“Eh, you get the hang of it pretty quick when folks are shooting at you.” Swooch shrugged. “Or, you know, you die.”
Leo gaped in awe. “Legendary.”
Burlock nodded at him. “Now that you’ve had your little meet and greet, sit down and stay out of the way.”
He stabbed a finger at an empty console at the rear of the room as he settled into the command chair. Leo crossed his arms. “Actually, I think I’ll take that seat. Since I’m the captain and all.”
Burlock glared at him, jaw clenched. “So you are.” The Ba’lux rose to his feet. “You have command of the bridge, sir.”
Leo sat down gingerly in the captain’s chair, pulling in his elbows so as not to bump the control panels. The seat had three tiered sets of armrests, each covered in hundreds of blinking buttons and switches and toggles. Sitting within them, Leo felt uncomfortably like he was being hugged by a Hammond organ.
Burlock settled discontentedly at the ops console to the rear of the bridge. “All right, Captain. What are your orders?”
“Orders?” Leo asked.
“Yes, orders. Giving orders is what the person in the big chair does.”
“Oh! Right. Orders!” Leo looked around for a clue. Comfit and Quartermaster were both busy with their endless panes of controls. “Everybody just, you know, carry on with what you’re doing here.”
“You got it, bro,” Swooch said. “I’ve already laid in a course for Halii Bai. You just chill. We got this.”
“Awesome,” Leo said, with a bit too much relief. “Thank you.”
He took a calming breath. Each member of the crew went about their duties. They all seemed so experienced and competent. Maybe this whole captaining gig wouldn’t be so hard after all. He cautiously settled back in his seat and a blaring alarm ripped through the bridge.
“It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!” he yelped, leaping from his chair. The others barely flinched. Burlock gave Leo side eye.
“Comfit, report,” he growled.
The MonCom’s green fingers danced across her screens. “Sensors indicate imminent collision with an ice-belt object.”
Swooch glanced at her console. “Nah, we’re cool. The belt is still half a million miles out.”
“It’s a breakaway,” Comfit said. “A rogue iceberg is headed straight for us.”
Leo squinted out the window. Outside was nothing but tranquil space. “I don’t see it.”
Quartermaster looked at him incredulously. “Um, yes. The object is over fifty thousand miles away, sir.”
“Oh. Okay.” Leo chuckled. “So when she said ‘imminent’ she didn’t mean like, ‘imminent imminent.’”
Comfit raised a brow. “Sir, do you have any idea how fast we’re going right now?”
Leo’s eyes ticked to the window and the stationary stars.
“Yes?” he wagered.
Burlock ignored him. “Quartermaster, switch the view to Perception Mode.”
The Screetoro flicked a control and an electric sizzle wiped from one side of the glass wall to the other. As it did, the pinpoints of stars stretched into hot white streaks, blurring past the ship at impossible speed. Leo yelped and tumbled back into his chair, gripping the cushions. The blur of infinite cosmos widened his eyes and crippled his brain.
“Holycrapholycrapholycrap,” he stammered. “Fast. Fast fast so fast too fast fast fast.”
Burlock rose from his seat, gazing at a moon-sized hunk of blue ice hurtling toward them, growing larger every second. The tumbling menace reflected in the placid domes of his eyes. “Helm, evasive maneuvers.”
Swooch adjusted a handful of sliders. “Not happening, bro.”
“Lieutenant, that is an order,” Burlock growled.
“Yeah, I hear ya. But it’s not happening.” Swooch pushed the sliders up and down again. “I’m putting full juice to the nav thrusters but they’re giving me jack cheese here.”
“There’s been a malfunction,” Quartermaster confirmed. “Something’s leeching power from the navigation system. I’m seeing transmission glitches all over the grid.”
“Glitches?” Leo said. The word squeaked from his mouth, high with lingering terror. He looked away from the streaking stars and cleared his throat. “How are there glitches? I thought this ship was brand new.”
The EngTech frowned. “This vessel was hastily put together by unsupervised bots. Engineering is still working out the bugs.”
“Didn’t they take this bucket on a shakedown cruise?” Burlock muttered.
