Secret Weapon (5 page)

‘Hold on,’ Peri said. ‘I’m coming in.’

He jetted towards the opening. A closed claw descended and pushed him away. He tried again, looking to swoop over the top of the claw and down behind it. But the Crab moved fast to bat him away once more. Peri went tumbling backwards, head over heels. Stars whirled round him.

‘It won’t let me in!’ he complained, as he righted himself. ‘How come it wants you and not me?’

He heard Diesel laugh. ‘Maybe it’s got good taste.’

‘You’d better find the Heart of Mars and get out quick,’ Peri said.

‘I’m looking for it,’ Diesel said. From inside the shell, Peri heard faint clattering sounds, as if junk was being moved around. ‘But I dropped the Detector when I was pushed in here. Also – I don’t know if I can get out.’

‘What? Why not?’

‘I’m trapped behind a mountain of weird shiny stuff. It’s like –’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Peri said. ‘Aladdin’s cave.’

He thought hard. He couldn’t get in and Diesel couldn’t get out. But why? They were both wearing Expedition Wear and looked the same – except that Diesel had that Martian flag draped over him . . .

Peri’s brain went Superluminal.

The Crab had waved its claws around in time to the rays of his phaser. It had stuffed its shell full of glittering objects. It obviously liked bright, shiny things. Maybe it had been attracted by Diesel’s colourful, shimmering cloak!

‘Stay right where you are,’ he told Diesel.

‘I don’t have much choice,’ Diesel muttered.

Peri flipped the com-switch on his helmet to talk to the Bridge.

This time Selene answered. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Diesel?’

‘We need to rescue him. Can you do something? In the ship’s library there’s a film about old Earth customs –
Did They Really Do That?
Can you access it through the computer and get the ship to transmit a holographic display of the section on fireworks? We want a really,
really
big display, OK?’

‘I expect me and my dad can rig something up,’ Selene said. ‘What’s it for?’

‘It’s to entertain a Trojan Crab,’ Peri said.

Moments later, a huge fiery rocket soared through space. Then another, and another, until space seemed full of their fiery orange tails. A giant Catherine wheel burst into life, throwing out sparks of gold and silver. Red, yellow and green puffs of smoke erupted. A rain of twinkling diamonds fell.

The Crab’s stalky eyes followed the display, mesmerised. Its claws slowly waved from side to side. If it could have spoken, Peri felt pretty sure it would be saying ‘Oooh!’ and ‘Aaah!’

‘I’m coming in!’ Peri told Diesel.

He looked down at the safety cable that connected him to the
Phoenix
. He would need to take it off. The idea of being completely disconnected from the ship was scary, but he had no choice. He took a deep breath and unclipped the cable.

He zoomed towards the opening in the Crab’s shell. This time, transfixed by the firework display, the creature made no attempt to stop him.

Peri dived into the blackness.

SQUELCH!

He had squished head first into a wall of something clingy and gloopy, like snot or uncooked egg white. It smelt a bit like rotten eggs too. Peri had to fight not to be sick.

Responding to the darkness, the lights on his Expedition Wear helmet came on. He saw that he was in some kind of viscous, green fluid.

He spoke into the com-unit. ‘Diesel? I’m trapped in some sort of horrible snot!’

‘Oh, yeah,’ he heard Diesel say. ‘You have to come through that.’

‘Maybe you could have mentioned that before?’ Peri said with a sigh.

‘Sorry,’ Diesel said. ‘I got distracted by all the treasure in here. It’s like –’

‘Aladdin’s cave,’ Peri said. ‘I know.’ He hit the control button of his rocket pack, going slow. For a few seconds he was completely surrounded by sticky, smelly green goo. He couldn’t see anything. Then he emerged, with relief, on the other side. He wiped the gunge off his visor. He was in a sort of cosmic junkyard.

There were pieces of space debris – sections of old rockets, a tailpiece that Peri recognised from his history lessons at the IF Academy as part of
Sputnik
1, and a large silver hamburger, which was the familiar logo of Johnny Jupiter’s Interstellar Hamburger Bar. He saw glittering chunks of quartz and other space-rocks that the Crab must have hoovered up on its travels. Peri gazed around, the light from his helmet illuminating objects as he turned. He saw the Elemental X-Ray Detector and pounced on it.

He scrambled over a huge piece of satellite telescope, aided by his rocket pack. On the other side, he saw Diesel sitting on an old aluminium bucket.

‘About time,’ Diesel said. ‘I’ve been waiting ages.’

‘Here,’ Peri said, tossing him the Detector. ‘Find the Heart of Mars.’

Diesel set it to ‘Lead’. The Detector clicked as he passed it over the debris. The clicking grew louder and faster. ‘We’re close!’ he said excitedly.

