Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain (2 page)

I no longer held my official title of Warlord, but the Terra Sapiens, the most plentiful inhabitants of the planet, still worshipped me as a de facto god. Though they no longer made a big show of it.

In the first few years of my reign, I’d managed to solve a few of their problems.

I’d ended their wars by introducing aggression suppressants to the water supply. It didn’t make them any less disagreeable, but it kept them from rioting over the outcome of sporting events and shooting each other over imaginary lines drawn on maps.

I’d solved their energy crisis with the discovery of the molluskotrenic energy field. Its boundless energy production now supplied endless amounts of power to the people of Terra. More power, every day. I hadn’t figured a safe way to switch it off yet, and the vast abundance of the energy was beamed harmlessly into space. There was still too much, and if the engine I’d built to harness it ever suffered catastrophic failure it might very well destroy the engine. Or possibly blow a hole the size of Pluto in this world.

I had a contingency plan should that happen, an alarm that would alert me when it was time to leave the planet. In the meantime, I did my part. I kept every light in the house on and never turned off the TV.

I’d repelled the invasion of the Saturnites. Without me, the Terrans would’ve been digging their planet hollow for their Saturnite masters. The mole people of the Undersphere Empire would’ve fought back, and the whole thing could’ve been a disaster with the Terra Sapiens caught in between.

I’d sent the Saturnites scurrying off to their homeworld in such a hurry they hadn’t stopped to pick up all their soldiers, and a few thousand warriors were left on the planet. Fighting was all Saturnites knew, and you’d think rock-skinned warriors on a planet of mammals would have an easy time of it. But those aggression suppressants had been top-notch. Terrans didn’t fight wars anymore, and Saturnite soldiers were under standing orders to not cause any trouble.

Some had become police officers. Others were bodyguards. Some had taken to petty crime and leg breaking. But most of them, not truly being hostile and finding themselves stranded on an alien world, had taken up manual labor.

The Saturnite bagboy crushed my eggs.

“Oops.”

The cashier rolled her eyes. This probably happened quite often. “Cragg, what did Mr. Mooney tell you about being careful?”

Cragg frowned. “It was an accident.”

“I’m so sorry, Lord Mollusk,” said the cashier. Try as I might, I couldn’t break them from calling me
Lord
. “We’ll get you new eggs.”

“It’s not necessary,” I replied.

“Oh, but we insist.”

“Really, it’s fine. After I put them through the nutrient extractor, it won’t matter.”

The extractor, necessary for me to digest Terran foodstuffs, turned everything into a colorful paste. I usually dumped all my groceries into the extractor as soon as I got home and shoved the paste into the cupboard. But the cashier insisted. I was a hero of Terra, and the inhabitants liked me. They didn’t have any other choice.

All the other employees were busy at the moment, and rather than send clumsy Cragg after the eggs, the cashier decided to fetch them herself. This left me alone with him. He glared with murderous resentment but didn’t say a word.

The cashier returned with my eggs. She put them in a bag herself, loaded the bag carefully into my cart, and smiled. “Thank you, Lord Mollusk. Come again.”

Cragg trailed behind me, pushing the shopping cart through the parking lot to my saucer. It was a compact model, but it still took up two spaces. I helped him throw the groceries into the storage compartment. He squeezed the bags a little too tight. I heard glass breaking and my bread was no doubt mutilated.

When I handed him a couple of bucks for his trouble, he growled, “You think you’re better than me?”

My first instinct was to say yes, I did, but I couldn’t kick a Saturnite when he was down.

“Hero.” He spat a few pebbles onto the concrete.

I could understand his frustration. We were both conquerors. The biggest difference between us was that I’d succeeded while he had failed. But history is written by the winners. Especially winners with access to global mind-control devices.

“If you don’t want the money—”

He snatched away the cash, glowered at it. My picture looking up at him from the bills probably didn’t help heal the wounds.

“Have a nice day,” I said.

“Screw you.” He stomped away.

I climbed into my saucer and rocketed over the city. I didn’t get very far before a Venusian scout craft appeared like a cigar-shaped bird of prey. Its shadow fell over my ship.

An all-too-familiar gray-scaled Venusian commander appeared in my monitor.

“Hello, Zala,” I said.

She snarled. If I’d been the sensitive type, I might have wondered why so few people smiled when talking to me.

“Emperor Mollusk, you are hereby ordered to land immediately.”

“Do we really have to do this now?” I asked. “I have a…thing…I have to get to.”

“Your…thing…will have to wait.” She leaned in close to the screen. “Don’t make me shoot you down.”

A cursory scan of the Venusian craft informed me that I could disable it with the push of a few buttons, but I was bored enough to see what Zala wanted from me. As if I didn’t know already.

The Venusians had had it in for me since I’d tried to conquer their planet after falling short on Neptune. I hadn’t really come close to subjugating Venus. Only claimed a couple of continents for a few weeks. No good reason they shouldn’t have been over that by now.

But there was that time I’d fed their Beloved and Immortal Queen to sand scrakts. After that, I was guaranteed a place among their most wanted. I still felt bad about it. I hadn’t even done it on purpose, but so far, a sincere “Whoops, sorry about that” hadn’t done much to ease the tension.

I found a street big enough for both my saucer and the scout craft. The Venusians crushed a Toyota with their landing gear. The Terrans might’ve panicked at the sight, but my appearance meant everything was under control so they just carried on with their business. A cop started redirecting traffic.

“Thank you, Officer.”

The officer smiled. “My pleasure, Lord Mollusk.”

A Venusian battleguard squad descended from their ship. Battleguards clank. It was all the armor.

