“Basic flying skills?” Miz guessed.
“Ha! Bested!” said Tyrra, and she and Miz both pointed to each other without looking.
“I don’t know if we should steal one,” Loren said. “Do we really want to go down that route? Do we really want to become, you know, criminals?”
Cal raised an eyebrow. “You do know what ship you’re on, yes? You have been paying attention for these last six months? We’re already criminals. Like, a hundred times over.”
“No, I know we were technically criminals,” Loren said. “I mean, not me so much, but you were all…”
She cleared her throat and decided to take a slightly different approach.
“Whatever. The point is, we were criminals back there. Back in Zertex space. We aren’t criminals here. Nobody knows us in this sector. It’s a fresh start. Do we really want to blow that on the first planet we land on?”
“I mean… I don’t know,” said Cal. He looked around at the others. “Do we?”
“Works for me,” said Miz.
“We could have lives here,” Loren said. “Maybe not this planet, but this system, or this sector.”
“We have lives,” Cal pointed out.
“But real lives,” said Loren.
Cal ran the words through his head a few times, trying to process them. “You mean off the ship?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” said Loren. “I’m not saying right away, just… I don’t know. One day. Maybe.”
“Get off this damn ship and never have to see you fonks again for the rest of my life? OK, now I’m interested,” said Mech. His hydraulics whirred as he turned to Loren. “So, if we ain’t gonna steal one, what do you suggest?”
“I don’t know,” Loren admitted. “I mean, I guess we could always…”
“Don’t say it,” Cal pleaded. “Don’t you dare say it.”
“…get jobs.”
A silence fell, heavy and oppressive.
“I know I said there were no bad ideas, honey,” said Cal, his voice quiet. “But you didn’t need to take that as some kind of personal challenge. We’re not getting jobs.”
Loren tilted her head back and folded her arms. “Why not, honey?”
“Well… because!” said Cal.
“Because…?”
“Because it’s not what we do! I’m a dashing space captain. You’re my loyal yet ragtag crew of loveable misfits. Plus Tyrra. We can’t get jobs.”
“Yeah, Loren. Like, I can’t believe you’re even suggesting that,” Miz scowled. “You suck.”
“I guess it ain’t a terrible idea,” said Mech. “There’s gotta be jobs we could do.”
“Seriously? You’re actually considering this?” asked Cal.
“An honest day’s work never hurt no one,” Mech said.
“Oh, yeah? Tell that to Great Uncle Charlie,” Cal said.
Mech frowned. “Who the fonk is Great Uncle Charlie?”
“My mom’s uncle. Or, I don’t know, like a weird friend of the family. I have no idea. The point is, he died. At work,” Cal said. He rocked back on his heels, his point proven. “So bang goes your theory!”
“What did he do?” asked Loren.
Cal flinched. “He was… in finance,” he said, then he sighed. “OK, I guess technically, he was a bank robber. A guard shot him eleven times in the chest. But the point still stands. Jobs are dangerous. We don’t want to get involved.”
The screen behind him changed to display several hundred lines of text.
“Would it help if I called up the local job listing board, sir?” Kevin asked.
“No! No, don’t go there, Kevin,” Cal instructed.
“He already has,” said Loren.
“Damn it, Kevin!” Cal groaned, turning to the screen. “I mean it. We do not want to go down that… Wait. ‘Gameshow contestants’? That’s a job? How is that a job?” His eyes lit up with excitement. “I could do that job. I’d be great on a gameshow.”
“Not enough legs, sir,” said Kevin.
Some of the sheen left Cal’s eyes. “Huh?”
“This particular opportunity is only open to members of species with four or more legs,” Kevin said.
“How do you know?”
“Well, it’s for a show called ‘We’ve All Got Four Legs,’ sir,” said Kevin. “Also, it states it quite plainly on the first line of the description.”
“Right.”
“In bold, sir.”
“OK, I see.”
“It says ‘Only open to—‘”
“Yes, Kevin. I get it. Although, I still think it’s kind of fonking leggist,” said Cal.
