Level Up Bitch: Intergalactic Pest Control Case 002

By NM Tatum, Sarah Noffke and Michael Anderle

Extermination just got a whole lot more fun.

The ship took a lot of damage defeating the queen ShimVen. However, the gang isn’t deterred and gear up for a brand-new job.

A surprise is waiting for them.

It has razor-sharp teeth and a really bad attitude.

To defeat these alien pests, the Notches are going to have to get creative. They soon learn this new infestation is wide-spread.

To survive, they’re going to need to level up.  

Cody is still convinced that the infestations across the galaxy aren’t coincidental.

An evil corporation might be behind the swarm of deadly bugs.

The gang is going to need proof. But first they must stay alive and exterminate.

Men in Black meets Ghost Busters.  Intergalactic Pest Control will have readers hooked from the beginning.

--- Caution for strong language and graphic scenes involving lots of bug guts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
• Release date: Jul 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649710338

Book preview

jobs.

Chapter One

There is nothing better than closing a huge account. The rush, the high you get when the client signs his name on the dotted line. You can practically hear your bank account filling up. It’s the greatest goddamn feeling.

And Wes Moony was feeling it right now. Oh man, he was feeling it deep. Because he hadn’t just landed any client; he’d landed the biggest client of his career, the latest in a long string of big clients: the largest producer of performance enhancing nanites in the galaxy. They were his, and so was their money.

Everyone on Jasob was in the throes of that feeling of victory. The entire station was in the midst of the biggest office party Wes had ever seen—three different caterers, an open bar, and some party favors brought by a rep from one of the pharmaceutical companies Wes had also landed recently. There was hardly an un-dilated pupil on the whole station.

Wes had just popped another party favor when Sinclair Thomas, the Jasob CEO, called all the employees into the main conference hall. Wes’s legs seemed to be moving without him, doing all the work so he could relax and enjoy the ride.

The crowd of Jasob employees was buzzing with an energy that tickled every part of Wes’s body. It danced on his fingertips, tasted like honey-soaked cake. He bumped into Sherry from accounting, a curvy brunette that laughed with her whole body. He started to apologize, but she forced the words back by shoving her tongue into his mouth. She pulled away just as he got a taste of her and was swept away by the river of Jasob employees flooding toward the stage that was erected at the front of the room.

The energy dancing across Wes’s body intensified.

Sinclair walked onstage with all the flair and circumstance of a rock star. And he was greeted as such. The people who spent most of their lives tucked in their cubicles, heads hanging, retinas burning away as they stared at monitors, wrists twisting and aching as they tapped away, had become a hedonistic mob.

Sinclair paused center stage and looked out at his people. He raised his arms in a dramatic gesture and signaled the launch of an impressive suite of pyrotechnics. The conference hall filled with thick smoke. The mob sucked it in like a cloud of weed smoke before the ventilators pumped it all out to prevent it from suffocating them.

My people, Sinclair declared. The crowd erupted. We have done it. You have done it. He paced the stage, building the energy in the room with each lap. Jasob now has controlling market shares. We are number one!

The crowd exploded again. The riotous applause and cheering morphed into a symphony of drug-induced color. Wes could taste their joy. It tasted like butterscotch.

But, before I get into the details, let’s take a moment of silence for our comrades at StrobeNet. Sinclair folded his hands in front of him and hung his head. As the crowd began to mimic him, he threw his arms wide and shouted, Just kidding! Fuck them!

The conference hall filled with more cheering. More color and butterscotch.

Wes put his fingers to his neck, feeling his pulse. It felt like a snake crawling beneath his skin in rhythm to the blink of the lights above. Fast, fast, slow. Fast, fast, slow.

Shit, he said to himself. I took way too many of those party favors.

Those StrobeNet bastards are out on their asses today, Sinclair continued. Their shiny, state-of-the-art space station, the so-called ‘future of corporate technology and innovation in the industry’ is nothing but vapor. They failed miserably as possible, and the free market does not tolerate failure. StrobeNet’s clients began jumping ship immediately, and we were there to capitalize. We poached client after client, fighting tooth and nail to keep them from the losers at Layton and Chrisoff. And, as of this morning, we succeeded. The last of StrobeNet’s clients are ours!

