Black Swan Planet Read online

  Black Swan Planet

  By

  James Peters

  Copyright © 2017 Endless Worlds Publications

  www.endlessworldspub.com

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All authors have asserted their moral rights.

  Chapter 1

  Piñatas, Ponies, and Presents

  I had begged, borrowed, bribed, and blackmailed my way into an invitation for the Emperor’s Private Birthday Ball on his own personal star-cruiser. Figured I’d crash the party with my nearly invisible dust-cameras and show the over-taxed, miserable populace how the Emperor celebrates his fortieth birthday. I’d exhibit a shocked reaction to the fine wines being served at an open bar, the Antrusian caviar by the bucket-full, various delicacies, fancy dress, and perhaps some dignitaries sampling the happy gas that’s illegal on all worlds of the Empire, but not covered by laws while space-borne. I’d explain how much it costs to transport all the notables from the twenty-seven worlds to this one party and close out with ‘It’s good to be the Emperor!’

  All on a live, holovision feed to the galaxy. My fans would eat it up.

  After all, that’s what I do. For I’m Raka Varoule, and my show, Raka Live! is the seventh most popular investigative reporting program in my demographic and time-slot, with notable popularity within mental health institutions with locked-out video controls. Detractors say that’s because my program immediately follows Calming Meditation with the Stars, but my agent insists that I connect with this crowd in particular.

  As I approached the main ballroom door, I heard a strange sound, much like the sound of an elephant’s trumpet call coming from within. I took a deep breath and tapped my shoulder to awaken the cameras; a confirmation signal flashed in my eye, reading ‘Live Broadcast’. I announced, “This is Raka Varoule, and here is what your Emperor does with your tax dollars!”

  When I opened the door, I stared in stunned silence, unable to speak as I took in the vision of the most disgusting display of depravity that one could ever imagine. This wasn’t an X-rated scene; the mere concept of what I saw would make a pornographer blush, swear an oath of celibacy, and live as a eunuch for the rest of his life. For before me wasn’t a ménage a trois; this was a ménage a two-hundred. Emperor Caligula’s pale, naked bulbousness on full display in the center of the room, lying on a bed of what looked like pure cocaine. A tube from a huge hookah pipe connected to several lifetime supplies of hospital-grade happy-gas hanging from his lip, as a rubber-suited dominatrix spanked him with a long, leather whip that cracked in the air. An unnatural orgy of animal, mineral, vegetable, and device surrounded him.

  I recognized the source of the elephant’s trumpet, as an elephant passed me, ridden by a ‘three-legged’ midget chasing a chimpanzee in a pink ballerina’s tutu. To call the monkey pants-less was more or less true; the monkey was wearing leather chaps, but by their very nature, they were by definition, ass-less. I saw naked acrobats, arch-bishops, and anaconda in various acts that defied logic and human limits. Spread across the floor I saw the widest selection of illegal drugs, paraphernalia, and contraband devices with functions my brain couldn’t fathom. All of this, broadcast across the galaxy in 3-D holovision, during the family-viewing block.

  While I stood there dumbfounded, an alarm pierced through the din of the party. People and animals startled as the voice of the ship’s computer announced, “Unauthorized broadcast transmission detected in the main ballroom!”

  The Emperor struggled to his feet, fell flat on his face, and let loose a thunderous expulsion of flatulence.

  The computer voice continued, “Location of transmission found.”

  Dozens of purple targeting lasers pointed at me. Every eye in the room fixed upon me. I knew I had to say something memorable as these would likely be my last words ever. My brain kicked into overdrive and my voice cracked, “Oops. My bad.”

  The Emperor’s royal guard stormed the room, dressed in their full silver battle regalia with the red, yellow, green and blue stripes of the Empire emblazoned across their chests. Their rail weapons drawn, laser-sights fixed on various parts of my anatomy, but generally targeting my chest, although one repeatedly strayed toward my crotch until one guard elbowed his neighbor to raise his aim. One shot would tear a hole clean through my body. I’m doomed.

  The Emperor had stumbled back to his feet with the aid of two royal guards. He grabbed one of their rail guns.

