Zod

‘So, Spiff, you know I’ve got to ask…How do you do it.’ Spiff turned leisurely in his chair, and surveyed Yeldarb the way one does a small child that waits on each word from the wise old man with baited curiosity, before taking a napkin to wipe the dribble from the old bugger.

‘Well,’ running his hands through his golden locks, ‘I thoroughly moisturise the scalp with a degree of massage and of course extract o—’

‘Spiff, the tractor beam, how did you do it?’

‘Hmm,’ he nodded his head.

‘Well?’

‘Just a matter of accelerating enough for a high gravitivic wave dispersal front to obliterate all the photonic string substrata surrounding the destroyer, thereby using it as a cocoon and plowing through the erm, thingymyhims to safety.’

‘That’s the biggest collection of techno-babble I’ve heard this side of the dogheaded nebula Spiff.’ Spiff nodded in agreement, ‘True, true, but it worked!’

‘That’s enough for me my man, roll on the implausibility’s!’ Both men resumed their silent watch on the gradually approaching streak. That tense anticipated silence descended once more.

‘It really is a… nasty looking ship, isn’t it?’ More silence.

‘How long do you think…?’ asked Yeldarb.

‘How Long? Until they board us, slit our throats and ship you to the Dust mines of Drydos where after a lifetime of enslavement and ritual rape, your limbs and organs will be donated to the Pain Guild for a research into the fine art of body grinding?’

Worried frowns like worms after a fresh rainfall formed on Yeldarb’s distraught face.

‘Actually, I was rather just thinking of being captured in a sort of gentlemanly like manner. Bit of hand shaking, surrender and all that and we go peacefully off to some detention centre with numerous obvious security flaws.’

Spiff shook his head negatively, and made a slow filing motion with his hands.

There was a clank pleasant to the ear and Sknarf padded in from that sexist anti-abode, the kitchen, as enticingly and hip swayingly as she could.

‘Tea’s up,’ she chirped and presented a silver tray, complete with a nice shiny teapot, shiny, shiny mugs and a plate of little brown biscuity things covered in syntho-choc.

‘Tea?’ asked Yeldarb disbelievingly, ‘Tea? Are you barking? We’re about to be enslaved… or worse for me apparently.’

‘Tea?’ mimic’d Spiff, who in a twitch of an eye had poured a cup and was in the proceeds of some happy munching. ‘Great thinking Sknarf, the high sugar content will help toughen our bodies against the vacuum which we’ll no doubt be thrown into bleepock naked.’

‘Vacuum?’ whimpered Yeldarb, ‘before or after the ritual rape and life of servitude?’

‘Both,’ said Spiff, ‘Sknarf? How did you find these?’

‘Oh,’ she sighed dreamily, ‘I just rustled them up. Found some supplies in a back room. I thought you’d like them, Spiff… and you also Yeldarb of course.’

Yeldarb who had barely began, stopped munching.

‘You mean to say, these biscuits have been here since this thing was constructed.’

‘Hmm, probably.’

‘So, these are like… million year old Bourbons?’ His tongue rolled out instinctively, his munching slowed like a diner discovering a mix-up with the casserole and the chefs dog’s pooper-scooper. There was a sudden crackle and a faint voice broke the crunching.

‘Vesting, vesting….It’s alright God, your through… Ah, vight…’

‘What the bleep,’ said Spiff, now listening intently.

‘Message receiving from—’ cooed Chima.

‘God seemingly!’ gibbered Yeldarb, dropping to his knees and making various botched and poorly remembered attempts to make the sign of the cross.

‘Yes… God, what do you desire of us, your unworthy minions?’ he spoke in a stilted, grovelling tone. At the other end of this communication, the speaker grinned, glad to hear some respect for a change, and that the beings were obviously acquainted with him.

‘Ah, undoubtedly taller creature, vou vill slow down and suvvender to my superior vorces, and much smaller body, despite which, has hampered me in no way to reach the giddying pinnacle of my profession.’

‘Suvvender?’

‘Ves, suvvender, and at vonce.’

‘Vonce?’ asked Sknarf, ‘doesn’t sound like a God,’ loudly, ‘wouldn’t you like us to… worship you… or something else godly?,’ hoping really it wasn’t the ‘something else.’

‘Vorship? Vy certainly, but virst, vour imminent suvvender and following vates vorse than a vate vorse than death are required.’

Yeldarb looked confused.

A planet sized penny dropped.

‘Ha, wait a minute,’ Spiff grinning at his intelligence at spotting the ruse, ‘Your not really God are you, your just trying to trick us. Aren’t you?’

Crackling static hiss was the only reply.

‘Ha, got you’ cried Spiff, ‘good try though, almost got us.’

Still no reply.

‘Typical of God eh, you prove he exists and he naffs off,’ spoke Yeldarb bitterly, ‘I knew all that religious education was a waste. I always thought, if this God want’s you to learn his religion so much, the least he can do is bleeping come down him—’

‘—or her,’ interjected Sknarf.

‘—self and teach it!’

Spiff was listening intently to the quiet airwaves, ‘Think he’s gone awa—’

Spiff stared, the Deaths Door was gone.

‘Chima, what’s happened?’

The bridge was empty, bar two sweating well-greased guards.

‘They’s all gone sir’ grunted the Orc who was breathing heavily from his recent exertions, ‘Tha’s the last of them, disobedient retches tha,’ they were!’

Mega Admiral Dearth fumed, ‘Zat vill teach them,’ he spat bitterly,

‘Unknown indeed… Superstition, that’s what I call it!’ Dearth turned to the front viewing panel and surveyed the very much thinner patch of stars that existed before them. He turned and looked back at the thick band of stars that signified the galactic centre, and all he knew.

‘You, orc!’ he shrieked, ‘start the engines, we’re going into this… this… unknown.’

Each Orc looked at the other and hoped they weren’t the focus of attention. The uglier of the pair, whom we’ve met before, stuck his lips out in a thoughtful manner and looked at the multitudinous buttons of the navigation desk like a conspiracy graduate would the K’nnidy assassination.

