Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1)

by J. F. Monahan

  Charlie looked inside the first canister containing the pig-like alien. It had a big bruise on its forehead from Charlie’s earlier attack. Charlie was still proud of himself for his quick reactions but hoped that Greebol wouldn’t notice his opponent’s war wounds. Charlie chose not to look at the sleeping beautiful alien. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since he had seen her. He was still reeling from the loss of his planet. He didn’t want to have the privilege of feeling anything but self pity and sorrow right now.

  Ping!

  The lid on the second canister opened. A strange gurgling noise was heard within.

  “Now,” Greebol began, “this particular fellow is a little hard to talk to. He does not really have any social skills. You know what scientists are like.”

  It was true. Charlie did know scientists. He had been in a science group at school. He liked to think of himself as a bit of a nerd – computer games, science-fiction, the internet – but apparently, considering the other pupils in the group, he was miles away from Nerdsville. In fact he couldn’t even see its boundaries. The others in the group wore thick glasses, had buck teeth, terrible clothes and all had so many allergies and ailments that it was like being in a doctors waiting room. A doctor’s waiting room for nerds. None of them spoke anything other than science techo-babble. One only ever spoke in binary. To an outsider it must have felt like being in a different country.

  And of course they were all much better than Charlie at science. In fact Charlie only lasted two weeks as he accidentally made the class hamster explode when he was supposed to be drawing a pie chart.

  The blue alien sat up and blinked. His eyes were also blue but a darker shade. His forehead creased causing the ten billion wrinkles on his face to morph into twenty. He no longer looked old. He looked ancient. Age old skin stretched over bones.

  “I appear to be on an electrical,” the old thing said, his voice frail and cracked, “Gumthar in origin.” He cocked his head to one side as though listening, although Charlie could see no ears. “Ah… it is propelled by triple-sized boot engines. Probably a D class electrical. Should have been scrapped years ago.”

  “See what I mean,” said Greebol.

  The scientist finally seemed to notice them and stared at them with confused and slightly worried eyes. “Gumthar,” he said to Greebol and then looked to Charlie, “and an unidentified pink skinned alien.”

  Charlie was slightly insulted at being called an alien.

  “I see, I see,” the scientist continued, “this is a kidnapping correct? Let me guess… you Gumthar are a bounty hunter. No doubt hired by some unintelligent being that disagrees with my brilliant theories. Is one correct?”

  Greebol shifted on his feet slightly and looked down at the floor.

  “Is one correct Gumthar sir?” the blue skinned scientist continued.

  “Possibly,” Greebol grumbled.

  “Well you have me,” the blue skinned, straggly grey haired scientist continued.

  “Yes we do,” said Greebol. “Now I need you to-”

  “What an interesting piece of equipment,” interrupted the blue skinned, straggly haired, old, oh so very old, alien as he looked down at the canister he sat in. “Crude, very much so, but interesting. Ah I see you use polarized hyper-cooling neon ice in order to make the freezing process a success. It is a surprise that you did not kill me sir!”

  “Alright shut up now professor,” Greebol growled. “I need your help.”

  “I’m afraid one does not help criminals.”

  “There is something wrong with the galaxy,” Greebol persisted. “Everything seems to have changed.”

  Instantly the blue skinned scientist’s interest perked. Something wrong with the galaxy? Now this was something that he was interested in. It was something he could sink his teeth into. Of course he was so old that he had none of his real teeth left. They had fallen out years ago. Still, he could sink his dentures into it.

  He jumped from the canister, with more grace and agility then Charlie would have expected and rushed from the room muttering equations. Greebol was about to follow when Charlie stopped him.

  “Who is he?” he asked.

  “His name is Professor Amirous Phililanous Phstophogus and he is from a species called the Lampans,” Greebol said. “They are not much to write home about, but this fellow… he is a clever old sod. Has solved some of life’s most complex questions. This has of course put him out of favour with many groups, mainly the religious types. He proved to the galaxy what really happens to you when you die…”

  “And what would that be?” Charlie asked with keen interest.

