In the far-flung future, the space freighter Threepenny Raven and her eclectic crew of misfits, malcontents and one severely sassy otter, sail the stars in search of booty and adventure, but mostly end up shot, stabbed, keel-hauled and otherwise on the short end of a long and pointy trouble stick.

Today’s story is the first of two parts of “Monkeyshines” by J.B. Rockwell, part-time scribbler and cat-wrangler, and author of the Serengeti series (Serengeti, Dark and Stars, and Hecate ) by Severed Press, the upcoming novel Forgotten Stars & Distant Seas due for release in 2021 from Severed Press, and the supernatural/weird novella Crimson King also due for release in 2021 from Bizarro Pulp Press.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

and Today’s story is the first of two (2) parts

of “Monkeyshines”

by J.B. Rockwell, part-time scribbler and cat-wrangler,

and author of the Serengeti series (Serengeti, Dark and Stars, and Hecate )

by Severed Press,

the upcoming novel Forgotten Stars & Distant Seas

due for release in 2021 from Severed Press,

and the supernatural/weird novella

Crimson King also due for release in 2021

from Bizarro Pulp Press. [if this is the second or third entry] Last time, [characters and events took place, and we ended on a cliffhanger where things and stuff…]

“Monkeyshines” by J.B. Rockwell, Part 1 of 2 A flash of light in the darkness,

a brilliant bar of brightest blue knifing from the stars,

squiggling, twisting, writhing across the emptiness of space.

Phinnaeus Crowhammer

never saw it coming—not until the last possible second

—and by then it was too late.

The blue bar slammed into Threepenny Raven,

pounding her triple-thick hull,

scoring her metal composite skin

and sparking tendrils of electric fire

that crawled hungrily along her side.

Klaxons screamed, filling Raven’s bridge with a shrieking,

ear-splitting dissonance.

Crowhammer snarled and slammed his palm against a big red button,

killing the sirens instantly.

“What. The fuck. Was that?” he demanded,

glaring at his crew.

Blank faces. Blank,

nervous faces staring back at him.

“Anyone? Any ideas?

Anything at all?” Silence on the bridge,

everyone carefully avoiding Crowhammer’s eyes.

“Wonderful. Fucking wonderful,”

he swore. “Daughtry!”

Daughtry stiffened,

one hand lifting,

fingers tapping against his temple.

He was First Mate

—a dark-haired, dark-eyed pretty boy Crowhammer should have hated,

except he was a damned fine second in command.

“Who’s on—Shit!” Another flash outside, another snaking blue bar

writhing its way toward Raven.

“Brace-brace-brace!”

Crowhammer grabbed at the back of his Captain’s chair and held on tight as the second blue bar

crashed into them,

rocking Raven hard to port.

Sirens erupted immediately,

klaxons sounding all over the ship while people screamed and cursed up a storm,

filling the bridge with a cacophonous of noise.

“God fucking dammit!” Crowhammer swore, punching the kill switch to silence the klaxons.

Again. “Daughtry! Why are those klaxons so goddamn loud?”

“Well—” “Never mind. Jorgenson!”

Jorgenson was gunner’s mate

—a hulking, blond-headed block of man stuffed into the cramped space of a gimbaled artillery station to one side. “Jorgie! What the hell’re ya doin’?”

“Nuthin.’” “Exactly. What should you be doin’?” “Shootin’?” Jorgie guessed.

“Brilliant, Jorgie. Fucking brilliant. Really.”

Jorgenson smiled happily.

Crowhammer drew a deep breath, struggling to control his temper.

Jorgenson wasn’t a half bad gunner, but sometimes he was

insanely stupid. “Find a fucking target and start shooting.”

“So… you want—” “Goddamn it, Jorgie, stop fucking around!”

Jorgenson gulped and paled,

ducking his head

like a contrite schoolboy.

“The station says ‘gunner’ so you fucking gun, you idiot.

Keep those things off us, you understand? ”

“Aye, sir,” Jorgenson squeaked,

grabbed the targeting visor and pulled it over his eyes.

The gimbaled pod pivoted,

armaments coming on-line,

artillery systems powering up,

searching for targets.

Two more cobalt bars appeared,

writhing through space with a cloud of tumbling crescents following in their wake.

Jorgenson locked on to them,

humming softly as he squeezed the twin firing mechanisms and spewed out

a scattershot of forced ion pulse rounds

that lit up the darkness outside Raven’s hull.

Hallelujah. Something gone right for a change.

“Daughtry!” Crowhammer wheeled around and found his First Mate picking himself up from the floor.

“Who the fuck is shooting at my ship?”

“Don’t know, sir.” “Don’t know.