An assistant strolled onstage carrying a blue sack like she was Santa Claus. She opened it and held it out for Sinclair. He reached in and pulled out a handful of small, black tech boxes. He threw them out over the crowd like he was sprinkling feed over chickens.

And that kind of diligence is always rewarded. Stellar-Art chips for all!

The crowd surged toward the rain of swag. They elbowed each other, clawed at each other to reach them.

Animals, Wes thought, though he felt the need for the art chips swell in his chest.

He imagined his coworkers as mice. He became a cat. He batted them around, played with them before sinking his teeth into their necks. All the Stellar-Art chips were his. Everything was his.

Wes Moony!

His heart felt like it had been dropkicked from the inside of his chest. It had transformed into a rabid coyote, howling and running headlong into his ribs, bashing its own brains outs.

Every eye in the conference hall suddenly fell on him, pounced on him.

Let’s give him a hand!

The room erupted at Sinclair’s direction.

The noise wasn’t a symphony anymore. It was a riot of breaking glass, screeching tires and toppled trash cans. It smelled like burning garbage and tasted like ash.

Sinclair pointed to Wes. This hardworking son of a bitch landed five of StrobeNet’s largest clients. We are number one now because of him. And for that— Sinclair motioned to someone offstage. A second later, the same assistant who’d brought the blue bag drove onstage atop a new Zenith Astrobike. I am sending you home with one of these!

Wes’s rabid coyote heart went still. It turned into a fluffy, white bunny. Twitching nose. Cotton tail. Cutest goddamn thing you’ve ever seen. He tasted butterscotch again.

Head on backstage to claim this sexy beast, Wes. You’ve earned it.

The applause built as Wes waded through the crowd. It crawled into his ear and planted seeds that bloomed into flowers.

Sweet fucking Uranus, I need to come down, Wes said to himself.

He finally made it through the crowd, to the relatively calm and quiet area backstage. The assistant showed him to his new bike—the sweetest ride he’d ever seen, with hover capabilities, autopilot functionality, and speed settings that couldn’t possibly be legal on most planets.

But once the assistant left him alone to enjoy his prize, rather than mount the thing and let the joy flow through his body, he fell onto his ass and buried his face in his hands.

Be cool, he repeated to himself. He focused on his breathing and on the cold sweat forming on his brow. This is a reward. I’ve worked hard. I’ve earned it. This is what I work for.

He wiped away a bead of sweat before it rolled into his eye. That’s when he noticed the crate. A wooden box that stood waist-high and was big enough that he could have crawled into it if he wanted to. And he kind of did want to. But it wasn’t the crate itself that had caught Wes’s attention; it was what was written on the side of it: Layton Corp.

Their competitor, one of the ones from whom they’d just sniped StrobeNet’s clients. Backstage at the celebration for beating Layton Corp for market share was an odd place to find a crate with their name on it.

Wes rubbed his eyes and looked again, making sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. When he pulled his hands away, the words were still there, illuminated by the lights dancing across his vision.

A little noise reached his ears underneath the muted sounds of the celebration on the other side of the curtain. A scratching. And then a lot of scratching. He closed his eyes again, hoping the sound was a hallucination that would fade away. It wasn’t. It didn’t.

He followed it to the crate and knew that it was coming from inside. He approached the container like it held a bomb or a wild animal and he was hoping not to trigger it. He nearly wet himself when something scurried across the top of his foot. He jumped and squealed like a child. Then he caught a glimpse of the creature. It resembled a mouse—furry and about the same size—but it was definitely not a mouse. It ran off, disappeared under the stage.

Before Wes could sit, a pack of dozens of those same creatures rushed past him, all disappearing under the stage like the first. The sight of them, their quick movements and sudden disappearance, made his heart frantic again.

He leaned against the crate and focused on his breathing. His heartbeat matched the rhythm in the crate. Thump, thump, bang. Thump, thump, bang.

The cheering on the other side of the curtain became a sound of alarm. And then it became screaming.

Chapter Two

Sonic was broke to shit.

But that’s what happened when you got swallowed by a behemoth bug queen and then blew up a trillion-dollar space station. The ship the Notches loved so well was falling apart, and Joel was doing all he could to keep it together until they found a port.

