Warblegrub and the Forbidden Planet (2 page)

She eyed him suspiciously. “Our probe detected nothing bigger than birds and rodents.”

“
Probe?
You mean this!” He took the mangled device from his pocket and held it out. “I don’t think it’s working.”

She lowered her weapon but remained wary. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

He stuffed the probe back in his pocket and offered her his hand. “I’m Warblegrub.”

“I’m Al....” she began, then stopped herself. “I’m Pilot Officer 478.”

“I prefer Al.”

“It’s not Al, it’s Alex, but you will call me 478.”

“Alex is a nice name.”

“It’s Pilot Officer 478,” she warned, and pointed another black instrument at him. It gave a high-pitched whirr and a yellow light appeared. Looking puzzled, she shook it and pointed it at him again, but again the light shone yellow. “Must be malfunctioning.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not registering you as a life form.”

“Might I ask what you’re doing here?” asked Warblegrub, changing the subject, but she ignored him and turned her attention to the wrecked spacecraft. He remembered that humans had never been good listeners. “What are you doing here?” he asked again.

“I crashed,” she answered gruffly.

Failing to open a panel on the side of the spacecraft by conventional means, Alex hit it with the butt of her gun. It remained shut.

“I meant….”

“I know what you meant!” She hit the panel again.

“Was it your ship?” Warblegrub ventured.

“The escape pod; the ship was destroyed by some creature.”

“But you were flying it?”

She nodded without looking round.

“Are there any other survivors?”

She hesitated and, though her face was hidden, he felt her pain. When she removed her helmet, however, there was no sign of tears. “I was the only one to get out,” she replied.

Placing her helmet on the ground, she wiped the sweat from her brow, freed her shoulder-length dark hair from its knot and gave her neck a few experimental twists. Then she hit the unyielding panel again – very hard.

“What are you doing?”

Losing her temper, Alex pounded repeatedly. Just as Warblegrub was about to suggest a more considered approach the panel flew open, revealing a compartment containing a much larger gun with a shoulder strap, a small box marked with a red cross, webbing and a large backpack. A similar compartment on the other side of the vessel opened at the first touch of the keypad. From this she took several clips of ammunition and some small black grenades. She pulled the webbing over her shoulders, clipped on the ammunition and grenades, and stowed the rest of the equipment in the backpack.

“Guns and bombs,”
groaned Warblegrub silently. “Here we go again!”

She picked up her helmet, removed a button from the inside rim and attached it to a strap around her wrist.

“What’s that?”

“My com-link,” she replied. “I can communicate with….” She stopped herself, scowled at him then spoke to the button on her wrist. “Pilot Officer 478 requesting assistance, over.”

“Are you trying to contact your friends?”

Her grunt sounded affirmative.

“Will they come and get you?”

“We leave no one behind,” she replied confidently, and a moment later the response came.

“Sit tight 478, assistance on its way. Confirm position, over and out.”

Alex took another device from her belt and held it up, and a thin beam of white light shone high into the sky. Seconds later a distant rumbling began, quickly growing louder. Red, white and green lights flashing, the warship appeared above the treetops but Alex noticed immediately that something was wrong. It came in low over the glade, wobbling slightly. Warblegrub looked on in horror as the dirty, ugly, noisy craft – a typically human insult to nature – began to descend, snapping charred twigs and branches from the surviving trees and raising a great cloud of hot ash from the trench. Realising they were too close, Alex started to back away. She stumbled, but Warblegrub grabbed her and pulled her out of the way. With a final roar, the ship landed heavily and the ground shook, then the landing pods buckled and the ship collapsed, crashing down on its belly.

When it had settled into the earth, a hatch opened in its side and a ramp descended. Three figures emerged, dressed in a similar style to Alex but with black jumpsuits and body armour. Two had black helmets similar to hers, but the tallest of the three, the man in the middle, wore a wide-brimmed grey hat with a thin gold braid. He had two old-fashioned revolvers holstered at his waist and, despite the fact that it was night, he was wearing sunglasses. Taking a smouldering cigar from his mouth, he breathed deeply, inhaling the stench of the burning glade.

Chapter Three

Alex saluted smartly. “It’s good to see you, Colonel!”

The Colonel grunted, removed his sunglasses and studied the prisoner with cold grey eyes. “Who’s this?”

“Calls himself
Warblegrub
, Sir.”

“
Kernel’s
a nice name!” said Warblegrub, offering him a hand.

“It’s not a name,” snapped Alex, nudging him in the ribs with her gun, “it’s his rank!”

The Colonel ignored the hand. “What’s he doing here?”

“I found him nosing round the crash site, Sir.”

“Nosing!”
Warblegrub was indignant.

The Colonel looked him in the eye and frowned. “Seems our intelligence was inadequate!”

Warblegrub raised an eyebrow. “How true!”

The Colonel surveyed the crash site. “Any other survivors?”

Alex shook her head.

“We lost a lot of good people today,” he said gravely. “Their sacrifices will not be in vain.” Then he turned to the ship and spoke into the com-link on his wrist. “Sergeant 175, Science Officer 395 and the Chief Engineer, join me outside.”

Returning to Warblegrub, the Colonel looked him over again, from his scruffy head to his mud-caked boots. “Who are you and what’re you doing here?”

