Space Pirate Cookies
by C.J. Henderson
Introduction to “Space Pirate Cookies”
I don’t think an anthology of space pirate stories would be complete without at least one robotic parrot standing on a starship captain’s shoulder. Leave it to C.J. Henderson to give us that image, then turn it into something utterly unexpected. Like David Boop, I met C.J. at the Opus Fantasy Arts Festival in Denver. Unlike David, C.J. was already a veteran writer at the time, having written stories for Batman, The Punisher, and Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice. I was floored and honored when C.J. Henderson said he wanted to write stories for the works I edited.
Much like the robot parrot in the early pages of the story, the titular space pirate cookies aren’t quite what you expect. C.J. introduces us to the crew of the Roosevelt, humanity’s first ship to explore the stars. The problem is, the stars are already well explored by numerous other alien species and they don’t much care for humans, who are the new kids on the block. With tongue thoroughly in cheek, C.J. reminds us what it’s like to be on the receiving end of prejudice, especially when that prejudice is just one part of an elaborate and terrifying plot.
* * *
“Dignity does not consist in possessing honours, but in deserving them.”
—Aristotle
“Avast, ye filthy swabs, fire at will—blow their cringing hides to the red flames of Perdition!”
The snarling character exhorting his men onward to gleeful murder was certainly a colorful sort. From the button-down cuffs and epaulets of his woolen frock coat to the tricorne hat he wore jammed under his bubble-shaped space helmet, he gave new meaning to words such as “curious” and “outlandish.” Or perhaps “goofy.” Especially if one considered his diamond eye patch, blood-streaked cutlass, or the robot parrot sitting on his shoulder.
“Awk—buzz/klik—pieces of nine, pieces of nine—zzzkt”
The wholesale slaughter of innocents raced across the decks of the bizarre, seemingly wooden, apparently wind-driven spaceships, until finally a blood-soaked member of the pirate crew, the internal organs of several alien species hanging from his uplifted fist bellowed, “They’re beaten, Captain, sir.”
“Of course they are,” the peg-legged, eye-patched master of the human buccaneers pointed at the cringing members of a variety of other species huddled pitifully at his feet, shouting drunkenly at the top of his lungs, “Because we’re from Earth, and we fights dirty!”
Pulling a pistol from his pink silk sash, the drooling, comic opera pirate captain first scratched his posterior with its muzzle, then turned and jammed it against the head of what appeared to be a Lupnicki courtesan and pulled the trigger, scattering her brains across the deck of his ship. As his human crew laughed at such a morbid entertainment, the captain took a bow, then belched, the noise of it echoing inside his helmet so severely it bugged out his rheumy eyes—or at least, the visible one.
“Captain, sir,” a wildly excited voice sounded off to the right, dragging all attention in its direction. “We found ’em!”
And, as all breaths were held in rapt curiosity as to which “’ems” had been found, two of the largest buccaneers, one a bare-chested black human with sharpened teeth, the other a pig wearing a vest, Hawaiian skirt and a graduation mortarboard, dragged an over-flowing chest into sight as the captain exclaimed with a vulgar glee, “Space Pirate Cookies!”
And then, pirates from all over the ship rallied around the treat-laden chest, grabbing boxes of cookies, smacking one another in the head so as to steal each other’s bottles of milk, and spitting voluminous amounts of crumbs as they sang:
“Space Pirate Cookies—
There is no better treat—
Nothin’ we like better to eat—
So blippin’, krippin sweet.
“Space Pirate Cookies—
All filled with blood and cream—
Every bite’s a dream—
You can hear the ingredients scream!”
At that point, the gingerbread, shortcake-stuffed buccaneers began indiscriminately raping and murdering their captives as well as one another, dunking handfuls of cookies in blood and brains, and swallowing them whole while continuing to warble on about the joys of rapine slaughter and dessert treats until finally a harsh and disgruntled voice cried out, “Turn that crap off!”
The voice making the demand was a deep and rumbling one, issuing forth from the lower diaphragm of Chief Gunnery Officer Rockland Vespucci, more commonly known as Rocky, of the good ship Roosevelt out of Earth. Standing a strapping 6'2"—when he could stand that was—Vespucci was considered quite a charismatic individual, well … among members of his own species, anyway. And, of course, when he was sober. At the moment of his outburst, he was certainly among members of his own species, but he was just as certainly by no means sober. Neither were the other members of the Roosevelt’s crew gathered around him, however, which is, really, what nearly started the Earth’s first intergalactic war in the first place.
“Hey, didn’t you hear the man,” echoed Machinist First Mate Li Qui Kon, better known to top notch wire-and-screw jockeys everywhere as Noodles, “cut that feed or we’ll show you a belligerence that will shake your miserable Pan-Galactic League of Suns to its butter-side-downed core!”
“Give in to the inevitable,” squeaked the bartender, a mountain of a being with a tiny voice so wildly disproportionate to its size it caused even creatures of its own race to blink in confusion. “It’s just a commercial. See, look, it’s already back to the show.”
The bartender was indeed correct—the Coronian singing star, Nell Char Yllier, was already back on the screen, warbling something about forgetting one’s troubles and being happy, surrounded by a half dozen female dancers doing their best to look bubbly and carefree despite their tightly-binding costumes. So wonderful were her tones, and so dazzling the steps of her strapped and restrained troupe that the sailors were almost ready to turn down the thermostat on their tempers and go back to the well-revered, age-old nautical pastime of complaining about something rather than doing something about it when the bartender made his fatal mistake.
