The Reluctant Adventures of Fletcher Connolly on the Interstellar Railroad Vol. 3: Banjaxed Ceili Read online

  He goes on lecturing Finian about how law and order is defined by what Big Tech wants, and while he’s distracted, I reach in through the passenger side window of the Lamborghini and pluck my lightsaber out of the mug holder. I picked up a spare powerpack for it from the amenities tray at the Flower Lake Health & Beauty Resort. I meet Sam’s eyes.

  There are two perfectly good spaceships over there. The only thing we don’t know is which, if either, of them has a stacker on board. No stackee, no flyee—we can’t go interstellar without a stacker.

  But there’s a stacker right here, blethering at Finian about shortsighted Luddites who impede technological progress.

  “We’ll take him prisoner,” I breathe to Sam, who nods enthusiastically. It would be very satisfying indeed to make Matthew Steiner operate our getaway ship.

  At that moment Finian cuts Steiner off by taking his radio from his belt and speaking into it. “Unit One, come in.”

  The radio hisses.

  Finian glances up at the terminal building. He’s waiting for his backup to appear. We’d better leg it before they arrive.

  At the moment, however, I can see no signs of life up there. The sun is still shining on the roof, and the police flitter stands motionless.

  “Unit One, come in,” Finian repeats.

  The police flitter lifts off the roof. But Finian’s radio is still silent.

  Imogen whispers, “Look at Steiner.”

  My blood runs cold. He’s smiling.

  “Run!” I shout. “Run!”

  CHAPTER 15

  Imogen and Sam sprint across the launch zone.

  I pounce at Steiner, intending to take him hostage. It’s now or never. I thumb-press the button of my lightsaber, and the blue beam leaps out, as thick as a child’s wrist, glowing eerily in the twilight.

  Steiner recoils—

  —straight into Finian’s arms.

  “Got you now,” Finian says, dragging Steiner’s wrists behind his back and snapping the handcuffs on him.

  Damn it.

  My lightsaber sears the desert at their feet. The smell of burnt dust rises.

  “As for you,” Finian says to me, “put that weapon away, and put some fecking clothes on. You can tell me later what you’re doing here, when everyone thought you were dossing on Arcadia.”

  The police flitter skims closer, pale and sinister against the darkening sky. Steiner’s not struggling anymore. He watches the flitter, smiling.

  “Run, Finian!” I yell. “That’s not your officers in there! It’s Maude!”

  “Who’s Maude?”

  “Ah, it’s not her real name. Just run!”

  Finian jerks Steiner towards him by the short bar joining the handcuffs. He stands him in front of him like a human shield, which is a good precaution. Unfortunately there’s only one Steiner to go around.

  I take my own advice and run.

  Imogen and Sam are far ahead, running in opposite directions. Their bare legs flash in the twilight. Imogen appears to be making for the patrol cruiser, while Sam has his eye on Matthew Steiner’s streamlined private spaceship. Fecking typical.

  The police flitter glides towards them. It stalls in the air, as if Maude can’t decide which of them to strafe first. Then she veers towards Imogen, and lightning flashes out from the flitter’s nose cannon.

  Imogen crumples to the ground.

  I thought I was already running flat out. I discover that I can run faster.

  I’m still a hundred yards from Imogen’s body when the flitter swoops towards me like a bird of prey.

  Several thoughts dart through my mind:

  The NEPD aren’t allowed to use lethal force.

  Finian has probably refitted this flitter to get around that annoying little restriction.

  You can increase the voltage of an electropulse laser to make it lethal, but you can’t increase its effective range.

  My lightsaber has a range of 30 meters.

  I stop running and brace my legs apart. I remember Imogen in the scrap yard. Wait … wait … wait …

  Now!

  I stab up at the oncoming flitter, holding the lightsaber steady, so that the beam saws a smoking gouge down the underside of the fuselage.

  The nose cannon flashes.

  I dive sideways, rolling away. An unknown number of volts crack into the desert behind me, ionizing the dust.

  I pick myself up and sprint onwards.

  Sam’s already reached Imogen. He’s stooping over her, trying to lift her, as I pant up. “She’s OK!” he says. “It was a stun charge!”

