* * *

  Joseph was hidden. He was disgusted with himself. He ran back to the bridge, and all that was left was an almost lifeless Steve. He ran to him.

  “Joe . . . ” said Steve. At least, he was alive.

  “Don’t move.” Joseph ran and got medical equipment. He was in shock. Fortunately, he was able to stabilize Steve. Now he had to drive the ship. He scrambled to and fro to get the ship under control, which he did some. Now, to do what I do best. I’ll try to communicate and get in touch with Maurice, Tony, and Linda.

  Chapter 7

  The Devil’s Comet

  In Starcutter’s launch bay, Tony and Linda were ready. They were only waiting for Maurice to lead them.

  As he walked down the hallway leading there, Tasha got in his way. He slowed down a little, but only enough to make his point.

  “Look, Tasha, we’re gonna hit this thing, and that’s all there is to it. I’M putting you in charge because you have the best skills out of everyone here and you got Kim for back up.” He put on his flight helmet.

  “We’ll be back, okay?” he assured.

  The door between them closed, then Tasha and Kim went to the control booth. Kim checked the panel. Everything was a go.

  They looked down at the starjets on the runway.

  Zoom . . . zoom . . . zoom . . . Starcutter belched them into space.

  The three circled around the ship, and then they were off.

  * * *

  A few million miles away and a short warp later, they could see it. It looked destructive, yet in a weird way, surprisingly beautiful.

  “Okay, gang,” Maurice said, “this is it!” Just then, his readings on the computers were going haywire. Maurice had trouble stabilizing them.

  “Let’s find out a little more about this thing. Nobody will take a shot until we know what this thing is . . . ” He paused. “Try to skirt its gravity until I can see if we have enough thrust to escape it.”

  Tony responded angrily, “We need to hit this thing now. I’m not about skating or skirting its outer edge!”

  “Tony, don’t be stupid.” Maurice commanded. “This thing is incredible.”

  “I’m goin’ in!” Tony yelled. “Yahoo! Cowabunga!”

  Maurice tried to say something, but Tony hit his turbos.

  He couldn’t catch him. He hung back.

  Tony was far ahead now, pretty much alone. He wasn’t looking for a weak spot to plant his photonic torpedoes.

  Although he thought, he could start with other weaponry. Now he thought, the trick was to hit the photon ring, the white one. As it moved, Tony fired his ship’s lasers at full. He didn’t wait. He fired the ship’s solar pulses too. They hit their target, but it did nothing. In fact, if this thing were alive, one could say this made it angry. Energy shot out of the photon, and it hit Tony pretty badly. No problem, he thought. He fired more pulses. It was like he was shooting at himself because twice as much energy came back at him. Quickly he hit his shields. The impact almost knocked him out.

  “Okay, pal, you wanna play rough? Take this!” He fired his photonic torpedoes. There was a tremendous explosion of white.

  Everything seemed to shake and quake, even in the vacuum of space.

  This thing was angry. Tony could feel it, but he was out of gas. He thought he heard a demonic laugh, then he blacked out. The comet was pulling him in.

  By this time, Maurice and Linda had caught up to him. Linda didn’t know what to do. Maurice did. As rocks, debris, and bits of metal flew all over the place, Maurice activated Tony’s distortion field with a remote control. It surrounded Tony’s spacecraft with a sphere of protection. The distortion field was tricky because it only could last five minutes tops. What it did was temporarily move the ship between normal space and hyperspace. Almost like being here and not here at the same time, suspending time and space for a time.

  Then he activated his own distortion field, as well as Linda’s.

  “Linda, I want you to merge your field with mine so we can be on the same ship.” Linda obeyed. Her ship and Maurice’s flew at the same speed. Linda flew under Maurice. This was a way for her to get out of her starjet with all the pressure, cold, and dangers of space affecting her.

