Pew! Pew! - Bite My Shiny Metal Pew!

by M. D. Cooper

  “There aren’t enough warnings in the world for Jim Jones,” Steven dryly added.

  Jones wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult, but he decided he’d take it as the former. “Damn straight there aren’t. Listen, I brought these things just in case there’s a problem. I have no problem with being wrong—”

  Steven and Macy broke out into a fit of laughter, and even Mort chimed in with a snort over their private connection.

  “—I just want to be prepared,” he continued, ignoring their mockery. “We fought too hard to keep this planet safe, just to have our efforts undermined by some honey sticks.”

  “It’s hard to move on,” Steven sympathized. “I get it. They were our enemies—but now we’re trying to be friends. Our differences aren’t as big as you’d think.”

  Jones eyes bugged from their sockets. “They have five eyes, a pair of wings, and yellow and black fur. How could we be anything but different?”

  “But we all want a good life,” Macy protested, and then changed her tone. “They want to work and live in peace, just as we do. Think about it, Jim. Please.”

  He crossed his arms. “Don’t you dare use your soothing voice on me.”

  Macy ran her hand along his arm. “For me, Jim?”

  “You’re going to give in. Just do it already,” Steven sighed and shook his head.

  “Alright, fine. Just fine. Besides, it looks like this sideshow is starting.” Jim nodded his head toward the podium as Spectacular stepped up to the microphone.

  The other captain held his palm out to the audience, nodding his head as the frantic applause stretched out. “Thank you, my friends. Thank you. And that’s what you are,” Spectacular pointed his finger out at the crowd, “every one of you; my Earthling friends, my brothers and sisters.” He made a fist, closing his eyes as he listened to the cheering of his name.

  “Get on with it, already,” Jones muttered into his fist, and got a stern glance out of Macy. He might’ve won the girl, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still bitter about who really saved the day.

  “Now I have new friends,” Spectacular continued, extending his arm and glancing at the giant bee as it hovered not far from his position. “They might have wings and fur, but, man, can they make a mean pot of honey!”

  He paused to take a sip of water, allowing the audience to respond with more clapping. “We were enemies; we fought, and some thought we’d keep at it until the end—but when you have a chance at peace, you must seize it. And that’s what we did. We’ve become friends, the first honeycomb homes on Earth are being built, and we are ready to move forward. Arm,” Spectacular raised his eyebrow, “and wing. Brother and brother. Friend and bug.” He clapped along with the audience. “I’d now like to introduce the queen’s representative, Buzzzz-zzz.”

  Spectacular stepped aside and Buzzzz-zzz glided forward with the help of his wings. “Zzz-zzz-zzz,” he said too close to the microphone; the buzzing noise echoed through the room, and Buzzzz-zzz recoiled. Nervous and afraid, he looked around the room, his wings opening wide.

  Macy grabbed Steven’s shirt, and Jones twitched, his hand close to the first can of Raid. I knew this would never work. There is no peace between man and bee. It’s sting or be stung—the way of the world.

  Everyone held their breath as Spectacular stepped forward. “Just try again, my friend. It’ll be fine.”

  Quickly, Buzzzz-zzz turned on Spectacular and attached to his face, his abdomen flexing, and Spectacular was down for the count, thrashing around as Buzzzz-zzz emitted a loud buzzing noise and fluttered his wings manically.

  Everyone screamed and ran away from the stage, but Jones waded through the crowd and jumped onto the stage to throw the bee off of Spectacular. Buzzzz-zzz bounced off the ground and hit the podium spinning like a wheel. When he landed with stars revolving around his head, Jones sprayed him with Raid™ until he stopped moving.

  Everything came to a standstill.

  With the bee dead, Jones knelt down beside Spectacular to assess the damage. His face was puffy and swollen, there were puncture marks all over him, and his eyes were frozen open.

  “Spectacular?” Jones shook him. “Captain?” He placed his fingers on Spectacular’s neck, and Jones’s mouth dropped open.

  “Does he need a doctor?” Macy asked urgently as she and Steven appeared at Jones’s side.

  “He needs a damn coroner. Spectacular is dead.”

  Chapter Four

  Macy passed out the instant she heard the words, and Steven took her place, shaking Jones. “How can he be dead? Dead!”