Yo, hand me that duct tape. He pointed to the shelf behind Reggie.

Reggie tossed it to him, and Joel pulled a strip off and placed it over a gash in one of the coolant lines. The engine was the section that had been hit the hardest. There was damage all over Sonic—punctures in the hull, entire sections of armor torn off, cracked monitors—but the engine room was the heart of the ship, and Sonic was in the throes of a full-on cardiac arrest.

So glad we have such a genius engineer onboard, Reggie said.

This shit can bandage anything, Joel said, admiring his handiwork. Given enough time, I could make you a spacewalk suit out of duct tape. Then you could float away, and I wouldn’t ever have to hear your judgy voice again.

Reggie laughed off the comment. Good, then get the ship taped together, because we’ve got another job to get to.

Hold up, Joel said. "I said it’s a bandage. It can keep Sonic from falling apart completely, but it won’t fix the problem. We need to dock somewhere and make real repairs."

Reggie surveyed the engine room, pretending to thoroughly examine the complex machine that kept them afloat. Joel was the techie; if he said they needed repairs, then they needed repairs. But Reggie wanted to keep moving. He wanted to get on to the next job and get some cash in the bank.

What do we need? he asked.

Joel let out a heavy sigh. We can make it a while with the hull breaches if I seal them as best I can, but that’s temporary. Eventually, if they’re not sealed properly, they will get bigger, and I won’t be able to maintain them. We’ll get torn open like a tuna can and vented into space.

He waved a hand at the engine, like dismissing it as already dead. But this is our real problem. We stressed the engine too much when we were outrunning that nasty queen. We overloaded components of it, overheated everything. It’s a miracle it’s even operational. I can only blame my superior engineering skills for patching the sucker. However, if we try to run a hard burn with it in this condition, it will explode. Hell, it might just explode anyway. We’ve basically got a giant ticking bomb strapped to our ass.

Reggie nodded, trying to keep his face from betraying how terrifying that sounded.

Oh, Joel added, and the microwave is broken. Unrelated, but equally as important.

The two left the engine room and made their way to the galley, where Cody and Sam were scrounging for something to eat.

Not a goddamn thing for breakfast on this tin-piece of shit, Sam grumbled as she slammed cupboard doors.

Fun fact, Cody said. Sam gets real hangry. He held up his hand for the guys to see. The toilet paper wrapped around it showed three spots of blood. She stabbed me with a fork.

You tried to eat the last of the oatmeal, Sam said. When are we making a supply run? If we don’t get some food soon, I may be doing more than just stabbing Cody with my fork.

Cody fell silent as his face turned a pale shade of green.

I’m going to eat you, Sam clarified.

Cody swallowed hard. I got that.

Joel listed off for Cody and Sam all the problems with Sonic that needed repairing. If we don’t get all of that fixed, nobody’s eating anybody, because we’ll all be dead.

Can we stop talking about cannibalism? Cody said. I’ve got a weak stomach.

Reggie waved his arms like he was signaling for help. Listen, none of that matters right now, because we don’t have money for food or repairs. We’re broke.

The Notches looked at him like an alien had just popped out of his chest.

We just eradicated an entire space station full of ShimVens, Sam said. And a queen the size of a small planet.

Unfortunately, we also eradicated the space station, Reggie said. Apparently StrobeNet doesn’t have a bunch of those just lying around. I caught the news last night. That station was meant to be their flagship, the most advanced station ever built. It was a major hub for all of their business. Once news broke that it blew up, StrobeNet’s stock took a nosedive. They’re totally bankrupt.

Meaning? Sam said.

We’re shit out of luck, Joel said.

Sam stabbed her fork into the counter. The guys backed away from her like she was a hungry wolf, snarling her displeasure.

Okay, Reggie said, trying to soothe the beast. Be cool. We’ll figure this out. He turned to Joel, but was careful not to put his back to Sam. How long can we go with the ship as is?

Joel shrugged. Hard telling, not knowing. I’ve patched everything as best I can. Best-case, it holds for a couple days. Worst-case, it explodes the second we kick the engines into gear. He cast Sam a cautionary glance. Actually, that’s the second worst case. Worst-worst-case is Sam eats us. So I vote we risk it.

