Starcustard { chapters 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 }
Chapter 8
Optional music track: ‘Rob Dougan - Speed Me Towards Death (Instrumental)’
The Nousu’s ship—or so it had been before rebellious slavekids had commandeered it—was a big ship. Being big was apparently the Nousus’ ship’s primary purpose. Its design, somewhat box-shaped with rounded corners and a blunt beak of a prow protruding from its front face, did not seem particularly disposed to anything else, or indeed anything at all, and its metallic yellow bulk floated cumbersomely through space with an air of bloated, ugly pride. It was a mansion of a ship, and it wanted it known. As it drifted ostentatiously by, those it passed did stop and stare, but for all the wrong reasons.
Before the ship, vast and blue-white, was the icy planet of Scape.
The Captain stood up and straightened his brown coat. He stared with resolve at the image of the planet before him, sniffed primly, about-turned, and marched stiffly from the cockpit. He made his way down one of the many corridors that cut through the ship, every one of them deserted. A single voice drifted through the ship: a confident voice with, the Captain detected, just a slight edge of something manic, but one that kept all else silent as it spoke.
He turned a handle and the metal door swung open, revealing another short length of corridor, lined with lopsided, holographic portraits of ugly slugthings. Corridor F9. The Captain wondered vaguely as he always did why they needed so many doors at such short intervals. Maybe for the illusion of grandeur, he considered; or maybe just so that Mistress O always had one nearby when she needed it to slam.
Corridor F10. He stepped over a toppled plinth, an expensive vase in a thousand pieces at one end. Slippers were scattered intermittently.
‘ ... We could all be fried at any moment, so we don’t have a lot of time ... ’
His hand grasped the next handle.
‘We never had a lot of time ... ’
Corridor F11. The Captain wrinkled his nose as he marched past the closet containing the former master of the ship. He did not so much as glance in its direction. He followed a trail of blood and slippers into Corridor F12, where there were deep gashes in the walls and the shiny floor had been savagely scuffed.
‘How much time do we have, then?’ came another voice.
The Captain planted his hand firmly on the final handle, and the door swung open into the main hall. It was filled with slavekids, all stood on the floor before the inwardly-curving slope of the stairs, else seated on the stairs themselves or watching from the balconies. At the top of the stairs, where the two flights met, stood Andromed, clutching the banister. As the Captain entered, every single head turned to face him.
‘None at all,’ he said, in answer to the slavekid’s question. ‘We’re here.’
Anxious chatter rippled through the assembled crowd. Noleph, holding Stat’s hand, looked around in bewilderment. Andromed exhaled. ‘Clarx and Styrene have nearly finished making the parachutes.’ Out of bedsheets, hissed the panic that was mounting inside him. Bedsheets! Bedsheets and string! It won’t work! ‘So ... other than that we ... we should be ready.’ He swallowed and forced the fear back down. ‘Any questions?’ He looked around at their frightened faces.
‘Are we all gonna die?’ asked someone.
Stat watched Andromed, wanting to stand by his side but at the same time seeking further reassurance.
Andromed finally answered: ‘Only if we do nothing. Captain, I need to speak with you.’
***
Three security officers arrived at Mel’s Custard Café, blue armour gleaming, hair slicked back, recording devices in hand.
‘Sir?’ the larger one asked. ‘Is everything alright, sir? What has happened here?’
‘Piracy,’ Mel blurted, examining one small girl’s broken arm and messy face.
‘Piracy? Against a custard shop?’ Another officer blinked at Mel, pushed a few buttons on his recorder, and began taking video of the vandalised shop.
‘Pirates have never attacked our station before,’ the first officer said calmly.
Mel looked at him sternly. ‘Well, get used to the idea!’ he growled, laying Vellina gently across the bakery counter and cautioned her to be still and wait for the hospital cart.
‘Sir?’ the guard’s monotone voice cracked. ‘Has anything been stolen, sir?’
‘Listen, I’ll be down to file a report as soon as I’ve righted my shop. Please.’
