-SALOON AT THE EDGE OF EVERYWHERE-

Chapter Twenty Three

As soon as Beeltee stepped onto Mainstreet he spotted Ssseeeet, Frodo, Asa and Ox. “What the hell is this?” he yelled, pointing the needle gun at them. “I knew I couldn’t trust that Rufus guy.”

The moment could have turned ugly, but Rufus stepped out of the hallway behind Ox and raised his hands to show he was unarmed. He had even given his good knife to Ken Bower to replace the one that had broken.

“Ox, get out of here,” he hissed quietly, and pushed the Xxo back through the door. “Look, it’s not a trick. They came out here to help our guy and your two friends that got hit by that Whalepede’s tongue. They are all still alive, see?” He pointed at the three sticky beings. “Nobody has died yet. Let’s try to keep it that way.”

“You are full of tricks, human,” yelled the pirate Captain. “I can’t trust anything you say. How do I know there are really any Marines coming? I think you just made that up to scare us.”

“Gup, buddy, can you hear me?” Rufus said clearly.

Gup was watching the scene unfold on the screen, and had plugged another comm wand into the consol in case it was needed. Now he spoke into it, and his voice came out over the hidden speakers above Mainstreet. “Uh, I can hear you, sir.”

“Can you put Captain Browne on the speakers, buddy?” Rufus asked.

“Uh, yes, sir,” replied the comm tech.

“Captain Browne, can you hear me?” asked Rufus.

“Yes, Mr. Blacke, I read you. I am a little busy docking my ship, so if you could get to the point.” The Captain still sounded calm and collected.

“Are you still insisting on sending your Marines aboard the Hub, Captain?” Rufus glanced at the Wasp Whip.

“I have my orders, Mr. Blacke,” she responded firmly.

“Thank you Captain. Gup, clear the channel.” Rufus continued to look at the pirate Captain. “You see, they will be coming down the boarding ramp in the lounge in a matter of minutes. My guy Gup says there is no way to stop them. So what’s it going to be, Kid, do the right thing, or play army men with the big boys who kill people for a living?”

In the lounge, Jeetar sidled casually to a spot near the other door that led to Mainstreet, trying to look as though he were just keeping an eye on the hostages. He figured he had about two minutes before he was supposed to slip out and do what exactly he had no real idea at all.

Beeltee was so overjoyed at having Rufus at his mercy that he had forgotten all about Jeetar. He was filled with a sense of power, aiming the deadly gun at the unarmed human. But still this exasperating Rufus character, who had approached closer to Beeltee in a way that was obviously meant to shield his friends from the pirate’s gun, was not behaving in a manner which Beeltee might have expected. He didn’t seem nearly frightened enough, for one thing.

Rufus stopped walking towards the pirate Captain, keeping his hands open and raised, and glanced down at his feet. Beeltee followed his gaze and realized that Rufus had stepped in the sticky glue on the floor left by the big creature’s passage.

“Oh, that’s just great,” Rufus complained, and he began trying to lift his feet from the mess without leaving his tennis shoes behind.

“Get me and my crew, all of them, on a ship and off this Hub,” demanded the Captain of not a whole lot. He went on, trying to sound sure of himself, “I don’t even need to take all the hostages. Just a few of the ones from rich families. And you, of course.” He couldn’t help smiling in anticipation as he made this point.

“They are not going to let you leave, Kid,” said Rufus flatly. “Marines do not negotiate with terrorists, and neither do Navy Captains. And that’s what they think you are, a bunch of crazy terrorists. And it’s not just us humans either. You kidnapped aliens from all over. You have embarrassed a large segment of the universe, and people get angry when they are embarrassed. Besides, you have violated the usage rules of the Hubs. Your whole race can be banned from ever using them again, and be marooned in whatever backwater of a galaxy you’re from. So you won’t even be able to go home. Seriously, where do you think you are going to run to after all this is over?” By the end of his little speech, Rufus just sounded tired and a little depressed.

“You smell like shit,” said Beeltee.

