Galaxy Cruise: The Maiden Voyage

by Hart, Marcus Alexander

  “Where’s Kellybean?” she asked.

  “Kellywho?” Stobber grumbled.

  “Kellybean! The Gellicle!”

  “Hooray! You’re alive!” a digital voice cheered. Jassi looked up to see Hax speeding up behind Stobber, his eyes aglow with joy. “I was so worried! Where have you two been?”

  “Lookin’ for you, wingnuts,” Stobber grunted. “Come on, we’re all getting out of here.”

  “Yay! Together forever!” Hax chirped.

  From her vantage point atop the towering Nomit, Jassi suddenly became aware of passengers gathering at the muster stations. “Wait, what’s going on here?”

  Stobber stopped walking and set Jassi down at the back of a group being hustled into a lifeboat. “I dunno. Looks like the American captain screwed the pooch. We gotta abandon ship.”

  A frenzied Simishi crew member in a yellow vest rushed over with a scanner. “I need your optical organ! Now!”

  Stobber bent down and widened his enormous, salad-plate eyes. The Simishi scanned him with a green light and bright ping. “Stobber, Sikkolas. Get in!”

  The Nomit crouched and squeezed himself through the door and into the lifeboat. Hax rolled up eagerly. “Me next!”

  One of his eyes winked out and the other expanded to fill the screen. The crewman scanned it. “Haxkit Electronics model 132, serial number: FFEA97?”

  “That’s my name, don’t wear it out!”

  Hax’s tires bumped over the edge of the door and he settled into the seat next to Stobber. The Simishi turned to Jassi and impatiently waved a webbed hand. “Come on, come on!”

  Jassi shook her head. “I… I can’t.”

  “The huck you mean you can’t?” Stobber said.

  “I can’t!” Jassi snapped. “I have to find Kellybean.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Stobber snorted. “Get in the boat!”

  The Simishi shoved his scanner in her face and it pinged. “Kiktrash, Jassilyn! Move it!”

  “Get offa me!” she roared, shoving him away. “I’m not leaving without Kellybean!”

  “Why not?” Stobber said. “She had no problem leaving you!”

  “The huck you talking about?”

  “I found you passed out in a bar! Alone!” He shook his head. “That furry bish hucked and chucked you, Jass.”

  Jassi squinted at him. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously! Get in the gahdamn boat!”

  “Listen to your friend!” the Simishi glubbed. “Move it!”

  “Jassi, please. Come with us.” Hax reached out a plastic hand. “Best friends, right? Together forever?”

  His eyes turned pleading. Jassi put her fingers to the sticky cat saliva on her neck. She imagined Kellybean dumping her unconscious body in a bar. She couldn’t remember any of it.

  She took Hax’s hand.

  “Together forever, buddy.”

  ***

  Kellybean loaded passengers into a lifeboat with an ache of relief. This was the last of her assigned muster stations, which meant her work was technically done. There was one seat left on this boat, and it was reserved for her. But she couldn’t bring herself to board.

  She had unfinished business.

  Her fingers flicked across the screen of her retinal scanner and scrolled through the names in the shipwide register. There were still a lot of people to evacuate. But the person she was looking for was not among them.

  Kiktrash, Jassilyn had abandoned ship. Kellybean wasn’t surprised. Abandoning seemed to be her jam. Jassi had already abandoned Kellybean in her own bed.

  Her blood boiled at the memory of waking up in a twist of blankets, still strewn with crinkled leaves. Trusting Jassi had been a mistake. Her claws twitched. Now she was ready to evacuate. Ready to track down that treacherous plant and show her what happens when you disrespect a Gellicle.

  Kellybean tapped the panel next to the lifeboat’s door, prepping the auto-launch sequence. But before she could cross the threshold, a horrible rattling, clanking noise caught her attention.

  She turned just in time to see a battered yellow maintenance bot barreling down the concourse. Its front side was smashed completely flat, and an ax stuck out of its head. Almost before Kellybean understood what she was looking at, the bot plowed into her. She mewled in pain as it clumsily snagged her in its four arms and ran straight into the wall.

  The robot fell apart upon impact, leaving Kellybean sprawled on the floor with the air pounded from her lungs. Her vision swam through a possible concussion, but she managed to focus on an orange figure rushing up to the lifeboat.