In truth, the fellow could not really be blamed for his error. If the sailors in question had been Golblacians, or Fogelites, or Embrians (well, if they had been Embrians, there would not have been anything to worry about in the first place—but back to the point) he would have known what to do. The veteran suds-and-sours jockey had stood his station for several decades, and knew the flare-to-violence levels of every race from Andrewns to Zyganirs. But, the upstart human race came from that far end of the galaxy into which most reputable species did not bother to venture. They were too new, too unpredictably odd. And so it was, in an attempt to facilitate their arrival back at a place of pleasant, wallet-emptying drunkenness, he uttered those fateful words that began the entire incident that would come to be known as Darkest Black Glibsday;
“Look, how about a round on the house?”
And that, that tiniest of mistakes, was the beginning of it all.
* * *
“Damn aliens,” muttered Rocky, holding his throbbing head while sliding down a wall outside the bar. His voice a mumbling slur decipherable only to those of equal inebriation, he added, “No damn respect. Tramp all over a guy’s … ummmm, ah … dignity. Yeah, that’s it. It ain’t right.”
“You, you, ah yeah, you …” Noodles attempted to answer, directing his index finger aloft, at first shaking it to help make his point, then holding it steady because the motion of its waving back and forth had begun to make him seasick, “you know it, pal.”
“Always puttin’ down humans, juss, juss be … because they’ve had their damn club for, for what, what—how long?”
“A thousand hundred million and six years.” Rocky eyed Noodles for a moment after his outburst, then replied, “I thought it was seven.”
“Must’ve been a leap year.”
Both sailors nodded to each other, continuing their monumentally slow slide down the wall they had chosen to help prop up, neither speaking again until they felt cold, alien concrete beneath them. Settling in, their near-numb fingers feeling about to make certain they could not fall off the sidewalk, the two took deep breaths, sighing in relief over having made it to their seats without injury. Then, feeling secure, the pair settled in to venting their righteous fury at the Pan-Galactic League of Suns and all its members.
This captured their limited ability to focus for some time. Normally the pair had quite a high tolerance for the liquid stimulants of other planets. Indeed, the Roosevelt had made port at some seventy-eight different worlds, and Rocky and Noodles had tied one on with a vengeance on seventy-five of them. But, Fadilson was a new world to those plying the spaceways out from the Sol System, and thus possessed some gray areas.
For instance, no planet in the League was known to possess a higher oxygen concentrate to its atmosphere than Fadilson. This fact was made known to the men and women of the Roosevelt before disembarking, of course, but was happily ignored as irrelevant by swabbies and officers alike. The place also was known for the odd fact it had a house of worship and a tavern on every street, no matter how large or small the town. Temples had not interested the swabbies all that much, but after finding out the planet’s one other interesting geographic fact, they had decided to find every bistro, lounge and cocktail-building establishment in town.
Alone and in bunches, the crew had managed to make great progress, uncovering many interesting cabarets such as Tibric’s Treacherous Taproom, the Sum Zero Saloon and Noodles’ personal favorite, the Alehouse of the Gods. Of course, that was mainly because the bartender was a robot and machinists are notorious fans of artificial life forms, especially the kind employed at the Alehouse, which could not only mix every drink in the known universe—from a Thurmian Gargleblaster to a HeyDiddleDiddle-on-the-Rocks—but which could do so while shelling peanuts, washing up the dirty glasses and reciting Vogon poetry for those not buying what it felt was sufficient quantities of intoxicants.
All had seemed well, and the Roosevelt’s crew was by and large having a fine time, until that is, they came across that which was to change the course of human destiny—the phenomenon known as Space Pirate Cookies. The treats were a new product, one released in between shore leaves for the sailors of the Roosevelt. By themselves they seemed innocuous enough little dunkables, and to be fair it was not the cookies that had put the crew out of sorts. It was the advertising used to make them a household word from one end of the galaxy to the other which humanity-at-large found so completely off-putting.
Space Pirate Cookies came in a mind-boggling vast variety of flavors—they would have to. The snack pastries that came in the cute, human-shapes the galaxy was growing to adore—but for all the wrong reasons—had to be appealing to the one hundred and eighty-five different races officially registered as protectorates of the Pan-Galactic League of Suns, as well as to the five founding races, of course. And that was simply to be able to capture a decent slice of the galactic market share.
As cookies went, they were tasty enough. Not as creamy as the Feezba Chip Pouts of Breniki 7, or as crumblicious as those mouth-watering bursts of joy, the wondrous Velpin Grooblie Drops, nor did they even approach the delectable chewiness of the Archway Mouthful of Frogs, still they had their audience, and that, once again, was because of their advertising.
Space Pirate Cookies were “okay,” taste-wise, but the trillions of beings who were doing their bit for intergalactic consumerism were doing so for one reason—they loved the commercials. The adverts had funny songs, colorful characters, and they pandered to the latest racist impulse sweeping the galaxy—mistrusting, fearing and generally hating those upstarts from Earth.
Now, do understand, humanity had not acted at all inappropriately when its first starships penetrated the outer confines of the Sol System, ready to explore the vast and foreboding unknown, only to find a cosmos awaiting them as neatly explored and subdivided as an English country garden. They were disappointed, of course—no great expeditions filled with peril, no staggering challenges laden with fabulous adventure awaited them. It was a surprise, to say the least.