  “Get a grip on yourself! We have a problem, and it’s about more than a starship captain! That damn bee!” Jones pointed at where he’d left Buzzzz-zzz and did a double take.

  The ‘damn bee’ was gone.

  “I sprayed it. It should be right there; what the hell happened to it?” Jones huffed and hurried to the spot where a trail of bee guts was plastered onto the floor.

  Just then, a trio of military personnel came onto the stage to control the crowd. They confiscated Jim’s cans of Raid™, and he watched as they lifted Spectacular onto a gurney and prepared him for transport.

  “Thank you, everyone, for remaining so calm. We’ll get to the bottom of this as soon as Spectacular wakes up. He’ll be ready to lead this charge in a few hours.”

  ‘A few hours’? That man is dried up as toast. Jones followed the authorities backstage. “He has no pulse. He’s not waking up. I hate to break it to you—”

  The general spun. “Stuff it, Jones! We can’t let everyone on Earth know Spectacular is dead. If they suspect he’s not coming back, we’ll have a full-fledged panic on our hands.”

  “They’re going to notice eventually, General. What are you going to do? Lie to them? Construct a Spectacular bot to take his place?” Jones laughed, but from the way the general didn’t, Jim realized the thought had crossed his mind.

  “Oh, be serious. That would never work!” he argued to his superior.

  “Can we count on you and your crew to keep this quiet, and find out what happened with Buzz-zz, Captain Jones?”

  Jones scowled. “I thought his name was Buzzzz-zzz?”

  “Whatever!” The general snapped. “Can we count on you to lead this mission or not?”

  Jones saluted. “Absolutely, sir. Right after we hit the buffet.”

  The general grabbed his arm. “Before you hit the buffet. This is serious.”

  More serious than space steak cooked four different ways? “Yes, General.”

  Jones slipped back in front of the curtain and saw that Macy was now sitting up with a dazed expression on her face. Steven was fanning her with a Captain Spectacular folded poster, and when she noticed, Macy burst into tears.

  “It’s a mistake, isn’t it, Jim? Spectacular will be all right, won’t he?”

  In the moment that Macy looked at him with her wide, sad, blue eyes, Jones considered a lot of things: telling her the truth, telling her what the military’s grand plan was, ordering a pizza—because except for that space dog, he hadn’t eaten in twelve hours.

  But his love for Macy overwhelmed his love for melted cheese and tomato sauce.

  “Yes, Macy. Spectacular’s going to be all right. I was…mistaken.”

  Steven’s eyebrows arched as Macy crushed Jones in a hug.

  “Oh, Jim. That’s great!” She planted a big wet one on each of his cheeks.

  “Yeah…” Steven agreed dryly. “Great.”

  Jones gave him his ‘you-tell-her-the-truth-and-I’ll-gouge-out-your-eyes’ look. “The general wants us to look into Buzzzz-zzz’s maniacal rage and see what triggered it, and what can be done about it.”

  Macy nodded. “Right away. I’ll question the witnesses.” She started walking in the wrong direction to the exit, but realized her folly and turned and headed the right way.

  “So,” Steven ran his tongue over his teeth, “dead as a doornail?”

  “Stiff as a friggin’ board
,” Jones sighed. “But we can’t tell her. Not until we’re ready to deal with days’ worth of crying.”

  “Will we ever be ready for that?”

  Good point.

  Steven suddenly slapped Jones in the stomach and pointed at the stage. “Look at this. Buzz dropped his sunglasses before he lost his head.”

  Jones bent over and picked them up. He opened the sunglasses’ arms and saw the label. ‘Frank’s Bee Emporium’. When he moved to put the glasses on, he was struck with a powerful headache. Yelping, Jones dropped the glasses, and his inner eye was assaulted by images of honey and pollen.

  He grumbled with a gruff growl. “I think it’s time we pay Frank a little visit.”

  Chapter Five

  Marty McStinkFly hadn’t had a bad sales day since he started frying his own onions. He couldn’t say that was true anymore. As he packed up his supplies for the day, he glared over at the bee, who also was packing up his vendor cart.

