Chapter One
Roderigo and Iago zipped along side by side in their Carbon Anti-gravity Repositioning Systems (more commonly known as CARS). They were at an altitude of 3000 feet, weaving between the skyscrapers of the planet Earth. Roderigo transmitted a message to his car from the chip implanted in his frontal lobe, telling it to go on autopilot so he could concentrate on his conversation with Iago, with whom he was at that moment speaking to on his mobile phone. The car had been nagging him about using a mobile phone and driving for several minutes.
"Anything to get you to shut up," Roderigo muttered under his breath.
"What?" Came Iago's indignant reply.
"No, not you. The car." He sighed. "Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. I thought you said you hated Othello."
"I do. I hate him. If he was here right now I'd spit in both his faces! How could he promote that idiot Cassio instead of me? A man that's never even shot down a battle drone in deep space instead of me? I hate his mutated guts!"
"Then why cover up his dirty little secret?" Asked Roderigo, pressing a few buttons to make the skin of his car translucent in time to see Iago do the same.
"You think I'm covering up the fact that the mutant has gone off and married Brabantio's daughter?" Iago glared at Roderigo, who gave the tiniest of nods. "Ha! I would never do anything for that two-headed freak unless it suited my plans to do so."
Roderigo's left eyebrow rose slightly. "Oh yeah?"
"Well, why don't we go tell Brabantio where his daughter is right now?" Without another word they each regained control of their cars and veered off in the direction of Brabantio's cryogenic sleeping facility.
Within minutes they were outside the large building that housed, among other things, Brabantio's sleeping place. Hovering outside his window, Iago instructed his in-car computer to make contact with the building's computer and terminate Brabantio's sleep period early. After several minutes of thawing Brabantio's window became translucent and he glared out angrily at the two men hovering outside his window. Iago and Roderigo docked their cars with the building and established an audio connection with Brabantio's room.
"What is the meaning of this?" Brabantio shouted. "Why have you hooligans disturbed my rest?"
"My apologies. We came to tell you that you've been robbed." Said Iago.
"Robbed? What's all this about robbery?" Brabantio slurred, still drowsy from the cryogenic freezing process.
"Your daughter, Brabantio. Othello has stolen your daughter!"
"What? No, my Desdemona is still sleeping in her cryo chamber."
"Send a droid to check." Said Iago, watching as Brabantio called for a droid and instructed it. Seconds later the droid returned and delivered the news that Desdemona was indeed not in her chamber.
"What's going on?" Brabantio asked. "Where is my daughter?"
"With Othello." Roderigo answered him. Brabantio fumbled around in his cryogenic tank for a moment, retrieving a Laser Pulse Kill-o-matic 3000 and motioned for Roderigo to open his hatch and let him aboard. Roderigo complied, then turned to Iago.
"They are at the Planet X Hotel, I think." Iago replied to the unspoken question.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Brabantio shouted. "Let's go!"
Roderigo pulled away from the building and drove towards the Planet X. Iago pulled out more slowly, twisting knobs and pushing buttons on a large and brightly lit control panel. Unbeknownst to Roderigo and Brabantio, Iago had recently had a teleportation device installed in his car. With the co- ordinates input, Iago smiled to himself before pressing a large red button and disintegrating into several billion tiny particles.
".And that dog Roderigo went over and woke Brabantio up and told him you'd be here with Desdemona." Iago concluded in a most hurt and outraged tone. He and Othello were standing on the multitude of stars on the carpet in the hall of the Planet X Hotel. "I'm only telling you this as a concerned friend."
A look of gratitude passed over one of Othello's faces. The other looked quietly confident. It was this head that spoke, saying, "I'm glad you came to warn me, but I don't think I need to be worried. I am the general of the armed forces of the entire Earth, after all."
"Yes, but Brabantio was really angry. I don't know what he might do."
At that moment a panel in the seamless wall behind them slid open, revealing a LCD screen. Both of Othello's heads swung around to face it as Cassio's face appeared on the screen.
"Othello," Cassio said in a highly officious tone, "You are required by the President. She needs to see you right now."
"But how." Each of Othello's heads swivelled in an opposite direction.
"How did you know where he was?" Iago finished for him.
"Big Brother is always watching." Cassio winked at them.
Othello's questions were cut off by the sound of heavy footfalls. Brabantio rounded a corner in the corridor and levelled his Laser Pulse Kill-o-matic 3000 at Othello's left head.
