The team’s ship, the Love Bug, has been marked within the Pleiades Cluster. It’s under Machen’s protection for four more days. But until then, they’re welcome to fly where they wish. And fly they must, because Adam’s emotional search, backed up by Space Bug’s research on the local computer network, has led them to a candidate suitable for their needs.
It takes precious time, but on the third day the team finds their target. He’s located in a “tin can” - a bare-bones space station, hovering at the edge of a huge and chaotic asteroid belt. Adam understands the situation to be somewhat akin to parking a van down by the river on Earth.
The regional data library identifies the asteroid belt as the “Loser’s Graveyard” - notable for hosting impromptu space races due to the complexity of navigating the asteroids, as well as the number of crashes and collisions that happen here. Strong magnetic fields permeate the region, making navigation difficult.
It’s slow going, but between Space Bug’s piloting and Adam’s emotional link to their quarry, they find it. Space Bug begins docking procedure. And the airlock opens.
The tin can is a very messy workspace, reminding Adam of Leo’s work in the Extension back in the day. There’s diagrams and task lists and schematics. There’s engine components and spare parts and fuel canisters. Every spare inch of wall is covered with something.
What there isn’t is an occupant.
After a moment, Adam can sense why. Their target is camouflaged, and hanging from handles in the ceiling. Jordan is back with the group, and Adam can tell she immediately made the same realization.
“Timeus? Timeus Elka-772?” Adam calls their quarry by the name found in the records online. “We’re not here to hurt you. We just want to talk about your work on engines.”
After a moment, their quarry materializes.
He looks like a lizard in a lab coat. His scales are varied and iridescent. He’s quadrupedal in arrangement, with thin and dexterous fingers for grasping and manipulating. His four deeply blue eyes are arranged two forward and two to each side, and he wears a complicated arrangement of lenses on them, like goggles or glasses.
He’s also holding a simple civilian-type blaster, heavily modified.
“I have a gun!” he wails plaintively.
Adam hears Jordan draw a deep breath, and glances over. She’s looking at Adam with big pleading eyes. The effect, while she’s glamoured up as a darker Princess Peri, is uncanny. “Is he a dinosaur?” she whispers to him.
Adam honestly isn’t sure about how to answer that. On Earth, people thought that dinosaurs were lizards at one point, but it turns out they’re the descendants of birds, but there’s definite lizard-like traits, sooo–
“I guess maybe?” he answers, uncertain of what motivated the question.
Jordan draws in a big breath. “I got this,” she whispers with incredible conviction.
“Hiii!” she calls. “You’re Tim, right?”
“Timeus!” the lizard corrects, before realizing he just confirmed the group’s suspicions. “No! I am not! I am an entirely different Elka!”
“Okay, Tim!” Jordan says cheerfully. She walks forward, casual as anything. Tim fires his blaster, but Jordan’s shields are up.
Adam realizes he was about to shield her himself. Thank god. She has grown up a little bit, hasn’t she, he realizes.
“You don’t wanna blast any of your important stuff,” Jordan says in a tone Adam knows she learned from mom.
“I-- I don’t…?” Tim realizes aloud, looking around.
“Nope! But we’re friends. So no shootin’. Okay?” Jordan is halfway to him already.
“What do you want with me?” Tim demands.
Jordan’s smile is infectious and incandescent. “We wanna be your friend! I always wanna be friends with a dinosaur!”
“I am not a-a-a ‘dinosaur’, or whatever that word is!” Tim protests. “I am a researcher into high-volatility quantum electrocatalysts-- uwaugh!”
Jordan has caught hold of him, pulled him off his perch on the ceiling, and is now giving him a hug.
“You’re gonna be my bestest friend!” she declares.
Tim looks at the rest of the team helplessly, blinking through his thick lenses in what might be a coded sign for help.
Jordan has propped her chin up on both hands, with her elbows on a workbench, and is watching Tim with a contented - and, Adam thinks briefly, a little unnerving - fascination. Meanwhile, Adam has taken over the explanations, and he and Tim are coming to an understanding.
“I can’t make the next breakthrough in my engine research without working vessels,” Tim explains. “So I came here. The Loser’s Graveyard is full of wrecked ships - perfect for my needs. But I can’t get to them, because of the Metal Eaters.”
Space Bug fills in. “Creatures that eat iron-nickel asteroids, yes! An internal biological fusion process. They will consume ship parts too. Very dangerous. Very delicious.”
Tim continues. “And I cannot leave, because the Starbusters will shoot me! So I am trapped here. My only chance is to build a ship fast enough to escape them. But nobody is faster than the Starbusters.”
Adam wants to believe him. He wants to think he lucked out. He wants this to be how things go smoothly for the team. But almost against his will, he’s internalized one of the lessons Somber seemed intent on teaching him.
When you have the tools to find out for sure, trust is an unnecessary gamble.
Mindful of his first forays into building machines and extending his powers, Adam tries a different gamble. If telepathy is possible with what he’s got, why not use it?
It’s Antares Alpha-One, the shard Somber gifted him, that seems to come through for him here. Unsurprising, perhaps, that the gift would be prepared for Adam to do what Somber wanted.
