Galactic Keegan Read online

  Bugger.

  ‘Don’t try to change the subject,’ I said, a little rattled myself. ‘It doesn’t matter how I found out. The point is, you’ve been rumbled. Just hand yourself over and we can make this as painless as possible. You may as well just confess, it’ll save time later on.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Leigh snapped. ‘You’re going to wreck everything – I’m so behind as it is!’

  ‘The L’zuhl have tight deadlines, do they?’ I said in a teasing, sing-song voice. Suddenly, there was a ringing sound from close by – I followed Leigh’s gaze to the long table at the front of the room, littered with wrapping paper, tape and bows for some mad reason. Perched there on the edge, vibrating noisily, was Leigh’s phone. Before he could move, I grabbed it and read the name on the display – Janice, whose ID display featured a photo of Leigh posing cheerfully at what looked like a barbecue with his arms around a large woman with frizzy blonde hair.

  ‘Give me that phone, you snake,’ Leigh said, pawing at it. I held my arm away and smiled triumphantly.

  ‘Let’s just see what your wife makes of all this then, shall we?’ I said. ‘Imagine how crushed she’ll be to find out her husband is the greatest enemy of mankind since the day Richard Madeley, the Great Betrayer himself, defected to the L’zuhl!’

  ‘Kev, seriously, you need to—’ Gerry said, but I had eyes only for the General.

  ‘No!’ he screamed, lunging at me; he whacked his shins hard against the footstool and clattered clumsily over it, falling flat on his front with his legs lolling back over the top of it. I answered the call and adopted a breezy, cheerful voice, despite the blood pumping in my ears.

  ‘Mrs Leigh? No, sorry, the General can’t come to the phone right now. No, I’m afraid not. He’s very busy at the moment. I’m his good friend, Kevin Keegan… No, not the guy he has pinned up on his dartboard at home in the kitchen. No, must be a different one. Listen, I’ve actually just bumped into the General all the way out here at Acbaelion Outpost XXI as it happens… Yes, I know there’s a lockdown. See, the thing is, it turns out that your beloved husband has in fact been sneaking out of the Compound and has been jetting out here in secret to feed information to his L’zuhl paymasters. Yes, that’s right – your husband is the spy!’

  That was as far as I got before Leigh shoved me forcefully over; I fell smack on my backside as he snatched the phone from my hand. The impact knocked the wind out of me and hurt like hell, but I didn’t care. I’d done what needed to be done. Leigh had been exposed for the cowardly traitor that he was to the one person who would be most hurt by it. It was, for sure, a terrible way for poor Janice to find out but at the end of the day, she was going to hear about it at some point.

  ‘I will never forgive you for this,’ Leigh growled at me, holding his hand over the phone. ‘You have destroyed everything. All I’ve worked for these past few months in tatters, thanks to your arrogance and your pig-headed determination to undermine me.’

  ‘Truth hurts, son,’ I said, clambering unsteadily to my feet.

  Gerry hurried over and I leaned on him, wincing in pain.

  ‘We got him, Gerry,’ I said, giving a tired thumbs-up. ‘Mission accomplished.’

  The General had walked over to one side of the room and was talking urgently to his wife in a muted voice. I was sure he’d have his excuses ready but it would surely now be too late for him. Something caught my eye then – above the long table behind which Leigh had been perching on his stool, I saw a large canvas banner pinned along the top of the wall. I recognised the person from the photo in the middle of it: Janice again, whose smiling visage I had seen on Leigh’s phone screen not a minute earlier. Either side of her beaming face on the banner were the words Happy 50th Jan! From Your Loving Husband. That was… odd. There was other similarly themed signage dotted about the room, now that I stopped to have a proper look around – including a large photo collage of Janice and the General and a roll call of what I could only assume were their family and friends. I looked at the carefully arranged tables and chairs that I’d walked past to confront Leigh and the named place cards for each one. Something was not right here.

  ‘Kev,’ Gerry said fretfully, ‘I was trying to tell you. Look, I found a stack of these by the door.’

  He held out a laminated sheet of paper with another picture of Janice at the top followed by a list of musical performers (including Mark Knopfler – quite a coup, that) and a really rather delicious-sounding menu. At the bottom was a suggested donation to Earth Aid – the charity set up by Bob Gandalf of Live Aid fame for displaced humans struggling to adapt to post-invasion life – for guests to make in lieu of birthday gifts. I felt a sudden lead weight in the pit of my stomach. This was not good.