Moreover, those who had labored and trained all their days to be the new Magellan or Columbus found instead that fate had relegated them to being more the new Ralph Kramden or Willy Loman—bus drivers and traveling salesmen rather than explorers. All races ran up against this obstacle when first they met the League, but humanity confused the Pan-Galactics because never before had a species ever seemed so, well … disappointed. Reaching the League meant an end to disease and hunger. Promise not to make war on any member or protected race, and access to the wealth of the galaxy’s scientific knowledge was bestowed freely—at, of course, carefully regulated and competitive prices.
Earth had received instructions on how to repair all the damage it had done to itself, as well as cheap, renewable energy sources, cures for most ailments, directional transmitters for talking to God (it confused humanity to no end that when asked what the one true faith was He seemed to favor the Libertarians) and well, just all manner of wonders. What they lost, however, was that indefinable quality of self-determination, the chance to find these things for themselves. Willing to take the goodies, especially considering that there was no, in any way, shape or form, sensible alternative, still it meant the party was over. All had been delivered, wrapped in a tidy pink bow. There was no more.
And so, as they sat staggered and blinded, drunker than a charred and steaming Benjamin Franklin when he belched, “I tied a key to the end of a string and did what?”
Rocky and Noodles fell into a sorry, self-pitying depression of epic proportions. Both had left home to explore the cosmos, to be the men with the first sets of eyes to see vast and amazing unknowns, to fight great battles, to live lives of excitement and challenge. Sadly, to date, their greatest challenge had been to find a snack with the light and salty corn-goodness of Fritos ten million light years from Earth. It was not the kind of test-your-limits-to-the-utmost challenge either of them had had in mind when enlisting.
“I’m tellin’ ya, Noodles …”
“What?”
“Did you want somethin’, little buddy?”
“What?” Scratching his head, a gesture that took most of his available energy, the machinist said, “You said you were telling me something …”
“Was it important?”
“I don’t know,” answered Noodles, his tone one so over-reachingly depressed that the sound of it caused a nest of nearby rodents to question the meaning of it all and then ultimately take their lives rather than face the all-encompassing despair that had taken root in their souls. “But then, is anything important anymore?”
And, with hearing those words, Rocky was struck with a wild and impossible scheme one would have thought too insane even for him. Sitting forward so quickly he actually bounced his eyeballs off their protective membranes, causing himself a moment of temporary blindness, the gunner coughed up three taverns’ worth of assorted liquors, the remains of two meals, and a claim stub he had been searching for all weekend. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, an action he was hoping would not damage the fabric, he blurted, “Noodles, all them Space Pirate Cookie rats do is make fun of humans, right?” When the machinist nodded in agreement, practically passing out from the exertion, his pal continued. “It ain’t bad enough we get into space and find the whole place is just one big Levittown, but these guys, I mean … those guys, I mean, I just wanta …”
Rocky made unconscious motions of strangling some living thing, his eyes shining with a light bright enough to guarantee he found such an idea splendid. As he did so, his mind played for him the seemingly relentless advertisements for Space Pirate Cookies he had been forced to endure since making port. The videos showed the men of Earth as savage monsters, as vicious thugs bereft of morals, honor, common sense, or even acceptable table manners. Their implication was that all humans were rapacious, murdering thieves and that the universe was better off without them. And, to be fair to the gunnery officer’s mounting temper, he would not have been nearly as incensed if he had not noticed a marked change in the non-human population of the town.
The natural prejudice many of Earth felt the member races of the League harbored against humanity was in full evidence. Everywhere the sailors went, beings from all races were ready to point fingers, jabber about fearing the eventual hauling of their keels now that Earthers had arrived, and laughing hysterically at their supposed wit. In the first ten or twelve taverns they visited, the swabbies were able to keep their wits about them. But, as the juice of the grape, the wheat and the chocolate-and-caffeined caramel beans worked its usual magic, self-control had begun to evaporate. Once Rocky had reached the sidewalk, it had been boiled into non-existence.
“So,” asked Noodles quietly, the aroma of his buddy’s eruption prodding the machinist on toward his own Vesuvian impersonation, “what is it you wanta do?”
Noodles’ response to his question gave the gunnery officer’s mind a reason to focus. What did he want to do? Obviously, he thought, from the delight his hands were having pretending to choke the life out of something, mayhem would have to be involved with any future actions designed to brighten his mood. But, what kind of mayhem? Against what or whom? And on what kind of scale? And, as his rage and frustration worked together to find answers that, although not intelligent or even remotely logical might still give some sort of “6” to the “3+3=” rattling about within his head, suddenly a smile, one both peaceful and sinister spread across Rocky’s face.
“Noodles,” he said, the wild gleam in his eyes suggesting nothing but trouble, “I know exactly what I want to do.”
“It doesn’t involve more drinking, does it?”
“Nope,” answered the gunner. Struggling to push his way back up the wall, “I think we’ve downed just the right amount.”
“For what?”
“We, little buddy,” announced Rocky, back on his feet, his hand extended toward his friend to help him regain his own, “are going for a ride.”
Swallowing a deep breath, Noodles took his friend’s hand, then grunted and wheezed his own way to an almost upright position, asking, “Where?”
“To wherever the hell it is they make those damn Space Pirate Cookies.”
