Done

Every movement is pain.

Every emotion is overwhelming.

Every memory is guilt.

When does it all stop?  He asked himself.  There was no answer.  Just the cold ringing of his empty mind, screaming white noise back at him.

When?

Fork

Fork. Forks. Forks'.

"There are no forks," Owl said, as he ripped his forearm's flesh apart with studied persistence. "There is only the idea of a fork."

"I know a lot about forks," said a slightly bothered Ubermilf, who had considered them from every angle since that time when she'd been taken unawares. She had never been taken unawares since.

"That's what you think," said Owl, though he seemed to believe it. "What about spaghetti?"

Ubermilf couldn't be bothered. She knew she had to use an entire crew of self-infatuated, under-achieving dick-waving wannabes to get to her reward, which Nick had probably already nicked.

"Ok, I'll make spaghetti for tea," she said with little conviction. "Now -"

She had never spoken the last two words of this sentence before. Until now, nobody had ever asked her what they were.

"What was that," said a voice she thought she'd never hear again.

4am

Things were not the same any more. People had moved on, places had changed, time was different and he was not quite what he once was. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

He pulled off the duvet and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sat and cradled his head in his hands, scruffing off the sleepy feeling and messing his hair even further than it was already. A squint at the clock revealed that it was around 4am.

"Hm. A lay in tonight then..."

He yawned. Sleep was so transient these days. So light. He went to bed tired and woke up tired. No sleep was ever enough - not that he could sleep properly.

He stumbled to the toilet and pissed half in the bowl and half down his leg and the floor. It didn't matter. Nothing really mattered any more. He walked away without flushing or washing his hands and stumbled down the stairs through the inky blackness and murky shapes. The darkness was kind of nice. Cold, peaceful and calm. No ringing phones, no talking to people - no pressure. Just quiet blackness. Into the kitchen, he poured water into the kettle and turned it on. The cold blue light from its LED filled the room with an icy glow as it rumbled into life. He could see the kitchen better now, the piles of plates and cutlery, the take away delivery boxes and the empty beer cans and bottles were clearly visible. Visual noise. It made his head bristle. He flicked off the kettle and the room was once again plunged into darkness. The cup of coffee was never made.

He stood, looking out of the window at the garden and the houses beyond like he had on so many other nights like this. A light was on in one of the buildings across the way. Through the moving branches of the trees he could make out the sillouette of a person. They were awake too. At least he wasn't totally alone in this early morning void between dark and light. The person moved, the light went off and a car grumbled in the distance. He was alone again.

The silence was perfect. Cold, hard, screaming silence. His head was ringing. He could only hear the sound of his brain working, his heart beating, his mind thrashing and his body aching. It was a wave of noise against the darkness and the peace. He wriggled and struggled on the spot as if trying the throw off some invisible assailant. A shadow, heavy and large hung on his back, pushing him down, refusing to let go. He slumped and let it fall over him. Submission was the only option. He had no energy left. No fight, no hope and no reason to try.

He reached for the drawer, opened it and pulled out a fork. He held it up and examined it in the half light as if deciding what it might be or why it was, how it was. He knew fully well what he was doing and what he was going to do. It seemed silly. Foolish. He did a half chuckle. What would people think of him now? Not that it mattered. What did people ever think of him anyway? He was not what they thought he was. Not a nice man. Not a good man. Not worth anything. Nothing.

The feel of the cold metal against his arm snapped his attention back, focussed the screams and enveloped the darkness around him.

He pressed harder.

He knew what he was doing....

Intermission

Trace Darrk was no ordinary rabbit. Part fur, part cyborg fused mechanoid killer, part carrot powered zen ninja, he was as close to the perfect pet sized killing machine as you could get. Cold as steel in a winter wonderland, and about as fluffy as a bag of grumpy sharks on a hot afternoon's trip to ikea.

He quietly opened the skylight, dropped his tibetan yaks hair rope through the hole and slinked down it into the darkness. Once inside, he surveyed the scene. Two guards patrolling directly below and two more at the door. They were all the same - Chicken assasins! They must be guarding something good. Where there are Chicken assasins, there is trouble. Who ever had hired him for this job was certain of something, the bounty was hot property and the trouble would be hotter. No questions asked - Trace was the rabbit for the job.

He slowly started to swing on the rope from left to right, his special order Tabi ninja shoes gripping it between his large toes. At the highest point of his arc he lept down onto the head of one of the unsuspecting Chicken assasins, cleaving its wobbly red thing in half with his katana. He landed, sprang against the other driving it clucking against the wall where it's beak embedded into a hanging picture, shattering the glass and slicing face, beak and brown feathers from its head. It fell in a bloody heap.

The two other Chicken assasins guarding the door clucked into action and came in a dual spinning attack mode towards Trace, flailing their nunchukkas in a deadly wooden arc of destruction. Katana at the ready Trace blocked the first attack and dodged down, sliding between the Chicken assasins two yellow feet. Skidding to a stop behind the unsuspecting assailant he unleashed a series of Jeet Do Kung Fu body blows that rendered it paralysed, the final killer blow extracting an un-laid egg from the rectum of his attacker. The Chicken turned and looked at the feces stained egg as Trace held it in front of him. That was the last thing it saw before it died.

"egg-cellent to meet you!" Trace grinned.

The other Chicken assassin looked at Trace, looked at his co-worker lying dead on the floor, and started to focus his attack by performing several nunchukka Kata sequences. Trace stood watching the series of moves, stances and animal attack styles - bemused. As the Chicken assasin stopped his Kata in the crane position, Trace leaped effortlessly over his head and landed with his back to the poised fowl, Katana stretched out by his side.

The Chicken assasin spun and faced Trace. He head slowly slipped from his shoulders and his body began to run wildy around the room banging into the walls and eventually tripping over the dead carcass of his colleague, before stopping in its final resting position.

Trace reached into his backpack and stepped towards the door they had been guarding. After attaching a selection of his finest Ninja C4 explosive and setting the Ninja fuse wires in place he retreated back up his rope for adequate cover. He pressed the remote detonator and a large, loud explosion ripped the door from it's hinges and sent it flying across the room.

Trace decended the rope into the smoke filled room and made his way to where the door had been. The bounty was now in sight. Payment would follow soon and he would be happier. Much happier.

"Shit" he murmured.

"I knew this was a set up......"

THE END

--------------------------------------------------

"Fuck! Holy, fucking-shitty-fucky-fuck-flaps!"

"Comics are just wank! The story has just got to the best bit and I gotta freakin wait until next month for the next edition..... Wankers!"

WhiteBoyBob arose from the toilet, yanked his trousers up, kicked open the stall door and proceeded towards the exit when a large explosion somewhere on the ship knocked him off his feet, sending him crashing into the basins and knocking over the soap dish stolen from UberMilfs quarters, which smashed on the floor.

"Shit!"

An automated announcement crackled over his comm-link.

"Emergency... emergency... Hull beach in sectors 3 and 4, decks 11, 12, 13 and 14 compromised."
"Boarding party detected... defend... defend...!"
"Action stations"

"Oh well" He muttered, picking himself up from the floor wiping synthi-soap from his flak-jacket.

"wiping my arse is gonna have to wait until later...!"

Renaissance

Condensation dripped onto the gleaming black marble floor of the papal bathroom, sending ripples across a pool of sudsy bath water which shimmered in the reflected light of a thousand candles lining the similarly black marble walls of the cavernous chamber. Pope Danzig reclined in his sunken bath and gazed upwards at the clouds of steam and incense partially obscuring the bas relief frieze depicting The Fall of Man in, for dramatic effect, black marble against his bathroom ceiling, and sighed, allowing his eyelids to droop as he contemplated the recent demise of his foe.

Word of Beefheart's death had reached him within moments of the martyrdom of the entire VII Fleet at what would come to be known as the Holy Battle of Port Salut, and had come as something of a disappointment. That his arch enemy should die an ignomineous but swift death due to a mechanical failure rather than a slow, agonising death at the inquisitorial hands of Mother Church Inc. pained Danzig. Oh yes, he had spent many years yearning for the day he would get medieval upon Beefheart's wretched blasphemous self, but now that day would never come.

Instead, His Holiness would have to satisfy himself with the knowledge that even now Beefheart was being tormented by a screaming horde of flaming demons and would, as a blasphemer, suffer this fate for all eternity. Of this, Pope Danzig was absolutely certain. Contenting himself with this image Danzig allowed himself a smile as he reclined a little deeper into the perfumed waters of his bath and felt his right hand slip beneath the water of its own volition. As he closed his eyes and listened to the steady drip, drip, drip of moisture falling from the tip of a black marble serpent's tail over head, he thought back to the day the Holy Spirit had revealed the Real And Wonderous Truth Of God's Creation to him during his formative years at the Sacred Heart seminary on the shores of the Caspian Sea, in his native Free Democratic People's Republic Of Azerbaijan, on the outskirts of the Eastern Conurbation of Greater Moskva.

At the age of six, he had been a willful child, given more to thoughts of games with his fellow students and whether there might be goat sausage for dinner again that evening, than to instruction at the hands of Father Mallory in “The Evils Of Moral Relativism Within The Church”. On one fateful morning, an hour into his first class on what promised to be a particularly glorious spring day, Father Mallory had spied the young Danzig, seated at his desk by the window, gazing in wonder out to sea at the first tentative glimmers of sun edging their way over the horizon into a dawn sky of a breathtaking inky blue.

Without breaking pace with his dictation to the class as a whole, the good father strode silently toward young Danzig and, simultaneously siezing him by the collar with one calloused shovel of a hand while clapping the other over the startled young boy's mouth, he hoisted Danzig from his seat and carried him legs flailing over his classmates' heads to the rear of the class.

“We see from the decline of the Greeks how the profligate filth of homosexuality,” sneered Mallory, kicking open a wooden chest at the back of the class, “is an abomination to Our Lord Jesus Christ.” He dropped Danzig into the box, driving him down with both hands, forcing him into a foetal pose within the confines of the chest, while intoning, “and must therefore not be tolerated by the Church in attempt to appease the heathen politicos who wallow in their own wretched faeces.” He slammed the lid on the chest before, scarlet faced with spittle flying from his lips, concluding with a flourish, “For the sodomites shall be burned and shall have the flesh ripped from their bones for all eternity!” With this, Mallory freed a rusty iron padlock from the brass loop on the chest's front, flicked the lid's tag over the top of it then rethreaded the padlock and squeezed it shut.

