Chapter 13

Teenovels

Josh came out of his burn in a dimension unfamiliar. He nailed his terminus landing, and Tempo, Fractal, Spindle and Denso were all there to see it. They didn’t congratulate Josh on his landing, nor did they offer any greeting at all. They had grave things on their minds.

“The Cluster has a new weapon,” Fractal said, leading them away into the night -- night, ally of the DimensioNoids. Flashes of huge explosions could be seen beyond the horizon.

“This dimension is called Zebulon,” Tempo said, wearing the form of Emily Kinicki that made Josh feel at ease.

Starla took over the conversation on the communicators. “It’s a land of intellectuals. Large brained carbon based entities forced to build weapons for The Cluster. The cell disruptors the Minions use and the accelerometer you destroyed? Zebulon scientists created them for The Cluster. But the Zebulons have at last begun to rebel. Some among their number sabotaged a facility that was creating powerful new weapons called dimension destroyers. They blew up the great casting machines so no more destroyers could be made. But three of the weapons had already been completed, and secretly removed from the facility by The Cluster.”

“Now, The Cluster is using those same weapons to destroy Zebulon’s greatest city,” Denso grimly added, “as a demonstration!”

They crested a rise and beheld a futuristic metropolis. Three colossal black machines flew slowly in a line with a separation of about a kilometer between them. The machines fired huge blue beams that swept back and forth before the machines pulverizing everything they touched. Creatures with four legs and four arms were running and screaming and dying before the onslaught. The Zebulons had a loping gait like canines have, but they had large humanoid heads rising up from the center of their hairless pink bodies.

“We each have brought a magnetic mine,” Fractal said holding up his. “How do you formulate our strategy?” Fractal wanted to know of Josh.

Josh was in it again, up to his butt in things he was unqualified to judge. Still, these brave warriors looked to him with such open loyalty that Josh set his mind working.

Denso shook his head. “The dimension destroyers are too heavily armored. My missiles wouldn’t make a dent.”

“They’re operating in a line,” Josh noted. “They reach the edge of the city, then turn and destroy another path alongside the first. Like lawn mowers cutting grass.”

“No -- well, in a way, I guess. Leaf blowers, wood chippers. Look, never mind. If we can get to that building there, the one with the cylindrical tower. It looks to be near the center of their next pass. If we can get there undetected, we can ambush them when they come back through.”

“But the beams will obliterate that building before the destroyers are even close to it,” Fractal said.

“We won’t be in the building,” Josh replied. “We’ll be underground. Those beams wipe out everything, but they don’t seem to damage the ground. How fast can you dig a tunnel?” he asked Tempo.

“Then we have to get closer. Morph into a Minion and lead us in,” he told the girl, and she did.

They trotted as fast as they could, the rest of the rebel band staying twenty meters behind Tempo. She rounded a corner and was stopped by two Minion troopers who were trying to keep Zebulons from escaping the kill zone.

“A message? Is his in-skull transmitter not working?” the second Minion quizzically asked.

It was the last thought either Minion would have, for two broad bladed arrows from Spindle’s crossbow suddenly severed their spines and they crumpled into two heaps of debris. The DimensioNoids moved on, finally reaching a point across a broad street from the building Josh had indicated.

Denso’s distance viewers popped out of his shoulder mount and the metal stem holding the little lenses telescoped over to position the lenses before Denso’s eyes.

“There’s a little park three hundred meters east of the building,” Denso discovered, seeing a patch of purple grass with some pink Zebulon statues in it.

“Don’t break the surface,” Josh directed. “Leave some dirt above us to protect us. As the destroyers pass over we’ll break out and put the magnetic mines on them.”

“Wait? Why would we wait? You are confusing us, Joshua Miles,” Fractal quizzically said.

Josh gasped when Tempo morphed into a Quaternion mining drill and drove herself downward, grinding a perfect circle into the sidewalk. The others had to wait awhile so the dust and debris her drilling sent up settled before they entered the tunnel in a low crouch. Denso’s built in light source came on and he led them in. By the time they got to Tempo, she had returned to the form of Emily Kinicki.

“I’ve left about a meter of dirt above us,” she said. “Fractal and Denso can push through it when we’re ready.”

“Good,” Josh said, “we wait until the explosions pass over, and we hear the anti-gravs humming toward us. They’ll never expect anything to be alive beneath them. When they’re right overhead, we break out. Denso, you anti-grav to the left one, Spindle, you elongate to the right one, plant your mines and burn outta here. Now, how to mine the destroyer that should be right above us?” Josh pondered. “Tempo, can you -- turn into a big buzzard from the bird dimension or something?” Tempo shook Emily Kinicki’s head no.

