A new and exciting short story by me Cecil Thax, this was an entry I wrote for a ‘A bad science fiction writing jam’, I’m breaking it down into several parts so your mind isn’t overwhelmed by words and Sci Fi cliches.

Rage Slave By C. E. Thax

Gladstone’s penis began to sway in the spring air.  Lucy unpinned it from the washing line and placed it in the jar with the 7 others she had acquired over the year.  Since starting her collection she had killed 43 men, 9 women and 4 cheese plants, most times her method of dispatching her victims meant there was little left to keep as a memento, but this time there was genital remains and she planned keeping the souvenir as a trophy of her kill.  Her thirst for blood was only equalled by her desire for revenge.  Every murder took her one step nearer reaching Professor Judith Prippyplaitt.  Once trusted mentor and lover of Lucy, now deadly but highly erotic enemy.

A distance alarm bell tolled, Lucy ran into her caravan.  Grabbing the remote drone controller, she switched it to ‘search’ mode, the drone sprang to life, it hovered above the caravan, powered up its jet engine and shot into the air, scouting for bandits on the horizon.  Lucy prepared herself the sterilizing gel and applied it to her wounds.  Gladstone had managed to get a shot in before he was disembowelled on the lasers. His intestines lay strewn around the outside of the caravan, crows pecked at his spleen while a lizard gnawed lazily on his lungs. The stench of bile filled the air.  Lucy vomited all over her shoes.  An alarm sounded, the raiders had shot down the drone.  Suddenly the windows burst, glass sprayed everywhere.  A sound wave had been fired by the raiders causing all the glass to oscillate to the point of explosion. Jars shattered on the shelves.  Body parts flopped to the floor.  Lucy slipped on a liver.  She fell to the floor, face first into pile of shattered glass.  A shard pieced her eye ball.  She struggled to her feet, her eye jelly dripping down her bleeding face, every heartbeat forced a stream of blood from her wound. Her heart pounded as she heard footsteps outside her door, a stream of blood arched from her face and hit the wall.

A gnarled twisted figure appeared at her door, she couldn’t make out detail, she was losing consciousness, it was a man, he walked over to her.  She felt a burning sensation in her left breast, she looked down, a gleaming silver sword pierced her chest, she felt her heart spasm one last time before shades of grey flashed before her eyes.

The man looked around her caravan, it was nothing but a mess of robotic circuitry, glass, blood and pickled body parts. He walked over to the work bench, knocking through the mess of wires and metal with his sword, he exposed what he was looking for. The power core to the Zargon-9 ships engine. The last remaining source of power from the last remaining Zargon-9 space ship on the planet. Lucy had acquired it from Professor Judith Prippyplaitt after seducing her with her feminine wiles. The man laughed as he put the small glowing rock in his pocket, knowing full well that everyone who had come by the stone had acquired it in the exact same way, by murder!

The man was Jack Steel, one time best space pilot on the planet, now a washed up no good rogue willing to do anything to anyone to make just a few bucks to buy the next bottle of cheap hooch. He cared about no body and nothing, he was an outlaw, a rebel who played by his own rules, from a rule book he had thrown away years ago. A low down thief, who’d cut you as soon as piss on you. The universe took a dump on him and he took a bigger one right back. He lived in a part of the city where nobody knew anyone and those that did killed those that didn’t. A real dive, sex droids worked every corner, robber droids worked every ally and if either of those didn’t get you then Jack Steel probably would.

By day Jack slept, by night he drank, on the nights he couldn’t drink he’d drink anyway! He drank to forget, he drank to remember, so long as he remembered to drink everything was a’ok by him. Now Jack had the power core to the Zargon-9 ships engine he could get off this rock and up to the Luna cities. Up there a man with nothing but a quick wit and an even quicker draw could go from nothing to something in a night! The nightly laser tournaments could make or break a man in less time than Jack could polish of a bottle of dime store hooch. They were brutal matches, 10 men death matches, 10 men enter the arena, only one survivor, the catch? You only get 2 shots from your gun! But Jack had an advantage most men don’t, a hidden surprise for the other contestants, if he could just get to the moon and enter a match, he’d be made for life!

He got into his apartment, a rat infested hole, nothing worked, and what did work only did so out of spite! Jack kicked a rat clean across the room, it burst on the far wall, hitting the roof release button as its backbone snapped through its flesh. The roof retracted and pistons maneuverer his ship from the storage compartment. Jack crammed the power core to the Zargon-9 ships engine in his own custom made one man pod, the pod which had been void of power for the better part of 2 decades, since before the imperial collapse, burst into life, panels lit up, hologramatic displays displayed holograms, quickly the ships systems were in full working order. Jack drank his last half bottle of booze and climbed into the small ship. He took one last look at his wrecked apartment, the place where decades ago he had lived with her, the day the Glanioks came was the day he died and the husk he was now, was born, inside his emotions had withered and died without her. He took one last look at the spot where he had proposed to her and she said yes, now it was a pile of broken robotic hearts, the irony wasn’t lost on Jack. He hit a button and as the ship shot into the sky he felt nothing inside, nothing for the world he was leaving, nothing for the memories he was leaving, after she had died all his memories were like a poison to him, tainting every thought he had, he couldn’t even remember what she looked like. As he passed out of the earth’s gravity’s pull he finished the last of his booze, he would need to be utterly numb for what came next!