Galaxy Cruise: The Maiden Voyage

by Hart, Marcus Alexander

  Jassi slugged him in the face. He staggered and played it off with a pained chuckle as he hit the stop button on Hax’s tape deck. The robot’s screen flickered back into two digital eyes. He blinked and focused on Jassi.

  “Why don’t you just eat ice cream? The mechanics are the same and that comes in chocolate.”

  “This is a later conversation,” Jassi hissed. “Actually, it’s a never conversation. Huck off, the both of you.”

  She shoved her bandmates, and Stobber plodded off with Hax rolling at his side. Jassi took a cleansing breath and turned back to Kellybean. The hospitality chief was perched demurely on a stool, sipping Stobber’s drink.

  “Ah shix,” Jassi muttered.

  “Is everything okay?” Kellybean asked, nodding to the retreating band members.

  “Yeah, they just had to go play in an open airlock.” Jassi eyed the glass in Kellybean’s paw. “Everything okay with you?”

  “Better than okay,” she said, licking her lips. “Booze tastes different when you’re on duty. The naughtiness gives it a little extra zing.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you’re tasting, all right. Naughtiness.” Jassi reached for the glass. “You know what? Don’t drink that. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  Kellybean pulled it away with a giggle. “It’s too late for that. You’ve already corrupted my work ethic.” She grabbed the other tumbler and held it out. “Don’t make me drink alone.”

  Jassi looked at the glass. Up Kellybean’s slender arm. To her face. Her seductive smile. Her yellow, come-hither eyes.

  “Oh, huck me,” she muttered. She took the glass and shot the entire thing in one gulp. Kellybean finished her drink and bit her lower lip with a pointy canine.

  “Hey,” she purred. “Do you want to get out of here?”

  Jassi’s eyes ticked from Kellybean’s smoldering gaze to her tainted tumbler and back again.

  “Yes, I definitely do.”

  ***

  Leo leaned against the rail, taking deep breaths of the crisp evening air. High above, stray space rocks bounced off the invisible bubble of the artificial magnetosphere, making aurora-like sparks of green light. Beyond the shield, the Blue Hole churned and tumbled like a raging electric sea, but Leo no longer feared it. Familiarity had made the anomaly hauntingly beautiful, and the honey-smooth crooning of Swaggy Humbershant, Jr. had made it downright romantic.

  On the deck, a few blue-white pin spots swept lazily over couples slow dancing cheek-to-cheek as the old Geiko worked his magic. Kellybean had left with the Verdaphyte girl almost an hour ago. Love was in the air.

  He wished Varlowe were here.

  The thought caught him off guard. Why did he wish that? Why did soft music and slow dancing call her to mind? He shook his head. Because the night was going well. Obviously. He just wanted her to see how he had turned things around. Wanted her to know Madame Skardon’s contest was in good hands.

  Yes. That was definitely it.

  “Enjoying yourself, Captain?”

  Leo jumped at the booming voice behind him. He whirled to find Burlock staring him down like a half-mechanical ghoul.

  “I am, actually.” He stood straight and gestured across the dance floor. “And so are the guests.”

  “Not the ones in the infirmary bleeding out their ear holes.”

  Leo went pale. “Oh my gosh, I forgot about… Is everybody okay?”

  “Doctor Waverlee has it all under control. Everyone will make a full recovery. But I need to conduct an investigation into what happened.”

  “Is that really necessary?” Leo asked.

  “It is,” Burlock growled. “Injuries like that don’t just happen spontaneously. When I find out who’s to blame, I will personally tear him, her, zer, or bur a new sphincter.”

  Leo squirmed. He wasn’t about to throw Kellybean under the hovercoach. So she made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.

  “Let’s just let it slide this time. No harm, no foul.” He considered it and grimaced. “Or, I guess, no permanent harm, no permanent foul?”

  Burlock’s brow lowered. “Your cavalier attitude toward the safety of the people on this ship disgusts me. But I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t care about the passengers. You poisoned the gahdamn executive board.”

  Heat prickled up Leo’s neck. “I told you, it was an accident.”

  Burlock glared. “You’re just lucky they’ve all recovered.”

  “They have?” Leo asked. “How do you know?”

