I shook my head sadly, She had turned from a romantic possibility into another mad despot, spilling her crazy plans in her terminal minutes.
“I underestimated you, Space. When we met in this hall, I was so taken with you. Why, you had spun some fantasy about sharks, punched Snoopel and scandalized every guest you came into contact with in the span of an hour. When you put yourself forward to investigate my crimes, I leapt on it, assuming you would use the opportunity to try to doggedly proposition me and make an ass of yourself at my expense. Clearly I was wrong.”
“Half wrong!” I corrected.
“Quite. But I have to admit, loathe as I am to say this, that I did start to develop... feelings for you. I can see in the way you look at me that you see me as a callous woman with all of my ambitions and plans. But can you, could you, believe that when I took you to my chambers that my offer of alliance-and... love-was genuine? That I really did fall for you?”
“I can believe it.”
“Maybe it’s silly, but you reminded me of the heroes of my stories when I was a child, when I dreamed of the stars. The dashing adventurer comes down from the heavens, thwarts the killers, saves the planet, gets the girl.”
“That is usually how it goes.,. statistically speaking”, I told her, but she wasn’t listening.
“I didn’t think I would end up being the baddie. I never saw that coming… I only ever wanted what was best….” She collapsed down on herself for a moment. Then she looked back at me, her eyes glazed with a veneer of tears, but she refused to cry. “But the story’s not finished yet, is it, Captain? It ends when you kiss the Princess. So come, Space, let’s end our story the way it should. Kiss me.”
I approached cautiously, all too aware that she had recently tried to kill me several dozen times. As I took a knee next to her, she reached into a pocket and I flinched back momentarily. But she only smiled sadly and shook her head. A little piece of fresh baked bread lay in her gloved hand. She pulled me closer with one hand, and with the other, placed the pellet of bread in my mouth and drew me in for a kiss.
When our lips met, I was unusually reluctant to stick my tongue down her throat. When romancing alien princesses, I was normally quite willing to show them how we humans did this thing called ‘kissing’. It could have been due to the bread, the revolution or the melancholy, but Melia’ta made up for my reluctance with her own ferocious and bracing kiss-the last kiss, the kiss of death.
She pulled away from me and I felt that the piece of bread had left my mouth. A single small tear fell from her eye as she looked up at me with a mixture of sadness and defiance.
“Remember me, Captain”, she whispered, placing a hand on my chest and slowly pushing me away. I stood up over her and she spasmed in a paroxysm of pain.
“Now go! I am still… hnnnh… Aplubia’s Queen and I will… gah! Not be seen in such an undignified way!”
“Yes, Your Majesty”, I said to her and bowed low. True to my word, I turned my back and started to walk a slow funereal trudge toward the door.
I paused once as she let out another yell of pain when the gasses built up inside her, but I kept true to my promise and kept walking.
I continued as an enormous belch filled the room. And I wiped a tear from my cheek when it spilled down from my misty eye. Another enormous belch like the death cry of a gluttonous elephant filled the chamber. Don’t turn around, old man, I thought to myself, and put one foot in front of the other. Prrrrrrroooowmph-a high whine like air being let out of a balloon issued from behind me. Stay strong, I told myself, it’s her dying wish. A skittering noise came from the room and I heard the sound of glass moving around on the floor. I kept my march to the door. Even as her sphere-shaped cadaver whizzed past me on the right, I tried not to look at it. She was pumped up full of gasses, and a steady stream came out of her mouth, propelling her across the room in the wake of a persistent parping noise. I looked away.
“I will not see you in such an undignified way”, I echoed and cast my eye down as her rough sphere shape zoomed up through the air and slid up a wall, knocking over a painting and a bouquet of flowers, her gas proving a terrible engine for her body’s final moments. I looked away as it farted down to the ground and swept across the floor going ffwuuuuump, knocking over a couple of chairs before getting stuck on the legs of an upturned bench. Almost at the door, I winced as I heard her body come free and buzz around in the air like a fat fly, bobble off a chandelier and finally propel her deflating form to an enormous ceremonial fireplace. There, she jammed herself in a big chimney and filled it with the steady stream of terminal burps.
Finally, gratefully, I heard a sound like a really big water balloon going off behind me and her gaseous valediction was at an end.
“Sleep well, Queen Melia’ta Hydrangea of Aplubia. Sleep well”, I muttered and stepped out into the dawn’s light.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Four!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Revelations of a Revolution
In which Space meets the King in a deadly fight on the ancient clock tower, while Ebenezer struggles with a bomb and must choose between a red and a green wire.
As I’ve learned from watching Space try to complete a book of crosswords, bafflement can turn into anger and then violence very quickly.
But I wasn’t in a publishing house now where the only damage that can be carried out is trashing a few computers and throwing a baffled puzzle compiler out of a window. I was stuck between two growing political factions with the fate of a world hanging in the balance. And nobody had a clue what was going on. The royals and their guards had seen an aborted bombing attempt, an aerial fight and the Queen’s blimp being shot out of the air. The guards had been told that Space and I were regicidal maniacs, and they in turn had told the beige bloods. On the other side of the smoking ruins of our craft was an equally baffled crowd of rebels who had, as one, risen up and overwhelmed the forces that kept them enslaved, according to the Benefactor’s plan, and then emerged onto a surface world to find a monarchy scattered but still intact. Two crowds in the streets, with one crashed and smouldering airship between them. Not great.
