by Adam Roberts
‘It is flimsy,’ agreed Leper.
‘Why don’t they give their soldiers more substantial protection?’ asked Luke.
Old Bony chuckled to himself. ‘You think the Imp-Emp-Imp make their soldiers dress up this way for their protection? Oh dear me no. You’ve seen how ineffective the white armour is – laser pistols go right through it. You can hit them with a lead pipe and knock them unconscious. In fact, you can more or less hit them with a baguette and knock them unconscious. No, the reason they make them wear the armour is precisely to render them clumsy. To occlude their vision, to impair their physical performance. By staggering around, falling over, by cracking their heads on the overhang as they attempt to step through a door, in all these ways they access the tremendous power of the Farce.’
‘Except that it hasn’t helped them out at all,’ said Hand, looking down at the supine forms of the Sterntroopers.
‘Ah yes – because we are stronger in the Farce than they,’ explained Bony, nodding sagely. ‘But they weren’t to know that.’
‘The power of the Farce does seem to be working in our favour at the moment,’ agreed Leper. ‘Come on – we’ve got to get out of here. And we’ve got to find my droid.’
‘I say we concentrate on the first part,’ panted Hand, ‘and leave the droid to shift for itself.’
‘No,’ said the Princess, firmly. ‘I sent that droid away precisely to stop it falling into Imp-Emp-Imp hands. Now that you lot have so effectively delivered it straight back to the Imperial Empire, we have a duty to get to it before any more damage is done.
‘What’s so important about this droid anyway?’
‘It contains the only copy of a certain vital Secret,’ said Leper.
‘What Secret?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s secret,’ snapped Leper, becoming cross. ‘Obviously.’
‘But then how do you know it’s important?’
‘I not only know it’s important,’ said Leper. ‘I know it’s the most vital piece of information in the Galaxy. With it the Imp-Emp-Imp will certainly crush all resistance. But if we can get it to my adoptive father on Ya!Boo! then it might just turn the tide in favour of the Rebelend. Now let’s go.’ She went to the cell door and peered out.
‘So,’ said Luke, sidling up to stand beside her. Despite being leprous there was something strangely alluring about this woman. ‘You were adopted, were you?’
‘Yes,’ she said, brusquely, scanning the corridor in both directions. ‘I never knew my actual father.’
‘Get out!’ said Luke, slapping her lightly on her shoulder. ‘Me neither! Actually I recently discovered that my father was a great Jobbi knight, killed by Dark Father. I’ve vowed to take revenge on Dark Father, actually.’
‘Is that right?’ said the Princess, with the air of somebody not quite paying attention. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
They made their way along the corridor cautiously. It was a lengthy metal-walled structure, pentagonal in cross-section: a curious design such that walking near either of the walls meant bending one’s head down to avoid scraping it along the ceiling, although there was ample headroom in the middle of the floor.
The group had two laser pistols, one salvaged from each guard: Princess Leper had one and Luke the other. ‘Wouldn’t it be better,’ he suggested, holding the weapon in his hands as if it were coated with some finger-rotting substance, ‘if Someman had the gun? He’s a rough-and-tough space-pirate figure. You want it?’
‘I got my work cut out,’ gasped the one-artificial-lunged pilot, ‘dragging Masticatetobacco behind me.’
‘Oh, can’t you just wake him up?’ Luke snapped, straying a little into the realm of tetchy.
‘You obviously,’ grunted Hand, hauling his co-pilot along the corridor floor, ‘don’t have much experience with hibernating Woozies.’
‘Just point the thing at a Sterntrooper,’ said Princess Leper, ‘and shoot.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Luke. ‘That might well involve killing. I’m not sure I can do that. I haven’t really thought through the ethical implications of an act like that.’ He tucked the gun into his trousers.
‘Oh great globular clusters . . .’ Leper muttered, half under her breath.
They had reached the end of the corridor. It opened into a control area: a series of large computer banks, flashing lights, whirring reel-to-reel magnetic tape, a box of punch-cards in the corner. Four Sterntroopers in full uniform were sitting in front of flickering green-lit screens. They looked up at once, and all of them immediately drew their laser pistols from the plastic holsters at their sides.