The unfortunate left head stared mesmerised at the barrel of the huge gun. His right head spoke. "Now just calm down."
"What have you done with my daughter?" Brabantio was red in the face and shouting. "You must have hypnotised her with some kind of new mind control device! I'm going to arrest you and have you sent to one of those prisons on Pluto!" The cheeks of Othello's left face paled slightly, but his right head stayed calm.
"I don't want to fight you. At the moment I've got a meeting I need to be at." The right head said calmly. His left head collected it's wits enough to nod. Cassio's smiling face on the LCD screen confirmed the fact.
"Fine, but we'll come with you." That being said, Brabantio lowered his gun and followed Othello out to his car.
The President was sitting in the 457th floor of the elaborately decorated parliamentary building. She was sitting at a large round table, along with all the senators. She eyed each of the senators in turn before speaking.
"So are there Andromedan warships headed for the Pleiades, or aren't there?" She asked.
"We're receiving conflicting reports," replied one of the senators, "And the Universal Tracking System is down, so we can't be sure."
"What happened to the UTS this time?" Asked the President, suppressing a sigh. She glanced at the science advisor who was sinking lower in his chair and pretending he wasn't there. "Well." She prompted.
"Um. I think one of our leading scientists might have. um."
"What?" She roared. The President hated talking of war and was getting impatient.
".Spilled coffee all over the hard disc." He squeaked his conclusion.
"We'll have to send someone to take control of the Pleiades for a while. Who should go?"
"How about Montano?" One voice piped up.
"No, no. He has no experience."
"Othello, then. He's experienced." Another senator suggested.
"Yes, he's good." Agreed the President.
At that moment Othello walked in, followed by Cassio, Roderigo, Iago and the dishevelled looking Brabantio.
"Othello, we need you to help us fight the Andromedans." The President began, only then noticing Brabantio. "Oh, Brabantio, where've you been?"
"Me? Where have I been? Only off having my daughter stolen from me while I was asleep!" Brabantio roared.
"Stolen?" Inquired the President.
"Yes. Stolen. By this man here; this mutant." He said, wildly gesticulating in the direction of one of Othello's heads. "He used some sort of mind control device or subliminal messages or something and forced my daughter to marry him!"
"Is this true?" The President asked Othello.
"No! Call Desdemona." His left head exclaimed with conviction. "She'll tell you," continued his right head, "That all the things I told her about my adventures got her interested in me." "And we're in love!" Concluded his left head.
The President ordered for a video call to be placed to Desdemona's room at the Planet X Hotel. When the call was connected the surface of the table rippled and the plain black was replaced with the image of Desdemona's roller clad head. The senators leaned forward, eagerly awaiting Desdemona's side of the story. The science advisor pulled one of the senators aside and whispered that it was better than reality TV.
"Your father tells us Othello used some sort of mind control on you to make you marry him. Is this true?" Asked the President.
"Of course not!" Desdemona said, hastily removing curlers from her hair. "I love you, dad, but I also love Othello."
"Good. Next order of business." Said the President, relieved. "Othello, we're sending you to the Pleiades to help with the war effort."
"All the way to the Pleiades?" Desdemona squeaked. "I want to go with him!"
The president looked to Othello, who mouthed the word 'please'.
"Ok. You can go on Iago's ship. You'll be expected at the space port bright and early." With that the president dismissed them.
Iago and Roderigo found themselves alone on the way to their cars. After a long silence Roderigo suddenly turned and bashed his head against a wall.
"What am I going to do now? Desdemona's married!" He wailed.
"Let me tell you," Iago said conspiratorially, "As long as you've got plenty of Earth dollars, Desdemona will still get along with you. Follow her to the Pleiades. There's bound to be room for one extra person on one of the ships."
Roderigo smiled gratefully and got into his car. Left alone, Iago began to ponder rumours about his wife, Emilia. "People say she's been sleeping with that mutant." He began muttering to himself. "Well I'll show him. I'll show him for giving Cassio a promotion and sleeping with my wife. I'll tell him Desdemona's sleeping with Cassio. He'll believe me. Both his heads are gullible and he trusts me." Just then a cleaning robot rolled past him.
"Talking to yourself is a sign of madness, you know." It's metallic voice droned at him. Blushing, he got into his car and flew off.