‘Now!’

Grumbling and casting a hateful glance at the other Orc, he sat down and thought about which of the vast array of buttons with squiggly things to try first. A shiny red one was flashing in a ‘get your attention’ manner. He decided to press it.

Chima spun through the stars soundlessly and without much in the way of control. Her guidance systems were damaged, there was a fuel leak and Yeldarb was culturing a worrying ulcer. In three thousand years, they’d crash into a star in a neighbouring galaxy, but for now, they ignored this worry.

‘So,’ whistled Spiff matter-of-factly, ‘were a bit scuppered.’ Yeldarb read over the ships status again. There were an awful lot of zeroes on it.

‘We appear to have entered something called ‘The Unknown.’

Every ship that ever enters, never returns.’

Spiff mulled this over optimistically. ‘So, we could be the first then eh? How long until the fuel runs out?’

‘Not long, a few days perhaps.’

‘Well,’ said Sknarf quietly, ‘that buys us some time. Could be worse.’

‘I wouldn’t actually worry though about the fuel though?’ said Yeldarb.

‘Why’s that?’ asked Spiff.

‘Only got one hour worth of air left.’

‘Is that a problem?’ asked Spiff.

Yeldarb looked disbelievingly at the man, ‘Of course it’s a bleeping problem, what are we going to breathe? Implausible ideas?’

‘We could just hold our breath?’ he suggested hopefully.

‘Yeah,’ replied Yeldarb, drenched in sarcasm, ‘first one to make it three thousand years gets a nice suntan!’

‘Erm, chaps?’ inquired Sknarf.

Both heads turned to watch what she watched which was undoubtedly watching them also.

‘Vou’ve just did what!’ hissed Dearth.

‘Erm, edected the cwew…’ replied the Orc mournfully.

‘Right, that’s it!’ he screeched, ‘you Orc, throw him in the brig!’

The Orc looked confused.

‘Can’t God Sir, brig been edected too.’

Dearth fumed, his face turning morello cherry red and his body, ridgid with fury like a cocktail stick, ‘Right! Throw yourself in the brig too… now!’

The Orcs ambled off to the non-existent brig for a jolly good bit of throwing.

‘Cards?’ one suggested.

Dearth surveyed the empty bridge.

He smiled, ‘Right, at least now I’ll get the job done properly.’

It swam towards them like an Octopus. A great space-Octopus with strobing tentacles and a thousand brightly lit portals that shone like mother-of-pearl beads. It’s base colour was a deep red-purple though the tentacles glided through the colour frequencies, ending with brilliant green-blue tips that reached towards them gropingly. Where there would have been a beak, a cavernous brilliantly lit doorway grew and from within, unusual shapes drifted about meaningfully.

Suckers half the size of Chima attached themselves gently, obscuring virtually all vision and for the second time in this day, Chima was reeled in.

‘It’s beautiful!’ remarked Sknarf as she watched, mesmerised by the constantly changing colour shifts in the ‘skin.’

‘Looks organic, like Chima,’ prompted Yeldarb.

‘Do you think it’s a real Octopus?’ asked Spiff.

They looked at him stupidly, or rather looked at him being stupid. Drifting now at a fair speed, they were gliding alongside a smaller collection of tentacles that ‘guarded’ the entry portal and could see the delicate textures present.

Sknarf leaned forward and watched what looked like muscle fibres ripple softly under the slowly pulsing skin. She could even make out pores.

Pearl light enveloped them, and all detail was gone, only the white, the brilliant white remained. They fell to the ground clutching their eyes and then there was no more.

Rafe flicked the channel selector in a frustrated, but still peaceful manner. For hours now he’d been trying to find something on guitars, but all he got were more of the same; ‘shopping channels’ and something called ‘Nebula Watch’ which while visually interesting, seemed to concentrate of the rescuing of small red beach balls by an army of partly glad female nebulanauts who would unwittingly cast the same red balls back into the nebula, to allow the cycle to repeat indefinitely.

‘Plastic programmes man, plastic programmes,’ he repeated to himself.

And then, his eyes were practically ripped out of their sockets. Rafe had found the ‘forced viewing’ channel, where hypnotic suggestions are beamed piggy-back style with the main signal, making it practically impossible for the watcher to extract themselves. Sleeping, eating and other bodily functions all took second place when absorbed by this channel, which by law had to give viewers the chance to ‘escape’ every four hours. Unfortunately, prior to this four hour switch-over, viewers are impelled to turn to the alternative ‘forced viewing’ station which runs offset two hours from the original. Thus, the unwary or mentally feeble can find whole lifetimes whittled away as their minds are transformed to something resembling a soft chocolate centre. Rafe, wild eyed, gibbered at the display. He was watching something about intergalactic caravaning and was being urged to give his Galactican Express card number to purchase all the back editions of

‘Everything you hoped to God never to find out about Intergalactic Caravaning; but are forced to find out at dinner parties anyway,’ the volumes of which, would cover the surface of a small moon three feet deep.

Drool formed at one corner of Rafe’s mouth and threatened to roll down his chin. His finger, atoms away from the switcher, desperately begged his brain to let it press down.

Fzzzzttt.

‘We interrupt this broadcast to transfer you directly to the news channel, as we feel this message is far more important than whatever petty interests interest you in an interesting way.’ It was nothing but the truth Norman, and to Rafe, he was the picture of perfect incarnation, for the hypno-signal was gone.

He wrenched his eyes from the screen and dropped to the floor to curl up into a foetal position, where he got on with some serious gibbering.

‘The Emperor Zod the whatever’th, today, declared he is finally to wed in a ceremony scheduled for the next passing of the comet ‘Faint- blob in the sky.’ The lucky lady, former resistance leader, Lady X, who was on the galaxies bounty list, has been released on all charges, pending her imminent wedlock. We cut now to a press announcement by our well- groomed and ever popular leader. Here’s Tracy Tadpole.’

