“Floooooomfles, we’re the Floooooomfles!” they chimed, holding their arms out at their sides and criss-crossing like jet planes as those with actual wings fluttered from rooftop to rooftop.
“We’d love to be your new best friends! In Floooooomville, here in Flooooooomville, the fun and sunshine never ends!”
With a final series of theatrical flourishes, they all spun down onto one knee and extended their arms, jazz-hands-style.
“Floomfles!” they cried, then they all smiled hopefully up at Cal and the others, their little chests heaving, their faces gleaming with sweat.
Cal clapped. “Bravo! Bravo!” he said. “More of that sort of thing.”
“What the hell have we got involved in this time?” Mech muttered, glaring across the upturned faces. Loren had done her best to fix him up, but his left arm wasn’t sitting right, and had fallen off twice on the way here. He rotated it in its socket, trying to click it into place.
“I think they’re called the Floomfles,” said Cal, leaning in and whispering. “Didn’t you hear? They did a whole song about it.”
“I heard the damn song,” Mech snapped. “I just…”
He gestured to the wide-eyed little critters. “This shizz ain’t right.”
“Hey, come on now! What are you talking about?” asked Cal. “They look totally—”
“Delicious,” said Miz.
A few of the Floomfles shot uneasy glances to the others, but their smiles remained fixed in place.
“Adorable,” said Cal. “They look adorable.”
“They are ridiculous,” said Tyrra.
She glared at one of the flying Floomles with such ferocity it fell from the sky and landed on the grass with a high-pitched, “Ouchie!”
“Ridiculously awesome, you mean,” said Cal.
He squatted down, bringing him closer to eye level with some of the larger creatures. Even in that position he was still a clear foot taller, but it was the best he could do.
“Well, hey there, you! What’s your name?”
The Floomfle stood up, tucked his hands behind his back, and twisted the toe of a brightly colored shoe against the ground. His little pointed ears blushed red as he studiously avoided Cal’s gaze.
“It’s Floomfle-Ello, mister,” he squeaked.
Cal turned back to the others, put a hand on his chest, and pulled a face that suggested this was the cutest thing he’d ever heard. “Floomfle-Ello! And did you hear him call me ‘Mister’?”
Mech and Tyrra stared impassively back at him. Miz licked her lips.
“Don’t even think about it,” Cal warned, then he turned his attention back to the Floomfles. “Well, now. We’ve been asked to come here and pick up a couple of crates. You know? Like big boxes?”
“I’m sure they know what crates are,” said Mech, jiggling his arm in its socket.
“Would you guys know anything about that?” Cal pressed. “Is there maybe, like, a Floomfle Chief we can talk to? Or a Head of Floomfle Logistics?”
“King Floomf,” Floomfle-Ello cheeped.
Cal turned to the others with the same hand-on-heart gesture again. “They have a King Floomf! I swear to God, I’m going to die!”
He faced front again, and saw one of the tiniest Floomfles of all standing on her tiptoes, a hand stretched high above her head. Her tongue was poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration, and Cal had to physically restrain himself from picking her up and keeping her in his pocket for the rest of either his or her life, depending on which of them lasted longer.
“Yes, sweetheart?” he said. “You have a question?”
“What’s that thing?” the Floomfle asked, pointing to Mech.
“That’s my friend, Mech,” said Cal, smiling kindly. “He’s a little grumpy, but he’s secretly nice. Also, I know what you’re thinking, but no. He isn’t a robot. He’s a cyborg.”
The little Floomfle’s hand shot up again. “What’s a cyborg?”
“It’s like…” Cal considered his answer. “It’s like a fancy robot.”
Another hand went up on Cal’s right. He smiled like an eager young teacher who hadn’t yet had all the energy and enthusiasm beaten out of him by staff indifference and student idiocy. “Yes?”
“Why did you crash your ship?” asked another of the Floomfle children.
“We didn’t crash it. That was a landing,” Cal said.
The Floomfles all looked dubious. Several more hands went up.
