by Craig Zerf
The five of them climbed into the eight seat, samoosa class, landing craft, the hanger doors opened, the captain fired up the thrusters and took them down to the surface of the unknown planet.
The ship shuddered to the ground with thrusters flaming and landing gear whining. The landing ramp was lowered and the squad walked out.
The captain led the way. ‘Set all weapons to “Hurt-like-buggery” gentlemen. We don’t know what’s out there.’
‘I’m sorry, captain,’ said crewman Daal. ‘I’ve been issued with one of the new emoto-guns. It doesn’t have the old “hurt-like-buggery” setting.’
‘What’s it got?’
‘Umm…hold on, the writing’s pretty small. It looks like…angst, then there’s suspicion, full-blown paranoia, guilt (levels 1 all the way up to Jewish-son-who-didn’t-become-a-doctor) and, finally, existential crisis.
‘Put it on guilt level 2, we don’t want to kill anyone.’
‘Done.’
‘Let’s go.’
The team strode down the ramp, boldly going where no Aloo-Matarian had ever gone before.
The thick grass came up to their armpits and gorse-like bushes towered above them, their massive purple flowers throwing out a sweet pungent scent.
Then, without warning, a gigantic furred animal appeared from behind a bush. It stood as high as a three-story building and when it pulled its lips back it bared canines that were longer than the captain’s arms. Its mouth yawed wide as it pushed towards them, its breath stank of rotting meat and something feral.
‘Stand fast, gentlemen,’ commanded the captain. ‘Don’t run.’
The creature stared at them, sniffed and…
‘Hellooo,’ it said. And again, ‘hellooooo.’
‘What the…is this creature greeting us,’ asked the captain.
‘Hello.’
‘It appears so,’ said crewman Pickle. ‘Hello, creature.’
The massive creature pushed forward, picked Pickle up in its huge maw, chewed twice, and swallowed.
‘Fire,’ shouted the captain.
Weapons filled the air with the fizz and crackle of energy bolts and puffs of smoke drifted off the creatures fur. But apart from the smell of burning fur the weapons seemed to have no real effect on the goliath.
Then, seemingly from nowhere, a boot the size of a house, whistled through the air and struck the animal in the chest, throwing it over the bush to go yowling on its way. The crew looked up to see a humongous face drift into view, blocking out the sun.
‘Look here,’ the face bellowed. ‘A bunch of wee folks.’
The captain aimed his weapon and pulled off a shot. A bolt of energy hit the face on its nose.
‘Ouch,’ exclaimed the face. ‘That hurt, stop it or ah’ll stomp on ye, ye wee bogshites.’
Another face loomed over them. ‘Hello, small folk,’ greeted the new face. ‘Are you Brownies?’
The captain shook his head, not trusting his voice to work correctly in the presence of these giants.
‘Leprechauns?’
The captain risked a ‘No.’
‘Sprite, nymph, pixie, kobold, fairy?’
‘No, we are Aloo-Matarians from the planet Aloo-Matar.’
‘Why are you so small?’
‘We’re not,’ answered the captain. ‘You’re big.’
‘Same thing.’
No, not at all. I have travelled the seven galaxies and met over two thousand types of sentient beings and none of them have been as gigantonormouse as you. Therefore I put it to you that you are the freakishly sized ones and not us.’
Plob shrugged. ‘Whatever. What are you doing here?’
‘We are on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations and to boldly go where no Aloo-Martarian has gone before.’
‘Oh, cool,’ said the second head. ‘Can we help?’
There was a brief conflab between the miniature Matarians.
The captain nodded. ‘Yes please. We appear to be lost.’
‘How did you get here?’ Asked Plob.
Captain Bhature pointed skywards at the glittering silver space ship. Both Boy and Plob stared for a while.
‘Is it held there by magic?’ Asked the young magician.
‘No,’ answered the captain. ‘It’s held up by Urge power. We were propelled here via a black hole and, as a result, we know not where we are.’
‘A black hole?’
‘Yes.’
Oh,’ said Plob. ‘Black magic.’
