Jeramey Kraatz - The Moon Platoon

Drue’s eyes widened a little.

“You mean … you killed them?”

“What?” Benny asked. “No, are you crazy? They just ended up wandering off and getting lost in the desert because they were bored. Or left to try and hack it somewhere else. We don’t kill people.”

Drue shrugged. “You hear stories. The Drylands are supposed to be lawless. Full of roaming gangs and stuff.”

Benny wondered if this was why he’d got some weird looks when he introduced himself to the rest of his team.

“Most of us are just trying to stay alive,” he said. “The others … Well, the Drylands are dangerous, just not always in the way you expect them to be.”

It was then that Ricardo stopped in front of a giant steel slab at the end of a hallway and turned to the group.

“You’re about to enter one of the most exclusive places in the galaxy. Behind this door are the most sophisticated machines known to man. Personally, it’s my favourite room in the Taj.”

Somewhere towards the front, Hot Dog squealed.

“Welcome to the garage, Mustangs.” Ricardo grinned, lifting his chin and looking down over the bridge of his nose at the group. “I hope you’re prepared to prove you’re worthy of the EW-SCAB.”

The inside of the garage was almost as bright as the outside, with steel walls and dark-stained concrete floors reflecting an entire ceiling made of light. Half the structure served as a work space and tinkering grounds for the McGuyvers, who were currently dismantling the front end of the crimson Space Runner Elijah had driven earlier. The other side of the garage was a sort of showroom. Space Runners in dozens of colours and models – types Benny had never seen before – lined the floor, alongside what looked like normal dune buggies and classic cars that had been retrofitted in order to function on the Moon.

Once inside, the Mustangs split up, running back and forth, trying to see everything at once. Jasmine observed the McGuyvers, keeping her distance from them. Benny climbed inside a two-seater buggy, bouncing in the driver’s seat.

“The tyres on this thing are nuts,” he murmured, imagining what a wild ride he could have racing it over the dunes of the Drylands, wondering what speeds it could reach.

“Dude, Benny, why are you bothering with that thing?” Drue called from across the garage. He ran his hands over a silvery Space Runner shaped like a long, thin rocket. “Look at this beauty! Oh, man, I gotta see what’s under the hood.”

Drue started pulling on the front of the car, his face turning red. When that didn’t work, he banged his fist on the hood, as if that might cause it to spring open.

“Hey, hey, careful with that!” Ash McGuyver shouted, walking swiftly towards Drue while cleaning an oversized torque wrench on the front of her coveralls. “That’s a prototype with a one-of-a-kind synthetic-mercury paint job.”

“Synthetic mercury?” Drue asked. “What the what? OK, I’ve got to take a few buckets of that back with me. Can someone contact my dad? He can have his lawyers or whoever figure out how to get it down to Earth.”

Ash turned to Ricardo, pointing a thumb over her shoulder and towards the exit. “I’m banning this kid from the garage.”

“Give it a break, Lincoln,” Hot Dog said, running her finger over the boot of the silver vehicle. “You can paint your daddy’s Space Runner back home any colour you want, but this looks like too much car for you.”

Benny watched Drue’s face turn an even darker shade of red.

“I can hold my own in any Space Runner. Have you ever even been behind the wheel of one of these things? Today’s automated flight doesn’t count.”

“I’ve logged over three hundred hours in SR flight simulators back home. For most of last year I was the top-ranked sim pilot in the world!” Her lips curved down into a frown. “Until I had to stop going to the arcades.”

“There’s a big difference between a sim and the real thing,” Drue said. He cracked his knuckles. “If you crash in a sim, you can hit reset. In real life, you might die . These are machines, not toys.”

Hot Dog narrowed her eyes. “What makes you think I’d crash?” she asked.

“All I’m saying is that I’m a dude who’s got some actual experience behind the yoke of one of these things. I could totally beat you.”

“Why not prove it?” Ricardo asked, stepping towards the two.

It was only then that Benny realised everyone was watching them. “Oh, boy,” he murmured. He’d guessed that Drue’s mouth would get him in trouble eventually, but he was kind of hoping it wouldn’t be on the first day. Especially since so far Drue was the only person he’d really talked to all that much.

“What do you mean?” Drue asked.

Ricardo fixed his steely gaze on the boy. “Our first activity today was going to be testing the team’s aptitude in the Space Runners. Why don’t we start by pitting the two of you against each other to see who the better pilot is?”

“I’m game,” Hot Dog said. She sneered at Drue, whose mouth was now hanging open. “What’s the matter? Getting cold feet in that expensive space suit?”

Drue let out a snort. “Let’s do it, but I call dibs on this silver one.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Ash said. She tapped on a HoloTek and suddenly the floor beneath several of the Space Runners on the other side of the room sank into the ground. There was a rumbling beneath them, and then another platform rose, a new line of cars replacing the old ones. “Here, you can take two of the SR trainers. At least that way if you lose control, Pinky’ll save you.”

“Ashley, will you get them strapped in and ready?” Ricardo asked. “The rest of you, outside. Let’s see what your teammates can do.”

Benny climbed out of the Moon buggy and followed the rest of the Mustangs. As he passed Hot Dog and Drue, they both looked over at him. He gave them a double thumbs-up, said “Good luck!” without specifying who he was talking to, and then continued out into the Grand Dome. There, the Mustangs were starting to clump into groups of three or four. He spotted Jasmine standing alone, inspecting one of the neon-blue palm trees. In fact, as he thought back to it, Jasmine had been alone most of the tour. One thing he’d learned in the caravan was that it was always best to have a partner, even if you were just going off over a dune to get away from the noise of the campsite. The Drylands were too dangerous to face alone – despite his occasional solo ATV rides – and while the Taj was certainly different, he thought the same principle applied.

“Who do you think is going to win?” he asked, stepping up behind her.

Jasmine tensed for a moment before letting out a breath and answering. “I have no idea what their abilities are.” She paused. “But I’m really, really rooting for Hot Dog on this one.”

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