Dan set his drink down on the bar with a small clink; the bar was a small establishment in a hazy city on a small pointless planet in an ugly and useless galaxy. The bar had about half a dozen tables, wood, with plenty of rings from drinks and cigarette burns left more than likely but unsavory characters. The place was filled with lowlifes, drifters, green party members, and just about any other type of scum one could imagine, people just like Dan. Dan’s solid steel-tanium shoulder-plate stuck out in the bar, the faded and scratched yellow paint of the smiley face on it garishly loud in the figurative sense. The function of the shoulder plate itself was… well… I’m not sure there was a real function or even point to it, the thing weighed at least twenty pounds and didn’t look all that stylish either, but even so Dan put it on every morning, like a bad habit one shouldn’t keep. A bad habit like molesting children, or cutting people up in your basement and eating them. He picked up his glass of brownish liquid and swallowed the last bit of it. Dan set the drink back on the bar, threw down the cash he needed to pay along with a lousy tip, and walked out. He sighed, and immediately regretted the decision as he sucked in a wave of smoke. He was wearing old, leather bound, 1920s classic driving goggles. They were strapped around his head, leaving his eyes uncovered and his hair coming out in thick brown tuffs all around the straps. The goggles cracked and faded lenses might have glistened in the sunlight, had there been any sunlight. The planet was controlled by the El Dorado Cigarette Co., one of the many subsidiary companies of the PepsiCo-Starbucks Conglomerate. Due to that fact, everyone smoked. Everyone. Cigarettes were cheap, cool, and recommended by every government doctor to increase your lifespan and whiten your teeth. All of this, combined with amazingly poor environmental controls and a dying steel industry, made the planet essentially unlivable, not to mention a bit smoggy. And to make horrible things even more disgusting, the planet was also a war zone. For, just across the border the null of space provided, lies the Smokey the Bear Confederation, one of the most violent provinces of the Walmartian Empire. The confederation was known for its liberal use of genetic manipulation, and a very large dislike for forest fires. There army of axe-wielding trouser-wearing grizzly bears was feared throughout the galaxy as pointlessly brutal and clinically insane. To be honest, Dan here picked a really shit spot to land his spaceship.
Dan brought his hands up to rub his light-green eyes, as if he could just wipe away the ever present bags that dwelled under them. Then Dan covered his mouth, trying to protect himself from the worst of the fumes. He glanced around, trying to remember the way back to the space-dock through the smog. He shrugged and took a right onto the sidewalk, hoping it was the right direction. He put his hands in his pockets as he walked on, casually moving through the grimy city. There weren’t many people on the street for the most part, everyone that could lived above the smog levels, and those that couldn’t did there best to stay off the street. The occasional hovercraft zoomed by to his left as he walked, the light’s dimly cutting through the eternal haze of the planet. Dan really wanted to sigh, one of those epic thoughtful sighs you see in movies, but unfortunately he figured if he got another full breath of the smog he’d probably puke. Every step brought him a little bit closer too the spaceport and he idly wondered where he was going to go after this. He was beginning to run out of money… well, that was a lie, Bob was running out of money and Dan needed to find a job fairly bad. They had enough to cover the docking fee, Dan’s recent bar tab, and maybe enough fuel too keep them going for a couple days. Curiously he wondered what he could do with himself, or what he could pawn off for some quick cash. Dan had walked for about ten blocks before he came to the spaceport, he had guessed the right direction apparently. Outside of the very dilapidated and none too friendly looking spaceport were dozens of beggars and a handful of hookers, waiting for the occasional rich space pilot who, for some godforsaken reason, would happen to dock there. Dan glanced across the street to look for traffic, decided that it wouldn’t matter if he looked or not because of the smog, and managed to cross the street without being hit by anything. Dan instantly proceeded into the old and disgusting docking house, elbowing his way through the crowd of hookers that seemed to circle it like worms circle dirt. The inside of the building was no better than the outside, in fact it was quite worse. Hobo’s were huddling in corners, rats scampered across the floor, fires were lit in garbage cans, burning books, tables, cats, chairs, whatever they could get there hands on. The spaceport wasn’t exactly the best place in the world for one too spend time at. The spaceport was supposed to be a nice place to relax between trips, it was supposed to have a few nice restaurants and maybe a bar. Instead there was the burnt out husk of a KFC, a shady bar filled with aging hookerbots, and a star buck’s express. In the center of what was essentially nothing more than a dilapidated homeless shelter, was the armored booth of the 411 and payment desk. Dan glanced around the spaceport, and then made his way over to the payment booth so he could get out of there somewhat soon.
