A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the Galaxy, page 11
“Not wishing to throw a hyper-spanner in the works,” said Cupcake, “but it’s not just one Gastronite he’ll have to fool, it’s ten billion of them.”
“What are you talking about?” said Niki. The Magicruiser was a big ship but there was no way it carried a crew that size.
“Their culture revolves around food,” the bounty hunter went on. “Sourcing it, preparing it, eating it, but most of all sharing it. When a Gastronite comes of age it undergoes a ceremony in which it receives a set of steak knives and its own dedicated viewing channel.”
“He has a TV cookery show?” said Gavin.
Cupcake nodded. “And the princess will be primetime viewing. Every Gastronite on their homeworld of Alucan 8 will be watching. All ten billion of them.”
“Ten … b-billion?” stuttered Gavin, losing his nerve.
“You can do it,” said Niki, and saw that her words immediately produced a glow of confidence in him. “Remember. You are probably the most unmemorable being in the galaxy.”
The glow swiftly faded. “Every time,” he muttered.
After that there was nothing to do but wait for Vorlon’s return. They kicked their heels in the confines of the prison-cubes.
“Do you think the others are OK?” asked Gavin.
As much as Niki resented Sam and Mercedes dragging her to Earth, and as little as the bag of spare parts known as Bart signified to her, she felt a nagging sense of responsibility to all of them. “Life support was still functioning aboard the ship when we left. As soon as we escape from here, we’ll go and get them.”
There was a snort of disbelief from the next cube. “Your ship was on its last legs,” said Cupcake. “If life support hasn’t already failed, then—”
“They’re alive!” Niki snapped with a vehemence that took her by surprise. “And we’re going to rescue them.” She wasn’t sure where this determination came from, but right now saving the other Apples seemed almost as important as saving herself. Almost. “Gavin, did you notice the other ship in the hangar? I’m guessing it belonged to the Gastronites’ last meal. It’s an Aphidian Scout class, designed to be piloted by a creature with six segmented legs, but get me in that command seat and I’ll fly us out of here.”
There was little more to say, which was a good thing as shortly after that Vorlon returned. He popped the three of them into a Tupperware-like container and carried it from the larder along a wide corridor to what could only be described as a command kitchen. Through the distorting plastic side of the box Niki could see that it was a grand, circular room with a soaring ceiling. On a raised central section beneath powerful downlights was a curved kitchen worktop, complete with a comprehensive selection of utensils. There were instruments for cutting, tearing and prodding; tools for grinding, bashing and crushing. Opposite the counter was a surprisingly old-fashioned-looking freestanding range cooker. It was the size of an SUV, with four hotplates atop a boxy oven section. The oven doors were painted in a red enamel, chipped from years of use, and the whole thing throbbed like an idling combustion engine, purple electrical sparks and puffs of smoke shooting from it in all directions. Vorlon paused next to the stove and Niki spotted a brand name emblazoned on one side. It read: AAAAHGA!
“Not just a cooker,” said Cupcake. “It also powers the ship’s heating and star drive. Very inefficient, but Gastronites love their traditions.”
Vorlon gave it a clout, and the throbbing subsided. He deposited them on the worktop, checking that the lid on the Tupperware prison was secure. The kitchen resounded to a musical chime.
“It’s the introductory music to his cookery show,” said Cupcake.
Hundreds – possibly thousands – of eager Gastronite faces suddenly appeared. Niki saw that the kitchen’s curved wall was a single, continuous wraparound screen that offered a 360-degree view of the action.
“Welcome to another episode of Devouring the Galaxy, with me – your host – Vorlon the Voracious.”
The audience hooted. Streaks of drool flew from thousands of dripping mouths.
“And today, Gastro-fans, I have something very special for you. A positively unique combo – half-Skerlon, half-Zenobian, and all mine. Some consider her to be the rightful ruler of the galaxy.” He chuckled. “I prefer to think of her as … lunch.”
Chapter 19
Vorlon peeled back the lid of the storage box and plucked out Niki. An awed silence descended over the viewers.
“Release me, you vile creature.” She squirmed and kicked. “This is your final warning.”
