The Sword and the Plough (15 page)

“
Come on.” He was speaking quietly,
smoothly. “Eat up for Sergeant Wykes my little charges – my
ugly
little Trionian
pigs.”

The prisoners exchanged quick glances. It was
coming now, the final act of provocation.

“
Yes –
pigs!
For that’s what you are, with Trion your
sty. But we will change all that – create a new order.”

No one moved. The scene seemed frozen

“
If I had my way, I’d
whip
the lot of you,” the fat
giant’s voice continued in the same even tone. “
Whip
you
– until you crawled on
your yellow bellies like the scum that you are.”

Rupert flashed a warning frown at the
captain. The young officer’s face seemed even greyer than before.
His limbs twitched and his fevered eyes were wide and staring.

Then all pretence was gone and the giant
sergeant’s voice dropped to a snarl.

“
You
and your precious queen,
precious
slut
more likely, growing fat on good men’s labours; her – with
her fine clothes and riches.”

The mammoth man was staring directly at
Caroline now, his small black eyes burning in their fleshy
burrows.

The young woman stared straight back up at
him and Lars witnessed the defiance in her brave glare.

“Bleeding aristocrats!’ The sergeant growled
like a wild beast set to spring. “By the moons of Megran when we’ve
finished with you there won’t be a man left to piss against…”

He had no chance to say more.

The captain flew at the sergeant in wild
fury.

“Murderer!” the captain shouted. “Foul
stinking coward!”

His blows bombarded the fat giant’s belly,
salvo after salvo of savage jabs. The queen’s officer had suffered
defeat at Megran hands. He would not suffer insult as well.

Caught off guard by the furious onslaught,
the big man went down under the barrage of blows. He lay on his
back, cast like a wool-burdened sheep, thrashing his limbs and
bleating his rage.

Instantly, the queen’s officer leapt
astride him like a rodeo cowboy. He grabbed a hank of the giant
Megran’s hair in each hand and strove to bash his foe’s brains out
on the hard, black stone floor.

“Get him off me!” the sergeant howled in fear
and outrage.

He tried to roll his bulk to dislodge his
attacker, but the fierce grip in his hair kept pulling him
back.

But the captain’s revenge was short lived.
The two guards grabbed an arm each, wrenched the young man from his
victim, and hurled him backwards. Arms outstretched, he crashed
crucified against the stone wall of the cell. For a split second,
he hung there, as if nailed, then his legs crumpled and with a
groan he fell, stunned, to the floor.

The guards drew their pistols and jabbed the
weapons at the other prisoners.

“Against the wall!” they bawled.

Silence followed. Guards and prisoners
alike stood motionless – waiting…

The giant sergeant rolled over and pushed
himself to his knees, like a barrel righting. He wiped his mouth
and blinked at the sight of blood on the back of his hand. He
staggered to his feet and stood staring down at the insensible
queen’s officer. He flipped the clip that secured his Meredith
pistol and drew the weapon from it holster.

Lars did not allow himself time to think.
With a hoarse cry, he flung himself on top of the hapless
captain.

“Coward!” he shouted. “You hurt our nice
sergeant. I’m going to kill you.”

He locked his arms around the unconscious man
and rolled the pair of them across the floor, scattering gaping
prisoners and astonished jailors alike. He sat astride him and
punched the helpless man repeatedly in the ribs, shrieking and
yelling all the while.

The sergeant was the first to react. Deep
down in the mountain of flesh a chortle began. Then huge guffaws
erupted and his sides shook.

When at last the final tremor had
subsided, he holstered the pistol – a toy again against his bigness
– and chuckling still, hauled the howling Lars from his victim by
the scruff of his neck.

“All right, that’s enough my little Trionian
fighting-cock. There’s no need for you to kill him.” He spun Lars
round and grinned into his face. “There’s more to you than meets
the eye.”

He pushed the young man away with a friendly
motion, and then turned to face the other prisoners.

