SPACE NOIR BAR by Mike Marino (top books to read txt) 📖

named Wesson Smith-Smythe, a former British commando until he went rogue and became arms dealer to the armless. Only the police and para-military had these weapons. Guns were confiscated from the general population after Dirty Harry films were banned for causing crazed 1st graders to go all Clint Eastwood in lunch room after lunch room over leftover Jello and chocolate cookies.  

The company’s motto summed up the guns purpose succinctly...DISINTEGRATION THEN, DISINTEGRATION NOW, DISINTEGRATION FOREVER.  

That piece of titanium made fire power saved my sorry drunken ass many times. One day...five Retropolin years ago, I was on a case involving a gang of Hydran mineral thieves I was hired to track and bring into Promethean Headquarters. They were stealing power crystals in the old Nevada nuclear Trinity test site, now an amusement park. The crystals are  used for fuel and mutant munitions. Seems a little coup d’ grace was in the works on Planet Hydra.

I got lucky and cornered one of the capricious culprits red handed, or blue handed in this case. Hydrans are one colorful race of blue beings from the Planet Hydra spinning in orbit in an area known as the “Crossroads”  where the Robert Johnson Solar System  is home to a region of planets known for their muddy waters. Hydrans are ugly. Beyond ugly. A leper with half a face is sexier.  Hydrans have three heads allowing them the distinction of being the only sentient beings in the galaxy who could read, think and give a decent Hydran blowjob all at the same time.

They saw me approach and immediately began firing. I fired back with my accurate Link Wray and wounded one of the blue tri-heads as the others made good their escape with the goods.   As the wounded perp lay prone on the ground bleeding its lavender blood slower than a stopped up catsup bottle I stood over it..game over. I asked it one simple question “Did I fire six shots or only five? To tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a Link Wray XL, the most powerful ray gun in the galaxy and could blow your  three Hydran heads clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, you three headed punk?

I wasn’t always that lucky, and sometimes ended up on the other end of the stick sporting a few broken ribs and face stitches for my trouble. The hospital knew me well. The price you sometimes have to cough up to stay in this game. Two years ago I obtained an illegal Link Wray Ray Gun, the type of which had been banned by the  252nd Retropolin Congress. I had my black market contact, Izzy the Jew from Jersey jack a shipment of guns to get one of these babies. Now I was in business..a real bad ass dime novel drugstore cowboy..and no more broken ribs or legs. One more leg fracture and I’d be limping  along  like Walter Brennan with my limbs so pliable I would be able to wrap them around my head and bounce on my ass.

As Poontang, Strangelove and myself  forced headquarters door open we were immediately spotted by a Toho military drone that began unleashing a barrage of disintegration pulse artillery shells in our direction. Usually deadly accuracy was their destructive calling card, but with rapid reflexes we all dove into the doorway onto the concrete floor littered with empty  small arms shell  casings from the last battle the Labians had with the overwhelming forces of the Toho’s before going underground.

Labian Headquarters had been completely abandoned, Now, how the hell will we find Che Godiva and  the secret location of the fantastic Falcon while trying to free Mary Asteroid and save our own asses in the bargain. It was all a crap shoot now  until Poontang fessed up. “Strangelove and I know where she is Doc, c’mon but keep the Link Wray’s on max and turn the safety off,” she hollered with the authority of a voodoo dominatrix as we raced sweating drenched back  into the street, this time dodging small arms fire from two directions. We were now now in the crosshairs of a crossfire between the Toho’s and a Labian Recon Team hoping we wouldn’t become a target of both sides.  

We ran through the streets as scared and blind as Helen Keller in a machete factory.
“Goddamn it,” I screamed.  “If you knew where she was why didn’t you bark it out sooner. Might have saved us from almost getting fried and vaped.” Then it hit me with the impact of a crash dummy hitting the wall.“Excuse me,”  I said. No answer. “EXCUSE ME! You know where the Rabbit Hole is? Why didn’t you say so and how do you know?”

We kept running while Strangelove  jumped in with a double barreled reprimand, short but sweet, if you like that kind of thing. “Fuck off Yucatan. We had to check headquarters first to see if we could get any help getting through the Valium Vector, held by holdouts with a slight drug and gun problem who also want to murder their way to power. They hate Labians as much as they hate Toho’s.”

Poontang stayed focused and fired volley after volley while sprinting through the shower of firepower being leveled at us. The two of them were in great athletic shape for this shit, while I felt as tired out as a Chinese ping pong ball after ten rounds of fierce competition in Pying Pyong Korea between the current  paddle pong champs who use live grenade pong balls.