“I cannot fly,” Tempo said, “except, of course, in anti-grav vehicles. My weight-to-lift ratio makes it impossible for me to assume the form of a flying entity and still retain its flight properties. Too -- heavy.”

“Uh, Fractal,” Starla jumped in over their burn bands, “you know you have yet to perfect your -- wind leap.”

“I expel wind from my palms downward,” Fractal explained, demonstrating without actually doing it. “I can use it to propel myself twenty to fifty meters in the air.”

“Yes, you just don’t know which it’s going to be,” Starla said testily. “I suggest you formulate another plan.”

“No time!” Josh said, as the ground began to tremble and the massive explosions started getting closer and closer. “Wind leap it is!” he said, clapping a hand on confidence on Fractal’s shoulder. Fractal smiled.

As the beams passed overhead, dirt from the roof of the tunnel fell on them. Their ears screamed in pain! The explosions continued on, getting more and more faint, then the hum and accompanying whine of the huge anti-grav generators began to get louder. Josh waited. He had to be sure they’d be right overhead. “Now!” Josh shouted.

The DimensioNoids sprang from their ambush. Well -- sprang isn’t quite the word. When Fractal and Denso heaved up on the roof of Tempo’s excavation, instead of crumbling outward, the whole thing caved in on them. Josh was buried, and pinned under one of the bizarre pink Zebulon statues.

Fractal and Denso were clear, and Spindle oozed himself up out of the rubble. Denso anti-graved up and shot off to the left. Spindle elongated himself up out of the hole and in two strides of half a kilometer each, was under the destroyer to the right. Spindle extended his arm way up at least twenty meters and stuck his mine to the underside of the destroyer with that satisfying clink. Denso floated up under his target, rolled on his back and stuck his mine to the second destroyer. Both Spindle and Denso then hit their burn bands and vanished into a dimension burn.

Fractal climbed up out of the hole so awkwardly, the destroyer he was to mine was well past him before he got set for his wind leap. Tempo dug Josh out of the cave-in just in time for them to peek up out of the hole and see Fractal move his arms like a martial artist, then thrust his palms down toward the ground. Wind blew out of his palms and up he flew. Since the destroyer was well past him, Fractal tried to angle his leap to correct for it. Instead, he slammed into the belly of the machine and, dazed, fell to the ground. His mine bounced off the underside of the destroyer as well, and fell away.

Josh scrambled out of the hole, ran down a smooth sidewalk and hopped onto his skateboard. He raced down a connecting ramp near the park, and onto the broad street. He passed a stunned and staggering Fractal along the way. Fractal had managed to regain his feet, but not his senses. Josh squatted and snatched up Fractal’s mine from where it had come to rest in the middle of the rubble strewn street, and Josh pumped his power leg gaining on the destroyer.

Down the wide roadway after the center destroyer Josh flew. He had to airline over broken segments of the street. Once he overtook the slow-moving, deliberate dimension destroyer, Josh called upon his Frisbee-throwing prowess. He recalled how Billy Engle often came out to the farm and threw the Frisbee with Josh. How Josh’s father thought it was indeed the most obvious waste of time in the universe. Now, Josh was about to test that theory. He flipped the mine backhanded, spinning it like a Frisbee, snapping his throw expertly. The circular mine sailed up and magnetically locked onto the underside of the huge black craft. A Minion in one of the other destroyers saw the boy and through the transmitter imbedded in his head, alerted the crews of all three destroyers. They began to slowly turn just as Josh did a 180 himself, and headed back toward the little park, pumping his power leg as hard as he could. Josh was only half-way back when the destroyers completed their turn, and came after him. The first beam impacted so close behind Josh debris bounced off his helmet. He hopped the curb at the edge of the park, and went airborne for fifteen meters. He air-flipped his board into one hand, hit the activation button on his burn band with the other, and vanished.

Tempo and Fractal, who were watching him with worry, also activated their bands, and all three burned back to the Forbidden Zone. The deadly blue beams of the dimension destroyers’ were devastating the little park when two of the machines exploded in balls of white phosphorescent sparks. Josh had set the mine on the third destroyer several seconds later, so the crew of the third destroyer had a short respite. They stopped to hover over the park wondering what had happened to the other two destroyers. The slow-witted Minions manning the third destroyer suddenly realized that they were next, and they were scrambling to escape when their deadly craft blew to smithereens.


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