"Yes, me, I, Colonel von Thorax, Commandant of the CCC. You never suspected me and, ohh, how I laughed at you all of the time!"
"But…" Jax stammered. "Why?"
"Why? The answer is obvious to any but democratic interstellar swine like you. The only thing the larshniks of the galaxy had to fear was something like the CCC, a powerful force impervious to outside bribery or sedition, noble in the cause of righteousness. You could have caused us trouble. Therefore we founded the CCC, and I have long been head of both organizations. Our recruiters bring in the best that the civilized planets can offer, and I see to it that most of them are brutalized, morale destroyed, bodies wasted, and spirits crushed so they are no longer a danger. Of course, a few always make it through the course no matter how disgusting I make it — every generation has its share of supermasochists — but I see that these are taken care of pretty quickly."
"Like being sent on suicide missions?" Steel asked ironly.
"That's a good way."
"Like the one we were sent on — but it didn't work! Say your prayers, you filthy larshnik, for you are about to meet your maker!"
"Maker? Prayers? Are you out of your skull? All larshniks are atheists to the end…"
And then it was the end, in a coruscating puff of vapor, dead with those vile words upon his lips, no less than he deserved.
"Now what?" Steel asked.
"This," Jax responded, shooting the gun from his hand and imprisoning him instantly with an unbreakable paralysis ray. "No more second best for me — in the engine room with you on the bridge. This is my ball game from here on in."
"Are you mad!" Steel fluttered through paralyzed lips.
"Sane for the first time in my life. The Superlarsh is dead, long live the new Superlarsh. It's mine, the whole galaxy, mine."
"And what about me?"
"I should kill you, but that would be too easy. And you did share your chocolate bars with me. You will be blamed for this entire debacle — for the death of Colonel von Thorax and for the disaster here at larshnik prime base. Every man's hand will be against you, and you will be an outcast and will flee for your life to the farflung outposts of the galaxy where you will live in terror."
"Remember the chocolate bars!"
"I do. All I ever got were the stale ones. Now. . GO!"
You want to know my name? Old Sarge is good enough. My story? Too much for your tender ears, boyo. Just top up the glasses, that's the way, and join me in a toast. At least that much for a poor old man who has seen much in this long lifetime. A toast of bad luck, bad cess I say, may Great Kramddl curse forever the man some know as Gentleman Jax. What, hungry? Not me — no — NO! Not a chocolate bar!!'!!!
Captain Honario Harpplayer, R.N
Captain Honario Harpplayer was pacing the tiny quarterdeck of the HMS Redundant, hands clasped behind his back, teeth clamped in impotent fury. Ahead of him the battered French fleet limped towards port, torn sails flapping and spars trailing overside in the water, splintered hulls agape where his broadsides had gone thundering through their fragile wooden sides.
"Send two hands for'ard, if you please, Mr. Shrub," he said, "and have them throw water on the mainsail. Wet sails will add an eighth of a knot to our speed and we may overtake these cowardly frogs yet."
"B-but, sir," the stolid first mate Shrub stammered, quailing before the thought of disagreeing with his beloved captain. "If we take any more hands off the pumps we'll sink. We're holed in thirteen places below the waterline, and—"
"Damn your eyes, sir! I issued an order, not a request for a debate. Do as you were told."
"Aye, aye, sir," Shrub mumbled, humbled, knuckling a tear from one moist spaniel eye.
Water splashed onto the sails and the Redundant instantly sank lower in the water. Harpplayer clasped his hands behind his back and hated himself for this display of unwarranted temper towards the faithful Shrub. Yet he had to keep up this pose of strict disciplinarian before the crew, the sweepings and dregs of a thousand waterfronts, just as he had to wear a girdle to keep up his own front and a truss to keep up his hernia. He had to keep up a good front because he was the captain of this ship, the smallest ship in the blockading fleet that lay like a strangling noose around Europe, locking in the mad tyrant Napoleon, whose dreams of conquest could never extend to England whilst these tiny wooden ships stood in the way.
"Give us a prayer, Cap'n, to speed us on our way to 'eaven because we're sinkin'!" a voice called from the crowd of seamen at the pumps.
