Pew! Pew! - Bad versus Worse

by M. D. Cooper

  Krantor eyed the shadows warily, but shook his head. “You’re just two minutes into mutiny, and you’re already discovering the universe doesn’t play fair. I was hoping to launch my final phase, the last thing I wanted was any distractions about now.”

  He unslung Lady Chatterley. Bouffard tensed for a moment, but Krantor was far more worried about the frag in the shadows.

  “I’ll leave you to your period of self-reflection, Krantor. My ship needs its new captain.”

  Krantor sneered. “I’m going to smear that impostor fleshbag’s guts across one of these vats, and every frag that’s birthed from it will see the cost of betrayal.”

  Bouffard backed out of the production plant only with great reluctance.

  Chapter 6: Space Dementia

  On the bridge, Lokhnakh regarded the main screen steadily, eyeing the approaching vessel. It was a sleek red transport, emblazoned with a dozen governments’ insignia.

  “Try hailing them again,” he told Spydus.

  “I keep trying, I’ve only got one button on this console,” the exasperated man shouted. “They’ll only speak to the captain, they’re insisting on following the chain of command.”

  Lokhnakh sagged. “Well, that just about clinches it. Officious and aggressive. Fucking Skrell.”

  “Skrell?” Lokhnakh turned to see Bouffard stepping towards the captain’s chair, freshly teleported.

  “Something I should know, your majesty?”

  Bouffard faced him, his eyes blazing with authority. “Yes, know this, old man. I am the Frag Prince Bouffard, spiritual leader of the frags, and I’m assuming command of the Space Bastard, effective immediately. My men are spreading throughout this ship, disarming the crew. Surrender now or face summary execution.”

  Lokhnakh opened his mouth, but Spydus’s hands were already in the air, and he was gabbling almost with relief. “Fine, Captain Bouffard. Now can you speak to the Skrell? They’ve used some sort of dampener on our systems. We can’t fight. They’re just seconds away from boarding. We've no idea what they're looking for, but... we've destroyed a lot of planets lately, you know?”

  As the two security personnel also shrugged and stepped down, Lokhnakh saw that the transfer of power had been taken from his hands. He stepped forward, his lip trembling and voice quavering with emotion. “But Master Krantor? You’ve not hurt him?”

  Bouffard smiled, touched at the psychotic old engineer’s concern. “Me? Of course not. He’s… spending some time alone with his conscience.”

  Down in the frag production plant, Krantor stalked across a creaking walkway near the ceiling that ran between two of the birthing vats, hoping to get the advantage of height over his opponent. Lady Chatterley in his hand, he crept forward, scanning every square foot of the ground far below.

  He turned in sudden alarm at the sound of a heavy footstep behind him. It was almost like looking into a mirror.

  “Sorry I took a while,” said his frag double. “I knew you’d have spare armour kicking about somewhere, but you did hide it well.”

  He was clad in the black clanking battle armour, and crackling gauntlets, with only the mask open to reveal Krantor’s own cunning black eyes staring right back at him.

  “So,” said the frag. “How did you want to do this?”

  “Impressive,” admitted Krantor. But while we might look identical, even share memories… only one of us is Lady Chatterley’s lover.” He patted his bulky rifle fondly, and aimed at his double’s head. “And that armour has its limits, you handsome devil.”

  Frag Krantor winked at Joth Krantor. “You make a fair point. And I’ve taken my mask down because we both know that you’re a paranoid fuck who rigged that gun’s facial recognition system so that it could never be used to fire on you. Sensible, by the way.”

  A long moment passed.

  Krantor laid down his trusty gun gently, caressing its stock slightly as he did so. The frag followed the movement, and pursed his lips. “Aw. Sweet.”

  In the darkness above two bubbling vats of frag tissue, two sets of gauntlets crackled with lethal energy charges.

  “To the death,” Joth Krantor snarled.

  “If you insist,” Frag Krantor snarled back.

  The two men leapt towards each other with murder in their eyes.

  Lokhnakh raised a laconic eyebrow. “You’ve never met the Skrell? Man, you’re in for a treat... Captain. They look like children’s toys, but they’re officious little pricks. They’re the ultimate jobsworths, with an acquisitive streak a mile wide. There’s at least one Skrell in every Health & Safety department in this quadrant.”

  “What can I say?” Bouffard murmured. “Family business. We weren’t exactly encouraged to hang out with the help.”

  “More fool your family. They’re the cheapest labour on the market. They don’t care how little you pay them, they focus on the confiscation and pilfering to make up their income, and they’re so good at covering their tracks that your accountants would never even notice. As long as your accountants…”

  “... As long as the accountants are also Skrell. Yes, I get the idea. How terribly enterprising. I think we’ll get on tremendously, as long as I remember to leave a few alive.”

  The door chimed, but before anyone could move to respond, there was a dull crump, and it was blown clean across the bridge, and into the main screen, heralding thick clouds of greasy black smoke from both the jagged wreck of the doorway and from the wrecked electronics.

  Security scrambled towards the breach, sidearms drawn in a flash. Before the explosion’s echoes had faded, thin red beams sliced from the smoke, cutting the two men down mid-stride.

