No Mere Trifle: A Herc Braveman Adventure (The Herc Braveman Adventures Book 1) Read online

  No Mere Trifle

  The Herc Braveman Adventures, Volume 1

  Herschel K. Stroganoff

  Published by No World Press, 2017.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  No Mere Trifle: A Herc Braveman Adventure

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  No Mere Trifle: A Herc Braveman Adventure

  It was a dark and stormy night, and that's never a good thing when you're careering to the surface of a planet in a malfunctioning space capsule.

  "There's nothing to fear," said Space Captain Herc Braveman to his lovely niece, Lolita.

  Alarms rang out and warning lights flashed. Lightning struck the capsule. Sparks flew from the smooth cream face-plate of Herc's robot sidekick, M-ArtIn. Herc took a cool puff from a Quantum Cigarette.

  Suddenly, the lights went out. The vid-screen dimmed to a small green dot and the alarms fell silent. All that could be heard was the breath of Herc Braveman. There was also the noise of the storm raging outside. The capsule was creaking too. It was actually dead noisy.

  "The controls have shorted, there's no way to engage the capsule's landing thrusters," said Lolita through her full, sensuous lips as she groped around in the darkness with smooth hands.

  "Lightning doesn't strike twice, my dear," said Herc, smiling reassuringly.

  "It can," said Lolita, no doubt panicking and flapping in the way women so often do. "What about lightning rods?"

  "That's just a metaphor," shouted Herc over the noise, "I'm talking about real lightning."

  Lolita fondled along a row of burnt-out vacuum tubes and rheostats. She gripped her fingers hard around the shaft of a lever. She yanked the lever as sweat gathered around her heaving breasts.

  At that moment, the capsule jerked as it released its emergency parachute. After a moment, the capsule righted itself and rocked from side to side as it drifted down to the planet's surface. Lolita sighed, her breath deep as if she'd been... well, you know.

  "You see, my dear, I knew we would be fine," said Herc, taking a drag from his Quantum Cigarette, the silky smoke filling his lungs with atomic goodness. "The space capsule's emergency parachute will guide us to safety."

  Herc was the hero of the Intragalactic Empire. His coolness under this level of stress wouldn't even make a footnote in his long list of heroic deeds - he was that heroic. Men wanted to be him and women wanted to be with him. Some men even wanted to be with him, but if the Intragalactic Empire's Gay-Finder General found them out, they would be summarily executed - and rightly so.

  Teenage girls plastered holo-posters of his visage onto their bedroom walls and smaller holo-pics could often be found hidden beneath the piles of knitting in their mothers' bedroom drawers for secret night-time perusals.

  He was as brave as Han Solo, as smart as Indiana Jones, and had the rugged good looks of Harrison Ford in Blade Runner. But Herc Braveman never let that impede him from being a damn good Space Captain. Strike that. The best damn Space Captain.

  With a dull thud, the capsule landed.

  The space capsule's doors hissed open as one of the planet's two suns rose and the weird, otherworldly rain cleared.

  Herc brushed down his silver spandex captain's uniform and stepped out onto the planet's barren surface.

  A small man, all paunch and pedigree, greeted him with a bow and a smile. "I greet you humbly, my good Sir, praise be that the Empire has paid its blessing to our humble planet," said Artisan Boule, the Crowned Prince of the planet. He was dressed in ceremonial orange and turquoise robes of the purest leatherette, and bowed his head respectfully to Herc and his party. Well, mainly to Herc. "And who might this lovely lady be?" Artisan said, reaching out a zestful hand to greet the beautiful young woman at Herc's side.

  She wore tight denim shorts and a tight white shirt that hugged her large spherical breasts. Her long red hair (not ginger) cascaded down her back, and her deep green eyes were in perfect contrast to her full red lips. Her long perfect legs seemed to go all the way up to pert bottom.

  "This is my niece, Lolita," said Herc, explainfully. "She has been travelling with my crew for the past eighteen years. When her home planet was destroyed by my arch nemesis The Overseer, I rescued her from a probable certain death."

