Chronicles of Isambard Smith 05 - End of Empires

by Toby Frost

  Susan’s voice, behind them: ‘Come on, let’s go! Smith, we need your chaps to get the ship going. Let’s move!’

  Smith helped Rhianna get Carveth upright. ‘Right,’ said the android. ‘A lemming jumped on my head. Get the spaceship. Of course. Did you see that? Right on my head. Boom.’

  As they reached the John Pym a flap opened in the opposite bank and a barrel was thrust out. A gun stuttered into life, cutting down two of Wainscott’s men in a second. Smith pulled his rifle up, but before he could fire, a burning bottle sailed end-over-end across the water and broke on the far bank.

  Flame engulfed the gun position. Wainscott slapped Smith on the shoulder. ‘Filthy stuff, that dandelion wine,’ he said, and he strode toward the ship. ‘You can run a lawnmower off it.’

  Suruk strode out of the trees, arms locked around a thrashing lemming. ‘Monkey-frog, you will die!’ it screeched. For a moment they struggled, rodent against amphibian on the riverbank like some hellish re-imagining of The Wind In The Willows, and then Suruk heaved it into the river. For a moment the Yull thrashed, and then something below the water yanked it out of sight.

  Smith opened the airlock and ushered the bewildered Carveth towards the cockpit. ‘It fell right out of the trees, boss,’ she said, her hands shakily pushing the keys into the ignition. ‘Like a great big coconut.’

  Sudden gunfire pinged against the hull. Smith hurried out of the cockpit.

  Rhianna was pulling people on board. Already the corridor by the airlock was clogged with soldiers. The back door dropped open, splashing into the river, and Wainscott’s men sloshed their way into the hold. The major stood by the ramp, apparently oblivious to the enemy gunfire, helping them on board. In a few moments, humans, Sey, M’Lak and beetle people crowded the hold.

  ‘Everybody on?’ Smith demanded.

  ‘All aboard,’ Susan replied.

  He hit the door panel. ‘Move it, Carveth!’ he called and, bullets still pattering against the hull, the John Pym tore into the sky.

  * * *

  Someone had set up a portable television on a camp stool. Morgar leaned in and cranked the dial. The screen flickered, and a tall, curly-haired man appeared.

  ‘It’s that idiot off the television,’ Bargath said, barely looking up. ‘Lionel Markham. I can’t stand him.’

  Morgar turned the horn round to face them and twisted the volume knob.

  ‘…to the video clip, which has already found its way around the allied planets. The message in it is seen as exemplifying the fighting spirit of the soldiers on the Yullian front, putting to rest ongoing rumours about their commitment to the fight against lemming tyranny.’

  ‘Humpf!’ Bargath said, scribbling out part of the crossword.

  The picture changed: a small figure in shirtsleeves and a utility waistcoat appeared. ‘No more running!’ she announced.

  Morgar took off his spectacles, checked the lenses and slipped them back on. ‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘I know her.’

  Bargath tugged a flask out his tunic. ‘Is there anyone on television you don’t know?’

  ‘No, seriously. I know her. Friend of a friend.’

  ‘I don’t care how many lemming men I have to fight!’ Carveth shrilled on the screen. ‘But no more running!’

  Markham’s face reappeared. ‘That’s the message coming out of the 112th army today. No more running. The name of the speaker, nicknamed Battle Girl, cannot be given for strategic reasons. We can only hope that the high command, both Imperial and Yullian, has taken that message on board.’ He nodded to the camera. ‘I’m Lionel Markham, and this is We Ask the Questions. Goodnight.’

  They looked at the screen.

  ‘Well,’ Bargath said, ‘good on her. Get stuck in. That’s the spirit. Gin?’

  ‘Bit early for me.’

  ‘What?’

  Morgar sighed. ‘Make mine a small one, then.’ He accepted the drink, which would have been small only to a buffalo, and sipped it warily. At least the tonic water was flat. Getting drunk in this heat would have been nauseating.

  ‘Saw you riding today,’ Bargath said. ‘I think you’re getting the hang of it.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You can’t have a lancer who can’t ride out properly,’ Bargath said, taking a huge swig of gin. ‘Even if he is just the chap who designs the lavs. We have a reputation to live up to,’ he added. ‘There’s a reason mankind calls us the elite.’