  Bouffard wrinkled his nose. “Great, sizzling dead guy. As though the place didn’t already smell like barbecue.” He fished a cigarette from a pouch on his forearm, ignoring Lokhnakh’s increasingly queasy glower. “The nice thing about piracy, though, is no one minds if you smoke.”

  “Is nobody movin’!” A high-pitched voice squealed from outside the bridge. “Is fuck the up-shuttin’ right now!”

  With an expansive shrug, Bouffard took a long drag on his cigarette, and waited for the Skrell to emerge.

  The stocky creature that finally waddled through the door was about the size of a sheep. It was covered in thick scarlet fur and was almost spherical, with huge, flapping clown shoe feet. Its head was just as round and furry as its body, with sharp pointy ears, a snuffling dog’s snout, and enormous round eyes. Even half-warned, Bouffard couldn’t avoid smirking around his cigarette.

  The Skrell didn’t miss the gesture, and its eyes flashed dangerously, though the thing only seemed to be carrying a bundle of twigs in its stubby arms. “Is yes big laughin’ fuzzy Skrell. If you thinkin’ callin’ Satan’s Bollocks, Rudolph’s Nose, Pom Pom, we is hearin’ it all longtimes. And we say ‘ha ha ha, clever humans is bein’ short and curly caught by Ewok knock-offs. Is who laughin’ now?’ Ha ha ha!”

  “Ha ha ha!” chorused a gaggle of half a dozen more Skrell, as they scampered on to the bridge to flank their leader.

  Bouffard shrugged again, feeling it was probably a fairly safe gesture to make when dealing with creatures with no visible neck. He took the cigarette from his mouth, smoke pouring from his nostrils as he examined it casually.

  “Thought you boys were administrators. You file your paperwork covered in that gibberish?”

  The Skrell's fur bristled. “Is you fuckin' want some, pal?”

  Bouffard shook his head gently, radiating every inch of his borrowed aristocrat assurance. “Now, now, dear fellow. You've boarded us, very aggressively I might add. Just what do you want, hmm?”

  “Is wantin' justice! Is much explodin' planets, big boom boom all over place. And now is hyperspacin' accidents, right by explodin' planets. Is fuckin' you boys to the takin' cleaners, pal!”

  Lokhnakh froze. “It's actually working?”

  Bouffard sighed and crushed the cigarette butt under his boot. “Great poker face, old man. But given
you've just admitted our complicity in front of what I can only assume are the authorities, did you know about all this?”

  The faithful old retainer shrugged. “I'm not fully apprised of the details, but I did ask a few pertinent questions as to why a whining streak of piss like yourself was clogging up the Space Bastard with that useless shower of toy soldiers.”

  “Is testify!” squealed the Skrell. “Is witness!”

  The creature pointed the its bundle of twigs at the old man, who abruptly vanished in the haze of a teleport field.

  “Was that internal?” Bouffard barked at Spydus.

  “No,” said the comms officer, “ship to ship.”

  “One more problem dealt with, this is turning into a great day.” The Frag Prince addressed the Skrell. “Crimes have been committed aboard this vessel, Skrell. But I give you my word that you have the culprit in your custody. The other guilty party has already been neutralised. Now, I understand that you're the kind of being that might be open to some sort of... arrangement?”

  The Skrell all quivered with what Bouffard suspected might be amusement. “Is fuckin' big bribe, walrusface! Is genocide and slavery charges! Is you got deep pockets, pal?”

  There was a crash somewhere in the corridor outside the bridge, and a tired voice called out. “No, Skrell. He's skint. I, on the other hand, am the last scion of the Krantor-Huang corporation.”

  A pair of heavy boots thudded onto the bridge, swiftly accompanied by the rest of Joth Krantor, Lady Chatterley cradled in his arms like a baby. “Who do I have to blast to get you fuzzy little shits off my ship?”

  “They've engaged a suppression field, sir, our weapons are inoperative,” stammered the fickle Spydus, not without a slightly pleading glance at Bouffard.

  “Is Krantor!” the Skrell squealed happily. “Is many seekings! Is no wrigglin' out of this one! Is screwed you!”

  Krantor turned in a full slow circle, smiling at all present, singling out Bouffard in particular as the Frag Prince tried to work out if it was the original or frag Krantor that stood before him.

  “You have three seconds to get off my ship, Skrell,” he said in a steady voice.

  “Is you and whose army?”

  Again, Krantor smiled. He pursed his lips, and whistled softly.

  “Gentlemen. I give you the jewelled birds of Borthokk.”

  In an instant, the bridge was filled with a cloud of glittering chirruping shapes that whirled and darted... and stabbed.

  In less than a minute, it was all over. Bouffard and Krantor stood alone among a pile of dead Skrell, and the remains of the Space Bastard's crew.

  Bouffard cleared his throat, conscious he was unarmed. “So. Joth Krantor... or Frag Krantor?”

  Krantor laughed. “I honestly don't know. Shared memories, identical experiences... things got distinctly confusing during our fight.”

  On the main screen, the Skrell craft powered up its engines, and began moving away.