The view cut to a young hassled woman who was in the midst of applying some facial decoration to a prominent aberration on her otherwise smooth features. She froze, stared at the screen and pretended the applicator was a microphone.

‘Yes, Norman, here we are at the galaxy press gathering on Podulous Five, the third planet of the Podulous system… ever since Zod found it that is,’ she paused as over-enthusiastic digitised laughter abruptly cut in ‘As you can see, approximately one hundred thousand members of the press have gathered here to witness the words from Zod himself. In a short moment, he and his betrothed will take the podium and address us…’ There was a long pause whilst Tracy expectantly looked at the podium.

‘They’ll be here any second now folks.’

A longer pause.

‘Aha, someone has actually mentioned that this would be a prime opportunity to exterminate the whole galaxies paparazzi in one fell swoop.’ Tracy gave a tinkling little nervous laugh, ‘only a joke of course.’

A shadow glided over-head and shot a lancing green beam at the podium. Two figures materialised, partly.

‘Aha, I see Zod and his beautiful lady have chosen to address us as… holograms… and don’t they look a nice shade of green folks?’

‘My people,’ implored Zod, ‘join me in happy ceremony on this day, as I declare that this… gorgeous woman has decreed to be my wife.’ Zod took her hand and raised it to the boom cameras that swayed like watching giraffes.

A pleasant, ‘Ooo!’ washed through the ensemble.

‘And now, we have time for one question before I call down the exterminators.’

The excited murmur ground to a halt like a Mini with water in the tank.

‘What?’ asked a nearby voice, who despite the enormous crowd, was heard distinctly.

‘That’s it,’ cried Zod, ‘and the answer is, because I can!’

The figures vanished and left the paparazzi to their microphones.

A number of black pointy objects descended from the hovering vehicle above. They rotated and pointed pointily in a non-friendly fashion at the now scattering crowd⁴¹.

Tracy, a fine example of her profession, which would soon be advertising a large number of vacancies, continued bravely, ‘Well, that was exciting viewers; and as the laser beams stab into the chaos about me, there can be doubt that these last tense moments are all I’ll ever get to say that,’ she inhaled deeply, ‘Norman, I lo—’

The screen turned to static.

Norman re-appeared.

‘And on another note today, Zod promised to abolish the MacZod burger queues. Now onto that talking cheese discovered in Aldous Four, where we ask it, who’ll win the hyper-bowl this year.’ The screen passed back to the familiar drone of the forced viewing channel, and Rafe, averted his eyes, firmly staring at the floor and a puddle of slobber he had no recollection of.

‘Oh man,’ he repeated to himself, ‘heavy!’

They came to in a sterilised white room, with no discernible dimensions, shape or… anything, as infinity stretched whitely before them in all directions.

It could have been a hospital, but it didn’t have that certain diseased smell about it, and so Spiff assumed, rightly so, that they were in the domain of superior, super-clean beings. Either that or a cheap Lucasfilm production.

He sat up, discovered he was floating and began clutching feverishly about him for something, anything to hold. After some moments of zero gravity gyrations he stopped and instead stretched out, forcing himself to relax.

‘Steady old chap, just a bit of… weightlessness, nothing to worry about.’

He looked to his side and noticed, far below, floated his companions, swathed in white flowing diaphanous gowns; which were quite transparent. Spiff averted his embarrassed eyes and called down,

‘Hallo!’

Sknarf stirred from her slumber and felt a lightness that she had never quite imagined before. I’ve lost weight! she rejoiced silently and attempted to roll out of bed.

‘Aargh!’ she cried as she continued spinning.

‘Aargh!’ echoed Yeldarb as he awoke to screaming weightlessness, both his and Sknarf’s.

‘Hallo?’ cried Spiff again, hoping to calm with his soothing tones. The pair continued screaming until they realised they weren’t falling, paused, recovered their breath and started screaming again.

‘MONKEYS?’ boomed what would no doubt turn out to be just another psychotic alien.

‘Uh oh.’

‘MONKEY THINGS, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME.’

Spiff who often didn’t understand much of anything, was quite proud to understand this, and nodded eagerly.

‘GOOD. THEN, MONKEYS, BE QUIET.’

Sknarf shouted back, ‘we’re not monkeys!’

‘YOU WERE, THE LAST TIME WE VISITED YOUR PLANET.’

‘Really?’ asked Yeldarb, ‘we were always told we evolved from an alien hybrid D.N.A intervention experiment; and that the poor Neanderthals were but a red herring to put us off the trail.’

‘OH. YES. WELL, THAT WAS US. BUT BEFORE, AND NOW, YOU ARE STILL AND ALWAYS WILL BE… MONKEYS.’

Yeldarb grinned, ‘Hey, hey, we’re the monkeys!’

‘Look, no one calls me ape-face and gets away with it,’ said Spiff. He thought for a bit, ‘Except vastly more powerful alien entities with bigger ships than us I suppose, so insult away!’

‘ENOUGH OF SUCH SIMIAN PRATTLE. WE HAVE SAVED YOUR LIVES.’

‘And very kind of yo—’

‘QUITE WHY, I DON’T KNOW.’

Yeldarb raised his eyebrows.

‘HOWEVER, WE NOW DEMAND REPAYMENT.’

‘I knew it,’ cursed Yeldarb, ‘yet another nasty alien life-form. Why can’t they ever be nice friendly aliens?’

‘What sort of payment?’ asked Spiff.

‘SOME YEARS AGO, CONSIDERABLE YEARS AGO, WE LOST ONE OF OUR KIND IN WHAT WAS DECREED TO BE YOUR PART OF THE GALAXY.’

‘Decreed?’

‘WE WANT OUR FRIEND BACK.’

‘Sure thing!’ said Yeldarb, ‘you’ve got our word for it. Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll be on our way, after all, got to find your fri—’

The voice interrupted again, ‘THE ONE KNOWN AS ZOD HAS HIM. YOU WILL RETURN HIM TO US.’