  ‘Their elite,’ Morgar replied. ‘You know, our species is capable of things other than violence.’

  ‘Of course. We can do anything we put our minds to – provided we do it with swords!’ Bargath lowered his glass and squinted at Morgar. ‘I say – you’re not about to suggest that Ravnavar should leave the Empire, are you?’

  ‘Well, I –’

  ‘Because you know what would happen if we did? Something bad. I’m not quite sure what, but definitely bad. Can’t have that,’ he added, leaning back. ‘We’d probably run out of brandy or something.’

  A lancer bounced past on his steed, turned neatly and pulled up in front of them. ‘Captain. I’ve been sent to tell you it’s time to break camp. We’re moving out.’

  Bargath leaned forward. ‘Move out?’ He looked ill-prepared to move out of his chair, Morgar thought. But Bargath was struggling upright, Telegraph wedged under his arm like a baton.

  ‘I thought they’d put the order over the PA system,’ Morgar said.

  ‘’Course not,’ Bargath replied. ‘It might alert the enemy.’

  ‘I’d have thought that six hundred giant chameleons would do that anyhow.’

  The captain scowled. His brass buttons and riding boots twinkled as he strode towards the officers’ quarters. ‘It’s probably so we get to ride out first, ahead of all the proles. The last thing we want is a bunch of M’Lak Riflemen lowering the tone.’

  An aircraft flew overhead, a VTOL scout ship. ‘They’re fellow M’Lak,’ Morgar said. ‘Surely they’re our brothers in arms.’

  Bargath stopped and looked round. He seemed weary more than annoyed. ‘Now, look,’ he said, pointing at Morgar’s face with his mandibles, ‘a Ravnavari Lancer can have only one brother in arms, and that’s another Ravnavari Lancer. And perhaps his noble steed, if it’s been cleaned recently. You may think we’re lackeys, but I happen to believe we’re what keeps our planet safe from rodent tyranny. Alright?’

  Morgar nodded. Bargath was wrong, Morgar thought, but the level of eloquence in his wrongness was surprising. ‘Alright.’

  ‘Good man. Let’s get cracking, eh? I want to reach camp by dinner time.’

  * * *

  Smith headed back to check on the others. The injured had been stabilised as best as possible, and now the soldiers packed out the hold, sitting on the floor and the mezzanine. There was a little talking among the men, but the atmosphere was subdued.

  He approached Wainscott and Susan. ‘Is everything alright?’

  Susan lowered her battered paperback and peered at him over the top. ‘I dunno. We’ve got injured people and not enough teacups to go round.’

  ‘We can do it in shifts. I’ll stick the kettle on.’

  Smith called Suruk out of his room. Suruk emerged, rubbing a blue paste over his forearms.

  ‘Are you alright, old chap?’ Smith asked. ‘You’re looking a bit – well, greener than usual.’

  ‘I caught the sun,’ Suruk replied. ‘Much longer out there and I would have started to photosynthesise.’

  Smith put him on tea duty and headed to the cockpit. In the windscreen, the forest rolled past, the treetops pressed together as if they flew over an enormous piece of broccoli. Smith saw a thing like the letter T sticking out of one of the trees, and realised that it was the tail of a Yullian fighter plane, wedged into the foliage.

  ‘How’re the others?’ Carveth asked. ‘Is Rhianna trying to do some holistic bollocks to them?’

  ‘Actually, she’s psychically protecting the ship against ground fire,’ Smith re
plied. ‘Where’s our destination?’

  Carveth pointed. ‘There.’

  It looked like a burned patch, as if someone had sizzled away the forest. Smith leaned forward and the brown mass split into different buildings, a sort of plateau, and suddenly he realised what he was looking at.

  Mothkarak, or at least the main mass of it, rose out of the forest like a single scrimshawed knuckle. Once it had been a great pale rock, almost mountain-sized, but construction drones had cut off the top and used the stone to raise a wall around the plateau sixty feet high. Within, a swarm of towers strained towards the sun like etiolated stems. Masses of domes, spires and minarets swelled from the rock. Rows of statues made vertebrae out of the rooftops. It was a fortress, but also a city, a bastion against the jungle.

  ‘Greetings!’ said the radio. ‘Fellow warriors, you are clear to land.’

