Meaner Monkeys

By Adam Swetnam

Who is stealing planets and why? Planets are bulky, not easy to store, and the carrying costs are oppressive.

Where Zoomarble leaves off (Friday), Meaner Monkeys picks up (Friday evening). The group has a job to do, whether or not the details have been entered into the system. Important lessons include: how to fly a spaceship, where to gain skills such as thoracic surgery and decoupage, don’t attempt to fly through gas planets just because they are balls of gas, and if you are ever anywhere doing anything and all the animals suddenly run away... RUN!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Swetnam
• Release date: May 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215665541

Adam Swetnam

Adam Swetnam has been putting words together since the early 70s. Now he does it in book form because it is more portable. He was born in a faraway land called Muncie, Indiana, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. In high school, he dropped his physics class after one day and took a cooking class instead. His favorite authors, in the order he discovered them, are Dr. Suess, Roald Dahl, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, and Salmon Rushdie. He believes the most important thing you can have in life, besides bleach and an alibi, is a positive attitude.

Book preview

Meaner Monkeys

The Zoomarble Madcap Space Adventure Series: Book 2

Adam Swetnam

Copyright © 2023 Adam Swetnam

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by: Ryan Blakely

Library of Congress Registration Number: TXu 2-368-620

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1 - Voltaire Shining

Chapter 2 - The Dupreeze Diamond

Chapter 3 - Mission Reports

Chapter 4 - We Are All Very Small

Chapter 5 - Dr. Priya Dhoop

Chapter 6 - JJ Learns to Fly

Chapter 7 - Meanwhile in the Pleasure Dome

Chapter 8 - Floaty Palace Now Boarding

Chapter 9 - Welcome, Visitors!

Chapter 10 - BLT is Alphabetical

Chapter 11 - Watch Out for the Downouts

Chapter 12 - Beigeland Ciao Banquet

Chapter 13 - Firmness, Commodity, and Delight

Chapter 14 - All Kinds of Mean Nasty Ugly Things

Chapter 15 - A Pair of Berries, Moon High

Chapter 16 - Inside Melancranky Castlepalace

Chapter 17 - Underneath Melancranky Castlepalace

Chapter 18 - Crimes Against Beingity

Chapter 19 - Dancing Without Pants

Chapter 20 - From Which the Quenching Water Flows

Chapter 21 - Second Annual Charivari Games

Chapter 22 - Taking the Citadel

Chapter 23 - The Importance of Forces

Chapter 24 - Fallout

Chapter 25 - Throneroom

Chapter 26 - Puerto Grimaldi Grande Hotel and Casino

The Zoomarble Madcap Space Adventure Series

About The Author

What we're pointing to is that there's a lot of universe available

Jerry Garcia

Oh my my, oh hell yes

Tom Petty

Chapter 1 - Voltaire Shining

THE SHIPS CAME OUT OF NOWHERE just a fraction of a second after the searing scree of the warning alarm. Hold on to your coffee mug! yelled the Medic as he expertly dodged the barrage of trident-shaped lasers pelting the Jellyroll. In the passenger seat, Clarissa calmly took a sip of her coffee. She remained unphased.

Why don’t you shoot them with the lasers? Clarissa asked, knowing the answer.

They’re just hard-working, possibly squishy, pilots doing their job, the Medic answered. They aren’t trying to hurt us. Those trident lasers are meant to stick to us so they can capture the ship.

It wasn’t exactly what Clarissa expected. The non-violent part, yes. She considered a follow-up question as she enjoyed another sip of coffee.

Why would you say they are squishy? she asked. We’ve seen the Filthbuckets and you know they are pretty solid.

Right, the Medic answered, but those are not Filthbucket ships.

There seemed to be seven or more of the ships attacking them as the trident lasers made an electro-metallic ba-ding ba-ding on the exterior of the Jellyroll. The Medic pulled a small translucent coin from his pocket and placed it on the console between the seats. A hologram of the situation appeared, showing the location of the Jellyroll and the surrounding ships attacking them. The hologram was not zoomed out enough to include the Filthbucket ship further ahead of them that they had been tailing. And the entire planet the Filthbucket ship was towing.

The Medic kept a lot of coins in his pocket, Clarissa thought. He had small coins for everything. Maybe she would buy him a nice coin purse whenever they found a gift shop.

Tad, the Medic said in the general direction of everywhere, are you getting those readings?

Medic, came Tad’s voice from the Pleasure Dome command center back on Earth, I was just getting ready to contact you with some news. Are you sitting down?

I’m afraid you caught me mid-pirouette, said the Medic, but let me take off my ballet slippers and have a seat. Are you seeing our attackers?