  Except the bee did it with a cute little dance and an extra long ‘buzzz’. Clearly, he’d had a good day—a great day—and that made Marty want to tear off the bee’s stinger and shove it into the owner’s mouth. Yeah, how you like that, sting boy? Huh?

  Marty shook his head with a sigh. He wasn’t the violent type; that’s why he hadn’t joined the military and instead became a space dog vendor. He still got to see all the cool ships and the docking bay, but from the comfort of his food stand.

  But that bee and his annoying leg-twitch dance…Marty chomped on a space dog out of anger. The bee looked over at Marty and gave a wave of his front leg, and Marty nearly choked.

  He wants to play nice? I can place nice. He picked up a dog with extra honey mustard and headed over to the bee.

  “Hope you had a good first day. My name is Marty Mc—It’s just Marty.” He placed the space dog down on the vending cart and stepped back so the bee could give it a little sniff.

  The bee did sniff it, and then he backed up and started doing a little dance. “Buz-zzz.”

  Maybe that’s his name? Marty waved his hand at him. “Hi, Mr. Buz-zzz. Hope I got the ‘zzz’s right. All your names sound kind of alike to me. Sorry, I hope that’s not offensive to you.”

  Buz-zzz hovered in the air and kicked his legs back and forth, doing his dance. Then he started to twirl. Oh God, he’s not doing bee ballet, is he? Marty felt his temper starting to surge. How can I be friends with this bee? How can I work next to him if we can’t even have a proper conversation without Buz-zzz breaking into interpretive dance?

  “Listen,” Marty said, but his words were cut off as Buz-zzz opened his mouth in a strange little hiss. His stinger drew into the air, and he darted straight for Marty’s face.

  “Whoa!” Marty’s arms flailed, knocking Buz-zzz out of the way. As Buz-zzz did a figure-8 in the air to counterattack, Marty picked up his space dog.

  Buz-zzz came at him again, and Marty swatted, sending honey mustard flying in all directions. Buz-zzz’s wings were coated in the sticky substance, and he fell to the ground twitching, a broken bug.

  Marty saw how alone and afraid the bee was, and felt bad for him.

  “I’m sorry,” Marty said. He dropped his space dog and ran the hell out of the docking bay.

  Buz-zzz attacked me, but he seems sad about it. Maybe he didn’t mean to do it—but if he went crazy and attacked a human, isn’t it possible that other Space Bees could do the same thing?

  Marty ran for a pay-communication-link, digging through his pockets for quarters. If there was one man that could help him, Marty knew who it would be: his very best customer. The one and only Jim Jones, Captain of the…

  What’s the name of his ship again?

  Chapter Six

  The crew of the Barnburner arrived at Frank’s Emporium not long after Marty McStinkFly assaulted a bee with a piping hot space dog with tangy honey mustard. All of which Jones knew nothing about. Frank’s place was neat and tidy, and had a good view of the San Francisco Bay. The walls were lined with over two hundred varieties of sunglasses.

  Red ones, pointy ones, glowing ones, girly ones, polka dotted ones, and, most importantly, bee ones.

  “I’m Captain Jones of the Barnburner—”

  Frank blinked. “The what?”

  “Funny, I get that a lot, considering I saved Captain Spectacular’s life.”

  The words caught in Jones’s throat. It hadn’t really mattered, had it? A few months later, he was dead; finally killed by the bees that he went up against, time and time again. Jim Jones would be damned if that didn’t go avenged. He’d be damned if he let Spectacular’s death go unanswered, even if the guy was a flaming schmuck.

  “I get that a lot. Don’t worry about it.” He gestured to Steven, “This is my…” Jones thought it over and then turned to his crewmate. “What is it you do, again?”

  “Funny,” Steven muttered. “I’m the navigator. And sometimes I fix the food replicator.”

  Right, that’s it. Jones hit him on the back. “That’s right. Anyway, Frank,” Frank blinked his eyes again with disinterest and crossed his arms as Jones continued. “We’re here on official business. There was a problem at the peace accord. Not sure if you heard about it…”

  Frank shook his head. “My radio doesn’t work. It’s been jammed or something.”

  “Interesting,” Jones replied, even though it wasn’t. “These bee sunglasses you sell—how many have you sold, and who is your manufacturer?”

