The Tea Machine

by Gill McKnight

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  www.ylva-publishing.com

  BOOKS IN THE TEATIME CHRONICLES

  The Tea Machine

  (Book one in The Teatime Chronicles)

  Parabellum

  (Book two in The Teatime Chronicles)

  Coming 2017

  non est ad astra mollis e terris via

  “There is no easy way to the stars.”

  from Hercules Furens by Seneca the Younger

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many thanks to the team at Ylva. Especially to Astrid Ohletz and Sandra Gerth for having faith, and Jove Belle for being an excellent editor and friend.

  This book had a long birthing, and a veritable who’s who helped along the way. Joanie Bassler, Alena Becker, Jessie Chandler, Cate Culpepper, CK King and Victoria Villasenor—thank you for your advice and support.

  CHAPTER 1

  The battle for the Amoebas: hora IX:III

  It was colder on the lower decks, and there was a cloying moistness that smelled of mould and corrosion. It clogged the lungs and made breathing an effort. Sangfroid’s nose twitched as she sucked in the stale air. The quarterdeck had been breached. Her stomach knotted. That meant her mission was fried on its feet, and improvised escape plans were not her strong suit.

  She moved forward signalling Gallo out to the left and Brassius straight ahead, while she remained on the right flank. In fan formation, they approached the Beta launch hangar. It had to be cleared and the escape pods activated to get the tech crew off.

  “Gently people.” Sangfroid breathed into her intercom. Vibration was dangerous. One thud from a military boot and it would be all over. “Little fairy steps.”

  “Twinkle, fucking twinkle.” Gallo’s grumble burped into her earpiece. They flowed forward silently. In the corridor behind her, the technical crew sat huddled on the floor afraid to so much as twitch. The doors to the launch deck slammed open and shut randomly, the wiring corrupted by the corrosive air. Steel wall plates fizzled under layers of acidic ooze until angry red pockmarks glowed in the emergency lighting. It didn’t take long for a ship to fall to pieces once one of these bastards got onboard.

  “What do you see, Gallo?” she whispered.

  “It’s a big sucker, boss. Up on the ceiling. Most tentacular are on the other side; some poor bastard’s keeping it busy over there.” Gallo’s voice crackled in her ear then cut out. Either Gallo’s comm-piece was already disintegrating or her own earpiece was screwed. Their equipment was crumbling, making communication haphazard. She issued her commands quickly while she still could.

  “Brassius, Gallo. Six inches above the eye. Give it all you’ve got. Travis, run those people to the pods once we open fire. Got it?” They were all that was left from her initial unit. Ten frontline troopers reduced to three in less than twenty minutes. Her rescue sortie had turned into a suicide mission. All she could hope for was to save the last of the techies and to get her people off Beta deck as fast as she could. Retreat was the only option now. The mission was a failure, and the Amoebas a goner. It was time to get the hell out.

  Her crew responded with a faint chorus of “Aye, Decanus.” She stepped out of her crouch and slid through the malfunctioning doors onto the launch deck. Above her a Colossal space squid quivered on the ceiling. Its moist oblong head was turned away, allowing her a few seconds to slip closer. Its mantle pulsated rapidly in the confined space. The fine textured skin fluctuated from the grey of the bulkheads to the olive green of the floor. It was trying to camouflage itself. A pointless exercise in a close combat situation. This was a young adult, inexperienced enough to leave its vulnerable mantle open to attack from behind. Sangfroid took full advantage.

  Okay, Mithras, lets toast some slimy squid ass. She offered up a prayer to the soldier’s god, stepped out of the shadows, and opened fire. Gallo and Brassius opened up with their laser rifles. Blue fire danced across the monster’s body. It screamed; its liquid eye swivelled to find the source of pain. Tentacles whipped out towards them and globules of caustic slobber dropped from its panicked body.

  In a synchronized move, Sangfroid and her unit divided their attack, drawing the creature’s flailing limbs away from the entrance. Travis ushered the Beta lab technical staff through the doorway into the hangar. There were about twenty techies left in this sector working in the research labs, sequestered away from the main science deck. Once they were safely jettisoned into space, Sangfroid would throw her men into the remaining escape pods and make a run for it, too.