  “I’ll take the shot!” The Emperor said, raising the weapon to his shoulder.

  I dropped to my knees, my voice cracking into a falsetto scream. “Please don’t kill me! Oh God, please no!” I sobbed as a warm stream of liquid ran down my leg as I faced death straight in the eye, except my eyes blurred from tears and my gaze darted from one guard to the next.

  I heard a high-pitched scream and I caught the motion of the chimpanzee swinging from a crystal chandelier, his pink tutu rustling in the air. He launched himself at the Emperor, knocking the gun from his hand, shrieking and screaming, bouncing on Caligula’s head. In the flailing, the Emperor fell face down, into the mountain of cocaine, causing a dust cloud of white powder erupting outward. The royal guardsmen turned their guns toward the monkey, and then something surprising happened.

  The dominatrix emerged with an oversized hammer, taking a mighty swing at the regulator assembly of the happy gas canisters. I heard a loud hiss as a huge cloud of blue gas vapor escaped at high pressure. For a moment, I smelled a mixture of banana, burning rubber, and rotting eggs. Then my world went black.

  ***

  I awoke to a vision of an angel. I stared into mesmerizing hazel eyes that drew my soul into a sea of intense infinity, my heart fluttered as a sense of euphoria came over me. I did not want to break the spell of her gaze, but my eyes caught a glimpse of her pale skin that looked too magical to touch, too perfect for words. Her hair flawlessly sculpted into a curl that framed a lovely oval of a face, centered by a tiny nose with a touch of an upward turn to the tip. Her hands balled into fists that she used to gently ease me from my slumber by pounding them into my face, yelling in a husky voice, “Wake up, you idiot!” The domanitrix said.

  A stream of blood dripped from my nose as I tried to stand, but fell back into semi-consciousness, unable to lift my own weight. She would save me. I fought back the black curtains that tried to overwhelm my vision. Lucky for me, she had a strong back, and flipped me onto her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  “This one better be worth saving,” she said as she carried me away. The jostling made my stomach turn and I fought back the urge to purge. The chimp led the way to the launch bay, into a shuttlecraft opulently decorated in a style I’d call tacky-elegance, and must belong to somebody important. She dropped me, face-first onto an imperial seal. My clouded mind started to piece things together. This is the Emperor’s personal shuttle!

  I struggled to my feet to stagger into the shuttlecraft’s cockpit, walking in on an argument of epic proportion. A tall and skinny, dark-skinned Rastafarian argued with the dominatrix about programming the shuttle’s destination while the chimpanzee jumped on the control board screeching loudly and motioning with his hands.

  “Don’t be a ginnygog, mon! We go to Katochia. My cousin set us up good,” the Rast
afarian said, reaching for the controls. The monkey hissed at him and bared pointed, white teeth.

  “Katochia? That drug den will be swarming with contraband agents after what just happened,” the dominatrix said. “We have to go somewhere they wouldn’t think of. A border planet without much influence from the Empire.”

  “Where you thinking, whip lady?”

  “Eclipse.”

  “You crazy! That hunk of ice got nothing but Feds and fuckers. At least Kotochia got ganja.”

  “Can I offer a suggestion?” I said.

  “No!” came the unanimous reply; even the chimp narrowed its eyebrows and snarled at me.

  I ignored their response. “We need to go somewhere, now. Make the first jump and get some space behind us. That’s the plan, right? Get away from this mess and figure out what to do? Can we do that and talk about our destination after we’re away?”

  The Rastafarian flipped his dreadlocks and said, “The dunku has a point, we need to go now, wherever we go.”

  “Fine. We make a quick emergency jump, and while the ship’s computer determines where we ended up, we’ll decide where we’re going,” the woman said. She took the controls and expertly launched the shuttlecraft into the vacuum of space.

  As we accelerated hard, I slid backward into the rear wall of the cockpit, unable to raise a hand.

  When the acceleration burst stopped, she raised the safety cover for the emergency jump button. She slapped the button down. The Chronos drive spooled up; for an instant within the ship, time no longer existed.

