29

War Garbler Tonbush stared at Demi. Demi tried, and failed, to look as though she were only examining the workmanship of the deck plating. Tonbush squinted. Demi took to examining the low ceiling. After a second or so of awkward silence, Tonbush opening and closing his mouth several times, his freckles making him look only a little adorable, he scowled and turned his entire body away from Demi.

"Dad? Dad! You got the wrong one!" A muted shouting came from elsewhere in the ship built for an eleven year old and Tonbush turned back to Demi, waving a hand in her direction. "No, Dad, it's the wrong one. I'm looking at her, right now! Don't blame the targeting scanners! Wait there, you, woman, I'm just going to find a gun to shoot you with."

Demi had no intention of waiting anywhere for someone to find a gun to shoot her with. As Tonbush opened a nearby door, popping his helmeted head inside, Demi reached for a pouch on her belt, hoping that someone had slipped another Meep there while she wasn't looking. They hadn't and, right now, her compassion and empathy would have taken a back seat to her need to get out of this situation.

Here, outside of the atmosphere of the planet, Demi hoped the little communications creature, lodged in her ear canal, could connect with Lodka. Except she didn't know how to activate it. With a flash of brilliance, or desperation, or panic, or some combination of all of them, she activated her implant, tried to connect to the communications creature and found it sound asleep. Snoring. She gave it a mental push and it returned to wakefulness, grumbling.

"Friss. Friss! Get me out of here!" The silence from the other end of the communications channel could have been called deafening, but she could still hear Tonbush complaining that someone had moved his favourite disintegrator pistol. "Friss! Lap! Lodka! Anybody? Somebody, please get me off this ship!"

"Hey? Demo? Where've you been?" Demi groaned as Briyun answered her call. "You can't go running off, mate? Friss is having a bit of a fit? Something about Lodka refusing to jump? He says that she says that something's missing? Dunno what?"

"Me, you idiot! You're missing me!" The sound of Tonbush throwing things reached Demi's ears and she felt marginally thankful that the pre-pubescent warlord hadn't found a gun. Yet. "Tell Lodka I'm on War Garbler Tonbush's ship. Tell her to get me out of here. Tell her that right now!"

"Right-o, Demo?" Silence fell over the communications channel and Demi prepared for transport back to Lodka. "Sorry, I had to find a Repli-pencil and Repli-paper? What was that address again?"

"Just tell Lodka to get me!" As Demi shouted, the banging and crashing from elsewhere in Tonbush's ship stopped. The child warlord poked his head out of a door, frowning. "Sorry. Just arguing with myself. You go on and find that gun. I can wait."

After a fashion, Demi wished she hadn't said that. Especially as she heard a triumphant 'aha' come from the room where Tonbush was and the little warlord emerged with something in his hand that looked very much like how someone who had never seen a disintegrator pistol would describe it. All spikes and glowing power cells, flashing lights and a pointy end that almost looked as though it licked its lips at the anticipation of turning something, or someone, into their constituent molecules.

Demi cursed Briyun. That didn't seem anywhere near enough to cover just how angry she felt at that moment, so she added Friss to the curse. Lap followed, but she silently apologised for that curse. Bognrd got a look in and the curse she issued for him included a bitter word or two about how he should choose his employers better. She cursed Lodka, but not out loud, because she needed the shop. Zapasnoy got it, too, though that ship hadn't done anything. She left her last, most brutal, biting and, frankly, nasty curse for herself. For being an idiot and listening to Friss.

"Now. Don't move or the excruciating pain this pistol will cause won't last anywhere near as long as it should." Tonbush lowered the pistol, began pulling the trigger and Demi began to fade into Lodka's transport Flesh-Route. Before she disappeared, she heard Tonbush's final, doom-laden words. "How does she keep doing that?"

Demi looked around, trying to find someone to punch, but no-one had waited to greet her. She tightened her hands into fists, her entire body shaking and screamed her fury to the empty room. Things kept happening. Not good things. Not even remotely good things, and her frustration and sheer terror appeared to escalate at each new situation that inevitably left her either covered in blood or in places she really would rather not be.

A flesh construct arose from Lodka's deck and Demi waved away the bucket. The bucket changed into a replica of Friss' face and Demi couldn't understand whether Lodka was trying to tell Demi to go to the idiot captain, with his idiot crew, or that Lodka had given her something to punch. Not knowing whether Lodka felt pain, Demi decided not to hit that stupid face. Not the flesh construct version, at least. She took several deep breaths, flexed her fingers wide, pushed her glasses back up her nose that had, surprisingly, not fallen off or become broken, yet, and tried to calm herself.

