The Second Book of the Alienbutt Saga. The Rise of Mr Fluffy. Part 25.

Stoney looked away before he answered. “Over a week. I’ve been real worried about you, Alienbutt. After you passed out I had to act quick to find out what to give you, and, well, my eyes aren’t as young as they used to be. In my haste I misread a couple of quantities. I gave you a slight overdose on the pain killers.”
“Never had a reaction like that to pain killers before, and for it to still be in my system.” Alienbutt looked down at his arm and noticed that the entire arm was encased in metal up to the shoulder. He threw a look at Stoney, the question not needing to be asked.
“Like I said, my eyes are not as good as they used to be and I didn’t see the dot, so instead of two point five mill of nano stimulant you got twenty five.” Stoney paused and looked down at the floor. “Removing your whole arm was the only way to stop it killing you. We found the cyborg arm in the Federation ship’s hold. It’s brand new. It’s a great bit of kit, Alienbutt, inbuilt smart chip control unit and targeting sensors. I was reading the instruction booklet waiting for you to wake up. It will be better than your...” He tailed off as he looked back up and saw the look on Alienbutt’s face.
“You chopped off my arm?” Alienbutt asked, the fogginess in his head clearing as reality smashed through the drugged haze.
“Technically I just held you down. It was the frog physician that did the cutting,” Stoney said defensively, stepping back. “There was another slight side effect too.”
“Chopping off my arm is a slight side effect?” Alienbutt asked in disbelief.
“Bad choice of words. Compared to losing an arm, the other effect is physically small in size,” Stoney said, holding up one hand and indicating a small size with thumb and finger while nervously smiling.

Alienbutt got unsteadily to his feet as his vision again rippled. “I swear you had better just tell me before I do something we both regret.” He grabbed the bed to steady himself. “And what the hell is up with my vision?”
“We had to replace an eye. I’ve read it’s usual to have some visual disturbance for the first couple of hours after fitting a cyber-eye,” Stoney said as he backed to the doorway.
“You had to replace my eye?! What the hell happened for me to lose an eye?” Alienbutt asked, disbelief taking over.
“It’s not important, we fixed it. I do have some good news for you. Your ship’s ready.”
“It’s a bloody good job. I’m running out of body parts for you all to remove,” Alienbutt replied sarcastically.
He noticed a metal cup next to the bed and reached out to pick it up. As the metallic fingers closed around the cup it crumpled under his touch, spilling the water. Alienbutt took a deep breath as he held onto control of himself.
“If I was you, I would use the other hand when you go to the toilet until it fine tunes itself on the grip pressure on that hand,” Stoney suggested.

Alienbutt stood looking at the small Ick ship, barely more than a shuttle. He had to admit the frog people had done a great job of fixing it. The ship would be basic but it did have a light speed drive and now some weaponry and basic shields scavenged from the Federation scout ship. Also the extra equipment he had brought with him, that had not been needed as they had fixed the ship Wickede and Frank had escaped. in had saved a lot of time and work. The best thing was the case of thirty Ick torpedoes that would make his ship the most powerful craft in this area of space. With the light speed drive he should be able to get to the temple that Stoney had entered this dimension at within a couple of months. If the priests turned out to be unfriendly, then he had the means to change their minds about their attitude and [get them to] bugger off while he opened the gateway. How he would do this he didn’t have a clue, but that would be a problem for when he arrived.

Stoney had told him of the strange priesthood that worshipped at the portal and would raid into the neighbouring systems to gather up sacrifices to throw into its grey mass, hoping to break the curse that held many of them trapped on their dying planet. Once that was done the High Priest would lead them in a war to convert all of space to their beliefs that anyone not of their race had to have their insides removed before being thrown into the void. Alienbutt had been shocked that priests would act like this, having only met those priests of the Book of Ick and an old priest of Sung the One Eyed Lama, when he was a child. Alienbutt thought having priests that ran around ordering people killed was a strange concept. They sounded more like politicians to him. Stoney had pointed out that in most cases the only difference between a politician and a priest was that a politician did horrible things for his own ends, while a priest would do horrible things for his own ends and then blame his god. Alienbutt decided that this longed-for religious war and sacrifice of people in the name of the cause by these priests was the second stupidest thing he had heard of. Still at number one, though, was the war over the ramblings of two dead crazy people over a coffee bean.

To be continued.
All images are mine.