The show began with Cat performing an almost natural monologue over B-roll of the Pyre Festival and sexy mug shots of the GALAXY’S MOST WANTED. After the setup and theme song introduction, five minutes of the twenty minutes of content for the thirty-minute show had passed. The first commercial break had local, planetary, galactic, and intergalactic station identifications and advertisements, of which sixty-four percent were space vehicle commercials.
*Not quite as glamorous and dramatically functioning as The Firefly, but still a ship all the same,* announced the planetary commercial. *Licensed by OWL City and manufactured by the planet, Owz.*
“Can you fast forward through the commercials?” asked Lorav.
“Of course. No one likes to watch commercials.” Tarke pushed a few buttons.
*Sorry, this feature does not allow the fast forwarding of commercials for the first three days after the original air date. You may have more options if you sign in to your home galaxy network.*
“Use my log-in,” said Gail. She slowly pecked her ancient email address into the form and worked awkwardly to hide her password from Tarke, who already knew it was GaillovesQuaja9ate7.
The Pinwheel of Waiting appeared, before refreshing the screen and starting the episode over.
“Ugh, fast forward!” said Lorav, feigning a faint in her excessively stiff chair.
Tarke hit fast forward. It automatically stopped fast-forwarding.
*Not quite as glamorous and dramatically functioning as The Firefly, but still a ship all the same,* announced the planetary commercial. *Licensed by OWL City and manufactured by the planet, Owz.*
Tarke hit fast forward again.
*Sorry, your home galaxy network does not allow fast forwarding of commercials for the first week after the original air date. You may use Simulcast or other options if you sign into your mobile galaxy network.*
“Use my log-in,” said Gail. She just as slowly pecked her ancient email address into the form, her password, and her one-time password that for some reason hadn’t been sent to her email, but to Tarke’s.
The Pinwheel of Waiting appeared, before refreshing the screen and starting the episode over. Now the commercials and TV show played simultaneously with flashes of vehicles cutting in and out, and overlapping voiceover.
“Ugh... This is so much worse.” said Lorav, who refused to feign a faint again, because her back hurt from the first one. “Go back to the first one.”
*Not quite as glamorous and dramatically functioning as The Firefly...*
“Don’t touch it!” shouted Patav.
Patience had been wasted on the previous generations. They had had time to wait. What else were they going to do with the rest of their day, if not wait for everything? Wait to leave work, wait to pay for food they waited to get, wait for mail, wait for stores, wait for fossils to fuel their cars. Life moved at a much faster pace now, filled with many more emails, dinners, and stores. However, even with all the improvements the future held, no one could figure out how to pay enough to get out of watching commercials.
Finally, the camera panned the ship, and shiny neon flashed within a matte black cage bolted to the ground—it was their captain, Farkhanix Chakrabarti of Earth. Tarke paused the video and zoomed in so they could assess their captain’s condition.
Xtremely Unnecessary Definition™ actually wasn’t unnecessary for once as the crew studied Frankie’s slight scaling in the resolution. Her skin was a hot magenta pink as could be seen on any part of her body that was not hidden by her long-sleeved, long-legged, ankle-to-neck, scale-tight suit. Hot magenta-pink could be a color of distress—the crew wasn’t sure—but at least she wasn’t flashing like a pseudo-random strobe light. If they hadn’t known the captive, they’d have thought the actor was doing a very poor job in the scripted television series. Her body posture and face appeared alert but relaxed.
Of course, Cat hadn’t meant to capture Frankie. He was hunting for THE GALAXY’S MOST WANTED. To be honest, they did kind of look similar. “See, she’s with Cat. I’m sure everything’s fine. He’ll take her to an Intergalactic Police station and get it sorted out,” said Tarke, assuredly.
The rest of her crew did not share her optimism. Frankie was, in fact, in a cage and seemed to have no access to communication devices or attorneys.
