The Mirrors of Pluto: Space Sentinels (Volume II)

By Mark J. Handwerker

In SPACE SENTINELS II: THE MIRRORS OF PLUTO, transmorphing Arpoids from the planet Maggotia arrive on Earth through a space-warp portal. Only Albie Storm and the Space Sentinels can stop the Arpoid invaders from succeeding in laying the groundwork for another all out assault on Earth

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark J. Handwerker
• Release date: Jun 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452447650

Mark J. Handwerker

Dr. Mark J. Handwerker loves to blow up stuff! As a science teacher for more than 25 years, he has enjoyed revealing the secrets of nature to his students by repeating experiments done by the greatest scientists of the past in his classroom. He is the author of eight science texts, and has mentored dozens of educators in "the art of teaching science." He is also an author of science fiction and hopes to share those works with young readers everywhere. Since the days of the first great science fiction author, Jules Verne, science fiction writers have not only given the general reading audience decades of entertainment, they have succeeded in inspiring professional scientists to make the impossible possible. Dr. Handwerker believes that nothing is impossible.

Book preview

The Mirrors of Pluto

Space Sentinels (Volume II)

by

Mark J. Handwerker

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 1992 Mark J. Handwerker

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be given away or resold to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase a copy for them. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for you for your private use, then please go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. The author sincerely appreciates your honest regard for the hard work that went into writing this novel.

Table Of Contents

1 – Crash On Io

2 – Alarm

3 – Mutating Spies

4 – Hand-to-Claw Combat

5 – Back To School

6 – Guest Professor

7 – Accusations

8 – Hands On Practice

9 – World Of Ice

10 – No Accident

11 – Gifts For The Empress

12 – Tunnel Of Death

13 – Whirlpool To Earth

14 – Laser Duel

15 – Monsters At Large

16 – Burning Tracks

17 – Pluto Against The Odds

18 – Head Of The Beast

19 – The Youngest Sentinel

1

Crash On Io

The maxxefighter shattered the summit of yellow ice like a baseball smashing through plate glass. It rolled over and banked into a deep dark canyon its sonic boom echoing off the cliffs.

Jeez! Albie grit his teeth.

Hold on, kid! Jack Longstar yanked back on the controls.

Albie’s body tightened against the stiffening acceleration as they rolled upside down plummeted into a bottomless ravine. The Benefax fighter’s aft-burners rattled and trailed plumes of gray smoke behind them. Blue sparks snapped across the control panel.

I’ve got you now, mutant! Longstar coughed, his fierce green eyes ablaze at the enemy. The Arpoid interceptor swerved then plunged into a canyon of ice ahead of them. Not good enough, stink bug. Jack snarled, firing off a blast from their port laser.

Albie reset the gravity controls as the pilot twisted the control-cylinders on the armrests. The maxxefighter careened to the right, but Albie’s quick reset kept them in their seats.

Longstar let go another blast of deadly, green laser light.

Missed! The Arpoid slipped under the ray.

Whoa! Albie screamed. Watch it, Jack!

The jagged yellow outcropping of frozen sulfur came up fast. They missed it by inches with a reflexive jerk of Longstar’s wrist whizzing them past. The fighter vaulted over the peak and back down after the enemy, Longstar blasting and blasting again.

At navigation and weapons controls, Albie Storm monitored the status of their attack systems. Just two days ago he was at Houston Base teaching Sentinel trainees how to handle the Maxxe-5000. Pax, cyborg Prime Unit of the Benefax Aaliance, had assigned him to Mars Base for a week to be briefed on the new hyperspace model. Some briefing! There was no telling when you’d get thrust into the heat of battle.

Sshhzz!

The fleeing Arpoid shot back, melting a wall of orange wax. Rocks and slush cascaded down the mountainside, raining over the Benefax maxxefighter. The space jet’s aft-burners shuddered as Longstar bucked the craft through a storm of fist-sized hail.

The Sentinel fighter pilot aimed and blasted away.

A hit! Albie yelled. The Arpoid’s port engine exploded in a cloud of smoke.

Got you, roach! Longstar yelled.

Albie watched the Arpoid spin out, its engines whining as it plunged to the floor of the canyon.

BUZZ BANG!

Oh no! Albie recognized the sound of a warping magnetic bottle. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard a fusion chamber rupture. He knew the interceptor was finished and quickly readjusted the power flow to cool down the muon-accelerator. He had to work fast or they’d light up like a Roman candle.

Got it, Albie? Longstar screamed, struggling to keep them on the fly.

Got it! He answered.

But they were going down fast. At least the Arpoid would be cracking up ahead of them.

Albie leaned back into his bucket seat and braced himself.

Here we go, kid!

