Chapter 10: Trapped

The small asteroid crumpled into a million tiny fragments. Then another and another.
He was testing the weapons again.
“Will you please stop firing the weapons, Xylem?! There could be life on those asteroids.”
Xylem looked at Vyleria for a second, his lips curled-up into a snarl.
“Whyyyyyyyyyyyy … shooould … IIIIIIIIIIIIII” he screeched, “You'rrrrrrrrrrre … not … myyy … caaap … tiiiiiin.”
“No, I’m not,” she said walking right up to his face. “But it’s the right thing to do. First of all, it’s dangerous. The ship could get damaged by all the exploding debris. Second of all, the life down there doesn’t deserve to be target practice for a numbskull like you.”
“Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiife?” he said, pincers twitching “Nooo …. liiiiiiiiiiiiiife.”
“Yes, there is,” she spat “Bacteria! Algae!”
Xylem let out a few throaty clicks and whistles. He seemed to be laughing at her. “Baaac … teeer … i …aaaaaa … caaan … nooot … thiiiiiiiiink… nooot … iiin … tell … i … gent … nooo … paaaaain … nooot … aaa … liiiiiiiive … yeeesssssssssssss.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“In …feeer …i … orrrrrrrrrr”
“Oh yeah, and who’s the judge of that, YOU? How would you like it if someone stuck you in a jar or blasted your home to pieces?”
“Weee … arrre … toooooooo … strooooooooong,” wheezed Xylem, his voice box rattling like a snake. “Weee … wooould … reee … ssssssissssst!”
“Well, maybe that’s what you think on your planet, but on mine we have different ideas about ‘strength’ and what constitutes 'life'. Like love, understanding, compassion, creativity, intelligence, and science. It doesn’t take much of a brain to press the trigger but it sure does not to.”
Xylem made several clicking sounds. He was laughing again. “Weeeeeeeeeeeak … youuu … ssssssooound … weeeeeeeeeeeeak … our … arrr … miesssssss … wooould … crussssshhhhh … youuuuuuuuuu.”
“Yeah,” she said, stepping so close to him that she could smell his foul breath. “Try it! Now are you going to stop firing that gun or do I have to stop you?”
For once Xylem looked surprised and he glared at her with a face full of teethy rage. Vyleria wondered whether he was considering using the gun on her, but after a few moments he stepped away from the space cannon, a huge smirk crossing his thin lips. “Yesssssssssssss … youuu … arrre … riiiiiiiiiiiiiight …” he screeched “Waaaaaaant … tooo … beee … frieeendssss … yeeessssssssssssssss.”
Xylem was getting harder and harder to control. Over the last few hours he was increasingly testing Vyleria’s patience and resolve, seeing how far she would go to stop him. She had managed to assert her authority for now, but he was getting more and more aggressive all the time. He had definitely lied about how and why he had gotten control of the ship. He was also probably the reason why she and Ros hadn't appeared in the control room in the first place. She didn't trust him one bit.
But at least she had complete control of the ship now.
Together, (even Xylem had helped here) they had worked out how to pilot the spaceship, though interstellar travel had so far eluded them. At their current speeds they could travel to another solar system but it would take them at least six months by her calculations. This ship seemed far too advanced to not be able to go any faster.
They had also worked out how to use some of the various weapons on board, though this had mostly been done by a trigger-happy Xylem. First, there was the sonic cannon which fired some kind of sound wave into an object to destroy it. There were several settings on this cannon. The lowest (Xylem had rarely used this) could be used to push an object as small as a piece of dust or as large as a small asteroid, whilst the highest (Xylem's favourite) could completely obliterate an object as big as a small moon. There was also the weapon that Vyleria had herself termed the singularity bomb. When this was fired at an object it forced it to collapse in on itself, sucking all of its mass and matter into a tiny gash in Space.
There were many other weapons too; millions, even billions perhaps, but Vyleria had only paid a passing attention to these. Weapons bored her and so she had left it to Xylem to concentrate on this area (Had this been a mistake? She wondered.), though even then it would take them years, decades even to discover each one and how to use it properly.
They had also worked out how to activate the defence shield. Luckily, she had found out how to work and activate this shortly after Xylem began blowing things up. Whenever he was blowing something up he paid little regard as to what happened next and on one such occasion he blasted a comet which split in half. One half was flung into the crushing clutches of the blue gas giant whilst the other was sent flying in their direction. Not for the first time today did she think that they were dead, only to see the chunk of rock and ice bounce miraculously off the ship and back into the depths of outer space.
