Captain Cordite Pulls the Trigger

Captain Cordite faces off against a deadly enemy. Will it take the bait? 

The voice of The Brain is Sarah Nightmare. "Tam Tully's Tastydrops" by Klaus Brenner. "Captain Cordite Pulls the Trigger" by Dr. Brandon Winter.

From here on out, we're only publishing once a month. Look for our next episode Nov. 3.

Transcript

Tam Tully, the diabolical genius behind grape and garlick gobstoppers, is back with another confectionary abomination. 

They said her chocolate bunnies with realistic gummy organs were too out there, that her gingerbread men that screamed when eaten went too far. They even went so far as to say the Choco Puff of Certain Doom was unfit for human consumption. How will they even fathom Tam Tully’s Tastydrops?

A Tastydrop is a bonbon whose flavor is completely random. It could be a sour so sour it makes a lemon seem like a gumdrop, or a bitter so bitter it curdles the soul. Will it taste putrid or heavenly? Nobody knows, and no two Tastydrops are the same.

Are you brave enough to try a Tastydrop? It could be a taste so rancid that the memory of it will tint every meal thereafter. Or, even worse, it could be a taste so delightful that every moment from then on will be spent longing for a flavor you will never find again.

How zany. Tam Tully’s Tastydrops. Have yourself a time.

And now, as promised, your grim tale of the future.

The Lizardian surprised Buster Cordite, Cosmic Corsair, just outside his ship. It was whistling in the sun with a thin hunting rifle tucked into its arm and a string of game birds over its shoulder. A drinking skin bounced on its hip, its eyes closed, its face serene. 

Cordite leapt into action: he knocked the gun from the Lizardian’s hand with a crisp punch and followed with a kick to the abdomen. As the thing stumbled, Cordite pulled out his transmitter and recited protocol: Planet inhabited. Life hostile. Send backup.

Cordite put the transmitter away and tapped his fingers against the handle of his pistol. He knew what he had to do, and he would do it the right way. Rules of Engagement, paragraph 1, subsection 1: Use of force authorized in self-defense only.

“C’mon,” Cordite said, “pick it up.” 

The Lizardian followed Cordite’s eyes down to the gun in the dirt between them. It said something in a language Cordite did not know and pointed over its shoulder. Cordite saw shapes in the distance, glass-like in the heat off of the hardpan desert. He was surrounded. 

“Pick it up, goddammit.” Cordite yelled. He was running out of time. He watched the shapes make their way over the curve of the horizon toward them, and his heart beat against his ribs. He looked over his shoulder at his ship, a gleaming spike of silver reaching up into the cloudless sky. Maybe he could make it. He glanced at the Lizardian, measured its long, whip-like legs, and counted off the beats of the chase. No, he had no chance—it would catch him before he made it to the edge of the sloop’s shadow. This was the only way. 

Cordite kicked the gun at the Lizardian. “Draw, dammit!” The Lizardian backed away, and Cordite raised his pistol. “Pick. It. Up.” He was almost whispering now, but the Lizardian jumped at the sound of his voice. It looked up at Cordite, and he could see the thin membrane slide across its eyes, from right to left, leaving a thin film of moisture over the large square pupil. Only the figures on the horizon moved, and Cordite watched them.

He felt the heat and concussive punch of the shot as the bolt grazed his ear, and he was already diving for cover as he heard the howling scream. It was set to kill. Cordite crouched behind a boulder and wiped his forehead. The Lizardian was on its knees with the gun against its shoulder, the air around the barrel shimmering.

Cordite rested his pistol on the boulder and pulled the trigger. It jumped in his hand and hissed, as the dirt in front of the Lizardian exploded. The creature jumped to its feet and ran for shelter as flecks of melted soil rained down around it. Cordite swore and stood, held his breath, and fired again. A tree behind the Lizardian folded over in a gout of flame and came to rest in a pile of ashes. The Lizardian looked back and made a coughing sound. Cordite laughed and planted his feet to aim again, but the Lizardian stopped and turned with its rifle on its shoulder. The air howled.

The boulder in front of Cordite shattered. Shrapnel tore into his back as he turned against it, dust flying into his eyes and his mouth. He tasted chalk and blood. As he spun and fired blindly in the Lizardian’s direction, the dust cloud lit up with blue light, like a rolling thunderhead. Cordite’s whole body shook, sweat ran down his back, and pain sat heavy on his chest. He had wild visions of lying dead in the dirt. He fired until his pistol glowed and his skin began to burn, until he smelled circuits melting and metal breaking, until all that broke the silence of the desert was the metronome click of his empty magazine. 

The Lizardian walked out of the dust with his rifle on his shoulder, and he stopped only a few feet from Cordite. It studied him from his feet to his head, pausing briefly to inspect the captain’s bars over his heart. It said something in the language Cordite did not know and pointed again at the shapes walking toward them. Cordite shook his head. The Lizardian waited for a moment, then it shrugged and raised its rifle. Cordite ran forward waving his hands. He felt himself crying. He saw himself in the dirt again and wondered if it would leave his body here.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, “please don’t.” The Lizardian pulled the trigger.

Cordite’s ship split down the middle like a sausage. The thin silver skin rippled, and then disappeared into an orange ball of fire that bloomed in the center of a shockwave. Cordite fell to the ground, but the Lizardian stood with a hand over its eyes, as if it were watching the sun set. Debris landed around it like fat drops of rain, and when the storm was over, the Lizardian turned to Cordite and watched him crawl across the dirt. It made a coughing sound again and Cordite looked up at it. The Lizardian watched his eyelids go up and down, leaving a thin film of 

moisture over the round pupil. It sighed, undid its drinking skin, threw it into the dirt in front of Cordite, and began to walk toward the advancing shapes. When it was almost to the group, it stopped, pointed at the skin, and said something in the language Cordite did not know, but he understood it this time: “Pick it up.” 

One of the shapes ran to the Lizardian, who reached down and lifted it up. It held the shape against its chest and kissed its head. In a moment, they were points in the distance, and Cordite was alone. He sat in the desert and drank. It tasted sweet.