Cloneworld - 04 (26 page)

"Okay, baby!" He prodded in the digits, and the machine buzzed, and then a glass of something slightly bubbling was delivered in the output hopper. Franco took a sip. "Wow!" he cried, as he started to choke. Through tear-streaming eyes, as he clung on to the InfinityChef[tm] for stability, as he wheezed and choked and thoroughly enjoyed the
kick,
he punched in more digits. "Give... me... a... bucketful..." he croaked into the microphone.

The InfinityChef[tm] started to rock gently from side to side, buzzing and moaning, as a shiny metal bucket was duly delivered and started to fill with frothing fizzing vindaloo chilli whiskey, with a hint of PreSausage.

"Yeah, baby," grinned Franco. He hiccupped, and took another blast. Through gritted teeth he wheezed, "They don't call me Franco 'Chef Ramsey Fiery Balls' Haggis for nothing, you know?" The Infinity Chef duly finished delivering its quota of steaming vindaloo chilli whiskey, with a hint of PreSausage (cubes of which Franco could see floating in the broth) and gave a loud honking noise, which could not be mistaken for anything other than
Franco Haggis - you are a fucking moron.

Franco staggered away, holding his bucket by the handle, and heading roughly in the direction of Tarly Winters, snoring in her pink pyjamas, with a vague idea of asking her if she wanted to share a nightcap. Of chilli whiskey.

It had to be said, Franco Haggis was grinning like a village idiot.

Franco Haggis was panting like a diseased steam engine.

Franco Haggis had a twinkle in his eye...

Right up to the moment he looked down, wondering why the bucket was growing lighter in his hands, and realised the damn vindaloo chilli whiskey with a hint of PreSausage had
eaten
a large hole in the bottom of the bucket and he'd left a trail across the lounge floor.

"Ah," said Franco, stopping in his tracks. "It eats through metal? Who would have thought that?"

Franco scratched his beard. And watched the trail of vindaloo chilli whiskey eat a long crevasse into the floor of the Hornet fighter.

"Er," he said.

Steam rose. The floor started to buckle. Metal mesh twisted and dissolved.

"Er, somebody?" said Franco, looking around him. "Er, I think we might have some kind of minor emergency?"

Suddenly, the lights flicked on. Alice's voice snapped at him. "What is it? What's eating the floor?"

"Er." Franco whistled a little tune.

"Idiot! Answer me! Those panels are straight over the engines!"

"Er. It could, maybe, might be a distillation of, possibly, vindaloo chilli whiskey."

"What the
hell
is vindaloo chilli whiskey?" snapped Alice. Then, "It doesn't matter. Shit. Shit! Haggis, don't move. Don't blink! Don't even
fart!
Your evil little concoction has reached the core matrix cabling, but that stuff is... ah..."

Franco felt Alice's presence...
disappear
. As if the ship's computer was frantically turning all her existing cores to solving a really bad problem. Franco whistled a little tune again.
Don't worry! It'll be reet!
'
Tis but a little spillage. Soon be mopped up. Soon be dabbed up. Soon be put back in the bucket and all t'will be forgotten. Yup.

A siren screamed through the ship on full volume.

Tarly sat up, bleary-eyed, face confused.

Queen Strogger came clanking in from her sleeping quarters, pulling on whatever moth-eaten, ragged clothing she used to cover her wrinkled flesh and metal frame.

Everybody stared at Franco.

"What?" he said, shrugging and frowning, and having to shout to be heard over the alarms. "It's just a drill, right? Don't be bloody panicking!"

The Hornet's interior contained perhaps thirty large black screens. Now, one word in glowing white letters appeared on all of them.

Emergency, it said.

Tarly and Strogger stared at that word. Then they turned and stared at Franco.

"There's no problem!" he insisted, flapping his hands.

"Alice?" shouted Tarly. "Alice?"

Alice did not respond. It was as if she was too busy. Or maybe even disabled.

"Er," said Franco again, and looked forlornly down at his bucket.
There's a hole in my bucket,
he thought miserably.
I think I might just have fucked up. Just a little bit. But fucked up, all the same.