‘If you don’t mind, sir, what cause would pirates have to attack a simple custard café?’ the officer pressed. Mel ignored him and went on checking the children for serious injury. Two boys had deep cuts on their arms; nearly everyone had bruises showing up on their faces. The guard spoke to his associates, ‘We will investigate the scene here.’ And with that scooted himself around the front counter, through the spilled flour and oatmeal, and into the kitchen.
Outside the custard café, the crowd was boiling with speculation.
‘Did he say pirates?’
‘Pirates on Hepthazard?’
‘But why?’
‘Ten of them! And more on the way, he said!’
The story began to spread throughout the station in frantic whispers and through widened eyes, the patrons and visitors of Hepthazard building a collective unease that prompted those with hiding places to hide and those without to hasten in their shopping.
An old flat-faced man croaked, describing the ferocity and ruthlessness of the pirates he’d seen during his long and scar-filled life. Small screams of astonishment began to emanate from his audience. The pirates were laying siege to the station. The pirates wanted three hundred hostages. The pirates were going to suck all the money and glitter and gluttony and even the air right out of Hepthazard. The pirates were coming.
***
Optional music track: ‘Radiohead – Scatterbrain (As Dead As Leaves)’
‘Show me the core,’ said Andromed.
‘What for?’
‘I want to see it.’
The Captain sighed, reminding himself that he had already accepted the fact that the kids were crazy and going to kill them all anyway. Nevertheless, the core was the only thing left that they hadn’t stripped bare and subjected to destruction, and the Captain felt suddenly vulnerable on its behalf as he found them now after his access codes.
His fingers drummed at his sides. ‘I have the access codes,’ he admitted slowly.
‘I know,’ said Andromed, impatiently. ‘I want you to open it.’
The Captain looked at the boy’s face. His fierceness. His intensity. The apparent indignance that he was still on this ship at all. It was something that had been festering beneath the façade of the Nousus’ flamboyance for a long time, he realised, finally finding vent as the cracks started to show and those two kids had gone mad. Then there had been no stopping it. So it was probably too much to expect any politeness.
Reluctantly, he turned and made his way without further comment along another corridor, allowing the imposing youth to follow as he may.
He wondered if Hydrogen was still alive.
***
In the dark, sticky quiet of the basement, Jormes watched Gen stand up and smear the goo from her hands on her black trousers. The body of the pirate captain sank softly into the flood of custard. Gen stared, not really seeing the disaster around her.
Jormes lifted Flit limb by limb out of the deepening custard and looked straight at Gen for a moment before sludging toward the staircase. Gen didn’t move. He reached the top of the stairs with Flit’s unconscious body, awkwardly pushing the trapdoor open with his shoulders. Mel went to him and lifted Flit’s head, making certain she was alive.
‘Gen’s down there,’ Jormes said in a soft, dry voice.
‘Is she okay?’ Mel asked. ‘Take Flit to the hospital cart. Careful.’ Hardly waiting for Jormes’s nod, Mel kicked the trapdoor fully open and hurried into the storage room.
Gen was shivering, the spilled custard now rising over her knees. Mel made his way to her with a great sigh. His voice broke the sloppy rhythm of dripping custard, ‘You’re alright, Gen?’
She blinked once and then closed her eyes, wiping her hands again on her sleeves. She could feel the weight of the dead pirate on her right foot, but she didn’t move.
‘Gen, come upstairs. Everything’s alright now,’ he said. Gen looked up at him in the dark. ‘Security’s showed up. They need me to go down and file a report.’
Gen blinked again and nodded. ‘I killed one.’ She nudged the body with her shin and stared down at where it lay under the custard. Mel sighed heavily once more, and then took Gen by the arm. ‘I killed—’
At the top of the stairs Gen emerged first, a distant frown in her face. Mel followed, leaving the trapdoor open. A pair of thin medical personnel was helping Jormes lift Flit into the back of the cart. Half a dozen of the children now wore bandages and were waiting to be taken in.
‘Mr Marsh, if you could sign?’ the taller medical man approached and handed him an electronic pad and stylus. ‘Will an adult be accompanying us?’
