by Hercules
Robot-Basset led the Crew and Nigel through the wood panelled corridor and out into the non-Earth sunshine. They stopped behind a fin of the ship and took stock of their surrounds. The humans were amazed. The air smelt sweet, the birds sang, albeit in a slightly different way to what the were used to on Earth. There were even strange hoots and whistles that were probably made by the local non-avian fauna.
'It's beautiful,' TS said, looking at the strangely shaped trees.
'I've seen better,' Nigel said, and sniffed. 'The leaves look tasty, though. Too bad we won't have time to try them.'
'Okay humans, make a run for the other ship,' Basset said. 'I'll keep you covered.'
'You're the one with the battle suit,' Metho said, 'you go.'
'We want to flush him out,' Basset said, with hardly a quaver in his voice. 'If he sees me, he'll just open fire. If he sees you, he'll try and capture you.'
'You're chicken,' Metho said.
'What a stupid thing to say,' Basset said. 'Chickens are psycho bastards who would have charged straight in with all guns blazing. I'm a Quokka and I like to think things through. Now go!'
'Oh for fuck's sake,' TS said, and made a break for Terry's ship. No sooner had she broken cover than a stream of tiny robots rose from the ground and encased her in an iron cage.
'No,' Tits screamed and made to run after TS but Metho and Skip held him back.
'Come out little humans,' said a voice, and a giant robot stepped out from behind Terry's ship. 'I won't hurt you.'
'Aiaiaiiieeeee,' screamed Basset, and launched himself—literally—at his adversary. Rocket boots propelled Robot-Basset across the gap between the ships, where he crashed into Robot-Terry and fetched him an almighty smack upside the head.
Robot-Terry staggered back a few steps, but a steam of tiny robots flew out from his suit, formed a device that looked disturbingly like a human foot, and kicked Robot-Basset between the legs.
Robot-Basset crumpled to the ground, but had the foresight to shoot off two laser beams from his eyes that were deflected by Robot-Terry's tiny bots, which then formed into a human fist with two extended fingers and jabbed Robot-Basset in the lasers. The distraction was just long enough, however, for Robot-Basset's tiny robots to form a structure behind Robot-Terry. Robot-Basset lunged forward and pushed Robot-Terry hard in the chest, which propelled him backwards, over the tiny-robot structure and onto his backside.
Metho looked at Skip, who nodded. They released Tits.
Multicultural Man reached into his backpack and withdrew the last remaining handful of rotten meat. After having spent four days in a sealed backpack, it was now so rank that it almost overcame the humans. But while Metho and Skip gagged, Multicultural Man threw himself forward using the power in his mighty legs and closed the distance between himself and the waring Quokkas—who were both trying to regain their feet—at lightning speed.
Robot-Terry was the first to see the approaching purple menace and sent a stream of tiny-robots to intercept him, but Robot-Basset sussed his game and interrupted the stream with his head. He then threw up an arm and scrapped off Robot-Terry's face mask at exactly the right moment for Multicultural Man to shove a handful of rotten meat into it. Both Quokkas vanished.
Nigel, who had been sitting quietly in the wings while the battle unfolded, saw his chance to get into Terry's ship unmolested and gunned his golf cart. His golf cart flew across the gap between the two ships at a surprising speed, and came to rest by the cargo wall. He waited there until Tits and TS—whose cage had dissolved when Terry had lost consciousness—had joined him. Metho and Skip panted up a short while later.
'I'm pretty sure Terry's suit wasn't on the ship when he left, so I reckon it's anchored to the med-room of one of those buildings,' Nigel said. 'Go through and see if you can find human-Basset. I'll follow and try to get this ship off the ground.'
Multicultural Man didn't need to be told twice, he bounced into the ship followed closely by the other humans. Nigel waited a moment and then pushed his buggy slowly through the wall.
Inside, they were greeted by a strange sight. All the humans were still in their cages, and all but one were unconscious. The single conscious human was Small Spaz, who was dressed in a Quokka suit. 'Sis!' he said when he saw TS.
'Basset! Are you okay,' TS said, and ran to her brother's cage. 'Nigel, can you open this cage?' she called, but Nigel had accelerated into the ship proper and was headed for the control room. A 'woo-hoo' echoed around the ship a moment later, which the Crew assumed was Nigel finding his crop.
'I'll go get him,' Tits said, and bounded after the Quokka.
'Where's Terry?' Small Spaz said, 'we gotta stop him. He's gunna blow up the Earth!'
'What? Why?' Metho said.
'He's insane. He's just waiting for the nuke delivery. He thought you were the delivery ship,' Small Spaz said. 'He was really pissed when he realised it was the other Earth Quokkas coming to get him. He'd have blown your ship out of the sky if there hadn't been humans on it.'
'I better tell Nigel,' Metho said, and raced after the Quokka and Multicultural Man. Just as he'd gotten out of sight, there was a sensation of movement.
'I think we've just taken off,' TS said.