  “Praz!” she gasped. “What did you do?”

  “I fixed something!” he said proudly.

  Praz leaped through the hatch and the door slammed shut behind him. With a dull thump against the hull, Kellybean’s lifeboat launched without her in it.

  “No!” Pain surged from her smashed shins and knees as she struggled to her feet and kicked her way through the bot debris to see her boat swoop away to rendezvous with the rest of the escape fleet. She pounded a fist on the window. “Damn it, Praz! That was my seat!”

  “Kellybean!” a voice shouted. She staggered around on her bruised legs to find Leo sprinting up to her. He scrambled to a stop, gasping for breath. “We’ve been sabotaged!”

  “What?”

  “The poisoning! The engines!” He slapped at his tabloyd. “It’s all right here! Somebody did it on purpose!”

  “What?!” Kellybean’s fur ruffled. “Who?”

  “I don’t know! But we need to tell Burlock! Come on!”

  Leo bolted down the abandoned concourse, dodging around overturned cafe tables, and broken dishes, and discarded luggage. Kellybean took off after him, hobbling on her sore legs.

  But as soon as Leo made it to the first corner, someone stepped out to meet him. Burlock’s fist hit Leo’s jaw like it had been fired from a torpedo tube. Leo’s head twisted on his neck and he hit the wall then the floor in rapid succession.

  “Leo!” Kellybean mewled.

  Before Leo could stand, an orange hand closed around his throat and hauled him off the ground.

  “You stupid, gahdamned fool!” Burlock roared. “What the huck do you think you’re doing?”

  “Burlock!” Kellybean hissed. “Let him go!”

  She screeched and pounced at him, claws out. With a powerful swing of his cybernetic arm, Burlock smacked the feline out of the air mid-lunge. She sailed across the corridor and hit the opposite wall with a sickly thwack before falling to the floor in a heap.

  “Kell… Bea…” Leo gagged.

  He scrabbled and clawed but couldn’t break free of Burlock’s tightening grip. The Ba’lux seethed with rage as he pointed out the window. “You two idiots doomed all those passengers!”

  “No.” Leo gasped. “We… saved… them.”

  “You ignorant mammal!” Burlock roared. “What do you think is going to happen to them?”

  “Picked up,” Leo choked. “Rescue ship.”

  “What rescue ship? We’re outside the shipping lanes, millions of miles out of comm range in any direction!” Burlock turned Leo’s choking, purple face toward the window. Clods of rock and ice continued to pelt the glass. Far in the distance, the glowing specks of the lifeboat engines were barely visible against the raging storm of the Blue Hole. “Those boats don’t have shielding for a debris cloud like this! They’ll be smashed to bits within an hour!” He banged Leo’s skull on the bulkhead, rattling his brains. “Feel that? That’s eighteen inches of reinforced chromasteel! They were safer on the ship, you gahdamn idiot!”

  The fight went out of Leo as Burlock’s fingers crushed his windpipe. His vision darkened and his muscles unspooled.

  “I… didn’t… know…”

  “You didn’t have to know! I knew! That’s why I didn’t order an evacuation! Your little mutiny has condemned every soul on those boats to die a grisly death in the vacuum of sp
ace.” Burlock’s voice turned icy. “So I condemn you to the same fate.”

  He hauled Leo to the nearest airlock like a lethargic rag doll.

  “Stop…” Leo whispered. “Burlock…”

  His hands swatted limply and clumsily at Burlock’s chest and face, but the Ba’lux didn’t even flinch. He tapped the pad on the airlock, and the inner door slid open. Kellybean tried to stand but crashed to the floor, her battered legs and concussed head both working against her.

  “Burlock!” she cried. “Stop!”

  “Quit your mewling, cat!” Burlock roared. “I’m putting you out next!”

  “I don’t think so,” a gravelly voice muttered.

  Burlock spun to see a ragged Verdaphyte girl with a magnum of champagne hefted over her shoulder like a baseball bat.

  “Cheers, motherhucker.”

  Jassi’s long muscles whipped the bottle around and smashed it into the side of Burlock’s head, shattering the glass. His skull let out a gruesome crack and his prosthetic sparked against the bubbly deluge. He roared and stumbled back, dropping Leo to the ground.