The creature behind the counter was brutish at best. A small television had the image of some reality show on it when the creature caught Dan approaching. “You’s money?” the beast said in a gruff version of English that had the sound quality of something that could have made corpses shiver. Dan flashed his card, and the brute narrowed his eyes warily as he did so. “You’s got Pepsi? We don’t take Coke here.” The Brute asked, eyeing Dan up and down too see if he looked any more like a criminal than anyone else in the homeless shelter. Dan sighed, and just slid the card through the awaiting data pad without answering.
“Thank you for using Pepsi!” came the booming voice of the card’s computer. “remember to try new super krunk mountain dew, it’ll get YOU where YOU want to go!” it continued as Dan rolled his eyes and shoved the card in one of his pockets while the brute turned away and plopped back down in his hover chair to continue watching the newest episode of Survivor: The Sun. Dan proceeded to the only sign of civilization in the building, its door out. The door was covered in signs promoting all things Pepsi, and it was Dan’s beacon to getting out of the spaceport as soon as possible. Dan had just finished dodging the last small group of hobos to reach the door, when a poor man with a sign caught his eye. The sign was a bit different than the norm, it read “Will not liee, need $mony$ 4 booze” the sign reminded Dan of a different time and he chuckled slightly.
Although the handwriting and just general sentence structure of the sign was childish at best, and it was written on disgustingly moldy cardboard, it still reminded Dan of someone he knew. Dan looked at the sign curiously, and looked over the man. This time he really sighed. It wasn’t his friend, not too surprising seeing as it was just one of the millions of planets in the galaxy, but even so one could hope. The beggar was just an old man, maybe fifty, with scraggly hair and threadbare clothing. Dan went too turn around when suddenly someone stormed by him towards the beggar. The man was about Dan’s age with dirty shaggy brown hair and shabby ripped clothing. The image of Bob Marley could hardly be seen on his hoodie, and all together he looked like he had hit rock bottom a few too many times. He was also Asian. This all made Dan perk up, and he continued watching too see what would happen.
“Hey prick, get out of my spot.” Said the newcomer too the old man, who looked up at the newcomer somewhat confused. “You heard me Charles, go back to your corner this corner is mine.”
“But I’m hungry…” replied the old man in a broken voice reminiscent of a man who had lost everything in life but just couldn’t give up. “Come on Mando, let me have the corner for just today.”
“You son of a bitch, I’ll kill you!” screamed Mando as he went too pull something from inside of his hoodie and the man cringed when Dan interrupted.
“Shit, Mando?” said Dan with quite a bit of shock, hoping that out of the billions of populated planets and hundreds of trillion’s of people this could be his old friend. Oddly enough, it was.
“Hey Dan, what’s up?” Mando asked, as if it wasn’t miraculous that Dan met up with him on this planet. Mando continued too fish around in his hoodie before finally pulling out a knife, and brandishing it at the other hobo. “Get up Charles, or I’ll cut you again.” He said towards the man, and the man dropped the sign and scrambled away quickly. Mando watched him go, then yawned, and arched his back to crack it before looking at the awestruck Dan again. “So… what’s new?” He asked, seeming somewhat disinterested in what Dan was going too say.
“Um... I’m about to leave.” Dan replied still a little surprised, then Dan smirked "You haven’t changed a bit Mando, what brought you here?” Mando shrugged, and it took Dan a few moments to realize that was his entire explanation. “Oh… That’s cool.” Replied Dan, looking around the spaceport awkwardly and rubbing his hands together a bit nervously. “So, you want to come back to my ship? I might be able to scrounge up some stuff too drink and it would be better than… this.” Mando’s face perked at the mention of free anything, and the mention of alcohol helped things as well.
“I wouldn’t mind that at all, lets go cause I could really go for something heavy to drink. I’ve been mooching some dew off one person or the other, but some strait up liquor would be a nice change for once.” complained Mando as he rubbed his hands together expectantly.
Dan smirked, and proceeded through the automatic sliding doors onto the landing field of the spaceport. The landing field was small, about as long as a football field, maybe just a couple feet longer. The ground was brown and scorched and several fairly large craters filled the ground in seemingly random locations. There were about half a dozen ships in the spaceport, old wrecks that could hardly be called ships for the most part. There was an old 89 Oldsmobile, and what looked like the most ancient Ford either of them had ever seen. Dan and Mando walked over to the best looking ship in the dockyard, its hull was a glistening bluish-green among the rust red and grey junk heaps that covered the rest of the dockyard. “Damn Dan, nice ride you have here” said Mando, looking over the ship with the awe of a man who didn’t know anything about vehicles. “I wish I still had my ship, man that thing was awesome.”
“Yeah, it’s alright I guess, I’ve seen better” Dan replied as he braced his crowbar in the doorway. “What happened to your ship anyway?” Dan muttered with a grunt as he pulled on the crowbar. “I thought you had a pretty nice Camry or something that you got for free.”
“Oh, I turned a corner kind of hard, and my ship ended up flipping a few times.” Said Mando without any sign he thought this was just generally a horribly stupid thing to do. “Yeah, I didn’t know that the laws for crash landing were so harsh. I mean, hell, it’s not like I aimed for that school or anything, it just looked like the best place too land.”
Dan turned towards Mando for a moment, his eyebrow arched as he halted the process of breaking into the starship for a moment. “I see.” Dan replied in the only way he could think of off the top of his head, and then with a loud grunt the door snapped open and Dan tumbled to the ground without warning. The thud of his head bouncing against the ground was muffled by the starships alarm deciding to go off right when the door was pried open. Imagine that, a security alarm going off for breaking open a door. The loud blaring klaxon thundered through the spaceport, and Dan cursed loudly as he crawled back to his feet and stumbled into the open doorway of his spaceship.
There was a loud cry of "fuck," sounding metallic and inhuman over the blaring sound of the anti-theft alarm for a moment. The thing that made the sound floated into the room with a rusty whirr, the kind of sound you would expect from a computer that has been on for far too long and the fan is just about ready to go out on you. Whatever it was, it looked a great deal like an old computer monitor. It was big, blocky, an all around ugly grey floating thing with very skinny metallic arms descending from each side of the main screen. The two antenna sticking out of the top of it, one longer than the other was, finished off the look of ancient and outdated technology. On the screen itself was a computerized face, a very cheaply drawn face with far too square eyes and a perfectly rectangular mouth that moved only slightly when the metallic voice echoed out and was a strait line when he wasn’t talking. Which, unfortunately, that rarely ever happened as it liked too talk way too much.
“Fuck-dammit Dan, did you forget your keys AGAIN?” clamored the robot as the alarm ceased suddenly as the floating screen came to a halt midair in front of Dan and Mando. “Can you please be just a little less retarded and just remember to bring your keys with you?” accused the robot as he floated in front of the pair, its pixilated eyebrows forming angrily over his cartoon eyes to make him look slightly angry, or maybe somewhat constipated.
“Um yeah, about that… fuck you” said Dan as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and seemed to ignore the robot’s accusations.
”Look, Dan” said the robot “It’s quite a lot of money to get the broken lock on the door fixed every time you decide too break it, and you also run a HUGE risk of decompressing the whole ship and imploding yourself by doing crap like that.” Bob’s human-robot voice mix held a faint echo of exasperation, obviously he seemed to have too say things like this all of the time too Dan. “And, as much fun as it would be to see you implode, I don’t want to clean your dead body up and I don’t feel like finding a new place too stay.”
Dan rolled his eyes, not in the normal fashion, but instead looking up to the right as if thinking for a moment. “Eh, whatever.” Dan replied as he pulled out a small silver lighter with the word Burt scrawled on the side. Lighting the cigarette, he looked back towards Mando. “Hey man, this is Bob, I think you probably remember him.” Dan pushed his way past the floating form of Bob and proceeded into the ship while Mando gave a sarcastic salute to Bob and the door slid closed behind them, a red warning light flashing as it was unable to lock due too the earlier breaking and entering.
Now, while the outside of the ship was a quality
“Nice” said Mando about the ship without the slightest hint of sarcasm while Bob threw up his miniature arms in exasperation and floated down the hall with the same metallic whirring that he entered with. “So, about the booze…” said Mando with hardly concealed glee as Bob floated out of the room.
