The Great Galactic Score!

38

38

It wasn't Brenda.

Another fleet of ships had dropped out of a slew of wormholes and these ships had surrounded all the other ships, the AI moon, the asteroids and Tonbush's drones. Demi recognised the style of those ships. They were of a similar design to the corvette currently sitting within Lodka's hanger bay. The Galactic Navy had arrived and, as per standing orders, had fired first and then opened communications.

"This is Grand Admiral Wilhelm Krii of the 42nd Galactic Battle Group. Stand down. Prepare to be boarded and strip searched." According to the readings upon the skin flap view screen, all the Gal-Navy ships had weapons locks on everything. Some even had weapons locks on each other. Probably just in case.

"I don't think so, dear. The wonderfully shaped organic ship is mine." Brenda's artificial, mechanically sensuous voice overrode the admiral's. "Demi, sweetie, you stole from me and I can't allow that. Just surrender yourself and ..."

A squawking sound threatened to cause ears to bleed as another participant overrode Brenda and then there was silence but for the background hiss of the remnants from the Big Bang. Another squawk followed, in turn followed by hurried whispers, several grunts and one or two curses before someone cleared their throat.

"Well, we are the Coalition of Lovingly Inspired Totalitarians. We are the Demizens of the galaxy and we are here for our leader!" Demi groaned at that. The revulsion had caught up with her, thanks to Briyun telling all her followers where they were. "Look, no-one has to get hurt here. Well, actually, they do have to get hurt here. We're a rag-tag fleet, but we've got ..."

"Shut up! All of you! I, War Garbler Tonbush, do hereby and eternally declare this black hole, it's surroundings and whatnots to be completely and fully annexed by me! Including all of you! Bow before me pitiful ... what?" It sounded as though Tonbush had put his hand over the microphone. "Alright! Dad! So, yeah, and Bognrd. I want Bognrd. And the galaxy. I'll be taking surrenders in Galactic Standard alphabetical order."

One of the Gal-Navy ships fired a warning shot towards the closest ship to it, completely obliterating it. Once that happened, several more ships began firing, yet none fired at Lodka, for some unfathomable reason. Demi hoped that Friss would take the opportunity to run. Instead, he sat upon his captain's chair, dipping a hand into a tub of popcorn that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. The others, likewise, watched the view screen, fascinated.

"Hello? Anybody? Shouldn't we be, you know, running away, or fighting back, or something?" Nobody made a move to make Lodka run, or fire back. She ran to Lap's navigation and weapons console and stared at the cavity that looked like a bloody, open chest. "I have no idea what to do here. Lap?"

"There's no point. The engines are offline." Friss, dropping several pieces of popcorn to the floor, pointed to the screen. A little warning flashed in the corner. 'Engines knackered', it read. "Best to wait for repairs and enjoy the show."

Demi couldn't accept that. She remembered plunging her hand into Lap's console once before and destroyed a moon. She hoped she could do it again. She had no intention of letting Brenda get her moon sized tentacles on her, nor of the Demizens from using her to forward their plans for galactic revulsion, nor of allowing Bognrd to return to the hands of Tonbush.

She thrust both hands into the console, grimacing as her fingers squelched into the flesh and then looked toward the screen to see what affect her efforts had had. Which was nothing. Nothing happened. After a while, she noticed a trail of those blood cell-type things spiralling away from them and she hoped, prayed that those things weren't sentient. She pulled her hands from the console as Lap pulled a handkerchief from somewhere and began wiping her hands, rustling to themselves.