Bubba And The Mayans
Naugas

Naugas

“I can’t believe we are in jail again,” Dingo lamented. “We did not even do anything wrong. It is like when they arrested you on Darfo Seven cause of Bubba’s jorts.”

“This will blow over Dingo,” I reassured him. “And, at least no one is going to say it was Bubba’s fault this time. I am quite sure everyone is going to blame you.”

“What are you fellas in for?” The question was posed by a rather fragile looking old man sitting on another bunk in the cell.

Dingo and I exchanged a look before I answered. “Technically, for some property damage.”

“And being a public nuisance,” Dingo added.

“For introducing a public nuisance,” I corrected him. “Again, technically, we are not accused of being the nuisance. What is your name sir?”

“I ain’t about to tell you my name,” he announced rather defiantly. He spit on the floor at his feet and gave us the evil eye. “You’re them fellas what let loose all of them Naugas ain’t you?”

“We didn’t let them loose,” Dingo defended. “We introduced them to your planet as pets.”

“Pests,” the man corrected. “My daughter got one of them for the grandkids three weeks ago and it dang near destroyed their house before they could get animal control to come out and take the thing.”

“Sorry about that,” I said sadly. “In our defense, we did not know that you used bamboo as the framing for most of your houses.”

“Nor did we know it would radically alter the metabolic rates of the Naugas,” Dingo jumped in.

The old man shook his head and spat on the floor again. “You can tell it to the judge, but I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

It was eerily similar to what the police officers had told us after our arrests; and a couple of them had roughed us up a little bit. Dingo had been fighting back, but he can be kind of dumb that way. I had curled up into a protective ball as much as possible and accepted the punishment. If you do not put up a fight, they tend to ignore you to concentrate on someone who is. You know, squeaky wheel gets the oil and all that.

I turned back to Dingo and lowered my voice. “Danny Boy, Mikimo, and Bubba are back on the ship, and Arlo is still running around down here planet side somewhere as far as we know. If he can figure out some way to counteract the effect of the enzyme in the Phyllostahcys Moso variant on this planet, then everything should be all right.”

“Meanwhile we are sitting in jail, again, Jack.” Dingo pointed out.

It took me a moment to realize he had not recognized the name of the bamboo about which I was talking. He was correct though that we were sitting in jail, again. It had been a recurring problem ever since we had been abducted from a golf course in Kansas by Pilifino warriors. As Kansas rednecks we were a bit unsure on a lot of the galactic laws; and very sketchy on most of the local planetary ones.

We had been reminded many times that ignorance of the law was no excuse. However, in our current situation, we had been arrested for fairly minor charges. In my opinion we were safe because they did not have a specific law we had broken. One advantage of being earthlings was that many planets had never had any of their citizens attempt sometimes bold and stupid actions the way we do.

This whole thing with the Naugas had started a few years back on earth when Dingo got the idea to crossbreed Naugas and Chinchillas to introduce a revolutionary new fabric hybrid. He wanted to market Nauga-chillin couches, loveseats, and reclining chairs. It would have the durability of Naugahyde with the softness of Chinchilla fur.

The monkey wrench to the whole plan was that there is no such thing as Naugas. Well, not on earth anyway, and this is one of those strange things we have found in the universe. If you can dream of it, it is probably out there somewhere.

We run a small transport business in the far reaches of the opposite side of the universe from earth, due to some differences of opinion on certain legal matters with a few individuals in the Milky Way. We have a transportation broker who funnels jobs to us, takes a cut, and deposits our funds with an investing firm on Soros Twelve. We shuttle passengers and small cargo loads around between the planets when commercial services are undesirable for some reason. We do not ask a lot of questions as long as the money is good.

We were on Emphagraph Three six weeks ago delivering some passengers, and then having a few drinks in a local watering hole when Dingo saw a news article about the local animal shelter being overrun with Naugas. Dingo had already had several drinks at this point and was trying to shove it in our faces that he had been right all along about the Naugas. Now he was determined he could finally realize his dream of creating the perfect material for covering furniture. Some people have odd dreams.