“So, being named THE GALAXY’S MOST WANTED is a high honor which includes a hefty bounty for someone with the abilities to capture fugitives to bring them to justice.” Men loved men with abilities. “So, we will not be taking this one to the underfunded Intergalactic Police, but instead to a higher bidder.”
While the Intergalactic Police might not have been able to govern over galaxies, corporations had done an excellent job. It turned out, positive reinforcement in the form of commercialism was a much more controlling force than the punitive threats of the police. And by offering both a way to keep up with the Joneses and a way to keep the Joneses ahead, they had galaxy residents spinning their wheels.
Even with the Atalan’s small-scale finances, they’d tangoed with several of the major players. Vigar Industries had created Instant Transport!™ which had displaced 80% of the transport workforce. Vigar Industries colluded with Pi Zeconis to steal from their customers. In an attempt to disrupt the partnership—not because they thought stealing was wrong, but because they weren’t invited—Microlutions attempted to perform a terrorist act against Pi Zeconis. Quaja was on that ship and thwarted the attack. On the run, all three companies were searching for her to either prevent information from getting out or to extract information, all in the name of Free One-Second Shipping™.
“Microlutions is willing to pay a pretty penny. I’m not sure what the conversion rate is on that, but I believe it is in the realm of one and a half million IGRL,” reported Cat.
IGRL stood for Intergalactic Regulated Loot. It was a government-created currency, which would have failed much like the police department, except that the major corporations had backed its value. Beings rarely discussed or dealt with IGRL directly, and instead used EGRL which was an equivalency currency to avoid conversation rates, galaxy inflation, and the current multi-planetary Cash-for-Gold/Home Shopping Network crisis.
“See, he’s taking her to Microlutions. They will sort it all out there.” Tarke leaned back in her chair, propping her feet onto the console.
Without the children safety feature in the form of adhesive tape, she promptly and inadvertently triggered a high alert protocol, which automatically primed the weapons and diverted extra power to the engines. Perhaps no one would have noticed, except that the ship’s interior lights flashed red and infrared while an alarm screeched unnecessarily loudly. Tarke mashed random buttons until Quaja discreetly helped her out.
Microlutions wasn’t a place where things would be sorted out in any sort of ethical, fair, or honest way, but at least they knew where Frankie was heading.
“Set a course for Microlutions headquarters... And go!” shouted Tarke, enthusiastically.
“We can’t just go,” said Lorav through gritted teeth. “I have to plot our course. Even just one degree off could land us in the wrong galaxy.”
Tarke waved her hand dismissively. “Well then, do that, then go,” she said, sauntering off the bridge.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” shouted Lorav, obnoxiously. She stewed as she pulled out her notepad and space pen.
FIVE
Lorav couldn’t put into words how she felt about Tarke leading the Atalanta Empress, but if she could have, it probably would’ve been a string of expletives and some uncouth, possibly regrettable insults. It boggled Lorav’s mind that Tarke thought they could just go toward their destination and arrive there in short order.
Over the next hour, Lorav pieced together a navigation plan. Due to ‘advancements in technology,’ auto-navigation only worked if one had the newest set of licensed maps from one of the five major cartographers. Three of the major cartographers had gone to subscription-based maps—not because they were continually u
pdated, but because they made more money that way. The other two pushed for whole-map sales. Why only sell the sectors of interest, when one can bundle them with all the empty parts of space?
Unable to afford the monthly subscription or the unconscionable galaxy collections, Lorav sketched out her navigational route over the ship’s library of mix-and-match maps of different styles, outdated-ness, and complexity. Some still had watermarks, bootlegged from goodness knew where. Well, Tarke knew—bootlegged from Tarke knew where.
When she was satisfied with the route, she submitted it to Tarke, who promptly flicked it onto the windscreen for everyone to see. Lorav clenched her jaw. While she was confident in her navigational skills, it was simply unprofessional for the first-over to be ‘in front of the class.’
Tarke selected a breakdown of cognizant and non-cognizant travel time. Sixty-three percent of the trip would be handled within subspace; fourteen percent in gravitational slingshots; a non-zero percentage they’d be in unidentified spacetime or non-existent, depending on which scientific journal was to be believed; nineteen percent in typical spacetime going atypical spacetime velocities, primarily due to transitions; and a wicked thirty-three percent in typical spacetime going typical spacetime velocities (read: skagforge-yourself slow). Margins of error, spheres of influence, and statistical overlap created an excess of one-hundred percent—unless it did add up to one-hundred percent, which was doubtful.
Tarke stiffened. “THIRTY-THREE PERCENT? What, is that like, an hour?”
Long hauls were never her specialty.
“In Earth hours? I... don’t know. We’d have to list out a lot more figures, explain time drift, and account for single event upsets. I think it’s just better to say it’s a number you’re uncomfortable with.”
“An hour?”
“Sure, an hour.” Lorav would have smirked, but she wasn’t going to find the time any more enjoyable than Tarke would.
Tarke added another layer to the model on the screen. “Well, here’s a spot we could cut some time. You could do a gravitational swing around this planet, instead of taking the long way around. What planet is this?”
She pinched her first and second paw pads together then moved them in opposite directions—that zooming-in motion—within the planet’s sphere of influence on the windscreen.
“Hm, Beramuda. Sounds familiar. Have I ever been there?” Tarke asked the crew.
Lorav and Patav did not respond. Tarke turned in the direction of Quaja.
“In the few months I’ve been on the ship... uh, no. You haven’t been to Beramuda.”
“In either scenario, you still would not have been to Beramuda,” said Lorav sourly. She didn’t think Tarke should be giving suggestions for anything outside the scope of reality television and eliminating brassy tones from over-processed hair. “The risk is too high. Getting sucked into Beramuda’s gravity well will easily double our travel time.”
“Do the slingshot correctly and we’ll save time. Do I need to explain what’s at stake here?” asked Tarke, her tail puffing ever so slightly.
“Nothing, I thought. You said Frankie would be just fine in Cat’s care,” Lorav challenged. “And if time is of the essence, why are you picking apart the navigator’s navigation?”
Tarke turned aggressive. “Because I’m the captain, and you’ll do as I say! Ask your sister if I’m serious. I’m super serious!”
“Does our ship even have sufficient hull integrity or enough power to divert to the engines?” asked Lorav, knowing that Tarke didn’t have the answers.
Lorav didn’t need to be a mind reader to know the silence from her crewmates to her left and right meant they were not considering mutiny with her. Quaja didn’t want to rebel against a ship that had taken her in, but Patav should have been with Lorav.
“You do as I say, or you go to the brig,” said Tarke, her mane frazzled, making her look unhinged.
As a mind reader and a stubborn ass, Lorav wasn’t great at picking her battles. She fought the urge to reply they didn’t have a brig, and instead swallowed hard.
“Aye, Captain,” she mumbled. She gave her sister a death stare, before pulling out a stylus-like compass to calculate the necessary velocities and burn times for the planet-aided swing.
SIX
If things had been tense when the Atalan was stuck in subspace, things were also tense as the Atalan began its multi-prong journey to Microlutions, Inc. Headquarters in Norma 6B. As it was, they had been tense then, and so things were tense here too. Quaja hadn’t spoken up, but she did have concerns about the slingshot, and several other maneuvers down the line. Lorav had asked if the ship was physically capable of making the journey. It was a great question with a possibly complex and undesirable answer.
With a checklist beginning to form in her head, Quaja sashayed off the bridge with a curt nod to her new captain.
“You’re dismissed,” said Tarke, folding her arms and staring down at her.
Quaja understood why Tarke was acting the way she was. She was trying her best in the position she’d been put in. Still, Tarke was probably Quaja’s best friend on the ship, and she wished she could support her in some way. Although, keeping the ship from falling into gravity wells or tearing itself apart would probably be a good start.
