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The Captain Priestess relaxes as she sips Boravian bloodwine and savours the pedicure from the replacement service drone. Life is sweet, life is easy, life slipping into an alcoholic haze. Suddenly, an ear-shattering klaxon rends the air around her.
"Identitify and report!" she snarls at the cowering droid.
"It's the panic alarm in the quarters of the ex-Emperor Bizunth, your regal scrumptiousness, ma'am."
"What does the old fool want now?"
"Unknown at this time, your incandescant radiance. Perhaps we should investigate?"
"Possibly. The last time it went off, he'd lost his rubber ducky." Reaching a decision, she picks up the remaining flagon and heads for the corridor. "You'd better stay here and work on your grovelling."
The Imperial cabin is in chaos on her arrival. Lackeys scurry around in a mixture of confusion, shock and - could it be - glee?
"What's going on? Where's your master ?" Before the minion can answer, a loud buzzing issues from the Imperial bathroom, the lights flicker out and the sweet aroma of roasted flesh fills the air. Racing to the other room, the Captain is greeted by a twisted corpse; its scrawny, senile features all too familiar.
"Sweet Mother of the Holy Ghost!" she gasps, considering resuscitation for the tiniest sliver of a second before relising that this might involved touching the wizedned and very obviously dead thing in front of her.
A tiny pool of grey matter puddles beside Bizunth's eggshell skull.
"They've sucked his brain, the fiends!" she cries, outraged. A minion humbly begs to report that no brain-sucking had taken place, but that was indeed all that was left of the old tyrant's grey matter.
"Why?" weeps the Captain Priestess, flailing at the walls before regaining her balance. "Why?"
Then she spots a rather familiar cheap magazine on the floor by Bizunth's jelly-bed.
"Oh. He was a Detective. Well, that would explain why." |
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