It was her that found the Star Map too. This worked in two ways. The first utilised a 3-D holo-map projection. This could be as big as a small car or small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, depending on the level of detail you wanted. The second worked rather like the flight simulator, enabling anybody operating it to glimpse a virtual star map. When you did this the control room disappeared and it was like being in a room full of stars and planets. To focus on any one in particular all you had to do was place your hand on one of them and the image would then zoom in as much as you wanted giving you all the information you required. One minute you could be in the control room, the next you could be gliding across a sun spot, dodging a solar flare, or else walking across countless planets and moons.
It was also possible to alter the gravity and magnetism levels on the spaceship, as well as regulate many other things such as temperature, oxygen (and other gases) supply, humidity, and even the softness of the spaceship's skin.
They were also beginning to understand that much of the ship was operated by thought control. Somehow the ship’s computer could read the thoughts of the people on board and then utilise the room or even the corridor accordingly. All of the rooms behaved like this. So if you wanted to go to take a shower for example, all you had to do was think of a shower and a shower would appear; likewise a gym, or a flight simulator. Her, Ros and Xylem had even been able to convert a room that enabled you to visit trillions of virtual worlds, including their own. Upon thinking about flying she herself had discovered a vast room full of many spaceships, though as of yet she hadn’t had time to fly one (Xylem had kept her very busy of late).
With each passing minute they were unpeeling the secrets of the spaceship. They knew how to bring objects and people on board, and she also understood why they all appeared to speak the same language (a nano-sized computer chip had been inserted into their brains when they came aboard). Many things still remained to be discovered however and the biggest discovery - why they were all here still escaped them. Vyleria suspected that given the spaceship's exotic capabilities that there could be thousands, even millions, of uses for the thought-controlled rooms and all the various instruments on aboard. It was simply a matter now of discovering and utilising them one by one.
The spaceship was also able to tell Vyleria all the life forms present in the control room and throughout the rest of the ship. You were also able to tell what species it was, what sex, as well as it’s body temperature and a whole host of other details.
Something was wrong though. First of all she couldn’t locate Jack anywhere. It was like he had simply vanished. The computer also indicated that there was another girl moving around on one of the lower levels but when she turned on the cameras (She had found these only ten minutes earlier) to look for her she couldn’t see anything, even though the computer still said she was there. She called out to her using the ship’s speaker system (another thing she'd discovered) but there had been no reply.
Then she saw Grunt, though she only knew it was Grunt from the electronic display. He was a lot different from the last time she’d seen him. For one thing he had lost a lot of his body hair and was a lot cleaner and for another he was dressed in a smart-looking blue spacesuit and he appeared a little taller than before.
She called out to him.
Startled, he jumped a couple of feet into the air, before cowering in the corner of the room (no change there then).
“Grunt, don’t be afraid, it’s me, Vyleria.”
But he didn’t reply. All he did was growl and grunt as his eyes danced about the room.
“Grunt, I’m not in the room with you, I’m in the control room,” she said again. “Can you understand me?”
He still looked puzzled, his orange eyes glowing like hot coals.
“Where’s Jack?”
But all he did was grunt some more and point at the wall.
What he was trying to communicate she had no idea. In any case she thought it better if she brought him up to the control room.
When Grunt re-appeared in the control room (and after she had stopped him from freaking out about that too) she asked again and again about Jack but all he did was prod and point at the huge blue gas giant in front of her. Could he be in space? Was that what he was trying to tell her?
“Ros,” she said, “If he’s not on the ship then maybe somehow he’s found his way off it. Could you scan for life forms in Space?”
“Yes, okay,” he said “But really, I don’t think someone like him would be capable of…”
Then he stopped abruptly.
“What is it?” Vyleria asked.
“Life forms. Everywhere. All about us. Closing fast. It's like ...”
“Is it Jack?”
“No, it’s something else. There’s so many. It can't be. That's imposs …”
He was interrupted by a surge of black oil-like material that exploded out of one of the asteroids nearby, totally engulfing the whole ship.
“What’s going on?” Vyleria shouted out loud.
“I DON’T KNOW!” yelled Ros back at her “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Then Xylem started to panic and slipping into the sonic canon began to fire wildly into the black goo as it squidged, squirmed, and swirled around them.
Some small gaps appeared in the sludge, but they filled up again in a matter of seconds.