After admitting we were wrong about the existence of Naugas, I pointed out that we were approximately 340 million light years from earth, which was the only planet we knew of that had Chinchillas.

Dingo had sunk back into his chair with a sigh of defeat and went back to drinking his concoction. I thought that was the end of it.

Alas, I was wrong. The next day when we boarded the ship to ferry our next group of passengers and cargo to Rodentiarus, Dingo smuggled a couple of dozen Naugas onboard and stashed them in his room.

We were in no great hurry on this particular trip. We took five days to travel to Rodentiarus without incident. The Naugas had lived happily in a shipping container in Dingo’s quarters on the trip as he used the ships computer to learn what to feed them and how to take care of them. He had skipped over a few of the boring parts and just concentrated on what he needed to know to keep them alive, unfortunately.

Five weeks ago, we had dropped off our passengers and cargo, and Dingo discovered he had about twice as many Naugas as when our five-day trip began. They either had a rapid reproduction cycle, or a few had been pregnant when he bought them. It did not matter to Dingo because he could sell off the extras and keep a couple on board for further study.

All had gone fairly well. We left a couple of days later on another trip with four Naugas on board, five passengers, and a load of cargo that was heading to Stillariam.

Four days ago, we got a subspace message we needed to return to Rodentiarus due to a problem that would not be detailed until our return.

Upon arrival at the space port, Dingo, Arlo, and I had caught a shuttle down to the surface to talk to the customs officials, thinking it was not anything major, because all the cargo we had delivered was legal stuff.

We had all been detained as soon as we set foot on the planet. Yes, it was because of the Naugas! On the ship, and during our brief time with them, they varied in size from large hamsters to small Guinea pigs. The ones onboard were still that size, although there were already more than two dozen of them in Dingo’s quarters. However, the ones Dingo had left behind had turbo charged their metabolic and growth rate by eating the bamboo that was native to the planet and were now the size of small pigs and breeding and reproducing at an alarmingly high rate. If you have ever seen the old Star trek episode of the “Trouble with Tribbles” you know exactly what we were facing.

Arlo, being the egghead of our group, asked for their scientist working on a solution so he could brainstorm with them. Dingo and I, offering nothing more than a couple of extra hands to catch Naugas were arrested. As previously stated, Dingo resisted this stupidly, but also vigorously.

I was content to spend the night in jail. It was not my first rodeo and the old man in the cell with us would not be likely to kill us in our sleep. He also might not be willing to tell us what he was in for either, so one of us would stay awake just to be sure.

“I wonder when we will get a lawyer,” Dingo wondered aloud.

“You don’t deserve a dang lawyer,” the old man piped up. “They ought to just take you out in the street and string you up like they did in the old days.”

I began to revise the idea of him trying to kill us.

“What are you in for?” I ventured.

“None of your damn business, but it sure ain’t for introducing a public nuisance.”

“Why don’t you ask the guard when they bring us dinner,” I suggested to Dingo.

“That will not be necessary,” a low but commanding voice came from down the hall.

Soon a squat and heavily muscled man stood before our cell with one of the guards. He looked over Dingo and myself for a few seconds before his eyes settled on me.

“Can you verify you are the earthling Jack Wilson, Captain of the ship Apochairetismos?”

“Earthling!” the old man cried out. “I didn’t think they were real!” He tried to burrow into his bunk, moving into a corner with his back against the wall.

“I am,” I stated tentatively. “And you are?” I asked.

“Admiral Anastasi of the Galactic military,” he replied tersely. He turned his eyes to the guard for a moment, without speaking.

The guard pulled his keys out and opened the cell door. The admiral turned away and walked back down the hall. Dingo and I followed after a motion from the guard.

In a small room, eerily similar to several other interrogation rooms I had been in, the guard left us with the Admiral. We did not sit until he did so. He had no paperwork or electronic device on the table. He stared at us intently for a few moments before he began to speak.