Roderigo and Iago zipped along side by side in their Carbon Anti-gravity Repositioning Systems (more commonly known as CARS). They were at an altitude of 3000 feet, weaving between the skyscrapers of the planet Earth. Roderigo transmitted a message to his car from the chip implanted in his frontal lobe, telling it to go on autopilot so he could concentrate on his conversation with Iago, with whom he was at that moment speaking to on his mobile phone. The car had been nagging him about using a mobile phone and driving for several minutes.
"Anything to get you to shut up," Roderigo muttered under his breath.
"What?" Came Iago's indignant reply.
"No, not you. The car." He sighed. "Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. I thought you said you hated Othello."
"I do. I hate him. If he was here right now I'd spit in both his faces! How could he promote that idiot Cassio instead of me? A man that's never even shot down a battle drone in deep space instead of me? I hate his mutated guts!"
"Then why cover up his dirty little secret?" Asked Roderigo, pressing a few buttons to make the skin of his car translucent in time to see Iago do the same.
"You think I'm covering up the fact that the mutant has gone off and married Brabantio's daughter?" Iago glared at Roderigo, who gave the tiniest of nods. "Ha! I would never do anything for that two-headed freak unless it suited my plans to do so."
Roderigo's left eyebrow rose slightly. "Oh yeah?"
"Well, why don't we go tell Brabantio where his daughter is right now?" Without another word they each regained control of their cars and veered off in the direction of Brabantio's cryogenic sleeping facility.
Within minutes they were outside the large building that housed, among other things, Brabantio's sleeping place. Hovering outside his window, Iago instructed his in-car computer to make contact with the building's computer and terminate Brabantio's sleep period early. After several minutes of thawing Brabantio's window became translucent and he glared out angrily at the two men hovering outside his window. Iago and Roderigo docked their cars with the building and established an audio connection with Brabantio's room.
"What is the meaning of this?" Brabantio shouted. "Why have you hooligans disturbed my rest?"
"My apologies. We came to tell you that you've been robbed." Said Iago.
"Robbed? What's all this about robbery?" Brabantio slurred, still drowsy from the cryogenic freezing process.
"Your daughter, Brabantio. Othello has stolen your daughter!"
"What? No, my Desdemona is still sleeping in her cryo chamber."
"Send a droid to check." Said Iago, watching as Brabantio called for a droid and instructed it. Seconds later the droid returned and delivered the news that Desdemona was indeed not in her chamber.
"What's going on?" Brabantio asked. "Where is my daughter?"
"With Othello." Roderigo answered him. Brabantio fumbled around in his cryogenic tank for a moment, retrieving a Laser Pulse Kill-o-matic 3000 and motioned for Roderigo to open his hatch and let him aboard. Roderigo complied, then turned to Iago.
"They are at the Planet X Hotel, I think." Iago replied to the unspoken question.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Brabantio shouted. "Let's go!"
Roderigo pulled away from the building and drove towards the Planet X. Iago pulled out more slowly, twisting knobs and pushing buttons on a large and brightly lit control panel. Unbeknownst to Roderigo and Brabantio, Iago had recently had a teleportation device installed in his car. With the co- ordinates input, Iago smiled to himself before pressing a large red button and disintegrating into several billion tiny particles.
".And that dog Roderigo went over and woke Brabantio up and told him you'd be here with Desdemona." Iago concluded in a most hurt and outraged tone. He and Othello were standing on the multitude of stars on the carpet in the hall of the Planet X Hotel. "I'm only telling you this as a concerned friend."
A look of gratitude passed over one of Othello's faces. The other looked quietly confident. It was this head that spoke, saying, "I'm glad you came to warn me, but I don't think I need to be worried. I am the general of the armed forces of the entire Earth, after all."
"Yes, but Brabantio was really angry. I don't know what he might do."
At that moment a panel in the seamless wall behind them slid open, revealing a LCD screen. Both of Othello's heads swung around to face it as Cassio's face appeared on the screen.
"Othello," Cassio said in a highly officious tone, "You are required by the President. She needs to see you right now."
"But how." Each of Othello's heads swivelled in an opposite direction.
"How did you know where he was?" Iago finished for him.
"Big Brother is always watching." Cassio winked at them.
Othello's questions were cut off by the sound of heavy footfalls. Brabantio rounded a corner in the corridor and levelled his Laser Pulse Kill-o-matic 3000 at Othello's left head.