Mel scrawled his name, looking from the hospital cart to the disaster of his kitchen, to the security guards crawling all over everything. ‘I—Jormes, go with them. Send the boy back with any messages, thank y—’
‘Sir,’ the officer approached once more and interrupted.
‘Descriptions of the criminals are necessary. Can you make a statement?’
‘Yes—ah—Gen, take the smaller children upstairs. Bedtime is long past, I’m afraid.’
‘Sir?’ The officer held his recorder closer to Mel’s face. As soon as the children were out of sight up the stairs, Mel spoke.
‘The dead body in my storage basement might be helpful to you. There were two others—greasy and heavily armed.’ Mel moved away from the trap door and sighed. ‘No doubt there are other witnesses on this blasted spacestation!’
The officer clicked thoughtfully and signalled to his associates. All three of them slowly slithered down the stairs.
Mel hadn’t warned them about the foot and a half of custard. With a scowl in their general direction he turned and rushed upstairs, straight to the false panel behind the fireplace.
***
Optional music track: ‘Air - Another Day’
The Captain punched in his access codes, a seemingly complex affair that he took his time over and completed with an air of stubborn pride. The two of them stood directly below the main hall, at the very centre of the ship. The Captain pulled open the door, and Andromed stepped across the threshold.
He was on a metal platform that encircled the core from a roughly three-metre distance. The core itself was a two-metre-wide cylinder of fluorescent green light suspended in the centre of the circular room, and was also the room’s only source of light. It disappeared down below the platform into the mechanical bowels of the ship, and at its top terminated in a crown of thin rods that attached themselves to the ceiling above. The cylinder appeared to shimmer and ripple as the light was refracted in the surface of some invisible shield.
The Captain stepped inside and stood behind the boy as he scrutinised the entire thing, the bright green light flickering in his eyes.
‘So we’re going to blow this up,’ the kid said.
‘Oh you are,’ replied the Captain plainly.
Andromed turned to face him. ‘Explain it to me.’
The Captain raised his eyebrows. ‘The core? Well, it’s quite complex—’
‘It’s going to explode when we crash, yes?’
The Captain made a noise of grim amusement. ‘No, it’s going to explode long before that. As you barely gave me a chance to tell you, this ship was not built for re-entry. It’s going to burn up on the way down. I really don’t know exactly what you’re planning to do ... ’
‘But we’d have a chance to escape,’ insisted Andromed, prompting him for the only answer he wanted to hear. ‘With the parachutes. Before it burns up.’
‘You’d ... you’d have to jump at the very last second,’ said the Captain. ‘You can’t jump too high up. You’ll either freeze to death or die for the lack of oxygen—you’ll need oxygen bottles and masks. The ones you use for spacestation dockings. How many have you got?’
‘One came free with each of us,’ said Andromed, thoughtfully. ‘For when we’re transported. They’re only small, though. And I’ll have to check that none of them are damaged.’
The Captain stroked his beard. ‘They’ll have to do. I do have a few spares somewhere ... I’d suggest those bowl things the slugs wear, but I fear you’d drop like stones.’
‘Right,’ said Andromed.
The Captain scratched the skin above his eyebrow. ‘I’ll angle the ship as best I can,’ he said, half thinking aloud, ‘so it doesn’t stall once it starts getting pulled down. But, my boy, this great and ugly thing we have so far and for want of a better word called home is going to achieve some incredible velocity. You’re going to have to leave out the back way for a start, if you aren’t wanting to be ripped apart, and that’s assuming you’re even able to make the jump at all!’
‘But—’
‘You’re going to have to time it perfectly,’ the Captain continued, waving a finger in front of his face. ‘Too soon and you’ll freeze to death likes I said. But too late and you’ll be burned alive with the rest of the ship, else plastered to the back wall. Hopefully the shape of this thing’s right for lessening the heat load, which might buy us a little time, but there’s no guarantee of that. There’s no guarantee of anything. You say you got parachutes?’
