Pew! Pew! - The Quest for More Pew!

by M. D. Cooper

  “Because you might be right, droid,” said Jesi. “Right. Owaitt thinks boring invasion. Katra thinks they want the treasure. Podulk thinks they want the Airport. Yorick thinks they want Katra. And I think, whoever is right gets to be my right-hand man.”

  “What?” they all said, pretty much unanimously, all except for Owaitt, who suddenly got bedroom eyes.

  “Why would you think any of us could possibly want that?” stammered Yorick. “You want me dead!”

  “Yeah, but I need you to defend my treasure too,” she said. “And I’ll keep each and every one of you around as long as you are useful. Some of you are more useful than others: don’t be sad, it’s just a fact of life. So I’m offering a one time deal. Whoever wins gets a larger portion of the treasure too. So what do you think? Want to change those votes?”

  There was a murmur of agreement all around.

  “So it’s settled,” said Jesi, proudly.

  “But it doesn’t answer the question of what we’re going to do here,” Katra stammered. “We’re not going to go up and ask them what they want.”

  “Yeah, we are.” Jesi produced a small button from her pocket, showing it off proudly. “I massacred their entire away team. They’ve been hailing me for an hour now. Let’s see what they want.”

  CHAPTER 9:

  Yaaas Queen!

  Fifteen years of pageantry never prepared Katra for this.

  The second they answered the call, the bridge erupted in shouts of “Queen, Queen, yass queen”. In the dark gloom of the windowless room, only the faces of the roaches on the screen produced light, and they were wailing, prostrating before her. Not even the audience of the Miss Universe pageant had been this adoring.

  “I guess that makes you our new first mate, First Mate Yorick,” said Jesi, her voice uncommonly ceremonial. She didn’t take her eyes of Katra. Nor did anyone else.

  “All hail, our queen!” said one of the Tagriffians, waving one of his many hands gracefully through the air. This was echoed by his entourage, who chanted “yass queen, yass queen, yass queen” adoringly behind him.

  Katra thought quite a few things in that instant.

  The first thing was that she was seriously underdressed to arrive in front of such an audience. Her clothes were still bloody from the pirate massacre and covered in dirt and dust from the Atlanta airport. This was no way to look like a queen.

  The second thing was that the leader of the Tagriffians looked quite a lot like a dung beetle she had once seen at the zoo.

  And the third thing was that she should probably say something.

  “Um, hi,” was what she went for. She kicked herself internally for the lameness of it.

  Once again, the Tagriffian ship went wild. Whooping and swooping and chattering through their oversized mandibles. Unlike the one in the break room (and the two on the floor behind her) they were not wearing their terrifying masks, which made them look even more bizarre than before. Katra tried not to gag at the sight of them.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” she said in her very best Miss Universe voice. “May I ask who you are?”

  “I am Zoinx,” said the biggest Tagriffian, pounding his chest so hard it should have shattered his shell. “I am the grand marquis of the Tagriffian fleet. We were here to pledge fealty to you, our honorable queen.”

  “To… me,” Katra said, trying not to make it sound like a question.

  “We anxiously awaited the results of the pageant, as you did, oh great queen,” Zoinx continued, “and as the other competitors were all mauled to death, it leaves you the victor by forfeit. While other planets shrugged off the results of the pageant, we patiently awaited your return, knowing our true queen would never let us down.”

  Ah. So, she did end up winning the pageant. It might have been by forfeit, but no one had bothered to tell her yet. Yay me, she thought. I won. Woop-dee-do.

  It wasn’t like anyone had thought to bring her flowers for this victory.

  “Thank you, oh great Zoinx,” she said, ad-libbing as best she could. Her hands were starting to tremble with fear, and she clutched her fist to try and keep them steady. Not very effectively.

  “We are at your command,” said the great Zoinx. “At your word, we will rescue you from the hands of your captors.”

  “Oh, no, these aren’t my captors!” She let out a forced laugh. “These are my… friends.”