  As the ships docked, Linda climbed into the back seat of Maurice’s starjet. Maurice hit the gravity neutralizer, but they were still being pulled into The Devil’s Comet’s photon from the distance. Linda could see the blue round spheres of her ship as well as Tony’s. The three were pulled down together to hell. Space hell. All three ships crashed and hit the bottom of the photon.

  After about one minute, Maurice and Linda came to their senses. It was like all three ships were floating in a sea of energy.

  “Tony, come in.” Maurice said. He was knocked out. Maurice activated the extreme filters. He could radar image the area around. The entire area looked like hot, boiling lava or like bubbling boiling milk.

  “This must be where The Devil’s Comet generates its energy. The source of its power.”

  Linda panicked. “Maurice, we’ve got to get out of here. When the distortion field collapses, we’ll die!”

  Maurice could tell she wanted to scream. He pressed some buttons, and then he twisted around in his seat and grabbed Linda’s helmet.

  “Linda, stop it! I have the answer. Shut up with that. Tony had the right idea. We can still detonate these bombs and get away alive. You gotta do everything I say. Are you with me?” he commanded.

  Very scared and shaky, she answered, “Yes . . . Okay, what do you have in mind? I trust you . . . with my life.”

  Maurice put his plan into action first. He fired his photonic torpedoes upward, then he detonated the ones from Linda’s Starjet.

  “Linda, activate the magnetic grapplers, grab Tony’s ship, and let’s get out of here.” Linda did. The explosions above and below them were tremendous, but Maurice knew his plan was working. Little by little, the heavenly white gave way to the velvet blackness of outer space. Maurice punched it. Soon, with Tony’s ship in tow, they had pulled away from The Devil’s Comet. The further away, the better.

  Maurice spoke, “Look back, Linda . . . We’re probably the first humans to beat the devil at his own game.”

  The magnetic grapplers were holding pretty well. Tony’s starjet was holding together and being towed just fine. For a long time, no one said anything.

  Onboard Tony’s crippled craft, he was finally coming to his senses. He shook and ached. Finally, he cut on his communicator and spoke.

  “Hey, guys, what happened? Did we win?”

  “No.” Maurice replied. “But we did at least give that thing a black eye. We slowed it down, but it’s still gonna hit Topaz. I’d say we need to get back home and to the lab and come up with something else.”

  Tony replied, “I’m down for that, although I was really hoping Victor’s plan would work.”

  Sometime later, their radar picked up Starcutter’s precise location. Something was wrong, Maurice thought, Starcutter was not heading toward Topaz, but aimlessly away to nowhere.

  As they got closer, Maurice could visibly see their target. Starcutter was on fire, burning in the airless void of space! Immediately he hit the scanners and other instruments. The damage looked extensive, but manageable.

  It had been hit by clusters and at least two photon torpedoes, judging by the hits to the bridge and its stern. He opened the channel.

  “Starcutter, come in. Starcutter, come in! This is Maurice, can you hear me? Please come in.” For a full minute, there was a silence. Finally, there was a static, then he could hear Joseph’s voice. He was scared.

  “Maurice, can you hear me? We were attacked. Please come back,” said an afraid Joseph.

  “Joseph, this is Maurice. What happened?” Maurice said.

  “Captain, we were attacked. Everybody was captured except me and Steve—”

  Tony cut in, “We need to land. We can figure out what to do after we get those fires out and get those systems back online.”

  Maurice cut in, “Tony . . . you’re right,” trying to avoid any arguments. “Joseph, are any of the landing bays intact?”

  He replied, “Yes, the emergency landing bay, you know, it’s still functional.” Maurice knew what he was talking about—the slot on the ship between both main thrusters.

  “Okay, open the doors.” Joseph obeyed. The starjet came through. Maurice hated this type of tight flying. It’s about as difficult as threading a needle.

  Both starjets came through the thin magnetic field and skidded to a halt.

  Once the ships cooled down a little, Linda and Maurice opened the cockpit and stepped out, grateful to have gotten back safely.

  Tony jumped out of his starjet. The four were reunited.

