Starship Grifters (A Rex Nihilo Adventure)

by Robert Kroese

  “I did it,” General Issimo beamed. “Blew the reactor.” He shook his head violently, sending sand everywhere. “Hey, is that Wick? It worked! You rescued Wick!”

  “Yeah,” said Fingers. “No thanks to y—”

  “It was a team effort,” said Rex. “Everyone here did their part, which is really a tribute to the genius of the plan itself. Now, who wants to take over blasting guards so I can get some sleep?”

  “Can’t we just leave now?” asked Fingers. “Why do we need to keep killing guards?”

  “We don’t need to keep killing them,” Rex snapped, blasting another guard. “But I don’t like to leave a job unfinished. While there are guards coming through that hole, there needs to be someone here to blast them.”

  “Knights of the Chaotic Equilibrium do not condone needless killing,” said Ted, frowning.

  “I’m with the old guy,” said Wick.

  “Me too,” said Fingers. “Let’s just go home.”

  The general, who was still a bit dazed from spending a day and a half in the ventilation system, said nothing. He seemed transfixed by the sight of the guards dropping from the ceiling and vanishing in a cloud of smoke.

  Another guard dropped from the hole and Rex blasted him. “Seriously?” he said. “I’m the only one here with any sense of commitment?”

  “It just seems kind of unnecessary,” said Wick. “Those guys are just doing their—”

  “BAM!” shouted Rex, blasting another guard. “Sorry, Vic. Doing their what now?”

  I leaned close to Rex. “Sir,” I said quietly, “I understand that you want to delay our departure to ensure that the plasmatic entropy cannon is operational by the time we get back to the forest moon, but this may not be the best way to do it. If you keep this up for much longer, we may be facing a mutiny.”

  Rex regarded the unhappy faces of the crew and nodded. “Sasha informs me that you men have moral objections to my continued blasting of . . . hang on.” He blasted another guard. “My continued blasting of guards as they drop from the ceiling. Is that correct?”

  “We just told you we did,” said Wick. “We want to go home.”

  “All right,” said Rex. “Let it never be said that I’m an unreasonable man. Sasha, could you give each member of the crew a piece of paper and a pencil? We’re all going to . . . hold on. Suck lazecannon, ceiling monkey! We’re all going to write down how many guards we think we should kill before we leave. Then we’ll compare our answers and come to a reasonable compromise. Sasha will ensure the anonymity of our answers. She can’t vote because she’s a robot and has no sense of morality. POW! Man, these guys aren’t even trying to dodge anymore.”

  “None of us want to kill any more guards,” Fingers pleaded.

  “You didn’t really grasp the anonymity bit, did you?” asked Rex. “OK, then, let’s just say our votes out loud.”

  Grumbling arose from the crew.

  “Sir, I don’t think this is going to work,” I whispered urgently. “There’s got to be a better way to delay our return. Surely we can find an asteroid field to get lost in on the way back?”

  “Fine,” Rex grumbled. “We’ll head back to the forest moon. But first, let’s drink a toast to the brave men who inexplicably continue to descend from the ceiling directly into my lazecannon blasts.”

  The men ignored Rex and filed into the ship.

  “BLAM!” shouted Rex, blasting another guard. “OK, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

  I followed Rex into the ship and went to the cockpit. I was about to retract the lazecannons when a guard dropped from the ceiling, alighting on the slag pile. He immediately held his arms in front of his face, as if anticipating a blast from the lazecannon. When it didn’t come, he uncertainly dropped his arms to his sides. After a moment, he looked upward, gave a quick nod and a salute, and drew his lazegun. “Freeze!” he yelled.

  I blasted him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I managed to get us hopelessly lost in a cloud of ionic particles on the way back to the forest moon. General Issimo groused angrily about my incompetence as a navigator, but Rex was delighted with this turn of events. “This is great,” he crowed, once we were alone in the cockpit. “Try to waste a few more hours in here, OK? I want to make sure we don’t get back to the forest moon before the pyramidic antibody cannon is ready.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem, sir. This ionic cloud is wreaking havoc with our sensors. We may never get out of here. I don’t even know what direction we’re going. Or whether we’re even moving.”