Feeling a greatly unwanted wave of sobriety racing for his pickled brain cells, the machinist blanched, staggering back several steps to where he could hold onto the wall for support. Coughing with choked surprise, he finally was able to get control of himself sufficiently to say, “Wait a minute, wait just a minute. The only way we could find them would be with the ship’s computers. And, if we found them, the only way we could reach them would be with the ship. And, and, and … ah … the captain would, I mean, I’m thinking, ah … he would never let us …”
And then, Noodles’ eyes cleared so rapidly the force of them opening in surprise knocked the machinist backward, bouncing his head off the wall against which he had so recently been resting. Stunned by what he had just realized, he shouted;
“You, you—you mean, you want to steal the Roosevelt! Steal her, and take her out of orbit, and then, take her out and find these cookie-makers and use the power of the United Earth Navy to blast them into chocolate chips! Yes—that’s what you’re saying—right?”
“Yeah,” answered Rocky, grinning like an ape that had finally figured out the difference between a salad fork and a dessert spoon. “You want’a?”
“Did the Buddha drink Mint Juleps?”
And thus the whole mindless tragedy began.
* * *
Captain Alexander Benjamin Valance was not a happy man. For one thing, he had fallen asleep with his legs and arms in a tangle so overwhelmingly complete that all four of his appendages had been almost completely without blood since he had stumbled into his bunk. For another, at two years, eight months, fifteen days out from Earth, he had put up with the wacky, infantile and just plain brainless stunts of his crew longer than any reasonable man should have been asked to tolerate.
He had suffered the endless nonsense of their infighting over whom the Roosevelt had been named for—Franklin or Theodore. He had bailed them out when they had shaved the sacred monkeys of Templeworld. He had made the appropriate excuses and restitutions when they had conned the guards of the Pen’dwaker Holding Facility into allowing them to transform the prison into a gambling den (for a mere 18.3% of the gross) for their Intergalactic Crap Shoot of the Millennium tournament. He had even found a way to smooth things over when they had sponsored their infamous inter-species mixer where they introduced the debutante daughters of the leading politicians of the Pan-Galactic League of Suns to the bears, cows, pigs and chimps they were transporting to the Inter-Galaxy Zoo on Chamre XI.
Indeed, it was his weariness of riding herd on the compliment of 400 of Earth’s sharpest minds and broadest backs that had caused him to do something he had often dreamed longingly about, but not once acted upon during all of his two years, eight months, and fifteen days at the helm of Earth’s mightiest warship. For once, after making port on Fadilson, Valance had decided he could use a little shore leave himself.
“Captain … what are you doing here?”
Yes, for once he had walked down the gangplank with the rest of the first wave heading offship with no thought more foremost in his mind than getting thoroughly and utterly polluted. Trained to explore the stars, prepared to take the greatest of risks, to dare the spectacular, brave the unthinkable, he had been the first to take a ship in the Great Dark, and thus the first human being to find out the game was completely and utterly over.
“This is my bunk, you know,” mumbled the groggy Valance. “I do sleep here.”
As sick of a military career without a trace of military action within it, no new peoples to meet, no trade routes to open, no tensions to either alleviate or to put down with a vengeance as any being could be, the captain had finally given in and taken solace within the bottle, the stop-gap solution to naval despair since the first aquanauts anywhere had piled into a canoe with beers and spears and set off to finally see just what the hell was around the bend.
“Bu—” the ensign stopped in mid-conjunction, the mixture of trepidation, terror and relief to be found on his face completely unreadable to the vastly hung-over captain of the Roosevelt.
“Did you want something, Sailor?”
The man stood shaking in Valance’s doorway, unable to answer. After only a few seconds, however, despite the crushing weight of his hangover, the captain’s well-trained senses began to pick up clues as to what was going on. The ensign working at gathering his wits before him was excited beyond any reasonable point—which meant something unreasonable had happened. The lad also was obviously afraid of something.
The back of Valance’s mind rebelled at such a thought. Young to be a captain, especially of the Earth’s first Dreadnought class starship, still he was a cool and competent commander, one who felt in his heart of hearts that the only thing his crew had any legitimate right to fear was him. Part of his mind immediately moved to dismiss such self-centered thinking, but then he stopped himself, realizing that was exactly what was going on.
“Sailor,” muttered Valance, holding one hand over his eyes to keep them from spilling out and rolling about on the floor, “what’s going on?”
“We did a bad thing, Captain.”
And with those words, Alexander Benjamin Valance removed his hand from his eyes, fixing his gaze upon the hapless ensign. Throwing himself to his feet with an effort which made the labors of Sisyphus appear to be nothing more than a game of shuffleboard, the captain quickly worked his way past the nerve-tingling pain of his sleeping limbs, around his need for fresh air, a shower and something in his stomach with a lesser alcohol content than rocket fuel. Steeling himself for whatever horrible truth he was about to learn, his mind raced in a thousand directions at once. What, oh what, had Vespucci and Kon done this time?
“How bad?”
As the ensign started to speak, Valance felt the need to sit down. As he continued, the captain felt the need to lie down. By the time the junior officer finished, Valance was contemplating ritual suicide. Deciding the high command would turn to voodoo to reanimate his carcass just so they could disembowel him themselves, however, he chose against hari kari. Not, that is, that he had decided against bloodshed—he just saw no immediate need for it to be his own.
* * *
“Captain on the—Captain?!” The yeoman who had begun to automatically announce Valance’s presence realized what she had done, did a double-take, then shouted, “Captain on the bridge! The real captain, you monkeys!”
Rocky turned to see Valance’s formidable presence filling the doorway. Holding his head, still suffering from the night before, the gunnery officer said weakly, “Captain, sir … huh … we, ah um well …”
“I take it you didn’t know I was on board when you decided to take your little jaunt. Is that what you’re trying to tell me as you continue to sit in my chair, Mr. Rockland?”
