America's Galactic Foreign Legion - Book 21: Breaking Very Bad (11 page)

The spider commander calmed, removing his claw from his pistol. “This is not over.”

* * * * *

Skyler Whyte settled in quickly, shopping for baby clothes at the New Gobi City DMZ Walmart. Although warned not to cross the red border line painted across the middle of the store until she obtained her passport, Skyler forgot, straying into Sporting Goods and the Arthropodan Empire. She was immediately stopped by a spider security guard. “Show me identification, human pestilence.”

“Pardon me?” asked Skyler. “Don’t use that tone with me.”

“All human pestilence are required to show ID,” insisted the spider security guard. “Fail to do so at your peril.”

“I’ll have you know my husband is a legionnaire. Who do you spiders think you are, accosting me?”

“
You spiders
?” asked the spider security guard, taking her by the elbow. “Come with me.”

“Help! He’s is attacking me! I’m pregnant! Molester! I’m being abducted by aliens!”

The spider security guard wove web restraints over Skyler. She dropped to the floor, refusing to walk. She seemed to hyperventilate, taking quick breaths as if going into labor. As she was dragged past the Hardware Department, Skyler began yelling for help, again. The spider security guard procured a roll of duct tape to silence the insane ear-piercing human pestilence female.
Ha! Another use for duct tape.

* * * * *

Because Skyler had mentioned a Legion connection, she was taken to the Arthropodan Marine Headquarters in North New Gobi City. The spider commander was still cleaning out his office when Skyler was dragged in, kicking and screaming. He removed the duct tape from her mouth.

“How dare you lay claws on me! Don’t you know I’m pregnant? My water has broken. I’m going to give birth on your floor just to spite you all. When the Legion finds out, they will bomb you to rubble!”

The spider commander put the duct tape securely back across Skyler’s mouth. “Does she ever shut up?”

“Apparently not,” answered the spider security guard. “Careful, she tried to bite me on the way over from Walmart.”

“Does her human pestilence husband not properly beat her?” wondered the spider commander rhetorically. “What is her charge?”

“Being an uncontrollable female out of season.”

“It’s just a misdemeanor,” commented the spider commander, removing the duct tape again. “How do you plead?”

“Not guilty! Let me go, you cretin. I have Constitutional rights!

“Not here in the Empire. I find you guilty as charged, and sentence you to six months hard labor on the moon.”

“That’s outrageous.”

“The work will do you good, help you lose some of that weight.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?”

“A bit toward your pear-shaped bottom.”

“Alien bastard!”

“It just so happens I’m leaving for the moon today on a new assignment. I’ll escort you myself, Mrs. Whyte.”

“How did you know my name?”

“Major Lopez of the Legion told me all about your husband and his posse, Pink, Badger, and Skinny Pete,” explained the spider commander, securing the duct tape again. “We’re all going to do business on the moon.”

* * * * *

When Private Whyte returned from leave, he was immediately confronted by Pink. “How do you rate a trip to Old Earth, and I get nothing?” asked Pink, upset. “Not even a ‘thank you’ for saving the world from that boney demon with the razor.”

“Colonel Czerinski is our guardian angel,” explained Whyte. “He owes us. Keep that favor in your hip pocket until you really need it.”

“I really need Czerinski to get rid of DEA Agent Hanks. Think he’ll whack him for me?”

“Maybe. I’ve heard stories. They call him the Butcher of New Colorado.”

“What’s that all about? Who did he butcher?”

“Don’t know. Czerinski gets a lot of bad press. Media bias.”

Whyte’s communications pad rang. “Hello?” answered Whyte. “Who is this? Can you hear me now?”

“I kidnapped your human pestilence wife,” replied the spider commander. “Now, you will cook for me.”

“Did you take my son, too?”

“No, just Skyler.”

“Good, keep the bitch.”

“What about your unborn hatchling daughter?” asked the spider commander triumphantly. “Meet me at the burned-out Diablo Brewery at midnight. Bring Private Pink. I hear you’re a team.”

“Fine,” relented Whyte. “But I expect to be paid. I don’t work for free.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Hang up.”

“You hang up first.”

“I hope you run out of minutes.”

* * * * *

“Dude, that was harsh,” commented Pink. “You didn’t really mean that about keeping Mrs. Whyte, did you?”

“No, of course not,” answered Whyte contritely. “I was just negotiating. You have to be tough when haggling with aliens. It’s like going to Mexico.”

“Yo, I don’t want to go to the moon,” argued Pink. “There’s like, no air on the moon. All I want is a new life.”

“Like he said, we’re a team, Jesse. We are going to cook blue powder for the whole galaxy.”

“Don’t be greedy. One big score of phat stacks, and we’re done.”

“We’re done when I say we’re done,” admonished Whyte, tipping his cap. “We’re just beginning.”

* * * * *

Whyte and Pink agreed to meet at the edge of camp. Pink was to steal a Legion jeep for the drive to Diablo, but Tu-Sting arrived in his place.

“Your partner got cold feet,” advised Tu-Sting, shaking hand and claw. “You have a new partner. I will handle planetary distribution.”

“Quite frankly, I’m not surprised,” Whyte said, sighing bitterly. “Jesse is a loser. Always has been. His drug-addled mind has no vision of the future. Some people just can’t stand success. They are destined for mediocrity, no matter how hard you try to pull them up from failure.”

‘It’s for the best,” replied Tu-Sting. “Pink didn’t have the killer instinct needed to survive our business anyway. He’d choke before closing the deal.”

Whyte and Tu-Sting rode most of the night in silence, neither particularly trusting the other.
No matter
, thought Whyte. He could manage any scorpion. The same went for the spiders.

