A Funny Thing Happened In Outer Space by Pete Bertino - HTML preview

AUTHOR

1 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

Jackson Cantrell woke up from a short, unexpected nap while sitting at the controls of his light freighter, the Eagle 5, which was fortunately on autopilot. He was of indeterminate ethnicity as were most humans, he was average height, weight, his hair was a dark, woolly, thick Afro, he wore just a faint beard on his face.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked to his right seeing his copilot’s chair was empty. Jack noticed it absently as he stood up in the cockpit shielding his eyes from all the flickering lights on the control panel and let out another yawn while fixing the collar of his black leather flight jacket.

“Coffee,” he muttered to himself as he turned away from the vast black space beyond the ship’s window scratching his right butt cheek.

He hobbled on legs that were still asleep through the automatic door which wheezed, as if in protest to being opened. Jackson shuffled down the narrow corridor of gunmetal colored walls, with another automatic door on the left that led to the cargo hold. He was just in front of the door when it wheezed open, startling Jackson.

“Shit!” said Jackson.

In the doorway stood Durfor Kolos, a five and half foot tall humanoid creature, his head was round with a pair of pointy ears on the sides and a long snout, covered in gray scales. On the top of his head and down the back were short orange-green feathers that grew like a mohawk. His snout and face reminded Jackson of a dinosaur, a creature he learned about in a documentary series studying the planet called Earth. Durfor was not a dinosaur but a Lizarian.

“Jack, I thought you were asleep.” said Durfor as his thin four foot long tail rose up in the air quickly as he zipped up his brown leather flight jacket.

Jackson was about to answer when he realized where Durfor was coming from.

“What were you doing in the hold?”

“I was doing inventory.” Durfor said easily, which was followed up with a loud belch.

Jackson’s eyes went big as Durfor put a scaly hand over the front of his mouth, the smile on his snout was shy, showing embarrassment. Even the feathers on his head appeared to wilt.

2 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“God damn it, Durfor. Did you eat any eggs?”

“Just one or two or three. Possibly four….five at the very most.”

“Watch out!” said Jackson, going past him.

It was a small cargo hold, but not too small to carry five hundred Ovo eggs, which were palm sized black shells, speckled with blue that glowed, if allowed to absorb light. Human’s used them for decorations, whereas Lizarian’s enjoyed eating them.

The eggs sat out in open crates glowing brightly, Jackson wandered around the stacks of eggs. He was looking for empty cartons or cartons that were not quite full. His eyes darted all around while Durfor chuckled.

“Don’t laugh, Durfor these eggs are fifty credits a pop! Do you know what Leithgow would do to you, to us, if he found out you ate some?”

“Leithgow Louis, you mean the deadliest, most dangerous gangster in this part of the galaxy? No, what would he do?” he asked in a sarcastic tone.

Jackson gave his copilot a glare. Leithgow Louis, was a tall skinny man with wiry muscles and greasy brown hair. His forehead was always wrinkled and his nostrils flared with every breath he took, he wore custom tailored suits and his wife, Lady Louis, a tall dark long legged beauty, dresses made from silk not found in any near by system.

Rumor had it she was as vicious as her husband, though Jackson and Durfor only met Leithgow and that was for a brief moment, probably to size them up. He didn’t say anything to them, with The Laser was his pet Roseberry, a four legged dog like creature with red fur, long teeth and a mean disposition.

She gave them a long throaty growl as Louis led her by a chain leash, saliva dripped like water from her jowls, Louis just nodded at one of his underlings who gave them the pick up and drop off details, and a forged packing list if they happened to be stopped by the boys in blue.

“Oh, come on,” Durfor said, giving Jackson a slap on the back. “Lelou will be too busy worrying about his wife’s birthday party and shit to fuck around with eggs, he’s gonna have a million different people making deliveries.”

“If he heard you call him Lelou, he’d cut off your tail and pluck your feathers.” Jackson said with a head shake.

3 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

That was the nickname some of his enemies and detractors called him, which would send him into a rage. Jackson had heard that some poor sucker from another gang called him Lelou to his face and Leithgow cut off this guys limbs with a laser and fed them to Roseberry.

“Human, please. I’d whip him right in the balls with my tail.” Durfor said, trying to whip his tail but it flailed.

Jackson laughed though he was still worried about the egg count.

“Let’s just go to the cockpit, we’re almost at the drop off.

This was a basic job for these professionals, who for the right price would smuggle anything you needed, except people of course. The crime for smuggling these Ovo eggs was small compared to people trafficking. That was black market stuff and though these gentlemen were pros, they were small time at best.

Mostly they would go under the radar of such notorious figures as ‘Louis The Laser’ but small timers can luck into a big job once in a while. Case in point, Jackson’s worry about this job. If they did it right and ran one or two more for Mr Louis, maybe they could retire to a planet with booze, bud and women in bikinis, like planet Flashton, or the trio of dwarf planets in the nearby system of Warnock where the moon is always full and the night clubs never closed. But if they screwed this up, Lelou would remind them why he was called ‘The Laser.’

Leithgow was known far and wide as the most dangerous gangster who controlled the half dozen planets of the Populares system and the few million people residing there with brute force and a lot of star fighters and a few large war scale battle cruisers mounted with very big laser cannons. Though there was a government of sorts that was sworn to enforce law and order in the civilized parts of the galaxy, called The Space Force, their view was this was not a civilized part of the galaxy and ignored Louis’ military like fleet.

Jackson was thankful though the drop off was on one of the planets in Louis’ system, they wouldn’t need to worry about customs agents, inspection and all the other red tape that would take at least a day to complete. They’d drop off the eggs, get an envelope stuffed with credits and a thank you, be done before happy hour. They coasted slowly, approaching a small blue planet called Lexar-119, Jackson had a bad feeling and took a quick glimpse back towards the cargo hold.

“Jack, don’t worry. They’re not gonna know I ate a few eggs.”

4 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

It was a small planet but much larger than a dwarf planet, to Jackson it looked as big as this system’s sun but he swallowed his worry about the eggs. Dozens of non orbital satellites with automatic laser turrets were the line of defense for the space station just ahead, three of the satellites followed the Eagle 5 as they approached. Their twenty meter long noses were trained on them.

‘Identify,’ said a voice coming through their ship’s comm speaker.

“This is Eagle 5, asking for permission to approach, access landing code: KTMA6-V981TC.” said Jackson to the speaker on the control panel.

‘Welcome, Eagle 5. You may proceed to dock at substation 14.’ said the tiny voice.

The satellite turrets turned away from their ship once the code was delivered, the Eagle 5 coated to the large space station that went around the entire planet like a large silver tube with thousands of docking stations of various sizes, many were currently in use. Mostly by cargo ships, it was Lady Louis’

birthday and things were coming and going from all over the nearby systems bringing supplies, people and all kinds of goodies. Though the space station was packed, the docking only took a half hour, Jackson always said the mafia ran things better than the Space Force. After just a few minutes, a pair of burly workmen came aboard pulling hover jacks to remove the eggs.

The station was ordinary in appearance but hectic with all kinds of people, humans, Lizarians, and a few other species of people that were here as guests for the party or making deliveries for the birthday bash. Besides their ship was another cargo vessel that was operated by a group of people known as Precarrians, a species that closely resembled humans though they had pink skin and both male and females had no hair, and their faces always had the look of mild surprise. They also spoke in very demure voices, never yelling or raising their voices even when angry.

“One of you bald headed fucks needs to move this ship, I have two deliveries coming right now!” said a man wearing a blue bandanna and an oil stained T-shirt.

“Do you suck your mothers dick with that mouth?” asked a serene sounding Precarrian man sitting on a wooden crate who wore a truckers hat that said Captain Asshole.

Across from where the Eagle 5 was docked, a few humans were escorting a group of people known as Greys,short, stocky beings with gray leathery skin, oval heads, almond shaped eyes and the most social species in the galaxy. One was currently telling a joke as they passed by.

“And this human asks me, I’m not kidding, he actually asks… ‘are you probing me for science?’…. I said ‘no, I want to finger your ass because I’m in love with you.”

5 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

The group erupted in laughter which redoubled when the Grey telling the joke put up his finger which glowed a bright red. Jackson felt easy for a moment until the appearance of an irritable looking man with a digital clipboard under his arm and a stylus behind his ear arrived. He wore a jumpsuit but looked more like one of Louis’ henchmen than some dock worker or mechanic.

Jackson gave the man the packing list. He looked it over with a scowl as the burly men carefully removed the eggs. He and Durfor stood quietly, waiting patiently when the man with the clipboard aimed his stylus at the stacks of eggs and frowned when he looked at his clipboard then turned his gaze on the two pilots.

“Did you take any eggs?” he asked them both though he looked mostly at Durfor.

“What?” asked Durfor looking horrified.

“What do you mean?” asked Jackson, sounding calm though his heart raced.

“There’s supposed to be five hundred Ovo eggs here.”

“There are.” said Durfor defiantly.

“Oh yeah? You see this?” he asked pointing at his clipboard.

“You got a manicure?” asked Durfor.

“Fuckin smart ass, huh?” replied the man with a click of his tongue.

“What does your clipboard say, sir?” Jackson asked with a polite tone.

“It says the cargo weighs is nine hundred and sixteen pounds 7 ounces, five hundred Ovo eggs.”

“Yeah, so?” said Durfor quickly.

“If there’s five hundred full sized Ovo eggs, it should weigh nine hundred and twenty two pounds and 9 ounces.”

6 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Hey man, do you see any eggs missing?” asked Durfor.

“I don’t need to see it,” said the man with a huff as he placed his clipboard under is arm. “I just know what the exact weight of five hundred Ovo eggs is supposed to be.”

“Well maybe your stylus is broke?” said Durfor.

The man’s face turned red and he pointed a finger at Durfor about to reply when Jackson held up a hand and spoke.

“Look, sir. My copilot and I just got hassled by The Space Force before we arrived here and it put his tail up in a knot. I promise you, all the eggs are there and some were under developed, that’s probably why the weight is wrong.”

“Yeah,” said Durfor excitedly. “I get enough shit from the boys in blue. I don’t need some dick head with a clipboard…”

“I got this D,” said Jackson, putting an arm on Durfor’s shoulder. “can we just get our money and get out of here. You have our information right there if you need to find us for any questions. OK?”

The jumpsuited man eyed them closely as he used his stylus to write something on his clipboard, on his belt was a small black device which began to print out a thin strip of paper. He ripped it off and held it out to Jackson but Durfor grabbed it first.

“Take that to the payroll office, it’s in front of docking station 23.” he said to Jackson though he glared at Durfor.

They left and found the payroll office which was just a dark garage with two slightly over weight humans wearing wife beaters and jeans playing cards next to a star fighter on a hydraulic lift that was missing a wing. Beside the ship was a sofa where an elderly looking Grey was lying fast asleep, snoring quietly. Durfor showed the card players the slip and the heavier of the two pointed at the Grey.

“Hey, fuck stick. Wake up, these guys need paid.” he said to the Grey.

He snuffed and moved around on the couch, the wrinkles on his face became deeper but his snoring continued.

7 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Hey, Fred, wake up. These dudes need paid!”

“The fuck,” the Grey muttered. “tell them to go to the foreman, he pays the pilots.”

“Fred it’s the egg guys, remember what the boss said, they’re special delivery. They don’t have that many credits on hand” said the other card player.

“Aw fuck, alright.” said Fred getting up roughly as he twisted himself and grimaced when his back cracked.

“Sorry you had to get up, Fred.” said Durfor.

“Hey fuck you, I don’t know you. Calling me Fred like you know me, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Sorry, just feeling good on pay day.” said Durfor.

“Ah,” the Grey replied with a flap of his hand, though he sounded more at ease. “let’s see the slip.”

The old alien squinted at the paper and brought it closer to his face.

“Why don’t you get your eyes checked, Fred.” said the heavier card player.

“Hey mind your fuckin business, Doug.” the old Grey snapped back, making both the card players laugh.

Fred shook his head in disgust then squinted while reading aloud the figure on the slip.

“Five hundred, fifty credits...uh...including per diem...did either one of you get shot at? By anybody, the Space Force, pirates?”

“No.” said Jackson.

8 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“OK, good. Would have made it a little harder to pay you all of it at once if you took damage…”

“So what’s the damage to Sir Louis’ pocket book?” asked Durfor, who was ready to get paid yesterday.

“Thirty five hundred credits.”

“Each?” asked Durfor with wide eyes.

“Did I say each, jack ass?”

“It’s still a good payday, D”

“Yeah, I know.” he said with an eye roll.

Fred stuck his long arm under the couch and removed a small photon pistol and a large steel cash box.

He thumbed out thirty five hundred and told them to get the hell out so he could finish taking his nap.

Though Durfor was hopping on his legs with joy, Jackson kept waiting for a couple of Louis’

henchmen to appear, asking about some missing eggs. Durfor was pounding on his friends back with excitement.

“First thing we do is, we hit a bar. Not an expensive one though, the cloaking device still needs fixed, but the bar first...what’s up, Jack?”

“You know if they count those eggs we’re fucked right.”

“They won’t, they had like a million deliveries…”

“...but how many special deliveries? They had some mean old bastard with a blaster pay us thirty five hundred…”

“Yeah but not each…”

“...that’s still a lot of money. Did you see how suspicious that dude in the jumpsuit was?”

9 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Oh, that guy was just being a racist asshole. He don’t know I took those eggs, for him to suspect me because of my race is messed up and ignorant. You know me Jack I don’t put up with that shit.”

“You did take the eggs though.”

“Yeah but fuck him anyway. Cone on, stop worrying, let’s go to Cafe 42 to celebrate. It’s great, I went there a while back, there’s beer from all across the galaxy and women of every species.”

“Where’s it at?”

“It’s the next planet over, Lexar-121, we can be there in fifteen minutes.”

Lexar-121 was smaller than its neighbor but was the most popular planet in the system if you wanted to party. The planet was warm during the day and cool at night and had a plethora of night clubs, bars and casinos, there was always a place to party on this planet as all of the establishments on Lexar-121 never closed. Cafe 42 was packed with mostly humans, sprinkled through out were Lizarians, Greys and a pair of Grennards, a species of humanoid alien that were seven feet tall with dark green skin, hair and pale blue eyes.

Durfor and Jackson were able to elbow their way to the bar and order themselves a couple of pints. The bartender was a female human, with long hair, pouty lips wearing tight pants and a low cut blouse. She gave them their drinks and she smiled at Jackson before serving someone else.

“Hey I think she likes you.” said Durfor.

Jackson shook his head.

“You don’t think so?”

“No, man. She’s just trying to get tips.”

“Say something to her when she gets us another drink.”

“No D, besides you should never flirt with a woman while she’s at work.”

10 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Why?”

“Because, they’re trying to earn a living not meet people. It’s rude, besides I doubt she’s interested in scum and villains like us.”

“I’m not scum, or a villain….an asshole sometimes…” said Durfor.

“Don’t be modest, it doesn’t suit you.”

“Aw come on, we’ve known each other since my tail first developed….”

“Too much information.”

“...you don’t think I’m too much of an asshole do ya?”

“No, of course not.” Jackson said giving him a slap on the shoulder.

“Fuckin a.”

The night was going well, they threw darts, drank a few shots of Black Hole whiskey, and played a round of laser billiards as well. At a table nearby were a pair of females, a human and a Lizarian. The human was short and curvy in a black mini dress.

“Check out the honey with the pink and blue feathers,” Durfor said about the Lizarian female. “I’d love to wrap my tail around hers.”

They were smiling and watching Jackson and Durfor play. The woman in the black dress said good job when Jackson pulled off a difficult looking bank shot. Durfor bought the ladies drinks, and they were introducing themselves when Jackson looked out towards the cafe’s entrance by chance.

There was the bouncer who had let them in, he was talking to a trio of dark swarthy looking sharp dressed men with faces that were chiseled with frowns. One was holding up what looked like a printout of a screenshot from a security camera on the Lexar-119 space station that showed he and Durfor talking to the man in the jumpsuit. Then the bouncer looked over and pointed directly at them, Jackson felt the blood in his veins turn to ice.

11 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Durfor, we have to go.”

“What are ya talking about, we just…”

Jackson grabbed him by his snout and turned him away from the women to the trio of suits, they had tell tale bulges of large photon pistols under their jackets. Though the cafe was packed, the patrons parted for the three, knowing they were Louis the Laser’s men.

“Sorry ladies, we gotta fly.” said Jackson, pulling Durfor along.

“I fuckin told you.”

“I’m sorry.” said Durfor who reached into his jacket and pulled out an Ovo egg and shoved it into his mouth.

“Mother fucker are you really eating one right now?!”

“I’m getting rid of the evidence!” he said through a mouthful of egg.

“You’re an asshole, is there another way out of here?”

“I don’t know, I think there’s a fire exit behind that door.” he said pointing towards the back before shoving another egg in his mouth..

The crowd was not so kind as to part for the two pilots. They did manage to reach the back of the room before the suits caught them and rushed through the door which opened into a hall with only two doors.

Both doors had digital templates on them, one said broom closet, the other said bathroom. Durfor opened the door closest to them, the bathroom, and found a human passed out drunk on the toilet with his pants covered in puke and possibly urine.

“Ew...um, broom closet.” said Jackson.

“Right.”

The closet was small and they had to maneuver themselves in order for them both to fit.

12 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Damn it, the door, move your friggin tail.”

“Huh, oh sorry Jack….ow shit, you stepped on it!”

They were cast into near darkness, as their eyes finally adjusted to the dark, the door to the hallway opened. Jackson put a finger to his lips, Durfor nodded and held his tail in his arms. The footsteps coming down the hall sounded heavy and made the floor shake. They heard the door to the bathroom open and someone mutter in disgust, after a moment of silence there was a knock on the closet door.

“Um, just the check please, and we’ll be on our way, thank you.” said Durfor.

The door was thrust open and the two pilots were pulled out roughly by the collars of their jackets and held tight by two of the henchmen while the third held the printed screenshot. Though the other two were frowning, the one with the picture smiled a predatory grin. He was of average height but had thick muscles and ham sized fists.

“Hi boys, I’m Giorgio. I just have a simple question. Is this you?” he asked, holding up the screenshot with one hand while slicking back his dark hair with the other.

The two pilots glanced at each other, Jackson was at a loss for words but Durfor spoke up.

“I’m not sure, it could be my cousin Steve, he’s an asshole, always up to no good, plus it’s too far away for me to see.”

The one holding Durfor grabbed him by the snout and put his face right up to the picture.

“Is that close enough to see?” asked Giorgio.

“Oh, wow that is me. I heard cameras can add weight but I….uh...ow...thank you for letting go of my nose...kind of rough though, I might get another sinus infection, when that happens I start sneezing and just can’t stop and with this snout it’s really loud….”