  “Where’s Steve?” Tony demanded.

  Maurice cut him off. “Tony, you and Linda get these fires under control. I’m taking Joseph to get the life support and computers back to 100 percent.”

  * * *

  After patching up the ship and getting Steve into a bed to rest, Maurice had a private talk alone with Joseph over lemon tea.

  “Okay, Joe . . . what happened?”

  “Maurice, we were attacked by a ship that came from Topaz. Their leader called herself Queen Cassi. She was about our age! She took Tasha, Kim, Brian, Natalie, and Terri as prisoners. Steve tried to help, but she just touched him and he’s in pretty bad shape. I just froze in battle . . . I ran and hid in the locker room. She got what she wanted and left. As for the damage, we got hit before we got boarded. I was scared. I’m sorry,” he said with his head down.

  Maurice had his hand on his shoulder. “Joe . . . in a battle you can only freeze, fight, or flight. I had a lot of fights won and lost some, but I never froze up. I’m glad you froze up. If you didn’t, we wouldn’t have a ship to go back to, so you made a wise choice. Now let’s go. We have a strike to plan.”

  Maurice looked back and noticed Joseph crying. He handed him a towel. “Wipe those tears away. We’re warriors. You have to be strong.”

  That message hit Joseph. He thought he had to strengthen himself from within, starting now.

  Chapter 8

  The City of Omen

  Brian, Natalie, and Terri were all awakened by a strange herb that Omar waved under their noses.

  Vizir, the royal adviser, spoke, “Are you sure these are the ones we need? They look so young.”

  Ordinarily, he would never question Omar, but everything was getting very serious very fast.

  They were in King Alclor’s quarters. He was Omar’s father.

  “Who are you calling young, punk? I’ll have you know I’m a doctor,” snapped Terri.

  Cassi was going to give her another dose of her power when Vizir grabbed her first and shook her violently.

  “Be quiet, Terri,” said Natalie.

  The five of them moved closer to the king, with armed guards behind them.

  “You people are from Earth,” Vizir said. “We need you because our king has a most unusual problem.” He snatched the blanket off Alclor, and it was the most unusual they had ever seen. Most of his upper body was there, but from his mid-chest down looked like the outline of a man, but like the emptiness of space—dots stars and spots. It was like looking into space.

  Vizir spoke, “He’s being pulled into the netherworld, another time, another space . . . In a few hours, his entire body will be pulled into another universe. Is there anything you can do to help?”

  Terri responded, “Nope, he’s a goner. Nothing we can do.”

  She got shook again.

  Natalie stepped forward, trying to save Terri.

  She touched the king’s forehead and screamed. Her healing powers were no good.

  Alclor reacted, “Thank you, my child . . . If anything, I feel less pain. Thank you, my child.”

  “I want you three to cure him. I want my father back.”

  “Put them in a cell!” said Cassi, “we can come up with something later.”

  After a short walk down the hall, Terri and Natalie were thrown into a cell, an unusual cell. Its insides were reflective like an oven.

  They heard Cassi’s voice on an intercom, “I know about your ability to collect solar energy, so I took the liberties of lining the walls to maximize your heat. If you try to escape, you’ll fry, Natalie.”

  Brian was still a prisoner. They continued to walk down the hall to an elevator.

  With an armed escort, Omar and Cassi went deep below the city, at least six stories down. The city below was much more sophisticated than anything they saw on the surface.

  There were lots of dynamos, pipes, and heavy machineries that were really buzzing.

  Brian was impressed. At this point, he could figure out it was a giant power plant, and that this “city” was nothing more than a giant laboratory.

  As the elevator opened, they walked out, followed by armed guards. Cassi spoke, “This is why I need you, Brian.” She lowered herself down a little to try to see him eye to eye.

  “Why should I do what you want?” said Brian.

  “Vizar, Omar, you two give the scientists their daily instruction quota while I have a chat with our little friend here,” she said as she grabbed Brian’s arm and dragged him to a storage space in the distance. Vizar and Omar obeyed. In a locked area, alone, she could finally tell Brian the truth.

