Starship Home (44 page)

As Rocky emerged the Don drew his sword, and Rocky did also, following his master’s lead, and together they saluted the starship. The hatch began to close, and Meg, weeping, watched on a screen the Don and Rocky standing in the clearing, swords still held at the salute.

‘Hatch secure,’ said Guinevere, and Zachary turned the Slarnstaff to flame, narrowed the flame to a cutting edge, and began work.

On the bridge of the Starship Charles de Josselin, an alarm rang, and on a screen a light began flashing, indicating the position of Slarnstaff activity on the bridge of the Starship Guinevere. The Commander’s gauntleted hand slammed down on a pad, and Slarn battle language began to sound throughout the ship.

Meanwhile on the Starship Guinevere the cutting flame of the Slarnstaff slowly burned along the line drawn on the bulkhead, and Guinevere’s manifested image abruptly disappeared. So focussed was everyone’s attention on what Zachary was doing, her absence went unnoticed.

Outside, in the undergrowth, the Don lay in cover with Ulf on his right hand and Rocky on his left and Guinevere appeared before them. ‘The cutting hath begun,’ she said, ‘and up above the Slarn must know. Time is all, so I bid thee hold thy attack while I have discourse with the Slarn when they come.’

Ulf growled his discontent. ‘Are we women not to attack at once?’

‘I would fain save life if that I may. Hold back till talk availeth naught, I prithee.’ She disappeared, and the Don turned to Rocky. ‘Pass the word. Hold back until the signal.’ Rocky rose and ran off in a running crouch, keen to relay the order quickly so that he could return to be at his Don’s side in battle.

Zachary continued cutting, and then the main screen showed three Slarn marines materializing in the clearing. One moved to the closed hatch to examine it, and then said, in Slarn, ‘Ship? Do you hear me?’

Guinevere replied in her brand of English, ‘I would have converse with an officer,’ and at this the Slarn marines paused as if waiting for orders, and then vanished.

On Guinevere’s bridge, Zachary finished cutting away the bulkhead to give access to one side of the crystal, and was now starting on the other side. ‘Make haste, Zachary, time is fleet of foot and the noon cometh like the wind.’

‘I’m hasting as fast as I can,’ he muttered, and when Harold helpfully looked at his watch and tried to tell him the time, he added, ‘don’t tell me, Harold, I can’t go any faster!’

In the clearing, a Slarn officer and the original three Slarn marines now materialized. The officer stepped forward and said in Slarn, ‘Starship? Do you hear me?’

‘Use thy translator and speak to me in mine own tongue, for I swear on the bones of the saints and martyrs never to let the speech of Haardlandes pass these lips while the mind of Charles de Josselin, my comrade in arms, lieth in durance vile.’

‘I serve Charles de Josselin. You’ll be pleased to know that he is only closed down until counselling helps him to recover his senses.’

Further back in the forest and out of sight, six more Slarn marines materialized and instantly began work. Some were taking short metal modules from their packs and were fitting them together to form a tripod.

The officer now tried the soft approach. ‘Guinevere? Can I call you Guinevere? We want you to come home. To the Fleet.’

‘This world is my home.’

‘This planet? This ball of dirt? Your mind might’ve been born here, but your true home is among the stars. Look at you, Look at what the primitives have done to you,’ and he gestured at the skulls and the daubings, while back in the forest the six hidden marines fitted Slarnstaffs together into a multi-barrelled weapon and attached it to the tripod.

‘’twas not my friends who did these things,’ Guinevere said.

‘Friends? You now have friends among the primitives do you?’

On the bridge, Zachary cutting flame burned further along the line as Guinevere answered, ‘Aye. Friends indeed, who risked life and limb to save me.’

‘Friendship is for equals. How can you, an immortal star-faring being, be friends with ferals, diseased little short-lived insects?’

‘Because they’re human, just as we are.’

‘Don’t compare us with them!’ The officer’s voice was tight with rage, and then he regained control and made a final appeal. ‘Come home, Guinevere. Your true friends, the starships of the Fleet, all miss you.’

‘As I miss them.’

‘There’ll be no punishment, no court-martial, just come home.’

‘Nay.’

And at that the officer’s tone changed. No more the nice guy, pleading with her to come home, now he was an officer, rapping out commands. ‘I am about to give you a lawful command. Open your hatches, let us in and prepare for immediate lift-off.’

Back in the forest, the hidden marines assembling the heavy weapon were fitting a nose cone designed to funnel and concentrate the blast from the combined Slarnstaffs.

