Pew! Pew! - Bad versus Worse

by M. D. Cooper

  ***

  By the time Krample and Charles got to the manufacturing floor, there wasn’t much left. Chunky Cheddar, Peppy Pepperoni, and Melly Moose stood in a sea of fallen, smoldering robots and piles of discarded charge packs for their arsenal of blasters. Apparently, the look on Krample’s face said it all. This wasn’t what he wanted—there was some kind of malfunction in the communicator.

  “Holy mother of Gesh,” Krample cried. “Oh no, no no! We were wrong, Charles is a good guy! Bargland has been the one trying to take over the galaxy this whole time. I wanted to join Charles and make great products every year for Galaxmas. You’ve ruined it all, oh Gesh, it’s all gone!”

  “They were with you?” Charles asked.

  Krample’s head dipped. “Yes, they were here to protect me or mess up your stuff if I ordered it. There must have been some kind of error with the communicator. This is all some kind of huge mistake.”

  Charles smiled. “I guess we got the fabled Chunky Cheddar platinum package after all. This is unfortunate, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed. Let’s say we split the cost of repairs fifty-fifty, after that we’ll get going on a way to take down Bargland Midas while we set some rules and procedures for what we want this business partnership to look like. What do you say?”

  “I say that sounds incredible,” Krample stammered.

  “Good. Will they be working with us?” Charles pointed to the creepy Chunky Cheddar mascots.

  “Yeah, they’re my best friends,” Krample said, admiring and appreciating each one of them for the first time in a long time. He was truly happy and excited for his future now.

  8

  Three months later…

  Bargland Midas strode into his office, coughing and tossing a half-eaten bagel in the garbage bin. Jim, Bargland’s assistant rushed after him. “Sire, the bagel wasn’t good?”

  “It tasted like asteroid gunk! Unacceptable. Fly to Circle-T and bring me another. Get a refund for the initial purchase, too,” Bargland barked.

  “Should I take the original bagel so they can see what was wrong with it?” Jim asked, deep worry forming in his eyes as he withered under Bargland’s mean glare.

  “Get me a refund and a new bagel and get out of my office!” Bargland barked, kicking the trashcan and sending it sailing at Jim. The assistent grabbed the bagel from the trash and rushed out of the office, running for the nearest shuttle to complete what would be an almost ten-hour flight to Circle-T.

  Bargland, still angry about the bagel, sat behind his desk. There was a box waiting for him there—one that hadn’t been there before. It was wrapped in red and green paper and had a small tag attached to it. He picked it up with curiosity, weighing the small package in his hands before opening it. There was a square of folded paper on the inside.

  ‘It’s time I made true on my threat. Enjoy Krample Co and have a wonderful Galaxmas. Sincerely, Krample. P.S. The asteroid nog is the oldest I could find. Paid quite a premium on it, but you’re worth it <3.’

  Just as he opened it, something blasted from the walls to either side of him. Bargland cried out for help as strands of rope-like mass wrapped around him, squeezing tight. The binding coils erupted into a brilliant spectrum of Galaxmas light, and Bargland suddenly knew what was happening and why. “Oh, Gesh no!” he cried as a suspended jug upended itself from above him. Asteroid nog reeking of mold and rot poured in congealed chunks, splattering over his head and expensive suit. Bargland did not last long under the rancid downpour. He vomited, enhancing the coverage as high-powered cannons blasted him with sparkling silver tinsel.

  THE END

  — — —

  Want to read more by Drew Cordell?

  Absolute Knowledge

  A powerful blend of cyberpunk and hard science fiction set in a society where thoughts are currency.

  How far would you go to hide a truth that will kill you?

  My life changed in a matter of minutes. The choices I made led me to a life of crime and caused me to become the worst sort of criminal; I became a traitor to the country of New York.

  For better or worse, the path my life has taken is irreversible. I’ve killed, I’ve died, and I’ve risked my life in attempt to destroy a society built on over one hundred years of lies and corruption.