  Lolita was known for being the hottest babe in the Intragalactic Empire, with men the galaxy over breathing a collective sigh of relief when she made the transition from jail bait to barely legal. No longer would anyone have to explain the pictures on their space computers when they took them for repair.

  Artisan flushed as he backed away with an awkward erectile shuffle. "A pleasure it is to meet you, my lady," he said, not knowing where to point his eyes, but getting a sneaky perv at Lolita's boobs while she wasn't looking.

  Artisan started as Herc's trusty humanoid robot slave, M-ArtIn, emerged from the capsule door. "What on this planet is that?" he said, raising a shaking fist towards the robot.

  Herc chuckled, his charisma and confidence providing immediate comfort to the frightened prince. "Pay no heed to him, he is simply my robot slave M-ArtIn."

  M-ArtIn was one of the old M-6 class spacebots. He had been operational for over 200 years, but the curved surfaces of his metallic form still held the deep lustre as it did when he rolled off the assembly line on Venus. His eyes burned bright and intense, somewhere between eggshell white and cornflower blue, with the occasional flickers of beige, but that didn't happen very often. To be honest, it probably wasn't worth mentioning.

  After several moments, Artisan was more at ease in an instant. "Why is he called M-ArtIn?" he asked, his eyes switching between the robot and Lolita's ample bosom. Lolita caught his gaze and raised a knowing eyebrow. Artisan looked down at the ground, as shamed old men do when caught checking out a girl young enough to be his granddaughter. Dirty sod.

  "M-ArtIn stands for Mechanical Artificial Intelligence – there are millions of robots like him on our home planet – our home planet of Earth. But none of them are like M-ArtIn. In the capsule on the way down to this planet's surface, M-ArtIn's programming became scrambled," explained Herc.

  Artisan nodded in wonderment, his eyes wide as if in wonder. "Although I have only heard of robots through the Intragalactic Empire's space holos, I know that all robots are bound by the three laws of robotics. He still has those does he not?"

  "Hey buddy," M-ArtIn said in a Stephen Hawking voice. "I don't know about no three laws, all I know is M-ArtIn's law, baby. I can't be standing here all day listening to you yakking and making puppy eyes at Lolita. You old dog, keep your eyes to yourself." His voice was almost human, uncanny.

  "Every world we land on it's like this – you're like a broken space record," M-ArtIn continued, robotically. "Why do you always have to be telling everyone my back-story?" M-ArtIn turned his robotic head to Herc with a robotic motion, and probably would have frowned if he had bits of his face that could move.

  "You usually do the same for Uncle Herc," said Lolita.

  "Well, if I have to - accessing exposition mode. Well, as you know, Bob, Herc is easily the most heroic man in the galaxy, ranking far above Bravey McBraveface and Keanu Reeves on the Intragalactic King's Ten Heroic Fellows that Will Blow Your Mind list. You know he was the youngest person to enter the Intragalactic Battle School, right?"

  Artisan nodded. "Of course, but please continue telling the story."

  "He received the call when he was only five - three years before anyone else. But the Intragalactic King knew that He
rc was as ready as he would ever be. By the age of six he had already led his first platoon to victory, and by seven he led soldiers of twice his age into battle against the Buggers.

  "Everyone knew that the threat from the first Bugger invasion had the potential to destroy the human race, but Earth managed to hold them back until a hero could be found among its children," he explained, giving Artisan enough exposition through his words to give a quick impression of our hero without feeling like a fact-dump.

  "This story is very familiar," said Artisan. "Please explain why the evil alien invaders were called Buggers."

  "In common parlance, the name Bugger referred to the bug-like appearance of the fly-eyed bastards, but Herc came up with the name Bugger because of their penchant for anal probery - they also liked to disembowel cattle, but that didn't figure in Herc's witty nickname.

  "From the moment the Buggers made themselves known to the Earthish, Herc realised their love of anal probery and cattle mutilosity was merely their sense of alien japery and had nothing to do with legitimate scientographical experimentation – there was no room on Earth for fly-eyed alien pranksters - or any other foreigners, for that matter," M-ArtIn explained, his robotic voice drifting into angry vengeful tones that for a moment caught everybody by surprise, except Herc and Lolita.

