Space Team: Planet of the Japes

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “Wow. Is this strong getting stuffer?” he asked, then he shut one eye and replayed the sentence in his head. There was definitely something wrong with it, he reckoned, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

  The alcohol had just begun sloshing into Cal’s cup when one of the skinny slug-people appeared in the doorway from outside. “Company!” it hissed. “Hurry.”

  From the other tables, there came a chorus of concern. Cups were drained then smashed against the stone floor, where the gray fragments were instantly camouflaged. Cal watched, his frown deepening, as the bartender hurriedly shoved the bottles under the bar, his eyes wide with fear. Three of the bar’s customers rubbed their arms across the symbols on the wall, smearing them away.

  It wasn’t until Cal felt the dampness on his pants that he realized he was still pouring. Looking down, he saw a dark patch spreading around his crotch. It took a full three seconds for his brain to process it.

  “Shizz,” he eventually slurred. He twisted the bottle upright, overshot, and splashed a good-sized glug in Mech’s face.

  “Hey, watch it,” Mech protested.

  Cal looked at him. At them, in fact, as he was now a set of conjoined triplets, all scowling in unison. “Huh?” Cal said, trying to pick a face to focus on. “Watch what?”

  His frown deepened even further and he cast his eyes down to his groin. “Oh man, I peed my pants.”

  The bar’s other occupants, including the bartender himself, hurried past, headed for the exit. They had almost reached it when a hulking figure in an all-too-familiar military uniform appeared, filling the doorway in every direction.

  “Zertex,” Miz spat. “Great. What do they want?”

  “Cal Carver?” said the trooper. His voice was a rich and booming baritone. It made Cal’s scalp vibrate, although that may have just been the alcohol.

  Cal looked back at him blankly, then reacted. “Oh. Wait. That’s me.” He raised a hand, then leaned closer to the three-headed Mech and whispered loudly. “That is me, right?”

  “Yeah, man,” said the Mechs. “It’s you.”

  Cal wiped a hand across his forehead. “Phew. Could’ve been embarrassing.”

  He stood up. This took quite some time, and involved a lot of muttering. When he’d finished, the world was leaning slightly sideways. He leaned in the opposite direction to try to compensate.

  He fell over.

  The process of standing up began again. This time took slightly longer than the last one, as the ground selfishly turned itself into some sort of spongy material beneath his hands and feet.

  When he finally stood up, Cal jabbed a finger at no-one in particular.

  “Yes! I’m Cal Carver,” he announced, in a voice like a 17th century English monarch. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he wasn’t about to question it. “Pray tell, what can I do for you, my good man?”

  The Zertex man stepped through the doorway, and the bar’s clientele all shuffled backwards in unison, keeping their distance from the soldier, and – more importantly - from the blaster rifle in his hands.

  “Come with me,” the trooper commanded. “Your presence is requested at the highest level.”

  Cal’s frown returned with such a vengeance it forced both his eyes closed. It took him several seconds to realize this, and a few more to work out how to open them again. Once he had, he pointed roughly in the direction of ‘up’. “The highest level? You mean the roof?”

  “I mean the president,” the Zertex man replied. “The president will see you now.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A desk had been set up in the street outside the bar, positioned so it was facing the door. A woman – or female, at least - with half-inch long white hair sat behind the desk in a functional but far from fancy chair, two Zertex troopers holding parasol umbrellas above her head to shield her from the twin suns. Her pale, scaly skin glistened as if wet, making her look somewhat fishy, in the most literal possible sense.

  She rose, smiling, as Cal stumbled out of the bar with the others following behind him. Once the team was clear of the building, the first soldier took up his position in the doorway again, preventing anyone else leaving.

  Two walls of armed guards had taken up positions on the street a few hundred feet away on either side of the woman, their backs to her, their guns held ready. Three ships…

  Cal concentrated.

  No, wait. One ship stood a short distance behind her, the landing legs having crushed at least one of the colorful tents, and possibly more.

