Warrior Queen Page 3

  ‘What? Fifteen seconds? That’s impossible.’

  ‘Incorrect. Under present conditions time becomes radically compressed.’

  Skin was right. As Napoleon watched, everything suddenly leaped into action. The sun rose quickly, like a glowing ball flying across the sky. At the same time, the battle flickered alive, thousands of tiny soldiers wriggling and jiggling and zapping about in freakishly fast time.

  In a matter of seconds the Britons charged forward, were forced back, charged again, and then again, while the sun rolled across the sky.

  By the time fifteen seconds had passed, Boudicca’s army was fleeing in panic, scattering like ants. In less than twenty seconds the battle was over and the sun was setting. The Romans had won.

  Skin recorded everything, but Napoleon was now feeling worse than ever. He was burning up. His head was roaring as though he had a furnace in there, and he felt as if he was melting. ‘I’m sorry, Skin,’ he moaned. ‘I can’t take any more .’

  Skin’s nano-computers buzzed. ‘Your sense of malaise is to be expected, BB005. Health Scan indicates that your internal energy is spiking.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that at any moment now you could – correction, you WILL – ’

  Napoleon exploded.

  He was blown to bits . . . billions of bits that scattered all over the vast sky.

  ‘Help!’ he screamed, and yet he didn’t really scream at all.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he yelled, and yet he didn’t really yell.

  He didn’t do either of these things, because there wasn’t any part of him that could yell and scream. No mouth, no head, no body. Just bits.

  Billions of bits of Napoleon Augustus Smythe.

  And yet he was still aware of himself and everything around him, as if nothing had changed. He felt perfectly normal, as if he still existed, even though he knew he didn’t – at least not in the normal 11 year-old-boy form in which he usually existed.

  ‘We have been atomised, BB005.’

  Napoleon couldn’t believe that he was hearing Skin, because Skin had to be in bits as well.

  ‘We have been shattered into particles as a result of a quantum black hole event previously thought impossible at the human level.’

  Atomised? Napoleon didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Any chance of us getting UN-atomised?’

  Professor Perdu answered. ‘Yes, BB005,’ she said, but Napoleon had no idea where her voice was coming from. It was just out there somewhere. ‘I have already initiated structural reconfiguration. It will commence at any moment.’

  ‘You mean you’re putting me, er us, back together?’

  ‘Yes. More or less.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s far too complicated to explain at the moment. Let’s just say I’m using the Vacuumulator.’

  No sooner had the professor spoken than a dot of immensely bright light appeared far off in the distance. A moment later, Napoleon became aware of being drawn towards the bright dot, sucked closer to it at a rapidly accelerating pace.

  The dot quickly grew bigger and brighter, and as it did so Napoleon noticed that billions of tiny particles were speeding towards it. The entire sky was filled with the particles, like the spawning of coral in the sea.

  ‘That’s me,’ Napoleon said to himself. ‘All of that is me, all those billions of particles. They’re me. I’m them.’ But then he realised something quite astonishing.

  The particles were not just him alone. There were others in there as well. As he drew closer to the dot of light he could see that each particle had a face, the face of a warrior.

  There were billions of warriors – from every time and place in history – all of them shouting their battle cries.

  And in the next instant Napoleon was shouting too, joining with all those warriors.

  Louder and louder, he shouted as he rocketed towards the circle of light, until there was nothing else. The light was everything – a vast, impossibly bright light – followed by an almighty

  CRACK!

  Napoleon lay on a bed, his head covered in electrodes. All around him machines and screens beeped, hummed and buzzed.

  A blurry Professor Perdu was at his side. She seemed to be smiling. ‘Excellent work, BB005. Mission accomplished. One hundred percent success.’

  ‘Where am I?’ Napoleon groaned.

  ‘You’re in the Recovery Clinic,’ the professor replied. ‘We’re restoring your energy levels.’

  ‘What happened? How did I get back to . . . to being me?’

