Sludge’s Story
by ~deviantquest


Sludge Vohaul, Master of the Universe and Conqueror of Xenon was restless. As amazingly powerful as he was, there was only so much he could do. At the moment, he was waiting for word from his Sequel Police drones that they had eliminated Wilco. 
Having nothing better to do, he began running diagnostic checks. Everything seemed fine. Having nothing better to do, Vohaul began reflecting on his life (or rather, he began to scan through the memory files that contained his memories). The first thing in the files was his brother. 
He and his twin Slash had been quite different. Though both had great intelligence, Slash was stronger. Trim and somewhat muscular, he was an excellent student and athlete and it was no surprise that he was a popular kid. Sludge, on the other hand, was short and stocky, and his weak heart and organs prevented him from being an athlete. He’d tried lifting weights once, and had only succeeded in causing temporary blindness. How odd that he and Roger Wilco both had low physical strength, he mused.
Though an excellent student, he was often targeted by the bullies in school, and only survived high school because his good-two-shoes brother stood up for him.

“Stupid fool. He always did like helping others.” Sludge said out loud.

Upon graduation, both of them had attended the most prestigious science academy on Xenon. Slash quickly became the highest paid researcher on the government payroll. Sludge hadn’t cared too much; he made plenty in the Experimental Weapons department, and he enjoyed working there. He got to invent new ways of destroying things. Why would he care that Slash got to help people?
When Slash had announced to the government that Earnon’s sun was dying, Sludge had been shifted to a new division, in the hopes that he’d be able to come up with a way to prevent the solar systems death. It turned out that he’d had the answer all along, but it was Slash who received all the credit for it.

“Sludge! Do you remember that one idea you had come up with just before they changed your department?!”

“Which one?”

“The one that turns planets into suns!”


“Heh, of course I remember it! I’ve still got the plans saved on a couple of data cartridges. Can’t wait to put that one together, we’ll kick some major…..”

“Where are the plans for it?! I just figured out how we could use it to save Xenon!”

“WHAT?! Use my weapon to save life?! Slash, I invented the Planet Crusher to help Xenon conquer the galaxy, not to help save people! Can’t you come up with something else?”

“But Sludge! Why not? Much as I dislike your plans for this weapon, this would be the perfect opportunity to test it!”

“Slash, I will not have my research used for some sissy-pants project like saving the galaxy! This is a weapon of war, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can get back to your research!”

“Sludge you should shout like this! It’s not good for your blood pressure! Besides, can’t you just let me borrow the research……”

“Stop looking out for me! ‘Oh Sludge, watch out for your blood pressure!’ Please! I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself! That’s the difference between you and me! You’ve always got your nose in someone else’s business! Trying to ‘help’ them! If you’d just show some ambition you’d…..”

It was at that point that he’d collapsed. Slash had seen to it that he’d been rushed to Xenon City Hospital, where he’d received treatment for his heart attack. In the end, he ended up needing a heart transplant. The day after the transplant, Slash had come to ask for the research. Unable to shout at him, Sludge had wheezed instead:

“NO you can’t have my research! I shouldn’t even be speaking to you! It’s your fault that I’m in this condition in the first place! If you hadn’t started asking me for help, I wouldn’t have gotten mad and had my heart attack and…..”

It was then that he started coughing. Slash couldn’t bear to see his brother suffer, and went to get a nurse. It turned out that Sludge needn’t a lung transplant too. In the end, Slash persuaded him to give up his research. He’d been too weak to put up a fight, but he remembered the whole experience, and it left him really ticked off.
It was about a month later that he heard that Slash would be taking part on a research mission to develop the “Star Generator” which he’d invented. Sludge couldn’t believe it! Slash hadn’t even given him credit! Slash was currently preparing to launch onboard the research vessel Arcada, which had been built to develop the Star Generator, according to an article about it.
Deciding that he’d yell at Slash later, Sludge went into the lab. It’d been a month since he’d been able to get any work done, what with the rehabilitation from his surgeries. Maybe his coworkers would be glad to see him.
But no, his coworkers weren’t happy to see him. In fact, he’d been demoted while away. He was now only a lab assistant. He’d nearly burst a blood vessel on hearing this. How could they treat him like this? HIM! Sludge Vohaul! He was the greatest scientific mind Xenon had! To mock him like this, making him a lab assistant! 
Calming down, he decided to bear with it and prove to them that he was still useful. He continued work as a lab assistant for a week before he realized that the new head researcher had stolen all of his data cartridges from the previous projects Sludge had worked on. Now he was really ticked off. He stormed out of the lab and went home. He’d had enough of Xenon. Those researchers thought they were better than him, stealing his research while he had been ill. This was all Slash’s fault. He’d be sure to get back at him for this.
Gathering his life savings, Sludge left home and managed to hitch a ride on a freighter heading out towards Kerona. On his way towards Kerona, he began thinking how best to get back at Slash. There’d be no way sabotage the research now, the Arcada would have launched by now. If only there was someway to capture the Star Generator once it was finished. Then he could destroy Xenon and all those foolish scientists who’d mocked him. And then it hit him: why not?
Bribing the pilot, he managed to secure passage to the homeworld of the warlike Sariens. The Sariens were feared throughout Earnon; with them on his side, it’d be easy to capture the Star Generator from the Acarda. And the Sariens would jump at the chance to own a superweapon like the Star Generator. The Sarien dictator was quite pleased with his proposition, and eagerly placed his fleet at Vohaul’s disposal. Sludge decided he only needed one ship for this. Flying out of the Sarien ship Deltaur, he and the Sariens bgan hunting the Acarda.
Their timing was perfect and they managed to attack the Xenonian ship shortly after they’d radioed back news of a successful test. With the Star Generator onboard, Vohaul and his crew had decided to test the destructive power of their new toy. They found a nearby planet and incinerated it. Vohaul was quite pleased. Slash had met his end thanks to the Sariens, and now he would be able to put an end to those miserable little nerds on Xenon. Life was sweet.
It was during the trip to Xenonian, that Vohaul had suddenly felt something. He suddenly felt it would be a good idea to get off this ship. He had no idea why, but he was overcome with the sense that something bad was going to happen soon. He convinced the ship’s captain to let him off at a space station they passed, insisting that he had some pressing matters to attend to and that they could come back and pick him up again.
He was soon glad that he’d decided to leave the Deltaur: he’d heard reports that it had been destroyed. Tuning in to the news from Xenon he heard that it was janitor who’d managed to destroy the ship. A JANITOR! Vohaul couldn’t believe his bad luck. Here he was, stuck on a space station in the middle of nowhere, because a janitor had thwarted his plan! Vohaul immediately began thinking of revenge, but quickly realized that he’d have to take care of his current situation first: he didn’t have very much money, and he didn’t have anywhere safe he could go at the moment. Seemed the only thing he could do was try and get a job and living quarters here on the station.
Part 2

