The Crime of the Century

Cola snuggled down into the pallet the monks had given her. It wasn't exactly comfortable bedding, but as the night before battle it would have to do.

She closed her eyes and pulled up Herbert's Diary. She hadn't realised how little was left. Just one file!

---*---

"Translation in five.

"Four.

"Three.

"Two.

"One."

With a shudder the ship moved itself though space. This was one of the shortest jumps we'd ever done, but needed to be the most accurate.

"Target!" The ship called as we materialised in the courtroom on Passdapeppapappa.

"Status!" I shouted.

"Most of the courtroom have been knocked over the shock wave. Except."

There came the sound of weapons fire.

"There are marines in the court!" I'd never heard the ship shout before.

"There're just marines. You're a spaceship!"

"They're in Aegis Dreadnaught armour!" The ship shouted back, "And we're too close for shields to be of any use whatsoever!"

"What?"

"I'm taking damage! These marines can hurt me. Give them ten..." The ship rocked with an explosion, "FIVE minutes and I'll be a wreck.

"Kurl, Vestock." I shouted, "Hold position. Don't disembark!"

"Heard." Vestock responded.

"Too right, boss!" Kurl said.

"I can't train the ship's weapons on them. They're too close!" Gilchrist shouted. Why was everyone shouting at me as if this was my fault? We'd all agreed the plan.

It was a simple plan. Translate into the courtroom and in the confusion grab Fader, then translate out. Kurl and Vestock were by the landing ramp ready to jump out and grab Fader, they were wearing body armour. Unfortunately nothing that could compare to Aegis Dreadnaught armour. Marko was in the pilot's chair - adjusted for his size. Gilchrist had weapons control. Malcolm was, as normal when we jumped, in stasis in his chambers.

The ship rocked with another explosion. I stood up and shouted at the ship, "Pen and paper!"

"In the mess." The ship responded and so I raced towards our food hall.

I slid to a halt in front of a table with paper strewn all over it and grabbed a nearly clear piece and a writing implement. I scribbled. I hoped no one would mind if I spelt a word or two wrong or missed out some punctuation. "Ship!" I called, "Take Malcolm out of stasis and unlock his bedroom door!"

I ran along the corridor, yanked Malcolm's door open. He was rubbing his eyes. I grabbed his right paw and thrust the piece of paper into it. He was always woozy after stasis and I really hoped he'd get up to speed in time. I really, seriously, hoped.

I rushed into the cargo hold and pulled the end off the sole 'wooden' crate in there, screaming "Ship! Feed me video of what happens!"

I stared at the machinery for a split second, shook my head, then slipped my arm into the box and turned the device on.

Suddenly my mind switched off all connections to my body. My knees buckled and I seemed to fall down in slow motion as Gilchrist's satellite acted on my nervous system. I was momentarily glad that all my senses were dulled, I could break a bone If I fell badly and I wouldn't know until the thing was turned off. If I could have moved my mouth muscles I'd have smiled, even with the pain, knowing that the same thing was happening for a radius of at least ten or so miles. Bugs, it would be hell out there as cars careened out of control and people collapsed everywhere.

The device had been calibrated as a mind control for a particular set of characteristics, Ideally creatures close to rabbit-kind. The device's field could be blocked by local devices such as the gold rings Gilchrist and I wore. Except that the satellites had been far, far, far too powerful and they simply overloaded every mind of every living creature in a stupidly wide radius. Even calibrated properly, when designed to act over orbital distances but switched on when grounded it simply blew the mind of every living body in sight.

Well, except for one being.

For some reason, the combination of drugs Gilchrist had fed Malcolm, possibly in concert with his 'normal' thin hold on sanity didn't just make him immune to the effects, the effects actually made him saner than sane. I'd seen him under this control in past and he became a superbun.

The ship routed a video feed to me that followed Malcolm. I could see that he looked at my note for a second, screwed it into a ball and then dropped it behind himself. It looked like he'd just dropped it, but the ball rolled into a corner and stopped without bouncing, perfectly tidy.

He sprang into motion - running to the bridge, shouting questions at the ship as he did. He burst into the bridge, then stopped. He walked calmly up to Gilchrist, whom was lying prone on the floor, drooling, much as I imagined I was.

