Storymania - Shooting Birds by M B Barlow

Shooting Birds (2)
M B Barlow

Captain Avventura shouted to be alone and they left him unaccompanied as he swung in his chair, chewing. Biting through the stick in large gulps, beads of sweat coming down his forehead, he swung around and around on his chair.
‘Sir,’ a robot said, flying into the room like a tiny fish.
‘I want to be left alone!’ he shouted at the fish, throwing a piece of Tumpik.
The robot moved past it and declared, ‘Two Skyrovers have returned.’
‘Alive?’
‘Of course.’
‘Don’t be arrogant you little Spatterbug and show them in instantly.’
‘Yes sir,’ it said, flying off.
Avventura waited impatiently for the two living Skyrovers as he ravished more Tumpiks half-heartedly. He took off his outlandish costume, his body glistening with sweat, as sequins and buttons fell to the ground. He dropped the costume to the ground as Denkon Hypoluxo and Meanie came into the room, neither looking very happy, and for good reason.
‘Avventura,’ Denkon shouted, his face carved in a rage. ‘You’ve killed them all.’
‘All of them…Are you sure?’
‘There’s a group of guys who were still alive last time I checked but you have killed the group you created and I hope you’re ashamed.’
Avventura stood up, his naked body in full light. Meanie found it disturbing, having not seen a naked man before. The Skyrovers showered together, of course, but he always left his eyes in slits, or kept it pointed up, the water and soap irritating his eyes. He didn’t want to see any nudy bits but he was seeing them in front of his eyes now, wobbling around. He closed his eyes.
‘I am your captain.’
‘And I am your conscience and I say you should be ashamed.’
Avventura stared at him, his lip quivering the way he did when he was about to spit rhetoric. But he didn’t. No, he simply walked away and left the room. The bridge had no captain for the moment, just Gotoo staring at them in a slightly scary way. Denkon watched him go away and turned to Meanie. ‘Follow him and tell him about the interview.’
‘Me?’
‘Are you complaining?’ Denkon eyes loomed large, like two guns ready to shoot.
‘No,’ Meanie said.
‘Go do it. I’ll wait here.’
Meanie walked away, not too fast. While he waited, Denkon tried the Captain’s chair. His legs crossed, he swivelled around and even tried a Tumpik. He liked it.
Meanie saw the image of the captain up ahead, still naked and walking the corridors with a strut not unlike an experienced stage actor, the kind he’d once seen in Athanasia. Avventura was an incredible actor but he’d never used those talents to make money. Well, legally anyway.
‘Captain,’ Meanie called softly.
Avventura never turned.
‘There is an interview scheduled with a Mr Lechim Faber.’
Avventura stopped.
‘I don’t know what for, but I do know if you do it he’ll let us go with no problem,’ Meanie added, helpfully.
‘Get my clothes,’ Avventura said. ‘It’s lying in a pile on the bridge. I would like to meet Mr Lechim Faber. I would like that indeed.’
‘I’ll get that now,’ and he ran off back to the bridge.

They wasted no time. Avventura with his special suit, Denkon and Meanie; they all went back to the Hannibal in a pod rather than the electropacks – they weren’t hiding from anything now, so they went open air.
When the pod reached the Hannibal, Denkon watching the lax cannons carefully, they were met by a ceremonial bot. ‘Greetings,’ it said as they approached, leaving the pod behind. ‘If you care to follow me I shall escort you to the interview with Mr Faber.’
They followed the bot; it leading with the captain behind, past the corridors Denkon and Meanie had snuck through and found themselves in the same room they had been in before. There was only one person in the room now and he was standing at the window looking out.
‘You can leave me now,’ Avventura told them.
‘We don’t want to,’ Denkon said.
‘It wasn’t a question.’
Denkon waited a second and then left. The bot escorted them back to the pod and they went back to the Redfly. And they waited…

