"First Strike"

Billy’s batman, a former Rook-delinquent-turned-intern out of Neo-Neon Tokyo named Haraguchi Aritomo, emerged from a sleek doorway. Strong with a shaved head, he joined Billy and Admiral Lawrence while carrying a package.

“Ah, perhaps it’s the Turkish silverware I ordered,” Lawrence realized. He sat back on the command chair and gestured for Haraguchi to set the package down in front of him. It was a cardboard - yeah, they still use cardboard in the year 2999 - box, shut tight with space-tape.

“Who’s it from?” asked an excited Lawrence, already working on the tape.

“From Ramble Station,” Haraguchi answered.

Lawrence blinked as he opened the box. “R-Ramble Station?”

A giant red boxing glove emerged, springing upwards like a jack-in-the-box, uppercutting Lawrence right below the jaw. The blow knocked the boss off his chair and sent him sprawling across the floor, eyes turning into comical spinning spirals.

“Boss!” Billy and Haraguchi yelped in unison, kneeling next to the old man. Captain Nixon and several bunnies converged on the spot. Nixon spotted black writing scrawled across the glove.

“Gotcha,” he read. “From your pal, Mars Planetary Manager Stanislav Kajanas.”

The air seemed to be sucked out of the bridge, such was Lawrence’s fury. He ignored the helping hands of Billy and Haraguchi and got to his feet. “He’s no pal of mine,” he muttered. Lawrence started pacing, pushing away a few bunnies. “It must be…it must be because of the trip to the self-replicator…destined to destroy one another…”

The admiral stood before Nixon. “Captain, you’re aware of why I made this my flagship, correct?”

Nixon nodded. “The special modifications, per your request.”

Lawrence scowled. “I will never find peace while Kajanas still lives. Captain, I’m detaching this ship from the flotilla. Head through the warp gate. Set course for the space above Ramble Station. Load the cannons with my special ammunition.”

Nixon nodded, a wide grin on his face, and the bunnies returned to work. Lawrence resumed his pacing, muttering about how in another life, he would’ve trapped Kajanas in the sultan’s palace. Billy didn’t get it.

Within the hour, the Asskicker had detached from the flotilla and maneuvered to the entrance of the Warp Gate, a wide ring of A-Polymer floating in the void, dark-matter-dimensional-anchors keeping it in place at the edge of the system. Billy tensed up - most of his tenure aboard the Asskicker had been on Solar System duty, and he still wasn’t used to the nauseous effects of warping through space. Nixon and Lawrence, however, were seasoned veterans, and ordered full steam (well, rocket-fusion-fuel) ahead.

Warping was something complicated, and Billy couldn’t explain the science behind it. To be fair, much of it was still a mystery, with only the great calculations of the Sooper-Dooper Computer beneath the Antarctic ice able to calculate the necessary physics. All Billy knew was that scientists once told the SDC that things couldn’t go faster than the speed of light ‘cuz that would break the laws of physics, so the SDC said what if ya make a pocket dimension using tachyon particles, and this dimension would form a quantum tunnel connecting two distant points? That way the laws of physics would only be broken within a confined space, lest they destroy the whole universe.

But wait, said the scientists, if we can make pocket dimensions, we could one day theoretically make pocket universes. And if we can make universes, isn’t it likely that somebody made our own universe in turn? But the SDC didn’t answer.

In any case, warp gates served as the entrances and exits to tachyon pocket dimensions which enabled quick, reliable interstellar travel that only occasionally left travelers in states of spaghetti-fied madness. It took the Asskicker a whole day (maybe? Time had little meaning in the tachyon tunnel) of traveling to return to the Solar System, during which Billy struggled to sleep, drifting in and out of dreams involving electric sheep. His bunk-mate, Haraguchi, wasn’t helping, reading his haikus aloud since he believed poetry should be shot from the barrel of a gun:

AUTUMN IN GLIESE 570

Four stars dot the sky.

Black expanse, infinite void.

Where am I? Not home.

It went on like this, hour after hour of haiku, so finally Billy tossed his pillow at Haraguchi’s face and yelled out:

There once was a man from Japan

His poetry, I could not understand.

