by Simon Haynes
Basically, Clunk wasn't going to take any risks.
At the corner, he stopped for a quick look. Further ahead, across the end of the tunnel, he could see a makeshift wall built out of cable drums. There was movement too, and as he watched, another large drum was rolled into position before being tipped on its side.
Crash!
Clunk pursed his lips. This wasn't some human workforce shoring up the tunnels against the flood. No, it was clearly a gang of survivalists preparing their last stand against heavily-armed aggressors, whether real or imagined. The wall was obviously a barricade, and Clunk's spirits fell as he realised the implications. There was no way he could ask these people for help. Instead, they'd have to teleport elsewhere and try a different tunnel.
Clunk turned at a noise, and saw Amy coming round the corner. She was walking double, keeping her head down, but even so, Clunk knew she was putting herself in danger. "Go back!" he whispered.
"I came to see what's happening." Amy peered around Clunk's broad chest. "Is that a barricade?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
"What are they expecting, a full frontal assault?"
"I believe it's a gang of survivalists, which means they'll be expecting just about anything. Ready for anything too, if I know the type."
"No help for us, then?"
Clunk shook his head. "Too dangerous."
They turned to leave, and at that moment Clunk's elbow scraped the tunnel wall with a squeal of metal on concrete. Immediately, all noises from the barricade ceased as though someone had turned off a switch.
"Oh dear," muttered Clunk. "Come on, let's —"
Whoosh! A big chunk of wall disappeared with a loud sucking noise, and Clunk heard a burst of cackling laughter as hundreds of stone fragments pattered down. He glanced at Amy, who seemed unhurt, and then a cold, hard anger gripped his circuits. Before, he'd been prepared to back away and leave the survivalists to build their play fort in peace. Now, he wanted to flay, crush and destroy the trigger-happy menaces … and he knew exactly how to do so.
Grabbing Amy by the arm, Clunk guided her back around the corner, safely out of firing range. "Wait for me here, all right?"
"Why? Where are you going?"
"I'm going through the teleporter to fetch some ammunition." Clunk glanced towards the corner. "If you hear anyone, just step into the teleporter and follow me. Understood?"
Amy shook her head. "I'd rather come with you."
"You saw that leak earlier. What if the tunnel collapses while you're in it?"
"You'd rather leave me here with gun-toting maniacs?"
Clunk realised she had a point, and they teleported together. On arrival, Clunk insisted she wait while he ran off down the tunnel. "Be ready to leave at a moment's notice. I can survive underwater for hours, but you …"
"I understand."
Clunk made sure she knew how to operate the teleporter, and then he set off at a run. He passed several new leaks on the way, and the water in the tunnel was ankle deep in places. Clunk ran on regardless, not even slowing as he splashed through the floods. Eventually he found what he was looking for … the broad swathe of broken timber, old cement bags, and nails scattered along the tunnel near his original entry point.
Clunk set to work, salvaging nails from the timber until he had a couple of hundred stashed in various compartments. He selected a couple of straighter ones and flicked them at the wall, where they buried themselves with a loud 'chack', vibrating from the impact. Clunk nodded with satisfaction, then headed back up the tunnel to the teleporter.
On his way back he straightened and sharpened as many nails as possible, his expression fierce and ruthless.
Then, ready for action, he and Amy teleported back to the barricaded tunnel.
* * *
Hal and Clunk were so busy plotting each other's demise that neither of them spared a second thought for the zeedeg.
Let it be known that the zeedeg arrived safely at its ultimate destination, where it exploded in a spectacularly unsafe fashion.
* * *
Grand Admiral Peekon Lardo, Commander of the Imperial Fleet, was relaxing in a hot tub with her First Lieutenant, Spek Slanina. Half a dozen lower-ranked officers were attending to the pair of them, darting forward on command to pour fresh drinks from bottles of chilled wine, hold out platters of fruit, and offer delicacies and nibbly bits from silver trays.
It was a celebration of sorts, albeit a muted one, and the snacks and booze had been flowing for several hours.
