WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE

Chapter 3

The stubby roaring starship Cacha penetrated through the stratosphere and broke free of the Heatian gravity. The bulbous rocket did not possess the ultradrive system that the Braggart supercruiser they pursued had but the spec astronauts were determined to catch up.

“Can’t this piece of shit go any faster?” Kimi’s tone was frantic.

Tardo hated it when Kimi got hysterically bitchy like this. He was doing his best and it was not his fault they were in this mess. “It’s maxing at warp five! Do you want blow the reactor?”

“Would it help?” retorted Kimi sarcastically. She posed there with her paws on her plump little furry hips.

“We’ll catch them! Don’t fuckin’ worry! But I hope your negotiation skills are good because this little sport cruiser aint gonna’ last too long in a battle with a Braggart warship!”

“Oh, they’ll listen to me alright! You just fly this piece of Kotapese crap!”

Chapter 4

Yzo lead Kanda down a tight air shaft until they came to a damaged grating. Pushing through, the two found themselves floating weightlessly beyond the effects of the warship’s synthet-o-grav system in a large chamber that functioned as an air storage compartment. Several degrees of massive filters divided up the space. At the nearest end Kanda could see a wide pressurized door presently sealed shut. And at the far end some sort of massive release gate. Floating about and caught throughout the huge filters was aerial flotsam and debris of every nature, and right before them hung a huge chunk of blackened dusty web-tangled trash ensnared in the coarse metal grid. Yzo floated over to it and proceeded to scrape and tug at it.

“This is it.” Yzo’s voice echoed.

“What? The last turd you took?”

Yzo scraped off the view port and opened the driver door of the small two-manned ship. “Hop in.”

“Oh, broog, you think this thing will even fly?”

“Don’t know. I never tried. But if you think you can, I’d really like to get out of here.”

Kanda turned the starter and the interior lit up. The engine gave a hearty whine as the huvs kicked in. apparently it was a better quality vessel than it appeared to be, but was so encrusted with dust and crap no one would have ever suspected. “OK, I think we can do this.”

From within the sealed cockpit Kanda was able to maneuver the craft skillfully enough to dislodge it from the filter grating and then zipped it through a series of rips and tears in the finer meshes until they were at the release gate. A blinking sensor eye determined them to be the last unwanted object in a collection of several that bumped about there and an enormous valve suddenly opened and spat them all into space. They were free. But they would not be unnoticed.

Chapter 5

The starship Cowcheck, so named after its true owner, the emperor Cowcheck himself, was when first commissioned a powerful, state of the art vessel designed for not only regal transportation befitting the ultimate leader of the galaxy but also heroic life-saving endeavors, in that it once possessed an amazing system that could enrich the most barren soils of the most infertile planet. After all, the family Von Fuego had not risen to popular power amongst the Braggart species and then the known galaxy by means of tyranny and oppression. The soil enrichment technology was a miraculous family innovation and closely guarded secret that sadly died with emperor Cowcheck’s late father. And the last remaining soil enriching device in the universe had been ordered ripped from the starship Cowchekk by his new human bride on their wedding night to make room for a flashy weapons system and more closet space. So this now was the renovated vessel that sat docked in birth number twelve of Sector J Space Customs.

Space Customs was just another device the micromanaging empress had so enacted to further divide and control every possible aspect of her new empire. She herself was not required to stop for search and questioning in her own facility. Rather, it was Dr. Tarx who had arranged the layover here and was now engaged with the Space Customs head of security who was about to perform a full sewage system flush and inspection on the royal warship.

Deedra Bondagio was a cocky, tough-talking human female that had worked in the field of interstellar security most of her life and now was head inspector for Space Customs. She stood on the observation bridge looking over some digital readings next to the physically and morally challenged Dr. Tarx. She spoke commandingly into her com-set that seemed to emerge from her curly red sideburns. “Dil, make sure you back wash the entire system, and use the 6K filter. We want everything.”

“Right. Initiating now.” a young chirpy voice snapped back obediently.