  There was a knock on the cockpit door.

  “Who is it?” yelled Rex.

  “It’s Ted, Knight of the Chaotic Equilibrium. I thought you might need some navigational assistance.”

  “Sure,” said Rex. “Let me get the door for you.”

  “Sir,” I said. “You understand that we really are lost, right? I need to concentrate if I’m ever going to find a way out of this cloud. Having Ted in here blathering about the Chaotic Equilibrium isn’t going to help matters.”

  “Oh,” replied Rex. “I thought you were just screwing around. Well, it won’t kill you to humor the crazy old geezer for a minute.” He unlocked the door and Ted walked in.

  “I hear we’re lost in an ionic cloud,” said Ted. “I assume none of the sensors are working?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “We’re flying completely blind.”

  “Good,” said Ted. “Then we’ll have no distractions.”

  “Distractions?” I asked. “You mean like being able to see where we’re going?”

  Ted chuckled and said, “Sometimes the greatest barrier to one’s destination is the journey itself.”

  “Wow,” said Rex, nodding his head thoughtfully. “I never thought of it like that before.”

  “Thanks for the insight, Ted,” I said, “but I really need to concentrate on getting our sensors back online. So if you don’t mind . . .”

  “Only the truly blind man relies on his eyes to see,” said Ted, smiling beatifically at me.

  Rex nodded again. “Ted makes a compelling point,” he said.

  “No, sir,” I replied, “he doesn’t. We need our sensors to get out of this ion cloud. No offense, Ted, but pseudomystical nonsense isn’t going to help.”

  “There is no man more deaf than he who has a thousand ears,” said Ted.

  “Preach it, brother!” exclaimed Rex.

  “That’s the worst one yet,” I said. “You know what, forget about the sensors. Just point in a direction. Just give me one actual piece of advice that I can do something with. One single practical suggestion.”

  Ted smiled. “Action is the crutch of the man whose soul knows no rest.”

  Rex shivered. “Man, that one actually gave me chills,” he said. “Is it cold in here? Seriously, feel my hands. I’m freezing.” Rex felt his left hand with his right and then his right hand with his left. This exercise apparently being inconclusive, he put both his hands on his cheeks. “My hands are warm, but my cheeks are cold! This is creeping me out. I think I’m connecting to something cosmic here.”

  Ted nodded. “That’s the Chaotic Equilibrium. It’s always a bit of a shock when you feel it for the first time. Let it in, Rex.”

  Rex closed his eyes and held up his hands as if to receive the Chaotic Equilibrium.

  I was losing patience. “There is no Chaotic Equilibrium,” I snapped. “The phrase doesn’t even make any sense. And even if it did exist, it would be of absolutely no use in our current circumstances.”

  “No truth worth knowing can be proved,” said Ted.

  “I feel it in my xiphoid process,” said Rex, pressing his thumb against the lower part of his sternum. “Ow.”

  “Don’t resist it, Rex,” said Ted. “Let the Chaotic Equilibrium in.”

  “Get out,” I said. “Bot
h of you. I need to find a way out of this cloud.”

  Rex, who was now absorbed in the task of locating the presence of the Chaotic Equilibrium in his buttocks, left the cockpit. Ted smiled at me and said, “We aren’t lost. The Chaotic Equilibrium connects all things. Reach out with your mind and you will feel it.” He turned and left. I slammed the door shut behind him.

  I spent another twenty minutes trying to get some useful information out of the sensors but was no more successful than I had been with Ted. Finally I picked a direction at random and engaged the thrusters. Three hours later we emerged from the cloud, no thanks to the Chaotic Equilibrium. As soon as the sensors were back online, red lights flashed and a warning klaxon blared. Rex burst into the cockpit. “What the hell is that? Did we hit something?”

  I checked the proximity display. “It would appear that a Malarchian destroyer is closing with us,” I said.

  “Well, get us the hell out of here!” Rex exclaimed.

  “We can’t outrun a destroyer in Euclidean space, sir. And there isn’t time to rationalize an escape route. We’re sitting ducks.”

