Recycled (28 page)

He saw Arcadia sitting at the bar and almost turned around and left. Deciding he wasn't about to let her stop him going anywhere he wanted to go, he walked up to the bar, stepping over Shreta's prone body before picking a bar stool and sitting down. Arcadia looked up at him and pulled a face.

"Van Gar," she hissed out.

"Arcadia," he hissed right back, making the same face."What happened to her?" Van Gar asked indicating Shreta with a flip of his head.

"I made her come so hard she passed out hours ago, and she still hasn't come to," Arcadia answered.

Van Gar laughed loudly, then stopped, shaking his head."Come on, Arcadia, who are you trying to kid? You wouldn't fuck her with my dick."

"True. We were hoping it might make you and Drew jealous. I told her it wouldn't work."

"Hair of the dog?" Van Gar asked, pointing at the glass of Hurling Monkey Arcadia held in her claw.

"Is it that obvious that I'm hung over?" she asked.

"Sugar, you're either hung over or you took one of Shreta's ugly pills." Van laughed."So . . . how long do you plan to stay pissed off at me?"

"Me?" Arcadia laughed then."What about you? You have her most of the time, yet you resent the little bit of time I have her, and I had her first."

"Prior ownership seems to be a big deal with her," Abear said standing up from behind the bar."What's your poison?"

"Bend Me Over and Fuck Me, with a cherry," Van Gar answered. He thought about what Arcadia had said and answered decisively."You most certainly did not have her first. She said she'd only had six lovers before me, and I know who all of them were. You weren't on that list."

Arcadia laughed."You believed her? Hell, she probably had six lovers before noon on that day. I've been sleeping with the bitch off and on for six years. I figure that beats you by about three, four years."

After three drinks apiece, and an hour of arguing, pulling up dates and places and times, Van Gar had to admit that indeed, Arcadia had had Drew first.

"I don't really see what difference it makes," Van Gar said.

"How can you say that? You treat me like I'm the interloper, when it's obvious that you, and not I, are the interloper," Arcadia hissed back."Besides, I love her."

"I love her more than you do."

"Oh, you most certainly do not."

A whole new argument ensued. It was about to come to blows when Shreta came to and pulled herself off the floor. She stumbled over to the bar, and let it hold up her weight as she said, "Why don't you just agree to share her?"

"That's sick!" they exclaimed in unison.

Shreta shrugged."Like it or not, it's what you've been doing. Sharing her with each other, and every other man, woman, midget, and goat which catches her fancy."

"She said the goat belonged to the midget," Van Gar objected.

"My point is that she obviously has feelings for both of you, since she's kept you both around longer than anyone else. You're both hopelessly in love with her, so neither of you are going to just walk away. Maybe you should agree to share her, and then work together to keep everyone else away," Shreta said, taking the glass of water Abear handed her and downing it in one gulp.

"You know what? That's so crazy it just might work," Van Gar said.

"I'd rather share her with you than share her with you and half the galaxy."

"And between the two of us, surely we can satisfy all her many kinky urges."

"I'm not fucking you," Arcadia said.

"Certainly not," Van Gar said pulling a face.

Arcadia looked over at Shreta and then at Van Gar."This girl's a genius. We've got to do something about getting her laid."

Van Gar nodded in agreement. They spent the next hour making out a schedule.

When the equipment was in place and functional, Drewcila watched the reports from Lockhede concerning the raid on Hepron Station with a mixture of anger and appreciation. Their reporters were calling Hepron Station an all out victory, no doubt the military had doctored tapes of the raid so that it looked like Barion ships were falling from the sky instead of their own. And they had enhanced the damage on the station. They had even doctored a tape of herself so that it looked as if she were crying for mercy.

She had called in her best communications expert from one of the stations, and he had easily linked her to the Lockhede capital, although they had obviously gone to great lengths to keep her out. Apparently someone wanted nothing to do with any chance of negotiations between the two countries' leaders. Drewcila was pretty certain she knew who.

She was soon staring at the Lockhede President, and he was glaring back at her.

"I need to talk to the lot of you. I suggest you call your colleagues, all of them, and be prepared to talk to me in ten minutes." She closed the transmission and watched the clock.

Reluctantly, President Ralling called the heads of the military and his vice-president to his office. General Tryte had assured him that Drewcila Qwah wouldn't be able to contact them again, and yet she had done so in less time than it took him to get comfortable with the fact that she couldn't. He was beginning to have less and less faith in Tryte.

Roughly one-fourth of their Air Force had been totally annihilated by a few small planes and a fistful of salvaging barges. It was an embarrassment of mass proportions. They hadn't known Qwah had been there. If they had, it would have just made them more determined to target Hepron Station. Yet the truth was that if the whore hadn't been there, their attack most probably would have succeeded.

Drewcila Qwah was an unbelievable problem, and one he had no idea how to deal with. Without her, Barious would crumble. But getting to Qwah was impossible, and with her leadership there was a good chance that Barious, militarily inferior or not, was going to plow a row right through his country.

He hated taking orders from anyone, much less that salvaging whore, yet he found himself calling Trailings and his three generals back to his chambers for yet another teleconference with the ever-growing thorn in his side, the Barion Queen. They of course arrived just in time, and then she had the nerve to make them wait for a full ten minutes before making an appearance again. When she did she was abrupt and to the point.

"All right, first things first. Someone is trying to make sure that there can be no chance for negotiations by keeping me out of your system. I suggest you all find out who the hell that is and kick their ass to the curb, because negotiations are your country's only chance of survival."