‘And if we don’t?’ asked Spiff.

There was a long silent pause.

‘Ok, scratch that question. But what incentive can you give us?’

The was another long pause. Their was a faint hissing sucking sound.

‘Ok, breathing is a good incentive, but we need something else.’

This time, the silence was broken.

‘IF YOU RETURN HIM TO US, WE WILL GIVE YOU…’

‘Yes?’

There were sounds of faint squabbling.

‘SOME BEADS?’

‘Beads?’ spat Yeldarb.

‘SHINY ONES?’

‘Not a chance matey.’

‘A PEN THEN.’

‘Nope.’

‘NOT EVEN A BALL POINT WITH THREE OPTIONAL COLOURS, A NUCLEAR POWERED INK SOURCE AND A MARBLE PAPER-WEIGHT.’

Yeldarb shook his head.

More faint discussion could be heard.

‘VERY WELL, WE WILL OFFER SOME ASSISTANCE TO YOUR CAUSE… WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT.’

‘Do we get any clues to find this person?’ asked Sknarf, ‘after all, there are a few quadrillion in Zod’s Empire.’

‘HE IS LIKE NONE OTHER. ZOD WILL KNOW.’

‘So why can’t you do it?’ asked Spiff.

‘WE HAVE AGREED TO ONLY EVER ENTER YOUR SPACE IN DIRE EMERGENCY. ALTHOUGH WE WOULD LIKE OUR FRIEND RETURNED,WE DO NOT WISH TO UPSET THE EXPER—GALAXY ANY MORE THAN THE PRESENCE OF OUR FRIEND HAS ALREADY CAUSED. NOW YOU WILL GO.’

‘Charming.’

‘OH, AND BY THE WAY, YOU MUST SURRENDER TO THE WAITING SHIP. THAT IS ALL. DO NOT FAIL.’

‘What!’

The feeling of weight trickled into the room and suddenly, they were accelerating in a non-up direction. Spiff span about just in time to land face-first on the hard floor of Deep Chima.

‘Chima!’ he cried out nasally.

‘Spiff, my dear.’

‘Status?’

‘I am fully functioning again dear, and am on course for our original exit point from the Empire.’

‘What! You mean… turn on the viewer.’

They looked around, all directions.

‘It’s… gone!’

‘Erm, Spiff?’ asked Sknarf.

He turned and faced the forward direction. The Deaths Door loomed menacingly before them.

‘A message is being received from God,’ said Chima pleasantly.

‘Not again,’ they groaned.

Admiral Dearth flitted between the various control panels and attempted to maintain a steady conversation and fake the impression of a full crew, ‘ves… I am glad you have divided to suvender… Surprised?…

Ves, but then considering vour thoughts at the skill of vour adversary, it is no surprise!’

Dearth gave a manic cackle for good measure and then dashed back to the tractor beam and attempted to lock on to the approaching ship.

‘Just vone moment, and vou will be in my grasp.’

There was a mumble at the vid-link.

‘Vot? Vy don’t ve board you. Hmm… Ve’ll,’ looking about the empty control room, ‘Ve are busy, zat is enough!’ The blue tendrils reached out, and Chima was thoroughly ensnared. Dearth sighed with relief…

‘Now, if vou vill just vear with me, the most pleasant dungeons of Mount Spiky await!’

Dearth flicked a button, and demonic laughter filled the airwaves, which he hoped gave his victims a moment to contemplate their folly.

‘Computer!’ he shrieked, ‘Inform Emperor Zod that I have the rebels.’

After a short bout of mechanical whirring, the computer responded in its carefully selected neutral condescending tone, ‘Galactic Central informs that Lady X has already been captured.’

‘Vot! How can zis be?’

‘The bounty for Lady X has been withdrawn.’

Visions of that new zero-grav swimming pool faded before his eyes, after all, an admiralship in Zod’s war-machine only pays so much; and sometimes even less than that.

‘Then tell Zod, I vring him some new rebels!’

The wandering trail of Abundi Mega-Zebra led to the horizon as they grunted and snorted their way hypnotically into the swallowing bulk of Food-1, the flagship of Zod’s most illustrious chief-chef, Monsieur Foo-de-foo-de.

His deeply set eyes strained across the panorama of his moustache and the bell of his waistline to scan the shopping list which bore more resemblance to an intergalactic catalogue of all known life. Placing a tick next to the Mega-Zebra, he felt a momentary passing pang of despair.

These were the last of their kind. A herd of one hundred thousand, hunted almost to extinction by the barbaric hunters that prized the tips of their tails for that peculiar salty flavour, and now, completely extinct.

Still, he thought, at least zey they go for a good cause. And what species could be more proud than to be ze starter at our Emperors wedding. He could see it now, the delicate blend of apple scented boiled hoof jelly, with a single erect tail bursting forth from each bowl; and lit with a sparkler.

The line was approaching the end of its chain now, and the gravity repulsors were beginning to whine as the ship sagged further under what must be a colossal weight. The last Mega-Zebra, brayed loudly and swung its head briefly towards him. Soft brown lashed eyes bore into his, like pools of infinite sadness. The hypnotic influence had obviously failed on this beast, which seemed more powerful than those that had gone before it. It turned slowly and looked at the empty landscape behind it, and then, with sunken head, trotted resignedly up the plank. From the forest full of strangely winged Aaardimites Tree-dwellers to the half dozen Ultra-Blue Whales and finally the Mega-Zebras, the feast would be one fit for a… well a King. But since the last King was dissolved, literally many thousands of years ago, Zod, Emperor would do.

Foo-de-foo-de surveyed the empty savannah and the burning red- giant sun that glared at him savagely. A biting wind from the North picked up and swept curling clouds of dust over, erasing the trail and the last proof that this world had ever harboured life.

Tightening the folds of his over-cat, he turned and marched up the gang-plank and into the metallic green bulk.

