Kenny and the Bastardos

Kenny waited until the watch guard changed; then he leapt from his hiding place among the sealed metallic drums of liquid oxygen. Sprinting with his now-famous capabilities, he dashed across the launching fields under spotlights of stars beyond the dome some two kilometers above him. As he raced, he glanced quickly from side to side, scanning the manned towers for signs they saw him. Although if they did, his plan wasn’t that far thought out to include a contingency.

He didn’t even know what the word “contingency” meant, anyway. Kenny was only ten years old.

Ramjets and ionic cruisers idled about him, but his eyes held only his ultimate goal. Occasionally (two or three times a minute) a big cruiser boomed above him, either landing or launching, though mostly landing as the armada was coming back from the historic negotiated truce held outside Arvopad III. In a handful of minutes he huddled at a parts depot, one of the several dozen scattered about the mech-tech repair facilities, towards the starward side of the launching dome.

“Bastardos!” a voice cried, scaring Kenny motionless. Had he been spotted? The boy cringed and finally flailed about, seeking a hiding place among the scattered disassembled husks of fighter craft.

Two uniformed men turned the corner, having exited the mech-tech bay. Kenny flipped over a particularly degenerate fighter (scorched from what looked like a losing dog fight) and concealed himself within the snug confines of a hollowed-out ion engine.

“Calm down, Joe,” one of the men said, lighting a cigarette and offering a match to his obviously upset pal. “You know it’s always up and down.”

“More up, lately,” Joe spat, then paused to light his pipe.

“Well, with the fighting just ending, we can look forward to some vacation time, eh, my friend?”

The two casually strolled towards Kenny’s hiding place, their voices getting louder. The boy craned his neck to see over the edge of the cylindrical wirecoil he found refuge in, hoping the approaching men would not notice anything amiss. They didn’t, or so he thought, but they were uncomfortably close, barely a few meters away, and nearering. Kenny ducked back down.

“I ’spose.” The voices quieted a moment. More fighters landed, and a big boomer took off a couple fields away, the metal turf below faintly but noticeably vibrating. “Say, Nick, any word from on up about the sabotague-ing?”

“Nah. But when they catch those bastardos – ”



- written by a sleep-deprived Hopper, October 2004, 4 am, with a two-week old infant sleeping in his lap.

He actually continued the tale for another 19,000 words. Kenny escapes detection, his people are actually fighting six-foot slugs, and – oh yeah – Kenny is actually a robot boy.