“That’s funny,” replied Warblegrub, “I was just about to ask you the same question!”

At the Colonel’s signal, the two guards moved closer, threatening Warblegrub with their guns. He noticed their dog tags –
Pt 312
and
Pt 749
– and remembered that soldiers answered to numbers and were trained to obey orders without question.

“This is our planet
Mister Warblegrub
….” the Colonel began.

“It’s just Warblegrub. And I’m well aware that you believe this planet belongs to you. In fact, I have some sympathy with your desire to return, but you won’t be allowed to do so, and you will pay a price for this trespass!”

“And who are you to threaten us?”

Warblegrub straightened the collar of his overcoat and squared his shoulders. “I suppose you could say I’m the gardener,” he replied haughtily. “The Head Gardener!”

He endured the Colonel’s glare until Sergeant 175, Science Officer 395 and the Chief Engineer arrived. Hurrying down the ramp, they saluted, and the Sergeant and the Science Officer stood rigidly to attention while the Chief Engineer immediately started to examine the stricken warship’s undercarriage. Though surprised to see Warblegrub, the Sergeant and the Science Officer said nothing. Warblegrub gently probed their minds and recognised the Science Officer as the probe’s operator.

The Colonel returned the salutes then directed their attention to the ship’s undercarriage.

“Dear God,” groaned 395, “the long range transmitter’s under there!”

The Sergeant looked horrified. “We won’t be able to contact the fleet, will we?”

The Chief Engineer needed only a brief inspection. “No chance of taking off again,” he said grimly.

“What are our options?” asked the Colonel, turning to 395.

They waited impatiently while he considered the possibilities. “The Deep Space Com-Net should still be standing,” he concluded.

“The what?”

“The Deep Space Communication Network,” explained 395. “Part of the Planetary Defence Net.”

The Colonel looked doubtful. “After fifty years?”

395 nodded confidently. “The equipment’s kept in concrete bunkers, the transmitters are designed to withstand anything short of a nuclear attack and we can provide the power.”

“You’ll be able to link up with it?” asked the Sergeant.

“Our systems and programs are still compatible.”

“And that’ll do the job?”

“Any transmitter capable of deep-space signalling will do,” said 395. “As long as I can establish a channel to the fleet, I can guide them through hyperspace.”

Alarmed by the mention of signals and fleets, Warblegrub stirred uneasily, attracting 395’s attention.

“Apparently he’s a gardener,” said the Colonel.

“
A
gardener!”
395 was intrigued. “May I question him?”

“Check the maps first; find the nearest deep-space transmitter.”

395 retrieved a tablet from his backpack and sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. Peering over his shoulder, Warblegrub saw a bird’s eye view of the highlands around them.

From their current position, between two ridges of a star-shaped mountain, 395 scrolled south. The earthy colours of the highlands turned steadily greener until they came to the vast, dark labyrinth stretching along the coast.

“It’s immense!” the Sergeant gasped. “How many people lived there?”

“A few million maybe,” guessed 395.

The Sergeant whistled. “More than are left alive in the whole Universe!”

“There were cities bigger than this one….” 395 began.

“Just locate the transmitters!” the Colonel interrupted impatiently.

395 hurriedly entered the search data and a red dot appeared more than a hundred kilometres to the north, high in the mountains.
“Planetary Defence Net,”
he read the tag,
“Deep Space Signalling Centre.”

“It’s not there anymore,” said Warblegrub.

The Colonel looked round sharply. “What’s happened to it?”

“It’s been dismantled.”

“Dismantled?”

“Someone has to clean up after you lot,” replied Warblegrub.

The Colonel looked unconvinced.

“I’m not lying. We’re removing all trace of your species from this planet: all the radioactive waste, the billions of tons of plastics, chemicals…. everything eventually!”

The Colonel held Warblegrub’s eye.

“I don’t tell lies, Colonel. Well, not unless I really have to. These mountains have been cleansed, but you will find plenty of other places I haven’t got round to yet.”

The Colonel turned to 395. “Do you believe him?”

With a glance at Warblegrub, 395 nodded. “We certainly can’t afford to make such a gruelling journey and find nothing there.”

“Other options?”

395 re-entered the search data and they found themselves looking at a dot on a small archipelago of islands far to the south. “Is it still there?” he asked Warblegrub.

“Haven’t touched it.”

“And how do we get there?” asked the Sergeant.

395 shrugged. “Must be a boat somewhere.”

The Colonel set four soldiers to guard Warblegrub then put the rest of the company to work unloading the ship. When the Colonel was out of earshot, Warblegrub introduced himself to his guards: The responses from Privates 312, 749, 941 and 1642 were cold, but Private 1467, who was sitting nearby, seemed friendlier.

Watched over in stony silence, Warblegrub studied the faces of the humans as they laboured. Despite their predicament, they were grimly determined and moved with speed and purpose. In contrast, the pilot who had captured him – Alex – was taking time to talk to one of her crewmates, steadying the young man’s frayed nerves with authority but also with compassion, displaying a very different style of leadership to the Colonel. Her smile and a friendly hand on her crewmate’s shoulder lifted his spirits, and she gave him the larger of her guns and some of her ammunition. Warblegrub was reminded how wonderful humans were at their best and what monsters they were at their worst.