Theatre of the Gods (59 page)

*

It was hopeless, their rescue attempt had been a disaster. They could outrun the smaller fighters, but the pursuit craft were closing. ‘They mean to board us then,’ said F2. ‘Well, they’ll get a fight.’

‘Yes. A fight,’ said F1. He could see the craft closing fast, the grappling chains leaving silver hoops in the blackness. He knew that once they were boarded it would come down to a hand-to-hand fight, and an old man and a one-armed youngster were no match for the bearlike guardsmen. ‘We might have a chance if we head for that small moon,’ said F2.

F1 laughed loudly. ‘The moon, yes, what a grand idea!’ Bespophus, with its armies of ravenous dinophytes, shone brightly in the distance.

They felt the whole craft groan as the first of the grapples punctured their outer shell. ‘Prepare to fight to the death!’ cried F2 as he pulled a hooked cargo-staff from the wall.

‘You’re halfway there already,’ muttered F1, but there was no time for another argument. They heard the docking port being wrenched away. The hatch to the bay above fell open and two heavy shapes dropped into the cabin. One said, ‘On behalf of the Pope, surrender or die.’

‘We won’t go without a fight,’ said F2. ‘Good heavens, what’s that out there?’

A black shape approached fast from the left, its wings spread like a bat as it dived towards them. Rocket wings, incidentally, are not meant to be used in space. Only a mad person would try it. The Black Widow spiralled into the open docking bay. She threw off her rocket wings and took a few heavy breaths.

BATTLE STATIONS

On the bridge the Pope was hopping mad. ‘Get them! I want them alive so I can kill them!’ He leaped around the bridge and pulled at levers that did nothing but let out pre-assigned noises. The crew had been forced to put these in after the Pope had almost steered the palace into a sun. The levers gave the Holy Father the illusion of piloting his palace without giving everyone else the constant fear of dying.

‘Yes, Your Holiness.’

They had now pulled back far enough from the planet to be able to activate their Glory Hole: the artificial black hole into which their prisoner would be cast. Making a Glory Hole is unbelievably complex. At the heart of a purpose-built battle station is a chamber containing a small glass bead filled with isotopes. At the given hour powerful lasers are fired at the bead, instantly creating a tiny artificial star. This miraculous baby star is then forced into collapse, tearing an orifice in space and time, and creating a miniature black hole. The subsequent black hole will grow quickly to envelop the battle station, so the entire engineering crew must be fired away in powerful escape pods. What remains when the rubble clears is a relatively small, but not unterrifying, vortex. It is a fantastically difficult, dangerous and expensive process, but the Pope would have it no other way.

On the giant screen above the navigator’s station they could now observe the silvery whorl of their new Glory Hole. On the far side
the bombardment division was still clustered around the planet, while between the planet and the Glory Hole (a minimum safe distance away from both) was a cluster of green dots – the main fleet of battle palaces. And curling away from that like a swarm of angry hornets was a stream of smaller dots, the pursuit fleet – they had moved to intercept a single tiny dot.

‘We’ll throw them into the Glory Hole, too!’

‘Of course, Your Excellency. Our men are boarding their craft as we speak.’

*

‘Come to Papa, gorgeous,’ said the first priest. They were an intimidating sight in their black turtleneck sweaters and shiny black stomper boots.

‘You come to us, handsome!’ said F2 as he twirled the cargo-staff in his hand. ‘That’s if you can take it.’

‘Oh, we can take it, sweetie-pie,’ said the second priest as he smashed his clenched fist into his palm. ‘We can take it good.’

‘Well, if you want us, come and
gnn—
’

F2 swallowed his sentence as a pair of long legs came through the hatch above, coiled around the thick necks of the two papal guards, and gently smashed their skulls together, thus mercifully concluding a slightly weird exchange. The Black Widow had been trained by the very best teachers to dispatch her victims with whatever she had at her disposal: a candlestick, a loaf of bread, her shapely legs. Her own shiny boots gleamed as she dropped to the floor beside the two unconscious guards and scanned the ship’s bewildered occupants. ‘Could you have made more of a mess of a simple rescue mission?’ she said.

It took a few seconds for the Fabrigases to even register what was happening.

‘What in heck is happening?!’ said F1.

