Peter’s mouth dropped open. “Wow! I didn't know about the brain damage. I knew it was addictive—it’s not exactly wheat grass juice, but I didn’t know it was that bad. People kill themselves with other stuff all the time, but I figured if you were stupid enough to try the stuff—your funeral.”
“So far, the intergalactic ruling body has lost the war on drugs, just like they finally admitted in 2013 on Earth!” John informed him sadly, “they have a laisse-fair attitude much like yours –if you are stupid enough to get addicted to the shit, Darwin in action—take yourself out of the gene-pool—adios-- good riddance.
Peter sat down in a booth like someone had cut his strings, stunned, brain whirling, not realizing he had a potential powerful ally under his nose all this time! If he could only convince John that he was on his side and trying save to them all... Not that he had planned on warring on Quaxxin dealers before Boss. If anyone wanted to destroy the Quaxxin trade, the one advantage they had was that it could not be synthesized. The molecules were simply too complex; as Boss, had informed him once. There was only one place to get Quaxxin-- Baloovia. Period. He didn't know where the other Quaxxin dealers were, but he mused, if the supply could be cut without killing the Baloovians; they could simply eliminate the trade. But they also needed to rescue Oscar and Monica somehow.
Shirley jumped in. “There are beings in the Universe that are pure thought. I’ve talked to them. There is an energy in all life that is released upon death; a soul, if you will. The death of all those marines was unfortunate, but they are not really dead. Just their corporal bodies. Besides, they were trying to kill or capture us. We simply won this round.”
“I never expected a computer to spout mystical crap at me or rationalize large scale murder even if it’s true. I'm sure their relatives will be comforted by that, Shirley!” John yelled, “That still doesn't excuse the coldblooded murder of those marines and all the others!” John said, tearing up.
“Look, John, if I hadn't done what I did, we would all be dead-- locked up-- looking forward to brain wipe or eternal torture in some prison! If I had waited five seconds Boss would have done the job himself. I feel awful too. Would it make you feel better, if I go to my cabin, get my sword and disembowel myself? I would have done things differently, if I’d had a choice, but my hand was forced.Their fate was sealed the minute Boss showed up.
Look, we need to destroy the Quaxxin trade for all time. I don't know how, but I'm with you on your mission. We know where one Quaxxin dealer is, don't we? Let’s take that ball of snot down! Plus, now we know where the Baloovian planet is! We can figure something out!” He was waving Boss’s data stick.
Peter got up and extended his hand to John. John looked thoughtfully at him unsure, but finally put his hand out and shook it. “Alright, then, let’s have one last meal before we go under the cap and have to catheter up,” Peter said trying to sound cheerful.
“Did you have to say, ‘catheter up?’” Marcus said rubbing his butt in mock pain.
It was a somber meal without Monica and Oscar. The fact that they were going to have to go up against the Boss soon, didn't help their moods any. It seemed that the Boss always had a counter to anything they did. He was always one step ahead. It was depressing to contemplate.
They came out of hyperspace a week later, divested themselves of the unpleasant trappings of being unconscious for a week, and gathered in the galley, ravenous. John made them omelets, and a big pot of kaff. Shirley’s holograph appeared in midair twirling her red tricorn hat on a holographic finger.
“Good morning, Captain Dingle-brain, and crew. How are you feeling?”
There were several variations on a grumbled ‘fine.’
“As well as can be expected after having tubes up our whoozits for a week and being starved?” Marcus complained.
“Shirley, knowing what I know now, do you have to call me names still?” Peter said petulantly.
“What? Getting sensitive on me? I call you names out of affection, and also so you don't get too big for your britches. I’m also accustomed to it now. It would feel strange being nice to you-- all the time. One nice thing about being a crystal matrix is I don't have to stick tubes up my pooper,” she said giving him a raspberry.
“What are britches?” Bob-Six said, looking bewildered.
“Anyway, Kiddos,” Shirley continued, “do you want a day to rest, or do we soldier on to Baloovia, and pick up the dumb-dumb’s? My God, they have to be the dumbest sentient race in the universe to believe they sanctify and live on by being snorted up some being’s nose!
