And then I killed Bobby Davro

Well, I hope you all had a happy Easter. And I hope it was happy for the right reasons, not just because you were whizzing your mammary glands off due to having eaten the GNP of Matabeleland in chocolate.

I had a pretty quiet long weekend; I ate merely a reasonable amount of chocolate, drank some wine and played an awful lot of Mass Effect. (an awful, awful, lot of Mass Effect if the snorts of loneliness coming from the memsahib were anything to go by.)

But that's not what we're here to talk about is it? You want to know why I'm wildly claiming to have killed a popular 80's comedian and impressionist who happens to have been born Robert Christopher Nankeville and is both the son of an Olympian and is an all 'round good guy (or so I've heard, I mean, I've never met him or anything - But he looks the sort, always smiling, not afraid to cross-dress for comedy purposes - You know what I mean.)

And there's something that you need to know before I continue - I don't much care for fairground rides - It's not that I'm easily scared by loud noises or quick changes of direction or anything... Honestly, it's because... Ah... It's just... Well... You see... Some of those noises really are rather loud though aren't they?

-oOo-

Just before the holidays, Mrs Dandy suggested that we do something nice for the children whilst I was away from work.  I reminded her that I had just spent literally tens of fine, English pounds on less than two pounds worth of chocolate for them (And that was EACH, I'll have you know, not in total!) But I was informed that this was insufficient and that we would be 'Going somewhere' to have 'Fun' Then I was grabbed, unceremoniously by the collar, lifted bodily from the floor and reminded, more forcefully that I thought wholly necessary, that I would be having 'Fun' even if it killed me.  I looked down at the cherubic face of the Mini-Dandy as she bent her younger sibling's fingers back almost to his wrists until he sobbingly cried 'Peanuts!' and agreed, 'Yes Dear, let us do something nice for our delightful children.'

So, Good Friday came and we stuffed our young into the Yew-panelled steerage compartment of the MkII Dandymobile, Stoked the gargantuan engine into life, and set sail for the heart of the Sun (or Drayton Manor Park and Zoo as I understand the hoi-palloi call it.)  Our plan was to arrive at our destination as it opened, and therefore 'beat the rush'.  Luckily, only twenty or so thousand people had had exactly the same idea.  We left our vehicle in a grassy field that was masquerading as a car-park, and instructed Heckmondswycke, our faithful native bearer, to guard her with his life. 

We then joined the queue for entry and wondered at the many wonderful ways that one could pay to enter the Pleasureopolis itself. I was shocked to find that, if we had merely 'turned up' at our destination, it would have cost us £141 ($232) to get in. The irony of this being more than I had recently sold the MKI Dandymobile for was not entirely lost on me.  Luckily, along with almost everyone in the queue it seemed, I was in possession of a 'BOGOF' voucher which cleanly cut the price in half.

As we entered the garden of Earthly delights, we were informed that 'The rides didn't actually open until 10:30.'  And as we had 45 minutes to kill, we decided to split up, the girls went to go and queue for an hour for a 30 second ride on a frankly flimsy looking, ramshackle collection of ironwork.  Whilst we boys decided to repair to the amusement arcade to, as my father once described it, 'Throw good money after bad.' However, on the way to the Perfidious Pachinko Palace we were accosted by a pretty young lady holding a basketball, 

"Psst!" She Pssted, and beckoned us over, "You look like someone who'd be good at this. One basket wins any prize." Then she looked at the Micro-Dandy, "You'd like your Dad to win you one of these wouldn't you?"  

My son stepped back to look at my athletic physique, struggling to be contained by my XXL Darth Vader T-Shirt and rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'd love my Dad to be able to do that.' He replied, then he shrugged, as if to say 'But whaddya gonna do?'

"Well, I tell you what, it's normally £3 for one shot or £5 for three. But we've got a special on today where, if you give me a fiver you can play until you win." She winked conspiratorially as if to say 'No, it's not just so that other punters see you carrying a prize around and think that it's possible for a normal, overweight, human being to win one and then have a go themselves.'

Needless to say, I passed over the required fee and stood there for a good fifteen minutes, abortively bouncing my balls off her rim until, against all of the assembled laws of physics, my spherical plaything entered her waiting aperture with a rubbery 'Thunnnggg'. 