Inside the box, Danzig lay frozen in silent terror. He heard the snick-snack of the padlock closing, followed in quick succession by the twin rifle shots of Mallory's knees as he rose arthriticly and continued his dictation while pacing the class. Fearful of making any noise and atracting his master's wrath further, Danzig gently pressed his shoulder against the lid of the box. A sliver of light appeared along the front edge and a tiny influx of air replenished the already depleted atmosphere within his wooden prison.

For seventeen hours, Danzig lay curled in near total darkness. For the first twelve hours, he had listened intently as the classes continued without him and tried desperately to follow lessons, lest he be tested upon his eventual release and found lacking. At 6:00pm, however, the class emptied for the final time that day as the students filed off to evensong and Danzig was left alone in the dark with his terror, his only comfort the dull boom of the seminary clock striking every quarter hour.

As the clock struck eleven, this small boy lay locked in a wooden chest in the darkness of an empty classroom; oxygen starved, terrified beyond words, in deep shock and unable to comprehend what purpose his punishment would serve or even what had brought such horror to befall him, his mind ended its struggle. Finally, as the last echoes of the seminary bell faded, a single tiny sob escaped from the confines of the box but went unheard in the empty room.

Reclining in his steaming sunken tub, Pope Danzig recalled how the Holy Spirit had come upon him during his imprisonment, how over the next seven hours God's Truth had been revealed to him in all Its majestic glory, and how he had Father Mallory to thank for being instrumental in his epiphany. Danzig relaxed further, sighing deeply as his eyes closed and he stretched his arms over the side of the bath, the familiar rush of warmth spreading upwards from the root of his being throughout his body. He felt the spark of holy light within his soul grow and rise within him and relished the sensation, knowing what would come and glorying in the anticipation until, unable to hold it within him any longer, the light exploded out of him and he felt his soul soar upwards into a brilliant blue sky. Barreling around as he rose, Danzig was filled with the unspeakable rapture of the true believer as he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. Wondering at the majesty of God's creation and his own part within His Ineffable Plan, Danzig flew upwards with arms outstretched as a cucifix, bathed in the radiance of the Holy Spirit's brilliance.

Then, in a voice as old as the Earth and as glorious as the sun, the Spirit came upon Danzig and spoke two words which so stunned him as to stop his ascent in its tracks.

HE LIVES

In a moment the full weight of these words fell upon Danzig and he realised how sinfully full of pride he had been to presume his enemy could be bested so easily, how negligent in attention to his duties as God's instrument upon Earth he had been to allow himself to be outsmarted by the wiles of the evil one. With this realisation the sky about him turned to fire and he plummeted downwards. Down, down into a yawning black pit from which rose screeching toward him a host of demons. With a bone splintering crash the first hurtled into him and still he fell. Demons swarmed about him, thrusting him from one to another while clawing at his flesh and screaming foul curses upon him, and still he fell. Clouds of sulphur billowed around him, the flesh on the soles of his feet began to char and still he fell, screaming and thrashing helplessly at his attackers until one dealt him a stunning blow to the back of the head and he was engulfed by darkness.

Danzig awoke to find his bath water cooled and his hair matted with congealed blood. A warm glow was spreading from his feet and up between his legs and, lifting his head gingerly from the marble surround of his bath, his gaze fell upon a young altar boy trembling at the taps, eyes averted from the papal nakedness.

From beneath heavy lids, Danzig watched as the figure knelt with cassock sleeves rolled up, one arm planted firmly on the edge of the bath for support, while swashing hot waves along the bath with the other. Intent on his task and yet eager to finish and leave as soon as protocol permitted,the boy frantically circulated the hot water along the length of the bath until, swashing a little too hastily, his hand brushed across something unexpectedly firm beneath the water's surface.

Horrified, the boy snatched his hand back and straightening looked agape at the pope for some indication of what might come next. Slowly, a smile formed across Danzig's lips. He tapped the talon like nail of his right index finger on the edge of the bath for a few moments before slowly rasing his hand and beckoning toward the boy. Fear rooted him to the spot but Danzig nodded, continued to smile and beckoned again. The boy inched forward hesitantly, all the while Danzig smiling at him beatifically and nodding with eyes glazed and half closed until, level with his chest, the boy stopped. Unsure what was expected of him, the boy lowered his gaze and so didn't see the muscled arm snake out and clamp a calloused, clawed hand around his throat, powerless to resist as it dragged his head beneath the water.

Danzig continued to nod dreamily but did not allow himself to relax until the struggling had ceased, and even then waited for another few seconds before tossing aside the limp young figure and leaning forward to spin the elegantly machined gold tap shut. As he reclined and water spilled across the floor of the bath chamber, Danzig allowed himself a satisfied smile.

Yes, we must all be brought to account for our failings, Beefheart, he thought, and this time there will be no escape.

Touching Cloth

Beefheart sat in stunned silence for a moment, jaw gaping, searching for a suitable opener.

"- ", he began, then stopped.

"Uh...", he ventured.

"OK", shrugged the doppelganger. "We'll start. We have assumed this form partly to conceal our true nature from you, but also partly to get your attention. We brought you here for a reason and we went to great lengths to make sure no one else would know where you were so we'd have enough time to tell you what you need to know before we send you back."

He smirked at Beefheart and took a long drag from his cocktail.

"Back? ...from the dead...?" slurped Beefheart through his own drink. His gaze drifted toward the ocean and the two naked giggling figures splashing in the surf. "But maybe I like being dead...."

His train of thought was rudely disrupted by being slapped hard across the face. Head swimming, he dragged his attention back to the sight of his own face glaring angrily back at him from the next seat.

"Listen, numb nuts, we don't have much time and you've got to try and drag your sorry excuse for a brain into third gear before it's too late. We snatched you from the bridge of your ship because we couldn't risk Danzig's troops killing you, but your trigger happy crewman fired up the Zen Gun before we could get an accurate fix. Your shielding blew up like a fucking firecracker and we spent three days trawling the space lanes around Port Salut gathering up your component particles before we could risk reassembling you here."

The doppelganger paused to empty his glass in two large gulps, while gesturing to Louis to refill both drinks. Beefheart closed his eyes, frowned and rubbed his forehead to show he was trying to take it in but as his alterego began speaking again he found the sensation of his own voice telling him things he couldn't understand in an angry and highly agitated manner too reminiscent of his time in therapy and reluctantly opened his eyes again.

"Danzig heard that you were dead but now he's going after the rest of your crew with everything he's got. He's even using Interceptors for fuck's sake! They got Bob on Ursa Major Beta and have been torturing him for the last two days." The stranger paused, frowning, before continuing, "So far he seems to be enjoying it, but that's Bob for you."

"No, that's not right. I spoke to Bob a few minutes ago and -"

"And nearly gave the whole fucking game away, shithead!"

Beefheart winced and braced himself for another slap, eyes closed. When it didn't come, he cautiously opened one eye then gawped in amazement to find himself on the bridge of the Beefheart. Leaning over the navigator's station, deep in conversation with former Ensign Perreira, was the eloquently shapely form of the newly promoted Captain Ubermilf. Beefheart watched her hips gyrate as she shifted her weight from one foot to another and wondered whether she would be as pleased to see him as it was becoming apparent he was pleased to see her.

"Now that," leered the now familar figure at his side, "is the kinda trunk space you want in a late model car!"

Beefheart giggled despite himself and glanced around the bridge. "Am I to assume from the lack of pointing and shouting in our general direction that we aren't actually here?"

"Not exactly. We're here but on a different plane of existence. Part of the technology we've been developing for the last century. We can open a transdimentional portal to another location in space and time, within certain operational parameters, and either observe or interact as necessary. This is what Danzig is after so desperately - with this he could become truly omnipresent and set himself up as God. A sort of "management buy-out", if you will, or I believe "regime change" is the fashionable term."

Beefheart slumped against a bulkhead, his ego pricked liked a soap bubble. "But I thought he was after me..." he pouted sulkily. The doppelganger shook his head despairingly, and the two winked out of existence just as the astral form of Taoski entered the bridge. It stood for a moment, wide eyed and speechless, wondering whether to share his vision of two manifestations of his former captain with the rest of the bridge crew, then decided it wouldn't help his reputation as a "mystical looney toon" as Piebeard had so succinctly described him.

Back in the bar, two slightly sozzled captains were wrapping themselves around another round of monster frozen margueritas as the stranger of the two tried to get Beefheart to grasp the problem.

"Danzig was after you. He wanted you dead because of what you know and because he couldn't risk you finding us, or vice versa. Now you're out of the frame he's going after your crew because he figures they're his best bet of finding us and getting his hands on our technology. We stepped in to make sure you weren't hurt because you're the one who holds the key to bringing his empire down. With me?"

"A'solutely not", slurred Beefheart. "What is it he thinks I know that's so dangerous?"

"You know," smirked his other self, "but you just don't think you know, and we know, but we can't tell you. You've suppressed the memory and if we just told you what it was you'd be so traumatised that - "

"Horseshit!" snarled Beefheart, leaping uncertainly to his feet. "You're fucking with me to play some sick game and - "

Beefheart stopped as he found himself in near total darkness. A sickly sweet smoke drifted around him, the smell of which seemed vaguely reminiscent of a half forgotten nightmare. A chill settled on to him like a damp shroud and he shuddered.

The sound of shuffling footsteps crept toward him and gradually the darkness lifted, revealing a stone flagged floor and damp stone walls. In one wall, a heavy, brass studded oak door, ancient and impenetrable. In the opposite wall, a stone staircase, the steps worn smooth and hollowed by centuries of wear. Down these steps into the room crept the trembling figure of an altar boy holding a fat, greasy candle which dripped over his surplus and left a trail of wax in his wake.

Beefheart felt his heart grinding in his chest as he recognised his own childhood figure. Memories stirred in his subconcious and he felt like his head was full of snakes as he watched his former self creep toward the door, then freeze in horror in the middle of the room as with a mighty groan the door began to swing outward into the room, obscuring Beefheart's view of what lay beyond.

