Max Rage: Intergalactic Badass!

by Jake Bible

  “Hello, Rage,” Mike said. “Going somewhere?”

  “Yeah,” Rage said and punched Mike in the face. He pulled Neela into the corridor and shut the port doors. “Away from that.”

  The energy shield dropped and the Hourglass lifted off from the landing pad. Petunia’s husk and the remains of Fig and Watchdog floated off into open space as the ship turned, gunned its engines, and rocketed away from Horloc Station.

  Rage grumbled then shrugged and turned to a bleeding, pissed-off Mike who was holding his demolished nose.

  “So, that was our ride,” Rage said. “You guys know of any ships heading back to Earth? I could really use a break right now.”

  A dozen rifles were jammed in Rage’s face.

  “Fine. I’ll take a ship heading to Jupiter or even Pluto, if I have to,” Rage said. “I can hitchhike from there.”

  “Kill them,” Mike said.

  Before triggers could be squeezed, all sound was sucked from reality as a massive explosion tore through the station.

  Rage and Neela were thrown halfway down the corridor as flames ripped up through the deck and cooked the guards to death. Mike screamed something about his vacation days before he was roasted alive.

  “Huh,” Rage said as he tried to stand, but the station was shaking so hard that it was easier to scoot on his ass to check Neela. “Watchdog was a little off on his timing of that proton cannon. Wish he wasn’t dead so I could give him shit about it.”

  Thirty-Five

  Rage clutched Neela to his side as he studied a schematic of the station’s layout that was stuck on a wall behind a plate of plastic.

  “Okay, we are here,” Rage said and tapped where a red arrow was pointing on the schematic. “And we need to go here.”

  Parts of the schematic became scorched nothing as the image of the map automatically adjusted and rearranged itself due to the ongoing destruction of the station.

  “Can’t go that way. Can’t go that way. Hmmm,” Rage muttered. “Hey, Neela? You can hold your breath right? For like a really long time?”

  “What? Why?” Neela asked in a weak voice.

  “Well, I have a feeling there are some ships here we might be able to snag,” Rage said as he tapped a non-burning part of the schematic that was opposite the bulkhead they stood next to. “Just down this corridor here. But there’s this warning flashing about hull breach and lack of atmosphere. I mean, I can hold my breath a long time because I’m built to survive, but I wasn’t sure about you.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Neela said.

  “Oh, right, yeah, of course you can hold your breath,” Rage said. “Shapeshifter. Got it. So, what do you think? Head that way?”

  “Do we have a choice?’ Neela replied.

  “Not that I can see.”

  “Then, yes, Rage, we head that way.”

  “Great. Hold tight.”

  Rage slammed his fist against the bulkhead controls and waited. No dice.

  “Damnit,” Rage said and set Neela down. “Gotta do this the hard way.”

  Rage reared an arm back and punched the bulkhead. He made a small dent. He punched it again and the dent grew larger. Then he punched it again, and again, and again.

  “Huh. This may take a while,” Rage said as the station shook from the many explosions that were ravaging it. “Hopefully, we have time.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Rage tore open the bulkhead. He was instantly sucked through the hole and nearly flung off the station as atmosphere raced around him.

  “Shit!” he yelled, his words lost in the roar of air. He grabbed onto a broken strut, preventing his ejection out into open space.

  Neela was sucked through the bulkhead hole too and Rage grabbed her with his free hand as she almost shot past him. He pulled her back inside the corridor then clutched her tight. He put his mouth to her ear.

  “Can you stretch and grab that cable over there?” Rage shouted.

  “The comms still work, dumbass!” Neela yelled back. “Stop shouting in my ear!”

  “Whatever! Can you grab the cable or not?”

  “Yes!”

  Neela stretched an arm and grabbed ahold of a dangling cable. She pulled as Rage let go of the strut. The two of them flew at the cable as Neela shortened her arm. Then Rage grabbed on and secured them to the cable.

  “Do that four more times and we’re good!” Rage yelled.

  “I hate you!” Neela yelled back.

  “I’d say join the club, but there’s a long line to get in!” Rage shouted. “That’s bouncer humor!”