  “I cannot remember now,” Greebol said shrugging. “Something to do with sparkly pants and soft cheese.”

  “And why have you woken him?"

  “Because my friend,” said Greebol with a twinkle in his yellow eye, “he might just be able to tell us what is going on around here!”

  They stepped through the door after the scientist.

  SMACK!

  Amirous rubbed his lack of a nose. It smarted.

  “A very clever and… unique security device,” he said sniffing. “Let me guess… it works on a sensor spring basis? It would work a little better if it was on a sixteen degree angle… may I suggest that-”

  “No you cannot,” Greebol butted in, putting the security hand back into its hidden socket at the side of the main door. “Trying to leave were you professor?”

  “It is the first duty of any captured scientist… to attempt escape. Either escape or discover a new form of radiation, create a gaseous vortex from it and disintegrate his captors,” Amirous said smugly.

  Charlie looked out of the porthole and back to the professor. “You do realise we’re in the middle of space?” he said confused. “Open that door and you’ll float away… like a balloon. Or a kite. Or a hot air balloon. Actually the list is endless. And there’s no air in space so you wouldn’t be able to breath!” Charlie wondered if this professor was as clever as Greebol made out. Even Charlie knew not to open the door of a spaceship into space. And this was his first spaceship!

  “Of course I am well aware of that fact,” said Amirous, “which is why I just crafted this!” He held up a makeshift space helmet and rocket pack that, to Charlie, was as makeshift as a Lamborghini. It looked perfect. How he had crafted this helmet and rocket pack in such a short time and with what equipment he would never know.

  “Now... bounty hunter… what did you say this problem was?”

  “Well,” Greebol began but did not have to finish. Amirous was already at the porthole looking out.

  “The stars are all wrong… planets are wrong. Space is wrong!” the professor said excitedly, like a young boy with a new toy. It was strange to see such an old man acting like a child. It was somewhat disturbing.

  “Do you know why?” Greebol asked.

  “And can I get back home?” Charlie asked.

  “If you ask me, and I note that you have, this is to do with the one word that we scientists have baffled over for years.”

  “Why?” said Charlie. And he laughed.

  “Why what?” questioned the professor.

  “Why!” chuckled Charlie. Still Amirous and, Charlie now noticed, Greebol, stood with blank faces. “Erm… why? You said the one word scientists have baffled over for years… and I said why. Because why is a question that you baffle over… oh forget it!”

  “As I was saying,” Amirous continued, ignoring Charlie’s attempts at humour, “dimensions. We have never fully proved the existence of them… but I for one always believed. And this…” he pointed to the new stars, “is the proof I will need!”

  “Explain,” said Greebol.

  “I cannot. But it seems that for reasons unknown, other dimensions may have leaked into ours.”

  “Charlie here is from one of these other dimensions,” said Greebol. “I am sure of it! But he did not seem to leak into anywhere. I went there. There was this golden glow you see�
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  “Then… perhaps our dimensions have… combined in some way,” said the professor. “Collided maybe. But why? Who knows?”

  “We had hoped you,” Greebol grumbled.

  Charlie did not understand. There were too many things he did not understand. He wondered how much terribly confusing information the Human brain could store before it turned into a quivering mass of jelly. He wondered if that is what jelly really was? The remains of melted brain, served with custard and eaten at childrens’ parties. You could say it was brain food.

  “Will I be able to get home?” Charlie asked. He hated jelly.

  Greebol explained to the scientist that Charlie’s world had vanished when the electrical had passed through the golden glow for the second time and that it no longer showed up on any sensors.

  “This golden glow you speak of must be what has caused these dimensions to collide,” said Amirous, more to himself than anyone else. “Charlie is it? Charlie… I do not know if you can return home. I do not know if this new dimension that has been created with mixed up parts of other dimensions will last. Only time will tell.”