Clouds of incense billowed from beyond the door and an unearthly light flooded into the dank stone chamber. The young Beefheart's eyes grew to the size of saucers as he stared open mouthed at what lay beyond the doorway. A desperate, gasping, wheezing filled the air, the sound of a 50 Capstan Full Strength per day nicotine habit, and with a slow, heavy tread the towering figure of the future Pope Danzig, now still just a priest, entered the room.

The black robed figure swished to a halt a pace away from the terrified altar boy and, addressing him by his confirmation name, extended a leather gloved hand and wheezed:

"...Luke.... join us..."

Torn between obeying meekly and fainting with fear, the young Beefheart looked in abject horror first at the scene beyond the door, then up at the priest's face.

"F-Father....?" he stammered, then coming to his senses he dropped the candle and fled in horror back up the stairs as fast as his trembling legs would carry him.


An abruptly sober Beefheart sat with his legs dangling over the wooden verandah of Chez Jules, staring disconsolately at the sea. The second figure lowered himself gently down next to him and, without a word, passed Beefheart a bottle of Sailor Jerry's Spiced Rum. He waited a moment to allow the liquor to take the edge off some tattered nerves before continuing.

"We don't have much time," he spoke quietly. "You're the only one who knows what happened in that room and is in a position to use it to stop Danzig - we can't use the information without risking giving away our location. You have to rejoin your crew, rescue Bob and unlock what's in that head of yours so you can stop Danzig before your crew get themselves killed or - worse - manage to bring him here."

"But I don't understand, why would they be looking for you here? This place is a myth, no one knows for sure if it even really exists..."

Beefheart took a long slug of the rum and furrowed his brow as realisation slowly began to dawn, like the first watery sun of spring creeping across an arctic tundra after months of darkness.

"One of our technicians opened a portal on your plane to try to lure the pope's spies into a trap. We hoped to send them back to the Dark Ages where their fanatical views would be considered heresy and they would be burned as witches by their own ancestors.

The plan worked and we disposed of a whole operational cell setting Danzig's work back by years, but the portal was left open too long and your comrade sent something through in the mistaken belief he could retrieve it the next time it was opened. Your crew have been looking for it ever since."

Beefheart sat in stunned silence, mouth agape, struggling to regain the power of speech. His doppelganger sighed, looked at his feet for a moment, then turned turned to face him and confirmed what Beefheart had already begun to suspect.

"That's right.... Midway is what you know as.... Blogadoon!"

Sudden Discomfort

In these enlightened times, most right thinking persons (as opposed to " Right" thinking") were against the killing of sentient or even semi-sentient beings for pleasure. There were, of course, a few exceptions and the hunters were quite vociferous in their opposition to laws banning the killing of other life forms solely for personal gratification.

Politicians, lawyers and activists wrangled for centuries until at last a solution was arrived at which all concerned finally - however grudgingingly - agreed to. The rationale was this:

If the hunters want to hunt, let them - but let them hunt each other.

There were a few token voices of dissent but secretly even the hunters were overjoyed. At last, they would get to waste someone with a gun and no one would call a bad on them. And so it began, the great Hunting Forest Reserve planets of Ursa Major. The rules were simple:

1. To avoid anyone gaining a tactical advantage, all hunters were to carry biometrically tagged weapons and ammunition that could only be used by their owner, so there was no possibility of anyone stockpiling weapons when killing the opposition.

2. Everyone landing had to carry enough supplies to last at least two weeks, preferably containing grain alcohol and tinned beans, although these were not compulsory.

3. No one was allowed to stay longer than three weeks and, to ensure this rule was enforced, all candidates were implanted with a time limited biopoison which would release a powerful coagulant into anyone unwise enough to outstay their welcome. Miss the last bus home and you'd congeal into a giant scab within seconds.

White Boy Bob was, however, a Frequent Fryer at Ursa Major Beta. Pondering Beefheart's sudden demise and apparent attempt to communicate from beyond death, he crouched in a patch of swampy undergrowth, motionless, scarcely breathing lest he disturb the party of hunters checking their weapons a few inches in front of him. Newly arrived, they were in the "Yeah! Woah, yeah!" stage of psyching each other up and reassuring one another they were indeed "total bad asses".

Once they'd finally high fived each other for the seventeenth time, they flicked their portable cannon controls from "Safety" to "Extreme Hazard" and steeled themselves to set out into the jungle.

"Perfect", thought Bob and had just begun to tauten his finger on Stella's trigger when the lead hunter's face exploded all over him. Unflinching, Bob watched with an amused if confused air as each of the remaining hunters looked from one to another in shock for a second before each suffering a similar fate. Bob remained motionless and waited for the barbecued flesh smoke and blood vapour to disperse in the mist, careful not to reveal himself to whoever had made such short work of these newbies. As he watched, a shadow detached itself from the Banyan tree opposite and coalesced into the unmistakable form of a member of the Secure Hostage Intercept Team. It reached a blood spattered hand down to the cloaking unit on it's belt and flicked it from Stealth to Dispersal mode. Unable to see the figure directly, Bob knew he would now only be able to detect it in his peripheral vision but to turn his head would be to reveal his own location.

"Shit!", he thought, "...Interceptors...I don't need this...."

The S.H.I.T.'s were the law's last line of defense in certain parts of the galaxy, the kind of regions where distinctions between legal missions, black ops and out and out piracy tended to be blurred and no one on either side of the law, Bob included, would have anything to do with them if they could possibly avoid it. But why were they here? It wasn't like they needed an excuse to waste people - it was in their job description.

Bob concentrated his attention on the very edge of his vision and was sure he could see a shadow moving away from the clearing in front of his hide and off into the jungle. With aching slowness, he carefully rolled his eye a few degrees to his right, only to find himself looking down the charred muzzle of a Rezznor 8000 Particle Disruptor. The same weapon, he assumed, which had so recently turned the faces of four hunters into marinara sauce.

"Is this your hide, sir?" chuckled the shadow.

Dude

Momentarily blinded by the exhaust of yet another Arcturan Porn Freighter, Beefheart instictively threw up his hand to protect his eyes and was so startled to actually see his own hand he flung himself backwards into - to his further shock - a sandbank.

Looking down at his own body which had been so noticeably absent from view for the past three days, Beefheart found it as disconcerting as if he had encountered a corpse in his bed and scuttled backwards across the sand in a futile attempt to escape it, stopping abruptly seconds later as his back hit an immovable obstacle.

Sweating, heart racing, Beefheart closed his eyes for the first time in three days and forced himself to breathe normally, relishing the sensation. Gradually he allowed his awareness to expand beyond his own panic to begin to take in his environment.

Warm sand. Cool breeze. Salty smell.

Good start.

He opened his eyes cautiously and, squinting against the glare, took in the vista before him. From the surf line twenty yards away to the horizon stretched the bluest, cleanest, most inviting stretch of ocean he had ever seen. To either side the longest, purest white beach of his life lay gleaming in the mid morning sun.

"I've gone mad," muttered Beefheart, as he struggled to his feet in the soft sand. "Space fever, utterly fucking bonke-"

With a sickening crack his head struck a wooden beam and Beefheart slumped to his haunches, seeing stars once again. He turned to get the measure of his assailant andsaw that staple of tourist sites everywhere, a wooden sign post, weathered and worn smooth by sun, wind and salt air. Carved in deep letters from top to bottom of the main post was the word "MIDWAY". At random angles around the top jutted wooden arms labelled "Earth", "Port Salut" and "Planet Playtex" amongst others. Beefheart stared at it in a mixture of awe and disbelief.

Midway... It was a legend amongst pirates, drifters and freeloaders everywhere!

Towards the end of the 23rd century, as transdimensional space travel expanded humankind's influence to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, navigation became increasingly complex. To help ease the congestion a vast traffic control centre the size of a small moon was established at the dead centre of the galaxy. Manned in year long shifts by technicians, they constantly searched for new ways to amuse themselves. By selling favourable information to pirates, drug smugglers and gun runners and blasting police patrols with static, they gained favour amongst the galactic underclass. They also, of course, became extremely wealthy, which allowed them to shape their environment to their own ends, importing billions of tons of pure quartz sand and glacial water to construct the perfect beach. Over Beefheart's head burned a controlled fusion reaction in a nuclear stasis field, orbiting the 10 mile long beach in a day of ever varying length and warmth at the whim of its masters.

Although everyone knew of the existence of Midway, police included, the occupants chose to live a rather reclusive life. Being at the centre of thousands of space lanes made the chances of anyone unwelcome actually reaching it unaided about the same as that of a one legged chicken making it safely across a sixteen lane highway, in rush hour, in the fog. For this reason, its existence was flatly denied by every security force in the galaxy, an arrangement which suited both sides' professional pride perfectly.

Staggering to his feet once more and brushing himself off, Beefheart peered along the beach in both directions. To his left, half a mile away, a single walker strolled along the surf toward him. A hundred yards to his right, two shambling figures giggled uncontrollably while splashing around waste deep in the sea. Further up the beach, on the edge of the dunes, stood two ramshackle wooden beach bars declared themselves to be "Chez Jules" and "The Basement". Only Chez Jules appeared to be open so Beefheart trudged up the sand towards the verandah.

He paused at the threshold to take in the interior. It was a perfect replica of a mid twentieth century Carribean beach bar. Bleached wood floor boards and tables, a long semi circular bar with a brass rail around its edge and another eight inches from the floor.

"Morning," grinned the barman as he poured a marguerita into a salted frosted glass and gestured towards a stool. "What you upto, matey?"

"I've gone mad!" offered Beefheart, climbing onto the stool and lifting the cocktail gingerly to his lips.

"Nice day for it," shrugged the barman amiably. A tattered patch on his shirt identified him as Louis.

Beefheart took a long draw on his cocktail then swivelled around on his stool to face the sea. He studied the Hawaiian shirt on the lone walker for a few moments, the man's gait appearing vaguely familar, before his attention was disturbed by two naked men, screaming with laughter running across the wooden storefront of the bar. They somersaulted off the end of the verandah, landed with both feet in the dunes, then tore off whooping towards the surf. Swivelling back to the bar, Beefheart nodded towards the retreating figures.

"Hey Louis, who they?" he asked, between sips.

"Coupla stoners, hitched a ride here to get their rocks off on the centre of the galaxy. Nice guys, but nuts."

"I've gone mad too. Did I tell you?"