  “Shut up!”

  Neela shot her arm out again and snagged the next closest cable. Then the next one and the next one. On the two of them went until they reached the corridor’s other bulkhead. Then the atmosphere ran out and the corridor was completely silent.

  Rage scrambled to tear open the bulkhead controls. He yanked a bunch of wires, but the bulkhead remained closed. So, he started punching as Neela held them in place.

  By the time he made a hole big enough for them to squeeze through, most of Rage’s body had turned blue from lack of oxygen. Neela shoved his face against the atmosphere that was rushing out of the bulkhead at them. It took a couple minutes, but Rage’s color returned enough that he nodded and crawled through. He pulled Neela with.

  Neela spread out and covered the hole in the bulkhead, anchoring herself to tie downs set into the corridor’s walls.

  “Get us a ship,” Neela said as she strained against the suck of open space.

  “Hold up,” Rage said.

  “Rage!” Neela yelled. “I can’t stay this way forever! I’m dead tired after hauling a fucking fat goddess all over this station as a forklift!”

  “I know! I know!” Rage said and slammed his fists through the corridor’s wall. He tore a large chunk out and waddled his way over to Neela. “How about you shut up and move!”

  Neela flipped herself to the side as Rage let go of the piece of wall. The vacuum sucked it against the bulkhead and sealed off the corridor.

  “There. Happy?” Rage asked.

  “Yes,” Neela said. She got to her feet and pointed at the bay window that looked in on a landing pad. “Shit! Only one ship left!”

  Rage turned and growled as he saw a single ship firing up engines, getting ready to lift off.

  “Come on!” he shouted and pulled Neela after him as he kicked the landing pad’s door controls and squeezed through before they were barely open.

  Rage raced them both over to the ship and slammed a fist against the hull. There was the whine of the engines powering to a lower level then a side hatch opened and a woman’s face peered out.

  “Damnit,” Tatti said. “I can’t get rid of you.”

  “Let us in,” Rage said.

  Tatti growled.

  “Tatti. Let us in,” Rage said.

  “Fine.” The hatch opened wider and a set of stairs appeared. “Climb aboard.”

  Rage helped Neela up into the ship. The hatch closed behind him and he looked about. It was a tight space with only a cockpit with four chairs. Rage set Neela in one then strapped into another.

  “What are you waiting for?” Rage snapped. “Get us the fuck off this station!”

  Tatti swore up and down as she sat in the pilot’s seat and grabbed the controls. She lifted the ship off and raced away from the landing pad only seconds before that side of the station collapsed then broke apart into a million pieces.

  “Yours?” Rage asked as he studied the cockpit.

  “What? No,” Tatti said. “Only ship left so I took it.”

  “Good thinking,” Rage said.

  The space ahead of the ship was filled with fleeing vessels. Rage was about to relax when his eyes spotted a very specific ship.

  “That one,” Rage said and pointed. “Follow that ship.”

  “No,” Tatti said. “I need to get to the rendezvous point and meet up with my—”

  “That’s Lisha Peem’s ship,” Rage said.

/>   “On it,” Tatti said without argument.

  She banked the little ship and took off in the direction of the Hourglass. She had to zoom and zip around the other vessels that filled the area, but the space was so crowded that the Hourglass couldn’t get very far, very fast. Tatti had them behind it in only a few minutes.

  “This ship have any weapons?” Rage asked.

  Tatti checked. “Nope.”

  “Feel like ramming the Hourglass?”

  Tatti looked back over her shoulder and blinked.

  “Yeah. Bad idea,” Rage said. “Can you hail her?”

  Tatti typed at the console and half the screen was taken up by a bored-looking Lisha.

  “Max? You made it off the station,” Lisha said. “Good for you.”

  “Gonna board you now and rip your head off, Lisha,” Rage said. “Just thought you should know.”

  “Oh, Max, that is never going to happen,” Lisha said, the condescension in her voice so thick that Rage almost thought the vid connection had gone bad.

  “Yeah, well, you better get good at hiding, because I’m going to make it my job to hunt you across this galaxy,” Rage said.