“It wasn’t as controlled a landing as we ideally might have liked,” Cal admitted. “But apparently your hills are—and I quote—‘off-center.’ Make of that what you will.”
He looked across their eager faces. “Now, who else has a question?”
“Just get the motherfonking king,” Mech barked, stomping a foot on the ground. The Floomfles scattered, screaming, and rushed inside the little beehive houses, slamming the doors behind them.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Cal said. “You scared all the Floomfles.”
“That was my intention,” Mech said. “That’s why I did it.”
“Why would you want to scare the Floomfles, Mech? What are you, some kind of monster?” Cal asked.
Before Mech could answer, a horn blew. It came from the crest of one of the purple-pink hills, and heralded the arrival of four more of the larger-sized Floomfles carrying a fifth on a raised platform between them.
The figure on the platform was old and wizened, with a beard that was longer than he was tall. It coiled around him like a boa constrictor, wrapping around his body, down one leg, and finished in a knot just above a doll-sized shoe.
Miz’s stomach growled. “Dinner is served,” she said. “They’re even serving him on a platter.”
“Don’t you dare,” Cal told her again.
“Tch. Relax. I’m not actually going to eat that guy,” Miz said.
“OK. Thank you. That makes me feel better.”
“Not with everyone around to stare at me,” Miz continued. “Like, I hate it when people watch me eat.”
That made Cal feel slightly less better, but he chose to let it go.
They waited for the Floomfle procession to arrive, which it eventually did in a chorus of horn blasts, cymbal crashes, and some colorful language from the old man when his bearers took a bend too sharply and he almost fell off.
At last, the procession arrived in the center of the village and stopped before Cal and the others.
Now that Cal was standing upright, he couldn’t see the bearers beneath the platform. All he could see was the old man on top of it, and two musicians who had been following behind, and who had been responsible for the horn-parps and cymbal crashes.
“You must be—” Cal began, before a fanfare from the horn-player interrupted.
He waited for it to stop, before continuing.
“You must—”
The cymbal player smashed the golden metal disks together. He clearly wasn’t cut out for the job as he shut his eyes, looked away, and physically braced himself before banging the cymbals together. He appeared visibly horrified by the racket they made.
Cal watched both musicians for a moment until he was sure they weren’t going to start up again, then smiled at the old man.
“You must be—”
“Presenting King Floomf of the Floomfles!” announced a voice from below the platform. This elicited another fanfare from the horn-player, followed by a cymbal-smash so unpleasantly loud that it appeared to take ten years off the life of the Floomfle who’d caused it.
Cal glanced around at the others as he contemplated starting again, but then decided against it. He waited, certain in the knowledge that the moment he opened his mouth someone would interrupt him.
“Sorry,” said King Floomfle, his voice a husky whisper that suggested a lifetime spent chain-smoking. “You were saying?”
“Uh, right. Yes.” Cal flicked his eyes to the musicians, then back to the old man. “I was just going to say that you must be
King Floomf.”
The fanfare blasted. The cymbal-player shut his eyes and smashed the disks together.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” chuckled King Floomf, and Cal instantly warmed to the guy. “And you must be…” He snapped his fingers.
“Captain Cal Carver, Your Greatness,” came a voice from below the platform.
“Ah, yes. Sorry, memory’s not what it once was. A pleasure to meet you,” said King Floomf. His eyes wrinkled up as he peered at the others. “And these must be your minions?”
“Say what?” Mech barked, and the two musicians both took a wary step back.
“Ha! No, they’re not my minions. I wouldn’t call them that, exactly,” Cal said, rushing to smooth things over. “They’re my…” He waved a hand, searching for the right word. “Not ‘underlings.’ Like… subordinates.”
Tyrra growled, baring her teeth.
“Kidding. I’m kidding. They’re my friends,” Cal said.
“Friends…” said King Floomf, a little wistfully. “That must be nice. I have minions coming out of my ears. But friends? Friends are harder to come by, captain. Treasure them.”
