Wrath of the Lemming-men

WRATH OF THE LEMMING MEN

Toby Frost

Space Captain Smith

God Emperor of Didcot

A Game of Battleships

www.spacecaptainsmith.com

Myrmidon Books Ltd

Rotterdam House

116 Quayside

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 3DY

www.myrmidonbooks.com

Published by Myrmidon 2009

Copyright © Toby Frost 2009

Toby Frost has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-905802-45-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

First ebook edition 2010

To all the readers, but especially to Alex 

I’d like to thank my friends, family and everyone who bought the first two books for their support. Once again I ought to thank Verulam Writer’s Circle and Leighton Writers, as well as John, Owen and Ed for their comments on the manuscript. As ever, particular thanks must go to my parents, who throughout have been Mission Control to this adventure in space. Hurrah!

Toby Frost 2009

Prologue: The Battle of the Tam Valley 

Chapter 1: The Fur Flies

Chapter 2: Indifferent Engines

Chapter 3: A Hostile Takeover

Chapter 4: Sin and Synthetics

Chapter 5: Tranquillity Falls . . . Screaming 

Chapter 6: Vock Runs Amok

Chapter 7: City of the Future!

Chapter 8: Hands Off My Culture!

Chapter 9: From Museum to Theme Park 221

Chapter 10: Where the Fun Never Ends 248

Chapter 11: To the Death!

Chapter 12: Giving Eight the Finger

Epilogue: A Message from the Ancestors 

‘By dawn it was clear to General Young that General Wikwot’s drive to capture Varanor had ground to a halt.

The Colonial Army had displayed remarkable courage in the face of a frenzied assault. Yet the lemming men pressed on. Unable to disgrace himself with acts of self-preservation, General Wikwot threw his reserves into the fray as the 112th Army prepared to strike the death-blow. . .’

The Official History of the War Against the Lemming
Men, Galactic War Office

‘Many and arrogant were the Yull, sure that their early success would bring them certain victory. Yet we M’Lak made ready, and our humans too, and fiercely the Yull were met among the trees. Not cowardly were our warriors, and not light the grievous slaying in that gory vale. For severed heads, piles of lemming men, the squeaking of fallen rodents: these are pleasing things to us. . .’

The Saga of Varanor, Verse 613

‘In an unprovoked act of self-defence, the offworlder scum turned on our friendly and entirely non-genocidal army. The dirty foe fought unreasonably for their lives, and urgently the splendid General Wikwot ordered our reserves under noble-born Colonel Vock to attack from the north and mercilessly butcher the enemy – for their own good, of course. . .’

Final (Terminal) Report of Lieutenant-General Prang,
Divine Amiable Yullian Army

*

Agshad Nine-Swords leaned back in his deckchair and studied the sky above. It was a clear, hot day, and the sun streaked through the high trees, throwing bars of light across the glorified pillbox that he called home. The sun made Agshad feel strong and keen. It was a good day for adventurous deeds, and so he had taken the accounts books into the garden.

He sat outside on a deckchair, calculator on his lap, sleeves rolled up, occasionally looking up from his books to frown and stroke his mandibles and chin. Later on, he decided, he would lock up the little fort, take the jeep across the bridge and say hello to the main garrison five miles east, at Tambridge.

A running figure appeared at the far side of the bridge. Agshad shielded his eyes and peered: it was a man in army uniform, his arm in an improvised sling. He vanished behind one of the great timber pillars of the bridge, reappeared, looked behind him, stumbled, rose and lurched on.

Perturbed, Agshad got up and strode out to meet him. As he looked down the length of the bridge he recognised the man.

‘Eddie?’ he called. ‘Are you alright?’

Eddie half-collapsed on him. ‘They’re in the trees!’ he gasped. ‘They’re coming!’

‘Who’s coming?’

‘Them! The Yull!’

‘But the Yull are miles away, Eddie.’

‘No, no.’ Unable to speak, Eddie bent over and panted. ‘The garrison’s down,’ he managed. ‘All dead. Yull came – thousands of them. They killed everyone – Brian, Clarrie, even Old Joe. Tambridge is fallen!’

‘Oh my ancestors,’ Agshad said.

‘We fought to the last man. Can’t let ’em get you, the bastards. They sent me – to warn you.’

‘How many –’ Agshad began, and as if to answer him high voices pulsed through the forest beyond the bridge, a hard, impatient chant: ‘
Yull, Yull, Yull!
’

‘It’s an army,’ Eddie gasped. ‘We’ve got to warn HQ!’

Drums and gongs through the trees, the sound of wild shrieks and cracking whips. ‘
Yull, Yull, Yull!
’

‘We’re too late!’ Eddie cried.

Agshad rooted about in his pockets and took out a key. ‘I’ll deal with this,’ he said. ‘Take the jeep and go and warn headquarters. I’ll delay them as long as I can.’