This was just my everyday, walkin’ around exo, but it had some upgrades. A steel-blue paint job with metallic detailing. A few feet taller to allow me to see the world from a Terran’s point of view. It wasn’t as combat ready as the Ninja-3, but it had a few extra gadgets to give even a fearless Venusian battleguard pause.

Venusians were a reptilian species. They came in many colors. They sported tufts of feathers along their spines, and biochemical flashes glinted in their eyes. The effect could range from sparkles to burning glares. They were also the only sentient species in the system that still had tails.

Zala, the tall, lanky commander, stood at the front of the battleguard. Her scales were a bluish shade of gray. The few feathers visible on the back of her neck were red with flecks of orange and purple. Her eyes barely glowed. Normally, they’d glitter with righteous rage at the mere sight of me.

She pointed her scimitar at me. The sharp edge could slice through titanium provided she got a good swing behind it. “Fugitive Mollusk, I have been ordered to place you under protective custody. Please come with me immediately for your own safety.”

This was surprising. I liked being surprised. It happened so rarely.

“Can you repeat that?” I asked.

Zala sighed. She was having trouble with the words, so foreign to her.

“Don’t make me say it again.”

I grinned. “Oh, one more time. Just to be sure I heard you correctly.”

“Protective custody,” she replied softly. “For your own safety.”

“My own what?”

She snarled. I smiled.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “but aren’t you more interested in, and I believe this is your most commonly used phrase,
bringing me to justice
?”

“You aren’t going to make this easy on me, are you?”

“Why should I?”

Zala sheathed her scimitar.

“You will be called to count for your crimes, Mollusk. But it has come to our attention that your life is in great danger, and I have sworn to see you placed on trial before the High Court. And the only thing that could prevent my keeping that sacred oath is my death. Or your own. And I cannot allow that.”

“I’m flattered you still care,” I said. “Even after all these years.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Venus never forgets.”

“I have an amnesia ray you could borrow if it will put this nonsense behind us. Not that I mind these impromptu visits. They do brighten my day.”

“I will not be mocked, Mollusk.”

“Who’s mocking?” I replied. “I was beginning to feel neglected. Of all my enemies, you’ve always been my favorite. I enjoy your indefatigable passion. Most everyone else would be discouraged after the string of failures you’ve experienced. But not you. You always come back, ready for a fresh lesson in futility. It’s inspiring in a way.”

She scowled. One day, I’d push her too far, but it was just another experiment I couldn’t resist. A study on the limits of the Venusian honor, so perfectly embodied in Zala, the most perfect of their perfect warriors. I comforted myself that my death would most likely be efficient and painless when I found that limit.

But today was not that day.

Zala said, “Whether you like it or not, you are under my protection now. Are you going to cooperate? Or will I be required to incapacitate you?”

“If you could incapacitate me, I’d be sitting in a Venusian prison right now.”

She sneered.

“Thanks for your concern,” I said, “but I don’t really need your protection.”

“You don’t understand, Mollusk. People want you dead.”

“I heard you the first time. Should I be surprised? I’ve made a few enemies. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

Zala gestured, and her battleguard stepped forward.

“Seize him!”

I held up my hand, and the guards hesitated.

“I don’t know if Zala gave you the story of the last battleguard that attempted any reckless seizing, but you might want to reconsider this.”

She glared. “He’s bluffing. We will drag him to Venus, to a hero’s welcome.”

“I wasn’t aware you gave scorched skeletons parades on Venus.”

“If he had anything dangerous, he’d have already used it.”

“I resent that. I’m trying to not vaporize people just for being annoying.”

“If you’re really interested in penance,” said Zala, “then you should have no problem surrendering yourself to us.”

“I never said anything about penance. I just said I’m keeping my vaporization tally down.”

“Have you no conscience?” she demanded. “Do you feel no remorse for your crimes?”

“Define
remorse
.”

She snarled. Her left eye flashed. I’d said the wrong thing. I did that sometimes. I blamed it on my upbringing. For all our technological and scientific achievements, Neptune education didn’t cover conversational skills. Especially with the less advanced species that shared our system.

“Seize him or may the Eleventh God strike you down as the cowards you are!”

That got them moving. Venusians took their gods very seriously. Probably because, unlike so many other divinities, they intervened quite visibly in mortal affairs, and nothing set them off more than a show of cowardice. Given a choice between vaporization and explosive decapitation (the Eleventh God’s smite of choice), they did what they had to do.

They drew their rifles. They had to put down their swords and shields first. The primitive weapons clattered to the pavement. They attempted to blast me, but their weapons clicked and spit puffs of smoke from the barrels as they pulled the triggers.

“Focus pulse,” I said. “It disables sophisticated electronics by draining their power source. Effective, though its range is limited to a few hundred feet. And it’s easy to counter with some basic shielding. You really should consider updating your weapons technology.”

“We’ll cut you out of that tin suit if need be,” said Zala.

Her guard drew their scimitars and charged at me. The skill of the dreaded Venusian swordmasters was the stuff of legend. Deservedly so. When facing off against their grandmaster, I’d only survived by developing an exo with six swords, and even then, I’d had to cheat to win. Although it was only cheating if you lost.

The Venusians had disagreed, but I’d won, so it was irrelevant what they thought.

Before they could bring their blades to bear, my saucer unleashed a magnetic field neutralizer. The armored battleguard rocketed up in the air, up and away until they were tiny dots floating above our heads.

I excluded Zala from the effect.

“You’re a coward,” she said.

My brain didn’t burst out of my skull. You might think that my colorful history with Venus would’ve angered its gods. They were a brutal, unforgiving lot, but they limited their wrath to Venusians. I’d had dinner with six of the eleven divinities once, and if you could get past the ritual blood drinking, they were a fairly likable and jovial group.