The Alienbutt Saga, Book 1. War of the Coffee Bean. Part 26.

CHAPTER 10
Rocket Fuel.

INTERSTELLAR NEWS CHANNEL 9 NEWS FLASH

In light of recent events and the ongoing coffee bean shortages, the Federation Senate today granted permission for the building of a robotic defence force to protect coffee production planets and their trade routes. In a short statement released to the press, the under-secretary's aide to the defence chief’s personal assistant stated; “Coffee production and transport has become essential to the security of the universe and as a result we are taking no chances with its security. This new force will show our commitment to restoring order to the universe.”

Snoodgrass and Wickede walked down the corridor of the research base. This one was a low key facility, and showed signs of years of underfunding and neglect on the outer building. Wickede hadn’t even known about the place until an excited Snoodgrass had dragged him half way across the empire to see this mysterious invention that he still would not speak of.

As they reached the end of the corridor, double doors slid open for them and they entered the main laboratory of the facility. It looked more like a warehouse for scrap. From across the other side of the room there came a large explosive bang and smoke billowed towards them.
“Professor Frank, are you over there?” shouted Snoodgrass as the echoes of the explosion died away. They started to make their way through the smoke filled room. Each table seemed to have what looked like half-finished projects, as if whoever was working on them had become distracted and moved onto the next, totally forgetting their previous work. Above them they heard giant fans begin to turn, quickly clearing the air of smoke.
“Remind me why you convinced me to come all the way out here, Snoodgrass. I did have an important date last night, one that I really didn’t want to miss,” said Wickede, stopping at a table to inspect a small tube glowing with purple light.
Snoodgrass smiled but a voice from behind him answered. “Because O great leader of the Ick, I have discovered a new propulsion unit. The scientists and doctors may have all called me crazy and insane and I may have ended up in this backwater working by myself but you shall bear witness to my brilliance.” The owner of the voice came into view.
A once white lab coat wrapped up the owner of the voice. A mass of dark hair and massive bushy beard covered the head, hiding all features. Standing at around six feet, he towered over the Ick.
“Wickede, may I introduce Professor Frank, one of our brilliant, if at times a little strange, propulsion drive engineers,” announced Snoodgrass, with a broad grin at his friend.
“Did you bring the fuel additive I asked for?” pressed Professor Frank excitedly.
Snoodgrass held up a small silver briefcase that he had brought in with him.
“Good, good, follow me.” Professor Frank grabbed the case and turned and made his way back to the far side of the laboratory. When they arrived they saw an engine mounted onto a large heavy table. The engine was small, from some small single seater vehicle or something. Attached to it was what Wickede could only describe as a strange contraption of wires and tubes and a computer that would show performance data.

Professor Frank opened the brief case and got out one of two small glass vials. Both had a clear gas with a slight greenish tinge. With great care, he placed one of the vials into a slot on the contraption attached to the engine and then stepped back.
“What’s going on?” asked Wickede as both Frank and Snoodgrass stepped back from the engine.
Still not in the best of moods at being dragged across space, his patience was in short supply, and he hated it when Snoodgrass did this whole surprise thing on him.
“If the two of you would just step behind the screen behind you,” said Professor Frank absently.
Snoodgrass was already moving and dragged Wickede with him. Professor Frank joined them and with a flourish pressed a large red button. A whirring noise came from the engine as it started up.
“The engine is running on ordinary fuel at the moment,” shouted Professor Frank over the noise of the engine. “Now we add the fuel additive for the converter, and…” he pressed a button to release the additive.
The effect was instant. The engine screamed into life, and ripping the casings that fastened it down, it flew across the room like a missile and smashed through the wall before disappearing. An unfortunate droid caught in its flight path had little time to react before disappearing as the engine hit it.
As the dust settled and the three picked themselves up, a strange smell hung in the air, making them gag. Wickede grabbed Professor Frank by the lab coat front.
“What the hell just happened, and what did you add to the fuel?”
Seeing a large grin through the mass of hair, Wickede finally realised this Professor was actually a human and not some strange bear-like species. Then it clicked into place who was standing before him, Professor Frank T. L. He was a brilliant but totally crazy scientist who had invented the Hyper Jump at the age of fifteen. The Ick had poached him from Earth and he had worked with the best Ick scientists for ten years until he suffered a breakdown of sorts. He became unable to stop the random ideas that constantly crashed around inside his head. He had received the best medical help possible at the time and somehow he had ended up here.

“It’s Alienbutt essence, and it's much more potent than I thought,” replied an excited professor. “It works though. I’ve done it, a refined extract of the gas released by the Alienbutt digestive process. Did you know the digestive system of the Alienbutt has bacteria and chemicals found nowhere else in the universe? I got the idea from reading the reports on how their home world was destroyed, such untapped raw power.”
Wickede looked blank for a good few seconds, then looked over at Snoodgrass and then back at Professor Frank as understanding hit him. “Are you telling me that you’ve made a fart propulsion drive?” he asked, amazed, yet also slightly sickened. Then curiosity took over, pushing his revulsion aside. “How?”
“I asked Mr. Snoodgrass here to gather up some of the gas and sent him details of how to refine it for use as a fuel. It’s not as good as rigging up an Alienbutt to the machine, but still works. You add it to the fuel with a little organic material which acts as a catalyst.”
“What organic material?” asked Snoodgrass, looking up from the computer console as he tried to make sense of the data the test had generated.
“Mint. For some reason the plant releases the energy locked within the fumes.”
Wickede looked over at Snoodgrass, who looked guilty at the secret he had kept, but then he shrugged his shoulders and tried to explain. “We didn’t know if we would be able to get to the test stage, so why bother telling you? As the project was top secret I had to have the fumes gathered from a septic tank aboard his ship, stored and then refined after we returned from the Crazy Droid system.”
Snoodgrass was a sneaky devil at the best of times, but Wickede normally caught on to most of his plots. In this case, he had no idea what his friend had been up to. Wickede walked over to the hole in the wall and looked through. Debris lay scattered around outside but the wall of the next building some twenty meters away was still intact, apart from the smashed remains of the droid embedded in it.
“Where on Ick did the engine disappear to?” asked Wickede.
Professor Frank walked up behind Wickede and poked his head through the hole, made a strange semi-growling noise and then walked back to the computer console pressing keys and looking agitated.
After a few minutes of this, he looked over at Wickede and Snoodgrass, who had joined his friend inspecting the hole in the wall and scratched his head. “It’s disappeared. All trace of it has disappeared. It’s as if it has just… vanished. Don’t worry, it can’t have gone far. Give me a few hours and I’ll have an answer for you.”
Wickede looked at Snoodgrass. “I want a full security blackout on this.” Looking back at the Professor he continued; “I want that engine found and a prototype rigging up onto a ship as soon as it’s safely possible. Whatever you want or need, you just got it.”
“Tomato soup for the soup machine. I can’t think properly without a cup of tomato soup. I ran out about three years ago and no matter how often I request it, it never gets delivered. delivered. I just end up with more packets of mushroom or vegetable.”
Professor Frank lifted a hand to rub his face and for the first time seemed to notice the beard and mass of hair. “I think a razor and a pair of scissors too. I don’t suppose you noticed where the shower block was on your way in?”

To be continued.
Thanks for reading, all images are mine.