“Well, I’ll try, but they don’t make it easy,” Cal said, shooting a reproachful look back at them. “Now, you have something for us?”
“Ah, yes. You are here to take possession of the cargo, correct?”
“That’s right,” Cal confirmed. “We’re taking it to the TV people. I’m hoping they might let me be on a show.”
“You wish to go on a show?” asked the king, peering up at Cal like he was having difficulty seeing him properly. “How brave of you.”
Cal rocked back on his heels. “I know. A lot of people don’t like the thought of being on TV. They think they’ll freeze up or look stupid, or whatever. But not me.”
“Because he got used to looking stupid a long time ago,” said Mech.
“Because I’m a natural in front of the camera,” Cal said.
“You know they say the camera adds ten pounds, right?” Mech told him.
“Seriously?” snorted Miz. She looked Cal up and down. “Like, how many cameras must he have pointed at him right now?”
“For the last time, it’s travel weight,” Cal protested, sucking in his gut.
King Floomf ran his stubby fingers through his beard. “Very well. I wish you the best of luck with your endeavors, captain. Perhaps we shall see you on our screens before long.”
“Perhaps you shall, King Floomf,” Cal replied, then he almost jumped out of his skin when the horn blasted and the cymbals crashed.
Behind him, Mizette’s stomach rumbled loudly enough for all the Floomfles to shoot her a worried look. Cal thought the time had probably come to bring things to a close, in the interests of Floomfle safety.
“Now, if you could just point us in the direction of the crates,” he said. “We’ll be on our way.”
“Oh man, you should’ve seen them, Loren,” said Cal, sitting back in his chair as the Currently Untitled curved up through the moon’s atmosphere, two domed crates safely tucked away downstairs. “They were adorable.”
“Uh-huh,” said Loren. Splurt sat on the back of her chair, watching over her. He turned one eye to shoot Cal a look of disdain.
“Obviously not as adorable as you, buddy,” Cal said, which seemed to give Splurt the reassurance he needed, and he fixed both eyes on Loren again
“They had these big heads and eyes. But, like, the rest of their faces were… They were all…” Cal made a valiant attempt to shrink everything from below his eyes to just above his chin. “You know, like that. But smaller. And some of them flew! They had these little bug-wings, but not creepy bugs. Like, I don’t know, dragonflies, maybe. Just flap-flap-flap-flap. Little wings.”
“Right,” said Loren.
“You know?”
“Little wings. Sounds great.”
“It was great,” Cal confirmed. He looked to the others for confirmation. “Right?”
“It was one of the worst things I ever saw,” said Mech. He grimaced as he tried to force his arm fully back into its socket, with little success. “I ain’t big on dancing midgets.”
“Please, Mech. We don’t use that term aboard this ship,” Cal scolded. “It’s space-midgets. And how could you not instantly fall in love with them?”
He began to sing. “Flooooomfles, we’re the Flooooomfles. How could you not love every moment?”
Miz looked up from her claws. “Maybe if you’d let me eat one…”
“Well, I think it sounds delightful, sir,” said the voice from the ceiling.
“Thank you, Kevin. I’m glad somebody sees sense around here.”
“All that singing and dancing you describe, it sounds like a lot of fun.”
“It was,” Cal confirmed. “It was a lot of fun.”
“Indeed, sir. It sounds wonderful,” said Kevin. “Also, on an unrelated note we’re under attack.”
“Flooooomfles, we’re the—Wait, what?” Cal spluttered. “What do you mean we’re under attack?”
“Shizz!” Loren spat, twisting the controls.
Cal gripped his chair as the ship spun. On screen, a torpedo curved past them and tumbled into the distance, before looping around for another try.
“Someone’s shooting,” said Cal, as if he were the only one to have noticed this. “Someone’s shooting. At us!”
“Well-observed, sir,” said Kevin. The ship banked sharply, avoiding the torpedo’s second pass. “What gave it away?”
“Is it the Floomfles? It can’t be the Floomfles. Tell me it’s not the Floomfles!”