  Herc laughed uproariously for almost three minutes and patted M-ArtIn on the head. "Oh you," he said with a warm tone to his voice. Some might have seen it is being patronising, but those people are stupid. He turned to Artisan. "I'll be honest with you, Artisan; we were sent on this mission without so much as a briefing from the Intragalatic Bureaucratocracy."

  "Why are you calling this guy Artisan? He hasn't even introduced himself yet," M-ArtIn ejaculated sardonically (that's ejaculated as in speaking, not, well, you know... it's in Sherlock Holmes, it's real).

  "Oh no, he's right. My name is Artisan, Artisan Boule, and this is my beautiful daughter Exotica," he responded, unsardonically.

  As if on cue, a beautiful woman stepped forward. Her dark eyes met Herc's for a moment that seemed like light years passing between them. She was clearly the most beautiful woman in that section of the galaxy, and Herc knew it. He went down to his knees and looked up at her perfect olive skin and the waves of dark hair that framed her exquisite face. Her name seemed somehow fitting. It was as if Artisan Boule knew that with her exotic beauty, she would surely grow into her name. And she'd obviously had a wash, so that was always a bonus.

  Herc pushed the edges of lips upwards so they made a smile. "Exotica, it is an abundant pleasure to meet a woman of such charm and beauty. I may have conquered much of the galaxy in the name of the Intragalactic King and his Empire - but that's my job, damn it - you have conquered my heart."

  Exotica smiled and fluttered her eyelashes zestfully. They stared into each other's eyes for almost a minute before it got a bit awkward for everyone else.

  "Come, come," said Artisan, growing impatient. "You can get to know each other later in Exotica's private chamber. For now we should take my space car to my space palace. There is much to discuss. Many problems - no mere trifle," he said, calling back to the title of this adventure.

  "Relax buddy," said M-ArtIn. "He's like this all the time. Conquers the world, has his way with the— what are you? King? President?"

  "I am the Crowned Prince of this planet, ordained by the Intragalactic King as the line-manager of this world," Artisan said with a tone a mixture of condescension and pride. There was something else in there too, but I'm not really sure what word you'd use to describe it.

  "So he has his way with the Crowned Prince's beautiful daughter, and then heads off for new space adventures," M-ArtIn continued. "It's all very mid-life-crisisy, if you get my drift. He'll be getting a holo-tattoo and a spaceball cap before you know it."

  But for Herc, it wasn't about the pleasure of having his way with beautiful women in a way that only a man could – granted, that was part of it – but for Herc it was because of his overwhelming sense of duty towards the gene pool of the Intragalactic Empire. He was doing his job, damn it. Without arrogance, Herc knew that he was the most virile, intelligent and desirable man in the known universe. And as far as he could tell, it was probably the same in the parts of the universe that were unknown too, though he wasn't really sure where or what they were. To impregnate the loveliest and hottest women from across the universe was a necessity that only Herc was selfless enough to carry out. What a guy.

  "I'm going to stay here by the capsule and see if we can get the communicator working," said Lolita. "This is our only way off this planet, and there's no way we can get back to the DEM without it."

  Herc turned to M-ArtIn. "You will stay here with Lolita and reactivate the communicator, or we'll be stuck on this gosh-forsaken rock." He turned to Lolita and gave a warm smile that exuded calm and a reassuranceness that only he could. "M-ArtIn will take care of you. Chin up, my dear. You'll be safe," he said. "It's not like you're an important part of the story."

  Lolita gave her uncle a hug before following M-ArtIn into the capsule.

  Herc gave a confident wave and climbed into Artisan's space car. It was an archaic model by Earthish standards, but the luxury of its interior more than made up for its antiquated mechanics, which seemed to be based on the old GD-450 form of propulsion rather than the space magnets that had become commonplace on most of the colonised worlds.