“Ah, yeah,” responded Rocky, still seated. “Actually, it was, sir.”
As Valance continued to stare at the gunner, from the sidelines Noodles made hand motions indicating that perhaps his friend should maybe get out of the captain’s chair, perhaps salute, or at least try to quit passing gas. Noticing the machinist’s animated pantomimes, he asked, “Geezzzzit, Noodles, what’ya want?”
“He’s trying to suggest that it might be a good idea if you got the hell out of my chair, you peanut-brained imbecile!”
Somehow catching the meaning of the captain’s more direct suggestion, Rocky tumbled forward out of the ship’s command center, crashing against the equally hungover navigator. Valance debated having his seat fumigated, but decided on just letting the air purification system deal with the remains of the gunner’s bad evening. Despite what all the ensign had told him, the captain needed to hear what had happened from the source.
“Tell it, Rockland. And don’t leave out any of the good parts.”
Honest and heartfelt apology cascaded from every pore as the gunnery officer explained how their current situation had come to pass. He related the entire crew’s outrage over both the Space Pirate Cookie advertisements as well as the greatly heightened edge of discomfort said ads had created. Privately Valance understood his crew’s irritation over these points, having experienced them himself the day before, but he kept the information from showing as even a sympathetic glint in his eye. Instead, he merely snarled, “Yes, go on.”
Rocky did. In short order, despite his brain’s continual refusal to remove the floating stars and polka dots from before his eyes, or to stop his teeth from itching, the gunnery officer told the whole, embarrassing tale. He sketched out his and Noodles’ talk on the sidewalk, and then their subsequent trip back inside the tavern to gather together all the available Roosevelt crewmen they could find. He told of how their idea had gone over like an offer of ice cream in Hell, how every swabbie they could find, and even a few of the locals, rallied to the idea of stealing the ship, finding the location of the Space Pirate Cookie factory, and then sending it to that place where offers of ice cream were looked upon so favorably.
When the captain asked how they were able to countermand the Roosevelt’s layers of security codes, to pilot the ship without his executive clearances, and to reach deep space (like any spacer, he had known they were in the Great Dark from the moment he awoke) without Earth Command Authorization Releases, Noodles took over the explanations, getting an able assist from Technician Second Class Thorner and Quartermaster Harris. Remembering immediately how that pair had engineered the replacement of the Grand High Exalted Poobah of the Pan-Galactic League of Sun’s acceptance broadcast for his new term in office with Richard M. Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech, he pushed the machinist to skip the details. After all, how they got to the Great Dark really was not all that important. What they had done since they got there, however, that was a different story.
“Well, sir,” hemmed Rocky, getting ready to throw in a few dozen haws in the proper places, “drunk as we was, we got pretty single-minded. Since these cookie makers are a company, it wasn’t all that hard to get a fix on them.”
“Any normal person would never have been able to get a swing at their vector,” added Thorner. “With the ship’s access to trade lines, though, we were able to nail it pretty quick.”
“I’ll be certain to mention such in your next efficiency rating,” answered Valance drolly. Getting back to Rocky, with eyes steely and hard, he said, “So you and your hyenas managed to steal the ship and get her into the Deep. I imagine we’re on a full speed charge toward wherever the buccaneer bakers are located—correct?”
“Aye, sir.”
“And just out of curiosity, you slackjaws couldn’t have kept this information a secret, could you? I mean, it wouldn’t be possible for us to just turn around and get the blazes back to Fadilson without anyone knowing about your little escapade, would it?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“No, no, of course not,” agreed Valance with an angry sarcasm. “But indulge me, Lieutenant, just why can’t we do so?”
“Well, sir,” stumbled Rocky, suddenly wishing he had taken his mother’s advice and joined the priesthood, “you see, after we got on-course for the cookie factory, we thought maybe we should make an announcement about it …”
“Certainly,” growled the captain. “What could be more natural?”
“So we sent one out, ah, over the official bands.…”
“Of course you did.”
“And basically, well … in the name of the Earth … ah, we declared war on the Space Pirate Cookie Company.”
Silence filled the room with a noticeable pressure. The captain stared at Rocky for a long moment, unmoving. Unblinking. Then finally, with all present subconsciously holding their breath to the point of bursting, Valance reacted. Breaking off eye contact with the gunner, he tilted his head downward, looking at nothing specifically, and then began to laugh.
At first it was a simple one-note noise, as akin to humming as anything else. But, after only a handful of seconds, it expanded, becoming a loud and raucous thing, one so jocular and merry one could not help but join in. All across the bridge, semi-sober sailors began to chuckle, then guffaw, eventually falling into the knee-slapping helpless state of full-blown hysterics that had seized Valance.
“You declared war on a cookie factory?” The captain had to choke his question out in between bursts of merriment.
Caught in much the same dilemma, Rocky answered, “Yes, sir. Full scale.”
“You announced this over the spaceways, of course?”
“Oh yes, sir, Captain. Full intent. Full disclosure. Full speed ahead.”
“And the League,” answered Valance, his revelry tapering off just a touch, “and Earth High Command, they’ve made their positions clear—yes?”
“Oh, yes sir,” howled Rocky, only seeing the humorous side of his answer, “they both pretty much want us dead.”
“In fact,” interrupted Noodles, chiming in as if actually in a hurry to get hung along with his pal, “the League is still on hold.”