"OK," she breathed in relief, wiping the sheen of sweat from her brow, "What prize would you like?"

My son pointed at one prize, which she inspected. "Ah, it looks like the stitching's going on that one."

He pointed at another. "I can't actually reach that one, sorry." She stretched up to show that she was a good foot too short. 'How about this one?' She hefted a large, red, fluffy bean-bag at him.  Which he happily accepted as tribute and then gave to me... And then I had the honour of carrying it around the park, for the next six hours, along with the two ducks (One with, and one without a humorous pink mohawk) and a camel with a pink hump and a shock of pale-blue hair.  

The rest of the day passed in a similar fashion, whereby the girls would spend a vast proportion of their time queueing to feel sick, queueing to get wet or queueing to close their eyes as noisy things happened around them whilst we boys had a ride on a train and visited the arcade, or giftshop, or hook-a-duck emporium over and over again.  There was a break for lunch at 'The Grill', which was very nice. And in the afternoon the jollity continued, up until the point where the MiniDandy convinced her brother to go on the Pirate Ship.

I have had emails from my friends in America to say that they could hear him screaming, at one point he reached the frequency required to loosen the bolts that held the ride together, flecks of paint and surface rust fell to the ground like the fallout from an exploding scrapyard - Obviously we were asked to leave, which we did.

All in all, it was a good day, apart from the life-time ban from all UK-based theme parks that is.  My son even won enough tickets in the amusement arcade to purchase a radio-controlled car for himself, which is absolutely splendid for tormenting the dog with.

Oh Bugger!

I missed out the Bobby Davro bit didn't I?

The MiniDandy and myself were sat outside some water-based Pirate ride (which was billed as an 'Experience' and therefore interested me not one little bit.) waiting for the other members of our party when suddenly, from out of nowhere, a flying caterpillar hoved into view.  Well, I say flying, it was actually dropping from the tree above us on a silk line.  It was duly caught and forced to race across various parts of my anatomy by my dear daughter which was about as entertaining as it sounds.  My repeated attempts to put it back into the undergrowth all failed until I felt a tickle on the back of my neck. I reached around, expecting to find another, similar creature, but instead found a tiny spider. 

"I wonder if they'll fight?" asked my somewhat bloodthirsty daughter, moving the mini-beasts closer to each other.

"No! He might eat Bobby Davro!"

She looked at me as if I had just suffered a major psychotic episode and said, "What?"

"Bobby Davro?' I held up the small caterpillar, "I panicked, it was the first name that I thought of."

She shook her head and put the spider in my other hand.  I lowered both of my hands, until first the spider and then the caterpillar disappeared into the nearby shrubbery.

"The spider will hunt down Bobby Davro and eat him you know, he's got his scent now.' She grinned.

"Stop it..."

"And it's all your fault..." At this point she raised her voice so that the surrounding families and their children could hear and called, "Dad! You killed Bobby Davro!"

One wonders if everyone's family days out are like this?

The Minidandy's Birthday

As you can probably tell, by the title of the post, that it's my Daughter, the MiniDandy's birthday.  Her fourteenth in fact.

I couldn't really do anything else than tell a quick story about Lady Dorleith Ahralia, Captain of the Edward Teach, In nominate ruler of the Open Lands and High Voort of the Shattered Spire (whatever that is) and what happened on HER fourteenth birthday.

Or this is what she told me happened at least.

-oOo-

'Wake up!' Her mother's strident voice echoed through her cabin as she was roughly shaken awake.

'Five more minutes, yeah? 'K thanks bye...'

'No, no, no... You need to get up, we're under...' A large munition detonated against the hull, shaking books from the small bookcase by her bed, 'attack. I need you to man a gun.'

She rolled out of bed, suddenly more awake than she had ever felt in her life.  Pulling on a ship-suit, some socks and her favourite old boots, she made her way forward, heading for the bridge.  She was constantly buffeted by a tide of crewmen desperately trying to get to their duty stations, alarms were blaring and Alexander, the A.I. that controlled the systems onboard the Grabthar's Hammer was providing almost constant status updates in his calm, measured voice.

