Trash Wars

In a galaxy long ago and far, far away, people were wondering about the first three episodes . . .

Episode IV – A New Dope

It is a period of a somewhat apathetic war. People best described as Rebels have somehow managed to annoy the vast pan-galactic conglomeration, Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc.

During a night of fun and frolics, Princess Leimee, a high-class hooker to the galaxy’s rich and famous, has managed to accidentally acquire a copy of the plans to the Empire’s terrifying new tool, the DUST CART, an armoured trash collector with enough power to compress the refuse of an entire galaxy.

Pursued by the Empire’s rubbish-gathering agents, Princess Leimee is drifting aimlessly through space. Accompanied only by her two less-than-faithful droid companions, she is under attack by the vicious Bow-Tie fighters of the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. . . .

The Bow-Tie fighters – the mainstay of the fighting arm of the Imperial Dustmen1 - frankly looked ridiculous as they sped around the Princess’ ship, zooming under and over the giant yellow letters it was vainly trying to hide in. They were of a completely impractical shape; the sort of shape that only science-fiction writers seemed to think was practical.2 They zoomed around the ship, blasting away at their quarry, their spluttering little engines making noises like tripped-out Nookies with their genitals caught in a vice.

Their quarry was a customised G-String fighter, the sporty variant on the Y-Front fighter that formed the mainstay of the fighting arm of the Rebel Waste Disposal Co. Inc.3 It was decked out in garish pink and red, with lacy curtains and a red light on the roof. A tariff sheet was pinned to the docking port.

Inside the craft, things were chaotic.

“Why are they shooting at us, C3-KY?” the beautiful princess asked her droid companion, “What do they want from me?”

C3-KY looked over at the princess. She was tall, classically proportioned, with raven hair and eyes to die for. She also did things that were quite unprintable for – if you considered just how good she was – ridiculously low figures.

C3-KY was a KY class of droid. He was designed to provide six million different types of slippery substances on demand. For reasons best known to himself, his arms and legs kept falling off with frightening regularity. Usually at the worst possible times. “Perhaps they wish to sample your services, your highness,” C3-KY said.

The princess was not impressed by this idea. “If they want me, then they could just ask me to pull over. There is no reason to start firing empty coke cans and dead banana skins at me.” She struggled to retain control of the ship as the engines were hit. Smoke fountained from the flight console. C3-KY’s left leg fell off with a clang.

“Anyway, on the subject of the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. I am with Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie,” she said with an air of finality, “The old fool may be completely mad and have his mind half-destroyed by moonshine whiskey, but he is right when he says you can’t trust ‘em as far as you can throw them. Did you know one of them indecently assaulted me last Thursday? I reported him yesterday.”

C3-KY reached down to pick up his leg, and his right arm fell off. “But, your highness, why didn’t you report him when it happened? Why wait until Tuesday?”

The princess fished a crumpled piece of paper out of her handbag. “I didn’t know I’d been indecently assaulted until his cheque bounced,” she explained. With slim fingers, she screwed the cheque into a ball and threw it over her shoulder.

As she did so, a trash can in the corner whizzed over the floor, did an impressive skid and stopped directly under the falling piece of rubbish. Its lid opened, and the paper fell neatly in. The lid closed, and the can rolled back over to the corner.

For the umpteenth time, Leimee looked over at RU-DD42, her trash can droid, and wondered if he was anything more or less than a trash can. True, he had wheels and manoeuvred himself under any falling pieces of rubbish, thus demonstrating that he had at least some vestiges of programming. But he never said anything, other than a series of bleeps which no-one – not even other trash can droids – could understand. And he demonstrated no intellect or reasoning functions when he dived underneath falling rubbish – like asteroids, pianos and shot-down Y-Front fighters – indiscriminately.

The bulkhead behind RU-DD42 and C3-KY exploded as the reactor core went critical. C3-KY made up what passed for his mind.

Gathering up his remaining limbs, he climbed lock, stock and barrel into RU-DD42 and closed his lid. Leimee was not impressed as RU-DD42 began rolling at high speed towards the airlock.

“Where are you guys going?” she screamed, “I can’t stay here and fend off Imperial dustmen!”

The lid opened briefly. “I am afraid you are going to have to,” said C3-KY reasonably, as his head fell off, “there is only one escape pod.”

“What about Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics?” Leimee begged, “A robot shall always obey a human command, and shall never suffer a human to come to harm?”

“What about the C3-KY Laws of Robotics?” asked C3-KY, “A robot shall not suffer himself to get blown to atoms in defence of a tarty mistress who has proved nothing but trouble and a complete liability?”

And, with that, the airlock closed and – with a muffled thud of explosive bolts – the escape capsule shot away from the ship.

“Shit,” said Leimee to no-one in particular and the Bow-Tie fighters in general as they began to board her ship.

oOo

“Yeah, yeah, yakkaty-schmakaty, yakkaty-schmakaty, bleepee-bleepee-bloop to you too, RU-DD42,” C3-KY drawled in annoyance as he picked up another of his body parts and fitted it back on, “Why can’t you speak properly, you glorified dustbin?”

“Beep,” said RU-DD42 mournfully.

“Oh, don’t you start. We’re in enough trouble as it is without you feeling sorry for yourself. We’re stuck on a strange planet with no cash, and no idea where we are. I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t look exactly inconspicuous. It’s the way the sunlight picks up my golden skin at five hundred miles that annoys me. Why couldn’t they have painted me with a matt finish?”

C3-KY continued on in the same vein for a time while the two droids walked over the burning sands of Tattooist, leaving a trail of tyre-tracks and metallic anatomical components in their wake. Tattooist was a desert world, the dead-end of the galaxy. The only points of interest were the jump points for exiting the system. C3-KY and RU-DD42 were – without doubt – the unluckiest droids in the galaxy for landing on it.

“Beep,” said RU-DD42, as a small crumple of paper shot out of his rapidly opening lid. C3-KY broke off from his tirade and caught it.

“Oh, this is no use, you idiotic swingbin,” he snapped as he opened it out, “This is that cheque the tart said bounced.” He was about to throw it away when he saw something on the back. “Hang on, there seem to be some technical drawings on here. Hey look – oh, sorry, I forgot you haven’t got any eyes because you’re nothing more than a dustbin.” RU-DD42 rammed C3-KY, causing his leg to fall off. C3-KY ignored the loss of yet another limb and carried on. “It’s the plans for an gigantic armoured trash collector! Why, the company who owned this could monopolise the waste management industry across the whole galaxy! This is of galactic importance, come on! We had better show it to someone!” He ran off, scatting limbs as he went.

RU-DD42 didn’t think it was of galactic importance. He thought it was of slightly less importance than what colour you painted behind the radiators. However, as he had nothing better to do, and no-one understood a word he was saying, he sped off after the disappearing lubrication droid.

oOo

On the bridge of the vast Empire Dust Cart, Daft Radar looked down at Leimee’s craft and watched in cruel and evil satisfaction as it was blown sky-high. He allowed himself an evil chuckle, and then – feeling very indulgent – decided to have another one.

While he was chuckling away to himself in an evil fashion, there was a brief commotion behind him. He broke off starting to guffaw and turned to see two Imperial Dustmen dragging a struggling Leimee onto the bridge.

“Shall we throw her to the floor, sir?” they asked.

“Yes,” hissed Radar, “very roughly.” The two dustmen threw the Princess to the floor with nail-chipping force. “Leave us,” Radar hissed menacingly. The two dustmen turned and left, leaving Leimee and the Managing Director of the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. in the room together.

Leimee looked up with an automatic sultry look – hell, this guy was rich, for Christ’s sake – and saw an inhumanly tall figure, dressed in a black double-breasted suit, with an old-school tie and Etonian cufflinks. His face probably had “establishment” written all over it, but she couldn’t see his face. He was wearing a cylindrical helmet in sheer gun-metal steel, devoid of eye slits or mouth piece.

Leimee had heard that Radar rarely raised his voice above a harsh whisper. She wondered at this – most evil and despotic tyrants felt a need to shout at their minions. She waited patiently for him to stop chuckling.

“Leimee,” Radar hissed.

The princess got to her feet and swept her head back so she could look Radar where the eyes should be. How the hell does he see? she thought. “Okay, but if you want to keep the kinky trash can on, it’ll cost you extra.”

“IT IS NOT A TRASH CAN!!” thundered Daft Radar, and then he grabbed the sides of the trash can and groaned, “Unnnnhh!” as the sound echoed and reverberated inside the enclosed space and beat his eardrums like tambourines.

“It is not a trash can,” he explained patiently and quietly, “It is the helmet of a Dark Kite-High Master. I am fed up with people saying it looks like a trash can. Does it look like a trash can to you?”

Leimee considered her answer carefully as she took several large steps backwards out of the impressive reach of the Dark Kite-High Master. “Well,” she said slowly, “to be honest, yes.”

Daft Radar lashed out with a backhand blow which Leimee flinched from, but never connected. It smacked into the palm of Daft Radar’s other hand with an impressive noise.

“Enough of this foolery,” he snarled, “Answer my questions or I will hit you properly. Where are the plans for the Dust Cart?”

Leimee was thrown. “What plans? I don’t know anything about plans for a dust cart. What are you blathering about, you lanky binman?”

Daft Radar quivered with rage, and lashed out with a proper blow. Leimee span away, whimpering a little. Radar indulged in another chuckle or two.