At Diablo, an Arthropodan moon shuttle sat camouflaged in the ruins. The spider commander met them at the bottom of the ramp. “Where is Private Pink?”

“He pussed out,” answered Whyte, shrugging. “This is my new head of planetary distribution, Tu-Sting.”

Not hesitating, the spider commander shot Tu-Sting between his eight eyes. He summarily cut off the scorpion’s stinger for a trophy.

“Please forgive my little flare of temper,” explained the spider commander, bathing in Whyte’s terror. “That miserable scorpion was near the top of my list for payback. Come, we have much business to conduct on the moon. I have a fleet of shuttles to take your blue powder to galaxies far, far away.”

* * * * *

As the shuttle blasted off, I handed Agent Hanks a Legion shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. Hanks insisted on doing it personally. He tracked the shuttle across the sky, firing one missile. The missile streaked up, then veered sharply, chasing the shuttle. I shielded my eyes against the fireball explosion.

“Right on!” exclaimed Private Pink, giving fist pumps to me, Hanks, Gomez, and Major Lopez. Pink gazed skyward with satisfaction at the falling debris, giving Whyte a final one-fingered salute. “You thought all was forgiven? Yo, burn in Hell, Whyte. It’s over when
I
say it’s over, and it’s over now, bitch!”

Chapter 17

After the fiasco with Lopez’s misguided blue powder mission, I hoped things would settle down. However, General Daly informed me the USGF was going to launch a surprise attack across the DMZ on the spiders of the Arthropodan Empire, finally completing the Americanization of the entire planet.
It’s about time
, I thought. The uneasy truce with the spiders had lasted long enough

The new spider commander, replacing the last one DEA Agent Hanks had blown up with a ground-to-air missile, arrived at my office to discuss routine border stuff. He looked a lot like his predecessor. Truthfully, they all looked alike to me.

I put my poker face on, wearing sunglasses for back-up, but I knew it wouldn’t be much help. Never play poker with spiders. They can read every facial twitch, hand gestures, body posture, even eye dilation. Over the last few weeks, I’d lost more than one poker game to him.

“The Galactic Database and ZNN report that America is planning a surprise attack against the Empire along a six-thousand-mile front,” began the new spider commander, stoic as ever behind his mask of exoskeleton. “Well? Don’t lie. I’ll know.”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” I answered uncomfortably. “Surprise attack? At the height of the shopping and tourist season? No way, Jose. Surely you don’t fall for all those conspiracy theory rumors on the Galactic Database.”

“The Drudge Report confirmed your reckless human pestilence adventurism.”

“Damn! It means nothing.”

“Is our poker game still on for Saturday night? I want to win more of your American money. It’s as good as cash.”

“Poker is cancelled. I joined Gambling Anonymous.”

“I see.”

“Sorry. I should have quit a long time ago. Gambling is evil.”

“What about Christmas sales at Walmart? Are all electronics still half price?”

“Sales are cancelled. Inflation. Chinese slave labor has been outlawed. You can thank the Teamsters Union for ruining Christmas again. Bah, humbug.”

“Most unfortunate,” commented the spider commander. “No more Black Friday either?”

“Don’t be stupid. There will always be Black Friday. It’s the law, written in the Constitution somewhere, under the Commerce Clause.”

“And the border closings?”

“E-coli outbreak,” I explained, donning a surgical mask from my first aid kit. I should have done that at the start. It would have hidden my facial expressions better. “We’re having fruit fly and apple maggot problems, too. All commerce with the Empire is hereby stopped.”

“There is nothing on ZNN about fruit flies. You lie!”

“The FCC is taking ZNN off the air for being a Democrat Party front organization. They should have done that centuries ago, when it was the old CNN. Bureaucrats. They’re useless.”

“I am warning you,” threatened the spider commander, poking his claw at my chest. “Further provocations will not be tolerated, or else!”

“Or else what?” I replied, puffing up for the gathering crowd of legionnaires and spider marines. “Give it your best shot.”

“Or else the Empire switches exclusively to cable TV.”

“You wouldn’t dare. Friends don’t let friends watch cable.”

“Try me.”

“Just for that, I’m closing all Starbucks, Taco Bells, and KFC franchises north of the border. No more java shots for you!”

“You want war?” asked the spider commander. “Mess with my latte in the morning, and you’ll have your war!”

“Prepare to be shocked and awed!” I shouted as the spider commander tromped off. “Punk!”

I watched the spider commander drive off.
They come, they go, but I’m still here for the duration.

“Are we really going to war?” asked Major Lopez, my XO and friend. “It could get messy, especially if we use nukes.”

“You only die twice.”

“You keep saying that, but what’s it mean? You get religion?”

“You die when your last breath leaves you. You die again when the last person you know who speaks your name dies. No matter. We’re legionnaires. We’re all going to die together.”

* * * * *

Corporal Guido Tonelli conducted a thriving sports bookie business with the spiders at the border crossing. Betting on the upcoming NFL football playoffs alone made his year. Rube spiders knew nothing about football. My flare of temper with the spider commander and his spider marine customers loitering at the border crossing guard shack alarmed Corporal Tonelli.

“Don’t worry,” said Tonelli, hoping to placate fears of a lost football season. “These wars never last long. It will all be over by the Super Bowl.”

“What if we get nuked?” asked a spider guard. “How will I get paid off?”

“You know I’m good for it,” answered Tonelli. “I’m like the mail man. I deliver, no matter rain, sand mites, or nukes. You can take that to the bank.”

“What if the bank gets nuked?” pressed the spider guard, crossing the red and yellow warning line painted across the road. Alarm lights started flashing. “Then what?”