Swooch snorted. “I think you’re on it, buddy.”
“I second that,” Comfit said. “There’s no way these systems have been field tested.” She glowered at her panel. “Sensors should have picked up the incoming object much sooner. It’s like I’m looking through mud here.”
Leo nodded. “Okay, so to recap, we’re going really fast, we can’t turn or see, and we’re about to hit an iceberg.”
“Correct, sir,” Comfit said. “What are your orders?”
Cold sweat beaded on Leo’s brow. “I’m, uh… open for suggestions.”
“I suggest you get out of the way.” Burlock’s mechanical arm whirred as he pointed to the MonCom. “Comfit, launch a full tactical sim, 20K aperture.”
“Aye, Commander.”
She flicked at her panels and a three-dimensional holo bloomed to life between the captain’s chair and the helm. It was a model of the Americano Grande, its long, slender ocean-liner hull flanked with four enormous pods of glowing blue engines bulging from its aft quarters. A rendering of the iceberg tumbled toward it, surrounded by blinking figures and dotted lines showing vectors and spin rates and trajectories and dozens of other stats Leo couldn’t identify.
Quartermaster eyed his controls. “I’m diverting power from non-essential systems to the port thrusters. I can get you a ten second burn.”
“It’s not enough,” Comfit said. She swiped her leafy hand up her panel as if flinging data across the room. The hologram updated, drawing a dotted line that curved from the bow of the ship to the outside edge of the iceberg. “The turning radius is too wide. The hull will clear, but the port engine pod will take a direct impact.”
“That sounds bad,” Leo said.
“It’ll set off an antimatter fusion cascade, sir. Hundreds of casualties.”
“Okay, so, definitely bad,” Leo whimpered.
“What are your orders, sir?” Quartermaster asked.
“I, uh…” Leo stared at the clump of jagged ice rolling toward them. His eyes glazed. His mind scrambled. His adrenalin burned. He wanted to run.
“Orders!” Burlock snapped. “Say something, boy!”
The commander’s shout knocked an idea from Leo’s brain. Not a good idea. Not even a full idea. Barely an image…
“This reminds me of something from my ancestral planet,” he stammered. “It was an ocean-going ship, but it was a lot like this one.”
Comfit nodded bleakly. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“You know about my people’s ships?”
“Well, just one. I saw a holodrama about it once. This is just like the Titanic.”
“Wait, what?” Leo said. “This is nothing like the Titanic.”
Comfit blinked. “A luxury liner. Maiden voyage. Iceberg. It’s literally exactly the same.”
“How did they avoid the collision?” Quartermaster asked.
“They didn’t,” Comfit said. “The ship was destroyed and most everyone died.”
Burlock snorted at Leo. “This is your idea? Suicide?”
“Gah! No!” Leo pinched his eyes. “I wasn’t talking about the Titanic! I was talking about the polar icebreaker ships. They could plow through arctic ice.” He gestured at the ax-blade of the holographic ship’s hull. “The bow is pointy. If we hit it full-speed, straight-on, we’ll smash right through the iceberg.”
“That’s insane. We’re not doing it.” Burlock said d
ismissively. He raised his voice over the continued scream of the warning klaxon. “Lieutenant Swooch, take evasive action. Let’s see how many casualties we get from clipping an engine.”
Leo’s stomach plunged at the commander’s blasé attitude toward collateral damage. Swooch threw back her scalp tentacles and glanced at Leo. “Evade or attack? It’s your call, Cap’n.”
A shock of nervous energy ran through Leo’s body, numbing his fingers. It was his call. He was the captain. The ship was in his hands. And he had no idea what to do. Every instinct told him to shrink back. Give up. Let Burlock take over. But a tiny Gellicle voice in his mind said this was his chance to prove himself. To save the ship not with experience or know-how, but with his unique knowledge of old Earth. His chance to use the history of the very people the aliens disrespected to rescue them all from certain death.
Leo would be a force to reckon with. Or die trying.
He thrust a finger at the mass of deadly ice. “Swooch, I order you to hit that iceberg!”
“You got it,” Swooch drawled.
