Andy watched the flyer take off and thought it odd the pilot had turned and headed towards the south of the city. He shrugged, shut the Cartella down, set a perimeter alarm of ten metres and reclined the pilot’s chair. He must have dropped off, because the next thing he knew both the airlock doors were whining open and a draught of freezing air was whipping around his feet.
He sat up to find the muzzle of a laser rifle in his face, behind which stood four grey-clad soldiers, their faces partly hidden behind head-up display visors.
‘Where are they?’ the one pointing the weapon at his nose demanded.
‘Where’s who?’ Andy answered, as two more soldiers appeared from the cabins at the back and shook their heads.
‘The fucking terrorists,’ the intruder barked, sticking the muzzle up one of Andy’s nostrils, causing him to tilt his head back.
‘Are you sure you’re in the right place?’ he answered, stalling for time as he felt around with his DOVI and deactivated their weapons. ‘I brought a council ambassador and his assistant, a retired GDA commander, from Paradeisos to Dasos, no terrorists involved – sorry.’
A commotion from outside the ship caught the soldiers’ attention and probably stopped Andy getting a slap. A flyer had landed just outside. The pilot jumped out, sprinted over and up into the cockpit.
‘Are they here?’ he blurted.
‘No, they’re fucking not,’ snapped the soldier with the weapon up Andy’s nose.
They both turned to stare at Andy.
‘My clients got in a flyer identical to yours straight after we landed,’ Andy said. ‘You can check the camera footage if you like.’
The soldier snapped his glare back to the pilot.
‘You stupid bastard – it was them all along.’
The pilot grimaced, went to turn away, before quickly turning back.
‘There were shops nearby, they’ll have cameras,’ he said, pulling out a small tablet and tapping away.
Andy drew a sigh of relief as the weapon was extricated from his nose as the soldier joined the pilot and studied the tablet closely.
‘There,’ the lead soldier said. ‘Trace that vehicle’s designation and get Delta 2 up and over the city, all measures authorised.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the pilot, disappearing out the airlock again.
‘You do realise you’ll all be executed for assassinating an ambassador, aiding in the murder of a ship’s crew and an illegal invasion?’ said Andy.
The lead soldier’s face turned to an ugly sneer and he launched himself towards Andy, raising his rifle butt as he went.
‘It’s about fucking time someone shut you – ouch – shit,’ he screeched, dropping his weapon and huffing on his hands.
The other three soldiers still inside the cockpit all did the same as their weapons became too hot to hold. The rifles all clattered to the floor, fizzing and popping as the electronics burned out.
They all looked over their shoulders as the inner and outer airlocks began closing together.
Andy tutted and shook his head slowly. The lead soldier turned back to him, a look between anger and fear showing in the eye not obscured by the display visor.
‘Oh, dear – now you’re for it,’ Andy said. ‘You’ve upset Cleo.’
‘And who the fuck is he?’ the soldier said with a sneer.
‘She,’ said Cleo, appearing behind him in some sort of black ninja outfit.
He spun around and got a fist up under his visor. It snapped his head back, knocked him over the top of the navigator’s seat and into a heap under the control console.
The other three near the airlock looked at him with astonishment and turned to stare at her, one of them taking a tentative step towards her. She shook her head slowly.
‘Gentlemen, I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, raising her hand, palm up. ‘There’s three of us and only one of her.’
The three soldiers lifted off the floor and hung stationary in mid-air, their legs and arms waving about helplessly. A loud knocking on the airlock and shouting from outside caught everybody’s attention.
‘Bitch broke my fucking nose,’ carped a now not so intransigent lead soldier, mopping blood from his face.
‘I think we need to move somewhere a little quieter for a chat,’ she said, as the unmistakable sound of the antigravs spooling up invaded the cockpit.