“Do not play the fool with me, you cheap little slut. We know that the Chief Engineer for the Dust Cart hired you for a night of ‘fun and frolics’ and he reports you stole the plans from him.” Radar leaned closer, his breath hissing behind his helmet, “Where are the plans?”

Leimee’s perfect brow furrowed. “What? Oh, you mean “bunny-wunny”. Yeah, sure I went with him. The only thing I got off him was a rubber cheque. I didn’t get any plans. Hey, how about some compensation? A girl’s gotta make a living, you know . . .”

She was cut off as Radar hoisted her into the air with one hand and some cables out of shot. “WHERE IS . . . !” He put his hand to his ear. “Where is the cheque?” he whispered.

“How the hell do I know?” said the princess belligerently, “I chucked it away.”

Radar dropped her, and turned on his heel and walked out of the room. When he was at the doorway, he turned and contemplated the figure of the floor, looking at him with professional come-to-bed eyes.

“We will see if an brief period of incarceration in Main Dustbin Four will freshen your memory. Meanwhile, I will demonstrate that the Empire’s power – in the field of waste disposal – is supreme because of this armoured trash collector.”

As he walked out of the room, already chucking to himself, Leimee sighed. “Some men just have to dominate a woman half their height,” she said resignedly, as she bent over to examine her broken nail.

oOo

The JamJaras might just have been able to dominate someone half their height, if they could have got the drop on them and outnumbered them four to one. And if they could have found anyone so diminutive.

The JamJaras were the native inhabitants of the planet Tattooist and were about the size of a week-dead chinchilla, and enjoyed about half the general regard and esteem in the galactic community. They were annoying little sneak thieves, con-merchants and peeping toms. They made a living by appropriating anything that wasn’t nailed down to something that wasn’t screwed down to the bedrock of the planet. The JamJara who invented the screwdriver would make a fortune.

Today, the JamJaras were going droid-hunting to sell at the local spaceship-cargohold sale held in the car park of the Gathers No Cantina on Tattooist. And they had just spied the nearest thing we have to heroes.

A jabbered conversation ensued between them, which seemed to revolve around the number of droids (two) and the number of them (about four dozen) and whether this was a fair fight. It was eventually decided that it was not, but as they really needed these droids there was nothing they could do about it, so they would attack anyway without waiting for re-enforcements. As some of the more mercenary among them (and that’s saying something) pointed out, the more JamJaras who fell in battle, the less who remained to split the spoils with. Immediately, the whole posse began to eye each other with red-eyed looks of pure hatred and felt for long, curving back-stabbing daggers.

With a series of shrill, piping cries, the JamJaras leapt over the precipice towards the droids on the road below. Many of them impacted on the desert ground with bone-smashing force, immediately turning their scrawny bodies into mush, but conveniently forming a crash-mat for those who followed after. As the JamJaras landed in front of the shocked droids, the more enterprising of their number sifted through their dead companions’ bodies, searching for loose change, rings, gold fillings and metallic bone-pins. The rest of the JamJaras attacked the two droids.

RU-DD42 – so shocked at seeing someone smaller than him – immediately fell on his back, where he lay, spinning his wheels in a vain attempt to get up and making high-pitched “Beep!” noises. C3-KY, upon being confronted by a small figure in a dirty robe with a padlock on his wallet and mirors on his toecaps, took an immediate step backwards and said, “Bloody hell! Munchkins!” and immediately fell into fifteen separate pieces.

The JamJaras – totally surprised at this run of luck – picked up the bits of the lubrication droid, stuffed them inside RU-DD42 and began rolling him towards the Gathers No Cantina, their minds already full of Telebraxian Ale and Galaborian Dancing Girls.

Unbeknownst to either the JamJaras or the two droids, in order to get to the Gathers No Cantina, they had to pass the hovel of Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie, a senile old fool who lived a hermit-like existence on Tattooist. He spent half his time distilling illegal moonshine liquor of hideous potency and the other half drinking it and singing “Oh My Darlin’ Clementine” accompanied by a horrendous caterwauling that could only be called banjo playing because of the instrument used to produce it. He was also fiercely territorial, and tended to react badly to trespassers, whom he was convinced were trying to steal his moonshine.4

The JamJaras became acutely aware of this fact when random blasts of twelve-bore shotgun fire began to pepper the rocks and their companions around them. They immediately began to mill around in confusion, running from cover to rapidly-being-destroyed-cover. Over the top of the steady bursts of fire an appalling Southern accent split the air;

“Ye-har! That’ll teach yer, yer varmints! Get outta here! Get off muh land, yer thieving varmints! I’ll teach ya! G’wan! Scram!”

C3-KY – who had been diligently putting himself back together for the past ten minutes – opened RU-DD42’s lid and stuck his head out, only to have it immediately shot off by a blast of shotgun fire.

“Ye-har!” cried Old Ben from the cover of the window of his corrugated-iron shed. A stack of smoke rose from his highly illegal distillery at the rear of the construction that could only be called a house as someone lived in it. He spat out some disgusting brown ooze that came from chewing tobacco and watched the JamJaras flee. The droids would have fled, but C3-KY was looking for his lost head, and RU-DD42 had tripped over the afore-mentioned cranium and was now rolling down a small gully, quite helpless to stop himself.

“Hey, boy!” called Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie, “come’n see the varmints run!” A door to a back room opened and – in a haze of opium smoke – out walked Old Ben’s apprentice, Chuck Spliffroller.

Chuck Spliffroller was a Kite-High Knight.

He did not keep this a secret for fear of persecution, he actively flaunted it with his codes of honour and dress and speech. And he did not deliberately make himself conspicuous because he was a brave soul who believed in his cause.

No, the simple reason Chuck Spliffroller flaunted his status as a Kite-High Knight was because he was out of his head constantly.

Not that this was a bad thing. For, according to the laws and beliefs of the Kite-High, one must do as much drugs as humanly possible. And Chuck Spliffroller did, in a big way.

If it could be sniffed, snorted, smoked or shot, he did it. If he had the opportunity to pop a pill or stash some hash, he did. He believed in the ancient codes of honour of the Kite-High, too. Such that everyone should have the chance to, like, achieve their full and awesome potential, man. And that all hep cats should, like, be allowed to party, man, no matter what their parents said.

The Kite-Highs followed the ancient words of Yoga, a degenerate drug-dealer and drop-out who had somehow managed to persuade thousands of once-respectable teenagers to follow his lead. His doctrine was simple; the way to true enlightenment was through the Fix, an all-pervasive force typified by as little washing, shaving and work as possible and as much peace, love, harmony, illegal substances, Radio Caroline and free love as you could cram into your conscious hours.

The popularity of the cult of the Kite-High had waned over the years, and now – although he did not realise it – Chuck Spliffroller was the last of the true Kite-High Knights. All the others had gone – in whole or in part – onto the path towards the status of Dark Kite-High Knight.

The path towards conservative and respectable establishment.

Many had fallen, as they had become older and the way of the Kite-High had become harder and harder to follow. Some were now Kite-High in name only, having taken jobs. Wild and free they were at night, for sure, but while at work and with their colleagues they were respectable and conventional. Gone were the platform shoes and flared trousers, they made way for dark, sombre, double-breasted suits. Their life was hollow and empty, the blackness of the Establishment - the name given to the dark side of the Fix - eating away at their souls.

Worse still were the true Dark Kite-Highs. They who had given their souls freely to the Establishment. First among the fallen was Daft Radar. It was an open secret that he was Chuck Spliffroller’s father, but he didn’t like to mention it, and Chuck was usually too stoned to realise. Once, Daft Radar had been Anarchy Spliffroller, a Kite-High Knight, and he had been the greatest that had ever lived. He had performed the feat that only Yoga and a handful of others had ever managed – the seventy-two hour coke, smack, uppers, hashish, Chinese opium, mescaline, Benzedrine and speed binge. Truly had he upheld the codes of honour of the Kite-High.

But, as advancing age forced him to take a place in the company founded by his father, he turned his back upon the ways of the Kite-High. He put away the beads and the flowers, had a wash and a shave, and took up the double-breasted suit of the Dark Kite-High Knight.

He rose swiftly through the ranks of the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. and became its Managing Director. He had hoped that Chuck would follow him into the ranks of the Dark Kite-High and become respectable. But this was not to be. Chuck remained loyal to the ancient ways and mysteries, despite the whispered temptations of a receding chin, a company car and a five-figure income. Daft Radar swore that, one day, he would get his son into the fold of the Dark Kite-High Knights and into the hierarchical structure of the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. And Chuck vowed that this would never be.

But the paths of the fallen and the stoned, the father and the son, the dark and the out-of-their-tree, were to cross again.

Chuck Spliffroller came out of the back room of the hut, and looked out. He had been engaged in a brief spot of Transcendental Meditation, and his mind was filled with vibrant colours and the finer points of Tai Chi. His veins were filled with a potent cocktail of various illicit substances, and it may have been for this reason that he reacted as he did.

Looking out, he could see a horde of small figures piping and bleating away to themselves as they ran away from a headless golden man and a trash can on wheels rolling itself out of a small gully and ejecting a shower of small rocks and gravel from its lid.

