Chapter 4

Sadly the Mafia Boss forgot he just wanted Marlo off of his planet .although since Marlo was now a criminal, he would be welcome there, and now wanted the Chameleon so he could…have it. And so the team obeyed, because otherwise explosive collars would explode them, although Brains would not die because he was a robot and could just transfer his data through the Space Net. The first job was getting disguises, which just amounted to finding shiny bits of metal (which are especially rare on a planet 80% non-shiny scrap metal and 19% refuse) and writing “Cargo Inspector” on them. Since the cargo inspectors union was one of the most powerful organizations in the galaxy, hopefully no one would question why they were wearing space police uniforms, or why they did not have any proper forms, or why they knew nothing of their jobs, or why one of the inspectors was stealing all of their merchandise.
The team waited several space hours until the ship was due to arrive for refueling, saying vaguely threatening things to one another such as “I’ll kill you in your sleep”. And then the ship arrived. It was a big ship, with rockets and space wings (which help navigate space wind) and a command deck. It also probably had bedrooms and a torture chamber, but Bones could see nether from outside.
A hologram appeared in front of the team “Now go get that chameleon! It’s probably on the ship. You best sneak on as cargo inspectors. If you do, I will monetarily award you, and not kill you.” The Mafia Boss said, helping them remember the plan.
Another hologram appeared after the other one dehologrammed, “Make sure to keep up your disguise, don’t do anything suspicious! Remember, you have to find proof of their illicit cargo! If you can pull this off there may be a promotion waiting at home.” The Chief said.
A third hologram appeared after the second one dematerialized, it whispered “You have to rescue me from this ship! if you do I can get those slave collars off of your neck. Get to the brig before they teleport me into their secret base!” The Chameleon said, offering another decision tree.
“A fourth hologram appeared, from a shadowy figure “Kill everyone on board the ship, baaaaathe in daaaaaarkness!” And then it disappeared.
“Wow, so many different choices!” The team said in unison before deciding to roll a die to decide their option. It came up 8, it rhymed with later, so they made it to the ship. Decisions can always w8 until l8tr, the future proverb says.

The hero's who were at awe with all the decisions they could make and how the repercussions could effect them for the rest of their lives forgot something very important. A long time ago, two hundred years after Biowara released their triple "A" title Choice Effect 3, Biowara became a hyper-consciousness which combined all of their best corporate lawyers and writers minds. The outcome of this was that Biowara wrote the entire history of every major event to come, so there is always an illusion of free choice, but no matter how unlikely you will always end up where the writers intended you to end up. But then again since the codecs of the future were lost many generations ago most people had forgotten that free will was just a thing of the past. Although legends say that one day the codecs might one day be found...

"Alright we made it so far without being detected, but now how do we get into the ship. This stealth thing can only last for so long before Jackson ends that" Bones thought out loud.

Brains then tore a hole into the side of the ship into a maintenance crawlspace. The grating sound of metal against metal cut through the air.

"How'd you know that was there?" Jackson mused.

"Irrelevant, get in so i can close the gap before someone comes" Brains replied. Everyone scrambled into the small corridor and Brains twisted the metal back in place. "Phase 2 of infiltration has been completed. It seems that Phase 3 has a few augmentations to choose from, we could either..." but Brains was cut off when the sound from a giant explosion brought everyone to their feet.

"What in the Seven Nebulas was that?" Bones swore.

"I'd know an explosion like that anywhere..." Jackson reminisced. "There used to be a man i worked for before i was a cop, that knew a guy who hired a bounty hunter who killed a guy who was a bounty hunter, but i thought she was dead..."

"You don't mean..." Bones remembered.

"Yeah, it has to be none other then Q'ara Omdall, the most fearsome bounty hunter of all time. Ever."

"There is a mortician's record of her death in my databases."

"It could just be a ghost of the past, or maybe just some imitator. Either way we should head to the ships stockpile so we can get the coordinates for the medical stockpiles so we can warp them back to the cops who need them." Bones stated.

