CHAPTER 21
Bureaucracy
When you go about pompously and recklessly unleashing viciously contained zoo animals on the most populated and famous tourist destination in five trillion universes, you tend to raise alarm bells. This is especially the case when you arrive in a shiny fleet of Obotron 7 space ships and leave 16 of them hovering nonsensically around the planet packed with pointless, idle employees. This is even more the case when you carry with you an inter-universal celebrity like Dr. Rip T. Brash the Third and an upright walking, clothes wearing, intelligent conversation having Greeg.
However, this being the Kroonum system, and this being the planet Lincra… these events were barely the six thousandth, five hundredth and forty seventh most interesting/bizarre/outlandish/casualty inducing incidents of the hour.
Nevertheless, hoards of Kroonumite Special Task Force Ranger Pods were immediately sent forth from the Central Kroonum Enforcement & Coercion Department on Persheron 8. They were sent in waves and from different task forces to deal with each assault our trio of travellers had inflicted on the precious foundations of Kroonum Society: Civility, Order and Peace, or COP. Persheron 8 is one of 9 planets and 47 moons in the Kroonum system whose sole purpose is law enforcement, jailing, detainment, execution, rehabilitation, law writing, law re-writing, finding of outdated laws and updating them, finding of updated laws and outdating them, covert undercover operations, and the seemingly never-ending creation, integration and upkeep of more branches of The Upgrading, Expansion, Keeping Up of and Maintenance of Kroonum Civility, Order & Peace Agency. Confused? I hope not. This is, as you say, barely the tip of the Iceberg.
This fumbling, inefficient schmorgosborg is merely the Solar Enforcement Branch of Kroonum Law Enforcement. There is also of course The Universal Legal Oversight Committee, The Galactic Territorial and Regional Integrated Intelligence Agencies (there are over 976 of these in this particular galaxy, no one is sure which ones are legitimate and which are fronts at this point. None of them are remotely integrated, several are engaged in full out warfare.) These are a mere nuisance, and a cohesive juggernaut of rationality and efficiency compared to the mind bogglingly complicated, freewheeling and unregulated enforcement agencies on individual planets... and let us not even begin to discuss regional law on various sections of those planets. It is far more often that different splinters of legally sanctioned and government orchestrated law enforcement fights among themselves, rightfully believing the other is involved in criminal activity, which they all most certainly are, to a staggering degree.
All of these corrupt, unchecked, interlocked and mangled factions of law enforcement and bureaucracy has led the hyper oppressed and victimized civilians and visitors of Kroonum to retaliate in violent backlashes in the form of Civilian Organized Militia’s For The Restoration of Peace, Order and Civility to the Kroonum System. They have developed the mildly confrontational slogan “A POCKS on the COPs.” These militia's are inevitably started by once innocent, indifferent travellers or residents who have been chewed up and spat out by various sanctioned policing groups and courts. There is an entire volume of Hypocrisy Inaction: The Plight of the Pointless Protester devoted strictly to the militia's. The true irony here is that there never was, certainly isn’t now, and certainly never will be, anything remotely approaching Peace, Order and/or Civility in the Kroonum System. This is exactly why it is such an amazingly popular and exciting place.
This is not to suggest that there isn’t any real crime in the Kroonum system. The overbearing, oppressive and clumsily gummed up together 'legal' conglomerate is entirely justified and necessary, considering the astounding number of swindlers, murderers, psychopaths, rapists, gangs, STD’s, daredevils, protostar hoppers, insanely violent religious organizations, and sinister plots to destroy and annihilate every single living thing in the system. Not to mention the rather common occurrence of one species happening upon another that they find delicious, and whose vital organs contain nutrients imperative to their survival. This situation is not helped by the four planets solely devoted to the production and cross-universal distribution of the lucrative Kroonum Zoo genre of hard core entertainment, further perpetuating the image of Kroonum as a non-stop sea of wild and groovy crime and punishment, which it most certainly was. This naturally attracted every wackjob, nutcase and borderline Greeg-like being there was to the place; along with every heroic, bravado seeking adrenaline junkie who wished to seek out and destroy every wackjob, nutcase and borderline Greeg-like being in existence. Of course, neither of these polar opposites could exist without each other, and both thrived in the Kroonum system.
