Starship Grifters (A Rex Nihilo Adventure)

by Robert Kroese

  “Now,” said Vlaak, “one of you is going to tell me the coordinates of Schufnaasik Six City. The other one is going to die. You have five seconds.”

  “There is no Schufnaasik Six City!” cried Larviton. “Rex was telling the truth!”

  “Four,” said Vlaak.

  “He made it all up. I was just playing along because I wanted you to kill him!”

  “Three.”

  “Have some dignity, Larviton,” said Rex. “We both know Vlaak is a moron. Screaming at him isn’t going to change that.”

  “Two.”

  “You need me!” howled Larviton. “Without my ships, you’ll—”

  “One.”

  “Please!” cried Larviton. “I’ll do anything!”

  “Time’s up,” shrieked Vlaak. “I guess I’ll have to find Schufnaasik Six City the hard way. Men, execute these two scoundrels.”

  The marines took aim and fired. One of them blasted a hole in the ground near Larviton’s feet and the other vaporized a chunk of the Flagrante Delicto’s hull.

  “Get closer, you idiots!” screeched Vlaak.

  The marines were only about ten meters away as it was, and getting closer made it even harder for them to see their targets through their helmets. One of them was leaning his head back as far as he could while doing his best to hold his lazerifle pointed straight in front of him. The other had turned almost completely around and was trying to fire with his gun’s barrel resting on his left shoulder. This time they both hit the Flagrante Delicto.

  “Closer!” screamed Vlaak.

  The marines moved in again. Now they were only an arm’s length away and couldn’t possibly see what they were shooting at. They fired again. One of them nearly hit me and the other vaporized three of his own fingers. He fell to his knees screaming in pain.

  “Good grief,” Rex grumbled and picked up his lazegun. He blew the marines’ heads off with two quick shots.

  “Drop it, Nihilo!” shrieked Vlaak, who had drawn his own lazegun.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” said Rex. “You’ve got more to lose than I do. So why don’t you get back on your fancy spaceship and get out of here before I get bored and end this once and for all.”

  “Sir,” I said.

  “Not a good time, Sasha,” replied Rex.

  “Sir,” I said again, “you might want to look behind you.”

  “Really not a good time,” said Rex. “I kind of need to focus on what’s in front of me right now.”

  “Then allow me to help you out,” said Vlaak. He slid his gun slowly back into its holster. “Behind you a Leviathan-class starship with six hundred armed marines on it is landing. Do you think you can take on six hundred marines, Rex Nihilo?”

  “You’re bluffing,” Rex said as a blast of hot, dusty air roared past from behind him. The thunder of giant rocket thrusters made the ground quake.

  “WHAT?” shouted Vlaak.

  “I SAID, ‘YOU’RE BLUFFING!’” yelled Rex.

  “HE’S NOT, SIR!” I shouted. “THERE REALLY IS A GIGANTIC SHIP LANDING BEHIND YOU.”

  Rex still looked doubtful, but he glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was true. It was the biggest ship I’d ever seen, not including the Peace Fortress. It set down and a hatch opened. A ramp lowered to the ground and a large procession of marines flooded out of it. Following the marines was a contingent of the elite Malarchian Special Guard, followed by a small figure wearing a purple robe. Each succeeding set of boots softened the swampy ground a bit more, so that by the time the robed figure stepped off the ramp, he sank several centimeters into the muck. With great effort, he worked his way toward us, struggling with each footstep to avoid being trapped in the ooze.

  “It can’t be,” murmured Vlaak. “Not here.”

  “Who is it?” Rex said to me.

  “It’s His Eminence himself,” I said. “The Malarchian Primate.”

  “What in Space is he doing here?” Larviton said.

  “I think it’s a safe bet he’s not handing out medals,” said Rex, holstering his weapon.

  The marines formed a corridor through which the Malarchian guards tromped. The red-suited guards then moved aside to let the primate through. His boots were covered with mud and he was wheezing from the effort of squishing through the swamp.

  “Heinouth Vlaak!” lisped the primate, who was a gray-skinned, balding little man with exactly three teeth.