Guinevere manifested before the officer. ‘I defy thee,’ she hissed.

‘Then I must charge you formally with desertion and theft of a starship. I am empowered by the laws of the Slarn Confederacy to use any necessary force to regain possession. I again command you to open your hatches and prepare for lift-off.’

Zachary had now cut access ways on both side of the crystal, and Harold, Meg and Zoe were clearing the debris away as he began to cut along the line beneath the self-destruct assembly itself, but his speed and concentration were matched by the six hidden marines who were now fitting a firing mechanism to the butt ends of the Slarnstaffs which made up the multi-barrel of the heavy weapon they had been assembling.

‘I repeat my lawful command,’ said the officer. ‘Open!’

‘And I again defy thee.’

At this, the officer turned on his heel, and moved back across the clearing into the forest, followed by the three original Slarn marines. As the officer and the marines beat their way through the undergrowth they passed within a few feet of the Don, who was on full alert.
Where were they going?
He eased up out of hiding, and with Ulf and Rocky following, he silently went after the Slarn.

They had not gone a hundred yards when the Don had his answer. What he saw now was a group of Slarn marines clustered around something which looked like pictures he had seen in old books, pictures of a weapon which, before the Great Exit, had been called a “machine gun”. This one however, seemed to be made of Slarnstaffs. As the Don, Ulf and Rocky watched, the Slarn officer strode up to the gun, and signalled; the marine behind the weapon moved his hands on the controls, and a concentrated beam of energy lanced out, blasting and searing everything in its path until it struck Guinevere’s hatch, which began to glow cherry-red. Then Guinevere’s anti-meteorite beams came into play. Saplings shattered and rocks exploded and the earth around the heavy weapon was ploughed up as the beams wreaked destruction around the marines manning it. Hastily, they picked up their weapon and retreated and silence fell, but when they regrouped, they began assembling another weapon, one that to a 21
^st
century eye would have looked uncomfortably like a rocket launcher.

Meanwhile the Don, Ulf and Rocky were running stealthily back to their positions when Guinevere manifested before them. ‘Get thy men clear and thy horses ready!’ she told them, ‘we shall need thy help ere long.’

On the bridge, Zachary had finished the cut below the crystal, and now Harold and Zoe were fitting the carrying poles underneath it. Zachary now began the top and final cut, while outside, a Slarn marine lifted the rocket launcher to his shoulder and fired. Guinevere, deploying her anti-meteorite defences, shot the rocket out of the air with an energy beam. The marine fired again, and again the rocket exploded harmlessly in mid-air. The heavy energy weapon now began firing again, and again Guinevere’s answering fire tore up the earth around it, smashing saplings, felling trees. The clearing was becoming one big free-fire zone, as on the bridge Zachary completed his final cut and the crystal settled down onto its carrying poles.

No time to lose now, as there were only minutes left before noon. Zachary moved to one side of the crystal, and Meg to the other and they lifted the deadly device on two poles and started moving it out of the gap. The weight of the crystal was unexpected, and Zoe and Harold slipped two more carrying poles underneath it to help bear the load. Now they hurried from the bridge toward the feeding chamber, with Marine running alongside, helping stabilize the load.

Outside, the fire-fight continued and as they ran along the starship’s corridors, a rocket penetrated Guinevere’s defences and struck home, shaking the giant starship. Marine flung herself between the crystal and the bulkhead, preventing it from falling, and then they moved on, into the feeding chamber. Into the pit went the crystal with a foaming hissing sound and vapor rose as the starship absorbed it.

In cover in the forest, the Trolls waited on their horses as the fire-fight continued, and then Guinevere manifested before them. ‘Now,’ she shouted, ‘Press home the charge! Now!’

The Don lifted his sword and shouted to his men, ‘Get close among them and their coward’s weapons are useless! They’ll not fire for fear of hitting their own!’ and he gestured to the bugler, who sounded the charge, and the Troll warriors urged their horses forward through the trees.

The Slarn gunners believed the tide of battle had turned in their favor. More and more of their shots were penetrating Guinevere’s defences. It was only a matter of time before the starship surrendered, or was destroyed. And then, above the clangor of battle came another sound, one they did not recognize, but one that was old in the history of warfare on Earth. It was the drum of hooves, the terrible thundering created by charging cavalry, blended with the whinnying of the steeds and the shouts of their riders. The Slarn marines looked up, and had time to be afraid before the shock wave of steaming horseflesh and flashing steel overwhelmed them. Their energy weapons and rocket launcher were of no use, and the Slarn marines, good soldiers all, were reduced to using their Slarnstaffs as clubs as the shouting cavalry over-ran their positions.