Without speaking, Adam asks Tim’s mind a question. “Are you as close as you say to this engine breakthrough?”
The projected thought is aimed at Tim’s subconscious, not his conscious mind. The engineer isn’t even aware that he’s been asked this. But the Truth of his emotional response radiates from him, and Antares Alpha-One collects it and renders it as a final answer. “I’ve tested my work to the theoretical limit, but my progress is genuine. I am ready to work on a real ship. I just need one.”
Thank God, Adam thinks to himself. He’s not sure what he would have done if Tim were lying.
“We need a fast ship,” he explains aloud. “If we could clear out the Metal Eaters for awhile, and get you some ships, can you build us something that can compete in a race within, say, three days?”
“In three days?” Tim gasps. “Without a team of laborers, it would take three weeks - or longer. Even with the six of you, I could not get it done in that amount of time. I would need many more people.”
“We don’t know much about about spaceship construction,” Adam admits. “Hmm. Maybe–”
“Leave this to me,” says Jaycee abruptly. “Space Bug, fly us back to the Phantom Parsec.”
Muscles and his gang of thugs are hanging out at their usual table when Jaycee steps up.
“I need you guys, and your cronies,” she announces abruptly. “Bring whoever you got. We’re gonna build a spaceship.”
Muscles looks up from his drink. “Why should we listen to you?” he growls.
Jaycee shrugs and gestures around her at the bar as a whole. “Because I’ve been working here for two days, and the people that work here have been here longer. What I’ve seen, and they’ve seen, is that you guys sit here, drinking all day, and not doing a whole lot of anything except talk.”
Muscles growls, but doesn’t reply.
Jaycee finishes her thought. “So here’s your chance to fly to a remote asteroid belt, build a ship in three days, do a big favor for the Starbusters, and maybe get your own ship’s engine souped up in the process.”
“Now, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re not bored out of your minds and wasting time in a space bar. Maybe you think the drinks here are really good. But I’ve sampled them and I gotta say, if that’s your reason, you have lousy taste.”
Muscles gets out of his chair and rises to his full height, then looks down at Jaycee. “And supposin’ me and the gang here decide we don’t like what you’re saying.”
He cracks all four sets of knuckles, two at a time.
Jaycee looks up, not flinching an inch. “Then that’d be too bad, because I can’t wait for you to get out of the hospital before asking again.”
William is the only person at the Loser’s Graveyard who can’t fly in space. He therefore elects to stay with Tim and help get the “tin can” prepared for the work ahead of them.
“Yo, why didn’t you get help from anyone else?” the swordfighter asks at length.
“Anyone else?” Tim asks curiously. “Do you mean the Starbusters who come here? The racers?”
“Yeah.”
The lizard sighs. “They think I am a-a-a ‘crackpot’. Or that I am useless. Or they know engines better than I, because I am not one of them. Not a racer. So they bully me. Hah. I will not ask them for anything.”
“I get where you’re coming from, mate,” William concedes. “But how about us? We’re not doing any of that.”
“That girl with you, she is strange,” Tim hisses, with a brief flick of a lizard’s tongue between his teeth, and William realizes he means Peri.
William laughs at that. “Well, yeah, she can be. But listen. Friends of mine didn’t understand her either, at first. Then we thought she was dangerous. Then - well, we learned more about her. She’s good people. One of the best.”
But this memory prompts William to think about another question. He’d told Adam that he was worried about doing dishonorable things. But what if he’d done something awful to Peri while wielding Excalibur? Or the Rainbow Warriors, who are basically okay people despite being raging assholes?
Excalibur won’t save me from doing the wrong thing, he realizes. I have to be the one who knows right from wrong.
He pats the engineer on what seems to be the shoulder. “Trust may not come easy, especially with what you’ve told me. It’s hard to know what is the right thing to do sometimes. But listen. Value the friends you make, no matter how weird they are. Okay?”
Tim blinks through his glasses. “I will try.”
Adam, Keri, and Peri are all in space, flying rapidly toward the Loser’s Graveyard and its collection of wrecked ships - and the Metal Eaters.
Hopefully they’ve left something to salvage, Adam thinks.
Something is still gnawing at the Lamb. He decides to ask.
“What’s on your mind, Keri?”
“It’s more violence,” she says. “We’re gonna go mess up some space worms, right? Are they even intelligent? If not, isn’t this just animal abuse?”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Adam says. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well, they’re Metal Eaters… right?” Keri thinks through her plan aloud. “So the only reason they’d be a danger to Tim is… he’s in a metal space station thingie? Or a spaceship. Right?”
“Probably?” Adam is guessing - he knows nothing about the Metal Eaters, but what she’s saying sounds plausible.
“Okay.” Keri punches an open palm with a fist. “Adam, I’ve seen how you work. You work with emotion, yeah? Animals would feel emotion, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Keri keeps talking, slowly and fitfully, feeling out what’s possible. “So… you can create like, seeds of emotion somewhere? Like your bubbles or something? Only it’s… fear, or loathing, or whatever.” She looks hopefully at Adam. “Something they’d be afraid of. Something they’d avoid. We plant that wherever we find ships. While you two are doing that, I’ll start moving the wrecks back to Tim’s home.”