“It isn’t the Floomfles,” Kevin assured him as, on screen, a ship rose into view. “It’s them.”
Eighteen
The ship that appeared in front of the Currently Untitled was, Cal thought, up there with the ugliest ships he’d ever seen. In fact, he couldn’t recall ever seeing a ship quite so awful-looking before, and he felt like he’d seen quite a few of the things by this point.
This one wasn’t just bad, it was horrifying. It looked as if it had been built by the winners of an episode of Junkyard Wars that was too terrible to have ever been publicly aired.
In fact, it was worse than that. It looked as if it had been built by the winners of an episode of Junkyard Wars that was too terrible to have ever been publicly aired, and then the whole team had gotten drunk and smashed it repeatedly into whatever God-awful abomination the episode’s runners-up had built, before inexpertly spray-painting the subsequent mess, setting it on fire, and taking it in turns to defecate upon it from a range of different heights.
Only somehow worse.
It resembled a spaceship only in the sense that it was in space and, if you closed one eye and then closed the other one ninety-five percent of the way, could possibly be mistaken for a vessel of some description. It was a crash scene, frozen just after the point of impact. It was a vaguely rocket-shaped depiction of chaos itself, and just looking at the thing made Cal’s eyes water and his skin itch all over.
“Who the fonk is flying that thing?” he wondered.
A face appeared on screen. On reflection, it was precisely the type of face Cal would have expected to find behind the controls of a ship like this. Indeed, had anyone shown him a picture of the ship and asked him to draw the pilot, this thing was what he’d have scribbled. Probably before begging forgiveness from all those who’d seen it, projectile vomiting on the page, and passing out.
He, she, it, or whatever the fonk it was looked as if someone had assembled a vaguely humanoid form out of animal excrement, teeth, and assorted lengths of barbed wire, then brought it to life with a bolt of lightning. And not nice lightning either, Cal thought. Bad lightning. Lightning from the wrong side of the tracks.
“Want!” it bellowed, the word bursting as a bubble of black gunk on its bloated, crusty lips.
Cal shifted in his chair and glanced to the others. “Do we know this… thing?”
Mech shook his head. �
�No.”
“Oh, thank God,” Cal exhaled. “You know you have problems if that’s part of your social circle.”
He did his best to smile at the face on screen. If it even was a face. Sure, it shared certain characteristics with a face, but Cal wasn’t ready to fully commit.
“Uh, hi.”
“Want!”
Cal blinked. “What is it you—”
“Things!” the creature spat, spattering the screen with muddy brown phlegm. “Want things!”
“Well—Jesus!”
Cal frantically gripped the arm rests as Loren spun the ship, avoiding a third near-strike from the torpedo. Mech staggered, then watched in dismay as his arm fell off and dangled from a tangle of wires.
“Great. Way to go, Loren,” he muttered, watching the arm swinging back and forth like a pendulum.
The torpedo came streaking past them again, forcing Loren to pull off another sudden dodge. This time, as it flew by, its fuel source seemed to burn out and it glided limply off into space.
The Untitled settled back onto an even keel facing the horrifying monster-ship.
“Want things now!”
“Hey, easy there, buddy,” Cal said. “You can’t just start shooting at us, then demand things.”
“Want things!”
Cal raised his hands. “I’m getting that. It’s really coming across,” he said. “But I’m going to go ahead and counter with: No. You can’t have things. They’re our things, and we’d like to hang onto them.”
The monstrosity on screen banged a fist against its console, making the image flicker and jump. “Give things! Give things now!”
“OK, you asked for it, buddy,” Cal said. “Kevin, do the Universe a favor and blow that ship to pieces.”
“We can’t, sir,” Kevin said. “I’m afraid our situation with the temporary warp disk has been steadily worsening. It has left us rather compromised on the weapons front. Were we to land, we might be able to open fire, but that’s not really an option at the moment. Also, our shields aren’t in great condition, either. And by ‘not in great condition’ I mean we don’t have any. One good hit and we’re done for.”
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