Her protests were squeaks, lost beneath the sound of thousands of slapping tongues.
“Now, with ingredients as fresh as these, there’s no need to do anything overcomplicated. In order to bring out her natural flavours you want to seal the juices in.” He pinched one of Niki’s dangling legs.
“Ow!” she cried. “That’s it. You’ve crossed a line.”
“So I’m going to simply sear both sides, slice into bite-sized pieces and serve with a jus.” Vorlon extended a hand towards the box again.
“This is it, Earth Gavin,” said Cupcake. “We’re toast. Or, technically, I guess we’re gravy.”
Vorlon’s massive hand approached like a crashing asteroid. He reached in and gathered up the bounty hunter. Gavin squeezed his eyes tight shut, awaiting the inevitable, but then he heard the Gastronite say, “Now, where did I put that earthling?”
Vorlon couldn’t see him! Niki’s plan was working. Seizing his chance, he grabbed the top edge of the Tupperware with both hands and pulled himself up. His trainers slipped against the side of the box as he flung one leg over and half leapt, half tumbled out on to the worktop. Niki had said cause a diversion and she’d do the rest. He looked around desperately for something to use and his gaze fell on the cooker. It was throbbing heartily again, sputtering and sparking. He edged along the worktop towards it. His luck was holding – Vorlon still hadn’t spotted him and the gawping Gastronite audience was salivating over Niki, too fixated to notice anything else.
Gavin looked down. Cupcake had said that as well as being a cooker, the AAAAHGA! also provided power to the ship’s heating and star drive. He saw a thick cable running from one side of it into the deck. The cable was joined to a socket in the cooker by a giant plug.
“Y’know what, this is such a special dish,” said Vorlon, “that I don’t think she needs any accompaniment.” So saying, he dropped Cupcake back into the plastic box and sealed the lid.
Gavin realised that Vorlon had abandoned making the jus, which meant he’d given up looking for him. Vorlon stepped to the cooker. A griddle pan sat on the top section. He tossed a lump of what looked like butter into it and the pan sizzled and smoked as it melted into the grooves. He reached for a hefty two-pronged fork. Its sharpened points glittered under the kitchen lights. Niki swallowed hard.
Gavin jumped down from the counter and ran to the side of the cooker. Up close, the plug was even bigger than it had looked from the worktop. It was the size of a boulder.
“Once the base is coated with a thin layer to prevent sticking,” said Vorlon, “we add the princess.”
He dangled Niki over the pan.
Placing his feet either side of the plug and gripping it tightly, Gavin leaned back in an attempt to use his body weight to dislodge it. He groaned with the effort but it was no use. It wouldn’t move.
“There!” A single shout came from one of the watching Gastronites. Others followed. With frightening speed, thousands of sausage-fingers were stabbing out of the screen pointing at Gavin. The air rang with cries of, “Get it!”
Vorlon leaned out over the cooker and saw him. His wrinkled black lips curled in displeasure.
But in that moment, the Gastronite was distracted.
Niki brought a rigid hand down on one of the giant’s fingers. With a cry, he opened his hand. She was free but plunging towards the blistering griddle pan. In a flash, she did the splits, her legs straddling the edges of the pan. With a gymnastic snap, she sprang back up and launched herself at Vorlon. As she flew at the surprised chef, she snatched the fork from him. In her hands it was the size of a spear. In one smooth action she whipped it around and plunged the two-pronged tip deep into his palm.
Vorlon yelled in agony, flailing the injured hand, blindly slapping it on the burning griddle. He yelled again, louder this time, his beetroot-red skin turning an even angrier shade.
On the deck, Gavin heaved one more time. The plug shot out of the socket and sent him flying. The power cable reared up like a snake, spitting purple flames from the fang-like prongs of the plug. The cable thrashed through the air. He ducked out of its path and it struck the side of cooker. The AAAAHGA! began to vibrate and a second later there was a whoosh as it burst into flames. The pulsating cooker vibrated off its housings and juddered across the deck, sparks of electricity and flames belching from its old joints. Still reeling from his burn, Vorlon was blowing desperately on his injured hand and didn’t notice until too late. As if taking revenge for all the thumps the Gastronite had given it through the years, the cooker slammed into him, knocking him off his feet. He fell like a tree.