All laughter stopped at that point as completely as if each of the merry-makers had been slapped in the face with a wet porcupine. His mood crystallizing into a thing severe and frightening to behold, the captain snarled, “You’ve had the League on hold all this time? Are you all out of your goddamned—”
“Sir,” shouted Thorner, the large man’s booming voice refocusing everyone’s attention on their far-from-finished hangovers, “the League demanded to talk to you, refusing to believe you weren’t on board. We sent Brodsky to check your cabin so we could tell them with cleanslate assurance you weren’t on board—that we did this all on our own.”
“But that, um …” added Harris, the first to recognize the irony of their situation, “that didn’t … work out for us, sir.”
“Ya think,” growled Valance. The captain lowered his vision once more, his mind racing desperately. He had to speak with the League, had to find a way out for his crew, and for the Earth. His head throbbing, eyes burning, bones melting, he gave the high sign to communications officer Feng to patch him through to the League connection. Making an audible gulp, the young woman depressed the correct switch, and the face of the Grand High Exalted Poobah of the Pan-Galactic League of Suns appeared on the forward monitor.
“Captain Valance,” the Telrecian known as Merli Acirde said coolly, “I’m told you are not presently aboard the Roosevelt. Pray tell, from where are you transmitting?”
“Good to see you again, too, your Poobahship. If you don’t mind, I think I can explain this whole mess so everyone can just go back about their business.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” answered the Grand High Exalted One, “but I believe I am already in possession of the facts. Your drunken crew, from your warship, with you on board, sent out a legal and binding confirmation of hostilities against member citizens of the Pan-Galactic League of Suns. Is that not the case?”
Valance froze his first, second, and even his third responses within his throat. He knew he was playing a high stakes game, and that more than his own safety or satisfaction had to be considered. He also, however, was suffering from a hangover so stupefying he actually needed to remind himself to breathe every so often. Feeling he had regained a fraction of his self-control, he began. “It wasn’t a serious confirmation, your Bigness. The boys, they’ve just—”
“Please, Captain, allow me to ‘slice to the pursuit,’ as you humans say. I have a speech to prepare for tonight’s annual League dinner, so allow me to be brief. You and yours have committed the highest of crimes. Whatever your infantile reasons, the fact is you have given me clear justification to release the Pan-Galactic armada to pursue, hunt down, and blow your ship out of the deep. After that, it will track a course to your home system and obliterate every mote of human effluence.”
“You, you,” stammered Rocky, his eyes wide as saucers, “we was just on a tear. You can’t do that.”
“Ahhhh, Mr. Rockland, how glad I am to see you amidst the doomed.” Preening like a coyote that had just eradicated the last roadrunner from the surface of its world, the Grand High Exalted Poobah of the Pan-Galactic League of Suns added: “And since you seem to have forgotten with whom you are dealing, I shall remind you. I am the combined will and final voice of civilized space. I can do whatever I want. I might not be ‘a crook,’ Mr. Rockland, but I’m a very patient, and vengeful being, and if there are gods in any heavens, they will arrange that the news of your destruction be brought to me during dessert so that they both might be made all the sweeter.”
And with those words, the main bridge monitor went black. The crew of the Roosevelt present within command remained silent, all waiting for Valance’s orders. To a man, despite their varying degrees of alcohol-induced suffering, each one of them despaired their actions. They had not only doomed their home world and all the planets, satellites and asteroid settlements it controlled, but worse, they had disappointed their captain. After a terribly long silence, Valance broke the hideous quiet, asking, “What’s our heading?”
“Ah, actually, sir,” answered Noodles, “we’re still headed for the Space Pirate Cookie factory at full tear.”
“Good.” As those around him gave their captain a quizzical stare, not certain what he was up to, Valance pulled down a great, cleansing breath through his nostrils, exhaled, pulled down another, then announced over the ship’s speakers: “Men, I’m not going to bother with accusations or recriminations. Quite frankly, at this point I don’t care what got us here. To be perfectly honest, I’m as sick as every one of you over how Earth has been treated ever since we got out here. In fact, I believe our pal the Poobah’s been waiting for something like this since long before our boys Milhoused him.”
Rocky and Noodles grinned at each other, both as pleased as if they had just won a lifetime supply of bacon—thick-sliced and Canadian.
As the rest of the crew began to perk up around them as well, Valance barked: “All right, these spudboys want to start some shit, I say, bring it on. If they think the human race is a dog they can simply tell to roll over and play dead, I say we go Perryrhodanic on their asses and show these silk-breeched Betties how we do things on our side of the tracks. How about it, men of the Roosevelt, who’s for blowing the living hell out a cookie factory?!”
And with those words, and a great deal of unrestrained cheering, the finest ship in the great Earth exploration fleet went to Top Turbo Thrust and sailed forth toward destiny.
* * *
“For the last time, you four, are you absolutely certain you want to do this?”
Valance stared at the almost sober quartet before him, trying not to let his inordinate pride show through. If any of them were to realize how he felt at that moment, he knew there would be no talking them out of their suggestion. As they all assured the captain they were as determined as ever, Thorner stepped forward, offering, “Look, Captain sir, it just makes sense. We’re the ones that got this all started.”
“Hey,” shouted Rocky, “you and Harris were just the first apes me and Noodles come across. If anyone gets the credit for endangering all of humanity, it’s gotta be us.”
As the four began arguing over how little each of the others had contributed to the coming destruction of the human race, Valance barked an “at ease” at them, then said, “All right, we’ll play it your way. We’re just a hair out from the asteroid complex where they make these damn cookies, so let’s make certain we all understand each other. You four are going to take a dropship in, get inside and blow the place. That will keep the armada coming this way, looking for the Roosevelt.”
