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  Praise for The Adventures of Duke LaGrange Series

  A raucous new kind of action hero—Flash Gordon, Jack Burton, and Buckaroo Banzai got nothing on Duke LaGrange.

  Marcus Muller, comic artist (King of the Unknown)

  For goofy grown up pulp readers and sci-fi geeks, it’s as much fun as a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

  Frank R. Sjodin, pulp author and 2017 Audio Verse Award winner

  [W]itty, fast-paced…[an] imaginative style of writing.

  Readers’ Favorite

  Other Books in The Adventures of Duke LaGrange

  By Jay Key

  How to Pick Up Women with a Drunk Space Ninja

  (Book I)

  How to Win at Pit Fighting with a Drunk Space Ninja

  (Book II)

  How to Save the Universe with a Drunk Space Ninja

  (Book III)

  How to Pick Up Women with a Drunk Space Ninja

  The Adventures of Duke LaGrange, Book I

  Jay Key

  How to Pick Up Women with a Drunk Space Ninja by Jay Key. Published by Star Wheel Books. © 2018 Jay Key. © 2018 Star Wheel Books.

  www.StarWheelBooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: [email protected].

  For information about special discounts available for bulk purchases or media coverage, contact [email protected].

  Edited by Tim Major. Proofread by Sasha Grossman. Cover illustration by Vojislav Vasiljevic. Book formatting by Vellum. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1-7326590-1-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-7326590-0-1 (e-book) ISBN 978-1-7326590-2-5 (hardcover)

  First edition.

  For Shelley, the universe’s most patient and understanding space ninja.

  Contents

  1. Cyborg Joe's

  2. Three-Headed Ice Wombats

  3. The Wrath of Sprinkles

  4. The Gooey Bits

  5. The Beeps and Blinks of Space Travel

  6. Buttons Where There Weren't No Buttons

  7. Boring Old Space

  8. Soufflés

  9. The Thing About Orbs

  10. A Library with Less Sex

  11. Ploob Kalarti

  12. Vanity Killed the Neprian

  13. Nineteen Paces

  14. Change of Plans

  15. Blindfolds

  16. Ruptured Eardrums

  17. Mr. Sharpshooter

  18. Uu'k's Day Job

  19. If a Person Has a Sword, Don't Call Him Stupid

  20. A Good Night's Sleep

  21. Universe's Best Ruler

  22. Welcome to Shud’nut

  23. A Skilled Politician

  24. Uncle Lo’n

  25. Neprian Wine

  26. Missed Meeting

  27. A Counter-Orb?

  28. A Garden Fertilized with Cotton Candy

  29. Fighting the Swamp

  30. Nice to See You Again

  31. A Thud in the Night

  32. Valley of the Grundar

  33. Camps

  34. Smuggler's Door

  35. For the Good Part of Neprius!

  36. Just a Villain

  37. Give Me Back My Sphere

  38. Forty-Eight Minutes

  39. Cyborg Joe's, Revisited

  About the Author

  Anything without a cost isn’t worth having.

  Queen Joe

  Chapter 1

  Cyborg Joe's

  A NINJA CAN BE QUITE handy when he isn’t drunk off his ass.

  The crowd slowly poured into Cyborg Joe’s Grill N’ Go & the Why Not Saloon—voted the loudest bar in the galaxy for the past twelve cycles and home to the MechaBurger 8000, a treat that kills twenty-three percent of the life forms that try to digest it. Duke LaGrange clicked his fingers against the uneven wooden bar top and stared into a slightly dirtier-than-it-should-be glass containing just a small remnant of golden Glyptodian ale. The bounty hunter shook his head as his mind raced to solutions for his quandary. How was he alone and all of these other life forms, if they wanted to call themselves that, were lining up their prospects for the evening? He concluded that he had just grown too damn accustomed to the tried-and-true method of luring in intoxicated females with his sidekick’s conversation-starter party tricks, most of which included an element of sword play and damage to the bar. It had to be. Regardless, this evening Duke knew he would have to revise his strategy or give up and join his masked friend on the barroom floor. And Cyborg Joe’s wasn’t known for having the cleanest floors.

  “You know, Duke, you need to move your companion. That area of the floor is reserved for tonight’s musical act,” said the barkeep as she wiped down some sullied glass goblets imprecisely.

  “Who’s the act?”

  “The Trampling Death Robots.” She held the glassware to the light to examine its cleanliness.

  “Any good?”

  “Well, that depends. Do you like loud explosions and large objects crashing to the floor?”

  “I’m not into the performance arts. Can they work around him?”

  “I wouldn’t advise it.”

  “Fair enough, Queen, I’ll grab him. Nothing better to do, I suppose,” the bounty hunter replied in a sullen tone.

  “Alright, LaGrange. Hold up. Lay it on me. What’s with the pouting?”

