Space Team: Sting of the Mustard Mines Read online

  “Buk-tuk!” screeched the alien creature. As it did, two eyes emerged from its nostrils on stalks and splatted against the camera so they appeared to be smearing themselves across the screen, leaving a slug-like trail of snot wherever they crisscrossed over the glass.

  “Well, that seems unnecessary,” said Cal. He drew a hand across his throat and glared up at the ceiling. “Kevin, cut feed. End call. Hang up.”

  “Again, sir, rather busy at the moment. Perhaps, on this occasion, Master Mech might be so good as to press the button,” Kevin said. “If it’s not too much trouble. I’ve just discovered another problem I’m in the process of trying to resolve.”

  “Great,” sighed Cal. “What’s the other problem?”

  Mech pressed the button that cut the comm-link between the Untitled and the alien ship. What had been a screen full of teeth and nostrils became a screen full of rough, barren terrain that spiraled wildly as it rushed toward them.

  “That is, sir,” Kevin said. “In all the excitement, I rather failed to notice that we entered planetary atmosphere. I estimate impact in less than five minutes.”

  “We’re crashing?” Cal yelped.

  Miz scowled. “Like, how can that even come as a surprise at this point?”

  “Motherfonker!” Mech scowled, activating the magnets on his feet. Cal and Loren both gripped their belts. Splurt rolled into Cal’s lap. Even Miz unhooked her leg from the arm of her chair, albeit with a disgruntled tut and a roll of her eyes.

  And then, the ground was suddenly right there, too big and too close to possibly avoid.

  Cal drew in a breath, whispered a silent prayer to any space gods who might be in the immediate vicinity, and then the world was torn apart by thunder and violence.

  Two

  If Cal were forced to describe the impact, he wouldn’t use words. He wouldn’t be able to find them. Instead, he’d make a sort of spooorskh noise, followed by several badungs and one big karonk at the end that rattled his bones, smashed his head against the bulkhead wall, and caused some light soiling in the underwear department. Fortunately, on this occasion, only the front.

  Silence filled the bridge. Well, not silence exactly, but if you discounted the screeching alarm, the creaking of metal and the general groaning from Cal, Loren, and Miz, then it wasn’t a million miles away from silence.

  “Impact in quite a lot less than five minutes,” Kevin said, adding a much-belated, “Brace!” for good measure.

  Cal coughed inside a cloud of smoke and waved a hand in front of his face in an attempt to bat it away. The arm flopped limply, the bones in his forearm snapped cleanly in two.

  “Ooh, that’s not good,” he grimaced.

  “Everyone OK?” Loren asked.

  “Mostly,” said Cal. A searing pain made him look down. “Wait, no. Oh, fonk. One of my legs is back to front.” He shook his head and tutted. “Fonking guest chairs.”

  “Still in one piece here,” said Mech.

  “Miz?” said Loren.

  “Fine. No thanks to you.”

  Splurt wobbled in Cal’s lap. Cal patted his blobby body with the hand that wasn’t currently hanging off. “I got you, buddy. Nothing to worry about.” He gestured down to his twisted leg. “I hate to ask, but could you do the honors?”

  Two vine-like arms grew from Splurt’s body and wrapped around Cal’s leg. Cal jammed his fist into his mouth and nodded. “Go!” he said around his knuckles.

  Splurt gave a sharp, sudden twist. Cal gave a sharp, sudden yelp.

  When the foot was facing front again, Splurt rocked back in Cal’s lap, looking pleased with himself.

  “Great work there, Splurt,” Cal said, still chewing his knuckles. His voice had risen half an octave, and tears made his eyes shimmer. “But I’m pretty sure you turned it the wrong way.”

  Splurt’s bulbous eyes flicked down to Cal’s leg. He wobbled apologetically, then twisted the leg a full three-sixty until the foot was pointing forward again.

  Cal’s voice was a high-pitched cheep. “Thanks, pal,” he whimpered. “You nailed it that time.”

  The view screen was in darkness. The rest of the bridge would’ve been, too, had Cal’s chair not spontaneously burst into flames again.

  “Seriously, what the fonk is wrong with that thing?” Cal wondered.

