by S E Anderson
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, everyone local works for FunCorp.”
“But I don’t want to work for… FunCorp, was it?”
“Well, too bad, we belong to them, now,” she said, with a shrug, “the entire planet was sold to them over a century ago, along with everyone on it, and their descendants.”
“But I’m not a descendant!”
“Hey, your visa was revoked, same as me. We’re theirs. Tough luck.”
Jesi led her to a cabin, a small white room with two sleeping bunks and a porthole window. From it, Katra could see the city she had been sent to explore. Massive spacescrapers rose into a smoggy blue sky. It reminded her of Singapore, where they had fitted her for the pod she would eventually use to cross interstellar space. She and Marcus had gone clubbing. It had been that night he had proposed, stone drunk.
The next morning he had proposed again, sober, and with a ring. A ring that Katra wore now, rubbing her thumb along the band to fight off nerves.
Jesi tossed the pack on one of the bunks.
“You’re my buddy now,” she said. “We’ve got a long flight back to Super-freaky funland dark-side death-zone powered by MnM.”
“I hate that name.”
“I’m old enough to remember when it was planet MegaDeath.”
“Isn’t that a metal band?”
“I’m not a massive fan of classical music.” Jesi shrugged. “But hail the almighties.”
“I left the planet when it was called Earth,” Katra said, letting out a heavy sigh. “I’m not quite sure it’s the same planet I left.”
“Earth?” The child let out a low whistle. “Dinga, girl, you make my granny look old.”
“They apparently forgot to unfreeze my cryo-pod.”
“Dislocation is a bitch,” said Jesi. “I lost my last body in a hyperdrive accident. Apparently, you’re not supposed to know how fast you’re going on these things. The second you do, poof, no one actually knows where you are. They had to scrape my brain off the hull of a mining ship two light years away.”
“Sounds horrid!”
“Come on, let me introduce you to the other dregs of society.” She led Katra out the door. “Those of us going to Super-freaky funland dark-side death-zone powered by MnM because we have no other choice.”
“Can we call it something else?” Katra had to trot to keep up, which was impressive considering her legs were twice as long as the child’s. “That name is really a mouthful.”
“We’ll call it what it is, then,” said Jesi. “Hell in a hyperdrive.”
Katra wasn’t quite sure she wanted to go back to Earth in the first place, much less a planet called… everything it was called. But she did her best to keep a smile on her face: when all else failed, you smiled and waved. It was the pageant girl’s way.
Jesi led her into what looked like a break room in a boring office. White walls and floors surrounded the space, and a small table waited for them, already occupied by two men. The non-child waved in their general direction.
“Guys, meet Katra,” said Jesi. “Katra’s just been thawed. How long were you out, again?”
“I hadn’t said,” Katra replied. “About thirteen thousand years.”
“Thirteen thousand?” the taller of the two men at the table sputtered. His eyes went wide, a smile growing on his face like a blossom in sunlight. “Froz. That’s impressive.”
“Yorick here had his visa rejected upon arrival,” said Jesi. “He's not a dislocation victim like us.”
“Apparently, they have standards to uphold,” said the man, waving his hands in the air, “and I don’t conform to their beauty objectives. Yorick Adamou, by the way.”
Katra was quite confused by this. By all accounts, he was an insanely handsome man: more handsome than Marcus, bless him, wherever he was. He was tall and muscular, his shirt just tight enough to reveal the trace of his strong body under the thin gray material. His skin was a dark tan, his hair thick and dark, and the stunning beard framing his face reminded Katra of a pirate. He extended a hand to shake, turned a violent shade of red, and retracted it just as fast.
“I’ve always been self-conscious about my hands, but this is by far the worst discrimination I have ever received for them.”
“Your… hands?”
His hands looked normal to Katra. Normal and… strong? She started to imagine what it would feel like to have them on her skin, trailing down the length of her arms, her body –
She snapped herself out of the fantasy. No. She was loyal to Marcus, in body and mind, wherever he might be.