  She didn’t know how else to put it. The people around her, while close to being strangers, were the only people alive in the universe that she actually knew by name. Jesi, for all of her faults, defended her to no end. And Yorick, strange as he was, seemed as into her as she was into him. As for Owaitt and Podulk, they put up with her as much as she did them: if that wasn’t the definition of friendship, she didn’t know what was.

  She reached up to touch her crown, a heavy reminder of what she was. Miss Universe. Miss Earth. And apparently, the Yass Queen of the Tagriffian… empire?

  “They killed an entire battalion of Tagriffian soldiers,” said Zoinx, his voice turning cold. “They must die.”

  “They were protecting themselves!” she snapped. “And it wasn’t the entire crew it was…”

  Jesi shot her a look. Shmuz. Katra zipped her mouth shut.

  “Please. Leave them be. Let them live.”

  Zoinx looked back to a fellow Tagriffian, and together they conferred for a long minute. He returned looking smug.

  “Come with us, oh queen, and we shall let them live.”

  Katra’s throat clogged in an instant, and she choked on her own spit.

  “Oh, that makes things easy,” said Jesi. “Thanks, Katra.”

  “No way is she going over there!” interjected Yorick.

  “Shut up. This is the only way we’re getting off this planet alive!”

  “She’s not going there! She’s not! As your second in command, I…”

  “If you want to be second in command much longer, you’ll let this happen.” The girl scowled. “What will it be, first mate? The power you crave, or the woman you have the hots for?”

  “Katra, definitely Katra,” he said. “I mean what kind of question is that? Position versus an actual human life? No thanks. Don’t you dare send her over there alone.”

  “Fine then,” said Jesi, turning back to the console. “She won’t be going alone. Zoinx, you can have the queen, but you must take her attendant with her. In exchange, you must swear not to frozzing blow us up.”

  “Done,” said the marquis. “As they say in ancient Earth tongue, done dealio, neighborino!”

  Before Katra could say ‘no, they never said that’, a burst of white light enveloped her. Her body fizzled like a bottle of coca cola. When the light vanished, she found herself on another ship, surrounded by brown, cockroach-like aliens, all clicking their mandibles in reverence.

  Her body tingled, and she fought back to the urge to throw up again. Froz, teleportation.

  “Blast them out of the sky,” said Zoinx, now right before her, with a flick of his fourth hand. Like they were not even worth a first-hand-flick.

  “What! No!” Katra shrieked, dashing forward. The crown, heavy, toppled off her head. “You can’t do that! You promised!”

  “That woman massacred twenty-three of my men,” hissed Zoinx, all reverence gone. “Blast them out of the sky, then take the planet. We shall claim it as our new homeland, and we shall call it… New Earth. In honor of our queen.”

  The Tagriffians cheered as Katra screamed. Before her very eyes, a burst of orange energy rushed towards their small ship, blasting it to pieces smaller than dust itself.

  Yorick’s arms were around her then, carefully placing the crown back upon her head. But she didn’t care about that anymore. She sobbed into his chest, lamenting the loss of the last people in the universe that she knew by name.

  “Take her to her cell,” said Zoinx, “and find a place for the attendant. We’ll need them intact once the planet is ours.” Yorick’s arms were pulled away,
replaced by buggish limbs, and Katra struggled to get out.

  Marcus, where are you? Help me, help me. I can’t fight. I can’t…

  “No! I am your queen! I order you to…”

  “You’re the queen,” said Zoinx. “You’re not our queen. We need you as a power piece. With you here, on New Earth, the planet is ours, and so is the universe. With you in our grasp, we shall take the galaxy!”

  “You realize no one else cares that I am alive, right?” Katra spat, pulling at the many, many arms that held her back. “Nobody knows who I was. Everyone who knew me is dead. I’m a smudge in the annals of history. Having me gives you nothing.”

  Pain skyrocketed through her foot, and she realized Yorick had just stomped on her toes. She shut her mouth right then and there – if she wanted to stay alive, she had to appear useful.

  Marcus. Come on. Help me. I need you.

