Clones vs. Aliens (24 page)

Alex, Fisher, Veronica, and FP disembarked to find Amanda standing over the second pirate with her fists on her hips.

“Well done,” Veronica said, kneeling down next to one, running her hand along its exoskeleton curiously.

“Thanks,” Amanda said with a triumphant smile. “What about Three?”

“I’m leaving him on the Gemini ship,” Fisher said. “I’ve got the remote with me.”

He took a close look at one of the Mechastaceans, examining the busted-up areas that Amanda had created, and reaching in under a hole she’d put near the thing’s head. Just as he’d suspected, he felt the thick, insulated cable of heavy power conduits. “Looks like these robots have power line clusters here, here and here,” he said, pointing to the two other spots on the pirate’s side he’d identified earlier. “Aiming to disable those spots should help.”

They surveyed the room cautiously. It didn’t seem any alarms had sounded, but Fisher couldn’t be sure. A pair of shuttles sat on either side of the bay. There was a single large door opposite the force-field-covered opening to space, and a number of small hatches along the sides. FP sniffed at the floor, then at the inert Mechastaceans.
Veronica opened up Fisher’s backpack and distributed radio earpieces to everyone. Almost immediately, their earbuds crackled, indicating a transmission.

“The Gemini have retreated,” Agent Mason said in their ears. “Diversion’s over.”

“Perfect timing,” Fisher said. “We’re on the flagship.”

“Good,” Mason said, “get CURTIS set up and go find the core.”

“On it,” Fisher said.

Fisher walked back into the ship and hooked his portable hard drive to a special port that Dr. X had built onto the
Perseus
’s controls. The hard drive woke up, hummed, and beeped as Fisher’s AI was transferred into the ship’s memory. “CURTIS, you there?”

“Am I!” the AI said, voice booming from the ship’s speakers. “The hardware in this thing is amazing! The kind of processing power I’m working with—”

“Well, we need you to work with it right now,” Fisher cut him off. Getting two completely different systems of computer hardware to mesh wasn’t a task he envied the team of MORONS programmers and hackers who’d been given it. “Hack in as quietly as you can and find us the central core on this beast, would you?”

“Working!” said CURTIS. “I’m using the
Perseus
’s antenna to access this ship’s mainframe. Getting some resistance, hang on …” A low hum emanated from the
hard drive. Fisher imagined his AI frowning. Every second felt like an eternity. “Got it,” CURTIS said at last. “It’s a bit of a trip. Go through the middle hatch on the left. I’ll talk you there by radio. Make it snappy, okay? I don’t know how long I can hang around without getting booted out of their system.”

They lined up at the hatch: Amanda first, then Alex, then Veronica, with Fisher bringing up the rear, gear bag slung across his back, FP snorting excitedly at his feet. In one sense, they were lucky the ship was so enormous. There were probably millions of Mechastaceans aboard. Two disabled Mechastaceans might not raise an alarm for quite some time.

“All set?” Amanda said.

“Pop it,” said Fisher.

There was a lever in the hatch’s center. Amanda pulled it. The hatch clanked but didn’t budge. Fisher’s heart dropped.

“Locked,” Amanda said. “Hang on …” She wrapped both hands around the lever, braced her legs against the bulkhead, gritted her teeth, and with a strong exhale, ripped the hatch right out of the wall. Fisher’s confidence returned, along with a newfound appreciation for the MORONS engineers and the way they’d improved on his own technology. Amanda set the hatch down neatly on the ground. “Let’s go.”

“Hold up,” Fisher said. “I have a little scout for us.” He reached into the gear bag and pulled out a small metal ball. He tapped a button and it unfolded into a hovering robot with a tennis-ball-shaped body and a single arm. It was his pickpocket drone, which he’d initially designed to commandeer his parents’ Loopity Land passes—and it was finally getting some use. “I’ll send this ahead of us, so we don’t get any unpleasant surprises.”

The hatch would be small for a Mechastacean, but the four kids slipped through it easily, following the little drone, which buzzed quietly in front of Amanda. They found themselves in a long, black hallway with very low lighting.

