Star Blaze (14 page)

“Your home is spectacular,” said Zeta, looking at the giant ringed world that dominated the view. “I did not know a planet could be so thickly encircled by rings.”

“It's not ours,” Clara replied, frowning a little. “But we're close. I'll find out why the Plican didn't fold all the way.”

Johnny had sent Alf to sickbay, partly for a checkup after his rather unusual reboot, but also so he could ask Princess Zeta what she'd done.

“On Novolis I am considered a healer,” she responded. “I am loath to be away from there for a great sickness has befallen my people, but we are on a quest.”

“Enough!” shouted Erin, stepping out of the lifts and marching across the bridge. Zeta fell silent, but Bentley growled as the boy king approached. Erin ignored the sheepdog and stopped directly in front of Johnny, blocking his view. “I did not recognize these stars. Your ship refused to tell me where we were, but I forced it out of her.”

“You did what?” said Johnny as he rose slowly from the chair.

“You have betrayed us. You promised to take us home, yet you have brought us here. I do not tolerate treachery.” Zeta touched her brother's arm to stop him, but Erin shrugged her off, looked straight at Johnny and closed his fist. Johnny felt as if he'd swallowed a whole cup full of ice. He clutched at his chest—it was as though a freezing-cold hand had grabbed hold of his heart to stop it beating. As he fell to his knees he looked up and saw a cruel smile spreading across Erin's scaly face. There were sounds in the background, but a buzzing filled Johnny's ears as the blood drained away from his face, and everything started to go white. He closed his eyes and then he saw, in the strange way he was becoming able to do, that his heart had been cut off … insulated, preventing any electric charge getting through to the giant muscle—as if a cage had been erected all around it. Johnny couldn't remember such quiet stillness. For the first time in his life, he didn't have a heartbeat.

With no oxygen reaching his brain, he had to force himself to think. He remembered reviving Captain Valdour and drew on
all the strength he could find to fire an electric charge toward the idle pump in his chest. Blue sparks flew inside him. They circled Erin's cage, but couldn't penetrate. There seemed no way through the finest of the fine bars of the cardiac prison. He fell forward. His face was wet, which was strange, but Johnny forced his eyes open and they met Bentley's. The Old English sheepdog's rough tongue was frantically slopping over him.

Johnny could no longer move his body, but he stared through the white fringe before him and focused on Bentley's one blue and one brown eye. Then he rolled his own eyes upward toward Erin. Bentley followed Johnny's gaze. The big dog leaned back on his haunches and sprang toward the boy king.

Immediately, there was a slackening in Johnny's chest. Amid the shouts and yelps that shattered the silence, Johnny willed apart the bars of the cage and sent through more sparks. His heart twitched and then, above the background noise, he heard the welcome double thud of it beating. As the blood began to flow again, Johnny got gingerly to his feet. For a moment, the
Spirit of London
's bridge swam out of focus, but he stayed standing and the sensation passed. His vision clearing, Johnny saw a gray and white Old English sheepdog standing guard over a frightened boy while, nearby, Clara's face beamed with relief. Princess Zeta was smiling too, albeit a little more sheepishly.

“My brother,” hissed Zeta. “We are guests on this starship. We should start behaving accordingly.”

Johnny walked over to his dog and stroked Bentley's coat, saying, “Good boy. Good boy, Bents.”

Bentley growled one last time in Erin's face, which was screwed up in a look of deep loathing, making the six dark scabs appear much closer together.

As the sheepdog stepped away, Johnny said, “Do that again, or do anything to my ship, and you're history,” trying really hard to sound convincing. Now it was beating again, his heart
seemed to be making up for lost time and thumping faster than ever. “I will get you home, I promise. But it might take a few days. Our folder is exhausted and we have things to do on Earth, our homeworld.” Erin lay on the floor glaring up at Johnny, who continued, “The ships that were searching for you—the Andromedans. We think they may come here. We need to build up our defenses.” Finally, Erin nodded. Johnny reached out his hand to help the orange-haired boy to his feet.

