El Bandito Imperial of the Bad Side

El Bandito Imperial of the Bad Side

Preface:

The first truly bold pioneering effort after the introduction of galactic travel was the magnificently showy Interstellar Radio. It was hailed as the bonding spirit of the universe, the beacon of humanity, the reminder of civility, a complex network that cast out it's reach to the end of everything in existence. The stars themselves were used as relay points and was dubbed the pinnacle of human spirit.
Other species had enough to hate humans for without us shooting noisy beams through anything shaped vaguely like a high resolution audiolizer, which held, by the oddest coincidence, a strong resemblance to the galaxies favorite eating utensil. Ambassadors for the human race simply justified that if everyone would just hook up their fine silver to a speaker that they'd enjoy the service just as much as the human race.
But enough drabble about why Oraudiophobia (The fear of sound happening in ones mouth) developed spontaneously in thousands of mildly disturbed arthropods, this is, as many public service prefaces are, a human-centric pat on the back for our accomplishments in the face of rare approval.
Ships zipped across the stars unleashing salvos of radio towers onto twirling planets and dancing moons. The entire mass of a radio towers resting place was turned into a relay that could carry the clear signals of the Interstellar Radio even further into the voids of space. In the end every self-respecting human was readily equipped with a pair of headphones retro-fitted with a dial that could pick up the music from one of the varied stations offered.
Years passed, stations rose and fell as their popularity peaked and waned with the times, and the station noticed a huge problem with how they conducted repairs on damaged or destroyed radio towers, pretty bluntly, they didn't. Every dim blip in the system was quickly met with another projectile of expensive equipment to replace it. But this was losing quite a lot of cash for the company who ran the Radio, especially when it seems that 76.3% of all bunk towers just needed a replacement 9/13" copper cable. Thus was born the fleet of the repairmen who would zip through the stars, repairing delicate equipment on unexplored worlds for ridiculous amounts of pay.
Quickly the radio repairman was dubbed the most life threatening job in the galaxy, after hundreds of unexperienced new meat rookies met things they couldn't even conceive and failed situations that most men would crack under. But in the fleet of constantly rotating faces there are a few who are of the elite, who are veteran repairmen who knew how to expect the un-expectable and do the impossible for their job.
Roger Daltrey was a fine example of such a repairman.

The actual damn story:

