better track of security. They may have changed the code, which would have blocked a foreigner or low ranking drone from getting in, but Vexus or Smytus or even someone as insignificant as Snarus would be able to override the code as it was still all part of the same security system. Smytus could slip through digital space in the system as stealthy as a space rat through the back of a messy storage bay on a sleazy trading ship. His electric fingerprints were almost untraceable for any but the most skilled of cyber sleuths.

Though, Smytus was not afraid to admit that his physical stealth was not his strong suit, he managed to duck a few guards here and there or knock one or two out before he reached this place of pulsing energy. It was so spotless compared to the days of warfare under Vexus. Smytus was a touch more unwilling to admit that, but what was cleanliness when your guard was down?

Preparedness was next to godliness far more than cleanliness. Even if decluttering was part of being prepared, it was in being prepared that made one's enemies feel as though one had a godlike omnipresence.

As the door closed behind Smytus, it's echo was ominous in the vast empty chamber as though two doors had closed instead of one, but as there was no shouting or firing, he did not bother about it. On a mission to get out of this place as fast as possible, he was not unaware that the alert had gone out about his escape. It was possible that the authorities were too foolish to think he would come to the palace. To be cautious nonetheless, he had no time to install a space vortex device, so he would take a teleporter. Besides, he would have some sort of vehicle at his disposal even if at times the teleporter could be glitchier than a space vortex device safely installed into one's arm guard and controlled with the ease of one's own mental powers.

He hopped onto one platform that seemed to be juiced more than others, but just as he was about to clarify its destination, he felt that it must be broken. Something jutted out at him as though his jumping on it had caused triggered a flaw. But that theory lasted a split second. The cry gave away that it was another being, but before he could gasp at knowing who it belonged to, he felt something to be far more alarmed about. He had bumped into the lever that activated the machine.

Too frozen from shock to make a sound, he stumbled off of it. So did the other person none other than Vega, but the teleporter sucked them back up as it was programmed to do in case of the location being unstable and the desired occupants unable to stand upon the platform. They both cried out and were cut short as they rammed right into each other with a clang.

Space and time bent around them. The chamber shimmied and swirled. Spiraling into a black hole, they were sucked out of sight.

Swoosh, went the door from Vega's side. A lone guard burst in and looked around in wonderment. He scratched his head but knew nothing of Smytus swirling through the vortex with the young queen he had helped send on her way with the prepared destination by remote.

The teleporter wasn't meant for two people at the same exact moment. Though that was not to say Vexus or Smytus had not thrown a few drones in like this. The vortex itself might very well have been infinite, but from the moment the two clanged it was a bumpy ride. The machine's blue-green beam kept them from being lost to who knew where, but it was like going down a horrible waterslide of doom.

Clang! Clang! They banged again.

Certain devices were triggered on and off on their bodies, especially in Vega who had a few more moving parts now with her golden chip. They were pulled into each other and out of each other. The ride through the teleporter was never the most comfortable, but this was downright dangerous. Vega almost sliced an eyeball out of Smytus' socket with a lathe, and Smytus almost pinched Vega through her slim middle with the snap of a claw from his retractable and third pair of appendages from his sides. They almost could not hear the eerie empty void-sounds or feel the numbing static when all that consumed them was that crashing, yelping and trying so hard not to be hurt by one another.

Then at last after that universal toilet flush they were spat out the other end with a final collision and a moan.

But wait! What was this?

Wind? Cool air? Wide empty space?

Forgiven and forgotten was the trek here as Smytus leapt to his feet so thrilled he was tingling. He took a marching step forward to behold the view from the cliff before him as though he was king over a treasured domain. There was a slope down from here, which he saw fit to descend as soon as he picked up the teleporter that came through as it ought to have.

"Yes!" he roared in dizzying triumph; he spread out his arms and took a further step. "I am fre—"

Tseeeww-Bang!

Smytus blinked from the impact through his body.

The vibration had been abrupt and raw, but he did not collapse. The fear of having been totaled passed, he looked down. A smoking, gaping hole was gouged into his chest. The pain began to buzz, but he was not spilling any fluids despite the damage. It had been dangerously close to the manifolds to his core— or at least far too close for his comfort.