The cooker supplied power to the engines, so with the main supply ablaze the ship’s systems began to fail. The wraparound screen went down first, the furious audience blinking out of sight. Warning klaxons blared; emergency lighting kicked in. Seeing the devastation Gavin had wreaked, Vorlon howled with a mixture of pain and rage.
Gavin felt a hand grip his. It was Niki’s.
“The kitchen is closed,” she said. “C’mon!”
They dashed out of the room, retracing their route to the hangar as around them the Gastronite Magicruiser shook itself apart. Pieces of ducting crashed down from the ceiling, exposing nests of fizzing wires. At the junction outside the larder Gavin pulled up.
“Wait!” he said. “We can’t leave Cupcake.”
Niki pulled a face. “Can’t we?” She took his hand again, but he wouldn’t budge. She sighed. “You’re going to go back for it, aren’t you?”
Despite everything Cupcake had done, he couldn’t leave the cat behind. “You get to the hangar and prepare the ship to leave. I’ll be right behind you.” Who was saying these words? It sounded like his voice all right, but he wasn’t this brave. Or foolhardy.
“OK, but hurry,” said Niki. “When that main drive explodes, I intend to be far away from here. You have five minutes. One second longer and I’m leaving – with or without you.”
Before he could change his mind, Gavin ran back along the pitching corridor. Niki wouldn’t abandon him here, would she? Who was he kidding? Course she would. It wasn’t long before he reached the command kitchen – or what remained of it. The burning cooker had reduced the grand chamber to a smoking ruin. There was no sign of Vorlon, so Gavin made his way across smouldering chunks of wall and torn-apart control panels to the central stage. Sifting through the rubble, he found the plastic box and peeled back the lid. Cupcake lay inside, motionless. The bounty hunter’s eyes suddenly widened, it took a great gulp of air and then fixed its gaze on him.
“Earth Gavin, what are you doing?”
“I came back for you.”
It sat up and licked a paw. “You’re an odd kid, y’know that?”
“Yeah, so everyone tells me.”
Another explosion shook the room, dislodging more of the crumbling ceiling. Great chunks crashed down in front of the entrance hatch, and when the dust settled Gavin saw that their only way out was blocked.
Though not entirely.
There was a hole, too small for him, but large enough for a creature the size, say, of a house cat. Cupcake looked up at him with apologetic green eyes, and before he could summon up the courage to say, “Save yourself”, it did. With a twist of its wiry body, the bounty hunter vanished through the hole, leaving him behind.
Chapter 20
“Unbelievable!” Gavin flopped down on the deck as the ship disintegrated around him. Through the canopy overhead he could see pieces of the shattered craft float past outside. It was only a matter of time until the end came.
Something was happening at the hatch.
The debris blocking the entrance began to vibrate, dust rising from the shuddering metal. And then one slab floated up, followed by another, until there was a clear corridor through.
Cupcake stood at the opposite end of the now unobstructed route.
“Went to find these,” said the cat, indicating its bandolier and gauntlets. Gavin felt a surge of relief – it hadn’t abandoned him after all.
The bounty hunter turned to leave. “Well, what are you waiting for? Our Royal Slyness isn’t going to hang about.”
Accompanied by the din of explosions and the clatter of falling debris, the two of them set out for the hangar bay. A disembodied computerised voice croaked warnings about failing life support and an overheating main drive. The ship was dying. Gavin was just thinking that things couldn’t get any worse when he saw Cupcake’s paws lift off the deck. A moment later he was floating too. The ship’s artificial gravity had conked out.
Cupcake drifted close to the bulkhead and pushed off with its paws. Following its example, Gavin was able to continue his progress and the two of them clambered in an ungainly way down the long corridor. If his memory of the ship’s layout was correct, once they turned the far corner it was a straight shot to the hangar.
Cupcake’s ears were perked up, on high alert. Gavin listened too, and above the clamour of the collapsing ship heard a new sound. A rhythmical pounding. They sailed out beyond the corner and there, blocking their path, was Vorlon. The Gastronite’s massive feet were shod in anti-gravity boots, allowing it to walk normally. And this time the monstrous chef could see Gavin just fine.
