“Jimmy Eden,” Hadrian said in a calm even tone, “I meant the official Affiliation Fleet feed. Have we been hailed any time in the past day or so? Have there been any fleet-wide announcements pronouncing the Willful Child as a rogue vessel crewed by officially designated outlaws, terrorists, or revolutionaries? In short, is there now a price on our heads?”
“Oh, that. Uh, yes sir. I mean, all that. Kind of. You know.”
“No, I don’t know,” Hadrian said. “Please elaborate.”
“Well, uh. Yes sir. There have been eighty-three attempts to hail us from an admiral who says he’s from Fleet HQ, and, uh, a Radulak bounty on you and the chief engineer as ‘Escapees of the Illegal Underhanded Assassination Attempt on the Prison Planet Rude Pimente,’ with the bounty set at Ten Billion Radulira, which converts to $423.16 in Affiliation credits. Oh, and 60 Minutes has done a Special Investigative Episode exonerating you, resulting in huge riots in all the major cities in the Affiliation. Oh, look at this blinking light, sir! Another hail attempt from that admiral at Fleet HQ! But wait! Ultra Super New Price Is Right is starting after these important messages from our sponsors!”
“Acknowledge the HQ hail, Eden. On the main viewer, please.”
“The Ultra Super—”
“No, Jimmy. The admiral, please. On the main viewer. Up there. Big screen, Jimmy.”
Deeply in the deepest depths of deep space …
Captain Tiberius Alex Razorback stepped onto the bridge of the Wanton Child. Lights blinked, components hummed and clicked, lenses flared, and something beeped a slow, massively irritating pulse. He paused for a moment, scanning his bridge crew at their stations. Still seated in his command chair was his 2IC, Comely DeCliche, only her unregulation mane of wavy red hair visible from where he stood—
“Eden! Get this crap off right now!”
“Oh! Sorry sir! But it’s the premiere episode, where Tiberius gets his ship and meets his officers and—”
“Eden!”
“I can’t—I mean, I don’t—oh, here, got it. It’s Admiral Trustworthy Honest, sir. On screen now, sir!” Eden then fell over in a dead faint.
The main viewer revealed the admiral seated at his desk against a vast window beyond which the planet Terra slowly revolved amid a swarm of space junk made up of obsolete satellites, abandoned fuel tanks, plastic bottles and brightly colored candy wrappers, tinfoil, used tampon applicators and flaccid rubbers. The admiral had wavy iron-hued hair, lots of it, a square jaw, and piercing blue eyes wide-set beneath a broad forehead with fatherly lines of concern on it, not the square jaw which while wide-set too just like the eyes was actually below the eyes, with a stern but caring mouth in between, the mouth being below the nose that was between the eyes and which probably deserved mention as well though being more or less perfect and therefore nondescript that was why it wasn’t originally mentioned, but having stumbled down this rabbit hole of descriptives, well, can’t leave out the nose with all the eyes-forehead-jaw-mouth stuff going on, and the twinkle in the right eye, too, while his uniform was immaculate and his fingernails were polished and expertly (if somewhat obsessively) trimmed, the upshot being this was one of the good guys, no, honest.
Honest now smiled. “At last! Captain Sawback! I have to admit, popular as you presently are, I didn’t expect to have to record eighty-three messages before finally getting through to you.”
“Apologies, Admiral,” said Hadrian. “I’m afraid my comms officer has discovered the new Quantum Cable channels. I can only pray he hasn’t explored the shopping channels—”
“Ah, as to that, Captain, I did get a call from Galactic Express as it seems your Fleet Emergency Purchase credit card has been tagged for an excessive list of purchases through a clearinghouse called CrapStraightToYou P.O. Box 17B for the amount of eight gazillion nine hundred and twenty-seven trillion credits and change.” The admiral’s smile broadened as he leaned forward on his desk. “Of course this is hardly a military matter although the Fleet Exchequer has made a few calls to me regards the outstanding account, particularly as you were a Designated Rogue Vessel during most of those purchase date stamps, and while I only work weekends as a Bounty Hunter and Debt Collector, you do have a Quantum-Huge Red Flag trailing you at the moment.”
