Space Captain Smith (17 page)

Smith holstered his own revolver and picked up Corveau’s gun. ‘Let’s walk,’ he said, and he stepped out into the blinding sun.

Smith shot the first person he saw, who luckily happened to be one of Corveau’s thugs. Rhianna screamed. ‘Stop screaming at things!’ he shouted. A buggy raced out, throwing dust behind it. On the back, a gunner stood over a black, long-barrelled weapon.

‘Laser – get down!’ Smith called, and a red beam sliced the air above their heads, cutting a line across the wall as the buggy roared past. Sand turned to glass as the beam touched it and suddenly the gunner shrieked and fell, a knife-hilt jutting from his neck. Smith glanced upward. Suruk stood on one of the towers, chuckling. The buggy spun round and the man on the passenger side pushed a magazine into his gun. Smith ducked between two barns and pulled Rhianna after him. In the shadow of the barn, he checked the rifle and passed the remote control to Rhianna. ‘Hold onto this.’ He took out the radio. ‘Carveth, where the bloody hell’s the ship?’

‘Near here.’

‘Where’s here?’

‘Give me one minute.’ A pickup truck rushed past the barns, men hopping down from the back. Someone ducked around the corner of the barn and fired, missing them before ducking back.

‘Stay here,’ Smith told Rhianna. ‘Don’t move unless you have to. If they throw in a grenade, run. And try running with your arms down. It helps.’

A figure leaned between the barns. Smith pulled up the rifle and fired before the man could react, throwing him dead onto his back. He jogged towards the edge and peered out.

There were people everywhere. Corveau must have twenty men, Smith thought. Seeing him, the buggy swung out to make another pass. Smith raised the rifle, closed one eye and activated the scope. A bullet whined over his head. Moving target, short range, weaving . . . He pulled the trigger and the driver dropped over the wheel. The buggy lurched, veered off and slammed into the house, disappointingly failing to explode. Smith ducked back into the alley, a rattle of gunfire following him.

He found Suruk waiting for him next to Rhianna.

‘Greetings, warriors!’

‘We’re surrounded,’ Smith said. ‘I put their buggy out. We might be able to get it working, but they’ve got a car of their own out there and it’s a long way back.’

‘Where is the ship?’

‘I don’t know. I told her—’

His sentence was lost in the roar of engines. The
John
Pym
tore over the farm, its jets blasting downward, turning in to land. They ran to the edge of the barn. Corveau’s men scattered, panicked by the arrival of this huge machine, but as the ship aligned itself Smith saw the pickup dart into its shadow, where the onboard cameras could not pick it out. On the back of the truck a man was loading a long-barrelled artillery-piece.

Smith recognised it: a railgun, one of the few infantry weapons strong enough to crack open spacecraft armour. If that hit the jets, it could send the
John Pym
crashing to the ground – or even make it explode.

‘Carveth! Car under you with a railgun!’

‘I can’t see anyone!’ she yelled.

‘Dammit, he’s in the blind spot! I’m coming to help.’

He ran out, head down, towards the ship.

‘Where is he?’ Carveth called.

The man with the railgun pushed something into place and lined up his shot, sights fixed on the ship’s underbelly. The
John Pym
dropped out of the sky. It fell straight onto the pickup, and with a deafening crash of metal vehicle, men and railgun disappeared. ‘Where’s the car?’

Carveth cried.

Smith stopped running. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ he said. A great cloud of dust was rising around the ship, hiding it like a sheet. As the dust began to clear, the side hatch flew open and Carveth sprang out, the Maxim cannon strapped to her body. It was slightly bigger than she was.

‘Come on!’ she yelled, lumbering down the steps. ‘Who wants some? Come and get it, arseholes!’

She saw Smith standing there and stopped. ‘Well?’ she said, panting under the weight of the gun as she looked around. ‘Where’ve they gone?’

A thin trickle of red ran from beneath the hull. ‘They’re under the ship,’ Smith said. ‘You landed on them.’

Carveth took this on board. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Landed on them. Right. I meant to do that, you realise? Works every time. So, have we won?’

‘We have indeed,’ said Smith. ‘We’ve done very well. I recovered the missile controller and picked up this rather nifty pistol as well. Good show, everyone.’

‘And I got you this!’ Suruk added proudly, holding up a plastic bag.

‘Erm, what’s that?’ Carveth asked. ‘It’s kind of dripping.’

