Interlube with The Hive Collective.

Meanwhile, back on the Hive Collective's ship of the line, the dreadlock Holiday, the Vagendra of Manocide is relaxing in her bath watching telly. Yes, even supreme leaders of massive fleets of destruction need to relax between meetings.

Through advances in technology, it is now possible to convert any flat surface nto a three dimensional portal into the world of televison, In this particular case, the Vagendra was watching Channel 23 on the entire back wall of her tridecimoseptaphone twelve-seater bath. It was time for a break between the adverts and it was filled with a gameshow. Wherein hapless contestants sponsored by various big name brands competed to survive the whole show with their sanity intact.

... "It's mincing time! Look at the frills on that one. Look at him go! The tiger will never catch--- oh nevermind. So much for the contestant from Cosmogalacticheese. A new contestant is now taking advantage of the distracted tiger and running for the exit tunnel as fast as his little legs will take him.

... "Remarkable, even without the remaining ablative frills the contestant from Pharmascam managed to survive in the laser oven of happy disco effects until perfectly golden brown all over!

... *Pharmascam are now 3 points in the lead with only twenty contestants left...

"Ma'am!"

ZOWNT!

The Vagendra's meson blaster worked perfectly well underwater, undermilk and even one-handed.

The second messenger slipped on the carefully positioned soap and slammed into a conveniently positioned pillar. It did, however, afford him of a measure of protection. "Begging your pardon miss Vagendra of Manocide, but I bring tidings from one of our spies in the Manliance. Classified pinky-russet."

The Vagendra put her blaster somewhere out of sight and turned the wall off, making sure that the her nipples were not quite visible as it was in the rule book. Tease them before obliteration. "Very well, speak."

A head poked nervously from behind the pillar dedicated to one of the greatest heroes of the Hive Collective. Snurt the Woodlouse. "According to our spy, the accursed Manliance have found the legendary nemesis Captain Seymour Dicklogic's tomb and plan to make a thousand close of him! This could spell war!"

"Nonsense, little man. Our spies are prone to fantastic flights of self-aggrandizement as they will do anything to get promoted back to the Womb Planets. Ignore." The Vagendra waved dismissively and wondered if she needed to correct for the difference in refractive index when firing undermilk or whether mesons were not prone to wave effects.

"But a thousand-"

The Vagendra noted the rank of the messenger, medium disposable. In Manliance terms, that was a communications officer fourth class. Manliance ranks made a lot more sense than Hive Collective ones, despite being engineered to command and with every single chromosome hand polished, she still had no idea what a Dolly Grip was and how hard she should shoot them. Time for the level three condescending tone, it needed practice anyway. "The manliance is entirely aware of the benefit to society that a single Seymour Dicklogic represents. Two currency crashes, an entire brothel planet disappearing and no less than three volumes of supremely bad poetry. I am confident that they will realise that the stupidity of inflicting a thousand times that on themselves is inconceivable."

"Begging to differ miss Vagendra, but they just declared a giant banana slug their god-emperor." The medium disposable messenger whimpered. Fortunately, his uniform could absorb anything he could exude with less energy than a cosmic ray, it could even stop those!

The Vagenga arched a perfect eyebrow and swapped her meson blaster for a toy water pistol. "Please convey my appreciation to Ambassador Frogspanker and offer to loan them the use of a fully equiped breeding asteroid replete with the very latest in artificial wombs for the experiment."

"Yes miss Vagendra! Right away miss Vagendra." He bolted for the exit. The Vagendra of Manocide was holding a weapon and he was a Medium disposable, escape was paramount!

"Mind the soa- oh, nevermind." She watched him sail down the corridor down to the other decks, screaming all the way. He was travelling so fast it made his uniform look like a redshirt. She looked at the loofah, a present from her friend in The Manliance and wondered at its terrifying powers.