Immediately – and incorrectly – putting the evidence of his senses down to the effects of the illegal and mind-altering substances he had just consumed, Chuck took an immediate step backward and went, “Whoa, like, bad trip, man!” He then proceeded to trip up over his full-length flower-power raincoat. He lay flat-out on the floor, staring at the sky, going, “Whoa, awesome trip, man.”

RU-DD42 looked down at the last of the Kite-High Knights – lying on the ground mumbling how the whole universe made sense because, like, you know, man? the inside is, like, the outside – and considered that he was perhaps not the best man to help them with their self-appointed mission to save all independent waste disposal companies the galaxy over.

He said so.

Or, rather, he said, “Beep.” When you are nothing more than a dustbin with wheels, he felt, trying to communicate your ideas becomes difficult.

C3-KY had located his head, and placing it on his shoulders, turned to Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie. He recognised him immediately. “Mister Wonkie-Nosie, sir!” he said, “We urgently need your help!”

Old Ben raised a grizzled eyebrow and listened. When C3-KY had finished, he leapt in the air, waving his straw hat and corn-cob pipe and cried, “Ye-har! Time fer us to get tham thar Empire critters, n’ that low-down, cattle-rustlin’, claim-jumpin’ varmint Daft Radar! C’mown, let’s wake the boy up! He don’t be wantin’ to miss this!” He proceeded to produce a wooden cup and fill it with a generous quantity of a liquid of the most dubious quality imaginable. He poured it down Chuck’s throat while C3-KY shook him.

“Beep,” said RU-DD42. C3-KY looked down at him.

“What did you say?”

“Beep.”

“Oh, yes, that’s much cleared, you imbecilic piece of galvanised steel,” C3-KY growled, “C’mon, help me wake him up.”

oOo

“So, like, you’re telling me that, like there are these un-hep cats who have, like, kidnapped this royal chick and, like, they are going to monopolise the collection of rubbish, man?”

C3-KY looked at the Kite-High in wonder – he had finally managed to grasp the simple concept of the plot. He wondered if Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie had not made a mistake in choosing him to be part of the crusade against the monopolising Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc.

Chuck Spliffroller was tall, emaciated, and with hair of an indeterminate colour, due to the fact that it was encased with grease and dirt. His eyes, where they could be seen behind his tangle of hair, were sickly-hued orbs of blood-shot yellow, with minuscule pin-point pupils. He was dressed in the traditional garb on the order of the Kite-High – the flowers and love beads and flared trousers with platform shoes. As he walked, pills and pipes and pieces of silver foil rattled in his pockets. Truly here was a Kite-High Knight.

Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie, however, seemed to regard Chuck as the best candidate for the job. “That thar’s the right answer, boy!” he cried, cocking and loading his trusty (and dangerously rusty) shotgun, “We’re a-gonna go an’ deal with that thar low-down, double-dealin’, horse-theivin’ varmint Daft Radar and all the rest o’ tham thar Empire varmints! Wee-hoo! It’s gonna be just like old times!”

Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie was the most disgusting old man imaginable. He was dressed in blue dungarees, a check shirt, a straw hat and working boots lacking leather in several key areas, like the toes, sides and soles. He had a huge and unkempt beard that had once been white but was now a dingy grey. He was chewing tobacco and had a pipe made from a corn-on-the-cob. He was a Hill-Billy, a splinter group of the Kite-High Knights, who believed that true inner piece was achieved by masses of illegally distilled spirits and talking in the most appalling Southern-state accent one could manage without doing oneself a permanent injury.

“That is the basic idea, yes,” said C3-KY, as Old Ben lit up his disgusting old pipe and began to sing “Oh my darlin’ Clementine”, “We need the help of the Kite-High Knights to rescue Princess Leimee and help small independent waste management companies. Will you aid us?”

Spliffroller was unsure. “I dunno man. Like, I’d have to see my dad, man. He says to me, ‘Get a job, you wastrel layabout, Chuck,” an’ I say to him, ‘Love’, ‘Peace’ and give him flower and love beads. He hits me on the side of the head. And, like, I’ve got my head well into the whole Karma trip, man. I’m just, like, getting aligned to this planet. Like, if I leave it, man, it could really hassle the strands of the great web, man.”

C3-KY was not entirely disappointed. “So, you are saying you can’t come on this trip?” he asked.

Spliffroller’s response was automatic. “Hey, whoa, man. A trip! Hey, you never, like, mentioned that, man! I’m all for it, man! Count me in!”

“Ye-har, boy!” cried Old Ben, “Ah’m a-gonna go get me some trans-powt!” He immediately set off in a shambling run towards the Gathers No Cantina, hotly followed by the droids and Chuck.

oOo

Captain Ham Salad was getting an intergalactic class headache.

He was talking to an alien in the Gathers No Cantina, trying to find out what time it was. Unfortunately, they were having some communications problems.

“Garath-freg hargth?” said the alien.

(“Do you have a light?”)

“What? Do you know what time it is?” asked Ham.

(“Frug? Frew hish ponk?”)

“Frug?” said the alien?

(“What?”)

“Great, it can’t speak English! WHAT TIME IS IT?” yelled Ham.

(“Chog, grog nish-gung wilb English! FREW HISH PONK?”)

“Chog, bib mook foog ushmish. Peed crung bing gong!” said the alien.

(“Great, a ‘shout-loud-enough-they’ll-always-understand’ human. There is no need to shout!”)

“Don’t shout at me, you ugly three nosed armadillo! I only wanted to know what time it was!” yelled Ham.

(“Nish-crung bing bong, dreed tree kneb armadillo! Druch, bibel osk nibble trung hish pong!”)

While all this was going on, the droids and the Kite-High walked into the Cantina. They looked around. There was the usual collection of sci-fi rejects; blue-skinned pigs, a few green-skinned girls in metallic bikinis dancing on tables or moving between the patrons carrying drinks, men with more heads than they needed all at once, a band playing a very stupid tune (“doop-de-doop-de-doop-de-doo! dooplie-dooplie-doop-doo!” ad nausium). The usual.

The Kite-Highs moved to the bar. Old Ben noticed two men completing a deal in dubious merchandise, and peered over their shoulders. He looked at the amount being bought and the price being paid. He shook his head.

“Hey thar, boy, this little one really isn’t worth it!”

One of the men turned to him, looked him up and down, and then said, “What business is it of yours, old fool?” He drew a heavy gun and pointed it at Ben. The Hill-Billy was surprised.

“Hey thar, boy, don’t you be a-pointin’ that thar thing at me! Happen it might go off accidental like! Could make one o’ tham thar dang awful messes!”

The man cocked his blaster. “That’s the idea.”

Ben said, “Well, if that thar’s your attitude, boy, I’m a-gonna hafta get me some help off ol’ Bessie here.” The man looked around, searching for some Redneck woman as wide as she was tall with a bosom you could dock Star Destroyers at.

“And where might she be?” he asked.

“Right here, o’ course, boy!” said Ben, shoving his twelve-bore shotgun under the man’s ribs and pulling the trigger. There was an almighty explosion and the man’s midriff simply disintegrated. The rest of him fell to the floor in two pieces. Silence fell shortly afterward.

“Wee-hoo! Well, dang me if he ain’t a bit o’ that thar dead, thar, boy!” said Old Ben, peering through the red haze, “Now, that thar is what happens if you do play with guns!” He reloaded ol’ Bessie and placed her on the stool next to him.

Chuck and the droids looked around as Ben ordered a quart and a half of “fine Tennessee sippin’ whiskey, boy, an’ none o’ that thar watery stuff!” There were several people who looked like starship captains, but one immediately caught their eye. He was the one trying to pick a fight with an alien six times his body-weight by shouting, “WHAT TIME IS IT?” at the top of his voice. The Kite-High walked over.

Ham turned to him. “Can you talk to this thing?” he asked. Chuck nodded.

“Hey, man, how’s it hanging?” The alien ignored him and carried on its incomprehensible tirade. C3-KY spoke up;

“Wie comme ich am besten zum Bahnhof, bitte?” he asked politely. The alien – and the rest of the bar – looked at him as if he were mad. At length, Chuck asked;

“Like, why are you speaking German, man? It, like, can’t speak German!”

“Ah yes,” said the droid, “but I can!” While the Kite-High and Salad looked at each other totally dumfounded, the alien sauntered off, casually grabbing one of the dancing girls on its way out as a light snack. Ham and Chuck sat down opposite each other. A pair of level brown eyes looked into spinning yellow ones.

Ham Salad was tall, with the sort of rugged frame one associated with the security departments of the largest battlecruisers. He had dark hair and a firm jaw. He was dressed in a pair of flight officer’s trousers and a jacket made of the skin of a Scytherian Razor Beast. On his right hip was an assault blaster, while tucked into his left boot was a long knife. He was taciturn and sober, rarely giving away any clues about himself or his past. He gave the impression of an extremely capable man, a man who knew everything of importance within his particular field and who could take a good guess at the rest.

This was deceptive.

Ham Salad was about as useful as a chocolate engine nozzle. While it was true he was physically tough – this came from his job of hauling heavy weighs around – he was a terrible physical coward and would – if given the opportunity – sell his friends down the river for a pittance. If he had had any friends, that is.

The reason he never gave away any details of his past or present or future was that he had no future and was terminally embarrassed about the rest. Ham Salad was a joke, and he wasn’t even that funny.