“This guy likes to run his mouth, eh?” asked Giorgio Jackson only shrugged.

13 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Word of advice, bird head, don’t run your snout to, Mr Louis. He’s very busy tonight and he ain’t in a good mood.”

“Bird head. Hey we don’t have to stand here and listen to that kind of racist ass talk. Do we, Jack?

We’re leaving.”

Durfor tried to move but the henchman pushed him back against the wall while Jackson rolled his eyes and sighed heavily.

“Or, I guess we’ll hang out here, I’m fine either way.” Durfor said.

Giorgio snapped his finger and the pilots were taken out of the cafe from a side door marked fire exit.

“At least we found the fire exit.” Jackson said bitterly.

“Sorry, Jack.”

They were led to a small transit ship and flown back to the space station. They didn’t enter at a normal docking station but went behind the space station and touched down on a landing pad which then receded into the station itself. Jackson and Durfor though sat inside a windowless stockade unaware of where they were going.

“This is your fault, you know that right?” asked Jackson, sounding cool though his heart was racing.

“Yes, I’ll take the blame on this. Just me.”

“Damn right, just you.”

“You’re really gonna let me take all the blame?”

Jackson only glared at him.

“I’ll shut up until we get there.” said Durfor.

14 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

It was only moments later that the rear of the ship opened and they were let out. They stood beneath the transparent roof of the space station, above them star fighters and civilian vessels moved quickly while a few cargo ships lumbered along at a much slower pace. The henchmen shoved the pilots along to an elevator that descended briefly before opening up to a lavish office with dark silky wallpaper and a black marble floor that shined like glass.

At the end of the room was a desk made of dark materials where a pair of folding chairs sat in front of the unoccupied desk. They were led to the chairs and pushed down roughly onto them. Over on the far side of the office was Roseberry, chained to the floor quietly watching the pilots.

“Hi, puppy.” said Durfor nervously

Roseberry got up and started snarling and barking at them.

“Stop teasing my pet.” said Louis who entered the room approaching the desk.

His eyes were alight and focused, he was wearing a fine suit with shoes as dark and shiny as his office floor. He pulled his cushioned seat back and sat down without ever taking his eyes off them. He folded his hands into fists so tight, his skin creaked like leather.

“No, sir, uh I mean Mr Louis I wasn’t ruh-right Jack….”

“Yes...err no, he wasn’t teasing your Roseberry...your pet, Roseberry….”

“Shut up.” he said as the skin of his fists turned red and creaked loudly.

The two pilots were silent as Louis the Laser watched them. His eyes darted back and forth, then he unfolded his hands and removed an object from his dress shirt pocket. It was a pen laser, the one that Jackson had heard about being used to cut off the limbs of his enemies which he then fed to his pet.

He pointed the pen at a small metallic dish on his desk which held strips of raw meat. The red beam on the laser struck a piece of meat which began to glisten and brown. The smell was eye watering and made Roseberry groan. Louis took the strip and tossed it to his pet, who snatched it and swallowed it with a snarl.

“Did you steal any of my eggs?” Louis asked them both.

15 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

The silence was thick, tense, after only a few seconds Durfor blurted out in a panic.

“Yes, sir I did...but it’s not my fault, I suffer from low blood sugar and I was faint and my friend was asleep at the time…”

Louis held up a finger and Durfor actually stopped talking. He used his laser pen to fry another strip of meat and toss it to Roseberry before speaking again. He put his laser down gently but then slammed his fist on the table making the pilots jump and Roseberry bark.

“Do you know how I found out you stole my eggs? Would you like me to tell you?”

“I mean if you feel it’s necessary…” Durfor said but went silent when Louis glared at him.

“I brought them to the caterers and told them to use the eggs to spell out my wife’s name on her birthday cake, a large one. Made of the finest chocolate, with sugars that I paid for by the ounce through the ass to smuggle in. Do you know how much sugar costs?”

Durfor opened his mouth but Jackson kicked him and mouthed no at him.

“It’s a fortune to make a cake that took up a third of the fucking ball room that most of the guests won’t even touch.” he said in a calm neutral tone, though his voice wavered into slight irritation when swearing.

“The eggs were used to spell out her first name, Cunbra, it’s an old family name, her grandmother’s name, but the caterers didn’t have enough eggs and they were Precarrians and as most humans and Lizarians know they are unfamiliar with particular words outside their own native tongue, slang words to be precise. So they spelled what they could with the remaining eggs and rolled it out to my wife and her three hundred party guests ”

Although Jackson understood what word Louis was implying, Durfor was confused.

“What word?” asked Durfor sincerely.

Jackson sighed and stuck his head down in defeat. Louis lifted his hand and Giorgio showed Durfor another screenshot print, this one of Louis’ ballroom and the cake in question.

16 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Oh, that word.”

“Did you think you could steal from me and I wouldn’t find out who you were?” Louis said, getting up from his chair and leaning close to them.

They didn’t speak, Louis sat down again and opened a drawer and removed a bottle of water and drinking glass which he filled. He picked his pen laser back up and aimed it directly into the water.

“I see two options, for me to forgive your thievery,” he said as the water in the glass began to bubble.

“I cut off your tail, boil it until it hardens and stick it up your friend’s ass before I shoot him out an airlock. Then I cut the rest of your scaly body into little pieces for my pet to eat, after that instead of scraping your ship I’ll have my star fighters use it for target practice. Or you can work off your debt, which would you gentlemen prefer to do?”

The...the uh…second thing...” Jackson stuttered.

“The other one...the uh later, the latter...is it later or the latter of the two, I can never remember these things. But who can, am I right.” Durfor said, shrugging his shoulders while nodding excitedly.

“Yeah, the one that doesn’t involve me getting penetrated, Mr Louis.”

Louis smiled, expecting nothing but full acceptance for this reprieve.

“Yeah,” said Durfor. “whatever you need from us, Mr Louis, we’re your guys. I’d be happy to act as a stud at one of your many fine Lizarian brothels on Lexar-132.”

“If you speak again, I will cut off your tail and feed it to my pet raw and make you watch.”

Durfor nodded and made the gesture of zipping his mouth shut.

“You’re smugglers, good ones, you’ve never been caught by the Space Force or raided by pirates. If you had, I’d know. I have friends both high and low, I know everything about every person that works for me. I need you to pick up a weapon for me, in the MB5-Hughes system, I can’t send one of my usual cargo ships, the Space Force officers stationed there know my fleet inside and out and would shoot it down automatically. I’ve made it a habit to avoid doing business in the Hughes system unless absolutely necessary.”

17 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“I know where that system is Mr Louis,” said Jackson. “it’s a farming belt, eight planets I think, but the Space Force is always patrolling that system and our cloaking device is busted.”

“I’ve already had it replaced with a new one.”

“Fuckin a!” said Durfor.

“What did I say about you speaking again?” said Louis, prompting Durfor to put his hand over his mouth.

Louis nodded and went into another desk drawer and removed a pair of photon pistols with holsters.

“You know the system isn’t just filled with farmers but zealots, technological terrorists, government defectors and rebels, people with blasters themselves. They will shoot first and not bother to ask questions. If anyone boards your ship you shoot them, there are others interested in this weapon and they’ll kill you for it if necessary.

“You will go to the planet Acussi-7, land at a set of coordinates that’s already been put into your ships computer by one of my mechanics, when you arrive, you’ll open the bay of your ship and stay in the cockpit while a group of men I paid to steal this weapon load it in your ship. Then you’ll leave, you’ll not go near my weapon, you will stay in your cockpit and fly back directly to this space station. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear.” said Jackson while Durfor only nodded though he looked anxious to speak.

“Go, your ship is waiting and if you’re not back by the this time tomorrow with my cargo, I’ll hunt you down and kill you slowly.”

After they left, the door from behind his desk opened and his wife came in. She was tall and lovely, her long legs were covered in silk stockings and her body was wrapped in a sable colored kimono with flowers etched in silver colored silk thread. Her black hair was sparkling with diamonds. Though her face was beautiful, it became pinched when she saw her husband sitting at his desk doing nothing.

“Was the cake not embarrassing enough, now I find you sitting here ignoring me and our guests.”

“I was just finishing up with the men who stole your eggs.” he said, turning on his chair quickly to face her.

18 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Did you kill them?” she asked.

“No.”

“You’re weak Lelou.”

Louis was up quickly and had his hand around her throat. She glared at him though he was squeezing.

Then he kissed her and let her go, she gasped at him but said nothing.

“I have found a better use for them, my love.” he said, sitting back down and taking a bottle of Black Hole whiskey and a glass from a drawer.

“What, picking up more bunnies for one of your ranches?”

“No, the location of the one who can fix everything.” he said, pouring a shot and swallowing it with a grimace.

“What?” she asked.

“Not what, who. Thousands of years ago, there was a great man from a place far from here, a great leader who solved every problem ever brought before him. He was a man that could stop wars, end famines, make the poor rich, he was called The Dear Leader.”

“What was his name?” asked Cunbra.

“No one remembers. But there is someone who knows where to find him.”

“But Leithgow, if this was thousands of years ago, he’d be dead.” she said, confused.

“Yes, you’re right,” Louis said but held up a finger. “however this man was so great that his followers found a way to download his consciousness into a quantum drive so that he could live forever and share his wisdom and greatness. A process they learned from the ancients themselves.”

“Isn’t the Dear Leader a conspiracy theory.”

19 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“It’s not a conspiracy theory.” he said emphatically.

“And these ancients, If they’re advanced enough to travel through time then why did they use quantum drives, why not on a cloud, huh, or a server? Quantum drives are unreliable.”

“It’s a special quantum drive, built by the ancients.” he said with an irritated sigh.

“Uh-huh, and do you even know where it is?”

“Yes, someone knows where it’s located.”

“Who?”

“An archaeologist.”

“The archaeologist has it?”

“No, he knows where it’s at. Are you even listening?”

“So you don’t know where it’s at or if this archaeologist really does know where to find it? The immortal consciousness of some great leader, a human who can magically make everything better just by thinking about it. That’s what the conspiracy theorists believe, right?” Cunbra said as if speaking to a particularly stupid child.

“Is that all you have to add.” he said with sneer.

“Why do you care about this bullshit anyway? Are we in trouble?”

“No more than usual. The Space Force has been scaring associates and customers away to other systems, I have a hard time keeping up if my fighters are stuck having dog fights with The Space Force instead of protecting my cargo ships from pirates and other smugglers with a beef. Don’t worry, you’ll still have your silk panties.”

“You’re an asshole. Don’t stay in your office all night.” she said before leaving.

20 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

He scowled but let it go, he understood that reaction to The Dear Leader theory. He had that same reaction too until The Space Force started attacking his Battle cruisers on a semi regular basis. The boys in blue were getting ballsier and at the end of the day, they had more fighters than him.

He could win the battle but not the war if they decided to take one to him, they knew his all ships he was sure and if they decided to raid his system, he would need a miracle to stop them. That’s why he had to use some no name smugglers instead of his usual guys to find this woman who knew the location of The Dear Leader. The one who could destroy his enemies just by thinking about it, a human that could perform miracles if he is shown the proper subservience. So he paid people to travel across many systems to keep an eye on this archaeologist Issac Verna, who was the leading expert on the ancients and had located other ancient technological devices that were once thought to be myth.

Louis fried another strip of meat and tossed it to Roseberry who snatched it hungrily. He hoped this Dear Leader was the real thing, he’d always been fascinated by the ancients though not a true believer.

He’d read some books on the subject and delved deeper on The Dear Leader theory.

He’d found more books about the mysterious magician who could end hunger and pestilence with just a snap of his fingers. A human of divine wrath who could vanquish empires with a glare and a pointed finger, a man who could create thunder with his great booming voice. Louis found himself covered in goosebumps as he imagined having the power of The Dear Leader behind him to wipe out an entire fleet of Space Force battle cruisers.

Then those bastards would stay out of his system for good. Unless it really was all a myth, he’d be out tens of thousands of credits, not very much but he’d lose more in the long term once the boys in blue decided to throw down on his space station. Then he and Cunbra would be hiding out on one of his planets that would be already crawling with Space Force troops. He snarled and made a tight fist, then he got up from his desk and rejoined the party.

Jackson and Durfor were taken to a launch bay that held the Eagle 5, a few star fighters and a large cargo ship, being either repaired or modified by mechanics that was mostly humans, though there were one or two Grey’s working on the ships, as well a Grennard who appeared to be in charge of the mechanics. Giorgio waved and the Grennard strode over on long muscular legs.

“The egg guys.” the tall green being said with a laugh as Giorgio snorted before leaving.

“Yeah, haha mother fucker. Can you show us how you work the new cloaking device?” asked Durfor.

“It works same as the old one, except you got a lot more strength and you can coast while it’s activated.

You won’t have to be stationary in order for it to work.”

21 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Shit, one less thing we have to pay for.” said Durfor.

“Not quite,” said the Grennard who puckered his lips and whistled.

A Grey wearing a grease covered red jumpsuit, yellow hard hat and tool belt came running over. One hand held his tool belt steady as he ran while the other held a digital clipboard.

“Thanks Eddie,” he said when the Grey ripped off a tiny slip of paper and handed it to Jackson.

“How much?” asked Durfor.

“Twelve hundred.”

“You can pay when you get back...if you get back.” the Grennard said with a chuckle as he and the Grey walked away.

“Keep laughin you asparagus lookin jag off.” said Jackson giving them the finger.

“Yeah and your Grey asshole friend, too.” said Durfor with a flick of his tail.

“What does that mean?” asked Jackson.

“I don’t know, it sounded better in my head.”

They stood in front of the ship, making sure it was all there. It was an old beast, not ancient but it had some extra years on it’s metallic pie wedge shaped body. It’s scars from laser shots and burns from near misses and asteroid deflections made Jackson smile fondly at this still formidable ship. It was definitely faster then most mid size cargo spacecraft.

“I was afraid I’d never see this baby again.” Jackson said as they got on board.

“Yeah, I thought for sure we’d be pet food by now.”

22 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“You would be, I’d be floating out in space somewhere with your tail up my ass.”

They lifted off and activated the navigation application to lead them to the precise landing zone on the planet. As they left the Populares system behind Jackson and Durfor let out sighs of relief, though Jackson shook his head.

“This sucks, twelve hundred credits. I hope those eggs give you the shits.”

“I deserve that.”

“No you deserve an ass kickin, and some of your feathers plucked. You’re lucky we’re brothers or I would of sold your ass down the river.”

“Yeah, but you’d probably still wind up with my tail in your ass.”

The trip to the Hughes system was hours long and time moved slowly.

“I wish we could get a warp drive for this thing,” said Durfor. “shit what are they, three, four thousand for one?”

“You wish, the cheapest ones are still seven grand easy. I’m not even sure the Eagle 5 could handle warp speed.”

“Aw, hell yeah she could. This old bitch got us through some bad asteroid fields, she took her lumps and she’ll take a few more even at warp speed.”

“You’re awfully optimistic today.” said Jackson.

“I’m sorry but, we are alive. Lelou is letting us pay him back, he’s not gonna kill us if we have to pay for that cloaking device yet.”

“OK, but even if we do exactly what he says he can still kill us and take the cloaking device back and take the cargo.”

“You don’t really…”

23 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“He’s a gangster D, if he wants to blow us out of the sky because we stole from him, he can.”

Durfor frowned and was quiet the rest of the journey, when they reached the Hughes system they were both silent and fearful at the sight before them. The Space Force had a battle cruiser and a squad of fighters doing a patrol on the outskirts of the Hughes system. They were trying to stay close enough to see, and board if necessary, any ships coming in and out of the system.

“You go under the cruiser from the rear and come out while the fighters go on their next round.” said Jackson turning on the manual control.

“We goin in?” asked Durfor.

“We goin in.” Jackson replied giving him a fist bump.

“Then hold on to your tail.” Durfor said tapping on the control panels touch screen with his tail while holding the panel’s joystick.

Of the eight planets, three were in view, two were beige in color and large, the third was Acussi-7, a dwarf planet that was pale green. They coasted to a near crawl under the mammoth battle cruiser that took up the whole view of the Eagle 5’s window.

“It’s like we got swallowed by it.” Jackson said.

Durfor laughed but was silent as he steered at a slow speed waiting for the squad of fighters to take another lap, when the fighters were specks in the distance, the cloaking device was activated and they did a direct run to Acussi-7.

Coming through the atmosphere was rough, it was night and there was a storm coming. The Eagle 5

landed on a dusty piece of land that was flat and featureless. In the distance though, were farmlands that were nighttime dark, lights from inside barns and behind the windows of houses were the only thing to be seen. The sky was cloudy and lightening was flickering far away to the east of them.

They sat in the cockpit with their exterior lights on waiting. A longer flash of lightening came and revealed the farmlands in daytime brilliance.

“Shitty looking farms.” said Durfor.

24 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“I was looking the other way,”

“They’re covered in dust, I guess it’s summer here. I bet the farmers here are excited about the storm.”

“Yeah, I was listening to the news on satellite radio the other day and they said one of the planets in this system was going through a drought.”

“Was it this one?”

“I don’t remember I was working on the old cloaking device so I was half listening.”

They sat in silence, seeing more of the lands ahead as lightening flashed. The wind was whipping and thunder crashed. There was no rain yet, nor anybody bringing cargo.

“You sure these are the right coordinates?” asked Durfor who was squinting out through the window.

“Louis’ guy was the one who put in the numbers.” said Jackson who was trying to see into the night as well.

“That’s reassuring.”

It was then that the headlights of a land vehicle approached. It was an ordinary farm truck with a bed carrying four men and a large wooden crate. The men were dressed like farmers and appeared to be young, one looked just out of adolescence. Out of the trucks passenger side emerged an older looking man with billowy white hair and a deep frown, wearing a brown robe, he nodded soberly and pointed at the Eagle 5.

“That dude is weird lookin,” said Jackson as he hit the button to open the bay door. “I hope he don’t come on board.”

He didn’t, he only shouted at the four young men though they couldn’t hear him clearly from the cockpit. The two pilots stayed put. Jackson opened the cargo hold from the control panel and the men lugged the heavy looking crate without a word and left. The young men went back to the truck while the man in the robe stood motionless watching the Eagle 5, waiting for the ship to leave.

25 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Look at this fuckin dude,” said Durfor who raised his middle finger at the man. “keep watching dickhead.”

The man in the robe scowled before walking away.

“I wonder what his deal was?” asked Jackson.

“Who cares, I hope his dick falls off. Those mother fuckers in the robes, I’ve seen them before, they’re one of them zealots, Lelou mentioned. I forget exactly who they worship but I remember they don’t believe in technology, stuff with motors, engines that kind of shit.”

“That guy was riding around in a truck.” said Jackson.