We’ve got a job lined up, Reggie said. I say we take it, make the repairs to the ship, stock our pantry, and move on from there.

That seemed to settle Sam and Joel slightly, but it only agitated Cody.

Can we talk about the massive corporate conspiracy first? Cody looked from Joel to Reggie, both rolling their eyes. Or, at all, even?

Let it go, man. Joel sounded tired by the topic. He swiped a piece of stale bread when Sam diverted her attention to Cody, and took it to the corner of the galley. There is no corporate conspiracy.

He knelt down, pretending to tie his shoe, and snuck the hunk of bread to General Pepper, his as-of-yet unidentified, but absurdly adorable pet.

Are you serious? Cody’s voice jumped a decibel and climbed in pitch. "With all the evidence I’ve found, it’s like you’re trying not to believe me."

Your evidence sounds like some crazy bullshit, Joel said.

It all just seems like it could be a coincidence, Reggie said, trying to act the peacemaker.

Sam paced around the edge of the galley, sneaking behind Reggie, a wolf stalking her prey. I don’t think so, sounds pretty conceivable to me. Galactic corporations sabotaging each other with no regard for the innocent lives lost or damage caused? Sounds about right.

Reggie watched her with a hefty dose of apprehension.

Joel wasn’t paying her any attention at all. Whatever. I think it’s all a big pile of—

What the hell are you doing? Sam jumped out from behind the table, surprising Joel and Peppy.

Joel fell backward, and Peppy scurried behind him and pressed against his back. What’s the matter with you? Are you insane?

You just fed something to that fuzzy creature of yours. Sam’s eyes were wide and wild.

Holy shit, Sam, Joel said. You ate like three hours ago.

What was it? Where are you hiding the food? She inched closer to Joel and Peppy.

Joel stood slowly. I’m not hiding anything. It was just a piece of stale bread.

You expect me to believe that? Sam said. That thing has grown a foot since you got it. Must be twenty pounds heavier. It grew like that eating stale bread? She leaned around Joel and caught the creature in her frenzied sights. Maybe I should eat your dog.

Fire shot through Joel. Don’t you touch Peppy!

Reggie stepped in between Joel and Sam, still playing at peacemaker. So, just so I know, was that a yes on taking this job?

Yes! Joel and Sam both shouted.

Chapter Three

Sonic’s cockpit was small, built to seat only two, but when one of those two was Reggie, the bridge really felt cramped. Cody keyed up the coordinates for the location of the job, a planet called Kaufman.

Once Reggie told them the destination, the Notches couldn’t help but get excited. The entire planet was well-known for being one large spa and fun center. There were dozens of warmed lakes scattered across the surface of the planet, each offering activities like diving, water skiing, boating, and hover boarding. There was one of the most famous spas in the galaxy where celebrities went to get their bits waxed and their bodies covered in weird mud that was supposed to keep you looking young.

Tar pits. Sporting complex. Amusement parks. It was a paradise planet.

Sam couldn’t care less. If she couldn’t eat it right now, she didn’t want to be bothered.

Sonic whimpered like a whipped puppy all the way to Kaufman. Cody didn’t dare push her too hard, for fear the engine would explode and vaporize them. But they got there eventually.

The Notches met in the loading bay to gear up, while Reggie pulled up the coordinates of the job. He hadn’t gotten specifics, just the information that a site on Kaufman had an infestation problem. He had no idea what kind of site it was. It was just a blip on the GPS.

However, they spent no small amount of time fantasizing about the site. Reggie imagined one of the domed sports complexes. Some of the Intergalactic Football League teams trained in the Kaufman sports domes. He wanted to run the fields and imagine scoring a touchdown and winning the Supernova Bowl. He had been a star football player in high school… He could have taken it to college. Some days he wished he had and couldn’t remember why he didn’t.

Or maybe he’d hit up the batting cages or the obstacle courses. There was supposedly a course so complicated that a contestant got lost in it for a week. No one even realized he was missing until the course started to smell like someone had been living in it for a week without access to a shower or toilet.

Cody hoped the job would take them near