  “Huh?”

  “Look, you’ve frequented my little watering hole more than I care to recall—but, through all of the time that you’ve graced us at Joe’s with your presence, I’ve come to know Duke LaGrange quite well. In fact, it’s amazing what you can learn by pouring a man’s drinks for as long as I have.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Everything’s fine. Great. Grand. Hunky dory, even.”

  Duke lobbed a forced smile in the Queen’s general direction. She countered. All things considered, a snarky glance was getting off easy with someone like the Queen. No one really knew much about the Queen outside of a few key details: she was quite possibly the most powerful sentient being in the galaxy, she was a damn good bartender, and she was the only one that could control the portals that made Cyborg Joe’s one of the most frequented establishments by space travelers from every sector. Portals connecting destinations in the universe and allowing intergalactic travel were by no means unique, that’s how most spacecraft got from point A to point B. But portals so small and controllable that they could transport individual beings without ripping them to shreds at the atomic level just simply didn’t exist. Except at Joe’s. These portals also made it a key point of interest for the government du jour. Scholars quipped that the reason that there hadn’t been a universal governing body for eons was because the Queen refused to give her endorsement to any one system of rule. There was always someone or something trying to unite the planets—dictators, religious groups, military coups, you name it—but none managed to stabilize for more than a moment. The universe wasn’t in anarchy, though some individual worlds subscribed to that political arrangement—everyone just did their own thing. It was a system that received general approval.

  Her age was also a point of debate amongst patrons of Joe’s. She joked that she was old enough to have dated the single-celled organisms that were the very genesis of life. For some reason, Duke be
lieved it. It just made sense to him.

  Outside of those well-known characteristics, she was a complete mystery. No home world. No rumors or memories or accounts of a time before Cyborg Joe’s. Not so much as a single eyewitness testimony of her existence outside of the bar itself. Even her name—“Queen Joe”—was just the product of legions of guests associating her with their favorite drinking locale. No one really thought her name was Joe—but it made everyone feel good. She never fought it.

  “Duke, I know your typical game—hell, I’ve seen your game for going on ten cycles. The whole bounty-hunter-by-day, playboy-by-night gig isn’t exactly new in these parts. It’s just that you play the part with such conviction. I don’t see anything resembling conviction tonight. So what’s going on? Mazilda Cloax again?”

  “Seriously, Queen. I really think that...”

  “Duke, for the sake of all that’s right in this galaxy! You haven’t even hit on me tonight!”

  The bounty hunter, like most beings with the gift of sight, found Queen Joe attractive—very attractive, at that—but not even he had the audacity to engage her seriously with amorous intent. His flirtations had become almost a fixed prelude for ordering a drink at the bar. The Queen even told him once that she stored a few of his best lines somewhere deep in her memory as she felt they might one day be useful to another patron of Joe’s, and only in the direst of situations.

  “I’m sorry, you’re off on this one, Queen.”

  She bent down to grab a bottle of Erontian saké behind the bar. Duke’s eyes migrated southward and lingered.

  “At least I know that you’re not entirely broken.”

  “Sorry. Habit.”

  “So, talk straight to me. What’s with the ‘woe is me’ shtick? Maybe I can help.”

  The bounty hunter inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly.

  “Queen, well, it’s quite—” he stumbled over his words uncharacteristically. “—embarrassing.”

  “You know good and well, Duke, that all I ask for in my clientele is that they show tolerance; understand that beauty comes in many forms; and pay me properly if they choose to use one of my portals. That’s it. In return, I promise them a place in which they can unload their grievances without fear of condemnation, meet members of a new species or two, and enjoy a well-made martini. You’ve definitely met a ‘friend’ or two under my roof—and you’ve imbibed your weight in martinis. Now I think it’s time that you let me know what’s wrong and unload those grievances.”

  “Fine.”

  Duke paused, each of his thoughts waging a war against the others. The “shoulds” had a slight upper hand on the “should nots.”

  “I’ve lost it,” Duke cried out. His admission dissolved a tightness in the pit of his stomach that he likened to a prisoner finally succumbing to years of torture.

  “What exactly do you mean by ‘it’?” Queen Joe questioned cautiously.

  “You know... ‘it.’” Duke let out an audible sigh. “My talent. My power. My mojo. My ‘it.’”

  “You can’t hit on women anymore?”

  “Not successfully.”

  The Queen turned away from the bounty hunter.

  “Are you laughing? I thought this was a place where you could unload without condemnation?”

  The Queen didn’t respond but reached down and unlocked a small cabinet. She pulled out a dusty, transparent vessel containing darkened liquid the color of toasted caramel. Earth whisky. She slung two small glasses on the bar; one slid toward the bounty hunter and stopped just short of the bar’s edge. Duke plucked it off the bar top and planted it before the Queen. She topped off both glasses in the potent liquor.