Erin was halfway up when the whole bridge shook and everyone fell to the floor. The view of space blurred beyond the hull, Clara cried out and Sol calmly said, “I am detecting a massive spatial disturbance in our immediate vicinity.”

Johnny was first to rise. “What's happening?” he shouted as he ran for the captain's chair and sat himself down. He was pretty sure he wouldn't like the ship's answer. On the viewscreen was the largest of the black vessels he thought they'd left behind, some of its long thorns just a whisker away from the
Spirit of London
's hull.

“I am being hailed,” Sol replied.

“On screen,” said Johnny. “But make it narrow—just show me.”

Sol displayed a humanoid figure, with long scraggly black hair and matching black uniform. The man's face was half-covered in a mask, from which a single, brilliant white star seemed to shine. It was Nicky. “This is General Nymac, Commander-in-Chief of the Andromedan Fleets and Captain of the
Astricida
.” As Johnny's brother spoke the last word, he gestured at the ship around him. “Surrender yourself to me, Johnny Mackintosh, and I give you my word that your ship and crew will remain unharmed. You have one minute.”

Johnny needed time to process the crazy information he had just received, but the seconds were rushing by while his brain had simply seized up. Nicky was his older brother, from Earth; Nymac, the most feared general anyone had ever seen, came from the Andromeda Galaxy. They couldn't be the same person yet, as the cogs slowly whirred inside Johnny's head, bits of it, pieces of the puzzle, began to make sense. He needed to know more.

From one side, Erin shouted, “Treachery—I
knew
it!” but only his sister responded. Zeta's eyes narrowed and she rolled her long tongue out toward him like a party streamer, slapping his face. The boy king fell silent.

Alf came flapping out of the lifts and Johnny put him to work at once, analyzing the
Astricida
—every one of its deathly spikes dwarfed the
Spirit of London
. Johnny was desperate to buy more time—to work this out and somehow (he had no idea how) tell Clara that General Nymac was their brother.

He knew his ship must seem like an annoying gnat in comparison with the black supersphere but, even so, Sol's voice boomed across the bridge, defiantly cutting through the dread stillness that had settled. “I am fully battle ready. It would be an honor to fight.”

Johnny sensed her power and determination—it lifted him. He was proud that Sol packed a powerful sting, but he wouldn't
let her be swatted out of existence. Moving toward the Plican's tank, he placed a hand on it and asked, “Can we fold?” But he knew the answer before Clara shook her head slowly and silently. “Then there's nothing for it,” he went on, trying to sound braver than he felt, as though he was plucking up the courage to knock on Mrs. Devonshire's door having been sent to the headmistress's office to be expelled. “I have to go.”

“No!” said Clara, fiercely. “You can't. You mustn't. I won't let you.” She grabbed hold of her brother and clung to him, burying her face in his chest.

Johnny was used to thinking of her as brave and capable of almost anything. He hadn't held her since the day they'd lost their parents six months before and he'd stopped noticing how small and fragile she was. He moved his hands to her shoulders and stepped back, so she was at arm's length. “You know there's no choice,” he said. “If I don't go we'll be killed—all of us.”

“Then I'll come too.”

Johnny shook his head. “I need you here. You're in command now.” He'd been stupid not to tell Clara about his weird meeting with Nicky, but he couldn't come out with it now and then just disappear—that wasn't fair. He simply said, “There's no time to explain, but I'll be OK. You've got to protect Earth and, if there's anyone in the whole galaxy I want looking for me—who can get me out of there if I need—it's got to be you.”

“The
Astricida
has powered her weapons, which are formidable,” said Sol. “I am being hailed.”

Johnny pushed Clara out of view, but held her gaze for a second more.

“What is your answer?” demanded Nymac, whose image had reappeared on the screen.

“I'm ready,” he said quietly. “How do you want me to come aboard?”

