by Toby Frost
With that, Suruk bounded into the corridor, almost silent on the lino. Carveth counted to five and crept to the door.
She glanced into the passage. The room doors were all open and she could see into the hold. A soldier in scrappy, converted armour stood with his back to her, a rifle in his hands. Suruk was nowhere to be seen.
She sneaked out and ducked straight into Smith’s quarters. Sighing with relief at not yet being shot, Carveth closed the door behind her and began to search the room. The wardrobe yielded nothing except a lot of tweed. She pulled the bed apart. Under the pillow she found a neatly-folded pair of wynceyette pyjamas. She knelt down and searched underneath the bed, and found only a picture of the Queen and a well-thumbed Laura Ashley womenswear catalogue.
From the hold came a shout. ‘An alien! Kill the greenskin!’ someone yelled – and then silence. Carveth took a deep breath and returned to the corridor. There was a sudden loud bang, like a door slamming, and she leaped back into Smith’s room and stood there panting until Suruk called from the hold, ‘You may emerge. They are defeated!’
He was waiting at the door to the hold. One of the mercenaries lay in the corner, his neck broken. The other seemed to have trodden on something volatile, which had thrown him against the wall with fatal force.
‘This fool panicked and stepped into a trap that he had made himself,’ Suruk said.
Carveth nodded. ‘Hoist with his own retard,’ she said.
‘Is that all of them?’
‘Indeed. We are all ready to fly. I found the plotting machine you needed hidden near the ship. It must have been Smith that placed it there.’
‘Thank God for that. Saddle up then, Suruk. We’re going home.’
She turned to the doorway, meaning to reset the navigational computer. As she reached the door the alien said, ‘Home?’
‘Yep. Let’s get out of here.’
‘But Isambard Smith is still a prisoner. Do you not have a plan for what we should do next?’
‘Sure. I’ve got two plans: cut and run. Come on, let’s go.’
‘We go nowhere. We rescue our comrade.’
‘Bollocks to that! We’re off home.’
‘Wrong,’ Suruk said, and suddenly Carveth was not so happy to have him on her side. His jaws attempted a smile. ‘I intend to enjoy my holiday. So far, it has been disappointingly without incident. Yet perhaps I shall start to remedy this by shedding blood. Either you can prepare to fight our foes, or you can experience me forcing the contents of the cutlery drawer up your snivelling behind. Turn the ship around and show the enemy our mettle, or I shall turn you around and show you mine.’
As he approached, making a weird croaking noise, Carveth realised that she was in a quandary. She did not know which she would rather face: death at the hands of Gilead and his brutal mercenaries, or death by rectal spoon insertion. It was a close call.
The door slid open. ‘Attention, scum!’ barked a voice, and 462 marched into the room. ‘Silence!’ he cried, despite the conversation having come to an end.
He looked like an ant in a trenchcoat. Despite the similarities to a locust and stick insect in the body, and despite the approximation of a face at the end of his bulbous head, it was as an ant that Smith would remember him: a gigantic red ant propped on its hind legs, draped in a long coat and decorated with a load of meaningless insignia – no doubt prizes for being best in show at a shouting contest or something of the sort. 462’s small eyes roved the room. ‘So,’ he said. ‘The mighty Captain Smith. We meet again, except for the first time.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Smith replied coolly. ‘You chaps all look the same.’
‘Silence! It is fitting tribute to your crushing stupidity that for you, Earthlander, the war is over before it has even begun. Soon we shall commence our plans, and then planet Earth shall lie open to us for the taking.’
‘I have my doubts, alien. If you think the Earth’s a pushover, you’ve clearly never been to Woking.’
‘Hah! Neither you nor your puny planet is in any condition to resist the might of the Ghast Empire. Humankind will be destroyed and my service to my species will be rewarded!’
‘What will they do, promote you to 461?’
‘How dare you seek to mock me! It will in fact be 460. 461 died in a bizarre saluting accident. But I digress. You are doomed. Evolution has raised us far beyond your feeble species.’
‘Now that’s just a theory,’ Gilead put in.