  Loren grimaced as she unclipped herself from her own now-lopsided chair and fell with a thud onto the floor. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “I’ve run some calculations, ma’am,” Kevin began. “And have concluded that we are on the ground.”

  “We already worked that part out. Which fonking ground?” Mech demanded. “What planet are we on?”

  “That’s trickier to say, sir,” Kevin replied. “According to the star map, we’re in a sort of No Man’s Land territory where the planets haven’t been given agreed-upon galaxy-recognized names. This one still goes by its original local designation, which roughly translates as ‘Destitution’.”

  “Right. I mean, of course, it does,” said Cal. “Where the fonk else would we crash-land?”

  Gritting his teeth, he squished the bones in his arm back into place and held them there until his rapid-healing abilities kicked in, knitting the break back together.

  “Just once, I’d love us to crash on, like, Planet Nice or something,” he grumbled.

  “Oh, Planet Nice. Yes, I’ve been there,” said Kevin.

  Cal looked up. “Seriously? There’s a Planet Nice? What’s it like?”

  “Thoroughly awful, sir.”

  Cal sighed. “Great. Well, that’s disappointing.”

  Loren grabbed the edges of her console and pulled herself upright. She toggled a few switches, but nothing was responsive. “What’s it like out there?”

  “It’s called ‘Destitution,’” said Cal. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say ‘not great’.”

  “Atmosphere?” asked Loren.

  “Not particularly, ma’am,” said Kevin. “It’s all rather sedate and downbeat. Very little buzz about the place at all.”

  “I mean is it breathable?”

  “Oh. Yes. I see. Quite breathable,” Kevin said. “The temperature’s a little higher than some of you might feel entirely comfortable with, but tolerable. There is limited flora and fauna. Various scattered life signs, and what appears to be a small settlement a few miles in that direction.”

  Nobody bothered to remind Kevin that they couldn’t see which direction he was pointing.

  “Also, we’re sinking.”

  There was a lengthy pause as everyone took this information in. Particularly that last part.

  “What the fonk do you mean ‘we’re sinking’?” Mech asked.

  “I, uh, I’m afraid I don’t really know another way of putting it, sir,” said Kevin. “We—the collective us, I mean—are sinking.”

  Cal fiddled with his belt until it finally released him. He stood up. “Sinking? In what way?”

  “Well… down the way, sir,” said Kevin. “I’d have thought that was rather a given.”

  “I didn’t see any water,” said Loren.

  Miz snorted. “Well, you didn’t see the planet, so...”

  “We’re not sinking in water, ma’am,” said Kevin. “It appears to be a form of quicksand.”

  “Quicksand?” gasped Cal. “Alright! Yes! I am so prepared for this!”

  Mech brow furrowed. “You are?”

  “Oh God, yes,” said Cal. “I grew up in the 80’s. Quicksand was fonking everywhere on TV in the 80’s. People were falling in the stuff on a daily basis. The A-Team, Magnum PI, Michael Knight in Knight Rider – all just falling into it left, right, and center. Seriously, it was like quicksand Armageddon, and I picked up a trick or two. See, it’s actually very easy to get out of if you know how.”

  “Any advice you could offer would be much appreciated, sir,” said Kevin.

  Cal rocked back on his heels and tucked his thumbs into an imaginary pair of suspenders. “It’s simple. We all just have
to stay perfectly still.”

  Everyone stayed perfectly still.

  “We’re still sinking, sir.”

  “Shizz. Are we?” said Cal. He shrugged. “Then I got nothing.”

  “Can we open the hatch?” Loren asked.

  “Not if you want to live, ma’am,” said Kevin. “The airlock is a possibility, though. But you’ll have to be quick.”

  Cal limbered up. “How quick?”

  “You have about nine seconds,” Kevin told him. “So, I suggest you all… Oh,” he said. “They’re gone. Bye, then.”

  Cal was first out of the airlock after Mech pulled it open. The Untitled was listing badly, and getting through the airlock involved a lot of awkward clambering and an assisting hand from Splurt.

  As he emerged, Cal hissed like a vampire in the glare of the planet’s twin suns. His hand practically sizzled on the metal as he heaved himself onto the side of the ship and surveyed their surroundings.