It didn't work. Calmness no longer had any place in Demi's life. Along with peace, sanity and serenity, those feelings had all taken a vacation somewhere nice and remote and terror, horror and general discomfort had taken up their duties. Demi decided sanity wasn't all it was cracked up to be, anyway. Still angry, she decided to head up to Lodka's bridge and, if she was really lucky, would find Friss' punchable face on her fist before too long.

"That's no moon, mate? It's more of a, you know, giant, planet-destroying battle station?" Briyun twisted her whiskers, staring at the flesh view screen, before turning to see Demi enter the bridge. "Hey? Demo? Glad you could make it, mate? Frissa remembered what he was missing?"

"Yeah. Zapasnoy! I mean, how could I forget my spare ship!" Friss rolled his eyes at his own perceived incompetence, completely missing his actual incompetence. He poked a finger at his temple, miming shooting himself before making a sudden change in attitude, posing as though in thought. "Zapasnoy will dock in 'd' minus ... one minute? Ish?"

Lap, at the navigation console, wavered their hand before delving the hand back into the controls cavity, the squelching reaching truly disgusting levels as the Planeian performed the incredibly difficult task of remotely piloting a Gal-Navy corvette from the surface of a technophobic planet and back into Lodka's cavernous hanger bay.

"WHETHER IT IS A MOON OR A BATTLE STATION, THIS FLESH-THING SHIP WILL DESTROY IT!" Bognrd, huge, unmissable, stepped from shadows Demi didn't know the bridge had, looming over her as he stared at the view screen. She had completely missed him. "WE WILL RAIN DOWN DEATH AND DESTRUCTION UPON ALL THE CAPTAIN'S ENEMIES! WE WILL CRUSH THEM, BENEATH OUR STILETTO HEELS! WE WILL ..."

"War Garbler Tonbush to creepy looking ship-that-needs-trousers, or something." The communications array crackled into life and all heads turned to the view screen, where Tonbush appeared, his helmet closed once more. "It's quite simple, really. Give me back Bognrd and I'll make all your deaths, if not swift and painless, then at least spectacular. It'll be a great light show. Don't give me back Bognrd and, well, it will certainly not be painless and swift deaths you'll be looking at. And there won't be a light show. Dad. Dad! Launch the drones!"

"Hey! Who's the little guy? Love your little face mask, kid. Now, go play somewhere. Adults are talking." Friss waved toward Lap and Lap switched the view screen back to the maybe-a-moon-maybe-a-battle-station rapidly approaching through a wormhole. "Now, my money is on a moon. I haven't destroyed a moon in, ooh, a couple of weeks? Either way, I have a bad feeling about this."

"IT'S NOTHING TO DO WITH MY FOOD! NO-ONE GETS FOOD POISONING FROM BOGNRD BLOODRAGE!" Bognrd looked as though he were about to gore Friss with his horns. "I WILL NOT ACCEPT INSULTS ABOUT MY COOKING!"

"No! What? No!" Friss rubbed his stomach and pointed toward the view screen. "I mean that ... whatever it is. It gives me a bad feeling. Doesn't matter! Zapasnoy is ... yep, docked and we are ready to go. Lap, fire up the Flesh-Route drive."

Friss had paused, looking toward Lap for confirmation of Zapasnoy docking, Lap giving him a thumbs-up. Now Lap's hands plunged back into the navigation console's cavity and Demi could feel the faint tremor upon the deck as Lodka's engines began to power up. A little too late as the thing that raced toward them through the wormhole had started to return to normal space.

It was huge. Truly enormous. It could be a moon. Could be a battle station. It could also have parked somewhere a little less crowded, as its arrival smashed and crushed several hundred silver, flat, incredibly powerful and devastating drones sent out by War Garbler Tonbush to kill everybody on board Lodka. Without a light show.

"Demi, darling." The silky-smooth voice forced its way through Lodka's communications. A voice faintly odd and mechanical. "I think you and I should talk, my sweet."

Brenda. Why did it have to be Brenda? Demi had no chance to ask that question of anybody as Lodka made the transition into the Flesh-Routes and Demi suddenly understood why plasticine screamed when rolled into incredibly thin strips.