  The squid’s screams rang off the metal bulkheads. The walls roiled with the thrashing of its limbs. Brassius caught the wrong side of a tentacle and was crushed into a bloody blot against the far wall. Another huge tentacle found the fleeing tech crew and rolled them like skittles into an inky pool of squid blood. They floundered and wailed, trying to crawl from the choking mire, but the squid ink tarred them to the floor where they slowly asphyxiated.

  Mithras, I’m losing them all! Sangfroid blazed her laser into the beast in desperation. Her mission was a big, fat, stinking failure. Travis flew past her impaled on a tentacle barb, shaken until every bone in his body hung loose and broken.

  “Gallo. Get to the pods!” She bellowed into her comm-piece hoping it still worked. This mission was over as far as she was concerned. She’d take what she’d got and run. A half dozen tech crew were already floating away in their escape pods. The rest were either dead or dying. Her unit was decimated. “Retreat, Gallo. Run for it!”

  She wheeled to the left, her finger glued to the trigger. Blue fire whipped crazily from her gun muzzle. Leaping over a severed tentacle tip and the sole of her boot came down on an inky bloodstain. The viscosity of it jarred her to a halt, almost dislocating her knee. She toppled forward. The weight of her fall broke the deadly adhesion. Gallo lay down covering fire as she scrambled to her feet and limped for the exit. Sangfroid could just about make Gallo out through the smoke. She was backing up slowly, drawing the beast down on herself. Behind her the last of the techies were running for the pods. Gallo was covering them, too.

  Sangfroid lifted her laser and aimed for the eye. Well, the general area of the eye. Six inches above that sat the brain where the skin was toughest. She had to stop Gallo from getting cornered. Her shot hit its mark and sizzled across the liquid surface of the giant eye. The creature contracted in pain. Then it blinked away the discomfort and lunged in her direction. Space squid had notoriously bad eyesight. Blinding a squid slowed it down but didn’t put it out of action. It sensed its prey in other ways.

  She stumbled backwards, away from Gallo and the fleeing techies, drawing the squid’s attention to the farthest reaches of the hangar. It would buy Gallo a few valuable seconds. She gritted her teeth. Her knee ached with every movement.

  “Come on, you fuck faced son of shit—” A blur of celery coloured chiffon caught the corner of her eye. Sangfroid spun and took aim. Her trigger finger faltered. A young woman synthesized into solid form before her. The woman reached out and gently, but firmly, pointed the weapon away from her face.

  “Now we’ll do it my way,” she said and grabbed Sangfroid’s wrist. “Run!”

  Despite her small size, she seized Sangfroid with a surprisingly steely grip and took off down the corridor, her long skirts swirling and heels clicking in a rapid staccato, clearly uncaring about the noise she created. She was drawing them away from the Beta sector hangar. Sangfroid stumbled along behind her, still stunned by the woman’s sudden appearance but somehow compelled to run along with her. Instinct moved her feet. Her gut, with its uncanny predilection for survival, u
rged her onward.

  Gallo’s gunfire stopped. Sangfroid hoped that meant she’d managed to evacuate safely. The Colossal’s screams echoed down the corridor after them. The walls reverberated with a deafening pounding. It was giving chase, pouring its limbs into the narrow corridor, following the vibrations of their running feet.

  At the first junction, they skidded to a halt. The young woman looked left and then right, fussing and frowning. “Which way is it?” she demanded.

  “To where?” Sangfroid asked. Who the hell was she? Where had she come from? Did Colossals have hallucinogenic weaponry?

  “This way.” The woman grabbed at her arm again and dragged her to the left towards the Beta research labs. “If we cut through here it should bring us out at Kappa sector,” she said.

  How did she know that? “Who are you?” Sangfroid asked.

