Asteroid Crisis: Star Challengers Book 3 (12 page)

Twenty-Three

Enraged, the alien creature lurched toward Dyl, lashing out with its tentacles. For some reason, goo was no longer squirting from their ends. The young man was sure he could read murder in the Kylarn’s cloudy eyes.

JJ, Tony, and King scattered in the Challenger Center’s large lobby with its space exhibits. The second Kylarn moved to confront them.

Song-Ye bounded back to her feet and grabbed Dyl by the shoulder. “Quick, into the briefing room—it’s safer there!”

“Safe? We’ll be trapped.” He stumbled as the Korean girl pulled him toward the room.

“In Earth’s gravity, you can’t move as well! We have to buy some time!”

The squidbutt threw itself at them, but Dyl raised one of his crutches. “Sure, go after the slow kid first.” Balancing on one foot, he swung the metal crutch hard and brought it down on the alien’s squishy head sac. The sound was like somebody stepping on a rotten watermelon, and a dark oily stain seeped beneath the leathery membrane. Dyl saw that his little victory would be short-lived. “Uh-oh, I was hoping to knock him out.”

Song-Ye added a hapkido kick for good measure. The Kylarn hooted and burbled, reeling as Song-Ye pulled Dyl into the room and swung the heavy classroom door shut just as the creature whacked the door hard with two tentacles.

“It doesn’t lock,” she exclaimed in dismay, looking out through the windows on the upper half of the door.

The Kylarn flailed its tentacles wildly. One tentacle smashed into a display case, sending shards of glass flying everywhere. A model of the Space shuttle
Challenger
and pictures of her crew went flying, breaking as they hit the floor. Another tentacle smashed the fluorescent lights that hung above. Sparks showered everywhere. A loose wire dropped down from the light fixture. Sparking, it landed on a wooden picture frame that had fallen from the display case. Suddenly, the frame ignited in a small fire.

The Kylarn slid back from the door Dyl and Song-Ye sheltered behind. Together, they leaned their weight against the door. Dyl tried to wipe the drying elastosnot from his jeans. It didn’t work.

“It could be a lot worse,” Song-Ye assured him. “I got sticky-globbed to a wall on the space station, and it
hurt!’

“Never say, It could be worse’!” Dyl said. “Don’t you
know
what happens in movies if you say that? Things
always
get worse—
that’s
what happens.”

Outside, they heard heavy wet rustling sounds as tentacles smacked against the door, but they couldn’t see where the Kylarn was anymore.

Song-Ye gulped and turned pale. “Do you smell smoke?”

“Yeah,” Dyl said, trying not to give in to panic. “I don’t think that it could be a big fire, yet. I hope. And I doubt the squidbutts will pull the fire alarm in the hall!”

While Dyl sat on the floor with his back to the door, Song-Ye ran to the front row of chairs, grabbed one, and jammed it under the knob. “That’ll make it sturdier. We can hold out here for awhile.”

“And then what?” Dyl asked. “They’re still out there with JJ, King, Tony, and Commander Zota. And if the fire spreads.…”

Song-Ye triumphantly produced her cell phone. “Now’s as good a time as ever to bring in reinforcements. I’m calling the police and the fire department.”

“You’re going to dial 911 Alien Rescue? They’ll never believe our story.”

“Excuse me, Junior? How many questions are the police going to ask when they see those two blobby tentacled things in the lobby? And don’t forget, I’m the daughter of a diplomat—I have the police and our consulate on speed-dial.” Grinning, Song-Ye punched a button on her phone as the Kylarn continued to batter against the door.

“Um, maybe it’s best if you don’t mention aliens in the call,” Dyl said. “They’ll think it’s a prank.”

“Remember who you’re talking to, Junior. I can get them here in a hurry just the same.” She put the phone to her ear. “911? Hello, my name is Park, Song-Ye, and my father is Park, Young-il, the ambassador from South Korea. I need to report a fire and a burglary in progress at the Challenger Learning Center.”

When the other hulking Kylarn moved after her, JJ yanked the bright-red cylinder from the wall. All her life, standard fire extinguishers had always been there in public buildings. Normally, she avoided looking at them, because they were a painful reminder of her father’s death, but right now she needed a weapon.