The sailors all nodded, hands unconsciously checking their side arms. Knowing time was precious, Valance wrapped things up quickly, saying, “In the meantime, the rest of the crew and I will doublelight it back to Earth. With the League blocking all transmissions, the only way we can warn them is in person.”
“Five minutes to drop.” As the five all looked at Yeoman Feng’s image on the console, the captain affirmed her message was received and understood, then turned back to the sailors before him. Pursing his lips for a moment, knowing he had time for only the shortest of goodbyes to the men before him whom, in all likelihood, he would never see again, he said, “Gentlemen, it’s been a pure, goddamned honor.”
As Valance’s hand shot upward, Rocky, Noodles, Harris and Thorner all snapped to attention, getting their own hands to their helmets a split-second before the captain’s reached his forehead. Valance saluted, his men returned it, then they turned and piled into their dropship. As they did so, Valance pointed toward the skull and crossbones freshly painted on its bow, calling out, “Nice touch.”
“They wanted pirates,” answered Harris, “we’ll give them a few.”
And, in only minutes the Roosevelt was but an echoing speck fading from sight. At the helm, Thorner moved them with all due haste toward the bakery complex hidden in the asteroids ahead. The instant they were far enough away from the Roosevelt for minimum safety, the Dreadnought’s great protonic engines roared and the ship disappeared down a parabolic chuckhole toward home. Wordlessly, the quartet inside the extremely recently renamed good dropship Bucket O’Blood moved into the asteroid belt, drifting in toward the already visible complex.
The cookie factories, warehouses and staging areas were enormous, some of the massive ovens covering hundreds of acres. Landing in the shadows of several Brobdingnagian syrup towers, the assault team gathered their explosives, record cameras and infiltration tools and exited the Bucket O’Blood, then headed for what appeared to be a little-used side entrance to what they hoped was the main administration building. Even before landing, the swabbies had agreed that destroying the lair of the company’s “suits” would best achieve their goals. Or, as Thorner had put it, “It’s not like we’ve got anything against the bakers.”
“You try one of their Little Taste of Andromedas?”
The others had smiled at the tech’s dry humor, Harris noting that it was not half as dry as the cookies in question, a bon mot which brought a needed chuckle to them all. After that, however, their mission had become a strictly business affair. Twenty minutes after the tiny spot of humor, the quartet had made their way inside what indeed turned out to be the administrative headquarters of the Space Pirate Cookie Corporation.
As the team moved upward through the building, they were struck with the ease of their passage. True, they had been forced to duck and cover several times as various office types hurried down one hallway or another, but for the most part their journey from the outside to the main offices of the company proceeded without interruption.
“I’m thinking,” said Harris, “fun as it’s been playing pirate, if we do actually kill anyone, it would be like admitting these cookie bastards were right about Earth. You know what I mean?”
Indeed, all of his fellows knew exactly what he meant. The same notion had been plaguing the rest of the swabbies since they had launched from the Roosevelt.
Making a nasty face, Rocky said, “Don’t you just hate guys who take all the fun out of everything?”
The others chuckled, but realizing their time to act was tight, Thorner offered, “Look, we have to do something. So, why don’t we just march in on their meeting, tell them to clear out, and then blow up their damn corporate HQ without hurting anyone or even burning up any of their damn cookies. If Earth’s gotta go, let’s help her go with some class.”
Everyone agreed, all except Harris who asked if they could not, please, let the Little Tastes of Andromeda burn. After that, knowing they were but a doorknob’s turn away from making their room reservations for Valhalla, the quartet entered the main offices of SPC/Co., only to find the surprise of their lives.
“Humans,” cried out one of the aliens joyously around the conspicuously large table taking up most of the meeting room. “Is this perfect or what?”
“Come in, brothers, come in,” shouted another, one attired in such a shiny, multi-layered garment it had to be assumed he was the biggest of the wigs present. “’Tis fitting indeed for humans to be here at our moment of triumph.”
“Ah, yeah,” said Rocky. “But, er … which moment was that again?”
“The moment when we bring the repressive, stagnating dictatorship of the accursed Pan-Galactic League of Suns to its collective knees.” As many around the table thumped and whistled at what they obviously approved as a fine sentiment, Noodles asked, “Huh, I know why we might want to do such a thing, but that would mainly be because of you guys. No offense, but, why would you want to do it?”
“Because,” snarled the obvious ringleader, “the League has been lying to everyone for millennia. The galaxy hasn’t been completely explored—shaz’bot, most of it is still unknown!”
“What?” The word echoed from one swabbie to another.
“It’s true,” said an alien garbed in only slightly less shiny layers, obviously a vice-president. “I used to be an aide to that Telrecian bastard, Merli Acirde. “The five ‘great’ races have been conning every new species they’ve found since forever. They pull their patented ‘here’s some goodies’ bit with every slogbrain that pulls itself up out of the ooze, then intimidates them into just becoming another consumer outlet. Stay home, put your feet up, let us take care of you.”
“You mean,” said Rocky, his voice as filled with wonder as his heart was throbbing with hope, “there’s still worlds to find out there?”
“There’s a million of them—a billion,” shouted the vice president. “And we’re all going to have our crack at them as soon as we bring down the League.”
“Nifty,” answered Thorner. “How you gonna do that?”