He pointed accusingly at the screen. “You see, Loren? You see how jobs screw you over? I could’ve been on TV, but no. Now I won’t be. That’s what jobs are like. That’s the kind of thing you’re trying to get us involved with.”
“This one looks interesting,” said Mech, gazing up at the screen. “‘Wanted: Armed ships to provide support for negotiators attempting to end a long-standing trade federation blockade.”
“No,” said Cal, emphatically shaking his head.
“No?” Mech echoed.
Cal continued to shake his head. “No. That has The Phantom Menace written all over it.”
“What the fonk does that mean?” asked Mech.
“Just trust me. We don’t want to get involved. We’ll be up to our necks in earnest little blond kids and CGI Muppets before we can say ‘Jesus Christ, this movie sucks.’ No. We’re not touching it. I’d rather go back to doing dishes at Nana Joan’s,” Cal said.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, breathing out some of his tension.
“Fonking Midichlorians.”
“Like, what about the next one?” asked Miz. “That one looks pretty cool.”
Cal craned his neck to glare at her. “Et you, Mizette?” he asked, coming within a whisker of getting the phrase correct.
Mech read the next listing aloud.
“Experienced bounty hunters sought to carry out the capture and restraint of known terrorist, Professor Pheloneous Nushtuk. Must have experience of dealing with robots.”
Cal wheeled around to face the screen. “OK, that sounds cool,” he admitted. “And we don’t just have experience of dealing with robots, one of us actually is a robot.”
“Not a robot,” Mech grunted.
Cal waved a hand. “We’ll put make-up on you. No one will be able to tell the difference.”
Mech looked around at Loren. “Why is he putting make-up on me?”
Loren could only shrug in response.
“What have we got on this Nushtuk character, Kevin?” Cal asked.
One third of the screen was replaced by a black and white image of a long-necked figure with a shock of white hair.
“Jesus, it’s like Albert Einstein boinked E.T.,” said Cal. “We can take out this guy. Right? No problem. What’s the pay?”
“A hundred thousand, sir,” said Kevin.
Cal spluttered and pointed to the weedy, weak-chinned face on the screen. “A hundred thousand?! For taking down that guy? We could just nuke his house from orbit, then go pick up the check.”
“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, sir,” said Kevin. “They have stipulated that he must be brought in alive.”
“That’ll make it more difficult,” Loren added.
“Are you kidding me?” Cal snorted. “That guy? Midget Doc Brown? We’ll have him hogtied and spitting teeth by dinner time.”
He spun back to face the crew. “Ignore everything I said earlier, jobs are awesome,” Cal declared. “Loren, fire up whatever’s left of the engines. Mech, space Skype whoever put this listing up and tell them we’re on it. Miz, Tyrra, try not to set anything on fire.”
He grinned, his hope restored. They were going to get money. They were going to get a new warp disk. Everything was going to work out just fine.
“This is going to be the easiest Vajacox anyone ever made!”
Fourteen
/> “Oh-shizz-oh-shizz-oh-shizz!”
Cal threw himself to the floor and covered his head just as Mech came screaming by above him, arms and legs spread, spinning like the throwing star of some giant ninja. With an ear-splitting screeeeech, Mech tore through the second-to-bottom container in a stack of Winnebago-sized metal crates on Cal’s right, swore loudly, then exited the crate through the opposite wall.
Its structural integrity now royally fonked, the tower began to wobble. It did not spend much time in this wobbling phase, electing instead to proceed rapidly to the ‘about to fall on Cal’ stage of proceedings.
“Oh-shizz-oh-shizz-oh-shizz!” Cal ejected again, his feet slipping and sliding on the polished warehouse floor as he tried desperately to get traction.
A shadow grew around him. It was a large rectangular shadow, and one of many that were currently darkening the ground around him.
A boot found purchase. He kicked off, rolling clear just as the first of the containers slammed into the floor with a ka-thang that rattled his bones and strummed his nerve endings like a banjo.
