Martha looked over at Archibald. He grinned and waved at her. Then seemed to remember where he was, and put his paws slowly back on the top of his head.

'See?' said Stanley. He waved his gun at the rest of the prisoners, teasing them as to who he'd kill next. Then he shrugged. 'Get 'em up.'

The other badgers came forward and the prisoners – Martha, the human crew, Archibald and Jocelyn – got slowly to their feet. The three other humans were bruised and bloody where they'd been knocked about. Captain Georgina still looked like she'd been modelling for some glossy magazine, though. She stood taller than the badgers, and the look in her eye showed she would not be intimidated.

'Take your own lot,' she said. 'But you'll leave Martha here with me.'

'Yeah?' said Stanley. 'But you're all gonna die, ain't ya?' He turned and shot at the horseshoe of computers, which exploded in pink flame.

'No!' shouted Captain Georgina and, ignoring the other badgers and their guns, ran over to the blazing, bright pink bonfire that had once been her command. When she turned to face the badgers again, her eyes were terrible to see. Stanley grinned at her, like she'd just given him permission to kill her.

'Captain,' said Martha carefully. 'You should come back over here. You're still a prisoner. Stanley will show you mercy.'

'Hah!' said Stanley. 'Mercy!' He raised his gun.

'You're not going to get away with this,' said Captain Georgina with majestic calm.

'Yeah I am,' said Stanley, and he shot her. Captain Georgina didn't cry out as the pink light engulfed her. Martha, horrified, thought she might even have provoked her own death, rather than be taken prisoner. Everyone else seemed utterly terrified of what might happen to them at the hands of Captain Florence.

'Right,' said Stanley. And he led the badgers and their prisoners off the bridge and back to their capsules. Martha was forced into the back of one capsule, squeezed in between Stanley and another badger called Kitty Rose. It was like being in the back of her brother's car, her knees up by her elbows and no room to even breathe. Through the window, she saw Archibald being squashed into the back of another capsule further along the passageway, and Jocelyn escorted to another.

Thomas and the pretty, red-haired girl remained standing in the passageway, looking unsure what to do.

'You're not taking them with us?' asked Martha as the capsule door closed.

In front of her, Stanley checked the readings on the dashboard in front of him, checking that all the other pirate capsules were ready to go. 'Nah,' he said. A thought struck him, and he leaned round in his seat to leer at her again. 'Gonna show 'em mercy.'

He stabbed a button on the controls in front of him with his hairy paw. The capsule lurched backwards, smashing out of the side of the Brilliant and out into the vacuum of space. Martha smacked her head on the back of the capsule, and as she recovered herself saw the starship falling away from her, a weird steel sailing ship with glittering solar sails. Its hull was blotchy with red patches where the badgers' capsules had torn through it. Martha watched the other capsules tearing out from the Brilliant. From the hole her own capsule had just made, she saw Thomas and the red-haired girl, clutching each other tightly as they tumbled into space.

Stanley and the other badger, Kitty Rose, worked the simple controls, and the capsule turned slowly round to face the spiky peach of the pirate ship. Stanley dum-de-dummed as they made their way forward. When she'd seen it on the screens aboard the Brilliant, Martha had had no idea of the scale of the pirate ship, but it was enormous. The spikes weren't guns but narrow tower blocks, each one the size of the hospital she used to work in. She realised there must be thousands and thousands of badgers aboard. It was less a ship than a moving city.

Still humming to himself contentedly, Stanley steered them round into the vast hangar at the back of the ship where thousands of identical capsules sat waiting. They parked in a free space about a mile into the hangar, and Stanley patted his thighs in time to his humming while he waited for a signal from the controls on his dashboard to say it was OK to get out.

Martha prised herself out of the cramped back seat, her knees and elbows aching. Stanley shrugged at her discomfort. The other badgers emerged from capsules across the way, prodding Archibald and Jocelyn forwards with their guns. Archibald grinned at Martha like this was all a game.

'You can see where I got made,' he told her.

'Nah,' said Stanley. 'You got uvver stuff to do.'

Their captors led them to what was almost a golf-car, which whined and whispered as it took them to the end of the huge hangar and dropped them off at a lift. Stanley hummed again as they waited for the lift to arrive. One of the other badgers recognised the tune and dared to join in the humming. Stanley glared at him and he quickly stopped.

The spacious lift seemed to go sideways as well as up and down, and Martha tried to make sense of the complex instructions Stanley gave it. She was still sure she'd be able to escape somehow.

They stood in awkward silence as the lift rushed them upwards and along. Stanley and the other badgers seemed to itch with excitement about wherever they were going. Whatever Captain Florence had in store for her prisoners, it would, Martha realised, be entertainment for the other badger pirates.

Eventually the lift came to a stop, and the doors slid open with a ding. Sweet and spicy air wafted in to them, a mix of pot-pourri and curry. Stanley beckoned his prisoners forward, and Martha stepped out into a passageway of hanging silks and incense. Not at all what she'd expected on any kind of spaceship.

As she proceeded down the corridor of pungent, hanging silks, Martha glimpsed a frenzy of activity going on out of view. The silks hid badgers in various loose-fitting, sweaty clothes as they busied themselves at banks of complex controls. They were, realised Martha, on the bridge of the pirate ship. But the captain here had tried to make it look homely.

At the end of the passageway, a great viewing gallery looked out into space. Looking up and at an angle, Martha could see the Starship Brilliant. She could never get used to space being in three dimensions. In front of the window, silhouetted by the stars, stood the dread Captain Florence.

'Captain!' said Stanley, hurrying over. He hung his head and his whole body bowed to her. 'I done as you asked,' he simpered. An' I brought you prisoners.'

Captain Florence slapped him so hard across the face he skidded over the floor.

'Speak,' she said, her voice rich and husky, 'when yar spoken to, me hearty!'

She turned to see the prisoners she'd been brought. Martha gasped as the captain stepped into the light. Captain Florence stood taller than any of her pirates. She wore a loose, collarless blouse. Her bare, bristly arms were taut and muscular, like she spent her whole time working out. A jagged scar worked across her forehead, dipped behind an eyepatch, and then continued down her hairy cheek.

'Er,' said Martha. 'It's very nice to meet you.'

Captain Florence looked her slowly up and down, like a butcher might appraise a fatted calf. Then she clicked her paws, called out 'Dylan!' to one of the badgers working behind the hanging silks, and turned back to watch the Brilliant, perfectly framed in the middle of the great bay window.

'Um,' said Martha, as badgers – one of them called Dylan – ran about behind her, doing whatever they'd just been bidden. She heard paws working on keyboards and levers being pressed.

And then a brilliant white beam of light struck out from underneath them and blew the Brilliant to smithereens.