Lab Rats in Space (7 page)

A
s the spaceship travelled in no particular direction, it seemed like everyday there was something new to explore. They found a gym on the ship. The computer even created exercise programs, flashing up an instructor on the screen in the gym. The boys didn't think much of the instructor. He just wanted them to jump up and down off boxes and kept saying things like ‘V-step' and ‘round the world with your arms.'

Dee and Emm thought he was very handsome so they did his program every day. Even though he was just a computer program, Emm still flushed when he said ‘Good work, Emm,' at the end of their session. Dee tried her best but going ‘round the world' with her arms usually meant her hammer arm smashed into her own
thigh. It hurt. It wasn't easy doing sit-ups without hitting her own head either.

The girls wanted to show XL just how gorgeous the instructor was but when they carried him down to the gym, the program didn't work. The computer then asked for XL to be returned to the control deck. (XL had programmed XL2 to ask for his return whenever they were disconnected.)

The boys were more impressed when they discovered a combat training program.

‘We've got to learn how to fight Professor Xanax,' Zed declared. The boys were soon throwing each other to the ground. Jay didn't enjoy it much as he continually bashed his nose on the floor.

Dee was scared of hurting the others with her hammer. Bruising her own thigh was one thing but when her arm flew out and smashed KT on the head, he burst into tears. He was knocked out and had to lie down for a while. Emm didn't enjoy it at all. It wasn't very elegant.

After a couple of days only Zed and KT were fighting under the watchful eye of the computer combat trainer. He looked older than the gym instructor, had a big scar across his face and spoke in a growl.

One morning they were all just waking up. KT lay in bed yawning trying to open his eyes. He stretched, moved around and then sat bolt upright. He realised something was missing. Something wasn't there.

‘What's the matter?' asked Zed.

‘Err, nothing,' KT replied, ‘…must have been a dream.'

‘Let's all head to the gym,' Zed announced jumping out of bed wide awake.

‘Oh no!' Jay really didn't like the training.

‘There's bound to be some advantage to having a humungous nose. Look at my arm,' Zed waved his third arm around, ‘it's quite useful really… Xanax did me a favour.'

‘You try getting Dee's hammer shoved up your nose and see if you think it's still a favour!' said Jay.

‘We have to be able to defend ourselves. Come on, Jay, you're getting better and we can think of ways to stop you falling on your nose.'

‘OK,' Jay agreed. Zed did have a way of making him feel better about himself. Perhaps he was right.

‘C'mon, KT,' Zed was doing a one-arm push-up with his rear hand and clapping with his two front hands to get them all going.

‘Err… you two have some one-on-one practice and I'll come down later.'

‘Cool.' Zed pushed Jay out of the room and down to the gym.

Once he was sure they were gone, KT got out of bed and went to their bathroom to look at himself in the mirror.

‘Oh no,' he said when he saw his reflection. ‘So that was Xanax's experiment.'

Tears welled up in his eyes. His was the worst experiment of all he thought. The others must never find out.

When he arrived at the gym, KT found everyone there. Dee and Emm had decided they needed some exercise
too. They had hoped to turn on the hunky aerobics instructor, but Zed had got there first. He suggested they join in the combat training.

‘What else is there to do?' asked Dee. ‘We're just floating around in space going nowhere, may as well take it out on each other.'

‘Don't start that again,' Zed said. ‘We made a decision, let's stick to it.'

Dee and Emm rolled their eyes at each other.

‘OK Zed,' Emm asked. ‘What do we do then?'

They turned on the program. The trainer soon had them standing in a row, pushing one fist out and shouting ‘heeya!' as loud as they could.

‘This is pretty stupid,' muttered Emm.

‘The exercise focuses your mind on the power of your fist,' the virtual combat trainer answered her comment.

He made them pair up. Zed worked with KT, Jay and Emm worked together. Dee sat it out because it involved locking hands, which was hard with her hammer. She looked at her hammer, trying to wiggle fingers she didn't have.

‘I'm so clumsy with this thing,' she thought and wondered if she'd be better with it chopped off. She couldn't even feed herself properly. If any food needed cutting up, one of the others had to do it for her.

‘Stupid arm.'

She hit the hammer with her screwdriver fingernails. A spark flew up.