  Most of Cal’s attention was focused on making his legs move in the correct sequence, so he noticed very few of these details. Despite his efforts, the leg thing wasn’t working out very well, either. He’d get as far as ‘left, right, left’ then have no idea what was supposed to come next, and so have to stop for a moment, before starting from the beginning again.

  “Mr Carver,” the woman said, looking him up and down with a remarkable degree of subtlety and tact. She smiled, and it wasn’t a shark’s smile like Sinclair’s had been. It was… warm-ish. Not all the way friendly, but professional, and lacking any obvious sinister overtones.

  Again, though, Cal noticed none of this. He scuffed to a stop fifteen feet from the desk, briefly wondered where he was, then remembered something about…

  “The president,” he announced, pointing to the sky for no discernible reason. “I demand to see the space president at once!”

  “Haha. Yes. Well, good news. You’re looking at her,” said the woman. The parasol carriers followed her as she emerged from behind the desk and crossed to Cal. “President Haska Valtrax.”

  Cal closed both eyes, which was one more than he had intended to close. His brain tried to figure out where the sun had gone, before his eyelids sprung open again, painfully wide.

  “You’re the space president?” he asked, far too loudly. To her credit, the president didn’t so much as twitch.

  “I am the new president of the Zertex Corporation, and of Zertex Space,” said Valtrax, nodding curtly as if using the gesture as punctuation. “I’m told you had some… interactions with my predecessor.”

  “That fonking shizznod,” Cal muttered. “He a friend of yours?”

  “President Sinclair was the single greatest mistake this company has ever inflicted upon the galaxy. He was a traitor, a charlatan, a warmonger – a disease, in fact, and one I am delighted has been eradicated,” said Valtrax.

  “You didn’t answer the question,” said Cal.

  “I think I did.”

  “Oh,” Cal said. He raised his eyebrows, processing this. “What was the question again?”

  President Valtrax, once again to her credit, continued to smile. “You asked if President Sinclair was a friend of mine. He was not.”

  “Well… good,” said Cal. “That fonking shizznod.”

  Behind him, Loren leaned closer to Mech. “I’ve never seen him this drunk before,” she whispered. “How strong was that stuff?”

  “Don’t know. But I’m guessing ‘too strong’.”

  President Valtrax crossed her arms behind her back. “Sinclair was not my friend, but I’d very much like you to be, Mr Carver. All of you, in fact. I am of the opinion that Zertex owes you a great debt.”

  “You can say that again,” Cal said. “I saved the whole universe. All the whole universes. Plural.”

  He held up three fingers and studied them. “Does plural mean what I think it means?” he whispered, apparently aiming the question at his own hand.

  “We saved the whole universe,” Mech pointed out.

  “Yes! We. I meant we,” Cal agreed. “But mostly me.”

  “Bullshizz,” Mech spat. “It was all of us.”

  “I know, I know, totally,” Cal said. “It was all of us. Definitely all of us. But, like, fifty-one per cent me. Or, like…”

  He began to count on his fingers, but as he had three times as many as he’d been expecting, he didn’t get very far.

  “Fonk it, do
esn’t matter,” he muttered. He glanced around, then reacted to President Valtrax as if only now noticing her for the first time.

  It was round about this point that the hangover hit. It came on him swiftly and without mercy, stabbing into his brain like an ice pick through the skull, and pouring raw sobriety in through the hole.

  “Ow, ow, ow. Jesus!” he bellowed, his knees liquefying and almost dropping him to the ground. He clutched his head with both hands, like he was afraid it was about to fall off and explode, not necessarily in that order. “Oh God! Oh, dear God! What the Hell is happening to my head?”

  The pleasingly intoxicated feeling was fast becoming nothing but a memory. Cal tried to hold onto it, but found only sobering discomfort where the giddy lightheadedness had been just a moment ago before.

  He shot an accusing look back at the others. “Did someone just stab me through the skull? Mech, I’m looking at you here.”

  “Hangover,” Mech said. “Guess that stuff kicks out as fast as it kicks in.”

