Legal; I don't own it.

Elvis has Left the Building by Derik Smith

THE MEGAWINGER

Zhane yawned, stretched and looked out at the streaking expanse of hyperspace. "DECSTER, ETA on the Rebel staging ground?"

The computer thought for a moment, its blue electric eye dimming, before answering. "Four days, thirteen hours, five minutes."

Zhane groaned. "Thanks for nothing." Four more days in hyperspace. He directed a good natured glare at the computer eye.

D.E.C.S.T.E.R. was the Megawinger's resident A.I. Sort of a permanent guest since the destruction of the Ganymede Base, Zhane had salvaged the male artificial intelligence that ran the manufacturing facility for his own use. Andros seemed to find his useful enough, it'd been his only companion while Zhane spent two years in cold storage, and Zhane could use someone to talk to on his long hauls. Of course, he noted sourly, Andros programmed D.E.C.A. with his mother's voice, which was more than a bit creepy.

"I'm picking up a distress call" D.E.C.S.T.E.R. announced suddenly.

"Let's hear it!"

Zhane leaned back as the staticky image of a young woman, human or close to it, appeared on a screen to his side.

She brushed the hair from her face and leaned in close to the camera, which was mounted at a strange angle, and spoke. "Am I...? Okay, good. Please, whoever hears this, we are Planet Krulos. As I speak, we are being overrun...static...forces of the Sorceress Etheria... We have NO DEFENSES. Please, I beg anyone who hears this message...." She looked up as an explosion sounded nearby, and the message stopped.

Zhane scowled, brushed his chin. He seriously needed to shave. "How old is that message?"

"Eight months."

Zhane's scowl deepened. The rebels were expecting him in a week. The last thing he needed now was to get involved in a prolonged side-trip. "How far away is it?"

"At Megawinger's maximal hyper rush speed... fourteen days." D.E.C.S.T.E.R. sounded almost reproachful.

Zhane on the other hand was crunching the numbers. The Winger had been designed for in-system combat and protecting evacuation convoys, it was a whale at hyper-rush. His Silver Cycle was a lot faster, and if he could just scout the situation, maybe come back later...

His mind made up, Zhane peeled himself out of his seat and started giving orders. "DECSTER, fit the Silver Cycle with the Galaxy Glider booster unit, I'm gonna check it out and catch up with you in six days."

"Yes Zhane."

Zhane scratched his oily hair as he left the cockpit. Maybe he'd get a chance to shower on... Krulos was it? Someday he was going to track down the bastard engineer who'd decided not to equip the Megawinger for long hauls and kick him so hard...

Zhane pulled into Krulos's star system sixteen hours later, bone weary. Galaxy Gliders were fast, with a decent range. That's what they were designed for, not long hauls like this. The booster unit was little more than two turbine-like hyperaccelerators and a bank of energy cells that clamped onto the back of his Galaxy glider, tripling its length. The advantage was in speed and range, but the close-mounted accelerators set up a vibration that was tough to take... especially for sixteen hours. Zhane was beat.

He pulled into high orbit over his destination, leaving the dead mass of the booster for later retrieval. Grateful to be free of the extra mass and eager to demorph after sixteen sweaty hours riding a Galaxy Glider, he took the Silver Cycle down...

KRULOS- THE NEXT MORNING

Zhane awoke to find a stream running through the forest near where he'd ditched the Silver Cycle the night before. With a whoop of joy, Zhane began stripping off his week-in-the-saddle grimy Megaship uniform and was soon shamelessly skinny dipping in the freezing water.

He sighed happily as he ran fingers through his greasy hair, reveling in the feeling of the cold water on his sweat-caked skin. Too much of his time on the Megawinger was spent in long-haul, he seriously needed to put in a shower and a sleeping unit... maybe he could tear out the UDS module, he hardly ever used it...

Zhane's reverie was interrupted by the sound of arguing voices from downstream. He'd been drifting for awhile now, so he crept up onto the bank, somewhat sheepishly aware of his lack of formal attire, and listened in.

"...told you not to make trouble!" a voice growled from the path on the other side off the brush.