Adam brightens up. “I think I can do that.”
He looks to Jordan. “Do you know how to do what Keri is talking about?”
“I don’t,” the girl says with a frown. “Can ya teach me?”
“Sure can.”
Adam looks back to Keri and smiles. “Is this what ‘the Lamb’ is about? What you wanted to be?”
Keri’s smile - and her inner joy - is bright, and she wipes a stray tear out of one eye. “Yeah.”
Adam teaches Jordan the basics. It’s about conjuring an emotion, creating a shield infused with just that feeling, and then flipping it. Instead of exerting pressure inward, the bubble pushes the emotion outward. The closer you get to it, the stronger you feel it. Finally, you weave an extra bubble around that one, “polarizing” the fear field so it doesn’t affect your friends.
Adam realizes, as he explains the basics of it, how much of what the Concordance gave him is already some kind of emotional machinery. He’s been using this stuff all along, and he’s studied it to figure it out, but until very recently didn’t think about building his own machines.
They scour the asteroid belt. They find some wrecks on the surface of the larger asteroids, drawn there by gravity after a space crack-up. They find others smashed into the rocks, or halfway buried in them. Each of the wrecks gets a bubble.
Along the way, they see the truly titanic Metal Eaters for the first time. They aren’t worms at all. They’re more like extra long water snakes, slowly twisting and turning. They don’t seem to have any external source of propulsion. Is it some kind of psychokinesis? Or are they manipulating the local magnetic fields? Adam finds himself curious.
Keri was right to have us do this non-violently, he thinks. These creatures aren’t threatening us at all.
As they get deeper in, Adam cautions Jordan to hold off. He’s sensed something.
He flies closer to one of the wrecks, and opens his perceptions. In time, he recognizes what he’s feeling.
“The Metal Eaters planted eggs here,” he whispers to Jordan. “When they hatch, they’ll have a ready source of stuff to eat - the ship hulls.”
They call Keri. “If you pull some of these wrecks out, it’ll damage the eggs,” Adam advises. “I’ll mark the wrecks that are safe.”
Jordan wakes up and vanishes partway through the process, and Adam and Keri finish it.
One by one, they haul damaged or destroyed ships back to Tim’s tin can.
By the time they finish, Space Bug and Jaycee have returned in the Love Bug. They’ve brought three other ships with them.
Muscles grunts when he sees Adam and Keri enter.
“You lot can fight,” he says gruffly. “But none of ya seem like racers. Tryin’ to muscle your way into the rackets, huh?”
Adam thinks back to his conversation with his dad, about working undercover.
“Even when you think someone’s your friend,” Sergeant Amari had said, “Never break cover.”
“That’s right,” Adam smiles. “There’s people who did me dirty, and hurt my sister too. Now I’m on the trail of some folks who can help me.”
Something else his dad had said stuck with him. “Your cover has to be authentic.” And this was undeniably true.
Muscles grins, exposing nasty teeth. “Then you’ll need a good pilot.”
He gestures, and the alien Adam thinks of as “Cowboy” steps forward.
“She’s got better reflexes than any of you, I reckon,” Muscles boasts. “And she’s experienced.”
“What price are you asking for?” Adam asks, anticipating what’s coming next.
Muscles grins. “We want a fast ship. Either we take the one you’re building, or you build another one, or you fix ours up. Your friend said we’re helping the Starbusters. We also want in on that.”
Adam thinks about that. Nothing they’re planning on doing will call for any kind of long-term relationship with the racing syndicate.
He smiles. “You got yourself a deal.”
Muscles roars his assent. “Alright. Then let’s get to work, ya mob!”
The friends Muscles brought along all call back - shouting, clicking, and making a dozen other alien noises of approval.
Day two of ship construction has begun. Tim has selected the most viable hull for a rebuild, and he’s directing his corps of laborers in stripping bits off other ships and bolting them onto this one.
Tim wants to call it “Experimental Propulsion Testbed 01”. Muscles suggests the “Speed-Eater”. Other suggestions come in, from the lewd and vulgar to the obscure and alien.
Adam, thinking about their situation, offers his own suggestion: “The Longshot”.
Nobody can quite coalesce around anything else, so the Longshot it is.
The first test flights are extremely promising. The Longshot almost shakes itself apart a few times, until Tim reformulates his engine mixture for the ship’s rapidly evolving total mass. But after that? Everyone from Tim to Cowboy to Adam can see that the thing is going to be a monster.
Tim, likewise, is being evaluated with new eyes by the aliens here. Adam can feel their attitudes about the nerdy lizard shifting, from disrespect to grudging cooperation on the first day to surprised and grudging respect on the second. Maybe there’s hope that he’ll escape his situation.
On day three, the Longshot is still metaphorically scrap metal and duct tape, but it holds up under stress tests.
The team records a video of the ship in flight, along with their challenge. They’ve proven they have the right to throw down the gauntlet.
They send it to the Redshift Racers, over the public network. Now they wait to see if it’s picked up.
On the end of day three, they receive a response.
“Challenge Accepted.”