The Great Galactic Score!

19

19

Everyone had gathered in front of the skin-flap view-screen as Friss played the galaxy-wide broadcast once again. Demi had lost count of the number of times he had played it, but he had laughed, hard, every time he restarted it and throughout the video. Demi wished she could crawl into a hole and die and, with the size of the ship, the number of intertwining corridors of various sizes and the resemblance to a vomit-inducing living being, she didn't doubt she could find any number of suitable places.

Bognrd stood, his hands behind his back, to attention. He had found, from somewhere, a delicate pink Summer dress that hung from his enormous musculature in a surprisingly pleasing fashion. The knee high, Repli-leather boots were a little incongruous, but the high stiletto heels served to highlight his magnificent calf muscles. He watched the video with barely restrained glee, not for the humour of it all, but for what the video related.

Lap sat between the legs of the life-size, stuffed dinosaur toy, shovelling mouthfuls of popcorn into the opening that most resembled a mouth, rustling and crinkling to themselves as they watched the events that had unfolded since jumping away from Shady Pines.

"Once again, we warn our viewers of images that some may find disturbing." As the reporter said that, a completely unflattering picture of Demi appeared on the screen. "The fugitive, identified as Demi Quaver-Tempura, of no fixed abode, known as the 'Butcher of Colony 42', the 'Queen of Death' and the 'Generally Rotten Human', has destroyed the Shady Pines Retreat For Former Generals, Warlords, Tyrants and other Violently Pre-Disposed Persons, planetary retirement facility, killing everyone on that world."

"This is wrong." Not for the first time, Demi's legs began to wobble in shock and a chair morphed from the bridge floor to catch her before she fell. "I didn't do anything. How can they possibly think I would do such a thing?"

Friss looked at her, a grin stretching across his face and, without looking, speeded the video up until it reached a point he had watched even more times than the rest of the broadcast. He continued to stare at her, grinning, as the video restarted. This time, it showed Demi's face looking into a camera and looking dishevelled and largely angry. In her defence, she had been, but not for the reasons the broadcast had implied.

"Right now, hundreds of drones circle Shady Pines." She had certainly said that, and what followed. "If you don't get here, right now, the entire planet will be destroyed! You have less than an hour. You have been warned!"

The video paused with Demi pointing a wagging finger at the camera, leaning forward, eyes wide with fury. She even had a little spittle dribbling from the corner of her mouth. Once again, in her defence, and she should really find herself someone that could perform that defence in some kind of professional capacity, and soon, they had taken those words wildly out of context. She doubted anyone would believe that now.

"Alright, I said that, but ..." She felt everyone's eyes fall upon her, Lap tossing one piece of popcorn after the other into their open mouth. "It's completely taken out of context.

"No-one will believe that." Friss rose from the captain's chair, came to Demi and placed an arm around her shoulder in an attempt at, and failing to, show compassion. "Forget about it. This time tomorrow, some celebrity will be found drunk with some alien species stuck in their rectum. It'll all blow over. People have short memories."

"This will never be forgotten!" Someone (Lap, Demi suspected), had unpaused the video and a man bearing a placard with 'Via le revulsion' upon it, screamed into the camera. "We Demi-zens are ready to fight! Down with the government! Down with the patriarchy! Down with those planets that have a matriarchy! Oh, and those with any kind of government that oppresses the masses. Or any government at all! Down with bad music and terrible movies! Down with ..."