Another of the crates fell in front of him, the impact shaking the ground. He slid like Bambi on ice, only without the benefit of twice as many legs to hold him upright. God, he wished he had four legs. If he had four legs, he’d have a much better chance of not falling on his ass. And, more importantly, he could’ve been on that gameshow now instead of fighting for his life in a skanky warehouse on the moon. Or a moon. Or whatever the fonk it was.
The first container that had fallen spent the next few moments teetering on one edge, trying to decide which way to fall. Cal knew, of course, that it would choose to fall in his direction. Of course it would. Everything always did.
Slipping, skidding, and flailing his arms in big flapping circles, he half-ran, half-skated toward a gap where the second container hadn’t quite wedged all the way against the other stack of crates on Cal’s left. He threw himself at it just as the first crate came down, landed heavily on his stomach, and let his momentum carry him through the gap.
The moment he emerged on the other side of the crate, a hand caught him. Well, it was more of a claw, really—a three-fingered robotic pincer that snapped closed on the back of his shirt and jerked him into the air.
The buttons on the front of the shirt popped, and he slipped out of it, clattered against the floor, then managed to get himself up and moving before the mechanized bamston could make another grab for him.
“You shan’t take me. Do you hear me?” hissed an amplified voice from elsewhere in the warehouse. “I shan’t let you take me. I shan’t!”
“Give up now, Nutmuck!” Cal warned. “Last chance.”
“It’s Nushtuk!” the voice spat back. “How many times must I tell you? Nushtuk!”
“Whatever it is, surrender now, or I’ll be forced to—”
A volley of blaster fire hammered against the crate beside him. Cal ducked, covered his head with his hands again, and dashed madly for cover.
“Jesus! They’re shooting! They’re shooting!” Cal yelped. “Mech? Mech, where are you, buddy?”
The question was answered a moment later when Mech exploded through a crate just ahead of Cal. It was unlikely that he had done this on purpose, Cal thought, because of the way he’d come through the crate backwards, shouting, “Motherfonker!” at the top of his voice.
He hit the wall of the crate across from the one he’d passed right through, but his momentum had been slowed enough that he didn’t continue through this one, instead merely crumpling a near-perfect outline of himself in the metal.
“Hey! Are you a sight for sore eyes,” said Cal, rushing over to him. “We need to…”
He looked down at Mech’s feet. Or, more accurately, his foot.
“Why do you only have one leg?”
“Why the fonk do you think I only have one leg?” Mech barked.
“Did it come off?”
“Well, it ain’t on! So, I guess it fonking must have! Now duck.”
“Huh?”
Mech raised his arm until the cannon on his wrist was pointing directly at Cal’s face.
“I said—”
Cal ducked just as Mech opened fire. The robot who had grabbed and then subsequently shot at Cal lost its head. Its blue painted body marched on a few more steps on auto-pilot, then whatever signal had been driving it on was lost and it froze, mid-step.
Mech and Cal both watched the robot as it toppled sideways and hit the floor.
“We got one!” Cal said. “Holy shizz, we actually got one.”
“One of two fonking hundred!” Mech barked. “I knew we shouldn’t have rushed in. I said we should’ve scoped the place out, but oh no. You wanted to just charge on in and grab him.”
“He looked so harmless,” Cal protested. “How was I to know he had two hundred robots?”
“We could’ve looked through the motherfonking window!” said Mech.
A fist appeared through the container wall he was partly embedded in, and a three-clawed hand caught him by the head.
“I am holding you personally responsible for all this shizz,” Mech said, witheringly. And then, he was torn through the wall and Cal once again found himself at the foot of a teetering tower of storage containers.
“Aw, Jesus,” he groaned, running on the spot for a few seconds on the almost frictionless floor before finding enough purchase to launch himself clear.
CLANG! KA-TANK! BOOM!
The force of the sound waves caused by the falling containers shoved Cal on. He fought to stay upright by swinging his arms straight at his sides in an opposite rhythm to his penduluming legs. It was actually rather breathtaking to watch, but almost entirely ineffective.