"It’s about three days’ travel. Right on the edge of needing to be unconscious again for you beings, but you should be alright. If you think your face is melting, or you see little pink elephants flying about, yell, and I'll put you under for the remainder of the trip.”
“Very funny,” Peter said.
They spent the next two days sorting through John’s equipment, discussing options, making plans, and preparing the hold for the Baloovians. After reading the data stick, it informed them that the Baloovians only needed a little water and fresh moist sand to live and be happy.
Wastes were not a problem as they had a slow metabolism, and only excreted gravel every two weeks. Their waste was mainly excess minerals and stuff the Baloovians couldn't metabolize; smell wouldn't be problematic. Transport would be simple. As the boss had said, it would be just as simple as opening the doors and inviting them in.
When they arrived in the Baloovian system, they found a small unimposing world. The planet was mostly desert and grassy plains, dotted with only a few large bodies of water. It had oxygen with large amounts of trace elements like sulfur, methane, ethane, argon, nitrogen and neon, among others. It was breathable by humans--barely. Its air was going to smell like ass.
Peter had read from Boss’s data -stick that the Baloovians had nothing like a central government. Large groups simply had an elder that was ruler simply by the fact it was the eldest and most experienced. They had no technology, no structures, minimal art. They would be considered under evolved by most civilized world standards, but they were intelligent, and curious.
Part of the reason they built no structures or machinery, according to the briefing, was they had no need of them. They extracted nourishment from the ground and had no need for machines or shelter. The Baloovians had few predators. The Talgens were one, which according to the data cube, camouflaged itself to look like a big hill of dirt. It laid in wait, sometimes for years, for a group to shuffle by, where they rolled down on unwary Baloovians like a ton of bricks, crushing and devouring whatever Baloovians were unlucky enough to be stuck under them. When they encountered danger, they gathered into tightly packed groups allowing the ones unlucky enough to be on the outside fringe to be consumed. They were asexual. They could reproduce at will. This was the main function of the elders, deciding how many new offspring to produce each year, and when to move to new sands for feeding. Their needs were simple.
Of course, that was until a group of human prospectors, looking for new sources of minerals and ores, had accidentally run over a Baloovian, crushing it to powder with a sand crawler. As they stood over the alien body scratching their heads and wondering if they should call the equivalent of a Baloovian cop or something, a stray gust of wind blew the remains into their faces.
A day-long orgy of sex, ecstasy, farting, lactating, mind reading, and murder occurred. The murdering was a bad side effect of the mind reading when they found out what they really thought of each other. Secret thoughts were laid bare and they were none too happy about it. The survivors realized, that although they had found no valuable ore they had found a compound that someone might enjoy the effects of, and with great secrecy they started selling the powdered beings to various planets. A new drug industry was born. They were not surprised that its use quickly spread throughout the Universe and were delighted to find it was highly addictive and could not be synthesized. The murder rate for all beings had rise
n dramatically in all the Galaxy’s when beings found out their mate was playing hide the tentacle with someone else, or one of the myriad other things that beings would rather keep to themselves. Telepathy had been known for century’s but was unreliable and weak in most races. Good thing—scientists and exo-biologists had determined that lying between beings was healthy and a social lubricant.
The Boss had included a personal message with the data stick. “Hello, Peter. I just thought I should mention that I have been searching for the source of Quaxxin for ten years. I have had to torture and kill dozens of beings and backtrack to find it. They were very stubborn about keeping the secret. I was good at extracting it. I suspect that's one of the reasons the drug has become so scarce lately; the original group knew I was getting close to finding the location of the drug source, and were hoping to artificially inflate the price, as well as hide from my agents. I only tell you this, so you know how determined I am. I won't let anything as silly as a conscience stop me. I make my four-billion-credits and I'm out, as well as done with you. Don't fail me in this! I get no pleasure from torture, or revenge-- well maybe a tad, but I will follow through on my threats. Have a nice day! Happy hunting!”
