lancer
Posts: 2963
Joined: 10/18/2005
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Wars, in my experience, have always been cut and dried affairs. Somebody, usually me, starts one. Kick the opposition all the way down the proverbial street and back again. Then, having had my fun and achieved my objectives, I end it.
Very simple and straightforward.
As I may have mentioned before keeping it simple is one of my secrets to success. Hang a few complicated diplomatic situations around your neck and before you know it you are tangled up in a spiders web of confusion and contradictions. Have hostilities commenced? Yes, no, maybe, but.
All too hard and difficult. You want a war? Go start one. Leave the diplomatic contortions for the cocktail crowd.
Diplomacy is nothing more than a job creation program for motor-mouthed limp-wristed wimps sporting purple cravats. While they are busy sipping and talking, talking and sipping, the real men are out there killing people.
‘Cause that’s what wars are about. Killing people and things. Trick is to kill more stuff than the other guy.
A head start is a big advantage. That’s why you don’t tell anyone that you are about to start a war. Best to let rip with your biggest, baddest weaponry and let the casualty count tell the story. Smear the blood far and wide. Don’t worry, they’ll figure it out eventually.
If you do it right, you’ve killed enough stuff that it’s all over before it began. Which is a shame, really.
Happened to me more than once in the early days.
Before I learned to pace myself.
But that was way back when. I was fighting my fellow humans on Earth. The real Earth.
Enough with the reminiscing. Fast forward to the twenty eighth century and I’m about to start my first ‘Bug’ war. Killing humans makes you feel bad. Sort of. Maybe. Only if you’re related. Close family relative.
Killing bugs is different. ‘Cause they’re bugs. They don’t count. They shouldn’t be here.
It’s unnatural to have creatures that, by rights, should be crawling around the dirt and cow sh*t, worrying about being trodden on, instead flying space ships. Not right.
I’m pretty sure that whoever made the galaxy didn’t plan on the bugs getting this big. Or this smart.
Clearly evolution took a tricky turn. Solar radiation probably. Mutated some bug DNA, frothed it up in the genetic thick shake machine and before you know it there are giant bugs with big brains zipping from star to star.
That’s why I’m here. Destiny calls.
I’m the guy who’s going to clean up the mess. Emperor Fred, Galactic Janitor.
I’m probably fated to draw my penultimate breath once I’ve splattted the last remaining bug. Cosmic Karma and all.
No biggie. Lotsa bugs. Take a while.
Anyways, back to the war. Nothing I’d like better than to start vaporizing the Icky Apes. Fry their hairy heads clean off their hairy, lice-riddled carcasses.
Can’t do it.
Economy in a hole. Flogging boatloads of government bonds and printing shiny new thousand credit bills as fast as we can. Not working. Still broke.
Almost the entire military might of the Empire is with me at present. Powerful as the Third Fleet is it isn’t enough to take on another civilisation. Not even a hirsute simian banana brained one.
I need to instigate a crash ship building program to beef up the navy. To do that I need money. Can’t get the stuff until a whole bunch of new taxpayers join our happy throng.
Not to mention Zorg and my ever dwindling supply of pills.
Frustrating. Very frustrating.
In the midst of the writhing turmoil of ships and chaos swirling about the juicy independent human colony, I receive a beamed message from the solitary Ape Escort.
Icky Apes upset about my presence.
There have been the odd times in the past when certain people have complained about my lack of manners or civility. Certain ex-people.
Can’t recall anybody vocalising their opposition to my presence though.
Well, here I be. Emperor Fred. Supreme Admiral of the Navy and commander of the mighty destructo Imperial Third Fleet.
Currently in the Adarluun system. Not planning on leaving anytime soon.
Live with it, Ape man.
Not even sure if I’m dealing with a monkey man or woman. That nose. Very off-putting. Instant appetite suppressant.
How do they mate? Rub noses? Pretty sure if they accidentally bumped a solid surface they would be stuck fast, nose to the wall. All soft and squishy. Probably secretes superglue. And other stuff.
Disgusting.
I fight back a sudden urge to fire off a whole bank of Maxos Blasters. There is a time and a place and this isn’t it. Not yet.
Ignoring the anatomically challenged ape-thing I focus on the matter at hand. The “Blind Lady”.
Overdue in-system. Where the h*ll is she?
Fleet Situation Officer reports the “Blind Lady” has dropped out of hyperspace several light years coreward of the Adarluun system.
What happened? Did they deliberately mess with their hyperspacial co-ordinates in an effort to stay clear of the Pirates? Weren’t they aware that Emperor Fred would have it all sorted by the time they arrived?
What is more likely is that the Zion Construction yard scr*wed up the Braille markings on the navigation computer. Not a lot of demand for command centres adapted for sightless old women.
But that’s the quality of personnel you end up with once you make the decision to forcibly shovel conscripted ‘volunteers’ into your gigantic flat-pack emigration horror hulks.
Time passes.
Third fleet is sweeping up the final piratical crumbs when, lo and behold, the “Blind Lady” staggers into view. Wavering voice of a doddery old captain reporting that they are burning the last remaining Caslon vapours from their depleted fuel tanks.