  The three stood in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Charlie thought of Earth and began to seriously consider the fact that he may never go back there again. Ever. Professor Amirous thought of dimensions and if his theory could be true. Greebol thought of the money he was going to collect when he handed Amirous to the people who had hired him.

  With his large, sickening smile, Greebol hit the professor over the back of the head who dropped to the floor unconscious.

  Charlie didn’t even need to question the Gumthar’s motives. It seemed Greebol already knew what he was about to say.

  “He is this week’s wages,” the grey skinned, yellow eyed one said, “I still have a job to do, new dimension or no new dimension.”

  Charlie sat on the floor and hugged his knees. “Where to now then?” he asked.

  “Professor Amirous has defrosted. Putting him back into stasis is terribly unpredictable now,” said Greebol. Charlie’s heart beat quicker. Not so long ago he had accidentally defrosted the other two and then frosted them again. What did Greebol mean by terribly unpredictable?

  “We head towards Baggus’Regious,” continued Greebol, “the best planet in the galaxy!”

  “And what is there?”

  “Not what… but who! The people who hired me to kidnap the scientist live there. We shall take Amirous to them!”

  “And what of this collision of dimensions? What of getting me back home?”

  “You heard the professor,” said Greebol, “only time will tell now! Besides… if what he says is correct and we are living in a new dimension full of new species… life is going to get a lot more interesting!”

  ‘More interesting than this?’ thought Charlie. His brain really was going to turn to jelly. He didn’t know how much more he could cope with.

  A Human being was not meant to have any more excitement than a hot cup of cocoa and watching the deterioration of someone else's family in a depressingly entertaining soap opera. This, that Charlie Pinwright the most uninteresting of all the Human beings, was doing was just plain insanity.

  Charlie Pinwright wanted to curl up and die. But he expected that Greebol would even have a little gadget to stop that from happening as well. He just had to face it. For now at least, uninteresting Charlie Pinwright, was an apprentice bounty hunter.

  Chapter 13

  Dimensions had collided. That is the truth. Why they had done this was still a mystery. Like the mystery of Earth’s Bermuda Triangle, Leyton 3’s upside down atmosphere or whatever happened to that man who put chocolate on raisins.

  However, for those now existing in this new dimension, created by the collision of multiple ones, life seemed normal. Yet different. They knew that something was wrong, only not what it was. It was a similar feeling to when you have been lying on your arm for too long and it is completely dead. For a moment it doesn’t actually feel like your arm, more like a deceased limb had been attached to you. It is in that moment, when you can feel that something is wrong but not sure what, that these people were feeling right now. Except of course for Charlie, Greebol and Professor Amirous who were just beginning to figure out what was happening. Well, not Professor Amirous. He was currently fast asleep once again, blissfully ignorant of the strange events unfolding around him. He dreamt of puppies and kittens and highly electrified, radioactive and ultimately dangerous experiments involving those puppies and kittens.

  Other than people inside Greebol’s electrical, a slight confusion filled the air. Something was wrong yet everything felt the same. Something was different yet no differences could be noticed. Therefore, for now at least, life continued as normal. Except for on a large, dirty vessel, floating in orbit of a small planet, waiting for a cube-shaped ship to dock with it.

  Chapter 14

  “Open the main hanger doors.”

  Slowly the large doors began to swing outwards, creaking and crunching as they moved. Their opening ended with a large bang that sent vibrations throughout the ship.

  “Now… bring it in. Carefully now.”

  A large grappling hook was fired from the ship, the hook hurtled past the large door and through space towards the small cube-shaped ship. The hook hit the ship with tremendous force, attaching itself it its hull, almost splitting it in two.

  The Dwarf, stockier than most, who had been speaking, slapped the firer of that grappling hook across the head and bellowed, “Careful I said you useless pile of dung! Careful!”

  “I was being careful!” replied the other Dwarf.

  The first clenched his fists, raised his axe and ran at him, shouting curses as he went. The grappling hook Dwarf almost squealed and sped off in the opposite direction.