He hit the floor chin-first. The pain immediately sprang him to his feet again, only for both legs to go in opposite directions as soon as he was upright.
Cal performed a clumsy splits, slammed his ass-cheeks against the floor, then decided to allow himself to rest for two seconds while he composed himself and got his bearings again.
A second-and-a-half later, a robotic hand caught him by the hair. He roared in pain as he was swung in a wide arc, then released. He spent an almost-enjoyable few moments sailing through the air, and then his knees—one of the few parts of him yet to become acquainted with the floor—were introduced to it and he went careening helplessly on them toward a second robot a little farther along the warehouse.
A metal arm swung at him like a clothes-line attack. Just before it hit, Cal threw himself back until his head almost touched the floor. His slide limboed him under the arm, and as he passed under the robot he saw a little bundle of exposed wires in the gap where one of its legs met its crotch.
He grabbed the wires and let his momentum do the rest. As the wires were torn from their housing, the robot’s top half spun furiously in an anti-clockwise direction until, with a boing, the torso shot into the air like a popped cork and then clattered onto the floor.
“Two down!” Cal called. “That’s ten percent!”
“It’s one percent!” Mech hollered from elsewhere in the warehouse. This was followed by a series of clanks and bangs and then the roar of several heavy things all falling over at the same time.
“Wait, what?” said Cal, consulting his fingers. “So two-hundred minus…”
Blaster fire tore up the floor beside him, forcing him to abandon his calculations. Rolling sideways, he found the upper half of the robot he’d destroyed and fumbled with the weapon attached to its arm.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered, struggling with the complex clips. His eyes went to the robot who’d tossed him in this direction. It stalked toward him, easily keeping its balance on the floor, its weapon locking on.
With a roar, Cal snapped the clips holding the weapon in place, and squeezed the trigger. A series of crackling energy bolts lit up the glassy floor and went streaking toward their target.
Then past their target.
They exploded some distance
away against one of the warehouse’s reinforced walls.
“OK,” Cal muttered, adjusting his aim. “Let’s try that again…”
Loren sat on the bridge of the Currently Untitled, her feet on her console as she quietly enjoyed a Twix. She’d become quite addicted to their combination of crunchy base, caramel topping, and delicious milk chocolate since Cal had first introduced her to them, to the point she was starting to get a little worried. She often found herself eating anything up to a third of a finger a day these days, and had doubled her morning sit-ups routine to compensate.
Splurt sat on the console beside her feet, watching her. Occasionally, he’d momentarily break away from watching her in order to watch the Twix, instead. Then, he’d remember what he was supposed to be doing, and pull himself together.
“Any word from Cal and Mech?” Loren asked, after shaving a fraction of an inch of the end of the chocolate-covered stick with her teeth.
“Not since they entered the complex, ma’am,” said Kevin. “So, I’m assuming everything’s fine.”
“I still think we should’ve all gone,” Loren said.
She broke a piece off the end of the Twix and tossed it to Splurt. He grew a mouth, caught the lump of chocolate, then swallowed it. It floated in his stomach like a tiny animal carcass suspended in preserving fluid.
“Master Carver was quite insistent that he and Master Mech would be fine,” Kevin said. “He felt it best that you—”
“Stay behind to make sure Miz and Tyrra don’t blow anything up. Yes, I remember,” Loren said.
She shaved off another piece of chocolate, licked away a smear of caramel that snagged on her lips, then gazed through the viewscreen at the hangar-sized warehouse building ahead of them.
“I’m sure they’ll call if they require any help,” Kevin assured her.
“Yeah,” said Loren, chewing slowly. Kroysh, these things were good. “I’m sure they will.”
The door to the bridge slid open. Loren glanced back briefly as Miz slunk in and slumped into her chair with a sigh.
“I can’t believe we had to stay behind,” Miz scowled. “Like, what’s the point of coming all this way and just staying on the stupid ship?”
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