I would recommend that you first read "The Same Ol' (Sci-Fi) Story" the first Herc Manly Adventure, but here is a brief intro for those who haven't:
Herc Manly (named for Hercules Poirot, a famous demi-God detective of massive strength, who lived in ancient time on a planet named Mt.Olympus,) is a former SpacNav Transport Officer, who is now a private intergalactic bulk-haul operator, willing to do daring, gasp.. perhaps even shady transports, if the price is right. His contractFem, Pussy, is a XoXoDackian fem, who has humo form, but is lavender colored, with a double vagina, and pseudo-breasts that can be used in a variety of kinky sexual practices. Herc returned home early after a long-haul, and discovered Pussy in a compromising position. Herc was about to declare their contract null and void, only to discover that Pussy truly loved only him, not to mention had compiled a file that the authorities would love to have, that would have put Herc away for at least 20 years. He and Pussy found a way to get past her indiscretion, and Pussy, to avoid being left alone at home for months at a time, trained and passed her exams to become Herc's executive officer. Now they travel together from one end of the galaxy to the other, never apart, well, almost never apart....
This is a story of one of those times, when Herc and Pussy found themselves parted!
The Diplo Mission on Grubvolk
Even I, Herc Manly, was having a hard time believing the importance of the mission that took me to planet Grubvolk. It was a diplo mission for SpacNav of plusHigh sensitivity and delicato nature. I had personally been requested by the planet's bigBoss, in this case the femRuler, (what the ancients used to call a 'Queens'),to assist her as she laid out the future of her people. I was in the hangaroundRoom of the big royalAbode of Grubvolk sitting, waiting around for my cue, to finally come face-to-face with the Queens.
At long last, the doors opened to the Queens's personal space, and I walked, manfully β need I say it β proud to be back in my old SpacNav uniform, into the room. There, from the dark as my eyes adjusted to the lower light level, came the voice, distorted thru the transSpeakBox, of the Queens.
"Ohhhhhh, manly Herc Manly. At last, you are finally in my contactPresence. Ohhhhhh, Herc, I pine, I long for your beautifullest elbowses, your prominent kknneeses, your protrubing mouthpart between your standing/walking/running parts. I am completely supine and flacid in the presence of your many handsomest angles of body. But especially, I yearn for your always firm breeding knob that protrudes above your mouthpiece!"
About that time, my eyes had adjusted to the low light, to the point that I was able to see the Queen of the Grubvolk. Then I, Herc Manly, survivor of pirates, scourge of scavengers, offender of bureaucrats, known throughout the galaxy for my exploits of daring-do, along with my XO (short for execOfficer, number two boss, you get the idea,) Pussy, well..
I sort of fainted. Fainted dead away.
It started several weeks before...
I had just returned from the S'Port where I had taken my small moonrunner out for a spin. I kept looking at that old coffee can, containing the freeze dried remains of my former XO, Thsam. I was hoping to quietly dump the thing, but every time I would get ready to eject it into space, there was a SpacCop waiting to trap the unwary speedster ("Hey, mac, where's the Sol flare? You were exceeding the posted limit in this intraplanetary zone by 10X!") or even worse, the litterer dumping his overfull wasteDisp tanks. I sure as heck didn't want to be pulled into court for littering a coffee can full of old XO remains!
So, it was in a less than happy mood that I returned to my abodeunit in the upscale citypod where I lived with my contractfem and XO, Pussy. Pussy and I (the story is told of our earlier contract difficulties in "The Same 'Ol (Sci-Fi) Story",) had returned from a long-haul transport, and we were taking about a solStandard month off, to rest and recoup, before taking another job from the transport zaibatsu.
I wandered towards the foodPrep area, and grabbed a brueski from the intsocool. I continued towards the stereoVid room, tearing off the top of the container, and pouring that blessed first swig of the elixir of life down the hatch. Curious, it seemed early for Pussy to be home, but I could hear the sound from our wall-to-wall stereoVid. I walked into the room.
Sitting there watching the local Whasgoingon was my former commander; brute, beast, blight of the SpacNav, Admiral LimbDirk, known to all of his crews (when out of his hearing range,) as Admiral LimpDick. He turned and looked at me and smiled, showing his oversized canine fangs, which left with the impression of the legendary oceanshark preparing to take a bite, and said,
"Nice stereoVid setup, Herc. The sort of thing that SpacNav officers can't afford, but you goldbricking, lazy loafer, trans Spacers can buy β after conning the SpacNav into training you and paying for your galacticLicense!"
As you can imagine, LimbDirk was a SpacNav lifer, who more or less carried a grudge against anyone who didn't think that the highest calling in the known Universe was to serve for life in the SpacNav, like him. And even better, you should be serving under his command.
I turned, in moment of extreme common sense and fear, and tried to egress the joint by the quickest escape pod I could find, but Limbdirk had anticipated my joy at seeing him once again. I found myself in the grasp of two of his SpacNav goons. From the stripes on their sleeves, a couple of lifer Master Chiefs β my bad luck. I was more or less certain that my feet were still running, but when you have been lifted off the floor, moving feet don't seem to work. The last thing I remembered for a long time, was the prick of the narconeedle into my neck, operated by the prick holding me up by my left shoulder.
When I awoke, even in my befuddled state, I could tell that I was already in deep space. I expected to be in a cell in the brig of a SpacNav Cruiser, but I seemed to be in an officer's quarters, much like that I had occupied while in my last years of servitude in the SpacNav. I reached up to where the illumination device should be, and there it was. I turned it on and looked around. Yup β I was in the spacious quarters of a midling officer: about 2 meters long, a meter wide, and about one-and-a-half meters tall. In other words, about half the size of a jail cell allotted to a petty criminal.
I was naked and cold, since I had only been covered with the standard SpacNav ultra-lightweight blanket, so I got out of the bunk, and lifted the ultra-thin, ultra-light pad that the SpacNav jokingly calls a 'mattress', and opened the drawer underneath. To my great surprise and suspicions, it was filled with SpacNav clothing and uniforms, in my exact sizes. It seemed to me that either 1.) they had been expecting me to be at least of couple of days before I actually arrived, or 2.) I had been drugged out of my mind for longer than I thought.
Looking at the contents of the drawer wasn't helping me, so instead I pulled out a pair of the overalls and felt slippers that SpacNav crews wore during their time in space, put them on, and opened the door between my cubical and the main passage of the ship. I wasn't especially surprised that the door was unlocked β where can you go to escape from a spacer? But I wasn't pleased to find two SpacNav Petty officers guarding my temporary abode. As I stepped out, one of them spoke.
"Get your ass up to da bridge, da Cap'n wonts to haf a word wid ya."