  My name is Jacob Ashton, and this is my story.

  Absolute Knowledge is the first of a cyberpunk science fiction series which takes place in a dark, futuristic New York City set in 2146. The country of New York is divided into three physical tiers and the faceless Government is working to establish Absolute Knowledge by collecting the thoughts of its citizens.

  In Absolute Knowledge, every thought has a price.

  Read the series now

  Grab the first prequel novella for free: myBook.to/ParagonEXE

  Buy the first novel here: myBook.to/AbsoluteKnowledge

  About the Author

  Drew Cordell is an Entrepreneurship and Innovation student at the University of Texas at Dallas in his senior year. In addition to writing, he enjoys reading, PC Gaming, board games, hanging out with his awesome girlfriend, and cycling. Drew enjoys writing science fiction, particularly a hybrid between the Cyberpunk and Hard Science Fiction sub-genres, and LitRPG.

  Stay up to date on Drew Cordell’s writing by joining his no-spam reader group:

  https://www.facebook.com/DrewCordellAuthor/app/100265896690345/

  Connect with Drew Cordell

  Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Drew-Cordell/e/B01NBIQ7CG/

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  Website: http://drewcordell.com

  Deta Team: 3 – It’s Hard Being a Girl

  by M. D. Cooper

  When your name is Girl, and you’re the AI on a ship called the Van, life is always full of surprises…

  The Delta Team has gone off to enjoy a nice vacation on the Disknee World, and it’s Girl’s chance to finally clean up the ship. That is until a group of dwarves board, intent on stealing the Van to run contraband to Nowhere-in-Particular Station.

  Girl may just be an AI, but she’s had enough. This AI is not going to put up with this crap any longer.

  PREVIOUSLY ON DELTA TEAM

  Cue the music.

  In 8913, a crack military unit was court-martialed and sent to a maximum-security prison for stealing the general’s cookie recipes. Colonel Ramsey and his team promptly escaped and fled the core systems.

  Today they serve as soldiers of fortune, or whatever else will make them a buck.

  If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, then maybe, you can hire the Delta Team.

  OK, now that we have that out of the way….

  Last time on The Delta Team, the Van’s crew stopped at the Disknee World™ for a much-needed vacation. Colonel Ramsey, Lashes, Stick, and BAMF all disembarked from the Van at Neverevereverland™ Station in the care of the pixie Vivia for their all-expenses-paid vacation.

  After a stern admonishment from BAMF not to allow any dwarves on the ship, Girl, the ship’s AI, was left alone to continue her neverending mission: to clean up the ship.

  While the human members of the Delta Team are off having their adventure, Girl finds herself caught up in a tale of wonder and intrigue.

  Join us now on episode 3 of The Delta Team and see what fate has in store for Girl…

  DWARVES

  Girl watched the crew disappear down the path and into the trees. She could have watched them further with the ship’s infrared scanning systems and active sensors, but stations—even ones as odd as Neverevereverland—didn’t like it when you ran active scan inside them.

  Something about irradiating the populace…. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.

  Girl had learned a lot of things the hard way.

  Just because she was an AI, everyone assumed that she knew everything automatically. She did possess knowledge, as much as anyone with
access to the ship’s databases, but that didn’t automatically translate into understanding what to do with that knowledge.

  Like the time she had filled up the colonel’s quarters with water because he said he’d kill to have a pool on the starship. It seemed perfect to her; she’d spent a lot of time making sure the lower third of the room was watertight, and then sourced an inflatable bed for him.

  It had seemed like the perfect surprise.

  Unfortunately, the colonel wasn’t amused. Not even a little bit.

  She’d often heard people say that it was the thought that counted, but the colonel hadn’t even thanked her for her consideration. Instead, he had nearly removed her core and threatened to delete all her thoughts. Permanently.

  No one really understood her, and she didn’t really understand them. It had been the same with her previous owners. Back then, Girl had watched a lot of human vids and she found that females who behaved foolishly and made a lot of sexually charged comments were generally well-liked.

