Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain by A. Lee Martinez Page A

Orifices along her back sprayed the air with a hundred pellets. Bugs and fighters alike disintegrated under the indiscriminate attack. My saucer shields absorbed the brunt of the force, but they wouldn’t hold up to another.
    The queen turned her attention toward me, the only thing still flying after her blitz. She scuttled forward with surprising speed, but I flew up and out of her reach. The enraged prime shrieked as she belched round after round. I dropped my payload of rockets and bombs on the creature, then burned out my pulsar and blaster cannons. The queen was wounded but showed no sign of falling.
    Finally, I got the creature to spit straight up. Gravity did the rest. Her mucus struck her between her multitude of eyes, and her head exploded. She stumbled through the city another three hours, rampaging blindly in the ruins, before succumbing to her injuries.
    The Terrans already had banners and a parade at the ready as I set my saucer down outside the city limits. I stepped out to the sounds of much rejoicing. Reporters pushed microphones at me.
    One asked, “Lord Mollusk, how does it feel to have saved the city of Topeka for the fifth time?”
    “Perhaps saved isn’t the right word,” I replied.
    “Nonetheless, the people of Terra are indebted to you once again. Surely, you must feel a sense of tremendous pride. Or are you simply too humble to realize how amazing you are?”
    “I’ll get back to you on that.”
    I approached the podium. A hushed awe fell over the crowd.
    “That should do it, everyone,” I said. “I’d probably wait another week or two before starting any serious rebuilding. Just to be on the cautious side. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
    My exo communicator beeped.
    “Excuse me one moment. I need to take this.”
    The voice on the other end said, “Lord Mollusk, we’ve lost China.”
    “Define lost. ”
    “It’s not there anymore, sir.”
    “Well, that’s no good, is it?” I said.
    “No, sir. We thought you should know.”
    “Yes, I’ll look into it. Mollusk out.”
    “Hail Lord Mollusk!” shouted the voice in the speaker.
    “Hail Mollusk,” I agreed quietly.
    I waved good-bye to the crowd and boarded my saucer.
    I did end up finding China, though getting it back from the transdimensional cat people who stole it was almost more trouble than it was worth.

9
    Zala awoke to find me hunched over a console.
    “One second,” I said. “I’m almost done here.”
    I used the spot welder in my exo’s fingertip to finish a final repair, then closed the panel.
    “I’ll need you to throw that switch over there when I give you the signal.” I pointed to a jury-rigged circuit breaker by her on the wall.
    She folded her arms and glared. “You can’t command me like one of your robotic drones, Emperor, and just expect me to jump to your bidding.”
    “I’ll need you to throw that switch over there when I give you the signal…please.”
    She noticed the patchwork repair job, exposed wires, and rerouted systems I’d been up to while she slept.
    “What did you do?”
    “Got bored,” I replied. “Did some repairs.”
    “Why?”
    “Why not?”
    “I would’ve thought the node, which may or may not be important, would’ve kept you busy.”
    “It wasn’t. Only took me forty minutes to see that it didn’t work. There was no data in it.”
    “Not important then.”
    “I wouldn’t say that,” I replied. “There were a few peculiar components in it. Things that seemed unnecessary, though considering it wasn’t being used, the whole device could be considered unnecessary. But I saved the parts that seemed uniquely out of place.”
    “Why?”
    “Why not?”
    Zala grunted. “That’s not an answer.”
    “It’s the best answer I have at the moment.”
    She appraised the mess of wires I was working on. “I’m surprised you didn’t wake me.”
    “I’m a quiet worker.”
    “I don’t care how smart you are, you can’t take a decayed derelict spaceship buried under