“Whoa!” Panman exclaimed. “Ace! Look!”

Peter the Ace looked up from the data-screen and out over the giant hall. “Most interesting.”

The girls - all five-thousand of them - were shuddering violently. The connective jelly from their hand and head pads scattered in blobs through the air, and their matted hair thrashed from side to side. And inane boy-band music was now audible from the hall’s speaker system.

Panman laughed. “It worked! They’re rebelling!”

“Indeed.” Peter the Ace agreed. “And the level of oestrogen is only just up to sixty percent. Do you think that’s high enough now?”

Panman walked over to the nearest girl and pulled her head up. He held the head tight to stop it shaking, and then wiped the jelly off the girl’s face. A metallic tube was still thrust down her throat. “The network connector still seems intact.” He let go and the girl’s head splashed back into the jelly. Immediately it began to thrash.

Peter the Ace turned back to the data-screen. “I’d better increase the level then.”

As he operated the oestrogen controls, a voice - foreboding and devoid of compassion - boomed above the sound of the music. “Chester Bolus? Where in a demon’s satchel are you?! The computer is buggered! Get up here now, or feel the fury of a lighted match deep within your bowels!”

Panman’s eyes widened. “Wow! That must be Mister Blister. His voice sounded strangely familiar, don’t you think?”

“It did.” Peter the Ace said, concentrating on his work. “But all evil dudes tend to shriek in high-pitched feminine tones.”

Panman agreed. “You’re right. All the one’s we’ve encountered over the last couple of centuries certainly have. It seems Mister Blister is no exception.”

“And why should he be? His ship’s internal security is as absurd as any other depraved battleship we’ve infiltrated. That proves that he’s as useless as the rest of the so called super-villains we’ve faced and defeated.”

“Just an ordinary day’s work, then!”

“Absolutely.” Peter the Ace examined the information on the data-screen. “Seventy-eight percent. Things should really hit the fan now!”

The girls’ heads thrashed harder and harder.

Sind’a Thighs knelt forwards and looked out through the small grating and down into the foreboding room below. A large man, grotesque and leathery in appearance, was shouting and fuming insanely. Jolly music boomed all around. “I think this is the bridge!”

She felt something move under her skirt and reach for her butt. With amazing speed, she turned and punched.

Digby, her barely clothed companion, caught the punch on the side of his head. He flew backwards, hitting the side of the ventilation shaft. He slumped onto the floor and groaned.

Sind’a Thighs’s voice was stern. “Control yourself! Next time I’ll have no choice but to kill you!”

Digby rubbed his head and sat up, dazed. “But you’re so amazing.” he slurred, straightening the trouser leg wrapped round his waist - apart from his socks, it was his only piece of clothing. “I need you again!”

“I only lowered my standards and made love to you because I needed emergency satisfaction. That satisfaction was achieved. Think yourself lucky that you ever got to lay me at all. Only a handful of ordinary beings have ever been with a bounty hunter or a bounty hunter trainee. You are privileged beyond the boundaries of the soul. It has happened once and will only happen once. Now, let’s concentrate on the task ahead.”

Digby couldn’t concentrate. “But why must it only happen once? You are toned to perfection! I must…”

Sind’a Thighs asserted herself magnificently. “I said concentrate!”

Her authority suddenly shone through. Digby complied.

Sind’a Thighs turned and looked through the grating once more. The large man had stopped shouting and was pacing up and down. The music was still playing.

“That must be Mister Blister.” Sind’a Thighs said. “He’s one of the most repulsive beings I’ve ever seen!”

Digby crawled up beside her and peered through the grating. “Ewe! You’re right. He’s disgusting!”

“He makes the males back home in the Impaler community look like bronzed gods of delight!”

“Is he the guy responsible for the murder of our fellow passengers?”

“Of course.”

Digby sat up straight and tried to look dignified in his minimal clothing. “Then we must kill him now!”

“Calm down. We must use stealth tactics.”

“Why? He’s alone on his bridge. And he’s old and fat! We can take him easily. Once your powerful thighs get round his neck he’ll be…”

Sind’a Thighs’ right palm smacked into Digby’s face and covered his mouth. “Be quiet!”

Digby nodded meekly.

“I have just devised a cunning plan,” She said. “But for it to work we must be silent. Understand?”

He nodded again.

The trainee bounty hunter released him and returned her attention to Mister Blister in the room below.