The clicking was loudest and fastest at the base of the satellite telescope. ‘It must be under here,’ Peri said. He slipped his fingers under the rim of the telescope and heaved. It toppled backwards and crashed into a heap of other space junk.

Peri grinned at the amazed expression on Diesel’s face. ‘There’s hardly any gravity here,’ he explained. ‘The Crab is tiny compared to a planet, so objects weigh almost nothing. They still have the same mass though.’

‘I was never good at physics,’ Diesel said. ‘It must be easy for you to understand, because you’re half a robot.’

‘I’m not half a robot, I’m
part
bionic!’ Peri said. ‘Anyway, weight depends on gravity. But even in zero gravity, a big dense object has the same mass – if it hit you, you’d be sorry.’

But Diesel wasn’t listening. He gave a crow of delight as he leapt forward. He picked up a black lead cylinder and shook it. A heavy rattling came from inside! ‘Found it!’

‘Great!’ said Peri. ‘Now we can get out of here and go back to –’

He fell silent when he heard a scraping sound. Then a clinking. Then a rush like a metallic avalanche.

Peri spun round. The mountain of space junk he had crashed into was swaying. Its balance had been disturbed and it was falling towards the Crab’s centre. There was enough mass there to crush Peri and Diesel like wafers.

And they were right in its path.

Chapter 6

Peri grabbed Diesel’s arm and hit the rocket pack control. They jetted upwards. The avalanche of space junk was hurtling towards them. They’d be squashed flat if they didn’t escape soon.

The top of the pile scraped their toes.

They’d only just cleared it.

Peri kept a tight hold of Diesel, who kept an even tighter hold on the Heart of Mars. With the rocket pack blaster on full, Peri towed his friend into the slime. He held his breath, trying not to breathe in the smell as the green goo clung to his visor again.

They finally emerged on the lip of the Crab’s shell. Peri wiped his visor clean, relieved to see the infinite reaches of empty space.

The Crab was still watching the bright, sparkling lights of the firework display, its stalky eyes and its eight claws waving dreamily from side to side. It took no notice of Peri and Diesel.

‘Let’s have a look at that Heart of Mars,’ Peri said.

Diesel clutched the cylinder to his chest. ‘No chance! Only a Martian prince of the blood royal gets to look at the Heart!’

Peri sighed. ‘OK. Well, let’s get back to the ship.’

That was not going to be as easy as it sounded. The Trojan Crab was still whizzing through space at fifty kilometres a second. The
Phoenix
, though it looked motionless hanging there above them, was keeping pace. As soon as he and Diesel stepped off the Crab, they would be moving at fifty kilometres a second. If they were going in just slightly the wrong direction, the
Phoenix
would soon vanish into the far distance. The rocket pack would be nowhere near powerful enough to catch up.

‘I’ll call the others,’ Peri said. ‘They can teleport us aboard.’ He flipped the com-switch in his helmet. ‘Selene? Thanks for the firework display!’

‘No problem,’ Selene said. ‘It was fun.’

‘Can you get a fix on me and Diesel and –’

‘Aaaarrggghmmmmf!’ Selene screamed. ‘Mmmmmfffff!’

‘What?’ Peri said. He could hear raised voices and clattering and . . . was that blaster fire in the background? ‘Selene! Otto! Jaxx! What’s happening?’

‘Grrrummmmfffffff!’ was all Selene said.

Then silence.

Diesel gasped. ‘What’s going on?’

Peri tried again to get through to the Bridge. This time there was no response at all.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Peri said. ‘It sounded like Selene was being attacked!’

‘Attacked?’

‘Why is no one answering now? I have a bad feeling about this.’

‘So how do we get back on board the
Phoenix
?’ demanded Diesel.

Peri spotted the end of his safety cable dangling not far behind them, but just out of reach. It was a gamble – but it looked like their only chance of getting back to the
Phoenix
.

‘Hold on tight,’ Peri said. ‘I’m going to use the rocket pack to help us jump for the cable.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Diesel said. ‘If we miss, the
Phoenix
will be on the other side of the galaxy within a second.’

‘Do you have a better idea then?’ Peri said.

Diesel said nothing. He just stood behind Peri and put one arm round his shoulders.

‘No!’ Peri said. ‘You have to go in front, otherwise the rocket pack will scorch your legs off!’

Diesel moved in front of Peri and draped one arm round his neck.

‘Why don’t you hold on with both hands?’ Peri asked.

‘I’m not letting go of the Heart of Mars!’ Diesel said, clutching the lead cylinder to this chest.

‘Well, you’d better not let go of me!’ Peri said, as he stood on tiptoe on the very lip of the shell. This was going to take nerve, concentration and a very, very big leap.