by Wayne Hill
“The entire space fleet needs your service, Splinter Salem. Many of us have fallen foul of this ... this virus. We have been instructed by the Believers’ court to offer Tommy Salem a full and unconditional pardon for all his piratical deeds, and the chance of a new life with your very own dome on the moon of Ganymede. Here you will be able to spend whatever life you have left in the lap of total luxury.”
A holographic portrayal of the dome is now shown in full. There are oohs, ahs, and laughs from Splinter’s gang as the guided tour of the facility proceeds.
“The United Space Association in conjunction with the Believers’ court demands information about this virus. The virus that you have lived with, and managed, for many years without Association medical assistance. In this virus, we — of the United Space Association and Believers’ court — face our biggest challenge. Drastic steps are required. It is, with that in mind, and with great sadness, that I must inform Captain John Joseph Levy, and his formidable crew of the Golden Falcon, that they will be joining the population of prison planet Earth. The Golden Falcon will now be contaminated with virus and so too will every single member of the vessel. We cannot risk the spread of this illness to other people —”
“What the fuck!” booms Titan. The other members of the extraction team echo his disgust (except those with ball-gags, who just make indecipherable noises). Captain Levy sits silent, staring blankly at the hologram as the Commander carries on his speech.
“It would appear that the Golden Falcon’s last mission will be to self-destruct once the approved elimination of prison planet Earth has been finalised.
“I know that this is hard for you all to understand, and it’s challenging for myself as Commander to issue such orders, but we all know that the spread of this contagion needs to be stopped. Tough decisions must be made for humanity, for the greater good of —”
BOOM! The hologram vanishes.
“For the greater good,” Splinter mutters cynically, his arm-cannon smoking.
(Splinter had blown the 3D projection unit through the wall. Toad, sitting behind it in a semi-conscious daze, was blown backwards off his high stool. He escaped unscathed but his bad back had been inflamed. The metal projection unit could just be seen protruding from a wall, smoking. It had penetrated the plank wall and embedded itself in Jonesy’s bedroom cupboard, sharing space with some rather peculiar items: a tub of assorted human teeth, a jar of fungus, a bullwhip with razor blades attached to the end, and several mummified rats with Wild West clothing stitched onto them.)
“You filthy bastards!” shouts Splinter rushing over and grabbing Captain Levy by the throat. Violently torn free from his bonds, Levy is at the mercy of Splinter. Splinter shakes him viciously, black veins writhing on his face — swirling, dark cobras.
“How are you going to cull me!” screams Splinter.
“This ... wasn’t ... my ...Idea!” Levy shouts back, between shakes.
“The only fucking animals getting culled are you fuckers!” yells Splinter, ignoring the Captain’s protests. “You, you rat-bastard! You and your fuck-nut, space-pig associates! Floating around, up there in space, trying to take big, leg-trembling dumps all over us!”
Levy is trying to catch his breath as the violent rattling jars his neck and sends invisible lightning bolts of pain up to his already badly damaged head. “Wait!” he wheezes.
Splinter ignores his pleas and punches Levy into unconsciousness.
Standing on a cinema chair, Splinter addresses his pirates.
“Grab the rest of these sober scumbags and get to the shuttle. We have our orders, and we don’t want to disappoint that miserable rabble, do we? Floating around our planet thinking they can steal yours truly and leave all of you washed up, dying in the deep darkness? We have a pub to save, men. Grab the booze and the weapons ... grab the salted snacks ... my Wurlitzer ... and follow me!”
The entire auditorium erupts with pirate roars and smashing glass.
From the back of the room two very odd-looking space pirates were using each other to lean on. They were easily the shortest pirates in the room, known to all in the Lanes as Lemon and Pug.
Lemon always insisted he was called Lemon because he was bitter and hard to take, but Splinter opined differently, ‘Your face is all scrunched up, like a disgusting arsehole!’ (Of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that Lemon’s last name was really Lemoninski. Everyone knows that nicknames do not work that way.)
Pug attributes his nickname to his father who first ‘called me Pug, coz when I came out my ma, my pa said I looked like a cute little Pug dog!’ It is noteworthy to add that Splinter’s description of Pug is often: ‘He’s a filthy space-rat of a man, with the manners of a dog, who loves nothing more than licking Lemon’s arse!’ (It is equally informative to note that Pug’s last name is Puginski.)
“I can’t remember which one to do first,” says Lemon, his face seeming to scrunch up even tighter as he takes a long swig from a half-empty bottle of tequila.
“It’s okay, Lemzy,” says Pug, his strong brogue indecipherable to most. “We’ll just hang back, wait for one of the others to start moving and then work it all out later. You know what I mean?”
“I think that’s what we always do, isn’t it” laughs Lemon.
“I can’t remember,” chuckles Pug. “I can remember fuck all after our crash, to be honest. I don’t know anything. Fuck ‘em, Lemzy! Fuck ‘em, all! We’ll do our own thing and, if things get tough, I’ll just use you as a human shield and scarper!”
