Chapter Thirteen

Within seconds, Vrgnur was lumbering out of the hold, away from me. "Relief" seemed like a rather small word to describe what I was feeling. The Martian scientist was heading away from the hold to the cockpit. I checked my watch. I had only a little over a minute to get clear before Captain Ford set off the bombs.

I eased myself out of my hiding place and tried to find the control that opened the cargo hatch. It wasn't difficult - the lever was four foot long, and bright red. It wouldn't have been out of place in an old-fashioned signal box. To Vrgnur, releasing the control would have been as easy as changing the gears of a car. But humans found it less easy, as I quickly discovered when I tried to apply all my weight to get the thing to budge.

Reader, I swore.

The sound echoed around the cargo hold, and didn't go away however much I wished that it would or however much I gritted my teeth.

Twenty seconds later, I still hadn't been killed by a Martian, so I decided that Vrgnur hadn't heard me. He would be safely strapped into his pilot's cradle by now, a chunky visor over his eyes, his claws tugging at the controls. Which would mean...

The shuttlecraft lurched skywards on a column of magnetic energy. At precisely that moment, I could hear the rumble of explosions outside. It was like being caught in a tidal wave.

As a train begins slowing at the end of every journey, when it's coming into the station and everyone is standing up, draping their coat over their arm ready to leave, there's always someone who contrives to pitch over and crash around, unable to manage even basic co-ordination. That person is generally me.

I tumbled to the floor, landing heavily on the metal deck.

Before I pulled myself up, I unzipped one of the pouches on my belt, and tugged out one of the thermite packs. It was wrapped up in cellophane like a packet of cigarettes or a box of chocolates. I located the little strip and unwound it, slipping the bomb from its wrapper. Like all military hardware, like most things designed for men, it was black and ergonomic with little LEDs and ridges in the plastic so that it was easy to grip.