“Ah,” said Hadrian, “then this is not an official Fleet communication from you.”
“Oh! Yes, it might well look like that. But I forgot to add that the Highspeed Shipment Transit Routes are somewhat congested in your wake, with over twenty thousand GalaxEx supply ships pursuing you at the moment. Said congestion severely impacting Fleet operations, as you might imagine.” His smile got even broader. “Accordingly, Captain, I am in fact wearing my admiral’s hat at the moment, but if things don’t work out to my satisfaction in the course of this conversation, I’m afraid I may have to put on my Unstoppable Bounty Hunter hat, and we wouldn’t want it to go that far, would we?”
“Admiral, can I put you on hold for a few minutes?”
The man frowned, but in a sympathetic way. “Sure, why not. I can give you … three minutes.” The scene of the planet behind him flickered briefly to show the brick wall of some earthbound warehouse, before restoring itself. “Beginning … now.”
Hadrian turned to see Polaski on station at comms. Amazingly, the man actually put the admiral on hold without even a single gesture from Hadrian. Things were looking up!
Then Hadrian sighed and said, “Polaski, check the pockets of Mr. Eden, will you?”
Polaski knelt beside the unconscious form of Jimmy Eden and a moment later retrieved a platinum credit card. “Got it, Captain.”
“Thank you. Tammy, please displace that card to a thousand meters ahead of us and hit it with the Dimple Beam.”
Jocelyn Sticks swiveled in her chair. “But Captain! Unofficial destruction of a credit card is a capital offense!”
“Haha … oh, that pun was lost … never mind. But we’re not destroying it, are we, Sticks?”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh! I guess not! Wow, that’s like, genius.”
“Tammy?”
The card vanished from Polaski’s hand with a plop. A moment later the Dimple Beam flashed into space ahead of the ship.
“Done, Captain,” said Tammy. “The credit card now dwells in a timeless liminal state of the multiverse.”
“Thank you. Now, Polaski, send out a multipoints instruction on all bands. All items purchased—and cite the card number—are to be Returned to Sender for a complete refund.”
Everyone on the bridge gasped, even the unconscious Jimmy Eden.
Sin-Dour stepped close. “Captain! That could well bring down entire planetary economies! I mean, Purchase Is Life, Buying Is Bliss, to Consume Is Sacred!”
Hadrian crossed his legs. “I’m well aware of the Darwinian precepts relating to Universally Applied Capitalist Ethics of Eternal Progress No Matter the Cost, 2IC. But we’re talking the shopping channels here, aren’t we?”
“Yes sir, but—”
“Meaning those purchased items are all Klang knockoffs. Cheap, crappy, sweat-house and child-labor products from assembly plants crowded cheek-by-jowl in stinking polluted warrens generously called cities on those Manufacturing Planets of the Klang Undercut Economic Zone. Ergo, Commander, the impending economic collapse will primarily impact Klang planets, thus effecting a traumatic but entirely necessary Market Correction on a galactic scale, leading to a resurgence of Affiliation futures in all the Galactic Stock Markets.”
“Crap,” said Tammy, “Hadrian’s done it again!”
Leaning back, Hadrian waved one hand in a modest gesture, “Saving the Affiliation is all in a day’s work, Tammy. Now then, Polaski, put the admiral back on, will you?”
The main viewer shifted back to Trustworthy Honest’s weekend office.
“Admiral! I’m happy to report that the entire matter has been cleared up.”
“It has? But that’s not—” His twinkly blue eyes flicked away, presumably to some other screen. He
frowned, and then his square jaw dropped, his stern mouth popped open, his perfect nose flared, the broad brow creased with confusion, his wavy iron hair turned all limp, and sudden creases marred his immaculate uniform even as his nails dulled and splintered. “Saint Ardrey! That’s—you—there’s—what—oh, ah—holy—”
“Are we done here, Admiral?” Hadrian asked. “We’re presently responding to a distress call. You know, official Affiliation stuff, right? Fleet mission parameters, saving the day, saving countless lives, the usual but entirely essential business of the Affiliation Fleet, particularly deep-space Engage-class vessels—oh, and it looks like your fake space shot has crashed again, but that’s a pleasant enough brick wall, I suppose.”