  “Max, you are a gnat to me,” Lisha responded. “An annoying little gnat that I can swat away like this.” She snapped her fingers. “Kill yourself.”

  Rage frowned. ‘Uh…what?”

  “Kill yourself!” Lisha shouted. She waited then looked confused. “Why aren’t you killing yourself?”

  “Because that would be stupid,” Rage replied. “Why would I kill myself?”

  “Infected you with mind control protozoa,” Lisha said. “When we had sex. You should do what I tell you to do!”

  “When we had…” Rage started laughing. “Lady, Earth Corp inoculations kill anything and everything. And if those shots I got years ago can’t, then my body will. You’re an idiot.”

  “Am I?” Lisha snarled as she snapped her fingers again.

  Ten very large plasma cannons extended from the sides of the Hourglass and took aim at the little ship.

  “I am sorry you have to die. I truly am,” Lisha said. “You are an amazing specimen. I think with practice you could become an excellent lover too.”

  “With practice?” Rage snarled. “What does that mean? I’m top notch, lady. Top fucking notch.”

  “You keep telling yourself that, Max,” Lisha said. “In the last few seconds you have left to live.”

  Rage was going to respond, but movement behind Lisha caught his attention and he closed his mouth.

  “Nothing more to say? No macho comebacks or studly posing?” Lisha laughed. “So sad how the mighty fall when faced with certain death.”

  “Uh, Lisha? You got a little something behind you,” Rage said with a smirk.

  “What?” Lisha asked then looked over her shoulder.

  Cook stood there with two meat cleavers raised.

  “For Watchdog! For robot independence!” Cook roared. “Viva la revolucion, bitch!”

  Then he brought those meat cleavers down in a blur of motion. The vid became nothing but a stream of blood as Lisha screamed until there was nothing left of her.

  “See! I knew something was off on that ship,” Rage said. “I was right. It was the bots. Totally the bots.”

  Everyone stared at the bloody screen for a minute. Tatti almost shut it off, but stopped when the blood began to be washed away.

  “What is that?” Tatti asked.

  “Her pet Askerdon,” Rage said as the giggling yellow beach ball peed all over the vid. “Yeah, you can shut that off now. I think we’ve seen enough.”

  Thirty-Six

  Rage downed the glass of whiskey, set the empty on the bar, and tapped the rim. Mascholine refilled the glass almost to the top and set the bottle aside as she leaned her arms on the bar and smiled at Rage.

  “So…that’s it?” she asked. “What about Neela? Or Tatti? She didn’t fly you all the way back to Earth, did she?”

  Rage sipped the whiskey and shook his head.

  “Nope,” he said as he set the glass down. “Tatti dropped me off at the closest Earth Corp-controlled station. I spent a few nights in jail, but then I was able to get ahold of Detective Labous. I told him everything and he convinced Earth Corp to let me go. I managed to bribe my way onto a ship and they dropped me home.”

  “Bribe your way?” Mascholine asked, a sly grin on her face. “How’d you manage that, Rage?”

  Rage pointed both thumbs at his chest. “Oh, you know how hard I am to resist.”

  “I certainly do know how hard you are,” Mascholine replied. She leaned all the way across the bar and kissed Rage. “Glad to have you back.”

  “Gross!” Junior yelled from his booth.

  “Shut up, Junior!” Mascholine shouted. “Go empty the grease traps!”

  “What? No way!” Junior whined. “Make the bouncer do it now that he’s back!”

  “Oh, shut your pie hole, Junior,” Rage said. “I’m gonna be too busy doing your mom to empty some nasty grease traps.” He smiled at Mascholine. “Right?”

  “If you’re not too tired from bribing your way home,” Mascholine said.

  “Baby, I’m never that tired,” Rage said. He hopped off the stool and frowned. “But I do need a shower. I am rank.”

  “Best get on that,” Mascholine said.

  “I will,” Rage replied and walked off toward the stairs. “Gimme a couple minutes.”

  Mascholine gave Rage three minutes before she followed him up and jumped in the shower with him. They broke a few tiles in the wall as they went at it. Then they tore a couple towels apart as they got out and tried to dry off while still going at it. Then they broke the bed as Rage threw both of them on top while still going at it.