“It’s OK as long as they’re not driving it, religions and their fuckin loop holes.”

The Eagle 5 launched before the storm could get too close and the two pilots saw a spectacular display of Accusi-7’s atmospheric electric light show from one hundred miles above. The clouds were dark purple on the edges and black like a void in the center. Then they would suddenly be filled with electric blue light.

“The storm clouds look like Ovo eggs.” said Durfor.

“Don’t mention Ovo eggs to me again.” said Jackson but he was laughing.

“We should be getting high, watching this.”

“Let’s get out from under The Space Force first.”

Sneaking back out was easier than sneaking in, the star fighters were not in sight though the battle cruiser was still very much active.

“Shit, we won’t even need the cloaking device, the cruiser has its dishes facing the other way.” said Jackson.

“Maybe their fighters are having a dust up with some pirates.” said Durfor.

26 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Well let’s take advantage of the distraction.”

As they entered into deep space they smoked a joint and watched the galaxy through their window.

Stars upon stars splayed out like a flecks of snow on black ice. The sight of it made Durfor sigh.

“What?” asked Jackson.

“Do you think Louis will still kill us?”

“Nah, I just said that cause I was still kind of mad.”

He hoped, anyway. They finished their joint and listened to some music, after a while Jackson started to feel tired.

“Hey, that stuff made me sleepy. I’m gonna crash. Is that cool?”

“Yeah, I’m still wide awake. That stuff gives me the munchies.”

Jackson stepped out of the cockpit, but then came back hurriedly.

“Don’t go in the cargo hold…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Durfor said with a wave of his tail. “go take your nap.”

Jackson rolled his eyes but went to his bunk. Durfor put his feet up and just watched the universe unfold around him. After ten minutes or so his stomach let out an angry rumble, he had a raging case of the munchies coming on strong. He left the cockpit, and put his ear to Jackson’s door as he passed by.

“Snoring like a baby.”

He grinned and made his way to the cargo hold, where he stashed an Ovo egg he was saving for after getting stoned. He looked down the corridor back towards Jackson’s quarters as he walked through the hold door. It was a tight fit to reach his hiding spot which happened to be right where the four zealots put the crate, but Durfor was able to get on top of the box and reach the cluster of insulated pipes where the egg sat.

27 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“I could eat these all day, better savor it though, it’s the last one.” he said taking a bite which made his eyes brighten with joy.

He made a yummy sound and swallowed slowly. He was taking another small bite when he heard a groan. He stopped chewing and got off the box looking around, wondering what that sound was..

“Maybe I have gas.” he said with a shrug.

He was taking a third bite when he heard another groan, a little louder. Durfor swallowed the bite but forgot to savor the taste.

“That wasn’t me.” he said before gobbling up the rest as he looked around the hold.

His hearing was much better than any humans, he stood quietly for a moment listening. He heard breathing coming from behind him, inside the wooden crate. Durfor approached the cargo and saw the box had a bolt across the lid but no lock and holes on one side.

“I can just take a quick peak, Lelou would never know.”

Durfor expected maybe an animal, a mate perhaps for Roseberry. The weapon story was a cover for some reason, but Durfor could only guess what was in the box. He drew the bolt back and lifted the lid in one fluid motion and looked before immediately dropping it closed. He looked around the hold before lifting the lid again to confirm what he’d found.

“Oh, shit. Jack, Jack! Jackson!” Durfor said running out of the hold.

Durfor had been beating on his door for only a second before it opened to Jackson putting on his jacket and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“What.”

“The cargo hold…”

“Damn it, D.” he said angrily.

28 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Just come on!” he said pulling Jackson along.

He pointed at the crate and Jackson went and opened it, his tired eyes opened wide with shock. He looked up at Durfor, down in the crate and back up at him while pointing down.

“There’s a woman in here.”

“No shit! What the frig is a woman doing in there?”

They stood looking down into the crate where the woman laid in a deep sleep. She wore hand made clothes and appeared to be in her thirties, her skin and hair were the color of chocolate, around her neck was a necklace with gold bars and round Amethyst crystals spaced in between. Her face was lovely though she appeared to be frowning. Jackson, judging by her physique and clothes, thought she might be a farmer, he found his heart beat quicken as he gazed upon her.

“Should we try and wake her up?” asked Durfor.

“Yeah, uh OK...uh, um...miss….hello, miss.” he said softly

“HEY LADY, WAKE UP!” shouted Durfor.

“What are you yelling for?”

“Because she’s not gonna hear you whispering like that. Maybe she was drugged?”

“Right, grab the first aid kit on the wall there. It has smelling salt in it.”

Durfor opened the white box mounted to the wall and removed a small finger sized stick and handed it to Jackson. He held it for a moment looking down at the woman.

“Shit she could be dangerous, her wrists are tied together.” said Jackson.

“Louis said we were picking up a weapon. Maybe she’s like a maniac that kills and eats people or some shit like that. That’s probably the real reason he gave us these blasters.” said Durfor

29 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

Jackson looked alarmed but only for a moment then shook his head.

“No, if she were that dangerous those guys would have locked this thing with more than that bolt and rope around her wrists.”

“I guess but then why’d they dope her up if she’s not crazy?”

“I don’t know but we have to wake her up, she might be a slave.”

Jackson leaned over into the crate and snapped the salt stick and brought it under the woman’s nose.

Her nostrils flared her eyes opened for half a second, then she snorted and fell back to sleep.

“Wow,” Jackson said standing back up. “those farm dudes must of given her one hell of a dose of something.”

Jackson turned away for a moment then faced Durfor.

“What do we do now? I mean, do we still take her to Louis?” asked Durfor.

“We can’t…”

“I mean if Lelou finds out we opened his package, he’ll kill us for sure.”

“Well we can’t take her to him, that’s fucked we can’t do that.”

“I know but then he kills us and then we’re fucked forever”

They spoke with their backs turned unaware that the woman was awake, the smelling salt had finally roused her and she slowly lifted her head to peak out. Her eyes narrowed on the one closest to her, the human, and the blaster he carried. She untied her wrists with her teeth and before they knew what was happening she had his blaster aimed at the Lizarian who held his hands up without even trying to go for his own weapon.

“Don’t move!” she said savagely.

30 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Do you mind if I shit myself?” asked Durfor.

The blaster moved steadily back and forth between the two pilots. They had their hands up and their breaths held.

“Where am I?”

“The Eagle 5...” said Jackson.

“I mean where in the galaxy!?” she asked putting the blaster to Jackson’s head.

“...uh, we are a seven thousand klicks from the Hughes system where we picked you up.”

“People smugglers…” she snarled.

“Uh, no, no,” said Jackson. “we...uh are smugglers but not people smugglers, Louis said we were picking up a…”

“Louis The Laser?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s right.” said Jackson.

“You scum, you work for him.”

“No, seriously ma’am, “ said Jackson. “my copilot and I here, we did do one job for him…”

“Smuggling Ovo eggs…” Durfor said nodding quickly with arms still high.

“Yes and my copilot ate some of those eggs and…”

“I don’t give a shit, take me back to Accusi-7!” she demanded.

“Uh, if that’s what you want we’ll do it,” said Jackson. “but the guy in the brown robe, do you think he

31 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

might have a problem with you coming back?”

“An old man with white hair?”

“Yes.”

“Bastard, that was my uncle. He’s an Ultra Orthodox Luddite...you spoke with him?”

“No, he stayed outside while four young looking guys hauled you inside,” said Jackson.

“His sons, my cousins.” she said.

“If you say so...may we put our arms down.” Jackson asked.

“Lizarian, give me your blaster first, with your tail, slowly!”

“Hey no problem, lady.” said Durfor who used his tail to put it in the crate.

The woman relaxed her aim but watched the pilots closely. They seemed nothing like the men that usually worked for Louis. They were generally ugly, violent and merciless, she’d seen them on Accusi-7 many times stealing crops, taking advantage of women and performing all types of banditry. Though she only just met these two, she didn’t get the feeling they were the violent type, judging by their reaction to having a blaster pulled on them.

“Ma’am, we honestly didn’t know Louis was having us traffic a person.” said Jackson.

“Yeah, that mother fucker said we were picking up a weapon.” said Durfor.

“A weapon?”

“Ma’am…”

“Stop calling me ma’am, my name is Osa, Osa Vena.”

32 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“OK, Osa.” said Jackson. “my name is Jackson Cantrell, this is Durfor Kolos. We’ll take you wherever you want to go so you can hide from Louis.”

“Yeah, shit we’ll probably have to tag along with you once Lelou finds out we let you go.” said Durfor.

Osa watched him closely.

“Don’t think I’ll perform any piggish acts as payment for a ride.” she snapped and held the blaster higher for a moment.

“Shit lady, Jack won’t even flirt with a women who’s at work, it’s rude.” Durfor said with an eye roll.

“Osa,” said Jackson plaintively. “when I was a a little boy I was trafficked into a slave labor colony on a rock quarry moon in the Meacham system.”

He turned around and lifted his jacket and shirt showing the faded scars of lash marks on his back. The scaring on a few lashes were so deep the skin was pink, Osa silently gasped and felt her heart wrench.

Durfor was morose in his silence.

“When I started smuggling I swore on my life I’d never traffic people, and now that I have, though unintentionally, I need to make it right.” he said looking her in the eyes.

Osa felt her pulse speed up looking into his dark eyes. She saw no lies in them, only a desire to right a wrong. She was betrayed by her own family, she realized that she might be better off trusting complete strangers.

“OK,” said Osa who put the blaster down and stepped out of the crate with help from Jackson. “but I’m not hiding from Louis.”

“Whatever you say. Can you tell us anything about this weapon?”

“Actually, do you mind if I use the bathroom room first?” she asked suddenly.

“Oh, yeah of course, there’s one right behind you through that door.”

33 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Thank you, I think they had me knocked out for a whole day.” she said hurrying to the bathroom.

“She’s attracted to you.” said Durfor when she went in the bathroom.

“What?”

“My hearing,” Durfor said. “her heart was pitter pattering like she took a bump of cocaine.”

“D, she thought we were going to hurt her.”

“No, after all that, when you told her you needed to make it right, her heart started to flutter, I heard it.

I know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, you know what you’re talking about.” Jackson replied sarcastically.

“I do, human. Don’t forget us Lizarians can smell pheromones,” said Durfor leaning closer to him.

“and it smells like she wants you.”

“And it smells like you’ve been eating rotten eggs.”

“Shh, she’s coming back.” said Durfor.

They went to the kitchen, a small circular room, sitting at a square table in the center of the room. The counter lined the wall and was cluttered with an assortment of appliances and dishes. Jackson was filling a mug of coffee from a wall mounted dispenser.

“No cream, no sugar just like you ordered.” Jackson said handing it to her.

“Thank you, I’m still feeling groggy.” she said after a big sip.

“If you need to lie down…”

“No, I’ll be fine and it’s not a weapon Louis is looking for, it’s a quantum drive.”

34 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“A quantum drive, you can buy those anywhere.” said Durfor.

“Not this one, it was built by the ancients, it’s thousands of years old. My father had many jobs ,he was a coder, an inventor, a mechanic, a technologist but his primary work was in archaeology, he died a few months ago from a heart attack at a dig site on Devers-SM820, he did most of his research on The Dear Leader theory.”

“Don’t some technologists believe the ancients were time travelers that could perform magic, heal the sick, all kinds of good shit, and before they left they endowed this power to a human who became The Dear Leader?” asked Durfor.

“Yes,” said Osa. “but my father didn’t believe this Dear Leader could perform divine magic and bring peace, he was only interested in the technology that was used to preserve him.”

“Preserve him?” asked Jackson.

“The ancients knew how to download a persons consciousness onto a quantum drive, and they gave this gift to humanity who used it to preserve their leader.” said Osa.

“What’s The Dear Leader’s name?” asked Jackson.

“It has been lost to time.”

“It’s a theory though.” said Durfor.

“Not if we find the drive.” she replied.

“Osa, I promised we’d help you and we meant it. Right, D?”

“Fuckin a.”

“Thank you, both of you.”

“Did your father find out where it is?” asked Jackson.

35 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“If he had he might not have told me, it’s not the first time he’s had to keep his findings quiet. Every other person on Accusi-7 is a zealot of some kind, my uncle being one of many. Some of the things my father digs up are blasphemous to some of his own neighbors, especially to my uncle. My father uses a Luddite bible to find many artifacts.”

“OK, so how do we find out if your father found the location?” asked Jackson.

“We have to go back to Acussi-7, my father’s lab is there. We go through all of his notebooks and files, he also has a computer.”

“Shit, I bet the monk in the robe will be glad to see us again. How long before we’re over due with Lelou?” asked Durfor.

“Sixteen hours, give or take.” said Jackson.

“Then we better get our tails in gear before we wind up on a most wanted list.” said Durfor heading for the cockpit.

“Your uncle is a Luddite. Was your dad?” asked Jackson.

“He and my uncle were born into it, the Luddites believe technology is evil and its why humans destroyed their home planet called Babel. Church doctrine dictates humans the superior race of the galaxy and non humans as animals.”

“No wonder Durfor gave that guy the finger.” Jackson said.

“He did?” asked Osa.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Anyway, my father rebelled and left the church when he was a teenager but he kept all of the books they made him read. He said he knew the stories in them were bullshit, but that they were bullshit grown from seeds of truth, he used it to find relics of technology on many worlds.”

“And your uncle stayed with the church.”

36 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Yes, I never understood why dad still talked to him. It’s pointless trying to reason with any of them. I tried to talk to my uncle but he would call me a blasphemer and ignore me. I always told dad it would be more productive to argue with a brick wall but he never gave up on my uncle.”

“I guess your dad was hoping he could convince him to walk away, they were still brothers and I bet despite it all, your dad didn’t love him any less. I mean at the end of the day blood is thicker than water.”

“Not for my kind,” shouted Durfor from the cockpit. “Lizarian blood is yellow and thin like broth in a soup and has…”

“Yes, thank you D.” said Jackson with a grimace though Osa let out a quite snicker.

“Thank you, for saying that and for helping me.” she said smiling.

“Yeah, of course.” he said smiling awkwardly.

“So,” she said with a small smile. “you’re smugglers and you don’t use blasters?”

“No. I know it seems stupid and dangerous, smuggling means you’re always working, The Space Force can raid a ship at anytime, if they catch you smuggling and you’re armed that’s an automatic five years in prison. Pilots that smuggle people or weapons carry blasters but we don’t do that stuff.”

“So, what do you guys normally smuggle?”

“Well, just the usual contraband, marijuana, alcohol, cows are borderline in that category.”

“Cows?”

“Yeah, some planets have outbreaks of livestock disease and other planets use their...uh...leavings.”

“Shit,” she said with a chuckle. “for fertilizer and to make bombs.”

“Or, to grow magic mushrooms. There’s this group of pacifists on Nobar-112 in the Silent Star system that use it once a week to celebrate mass, and there’s a lot of them on that planet. There are pirates that

37 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

will pay a lot of money for a cow just so they can grow mushrooms to sell and to party with.”

“Have you ever been raided?”

“We’ve had some close calls.”

“Like when Louis confronted you about his Ovo eggs?” Osa said with a smile.

“No,” Jackson said with a sigh. “oh, no, come on in the cockpit and I’ll explain what birdhead did.”

“Hey that’s our word you, can’t use it!” said Durfor.

Their second trip was uneventful, the battle cruiser was being replaced with a smaller class one while the fighters were doing their sentry rounds. After two hours, the smaller battle cruiser settled in position and the majority of the star fighters left with the larger ship.

“I wonder why they switched out cruisers?” asked Jackson.

“I dunno. I can’t see the Space Force needing that behemoth for pirates.” said Durfor.

“Well you know The Space Force motto, ‘there’s no such thing as overkill.’”

“OK,” said Durfor excitedly. “the fighters are going out on patrol and they’re taking their time.”

“We goin in?” asked Jackson putting up his fist.

“We goin in.” Durfor said bumping Jackson’s fist with his own.

They took the same route as before while the cloaking device hid their ship. Whatever storm had come was now over though the night was still on. Entering and descending the atmosphere was smooth.

“Should we go back to where we picked her up?” asked Durfor.

38 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Yes, we go in dark and quiet.”

There was no moon and without the Eagle 5’s exterior lights it was near black. Jackson engaged the auto landing to detect the ground, the ship touched down and the bay door opened. The three of them stepped off the cargo ramp and into the night, Durfor removed a pair of night vision goggles from his inner jacket pocket and handed it to Jackson.

“You use it, the strap is always getting caught in my feathers.”

Jackson put them on and looked for only a half minute before he saw something. Then he gave the goggles to Osa.

“I’ve never used…”

“All you have to do is look. Just tell me if you can see anything familiar.”

She put on the goggles and gasped.

“Lota green.” she said as she looked.

Her head moved slowly then it stopped.

“OK, I see the water tower, and there’s the Wilson farm on the south side of the tower. The lab is a mile or so from the Wilson place but we can cut across farmlands while it’s still dark to save time.”

“Why don’t we get on the ship and land closer.” said Durfor.

“We can’t, there are farmers getting up right now to tend their fields. Many of them are armed and if they saw or heard a ship over their land they’ll assume it’s The Space Force and start firing. On foot we can hide quickly and be there in twenty minutes.”

“Let’s move our tails.” said Durfor.

“No, you should stay here D. In case we need to lift off in a hurry.” said Jackson.

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“Yeah, shit Jack you’re right. And I don’t want to leave this old lady unguarded so some hooded bastard can exorcise the demons out of the engine, that’s what makes her fast. Be careful.”

“I still got my blaster and a flashlight, if you hear shots get the engines started.” said Jackson.

Durfor stood watching until the minuscule beam of Jackson’s flash light was gone. He sighed and went back to the cockpit to wait with only a tiny overhead light to keep the dark away. He had his blaster on the panel and his ears open.

Jackson and Osa walked down a road that was dry as the the thin beam of the light cut the night ahead.

The only sound was their feet on the parched ground.

“I guess there was no rain. When we first came here the wind was blowing and there was lightening.”

“Just another wind storm. It hasn’t rained in almost a month, and this world has always been a dry one.

I’m amazed there are still farmers that refuse to emigrate to one of the sister planets where the atmosphere is wetter.”

“Are you a farmer?”

“No, I’m a seamstress but I was educated by my father and was his apprentice for several years. I did field work with him in numerous systems and I’ve read all of the books in his library. Unfortunately being a seamstress pays better.”

“How many books are in the library?”

“Seven hundred or so.”

“And they’re physical books, not digital?”

“No, they’re physical.”

“That’s gotta be something to see. I saw on a newscast this story about an ancient picture called a photograph, it was a picture of a library on Earth from a city called New York. It was a bookshelf, it was at least three meters high, it had rows and rows of books on them. You couldn’t make out the titles on them but it always left me wondering what stories were hiding in that blurry picture.”

