Just Desserts
Herk sat back in his office on Cinnebar and weighed his options. Thanks to his troll metabolism, he’d healed quickly after the beating he’d suffered in the ring from Tess and Ava.
Although his body was recovered, his finances were another matter. When the dust had finally settled, paying off all the assorted fines and taxes to the Vectran government had taken a major hit on his and Cinnebar's pockets.
The only good thing was that Herk had come across his vast fortune almost overnight, instead of spending a lifetime earning it. While he was quite angry to have to give up so much money, it didn’t mean as much to him as it would have to someone else. After thinking long and hard, Herk finally came up with a plan that would get him a small measure of revenge. Bit by bit, he was becoming more clever as he ran Cinnebar, and learning how to create alliances and formulate plans. He wasn’t the same dense troll that Rhiannon, Vantha and Sonja had met long, long ago.
He made some long-distance calls and e-mails to the Vectran home world, finding out how long the Delphi 4 would be there, once they returned to base.
After that he enlisted the help of some other unsavory types, to produce a concoction that would have the desired effect on the Vectran women. Some online research and calls told him what were the most popular types of donuts, cakes and pastries among the Vectrans.
It took even more bribes and promises of ‘free services’ on Cinnebar for him to find a bakery that was willing to create what he wanted, and make sure that the food was all heavily laced with the ‘special ingredients’ he asked them to use. A minor spell from a happy customer on Cinnebar who happened to be a mystic, and no one could tell the cakes and donuts were anything else than what they seemed to be.
A few more discrete payments, and the contents were packaged in a special container with a unique seal: it could only be opened by Rhiannon’s vocal pattern and DNA scan. There were more than enough samples of both on Cinnebar, after all of her visits and these were transmitted to the bakery on the Vectran home world. The last thing Herk wanted was for some-one else to ‘confiscate’ the package, and for it to not make it to Rhiannon and her close circle of friends on the Delphi 4.
When everything was completed, he sat back and read the e-mail notification that the package had been successfully delivered to the starship.
“I wish I could be there ta see everything hit the fan on that fancy starship of theirs,” he thought with a smirk.
After all of the recent success with the earlier military offensive against the terrorists and then the spectacular results that generated so much income for the Vectran government when they inspected Cinnebar, Rhiannon wasn’t completely surprised to see the package waiting for her in one of the conference rooms on the Delphi 4. She knew that the top brass couldn’t go out of their way to show overabundant favoritism to any one soldier or their respective unit. But in her mind, a little tribute like this was a nice way of the big shots saying ‘thank you’ to her and her crew.
Rhiannon was slightly concerned when a label on the container had her speak to the package, and then hold her thumb over a sensor for a DNA scan, to be able to open it. But then, knowing how many steps and places it had to go through to reach her, she silently agreed with whoever had taken the extra measures.
“Without these, anyone from those fat security guards at the gates to a dozen other bozos could’ve intercepted these and made off with ’em.”
The special container had kept the cakes and cookies soft and warm like they’d just come out of the oven. Rhiannon had called Barocca, Vantha, Rayleena, Calista, Dejah, Kristal and others to enjoy the special treats. After months of almost nothing but the synthesized food the Delphi 4 produced, her friends couldn’t wait to get their hands on the new goodies.
The various women entered the room, and Calista had brought Floofy along on a leash.
“I thought I told you to find a new home for your pet, Calista,” said Rhiannon.
“I was on my way to see my family when I got the call to come here, sir.” After waiting her turn, she plucked a donut out of the container. “You won’t see Floofy around any more.” Calista broke off a piece and waved it under her pet’s nose. To her surprise, Floofy sniffed it briefly and turned his nose up at it. “Oh well, more for me I guess.”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen that mutt turn down food…are you sure he’s all right, Calista?”
“I guess he’s just not hungry, sir.”
As the remaining items were passed out, Vantha noticed what looked like an envelope at the bottom. “Aren’t you gonna read it, chief?” asked Vantha. “Somebody in Fleet Command must really like you.”
“I’ll read it later and send ’em a ‘thank you’ note then. After months of food pellets and the liquid mush this ship produces, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into some real food again.”
Later that afternoon, anyone who had sampled the ‘special treats’ was constantly using the lavatory to either upchuck, or making multiple trips there to combat the violent diarrhea they were experiencing.
Rhiannon and Vantha staggered to the conference room; after another visit to the lava-tory; the captain had lost track of how many times she’d had to do this, and now decided to examine the container more closely, to try and determine just who had given her this. As she sat down, Rhiannon let out a long fart, hoping her system would eventually clean itself out.
“Nice one, chief,” Vantha remarked sourly. “I think you tore your shorts on that one.”
“Oh, shut the hell up. It’s not like you haven’t added a few of those yourself.”
As if on cue, Vantha emitted a similar discharge, causing her nose to wrinkle. She held her nose with one hand and pressed a button on the wall, causing the small robot, Hugo to emerge from a wall panel and begin spraying the room with air fresheners.
