Willful Child: Wrath of Betty by Steven Erikson
Gnawfang squalled and leapt from his shoulder, launching itself into the face of the nearest male officer, who shrieked and then snarled as the two creatures went down in a clump of writhing fur and flashing talons.
From the command chair, Captain Betty jumped up. “The Kidnapper of Lost Prince Hazel!” He then clutched his head. “Aaagh! Genetically Hyper-Transmodified Male Sex Drive of the Royal Line! Aaagh!” Betty fell to the floor, twitching and then frothing at the mouth.
Bewildered, Hans Olo looked round to see fifty or so female Klang all staring at him. He glanced down at the two Klang males still scrapping it out on the deck. “Kidnapped? Lost Prince? Transmodified what? Oh,” he then added, “shit.” He activated his comms. “Willful Child! Olo here! Get a fix on my Klanglet! Displace back to the Century Warbler at once!”
An instant later Gnawfang vanished, leaving behind only a few floating tufts of fur.
Groaning, Betty rolled to look up at Olo. “I will chase you down, Hans Olo! ’Cross the black seas of space! Into the Troughs of Terrible Despond, I will set the vermin of the galaxy upon you! I will—”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” snapped Hans Olo, “as you are now a prisoner of war, Captain Betty. I, Captain Hans Olo of the Affiliation Space Fleet Century Warbler, have accepted your surrender and now claim the We Surrender as my prize.”
Betty glanced at his harem of officers and then cringed. “If you say so,” he said in a tiny voice, and then he curled up on the floor, shivering.
“Now now, captain, this is a civilized procedure—”
“Oh no it isn’t,” came the muted reply.
A sudden growing tension finally penetrated Olo’s awareness and he looked once again at the female officers. “What—”
“Sexswarm!”
The females poured onto Hans Olo, burying him beneath a mound of writhing fur.
Aboard the AFS Century Warbler …
Plop!
Gnawfang reappeared on the bridge of the Century Warbler, to see Frank Worship straddling Rand Humblenot, choking the Security Officer, who kicked and thrashed but spent most of his time turning blue in the face. Janice Reasonable was attempting to drag Worship away, while off to one side the Helm officer had pinned the comms officer to the floor and was viciously twisting the man’s arm.
My children! My harem!
Gnawfang leapt onto the command chair and loosed a piercing yowl.
All fighting stopped. Everyone looked up with wild, glassy eyes.
Gnawfang yowled again, and then hissed in frustration. “Ffowk it! Yow izz Prinz Hazel Yawffang, newww Captain of Sssentwy Wobbwer! Errweone, to yowr sstationz! Pweepawr to deparrrt!”
Frowning at the Klanglet kitten, Lieutenant Janice Reasonable slowly straightened. “Oh well,” she muttered, “why not?” She turned to the other officers. “You heard the captain, to your stations and prepare to depart! Worship, if you’ve recovered, do take the Science Station, while I confer with Engineering on our Drive status.”
Standing above a still prostate Rand Humblenot, Frank gave the prone man one last kick and then said to Reasonable, “What about the mission?”
Captain Hazel Yawffang snarled and said, “Ffowk the misssionn! Wer hhhave a gawaxy to savvve! Engage T-Driwwe!”
Back on the Willful Child …
“Captain! The Warbler just dropped into T-Space!”
Hadrian turned in his chair to frown at Sin-Dour. “Really?”
Eden said, “Sir, the instant before the ship vanished, it changed its registry name to the AFS Sssentwy Wobbwer.”
“Oh dear. Any word from Captain Olo?”
“No sir. Nothing. Only a short personal missive from Captain Betty.”
“Which states?”
“Uhm, a request for asylum.”
“Sir,” said Sin-Dour, now joining him to stand beside the command chair, “if Hans Olo was foolish enough to strip Captain Betty of his status as captain on the bridge, that would make Olo himself the dominant male of the Klang Officer Harem. In which case…”
Hadrian sighed and nodded. “Sexswarm.”
Sin-Dour shuddered. “The man might have been odious, but … think he will survive it?”
“Oh, probably. That said, he won’t be the man he once was.”