Why the hell not?

Who’s on long range scan?”

“Trucchi, sir.” “Who-sy?” “Trucchi.

New guy,” Daughtry said, nodding to a hatchet-faced woman

manning the long scan station. “Trucchi. Right.” Trucchi was all spit and polish,

head shaved up both sides,

face fixed in a perpetual frown,

blue eyes two cold, hard lumps of ice.

Not exactly his idea of a woman.

Women were supposed to be soft and curvy,

something warm and comforting to snuggle up to.

Trucchi looked about as cuddly as a steel girder. “Coochie!” Crowhammer barked.

“Trucchi, sir,” Daughtry corrected.

“Whatever. New guy!

What’s—?” The ship shuddered,

trembling violently as another blue bar plowed into it.

Light flared brightly,

arcing cobalt blue as bolts of electric fire shot across Raven’s hull. “Jorgie!” Crowhammer whirled around, stalked over to the artillery station and smacked Jorgenson hard in the head.

“What the fuck, Jorgie?! I said keep ‘em off us, so fucking keep ‘em off!”

“Aye, Captain. Sorry, Captain!”

Jorgenson pivoted madly,

tracking everything and pouring out forced ion fire as fast as his ham hands could squeeze the triggers.

He was a pretty good shot and did a decent job of thinning the dense blue cloud behind the snaking blue bars,

but there were a lot of targets out there and the canons could only hit so many of them.

The first of the bars plowed into them, rocking the ship.

The second knocked her hard over, sending Crowhammer and everyone else on the bridge crashing to the ground,

rattling their teeth as the leading edge of the blue cloud peppered Raven’s hull.

“Jorgie!” “Sorry! Sorry-sorry-sorry!” Crowhammer sighed and picked himself up.

Yelling at Jorgenson clearly wasn’t helping, so he decided to yell at someone else for a

while. “Hoochie!” “Sir!” Trucchi whirled and braced up hard,

hand whipping up,

snapping off a crisp salute

and then assuming a parade rest stance.

“It’s Trucchi, sir.” “Don’t care.

How the fuck’d you miss that?”

Crowhammer demanded,

stabbing a finger at the bright blue energy missiles lighting up the darkness outside.

“Didn’t, sir. Sent the warning to your Captain’s station.”

“Warning?! What warning? I didn’t—”

“Ahem.” Daughtry caught his eye,

nodded to a blinking red light on the arm of the throne-like chair Crowhammer had recently vacated.

“Warning light, sir. Just as she said.”

“Light? A fucking light?

Thousand fucking lights on this bridge, Daughtry. How the hell—”

“Warning light’s regulation, sir,”

Trucchi cut in. “Regulation?”

Crowhammer blinked and stared.

“What the fuck does regulation have to do with anything?

Daughtry!” He rounded on his First Mate,

one hand flailing angrily in Trucchi’s general direction.

“Spit and polish and everything by the regulations?

What the fuck is she doing on my ship?”

“Militia, Captain.” “So?

What does that have to do with anything?”

“That group of Militia that boarded us a few months back? You said

join or die?” “Sounds familiar,” Crowhammer nodded.

“Trucchi was with ‘em.

Did the math and chose the lesser of two evils.”

“Huh?” Crowhammer considered Daughtry a moment,

trying to decide if that was an insult or not then turned back around.

“Whatever. Moochie! Tell me what’s out there.”

“It’s Tru—never mind,” she sighed,

turning around, tapping away at her station.

“I’m on it.” No ‘sir’ that time.

Might be hope for her yet.

Crowhammer congratulated himself for providing such a positive role model.

“I want star charts, Trucchi.

Sensor data, anything you’ve got so we know who the fuck—” More impacts, everyone stumbled,

yelling and cursing

as Raven slewed sideways.

“Godammit, Jorgie, you useless piece of shit!

You’re the fucking gunner and I expect you to fucking hit something every now and then!”

“Too many-too many-too many,” Jorgenson panted,

artillery pod pivoting frantically, turret guns

spraying out dozens of rounds.

Raven’s shots hit and hit again, striking the tumbling crescents,

obliterating them in showers of cobalt energy, but they just kept coming.

Jorgenson was right

—there were too many.

Alright, time to get Jorgie some help. “Otter!” Crowhammer yelled, turning towards helm

and the dapper, furry fellow manning the oversized ship’s wheel.

“Jorgie can’t hit shit so yer gonna have to dodge those fuckers.” Otter blinked and stared,

agile paws lifting to pull at the earflaps of his leather skullcap and snug

it more closely to his head,

and afterwards checking

adjusting the welder’s goggles perched atop it,

lenses glittering in the flash and flare light.

