Free Lethal Combat by Max Chase Page A

he’d done.
    He laughed. ‘I put us into reverse.’
    ‘That was a genius idea,’ Selene said as she got to her feet.
    Peri felt a crackling in his cheeks. Bionic blushing. ‘Oh, well – you know . . .’
    ‘So the purple tracking beam overshot us?’ Diesel asked.
    ‘Yes – but I’d better cancel that Boomerang message,’ Selene said. ‘Or they’ll lock on to us again.’ She pressed a few buttons, her hands a blur even to Peri.
    The purple haze had completely disappeared. The Phoenix was getting back to normal. Not that Peri knew anything about normal any more. The ship’s crew had been sucked through a vortex right into the middle of an intergalactic war, accidently kidnapped Prince Onix, rescued Selene from planet Meigwor and survived a crash landing on a moon-planet.
    ‘The sooner we drop Prince Onix back on Xion, the sooner we can go home,’ Peri said.
    Otto had tricked Peri and Diesel. They thought they had rescued a Meigwor prince, not kidnapped a Xion one. Returning Prince Onix had turned out to be harder than they’d expected. He was sedated in the Med Centre now because he couldn’t remember who he was.
    ‘If there is a home to go back to,’ Selene said. ‘I never got a reply to my Boomerang messages. Xion blew up the IF Space Station. Maybe Earth’s been destroyed too.’
    ‘And Mars,’ Diesel said.
    ‘Maybe the whole solar system – the whole galaxy is gone,’ Selene said.
    ‘But we don’t know that,’ Peri said. He felt a hollow sensation in his belly, when he thought of Earth no longer existing. ‘We have to hope.’
    ‘It’s worse for me than for you lot!’ Otto said. ‘I can never go home to Meigwor! I’d be arrested as soon as I touched down. And it’s all thanks to you Milky Way monkeys!’
    ‘Who are you calling a monkey, you massive . . . lumpy-necked . . .’ Diesel was so angry, he couldn’t even finish his insult.
    Peri heard a sound like two Jovian nose flutes playing a duet. Three lights were winking on the control panel.
    ‘That’s the Ultrawave responding,’ Selene said. ‘We’ve got messages. They could be from the Milky Way.’
    She reached for the control panel. Peri grabbed her wrist.
    ‘Wait!’ he said. ‘It might not be the Milky Way – it could be our enemies, trying to trick us . . . Better scramble our signal, so they can’t pinpoint us again.’
    ‘Good thinking,’ Selene said. ‘I’ll use the Twister. Kind of old school, but it works.’ She pulled two long rubbery strings, like Martian sandworms, from a cavity next to the screen and knotted them together. ‘Now if they try to get a fix on us they’ll only get each other’s coordinates.’
    She touched each of the winking lights.
    One whole side of the 360-monitor filled up with the face of a Xion in full battle gear. Two spikes protruded from the mouth area of the black helmet, like insect jaws. A crown of some dull grey metal sat on top of the helmet, two antennae springing out from it. It was the king of Xion.
    The other 180 degrees of the monitor were taken up with the huge head of Meigwor General Rouwgim. His thick, wrinkled crimson neck was curved like a letter S. His beady black eyes gleamed with anger.
    ‘Not messages from the Milky Way, then,’ Peri muttered.
    The two giant heads began shouting at the top of their voices. Peri struggled to separate what each one was saying.
    ‘You evil space pirates –’
    ‘– double-crossing devils –’
    ‘– what have you done with –’
     

     
    ‘– do you really think you –’
    ‘– my son?’
    ‘– can get away with this?’
    ‘– if my son’s been harmed –’
    Peri faced the Xion king. ‘Your son is fine. He was just – well, knocked out, that’s all.’
    ‘Who knocked him out?’ roared the king. ‘You will suffer for this!’
    In the background, Peri heard Otto trying to calm General Rouwgim. ‘I didn’t mean it to turn out like this –’
    ‘Last time, I saw you, Otto,’ said General Rouwgim,