There was a pause, and then everyone began laughing.
This was interrupted by an emergency squeal from the Engineering Station. Hadrian strode over and hit the comms. “Buck? What’s up?”
“You’d better get down here, Captain.”
“Oh?” Hadrian around. “Hmm, where’s Spark?” Then, ignoring the others, he set out at a run. Into the corridor, into the elevator, down the elevator (in which he did not run), then along another corridor and at last into Engineering, where he skidded to a halt.
Dr. Printlip was present, along with Buck and a half-dozen engineering technicians. All were staring at the glass wall of a chamber, behind which Spark staggered.
“Spark!”
Hadrian rushed forward, but Buck grasped him and held him back. “Sir! It’s dead already! You can’t go in there—the room’s full of lethal radiation!”
Hadrian stared at Buck. “But—why is that room full of lethal radiation?”
Frowning, Buck said, “Well, it’s the Lethal Radiation Chamber, sir. It’s where we keep the lethal radiation.”
“What kind of radiation, Buck?”
“Uh, the lethal kind. Even for inorganics, sir. Spark’s chips will be fried.”
“Chips? He only has one, Buck, and it’s a real pig.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“So what was Spark doing in there, damn you?”
“He kept getting underfoot, sir, and then there was chase-the-ball while I was, uh, re-medicating. And someone threw the ball and the door wasn’t quite shut, and the ball went in and Spark—”
“The door to the Lethal Radiation Chamber wasn’t quite shut?”
“We would’ve noticed eventually, sir.”
Hadrian pulled away from Buck. He moved up against the glass. “Spark!”
On the other side, the robot dog’s head lifted up, and then Spark staggered weakly over to slump directly opposite Hadrian. One paw slapped up against the glass.
Hadrian crouched down and set his hand opposite the paw. “Spark!”
Spark’s nose mashed against the glass beside the paw. “C-Captain … Hadrian … Haddie…”
“Spark.”
In a weakening voice, the robot dog said, “I … I have been … and will always be … man’s best friend.”
Then the robot dog sank down to the floor, motionless, except for one rolling eye.
Hadrian straightened and turned to Buck. “Flush the radiation from this room, now!”
Buck spun to one of his techies. “Jensen! Shunt the radiation from Lethal Radiation Chamber One into Lethal Radiation Chamber Two, and get on with it!”
“But sir, we don’t have a Lethal Radiation Chamber Two.”
“We don’t?”
“No sir.”
“Right then. Shunt the radiation from Lethal Radiation Chamber One into that closet,” and he pointed to a door off to one side. He swung to his techies. “All of you, listen! That closet is now out of bounds, understood?”
“But I left my lunch bag in there,” one of the techies said.
Buck scowled. “Well, you should’ve thought about that when your shift started!”
“What, that we’d shunt the closet full of lethal radiation?”
“That’s right! Jensen!”
“Done, sir!”
Hadrian turned back to the room and opened the door. He dragged Spark out and stood looking down at the robot dog.
“Alas,” said Printlip, “for this machine I can do nothing.”
Hadrian sighed. “Understood, Doc.”
“Our first lost crew-member,” Printlip continued, and then the Belkri sighed. “I admit, sir, that I take this personally. As I fear I will do with every loss we will experien
“Doc?”
“Captain?”
“You can stop now.”
“But sir … yes, sir.”
Hadrian knelt beside Spark’s inert form. Rolling up one sleeve, Hadrian plunged his hand into Spark’s anuse.
“Oh dear! Strange human grieving rituals!”
Grunting, Hadrian pushed even further, until his entire forearm was up Spark’s back end.
“I think,” said Buck shakily, “we should leave the captain some privacy here.”
“Oh shut up, Buck,” Hadrian said. “I’m just reaching for the … almost there … ah! Got it. The reset button!” There was a muted click.
Spark leapt upright. “Whoah! I’m awake now!”
Hadrian withdrew his arm. “Spark!”
“Haddie! What were you doing back there? I’d better sniff.” And the robot dog twisted round and began spinning in place in an effort to get its nose to its own anus. “This is hard! Challenging! Fun!”