Still trembling with anger now more than fear, but pain all the same, he spun around back to the source of that laser-fire: the smoking laser-gun that had been morphed from Vega's arm. She stood in perfect battle-stance like a trained master in the atmospheric wind taking the smoke away.

"You—!" he choked through his pressure release valve.

With tightening brow Vega grimaced harder, but she did not stop aiming that weapon at him.

"You shot me!" he squeaked.

Vega did not change her stance.

Smytus growled. "You little brat!"

He flared his claws and sharp edged razors in shabby place of the power of a golden chip. He digressed. He could not keep up flexing his more dangerous-looking appendages in his condition. What was he going to do anyway? She had a golden chip and he had not, and she was the queen. He was not sure that even if he had a chip of his own he would have had the core to harm her despite it all. Most of all, the wound was fresh and buzzing and he was so beside himself with her untrained ease.

"And I just got fixed!" he complained as he threw his arms down at his sides in utter defeat.

"I could have killed you had I wanted to," said Vega.

A second flare of anger surged within him, but this time he just tightened his body and shook a little. He shot her an ugly glare and thought about saying something about golden chips being erratic and that she could have killed him by accident, but then again Vega was designed to be royalty and thus superior, despite her size, to Smytus. She could use her chip as well as Vexus could.

Oh, who are you fooling? he thought. You know that there is no danger in those chips. It was a lie of Vexus' made to get everyone to relinquish them as though they were dangerous when they were only dangers to her power to have everyone else possess them as she had.

In silence he sulked closing his eyes. He turned away into the atmospheric mountainous wind to look over the cliff. Vega did not speak either, but he heard her morph her weapon back into her usual small dexterous hand. He huffed and touched at his gaping hole. Then he glowered out at the mountains— the sharp, snowy peaks, the crumbling middle cliffs, the wooly, scratchy irregular shades of white, green and more browns for haphazard lines of disgusting growths so opulent and obstinate under their shields of ice. Not to mention the mucky mossy smaller growth already smudged against his built-on boots. And was that the stony, shaggy hovels of some primitive soggy, fleshy organisms all huddled together in a pathetic assembly in that overgrown ditch that would be green with slime come warmer weather?

"Ugh," he grunted. "What is this abominable place? If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was—"

"Earth?" asked Vega quite hopeful in contrast.

"Spare me," Smytus grumbled.

Vega sighed with relief. "Oh, good, I wasn't sure since it was so empty. I thought Earth was much more populated than this place seems. Do they live underground?"

"No, they live like fools in primitive housing that can't even handle a little shaking of their volatile planet. You should see how they insist upon rebuilding after every seasonal crashing liquid wall and whirlpool from their oversized oceans ready at any moment to sink the land back into oblivion. It's a miserable world."

"Oh," was all Vega answered. "So, where's Jenny live?"

Smytus shifted his eyes towards her but did not move much from his perch.

"Well, as long as you insisted upon accompanying me," Vega shrugged, "you might as well help me."

"And what, pray tell, do you wish from XJ-9?" growled Smytus. "Don't you have duties as queen to attend to that are much more essential than private calls to old conspirators against our people?"

"It's kind of classified. Are you going to tell me or what? The teleporter can't automatically know where Jenny lives to my knowledge."

"You shot me," grumbled Smytus again crossing his arms.

He sunk his head into his shoulders like a smoldering coal.

"Well, I can't let you loose on a planet you hate and where the people are so easy for you to hurt, now can I?" retorted Vega.

"What?" snapped Smytus throwing out his arms as on spring. "You think I'm just going to run amuck like a trigger-happy psychopath upon the fleshy, pathetic populace of… that—that pathetic little patch of houses down there that can't even count as a village of proper civilization?"

Vega glowered back a moment and crossed her arms back. "All you do is boldly proclaim how you're a master of destruction."

"When there's a purpose to do so!" snipped Smytus. "I'm hurt that you would think that I'm that malfunctioned as to act otherwise."

Vega was unmoved. "Oh, yeah? I thought you liked seeing people hurt."