A moment later, Tits returned with a small box that he touched onto the cage and caused it to disintegrate into tiny robots. 'Nigel wants to talk to you,' he said to Small Spaz. The humans hurried to the bridge, where a nervous Nigel was waiting for them.
'How do you know he's going to destroy the Earth,' he asked as soon a Small Spaz appeared.
'He told me.'
'Why would he have told you something like that?'
'He was lonely without his cousin so he made me dress up as a Quokka and hang out with him,' Small Spaz said. 'He only locked me in the cage when he saw your ship.'
'Basset my boy, Terry's gunna nuke the Earth!' Nigel screamed.
'I just told you that,' Small Spaz said.
'Look,' Skip said, and pointed to a screen on the wall. A big black ship had appeared above the planet.
'Fuck! That's a delivery van. They must be the nukes,' Nigel said, and the robot translator got the excited squeal in his voice just right.
'Can we stop it?' Tits asked.
'Not really. Those things are almost impenetrable. Parcel theft is a real problem in a galaxy where nearly everything is ordered online.'
'You can order nukes online?' Metho said.
'Of course! It's the right of every sentient being to defend itself and its property,' Nigel snapped, obviously on edge. 'It's not nukes that kill people, it's psychos with shroom addictions that kill people.'
'Basset says he's got an idea,' Nigel said.
'No I didn't,' Small Spaz said, then a look of confusion crossed his face. 'At least, I don't think I did.'
'What are we gunna do? My mum's on Earth! We have to save me mum!' Metho said.
'Basset's reckons that the vans are a bastard to get into, but they can be destroyed with a well-placed missile,' Nigel said.
'Look, is that Basset's ship?' Skip shouted excitedly, and pointed at a screen on the wall to the right of the control panel. 'There's something coming out of it!'
'I have a ship?' Small Spaz said.
'Oh shit, the bastards using priority post,' Nigel said after watching five dark shapes leaving the delivery van. 'Quick, get on the guns, we have to protect Basset from the delivery van's robot fighters.'
'Guns? What guns?' Tits said.
Two large chairs appeared beside Nigel, both with a screen and a joystick mounted on a gantry in front of them.
'Alright!' Tits said, and jumped into one of the chairs, while TS jumped into the other. The screens showed the delivery van, and had a crosshair that was moved about by the joystick. Pressing the large red button on the top of the joystick caused a disintegration laser to shoot out from the ship and disintegrate anything in the crosshairs.
'I'll fly, you shoot,' Nigel said. 'We're going in.'
Basset
's fighter shot forward towards the delivery van and was met by the delivery van's robot defenders. His fighter spat a red laser bolt that took out one of the robots, while TS and Tits took out one each with the blue laser beams from the ship.
'Why do the robots look like chickens?' Metho asked, and his mind was taken back to Big Spaz's mural.
'Because Terry's paranoid,' Nigel answered, bitterly. 'The Chickens run the best postal service in the galaxy, with the most heavily armed and armoured delivery vans. They cost an absolute fortune so usually only other Chickens and government agencies use them. If Basset's missile doesn't hit the exact centre of the fuel relay, then we're pretty much fucked.'
The two remaining black robots launched a co-ordinated laser attack, but Basset barrel-rolled out the way and flew past them.
'Get them before they turn around,' Nigel yelled, while bouncing up and down on his chair. 'He's a goner if they get a shot on him from behind!'
The ship lasers took a while to recharge and Tits fired his laser as soon as it was ready, but the beam flew wide of both robots. Beside him, TS swore but didn't shoot.
'What are you waiting for! What are your waiting for!' Nigel screamed.
TS had seen the pattern the black robots had flown and a plan had hatched in her mind. The ships disintegration beams had gone right through the first robot she'd shot, and therefore it should be possible for her to get both robots in one shot if she waited until they crossed over while turning back to chase Basset's fighter. All she had to do was hold her nerve as all those around her lost their minds. Metho was squealing about his mum, Skip and Small Spaz clutched one another and wept, Nigel bounced up and down on his chair, and Tits banged his screen in the mistaken belief that doing so would recharge his laser quicker.
When the right moment came, TS was ready. She fired her laser and the beam flew out across the silent emptiness of space. It burnt a hole through the first robot like a hot wire through a block of inferior cheese, and then melted another hole through the centre of the second. They both exploded into balls of molten metal and fell down towards Terry's planet.
'You got them both! You got them both!' Nigel shrieked and fell off his chair. The screen above him showed Basset's fighter fire a missile that struck the delivery van in the exact centre. Tendrils of white fire crawled over the van's surface and it also plunged down towards Terry's planet. A moment later, there was a massive explosion and a wall of fire and destruction rolled across the planet. Debris flew up into the atmosphere and obscured the surface. Unnoticed by Nigel and the Crew, a small piece of debris broke free of the planet's gravitational pull and flew off into deep space.
'Well, that's the end of Terry,' Nigel said, in a relieved voice. 'He really was a nutter.'
On the screen, they saw Basset's fighter turn towards them while Gary's ship turned back towards Earth.
