Lab Rats in Space by Bruno Bouchet Read Free Book Online

up.
    â€˜Sorry little one,’ he said and he stroked the creature’s head, as the container lurched forward again. Their container was next in line to be unloaded. Unless they could close the lid in the next ten seconds, the life form sensors would summon the lab assistants in no time.
    â€˜One last effort,’ Zed said. ‘Come on, we can’t give up now. We opened it, we can close it. There’s no way I’m letting Xanax keep us here. Everyone, give everything.’
    Out of the blue, Jay decided it might help if XL touched the edge of the sheet so he held him up. As soon as XL made contact with the roof, he was chatting once again to the controlling microchip.
    â€˜He-ave!’ shouted Zed as the container lurched into position to be unloaded. Suddenly the container roof shot across, plunging them into darkness.
    â€˜We did it!’ cheered KT.
    â€˜Well done, Zed. It was your pep talk that did it. I’ve never pushed so hard in my life!’ said Dee.
    â€˜How do you know?’ asked Emm, suddenly afraid in the darkness. ‘How do we know anything when we can’t remember?’
    They all fell silent. In the dark they could hear the sounds of the docking area and could feel themselves being moved. Without saying a word, they all huddled closer and held hands.
    The Lab Rats were about to be loaded onto a ship and plunged into an unknown universe. They didn’t know where they were going, they didn’t know where they wanted to go or even who they were. All they knew was that they wanted to escape the Research Station and that they had each other. As they held hands—and hammer— in the dark, they hoped that this all might be enough.

Chapter 9
Unauthorised Life Forms
    â€˜C aptain, there are reports of unauthorised life forms on the ship.’
    Captain Redlock looked puzzled at the news.
    â€˜What, from the Research Station?’ he asked Rudi, his second in command.
    Captain Redlock was the captain of the Interworlder, a massive cargo ship that transported containers around the galaxy. It wasn’t a very exciting job. He would much rather have been chasing bandits in outer space in a small fighter ship. But he had a family and bills to pay so he collected and delivered containers instead.
    Collecting cargo from the Research Station was fully automated. The Interworlder would dock, machines loaded the containers onto his ship and they were given clearance to leave by an automatic signal. Of allthe places he collected containers, Professor Xanax’s Research Station was the one Redlock liked least. His crew thought it was creepy.
    Nobody on the Interworlder ever opened up the containers. They all knew they contained Xanax’s inventions and creations but they did not know what they were. They did not want to know.
    All they knew was that every five minutes another ship took off from the station with another container that had been ordered by someone in the galaxy.
    In all the time Redlock had collected from the Research Station, he had never met Professor Xanax. In fact he had never seen another living being there. The crew told wild stories about terrifying creatures which didn’t exist anywhere else in the universe. Redlock did his best to ignore them, but it was hard not to wonder what was actually in the big white station as it floated alone in space.
    It was always white. Most space stations were dirty. Things bumped into them. Some got patched during repairs, others had huge advertisements painted on them. Not this one. It was pure white, without a blemish. It was hard to believe anything natural could live on it.
    â€˜They want us to check the containers for life forms. If we find any we are to return immediately to the station,’ Rudi said. ‘They’ve transmitted access codes to open them up.’
    â€˜OK, we better not make a big thing about this,’ said Redlock. ‘You and I will go down and check it