However, few people noticed this until it was far too late, and Chuck Spliffroller never noticed anything when he was, like, on a trip, man, which was pretty much constantly. Thus, he approached Salad with the fixed intention of hiring his services.

“Hey, whoa, like, spaceman, man,” Chuck drawled, as Old Ben reeled over, clutching a bottle of Jack Danniel’s in one gnarled hand, “We, like, need your help, man.”

Ham Salad looked across at the last Kite-High Knight – there was no mistaking him for anything else – and asked, “You need my help?” He somehow managed not to sound totally incredulous.

The Kite-High nodded. “Yeah, like, whoa, man. We, like, need transport to the Dust Cart to that we can, like, rescue a princess-chick from some un-hep cats.”

“Ye-har, fly-boy!” put in Old Ben, showering Ham with a mixture of tobacco-stained phlegm, bourbon and corn-on-the-cob, “an’ we’re a-gonna go and give tham thar Imperial varmints one o’ tham thar right rootin’, tootin’ seein’ to’s! Wee-hoo! Just like tham thar old days!” He slammed Ham hard on the shoulder. The captain staggered. “What do you be sayin’ say to that thar suggestion, then, fly-boy? Ain’t that thar the rootinest, tootinest plan you ever did hear?”

If Ham Salad was anything, other than incompetent, it was practical. The prospect of saving an innocent woman – who just might, perchance, feel like showing her appreciation in the time-honoured fashion (i.e. cold hard cash) – was exceedingly attractive to him. He nodded once.

“Okay,” he said quietly, “I’m in.” He noticed someone over the Kite-High’s shoulder. “I’ll meet you at docking bay three in an hour. I’ve got some business to attend to first.” The Kite-High nodded and stood. Before he left, he made the ancient salute of the Kite-High to the captain.

Raising his hand, he held up the middle and index fingers in a V-shape and presented it to Salad palm forward. “Peace, man,” he said.

The two Kite-Highs and the droids wandered off. Salad squirmed in his seat and wondered if there was anywhere he could run to. Unfortunately, there was not. He could only wait as the alien came closer.

“Ootoo-tootoo, Salad,” said the alien.

“Ootoo-tootoo to you too, Greenie,” said Ham, “What do you want?”

The short, scrawny, obviously-knocked-together-by-ILM-the-night-before alien leant forward. “Jab in the Butt is very displeased with you, Salad,” he said, “He demands satisfaction.”

Salad looked nervous, and cast his gaze around for something to get him out of this mess, all the while keeping up an easy patter of confident phrases. “Erm, look, Greenie, I’ll make it up to Jab, I, er, that is, I’ll try, and, er, you really don’t want to shoot me, look, er, it’d waste a bullet . . .” Ham’s gaze fell on one of the green-skinned waitresses, wearing a few pieces of shrapnel help together by dental floss and had an idea. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed, pointing very obviously, “her bikini strap just snapped!”

Greenie turned and looked. Ham proceeded to empty his blaster in the general direction of the bounty hunter’s head. Several of the shots went wide, hitting the barman, the cantina band5 and – coincidentally – snapping one of the waitress’ bikini straps6. Several of the shots, however, ploughed into the back of Greenie’s head, thus turning his brains into chunky salsa.

In the chaos caused by everything vaguely male roaring, “Fwoar! Get a load of that!” and the cantina band trying to pick up the beat despite half their number having holes in major organs, Ham sprinted out of the Gathers No Cantina and made his escape.

oOo

Ham met the others at docking bay three. He pointed out the ship that they had all been leaning up against, convinced it was a piece of scrap waiting for the garbage scow. “This,” he said dramatically, “is the Valiant Peregrine.”

Chuck, Ben and the droids felt compelled to say something – Ham had an expectant look on his face, as if he was waiting for praise or complements.

He didn’t get them.

“It’s, like, a piece of junk, man,” said Chuck.

“No,” said C3-KY, “I think you’ll find that it is a piece of junk.”

While this may have been a fair assessment of the Valiant Peregrine it was not polite, and only served to get Ham Salad very upset.

“Hey, burn-out,” he said hotly, “this ‘piece of junk’ did the Kestrel run in ten parsecs!” The Kite-Highs and the droids uh-hummed in an impressed fashion, and then Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie said;

“But, boy, on o’ tham thar parsecs, that thar’s a measure o’ distance, boy!”

“Well, erm . . .” said Salad.

“And, like, man, the Kestrel run’s, like, only eight parsecs long, man,” put in Chuck, doing mental arithmetic on his fingers. The answer he got was flawed owing to double vision. “That’s, like, fire parsecs too many, man.”

Ham shrugged. “So we took the scenic route!” he complained, “Look, the Valiant Peregrine’s perfect for what I do!”

“And what do you do, Captain Salad?” asked C3-KY. Salad’s face went blank for a second.

“Er, I’m, er, a merchant! Yeah, that’s it!” he said, his face brightening considerably, “A merchant! The Valiant Peregrine is a merchant ship!”

C3-KY put his head on one side and in considerable danger of falling off. “It looks more like a garbage scutter,” he said slowly.

Ham got really annoyed. “It’s not a garbage scutter!” he screamed, “it’s a merchant vessel! Look, come and see that cargo space!”

Politely, the Kite-High and the droids went and looked into the rear of the Valiant Peregrine. It was certainly true that there was a large cargo space in the rear, with a cunning feature for compressing it so more cargo could be got in. Currently, it seemed that Ham was carrying what looked like – to the untrained eye – like refuse. But Ham, who was an expert (according to Ham), told them that it was a very important fertiliser for a very important food crop on some planet or other. When asked about details he went rather vague. The ship also had a cunning feature for emptying the next model up from RU-DD42 into the cargo space. Ham, an expert on RU units (according to Ham), said that the new units were designed to carry cargo, not rubbish at all. Everyone then agreed that it was a fine cargo ship and that they would be happy to fly in it. Before Ham could lead them up the gangplank, however, all hell broke loose.

Three parties of heavily armed troops suddenly filled the three entrances to the docking bay. One consisted of Tattooist police, their sergeant talking to a buxom green-skinned dancing girl holding a very inadequate bikini in place with one hand. She pointed at Ham. Another party consisted of troops wearing the pink and green livery of Jab in the Butt. They also pointed at Ham. The final party consisted of Imperial Dustmen. They – to Ham’s credit – did not point at him. But as all parties shot in his general direction it made little difference.

As the five somewhat puzzled closet Rebels ducked down behind some convenient crates, Ham screamed into his comm-link, “Chewie! Get the engines started! We’re lifting off!” There was an answering growl which Chuck assumed was static. The engines of the Valiant Peregrine began to hum and then a jet of flame came out as the ship began to lift off.

“No, Chewie, no!” screamed Ham, as Old Ben raised ol’ Bessie and began firing, “Not yet! Wait ‘till we’re on board! Set her down!” The engines immediately cut, and the ship dropped six feet, landing with unerring accuracy on C3-KY’s foot. The droid immediately tried to pull it from under the landing strut, but only succeeded in tearing it off at the hip.

While all this was going on, Ben was blasting away with ol’ Bessie. His fire was completely indiscriminate, rattling off the walls, floor, the hull of the Valiant Peregrine, Chuck’s love beads, RU-DD42 and the troops. As he kept up his constant barrage of fire, he screamed, “Wee-hoo, yer varmints! Stay north o’ that thar Mason-Dixon line next time thar, boy! Ye-har! Are we havin’ that thar fun yet?” Shots rang our. Salad and Spliffroller ducked.

“What’s the matter with the senile old fool?” asked Ham. Chuck shrugged unconcernedly.

“Hey, be cool, man. Don’t hit me with no negative waves, man. You’re messin’ up my Karma. Here, have a flower.” Chuck – in order to deal with the situation – was using his Kite-High skills. He was using the Fix.

Ham decided that the best way to avoid being dead was not to get shot at, and so he hid behind the dustbin with wheels. The four-way firefight continued for a few minutes, during which time Chuck was sitting in a lotus position smoking a roll-up that looked more like a badly made camel than anything else.

Salad despaired of ever seeing home again (and was getting quite pleased at the prospect), when there was a sudden lull in the fight. Or rather, a period when the three groups of soldiers were shooting at each other rather than them. Quickly taking advantage of this, Ham wrestled C3-KY’s leg out from under the landing strut and hit Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie across the back of the head with it. He then proceeded to drag him, kicking and screaming “Lemme go thar, boy! Ah’m a-gonna bag me one o’ tham thar critters fer over muh fireplace!” up the gangplank.

Salad got inside the Valiant Peregrine, closely followed by Chuck and the droids. He threw the leg and the old fool into the corner and sat down in the pilot’s seat. The door closed just before Old Ben could start shooting out of it. There was a hum from the engines, and then – with a sudden burst of flame – the ship shot into the air.

Chuck went to sit down in a seat which appeared to be covered in a large furry blanket, when the blanket moved and stood up, revealing itself to be an eight-foot tall walking Axminster.

“This is Chewintobacco,” Ham said by way of introduction, as he strained the little ship’s engines to their maximum in order to get them out of the docking bay. They were still hovering three metres above the ground. “He’s my Nookie co-pilot.”

The Nookie growled a greeting and shook Spliffroller by the hand.

Literally.

Chewintobacco looked like the offspring of a human and a shag-pile carpet. Possibly because he was. Until now, the droids had thought that Chuck’s hair and Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie’s beard must be the galaxy’s best examples of matted hair, but – after meeting the shambling mess that was the Nookie – they revised their opinion.

