Will dreamed of when he and Tom had visited their grandparents during the holidays ten years earlier. His grandparents owned a cattle ranch that in winter made for an excellent place for sledding, snow forts, and snowball fights. Tom always started the latter, this time hitting Will in the back of the head as he was putting the finishing touches on a snowman.
"Hey!" Will shouted. "No fair!"
"Sneak attack," Tom said. "You should pay more attention."
"I'm telling!"
"Not if I get there first." They both broke into a run, Tom easily winning the race with his longer legs. He stood in the doorway of the barn, grinning at his younger brother. "You lose." For emphasis he shoved Will backwards, into a snow bank mixed with cow patties. It had taken the rest of the day to get the smell out of Will's clothes.
He woke up in the snow again, though this time at least there were no cow patties. Worse though was that the farmhouse and his grandparents' nice big tub were in another dimension. A cold wind blew through him, reminding him that he wasn't dressed for arctic conditions.
Sitting up, he saw nothing but miles of snow and ice dotted here and there by flaming chunks of debris from the landing craft. He replayed the last seconds aboard the landing craft in his mind. As it spun towards the ground, the landing craft had begun breaking apart, the seats tearing away from the wall to sew the passengers across the ground. Will had watched Tom fly into the air, his hand reaching out for Will's. But the G-forces had made it impossible for Will to move his hand more than a few inches.
Will had blacked out after that, somehow ending up on his back in the snow, alone. He rose unsteadily to his feet, knowing he had to get moving if he wanted to have any chance of surviving. Dressed in only a shirt and jeans, though, he doubted he could last long against the cold. He had to at least try to find some of the others, especially Tom.
Trudging through the snow, he hugged himself to try in vain to keep some of his body heat in. Within a minute he could no longer feel the tip of his nose or his ears. His hair became crusted with ice and his lungs hurt from breathing in the frigid air. I'm not going to make it, he thought gloomily. He could only hope that Spot IV, Heather, and some of the others did so they could rescue Jessie. I'm sorry, he thought before he sank down into the snow.
He lay shivering in the snow for a minute before he heard a squeaking that made him think of Vern Raccoon. Looking up, he thought for certain he was dreaming again. Approaching him was a line of penguins waddling on their yellow feet. The strangest thing of all was that the penguins wore black bowties, as if their feathers were tuxedos.
The penguins gathered around him, squeaking at each other. They jumped back when Will sat up, but quickly resumed their squeaking. "Hi," Will said. "Who are you?"
The penguins squeaked to each other and then the tallest one said, "Pinquins."
"Pinquins? You mean penguins."
"That what I say—pinquins."
"Oh, sure." Will looked around at the penguins, not seeing any weapons on them, except for their beaks. He imagined those could do a fair amount of damage if used properly. "I don't suppose you've seen any others like me around here? Or maybe some dogs, cats, or raccoons?"
"Only pinquins," their representative said.
"Right. Are you the one in charge or is there someone else I can talk to?"
The penguins held another conference. Their spokespenguin said, "Percy head pinquin."
"OK, so where is he?"
"In village."
"Can I see him?"
"Yes." The penguins made no attempt to move, though.
"Now?"
"Yes." At this the penguins finally began to move, waddling back in the direction they'd come. Will followed them, shaking his head. Take me to your leader, he thought.
#
It was a long, cold walk to the penguin village. When Will's strength faltered, the penguins gathered around him. They discussed something among themselves before two lay on in their backs next to him. He thought at first they were playacting, until two more penguins used their beaks to roll Will on top of the others. They used this as a makeshift sled to push Will the rest of the way.
He fell asleep along the way, tormented by fevered dreams of Jessie floating in a tube of purple goo and only able to communicate with him by squeaking. When he finally awoke, he found himself in a sort of cave, surrounded by dozens of penguins. More surprisingly, he found Tom lying a few feet away, along with the rest of the commando team.
Will rolled over to shake his brother awake. Tom's eyes flickered open. He sat up, looking around him. "Where are we?"
"In a penguin village."
"Really? I thought that was just a nightmare."
Heather's reaction was much different and more violent than Tom's. The moment she came to, she reached into her holster for her pistol. She aimed this at the nearest group of penguins, who began squawking and flapping their arms. Will reached out to bat the pistol to the ground. Heather hissed at him.
"They saved us," Will said. "We'd be dead without them."
"They're working for the Black Ships," she said.
"We don't know that."
"They're living on the same planet. What else do you expect?"
"We have to at least talk to them."
"Talk to them? Look at them: they're idiots!"
"They're not stupid," Will said, thinking of how the penguins had used their bodies to make the impromptu sled and ferry him to their village.
"I don't care what you think. You aren't in charge of this mission."
