Renegade T.M. Read online

  “Yeah come on guys, let's do them some real damage.”

  “Oh, and if there are any of you insect-minded, facially-challenged Co-leen creeps listening, which I know there are, this one's for you; it's an anthem from my old oozeball days, it's Fearfactor with “Come and have a go if you think you're superior enough”.”

  9.

  The Humdinger sped across space and arrived at Krassis in little more than a blink of a Yashtee moon. Entering orbit, the Renegade team were slightly put out to discover that they were utterly alone in their efforts to cream the Co-leen, and that their army consisted of the Humdinger crew, the Humdinger, and, oh, I already mentioned the Humdinger crew didn't I.

  “Well this is just the pits man,” moaned Slip, “last time I ever do anyone a favour.”

  “Now come on Slip, we can still raise the resistance, and the Co-leen will co-lapse,” said Crinkle in an attempt to motivate him a little.

  “Yeah, you've got to look at the bigger picture,” Pete put in, “my home's on the line here.”

  “Well mine's just fine,” he replied despondently, patting a wall of the Humdinger as he spoke.

  “Hey Slip,” began Fendel, “you know what I heard the Co-leen say when I was imprisoned on their ship.”

  He shrugged.

  “They said that Slip McGroovy was fat, really fat.”

  “So,” he replied, patting his round belly, “I'm just big boned, that's all.”

  “They said that Slip McGroovy was so fat, that he's restricted to outer space because of the enormous gravitational pull he exerts on matter.”

  “Now that's a lie,” he stated seriously, pulling up his trousers.

  “They then said that the music he plays sucks, they said it sucked so much that whenever they heard any, they were frequently forced to hold group decapitation sessions, where they beheaded one another in a desperate attempt to purge themselves of the vileness of your musical touch.”

  “They're going down!” he growled angrily.

  “Err guys,” Crinkle interrupted, “the Co-leen are coming.”

  “Oh yeah right,” Slip remembered, adopting his best serious face, “take us down!”

  Pete pressed the button marked down.

  Pete's first impressions of an alien world were, it has to be said, very favorable. Krassis was a giant, and by giant I mean planet sized, waterslide park, and he was reminded of cheap holidays to the Med, with it's dodgy food and irregular sleeping patterns. Different hues of red, yellow, and blue blended together so that it was like looking into a giant box of Lego with your eyes slightly asquint. Everything was made of burning plastic, satisfyingly smooth, whilst at the same time, making it quite impossible to linger. All sorts and shapes of beings were running, floating, or simply appearing around, each quite certain of which slide they intended to slide, and to this intergalactic chaos, there was a terrifyingly Euro-pop sounding tune, of which he was certain had been a huge hit in Germany.

  They parked the Humdinger next to the slide of uncertainty, and making a mental note of this, got changed, grabbed towels, and went looking for an uprising.

  “Right what's the plan boss?” asked Fendel.

  “Dunno,” said Slip, “let's ask this guy.”

  “Hey buddy,” he addressed the guy manning the slide of infinity, “how do we get in touch with the resistance round here?”

  “Hey man,” said the guy somewhat taken aback, “you shouldn't be asking that.”

  “Look Joe, you don't mind if I call you Joe right, good, me and my crew here really need to meet these...”

  “Cross your legs!” interrupted Joe, yelling at one of the kids going down the slide.

  Pete crossed his legs.

  “Don't be a foe Joe, just point us in the way,” appealed Slip in a sing song voice.

  “My name's Adam.”

  “Sure thing baby, great name, just great.”

  “How long's the slide?” Fendel asked Adam, with elements of both awe and anxiety apparent in his voice.

  “It's infinite, can't you read the sign.”

  “Yeah,” he replied, seemingly lost to the lure of the interesting.

  “So bro', how about it,” resumed Slip.

  “You'll want Pierre, he's the man you'll need to see.”

  “Great,” said Slip, giving Adam a hefty slap on the back.

  “Sounds French,” mused Pete.

  “Sounds what?” all eyes now on him.

  “Oh nothing,” he replied, uncrossing his legs with the realization he looked and sounded decidedly odd.

  Fendel, unobserved, moved closer to the edge of the slide of infinity.

  “So Joe, how do we find Pierre?” Slip Asked.

  “It's Adam!”

  “What's Adam?”

  “I'm Adam you idiot!”

  “Course,” Slip sighed, rolling his eyes, “but what about Pierre?”

  “Look,” began Adam crossly, before yelling distractedly at the next slider “cross your legs!”

  Slip crossed his legs. Pete almost did, but checking himself just in time, instead grinned maniacally to himself about his easy cool.

  “I don't know where Pierre is, but he's certainly not here, so please go away now,” Adam pleaded.

  “Sure Joe, no need to blow Joe, see ya Joe.”

  Slip said goodbye and moved away with Pete and Crinkle.

  “Right gang,” rallied Slip, “let's split up and find this Pierre guy.”

  “Pete, you go that way,” he said pointing at a burger bar, “me and Crinks will go this way,” he said pointing at a bolley vall court, “and Fendel, you go, hold on, where's Fendel?”