Andromed was looking slightly glassy-eyed. He nodded slowly, his expression suggesting that this was becoming far more complicated than he’d wanted it to be. ‘But ... the tags,’ he said, focusing on the Captain. ‘Tell me this will break them. Fry them before they fry us. Otherwise there’s no point in any of this. Tell me we can get rid of the tags!’
The Captain did not cower, whimper, or even flinch. He stared hard at the boy, his lips tight and his eyes sincere. Then he said, ‘This is the end of the ship, whether we’re all still inside it or not. When the core goes critical it’s going to take everything else with it, and if you’re on the outside at a safe distance from the explosion itself and within the range of the electromagnetic pulse that’s going to go off—which you should be—those tags of yours will be destroyed, and you might just, by the grace of some divine being, land safely and alive.’
***
Optional music track: ‘Fuel - Innocent’
Gen ushered the young ones into their beds, tucking them in absentmindedly.
There was a dead pirate in the basement. A dead pirate she had murdered. Flit had been taken to the hospital, unconscious. A murdered pirate. A pirate she herself had murdered. Gen remembered the splattered green blood of her stepfather and the way his body had collapsed so heavily when she’d killed him. There was a dead pirate in the basement. Dead slugs. Dead pirates. And so many gallons of ruined custard. What would it mean for the café? Those guards were recording everything. When they found the pirate captain they’d make a big fuss of it, ask endless questions. Who knew for how long the café would be marked as a crime scene?
Intending to return downstairs and help restore the café kitchen to order, Gen took a deep breath and made sure the bedroom doors were shut tightly.
When Gen walked into the sitting room, she saw Mel running his hands lovingly along the neck of a hairy, four-legged animal with horns. The animal blinked and twitched at Gen’s approach, scraping its hooves against the stone of the hearth.
Looking around at her, Mel smiled agitatedly. ‘Gen,’ he said. ‘Gen, this is—this is very, very important. If he gets into the wrong hands, if anyone—all our work will fall apart.’
Gen stood at the back of the great armchair. ‘What is it?’ she asked quietly.
‘He is a goat. His name is Brinzolio. Possibly the most valuable goat in the galaxy. At least he is to us.’
‘A goat?’ Gen asked. The goat blinked coyly at Gen as if beckoning her closer. ‘And that’s what they were looking for?’ Gen asked.
‘Yes. I don’t doubt it. And I think I know why. They’ll be back. Oh, they’ll be back. Stop at nothing. What’ll I tell Gregarium?’ Mel’s voice lacked all its usual jovial rumble and optimism.
‘Gregarium?’ Gen whispered, at last moving from the chair to the fireplace. The goat tilted its head towards Gen, trying to lick the custard from her sleeves.
‘Yes. This goat isn’t just a pet. They’ll be back for it. Sack the whole station trying to find it. I’ll be ruined ... ’
‘It’s that important? You can’t—?’
‘Hand it over and save them the trouble of tearing Hepthazard to bits?’ Mel grumbled. ‘No.’
Gen reached out and patted the goat tentatively.
‘If those guards would turn their heads for half a minute I’d—but the children. Running away now just isn’t possible.’
The goat started chewing on the hem of Gen’s shirt, coaxing a shallow smile to the girl’s face. Mel, down on his knees, was clutching the animal’s short hair with his large fingers.
‘What if I take him?’
‘You? Gen?’
‘I could go. I— I don’t want you to be ruined.’
‘But ... ’ Mel let go of Brinzolio’s hair and sat up.
‘Where do I need to take him?’
‘Just far enough to be out of the way, but—’
‘And how would I get there?’
‘Well, there’s delivery carts. But Gen, you can’t be serious ... ’
Gen only looked Mel straight in the eyes as he stood up.
***
‘Hold this,’ said Clarx, draping the bedsheet over Styrene’s head.
Styrene sighed, the cotton of the sheet momentarily embossed with the features of his face. ‘How many more of these have we got to make?’ he asked, pulling the sheet off.
Clarx clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and pushed him out of the way in order to spread the sheet out flat. Styrene stood up and yawned while Clarx tied the corners into knots. Styrene then did a series of stretches, leaning every which way and pulling and twisting as if to make himself taller.