“Your sluggy cousins didn’t like this on the space station. Here, try some.” She aimed the nozzle toward the Kylarn, and the blast of white powder and fumes startled it even more than Dyl’s root-beer spray had infuriated the other one. The alien scrambled backward, reacting reflexively, thrashing and writhing.

At the briefing room door behind which Dyl and Song-Ye had barricaded themselves, the second Kylarn was in a frenzy. JJ ran toward it, still blasting with the fire extinguisher. “You leave my brother alone!”

Both aliens went reeling, on a rampage as they knocked pictures from the wall, tipped over a bookcase. JJ saw the fire that was spreading. A lump formed in her throat. Ever since her father, a firefighter, had died in a blaze, she’d been terrified of fire. Her one weakness. The flames spread, licking at the books on the ground and engulfing the fallen bookshelf. JJ was paralyzed with fear. Terror. The two Kylarn moved away from the blaze, and their movements jerked JJ from her paralysis.

Snap out of it, JJ,
she told herself. At her dad’s funeral, Uncle Buzz had said, “Heroes are people who choose to do the right thing, even when they’re scared.”
This is one of those times,
she decided. Everyone’s
in trouble, but somebody’s got to stop this fire and that somebody is you!

Biting her lip, she stepped forward and sprayed with the fire extinguisher. White foam blasted from the canister, covering the growing blaze. Smoke in the air burned her eyes. The cylinder felt heavy in her hands, but JJ kept spraying in a wide arc over the flames until the extinguisher was empty.

The fire was out.

The root-beer-stained alien collided with the transparent habitat that held Newton, the hamster they had rescued from Moonbase Magellan, and the cage broke apart. Squeaking, the former lab animal scurried across the floor.

The loose hamster seemed to intimidate the aliens more than all of JJ’s defiance. The Kylarn dodged and skittered away on its tentacles, moving back and forth in a panic. JJ suddenly thought of the old myths about how elephants were frightened of mice. The first Kylarn sidled up the wall and clung to a light fixture.

She tried to give the second alien another blast of the offensive chemical, but only a few gasps of fumes came out. Mira threw herself upon JJ and knocked the fire extinguisher out of her hands. Tony joined in the pileup, tearing Mira away, and now both Kylarn came back at them.

From down the hall, Mentor Toowun watched with interest, but detached, as if he was used to letting other people do his work for him.

Commander Zota glared at Toowun. “Do you think I will let you just eliminate these young people? They are the future!”

“We both saw the future destroyed!” Toowun snarled.

Zota approached Toowun slowly. “We can change it! We
are
changing it!”

“It’s too late!” Toowun shouted. “Surrender is the only option. And I’ll stop these kids from meddling however I have to!”

Zota curled his fingers into a fist. With great force he punched Toowun’s jaw. Toowun fell to the ground in an unconscious heap. “I’ll stop you and the Kylarn however
I
have to!” Zota spun around and ran back toward the attacking aliens.

Nearby, one Kylarn wrapped a tentacle around King’s waist, and he furiously tugged on the flexible appendage. Kickboxing his captor, King threw himself backward with all his weight, but couldn’t break free. Dyl and Song-Ye emerged from the briefing room.

Dyl and Song-Ye exchanged looks. “Junior, I need your crutch,” she said, taking one from him while he leaned on the other.

“What are you doing?”

She aimed the crutch at a specific spot on the Kylarn that was holding King and threw it like a spear. The crutch slammed into the Kylarn’s body.
Bullseye!

The alien emitted a pained squeal, and suddenly let go of King, then collapsed to the ground, stiffened from the blow.

“How … how did you … ?” King gasped, pulling himself free from the twitching tentacles.

“We discovered a sensitive nerve cluster during the autopsy we performed back on the station. The Kylarn’s Achilles’ heel,” Song-Ye explained as King handed Dyl his crutch back.

“Is the paralysis permanent?” King asked.

“Don’t think so,” Dyl said as the stunned Kylarn began to move again. “Let’s get out of here while we can.”

Down the hall, Zota raced toward the transport room that connected the hall with the space-station setup on the other side of the wall. “Cadet Vasquez, we have to get to the control room and protect the Kylarn time machine!”

Questions raced through JJ’s mind. Why would Zota go into the simulated space station room to protect the time machine? That wasn’t where he kept the alien device. With a hard shove, she pushed Mira from her and scrambled away.