  “Your Eminence,” squeaked Vlaak, bending to one knee. “I’m so . . . relieved to see you’re OK.”

  “You mean you’re . . . thurprised my thyip didn’t blow up,” snarled the primate. He wheezed heavily several times. “I wouldn’t let them . . . inthtall one of your fanthy new reactorth. Never truthted thothe black bocktheth.”

  “Oh,” said Vlaak. “Well, that was . . . a pretty good move, in retrospect.”

  “Anybody can make a good dethithyun in retrothpect, you imbethile! A leader mutht . . .”—he stopped to wheeze again—“ . . . thet hith gathe to the future. You have failed me, Heinouth Vlaak!”

  “It’s true that the plasmatic entropy technology didn’t really work out, Your Eminence,” squeaked Vlaak. “However, as you see, I have apprehended the scoundrels responsible, and I am very close to extracting from them the location of the secret cloaking facility in Schufnaasik Six City. Once we have that information, we will rule the galaxy!”

  “How sthtupid are you, Vlaak?” snarled the primate. “There’th no thuch thing . . . ath a cloaking devithe! There are no . . . thitieth on Thufnaathik Thikth! Thith man ith a con artitht!”

  “Pardon me, Your Eminence,” said Vlaak. “I have solid intelligence that there is a secret cloaking device facility on Schufnaasik Six.”

  “Oh?” said the primate. “Where did you get thith informathion?”

  “From a rebel spy named Wick Azores. He stowed away on Nihilo’s ship and heard everything.”

  “Really,” said the primate. “Captain,” he said, turning to the head of the Malarchian Special Guard, “fetch General Athoreth.”

  Vlaak seemed confused by this.

  Rex whispered to me, “Did he just say ‘General Athoreth’?”

  “He did, sir. It would seem Wick has been promoted again.”

  After a moment, Wick tramped forward wearing a uniform emblazoned with general’s stars. He smiled and waved when he saw me and Rex and then bowed solemnly before the primate.

  “General Athoreth,” said the primate, “ith it true that you provided Heinous Vlaak with informathion about . . . a thecret cloaking fathility on Thufnaathik Thikth?”

  Wick glanced at me and Rex. “I . . . was only passing along what I heard,” he said.

  “And you heard them talking about a thecret cloaking fathility?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence. But later they said it was just a scam.”

  “Tho you never thaw thith thuppothed cloaking fathility?”

  “No, Your Eminence,” replied Wick.

  “Thank you, General. Could you have your men take Heinouth Vlaak into cuthtody, pleathe?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  “Custody?” shrieked Vlaak. “This is an outrage! I built the Malarchy! This whole regime will fall apart without me!”

  “We’ll thee about that,” said the primate. “Take him away.” Wick nodded to a couple of the marines, who escorted Vlaak away, howling and shrieking curses.

  “Take care of thethe rebelth too, would you, General Athoreth?” He waved to indicate me and Rex. “Oh, and do you have a copy of the invoithe?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence. Right here.” Wick pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Gavin Larviton.

  “What’s this for?” Larviton asked, unfolding the paper. “Holy Space!”

  “An invoithe for the cotht of replathing the thyips that were det
htroyed by your faulty reactorth.”

  I glanced at the paper. Along the right side was a stack of very large numbers. At the bottom it read:

  Total Amount Due: 320,000,000,000 cr

  “Three hundred and twenty billion credits?” gasped Larviton weakly. “I don’t have that much. And I’m the richest man in the galaxy. No one has that much.”

  “Relakth,” said the primate. “You have thirty dayth to pay it.”

  “Thirty days?” Larviton croaked. “There’s no way I can come up with anywhere near that amount in thirty days.”

  “Then you’ll be thpending the nektht million yearth or tho in Gulagatrath,” said the primate.

  Larviton looked like he had been punched in the stomach.

  “I tire of thith buthineth,” said the primate. “Let’th go home.” He turned and squished his way back to the ship, followed by the Malarchian guards.

  “You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself, Wick,” I remarked.