The unfortunate left head stared mesmerised at the barrel of the huge gun. His right head spoke. "Now just calm down."
"What have you done with my daughter?" Brabantio was red in the face and shouting. "You must have hypnotised her with some kind of new mind control device! I'm going to arrest you and have you sent to one of those prisons on Pluto!" The cheeks of Othello's left face paled slightly, but his right head stayed calm.
"I don't want to fight you. At the moment I've got a meeting I need to be at." The right head said calmly. His left head collected it's wits enough to nod. Cassio's smiling face on the LCD screen confirmed the fact.
"Fine, but we'll come with you." That being said, Brabantio lowered his gun and followed Othello out to his car.
The President was sitting in the 457th floor of the elaborately decorated parliamentary building. She was sitting at a large round table, along with all the senators. She eyed each of the senators in turn before speaking.
"So are there Andromedan warships headed for the Pleiades, or aren't there?" She asked.
"We're receiving conflicting reports," replied one of the senators, "And the Universal Tracking System is down, so we can't be sure."
"What happened to the UTS this time?" Asked the President, suppressing a sigh. She glanced at the science advisor who was sinking lower in his chair and pretending he wasn't there. "Well." She prompted.
"Um. I think one of our leading scientists might have. um."
"What?" She roared. The President hated talking of war and was getting impatient.
".Spilled coffee all over the hard disc." He squeaked his conclusion.
"We'll have to send someone to take control of the Pleiades for a while. Who should go?"
"How about Montano?" One voice piped up.
"No, no. He has no experience."
"Othello, then. He's experienced." Another senator suggested.
"Yes, he's good." Agreed the President.
At that moment Othello walked in, followed by Cassio, Roderigo, Iago and the dishevelled looking Brabantio.
"Othello, we need you to help us fight the Andromedans." The President began, only then noticing Brabantio. "Oh, Brabantio, where've you been?"
"Me? Where have I been? Only off having my daughter stolen from me while I was asleep!" Brabantio roared.
"Stolen?" Inquired the President.
"Yes. Stolen. By this man here; this mutant." He said, wildly gesticulating in the direction of one of Othello's heads. "He used some sort of mind control device or subliminal messages or something and forced my daughter to marry him!"
"Is this true?" The President asked Othello.
"No! Call Desdemona." His left head exclaimed with conviction. "She'll tell you," continued his right head, "That all the things I told her about my adventures got her interested in me." "And we're in love!" Concluded his left head.
The President ordered for a video call to be placed to Desdemona's room at the Planet X Hotel. When the call was connected the surface of the table rippled and the plain black was replaced with the image of Desdemona's roller clad head. The senators leaned forward, eagerly awaiting Desdemona's side of the story. The science advisor pulled one of the senators aside and whispered that it was better than reality TV.
"Your father tells us Othello used some sort of mind control on you to make you marry him. Is this true?" Asked the President.
"Of course not!" Desdemona said, hastily removing curlers from her hair. "I love you, dad, but I also love Othello."
"Good. Next order of business." Said the President, relieved. "Othello, we're sending you to the Pleiades to help with the war effort."
"All the way to the Pleiades?" Desdemona squeaked. "I want to go with him!"
The president looked to Othello, who mouthed the word 'please'.
"Ok. You can go on Iago's ship. You'll be expected at the space port bright and early." With that the president dismissed them.
Iago and Roderigo found themselves alone on the way to their cars. After a long silence Roderigo suddenly turned and bashed his head against a wall.
"What am I going to do now? Desdemona's married!" He wailed.
"Let me tell you," Iago said conspiratorially, "As long as you've got plenty of Earth dollars, Desdemona will still get along with you. Follow her to the Pleiades. There's bound to be room for one extra person on one of the ships."
Roderigo smiled gratefully and got into his car. Left alone, Iago began to ponder rumours about his wife, Emilia. "People say she's been sleeping with that mutant." He began muttering to himself. "Well I'll show him. I'll show him for giving Cassio a promotion and sleeping with my wife. I'll tell him Desdemona's sleeping with Cassio. He'll believe me. Both his heads are gullible and he trusts me." Just then a cleaning robot rolled past him.
"Talking to yourself is a sign of madness, you know." It's metallic voice droned at him. Blushing, he got into his car and flew off.