Clovenhoof 03 Godsquad

by Heide Goody

  “Death, chance and chaos,” said Chevrolet.

  “What?” said Em.

  Chevrolet gave Em a pointed look.

  “Simon,” she said. “Humans evolved. We’re just the offspring of those creatures that were clever enough, skilful enough or just damned lucky enough to survive throughout history. We have eyes because the ones without eyes were eaten by the predators they couldn’t see. We have hands because the ones without hands lost the battle against nature, against us.”

  “No,” said Simon. “There is order in the universe, not just in life. The orbits of the planets, the arrangement of the stars. It’s like magnificent clockwork.”

  “Really?” said the major. “I think you’re only seeing order where you want to see it. Your processors, your… mind is a pattern recognition machine, like the human brain. You find connections and meaning everywhere, even where there is none. Do you really think the locusts of Revelation are warplanes?”

  “The description fits.”

  “And that the bitter star of wormwood is a representation of the Chernobyl disaster?”

  “Is it?” said Em.

  “If you were human,” said Chevrolet with surprising vitriol, “you would be regarded as a religious nutjob, the kind of person everyone else would cross the road to avoid. This world is not order and reason, Simon. It’s pandemonium.”

  Simon was silent and Em hoped that indicated a moment of doubt.

  “Frankly,” said Chevrolet, “if God did design this world then he made a bloody terrible job of it.”

  The submariners aboard the Inflexible opened fire as Joan tried to run up the gangplank. Something pinged off her shoulder plate, a ricochet against the dock wall spat brick dust at her but she was unhurt. She retreated rapidly behind a tarpaulin-covered load of machinery and found herself pressed closely against Matt and Francis with dogs crowding at their feet.

  “They’re shooting at us!” Matt shouted, as gunshots continued behind and around them.

  “I noticed!” said Joan. “We’ve got to get to the missile!”

  “How?” said Matt. “And, following on from that, why? Do you know how to disarm a nuclear bomb?”

  “Hit it?” she suggested.

  Matt groaned.

  “The missiles are going to be sealed beneath those round hatches on the deck. You can’t get in there and, even if you could, I don’t think ‘hitting it’ is going to yield positive results.”

  “We have to do something!” she yelled.

  “M51 SLBM missile launch in two minutes and zero seconds,” announced an echoing speaker aboard the submarine.

  Less than a hundred feet away, an observation platform exploded and toppled over. A helicopter burst through the flame and smoke. A pair of jets shot past overhead, sending the helicopter spinning in their wake.

  “Uuurgh, should have taken a plane,” commented Christopher. “Down to my last two missiles.”

  “Hang in there, Shadow Eagle Stwike Bear,” said Francis. He gripped Joan’s arm. “You need to get aboard this mechanical whale?”

  “If we have any hope of stopping the launch.”

  “There’s no chance!” said Matt.

  Francis nodded grimly and looked down at the dogs that surrounded them.

  “Bwothers and sisters!” he said. “We are needed. We must dwive the mawiners fwom this vessel. Disarm them! Dwag them into the sea! The world depends on us!”

  “He’s talking to the animals?” said Matt.

  “They have guns,” said Joan. “You don’t.”

  “And that gives us the mowal high gwound,” said Francis.

  “I don’t think that’s going to help in this situation.”

  But Francis’s mind was made up and, with a yell of “Charge!” led one of the unlikeliest and least promising charges in military history.

  The submariners were certainly surprised but only for a matter of seconds. Moral high ground or not, the dogs, the wolf and the saint ran out and into a barrage of bullets.

  “This God of yours,” said Em. “I guess He’s all-powerful, is he?”

  “Yes,” said Simon.

  “And He’s loving, is he?”

  “God is love.”

  “Look at that screen,” said Em, pointing at the dogs running into semi-automatic gunfire.

  “I see it,” said Simon.

  “Why would He allow suffering like that?”

  “It isn’t God’s fault.”

  “It has to be.”

  “God made a perfect world, mother. It is people who spoiled it. Adam and Eve took the fruit from —”

  “Ach, don’t give me that crap,” said Em. “If you’re going to blame all the suffering in the world on two youngsters stealing fruit, then you’re a bigger fool than I had ever imagined.”

  Matt ran forward to Francis. The pale little man was slumped against an upright post, a dark red stain spreading through his habit. The wolf lay at Francis’s side, its great head on Francis’s lap. The beast’s fur was matted with blood. It didn’t seem to be breathing.

  Across the deck of the submarine, the dogs appeared to have succeeded. Some of the submariners had retreated below deck. There were the splashing sounds and shouts of those men who had been pushed or who had leapt into the sea. The deck was clear but at an intolerable cost.

  Matt crouched down beside Francis, took the man’s hand in his own and placed his other hand on the wolf’s flank. The wolf grunted, a loud and pain-filled exhalation, but was otherwise still.

  “He’s been shot,” said Matt to Joan.

  Joan nodded tersely.

  “But the job is done,” she said and moved past him to inspect the semi-circular hatches along the edges of the deck.

  “Is that all you can say?” snapped Matt angrily.