  The Untitled had ditched in a pool of gloopy, mud-like sand that extended as far as the horizon, with no obvious solid ground in sight.

  “Ah, fonk,” he muttered, as Loren and Miz emerged through the airlock door behind him. “We’re screwed. There’s nowhere to go.”

  “What about there?” asked Loren, pointing in the opposite direction. Cal turned all the way around and found a solid shoreline just ten or so feet away.

  “Oh. Yeah. I mean… Yeah. We could go that way,” he said. “Sure, why not?” He shot both women a grin. “Race you!”

  Cal jumped, feet first, into the quicksand. Anyone looking closely may have seen the exact moment his face registered the realization that this, on balance, was probably a mistake, but then he was gone, his momentum driving him deep into the gloopy, mud-like morass.

  “Totally saw that coming,” said Miz.

  “Cal!” cried Loren, dropping to her knees and peering over the edge.

  Mech heaved himself onto the side of the ship and looked around. “Where the fonk did he go?”

  Miz pointed over the edge with a clawed finger. Mech’s metal jaw dropped. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  There was a blur of movement from the airlock as something green and arrow-shaped rocketed out of the Untitled, changed direction in midair, then burrowed into the gloop.

  With a twitch of her legs, Miz propelled herself onto the shore, throwing up a cloud of dusty sand when she landed. Loren hooked herself onto Mech’s arm and held tight as he fired up his foot-rockets and launched them off the side of the sinking ship.

  Once on solid ground, they all turned back to the Currently Untitled. Two of its rear wings stuck straight up from the quicksand. Bubbles burbled and farted out of the airlock as the oatmeal-like gloop poured inside before Kevin snapped the door closed.

  “Kevin, you OK?” Loren called.

  “Peachy, ma’am,” said Kevin, his voice coming muffled through the half-submerged speaker system. “Couldn’t be better. Why do you ask?”

  “Well—”

  “Wait, no,” said Kevin. “I’m not great, actually. Perhaps I might trouble you for a favor? I wonder if you’d be so kind as to…”

  His voice cut off as the quicksand’s suction drew the ship further into its soggy depths. There was some squelching for a few seconds, then the few parts of the ship that had been above ground sunk out of sight.

  For a few moments, there was nothing but silence.

  “Well, way to go, Loren,” Miz said.

  Loren shook her head in protest. “This wasn’t my fault!”

  “Well, you were flying,” Mech pointed out. He raised his hands in surrender when she glared at him. “Just sayin’.”

  A sudden loud gasp from the edge of the quicksand stopped the argument before it could go any further. Cal rolled up out of the depths, flipped all the way over, then flopped onto his back. He lay there, encased from head to toe in sandy sludge, wheezing like a fish out of water.

  “Did I… Did I win?” he asked.

  He sat up, then screamed briefly when a perfect sphere of sand emerged from the gloop and bounced toward him.

  “Jesus, Splurt,” he coughed, realizing who was under there. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  Splurt shook like a dog, throwing quicksand in all directions. It splattered across Mech’s chest, plastered Miz’s fur, and caked across Loren’s face.

  “Did you have to?” Loren grunted, scooping the mush off her skin.

  “Ugh. You know how hard it is to get sand out of fur?” Miz spat. “Like, thanks a lot, Splurt.”

  Splurt wobbled apologetically, then rolled himself into a tall funnel shape, bent backward, and plunged into the quicksand.

  “Now where’s he going?” Cal wondered. “And where’s the ship?”

  “It sank,” said Loren.

  “Like sank sank?” Cal asked.

  Mech nodded. “Yeah. Like sank sank.”

  “Shizz.” Cal clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “Did we say ‘way to go, Loren’ yet?”

  “Totally,” said Miz.

  “Argh! I can’t believe I missed that part,” said Cal.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Loren protested.

  Cal made a weighing motion. “Well, you were flying.”

  “That’s what I said,” Mech told him.

  “And he knows stuff,” said Cal, pointing to the cyborg. “Like space stuff. You know?” He smiled warmly at Loren and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Look, nobody’s actually blaming you, OK? Nobody’s pointing fingers. You know, except Miz, Mech, and me. OK?”