He flicked to the next weapon and then the next and the next, wildly firing sonic cannons, lasers, I-Bombs and Disintegrators as well as many others Vyleria didn't know the name of into the black glue.
BOOOOOOOOM!
The spaceship shook like it had been hit by canon fire.
BOOOOOOOOM!
And again.
BOOOOOOOOM!
And again and again.
BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM!
“WILL YOU STOP FIRING YOU IDIOT!” yelled Vyleria, her eyes blazing “Can’t you see you’re firing at us?”
BOOOOOOOOM!
Still he continued, unleashing a torrent of rapid laser fire into the squirming black mass.
“XYLEM!” She shouted again.
He ignored her.
“XYLEM!”
Still he ignored her.
Reaching under his arms she wrenched him out of the flight console and threw him roughly to the floor.
His claw-like fingers scratching the floor, he struggled to get to his feet, his face a mixture of pain, rage and embarrassment.
“Whaaaaaat … arrre … youuu … dooo …iiiiiiiiiing?” he screeched. “Hoow … daaare … youuuuuuuuuu,” escaped black beetle-like bugs scampering all over his sinewy head.
But Vyleria didn’t apologise, instead she stood straight up to him, and looking into the black depths of his narrow eyes said “I’m not going to let you destroy this ship Xylem. The black stuff out there is reflecting your weapons. Fire one more time and I’ll throw you out into space with the rest of the goo. Do you understand me?”
He screeched and screeched and screeched and screeched, but eventually he backed down, sulking away at the back of the control room, his burning eyes never once taking their gaze from Vyleria. Then moving away from him, Vyleria, cheeks burning, turned to face the others.
“Do you have any ideas Ros?” she asked.
“Oh, now you want my help,” sneered Ros “You were quite content before to just please yourself.”
“Look, I’m sorry okay,” she said “I'm just trying to get us out of this mess.”
“We could try to fly out of this stuff,” he said.
“Okay, good idea.”
Vyleria tried to move the spaceship, but nothing happened. They couldn’t accelerate or reverse; they couldn’t even move the ship left or right.
They were stuck.
“Any other ideas?” Vyleria asked.
“We could try some of the other weapons.” Ros said.
“It's a waste of time. The others haven't worked so far, besides it’s not worth the risk. If we damage the spaceship we may be trapped here with no way to escape.”
“Okay, well do you have any better ideas?” added Ros sarcastically.
She thought for a moment.
“First of all,” she said “We need to know where we are.”
“That’s ridiculous! We know where we are: We are in Space.”
“How do you know we are?”
“Because. Where else would we be?”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what?”
“That’s exactly my point Ros. We could be anywhere.”
“But how? We can’t have moved. We didn’t feel or see anything.”
“This ship Ros, is the most advanced spaceship I’ve ever been in but we’re still trapped.”
“So what’s your point?”
“My point is that if we can be trapped this easily, it follows that we can be moved or taken somewhere just as easily too, and still not know about it.”
Ros thought for a moment about this. She had a point.
“Okay, then how do we find out where we are? We can’t use the weapons to blast our way out.”
“What about the star map?” said Vyleria. “That should tell us where we are. This ship probably uses some kind of advanced radar, echo-location technology. It's worth a try in any case.”
Sure enough when the star-map popped up it showed that they were now nestled deep within the bowels of a large, cavernous asteroid.
“Look,” shouted Ros suddenly.
Vyleria looked at the view screen. The black goo that was caked all around the spaceship was now starting to solidify and turn into some kind of rock.
They were being buried alive, entombed...

Hours passed like days.
Vyleria wished she could say that they all came together in a time of crisis, but they didn’t. They tried a few things like trying to transport some of the material aboard (which nearly destroyed the spaceship and nearly killed them all) and using sound waves (which had no effect at all) to break the rock, but mostly they just argued.
Vyleria ran her hands through her red hair as all around they yelled and argued, bickered and fought. What was she going to do? How was she going to get them out of this mess? Were they going to be stuck here forever?
Then without warning the black rock-like material suddenly turned into a black soup again, and careered off into space...
They were free.
No sooner had it released them from its iron grip, but what they shot out of their asteroid-prison at maximum speed and headed for the stars.

This will be the last chapter that I will post from the first Jack Strong book. If you want read about more of Jack's adventures please check out this link:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M22USRE


Coming soon: Jack Strong's diaries ...