Greegs & Ladders by Zack Mitchell, Danny Mendlow (top 10 ebook reader txt) 📕

“Don't do drugs and leave home... or you will die.”

Revenge

I was saddened deeply when I learned the fate of the Klaxworms. I learned the fate of the Klaxworms in a matter of seconds after the scratching of the Chalkboard of Elbereth shattered Glassvexx. As soon as the seemingly unbreakable Jardian glass shrapnel began flying through space, a giant shard narrowly missed our ship and rocketed forcefully into space.

“Hmm,” said Wilx, “If my calculations are correct, that giant piece is headed straight for the planetglomerate.”

“Where?” I asked, genuinely curious.

Wilx showed me on his computer the location where the shard would strike... it was directly on the cave of the Klaxworms. I demanded we go to the Planetglomerate at impossible speeds and try to save them from extermination. I cared not if every Greeg and Grimbat was wiped out. I cared only for the Klaxworms. We arrived at the Planetglomerate just in time for me to see that the Klaxworms were leaving their cave in droves; for Wilx to inform me that his calculations were off by a tad and the shard was now headed for right outside the caves where they were all headed; and for me to shout “No! Go back in the cave, there's a giant flying shard of a recently exploded nearby glass planet coming right for you!”

I distinctly heard several Klaxworms turn and exclaim to whoever would listen, “See, what did I tell you would happen?”

A quick survey of the planet revealed that not a Greeg had been mildly bruised or scratched. Within minutes, all Greegs were certain that the giant monolithic shards were in fact statues built by Greegs and had not minutes ago fallen from the sky.

That, my friends, was it for me. All of the anger, the rage, the boiling psychopathy exploded out of me at that very moment. The Klaxworms were very dear to me. The fact that I was a Greeg and that without Rip and Wilx I would have been just as stupid as them was very clear to me. I became overwhelmed with a purpose. Revenge. Revenge on the fiendish scratchers of the Chalkboard. Revenge on those who had sought revenge on those who had sought revenge. I had written about such endless cycles of revenge being one of the worst traits of mankind in one my novels Who are You and Why am I Killing You Again? And its sequel Hey, Here's a Thought: How About We End the Massacres and Go For a Swim Instead? Neither were remotely well received, and in fact had me used as a scathing example of what whiny, peace loving pacifism is good for... namely the keeping of everyone else from getting a few more good wars and murders in without all the silly, moral objections.

I forgot all of these things and let the rage take hold.

“Back to the fleets of Fralgoth!” I screamed, as if leading a charge into battle. “Time to charge into battle!” I clarified in case anyone hadn't heard the battle charging inflection in my initial cry.

Rip and Wilx were always up for a good battle in their own way. Rip, in a seething, 'Let's kill the bastards whoever they are' sort of way and Wilx in a 'Let me know when the battle is finished I'll be reading in my study' sort of way. But both enjoyed a good battle nonetheless. I was happy to use them. They seemed happy that I finally had moved a smidgen closer to their level of insanity, and we all generally bonded well over the new course of action.

One ship versus 108 fleets of war ships is not a very good fight. Very similar to many of the 'wars' waged by The United States and other super powers in human history, except in this case, the small, helpless, side with no chance of victory was armed with a ship that happened to do impossible things. One of the things it could do was see inside the enemy ships and let us know what was inside them. A normal military commander would have used this tool to identify weaknesses and strengths and gain a strategic advantage by planning accordingly based on the knowledge obtained. Dr. Rip T. Brash the Third was not normal, nor a military commander.

“Nope, nope, nope,” Rip said, as he blew ship after ship to smithereens with the impossible ship's varied weapons systems.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why do you keep examining the ships' cargo holds, then saying 'nope' and blowing them to smithereens?”

“What do you care, you're getting your revenge aren't you?”

“Well, yes, but several of the ships you've blown up have had decent stashes of Luminesco Sativa, seems a waste. Shouldn't we take out the ships with weapons then round up the ones with Sativa for ourselves?”

“Sativa, Schmasliva!” childishly mocked Rip. “That stuff is for amateurs, besides we've already got tonnes of it. Wilx, come in here and tell him what I'm up to and why I'm doing it. Nope, nope, nope...”

Blam! Schmoom! Grickle!