The Geiko pumped the pedals and spun the yoke. Leo’s stomach lurched as the nose of the vessel turned toward the center of the ice. Comfit gripped her console.
“Brace for impact,” she said with commendable serenity. “Brace for impact.”
The iceberg tumbled toward them, filling the entire wall of windows. Leo grabbed the back of Swooch’s seat and clenched his teeth as the gap between the bow and the ice grew smaller and smaller. Then… impact! With a half-second screech of rending metal, the front of the ship was obliterated by ninety-thousand tons of ice. The windows shattered and the floor shook as every console in the room simultaneously burst into pyres of yellow flame, devouring the bridge crew. Leo wailed in horror as the flames rolled over his body.
He continued screaming.
He screamed some more.
“Deactivate tactical simulation,” Burlock said calmly.
Comfit leaned into her flaming panel and tapped the screen. The holographic model of the ship and iceberg blinked out, taking the flame and destruction with it. Leo sucked a breath and gaped at the intact bridge and the tumbling ice, still miles off the bow outside the window. He trembled as he clutched at his chest.
“How? What?” He collected his thoughts. “Gah!”
Comfit blinked at him. “I’m sorry, did you not know we were in a holographically augmented tactical simulation?”
Leo flailed his hands through the space where the hologram model had been. “I thought that’s was this thing was! I didn’t realize it was a whole…” He flung his arms wide. “Gah!”
Burlock’s teeth ground as the actual iceberg raged ever closer. “We wasted our simulation run on the monkey’s asinine idea. It’s do or die time.”
“Power is diverted to the thrusters,” Quartermaster reported.
“Lieutenant Swooch, do you feel lucky?” Burlock asked.
The Geiko wagged her brow. “Getting lucky is what I do, brah.” She clutched the flight controls as her bulbous lizard eyes studied the tumbling ice. “Might wanna hold onto something.”
With that, she stood on the pedals and swung the yoke in a smooth, broad motion. The jury-rigged thrusters ignited in sequence, rolling the vessel to the side. Leo grabbed the back of Swooch’s chair as the ship veered away from the iceberg and the wall of ice slid to one side of the window, revealing the safety of open space beyond.
“Bow is clear, but engines are not!” Comfit cried. “Brace for impact!”
“Nah,” Swooch muttered. “I got this.”
She kept the ship snug against the cratered surface of the ice just as its rotation revealed a deep scar carved in its side. With a steady swish of her wrist, Swooch slotted the engine into the gap. The ice lit up like a salt lantern as the blue burners traced the length of the channel, the outer edges of the pod barely missing the jagged walls. After an eternal second, the engine cleared the end of the frozen gash and the iceberg rolled away behind them.
“We’re clear!” Comfit shouted. “No damage! No injuries!”
“No problemo.” Swooch said with a grin. She glanced at Leo, who was still clutching the back of her seat with white knuckles. “Sorry your way didn’t work out, duder.”
Leo just stood there, pale faced and sweating. “This way was good too.”
“Excellent flying, Lieutenant,” Burlock said. “Comfit and Quartermaster, way to stay cool under pressure.” He turned to Leo. “As for you, Captain…”
Leo looked down, humiliated. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”
Burlock shook his head. “If we’d followed your orders, there wouldn’t be a next time.”
“I said I was sorry.”
Swooch spun lazily in her chair. “Hey buddy, don’t sweat it. So you’re not good at command. That’s fine. There’s a bunch of other stuff the captain’s gotta do.”
“There is?” Leo asked.
“Sure! Like plan the Captain’s Welcome Dinner.”
“Oh, that,” Leo mumbled. “Kellybean said she’s got that all taken care of.”
“Maybe you should go double check,” Quartermaster said.
“Yeah, it’s probably best if you give it an official inspection,” Comfit added. “You know, as captain.”
Leo looked at the three bridge officers, but none of them would make eye contact.
“Right. For sure. That’s super important. So I’ll go and, uh… take care of that.” He gestured at the command chair. “Unless you want me to stick around and—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Burlock said. “We’ve got things under control here.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Leo’s cheeks prickled with heat and his eyes went cloudy with humiliation as he scurried to the exit. He stopped in the lobby and turned to the bridge. “So, I guess I’ll just pop back up here after dinner then?”
