Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon (22 page)

The rotor above us now glowed as it spun. Vera had let go of my shoulders. My feet pushed against the deck by themselves. That thing up there produced fake gravity as well as power. Jeebers. If I could bring one of these back for Dad, he might forgive me for being a supervillain just because of the good it would do modern science.

The rotor above didn’t just glow. Lightning danced around the back edges of the propeller blades, the same lightning that spewed from the jets of Remmy’s flying saucer. Those blades kept spinning faster, and as they sped up, the lightning produced a longer trail.

Some of that lightning flickered around the gear I’d used to turn the rotor shaft back on itself. At the sight of it, Remmy shrank back, arms wrapped around herself.

Good sign. This baby was preparing to blow, which meant it was ready.

Just a guess, but touching that gear right now was probably a great way to lose a hand. Fortunately, I had the one, the only, the universe’s ultimate recycling Machine, which ate energy of all kinds and laughed! The Machine came off my wrist easily, and woke up without any urging. It still had a bit of juice from the last repair job. Reaching into the engine, I clamped its jaws against the gear and twisted it back around until it lined up with the main engine. Then I jumped back as soon as the gears I was leaning on moved.

There they went. Some of them spun awfully fast. They didn’t actually touch, but the gears all turned each other anyway, with lightning sparking in the spaces. We were definitely way past the speed the escapements were designed to allow.

One more step. Grabbing hold of one of the mysterious clamps with my Machine, I jammed it into place over a fluid tube’s cap.

The lightning stopped. The gears kept turning, but all the sparks stopped. Instead, light flickered in blobs inside the tube, settling into a dim glow.

The gears slowed, but didn’t stop. I yanked the props out of the escapements, and they hooked into place. Click by click, they slowed the main rotor.

Remmy pulled out the last wrench, dropping it onto the deck and grabbing me by the shoulders. She shook me back and forth, yelling something I couldn’t hear, but definitely looking happy. Pushing me out of the way, she got down on her knees, pulled up one of the clamps lying by the base of the engine, and hooked it onto the now glowing tube.

The deck vibrated, just for a moment. Wind blew past me, then stopped. Everything was still cold as ice, and I was pretty sure we didn’t have atmosphere, but for an eyeblink there, I’d felt something.

Remmy pried up her toolbox and clomped across the deck to a cabinet the size of a small shack. It had grilled speakers up top. No, not speakers, vents. Pulling out one of her wrenches, she began twisting open bolts holding a panel closed.

I tried to twist open another using the Machine, and nearly sprained my elbow. Criminy, Remmy was strong. When the bolt didn’t budge, the Machine misinterpreted my desires and bit it off. Oops. Well, that got it free.

Pulling the panel open, Remmy pointed at what looked a lot like a bullet hole in the metal. Then she pointed at the machine inside. This one I seriously could not make heads or tails of. It had tanks. It had bellows. It had grills. It had hoses. I, at least, could kinda sorta follow how the gears connected power to some of these items.

Most of the parts on the bottom half of the machine churn and spun and rocked. About halfway up, that stopped.

Remmy leaned in, squinting at the mess of parts. Vera shined a helpful flashlight.

Suddenly, Remmy reared back and waved her arms excitedly. Yanking open her toolbox, she pulled out a little lever, kind of like a bicycle jack, but with a dial. She wedged it against a couple of parts, wrapped her elbow around mine, and twisted the dial.

The top half of the machine lurched into motion, and I nearly got blown off my feet by the explosion of wind. Only Remmy holding onto my arm and the casing of the machine kept me in place. Vera, caught off guard, went tumbling. Of course, she could fly, so no big.

Everything felt different. Warm. Well, cold still crept up through the deck into my boots, but I was surrounded by warm air, in what could be bright daylight coming from the rotor above us, standing on my own two feet in roughly normal gravity.

Remmy struggled with the seals on her spacesuit. I didn’t get involved, because I didn’t know how. The helmet came off, hitting the deck with a loud clonk, and Remmy squealed, “We did it! We did it! We did it! How did you know how to do that?”

I pried the bat thing off my neck, and with a shudder of revulsion at its squishiness, stuffed it back in my pocket. “I have a superpower.” Although this hadn’t felt like my superpower. At all. “Anyway, so do you, right? No kid our age could kludge that together.” I pointed at the atmosphere generator.

An atmosphere generator, and a power system I’d never heard even speculated about. Jupiter was mad science central. I was going to like this place!

Remmy rolled her eyes so dramatically, her head rolled with them. “I’m glad someone noticed. I swear my brother thinks he’s humoring me, letting me wear these goggles.”

Then she grinned at me, hugely. I grinned back. I couldn’t help it. We linked arms, and laughed as loudly as we could, “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

Approaching footsteps thumped on the deck. It was nice to be able to hear again! We turned around to see Calvin and Juno racing towards us. Juno practically floated. Maybe her real superpower was super-grace.

Remmy held out her arms. Calvin grabbed one of her hands, and grabbed one of mine. Dropping down to one knee, he looked me in the eyes. “You did it. Bad Penny, this changes everything. We have a home again. A free home, where we can plant grass and trees, and live for ourselves, never having to worry about air or heat.” Behind him, Juno laid her hand on his shoulder.