“You killed four Kelvekians,” he said, looking at me and ignoring Dingo. It was somewhere between a question and a statement. After a moment I nodded agreement. “Additionally, you killed a few Elvi and Ozkerians.”

Dingo and I exchanged a look. It had been self-defense. I nodded my head again slowly, wondering where this was going. Although we had had several run ins with authority figures on a few planets we had not done anything I could think of to gain the attention of the galactic military, especially not an admiral.

“I don’t think I killed any Ozkerians,” I said as I thought back on the incidents on Sesterisia.

“Destroyed an Ozkerian ship,” the Admiral stated.

“Oh yeah, we did do that,” Dingo chimed in enthusiastically and unhelpfully.

“An engineer and three maintenance men were unaccounted for after the explosion,” the Admiral said as he looked at me.

I had no answer for that.

“My sources say Helospirinious West died in that battle.”

I nodded, sadly. Hello had died that day.

“Her cousin Fellatio West is also reported missing.”

“Sorry, never heard of her.” I assumed it was a her.

“I believe you knew her as Janet Jones. Did you change the name of ship from Janet Slayer after you killed her?”

“The ship was called Janet’s lair.” I corrected.

“Dude, Janet’s real name was Fellatio!” Dingo exclaimed. “You dated a girl named Fellatio!”

The Admiral looked at both of us oddly after Dingo’s outburst. He cocked his head to one side momentarily.

“Felicia,” the Admiral corrected. “Felicia West, apparently something got lost in translation. You know, I thought Janet slayer was bit too obvious.”

Dingo was sporting a huge smile, but I ignored him. “Janet was unharmed on earth last time I saw her.” She was shot with a tranquilizer and left on the living room floor.

The Admiral considered my statement for a few seconds before moving on. “You rescued a Lakanican princess who had been kidnapped.”

I nodded affirmatively.

“And yet she seems to have disappeared again afterward.”

“Isn’t she on the ship with Bubba?” Dingo asked.

I shot him a dirty look but turned back towards the Admiral. “She found the confines of the palace a little too restrictive,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “She kind of joined our crew on Sesterisia. Her dad knows that. She has been in touch with him,” I emphasized.

“Why are you so far from your planet? You are over three hundred million light years from earth. What does this area of the universe offer you that you and your crew could not attain closer to home?”

“No one out here believes that earthlings are real, for one,” I stated. “Also, until you showed up, no one out here knows anything about the incident with the Elvi, the Lakanican princess, the Ozkerians, or the Herpes.”

“The incident on Herpe,” Dingo stated emphatically.

“I did not mention Herpes,” the Admiral offered. “However, there was a Herpederpetitus epidemic on Octavia not long after you fought the Kelvekians. That is what brought you to my attention. Do you have any idea how hard it is to kill a Kelvekian?”

I nodded slowly. I had not killed a Kelvekian. I had killed four of them, but not singlehandedly. Most of the individuals in the arena had died that day. It was a dumb question though. If he knew I was in the arena, then he also knew that I knew distinctly, how hard it was.

“So, you know about the Elvi, the Ozkarians, and the Kelvekians.” I offered. “We did rescue Mikimo, and we were banned from Octavia, Pilifino, and Darfo Seven. And really, after all of that, I am kind of wondering why you are here now over the problem of a few rodents.”

“There are almost two billion people on Rodentiarus.” The admiral responded derisively.

“I was not talking about the people. I was talking about the Naugas. I understand people are pissed and they have a right to be,” I said as I shot a glance at Dingo. “But we should be able to figure something out in a few days. Arlo is working on it with their scientists.”

“There has been quite a bit of damage done,” the Admiral admonished.

“I do not know how we are going to pay restitution or whatever. We do not have that much currency, and my grandpa said to never, never sue poor people.” I returned.

“A wise man,” the Admiral observed. “The Naugas are currently being hunted by four companies of Galactic troops.” The Admiral stated. “Those on your ship have been secured. They will be dispatched with extreme prejudice and eradicated from the planet within a few days. Their unique DNA signature will allow us to scan the planet to verify that fact soon.”