He grabbed the trailing end of a cream-colored scarf

and whipped it around his neck as he squared his furry shoulders

and rounded on his Captain,

spewing a long string of angry

and incredulous chitterings from his sharp-toothed mouth.

“Impossible? Fuck impossible,” Crowhammer said,

cutting the helmsman off.

“I said dodge, Otter, now you fucking dodge those fucking things before they tear holy helloutta my ship!” Otter huffed and glared,

and then he grabbed the wheel

and hauled it over, damn near turning Raven onto her side as he brought her about.

He was an ace pilot, was Otter—the best Crowhammer had ever seen

—and he steered Raven’s massive bulk with ease,

slipping her to one side to let a fast moving energy missile shoot by

and then dodging the other way to avoid a fractured cloud

of tumbling crescents.

Jorgenson kept plugging away,

doing his best to clear a path,

and for a moment

Crowhammer thought they had it.

Then, “Brace!” he screamed.

A blue bar caught Raven square in the side,

punching her hard as another followed behind it, scoring along her nose.

Raven shuddered and pitched,

knocking half the crew to the floor.

“Back ‘er up, Otter!”

Crowhammer screamed to be heard over the klaxons.

“See if we can at least get outta range of whatever’s shooting at us.”

Otter nodded and leaned to the side,

tapping at buttons with one agile little paw while the other steered. “Talk to me, Gucci. What’s out there?”

Crowhammer growled.

“Gucci? Seriously?” Trucchi looked offended.

Too fucking bad. “What. The fuck. Is out there. Gucci?” “Nothing,” Trucchi told him, waving helplessly at the floor to ceiling windows wrapping the front of the bridge.

“It’s just empty space,

just like the charts say. There

shouldn’t be—Incoming!”

Yelling. Better. Quick learner that girl.

Raven shuddered as a cloud of cobalt blue rounds smashed into her, peppering her grey skin.

“Fuck-fuck-fuck! That is not empty space, Hoochie!”

A quick look outside showed two more cobalt bars

fast approaching,

a sea of tumbling, sparking crescents following close behind.

“Jorgie!” “On it-on it-on-it!”

“Otter!” More chattering—angry, indignant—accompanied by animated gestures of agile otterish paws. “Yeah

-yeah. I see ‘em. And I know Jorgenson’s a crap shot.

Just get us outta here!”

Otter squawked something rude

and flipped him the bird,

but he did as he was told, throwing the ship into full reverse

and turning the wheel, eyes flicking from the blue bars outside to the computer screen beside him as he headed for the hills.

“C’mon-c’mon-c’mon,”

Crowhammer muttered,

staring through the windows,

watching the bars track closer.

“Miss-miss-miss.” It didn’t look like they would,

but Otter kept backing away and at some point the missiles lost focus, sailed past Raven

and writhed angrily into deep space.

“Thank god,” Crowhammer gave Otter a thumb’s up.

“Park ‘er here and keep an eye out,

Otter. Gucci! Talk to me!”

“It’s Trucchi you goddamn

—” “Gucci-Trucchi-monkey moochi- Mama-Liucci—I don’t give a good goddamn. Just tell me

what the fuck is out there, woman!”

“Scarecrow!” she spat

and jabbed her finger at a blinking red dot on her screen.

“Scarecrow?” That was the last thing he’d expected her to

say. “Can’t be.” Scarecrows were limited capability AI watchdogs

—an invention of the Law’s Customs division.

They were originally designed to keep tabs on the freighters transiting the shipping lanes, but some bright spark decided to arm.

So when the AIs went rogue—as they all inevitably did—things went south quickly.

“What the fuck is a Scarecrow doing way out here?

What the fuck is a Scarecrow doing anywhere?!

Daughtry! Thought the Law got ridda those things!”

“Decommissioned and scrapped. That was the official word.”

Daughtry stepped to Trucchi’s station

and examined her screen.

“She’s right, though.

That’s a Scarecrow out there.

Guess they missed this one when they were rounding the damn things up.”

“Figures. Law never was very good at record keeping.”

“Hang on. There’s something else here.” Daughtry tapped at the keyboard,

bringing a second record up on the screen.

“Yer gonna love this.

Law didn’t miss it, they sold it.”

“Sold it? Mother fucker. What a buncha cheap ass, low-life, no good, monkey screwin’

-sold it to who?” “Take a guess.”

“Militia.” “Bingo.” “Bastards!”

Militia were black market, paramilitary heavies for hire.

They were everywhere these days, and for some reason Threepenny Raven kept running into them.

“And I’m guessing from all that blue shit out there that the Scarecrow’s still got all its armaments.”