The knocking from outside quickly ceased and Andy could see some of the other soldiers backing away from the ship. One of them fired his rifle at them, but Cleo had activated the shields, so the bolt just dissipated around the hull. The Cartella lifted and continued straight up to around one thousand metres, where both the airlocks began whining open again. Freezing air and a little snow wafted in and the three soldiers near the airlock began frantically trying to swim away from the slowly enlarging opening, their frantic limb flapping getting them precisely nowhere.
‘What are you doing?’ said the lead soldier, now with a very nasally voice.
‘I thought you might be a little more forthcoming with a bit of gentle encouragement,’ she said.
‘What you going to do, dangle them out the airlock?’ he scoffed.
The three soldiers stopped struggling and stared at their leader in disbelief.
‘No, I wouldn’t do that,’ she said, grinning malevolently.
Andy noticed the three soldiers relax slightly.
‘That would just prolong the torture. I’ll just throw them out one at a time.’
Before anyone could react, the nearest soldier to the airlock whipped out the door. One second he was there, the next he was gone, his terrified scream dissipating into the snow cloud.
‘You can’t do that,’ bellowed the lead soldier, having to shout to be heard above the howling of the remaining two soldiers. The frantic air clawing resumed.
Andy’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he stared at Cleo and surreptitiously clipped a seat harness around himself.
‘Who’s giving the orders for this operation?’ she asked, drawing little circles in the air with her forefinger and swivelling it towards the gaping airlock.
‘Fucking tell her,’ one of the soldiers screamed, ‘I didn’t sign up for this shit.’
‘Enough money to retire rich for a couple of months’ work, you said,’ shouted the other one.
‘Ah, mercenaries, eh!’ she said, nodding. ‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ she added, in a much more sinister voice and swivelling to point at the lead soldier’s face.
‘Get fucked,’ he said.
She flicked her finger and the second soldier vanished into the snow cloud a kilometre above the ground.
Andy squirmed on his seat in shock. He hadn’t seen Cleo do anything like this. The Theo sentient ships were supposed to be incapable of taking human life. He was in two minds whether to intervene or not, but before he could make up his mind, Cleo spoke again.
‘You’re very brave when it comes to the lives of others,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how brave you are when it’s your life.’
She waved her other hand and the lead soldier slid out from behind the navigator’s seat. He tried to grab hold of it, but found the force moving him was too strong and his fingernails just scudded across the coarse fabric and were finally dragged off the seat.
‘No, no,’ he pleaded, as he neared the airlock. ‘I have a family.’
‘So did they,’ shouted the last of the three, gesticulating at the open door. ‘You fucking arrogant bastard, I’ll throw you out the fucking door myself.’
‘It’s Xantian, Ambassador Xantian,’ he blurted, finally.
‘Uh, huh,’ grunted Cleo. ‘He wouldn’t be working alone. Who does he answer to?’
He was inside the small airlock now, his head almost hanging out the door. His helmet was ripped away by the wind and he screamed back at her to be heard above the maelstrom.
‘We don’t know, it’s compartmentalised – for fuck’s sake, they don’t tell us.’
Cleo nodded and turned to Andy.
‘I think we’ve got all we can from these numpties,’ she said, waving her hands back towards her.
The lead soldier was dragged back inside the cockpit and the other two soldiers crashed back through the door, screaming as they came.
Andy sighed with relief, as he realised she’d held them against the hull just out of sight and earshot. He noticed the Cartella was descending again and as it clunked down in a rather pretty field of virgin snow, some kilometres away from the city, she hurled the four soldiers out, along with their burned-out weapons.
She walked into the airlock and watched them picking themselves up out of the deep snow.
‘Perhaps a rethink on the career front,’ she shouted above the noise from the antigravs.
Andy watched as she closed the airlock doors and the ship rose up and turned to head back towards the city. He caught a glimpse of one of the soldiers punching the lead soldier in the face as they passed over them and thought that must have really hurt if his nose was broken.
Cleo sat down on the navigator’s seat, crossed her legs and slid her hands behind her head.
‘Stupid wankers,’ she said.
Andy chuckled.
‘You really can be a scary ship sometimes, Cleo.’