  This had been my first superluminal jump in a small ship. Commercials ships are so smooth, you might never notice the jump unless you happened to be looking outside a window and the star-field suddenly changed. In a shuttlecraft, the Chronos drive is barely big enough to create a complete time-pausing field around the ship; it takes all available power. I found the effect sickening; one side of my body immobile and dead, the other still active.

  People react to this effect differently. Some have a sense of doom, others of euphoria; many become nauseous. This day I learned monkeys react to it with projectile vomiting.

  I had an instant as the Chronos drive shut down I became aware of my own existence, I couldn’t move, and a monkey puked all over me. If I ever smell a banana again it will be too soon! Roughly at that moment, my own stomach decided that out is better than in; and I retched furiously, falling to my knees.

  Once I re-gathered my wits, several facts became apparent. I’m now suddenly a wanted man, exposing Emperor ‘off with their heads and despoil the corpses’ Caligula as a freaky drugged-up pervert. I’m trapped on a small shuttle craft with two people I do not know or trust, and an ass-less chaps wearing chimpanzee under a pink tutu, and no plan. I also stunk, because multi-species vomitus covered my clothing. My first priority became to find somewhere to clean up and put on some fresh clothes.

  The shuttle had one room clearly designed for Caligula, taking up most of the shuttle’s space with a big bed, clothing and personal belongings, lockers, and entertainment nodes. The rest of the ship just big enough to sleep four separately, a galley kitchen, some storage lockers for food, a small bathroom with shower, and the equipment room for the engine, life support and Chronos drive. I found a bathrobe in a cabinet just big enough to hold it, perfectly folded. I peeled off my reeking clothes, dumped them into a laundry chute, and had a quick shower. A few minutes later I emerged cleaner, smelling better, and nude. I reached for the bathrobe. The chimpanzee, no longer wearing the tutu but still in the ass-less chaps, snatched the

  bathrobe from the wall-hook and ran off with it. I gave chase into the cockpit.

  “Come back here you little…” I said, watching the monkey jump into the dominatrix’s arms. He screamed, pointing at me, bent over to touch his own ass, then waved a finger back and forth in the classic “no-no” gesture.

  There I stood, naked, having just chased this monkey, and he’s telling this gorgeous creature that I had tried to touch him. Why do things like this keep happening to me?

  “Really?” she said, her face contorting. “You couldn’t even wait until we knew where we are before trying to molest the damn monkey? What’s wrong with you?”

  “This isn’t how it looks. I swear, I never touched the monkey,” I said.

  The chimpanzee hugged her, acting as if I terrified him. He motioned a spanking action and showed a frown that would make a clown cry.

  “Look, can you at least hand me the robe?”

  She looked at me, glanced down at my crotch and laughed. “You must be freezing.”

  “Give me the robe.”

  “Fine. I think you scared little Marco enough with that thing.”

  “He stole the robe. I never touched him.”

  “The bad man is calling you a liar, Marco.”

  Marco bared his teeth at me, laughed, then scurried off somewhere.

  “So now I know the monkey’s name. I’m assuming you know mine.”

  “I know of you. You’re that loser on the holovision. An investigative reporter, right? But I have you at a disadvantage, and since you already seem disadvantaged enough,” her gaze dropped again to my groin. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Maven. Maven Blackheart.”

  Maven Blackheart. If an angel had a name it would be Maven Blackheart. I cleared my throat. “Raka Varoule, at your service.”

  “Tell me, why might I ever want your service?”

  I noticed an ever-so-slight glimmer in her eye, and a small smile cross her lips. My heart thumped, hands started to sweat, and I blushed. I needed a good comeback line. “Because my service is good?” I did not just say that! Oh my gods, I did. Why didn’t I just say “because I’m a total tool”? or “because you’re hotter than the monkey”?

  Maven rolled her eyes. “You’d better be good for something or I’ll space your ass. Do you have any idea of what you cost me with your stunt?”

  “My stunt? It was an investigative report. It’s what I do.”

  “And I was doing what I do. You ruined fourteen months of my work. But we can talk about that later. We need to figure out a plan. The Emperor will send his goons after us and we can’t outrun them in this ship. Our only hope is to go where they can’t find us.”