  That was the last thing she felt before a ray of blue light enveloped her. Her head spun and everything went dark.

  CHAPTER 10:

  Revenge is a dish best served with terrifying firepower

  It was lucky the Tagriffians has only prepared one cell: one crisp clean room with a massive four poster bed, the kind of thing out of a fairytale. Which it probably was, for all Katra knew. But one cell meant they shoved the two humans in together, and she didn’t have to be alone.

  Now, she sat on the end of the bed, clutching the crown in both hands, staring at her reflection in the different stones, in the gold. The same crown that generations of English monarchs had held, worn, and felt the weight of.

  She was Miss Universe, then renamed Miss Earth.

  She was the last survivor of the massacre that took over fifty alien lives. She was once again Miss Universe. More accurately now, she was the queen of New Earth.

  She was the queen of nothing.

  Or no one.

  What she was, was sad. Sad, and angry.

  Mostly angry.

  “How could they?” she snapped, glaring up at Yorick despite the fact he was not the cause of her frustration, “How could they kill them?”

  Yorick said nothing. He preferred to lean against the wall of their cell, staring intently at Katra, as if staring hard enough would send her to safety. Something inherently masculine was kicking in, where he wanted nothing more than for this beautiful woman to be safe.

  But he was trapped too. Him and his massive, ugly hands. He hid them behind his back, playing it off as if he was using them to prop himself against the wall.

  “We have to kill them,” she said. “All of them.”

  This, finally, made Yorick react. A small double take and he rushed to her side.

  “What?” he stammered. “Are you crazy?”

  “They killed the only people I know,” she said. “It’s only logical I kill everyone they know.”

  Katra stood, putting her crown firmly upon her head. It was heavy, like the responsibility it carried, but it found its place there, on the bed of silky brown.

  “We’re going to save my planet from invasion, and claim it back in the name of humans. In the name of Earth.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly…”

  “No, I’m thinking clearer than I ever have before. We’re going to kill these mofoz-back-stabbing-space-bugs if it’s the last thing I ever do!”

  “It probably will be.”

  “Don’t kill the moment!”

  “So, it’s a moment we’re having here?”

  Shmuz. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m angry. Can we kill them all yet?”

  “You’re starting to sound a little like Jesi.”

  “Shut up,” Katra snapped, turning her back on the obnoxious man. “She’s dead. They’re all dead. My planet is being invaded. And I’m trapped here, unable to do anything.”

  “Fine,” Yorick growled, throwing his hands up in the air defensively. “All you had to do was ask.”

  “Ask what?”

  At that, the captain flicked his wrists, and two pistols slid from his sleeves into his hands. Katra’s eyes widened.

  “What the hell?”

  “I’m a frozzing pirate captain, Katra,” said Yorick, “and Tagriffians aren’t exactly known for their, say, attention to detail.”

  “Yeah, but I patted you down earlier,” she stammered. “Where on earth were you hiding them?”

  He gave her a little wink in response.

  She rolled her eyes, holding out her hand to take one of the weapons. But the captain clutched both of them even tighter.

  “Come on, I need a weapon too,” Katra begged.

  “Not these. You do not want to know where they have been. We’ll find you something else, alright? You ready?”

  Katra steadied the crown upon her head. “As I’ll ever be.”

  And with that, Yorick shot a blast clear through the door, sending up a scream from the other side. The former captain kicked through the remaining metal, hard, squashing the oversized cockroach whole.

  “You coming?” he asked, stepping onto what had just been a door. The Tagriffian he had decimated squelched under his weight, oozing black puss all over the floor. Katra swallowed hard.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” she said.

  “Relax, will you?” The man grinned back at her. “I saw what you did to my own men. I’d be angry if I wasn’t so impressed. Now come on, do you want to save your planet or not?”

  Katra felt a smile rise on her face. Hell, yeah. They tore off down the hallway together, trying to find their way back to the bridge. Or some weapons, whichever came first.

