I am sorry for my nine month absence. Its been very hard to think of anything and feel particularly inspired, and eventually the story kind of drifted into the mists.
But no more.
Thanks to everyone whose read this. I will try and come up with ideas and chapters more quickly in the future, although I think I said that last time.
In any case, sorry again for the wait and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Story the fourth: The Lord, the lackey, and a daffodil or two.
As you may remember from chapter two, King was carried off by a passing Rhino after his fall from the LSF building. As it turns out, this started him down a road that would take him far from his homeland and the life that he knew.
About the same time, Lord Hakkera had returned to Honshu, where all was not well. As it transpired, a gang of fifty odd genetically engineered mountain weasels had descended upon the capitol city and ransacked the planet’s only bank. Lord Edo refused to reimburse the planet, stating that he needed all available credits to fund the construction of Sirius’ largest rubix cube. This would be placed in orbit of New Tokyo in an attempt to both counter the threat of meteor impacts, (and foolish Freelancers who kept buggering into the atmosphere), and also increase tourism.
The cube was later destroyed by the Hogosha who feared the contamination of foreign devils; also, they detested rubix cubes. There is not one Hogosha alive who can solve one. Before this incident, Hogosha operatives had been known to carry out armed raids on toy shops in which all rubix cubes were seized and shot. It is rumoured that they tried to pass some off as Dom Kovash artefacts, but that’s another story.
Anyhoo, in an attempt to repair his planet’s economy, Lord Hakkera constructed a quaint florists shop in the capital city. He encouraged others to create similar shops around the planet. No one was overly confident that this would accomplish anything, but they had little else to do so they did their lords bidding.
Two days after his shop opened, King fell through the roof after the Rhino’s pilot, (who had been delivering a shipment of Colman’s mustard promotional hats to the planet), discovered the hitchhiker on his roof and did a barrel role.
King, who was somehow none the worse for ware after his short trip through the vacuum or his long fall through the roof, picked himself off of the floor and inquired as to where he was.
Lord Hakkera was not pleased with this new development, his shop had not had many customers and he was certain that the few people who had come in were snickering at his bright pink apron which he had been told by his tailor was ‘a required garment for florists’.
However, Hakkera realised that he could make use of the Libertonian halfwit, and promising him a free ride home onboard a luxury liner in exchange for thirty four years of service, he put King to work, watering the cacti and feeding live voles to the Kyushu fang vines.
King did these tasks gladly, encouraged by the promise of three servings of lettuce, (a rare commodity), onboard the luxury liner which would take him home to his trial and execution, long after he’d have been declared a deserter from the service.
A few weeks in, a customer entered the shop and requested a dozen suitably pretty flowers to give to his wife for their anniversary. Lord Hakkera was at this time attending a conference about mountain weasel traps. (They didn’t want to be caught out again once they’d sorted the economy out).
As a result, King was left in charge of the shop. Whilst the customer was gawking at the King shaped hole in the roof, he went to the back and examined the assorted plants.
The prettiest looking ones he could find were Kurile swamp weeds, which despite the unpleasant sounding name looked quite nice. King removed a dozen of these from the aquarium in which they were kept, let them rinse for a few moments, and then wrapped them and handed them to the customer.
The thing with swamp weeds however, is that if you don’t keep them in water they shrivel up and release a poisonous gas into the air that can cause eyes to shrink.
And shrink they did. No sooner had the customer, who shall forever remain nameless, grasped the flowers then his eyes seemed to vanish. In a moment of panic he flailed about the shop, causing havoc and mayhem and inadvertently stepped on one of the three Ripper mines that were clustered in the far corner of the room near the door. (Hakkera had bought these cheap on eBay and planned to drop them on the heads of any who sought refunds.)
Long story short, BANG! SMASH! WHOOSH! ARGH! *shriek* Clink, clink, clinkety clnk, *sudden halt to all sound effects in the aftermath*.
On second thought let me try that again.
Long story short, a violent explosion reduced ‘Hakkera’s floral distribution hut’ and sent King flying once more, this time onto the roof of a passing Drone. And thus he sailed off to his next adventure.
Hakkera, upon his return, was a little upset about his shop being reduced to ashes. Since King was nowhere to be found in the wreckage, he instead ordered a swarm of his loyal servants to take flight and hunt King down. The tale of their hunt shall be told in another um, tale.
Thus endeth this story.
If the next one’s not up sooner then this one, Hawk of Prey can pull out my two front teeth.
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Freelancer, in the claws of an idiot
Read, add and comment on excellent written stories by fans, set within the Freelancer universe
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