  He winked at her, patted her shoulder, then turned around and rubbed his hands together. “Now, I’m guessing Splurt is trying to get the ship back for us, so in the meantime, I suggest we…”

  Cal stopped. An imposing figure in faded desert fatigues stood before him, glaring at him through a set of cracked goggles.

  “…stumble upon a large menacing man,” Cal concluded. He cupped a hand above his eyes to block out the sun and shot the newcomer one of his most winning smiles. “Hey there! Are we glad to see—”

  An open-hand strike caught Cal in the center of his chest. The force of it lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling onto the sand, the air in his lungs now nothing more than a memory.

  Loren sprang over the fallen Cal, spinning out her leg to deliver a devastating flying kick. The stranger caught her leg mid-leap, twisted her around and up over his head, then smashed her into the sand.

  Shrugging it off, Loren kipped-up onto her feet and lunged with a flurry of punches that all failed to find their target. Weaving out of her reach, the man in the fatigues drove a three-finger strike into a nerve cluster above Loren’s armpit, and all her strength seemed to flow out of that side of her body and into the sand, pulling her down with it.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” the stranger said. His voice was surprisingly matter-of-fact, particularly given the fact that Mizette was stalking toward him, teeth bared, claws extended.

  “No one humiliates Loren but us,” Miz growled.

  Loren’s protests came out slurred from where she lay on the sand. “He dithn’t thumiliate me!”

  “He totally did. It was embarrassing,” Miz said. “But I’ve got him.”

  She lunged for the stranger but found herself slashing at thin air when he vaulted up and over her back. Miz spun to try again, only for several thousand volts of electricity to course through her from a coin-sized metal device he’d placed on the back of her neck.

  “Ugh. You suck,” she groaned, flopping onto the ground beside Loren, most of her fur standing on end.

  “Now who’th thumiliated?” said Loren.

  “It’s still you,” Miz growled. “It’s like, totally still you.” She began to rise, but another shock face-planted her back into the sand.

  The stranger threw himself at Mech, only for a metal hand to clamp around his head, stopping him. “I don’t know who the fonk you are,” Mech said. “But you made a big mistake messi
ng with—”

  The man caught Mech’s wrist with both hands, pulled himself up, then used his feet to kick the dial on Mech’s chest.

  There was a high-pitched whine as Mech’s hydraulic power was fully diverted into his intellect.

  “Oh! Smart move,” Mech said, his voice rising a full couple of octaves. “I’m amazed no one has ever considered a similar approach before.”

  His grip on the stranger’s head released and Mech toppled backward onto the ground, completely immobile.

  Cal pulled himself up as far as his knees and made a T-shape with his hands. “OK, timeout. Timeout,” he wheezed. “I’ll be honest, this is not the welcome I was hoping for. Obviously, there’s been some sort of mistake, and you don’t know who we are.”

  The stranger approached him slowly. Despite the heat, and the fact he’d taken down the entire team, he didn’t seem to have broken a sweat. Although, that said, it was hard to be sure.

  His head was partly covered by a length of graying cloth that wrapped around it like a bandage, while the goggles did a good job of hiding most of his face. All Cal could really see was a chiseled jaw that hadn’t been shaved in a few days, a downturned scowl of a mouth, and a neck you could probably anchor ships to.

  “I don’t care who you are,” the stranger said. “I only care who sent you.”

  Cal blinked. “Sent us? No one sent us. Why would anyone send us? We crashed.”

  “Bullshizz,” the stranger spat. He caught Cal by the front of his t-shirt and hoisted him easily to his feet. If Cal’s legs hadn’t already been weak, the heady aroma of raw testosterone would probably have taken his feet out from under him. “Who sent you?”

  “God, you’re manly,” Cal whispered. He smirked. “Which means this will really hurt!”

  He drove a knee into the stranger’s groin. Pain exploded in his kneecap.

  “Ow! Fonk!” Cal cried. He looked down. “Jesus! What are your balls made of? Concrete blocks?”

  The stranger released his grip on Cal’s t-shirt and caught him by the throat instead. He lifted him effortlessly until Cal’s feet dangled in midair.