Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1) (10 page)

    “Put your hand in Charlie,” said Greebol as he tried to turn the electrical sharply, in an attempt at dislodging the Mechanoid, “you will feel a number of small round objects.”

    Sure enough Charlie felt them. The space inside the drawer was ridiculously large considering that it was only a very small drawer. It messed with Charlie’s mind and made him go slightly dizzy. He pulled one of the small balls out and looked at it. It was made of some form of rubber that stuck to the fingers like jelly. Charlie hated jelly.

    “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, dreadfully aware that the Mechanoid was almost inside.

    “Stick it to the side of the table,” Greebol answered, “it is called a molecular expanded stretchy thing. It can make any item fit inside or through any other item… no matter of its size!”

    So that was how this drawer was able to contain so many objects when it was so small. It had one of these molecular expanded stretchy things inside it! Clever. Very clever.

    Charlie slapped the small rubber ball onto the side of the table, making a squelching sound like someone throwing a wet hanky, and instantly the table began to quiver as though it were not quite solid. However when Charlie grabbed the sides it was hard to the touch!

    Quickly, he picked it up, staggering from the weight. He wasn’t used to having to lift something this heavy. A quarter pound beef burger with extra cheese was about the heaviest thing he had ever had to hold. Hoisting the table onto his shoulder he stepped cautiously over to the porthole. It seemed impossible, but still he tried to push the large table through the small window.

    Before his disbelieving eyes, the table began to stretch and twist as it touched the window allowing Charlie to push it through with ease. A bit like the events that take place when going to the toilet. Charlie tried to remove that image from his mind. Soon the table was through the porthole and on the outside of the electrical where it returned to its solid form.

    Charlie let go.

    The large, heavy metal table fell.

    The Mechanoid looked up just in time for it to smash into its face. It lost its grip and, after scrambling for a moment to reattach itself, it fell! Limbs flailing, it tried desperately to grasp something. Anything. But of course in the middle of the sky, falling through the clouds, there was nothing to grasp at.

    Charlie watched from the porthole with a smug look on his face as the robot fell like a tin can, although a lot heavier and presumably not containing beans. Charlie grinned. Now he was Charlie Pinwright, robot slayer.

  
“SYSTEM… FAILURE… CANNOT… FUNCTION… SENSORS…
Malfunctioning…”

   
X7421’s red eyes faded. Its arms, legs and head retracted back into the large metal sphere. All systems shut down. The globe fell faster and faster. The ground growing closer and closer.

    Soon the buildings below no longer looked like dolls houses and were now full scale against the Mechanoid. With an almighty crash it smashed into the roof of a certain building. A certain call centre in the city centre. A certain call centre that, during the day, contained a number of telephone operators, mindlessly answering phone calls. A certain building with a sign that read – King George’s Electrical Repairs – a cheesy grinning image of the late Geoffrey George at its side.

    The building shuddered. The building shook. Dust fell. The bricks loosened. The building caved in on itself, crumbling into nothing more than a pile of rubble.

    A final insult to the glorious and somewhat tragic life of King Geoffrey George.

The electrical hovered above the city high up in the clouds. Greebol had finally gained control of the ship. A small screen had opened in a panel in front of the steering square, an image of the city appearing on it.

    “I wonder where that thing came from,” said the grey skinned Gumthar.

    “You seriously don’t know what it was?” said Charlie aghast.

    “I seriously do not know. I told you Charlie, there are no
robots
where I live.”

    “Yes I know. No robots and no Humans either. Your world must be darker for it.”

    “For not having Humans?” questioned Greebol, imperceptible eyebrow raised. “I really have not witnessed that much greatness from Humans. You are the only decent one I have come across and even you are slightly strange.”

    “True,” Charlie agreed, “but in defence of my people we have done some remarkable things. Have you ever heard of a hot dog?”

    Greebol frowned.

    The image on the screen suddenly erupted into a flash of light emitting from the remains of the call centre where the Mechanoid had just landed. Charlie rushed to the porthole and was forced to shield his eyes.

    A large mushroom cloud rose up into the sky. Waves of flames spanning out from it, stretching across the city. Buildings shattered, cars exploded, trees burned.

    The electrical was also hit by the blast. A sound like a million of those annoying rainmakers battered inside Charlie’s ears.

    Greebol grabbed the steering square and pulled upwards, hoping to pull the electrical away from the rapidly growing mushroom cloud.

    “What’s going on?” Charlie screamed. “What happened?”

    The room shook so violently that at one point it seemed Charlie stood in two places at once. He felt like a nest of moths swarmed in his head.

    “It appears to be a nuclear explosion!” Greebol shouted.

    “Nuclear?” Charlie gasped.