The clouds of a tiny little planet were painted the most bland shade of green imaginable, drifting along lamely to cast amorphous shadows across the craggy landscape, a landscape punctuated by nothing but a lone metallic structure. This structure was a tower, sand-blasted and weathered till it's structure was quite a harsh thing to view. The only feature of the structure that gave a hint that it still did it's job was a red-tinted bulb on it's peak, just above a purely esthetic radar dish, that had long lost it's original purpose to be an awfully effective nest for a small avian creature.
The clouds continued to mossy on across the sky till one of them spat out a crackling fireball, who's roaring decent drowned out the wind ten times over. The thing could easily be taken as a meteor, unlucky enough to be caught within the gravity of such a small planet. As it neared the surface though a long tail erupted from it's body, going the opposite direction of it's trajectory. The objects velocity, paired with it's newfound source of propulsion slowed it gradually till the two forces evened out and the entire object dropped out of the sky quite heavily.
For the less observant reader, this object was in fact not a meteor, for it it were one, it would probably be the most showy one in existence, because most others are content with just cruising on down to the surface of a planet with one set trajectory and wiping a couple thousand species in the resulting impact.
The object had fallen safely into a bank of relatively soft soil, the most soft soil one could come across on this particular mountainous planet. The thing was spherical and metallic, detailed with small port holes and symbols that were resistant to the adverse effects of atmospheric entry but had been through the experience enough times to become slightly faded. One end of the metal meteor seemed to be opened up and stuffed messily with a large rocket thruster and other components that made up it's engine. The junky, barely held together feel that was apparent in the engine was prevalent throughout the rest of the craft actually. Modules and sensors were welded on messily, there couldn't be found a bolt that was the same tarnished brass color of the chassis, indicating they had long since been replaced during repair and a tiny antenna that slowly slid out of a nook in the body of the craft had a point where it was held together with multiple layers of duct tape.
The whole rig sat in the dirt completely still except for the little antenna that swayed gradually in the wind. Muffled taps and thuds vibrated through the shell of the craft till the seemingly solid body divided into pieces and pulled back to expose a glass layer, reinforced with a weave of bronze rods. After a moment of sitting still again, the edges of the glass hissed as the innards of the sphere depressurized and the sheet fogged up before sliding back itself. Two hands reached up and hoisted a body encased in a dark yet glossy suit. This suits outer layer was made from many interlacing plates that both provided better mobility and less expensive repair. The lower layer was a strong material that was both airtight and flexible. These were the more popular heavy duty suits of any trade, not only for their versatility but also their stylish design that reflected the advanced technology of the space age without swerving dangerously close to the sickeningly skin-tight suits that looked down-right insulting on an out-of-shape man and questionably flamboyant on a good looking one.
The man pulled himself free of his vessel and made foot fall on the soil of this world deemed by records to be, "unexplored, land with extreme caution." His pearl white helmet, that contrasted strikingly with the black suit beneath it, swiveled slowly around to take in the scenery. The entire helmet was closed off and only had two lenses exposed, placed on either side of it's chin. An electronic voice spoke casually, radiating from the helmet in no particular direction, "Air check."
A tube that hung just above the man's left shoulder blade activated in a show of little diode's lighting up and the structure of it splitting down the middle just enough to begin taking in air. A green light harmonized with an optimistic chime, followed immediately by a female voice announcing in a cheerful tone, "The air is perfectly breathable Roger."
With that the first voice gave a small order, "Open mask." an order that was followed immediately. Three panels that made up the helmet's front pulled back to reveal the man's face, his features were not particularly old but rather weathered. His blue eyes were faded into a grey tone and surrounded narrow pupils that slowly shifted around to take in the scenery himself instead of through electronic screens on the inside of the helmet. This pleased him a bit, which was made apparent through a wide but closed-lip smile, framed by unshaven whiskers. He spoke again after a relieved sigh, "I never get tired of breathing in real air ya'know?"
With that he began removing the upper components of his suit, which irritated the artificial operations regulator in the ship to no end. The programming of personalities into artificial intelligence is completely impractical from a functionality stand-point but is extremely important from the human stand-point. Being cooped up in a small space with no human contact is maddening so there began a branch of programming that made a great many flavors of artificial personalities. The particular personality of the intelligence in Rogers ship was that of a doughty lady friend who worries herself sick over the smallest things, "Oh Roger... You know how I feel about you taking off your suit."
He did, "I do."
"Then why do you insist upon it every time you're sure your skin wont melt off?"
Roger looked over sympathetically at the ship, the source of her voice, "You don't have a body, you don't know how it is to feel only the inside of an environment suit. This..." He gestured around with his hands, "is living, love."
Her voice shifted from irritation to caring, "Wear the gloves at least..."
Roger nodded, "For you, Lily."
Roger placed the final piece of his upper suit in the ship, leaving the parts below the belt and the reinforced gloves on his hands. He secretly loved it when she worried about him, it was a simple vice. He showed it by regaining his previous satisfied smile that he sustained while linking Lily to his helmets communication channel. After his final preparations, he began up a steep hill, "How close did you bring us to the tower, love?"
"You'll be happy to know that it'll be located on the next hill after the one you're climbing."
"Wow-e-wow Lily, you're getting damn good at this landing business."
"A few crashes in swamps and a lava flow inspire better calculations, sure."
"Ha-ha, too right... Well who's this?"
At the peak of the hill was a droid perched on one of two rocks, it's head was spherical, made of two halves, one of them having an eye shining yellow. The round head hung from a long neck that sprouted from hunched shoulders on a bundled body not designed for much movement. It's eye followed Roger as he approached cautiously. The mechanized man's expression was a harmless one but droids had only one expression unless built otherwise. It spoke with a voice that sounded like it was muffled by the static of a radio station with bad reception, "Oh! A human, how interesting."