“So, Shirley, are we going to be able to land this bucket of rusty bolts planet-side?” Peter said with one eyebrow raised in doubt.
“Kind of late to be asking me that now, numb-nuts, isn't it? In answer to your question, I've been having my spider-bots examining every inch of my body for stress fractures, and doing systems checks. We'll make it. This ship has not been under gravity in more than a century. There will be a lot of popping, grinding and shrieking, but as you won't be here, it doesn’t matter. You will be taking the Lirley Loo to scout a location for pickup.
“The what?
“Come to the cargo bay, I'll show you.” Shirley said, sweeping her holographic arm grandly at the airlock to the cargo bay.
Peter and what was left of the crew cycled through and followed Shirley’s floating hologram to the purloined luxury yacht. Peter noticed that its garish orange tiger stripes had been removed and the whole ship was painted a nice tasteful cream color. The extra fins, beyond what was necessary for atmospheric flight had also been removed. Peter found the new butterflies, skulls and hearts painted here and there an interesting touch, but kind of girly. Shirley noticed Peter’s curious looks.
“Behold the Lirley Loo. The EMP we fired destroyed the patterns in the ships crystalline matrix and could not be saved, so I implanted my own personality on the computer. I didn't want this to be the Shirley Two, so I named it the Lirley Loo, using a little creative license. Probably the closest thing I'll have to a daughter, so don't wreck her, asshole!
“Lirley! Come out and say hello.”
A holograph of a beautiful, teenager girl appeared in midair with electric green hair, multiple piercings and garish neon tattoos of snakes, rockets, skulls and flowers on every visible holographic surface of flesh. That explained the ships markings. She wore black nail polish, had black-rimmed eyes, wore black boots, and looked a bit Goth. A tube top under cut-off overalls worn over woolen leggings with holes artfully cut out, and one suspender strap hanging down with the buckle dangling, completed her ensemble.
“As you can see, the art on the hull was not my idea,” Shirley pointed out.
“Hey, Hi! Pleasure!” Lirley said, miming a handshake at them.
“Um, Hi,” Peter said. “Why doesn’t she look like you? Why does she appear as a teen?
“The minute I download a personality matrix separate from my own, it becomes a separate entity. Lirley doesn't have all my memories. It doesn't have the storage space, and just like humans, our personalities are sometimes shaped by the vessel that contains us. It’s in a brand spanking new hot-rod of a ship, so I guess Its self-image is as a teen, and wanted to project a female like me. I showed her millions of possible images she could portray to the world, and that's the one image that appealed to her. Don't ask me why, maybe my subconscious always wanted to be a punker teen.”
“Fuck, Mom, I'm standing right here! I know I'm a computer. Heck, if Mom can parade around like a fricking pirate, I can appear as what I want!” She was making a big production out of staring at her black painted holographic nails, scowling.
“Language, Lirley,” Shirley said with mock severity. Lirley raised a middle finger at Shirley’s image, stuck her tongue out, and scrunched up her images face.
“You’re not my boss, only my progenitor unit!” Lirley said belligerently.
“Well, she―it definitely takes after you,” Peter laughed.
“Okay, take her down, and scout out a location to land. I only have enough fuel for one suborbital braking maneuver, a landing, and one takeoff. It takes a shitload of fuel to lift this bulk off a gravity well, especially with cargo. I have no idea how much a Baloovian weighs.” Shirley said wearily it seemed.
“We only get one shot at this, or we are fucked and stuck planet side, unless we can persuade someone to deliver and drop some fuel out here at the ass-end of the Universe. I've packed enough food for five of you for two days in the Lirley, not that you all have to go, but just in case.”
“Great, Shirley, thanks!” Turning to the rest of them Peter said, “I need you, John and Floyd, but the rest of you can stay, if you want,” he nodded at Marcus, Bob-Six and Jikilenga.
“What, and miss visiting the garden spot and drug capital of the Universe!” Marcus said sarcastically.
“This being has no uses for the going. I pass. No oceans—no care for more land hikes. Jikilenga stay.”