Then he lazily scratched his non-existent stomach. Clarx retrieved the string and began to tie lengths of it, already twisted together to add strength, to the knots he had just created.
‘I’m hungry,’ said Styrene, walking over the sheet towards the door, redirected slightly as Clarx pushed him off once again.
Several other kids sat in the room watching. The room was covered with mounds of the white material, and in the middle of it all Clarx worked tirelessly. Some tried following his example and he accepted their help gratefully, correcting their efforts where needed.
Andromed appeared as Styrene left, stepping cautiously over a girl on her knees who was wrapped in a sheet like a tiny old lady as she attached metal washers to near-finished parachutes.
‘Are you nearly done in here?’ he asked.
‘Well, if people stopped askin’ questions,’ said Clarx.
Andromed did not reply to this, and instead made his way along the easiest path around the room, watching Clarx and the others as they worked. He bent down and picked up one of the completed specimens, tugging at the cords of string, ‘Is this really going to hold?’ he asked. ‘I mean, it’s ... string. There’s going to be velocity, you know—’
‘Reinforced vigorolic,’ Clarx said informatively. ‘It’ll hold. Specially when it’s bound like wot it is.’ He moved from sitting cross-legged to a standing position like a sprightly jack-in-the-box, smiling proudly and placing his finished product on top of the one already in Andromed’s arms. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘How do you even know how to make parachutes?’ demanded Andromed, but Clarx had already left the room.
‘We are almost done,’ came the overly mystic voice of the beshawled girl somewhere by his feet.
‘Right,’ said Andromed. ‘Then ... then we’re ready. We’re ready?’ He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. ‘We’re ready. Where’s Stat?’
***
Optional music track: ‘Death Cab For Cutie - Passenger Seat’
‘Cause of death?’
The pirate’s body was laid out on the floor of the kitchen, oozing custard from his clothing, weapons, and nostrils.
‘Suffocation.’ One of the guards was crouched over the body, taking samples of his blood, saliva, fur, and skin. ‘Approximately thirty-seven minutes ago.’
Mel watched the three of them from the stairs for a moment. Then he turned to Gen, who was standing right above him, holding the goat. ‘I’ll find you. Just take care of him, stay out of the way. I’ll find you just as soon as I can. Go.’
Gen walked behind Mel as he approached the guards; as he stopped she continued across the kitchen unnoticed, forcing her eyes to keep away from the dead body. ‘I certainly hope, gentlemen, that you don’t intend to leave that thing in the middle of my kitchen,’ Mel growled.
‘Sir, we’d like to take you down to headquarters. This needs to be cleared up once and for all.’
‘You really don’t have the time to question me, officers. This is not the end of this! The pirates will not rest until this station is turned upside down and inside out.’
All three guards turned to face Mel. ‘This is one of the largest stations in the galaxy,’ one of them said, ‘but we have little to offer spacepirates like these. What could they possibly want from us?’
Mel gazed silently at the broken glass front of his café. The officer got tired of waiting for him to answer and summoned his two colleagues to take Mel by force. ‘If you have any foundations for these predictions sir, we demand you explain them to us. You will accompany us to headquarters.’
***
Stat sat in the middle of a jungle on a graffiti-covered leather sofa, hugging her knees. The fibre-optic plants glowed with sinuous colours around her. She was in her own little world, separated from the chaos elsewhere.
She heard leaves being pushed aside and the soft footsteps of someone approaching, but she didn’t turn. She just stared straight ahead, lost in the indescribable massiveness of what they were all now so far into.
Andromed stood and looked at her. ‘Stat?’ he whispered. When she didn’t answer, he made his way around to the other side of the sofa and sat down by her. He hesitated, his arm for a moment lingering, but then he put it around her. ‘We’re going to live through this, you know.’ Every muscle in her body felt tense. ‘We’re going to live through this,’ he said, ‘and then we’re going to be free. Can you imagine that? No more slugs!’
For the first time, she looked at him, her eyes glistening.