  “The admiral called me personally before we entered the dead zone. The entire board has been discharged from the hospital on Halii Bai and they’re en route to Nyja. We’ll rendezvous with them on the dock tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” Leo let out a relieved breath. “I’m so happy everyone is okay.”

  “For now. But I’ve assigned an extra duty shift to the infirmary in anticipation of your next screw up.”

  “There won’t be a next screw up,” Leo growled.

  “There’d better not be. If this were the Imperial Navy you’d have been relieved of command and put out an airlock by now.”

  Leo’s hands balled into fists. “Look, Burlock. I know I haven’t been perfect, but I’ve had enough of this attitude out of you.” He tapped a finger on his scorched cap. “I’m the captain of this ship, and I’ve got everything under control.”

  “Do you?” Burlock snuffed.

  “I do!” Leo shouted. “And from now on it’ll be smooth sailing all the way to Ensenada—”

  A rock the size of a softball hit the deck at his side, smashing a hole clean through the wood. Leo squeaked and tumbled back. Burlock barely flinched. The music trembled to a stop. Another rock splashed into the pool. A clump of ice smashed through the roof of a cabana.

  “What?” Leo choked. “What’s happening?!”

  Spastic, stuttering winds blasted across the deck in seemingly random directions. All around, the normally transparent forcefield wavered and rippled with pale, sickly green.

  “Everyone get inside! Now!” Burlock bellowed. “The magnetosphere shield is failing!”

  The commander ran off into the crowd, leaving Leo staring upward in horror. The shield was failing. Radial cracks peeled open across its mottled green surface, explosively venting the ship’s atmosphere like rips in a hot-air balloon. Clods of ice and rock sailed through the gaps, smashing to the deck.

  A withered, fuchsia-striped Geiko shrieked over the chaos. “Help me! Horman, help me!”

  The elderly woman clung to a rail as the whipping gusts plucked at her dress, threatening to toss her overboard. Her husband struggled through the panicked crowd. “Hold on, Clerm! I’m coming!”

  The desperate scene snapped Leo out of his horrified reverie. He darted forward to grab the woman, but was too late. She lost her grip and shot into the air toward one of the sucking rips in the forcefield. But before she went through it, a jet of spider web hit her square in the chest. Leo turned to see Dilly flick its wrist and reel in the captured passenger like a yo-yo.

  “Yes!” Leo gasped. “Good work, Dilly!”

  The Dreda’s head swiveled as it scuttled across the deck, firing off rescue lines and reeling in survivors from all of its forelimbs at once. It held Clermytha to its face and let out a spittle-infused screech.

  “Please do not panic,” its collar said.

  The woman wailed in terror, uncertain if being in the spider’s grasp was a more or less certain death than being sucked into space.

  Burlock charged past, dragging a Lethargot with his mechanical hand and palming a Krubb’s domed head with the other. He raced to the open archway to the Rushmore Concourse and tossed them through like sacks of dirty laundry. As soon as they were inside he grabbed Leo’s arm. “Get inside, you idiot! With the rest of the useless idiots!”

  “Stop!” Leo shouted, grabbing at the metal fist clamped around his bicep. “Let go!”

 
“Shut up and get inside! I’ll deal with you later, after I’ve cleaned up your mess!”

  “My mess? I didn’t do any—” Leo’s shoulder threatened to dislocate as Burlock manhandled him toward an open door. The heat of his anger sizzled through the cold of the rapidly escaping atmosphere. “Damn it, Burlock! Let go of me! That’s an order!”

  Burlock paused for the briefest moment as the command took hold. The lens of his eye clicked angrily as he released Leo with a shove. “Fine! Die in space for all I care, Captain.”

  A steady wind blew from the Rushmore Concourse’s archway as the inside atmosphere rushed toward the lower pressure outside. The gale whipped Leo’s captain’s hat off his head, flinging it overboard.

  “We’ll talk about your attitude problem after we get everyone inside!” Leo shouted. “Now move!”

  He shoved Burlock, but the commander didn’t move. He didn’t even sway. A flash of anger blazed through his features. “Aye, Captain.”