“A wise decision.” The figure who spoke sounded every bit
like the cruel Krun-killing person who had taken Nicky over, rather than the long-lost brother Johnny had fleetingly first met. “There is no need for shuttlecraft or transit tubes—I have the power to fold space. You will enter through the anomaly.”

As Johnny watched, the center of Sol's viewscreen distorted. If he looked to the side, then everything appeared normal, but when he stared straight at it, a circle of nothingness was spreading outward. It solidified as it grew, becoming a narrow tunnel, beginning in mid-air and sloping away from Johnny. Out of it poured a dense, white mist, seeping across the floor of the
Spirit of London
's bridge.

“Please don't, Johnny,” said Clara.

He couldn't look at her. He'd never felt so guilty, or so scared, both at the same time. Facing straight ahead, he ran forward and dived, headfirst with arms outstretched, into the opening.

The fold was poorly constructed. Whereas Clara's were instantaneous, allowing you to step straight from one piece of space to another, in this one the different pieces hadn't quite matched up. It was freezing—the vacuum of space just a hair's breadth away, as though he could fall through at any moment. As Johnny slid down the tunnel, the walls narrowed and his progress slowed. He felt as if he were inside a giant intestine, with white mist seeping in where the walls were stretched thinnest. It seemed to be attracted to Johnny and as it swirled around his exposed hands, thrust out in front of him, he flinched. Its touch told him he was tiny and totally insignificant—such a small cog in the cosmic wheel that it wasn't worth carrying on. This was the very fabric of space and time, as close to infinity as it was possible to get and he was as nothing in comparison.

There was no going back. The fold had sealed itself behind
and the tunnel's walls closed around Johnny's feet, forcing him slowly forward like a mouse inside a python, pushing his face into ever thicker whiteness. The tunnel pressed against his torso, squeezing the breath out of his lungs as it propelled him on until, at last, his hands felt warm air and he knew the end was nearby. He summoned all his strength to squirm toward it. His head popped out of the tunnel's mouth and into a world of dazzling bands of blue light, so bright the surrounding detail was lost.

Pausing for a moment, he gulped down the warm air, aware of strange sounds, like a whispering wind, at night, in a dense forest. The burned electric scent of ozone was everywhere. Johnny wriggled forward once more, then realized he was coming out in mid-air and tried to stop himself. The tunnel walls contracted for one last time, expelling him. Headfirst and hands out in front, he fell, bracing himself for the impact, but the black floor beneath the tunnel's mouth was soft and sticky, like tar. Ending up on all fours, he felt the oily blackness begin to seep up his arms and legs. Something brushed his hair and he rolled over to see a half-empty blood-red cloak billowing just above him. Around the flapping figure were five more dim red dots. Johnny squinted to block out the blue lights and the fuzzy red specks resolved into scarlet robes, swarming not far above his head. From underneath the nearest cloak, he spotted two long skeletal fingers, just like the ones he'd seen in the Regent's bunker. The Phasmeer had been wrong to claim he'd collected every Owlessan Monk in the galaxy—nothing else could have created Nicky's fold. The closest one was reaching out, as though it wanted to touch him, but didn't quite dare. Its cloak flapped in his face and Johnny rolled to the side

He lifted his head to look around. One of the bands of blue light was nearby and the reason for the smell became obvious: the bright line was nothing less than a river of electricity. He
traced the flow to a point in the far distance where it joined together with four others. The brilliance of the lights struggled to penetrate the rest of the ship's gloomy interior. When Johnny squinted it looked as if the floor he was standing on curved all the way round to form distant walls, as black as night yet covered with even blacker thick veins that bulged and branched across them. The tar-like material these were made from was moving, snaking slowly over the walls and floor, and pieces nearby had begun creeping across Johnny's top. He stood up, clawing it away, and shivered, fairly sure the strange sounds he was hearing were the workings of a giant organism—and he was inside it.