“Yeah yeah yeah, give me a sec.” replied Dan, shifting through a stack of Pepsi Presents: Game informer on the floor. After a few minutes of tossing magazines around, he exclaimed in victory. “Ah ha, here we go, almost a whole bottle of Skol.” Dan said, walking over to where Mando was sitting in one of the three passenger seats. Dan took a swig and then tossed the bottle to Mando. It was strong, really strong, and not only did it taste like cat piss, but it turns out cat piss was actually an active ingredient in the liquid. Even so, they both knew it would kick in fast and hard and probably give them both a bit of brain damage. As Mando handed the bottle back for Dan to have another swig, the bottle already half empty and Mando’s face a bright beat red, Dan knew it was going to be a fairly good night, or at least a fairly blurry one.
Several Hours Later…
With a loud screeching noise a proximity alarm roared into life inside the spaceship, shaking Dan and Mando from their drunken stupor. Dan lurched up, pain evident on his face as he stumbled over to the driver’s seat and collapsed into it. Dan looked at the controls blankly for a few moments, getting his bearings all the while the alarm sill howled angrily in the background. Then, with obvious anger, Dan slammed his fist on one a panel of switches, tripping several of them. The siren stopped just in time for a loud thump to be heard as the escape pod shot out and into another docked space craft, punching a hole in it and knocking it off its support onto the ground where it promptly burst into flames. All this in addition to turning on his emergency blinkers and starting the coffee maker.
“What the fuck” Dan moaned as the alarm finally stopped, his eyes bloodshot and ringed with bags. He sat there for a moment then flipped the switch to turn the emergency lights back off, the constant clicking sound finally getting too him. “Jesus Jew, who set off the alarms at eight in the morning, this had better be fucking important.”
“It’s two in the afternoon” Said Bob who was staring out the windshield at something.
“Eh, close enough” Dan groaned with a raspy voice, and then his eyes suddenly widened as he looked out the windshield. “Oh, son of a bitch” he cursed, now seeing what set off the proximity alarms, a PepsiCo-Starbucks police cruiser, vente class. The large form of the cruiser filled the view from the drivers seat, looking quite a bit ominous. The tinted windows of the cruiser hid the pilot, but Dan had the distinct feeling he was staring right at him. Several weapons jutted all around the jaggy edges of the spaceship, adding to it’s deadly appearance, and all of them appearing more than able to blow Dan’s small Ford to tiny pieces.
“That appears to be a police cruiser Dan, and a large one at that” came Bob’s voice, stating the obvious. “Dan, why are the police here pointing weapons at us?”
Dan opened his mouth to reply, stopped, and turned his head to look at Mando who was now sitting in shotgun. “Mando, what the hell do the police want with us?” Dan asked guessing that it was Mando that somehow brought them there. Mando looked at his wrist were a watch should be, narrowed his eyes then tapped his wrist a few times with a shrug, and looked back up at Dan.
“They’re early” Mando yawned with a calm look on his face. Dan stared at Mando, mouth agape, clueless to what he should do, say, or even think at this point, when a voice boomed through the air from the police cruiser.
“Hey yous guy’s” the voice echoed out, managing to pierce the walls of the space craft and cracking several nearby windows. “I suggest you get the hell outta that ship or I’ll be forced to fire on you.”
“Quite an educated and rational fellow we seem to be dealing with” commented Bob sarcastically as he turned to face Dan “My suggestion is to not get shot and killed, I suggest you take it from there.”
“Well that’s a brilliant idea Bob, I don’t know how I didn’t manage to think of that, are you sure you don’t want to talk with them? I’m just a little afraid I might fuck it up” replied Dan with just as much sarcasm.
“No, by all means Dan, have fun” Bob said throwing up his skinny robotic arms as he turned around and began to float away “because I think I might be too busy getting ready to run when they decide to shoot us.”
Dan sighed and then tapped a few buttons on the dashboard, opening a communication channel between his ship and the police cruiser. “Hello there officers, pleasant day we seem to be having isn’t it? Is there something I can help you with, directions to the nearest donut shop perhaps?”
“Shut your mouth and surrender, I don’t have time for your crap” blared the police cruisers loudspeakers.