“Well, if you aren’t here about the Naugas,” Dingo hazarded. “What is this about?”

“The Naugas are a concern. You have broken several galactic laws regarding to illegal transport and invasive species.”

I waited a moment to try and read his eyes, which were cold and black. “But you still aren’t here about the Naugas,” I suggested.

The admiral looked me over for a moment before nodding slightly. “This is about earth,” he hesitated for a moment, “and the Mayans,”

“We aren’t supposed to talk about the Mayans,” Dingo said solemnly.

“But you are going to,” the Admiral answered looking first at Dingo and then me.

“We are not supposed to talk about the Mayans,” Dingo repeated as he looked at me.

“Why is that?” the Admiral asked.

“Well, we promised them we would not when we were on Obujutte. Arlo and I played a round of golf with a couple of them. Really nice guys,” Dingo rambled along.

“Do you know why they left,” the Admiral asked as he turned towards me, cutting Dingo off.

“I guess their vacation was over.” I said with a shrug.

“Not left Obujutte you idiot! Do you know why they left earth?” The Admiral said with irritation.

“I have some ideas, but I was never really told the full story. As Dingo said, he and Arlo promised them they would not tell anyone and they have not breached that confidence, even with the rest of our crew.”

“Why they left is not pertinent at the moment. However, they did leave something on earth.”

“Yeah, pyramids, temples, huge cities, and a bunch of stuff people don’t understand,” Dingo commented.

“They also left the only known set of plans in the universe for an engine made of Noibium and powered by Promethium that would provide almost unlimited power for several thousand of your years, maybe tens of thousands.”

“Okay,” I said. “I still don’t see what that has to do with us.”

“There is a lot of paperwork stacking up in the Milky Way with regards to a certain spaceship, and its crew,” the Admiral said, leaning back in his chair and waving his hands around. “Individuals on Elva and Ozkeria have brought a variety of charges regarding murder, conspiracy, kidnapping, and Octavia added abduction of Herpes with intent to distribute.”

I was a little dumbfounded. That was all a couple of years behind us. I had no idea how to respond.

“Then, there is all this nonsense with the Naugas, generating more piles of paperwork to be sorted, collated, charges to be filed, investigations to be made, you get the idea. I hate paperwork,” the Admiral continued, waving his hand dismissively. “So, it would be much easier for me, and for you consequentially, if we could make it just all go away.”

“And how do we do that,” Dingo piped up.

“We go to earth and get the plans for this machine,” I vocalized. “But, why us? Why not just go to the Mayans and get the plans from them?”

“There are no other plans besides the ones on earth, and the Mayans destroyed all their other research with regards to the engine. They think it could be turned into a tremendously destructive weapon and have removed all traces of it from their records.

“Okay, but again, why us in particular? Why not get the Mayans to go back and get it.” I inquired.

“Because they refuse to help for one,’ he answered. “And anything they engaged in would be documented. I want you because you are natives who will blend in much better than alien species and because I would rather have you working for me than spend the rest of your life on some prison planet or executed for your crimes.”

“Were disposable,” I surmised. “We are not an official part of the galactic military. Therefore, no records to muddy up the water if we get caught or fail,” I thought aloud.

“Exactly,” the admiral responded.

So, we get the plans for the machine; give them to you, and then what?” I asked.

“Then all that paperwork can go away with a signature. I say you were caught, punished, etcetera, and will not cause problems on Ozkeria, Elva, Octavia, or a host of other planets again.”

“How can we trust you?” I wondered aloud.

“I could just have you shot and make the same signatures on the same pieces of paper. I could send Mikimo back to Lakanica and her father’s palace. But, I would rather have you as and asset Jack.”

“Would we get paid?” Dingo asked.

“Of course,” the Admiral said with an unpleasant smile. “You do this, clear your names, and then go back to running your little transport business for the most part far away from the Milky Way. Every once in a while, I will call you for a special assignment where bureaucrats and paperwork need not interfere. What do you say Captain Jack?”

I glanced at Dingo and shrugged my shoulders. It was certainly better than the thought of being executed.