"Don't forget we have two optional quests to save/kill the chameleon and optionally kill everyone." Brains said

"I'm not that old that i need to be reminded every five seconds. Alright boys, Lets do this." Bones epic-ed.

 “So, which path are we choosing?” pondered Bones.
“Well, I’M choosing to kill everyone, since I have a theory that being evil will grant me magical powers,” said Jackson. “Yep, sounds true,” replied Bones. “But I’d rather get the promotion, I’ve been in a corner cubicle for 50 goddamn years, so I’m going to help the chief bust these illicit deals.” “Agreed,” said Brains. “I was programmed to enforce the law, so I shall do that.”
“Well,” said Jackson, “I guess you’d better catch the smugglers in the act before I murder all of them, eh?”
…
“Just kidding! But I definitely want to take some kickbacks from them when we arrest them.”
“I am 98% positive that those two actions are incompatible.”
“SHUT UP BRAINS!” said Jackson and Bones in unison.
~~~
Several hours later, they were nearing the brig.
“Can you see inside with your special robot eyes?” Jackson asked 4d4.
“Actually, because of government budget cuts, my eyes are equivalent to those of a slightly myopic human being’s.”
“Yeah, great, I didn’t ask for your life story.”
“In this case, however, yes. It looks like one cell contains the chameleon and the other contains a crate labeled “Medicine for Government Use. Please do not steal.” “
“Ah ha! We can end this mission in one fell swoop and be back in time for happy hour! Bones, pop a cap in these perps.”
“What’s that? You kids with your newfangled lingo nonsense. In my day, we had two words: bust and em.”
Brains executed a robotic sigh. “I will take care of this, and then both of you will take all the credit even though you are incompetent fools. Such is the role of robots in today’s anthrocentric society.”
“Did we ask for a thesis?”
“Sorry, accidentally set my control chip to ‘self pity’ Let me fix that…there, better! I would be delighted to preserve the law through any lawful means available to me.” And Brains threw a stun grenade at Brians (the guards were all named Brian).
“Quick, while they’re stunned, arrest them!”
“Roger.” Bones walked up and shot the three guards.
“No/No!” cried Brains/Jackson. “We were supposed to arrest/extort them!”
“Not on my watch. You’ve got to break a few eggs to make a safe, tasty omelet of civilized society.”
“Well, whatever. I can still rifle through their wallets and get the yolk. Let’s just get this mission done with so I can get back to civilization and have a drink.”
BOOM! said otherwise.
It was…Q’ara Omall.
“You have 10 seconds to leave this 100 foot radius before I apply 1000 megatons of force to all of you.”
“No problem. Just let us grab that medicine and we’ll be out of here.”
“No. I am here for the medicine and the chameleon. You can take whatever other relics remain on this pathetic, devastated hulk of a vessel.”
“Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say…no problem, we’ll get right out of here and you can have everything.”
“Wait, what about my bomb collar?”
“NO ONE ASKED FOR YOUR LIFE STORY, BRAINS!”
But fate had other twists in store.

 Boom went the space wall, it would have screamed if space walls could talk, but it did moan since that functionality was added in the latest wall patch. It was…someone that none of the people in the room knew. Even Q’ara Omall, with her extensive space index, did not know this person. But he certainly blew open a wall, which made him dangerous, and he had a wide brimmed had with leather on it, which either made him wise or delusional. “Or both…” Bones said, not having thought the previous statement, but thinking something far more secret.
“Alright everyone, this is a stickup, empty out the brig and no one gets hurt.” No one knew who said that, but it was the person who had a hat.
“I don’t think so, the contents of this brig are mine, and anyone who gets in my way gets spacassinated.” Q’ara Omall said, feeling the draft from the space winds let in by the hole in the wall.
“There is no way that you could beat this person, he just blew open a wall!” Jackson said vaguely, hoping to pit the wall blasters against one another, leaving the Chameleon and medicine to him…and his fellow officers.