  His massive boots clomped over the ravished deck as he grabbed screaming tourists and muscled them inside. A Verdaphyte man staggered in disorientation, his brown leaves ripping off and fluttering away on the wind. Leo took his arm and helped him to the concourse. Once the man was through the doors, hospitality crew on the other side launched into action, ushering him to safety.

  Leo felt a sudden rush of accomplishment. He’d rescued a passenger. An innocent soul had been pulled back from the edge of the abyss to live another day because of his—

  “Pardon me,” Dilly said.

  Leo stumbled aside as it scurried through the door, carrying six screaming, web-bound passengers in its arms and dragging four more by a braid slung over its shoulder.

  “Show off,” Leo grumbled.

  He rushed back out between the creaking stage and the boiling pool. His head throbbed and his joints tightened as the temperature plummeted. The magnetosphere had almost completely collapsed, taking the atmosphere with it. Inside the ship, crew members slammed airtight hatches, sealing it off. The broad arch of the Rushmore Concourse narrowed as its massive emergency doors began to slide closed.

  Leo struggled to draw breath as he frantically surveyed the deck. Not far away, Burlock was doing the same. The first officer rushed toward the captain.

  “That’s everyone!” Burlock shouted.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes! Now get your arze inside the gahdamn—”

  A hunk of ice the size of a grapefruit smashed into Burlock’s back. It exploded on impact, violently throwing him to the ground.

  “Burlock!” Leo’s shriek voided his lungs, and he clumsily fell at the commander’s side. “Burlock! Are you all right?”

  The hulking Ba’lux lay face-down, muscles trembling and servos twitching. His uniform was torn open, revealing a sparking crater in his robotic shoulder that turned into a bloody gash where metal met flesh. Leo pulled him upright. Burlock seemed to want to cooperate, but his stunned body lacked the coordination to comply.

  Leo’s lungs felt like they were turning inside out as he struggled to yank the Ba’lux to his feet. With gasping effort, he worked himself under Burlock’s organic arm and staggered toward the concourse door. The power of Leo’s adrenalin burn fought against the weight of the semi-conscious officer and the gale blasting through the slowly closing arch. Burlock stumbled without direction.

  “Come on…” Leo choked. “Almost… there…”

  A sticky gray mass slammed against Burlock’s barrel chest, attached to a strand of spider web coming from inside the ship. In a moment too quick to register, the commander launched through the archway of the concourse, reeled in by Dilly’s spinneret. Leo stumbled and fell as Burlock was ripped out of his arms.

  The door was nearly closed. Just a sliver of space barely wider than his shoulders remained. The escaping atmosphere raged through the narrow gap, a deluge of wind against Leo’s body. Doctor Waverlee appeared in the break, screaming bubbles into her helmet. “Captain! Grab my hand!”

  She leaned through the door and stretched her stubby arm as far as she could. Leo’s jaw clenched and his muscles burned as he reached for her webbed glove. Pressurized air rammed itself up his nose. His vision went fuzzy. He lost feeling in his limbs.

  Everything went dark.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Leo floated on a sea of fluffy black nothing. Sounds filtered through the gauze of reality. Unhappy sounds. Screams of confusion and cries of anguish. He didn’t want to go toward the sounds, but he felt himself rising to meet them. His eyes tingled as they slowly cracked open. Four faces came into focus. They were human. One had a mustache. But they were all gray. And huge. And made of stone.

  He snorted and sat up as the enormous statue of Queen asserted itself in his consciousness. He was on the Rushmore Concourse, lying on a patch of grass in the artificial park. Dozens of aliens were sprawled around him, on the ground and over the furniture. Hundreds more rubbernecked down at them from the rails of the upper levels as medical staff buzzed about, tending to the injured.

  “Well, look who’s awake.”

  Leo turned to see Burlock perched on a bench behind him. A thick, constricting wrap of autogauze was looped around his chest and shoulder like a bandolier, chemically repairing the impact crater on his back.

  “What happened?” Leo croaked. “Is everyone okay?”

  “No casualties,” Burlock said. “You got lucky, MacGavin.”

  Before Leo could express his relief, someone cut him off.

  “You got lucky too, old man.” Doctor Waverlee set down her medical bag and groaned as she crouched at Leo’s side. “The shaved Gellicle saved your orange hide out there.”

