Free Space Captain Smith by Toby Frost Page A

dock?’
    ‘Two minutes,’ Carveth said. ‘And I’m not fat. Can I have a bit of that beer?’
    ‘Oh, sorry.’ He passed it over. ‘There you go.’
    Carveth took a swig and passed it back. ‘Whoa!
    Bracing.’
    Rhianna stepped into the corridor. She was holding the wooden practice sword from her bag. ‘I’m ready to fight,’ she announced.
    ‘Like that?’ Smith said. ‘These are Ghast stormtroopers. You’ve got flip-flops and a stick.’
    ‘They want me, not you,’ Rhianna said. ‘I ought to help.’
    ‘You could always go on your own and we could get away,’ Carveth suggested. She met Smith’s eye and added,
    ‘Just a thought.’
    ‘I would have suggested it,’ Rhianna said, ‘but I knew he wouldn’t let me.’
    ‘Point,’ Carveth said.
    They had pulled up some of the empty cargo boxes from the hold to use as a barricade. Smith and Rhianna stood behind the boxes on one side of the door, Suruk and Carveth on the other.
    ‘Are you ready, men?’ said Smith.
    The loudspeaker crackled into life.
    ‘Ghast Empire calling! This is warship commander 462 addressing you, weakling human Earth-scum! Warship Systematic Destruction is preparing to dock with your puny craft. On hearing the docking tube attach, you will open the hatch and surrender immediately!’
    ‘Hang on,’ said Smith. ‘We’ve got a problem.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘We have a, um, a highly contagious terminal disease. We need at least half an hour to get better.’
    ‘We are immune to disease! Only weaklings succumb to disease, and weaklings must be destroyed! We will board now!’
    ‘Let’s just kill them all,’ Suruk said.
    ‘Open the door or we will train lasers on your feeble craft and slice it in two!’
    Smith quietly passed two petrol bombs to Carveth. ‘Did you bring a lighter?’ he whispered.
    ‘Not for this,’ she replied, snapping it out of her pocket.
    ‘This isn’t exactly how I was planning to get wasted.’
    ‘Ghast ship? We’ll open the door,’ Smith said into the radio.
    Something hit the ship with a dull, metallic clang that reverberated through the hull. ‘That’s them,’ Rhianna said.
    They waited.
    Carveth stepped out from the boxes, over to the door.
    ‘Let’s get this over with,’ she said, reaching to the airlock.
    ‘On three,’ said Smith. The pilot wrapped her hands around the wheel. ‘One.’
    ‘Two,’ Carveth said. Smith braced himself.
    ‘Three!’
    She spun the wheel; it whirled and the door opened with a squeal of metal.
    They looked down the Ghast docking tube: a corridor, full of mist, stretching off into somewhere that they could not see. The walls were ribbed, vaguely organic. Somewhere behind the mist, a light shone towards them.
    ‘What’s all that?’ Carveth whispered.
    Suruk turned to her. ‘Small woman, wait.’
    Smith flexed his fingers around the rear grip of the Maxim cannon. It was strapped straight to his belt, and it was heavy. He felt tired already, although whether it was from the weight of the gun or from fear, he did not know. The light in the docking tunnel flickered as something ran past it. ‘Dammit!’ said Smith. ‘Can’t get an aim!’
    The light vanished, came back on, and suddenly it was a strobing, pulsing beam as something scuttled past, then another, and another—
    ‘Dozens of them!’ Smith exclaimed.
    Suddenly Carveth sprang up and fired the shotgun into the docking tube. ‘Come and get it, tossers!’ There was a screech of rage, and a muffled thump of something falling to the ground. The tube was silent. She looked back at the others. ‘So much for the cat and mouse stuff,’ she said sheepishly.
    Lights flashed in the dark, bolts of light coming for them. ‘Down!’ Smith cried, and the wall exploded above his head, the metal corrupted and bubbling. Smith leaned into the entrance and let rip. The Maxim cannon roared like steel sheets being torn, sending bullets thundering down the tube. Shadows screamed and fell. In a great horde the