'Attention gunnery crews, we have Spiders inbound on multiple vectors, the Baroness has announced that "firing at will" is the current standing order.'

Dorleith stopped at a corridor junction and tried desperately to clear her head and remember where her gunnery station was.  All of the corridors aboard the Hammer looked the same and her Mother had removed all of the signage, working on the theory that her crew should really know where they were going by now.

Another explosion rocked the ship and she stumbled against the wall, looking up she saw the engraved brass head of Alexander directly above her, staring down.

'Alexander, wh...'

'Ion cannon seven, deck three.  You're welcome My Lady.'

She turned back the way she had come, slid down a steel ladder without touching any of the rungs and made her way to the control nexus for deck three's ion cannons.  Settling into the seat, she put on the gloves and helmet that comprised the control system and activated the interface.  Immediately she became cannon 7, wherever she looked, the barrels that were her arms pointed, whenever she punched, a beam of blinding blue light shot out into the early morning sky.  Her first few shots were wild and uncontrolled, even though she had practiced and been drilled for this moment since she was twelve years old.

Eventually she emptied her mind and relaxed into her position, everywhere she looked there were Spiders.  The targeting scanners that were her eyes picked out the separate targets and displayed details of speed and range and the probability of a clean hit.   She picked out a target that was closing at 200 miles per hour.  Zooming in, she saw that the spider had a huge rotating drill attached to its carapace and was planning to board.

Her first few shots bounced harmlessly off, the spider was obviously shielded.  She clenched her fists and felt the buzz of the stored energy building in her arms.  Her next double punch almost blinded her, but caught the mechanical arachnid straight in the sensor array.   Immediately, the light in its eyes died, the drill stopped spinning and it fell away into the clouds, far below.

Heartened by her victory, she spent the next ten minutes furiously punching Spiders from the air.  whooping and yelling as the force of her blasts removed legs and mandibles wholesale and the creatures themselves spiraled to the ground.

The sky started to clear, the immediate area around the airship was almost devoid of targets, but Dorleith continued to fire at anything that moved.  The trill of the incoming message alert had been playing in her ear for three long minutes before she noticed it.

'Cannon 7?'

'Aye Cannon 7, ceasefire was called five minutes ago, stand down and return to the Nexus.'

She took off the helmet and gloves, stowed them back in their receptacles and ran her fingers through her long, red, sweat-soaked hair.  As her eyes got used to the sudden darkness she noticed that the Gun-Commander was scowling at her.  'You're to report directly to the Baroness on the Bridge... My Lady.'  He bowed whilst simultaneously shaking his head.

She looked at him for a second, perplexed.  He nodded towards the exit lock, 'I think she meant now.'

The adrenaline was still pumping as she entered the Bridge, walked over to her Mother's command chair and waited patiently for her to finish reading the battle reports.   Baroness Bhin-Dhee Lohlephel of the Rustholme slowly turned to address her young daughter.

'Happy Birthday.'

'Thank you Mother, I...'

The Baroness pressed her index finger to her lips. 'I just wanted to explain to you why you weren't currently in the Brig.' She waited for the whorls of confusion to reach their crescendo on her daughter's face. 'The cease fire was called a good five minutes before you actually ceased firing.  What you should have done at that point is explicitly described in the name of the order.  Cease... Fire... Are you suffering from some kind of hearing deficiency?'

'No, I...'

'Insubordination then perhaps?  Did you think that my order was some kind of recommendation?  Something you should only do if you couldn't think of anything better yourself?'

'It's just that I...'

The Baroness waved away the communications officer who had bought her a data tablet that required her authorisation and looked directly at her daughter.  'Do you know how many Spiders you shot down?' Dorleith shook her head. 'I'll tell you, fifteen.  You shot down fifteen of them, including three that were set on boarding my ship and trying to wreak as much havoc as they could have done, which would have no doubt have entailed the death or injury of many valuable crew-members.  After the ceasefire however, you shot down nine ducks, an albatross, one of our camera drones and number four gasbag, which is why we are currently listing...'

Mr Britt turned around and grinned.  'six degrees Ma'am.'