“The next time any one of you steps out of
line,” he said quietly. “I will shoot the lot of you.”

* * *

The black leather command chair swung round
and the Megran battleship commander looked up at his first officer.
The young officer’s bespoke green uniform was superb; an example of
the best android tailors on Megran. Sensibly, he had spurned the
stock issue garb from the military robots, which was the norm.

The commander smiled. “Good news, I take it,
Number One. You’ve got a grin from ear to ear.”

The young first officer grinned even wider.
“Yes sir. Good news it is. The fighting is at an end. All military
installations on Trion are in our hands. Substitute communications
are operating, and our own men now man the two Trionian cruisers.
The planet is ours, sir.”

Commander Riddick nodded. “Good – very
good! Send a message to General York on the surface.
Congratulations. Well done
. And Gregor – pass the word on:
Well done –
everyone
.”

* * *

Born on Earth some fifty-six years before,
Commander John Jared Riddick had been a spacefaring man for as long
as he could remember. The service bars on his green uniform
attested to the thirty-seven years spent in the service of the
Earth Commonwealth of Planets; the last twenty-five aboard the
battleship
Queen Elizabeth
, currently named
Prince
Ferdinand
, after the
governor of Megran. John Riddick had joined the battleship as a
junior officer and risen through the ranks to commander.

The once dark hair was these days mostly
grey, and the sparkle had long since faded from the dark brown
eyes.

He had never married, and he had no family,
apart from his widowed sister-in-law, Alice, and her son, Jared
John Riddick, on Earth. He had heard on the grapevine some time ago
that her son had joined the Royal Space Force as a cadet. Was it
possible the boy could have grown so fast?

“Sir?” First Officer Lipinski was back again,
standing beside him.

“Yes, Number One?”

“An observation from one of the cruisers,
sir. It seems we must have passed very close to one of Trion’s suns
on our way into the system.”

“Standard strategy to avoid detection, Number
One,” the commander stated with a trace of irritation.

“
Yes sir, but it appears we’ve scorched off
most of the new paint. The prince’s name has gone, and the ship’s
old name
Queen Elizabeth V
is showing through. They want to know if we’re
going to paint Prince Ferdinand’s name back again, sir.”

The commander gave a grin. “No, Number
One, we’re not. Signal them –
once is
enough
. We’ll run with it
as it is. What the good prince doesn’t know won’t hurt
him.”

* * *

Commander Riddick leaned back in the
command chair on the battleship’s bridge. From where he sat he
could see on the one side, the infinite ocean of space, defined by
an immeasurable number of stars – and on the other, the huge mass
of the black planet, Trion, turning slowly on its axis as it had
done for over six billion years.

When all this was over, he would get in touch
with his sister-in-law, Alice. It was not too late to be an uncle.
His nephew needed a male role figure. The boy and he would have a
lot in common. Jared must be well into his training at the Space
Force Academy by now.

“There are different kinds of bravery. There
are times when a man must swallow taunts and insults and display
his courage by doing nothing.”

The prisoners were standing in a guarded
huddle at the rear of the cell, all but the captain who was seated
on one of the bunks, his eyes downcast.

“Captain,” the governor continued, “you will
need to curb your temper in the future, or you will be a threat to
us all.” There was no anger in his voice. It was simply a statement
requiring compliance.

The young officer looked up. His face was
pale and drawn, his eyes set in shadow, and he was tired – so very
tired. His light-bolt wound needed urgent specialist treatment. The
necrotic tissue was spreading.

“Sorry sir… I just couldn’t…” he started. He
paused and began again. “I don’t know what came over me… If it
hadn’t been for Lars…” He stopped. He glanced up at the young man
and grinned sheepishly.

“We know how you feel,” the older man said
gently. “And you, Lars, that was quite a performance. Our heartfelt
thanks for what you did. However, that sergeant’s no fool. We’re
more useful alive than dead. I have the feeling that he, too, had
gone further than he intended and used your act as an excuse to
save face.” He frowned at the young man. “Be wary of him. Next time
he may not be dissuaded so easily.”

