The Enemy's Lair (9 page)

He opened his eyes. He was back on the Bridge of the
Phoenix
,
with Diesel and Selene. Selene had her long brown hair back; Diesel had his strip of hair, and his own legs. Peri touched his stomach. It was firm once more.

‘We’re back to normal!’ he said.

‘Look!’ Diesel said, pointing to the 360-monitor and the tiny flying saucer they’d just left, an insignificant dot in the vastness of space. The two great asteroids were speeding towards it on a collision course. The flying saucer exploded into billions of fragments that rained in space when the asteroids crashed into one another.

‘
F’narg
!
’
said Diesel. ‘That was nearly us!’

‘They’ll think they got us!’ Peri said. ‘They won’t know that we teleported – they’ll stop coming after us now!’

A booming Meigwor voice came over the ship’s speakers. ‘Earth criminals! This is General Rouwgim! Our sensors have picked up your escape! Return to Meigwor immediately! Bring the prince with you! This is an order! Failure to comply will result in annihilation!’

They stared at each other in alarm. Selene looked at the control panel. ‘The Expansion Packs are engaged! You’d better shrink the ship – we make a pretty big target like this!’

Peri waved his hand and the control panel glided into his grasp. His fingers effortlessly flicked across the switches and dials as he downsized the ship.

Immediately, Prince Onix, Otto and Kahatama came tumbling into the Bridge from wherever they had been.

‘What happened?’ Prince Onix asked, gazing round in confusion.

The little Fooswaylian was holding an enormous laserpulse. He looked like a plum carrying a banana. Otto had a duster.

‘Right!’ Otto boomed. ‘Enough messing about! Turn this ship round and head straight for Meigwor right now – or I’ll pulverise you!’

‘And then I’ll blast you to smithereens!’ said the Fooswaylian.

‘Return to Meigwor!’ boomed General Rouwgim. ‘Or be annihilated!’

‘OK,’ said Peri mildly. ‘Fair enough.’

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Selene, catching his eye.

‘No!’ Prince Onix screamed. ‘You can’t let them take me to Meigwor!’

‘Just what do you guys think you’re doing?’ demanded Diesel.

‘They’re being sensible!’ boomed Otto. ‘Giving up the fight in the face of overwhelming force.’

Kahatama sniggered.

‘Let me see . . .’ Peri muttered, scanning the console.

‘Hmm . . .’ said Selene.

They looked at each other and nodded.

Peri touched the Eject Hazardous Space Waste button.

At exactly the same time, Selene stroked the Contain Exo-Zoological Specimens touchpad.

Two metal arms shot out of the floor, grabbed Kahatama and turned him upside down. He squeaked and dropped his laserpulse. A trapdoor opened in the floor, leading to a waste disposal chute. The metal arms neatly dropped the Fooswaylian down the chute.

‘WAAAAHHHH –’ he began; but the rest was cut off by the trapdoor closing.

‘What the –’ began Otto. A transparent cylinder shot down from the ceiling and imprisoned him, muffling his voice. He beat furiously on the surface.

‘Can he break out of that?’ Diesel asked.

‘No way!’ said Peri. ‘It’s made of super-toughened Venusian silicate – it would hold a wild Aldebaranian Horned Fizzwoggler, or . . .’ he glanced at Otto’s crimson face and pulsing fists, ‘. . . or a hysterically angry bounty hunter.’

The voice of the Meigwor general filled the Bridge. ‘Despite our warnings you have not changed course for Meigwor! This is an ultimatum: change course or face the consequences!’

‘Hey, General!’ Selene said. ‘I’ve got a message from Otto!’

‘What is the message?’ boomed the general.

Selene grinned. ‘He says, stick your head under your armpit and take a deep breath!’

‘I did not say that!’ shouted Otto. But the transparent prison muffled his voice so that the general heard nothing.

‘Very well!’ came the general’s furious, amplified tones. ‘Faced with the choice between obedience and painful death, you have chosen painful death. So be it! Otto, the traitor, will suffer the most painful death of all!’

There was a click as the transmission was broken.

‘You idiots!’ came Otto’s muffled roar. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done!’

‘You might as well team up with us now, Otto,’ Peri said. ‘Not that you have much choice.’

‘We’re all dead!’ Otto said. ‘The general will kill us all!’

‘He has to catch us first!’ said Selene.

Otto slapped his extra-long arms on the floor of the Bridge. ‘He doesn’t have to! He’ll launch an asteroid at us! And then he’ll detonate it by remote control, and it will shatter into a trillion pieces of deadly rock and dust all around us, and we’ll get knocked and hit and smashed around – but we’ll stay alive, because of the shields. We just won’t be able to get anywhere. We’ll be trapped in a prison of floating rocks. Then he’ll send troops to board us. And then . . .’ Otto gulped. ‘I can’t bear to think about it . . .’