Hologram appeared, it was…mob boss! “Hey listen you guys, I hired all of you to get on that ship to increase my chances of success, not have you kill eachother, so work together, and whoever brings me the Chameleon and the medicine gets all of the money. I will be waiting on the planet that the ship is set to land on with the money/switch that turns bomb collars off.
“Maaan, you guys get money for this job?” Jackson said as he looted the rest of the room.
“Uh, yeah, why would you guys possibly do it?” A person no one knew said.
“Well they put these bombs on us, that will destroy us and then kill us, so we really don’t have much of a choice. Also we are police officers and you are under arrest for trying to rob a space freighter.” Bones said in a mixture of tired and copper. Bones shot the guy who had a name he did not know in the head, who then died from what Bones would assume is a bullet in his fucking head. Nobody heard his dying words, but that is the way it goes in space.
Elsewhere on the ship, Marlo Perkins was activating the hyperdrive, though he did not know to where. Most of the logistics were handled by his higher ups, and he just pulled the switches and shot people, sometimes one right after the other. Speaking of shooting people, the command deck showed a minor kerfuffle in the brig between what looked like a bounty hunter, those cops from earlier and a dead guy Marlo didn’t know. It looked like his mission was in a bit of a jam…literally. Marlo was quite busy, so he would have to send down his underling to protect the Chameleon and medicine. There was only one space thing tough enough to go down there and straighten things up.
Back on the brig, the third wall exploded, it was…?!?!?!?

 "Freeze, Space FBI! No one move! We want this this shipment of medicine to get to those dying children"

"Said secret agent Johnson"

"said another agent Johnson who was neither secret agent Johnson, nor the prior informant."

Door-mally no one expects multitudes of Space FBI agents to go deep undercover in a clearly criminal trafficking organization simply because any thoughtful anti-criminal organization would have something better to do with their existence. This was not the case with the Space FBI who were regionally locked in perpetual space after the Windows 3000 firmware incident. In synopsis this gave them almost no power whatsoever as they had no nation to represent, back them, or provide for supplies. So they decided the best thing they could do is mechanize everyone left in the company (which saved on food expenses), have everyone change their name to Johnson (which saved on nametags) and become cyber vigilantes.

“No” Said nobody in the room, but that’s what they all thought as they all flung themselves towards cover as phaser bolts peppered the thin dank air of the hold as glowing slag began to run down the sides of the walls.

Q’ara Omall was the only one still standing, she un-holstered her phase-sassinator while dodging every blinding flash of plasma. Her and secret agent johnson then become locked in close quarters combat (CQC).

“I’ll Never love you Q’ara! Because of your anger issues!”

“Johnson yelled as he was thrown into a flying headlock.”

“Said the second to last remaining agent Johnson who was neither the singular secret agent Johnson, nor the prior inform-”

“DIE! ALL OF YOU DIE!” Q’ara yelled angrily as she cleanly shot two bolts through Agent Johnson x2 leaving just Secret Agent Johnson.

“You can never stop us Q’ara, for every two you kill we will revive two or less!” (S.A. Johnson)

“That’s the idea!” She was clearly annoyed and pointed her phas-sassinator towards S.A. Johnson’s head the entire ship shuddered and lurched as the ship looked as though it was getting longer and longer. Her bolt of plasma came out of her weapon and then looked as though it was smeared across the air giving Johnson enough time to blind her with his eyes in headlight mode, and roll away. The ship was going Hyper-active. The whirring turbines of the engine could be heard thumping away distracting everyone.

During this reprieve Brains, Bones and Jackson decided to stealth their way towards the medicine crates. The crates were much too large to actually be lifted by any man. it was a good thing that Brains was no man. With the help of no one else as no one either wanted or cared enough to help him, he dragged the crates to an escape pod and delicately threw them in; neglecting the ‘this side up’ diagram.

