The Alienbutt Saga, Book 1. War of the Coffee Bean. Part 4.

Piestoff had been sitting in the small interview room for hours. First they had been nice and given him a cup of coffee and biscuits as they took his statement. Then they had left him alone and another police officer had come in with two bruisers who stayed by the door. This time when Piestoff gave the same answers, there had been shouting and threats. Finally the police man had picked up the empty coffee cup and thrown it at the wall. The coffee cup retaliated by bouncing back and hitting him full in the face. With blood pouring from his broken nose, the policeman had stormed out to get medical attention.

That had been ages ago, but now things had changed. In walked a tall human who oozed style from every pore, from his black sunglasses to his impossibly shiny black boots. This guy wasn’t police, he was far too stylish and dangerous looking. Behind him, a much shorter man in an equally expensive suit and sunglasses stumbled to the chair and sat down. He removed his glasses to reveal the bleary eyes of one who was royally hungover. The first figure stayed lurking near the door. His sardonic expression was highlighted by a goatee beard and Alienbutt re-evaluated ‘dangerous’ to ‘apex hunter dangerous’. The small guy cleared his throat and Piestoff’s eyes returned to him. For a fraction of a second he saw a cold cunning intelligence before the look of a man with a hangover returned.
"We believe your story and the police will be releasing you soon." Piestoff knew the man by the door was a killer, but the small guy told him who to kill. With a warm smile he stood up. “This is my employee Blackarachnia who has agreed to get my ship back, but before he sets off he’s going to help you return the wooden post to Hardstool where you will get a hero’s welcome no doubt."
Piestoff’s corks took another battering; Blackarachnia, the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy. Then after sitting in shock for long enough to look stupid, a second wave hit him.
"Your ship? But that means that you’re..."
"Wickede." He shoved out his hand, a wide grin on his face. "Just call me Wickede, all my friends do."

Poodles lay sleeping still, the police had sedated him so they could search the ship, but not before twelve officers had needed a total of seven thousand stitches from the over-protective Mutthound that hadn’t wanted strangers aboard Alienbutt's taxi. Piestoff, still in shock, sat in the driver’s seat while beside him sat Blackarachnia. Wickede had waved them off and promised to come and visit now they were friends. His composure was close to shattering and he still had to return the Wembley goal post to a planet-wide angry lynch mob. Then he was home to get drunk for a month; this was all too much for him.
"Hey man, can I ask you a question?" Piestoff jumped as this was the first time Blackarachnia had spoken. Not trusting his voice Piestoff nodded. "I read your file and it says you’re a childhood friend of the Nifty Niffler."
Again Piestoff nodded. Nifty had been his only friend but she had been deported back to Earth when it was discovered she had been a victim of alien abduction, so had no papers to be on Sloppystool. On all accounts she was rich and famous now.
Piestoff decided he would need a new cork suspender belt, this one was taking too much of a hammering.
"I met her at this society party on earth two months back, but she won’t return my calls. How can I get her to go out on a date with me?" Blackarachnia asked.
The cork butt plugs failed as Piestoff finally lost all rational thought. The cork plugs shot straight through his chair and embedded themselves in the steel floor, steaming and half melted.
"Geez man, I think you need some clean pants," choked Blackarachnia as he scrambled for the oxygen mask above his chair, but Piestoff didn’t hear him as he sank into a deep well of madness.

Piestoff opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. High up he could make out the traffic flying about as life on Sloppystool went on. A bad dream, that must be what had happened. His hand grasped at the grass he was laid on and pulling up a hand full of the soft well cut blades, he held them to his face and sniffed in the fresh clean smell... of smoke.
Sitting up he looked around to see he was laid in the centre circle of a giant sports arena, not on Sloppystool, but the Hardstool International Sports Arena. The main stand was on fire and he was sure his taxi was right in the centre of the blaze that was rapidly turning into an inferno. Blackarachnia walked into view, brushing dust from the shoulders of his ripped overcoat, but still wearing his black sunglasses.
“I think it’s time to leave. Good luck man, but I couldn’t save the post, and your pet’s run off God knows where.” Lifting up his right arm he prepared to speak into his wrist com.
“Wait! You can’t leave me here,” pleaded Piestoff.
“Why? Wickede asked me to see you back to the planet. I’ve done that,” answered Blackarachnia. The bounty hunter hadn’t got where he was by doing random acts of kindness, in fact he had never done any acts of kindness, plenty of acts of violence, just not kindness.
“Why? They’ll kill me. Not only have I destroyed the Wembley goal post but I crashed into their sports’ arena. This is where Hardstool F.C. won the Galactic Worlds’ Championship when Doug McDougal scored a hat trick. It’s the very core of all things Hardstool.” Panic didn’t just edge Piestoff’s voice, it oozed from every pore of his being.
Blackarachnia shrugged his shoulders, not really caring in the slightest and continued to speak to his wrist com. Then he paused and looked at the terrified taxi driver.
“Two to beam up, looks like we got a new cleaner for the ship, and get a lock on his dog too. Beam that thing into the brig.”

The two figures seemed to be viewed through a heat haze and then disappeared just as the fuel tanks on Piestoff’s taxi exploded, destroying a large section of the north stand and spreading sheets of fire that engulfed the rest of the stadium.

On board the Ick dreadnought, Wickede stood watching as Blackarachnia’s ship left Hardstool’s orbit. Next to him stood Snoodgrass, his first adviser and closest friend.
“Well if the prophecy is right, we now know four of the ten who will support the Nexus,” said Wickede still staring after the vanished ship.
“Wickede, if we have to put our faith in that Alienbutt,” Snoodgrass trailed off to silence.
Turning from the ship’s window Wickede smiled. “Two years ago you thought I was a waste of space and Blackarachnia a heartless killer, now we are your champions. Give him a chance, I like him, but you must invent one of your gadgets, because his butts seriously stink.” Wickede walked over to a table and poured two whiskeys.
“Blackarachnia is a heartless killer who works for you only because you pay the most; he cares nothing for our cause and has never done a good deed in his life. What if this Alienbutt isn’t the one? With you and your companions there is enough in the prophecy to work out who you are. The chosen one is outside those predictions and can change the way the future will be written. It is all guesswork and hoping he works to help our cause,” pressed Snoodgrass.
“Still invent something to make him smell better.” Smiling, he passed over a drink. “Without him the Ick will be destroyed, with him we stand a chance, and Blackarachnia helped the Alienbutt so that’s a good deed right there.”

Piestoff Alienbutt finally got to leave the Sloppystool system but didn't realising that Fate and Destiny had forgotten about him. They had built a whole game that he wasn’t invited to play, yet the rest of their family were doing their best to sneak him in through the back door. So now he was the central player as the Ick made plans to prevent a terrible future. He was the chosen, a person without a destiny, able to make it up as he went along. The whole future of the universe was about to be thrown into the mixing bowl of chance as Alienbutt became the mixing spoon that would churn it up. To say the destiny of kings rode on his shoulders would just mean a few million souls, as kings had mainly fallen out of fashion the universe over. It would be better to say on his shoulder rode a little brown bean, plus the addicted souls of a million worlds and every move he made would cause changes as to how the universe should unfold.

And so ends todays instalment, the stage is set and the adventure is about to begin.
Thanks for reading.
All pictures are my own work.