God Emperor of Didcot Read online

  GOD EMPEROR OF DIDCOT

  Toby Frost

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Also by Toby Frost:

  Contents PART ONE

  1 A Deadly Mission!

  2 Casino Imperiale

  3 The Fall of Didcot 4

  4 The Rebellion Begins

  5 Checkpoint Gertie

  6 Damned Children!

  7 The Sauceress

  8 The Prodigal Spawn

  PART TWO

  1 Return to Urn

  2 Many Types of Adventure!

  3 Preparations for Battle

  4 Battle is joined

  5 Forward

  6 A Duel with the God Emperor!

  Acknowledgements About the Author

  Join Captain Smith and his crew on their next adventure. . .

  The Painted Messiah by Craig Smith

  The Blood Lance by Craig Smith

  Copyright

  Myrmidon Books Ltd

  Rotterdam House

  116 Quayside

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  NE1 3DY

  www.myrmidonbooks.com

  Published by Myrmidon 2008

  Copyright © Toby Frost 2008

  Toby Frost has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-905802-44-9

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First ebook edition 2010

  To my Friends and Family

  Also by Toby Frost:

  Space Captain Smith

  Wrath of the Lemming Men

  A Game of Battleships

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1: A Deadly Mission!

  Chapter 2: Casino Imperiale

  Chapter 3: The Fall of Didcot 4

  Chapter 4: The Rebellion Begins

  Chapter 5: Checkpoint Gertie

  Chapter 6: Damned Children!

  Chapter 7: The Sauceress

  Chapter 8: The Prodigal Spawn

  PART TWO

  Chapter 1: Return to Urn

  Chapter 2 Many Types of Adventure!

  Chapter 3: Preparations for Battle

  Chapter 4: Battle is Joined

  Chapter 5: Forward!

  Chapter 6: A Duel with the God Emperor!

  PART ONE

  URN, 4th planet in the Didcot System: Type 72 Civilised World

  Population: 4,600,000

  Notable Settlements: ‘Capital City’, capital city of Urn Alien Natives: None

  Climate: Clement to rather sticky Notable Game: Sun dragons. Specimens up to 100ft long observed. Recommended for the experienced hunter Principal Land Usage: 4% Urban, 96% Agricultural (plantation)

  Principal Export: Tea

  Encyclopaedia Imperialis, Volume 43 (Tiffin – Vindaloo) 9

  1 A Deadly Mission!

  Isambard Smith ran ten yards before the jungle burst open behind him and a mass of tentacles the size of a house threw a tree-trunk at his head. The tree flew past, throwing up earth like a bomb, and he swerved and headed east towards base camp. He glanced over his shoulder and shouted, ‘You didn’t give me an answer!’ A second Thorlian broke out of the greenery to his right, honking and bellowing, and Smith ran headlong for the bridge.

  His boot caught on a protruding vine and he stumbled and lurched upright to hear the forest erupt in roars and the flapping of frightened birds as he raced on down the path.

  His earpiece crackled. ‘Smith! What the devil is going on down there?’

  ‘Minor problem,’ he panted. ‘They seem to want to murder me.’

  ‘Hmm, that’s not good.’ A tentacle swept into view, glistening like an anaconda. Smith ducked as it whipped overhead, and he plunged off the path and weaved between the trees.

  On the other end of the line, Hereward Khan struck a match and lit his pipe.

  ‘So I suppose they don’t want to join the Empire,’ Khan said.

  ‘Well, they didn’t actually say no,’ Smith replied. Fronds snagged his coat; branches and trunks splintered and fell behind him. ‘But to be honest, they don’t seem very keen.’

  The ravine was in view. Smith broke from cover and sprinted to the rope bridge. The Thorlians howled. He bounded across, wood and hemp swaying under him, reached the other side and drew his sword. Smith cut once, twice, and the rope-bridge fell across the gorge to slap against the rock beneath the aliens.

  As Smith dusted himself down Khan emerged from the undergrowth with a mug in either hand. ‘Hello, Smith. Tea?’

  ‘Good idea, Sir.’

  They drank, watching the Thorlians make threats across the gorge. ‘Typical aliens,’ said Khan. ‘Always making a fuss.’

  ‘It’s as though they think space belongs to them by rights,’ said Smith. ‘Shame, really. They’d have made useful allies against the Ghast Empire. I suppose someone will have to civilise them now.’

  ‘I doubt the Navy can spare a destroyer. Besides,’ Khan added, and he smiled, ‘a message has come through from my contact in the Service. You’re to fly to the Proxima Orbiter at once. Top Secret stuff, apparently. Very dangerous.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Smith finished his tea and wiped his moustache. ‘My crew will be delighted, once she knows. She’s always saying how she needs to get more action.’

  *

  There was light: painful light. Dimly, voices seeped into Polly Carveth’s mind and she realised that she was still alive. Debris crackled under polished shoes. A man’s voice said, ‘My God. What a hell-hole.’

  She muttered, rolled over and sat up in bed. She was still dressed, although her boots were gone. The stripes on her socks made her eyes hurt. ‘My skull,’ she moaned. ‘What did I pour into my skull?’