Ham was talking, and so Spliffroller turned to him.

“Whatever you do,” Salad said, as he calculated the co-ordinates for a hyperspace jump, “don’t get him angry. Nookies can get extremely violent. There was the one guy who said that Chewintobacco looked like a reject from the Allied Closing Down Sale7, and he ripped his arm off. So be careful, Chewintobacco can be bad for your health.”8

The Kite-High nodded. “Like, whoa, man,” he drawled, sitting as far away from the Nookie as was possible without causing offence, “I’ll, like, remember it, man.”

A squadron of Bow-Tie fighters suddenly appeared on the forward viewer, screaming down on them and blasting at the Valiant Peregrine. “Chewintobacco! Bow-Tie fighters! See if we can loose them around that moon.”

Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie looked out of the viewport. “That thar’s no moon, boy,” he said.

Ham looked at him incredulously. “Yes it bloody is!” he snapped, “Do you think I can’t recognise a moon when I see one?” The Valiant Peregrine screamed past the cratered surface of what was – categorically – a moon. “Look, who’s the pilot here? Just sit back and I’ll get you to the Dust Cart.” Somewhat sheepishly, Ben sat down in the back of the ship.

Ham and Chewie struggled to escape the pursuing Bow-Tie fighters. Suddenly, the grey flank of a Star Destroyer loomed up in front of them.

“That’s no moon,” observed C3-KY. Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie nodded as he understood the difference.

“You don’t say!” yelled Ham, pulling the ship off and barely missing the hulking craft. He powered the Valiant Peregrine away from the gravity well of Tattooist and was soon able to jump to hyperspace.

“That’s a moon,” said C3-KY. Ham turned to see that Spliffroller, in some drugged frenzy, had dropped his trousers.

“Look, stop that right now!” said Ham, trying desperately to retain control of the situation as C3-KY’s right arm fell off with an ugly clang, “We’re gonna be in hyperspace for a while, so can we all sit down and try to be calm.” It was going to be a long trilogy.

Old Ben Wonkie Nosie moved over to Chuck, who was pulling on his trousers, and said, “Ye-har, boy! Y’all be wantin’ t’practice tham thar Kite-High skill, wontchya, boy?”

“Like, yeah, man,” said Spliffroller, taking out a huge pipe and filling it with wacky-baccy. “Like, let’s use the power of the Fix, man,” he said, lighting up.

oOo

The boardroom on the massive Dust Cart was full, the two chairs at the head of the table were the only empty places there. As the Board waited, the Managing Director of the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. and the Head of the Dust Cart Project walked into the room. Silence fell as Daft Radar and Mighty Muff Tarpaulin took their seats.

“Demonstrate the power of the Dust Cart,” Tarpaulin said. An executive on his right nodded and pressed a button. A screen on the wall lit up with a view of the planet of Allbran. A variety of rubbish – broken eggshells, dead banana skins, discarded candy wrappers – floated around it. The place was a mess.

“This is Allbran,” said the executive, “The system is cleaned by the Rebel Waste Disposal Co. Inc. and – as you can see – they do not do a very good job. Now, witness the power of this fully operational trash collector.” He pressed another button.

An impressive noise ran through the Dust Cart. Then there was a sudden flash of light on the screen and dozens of brooms shot out, immediately sweeping all the rubbish into the dustpans of the Dust Cart. As suddenly as it had started, it was all over. Space stretched before them, clean and peaceful. The executives were impressed.

“See?” asked the demonstrator, looking very pleased with himself, “Isn’t it impressive?”

Radar spoke up. “Do not be too impressed with this technological broom you have created. The power to clean up quadrants is as nothing beside the power of the Kite-High.”

The executive turned his chair to face Radar. “Do not try to frighten us with your executive’s ways, Radar. Your sad devotion to those ancient ways is well know, sir, but they have not helped you complete the hostile take-over of the Rebel Waste Disposal Co. Inc., nor recover the lost plans.”

Radar quivered with rage, and then reached out with a long arm and put the executive in a headlock. While the rest of the Board looked on in wonder and amazement, the Dark Kite-High Master noogied the unfortunate businessman.

“Owww!” screamed the executive, “Owwww!”

Tarpaulin ordered, “Release him, Radar.” With reluctance, the Dark Kite-High dropped the executive, who sat there, cradling his sore head.

“As you wish, Mighty Muff,” Radar hissed.

“Don’t call me that!” he complained, “Please! It’s a very silly title!”

“You’re not trying to cover it up, are you, Tarpaulin?” Radar sniggered.

Suddenly, the door opened, and an Imperial Dustman walked in. “Mister Radar, sir,” he said, “we have a ship on our scanners. It appears to be of Rebellion design.”

“I am on my way,” said Radar, and swept out of the room.

oOo

The Valiant Peregrine came out of hyperspace with a rattle and a hum. The ship felt like it was going to shake itself apart. Possibly because it was trying to. The only reason it didn’t was it was so beat-up it couldn’t even do that right.

“Hey, Old Ben, man,” said Chuck, as he pulled his mind back into his head with an effort, “Which side of the Fix is more powerful? Is it, like, the Establishment?”

Wonkie-Nosie was aghast. “Ye-har, boy! That thar’s one o’ tham thar lies, thar, boy! The power o’ the Establishment, that thar do be easier, more seductive.”

“More seductive?” murmured Salad to Chewintobacco, “I don’t see how working for a living can be more seductive than sitting around doing drugs and partaking of free love from be-flowered chicks.”

Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie pointed out of the viewport. “Ye-har, boy! That thar’s one o’ tham thar moons, thar boy!” he said, indicating something which looked anything like a moon.

“No it’s not, you silly old fool,” said Ham, “That’s a massive armoured refuse collector!” It was true – the huge construction hung like a constipated frog amid the clean and tidy Allbran sector. Ham could tell that something terrible had happened – the place wasn’t a mess.

“Well, tan muh hide with one o’ tham thar birch rods if you ain’t right, boy!” said Old Ben Wonkie Nosie, “Ah do declare that Ah do be getting’ mighty stupid in muh ol’ age!”

“You can say that again,” muttered C3-KY.

So caught up in the Hill Billy’s praise was Salad that he failed to notice the gigantic dustpan and brush reaching out for them until it was too late. The huge broom swept them into the dustpan, which retreated back into the body of the enormous Dust Cart.

“Like, what now, man?” asked Chuck. Salad and Chewintobacco looked at each other, and then dived for the cargo space at the back, where they immediately covered themselves with the “fertiliser”. The rest of the Rebel posse (new tour dates confirmed) followed them and covered themselves with the stinking organic matter that they would have sworn was garbage if they hadn’t known better.

There was a whirr as the door to the rear of the cargo hold opened, and they could hear the voices of Imperial Dustmen.

“It appears to be a Rebel Garbage Scutter, Mister Radar, sir,” said one, “Shall we search it?”

“Garbage Scutter!” muttered Ham hotly, “It’s a merchant vessel! Let me at him!”

“Keep quiet, you fool!” hissed C3-KY, poking him in the ribs with a finger which fell off and was immediately lost in the stinking cargo.

“Yes,” came the hissing voice of Daft Radar, “Find me the Rebels. We will question them as to where the plans for the Dust Cart are.” There was a series of miscellaneous bangs and crashes as the Imperial Dustmen searched the Valiant Peregrine. Eventually, the noise died down.

“Well,” said Radar, “did you find anything?”

“Found this package, sir. It appears to be gift-wrapped.”

Peering out from under decomposing banana skins and potato peelings, the Rebel posse (new album out in the spring) could see Radar prodding and poking at the small gift Chuck had brought for Leimee, in order to ingratiate himself with the “princess chick”. Eventually, Radar growled and said, “It is Spliffroller, he is here.”

“How can you tell, sir?” asked one of the Dustmen.

“I felt his presents,” said Radar, “He and the rest of the Rebels are on this trash compactor somewhere. Find them and bring them to me. The Emperor Palpitations will wish to have words with Spliffroller, and I wish to deal with Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie personally. I am going to Main Dustbin Four to see if the princess has changed her mind since we cleaned her home planet of Allbran.” He left the room, chuckling to himself as he went.

“Very good, sir,” said the Dustman, and – with that – the Imperials filed out of the docking bay, leaving the Rebel posse (drummer in drug rumour) to climb out of the fertiliser and look around.

“Right,” said Ham, dusting himself off, “where now? We have to rescue the princess. What was her name again?”

“Leimee, man,” said Chuck.

“I’d rather not,” said Ham, “I don’t fancy running into the guy with the trash can on his head – he looks a bit of a psycho. So I suggest we split up – the old fool, I mean Ben, can go and deal with Daft Radar, while the rest of us can go and rescue the princess.” He set off down the corridor at a run, hotly followed by a shambling carpet, a sixties-reject, a dustbin on wheels and a golden mannequin scatting limbs left, right and centre. Old Ben cackled quietly to himself, raised ol’ Bessie and patted her affectionately.