‘Well,' she thought with a little smile. ‘At least I could make us fire if we get lost in a forest somewhere.'

Zed and KT wrestled as instructed. Zed, being the strongest, managed to flip KT onto his back, then jumped on him.

‘Ow!' said KT. ‘That really hurt. Do you have to jump so hard?'

‘Please, that wasn't hard… this is hard.'

Zed jumped again.

‘Get off! Why are you being such a bully?'

Zed was amazed. They always fought and mucked around. It was fun. It was why they were friends.

‘Why are you being such a girl?' Zed asked.

‘Nice one Zed, great insult. What could be worse!' Dee was annoyed with Zed now.

Before she could continue, KT had charged at Zed knocking him to the ground.

‘I'm
not
being a girl!' he shouted and hit Zed with his fists. His face was red with anger.

‘I'm not!'

He continued hitting his friend.

Zed tried to grab KT's hands to stop him. He couldn't believe KT was so upset over a silly comment.

‘KT!' shouted Emm. ‘Stop!'

Zed punched his friend.

‘Perhaps he needs a beating,' said Dee, still annoyed at Zed's comment about girls.

‘Dee, they're friends, stop them!' Emm looked horrified.

‘I don't care, let them go at each other.'

Soon Dee and Emm were arguing about whether to stop the boys fighting, while the two boys rolled over the
floor. KT tried to press Zed on his back to keep his third arm out of the way, Zed was trying to roll him off.

‘Guys!' shouted Jay. ‘C'mon, we're supposed to be friends!'

‘Oh shut up nosy!' all the others shouted at him at the same time.

Jay tried to pull the two boys apart but just ended up with a fist on either side of his nose.

‘Ouch!' He retreated holding his nose.

The virtual combat trainer hadn't been programmed for this scenario.

‘Troops stand to order!' he repeated and seemed to stick on a loop, saying the same thing over and over.

‘Troops stan… troops stan… troops stan…'

Suddenly the trainer stood to attention while a red light flashed throughout the ship and an alarm sounded.

‘All crew to report to the control deck immediately. All crew report to the control deck immediately.'

The children stopped fighting and looked at the combat trainer. It was like someone else was talking through him.

‘This is an emergency announcement. All crew report to the control deck.'

T
he alarm continued as they ran to the control deck. Everything was drowned in a red light, making the ship look completely different.

‘What's going on?' shouted Dee over the noise as they entered the control deck.

‘Computer, turn down the alarm!' said Zed. The volume of the noise was reduced.

‘We are being attacked,' XL announced through the ship's computer.

‘Xanax?' Jay managed to look even more scared than he had been before.

An image flashed up on the wraparound screen. It was the outside of their ship—covered in big flying creatures. Their bodies were a flat diamond shape—brown with green speckled lumps on them and long thin tails with
little flaps on the end. The creatures flew onto the ship and seemed to lie on the surface.

‘What are they?' KT asked.

‘Zorbats,' replied XL. ‘They live on asteroids with no atmosphere, attack ships and destroy everything and everyone on them. Then they feed on the remains.'

‘If we don't open anything they can't get in,' said Emm. ‘We could just fly faster and they might fall off.'

‘Each of them is secreting a fluid that burns through the side of the ship. Once one gets through, the others pour in,' explained XL.

‘How do we stop them? Can't we shake them off?' Dee asked.

‘There is no information on how to stop zorbats once they land on a ship,' he continued.

‘Can we send out a pulse?' asked Zed. ‘There must be something we can do!'

‘The only option is to seal off the section of the ship and head for the nearest planet. They cannot survive in a planetary atmosphere.'

XL had scanned all available knowledge. His plan was the only option he could come up with.

‘Let's do that!' Zed suggested.

The computer revealed that the nearest planet with an atmosphere was more than a day away.

‘How long will it take them to burn through the side of the ship?' Zed asked.

The answer came as the computer's alarm announced, ‘Intruder alert, intruder alert'.

‘Look!' Jay pointed to the screen. Like water surging down a plughole, the zorbats were pouring across the surface of the ship into a hole on the side of the ship.

Zed leapt into action. ‘Come on, we've got to seal them in before they attack the rest of the ship! Where's the hole?'

XL flashed up the exact section of the ship on the screen. They could now see the zorbats pouring in from the inside. They had penetrated the gym.