It was a towering pyramid that dwarfed the kilo-meter high peaks like a Wookie at an Ewok party, as construction workers, like ants, scoured its surface. Shrouded in layers of scaffolding, heavy-duty constructors buzzed through the sky roads, insect like, as they deposited yet more material on this most hastily constructed building. One facet would point to the Empiric Appreciation Centre (or Church) and, throughout the ceremony would display live pictures to the compulsory audience that would be milling about at zap-stick-point waiting for a glimpse of the couple. The remaining faces would send scattering searchlights into the guaranteed cloudless sky, powerful enough to be watched by the less important guests that would observe from orbiting platforms.

Constructed over what used to be downtown Zod-City, the pyramid, a monument to the powers of the Empire, would house the half-million dinner guests, tiered at different levels, with only a handful present at the summit to dine with the Lady herself. From here, enormous repulsors dug into the bowels of the planet would power the behemoth to the stars, where, escorted by the finest of the fleet, they would drift past the most spectacular sites of the entire universe. Well, the galaxy at least. One of the high points would undoubtedly be the star fish nebula where strange and formless life-forms drift amongst the proto-star embryos like silent space-fish. Or possibly they would venture near the very-black-hole, where four orbiting black holes stretch and warp space to form wormholes between them, accretion disks sucked in and passing through at trans-light speeds and forming a beacon that could be seen for parsecs.

The centre piece of all the celebrations though, was a replica of the galaxy, forged in the largest heart stone ever discovered. A trillion pin pricks of light in their swirling glory embedded in the mighty disc of light caressing beauty. Such work was involved in its craftsmanship, a small army of sculptors and their families were sent back ten thousand years in time, and only through the many generations thereafter, managed to complete the task on time—which coincidentally also led to an unusual reunion of great-n’th-parents and their eventual offspring working simultaneously.

Nothing was spared for this monumentous and much looked forward to occasion, and indeed, if nothing had presented itself in the form of anything tangible, it would be consumed quicker than a ‘fun- sized’ Marsupial Bar.

Zod, from his lofty heights on Mount Spiky, looked down at the busy scene; and was pleased.

‘Mercurius… a fine effort.’

A muffled reply of acknowledgement came from below.

‘I’m sorry Mercurius, I can’t quite hear you. Is it the fact that I’m standing on you perhaps?’ mocked Zod. Zod crooned higher and looked beyond the city walls to the burgeoning shanty town of those displaced by the pyramids construction. They sprawled, ugly like a landfill and surrounded the golden road that led to the wide Megaphant vaulted arch entrance like so many vermin. Zod sneered at them, contempt oozing from his pores, if he still used them.

‘Mercurius… see to them.’

‘Aye m’lord,’ wheezed Mercurius, attempting to lift his crushed body to the vertical, but strangely finding the boot heel placed on his jaw an obstruction. It wasn’t doing his bandages much good either.

‘See to them… HOW?’ said Lady X venomously, exploding through the super-oiled throne room doors, her robes flowing from her shoulders like an apparition.

Zod floundered.

‘You want them exterminated or sent to the Mac Z—… Uurgh,’ asked Mercurius as he found the boot, unexpectantly, moved from his face and relocated somewhere in the cowering soul of his stomach.

‘My dear… what a surprise… I was just about to see that extra food rations are dropped to the ver— loyal subjects living outside the city.’

Lady X surveyed him suspiciously, like the way one would the last sweating vol-a-von at a bouffet.

‘It’s a radioactive waste-land out there, and you know it. Dika- Wolves are about the only thing that thrives, and at that, only on the poor wretches you have thrown from the parapets.’

Zod opened his arms pleadingly but restrained from showing the veins inside. ‘My dear, I assure you, any who… fell… from the parapets did so, only because of the guilt they felt from their crimes. Indeed, it is the only way some find salvation from their conscience.’

Lady X raised her eyebrows in a disbelieving motion.

‘You said, you would stop lying to me.’

‘But—’

‘You said, you were a changed man.’

‘Yes, and—’

‘But you ejected all those families and children to that… desert beyond.’

This time, Zod didn’t even attempt a defence. He could almost feel the white flag being raised behind his back.

Lady X stepped closer and raised a hand suddenly towards his face.

Zod reeled, but the hand at the last moment came to a graceful stop. She caressed his lifeless cheek and spoke softly, ‘And… dear, tell me, what happened to all the press? Hmm? You remember. The ones you addressed on my behalf. Hmm?’

She grabbed all the flesh available, violently, ‘Tell me! What happened to them Zod?’

Zod was recoiling with each stabbing word as he searched for a viable answer. ‘They went to a better place?’ he suggested hopefully.

‘You killed them, didn’t you.’

‘Not all of them, there were a few left stranded I believe…’

‘Why?’ she spat.

‘Why not—?’ Anger flashed across her face and Zod hastily reworded, ‘Why for the good of the economy my dear. Don’t you worry your pretty little head over it.’

‘Economy?’

‘Yes, yes. Sometimes a profession just has too many experienced people in it—and with the longevity enjoyed by many of our Empire’s patrons—’

‘Not forgetting the undead ones?’ she asked coldly.

‘—them included, people just work too many years these days. The youngsters find themselves frustrated and can’t break into the career infrastructure. Eventually, new ideas fail, all positions are held by bi- centenialists and the Empire stagnates.’

Lady X stared at him dumfounded. She had always suspected it was true, but too have it confirmed…

‘And so,’ Zod continued, ‘every few decades or so, a… cataclysm hits a conference or professional get-together. Result? Lot’s of new vacancies and new ideas. The Empire flourishes and everyone’s happy.’

‘Except of course, all the dead people?’

‘Who cares about them,’ implored Zod, ‘it’s one of the nicest things about dead people. They don’t complain, don’t consume resources and they always vote the same way.’

‘Vote?’

Zod suddenly realised, like a politician who under duress admits their party is cack, that he had revealed too much.

‘Vote?’ she repeated. ‘Explain.’

‘Well… as you know, I just change bodies every so many years…’

‘Yes,’ she spoke as cold as a vegan polar-bear.