    Then he realised what must have happened. The Mechanoid. The Mechanoid had been powered by nuclear energy! When it had smashed on the ground it had exploded! Charlie always knew something like this would happen. Not of course that he would throw a robot from an alien world from a spaceship from another alien world causing the explosion, but something similar. Like some silly bugger lighting his fart inside a power station.

    Greebol strained so hard pulling upwards on the steering square that at least twenty veins seemed to pop out of his forehead. Plus he let off a little Tommy squeaker. Eventually, after much hard work, the electricals dome-like bulk rose upwards, heading away from the blast, upwards through the clouds and further, penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere and out into the vast cold of space.

    Charlie, ears ringing like he had bells in them, looked down at the circular image of Earth. Its immense blue oceans, its speckled landmasses, the swirls of clouds circling it. Seeing his home planet from space for the first time should have instilled Charlie with a sense of well-being. It should have inspired him and finally made him understand his life and his reason for being. However all he could see was a large red blot stretching outwards. A nuclear explosion. An explosion that
he
had caused.

    He slapped a hand over his face and groaned. “What have I done?” he muttered.

    “Oh it is alright,” said Greebol, patting him on the back, “you have only destroyed your city! It is not as if it was the whole planet!”

    Charlie was gob smacked. What little compassion this alien showed for life! “Only the city?” he growled. “
Only the city
? I have spent my entire life in that city! Everyone I know is in that city…
was
in that city! They’ll all be dead now… everyone I ever cared for… gone.”

    Tears welled up in his eyes as he thought of his now dead loved ones. His useless pathetic excuse of a mother. His bitch of a cheating, lying whore of an ex-girlfriend. His Turkish speaking, meat smelling, unwanted flat mates. The tears dried up.

    Still, people were gone. His city was gone. And it was all because of him.

    “Take me back,” he muttered quietly, “take me back… home.”

    “Back?” said Greebol. “Back to what? Everything you knew is gone Charlie. You have nothing left there now. Out here however… in the wonders of space… you can have anything your heart desires!”

    Charlie knew that Greebol was right. There was nothing left for him back on Earth. Yet he could not travel the stars. He was no explorer. He was no space adventurer. The joys of watching Star Trek or Star Wars or some other star titled sci-fi was enough for him. He never wanted to actually experience it. Especially not with an alien bounty hunter.

    “I want to go back,” he said at last. “I have to go back and face what I have done.”

    “I cannot get you to change your mind?”

    “Probably,” Charlie sighed, “with some sort of alien mind changing device you have hidden in that giant tiny drawer of yours. But please… I beg you… if you have any sort of empathy at all… take me home.”

    The Gumthar slowly nodded his big grey head. “Alright Charlie. Alright.”

    The Human smiled. Perhaps this alien wasn’t so bad after all. He did really seem to care for him. Perhaps, behind the creature that kidnaps people, hunts people, steals peoples’ voices and liquidises people, there was a kind-hearted soul.

    As Greebol slowly began to turn the electrical around in order to head back in Earth's direction, Charlie finally came to terms with where he was. Space. He was in space! The stars twinkled brighter up here. The planets could be seen clearer. The strange golden, deadly looking light approaching them seemed fast and dangerous.

    “What the hell is that?” asked Charlie. It was a question he had asked all too many times in the last few hours.

    “That,” responded Greebol, “is the thing that made me crash on your little world in the first place.
That
is what we have to avoid at all cost!”

    But it was no use. The golden light was surrounding them. It was as though they had been caught in a sort of large net that was closing around them.

    “Greebol!” Charlie panicked. “Greebol you have to do something! Do something!”

    But there was nothing that could be done. The golden light closed around them. Charlie felt it surge through the electrical, through his own body.

    Then Charlie felt nothing at all.

Chapter 10

The galaxy is a strange and wonderful place. Everything that most believed to be true usually is a complete fabrication. Everything that people thought was a complete fabrication usually turns out to be true. A thousand realities circled the ever changing universe. Since the beginning of time things have changed, creating and destroying in the process. Removing some from everything they knew, changing others perhaps physically or mentally without them even knowing.

    Take Earth’s dinosaurs for example. It was generally believed that some dirty great big asteroid crashed into the planet wiping out the prehistoric creatures. Of course, as that is what was commonly believed, it was inevitable to be false. In fact the extinction of the dinosaurs was due to the universe changing. Everything shifted, planets swapped places, suns blinked out of existence, space itself twisted and deformed and then formed again. Unfortunately in this new version of the universe there was no place for large, dopey lizards and therefore they were wiped from the face of the Earth. Did they disappear completely or did they end up on some other world in some other area of space perhaps even in some other dimension? No one could say. Not even the dinosaurs.