  “We’ve sold thousands upon thousands of them to the bees. Our world is a little scary to them, and this just helps block out some of that stimuli by making the world a little darker.”

  “So, in other words,” Steven interpreted dryly, “you sold them sunglasses.”

  “Great marketing, right?” Frank laughed.

  “Right.” Jones reached across the counter and grabbed Frank by the scruff of his shirt. “That’s why a bee wearing your sunglasses went nuts and killed—tried to kill—Captain Spectacular? Talk, you devil, talk!”

  “I don’t know nothing, I swear! These are the discounted store special. It’s just good marketing. Check them out yourself, you’ll see.” Frank squinted his eyes, anticipating a beating from Jones. Instead, Jones put him down and picked up a pair of sunglasses.

  They look harmless enough. As he began to slip them on, Steven touched his arm. “Are you sure?”

  “Only one way to know.” Jones held his breath as he slipped them on.

  The world darkened, just as it was supposed to.

  That was all that happened. No weird pictures of honey, or honeycombs, or anything of the sort.

  He pulled the glasses off and left them on the counter. “Does anyone else have access to your shipments? If these were modified, who could do such a thing?”

  Frank opened his mouth to speak, but a laser beam tore through the window and hit him in the center of his chest, burning through his shirt. He fell to the ground with a loud thud.

  Jones grabbed Steven by his red shirt, and they knelt down to find cover. The captain pulled his laser gun free and scoped the area. Whoever had killed Frank was gone.

  Who are they? And what was it they’re trying to cover up?

  “C’mon!” Jones raced to his feet, and Steven followed closely behind. Out on the street, Jones saw little evidence that anything was wrong. They split up, and Jones investigated the back window where the shot had entered. There were boot marks on top of the closed dumpster, and beside it, a flyer.

  He studied the flyer as his phone rang. “Go for Jones.”

  “Jim,” Macy’s voice was filled with worry and concern. “They’ve done some tests on Spectacular. The bee…it didn’t just sting him. It drank his blood. It nibbled on his flesh. Buzz-zzzz wasn’t just a regular bee.”

  “Was he Buz-zzz?”

  “What? I’m not talking about his name, Jim. I’m talking about…the type of bee he is.”

  Jones sighed. “Macy, he’s a Space Honey Bee. They’re all honey bees. That’s why
they make honey.”

  Macy growled in frustration. “Just shut up a second! A Zom-Bee, Jim.” Macy’s voice was low and afraid. “We’re dealing with Zom-Bees.”

  Hell, not the Space Zombies. It can’t be Space Zombies, can it?

  “Stay safe, Macy. Stay inside until we can get to you.”

  “No, Jim. I want to help. I’m coming to find you.”

  “Dammit, don’t do anything stupid.” Jones urged. He sighed and gazed upward. “I can’t have anything happen to you. I just can’t. You wait there; I can’t have you running around out there if there are flesh-eating zombies ready to eat our faces off.”

  Macy sighed. “Oh, Jim. I’ll wait here, but come for me. Please.”

  “The moment I know it’s safe, sweetheart. And whatever you do, stay the hell away from those bees.”

  Jones flipped his phone shut and gazed at the flyer in his hand, the one with the boot print on the back. It was a picture of the Queen-B, and her viewing hours for visitors.

  What are the odds that what caused the war is the same reason the bees are now attacking humans on Earth?

  Some days, Jim Jones really hated being right. (Except he didn’t.)

  Chapter Seven

  Macy paced in the hallway outside of where they were treating Captain Spectacular for his injuries. She didn’t know why they weren’t revealing anything, or why she couldn’t see him. She had been a member of his crew for a short while, and she just wanted to make sure he was okay. What’s wrong with that?

  He was lucky. Damn lucky to escape unharmed and without the Zom-Bee virus floating through his veins. The doctors couldn’t explain it, and Macy thought it might just be divine intervention.

  When the door finally opened and two doctors in white lab coats came out of the hospital room, Macy rushed over in excitement.

  “Is he okay? Can I see him now?”

  The doctors were ghastly pale and stammering their words while gazing down at the floor, up at the ceiling—anywhere that wasn’t her face. Macy was used to men staring at her breasts, but this was completely different.