‘I shall use the Farce,’ announced K’nobbli, ‘to disable them. Have no fear.’
With astonishing speed and a feral grace the old man darted forward, his hands poised before him karate-style, blades outwards. Before the nearest Sterntrooper had a chance to react, K’nobbli was on him.
‘Hurrah!’ cheered Luke.
It was all over in moments. The Jobbi knight barked his shin against the side of one of the control monitors, yelped, staggered to the left, put his foot in a small metal waste-bin, overtoppled, windmilled his arms, and rammed his head into the rifle-rack on the left wall, getting his cranium stuck hard between two of the charge-rifles fixed there. All that could be seen were the old man’s hindquarters wriggling, his scrawny legs occasionally kicking up as he heaved and struggled to extricate himself. The waste-bin was still stuck on his left foot. His voice was heavily muffled and barely audible, but it seemed to be saying ‘oh, for crying out loud’ and ‘my ears, my ears are trapped behind the trigger guards on either side, help! Oh my beautiful ears!’
‘Oh,’ said Luke, in much more subdued voice, ‘dear.’
The four Sterntroopers, who had clearly never seen anything quite like this before, stared at the struggling form of the Jobbi knight. Trained with a ruthless efficiency to be efficiently ruthless, they faltered when presented with a situation for which their training had not prepared them. This was such a situation.
This gave Princess Leper all the time she needed. She was able to take careful aim, and squeeze off two bolts of laser energy, dropping two of the guards before they even realised they were under attack from a different direction. Even then, as the remaining two guards pulled out their weapons and attempted to return fire, they could barely prevent themselves glancing over at the wriggling, stuck form of the old man. They were easy targets for the Princess.
Smoke and the smell of burning plastic swirled around the small space.
Leper rounded on Luke. ‘Were you planning on using your laser pistol any time soon?’ she snapped. ‘Or is it purely ornamental?’
‘Well,’ said Luke. ‘Like I said, I’m not sure . . .’
They went over to Old Bony and heaved at him to dislodge him. But in doing so they yanked the two rifles out of their holdings, and this set off an Unauthorised Rifle Removal Alarm. It went like this: ouu-WAAAA! ouu-WAAAA! ouu-WAAAA!
‘Great,’ said Leper, sarcastically, shouting to be heard over the sound of the alarm. ‘Come on – let’s get out of here.’
There were two doors in the wall on the far side of the control room. The sign on one read ‘Exit: Way Out’. The other read ‘To the Innermost Portions of the Death Spa. No Way Out. Cul-de-Sac. Authorised Personnel only.’ Leper pulled open the first door. It revealed a long corridor down which something like twenty Sterntroopers were jogging, heading directly towards them, rifles at the ready.
‘Not that way,’ she cried. ‘They’re sending a squad straight here. Through the other door – quick, run. Move it.’
To be honest, Luke couldn’t quite hear her words over the constant ear-breaking ouu-WAAAA! ouu-WAAAA! ouu-WAAAA! noise. But the urgency of her manner, and her desperate facial expression, added to the fact that she bodily pushed him through the second door, told him all he needed to know.
‘Run!’ he screamed. ‘Every life form for i
tself! Run – we got to get away!’
He barrelled through the second door. He barely had time to register a cavernous hallway filled with what appeared to be rank after rank of deactivated battle droids, before he surged forward, and began running as fast as he could.
He was a young man, with long, strong legs, and he ran very quickly. His legs flashed beneath him, pummelling the ground, propelling him onwards. Pretty soon he fell into a sprinter’s rhythm, sucking deep breaths and pushing them out again in time to his strides. Run – run – run –
Beside him Old Bony was making remarkably rapid progress, keeping up with Luke and even starting, very slowly, to overtake him. Luke was surprised to see the old man capable of such a lick of speed. Presumably he was scared enough of the approaching Sterntroopers really to work his legs – or perhaps he was calling on the power of the Farce to move himself onwards so rapidly.