"You mentioned it, sure. Another before your friend gets here?" Louis refilled Beefheart's glass. Beefheart's brow furrowed for a moment, then he shrugged it off.

"Got a phone?"

Reaching under the counter Louis brought out an ancient looking, black, bacolite telephone with an alphanumeric keypad crudely soldered to its front in place of a dial. Beefheart bugged his eyes at it, racking his scarred memory for how to use the device. Picking up the receiver and placing it against his head, as he remembered seeing in history books, he tapped in the 17 digit hex code to access nav unit aboard White Boy Bob's ship. Louis looked up from polishing a glass and without a word took the receiver from his hand, inverted it and placed it back against his head.

"You sure the arial doesn't go out the top?" asked Beefheart, blushing. His face leapt as he heard a click on the line. "Hey Bob!" he shouted into the mouthpiece. "Bob! It's me! It's the weirdest fucking thing! Bob? Hey, Bob...?"

He stared glumly at the receiver. "It went dead. I thought I heard him for a second there, then there was this... noise...."

"Never mind," said a voice behind him. "We have a few things we need to talk about."

Turning to greet the stranger, Beefheart squinted at the silouette in the doorway and struggled to identify what was so familiar about him. As he entered the relative gloom of the bar, the stranger took of his battered baseball cap and aviators and took the stool two down from Beefheart. Not wishing to appear rude, Beefheart turned from the glare of the doorway back to his drink and, blinking away the blur of blue green blobs in his vision, slowly let his gaze sidle over the bar top to his new companion. Louis removed another frosted glass from the fridge, placed it in front of the stranger and filled it to the brim. As he reached forward, Beefheart stared at the scar on the back of the strangers hand.

The same scar that Beefheart himself had sustained in a careless trouser ironing accident on his twelfth birthday.

With his scalp desperately trying to force him to look in the other direction, Beefheart slowly turned to the stranger and looked at the same smug, hungover, battered face he had seen every morning in his bathroom mirror.

"Hey there. I expect you have a few questions to ask me," it smirked.

Twist

Inside the nearby Doom Bringer, WhiteBoyBob's chin dropped to his chest as he expelled a deep sigh of beery air, almost as if deflating himself into the bucket seat of the cockpit. Suddenly he thrashed upwards and outwards at every random surface he could find, punching, slapping, mashing and bellowing forth a primal scream as he did so. The various consoles began to error and bleep their warnings at him as lights flashed on and off wildly in his eyes. He slumped back in his seat again, exhausted from the outburst, but not feeling much better for it either.

"I ca'nt believe he's....gone!" He stuttered whilst wafting the smell of electrical burning away from his face. A small navi console to his right sparked randomly, it's screen rolling and parallaxing in hues of grey and green. Another stern whack stopped that though.

It was almost a tear-worthy moment if it had'nt been for the emotio-empathy-inhibitor he had fitted years ago during his time as a mercenary and freelancer. It was back in those blood soaked, whore-a-plenty, cash rich days that he had met Captain Beefheart who was at the time, serving onboard one of the Casino cruisers that orbited the new-build holiday planets, SKGNEZ1 and BLKPOL2.

---~!~---

"Twist!..." barked WBB as his cigar ash fell marking yet another scorch mark in the green felt.

A card fired forward across the green playing field to land face up infront of him.

"Sir draws a Jack.. Hearts.." droned the Tellerdroid in its synthetic-happy politicians voice.

WBB just stared, grinning, back at the silver domed dolt.

"Twist!..." came the order again and another card skiffed out onto the felt.

"Sir draws a Ten.. Spades.." it synthed merrily. Although programmed to show no emotion, the binary bit that knows whether the customer has won or lost the hand flipped over inside its head.

WBB reached and collected his glass and lifted it towards his mouth, never taking his eyes off the droid. He bit on the pink plastic straw and slurped some of the liquid, only pausing to knock the little cocktail umbrella out of the way with his nose. He replaced his drink on the table (not on the coaster provided) and barked his order.

"Twist!"

Immediately, the Tellerdroid sprang to life.

"Sir already has two cards which were dealt at the start of this hand, the values of which, have yet to be checked. In addition to that Sir also has a Jack.. Hearts.. and a Ten.. Spades.."

"Statistically.. Sir cannot have a hand with less than a total face value of twenty two.."
"Sir has lost this hand.. house wins with a total hand value of nineteen."

WBB paused for a second as if to contemplate the situation and then again voiced his request.

"Twist!"

"Sir.. Statistically there are no cards that I can deal that could prevent you from going over the already exceeded game limit of twenty one.."
"I am going to have to ask you to leave this gaming table before I call security.. .. xZZZzz.."

In a blaze of white neon flash fire and effortless motion the Tellerdroid was no longer a complete unit. From one of WBB's rings emerged a pulsing beam of light that had encircled his fist.

"Twist that you fukka!" Pouted WBB as he layed playful sucker punches into the droids head.
"Twist!.. Twist mutha fukka!"

Within seconds an alarm had been raised and a curtly dressed Ensign appeared beside the table escorted by a group of burly security guards.

"SIR! You have three seconds to get off that Tellerdroid before I allow my men to ruff-u-up"

With that instruction, the guards all began to resonate together with the hum of their freshly drawn taser-rods.

WBB stopped his arm in mid punch action, surveyed the smart young Ensign, counted the security staff one by one taking into account their sizes and weapon choice, checked his back pocket for something, scratched his head, tutted and then climbed off the Tellerdroid, gifting it one further parting blow before withdrawing his ring laser back into its housing.

Immediately the security guards were on him in a restraining pattern. Three on each arm and the others at the front and rear, preparing for a counter attack at any second.

"Take this scum to the Security Cells. Follow me!" chanted the Ensign and marched off through the crowds of on-lookers towards a large glass door in the distance. The security guards followed with WBB in tow as he snarled at the other punters, making one old lady drop her winnings and creating a stampede.

The Ensign tapped his security code into the keypad, leaned forward and to the left and placed his eye to the screen for the retina scan. Even he was not aware that in doing this he was also having his testicles scanned which scientists had found was even more acurate than a retina scan! It also gave a nice tingling feeling which all male workers found pleasant. And happy workers are good to have.

A chime issued and the security door slid open to reveal a long grey corridor with doors either side going off into the distance. They walked in and the door slid closed behind them.

The Ensign walked them down past three of four doors before pausing and performing the same retina/testicular scan procedure. The door slid open and he gestured to the guards with one hand and cupped himself gently with the other.

"Stick him in here for now until an Inquisitor Driod gets here to grill him later.. "

The guards bundled WBB towards the doorway. The Ensign caught his eye on the way in, raised one eyebrow and winked. WBB allowed himself to be taken into the room by the guards and escorted over to a rest area with restraining straps.

From outside the room, the Ensign looked up and down the length of the corridor once and then shut the door with the guards still on the inside. There were sounds of muffled shouting, ripping leather and cracking bones from inside and within a minute, WBB appeared at the door, with all but a bead of sweat running down his nose.

"Ello darlin! How much for a kiss on the bottom?" he quizzed, squeezing a spare cheek of the Ensign's arse.

"Yeah! Fuck you too fatboy!" Laughed Ensign Beefhart, sticking out a protruding black sportsbag he was concealing between his legs.

"Stella!" Grinned WBB.. "Right.. I got me shit. I got me new mate Beefy, now where's this vault you was talking about then?".

---~!~---

"That was over ten years ago" thought WBB as he sat back in his bucket seat.
"Ten fucking years... shit! That job still stands as one of the largest hauls ever in that quadrant. And then he blows his share on the SS Beefheart over there and goes all i'm a Mr Serious Captain on me!"
"And even worse than that, the little nonce goes and karks it too! Pah..Tosser!...."

"You ready to make the jump forward to scout the station for me WhiteBoy?" Chirped Ubermilf over the intercom.

"Does Owl shit in the woods?"

"Ummm.. thats open for interpretation I think mate, but i'll take that as a yes... see you in a few days. And be careful - we don't want to loose any more people on this mission..."

"Ok, Luv, keep your incredibly see-through knickers on. I ain't goin no-where quick. Unless I press this butto........."

With that last word WBB made the jump to hyperspace and was gone.

With the momentary transfer sickness passing, he began to check his systems for what he would have to write on the insurance forms as "accidental damage".

"Ten years.... tosser.... Ten years.......... TOSSER!!!" was all he could think to say as he fiddled with wires and bits of broken keyboard floating infront of him.

His eye was drawn to the image on the screen of the small Navi Console.
Normally during a hyperspace transit, these devices would not function... But it was doing something. A grey, green, changing, rolling image of a face could be seen. Like a fading transmission, it appeared it was talking out at someone.

WBB reached over stared closer at the tiny screen.

"Beefy? Is that you?.... What..the....fuck?.....".

A wave of nausea caught him unawares and he uncontrollably vomitted all over his trousers.

In hyperspace, no-one can hear you swear.

Realignment

Cheyenne rambled on about power surges over the coms but everyone on the bridge had fallen silent. They were all slowly processing what had just occurred. Piebeard fell to his newly reconnected knees and his head sank low. His spiritless body was supported only by Ubermilf’s leg. She patted his head as reassuringly as she could, while wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

“So you see, Captain,” Cheyenne continued, “we’re really no worse for the wear. How would you like to…”

Ubermilf cut him off.

“Cheyenne, report to the bridge immediately.”

He protested “But the engines are…”

“NOW, Cheyenne!”

He did not protest this time he simply said, “yes ma’am” and headed for the bridge.

--

Cheyenne arrived on the bridge to find everyone silent and staring either at the captain’s chair or at nothing in particular. He walked over to Lieutenant Milf, Piebeard still heaped at her side.

“Ma’am, what’s going on? Where’s Captain Beefheart?”

She pointed to the scorch marks that permeated the captain’s chair.

“Oh. Oh God. The personnel shield fluctuations I was reading, they were his. What are we going to do?”

WhiteBoyBob stepped up, priming Stella.

“Right, while I think that decision is up to the new Captain, I vote for a sweeping, blood drenched, violent revenge.”

The meek ensign Pereira broke his usual typical silence by asking a question that was weighing heavy on everyone’s minds.

“New captain?”