"Look, if they are stupid and they are working for the Black Ships, maybe we can get them to tell us some information, like how to get into their base."
Heather considered this for a moment. "Fine. But at the first sign of trouble I'm going to blast them."
Will turned to the penguins and then got to his feet, holding out his hands to indicate he meant no harm. "Where is your leader? Where is Percy?" he asked.
The penguins squeaked to themselves and then began moving aside. A penguin taller than the others waddled through their ranks. Besides his height, a red scarf and earmuffs marked him as different from the other penguins. There was something familiar about him that Will couldn't recall at the moment. "I Percy," the penguin said.
"My name is Will Denton. And these are my friends. Thank you for saving us."
"You different. You not like others."
"Others? You mean the Black Ships?"
There was a brief conference before Percy said, "The Black Ones are bad."
"Yes, they are bad. That's why we're here. We want to stop them."
"They kill pinquins. When they build igloos they kill pinquins."
"I'm sorry, but that won't happen anymore if we can stop them."
The penguins held another brief conference before Percy said, "You stop them from killing pinquins?"
"Yes, but we need to get inside their base—their igloos. Can you help us?"
Percy talked with the other penguins. There was a lot of loud squawking and arm flapping before they reached a consensus. "We help you. Follow."
The penguins began waddling deeper into the cave. Will followed them with the rest of the commando team behind him. At one point they had to stop as some of the penguins began batting at each other with their flippers until Percy interposed himself between them. "Jeez, they're like a bunch of little kids," Tom said.
That comment sprung something in Will's mind. He thought back to Jessie's bedroom and her little sister Megan clutching a penguin—a penguin with a red scarf and earmuffs. "That's it," he said. "They act like little kids because they were created by a little kid."
"What are you talking about?"
"Megan created them."
"Are you saying…she's this fourth Creator?"
Will shrugged. "I don't know. But I think we're going to find out."
#
With the Cerberus dead in space, the tactics of the Bloc fleet had to change. The rest of the fleet deployed itself to protect the flagship as the Black Ships began to charge ahead. Meanwhile, on the Cerberus, crews scrambled to restore at least partial power to the weapons, shields, and the life support systems.
Someone had brought spacesuits up to the bridge, but there was no need to put them on quite yet. They still had enough oxygen to last at least ten hours, by which time they would likely be destroyed if they didn't get any power back. Without power, not even the escape pods would work, leaving the crew with no choice but to stay on board to die or hurl themselves out of an airlock and take their chances.
Spot II took this news in stride. With no engineering background, he did what he could by encouraging the work crews and staying out of the way. Buster did likewise, clapping crewmembers on the back and cheerfully telling as many as possible that everything would work out just fine. "It's just a glitch," he said.
Spot II knew it was more than a minor glitch; the ship's main gun overloaded the power grid, in some places fusing circuits. Ordinarily there would have been backup systems to mitigate the catastrophic damage, but the Cerberus had been rushed into service before those systems could be completed.
The most furious work was going on in the engine room in the aft quarter of the ship. The fleet's top scientist Nina Barker, the chief engineer Carly Barker, and a dozen others were examining the damage to the power grid. "We don't have enough replacement parts on board," Carly said.
"Can't we get them from one of the other ships?" Spot II asked.
"There isn't time for that," Carly said. To emphasize this, the ship rattled as the Black Ships scored a direct hit.
"We don't need to get everything working, just part of it," Spot II said. "Isn't there a way to bring back the essentials?"
Nina shook her head. "There's no way—"
She didn't get to complete this sentence before faint blue lights came on in the engine room. Around Spot II displays came to life. "What's going on?" he asked.
"We've got partial power," Carly said, studying the displays. "How?"
The answer came a moment later when a maintenance hatch opened. Out of the hatch crawled a raccoon. Only after the raccoon jumped to the ground did Spot II see it was young Zeke Raccoon. "You did this?" Spot II asked.
"Yes, sir," Zeke said, fidgeting nervously.
"What did you do?" Carly asked him.
Staring down at his bare feet, Zeke explained, "I just sort of hotwired it like my mother's old hovercar. I rerouted power from the damaged relays to ones still working, you know? Did I do something wrong?"
Spot II clapped the raccoon on the shoulder. "No, you did it just right. How much power do we have available?"
Carly looked at the displays. "We have minimal shields, about a quarter of our weapons, and life support in only the most populated areas."
"That's a start. Can you squeeze a little more out of it?"
Carly turned to Zeke with a grim smile. "With a little help."
"Good, get to it." He shook the raccoon's hand again. "Good work."
If it were possible, Zeke probably would have blushed. Instead, he followed Carly and Nina over to a holographic display to set to work on restoring more of the power grid. Spot II braced himself as the Cerberus took another direct hit. They were still in trouble, but at least now they had a fighting chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment