Welcome to Percotran -Part XVII

By Richard Davidson

Badson spit on the soldier’s boots.

“I think those are going to give you away, you idiot. Don’t you?”

“Yes SIR!” shouted the soldier.

Badson had to laugh. His little group of “pirates” wasn’t going to fool anybody. He laughed again, and punched a hole in a barrel of rum, filling his glass and taking a swig. He spat it out in disgust. It was water. Pirates who drink only water. That’s just great.

Pirates weren’t stupid, and they had long ago eschewed gunpowder cannons in favor of laser and heat seeking missile launchers, when it came to arming their gigantic ships. This group of men had trained on such weapons for years, but had never actually seen battle before, of course.

Bogotron’s 3-D simulations were incredible, though, and some recruits actually died of shock, due to the realism of the battles. These were men who were said to have died in “accidents,” and their bodies were unceremoniously dumped into a huge vat of acid, and broken down into their most basic chemicals.

“You there,” Badson indicated the tall soldier with the fake scar.

“Lieutenant Commander HG17 Anderson 20, er Ship’s Mate Fleadog at your service, sir!” he barked.

“Having a little trouble getting into the role?” asked Badson, feeling just a bit sick already.

“Perhaps I can give you the proper motivation. See, imagine that if for even one second, the good people at Percotran International, the company we’re about to invade, in violation of all major treaties in the past five centuries, suspect that we’re not actually pirates, but trained soldiers of the Bogotron Army, your homeland and families will be wiped out by chemical, biological and nuclear weapons before you even get tortured for the first time.”

Badson paused for effect, staring hard at the soldier.

“How’s that for motivation?”

The soldier stared blankly back at him.

Badson pulled a small pistol from its holster, took aim at a soldier dressed as a deckhand, and shot him dead.

“I’m going to shoot your comrades one by one, until you tell me you understand the situation, and have considered all the implications of it.”

“Sir, I understand the situation completely, and have considered all the implications of it,” said the soldier, using a small laser torch to obliterate the Army tattoo under his hairline.

“Good.” Badson still wasn’t convinced, but at least he had gotten the young man’s attention.

Badson was the Guest Admiral of the S.S. Barnswallow, a magnificent Pirate ship, that had been acquired when Captain Roger Blood had been unfortunate enough to attack Bogotron’s Southern Division, only days after the Attack Mosquitoes had been perfected.

Immune to pesticides, flames, gravitational disturbances and germs, these mutant mosquitoes attacked in droves of thousands, stripping a man’s flesh clean in only seconds. Their lifespan was only three hours, and they had no way to reproduce, as far as the scientists who gave their hearty approval knew.

They only made the one batch, because frankly, these things scared the crap out of even the most insane, diabolical leaders and military men.

“I’d rather face the Genital Mutilator 450 than a swarm of those devils,” many an enlisted man had been heard to say. At least with the Genital Mutilator 450 you had a fighting chance, after all.

So Captain Blood had been the only man unfortunate enough to lose his entire crew, and his own life, to the most bloodthirsty insect ever developed by amoral sociopaths.

Of course, the good Captain was in the process of stealing millions of tiny telephone transceivers to trade to Percotran spies for an ultrasonic weapon that his ship had no way of withstanding, but none of that mattered, because the Percotran spies would’ve killed him anyway, as the Captain should’ve known had he not been an alcoholic, who rarely bathed.

You would think his bathing habits only incidental to all this, but you would be wrong, which I’m sure is no big surprise at this point. Because he always smelled like rotting fish mixed with vinegar and dung, the rest of his crew was careful not to bathe either, and so entire sections of the ship’s plumbing had been replaced with storage lockers, filled with explosives, 208th century flamethrowers, and hundreds of millions of steel ball bearings.

“I notice you’ve already killed one of my men,” observed Captain Citidroid 3745, walking onto the deck. She stared at him contemptuously.

Her faced turned to one of puzzlement.

“Why are you thinking of kissing a teenage girl on a roller coaster?” she asked him, telepathically.

He showed her a grim smile, and began fantasizing obsessively about his third grade teacher, being careful to picture her much better than she really was.

Captain Citidroid 3745 was nervous. Obviously this man is trying to keep her from getting a fix on his thoughts, so she pushed her way into his mind, and instead of holding Miss Garelli in his arms, he was now holding this loathsome Citidroid.

He was impressed by the force with which he was drawn to make the same advances toward her that he would his pretty teacher, but he knew he would resist, and Captain Citidroid 3745 knew it too.

Thirteen people were fired, promoted, or reassigned back at the home office in the time it took for this tiny drama to unfold, as the Captain was frantically sending signals back to Intelligence. The first two days of the voyage would entail hundreds of tests, and calibration of equipment.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Admiral Badson reprimanded the naughty Captain, “we’ve got a long voyage ahead. He was right. Between the far coast of Bogotron Affiliated and Percotran International’s Southwestern Division lay the entire region known as Oceania.

The realm of the barbarians.

For thousands of miles, there was nothing but the occasional Pirate, or bloodthirsty savage on one of the many uncharted islands that dotted these waters. Uncharted simply because no one took the time to chart them anymore, and they moved quite a bit.

“The folks at Home Office think we should begin South, and keep a healthy distance from the tradelanes of Southern Cellulex.” said the Captain.

“The tradelanes of Southern Cellulex?” Admiral Badson’s laugh cut through the sea air, “the folks at Home Office would do well to shut their damn mouths, that’s what I think!”

“Are you going to be violating company protocol for the entire voyage?” asked Captain Citidroid 3745.

“Definitely,” grinned Admiral Badson, “definitely.”

By violating company protocol, of course, our good Citidroid was speaking of matters such as telling the folks at Home Office to shut their damn mouths. She positively seethed at the idea of this crass, and uncivilized man showing such disrespect for the hardworkers inside Bogotron Central.

“Anyway,” Admiral Badson reassured her, “there’s no tradelanes to the South of Cellulex anymore. And it wouldn’t matter if there were. We’ve got excellent detection technology aboard, and more than enough weaponry.”

“And none of that will give us away for who we really are.” Her statement was a question.

“To say I have doubts about this mission is to take understatement to a new level, my dear,” said Admiral Badson with effortless grace.

“So you don’t think our chances of a successful raid on Percotran’s Southwestern Division are good?”

“Honey, I don’t think our chances of getting there are good.”

Citidroid 3745 wanted to kill him right there, but she would have to wait.

“For every time he calls me ‘Honey,’ he will receive an hour of torture,” she laughed smugly to herself.

“Is something funny?” Admiral Badson asked, now the one with the straight face.

“No, I was only thinking of what unlikely heroes we are.”

Admiral Badson had never heard such a bad lie in his entire life. Could this woman possibly be that stupid? Or was she merely trying to lull him into a trap? Shit! He caught himself, before he thought anything else.

“I assure you I am quite intelligent,” she smiled thinly.

“I really hate when you do that,” Admiral Badson’s face grew sour, even more so than usual.

“It can’t be helped,” she sighed casually. “I am what I am.”

“Don’t think quoting the great Popeye, Legend of the Sea will make me think any lighter of it. You Citidroids are very annoying creatures.”

A wave broke over the bow, and it was obvious there was some tough going ahead. The wind was positively howling, and the crewmen were frantically taking down rigging.

The First Mate, Lieutenant Scurvy, who was actually Command Major Infantryman 11123P, made his way over to them.

“Captain, there’s a tropical storm dead ahead. Ten foot waves for the next couple of hundred miles if we go that way.”

“What do you think, Admiral?” asked Captain Citidroid 3745.

“You’re the captain,” Badson winked. “I’m going below for some shuteye.”

Before the flabbergasted captain could answer, the Admiral had disappeared below deck.

She turned to Lieutenant Scurvy.

“Get this thing up to 600 knots. Dead ahead. We’ve got a meeting with a competitor, and we wouldn’t want to be late.”

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