The Second Book of the Alienbutt Saga. The Rise of Mr Fluffy. Part 60.

“Who is this?” Quint asked angrily.
“I’m the person who is going to destroy this little operation you have running here, because you murdered the Kalphella Station’s security chief and also because you tried to drug me,” the voice said.
“Alienbutt, what madness is this? Where are my men?” Quint hissed, turning away from his men who were still in the food hall.
“Well, the ones you sent up in the lift are toast while the ones in the stairwell are just as dead, but more shredded and then toasted. Now I’m coming to get you,” Alienbutt answered. “I came here to trade, but you started a fight.”
“You can’t possibly think you can beat us all, Alienbutt.” Quint heard a disturbance behind him and lowered the radio. “Stop that noise and get yourself ready, I want this creep dead,” Quint shouted without turning. “And what the hell is that smell?”
Finally he turned around to see his remaining men all lying on the floor, unconscious.
“Sorry that’s me, I farted,” Alienbutt said from the stairwell door, his assault rifle pointed at Quint. “Now we are going to discuss getting the star maps and also the amulet that you obtained from the trader Stoney.”
“They’re in my office,” Quint said, coughing and falling to his knees at the effects of Alienbutt’s fart. “We can make a deal,” he pleaded.
“The punishment for killing a Kalphella security officer under the treaty of the Ungarian alliance is death,” Alienbutt said without emotion. “I looked it up.”
“But the Ungarian alliance hasn’t existed for five hundred years,” Quint said, panicking.
“Don’t know about that. The law, though, was never repealed.” Alienbutt walked over to stand above Quint and suddenly smashed him in the face with the butt of the rifle. “It’s your lucky day though, I don’t shoot unarmed people.”

Alienbutt sat in Quint’s office, looking at the star maps on the computer screen. On the table beside him was a strange golden amulet. The information on this strange cult that controlled the part of space where the gateway was located was scarce, as very few people had ever gotten out of there alive to say what was there. Over hundreds of years the civilisations that survived had tried on a few occasions to put an end to the cult, but all attempts had failed and the large navies that had sailed off to wage war had never returned. Then again, Alienbutt knew that he could take over the entire universe here with half a dozen Ick dreadnoughts. The majority of the locals seemed much too smart to bother with war, and those that did seem to enjoy a fight were more gifted amateurs than professional soldiers.
Glarfel walked into the office and stood nervously until Alienbutt looked up and gave a half smile. “Do you have them locked up?” Alienbutt asked, sitting back in the chair.
“Well erm,” she began. “We don’t actually have any cells, so Corporal Covans suggested putting them in one of the airlocks as you can’t open them from the inside and we never use them anymore.”
“Very inventive solution, good on the Corporal for his great idea,” Alienbutt said, knowing these people were out of their depth with what had occurred and would struggle to contain the threat Quint and his off-worlders still posed.
“There was a slight problem,” Glarfel said quietly, looking at the floor. “There was some sort of malfunction and the space side door to the airlock opened. There was nothing we could do to save them.”
Alienbutt looked at the computer screen. Minimizing the star charts, he closed a second window headed ‘Kalphella safety overrides’ and deleted the computer browsing history. “Well, accidents sometimes happen Glarfel, most likely a glitch due to the explosions and stuff that went on,” Alienbutt said innocently.

To be continued.
All images are mine.