Eddie looked hard at him for a moment, then nodded. ‘Alright. Good luck, Agshad.’

‘You too,’ Agshad said mildly, and as the battered jeep coughed into life behind him, he strolled onto the empty bridge.

The Yull rushed over the horizon like a tidal wave of fur. A thousand sleek bodies slipped between the trees.

Axes glinted, forage-caps bobbed, banners flapped, human skulls grinned and shook on banner poles. And amid the horde came the squeaky voices of the looting, murdering lemming men of Yull.

They poured down the hill, squeaking and yelling, the officers beating their maddened soldiers on to the river’s edge. Agshad picked up the broom he used to sweep the bridge.

Suddenly a voice barked ‘
Huphup! Harp-huphephop!
’ and the lemming men stopped dead. They halted at the edge of the bridge in a crowd, desperate to pour across but lacking the orders to do so. The army stretched along the opposite bank as far as Agshad could see. To the right, a lemming man pointed into the swirling waters of the Tam and made excitable sounds until a sergeant tripped him and tore out his heart. The Yull did not tolerate indiscipline.

The horde parted before Agshad and a figure stepped onto the bridge. He wore the cuirass, helmet and enormous shoulder-pads of a high-ranking officer, but Agshad could have told his status had he been naked. The puffed-out chest, the swaggering walk – the Yullian officer class were not only vicious sadists, but insufferably pompous as well.

‘You!’ the officer barked. ‘Dirty offworlder!’

‘Morning,’ Agshad said.

‘Harruph! I am Colonel Mimco Vock of the sacred army of Yullia! The war god of the Yull, in his divine wisdom as interpreted by the high-priests of the Yull, has decreed that it is to be the Yull who will rule this galaxy.’

‘There’s a surprise.’

‘
Shup!
This bridge is now the property of the Greater Galactic Happiness, Friendship and Co-operation Collective – so beat it, M’Lak trash, or I will torture you to death!’

Agshad reached out and tapped a small brass plaque fixed to the timber. ‘I think you will find that this bridge is the property of the army of the British Space Empire. I represent their accounts department and, as the highest ranking officer present, I forbid you to make use of it.’

‘British Space Empire? Pah!’ Vock snorted, hands twitching towards the axe at his waist. ‘I am not here to speak with animals! How dare you address me so, human coward lackey! Surrender at once so I can tear out your still-beating–’ a look of rudimentary cunning stole across his whiskered face and he calmed himself with a shudder ‘–liberate you from the yoke of serving the British oppressor.’

Agshad shook his head. ‘Sorry, no. I refuse to join an army which practices human sacrifice and has no adequate pension plan. We M’Lak are wise to you. Which, incidentally, is why we are helping the humans trounce your army downriver.’

‘Lying offworlder who is lower than a beast and smells of cheese! The Divine Migration cannot be halted by scum like you!’

off‘Then why are you here with all these reinforcements? The truth is that your furry legion came down to the woods today, and you got a big surprise. Not a picnic any more, is it?’

‘Nobody compares me to a soft toy!’ Vock yelled back. ‘Dirty weak offworlders get nothing but death! You are lucky if I kill you quick, big smelly coward! You will die slow, yes – slow!’

Agshad thought of Eddie, and imagined him tearing down the dirt road in the jeep. He would probably have reached the main camp by now: perhaps he was in a tent with General Young herself, pointing out the Yullian advance on the map. He smiled.

‘You smirk at me? If you had whiskers I would pull them out, nice and slow! I will wear your kneecaps on my. . .’ Vock paused, speechless with fury, ‘On my knees!’

Agshad shrugged.

‘But you are brave, for an offworlder,’ Vock hissed. ‘Most would have begged for mercy by now.’ He leaned forward, and spoke more gently. ‘I will give you something for your defiance. If you turn away and leave now, I will let you live. And when we are done killing your allies as gradually as possible, I will reward you and make you a retainer of my house. A fair offer, I think.’

‘Indeed.’ Agshad leaned in as if to reply quietly. ‘It sounds good, but–’ He tilted his head back, sniffing the air.

The lemming frowned. ‘But what?’

‘I smell a rat.’

For a moment, Agshad thought Colonel Vock was going to pop. The Yull drew back as if struck, shook violently, turned on the spot and punched one of his lieutenants in the eye. ‘Right! That’s it!’ Vock gestured to his men. ‘
Hup-hup!
’

Agshad glanced over his shoulder. Sixty feet beneath the bridge, the waters of the Tam slapped and broke upon the rocks. Agshad thought: they would be three abreast on the bridge, and it would be hard for them to fight the urge to jump. He could keep them back – for a while.

A Yullian knight shouldered his way through the horde, a fat brute in blue plate armour. He braced himself, raised his axe over his head like an executioner, screamed a battle cry and charged.