“You’d better use everything you’ve got, Hugo,” she instructed, pinching her nose.
By now, Rhiannon realized something just wasn’t right with this package and reached for the communicator. “Have one of the psychic girls come over here and check this damned container out.”
A few minutes later, the door opened and Lilith entered. She immediately stopped and gasped as she smelled the foul odor in the room and then could sense the mystic aura coming from the container. To the average person, it looked normal; to a psychic like herself, it was like a glowing neon sign.
“You and the others already consumed whatever was in here?” Vantha and Rhiannon nodded grimly.
“Is there anything you and your girls can do to help us out?”
“Without something to probe or analyze, we could wind up making things worse.”
“I should’ve known something was wrong when that garbage-gut mutt of Calista’s wouldn’t touch this stuff,” moaned Rhiannon. “That’s just fucking great. All right, thanks for stopping by, Lilith.”
“You probably don’t want to stick around here, unless you’ve got a gas mask,” said Vantha. Lilith nodded nervously and left the room.
“Let’s see what the hell is in this envelope,” Rhiannon mumbled. To her surprise, it wasn’t a greeting card, but a miniature tablet with a label next to a button: Play Me. The Vectran commander pressed it. Herk’s gravelly voice could be heard coming from it.
“Hi Rhiannon, it’s yer ‘old pal’ Herk. I know it’s you cuz only yer DNA would activate the player. I’ll bet you and yer friends were really happy after everything that happened ta me back on Cinnebar, girl. So I decided ta send ya something that tells ya just how I feel about you and yer girls. It’s an old family recipe that I call ‘Troll House Cookies’!” Herk could be heard laugh-ing loudly in the background. “If ya ever get back ta Cinnebar, I’ve got more of the same waitin’ for ya!”
Rhiannon’s face grew angry and she reached out and slammed her fist on the device, shattering it into dozens of pieces.
Vantha threw her hands up just in time to avoid being hit by some of the shards. “I never would’ve thought that big lug Herk was smart enough to come up with something like this.”
Rhiannon drank some water and swallowed hard, hoping it would settle her stomach.
“Okay, I’ll give the big son of a bitch credit for going to night school, or whatever he’s done to get smarter.” She shifted uneasily in her chair as she felt her bowels prepare to un-leash another load. “After everything that happened to him, I’d be surprised if Herk didn’t hold a grudge against us.” A beeping was heard as Hugo nudged her foot to vacuum up all of the loose pieces of the mini-tablet. “But as soon as we get our next furlough or any kind of leave, we’ll be sure to pay another visit to Herk and Cinnebar. By then I’ll come up with something to really give him just what he deserves.”
Vantha rolled her eyes, as she knew there was no stopping Rhiannon, once she set her mind to something like this. “Poor Herk doesn’t now what he’s gotten himself into…”
“You can say that again, Vantha. Herk may have won the first battle with this little sur-prise package he sent us. But the ‘war’ with that smart-ass troll has only just begun.”
The communicator beeped and Vantha answered it. It was Rayleena from the bridge.
“Tell the commander she’s got another message from Fleet Command. It must be some-thing important...it’s coded Alpha Red Tango.” That meant only Rhiannon’s voice password could open it. The message was relayed to the conference room and Rhiannon tried several times to open the message without success.
“Try speaking your password without burping in the middle of it, chief,” Vantha teased. She gave Rhiannon a slap on the back. After an extra loud outburst, her stomach was now finally beginning to show signs of getting back to normal. She glared at Vantha, spoke her password and this time the message opened properly. She and Vantha read the notice in astonishment.
“I can’t believe this,” she exclaimed. “Someone else is screwing around with our Vectran software on Earth again.”
“Well, they can’t blame us. We cleaned everything up the last time we were there.”
“And we can account for our whereabouts ever since that trip to Cinnebar.” She queried the computer to do a search for the current positions of Vectran starships and cruisers. “Ah, here’s the problem...guess who just made a trip to Earth while she was on leave?”
“Let me guess...it’s Bootika, right?”
“Right the first time, Vantha. That gal always did think with her dick instead of her head. I would’ve thought that anyone working in ‘Special Ops’ like she did would know enough not to use our software on a planet that wasn’t part of the Federation.”
Bootika was unaware that the Vectran software gave off a special signal when it was used. It was tracked and reported to the home world.
“Since we’ve been there before, we’re elected to make a trip there and clean up whatever mess Bootika’s gotten herself into.”
“We had a nice furlough while it lasted,” said Vantha.
“Yeah, that’s part of the price of being in the service. We can be assigned anywhere to anything at any time. We’ll check in on the Island first once we’re there...I can’t imagine anyone else getting a hold of our software, but we’ll sort that out once we’re there.” She stood up and stretched as she finally began to feel better after consuming the ‘gifts’ from Herk.
“Besides that, the brass didn’t us give a specific time that we had to be back. So once we put Bootika in her place, I’m sure we’ll have a little time to get reacquainted with the girls on the Island again.”