  Moments later, with the call ended, Leigh stormed over to us with a face like thunder.

  ‘Right, before you say anything,’ I said, raising my hands, ‘you have to bear in mind how this looked. I was only—’

  ‘Four months!’ Leigh cried, apoplectic with rage. ‘Four months’ planning, all the arrangements I had to make to covertly lift the lockdown to allow our guests to attend – down the drain! And all because you couldn’t keep your nose out of other people’s business!’

  ‘I take that all on board,’ I said. ‘And listen, I’m sure that one day we’ll look back on this and laugh—’

  ‘It was this Saturday! Three days from now – everything was prepared! And thanks to Kevin bloody Keegan, I’ve had to explain to my wife – who was in floods of tears, by the way! – that her husband is not in fact the spy and that the reason I’ve violated my own lockdown order to leave Palangonia on a secret shuttle is because I’ve rented out an abandoned space station from the Alliance in order to host a massive fiftieth birthday bash for her!’

  ‘Look, all cards on the table,’ I said diplomatically. ‘I’ve cocked up good and proper here. I mean, we really did think you were the spy. Sneaking off in a hidden spacecraft like that, anyone would assume the same thing.’

  Leigh’s eyes bored into mine.

  ‘I will never, ever forgive you for this. You are dead to me.’

  ‘No change there then,’ I muttered unhelpfully.

  ‘Does that apply to me as well, or just Kev?’ Gerry asked.

  ‘ALL OF YOU!’ Leigh bellowed, his voice bouncing off the walls of the deserted station. He turned away and pressed his hands against the edge of the table, hanging his head in despair.

  ‘It’ll still be a great bash, I’m sure,’ I offered, trying to comfort him. ‘I mean, I’d love to come along myself, if there’s any…’

  I trailed off as I realised that any chance of an invitation for me was probably fairly remote.

  ‘Maybe we should just go,’ Gerry said after a minute’s awkward silence.

  ‘Aye,’ I agreed. ‘Let’s head home.’

  I winced as I remembered the manner of our departure, effectively hijacking a shuttle and jetting off with the shuttle bay crew in pursuit. Had we returned with Leigh, unmasked as the traitor, they’d probably have turned a blind eye to our antics. But coming home empty-handed… well, this was going to take some explaining.

  As we headed for the door, Leigh’s phone bleeped again. I quickened my pace, not wanting to be in earshot while Janice gave him another earful, but in fact, this time it was a message rather than a call. Leigh glanced miserably over at the device on the table beside him and then suddenly stiffened. He grabbed the phone and stared intently at it. More bad news. There seemed to be a lot of it going around these days.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said in a thick voice. ‘There’s a turn up for the books.’

  ‘What is it?’ I ventured, almost afraid to ask. Perhaps it was a message from the Compound shuttle bay team.

  Leigh strode towards us purposefully and I froze, waiting for him to seize me by the jacket and whack a pair of cuffs on me for stealing Sir Les. In fact, he walked straight past us and out into the corridor. Then he turned and looked back at us.


  ‘I don’t know why you’re all just standing there,’ he said officiously. ‘There’s still a lockdown in place and I want all three of you back on Palangonia with me. That’s an order.’

  ‘I’m so sick of this lockdown,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Just as well,’ Leigh said. ‘Because it’s about to be lifted.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Gerry asked. ‘Why?’

  Leigh reappeared and held up his phone.

  ‘That was a high-level alert from Laika back at the Compound. This situation is very nearly at an end: the spy has been identified at last.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said, stunned. ‘So… who is it?’

  The General rolled his eyes. ‘They’re not going to communicate that over an insecure line, are they?’ he replied witheringly. Bit rude. I looked back over my shoulder at Barrington12, standing by one of the large windows.

  ‘Lickety-split, son, let’s get off,’ I said, snapping my fingers. He turned to look at me.

  ‘KEVIN KEEGAN, I MUST ADVISE THAT ANOTHER SHIP IS CURRENTLY APPROACHING THIS STATION AT SPEED.’

  ‘You what?’ I asked, baffled. ‘What ship?’