“You know, we do have these fancy communication devices, no need for all this yelling” sighed Dan into the microphone, rubbing his head even as he did so to try and ease the splitting headache. There was some loud shuffling and murmering over the police loudspeakers, then suddenly silence.
“Look here bub, yous two is under arrest so get outta the ship or im gonna have to blast ya all to hell.” Came the officers loud and annoying voice over the communication link.
“Might I ask why we’re being arrested, I am just a little bit curious about that whole thing” wondered Dan aloud into the microphone.
“How about you shut up and come outside and maybe I wont kill and eat you” growled the obviously enraged officer in reply.
“well, as pleasant as all that sounds, I think I’m going to have to decline unless you explain to me why exactly I am under arrest.” Said Dan, really testing the waters of the officers patience now. As Dan said this he pulled his keys from his pocket, sliding them gently into it’s position on the dashboard figuring that he was probably going to have to make a run for it and might as well be prepared.
“Alright you filthy little pigs, one more smartass comment and I’ll forgo the niceties I’ve been using so far and just kill you, now I’ve been nice and forgiving so far, but you’re really starting to piss me off” growled the officer, even more upset now.
Dan took a deep breath then moved his mouth closer to the microphone “you know.” Dan said even as he turned the key in the ignition, starting the ship’s engine “It’s traditionally the police and not the under under arrest who gets called a pig you corrupt pig.” Dan quickly reached to his side and yanked his seat belt around him, turning his head to Mando as he did so. “Man, fuck this shit, I’m a motherfuckin two time felon, buckle your ass up Mando, we gotta fly.” In front of them could be seen the police cruisers cannons charging up, the barrels of them beginning to glow red. Dan swore and then slammed the gear into D.
“Jesus Dan, what the fuck did you just do, there is all sorts of stuff on the net about…” was all Bob got out as he zoomed into the room before Dan slammed on the gas rocketing the ship backwards and slamming into the ship parked behind his with the wonderful sound of steel grinding on steel, which also had the effect of sending Bob spiraling forwards and into the floor. With a quick yank Dan pulled the gear into the O position while looking into the rearview mirror.
“Shit, that’ll probably buff out” he muttered in regards to the ship behind him then yanked the wheel back and to the left shooting the ship up and around as he pushed the pedal to the floor again. Just as the ship shot away rockets arced out of the police cruisers ship, peppering the docking bay and the ships parked there, turning most of them into rubble and demolishing the port. The small Ford shot into the murky air of the planet, Dan’s foot still holding the pedal to the ground as they slowly gained altitude. Holy shit holy shit holy shit” repeated Dan with wide eyes as he gripped the wheel a little too hard.
“Holy shit is right, we’re running from the fucking police, I thought I had told you not to antagonize them Dan, not piss them off enough that they start throwing all kinds of weapons and shit at us” accused Bob as he floated back to an upright position “by the way, where the hell are we going off to?”
“The city, hopefully we can get rid of the FUCK!” yelled Dan as he jerked the wheel to dodge a tar covered skyscraper “Hopefully we can get rid of the cop with all the traffic and buildings here, I don’t know where after that, but I do know that I can’t have another arrest n my record, that would be three strikes for me and I really do not feel like getting castrated any time soon.” Dan jerked the wheel again and the ship arced to the side, dodging another grungy building, and luckily so, for right after he turned a beam of red light cut through the haze, piercing the tower and blasting out the other side, leaving a gaping hole of molten metal in the side of the skyscraper.
“Jesus!” yelled Bob, and he whirled to face Dan “Dan, get us the hell out of this city, I’ll start making Drive calculations, just don’t get us killed because I don’t feel like dying again right now.” With that Bob’s screen went black, his arms falling useless to his side as he began making the immensely complex calculations required for the Hank-Drive.
Dan swore loudly and yanked the wheel back hard, forcing the ship to climb at an even steeper angle, blazing through the hazy atmosphere of the planet. The ships trail was followed by colorful explosions as rockets detonated around the city, impacting buildings, other vehicles and some even exploding for no apparent reason. Sweat glistened on Dan’s forehead even as in the background he could hear Mando yawn lazily, then, with a flash, the ship burst through the cloud cover into the sunlight.
“Motherfucker!” screamed Dan angrily as his eyes slammed shut and the ship shook violently, his eyes happening to have gotten a massive dose of sunlight before the windows auto tinted.