‘You said you wanted our enemies disarmed.’

‘Yes. So what’s that?’ said Smith.

‘It’s their arms.’

It fell to Carveth to make the victory speech that night, purely by a process of elimination. Smith was fetching himself another drink, Rhianna already too drunk, and it was generally felt that providing Suruk with a microphone would be like giving Genghis Khan directions to a discount axe emporium. So, in front of the town hall, before the new interim mayor of Paradis and a crowd of wellwishers, Carveth tried to express her thanks.

‘Best ship inner world,’ she said. She rocked a little as she spoke, giving her voice a weird stroboscopic effect not often heard outside progressive rock. ‘We are a happy island breed from another Eden. We’re great. Thank you Paradis! We liberate planets from tyranny and oppression and – the other one. Frog-boy over there cuts heads off things and the captain? Captain can kill a man just with his moustache. Best captain ever. Proud to be under him. Not that I’ve been under him at all – but ladies, you could be. You know what they say about men with big moustaches, right? Damn right. Best ship in the world. Hey – what’re you doing?’

Smith picked her up and placed her at the side of the stage. ‘Thanks, everyone, very sorry. Thanks for having us. And for dinner.’

‘I’m not sorry!’ Carveth persisted as he removed her.

‘Great big tash! You remember that!’

Smith deposited her out of the way and climbed off the podium. Rhianna was waiting at the bottom.

‘So, is it true, then?’ She grinned.

‘Well,’ said Smith, his tongue loosened by alcohol and praise, ‘it has been remarked that I’m doing rather well in that regard. Of course, I don’t want to blow my own trumpet – although I probably could if I tried – but back at the shower room in Woking Cricket Club they did sometimes wonder if a baby elephant was on the loose.’

‘I don’t understand. How does having the best crew in the world help you get mistaken for a baby elephant?

You’ve got the wrong number of knees.’

Smith fought down the sudden urge to flee. ‘It was…well… near Woking zoo. Anyway, I do indeed have an excellent crew, despite it consisting solely of Carveth, technically speaking. Consider yourself an honorary member.’

Rhianna smiled. ‘Thanks.’ She saluted. ‘Right-ho, Captain! Is that how it goes?’

The sight of Rhianna attempting an English accent and saluting him sent a wave of lust through Smith strong enough to leave him nearly nauseous. If she did that again, he might be overwhelmed and puke on her flipflops. Which would be a major
faux pas
. ‘Something like that,’ he said weakly.

‘I normally don’t condone violence,’ Rhianna went on, waving a hand to illustrate her point. ‘But I appreciate you being good at it. I mean, everyone’s got a talent, I believe, and it’s important to nurture that. Yours is just, well, kind of negatively assertive.’ She sighed. ‘You know, if someone had described you to me a week ago, I would have assumed you were just another colonialist bigot spoiling for a fight. But I would have been wrong.’

‘You’d have to be foreign to think a thing like that. More drink?’

But Rhianna had been distracted by some local dancing and had wandered off, leaving Smith feeling that he had missed an opportunity. He looked into his cup and sighed. Andy was waiting for him at the bar. ‘That was one hell of a job y’all did,’ he said for the fourth or fifth time.

‘Thanks.’ Smith spun the tap and watched his cup fill with beer. ‘Good of you to lend me that rifle.’

Andy shrugged. He wore a tuxedo jacket over his red T-shirt to reflect the gravitas of his new role as mayor. ‘It’s no problem. Keep it. Listen: we’ve got a solution to you getting off world.’

‘Surely we can just fly away now, can’t we?’

‘Sure. But Gilead’ll be sitting in orbit, out of range of our missile grid. Soon as you clear atmosphere, he’ll come for you all guns blazing.’

‘Oh, I see. Yes, good point. I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘Well, me and Francois came up with a plan. I’ve got the boys to fix us up a rocket of our own, a decoy. We programme it to break atmo on the other side of the planet, and while Gilead’s chasing it, you guys can make a break.’

‘That’s not bad,’ said Smith. ‘Not bad at all. Wait a moment. What if they scan for lifeforms? It’ll just show up as a metal tube.’

Andy grinned. ‘That’s where we get smart. The nose-cone is hollow. We’re gonna put a bunch of plants inside.’

‘Plants? Won’t they be a bit small?’

