Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle Read online

  SPACE TEAM

  THE WRATH OF VAJAZZLE

  By

  Barry J. Hutchison

  Copyright © 2016 by Barry J. Hutchison

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published worldwide by Zertex Books.

  www.barryjhutchison.com

  For Douglas Adams, who first introduced me to the infinite ridiculousness of outer space.

  Also by Barry J. Hutchison

  The Bug

  Space Team

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cal Carver was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he didn’t like the ceiling. The first couple of times he’d hit it, it hadn’t been too bad. But now, after the eighth or ninth time of smashing face-first into the thing, the novelty had really started to wear off.

  The floor was starting to lose a lot of its charm, too. As Cal’s stolen spaceship, the Shatner banked into an upwards roll, he plunged sharply down and thudded against the metal flooring. All the breath left his body in one big gasp, stealing away his opportunity to curse the Universe in general.

  In the pilot’s seat, First Officer Teela Loren twisted and pulled at a variety of creaking levers. On the viewing screen, the stars blurred as the ship dived into a steep plunge. Cal managed a breathless, whispered, “Oh God, not again,” before he shot upwards off the floor and had a painful reunion with the now all-too-familiar roof.

  A metal hand whirred and caught him as he began to plummet, then slammed him down into his chair. “Oh, and you couldn’t have done that two minutes ago?” Cal wheezed, hurriedly fastening the buckles of his seat belt across his chest.

  “No, I totally could have,” said the cyborg, Mech, his metal jaw curving upwards into a grin. “But I was having way too much fun just watching you flailing around.”

  Mech’s metal feet clanked across the floor, his powerful magnets holding him in place. Behind him, idly filing her claws, sat Mizette of the Greyx. Her powerful, head-to-toe-hairy frame was draped lazily across her chair. Her wolf-like ears pricked up, and she winked when she realized Cal was looking her way.

  “Hey, handsome.”

  Cal smiled weakly. It hurt quite a lot. “Hey yourself,” he said, gingerly prodding at one of the many patches of his face that had been introduced to the ceiling at high speed. “Ooh, that is gonna leave a bruise.”

  Loren leaned on the sticks and the Shatner spun into a barrel roll. Cal’s stomach sloshed up to somewhere near his nostrils, before flopping back down again.

  “Jesus Christ!” he yelped. “I think I just saw my kidneys.”

  “Sorry, almost through!” Loren said.

  “Are they following us?” Cal asked.

  “Don’t look like it,” said Mech, checking the scanners. “No sign of Zertex ships on the short range scans.”

  Cal spun in his seat. “Miz? What about the long range?”

  Miz looked up from filing her claws. “What about them?”

  “Can you maybe check them? Please?”

  “Why do I have to check them?”

  Cal gestured to the screen beside her elbow. “Because they’re literally right there.”

  Mizette sighed and rolled her eyes, then turned her head the tiniest of fractions to look at the small screen built into her chair’s arm rest.

  “Are they, like, lots of little red dots?”

  “Yes!” called Loren.

  “Just, like, hundreds of little red dots behind us? Is that what I’m looking for?”

  “Yes! Do you see them?”

  Miz shrugged. “No, I don’t see anything like that. There is a big green dot, though. Is that a problem?”

  “No, that’s us,” said Cal. He shot Mech a sideways glance. “Right?”

  “Yeah,” said Mech. “Yeah, that’s us.”

  Cal could hardly believe their luck. “So… we lost them?”

  “Looks like it,” said Mech.

  The Shatner bobbed and weaved a few more times, before steadying onto an even keel. “And we’re through the debris field,” Loren announced.

  “See? I told you you could do it,” said Cal.

  “Yeah,” said Miz. “And we only hit, like, two hundred things. Great job.”

  “Thank you,” said Loren, deliberately missing the sarcasm. “OK, going to warp.”

  “Oh… good,” Cal grimaced, gritting his teeth and gripping his arm rests. He had been in outer space for less than a week, but seemed to have spent half that time hurtling around at faster than light speeds. Still, at least he didn’t throw up anymore. Or less often, anyway.

  The stars became a shimmering lightshow of streaks as the ship lurched into warp. Cal felt his head swim and his stomach tighten. “The screen, change it, change it,” he urged.

  Loren flicked a switch on one of her many banks of controls and the image changed to show a video of a kitten trying to climb out of a drawer. If you were being nitpicky about it, it wasn’t technically a kitten. Its eyes were a different shape, for one thing, and its ears were placed a little further back on the head.

  It had more legs than a kitten, too, but that somehow just made it all the more adorable. Cal settled back in his chair and managed a smile as his stomach began to settle. “Ah, baby space cat, what would I do without you?”

  Miz glanced up at the screen. Her snout wrinkled. “Not this again. Where I come from, that thing would be dinner.”

  “Yeah, well where I come from, we have a proud and noble heritage of watching cute cats do funny stuff,” Cal said. He smiled at the screen. “Just look at his little paws,” he said, then he tore his eyes from the kitten-thing long enough to glance at Loren. “Speaking of where I come from, how long until we get there?”