The Baroness nodded at him and continued, 'six degrees to port.  Do not repeat this next time you are manning a gun.  Birthday or not you'll spend a day in the Brig.'

Dorleith looked up and could feel hot tears welling behind her eyes. 'Yes... I mean, no Mothe.. Ma'am.  I will try to be more careful.'  She curtsied deeply and started to slowly back her way towards the door.

'See that you do.  Oh, and Dorleith?'  Her daughter froze and stared at her like a kitten that had fallen down a well lined with rabid dogs. 'The next time you come onto my Bridge wearing mis-matched socks, I'll skin you alive.'

Present Tense

Below is a piece of crossover fiction inspired by my recent trip to Blackpool.  It is set in the same universe as my Edward Teach stories and alludes to some of the upcoming book's plotlines, however - The antagonist is from THIS piece of Flash Fiction, you might wish to read it first.

-oOo-

I flew in from the south-east, down the lush valley between the Liverpool Free Trade Area and the ruins contained by the, in parts still radioactive, Greater Manchester wastelands.   I had originally intended to circle out over the Irish Sea and come in low over the water, but there had been some recent reports that the Welsh Separatists had managed to get hold of some ex-defense force artillery and were taking pot-shots at anything flying low enough not to leave a contrail.  I felt that keeping the crate in one piece made more sense than having a control surface obliterated by a misguided 'Son of Glyndwr' and spiraling into the briny deep with my aft section aflame.

Whilst I'm on the subject, I'm glad that I'm less than fifteen miles from the Aeroport, as I've a nasty feeling that last night's dinner is about to make an explosive re-appearance.  Fox Cheek Vindaloo has a wonderful effect on that palate, but loses something during its trip through one's lower intestine.  I decided to contact local traffic control to see if I could secure a berth near the Gentlemens' Conveniences.

'George Joseph Smith International Aeroport, this is the private flyer Gustavo, requesting clearance to land.'

'Roger Gustavo,' Replies the obviously electronic voice of the traffic control construct, 'please continue on your current heading and land in section Red Seventeen.'

'Acknowledged Control, are there comfort facilities near that particular area? There is a possibility of an impending gastric emergency.'

'Gustavo, do you wish to report a medical emergency?'

'Negative Control, just a minor digestive discomfort... Gustavo Out.'

I lock the navigational system onto the docking beam and proceed to land in the indicated bay.  Even as the landing legs were rebounding, I leap out of the cockpit and open the starboard stowage locker.  I pick out a rather fetching stovepipe hat with matching gecko-skin gloves, and make my way into the terminal building.  Once my urgent business has been taken care of and my composure has been restored, I show my documentation to the security team, and ask to be directed to the Hackney Rank.

The three mile ride into town is fairly uneventful, I am continually unnerved by the robotic horse that pulls my carriage giving me a potted history of the resort - It is not so much that it is, for all intents and purposes a talking silver horse, mainly it is that the damnable thing is looking at me over its shoulder all the time, rather than keeping its glowing blue eyes on the road.

We pass the first of the town's three piers, the silent hulks of the anti-Spider defense cannons still positioned down it's length.  skeins of bright bunting are stretched between them in a jarring juxtaposition.

'Why the decoration?' I ask the horse.

'If you had only come last week Sir, it was the twentieth anniversary of the last Spider attack, a suicide squadron had targeted the Tower and the men of the town shot down every single one.  At low tides you can still see some of the wreckage if you know where to look.'

Ah, the famous Tower, it had been the main landmark of the town for several hundred years, it had seen service as a circus, a ballroom, a radar station and had finally ended up being used as an airship mooring mast.  I crane my neck to look up as I pass it and see that a passenger liner was currently docked, its silver skin glinting brightly in the setting sun.

Moments later the Hackney pulled up at the Metropole Hotel, I disembark, pat the equine construct absently on the head and find my way to the reception desk.

'Reservation in the name of Anderson?' I announce, somewhat questioningly to the young girl behind the desk.

'Yes sir, do you have any luggage?'

Gods damn it! In my rush to leave the aeroport, I had forgotten to pick up my cases.  I am however unwilling to announce this to the general public, so I answer with braggadocio, 'No, not currently.  I would consider it a great kindness if you would ask your concierge to contact the finest local Gentleman's Costumiers and ask them to supply a brown leather dinner jacket and a selection of day-wear suitable for tomorrow's prevailing weather conditions.'