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“I’ll have to look that picture up. I’ve heard about it from my father, he said there were many of these photographs on other planets and that they originated from planet Earth. He said it was only a few generations after the ancients learned this science that they finally reached the stars, but not before turning parts of the planet into radioactive shit holes.”

“Could the drive be on Earth?” asked Jackson.

“It was built there but a cult group who worshiped The Dear Leader took the drive off the Earth before the fallout from nuclear wars. What happened to it after that is what we’re going to find out.”

“I guess you see a lot of systems when you’re going on digs, huh?You ever been to the Meacham system?”

“No.” she said.

“That was the system where I was enslaved, and even though I get chills thinking about that system and being stuck on that moon, there was one thing I remember about it that wasn’t so horrible. The slave camp I lived was just a wooden shack that could house maybe twenty, so they had forty of us packed in and I was just a kid and a small one, so I usually wound up close to the window, it would be cold at night but seeing the stars up in the sky shining always made me forget for a little while I was trapped.”

“How did you become enslaved?”

“When I was five years old, my parents and I left our home on Massen-2135 to colonize another planet.

There was an attack by pirates but it was The Space Force that destroyed the colony ship trying to take out the pirates. My father died in the initial explosion and my mother and I boarded an escape pod and landed on a nearby moon, we were found by a group of mercenaries with rapid fire blasters.

“They took me and killed her when she tried to stop them. They put me in shackles and we walked to a big barn with a horse stable, they locked me in there for a day or so, before this merchant came and bought me and sent me to the rock quarry.”

“I’m so sorry, that’s horrible.”

“Yeah, but I got out.” he said.

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“How did you escape?”

He smiled a little before answering, as if he couldn’t believe it himself.

“Honestly, it was luck. I mean I’d like to say it was some well thought out plan where, I dug a tunnel, or I beat the crap out a slave master and stole a star fighter but, I was a kid still, not even thirteen and all I did was walk into a mega freighter hauling engines for battle cruisers as if I was part of the ships crew.”

“That’s it, and you didn’t plan it at all?”

“No I don’t think so. I mean when I was looking at the sky at night, I’d sometimes see those humongous freighters and wishing I was on them, wondering what other systems they’d been to, but it was always a passing thought that I had before falling asleep. Then one day the slave masters had us using wheelbarrows to haul out gravel and take it up this hilly road then down it so we could dump it into a fill where this freighter was hovering with its ramp down.

“They weren’t supposed to land there, no ships were allowed to land there, but they were having some kind of problem with their engine. I could hear people arguing about it, they sounded close but I couldn’t see them. The slave masters didn’t know a giant ass ship had made an illegal landing out there and there was no place to go but into the the rock pit so the masters stayed at the bottom of the hill.

Because they knew the only way for a slave to get out of that quarry was to grow wings and fly away.

“I remember thinking ‘I won’t need to grow wings’ as I dumped the barrow and all into the fill and walked towards the freighter and up the ramp like I had every right to do it. I saw the people who were arguing at far end of the ship but they didn’t see me, still though when I was up the ramp I hid in the cockpit of a broke down fighter until the ship landed far, far away.”

“You’re very brave.” she said.

“I was lucky. I could have wound up on another quarry moon or someplace worse but I didn’t.”

“Where did you wind up?”

“Lizaria, Durfor’s home planet. I was about twelve years old, I’d been on the planet for awhile with hardly anything to eat, I drank swamp water to keep me from dehydrating. I was limping a little because I lost a shoe when this old Lizarian guy chased after me with a stick when I asked if he had any spare change. After that I started hanging out at this bar for pilots in a swamp with a docking station for

42 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

ships, the place was always busy and I’d hear all kinds of wild ass stories from the smugglers drinking in there.”

“They let you inside?” she asked humorously.

“No,” he said with a laugh. “they were loud so you didn’t even need to be near the window to hear them talk about their close calls. Sometimes they’d see me outside and they’d toss me a few coins or they’d buy me a sandwich from the bar. But you had to be careful because some smugglers trafficked people just like pirates.”

“Close calls.” said Osa.

“You know it, I was surviving though. Then the bar had closed for some reason one day and didn’t open back up. I was sitting out in front of the bar, hoping someone might toss me some change but nobody did. I slept behind the bar that night, or I tried to anyway.

“Lizaria is mostly water and it gets cold at night so I didn’t sleep too well and on top of being gaunt from hardly eating, I looked like I was tweaking. I know I looked bad because I met Durfor a day or so later. He was as old as I was but when he looked at me he did a triple take.”

‘Hey you Okay, kid? You look fuckin totaled.’

‘Yeah, I’m fine, just tired is all. This planet is friggin cold.’

‘Yeah, right. One day I’m gonna live on Flashton, the temperature is always 22 degrees Celsius, even at night.’

‘Yeah they got beaches too, I’ve never been to the beach.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Hey, you got any spare change? I’m starvin.’

‘No, sorry.’

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‘That’s OK.’

‘Hey you wanna come over for dinner? We’re having fish, though.’

“I never tasted a better fish after that one. His parents seemed suspicious of me at first, but those scars on my back that I showed you, well a few were still pretty fresh and I didn’t realize the back of my shirt was covered in blood. His mom noticed almost right away and took me to their bathroom to clean and bandage my back, she cried the whole time, and I felt so bad I started to cry and I apologized for upsetting her.

“She told me I had nothing to be sorry about. She asked me how I got those wounds and I told her I was a slave and had escaped a quarry moon. His parents knew the moon I was talking about, it wasn’t as far away as I thought, but the slave masters rarely traveled to Lizaria, so I stayed and grew up with Durfor while his parents took care of me like I was another one of their kids.”

“Were there other humans on Lizaria?”

“Not a whole lot, it’s a small planet and I told you how cold it is there. You know us humans are warm blooded, but Lizaria didn’t feel so cold to me after Durfor’s folks took me in, warmer even.” he said with a shy smile

“Warmer than the beaches of Flashton?” she asked.

“Definitely.” he said sincerely.

They crossed a dark patch of farmland, to the left and high above was a water tower though Jackson could not see anything when Osa pointed it out to him. Their footsteps were dry thuds on the dusty ground, the air tasted gritty. On the far right were faint yellow lights coming from the windows of a farmhouse. Ahead was a small looking cottage with a slanted roof.

“Shit.” said Osa.

“What?”

“I forgot to lock the door.”

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“Wait, are you sure?”

“Yes I have the key.” she said showing it to him.

“What if your uncle…”

“He’d never come through the door. He considers this hut blasphemous .”

Osa opened the door and walked to a far wall and flicked on an electric lantern. It was two rooms, the smaller room was a bathroom while the bigger one appeared to be a research and computer lab. All of the walls had shelves filled with books, hundreds of them, many thick in size. In front of a lumpy cot was a large desk holding a computer with a pair of holographic monitors.

“Which books?” asked Jackson.

“The ones on his desk.”

There were three or four notebooks and a pair of leather bound books, one was a Luddite bible and the other was a book about ancient texts and translations.

“Looks like a lot of heavy reading.”

“We can take them with us, I can remove the hard drive from the computer as well . My father liked to make things mobile just in case of another fire.”

“Another fire?” he asked as he grabbed the books while she removed the hard drive.

“Yes, a zealot bombed our old house, before that the roof got hit by The Space Force during a dog fight with pirates.”

“Wow, you’ve been through some stuff. I guess you knew how to use that blaster, huh. Cause I didn’t, I just assume you pull on the trigger.”

“Yes,” she said with snort of laughter “I know how to use a blaster. I learned when I was young, this planet is pretty wild.”

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“Sounds dangerous.” he said respectfully.

“I’ve had some close calls.” she said smiling at him from the other side of the desk with a twinkle in her eye.

Before the moment could continue, there was the sound of glass breaking followed by the lantern going dark. Then from under the cot a hand came out and grabbed Jackson by the ankle causing him to fall.

Before he could do anything the weight of another person sat on his arms and tossed his blaster away.

Jackson could hear Osa trying to get to him.

Before she got very far the door to the hut opened and in walked the old man in the robe holding an oil lantern casting yellow light across the room. He was accompanied by three of his sons, the fourth had been hiding under the cot. Osa went to charge him but one of her cousins lifted a wrist mounted slingshot with a steel ball bearing on the thick band which was taut while aimed at her head.

“You’re a fucking bastard, uncle Silvanus.” said Osa.

“Did you think could waltz back in here and I not know about it?” her uncle asked with a deep wrinkly frown.

“I thought it was a pestilent sin to enter here?” Osa asked through clenched teeth.

“When I cleanse this place in fire and prayer that sin shall be forgiven.” he said pompously.

She gave him the finger.

“Despicable,” Silvanus said before turning his attention to Jackson who was being bound at the wrists by his son. “did he hurt you Mahala?”

“No father, we don’t have enough medicine to drug them both.” the young man said who looked big enough to break Jackson over his knee.

“Never mind that. Did she pay you in flesh to bring her back here?” Silvanus asked Jackson.

“No, that was your mothers job.” he said before being roughly pulled to his feet.

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“How dare you speak to me in such ways. I’ll put you on the slave market and sell you to the lowest bidder on the dirtiest moon in the galaxy.”

“So your moms house then.” said Jackson.

“Mahala, Nehemiah, Damaris” the old man said with a red face. “take them to the truck. Timon stay here until we return.”

“Why can’t I come father?”

“Because you are the youngest, you must keep an eye out for any more of my brothers sympathizers, they wish to take his books and spread false gospel, if you see them take down their names. The books must be burned properly or they’ll spawn without proper blessings. If someone asks where I am, you do not say a word, do not disobey me.” he said looking sternly at his son.

“Of course, but father…”

“Be silent boy, I have no time for your questions.”

Durfor was alone for almost twenty minutes when he heard a ship flying overhead. He was so lost in his thoughts he needed a second to realize a ship was passing.

“What the…”

He left the cockpit and raced down the hatch and was out from under the Eagle 5 just in time to see it was a transport cruiser.

“Who the shit is that? Something smells fishy.” said Durfor as he watched the ship land out of sight, grateful it was not heading in the direction Jackson and Osa traveled.

Osa made it clear that when outsiders came to this planet, trouble followed, so he quickly locked up the ship and put on the night vision goggles, and used his snout to follow his friends by smelling out their pheromones. They hadn’t been gone very long and Osa said it was twenty minute walk, their scent would be easy to follow.

47 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Wow they’re really hot for each other,” Durfor said with a deep sniff. “just makes it easier to find them.”

Durfor walked quickly but had redoubled his pace when he saw a slanted looking hut up ahead and stopped for a moment to catch his breath.

“I gotta get back in shape, lay off the Ovo eggs.”

He was doubled over breathing fast but then gasped with alarm when he saw Osa and Jackson in the bed of the truck being driven away from the hut at a great speed.

“Aw, shit. Come on…where the fuck are they goin?” Durfor said in disgust.

Then in the green glare of the goggles he saw one of the Luddites that had hauled Osa onboard the Eagle 5, sitting glumly in the doorway of the shack. He knew it would take him hours to sniff them out if they’re miles away and he’d wind up with a sinus infection for sure. Durfor made his way to the domicile.

“I know how to make a dumb ass zealot talk.” Durfor said with a smirk.

Timon sat wishing he could have gone with his father to the meet up, he’d never seen a Space Force ship up close before. But he was the baby of the family and was treated as such. So what if he was not as strong as Mahala, or as handy as Nehemiah or smart like Damaris. Of the four brothers though, he was the most devout, he thought proudly. He had memorized all thirty three commandments before any of them and could quote every verse spoken by their savior, Kushim, known also as The Law Giver, The Great Christer, He Who is Without Wrong, the founder of The Christer Babylonian Orthodox Ultra Luddite Church.

He stood up in the doorway, sure of his own piety and that he made The Great Christer proud everyday, genuflecting when ever thought of His name. He smiled to himself, walking away from the hut to survey the coming dawn better, much like Kushim himself did in the book of Knorr, when Timon knelt he was struck in the head and blacked out. He was awakened only a few moments later with a few slaps in the face by a very coarse hand. He opened his eyes, seeing he was inside the hut, tied to a chair with wheels, face to face with a Lizarian.

“Animal.” he said defiantly.

Durfor snarled and with his thumb and forefinger he grabbed Timon’s right nipple through his shirt and

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twisted. He squealed and Durfor let go.

“Now what did you call me?”

Durfor hoped the guy would talk, titty twisters were the only form a physical torture he knew which he had perfected on Jackson when they were growing up.

“Sir.”

“That’s better,” he said making a quick grab towards the zealot’s chest making him jump. “how old are you?”

“Fuh-fifteen, sir.”

“Alright, kid. Here’s how it’s gonna go. I got one thing to ask you, where did your pops take my friends?”

“Sir, I can’t say.” Timon said looking sorrowfully.

“I know you know…”

“I do sir, but the seventeenth commandment forbids me from disobeying my father. It’s a copial sin.”

“Copial sin, what the shit is a copial sin?”

“It a sin that will stain my soul and mark me for the purgatorial world of Deluge for a thousand years after I die.”

“What kind of sin is it when you use something with an engine?”

“A pestilent sin, my soul would be damned to darkness where it would drown until The Big Crunch cleanses the galaxy.”

Durfor had his blaster and he found Jackson’s as well, but he wasn’t a murder and had a feeling this kid

49 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

would die before he’d break a commandment. He couldn’t scare this kid with death, so he’d try scaring him with damnation. He looked on the desk and saw a few pencils, besides them was an electric pencil sharpener. Durfor’s smile redoubled when he found some masking tape in a desk drawer.

“What are you doing?” Timon asked with wet frightened eyes.

“Relax kid, we’re just doing a little test of faith.” he said while taping the pencil to his hand.

“Why is this in my hand?” he asked confused as Durfor wheeled the chair closer to the desk.

“OK, time is short so pay attention.”

Durfor held up a pencil and stuck it into the sharpener which immediately whirred to life and quickly devoured the utensil.

“That my young friend is a pencil sharpener, an electric one obviously which runs on a tiny single phase motor, that means it’s a teeny tiny engine. So if you sharpen that pencil you go to the deluge to drown or whatever the frig it is you believe, so you better…”

Before he could finish, the young man began weeping to the point of hysteria. Durfor felt guilty for a moment.

“Don’t, don’t, I fear that more than my father, please don’t, I have only my piety to hold over my brothers…” he said between gulping sobs. “they are going to the shipping dock on the edge of the petrified woods to meet an officer of The Space Force.”

“The Space Force, why are they here?”

“Please don’t make me…”

Durfor rolled his eyes and pulled the hand holding the pencil right into the hole of the sharpener.

“Noooo,” he squealed. “the officer….there’s an officer, uh...uh...he’s a high ranking Space Force officer, a Colonel I think, he wants my cousin.”

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“Osa? Why?”

“The Colonel wants something her daddy found, they came here right before you guys came back.”

“Wait, how the hell did the boys in blue even know who we are or how they even knew what we were doing?”

“I duh-duh-don’t know, sir. I honestly don’t.”

Durfor felt pretty sure that was all the kid really knew about the why.

“How far away is the dock?”

“Eight kilometers. The man who used to live here, he has a truck in the back yard the keys are behind one of the tires, you can take it and just follow the road out of this farm to the docks.”

“You lying to me?” Durfor asked pulling the taped hand close to the sharpener.

“No, I swear to you...please don’t make me sharpen your pencil, sir.” he said in loud girlish wail.

“OK, calm down, you’re making this conversation really fuckin weird.”

He felt bad for the young kid, bad enough to only put a gag in his mouth but not put tape over it. There was a truck in the yard and a set of keys behind the passenger rear tire. He turned the key, the engine roared and he sped off into the forest which was a strange sight.

The trees, the few that still stood, were short, stout and sparkled like fine jewels. As he drove by he saw that the trees were multicolored. Their barks were pink, green, gold and blue, the trucks headlights made them twinkle like stars. The trees that were on their sides revealed a rainbow of colors had formed on the rings.

“This is a weird looking forest.” said Durfor.

Jackson and Osa were sitting in the bed of the truck facing each other while the three brothers sat with them. Mahala, the biggest one, sat beside Jackson while the other two bookended Osa while Silvanus

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was in the trucks cab riding shotgun.

“Who’s driving?” Osa asked.

“Shut up.” said Mahala.

“Another desperate farmer. Can you tell us where we’re going?”

The brothers ignored her question and rode on in darkness. Though it was dark, one of the brothers sitting beside Osa held the oil lantern. The light was just enough so that Osa and Jackson could see each other.

‘What do we do?’ she mouthed to him.

‘I don’t know.’ he mouthed back.

What could they do, he wondered. Durfor might have had an idea, he was a ball breaker sometimes but he was clever. How long would it take for Durfor to wonder what was taking so long and discover he and Osa were in trouble? Jackson wondered what his brother would do in his shoes.

“A loud distraction followed by a bum’s rush.” he said to himself remembering an instance from his childhood.

They’d be walking somewhere, deep in conversation then Durfor’s face would be masked in fright and he’d point somewhere, shouting something like ‘what the hell is that’ and Jackson would turn to look and Durfor would say ‘made ya look’ and tackle him to the ground. He came out of his childhood memory and got Osa’s attention.

“Scream,” he mouthed at her.

“Scream?” she mouthed with a furrowed brow.

“Loud,” Jackson mouthed with a nod.

Osa took a deep breath and let out more of a war cry than a scream but it worked, even the truck came

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to halt. The three brothers turned to her with big O faces as Jackson then pointed off in a random direction.

“What the fuck is that?!”

The three brothers stood near edge of the tailgate looking with white faces, as the uncle stepped out of the cab.

“Bum’s rush!” said Jackson as he and Osa knocked all three brothers off the tail gate and into a pile on the ground.

Osa and Jackson jumped over the brothers and landed easily and ran down the road.

“I’m glad they didn’t tie our feet.” said Jackson.

“They can’t, it’s against one of their commandments to bound another persons feet.”

“No shit?”

They were hardly a few feet down the road when another truck came to a screeching halt. Before the scent of burnt rubber could hit their noses, Durfor popped out of the driver side with a blaster in hand.

“Come on!”

As Jackson and Osa got in the cab, the old man stood watching them. Durfor stood for a minute staring back.

“Greetings from Lizaria, bitch ass tricks!” he said in a sing song voice pumping the blaster up and down.

As he gyrated his hips, the blaster was suddenly struck from his hand making him yelp.

“The fuck was that?”

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“They’ve got slingshots,” said Jackson. “get in the truck, dumb ass.”

Durfor got in and shut his door and began driving in reverse.

“They’re getting back in the truck...they’re turning around….they’re driving towards us” said Jackson.

“OK, Jack, what are ya a fuckin navigational computer?” Durfor said tightly.