There came a deep rumbling sound. The Hornet shuddered. Everybody looked at each other.

"What did you do?" screamed Tarly, grabbing the forlorn Combat K squaddie by the shoulders and shaking him. Suddenly an automated ship emergency drone-voice came booming over the speakers:

This is your crash computer speaking. Please do no be alarmed. You are about to crash. This Hornet fighter vessel, Registration LA05999ZXSPECCY200, will crash in ninety seconds. Please strap yourself into a Crash Couch. Crash foam will be deployed in sixty seconds. If you are not in a Crash Couch, full life support systems cannot be properly administered. Alice has been disabled. Her black box will be available directly via post-crash scavenge and will contain all details and coordinates necessary to coordinate a coordinated rescue operation. Please make your way calmly to the crash facility. You are about to crash. We apologise for this crash. This crash is due to unforeseen circumstances. Crash foam will be deployed in thirty seconds. Please do not panic. There is a seventy-five per cent probability you will survive this crash with all limbs. This is your crash computer speaking. We apologise for this impending crash. Thank you, and good night.

Rushing slightly, Franco, Tarly and Queen Strogger hurried down narrow alloy corridors and strapped themselves into Crash Couches. All the time, Tarly was saying, "I don't believe it, I just don't fucking believe it, I mean, you train for these eventualities, but you never think it's going to happen to you. What happened, Franco? Where's Alice? Why were you carrying an empty bucket? What the hell is going on?"

"I think we must have been struck be a missile," lied Franco fluently, and Tarly stared at him, teeth bared.

"I thought this Hornet had a wealth of scanners and proximity detectors?"

"Yeah, well," said Franco, face crafty, "it'll be one of those damn clever AI gunbots, won't it?"

But he didn't get to say any more.

Because at that moment the Hornet's nose dipped, the engines stalled, and it tumbled from the sky like a duck with an arse full of red-hot lead shot.

Crash Foam v2.7 was deployed.

And there's nothing better than a face full of Crash Foam v2.7 to really shut you the fuck up.

Sirens screamed. Wailed. Spluttered. The Hornet was thrashing. There were a thousand
clicks
as crash-injectors flipped down from recesses. "Holy shit," mouthed Franco, but his voice was lost as several thousand crash-injectors hissed and squirted, filling the entirety of the Hornet's interior with Crash Foam v2.7. They were hit by the foam, locked rigid and yet floating, as it surrounded them in an instant. The Crash Foam v2.7 filled open mouths and nostrils; it plugged their ears, and the world was muffled and
killed
as they descended into a cool green suspension, divorced from reality. The Hornet's emergency systems had taken control. Franco breathed the weird rubbery substance, which was infused with oxygen and a sub-prapethylene agent that would sustain him in stasis for around thirty minutes...

This was enough time to crash. In theory.

Then Franco felt like he was in a tumble drier. He felt like he was drunk, in a boxing ring, spinning round. He felt his ears and brain bleeding. He felt his rubber head turn inside out, his brain plop from his ears, his internal organs fry in a pan of butter and garlic, his testicles rise up through his body until they parodied his tonsils so that all he could talk was bollocks... and Franco screamed through the Crash Foam v2.7 and he heard distant, million-mile-muffled screams from Tarly and Queen Strogger and, he imagined in a fantasy world on another planet, even
Alice,
the ship's computer.

Shit, thought Franco.

We're going to die.

The world felt like putty, and Franco a pellet of dung thrashing around in slow-motion at the centre. His lungs were fit to explode, filled with a billion old smoke rings, and he coughed and coughed and coughed, and wondered what the hell was wrong with him - was he dying? Was it cancer? And he was crying in pain, a raw, sweet agony, worse than any chilli powder in his eyes, and he rolled around on the soft squidgy floor but that couldn't be right, because the floor shouldn't be soft and squidgy like that - surely? Franco coughed and coughed, coughed till he thought his lungs would come out of his mouth, only instead he disgorged a long drooling stream of melting Crash Foam v2.7, which spewed out of him like some five-course salmonella curry. Pain ran circles in his skull, and his eyes felt they were about to pop. He reached up, pulled barrels of Crash Foam v2.7 from his nostrils, and only then, only when he could
breathe
cool sweet fresh air, did he gasp and suck in great lungfuls and feel even
vaguely
human again.