“Ye-har thar, fly-boy! Ah’m a-gonna go get me one o’ tham thar low-down, cattle-rustlin’, claim-jumpin’, milk-drinkin’ Daft Radar critters fer over muh fireplace!” So muttering insanely, the redneck shambled off down the corridor, quietly whistling “Oh my darlin’ Clementine” through rotting teeth.

oOo

Ham, Chuck and the rest stuck their heads around the corner of the corridor which lead to Main Dustbin Four and saw the tall, dark figure of Daft Radar walking out of the door and turning down the corridor away from them. An Imperial Dustman remained on guard at the door.

“Right,” said Ham, “here’s the plan. We run down the corridor and jump him. There’s one of him and five of us, so we’ll have to be careful. Chuck, follow me.” He paused before setting off down the corridor, “You go first.”

“Hey, man,” complained Chuck as the merchant shoved him down the corridor as a semi-human shield, “don’t, like, hassle me, man. And, like, watch the threads. These things cost money!”

“You were had,” remarked C3-KY as he assisted Ham in pushing the Kite-High. The Kite-High pushed back, and a small struggle ensued. The Dustman turned to see what the commotion was about, saw the Rebel Posse (rumours of a split denied) and drew his pistol. He pointed it at Chuck.

“Freeze!” he ordered, reaching for the alarm.

Chuck – who had been taking a heady cocktail of drugs ever since he’d arrived on the Dust Cart in order to cope with the stress and the strain – suddenly began hallucinating. “Whoa, man!” he said, pointing over the guard’s shoulder, “a sentient bee!”

In a contrived act of fate that only happens in bad drama, the guard looked over his shoulder. Needless to say, there was no bee – sentient or otherwise – behind the guard. However, the fact he had turned away from them gave the Rebels the perfect opportunity to jump him and tie him up.

An opportunity which they did not take, owing to the fact that they were all watching Chuck gyrate wildly, crying that the dog was melting, man, and that the sentient bee was, like, rapping with the giant peyote button, man. However, as the Kite-High waved his scrawny arms around, he snapped the string on his love-beads and gaudily-coloured spheres of plastic bounced and pinged all over the floor.

Having had their run of luck used up by the guard actually looking away, the Rebels were hardly surprised when the beads rolled the wrong way and went under Chewintobacco’s furry paws, sending him careening all wildly all over the deck. His flailing gibbon-like arms smashed into the rest of the Rebel posse (rumours of a split confirmed), sending them falling all over the place and – in the case of C3-KY – into several separate pieces.

As the rest of the Rebel’s crashed to the ground, C3-KY’s head rolled into the groin of the just-turning guard, who uttered a sound somewhere between a groan and a scream and collapsed to the floor clutching the only area not covered by neither his armour nor his group insurance policy.

Ham got shakily to his feet and tried the door to Main Dustbin Four. It appeared to be locked. He turned to look for something to lever it open with and found Chewintobacco hefting one of C3-KY’s legs. “Good man,” said Ham, helping the Nookie jam it in the lock and jimmy the door open.

There was a protesting screech and the lock smashed (co-incidentally, the droid’s leg bent into a half-circle, but this was not deemed important). Ham and Chuck opened the door, while the Nookie began to re-assemble the droid.

Sitting inside on a small heap of garbage was the princess, wearing a Danish pastry on each ear, who looked at the two of them and said, “Don’t you two smell a bit bad to be dustmen?”

“Ham Salad, independent merchant captain,” said Salad, holding out his hand, “and this is Chuck Spliffroller, the last of the Kite-High Knights. We’ve come to rescue you.”

The princess looked at the two idiots in front of her – and the walking carpet carrying in what looked to be one of the droids she thought she had seen the last of over Tattooist. The golden skinned imbecile looked to have been taken apart and reassembled by a lobotomised student of Salvador Dali on speed, and now resembled nothing more than a badly put together spider plant wrapped in silver foil. Behind the Nookie rolled the trash can droid.

“If you don’t mind,” she said, after careful consideration, “I’d rather stay here.” She indicated an eight-legged Altarian Spider-Rat crawling through the refuse. “The company’s better.”

Ham and the Nookie looked offended – at least she assumed the Nookie would have looked offended. The movement of a few rats’-tails of greasy hair in the place where a normal creature would have its face was impossible to interpret. The Kite-High, however, seemed to be utterly unconcerned and drew out a fat spliff and proceeded to attempt to light it with his lucky zippo.

“Hey, whoa, man,” he said, after several attempts, “Like, I’m outta gas, man.”

“Here,” said Ham, oblivious to the smell of methane in the air, “use this.” He handed over a lighter.

“Thanks, man,” said Chuck, and flicked it.

The resulting explosion completely masked the princess’ cry of “Put that thing away before you get us all killed!” which – for the authors at least – was fortunate, considering the harsh enforcement of the copyright laws. The Rebels were thrown against the walls with enough force to damage the princess’ strange and weird hairdo.9 The rest of the Rebel posse (comeback tour imminent) all watched with wonder as Chewintobacco went up like a torch and ran around making noises like a constipated yak. Chuck, for his part, immediately assumed the lotus position on top of a pile of decomposing lasagne and said, “Whoa, like, the carpet’s on fire, man!”

However, before anyone could do something sensible – which would have been a first – the Dust Cart’s automatic fire suppression routines took matters into their own robotic hands. Namely, they shut the door.

Deprived of the external atmosphere, the fire quickly used up all the available oxygen and then went out. The Nookie obligingly stopped running around like a decapitated chicken and collapsed what-passed-for-a-face-first into a pool of tea-dregs.10

Then – for reasons only readily apparent to George Lucas – the walls began to close in, squashing the Rebels between them and week-old fried chicken.

“The phrase ‘it never rains but it pours’ was invented for situations like this,” remarked C3-KY’s head as it floated serenely and diligently down a river of liquefying refuse towards its body.

“Chuck!” screamed Ham, trying to keep the walls back and failing miserably, “what do we do?”

“About what, man?” asked the Kite-High, his pupils virtually disappearing as the drugs assailed what was left of his mind.

“The walls coming in!” yelled the princess.

“Hey, whoa, chick,” said Chuck, examining the walls critically, “Are you, like, sure? I thought that was just me!”

Despite the valiant efforts of the Rebels, the walls continued to close in. Before long, they were pressed against each other in a quite improper fashion. Leimee was busily preparing bills when Ham realised that the lock on the door was smashed and they could leave any time they liked. Ham dived for the door, hotly followed by the rest of the posse, including the only-just-reassembled C3-KY. They all lay on the floor, panting and wondering how long the authors would be able to get away with such obvious plagiarism. They weren’t the only ones.

“Right!” said Ham, taking charge of the situation because no-one else seemed to want it and he’d have anything that wasn’t nailed down, “Let’s get to the Valiant Peregrine and get off this overgrown swingbin!”

“But, like, what about Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie, man?” asked Chuck, “We can’t like, leave him to face Daft Radar alone, man!”

“Why not?” asked C3-KY, “If you recall, it was the senile old hill-billy fool who wanted to face the mightiest Dark Kite-High Knight in the history of Dark Kite-High Knightishness. I say good luck to him and good luck to us. And, as I recall, some bloke with a beard will help those who help themselves, so I suggest we help ourselves by getting onto the Valiant Peregrine and getting the hell out of here.”

“God,” said Leimee.

“Pardon?” asked Ham.

“God helps those who helps themselves,” she explained.

“See?” said C3-KY, “Two people’ll help us. Come on, let’s move.” He set off in completely the wrong direction. The rest of the Rebels (who either had no eyes11, had their eyes covered by their hair12 or had no idea where the ship was13) blithely followed him.

oOo

Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie shambled through the corridors of the Dust Cart, searching for Daft Radar, muttering crazily to himself all the while. “Ah’m a-gonna bag me one o’ tham thar low down, fence-sittin’, claim-jumpin’ Daft Radar varmints fer over muh fireplace!”

“What are you going on about now, old fool?” asked Daft Radar from behind him. Old Ben Wonkie-Nosie span around, and let off a random blast from ol’ Bessie. By another contrived act of fate that seems to dog underdogs in all wars, the rusty buckshot ricocheted off the Dark Kite-High Master’s refuse-container-like helmet, giving him a near fatal migraine. As he reeled around holding his head in his hands, Old Ben cackled insanely;

“Wee-hoo, thar boy! Are we havin’ that thar fun yet, ya Yankee varmint?” With horny hands, the redneck idiot reloaded his shotgun as Radar recovered and delivered several devastating kicks to him.

“Your powers are weak, you silly old fool!” Radar hissed menacingly, melvining Ben for good measure. The Kite-High collapsed to his knees.

“Well thar, boy, Ah do declare that you have gowne and done one o’ tham thar melvins to pur littl’ ol’ me!” he wheezed, as the Dark Kite-High Master straightened his helmet and looked around for something with which to end the pathetic life of the senile old fool once and for all. “But Ah am a-warnin’ y’all,” the Hill-Billy continued, “if y’all go right on ahead and do that thar strikin’ me a-down, Ah shall become more pow-o-full than y’all can pow-sibly imagine!”

Radar had found his bag of executive golf clubs and had just selected the five-iron and was about to bash Wonkie-Nosie’s head in with it, but he stopped mid-swing when he heard this. “What the hell are you blathering about, you senile old duffer?” he snarled from behind his galvanised mask, “You’ll be dead! I can imagine things far more powerful than that!”

“Well, I do declare that that thar imagin-iation o’ y’all do be mightily po-tent!” exclaimed Old Ben, as Radar dealt him a fine blow on the mashie niblick with his five-iron. As the last of the Hill-Billies fell off the gangplank the two of them were standing on into the masses of compacted rubbish below, Radar shouted “Fore!”