  “There was a big officers’ meeting on the Peace Fortress,” replied Wick. “I guess nobody told them to evacuate. So there were a lot of promotions afterward.”

  “How are Fingers and Corporal Issimo?”

  “Private Issimo,” said Wick. “He can’t seem to get the hang of being a marine. Fingers is doing OK, though. He’s the primate’s new chef. He’s making coconut cashew shrimp tonight.”

  “What about Ted?”

  “Haven’t seen him since the evacuation,” said Wick. “I think he got blown up.”

  “Just as well,” I said.

  “So, I hate to do this,” said Wick, “but I guess I have to take you into custody. Unless you prefer to be executed?”

  “Hang on, Wick,” said Rex. “I clearly heard the primate say that you should ‘take care of thethe rebelth.’”

  “Yeah, when he says ‘take care of,’ he means ‘kill.’ I found that out the hard way.”

  “Right,” said Rex. “But we’re not rebelth. Er, rebels. You heard the primate; there’s no cloaking device. We’re just scam artists, bilking the Frente out of money. If anything, you should be giving us a reward.”

  Wick seemed uncertain. “Is that true, Sasha?”

  I nodded. “Rex was never committed to the rebel cause. But you know that, Wick. You were there when he tried to sell them out. The only reason he didn’t was that you had already given them the location of the Frente base.”

  “So if anything,” Rex added, “you’re a bigger rebel than I am. Not to mention a traitor.”

  “Just stop talking!” Wick snapped. “You start talking like that and I get all confused. How about if I just leave you here and we call it even?”

  “That would be fine, Wick,” I said. “Good luck in your new career. And congratulations, I guess.”

  “Hang on,” said Rex. “We haven’t decided the amount of the reward.”

  “I really think we should just let this one go, sir,” I said.

  “Fine,” grunted Rex.

  “See you guys later,” said Wick. He trudged back to the ship, followed by the rest of the marines. The ship’s engines fired and it shot into the sky.

  “Nice kid,” said Rex. “I’m a little disappointed he turned out to be a fascist, but it seems to be working out for him.”

  “So what do we do now?” asked Larviton.

  “We?” replied Rex. “There’s no we, Larviton. You’re the reason I’m 1.6 billion credits in debt and marooned on this swampy forest moon.”

  “One point six billion!” exclaimed Larviton. “That’s nothing. Try 320 billion credits!”

  “Also your fault,” said Rex. “Next time try not to sell self-destructing battleships to the most powerful organization in the galaxy.”

  “I didn’t know the reactors were going to explode!” snapped Larviton.

  “No, you just built your whole financial empire around mysterious black boxes that you didn’t understand,” I said.

  “Hey, I did everything I could to—”

  “Holy Space, are you all about finished?”

  For a moment, none of us could figure out who had spoken. Then we all turned simultaneously to see a woman in a black bodysuit leaning against a sleek black spaceship. With her were two neatly dressed young men.

  “Pepper!” cried Rex. “Where the hell did you come from?”

  “I landed just after you,” Pepper said.

  “You mean while the primate’s ship was landing,” I said. “While we were distracted.”

  “Nope,” she replied. “I was here before them. Saw the whole thing.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Larviton. “We’d have seen you land.”

  “Or heard you,” I added. “Unless you had some kind of . . .”

  “Cloaking device!” Rex exclaimed. “It’s real! There really is a cloaking device!”

  Pepper smiled and pressed a button on a small device in her hand. Bad Little Kitty shimmered and all but disappeared, leaving only a slight distortion pattern in the air. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d never notice it.

  “The Sp’ossels have been using cloaking technology for years,” said Pepper. “That’s why nobody knows where they come from or sees them arrive.”

  “Of course!” Rex cried. “Brilliant! But . . . are you supposed to be telling us this? Aren’t they going to have to kill us now?”

  “Or forcibly convert us?” I asked.

  Pepper and the two men laughed. “They don’t kill people,” she said. “And you’re in no danger of being forcibly converted. They are pretty persuasive, though.”

  “So you’ve converted?” I asked.