Piebeard rose to his feet as everyone was now looking at him. Wiping the blood and grime from his face he looked into the eyes of everyone on the bridge. He met the gaze of Lieutenant Ubermilf, paused for a moment and then spoke.

“What are your orders, Captain?”

Pie and Milf stared stoically at each other for what seemed like an eternity and then slowly she nodded.

“Right, listen up everyone. There will be time to mourn Beefheart later, right now we need to concentrate on staying alive and getting the ship fixed. Cheyenne you get back down to engineering and you and Franklin get this boat moving as close to full speed as possible. Owl, you get on the long-range coms and find us a port not under Church control where we can drop anchor for a few days. Tao I need you to hack into the Church’s mainframe and download any and all documentation you can find on The Vatican II and get some clothes for the love of Christ. Chris you’ve got the helm, be prepared to steer us out of here at any moment. Lieutenant Pereira, you start the security checks and begin plotting our course…”

Everyone paused and looked at Anthony when she said this, he in turn was staring at Captain Ubermilf with a confused look on his face.

“We’ll have time for the promotion ceremony later, right now I need everyone to get their ass’ in gear!”

Everyone jumped right back into what they were doing. Including the new captain.

“Piebeard, you have the bridge. Bob you’re with me.” With that she took off towards the rear of the ship with WBB in tow.

--

While she and Bob were making their way to storage area of the ship, she began talking to Bob.

“Something occurred to me a little while ago.”

“Wotzat?” Bob replied

“You have a ship, don’t you?”

“Course I have a ship. A damn fine one too.”

“Take me to it. Now.” Ubermilf ordered.

After a bit more walking they entered the hangar and Ubermilf stopped in her tracks. What she was gazing on was more than a ship it was a thing of beauty. It was a one-seated death machine with a cherry on top.

“My god…” she gasped
“Allo luv.” Bob said as he stroked the ship.

Ubermilf regained her composure and began again.

“Spec it out for me Bob, I want all the details.”

With a grin Bob began, “what you see before you, Captain, is a Barracuda Class Destructor called The Doom Bringer. I have had the weapons all converted over to Ion-Plasma, with a good old-fashioned 20mm Vulcan cannon mounted below the cockpit, I have had the whole ship remolded with Gargattian Blood Steel so it can withstand quantum +6 travel…

“Quantum PLUS six?!” Ubermilf interjected

“Aye, it comes equipped with a cloaking device and an autopilot that works on a series of voice commands. Watch: cloak” - as he spoke the words the ship began to mercurially meld into the hangar “Bob spoke: On” though Übermilf didn’t hear anything she could see the exhaust from the engines make everything hazy.

“Impressive” She said.

Bob shut off of the cloaking device and engines and ushered Ubermilf to the rear of the ship. He raised the paneling on the side to reveal the quantum drive. The sleek silver and black lines of the drive were contrasted by the big red letters emblazoned on the front that read MOPAR.

“This is going to be perfect.” Ubermilf said “Your mission is a dangerous one, Bob, but I have faith that in your, ahem, capable hands it will be no problem. I need you to scout out ahead of us, I’ll have Anthony send the coordinates to your system right away but I need you to make sure the path is clear and that we will have a place to lay low when we get there.”

“Aye, luv. “ Bob strapped Stella into the cockpit and jumped in. Within seconds he was outside the airlock traveling parallel to The Beefheart. Ubermilf went back to the bridge and supplied the crew the details of Bob’s mission.

“Owl – have you found a passable star port yet?” She inquired

“I have, but you are not going to like it…” his voice quivered as he thumbed his med pack.

“What do you mean? Which port is it?”

Owl paused for a moment, fearing to speak. He rapidly pumped meds into his system

Ubermilf got stern this time “Owl…”

“It’s” Owl cringed as he said the name “The L.M.L.”

Ubermilf winced a bit, trying not to telegraph her reaction to the crew. Not being entirely successful Anthony spoke up.

“What does that mean?”

Ubermilf grimaced as she responded, “It means we’ve got to deal with Hex and The Ink Slinger, and that never ends well.”

Reel Ten

Beefheart rolled his eyes and sighed deeply in an exagerated attempt at nonchalence, while Piebeard's console glowed a lurid mauve and in a breathy, porn star voice announced, "Danger, Seaman Piebeard incapacitated! ...mmmmm.... releasing nanobots.....now.......ooohhh...!"

The purple haze of glowing nanobots dispersed from their holding pattern around Piebeards seat and swarmed towards his unconcious form. Though battle hardened, each of the bridge crew studied his or her own console with a furious intensity and fought as a man to hold down their breakfasts as Piebeard's legs - suffused with the deep red glow of the nanobot cloud - straightened themselves. Bones crunched back into place and tendons squealed and grew together as the unfortunate pirate's knees returned to a more conventional configuration.

"...Mmmm..." came a muffled moan from beneath the main view screen, "...dat's nice....fank'ou very much...." Piebeard grinned with a blissful expression as he was pumped full of the finest digitally produced narcotics in the galaxy.

Moments later, having completed their repairs, the nanobots abruptly reversed the effects of their pharmaceutical diversion and dispersed in a puff of blue light, leaving a confused and rudely awakened pirate attempting to conceal an embarassingly obvious erection accompanied by a faint smell of lavender.

"Ah, Piebeard reporting for duty, sir", blustered Piebeard as he threw himself into his seat and slid it as far as possible under his workstation.

"So I see," smirked Beefheart.

Suddenly, his face fell and he gestured frantically at the screen, barking: "Ensign Perreira! What the fuck's that?!"

All eyes rolled toward the main screen, and more specifically towards the fleet of Papal Gunships massed around Port Salut. Bristling with neo-Gothic armoury of deceptively destructive force, each black and red monstrosity held enough ordnance to flip a small continent on its head and more hypernuclear firepower than a thousand gun-running, tramp-steamer, pirate ships. Ordinary, run of the mill, bog standard pirate ships that is, but the Beefheart was something special.

No other ship had had installed the Mechanics Guild's prototype Zen Gun, the ultimate in reciprocal firepower and, since Mike & The Mechanics' sudden demise at the hands of Caruthers and his band of child molesting, ultra-orthadox, money-lending neomonks - the fearsome "Tally Band" - no one ever would.

"Cheyenne!" screamed Beefheart. "Engage the Zen Gun!"

"Aye, cap'n!" whooped Cheyenne, and pouncing upon the artfully fashioned, retro eight-track stereo styled weapons console, slid all sixteen tone controls up to 11. All aboard the Beefheart, time slowed to a point and stopped, while motion seemed to continue as events happened on top of each other, appearing and disappearing simultaneously, light slopping around like a pool of cooled mercury.

Meanwhile, amidst the gloomy clouds of red, dully glowing steam on the bridge of the Papal Flagship, Cardinal Rensburg took a final hit of incense from his antique solid silver hookah, rolled his eyes back to reveal what would normally have been a man's whites, and murmured from between ranks of yellowed, tombstone teeth, a husky: "...Kill them..."

In an instant, the thousand strong fleet unloaded the might of its entire arsenal against The Beefheart, only to be met quite unexpectedly with the hitherto unforeseen passive aggressive force of the Zen Gun. As cannon blazed, the fleet's finest were assaulted by an equal but opposite force; the harder they tried, the more of a hammering they took until finally their collective shields failed and they imploded in a clump of super dense plasma.

Watching from within the discretely distant confines of his weekend flagship, Vatican II, Pope Danzig XVII ground his cigar butt into the head of a quivering altar boy respectfully holding the Papal Ash Tray at His Emminence's elbow. Raising the Papal Chalice to his gritted teeth and slurping a mouthful of milky white fluid he snarled, "Disappointed."

A moment later he flung his silk robed arm into the air, then brought the chalice crashing down upon the trembling acolyte's head, screaming again: "DISAPPOINTED...!!!"

As the pope gasped and gesticulated wildly for his chalice to be refilled, cardinals dashed forward to haul the recently deceased servant's carcass away, frantically stuffing it into an already overflowing cupboard whilst simultaneously thrusting a quivering, nonplussed youth forward to take it's place.

"Engineering to bridge, cap'n. Minor damage sustained in all quarters, small fires on decks 2 and 3 but hull integrity maintained." Cheyenne wafted the smoke from burning macadamia nuts away from his nose and squinted into the Jeffries tube on engineering sub-level1. "A few shorts here and there, but nothing major."

"Good man," coughed Beefheart, surprised at how weak his own voice sounded over the ringing in his ears. He was even more surprised to see the faces of his bridge crew staring at him in disbelief before disappearing through a bulkhead, rapidly followed by the rest of his ship. Moments later Beefheart found himself staring perplexedly at the stern of his own ship as it shrank to a small bright dot amongst the zillion other small bright dots suddenly surrounding him on all sides and, he discovered with a start, above and below him. Especially below him.

Aboard the USS Beefheart, Milf stared dumbfounded at the smoking, slightly greasy space on the captain's chair so recently occupied by Beefheart himself. "A few sparks here and there," continued Cheyenne over the intercom "but I don't think we lost anything critical. At least 99.7% integrity on all personnel shields during assault which is pretty good for a first shot at it, I reckon."

Void. Silent nothingness. So this is it, thought Beefheart. This is what we spend our whole life avoiding. This is what having a pension is supposed to make go away, is it? Panic swept through him and he screamed a soundless, angst ridden scream. He screamed until he would have been sore, but realised that not only could he not hear himself, he couldn't feel anything either. It made no difference to him now if he screamed or not because there was no one here to hear him do it. Himself included.

Yes, he realised, finally unfettered of any obligation to inhabit that fleshy encumberence he so recently had considered to be himself, Beefheart's conciousness now drifted silently and alone in the vastness of space. It was as though he -

Beefheart's thoughts were shattered as he hurtled backwards through the bridge and out the stern of an Arcturan plasma freighter and its crew as they dropped out of lightspeed on way to refuel and get a little "mu shu". With the thoughts of each and every crew member ringing in his prana, Beefheart watched the freighter shrink to a dot, then bear starboard (or was it port?) into an elliptical orbit of Port Salut.

"Oh well," he pontificated. "Stay positive. At least I won't have that fucking nagging voice in my ear while I'm trying to sleep."

A ghastly chuckle scratched its icepick fingertips around the back of what Beefheart had recently felt to be his eyeballs, and gasped, "Wanna bet...?"

The Story So Far.....

