The final chapter of…

Major Stud Versus the Curvaceous Commandos from Contra-Chronos

PostScript: Miracle on West 34th Street

Major “Stud” Muffin and I dashed into the small auditorium on the eighty-ninth floor of the magnificent Aaron Burr Building of Midtown Manhattan, New York City, wherein select audiences sometimes were invited to view live radio broadcasts. The apparently unarmed Miss Honey Trapp had just placed a long-playing vinyl record on the primary broadcast turntable. Her two disheveled clone sisters were sprawled motionless and bloody nearby. The radio broadcast technicians and the governor-general’s two bodyguards lay similarly.

The governor-general was tied-up, blindfolded, prostrate, and motionless at our feet. Stud looked down at the governor-general, crestfallen and in shock. “He’s dead, Jim. I’ll see those she-devils are hanged for this.”

I knelt to check if the governor-general still had a pulse. “Throttle back, Stud; he’s merely unconscious.”

Major Muffin sighed in relief; that noble gentleman always hoped every delinquent dame could be offered a path to redemption. He wasn’t fool enough to holster his revolver as he approached Miss Honey Trapp, though.

“You have met your match, and you are outnumbered, Miss Trapp. I now offer you one last opportunity to surrender honorably and submit to justice before a court of law.”

“Never, you primitive pig! I shall conquer your earth or I shall die in the attempt. For the glory of the matriarchy and the High Council of Crones!”

Honey Trapp ripped her clip-on pearl earring from her right ear and threw it, unerringly, at Stud’s forehead.

“Duck, darn you, Stud!” I warned.

I cried out in vain. Stud disdained to duck. Some men amuse themselves by crushing empty aluminum beer cans against their foreheads. Stud, being a Royal Marine, oft-times performed similar feats, only with bricks. Or concrete blocks. Or even sometimes steel I-beams. Miss Trapp’s fake pearl earring shattered against Stud’s forehead like a fragile Ming vase being dropped onto a battlecruiser’s armor-encrusted deck. He breathed the knockout gas and dropped on top of the main stage like a paralyzed pachyderm plunging onto a paved-over tar pit.

Miss Honey Trapp, being ambidextrous, simultaneously threw her left earring at my forehead. It shattered as well. I ran to the center of the room, drawing my pistol as I did so. After a minute, I breathed.

“I was on my college swim team, Sugar Britches. I can hold my breath for a couple of minutes. Why don’t you just cool your jets? Besides, I’d hate to plug you. What with me being in the Royal Airship Service and all, I get squeamish when bloodshed is involved. Or even mentioned.”

She stared at me; raising one eyebrow. “Nice dress, Captain Smedley. It seems extraordinarily familiar, if a tad too revealing for your figure.”

I aimed my revolver right between her eyes. “Enough with the snark, sweetheart; it’s time to put paid permanently to your perfidious plans!”

She focused on my revolver. “I badly underestimated you, Captain Smedley. There is far more to you than appears at first, or even second, glance.”

 “Yeah, that’s the way Stud and I prefer it. It’s just like stage magicians and pickpockets working a crooked carnival way out in the sticks.”

She shook her head in confusion.

“I’m guessing on your earth you don’t have pickpockets, do you, Sugar Lips? Nah, of course you don’t; as little clothing as you clone-babes usually wear, you wouldn’t have any pockets to pick. So anyhow, on this earth, the carnival stage magician amazes the crowd full of rubes and keeps their attention hooked. This enables his pickpocket associate to snatch the marks’ purses and such while they are staring at the stage, totally distracted.”

“And you’re trying to distract me similarly with your pointless prattle, Captain Smedley. Or should I call you James? You never told me your middle name.”

“My dad taught high school Latin. He was big on their emperors and such. It’s Tiberius.”

“How extraordinary, James Tiberius,” she purred, “and possibly very convenient, for you to be named after an emperor. And do call me Honey. Even before you interrupted, albeit temporarily, the culmination of my long-planned conquest of your primitive version of earth, I had mused whether you needed to be tortured quite as thoroughly as I once intended. Should I decide to domesticate you instead, perhaps I need only use an occasional, gentle caress of the lash to ensure your unwavering obedience.

“Indeed, recently I have contemplated whether a rigidly matriarchal dictatorship is the true acme of governmental arrangements. Oh, your pathetic, chaotic planet certainly needs new leadership; beneficent, but firm hands and all that, but perchance our High Council of Crones is not the right body to provide such.

“Plausibly, your entire earth could be led by an emperor, at least if said emperor permits himself to be guided by astute, and very feminine, counsel. In that case, I could dispense with the lash altogether and use other, more natural methods to earn your cooperation.”

Miss Honey Trapp held her hands palms up and out, to show me they were now empty; then she dropped them to work the bow on the front of her fluorescent purple and orange-colored, diamond-patterned silk dress. The bow came undone. Her dress fell to the floor. She wasn’t wearing all that much underneath, though she had a throwing knife holstered to her left front suspender strap.