  They all turned around just in time to watch Fendel plunge fully committed down the slide of infinity.

  “Well,” sighed Slip, “I guess we won't be seeing him for a while.”

  “Okay, let's do this, and whoever raises the resistance first, gets to attack the Co-leen first,” he cheered, evidently thinking this to be a grand enticement.

  “Terrific,” said Pete sarcastically to himself as he wandered off alone, in order to find some random resistance leader called Pierre, “perhaps I'll get a burger.”

  10.

  “What do you mean, you don't take MasterCard?!” wailed Pete, who had been attempting to buy a burger for the best part of an hour now.

  “Now look buddy,” began the burger bar employee, who had been pushed to his limits by Pete's incessant babble, “I don't know why you're still here, or indeed why you persist in waving that little piece of plastic at me, but I promise you that you're never going to get a burger, and if you don't go away now, I'm calling security.”

  “Fine,” he said, giving up and skulking off, “didn't want one of your stupid burgers anyway,” he added in a small voice.

  This business had put him in a rather despondent frame of mind, and as he moped along, his eyes locked sulkily on the ground in front of him, he started cursing everything he came across.

  “Stupid burger bar, stupid roller disco, stupid waterslide planet!” he cursed, thumping the side of a waterslide, causing a small shriek from within.

  “Stupid water dodgems, stupid tiny, ugly squid thing!” he went on, and then kicking the tiny, ugly squid thing, sent it flying some forty meters over the roller disco, so that it splash landed amid the water dodgems.

  Now although this action had made Pete feel a little better, unknown to him was the fact that the tiny, ugly squid thing was actually the Esteemed President of the people of Frange, and holder of the celestial donkey orb of Poonta, who was currently holidaying on Krassis with his wife and family. Had he have known, he may not have kicked the President as hard as he did, or at least would have filmed the whole thing on his phone.

  “Stupid slide of tomorrow, stupid slide of evolution!”

  “Now hang on,” he thought suddenly, stopping dead in his tracks, intrigued by the possibilities of the slide of evolution.

  “I'll just have a quick look,” he decided, having complet
ely forgotten about Pierre and the Co-leen resistance.

  “Hello, what's this do?” he asked the guy manning the slide of evolution.

  “You evolve, can't you read the sign.”

  “Right,” he replied, reaching the conclusion that everyone working on this planet was either very rude, or very stupid, or quite possibly both.

  “Well, it couldn't hurt,” he declared, hurling himself down the slide of evolution.

  “Weeeeeeeee!” Pete screamed like a happy child, before reaching the conclusion that the happiness he was experiencing was but a mere illusion created and perpetuated by that ghost in the machine, the self.

  “I think, therefore I am,” he decidedly conclusively.

  “E does equal MC squared,” he realized.

  “If God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him,” he declared simply, as though he had just completed a free paper Sudoku puzzle.

  It should be noted that Pete's barrage of insight went on for quite a good while, whereas my ability to record these insights somewhat floundered after he declared quite confidently that “vegetable ping happy”. Nevertheless, I am in a position to report that by the time he had reached the end of the slide, Pete had become pure energy. He emerged a perfect sphere of white light, floating serenely a couple of feet off the ground; and with complete understanding of life, the universe and everything, those who gazed on him found an instant inner peace.

  “Right,” he began mightily, contemplating as to whether he should create a trans-warp gate to travel back to the birth of time, or rather invent some kind of machine that turned water into wine.

  “Hang on,” he realized suddenly, disappearing and then reappearing at the same burger bar he had only recently left, “now I'll get my burger!”

  “Give me a burger!” he boomed, doing his best impression of how he imagined God would demand a burger.

  At this, the burger bar employee, who had belittled him but moments before, fell to his knees and averted his eyes.

  “This is great,” thought Pete.

  “Give me a burger!” he boomed again, turning a few of the burgers to sand and causing the ground to quake a little.

  “Yes, yes anything,” the employee wailed, holding out a burger for him with a shaking hand.

  “Finally, this is going to be the business,” thought Pete, as he made the burger float into him.

  “What?!” he cried aghast, as the burger made its way steadily into the middle of his ball of light, and remained floating there fully intact.

  “This is ridiculous!” said Pete, who was now being laughed at by the very employee who had thought him a god just a moment ago.

  “Enough is enough,” he stated, who vanishing, then reappeared at the slide of devolution.

  “Fancied a burger huh?” guessed the guy in charge of the slide of devolution.

  “See it everyday,” he added knowingly, as Pete launched himself down the slide.

  “E equals mc squared,” he began, “where E is energy, m is mass, and c is, er, custard?” he ventured in the midst of his rapid devolution, “and why is it squared, and not circled, or triangled? Shapist physicists!”

  “I think therefore,” he paused to gather his thoughts, "I think therefore,” he repeated , desperately trying to discover exactly what he thought he thought.

  “Oh I don't know what I think anymore!” he declared with certainty, for perhaps the first time that day, as he tumbled out from the slide, returned to normal Pete-shaped form again.

  “Ah well, not a complete loss,” he said to himself, who reaching into his inside pocket, retrieved a water-drenched burger, and opening his mouth, bit deeply into it, with a relish that some might say was godlike.

