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room wall lit up again. Will caught a glimpse of something that he couldn’t recognise before there was a much louder ‘BOOM’ and the room seemed to go upside down and inside out all at the same time. Half a second later all the lights went out. Will found himself on the floor, or possibly on the ceiling because in the dark it was difficult to know which way up he was. He could smell burning too.
    In a moment everything had gone still and quiet again. Will sat up, slightly gingerly because he wanted to make sure that his arms and legs worked properly before doing anything too quickly. As he sat there something prickly scuttled across his legs. He squeaked in surprise and jumped backwards, crashing into what felt like a pile of laundry, and fell over again.
    The light came slowly back, dim and yellow at first but soon growing back to its usual brilliance. Will, it turned out, was tangled up in a big pile with Mavis and her ninja suit. As luck would have it, they were on the floor, not the ceiling. Drych was on the floor too, but sitting comfortably as if nothing had happened, legs tucked up under him as usual. Spiv, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
    â€œWhat’s happening? I can smell burning! Are we on fire?” Will sounded most concerned.
    â€œToast.” It was Spiv.
    â€œToast?” repeated Will.
    â€œYes. My toast fell out of the toaster when that blaster hit us. Bit of a pain really. All covered in fluff now.”
    â€œBlaster!” If Will sounded concerned before he was definitely worried now.
    â€œQuite a big one by the feel of it. Sort of thing a
Galaxy
class cruiser might have.”
    Will was trying to disentangle himself from Mavis and, because he was flustered and in a rush, making a bit of a mess of it. He tripped over again and came face to face with a thing like a huge metal spider with far too many legs and big, glowing, red eyes. Each leg ended in some sort of sharp or pointy thing. The whole thing looked like some sort of explosion in a Swiss army knife factory. Will squeaked again and rolled to one side.
    â€œLook out!” he shouted, “They’ve got inside!”
    â€œWho have?” asked Spiv.
    â€œI don’t know! Aliens! Monsters! That thing!”
    â€œThat’s Mech 2. He’s just been fixing the lights. Mech 1 will be around somewhere. Fixing the toaster with any luck.”
    â€œMech 2!” Will collapsed back into a heap on the floor. They had told him that the Mechs were about the same size as dogs and about as intelligent as dogs. He had supposed that they also looked something like dogs too. Obviously he had got that part wrong. “Oh,” was all he could say.
    â€œIt would be preferable if you have survived the blast.” This was a new voice, deep and sounding as if it would stand no nonsense. They all looked round at the control room wall where the screen had come back to life. Will had been frightened by the sight of Mech 2 but the thing on the screen was much worse. It looked a lot bigger for one thing.
    â€œThere’s a turn up. That’s old One Chance,” whispered Spiv. Even Spiv seemed impressed. He didn’t let it show for long, though. “I was right about that
Galaxy
class blaster, then. I let him have it cheap because it was the last one and I needed the space for a ship load of washing machines.”
    From what Will could see on the screen, One Chance had the build of a gorilla with the skin and features of a frog. Apart from the horns, that is. Will didn’t think frogs had horns, at least not horns like water buffalo horns. He (Will took Spivs word for it that it was a he, not a she) seemed to be wearing a sort of loose fitting robe with some pieces of metal armour scattered about over the top – certainly a breastplate and some things on his arms. There were still some gaps where bits of One Chance showed through but Will couldn’t imagine anyone being so foolish as to get