The captain didn’t reply but he did communicate, sotto voce, with his crew. ‘By the seven gods of Boogahari, where are we, the dark ages? The next thing this giant moron will be asking us is if we’ve seem any dragons on our travels.’
‘Tell you what,’ said Plob. ‘Why don’t you and your magic air ship follow me and my dragon back to our home and we’ll see if we can help.’
The crew turned as one and saw the biggest living creature that they had ever set eyes on before. Nim puffed out a lazy billow of sooty flame.
‘Well,’ said the captain. ‘Don’t I feel like the asshole?’
Chapter 12
Typhon wasn’t happy with the salute. Or the national flag. The Vagoth salute was a little too Simon-says; put your hands in the air. It lacked…gravitas.
He had tried adding to it in order to give it more substance. To the “Hey-oop, Typhon” he had added “All knowing and extremely well respected”. But the final thing was far too unwieldy. It lacked snap.
And as for the flag, the Bumsenfaust, a black mailed fist in a white circle on red with a lightning bolt on either side. To be perfectly honest it came across very, well, the word “fisting” sprang to mind. So Typhon had added many more lightning bolts and a second fist. However, this had resulted in something that looked like a BOGOF, Buy One Get One Free, sex-toy advert.
Then Herr Gooballs had made a suggestion. More is less. So Typhon had cut the salute down to the words “Hey All” and, instead of raising two hands had used only the right one. Then he had cut the fist from the flag and done a little redesigning.
Now before him were, once again, arrayed the massed Vagoth troops. They had been instructed on the new salute and the new flag stood, furled, behind him.
Typhon moved to the front of the balcony and waved at the troops.
They responded with the salute, right arms and open palms shooting into the air. Somehow in the instructing they had got the call slightly wrong but to the untutored ear it sounded so similar as to be identical.
‘Heil, Typhon. Heil, Typhon. Heil, Typhon.’
Behind the big T the flag was unfurled, the two black SS bolts in a white circle on red fluttered above him.
And somewhere in the foreverness of eternity a switch went - Click. And the universe shuddered and thought, Oh bugger. Not again.
London was burning.
Overhead more than a thousand German fighters and bombers rained fire down on the capital. Anti aircraft rounds stabbed the night in a frantic attempt to deal out some form of retribution. Lances of light crisscrossed the sky as searchlight operators tried to pinpoint an enemy bomber.
In the city small fires became large fires and fire fighters threw sand onto incendiary bombs and water onto flames.
Smudger, who had been given a day’s leave after flying almost two missions a day for ten days, sat on a wingback chair, opposite his mother and father, in the middle of the front garden. The house behind him had been reduced to smoking rubble.
Mother was pouring tea into three unmatched cups.
‘So good to see you, son. Sorry about the lack of good crockery and the lack of sugar but, well, as you can see, the house has been blown to bits.’
‘Don’t be silly, mum. It’s simply great to have a nice hot cuppa with you two. So, how have things been, father?’
‘Well you know how it is, Smudge old boy, mustn’t grumble.’
‘I see that you appear to have lost you left arm.’
‘Oh, yes. Got blown off this morning. Mum strapped the stump up, didn’t want to a make a fuss, don’t you know, a lot of our neighbours have gone through worse.’
‘Really father? Worse than having their arm blown off?’
‘Oh yes, look at mister Johnson there,’ he replied, pointing at a body lying on the neighbour’s front lawn. ‘Got his head blown off this morning and I haven’t heard a peep of complaint from him the whole day. Mind you, his wife’s a bit of an hysteric, sure that I heard her weepin’ this afternoon, disgraceful behaviour.’
Smudger’s mother shook her head. ‘How embarrassing for you, my dear.’
Father lit his pipe. ‘Yes, very. She’s probably foreign, don’t you know. And you, my boy, how goes the war?’
‘The Hun send planes over. We shoot them down. Remember Spotty Parker?’
‘Short chap, sideburns, flat nose?’
‘Yes that’s him. He’s gone for a Burton. Took a dive into the channel last week. We never found the body.’