    Another example would be the lost civilization of Mangdar on the distant planet named Umf. Umf history tells that the city, which was paved with gold and marshmallows, was lost when a large crater in the ground opened up and swallowed it whole. Obviously, this is completely untrue. Once again it was a universal event that shifted several galaxies' positions with one another, Umf being unfortunately in line with the appearance of a giant black hole that threatened to swallow the whole planet. Instead however, it opted to just take the civilisation of Mangdar, as this particular black hole had a lust for gold. Gold watches, bracelets, belt buckles, even gold teeth. It was the black hole of bling, envied by all other black holes. Unfortunately, it was allergic to marshmallows and promptly died as only a black hole can.

    Some people would say that these strange events were completely random and that it was the universe's way of keeping things running. Of course the only people that had any memory of these strange events were the ones such as the dinosaurs, or the egg-shaped hermaphrodite people of Mangdar who are now nowhere to be found.

    In truth there was nothing random about the shifting of the universe. It was all perfectly controlled. By whom no one knew, as already mentioned, no one actually knew these events ever took place. Everyone in the universe remained blissfully unaware that anything had happened, except for those that it had happened to.

    On a small planet, orbited by five moons, a small someone stood sweating. He was one of those that it
had
happened to. He was just unaware it had yet.

Chapter 11

The wind was cold. It was a bitter, icy wind that stung the skin. And it howled. Howled like a dog. Or at least like a dog that had been stretched out, strung up and had a megaphone inserted into its voice box. The sky shook with the rumbling of thunder like an empty stomach and lightning flashed amongst the clouds.

    Standing alone in this deathly wind, surrounded by the lightning, was a squat figure, his shoulders rising up and down as he took deep breaths trying to regain his strength. He stood on the flattened peak of a large rocky mountain. The top of the mountain seemed to have been cut away many years ago, leaving large area in the centre, which appeared to have been sculpted into some sort of temple with dark rocked gargoyles with huge Johnsons standing beside the entrance.

    The figure had already been inside the temple. He had already faced the nightmarish horrors that lurked within, which included the gargoyles with large Johnsons. He had also already climbed the mountain. It had been a long, hard climb that had taken at least two days. Now he stood, staring back down, ready to descend. And he was certain it would not take him long to reach the bottom. Especially after seeing what was waiting for him on the mountain side.

    He was a Dwarf and a typical one in every sense. He was short in height but wide in girth. He would call it muscle but, although there was no doubt he was strong, others would probably call it pork pies. He had a long brown beard that was braided in several places (that in no way made him look feminine – especially if you wanted to keep your head attached to your neck) and long hair to match. On top of his head was a hard metal helmet with a spike on the top and he wore thick, strong armour over heavy chain mail. In his hand he held a large axe that was stained with the blood of his enemies.

    The Dwarf grinned.
This
was going to be a lot of fun!

    He gripped the handle of the large axe so tight that his knuckles turned white and tapped it on a large wooden shield strapped to his back. He snarled, showing his slightly pointed, slightly chipped, slightly yellow teeth. His other hand closed tightly around an object that glowed in a misty purple haze.

    “I am ready for you!” he bellowed at the top of his voice. For a man so short he had a belting shout. It did sound slightly like a broken fog horn (but you would never mention it unless you didn’t want to keep your legs).

    He stared with his beady eyes down the mountain at the hoard creeping towards him. A mass of dark green and grey climbed slowly upwards, all snarling and slobbering. They were Orcs and there were hundreds of them. The Orcs lived here on this mountain, protecting the temple and the precious item within. They were tall, thin, and hideously ugly. The Dwarf thought they looked like something scraped off the bottom of one’s boot after walking through a field of cows. Even
that
was kind.

    The Dwarf had managed to evade the Orcs on his ascent up the mountain. Luckily for him, Orcs are particularly stupid. Give them a simple sum like 1 + 1 and they would somehow manage to come up with the answer of a raw slab of meat, dripping with blood, fresh off the buttocks of a large animal. Possibly a bear but probably a walrus.

    However this time around the Orcs were ready for that pesky little Dwarf. He had taken that which they had to protect with their lives. It is what these particular Orcs were bred for.

    Of course it was not on this planet. In reality the Orcs and the Dwarves came from the same world. But as previously mentioned everything had recently changed. Although none of them knew that anything had. For them, all of this was perfectly normal.

    “Dwop the cwystal Dwarf!” spat one of the larger and more intelligent of the Orcs. His skin was bright green and covered in snot-like goo. The really thick stuff that you have to cover one nostril up in order to blow it out. “Dwop it ow we will dwop you!”

    The Dwarf laughed. “The only things dropping around here,” he shouted in his loud, deep, booming voice, “will be your dead bodies as they fall to the ground!”

    And he meant it.

    With one giant leap he jumped from the peak and began to run down the mountainside as fast as his small podgy legs could carry him. The Orcs raised their own weapons, which were crudely made swords and spears and knives, as they readied themselves for the tiny blur that sped towards them.