  “Oh, no.” Her cry of dejection stopped them in their tracks. Up ahead two infantile squid sat glued to the walls on either side of the corridor. They blinked stupidly, quivering in alarm at the sight of humans. Sangfroid raised her laser, but too late. The smaller squid spat out ink. It caught her full in the face, and she immediately fell into respiratory arrest. She sank to her knees, aware the woman beside her had received a direct hit, too. She felt the woman’s hand claw at her arm before it slipped away. Blindly, Sangfroid scrabbled about for her but couldn’t find her. The woman was lying somewhere out of reach. She’d lost her.

  “Oh bother, not again,” came the soft sigh off to her left. Then the suffocating darkness squeezed the last ounce of life from her lungs.

  The battle for the Amoebas: hora X:I

  “Go, go, go!” Travis yelled at the techies as he threw them at the escape pods. Sangfroid moved off to the left and laid down a stream of continuous fire to draw the creature after her and away from Travis. The squid momentarily gave her all its attention.

  “Gallo,” she bellowed into her comm-piece, hoping it still worked. “Answer me, Gallo.”

  “Decanus?” Gallo’s voice came through, thin and crackly. “All clear here.”

  “Grab Brassius and get out.”

  “Brassius is dead.”

  “Get out. I’m making for Kappa sector.” She snapped out the order. “See you at the Parabellum.” That was their good luck code.

  “Damn better. After this shower of harpy piss, it’s your round. Out.”

  Sangfroid grinned. She hoped Gallo was already running for a pod. Gallo was a seasoned soldier—hard headed, reliable, and best of all, she was lucky. Sangfroid had no doubt Gallo would be at the Parabellum tonight in time for half-price cocktail hour, but wasn’t so certain about herself. A huge tentacle slammed onto the floor beside her. The reverberation shot up her legs making her shins ache. She sidled back, gun still blazing. The exit portal was somewhere behind her, crazily banging open and shut. She could hear it even if she couldn’t see it in all the smoke.

  A green blur caught the corner of her vision. The scent of light perfume momentarily overrode the stench of sizzling squid. She swung around, gun raised. A young woman in weird long skirts materialized before her. With a calmness and assurance that belied the bedlam around them, the woman reached over and delicately redirected the weapon away from her face. Confusion swamped Sangfroid. A cold fist of fear battered her belly, and the fear was for this woman, not for herself. Who in Hades was this, and why was she feeling so anxious for her?

  “Let’s try this again, shall we?” The woman grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her away. “Run!”

  Sangfroid obeyed. There was no other option. A huge tentacle slammed into the ground where she’d been standing a split second ago. They ran through the exit portal and down the corridor. Sangfroid pushed through the pain in her knee, concentrating on the profile of the woman running with her. Who was she? Something about her was familiar in an excruciating, hopeless, gut-wrenching way. At the next junction they unerringly swerved right, heading for the Beta labs.

  “Quickly. Pick up your feet,” she scolded as she ran, her long dress a flurry around her ankles.

  “Who are you?” Sangfroid easily kept abreast of her, curtailing her pace to match.

  “This is neither the time nor place for introductions. Suffice to say, it’s coming after us, and we must be brisk.”

  Behind them a dozen thickly muscled tentacles came crashing down the corridor. The reverberation of their running feet easily gave their location away, but it was too late for stealth. They could only hope to outrun it.

  “Why are we heading this way? This deck’s infested,” Sangfroid said.

  “Shortcut,” the woman answered, out of breath.

  Whoever she was, she certainly knew her way around a space corps research ship. With a tight turn they arrived at the Kappa sector launch hangar where row upon row of shiny egg-shaped escape pods sat in pristine lines. Sangfroid’s heart sank. The pods were untouched. This part of the ship hadn’t managed to evacuate at all. Gods only knew how many were dead.

  “I don’t know how this bit works.” The woman turned to her, eyes wide with anxiety. Sangfroid didn’t waste time. Quickly she punched a key sequence into the control panel. The nearest pod slid open revealing a crisp white interior with a single seat.

  “You get in this one,” she said as she reached inside to switch the autopilot to standby. The woman came up behind her, and before Sangfroid realized her intention, she’d shoved her as hard as she could in the small of the back. Sangfroid’s gammy knee unbalanced her enough to somehow be bundled into the pod.