'What a shroom pirate that boy's gunna make,' Nigel said proudly, as he and the Crew watched Basset's fighter fly into the cargo bay. 'Yes, yes, okay, you can be the pilot,' he added. 'It's not like I can fly this thing back anyway.'
'Can I get out of this suit?' Small Spaz asked.
'Sure thing, human Basset,' Nigel said, and a small cubicle of tiny robots rose around him. When it fell, he was no longer wearing the Quokka suit and was back in his skinny jeans and floral shirt.
TS went and embraced her brother in a touching display that almost brought a tear to Skip's eye and put a lump in Metho's throat.
'I just wanna go home,' Small Spaz said, and burst into tears. Beside him, Skip also burst into tears while Metho coughed and averted his eyes.
(ii)
Metho sipped at his Turkish coffee while Taki distributed Greek pastries to everyone at the table. From the kitchens came the sound of Tasos singing a Greek pop song while preparing trays of Moussaka for the evening dinner rush. To Metho's left, Skip and Steph were staring soulfully into one another's eyes. Sitting opposite, Tits and TS were holding hands and playing footsies under the table. On his right, Small Spaz was extolling the virtues of some new arthouse film he'd seen, or possibly an obscure book written by an even more obscure author. Not even the clarity of mind associated with taking flabby could help Metho understand the convoluted plots and tortured characters of the literature that Small Spaz enjoyed.
The smile on Metho's face was because business had been going quite well since that trouble with Terry had ended. The Quokkas had moved their property acquisition program to Sunni, so there were more human customers out and about. Not that Metho or his customers cared too much for the old-school substances. The word had gotten out about flabby. and it was the poison of choice amongst Melbourne's more discerning substance abusers, which suited Metho just fine. For the first time in his life, he actually believed that he was involved in a victimless crime. Flabby gave a decent high while protecting against all the ills of humanity up to, and including, old age. Even his mum was on the stuff now, and looking ten years younger for it.
All in all, things had turned out quite well. Okay, there was the small matter of obliterating all life on an alien planet, but the Quokkas seemed to be okay with it, so it probably wasn't that big a deal. And the humans who had been in the cages had lost a month of their lives, which wasn't so crash hot. And they never did find out what had happened to the plane load of humans that Terry had spirited away many months ago. But they were all loose ends that he could hardly be held accountable for.
Metho smiled a smug smile and leaned back in his chair. Things were finally back on an even keel and a blanket of self-satisfaction had settled upon his psyche. Unfortunately, Fate—who is a well-known bastard—had other ideas.
Quokka-Basset, wearing his human suit and in a state of high excitement, burst into Plato'n'Socrates cafe—the new venture started by the once warring brothers Tasos and Taki. 'The cops,' he said, jumping up and down on the spot, 'the cops! They've taken Nigel and all the others! And I saw the bastard! He's still alive! I saw Terry! He probably squealed us out.'
'What,' Metho said, and jumped out of his chair. Skip stopped looking into Steph's eyes. TS and Tits let go of one another. Small Spaz began to sob.
'We gotta help him!' Basset said, 'They'll execute him as an example to others. The big wigs don't like when people fuck with their Earth 'shroom supply.'
'Where did you see Terry?' Tits asked.
'The surveillance bots recorded the whole thing,' Basset said. 'Terry and a whole bunch of Chickens rushed in and took Nigel and the staff away.'
'Can't Nigel communicate with you wherever you go?' Metho asked. 'I would have thought he'd have at least got word out.'
Basset looked puzzled. 'The channel's jammed, but the cops wouldn't do that. They'd want to trace any communication,' he said, and then his mouth dropped open and he held out his hand for silence. 'Those weren't cops with Terry,' Basset said, a moment later. 'Nigel's the one who jammed the channel so the psycho couldn't find me. He's says that Terry's in cahoots with some dodgy Chickens and that they are taking the staff to the Wormhold Casino in the Norma Arm.' He sat down beside Small Spaz and again lifted his hand for silence. 'That shroom fucked psycho has convinced them that he can grow Earth mushrooms away from Earth, and that he needed the Quokkas from here because they have Earth mushroom expertise,' he said, a few minutes later.
Metho swore, which is something he rarely did these days. 'No Nigel means no flabby, an' no flabby means we're stuffed. Has your brother-in-law still got that ship on the moon?'
Basset nodded.
'Then let's go,' Metho said.
'Hang on,' Tits said, 'I gotta go get my suit. I'll meet you down at the shuttle.'
'I'm coming too,' Steph said.
'But Honeybee,' Skip said, 'I was kind of hoping you and me could stay down here and take care of business and let the others rescued Nigel.'
'Fat chance,' Metho said, and dragged Skip to his feet. 'Glad to have you on board,' he said to Steph.
'But she's a girl,' TS said, and smiled a wicked smil
e.
Metho paused a moment and, not for the first time, an image of Big Spaz's chicken mural floated in front of his mind's eye. 'I reckon we should bring your father along as well,' he said. 'If there's anyone on Earth who'd want to meet Space Chickens, it'd be your old man.'