Fur Wars - Chapter 17

Somewhere in the black vacuum of space there exists a monster so terrible that it causes rivers to run dry, mountains to crumble, entire planets to explode, stars to disintegrate and galaxies to collapse. It is not a God, nor is it any type of demon. It is not the flying spaghetti monster, nor is it any type of multi-headed, fire breathing, poison spitting beast of the type that one might comfortably expect to encounter in a work of brutal horror science fiction.

Though the terrible creatures outlined briefly above do exist, the monster of all monsters, the root of all evil, has more subtle charms. Her beauty entrances all who behold her, yet this is not the source nor origin of her absolute power. Her power is derived not from immense strength, though she is strong of mind and body, nor is her power derived from trickery, though she is wily enough to confuse a dozen or more Rubiks of the fabled Cube fame. Her innate and absolute universal brutality comes from something far more intangible, it comes from an utter and complete antipathy towards everything. She does not hate and she does not love. She just does not care.

People thought her aloof as a small girl, but she wasn’t aloof, not one bit. She didn’t care enough to be aloof. A popularly held misconception was that she stopped caring when her parents were taken prisoner by Imperial forces, but in truth she just didn’t give a toss, not about her parents nor their worthy and noble Rebel Alliance. If the Empire released her dear old mamma and pappa she wouldn’t give a hoot. They won’t, of course, and she knows it.

There can be nothing in the universe more frightening than someone derived all emotions. They’re impossible to motivate and just as hard to scare, too nihilistic to be anarchistic, and too indifferent to care.

In the darkened gloom of the space station’s observation desk, the princess, dressed in white robes of satin and sumptuous furry earmuffs, cut something of an incongruous figure standing alongside the hunched and crooked Emperor Mong. His garments stinking of disease, his tattered cloak of patchwork skin draped from bony shoulders smeared the floor at his feet as he shuffled to and fro.

“Why are we waiting?” she said.
“I cannot be sure that Vim-to is on the planet,” said Mong, spitting the name of his Imperial Commander out as though the syllables’ existence were as unpalatable and repulsive as a mouthful of bloodied excrement, “his destroyer is in orbit, but my envoys on the ground are unsure whether or not he has landed.”
“But, why do we need to make him redundant anyway?”
“Because, my dear, with him out of the way, things will run a lot more smoothly,” argued an exasperated Mong. It was a line of argument that the ruler of the entire known universe was used to trotting out, and frankly, tyrants get bored very quickly of having to offer up reasons for their actions. Still, even tyrants can fall in love, so he continued, “this workplace has been fully operational for 165 million years. Now, you know as much as I do that it’s only got, at best, another couple of million years before its central star implodes. We’re insured up to the hilt with this place, so say there’s a little accident that causes the entire place to burn to the ground now, well we’d collect rather handsomely wouldn’t we?”
“But why kill Vimto?” asked the princess.
“Because, oh vampire of my dreams, we can make it look like it was all his fault can’t we? Plus, we’d get dual ownership of the business as soon as we got started up somewhere else. For the roses to prosper, the gardener must carry out a certain amount of pruning.”

The princess cocked her head to one side, “yeah but, who cares?” she said.
Mong’s eyeballs moved to the left, nothing else did though as he squinted at the princess, figuring a response at this juncture would prove as unnecessary as it would be exasperating.