The sins of the Father

Well, my 99th Blog post (for The Chimping Dandy at least, regular readers will know of my repeated forays into flash fiction, sponsored, fumigated, canned and sold by the very worth James Josiah) and it's yet another trip into the Steampunkery fuelled world of the LadyDorleith Ahralia, countess of Minidandia and her band of ramshackle corsairs aboard the airship Edward Teach, scourge of the skies, killer of spiders and lover of shoes.

If you'd like a little background, or just want to read the previous five episodes, you can read them here, here, here, here and here - That's hopefully the right order. They feature at least three terribly real people and a selection of ugly puns, thinly veiled references and shamelessly stolen ideas and tropes from popular fiction.

-oOo-

'Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!' Yelled Frobisher, the lights in his face flashing from an angry red to a vile supporating yellow, 'Unexpected lifesign detected in engineering! Intruder Alert!'

The captain jumped from her bunk, still groggy from the celebration after the successful rescue of Dorys, and her own return from an implied watery grave, 'Shut that damn alarm off you bag of rusty cogs! Security team to engineering deck, immobilize the intruder, whatever it is I want it alive!'

She pulled on her jodhpurs and kneeboots, rescued the crumpled linen shirt from the floor, buttoned it up and suddenly noticed the touselled hair of Torville poking out from under the covers. The sound of his gentle snoring now obvious as the alarm had been silenced.

'Bugger!' She said, slowly lifting the covers and confirming that he was, in fact, naked, 'And double bugger!' She looked for slightly longer at the taut muscles on his back than was strictly necessary, then sighed and exited to the bridge.

The crew of the morning watch turned and saluted, 'Captain on the Bridge!' a crewman whose name she couldn't remember at the best of times yelled. The noise made her wince more than the alarm had, but she resisted the temptation to raise her finger to her lips and shush him.

'Why is there an intruder on my boat?' She asked the assembled throng as she sank into the command chair, 'Anyone?' A sea of blank faces was her only reply. She thumbed the Intercomm, 'Security team, have you found it - whatever it is?'

'Baju-merah here Ma'am, engineering's clear, no-one here who shouldn't be here. We've checked everywhere!'

Frobisher chose that moment to voice yet another alarm, 'Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Unexpected lifesign detected in the Forward avionics cabin!'

'What?' exclaimed the Captain, 'That's at the other end of the... How? Frobisher, check the logs, was the intruder detected anywhere between Engineering and Avionics?'

'No Ma'am, the signal disappeared from Engineering and simply re-appeared in Avionics.' The emotionless brass face still managed to radiate an air of abject confusion.

'Mr Baju-merah, report to Avionics, bring our unexpected guest to me now! Frobisher, perform a diagnostic on the internal scanners, if you've woke me up because you've gone defective I'll have When reprogram you, overarm, with his chainsword.'

The pattern of lights on Frobisher's face skittered as he performed the self diagnostic, 'All sensors performing within prescribed parameters, zero defects found, my assumption is that my log entries are correct.'

'Then how the hell is something jumping from one end of this boat to the other without passing though all the points inbetween?'

'I have no...'

'Rhetorical!' Shouted the Captain, 'Look it up.'

'I am fully aware of...'

'Ma'am, this is Baju-Merah. Avionics is clear, in fact, I don't think there's actually enough space in here for anything larger than a chicken.'

'Frobisher, is our intruder larger than a chicken?'

'Yes Ma'am, scans indicate that it is of standard dimensions for a humanoid male. And he is also no longer in Avionics.'

'Has he re-appeared somewhere else? The galley? Up on deck? In one of the Gasbags perhaps?'

'No Ma'am.'

'No, he hasn't re-appeared or No, he's not in the Gasbags?'

He has re-appeared, but it is in none of the areas that you suggested.'

'So, where is he pray tell?'

'In your quarters.'

She turned, along with the entire bridge crew, to face the door to her quarters. Activating the Intercomm she whispered, 'Mr Baju-Merah, to the Bridge, as quick as you like.'

It only took the security team minutes to get to the Bridge, but in that time the Captain had armed herself with a compression pistol and a longknife. and was stood by the door.

'I'll go in first, you take up covering positions, stand close so the door doesn't close.'

'Ma'am, may I suggest that I...'

'Mr Baju-Merah, I appreciate your concern, but the interloper hasn't shown any degree of hostility as yet. If anything, his antics seem to be designed to confuse us - He could have simply appeared behind any member of the crew and shot them in the back of the head if he'd wanted to.'

She took a deep breath and stepped through the door as it opened. The second her heel cleared the frame, it slammed shut at ten times its normal speed and locked. She spun and banged futilely on the door, then turned back to scan the room, her eyes slowly getting used to the gloom. The automatic lights had failed to turn on and even Frobisher's head was dark and silent.

'Torville!' She called, looking towards her bunk, 'Frobisher!' There was no reply from either of them. She felt her way forward, holding the pistol out in front of her. 'Where are you? Damn your Argh!' She rubbed her shin where it had rapped off one of the ornate castings on her iron bunk.

'Allow me,' Said a mellow voice from the far corner of the room, 'Lights!'

Instantly, the wall lights came back on. The Captain blinked, and turned towards the voice.