‘But, the… organisation I represent must be voted in by what is seen as a legitimate means…’

‘And?’

‘Well, I just keep a proportion of the semi-dead⁴² in freeze lock, and wake them for each election on the proviso that they continue to vote for me.’

‘That’s disgusting, immoral and… down right despicable.’

Zod grinned his second-best gold capped grin.

‘Go on. Admit it though. It’s a pretty trippy idea though!’

Deep Chima rocked again in the force grip of the Death’s Head as they were brought through the turbulant space of the galaxy centre and where, ultimately their fate would decided; on Galleous.

‘What do you think Rafe and the rest of them are doing?’ asked Sknarf sadly.

‘Probably still training up and waiting for us to return I expect. Don’t suppose they’d start their attack without us… would they?’ whined Spiff who still wasn’t convinced that surrender was the thing for him. He had a heroes heart and vowed to return it one day, but for now, he was destined to pursue a brave and fearless life; and surrendering it to the enemy didn’t rate highly in ‘War Crazed Magazine’s’ top ten methods of combat.

They sat, each with their back to the other, in a trio of despair as they watched a glory they could not appreciate glide past them. Chima had turned the hull transparent in an attempt to liven their spirits, but still, the amazing light show of the galaxy core did nothing but reinforce just how far from home they had come.

And then, it loomed before them. A desolate rock with one encompassing wart at its equator. Such was the size, Zod City was visible even from this distant orbit, a dark and sprawling cancerous growth on the surface.

‘What’s that spiky bit in the centre?’ asked Sknarf timidly, ‘it doesn’t look very nice…’

‘That,’ responded the ever knowledgeable Yeldarb, ‘is Mount Spiky. Home of… guess who; and pretty soon us too… if we’re lucky.’

‘And if we’re not so lucky?’ asked Sknarf.

‘The vacuum of space matey.’

The intercom crackled and each looked in the direction of the intergalactic garbage can that was Deaths Head.

‘Accursed beings, I God, speak to you.’

‘Lordy,’ groaned Yeldarb, ‘It’s Admiral God again…’

‘Vou are fortunate, accursed vones! Not often, are speedy deaths granted, but vou, for vome veason are granted an immediate audience with the God ov God’s, Zod.’

‘Ooo, lucky us,’ said Spiff.

There was a brief tingling sensation and then, quite to their surprise, all three found themselves in somewhere completely different; a bright airy forest to be precise; or vague, as it was, for the universe is full of such tracts of conifer concentrations.

‘What or where the bleep?’ asked Yeldarb. The sky was a deep pure blue, the sort seen in holiday brochures and was speckled with the occasional drifting puff-cloud that lazed across its clarity. The fresh and pine-scented air dripped with serenity and the forest, with its Autumnal leaves that crunched softly under foot was of a beauty they could barely absorb. A lone peak, snow capped and treacherous with clefts of sheer black rock that glistened in the intense daylight towered before them, and, stretching eventually to be consumed by the forest, it cast its presence over a small thatched cottage whose path they stood next to.

‘Shall we?’ asked Sknarf, but Spiff was already gone. He lifted the latch and stomped up the crazy paved path which snaked wildly before reaching a shady porch, a corner of which was exposed to the bleaching rays of the sun.

The garden was a small and well-tended one and, complete with porch and single rocking chair made the perfect retreat; for anything other than heavy artillery. A well-flicked volume rustled its pages in a faint breeze that said ‘hey people, soak in some rays.’

Spiff wiped a dust baked window and peered through to the other dust-baked side in the darkness beyond; nothing bar the dim glowing embers of a coal fire was visible.

‘This isn’t Zod City now is it?’ asked Yeldarb who stood in the middle of the garden and was turning slowly around, searching for the odd kilometer high sky-scratcher that they might just have missed. Spiff laid one mighty limb on the door and pushed it inwards, quite contrary to the direction it wished to go in. Their was a deal of splintering followed by an ominous, yet obvious crack that would be found by surveyors for years to come and would resist many attempts at repair.

They stepped in and found, again, quite to their surprise, a figure who had obviously been caught unawares.

He was a well-groomed figure, with a few too many quiff and sideburn extensions and was midway out of a white sequinned suit, which was giving way to some rags of an obvious ethnic quality that lay draped over a chair next to the fire. On the floor beside him lay the jacket, glistening in its mother of pearl white glory and next to that was a pile of hair shavings.

He gave a manly sneer of arrogance, which Sknarf found strangely to her liking and stirred all sorts of unusual feelings. ‘Erm, excuse me sir,’ she asked with overstated delicacy and a bit too much eye fluttering.

Spiff eyed her strangely.

‘Uhhuhu?’ he responded.

‘You don’t happen to have noticed a… planet nearby do you?’

The man stared placidly at her. He was obviously well acquainted with the ravings of drugged minds. His upper lip quivered. Sknarf felt those feelings again.

‘Well, shay little missy,’ he began; but she was gone.

The man looked about the empty room. The fire glowed as it did, and the room exhibited a similar sameness. Of course, their was the collapsed door, but then, perhapsh it was ah jus the wind, he thought.

He resumed removing the white suit, folded it with loving care and placed it under a loose floorboard.

Plesiosaur surveyed the latest half-dozen recruits he was to train to a state of competence, or at least semi-incompetence, in the art of spaceship-flying; art in this context referring to the likes of fermaldehyde animal friezes and fruit fly sculptures; in other words, it didn’t look good.

They were on the basic simulation level, where a flock of stationary asteroids need to be navigated past. Unfortunately, the scene before him had more in common with a Hebrew stoning than accomplished flight, as craft after craft expertly avoided all the space around and plunged into the heart of a very stationary asteroid.

Plesiosaur groaned and covered his eyes. They were due to attack in only a few days, when a quiet spot in the sponsored rebellions would occur, which co-incidentally was the date of the famed marriage. Ideal, he thought, everyone will be forced to watch the ceremony, leaving us time to… He watched the last two craft reverse into each other in what would have been a difficult manoeuvre to deliberately achieve.

