Chapter 3

Reptiles had two main weaknesses. the first being that they were cold blooded, literally. All lizards were ruthless killers hellbent on murder death killing anyone they could. the second weaknesses of reptiles was that they were cold blooded, also literally. Their bodies weren't able to produce enough heat to keep the body alive so they commonly relied on other methods such as staying in hot areas and drinking scotch (on the rocks, literally, literally).

The last chameleon was no different in this aspect. he enjoyed the simple things like long walks along the fiery ghetto and bathing in the blood of the recently deceased. Marlo had given him the slave name Quack, but that wasn't his real name. No one would ever want to be named Quack, except for a quack, or a duck. but he had long forgotten his real name, so Quack was the name he went by.

The eight binary suns were now setting in the distant sky, and darkness SHEER DARKNESS was moving in like the new neighbors who just purchased the house of your deceased best friend. Quack could sense this and decided to head indoors so he slithered back into his comfortable home, which was more of just a hole in the ground with satellite tv where he could watch Space Storage Wars and get drunk.

Hours later... Brains, Bones, and Jackson decided to check into a popular nearby hotel, the ground. it had great accommodations such as having a floor and room service by your average friendly mugger every few hours.

"You know i still had that bourbon on the ship, we could be warm and getting drunk right now, but you two decided it would be a good idea to camp." Jackson complained.

"To catch a criminal, you need to think and act like a criminal would" Bones replied as he rummaged through a sleeping homeless persons jacket for loose change.

"That's well and good, but how do you expect us to find the last chameleon in the universe when everyone on this planet is a criminal." Brains chimed in.

"Well, i'm glad you asked." Bones replied. "As everyone knows all chameleons are cold blooded and since we are in the hottest and most toxic place on this planet it should be easy for Brains to use his thermal vision to find our perp."

"I don't think that's how it works..." Jackson said as he laid back against the warmish ground.

A loud crack could be heard as the ground around Jackson gave way and he fell into the earth as if it gobbled him up. Bones and Brains took a moment to react, but eventually got up to inspect what happened. In the newly created trench they could see Jackson on top of a now broken TV, a small refrigerator and one really angry Chameleon covered in caved in house.

The Chameleon’s home could more adequately be described as a trash hole (not to be confused with the popular Skenjkenj bar by the same name), since the Skenjkenj Municipal Trash Board had the policy of just shoving all trash underground. So it was not surprising to have the trash hole cave in (not to be confused with the infamous Trash Hole Cave in of 5V46). But the Chameleon, ignorant of this planet’s lush history, was surprised to see his house destroyed by what looked like high functioning vagabonds. His skin turned a bright red in anger, because chameleon’s have mood skin, the vital combat flaw that saw the destruction of Galaxy Admiral Sapper’s chameleon army, and with it the chameleon race. One day Quack would have his revenge on Sapper, for what the Space international Criminal Court (SICC) labeled “casual genocide”, and what Sapper called “a minor setback”, before he disappeared into the shadows.

Anyways, chameleon red, intrepid team in his den. “Quack!” Marlo yelled in a mixture of exasperation and happiness known as happeration, not to be confused with happy desperation.

“Enough talk, I’ll kill you Marlo!” Quack said, sounding nothing of a duck.

“I don’t think so, I haven’t even said anything yet.” Bones said.

“Yeah, why don’t we talk about this first?” Jackson said, as he
started taking stuff from Quack’s house, even though it was literally trash.

“I just want us to return home together!” Marlo said, using his special forces training to talk. This time honored tactic failed however, since Quack was unconvinced of becoming a slave again. Quack lashed out, using his ridged tail to do an area of effect attack on the whole group. Marlo was able to avoid it by falling over, but the rest of the team took medium spine damage, especially Bones who only survived because he barely had a spine anyways. Marlo didn’t want to hurt Quack, and so he was forced to wait until Quack calmed down and he could get him back in his cage (which was a Space Dimension Rift Generator Cage).

“Brains, what should our combat strategy be” Said Bones who was lying on the floor, passed out and unable to talk.

“The Chameleon race is extremely nimble and deceptive, but also has an incredibly strong frame, so we should attack his weak point for massive damage.”

“Yeah totally we should do that” Jackson said, as he began walking out of the house.

“It looks like your allies are of no help to you Marlo, your slaving ends here!” Quack said.

“Why would you say such things?” Marlo said, in a way that a slaver would, due to generations of societal messages telling them that slavery is actually somehow good.