  “Amateur,” guffawed the first Dwarf as he grasped the rope that the hook was attached to. “Let a professional show you how it’s done. Let Lord Shagbag show you how it’s done!”

  Lord Shagbag gripped the rope tight and began to pull it hard, slowly dragging the cube-shaped ship towards him until it had passed through the large doors and settled comfortably on the ground.

  Lord Shagbag slapped his red hands together and blew on them. “That was a grip of champions!” he growled happily to himself.

  Shagbag was a typical Dwarf, short, large framed, long haired, bearded man with a large bulbous nose and equally large ears. His attire, although similar to most Dwarfs, was grander in design. He wore a thick, fur overcoat made of some sort of dead beast he had slain with his own hands and chunky golden jewellery around his neck and fingers. He was lord of the Dwarves, the honour passed down from generations of lords. His great grandfather had built the seven pillars of Dwarf on their home planet. His grandfather had dug out the pits of Lava with his own hands. True, his father had been a lazy slob who ate pies and drank beer all day, but one useless generation amongst at least a hundred brilliant generations was not too bad.

  Lord Shagbag thought of himself as from one of the brilliant generations. He just hadn’t had the opportunity to show it yet. Until now.

  He was to be the lord of the Dwarves that finally managed to beat their most bitter rivals in the greatest of championships.

  The hatch of the cube-shaped ship opened outwards and a number of small, rickety, steps folded down to the ground. Another Dwarf exited the ship. He stomped his large, leather boots down the steps, burping and rubbing his braided beard. He flung his axe over his shoulder and stared around the room.

  He was met with a hundred pairs of eyes, similar to his own, staring back. Small, dark eyes, shadowed by large, lumpy foreheads. A hundred bearded faces, with large pock covered noses and great round ears. Every Dwarf in the room was around the same size and build, except for a few who were slightly rounder. They all stared patiently, excitedly waiting for something to happen.

  “It is I, Giblet, son of Goblet,” the Dwarf shouted in his deep, rich voice, “the champion of all champions.”
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  Slowly he raised his hand into the air and opened his fingers. A purple glow shone from his palm, lighting the faces of the onlookers. They gasped in unison sounding like a steam train slowly beginning to move.

  “Behold,” Giblet continued, “the Crystal of Mount Orc! Yes… I climbed that monstrosity and yes… I defeated every Orc who stood in my way! Victory to the Dwarves!”

  As one, the hoard of Dwarves erupted into cheers of jubilation. Shouts of ‘Way to go Giblet’, ‘Get in there my son’, and ‘The Orcs ain’t singing anymore’ spread through the room like wildfire. Just without the flames. And the burning.

  Giblet jumped down into the praising crowd and frowned. He was at least a foot shorter than the rest of the Dwarves around him. A problem he had had to cope with his entire life but had never actually been able to.

  Before he knew it, he had been joisted up onto a number of shoulders and was paraded around the room like a trophy. Giblet raised the crystal high above his head (at least as high as his stumpy arms could reach) and wailed in victory.

  At once the beer barrels were cracked open and the goblets filled. Great songs about victory and glory of battles rang throughout the ship. ‘The Tale of Gimpo and the Seven Headed Beaver’ was one of the favourites. As was ‘Gretchan Defeats the Itchy Crack’.

  “Congratulations Giblet,” Lord Shagbag praised, slapping the smaller Dwarf on the back, forcing him to splutter into his beer.

  “Thank you sir,” Giblet responded, his moustache covered in foam. He licked it quickly and was pleased to find a lump of chicken still there from dinner. He gobbled it up.

  “You have done us proud,” Lord Shagbag continued, staring at the food in Giblet’s beard. Most would believe that he eyed it in disgust, but in reality he was jealous. He wished he could find a tasty treat lodged in his own beard but he had already eaten the slither of pork, string of fat and slab of beef that he found in there earlier that day.

  “Another point for our kind,” he continued, “but first we must discover the authenticity of that crystal you hold me lad! Bring in the Wizard!”