‘If I might just get a word in edgeways, inferior human scum,’ 462 said crossly, ‘you are doomed. Our fleet will scatter the nations of mankind, descend on Planet Earth and destroy its useless liberty. The populations of Earth shall be put to work for our ends, and we, the Ghasts, shall crush mankind under an iron fist!’
Smith looked at Gilead. ‘I hope you’re listening to all this,’ he said.
‘So, your efforts to oppose us are worthless,’ said the Ghast commander. ‘With the secrets we learn from your captured breeding-partner, we shall sweep the galaxy clean of inefficiency. Now, I have business elsewhere.’
462 turned to go. As he reached the door, Smith said, ‘Wait.’
The Ghast turned, attempting a smile. ‘Ah, so you wish to beg for clemency, do you?’
‘I just wanted to say something.’ Smith fixed the Ghast’s hard eyes with his own. ‘Now listen closely, alien. You may be about to conquer the galaxy, but at least I’ve not got a great big arse.’
462 paused and looked over his shoulder at the large red thing, shaped like a wasp’s nest, that protruded from the back of his trenchcoat. ‘That is not an arse. That is my stercorium.’
‘No doubt. I’m sure it is… fatarse.’
‘Ignorant human! This organ is essential to my digestive system, far more efficient than yours, and is used to produce nutrients that give me the strength to conquer lesser specii like your own!’
‘Sorry, could you repeat that? I couldn’t hear past your great big red arse.’
The Ghast commander snarled. ‘Hah! Laugh while you still can, puny Earthman. But I promise, there will be no mercy for you, Captain Smith. You will be crushed – utterly!’
‘You’re going to sit on me, then? With your big arse?’
462 gave a yelp of rage. He whipped around, his antennae quivering. ‘You have mocked my backside for the last time! You, guard! Fetch the cage!’
‘Stop it!’ cried Carveth. She was the wrong way up, dress over her head, arms flapping. Suruk held one of her ankles and was shaking her up and down. On the plus side, he had not injured her with spoons, but on the minus side, she was sure that her breakfast was about to get acquainted with her dangling hair. ‘Let go of me and put me down!’
‘As you wish,’ Suruk said.
Carveth landed on her head and said, ‘I meant the other way around.’
The alien sighed. ‘You sadden me. Has mankind become so decadent that its pilots are not willing to charge into a savage gunfight they will almost certainly lose anymore?’
Carveth rubbed her head and said, ‘No way. There’s two of us, Suruk! There must be a hundred of them. How are we to deal with that?’
‘Three. You forget Gan Uteki.’
‘Who’s that?’
He turned and reached for a spear by the door. ‘Gan Uteki, weapon of the ancestors, blade of the spirit world.’
‘Well, thank heaven for that,’ Carveth replied. She climbed to her feet. ‘I was wondering when the Stick Cavalry would arrive. Absolutely no and no again.’ She moved towards the door: surprisingly, he stepped out of the way. Feeling bad and angry with everything, including herself, Carveth stomped down the corridor towards the beer fridge.
Why couldn’t this have happened to someone else?
Carveth thought, taking out a can and opening it up. Why did life have to expect heroics from someone who wasn’t a hero? You didn’t expect the man who cleaned the toilets to conduct operas, so why should you expect a daring rescue mission from someone who was much happier cowe
ring under a rug? She slammed the fridge door. A picture was stuck to the door. Carveth had not noticed it before. It showed four stick-people in a row, two of them women. One of the men had tusks and was holding up an axe. Suruk’s work, she thought. There were labels on the people: ‘I myself’, ‘Izmbard Smith’, ‘Riana’ and ‘little fat cowad woman’, along with helpful labels like ‘bludd’ and ‘sevid hed’. Written above Smith were the words ‘My best frend ever’.
Carveth took the picture and held it in her hands, furious at the guilt it made her feel. For a moment she felt like ripping the damned thing to bits and flushing it down the waste disposal unit. What a shameless piece of manipulation, what a crude attempt to affect her feelings!
‘Little fat cowad woman’ stared out from the picture in her hands, smiling and waving.
‘Fat?’ she said, staring at the picture. ‘Fat! I’m not fat!
I’ll show you, you cheeky bastard!’