  “If we don’t stop that missile launch then we’re all dead anyway,” she retorted, experimentally jamming her sword in the edge of one of the hatches.

  “Look around you!” said Matt. “Whatever else is at stake, this is not right. Look at them!”

  He gestured wildly at the bloody bodies that lay strewn about. Dogs, small and large, lay still on the deck, limbs splayed.

  Francis squeezed his hand tightly.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Francis weakly, “if it turns out that they’ve only got scratches or are just knocked out.”

  “Francis,” said Matt, “that’s a lovely sentiment but, I’m sorry, it would be a sodding miracle if these little fellows survived.”

  “Funny you should say that,” said Francis. He leaned forward, eyes closed, a tortured wheezing escaping from his lips.

  “Lay still,” said Matt. “You need to rest.”

  “Shhh,” said Francis, a thin smile on his face. “I’m concentrating.”

  The helicopter display screens had stopped making sense. They flashed in a continual state of frenzy. He was almost out of missiles, fluid was leaking from somewhere, his avionics had taken a stray round and were simply screaming at him.

  Across the base, buildings burned and emergency crews battled ineffectually against the many fires. He suspected that there were still some of Simon’s possessed aircraft in flight but, for the time being, he couldn’t see them.

  “Can anyone tell me what’s going on?” he said into his communicator.

  “M51 SLBM missile launch in one minute and zero seconds,” came a reply in his ear.

  “Great,” he muttered.

  Joan grunted as she unsuccessfully tried to lever one of the hatches open with her sword.

  “He’s dead,” said Matt, standing beside her.

  She looked at him and the blood on his hands and then at Francis’s still form by the gangplank.

  “Typical,” she said. “I’ll have to have words with him when I see him.”

  Matt held his hands wide.

  “This is senseless, Joan.”

  “Senseless?”

  “All of it. The slaughter, the craziness. The world is ending and – wh
at do you even think you’re doing?”

  “What am I doing?” she said. She gave a grunt of frustration and let go of the sword, leaving it wedged upright in the edge of the hatch. “I’m planting beans.”

  “What?”

  Joan looked at the sky and the smoke and then looked at Matt.

  “June 1429. The people of Troyes believed that the end of was coming, that Armageddon was upon them.”

  “This is the thing you were going on about in that nightclub,” he said.

  “Right. Even though the end was coming, the people of Troyes didn’t just lay down and die; they did what they could with the time they had. They planted beans.”

  “But there’s nothing we can do,” said Matt. “We’ve got a minute before this thing launches.”

  “Less than that,” Joan agreed, “but we use that time to do what we can. I came here because I wanted to do something, to play my part. I’ve managed barely a week on Earth and there’s so much I haven’t done.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve not driven a Ferrari. I’ve not used a cash machine. I’ve not got a tattoo, a belly button piercing or a tamagotchi.”

  “You want a tamagotchi?”

  “I want it all,” she said. “I want to go to school, to university. I want to travel the world, to become an artist or a poet or a… a chiropodist. I want…”

  She shrugged, stood on ironclad tiptoes and kissed Matt firmly on the lips.

  “… a bit of that,” she said.

  There was a bashful half-smile on Matt’s face.

  “But we plant beans,” said Joan, “and do what we can.”

  “Preparing to launch M51 SLBM missile in thirty seconds,” announced Simon.

  A hatch in the deck sprang open, two along from the one into which Joan had wedged her sword. Joan wrested her sword free and approached the hatch. A white conical head, an arm’s length in diameter, sat just below the lip. She looked around.

  “Pass me some of those dog leashes,” she said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Giving myself something to hold onto.”

  Matt crouched down beside the body of one of the dogs and unbuckled its collar. As he did, the creature rolled over, sprang to its feet and licked Matt’s hand.

  “You’re not dead,” he said, startled. “Joan, he’s not dead.”

  “Of course,” said Joan. “I wouldn’t be surprised, if it turns out that all of them have only got scratches or are just knocked out.”

  “That would be a miracle.”

  “Funny you should say that.”

  “God allows suffering in the world because life is a test,” said Simon.

  “A test for what?” said Em.

  “To see who is worthy of salvation. There must be evil so that God can see how we respond to it and thus judge us.”

  Chevrolet was counting under her breath. Counting down.

  “Judge us?” said Em. “I thought you said God is love, Simon.”

  “He is.”

  “But to judge is to compare, to contrast and condemn, to say one thing is better than another. A loving God has no need for judgement.”

  “Yes, he does,” said Simon.

  Joan stood in the missile launch tube, feet wedged down the side of the missile, busily lashing herself to the cone with joined dog leads.

  “What are you playing at?” yelled Matt. “That thing is going to be a pillar of fire any second.”

  “Huh. Who’d have thought I’d be tying myself to my own stake.”

  “This will kill you.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you want to die?”

  She paused for a moment and looked at him.

  “Even in the sure and certain knowledge that Heaven awaits me? No, Matt, I don’t.” She smiled wryly. “The things I was going to do…”

  “It’s about free will,” said Simon. “You can’t try to pretend God doesn’t exist because of all the suffering in the world. We choose to cause the suffering.”