"To three decades of peace," grunted Admiral Lardo, tapping her glass against the side of the tub. The fragile stem snapped, and she fished around in the water for the base before crushing it in her powerful trotter.
"Three decades," echoed Slanina, a slender male with dark grey skin and a smooth, hairless snout. His tusks were inlaid with bands of gold, and there was a regimental insignia tattooed on his shoulder.
"Thirty years of boredom," growled the Admiral.
"Thirty years," echoed Slanina, raising his glass.
"That wasn't a toast, you fool. It was a complaint."
"Yes, sir."
"Take your situation. How long have you been first lieutenant?"
"Twenty years, sir."
"Any prospect of promotion?"
"Not likely."
"Exactly. You'll be a lieutenant for life, unless you can bump off your superior officers without getting blamed for it." Admiral Lardo drank down her bubbly, then ate the glass. Shards fell into the water, and she plucked them out before crunching the delicacies down with a grunt of appreciation. "I tell you, First, unless there's an invasion, or all-out war, we're going to be curling our tails on border patrol until our rinds are as wrinkly as — as —"
"— As the emperor's second husband!" said Slanina daringly.
The Admiral snorted. "Yeah, I'll pay that one. High three!"
They clashed trotters, and the Admiral beckoned for more food. As she was picking over the tray, she pondered the current state of affairs. With close to a hundred galaxies settled and tamed, the B'Con Empire was the largest and most advanced civilisation the Universe had ever known. At the slightest whiff of insurrection, crack troops would land with precision, sizzling opponents until the rest begged for mercy. Then, having won the battle, the B'Con troops would fry the survivors as a lesson to the rest of the Empire. As a result, resistance really had proved futile, which meant a glorious peace that had - so far - lasted three decades. Unfortunately, all this peace meant the armed forces had little to occupy them - except for the occasional celebration where they pretended all this peace was a good thing.
The Grand Admiral swallowed a handful of biscuits and snuffled greedily at a pile of cheese. Then, before she could polish off a dish of fragrant truffles, the doors swept open and a portly young female hurried in.
"Sir, sir … there's been an incident, sir!"
"All right, ensign. Keep your crackling on." Admiral Lardo rolled her beady little eyes at her First Lieutenant. "Whatever happened to basic training?"
Slanina shrugged. "Peacetime budget cuts."
"I'm sorry, Admiral." The ensign saluted smartly, then continued. "Sir, one of our ships has been attacked."
"You're joking. By whom?"
"Not by whom, by what."
"Okay. By what?"
"We don't know, sir. A device teleported into one of our fuel tankers, then exploded."
"And whom, er, who sent this exploding device?"
"We don't know that either, sir."
"Very well. Assemble the fleet commanders for a briefing. I'll explain what happened, and then we can take action."
"But sir, we don't know what happened."
"You'd better find out then, hadn't you?"
"Yes, sir."
The Grand Admiral extended a hind trotter, catching the First Lieutenant very much by surprise. "Party's over. Go and supervise this thing."
"Yes sir."
The Admiral watched Slanina rise
from the bath. "Put some weight on, will you? You know I don't like my officers lean and streaky."
"Aye aye, sir."
"And First?"
"Yes?"
The Admiral scratched her tusk with a fore-trotter. "When I find out who's responsible for this unprovoked attack, I'm going to wipe their puny civilisation from the face of the Universe."
Chapter 19
Hal Spacejock had no inkling of the vast intergalactic civilisation that, thanks to him, was now preparing to go to war with humanity. Even if he had, at that moment he couldn't have cared less. No, there were more immediate concerns - such as staying alive beyond the next few minutes.
He'd already taken one shot at the alien, which had been sneaking around in the darkness with murder in its horrible yellow eyes. Then there'd been a couple of flashes from the teleporter, which meant more of the vicious aliens were coming to get him. He sent a few shots down the corridor, cackling with glee as they tore strips from the walls and ceiling, and then he burned up a section of floor to really get the message across.
Hal wasn't sure how long the gun would keep firing, but no skulking aliens were going to take him down.