She turned and stomped back to the cockpit, dropped straight into the seat and turned the spaceship round. She set a course for the Fist of Righteousness, full speed. It was at that point that she realised that ‘my best frend’
might have referred not to Smith but to the axe Suruk was waving over Smith’s head, but by then it was way too late, for the M’Lak’s smiling head leaned around the cockpit door.
‘We have changed course,’ Suruk said.
‘Change of plan,’ Carveth said, trying to sound confident. ‘You know I said we were going to cut and run?
Well, we’ve done the running part. Get your knives.’
*
The guards brought a cage into the room. Hardened killers themselves, they quailed when they saw what moved inside: a mass of matted fur, seemingly without limbs or head, squeaking and battering the bars.
‘Only a few minutes before we leave Republic of Eden space,’ said 462. ‘And then, then we shall see who looks amusing.’ The cage rattled as its occupant thumped against the bars. 462 smirked. ‘Tell me, Smith, have you ever seen a hungry trobble leap through the air?’
Carveth met Suruk in the cargo hold. Suruk was covered in weapons, blades strapped to his thighs, chest and hips, pushed into his boots and the bracers he wore on his arms. In his hands was his spear. Less explicably, he was wearing a top hat.
‘We are ready?’ he said as she approached. Carveth nodded. ‘I’m all juiced up,’ she said. She had just washed a handful of Peptos down with navy rum: she felt sharp and deadly. She wore the Maxim cannon on a harness over her dress. It felt incredibly heavy and cumbersome, as if she had put on a building site. The gun was in its folded position, the barrel jutting up from her back like a chimney.
‘Fourteen minutes till we dock,’ she said. ‘I got the docking codes off a card one of the mercenaries had. We’re due to link straight up.’ She licked her lips. ‘Then, I guess the fighting starts.’
‘Yes.’
She walked across the hold. Suruk stood there, flexing his fingers calmly, and it occurred to her that she really didn’t understand the first thing about him. He was inscrutable to her, and she doubted that even the finest minds of Earth would be able to scrute him properly.
‘Suruk,’ she said, ‘does anything frighten you?’
The alien frowned. ‘That I might never do battle with worthy enemies,’ he said. ‘Clowns. Some dairy produce frightens me, as well.’
‘Those aren’t things that worry me particularly,’ she said. ‘I’m frightened of dying, Suruk.’
‘That’s quite understandable.’
‘It is?’
‘Of course it is: you are a wretched coward. Normally, I would rather feed my breeding tubes into a printing press than even look at you. However, these are strange times, and I shall fight beside you today. So be it. You are war-kin now and, no matter what happens, there is a part of you that will always remain close to me. Admittedly, it may well be your skull on my mantelpiece, but the point is made.’
‘Cheers,’ she said.
Suruk raised his spear. ‘Not long, I think, until we meet our destiny. Now, I must obey the traditions of my people. It is time for me to sing the death-song of my ancestors. As you are kindred, I shall translate it for you.’
He threw back his head, opened his mandibles and, in a mighty voice, he sang:
Today we raise our weapons high,
Today we prepare for death.
We might be slain; alternatively we might not. Lie-la-lie, la-lie-lala-lie,
Lie–la-lie, la-lie-lala-lie,
Lalalala lie.
‘That’s it?’ said Carveth. ‘That was rubbish. It didn’t rhyme and I reckon you stole part of it. And if you’re going to die, you could at least listen to something good first.’
She grinned. ‘I know! You want to hear real music, get this!’
She disappeared back into the ship. Suruk frowned. Something came over the interior P.A. system, a low, flat twang, a sound from far away and deep down. Suruk shuddered and adjusted his hat.
A slow, rattling drum crackled through the hold. From the bottom of a well there crept a woman’s voice, a lost, hungry ghost. Suruk ran one of his thumbs along the razor edge of Gan Uteki, the sacred spear. Hunting music, indeed.
Carveth stepped through the door, the Maxim cannon levelled and ready to shoot. Her blonde hair was held back by a radio headset. She straightened her blue dress and wiped a bit of foam from the corner of her mouth.
‘Jefferson Airplane,’ she said. ‘I thought we needed a rising sound. Let’s go.’
A soldier barged into the room. ‘Sir?’