It is curious to note that the 9 planets and 47 moons in the Kroonum system owned and operated by The Upgrading, Expansion, Keeping Up of and Maintenance of Kroonum Civility, Order & Peace Agency were by far the most plagued and violently crime filled planets and moons that had ever existed anywhere… ever. Despite this blatant evidence that more policing merely creates more criminals, there is never a demand for less law enforcement, only more. And so nothing changes here in the Kroonum System, it only gets more confusing, crazier and exponentially more dangerous.
There was only one being who could truly understand all of the intricacies of this ordeal, but he was currently writing ‘You are anywhere you want to be’ on blank white pieces of paper and ingesting boiled juices of psychotropic Lincran-leaves in a parking lot. Such is the way of things.
“Pull your space ship and the rest of your fleet over to the slightly darker space to your left, immediately, or I’ll shoot out all of your windows,” threatened the booming P.A. system from the suddenly menacingly hovering ship belonging to The Big Five Planets Parking Board. “You’ve illegally parked 16 ships with no permit in restricted space… space.”
“Well I think you’ll find we don’t have any windows left to shoot out, so your threat is idle,” retorted Rip.
“That’s gonna cost you,” said the representative from the Interstellar Luxury Space Fleet Safety and Insurance Department: Broken Window Division.
“This is out of your jurisdiction,” blared the overbearing and aggressive Sub-Observatory of Galactic Wranglers & Wobblers… a blatantly made up organization notorious for seizing space ships just to release them in confusing mazes they’ve designed in order to place bets on who, if any, will find their way out. The Trilateral Commission on Hearings of Importance ruled it an activity that must be permitted, due to Abducted Ship Mazing being the official sport of the entire sector of the galaxy, which means banning or restricting it would be a gross affront to The Treaty of Manderbatt hammered out at the infamous Haurunbistle Tribunal. As any seasoned traveller of space and time will tell you, to undermine The Treaty of Manderbatt is to bring on the wrath of the Council of Eleven and a Half Thousand Different Coloured Robes… and nobody wants that.
“I’ll handle this one fellas. You lot are under immediate and severe, extra super double arrest for the release of a dangerous and mutilating Zoo Animal,” sternly warned the President of the Lincran Vicious & Dangerous Animal Restraint League through a series of no less than 8 interpreters.
“Let him go, we’re dropping the charges,” screeched a gang of horribly maimed spider like pickpockets, who were much bigger fans of vigilante justice.
“Can’t do that I’m afraid,” said the Chancellor of Ensuring Charges Aren’t Dropped So Spidery Pickpocket Things That Dwell On the 53rd Subterranean Layer of Lincra Can Take The Law Into Their Own Hands.
“I strongly disagree,” belted out a group of powerless protesters from the Collaboration of Those Who Angrily Disagree With Any Form of Legitimately Sanctioned Policing and/or Law Enforcement in the Kroonum System.
“Do you have a permit for that Greeg?” questioned a genuinely concerned member of the strictly volunteer Rounding Up of Greegs and Quarantining them in Zoos Where They Belong Society.
“What Greeg?” asked Krimshaw, terrified, looking around him for this rogue and permit-l
ess savage.
“Indeed, what Greeg?” faked Wilx and Rip, using the opportunity to smash and pull and twist and pound on any and all of the guidance levers, knobs and buttons they could in order to get the hell out of this mess.
“Right,” said one of the ever-growing mob of ships surrounding the Obotron 1.
“I’m going to count to three,” they all said, miraculously in unison.
“One.”
“Two.”
“FIRE!”
The night sky exploded in a display of fireworks unrivalled by even the most famous Whizzling-Firebeam asteroid shower. Delighted tourists from the Lincran parking lot and the light beam highway cheered enthusiastically, completely oblivious to the fact that they were not witnessing a planned light show but instead the instant death of many prominent organizations and their representatives. If they had known that, they would have cheered much louder, considering most of them were members of the militia, or surely would be soon.
One Obotron space ship packed full of napping employees was also blown to smithereens. If the tourists and Lincran parking lot dwellers had known that, they would not have cared all that much.
14 other ships and an Obotron 1 with smashed-in windows suddenly materialized far away in what appeared to be some sort of ridiculous maze.
“Who’s this loose Greeg they’re looking for?” said Krimshaw, frothing at the mouth.
“Shut up,” said Wilx and Rip. “We’ve got to get through this maze now, that’s what’s important.”
Greegs & Ladders - By Zack Mitchell and Danny Mendlow Page 22