Sorry to post on top of the latest chapter from Nick, but I have created a PDF version of the story so far, complete with crappy clipart! And best of all - its all in the right order!

We need a nice illustration for the front cover too - Uber... get Dilf on the case!
Download the PDF here:

Handshandy - The Search For Blogadoon.


Note: The file is stored on Savefile.com which will host it for ever - as long as there is a download every 14 days. If it's missing, email me to get another copy uploaded.


UPDATE by Nick

Download the American version here.

Mine will be there forever, no matter how many times it is downloaded or when those downloads occur. In your face, Tao!

END UPDATE

The Last Leg To Port

When he was a younger man, Captain Beefheart had a proclivity for gambling. He had a knack for winning when there was risk involved. His comrades would say he was seraphically lucky, his enemies would say he was a disgusting, cheating fucker. There was one game in particular that was his favorite, Har'Tahkian Parcheesi. He won a great deal of money and made a great deal more enemies playing it. It was in this game that he acquired the, now gutted, SS Beefheart. He won it (fair and square) from a Warmonger named Caruthers in a particularly bloody match.

The SS Beefheart is, at its core, a Quantum Class Cruiser, capable of trans-light speed travel but limited weaponry and fuck-all for shields. As chance would have it, Beefheart was owed a great deal of money by a Mechanics Guild that offered to “modify” his newly acquired ship in lieu of paying their debt. Beefheart agreed, knowing that Caruthers would not let this very public defeat go. The chief gear head, Mike, assembled his crew and modified the SS Beefheart into its current incarnation. Faster than ever and loaded to bear with shields and guns, The Beefheart was a paragon of Space Pirate Transportation. Their debt repaid, The Mechanics wished Beefheart well and sent him on his way. It wasn’t long before Caruthers caught wind of what Mike + The Mechanics had done to his precious ship and he wrought swift death upon them.

Our good captain has never suffered murderers and tyrants well. When the news of the massacre reached him, he decided he would show Caruthers, first hand, the fine work that The Guild had done for him. With Piebeard at the helm and himself and WhiteBoyBob manning the turrets, Warmonger Caruthers’ fleet of murderous dogs were viciously beaten with the rolled up newspaper of justice. Caruthers pleaded for his life but WhiteBoyBob introduced him to Stella.

---

Captain Beefheart reflected upon this memory as he gazed upon the battered and bruised SS Beefheart from the observation deck. Just then Bounty Hunter Killer Hunter WhiteBoyBob entered the room.

“Oi, Bob.” He hollered.

“Wassat, mate?”

“Remember Caruthers?”

A toothy grin appeared on Bob’s face.

“Aye. A right cunt, that one. Blasted his chest open like a shed door, too. Happier times mate, happier times.”

Beefheart began to chuckle.

“That they were, mate.”

The two laughed a bit more and then silence permeated the deck. After a few moments Beefheart spoke again.

“I actually called you up here for a reason. I know you are a freelancer now, but this situation we’re in is only going to get worse and I wanted to know if you’d stick it out with us, for old time’s sake. Of course we would pay you once we reach Blogadoon, and that fool Piebeard digs up my treasure.”

Bob looked out of the windows of the observation deck and rubbed his dirty fingers on his chin, flecking away some dried Anoovidal Honey. Beefheart winced a bit and continued his pitch.

“Some of these recruits are far too green to be worth a damn in a battle, assuming they even stay on after we reach port. I need a good man to train them. And don’t forget, we’ll pay you.”

Bob looked over at Beefheart.

“No.”

“Get fucked then, you numpty twat!” Beefheart bellowed.

Bob cackled. “I mean ‘no, you don’t have to pay me’, I’ll do it. I’ve missed this life. Stella’s been clamoring for bodies and God knows I need the exercise.” He extended his hand and Beefheart shook it vigorously. “Plus,” Bob added, “The scenery is none too shabby.” He nodded towards the door that Lieutenant Milf had just walked through.

Beefheart spun around wedging himself firmly between the two.

“Good news Helga, Bob has agreed to stay on and help train the new recruits.”

“Shit…” she lamented. “…That’s great news.” She recovered quickly. “Could I have a moment of your time Captain? We are going to be reaching port in a matter of minutes, Sir. You should come strap in and advise the crew.”

“I’ll be right there. I just need to finish up here.”

With a nod, Lieutenant Milf exited. Captain Beefheart turned back to Bob and spoke.

“One more thing, mate. Now that you are officially a crewman, there’ll be no… fraternizing, got it?”

Bob looked downright hurt as Beefheart spoke the words. He response carried a sad tone.

“Oh alright.”

---

With restored confidence, Beefheart walked onto the bridge.

“Ensign Pereria, status report.”

“Sir, we are approximately 4 minutes from breaking light speed, and an additional 10 minutes from making port.”

“Excellent.” Beefheart looked over at his first mate, Piebeard, who was currently engaged in some sort video game frivolity.

“Oi, Pie.”

Piebeard was too involved in the game to notice his Captain speaking to him.

“Piebeard!”

“Hang on, I’m almost to level 12.”

Captain Beefheart snatched the device from Piebeard’s hands and flung across the bridge, Franklin, who was walking by caught it as if he were expecting it.

“What’s so bloody important?” Piebeard was speaking to the captain but he never took his eyes off of Franklin.

“We’re about to break light-speed, inform the crew.”

Piebeard grabbed the coms, still eyeballing Franklin. The robot glanced over at him and, as far as Piebeard could tell, winked at him, then proceeded to crush his gaming device and stuffed it into his compartment.

Piebeard shot out of his seat and pointed at Franklin who was mending a console now. “That fucking robot just broke my PSP XIVII, and he winked at me!”

Everyone stared at Piebeard inquisitively. Cheyenne walked over to Piebeard and strapped himself into his the seat next to him.

“Negative, winking is not one of his programmed functions and he doesn’t even have your PSP.”

“That’s because he stuffed it into his compartment.” Piebeard was jumping up and down in anger.

“He is not equipped with a compartment, Sir. I have him programmed to fix that console and nothing else, it would be impossible for him to violate his directive. You must be mistaken.”

“No, I’m fucking not mistaken. He winked at me.”

Captain Beefheart felt compelled to interrupt at this point

“Piebeard, just inform the ruddy crew that we are going to be breaking light speed in… when, Ensign?”

“Uh… now sir.”

The SS Beefheart gave a great lurch as it left the confines of light speed. The unbuckled Piebeard flew forward. He was staring at Franklin as he flew into a girder that broke both his legs. Before Piebeard blacked out from pain he could swear that the mechano-man was smiling at him.

“Fucking… robots… can’t smile…” He thought, and passed out.

Deliverance

Through the plasma ion-smoke they could see WhiteBoys smile shining in the dark like a beacon of hope for those lost at sea - or those facing imminent death from a gaggle of badly translated killers. His grin was as always, half hidden by one of his favorite synthetic cigars from the outer rim holiday planet "New Cuba". He had obviously been clothes shopping there too from the look of his garish shirt, open toed sandals and combat shorts, surplus stock from the Ion Wars no doubt. Just his style.

His favorite weapon of choice, a Plasma Cannon affectionally monickered in white spray paint as "Stella, the wife beater" was now slung over his shoulder and was still emmitting a series of high pitched chirps to record each of its kills.

"Yup. 5,000 creds at least it is you tossers!" he swaggered and he stepped towards Ubermilf tiptoing between the sticky mess of an ionised DeathNaut and the embarassed toilet mess of Beefheart.

"Old Stella here is registering 18 kills and still counting. And at 500 creds per DeathNaut's arse.. You are looking at one happy and rich White Boy."

"Good job I arrived when I did eh love?" he winked and slapped Ubermilf on the behind making her jump. Piebeard sniggered but was cut down by a curt glance from Uber.

"er.. Thanks for that Whiteboy we were er..." Uber began as Whiteboy leered towards her pressing her back up against a table, chewing on his stogie and dribbling slightly.

"..we were.. er.. in a real tight situation there!" she continued.

"Looks like you still are!" laughed Piebeard smuttily who was this time cut down by a deft head slap from Owl.

Beefheart strugged to his feet quickly grabbing a chair back to aid him, but also to hold in front of his groin to hide his staining.

"Thanks mate" he managed and stumbled towards the exit, calling back an order as he went. "Recovery plan Delta-3 Uber.. get all hands on it now".

"Ok crew. Lets get on it. Recovery Plan Delta-3. Piebeard, damage and systems report. Anthony, get to the armoury and check our weapons status. Owl and Chris, get to the cockpit and get us outta here. Taoski, get back on Recon duty, we need to make sure no more of these bastards are coming. And please put some clothes on!"

"Well.. Ube.. that leaves just you n' me" said WhiteBoy coyly. "Whats the plan? I'm gonna grab a quick Anti-Grav shower and then give my weapon a good hard clean... fancy.. coming?".

Ubermilf, normally a person of the utmost officiality squirmed under the pressure of the overbearing bounty hunters insinuation.

"I... er.. have security checks to do and er.. someones gotta oversee the sealing of that hull breach." She gibbered back, glancing over his shoulder towards the exit.

"Hull breach eh? I'm sure I got something you could use to plug it up with! Ha ha.." he retorted. "Sealing a hull breach is a bit like making love to a woman... you suit up, crawl around in the dark till you find the hole, grease the sides and then slap in a nanobot-replicating device and ease it in there."

"A replacement panel that is..."

"Personally i prefer to use Anoovidal Honey from the S8 System. Like me it's sweet, slick and comes in 2 flavours... tasty and yummy." WhiteBoy opened his eyes (which he had shut whilst he rolled his head and licked his lips to give the honey story a more sensual feel) only to find that Ubermilf had already gone, her footsteps clanking away into the distant hum of spaceship engine noise.

"Lager..." he muttered.

----------------------------------

Ubermilf and Beefheart stood on the top level of the observation deck whilst Piebeard bounced around outside the ship in his suit investigating the scorched hull breach. He grabbed hold of a nearby airlock handle, swung himself onto a cable lock and punched the comms button to contact his superior.

"The hole is pretty serious Maam. Not sure we can repair it our here in the deep - i have e-mailled Taoski to find us an orbit dock somewhere neutral in the general direction of Blogadoon. But right now we can plug it with a nano-shield until we can get it sorted... ok?"