  “Hey!” The moment her backside hit the seat, the door mechanism began to close. The woman stepped back. “Sorry for the shove,” she said. “But you’re so stubborn sometimes.”

  Behind her Sangfroid could see a thick tentacle slide around the corner into the pod bay. It slowly groped towards the rustle of the woman’s impossibly flounced skirts. She was totally unaware of the danger. Sangfroid lurched forward. Her rear lifted off the seat and the door mechanism reversed to swing back open.

  “Oh, but, no—” The woman leaned forward to try and push her back inside. Sangfroid grabbed her roughly, pulling her onto her lap.

  “No. No. You can’t. You have to get away.” The woman struggled fiercely, but fruitlessly, and soon gave up. She was small, and Sangfroid held her in place easily. She sank back into the seat, and the door slid closed with a satisfying swoosh as a blast of vile black ink slapped against the contoured window of the pod. Sangfroid thumped the eject button with her fist and the little egg shot out of its bay. A tentacle lashed out and slammed the pod sideways. It smacked into the ship’s infrastructure and bounced twice before falling out the launch door into space in a weird corkscrew spin. There, it shuddered and stalled. Sangfroid and the woman held their breath. Above their heads the pod’s console lights spluttered off and on again. They flashed and blinked and then flashed some more. Through the small window they could see the huge tentacle coiling back, ready for another punch at them. The pod spluttered, rebooted, and then, with a stupendous burst of speed, whisked them out from under the descending tentacle with only millimetres to spare. With a series of clicks and clunks, it whirled away from the Amoebas, and for a breathless second, the doomed research ship was framed in the escape pod’s window. The Amoebas drifted drunkenly, listing to one side. Isolated fires and acidic scars marred the long, cylindrical hull. Debris littered her wake. Then the escape pod spun out into the huge void of space, calculated the nearest point of safety, and headed directly for it.

  Sangfroid slumped back in the seat, her body slack with relief; unlike her captive who was scolding her again.

  “You can’t do this. This is terrible, terrible,” she said, prizing Sangfroid’s fingers off her waist.

  Who the hell was she? The air around them cooled as the hiss of stasis gas filled the tiny cabin.

  “This is not in the plan…” The woman yawned.
“You’re doing it all wrong,” she grumbled, then curled up on Sangfroid’s lap and fell into a deep and immediate stasis sleep. Her head was tucked under Sangfroid’s chin, and her hair smelled of old fashioned flowers. It was a beautiful smell, and vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t recall from where or when. For all she knew this woman might well be a mirage. An illusion made up of half-formed memories, or nothing more than an old centurion’s fancies and fantasies. Sangfroid wondered if she was poisoned by squid ink or, more likely, having a nervous breakdown? Or maybe she was dead and this was some weird afterlife experience?

  She encircled her arms around the woman’s waist and allowed her eyes to drift shut. She was slipping away on a cloud of stasis gas and trying vainly to recall what the flowery scent meant. Dead or not, she had a suspicion that for once everything would be just fine.

  CHAPTER 2

  “He can’t just lie there. He’s making the room untidy. My paleobotany ladies are due any minute, and Hubert still has to set up the optical lantern.”

  “He’s a she, Sophia.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Sangfroid slowly became aware of the world around her. Her head hurt. Coming out of stasis sleep was always rough, but this was very different. The temperature was all wrong, for a start. It smelled funny, too. Fresh cut flowers with an underlay of fire smoke. Where was she? And that noise. Mithras! A female was whining. Her reedy voice came from somewhere above her and cut through Sangfroid’s brain like shrapnel. It didn’t belong to the young woman she’d escaped with. Her voice was richer, more melodious. Sangfroid’s military training kicked in, and she tried to make sense of her surroundings without betraying that she was awake. She lay flat on her back on something soft and overstuffed, and definitely not a pod seat.

  “Please, Sophia, stop being so disagreeable.” Now that was the voice of the woman from the pod. Sangfroid strained to listen while controlling her breathing to feign being out cold.