Tim Townsend lay in the evacuation ship’s protective gel bed, watching in silence as his home planet shrank behind him, an iridescent blue ball streaked with wisps of cloud. He could see it rotating slowly. Growing smaller with each passing second.
Funny how we call it Earth, he thought. We should really call it Ocean.
Then he wondered when he would see it again.
Something stirred in the heavy gel surrounding him and brought him back to his senses. From the moment he’d come to, his body had felt numb. Like it wasn’t his any more. Like it belonged to someone else. He’d been glad of that after what had happened.
Gizzard Gully, the Sentinel ship, the attack and taking cover. He remembered all that. And the old hut at the head of the gully. Helping his friend Norman Smith. Then ... something else. An intense flash of light followed by a blast of scalding air as the world turned a flickering orange and he felt burning on his back, shoulders, arms and legs ... He recalled raising a hand in front of him. How it looked like a blazing log fallen from a camp fire. His last proper thought before the pain engulfed him was: That’s weird.
Then the pain. Oh man, the pain. Shrieking, searing, overwhelming pain.
And finally, merciful blackness.
He figured out the rest. His sister and friends must have carried him to the ship, slapped a walrus mask on his face so he could see and breathe, and dropped him into one of the beds because he’d woken there to find himself floating, enclosed in cool blue gel, feeling nothing but the acceleration of the evacuation pod and watching through the mask as his home planet slipped away.
The others were nearby. He could hear the rise and fall of their breathing, but no one spoke. They were lost in their own thoughts.
Something prodded him again. Several things. A circle of what felt like steel ball bearings ran along the length of his left leg, stopped, withdrew, then ran along his right. Another set ran down his back.
It wasn’t the things themselves – he guessed they were some sort of medical device – but the feelings their touch provoked. Pins and needles mostly, but here and there deep stabs of pain.
‘Ow,’ he gasped.
‘Sorry,’ Albert’s voice sounded in his ears, ‘but we need to assess the extent of your injuries before we start a treatment plan.’
‘Assessment phase fifty-five percent complete,’ a mechanical voice said. Tim recognised the evacuation ship’s rather limited personality.
His back, shoulders and left arm were the most sensitive. That was where the main force of the explosion had caught him. He remembered the barrels of fuel stored behind the hut. Imagined them spewing out a sheet of flame. At least he’d been partly turned away.
‘Ow!’ he said aloud.
‘Tim? Is that you?’ Coral’s voice.
‘Why, who were you expecting?’
‘You’re alive! I mean ... are you OK?’
‘I’m not sure. I can’t feel much, but I am still breathing. I think.’
‘Oh god, that’s a relief. You really had us worried back there.’
He was about to reply when something glinted in the darkness. Something that took his mind off the pain and made his blood run cold. A narrow stab of light like the beacon of a lighthouse.
He tried to focus. It was hard to get a sense of scale and perspective in space. There weren’t any nearby reference points, but tilting his head made the projected image rotate. As he studied the broad expanse of stars he saw it again. The flash of a laser. Someone was shooting at them.
Suddenly the whole cabin lit up and there were groans from the others at the blinding burst of yellow light before the automatic filters snapped into place. It felt like a physical blow. Like accidentally glancing at the sun.
‘Filters activated,’ Albert said calmly.
Tim’s vision dimmed. The stars vanished, and even the distant, sunlit face of Earth became a murky outline.
Another flash of light bathed the ship. Then another.
‘What’s happening?’ Coral said.
‘It seems the Sentinels are continuing their pursuit,’ Albert said. ‘We’re under attack.’
* * *
‘Closer ... closer. We’re almost in range ...’
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Do better!’
‘Almost there ...’
‘Hold her steady. That’s it! Targeting lock. We have a targeting lock.’
‘At last! Now, forget that silly laser. Arm the missiles.’
* * *
Another light-burst struck the hull, this time accompanied by a tearing, scraping sound like rusty metal being dragged across concrete. A faint shudder ran through the ship.
‘Was that a hit?’ Norman’s voice.
‘Feel like.’
‘Why don’t we shoot back?’
‘Can’t. No weapon,’ Ludokrus said. ‘Evacuation craft only. Not for the attack.’
‘But we’ve got shields, right?’
‘Not really. Not when fly.’
‘Huh?’
‘The ship move very fast. At such a speed, even tiny something – grain of sand maybe – would make bad hole in us. So all the shield is push to front. Protect. Deflect. Not much left for behind.’