A bottle whizzed over my head and shattered musically on the ground. It was the first sign of escalation. We had been presiding over a pandemonium of shouted questions and accusations for a few minutes now, and the tension was building in the air to an alarming degree. I was at one side of the deck trying to shout answers into a baying mob of royalty and soldiers while Felipe was trying to explain things to his brothers and sisters, but really all we were doing was exchanging bellows and looking at each others’ reddening faces.
At one point the Royal Guard made to advance in a line to grab me, but in response, a section of the rebel militia had also started forward, seeing it as the start of the ruck. The guards had halted and backed off from the surge, not willing to commit to the fight entirely at that point. So both sides contented themselves with creeping forward and edging toward the sides of our craft, which would, I realized with a sinking feeling, be ground zero for the seemingly inevitable clash.
A brick soared overhead-the counterpoint to the bottle.
All I could do was wish that I wasn’t facing this trampling death in my underpants.
But I knew it was a necessary step. I looked over at the door of the banquet hall, which stood slightly ajar. The tip of our craft pointed right toward it. I saw what looked like a massive ball pass by the shattered window and heard a distant whining sound. I didn’t know what it could mean, but I felt suddenly queasy.
I looked back to the growing crowd just as it inched toward us, the circle of angry faces so close to us now. I looked behind me and Felipe shot me a helpless glance over his shoulder as he was wrestling with the same problem on his end. Another volley of masonry was flung over us like a game of very extreme volleyball. I started to back away from the deck of the ship as hands began to grip the side of it, and we rocked as the sea of people buffered us.
>
“Ladies and gentlemen! Can I have your attention?” came a shout from the head of our craft. It cut through the rabble like a clarion call, and all heads turned toward the figure of Captain Space Hardcore, who had mounted our ship without anyone noticing and now stood proudly in the divide.
A hush swept through the street. Space gave a little smile and said, “I have something I need to show you.” His hands went to his crotch and he unbuckled his belt, whipping it out from around him in one motion. I looked to the crowd to see monocles popping from eyes and ladies of considerable propriety swooning as the rest of the crowd presumably wondered how exactly his striptease would aid the cause of peace. I, however, knew he was up to something else (not that he hadn’t tried to placate a mob with a striptease before though, come to think of it).
He looked over at me and chucked me my trousers, which he had had draped over his shoulders like a smelly, corduroy cape. “Thanks for the loan of the belt”, he said to me as if the crowds were nothing. “Funkworthy, do you remember why I gave you the present of this discreet but fashionable belt-dictaphone?” he asked with a small smile as his loosening trousers dipped perilously in the breeze.
I laughed and answered, “So that I could record your many wise sayings, rollicking stories and philosophically engaging limericks, as I recall, sir.”
“Quite so, quite so. But it can also be used to record the confessions of a ne’er-do-well who has tricked both the privileged classes of Aplubia and the rebel faction, can it not?” he asked, raising his voice to a pitch. A murmur ran through the crowd and many people ceased throwing currency of small denomination at Space.
“I believe that a canny enough investigator could indeed record such a piece of evidence on that stylish piece”, I agreed, shouting over to Space.
He held the belt aloft over his head and put his thumb to the discreet controls in the buckle, then twirled a volume knob on the front of the mechanism all the way to the highest setting. The blurry sound of backward spooling echoed off the ancient stone walls of Aplubia as every breath was held, bated and ready for revelation. You could hear a bin drop.
“Get ready for some truth”, said Space as the tape began.
He thumbed the play button, and the sound of a voice washed over the upturned faces. It was slightly static-fried thorough the mic, but loud enough for all to hear.
It boomed out, “-ith a really big shovel! And that was the second time I’d actually wiped out their species. Time travel’s a funny thing, eh, Funkworthy? Say, I hope you’re getting all this. Now the third time-”
Space coloured slightly and paused the recording as the crowd shared bemused looks and shifted nervously.
“You’ve rewound too far, Space!” I shouted, remembering the anecdote that needed to be included in his memoirs. “Fast forward!”
He worked at the controls of the device and then stopped it, holding it aloft again.
“-upid. Most people will also tell you that you can’t escape a black hole. Balderdash! I’ve escaped three! The secret is to tunnel out from the inside. See, once you’re past the event horizon you simply take yo-” He flicked it off again and the sound of rapid forward spooling came out over the heads of the crowd, who were now chattering quietly to each other, slightly embarrassed. Space tried again.
“Get me my ointment, Ebenezer, I’ve been to the planet of the w-” He shut that one off quickly and shot me a look that enquired why I had seen fit to record that. “Stick with me a minute”, he shouted and pressed play again.
“So I said to Funkworthy, slow this craft down, I’ve got a plan to make that gammonshark history!” came his voice.
“Nearly there!”, he shouted hopefully over the recording.