  Purple fields and orange mountains shot by at incredible speeds - the landscape was a blur, but Herc and Exotica only had eyes for two things – each other.

  The sky turned a dull indigo by the time they arrived at Artisan's space palace. The space car came to a halt in a large shimmering courtyard that exuded a faint greenish glow that gave one the sense of something really science fictiony.

  The space palace was an impressive sight. Its two large spires curved into the sky like giant purple lobster claws that could at any moment pick a space ship from the sky – but of course they couldn't, that would be silly.

  Herc stared up at the space palace and stepped out of the space car. He would have been suitably impressed had he not spent so much of his career visiting the Intragalactic Palace on Earth. Whether receiving honours for his valour, or receiving a personal audience with the Intragalactic King, he was comfortable in the absolute splendour of the Intrargalactic Palace. But he was only truly at home on the bar deck of the his starship, the DEM, sharing drinks and stories with his loyal crewmates - the male ones at least, women weren't allowed, or dogs, or foreigners: it said so on the door.

  Ever the diplomat, Herc complimented Artisan on the space palace's unique architecture, keeping his thoughts to himself that it was actually a bit crap compared the palace on Earth. "I must compliment your space palace's unique architecture," he said. "It is very impressive to see such a marvel in this section of the galaxy."

  Artisan smiled at the gleaming towers. "I suppose when you're used to these things, you don't really notice them," he shrugged. "But yet I accept your compliment and thank you for your diplomatic words."

  "I too thank you for your kind hospitality," said Herc, not being outdone on the compliments front.

  Artisan led Herc through a large archway into a large corridor lined with large holo-statues.

  "These are my ancestors," explained Artisan as he gestured to the holo-statues. "Here is my grandfather, Prince Artisan the Sixteenth." The holo-statue stepped forward and made a respectful bow before settling back onto its plinth. It may sound like magic, but was all done with real scientography. It's not like those stupid statues in Harry Potter. That's just stupid.

  "Are all of your ancestor's called Artisan?" asked Herc.

  "Oh no, just my grandfather."

  A large MDF door opened silently before them, and Herc was led to a seat at a large banqueting table that without a doubt had doubtlessly played host to dignitaries from across the Intragalactic Empire (though the Intragalactic King wouldn't be seen dead on such a backwater planet).
/>   The hall was a light purple tone that flickered like gentle flames before pulsating to a dramatic yellow glow. Large platters of meats appeared from unseen holes in the table.

  Slaves poured wine as a musician played on an instrument Herc had never seen before, the sound of which created an atmosphere of relaxation and good spirits. It was as though the music went into his ears and through his brain, making his head bob, his fingers tap and even making him feel a strange, unfamiliar hint of emotions.

  "What's he playing?" asked Herc. "In all of my many space adventures across the galaxy, I have never seen such a thing."

  "Pren'dedgat is a master of the space flute," Artisan said "It is similar in some respects to flutes you may have found on ancient Earth, but these are made in space."

  "The music is very beautiful, and I thank you for your hospitality," Herc said, his eyes never leaving Exotica.

  Herc smiled warmly, and all was well in the room. Herc had one of those smiles that put men at ease and made women more open to, shall we say, adventurous bedroom experimentation. Artisan smiled with his mouth as his eyes twinkled – he knew he could trust Herc. He could trust him even with the most precious thing on his planet: his beautiful daughter, Exotica.

  A slave came to the table and poured Herc and Artisan another glass of white bubbling wine. Turning to Exotica, the slave fumbled for a moment before spilling the wine all over her pendulous breasts. Rising from her seat, she tried to dry the wine by pushing her breasts together as her top became sheer and clung to her nipples.

  "I think I need to get out of those clothes and into a shower," Exotica purred zestfully to Herc.

  "I am dreadfully sorry, ma'am," said the slave, panicking as he wiped up the wine from the table.

  "It's okay Aas'dhfa," said Exotica as she left for the shower. Her eyes locked on Herc's as she stepped sensuously through a side door.

  Herc lit a Quantum Cigarette and leaned back in his chair as the slave Aas'dhfa was led away for fifty lashes.