  ‘JUDGING BY ITS VAST SIZE, ITS DESIGN AND ITS FIREPOWER, I BELIEVE THIS TO BE THE MAKAZKA.’

  Leigh made a noise like he was choking and dashed over to the window. ‘Please, no,’ he said with something I’d never heard in the General’s voice before: fear.

  ‘What’s the Makazka?’ I asked quietly, suddenly feeling the urge to go to the loo.

  Leigh followed Barrington12’s gaze and then hung his head.

  ‘The Makazka is the most deadly warship in the L’zuhl fleet,’ Leigh said. ‘And it’s right on our doorstep.’

  THE MAKAZKA

  I stopped and leaned heavily on the railings alongside the stairs to catch my breath. I’ll tell you, nothing hammers home how out of shape you’ve become more than having to leg it down thirty flights to escape the clutches of an evil alien race.

  ‘Keegan, come on!’ cried General Leigh, looking back up at me from the stairwell below, his own face flushed and his chest heaving. ‘We don’t have the luxury of time!’

  ‘All right, all right,’ I said and heaved myself up. We pressed on, praying that we’d make it back to the shuttle bays in the outpost basement before the Makazka docked.

  Five minutes earlier, upstairs in Leigh’s party room, I had joined the General and Barrington12 by the window, staring open-mouthed at the sight of the hulking brute of a ship approaching the station, blocking out almost all of the stars that speckled the sky around us. The thing was almost unfathomable in its size – like a skyscraper lying on its side, metallic and black with multitudinous lights peppered along all sides of it which, I quickly realised, were tiny windows. The Makazka could have ploughed straight through the outpost without even noticing. The number of L’zuhl soldiers housed within would be enough to overrun the Compound a hundred times over. The front of the Makazka, only just in view from our angle on the upper floor, was like some kind of dread rictus grin of a face, twisted metal coils that seemed to serve no practical purpose other than to terrify any spacecraft unfortunate enough to end up in its path. Beneath the cylindrical body of the warship were several missiles, primed and ready for action.

  It was Gerry of all people who had snapped us out of our trance and told us we had to do something (though typical of the man that he didn’t proffer any suggestions himself). The General went into military mode and ushered us out of the observation deck and down to the end of the corridor. With the lifts out of action we headed back to the stairwell; he kicked the door open, which was a bit unnecessary given that it was unlocked, but listen, that’s up to him. Now we were hotfooting it as quickly as we could down to our shuttles in the hope that we might somehow fly away in the opposite direction from the approaching warship unseen. It was a big ask, but short of sitting on our hands and awaiting death – or worse, capture – at the hands of the L’zuhl, what choice was there?

  ‘How did they even know we were here?’ the General grunted from up ahead. By my estimation, we had seven more floors to go and, thus far, there was no indication that the Makazka had yet docked. ‘I didn’t see anything on my radar when I flew in here, no scout beacons or shuttles or anything. Did you lot?’

  I thought back to our journey and realised with a grimace that we’d all been snoozing for most of it – we’d never have had a clue what was on our radar whatsoever unless it flew into our path, in which case Barrington12 would have exited autopilot mode instantly.

  ‘No, we didn’t see anything,’ I said evasively. ‘Definitely not. Anyway, no use worrying about that now.’

  ‘This is grave news,’ the General muttered. ‘The L’zuhl shouldn’t be out this far; they shouldn’t have been anywhere close to this nebula. Our blasted spy friend will have told them all about our expanding military force out here of course, but to make their move and strike us so soon? Damn it all, we got complacent.’

  But still, we retained hope that we might yet slip away on the sly. That was until we reached the second floor, so near to our destination, and the ground beneath our feet shook violently, an earthquake without the earth. I had still been holding onto the handrail for support and was thus able to keep myself on my feet, as did Barrington12 with his powerful legs, but Gerry and Leigh went sprawling painfully down the metal steps, landing together in a messy heap.

  ‘They’ll be upon us any moment,’ the General said, grimacing in pain and getting to his feet. My heart sank at the sight of his pronounced limp. ‘You, Clunkbucket – what’s their status?’

  ‘He has a name you know,’ I muttered, even while knowing that I had cursed Barrington12 with equally rude nicknames during our time working together. Barrington12 made a bleeping sound as his processors scanned the station.