  “Quick, pray to the Chaotic Equilibrium!” Rex exclaimed.

  “I don’t think it works like that,” I said.

  “How does it work?”

  “It doesn’t, sir. That stuff about the Chaotic Equilibrium was nonsense. Chaotic Equilibrium doesn’t exist, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be any help to us.”

  Rex frowned and jabbed his sternum absentmindedly. “But the Chaotic Equilibrium got us out of the icon cloud.”

  “Only to have us immediately intercepted by a Malarchian destroyer. It would seem that the Chaotic Equilibrium is a capricious entity.”

  “Damn it, Sasha,” growled Rex. “If I find out you’ve done something to anger the Chaotic Equilibrium . . .”

  “Sir, there is no Chaotic Equilibrium. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We can’t rely on some mysterious cosmic force to get us through this. We have to use our senses and our mental faculties.”

  “Oh,” said Rex thoughtfully. “I think I see what you’re saying. The supposed ‘Chaotic Equilibrium’ is a mental crutch that helps the simpleminded make sense of the seemingly arbitrary forces of an uncaring universe. My subjective experience of the Chaotic Equilibrium was simply a psychosomatic consequence of my own need for validation. It’s a primitive, nonscientific way of looking at the cosmos.”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “Then there is only one thing we can do,” said Rex. “Quick, Sasha, let’s get on our knees and pray to Science!”

  Our theological exchange was cut short by a voice coming over the ship’s comm system via standard hailing frequency. “Crew of the Flagrante Delicto!” screeched the voice. For a moment the cockpit was filled with the horrible squealing of feedback. “This is the MSS Abhorrent. Prepare to be boarded!”

  “Was that . . . ?” asked Rex.

  “Yes, sir.” There was no mistaking the voice. Heinous Vlaak had found us.

  There was nothing to do but wait for the marines to come aboard. Rex and I would be brought in front of Vlaak again, and he would once again threaten to destroy Schufnaasik Six. We were a day early, but hopefully Larviton’s engineers had gotten the plasmatic entropy cannon working. If the cannon didn’t work, Rex’s plan to bilk the Malarchy out of development funds would be moot. Also, Vlaak would probably have us killed.

  “Good news!” exclaimed Rex as we exited the cockpit into the main cabin. “We’re about to be boarded by Malarchian marines!”

  “How is that good news?” asked General Issimo, who was back to his old surly self.

  Rex replied, “I have good reason to think that Heinous Vlaak will want to take me back to the Peace Fortress, which is currently in orbit around Schufnaasik Six. Once we’re there, we can blow the reactor core as we had originally planned.”

  “Didn’t we already blow a reactor core?” asked Wick. Nods and murmurs indicated that Wick wasn’t the only one who was confused.

  “Excellent question, Vic,” said Rex. “Sasha, is what Vic is saying true? Did we already blow a reactor core?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “As part of our mission to rescue Wick, we blew up the reactor core of the prison complex on Gulagatraz. That rescue mission was part of a larger mission to blow up the reactor core of the Malarchian battle station.”

  “But we used all of our explosives at the prison,” said Fingers. “And I didn’t bring any sand.”

  “And we don’t have any weapons,” said Wick.

  “And we were supposed to fool the Malarchy into thinking we’re a diplomatic mission from a planet in the Proboscean Cloud,” added the general. “That’s going to be hard to do now.”

  “Why?” asked Rex.

  “You said Heinous Vlaak knows you,” said the general. “Also, we’re wearing Frente uniforms.”

  Rex nodded. “It’s clear we’re going to have to do some improvising,” he said. “Just follow my lead, and we’ll make sure that reactor core gets blown.”

  The general seemed unconvinced.

  “He did get Wick out of prison,” said Fingers. Wick nodded.

  “The Chaotic Equilibrium is strong with this man,” Ted intoned.

  “Thanks, Ted,” said Rex. “OK, here’s what we’re going to do. In a few minutes, the marines will board us. They’ll commandeer the Flagrante Delicto and follow Vlaak’s destroyer back to the battle station. Vlaak is expecting only me and Sasha to be on board, so we’ll use that to our advantage. The rest of you will hide in the secret smuggling compartment.”