‘We don’t have much time. We’ll take my rocket wings,’ said the Black Widow. ‘This ship is about to fall apart.’

‘Take your rocket wings? To where?!’ said F1.

‘To their command station. To Lenore. And we have to hurry. I am … short on time.’ She glanced at her Lasiotek Magnesium Chronograph wristwatch.

‘I’m staying here,’ said F2. ‘I’ll try to draw those fighters away.’

‘That’s suicide!’ said F1.

‘As opposed to your mission?’

‘Fair point,’ said F1. ‘Well, goodbye, young me.’

‘Yes, goodbye, old me. It was surprising to meet you.’

‘Ah, to be young again. When you reach my age almost nothing will surprise you. Oh, I could tell you some stories.’

‘If we’re both alive in forty-five minutes,’ said the Black Widow, ‘you can tell me as many boring stories as you like.’

*

Panduke and Kimmy had been guided through the catacombs of Diemendääs by their moustachioed stalker – whose name was Lamont, and whose full name was Special Agent Jerman James Lamont. Special Agent Jerman James Lamont had jogged off ahead of them, keeping a measured gait, his spine rod-straight, his body perfectly balanced, and when they came to an open culvert in the floor he would leap into the vaulted ceiling, sometimes hanging with just a finger in a crevice, and with his free hand he’d grab each child and fling them lightly over the creek before springing down to resume his gentle jog, and everything he did he did with a ‘Hup! Hooo … Hup!’ When they came to a stream where a small punt waited he helped them in, ‘Hup! Hooo!’ then pushed off from the stone jetty with an oar and began to row them down the black river in long, easy strokes, his oars gently cutting the steamy water, ‘Hut … hut … hut …’

Soon they sailed out of the tunnels and into a bunker filled with countless ships of war.

‘So this is where Daddy keeps his fleet,’ said Panduke. ‘I always wondered.’ A group of generals waited on the shore, medals gleaming in the artificial light, and each of them bowed to the prince, and to Kimmy. Lamont helped the children out, then stood by the boat, stretching. A general stepped forward. He had so many medals on his chest that when he bowed they tinkled like a wind chime. ‘Your Highness,’ said General Spatz, ‘we salute your bravery and cunning. In the mysterious absence of His Royal Highness the Emperor the Royal Air Fleet now places its warships at your executive command, as per our city’s constitution. You may now give your orders, either to surrender unconditionally to the Pope, or to attack.’

Prince Panduke had looked from the general to the ships, their mighty cannons, the racks of ammunition stacked beside them. Then he’d looked at Kimmy and whispered … ‘
Awesome
.’

And so here they were, on the command deck of the Diemendääs fleet as it tumbled from the surface in a hopeless assault against the Pope’s forces. The prince could see his city below – now a flaming glow upon the surface of the planet – and he could see that their fleet, the one which had looked so fearsome when stacked in bunkers underground, looked trivial when set against the black hulks of the Fleet of the Nine Churches, and the music in his skull was the timpanic drumming of his blood, topped with shrill, discordant notes of fear. Kimmy was there, and she was dressed in a naval jumpsuit that made her look fierce. ‘Highness, we are in position. Your order?’ said General Spatz.

The prince looked at Kimmy, then back at the general.

‘Hit them with everything you’ve got,’ he said.

*

‘It is the city’s war fleet, Holiness,’ said Cardinal Mothersbaugh, as the first wave of fire hit their forward defences. ‘They are small but heavily armed. They have destroyed the bombardment division.’

‘Crush them,’ said the Pope. ‘Wipe them all out, and then destroy the rest of the city. Turn the parts we haven’t bombed to ruins. And then destroy the ruins! And then throw that girl into the Glory Hole! I don’t like her. She has funny skin!’

‘We are in a tactically weak position, Holiness. We outnumber them ten thousand guns to one, but we have our backs against the Glory Hole. We will suffer losses. We could perhaps move to –’

‘We must perform the execution! That’s why we’ve been sent all the way here. What did you think this was, a holiday?’

Mothersbaugh did not think this had been a holiday, although he had been on holidays that were far worse. ‘They are positioning their heavy guns to fire on our palaces.’

‘Then get us behind the laundry palace! They can’t hit us if we’re behind a laundry palace!’ And Mothersbaugh had to admit it was a pretty good idea.