If there’s one more haiku

You know what I’ll do?

Down his throat will go my whole hand.

“Teme,” Haraguchi swore. “Tough crowd.” He departed for the gym, but Billy still couldn’t sleep.

He arrived on the bridge groggy and on his third cup of coffee when the Asskicker emerged from the warp gate over Earth. Nixon yelled at the space traffic controllers as the space-sloop made a beeline across the Solar System for Ramble Station. The red planet - large sections now covered in green-and-blue growths - appeared larger and larger across the windows of the bridge. Billy hadn’t been to Mars before, but its natives had a reputation as a mischievous people.

Above Ramble was the space station Ramble II (creative name, yeah). And docked at Ramble II-

“Confirmed, Admiral!” a bunny called out. “That’s the Vespasian.”

Lawrence grinned. “Kajanas’s flagship. Are the cannons loaded?”

“We’re ready for your orders,” Nixon said, smirking at the unsuspecting Vespasian.

Billy and the arriving Haraguchi glanced at each other. Hold on, thought Billy, it’s not like we’re gonna blast a friendly ship-

“Blast that ship!” Lawrence ordered, swinging his arm down.

The guns - the same guns that delivered deliverance to the harvested planet just a day ago - opened up once more. Billy tensed, getting ready to vomit, not sure how everyone here could go along with this, this madness! Wars weren’t fought anymore, they had been solved, since our destructive energies were directed towards the War on Nothing or suppressed entirely in your hazy room, with post-scarcity as a whole rendering wars pointless-

The guns shot pies.

Billy almost fainted.

Blueberry, raspberry, yes even the occasional pumpkin pie smacked into the side of the Vespasian. A big bombardment covered the windows of the bridge entirely, and just when the windshield wipers cleaned it off - Lawrence sent another bombardment! He snickered nefariously as the Asskicker completed its delivery of pie to the face of his rival’s flagship.

“Back to home port!” Lawrence declared, letting out a big belly laugh. Nixon laughed too, his jowls bouncing, and Haraguchi led a chorus of taunts about those stupid ol’ Martians. Billy stayed quiet, since he wasn’t sure what any of this was achieving. But then he looked down at his own monitor and went pale.

“Uh, boss, y-you’re gonna wanna see this…”

“What’s this?” Lawrence asked jovially. “Some good footage from the prank? A close-up of Kajanas’s trembling face?”

“It appears we only hit a giant vacuum-resistant polychloroprene mock-up…”

“English, Sodenholzer!”

“Those were balloon decoys, boss!”

Commotion and panic ran amok among the bridge. Lawrence cleared his throat and pushed a panicking Nixon back to his console. The boss strode to the front of the bridge, standing before the windows, turning to face the crew. “Decoys, eh? So Kajanas suspected return fire. No matter. Proceed home, no need to panic. We’ve let him known that our pie-cannons are quite fully operational-”

Bridge bunnies whimpered as shadows fell across Lawrence. The boss sighed. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he-”

The true Vespasian, having hidden itself behind Deimos, now emerged, punching right through the balloon decoy. The ship, resembling a jet black shark, swung hard to port, its full broadside trained on the hapless Asskicker, who just fired off its entire load of special ammunition. As Lawrence turned towards the windows, the first projectiles hit his flagship.

Crimson exploded across the space-sloop as a million paint balloons covered the ship. The windshield wipers worked overtime, trying to get the paint off, but the fire never let up. Nixon recovered from the shock and ordered flares fired and gamma vision switched on. In the chaos, smoke, confusion, the Asskicker wheeled out of Martian space and began its retreat to port at Big Dig. The Vespasian didn’t pursue.

Haraguchi received an incoming communication at his console. The look on his face clearly indicated he didn’t want to relay this. As Haraguchi’s boss, Billy sighed and took one for the team.

“Incoming communication from Kajanas,” Billy mumbled. “He says to, uh…admit Mars is better, and that he’s smarter, and he’ll end the prank war. Otherwise, he’ll continue to…paint the town…ha…”

Lawrence didn’t say nothing all the way back home.