His voice had sounded thick and faintly hoarse, like he just might cry from joy. Remmy corrected him much more practically, “You’re jumping the gun a little, big brother. We got the basics working, but other than that, there’s just maybe enough power to get the lights and sub-deck heaters functioning. We’re going to need water and mulch to keep the atmosphere running, and we’re still out two tubes of charged aetheric fluid.”

Calvin ruffled her bangs, making Remmy’s giant pigtails bounce. “Bad Penny just worked a miracle. I know you can do this now that she’s here.”

Juno stepped up next to Calvin, her glowing eyes looking down at me. “The Jovians tell me that we have barely scratched the surface of what Bad Penny and her friends can do. They may look like children, but they are something much more.”

Calvin’s eyes gleamed, and he inclined his head to Vera, and to the Red Herring behind me. “If she can tame a Conqueror drone and free a meat puppet, she can do anything.”

I giggled. Giggling isn’t normally my thing, but getting praised for fixing a space station justified a giggle or two.

For bonus points, it sounded like he’d just made peace with Vera and Juliet.

Claire’s hands took hold of my shoulder and Remmy’s from behind. It couldn’t be anybody but Claire. Her skin seemed to glow as she turned up the juice to charm Calvin and Juno, or maybe that was just how I felt having my friends with me at a moment like this.

Beaming her dimpled smile at Calvin and Juno, Claire said, “It looks like two geniuses make a miracle. You both must be exhausted. Go help Miss Fawkes out of that suit and take a break, Bad Penny.”

Grinning, I was about to protest that I wasn’t tired at all. Then I looked past Claire at Remmy. Remmy was not grinning. Oops. Yeah, she definitely had a bad case of Patronizing Sibling.

I jerked my head at her. “Come on. This place is huge. If we can find the parts you need downstairs, I’m going to show your brother my super laziness power, and let you fix everything else.”

Remmy’s pursed-lipped scowl softened into mere blankness. “Yeah, alright. Nobody’s explored this place since the invasion.”

Relieved that Claire had saved me from my own thoughtlessness, I tugged on Remmy’s arm, helping her walk in those massive magnetic boots. A big square hole looked like the staircases down into the subways back home. I headed that way.

ay put a fuming Remmy back on her feet when we reached the bottom of the stairs.

Okay, the adults aren’t watching. Now you can take it off,” I said.

She gave me a glare, but it wasn’t convincing at all. We both knew she couldn’t possibly have gotten down the steps in giant magnetic boots. When she gave up blaming me, she jerked a thumb at Ray. “What about him?”

“What about him? You’re fully dressed under there, right?” The ruffles of her shirt collar peeking out of the suit’s collar were a pretty good hint.

Her chin jutted out stubbornly. “So?”

Actually, she had me there. It was the principle of the thing.

I started to give Ray a look, but he held up his hand in anticipation. With a long, pained sigh, he lied, “Only because she’s too young for me,” and turned to face a stone wall.

I hadn’t expected stone walls.

Remmy had one more objection. “What about the goat?”

I looked over at Juliet, sitting demurely with her knees folded on the steps, drawing Remmy’s spacesuit and labeling the parts with a remarkably skilled hand, especially since she had one less finger to hold the pencil. I returned my strategically unhelpful stare to Remmy. “You’re going to have to get used to Juliet.”

Remmy groaned in frustration, sounding happier already, and spent a few minutes prying herself out of a pile of leather, fabric, and metal I couldn’t have stood up in.

That gave me time to consider the stone walls again. Going by flooring, the whole station was actually made of metal, but someone had done their best to pretend it wasn’t. Only this central area by the stairs even had a metal floor. Fancy hexagonal cobblestones lined most of the huge, central thoroughfare. Open rooms had wood-lined walls, and they were big rooms. Claustrophobia was not going to be a problem. The only acknowledgment in the construction were a few metal bulkhead hatches at major intersections.

Oh, and the place was a mess. Yikes. Benches, clothing, boxes, furniture of all kinds, and a whole lot of paper lay strewn everywhere. A potted plant lay by the foot of the stairs, melted into green goo. Everything was damp, as a flood of warm air fought with the abyssal chill of metal abandoned for years in the blackness of space. It was a good thing that all of us had nice, thick shoes.

Well, except Juliet, but… Juliet.

Leaving her spacesuit in a heap, Remmy headed down one hallway. The rest of us followed, since we didn’t even know what we were looking for

The solution was clear. I asked, “What are we looking for?”

“The aetheric fluid condenser,” she answered unhelpfully. Downright impatiently.

“Which is…?” Ray pressed.

Remmy stopped in the middle of the hallway, and squinted back at us skeptically. “You don’t use aetheric fluid condensers on Earth?”

I shook my head. “We don’t even have the technology. We use electricity for everything.”

Remmy put a hand on one hip, tilting her head―which was really obvious, with her gigantically long pigtails hanging down. “Huh. I guess the old cog heads weren’t lying. Well, we’re looking for a big machine near the bottom of the colony, right in the center. The rotor shaft runs straight to it. Nobody, but nobody knows how to make the stuff. Only the automatons even know how to run the machines.”