  First, she wanted to scare him. At will, both her hands crackled with her netherworld energy. With both hands, she could kill him instantly.

  “All right, you little brat, I’ll tell you what this place is. This city is all the science this planet has left. It generates all the city’s power and creates a magnetic field around the city to keep the bad radiation out. These people, they worship me. You know why? Because I’ve saved this planet from destruction three years in a row,” she said.

  “You must mean from The Devil’s Comet? That’s the same reason why my friends and I are here,” Brian said, “why don’t we work together?”

  She butted in, “Are you crazy? This is all about me. I’m tired of saving these religious fanatics. I want to go back to Earth!”

  Brian replied, “Why didn’t you simply ask us? We’d have taken you back.”

  She interrupted. Her patience was getting thin, “You’re not listening! That other ship, my ship, Fire-Bird, doesn’t have a warp drive. I’m stranded here. It needs an enormous power source to fly that far.”

  “As you know, what do you think that super collider is being used for?” Cassi said.

  “It’s got to be used to create antimatter.”

  “Exactly,” she said, trying to get an understanding.

  “That stuff’s dangerous. In fact, the only way to contain it is with a magnetic field.”

  “I see you’re a good little scientist. Here’s the deal. We’ve already synthesized three individual ten pounds in separate containers. I need you to build a portable device, small enough to transport the antimatter into Fire-Bird. My scientists have already built an engine for such a device to work. It’s transporting and installing it. That’s the problem. That’s why I need you—to get back to earth . . . to run things.”

  Brian replied, “Don’t tell me you want to take over or destroy the earth too?”

  “No,” she said. “Just the parts I don’t like, like California, New York . . . the eastern seaboard. The rest can live. I don’t have a problem with the world. Just those places.”

  Brian knew she was crazy. For now, he had to yield. “Okay,” he said, “let me get to work.” He would think of something later.

  Cassi pressed the button to open the door. “Thanks for seeing things my way.” As they walked farther down, they came across a man in a black jumpsuit. He stood out because all the other scientists he had seen so far had on yellow or orange jumpsuits.

  “Brian,” Cassi said, “this is Sera, my head scientist. And don’t worry about language. I gave these men a dictionary when I first got here, and I killed everybody down below the city that didn’t learn English. Have a nice day, and Brian, do fix Fire-Bird before The Devil’s Comet gets here. I’d hate to kill you before it does. Taa taa!” she walked away.

  * * *

  After making a trip to the surface with Vizir and Omar, Cassi made sure to stop and get her pet to put ultra-fear in Tasha and Kimberley’s hearts.

  She unlocked his cage. It hissed and growled.

  “Be quiet, Jack, while Omar chains you up.” The door opened and Jack came out. He was something like a dog, but not. He was more like a jackal. He had razor-sharp teeth, red and black eyes, and silver fur. Parts of his arms, legs, and back were scaly, like snakeskin, like a reptile. Cassi knew Jack didn’t exist by nature. He was just another freak created by Omar’s magic.

  Jack bit Omar’s jacket and ripped it to shreds as he took it off and let him. Omar then conjured a metal bar and put it into Jack’s mouth to calm him down. It worked. As the metal bar split into three pieces, Jack spat out the piece in his mouth as Omar chained him up.

  “We’ve got some work for you boy,” Cassi said, “come with me.”

  * * *

  Tasha woke up in a cage. She was sitting on a bench and next to her was Kimberley. They rest were all handcuffed separately with their forearms outside the bars. There were young teenage girls surrounding them and grooming them. Then Tasha noticed she wasn’t wearing the clothes she had on the bridge, but just her bra, some satin pants, and some sandals. She felt embarrassed. There was no way to cover up, and she looked over at Kimberley. She had on a wedding gown.

  “Kim, wake up!” Tasha shouted. She was close enough to nudge her, “Kim, where are we?” she said.

 

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