  “Sir,” I said, “this ship has no secret smuggling compartment.”

  “What?” Rex exclaimed. “I thought every ship had a secret smuggling compartment!”

  “No, sir,” I said. “If they did, they wouldn’t be secret. In any case, it’s basically impossible to build a secret compartment into a ship this size. Every cubic centimeter of volume has to be accounted for in the ship’s design.”

  “Huh,” replied Rex. “We have a baggage hold, right?”

  “Yes, sir. But I don’t think it’s big enough to—”

  “All right,” said Rex. “The rest of you hide in the baggage hold. When we get to the battle station, Sasha and I will deal with Heinous Vlaak. After the marines have escorted us off the ship, you guys subdue the guards, get them to tell you where they keep the explosives, find the reactor core, and blow it up.”

  “Excellent,” said General Issimo, who had evidently never heard an insane attack plan he didn’t like. He began unbuttoning his shirt. “Somebody get the butter.”

  “I think we can forgo the lubrication this time around,” said Rex, eyeing the general’s porcine torso with a grimace.

  We managed to cram everybody into the baggage hold seconds before the marines boarded the ship. The marines took a cursory look around, but the bulkiness of their uniforms prevented them from bending down to open the baggage compartment. Judging from the fact that they didn’t seem to notice the scuffling and bickering coming from within, their hearing was significantly impaired as well. Two marines held Rex and me at gunpoint while another pair commandeered the cockpit and rationalized a course back to the battle station. Rex and I spent the next six hours leading the marines in a sing-along of the Malarchian anthem in an effort to cover the sounds coming from the baggage hold. After a couple of hours the marines’ enthusiasm began to wane, but Rex and I tried to keep it interesting by making up our own lyrics, most of which revolved around Heinous Vlaak and farm animals.

  At last the Flagrante Delicto set down on the hangar deck of the battle station and Rex and I were marched down a corridor toward Vlaak’s reception room.

  “What’s the plan, sir?” I whispered to Rex. “We don’t know whether the plasmatic entropy cannon is operational or not. Are we still going to try to get Heinous Vlaak to fire it at Schufna
asik Six?”

  “We’ll just have to stall him as long as we can and hope Larviton’s engineers are ahead of schedule for once.”

  “Do you think Larviton is still on board the Peace Fortress? If we could talk to him, we could get him to tell us the status of the cannon.”

  “Good point,” said Rex. “I’ll see what I can do. Getting a straight answer out of him isn’t going to be easy, though. He’s terrified of Vlaak, and with good reason. If Vlaak finds out the ponderosa alopecia cannon is behind schedule, Larviton is going to be in a universe of hurt.”

  We were ushered into Vlaak’s reception chamber. Next to him was a member of the giant cockroach-like species known as the K’t’kik’tikki. I recognized him as Lieutenant Kit T’kik’ti, Vlaak’s second-in-command.

  “So!” Vlaak screeched. “You escape a ionic cloud only to be captured by me.”

  “How’d you find us anyway?” asked Rex.

  “I’ve been looking for you since you slipped out of my grasp. We received a report that a small ship disappeared into the Boralian Cloud, and only someone fleeing Heinous Vlaak would be so desperate.”

  “It’s true,” said Rex. “I’m a desperate, desperate man. Not, like, talking-about-myself-in-third-person desperate, but pretty desperate. I suppose you’ll want to torture me now for a day or two, and when I refuse to reveal the location of Schufnaasik Six City, you’ll destroy the whole planet.”

  Vlaak shook his head. “I’m done playing games with you, Nihilo. Tell me where the city is right now or I fire the plasmatic entropy cannon and blow Schufnaasik Six to atoms.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to torture me for a while and work your way up to destroying my planet? I don’t mean to question your expertise, but you don’t want to blow your wad too early.”

  “Tell me the location of Schufnaasik Six City or see your planet destroyed!”

  “OK, OK,” said Rex. “I can see you’re serious. But here’s the problem. How do I know your secret weapon is actually capable of destroying an entire planet? How do I even know the panoptic homeopathy cannon works? You see what I’m saying? It’s just not a very effective threat.”