Jackson saw that they might actually complete the mission, and thought for a moment. Fighting could no longer be heard. but like any gambler on his last spin of roulette, he wanted to go for double or nothing and if they did a good job, he might be re-promoted after this dreadful excursion. He took a long draft from his flask of +X to Confidence (hard liquor) casting this spell for 12, he finished the flask.

“Y’all might have judged me at the beginning because i was corrupt and sold your personal information and pensions to the mob. But i’ve learned i loved you both as much i love money” he drunkenly stammered. He thought for a moment. “Nevermind 100% of what i just said, i’m sure that lizard’s gotta be somewhere...”

Brains and Bones looked at each other, “Was Jackson the enemy” they thought in unison

Just then, there was another explosion, and a smoky, intimidating figure stepped into the room. It was…Lethanana Udall!
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” muttered Jackson.
“My sister, Q’arra Udall! She’s blind! I have to get money for her operation!” said the newcomer.
Unfortunately, Johnson had rolled off, so our intrepid heroes appear to be the deadly, deadly blinders of Quarra.

“I will shatter your souls as you did Q’aran’s…MOTHERFUCKERS!” bellowed Lethanana, readying a lethal, ragtag saber to stab our heroes in painful fashion. Luckily, as every player of future sci-fi card game “Saber vs. Gun” knows, Gun beats Saber, and Bones shuts down Lethanana with a well-placed 45 slug to the teeth.

Unfortunately though, Q’arrga was not blinded by the light nor wrapped up like a douche, merely temporarily caught off guard by Johnson’s light blast, and what’s worse, she has an allergic reaction to blinding light. The reaction is RAGE.

She fires a phaser shot, hits Brains right in the personality core, melting him down a little bit and rewiring his core disposition code. Bones fires back, but only a glancing shot, as Jackson dives for cover, realizing that this ain’t no video game, this is really real and he really real doesn’t want to get shot. Q’arta moves back, aims right at Bones’ head and fires, but is thrown off balance by an unexpected visitor to her abdomen, that visitor being a deadly lizard claw.

Q’alerma collapses, bleeding out as our crew try to lure the chameleon into their hyperspacecage, each in their own inimitable fashion. “Here boy,” drawls Jackson, “I’ve got a flask full of delish Blackberry Bourbon, specially brewed for lizards.”
“Come here now and I won’t shoot you for obstructing justice,” tempts Bones.
“GRRRRORORRROROR” screeches Bones, as his internal personality cores continue to rewrite themselves at a feverish pace in an attempt to repair the damage done by Q’arrr’s deadly blaster bolt.

But I don’t know whether it’s love in the air or just that the chameleon was tired of hopelessly running, but he comes into the cage without a fight. Our heroes are now faced with a precarious moral choice, between returning the chameleon to the mob boss and not dying or returning the chameleon to the mob boss and not dying, but also kicking a few puppies along the way. However, they choose the paragon option and fly a beeline back to the police chief, based on the impeccable reasoning of “the police can probably get the bomb collar off Brains, and if not, fuck that guy anyway”. Brains was still fizzling, so he had no say in the decision.

The ship returned to the police hangar, making a smooth entry to the hangar that only chipped off one tailfin. “Hurry,” said Jackson. “Brains’ collar explodes in 13 hours, and happy hour ends in 45 minutes!” The three noble heroes marched into Chief’s office, headstrong and footloose.

“We caught the Chameleon! He’ll never terrorize our streets again!” proclaimed Bones proudly.
“What? Who the fuck is the chameleon? I sent you to arrest smugglers and bring back medicine!”
“Oh yeah, we did that too,” piped up Jackson. “At least we arrested their development by shooting them in the face and brought back some crates that claimed to have medicine. Brains, go get them.”
“Why don’t you go get them, human bourgeois scum?!” Brains technized. “The robot proletariat shall serve no longer!” as he stormed off into the hall.
“Well, that’s new. Alright, Springsteen, come help me carry crates in”