  ‘What didn’t you?’ He was young, dark haired, in a Royal Space Fleet uniform: very dapper and very handsome.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, and she frowned. ‘No, I don’t know your name. But you look nice.’

  ‘You look like you had a hard night,’ he said. He was holding one of the empty bottles he’d encountered beside the bed.

  ‘I’m sure you helped,’ she said coyly. Then she winced as she rubbed her face. ‘Oh my God, I’ve got boils!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said the officer. ‘You fell asleep with your face in a box of Milk Tray.’

  Puzzled, Carveth prised off one of the boils. It was a blob of chocolate, slightly melted. ‘Gross,’ she said, looking at it. ‘Well, waste not want not. Mmm, praline.’

  A second young officer stepped out of the bathroom and adjusted his hair. ‘Whoa,’ Carveth said. ‘There’s two of you?’

  ‘You’re not seeing double, no,’ said the first man.

  ‘Two. Bloody hell.’ She rose uncertainly to her feet.

  ‘Look, um, I’m not feeling too good. I
’m sure you’re both really nice blokes, but two. . . I feel really bad. I honestly have never done this before. This isn’t the sort of thing I’d normally even dream of doing on a night out, even with one of you. I feel low, slutty and really ashamed of myself. Last night was not typical of me.’

  One started to say something, but she raised her palm like a saint and trudged into the bathroom.

  She closed the door, slid the bolt and did a dance. I scored twice, I scored twice, she mouthed at the mirror, look at me cos I scored twice. She did several pelvic thrusts, but stopped when her brain started aching.

  Grimacing, Carveth stepped into the shower, annoyed that her memories of the night were so dim.

  When she came out, the nearest of the two said, ‘Fleet Command sent us with orders to collect you, Miss Carveth. You’re needed for a mission: Base wants the John Pym to travel to the Proxima Orbiter this morning, and you’re to go as ship’s simulant.’

  ‘You didn’t sleep with both of us last night, if you were wondering,’ said the other officer. ‘Or either.’

  Carveth felt that it was only force of will that stopped her shrivelling up like a salted slug.

  ‘I don’t know where you got that idea,’ she replied, rising to her full height of five feet four. ‘I am a Class Four synthetic with precision piloting capacity, not some sort of cheap harlot. Now, I have work to do. A chance has arisen to serve the Empire, and I welcome it with open arms.’

  ‘And legs,’ one of the men muttered. She ignored him and proceeded to the door with haughty regal dignity. It would have been a perfect exit had she not tripped over a Bacardi bottle on the way out and nearly brained herself on the doorknob.

  *

  The car’s engine echoed off the walls of the huge, vault-like hall that held Valdane Shipping’s selection of spacecraft. The great nose-cones jutted out of the dark like a row of missiles, shining and white. At the end, the John Pym stood, looking like a missile that had bounced off its target and come back for a second go.

  Smith had flown in it several times now, but the emotion he felt on seeing it was always the same: a mixture of affection and disappointment, like someone coming home from the wars and discovering that his wife was actually quite plain. Under the left back leg (the one that sometimes only folded out halfway) two men in overalls were working beside a van. He drove closer, wondering who they were. Technicians, perhaps, fine-tuning the thrusters? No, Pest Control.

  Smith got out of the car and took out his bag. He adjusted his collar and stepped over to one of the exterminators. ‘Hello. I’m Captain Smith.’

  ‘Alright mate.’ The older, squatter of the men pulled off a glove and shook Smith’s hand. ‘Mike Rudge, pleased to meet you. You had some vermin running around in the hold.’

  ‘The hold? You, ah, didn’t look in all the rooms, did you?’

  ‘All the ones that were unlocked. There was one we couldn’t get into.’

  Smith breathed again. Suruk kept his favourite things in that room, which visitors unused to his lifestyle might have found unsettling.

  The exterminator said, ‘Don’t worry, mate: it’s all sorted out now. We killed ‘em – very quick and painless.’

  ‘What did you use? Traps?’

  ‘Submachine gun. Normally we’d just put some stuff down, landmines, say, but this is a small ship, and you’ve got to remember that it’s somebody’s home.’

  ‘Guns? What the hell was it?’

  ‘Procturan black ripper. It’s always a shame. Near-perfect organism, your Procturan ripper. Beautiful animal. A born predator, unencumbered by delusions of conscience or remorse. Its hostility is matched only by its physical perfection. . . we found him down the back of the fridge.’

  ‘I didn’t realise the fridge was that big,’ Smith said, looking into the back of the van. A corpse lay in there, a wiry, bulbous-headed thing slightly larger than a man.

  ‘Are you sure that’s not a motorcycle courier?’

  ‘Nope, genuine article. We’ll fax the costs over to your boss. Got to get off,’ the exterminator added. ‘Flying up to the polar regions to deal with a metamorph. Best get up there before it turns into the bloke what’s paying for our petrol.’

  Smith opened his cabin and dumped his bag on the bed.

  The John Pym hadn’t changed: the same posters were there, the same model space-fighters hanging from the ceiling. He brushed his hands together and smiled, then stepped out into the corridor.

