Screw the Universe (11 page)

“Shut your hole, private! Say another falsehood about that beautiful man and I’ll punch you in the gooch.”

“The cooch?”

“GOOCH!”

“What the hell’s a gooch?” asked Private Naughtyplaces.

“A taint,” said Private Redshirt.

“Damn right,” said Marshal Orr. “And with that kind of knowledge, you’ll go far in this Federation.”

“Thank you, Marshal,” said Private Redshirt.

“You’re welcome. Now get that clown to my dorm!” he barked. “And if you’re in the mood for a Promotion, you’d be wise to stick around too.”

“A promotion? For taking part in a three way? With a clown? Is that even legal?” said an increasingly befuddled Private Naughtyplaces.

Private Yvette Redshirt sighed. Grabbing her crewmate and the clown by their respective arms, she began leading them down the hall.

“In this Federation, yes, it’s legal,” explained Redshirt. “But more importantly, by ‘promotion,’ he didn’t mean promotion. He meant a Promotion. It’s a sex act.”

“I’m so confused.”

“It’s simple. The marshal mounts the clown, and the clown’s on a chair, so you...”

Private Redshirt’s voice faded away as she turned the corner.

“Right, so, back to the mission,” said Marshal Orr. “There’s been an influx of stupidity coming from the forbidden region in Sector 1.987123 of the Dogg Dhou Nebula.”

“What?” asked Captain Tyler.

“Morons! Lots of them. I need you to eliminate all of them before they spread to other areas of the universe.”

“Sounds pretty time-consuming.”

“We’ve already gone over this.”

“Have we?”

“Yes, right before Steve made his exit.”

“Ah, Steve,” said the captain, his mind drifting off.

“Keep your head in the game, Tyler.”

“That’s not the only place I plan on keeping my head.”

“All in due time. Now, gather up the your crew and do my bidding without asking any questions.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Zdravo had been traveling for the better part of three arduous months, en route to the Dogg Dhou Nebula, before First Lieutenant Duknerts realized Captain Tyler was reading the map wrong. The Zdravo then began the long, arduous task of turning around and schlepping back across most of the known universe.

When questioned by Duknerts as to why she allowed them to travel several billion miles in the wrong direction, the computer simply replied, “Fuck you guys!” and murdered three of the ship’s dockworkers, as well as Engineer Poopypants. Sadly, Engineer Poopypants was the only one who might have been able to override the ship’s mood swing algorithm. With him vaporized, they simply had to wait it out.

It took nearly three weeks of ducking, hiding, and getting cursed at in every language of the known universe – including binary – before the computer apologized and stopped trying to kill everyone. She bought them all ice cream and set the ship on the right course.

Six months later, the Zdravo and her crew were finally nearing the Dogg Dhou Nebula. The computer alerted Captain Tyler of this news as he lounged in his quarters. Nude.

“Sir, we’re approaching our destination.”

“Good news! Send in Duknerts and Dr. Porn.”

“Might I ask why?”

“Sure.”

There was an exceptionally long pause.

“Why do you need them?” said the computer, giving in to Captain Tyler’s stupidity.

“I want to tell Archie that we’re almost there.”

“And Dr. Porniviriyakul?”

“I want him to see my junk.”

“He may attack you, sir. He has been on edge recently. Ever since you yelled at him for bringing that tiger on board.”

“That Plutonian Snow Tiger is illegal!” replied Tyler. “And he won’t let me ride it.”

“All the same, sir. He will probably punch you.”

“In the…?”

“Gooch, sir? I would doubt it. Something tells me he doesn’t want to have anything to do with that region.”

“Well, that’s my new goal in life.”

“Sir?” asked the computer.

“To have Dr. Porn slave away on my junk for days.”

“Wha— Why — You know what? No. I’m not going to ask.”

“Your loss. Now send my servants in!”

“They’re not your servants.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“But I can still have them sent for?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Then I care not for your semantics! Fetch Misters Archibald and Siriporn!”

“I hate you. I hate you so hard.”

First Lieutenant Duknerts and Dr. Porniviriyakul arrived at Captain Tyler’s door simultaneously. Duknerts lost the impromptu game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and entered first. The good doctor waited outside.

“Testicles!” said Captain Tyler, harnessed and crouched, naked, against the ceiling. “Ah, First Lieutenant. Thought you were Dr. Porn.”

“It’s alarming how little I care that I’m seeing your testicles again.”