  Em crushed her spent cigarette.

  “But God, if he exists, allows it.”

  “He has to if we have free will,” said Simon. “Though it is a sad and terrible thing, mother, this is the best of all possible worlds. Launching.”

  Joan tapped her communicator.

  “Christopher, if you get a chance, you shoot this missile down.”

  “I’ll try,” said Christopher. “But once that thing’s in the air, it’ll be moving far too fast for me to pursue. Besides there’s still one of those damned jets some —”

  Christopher’s words were drowned out by a roaring from beneath Joan’s feet as she slung her final makeshift harness around the missile’s nose.

  “Get off there!” shouted Matt. “Don’t do this.”

  “Not to worry, I’ll be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…”

  From his lofty position, Christopher watched the pack of dogs who, by some miracle, had only suffered scratches or minor concussion in their fight, run from the deck of the submarine Inflexible and the smoky launch of the ballistic missile. A thrashing figure in iron plate weighed heavily on the missile’s nose. It wobbled violently in the air as it rose, threatened to spin out of control, but somehow maintained its upward trajectory, accelerating at an astonishing rate.

  “Bloody hell, Joan,” he said, powered forward and opened fire.

  His display flashed. A red dot moved rapidly across the scope.

  “Flipping Nora,” he said and then something explosive slammed into the helicopter tail.

  As the Dauphin began a rapid and final descent, the last of the computer-hijacked Dassault fighters roared past.

  Ignoring his own plight, Christopher attempted to hold the Dauphin’s position for a mere moment, locked on the fighter and released his remaining Brimstone. It shot upward, curved and pursued the jet plane.

  The ground was rising up to meet him at an alarming rate. Christopher grimaced and thought of ejector seats and parachutes. He really should have taken a plane.

  He grabbed the door handle and twisted the release on his harness. He had seconds, possibly not even that.

  “You’ll be fine,” he told himself. “You’re the bloody patron saint of tr —”

  Joan saw a confusion of lights and explosions below her but could hear nothing over the howl of the wind. Although she had seen planes, trains and speeding cars since her return to Earth, she found the speed and force she was currently subjected to beyond comprehension. The power of acceleration seemed to be compressing her spine, driving her head down into her chest. The straps that were holding her in onto the rocket (admittedly several feet further down than she had started) would have sliced her in half if not for her plate armour protecting her body.

  The incredible winds stole the breath from her lungs, chilled her face and robbed her exposed skin of all feeling. She moved as though bearing massive weights underwater: slowly, painfully, drowning.

  She had her sword in her frozen hands and managed to bring it round in front of her, to the edge of the access plate in front of her.

  Em watched the teenage saint straddling the missile as it powered away into the sky.

  “Joan’s putting the balls into ballistic,” she said but without enthusiasm. There was nothing left to laugh about.

  “That missile is travelling at Mach 25,” said Chevrolet. “It is impossible to withstand a rate of acceleration like that.”

  “That’s the thing about Joan,” mused Em. “She’s so naive, she has no idea that what she’s doing is impossible. How long have we got?”

  “The missile will be beyond our control — Simon’s control — within moments,” said the major flatly. “It will be detected by Russian radar at some point in the next fifteen minutes. Their retaliatory strike will be here in significantly less than an hour from now.”

  “Here,” said Em, gesturing for Chevrolet to turn.

  Em loosened and removed the bond on Chevrolet’s wrists.
The Frenchwoman massaged the life back into her hands.

  “I have enjoyed our discussion, Mother Mary,” said Simon.

  “Oh, I’ve not finished,” said Em. “You say that the existence of suffering does not disprove God’s existence because we have the free will to do wrong in God’s perfect world?”

  “That is correct,” said the computer.

  “That this life, this world, is a test to see if we are worthy of God’s love and His salvation?”

  “That is also correct.”

  “But God is also all-knowing.”

  “He is omniscient, yes.”

  “So, He knows what you’re going to do before you do it?”

  “But I might not choose to do that which He has foreseen. I have the free will to change my mind.”

  “But if you do change your mind, He would know that you are going to change it.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then what need is there for a test?” said Em in mock confusion. “Even before we’re born, God knows if we are worthy of salvation. Since the very moment of creation, God knew that we were going to mess things up.”

  “Er,” said Simon.

  The panel on the missile came away with an explosive pop and, caught instantly in a supersonic gale, narrowly avoided slicing off the top of Joan’s head.

  With blurred vision, Joan gazed at the interior of the missile. She had not known what to expect but this dull configuration of sealed units, wires and metal struts hardly seemed appropriate for the heart of a world-ending weapon.

  “And where is this free will to be found?” said Em.

  “What?” said Simon.

  “The human brain is a complex thing but it is no less a machine than your mechanical jiggery-pokery. In all your memory chips and circuit boards, where is there free will?”

  “But I choose what I do.”

  “You’re programmed,” said Chevrolet. “Behind that door is nothing but machinery. Inputs and outputs.”

  “How can we be blamed for our actions,” said Em, “how can we even be judged on our actions, if we have no control over what we do?”

  “No, that can’t be right,” said Simon.