  ‘THE MAKAZKA HAS SUCCESSFULLY DOCKED WITH ACBAELION OUTPOST XXI,’ he said. ‘I ANTICIPATE THEY WILL BE AIRLOCKED AND SAFELY ABLE TO BOARD WITHIN TWO MINUTES.’

  ‘Two minutes,’ Leigh said. ‘Two minutes… fine. We can do this. We can still bloody do this!’

  And he was off, roaring in agony as he put weight on his bad ankle and, as Barrington12 helped a dazed Gerry to his feet, we followed down the last few flights and out into the shuttle bay.

  The bay could house around fifty small shuttles at any one time, each with a designated parking space. The ceilings were high, criss-crossed with metal beams, and the walls were bare, thick black steel. We had landed Sir Les next to the General’s tiddler and as we pushed open the double doors from the stairwell corridor into the echoing expanse of the bay, hope filled our hearts. Clearly the Makazka couldn’t fly in through the automated retractable panel at the far end of the bay as we had done, it was far too big; instead it had to sync outside the outpost with what was the equivalent of an airport boarding bridge taking passengers from the terminal onto the plane. We knew from the quake moments earlier and Barrington12’s confirmation that they had done so – now it was a matter of hoping we could get into our shuttles and out through the panel before the bridge doors opened.

  The General clambered awkwardly onto his shuttle wing, dragging his ailing leg behind him while Barrington12 reached for the door release on the flank of Sir Les. No sooner had his sub-5 port connected with it than the whoosh of the shuttle unlocking was drowned out by the zip and clank of the boarding bridge doors.

  The L’zuhl had arrived.

  I realised, as I whipped round to face them, that I had never seen one of the bastards in the flesh. I had been evacuated from Earth very early in the invasion and had looked back in hollow dread as their attack ships blocked out the skies and all but obliterated the planet I had called home for nigh on seven decades. I’d heard tell of their fearsome appearance but nothing had prepared me for the heart-stopping horror of being in the same room as these cruel destroyers of worlds.

  Of the battalion of thirty or so footsoldiers now pouring through the doors into the bay – mere pocket change from t
he populous ship they had arrived on – the shortest was of Peter Crouch proportions, but most were well over seven feet tall. They were clad top-to-toe in strexan armour, thus far impenetrable to all the weaponry at the Alliance’s disposal and the secret to its creation known only to the L’zuhl. The skin that was visible – rough, black-green scales, dried and cracked – was around their mouths, reptilian snarls where their helmets ended, and on their four fingers, poking through the holes in the gauntlets they wore. They wore a reflective visor not unlike the Compound guards back home and I was pleased beyond measure to see my own worried eyes staring back at me rather than having to stare into their own. In their clawed hands, each one clutched a MZ-4 laser rifle – they were not mucking around here. Their leader, a showboat in a purple velvet cloak affixed to the shoulders of his armour, stepped forward and let out a harsh growl. We stepped away from our shuttles and raised our hands. Death would have been preferable to enslavement but, like a relegation scrap, the instinct to stay alive can be tough to shake.

  ‘Krzk akr kirrt trki!’ he said in a harsh, rasping, sandpapery voice. It was the most bone-chillingly awful sound I had heard since Mark Hughes released that album of reggae-tinged S Club 7 covers.

  ‘What are they saying?’ I asked Barrington12 in a small voice, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  ‘THE L’ZUHL COMMANDER SPRAX MAMBO ORDERS US TO SURRENDER OR DIE,’ Barrington12 replied. It wasn’t surprising but still a bit of a downer.

  ‘Will they negotiate?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course they won’t,’ Leigh remarked from behind me as Barrington12 replied in the L’zuhl tongue. It sounded horrible to hear him speaking that vile language. I realised in that moment quite how fond I had grown of the kid during the tribulations of the past few weeks. He was no longer the clumsy, lumbering machine whose constant barrage of questions – ‘How is “ungentlemanly conduct” defined?’ ‘How is stoppage time calculated?’ ‘Why are players so afraid of a small piece of red card that they would immediately leave the field when one appears in front of them?’ – had so frustrated me. Now I considered him a dear and valued friend – though, admittedly, still a bit of a pain in the arse. But then so was Gerry. And, I was quite sure, so was I.