And the Blood Flowed Green

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First published 2012 by The O’Brien Press Limited

12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar, Dublin 6, Ireland

Tel: +353 1 492 3333; Fax: +353 1 492 2777

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.obrien.ie

ISBN: 978-1-84717-257-0

Copyright for text, illustrations and layout design © Alan Nolan 2012

Copyright for editing © The O’Brien Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording or in any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing form from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A Catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

12 13 14 15 16

The O’Brien Press receives assistance from

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

The paper used in this book is produced using pulp from managed forests

For Lizzie Bun


3

Damage

Report

Motorfunction:0.07%

Corememory: Intact

Powerlevel:Critical

Switching

toreservebattery

Heh.

Youknow, I

wouldn't

beinthisso

rrymess

ifI h

adn't

eatenWinifred’s

cupcake...

Initialisingsoftwarereboot

Rebootcomplete


4

I’d been seeing Winniefor a few months and

she was always enteringbaking competitions.

I’m still workingon the follow up.

Eight years later...

You see, I had this onebook in me, and then myinspiration sort of...

...dried up.

A bit like myrelationshipwith Winnie.

In fairness, I thoughtshe’d made thecupcake for me.

It WAS decoratedwith stars andhad a little

spaceship on it.That’s what

I do, you see.

I write sciencefiction books.

Well, I’ve written ONEscience fiction book -‘Milky Way Memoirs’.

Have you read it?Thought not. Notmany people did.

It’s the story of a lostspaceman trying to findhis way back to earth.Pretty ironic given mycurrent predicament.

No, I’m not anastronaut. Well,not THEN anyway.

Get out!

You selfish,lazy, bone-idle, dirty-

lookin’ eejit.My Ma wasright about

you! Get out!

Seems the cupcake wasn’t for me after all.


5

That night I foundmyself RELAXING inone of dear oldDublin City’s

COOLEST spots...

Prodded, poked and probed.Not great fun, to be honest.

They told me I was beingassessed for inclusion insome sort of giant alienzoo they were planning.

I half expectedto fail the test...

It was tobe a majortourist

attraction inthe galacticSpiral. Onlythe best

specimensof each ofthe galaxy’s

specieswould beon show.

The funny thing isI wasn’t even scared.

What do theycall it? Alienabduction?

I’d writtenabout this

sort of thingin my book.I knew the

drill.

... St Stephen’s Green.In fact it was so cool

it was freezing.

But I didn’t have to worryabout that for too long.

@$%&%&^@?@!


6

And that’s how I found myself here.

The aliens were quite apologetic...

But that didn’t stop themmarooning me on this

backwater planet seventy-five light years from Earthwith only a translatorrobot for company.

That’s himself there.My very own

Remote UNiversalTranslator.

RUNT, I call him.

WORKS FOR MY FRIENDS,TOO, WHICH IS GREAT

He translates all thedifferent alien languages

directly into my headusing some sort of

advanced robot telepathy.

He’s a bit like a travelguide as well, has loadsof facts and figures andall that. He’s quite handy

to have, really.

And myself?The name’s Mulligan.Marion Mulligan.

Don’t ask.

Let’s just say my Ma wasa big John Wayne fanand cowboy movie fanand my Da had a funnysense of humour.

My friends call meMick, or usuallyjust Mulligan.

But around here,friends are inshort supply.

Can’t understand aword he says, though.

*SIGH*

00111001100010011111010111


HavenCoordinates 13.156.479.22

4th planet in the Baker system

Class 3

Nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere

Travel advice:

Don’t bother, you really won’t like it.Grade:

flotsamGovernment determined that they didn’t

particularly want the new planet after all, and so

Haven became a haven for many different races

of transient alien lifeforms, most of whom are

either down on their luck with no place else to go,

or in trouble and on the run. Mostly barren

desert, Haven boasts only one noteworthy

township: the ‘city’ of Flotsam, and has no central

government or law.

The planet of Haven, in the forgotten outer rim of

the western spiral arm of the MilkyWay Galaxy, was

named after the being who discovered it, Tremell

Haven, and was claimed in the name of his home

planet Thanis.

Haven was an unoccupied planet with no

indigenous population of its own and seemed ripe

for exploitation by the resource-greedy Thanisians.

However, after some preliminary explorations

which showed up no significant deposits of

minerals or precious metals, the Thanisian


8

So that’s the story, Rory.

Stranded in Flotsam City on the planet Haven.

And it was just as much of a kipas RUNT suggested it would be.

I got a job as a barman at oneof the cantinas on Flotsam’s

main (and only) street.

The pay was lousy, the hourswere terrible and the

clientele was dog rough.

I think that’s whyI worked there.It reminded

me of Dublin.

Here we go, fellers- seven bunyips.

Read ‘em and weep.


9

Well, mostly clean...

Heh heh. Just like beingat home in Croke Park...

Seven bunyips??i say you cheatin’,

Gilly!

Cool it, Fibbian. We don’twant any trouble, I run

a clean bar here.

You want trouble?We’ll give you

trouble hu-man. we have a noguns policy inthis bar, fibbian!

Woah, Mulligan!Not again!!

Sorry about,Deejay, I couldnever resist anopen goal.

Croooaaak.

Me an’ mylaz-ooka!


10

Trouble,Mulligan! No thanks,

Crk, I’ve justhad some.

Same as last time - he’slost big on the BamBamracing. Can’t pay. He’s

been locked up.

Brinner.I hearhe’s

going tomake anexampleof him.

Gambling again?? Who’sgot him this time?

At dawn, Zeebo’shistory!

Okay, we’d better roll.

It’sZeebo,Mully.

Of courseit is. What’she donenow?

Bad news. There wasno law on Haven, butBrinner wasn’t abovedishing out his ownbrand of justice.

He was the localwarlord, a low

rent hoodlum withhis own paid militia.He had a reputationfor shooting first,shooting again,

and not botheringwith asking

questions later.

Not the kind of alienyou’d want to introduceto your Auntie Doreen.

Not unless you didn’tlike your Auntie Doreen.

Oh, how I wish I couldget off this planet...


11

I got Gilly to look after the cantina and headed out into theBrush with Crk on a couple of junker bikes from Crk’s bike shop.

Brinner’s compound was 12 kliks south of Flotsam City.

Crk was a computer genius, made forbetter things than fixing up junker bikes.

He wanted to get home just as much as I did.

Crk-Tish-Crrrkkk

Species: Azurian

Home Planet: Azur

Azurians are semi-amphibious beings, equally at

home on land or in water, which is convenient as

their home planet Azur is made from pure water.

Azurians breathe through hidden gills and

communicate by whistling and clicking their “face

fingers”.

Crk is an atypical Azurian in that he has chosen

to leave his home planet which is under constant

attack by water pirates intent on stealing the

precious liquid to sell to the highest bidders.Skriiichans are descended from birds, and retain

vestigal feathers. Loud and boorish, Zeebo’s race

have a reputation for being petty thieves with

a weakness for ‘collecting’ and hoarding shiny

objects such as gemstones or coins.

zeebo Obeez

Species: Skriiichan

Home Planet:

Quilly’s World

The forest planet

of Quilly’s World

is home to two

sentient races,

the Skriiichans

and their mortal

enemies, the rodent-like Soorans.

Crk

a Sooran


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And the Blood Flowed Green