  “Jassi!” Kellybean gasped. “What… how… you!”

  “I know,” Jassi wagged a brow. “Speechless, right?”

  Burlock swiped the booze out of his eye and glared in murderous rage. “Looks like it’s time to cut the grass!”

  He drew back his mechanical hand and three serrated blades unsheathed from his fingers with a schling of metal on metal. But before he could swing it forward, his arm was caught by a plastic hand.

  “You can have this back when you’re ready to play nice.

  Hax stabbed a screwdriver into Burlock’s lethal prosthetic, spinning it with drill-like speed. The metal arm fell off at the elbow and dropped to the floor. Burlock swung his stump at Jassi, but she dodged. At the same time, her boot swung up and connected with his crotch like she was kicking a field goal. Burlock howled and fell to his knees, and Jassi followed up with a vicious uppercut that knocked his implant right out of his skull. The crescent of his organic head trembled as he keeled over and crashed lifelessly to the deck.

  Kellybean struggled to her feet. “You killed him!”

  Hax stuck out a finger and plugged it into one of Burlock’s cranial sockets. His eyes frizzed out then came back into focus. “He’ll be fine. But his reproductive capacity has been reduced by a factor of seven percent.”

  Leo coughed and rubbed his crushed throat. “You… you saved me! Why did you save me?”

  Jassi squinted at him. “I didn’t.” She thumbed at Kellybean. “I saved her. You just got in the way.”

  “Well, thanks anyhow,” Leo mumbled.

  Kellybean stared at Jassi. “But… you were scanned off the ship. You evacuated!”

  “Almost!” Hax said cheerily. “She grabbed my hand and I thought she was going to get in the boat, but then she pulled me out of the boat!” He clasped his hands. “Surprise twist! So dramatic!”

  Jassi shrugged at Kellybean. “I couldn’t leave. Not until I knew you were okay.”

  Warmth percolated in Kellybean’s chest, drawing a hint of dreamy smile to her face. But before it could bloom she stomped it out with a scowl. “What do you care if I’m okay?” She crossed her arms. “You certainly didn’t care when you drugged me at the concert.”

  Jassi cringed. “It wasn’t me! It was Stobber!”

  Leo blinked at Jassi and Hax. “Hey, where is Stobber?”

  “He stayed on the lifeboat,” Jassi growled. “Huck that guy.”

  “No, huck you,” Kellybean said choking out the expletive. “You’re the one who took advantage of me!” Her ears flicked back and her pupils narrowed to slits. “You disrespected me!” Her claws came out. “You violated my trust, Jassi!”

  “I…” Jassi raised her hands and quirked a brow. “Did I?”

  “Yes you did!” Kellybean screeched.

  “How?”

  “What do you mean how?”

  “Like, literally. How? What did I do?” Jassi clutched her head. “I have no idea what happened after we left the concert.”

  “I’m sorry, I really don’t mean to interrupt,” Leo said, “but maybe this argument isn’t our highest priority right now.”

  Jassi snorted. “Oh, so sorry to trouble you with our tiresome female ladyproblems. Please, mansplain exactly what’s more important.”

  “Well, okay. Somebody sabotaged the engines and we’re currently coasting toward a gravity well with no hope of escape, we just staged a full-on mutiny and nearly murdered the captain, there aren’t enough lifeboats to evacuate everyone left on board, and it doesn’t matter anyway because the boats we’ve already launched are going to be smashed apart by debris, leaving the passengers to asphyxiate in the vacuum of space.”

  Jassi’s eyes rolled. “Fine, we’ll put a pin in the ladyproblems.”

  Leo’s laundry list of catastrophe settled in Kellybean’s mind. “Oh my gosh. The lifeboats!” Her tail flicked helplessly. “Burlock was right! We can’t call for a rescue ship to collect them!”

  “Don’t worry,” Hax said. “A ship will be passing by soon.”

  “No, it won’t,” Leo groaned. “We’re millions of miles outside the shipping lanes!”

  “Nonetheless, a ship will be passing by soon.” Hax cocked his head at the window. “That one, specifically.”