Another rasping flash. Another shudder.
Then something changed. The flashes stopped and the exterior of the ship was bathed in a grid pattern that tracked them like a spotlight.
‘Warning,’ the ship’s voice said, ‘this vessel has been target-locked.’
Tim’s vision skewed sharply. Even in the gel bed he could feel several quick changes in direction mixed with rapid bursts of acceleration and deceleration.
The grid pattern stayed in place.
‘Warning, this vessel has been target-locked.’
‘Thank you, ship.’ Albert said. ‘I’m aware of that. Now do shut up. I’m trying to concentrate.’
A pale green indicator lit in the top left-hand corner of Tim’s mask. It was only an icon, but it looked remarkably like his sister.
‘What’s happening?’ Coral’s voice.
‘I think that “shut up” might apply to us too,’ Tim said.
The ship lurched, dipped and dived again.
‘I’m on person-to-person,’ Coral said.
‘What’s that?’
Three other indicators lit up. Caricatures of Alkemy, Ludokrus and Norman.
‘We can talk to each other without bothering Albert.’
‘How do you ...? Oh, I get it.’ Tim found the control by rolling his eyes sharply right and blinking at the selection panel that appeared. A fifth icon – his own – joined the group and suddenly his head was full of chatter.
‘At least they’ve stopped shooting.’
‘But what’s that grid pattern? The ship said something about a––’
‘Warning: missile launched,’ the ship cut in. ‘Range twelve hundred kilometres. Closing at forty G.’
No one spoke.
‘Warning: second missile launched. Closing at forty G.’
‘Uh-oh.’
The ship executed a right-angle turn so sharp that even though he was cushioned by the shock-absorbing gel, Tim felt himself thump against the side of his capsule bed. He found the filter control, raised it and watched as two orange-yellow dots – miniature suns, one behind the other – followed the ship’s every move like a pair of synchronised swimmers.
Three more sharp turns. The missiles stayed on track, the points of light forming their exhaust plumes growing larger as they closed in relentlessly.
The view ahead swung back to Earth. Suddenly the pale blue dot started growing larger again, but before anyone could comment on it, the ship gave a violent up-down lurch, as if it had run over a speed bump at a thousand kilometres an hour. There was a collective ‘Oof!’ then the view behind them blossomed into a sphere of white-hot energy.
‘What did it hit?’
‘A geostationary satellite, I think,’ Norman said. ‘But there aren’t many of them this far out.’
‘One less now,’ Coral muttered.
The explosion faded through shades of orange and yellow. Tim let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Then he saw the second missile dart around the glowing remnants of the first, change course and start closing in on them.
He couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was hypnotic. Weaving and turning in perfect time with their ship, growing ever larger. From a pin prick to a pin head to a dot the size of a thumb tack. It was only Norman’s ‘Whoa!’ that made him tear his eyes away and glance ahead to see they were about to crash into the moon.
It looked like it had never looked before, a mellow, golden landscape bathed in the light of the sun, its surface pitted with craters and broken by jagged peaks untouched by the weathering effects of wind and rain.
They plummeted towards it, pulling up only at the last moment, levelling out ten metres above the surface of a crater so vast that it was itself dotted with smaller craters.
The missile dropped into place behind them, drawing closer by the second. Tim could see its shadow now, even the faint plume of dust kicked up by its exhaust. As their ship veered left and right, up and down, the missile kept on track, seeming to anticipate their every swing and turn, whittling off a few extra metres every time.
Albert steered them through a narrow gully. The missile followed, perfectly centred behind them. He tried a quick up-and-down over a steep ridge near the end, but the missile followed the manoeuvre effortlessly. Then they dropped onto a broad, flat plain and the evacuation pod suddenly picked up speed.
Tim felt the surge of power and looked ahead to see that they were hurtling across a plain at incredible speed, barely a metre from the surface. Now and then he felt a rasping scuff as the leading edge of their shield skimmed a ridge of sand or brushed a rock. Twice Albert tried a quick left-right, the second time sending up a great plume of dust, but the missile didn’t waiver. It knew there were no obstructions ahead and continued straight on, true and level, so close now Tim could see its outline silhouetted against the flare of its exhaust.
He glanced ahead. A range of jagged cliffs was rapidly approaching. They’d have to slow, pull up. Then what?
Another hard left-right swing, and for an eye-blink he glimpsed something that looked like a big gold shed on legs and – totally bizarre! – an American flag. A second after that, the scene exploded.