*

‘I’m not going on those,’ said Fabrigas when he saw the Black Widow’s rocket wings.

‘Why not?’

‘Because they are not meant to be used in space. Because they have no life-support equipment and they tend to blow up when struck by space debris. And because I don’t want to.’

‘Nonsense. Why are you sulking?’

‘I’m not sulking. Why would you want to know? I’d only
bore
you.’

‘Oh for the love of … Here, you can sulk all you like inside this,’ she said as she handed the old man a crash helmet with a visor and oxygen mask. Then she slipped her own mask on, slung the rocket wings on her back, and threw a harness around Fabrigas’s waist. ‘Try
to stay limp,’ she whispered in his ear. Fabrigas hardly had time to gather himself before the Black Widow stepped backwards out of the hatch, and then they were tumbling end over end in space. Fabrigas saw their ship retreating quickly into the distance. Then the Black Widow hit ignition, and suddenly he saw their pursuers racing towards them at an unbelievable speed, their steel hooks slicing the air.

Then into the heart of the storm. The Black Widow took them on a sickening hell-journey, dipping and diving through the swinging hooks. The pilots, startled, began to flail and found their cables tangling, and there was a series of mighty explosions as grapple ships were swung against each other. ‘Geeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!’ admitted Fabrigas.

Ahead, the palaces emerged through the smoke and fire. They could see the Diemendääs ships throwing themselves against the Pope’s defences only to be forced back by the unbelievable firepower of the death-fleet. And the Black Widow flew them straight into it, straight into the cloud of dust, fire and debris.

‘Sheeeeeeeeooooooaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!’ Fabrigas suggested.

The Black Widow sent them rocketing towards the docking bay of the largest papal command palace, where she assumed they’d find Lenore, and gave her jet wings one last burst of throttle.

*

Fabrigas the younger, meanwhile, was taking a few seconds to ponder the infinite strangeness of the universe. Just a year ago he was a junior monk at the Dark Friars’ Academy. He’d left to join the Academy’s Exploratory Unit. He had signed up as a science officer on a deep space expedition, had narrowly avoided death on fourteen separate occasions, before finally finding safe port in a city on the outer reaches of his universe. Once there he’d got into trouble after snogging a general’s wife at a ball. He was placed before a firing squad and shot. He survived, miraculously, was rescued by an older
version of himself and was caught up in some kind of trans-dimensional war.

It was a lot to fit into a single year. He had now eased his stricken craft expertly into the gravity of the moon. The grappling craft pursuing him would not dare to fly so close to Bespophus. They would have to take the long way round. He was, he had to admit, a damned good pilot, even with just one arm. He observed the peaceful jungles of the moon below, and for a second considered setting his craft down there and hiding in the undergrowth. But something told him that was not a good idea.

Then, as he came round the moon’s dark half he saw a quite incredible sight. It was a fleet, massive and heavily armed – it had been tucked quietly behind the moon. The lead craft hailed him.

‘This is Fleet Commander Descharge of the
Necronaut.
Please identify yourself.’

Fabrigas cleared his throat, switched on his ship’s communicator. ‘This is … Master M. Francisco Fabrigas … of the vessel … whatever the heck this ship is called. I didn’t really have time to check.’

There was silence on the other end of the line.

THE SILENT ONES

A good voyage depends upon a good ship. A good ship sees many terrible things, in battle and in peace, but always remains a good ship. The
Necronaut
had proved itself, despite appearances, to be a very good ship. It had carried its present crew through several dimensions, a number of skirmishes and one major space battle, before it had brought them before a massive sign in space: ‘Silence’.

This, briefly, is what had happened.

(Oh, I know, I know: the Pope, the battle, our friends. This really won’t take long.)

In that lonely patch of empty space they’d sat until they saw a vast ship emerging from the darkness. The ship was painted black and what windows it had were dimly lit. Descharge could do nothing as the ship pulled up beside them and a wide hatch opened to reveal a softly lit bay. The bay was lined with deep, cushioned material. The
Necronaut
touched softly down and listed over in the plush upholstery. Four figures in hazard suits came through a small door and walked along the side of the
Necronaut
, studied its markings. They had a short conversation in sign language. One of the men punched some keys on an electronic sign he was holding and held it up. The sign read: ‘If you please, have silence. Danger. Open hatch?’