…loose horribly, he concluded his thoughts.

There was the faintest of breaths at his shoulder and he spun to see Rafe sitting in the Lotus position behind him; though luckily, the Lotus didn’t mind him sitting there right now.

‘How long have you been… there?’ he accused.

‘Hey man, didn’t want to disturb your thoughts. Just wanted to know how all this non-peace type action is going.’

Plesiosaur turned slowly to the various static filled screens, ‘start from the beginning again. And this time, remember asteroids hurt. In fact, no, this time, ditch the asteroids. Let’s see if you can cross some empty space.’

A look of stress crossed the simulataunts faces.

Rafe closed his eyes and entered that trance like state he knew as ‘life.’ ‘Just thought that you’d like to know, I’ve got an idea… man.’ Plesiosaur raised a single eyebrow in curious non-belief, ‘It doesn’t involve ‘peacing’ them to death?’

‘No way!’

‘Alright, humour me. What is it then.’

‘Well, it just occurred to me, that this wedding thing…’

Plesiosaur nodded, ‘I am aware of it.’

‘Well, it’ll be getting broadcast to all the ships in the fleet, yeah?’ Plesiosaur nodded, ‘Probably… though some on the rim won’t get it for quite some time.’

‘Well, this transmission, if we could get to the broadcast point, and replace the holo-signal with one of our own…’

‘Yes?’ asked Plesiosaur semi-eagerly, not really knowing where this was all leading.

‘We could send someone or… something, to every ship in the fleet.’

Plesiosaurs eyes lit up, ‘a thermal megaman detonator! One in each ship, simultaneously! We could obliterate the whole fleet in one movement!’

Plesiosaur began jumping up and down with excitement and then the flaw hit him, ‘but, their only holo-signals… What are we going to do, pretend to blow them up?’

Rafe shook his head, ‘No bombs man, what’s the point in destroying all the ships? We’ll need them later for fighting off the next rebellion that tries to take control.’

‘True, true, then what?’

Rafe grinned a big relaxed smile, ‘We send two signals man. The first reconfigures the receptors and re-routes the signal to the transporter pad and then…’ he whispered excitedly, ‘the second materialises on every transporter pad in the galaxy!’

‘—and send a squadron of heavily armed shock-troopers to each one! Wham! Blam! Man! You’re a genius!’ Rafe shook his head again, ‘peace man, it’s got to be peace. That’s what they’ll expect, sending a heavily armed set of warriors. What we need, is someone who can convince the crews of how wrong the Empire is, and make them change their ways.’

‘And you think they’ll listen?’

‘Not a snowballs chance in a supernovae, therefore, we need someone rather determined…’

A dark lumbering shadow crept up Plesiosaurs back, enveloped his shoulders and mugged his head.

He turned round slowly to behold the mammoth like frame of…

‘HELLO, I’M RODGER, LET ME TALK TO YOU ABOUT TRANQUILITY, HARMONY AND THE GALACTIC COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS.’

‘Indeed,’ said Rafe, ‘Rodger here can be programmed with a message of peace and loving. Which, if you take my drift, they’ll listen to, again and again until they beg him to stop.’ Rodger hovered menacingly close to Plesiosaur.

‘I’m su—sure they will,’ stuttered Plesiosaur as he surveyed the variety of sharp looking implements that the possessed robot possessed.

‘But, if they still don’t listen…’

‘Then, more and more of our friend here will just keep appearing on their ships until we have enough to either peacefully take over the fleet through democratic sit-ins and poster campaigns, or make it collapse under the weight of it’s own gravity.’

‘Like a black hole?’

‘A Rodger hole,’ grinned Rafe, ‘either way we can’t win.’

‘Just one question though,’ asked Plesiosaur, ‘what do we do with a scmillion Rodger’s when the take-overs finished?’

A pair of burly trolls strained forcibly as they attempted to maintain their grip on Spiff as they he was toad-marched through corridor upon glistening corridor, and ever closer to his waiting nemesis.

‘You don’t need to hold him quite so hard!’ protested Sknarf, who promptly ducked to avoid the swinging fist of the third troll who seemed to be in a measure of control.

‘Me lads are just doing der job wench, now shurrup!’ it boomed.

She glanced at Spiff, his face a picture of calm, despite the trolls who were obviously struggling against his efforts.

‘Don’t mind me, m’dear, just you take care of yourself.’ They approached an open archway that led to a courtyard large enough for moderate sized planet construction. There was a small gathering at the head of an oval pit dug into the ground; occasional cheers, matched to begging screams from the pit flooded the air.

Yeldarb felt his blood drain away, filling his feet and slowing his steps as he neared the crowd and pit; he did not want to see what was in there, let alone party with it.

‘Ah, Rufus, I see you have brought me some play-mates. Hmm?’

‘Aye m’lord,’ grunted Rufus, ‘throw ‘im to the ground lads!’

The ‘lads’ did so and Spiff unceremoniously landed within inches of Zod’s shiny boot. He looked up slowly and smiled, despite his battered appearance at the cold, dead features of Zod.

‘Emperor Scumbag I presume?’

‘Rebel scumbag I presume? Trying to rescue my wife-to-be eh? Pity, she didn’t need rescuing…’

‘What?’ asked Spiff, as he knelt in the process of standing up. Rufus nodded and the ‘lads’ knocked him to the ground again.

‘My wife-to-be,’ repeated Zod, ‘Lady X, has decreed to join me in unholy matrimony. To have and to hold, to conquer and be bold, and all that rubbish. You must surely have heard you vile rebel scum? Or haven’t you paid your hold-vid licence fee either?’

Spiff eyed him savagely, ‘I guess we don’t keep up to date with the channels. Too busy spending our lives down mines… mining,’ he added for clarity.

‘Mines? Do you know the best thing about mines?’ he paused for added suspense, ‘They’re all mine’s!,’ cackled Zod to the spontaneous identical laughter of his entourage.