"Ok.. do what you can Pie." Responded Ubermilf turning to Beefheart for a nod of concurrence.

Beefheart punched the console in front of him and pulled up the mic close to his face.

"Crew. This is your Captain speaking. Status report. We are still mission-go for Blogadoon after the ship has been repaired. Taoski is currently trawling the net for a safe dock nearby. Anyone who wants to leave this mission when we dock is more than welcome. Things are starting to get a little hot in the pan already and we have hardly started. My old enemy, The Church knows our mission and will most likely be waiting for us along the way. I repeat. No-one is being forced into this mission. As usual, you can see the Psych-droids if you need any counselling or see me in the bar for a free drink later. Prepare for hyperspace jump in 1 hour. Captain out."

The hour passed without any further incident. The crew were, for once, doing their jobs - not making fun of Cheyenneway's clothes and hair as they normally did this time of day. Taoski had appeared before Beefheart - this time with clothes - and the coordinates for the safe dock. Piebeard's nanobot friends (some crew members would say only friends) had put a temporary energy shield in place over the hull breach whilst Ensign Pereira made safe the inner chambers affected by the wound.

Beefheart and Uber sat together on the bridge whist the other senior members of the crew assembled for the impending lightspeed jump. It was a rare occasion for Beefheart to feel pride in his crew. They had faced real adversary in the preceding hours and had come through thanks to teamwork, leadership and good communication skills - exactly what he had put on the crews job requirements advert! As he glanced around at the now sitting colleages, no.. friends - he wondered which of them would be alive to see Blogadoon. They were all putting their faith into him and his leadership ability. It was a good feeling.

Taoski faded in and appeared floating above the last empty seat. He turned and fired a data stream to the nearby console, turned to Beefheart and smiled. Beefheart sat up straight in his chair, nodded to the pilot to start the engines and addressed the ship over the tannoy.

"Crew. Captain Beefheart speaking. We are now ready to make the journey to the dock for repairs. T-minus 30 and counting. Please make sure you are strapped in for this one - it could be a little rough." He flicked the switch and settled back to his chair.

"Captain..." Milf said. "Do you think we are in real danger from The Church? You know them best."

"Don't worry" he replied and surveyed the room with his hand. "With a team like this we can't fail!"

Milf just smiled.

Beefheart turned inqusitively to her. "Whats that purfume? Its nice. Its like.. er.. honey or something".

Milf turned away blushing to roars of laughter and jibes from the crew members. Whiteboy just winked and chewed down on his cigar.

"Shit..." thought Beefheart. "There goes that good feeling....".

Sound The Alarm

"The what now?" Asked Ensign Pereira as he calmly sipped his mocha. He noticed that when Lieutenant Milf made the coffee it always had a little nutmeg in it. He could tell she really cared.

"Listen you imbecile.." Milf grabbed young Anthony by his collar and pulled him out of his seat so his face was parallel with hers. (The force with which Ubermilf yanked Anthony up caused him to spill his coffee on Piebeards leg.)
"The Church is here to kill us. Somehow they found out that we are in search of Blogadoon. We must leave now, I'm sure that The Armada has already begun to bear down on us."

Captain Beefheart was visibly shaken. He had been a captive of The Church when he was younger. They had tortured him unremittingly and he still experienced the ill-effects of their diabolical ways. He regained his compsure and started barking out orders.

"Cheyenne, send a coded message to the Pirate Colonies on Evor'lrak IV. Tell them The Church is in their vicinity and to get the hell out of dodge. Get that bloody mecahno-man down to engineering and have it prime the Quantum Drive. Anthony, I need you to go to the Armory on level 4 and get as many blasters as you can carry. The door code is 8-6-7-5-3-0-9. NOW MAN! Move!
Tao - since you are ethereal I need you to do some recon, find out where these buggers are and for the love of Charles Dickens don't let them see you.
Owl! You... stay in your corner there. Piebrard & Milf you are with me." Everyone scattered and began their assignments.

Milf gazed upon the Captain as he took charge and for a long second she actually had hope that they would live through this. That soon passed as everyone that had just left came screaming back into the room, even the aeriform Tao was screaming like a girl. Milf could make out words here and there. She caught the words "tentacle", "vile", "horrible" and "vociferous" and althought that last word seemed misplaced given their current dilemma she couldn't help but set that thought aside for later and focus on the horrible death-nauts of The Church that were churning their way into the Mess at that very moment.

Everyone cowered in the corner of the mess as the Death-Nauts inched ever closer uttering the horrible gut-wrenching snarls of their language.

"Look guys, we have to kill you now. We're real sorry becaues we are both big fans of your work, but we're Death-Nauts and we don't really have a choice in the matter. You understand right?"

Unfortuantely the universal translator had been broken by Piebeard when he tried to get it to translate his farts into latin and the crew heard only the sound of 1,000 boars dying in an inferno on the elemental plane of fire.

The Death-Nauts were upon them and were beginning the processes of destroying the souls of everyone that was in the corner.

With his last breath Beefheart shouted into the starry abyss "GOD HELP US ALL! EXCEPT MILF BECAUSE THIS IS HER FAULT!!!!"

As everyone closed their eyes to prepare for their demise they were all drenched in a sticky warm fluid and heard the laughter of a maniac. They began screaming in agony.

The kept screaming.

Captain Beefheart peered out of of one of his clenched eyes to find out what was taking so long and the Death-Nauts were mysteriously absent.

In place of the aliens stood a foul tempered, crazy-eyed bounty hunter with a smoking Plasma Cannon in his hands.

White Boy Bob spoke.

"One of you cunts owes me 5,000 creds for this job here."

The Church

The Church was formed in the early 21st Century Earth culture, in an area known as “Texas” in what was known as the “United States of America.”

Founders developed a unique formula to attract adherents: take all the world religions, subtract any pesky requirements involving mercy, understanding, or sharing, and highlight the necessity of hating and killing anyone different from the worshipper. Greed was also highly encouraged.

It spread like wildfire throughout the world, the galaxy, and the universe.

Giant indoor venues were created. No religious iconography could be found anywhere, and altars were replaced by Jumbo-trons. Children were sent to play video games, where they simulated killing. Depending on where they were located, they could “Mangle the Muslim,” “Hurt the Hindu”, “Jab the Jew,” “Crush the Christian,” or “Smear the Queer.” As it spread, every culture and species added its own group to hate.

Each group believed themselves to be the “true Church,” and thus began the Everlasting War. War profiteers and corporations gleefully celebrated the simultaneous burst of consumer spending and elimination of any silly “oversight;” greed, after all, was now a religious obligation.

Only one small island of innocents remained. One group, who the Church could not touch. Blogadoon. The Church’s greatest fear was that Blogadoon would someday be found, and their archaic practices of love, acceptance and wealth redistribution would take hold.

Blogadoon must never, ever be found.

The Enemy Revealed

Captain Beefheart barked a few gruff words in an attempt to restore some order to the meeting. The crew were showing signs of hysteria and the now kicked in sugar rush from the Brownies Ubermilf had provided as "meeting bait" was only adding to the mayhem.

She punched another code into the "Net-Rep" replicator device and downloaded a glass coffee caffatiere, seventeen mugs and began to hand round the hot java brew. The device had only recently been repaired by the ships droids after another unknown crew member had attempted to replicate a copy of Angelina Jolie downloaded from the Internet. The attached virus that crashed the device replicated into a pair of giant lips that consumed the whole of the crews ready room area. Nanobots were dispatched to clean the mess up but were put on stand-by for three hours after Nick Seaman was spotted writhing in the puffy red mass, naked.

"Well if it's not WhiteBoyBob who's gone an' crashed his space girth into our starry porthole..." Questioned a small stout pirate sipping on his coffee to sounds of muffled laughter from the crew.

"Then who is it?"

Ubermilf fixed her gaze on the crewmember and applied her best disapproving teacher look in an attempt to quash any further outbreaks of the giggles. He shrank back as if deflated, like a failed erection.

She continued. "From the reverse-tachyon-pulse-array-signature diagnostics we can only assume that the beings aboard our ship have originated from the Romany Quad - possibly from the fifth moon".

The pirate rabble gazed at her. Slowly, they all began to nod slowly to each other and pronounced their agreement to her with the odd "arrrr" and "grrrr".

"You've no idea what the fuck I just said..... have you?" she quipped.

In his brain, the electrical activity that made up "beefie" heard and began to process the words she had said. Neuron's sprang to alert, synapses fired and the VR implant located at the base of his skull suddenly started to itch. He knew this was a bad sign. Sensory cross-over caused as a by-product of such a cheap back-street purchased intercourse between silicon and flesh. He first felt this happen when betting his ex-colleagues life savings on him winning a Zero-G mud wrestling contest against an eight armed, bald, muscular opponent. The rumor was spread that he lost the fight deliberately - allowing the expressly oiled assailant to grapple him brutally and he avoiding the chance to pull a quad-nelson to win the fight. And to think they wondered why he was smiling? While he lay sweaty, bloody and pummled, strapped to a spine board in a recovery room his colleagues entered and had their revenge. The itch was a bad sign...

Beefheart's face turned a pale grey and he turned his head slowly to face Ubermilf.

"The Church?... This Church have found us... Here?"

Will They Listen?

“If we’re quite finished here, sir, I’d like to see what has upset Mr. Owl,” Ubermilf said evenly, masking her irritation with Beefheart with a coolly placid demeanor. Owl was a favorite of hers, and Beefheart knew it.

“Good luck with that!” snorted the Captain. “He’s a loony!”

Her heels clicking briskly and efficiently down the smooth surface of the corridor, Ubermilf set off for Owl’s sleep compartment, muttering to herself. While the other crew members saw an easily tormented victim of jokes and pranks, Helga saw a sweet, sensitive man filled with gentle humor and fascinating insight. Her favoritism of him only drew more abuse to him, however; with so little female attention to go around, the crew was bound to feel jealous from time to time.

“Owl?” she tapped on his door. “Sweetie? It’s Helga.” The sole answer she received was a low moan from inside the cabin. She activated the door with her master (in this case, mistress) key card.

She found Owl on his bed, knees tucked into his chest, clutching a pillow and rocking back and forth.

“Owlet?” She said, using her pet name for him, “What happened?”