Vohaul stopped flipping through his memory files and received the incoming message. It was coming from a Sequel Police team in Space Quest 10. It appeared Wilco had evaded the Sequel Policeman and stolen their timepod. The Sequel Policeman were requesting a timepod be send to retrieve them. Vohaul denied their request. If they weren’t capable of stopping Wilco, they deserved to be stranded there.
Vohaul ordered that Roger Wilco Jr. be brought to the Supercomputer chamber. He knew that the elder Wilco would be returning to Xenon at some point. And Vohaul wanted to have a little surprise ready for him.
The Sequel Police in charge of the detention center confirmed his request and said that they were escorting the prisoner to the supercomputer chamber. Vohaul decided to continue running through his memory files. It’d be awhile before the prisoner was brought up from the lower levels.
*

Vohaul had been lucky enough to find work on the space station where the Sariens had left him. He’d been hired as a businessman by a company that was in charge of mining orium on the planet Labion. The work was mind-numbingly dull, but it paid well, and Vohaul soon was the vice president of the company. He’d eventually assumed control of the company. He had then decided to use his newfound wealth to purchase a nice asteroid in orbit around Labion. It would serve as the perfect place to begin to mount his revenge against Xenon and Roger Wilco, the janitor who had thwarted his plot to destroy Xenon.
Upon buying the asteroid, Vohaul built a laboratory and began doing various experiments. His forays into genetics proved quite successful, producing a species of apemen that he used as laborers and guards. By that time however, he had performed so many experiments, many of them on himself, that he was living off of life-support machines. He’d attempted cloning himself, so as to have a supply of new organs, but the experiment had been a dismal failure.
He was able to clone others, though. He soon created an army of genetically-engineered life-insurance salesmen. The tests he’d performed on his apemen showed that they were perfect for infesting Xenon. But first, he would need to capture Roger Wilco, the man who had stopped his Star Generator plot.
The first stage of his plan went perfectly. Roger had been abducted by the apes from his workplace aboard Xenon Orbital Station 4 and was brought to Labion for labor in the orium mines. That’s where the trouble had begun. The hovercraft taking him to the mines had crashed, and somehow Roger had escaped. Vohaul dispatched patrols of apemen to find him, but he somehow evaded their capture.
What surprised Vohaul the most however, was that Roger had been able to survive the jungles of Labion and steal a shuttle to the asteroid. Vohaul took control of the shuttle and brought it to the asteroid. Roger was an unintelligent janitor. The security systems on the asteroid would be too much for him.
Looking back on that now, as a supercomputer, Vohaul realized what a horrible mistake it had been. If he’d sent his apemen, or even one of the salesmen to stop Roger, he would have been easily overwhelmed. But by leaving Roger to his own devices, he allowed Roger to reach the inner sanctum. Shrinking Roger proved to do nothing, as the little bugger had somehow managed to find a way of breaking out of the jar where he was imprisoned.
It was this fatal error that had ended up killing him, Vohaul thought. If he’d taken care of Roger before he reached the inner sanctum, he wouldn’t have died. In any case, Roger had managed to shut down Vohaul’s life support system. Vohaul counted himself lucky that he had had the foresight to have experimented on ways of “backing up” the human consciousness; he’d had just enough time to transfer his mind to a floppy diskette before his body died.
He was suddenly in control of a supercomputer when he awoke. It seemed no time had passed between his death on his asteroid and his installation on the Xenon Supercomputer. His new circuits allowed to quickly process what had happened. Full of rage at being thwarted by Wilco again, he flashed single message out of every output device he controlled: “WILCO MUST PAY.”
He easily neutralized all resistance on Xenon. With complete control over the planet, and his vast computer resources, he began to research topics he would never have dreamed of, the most notable of which was time travel. Upon unraveling this mystery, he suddenly realized what he would do: go back in time and kill Roger Wilco, but in a time after the destruction of the asteroid fortress, ensuring that Vohaul remained in control of the Supercomputer. It was a brilliant plan. It would have worked too, if it hadn’t been thwarted by Roger’s son.
Vohaul suddenly stopped scrolling through his memory files. Two Sequel Policeman stood with Roger Jr. slumped in between them. At the same time, a security message informed Vohaul that a timepod was reporting into Sequel Police Dispatch. Checking the security monitor, he saw that it was Roger Sr. Perfect timing. Instructing the Sequel Police to leave the elder Wilco, Vohaul began preparing for a file transfer……