  ***

  “Yeeeaaaaaaaaah!!!” yelled Fendel, who for the last few cycles, had been sliding down the slide of infinity.

  11.

  “Okay Crinks,” began Slip, “let's find this Pierre guy.”

  “Sure thing hon', which way?”

  “This way,” he replied, gesturing at a crowd that was beginning to form, “let's see what's going on over there.”

  Slip and Crinkle made their way into the crowd that was getting bigger every moment. Pushing and shoving their way through, they were somewhat startled to find a host of Co-leen at the centre of it all, who were preparing to address the crowd.

  “Slip,” began Crinkle in a hushed voice, “those are...”

  “I know babes,” he interrupted, “just don't draw any attention.”

  “People of Krassis,” began the Co-leen, “we come with an important announcement. We have reason to believe that the so called Renegade team, who broadcast the illegal Renegade show through the invasive means of transcranial modulation, are currently somewhere on this planet. This criminal gang consist of the one they call Fendel, a short woman named Crinkle, an earthman named Pete Martin, and is masterminded by one of the most dangerous felons in existence, Slip McGroovy. Their images are being shown to you now.”

  “Hey sexy thing,” waved Slip to a forty foot holographic likeness of himself which suddenly appeared above the crowd.

  “Short, I'll give them short,” growled Crinkle, utterly oblivious to the fact that a thirty foot image of herself was currently hovering over her head.

  “We the Co-leen, rulers of everything and anything else we may have missed in the course of ruling everything, demand the immediate capture of these criminals, and a reward of one hundred grewbles is being offered to anyone who can provide us with any information that leads to their arrest.”

  “A hundred grewbles,” gasped Slip, “I could buy my own solar system for that!” he stated, imagining what colour he would want it in, before realizing suddenly that everyone had started staring at him.

  “Crinks,” began Slip, an element of worry evident in his voice.

  “Short, how dare they, I'm over four feet, I'll give them short!” she fumed, failing to hear Slip over her ranting.

  “Crinkle,” he repeated a little more urgently, aware now that about a third of the crowd was pointing at them.

  “What?!” she barked.

  “I think it's time to leave.”

  By now, the crowd had cleared a space around Slip and Crinkle and were all pointing and shouting at them both. The Co-leen, catching on, began to close in upon them.

  “Run!” yelled Slip.

  ***

  “Yeeeaaaaaaaaah!” shrieked Fendel, before stopping to catch his breath for a moment.

  “Yeeeaaaaaaaaah!” he continued.

  ***

  Slip and Crinkle started running with the Co-leen in hot pursuit. The crowd, who had but moments ago displayed their evident desire to see them both captured, through their collectively unashamed pointing and shouting, were now only too obliging when it came to getting out of their way as they ran through the crowd, (though it should be said that the six foot tall, fifteen stone plus figure of Slip pounding down on them, probably had a lot to do with this).

  “Quick, down here!” Slip shouted, pointing at one of the slides, once they had broken free of the crowd.

  “But Slip,” started Crinkle.

  “What?” he interrupted, grabbing her and throwing her down the slide, before jumping down after her himself.

  “Slip,” she sighed resignedly.

  “Hang on, what's going on here?!” said a confused Slip, who was moving down the slide behind her at a speed that Pete would have called snail-paced.

  “The sign said the slide of sloth,” explained Crinkle, who then proceeded to stand up and turn herself around, so that she now faced him directly.

  “Oh,” he replied, realising that he may have made a tiny error of judgment.

  Moving down the slide at a pace hardly noticeable, he had ample time to survey his surroundings, and looking to his left, saw no sign of the Co-leen.

  “Hey Crinks,” he began, “you know we might have got away with this yet.”

  “That way Slip,” she suggested, pointing to his
right.

  He turned to his right and was rather discouraged to see a group of Co-leen strolling leisurely beside them. After the Co-leen had laughed a little at them both, and made some derogatory references to his weight, they then overtook the sliding duo, and went on ahead to wait for their eventual arrival. At last they emerged from the slide of sloth, only to be greeted by some twenty Co-leen with little ray guns pointing their way, Slip however, had a devastatingly cunning plan.

  “Now we have you Slip McGroovy,” declared a Co-leen.

  “I think not,” he countered, “I've got a bomb!”

  And that said, Slip suddenly whipped off his swimming shorts, revealing to the shock of some and the dismay of many, nothing resembling a bomb whatsoever.

  “Slip,” sighed Crinkle.

  “What?”

  “That's not a bomb.”

  12.

  Upon finishing his soggy burger, Pete felt like a new man, and remembering about Pierre and the resistance, decided it was high time he set about finding them. He was convinced that from there on it would be but a small hop, skip and jump to saving the planet Earth from the Co-leen threat.

  “Hey you,” Pete beckoned a guy working at a bar.

  “How do I find Pierre?” he asked, whispering “Pierre” as if the very word might break something.

  “You'll want the underground mate,” answered the barman.

  “Yeah,” he said winking, “the underground.”

  “Right,” replied the barman, wondering whether he should serve this guy if he was going to order a drink.