  In the end, it was the armory that sprung up first on their path. Yorick covered the door as Katra rushed inside, trying to find something, anything she could use.

  The trouble was that the weapons were designed with four armed giant cockroaches in mind. Which meant that physiologically, Katra couldn’t shoot the thing even if she tried.

  Clutching the massive barrel against her chest, she tried to wind her frail human arm through the double trigger system, to no avail. The thing was just impossible. She looked to Yorick, and shook her head, silently.

  He let out a heavy breath. “Well, you could try just throwing the guns at them, it would work better.”

  “Stop being facetious and help me?”

  As luck would have it, the second Yorick moved towards her, a massive blast went off directly above his head, sending metal chips flying and blackening the door. He missed the plasma pulse by the width of a hair.

  Without thought, Katra tossed the gun into the air like a baton – she was damn good at batons – and leapt after it. With a swift kick, her foot collided with the flying weapon. The thing sailed right into the face of the oncoming Tagriffian.

  Her mind was overtaken by someone else’s instincts, and she rushed at the creature, crushing its mandibles under her heel. The creature squealed as its black blood spurted into her face. She quietly adjusted her crown. The panic would probably come later, but for now, she was feeling pumped up and pretty badass. Probably the insane amounts of adrenaline coursing through her veins.

  “Now, can I have one of your pistols?” she asked Yorick, practically breathless.

  “So long as you don’t mind where it’s been.”

  She wiped the gack from her face with a swift jab of her wrist. “I don’t think that’s a problem.”

  He tossed her the small pistol, and she was impressed by how light it seemed in her hands. Oddly sticky, sure, but so were most of her clothes and exposed skin right about now.

  “Can the two of us take over this ship, and take down the entire Tagriffian fleet?”

  “And save the planet and the universe? Maybe.”

  Katra pointed to the Tagriffian she had just squished. “They don’t seem all that difficult to kill.”

  “It’s their firepower we should worry about,” the captain said, pointing to the room full of guns. “And the entire Tagriffian armada. Nothing can break through their ship’s shields, except
their own weapons.”

  “I thought you didn’t know these guys?”

  “I had a good look at their specs when we were on the bridge. I knew what to look for.”

  “So you would know how to fly this ship?”

  “I don’t know, probably,” he said, “it’s designed for multi-armed giant space bugs, so it might not be so easy.”

  “Good thing your hands are so large, then,” Katra laughed. The pirate hid them behind his back, his face going red. “Kidding. I don’t see the problem, they’re quite handsome hands.”

  “You think so?” He grinned. “But yes. To answer your question, I think I can fly this ship.”

  “Ok, first things first then,” said Katra, grinning. She had always wondered what she would want to do once her pageant days were over, and it seemed like beating aliens senseless was a good start to a new future. Adequate retribution for leaving her on ice a few thousand years longer than promised. “Kill every frozzing thing on this ship.”

  Yorick nodded. She didn’t have to tell him twice.

  It was then that voices began to rise in the corridor outside, followed by the boom boom boom of heavy feet on steel flooring. Katra saw them coming in from both sides before she retreated back into the armory.

  “Shmuz,” she said. “Okay. Maybe I’m not as ready for this as I thought.”

  “I have an idea!” Yorick flew over the ammo table and slammed the armory door shut. He grabbed the Tagriffian’s mandibles and ripped upwards, taking the whole head with it.

  Well, the outside part of the head. He left all the goopy brain parts behind.

  “It’s an exoskeleton,” he said, tossing Katra the ebony black shell, “They’re invertebrates, right?”

  “Yeah?” she agreed, trying not to gag.

  “Put that on,” he said, “I’ll take care of the rest.”

  She wanted to vomit as she slid the shell over her eyes. The shell was slimy and smelled like rotten eggs, rotten meat, all the rotten things she could think of.

  It got ten times worse when Yorick handed her the rest of the shell.

  “You want me to wear that?” The former beauty queen stammered. She wasn’t going to win any awards dressed like this: or maybe on the Tagriffian home world, if they were into that sort of thing.