When she still received no verbal answer, she sat on the edge of the bed and started stroking his hair.

Finally, his eyes focused on her face. “It was… Evil!”

“What was evil, sweetie?” she asked softly, still stroking his forehead.

“It! I can’t explain it… I saw it, and felt it, and knew what it was all at once! It was in the C deck corridor!” he started to shake.

“Owlet,” Ubermilf began, cautiously, “Did you…”

“Take my medication! Yes! I know what I saw, Helga!” he said, his voice rising. “We have to get the crew together and talk about what we’re going to do about it!”

“Darling,” she said, patting his hand, “before we can decide what to do, we have to know what it is.”

“Well, we’ll discuss that, too. Come on, we don’t have much time!”

Owl leapt off his bed and raced out the door. Ubermilf, her brow knitted, followed reluctantly behind him.

She heard him pounding on Beefheart’s door. “Captain! Open up! This is an emergency! Captain!”

“Maybe he’s not in there, Owl,” Helga soothed. “Let’s call the crew ourselves.”

She didn’t want Owl to punch Beefheart’s face in again, like he did after the Captain mocked him three years ago for losing at darts to Piebeard.

Helga took the intercom and announced, “Attention all crew members. There will be a full-crew emergency meeting to be held in the galley at 09:00.” She glanced at Owl, knowing how upset he would be if no one showed. “Refreshments will be served. I made brownies.”

The irresistible draw of Ubermilf’s famous fudge brownies brought a full house to the galley.

While their mouths were full of warm, chocolate goo, Ubermilf commenced the meeting.

“Gentlemen,” she began. “I have a serious issue to put before you this morning. An intruder has breeched our vessel.”

A worried murmur started up from the crew. “Is it White Boy Bob?” wailed one voice.

“No, it’s not White Boy Bob,” Ubermilf said, raising a calming hand. “Spirit of Owl will now fill you in with the details.”

A groan went up. “What is it this time, a floating headless dog?” called out one snide voice. “No,” laughed another pirate, “Those tiny garden gnomes he used to lead into battle every Sunday!” “No, wait, it’s…”

“That’s enough!” cried an annoyed Beefheart, silencing the rowdy lowlifes, as a red-faced Owl was balling up his fists in rage.

“Now, Ubermilf,” the Captain condescendingly started. “We all know you like to coddle the biggest foul-ups and numbskulls on this ship…” Pereira gave an irritated “Humph!” at that … “But really. We have work to do, and this…”

“Is only the greatest threat we have ever faced!” snarled Owl, his chest rising and falling heavily.

“Not again,” groaned Piebeard, putting his head down on the table.

Bad Mofo

Spirit of Owl stood swaying in the galley, reading the dish washing rota as best he could with one eye twitching like a butterfly in its death throes. For what possible reason it might amuse certain members of the crew to replace his name with "Dances with Elves" he could not fathom but he was determined they would not pollute his soul with their pettiness. He thumbed the button on his belt mounted hypnoticantipsychotic applicator and gradually felt the red mists fade from his mind, to be replaced by the faint impression of birds singing and the wind ruffling his feathers.

"There is no spoon... there is no spoon... there is no-"

He stopped abrubtly as Perreira lifted a hot teaspoon from his coffee and dropped it deftly down Spirit of Owl's neck. Gritting his teeth and thumbing wildly at his medication, Spirit of Owl left the galley in a king sized huff.

With wings.

Cursed by the uncanny ability to see the Ultimate Truth of the Universe, Owl found it difficult to relate to his crew mates at times. Lacking the inately human characteristic of self deception he was unable to lie to himself about how his crewmates were "OK really, just a little high sprited on occasion," and was forced to face the constant undeniable reality that they were in fact a bunch of drunken degenerates who flung themselves through life on a wing and a prayer and yet somehow managed to always come up smelling of, if not roses, fairly high grade machine oil and decent enough liquor (and pie too, in some cases).

Although he didn't know it, this was a characteristic he shared with Franklin, PSM Cheyenne's metal masterpiece. It must be noted, however, that a talent for seeing things as they really are is truly a mixed blessing.

In the engine room, Franklin was attempting to indicate to Cheyenne the cause of his consternation by gesturing frantically at his console.

"What?! What is it? For the last time, I don't see anything!! What are you trying to tell me? If you can't talk sense just shut up will you?!" screamed Cheyenne in bewilderment at his protoge's remonstrations. Finally, having been presented with a viable alternative to attempting to carry out his basic science droid's duty of communicating the sense of danger he experienced in every circuit of his being, Franklin switched immediately to cruise mode and the stress level indicators in his eye sockets stopped flashing red and blue and instead suffused a deep oceanic green, indicating plain sailing for the forseeable future.

"Thank you... I think..." muttered Cheyenne distractedly whilst trying to focus his attention on discovering the cause of the recent near death experience felt by both ship and crew, totally unaware that at that exact moment the cause was standing by a recently patched rupture in the outer hull near the entrance to the galley. The reason he was unaware of its presence was simply that, as human - or at least humanoid - the crew of the Beefheart were unable to see True Evil when they saw it. This is a trait we all share and is simply the survival instinct inherent in all humans which when faced with the suffering caused by evil in its purest forms will scream, "Don't get involved!!"

Being an intelligent, rational, thinking machine capable of emotion, however, Kingston could see it, but having been offered a more attractive alternative he chose to believe his protestations were useless and so decided to shut up as instructed. In this, not only by choosing the path of least resistance but in so many other ways too, he became daily more human.

Meanwhile outside the galley, a shadowy form extended its tendrils to test the limits of its latest manifestation. Light shifted uneasily around it as though it would rather be elsewhere which, quite frankly, was true.

"So, solid pass through fluid but not through solid, right?" it breathed with a sound like a death certificate sliding off a mortician's table onto an unswept floor.

"Yes! And as we're hoping to remain inconspicuous for the time being I'd thank you to remember that!", responded its companion irritably, giving the impression to anyone who cared to listen of a thousand tungsten ball bearings beneath the wheels of a locomotive just beginning to show the first stages of failing under the strain.

"I don't know... it's a pretty bloody weird setup, isn't it? Four dimensions and they're all in different directions? What the hell's that all about then?"

"Yes, well that's just the way things are done here so the next time try and manifest your physical form inside where you want to go, not just near it. They tend to notice when we interrupt their journeys by appearing where they're going to be and waiting for them to catch up!"

"All right, all right, give it a rest why don't you! I'm sure they didn't have time the last time I was here... I mean.. they weren't governed by it in quite the same way before... you know...the unpleasantness..."

The voice seeped uncomfortably into the metalwork of the ship until finally in some dark and forgotten corner of the hull's outer sheilding a heat resistant plate detached itself and drifted slowly away into the cosmos, carrying with it the suicide note of a sheetmetal worker who had riveted it in place before severing his umbilical line and casting himself free of the rigging of dock Alpha 17 Green on the lunar space port of the Sea of Tranquility ("Rest assured, we'll send you on your way soon enough!") in the mistaken belief his fiance had been cheating on him with his brother whilst they had actually been planning him a surprise birthday party.

"Not my problem", muttered Owl to himself as he left the galley. "They can all go fu-"

He stopped in mid oath as he came face to face with evil in its natural state. Instinctively, his thumb convulsed on the medicinal applicator but the more the drugs kicked in to suppress his delusional tendencies, the more Owl saw the apparition before him for what it really was. Finally, his concious mind having thrown in the towel completely and wandered off to play spillikins with his sense of irony, Owl's Primal Self took charge and plumped for Door Number Two in the great "Fight or Flight" Game Show of Life.

Outside his ready room, Beefheart was attempting to explain to Ubermilf the little misunderstanding she may have experienced whilst simultaneously holding a clipboard in his outstretched arm to protect the modesty of Taoski's naked astral self, which at that moment was pointedly studying the hessian wall weave in use outside the Captain's ready room and trying with all its might not to giggle.

"So, we just need to swing by Ursa Minor, let Tao pick up his... er... belongings and settle his hotel bill, and we can be on our way," offered Beefheart, trying to make it sound like the most natural thing imaginable.

"Uh huh. Sir. Well, I'm sure that's perfectly in order. Sir."

Ubermilf's clipped tone made the Captain feel uncomfortably like he needed to tidy his room. He had to maintain discipline, goddamit, but when she spoke to him that way, like she was just so... disappointed... he didn't know what to do and longed for a way out of the conversational stalemate.

At that moment, Spirit of Owl rounded the corner screaming like a banshee and ran straight through Taoski's astral form. He skidded to a halt, turned, rolled his eyes wildly for a moment then resumed his screaming passage.

Taoski cocked his head contemplatively and pondered the experience while the Captain and his most trusted of Lieutenants stared vacantly at the empty space recently occupied by Spirit of Owl's desperate figure.

Siezing the monent, the Captain cleared his throat and enquired: "Is he self medicating again?"

Sytems Alert!

Sectors 423E and 416A sustaining heavy damage. Quantitative results show maximum output in sectors 12 and 32 will be at critical within one minute forty two seconds. “Give me the analysis of the internal catalyst system pronto Beefie” Cheyenne yelled at the on board computer assistant. As he hurried between the monitors, cans of crystal Pepsi and macadamia nuts flew about the engineering room causing Franklin to go into clean-up mode with vengeance.

“Don’t worry about the goddamn snacks Franklin! And get on that overview to see what in the hell might be causing this.”

Franklin scurried away; grasping any nut he could while apologetically explaining that if the snacks were to invade any manual systems he was not to blame. Cheyenne grabbed the COM mic.

“Listen up ladies, were in for some bumpy waters so hold onto something and make sure its not connected to anything that looks important.” “I’m not quite sure what the fuck is going on outside but I'm working on stabilizing the internal gravity field so we can get ourselves out of this mess.”

Hull breach. Hull breach. Imminent death, two minutes and twenty-three seconds. Initiating evacuation sequence in 5,….4,…..3,…..”Hold that thought Beefie, I’ve got a plan!”

Cheyenne ran over to the controls and begin meticulously pushing sequences into the main boards repair system. Within a split second the hull breach had been repaired. Cheyenne wiped away the sweat from his brow thinking he had just saved the crew from a lovely stroll into outer space. What he didn’t know was whatever Franklin was looking at had just made its way on board.

“Oh sir, I think you should have a look at this.”