  A window opened in one of the tallest towers and a woman leaned out, waving a reflective baton in each hand. Carveth lowered the ship, and they sank between the spires, past stern-faced statues and gun emplacements.

  Smith saw trucks like matchboxes in one of the courtyards. A missile turret swung to cover them, studded with lenses and glinting like an insect’s eye. The Pym landed between two immense buttresses, and as soon as the dust started to sink, medics and ground crew hurried towards them. Carveth flicked a switch, and the hold door flopped down like a drawbridge.

  They gathered their gear and left by the side airlock. Wainscott’s team were being directed, and in a few cases carried, towards a cathedral-sized building for debriefing. Only now, Smith saw how dirty the major’s people were, and how battered and customised their gear was. He wondered how much longer they could have gone on, and how much longer Wainscott – or Susan – would have allowed.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Carveth said, ‘I’m glad that’s over.’

  Rhianna nodded. ‘Definitely! I really don’t like having to wear boots. And now everyone is together again. Isn’t that –’

  One of the ground crew pointed at them. ‘Hey, look! Look who it is!’

  Others heard, stopped and turned to see. Suddenly, there were faces staring at the four of them.

  ‘I thought this mission was supposed to be secret!’ Carveth hissed. ‘Boss, did you tell anyone?’

  ‘Me? Certainly not.’ Smith managed to smile at the people. He felt both awkward and rather proud. ‘Good day to you all!’ he called. ‘Carry on!’

  ‘It’s Battle Girl!’ one of the men cried. ‘From off the telly!’

  Smith said, ‘What?’

  Rhianna scratched her head. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Oh God,’ Carveth said, ‘they’re looking at me! What did I do? It wasn’t me!’ she called. ‘I only just got here!’

  ‘She must have just come back from a mission,’ a second man said. He had a long pink scar across his forehead. ‘No more running, eh? Sock it to ’em!’

  ‘I think we had best go inside,’ Smith replied.

  Carveth looked at the people waving at her, swallowed hard and said, ‘Bloody right we should. Let’s hide in the cellar.’

  The courtyard was big enough to accommodate a row of Hellfires and a full repair bay. On the far side of the yard, a firing range had been set up and, next to that, a M’Lak rifleman was instructing a dozen human soldiers in close combat. Cranes protruded from the windows above them, lifting equipment to storerooms in the city-fortress.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ Carveth muttered, accelerating towards the nearest set of doors. ‘People are staring at me, and I haven’t even got drunk yet.’

  The entrance hall was dark, cool and the size of a spaceship hangar. Under a vaulted ceiling, dozens of logistics personnel consulted computers, plans and charts. Robots pushed markers across maps with precision tools specially converted from broomsticks. Printouts of Yullian officers glowered down from a board. Several had been marked with red crosses.

  Behind the stained glass window, a Hellfire rose on its thrusters and turned south towards the forest.

  A bald man stepped out of the shadows. He wore evening dress, and carried a tray of drinks. ‘Welcome, Captain Smith,’ he said, and gave them a small, thin smile. ‘Ladies. The management has been most keen to meet you all. Perhaps if you’d follow me...’ said the man, and he turned and walked away.

  Smith frowned, and followed. ‘Do you work here?’ he asked.

  The balding man looked at him. ‘Oh indeed, sir. I’m the butler.’

  ‘Butler?’

  ‘Of course, sir. A building such as this requires its own staff as a matter of course. This way.’

  Rhianna touched Smith’s arm. ‘Is he an android?’

  The butler led them into a second hall. Once, Smith saw, it had been a ballroom, with a bar at one end and a stage at the other. Light jazz still seeped from speakers high in the roof; the place had the acoustics of a swimming pool. Now camp beds ran down the length of the dancefloor, and someone had pinned a picture of a girl in a corset to the back of the stage.

  ‘We did have a housekeeper,’ the butler explained, ‘but she malfunctioned and tried to burn the building down. Regrettable.’ He frowned. ‘We appear to have mislaid the nanibot.’

  ‘Is that a very small robot?’ Smith asked.

  There was a sudden soft thump behind them. Smith turned, and saw a woman of about thirty rising from a crouching position on the carpet. She brushed down her dark skirt, adjusted her umbrella and approached.

  ‘She looks after the children,’ the butler said.

  ‘And here I am,’ she announced, with a sort of cheery firmness.