“Hey I’m all for this rescue I’m just wondering why you didn’t turn the truck around?”

“I was paranoid of backing into a tree...I uh...um I’m really stoned…I’m sorry” Durfor said sheepishly.

“You got high?” Jackson asked looking a little taken aback.

“I’ve never done this before I’m friggin scared, this is like a reverse kidnapping. I was nervous I smoked a part of joint…oh shit…” he said as he veered the truck back onto the road.

“Just worry about the road, D.”

“Thank you, for saving us Durfor.” said Osa.

“Not a problem...what the shit was...” he said while startled by a crack in the windshield.

“Slingshot.” said Jackson with an eye roll.

“Slingshot,” he said then pointed to the glove box. “...the other blaster.”

“Good deal.” Jackson said taking it out slowly.

Jackson felt a hand on his shoulder.

“If you have to kill one of them, I understand and I wouldn’t begrudge you.” she said.

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Jackson saw she meant it, but he was no more a killer than his brother.

“I got this.” Jackson said with a grin.

The truck with her uncle was weighed down with four extra people but the engine was heavy duty.

Jackson waited until they were closing in and shot the grill of the truck. The truck the zealots drove hiccuped and belched but was still chasing. Jackson took another shot but it went wild.

“Come on bro, don’t show off!” Durfor said.

“Just drive!” he said aiming again.

He struck the grill again, a little higher than the first hit. Their engine began to wheeze. Whoever drove was pushing the truck hard.

“That’s it you dumb bastard,” said Durfor. “run it until the engine blows up in your face.”

Before the engine could die or blow up, Jackson shot out both the trucks front tires, with that they gave up the chase.

“You should’ve let the engine blow up.” said Durfor.

“I just want them as far away from the Eagle 5 as possible, now turn this truck around and please tell me you know what’s going on.”

“Well I was chillin after you guys left and I heard a ship fly over and I ran out but it came in dark and quiet like we did,”

“Like someone who’s been here before.” said Osa.

“Well all I know is that it was a transport cruiser, so I thought it could be…”

“Leithgow?” said Jackson.

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“Right, so I followed your scents saw the truck taking you away so I sneaked up on the kid they left back there and I tied a pencil to his hand…”

“What?” asked Jackson.

“Why did you do that?” Osa asked though she was holding in a laugh.

“I was threatening him with an electric sharpener, never mind that, do you want to know who the kid said they were taking you to? He said it was a Space Force Colonel.”

“A Space Force Colonel?” Jackson said shocked.

“The kid said they were looking for something your pops found.”

“If he found it.”

“Maybe did find it and he hid it somewhere.” said Jackson.

“Well once we run the hard drive and digitize these books we can do an AI cross referencing through the Unix command, recompile…”

The pilot’s looked at Osa confused.

“You’re way smarter than me.” said Jackson.

“Yeah me too, and I’m better with computers than him but whatever the shit you just said…” Durfor said with a whistle as he ran a hand over his head.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said with a nervous laugh. “my father was teaching me computer sciences before I could ride a bike.”

“That’s cool. I know a little bit about coding, ones and zeroes and all that fun stuff.” said Jackson which made Osa smile.

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“So….” Durfor said with an eye roll.

“Right…” she said. “so if he left me a clue to find, the software on the hard drive will tell us.”

“Oh thank fuck,” said Durfor with relief. “I thought we were gonna have to read all those books. I’m more of a comic book guy.”

They reached the ship as the sun rose behind them, and were airborne in just moments. The three of them sat in the cock pit watching the sun rise above a long dusty storm cloud.

“When there’s no ash and dust storms, you can see some really beautiful sun rises.” Osa said with a sigh.

Jackson reached out for her hand and Osa took it readily and gave it a squeeze. When they exited the atmosphere, Durfor let out a sigh of relief.

“We’ll have to come back to check it out,” said Jackson. “if we can sneak out of here again.”

“Of course we can sneak…”

Before Durfor could finish talking, the Eagle 5 shook like it was hit by a large asteroid. Osa gasped and was thrown from her seat but Jackson caught her before she could fall. Many of the multicolored bulbs on the control panel turned red which was followed by the hoot of a horn.

“Cannon fire!” said Jackson.

“Shit,” said Durfor. “computer show rear!”

A holographic mini screen popped out of the panel showing the rear of the Eagle 5. Behind them were four Space Force star fighters.

“Uh,” said Durfor.

“Fly, bird brain!” said Jackson.

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Durfor pushed the throttle, which threw them back into their seats.

“Shit, they’re following and we can’t out run them without a warp drive. If they get a direct hit we’re done for.” Durfor said.

“Not if Osa is on board.”

“He’s right, they need me alive. They’ll just corral you towards one of their battle cruisers and board us.”

“Shit fuck,” Durfor said with a head shake. “they’re already getting into a box formation.”

“What about our own sling shot, D?”

Durfor’s head was down but went up and looked at his brother closely.

“You’re shitting me?” asked Durfor.

“No, I’m not.” Jackson replied.

“A slingshot? I don’t understand.” asked Osa.

“We use the gravitational force of the planets orbit to fling us out of range of their fighters and the battle cruisers cannons.”

“Will it really work?” asked Osa.

“Sure if the ship doesn’t get ripped apart from the sudden increase of velocity, and our brains don’t fly out of our ears from centrifugal force.” said Durfor in a deep whine.

“Come on D, it’s our only chance. We goin in?” Jackson asked with his fist raised.

“Yeah, shit, we goin in.” he said sounding unsure but bumped his brother’s fist.

58 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

Durfor gritted his teeth and took hold of the joystick, pulling back on it sharply. The Eagle 5 lurched forward for a split second before smoothing out.

“Just buckle your belt.” Jackson said.

“Will the fighters be able to follow?” asked Osa.

“They’d be insane to try.” replied Durfor.

The Eagle 5 went low, in the ship’s window, Accusi-7 appeared from beneath them. As the ship began to speed up, the planets curvature became more pronounced while everything around them vibrated.

More bulbs turned red while an alarm deep inside the ship began to wail.

“Come on, you salty old bitch,” Durfor said as his tail gently pulled on the joystick.

The alarm stopped wailing but the ships vibrating was still loud, a synthesized voice announced that the ships pressure was being equalized. The holographic screen showed the fighters receding but still chasing after them.

“Just a little more,” said Durfor calmly as the cockpit was filled with red lights and warning alarms.

“Now?” asked Jackson.

“Now!”

When the ship felt like it was about to tear itself open, Jackson hit a button on his side which activated the thrusters. Their bodies were then thrown back as Accusi-7 vanished from their front view as quickly as the fighter disappeared from their rear. The ship was still vibrating but didn’t sound like a tin can filled with rocks as they jettisoned into deep space.

When Jackson reversed the thrusters, the ship slowed down and the few alarms still ringing finally went silent. The red lights began to flash off one by one as the three of them caught their breaths as if they had run a race. Durfor was flicking over head switches and wiping his brow with his tail as Osa and Jackson smiled at each other

59 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Shit, I can’t believe we didn’t get ripped apart and the old lady took that beating without any damage.”

said Durfor.

The synthesized voice spoke again, this time about a pressure leakage in the water pipes.

“OK, a little damage.” Durfor said tapping on the touch screen to silence the voice.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared before,” said Osa. “but you guys did it.”

“All in a days work.” Durfor said.

“You’re so full of shit.” said Jackson who was smiling.

Osa got to work on the hard drive using the software to find any clues. It only took twenty minutes for everything to compile once the other books were digitized. But when Osa looked over the results they did not show any symbolic algorithms. She ran the software again, then again, after an hour she threw her hands in the air with disgust.

“He must not have found it,” Osa said. “the software knows what to look for and it’s just not seeing anything.”

“Well the Space Force thinks he did,” said Jackson. “I can’t imagine why they’d believe in a conspiracy theory.”

“Well according to historical records,” said Osa. “The Dear Leader founded the Space Force, back before humanity's expansion into space.”

“What,” said Durfor incredulously. “The Space Force thousands of years old? No way.”

“There are many historical pre-expansion documents that mention The Space Force.” she said.

“Shit I never…” Durfor said before being cut off by another alarm which hooted.

“What is it?” asked Jackson.

60 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“It’s the force field alarm, there’s a ping coming,” he said as he hit the thrusters of the ship to escape its range. “it’s the Space Force. How the hell did they track…”

“The cloaking device?” said Jackson.

“Aw shit, yeah those new models got tracking pods built into them.” Durfor said speeding away before the radar ping could get them.

“How’d they even know we had a new one?” asked Jackson.

“Shit, these guys probably know how often we use the bathroom.” said Durfor.

“We’re gonna have to go out there and remove that damn thing.” said Jackson.

“We, like you got a fuckin mouse in your pocket.” said Durfor.

“We can both go out…”

“No, you got to keep an eye on the radar, and fly us out of here if they get the drop on us . Besides I got us in this mess, so it’s only fair I do the space walk.”

“Well I can’t argue with that.”

“You can argue a little though, if you wanted.” Durfor said as he got them further out of ping range.

Though it wasn’t the first space walk for Durfor, he’d never had to worry about getting harried by space fighters. He ignored the fear and put on his green space suit and Plexiglass helmet made for Lizarians and turned on his boots before hitting the airlock.

The device was mounted on the underside of the Eagle 5, with his boots activated Durfor was able to walk upside down to reach the device and with three quick maneuvers using an Allen wrench and a snip of a few wires the pod was deactivated however so was the cloaking device. When they put a few hundred klicks between themselves and the last known location of the boys in blue, they came back to the problem at hand.

61 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“You’re sure you ran the software correctly?” asked Jackson.

“Of course, I even ran it through a binary filter to check for secret coding, and nothing.”

“No ones and zeroes.” said Jackson.

“None.” she said leaning forward slightly, the lights of the control panel bounced of the little gold bars on her necklace.

The light caught Jackson’s eyes drawing them to the necklace. It was a lovely but odd piece of jewelry, there were two dozen or so tiny gold bars with round gems placed in between seemingly at random.

Two or three gems right in a row followed by more gold bars than just one gem followed by more bars.

The pattern didn’t make sense and was confusing to his eyes. Still there was something to the necklace that made him lean closer and squint then go wide eyed as he began to wonder.

“Ones and zeroes.” said Jackson.

“What?” said Osa.

“That necklace, did your dad give it to you?” asked Jackson.

“Yes.”

“Was it right before he did?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“What is it, Jack?” asked Durfor.

“Take it off and look at it closely.”

She hurriedly removed it and held it out in front of herself. After a moment she gasped and looked at Jackson.

62 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“One and zeroes.” Jackson and Osa said in unison.

“Will one of you humans tell me what the shit is going on?” asked Durfor.

“My necklace was the clue, it’s a binary code,” she said. “I need a terminal to type it out on.”

Jackson touched the holographic screen a small panel flipped in front of her revealing a keyboard as the screen went black, then showed a command prompt in bright neon green font on the top left hand corner. She typed in the location of the hard drive, then the code and hit enter. Something whirred in the hard drive as the holographic screen began to play a video, on the screen was an elderly man wearing hand made clothes and a pair of wire rim bifocals.

“Dad.” Osa said in a watery voice.

The old man was sitting on the ground in a tent with a few books stacked beside him. His face was dirty and pale with a thin sheen of sweat covering his face.

‘Osa, dear, if you’re watching this message then that means I’m gone and you know I’ve located the quantum drive which holds the consciousness of The Dear leader,” he said in a voice that was heavy.

He brought a hand up to wipe the sweat from his brow before he continued.

‘I know for the last few months I’ve had people watching me, I’ve found spyware on my devices too many times to count. Whenever I leave the Accusi-7 there always seems to be a Space Force patrol as soon as I leave, and whenever I come back home our neighbors always want to play twenty questions.’

He rubbed his chest and rubbed his jaw looking uncomfortable. .

“I think he made this video right before he died.” she said sorrowfully.

‘I’ve seen men in dark suits watching me sometimes. I think it’s the mafia, though they are ruthless gangsters, they tend to be prisoners of their own superstitions, and consider The Dear Leader just as sacred as the military elites. I doubt The Dear Leader has magical powers, though that does not me he wont fool the weak minded. The drive is located in a temple that sits in a place called Columbia Hills on a planet named Mars, found in The Solar System, I will attempt to go there myself to find it and hopefully you’ll never have to see this video. If you do though, know that I love you.’

63 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

Colonel Tasker Gladstone Iseminger Franklin of The Space Force stood tall and proud in his crisp blue uniform, he was fair in the face, his hair was short and blond and cut like a square on his round head.

Standing beside him on the flight deck was his second in command, First Lieutenant Luther Blair, a younger man then the Colonel. Blair was short and slightly overweight but his dress was neat and his dark hair was cut close to his head.

The transport cruiser, being piloted by a pair of sergeants sat in its landing position on Accusi-7

awaiting the arrival of the old Luddite and his niece, the one who knew where to find the quantum drive which held the consciousness of The Dear Leader. The Colonel visibly shuddered when he thought of His name.

“Would you like the heat turned up, Colonel?” asked Blair submissively.

“I’m not cold you twit, I’m anxious.” Franklin snapped back.

“Yes of course, Colonel,” Blair replied wondering if he was supposed to ask why the Colonel was anxious.

“Why are you anxious, sir?”

“Lieutenant do you realize we may be moments away from uncovering the location of the man who created The Space Force? The one who we owe our undying allegiance to. The man who made human space exploration a reality. The one who healed the sick and made the poor rich with just the power of his voice.”

“The Dear Leader, you mean Colonel?” Blair asked as if he didn’t know who the Colonel was talking about.

Blair had heard this little speech almost every week when he first became Franklin’s adjutant. After three years he now only heard it once a month unless the Colonel was in a really good mood, however he still knew the speech forwards and backwards and mouthed it along with his superior officer.

“Yes! We would still be sitting in the trees throwing rocks at the moon if not for his infinite knowledge.

We are but mounds of shit compared to his excellence. We are bound to him in duty and honor as he was the first to bring order to the universe and make it civilized. For the glory, for the republic.” he finished with his usual salute to no one.

64 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Yes, of course Colonel.” said Blair with a slight eye roll.

The Lieutenant didn’t believe there was ever any Dear Leader or any of that nonsense about him being able to perform miracles just by speaking. However there were orders from above the Colonel to look for this quantum drive and you followed a superior officer’s orders not matter how ridiculous they may be.

Not that Blair had any idea who gave the order, someone very high up was his guess. So high up they were able to order a reconnaissance fleet to keep constant surveillance of the Populares system, they even got an intelligence officer who was able to infiltrate the planet and get a bug into the office of the notorious gangster Leithgow Louis, who was also searching for the quantum drive. Through this bug the Colonel learned of the Eagle 5 and its cargo and wanted to send out an entire fleet to intercept the ship, but this was a secret mission.

The orders said they were to be discreet in carrying it out and to only use force as a last resort. Louis was going to pay the zealots a thousand credits and a crate filled with illegal fruit imports. That was probably a fortune to these Luddites, when the Colonel arrived though he offered Silvanus something Louis could never give him, autonomy of Accusi-7, but the Colonel came too late and the ship had left.

The old man looked stricken to have been so close to being ruler of this planet, Franklin could have cared less about the old farts political ambitions but by some miracle the ship was returning. Though the Luddites forbade technology, their religion did not forbid paying an outsider to use a radar to monitor their sky for invaders. Silvanus had come on the fly in the passenger side of a truck to find the Colonel with the news of Eagle 5’s return, eager to double cross Louis to be king of the world.

Franklin, who was ordered to maintain discretion decided to put his trust in the old zealot.

“Where the hell is that old man?” asked The Colonel

“Should we send out a few troops to do a search?”

“Don’t be foolish, if a farmer sees a soldier sneaking around we’ll have a full scale revolt on this hell hole planet, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Colonel. What are your orders then?”

“We wait ten more minutes.”

“Then what, Colonel?” he asked gently.

65 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Blair we’ll cross that bridge if we get to it.” Franklin said roughly.

“Yes, Colonel.” Blair said with another eye roll.

“Damn zealots, they’re all brainwashed.” said Franklin.

“They certainly are, sir.”

“Do you know they believe engines and machines are evil because some man named Christer said so a few thousand years ago? They don’t even have proof this Christing man ever existed, but still they follow his alleged words like sheep. I mean, what kind of a fool would believe something so blindly?”

“You fucking idiot,” Blair said quietly with a heavy sigh.

Franklin looked closely at his adjutant who cleared his throat.

“I mean an idiot, Colonel.” Blair said hoping Franklin didn’t understand irony.

“No, you were right the first time, Lieutenant. A fucking idiot.”

“Sir, there appears to be a truck slowly coming our way.” said one of the pilots.

“Hit the spotlights.” said Franklin.

A pair of bright white beams shot out on the road bathing the vehicle in light. It was Silvanus, sitting on the hood of the truck while all four of his sons, each with a rope in hand tied to the busted grill of the vehicle, pulled it along.

“Son of a bitch, open the bay doors!” said Franklin.

“They appear to have flat tires, Colonel.” Blair said following him

“Thank you very fucking much for your assessment, Lieutenant.”

66 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Hold,” said Silvanus when the Colonel approached.

“Where is your niece, Silvanus?” Franklin said furiously.

“She is not here, Colonel.” he said simply.

“I can see that you inbred hick, where did she go?”

Silvanus narrowed his eyes on the officer and slid off the truck.

“That demonic animal companion of theirs assaulted my son and ambushed the rest of us, the creature was armed with blasters.”

“I put my trust in you, you stupid bastard.” Franklin said through his clenched teeth.

There was a buzz coming from a device strapped to Blair’s wrist. He pressed a button and spoke briefly into the device.

“Colonel, our radar detects a ship ascending the atmosphere.” said Blair.

“Send some fighters to follow...”

“Already have, Colonel.”

“...and tell them do not engage. If the woman on that ship is killed I’ll have every fly boy lined up for the firing squad.” Franklin said heading back into their vessel.

“Yes, Colonel.” said Blair following behind.

“What about our autonomy? God demands reparations Colonel.” Silvanus cried.

“Fuck your autonomy and your god, I’ve got a mission to complete.”

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“How dare you curse when speaking of Him! The Great Christer will punish you for such deceits and foul language!” the old man said raising his arms in the air and shaking his fists.

“Christer’s wrath is nothing compared to mine, you failed to get me your niece. I’ll send down fighters on your holy rolling ass and turn this planet to ashes for wasting my time, if the great Christer doesn’t like it, he can go fuck himself.”

“How dare you, my god will...”

“Your god can’t help you now. You want autonomy? Learn to fly a ship, the Space Force is always looking for more pilots to conquer new worlds.” Franklin said before the bay door closed.