‘It’s worth a try for that, isn’t it? We won’t be slaves anymore, Stat!’ Andromed’s face had lit up again. He got to his feet and pulled at her arms.
‘No ... ’ she said weakly.
‘Stat, we have to do this! Come on! This is the only chance we’ve got! And then we’ll ... and then we’ll ... ’ Andromed flopped back onto the sofa, feeling suddenly dizzy. ‘Think of ... think of all the ice cream.’ He stared at some inner vision. ‘Ice cream!’ he declared, standing up once again. He tugged Stat to her feet.
‘You have to promise me it!’ she said on her way up.
‘A whole world of it,’ he said. ‘Now get up, you. The others are waiting.’ She stumbled as he pulled her off the sofa and dragged her through the glowing foliage.
***
Optional music track: ‘Aquabats - Sequence Erase (Instrumental)’
Gen exited the café and walked calmly across the courtyard without incident. The goat bleated and nipped at Gen’s hair. She set him down, holding tightly to his cord, and carefully skirted the edges of the increasingly panicked groups of people in the corridors. Around her were voices of every pitch, spreading the ghastly pirate rumour.
‘Spacepirates!’
‘—tear Hepthazard to shreds—’
‘—I’m not sticking around to see that—’
‘—they wouldn’t dare—’
‘—but they have already!’
Gen tugged on the cord around Brin’s neck, pushing her way past more people than were usually out and about at this hour. Several of them were dragging their possessions from storage lockers, pushing trolleys filled with shopping as fast as they could, and hurrying through the corridors recklessly. Brinzolio kept trying to get his teeth into people’s baggage and clothing. The animal managed to tear open the hem of a woman’s skirt before Gen could slap him on the nose and tighten her grip on his rope.
***
‘Now this is going to happen fast,’ said the Captain, guiding the ship towards the planet. ‘Are you all ready?’
‘Yes,’ said Andromed. ‘Ready as ever.’
At the opposite end of the ship, crowded along one of the cylindrical corridors in the ship’s underbelly (to which they had previously been confined by the Nousus), the slavekids sat with their parachutes already attached around their torsos. Noleph sat in Stat’s lap, in a specially created harness.
Andromed paced the cockpit. The Captain turned his head a fraction without actually looking at the boy and said, ‘You’d better get back there and join them. I can handle it from here.’
Andromed stopped pacing, but he didn’t leave.
The Captain steered carefully. ‘Steady now,’ he said softly, as Andromed felt the ship incline. ‘What’s happening?’ he said.
‘Gravity,’ replied the Captain.
Andromed bit his nails. He turned and picked up his parachute from the floor, putting it on.
‘Here we go ... ’ The entire ship tipped forwards. The Captain concentrated hard on moderating their descent as they were pulled downwards.
At the back of the ship, soft whimpers came from those who weren’t already feeling too sick to speak. The planet’s pull was now inexorable. Stat reached a hand out and gripped the wall as Noleph’s grip around her tightened. Styrene patted Clarx on the back and nodded to reassure both himself and his friend that they were ready.
Andromed put a hand on the Captain’s shoulder, watching as the main display screen filled with white. But the Captain was paying no attention to that, instead focusing on each and every figure and symbol that scrawled on the control panels in front of him.
In the kitchen, the spilled bag of flour began to lightly dust the floor. Elsewhere, fibre optic plants tilted, and slippers tumbled from their closet like the pebbles before a landslide.
The ship grumbled.
And then everybody on board felt their stomachs drop.
Optional music track: ‘The Mars Volta - Drunkship Of Lanterns’
‘This is it!’ shouted the Captain as they began to feel the increasing acceleration, his hands and his face sweating profusely. The Captain held on to the wheel, pulling it back as Andromed struggled to keep his balance. He teetered over to the remaining parachute and began to put it around the Captain as he stood.
‘What are you doing?’ the Captain demanded, his eyes fixed on the control panels.
Metal whined and groaned as the ship began to feel the strain. Back in the kitchen, pots and pans were jolted from their hooks and came crashing to the ground, while in Organza’s bedroom her monolothic bed began to slide.