‘Block the entrance to the gym,' shouted Zed.

‘Come on everyone.'

He ran out. They needed weapons of some sort but the ship didn't carry any weapons.

‘The kitchen!' he thought. At least there were knives there. It was the nearest they had to weapons. They grabbed knives and ran back towards the gym.

The gym doors were sealed off but it was only a matter of time before the zorbats burned through them as well.

‘We'll just have to attack them one by one as they come through and keep going for as long as we can.' Zed stood ready.

‘We better take it in turns. We can't all stand around the hole,' said Dee. ‘Two work while the others rest.'

‘Good idea. We're going to have to keep going for a whole day. You and me first, Dee,' Zed replied.

She joined him, knife in one hand, hammer hand ready.

Zed had a knife in all three hands. He smiled across at her.

‘Reckon the hammer's pretty useful now.'

The door started buckling in front of them.

‘Here they come!' KT said. He, Jay and Emm had stood back. A back-up line of defence in case some escaped past the front row.

They waited as the metal started to wobble. It became more and more like a sheet of plastic. They could hear the noise of wings beating. The gym must have been full of zorbats.

‘I'm not waiting for them,' Zed declared. ‘Do your worst Dee!'

She knew exactly what he meant and swung her hammer hand to the melting door and smashed it through. There was a squeal and then silence. Zed was ready with his knives, determined that not a single zorbat would get past him.

Nothing happened. No creatures came out. Just silence.

Zed peered into the hole, gripping his knives tight.

Bam! A zorbat flew right into his face and sent him flying back. Suddenly, a hundred creatures shot through the hole. Their diamond bodies curled into a tight roll so they could charge through. They surrounded the Lab Rats. The children lashed out with their knives. Dee smashed as many as she could with her hammer, but more poured through, screeching so loud that they drowned out the emergency signal.

Zed recovered his footing after the first zorbat rushed him and slashed away at the creatures. It took several
goes to kill one of them. There was no way they would be able to keep them back.

‘Retreat!' he shouted. They ran as fast as they could to the corridor door.

‘Seal the corridor!' Two doors slid across the corridor shutting off the zorbats. Four had managed to fly through. One had flown straight into Emm and knocked her to the floor. It spread out over her, beating its tail on the floor like a happy dog.

‘Get it off me!'

KT grabbed the creature's tail, pulled it towards him and plunged his knife into its back, over and over again.

Dee had trapped one of the other creatures against a wall with her hammer. She had lost her knife so she stuck her iron fingernails into the beast, feeling its cold wet flesh on her fingers. Three goes with her screwdriver fingers and it was dead.

Zed struggled with the two remaining zorbats, which attacked him from either side. As he fought in front of him, he waved his third knife behind his back. Both zorbats had ignored Jay and flown at Zed. Jay jumped into the fight and attacked one of the space beasts with his knife. Zed concentrated on the other.

The first four zorbats were dead, but there were thousands more about to burst in at them.

‘Why didn't that one attack Jay?' Dee asked. ‘Did any of them attack you Jay?'

‘I killed some, I did!' he said.

‘I know, but they didn't attack you,' Dee replied.

‘Whatever, we need to find a way of killing them faster.' Zed wanted another plan of attack.

They looked at the dead creatures on the floor.

Their undersides were pocked with big warts with holes in the top where their acid was secreted.

‘Disgusting!' said KT.

‘And they stink, it's really getting up my nose,' said Jay.

‘That's the last thing we need,' said Emm, ‘one of your sneezing fits.'

‘I think… it's… tooo… arhh arhh,' Jay had a sneeze coming on.

He stood back to keep away from the others.

‘Arhh… Arh…'

Just as he was about to sneeze, Dee pushed him forwards so he was right over a dead zorbat.

‘Chooo!'

Jay's snot flew out and covered the creature.

‘Gross on gross!' Emm declared.

‘Why did you push me?' Jay asked Dee, his nose still full of snot.

‘Look.' She pointed at the dead zorbat. The snot was dissolving the creature.

‘That's why they didn't attack you,' Dee said. ‘Your snot dissolves them—your nose is the best weapon we have.'

‘Fantastic!' Zed shouted. ‘Good thinking Dee and great sneezing Jay. Here's our plan.'