You crashed the ship
, said a mocking, nagging voice in his brain.

Like an ex-wife.

Like an irascible student.

You
crashed
the damn Hornet!

Oh.
Shit.

Franco opened his eyes. Unnecessarily, he felt, somebody said, "He's awake."

The world spun around like an elastic yo-yo, until it finally settled and he felt hands helping him to sit up. It was Tarly. Her hands were strong. She looked concerned.

"Are you okay?"

"I'd rather be dead."

"You certainly look it."

"Hey, I ain't no fucking zombie," muttered Franco, and continued to cough up phlegm and Crash Foam v2.7, picking it from his nostrils and scraping it from his beard. "Where are we?" he eventually spluttered.

It was dark. Pitch dark. Above, the heavens were a vast, sable blanket glittering with stars like crushed ice. He could smell old matrix fuel. And fire. Definitely fire. A cold wind blew, and Franco suddenly realised they were moving.

"Where are we?" he repeated, and got to his knees and gazed about. "We're on a boat! How the hell did we get on a boat? What are we doing on a boat? We shouldn't be on a bloody boat! I mean, one minute a spaceship, next minute a boat! What's the bloody world coming to?"

He looked around again. It was a large, inflatable, QGM emergency-issue vessel. Franco rolled his head, and his neck and shoulder muscles howled in protest. His aching body battered him like a pit-fighter. His balls felt like shrivelled pips.

"We crashed," said Tarly, voice quiet, calm. The wind ruffled her red curls. Starlight glittered in her eyes. "Alice deployed this boat at the last moment and an S-PopBot cut us out of the Crash Foam v2.7 and dumped us here."

Franco looked around. "Where's the Hornet?"

"Sunk."

"Ahh."

Tarly gave a weak laugh, and Franco saw it in her eyes; fear. They were stranded now. Not just on the sea in a little inflatable lifeboat, but here on the
planet
. The only space-going vehicles allowed were QGM. And they were busy fighting a war...

"I can't believe we crashed."

"Must of been a missile," mumbled Franco, miserably.

"I'm sure Alice would have seen it coming." Tarly settled back, next to Queen Strogger. In the middle of the boat were several emergency crates. The boat rose and fell on the swell of the ocean. It was cold, but not uncomfortably so if one hunkered down out of the wind.

"Well," said Franco brightly, "it's unfortunate Alice went swimming down with the ship, hey? Now we'll never know what happened, because if there was a gross incompetence issue then we'd need to know about it, because crashing a Hornet is a
big thing,
right, but hey it's a shame, not that I'm saying it was some kind of incompetency spillage issue or anything, because that would just be insane, and I'm sure Alice in all her wonderful wisdom would have seen any such depravity on its way to the Asylum Dock. Yeah?"

"Are you still drunk?" said Tarly.

"Only on love juice," grinned Franco, and shuffled closer.

"Anyway," said Tarly, frowning at him, "we
will
get to know what happened. I've got Alice's BBR here."

"Her BBR?" said Franco, heart sinking as he looked at the small black cube in Tarly's gloved hands.

"Yes. Black Box Recording. Although in reality it's more complex than that, because it's a BCube. Alice's
Brain Cube.
Just because her shell, her whole
ship
has been destroyed, doesn't mean QGM are going to junk her fucking mind, does it?"

"What, so that there box is her CPU?" snapped Franco, eyes wide.

"More than that," said Tarly. "It's
her.
She's all clammed up at the moment; a preventative measure due to the crash. She'll come round soon enough. Reboot herself. Like a turtle emerging from its shell after being used in a game of volleyball. Then she'll tell us what really happened. Should take her a few hours; or that's what the specsheets claim."