But damn, Yorick was a fine piece of human ass.
The other stranger hadn’t looked up for even a second. Katra took the empty seat between the two men, both as an excuse to get closer to Yorick and as a way to get a better look at the stranger. The man was… off, in a way. His skin too greasy, too shiny, too pale. He sat at the table holding a mug of something, his eyes wide open and staring off into the distance, unblinking.
“Don’t mind Owaitt,” said Yorick, “he’s run out of words on his spool. I’d rewind him, but I like the silence.”
He must have seen the look of confusion on her face, because he nodded, slowly, before launching into an explanation.
“Owaitt used to be a service droid before his type became obsolete. It costs too much to decommission the old ones; too much trouble, too much paperwork, and those damn bot-bangers clog up the process. So they just let them pick a planet to retire to. Owaitt picked Super-freaky funland dark-side death-zone powered by MnM.”
“We’re calling it Hell, for Katra’s sake,” said Jesi. “She doesn’t like the new name.”
“Who does?” The man rolled his eyes. “I liked it when they called the planet Hogwarts, after some old religious text. Though you might know a little more about that.”
Katra couldn’t speak: she wanted to, but the words simply did not come. She couldn’t pinpoint what was the weirdest from the conversation, but one thing was for sure: her mind had completely derailed.
“Can we just call it Earth?” she asked, her voice coming out a whisper.
“Sure, whatever,” said Jesi, “describes the shmuz pile it’s become quite well.”
Still, Owaitt didn’t budge an inch.
“Is he… did he die?” Katra dared to ask, pointing at the man. No, the droid: that’s what Yorick had called him. A droid. A robot.
“Nah, he just ran out of words,” Yorick explained. “His type did menial, repetitive tasks. When he talks or thinks too much, his memory chip gets clogged up. You need to clear it before he can move again.”
“Clear his memory?”
“Yeah. That’s why it’s so tedious: you have to explain who you are all over again – every time he boots up.”
The room turned red for a split second. The lights dimmed as a pleasant chime rang out, and Jesi smiled.
“Ah, we’re taking off. Don’t worry, Katra. Just a day, and you’ll be back home.”
But she would never be back home: home no longer existed. She might not feel the ship take off, but she knew it was moving further and further away from the life she could have had.
Chapter 3
You wouldn’t pirate a spaceship
Katra awoke to find a child sitting on her chest.
“Jesi?”
A small hand stuffed itself over Katra’s mouth. “Shh. We’re under attack.”
“We’re what?” Katra said, but it came out closer to “woowoo?”
“Pirates,” Jesi snarled. “Get up. We’re dislocated. We’re worth nothing as hostages. We’re gonna have to fight to stay alive.”
Katra swallowed, hard. She had never fought a day in her life, except maybe for the hours of kickboxing she did every day to tone her body. Though it wasn’t actual kickboxing, it was a kickboxing inspired workout, so she doubted it was quite what she needed now.
Especially when Jesi shoved a silver pistol in her hand.
“Do you know how to use this?” The non
-child asked, her tone hard and military.
“I guess I’ll have to learn.”
Jesi ripped the gun from her fingers and flipped it around. The gun felt cold and alien in Katra’s hands, even more so than an actual alien’s hands in her hands.
“Don’t let them kill you, and don’t let them take you alive,” she ordered Katra. “Press the red button to shoot. Come on!”
And with that, Jesi jumped into the hallway, brandishing two guns and a terrifying smile.
“Shouldn’t we hide? And wait this out?” Katra coughed as she ran after Jesi. “We have nothing to do with them! They’d let us go, right?”
“Froz if I know, they’re Pirates! It’s not like they have a code or anything!”
With that, a massive explosion rumbled through the ship, tossing the two women sideways. The walls shuddered and moaned as the ship lurched sideways. Katra fell on the wall, slamming her head against a porthole.