“That sounds like my plan, that does,” says Lemon smiling. “First to the escape pods is a Bucky-bitch! I’ll probably just trip you up. You’ll not be going anywhere, anyway, you’re always too drunk!”
“I think everyone is heading to the armoury. That’s where you belong, that is!”
“Let me guess,” says Lemon with a sigh, “because I’m a weapon.”
“Yes!” shouts Pug with evident glee. “You are! You are a weapon!”
“You tell the same joke every fucking time we have to go to the armoury. Every. Fucking Time.”
“Because it’s funny!” says Pug. “Because weapons like you need friends and all the other weapons are down with Keanu Reeves.”
“Is he still there?” asks Lemon, as the pair follow their colleagues out of the pub’s back door, “I thought someone would of nicked Keanu by now!”
THE ARMOURY IS IN THE well-populated cemetery at the rear of O’Shea’s. It lies beneath a gravestone that has an unusual inscription. Deeply engraved in the polished, granite headstone is the title MATRIX SHIT! Instead of a grave, topped with coloured pebbles or soil, there is a horizontal front door with its doorknob pointing skywards. On the inner side of this door, observed when the door swings open, is a life-sized, faded cardboard cut-out of Neo, a character from the ancient pre-Dagon film The Matrix. Under the Neo door, stairs lead deep under the ground. Metal stanchions, wooden boards, and sheets of corrugated steel hold back hundreds of tons of soil, and the bones of the recently deceased.
Bioluminescent alcoves of green light this devil’s basement, casting a green and white hue to everything. The murky mist of thick green light added a dangerous atmosphere, somewhere amidst this damp and murky light exists a huge stockpile of elaborate weapons, all created by Splinter Salem.
Wooden racks line the walls of this huge underground cavern and form long lines between them. Each weapon has its own place in the wooden racking. There are plaques below each weapon, naming each one using Splinter’s cryptic, clue-based system.
Unfortunately, being nearly blind drunk when both inventing and labelling the weapons, they are as much a mystery to Splinter as they are to his men.
If questioned as to what an individual item did, Splinter would always reply with the same answer, or variations thereon: ‘The labels were etched by an incredibly inebriated scribe. If you want to know what the damn thing does then find someone you don’t like ... and fucking shoot them!’
&nbs
p; These elaborate and highly eccentric-looking devices all do extremely odd things. For example, one of the weapons — which resembles a stuffed beaver — explodes all the teeth in the victim’s head. Another weapon re-opens every wound you have ever received in your life. A small metal plate below another bizarre-looking gun reads, ‘Boom! — everything’s gone, but the fillings!’ Next to this, another bizarre weapon is labelled, ‘Zap! Zap! Melty ball-sack!’ The following weapon has a hard to read sign, even by Splinter Salem’s peculiar standards. The sign was not the usual metal plaque, but a cigarette packet stuck to the wall with old peanut butter. If you hold a light close to this label, and strain your eyes hard, it is just possible to make out a scrawl saying, ‘electric fucker elbows on ice.’ It suggested an electric effect, but the sign was unclear as to whether the ‘elbows on ice’ part was another effect of the weapon or an instruction to the user. This was very much indicative of the labelling problem now facing Splinter and his crew.
Seemingly unperturbed by the confusion, Splinter asks his men to grab his Space Marine Suit (labelled ‘Dapper dapper’), his spinning shield, missiles and all the Battle Raider equipment (labelled ‘Shiney shine, wartime x7’) and wait for him at Levy’s shuttle.
Splinter’s Battle Raider equipment consists of one large circular disk that has many holes on it to affix attachments for his arm-cannon. It is attached to a revolving magnetised plate, that he straps to the middle of his back, which that allows him to choose a weapon adapter.
Splinter’s Space Marine suit has yet to be seen by many. It is infamously impressive in appearance. The suit is made up of rare minerals and metals from distant planets that allow the wearer to be impervious to most forms of attack. The outfit sports two Gatling-gun-style lasers on the shoulders. Lethal in combat, they can obliterate anything in sight. He has magnetised the boots of the suit for exploring the exterior of ships. The boots are encrusted with black and white pearls which form skull motifs on the sides.
His men moving materiel, Splinter visits the grave of his true love, Marie-Ann O’Shea.
He kisses the willow tree; whose questing roots had no doubt replaced his own loving embrace. And in that quiet, solemn place, he sings to her the chorus of the old Irish song that she loved:
“So, I’m stretched on your grave,
And I’ll lie here forever.
If your hands were in mine,
I’d be sure they would not sever.
My apple tree, my brightness,
It’s time we were together.
For I smell of the earth,
And I’m worn by the weather.”
He stands unsteadily. Tears trickle from his eyes and he collects them in his silver hip flask, delicately engraved with Marie-Ann’s striking face.
“I won’t let them win, my love,” Splinter says, swaying. “I can’t. No one is taking you away from me ever again.”
Fuelled by an intoxicating mixture of rage and sorrow, his emotions were legion. His swollen, drunkenly abused heart bursts with feelings that he can never utterly understand.
But one thing Splinter does know: he cannot let the Association win.
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