“Yeah, I know,” said Rufus resignedly.

Gup’s voice came over the speaker. “Uh, sir, the U. S. S. S. Obama has just finished docking maneuvers. They will have the blast doors open in a minute or two. Also, Mr. Toad has asked that I patch through a line for him. He thinks you need to hear this.”

Suddenly a new and high-pitched voice came over the speakers. The voice spoke a language that Rufus did not know, and it did not sound like a happy voice at all.

Beeltee looked absolutely stricken. He turned his eyes back down from the speakers to meet Rufus’s eyes. He spoke over the sound as if he knew there was no point in waiting for the unhappy, squealing voice to pause. “I can’t believe you called my Mom!”

While all this was going on, Ox remained out of sight in the short hallway near the door, and Frodo and Ssseeeet were pulling Asa to his feet. He stood unsteadily, still leaning against the wall.

“Don’t you move,” shouted Beeltee, still over the voice of his mother, and swung his gun in their direction. He had evidently seen the movement, and wanted to keep control of Rufus’s friends to keep him in line. As he shouted, he took a step forward just to show he was serious. He felt his splayed feet sink into the sticky muck and looked down.

“Oh, that’s just great,” Beeltee complained.

Rufus gave him a bleak smile of sympathy with just a hint of smugness to it. After all, as you humans say, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

The voice of the pirate Captain’s mother continued to shrill through the large corridor like an alarm, seemingly without pause for breath or thought.

“Wow, she seems really pissed off,” Rufus noted dryly. “It’s always best to listen to your mother,” he concluded.

“You will pay for this as well, human,” Beeltee blustered, but his body language proclaimed that the stress of the building situation was getting to him. A new voice, deeper than the other, came over the speakers.

Rufus had to keep up the pressure, but not push Beeltee to where he decided to go out in a blaze of glory. He said, “So let me guess, is that your father?”

Beeltee switched his point of aim from the other three to a spot between Rufus’s eyes. They were only a few sticky feet from each other.

Gup’ voice broke in. “Uh, sir, the Marines are at the blast-doors. You don’t have much time.”

“Come on, Kid,” said Rufus, trying to crank up the pressure just one more notch. “You are out of time. Those Marines, and there are a lot of them, are most likely being led by a twenty year-old 2^nd Lieutenant who has never been in combat before.” Fortunately for his peace of mind, he had no idea how right he actually was. “You know what the Marines say, Beeltee? They say, ‘kill ‘em all, and let God sort them out’.” He couldn’t remember if it was actually the Marines who said that, but he had seen it on a patch once in an army surplus store.

Beeltee’s mother’s voice came back over the speaker. “Shut up, mom,” screamed the flustered teenager in English. This caused the voice to pause, but only for a moment. Then it went on in an even more shrill tone, and at a higher volume.

Beeltee screamed, an incoherent sound full of rage. Uh oh, thought Rufus, I may have pushed him too far.

Beeltee swung his gun back towards Rufus’s friends. “You can watch your friends die, human,” he shrieked, and then he pulled the trigger mechanism. And that’s just what Rufus thought that he was doing.

Watching his friends die.

In the lounge, Jeetar slowly and casually opened the door and slipped through, then leaned his narrow back against the wall. He glanced with some surprise at the butt of the Whalepede nearby. He hadn’t been expecting that. But it didn’t seem to be a threat. He looked the other way just in time to see his Captain gun down three unarmed aliens.

“No way!” he muttered to himself.

In the control room, Gup was still flicking the consol like a concert pianist playing a particularly lively version of ‘the flight of the bumblebees’.

The rest of the crowd was watching the screen in horror as the pirate Captain slaughtered their friends in cold blood.

Candybar looked away, feeling sick. It was then she noticed the new Xxo disappearing through the front door of the room, the one leading directly out onto Mainstreet, which had just been made available by the further movement of the Whalepede. The brand new being, still less than an hour old, had just stepped out to face a coldblooded killer, and he was completely defenseless. Candybar screamed.