'You!' She raised the pistol and pointed it the wiry man sat in her easy chair, 'What are you doing on my ship?'

'At your service Captain,' Criven Preen raised himself from the chair, removed his hat and bowed deeply, 'I apologise for the dramatic means of my entrance, old habits die hard.'

'I'll say it again, only more forcefully... WHAT are YOU doing on MY ship!'

'There's no need for unpleasantness my Lady, nor should we have to worry about unfortunate accidents,' He waved his long fingers and the compression pistol slowly faded out of existence.

'Whu?' She looked down, the dull tingle in her fingers the only evidence that the gun had ever existed at all, 'How did you..?'

'A simple parlour trick, the weapon is back in its rightful place, in the arms locker, on the bridge... Your, ah, friend is also back in his rightful place, asleep, in his cabin. I took the liberty of removing the last twelve hours from his memory, saves any later discontent in the ranks.'

'What do you want?'

'Want? I want to deliver my message and go home, these things worry me,' He indicated the ship around him, 'If the Gods had meant us to fly, they would have given us gasbags.'

'Message? What message? Who is it from?'

'My Lady Dorleith Ahralia, Countess of Minidandia, In Nominate Ruler of the Open Lands, High Voort of the Shattered Spire and Keykeeper of the Pewter Army - I bring greetings from your Illustrious Father, Massimo Lohlephel, Baron of...'

'My Father? My Father fell at the Battle of Tromega, I saw his ship explode! He's dead!'

'Not... anymore...'

A bucket for Monsieur

I was sat in the pub with a very good friend of mine last night and something appeared on the TV in the bar that brought up the subject of 'Bucket Lists'.

A Bucket List, for those of you who've never heard the term, is a list of things that you'd like to do before you die. It usually comprises of things like 'Swim with dolphins' or 'Write the next Great, British novel' - Generally a list of things that are possible, but very unlikely.

Mine, as you can probably imagine, doesn't contain those things... It does however contain one that appears on a lot of people's lists, even though it's more of a wish than an activity. It's the 'trigger' that would enable many of the others to come to fruition, so I'll start with that one:

• Win more than £100 million on the National Lottery. This one causes a bit of contention in the Dandy household, Mrs Dandy is a great believer in the idea of 'having enough' - She'd like to win the lottery, but just win enough to live comfortably and never have to worry about money ever again. Maybe just a couple of millions. I however would like to be so obscenely rich that it caused fish to spontaneously combust if they swam within 500 yards of me.

• I want to own a house, with a private lake, that had a Captain Nemo themed, victorian cast-iron conservatory under it. So I could sit in a sunlounger, watching my killer whales swim by overhead.

• Ah, yes, I want to own a breeding pair of killer whales (Maybe this should have been higher up the list.)

• Over the years, I've developed quite a list of people I'd like to go for a beer with, these include, but are not limited to: Nathan Fillon, Sir Patrick Stewart, Kevin Smith, John Rezig, Robert Carlisle, Danny Trejo, Denis Leary, Hugh Jackman, Richard Dean Anderson, Jason Bradbury, Adrian Edmonson, Rufus Hound, Al Murray, Felicia Day, Peter Dinklage, Samuel L Jackson, Rob Brydon, Neil Patrick Harris, James May, Henry Rollins, Anthony Bourdain, Ron Perlman and obviously, Guy Martin - If any of you know, or indeed are, any of these people - feel free to get in touch. (You'll notice that there is only one young lady in that list, this is because I said 'go for a beer with' not 'Git jiggy wit' in a Hall Pass stylee.)

• I want an 18th century pirate ship, and crew, with which I would sail around the pacific firing broadsides of chocolate and cream cakes at passing cruise-liners. I would call it the HMS Old Jamaica, and operate under a letter of Marque personally given to me by Bertie Bassett.

• Have a fully working F302 (Google it) and use it as my day-to day transport.

• Buy a brand new Lamborghini, in cash, from the dealership on a busy Saturday afternoon, then chainsaw it in half on the forecourt whilst dressed as Pennywise from Steven King's IT and laughing maniacally.

• Build a branch of Domino's Pizza in my house.

• Have a set of bespoke combination spanners made and tuned so that they played different notes when struck, I would then hang them in my twelve car, centrally heated and carpeted garage and have Sir Patrick Moore brought back from the grave holographically (Like Tupac) so that he could teach me to play the Imperial March on them.

• I would buy a horse, a narwhal and a marabou stork and have a repatriated Nazi scientist combine them to make a unicorn pegasus, which I would then name Teal'c and train to stand on my F302 and act as a kind of 'lifeboat' in case I ever got into trouble whilst in the air. He would also have to be trained to say 'Indeeeed' and wear a space-helmet (presumably with some kind of hole for his horn).

• Have a combat - ready AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, painted in the Louis Vuitton brown & gold luggage pattern and provide a vigilante traffic enforcement service, whereby I would blow up any car that seemed to be driven badly, by a chav, or pink...

• And lastly, the thing I saw on the TV that fateful night, that started off this whole mad idea - I would like to render a midget unconcious with a single karate chop to the side of the neck. (Maybe Peter Dinklage could help?)

There are many other things that I have thought of that might one day make their way onto this list, but a lot of them will probably never happen, so I thought I'd just put down the ones that were most sensible and achievable.