"That's not true," snorted Smytus. "Just because I like an explosion now and again doesn't mean I'm high octane in violence…"

There was another pause. Wind whistled between them. It stung Smytus' insides as though caught in the piercing fangs of some relentless scavenger. He could not fight the urge to hunch and shift a little more while trying not to show that his reason for doing so was to have his back block the brunt of the wind against his open wound, but Vega was turning also. His eyes widened as she picked up the transporter and walked with purpose away from him and even away from the village.

"Where are you going?"

"Jenny must be known as one of the greatest defenders of Earth now, especially after what you threatened against it," Vega replied as she continued on her way. "Somebody around here's got to know where she lives."

"But the village is down there?" Smytus spat.

She just kept marching away, and that was when he noticed another house perched on a cliff further on. It did look somewhat in better shape than those in the village, or at least a little less like a mud hovel and a little more like a rat's nest in a wooden box the way old dried out vegetation was tied so frail-looking to the top of it. He was not sure if it was because the house looked nicer why she chose this one over the ones in the village. It could have been a simple psychological feeling that since this building was higher up its inhabitants might have more overseeing knowledge.

Vega had never been to any other planet before, except one or two in Cluster Space with her mother. She knew nothing about the universe, what else did she have to go on but appearances?

He began to follow her a step or two, but stopped as he realized that it would take far less time if he resorted to telling Vega the location of XJ-9 AKA "Jenny", but did he want to make Vega's time here shorter? Well, maybe he wanted to make the time in this mountain wasteland shorter if for no other reason than his injury, which was feeling no better as the initial shock to his system had subsided. His sparse footsteps had been enough to make his flow of energy pass through his injury with discomfort.

He may have been injured before. He may have been in uncomfortable locations before. He may have been in unpleasant company before. However, one thing he was not overly familiar with was all three at once and for an indefinite amount of time, except for that miserable time on that forsaken trash ball. There, at least had been that loose-screwed bucket Krackus to take down the exposure.

He huffed. The steam of his insides clouded him in a white veil so that Vega was a pink blot shining through it in the crystalline sunlight. When it cleared a little, Vega had turned to look at him with a tilt of her head.

She did not speak, but he knew what she was asking. If he would just tell her himself…

"Alright!" he said. "You want to know the location of Wakeman's base of operation where her abominable creation XJ-9 resides with her?"

"I wouldn't mind," said Vega dryly.

"You know that XJ-9's creator did indeed infiltrate our planet once long ago and drew Queen Vexus' wrath upon her in the first place for nosing about and stealing that which did not belong to her."

"I've heard something about that," Vega replied.

Both she and Smytus enjoyed the space between them, despite how they were forced to widen the range of hearing to know what each other was saying.

"Well!" snapped Smytus, but came to a lame stop and a pause. "Well, it was no exaggeration!"

"Well," said Vega back, "maybe there was a time that you had a reason to be distrustful of Jenny's mom, but I'm not going to deny the fact that my mother and you used some wandering trespasser as an excuse to keep us all in terror for years to justify your drones keeping us prisoner on our own planet and taking down other people's planets too for an evil empire."

Smytus rolled his eyes. "And we're back to this…"

"You brought it up," retorted Vega. "Besides, Jenny wasn't the one who trespassed."

"Mph."

"I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt for the moment," Vega said. "Maybe you're just afraid of Jenny. I get it. She's pretty special. You were beaten by her again and again regardless of the fact that she wasn't such a giant destroyer of worlds like in the reels at school."

"I'm not scared of XJ-9!" snapped Smytus.

"Then tell me where she is."

"She could be anywhere on this planet. She moves like lightning when she wants to."

Vega did not answer.

"Alright fine!" shouted Smytus opened a computer-like scanner out from beneath the armguard cuff-plating on his wrist. "If my navigation still works after what you've done to me—"

"I hit you in the chest not the head or the arm," Vega cut in.

"Hmph! Well! If you trust me to tell you the truth, then, my queen!" said Smytus with mock reverence in a bow of his head.

"Okay, fine," sighed Vega. "Have it your way."