  Well, well. Finian did not refit his flitter, after all. Maybe he couldn’t get away with it.

  A wave of relief washes over me, loosening my muscles. I shoulder Sam out of the way and pick Imogen up. I pass my lightsaber to Sam, as I no longer have a free hand for it.

  “The Gulfstream,” he says.

  “No, the patrol cruiser,” I say.

  “It’s not Railroad-capable!”

  “And it’s not got biometric locks and feck knows what, either. It would be a different story if we had the treecats with us. As it is, we’re limited to what we can steal.”

  Behind us, the police flitter crashes.

  It’s not a very spectacular crash. No flames, no wreckage. The flitter just ploughs its nose into the desert and tips to one side. I suppose I must have hit the drive control train, or something like that.

  Maude jumps out of the cockpit, a camouflage-colored blur of energy. It’s quiet enough I hear her screaming at Finian to let Steiner go.

  The steps of the patrol cruiser are already down. Sam vanishes up them like a squirrel into a tree. I stumble behind him with Imogen in my arms. Jesus, she could stand to lose a little weight. But she’s breathing, she’s breathing. I mount the stairs and lay her down on the deck inside.

  There are two seats up front, jumpseats on the walls in the back. Sam’s got the cockpit light on. The dashboard controls blink a welcome. There is no one to stop us. They’re all lying dead on the roof of the terminal.

  Except Finian.

  “Give me my lightsaber,” I say, grabbing it off the copilot’s seat. “I’ll be straight back.”

  I jog back across the desert, knowing this is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done, in a life bursting at the seams with stupidity.

  As it turns out, I don’t have to go very far. Finian’s dragging Steiner towards the ships, while Maude prowls at their heels. She’s gesturing with her handgun, which seems out of character. She must be very upset. Aiding my brilliant deduction, she’s screaming about how she will tell the King everything.

  Finian gets a word in sideways. “The King knows everything. That’s why I was ordered to destroy the artefact and the thieves who had it, as well as anyone who abetted their escape.”

  Maude’s gun hand drops. She’s genuinely shocked. “You were ordered to kill me? I was trying to fix the situation.”

  Finian lets go of Steiner, wipes his brow. “He didn’t mention your name, love.”

  Maude rounds on Steiner. “You gave the orders!”

  “I did not order the destruction of the artefact!” Steiner shouts. Arrogant, even in handcuffs. “This crazy old cop is out of control!”

  “Well, the rocket launcher was provided to us by the King himself,” Finian says. “Sometimes we all need to take a step back and realize that we ourselves, and our most cherished dreams, are just numbers on a spreadsheet to the real masters of the universe.”

  What is society coming to when Finian Connolly sounds like the sanest person on the scene?

  “The King cut his losses,” Finian says. “It’s as simple as that.”

  But Maude is no longer listening.

  With a scream of rage, she raises her gun and shoots Steiner in the face.

  Pop, pop, pop.

  The reports echo across the desert, and Steiner falls.

  I put on a desperate burst of speed. I have to reach Maude before she adds Finian to her kill
tally. I jam my thumb on the button—

  But Maude’s not shooting anymore. She falls to her knees, hands over her face, doubling up on the ground.

  Finian pounces.

  And my lightsaber ends up cleaving the air between them, a bright barrier. Finian freezes, inches from walking into the beam.

  “Step back, Uncle,” I say. “Don’t hurt her. She’s hurt enough already. Leave her alone.”

  Walking closer, I pick Maude’s gun up from where she dropped it.

  CHAPTER 16

  I get Finian into the police cruiser with Maude’s gun at his back. It’s a Glock, half the magazine remaining.

  “Sit down and shut up, Uncle.”

  I may not have wanted to see him murdered, but I’m perfectly happy to see him tied into a jump seat, glowering in impotent fury.

  “Hurry up and take off, Sam.”

  “I’ve never actually done a launch to orbit,” Sam says, from the cockpit. “Isn’t Imogen awake yet?”

