7. Fishy Friends

Arren’s spaceship spun out of control. It twisted like a carnival attraction and made Arren throw up. He hoped it would only be a few seconds, but it kept going for minutes on end. It even seemed to speed up.

Come on, dad. Take control!

“Help!”

Jannih’s voice.

The next rain of laser bullets whizzed past the windows. It was the only light in the corridor.

Where did Jannih’s voice come from? Arren put on his AR-GLASS. It would perfectly locate her, especially if she kept making noise, just like he’d found his father before.

The glasses, of course, did nothing anymore.

Arren’s fingers itched to reconnect AR-BOT. Survive all this without his robot? It felt like standing in front of an army of a thousand soldiers, alone, sick, and blindfolded.

No. He had to do it without her.

But how? How in Ardex’ name did he find one woman on a dark and damaged spaceship?

After coming close to the Planeat, he decided to call it an animal anyway. It bit at the rocket like an animal. It chased them like a predator chased prey, pausing sometimes, then suddenly attacking again. But it only attacked their rocket, not the other one.

He looked outside. The other rocket was invisible. Only the laser bullets gave away its location.

Father finally regained control. Arren’s body was thrown from one wall to another, giving him a different view of the battle each time.

“Help!”

Her voice sounded to his left. How could his ears hear this accurately?

The Planeat might be strong and large, yes. But humans had intelligence and refinement. He felt it had to be the key to defeating the danger. Or maybe it was an excuse to not lose hope.

One by one, he kicked open the doors to all the rooms. He discovered many groups of people hiding below tables or beds. He encouraged them to move to the control room at the front. Everyone should be there. It would be the safest place.

Not many dared follow his advice.

“Help! Someone!”

Something else mixed with her voice: knocking and bumping.

An intermediate door. She was stuck behind the next one. Father had closed it after the last attack, because his screen couldn’t show if there were still passengers there.

“AR-BOT, break the—”

Not an option anymore.

Arren grunted and looked for his uniform. He had used a screwdriver for building AR-BOT’s computer cage. With it, he loosened a gray box stuck to the wall. It revealed a row of buttons and cables.

“Jannih! Hold on!”

The Planeat closed in for his next bite. Arren tried all the codes he knew, but none worked. He unscrewed the entire panel and studied the tangle of electronics that served it.

“Arren? Oh, Arren, open the door! Please!”

The Planeat snapped his jaws shut. Jannih screamed.

Arren cut a cable with his screwdriver.

The doors opened.

He reached inside and pulled Jannih inside. The pressure in the room instantly fell away, sucking out their breath and almost making them faint. Arren connected the two broken cables again to shut the doors.

Clouds of black Planeat fog had entered too. They surrounded Jannih—but they did nothing. The fog itself wasn’t dangerous then. It was about the entire Planeat. Just as a human’s lips weren’t dangerous, but the entire mouth was.

They searched for breath, then ran back.

Jannih held a round machine. Her own radio, stolen from the radio room. The small screen was broken and showed an elderly woman with a recognizable voice.

“HERO is almost with you,” she assured her. Had she seen what had happened her? Did the interplanetary army know what they were walking into? “I’ve spread this information throughout the galaxy. If those … those … monsters come near the Nibuwe system …”

“Fortunately, Arren’s robot sent us in the opposite direction,” said Jannih. Her hands shivered and frequently dropped the radio. “If we lead them away …”

The woman’s face turned stern, as if giving her children a lecture. “We do not use a spaceship with a thousand passengers as fish bait! Don’t you dare try some heroic sacrifices. It won’t work anyway: if they really eat planets and spaceships, then you’ll just be giving it more food. You’ll be feeding the monster! We’re coming to save you and to defeat the Planeat.”

The screen switched to a layout of the Giant System. Arren’s spaceship was a dot near the edge. The HERO soldiers were a flock of dots that rapidly closed in.

Bodies of passengers floated past the window, through the emptiness of space. A single heartbeat of full exposure to the galaxy, no more than the blink of an eye, and it was over for you. Space had no oxygen, no atmosphere, nothing of what humans needed to survive. If the spaceship didn’t hold, they had no chance at all.