  Memories pushed through the haze in Leo’s oxygen-starved brain. The ice slamming into Burlock’s back, and the weight of the man’s augmented body as Leo had carried him to safety. He smiled through cracked lips. “I kinda did, didn’t I?”

  Burlock scowled. “You were… not useless.”

  “Enough with the macho nonsense.” Waverlee pulled an instrument from her bag and ran it over Leo’s body, taking some kind of measurement. “I saw the whole thing. Leo carried you like a little baby.”

  The commander’s eye narrowed. “Aren’t there patients elsewhere you need to treat?”

  “Nobody more important than the captain.” Waverlee looked at her instrument and let out a satisfied glub. “So, kiddo. What are you gonna do with your blood debt?”

  Leo blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “You know, the Ba’lux honor thing.” She waved at Burlock. “You saved his life so now he’s basically your slave forever.”

  Leo turned to Burlock. “Is that true?”

  “It’s a gross oversimplification,” the commander growled. “And you didn’t save my life. I could have made it inside on my own. Technically, I owe you nothing.” He crossed his arms and looked away with a pout.

  “Well, I’m just glad you’re okay,” Leo said. “We can work on your gratitude issues later.”

  All across the concourse, medical crew tended to injured patients. At the edge of the park, Kellybean staggered in from an adjoining corridor, holding the wall for stability. Her fur and clothes were rumpled as if she’d just rolled out of bed after a dreamless night. Her wobbling legs gave out, but Dilly swept in to catch her and escort her to Leo and the others.

  “Doctor Waverlee,” Dilly said. “ The lieutenant commander requires medical assistance.”

  “I don’t. I’m fine.” Kellybean swayed. “I’m probably fine.”

  Waverlee’s old body creaked as she stood up. “Well, in my professional opinion you look like crap.” She waved a hand at the door to the outside. “Did you get caught in the vacuum with the rest of ’em?”

  “Vacuum?” Kellybean asked dreamily. She blinked at the makeshift infirmary and sucked a breath as if seeing it for the first time. “Wait, what happened here?”

  “Magnetosphere failure,” Dilly noted.
“With full loss of atmospheric containment.”

  “I…” Kellybean smoothed down her ruffled fur. “I don’t remember that happening.”

  “You had already left,” Leo said.

  Kellybean pressed her paws to her temples. “Ugh. I don’t even remember leaving.”

  “Hoo boy,” Waverlee muttered. “Let’s have a look.” She pulled a device from her bag that looked like a thermometer with a suction cup on one end and mashed it to Kellybean’s forehead. It whirred and pinged. “Yep, your blood is lousy with drugs.”

  “Drugs?” Dilly gave Kellybean a disapproving glare. “It expects better of you, Lieutenant Commander.”

  “I didn’t take any drugs,” Kellybean snapped. “I just had one drink with…” Her eyes widened. “Oh no.”

  Leo stumbled to his feet. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.” Kellybean’s claws extended. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go find a certain Verdaphyte and teach her a lesson about respect.”

  She turned to storm off in a rage, but her legs dipped out from under her. Dilly clutched her and held her upright. Before she could make another attempt, Praz Kerplunkt scrambled up to them, flanked by two Lethargot technicians. One of them pushed a hovering auto-crate.

  “Praz!” Leo snapped. “What the hekk is going on? What happened to the magnetosphere?”

  “I’ll tell you what happened!” Praz shouted. “It crashed!”

  “Crashed?” Waverlee gasped.

  “Crashed,” Praz confirmed proudly.

  “Technically it hasn’t crashed,” one of the Lethargots said.

  “The dynamo’s gone into emergency core lockdown,” the other added. “It’s meant to prevent catastrophic failure if somebody tampers with the system.”

  Praz whirled on them. “Shut up! I’m the talking one!”

  “Wait, I thought the machine room was secured,” Leo said. “Who could have tampered with it?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Praz squealed. “We have absolutely nothing to go on!”

  “We actually do have a clue,” a Lethargot said. He pulled the release lever on his auto-crate and it split open and folded in on itself, revealing a waist-high chunk of burned-up wreckage. “The bots skimmed this out of the plasma shell.”