“Snakes and Scorpions,”

Daughtry nodded. Snakes were the squiggling

bars, Scorpions the rotating crescents that detonated so prettily.

In combination they were deadly.

Take a ship like Raven apart in less than an hour, those

nasty-ass, hammer-and-sickle munitions.

“Lovely. Just bloody lovely.”

“One more thing.” “Oh god. Don’t tell me,”

Crowhammer groaned, covering his face with his hands.

“That thing your cousin sent us after? The lockbox?

Scarecrow’s sitting on top of it.

Right on top of it.”

“Meaning?” “If we take the Scarecrow out, we’ll destroy the lockbox with it.”

“Well fuck me. Ain’t this a pickle.”

Crowhammer folded his arms over his chest and stared out the window.

The smart thing to do would be to get the hell out of here, leave that psychotic thing alone.

“How much are we gettin’ paid fer this?”

“Five million.” “Hmmm,” Crowhammer murmured,

finger tapping against his lips,

watching a fresh batch of Snakes and Scorpions writhe their way through space and then disappear off one

side. “Hoochy—” “Trucchi, sir,”

she corrected tiredly.

“Query the system.

I want schematics,

design diagrams, everything we’ve got on Scarecrows. And when you’ve got all that,

I want you to tell me how to kill that fucker.”

“Okay…” Trucchi saluted uncertainly

and then turned around, fingers flying across the keyboard.

“Not bad, eh?” Crowhammer smiled, nudging his First Mate in the side.

“What?” “The view,” he said, gesturing at Trucchi’s bottom.

“The spit and polish gotta go, and she’s built like a freight train mated with a piece-a jerky, but I gotta say, Trucchi’s got one helluva sweet ass.

Too bad there’s a gigantic stick shoved up it.” Daughtry sighed and raised his hands but Otter crept over and snuck a look

—snuck a long look

—and then gave his Captain two thumbs up. “See? Otter knows a fine piece-a ass when he sees one.

Good man, Otter.” “Alright. That’s enough,”

Daughtry said, shooing Otter back to his station.

“So why’s it here?”

he asked. “What’s in that lockbox that’s so important it requires a Scarecrow to guard it?”

“Hell if I know,” Crowhammer shrugged.

“You mean you didn’t check the manifest?” “Course I did.”

“Really?” Daughtry’s look was skeptical to say the least.

“Not carefully, but I did check it.

Read the cover sheet. Got the basics. Bad business not to.

Worse than doing business with family,”

he grimaced. Family in this case was Cousin Horatio

—the idiot who had set this all up.

Horatio who was

Law and yet had somehow failed to mention the AI death machine watching over the very thing Raven and her crew had been sent to pick up.

“Broke my cardinal rule takin’ on this job,”

Crowhammer muttered.

“Daughtry! What’s my cardinal rule?”

“Never date a woman with an eyepatch.”

“No. Well, yes. But no in this case. Jorgie! Rule number one.”

“No assless chaps in the cargo bay.”

“That’s more of a guideline really,

but—Family, you idiots! Never do business with family.

God! It’s like I don’t even know you people any—”

“Captain? The manifest?” Daughtry prompted. “What? Oh.

That. Spiders or some such,”

Crowhammer said, waving one hand vaguely.

“Spiders. That’s it?

Nothing else?” “Don’t think so.

Stopped readin’ once I saw spiders,

though. Hate spiders. Creepy things.” Crowhammer shuddered, grimacing in distaste.

“Why would the Militia need a psychopathic death machine to—”

Cough! “What?!” Crowhammer snapped, whirling around.

Otter waved and pointed at the data record he’d called up on the screen. “Ah.

The manifest. Good man.”

Crowhammer walked over and examined the information while Daughtry looked over his shoulder.

“See? Spiders,” he said, pointing at a single word written in rather large, red letters on the first page.

Daughtry tapped a key,

paging to the next screen and frowned

at two words near the bottom.

“Arachis hypogaea,”

he read, sliding his eyes to Crowhammer.

“Last I checked, spiders were arach

-nid.” “So, if it’s not spiders, what is it?”

Daughtry queried the system,

and then wisely kept his mouth shut as Crowhammer scanned through the information

it brought back. “Peanuts.

Yer fuckin’ kiddin’ me.

We’re literally doin’ this job fer peanuts.”

Technically, they were doing it for five million, that was the contract.

At the time, it’d seemed like a sweet deal

—a fat wad of cash to essentially be glorified delivery boys.

Crowhammer should’ve known better.

“Five million to face down a heavily-armed, completely deranged Scarecrow and retrieve a lockbox fulla peanuts.

Something ‘bout this don’t smell right, Daughtry.”

