Trainee Superhero (Book Two) (5 page)

“
Red Five
, are you locked?” says a new
voice in my helmet.

“Locked,” I confirm, trying not to swear.

“Get inside and bring it down,” says the
voice.

“Really? REALLY? I was just going to clean
the windshield,” I say as I try to cut into the hull with my
melting ray.

“Are you inside?” says the voice, which
sounds annoyed and, I realize too late, also sounds very
important.

I’m probably speaking to a general or air
marshal or something now. Perhaps I should be more polite. Nah.

“Nuh. Can’t cut through. I’m going to try
crawling over the ship to find a weak point.”

“Negative,
Red Five
, wait where you
are while we consider your position.”

Consider my position? The saucer hits
turbulence and I get slammed against the hull. My position is
rubbish, and it won’t improve by sticking around. I climb over the
hull using the many uneven welds and protrusions as handholds. It’s
tricky, but no harder than the infinity wall
Small Talk
loves so much. I climb up to a gun turret and slash its barrels
with my cutter. A second gun turret sees me and opens up with a
crude laser cannon, burning through the hull and heating my shield
right up.

What kind of idiots would fire on their own
ship like that?

I cut into the turret and pull myself
inside.

My shield says 5%.

“
Red Five
, we advise trying to find
another way in. Start moving now,” orders my unseen commander.

“Yeah… I already did that. I’m in.”

“Copy. Please wait next time for orders.”

“I won’t,” I say, “but if it’s any
consolation I’ll probably be dead before next time. Shields at
five…no, four... ugh. Shields low, anyway.”

“Try and get to an engine.”

“What does one of those look like?” I
demand.

The radio falls silent, and I feel a brief
moment of triumph. The corridor is filled with long power cables
and strange computer screens. I blast everything I see as I walk,
just to be sure. Occasionally I see human figures racing through
the corridors. Some take shots at me with pistols or rifles, but I
ignore them.

I didn’t sign up to kill humans.

“Hey kid,” says the familiar voice of
Talented Brat
, “I thought you might appreciate talking to
someone who actually knows what’s going on. Don’t give me that
look, marshal, I’m sure the Admiral is-”

The line cuts out. I find a row of laser
cannons pointing out the hull like cannons like it was some ancient
ship of the line. There is no one around. The ship groans beneath
me and rumbles a little. It hasn’t been flying very well at all;
I’ll be surprised if we even make it to Japan without crashing.

“I found some cannons,” I offer.

“Right,” says
Brat
over the radio,
“that will do… you need to overload the gun control and destroy it.
Then we can send reinforcements and take this baby in one
piece.”

“How?”

“Place your blaster on the barrel of the
nearest laser; we are going to pulse-shift your suit to overpower
them.”

I do as I’m told.

“Now open all the safeties and give the
blaster as much as you’ve got.”

Sounds… dangerous. I do as
Brat
says
and my suit starts to warm up alarmingly. Power crackles down my
arm and the multiblaster turns bright white.

“Shoot,” suggests
Brat
.

I shoot. The cannons begin to spark and melt
as power surges over them and through the ship. The whole saucer
vibrates and lurches as light flashes. The only light is the blue
sparks that jump from cannon to cannon, grounding themselves in the
walls and occasionally on me as well. The cannon nearest me bursts,
showering me with hot metal and balls of lightning. My shield takes
a beating; I’m down to 2%.

The cannons explode one by one as the power
surges get too much for them. They rip the side of the ship apart,
and I only survive by diving behind a thick metal cabinet.

“You could have warned me!” I scream.

“Why? Then you might not have done it,” says
Brat
in his infuriating way.

He has a point, but I’m still not very
happy.

“I think I want to talk to the Admiral again,
thanks,” I say.

“Whatever. Just bring the saucer back in one
piece.”

“What about me? Can I come back in one piece
as well?”

The hybrid saucer seems to be slowing, so
whatever I did must have worked.

“Reinforcements inbound,” announces the
Admiral.

I can see a Comet drawing near the saucer. I
don’t see anyone leaving it, but then
Bad Day
and
Past
Prime
teleport right next to me.
Bad Day
disappears
again and starts shuttling people over from the Comet. Water drips
off
Past Prime
’s power suit; I guess he missed the saucer
the first time around. He’s followed by
Never Lies
,
Born
Lucky
,
Die Laughing
and
Extremely Dangerous
.

“Good work on taking the guns out and slowing
this thing down,” says
Bad Day
.

The others take up guard positions as the
ship rolls alarming from side to side. A piece of the wall rips
away from the ship and blows away past the Comet. We all dive for
something to grab as the wind rips at us, and I manage to hold onto
a piece of protruding scaffolding.

“Everyone okay?” asks
Past Prime
.

We all are, although my shields are low and
this ship seems to be only moments from falling right out of the
sky.

“This is stooopid,” says
Die Laughing
,
“as if our jobs aren’t hard enough without some idiots trying to
build their own saucer. I mean, the world is fragile enough without
humans kicking it. This is ridiculous!”

He bangs on the wall and starts laughing at
the absurdity of it.

The wall beside him explodes and blows him
right out of the ship and into the air like one of his paper
planes. I lose track of him against the blue water below, and he’s
gone.

“
Die Laughing
is down,” says the
Admiral over the radio as we cling to the broken metal bones
protruding from the saucer.

“Saucerfraking triclopshat,” I mutter in
shock.

I forgot that everyone can hear me over the
radio.

“That’s why this team isn’t publicized like
other teams,” says
Never Lies
, sounding as unhappy as I
feel, “they don’t want the world knowing how many of us die.”

“Disposable heroes,” I say, and
Never
Lies
nods.

“Cut the chatter,” orders the Admiral
uneasily.

“Let’s get moving. We need to find the
command pod on this thing,” orders
Past Prime
.