  The president raised one eyebrow. “You realize the consumption of alcohol is a criminal offence in this sector?” she said. She held Cal’s gaze for a moment, then smiled. “But I’m sure we can let that pass. As I say, the galaxy owes you a great debt. All of you. I’d like to reward you in some way.”

  “No thanks,” said Loren. “We don’t want anything from Zertex.”

  Valtrax dipped her head in Loren’s direction. “Of course. I understand, Gunso Loren.”

  “Just Loren. I don’t work for Zertex anymore.”

  “But you could,” said Valtrax. “All of you could. We would be honored to have you. Working with us, I mean. Not for us. Independent contractors, working on some key projects.”

  “You wish,” Miz said. “I’d rather eat my own eyeballs. Or, like, her eyeballs, anyway.” She jabbed a clawed thumb in Loren’s direction.

  “I see,” said the president. “And, of course, I understand. You have no reason to trust us. To trust me. Not yet. But I intend to earn it. Zertex is not what you think it is. And if it is, I intend to make sure it changes. You have my word on that.”

  “We’ll believe it when we see it,” Mech said.

  “Of course,” said Valtrax. She glanced across their faces. “And there’s nothing I can offer you? No reward I can provide you with?”

  “I got one,” said Cal, wincing with the pain his own voice drilled into his skull. “The translation chip. The censorship thing.”

  “What about it?”

  “Sinclair added a new word. ‘Dange’. I’d like it removed.”

  Confusion flitted across the president’s fine features. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it,” said Cal. “Do that, and we’re even. We’ll call it quits.”

  Valtrax glanced upwards, just for a moment, as if searching for something. “Done.”

  “Already?” said Cal. He put it to the test. “Damn, that was fast. Damn. Damn! It works! I’ll be damned.”

  “And you’re sure that’s everything?” Valtrax asked.

  “You’re damn right that’s everything,” Cal confirmed. He started to turn away, then stopped. “Unless, you can rewind time and stop billions of parasitic bugs wiping out my home planet?”

  Valtrax glanced down, uncomfortable with the question. “I am afraid not. I can only extend my personal condolences, and assure you that—”

  “Well OK, then,” said Cal, completing his turn so his back was to her. “Then I guess we’ll be on our way.”

  “Safe travels, all of you,” Valtrax said. Cal raised a hand in a half-wave, then led the others back in the direction of the ship. The president watched one of the walls of soldiers part for them, and kept watching until Cal and the others were lost in the crowds on the other side.

  “Well, that went about as well as could be expected,” she said, as much to herself as to her umbrella-bearers. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t do more to reward them.”

  She about-turned and started to march back to her ship, her attendants hurrying to keep pace. Behind her, three other troops picked up her desk and chair, and began shuffling in the direction of the landing ramp.

  “Madam President?” called the guard blocking the doorway to the bar. “What about the rest of them?”

  Valtrax turned. “The rest of who?”

  The soldier gestured behind him to the occupants of the bar. “Them.”

  “Oh, yes. Them. Were they drinking alcohol?”

  “Possibly,” the soldier said. “I’d have to investigate further to be sure.”

  “Really? An investigation into whether… what? A dozen people were consuming alcoholic drinks? That rather feels like a waste of your time, wouldn’t you say? So no, let’s not do waste our time on something like that,” said the president. She glanced along the street in the direction Cal and the others had gone, then back to the trooper in the doorway. “Just kill them,” she instructed. “Kill them all.”

  * * *

  Cal lowered himself into his seat, being careful to keep his head perfectly level. Tilting it more than a couple of degrees in either direction made everything spin, while simultaneously stabbing hundreds of tiny pins into his eyes and, if he went another degree or two far enough, kicking him firmly in the balls.

  The leather creaked as his weight sunk into it. He held his breath, waiting for another bomb blast of pain to go off inside his skull, but was relieved when nothing—

  A bomb blast of pain went off inside his skull.

  “Motherfonker,” he hissed, gripping his arm rests. “I am never drinking again,” he said, then he quickly amended it to, “I am never drinking that stuff again.”