Down below, the slavekids held on to the walls and each other, their heartbeats rising.
Heat began to burn across the ship’s blunt snout. The restored shields flickered violently, lighting up the entire ship as it hurtled towards a thick layer of dark cloud.
‘That’s it!’ cried the Captain, jamming the controls and pulling his hands from the wheel. ‘It’s out of my control!’ Andromed caught him as he fell backwards, attaching an oxygen bottle to his belt and handing him his mask.
Andromed’s voice then spoke throughout the ship as he turned on the emergency intercom. ‘Everybody put on your masks and prepare to jump! This is really it!’
With a crack as if the ship had been hit by a demonic whip, the shields depleted and a lick of flame blasted across the surface.
‘Let’s go!’ yelled Andromed, and pulled the two of them from the cockpit as the Captain pressed one final button on the panel.
They raced through the corridors like a crashing wave as the turbulence rocked them about and threw obstacles in their path. The ship moaned; its infrastructure was suffering.
Clarx watched the numbers on the timer drop as soon as they had lit up on the trapdoor. The rest of them sat looking helpless, their masks on.
***
‘Pirates have never attacked our station before. You must be aware, sir—this is unprecedented, it’s— We were not and cannot be prepared for this kind of trouble.’
The Hepthazard Security offices were grey and crowded. Mel Marsh was shown a tiny desk and given a folder of pages to review and fill out. One of the security guards stood over his chair, and a few moments later a tall uniformed man with two pink hands at the end of each arm entered.
‘Who killed that pirate?’ he immediately questioned.
Mel sighed. ‘He was tearing apart my café, sir. I will accept responsibility for protecting my livelihood.’
‘And you say the pirates aren’t finished with our station?’ The officer cracked his knuckles. ‘Where do you get that idea, Mr Marsh?’
‘I know they won’t stop until they find what they’re looking for. You have to do something,’ he grimaced. ‘They will be back in stronger numbers, and they will leave no stone unturned.’
‘Can you be sure of this, Mr Marsh?’ the officer questioned.
‘Yes, I bloody well can.’
***
The nose of the ship tore downwards through the air, heat blazing at its tip and spreading across the entire craft. The cockpit became an oven; electronics sparked and ignited. The tiny window in Gen’s old room cracked and streaked with pale lines; her mattress attached itself to the back wall.
Andromed and the Captain scrambled through the main hall as ornaments toppled and everywhere shook. Directly below them, the core fiercely intensified as the engines overheated.
Gen’s window exploded. Shards of broken glass blew in then outwards as the air inside the ship was sucked outside. The ship jolted as something else exploded in the cockpit. Everybody covered their ears as feedback in the intercom system screeched throughout. The core room reached ridiculously high temperatures. The slavekids felt the metal twist and writhe all about them and a deep, rumbling bass nearly shattered their bones, but they held on.
Andromed shot through the final length of corridor almost involuntarily, the Captain right at his heels. They weren’t given the opportunity of using the ladder when they reached the entrance to the level below, but tumbled down it, frantically checking their equipment for damage at the bottom.
The timer hit zero. There was the sound of a release mechanism and the trapdoor was flung open. Clarx paused for only a fraction of a second and then jumped, carried away out of sight in an instant. A wave of dizziness came over Styrene as he made the mistake of thinking about it. Someone patted him on firmly on the shoulder. He nodded, and disappeared.
Fire roared through the cockpit, snaking and leaping from object to object as more electronics melted away. It spread rapidly through the corridors, entering rooms as it passed. A holographic slug portrait dropped from its peg and was consumed.
The number of slavekids left on the ship was dwindling. Stat stood at the edge, resisting the pull of the air outside. At her chest, Noleph had his eyes shut tight. She looked back at Andromed, who watched her with plain fear on his face. She smiled and he smiled awkwardly back. Then turning back to the hole, she took her mask away from her face and shouted to Noleph over all the noise, ‘You just hold on tight!’ She put her mask back on, looked back one more time, and then was gone.