She gestured with her right index finger and thumb.

“May I?”

“Sure, Doll-baby; just don’t make any sudden moves.”

She slowly withdrew the deadly blade from its holster and tossed it against a far wall.

“As you can see, I am now bereft of weapons, except for those attributes which nature and matriarchal science hath so bountifully equipped me. Oh, I realize a man of your prolific appetites and extravagant gifts will require more than one lover. That will not be an issue; my two CAT GALORE-class clone-sisters should recover soon and they, too, will willingly offer their identically magnificent bodies to satisfy your every whim.

“I have revised my plan; let me broadcast this artificially generated simulation of the governor-general’s Christmas address. Our spaceship in orbit will still hijack the transmission, but instead of subsequently handing control of your earth over to the High Council of Crones, I will ensure that you take charge. Initially, we will use the governor-general as our mouthpiece. Ultimately, we will discard him like a scrap of used, mucus-filled tissue paper.”

She smiled and gestured at the vinyl disc lying on the radio studio turntable. “While the world thinks that pompous fool is pontificating pointlessly, you can initiate me into the arts of love. First, let me kiss you, my emperor; then I will switch on the record playing broadcast device to set our cunning plan in motion.”

“What do you intend to do with Major Muffin, my crafty, crimson-coifed concubine-to-be?”

She glanced at him, her eyes wasting no more time flickering over his recumbent form than a poulterer would give to the next goose in line for a Christmas morning neck chop. I figured she should have paid him a little more attention, if only for the novelty of the situation. Muffin now sounded like a crash of rhinos in the final round of the all-planet snoring competition. Heck, he didn’t smell much better than a crash of rhinos either; what with his shredded uniform still being covered in dried-out Jovian Lava Leech slobber.

“Are you jealous already, my love? You need not worry. My Jovian Lava Leeches are always ravenous; the poor, dear darlings require so many high-quality calories. Consider Major Muffin tossed like yesterday’s garbage. Now, take me, my peerless pilot; possess me passionately and finalize my flowering into full femininity.”

She stepped towards me, pursed her lips, and partially closed her eyes. I kissed her gently on the lips while I holstered my revolver. She swooned; then she squawked in outrage.

“What have you done to me, you Neanderthal nincompoop?”

“Sorry, Toots. I don’t trust you farther than I can throw you. That move I just pulled is called an ankle-trip takedown culminating in a reverse chicken-wing, step over double-toe-hold. I was the silver-medalist in my weight class my junior year in college at the regional wrestling competition. Note that I still have one hand free, and can give your naked, well-cushioned tuckus a swift, sharp swat anytime you try to wriggle your way out of durance vile.”

“Ouch!”

“I warned you!”

“You could have been my figurehead Emperor, you duplicitous dirigible driver!”

“Yeah, about that! Oh, I have brains enough to have been Emperor in fact, not just for show. You only thought you were going to manipulate me; but once you and your two clone sisters got so much as a single taste of the ole Smedley magic, you would have been putty in my masterful, yet gentle, hands. You would have fallen ton-of-bricks hard in love with me, and I might have fallen for you, but so what? There are some things a guy just doesn’t do, not for a ruthlessly homicidal dame, anyhow. Not if that guy’s name is James T. Smedley, Captain, Royal Airship Service. Frankly, Scarlett, I won’t play the sucker, even for a tawny temptress as tasty as you!”

“A real man doesn’t let some megalomaniac vixen from another universe feed his partner to a covey of carnivorous mollusks. Sure, Muffin doesn’t know his slice from his hook, or his niblick from his mashie, or any truly important stuff like that, but he’s a marine and he is great at busting down steel doors with his bare skull. The bottom line is, he’s my partner, and that’s what he’ll stay. Besides, I’m already juggling more than enough, smoking hot, clone-babes as it is. Six of them, if you want to get all numerical on me.

“So it’s going to be gray-bar hotel time for you and your two psychotic clone siblings, Toots. I’ll expect you’ll each serve a long stretch upriver to contemplate the errors of your ways. Still, with good behavior, you might even get out of the jug in, say, twenty years, at least if you blubber a lot in front of the judge and jury, and dress less provocatively during your trial, but that’s up to you.”

“That kiss; I’ve never felt anything like it. I must have more. Will you wait for me until I get out, Jimmy? It would mean so much to me.”

She couldn’t see my shrug of response, of course, what with me sitting on her back, and she being squashed into the floor like a curvaceous bag of freshly cooked mashed potatoes, but with just the right number of perfectly sized lumps in all the most interesting places, so I had to break the bad news to her verbally and said, “Sorry, Honey; I never make plans that far ahead.”

I became one with the environment, just as if I were back on the golf course. Suddenly, I heard what I had hoped to hear, faint scrapings. They slowly transformed into the sweet, sweet clarion cacophony of hob-nailed combat boots clumping on the metal fire-escape stairs, climbing ever closer to us.