Zota shouted, “Cadet King, hold them off as long as you can.” He turned and looked meaningfully at JJ. “Cadet Wren, keep yourself
safe,
in my office.”

Angry and resolute, and slowly climbing back to his feet, Mentor Toowun called to the two Kylarn. “Leave the others. Go after Zota—we have to take care of him first. Don’t let him get to that time machine!”

Zota and Tony raced through the first door into the connecting transport room, and JJ suddenly realized what the Commander meant to do: He was acting as a decoy, so she could get to the real time machine. “Yes, sir!” Knowing she had only a few seconds, she bolted toward his administrative office.

The two aliens scrambled after Toowun into the transport room.

King planted himself in front of the door and faced Mira. “You’re
not
going in there.”

Tony kept up with Commander Zota as they raced through the transport room that contained benches and jumpsuits. The heavy door on the far end, which was made to look like a spaceship hatch, led into the adjacent chamber with the medical station, computers, waldo arms, glove boxes, and the comm station. Tony wondered what the commander was up to.

As soon as they passed into the space-station room, he heard the opposite door open—Mentor Toowun leading the two Kylarn after them. Zota tried to push the hatch door closed while Tony grabbed another fire extinguisher from the wall. When the Kylarn attempted to squeeze their tentacles through the half-closed door, Tony sprayed them with the white mist. The tentacles flinched as if he had scalded them with acid, and they withdrew just enough for Zota to slam the hatch shut.

Breathing heavily, Tony said, “Well, you got them to chase after us, but why? The time machine isn’t even in here.”

Zota had a bright sheen in his normally shadowed gaze. “I know that, and Cadet Wren knows that—but Toowun and the Kylarn don’t.”

Tony grinned, understanding. “And they’re in the same room that you use for transporting us into the future!”

The aliens began throwing themselves against the hatch, thumping and scraping. Tony could hear Mentor Toowun through the walls. “They’ll break it down in a few moments, Zota. You’re boxed in.”

Tony lowered his voice and looked at Zota. “Boy, I hope JJ hurries.”

Mira faced off against King. “I’ll fight you if I have to.”

“I was about to say the same thing.” He didn’t budge, blocking her way.

“I have to help Mentor Toowun—and stop all of you from dooming the human race,” she cried.

“Can’t you see that if we start now, we’ll have more than a hundred years to get ready? Think how much things can change, if we get our act together! We can work as a team. Shouldn’t we try to save
all
the human race, instead of just hope the Kylarn will let a few live?”

Mira wavered, but then her nostrils flared. “You don’t know everything Mentor Toowun’s done for me. I’ve never had any reason to doubt him. I trust his judgment.”

“And I trust Commander Zota’s,” King said. “Think about it. If we follow your plan, you know millions and millions of people will die … and that’s the
best
case scenario! We’ve already changed the future for the better at the moonbase and the space station. And we can do more—we can win!”

“You can’t know that,” Mira shot back. “Mentor Toowun told me about his future and what happened when a group of human resistance fighters destroyed an alien base. The Kylarn retaliation was horrific.” Now Mira sounded as if she were trying to convince King to change sides. “Don’t you see? It’s better to try for the least damage. We should surrender and hope for the best.”

“I would rather gamble on the human spirit—on our ability to face a problem and solve it. Because of Commander Zota, we have a second chance, and I don’t want to waste it.”

“You don’t understand. You’re risking too many lives,” Mira said, and King was startled to see tears sparkling in her eyes. One tear even trickled down her cheek, but she refused to bend, and King saw that he would have to fight her after all.

JJ dashed into Commander Zota’s office and slammed the door, knowing it wouldn’t hold long once the Kylarn and Mentor Toowun figured out the deception. She hoped she could manage to work the time machine’s controls faster. She grabbed the doorknob of the heavy metal door that looked like a closet and yanked it open to look at the glowing machine with its cryptic controls and alien symbols.

“Come on, you can figure this out,” she said aloud to herself. “You know these controls, you’ve seen them before. Heck, you even flew an alien spaceship. A time machine is just like a giant alarm clock, that’s all.” Seconds were ticking away, and she knew the aliens were fighting her friends, but she drew a deep breath and calmed herself so she could think straight. Her father had taught her that. He had been trained to react well in emergencies. He would have kept his wits about him, even in the raging fire and the collapsed building that had cost him his life. And now she had to do this for herself—and do it correctly.