Then Hand Someman pulled past him. His speed was even more surprising, given that he was dragging the supine form of Masticatetobacco after himself. Even more surprisingly, he appeared to stop from time to time, to mop his brow and get his breath back, before picking up his co-pilot’s legs and starting to haul again. Luke could not work out how he was able to do this whilst simultaneously running with all his strength, running so fast as to be able to keep up with Luke himself.
‘Hey,’ snapped Princess Leper. ‘You. Stop mucking about, and get down off that running machine.’
Realisation dawned. Luke slowed his strides, and the conveyer-belt floor beneath his feet slowed too. Blushing a little with embarrassment, he hopped off the treadmill. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I got a little panicked, and accordingly a little distracted . . .’
The door behind them burst open. Ruby-coloured laser bolts seared through the air. Princess Leper span on her heel and fired off half a dozen expert shots with her pistol. The Sterntroopers in the door frame tumbled forward.
‘Come on,’ she yelled.
The party hurried through the hallway, past the rank upon rank and row upon row of empty running machines. At the far end was a broad doorway, through which they passed into a Free Weight Room. The walls were mirrored from floor to ceiling; padded benches were arranged in L and Π shapes; in the corner a 3DTV screen was showing Hits of the 2440s! The Nonstop Aerobic and Vacuumobic Workout Channel on a continuous loop.
The free weights themselves were arranged on racks along the far wall. ‘I don’t understand it,’ said Luke. ‘Free weights are supposed to be lots of different weights, from small weights to really big ones. They’re supposed to be big, heavy metal discs, for you to fit onto your weightlifting bar.’ He picked up one of the Death Spa free weights. ‘These are all plastic, they’re all the same size.’ He tossed it up and down in the palm of his hand. ‘And they’re all exactly the same weight – about the same weight as a piece of pitta bread. How is this supposed to help a person build muscular definition and upper body strength?’
‘Don’t you know anything?’ snapped Princess Leper. ‘The gyms on your homeworld must be primitive places indeed.’ She pointed at the door on the far side of the room, and shoved Bony, Hand and Masticatetobacco towards it. ‘You lot, through there. Luke and I are going to use these to hold off the Sterntroopers for a while.’ As the others shuffled through, she came to stand by Luke’s side.
‘They’re adjustable weights,’ she explained, pointing to the tiny red and green buttons in the centre of each disc. ‘Pressing these modifies the artificial gravity device embedded in each of them; you can set it to any gravitational level you like, to vary the resistance. Have you really never seen one of these before?’
‘I’m more a work-in than a work-out sort of guy,’ said Luke, unsure what, if anything, the sentence meant, but liking the sound of it. Despite the hideous growths on the sides of her head, there was something very alluring about this princess; an ivory pureness and whiteness about her skin, a depth about her blue eyes, that whispered to his soul about moonlight and midnight, about the susurration of surf on a warm beach on an idyllic world, and the two of them could be together always, the new Adam and new Eve of a perfect new World of Love. Plus she smelt nice and had a great rack. He decided he liked it when she stood next to him.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Set the timer for, say, three seconds.’ She did so on one of the discs. ‘Then set the weight for Gas Giant. Then —’
Right on cue, the first of the pursuing Sterntroopers rushed through the entrance to the room as she spoke.
‘—throw!’ she cried, spinning the flimsy plastic disc, frisbee-like, at the soldier. It floated almost dreamily through the air, weighing a few grams. Then it struck the chest of the Sterntrooper weighing two-thirds of a metric tonne, breaking his ribs and crushing him instantly to the floor.
One after the other, soldiers popped through the door; one after the other, Luke and Leper tossed the lightweight discs just in time for them to turn into artificially-gravitational superdense bodies as they struck their targets. Several Sterntroopers fell straight down. One or two flew back through the air with their legs separated by angles of more than one hundred degrees. One did a perfect back flip and crashed through a table upon which year-old copies of various magazines were located for the reading pleasure of exercisers.
Finally the whole troop was lying, groaning, on the floor. Princess Leper dashed to the door and peered out. ‘There’s another battalion coming,’ she said, hurrying back to Luke. ‘Quick,’ she gasped. ‘Quick, after the others – through the back door.’
Together they ran through the exit on the far side of the room, neither of them noticing the sign over the door that read: ‘Through here to the Sauna Only: No Exit. No Way Out.’