  Everyone peered through the glass at the distinctive red flare of ion burners in the distance. The vessel’s shape was blacked out against their blinding glow, but whatever it was, it was enormous. A manic grin spread on Leo’s face. “It’s a ship! There’s a ship! We’re saved!”

  “Not necessarily,” Kellybean said. “The Blue Hole seriously wangs up external sensors. They probably don’t even know we’re here.”

  Leo rushed off down the concourse.

  “Then let’s go make sure they do!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Leo raced onto the command bridge, followed by Kellybean, Jassi, and Hax. Every console blinked errors and screamed warnings, but they were all abandoned except for the helm.

  Swooch spun in her chair and raked a hand through her long scalp tentacles.

  “Hey hey! It’s Not-Captain Leo! Good to see you, buddy. I thought Burlock would have killed you by now.”

  “It’s good to see you, too,” Leo said, ignoring the rest. “Any progress on the engine repairs?”

  “Nah. Still boned.” Swooch put a finger on the yoke and gave it a flick, sending it into a useless spin. “But check this out.” She pointed to the window. In the corner was a display reading 200x magnification. In the center was a ship that looked like an enormous metal lionfish with an ion burner stuck up its butt.

  “It’s the Opulera! It’s Varlowe!” Leo’s heart swelled with relief. “Somebody open a comm channel!”

  Swooch shook her head. “I already tried. They’re not talkin’.”

  “No?” Leo peered at the magnified view in the window. The Americano Grande’s tiny lifeboats were queued for landing in an open shuttle bay on the Ba’lux ship. A few were already inside. “Clearly they know we’re here. Why wouldn’t they answer us?”

  Kellybean swiped on the MonCom panel and a glitchy rectangle appeared in the corner of the panoramic window. “Interference from the Blue Hole is scrambling comms. We can’t get a link.”

  “Lemme take a look,” Jassi said.

  She stepped behind the MonCom console at Kellybean’s side. Kellybean crossed her arms and pulled back, annoyed. “You think I don’t know how to use a comm panel?”

  “No, I think your system is all hucked up.” Jassi poked at the readouts. “You got the power, you’re just using it wrong.”

  “I’m using it exactly the way it was designed—”

  Kellybean yelped as Jassi slammed the point of her woody elbow into a groove at the lower edge of the console and wrenched her arm. With a creak of rending metal, the seal broke and the panel hinged open.
<
br />   “Hey! Don’t wreck that!” Leo cried. “We need it!”

  “Cool yer balls. I’m not wreckin’ anything.” Jassi held up a hand. “Hax. Wrench me. Three-quarter inch.”

  “Coming up!” Hax opened the drawer in his hips, plucked out a wrench, and hurled it to Jassi. It hit her woody palm with a clack and she dug into the exposed panel.

  “These big starships have stupidly wide comm beams. You got power to waste, so you do, blasting your shix over half the galaxy. If you put all that juice into a tight beam and actually aim the damn thing…”

  She fitted the wrench on a component and gave it a twist. At the same time, the distorted image on the window resolved into a WTF logo with a blinking message.

  Ship-to-ship network established. Awaiting remote connection.

  “Whoa!” Leo said. “You fixed it!”

  “Duh.” Jassi flicked a hand at the Opulera. “You can chat your meaty face off as soon as they pick up the call.”

  “That’s awesome!” Leo cheered. “Thank you so—”

  He choked as a strand of spider web as big around as his arm hit him in the back. Before he could pull a breath he was yanked off his feet and into the arms of Dilly, standing hunched in the doorway. A second strand hit Kellybean and reeled her in beside him. The security chief dangled them above the ground, clenching them in its spindly fingers.

  “Dilly!” Leo gasped. “What are you—”

  The Dreda’s glowing eyes flared in anger as it screeched in Leo’s face, showering him with sticky drool. “You said you wanted to save passengers, but you put them in danger,” its translation collar said calmly. “You tricked it into helping you.”

  “We didn’t trick you!” Kellybean mewled. “It was a mistake!”

  Leo’s head bobbed in agreement. “It was a good deed gone horribly wrong!”

  “Oi! Spider!” Jassi cracked her knuckles. “Put the kitty down or you’re gonna be in for a world of—”

  Dilly fired a net of webbing that blasted Jassi off her feet and slapped her brutally against a bulkhead. Hax gasped.