Now, as though I were not having a great time, we had to fight our way through a Disneyland theme park of hypodermic hipsters who could smell fear ten blocks away and were as thirsty for blood as a fresh Tampon.  

It didn’t take long to reach the Valium Vector when shrapnel balls were being lobbed  from the rubble surrounding us. The Hypos had spotted us just as I spotted some of their stolen Toho armored vehicles racing towards us with their Red Zeppelin flags flapping in the rocket fires red glare of Toho artillery while a flotilla of drones in a flying wedge formation headed for victory in the vector.

The Red Zeppelins, as the Hipsters called themselves, only waged war with the Labians for control of the Kotex Vortex up until now. Unfortunately we were in search of the Falcon and the Toho’s knew it and were following us. In effect we had now  brought the entire para-military planetary war into their living room. I had a feeling we would not be greeted by a  Red Zeppelin Welcome Wagon and given a free ticket to ride a Thorazine Train to a stairway to  heaven.  
As a very impressive, but slightly battered  command vehicle slammed to a halt, some very nasty looking armed hopped up thugs emerged. These were not Mousketeers. These were born killers with some very serious derangement issues. We were dead meat and my bad luck was on the path of of a losing streak! Chapter 21 - General Elvis & The Space Junkies

A Red Zeppelin tank  flanked by a flotilla of  armored vehicles dead stopped in front of us kicking up a faceful of dust and debris. These were not the sleek svelt killing machines of today by a long shot.  Incredible hulks of metal taken as the confiscated bulky beasts of war looted by the Toho’s in their recent “intervention” in the internal affairs of the Planet Patton.

Gawd they looked out of date, time and place..not win place and show. Real “whatever happened to Baby Jane” has beens, once were, never agains.
They were heavy metal military looking dread tread contraptions from an earlier era... time warped junk yard dogs with rusting weapons protruding from armored slits. Mobile fortresses with unforgiving fire power and enough bite and bark to accompany the gauntlet of the Generalissimo machismo that soon emerged from the command vehicle with the torn faded insignia haphazardly sewn onto his army surplus chic non-com uniform that suddenly made him a faux general.

He was an Elvis impersonator sporting a pair of Midas Memphis “thank you very much” gold lame pants and oversized orange sunglasses. Great, I’d seen this kind of character before...in cartoons mainly,  but, never in real life! A paramilitary picture of imperial perfection if this were a backwater banana republic or Graceland whichever comes first. If Elvis had really left the auditorium he ended up here as a celebrity just in time for the next dinner show! Viva Robotia!

Known as the Hound Dog,  he and his merry hypo hipster hop head henchmen approached us armed with older version Faye Ray model ray guns, not as deadly as our Link Wray guns, but we were outnumbered ten to one. The Faye Raye’s were available on the cheap at the army navy girl scout boy scout surplus stores along with small mess kits that can be converted into small landmines called “billy barty’s” to blow the small 15 inch legs off of a midget and other terrorists posing as little people.

Even at it's highest setting, sedate stun, it’s no match for our state of the art rock, cocked and locked trusty Link Wray Defender model with it’s “kill them all” max setting as advertised in Field and Stream of Consciousness magazine and other guns and ammo periodicals periodically produced by the Ted Nugent XXIII Publishing Company.

My confidence level increased exponentially along with my adrenaline as I began to feel more and more like Snake Plissken being flanked by the “Laura Croft Tomb Raider” armed and fabulous Doublemint Twin cheerleaders. I could see out of the corner of my eye  Poontang making a subtle move for her weapons safety catch.  Strangelove followed suit. What the hell, we were ready for anything. “Hold it ladies. Not yet. Too many of ‘em and too much armor protection,” I mumbled.   Poontang shot back with one of those “put your tail between your legs “ admonishments, “I’ve dealt with this space trash before, you haven’t. Gotta stand up them to gain their respect.”

I nodded and surveyed our situation. Not good at first glance. We were surrounded now on Robotia’s Valium Vector streets, beat streets, hard streets and harder alleys than I ever saw even in Old Detroit. These streets were smaller, and more cramped with rubble from ongoing battles between the competing gangs keeping the area cloaked 24/7 in the perpetual dark purple haze of artillery and small arms gunfire with a hint of grey and black from the smoldering ruins. Even the broken sewer lines leaking and seeping to the streets had smoke on the water.

This place was a Skull Island in the ocean of black hole degenerates and galactic junkies with it's faux Chinese restaurants, one room Soma bars with broken stools, deep within the loins of the tender, with row upon row of skids, all in narcotic film noir sequence, dark, and slow. I had the feeling I was walking upwards against the downward flow of a thousand liquid rain children freely falling from the skies, the other children having broken free from the smashed