Avventura waited at the door, waiting for Lechim Faber to do anything. He did nothing so, in boredom, he sat down at the head of the table. He stared at the body of Faber, who didn’t move a fraction, and brought his eyes to the bowl of fruit. A banana, two apples and something spiky and hairy that he’d never seen before. He bent over to pick it up.
‘I see you’ve not really changed.’
Avventura sat back down and turned to face Faber, who sat down to the left of him and stared from behind his Talarian glasses. His eyebrows were grey now.
‘You’ve not really changed either.’
They stared at each other.
‘You tried to rob my ship.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘Yes you did, and your men have died because of it. Not changed at all, have you?’
‘I’ve changed a little bit.’
‘What bit is that?’
‘The bad bits.’
Faber smiled, but it was a pleasant smile. ‘Right. I’ve imprisoned your men who are still alive. There’s a few of them, although they don’t seem too happy for it. I don’t know why. Do you remember when we were in training and you were against me in a fight and you did this,’ he said, removing his glasses.
‘It was an accident.’
‘I don’t think it was.’
‘It was. I was just careless that day.’
‘As you were this day?’
Avventura didn’t reply.
‘You’ve always seemed to be careless every day, as if it were your hobby. Yet, you’ve never been reprimanded for it. I thought, today, that I would be the first,’ he said, getting up.
Avventura tensed and he said, ‘Don’t you think I’ll live with the guilt of knowing that I killed all those men and left so many fatherless children and husbandless women?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I will, whether you think it or not.’
Faber stood in front of Avventura, bent over and placed the tip of his gun on the tip of the captain of the Redfly’s nose. A bead of sweat climbed down the nose to the barrel.
‘You’re sense of dress hasn’t changed either.’
‘Have you been holding this grudge all this time?’ Avventura said, laughing. ‘Just because I made a little hole in your head?’
‘A little hole? You idiot, you gave me one less eye!’
‘You’ve got the replacement.’
Faber slapped him, not as hard as he could have. ‘You’re the same idiot, Avventura. You have no sense of human feelings.’
‘And you do?’
‘Oh yes, I do.’
They stared at each for many minutes, barely blinking. Avventura’s temperature was getting warmer and warmer. He should have worn something different.
‘What is it you want, Lech?’
‘I just couldn’t miss this opportunity to meet my best friend, could I?’
‘Just let me and my people go and that’ll be the end of it.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t get so agitated like you’ve always done all your pointless life.’
‘I won’t let you take my crew.’
‘I’m not taking them; I’m just letting them go.’
‘Then do it.’
‘Not until you leave.’
Avventura stuttered when he asked, ‘What do you mean?’
‘You have been wasting lives all your life and I won’t let you do it anymore.’
‘You’re…relieving me of my men?’
‘Your little pirate friends are going to live a normal life. They’ll have no choice because their data will be spread throughout our little world of Deus and they just won’t be ale to do it.’
‘I can get more Skyrovers you know.’
‘I do know that, and that’s one of many reasons you’ll be staying in prison for much of the rest of your life.’
Avventura jumped into the air, his face going quickly white. ‘What!’
‘Yeah, you’re a nasty criminal yet I wasn’t surprised that you didn’t just fly off and ignore my invitation to this chat, because, of course, you’re an idiot and you’ll soon be rotting in a cell underwater.’
‘Underwater?’ Avventura asked, confused. An image and words entered his mind and his eyes widened. ‘I can’t go there, I haven’t done enough.’
‘It’s not about quantity, its quality, and I have to say that you have done a great deal of highly illegal things buddy.’
‘So this will be your revenge, huh?’
‘No, this will.’
Lechim Faber moved and fired his pistol too fast for Avventura to see. He would never see again.