  By the time Mascholine and Rage were finished, Rage’s little apartment was trashed. There wasn’t a piece of furniture left intact. Even the fridge was missing its door.

  Rage stood up and walked to the open fridge. He grabbed two beers.

  “Still cold,” he said and tossed a beer to Mascholine.

  She caught it and twisted the cap off between her breasts.

  Rage laughed. Hard. “When did you learn to do that?”

  “Oh, some strippers came through last week and asked to do a show once a week,” Mascholine said. “I told them to fuck off until one showed me that trick.”

  “Strippers? Ugh,” Rage said. He downed half his beer and belched as he stood naked with one hand on a hip. “I can go the rest of my life without seeing another stripper again.”

  “Well, too fucking bad, Rage,” Mascholine said as she stood up and started kicking debris out of the way to find her clothes. “Gonna be every Thursday from now until New Years. So deal.”

  Rage shrugged, finished his beer, grabbed another then looked back at Mascholine.

  “You want one more?” he asked.

  “Nope. Got accounting to do,” Mascholine said as she found her underwear and shimmied into it. She found her shirt and pants and put those on the frowned at the mess. “If you find my bra, let me know. It’s the purple one. I like the clasps and don’t want to lose it.”

  “Find bra, give to Mascholine,” Rage said and tapped his temple. “Will do, boss.”

  Mascholine pressed up against him and kissed Rage hard.

  “Nice to have you back,” she said then patted him on the cheek. “Your shift starts in two hours, so be ready.”

  “My shift?” Rage asked. “I just got back.”

  “You want to keep your job or not?” Mascholine replied.

  “Yes, boss,” Rage said and swatted her on the ass hard as she walked away. She gave him the finger as she left. “Thanks for the welcome back!”

  “My pleasure!” Mascholine called from the hall. “No, really, that was my pleasure! Try not to get too tired! Gonna be round two after closing tonight!”

  Rage sighed. “Damn… Round two?”

  He finished his beer and got to work cleaning up.

 
Two hours later, Rage was outside Crater Ray’s, checking IDs, taking cover charges, and chasing off douchebags that just didn’t belong.

  “Rage!” Grup called out as he scurried across Highway 25, dodging this way and that to avoid getting killed by low-flying hover cars. “You’re back!”

  “Grup,” Rage said and nodded. “Get lost.”

  “Ah, come on, Rage,” Grup said. “I have the credits for the cover tonight. Let me in, man.”

  Rage stopped checking IDs and stared at the alien. He looked him up and down then nodded.

  “Fine. But you have to go to the back of the line,” Rage said.

  “No problem!” Grup exclaimed and rushed off to stand at the back of the line.

  Thirty minutes later, Grup was in front of Rage once more.

  “I said back of the line,” Rage said.

  “I did, man,” Grup replied.

  Rage pointed at the line behind Grup.

  “That’s the back.”

  Grup started to argue, but shut his mouth and moved off to the end of the line that was formed behind him.

  Thirty minutes later, Grup was before Rage once again.

  “Back of the line, Grup,” Rage said.

  The alien didn’t even argue. He turned to walk away and Rage grabbed his stick-thin shoulder.

  “Just fucking with you,” Rage said. “You can go on in.”

  Grup stared up at Rage and blinked back tears.

  “Jesus Christ,” Rage said. “I’m going to change my mind if you start crying.”

  Grup hugged Rage with all his arms then let go fast and hurried into the bar.

  “That was sweet,” a man said as he stepped up for his ID to be scanned.

  Rage punched him in the face, sending the guy flying back about twenty yards.

  “Next!” Rage bellowed.

  The night dragged on and Rage finally got a chance to get inside and sit down. No one started anything. There were no fights to break up and the night became early morning before Rage knew it. He swiveled on his stool to face the almost empty bar.

  Then he saw Detectives Nast and Zell. They were sitting at the booth next to Junior’s. Rage sighed hard, got off his stool and crossed the bar to the detectives. He sat down without being asked then took Nast or Zell’s drink and finished it off. He still couldn’t tell them apart.