Hadrian turned to Buck. “I told you that chip was a real pig.”
Buck’s eyes were wide. “It must have had an Inbuilt Inversion Regulator Mirror-Matrix Dee X Machina Re-Initiation Fallback Processor Device! Wow! Haven’t seen one of those since my high school days!”
From the comms speaker, Sin-Dour said, “Captain, best head down to Docking Bay One, sir.”
“What’s up, 2IC?”
“Captain Betty and a handful of followers have left the We Surrender in a shuttle and are now docking with our ship. As you know, asylum is one of those notorious gray areas of Terran Law. In this stage of the proceedings, we have no choice but to accept their arrival.”
“That we do, Sin-Dour. I’m on my way down to Docking Bay One. Let’s have a security detail and maybe a marine or two join me there, will you? Hadrian out.”
* * *
Spark at his heels, Hadrian entered the docking bay just as Captain Betty, a scratched-up Commander Molly and a dozen or so females trundled out from their shuttle. “Ah!” cried Captain Betty upon seeing Hadrian. “There he is! My nemesis, the wily, devious, treacherous—”
“Hang on,” Hadrian cut in. “Treacherous?”
“He has a point,” Molly said to his captain. “I mean, up until now, there has been no obvious—”
“Molly! Be quiet!” Betty straightened up before Hadrian. “Asylum! I have failed in rescuing the Lost Prince. I have failed in defeating the infamous Captain Hadrian Sawback of the AFS Willful Child. All my plans have gone to naught—”
“Well,” cut in Molly, “apart from getting the Affiliation to accept Klang Surrender, thus opening the way for economic sabotage on a grand scale as we entice short-sighted human corporate CEOs and their idiot shareholders into buying into the Profit Bottom-Line Bullshit by accepting cheap off-world labor in appalling working conditions, thus undermining the economic clout and purchasing power of their own middle class, leading to increased unemployment and a burgeoning poverty rate while the same CEOs hide behind walls made of money and tell each other how brilliant they are. Apart from that, I mean.” Molly smiled at his captain.
“Are you done?” Betty asked quietly.
Molly nodded.
“Now,” resumed Betty, “where was I? Oh yes, asylum!”
“Yes,” said Hadrian, “about that. You probably don’t qualify.”
“What?”
“Not enough social media pressure for taking you in, you see. That’s the lynchpin for Terran Refugee Policy. But I do have another solution.”
“I have a better one!”
“But you haven’t heard mine yet.”
“I don’t care! I want you to set us down on a nice unoccupied planet where we can build us a prosperous new civilization, only to have that planet shift its orbit, turning into an inhospitable wasteland of creepy insects and howling winds, for which I will pathologically blame you and so plot my revenge to be enacted at some later date of my own choosing.”
Hadrian smiled. “Sounds good to me. In the meantime,” he continued as Nina Twice, Adjutant Tighe, and Lieutenant Sweepy Brogan strode into the bay, “do permit my Security Adjutant to escort you to comfortable quarters. Sweepy, a moment in private if you please.”
“Seeking asylum?” Tighe asked Hadrian, her bloodshot eyes narrowing.
“No, we found a workaround on that.”
“Oh thank Darwin. Uh, Captain?”
“Tighe?”
“I’m feeling better now, sir.”
“And even without any hair, you look simply splendid, Adjutant!”
“I meant about being assigned to this vessel, sir.”
“Indeed? That’s quite the turnabout.”
“Not really, sir. Happy drugs. Once I come down, I’ll resume planning your disgraceful downfall.”
“Fair enough. Off you all go, then.”
Hadrian and Sweepy watched them leave. “Now then, Lieutenant, how fares your squad?”
“All on ice,” Brogan replied, plucking out a cigar and lighting it. Amid acrid clouds of blue smoke, she said, “Betrayed over Helgoland Bight, I had to frag the board and most of the table it was sitting on. Too bad they were all sitting around it. But hey, the medics stopped complaining about being bored.”
“Ah, an end to Diplomacy.”
“Overrated in my opinion, Captain. Nine times outta ten, the right answer rides a hail of bullets and says ‘I told you so’ in a maelstrom of fire and destruction.”