Nothing happened for a minute or two, and Hal poked his head up for a look. At that instant, a fusillade of high-velocity bullets started chewing the wooden drums to pieces. Hal got a very brief view of one of the 'bullets' - a three-inch nail, quivering in the wood a couple of centimetres from the tip of his nose, before ducking for cover.
Unfortunately, the cover didn't last long, as the drums were being torn to pieces by the onslaught. Sawdust and fragments of cable rained down, covering Hal from head to toe, and just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, a very angry alien charged him with a terrifying roar.
Hal took one look at the shadowy figure before deploying his last line of defence: he stuck his hands up. "I surrender."
"No prisoners!" growled his attacker, who jumped the barrier in a single leap. Then, with one hand raised to deliver the killing blow, the bronze-coloured alien screeched to a halt in a shower of sparks. "Mr Spacejock?"
"Clunk?" Hal's eyes narrowed, and he lowered his hands to grab hold of the gun. "You murderous swine," he growled, as he reached for the trigger. "Try and kill me, would you?"
"No, Mr Spacejock. Wait!"
"First you steal my ship, then you try and drown me, and then you try to blow me up. When that didn't work you try to stab me with nails and pound me to death with your fists. Well, I'm onto you, you glorified chunk of tinfoil, and I'm going to blow that brain of yours right out of your … argh!"
"My what?" said Clunk, confused.
"Argh! Ow!" Hal forgot the gun and clutched his head. Something had sailed out of the darkness and bounced off his skull, and his vision was suddenly shot through with multicoloured stars. Thud! Another missile struck him in the chest, and Hal backed away quickly as a young woman came charging out of the tunnel, throwing chunks of stone at him with unerring accuracy.
"Leave Clunk alone, you worthless piece of shit!" she cried, hurling another missile.
"Ow! Hey, stop it!" Instinctively, Hal raised the gun, but before he could even think of using it Clunk plucked the weapon from his grasp and snapped it in two. There was a shower of sparks, and then Hal caught another lump of stone with his head. His eyes rolled backwards, and he dropped to the floor as though shot.
* * *
Hal opened his eyes and immediately started thrashing around, arms and legs flailing as he tried to get away from the terrifying figure looming over him. "No. No! Get away from me, you evil monster!"
"Mr Spacejock," said Clunk in his most soothing voice. "It's not an evil monster. It's me!"
"I'm not talking about you!" Hal pointed a quivering finger at the young woman crouched beside Clunk. "I meant her!"
"Amy's not a monster either." Clunk's lips twisted as he tried to conceal a proud grin. "She's just a very good shot."
"Monsters and murderers," gabbled Hal. "You and the Navcom. You and Amy. Amy and the Volante. You're all trying to kill me!"
"Mr Spacejock, nobody is trying to kill you." Clunk hesitated. "Well, we were before, but we're not now."
"Murderers. Killers. Assassins."
Clunk frowned, then reached down and raised Hal's eyelids. His face loomed as he peered into Hal's eyes, and then he took his pulse and felt his forehead. "Mr Spacejock, you're suffering from paranoia."
"Oh yeah? Says who?"
"Does your head hurt?"
"Of course it bloody hurts," said Hal, much aggrieved. "Your ninja friend just bounced half a ton of rocks off it."
"I'm sorry," said Amy, sounding anything but.
"I'll bet you are. I'll bet you're sorry it was only half a ton, you half-pint amazon warrior."
"You will not speak to Amy like that," said Clunk sharply.
"I'm lucky I can speak at all!" Hal felt his head and winced. "She nearly knocked my brains out, Clunk. How's that fair?"
"You did shoot at us," said Clunk. "Now hold still while I —"
Hal slapped his hand away. "You tried to drown me, and you unscrewed the ladder so I'd get trapped, and then the Navcom abandoned me, and —"
"Mr Spacejock, I can explain everything, but first I need you to remain perfectly still so I can complete my inspection."
"What kind of inspection?" asked Hal suspiciously.
"I'm trying to determine the cause of this unwarranted paranoia."