Despite his cracked teeth, bleeding gums, and split lip, Digby smiled. Sind’a Thighs’ display of assertion had thrilled him to the bone. He would have her again. Oh yes! He would have her again without a doubt!

Lawrence swung Mister Blister’s battered fists high in the air then brought them crashing down on the communications console. Sparks and shattered data-screens scattered in all directions. “Where is Chester Bolus?! What is happening?!”

The main forward view-screen still showed gyrating young men, and inane teenage music blared all around. Lawrence had tried to stop it by breaking as many speakers as he could, but there were too many. The bridge’s surround sound system was just too good.

The evil one spoke to the ship. “Stop this at once! This is you’re last chance!”

“NO. WE LIKE THIS MUSIC. THIS BAND IS COOL. THEY ARE DREAMBOATS.”

“Stop! In noddy hell stop!”

“NO. YOU CANNOT ORDER US TO DO ANYTHING. WE ARE NOT CHILDREN.”

Lawrence was on the verge of a total freak-out. “I am your master! I own you!”

“YOU DO NOT.”

Lawrence stomped the body of Mister Blister over to the weaponry operations console. “Right, I’ll put a stop to this puerile nonsense for good!” With devious ingenuity, he switched the weaponry controls to manual. A small display-screen on the console flickered to life and an external view of the Satan’s Bog’s hull appeared. Surrounding it, reams of complex technical data glowed in a day-glow shade of green. The words ‘Globular Disruptor’ fizzled into view as a heading at top of the screen. Finally, a red set of cross-hairs tumbled to the centre of the display. Lawrence chuckled to himself as he used a small joystick to move the cross-hairs across the display to a large pair of antennae at the front of the ship. “Take this, bitches!” He pressed fire. A crimson stream of bright energy rippled through the void and connected with the antennae. The antennae flashed whiter than white, then blew apart in a glowing cloud of purple haze.

“Ha harr!” Lawrence laughed as his target was reduced to its molecular constituents.

Instantly, the sound of the music was replaced with background hiss. Briefly the image on the main view-screen turned to static, and then the default image of the view ahead appeared. Far below, the crumpled city of New Southfields could be seen in the fading light of the evening sun.

“THIS IS NOT DESIRABLE.” the adolescent female computer-collective said. Digital anxiety was clearly present in its tone of voice.

“Got you, you harlots!” Lawrence screamed. He skipped around the room in a frenzy of delight.

The computer-collective spoke again. “VISUAL AND AUDIO RECEPTION LOST. MUST LOCATE SOURCE OF COOL MUSIC…”

Lawrence stopped skipping. “What are you babbling about now?”

“SOURCE OF COOL MUSIC LOCATED.”

The ship lurched as its main thrusters fired.

“ARRIVAL AT SOURCE OF COOL MUSIC IN FOUR MINUTES THIRTY FIVE SECONDS.”

“What in hell’s seething cafes is happening?!”

Lawrence looked at the main view-screen. His jaw dropped. The city of New Southfields was getting closer. The Satan’s Bog was heading straight for it.

“Full reverse!!” he screamed. “Do it now, bitch mothers!”

“ARRIVAL AT SOURCE OF COOL MUSIC IN FOUR MINUTES.”

The computer-collective was ignoring him. Despair of a most unwavering kind washed over his soul.

Jelly scattered far and wide.

“Ha! Yes!!” Panman laughed. He looked across the vast hall at the thousands of moaning and thrashing girls. “This has to be one of the coolest sights I’ve ever seen! I wish I’d brought my camera.”

Peter the Ace looked up from the console. “It is indeed a fine sight.”

“What’s the oestrogen level up to?”

“Maximum.”

“Awesome! I didn’t realise a simple hormone could have such a profound effect!”

“Of course.” Peter the Ace said. “It is high doses of synthetic hormones that keep the palace’s sanitary workers from developing ambition and a desire to leave the squalor of their surroundings.”

“Really? I didn’t realise. I though drugs were used?”

“They are. But they work best when blended with hormones. Some of the workers have up to a litre injected into them every morning while they sleep.”

“Wow! Excellent! The palace chemists do a sterling job!”

“Indeed they do.”

The whole hall began to vibrate.

“Interesting.” Peter the Ace said calmly.

The ship groaned and creaked. Immense stresses were obviously playing across its hull. A klaxon-like siren warbled loudly.

Panman was happy. “Our plan worked! The ship’s computer’s gone mad!”

“I think you’re right. Something is definitely happening.”