Those things? Tad observed. Those are ships from Kankaku. I’m not sure why they are out there in the middle of nowhere attacking you. They’re just squishy little guys who are doing their job. You could probably just discomfort them.

The Medic pointed to a panel of buttons in front of Clarissa. Start with the lowest setting, he instructed.

Let’s see, said Clarissa. This group of buttons labeled ‘Yuck’ with the yucky face sticker? What kindergarten class decorated this ship? What does the button do?

It sends out a sensation field, explained the Medic in his most factual tone. You know when you grab a grape and bite into it but it turns out it was a cherry tomato?

Am I eating grapes in the dark in this scenario? Clarissa asked. Why wouldn’t I check the label on the bag before I walked into the dark room for my depressing snack of solitude?

It sends out a sensation pulse that will give the pilots an unexpected strange taste in their mouths. Trust me, it is unpleasant and distracting. Push the button.

Clarissa pressed the leftmost button as the panel made an unsatisfying blurp sound. They watched the ships, both on the hologram and outside the window, as the ships stopped firing on the Jellyroll but continued to circle.

It got their attention, said the Medic. Try the next one. You know that sensation when you think you’re biting into a white chocolate candy but it’s actually a hatching lizard egg?

Your hypotheticals are scaring me, said Clarissa as she pushed the second button. I don’t want to hear what the rest of these buttons do.

The ships from Kankaku began moving erratically, some nearly flying into each other. They retreated in front of the Jellyroll like a swarm of bees scorned with a garden hose. 

Then they disappeared.

Medic? Tad asked slowly. Can you confirm the ships just disappeared?

The Medic and Clarissa both stared at the hologram being projected from the coin. Their ship was the only thing in the hologram.

Confirmed, said the Medic, adding with more concern, It’s worth noting the ship we’ve been tailing for a day - the one towing an entire planet - is also gone. Along with the planet.

The Medic exhaled with traces of frustration and tapped the coin. Clarissa sipped her coffee. Low battery? she asked with a wry smile.

Suddenly the punctuated scree of the warning alarm returned. The Medic quickly and forcefully jabbed a button to silence the annoyance. He scanned the controls, the hologram, and outside the ship.

What is it? asked Clarissa.

I don’t know. There’s nothing around us. We’re at least fify light years from the nearest star. Tad?

I’m getting a weird reading, said Tad. It’s a massive amount of energy. You are heading straight for it. A field.

I don’t see anything, the Medic reported gravely. It’s a cloak, isn’t it?

I think so, Tad responded. I can’t get it in my readings. It’s big.

Big? asked the Medic. Can I steer around it?

No, said Tad, it’s too big and you’re too close.

Why would someone cloak something out here? asked Clarissa.

So it won’t be seen, the Medic answered.

I walked into that one, Clarissa conceded. I mean, what would someone have out here that they don’t want to be seen?

Hold on, the Medic instructed. It’s about to get a little tingly and a tiny bit horribly painful.

A ripping white light shredded through every molecule of Clarissa’s body in a fiery blinding fraction of a second - an acidic electrifying scraping, a screeching jolt, a piercing white-hot blast of molten lightning wind. The excruciating pain was immediate and then gone.

Clarissa didn’t have time to scream before she was taking a long breath of cool air. Her teeth hurt. There was a pulsing low-grade throb in the back of her skull. Then her eyes refocused…

A star.

Where everything in front of them had been a soft sprinkling of stars like spilled iridescent powder, there was now a very large bright star. Clarissa’s eyes adjusted, recovering from the pain of the cloak, and she could see the star was surrounded by smaller lights. Planets? That couldn’t be. There were thousands of them. Thousands of new tiny lights that were not there just a moment ago.

Medic? she asked, maybe to check on him and maybe to get his acknowledgment that he saw this amazing scene, too. The Medic continued to stare for a moment. Without looking down he tapped his finger on the disc sitting on the center console. It burped and lit up with the hologram of the star and thousands of orbiting planets.

Are you getting this, Tad? he asked quietly.

Wow, said Tad, I think we know where the Filthbuckets are taking planet Fuzzybutt. Or Candideland, if we’re honoring Grimaldi’s renaming.

They’re not collectors, noted the Medic. They’re hoarders. They are hoarding planets.

I guess when you think about it, Tad added, what are you going to do with a planet if you steal it? You put it in orbit around another star.

Along with the other thousands of planets you’ve stolen, said the Medic.

Did you know about this star? asked Clarissa.

It’s not on any maps, the Medic said with concentration.

Dibs, said Clarissa excitedly, slapping her hand on the dashboard for emphasis.

You’re claiming the star? asked the Medic.

No, she continued, but I get to name it.

You’re terrible at that, the Medic pointed out. You named a planet ‘Fuzzybutt’. I think that was your last chance.