  “Cowards,” spat Bouffard.

  Krantor shook his head. “Yes, but they took Lokhnakh. They think they're going to bring me down through the courts.”

  With a blinding flash, the Skrell ship vanished from sight.

  “I wonder whether they'll make it. Hyperspace sounds risky, these days. Come on, Bouffard. We have unfinished business, you and I.”

  They returned to the cargo deck, to find a laser containment grid containing the frag squad. The soldiers were mostly sitting around looking dejected, a few of the more spirited troops nursing laser burns where they'd tried to escape. There were barely a dozen left of the small army who had set out from the asteroid aboard the Space Bastard.

  They cheered a little when they saw Prince Bouffard, but his face remained impassive.

  Krantor cleared his throat, presenting a tablet with a red holo-button. “Now, various people in this room have been betraying each other all over the place, and I'm sure we all feel very strongly about that. For my part, however, I want to stress that I've delivered what I promised. Hyperspace is a whole new plane of existence. No one knows its full potential. Perhaps one day humanity will try to ascend to it, transcending time, space, all physical limitations. Truly, I have given you a place among the stars.”

  Bouffard saw some of his men's faces shining with wonder, so he spoke quickly. “Yes. The catch is that you'll be living limpet mines, impelled to throw yourself at passing ships and explode.”

  “Not you boys,” said Krantor with a wink. “The children of the frag production plants that I'm going to eject into hyperspace, sure, they'll have the potential to be a bit... explodey. But how many lost ships do you think it will take before hyperspace travel is abandoned all together? You'll have your own universe.”

  The frags all looked towards Prince Bouffard. “What's happening, Frag Prince?”

  Bouffard turned away. “He's giving me the choice. Between us staying on this ship and serving him as slaves, as frags have always done. Or jumping to hyperspace, and spending eternity as his lemmings.”

  “Save us, Frag Prince!”

  Bouffard collapsed to his knees in front of the laser containment grid, studying the face of each of the frags he saw there. “I'm your Prince, I see that now. Your King,” he said. “But what limit does a king's duty have? When I took this form, my first act was to hack off my own toes, to spread the genetic template among fragkind.”

  “That explains the comedy walk,” Krantor muttered.

  “But it didn't work, time and again. Bouffard forgot he had become a frag, returned to ruling the asteroid with his family. Until the next coup.”

  “Your sacrifices have been great, Frag Prince.”

  Bouffard closed his eyes, his voice now a whisper. “I've killed myself so many times, I don't even exist any more.”

  Krantor placed a hand on his shoulder, surprisingly gently in spite of the gauntlet. Bouffard stood up slowly, and took a deep breath.

  He looked at the tablet Krantor offered him. A big red button. Launch the frags and the production plant into hyperspace, or continue to lead them as best he could, in the impossible quest to find a place in the universe where they would not be exploited as cannon fodder in endless wars and political games.

  He looked deep into Krantor's eyes, part of him still burning with curiosity over whether the warrior was now his frag-brother. Then he shook his head. Fundamentally, it didn't really matter. That was what he'd learned over the past weeks. Yes, he was the Frag Prince. Whatever that meant. But he was also Prince Bouffard. A half-lame fop with a ridiculous moustache and a penchant for a ceremonial sword. Vain, rash, and supremely arrogant.

  “You know what? Fuck the frags,” he said softly, and pressed the button.

  Krantor looked around the suddenly empty cargo deck. He gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Bouffard, old fellow, I really didn't think you had it in you. But you just destroyed hyperspace travel forever.”

  “I hope you'll remember this when you're the richest man in the galaxy again,” Bouffard replied, forcing a small smile.

  Krantor laughed, and pulled off his gauntlet, tossing it on the floor carelessly.

  “As we're in the mood for swapping secrets. Central don't know exactly what we've done here, but they know I'm responsible. Krantor-Huang's shareholders voted me off the board a few hours ago. People would never accept the Wormery with me still at the helm. Even if I did turn out to be a largely blameless frag.”

  “So you lost your fortune, your crew, and your business? You don't seem too bothered.”

  Krantor reached with his free hand to unclip his chestplate, releasing a cloud of steam as the catches came free. “I'm not. I'm on the only ship in the universe that can now traverse hyperspace safely.”

  As Krantor bent to unfasten his heavy boots, Bouffard scratched his moustache. “You are? What did I miss?”

  Looking a lot slimmer, shorter and younger than Bouffard had expected without his armour, Krantor stood before him in green tunic and trousers, bare feet on the
metal deck. The warrior stepped away from the pile of discarded armour without a backward glance. He clapped Bouffard on the shoulder, and his unarmoured grip was surprisingly weak.

  “Of course. The frags aren't going to attack any ship carrying the Frag Prince.”

  He held out his hand. Bouffard stared at it.

  “Are you offering me some sort of partnership?”

  “Yes. We can go anywhere, see the universe, steal anything we fancy. What do you think?”

  Bouffard hesitated, then shook Krantor's hand firmly. “This could be the beginning of a diabolical friendship.”

  And so it was.

  THE END

  — — —

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