The cruiser ascended quickly into space. The window, long and narrow, showed nothing but a star speckled sky. Running along underneath the window was a long black glass panel which was covered in various neon colored light buttons. The two pilots sat at the panel, each with a U shaped wheel in front of them, between them sat was a multitasking holographic screen.

“Lieutenant,” said Franklin standing stiffly over the shoulders of the pilots. “where are my fighters?”

“They pulled a slingshot and we lost them for the moment, so I’m using the navigational AI to hack their cloaking device.”

“What cloaking device?” asked the Colonel, turning to Blair with narrow eyes.

“Sir, the intelligence report says their ship was recently equipped with a late model PHL-17 cloaking device which comes equipped with an internal tracking pod in case of high jacking, or theft.” the Lieutenant said sounding too smug to Franklin.

“You go over my head just to implement a horrible plan like that?” he asked in a sarcastic tone .

“Colonel, I never meant to supersede your authority, the intelligence report says the pilots are unaware of the tracking pod at the moment so I felt it best…”

“What you feel means dick on the field of battle, Blair. I order you to send out a ping to locate the Eagle 5.”

68 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Colonel, that will give away our position, wouldn’t it?” Blair asked in a neutral tone.

“It’s a junk yard cargo ship without a warp drive being piloted by a couple of pussies. We ping them, they piss their pants and surrender because they now they can’t out run the fighters again. Order the squad leader to send out a ping, Lieutenant.”

Blair put his wrist to his mouth and gave the order. A moment later the squad leader replied, his voice emanating crisply from the multitasking holographic screen.

“No ping, Colonel.”

“Do it again, squad leader.” Franklin said with an annoyed sigh.

“Colonel, I’m not getting a reaction.” said the squad leader.

“I’ve lost the signal on the tracking pod as well, Colonel.” said Blair cautiously

“Damn it, tell the fighters to keep searching for them, Lieutenant.” he said hotly.

“That’s a lot of area for them to search, Colonel.” said Blair in a dour voice.

“If you have a better suggestion I’d like to hear it, Lieutenant.” the Colonel said through clenched teeth.

“Maybe we should monitor the bug in Louis the Laser’s office, intelligence believes Mr Louis had more the one tracking device put on the Eagle 5 since they were in debt to him.”

“Monitor the bug in Louis’ office, have the fighters refuel and go on stand by. Double time, Lieutenant.” the Colonel said with a harrumph.

“Of course, Colonel.” said Blair with an eye roll.

Louis did have another tracking device on the Eagle 5, but the Space Force battle cruiser lurking just outside his system made sending fighters out too risky. He had a suspicion that the boys in blue were gonna do a raid, and not just on one or two of his planets but all of them and they’d start at his space station.

69 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

Louis had Giorgio monitoring the Eagle 5’s movements on a tablet while sitting in the office, when the ship made a return trip to Accusi-7 he knew something was wrong. He wanted to send out a battle cruiser and use its warp drive to find them and capture them but that would have to be a last resort, even if the cruiser did slip by the Space Force, it still meant he would be down a battle cruiser. He relented at the last moment when one of his contacts on Accusi-7 said the Space Force was snooping around and that there was talk of a revolt coming from the Luddites and few of the other zealots, zealots who had gods that allowed them to use blasters.

The Space Force was risking a a lot by going on that backward ass planet and he knew why they were doing it too. The Space Force was looking for the drive, a Space Force trooper he had in his pocket sent a message saying Colonel Franklin was going to give that old man, Silvanus autonomy if he handed over the girl to them. Louis knew Franklin, and a few other high ranking officers in the Space Force were devout in their belief in the existence of The Dear Leader. He had read somewhere that The Dear Leader actually created the Space Force.

Everything that was happening wasn’t coincidence. Louis was sure the boys in blue were going to pounce the moment the quantum drive got here. It was becoming clearer to Louis that he was risking his planetary empire to find the Dear Leader.

“Giorgio, where are they?”

“They are docked somewhere in the Kimar system, boss. They’ve been sitting there for a while now.”

Louis knew that system, there were many pirates there as well as hijacked ships, satellites, and space stations. It was the system to go to if you wanted to disappear, which meant they may already have the drive. Louis tapped a small indentation on his desk and a holographic screen appeared which showed a flight deck covered with his star fighters. Then a battle hardened looking man in a flight suit appeared on the screen holding a black fighter helmet with a dark tinted glass face.

Most of his pilots were former veterans of the Space Force turned soldiers for hire. Some were outright war criminals or wanted by the Space Force for piracy, which was an automatic death sentence if captured. Meaning these men, and two or three women as well as a Grey, wouldn’t fight on the cheap.

“Yes, Mr Louis?” asked a grizzled pilot.

“Pilot, how would you like to make more money today than you make in a year?”

“Mars,” said Durfor. “I don’t know the name.”

70 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“It’s next to Earth. I heard about it on that miniseries I’ve been watching. But without a warp drive it would take us years to get there.”

“We’ll have to make a detour to the Kimar system.” said Osa.

“Why, what’s in Kimar?” asked Jackson.

“Someone who can help us with a warp drive.”

“I heard that system is pretty wild.” said Durfor.

“It’s not all that bad, I’ve been there enough times to know how to avoid trouble.” said Osa.

They arrived a short time later at the system which boasted only four sparsely populated desert planets but as many as two dozen orbital space stations and a half dozen non orbital stations, which was where a majority of the people in the system were. The stations were mostly bars, casinos and ports for trading black market goods.

They approached one of the non orbital stations, a gray squat looking square that was twenty meters in length, width and height. One side had a bay door that was closed.

“Syd,” Osa said through the comm speaker. “it’s is your favorite cousin.”

“You got a lot of cousins, let’s hope this one’s cool.” said Durfor.

There was no response on the radio, however the bay door was opening. They passed through a pink translucent airlock shield and landed between piles of derelict civilian transport shuttles that were skeletal and rusted to the floor. A pair of humans and a Precarrian were working on a fancy looking ship known as the King Moody, a high end star cruiser that was shaped like a narrow letter V. One of the humans working on the cruiser looked up from the ship and swatted the other human on the shoulder.

“Keep at it, fellas.” he said as he left them.

He was dark skinned and past middle aged with hair growing in a horseshoe pattern on his head, his

71 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

skinny face was covered by a thick, bushy beard with a few gray whiskers sticking out. He wore a wrinkled work shirt that was covered in grease.

“I’m surprised to see you in this neighborhood, cuz.” said Syd giving Osa a fist bump.

“I’m on the run at the moment, so are my friends. This is Jackson Cantrell and Durfor Kolos.”

“Syd Solarwind. I’m known as the baddest mother fucker with the fastest mother fuckin ships in Kimar. I can make any ship in the galaxy twice as fast for half the price.” he said shaking both their hands.

“Can you put a warp drive on their ship and I’ll pay you later?”

“Later, eh. I don’t like those kinds of questions, cuz.” he said with a sigh.

“Syd…”

“I know, you’re just a poor farm girl…” he said though he was chuckling as he spoke.

“Come on, don’t be a prick.” she said giving him a shove.

“OK, let me see the ship and see how I’ll do it.”

Fifteen minutes later, Syd was exiting the Eagle 5’s bay door with the three of them following behind.

“It wont take a warp drive.” Syd said with arms up in defeat.

“Oh, come on. She’s taken a ton of beatings…” said Durfor.

“Yeah, and that’s part of the problem. One of a dozen problems.”

“Like what?” asked Jackson.

72 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Well the hull for starters is battered all to shit, moving at warp speed would rip it like wet paper most likely. Your satellites dishes would disintegrate which I’m surprised hasn’t happened already since they’re being held together with spit and chewing gum…”

“...hey I used duct tape…” said Durfor.

“...a warp drive needs a fully functional satellite to work, there’s also the loose bolts on the cargo bay door, the low pressure of the pipes means their could be problems with the internal pressure, there’s also a seal on the fuel tank that looks broken which means you would more than likely have a fire start from the fumes sending this ship into warp speed, your landing gears would snap off from the vibrations, and for some reason your AI navigational computer says the ship is on fire.”

“Pfft, that’s nothing.” Durfor said easily.

“Nothing?” said Syd

“OK, so besides all that you can do it right?” asked Durfor.

“That hunk of junk would either fall apart or explode the second you enter warp speed. Possibly both.”

“So now what?” asked Durfor.

“Syd, let us borrow a ship.” said Osa.

“Look Osa, I was willing to take a hit on the warp drive, but a whole ship and I haven’t even asked why you want a warp drive let alone a whole ship. Plus you and your friends are on the run and I’m afraid to ask who you guys are running from. Gangsters, the boys in blue, maybe both.”

“Definitely both.” whispered Durfor, who got an elbow in the side from Jackson.

“Syd…” said Osa.

“Cuz, I’m not being a prick…”

“I know, you've got your own problems to deal with, but we’re on the run because of my father,

73 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

something he was looking for. It’s a…”

“Don’t say it,” said Syd holding up his hands. “if you’re on the run the less I know the better.”

“It was a last request, please Syd.”

“I should have figured you’d throw your old man at me.”

“Hey if it wasn’t for him you’d be stuck still be stuck in a cell for practicing witchcraft.”

“Practicing witchcraft?” asked Jackson.

“I was born into an Ultra Orthodox Luddite home on Accusi-7, since I was a kid I liked taking things apart and putting them back together. When I was eleven I found some scrap engine parts from a crashed fighter in a field near my home. I was able to downsize it and get it to run, I added a couple of scythe blades and tied it to a wheelbarrow with a rusted out bottom.”

“You made a lawnmower and they put you in jail for witchcraft.” said Jackson.

“I told you those people are all fucked in the head.” said Durfor.

“Please Syd,” said Osa. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

Syd gave a long sigh, his hand scrubbing his beard while he grimaced.

“Alright, you can take one.”

“Shit, yeah. Can we use the King Moody?” asked Durfor enthusiastically.

“Get the fuck outta here,” said Syd with a laugh. “you can barrow one of my speed cruisers. It has a new warp drive but it can only seat two.”

“We’ll take it.” said Osa.

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“I’ll get the warp drive charged and refueled and you’ll be on your way within the hour.”

“So which one of us stays?” asked Durfor.

“Osa, I want you to stay,” said Jackson. “you’ll be safer here.”

“You’ve never been to Mars,” she said. “it’s in the backwoods of the galaxy.”

“Neither have you,” said Jackson.

“Jackson, I…”

“Osa, I really like you and I want to protect you if I can.” he said with a face turning to crimson.

“I thought you didn’t flirt with women while they’re working? We still have a job to do.” said Osa, in a soft voice with a twinkle in her eye.

“I’m sorry for being rude.” he said with a small smile and a chuckle.

“You’re not.” Osa said smiling back.

“Oh, would you two just sniff each others asses already or whatever it is humans do to mark each other.” said Durfor.

“Thank you, D.” said Jackson with a head shake.

After a few moments their speed cruiser was ready to go. The ships was a little bigger than a star fighter, shaped like a tear drop and was an off white color with a few random spots of brown on its body, the ship’s name, Galactic Parsec, was stenciled on the back in red. Other than those few ugly spots the craft was like new.

“What her name?” asked Jackson.

“Highwind.”

75 A FUNNY THING HAPPENED IN OUTER SPACE

“Lovely exterior.” said Durfor.

“Still better looking than your shit box flier.” said Syd.

“As long as the warp drive works, I don’t care how she looks.” said Durfor.

After Syd gave them a rundown of how to operate the warp drive, Osa approached Jackson and put her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss.

“You OK?” she asked in a dreamy voice.

“Now I am.” he said.

“So what does this temple look like?” asked Durfor.

“According to the historical record, the only places built by humans there that still stand, were built from the very living red rocks of the planet itself.”

“Do you know if there are people there?” asked Jackson.

“No. But if there’s a temple than that means there could be zealots.”

“More religious nut bags?! What the frig.” said Durfor.

“Relax,” said Syd who was walking by and shoved a rifle blaster into Durfor’s arms. “anybody gives you shit or puts a filthy hand on my ship you tell’em to fuck around and find out.”

Jackson and Durfor got in the small cockpit, sitting between them was a slim control panel with a dual set of joysticks for steering. The windshield was a narrow forty five degree wide window, through it Jackson could see Osa who blew him a kiss. He grabbed it and held it against his heart.

“I told you she liked you.” said Durfor.

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“Yeah, bro. You were right. Now let’s get our asses to Mars.”

When they cleared the Kimar system, Jackson punched in the coordinates for Columbia Hills, Mars. On the panel a small section went blank and showed a video feed of a red planet.

“Is that Mars?” asked Durfor.

“Looks that way, and it’s live, could mean there are still some people there.”

“You think there are?” asked Durfor sounding dubious.

“It’s right next door to the planet where my kind came from and that miniseries I’ve been watching said there are humans still living there.”

“You and this friggin Earth miniseries, what did you produce the thing or something?”

“I like to be knowledgeable.” Jackson said defensively.

“Knowledgeable. It’s no wonder Osa is the first woman in like eight years to even touch you.”

“Shut up, dickhead and get ready to activate the warp drive.”

Their bodies were pressed firmly against their seats while they moved at warp speed. The black, star speckled shy looked like a streaking mass of squirming white lines as they moved. The stars grew long and faded away as they traveled, it was like viewing a meteor shower. There was a buzz from the control panel followed by a message which stated, approaching destination, in a synthetic female voice.

A moment later, they stopped and were in view of the red planet.

“There it is,” said Durfor. “I see satellites.”

Jackson tapped on the control panel.

“The ship AI says they’re radio and communication satellites, and that most of them are dead. No defense satellites, if there’s anybody home they aren’t worried about unwelcome visitors I guess.”

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“You’d think they’d have their leader better protected.” said Durfor.

“Let’s approach slowly and if nobody stops us we’ll land.”

“What if it’s a trap? They hide until we land and then they ambush us, and kidnap us so they can sacrifice us to their Dear Leader.”

“D, if we don’t take the drive, then the Space Force or Lelou or maybe even that old dude might get their hands on this thing, and then nobody’s safe. Besides we both got rifles.”

They entered the planets atmosphere with ease through a cloudless butterscotch sky. They saw a gargantuan glass dome, under which sat a building made of red stone.

“I don’t see any armed guards or soldiers.” said Jackson.

“It’s a trap I’m telling ya, this is too easy.” Durfor said suspiciously.

As they approached the dome, they were startled to see floating on a rock mounted to a hover engine a holographic sign with the word parking bay written in cursive flashing a bright yellow with a purple arrow pointing to the entrance. Jackson and Durfor looked at each other.

“I guess this place welcomes visitors.” said Durfor

“Well let’s oblige them.” said Jackson.

The ship entered the dome through a translucent airlock shield and landed in an empty lot which surrounded the temple. The building was tall, more the fifty meters high with a pair of towers on both sides slightly higher, adorned on its spires were blue flags with writing on them. But because they were under a terraforming dome, there was no wind to flap the flag, making their message unreadable.

“What kind of a fucking idiot puts up a flag in a dome?” asked Durfor.

“I don’t know, let’s ask whoever that is. Keep your rifle down.” said Jackson pointing at the temple.

On the steps leading up to door stood someone in a white suit. As they walked closer they saw it was a

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woman with very fair skin and bleach blond hair. Her teeth were as white as her clothing, her lips were glossy with pink lipstick on a energetic looking smile. As they got within a few meters of this woman she waved enthusiastically and marched down the steps to meet them.

“Hello, welcome to the Temple of the Church State and the home of The Dear Leader, I’m Melody and I can answer any questions you have.”

“I hope it’s OK we have our rifles, we weren’t sure of the customs here.” said Jackson.

“Well sir,” said Melody with a wave of her hand. “The Dear Leader believes all citizens should exercise their right to bare arms, so you’re more than welcome to keep them on you.”

“Speaking of the Dear Leader, is he here?” Jackson asked with a quick glimpse at his brother.

“Yes, he is.” Melody said chirpily.

“Can we, uh...see him?” asked Durfor.

“Well of course you can silly, it’ll cost one hundred credits.”

“What? Why?” asked Durfor.

“Well, sir we have to maintain our temple to The Dear Leader and to fulfill his wishes, and as you know he is all powerful and his demands are always to be met. He is the man who brought civility to the universe and taught humanity how to cross the stars. How long have you guys been followers of The Dear Leader?”

“Oh a long time.” Jackson said elbowing his brother.

“Oh, uh yeah, I been following since the uh, after my service in the Space Force.”

“Oh, the Dear Leader loves his Space Force veterans.”

“Is it true he found The Space Force?” asked Durfor.

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“Oh, yes indeed. And you know I don’t think he’s ever had a Lizarian visitor before.”

Once they gave Melody one hundred credits she led them inside the temple. In the vestibule which was adorned with gray silk wallpaper, they were greeted by a statue of The Dear Leader. The bronze sculpture was in front of a podium with a microphone, his mouth was agape while his hands gripped the sides, his face was slightly chubby with no wrinkles, the hair on his head was shaped like a rolling wave.

The vestibule opened out to a long room with stained glass windows lined along the walls on either side of them. Each window showed the Dear Leader, a tall man with orange blond hair and a deeply tanned face wearing a suit with a long red tie. They showed him with his followers who looked minuscule beside him.

One showed him holding a pair of baskets filled with fish and bread. Beneath that was the caption:

‘The Dear Leader and the Miracle of the Loves and Fishes’ the window across from that showed the Dear Leader pointing at a small white planet which showed an ancient cylindrical rocket bearing fins with a ring of smoke and fire at its base. The caption simply said: ‘Promises Made, Promises Kept!’

followed by the numbers, 07/20/1969.

Another window showed him standing on a rock with a hand out which was filled with jewels and coins, while people were kneeling before him, people with disheveled, dirty clothes and gaunt faces, the caption for that one was: ‘The Dear Leader making the poor, rich.’ Across from that was one showing the Dear Leader surrounded by many women who were blond wearing white dresses. The caption below it was: The Dear Leader on his wedding day.

“I see you’re admiring the windows.” said Melody.

“Yeah, it’s amazing. and all the miracles he’s preformed.” said Jackson.

“Yes, it is.” she said reverently.

“Right, D?”

“Yeah, he’s proactive that’s for sure. Me, I can’t even get out of bed unless I have coffee in me.”

“His very words sent rockets to the sky and money to fall from it. He is the sole reason humanity was able to travel across space and make friends with all kinds of new people.” said Melody brightly giving Durfor a warm pat on the shoulder.”

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“You can say that again.” Durfor said with a big smile.

“I know the Dear Leader will be pleased to meet you gentlemen, come on his chamber is this way.”

Melody said.

The chamber was a small wood paneled room with various portraits of the Dear Leader. One was of him holding a lantern, standing on the bow of an over crowded row boat crossing a swamp. Another showed his face chiseled into a mountain with four other mammoth sized faces besides his own.