  ‘How did you get here?’ Smith asked.

  ‘Trade secret.’ She smiled pleasantly. ‘Hello to you all. I do hope you have a lovely stay here.’

  ‘I think you’d best get along, sirs,’ the butler added. ‘The caretaker is awaiting you.’

  Smith said, ‘Caretaker? I thought you said that you were all the staff.’

  ‘Oh, there’s always been a caretaker, sir,’ the butler replied, and he gestured along the hall.

  W stood in a doorway, teacup in hand, almost smiling. ‘May I have a word?’

  * * *

  The press office was on the fifth floor of the castle, halfway up a tower the colour of brie. French windows opened onto a verandah the size of a squash court.

  About a quarter of the verandah was taken up by a massive tea urn, a dented, grimy thing that reflected their faces like a funhouse mirror. Rhianna and Carveth took the only two chairs, Smith leaned against the wall, and Suruk lurked beside the door.

  ‘Well done in bringing Wainscott back,’ said W. ‘General Young will be debriefing him as we speak.’

  ‘Rather her than me.’

  ‘The official story is that Wainscott lost his mind and decided to throw a bit of a jolly in his underpants. That’s only partly true. Wainscott has been gathering information on Yullian excavation sites over a hundred-mile radius.’

  Smith remembered the scaffolding and the drilling apparatus.

  ‘The Yull naturally build warrens, of course.’ W filled the cups. ‘But they’ve been using proper drilling gear. They’re looking for something buried underground.’

  They paused to distribute the tea.

  ‘Back on Ravnavar, the Yull tried to set the various factions of the city against one another – robots, humans and M’Lak. They are trying to do the same thing here. As one unit, with General Young at the helm, we are formidable. But divided, we would simply fall apart.’

  Suruk rubbed his mandibles together thoughtfully. ‘Proceed.’

  ‘I think you know what I’m going to say,’ W said, looking at the alien.

  Suruk nodded. ‘Andor is said to be the resting place of Grimdall the Rebel. Some believe that he fled here to escape the Space Empire and recuperate. The story goes that his relics and his weapons are still here. Clearly the Yull believe it.’

  Carveth raised a hand. ‘Um, what are these relics? Are they like guns and stuff, or just a big heap
of skulls like Suruk has in his room?’

  Rhianna shook her head. ‘The relics of Grimdall are of vital importance to the M’Lak people, Polly. They’re irreplaceable cultural artefacts.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Suruk said. ‘A very big pile of skulls. And weapons.’

  ‘Something for all the family,’ Carveth replied, pulling a face. ‘Well, Suruk’s family.’

  W took a tobacco tin out of his jacket pocket. ‘It’s a matter of politics,’ he said. ‘Now that the rest of Earth is in the war, it’s very important that everyone is seen to be pulling their weight.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Smith replied. ‘Can’t have these foreign types slacking off, you know.’

  ‘Which is why they have been keeping a close eye on us.’

  ‘What?’ Smith cried. ‘How dare they? That’s outrageous!’

  ‘There are some who think that the lemming men have us on the back foot,’ the spy explained. ‘That since the Yull have caught us with our trousers down, our response has been half-arsed.’

  ‘Outrageous. An imbecile could tell you that it’s been fully arsed.’

  ‘We’re our own worst enemies,’ the spy said. ‘Our allies don’t think we’re doing enough, because we’re not making enough of a fuss. We have to make noise every so often to show them that we’re still here. And,’ he added, turning to look at Carveth, ‘your pilot here made some very encouraging noises indeed.’

  He turned to a bank of monitors and twiddled the knobs. The screens burst into life, and Carveth’s face was on all of them. ‘I don’t care how many lemming men I have to fight,’ she shrilled at the camera. ‘I’ll fight every single one of them. But no running – no more running!’

  ‘Oh no,’ Carveth said.

  The figure on the screen changed to a dark-haired man in civilian dress. ‘Top brass may not want to give anything away, but that’s the news from the troops on the ground – no more running. The Yull may be coming for the 112th Army, but it’s fighting spirit like that they’ll have to face –’

  The image froze. W said, ‘This went out on We Ask the Questions last Tuesday. I’m sure you recognise Lionel Markham.’ He looked at Carveth. ‘They call you Battle Girl,’ he added. ‘You’re quite a hit on the Ethernet.’