  A scream came from the other end of the ship. “Holy bumboclot, I‘ve found the mother lode!”

  Maven and I both made our way toward the Emperor’s suite. There we found the Rastafarian, his face plastered with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen.

  “We got ganja, opium, cocaine, heroin, an’ Antrusian ‘shrooms. All fruits ripe, I’m tellin’ ya! I found neural stimulators, virtual real’ty ultra-porn, transcendental modifiers and Margonian toad secretions. This stuff is bad like yaz. You could stone an army!” He turned toward us as Marco bounded into the room and buried his nose into an open brick of cocaine.

  The Rastafarian ignored Marco’s actions. “I’m being a dang-fool. We haven’t met yet. I’m Nicholai. I run ganja fo’ da’ Emperor.”

  “Raka Varoule. Investigative Reporter.”

  “Maven Blackheart.”

  “And what do you do, whip-lady?”

  “What I do is my business,” Maven said, her eyebrows spiking. We shared a moment of awkward silence.

  “Apparently the monkey is called Marco,” I said. As soon as I said ‘Marco’, he raised from his brick of cocaine, his beard now white, his beady eyes staring me down. He pounced, springing from one side of the room. He flew through the low artificial gravity with unnatural speed, grace, and ferocity. We all ducked and covered our heads. Marco screamed a simian chant that had to mean, ‘I freaking love cocaine and watch out for me because I have way too much energy for this small room, so I’m bounding from wall to wall and will bounce off your head. My nails are sharp, my teeth are long and nasty, and I’m completely out of control. Look at that! It’s shiny, and I can pick it up and throw it at you, and, wow! It broke into a million pieces and was really loud, so I need to shout louder. If I
bounce really hard, I can smack my head into the ceiling with a loud crack!’

  He fell to the floor like a bird that had been shot.

  “Is the little bugger dead?” Nicholai said.

  Maven moved closer to Marco. “No, he’s breathing.”

  “He’ll have one hell of a headache,” I said.

  Nicholai and Maven rolled their eyes.

  Maven picked the monkey off the floor and laid him on the bed, gently placing a fluffy pillow under the chimp’s head. “Maybe we should lock the stash back up. At least keep Marco from the cocaine. Then we need to meet in the cockpit and figure out a plan.”

  “Let’s meet in 15 minutes,” I said.

  “Fine.”

  ***

  I searched out some clothes to find only a few choices: the Emperor wore clothing about thirty sizes too big for me, or perhaps some see-through women’s lingerie? I finally found a closet containing a silver Royal Guard battle uniform, complete with the rainbow stripes down the side. I picked the uniform. When I put it on, It seemed a little too big, but once I fastened the last connector, the suit compressed and auto-adjusted to fit me perfectly; a little too perfectly for my preference, because I lacked the Kevlar-plate undergarments the real guards wear. Prediction: Chafing is in my future.

  The suit had a variety of controls built into the gauntlets that I had no clue how to use. I started to press buttons in random patterns and found that some combinations seemed to do nothing, others stiffened the material, another combination pressurized the suit. Another triggered the communication link to the Imperial Security Network. Something told me that might come in handy at some point.

  When I arrived at the cockpit, I found Nicholai already there, but Maven hadn’t arrived yet. He busied himself fiddling with the communication systems, listening to a news update. Maven walked in wearing what looked like a sheet tied into a sarong. As she settled in, Nicholai pointed toward the communicator:

  “…dead or alive, substantial reward for any information leading to the capture and decapitation of three subjects who stole the Emperor’s shuttlecraft. Reward reduced if executed prior to presentation to the Emperor. Suspects are identified as Raka Varoule, Investigative Reporter for Albatross Broadcasting Company, Maven Blackheart, occupation unknown, and Nicholai Anterwon, occupation unknown. Suspects may be accompanied by a chimpanzee. All Imperial Guard are to be on the lookout for these subjects. If found, the reward can be collected at any Imperial Outpost. This concludes this special broadcast, brought to you by Vibratron Prescription Undergarments. Vibraton is really neat, they put a smile in your seat. We’re all wearing Vibratron! Ask your doctor if Vibratron brand vibrating prescription undergarments are right for you.”