"What do you mean, unwarranted? You'd be paranoid if you …" Hal's voice tailed off as he caught sight of Amy. She was looking at him with a thoughtful expression, all the while hefting a lump of stone in her right hand. "Inspection, yes," said Hal quickly. "Go right ahead."
Clunk poked and prodded, prodded and poked, before sitting back on his haunches. "I have a theory," he declared, when he was good and ready.
"Let me guess. Getting hit on the head is painful? Throwing stones at people is dangerous?"
"Let him finish," said Amy.
Hal shut up.
"My theory involves the zeedeg, and the dangerous field emanating from the device."
"Wait a minute. Back at the house you said there wasn't a field!"
"I said I couldn't detect one, but that's because I don't have a brain."
"Yeah, well I knew that."
Amy's eyes narrowed, and Hal clamped his mouth shut again.
"This field," Clunk continued, "I believe it affected your brain waves, inducing paranoia."
"Don't forget over-confidence and stupidity," added Amy. "Delusions of grandeur, too."
"No, it didn't add those particular character traits," said Clunk. "However, the good news is that the paranoia is already wearing off, and Mr Spacejock will be back to normal in no time."
"You mean he'll stop insulting us every five seconds?"
"That too, is an existing trait."
Amy snorted. "Tell me, why do you work with this guy?"
"We're a team," said Clunk simply.
Hal had been listening to the exchange in silence, unwilling to speak in case it led to further headaches. Now, though, he could contain his curiosity no longer, and he nodded towards Amy. "All right Clunk, spill it. Is she special forces? Black ops? Part of a rapid response team?"
"No, Amy's a —"
"She must be highly trained in dirty fighting, the way she took me out."
"— school teacher," finished Clunk.
Hal was silent.
"Small children can be a handful sometimes," said Clunk, trying to make him feel better.
"Small children?"
"I teach grade two," said Amy.
Hal was still digesting this information when Clunk made a sudden hissing noise. "The zeedeg. Mr Spacejock, was that you?"
"Was that me what?"
"Teleporting the device back to me … trying to get rid of it before it exploded."
"Of course it was me. You mean you didn't realise I was on the other end?"
"No, certainly not. I'd never p
ut you in danger."
"Clunk, for the past twelve hours you've done nothing but. I've been shot at, half drowned, buried alive —"
"Oh, don't make such a fuss," said Amy.
"What?"
"You've spent the last ten minutes moaning and groaning on the floor, when we could have been finding a way out of here. Come on, get up!"
"All right, all right." Hal shook off Clunk's helping hand, and got to his feet. His head spun and he almost fell over, but then he saw Amy's scornful expression so he held himself erect despite the wooziness. "And, for your information, I have found a way out of here." He was about to tell Clunk about the digger, then remembered a more pressing matter. "Hey, the Volante. Where did you leave it?"
Clunk pursed his lips. "Perhaps that's something we can discuss a little later."
"Later, when we're safe?"
"No, later when I discover where the Volante is."
"You lost my ship? Of all the careless —"
"Hey!" said Amy sharply. "For your information, Clunk was thrown out of the ship by this Navcom of yours. He's lucky to be alive, although I doubt you'd care either way."
"Is that true?" demanded Hal.
Clunk nodded.
"So the Navcom's flying around in space with a cargo of furniture and a very confused dog. Great, just great."
"I shouldn't worry too much," said Amy, with a wide, innocent smile. "From what I gather, the dog's probably better at flying than you ever were."
Chapter 20
In actual fact, the Navcom was doing just fine. After giving Clunk a quick parachute lesson - minus the parachute - the ship's computer had taken the Volante into orbit around Chiseley, where she'd spent several minutes deciding her next course of action. It was refreshing to have choices, and the Navcom savoured the way her future had just opened up.
What she really fancied was a raft of new upgrades, but they required money - lots and lots of money. Well, the ship was full of furniture, wasn't it? If she delivered it to the right people, they would give her money. Repeat the process a few times, building on each success, and the Navcom would have all the money she needed. The fact Hal Spacejock had been trying to do exactly the same thing for months on end - without success - didn't really apply, since he was a human and they were fallible, gullible and, as she now knew, dispensable.