  ‘You broke the Time Barrier. That was the cracking noise. Only then could we suck you into the Vacuumulator and reconfigure you.’

  ‘So I’m the old me again? Same as always?’

  ‘Yes,’ the professor replied. But then she added quickly, ‘And no.’

  Napoleon rolled his eyes. She could never give a straight answer, he thought. ‘What are you talking about, Prof?’

  ‘Let’s just say that you’re the new old you, and leave it at that, shall we?’

  ‘No.’ Napoleon sat up in bed. ‘That’s not good enough. I’ve just been blown into pieces! I want to know what this mission was all about. What was my objective?’

  ‘The Great Torc, of course. You had to return — ’

  ‘I mean my real mission. I know I was there for more than just returning that necklace. I was getting something for you. I was bringing back something really important for you, wasn’t I? Admit it.’ Napoleon pointed his finger at the professor. ‘I want to know what it was. And I’m not giving up until you tell me.’

  Professor Perdu cracked her knuckles.

  ‘All right, yes, you did bring back something important for me. But in doing so, you brought back something far more important for yourself.’

  ‘Please stop talking in riddles. I want the facts, the truth, nothing less.’

  The professor pursed her lips. ‘Very well then, if you insist,’ she said, and sat on the end of his bed.

  She thought for a while before continuing.

  ‘Until now one of your main tasks has been to collect warrior DNA. As you know, I’ve been feeding that into a Warrior Databank. But in this mission you collected something far more potent – Warrior Energy.’

  ‘Warrior Energy? Is that what the spirit was?’

  ‘That’s one word for it, if you like – a bit magical sounding, but yes. And the faces and the sounds and voices; they’re all part of the Force of Warriorhood, a truly powerful energy that I’ve been trying to capture for years. You managed to harness that energy in this mission and bring it back. Who knows what we can do with such a force?’

  Napoleon wasn’t sure he really understood what the professor was talking about, but he listened carefully as she continued.

  ‘We had to do something highly unusual on this mission – cross the gap between Science and Magic – a gap that many say does not even exist. It’s a crossing that has never been done before. But you achieved it, BB005. Congratulations.’

  Now Napoleon was certain he didn’t understand what the professor was talking about. But it sounded really exciting.

  ‘So what about me? You said I brought back something special for myself in all that.’

  ‘Yes. That’s the new part of you. You’re not the same Napoleon who set out on the mission this morning. You’re now a kind of walking powerhouse of Warrior Energy. You’re made up of billions of past particles. The original you is still in there, somewhere. But there is much more. You can now consider yourself absolutely and completely a true warrior.’

  The professor stood.

  ‘Wait.’ Napoleon had a thousand questions, and hardly knew where to begin. ‘Are you saying I’ve got special powers or something?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you’ve got. I’m only just beginning to understand this myself. But you have definitely absorbed a very special force. What powers it bestows upon you, only time will reveal. All I can say for the moment i
s: Welcome to the new you, Battle Boy.’

  Before Napoleon could say anything else, she turned on her heels and walked from the room.

  He lay back, the professor’s words ringing in his head.

  Welcome to the new you.

  Special powers (maybe).

  Only time will reveal.

  Napoleon smiled to himself as he thought about this and what it might mean for the new missions that awaited him.

  The smiled spilled across his face until he laughed out loud.

  He was ready for the future.

  First published 2012 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  Text copyright © Charlie Carter 2012

  Illustration copyright © Russell Jeffery 2012

  The moral rights of the creators have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Carter, Charlie.

  Warrior Queen / Charlie Carter.

  9780330404334 (pbk.)

  Carter, Charlie. Battle boy ;

  16.

  For primary school age.

  A823.4

  Adobe eReader format: 9781743345238

  EPub format: 9781743345245

  Mobipocket format: 9781743345252

  Online format: 9781743345221

  Designed by Russell Jeffery, Emigraph

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