462 whipped around, and for a moment Smith thought he was actually going to attack the man. ‘Who is this moron?’ he barked at Gilead.
Captain Gilead turned to the man. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Sir, problem, sir. Docking codes from the incoming shuttle are wrong.’
‘How do you mean, wrong?’
‘Sir, they’re not right, sir. They’re for the wrong ship. Our ship. It’s the John Pym coming in to dock, not our ship.’
‘The John Pym? His ship? Could it be our people on board?’
The mercenary shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. We received a message, sir. It doesn’t sound like our men, sir.’
From the other side of the room, Isambard Smith spoke.
‘You fellows are in a good deal of trouble,’ he said, ‘but I can help you. If you surrender now, I’ll make sure you get a fair trial before they string you up.’
‘Shut up,’ Gilead said. ‘I want to hear this message. Put it on the speakers.’
The soldier paled. ‘Sir, I don’t think that it’s quite—’
‘Put it on!’
They listened.
‘Hello arseheads! Still bothering God? Right, listen carefully. I’ve got a fast ship about to dock with you and a crew of angry people, and I’ve come here to bring succour to the injured and injury to the suckers. Bring the Cap to the airlock and let him go, and we won’t do you over. Because if you don’t I’m warning you; I’ve got a degree in kicking arse and I’d have a doctorate in not giving a damn if I’d bothered to attend the ceremony. So open up, alright?’
‘Well,’ said Smith, ‘you heard. My elite soldiers await the moment to strike. You’ve had a fair innings, Gilead, but it’s time to head back to the pavilion before you get your bails knocked off. Give me my trousers and we can call it quits.’
Gilead leaped up, his eyes gleaming. ‘A draw? Screw that! Not while I have the Angel of the Lord in my custody, and not while your yellow-bellied, black-hearted, whitetrash, pinko-liberal crew takes my name in vain! You!’ he cried, jabbing a finger at the mercenary, ‘Watch this man. And you,’ he added, turning to 462, ‘come with me. I’ll show you how we deal with unbelievers round here!’
‘It seems we will meet later, Captain Smith,’ said 462.
‘Until then, goodbye.’ His face managed a smirk.
‘Remember the cage, Smith. They can bounce straight through a man’s head.’
With a swish of leather and a twitching of antennae, he was gone. The door slammed. Smith looked at the mercenary.
‘I can see your underpants,’ the mercenary said. ‘That’s funny.’
In the airlock, the walls rang with whooping and the clatter of loading magazines. Men clenched fists and put their sunglasses on, checked stubble and stuffed copies of Merc Life into their back pockets. Grace Slick’s voice rang out across the hold of the John Pym like a jilted, malevolent ghost. ‘White Rabbit’ was reaching its peak.
Carveth upended a bottle of Peptos and crunched eight times the recommended dose. ‘Any moment now,’ she said.
Something massive struck the side of the ship. The clang rang through the hold as if they stood in some gigantic bell.
A voice came over the PA system. ‘This is the Fist of Righteousness. We are outside your airlock. You will open up and surrender immediately or we will tear open your airlock and mess you up so bad even Satan won’t recognise you!’
‘Like bollocks we will,’ Carveth said. ‘Surrender at once!’
‘Don’t give me that!’ said the PA system. Carveth glanced at Suruk. He stood beside the airlock doors, spear in hand, one finger poised over the manual override switch. Carveth reached out and turned off the light. Darkness in the Pym. Half a dozen flares were attached to the airlock, the flare units taped to the frame, the pins that would activate them soldered to the doors.
‘You’ve had enough time,’ the voice cried over the loudspeakers. ‘That’s it, we’re coming in.’
Carveth pulled the cannon into her hands. She narrowed her eyes and said, ‘Do it!’
Suruk hit the switch. At the first sign of the Pym’s doors opening, the mercenaries opened their own airlock, the pins came free and the flares hissed into sudden, blinding life. Someone yelled, ‘Trap!’ Silhouettes threw hands over their eyes. Carveth pulled the trigger.
She let the motion sensors on the gun do their work and it swung and bucked in her hands. The round counter spun as it spat half a magazine into the airlock and she braced her legs and hoped it would be over soon.