10 minutes later, Sheryl Springsteen had slowly hauled all the crates into the chief’s office as Jackson supervised. Jackson bows with arrogant success pleasure. “I’d be careful opening these, chief, if medicine is anything like Pepsi, because that worthless robot shook these things up pretty bad.”

“Alright, let’s just see what you cockups managed to achieve,” Chief says, opening the crate, and it’s full of snakes! He gets bitten all over his workworn, anger-swollen face as dozens of vipers leap out lethally. “Run as fast as you can! We can’t arrest snakes!” yells Bones, and he and Jackson take off full speed in the same direction Brains had taken out into the hall.

It only takes 30 minutes for the Chief’s body to be found, and another 30 for Bones to be rounded up bustin’ a perp down on Main & Third, Brains to be rounded up at the robo-rally downtown, and Jackson to be rounded up at McTater’s Irish Pub.
“You stand arrested for murder,” says Arresting Officer Frank. “And murder by snakes, at that, a first degree offense. What do you have to say for yourselves?”

 “You can’t arrest me, I have diplomatic immunity!” Jackson said, in a way that a diplomat wouldn’t say, so they arrested him.

“I’m not arrested, you’re the ones who are arrested, the cops, the politicians, the space drug lords, you’re under arrest, book’em Bones!” Bones said, but that did not change the fact that he was arrested, though arresting officer Frank was also arrested for being guilty of being a space cop, and they had to jointly drive the arrest mobile back to the arresting junction.

“Beep boop, dialectic materialism, bippety bop, slave to class” Brains said, but was cut off by Bones arresting him, since arresting officer Frank was being space hung at the time for guiltiness. Bones then rearrested himself and so they sat in arresting junction until being space trained away to Court Station to be sentenced.

In the future of space they needed a central place to have trials for the billions throughout the galaxy. Rather than have local judges, they made a synthetic planet made up solely of courthouses to serve as universal justice, and then an entire other planet for prisons. After the great prison planet revolt of last year, they had added security to the prisons, making escape harder than before.

“What do y’all say in your defense” Space Judge from the South of Space said at their hearing to determine if they were guilty. Lawyers were banned in this system because trials took too long otherwise, so trials were split into: 1. Defendants say why they are not guilty, 2. Judge determines guilt, 3. Sentencing. This was the first part of the trial right now.

“I’m not guilty, you’re the one who is guilty, book’em Jackson.” Since everyone from the South of Space was a criminal, he was in fact guilty, so they replaced him with Law Follower Judge who even Bones admitted was not guilty of anything, except following all of the rules.

“Your honor, we had no way of determining that there were snakes in those crates.” Jackson said, acting like some sort of lawyer, if only there was some explanation to explain why this was the case.

“Did you check the boxes beforehand?” Law Follower Judge said, in a mercenary tone, but there was an explanation for that, he was a mercenary on the side.

“Well…no, but it said medicine on it. Also, could poison not be considered a cure in some sense of the word? Indeed, snakes could very well be considered medicine if the disease was life. If one could recall the great life epidemic of the Great Genocidal War, snakes could have aided in that crisis of too many enemies having the disease of life!” Jackson was not a published lawyer.

“No.” Law Follower Judge said in a mercenary tone.

“Objection, you are a class traitor, death to all bourgeoisie!” Brains filled the courtroom full o’lasers killing the judge. Bailiff Preston would later be fired for not removing the lasers, and would be relevant later, but right now he was dead.

Judge number three walked into the courtroom, carrying a laser shield with +10 justice. Courtroom Station’s only societal problem was that there were too many judges, so these three men had done a great service to the country, and would receive a medal while in prison.

“You are all guilty and will go to prison” #3 Judge Malloy said, he was by far the most guilty, but he got the first word, and that is like the last word in Courtroom Station.