Bob-Six just shook his head.
“Alright, that's settled. Let’s go!” Peter smiled.
The three of them trooped aboard, and in a few minutes, they were entering the Baloovian atmosphere.
“So, where do you twats want to go?” Lirley Loo said. “I have anti-gravity units for reducing weight and drag, and lots of fuel, but it’s not limitless. I suggest we do two orbits and skip off the atmosphere a couple of times to save fuel, while can scan the surface for Baloovians. My external cameras can read a data pad from three kilometers. What do these stupid Baloovians look like anyway?” Lirley inquired.
“They are mostly white with black markings, like a Zebra. Stand two meters tall, with a large skirt, two eyes―actually, they look a lot more like earth penguins, from the holographs, except no beak and more sharp edges. Uh, they're crystalline in nature, and they travel in packs of two—to ten-thousand individuals. It shouldn't be too hard to spot a group—a pod—a flock? What the fudge do you call a boatload of Baloovians, and why are you calling us twats?” Peter said, exasperated.
“Was I offensive?”
“Uh... not really but I get enough name calling from your mom.”
“Oh, then drat! I'll try harder. Mom says you should always insult humans; they like it.”
“Yeah, well, Shirley lies! She's the one that likes it.
“Fine! Starting scan.”
Tedious hours went by while they made several passes over the planet, until they found what appeared to be the largest group of Baloovians on one the main landmass and set up for a landing. They landed well away from the group, so they wouldn’t disturb or crush them. A tray slid open on the console revealing two small metallic objects like a headset and microphone as soon as they landed.
“Shirley made these universal translators for you. Part of the Boss's data was a translation of the Baloovian language. Oh, and you can breathe the air, you probably won’t like it though.”
“Thanks,” Peter said as he slipped his translator on, and handed one to John.
They exited the ship and started toward the group. The air smelled strangely of wet dog, human farts, burnt matches and sweaty socks. Peter sniffed and shook his head.
“Wow! This smells exactly like my older brother’s room! He had an old smelly dog, smoked a lot of weed, and his ass-gas could clear a room.”
“Have we decided what to call a whole bunch of Baloovi
ans? A flock? A pack? A murder? No pun intended,” Peter said quickly.
“Is shitload taken?” Marcus deadpanned.
They could not even begin to count the Baloovians in front of them; there seemed to be an endless wave of them that stretched as far as the eye could see. They moved in a silence that was eerie, only a faint ss-ss-ss-ss- as countless, crystal lags scurried underneath.
Peter spoke into his wrist com that was dialed in to Shirley above.
“Hey, Shirl! Why are they so silent? I thought they had a language.”
“Turn your com to receive open radio waves, band 102.2, dummy.” Shirley suggested.
Peter did so, and his ears were blasted with static, pops, whines, warbling, and clicks. He held his data-com up to his head set.
“~ Siss ~ I love the winter feeding groun ~ hows your ~ untranslatable,” the Translator warbled.
~ Fine ~ Fine ~ Chip off the old crystal… you know ~so ~ squeal ~ are you going to ~pop hiss~ untranslatable? ~seen any Talgen about?”
“~ Happy days, more sky ~ incomprehensible ~ take us to heaven? Why we have to be on the outside of the pack ~ I’ve --” Peter turned if off
“Well, looks like they do talk after all, by radio waves. That’s not surprising, early radios used crystals to broadcast, but damned if I know what they are going on about,” Peter said.
They bounced easily in the lighter gravity and reached the group within minutes. Baloovians were not fast. Peter was going call it a flock, since they appeared birdlike. The flock stopped, and as one they turned-- what he assumed were their faces, to them. Where the eyes would be on most beings, they had two shallow pits that glowed red.
They were not as creepy looking as some alien races, some might even call them cute. It made him wonder how the first prospectors could callously grind them up for drugs.
The Baloovians appeared to be shrinking from all sides all of a sudden. Peter realized they were using their natural instincts to contract into a compact mass. Hastily he called out to them, but they still retreated.
Star Hookers Space Pirates Page 27