A bomb exploded down the street, shattering windows and throwing bits of brick and shrapnel into the air.
Smudger brushed some dust off his tunic. ‘Close one.’
‘Not as close as the one got to old Charlie Verrucca last week. One landed on his head, blew him clean to bits. Mind you, still puts in a full days work at the fire station, doesn’t grumble. Good chap that.’
‘How?’
‘What?’
‘No - how?’
‘Oh, I see. Well, when I say that he puts in a full day I may be…stretching it a bit. He does get in late and goes home a little early on Wednesdays due to…well…being dead I suppose.’
‘Good for him,’ said mum. ‘Some more tea, Smudger?’
‘Thank you, mum.’
‘There you go. Well, I say tea, it’s actually hot water. Tea's finished, love. Sorry.’
‘Hot water’s fine, mum. It’s really nice.’
And it was, because, although he was drinking luke warm water in the middle of a burning city, talking to two elderly people who seemed to have retained only the most tenuous link with sanity - at least he wasn’t in the cockpit of a Spitfire expecting, at any moment, to die.
And sometimes that is simply the best that one can hope for.
Chapter 13
Nim coughed. And a ball of blue-white plasma sailed across the field and struck a tree. The unfortunate perennial burst into flames and crumbled to the ground.
Plob and Boy whooped in delight and danced around doing much air-punching and foot-to-foot bouncing and backslapping.
‘Well,’ said Plob. ‘The crystals work.’
‘Aye, noo a' that we need tae do is figure oot howfur tae mak' it flame on command.’
Plob rubbed his chin and thought. ‘Okay, now bear with me. Nim fires up whenever he coughs or sneezes, right?’
‘Aye, ya reet.’
‘So, what about pepper? We get a bag of pepper and sprinkle a pinch in Nim’s nostrils when we want him to flame and…Bam!’
‘Aye, Plob, you might ha’ summin.’
‘What do you think, captain?’ asked Plob of the Aloo-Martarian officer who was hovering next to them on a small anti-grav scooter.
He shrugged. ‘Gentlemen, this is so far beyond my area of expertise that I feel unable to comment, save to say, how will you control the said dispersal of the pepper?’
‘I don’t know, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. First let’s see if the pepper works. Boy, fetch my pack, I’ve got a few boiled eggs for lunch as well as a shaker of salt and a small packet of pepper.’ Boy jogged off. ‘I’m sorry that we haven’t been of any real help, captain,’ continued Plob. ‘But, as I explained, we’re under attack and I’m under huge pressure to come up with some way of getting our dragons to flame hot and hard and on command.’
‘Not a problem, Plob. You have replenished our supplies of food and water and given what information that you are capable of. I must say you have taken the whole visitors-from-another-galaxy thing very much in stride. Does our presence not make you wonder? Do we not make you think of all of the things that we might have seen that you have not? Oh, Plob, I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Origami. I watched p-beams glitter in the dark near the Brownhäppy Gate. And now…all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain, unless we find our way home.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve been around a bit,’ said Plob who was getting ever so slightly irritated at the captain’s smug attitude.
The captain lifted a little eyebrow. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. I have met the queen of the inner Elven lands; I have supped with Stanley, the son of Death. I have parleyed with the grim reaper himself and have charged into battle alongside the renowned hobby-horsemen of the Hors-Doovrees. Dragons have I ridden and dimensions I have crossed, I have thrice died and come back to life, I know all of the secrets of the Magus Transformation Grimoire and…I have seen Jimmy Hendrix in concert.’
There was a silence for a while. ‘I apologise, my giant friend,’ said the captain. ‘Sometimes your apparent lack of technology brings out the worst in me. That was boorish and condescending.’
Plob smiled. ‘Marginally, yes. But no worries.’
Boy came running back with Plob’s bag, bits of eggshell clung to his chest. ‘Sorry, I scoffed a couple to keep me going.’ He handed the bag over.
Plob looked inside, it was full of eggshells and remarkably shy of actual eggs. The salt was also gone but, mercifully, the small twist of pepper was still there.