Meanie and Denkon had stayed too long on the Redfly. ‘Something’s gone wrong with Avventura.’
‘The captain’s in trouble?’ Meanie said in a troubled voice.
‘Maybe. I think we should go see what the hold-up is.’
‘Yeah!’
So they did, taking the pod back down to the Hannibal, walking all the way back to the room, where they saw Faber sitting comfortably in a chair, looking out of the window.
‘Where has Avventura gone?’ asked Denkon harshly.
‘Oh, you just missed him.’
‘He’s gone back to the Redfly?’
‘No, he’s been arrested.’
‘What!’ shouted Meanie.
‘Yes, he has been arrested for crimes too numerous to mention, including the crimes of the last few hours. What, you thought he would just be let off to continue his illegal and immoral escapades? Of course not. He’ll be spending the rest of his life locked up under water in Cymelon.’
‘Cymelon?’ said Meanie. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘Shut up, Meanie,’ shouted Denkon.
‘Yes, your captain is gone and will be rotting in a cell very soon. Sorry about that.’
Denkon stared at the Talarian, felt the anger bubble inside him, and let it loose on Faber. He rushed at him, toppling him over in his chair onto the ground, his punches coming thick and fast. His nose broke in a second as did several bones in his face. The gunshot went off and Denkon flew backwards, clutching his belly as Faber stood up, wiping blood from his eyes. ‘Do you see this?’ he said, pointing to the symbol of a sword with wings on his breast pocket. ‘This means I am a Talarian and that means I’m better than you, which means you were very stupid to do that, as you can feel.’
Denkon lay on the floor in agony as a rough circle of blood crossed the surface, reaching Meanie’s feet. He stared at it as it went past his boot and he looked to Denkon, his trainer, as his face was contorted in pain. Then he looked to Faber, who standing over Denkon, nudging him with his foot. ‘That wasn’t very nice.’
‘Of course it wasn’t, boy. I shot him.’
Meanie also felt anger. But this anger he’d never felt before, it was…uncontrollable. His mind went red and he flew at Faber who looked at Meanie with mild amusement as well as surprise. Then his face went into a state of agony, his eyes and mouth wide and round as he backed off, a knife sticking from in-between the bones of his rib-cage. He fell to the ground and, quite simply, died.
Meanie didn’t know what he was doing but he did know his forearm was covered in blood and he did know his master was not dead yet as the Talarian was. He picked up Denkon, which was tough but easier than it would have been if he had not done the Skyrover exercises every day. Denkon couldn’t say anything and he was dying fast so Meanie ran fast as he could to the pod. No one tried to stop him.

On board the Redfly, Meanie told the crew to get away as fast as possible and to get a med bot. Denkon lay dying on the ground of the pod in the dock. Meanie held his hand.
A med bot came and told Meanie to leave. He did.

Next day Meanie visited Denkon in the medical room. He looked weak but he wasn’t dead. Gotoo was there aswell.
‘I’m the captain now,’ Denkon whispered.
‘You are? ’
‘Yes he is,’ said Gotoo.
‘You’ve always wanted to be the captain, Captain Hypoluxo.’
‘And it’s his decision where to go next,’ she said, turning to him. ‘Where do you want to go? We’re sort of on the run, but we were anyway so it doesn’t matter when you make the decision, but we can’t spend too much time in this air space. It could become dangerous.’
Denkon tried to get up but he couldn’t. He lay on his back and said, very weakly that he couldn’t be heard well, but just enough, ‘We will go to Cymelon.’
‘Why?’ asked Meanie.
‘To get our useless captain, of course.’
‘How? Why? But you’re the captain!’
‘Shut up, Meanie, and do as I say.’
Gotoo said, ‘Avventura will be in court long before he goes to Cymelon.’
‘True. Do we have a tracker on him?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’
‘Well we’ll just follow that then.’
‘Yes sir,’ she said and left.
‘I thought you didn’t like Avventura?’ asked Meanie.
‘I don’t, but he’s our captain so we have to rescue him.’
‘Why?’
Denkon sighed and craned his neck against the pillow. ‘You have a lot to learn, young man. A lot.’
After Meanie left Denkon looked around the room and contemplated his new captainship of the Redfly. ‘God, I hate that man.’

THE END

Go to part: 1 2