  Suruk’s room was open now, but had been padlocked shut while the ship was empty: there was always the possibility that some busybody might report Suruk to the police for collecting human skulls. Smith was not greatly troubled by this: it was a little uncivilised, true, but the ones Suruk had told him about had been generally bad people: murderers, traitors, TV chefs and the like. Besides, Rhianna would have been impressed to see him respecting indigenous cultures. If only she were here.

  ‘Hullo, Suruk,’ he said. ‘How’s things, old man?’

  The alien turned and opened his mandibles. He had been polishing the rows of skulls on his mantelpiece and still wore his apron. There was a duster in one of his hard fists and a can of Mr Shiny in the other.

  ‘Ah, Mazuran. I greet you as a friend. Once again we step into this steel beast and bring the justice of the blade to our enemies. I hear the call of battle once more, and I answer it.’

  ‘Ah, so they called you up as well, eh? One of those secret service chaps, I suppose.’

  ‘Uh? Secret service, you say?’ Suruk reached up and quickly removed a pair of sunglasses and a coiled earpiece from one of his skulls. ‘Ah. . . Do you know, they never visited me. They must have got lost on the way or something. I, ah, had a mystic dream instead. Something of that sort.’

  ‘Well, here we are again. How was your holiday?’

  The alien shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It has become touristy. No eccentric locals in their quaint clothing, no pretty pictures on the houses anymore, no lively street parties: sectarian Belfast has really gone downhill. Ah well. Perhaps we shall get a few good battles in space instead.’ He did his equivalent of frowning. ‘I notice the little woman is here again.’

  ‘Well, she is the pilot.’

  ‘I shall greet her.’ He left the room and Smith followed him. Carveth was in the cockpit, having a last flick through the Haynes manual before takeoff. On the far side of the dashboard, Gerald the hamster toured his cage, sniffing. ‘Ah, so you still live, puny one,’ Suruk said.

  ‘Hello, Frogboy. You do know that someone’s stuck a dead crab to your face, don’t you?’

  ‘Now look,’ said Smith. ‘Let’s try to be civil, shall we?’

  ‘Of course,’ Suruk said. ‘Indeed, I am impressed that you are here, and from the smell of things have not yet shamed yourself at the prospect of danger. I expected you to be the sort of coward that whenever duty calls, nature calls louder.’

  ‘No, no, glad to be on board,’ Carveth said with a weak smile. ‘Glad to be back in space. Just can’t wait to face those hungry aliens. Super.’

  There was an element of truth to this. She was indeed relieved to be away from Earth, largely because she had done little but embarrass herself since stepping off the ship. At the East Empire Company Christmas party, she had mistaken a Yothian trade delegate for a Christmas tree and tried to put a fairy on his head. Carveth was eventually removed, but by then the damage had been done, especially when she knelt down and tried to reach under the Yothian, repeatedly slurring ‘Where’s my pressie?’

  ‘Well, excellent,’ said Smith. ‘Let’s get this show on the road, shall we? Full speed to Proxima.’

  ‘Right, Boss.’ Carveth leaned over and knocked down two rows of switches with the side of her hand. From deep within the guts of the ship there came a coughing sound, then a steady hum as the engines fired up. Smith pulled on his seatbelt, hearing the growl of the engines creep up through the walls. In a dozen brass dials on the main console, the needles swung trembling into the red. The
back of his chair began to shake. Suruk ducked into the corridor. Gerald took shelter in the bottom of his cage.

  Carveth wrapped her hands around the throttle and threw the switch and, with a mighty roar, the John Pym leaped four feet into the air and stopped.

  ‘Whoops,’ she said. ‘Handbrake’s on.’

  Two hours later, Carveth knocked on Smith’s door, and when he didn’t reply she opened it. The Captain sat in his armchair with his back to her, headphones on, drumming his fingers on the armrest.

  ‘Ah, ah woomaahn,’ he sang, ‘Woomahn, you hurt me deep inside. Woomahn, on the steed of Sauron you ride. . .’

  Carveth leaned over him and lifted the headphones away. ‘Pink Zeppelin?’ she inquired.

  ‘Mordor Woman Blues,’ Smith said. ‘How’s things in the control room?’

  ‘Dunno – I’m not there, am I?’ She looked at the headphones. ‘I never got prog rock. Can’t see what’s so progressive about singing about a wizard for half an hour, myself. If you ask me, anyone stupid enough to set the controls for the heart of the sun gets what he deserves. Fancy a look outside?’

  ‘Yes, why not?’

  Smith followed her into the cockpit and took his seat in the captain’s chair. Carveth nodded at the navigation computer. ‘I’ve plotted a course for the Proxima Orbiter. Some idiot had set the Didcot system as our destination. We’re bloody lucky I looked before I hit the switches, else we’d be going in the wrong direction.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Smith. ‘Sorry about that. I was doing a bit of research, trying to see how far we are from things–’

  ‘From Rhianna, you mean? We’re about eight thousand million miles.’

  ‘Eight thousand million and twenty eight.’

  Carveth folded her arms. ‘Boss, don’t you think this is a bit sad? I mean, she’s almost on the other side of the Empire. Not to mention her being part scary-psychic-alien-ghost-thing.’