"I'll have that man's name, Mr. Dogleg," Harpplayer called to the midshipman, a mere child of seven or eight, who commanded the detail. "No rum for him for a week."
"Aye aye, sir," piped Mr. Dogleg, who was just learning to talk.
The ship was sinking, the fact was inescapable. Rats were running on deck, ignoring the cursing, stamping sailors, and hurling themselves into the sea. Ahead the French fleet had reached the safety of the shore batteries on Cape Pietfieux and the gaping mouths of these guns were turned towards the Redundant, ready to spout fire and death when the fragile ship came within range.
"Be ready to drop sail, Mr. Shrub," Harpplayer said, then raised his voice so all the crew could hear. "Those cowardly Frenchies have run away and cheated us of a million pounds in prize money."
A growl went up from the crew who, next to a love for rum, loved the pounds, shillings and pence with which they could buy the rum. The growl was suddenly cut off in muffled howls of pain as the mainmast, weakened by the badly aimed French cannon, fell onto the mass of laboring men.
"No need to drop sail, Mr. Shrub, the slaves of our friend Boney have done it for us," Harpplayer said, forcing himself to make one of his rare jests so loved by the crew. He hated himself for the falseness of his feelings, ingratiating himself into the sympathies of these illiterate men by such means, but it was his duty to keep a taut ship. Besides, if he didn't make any jokes the men would hate him for the slave-driving, cold-blooded, chance-taking master that he was. They still hated him, of course, but they laughed while they did it.
They were laughing now as they cut away the tangle of rigging and dragged out the bodies to lay them in neat rows upon the deck. The ship sank lower in the water.
"Avast that body dragging," he ordered, "and man the pumps, or we'll have our dinners on the bottom of the sea."
The men laughed a ragged laugh again and hurried to their tasks.
They were easy to please, and Harpplayer envied them their simple lives. Even with the heavy work, bad water and an occasional touch of the cat, their existence was better than his tortured life on the lonely pinnacle of command. The decisions were all his to make, and to a man_of his morbid and paranoiac nature this made life a living hell. His officers, who all hated him, were incompetents. Even Shrub, faithful, long-suffering Shrub, had his weakness: namely the fact that he had an IQ of about 60 which, combined with his low birth, meant he could never rise above the rank of a rear admiral.
While he considered the varied events of the day Harpplayer began his compulsive pacing on the tiny quarterdeck, and its other occupants huddled against the starboard side where they wouldn't be in his way. Four paces in one direction, then three-and-a-half paces back with his knee bringing up with a shuddering crack against the port carronade. Yet Harpplayer did not feel this, his cardplayer's brain was whirling with thoughts, evaluating and weighing plans, rejecting those that held a modicum of sanity and only considering those that sounded too insane to be practical. No wonder he was called "Sap-sucker Harpy" throughout the flett and held in awe as a man who could always pull victory from the jaws of defeat, and always at an immense cost in lives. But that was war. You gave your commands and good men died, and that was what the press gangs on shore were for. It had been a long and trying day, yet he still would not permit himself to relax. Tension and the agony of apprehension had seized him in the relentless grip of a Cerberus ever since soon after dawn that morning when the lookout had announced the discovery of sails on the horizon. There had been only ten of them, Frenchy ships of the line, and before the morning fog had cleared the vengeful form of the Redundant had been upon them, like a wolf among the sheep. Broadside after broadside had roared out from the precisely serviced English guns, ten balls for every one that popped out of the French cannon, manned by cowardly sweepings of the eighth and ninth classes of 1812, gray-bearded patriarchs and diapered infants who only wished they were back in the familial vineyards instead of here, fighting for the Tyrant, facing up to the wrath of the death-dealing cannon of their island enemy, the tiny country left to fight alone against the might of an entire continent. It had been a relentless stern chase, and only the succor of the French port had prevented the destruction of the entire squadron. As it was, four of them lay among the conger eels on the bottom of the ocean and the remaining six would need a complete refitting before they were fit to leave port and once more dare the retributive might of the ships that ringed their shores.