  “We’ve come to an understanding,” said Pepper. “It involves you, though. And Gavin Larviton.”

  “What does any of this have to do with me?” asked Larviton. “Are these men really Sp’ossels?”

  “They are,” said Pepper. “And they’re going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  With the help of the Sp’ossels (who were surprisingly handy), I managed to get the Flagrante Delicto more or less spaceworthy. We still had no shields or landing gear, and half the sensors were offline, but she would fly. Pepper and the Sp’ossels climbed into Bad Little Kitty and Rex, Larviton, and I boarded the Flagrante Delicto. Once we were in orbit, Pepper transmitted a hypergeometric course to us. She wouldn’t tell us where we were going.

  Rex groaned as we reemerged into Euclidian space. Even on the flickering, out-of-focus viewscreen, that ugly brown ball was unmistakable. “What are we doing here?” Rex said. “If we were going to hide out on a barely habitable planet, we could have stayed on the forest moon. At least that place had a tree.”

  Pepper didn’t reply except to pitch Bad Little Kitty on a steep descent toward the surface. We followed. Pepper had promised a solution to both Larviton’s and Rex’s financial problems, and we had little choice but to go along with her.

  “Where is she going?” Rex grumbled, gazing out the window at the unbroken brown landscape. “Why doesn’t she just land? Every place on this planet is the same as everywhere else.”

  She began a long, gradual descent and eventually Bad Little Kitty slowed to a halt about half a kilometer above the ground.

  “Now what?” groused Rex as we came to a halt behind her.

  “Turn off your thrusters,” said Pepper’s voice over the comm.

  “Are you nuts?” asked Rex. “We’re five hundred meters above the ground.”

  “Trust me,” said Pepper. “Turn them off.”

  “Sir?” I said, looking questioningly at Rex.

  He sighed. “I’m dead anyway,” said Rex. “Shut ’em down.”

  I switched off the thrusters, bracing myself for sudden free fall. Nothing happened.

  “Sir,” I said. “We appear to be lock
ed in some sort of tractor beam.”

  The Flagrante Delicto began to slowly descend. Next to us, Bad Little Kitty did the same. After a minute or so, we were on the ground. Rex threw open the hatch and jumped out. “What in Space is . . .” he began, then trailed off. His head turned slowly from left to right, his mouth open in amazement. Rex Nihilo was speechless.

  Larviton and I followed, and our reactions were similar. Pepper and the Sp’ossels stood before us smiling. We were in the middle of what could only be the Schufnaasik Six City spaceport.

  Dozens of spacecraft of various shapes and sizes were parked on the tarmac around us, with neatly dressed Sp’ossels coming and going in all directions. Huge cybernetic cranes arched overhead, unloading metal crates from cargo ships. To the left were three towering smokestacks venting clouds of white vapor into an azure sky. To the right was a glittering spiraled tower topped by a crystal sphere.

  “Is that . . . ?” Rex managed at last.

  “The Spiraled Tower of Bernoth,” said one of the Sp’ossels. “It’s the most famous landmark in Schufnaasik Six City. I’ve made dinner reservations at the restaurant to celebrate our arrangement.”

  “Sir!” I exclaimed. “I thought you made it all up!”

  Rex nodded, still dazed. “So did I.”

  “How long has all of this been here?” asked Gavin Larviton.

  “The cloaking device facility has been here for just over twenty years,” said the other Sp’ossel. “The city sprouted up around it as the Sp’ossel movement grew.”

  “That bastard,” Larviton growled. “He lied to me. The cloaking technology worked the whole time.”

  “Who?” asked Rex.

  “That would be me,” said a voice behind Bad Little Kitty. As we watched, an old man hobbled into view.

  “Ted!” I cried in shock. “You invented the cloaking device too?”

  “I did indeed,” Ted replied.

  “His name is Ferbuson,” said Larviton. “Emmet Ferbuson.”

  “I go by Gleem Nads-Tardo now. Ted for short.”

  “And you founded Schufnaasik Six City?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” said Ted. “The Sp’ossels did that. I just gave them the cloaking technology.”