‘And you, my rebel scum, are also… mines.’

Zod strode to the perilous edge of the pit. Spiff tensed, sensing a moment.

‘Throw them in Rufus.’

‘Noo,’ cried Spiff who jumped to his feet and powered, through the crowd, past Rufus and slammed bodily into Zod with a reader pleasing crunch. The pair cascaded backwards tumbling and clawing at each other before landing seconds later, with Zod as the air-bag. Spiff rolled to one side after the impact, but immediately leapt to his feet again, teeth bared and snarling like a caged animal; just like the big slab of mottled green flesh that towered before him.

The Avurian Swamp Lizrds are reknowned for the care shown to fellow members of their litter, their respect for moral values and their intense hatred of any other creature. Twelve foot high and with a snapping set of jaws atop a long muscled neck that could lunge forwards in the blink of an eye, and a fast one at that, Spiff was thankful that he only faced one of these dread beasts. That was until he heard the hissing behind him.

He spun around and then propelled his body backwards just as the lashing spiked tail of one slammed into the stonework where he had but briefly stood. Chunks of white rock spun into the air and the creature, infuriated, bellowed.

Zod still lay on the ground, possibly unconscious, but more probably, like a seasoned war veteran who strangely survives even the worst battle, faking death.

The pit was about fifty feet in diameter and a full thirty deep. Far above, he could see the shocked looks of Zod’s following, not one of which had gone to alert security, each feigning ignorance and looking forward to the promotion that everyone gets when the person at the top snuffs it. The flash of swapped credit discs could be seen, and the outcome was generally expected to be Lizards-1, Little man-0 Bones of many types and species littered the white chalky floor which was crumbled to the extent that it made running impossible, before Spiff realised that the bones were the floor. The lizards hissed and edged forward, their thick tails dragging slithering behind them and dagger like incisors dripped thirstily with the blood of their last victim, who worryingly had left no other visible remains.

Spiff took a step backwards and into something soft and squelchy that spurted fluid over his legs. He’d found the remains; it was at this moment both lizards decided to strike and, using their coiled tails, propelled their slavering bulk at the rather poorly armed Spiff. Spiff calmly stepped to one side, applied two fingers to his mouth in what looked to be a final but short lived show of defiance, and blew. Inhuman, or lizard to be precise, screams echoed across the pit as both the creatures collapsed mid-flight and fell to the ground where they writhed in agony, clutching at an unusual collection of appendages about their heads.

Spiff continued the high pitched whistling, the writhing became more frantic until at last with a quiver each, they stopped. Permanently. There was a stunned silence, permeated eventually by whoops of delight from Sknarf and Yeldarb. Spiff once again thanked the foresight that led him to absorb all those cubes on galactic life; for the Avurian Swamp Lizards exist on a world of thin atmosphere where sound travels badly. So badly indeed that the Lizards have developed incredibly sensitive hearing, honed to detect the pad of small animals passing in the near complete darkness of their worlds week long nights. Zod in an instant was on his feet. He stared coldly at Spiff, who in turn returned the look and this time with a single defiant hand gesture. There was a shocked groan from the crowd who knew what would come next; and then they realised, what would come next had just been rather relocated to the other side of life.

Zod hissed, ‘Mercurius,’ he called up, ‘take this wretch away and prepare him for the Arena. Let’s see how he does against something really nasty.’

Spiff failed to look impressed.

‘—and take his companions for… dinner at Mac Zod’s,’ he smiled demonically.

A look of horror shot across Spiff’s face. He sprung forwards and prepared a fist for contact, only to find Zod rapidly hoisted to safety from a suddenly discovered winch.

‘I’ll get you for this Zod,’ cursed Spiff.

‘No, you probably won’t,’ replied Zod with an evil laugh.

The days evil deeds done, Mercurius relaxed in the ten-foot square cube that was depressingly allocated to him as a home. Petite and bijou Zod had called it, a mansion fit for a… well, not really fit for anything other than a gerbil possibly, and a small one at that; But a man’s home is his castle, even if the same size as a Lego one.

Mercurius sighed, his breath steaming up the opposing wall. Zod, it seemed, never tired of new and inventive or even uninventive, tried and tested ways to dump on Mercurius; his most loyal of advisors. He seethed and turned another crinkled page of the aged book he had ‘acquired’ from his leader, and attempted to concentrate on the arcane and flowing script within.

He paused.

How strange, he thought, it’s quiet; and indeed, it was. But then on cue, it started, as it always did at some point between the hours of ‘going to bed’ and ‘struggling out of bed.’ Living, or prevailing in the cubes, you encounter space efficiency taken to its pinnacle of development, only to discover the view is worse than at the bottom. With twenty-six bordering neighbours and with each usually broadcasting their own particular brand of musical preference to drown out the others, the cubes were also Hell; Except, even Mr Satan probably had a quiet corner for a bit of reading. Well, Mercurius had only four occupiable corners, and each acted as a natural amplifier for the sounds absorbed from neighbouring cubists. One of them had just initiated the first night-shift broadcast, and it sounded like the ritual torture of a dog pound. Thankfully though, it was shortly drowned out of existence by an inimical neighbours ‘greatest all- time toilet sounds.’

He thanked the Gods, they hadn’t activated the Aromatronic track. The walls rippled arythmically with the storm force sound waves as Mercurius shifted himself to the centre of his cube and took out a small tube. He applied a few drops into each ear and followed those with a soft and malleable lump of bluish material.

‘Aaahhh’ he sighed as the hyper-glu/ultra-blu-tack combination effectively sealed his eardrums from the assaults of the outside world; That was until the psychic drummer began, broadcasting his manic and crazed beats to all those within range of his perverted thoughts. There was no escape. Tonight’s going to be a bad one, he whimpered, and then with sudden ferocity, screamed why can’t you all just shutup! And then there was silence.

Total, complete, Australian outback cave-dwelling silence.

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