Honest twisted round. “Ah, shit!” He faced Hadrian again. “Right. Listen. Klang Cheap-Knockoff Industrial Group Inc. has just declared bankruptcy. Plants are shutting down everywhere throughout the Klang Corporate Sector. Unions are springing up. Managers are being burned at the stake, CEOs are being skinned alive—even their superyachts designed to survive any imaginable apocalypse have been overrun and sunk in countless seas, oceans, lakes, rivers, and obnoxiously big swimming pools. Meanwhile, the Terran Stock Exchange has rebounded to record levels and confidence is going sky-high—Captain Sawback, you’ve just saved the Affiliation!”
Hadrian smiled. “Ah, but Admiral, do pass this on: I’m not done yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Consider this a promise to every corrupt meathead still in charge of whatever, I’m coming for you all.”
The admiral blanched, and then grinned. “I’ll pass that on, with a bouquet of roses! And from all of us overworked underpaid indentured plugs needing five fucking jobs just to put food on the damned table, go give ’em hell, Captain!”
“Until next time, Admiral. Hadrian out.”
The feed clicked off, replaced by—
Deeply in the deepest depths of deep space …
Captain Tiberius Alex Razorback stepped onto the bridge of the Wanton Child. Lights blinked, components hummed and clicked, lenses flared, and something beeped a slow, massively irritating pulse. He paused for a moment—
“Polaski!”
ELEVEN
* * *
ALL QUIET ON THE FLEA FRONT
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Colonel Fitzflea Flea snapped a salute with one foreleg. “Supreme Leader! In compliance with your orders, all troops are assembled and the invasion is ready to begin!”
Supreme Leader Fleahelm von Flea nodded, surveying the massed ranks from his perch on the frowning fold of the God Head’s mostly horizontal forehead. He held up a dispatch. “Highbrow Command has issued the directive to advance into the Great Mechanistic Galaxy! Once there, we shall establish beachheads on every head! We shall infiltrate the musty jungles of unwashed crotches! We shall ascend the treacherous mountains of all devious impediments and enemy defenses! We shall air-drop upon unsuspecting foreheads and eyebrows and establish strongholds in many armpits! We shall even cross the vast hairy plains of hairy backs!”
The soldiers all cheered, although at the last exhortation a few threw up.
Fleahelm von Flea held up all his hands. “Upon reducing the enemy to helpless scratching, we shall free the God Head who will take command of the Great Mechanistic Galaxy. In this glorious war we shall not fail!”
The soldiers cheered again while a few, still thinking about hairy backs, threw up again.
“Colonel Fitzflea Flea, move them out!”
The colonel faced his troops. “First Wave, launch!”
* * *
CHAPTER TWO
“Sir!” Sergeant Smith-Flea Flea threw himself against the furball. “This Great Mechanistic Galaxy is so big! We’ve not yet encountered a single warm body!”
“Not true,” Colonel Fitzflea Flea said. “Our advance scouts have spotted cats and kittens! We shall employ them as rapid-transportation devices! Within their warm furry coats we shall make rapid haste to all corners of the Great Mechanistic Galaxy, and as we all know, where there are cats and kittens, there are human bodies!”
“But sir, that was not part of the Invasion Plan!”
“All war is adaptation to circumstances, Sergeant. I have already issued the orders. All fleas shall ride cats and kittens, thus spreading our presence through the Great Mechanistic Galaxy. So take your squad, Sergeant, and find us the nearest cat or kitten, on the double-hop!”
“Yes sir!” The sergeant quickly edged away from the furball and then hopped rapidly to his waiting squad. “We must find a cat or a kitten!”
“I see one!” cried Corporal Flea O’Fleahan.
“Right! Let’s go!”
* * *
CHAPTER THREE
“Gas! Gas!” Corporal Flea O’Fleahan staggered toward Sergeant Smith-Flea Flea. “Coming from that rhinestone collar-barrier directly ahead! I’m going blind! I’m choking!”
Sergeant Smith-Flea Flea stumbled back as the invisible but deadly gas reached him. He clawed at his antennae. Before him O’Fleahan had fallen and was now twitching feebly. The sergeant stumbled in retreat, knowing it was already too late. “Someone call HQ! It was all a trap! The cats! The, gasp, kittens! A trap! I’m dying … dying, ahhh.…”
In a mere thirty-one minutes, all was quiet on the flea front.