The ship’s outer layer started to peel away; great, thick sheets of yellow metal rolled back like butter under a hot knife. Static discharged as the ship hit the clouds; two forks of lightning cut the sky and thunder rolled heavily across them.
The last slavekid before Andromed jumped. The Captain turned, his thinning hair blowing in the wind. On his face was a mingled look of both dignity and respect. He held out his hand, shifting his weight to keep balance. Andromed reached out and shook it firmly.
And then he was the only one left.
He braced himself and jumped.
He was hit hard by some incredible force and ripped violently backwards, unable to breathe. The corners of his vision turned dark and he held onto his oxygen mask even tighter as he rolled through blackness. Air roared deafeningly past his ears and he tumbled downwards, feeling his insides up in his throat.
Then the parachute opened up properly, he righted and exited the layer of stormy cloud. He caught his breath back as his vision cleared. He saw the ship, a great fireball breaking apart some distance below and to his right. He saw the sky dotted with figures, the other slavekids, some falling faster than others, some drifting perilously close to the ship. His white, pyjama-like clothing flapped about uncontrollably as he fell, and he struggled to keep it from his face, his eyes stinging painfully.
The metal skeleton of the Nousus’ ship was strained to breaking point. Fires within and without tore through and across it: a hundred slippers and fibre optic plants went up in flames, and what had once been grotesquely grand was now burnt and blackened.
The core throbbed and expanded; the floor of the main hall above blistered and the air crackled.
The door of the closet in corridor F11 burst open, and out came the late Mr Gilt Humphrey Nousu, mass and blubber colliding with the opposite wall, bouncing backwards and rolling over in an ungraceful arc as the flames encroached.
Then the core collapsed.
Andromed felt the force of the explosion hit him hard, pushing him sideways, and he struggled not to get the cords of his parachute tangled as he shielded his eyes against the hot, blinding green light. He watched in horror as the expanding ball of flame devoured those too close; large, dangerous chunks of shrapnel were hurled in every direction to the ill luck of both kids and their parachutes. Andromed wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t.
He felt a sharp pain pierce him in several places and he very nearly blacked out, eyes watering intensely. As his consciousness lapsed, through all the pain he became vaguely aware of something vast and white approaching him. He forced himself with difficulty to stay awake, inhaled deeply, and braced himself once again.
***
As Gen neared the docking area, the crowd thickened. Luckily the custard delivery carts were parked near the spacestation stairs, and she located them quite easily.
The chatter and hurrying of people overly eager to leave the station filled the air.
‘Move it! Move it, girlie!’ a grimacing grey alien with a large head urged. ‘You’re not the only one on the docks, snotface!’
‘Get a move on!’ shouted someone else. ‘Open those gates!’
Gen scowled and tugged again at the goat. After tripping over several other hastening Hepthazard residents, she finally reached the black, somewhat scuffed custard delivery cart. It was a small, bulbous vehicle with Mel’s Custard Café painted on the side. The key Mel had given her opened the back, where Gen deposited her four-legged compatriot, as well as the cockpit, where Gen slid into the pilot’s seat. Brinzolio clomped around in the cargo area before deciding he would be more comfortable in Gen’s lap.
As the exiting space traffic waited, Gen ran her fingers through the grey hair behind the goat’s ears. Brinzolio bleated.
‘Shh, Brin,’ she said softly, nudging the goat aside so she could reach the control panel. She studied it carefully, her fingers ready to press buttons and pull levers as soon as she had decided what they all meant. There were not, however, that many. After fingering a few switches, and deciphering one or two of the simple readouts, she pulled hopefully on the ignition lever. When the gates were finally opened again, Gen steered the cart carefully until most of the traffic had dispersed and then set the controls on a straight course away from Hepthazard. She didn’t look back. Blinking out at the starscape before her, she wrapped her arms around the goat’s hairy body. Brin bleated again and rubbed his head against her chin. His hooved feet shifted, digging into Gen’s custard-smeared legs. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath and buried her face in the strange smell of the goat’s fur.
COMPULSORY MUSIC TRACK: ‘MUSE - SPACE DEMENTIA’