We move slowly and carefully through crude
metal corridors. A guy with a chainsaw attacks
Past Prime
,
but
Prime
knocks him unconscious as we walk past. Every time
we come to a fork in the corridor
Prime
looks to
Extremely Dangerous
to point out the way to go.

A guy with a rifle tries to take us down, but
his weapon is useless against our shields, even when we are over
water. He empties a full clip with no success and then runs off. We
ignore him.

We reach the command pod, but it’s locked off
by a series of large doors.

“The saucer will reach the mainland in ten
minutes. Bring it down now!” orders the Admiral.

We ignore him.

“We need an in,” says
Past Prime
.

Our weapons can’t cut through quickly
enough.

“Can you get past that door?” I ask
Bad
Day
.

“I have to see where I’m going,” he says.

We’re running out of options.

“
Simon Smith
?” I say.

Extremely Dangerous
places a hand on
the door. Thin tentacles of light spread out from his fingers and
caress the walls, slipping through hatches and under the door
between us and the command pod. We hear screams from the pod,
followed by gunfire, but
Extremely Dangerous
doesn’t seem
the least bit worried. The door clicks open.

We all look at
Extremely Dangerous
in
surprise, but he ignores our unasked questions. We walk into the
bridge, and the command crew flees. The bridge equipment is a
complex mix of old Earth technology and weird alien stuff. We stare
at it and I wish
Talented Brat
was here to help us.

Or my mom. She would have loved this, but I
have absolutely no idea what to do.

“There was nothing about this in the training
manual,” I say.

Never Lies
plays with some of the
controls, but they don’t do anything. I bet the bridge crew
sabotaged the controls when they left.

“Can you control this thing?”
Past
Prime
asks
Extremely Dangerous
. “Or is it time to
abandon ship?”

Extremely Dangerous
stretches out his
arms and shakes his head. His head pulses with a light that’s
painful to see. The ship shudders, rolls slightly, and levels. The
flying suddenly becomes far smoother than before. Lights turn back
on, and the walls start to glow brightly as the saucer comes under
control.

“Where shall I land it?”
Extremely
Dangerous
asks in a slow, relaxed voice.

Now I understand where he gets his name
from.

“Teamwork is an essential part of what we do.
Your team are professionals, and you can trust them.”

-The Superhero Trainee Guide (Third Edition),
Chapter Nine.

“Okay you bunch of beautiful incompetents,
let’s try and finish this without you getting me killed.”

-Transcript of
Ice Blood
talking to
the ‘A’ class superhero team squad he took command of at the battle
of Drifter’s Pass.

I’m waiting in the armory with
Bad
Day
,
One Trick
and a couple of superheroes called
Wrong Answer
and
Loud Mouth
when
Firestorm
Commando
walks in and gives us his most insincere grin.

“Good news, losers, we have been given a
mission from
The General
himself. Satellites have reported
saucer activity down south. Way down south.”

My heart sinks. I’m still too weak to take on
Firestorm Commando
if he tries to go for me, and I have a
bad feeling that he will.
Wrong Answer
shakes her head.
She’s older than most of the superheroes, and moves slowly.

“We don’t take orders from
The
General
,” she says, “and that area isn’t our jurisdiction.”

“You take your orders from me, though. Now
get into those capsules before I shock you to death.”

Some things don’t change. I had found
Firestorm Commando
’s file on the computer, and had read it
with great interest. Most of the members of the
Cerberus
Brawlers
were sent here after a trial, served their time as a
trainee and then were assigned a name, but
Firestorm
Commando
hadn’t technically committed a crime and had never
been a trainee. The rumor is that
The General
had sent him
to the
Cerberus
to keep a watch on our mysterious boss.
Technically
Firestorm Commando
is second in command of the
unit, which is an unpleasant thought.

There isn’t much we can do, so we get up and
walk to the capsules.

“What a tosser,” says
Loud Mouth
to
me.

He probably meant to whisper, but his voice
is so loud that everyone in the armory hears it. A couple of the
technicians chuckle, but
Firestorm Commando
looks
furious.

“What did you say?” he demands, but
Loud
Mouth
pretends not to hear.

Bad Day
shakes his head and gets in
the capsule in front of me. He looks about as annoyed as I
feel.

“The boss said that this idiot had been
assigned to an administration role only… but the boss only left for
England this morning and already this idiot is causing
trouble.”

“Might be time for an accident,” I
mutter.

I’m not serious, but
Bad Day
seems to
think I am.

“
Pet Shark
already tried it, but our
collars have safety measures in them to prevent that sort of
thing.”

“Oh. So we’re screwed?”

“Yep… but I thought you would be used to that
by now.”

The capsules launch us half-way across the
world, and we land together in snow that stretches from horizon to
horizon. The area is covered in low ridges of ice and rock
separated by narrow stretches of dirty white snow. I can already
feel the cold air leaking into my suit, and I wonder if there is
any human life within a hundred miles of us. I double it; this
place is a frozen desert, and perhaps it always was. I'm glad:
there is no life here, nothing that needs protecting, no fragile
city in danger. It's the perfect place for a rumble.

Firestorm Commando
waves us into the
air and we fly in a loose 'v' formation, each one looking in a
different direction. The broken ground passes slowly beneath us,
slabs of broken grey rocks like scattered giants’ teeth. There is
no sign of a saucer, but we find a tunnel. The entrance is built in
such a way that it can't be seen from high in the air, but I can't
tell if that was intentional or not. We were lucky to find it from
only a few feet off the ground.

“Here we are, boys and girls,” says
Firestorm Commando
with a cocky grin that makes me hope his
weapons also prevent friendly fire.

I've never heard of anyone finding a saucer
down a tunnel before. Neither has anyone else, by the sounds of
surprise around me.