Emm took Jay to the walk-in freezer in the kitchen.

‘Pepper, chilli, whatever you can find to make him sneeze, throw it at him. Take his clothes off, wet him and made him cold,' Zed instructed her.

‘That's not…' Jay didn't have time to say ‘fair' before he was in the freezer in his underpants soaking wet and sneezing away into buckets.

KT fetched the water sprays. Dee diluted the snot with water and filled the spray bottles.

Zed kept guard at the sealed door. It was already beginning to buckle. He wiped his hands in Jay's snot which had hit the dead zorbat and smeared it on the doors. With any luck they'd melt their way through the door and then be melted themselves. He hoped it would hold them off until the weapons were ready.

As Dee ran down the corridor loaded up with spray guns, the hole in the door began to dissolve. There was a shriek and then the horrible eerie silence again.

‘Here,' she shouted, from fifteen metres away. She threw the water bottles in the air, one by one and hit them with her hammer, using it as a baseball bat. Three water sprayers came flying down the corridor. Zed caught two in his front hands and turned just in time to spray the first zorbat while he caught the third bottle in his rear hand.

The zorbats poured through. This time Zed was ready. He sprayed in every direction. The zorbats screeched, some tried to fly past but fell to the ground. Some did make it past him, only to fall into Dee's spray. She misted the snot into the air, they flew into it and collapsed. She worked her way forwards to Zed.

‘Where are the others?' asked Zed. ‘We'll need everyone if we're going to drive them back.'

‘They'll be here soon.'

Zed and Dee held their ground as wave after wave of zorbat came at them. Soon the floor was covered in piles of melting zorbats.

‘Even if I could remember the rest of my life,' said Dee, ‘this is the grossest thing I've ever done.'

Loaded up with spray and refill bottles, KT, Emm and Jay arrived to join the fight.

‘Are we ready?' Zed asked.

‘YES!' everyone shouted.

‘Computer, open the doors and… CHARGE!'

The five Lab Rats charged forward spraying everything around them. The corridor on the other side of the doors was full of zorbats. They virtually swam through the horrid creatures, spraying Jay's snot on everything.

They sprayed and sprayed until their fingers were sore from pulling the triggers. They swapped hands, used different fingers and zorbat after zorbat fell to the ground.

‘It's still no good!' shouted KT. ‘There's too many.'

‘Keep going KT, just keep going!' Zed shouted back.

In the control room XL would have been perched on the edge of his seat if he could move. All he could see on the security cameras was a forest of zorbats and glimpses of the Rats. He was so proud and yet so scared. He told the computer to switch to the outside monitors. The outside of the ship was clean. All the zorbats were inside. The Rats had a big fight on their hands.

As he watched the battle on the screen, he could see what the Rats could not. Despite the zorbats flying at them, they were inching forward.

‘I don't know how much more I can do!' Jay was exhausted.

‘Just sneeze then!' shouted Dee.

Jay sighed. His nose was his sorest part, but he had to do everything he could.

He grabbed a zorbat tail and shoved it up his nose.

‘Arhh. Arhh… choo!' Zorbats immediately flew away from him. He had a space around him.

‘Forwards!' Zed urged Jay on. He was the only one that could make the zorbats flee. Jay ran forward and shoved a tail up his nose again.

‘Ow… choo!' The corridor shook with the force of Jay's nose and every zorbat in front of them was swept back in the torrent of air and snot.

On the control deck, XL could see zorbats flying out of the hole in the ship. They were running away. The zorbats surged out in spurts like a whale blowing water out of its blowhole. It was Jay's sneezes that drove them away. He was growing more powerful and stronger as he moved forward, sneeze by sneeze.

The others had stopped. Jay just walked forward, sneezing and pushing the zorbats away.

‘He's amazing… the power of his nose is unbelievable.' Zed was in awe. They followed Jay as he made his way to the gym. He chased the creatures right up to the hole they entered through until every zorbat had flown out.

Just one remained in the gym, flying around trying to avoid Jay. The others, their fingers sore and blistered from so much spraying, gathered around it and waited for their hero's cue.

‘Fire!' yelled Jay and the four other Lab Rats pressed their triggers for the last time.

The final zorbat dropped to the ground.