CANNONBALL EXPRESS: Railroads of Mars by Kit Kane

Author:Kit Kane [Kane, Kit]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SEVEN MONSTERS MEDIA LTD.
Published: 2020-10-20T22:00:00+00:00

11

A Bit of Irish

Porky Pig! That’s who this nervous, stuttery-voiced young fella reminded Slinger of. Porky goshdarned P-p-p-pig, as one lived and breathed! And hoo-wee, could this little piggy oink!

“Come again, boy?” Slinger drawled, before hauling away the chocks from the biplane’s wheels and reaching into the cockpit to pump the choke. “They said what?”

“That I had to w-w-w-wait here, sir,” Porky oinked again. “With y-y-y-you. They d-d-d-didn’t say w-w-w-why.”

Slinger turned.

Saw Porky flinch.

Smiled.

Saw him flinch again.

“Did they now,” Slinger mused, before extracting from his waistcoat pocket the letter this porcine young courier fella had delivered not five minutes ago. CLASSIFIED, the unsigned single sheet missive had opened with, and then, lest there should be any doubt about it, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Slinger took a further moment now to re-read the instructions that followed, just in case he’d missed anything on first perusal.

And glory be if it didn’t turn out that he had! That brief but admirably succinct postscript! A merry chuckle bubbled its way past the smouldering cheroot that clung to Slinger’s lower lip. All clear now though, he thought, then yanked down hard on the biplane’s propeller, which proceeded to cough a couple of minor objections before chuntering up to full speed.

And still young Porky stood there. “Um, s-s-s-sir?” the fella enquired, forced to oink louder over the biplane’s idling engine. “D-d-d-did they say why they wanted me to stay with you?”

Pocketing the letter once more, Slinger climbed up into the plane’s cockpit and slammed the door. “Yes, son, they most surely d-d-d-did,” he said, then shot young Porky in the head.

With impeccable comic timing, the little fella slumped face first into the dirt of Slinger’s tiny backyard airstrip, and once again Western Mars’s foremost enforcer-for-hire couldn’t help but chuckle, this time at the delightful irony of it all:

Th-th-th-th-th-that’s all folks!

•••

Powerful fingers bit into Jess’s upper arms, one pair of hands on either side of her, thrusting her on down what she presumed was some kind of corridor. With the black cloth bag still cinched tight around her head, sensory cues were limited, but it was clear at least that they were inside now. Inside where, of course, remained a mystery, and getting here had been a far from pleasant experience. After ambushing them by the rockfall and binding their wrists with cable ties, the mystery abductors had bundled Jess into some kind of vehicle and then driven her in complete silence for something like half an hour (had driven the others too, Jess still hoped, though if that were the case they had been taken in separate transport), before finally hauling her out of the vehicle and shoving her into whatever building they were now hurrying through. Jess had tried several times to speak to her kidnappers. More than several. But chatty these guys were not, her repeated efforts eliciting not so much as a grunt. Despite this, Jess was about to give ‘reasoned discourse’ one further go when, without warning, her two escorts pulled to a stop, and a familiar sound followed—the clunk-click of a door opening in front of her.

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