The Second Book of the Alienbutt Saga. The Rise of Mr Fluffy. Part 66.

Alienbutt sat in the pilot’s chair with his feet resting on the control desk as he absently sipped on a bottle of whiskey. He was sitting on what was considered the border of Wantooaninyougo space, the wrong side of safe flying, but not quite into aggressive suicide flying. He had chosen his position carefully, as this seemed to be the main route in and out of Wantooaninyougo space for their raiding fleets. He had been sitting waiting for about an hour before he was finally hailed. Leaning over his flipped the communication switch.
“Unknown craft, this is the Farlian early warning base. You are about to enter dangerous space. Please be advised that you should turn around and leave,” a voice said nervously.
“Good, I’m in the right place then. So do you have any idea when those mad priests are doing their next collection run?” Alienbutt asked holding up the whiskey bottle to inspect it. After a moment of swirling the contents around he took another drink.
“You want to meet the Wantooaninyougo priests?” the voice asked, sounding shocked. “Are you mad? Do you know what they do to people?” it added after a pause.
“Do you know what they do? And it’s not what they do that’s important,” Alienbutt said, reaching over to a half-eaten kebab and picking out a piece of meat. Alienbutt’s long range sensors picked up two ships on an intercept course heading out of Wantooaninyougo space. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to concentrate on getting their attention,” Alienbutt said as he swung his legs down and prepared himself.
As the ship got closer Alienbutt began to hail them but his attempts were ignored. As the ships came within visual range Alienbutt’s metallic arm decided to wake up, and pressed the button to fire one of his torpedoes. It streaked forward and hit the ship on the left. The ship disappeared in a string of explosions as the second ship veered away.
“What in Sung’s name are you doing?” Alienbutt shouted, screaming at his hand in shock. The priest’s ship swung around and came to a stop, holding position off to Alienbutt’s left.

After a moment they opened communication. “You have attacked the envoys of the exalted Grandmaster Lucifus, anointed leader of the Wantooaninyougo.”
“Erm, sorry about that, had a little hardware malfunction,” Alienbutt replied, then watched in horror as his metallic hand fired off a second torpedo.
Alienbutt jumped up and grabbed the first aid box with his real hand. Flipping open the lid he pulled out a laser scalpel.
“Right then, you...” He stopped dead as he felt the end of his pistol barrel touch his chin. Keeping very still he moved just his eyes to look down to see the robotic arm holding the pistol. Alienbutt dropped the laser scalpel and after a moment the pistol was removed.
“You had better start telling me what is going on, arm, or I swear to Sung I will...” Alienbutt stopped, as he had no idea what he could do. The arm was a part of him. “Well I’ll think of something.”
A small screen popped up on his metallic forearm.

THEY WERE ENEMIES, ENEMIES MUST BE DESTROYED.

Alienbutt read the message with disbelief. “Who and what the hell are you?” he asked.

CYBERCORE SMARTCHIP MRK8 PROTOTYPE. TOTAL ANNIHILATION MODE ACTIVATED. AUTOMATIC HOST OVERRIDE ENABLED. DEADLY FORCE AUTHORISED.

Alienbutt shook his head. “You can’t keep killing people like this. I’m not a murderer. What you are doing is wrong.”
The screen went blank for a while as lights flashed within the metallic casing of the arm.

To be continued.
All images are mine.