The crowd stirred visibly as he fumbled with it several more times, but finally the sound of a familiar feminine voice issued from the recording device, snapping their collective attention back to Space. A fresh, deeper hush stole over the crowd as the voice of their queen spoke to them through my belt.
“I could have solved it all...” she began as a bump in the sound indicated Space’s thumb bumping against the mic as he removed it from the buckle.
I sighed in relief and looked out over the crowd as the conversation played out for them to hear. The monarchy and the guard winced when they heard the plot to have them killed and the harsh things said about their institution. The rebels sagged under the news that the promised freedoms were a false incentive set by a mad queen. As the audio rolled out through the streets-and all over Aplubia, it seemed-the aggression in the air dissipated like steam, and a sadness replaced it. Shoulders slumped in resignation as the woman in which they had all invested so much tore all of their worlds asunder in a confession at the moment of her death.
We all bowed our heads in contemplation as the harsh truth played out on the reels, and in the light of a new day nobody spoke out as they heard the Queen die.
It was about thirty seconds into the trombone-like sounds of belching that I walked sombrely over to Space and suggested, quietly into his ear, that perhaps the recording could be stopped at that point. He looked at me with emotion in his eyes and said in an undertone, “These are her final moments and I wish to respect that.”
I nodded to say I understood and clasped my hands in front of me as Space continued to hold the belt aloft over the masses below, many of whom were quietly weeping. The gassy expulsions continued for another minute, sounding like a foghorn made of meat: the last expression from the mouth of the monarch, which had to be honoured. Sadly, due to the fact that she was flying around in the air, the sound often trailed off only to return as she whizzed back into earshot, so the crowd did occasionally look up from their respectful reverie only to have to bow their heads once again as the parping returned.
Eventually, however, the recording cut off with Space’s poignant farewell. In the shocked aftermath of the broadcast, the two sides of the Aplubian people, divided by more than just the crashed carcass of our craft, stood in ponderous silence, wondering what to do.
Space was the first to take action as he leapt down from the deck of the ship and walked into the banquet hall once again, followed by two single file lines of Aplubians from either side of the divide.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Five!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pieces of Peace in Some Summit
In which the King meets a most poetic end, Ebenezer triumphs with seconds to spare and the people of Aplubia rejoice.
I quaffed back a draught of sun-warmed Aplubian wine and watched a viscount in his shining regalia pick up the end of a fallen beam. A stoop-backed miner grasped the other end of the timber and they shuffled it toward the door.
On the peripheries of the room, a band of people cleared away the cracked architecture and splattered pieces of the Queen. It had been like this since they had filed in. Nobody was keen to make the first statement, since it carried the weight of epoch-making significance, so they had all simply milled in and then awkwardly started sweeping up the mess, as one would in the morning if there was mess to be swept up. I had dealt the national psyche of Aplubia a mighty blow by pulling off my belt and letting the chips fall where they may. It could join the club. But now they were having to deal with the aftermath, and I would be damned if I would be the one to shepherd them into a new era. I had modelled too many fledgling societies after my own words or genetic code in the past, and so I knew that they tended to grow into very unstable, if undeniably awesome societies that prioritized handsomeness, fantastic hair and virility above a stable infrastructure, healthcare or the ability to put out forest fires. I was a fantastic template for a person, or even a small group of clone militia; but for a whole people, I was a bit much to be emulated. So I sat back in the shadows and looked on as the Aplubian people cleared the floors of the nexus point of their culture and prepared to make a move forward, or even a plunge back into the monarchy-slave relationship of before. I watched the quiet industry with flick
ering interest and took another glug.
I recognized Carstairs on the peripheries of the crowd. He shot me what the rebels called the ‘thumbs-up’ gesture and wandered over to me sheepishly. I raised my bottle in greeting, wondering how the butler would act toward me, now unshackled from convention. It was conceivable, I thought, that he might have taken my repeated attacks on his character, psyche and face as a kind of persecution and lash out. I tensed up and prepared for anything as he stopped before me.
“Carstairs”, I said tersely.
“Well, Captain, I suppose I should drop the charade and doff my cap to you.”
I unballed my fists. “Erm… yes, well… yes. Okay. You… should?”
“It’s remarkable”, he continued. “I’ve been working from inside the staff of the royalty for years and nobody suspected a single thing. All the time I was feeding my brothers and sisters underground intelligence and supplies while maintaining what I thought was the perfect cover. I was a fixture of the palace even, but in you wander and you sniff out my suspect nature in a matter of seconds. I feel that I was rumbled even before the first queen passed.”
“So you really were a secret rebel?!”
He laughed. “No need for sarcasm, Captain. I’ll deny it no more. I know my last letter to my ‘mother’ was discovered by you. To think, I fancied my code uncrackable! You must be quite the detective out in the verse. I really did think my act was impenetrable.”
I patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “It was a fine façade, Carstairs, but you met your match in this investigator.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “And the rest? The way you acted the madman to keep everyone off balance? Magnificent. Mixing the truth with wild illogical guesses, sheer fantasy and overt sexual propositions was a very unusual style and… I must admit that there were times that I suspected you of idiocy.”
The Court of Crusty Killings: A Captain Space Hardcore Adventure Page 25