She injects my hand with the digital keys to my suite and I enter the lift.  In some strange quirk of fate, or more likely via some over-zealous research by a bored hotel employee, the music being played over the under-sized speakers is one of my great, great-grandfather's most popular tunes.  He was a local man himself and had enjoyed some small fame with a progressive musical group named after an eighteenth century agriculturalist.

The lift deposits me directly across the corridor from my room, I exit, cross the deep pile carpet and clench my hand against the sculpted mahogany of the door handle.  There is a brief sensation of heat as the key is read and the door clicks open.

I enter the room, the only source of illumination is from a shaft of sunlight streaming through the apparently amateurishly drawn curtains, picking out an ornately detailed silver bottle on the side table.  I pick it up and read the words 'Henri IV Dudognon Heritage' engraved around a golden badge on the side.

The sudden voice surprised me to the point where I almost dropped the bottle.

'Those are real diamonds, set in platinum.'

I turn, still cradling the bottle in my suddenly sweating palms.

'Who?' I ask.  The man stands, he is dressed in a vaguely military style, his impeccably pressed jacket so clean that it almost glows in the half-light.  He smiles, apologetically.

'Ah yes, how remiss of me, my name is Horner, I contacted you via The Great Cloud? You told me your story about the loss of the airship Simon Bolivar.'

'Of course, Mr Horner, I should have known.' I reply graciously, 'Thank you for the invitation I must say that I wasn't expecting this kind of payment.' I lift the bottle, the sun reflects from the thousands of brilliantly cut diamonds and momentarily the room is festooned with a plethora of small, dancing points of light.

He laughs emptily, 'Payment? Goodness me no, your story was interesting, and will definitely be published, but it wasn't worthy of that particular vintage.  No, that was merely a distraction.'

'Dis...?' I don't even feel the blade as it completely severs my neck, I only know that a sword is even involved because I can now see it in his left hand, pointing at the floor in the sabre rest position, it has blood dripping from it, my blood.

'I'm sorry old chap, but I can't risk you telling your story to anyone else, we value exclusivity at the G.A.A. you see.'

He takes a step forward, places his index finger on the bridge of my nose and applies the tiniest amount of pressure.  My head separates from my shoulders with a quiet sucking sound and I have the briefest view of my own back before the floor and oblivion hit me simultaneously.

Horner removes a small notebook from his inside pocket, and crosses off the name 'Anderson'. He then takes out a personal communicator and connects to The Great Cloud.  He dials in a number and when the party accepts the call he coughs politely.

'Mr Josiah, Yes? It's Horner of the G.A.A. I've received your story... I must say, it's rather good. I'd like to arrange payment.'

The sins of the Father (Pt 2)

She stood on the bridge of the Grabthar’s Hammer, next to her Mother’s heavily decorated command chair.  The battle had been raging for nearly an hour now and the sky was dark with Spiders.

‘Alexander! Report!’ Baroness Bhin-dhee of Minidandia yelled at the battleship’s ancient AI.

‘We are currently outnumbered five to one, we have Spider interceptors inbound on bearings zero-four-two, one-two-four, three-five-eight and…’ Replied the ornately lit brass and copper head in the corner of the bridge.

‘Enough!’ She turned to Dorleith, ’Let’s see if we can find your Father shall we? He’ll probably be needing a hand about now?’

The eleven year old girl looked up at her Mother and smiled, she knew exactly where her Father would be, right in the middle of the biggest, thickest ball of Spiders that he could find, tearing them out of the air with his bare hands if he had to.  It was hard for her to understand why he hated the Spiders so much, even back at the Roost, before she was old enough to come along with her parents on the raids, every story he told ended up with his knife being plunged into a tabletop, or a crystal goblet of brandy being thrown into the fire, and him stomping off hurling obscenities at whoever got in his way.

‘DiGriz, this is The Hammer, Where are you, you old goat?’ The static from the speakers indicated that they were out of range, ‘Alexander, what was the last known position of the DiGriz?’