“I’ll kill you!” Quack turned invisible (Nothing is actually invisible, but the human eye could not perceive of his current location due to the limited number of spectrums/magic), and tried to close in on Marlo to finish the deal with a lethal bite of his fangs.

“Oh Quack, I missed the old you.” Marlo shot his generator to his left, briefly illuminating Quack as he was sucked into the mysterious contraption that the police couldn’t afford due to budget cuts. “Well, I guess that is that then. It was a pleasure being tortured by you/working with you!”

“Wait, I can’t let you leave with that person.” Bones said lying on the ground, approaching death.

“Quite, you are in violation of just about every human rights law known to man, you are under arrest Marlo Perkins.”

“Sorry, but I need Quack, so you’ll just have to catch me later…literally.” Marlo did not know what literally meant.

“As much as you care for Quack’s wellbeing, you have to set him free to let him be.” Jackson said, reasoning that the last chameleon could fetch a handsome sum on the black market.

“Oh I don’t care about his wellbeing one bit. But I do need him.”

“Whaaaaaaaaaat?” Someone said.

“Oh, the last chameleon is much too valuable to be set free. Galaxy Admiral Sapper needs him and his genetic code for experiments, and I plan on helping my boss out. Plus I love Quack and his constant suffering, so that is just a bonus of my job.”

“Whoa snap” No one said ever, but that was essentially the reaction of Jackson, who was the only conscious non-robot.

“Indeed. Well, I must be going; a chameleon army doesn’t bioengineer itself. You can just tell Mafia Boss that I am gone.” Marlo put his hand to his ear, like a person with an ear infection. “Get me out of here, I have bigger fish to fry…literally.” And then Marlo disappeared, never to be seen again until next time.

“Brains, can you trace his teleportation signal to the nearest relay point and triangulate it into a destination matrix?”
“You’re just saying random words, aren’t you…”
“Yes. But do it, or I’ll say you were a bad team player when we make our mission report,” Jackson negotitated.

Brains emitted the closest equivalent robots have to a sigh (it sounds something like BEEP BOOP) and went about his work. Meanwhile, Bones’s handcorder was beeping.

“Hello?”

Suddenly, a life-size image of the chief loomed in Bones’s face. “I never should have upgraded to one of these newfangled vision phones…”

“BONES! JACKSON! 4D4! What the hell are you doing on Skenjkenj! I sent you to the Gamma quadrant! I explicitly commanded you to avoid the Hell Abyss quadrant! And I implicitly commanded you to avoid THE MOST DANGEROUS POSSIBLE PLANET FOR A COP TO BE ON!”

“My bad,” put in Jackson. “I just thought we could save time this way. Oh, by the way, while we’re talking, can you re-promote me and transfer me off of this team?”

“NO! No one’s getting promoted! This isn’t a goddamn end of year performance review! I have some good news though. Your near-fatal incompetence has put you in just the right spot to be slightly less worthless than usual. In 24 hours, the freighter “I Can’t Tell You” is schedule to pass by Skenjkenj on route to the Targone sector. It’s masquerading as a passenger ship, but our inside sources tell us that a ring of smugglers is using it to smuggle medicine to the orphan planet, Dedma. That medicine was supposed to go to New Earth for government use!”

“Well, chief, I’m going to have to object to this mission and take some rogue agent action,” rebelled Bones. “Those orphans need their medicine!”
“Specifically, the medicine is going to New Earth for police use.”
“We must stop the smugglers!” unrebelled Bones.

“Good. Get your ass off this rock and make the rendezvous. They’re scheduled to have their regular cargo inspection in 24 hours, so they won’t know that you know and you can pretend to be the cargo inspectors. Give them hell!”

The chief’s face vanished to whence it came.

“Gentlemen,” robotted 4d4, “I have discovered where Marlo and the desired chameleon vanished to.”
“Well, where is it?” said someone.
“It is apparently a large freighter within 24 coordinates of this planet.”
“The plot thickens,” mused Jackson. “So Marlo’s working with the smugglers…”

~~~

The team went back to the mob boss.
“Um, is it okay if you give us fuel and let us leave the planet? The chameleon teleported away, but I promise we’ll bring him back as soon as we find him, totally,” bluffed Jackson.

“Do you think I grew to be head of the Black Crosses by believing everything people say? If I’m letting you leave and giving you fuel, one of you is wearing this.” He pulled out a collar. “You try any funny stuff or you don’t come back with my chameleon within a week, it explodes. Now who’s it going to be?”

“The robot.” Bones and Jackson simultaneously instantly replied.

As they were about to leave the office, the mob boss paused. “Wait,” he said, looking at Jackson. “Haven’t I seen you before?”