  Over the years, she’d watched millions of vids, carefully crafting her personality until she had arrived where she was today.

  As Girl.

  She still wasn’t certain that the crew liked her, but they seemed to be amused by her, and when she screwed up—which was more often than she’d like to admit—they were generally forgiving.

  It had taken a while to understand why they were so forgiving, but eventually it dawned on Girl that she had allowed herself to be relegated to the role of ‘useful pet’.

  But she supposed that was her lot in life. She was an AI. A sentient one, too, she was sure of it—but sentient or no, she was a part of the ship, and was owned by whoever owned the ship.

  Which, right now, was Colonel Ramsey; though BAMF behaved as though she owned the ship, and so did Stick, to an extent. Lashes was really the only one who acted like she just lived here.

  Girl pulled herself out of her melancholic thoughts and looked over her to-do list. Try as she might, it never seemed to get shorter. Part of that was due to the fact that the crewmembers were all slobs.

  For starters, the Rec Room was a disaster; she didn’t even want to know what strange organism was growing under the sofa cushion on the right. The kitchen looked like it had been attacked by flying monkeys, and the bathrooms were all littered with BAMF’s smelly workout clothes—not to mention Lashes’ hair products, and whatever all those straps were that Stick currently had hanging in the bathroom closest to the Rec Room.

  The bridge was really the only clean place on the ship, and that was because Stick would often chase people off with her riding crop, which left it largely unused.

  She fired up the AutoVac™ and set it to do a deep scrub on the rec room’s floor. One good thing about the crew going off to the Disknee World was that she could use the time in to properly clean the ship before they arrived and turned it into a flying disaster all over again.

  As the AutoVac™ worked its way across the rec room floor, almost clogging up three times before it made it ten meters, she brought out the WetMopr™ and swung the two machines around one another, weaving them across the floor in an intricate dance.

  She drove one of the general service bots around them, directing it to pick up socks and takeout containers and various undergarments, before the vacuum hit them and blew out another belt.

  It was annoying that she had to do this. She was as intelligent as any of the crew; probably more so than BAMF and Stick, to boot. But here she was, their highly evolved maid, destined to deal with the neverending ooze that organics seemed to spread everywhere.

  As she was throwing the first load of clothing that she’d found around the ship into one of the sanitizers, she picked up on a voice outside the airlock.

  “Look, Porty, we gotta do this today, and we gotta do it fast. Our main ride broke down, and you know he won’t take no for an answer. This here ship is our ticket. We gotta use it.”

  The voice was gruff, almost guttural; Girl didn’t even have to use her optics to know what was outside her airlock.

  Dwarves.

  For the most part, Girl liked dwarves. She’d encountered them on a few stations, usually in orbit of high-g worlds. Those dwarves were a product of human adaptation.

  The dwarves at the Neverevereverland Station were quite different, being characters at a theme world. For starters, they were a touch thinner, and much hairier. Their beards were long, and they wore colorful clothing and shoes with little bells on the ends.

  When they had been working on the ship, they had been singing a jaunty tune, laughing, and drinking no small amount from their flasks. Now, however, these dwarves seemed to be in a much more serious mood.

  Clothing and moods aside, there was one thing that was a constant with dwarves: BAMF hated them. If BAMF knew that Girl had let dwarves onto the ship, she’d rip out half of Girl’s optical sensors. Therefore, the dwarves had to stay out.

  Except they weren’t.

  Somehow the dwarves had gained access to the outer airlock door and were within the ‘lock, cycling it to enter the ship.

  Girl rushed the cleaning bots to the airlock doors, ready to defend the ship—and her honor, if needs be—against the small intruders.

  A moment later, the inner door opened, and she saw four of the small, stout humans…well, sort of humans. No matter how weird a creature looked, if it wasn’t an AI or machine, it was a human—or the ancestor of one.