‘Our Cruiser, the James DiGriz, last known position bearing two-six-four, distance four miles,’

‘Show me.’

The main screen changed from the tactical display to a map showing Northern Macedonia, the flashing red dot indicating the last known position of the James DiGriz was hovering over the mountains to the west.’

She opened the shipboard Intercomm, ‘All hands, this is the Captain, we’re rendezvousing with the DiGriz, any gunner that has a Spider in their sights, take it out now and make ready defensive positions, keep those mechanical scum off my hull,’ She turned to the helmsman, ‘Lay in an intercept with the DiGriz, let me know when we’re in communications range.’

‘Aye Ma’am, course laid in… Captain!’

‘Aye?’

‘We’re going to have to fight for every yard, that course’ll take us through a cloud of Spiders a mile thick,’

‘Gods damn it Mr Hadleigh, bring Mary online, divert power from the engines to her and fire as you get a target.’

The deck thrummed as power poured from the great fusion engines at the rear of the airship, to the Ion cannon that occupied almost the entire front half.  The Grabthar’s Hammer had been built around this big gun, it was designed to kill the Spiders’ electrical systems and render them inoperative en-masse but unfortunately, because it was so powerful, they could only fire a few shots before they needed to cool and recharge.

The first blast took nearly one hundred spiders out of the fight, their systems fried as their lifeless husks fell onto the ruins of what used to be Kumanovo. 

‘Well Ma’am, that certainly seemed to have got their attention, we have fifty… No, sixty targets inbound, five seconds before we can fire Mary again!’

‘Fire as she becomes ready, Helm, then as soon as she fires, hard a-port, bring us broadside to the cloud. All starboard guns, be ready to fire as you acquire a target!’

Mary barked again and the sun-bright blue flare carved another chunk out of the cloud of chittering limbs and spines. The Helmsman dragged the ship hard to the left, airbrakes and scoops deploying all down the port side, the connecting chains to the gasbags groaned with the sudden tension as the deck slewed drunkenly below them.

The Captain grabbed hold of her chair and held onto her Daughter with her other hand.

‘You alright?’ She shouted, over the blare of the bridge alarms.

‘Aye Ma’am,’ replied the little girl, attempting a salute,

‘Good Girl, strap yourself in, it’s going to get bumpier before it gets calmer.  Mr Hadleigh!’

‘Aye, Ma’am?’

‘Keep us headed in the direction of the DiGriz, but initiate a Crazy Ivan, let’s clear ourselves a gap.’

‘Aye, All hands! Prepare for violent manoeuvres, we will be initiating a Crazy Ivan in five seconds, tie yourself to something solid and find yourself something to be sick into.’

The ship slewed hard right, as Mary pointed towards the enemy she fired, scooping great swathes of Spiders out of the cloud, then the Hammer came full broadside to them and the deck guns fired another cannonade.  The left-right movement continued for two miles until the Helmsman cried,

‘Captain, I’m getting a signal from the DiGriz!’

‘Onscreen!’

Through the interference on the viewscreen, the unmistakable silhouette of her Father appeared, he had his favourite monomer edged cutlass in one hand and a repeating ion pistol in the other, he was in mid-flow.

‘… Damn your eyes, man if I thought for a second you were running from your post I’d show you your own liver before making you eat it…’ The picture faded and then snapped back into sudden clarity, ‘Get off my bloody ship!’

He had the head of a Spider impaled on the end of his sword and was rapidly beating it against the bulkhead.

‘Massimo?’

‘I’ll kill ye, I’ll kill every one of ye, you’ll wish you’d never been riveted…’

‘Massimo!’

‘I’ll hunt down where ye wuz made, an I’ll kill everyone there, then I’ll find where the constructs that made ye wuz made, and I’ll kill them, then I’ll…’

‘MASSIMO! – I think it’s dead!’

‘Aye, Whut?’ The bear of a man that was Baron Massimo Lohlephel blinked the red mist from his eyes and looked at his screen, ‘Ah, hullo my Sweet Flower, Mist of my Midsummer Morning! Ah.. I’m.. a bit busy at the moment, I’ll pull out your eyes you clanking contraption… No, not you Dear, I’ll get back to you in a wee while…’ He turned away from the camera and yelled, ‘Get that bloody million legged abomination off my bridge Mr Cotterill!’  And with that, the connection went dead.