In order to provide a dramatic moment, Old Ben had fallen out of his dungarees as he fell off the gangplank, leaving them at Radar’s feet. As the Dark Kite-High poked at them with his golf club, looking for any moonshine Wonkie-Nosie might have left in the pockets (Radar’s company Bow-Tie fighter positively guzzled fuel), the Rebels appeared at one end of the gangplank.

Having got horrendously lost in the bowels of the Dust Cart, the six of them had found their way back by following the trail of C3-KY’s lost body-parts. However, they were now confronted with the mighty figure of Daft Radar, who – surprised to see them – took an immediate step backwards and put himself in considerable danger of falling off the gangplank.

The Rebels – taking advantage of the precarious position of the Managing Director of the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. – rushed past him. Leimee – being of a more practical bent than the rest – gave him a quick push as she passed.

Radar’s arms flailed as he tried to regain his balance, but failed somewhat miserably. However, fortune favours the evil, for the tails of his double-breasted suit caught on the walkway as he fell, allowing him to climb back onto the catwalk and take up his five-iron.

Meanwhile, the Rebels had reached the next waste-storage unit similar to the one they had just run through. However, here the echoing cavern was not spanned by a glittering catwalk, as it had been retracted into the wall. Leimee pressed the button to extend it, but only received the message “LOW ON POWER”.

“Quick!” she cried, “Chuck, use those fuel canisters we got when we went through that room the authors didn't report as there weren’t any gags in it to extend the bridge!”

Chuck wavered unsteadily on his feet. “I think I just sniffed them, babe,” he said detachedly.

“That’s it then,” said C3-KY somewhat fatalistically, “We’re going to die.”

A hail of golf balls bounced off the Rebels’ heads, reminding them that they could not stay where they were for any length of time. Radar lined up another golf-shot, addressed the ball correctly, wiggled for effect, and struck the ball.

At the same time as Ham closed the door in front of him.

The Penfold Hearts bounced off the steel door, hit Radar in the helmet with a resounding “Klang!” and careered up into the ceiling. As the Dark Kite-High reeled around clutching his ears in pain the golf ball ricocheted several times around the room, hit Radar once more on the head for good measure and finally smacked with unerring accuracy into the (vitally important) altitude control circuits all large spaceships seem to have in accessible positions in all bad sci-fi.

The Dust Cart immediately tilted ninety degrees, so that the wall became the floor. In the next room, the Rebels fell what-was-now-down, head-long through the door they had been trying to get the gangway to extend to, and smashed into a large party of Imperial Dustmen. In the room (now) above them, Daft Radar crashed headfirst into the door, concertinering his helmet.

Whilst trying to work out whose limbs were whose (a difficult job for C3-KY whose body parts were once again scattered across the floor), the Dustmen and the Rebels were somewhat surprised to find one of the walls become the floor again as the Dust Cart righted itself.

“Close the blast doors! Close the blast doors!” screamed one of the Dustmen into his comm-link as the Rebels began sprinting towards the dustpan where the Valiant Peregrine was docked. Immediately, the doors behind the Dustmen closed with a resounding clang.

“Not those blast doors, the other blast doors!” Obediently, the doors the Rebels had just dived through closed on their heels, preventing the Dustmen from pursuing. “Open the blast doors, open the blast doors!”

(Deep inside the Dust Cart, the Rebels were quite surprised – and happy – to find that every set of doors blocking their way obediently opened for them as they ran up.)

“I said open the blast doors!” The blast doors to the Dustmen’s right and left immediately opened, letting Daft Radar into the room, but also allowing a huge sheet of flame into the room from the incinerator on their right.

“Close the blast doors!” they screamed, as Daft Radar was pushed back by the gout of flame. Obediently, the doors closed, crushing the Dark Kite-High between them.

“Stuff the blasted blast doors!” screamed Radar, as his helmet was pressed almost flat, “Just find the bloody Rebels!”

oOo

Ham and the rest arrived at the gangplank of the Valiant Peregrine, and were surprised to find no Imperial Dustmen except a few who seemed to have been crushed by malfunctioning blast doors. Leimee looked around.

“Where’s your ship, then Ham?” she asked, “There’s nothing here but this garbage scutter!”

Ham was getting annoyed with people belittling his craft. “It’s not a bloody garbage scutter!” he screamed, “Look, do you want to fly in her or not?”

Leimee and the rest considered this. “No,” they all said in unison.

Ham was used to this response, so he played his trump card. “Would you rather stay here and be shot?” he asked. The rest of the Rebels considered this, but the situation was only decided when Dustmen burst through the madly opening and closing blast doors and started shooting. The Rebels leapt for the Valiant Peregrine and shot up and away, through the hangar doors which suddenly opened.

“Oh, bugger,” said Daft Radar, more to himself than anything, “It’s going to be one of those trilogies.”

oOo

The Rebels drifted aimlessly through space, wondering what to do next. Ham and Chewintobacco – having done their part – were taking the Valiant Peregrine towards the neutral planet of Cornucopia, and intending to blackmail the princess into paying them for the rescue, otherwise they would leave her up in space for eternity. Without a spacesuit.

The droids on the other hand (or, rather, C3-KY, as no-one knew what RU-DD42 was thinking) thought that they had better destroy the Dust Cart, as it represented an evil monopolising force. They had managed to convince Chuck that doing so was a good idea. Leimee simply wanted to get off the damned hulk of a spacecraft and get back to her business of providing “services” to the galaxy’s rich and famous.

“You are not taking my spaceship to attack that huge monstrosity!” exclaimed Ham. Chewintobacco nodded and went “Rawwr!” in the wrong direction. Leimee put in her two pen’orth;

“Yeah, and I am not helping you attack them! All I want is to get put down on the planet’s surface so I can get on with my life! Hey, Ham! Can I get off now?”

Ham waved his hands, subtly rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. “Later, babe. Don’t worry about it.”

“Hey, man, like, don’t worry about it, man,” Chuck said, chewing on something strange he had found in his pocket, “I’ve like, got, a Y-Front fighter my dad gave me. I can, like, go blow the thing up, man.” He spread the plans that they had found in RU-DD42 on the dashboard and indicated the exhaust pipe with a grimy, bony finger. “Up here, man,” he said, pointing with his finger, “is the self-destruct button.”

“Self-destruct button?” asked C3-KY, “Who the hell designed this thing?”

“Someone who gives out likes rubber – both in cheques and on me,” said Leimee, “Which reminds me, when are you going to drop me off so I can carry on making a living?”

“As soon as you pay me for the rescue so I can make a living,” Ham said, “I don’t get a regular wage like other . . . I mean, like Imperial Dustmen.”

Leimee looked rather sheepish, and patted her tiny handbag. “Erm, I, er, don’t seem to have any cash on me at the moment. Take a cheque?”

Ham shook his head. “I don’t like rubber unless it’s on you, babe,” he said, grinning with an obvious and vulgar suggestion behind his smile. She raised an eyebrow and ignored it.

“I have a chalet on the ice planet of Hoax,” she said, “Would you two accept a week’s skiing holiday in lieu of payment?”

Chewie and Ham looked at each other. “Yeah,” said Ham, “okay. We’ll take you there, okay?” The princess nodded.

“Hey, man,” said Chuck, “can you drop me off at Tattooist? I like, need to pick up my Y-Front fighter, man.”

Ham looked at Chewintobacco. The Nookie made a worried noise. “Er, yeah, sure, alright,” Ham said, waving at Chewie to be silent, “Just so long as we don’t have to stay too long.”

“Right,” said the princess, “what are we waiting for? I don’t want to be left on this garbage scutter for the rest of my life!”

“IT’S NOT A GARBAGE . . . “ Ham began, and then recovered his composure, “It is not a garbage scutter, it is a merchant vessel.” But he still put it in gear and moved towards Tattooist.

oOo

“But, man, there’s, like, no ashtray, man!” said Chuck, as he waved his ash-tipped joint around the cockpit of his small (and terribly phallic) craft, “Where am I, like, supposed to get rid of the ash, man?”

“Should you be smoking all those drugs if you’re flying that thing?” asked Leimee, “I mean, you could hit something, and we’re going to be up there as well.”

“It’s a big universe, babe,” said Chuck, strapping himself in.”

“Not big enough,” muttered Leimee darkly.

C3-KY was dragging RU-DD42, who was beeping madly, towards the craft. “Here, Chuck,” he said, “The Y-Front fighter needs an RU unit in order to act as an ashtray!” He pushed the protesting droid into the allotted space. He dropped in with a click and a despairing “Beep!” Try as he might, he could not get out of the hole. He would have to go up into space with this doped-up complete idiot at the helm of a barely spaceworthy craft.

“Right,” said Ham, “we’re going to get the hell out of here, Chuck, and leave you to get yourself . . . I mean, save the galaxy!”

Chuck fired up the engine. “Like, aren’t you coming to help us destroy the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc., Ham?”

“Not a bloody chance,” said Ham, “I’ve done my bit.” And, with that, he slammed the door of the Valiant Peregrine and took off.