Jannih looked away. Arren focused on the corridor ahead.

By the time they reached the control room, they hadn’t been attacked again. The other spaceships had stopped shooting. The Planeat seemed satisfied, perhaps delayed by a full belly.

Arren hoped to delay them even more by offering up other planets. A few more tasty snacks—a thousand kilometers in size—should be along their path.

Father held the steering wheel tight. Finally he was the master of the spaceship again. Most surviving passengers sat around him on the floor. They looked like zombies, drained by being afraid for days on end.

The other spaceship attached to theirs again. The scientist entered the control room with a small group of followers.

“Our weapons are done,” she said to nobody in particular. “What’s the plan?”

“HERO will be with us in a day,” said Jannih.

The woman nervously moved her hands through her curling hair. “And then? You’ve seen that weapons won’t kill it.”

“And your weapons are far stronger than any I’ve ever seen,” said captain Kirren. “May I ask again about your origins?”

Arren whispered: “AR-BOT, tell me what you think about these—never mind, you’re not there.”

“I was a researcher with Trevran. We dropped out of the expedition to reach the other edge of the galaxy—it was far too dangerous. We know almost nothing about what’s beyond the Giant System! On the way back, we were ambushed by several Planeats.”

“Several?”

“Like any animal, they can bear children and multiply. What we just fought is a mere baby.”

Arren thought it suspicious. With AR-BOT gone, he had to think like AR-BOT himself. Make a list of all facts, then draw logical conclusions.

Not a known spaceship. No provable history, for Trevran was a mystery to everyone. And then they owned Heavenmatter—the Singing Flowers of Eeris—and stronger weapons.

What would AR-BOT have thought? She would’ve done further research into every single fact, querying her database. She’d know exactly how likely it was they were speaking the truth. She would’ve asked more questions to find logical answers.

“Forgive me,” said Arren, “but how do you know this?”

“We saw a Planeat be born.”

“You’ve been near multiple Planeats for a while … and your worst damage is a girl with head trauma and a dead captain?”

The woman pulled at her hair again. Her fingers all looked different. Another strange thing. Some had a discolored band, as if she’d worn a ring there that had burned the skin away.

The wounded girl stood inside the control room too. Her parents nodded at Arren and Jannih with gratitude.

“We did not save your lives,” said the woman, “for you to insult and accuse us.”

Arren wanted to shrink into his shell. Back in a dark corner, ask AR-BOT to do these things for him, but better.

His father came close. He’d probably put a hand on his mouth, take him out of the room, and tell him not to “sow fear” and “alienate allies”—as he’d done with Jannih.

Instead, Kirren placed a hand on his shoulder.

“My son merely asks questions. Very logical questions. We couldn’t help but notice your spaceship can become invisible. We need the truth, all of it, if we hope to defeat the Planeats.”

“You can’t defeat them!” yelled the woman. “They are literally the highest form of life that the galaxy has to offer. At the top of the food chain. Larger than planets. We are ants fighting a dinosaur! The only thing that stopped the dinosaurs back then, was a large natural disaster and mistakes by the godchildren. Well, well, the Planeats are our new gods.”

The room fell silent.

“So we flee?” asked father. “Forever?”

“I know the immense pride of human creatures can’t handle that.” This woman must have been a biologist, the way she spoke about humans and life. “But everything in the universe lives from day to day, always fleeing and always at risk of death. Perhaps it’s time humans recognized their place too.”

The Planeats are the new gods. What was it that Arren disliked about this statement? Why did she talk about human creatures, not fellow humans or us?

He realized.

The discoloring on her hand came from the Firering, the Heavenmatter of Ardex. Their spaceship could become invisible because of the Stone of Destinydust, the Heavenmatter of Darus. Within their spaceship stood the Singing Flowers, Heavenmatter of Eeris.

And sure, they probably left behind the Hespryhound near the nest of the Planeats. As an offering. As a sacrifice, hoping to slow it down.

At some moment, this woman probably held all Heavenmatter in her possession.

In their room stood the being that had been the subject of fearsome tales and gruesome myths for centuries. Hunted and researched for being the strongest creature ever.

“Arrest her!” screamed Arren. “She is the leader of the Delja!”