  “She is not.” I’ve laid her on the floor with a bulletproof vest for a pillow. I check her pulse and lay the back of my hand on her forehead, keeping an eye on Finian all the time. “Even when she wakes up, she’s not going to be in any shape. You can do it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Finian offers.

  “I said shut up. Sam?”

  “Don’t blame me when we end up splattered across a thousand square miles of Arnold,” he says glumly, and executes a perfect launch to orbit.

  I hold my breath until the dashboard tells us we’ve escaped from the moon’s gravity well. Then I give Sam a high five. “Nice work, Bond.”

  “Now I know what it really feels like to be an immortal alien. It’s not that much fun.” He grins tiredly and unbuckles. On the long-range viewscreen, Arnold shrinks to a mottled green crescent. Goodbye to another horrible corner of the galaxy I’ll never visit again.

  “Seven hours to Treetop,” I say.

  “More like six. This baby is faster than the taxi. I’ve locked in the autopilot.” Sam steps out from between the front seats, leaving the cockpit vacant. I take his place, just because it seems as if there should be someone in the driver’s seat. “Is there any food on board?” Sam says hopefully. “Donuts?” He grins at Finian, who ignores him.

  Searching the lockers in the back, Sam whoops. “Quinoa bagels, snack packs of hummus and baby carrots, trail mix … and coconut water. Figures; this is the Treetop precinct.”

  He proceeds to eat his way through the patrol’s entire emergency food stash.. I grab a bagel for myself before they’re all gone, and watch him enthusiastically chewing. I’m struck again by how thin he looks. No wonder he’s hungry.

  The Gizmo digs into my lower stomach. I touch it, remembering how it healed Sam. It’s the spookiest piece of A-tech I’ve ever handled. And it’s got to be worth even more than we expected.

  Finian sees me apparently touching myself. “Did you have surgery yourself at that place?” he says. “Sure that’s a champion bulge.”

  “Feck off with you,” I say.

  “Either that or you’ve got a sock in your underpants.”

  “Swimming togs.”

  “You’re going to be the laughing-stock of the galaxy when you do the perp walk in that costume.”

  I resolve to ignore him. “Sam?” He’s sitting in the back amidst a litter of food wrappers, alternately belching and yawning. “We need to work out what we’re going to do when we reach Treetop.”

  “Yeah, man. We land in some out-of-the-way location. Ditch the cruiser. Hook up with Donal and Harriet. Use their connections in the catering industry to get a ride back to Arcadia. Once we get there, we’ll have options.”

  This is the kind of plan the son of Special Delivery Sam would come up with. I’ve already rejected it, and many variants of it, because I refuse to put Donal and Harriet in danger. Also, I want to deal with the Russians from a distance of several hundred lightyears. Anything less would be hazardous to our health.

  I’m toying with a plan for resurrecting our aristocratic identities to get onto a commercial flight to Earth. As I’m about to start explaining this, Sam yawns again, hugely.

  “Fletch, I’m done in. I have to grab some sleep, or I’ll be a wreck when we get there. Dunno why I’m so tired,” he says, childishly, and curls up on the floor next to Imogen. He’s asleep the second his head hits the deck. Watching the two of them lie there, I feel an overwhelming surge of protectiveness.

  The cruiser roars on through deep space. I switch off the cockpit light to let Sam and Imogen sleep. The quiet goes on and on. I fight drowsiness, and lose the fight. When my head jerks up, five and a half hours have gone past.

  I think Finian’s asleep, too, but then I see his eyes gleam in the dark.

  “You’ll never get away with it,” he says.

  “Oh yes we will,” I say. “We’re in a police cruiser. And you’ll tell us all the right things to say when they come on the radio.”

  “The feck I will. Jail is the only place you’re going.”

  I feel a mild pang of desperation. I don’t know what to say. What comes out is, “Please …”

  “I’m disappointed in you.” He said that before. “I don’t blame the lad there. With the upbringing he had, it’s no wonder. But you were raised better than this. Your parents will say it’s my fault for leading you astray, and no doubt they’ll be right to a certain extent. But you’ve got a brain on you. Why use it for this?”