“Like, real hep, man,” said Chuck, and took off himself, for his date with destiny, accompanied only by a maniacally beeping trash can trying to extricate itself from the guts of his drug-filled craft.

oOo

“Right,” said Ham, pointing to the star chart spread out on Chewintobacco’s knees, “here we are,” he pointed at Tattooist, “and we are trying to get to here.” He pointed to Hoax. “Now, this area,” he circled the area around Allbran and the Dust Cart, “is a) a war-zone and b) where Chuck will be flying. Therefore, we should stay away from there.”

“Rowrgh!” said the Nookie.

“Does he actually know what he’s saying?” asked Leimee. Ham shrugged.

“Dunno, I sometimes wonder if he knows what I am going on about,” the captain said. C3-KY – who had been putting himself back together and tightening all his screws – asked;

“Do you know what you’re going on about some of the time?”

oOo

“Sir, we have an unidentified craft approaching. It appears to be following an erratic course.”

Daft Radar consulted the radar screen and made an “uh-hum”ing noise behind his mask. “It is Spliffroller,” he said, “No-one else flies like that. Prepare my craft, I will personally lead the Bow-Tie fighters.”

oOo

“Like, whoa, RU-DD42, I wish they’d stop moving the stars, man.”

Chuck’s Y-Front fighter was careering wildly from star to star, its pilot trying to keep on what his drug-ravaged mind thought was a straight course. RU-DD42, for his part, sat in the back shivering in terror, going “Beep!” at random intervals.

Somehow, more by chance than by design, Chuck drew closer to the massive hulk of the Dust Cart, and began searching its massive surface for the exhaust pipe that would lead him to the self-destruct button.

Suddenly, the air14 was filled with Bow-Tie fighters, all screaming around poor Chuck and shooting at him. This only served to make him more and more confused, and made the finding of the Dust Cart’s exhaust pipe all the more difficult.

“Like, man, stop shooting at me. It’s real un-hep!” Spliffroller exclaimed, “It’s really, like, messin’ up my Karma, man.”

oOo

“Right,” said Ham, “Where are we?”

The captain looked over the Nookie’s rugged shoulders and shouldered rugs and examined the starchart. Something about it bothered him, and then – in a flash of hideous realisation – it dawned on him what it was.

“You’ve been holding the chart upside down, you stupid great lump of mohair!” Ham screamed, “We could be anywhere!”

“Aworgh?” asked Chewintobacco, as a Bow-Tie fighter screamed past and began shooting at them.

“No, Salad,” said C3-KY, “we couldn’t be anywhere, as we are in fact in the middle of a war-zone.”

Leimee and Ham buried their heads in their hands.

oOo

“Mwahahahahaha!” laughed Daft Radar, feeling very indulgent, “I have you now, Spliffroller!”

Daft Radar’s Bow-Tie fighter – the GTI model known as the Tie-Dye fighter – was screaming after Chuck’s wildly moving ship, trying to keep it in weapons’ range. The other pilots – in their standard Bow-Tie fighters – were having a full time job keeping up with the young Kite-High. “He must be using the Fix,” the whispered in awe, “to dodge so. Why, if we did not know better, we would say he was stoned!”

Daft Radar did know better, and was himself using the Establishment to close on the young Kite-High’s ship. Soon he would be in weapon’s range, and would be able to destroy the last of the Kite-Highs once and for all. Suddenly, he was in weapon’s range. The targeting lights inside Radar’s helmet lit up green – the lasers had locked on. “Goodbye, Spliffroller,” he hissed. Softly, he squeezed the trigger . . .

oOo

“Chewie!” screamed Ham, as the Valiant Peregrine lurched from side to side as she was hit, “Get us out of here!” Leimee was thrown from side to side, her ample chest bouncing inside her clinging blouse quite enticingly. C3-KY’s arm fell off with a clang, and rolled under Ham’s seat, where it was immediately lost amid back-copies of Starmate of the Month and Playalien.

“We’re carrying too much weight!” cried Leimee, as she was flung about in the usual “gratuitous totty in a tight spot” fashion so beloved of Hollywood, her jugs bouncing up and down in an incredible manner, “We need to dump some of the rubbish, I mean cargo, in order to get away!”

Ham nodded. “Chewie, ditch some of the cargo.” The Nookie growled, uncomprehendingly. “Drop the garbage,” Ham whispered.

“Rawar!” affirmed the Nookie, moving a lever on the dashboard. From the back of the craft, there was an impressive clanking noise15 as the Valiant Peregrine dropped tons of high-quality “fertiliser” out of the cargo space in the back.

Deprived of the excess weight, the Valiant Peregrine leapt forward as if she had been kicked. That is to say, all her nuts and bolts rattled and bits of her fell apart. However, it did put some distance between her and the Imperial Bow-Tie fighters, and for that her passengers were eternally grateful. They would have like to have put some distance between themselves and the Valiant Peregrine, but – as Leimee often pointed out to her poorer clients when they complained about her not taking off her eyes of the horoscopes’ page in Vogue – beggars can’t be choosers.

oOo

Suddenly, Daft Radar was in weapon’s range. The targeting lights inside his helmet lit up green – the lasers had locked on. “Goodbye, Spliffroller,” he hissed. Softly, he squeezed the trigger . . .

. . . and watched his shots sizzle wide as about six and a half cubic metres of kitchen waste in various states of decomposition landed on top of his nice new shiny craft, sending it careering off into the wild blue16 yonder of deep space. “Oh, buggering hell,” he said, as he struggled to retain control of the craft and saw that the entirety of the Bow-Tie fleet had been similarly covered in garbage, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Still, at least the trilogy’s a third over.” And, with that, Daft Radar span out of that region of space and the first part of the story.

Meanwhile, in a contrived act of fate (all of which are going towards destroying this story’s credibility as a serious work of literature), Chuck’s craft was the only one not covered in stinking17 refuse. “Hey, Ham, man!” he shouted over the comm-link, “Like, I thought you weren’t stickin’ around for the party, man!”

On board the Valiant Peregrine, Ham and the rest, trying to extricate themselves from each other (well, Leimee was trying to extricate herself from Ham. He wasn’t trying at all) were not sure what the hell the speed-freak was talking about. However, Ham felt he should say something, so – picking up the comm – said, “Er, yeah, kid. Now, erm, why don’t you just, er, blow this joint and we can all, erm, that is, go home?”

“You don’t blow joints, man!” exclaimed Chuck, as he guided the craft – with many a “Beep!” from RU-DD42 – past the glowing neon signs that read “THIS WAY TO THE SELF-DESTRUCT BUTTON!”, “You, like, smoke ‘em, man!”

Suddenly, Chuck felt a wave of oatmeal flow through his mind as – with the sheer power of the Fix – the rush hit him. “Argle-bargle-woosh,” he mumbled to himself, his limbs gyrating wildly, guided only by the Fix. And thus it was that Chuck Spliffroller, the last of the Kite-High Knights, managed to guide his craft through the torturously twisting final few yards of the exhaust pipe and impact against the self-destruct button.

(Deep inside the bowels of the doomed craft, Mighty Muff Tarpaulin turned to his second in command and – responding to the suggestion that they should get the freak out of there – said, “Evacuate, in our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances!”

The other Imperials looked at each other and the neon signs on the walls reading “WARNING, SELF-DESTRUCT IMMINENT!” and decided that Mighty Muff Tarpaulin was certainly loosing it.)

“Ooooo, you’ve done it now,” said the extremely camp voice of the Dust Cart’s computer, as Chuck – in an astounding display of common-sense – decided it would be a real up-trip survival-wise to get the hell out of there, like, sharpish, man. He flung the machine into reverse and – travelling at breakneck speed backwards – got the hell out of the rapidly exploding Dust Cart.

The explosion caught his Y-Front fighter and the Valiant Peregrine and sent them careering away wildly, spinning through space for several parsecs, while the people inside bounced around like Leimee’s breasts inside her blouse.

“Argh!” cried Ham.

“Aieee!” screamed Leimee.

“Rawrararar!” roared Chewintobacco.

“Beep!” beeped RU-DD42.

“Like, bad trip, man,” said Chuck, lighting a spliff.

Suddenly, and without warning, the two craft stopped dead. The hatches sprung open, spewing the crew out into the snowy whiteness. C3-KY came apart in the process, landing in several dozen separate pieces which formed a convenient slalom course on what turned out to be the ski slopes of Hoax.

As the Rebels lay on the snowy ground and wondered if they were dead and if not, why not, a figure in bright primary colours ploughed up to them, his skis sending up a spray of snow crystals into their faces. “Gutten Tag!” he said with a noticeable German accent, “I am Kurt van Wenker, the skiing instructor! Welcome to Hoax!” He helped Leimee up, who immediately draped herself around Kurt and walked off with him arm-in-arm for the apres-ski routine.18

Ham and Chuck got to their feet. Salad looked over at the Valiant Peregrine. She seemed to have weathered the explosion and rough trip through space very well – the crash-landing on Hoax had caused only minor improvements. “Well,” said Ham, clapping Chuck on the shoulder, “we sure showed those Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. jerks a thing or two!”

“Yeah, man, heavy,” said Chuck, offering Ham some funny mushrooms. The captain declined politely, having no wish to have his mind turned to green cheese. Chuck chewed thoughtfully. He had a feeling that this was not the last he would hear of the Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. and its evil employees. How soon he was to be proved right.

The End . . ?

Coming Soon to a Page Near You . . .

The Empire Waste Disposal Co. Inc. Gets Riled