“We member races of the resistance, we built SPC/Co for one reason. Sorry about picking on the Earth and all, but you play to your audience, you know?” As the sailors all agreed the fellow had a point, the alien continued, telling them, “The Space Pirate Cookies that were sent to the League’s big five homeworlds were filled with a responsive nano-explosive. When our grand high exalted Pooh-Bah gives his speech in a few minutes, his voice will resonate with the nanites built into each cookie. Even ones digested six months ago will have left enough traces behind to ensure anyone who’s eaten one will be blown to smithereens. Acirde will no sooner begin his speech when he along with billions of the oppressors will die—and then, the galaxy will be free to find its own destiny once more!”
As the alien VP panted from the exertion of his speech, smiling with a decidedly wild-eyed glee, the swabbies looked at each other. They knew they and every other human was safe, that only beings from the Pan-Galactic’s big five, and perhaps a few snack-hungry tourists to their worlds would be affected. If they were to simply congratulate the corporate revolutionaries around the table and sit back and wait, their troubles, as well as Earth’s, were over.
All they had to do was approve the deaths of billions. Something the grand high exalted Pooh-Bah, Merli Acirde, was happy to allow. As the men of the Roosevelt looked around the room, noting just how many guards were actually stationed within its confines, Thorner muttered;
“Hey, Mikey-boy, you had your cameras rolling the whole time?”
“As per procedure,” answered Harris. “Think maybe I should send out a broadcast?”
“You know,” said Noodles, his fingers casually slipping the binding clasp on his sidearm, “that’s probably a good idea.”
“Okay, boys,” added Rocky in a tone as serious as a barium enema, “let’s show these half-wits what it really means to be a goddamned human being.”
And then, pistols were freed, triggers were pulled, and bodily fluids yellow, green and vermillion ran across the decks of corporate piracy.
* * *
“That’s certainly an exciting story, Captain Valance.”
The Galaxy Today reporter gushed, her excitement over being close to the first actual hero the known universe had seen in ages causing her reproductive juices to bubble with the excitement of the Trevi Fountain. As she beamed and Valance continued to spin the story he and his men had cooked up, said men turned from the monitor broadcasting the captain’s interview to one another, clinking their bottles and glasses one against the other.
“Well, gentlemen, I think we pulled this one outta the fire rather nicely.”
To point out that Rocky had somehow become the undisputed master of understatement would have been as uselessly redundant as sending a gallon of unleaded to the heart of the sun. But then, he could be excused, considering the circumstances. Quartermaster Harris’s broadcast had been instantly picked up by the League’s armada, which had responded in a traditional manner by homing in on the signal, then sending in a thousand League Marines to “pacify” the situation.
The soldiers, having seen the images being sent from the SPC/Co. boardroom targeted the corporate officers and their minions, arriving just in time to save the four humans who, to be fair, had made excellent use of the element of surprise, but who had also run out of time. Merli Acirde was stopped before he could broadcast his speech, and was also immediately stripped of his rank and put into confinement pending an investigation.
Now, it was true everyone paying the slightest attention knew the League was merely playing for time, trying to maintain their position as Kings of the Mountain. And, again to be fair, everyone with any reasonable understanding of how such games were played, knew that the League’s iron grasp on the affairs of the galaxy might have been relaxed, but that they would by no means be swept away by events.
“Still,” mused Noodles, reaching for a ninth, frosty cold Woodchuck Ale, “it’s nice to know that we shook things up a little.”
“A little?” Thorner spat a swallow of his Great Balls o’Firepower cocktail across the table, then shouted, “We struck away the chains shackling the oppressed of the universe!”
“We also worked it so the captain came out a hero, taught the galaxy what it means to screw with the human race, and kept ourselves alive long enough to enjoy it all,” said Harris. His feet on the table, hands behind his head and seven inches of a nicely-fired Avo Uvezian hand-rolled clenched firmly between his teeth, he added, “Not bad for a bunch of upstarts from the armpit of the universe, eh?”
“Not bad at all,” agreed Noodles. “This means we’re all going to get to do what we signed up to do in the first place—explore the Cosmos. Be the first beings to set foot on strange, new worlds. To seek out new life, and new civilizations …”
“To boldly go,” shouted Thorner, his eyes filled with glee, “where no space pirates have gone before!”
All raised their drinks, saluted one another, then drank deeply once more. Noting Rocky’s unusual silence, Noodles asked him the reason.
Looking a bit sheepish, the gunner answered, “It’s nothin’, really. We liberated all those cookies before we left the factory—right?” When all agreed, Rocky said, “Well, I’ve just been tryin’ a bunch of ’em. And, interestin’ enough, you know what I found?” When the others inquired, he told them, “These Little Drops of Andromeda, they really ain’t that bad.”
All three of the gunnery officer’s shipmates made quite caustic responses, but Rocky heard none of it for as they shouted their jibes the great protonic engines of the Roosevelt were brought on-line, and the finest ship in the great Earth exploration fleet went to Top Turbo Thrust and finally sailed forth, as it had been aching to since it was commissioned, to boldly search for drinks where no man had gotten drunk before.
CJ Henderson was the creator of both the Teddy London occult detective series and the Piers Knight supernatural investigator series. He wrote some 70 books, including such diverse titles as The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies, Black Sabbath: the Ozzy Osbourne Years, and Baby’s First Mythos, as well as thousands of short stories, comics and miscellaneous non-fiction pieces. In the wonderful world of comics he wrote everything from Batman and the Punisher to Archie and Cherry Pop-Tart.