Her mind was swimming when she pulled herself back up, reaching for her gun with trembling fingers. Whatever gravity had been holding them down to the floor had now switched sides, and the floor was now a wall, random items from the rooms raining down into the hallway.
Katra spotted her blue backpack down the way a bit, the only thing she owned in the world. She pushed herself to her feet and tore after it, hissing as she put weight on her ankle. It wasn’t busted, but it hurt like hell and made running a pain in the ass.
A man fell through one of the open doors, wearing the stupidest assortment of silver gears duct-taped to his body-hugging-spacesuit, as useless as useless could be. He looked up at Katra and grimaced, leveling his gun at her face.
Out of nowhere came a flying blur of blue, screaming as her leg collided with his face. The pirate fell to the ground and little Jesi pinned him down with her knees, pummeling his face with punch after punch.
Katra had to look away, but looking away brought her eyes to land on the open doorway above them, where three more pirates were waiting to jump down.
Froz! Or Fuck! All the fucking expletives!
She grabbed her gun and started blasting them out of sheer terror. Blam blam blam blam blam. She couldn’t see if she had hit anyone, the world was bright with plasma beams, but she screamed and shot like there was no tomorrow.
“Run!”
Jesi grasped the dangling door, and with superhuman strength, managed to slam it shut above them. She grabbed the weapon the unconscious – and now unrecognizable – pirate had been holding and twirled it dangerously through her fingers.
“Lock and load, praise be to almighty MegaDeath,” she said, her grin terrifyingly large.
A nine-year-old with two guns was scary enough: a nine-year-old with an adult brain with a penchant for killing was even worse. But if that was all it took for Katra to live, she would follow the kid to the ends of the universe.
“I said run! Are you deaf as well as frozzing stupid?”
Katra’s knees buckled under her. She crumbled to the floor, terrified and shaking. Jesi grabbed her shoulder and forced her back up on trembling legs.
“That’s the opposite of running! Get out of here, frozzler!”
Katra didn’t know what happened to the men above the door, if she had killed them or not, but she found herself trusting the non-child to handle them. There was a strength that bubbled up from within, and she threw her legs forward on the ceiling which was now a floor, and ran.
A rally of blasts sizzled behind her, firepower exploding as she scrambled to escape. She clutched the gun to her chest, hoping desperately it wasn’t out of ammo.
She didn’t know the ship, and upside down it was unrecognizable. Katra dashed down the hallway of the sleeping quarters and made her way through the break room, where Owaitt was crumbled in a pile on the floor. She felt sad for an instant, seeing the thing so drained of life. If she could have helped him, she would have. But she didn’t know the tech, and that was putting it mildly.
Katra kept running, without looking back. The sound of gunfire was nothing but dim background music now. She took a breather, exhausted from the run – coupled with the panic – and leaned against the hallway wall, trying to calm her racing heart.
You’re okay, you’re okay, she repeated to herself. But it wasn’t helping: because now, not only was she thinking about the invasion of the space pirates. Which of course meant she was now thinking of a futuristic Earth she wasn’t sure she wanted to see. And then, she was thinking of everything else, too.
The fancy ceremony before the UN shoved her into a cryo-pod.
The look on her mother’s face when she told her over Skype that she was going into space, and wouldn’t be back during her lifetime.
Marcus, when he proposed to her, both the drunk proposal and the real one. The show of strength he put on to make sure she knew going to the pageant was a good idea.
Marcus.
Marcus, if you’re in there, say something…
But there wasn’t time for him to reply. There was a massive blade coming for her neck, and Katra threw herself to the floor to avoid being beheaded by a knife-wielding space pirate.
The floor smelled of elderberries, was her first thought. The second was wondering how to get up now that she was down. She hopped up to her feet – exercise twenty-three: Thirty reps, morning and night – and leapt away from the weapon.
But it wasn’t the only one there.