  Again, I don’t know what to say. I turn away from him and go through the motions of reviewing the readouts on the dashboard. We’re only a few thousand miles from Treetop now. The planet’s green orb fills the windscreen.

  Arnold has shrunk to moon-size on the long-range viewscreen. In my memory, Maude is frozen in time, curled up in a fetal position in the launch zone, crying for everything she’s done. Realistically, someone’s probably put her out of her misery by now.

  “You’re a queer one, Fletch,” Finian rumbles. Amusement glints in his eyes. “You won’t work for a living, but it must have been enough work getting into that party.”

  He knows we were at the party. Of course, he thinks we stole the Krell artefact from there. Does he know about the Gizmo, too? He can’t.

  “Sure it looked desperate dull. You’d have had better craic at the local pub.”

  He has his mind made up that I’m a chronic skiver. I consider telling him that I’ve spent the last year working construction, breaking my back like a Paddy across the water a hundred years ago, which is more than he’s ever done. But the whole point of that was so I’d never have to do it again. So he’s right. He’s right about the party, too, but I will not give him the satisfaction of saying so.

  “Agh,” my uncle grunts, having failed to bait me. “I’ve got to use the jacks.”

  “You can hold on.”

  “I’m about to piss myself. You know at my age, my bladder control isn’t what it used to be.”

  I scowl. “All right.”

  I undo the bungee cords I used to strap him into the jumpseat. I’d also put some plastic handcuffs on him.

  “I can’t undo my flies with these on,” he says, holding up his cuffed hands.

  “You can, sure.”

  “No, I can’t. Would you help me?” Grin, grin under his moustache. He’s enjoying this. He looms over me in the dimness of the back. I’m 6’1” in my sock feet but he’s a shade taller even than that. It is very difficult for me to stand my ground, even though I’ve got my lightsaber in my hand. He’s had the whip hand over me all my life—the role reversal is jarring.

  “Fine,” I say, and release the plastic handcuffs with the little key.

  He goes into the closet-sized loo at the back. The door locks.

  I stand outside with my lightsaber in my hand.

  Imogen stirs.

  “Fletch?” Her voice is weak.

  “How are you feeling, love?” I spare her a glance.

  “Alive,” she says, testing out he
r limbs. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Maude tased you.”

  “That, I got.”

  She stands up shakily, holding onto the overhead webbing. I want to go to her, but I daren’t leave the bogs unguarded. “Finian’s in the toilet,” I say. “Could you go forward and have a look at the radar?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I am not. We’re nearly there. If we can land at the north pole, that’s what I want to do, but it depends on the traffic in orbit, the satellite coverage …”

  “No, no, I mean Finian is here? On board? In the restroom at this moment?”

  “He is.”

  She gives me a searching look. “You’re either a better man than I thought you were, Fletcher Connolly,” she says, “or a much worse one.” With these enigmatic words she makes her way forward, stepping over the slumbering Sam and picking up a bottle of coconut water on the way.

  I rattle the loo door. “Finian, have you had a heart attack in there?” My heart sinks; I may have guessed his strategy. He’ll stay locked in there so we can’t make him do the radio protocol for us. Then they’ll know we’re not really the police, and they’ll shoot us down.

  “Oh crap,” Imogen says wearily.

  “What?”

  She’s in the driver’s seat. “The fucking Ghost Train’s still here.”

  “How is that possible? We’ve been away …” It feels like a lifetime. But when I add it up, it comes out to— “A bit less than twenty-three hours.” And the Ghost Train halts for 27 hours, 3 minutes, and 40 seconds precisely, every time it visits Treetop or one of its other stops. “All right, so it’s still here. Is that a problem?”

  “It’ll just make us more conspicuous. No one can use the Railroad until the Ghost Train’s gone, so we’ll be the only ship de-orbiting. And I’ll have to fly right over the Railroad to enter a polar orbit. We’ll be passing pretty close to the Ghost Train itself.”

  “Well, hopefully everyone’s got bored and turned off their telescopes and cameras by now.”

  While I am uttering these fatuously optimistic words, the door of the loo bursts open, catching me in the shoulder, and Finian bursts out, brandishing a knife in an overhand grip.