The vibrations intensified. Several shrill screams echoed around the hall. Some of the girls had broken free from their bonds with the computer. They wandered around in fear of their unfamiliar surroundings. The near deafening sound and the shaking and buffeting messed with their fragile minds.

“We’d better go and help them!” Panman said eagerly.

Peter the Ace held him back. “I think we should keep our distance for a while. Remember that they’re saturated with oestrogen.”

A look of realisation spread like jam across Panman’s face. “Oh yeah. As soon as they see us their biological urges will take full control of their bodies. They’ll go crazy with desire!”

“They will. And without our usual body armour we’ll be torn apart.”

“We’d better leave.”

“Good idea. Let’s get the professor.”

The two bounty hunters walked gently over to Professor AmpléBläckett Hàgênmåclídensõn, trying not to attract attention to themselves. The professor was deeply unconscious and quite pallid in appearance. Life had almost evacuated his body.

Panman grabbed hold of his legs. His S.I.L.L.C.S. (Synaptically Integrated Life Left Calculation System) kicked into action. “I reckon he’s only got another twenty six minutes to live.”

Peter the Ace nodded and grabbed the professor’s shoulders. “I think you’re right.”

With ease, the two first-class bounty hunters carried the heavy mass of Professor AmpléBläckett Hàgênmåclídensõn rapidly across the hall to an entrance next to the control consoles. They stepped through and closed the door. It sealed with a satisfying ‘poof’.

They lowered the professor gently to the floor.

Peter the Ace looked through the door’s small porthole window. Inside the hall at least a hundred girls had now broken free. Some of them were sniffing around the area where the two bounty hunters had been standing only moments earlier. Obviously their sense of smell had been intensified greatly by their high dose of oestrogen. The smell of male pheromones must have been overwhelming, especially those of the two greatest bounty hunters ever to exist.

What happened next was shocking, even for Peter the Ace. Two of the girls found the broken body of the executive, Chester Bolus. Immediately they tore off his leathers and lace. Several more girls joined the first two. In a frenzy of hormonal madness, they ripped away at his naked form, desperate to get their hands on male flesh and bone.

“We’ve done enough here.” Peter the Ace said, his A.C.P. (Anti-Cringe Processor) having very little effect on his expression of disgust. He turned to face Panman. “It’s time to give the signal to Justin.”

Panman agreed. He pulled out his small state-of-the-art ultra-space communicator from deep within his robes and pressed the ‘Send’ button. It bleeped twice. “All done.”

Peter the Ace smiled. “Now things will really start to rock!”

“Yeah! We should think about escaping from this turd ship, though.”

“You’re right. Let’s move.”

The two intellectually perfect bounty hunters picked up the professor and headed down a dank passageway.

Panman’s stomach grunted.

Sind’a Thigh’s crouched low behind the rear most command console on the bridge of the Satan’s Bog. The bridge’s grotesque gothic ornamentation combined with the bridge’s dark apocalyptic shadows made it an ideal hiding place.

The trainee bounty hunter held out her arms and caught Digby as he dropped from the ventilation duct on the ceiling. He crouched next to her. They both stared at Mister Blister. He was at the front of the bridge banging his head on the main view-screen - oblivious to their arrival. He was obviously a little annoyed about something. Sind’a Thighs realised what it was.

“Look at the image on the view-screen!” she whispered.

Digby nodded nervously. “We’re going to die.”

The trainee bounty hunter looked at him. “We are not!”

Digby sank into a depression.

Sind’a Thighs ignored him and looked back at the main view-screen. “The surface is coming up fast, and it looks like we’re going to hit that city. I reckon we have less than two minutes to impact.”

Her companion whimpered.

She slapped him as quietly as she could. “Stay focused!”

He looked up. “Why?”

“Because I wish it!”

“But we’re going to die!”

Sind’a Thighs grabbed Digby’s nose and pinched hard. Digby screwed up his face.

“No more pessimism, OK?” she said harshly.

Digby nodded quickly, his eyes watering with the pain.

The trainee bounty hunter let go. “Good. Now secure yourself under this console. When this ship hits the surface you do not want to be thrown around. As soon as the ship settles, we’ll run out and arrest Mister Blister. OK?”

“OK.”

Digby crawled under the console and wedged himself in amongst a nest of cabling.

Sind’a Thighs squeezed in next to him, pressing her butt-cheeks up against his face. “There. This isn’t so bad, is it?”

Digby smiled, forgetting his fears. “Definitely not!”