“Oh, come on, Father,” Caroline broke in.
“That’s enough serious talk for one day. The captain’s suffered
enough already, and poor Lars hasn’t even had the chance to get to
know us before you start in to lecture him.”

The governor laughed. “My daughter’s right,”
he said. “I am inclined to lecture on too long and too often. It’s
part of growing old.

Just as well we have the young to constantly
remind us.”

The young woman poked out a small pink
tongue.

“The truth is,” the older man continued, “if
the captain hadn’t hit that fat swine when he did, I believe I
might have done so myself…”

“Time for proper introductions,” Caroline
interjected, grimacing at her father. “Lars, you were in no fit
state to meet anyone when you first joined us, but I’ve told
everyone what you did for me in the town.”

She glanced round at the other prisoners.
“Let’s start with the captain,” she said with a smile. “You’ve
already introduced yourself, even if the method was a trifle
unorthodox.” She motioned a hand at the young officer. “Captain
John Lancaster, in command of the queen’s garrison in Vegar. The
captain received his wound in action against the Megran invaders.
He, and what was left of the garrison’s forces after the missile
attack, kept those monsters at bay for almost two hours before they
were forced to surrender.”

The young officer glanced up at Lars and
nodded – looked, for a second as if he might speak, but in the end
said nothing.

The young woman studied him briefly and then
went on.

“Major Rupert Waterman,” she announced,
inclining her head toward the tall man in the queen’s uniform.
“Rupert’s in charge of military intelligence in the region. It was
his wave gun that we tried to get working, Lars.”

The tall man gave a slight bow toward
Lars. He was in his early forties, Lars guessed, his dark hair
touched with grey at the temples. His bronzed features were
strongly sculptured and the thick dark line of his brows gave his
countenance a somewhat stern look.

“Ah, intelligence,” Lars murmured. “So you
understand what is going on out there.”

“Not really,” the intelligence officer
answered, “but we have a few ideas. We will talk later, perhaps. I
would be interested to know what you’ve witnessed.”

Lars nodded, then turned his gaze to the two
prisoners he did not yet know.

The older woman gave a shy smile as their
eyes met. Lars smiled back. She was thin – and would have failed to
reach his shoulder for height. The abundance of grey in her
close-cropped hair, and the lines in her parchment like skin, gave
more proof of her sixty-two years than she would have wished. The
bright brown eyes, which flicked timorous glances at him, and the
long thin line of her nose, reminded Lars of a Trionian sparrow –
the plain brown dress she wore, her plumage.

She offered her hand to the young man. It was
small and bony in his grasp.

“Judith Warner,” she said, in a quiet
well-spoken voice. Lars noted the distinctive Earth accent.
Everyone in the cell, it seemed, had been educated on Earth.

“Ms Warner is my father’s secretary, Lars,”
Caroline explained. “And we are all very upset that she’s been
dragged into this. Those Megran swine have no sense.”

“
I believe they think I may have some
knowledge of Trionian military matters,” the woman said with a wry
smile. “But of course, I was only ever a clerk.”

“You were much more valuable than that,” the
older man said kindly, patting her lightly on the shoulder. “The
office would have collapsed into chaos long ago without you.”

The woman shot him a diffident smile of
thanks for the compliment.

The older man now extended his hand to
Lars. He was tall and strongly built. His features were handsome,
if Lars was any judge, and the well-tanned skin offered a distinct
contrast to the almost pure white of his hair. The queen’s red
jacket that he wore was heavy with braid. It was unmistakably Earth
tailored, for the fit was perfect.

Caroline spoke. “And my father, Lars –
Henry Tudor, governor of Trion.”

“Presently unemployed, m’dear,” the man
murmured, his thick dark brows arching humorously over clever blue
eyes.