Chapter Ten

The Starship Extreme launched into the thin artificial atmosphere surrounding Gammana Fortress. Captain Best at the controls. Lieutenant Awesome at his right – aiming the ship’s blast laser. Special Agent Kool was at his left, locating the Maltese Marauder, and gazing out of the view screen. Sargent Stupendous sat in the left wing compartment, ready with her chemistry set, in case of an emergency. Cadet Chaos stood in the communications department within the tail of the ship, communicating the team’s actions to the GAMMA. The right wing compartment was empty. Thus the Super Squad was positioned on their first official mission. A single thought ran through each of the crew’s minds: “We better not stuff this up!”

Lieutenant Awesome turned to Best. “We’re not letting the Marauder get away again! It will not happen!”

The Marauder was attacking Gammana. On his own. Nobody knew why he would attempt such a thing, but, nevertheless, he was, and he had to be stopped.

“I see him!” Special K yelped, looking up from her navmap through Extreme’s view screen. She pointed into the distance, and surely enough, a small speck of what appeared to be a dragon was appearing in the black distance. However, to any sort of trained eye, it was evident that the Marauder was indeed not riding a dragon, but a similar species: a dragoya. Dragoyas were known for their speed in space travel, and ability to hold their breath for several days.
“How is the Marauder breathing?” Best asked.

Pulling the navmap’s inbuilt telescope from her eye, Special K answered, “He’s wearing a strange suit – armored, with an oxygen helmet.”

Best nodded, and upon noticing the Maltese Marauder’s closeness, yelled to the Lieutenant. “Awesome. Fire!”

Awesome pulled hard on the blast laser’s trigger and let a ray of bright light shoot out at the Marauder and his steed. It missed.

“Again! Again!” The Captain shouted. “Don’t let him survive!”

Infuriated at his own miss, Awesome shot again, just as the Marauder swerved out of their line of fire, his dragoya’s wings flailing. The beast flashed past them, and curved towards the pearl-white floating castle of Gammana, the home of the GAMMA.

Best yanked his whole body to the side, pulling Extreme – their Gammana SpaceCannon – into a sharp and sudden U-turn. Smashing his foot against the floor, he sent the ship rocketing down after the Marauder.

Awesome was frantically firing the blast laser, but the dragoya’s agility proved too hard to match.

“Faster!” Awesome yelled.

“She won’t go any faster!” Best complained, shooting towards the castle at over a thousand kilometers per hour. “Unless… I go into light speed mode!”

“You’ll crash into Gammana!” Special K gasped, watching as the fortress grew exponentially in their view screen.

“We’ll survive!” Best commented, placing his trust in his own ability. Snatching his hand forward, he caught the light speed lever, and yanked it back.

For a split second, the view screen went blurry.

A horrendous noise suddenly crackled all around. The whole ship shook with tremendous turbulence. None could see what was going on. They were shaking too hard. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rattling stopped. Captain Best was left sitting in his chair, hands clutched to the light speed lever. It was pushed right forward. In haste he had deactivated Extreme’s light speed mode.

Lieutenant Awesome jumped up in an outrage. He sped to the ship’s entrance, and slammed the open button. As the door flung down, he saw crushed Gammana walls surrounding his captain’s ship.

“Best, get up! You’ve crashed us into Gammana! And we still need to stop the Marauder while we can! Even if it means that we do it on foot!”