  Splurt stretched down from the ceiling and took up residence on Cal’s shoulder. Cal barely seemed to notice.

  Loren turned her chair to face the rest of the crew. “So, where to now?”

  “A hospital, maybe?” Cal suggested, kneading his temples. “Or we could skip that step and one of you could just kill me.”

  Mech raised a hand. “I’d like to put myself forward for that.”

  “We should go somewhere awesome,” said Miz, slouching in her seat. She noticed the others looking at her and shrugged. “Or somewhere lame. Whatever. Who cares?”

  Cal raised his eyebrows. It hurt. “No, you could be onto something. Somewhere awesome would be, you know, awesome. Loren, know anywhere awesome?”

  Miz snorted incredulously.

  Loren glowered at her for a moment, then spun to face the console. She tapped a few controls and the view of the stalagmite field was replaced by a map of planets and stars.

  “Somewhere awesome. Somewhere awesome,” she said, clicking her tongue against the back of her teeth. A glowing rectangle appeared on screen, then the image zoomed in to show four planets all grouped closely together. “Here’s something. The To’k Shipyards. It’s a fully functioning ship construction system with dedicated museum and—”

  “Christ, no,” said Cal. “What else is there?”

  The screen zoomed out, then in again, this time bringing a white and ever so slightly pointy-looking world into view. “The planet Tinel. Composed entirely of living crystals that sing in harmony when the light hits them.”

  A box popped up beside the planet, and reams of text began scrolling by. “Reviews are good. ‘A must see.’ ‘Breathtaking – we all loved it.’ ‘Five stars, although the gift shop is a little on the expensive side,’” she read.

  “Right,” said Cal. “I was thinking somewhere more exciting. Somewhere that didn’t involve crystals or museums or whatever. Something fun.”

  “Now you’re just confusing her,” said Miz. “She doesn’t know what fun is.”

  “I do so,” Loren protested. She began zooming in on a neighboring salt mine exhibition, then thought better of it and zoomed out again. “If you think you can do better, you find something.”

  Miz flicked her eyes to the screen, then pointed. “That one.”

  “Pah!” said Loren, zooming
in. “I bet there’s nothing even…”

  The image zoomed in to show a world flooded with lights. A text box helpfully told them what they were looking at.

  “It’s just a big city planet,” Loren said. She swiped the rest of the text away.

  “Did that say ‘parties’?” Cal asked.

  Loren shook her head. “No. Don’t think so.”

  “I’m pretty sure that said ‘parties’. Bring it back up.”

  Loren hesitated. “I can’t. It’s… broken.”

  Mech tapped his console and the text box appeared again.

  “Oh good, Mech fixed it,” Loren muttered.

  Cal read the planet’s info box. “…renowned for its month-long parties, often attended by high-profile celebrity guests from all across the galaxy.” His eyes widened. “Holy shizz, how have we never been to this place before?”

  “Is that really going to be fun, though?” Loren asked. “Just a lot of parties?”

  “Yes!” said Cal. “Of course it is. Are you even listening to what you’re saying? Plot a course. Take us there.”

  “I mean, the shipyard system is closer,” Loren pointed out.

  “OK, I’ll tell you what, you drop us at the party planet, then go see your museum. Pick us up in, I don’t know, three weeks. How does that sound?”

  “Awesome,” said Miz. “I can totally get behind that plan.”

  Loren tutted and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “Party planet it is. But, just for the record, the shipyard museum is rated the twelfth best attraction in this sector.”

  The Untitled shuddered as she fired up the engines. “In the museum category,” she quietly added, just as the engine roar was at its loudest.

  “Totally heard that,” Miz said.

  Loren mouthed something, almost silently.

  “And that,” Miz said. Then the Untitled banked unevenly into the air, angled steeply upwards, and rocketed off into space.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cal sat in the kitchen, his jaw moving as he chewed a mouthful of banoffee pie into a swallowable consistency. Sitting on the table, Splurt looked back at him blankly.