‘Alexander, can you contact the Slut?’

Dorleith giggled, The Slut was her Mother’s pet name for Angelina, the AI on board her Fathers ship.

‘Aye Ma’am, connection established.’

‘Get a status report on the DiGriz’s systems.’

‘They have multiple hull breaches, Spider boarding craft cover the entire fore-section of the ship, there are more mechanical lifesigns on board than the internal sensors can reliably count.’

‘Damn! Are we close enough to fire on the Spiders without hitting the DiGriz?’

‘Not with any degree of certainty Ma’am, no.’ Replied Hadleigh.

‘Take us in, weapons free, fire at will!’

The Hammer lurched forward, Mary and the other cannons killing Spiders in all directions as they went.

‘Erm, Captain?’

‘Yes?’

‘We’re slowing down!’

‘What?’

We’re slowing, I’ve lost control of the throttles… We’re… We’re in full reverse?’

‘Alexander, what in the seven hells is going on?’

‘The James DiGriz has invoked remote access; they are controlling us for the moment.’

‘What? Can we over-ride the signal?’

‘No Ma’am, Angelina has locked me out of my own control systems; I will be having stern words with her when we get back to the Roost… Ah!’

‘What now?’

‘I am detecting a tritium leak in the the DiGriz’s starboard engine, there are signs of an impending cascade event.’

‘Get them onscreen… Now!’

The main viewer sprung into life, Captain Lohlephel was sat, calmly in his command chair.  The bridge was swathed in smoke and the sound of gunfire could be heard in the distance.

‘Hullo my Jewel, I’m sorry about pushing you away..’

‘What’re you doing Goat?’

‘I’m saving your life…’

‘I don’t…’

‘Angelina informs me that my engines are just about to go critical, and the lifepods are covered in Spiders, so I’m going to take as many of these mechanical monsters with me as I can.’

‘No!.. I… I fought my way here, I’ve come to save you… We can…’

‘You know this is the only way, Is Dorleith there?’

She nodded and beckoned her daughter across, ‘Daddy wants to talk to you.’

‘Hello Daddy!’

‘Hullo Beautiful Girl, hope you’re OK.   I’m sorry, I’ve got to go now, but I know you’ll keep on fighting… Don’t let the Spiders win, try to stop ‘em any way you can.’

‘I will Daddy, I promise!’

‘I know Baby.  I love you both so much.’ He put his hand on the viewscreen, ‘I…..’

A freezing ball of tritium gas rapidly expanded from the rupturing engine, which then ignited in a ball of fire two miles across.  The main windows of the bridge exploded into shards which spread across the room like knives, narrowly missing the dumbfounded crew.

‘DADDY!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Criven Preen’s calm voice brought the Captain back to the present, she slowly looked around and realised that she was once again in her cabin on the Edward Teach.

‘Nothing… I just remembered…’

‘Yes, indeed, nasty business, your Mother has the details, if you wish to help.’

‘Help?’

‘Yes, your Father needs rescuing.’

‘Rescuing?’

‘Yes, rescuing, you have been following my conversation haven’t you?’

‘Well, no, I…’

‘I see, well, I suggest you talk to your Mother, she has the details.  Now, I need to leave, I have other errands to attend to.’

‘Can we drop you anywhere?’

‘No, that won’t be necessary, thank you.’ He doffed his hat, stepped back into the shadows, and was gone.

‘I…’ She turned and entered the bridge, ‘Set a course for Minidandia, best speed, and get the ship tidied up, we’re going to visit The Baroness.’

Waiting for God-Oh!

Now, without wanting to get all metaphysical on your collective asses, I'm a firm believer in evolution. But, (Gods how I hate that word!) there are so many weird, wonderful, badly designed animals out there that there must have been an over-arching designer involved, probably on a Friday night, on the way home from the pub, in some celestial Kebab shop somewhere, and I like to think the conversation may have gone a little like this:

-oOo-

God1: Dude, nice work on that hoppity thing you did, with the long tail and all the (mimes foxy boxing) stuff!