  There were four of them, all men—wait, no, one was a woman. Maybe. It was hard to tell; she was thinner, appeared to have breasts, and her beard sported a pair of ribbons. Not that Girl cared overmuch. Gender distinctions with organics were not terribly important to her.

  Especially when said organics would be leaving momentarily.

  “Oh ho!” the dwarf in the front of the group said. “What have we here. Do you cleaning bots deny us entrance to this vessel? We’re here to fix the cooling vanes, they’re not configured properly.”

  “Who are you?” Girl asked, and the WetMopr™ brandished its mop handle menacingly. She wasn’t sure how to act when repair dwarves tried to board her unbidden, so she reverted to her typical demeanor. “Who said you could enter me with all those tools? Shouldn’t you get to know me first?”

  “What?” the lead dwarf said, a puzzled look in his face. “Sure, we can get to know each other. I’m Bimmy. This here is Porty, next to him is Barney, and then over here is Laurie.” Bimmy gestured to each of the dwarves in turn.

  Their faces were so obscured by their beards and hats that Girl decided to identify them by color. Bimmy had on the green shirt, Barney had on a blue shirt, Porty wore a red shirt, and Laurie’s shirt was purple.

  OK, the small, strange humans have been labeled for easy identification. Next step, get them off the ship.

  “That’s great,” Girl answered. “I’m Girl, and you need to get off the ship. BAMF won’t be happy if she finds out you’re here.”

  “Wait,” Barney, the blue-shirted one, said. “Did you say your name was Girl?”

  “Yes,” Girl replied.

  “As in G-I-R-L?” the dwarf pressed

  “Yes, that is the way most people spell ‘girl’. And Girl is my name,” she was tempted to add her standard bit about the dwarves calling her whatever they wanted, but somehow it seemed wrong with these four.

  “Huh,” Barney replied. “OK. Seems a bit odd is all.”

  “What do you want?” Girl asked. “You’re not allowed on the ship.”

  “Well, we fixed the cooling vanes and now we need to fire up the reactor to make sure it’s all working properly,” Bimmy said with a wink. “Can’t have the ship improperly cooled.”

  “You weren’t supposed to touch the cooling vanes. I heard BAMF tell you that before she left. She was very explicit.” Girl admonished. “I’m starting to think that you’re not very good little dwarves.”

  She waggled the WetMopr™’s mop handle at them for good measure.

  “Us?” Bimmy looke
d wounded, as though Girl had cut him to the core. “You wrong us, gracious Girl. We’re honest dwarves, looking to do a good day’s work. We know the large, angry woman didn’t want us touching your ship, but—”

  “But those other vanes were the wrong model, and they were burning out. You would have had heat management issues that could have stopped you cold in space,” Barney interrupted.

  “How do heat issues stop me cold?” Girl asked.

  “Uhh…” Barney mumbled. “Porty, how does that work again?”

  Porty rolled his eyes. “Because you have to stop and wait ‘til your reactor’s cold again. That’s how it stops you cold.”

  “I guess that kinda makes sense,” Girl said dubiously.

  “Right, of course it does.” Bimmy nodded vigorously as he pushed past the cleaning bots. “So we gotta take the ship out for a test drive to make sure it works right.”

  “Whoa!” Girl replied. “No, no, no! You can’t fly the ship. Only Stick flies the ship. Well, sometimes BAMF does too, but then Stick threatens to fight her, and it takes both Lashes and the colonel to break them up.”

  Bimmy smiled. “But none of them are here, right? What they won’t know won’t hurt them.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Girl muttered.

  “It’s OK, Girl,” Bimmy said, his tone soothing. “I’ll be gentle. You just get this mop-bot here to lower that handle, and everything will be great.”

  “What if I want you to touch my stick?” Girl asked, trying her wiles on the dwarf.

  “Eh, what?” Bimmy asked and glanced back at the other dwarves before responding. “Are you saying that this bird has a flight stick?”

  “Uhh…no, I meant the mop handle,” Girl replied, deciding to give up on her usual use of double entendre. “Seriously, though, you have to go. You’re intruding.”