“You wrecked my show and my ship.” Its eyes blazed with hate. “And you spoiled my lunch.” Puffing out its chest, it stalked towards them. “If princess is off the menu, I’ll make do with earthling.”
“Grab on to me, Earth Gavin,” Cupcake ordered.
With shaking hands, he grasped a handful of fur.
“Hold on tight!” With a lick of a gauntlet, the cat activated the flying harness and they shot towards the alien chef.
Gavin’s stomach lurched as Cupcake rolled them upside down and dived for the deck. The giant’s grasping hands filled Gavin’s vision but it was too slow – and Cupcake too nimble. They shot through its legs and powered on along the corridor. With Vorlon’s curses ringing in their ears, they barrelled on through the open hatch of the hangar bay. Inside they found Niki outside the Aphidian scout ship. Cupcake set them down next to her.
“You waited!” Gavin cried.
“Hmm? Oh, yes, that’s right,” she said slowly. “I waited for you because I am a kind and considerate ruler.”
“Why are you saying it like that?”
Niki sighed. “I couldn’t have gone, even if I’d wanted to.” She gestured to the alien vessel. “The ship’s been stripped of every piece of equipment, from the main drive to the soap dispenser. It’s never going to fly.”
Cupcake whipped its head round to face the hangar entrance. The cat’s sensitive ears had picked up something. “Vorlon’s coming.” It checked its gauntlets. “I’m down to my last three rounds.”
The tail end of Cupcake’s sentence was drowned out by a blast, not from the entrance, but from the outer door. The metal tore apart, exposing the hangar to the cold vacuum of space. The ship’s atmosphere began to be sucked out through the hole, and they would have gone too if it hadn’t been for Cupcake. In a heartbeat the cat fired up its anti-gravity harness, using it to cling on to the three of them and the deck. The Magicruiser’s automatic recovery systems kicked in, diverting the last dregs of the ship’s power to keep out the vacuum and create a bubble of breathable air. But with everything else aboard the ship failing, it wouldn’t last long.
Vorlon appeared at the hangar entrance.
Gavin felt his throat tighten. Perhaps the air would last long enough for the Gastronite to take its revenge.
“Get behind me!” Just as Cupcake levelled its weapons, a shadow fell across the gaping outer hatch.
Gavin looked back over one shoulder and saw, to his astonishment, the Apples’ space-Volvo nose inside the hangar bay. Extending its skids, it slammed down on the deck. The ramp slid from its belly just as Vorlon began pounding across the deck towards them. Cupcake laid down covering fire as the three of them scrambled aboard. With Vorlon nipping at their heels, the hatch whooshed shut behind them and the tumultuous noise was replaced by silence, broken only by the rising hum of the ship’s drive and the furious hammering of the Gastronite’s fists against the hull. There wasn’t time to strap in before the Apples’ ship lifted off, spun round and shot through the ragged gap back out into space.
Gavin reached the cockpit in time to see Vorlon on the main screen. The Gastronite stood amid the devastation of the ship, arms raised, head tilted back as it mouthed something.
“I wonder what it’s saying,” he said.
“I can lip-read,” said Niki. Course she could. “It looks like … ‘Stick a fork in me. I’m done.’”
The camera view switched to the exterior of the crippled Gastronite ship just as it finally destructed. It was a strangely subdued end. They watched in silence as the whisk-shaped engines ejected from the collapsing superstructure, spinning off into space. Then the unprotected hull disintegrated, fragments breaking off and streaming into the void.
But they’d made it. Somehow they were alive.
“Gavin!” From the front section of the cockpit, Sunshine Starburst waved a sparkly hoof. The unicorn was functioning again.
“Took the batteries out of an emergency flashlight,” explained Sam.
“Told you there’d be space cannibals, didn’t I?” The unicorn shook its head. “But did anyone listen to me? No-o-o.”
The reunion between Niki and the other Apples was a slightly awkward business. Gavin could see that they wanted to show their feelings, but that hugging a princess – especially this one – was not the done thing.