"No one has set up any such block in the communications system here," Ralling assured her.

"Yeah, and you kicked the shit out of us at Hepron Station, too. You know what, Ralling? You might get away with feeding lines of crap to your obviously stupid people, but don't insult my intelligence by trying to feed the same line of bullshit to me. I was telling more convincing lies when I was still shitting my drawers. I'm going to give you cringing, stupid mother fuckers one more chance to surrender, and then you'd better put on your diapers because we're going to stomp over there and kick the crap out of you."

"We aren't afraid of your threats, Qwah!" Tryte said angrily at Ralling's shoulder."We have suffered a minor setback at best . . ."

"You got your fucking lame asses kicked by a fist full of anti-aircraft guns, some small planes, and a couple of salvaging barges. You should see what we can do when we haul out the big guns. You'd better back the fuck off and surrender. My offer still stands, but if you so much as blow a fart in our general direction, I'm going to crawl up your ass and pull your nose hairs out your dick one at a time."

"Your threats mean about as much to us as your salvager slang," Tryte shouted at her.

She laughed as she looked at Ralling."Gee, Ralling you're just like a spaceport porn theater, everyone's comin' in you."

"You might at least try speaking our language," Ralling sneered back.

"That was my polite way of saying that everyone seems to have their penis up your rectum." She turned her attention to Trailings, who had been silent until then."Perhaps someone with a brain should explain the complexities of the situation to your president. He obviously isn't the brightest chalk in the box. But then it's been my experience that the very privileged tend to breed ambitious, corrupt, and stupid people with every sperm they spit out of their dicks, while those who must work for their place in the world become increasingly intelligent, because they're constantly having to fight for every crumb they get. Of course, there is nothing quite as sad as seeing a man work his way to the top only to be dethroned by some rich fucker's moronic brat, is there?"

Ralling still had no idea what she was talking about, but it was clear from the look on Trailings' face that he did. Trailings turned to look at him, and this time did not even bother to whisper what was on his mind."The people want trade, not war. Make peace with the Barions. Stop this foolishness, and bring our country and our people from poverty to an age of prosperity. You can go down in history as the man who brought our country to ruin, or you can be remembered as the man who put an end to their suffering."

"You treasonous bastard!" Ralling turned to glare at the Barion Queen."His is the voice of a discontented loser. One who would love nothing better than to see me fail. It is for that reason that I know that whatever he says is what I shouldn't do."

She laughed at him as if he had said something of unbelievable humor."You truly are every bit the idiot I thought you were. Such logic shall surely march your people to their deaths. I will give you forty-eight hours to think about it. If in that time you do not surrender, or you dare to attack even the smallest of our cities, I will unleash the wrath of my army upon you." She closed the transmission.

"We must surrender," Trailings insisted."It is the only way. That woman and her people are like gods in the sky, and we don't yet know how good their ground troops might be."

"Shut up, you whining traitor!" Tryte screamed."I tell you that was a fluke . . ."

"The way her bringing down the Artvail was a fluke? Or their successful attack on our capital was a fluke? You, sir, are a sorry excuse for a general, and if our idiot president continues to take counsel from you, then we shall all perish while accomplishing nothing but the demise of our own country."

"How dare you call me an idiot or question my choice of who I take counsel from?" Ralling screamed.

"I was elected to lead these people. They voted for me. You are only in office through yet another fluke. The people voted for me because they thought I could save them from you and him," Trailings said pointing at Tryte."In my demoted role as vice-president, I must at least try to stop you as you work at nothing else so diligently as sliding this country into economic ruin and turning it into a smoldering remnant as we fight a war we cannot win."

"We can win . . . we most assuredly will win, and then we will make this country truly rich," Tryte promised.

Ralling looked at Trailings and smiled smugly."The people will soon be thanking the gods that a
fluke
put me into office instead of you."

"Well?" Facto asked, looking with displeasure at the bottoms of Drewcila's boots where they rested on her desk.

"They won't surrender. The vice-president, he would in a heartbeat, but he's not in charge. I need to see what I can do about that. In the meantime . . ." She seemed thoughtful for a moment."They will attack sometime before the forty-eight hour deadline I gave them. So we need to be on the highest possible alert, Dirty-Dog-Dick-Red-7 or whatever," she said with the flip of her hand."The minute they attack us we will not only meet them with force, but we will then attack them with everything we have, and we will do it where it hurts, hitting one of their biggest military bases. You want to stop them attacking you, don't lob bombs at their civilian population, you take out their military strongholds."

"Are you forgetting that they are militarily superior to us?"

"To the country maybe, and even that is in serious doubt." Drewcila looked at him and smiled."But they can't stand against the country and Qwah-Co Industries. I have literally hundreds of ships, all fully loaded with weapons they aren't supposed to have. And I have something else the Lockhedes aren't counting on. An army of the fiercest foot soldiers the universe has ever known. The problem is it's going to take time for me to get them here, and every time they make a strike against us, successful or not, it costs us lives and, more importantly, it costs us money." She took a drink from the bottle in her hand, then looked at him."Go get Van Gar and send him in here."

"Drewcila . . . you could call him on his com-link," Facto protested.

"I . . . I know that. Don't you think that I know that? I need to think, and I can't do that with you standing peering in my brain," Drewcila said.

Facto bowed, then ruined the effect by stomping out of the office.