God2: With the pouch?

God1: It's got a pouch? Where Man? What for?

God2: Totally on its stomach, It puts the babies in there, I put the boobs in there and everything.

God1: Wait, what? you put boobs in a pouch?

God2: Yeah... Awesome!

God1: Aww man, I spent ages on boobs, took me weeks to get the shape just right - (Mimes squeezing imaginary boobs) Honk-honk! shame to hide 'em really, they rock! - (to kebab shop owner ) Yeah mate, two tandoori chicken / shish mixed, loads of chili, no onion.

Kebab Shop Owner: Chicken? we don't got chicken my friend, what chicken anyway? ees kind of fish or somefink? Got plenny fish!

God1: *Paff* And on the eighth day, I did create tandoori chicken, and saw that it was good (Bucket of tandoori chicken appears in a cloud of Dogma)

God2: LOL! But, seriously man, I'm having, like, major trauma with my new project?

God1: What you workin' on Brah?

God2: Well, the kid wanted something cute, on the same island I did the hoppity boxing thing on, you know to kinda like balance out all the bitey snakes and spiders and stuff.

God1: Man, you and your fangs and your venom... You gotta remember to get rid of those things before we let those naked two-leggedy things loose, got a feeling they might wander about a bit. So what did you do?

God2: You remember that wombat thing you did? Where you mucked up the guts and it ended up taking it like, two weeks to eat anything?

God1: Yeah, I should totally look at that when we release the next set of updates.

God2: True Dat! So, I took that, streamlined it, made it semi-aquatic and gave it poison spurs.

God1: Poison?... Spurs?... You make a little furry thing, supposed to be cute, then give it poison spurs, You're sick dude, LOL! Totally off the hook!

God2: I know, right! Anywho, I give it to Iesu, and He just looks at me like I'm an idiot, shouts 'More Cute!' and goes back to making towers out of his Lego.

God1: Man! Kids today, don't know they're created... Whaddya gonna do?

God2: I'm, like, totally outta ideas, tried making it furrier, but the damn thing just sank to the bottom every time I put it in water, had to get my ressurection freak on a few times that day, I can tell you!

God1: Ha! I would have paid good sheckles to see that (Mimes drowning animal) Bloop-Bloop Help Me! I'm melting!... LOL! Have you tried mixing it with animals that can float?

God2: What, like cows?

God1: Man, cows don't float, I mean like ducks or something.

God2: I am totally giving that beeyatch wings!

God1: You want flying aquatic wombats stinkin' up the place? Nah, I mean, like, waterproof feathers or some shizzle like dat.

God2: Feathers? s'a mammal dude, it's got nipples and stuff, you can't do feathers on mammals, s'against the law or something, probably... 'Member we tried that with those flying mice things, with the fangs and the Scooby-Doo eek-eek-eek noises? We got that memo saying we had to put the fur back on before we released 'em.

God1: Yeah, I remember, those skin wings gave me the heebie jeebies, I made the big ones eat fruit though, just to mess with their heads!

God2: Way to stick it to the man!

God1: Yah! (The two Gods high-five) Why don't you give it a beak?

God2: A beak?

God1: Ducks have beaks, and they float... Maybe it's that that does it, I don't really unnerstan' it completely, I'm not technical at all.

God2: Yeah, that might just work dude, what if it layed eggs too? An internal floatation device, eggs float, right?

God1: Probably, you'd have to test it I guess, try it on the spikey anteater thing that was in the newsletter last week.

God2: Do they swim?

God1: Not very well, that's what'd make it a good test.

God2: Right! Yeah, oh-Oh! I know, I'll give it a big-ass tail too, flat like a beaver's

God1: Hahahahhahaahahahaaahhahaha!

God2: Whut?

God1: Hahahhahahahah *sob* HahaHahaahaHAHAHahAha!

God2: Seriously dude what? Don't make me smite you.

God1: *sniff* You said beaver!

-oOo-

So there you go, the complete story about how the Duck-Billed Platypus got it's singular good looks. Just as possible as any other explanation I think you'll agree?


LOL

He said Beaver!


(Dedicated to Maurice and Heinkel, my imaginary doorstops)