Chapter 30

Ignorance is bliss sometimes. Just ask the humans. If they only knew the plans a certain Vice-Chancellor Greklor had for them they wouldn’t be quite so comfortable. Mind you, it is questionable exactly what they could do if they did, in fact, know.

So, instead of worrying or panicking because the biggest battle fleet ever seen in this part of galaxy is being assembled, the Earthlings are cleaning up after a rampaging Jim Bob.

How very domestic of them.

Of course, Jim Bob’s little display of strength and orneriness is the reason that everything seems so very idyllic. He impressed Sheanna’Ree’s Uncle Maligna enough that the being let him live AND offered to give him a working set of arms and legs in exchange for his mechanicals.

As luck would have it, the new limbs were even from a mammal.

Things were looking up. At least from the perspective of utter ignorance.

They are aware that a certain Gumbo Feet is sitting in orbit around Uncle Maligna’s asteroid. They don’t really know what it means, but they are aware.

If Gumbo Feet only knew what was really going on, he wouldn’t be feeling any stress about the job at all. The job was a simple retrieval for his client. The object of the retrieval was the humans themselves.

But why would Vice-Chancellor Greklor want the humans anyway? For that matter, why would he want to destroy Earth and all the life on that quaint little blue and white world? All the five humans had done was accidentally kill his only remaining son who was an idiot anyway.

Only Greklor knew for certain and he wasn’t talking. Well, only Greklor and one other. The newsbeing, MegaDan Scholes, Voice of the Galaxy, also had a pretty good idea why the Vice-chancellor was going to such extreme measures.

MegaDan discovered the information while secluded on a Galactic Fleet garbage scow. It seems nothing can keep a resourceful being like MegaDan down. But just what is he going to do with this privileged information is the big question of the day.

***

Jim Bob sat up in his bed and looked around. The room was dark and all he could see was the twinkling of stars above him.

Twinkling stars?

Then he remembered. This wasn’t home. At least, not the home he had grown up in. He lay listening carefully. Just behind the sound of crickets was the soft undertone of the ship.

He lay back. So, he was still on the Grokmar.

Things had certainly gotten weird since that ship had grabbed him. All the strange sights he had seen and things he had done since that night.

His fuzzy brain kept nudging him, trying to remind him of something important but he just wasn’t getting it. Jim Bob scrubbed at his face with one hand and closed his eyes. Maybe if he slept a little longer it would come back to him.

His breathing slowed and his mind began to drift as he snuggled deeper into his covers.

Jim Bob thought of Betty Sue then. It was too bad he hadn’t married the girl when he’d had the chance. But, he hadn’t been ready then. Now she was married to Zeke and didn’t seem too interested in cheating on the big oaf.

It didn’t help that he, Jim Bob was now a monster, more machine than man.

The nudging sensation in his brain grew stronger.

Wait a minute! Where did that come from? What was that about being a monster?

Jim Bob sat up again and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He rubbed his hair, stood and stumbled to the toilet. Something weirder than usual was going on here.

He was in mid-stream when he remembered.

He finished relieving himself and fumbled for the light.

Jim Bob blinked away tears from the sudden brightness. He held two perfect hands up in front of his face. He stood for several minutes admiring the way his fingers moved.

Somehow, he had his arms and legs back! He finally felt like a real man again.

What to do first?

Obviously, he had to tell Betty Sue and the others. He turned and reached for the door. His legs refused to move but his right arm didn’t. It detached itself at the shoulder and flew to the door hitting the release button.

The door slowly opened. Just outside it sat Jim Bob’s old mechanical body.

He didn’t have time to wonder how the body had made its way into the crew quarters. A mechanical tentacle reached in to his room and wrapped itself around his waist. It lifted him off the floor and pulled him toward the garbage droid body.

Jim Bob looked down and realized neither of his legs had followed him out into the corridor. They were still standing in his room. With horror, he realized his arms, both left and right, were also in the room.

He looked at the garbage droid body and saw that he was being drawn to a space in the front, sized perfectly for his torso. One of the mechanical tentacles rose up and attached itself to his right shoulder.

Oh God! No! He was losing his arms and legs all over again.

Jim Bob started to thrash in the grip of the mechanical arm, trying desperately to get back to his limbs but he couldn’t get free. The horrible garbage droid got closer and closer. The spot for his body grinned obscenely at him as if to say, “I’ve got you now, Jim Bob.”

He couldn’t cover his eyes so he closed them, trying to shut out the site of the droid body. He felt his body slide into the slot in the garbage scow and screamed.

Jim Bob didn’t know how long he screamed. He did know that, for some odd reason, his face was getting sore. He focused on that, trying to regain his composure.

Somewhere in the void of his consciousness, he heard a voice. It was calling his name.

He strained to hear it.

“Jim Bob, wake up. Jim Bob, WAKE UP!”

Wake up? Could it be?

Jim Bob bit his bottom lip. The pain was welcome as it distracted him from his situation and the increasing pain to his face. He bit hard and…

…Jim Bob sputtered awake as a bucket of extremely cold water dowsed his face.

“Jim Bob, thank goodness!” The voice was that of Carol Anne. “I was getting so worried about you. I tried to wake you up but you just wouldn’t.”

The mechanical man reached up to touch his face with one metal tentacle. “You were trying to wake me by slapping mah face weren’t you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“That would explain the stinging sensation I had in my dream and now here.” He gently rubbed his jaw with the tentacle. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

Carol Anne reddened and looked at the floor. “I know how hard it’s been for you, not being able to go into the ship and all. I just wanted to give you some company before your operation.” She looked up at him then, her face still red. “You know, when you get new arms and legs?”