Wilx strolled out, barely looking up from his book. “What Rip is currently destroying is the combined strength of The Grand Fleets of Fralgoth – the largest ring of drug smugglers in the Universe. He is searching their cargo holds to find the mythical Grand Container Ship – rumoured to carry in its holds massive quantities of every drug and intoxicating substance there is. It is said you could swallow, smoke, inject, ingest, insert, intake, inhale, drink, guzzle, shoot, gargle, sniff, snort, schnoodle and bronk until the end of time and still not get through all the stuff. Rip naturally takes this rumour as a personal challenge and an affront to his very existence.”

“Nope, nope, there it is!” shouted Rip happily. “Yippee!”

“So now what's the plan?” I sighed.

“Live the dream,” said Rip incredulously. “Never-ending drugs, booze and the running of a carnival.”

“Planetglomerate... here we come!” said Wilx.

Rip got the impossible space ship to reach out two long tentacle-ish metallic arms with big, silly looking fingers to grab the Grand Container Ship and slam it several times against the side of an epic-moon until all of Fralgoth's relatives inside were dead. The impossible ship then put the Grand Container ship in what can only be described as its backpack and headed off towards the Planetglomerate.

Despite the insanely short time it took to get there, upon our arrival Rip had already drank eleven crates of Krammington Krish Fortinis, sniffed 3 bags of Zittle Dust, eaten no less than four thousand different kinds of mushrooms, and injected Cod into most of his eyeballs.

“Cod?” I asked.

“What, you mean those earthlings never did cod? But they had so much of it just naturally in the water!?”

“I guess no one ever thought to boil it, strain it, mix it with urine and inject it in their eyeballs.”

“Idiots. Cod is easily one of the most amazing drugs around.”

Upon our arrival, it became clear we weren't the only ones arriving at the Planetglomerate. Hoards of ships were coming from all over.

Many, if not all, were packed with Carnival Greegs.

The Last Chapter

“I hear you're taking Greegs? How much for Six Moobs full?”

“We're not paying an orange proddle for anything,” said Rip, popping a handful of Kratwollian Mind Capsules into his mouth. “We take your Greegs, you have no more Greegs. That's the deal. Take it or leave it.”

“That's a horrible deal and not remotely what your flier advertised,” screamed the outraged Greeg vendor. “How am I supposed to afford the astronomical cost of replacing the Investment Banker it took just to get here?”

Rip snatched the flier out of the vendor's hands and passed it over to me. “We are not accountable for any falsities our marketing department might have mistakenly misinformed you of,” bellowed Rip condascendingly. “The deal stands, and space is running out.”

I looked at the flier, it was clearly a signed and dated, hand drawn, binding contract promising vast sums of wealth to anyone who brought Greegs to the Planetglomerate any time after the shattering of the Glassvexx system.

“Look,” Rip continued flippantly, “I don't know who's been out spreading these lies and rumours about our operation here, but...”

“I do! You have! You personally gave me this flier, and spent eleven years attending my carnival show every night convincing me to bring you these Greegs. You conceived four children with my eldest daughter. You..."

“Look, this isn't about me, this is about you and how you can't afford to fill up your spaceship. As it so happens, I'm a generous man, err... thing, and I can tell that you're a man who knows Greegs and needs a job. It just so happens we have many fine openings for positions ranging from Greeg feces shovelers, to Greeg feces examiners.”

“You bastard! What about my ship!”

“Your ship will be placed in a maze shortly... if you wish to accompany it, by all means...”

“I'll take the shovel one.”

“Good man, welcome aboard. Unload your Greegs over to the left.”

The ingenuity of Dr. Rip T. Brash the Third was undeniable. Whether he had purposefully, consciously or deliberately had everything come together in his favour or whether he was simply one of the luckiest creatures to ever live, I will never know. His Planetary Greeg Carnival was indeed a resounding success though, with a steady supply of enslaved workers bringing him new and exciting Greegs and their ships being sent off to far-off mazes, serving as a bribe to the Council of Eleven and a Half Thousand Different Coloured Robes. It was a scheme no one else could have pulled off. Trading knowledge for morality, Wilx was able to learn ever more about Greegs by observing The Ultimate Grand Greeg Carnival. So much so that his well researched and engaging book Greegs, Greegs and More Greegs would topple Dr. Kipple's as the definitive work on the subject. Many strange discoveries would come from observing The Ultimate Grand Greeg Carnival and the ensuing experiments Wilx would conduct. For example, once aliens began