The doors closed in his face as Burlock settled into the captain’s chair.
Chapter Seven
Leo hustled down the broad concourse of the Aloha Deck, taking deep breaths of the cool evening air. It was actually the same air it had been all day, but the ship’s artificial day-night cycle added a crispness to it as the ambient lights slowly went low and blue.
He tried to put the iceberg and their brush with death out of his mind as he scurried toward the main dining room. The day had been a total disaster so far, but he still had one chance to end it with a win. At the Captain’s Welcome Dinner, he’d be hosting the WTF executive board. This was an opportunity to convince the bigwigs that he was, as Kellybean insisted, a force to be reckoned with.
Maybe he’d even convince himself.
Leo reached the intimidating double doors of the ship’s most formal dining room and placed his hands on the polished brass handles, shaped like a pair of capital Fs standing back-to-back. He mustered his confidence, closed his eyes, and pushed his way into the posh eatery.
He opened his eyes. He blinked. He blinked again.
It was not what he was expecting.
The decor was… busy. Walls of dark wood and brick were hung heavy with a mismatched assortment of tchotchkes. One sported street signs and surfboards and an oversized novelty rack of billiard balls. Another, an electric football table and a gigantic Levi’s jeans logo and several tarnished funeral urns. Just junk everywhere, lurking in the dim lighting of the hanging, Tiffany-style lamps. Each table was covered in a garish red-and-white striped tablecloth.
A few alien servers bustled around the tables of the empty restaurant, laying down place settings. Each of them wore a red-and-white shirt and suspenders dotted with colorful buttons and pins. A tabby Gellicle girl smiled at him from behind a lectern. “Welcome to WTF Friday’s! In here, it’s Friday once a week.”
Leo gaped at the cluttered room. “I’m sorry, what am I looking at here?”
“This is a faithful recreation of the most upscale eatery on the planet America.”
&nbs
p; “There is no planet America,” Leo grumbled.
The Gellicle’s tail drooped. “Sorry, that was insensitive. I meant ‘the former planet America.’”
Leo pinched his eyes. “No, I mean—”
“Captain! Welcome!” A barrel-chested Geiko in a white chef’s coat and hat sidled up to the lectern, pushing a serving cart with a domed tray on top. “Master Chef Wabbo Fiero.” He held out a blue fist and Leo politely bumped it. “I’m so glad you’re here. I want to show you the American-style appetizer I’ve whipped up exclusively for your guests at the Captain’s Table. Feast your eyes!”
He whisked the cover off the tray, revealing what looked like a bloated, spiny starfish covered in chili and smothered in cheese. The creature slowly wriggled its clawed tentacles, sucking a wheezing breath as it crept across the plate. Leo jumped back with a gasp.
“Olé!” the chef said proudly. “The traditional dish of your people! Nachos!”
“No. Just no,” Leo stammered. “That’s messed up.”
The lizard chef looked down his snout at Leo. “Messed up? Hmph.” He scowled and rolled his bulbous eyes. “Fine. If you’re going to be a pedant about it, yes, we were out of gouda cheese so I used muenster.”
“Wow, that is not even close to the problem.”
Chef Fiero slammed the lid back over the wriggling, cheesy abomination. “My family has been cooking authentic American recipes since before you were even born! I think I know a fair bit more about the food of your people than you do! Good day, sir!”
He stomped away toward the kitchen with his cart. The hostess shook her head. “So rude.”
“I know, right? What’s with that guy?”
She narrowed her eyes. “No, you’re rude. A seventeen-star Goodyear chef offers you a delicacy of your ancestral world and you throw a hissy fit? What’s that all about?”
“It wasn’t a hissy fit. It was more an expression of primal horror,” Leo muttered. “I don’t know what that thing was, but it was not from the planet Earth.”
The hostess looked at him like he was a moron. “Right. It was from the planet America.”
Galaxy Cruise: The Maiden Voyage Page 9
