Dip Reinegger and The Fly Lord of Tarthus
Feb 11, 2026
Dip Reinegger and The Fly Lord of Tarthus
Hey Dipheads, got a weird story for you.
I was midway through detailing my blast gun with some sweet flame decals when a general distress alarm started screaming from the cockpit of my brand new, beautiful #starkween.
The message from Tarthus Prime was garbled: screams, buzzing, and a plea for help. As a man with a chest full of hair and a heart made of cold, hard granite, I didn't shiver. I just checked my coordinates and fired up the engines.
Tarthus Prime was a colony I used to frequent back when I first arrived in Andromeda. I made a few space bucks shuttling bookworms to and fro its neighboring planet of Tarthus 3, a deadly, quarantined world filled with biological marvels. One such bookworm was Dr. Alvin Rumour, a xeno-biologist from the capitol city’s university.
I called him up. He was suspiciously eager. He told me the planet was being swarmed by giant flies previously only observed on neighboring Tarthus 3, “creatures as big as space horses but not as delicious.” His words.
The Plan Was Pretty Gross
The Doc didn't want me to go in blasting (my preferred method of conflict resolution). He claimed there were millions of flies. Instead, he coated my ship in a clear, sticky pheromone that smelled like old buffet water.
"Bug-butt juice," I muttered in empathy for my baby as the drones sprayed down her metallic mane.
The plan: sneak onto the planet disguised by the scent, plant bug-bombs, and then head home for a few mugs of florg and some brolnar steaks. Easy-peasy, right?
Wrong.
The entry through the atmosphere of Tarthus Prime burnt off most of the coating!
I had a hell of a time deploying the first several devices once the flies realized I wasn't one of their own, and they finally overcame me. I kissed my trusty pendant before crashing the ship into a hillside, but not before taking out a few hundred of the bastards on the way down.
The Super-Pheromone
I was banged up, but I had a mission.
I cracked open a backup barrel of the bug juice and smeared it over my face, arms, and my happy underwear parts. I took the last bug bomb from the launch bay and wrapped it in some cargo netting.
With some difficulty I managed to open the exit hatch on #starkween’s underside and, with tracker in hand, began my trek to the final drop point, dragging the payload behind me.
The planet was humid and my clothes were soon drenched. What the Doc didn't figure on was that when his bug juice mixed with my natural, manly sweat, it created a Super-Aphrodisiac, one that attracted a very specific member of the species—the Lord Consort. You might consider him the lucky guy who gets to impregnate the Queen.
An ominous, low buzzing began to fill my ears.
Suddenly, an elephant-sized fly crested the crater I had wondered into. It was a fantastic beast, and I sure as sh*t knew where to find it. It didn't want to eat me; it wanted to…make me the happiest woman in the universe. It knocked me down with its abdomen and started poking me with gross, hairy appendages as I fumbled with the bug bomb’s manual detonator.
I fought like a tiger. Nay, a lion with an even more bitchin’ mane, finally detonating the last bomb and covering myself and everything for a half mile in a noxious cloud that made me instantly vomit and lose consciousness.
The Aftermath
I awoke in a strange bed in the capital city of Tarthus Prime. The locals were so grateful for my help that they had completely refurbished my ship and told me they even left a surprise gift for me inside.
Turns out, Dr. Rumour was actually responsible for the outbreak; he’d been somehow smuggling fly larvae into the colony as a research project, and a few had escaped. Fortunately, the authorities are too busy cleaning up to look into who gave the Doc all those rides to Tarthus 3…
But my surprise gift was spectacular. A fully functioning mandroid with my exact likeness!
I will call him…Roban.
Roban the Mandroid, oil on space canvas
I’ll talk to you goons later. Meantime, there’s adventures to be had…
It was a fantastic beast, and I sure as sh*t knew where to find it.