In the center of the room was a small round desk with the quantum drive. It was a yellowing spherical device that looked old but no different than any other quantum drive. Melody approached the desk and pressed a button on the drive. When she stepped back a head appeared, floating above the drive, it was chubbier than the statute and had wrinkles, his hair was orange white as opposed to the orange blond in the satin glass windows and looked thin, his face looked so tanned it looked closer to orange than brown.

“Good afternoon, Mr President.” said Melody.

“Hello Melody,” said The Dear Leader in a high voice. “so sweet, you’re such a sweet girl, Mel.”

“Oh, thank you sir.” Melody said blushing.

“Always so pretty, much prettier than my third wife, I’d call her Mel too, but you’re much prettier than her.” The Dear Leader said following it up with a big sniff.

“Mr President, these gentleman would like to speak with you.”

“Did they pay the one hundred credits, Mel? It’s one hundred credits for every hour, all goes to our yuge PAC.”

“Yuge?” said Durfor.

“Yes, Mr President. Gentleman just step outside if you need me or want to purchase more time. OK?”

“So, you’re a President?” asked Jackson when Melody was gone.

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“Correct.” he said making a strangle rubbery smile at the answer.

“President of what?” asked Durfor.

“Of the USA,” he said with an eye roll.

“You’re the knowledge junkie, what’s the USA?” asked Durfor.

“I think he means a nation that was called America, USA was an abbreviation of it’s whole name I think. It’s system of government was called a democracy.”

“What’s that?” asked Durfor.

“It’s a type of government where leaders are elected, usually by its own citizens.”

“So anybody can pick any asshole they want as leader?” asked Durfor who considered such a system of government.

“I guess, I think a lot of people had to pick the same asshole for them to win.”

“Everybody getting a say in who gets to lead the nation.”

“A once great nation,” said the Dear Leader suddenly overriding their discussion with a large frown.

“a nation of the people, for the people, to the people. Much like our forefathers, as in the Continental Army who suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge ,who ranned the ramparts and took over the airports, it did everything it had to do. But they didn’t have the thugs and the maniacs to deal with, they took over once they stole the election from me, so sad, so sad. I was winning every election, winning so much heads were spinning.”

“So the thugs and maniacs started winning?” asked Jackson.

“No, they stole the elections!” he said in a loud voice while his face grimaced as if he were in pain.

“Oh, um OK.” said Jackson.

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“This guys a little worked up,” Durfor said in a whisper. “don’t piss him off. Stroke his ego.”

“Right, uh...sir Mr President, who were these thugs and maniacs?”

“The left!” he thundered.

Durfor and Jackson looked to the left but saw no one.

“There’s nobody there.” said Durfor quietly.

“What do you mean the left, sir?” asked Jackson.

“The ones who stole the election.”

“Well, how did they steal it?” asked Durfor.

“They made it so my opponent got more votes than me.” he said with a head shake and another deep sniff.

“Do you think maybe your opponent got more votes legitimately?” asked Durfor.

“You know you ask a lot of stupid questions! What the hell are you anyway, a lizard?”

“Mother fucker…” Durfor said with a sneer.

“Mr President,” said Jackson. “is it true you preformed miracles?”

“Of course, nobody preformed miracles like I could, I healed the sick with my words, I made a man, a big yuge man, strong guy, had arms so yuge he was like a lumber jack, come to me with tears in his eyes, crying, saying thank you sir, thank you saved my family.”

“You can heal the sick?” asked Durfor.

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“No, shut up, I’m done talkin to you,” The Dear Leader said in a very thick accent. “I was the cock and balls of nations, then they stole the election from me.”

“The cock and balls of nations?” said Durfor with a confused look.

“Sir, can you tell us exactly who is the left?” asked Jackson.

“They’re the enemies of America, the leftist, Marxist, America last, socialist, communist, anti-America, snowflake, cuckist, antifa, fascist, scum bag, mother fuckers.”

“What the frig is a cuckist?” Durfor whispered to his brother.

“I have no idea. You ever heard of antifa?”

“No. I think this guy is fuckin nuts, why didn’t he use his god like powers to stop them?”

“How did you try and stop them, sir?” asked Jackson. “

“Well we’re still collecting funds for a Super Political Action Committee called Church State, a committee created to fight the heinous and criminal accusations of alleged misconduct aim at me, your favorite president. It’s a disgrace and it should have never happened, it is prosecutorial misconduct, the likes of which has never been seen.”

“What the fuck is he talking about now?” asked Durfor who pulled his brother close and turned their backs to the floating head.

“I have no idea. I think you’re right though D, this guy seems a little nutty, maybe the drive is breaking down.”

“Yeah, that thing has gotta be a few thousand years old. You know this thing reminds of the redundant Chatbots I made when we were kids back in the day.”

“Oh yeah, remember that one you programmed to turn any chat into an argument?”

“Yeah who knew asking it what five plus five is could delve so quickly into calling mom an ignorant

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whore. Maybe somebody did the same thing here, see if he can perform a miracle.”

“OK. Mr President, could you show us a miracle?”

The Dear Leader frowned at them.

“So I can tell others about witnessing your greatness,” said Jackson.

The Dear Leader’s frown turned to a rubbery smile.

“...would you show us the loaves and fishes one?” asked Jackson.

“You know I’ve preformed so many great miracles, godly acts, I’ve heard people call it, acts of god, and I have a great relationship with god, I have a great relationship with, Evangelicals, Protestants, Presbyterians, Seventh Day Adventists I don’t know about, but I drink the wine and I eat the cracker and I feel cleansed and that means something.”

“This asshole was elected,” asked Durfor. “how stupid were people back then?”

“Mr President, please if we could just show us any miracle, maybe show us your favorite one.”

“Well I have so many favorites, I don’t think I can pick just one, they’re all my favorite….” The Dear Leader said easily.

“Well just pick one, sir.” said Jackson.

“...well it wouldn't be fair to me to pick one because they’re all so great and to do only one would be wrong and you can’t have that.”

Jackson and Durfor turned away from the Dear Leader again to speak.

“OK, this guy is a Chatbot, he’s just spouting random shit.” said Durfor.

“Yeah, you’re right.” said Jackson.

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“What should we do now?”

“I dunno. Maybe we should leave it here. Something this friggin stupid deserves to stay lost.”

“Hey let’s give Lelou the coordinates and let him come get it, that’ll give us a good head start, shit we can even send the coordinates to the Space Force too and maybe they’ll throw down on each other.”

“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea, D.”

They went back to their ship, as they were about to lift off, the synthetic female voice spoke: ‘live video message in 3...2...1…’ then from the control panel a holographic screen appeared showing Louis the Laser in his office. Both of them gasped audibly, making the gangster smile.

“Gentlemen, you have once again stolen from me. So since the threat of your own torture and death doesn’t stop your thievery perhaps the death of an associate will.”

Louis snapped his fingers and a small square of screen appeared in the corner showing another live feed from a goons body camera at Syd’s garage which showed more of Louis’ men dragging Osa by her arms into a transport vessel, her arms and legs were tied and she had a blindfold over her eyes. Syd was sitting on the floor with a bruised face his hands up, two of his mechanics were on the floor lying still in pools of blood.

“You dirty…” Jackson said in a snarl

“One ignorant word and I’ll have my men push her out of an airlock with something up her ass.”

When Jackson remained silent he continued.

“Good. Have you found the drive?”

“Yes, we found it.” said Jackson.

“Excellent, you will bring it to me or the woman dies. I know you have a faster ship so don’t make me wait too long, and do not try to use the Dear Leader’s magic against me, it will only work for true believers.”

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The screen went dark before Jackson could respond.

“Fuck,”

“I guess we’ll have to take the drive after all.” said Durfor.

“You think Melody will let us take him out of here?”

“They can bill us later.”

Jackson was quiet for a moment, then he got an idea and went back into with Durfor following behind without a clue.

“What are you gonna do, bro?”

“The Dear Leader wants paid, so we’ll get him paid.”

“Oh, you’ve come back,” said the Dear Leader. “did they pay the hundred credits, Mel?”

“Yes they did, sir and they told me they have a business proposal to discuss with you.”

“Yes, well I am a great business man, I am the deal maker, no one has perfected the art of the deal like I have.”

“Sir,” said Jackson. “I am under the employ of a rich man known as Leithgow Louis...”

“I know many rich and powerful men,”

“...and that Mr Louis is a follower of yours and is a vehement anti-cuckist and a sworn enemy of the snowflake thugs, who are...uh being ranned rampant on his system. He sent us here to bring you to him in hopes of preserving his empire and his rule over the...uh, ranned cuckists.”

“Oh sir,” said Melody with excitement. “this is the perfect opportunity to expand our message to the

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greater galaxy and secure more funding for our Super PAC.”

“You are so right, Mel,” The Dear Leader said with another rubbery smile on his chubby face. “and we will have to bill you by the hour, you understand?”

“Of course, Mr President.” said Jackson.

“We can work together,” The Dear Leader said with a large smile. “and we have to work together because our message has had a short reach. A brilliant, perfect message from yours truly, now I have a chance once again to bring peace and civility to the universe. Something only I and I alone have achieved before, the potential fall of Mr Louis’ empire is a disgrace and should have never been allowed to happen.”

They took The Dear Leader aboard the ship and returned to the Populares system which was sporadic with Space Force fighters. The boys in blue ignored them but Louis’ defense satellites did not and more than a few followed closely behind them. They were approaching the space station when one of the cannons on the station pointed at their ship and emitted a tractor beam which engulfed them,

‘Ship is caught in tractor beam, I repeat, ship is caught in tractor beam.’ said the synthetic voice.

“Should we bring the rifles?” asked Durfor.

“You wanna get shot today?” asked Jackson.

The beam was blue and looked like a swirling ball of gas as it brought them down to the same place from earlier with the transparent roof. At the moment there didn’t appear to be as many ships as before, just a few of Louis’ battle cruisers coasting the outer rim. They were greeted at the bay doors by Giorgio who was smiling.

“Look who’s back…” he said then stopped when he saw what Jackson was holding and the large head floating above the object. “are you The Dear Leader?”

“Are you the Laser? If not, I don’t have time for you, I’m a very busy man.”

“This way, sir..” Giorgio said in a stammer.

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“Mr President.” the Dear Leader said sharply.

Louis was sitting at his desk sipping on a tumbler filled with whiskey. When they entered he stood up wide eyed at the floating head. Louis gulped his his drink and went to meet them halfway.

“The Dear Leader,” Louis said in a hushed tone taking the quantum drive and placing it on his desk.

“sir, I have waited so many years to meet the man as great as the Christer.”

“Of course you have,” the Dear Leader said. “and some have said I am greater than the Christer, but we love the Christer don’t we folks? I know the Christer, we’re very close, he and I are great friends, I remember he came to me with tears in his eyes when people asked if I were greater than him, and he was a big strong guy too, he didn’t cry very easily.”

“Oh, yes of course,” said Louis. “your power is unmatched.”

“Oh yes, I’m very powerful, so very powerful, no one has ever seen such great power, not even the left.”

“Yes,” said Louis who looked quickly to his left with an awkward smile. “you have immense power.”

“So can we get our friend, now? We held up our end of the deal.” said Jackson but The Dear Leader’s voice over rode him.

“But it’s not cheap, this power. The thugs and the maniac antifa leftists have run rampant over my whole planet, the whole galaxy from what I understand.”

“Sir,” said another of Louis goons who came through the office door looking harried. “Space Force fighters are bombing Lexar-121.”

The suited goon left with a blaster in hand, before the door closed they could all hear people running back and forth, panicking.

“The Space Force, I founded that you know, I was the first human to send a man to the moon as well. It took many days,” he said with his voice suddenly going high then low again. “and many nights too, and powerful rockets, so very powerful.”

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“Sir,”

“Mr President.” said the Dear Leader with narrow eyes.

“Sorry. Mr President,” Louis said.

Before the conversation could continue the door opened again, this time his wife entered. She looked around confused, did a double take at the head of the Dear Leader before noticing her husband.

“What the hell are you doing, Leithgow? A battle cruiser is orbiting Lexar-121 and a Space Force transport vessel is docking at our space station. Where are the fighters?”

“They are spread out already, never mind them, he is here, The Dear Leader. He can save my system.”

Louis said.

“You’re the Dear Leader?” asked Cunbra with folded arms and a frown.

“Yes I am, you’re very beautiful, you know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women, I just start kissing them.”

“Really,” she said as her frown became a sneer.

“Oh, yes. I love to show off for beautiful women.”

“Don’t you see, Cunbra? The theory is true.” said Louis.

“Leithgow,” she said with a sigh. “this is just shitty Chatbot software. Ask him to preform a miracle.”

“My love,” said Louis gently.

“Go ahead, ask him.”

“Don’t be rude, his excellency has only just arrived.” said Louis in a plaintive tone.

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“OK, fine. I’ll ask him then. Make gold rain from the sky.”

The Dear Leader was silent with a chubby smile.

“Come on I’ll show you my tits if you fill this room right now with credits.”

“It’s nice to see a woman taking charge.” Jackson said.

“I could do that if I wanted,” The Dear Leader said in a whiny voice.

“Then do it,” she replied. “do it, come on I want to see it right now.”

“I can do it.” The Dear Leader said quickly.

“OK, then do it.” she said with her hands on her hips.

“You know, you’re a very nasty woman.” The Dear Leader said with pouting lips.

“Please honey, don’t be nasty.” said Louis plaintively.

Cunbra let out a humorless laugh.

“Lelou, I’m leaving you.” she said.

“Mr President, what do I do?” asked Louis while his wife walked away.

“Grab her by the pussy, if you’re an important man, women let you do anything, and they will respect you for it.”

Louis ran to his wife and put his hands between her legs.

“Knock it, off!” she said giving him a slap in the face.

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“Ow, you’re really leaving me?”

“Leithgow, I can take the occasional physical abuse, the neglect in the bedroom, the gambling, even your smelly feet, but I’m not standing here watching you be brainwashed playing word games with a Chatbot, I’m going to my mothers.”

She left the office with out looking back. Louis looked around at everyone silent for a moment.

“Mr President I did what you asked and she still left.”

“Well then, you’re not an important man like me, very sad.”

“OK, time out,” said Durfor. “we brought you the leader, can we have our friend back so we can leave?”

“No,” replied Louis. “not until the The Dear Leader has helped me defeat The Space Force!”

“I don’t think so,” said a voice at the door.

It was Colonel Franklin who had a dozen troops armed with rifles follow him into to the office. Louis’

men took out their photon pistols and stood their ground, though they were heavily out numbered.

“The Dear Leader is the divine creator of The Space Force. He’ll never take allegiance against us. Isn’t that right, sir?”

“Well to be fair, Mr Louis did send for me,” The Dear Leader said hinting that the Colonel should have done like wise.

“Oh, my apologies…”

“A big beautiful ship,” The Dear Leader continued in a softer voice. “very fast, very powerful, we were here, like that.”

“Dear Leader I humbly…”

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“And he’s already paid me for my time,” The Dear Lear said suddenly with a high voice in a defensive tone. “not that I need the money, I’m very rich, much like Mr Louis here, and I have to keep funds coming in for the Super PAC.”

“The Super PAC, is that a weapon?” asked Colonel Franklin.

“Yes, a weapon to fight my enemies,”

“Who are these villains, Dear Leader?”

“The left.” he said.

“Franklin looked to his left confused.

“Who, Dear Leader?” asked the Colonel.

“The left, a group of Marxist, America last, socialist, communist, anti-America, snowflake, cuckist, antifa, fascist, scum bag, mother fuckers.”

“What is a cuckist?” asked Louis.

“I think it’s some kind a flower, boss.” said Giorgio.

“I think it’s a spice for cooking meat,” said Durfor.

“Quiet,” said Franklin. “Dear Leader it would be an honor and a privilege to donate my life savings to help you fight the left. I have twenty thousand credits.”

“Twenty thousand,” said Louis with a laugh. “Mr President I can pay you ten times that. The Colonel is a poor man working a losers job, I am my own man, a business man. A successful one.”

“I was one as well,” said the Dear Leader in a gravelly tone. “I made the best deals, in the greatest city in the world, a city called New York. OK, so you know what that means? Real estate, okay, the most expensive land on Earth.”

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“Yes, I too own some of the richest planets in this system.” said Louis in a tone that grated on Franklin’s ears.”

“No,” said the Colonel shrilly. “your system is being surrendered to my authority…”

“That sounds like stealing to me.” said The Dear Leader.

“Sir…”

“Mr President.” the Dear Leader said with narrow eyes.

“...Mr President, Louis is a gangster, he runs casinos and women…”

“He sounds like my kind of business man, I ran casinos as well and women, and well nobody loves women more than me. Colonel you are just another Marxist, antifa, cuckist, trying to destroy the galactic free market with your woke agenda, and everything woke turns to shit.”

“Mr President,” Franklin said in a tight voice. “I have spent many years searching for you, serving in the Armed Forces that you created and once led. How can you take his side?”

“Look, Colonel I’m a big fan of the military, nobody is a bigger fan than me, but you’re woke. And you know what woke means, it means you’re a loser. Twenty thousand credits,” the Dear Leader said in a whiny voice with an eye roll. “come on I need a big player. Okay? I can’t do small time, can’t have that.”

Jackson could see the officer start to turn red in the face and his eyes go glassy.

“Get down.” Jackson said to his brother pulling to floor by the sleeve.

The Colonel took a blaster from his holster and fired, striking Louis just below the rib cage, he let out a cry and that was when everyone began firing. The Dear Leader made a wide eyed face as his head vanished and the quantum drive fell over, then rolled under the desk.

Osa was being kept not far away in a holding cell normally used by the casinos to hold cheaters and drunks. It was not very big, and because the Space Force was doing a raid, they left her alone in a cell with an electronic lock. They did a search and found no weapons or tools on her, they did fail to search

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one place though.

“Men,” she said with a laugh and a head shake as she removed a bobby from her hair.

She chewed off the one of the fat ends then slid it down by feel in the locks reader slot. Her father taught her this before he taught her how to tie her shoelaces. When she reached the bottom of the slot, she pushed the pin in and there was a buzz then a click. The cell door slid open, when she stepped out of the cell, the outer door to the room opened, a large chested man with dark hair and well toned arms stepped inside.

“Hey,” said the goon who was digging into his jacket for his weapon.

Before he could reach it, Osa barreled forward and gave him a punch right in his genitals. He let out a cry that was breathless and made his face turn red while he fell to the ground. As she stepped over him, he grabbed her leg, she turned and punched him right on the chin, knocking him out.

“And I’ll take that.” she said taking the blaster from inside his jacket The door was ajar, and Osa could see people running around, panicked. Somewhere outside she could also hear laser cannon fire and the whooshing from star fighters using their thrusters. She held the blaster high and went in search of her friends.