“Hey Dan, can we hurry this whole thing up?” commented Mando as he reclined in his seat “I have a bar fight to finish up in a couple hours and I’d really prefer not to be there late.” Dan just growled angrily in response as the ship climbed higher into the sky, approaching the atmosphere quickly. Behind them a police cruiser could be seen bursting through the hazy cloud cover, soon followed by another.
“Son of a bitch” growled Dan, looking over to the still blank screen of Bob, hoping to God that the calculations would be done by the time they hit the atmosphere. Dan glanced in the rearview mirror and then swore loudly as he yanked hard on the wheel, spinning the ship out of the way of another jet of red laser, the beam missing them by mere feet. “I hope you get that shit done soon Bob or we are totally fucked.” Dan took another deep breath, and then the ship burst through the planets atmosphere with a pop, the windows slowly loosing tint as Dan turned away from the planets star. Before them was now just the wide open area of space, cluttered with tens of thousands of billboards and more useless crap then one could shake a stick at. Dan raced the ship forward towards a truck stop in the distance, dodging the dozens of billboards and around other ships, hoping perhaps the massive forms of the trucks might hide his ship or at least buy them time. They were soon followed through the atmosphere by the two police cruisers who blew there way through the billboards instead of going around them. “Fuck, fuck, fuck” growled Dan as he gritted his teeth and glanced in the rearview mirror, as he looked forward again he swore and slammed on the break, the sudden stop jerking Dan and Mando forward and tearing Mando from his seat, the lack of friction and sudden stop slamming him face first into the windshield. “Shit, I’ve been meaning to fix that” muttered Dan with a glance towards the broken seatbelt, all the while turning the wheel and hitting the gas again, zooming off to the right. As he did so the police cruisers fired at him again, the plethora of lasers and missiles turning the truck stop into a giant clusterfuck of death and destruction and turning several passing school buses into molten slag. “Bob we need to jump NOW.” Yelled Dan at the blank screen of the robot, his eyes completely filled with panic. Even as he yelled he flipped on a switch for the radio, the heavy sounds of The Weak Willed quickly filling the room.
“Let me get this strait” said Bob as his screen flipped back on “you’re flipping about us all going to die, yet you have the time to put on All That Remains?”
“Fuckin hell Bob, if I’m gong to die, it’s going to be to a song I like now where are those fucking calculations!” screamed Dan.
“Good song choice by the way, happens to be my favorite you know this…” began Bob before being interrupted.
“Calculations Bob! Fucking calculations!” yelled Dan as loud as he could, veins appearing in his neck.
“forty seconds, that’s all I need, just give me forty” said Dan quickly.
“Fuck it!” yelled Dan in reply
“What are you doing Dan” asked Bob with, for the first time, a hint of panic in his voice. But Dan didn’t respond with words, instead he yanked down hard on the Hank-Drive lever, and, just as rockets were bearing down on them, the ship tore itself into another dimension, punching a hole through space and time, warping and bubbling all at the same time as it did so.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Now, as flawed as human beings almost always are, there is still the occasional genetic throwback who posses both the intellect and the will to make great things happen. Because of extraordinary men like these humanity has been able to do things that it quite possibly shouldn’t have been able to do. One of the greatest genetic throwbacks to ever live happened to be none other than Albert Einstein who quite correctly determined that nothing can exceed the speed of light in addition to being the father of nuclear physics. After Einstein several ideas were put forward to get around or remove the barrier to traveling faster than light, all of which were preposterous at the best an honestly mostly ridiculous. (I mean, really, worm holes? What a dumb idea.) That is until the renown scientist Joseph Henry created his patented
The Hank-Drive is amazing for it’s ability to move into other dimensions, allowing for massive amount of distance to be crossed almost instantly. While it is only supposed to allow for the skimming of another dimension to make several short and carefully calculated jumps, it has been tampered with to just punch right on through into other dimensions causing all sorts of problems not foreseen by it’s creator. The widespread mass misuse of such a delicate and powerful piece of machinery leads to tens of thousands of deaths every day, making drunk driving look positively pleasant in comparison. Of course, there are other ways to travel, such as the Feinberg Warp Drive and the Ojermark Sun Jumper, none are nearly as popular or as widely used as the Hank-Drive.
bravenet.com