THE END
* * *
Published by Kat Books, an imprint of Read and Scratch Publishing, a subdivision of Tom Doherty Books
If you enjoyed reading this novel be sure to check the entire line of Kat Books, including the timeless classics listed below!
Flea Tony and Cleopatra
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A Tale of Two Fleas (by Charles Flea-Dickens)
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The Fleaing (by Stephen Kingflea)
Lord of the Fleas (by William-Flea Fleading)
Want to learn more? Call Tom Doherty at 1-800 Erikson-You’re-Dead!
* * *
Hadrian stepped into the cell and regarded Betty and Molly. “Well?” he asked. “What do you two have to say for yourselves?”
Molly jerked a thumb toward Betty. “I can’t speak for him, but between the two of us I’m the one who’s sorry. It was all a dreadful mistake. But as a minion, was my advice listened to? No, of course not. I knew the entire plan was going to end in disaster.” Then he brightened. “But I’m itch-free for the first time in years!” Then he sagged. “At least until the new wave of egg-hatching.”
Betty pointed a finger at Hadrian. “One more war crime to be laid against you, Captain Hadrian Alan Sawback! Genocide! An entire civilization of sentient hive-mind fleas, wiped out! For a couple days, at least, until the new hatchings mentioned by the traitor Molly. Still! Driven back to the Stone Age! They’ll have to rebuild from, uh, scratch. Blighted by ignorance, benighted and reduced to savagery, living amid mysterious ruins they can’t hope to comprehend for, like, days. Once I’m freed, Captain, I’m going to assemble my list of accusations of all the crimes you’ve committed, and take it before the Galactic Court of Certain War Crimes We Climb All Over While Ignoring Other Ones (e.g., the European colonizing of the Americas). You’ll be charged, tried, convicted, and sent to a prison planet where you’ll mine Irridiculum Crystals for the rest of your life!”
Hadrian sighed. “Really, Betty, after all I’ve done to make life easy for you.”
“Easy! I’m too evil to spend the rest of my life in luxurious creature comforts, you all-too-handsome fool! You probably thought that jaunt to pick up take-out pizza was all innocent and everything, but it wasn’t! It was all part of my plan to find my way back to you! You see, I knew you�
�d be betrayed by your own people, offered up like a sacrificial lamb to the Radulak during the Kittymeow Accords, and then sentenced to Rude Pimente, where I was waiting—yes, waiting! Hahaha! Forcing you to arrest us and imprison us on your ship! You probably think putting flea collars on all the cats and kittens thus initiating the wholesale slaughter of my resident fleas and bringing to an end all my plans of stealing your ship was clever!”
“Actually,” said Molly, “it was. Clever, I mean. Cleverer than you could ever be, Captain Betty.”
“I’ve only begun being clever! Just you wait!”
Hadrian turned to Nina Twice. “Escort Betty back to his cell, please. And this time make sure the door between the cells is locked to both inmates.”
“Sir, I am to escort Betty back to his cell and make sure the door between the cells is locked to both inmates.”
“That’s right, Ms. Twice. Any questions?”
“No sir. No sir. Now complying.”
Once a frothing Betty was kicked back into his cell and Nina Twice departed with a couple salutes, Molly flung himself back onto the settee. “I knew you were monitoring all conversations going on here, Captain. Which is why I made certain that Betty laid out all the details of his Flea Invasion Plan. So you can see how helpful I’m being.”
“You mean as a treacherous, betraying minion, Molly?”
“Yes, well, you could see it like that. Even so, I was wondering…”
“What?”
“You know, as a reward, can I have one of those flea collars?”
* * *
“Captain!”
“What is it now, Polaski?” Hadrian asked as he arrived on the bridge and took his seat in the command chair.
“Sir! A Mayday call from our sister ship, AFS What a Coincidence!”
“Our sister ship? Never heard of it. Who’s captain?”
“That’s who’s calling, sir. The captain!”
“Right. And the captain’s name, Polaski?”
The Search for Spark Page 16
