Chapter 6

Shit! These runaway asteroids were getting to be a dime a dozen! The Center had detected that a gang of nefarious beings was in the process of directing an extremely large asteroid toward a planet inhabited by chlorine-breathers, and it looked like the intent was for total extinction. The asteroid was certainly large enough for that.

The plot was being carried out by shooting off explosive charges at the proper points on the surface of the asteroid so that it would be directed toward the planet in question. We knew nothing about the plot beyond what was obviously afoot, so it would be nice if we had someone to question. That meant that I couldn't just run around the planetoid, killing people right and left, because I might run out of people to interrogate.

Instead, the "Powers That Be" decided that I should land on the asteroid and capture one or more of the workers. Once that was done, I was free to kill everybody else and we would destroy the asteroid so that it could no longer be a threat to anybody.

With this in mind, several "improvements" had been made to my cyborg body. My skin had been modified to act as a spacesuit. On command, Honeybunch could make it impervious to gases and liquids, and the tensile strength was already high enough that it could withstand the internal pressure against the vacuum of space.

Secondly, my metabolism, such as it was, was modified so that I no longer had any reason to shit. That way, my rectum could be diverted into being a rocket nozzle. The fuel was helium which was produced by a specialized replicator and expelled under Honeybunch's control to transport me short distances through micro-gravity. Anytime I needed to shit, that same replicator would convert it into helium which could be stored as a future fuel for my asshole. How many people do you know who fart helium?

At my special request, the third finger on my right hand was converted to spray a knock-out gas which would work against all known oxygen-breathers, and many of those that used chlorine or ammonia. I didn't expect it to help me in this case, since all of my adversaries were wearing spacesuits. Nevertheless, I did feel better with that non-lethal alternative along.

As usual, I had stripped naked and retracted my cock and balls inside my body for convenience, so I was ready to go into action. I was transported to a spot in space ahead in the asteroid's projected trajectory so that I would not have to spend a lot of my scarce fuel to reach its surface. I was wearing a mask covering my mouth and nose, but, otherwise, my "skin" was completely exposed to the ravages of space.

Honeybunch was having fun with the moving dots of light as she made the stars appear to show through my skin. She was playing with the chameleon-effect of my camouflage and seemed to be having as much fun as a computer could have. Honeybunch, I would appreciate it if you would pay a little more attention directly to me. For one thing, I would hate to splat into the surface of that asteroid.

Oh, poo! You just want to interfere with my idle fun. Don't worry, Ham, I won't let anything happen to your precious skin. After all, I can't forget that anything bad that happens to you also happens to me.

OK, Honeybunch, but just don't let your mind wander too far. I am depending on you to take care of me.

With a few deft farts, Honeybunch landed me on the asteroid as gently as one could imagine, so I really had nothing to complain about. Frankly, that was what I was looking for! I had her increase my weight enough to make me stick to the asteroid in its almost non-existent gravity. I dropped to the ground and lay prone while I planned my next move.

While I was down, the gang had fired off a steering blast and were now checking to determine if it was enough to put them on the final course. This was not the kind of calculation that a simple hand-held computer could do, so they were depending on a precalculated course generated by a super computer before they ever left for this job. As it was, they still had a lot of calculations to do, along with some damned tricky celestial navigation.

There were 11 humanoids in the crew, and they were all wearing spacesuits, of course. If necessary, I could raise havoc with them by using my light machine gun to shoot holes in their spacesuits, and I might have to resort to that if I ran into trouble. I had originally planned to execute them with my plasma jet, but I had the option of the gun if that seemed more suitable.

The asteroid's surface was very rough and broken, so I was able to creep around without much fear of being discovered. I slithered up behind a jagged rock projection and watched the people at work. They were installing an especially large explosive charge in a crater. The crater may have been selected to aim the charge, or maybe it was just a convenient place to stack things, I had no way of knowing.

The asteroid had a very low rate of spin, and it looked to me like they were trying to slow it down even more. Not being much up on celestial mechanics, I didn't know why they would want to do that, but they were working hard at whatever they had in mind. My first duty was to stop the impact of the asteroid with the planet, so I figured that messing up this explosion was worth the effort, even if I had no idea what it was to accomplish.

I selected two of the people for questioning and decided to eliminate the rest. My plasma jet had been recently modified to have a setting for a pencil-sized beam up to about three klicks (kilometers) long, so I had Honeybunch set it for a pencil beam about 50 meters long. That would make it the proverbial hot knife through butter at 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The beam was not invisible, but it was thin enough that it would be hard to spot. My first target was the wires running to the explosive charge. I gave a couple of flicks of my finger to cut the wires in two places, making a repair more difficult. Once that was done, I was sure that the explosion was not going to happen on schedule.

There was no sound associated with my little sabotage, so I didn't attract attention with it. Nobody noticed the beam flicking by, so I had gained a few seconds of anonymity. My next action was to sweep my plasma jet around among the humanoids, cutting off heads at every opportunity. A lot of blood began to splatter about before it had a chance to freeze.

I killed those I had no further interest in and set out to capture the other two individuals. I picked up a rock and hurled it at one of my potential prisoners. He saw the rock coming and tried to jump out of the way, but the rock caught him on the hip. I had thrown the rock as hard as I could, so it was definitely a dangerous missile, and it appeared to strike my victim hard enough to break one or more bones. That put him out of the fight, at least temporarily.

Now I had to look into subduing the other one. He was running as fast as he could away from me, but he was having considerable difficulty in getting any purchase with his feet in the very low gravity. I filed the sight away in my memory for later laughter, but now I was all business. I jumped at the fleeing person and activated the helium jet coming from my asshole. By reducing my weight and inertia to the minimum, I accelerated toward the runner at an almost unbelievable rate. As soon as I caught up to him, I had Honeybunch raise my weight and inertia to maximum, and I was able to land on my feet in front of him without staggering. He bumped into me in surprise, but I grabbed him before he could escape.

He started to batter at my face with his fists, but he was wearing padded gloves, so he was not able to do any real damage. With my weight anchoring me in place, I was able to plant a fist in his solar plexus and take all of the fight out of him instantly. He didn't fall in the micro-gravity, but he did curl up into a ball as he tried to regain his breath.