“You’re in a maintenance corridor,” said CURTIS over the radio. “Keep going straight.”

The sounds of the ship in operation pattered and rang distantly. The creaks and groans of the immense vessel’s structure drifted down the corridor as they walked. Fisher’s own breathing got louder in his ears. At any moment, a Mechastacean could emerge from almost anywhere in the darkness ahead. Or maybe they stayed out of here because something even they were afraid of dwelled in the dismal space. It looked just about right for some kind of huge, toothy worm.…

Fisher shook his head to clear the primal terror from it. He had plenty of real things to be scared of without his
imagination piling on more. He focused on staying alert and moving quietly. Amanda stayed in a crouch, ready to spring. Two minutes later, the drone stopped, hovering low over a spot on the floor. Amanda put her hand up, and they came to a quick halt.

“What is it?” Fisher whispered.

“Something in the floor,” Amanda whispered back. “Could be a pressure-sensitive plate.”

“Here,” Fisher said, handing forward a multi-tool from his bag that was basically an excessively large Swiss Army Knife. It was small, heavy, and expendable, since he had two more just like it.

“Back up a little,” Amanda said, and they did as she wound up for an underhand toss. The tool landed on the floor in front of them with a clatter. Instantly, three white beams lanced from one wall to the other, at ankle, waist, and head level. The drone barely avoided them, zipping up toward the ceiling. Fisher could feel the heat from the beams even from the back. The lasers winked out, and they heard a whine as the beams started to recharge.

“Let’s mark this spot so we don’t accidentally step on it later,” Fisher said, giving Amanda a small can of luminescent spray paint. Amanda tiptoed up to the pressure plate and marked it with neon green. They stepped over the plate one by one. Fisher picked up FP and held him carefully to his chest. The tool hadn’t been damaged, but
Fisher didn’t want to risk disturbing the plate again, and left it where it was. The drone continued buzzing on. No further traps marked the corridor.

“Hold here,” said CURTIS in Fisher’s earbud. “I’m going to open a hatch in the floor in front of you.” The AI was true to his word, and a piece of floor slid aside. “There’s a circular room down there. It’s a power substation, I think. From it you’ll be able to get to an elevator.”

“An elevator to what?” Fisher said, looking into the dim blue light glowing up through the hatch.

“Not sure, kid,” CURTIS said. “Still working on that. I’m having a harder and harder time dodging their cyber security. If this ship’s computer didn’t have so many things to do at once, it probably woulda found me already.”

Unless, of course, it already
had
found him, and reprogrammed him to guide them all right into a trap. The idea occurred to Fisher suddenly, and he felt his stomach pool into his shoes. Fisher stared at the big hatch. Every decision now meant the difference between life and death.

“Let’s send the drone in first,” Fisher whispered. The pickpocket drone buzzed down through the hatch.

Instantly, three high-energy beams lanced out and turned the drone to a puff of glittery smoke.

“Now!” Fisher shouted. “Before the lasers recharge!”

Amanda and Alex dropped in, followed by Veronica and Fisher, who gripped FP tightly. The room was lit a
deep blue, with control consoles set all along the walls.

Amanda instantly tackled one of the three Mechastaceans manning the controls. FP jumped out of Fisher’s arms. Fisher and Alex ran for another. Fisher’s fight or flight kicked into full gear as the pirate swung a long claw buzzing with an electric charge at his head, and he ducked and rolled away. The brothers shifted positions. Fisher felt the rush of air as a metal talon slashed right past his face. Veronica leapt into the fight, wielding a pry bar she had grabbed from the gear bag. As Alex and Fisher kept the Mechastacean occupied, she delivered a heavy strike to its left-side weak point. It staggered as the power flow to that side diminished, but still managed a counter-swing with a whirring claw. Fisher pulled Veronica to the ground to get her out of its path.

“Fisher!” Alex shouted. Fisher tossed his brother the pry bar, which Alex caught neatly in one hand. Alex wound up and delivered a strong blow to the power junction below its head. It lurched backward, then toppled over, releasing a shower of sparks.

