Steph Bennion - Hollow Moon

Wak throttled back the thrusters by the merest fraction and the truck slowly descended into the airlock. They were soon level with the large ragged hole, which Ravana guessed had been made by the Astromole on its way to the palace. Wak manoeuvred them into a position where they could see straight into the kidnappers’ tunnel. To Ravana’s surprise, she saw just inside was a wider section with a huge net attached the wall, behind which was wedged a variety of equipment. On the tunnel floor nearby, presumably also firmly fixed to the rock, was what looked like a mountaineering survival tent.

“The scoundrels set up camp underground!” exclaimed Wak, raising his voice against the sound of the hovertruck thrusters.

“You should look for evidence,” suggested Ostara over the helmet speaker.

“Isn’t a great big hole evidence enough?” retorted the professor. “You can do your detective work later. My priority is to close this damn airlock.”

Wak turned the hovertruck away from the hole and guided it towards a control panel upon the wall. As soon as the panel was within reach, he outstretched his right hand and tried a few experimental taps on the keypad. However, unlike the control panel in the shed above, this one displayed no warning lights and was evidently not working.

“It looks like it has been over-ridden from outside,” Wak informed his listeners. Squinting through the open doors below, he peered into the dark shaft. “I can see another panel beyond the airlock. I’ll have to take the truck further down.”

Ravana gulped as the hovertruck began to descend once more. Soon the entire airlock was above them. The walls of the shaft had become the grey rock of the asteroid, streaked with the dark veins of century-old cement pumped in to stabilise the structure. The lights of the airlock chamber above were partly masked by the lower doors and Wak was forced to switch on the truck’s headlights to dispel the shadows. As they levelled off near the lower control panel, Ravana watched as Wak attempted and failed to reach it, concentrating as he was on keeping the hovertruck steady. Eventually, he gave up and turned to Ravana.

“This one is recessed into the wall and I can’t reach it without letting go of the stick,” he told her. “You’ll have to work the panel for me.”

“I’ll do my best,” Ravana told him.

Wak swung the truck around and the panel came into view. She could see what he meant, for the control panel was installed in a shallow alcove in the wall of the shaft. It was a stretch even for her, but by leaning out of the side of the truck and clinging to the side of the windscreen she found she could just about touch the keypad, only to find there was no response. There was a grey box taped to the side of the panel and Ravana could see a number of wires running from it to the back of the keypad.

“This one is dead too,” she told the professor. “There’s some sort of device connected to it which may be affecting the circuits.”

“Damnation!” exclaimed Wak. “This airlock needs to be closed!”

“Airlock to be closed?” crackled Ostara’s voice. “Right away!”

With a sudden clang of steel, the upper doors of the airlock began to slide shut.

“What!?” retorted Wak. “No!”

Startled, Ravana twisted around to see what was happening, forgetting that hasty movements were unwise in the bulky emergency suit. Her grip slipped from the edge of the windscreen and before she could grab it again, she lost her balance and fell against the shaft wall, then felt the hovertruck slide from beneath her. Ravana’s cry of panic became a heart-rending scream, drowning out the professor’s own anguished shout. Her boot slipped from its precarious perch. All of a sudden, she was tumbling into the void.

“Ravana!” cried Wak.

Free of her weight, the hovertruck lurched up through the lower airlock doors, accompanied by a second strangled cry from Wak as he fought to regain control. Her eyes wide with fear, Ravana fell away from the airlock, her rope streaming behind her. A split second later, the rope snapped tight and she came to an abrupt stomach-churning halt.

Above her, the lower airlock doors had somehow come to life. Ravana watched helplessly as they slid together, then clanged shut like the lid of a tomb. She was trapped.

HIGH ABOVE THE PALACE soared a hero of the skies, exquisitely framed by the bat-like wings of a red birdsuit as his eyes scanned the ground for his damsel in distress. In the low pseudo-gravity near the axis of the hollow moon the flying was easy and the masked figure swooped and swirled with a panache surpassed only by the real birds of feather and flesh that darted in his wake. With a deft flick of artificial wings, the birdman banked towards the cliff at the rear of the hollow moon and skimmed the vertical rock face with playful zeal. Spying a familiar shape, he veered sharply towards the rock, performed a delicate aerial somersault, then crashed heavily onto the floor of a shallow cave in the side of the cliff.

“I really must practice landings,” the figure muttered, climbing to his feet.

He folded back his scarlet wings and solemnly regarded the black cat meowing pathetically at his feet. Ravana’s electric pet looked at him with an air of apprehension, for the ginger-haired winged intruder offered a completely different challenge to the gull it had previously decapitated at this very spot. There was something quite unnerving about the mask that covered the top half of the figure’s pale face.

“So what brings you up here, little Jones?” asked the birdman.

The cat meowed again and feebly scratched at a crack in the wall at the back of the cave. Moments later it found itself plucked from the ground by red-gloved hands, an act it chose to reward by sinking its claws into the birdman’s arms.

“Ow!” cried the figure, dropping the cat. “I’m trying to rescue you, stupid moggy!”

He tried again, this time giving it reassuring strokes as he tucked it gently yet firmly under his right arm. Turning away, he stepped towards the edge of the cave floor and calmly regarded the cliff dropping away at his feet. The fingers of his left hand reached for the miniature joystick at the end of the suit’s control arm and pressed the switch to snap the bat-like aerofoils into position. The figure paused, then stepped off the cliff.

His wings bit the air and he quickly banked to the left, keeping the cliff to his side as he glided in a slow descent towards the ground. The concave landscape of the hollow moon rolled slowly below, bringing the Maharani’s palace around from above until it lay straight ahead. Ravana’s cat remained remarkably still under his arm, perhaps recalling the foul-smelling pond of mud that had greeted it the last time it was here.

In the palace garden ahead, Endymion shaded his eyes with his hand and peered up at the birdsuit-clad figure gliding towards them. Miss Clymene and Bellona were waving like lunatics at his side, leaving Philyra to sulk alone. Dinner with the Maharani had proved to be an awkward and short-lived affair. After the incident with Surya’s cyberclone, the visitors from Newbrum had quickly made their excuses and left.

“Why didn’t you tell me the boy was a clone?” wailed Philyra, not in the least bit interested in the approaching birdman. “I looked an idiot!”

“Is that a bird?” asked Miss Clymene, ignoring her.

“Is it a spaceplane?” queried Bellona.

“No, it seems to be a ginger man wearing a birdsuit,” murmured Endymion.

“He looks like a big bat,” grumbled Philyra, returning her attention to her wristpad.

The figure came in to land just outside the palace grounds, his descent slowed by tiny bursts of gas from the birdsuit’s built-in jet pack. With Endymion leading the way, the four visitors hurried past the robots trying to move a fallen stone elephant and headed to the palace gates. By the time they reached the road, the mysterious birdman was picking himself up from another rough landing, his movements hampered somewhat by the cat clinging to his arm. The figure acknowledged the approaching figures with a curt nod, glanced at his wristpad and then strode away. Eager for a bit of excitement, Endymion and the girls promptly ran after him, leaving Miss Clymene to wearily bring up the rear.