Admiral Sir Manley Powers.

Admiral Sir Manley Powers clenched is brows and furrowed his fists. The cause of his manley pouting was not his fleet, for he had none he commanded a desk a really big desk. The admiral stared across his enormous admiral desk, possibly the biggest in the admiralty. His secretary was somewhere on the far side and heading this way. There was a top secret post-it on his mighty admiral blotter, a blotter so large that parts of it still hadn't been touched this year. This post-it note carried a secret message of such potence that normal people would simply explode on reading it.

On that most perfect yellow square was a single word: Potrzebie.

Only it was crossed out and replaced with simply "SD3"

If Potrzebie had been head exploding, this was far worse, like being forced to watch the programs between the adverts or some other brutal torture.

Miss Ab Fab, the Manley Powered Secretary screeched to a halt on her bicycle. "Sir, it's true." She was extremely good at her job because she was psychic, she could tell what her Admiral wanted and how many megatonnes it would need. "Apparently, a Doctor Firm Posterior succeeded in waking him from the cold sleep fridge and escape a mere hour before the dark bleakmen could trigger the destructo-beams." She blushed suddenly, frantically fondlinginging her secretarial touch blouse. Holograms lit up on her ample bosom and she stared. "No sir, we cannot cauterise her planet to set an example, we are supposed to be better than the Hive Collective. I will send a tersely worded birthday greeting to their emperor thanking them for unleashing the Manliance's worst enemy upon themselves." She stared as suddenly her left nipple started flashing frantically. "Sir, he's alive."

Admiral Sir Manley Power hadn't seen flashing red nipples in years, he wondered if that was worse than puce or better than russet. It wasn't mauve, so the acapellapocalypse wasn't coming yet.

"Sir! He has a ship, the HMS Upskirt and has departed on a five year science mission into the dangerous zone!" Miss Ab Fab tried to cancel the alarm, but holo-bra controls were notoriously fiddly. She ended up pressing the reset button. Her pants beeped. She waved at the holo desk and the view of known space glowed darkly.

The admiral furrowed his brow, pretending he recognised the view. At his age, he was lucky if he recognised his own reflection in the morning, "next time you put him on ice, hide it somewhere really dangerous and kill everyone who knows, destroy all documents everything. No one must find him again." A sign lit up, it cheerfully illuminated the two areas of known space that mattered.

The pulsating blue of The Manliance, and the throbbing pink Hive Collective and their nauseating Matriarch. An arrow pointed to the probably location of HMS Upskirt. It was deep in the dangerous zone on the very edge of the Hive Collective.

"Contact the Vagendra of Manocide, anonymously of course, warn them that our top psychopath has escaped again and is headed her way." The admiral boggled, "Miss Ab Fab, you are on fire!"

Only fast reactions saved the secretary from barbequed bosoms as the holo-bra exploded. She stared at her ruined blouse sadly after putting the fire out. "You have a meeting at five in the room of micturations." She looked at her watch, an impossibly old fashioned thing that actually told time for more than an hour between charges. It was barely two, "you should hurry if you are to be there on time."

Yes, Admiral Sir Manley Powers' desk was that big.

Retreating to her secretarial chamber of evil, she found a new blouse and an entirely analogue bra. Then she called her grand-daughter. "Vagendra, I found you a husband..."

For what daughter ever did what their parents wanted.