    With one almighty crash the Dwarf connected with the first of the Orcs, flinging them up into the air. The Dwarf continued to run, his speed increasing with the momentum. No matter what the Orcs tried to do, they could not lay a single hand on the running little man, yet the running little man easily laid his hands on them. Legs parted from bodies, intestines spilled, heads flew. The mountain became stained with the Orcs dark blood.

    The larger, more intelligent Orc stepped forwards ready to strike. ‘More intelligent’ of course only meant this particular Orc was able to put his boots on the right way around, whereas the others all walked bow footed. And of course this particular Orc was able to differentiate between male and female, which saved on a number of terrible discrepancies.

    “You’re mine shorty!” he growled.

    “Not today puss face!” laughed the Dwarf. He grabbed the shield from his back and ripped it free from its straps. With a great leap, that looked incredibly unrealistic for a fellow of his size, he dove from the current rock he stood on, slipped the shield under his feet and continued to surf down the side of the mountain, smashing into and cracking the bones of many Orcs as he went. The ‘intelligent’ Orc was the first to be hit by the shield. It hit him on the head, cracking his skull.

    The Orc didn’t die from the impact. Instead he lost all of the few brain cells his head caged making him one of the most dim-witted, stupid Orcs to ever live. From that day on he did indeed walk bow footed due to his boots being on backwards and he did indeed mix up males with females. A terrible shock to the ugly bugger the next time he took a lovely ‘lady’ Orc back to his bedroom for a bit of rumpy pumpy.

    Still sailing down the mountain on his shield, the Dwarf laughed out loud. He was now through the main throng of Orcs and was sure that nothing could stop him. He looked at the glowing object in his hand and smiled.

    “Victory!” he shouted.

    The shield suddenly hit a large rock and flipped, forcing the Dwarf to flip along with it. An impressive show had the Dwarf been wearing his swimsuit and diving from a board. Shame about the belly flop.

    The Dwarf, shakily stood, terribly winded. He staggered. He steadied himself. He burped. He felt better. It was something his father had taught him and his father’s father had taught him. A good burp solved most things.

    The Orcs had regrouped and were heading towards him. He looked into the distance. He could just make out his means of escape. He had to run now or there was no chance he would make it.

    Setting off on a sprint as fast as a Dwarf being chased by thousands of angry nasties could, the Dwarf ran whilst being chased by thousands of nasties. Not far now. Not far.

    An arrow was released from a bow. It struck the Dwarf in the back of the shoulder but he chose to ignore it. Another scar to add to his long list that stretched from his toes to the top of his forehead. He even had scars in places that most people never knew existed. How they got there was his story and his alone (and you wouldn’t ask unless you didn’t like your head being on your neck and not up your arse).

    Finally arriving at his destination he took a high leap, landing on top of the cube-like rusty object (it is best to call it cube-
like
because it was in no way the shape of a cube. Possibly once, yes it was. Now it resembled an ice cube that has been sat in a warm sex on the beach for too long).

   He opened a small hatch, only wide enough for him to force his bulky form inside. He sat down on the seat, which was the only thing that could fit inside the object. It was so small you could not swing a proverbial cat in it. It was so small that you couldn’t even swing a real cat in it, unless you didn’t mind the cat bouncing off the walls with every turn.

    The Dwarf adjusted his buttocks into the carefully moulded imprints on the seat of the chair and reached up to close the hatch.

    An Orc’s head thrust in through the hatch, the noseless, pointed eared, bald, green skinned monster snapped its sharp teeth, hoping to catch a part of the Dwarf within them.

    “This place ain’t big enough for the both of us Killer,” the Dwarf said. He swung the hatch closed, the thick metal striking the Orc’s neck, parting his head from it. Black blood splashed on the Dwarf’s face who cried out in triumph, the Orc’s head bouncing on his lap!

    “Time to leave this cursed planet!” he shouted. He grabbed the joystick in front of him, pressed the large button and looked to the sky.

    The cube-like metal object was in fact a spaceship in its own right. The thrusters fired and, covered in snarling Orcs, it lifted up into the sky. The few Orcs that managed to hold on to the ship, as it travelled at ridiculous speeds through the storm clouds of the barren planet, didn’t hold on for long. As soon as the ship was surrounded by the stars, their bulbous forms simply floated away. Forever to drift the endless mass of the galaxy.

    The dwarf, wearing a breathing mask, for this ship had no source of oxygen, plotted the course back to his fleet. He took one last look at his prized possession that he had worked so hard to retrieve before placing the glowing purple crystal inside a leather satchel and storing it in the glove compartment that contained no gloves.

    “Onwards!” he shouted, smiling to himself.

    The cube-like ship zoomed off into the distance.