Jim Bob smiled. “That was mighty kind of you, Carol Anne.” He stretched his shoulders and yawned. “Have you been here all night?”

“Sure have,” Carol Anne said. “I only left once and that was to go to the bathroom. It seems like you finally got some rest.”

Jim Bob grinned at the girl. “Have you been spying on me girlie? How’d you know I haven’t been sleeping?”

The red in Carol Anne’s cheeks brightened a little. “Maybe I have. But it’s only cause I’ve been worried about you.”

Jim Bob looked at the girl, no strike that, young woman even closer. She was downright pretty. He didn’t know why he hadn’t looked at her before. Maybe it was because she was just a girl before. She had grown a lot since he had first met her and at almost seventeen she was a woman now. And it was sure nice to have a woman care about him again.

“You was worried about me? Well, shoot. If that ain’t just the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long while, I don’t know what is.”

“Well, I care and don’t you go and forget it!” Carol Anne said.

Yup, she was a fine young woman for certain. “Thank you, Carol Anne. You don’t know how much I appreciate your kindness.”

“I’m glad you do, Jim Bob.” Carol Anne stepped back. “But, now that you’re awake, I need to take you out of here. Betty Sue and Uncle Maligna want to see you right away. I think it’s time for you to get your parts back. Come on!”

Jim Bob dutifully followed Carol Anne. His heart fluttered and he could feel the sweat start to run down his back as he moved. No time to worry. Soon he would be all man again. Then he could see if Carol Anne still liked him. His pace quickened just a little.

***

Gumbo Feet was just about through being patient. He had a deadline⁠* (*No matter the language, deadline means pretty much the same thing. It has been softened by humanity to mean if the intended completion date isn’t hit, there will be consequences. In reality it means accomplish the goal or be dead. Simple enough to understand, really.) to meet and the humans down on the rock didn’t seem too interested in coming out. Maybe they were smarter than he had heard.

It didn’t matter. In very short order, he would have to change tactics and get them out of the asteroid the hard way.

The simplest plan would be to bomb the rock until they were forced to run. The problem with that plan was he might just kill the humans. If that happened, he wouldn’t get paid.

Gumbo Feet sat in the pilot’s chair staring out of the forward screen of his ship, contemplating the asteroid. The clear plastic orb he always kept with him rolled over his fingers and around his hand as he thought.

The job was worth a lot of money. He might just have to take a chance this time. He straightened in the chair, noting the creaking in his back.

It had been a long time since he had actually gone to ground to capture a suspect. Automatics had taken care of that aspect of the job for several years. But automatics couldn’t anticipate and he knew these humans would be a tricky bunch.

Gumbo Feet just hoped his reflexes were sharp enough to get the job done.

He sighed. It wasn’t like he had a choice. That had been given up when he accepted the job from Greklor. No, he either delivered the humans to Greklor or he died. It didn’t much matter if the humans killed him or Greklor did.

He tapped at the controls to get another reading for at least the hundredth time. Nothing changed. He still couldn’t scan the inside of the asteroid. Nothing alive moved outside of it.

Time to get to work.

Gumbo Feet punched landing instructions into the autopilot and went back to prepare for what could be his last bounty.

“Preparing for landing,” the ship’s automatics said. The voice was that of his long lost mother. It was always soothing to hear her voice before a job.

He donned his armour including the helmet that was his trademark, making sure to check all the pressure seals twice. This was no time to start getting careless. A total lack of intelligence meant he was going into this one almost completely blind. Extra caution was called for if he planned to live to spend all the money promised by Greklor.

A slight vibration passed through the deck plating as the ship touched down. Gumbo Feet switched on the helmet speaker and microphone. That would allow him to control it verbally and get any updates the ship’s computer might have.

“Landing complete,” the ship said.

So far so good. Gumbo Feet had half expected to come under fire during the landing. “Thank you, Ma. Please scan the area for signs of weapons.”

“Scanning…”

The wait seemed interminable but Gumbo knew his ship. It would be checking for every known, and even a few unknown weapons, there was. He had written the sub-routines himself and trusted them with his life. Literally.

“All detected weapons are inactive.”

That wasn’t ideal. The fact that there were weapons at all meant he would have to be careful not to have them reactivate. “Ma, can you hack into them to keep them down?”

“Negative. The enemy systems are shielded with a Mega-4 level encryption scheme.”

Mega-4? Gumbo Feet felt the first trickle of sweat bead on his forehead. That was beyond even military standards. What in the Zork was he up against here?

“What kinds of weapons did you scan?”

“Particle cannons, disintegration beams, nova lasers and a particularly nasty microwave emitter.”

That first bead of sweat was joined by a flood of friends and Gumbo’s hearts began beating a little faster. He licked his lips. “Are you able to get a reading on my personal transmitter?”

“Affirmative.”

“Excellent. I want you to leave the asteroid once I’m off the ship. Keep monitoring me for signals. If my life signs terminate, destroy this rock.”

“Affirmative.”

“Open the pod bay doors, Ma.”

The rear exit doors dutifully opened and Gumbo Feet got his first look at the asteroid’s landing bay. It was pretty much what he expected. Large enough for half a dozen small ships, and extremely barren.

Only the bulk of the human’s starship was in evidence. He looked closely at it. The design of the ship was…odd. It didn’t look like anything he had ever seen before. For one thing, there didn’t appear to be a pilot’s cabin anywhere on the ship. Weird!

“Gumbo, the alien ship is attempting to communicate with me.”

That brought him back. He shouldn’t be daydreaming. “Jam their signal and any others you detect except mine.”

“Affirmative.”

Gumbo Feet checked his suit’s systems one more time before stepping out. All systems nominal. He knew his weapons were ready. With a deep breath he stepped off his ship and onto the landing bay deck.