Ulf was laughing as he laid about him, delighted at such a chance to gain high honor, and Rocky, knocked from his horse, came up snarling like a wildcat, driving a Slarn marine before him at sword point. The melee was now spreading back into the clearing before the starship, when a thrown Slarnstaff struck the Don, and he fell from his horse! As he got back on his feet, Slarn marines moved in on him, raising their Slarnstaffs to club him down. He turned, but one staff caught him a glancing blow, and he backed away, holding them at bay with his flickering blade.

Zachary, Meg, Harold, Zoe and Marine ran back onto the bridge into the din of klaxon and beeping battle language. ‘Did it work?’ Harold asked urgently and Guinevere replied, ‘The crystal dissolved, but the bomb still lives. One minute to self-destruct! We have to lift!’ Then Meg saw, on the main screen, the Don, set about by Slarn marines, moving in with their Slarnstaffs to club him down!

‘No!’ she cried, and made for the hatchway, ‘let me out! ‘

‘Meg!’ yelled Zoe, ‘you can’t help him!’

‘And can’t leave him!’ Meg cried and was gone.

Zoe went to follow but the hatch slammed shut in her face. ‘Guinevere? Let me go after her!’

‘She hath chosen,’ said Guinevere, ‘and hath chosen rightly. Forty five seconds to self-destruct.’

Meg ran through the corridors with the wailing klaxon and beeping battle language in her ears, and then the hatchway to the outside opened for her, and she ran out. A riderless horse trotted past and she leapt to the saddle, urged the horse forward with her heels, grabbed the reins of the Don’s horse and rode for him, the horses’ hooves trampling down the Slarn marines surrounding him! Laughing with joy, the Don mounted his steed, and together he and Meg forced their way through to the main group of Trolls, where they regrouped and charged again.

And the starship Guinevere shimmered, and seemed to fade, and in a blink was no longer there!

On the bridge, Zoe, Harold, Zachary, Marine and the Wyzen clung to acceleration couches, and Guinevere was singing. ‘Art thou going to Scarborough Fair …’

‘Are we going to make it?’ asked Harold.

‘Twenty seconds,’ said Guinevere.

‘But are we going to make it?’

‘Thou should’st have been with us at the retreat from Girvan’s World. There Charles and I lifted from the exploding earth on the very fires of Hell itself.’

‘But are we going …’ Zachary began, and then stopped because the klaxon and beeping battle language had fallen silent. ‘Troops,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to complain, but I think you all cut it just a little fine on this occasion.’

The klaxon began again! They froze in total horror. Then the klaxon stopped. ‘A jest, good Zachary,’ Guinevere said, ‘I do but jest,’ and she manifested, laughing like a schoolgirl.

Zachary was not impressed. ‘That was a sixteenth century joke?’

‘In the nunnery we had many such merry japes.’

Zachary collapsed onto an acceleration couch. ‘Never do that again.’

Back on Earth, the Slarn retreat had become a rout. The Slarn marines were running through the forest, seeking a place to regroup, but the cavalry behind them pushed them forward. They finally reached clear ground at the edge of the forest, and ran to a slight rise where they formed a square. The cavalry halted, formed a line and charged!

There may be things more terrifying than facing a cavalry charge, but they are not many. And as the horses thundered towards them, the Slarn marines began winking out of existence, and by the time the cavalry reached the rise, there was no one there. Then a shimmer, and Charles de Josselin manifested and looked at the Don and said, ‘I have been freed to take them back. They’re poor little space-born things, no match for armored knights or musketeers,’ and with that he saluted the Don and doffed his plumed hat to Meg, and said, ‘Don Costello, Lady Henderson, au revoir,’ and disappeared.

The Don and Meg sat on their horses, side by side, the warrior and his queen, and they looked up into the sky as if they could see the starship, but she was long gone now and moving against the stars. ‘Art thou going to Scarborough Fair,’ sang Guinevere, and Zachary joined in, ‘Parsley sage rosemary and thyme. Remember me to one who lives there,’ and here he looked at Marine, ‘she was once a true love of mine.’ And then they all sang, ‘she was once a true love of mine,’ and Marine was looking deep into Zachary’s eyes as she sang the unfamiliar words. The moment was not lost on Zoe and Harold, who nudged each other and grinned.

The ship winked out of sight. The stars blazed. The starship had vanished as if she had never been there. In another reach of the galaxy, adventure beckoned.

---oo0oo---