“Stinks like Jorgenson’s ass.”

“Hey!” “If the shoe fits, Jorgie.”

Daughtry shrugged unapologetically.

“Screw this,” Crowhammer decided.

“We’re outta here.

Otter—” Cough! “What?!” Crowhammer yelled,

rounding on the helmsman in exasperation.

“What is it now? What new and terrible—”

Otter raised one finger, cutting him off,

then turned to the computer beside him and scrolled through the rest of the manifest.

“Blight. Fungus. Species failure. Blah-blah-blah. Seriously,

Otter. Yer borin’ the crap outta me,” Crowhammer growled. Another burst of chatter, more lecturing

and lots of pointing at the information on the screen.

“Last known peanut plant sample anywhere in the known universe?”

Otter nodded. “Huh. Now that’s interesting,” Crowhammer said, rubbing his chin. ‘Last

known sample’ meant scarce and valuable.

More valuable than the piddling five million Horatio’s buyer had offered.

Crowhammer smiled, sensing opportunity.

But one thing still bothered him.

“How does the last known peanut plant sample in the whole fucking universe

end up strapped to the ass of that psychotic death machine out there?”

Otter scrolled back to the beginning of the record,

pointed to something in the default fields at the top

and then started giggling.

“What the fuck’s gotten into you, Otter?” Otter pointed again,

stabbing his little paw at the screen like it had all the answers, but for the life of him,

Crowhammer couldn’t figure out what he was getting on about. “Daughtry?”

he said and turned to his First Mate, looking for help.

Daughtry moved over,

brow wrinkling as he took a good long look.

“Oh yer gonna love this,” he said, straightening up and smiling at his Captain.

“Paperwork mix-up.”

“The what now?” “Someone screwed up the paperwork,”

Daughtry said, tapping at a data field on the screen.

“Apparently you weren’t the only one who thought that case held spiders.

Except, in this case, some paper pushing monkey thought they were Shock Transference Spiders

—unstable plasma rounds like those Snakes and Scorpions out there.

“Spiders. As in, munitions?” “Uh

-huh. Marked ‘em as ammunition,

stuck ‘em out here with this Scarecrow.

Evidently, somewhere down the line someone discovered the mistake,

told a friend who told a friend, and eventually it gets to your cousin Horatio.”

“And from him to us,”

Crowhammer said, smiling widely.

“Galaxy’s just full of idiots, ain’t it?” “Apparently,” Daughtry shrugged.

“So, how much?” Crowhammer asked, returning to the important business.

“How much does the last known peanut plant in the universe go for?”

Otter grinned and reached over,

striking a single key.

The record jumped all the way to the end.

“Ho. Lee. Fuck. Trucchi!” Crowhammer called.

Trucchi whirled around

and raised a finger, ready to read him the riot act for getting her name wrong, only to realize that, for once,

Crowhammer had gotten it right.

“Sir!” she barked, bracing up like a good little soldier,

cheeks blushing furiously.

“Goddamn girl. Just how big is that stick in yer—?”

“Unauthorized vessel!”

an electronic voice screamed from every speaker on the ship.

A voice so loud it set the klaxons ringing.

Again. “You have entered a restricted zone!

Surrender-surrender-surrender!”

“Note to self,” Crowhammer said, grinding his teeth.

“Remove all klaxons when this is over.

Trucchi! What the fuck is that?”

“Scarecrow, Captain.

Tapped into the comms.”

Trucchi frowned hard, working frantically at her keyboard.

“It’s scanning us!” “Scanning?

Scanning what?” “Cargo manifests, weapons compliment, food stores

—you name it, its crawling through our systems to get it.”

“So stop it! Jam that fucker!”

“Surrender-surrender-surrender!”

“Why the fuck does is it keep telling us to surrender?

What’s it think it’s gonna do if we did?” “I don’t know!” Trucchi jabbed at buttons, working dials while that Scarecrow kept screaming, “Surrender-surrender-surrender!”

in its annoyingly electronic squeaky-toy voice.

“Shut the goddamn comms off!”

“I’m trying you son-of-a-bitch! I just can’t—”

“Surrender-surrender—”

Blam! Blam-blam-blam!

The Scarecrow’s voice cut off mid-sentence,

but the klaxons kept screaming,

until… Blam! … and the sirens

went dead. This was the 1 of 2 parts of “Monkeyshines” by J.B. Rockwell,

read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

Tune in next time to find out how [Crowhammer and crew pull their ship (and butts) out of the fire,

and if they find their way to fame and fortune or burn up in a starlight blip

at the ass end of the universe].

As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog, or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for listening

to The Voice of Dog.