“I like you, you’re a go-getter.”

“There a reason why you summoned me, sir?”

“We’re almost at our destination. Send a transmission to Space Marshal Orr and see if he has any more intel.”

“Yes, sir,” said First Lieutenant Duknerts, actually swelling with pride. It seemed as if the captain was taking this mission a little more seriously than in the past. Despite still being nude and hanging from an apparatus attached to the ceiling, that is.

“And on your way out, be sure to send in that coward, Dr. Porn. I’ve got a couple growths I may need him to take a closer look at.”

“Shouldn’t Dr. Sodomy… Oh, I get it. Your nuts.”

Captain Tyler smiled and pointed his fingers at the first lieutenant like two pistols.

Duknerts walked to the door and nodded at Dr. Porniviriyakul.

“Captain –”

“Yes, I know, I was standing right here. Heard the whole thing.”

“So you’re aware –”

“Yup.”

“And you’re going in anyway?”

“I am.”

First Lieutenant Duknerts felt that swelling of pride again. Apparently even Dr. Porniviriyakul was taking his responsibilities seriously for once.

Duknerts marched down the hallway, humming to himself. Dr. Porniviriyakul went into Captain Tyler’s room.

“Testi—” began Captain Tyler.

Dr. Porniviriyakul punched the captain, as hard as he could, square in the balls.

“Captain,” said the computer. “Call coming in from Space Marshal Orr.”

“Put it up on the viewscreen,” said Captain Tyler, sitting at the helm, icing his lap.

Around him, his crew pretended to be busy in order to impress the boss. Private Redshirt pressed some buttons, Private Darkpinkshirt stared intently at Captain Tyler’s Facebook newsfeed, Private Crimsonshirt studied maps of nearby planets and Private Naughtyplaces cycled through sexy poses in front of Tyler.

The captain liked this because she was pretty. The private, on the other hand, hated it, but, due to the rather vague wording of the restraining order, and the even vaguer wording of the Federation sexual harassment policy, Tyler was legally allowed to order her to do it.

Well, not to “do it.” That
was
illegal. Usually.

“How goes the mission, captain?” asked Space Marshal Orr.

“The what now?”

“About as I expected then.”

“Sure?”

“Anything to report?”

“What have you heard?”

“That’s... that’s what I’m asking YOU. How is the mission going?”

“Oh, it’s going,” replied Captain Tyler.

“Right, yes,” said Orr. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Toodle-oo!”

Space Marshal Orr pressed the button to end the call. Then he turned to the collection of important Federation people sitting behind him.

“As you can see, Captain Tyler is a moron. His crew isn’t much better. They’ve been in space, for months, on a fake mission, and have yet to realize it.”

“They really are the stupidest things in the universe,” said Space Marshal Otherguy.

“They are. And, if Operation Kill the Dum Dums is to succeed, we’re going to have to kill them all.”

“I have no problem with that,” said Space Marshal Bob.

“Me neither,” said Commandant Fluffernutter, father of Private Fluffernutter.

“Then it’s agreed then,” said Space Marshal Orr. He pressed the intercom button. “Davis! Trigger the Zdravo’s self-destruct function!”

Commodore Feces, on a supervised lunch field trip from the insanity ward, danced impatiently in front of the microwave, waiting for his burrito to ding. Well, the oven would be doing the dinging, not the food, which is why it perplexed Feces when his burrito did in fact make three short beeping noises. Followed not five seconds later by exploding, ruining the commodore’s meal as well as sending shrapnel flying into his skull.

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!” he screamed, running out of the kitchen with shards of glass and beans sticking out of his face.

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!” he screamed, as he barreled down the hall, the shards of glass and beans still sticking out of his face.

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!” he screamed, as he collided with Private Kim Boxershorts in the hallway. Private Boxershorts was naked and appeared to have a shower faucet sticking out of his forehead.

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!” he screamed.

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!” replied Commodore Feces.

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!” exclaimed a startled Dr. Sodomy who happened to be walking out of his office only moments after the collision occurred.

Having only one operating table, Sodomy chose to drag the commodore inside and began removing the glass and beans from his face. He worked slowly and carefully, in an effort to limit the amount of brain damage inflicted on the already brain-damaged Feces.

Private Boxershorts, meanwhile, remained on the floor. He would actually remain there for some time, until Hank, the janitor-robot, finally got around to cleaning up the corpse.