The space jet rammed through a wall of thin ice then smashed through a dune of gritty powder. The engines roared like a gut-shot lion as they spun and ground to a halt in a frozen ditch.

Ahead of him, the Arpoid crashed through a bank of methane snow less than fifty yards away. The bug’s ship sent up a storm of blue flurries as it skidded to a stop under a craggy ice-ledge. The mouth of a dark cave lay open beside it.

Albie popped the cockpit hatch and hit the beacon eject-button. The emergency radio canister exploded out the starboard compartment, soaring into the cold light air. It rocketed up the face of a towering cliff, arced over the crest and disappeared.

The Great Red Hurricane Spot of Jupiter loomed high above them. Albie recognized the streaked, yellow-orange clouds of the magnificent planet. Its wide breadth filled the sky. They were on Io, he realize, Jupiter’s innermost moon.

Longstar leapt out of the fighter, his boots sinking into swirling wet mush. Albie followed him, grabbing a laser from the arms locker. They were ankle-deep in a slow-running river of lemon-colored sulfur. At the end of the long canyon, Albie saw an active volcano rise miles up and away. His nostrils flared at the acrid whiff of burning matches.

Phew! He held his breath, reaching up quickly to tighten the faceplate of his helmet. He identified the familiar smell of sulfur dioxide from his chemistry course at Houston Control. Being one of Jupiter’s most active moons, the surface of Io was alive with the stuff.

Io was only 2,255 miles in diameter, slightly smaller than Earth’s own moon; but it was a dynamo. It rumbled and quaked in constant chaos, the entire shallow surface of the satellite reshaping itself once a year to a depth of several inches. It was a perilous ice-cold hell: frozen, barren, and unforgiving.

Oomph! Albie pulled his boot out of the freezing mire and reached back into the maxxefighter for his hand-laser.

Sshhzz!

The Arpoid’s laser-blast hit Longstar in the shoulder, and he fell back grimacing with pain against a wall of melting ice.

Sshhzz!

Another blast hit the fighter’s windshield and shattered it into a web of threaded thermoplastic.

Albie dove into the sludge, keeping the laser up and out of the ankle-deep slime. He crawled to his companion lying wounded next to a large bluish rock.

Another blast hit the ragged stone above their heads.

You okay?

Could be better. Longstar gripped the torn spacesuit closed in his fist. He did his best to stop his suit from losing pressure. But, he wouldn’t be able to prevent the inevitable. In a matter of minutes there wouldn’t be enough oxygen in his suit to keep a mouse alive for two minutes. Get him for me, kid! Longstar weakened.

You bet, Jack. Albie turned, firing back at the Arpoid monster. The laser zap struck the ice-ledge above the Arpoid, drenching the beast in gooey slush.

The ogre’s black multi-lensed eyes glared back at him, the full ugliness of the bug hidden inside its watermelon-sized helmet. It was one of the locust-heads. They were the worst: as crafty and fast as they were hideous!

The creature scrambled out of the slime and disappeared into the cave.

Hang on, Jack. Albie told the Sentinel, I’ll be back.

Albie leapt over the rock protecting them and angled around several large boulders. He made it to the cave-mouth, keeping his back to the pitch-black entrance.

Man, he squinted, his eyes burning. The split-second exposure to Io’s atmosphere had put enough sulfur dioxide inside his helmet to make him queasy.

BOOM!

The Benefax space jet exploded in a billow of red flame. He saw Longstar bury his head in his arms to protect himself from the falling debris.

We’re in for it, now, Albie realized, praying the radio beacon was working.

He was sure that Sentinel Control on Mars had followed them into the Asteroid Belt when they took off after the escaping Arpoid. But, tracking a Maxxe-8000 through that mess was like chasing a pebble in a hailstorm. Even if the Space Sentinels managed to keep them on radar and follow them to the moons of Jupiter, they could spend days searching the sixteen satellites of the giant planet. By the time they found Albie and Jack, they’d be buried in Io’s volcanic sulfur-flow.

No time to worry about that now! Albie scolded himself. First things first! He had to disarm and stun the locust-head and keep it alive for interrogation. If possible!

The glacier cave was dark and forbidding.

Albie moved into the blackness and touched the infrared sensor on the side of his helmet. The long tunnel ahead of him glowed red. He glanced up to the left, and the heads-up display on the inside of his faceplate read -5o Celsius.

Day at the beach. Albie hissed to himself, a chill running down his spine and into his legs. The average temperature on Io was hardly ever above zero degrees Celsius.

Sshhzz!

The Arpoid’s blast came from out of nowhere. Albie dove for cover and fired back at dark red shadows.

A bucketful of slush flowed off the wall onto his back. It felt like someone pouring buckets of crushed ice all over him. He crawled out of the muck and raised his head above a small rock.

The locust-head’s helmet peeked up from behind a triangle of