‘Not these. Genetically modified cauliflowers. We got a load spare. Not like we’ll miss ‘em, anyway: nobody eats GM food down here.’

‘Taste bad, do they?’

‘No idea. Nobody’s caught one yet. But I reckon we can drive a few into the cone, so long as they don’t stampede. Then, all we have to do is fire up.’

Smith took a sip of his beer and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘But do you really think the Ghasts will mistake us for a bunch of vegetables? No, don’t answer that. How long will this take?’

Andy started pouring himself a beer. ‘I reckon we can get launched tomorrow morning. We should be able to stick the rocket up at eleven o’clock, say, if we can get it crewed up by then, and then you’d need to give it about an hour to get around the planet and start transmitting…

You could go at noon.’

‘That sounds like a jolly good plan,’ Smith agreed.

‘Alright then, twelve it is. Goodness knows we’ll need all the time we can get.’

In his chamber, 462 ran a digit along the spines of his video collection, deciding which speech to watch today. The morning’s Shouting In Lines had finished, his torture devices were already polished and there was a little while before
Listen with Glorious Number One
came on the radio. He could spend a human hour or so watching the first fifth of one of One’s speeches. He had the complete set.

It was not easy to choose between the lively motivational quality of
You Too Can Become an Assault
Brigade Leader Today
or the moving emotional intensity of
Crush All Humans Now
. Who could forget the touching moment when Number One forgot how to speak and simply shrieked like a broken siren, overcome by dribbling rage? Nobody, because anyone who had dared forget it had been shot.

The intercom trumpeted. ‘Glorious 462!’

‘I hear!’ he barked. ‘Speak!’

‘Puny human Republic craft
Fist of Righteousness
is docked! Human captain approaches!’

‘Ahahaha! Prepare for me to address him on the bridge.’ He sprang up and pulled his limbs into his coat two at a time.

When Gilead strode in, 462 was waiting for him in a high-backed chair. Gilead marched into the centre of the room and stood there straight-backed with his hat under his arm. The Edenite captain looked ill at ease in the control room, with its ribbed, organic walls, slimy control panels and lack of cruise control.

Ah, humans, thought 462. So foolish, and so weak. They clambered over one another for the chance to make allies of the Ghasts, to curry favour with the beings destined to destroy them. He looked at the newcomer and saw pride, cunning and an ambition that nearly matched his own. This particular human, this Gilead, had his uses.

‘You have not captured them,’ said 462.

‘No.’

‘I am disappointed. Saddened, even. It is regrettable that you were deceived.’

‘They used a convincing disguise,’ the human said.

‘Convincing. I have my doubts.’ 462 reached down to a box beside his chair and lifted out a very large cauliflower. A crude, smiling face had been drawn on the front of it with a marker pen: two wide, vacantly happy eyes and a broad grin. The face stared at Gilead with banal happiness as 462 held it up. ‘You will forgive me, but I do not believe humans are often green?’

‘No,’ Gilead said.

‘No? You are a fool!’ 462 sprang from his chair. ‘Were we not allies I would have you shot! Your stupidity is intolerable! If you were under my command I would – I would –
ngh
!’

Choked with fury, he pulled off one of his gloves and belted one of his adjutants across the face with it.

‘Ow!’ said the adjutant.

He turned to it. ‘Is there a problem, adjutant?’

‘Yes, there is! You just hit me in the face with a glove!’

462 felt that the world was imploding around him.

‘Smith is at large. We have scanned the vicinity and have not been able to locate his ship. No doubt the puny humans have been using the opposite side of this pointless world as cover. Now, watch.’

His skinny arm reached out and thumbed a knob on one of his chair’s four armrests. An orifice opened in the wall beside Gilead, and with a squelching sound a screen slid out. Images appeared on the screen: planets. It was a map of the system, with Paradis in the centre and the sun at the edge.

‘This is the world from which Smith has escaped,’ the Ghast explained. ‘His craft appears to be a Sheffield class ship, with a damaged supralight tacheon shunt drive and, it seems, working thrusters. Assuming that he has travelled at full sublight speed, here is the maximum radius of distance that he could have reached by now.’

A sphere appeared in the centre of the map, centred around Paradis.

462 barked, ‘So, we must calculate where he will be. He is somewhere within this sphere, obviously. But where? If you were Isambard Smith, what would you do?’

‘Request a refund.’ Gilead rubbed his chin, staring at the map. It glistened.