18. Rescue Mission

Preparations for Ace's biggest mission yet are under way!

“How come you have a spaceship?” Ace asked Hades after the three walked into a large storage building near the back of the city away from the crowds.

“You didn’t think I walked here from Karomal, did you?”  Hades laughed, polishing a part of the silver, sleek metal siding of the rocket-shaped ship.  The ship was much smaller than the bowl-shaped warp ship Xenu was in, but still looked large enough for three people.

“Caramel?” Ace said, cocking her head to the side.

“Karomal.  It’s my home world.  Anyway, are we ready?  It’ll only take a few minutes.  This baby’s faster than light.”

“One day I would love to know how that works, if that’s alright.”  Alex chimed in, seemingly back to normal.

“No offense, but it’s way past anything humans have come up with.  You guys will get it soon enough.”

“Yeah, assuming there’s a planet left to get to.  Let’s roll!”  Ace said.

“Alright, alright.  Now, we’ll drop Alex off on the ground and head up to break into Xenu’s ship.”  Hades said opening the hatch and getting in.  Ace began to follow but turned back to Alex, who was hesitating.

“You going to be okay?”  Ace asked.  Alex shook her head.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”  She said.  “If Otto was here I’d be alright, but without him…”

Ace laughed. “Seriously?  You’ve fought things five times the size of your house, why do you need Otto to get you on a ship?”

“Because I know Otto will be there waiting for me when I get back.  He’s the reason I bother using my powers.”

“Alex, what do you see in Otto?   I know this probably isn’t the right time to ask, but…he’s a jerk!”

“He’s only a jerk to you from what I can tell.  In reality he’s a sweet man who’s fun to be around.  He was the first man ever to admit to liking me.  He was one of the few people who was nice to me.  Without him I’d be too lonely to do anything.  You could say without him I wouldn’t be here.”

“And if we don’t get going soon, you’ll find out if you’re lonely without him now.  Can we get going, ladies?”  Hades called from the hatch.  Ace grabbed Alex’s arm.

“We’re getting him back.  I promise.” Ace said sincerely.  Alex smiled and followed her onto the ship.  After they were strapped in and Hades warmed up the engines, the roof of the storage building opened up to reveal a hatched carved into the ceiling of the cave giving way to the horrid storm and unheard of heat from the surface of Venus.  Arcing at 90 degrees, Hades’ ship began to rocket into the atmosphere, then into space within a few minutes.

“You ready to save the world?”  Hades said in the most dramatic voice he could muster while looking back at the two.  Alex was gripping the seat as hard as she could, but considering she had no strength left it wasn’t too hard.  In fact she was hyperventilating from both fear and immobility.

“Less….cheese…please…”  She said between breaths.  Hades winked and flipped a switch on the center of the dashboard.  A high pitch whir could be heard in the back and before Ace and Alex knew what had happened, they could see the very space before the ship wrinkle from some unseen force, like someone pulling a large rug in.  As space wrinkled, Earth began to get closer and closer.  The ship lurched forward over the wrinkle and shot towards the planet before the wrinkle, and Venus, vanished into the distance behind them.

“That was so cool!  What was that?  Did you like, scrunch up the universe or something?”  Ace spat excitedly, her seatbelt barely holding back her glee.

“You liked that, huh?  Yeah, I’ve got a couple cool gadgets humans haven’t developed yet.  Hey if you ever tell me how you broke into my city without permission I’ll show them to you sometime.” Hades gloated.

“Sure, after you explain how we can breathe on Venus even though we’re not dead!”  Ace returned jokingly.

“Groundmegroundmegroundmegroundme....”  Alex muttered hysterically between breaths.  Hades nodded and headed for the planet.  Above Earth’s atmosphere large circular space ships hovered over various major countries.  The largest of all was over the United States.

“That’s Xenu’s ship.” Hades said while pressing buttons and moving dials on the dashboard. “Alex, I’m going to warp you to the surface under the ship.  We’ll do the rest, so just hang on.”  Moments later Alex was surrounded by a beam of light.  After a few seconds of glowing the light flashed and Alex vanished.

“This ship is awesome!  You have to get me one!”  Ace proclaimed.  On the surface Alex had landed somewhere in a desert region in the southwest, possibly Arizona.  The swirling light that teleported her slowly faded as she collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath like a fish out of water.  With one last gasp she felt her strength return and stood up.  She looked around and laughed- nothing but red soil and rock as far as the eye could see.  She couldn’t be more immersed in her element unless she was in a cave made of diamonds.  Alex looked up into the sky to see Xenu’s ship hovering miles in the air.  She sat down on the ground and crossed her legs the best she could with her incredible girth and began to meditate, waiting for Ace’s plan to come to fruition.

Author's Note

Honestly, since this chapter's so short and the "plan" is so easy to figure out, I might as well tell you: Ace is going to blow the ship out of the sky, save Otto, and let Alex Groundrape Xenu into submission. The thing is, will it work?