“Really?”
She smiled sweetly.
EPiLOGUE …
Hadrian stood in the elevator, Spark at his side, on their way back up to the bridge. From a speaker grille, Tammy said, “And here I was all full of commiseration about poor Spark. But that damned dog is unkillable. I’ll have to do something about that reset button.”
“Ah,” said Hadrian, “you failed in your ploy of opening the door to the Lethal Radiation Chamber, so now you want to get more direct. But just as a warning, Tammy, I doubt Spark will take kindly to a chicken trying to crawl up its ass.”
“Explosive feathers!” cried Spark.
“Really, Tammy,” resumed Hadrian, “you need to get over the fact that Spark is a valuable and essential member of my crew now. I won’t have you plotting its demise.”
“Oh, fine then. So, aren’t you going to save Captain Olo?”
“He’ll be fine. Besides, he’s now in command of an Abject Class Klang battleship. Serious war booty there.”
“So, where to next?”
The elevator door opened and out they went. A few moments later, they reached the bridge.
“Captain on the bridge!” Sin-Dour announced, rising from the command chair. “Sir.”
“2IC, find us a temporarily idyllic planet about to move into an unstable orbit wreaking devastation upon its fragile environment.”
“At once, sir.”
Hadrian settled into the command chair. “Now then! Is everyone happy?”
Beta swung round in her chair. “It is well known that two hundred rodents in a sack make a nice pillow, albeit one likely to eat your ear off.”
“Thank you, Beta.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
Joss Sticks frowned across at Beta. “So, like, your hair never moves.”
“Correct,” the robot replied. “It has nowhere else it wants to go. This is the essence of loyalty.”
“Well said, Beta,” Hadrian chimed in. “Helm, prepare to set us a course as soon as Commander Sin-Dour finds that planet. Spark, patrol the ship, being especially on guard for intruders.”
“Intruders! ‘See what happens to trespassers?’ Aisle Nineteen, Lime Pit Six!”
As Spark departed the bridge, Tammy the chicken hopped up onto the dais beside Hadrian. “You’ve got a long way to go, Captain. The Affiliation remains a quagmire of paranoia, hostility, injustice, rapacious greed, and idiotic but always self-servi
Hadrian smiled. “Ah, but the Klang have arrived, about to unleash economic sabotage on a galactic scale. Just think, the Head Idiots at the Galactic Monetary Fund are probably licking their lips at the thought of dumping loans on the poor Klang planets, loans that can never be repaid, of course, not without huge concessions, including giving up innumerable sovereign rights to Klang resources. Alas, those Idiots won’t know what’s hit them when the Klang are finally done with them.”
“And it won’t be on your head. Captain Hans Olo is a name that will live in infamy.”
“The risks of command,” Hadrian said. He rose from his chair, studying the still-blue viewscreen. “The human species has its head trapped in a vice of about a dozen unfounded assumptions about human nature and how things have to be, capital inequity foremost among them. The Klang are going to dismantle all of that, and fast.”
“Captain,” said Sin-Dour, “a planet has been found matching your requirements. Course has been conveyed to the Helm.”
“Excellent. Helm, take us up to Point Oh-Eight, and then inform Engineering to prepare the T-Drive.”
“Yes sir!”
The door behind him hissed open, and a technician with the name HALASZ stitched onto his coveralls walked in. He paused, squinted up at the screen, sighed and shook his head. He continued on until he stood directly in front of the huge screen, reached down beneath its edge and hit a button. The screen flickered and then revealed the starscape and the now departing Klang battleship. The technician pulled out a notepad and made some notes, before swinging round and heading out.
The image then shifted to a close-up of Hadrian, who scowled. “What’s that for, Tammy?”
“I thought you were about to pontificate.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Okay.”
“Get rid of the close-up, Tammy.”
“Well, how about some stentorian music, or maybe something that kind of, you know, drifts, a few minor notes reaching into the future. And then we can use an external remote camera to pull right back, revealing the Willful Child setting off into the depths of the unknown. Cue credits.”
Hadrian sat back down in the command chair. “All right,” he said. “Do that.”