The other person's response was too low to be heard. Zhane crept closer and carefully pushed aside a bush to see.

One was a local, human stock as he'd guessed. The thing accosting her was another matter altogether...

A Pineoctopus, Hydration Vampires that needed to steal moisture from other creatures to survive outside their native swamps. If one was here, it couldn't be good.

The Pineoctopus pushed her again. "Any last words?" The girl stared back at it defiantly.

Yup, definitely time to step in. Zhane reached for his Digimorpher... and encountered bare skin. Whoops! Forgot he'd left it back with his clothes. Well, live and learn. "Tighten up reality gangster!" he shouted, and jumped, followed by "Banzai!"

It really wasn't clear who was more surprised to see a naked young man burst out of the bushes, the girl or the monster, but it was the Pineoctopus who went down under his impact.

Zhane landed on all fours on top of the stunned monster. "Hi!" He jumped away before it could recover sufficient control of its writhing tentacles to grab him with a presser field and remove all the water from his body.

The girl was looking at him, frozen.

"Run!" he yelled. She looked familiar.

His words seemed to unlock her. She began to move uncertainly. "But you-"

Zhane had no time to respond as the Pineocotpus returned to its feet. "I'll get you for that!" It struck out with its yellow tentacles and missed but succeeded in driving Zhane back into the bushes, the branches clawing at his skin.

"Ow!" Zhane continued to back up, betting that the Pineoctopus would follow him.

It did, scrambling after the young human. It whipped at him with its spiked seedpod but failed to make contact. Its seeds could grow strong and healthy planted in such a wet and juicy young man! It reached out with a pincer maneuver the human couldn't possibly avoid, then suddenly- the human was gone!

Zhane ducked out of the way as the Pineoctopus barreled over the riverbank in search of its prey, and splashed into the river.

Zhane was on it in an instant, pushing the furious monster back into the water. Its yellow tentacles wrapped around him, sucker muscles contracting into an unbreakable grip, and it hissed in triumph.

"Guess again you big ugly moron!" Zhane crowed.

It took the monster a moment to see, and then it began to thrash around wildly, trying to get away, but Zhane wouldn't let it out of the water. "Drink it all, be a good boy now!"

The Pineoctopus' watery eyes dilated down to fine points as the massive fruit that formed its body began to swell and it absorbed more and more water from the river. Like a hungry animal come across a cache of food, it literally could not stop itself.

The girl- now he recognized her, the one from the video- appeared at the bank. "Get away!" She screamed.

Sound advice. Zhane gave the monster one last shove to make sure it wasn't getting up and sloughed towards the bank. "Getting!"

He almost made it.

The great water-storing fruit that made up the Pineoctopus' body exploded with a sickening sound and Zhane closed his eyes as he, the girl, and most of the immediate area were pelted with the sticky-sweet fruit that had made up the monster's innards. Silence, except for the gurgling of the river.

The girl was the first to speak. "Um, eew."

Zhane shook his head, a chunk of fruit flopping from it onto his shoulder. "Hey, you at least have clothes." He took a bite out of it, the pulpy mass squirting down his chin and chest. "Tasty though."

Her name, he would learn, was Taya. She'd been caught out after curfew the night the Sorceress's tithe boat had been scuttled and they'd just ASSUMED she did it. And wasn't that just totally unfair? Because it was her brother who actually sank the silly thing. She had just been the lookout, and wouldn't even have gotten caught if her shirt hadn't...

All this, without a breath, it was amazing. As she spoke and Zhane swatted at the flies that seemed to find all his bare flesh irresistible, Taya led them to her Guerilla camp in a clearing. Hello, no I'm fine! This is the nice naked man who saved me! He was terribly brave. What? Well, yes, I suppose he could use some clothes... say, what's your name anyway?

Zhane stared at her for a long moment. "Elvis. Elvis Presley." he answered finally.

And just like that, Zhane was a rebel. Again.

Rebellion on Krulos entailed blowing up your own stuff before the Sorceress Etheria could claim it as her own. Not a very efficient system, he resolved to improve it at the earliest opportunity.

[to be continued...]