FP hopped onto it and gave it a few hoofs to the head for good measure.

Fisher turned, panting for breath, his arm muscles burning. He found the two other pirates sparking on the floor, Amanda dusting off her hands. In the blue glow that
filled the room, she looked rather like an alien conqueror herself.

“You guys all right?” CURTIS said over the radio.

“Fine, CURTIS,” Fisher said, sucking in a deep breath.

“Swell!” the AI said. “I’m patching Agent Mason through to you.”

“What’s your progress, team?” Mason’s voice said a little fuzzily.

“In the belly of the beast, sir,” said Fisher, taking Veronica’s hand to reassure her, and himself. “CURTIS is navigating us through the ship. I think we’re getting close.”

“That’s good,” Mason said, “because things are getting antsy down here. The fact that the Mechastaceans aren’t responding is putting a lot of countries in the mood to strike first, and strike hard.”

“How hard?” Alex said.

“Nuclear hard,” Mason said. Fisher and Alex looked at one another, eyes wide. “There’s mounting pressure to throw everything we have at them. If they’re too close to the Earth when a barrage like that hits …”

“The magnetosphere won’t stop all the radiation,” Fisher said quietly. “And any ships that get knocked out will fall to Earth as meteors.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, the clock just got shorter. We’ll check in again when we can. Out.” There was a click as the connection with Mason ended. “CURTIS?”

“Right with ya,” CURTIS said. “Look for a red panel on the wall. It should have up and down arrows, like an elevator. You want to go down as far as you can.”

“Found it,” Veronica said. The red panel had faint white triangles pointing up and down, and she pressed the down arrow. A door opened next to the panel. Inside the door there was nothing but green light. Veronica hesitated.

“This isn’t bad,” Fisher said earnestly, taking Veronica’s hand. “Alex and I took one yesterday. Shall we?”

They stepped into the green light together. Once again, they were immediately weightless. Fisher let FP flap around them gleefully as all together they drifted downward. They passed through the largest open space any of them had ever seen. Fisher nearly hyperventilated at the sensation of hurtling through vast emptiness. In spite of the physical comfort of gently drifting down, the sight made him extremely dizzy.

Other, parallel transport beams filled the colossal chamber. Thousands of them. Some of them held traveling Mechastaceans, others had cargo.

“Fisher,” Alex said, “somebody’s gonna see us.”

“Not to worry,” said Fisher, reaching into his backpack. He removed the latest in his long series of disguises, crate-in-a-box. A name that, while not very creative, was certainly better than its prototype name, “box-within-a-larger-box.”

The dark plastic cube fit in his palm. He tapped the top twice, and it opened. Then the flat pieces that had opened unfolded again, doubling in size. The little device repeated the process until it became a seven-foot cube with one open side. They huddled together. Fisher raised the weightless crate over their heads, then pulled it down over them.

“Now we’re just another cargo load,” he said. The inside of the box was lit up green from the beam beneath them.

Something was coming up toward them. Or more accurately, they were moving down toward
it.
At first it was a dark smudge, then it resolved into an opening just wide enough to accommodate the beam.

“Heads up,” Amanda said a minute later. “About to go into somewhere.”

Fisher pulled the crate off of them and collapsed it again as they passed into a tunnel. Their feet touched ground at last, and the beam switched off. They were in a rectangular room with flat, featureless walls.

“CURTIS, where are we?” Fisher said.

“You’re on the right level, kid,” CURTIS said. “Main engineering, I think. The maps I’ve found are a little unclear, but there should be … oh, uh, hang on. Something’s happening.”

Fisher looked from one wall to another.
Something happening
was almost never good news.

“What?” Alex said, fear creeping into his voice, “What does that mean?”

Suddenly, the walls fell away. Like flats in a movie set, they simply dropped. The room they were actually in was immense, and it was full of Mechastaceans. Behind the wall of steel bodies was a pedestal with a series of cables snaking from it. On top of the pedestal was an object about the size of a basketball that looked like a cross between a brain and a cactus.