Her backpack fell to what had formerly been the ceiling as she backed up into the arms of another space pirate, right into its stupid over-decorated spacesuit. This one had opted for patches rather than gears, covering every silver inch with bright colors of space teams from across the galaxy. It would have been cool looking if it didn’t belong to someone who was trying to kill her.
Or the fact that one of them was moving, laughing at her, a purple jackal holding red vines in its hands.
At least, she thought they were red vines.
“Well, would you looky here?” the patch pirate chuckled, wrapping his arm over Katra’s collarbone, like that jerk she had dated sophomore year of college. It hadn’t been sexy then, and it wasn’t sexy now.
“Looks like we have a dislocated human on her way home,” said another, in a patronizingly high voice. “Isn’t that sad. Let’s show you another home, doll face.”
“Yeah,” said a third pirate, eager to get in on the action, “let’s show her a better home!”
“Bl’aké, I said that already,” said the creep right in front of her. A cursory glance showed that this one was tall and built like a wall, big enough to fill a doorway.
“Well, we’ll show her!” stammered the small one, Bl’aké.
The wall guy let out a heavy sigh.
“Maybe you should go back to the ship, kid.”
“Oh, come on,” Bl’aké pleaded. “Okay, fine, I don’t have the best one liners. Not all of us went to college for this, Granite.”
“Your name is Granite?” Katra couldn’t help but ask. The grip around her neck tightened.
“Because I’m impossible to break,” he explained, muscles literally swelling with pride. He leaned over to kiss a muscle.
Bl’aké was a fly in comparison. He was small, hunched over, with greasy hair and skin. Katra quickly considered her options: if men hadn’t changed in 13,000 years, she at least had a few tricks up her sleeves. Not that she wanted to use them – they were skills she wasn’t proud of.
Plus, aliens.
They looked human enough, with faces that had normal noses and eyes and mouths; bodies with the correct number of arms and legs. So what if their skin wasn’t in the rainbow of hues she was used to seeing – reds too red to be natural, lingering on the border of purple and even blue – they still looked like just anyone she knew back from Earth.
But she couldn’t speak for what was under those bulky suits.
And she didn’t want to know.
“You know, Granite isn’t really the hardest material,” she stammered, and realized ma
ybe that wasn’t the best plan of attack.
The wall turned bright red. “What did she say?”
“I think she said that granite isn’t the hardest material,” Bl’aké repeated.
Granite rolled his massive eyes in exasperation. “Just go back to the ship, kid, before you embarrass yourself any further.”
“But I…”
“Look, kid, you tried, but you’re just not ready for quick, witty repartee with hostages just yet.”
The arm around her neck got tighter still. She found the air was taking longer to reach her lungs, and black spots swam in front of her eyes.
Pretty sure that wasn’t part of the ship’s futuristic décor.
“So what are we doing with her?” asked the owner of the arm.
“Not you, too!” Granite snapped. “Do you remember nothing from Advanced Hostage Taking?”
“It was in the first semester!”
“Exactly!”
And that’s when it hit.
There were no words to explain it. One minute, Katra was terrified, shaking, and sure this was all going to end badly. The next, her limbs were no longer her own, and with a move like liquid water, she slipped out of her captor’s grasp.
She grabbed his hand, ripped it backward, and stabbed her fingers straight into his eyeballs in one swift move. He screamed, doubling over, and she spun him in front of her, wielding him like a human shield. She wrenched the gun from his hand, without even thinking, took aim at the pirates, all while using the patch guy to stop them from striking back.
Apparently, they didn’t care all that much for him, because instantly he was screaming in pain, plasma beams ripping his skin from his bones and burning ligaments and sinew as he stood.
She aimed at Granite, snarling. Her hand was steady and her aim was true, but the man was nimble. Bl’aké, on the other hand, was completely useless, getting hit despite the fact she wasn’t even aiming at him.
“Oh, I die, Horatio!” he screamed.
“Froz, kid,” Granite said to him, still shooting at Katra, “you really need to work on those last words!”
Then Katra heard it, the sound that filled her with dread – a single, sad, click.