A huge roar grew and then fell as a gush of nasty bilge water flushed through every cavity of the warships sewage system like a tsunami enema. Suddenly the deluge all blew out a large aft drain port like explosive diarrhea into a gigantic holding tank for processing. Several minutes passed as analyzers and scanners passed through the muck, plucking things out.

“Well there’s really nothing here but some amphiboids. Nasty little parasites. Should I liquefy them with the rest of the bio-solids?” chirped Dilberta Dolger from down on a collection skiff floating above the smelly sewage. Dilberta or Dil as her friends knew her was the assistant to inspector Bondagio, and a thorough systems technician. Her playful ponytails masked her vast intelligence and impressive skills.

 “No,” Tarx interrupted, “I want them questioned. Bring them to me.”

“That’s a negative Dil,” Inspector Bondagio relayed. “Fish them out and bring them up. And bring me the full systems log too. If anything left the ship in the last hour, it will show.”

“Yes sir,” crackled Dil’s voice on the com.

Suddenly, from beneath the churning murky sewage burst a monstrous, slug-like aquatic sow; it was Pookie. Pookie roared savagely as she smashed the robotic capture arms of the scanning devices. Dilberta was knocked sideways as the skiff heaved and pitched and the She-pig landed with a loud splat on the deck. She smashed the containment cage that held her husbands captive and roared in ferocious anger as she erected her massive body to her full height of nine ominous feet.

With their weapons set for stun, several brushtoopers milling about on the edge of the sewage pool tried to subdue the enraged cosmic aqua-sow, but her hide was quite resistant to the blasts. In response to the assault, two of the small male amphiboids leapt from the smashed cages to grapple, slashing and snarling, directly with the troopers’ helmets. A third was still ensnared in the twisted bars and he screamed “Don’t let them hurt Pookie!”

Just as Pookie was about to slam down on the toppled and shaken systems tech, Dilberta whipped around with her stylish wrist-mounted multipurpose disintegrator and blasted a two foot hole through the monstrous pig woman. Hot smoky guts exploded everywhere as Pookie collapsed with a loud thud, leaving the hot greasy smell of bacon in the cool air of the space station hangar.

“NOOO, POOKIE!” Keez screamed.  He looked over to see that his two brave brothers had also been quickly terminated by the much larger, well skilled and heavily armed soldiers.

“You’re coming with me,” Dil said as she slapped a restraining shock collar on Keez.

“What was all the commotion down there?” Inspector Bondagio asked as Dil stepped through the door with her diminutive prisoner.

“Sorry boss, I got a little distracted. I’ll have the systems log downloaded in a second.”

“Unhand me! You vile evil humans,” he said, though he also saw that there was one old crippled alien among them.

Although it did not immediately appear so, the term ‘evil human’ also applied to the orange skinned Dr. Tarx, maybe most of all. For the essence of Dr. Tarx was not housed in the rotting reanimated body of the Jaytee being before Keez, but in the human brain residing in one of the two small black boxes that enslaved the alien corpse via five foot cables. Each box always skated robotically behind on mechanical bird legs, but was the true container of the ancient evil human genius. The gruesome triad approached the amphiboid captive. “Where is the fur covered alien? You must have seen him. Tell me now!”

“I- I Don’t know! He left with the other guy,” replied Keez, terribly shaken.

“What other guy? What do you mean left?” Tarx over enunciated menacingly.

“Just this guy, he came in through the air duct a couple weeks ago and I think that’s how they both got out.”

“A stowaway?” Tarx questioned in a mocking cynical tone.

“He’s telling the truth I suspect.” Dil chimed in as she examined a stream of data she had downloaded on a floating transparent screen. “Looks like you had a particle vent in your air storage just before you got here. I’ll bet that’s when they escaped.”

“How? We were in space.” Tarx moaned doubtfully.

“Space suits? Escape pods? Lots of possibilities,” Inspector Bondagio offered. “They’re not in that mess down there, that’s for sure and they’re not on board. Scanned it twice now. They’re somewhere out in Sector J.”

Tamary stepped on to the command bridge amid a light waft of residual smoke. “Is somebody cooking breakfast?”