He grabbed a handful of Natrium and fed it to Nim. Then he sprinkled the pepper onto Nim’s huge snout. They all stood back a few steps and waited.
They waited.
Waited.
‘Och sod it. Tisn’t working,’ said Boy.
And then Nim had a sneezing fit.
The world went bazonkers!
It had taken her two days to fly there and the city of Maudlin was not at all what Spice had expected. She had grown up in the hills of Strathbarton in the shadow of the Montclear Mountains. She couldn’t remember her parents who died when she was only two years old. She had been brought up by her grandparents who were loving, but were so poor that all of the mice actually left their tiny hut to better themselves by moving in with the church mice. And she had never been to a village of more than twenty houses.
But she had heard much talk of cities. The throngs of people. The paved streets. The noises. The beautiful tall buildings and oil lamps that lit the streets at night.
However, she had just flown above the city for the first time and, instead of beauty she saw destruction. Burnt and broken buildings, empty streets and no streetlights. In fact, someone had even fired an arrow at her. It was of no consequence as it had fallen away long before it had reached her but it was, she thought, less than friendly.
She did one more circuit of the city as she looked for a place to land and then suddenly…her world went bazonkers!
White-hot balls of plasma crackled past her, close enough to feel the heat. She stood up in her stirrups and went into a vertical dive as the air around her boiled with fire. Five, ten, fifteen rounds of destruction sizzled past her. She kicked hard right and barrelled along at treetop level, then jinked hard left. When she glanced over her shoulder she could see that more balls of fire were punching into the air where she had been. It was obvious to her now that she had not been the target, merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She slowed Tempest down to barely above stalling and winged her way back to the source of the attack. As she cruised in over the treetops she saw two young men in a field with a dragon. The two men were lying on the ground covering their heads with their hands and the dragon was rubbing its snout with its paws and mewling.
Tempest flared her wings and dropped softly to the ground allowing Spice to dismount. She strode over to the closest man and kicked him in the ribs.
‘Ouch!’ Shouted Boy ‘Pick a windae, yer leavin', who's kicking me 'n' how come?’ He jumped up. ‘Ah will beat ye senseless ye arsehole. Och, tis a lassie. Hey, Plob, git up thir's a bonny lassie 'ere wi' monstrous boots.’
Plob stood up and looked around in a sheepish fashion. ‘Wow, we’re not dead.’
‘You bloody should be,’ shouted Spice. ‘What the hell were you doing?’
Plob looked at her and started to talk. But somewhere between thought and deed his ocular input sent a message to his brain that put the kibosh on his rational thinking process. So, what started out as an explanation of sorts, became a tall girl in tight leather with perfection enhancing breasts, flushed cheeks and full red lips. This resulted in the word ‘Sfferkwizle’ coming out of his mouth as opposed to anything else of a more rational nature.
‘What?’ Demanded Spice.
Plob rallied his thoughts and started again just as Spice put both hands on her hips and stared at him. The tight black leather of her jacket stretched across her chest as she put her arms akimbo. And, underneath the jacket things moved and thrust and perked in such a fashion as to, once again, head Plob’s thoughts off at the pass.
‘Numfagoogal.’
Spice’s look softened from one of righteous anger to one of concern. ‘Oh hell, I’m sorry,’ She leant forward and patted Plob on the shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’ She glanced at Boy. ‘I should thought before I shouted. I didn’t realise that he was… umm… special. My name’s Spice.’
‘He’s nae special,’ said Boy. ‘He’s normal.’
‘Of course he is.’ Said Spice.
‘Fnooh.’ Said Plob.
Spice patted him on the arm.
The young magician took a deep breath. ‘Wow! Sorry about that. My name’s Plob and I’m not actually special. Well maybe in some ways but not that one. Please, before you have another complete wobbly let me explain.’
And he did, the Vagoth attacks, getting the dragon to flame, trying pepper to create flame on demand and finally apologising again for almost blowing Spice out of the sky.
‘I see,’ said Spice. ‘So that’s the whole story?’