  The ship screamed to a stop, hurling Cal, Miz and Loren forward in their seats until their belts snapped them back. Even Mech staggered as the ship dropped from warp speed to no speed at all.

  Cal hissed. “Christ!”

  “Sorry! My fault! Totally my fault,” said Loren. “Bit heavy on the brake there.”

  Mizette shook her head. “Worst. Pilot. Ever.”

  Loren flicked another switch and the alien cat vanished. It was replaced by a slowly spinning ball of green and blue. “This is it,” she said. She looked hopefully at Cal. “This is it, right?”

  Cal didn’t answer. He didn’t even hear her. He just stared instead at the planet hanging in the star field before them. He’d only been gone a few days, and yet he felt like he hadn’t seen the place in forever. Longer than forever, even. In a way, it was like he
was only now seeing it for the first time.

  “Cal?” said Loren.

  “Hmm?”

  “Is this it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice coming out as a hushed whisper. “This is it. Welcome to planet Earth.”

  It wasn’t that Cal was a particularly big fan of the planet Earth. It had, until recently, been his favorite planet, but that was more a victory by default than anything else, as he’d never been to any others. In fact, it wasn’t until he was abducted from his prison cell in a case of mistaken identity and whisked halfway across the galaxy to do the dirty work of an evil galactic government that he’d even given the idea of visiting other planets any real thought at all.

  Since then, he’d visited two other worlds. On the first one, a gangster made of living rock had tried to force him to eat himself, which didn’t really endear the place to him at all.

  The second was better. The people – although he used the term loosely – had seemed friendly, and there had been an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet that he’d partaken of, but then a load of Zertex ships had turned up and ruined everything.

  Between those two, he’d also briefly visited a moon, but as literally everything and everyone there had been fully committed to killing him, he hadn’t hung around to really get a feel for the place.

  All things considered, Earth was probably still his favorite. Then again, he’d really enjoyed that buffet, so it was a tough call.

  “It looks just the same,” said Cal. “I mean, not that I’ve seen it from this angle, but… it looks the same.”

  “Well, it is the same,” said Loren. “Apart from, you know…”

  “The trillions of evil alien bugs your boss sent to kill everyone?”

  “Ex-boss,” said Loren, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “And yes. Apart from those.”

  “Picking up lots of life signs,” said Mech. “Lots of life signs.”

  “People?” said Cal.

  “Some.” Mech adjusted the controls on the scanner. “Few hundred million,” he said, and Cal felt his heart soar. Mech frowned. “Wait. No.”

  “No?” said Cal. “What does that mean, ‘no?’”

  “They’re infected,” said Mech. “The bugs. They’re parasites. They bury inside and--”

  “Yes, I know, thanks,” said Cal, his skin crawling. “How many not infected?”

  Mech fiddled with the controls for a few more seconds. “One or two million. Maybe less.”

  Cal blinked. “Right. OK.” He cleared his throat and shrugged. “The rest were probably all douchebags, anyway.” He brightened. “Hey, I can say ‘douchebags!’”

  Shortly after he was first abducted, a translation chip had been implanted into Cal’s skull, right behind his ear. The chip listened for alien languages and seamlessly translated them on the fly, before feeding the English language version into Cal’s brain. This allowed him to understand any known language in the galaxy, and because almost everyone else had their own chip, they could understand him, too.

  The only slight drawback was that Zertex, the manufacturer of the chip, didn’t approve of bad language, and all of the more interesting and expressive curse words had been censored. On the rare occasion Cal did manage to squeeze out an expletive, it felt like a tiny victory for freedom of speech.

  Cal slapped himself on the side of the head, right where the chip was. “Eat that, douchebag-jerk-ballsack!” he said, combining all three of his available curse works into a devastatingly unimpressive insult.

  “You still want to do this?” Loren asked.

  Cal nodded and turned his attention back to the screen. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it.”

  Loren adjusted the controls. “OK. What are the co-ordinates?”

  “Co-ordinates?”

  “Yes. The co-ordinates. So I know where to go.”

  “By ‘co-ordinates’ do you actually mean ‘address?’”

  Loren shook her head. “No.”

  “Ah, well. It’ll be fine, just take us down,” said Cal, waving a hand. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  * * *

  After four hours of criss-crossing the surface of the Earth, Cal had eventually spotted the United States. They’d actually passed over it six times, but due to the angle of their approach, he’d had trouble recognizing it.

  “Seriously, it’s not my fault,” said Cal, as Loren brought the ship in for a landing. “It was upside down.”

  “Man, how can it be upside down?” Mech demanded. “It’s a country. It ain’t got no right way up.”

  “Yes it does! Like on the map,” Cal insisted. “Canada at the top, Mexico at the bottom. That’s the right way up.”

  “It’s a motherfonkin’ land mass,” Mech hissed. “It don’t got no right way up!”