I gave Honey a love pat on her unclad keister. “Hey, Tender-Tush, I think I should warn you that my dates for the Burning Piles Country Club New Year’s Eve Celebratory Dance are about to arrive.”

Miss Honey Trapp turned her shapely head towards the stairwell. She gasped. “Do you share your earth with some proto-humanoid species, the existence of which I had hitherto been unapprised? The six of them together must weigh over half a ton.”

“Shush! You’ll hurt their feelings. They’re actually sensitive, delicate damsels. When we briefly landed your hijacked dirigible in Jersey on the way up here from Florida, to top off our coffee urns and such, I also sent off some urgent telegrams to some special ladies who wouldn’t ask questions.”

“You did all that while you were wearing my stolen dress; why weren’t you arrested?”

“Burning Piles Aerodrome is the one place on the East Coast I could land. I know everyone there, so I merely explained I had lost a golf bet. The locals were amazed only that I had lost the bet; not that I was honorable enough to follow through on its humiliating terms.

“Every one of these lovely ladies is an official member of the New Jersey Colony’s Burning Piles Township’s Women’s Auxiliary Gendarmerie Service, with full powers to arrest and to hold, reciprocal with New York Colony. Oh, the terpsichorean price they demanded for their assistance was pretty darn steep, but you know what the good book says about the workman being worthy of his wages.”

I raised my voice, “Hello, Maude, Mabel, Betty, Fawn, Rose, and Esmerelda. It was darned decent of you lovely WAGS to arrive so promptly. Did you bring what I asked?”

“Yep, one XXXXL Royal Marine Corps Mess Dress uniform with three full rows of medals, one extra scruffy Royal Airship Service flight suit, and one quart of ultra-cheap gin. And a whole lot of lady-sized handcuffs and restraints. That’s a heck of a nice dress you’re wearing, Jimmy. You sure have the figure for it. Can you tell us who your seamstress is?”

“Ah, you gals are such swell kidders. Anyhow, a couple of you should put the Mess Dress uniform on Major Muffin before he wakes up. I’ll take a swig of gin to plaster that scent on my breath. Then I’ll pour the rest of the gin on my flight suit after I slip it on over the dress. After you’re done dressing Muffin, put the chains and habeus grabbus on these three identical looking, nearly naked babes. They’ll try to sweet talk you; don’t believe a word they say.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Jimmy darling. Stuck-up, underfed, wasp-waisted broads always think they’re so special. It rarely takes us fuller-figured gals more than a scooch and a half to get their snooty minds set right.”

“Just to be clear, ladies, it’s the usual deal. When the regular New York City Constabulary shows up, I’ll pretend to be passed out drunk in a corner someplace. Let Major Muffin grab all the credit. That’s never too hard; they always try to give it to him anyhow.”

I turned Miss Honey Trapp over to the tender mercy of the New Jersey Colony WAGS.

“Take her away, ladies. I’ll see you impish pixies again on New Year’s Eve for the big dance. Be there with bells on.”

Honey Trapp looked at me one last time. She blinked her eyes. I could see tears forming. “Jimmy, please, before it’s too late; I realize it now, I really do. I will love you forever.”

“Of course you will, Toots. That’s what they all say. At least we’ll always have our memories of sunny, southern Florida. I’ll think I’ll keep this dress, though, for old times’ sake. I think it works.”

“It’s more than love, Jimmy; we could have ruled your world.”

I shook my head. “The likes of you will just never figure what makes a guy like me tick. Conquering anything more than maybe eighteen holes is way overrated; so world conquest is just plain, crazy nonsense; the stuff that dreams are made of.”

I thumbed the heave-ho sign to Maude and Mabel. They dragged off a whimpering Honey Trapp to face Crown justice. The other four WAGS started placing metal restraints on Honey’s still unconscious clone-sisters, Fanny and Modesty Trapp.

Major Muffin made whoofing sounds, indicating he would soon bid his brief visit to dreamland adieu. It was time for me to crank it in gear. I grabbed the bottle of cheap gin, Beelzebub’s Bottom Shelf. I took a hearty swig. It was worse than its name promised. Just to make sure I reeked realistically, I took another two slugs of the noxious fluid. It’s the Royal Airship Service way; above and beyond. Fly high; then fly higher.

I took a last glance at Major Muffin, now resplendent in his Royal Marine Mess Dress uniform with its multiple rows of medals. His eyelids flickered, tentatively. I smiled. Once again, the Royal Marines would get most of the credit for saving the planet while the Airship Service got stuck doing most of the actual work. Still, I figured I could probably get the Exchequer to spring for a new putter. Over the long haul, a topnotch putter would be far more profitable than official accolades. Heck, it had better be; I now had six, 17-01-series clone-ladies to support. I looked for the most comfortable corner into which to crawl.