They didn’t know it, but they were now trapped.
Oh no!
Chapter Eleven
Let us take it (the narrative) to the bridge
Dark Father strode onto the bridge, purposefully, evilly, menacingly. Seriously. I mean, he strode on seriously, which is to say in a serious manner. I wasn’t exhorting you to take my words seriously, as if perhaps you had thought I was joking. Anyway. The ordinary bridge crew flinched and buried themselves deeper in their ordinary bridge duties, whatever they might be. Wherever he went, Dark Father carried with him an aura of hideous darkness.
Grand Muff o’ Tartan was already there, staring at the huge display screen at the sight of the planet Gregbare laid out below. He was wearing his special ceremonial muff (Macgregor tartan) in honour of the terrible destruction they were about to wreak upon the helpless world below him – the first destructive action of the newly readied and fully operational Death Spa.
Through the viewscreen Tartan was watching with pleasure as one hundred and thirty thousand Ti-fighters deployed in brilliant formation. A hundred and twenty thousand Rebelend alphabetti spacecraft were dogfighting with them, dogging their tails and fighting with them in a general sense. The sight on the viewscreen was of myriad little sparks and explosions, as alphabetti or IEISDSI craft blew up; mixed with the flickers of laser strafing as the desperate battle continued.
The Rebelend had sent up all their alphabetti space-fighters in a desperate last-ditch defence of their main base. A- and Q-wings, Z- and W- and P-wings, and indeed the full range of letters together with !-wings, £-wings, $-wings, %-wings, and &-wings, hurtled through the void, swooping about the Death Spa in a vain attempt to attack or disable it.
‘Greetings, my old friend,’ said the Grand Muff as Dark Father stood beside him. ‘Everything is in readiness.’
‘THE REBELEND ARE RESISTING?’
‘Yes, but punily. They are no match for the might of this Imperial Empire of the Imperium fighting force.’
‘WHAT ARE THEIR TACTICS?’
‘They keep flying into the long equatorial trench.’
‘THE TRENCH?’
‘Yes. It seems they believe that the end of the trench is a weak spot in the Death Spa’s design.’
‘I SEE. IS IT?’
‘Not at all. It’s just the water pipe through which we fill the trench when we want to do some rowing practice.’
‘THE REBELEND ARE FOOLISH AND MISGUIDED.’
‘What puzzles me,’ said the Grand Muff, ‘is the way they fly into the trench a good eight hundred kilometres away from the portal, and then spend all their time buzzing along the length of it. What good does that do? I mean, granted, they’re wrong to think it a weak spot; but given that they do believe that, why not just swoop down and blast it from above? Why enter the trench so far away from the target, and then fly along for – ooh, simply ages?’
‘BAFFLING,’ agreed Dark Father.
‘Ah – there’s another trench flier gone.’ o’ Tartan pointed. The flash of light and puff of rapidly expanding gases was clearly visible against the curve of the Death Spa’s horizon. ‘They don’t seem to realise. It’s for rowing practice, that trench, not for flying down. It’s wide enough for an eight-person scull, not a ruddy great spaceship. Ah well. What is your news, my friend?’
‘THE ouu-WAAA! ALARM HAS BEEN SOUNDED ON THE LOWER LEVELS. IT APPEARS THAT THE PRINCESS HAS ESCAPED FROM HER CELL.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the Grand Muff. ‘And the other prisoners?’
‘THEY HAVE ALSO ESCAPED.’
‘Oh dear. Isn’t Commander Rada Traynd in charge of the keeping of prisoners?’
‘I HAVE ALREADY TOLD THE COMMANDER OF MY DISSATISFACTION WITH HIS COMPETENCY TO HOLD SUCH A SENIOR POSITION.’
‘Have you also, by any chance, changed his throat from a three-dimensional to a two-dimensional structure, using only the power of the Farce?’
‘INDEED. HE WILL NOT BE BREATHING THROUGH THAT ANY MORE.’
‘Well, there’s nowhere for the escaped prisoners to go. Do you want to watch the destruction of the Rebelend up here with me, or go down and chase after the prisoners?’