But Grimaldi renamed the planet ‘Candideland’ just because he owns it, Clarissa noted. I will make Grimaldi happy by naming this star Voltaire. Now his planet can claim to be the best of all possible worlds.

The Medic took a deep breath. We’re going to need some help finding said planet. Tad, please let Sultan know that he and JJ are needed here in the Voltaire system immediately.

Clarissa smiled at the use of her new star name. 

The Medic continued, Tell him to use the snap to get here faster. Program the coordinates in the Chariot for him. You know how numbers are confusing for Sultan.

Copy that, said Tad, which brings me to my bit of news. I have to inform you that Sultan, JJ, Joey, and Donnie are currently with Bonesaw, headed for the Procyon system.

Who is Bonesaw? asked Clarissa.

The Medic said nothing. Clarissa glanced at him to make sure he was still listening. Did he look pale? More pale than usual? He looked concerned.

Can you repeat that? asked the Medic.

They are with Bonesaw, Tad stated.

The Medic had another pause before saying, Can you repeat that but with absolutely anyone else? Can you tell me they are with Oprah? Something pleasant like that?

I’m afraid not, said Tad. Also, Oprah called to reschedule your lunch next week. She said she is very busy.

Typical.

● ● ● ●

Chapter 2 - The Dupreeze Diamond

IT HAD BEEN A FEW DAYS since Clarissa stood in the living room of their apartment in Sunflower Tower where Joey handed his mother the diamond from Nebraska Jack’s treasure. Cleocatra had told Joey to give it to their mother. It was a Very Large and Beautiful diamond, but Clarissa was surprised at her mother’s reaction.

He’s coming home, Molly Straw said in a voice that was just above a teary whisper. Clarissa was caught off guard by the emotion. Joey was also shocked but in a happy way.

Who is coming home? Joey asked expectantly. Dad?

Yes, Molly said with a shaky inhale and slow peaceful exhale. She seemed to gather herself and added cheerily, We’ll need to clean up the place. He hasn’t seen our new home yet. Molly set the diamond on a wrought iron stand on the bookshelves that lined the fireplace. Had that decorative stand been on the bookshelves in their old home in Wichita? Did Molly just add that when they moved to Fennario? The diamond fit perfectly.

Good night, children, said Molly and whisked away to her bedroom.

Dad’s coming home! said Joey, overwhelmed with excitement. I’m going to clean my room!

Joey ran off to his room. Clarissa paused in thought. She had just found out that her dad was caught up in a mission with the Medic seven years ago, the last time Joey and Clarissa saw him. Their dad had been inadvertently selected to be president of a country on the planet Popsicle, as he and the Medic called it. Communication had been impossible. He was obligated to serve a forty-year term. Tad said he and the others were trying to find a way to get their dad out of the presidency and back home.

Why did the diamond mean he was coming home? Molly seemed to think so, anyway. Why would he be coming after only seven years? She wanted to talk to Joey about it but she hadn’t told Joey anything yet. Just when she felt like people were telling her information, it turns out she was not getting the full story. Did Molly even know her husband was an alien? Did she know about the botched mission and the presidency thing?

She needed to talk to Tad. He was the only person - well, large monster - who was forthcoming about anything. Although, he was wrong about the forty years. Wait, forty Earth years? Yes, she needed to talk to Tad.

● ● ● ●

Back in her bedroom, Clarissa got comfortable on her fluffy new bed. Molly must have told the decorators about her daughter’s taste in accents; Clarissa’s entire bed was covered with an assortment of decorative pillows - rectangular, square, and oblong - all in serene shades of green, her favorite color. Clarissa picked an oversized seafoam option as her backrest and nested in the rest of the pillows like a baby robin.

She instructed her insignia ring to contact Tad and he quickly popped up in a hologram floating in front of her. Tad was wearing an apron. Considering Tad must be around ten feet tall, the apron had to be the size of a car tarp. She could tell that he was delicately messing with something with his enormous, clawed fingers.

Hey, Tad, Clarissa said, what are you working on?

It’s a Moojacker, explained Tad.

A Mick Jagger?

What? No, said Tad, that wouldn’t make any sense. It’s a Moojacker. A moose stuffed with a jackal stuffed with a badger.

Like a turducken? asked Clarissa. A turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken?

Ew, gross, said Tad. Why would you eat something with ‘turd’ right there in the title? He set aside the tray with his culinary masterpiece and washed his hands. Anyway, I just finished up my mission report so I thought I would get started on dinner for tomorrow. If you and the Medic are going after the Filthbuckets, it’s probably going to be a slow day at the home base. I’m going to roast a nice dinner for my IT gang.