‘If you want to avoid that, you’d better help us,’ said Peri. ‘Put down the duster and we’ll let you out.’

Otto placed the duster on the floor. Peri lifted the super-toughened Venusian silicate cylinder off him. Diesel, keeping him covered with the laserpulse, picked up the duster.

‘We’re going to need to work as a team to do this,’ Peri said. ‘Diesel, Otto and Prince Onix – you man the guns. We’re going to have to blast a path through all this rock and dust and it’ll come at us from all sides. I’ll take the helm. Selene – stand by to engage Superluminal!’

They all took their positions.

On the monitor, Peri saw another asteroid hurtling towards them – a planet-sized ball of rock, shining silver with the light of Meigwor’s distant sun. When it almost filled the monitor screen, it exploded in a blizzard of meteors.

For a moment they all stood spellbound, watching the myriad chunks and shards of rock cartwheel through space.

As the first piece of rock crashed into the
Phoenix
’s shields, Peri staggered, lost his balance and fell to the floor. He saw the others hit the deck too.

Diesel scrambled to the gun turret. He started firing the xenon missiles, getting the biggest chunks of rock in his sights and blasting them before they could hit the
Phoenix
.

Selene joined Peri at the control panel. He expanded the gun turret. Otto and the prince joined Diesel, and they too began blasting at the deadly rocks.

Selene manipulated the Nav-wheel with breathtaking skill, making the
Phoenix
dive and swoop and swerve to avoid the biggest chunks of rock, which were flying at them from all directions. Some of the smaller ones got through, despite the efforts of Selene and the gun crew. The ship was rocked and jolted and shaken. Peri had to cling on fast to the edge of the control panel to avoid being thrown all over the ship.

How much more of this could the
Phoenix
take?

Peri couldn’t engage Superluminal – they needed a clear path through space. Hitting a big rock at Superluminal speed would smash them into a million pieces, and then smash each of those million pieces into a million pieces.

‘Concentrate fire at 270 degrees!’ shouted Selene. She steered the ship into a channel that was almost clear – just a thin belt of rocks and dust lay before them.

Diesel, Otto and the prince swivelled their cannon in the same direction. They opened fire. Xenon missiles streaked through space ahead of them. A huge rock loomed up in their path. It shattered into fragments as the missiles hit it.

‘Now!’ Peri shouted.

Selene hit the Superluminal drive.

And everything changed.

The ship stabilised. Peri released his grip on the console. The rocks disappeared. The only thing left was the blurred streaks of stars as the
Phoenix
shot past.

‘Deactivate Superluminal,’ Peri said.

‘Aye-aye!’ Selene said.

They were hanging in the blackness of space, nothing around them for light years. A few distant stars shone with icy beauty.

Peri burst out laughing. Selene and Diesel joined in the laughter. So did Prince Onix. Even Otto was making a strange honking noise.

Peri couldn’t believe it. They’d survived another attack, rescued Selene and saved the prince from a fate worse than death. Plus, they’d thwarted the efforts of Xion guards, a treacherous Fooswalyian, a headless jungle predator, evil Meigwors and deadly chunks of asteroid sent to kill them.

‘We made it,’ said Diesel. ‘We’re safe!’

‘Yup,’ said Peri. ‘For now . . .’

Can Peri and the crew keep the Meigwors and the Xions off their trail?

Will they survive when they crash-land on an unknown planet?

Find out! In . . .

Turn the page to read Chapter 1

Chapter 1

‘We made it!’ Diesel cheered. The gunner’s narrow band of hair was a happy shade of orange. He wiggled around the Bridge in some strange Martian victory dance.

Even Otto, the Meigwor bounty hunter, looked on the verge of a little smile. His lipless mouth curled upwards like a dying space-slug.

Diesel whooped. ‘If I wasn’t the most amazing gunner in this galaxy, we’d never have got out of that alive.’

Otto’s faint smile faltered. ‘
I
saved us!’ boomed the Meigwor. ‘It was
my
skill that obliterated that massive rock!’

Diesel stopped dancing. His eyes flashed yellow. ‘That wasn’t skill, it was luck. If it wasn’t for me, we’d have been smashed into oblivion.’

Peri couldn’t help laughing. With those two arguing, everything was back to normal. Peri high-fived Selene, it was good to have their engineer back and safe. They’d rescued her from the Meigwors, refused to hand over Prince Onix and made a lucky escape from Otto’s home planet. The vengeful Meigwor General Rouwgim had created a giant asteroid storm and it had been a team effort to guide the
Phoenix
through it without being pulverised. Diesel and Otto had blasted what they could, while Peri and Selene had navigated the
Phoenix
through the deadly shower of rocks.