Free Day of the Assassins by Johnny O'Brien Page B

thought the man looked like a cook. He laughed again, nodding at the sacks around him, “There’s this lot to sort out for a start.”
    And with that, he was marched from the hold and soon found himself seated at a small table outside the galley.
    “You stay there.”
    The cook went off, but the sailor, with the pink face, looked at him sympathetically. “Don’t worry lad… Navy has a fine tradition of young men at sea. Nelson himself. We’ll get a signal home to let them know you’re safe. You look famished – tell you what – one of the boys will get you something…”
    The sailor hurried off but reappeared with a large plate of stew and potatoes.
    After a while the cook reappeared.
    “Your lucky day, my lad! Seems that you have an audience in the chart house. Captain wants to know your story, exactly. Security breach and all that. Jones will take you up. And then…” he pointed back up the corridor, “we’ll get you to work.”
    The sailor led Jack through a maze of metal corridors and up anddown a series of ladders.
    “We’ll take a short cut through the Admiral’s lobby,” he said.
    As they moved on, Jack saw two figures ascending a ladder ahead of them. They were dressed in sailor’s garb, but had packs on their backs. Jack’s worst fears had come true – Tony and Gordon had followed him aboard Dreadnought .

Cannon Fodder
    “W e’ve been asked by the Bridge to take him from here,” Tony said with authority to the young sailor.
    Jack turned to run, but in an instant, Gordon had his arm in a vicelike grip. “Not so fast, Master Christie. You need to come with us.”
    The sailor looked bemused but shrugged and wheeled round leaving Jack alone to his fate.
    Jack smelled Tony’s stale breath as he whispered sneeringly into his ear, “Any noise, any tricks and you are dead meat. You’ve caused us a lot of trouble.”
    Gordon parroted, “A lot of trouble.”
    “Right then,” Tony said, “we are hoping to have a Taurus signal in the next few hours. But you never can tell. In the meantime, we’ve got to find somewhere to hide on this floating dung-crate until we can return to civilisation.”
    “So we don’t draw any attention,” Gordon added.
    “That’s right, Mr MacFarlane, attention is bad. Tell the boy why attention is bad Mr MacFarlane,” Tony said.
    Gordon looked at Jack sardonically, “Attention is bad, because it can lead to interaction with the ’istorical environment.”
    “And why is interaction bad, Mr MacFarlane?” Tony asked.
    “Because, Mr Smith, interaction can cause stuff to happen.”
    “That’s right Mr MacFarlane. What stuff might that be?”
    “Consequences, Mr Smith, in your space-time continuum.”
    “Continuum, Christie. Do you hear that?”
    “You don’t want to mess around with your continuum,” Gordon said.
    “Or to be more precise, a small change now might have significantrepercussions for the future,” Tony added. “And that’s where we come in… we’re here to help VIGIL sort out problems – like this one. Sort of tidy up any unfortunate mess.”
    “Time travelling bin men if you like…” Gordon gave a little shrug.
    Tony gave his colleague a sidelong glance, not sure whether he approved of this particular description of their important role.
    He turned to Jack, “Do you understand, my friend?”
    Jack didn’t. He was very scared, “But… I…”
    Tony interrupted him, “So, to be sure we have no more interaction than we possibly need, we are going to ask you to help us… Mr MacFarlane?”
    Gordon unzipped his rucksack. Jack could see that it was stuffed with all sorts of equipment… not least the carefully packed weapon. Gordon opened a small plastic case. It contained an array of medical equipment and Gordon removed a rather large syringe together with a small bottle of fluid. Carefully, he placed the needle into the top of the bottle and sucked up a small quantity of the liquid.
    Jack suddenly realised what they were going to