"As if," muttered Smytus, and then he said far more clearly, "XJ-9's command center is located on the other side of the planet from here. We're on a low section of a mountain range known as the Himalayans. She is located on the next continental plate across the ocean in either direction called North America in a town of a much lower elevation known as Tremorton."

"Show me," said Vega.

Reluctantly he obeyed.

"Thank you," said Vega with a curt nod, and she started up the teleporter again.

It hummed to life. The blue-green energy glowed and vibrated with shimmering ripples. The two prospective passengers grimaced as they thought of the miserable trip they had endured together a second time, but just as they braced themselves for being sucked into the vortex, the machine itself seemed to tremble at the thought. Its light staggered and it groaned.

"What?" Vega gasped.

"No!" snapped Smytus.

The teleporter puttered like an engine run out of gas. It collapsed like a deflated balloon. Dead silence followed the line of black smoke that rose from the heap.

Vega huddled against the chill that seemed just a little colder. The same shift in the breeze slithered through Smytus' gash, and he felt bitterer in both senses.

"So, how do you propose we get there now, my queen?" Smytus scoffed.

"Mmmph!" growled Vega, but she was not down however exasperated. "Hold this!" she ordered shoving the teleporter into Smytus' hands.

Smytus took it with a pout.

"And just what—?"

"We're flying there. Don't struggle, cuz I won't want to come down and get you if you fall!" snapped Vega even though her tone revealed she would rescue him nonetheless.

She was too kind-cored to do any less and Smytus knew that, yet such a flight was not a thing he looked forward to with anymore relish than a trip through the teleporter. He had no time to tell her with more than a look, but she did not care to examine it as she took him by his heavy shoulders and bolted into the air. Chip or not she was no XJ-9 and Smytus' bulk was quite the bulk.

Smytus recoiled at the thought of falling into rock-strewn oblivion. He could feel how strained Vega was to carry him. How he tried not to think too hard about that fact that he was too heavy for his own wings to keep him up for anything more than a short glide.

Over time they were over empty green splotches, and then they flew over empty desert sand. He let out a squeak when he saw the vast ocean spreading out under his prone body with a gaping hole in it to sink his hull into a wreck beyond recovery, but though Vega had to adjust her grip now and then, she did not look down.

Shrinking into himself tighter Smytus shut off his vision. He still could hear the wind and waves below. Somehow he did not wish to deprive himself of the sense of the audio. The salt, the pressure and the liquid itself crushing into his otherwise so well-protected body? He could not block the image of it in his mind either way. To malfunction in primal planet-drool on such a grimy planet? He could not bear it.

"Stop shaking, Smytus!" Vega begged.

She had been shaking too but from tension. She had such a tiny frame, and she did not stop shaking even when he stopped by clutching the ineffective teleporter to his chest like a floaty made of iron.

"Don't drop me!" Smytus implored.

"Don't whine like that!"

But the going did smooth out a little after that. She adjusted her grip yet again and soon enough they were across the ocean and out over land again.

Smytus sighed in relief as they stopped to rest on an isolated forest hill near the seacoast in Maine, and then off they went the last bit. The wind was behind them most of the way this time, and it was not long before the descended upon Tremorton.

Yet Smytus knew his real troubles were about to begin. Here he was to be brought unarmed, no cronies, unwell, and all around unhappy into the midst of his enemy's territory. The town surrounding the base had been rebuilt since he had been there last as though Smytus and his war had never accosted the place, except for a few more stumps and a few newly sprouted green fuzz balls on sticks.

The hills were aglow with dawn piercing like a flood lamp upon the known criminal he was. It blinded him a moment before Vega turned for descent. His wound buzzed and he felt just a little giddy, but it could be the irony of the situation affecting the emotive reactors in his mental processor to a point near feeling numb.

He went limp with defeat until he realized Vega was adjusting herself to let him go. She could not hold him a second longer.

"Brace yourself," she moaned.

"Wha…?"

He stopped as he felt the sudden coolness on his arms. Vega lost her grip. He screamed and crashed. His fall was too short to hurt him further than he already was, yet every working part objected to finding himself in the crumbling, worm-ridden mess that was the ground of Earth. After a moment, he relinquished an inconsolable moan.