  The Shatner touched down heavily, jolting Cal’s teeth together.

  “Smooth,” muttered Miz.

  “Thanks,” said Loren.

  Miz tutted. “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Yeah,” said Loren, smiling as she clambered out of her seat. “I know.”

  Cal gazed at the screen. A little wooden bungalow with a wrap-around porch sat at the end of a red brick path. The lawn was as neatly cropped as ever, but the rockery was a new addition. It was a house he knew well, but one he hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

  “Cal?” said Loren. “You OK?”

  Cal flashed her one of his standard go-to grins. “Couldn’t be better.” He hopped up out of his seat and headed for the door that led into the rest of the ship. “Hey, has anyone seen Splurt?”

  Ducking under the low door frame, Cal came face-to-face with himself. The other Cal smiled goofily and flapped an arm around in an overly-enthusiastic wave.

  “Hey. Splurt. Buddy,” said Cal, putting a hand on the other Cal’s shoulder. “You’ve got to stop turning into me like this. It’s kinda creepy. OK?” He looked himself up and down, admiringly. He was still dressed in the same crumpled shirt, waistcoat and cargo pants combo he’d been wearing for the better part of a week. “Somehow, I still make that look good,” he said, then he stepped back as the other him folded in like melting marshmallow and became a gelatinous green blob on the floor.

  “Hey, there he is!” said Cal, looking down into the bulbous, bloodshot eyes floating in the jello-like goo. “Stay here and look after the ship, little buddy, I’ve just got something I need to do, OK?”

  Splurt’s surface quivered.

  “Thanks, pal. I owe you one,” said Cal, then he stepped over the shapeshifter and headed for the exit ramp.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Cal, Miz and Loren stood at the end of the path, watching Mech trudge along it towards the house. A cool Philly breeze rolled along the deserted street, carrying smells that made Miz’s snout furrow in disgust.

  Yards which Cal had once torn across on his BMX stood empty and still. Loren eyed the grass warily, her hand on the holster slung across her hip.

  “Hear anything?” she whispered. “Bug-wise, I mean?”

  Miz cocked her head and raised one wolf-like ear. “Yeah. But nothing too close.”

  Loren nodded, but didn’t relax. She turned to Cal. “How you doing?”

  “What? Oh, fine. Yeah. Yeah, fine,” he said. “It’s just… weird, you know? I grew up here. I have a lot of good memories of this place.”

  There was a loud crack as Mech’s foot punched through the porch. He grabbed for a hand rail and broke it in two. “Shizz,” he muttered.

  “You know, before an eight feet tall robot man smashed it to bits,” Cal added.

  Mech pulled his leg free and carefully opened the door. The top hinge tore free of the frame and the door sagged inwards.

  “Jesus Christ, Mech, baby steps!” Cal called. “This is my childhood here.”

  “Hey, fonk you, man, I’m doing my best,” Mech spat. “You build a house out of paper, what do you think’s gonna happen?”

 
He trudged on into the house. “Don’t see why I gotta be the one to check it for bugs, anyhow,” he grumbled, disappearing inside.

  A moment later, a loud crash was followed by another round of angry muttering. Finally, after several destruction-filled seconds, Mech shouted the all-clear.

  “OK,” said Cal, bouncing from foot to foot. “OK. So, I’ll just go in, get the stuff we’re here for, and get back out. You two stay here and watch for evil bug creatures.” He puffed out his cheeks. “Maybe we should come up with some sort of signal in case you see any. Some sort of, you know, like code word?”

  “Argh, there’s fonking bugs everywhere, run for your life?” Miz suggested.

  Cal clicked his fingers and pointed at her. “Bingo. That’s perfect. Let’s go with that.” He turned back to the house and took a series of deep breaths. “OK. OK, I’m doing this. I am so doing this.”

  Loren put a hand on his arm. “You’ll be fine. I’m right here if you need me. I mean, you know, we both are.”

  With a smile and a nod, Cal pressed on up the path. Mizette and Loren watched him until he was through the door.

  “Wow. Well that didn’t make you look desperate at all,” said Miz, her eyes still fixed on the house.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was being sarcastic again, by the way.”

  “Really?” said Loren. “You don’t say.”

  Cal stood in the hallway, reeling under the sheer weight of the memories that had come crashing down on him the moment he’d stepped over the threshold.

  He’d lost count of how many years it had been since he’d been back to visit his parents, but the house hadn’t changed a bit. The broken doors and damaged walls were different, of course, as was the hulking cyborg currently trying to untangle his head from the light fitting, but otherwise the place looked exactly the same.

  His dad’s favorite coat hung from the same hook it always did. There’d be a random assortment of screws, bolts and washers in the right pocket, Cal knew, and a pack of cigarettes in the left, even though he’d quit back while Cal was in fourth grade.

  “‘Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer,’” Cal whispered, and he could almost picture his dad patting the coat pocket as he said it.