Roger was confused about what the droid was talking about so he decided to just stick to the protocol for his job, "I'm here from the Interstellar Radio Company to repair a dead tower, may I ask who the leader of the immediate area is?"
The droid's eye blinked and raised a hand to gesture at Roger, "You, sir."
The repair man's eyebrow arched as he looked skeptically down at the droid, "So... All of this is mine?" His finger pointed off past the robot into the hills that continued on into the horizon.
"No, no." responded the droid patiently before drawing a line between them in the dirt, "The side of the planet you stand on is yours, this side is mine."
The concept hit Roger immediately and he chuckled thoughtfully, "Oh no buddy, you can have this place, I'm just here to fix up that radio tower and I'll be on my way."
Eyeing Roger in a way that seemed more quizzical the droid stated with an almost antagonizing tone, "I do not agree with such actions sir, but if that is how you wish to treat your country..."
"Whoa, are you calling me a bad leader? I never asked for the position and I don't recall an election or ceremony or anything, so I don't believe I'm exactly a target for such remarks."
The robot gave a shrug, "Some men are born great, some men have greatness thrust upon them."
Roger gave an acidic stare down at the droid for a while before spotting the blinking light of the tower that was located just a short walk away. He dropped the ill-feelings as he momentarily remembered what it was that he was there for, "listen bud, good luck with your 'country' but I've got a nice paycheck coming my way if I get this tower fixed so if you'll excuse me..."
Roger began to step but was halted immediately by a sharp remark, "Do you intend to invade my country sir?"
This caught the repair man off-guard and he looked down at the droid who continued on, "If you have the intention to do so then our mighty army will decimate yours swiftly, sir."
Roger was caught up again in the affairs of his newfound leadership as he glared at the cocky droid and slowly sat down on the unoccupied rock, "You're bluffing..."
"It'll be bloody, you'll sustain many casualties, you new fledgling countries should know your place."
This got Roger's blood boiling as he asked sharply, "What should I call you?"
"Symped, President Symped of the free states of Yerria."
"President Symped... pheh, you can call me Roger Daltrey, the... The... El Bandito Imperial of the bad side of the planet. And I assure you that my highly trained and armed to the teeth army can stomp right into your little free states and you won't do a damn thing about it unless you want to face a humiliating genocide!"
The pure inanity of Roger's statement coupled with the nonsense of the situation garnered a long, drawn out, sigh from Lily who began to earnestly wonder if she was the "highly trained and armed to the teeth army" that he was talking about.
Symped kept his composure as he suggested calmly, "Perhaps an agreement can be had so we won't have to find out who's army will 'genocide' the other."
El Bandito Imperial rolled his tongue around his mouth as he thought, as if he were rolling the idea itself across his teeth, "You're just trying to get out of a severe ass-whoopin', but I can't argue with that logic."
"Oh good, the human has accepted the peaceful resolution!"
The previous statement may have come out more insulting than meant to be but Roger didn't take it to heart, "I'll allow you as much of my land as you please in return for a certain handsome, strapping repair man to go over there and fix up that radio tower so my proud country can listen to The Pickups, who are about to play a live session on the radio real soon."
Bands from across the stars came to the main station of the Interstellar Radio to play all the time, it was tough to get a slot in but nothing was more exciting than anything for a fan to hear his favorite band playing live over the crystal clear airwaves. Some say if you listen real hard you can hear the singers skin cells going through mitosis, there's nothing closer to actually being there and Roger just so happened to love The Pickups.
Symped looked back at the tower and gave a slow shake of his head, "Oh, that's not something that I can readily give for any amount of land."
"You're kidding me..."
"I'm quite serious sir, that is a religious monument to my people, if I allowed you to touch it they'd riot in a holy war and have both of us lynched."
"Who the hell worships a hunk of metal?"
"I didn't write the good book of Isr under the canopy of the steel tree thousands of years ago, but my people have followed the lessons within it and have taught their children those lessons for generations, their distaste for the heathen blood that is unfit to even view the metal tree of Isr cannot be judged for it is their way."
This triggered something in Roger, something violent and blind, something that reached into his satchel and drew a pistol, something that blew a hole clean through the head of Symped who fell to the dirt with a clatter of metal. The adrenaline coursing through his veins slowly dwindled down to safe levels again as his hearts racing tempo slowed. The headphones built into the repair man's helmet whispered, then grew louder with a broadcast being picked up by them, "Now star-children, let's sit back, relax, but don't bother to take off your socks cause The Pickups are right here to rock them right off!"
"Thanks tons Petey. let's go boys, 3, 2, 1!"
Roger sat back down and breathed deeply in and out as he let guitars fill his ears and wrap around his mind till he lost himself in the music.

Hours later, when the event was over, Roger was sprawled out on the ground with a big goofy grin on his face. He gathered himself up and after a bit of poking around through the fried pieces of electronics left by Symped's blasted head he returned back to his ship and climbed into his seat a bit exhausted. Lily's voice coo'ed softly in Roger's ear, "You look pretty tired for a guy who didn't do anything. How did the tower get fixed? You didn't go anywhere near it."
"That ol' droid must have been running low on power sources so he decided to sap the strong signal given off by the tower. Turns out the poor guy was turned to W.A.H. 456, the history of civilizations station. Enough radio waves will change up a droids processors."
Roger looked out of the cabin of his ship at the green clouds crawling across the sky while giving a languid sigh. This prompted Lily to pry further into Roger's head, "Why so down?"
"What kind of leader shoots another because he's angry? I'm an awful example of the human race."
"To be fair to yourself Roger, you made the only right decision in the situation."
"Well ya, in the big picture an abandoned droid finally got shut off after who knows how many years of sitting up there on that rock and radio service is returned to the area... I'm a crappy El Bandito Imperial, but a darn good repair man."