Her tentacles rolled over three sides of each metal divider in the floor grates, following the temperature gradient toward the lower deck. First on her list was an electrical output variance from that section. Quaja removed one of the floor grates and lowered her body onto the pipes below. Stabilizing tentacles numbers three, eight, and nine curled around the metal bracing, holding her upright like a tripod. She ran thinner tentacles in proximity to the electrical conduits, feeling the pulse of electrons traveling through at seventy-two hertz (a value chosen to prevent backwards compatibility with... anything), searching for a disturbance.
She could request the power be turned off in this section of the ship, but that would require explaining mechanical concepts to Tarke, who called most of it “space magic.” She’d rather risk electrocution.
Even skirting the edges of disaster, Quaja preferred the salvaged Atalan over the picture-perfect and disposable ships of Microlutions. Here, the ship’s problems were unique and got her limbs pulsing with the near-death of it all. And, the crew was sort of cool to hang out with.
A sort of hiccup in the pulses came through a plastic tube hidden within the depths, despite its insulation. A tentacle with a pen arrived to mark the location. Had they been in a planet-bound mechanic’s shop or a well-equipped space station, the piping would be easily accessible. Fortunately, they did not make spacesuits with the mobility and dexterity a Kieron needed to perform such tasks. Quaja would have to remove the piping to gain access, all from the climate-controlled interior.
First, she’d identify infrastructure blocking access and divert all utilities therein. Removing the piping was as easy as turning off the quantum-space-manipulated seal joints, which were generously distributed along the lines. Unfortunately, the lines were not great for first-sight identification. All of the pipes, tubes, joints, and conduits were painted Gunmetal™, a shade of gray that could no longer be produced. When Crayola had trademarked and introduced the color, they came under fire for promoting violence. The CEO was fired, but not before his bizarre press conference in which he said, “It’s a crayon. How else are they going to draw pictures of their favorite games? I’ve tried coloring in a licensed Kill Everyone! coloring book with Earl Grey, and it’s just not the same.”
Quaja marked the pipes with her big-ass sharpie as she went along. This one was exhaust. This one was also exhaust. And the one over there was a cooling duct empty of cooling agent. Quaja undid the joints where the electrical problem lay, and found a rat nest of frayed wires. And by rat nest she meant a fertisrat nest. Fortunately, the nest was inactive. If it hadn’t been, they would have all died a fiery death by now. And by all, she did not mean the fertisrats. She meant the crew. The thing about ferti
srats was that you didn’t have a fertisrat problem for long. Soon you had a mass volume problem, where for every fertisrat-space there was one fertisrat. At that point, a ship could burst at the seams, and die a fiery death.
Quaja had replaced a lot of the ship’s more delicate systems in the rampant plague’s wake. Nests, droppings, and, of course, the confetti guts of all the lost fertisrat souls could really gunk up an air filtration system. Unfortunately, she’d have to turn off the power for this particular repair. The ever-changing wire diagram showed some of these wires heading toward the main bridge consoles, so they’d probably lose some ship control for the few minutes it would take her to dice and splice.
Knowing this would be a big deal, Quaja decided to talk it over with her captain and pilot in person. Standing on the floor level, she felt some small accelerations, which might have been her imagination. Oftentimes, it was one’s expectations that created the small shifts in a being’s equilibrium. Subspace jumps were not supposed to be a shift in momentum but a shift in existence. Though, perhaps like the rest of the ship, the subspace jump-function didn’t work quite right. Quaja put the floor panel back and planted a yellow pyramidal Wet Floor sign over it. Someone had taken another big-ass sharpie and corrected it to read Imminent Death Nearby. It worked for a variety of hazards that Gail might encounter.
SEVEN
“I might be on a reality TV show,” Gail said in an attempt to connect with her youngest granddaughter.
Rather than pull out all of the cruise ship decorations and furniture, Gail had taken the video call in her room, which she’d established in previous video calls as her cabin on the retirement cruise. By design, the room was actually a supply closet. Its lack of architectural detail complemented Gail’s spartan living space. She hadn’t brought much of her previous life onto the ship—that would have been retirement. This was an adventure.
Atalan Adventure Pack: Books 4-6 Page 8