“We gotta find Osa!” Jackson shouted to his brother.

They crawled with their bodies flat to the floor as lasers fired over them in a torrent, making their way to the door that everyone had come through.

“Ow, shit somebody shot my tail.” cried Durfor who was holding it close to his body now.

They were crawling from one side, when they were suddenly face to face with Giorgio who had crawled from the opposite side. He held the blaster up at them.

“Aw come on, mother fucker, leave us alone.” said Durfor.

“Yeah, come on man this ain’t got nothing to do with us.”

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“Nothing personal, fellas, it’s just business.”

The door beside them opened and there crawling on the floor with a blaster pointed at Giorgio’s head was Osa. Giorgio scurried away and back into the firefight.

“How’d you find us?” asked Jackson after a quick kiss.

“This was the only place in the space station with people, everyone else evacuated, The Space Force is raiding all of Louis’ planets. Come on, this way.”

“Thanks for saving our tails, Osa.” said Durfor as they ran down a passage way dodging other evacuees.

“Of course. Tell me about The Dear Leader. Was his consciousness really on that drive?” Osa asked as they turned down a wider passageway with windows.

Outside Space Force fighters were dog fighting with Louis’ fighters. Louis’ fighters fired Fuchsia colored lasers while the Space Force fighters lasers were a deep red. Judging by the amount of red lasers, The Space Force fighters out numbered Louis’ by a wide margin. A few had stopped to watch the fighting while nearly everyone else ignored the battle.

“I don’t know if This Dear Leader was ever real, the guy on that drive sounds like a fuckin idiot.” said Durfor.

“So he’s definitely not an all knowing miracle worker.” said Osa.

“No, but we still had to pay him in order to bring him along.” said Jackson.

“Pay him.” said Osa sounding incredulous.

“Yeah,” said Durfor. “mother fucker charges a hundred credits an hour. He was still billing us until you got us out of there.”

“And he wouldn’t shut up on the way over here, he kept talking in circles. It’s weird because I wasn’t listening but I felt myself getting annoyed.” said Jackson.

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“Yeah for real. I know I run my fuckin mouth but this fat head dude wouldn’t stop talking about needing money to fight all these group of people I never heard of, like cuckists. who the shit are the cuckists?” asked Durfor.

“I’ve been to many planets and know many languages but I’m not familiar with the word.” said Osa.

“I bet it has something to do with mechanics, it sounds like a mechanical word.” said Jackson.

“Sounds like The Dear Leader is nothing more than a Chatbot programmed to steal money.” she said.

“That’s what I was saying when we found it,” said Durfor. “whoever made that drive programmed The Dear Leader to piss you off, probably annoyed people until he got them to donate. I wish I had thought of that.”

After a few moments, the fire fight was over. Louis and his men were dead, the Colonel had lost only three men and was unscathed. He reholstered his blaster while his men poked at the bodies to check for survivors. Franklin was brushing off his sleeves when there was excitement from one of the troopers.

“Colonel,” the soldier said holding up the quantum drive.

He took it and put it back on the desk. He pressed the button and the Dear Leader’s head appeared.

“Is it over, the fighting?” he asked in a soft voice with cautious eyes.

“Sir, the raid has begun.” said Blair who came from the transport vessel but the Colonel ignored him.

“Yes, Mr President, now I can tell you what a bastard you are to your face.”

“You can’t speak to me that way, I’m the fucking President. I am the cock and balls of nations, of galaxies.”

“You called me a loser, you son of a bitch.”

Blair rolled his eyes.

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“That was a test you jack ass.” the Dear Leader said defensively.

“A test?”

“A loyalty test, because I only hire the best people, the smartest people, people smart like me.” The Dear Leader said.

“You’re hiring me…”

“Yes. You work for me now and you will fund my Super PAC, congratulations Colonel.”

“Well that’s wonderful. Thank you Mr President. Did you hear that Blair? I’ve passed the Dear Leader’s test.”

“Which means what, Colonel?” asked Blair.

“It means he will be the sole discretionary funding master to my Super PAC.” said The Dear Leader.

“Funding master, you mean you give The Dear Leader money?” asked Blair.

“Yes, Blair don’t you see. If we raise enough money we can finally defeat the cuckists!” Franklin said in a near frantic tone.

“Yes, um well Colonel,” Blair replied gently. “perhaps we’ll worry about the cuckists later and focus on the raid.”

“Wrong!” said The Dear Leader.

“Excuse me?” Blair said to the floating head.

“To hell with the raid.” said The Dear Leader. “Colonel where are the two that brought me here? The one with the big hair and his lizard friend, I am billing them by hour.”

“Men!” Franklin shouted.

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“I saw them leaving during the fire fight, sir.” said a wounded trooper.

“I heard them talking,” said The Dear Leader in a loud voice. “they came looking for a woman named Osa. I hereby order you to capture them and to do so strongly! It’s your duty as funding manager to secure payment Colonel!”

“Everyone back onboard,” said the Colonel.

“Colonel,” said Blair. “you wish to follow the orders of...”

“Of the man who founded the Space Force? Yes Lieutenant, you should feel grateful to live to see such times.”

“Sir, are you sure this...Dear Leader isn’t just a Chatbot programmed to take a persons credits?”

“That’s just a conspiracy theory, Lieutenant. The Dear Leader is a wealthy man, he doesn’t need money.”

“But if he is so wealthy, why does he need money to build this Super PAC weapon?”

“Damn it, Lieutenant stop questioning my authority!”

“My apologies, Colonel.”

“Now, tell every pilot to kill on site!”

“No, are you fucking retarded?” asked The Dear Leader.

“Mr President, I don’t understand.”

“They can’t pay me if they’re dead. That looks bad and you can’t have that, I can’t allow that to happen.”

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“Yes, you’re right, sir. Blair, uh tell the pilots do not shoot, they are to be brought to The Dear Leader alive.”

“That will be more difficult sir, they are in a ship with a warp drive and high maneuverability. It’s an unarmed ship and it would be smarter to…”

“Did you say smart?Trust me, I’m like a smart person, I know about smart OK,” The Dear Leader said abruptly. “it’s not smart to not get the money first, it’s…”

“It’s dumb, Lieutenant.” said Franklin.

“The Colonel gets it, I don’t understand why you don’t,” The Dear Leader said with a big eye roll.

“must not be very smart.”

Blair nodded and went back to the ship to use the pilots radio to order all pilots to use tractor beams only.

“Thank you, sergeant.” Blair said, who took a few steps then stopped.

“Sergeant,”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” the young pilot said looking up earnestly at him.

“Do you happen to know what a cuckist is?”

The pilots face frowned in confusion, he nodded, then looked across to his copilot.

“Uh, I think it’s a type of infection.” said the other pilot.

“An infection?” asked Blair.

“Yes, sir, like jock itch. I think that’s what the Grey’s call it.” the pilot said.

Jackson, Durfor and Osa ran from Louis’ office and found a service elevator which had hundreds of

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buttons. Osa hit one and the car began to descend.

“We have to find another ship,” said Jackson. “the Highwind will only seat two.”

“Shit,” said Durfor. “what about an escape pod? You could fit three people easy.”

“Maybe but he probably has them hidden so he could bug out on the down low. All the mafia guys build their space stations that way.”

“Aw fuck I don’t wanna get arrested.” Durfor said with a whine.

“Come on guys,” said Osa. “we’re not through yet.”

The elevator doors opened and Osa led them down a passage way that was void of people, she was taking what seemed like random turns down hallways and stair wells. They came out of one hallway and down another and almost ran into the back of a Space Force trooper. They quickly and quietly walked back into a vacant stairwell waiting for the trooper to leave.

“Where are we going?” asked Jackson.

“To find some hidden escape pods,” said Osa.

“You know where you’re going right?” asked Durfor.

“For the most part, we’ve had to make of few detours for obvious reasons. The escape pod is just ahead, in a garage.”

When the trooper was gone, the three of them came out from the back of a dirty dark garage with a star fighter sitting on a hydraulic lift.

“Hey we’ve been here before.” said Durfor.

Just to the right was the same couch with the same elderly Grey lying on it. Judging by the position of his body he was either dead or passed out drunk.

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“Shit I think he’s dead.” said Durfor.

“Huh,” said the elderly Grey who sat up holding a blaster in one hand and a bottle of Black Hole whiskey in the other. “what the fuck. Is it the boys in blue lookin for some more?”

“Fred, is that really you?” said Osa.

“Huh,” the old alien slurred. “I know that voice.”

“It’s me, Osa.” she said coming around to kneel beside him.

“Baby girl? It is you.”

“You know this mean old bastard?” asked Durfor.

“He’s not mean.” she said giving the old Grey a hug.

“Yeah, I’m not mean, cock knocker.” he said with a laugh.

“Fred used to help my dad with his inventions. What are you doing laying here? The Space Force is gonna lock you up.”

“When the raid started, some of the troopers went snooping around here and stole all my credits, I lost my life savings, they ran away when I started shooting, now I’m gonna wait for them to come back and I’m gonna go out in hail of laser fire.”

“Fred…” Osa said with a tear rolling down her face.

“Don’t get all teary eyed, honey” the old alien said. “a few hundred years is enough for me. Here, take this key card for my escape pod.”

“Please come with us.” said Osa.

“No, baby girl. I’m too old and too drunk to fight with you about it, hurry up before more troopers

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show up. The hatch to the escape pod is that lid right there with the word septic stenciled on it.”

“Good hiding spot, Fred.” said Durfor giving him a thumbs up.

“Hey, what did I say about acting like you know me.” said Fred but he was smiling as he gave a thumbs up back.

The three of them climbed down the short hatch and entered a egg shaped interior with gray metallic walls, in front of one wall was a small steering wheel and tiny control panel, behind the pilots chair were four seats.

“I’ll take the controls.” said Jackson.

He pushed a button and the wall above the control panel receded, showing space and more escape pods flying away. Here and there star fighters flew back and forth, many were engaged in dog fights. Before the pod was released a flaming star fighter came tumbling by, missing their pod by only millimeters, they all gasped with eyes shut tight.

“OK, you guys can breath.” Jackson said when the pod detached.

“Oh, sweet fucking Christer I thought that fighter was coming right for us.” said Durfor who was doubled over from catching his breath while holding his tail tight.

“Let’s get out of here.” said Jackson.

Jackson turned back to the little wheel and control panel, biting his lower lip.

“You sure you got this, bro?” asked Durfor.

“Yeah, it’s been awhile since I flew one of these dinky machines. Ah, here it is.” he said and pressed in a command.

The pod began to move at a steady but slow speed. Jackson piloted the craft far from the star fighters, pushing it to its top speed.

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“I could run faster than this.” said Durfor.

“Your mouth, maybe.” said Jackson.

Suddenly all the lights in the pod turned red, on the control panel the words ‘tractor detected’ flashed in red while a shrill alarm rang.

“Pod 303615-91,” said a voice from the panels minuscule radio speaker. “this is Colonel Tasker Gladstone Iseminger Franklin, with the power invested to me personally by The Dear Leader, he demands a requisition payment from you, please do not resist.”

“Can you shake it off?” asked Durfor.

The craft was slowly being drawn backwards, heading for the Colonels ship.

“I’m sorry, Osa.”

“It’s not your fault, Jackson.” she said embracing him.

While they held onto each other, there was a tremendous sound like thunder rumbling, the pod lurched heavily making them fall to the ground.

“What the shit was that?” asked Durfor.

“I think it was a rouge star fighter!” said Jackson.

There was a variety of star fighters coming from underneath the patrolling Space Force fighters. A pair of pirated star fighters made a large in coming turn while firing on the Colonel’s ship, the pod lurched again then was free from the blue translucent cloud.

“We’re out.” said Jackson who got back into the pilots chair.

“Hello, hello” said a familiar voice coming from the radio. “Osa, do you read me cuz, I’m on an open line.”

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“Syd, I’m here,” she said excitedly. “what’s going on?”

“Well, I owe Louis one for killing my best mechanics and the other pirates are pissed about him making a move in neutral space, and for kidnapping you, of course.”

“Be careful, The Space Force is here too.” said Jackson.

“Those guys are idiots, they’ll think we’re all on the same side once we start picking off Lelou’s satellites, in the end me and the fellas will rob’em blind, too.”

“Thank you, Syd.” said Osa followed by Jackson and Durfor.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, where’s my ship?”

“Uh, it’s back at Lelou's,” said Durfor.

“Are you serious?”

“It should be fine though,” said Jackson. “it’s in his private garage.”

“Yeah well I’m keeping the Eagle 5 until I get it back. Now you guys better split, over and out.”

The Colonel stood on the deck holding the quantum drive in his hand,The Dear Leader’s head floated above scowling at the viewport where a tractor beam held an escape pod.

“Colonel,” said Blair with a heavy voice. “the pod is still within distance of our laser cannon, I believe it would be prudent…”

“Listen you mother fucker,” said The Dear Leader in a strange thick accent. “don’t talk to me about being prudent, nobody is more prudent than, me. OK?”

“Really, what does prudent mean, Dear Leader?” Blair said angrily.

“I know what it means, I don’t have to tell you, you’re a loser.” The Dear leader said with a smirk.

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“You don’t know do you?!” Blair said hotly.

“I know you’re a loser.” The Dear Leader said.

“Son of a…”

“Lieutenant, stand down.” the Colonel said.

“Sir,” said Blair sternly. “radar reports squads of pirates, with star fighters, coming right this way. We need to….get down!”

The Colonel turned and saw in the viewport two star fighters banking towards his ship with laser turrets blazing. The shots hit below the hull, the cannon firing the tractor beam was lost.

“Sir we’ve lost the tractor.” said one of the pilots.

“I order you to seize those ships immediately Colonel, I want those scum bags to pay!”

“Yes, Mr President. Lieutenant, order the fighters to engage on all hostile craft.”

“No, Colonel,” said The Dear Leader. “I want your fighters to focus on getting those pilots.”

“How?” said Blair with a hiss.

“Call in reinforcements.” The Dear Leader said with an eye roll.

“We’d be wiped out before they’d arrive you fucking moron!”

“You can’t talk to me that way, I’m the fucking President!”

“Strafe fire incoming!” one of the pilots said before being sucked out a hole in the viewport which suddenly appeared.

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The ships AI activated the pressure shield cutting off the hole but also their view. Before they could worry about being blind, laser fire suddenly erupted from beneath them striking the control panel and killing the other pilot. A large bell inside the control panel began to chime while a synthetic voice said

‘engine failure’ over and over.

“Colonel!” said Blair.

Franklin was laying on his back, his blue uniform was turning purple at his waist where he’d been struck by a laser. The Lieutenant knelt beside his commanding officer.

“Blair, you must…” he coughed and spat up a bloody loogie before continuing to speak. “you must…”

“Talk to your family, your son? What are your orders, Colonel?”

“….you must protect The Dear Leader.” he said taking a long breath before dying.

“You heard him, Lieutenant.” said The Dear Leader, from the pilots chair where the quantum drive sat.

Before Blair could make further comment, the ship began to canter as the sound of star fighters flying by roared in his ears. Blair took the drive and went to one of the escape pods. It was small and could only seat one, the drive sat between his legs, making him face to face with floating head of The Dear Leader.

“Why didn't we escape on a real space ship?” asked the President.

“This is a real space ship.”

“No I mean one with guns.”

“An escape pod is safer, most pirates are interested in a fair fight.”

“So you’re a pussy, that’s why we’re in this shit hole contraptions. This is a disgrace and you outta be ashamed.” the Dear Leader said.

Blair rolled his eyes and ignored the floating orange head.

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“Do your parents know what a loser you are, I mean I know the Space Force highers some of the dumbest people in the world, I know this better than anyone.”

“I guess you know smart? A rich man who needs money?”

“What a stupid question that is, I’ve been watching you, you ask a lot of stupid questions. Not thinking, that’s your problem.”

“No, Mr President, you’re my problem.” said Blair who picked up the quantum drive.

“Get your hands off me, you son of a bitch! You can’t touch me, I’m the fucking president!”

Blair pressed a button beside the picture frame sized window. On the wall a small panel with the word

‘disposal’ lit up in white. Blair pulled the knob to open its accordion door and dropped the quantum drive into the chute, he closed it and turned the knob to activate the release, shooting the drive into space, the Lieutenant watched in wide eyed wonder as the head continued to talk as it floated away, and even though sound can not travel through space, Blair would swear he could still hear The Dear Leader’s whiny voice.

The Lieutenant was risking a court martial and possibly his own freedom with this act, but he believed he was serving a greater good by getting rid of the quantum drive. The Space Force had more officers like Franklin who were just as bad as the zealots on Accusi-7. Many of them looking for The Dear Leader as well and who would want to know what happened not just to the quantum drive but their ships, and if worst came to worst he could always lay blame on Colonel Franklin, since he died and most of what had occurred was his fault anyway, it would be fairly easy to do.

Blair felt a moment of guilt. It was sharp and he grimaced with pain for a moment until he looked out the tiny viewport. The orange head of The Dear Leader was a little further away now but the Lieutenant could still see his lips moving on his chubby face. He let out a groan, his guilt now gone as he wished this pod had laser mounts so he could shoot the quantum drive.

“Does he ever shut up?” Blair asked himself.

Jackson, Osa and Durfor slowly and steadily made their way out of the Populares system into deep space. With the battle far behind them, the view was tranquil as millions of stars twinkled all around their tiny vessel.

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“This is the time to be getting high,” said Durfor. “I wish I had saved that joint.”

“You’re not worried about getting our ship back?”

“Hey I’m just glad Lelou is gone, besides I’m sure if Syd loses the Galactic Parsec he’ll let us work off the debt.”

“He is always looking for smugglers.” said Osa.

“What are you gonna do next?” Jackson asked her.

“Well I’d like to continue my fathers work at some point, it’ll be a while before I can return to Accusi-7. In the mean time I’m homeless and jobless.”

“You can have my bunk if you like, I sleep better in a pilot chair anyway and we need someone who’s good with computers.” said Jackson.

“Yeah,” said Durfor. “maybe you can figure out how to tell the AI the ship isn’t on fire….anymore I mean.”

“So does that mean I’m a smuggler, now?” she asked.

“You know it.“ said Jackson.

“Well then maybe we can share your bunk, I know you wont be rude to me seeing as smugglers are always working.” she said with a devilish smile.

“I promise not to be rude,” said Jackson who pulled Osa closer to him. “but there’s a lot of danger in smuggling.”

“Close calls?” she asked putting her arms around his neck.

“Lot’s of close calls, I need a smart woman to show me how to shoot a blaster in case there are anymore.” said Jackson giving her a deep kiss.

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“Hey you guys aren’t gonna start sniffing each others asses are ya?”