  “To misplaced mojo!”

  They both downed their drinks. The Queen refilled them as soon as they hit the wooden bar top.

  “And finding it again,” she said, finishing her two-part toast.

  The whisky hit the back of Duke’s tongue and immediately warmed his very being.

  “Duke, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that I can help you with your lady troubles—”

  “I figured.”

  “Though maybe the whisky can. In fact, there isn’t much that a little whisky can’t fix.”

  Duke pondered this for a second and didn’t disagree.

  “However, I do have an opportunity for you. It might be the thing you’re looking for to get your mind off of your current quandry.”

  “An opportunity? Queen, you’ve never asked me to track someone down for you—I’m honored. My ‘bounty hunter slash playboy’ billing always lists bounty hunter first, ya’ know—I’m quite good.”

  “This certain opportunity falls outside of your current job description. It’s a bit bigger in scope, I’m afraid.”

  “Go on.”

  Queen Joe pointed across the stage to the wall on the east side of the building. It was battered and beaten as if an entire armada had released a heavy concentration of hate upon its stone-like façade. Duke was familiar with this wall—in fact, all of the patrons, first-timers and regulars alike, were familiar with this wall. He surveyed the slender door frames that spanned the entirety of the barrier. Each frame surrounded an ornate door—all of them quite distinct.

  “The portal doors?”

  “No, not my portals. Over there. Beyond them, in the far corner.”

  Duke noticed it for the first time; tucked behind the portals, in the center of a recessed area hidden within the few shadows that escaped the glow of Cyborg Joe’s neon advertisements. The bright beams danced erratically, crackling and sizzling.

  “Another doorway? When did that happen? Where did it come from? Those wild lights shooting out of the opening are quite trippy though—nice touch.”

  “That gateway appeared without my consent a few days ago. The others I can control, for the most part—however, when I showed up to the bar today, this mess had ripped through the wall. We did our best to board it up but it’s hard to not notice.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been some time since I left Kelt or even the bar, so I get most of my adventures secondhand through those that stumble in here. I was curious if you had seen or heard about anything like this.”

  “I got nothing. I’m up the proverbial creek without a paddle... or even a boat. Though if I stare at it any longer I’m going to feel like I’m messed up on some Gheo’to Morphio root. Freaky.”

  “My final conclusion was that it’s a dimensional tear similar to my other doors—but far more unstable. After examining it, I feel it leads somewhere.”

  “So it is a portal.”

  “I think so. However, my intuition tells me that it’s not the sort of portal that leads to a happy field of lollipops. There’s a negative energy; not necessarily evil—but negative.”

  “So what’s this opportunity about? I’m assuming it has something to do with the door.”

  “Yes. I’m extremely worried about this intrusion. It isn’t sitting right with me—and now some of the patrons are starting to not only notice it, but ask questions too. Questions that I can’t answer. Cyborg Joe’s doesn’t allow questions that I can’t answer. This is very unsettling.”

  “So, the opportunity?”

  “Here it is. If you can successfully find out why this tear is occurring in my bar and get rid of it—I’ll give you access to my portals. Free of charge. For the next cycle. No questions asked. No reservations needed. Unlimited use. Needless to say, I’ve never offered this type of deal before.”

  Duke paused. “Why me? Because I’m depressed about losing my mojo?”

  “No—but if you think about it, becoming the first person ever to be granted unlimited access to the portals—free of charge—can only help your reputation. I win, you win.”

  “That is, if I don’t get obliterated by this pissed-off dimensional door.”

  “True. But I have faith in you, Duke LaGrange. I won’t ask any questions about what you plan on doing or how you plan on doing it. Your methods are to yo
ur own design. Just as long as that thing is gone.”

  “How about another shot of that Earth whisky and I’ll think about it. When can I give you my answer?”

  “Tonight. If I’m not serving, tell Earl to track me down. I really hope you consider it.”

  Duke pounded the next glassful of whisky.

  “Tonight... I can do that. I think I’m gonna see if this whisky is helping with my problem, first. I would prefer to get back on track without risking my life trying to exterminate an unhinged inter-dimensional anomaly.”

  “Do what you need to do. However, my offer will expire at the end of the night. Try not to get into trouble, Duke. This is not an offer that you will see again.”

  “One last question. Can Ishiro’shea come with me?”

  “Of course. And you do realize that he is still on the floor?”

  “Thanks for the reminder, Queen. Those damn ninja sidekicks—can’t live with ’em, can’t keep ’em from rendering themselves unconscious on overpriced beer. Am I right?”

  Joe smirked. “Overpriced beer?”

  “You know what I mean,” the bounty hunter stammered. “C’mon, Queen—it was just a joke.”