“Don’t wor-ry, son-ny, we’ll make it”, croaks the nonagenarian captain. Go granny, go.
‘Admiral!’ yells the bridge corpsman, “Ape colony vessel approaching target Moon CX668.”
What? WHAT!!!
“Estimated ETA identical to the Blind Lady, Sir!”
“Captain,” I order without hesitation, “Lock on to the Ape ship. Light them up. Request they abort their mission and change course immediately.”
“Yes Sir!”
“Ape Coloniser refusing to acknowledge our transmission, Sir! No change in course!”
Zorg or no Zorg the war is about to begin. No way can I allow the Icky Apes to make a fool of me and steal my beautiful new colony of taxpayers.
“Torpedoes. Lock and load! On my mark.”
I draw a deep breath. One last try before Armageddon.
“Raise the Blind Lady!”
Silver haired Captain appears in all her crinkly, wrinkly holoVid glory.
“Captain Ethel at your service, Ad-miral.”
“I need you to redline your engine,” say I, pausing. “Burn it out.”
Is she getting this? Captain Ethel isn’t even looking in my direction. Leaning on her walking stick. Blank expression. I detect the faint whiff of senility.
The holoVid antediluvian citizen before me suddenly bursts out in raucous cackles, interspersed with feeble, wracking coughs.
“Hey, sonny. You look in worse shape than me. Is it Admiral Fred or Admiral Methuselah?” Captain Ethel cackling up a storm at her own humour.
Deathly quiet on the bridge of the “Fearsome Verdict”.
Captain Ethel, unaware of her fatal faux pas, peers mole-like from behind her Ray Charles eye furniture.
I roll with the punches. Must have the colony. Nothing else matters. Scanners have revealed that within the Adarluun system there are actually two independent human colonies. The second has already been colonised by the Icky Apes.
If they get their hands on this one as well they’ll have a critical mass right on the doorstep of FredTopia. Deep doggy do do.
I’ve already been briefed on the override protocols for the HH Coloniser design. “Captain Ethel, there is a big purple button on the right hand side of the Engineers control panel. I need you to release the safety lock and push the button all the way in.”
“Love to, son-ny, but my sight implant is on the blink. Can’t guarantee that I’ll push the right but-ton.”
“Hold one.” I cut transmission and quiz the resident brain’s trust. What if she pushes every button on the Engineer’s panel? Will the ship blow apart?
Apparently not. The engines, the thrusters and the cryogenic refrigeration plant will though.
Which means a dead ship, drifting in space full of millions of prematurely defrosted colonists.
If the final kick of the engines in their death throes don’t get them to the moon before the Icky Apes then it’s pretty much irrelevant. They can float off into the void cannibalising each other for all I care. Lord of the Flies writ large upon the stars.
“Captain Ethel, can you find the Engineer’s Panel?”
“Think I can, sonny.”
“Good. Push every single button on the panel. Now!”
Tense moments as I await the result. Granny power in action. Lots of alarms sounding in the background. Must be pushing something.
Finally Captain Ethel shuffles back into view. “Hope you know what you are doing, sonny.”
So do I.
Fleet Navigational Officer calls it. “Blind Lady’s speed vector increasing! Hyperdrive, manoeuvring and thruster plants all gone. Fire in their engine bay.”
Don’t need any of that now. Atmospheric braking and crash landing beckoning. Enough will survive to plant the flag.
Captain Ethel peering owlishly at me through swirling tendrils of billowing smoke. At times all I can see off her is the jet black sunglasses. A ghostly, ephemeral apparition.
What’s it going to be? Torpedoes and war or Captain Ethel and the “Blind Lady”, blowing smoke out their exhaust and their tails on fire, falling head first onto home base?
“Blind Lady, sir, she’ll make it!”
As in she’ll beat the Ape ship. Whether anyone survives her arrival is an open question.
Ape coloniser, defeated, pulls out wide and sets course back to Ape Land. That’s a whole lot of Apes that very nearly weren’t.
Sadly Captain Ethel wasn’t heard of again. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
Enough hardy colonists crawled out of the wreckage to lay claim for their Emperor.
Our newest member of the Greatest Empire in the Universe I name “Pitfall”. Beam down a short speech of welcome to the half billion or so humans and jack their taxes sky high. Pull your weight, fellas.
Order up a beer. Think I deserve it. Job well done.
Kick back for a couple of months and our economy should haul itself back into the black. Build a navy. Start a war. Fry bugs.
Life is good.
First beer in many a century. Heart not taking it well. Pop a bonus pill. Calm it down. Almost forgot. Zorg and my disappearing pills.
Crack a second beer. Sensational.
Zorg. Down and dirty brute force could be the answer there. Last time I checked his fleets of freighters weren’t packing Maxos Beams or Epsilon Torpedoes.
Zorg Truckers One through Sixty nothing but road bumps to the might of the Imperial Destructo Third Fleet.
In a happy haze I contemplate a third beer. Live long and live dangerous. Family motto.
To be continued...
Lancer
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RE: Emperor Fred goes Postal AAR - 
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