Malcolm calmly kicked Gilchrist in the ribs. Then he kicked him again a little lower. Then again. Then again. Inside my head I was begging Malcolm to get on with his job and leave vengeance for later. For Bug's sake we all wanted to kick Gilchrist.

Malcolm seemed to have finished his kicking. He spat on Gilchrist then turned away and left the bridge.

He stopped in a corridor and pulled an armoured suit on. From outside there was still the sporadic sound of gunfire, I could imagine a marine falling down, insensate, his finger trapped around the trigger of his weapon.

Malcolm pulled Kurl and Vestock's bodies away from the landing ramp. He seemed gentle in the way he posed them against the bulkhead, such a contradiction compared to his violent outburst only a minute ago.

The view the ship was showing me switched to an outside camera.

Chaos: bodies, everywhere, most just mind-dead, but around the marines some of the bodies leaked their lifeblood. The marine's weapons would have fired indiscriminately as they toppled over.

Malcolm picked his way through the bodies, doing his best not to step on anything or anybody to the Accused's stand. Fader's armoured body lay draped over the top like a ragdoll.

Malcolm made a grumbling noise as he lifted Fader up over his shoulder. Malcolm turned his head from side to side, partly, I think, to take in the enormity of what we'd just done, part simply as a shake of the head to try to say 'not me, not my fault'.

He stepped back to the ship, trying to be as dainty as he was on the way out, doing his best not to step on anyone. I suppose he thought we'd been imposition enough for these people. As he reached the ship his legs seemed to give way and he dropped the body. His gaze seemed fixed on something in the crowd, a body next to a Marine, someone who'd come to see the trial of the century and instead got caught up in the crime of the century. A bloody mess that, only a few minutes ago has been smiling at their good fortune to be witnessing a trial that would go down in history. It looked like the creature had been wearing a bright blue dress.

Malcolm muttered rude things under his breath and as he dragged Fader onto the ship the insensate armoured body left a trail of blood. I hoped it was someone else's. I'd hate to go through all this and not even get Fader alive out of it.

The ship turned off the video feed to me. The next thing I saw was Malcolm's left foot, an inch from my face. He was speaking to the ship. I heard the words, my mind couldn't interpret them. "When I turn this off, immediately translate as far away as you possibly can. Don't worry about me. Just do it."

My mind went blank with a thud. Then as suddenly as it had fell, the haze lifted. I pulled myself up and realised that Malcolm was lying on the ground next to me, his body shaking with a fit, his mouth drooling and his eyes wide. I realised that the thud was his body hitting the floor. I pushed myself up and dragged his juddering body onto my lap. I cradled his head, trying to stop him hurting himself as his limbs flailed around, banging on the floor.

He was speaking. It took me a second to understand.

"Hurt." He was saying, "Hurt, hurt, hurt."

"I understand." I replied with tears in my eyes.

"No. No." He forced the words out as his head twitched violently, "He's hurt. Hurt."

Kurl staggered into the cargo hold. "The ship told me to bring you this."He held out a syringe. "Tranquiliser." I tapped the device to Malcolm's neck and pressed the trigger. With a 'snifft' noise the drug was injected into his system. "Vestock and Gilchrist are with Fader - he's lost a lot of blood."

I picked Malcolm's limp body up and carried him back to his quarters. I slipped him into his bunk and shut the door. "Stasis field on, please TB." I asked the ship, tears streaming down my face.

I stood outside Malcolm's quarters for a second, then I turned away.

"Where, and When, are we?" I asked the ship, as I walked.

"We're one-sixteenth along the galactic disk from Passdapeppapappa." The ship said. "The translation appears to have taken at least two months, objective."

"Roger that." I said with an ironic laugh. I was swearing but everyone would think I was just replying.

I reached our excuse for a Med Bay as Gilchrist was lowering Fader's body into the autodoc. Fader's signature armour was strewn around the floor. I stepped over to the miracle healing machine, kicking a black helmet out of the way as I did, and looked in.

"He's white, albino." I said to Gilchrist. "I wasn't expecting that."

---*---

*** End Of File ***

---*---

Cola's eyes popped open. Well, she thought, *I* was expecting that.

She cuddled her rough blanket close and smiled a grim smile to herself.

Now, she needed her sleep.

Must be bright and fresh for tomorrow.