Andromeda Mayday

by D. Tolmach

  Tombstone’s Story

  Tombstone was having a threesome in his head with Andy and that hot redheaded security lady as liters upon liters of recycled water from the Qbik’s septic system beat down on him, slowly washing three months’ worth of crusted grime and sweat into the drain to be purified and reused as drinking water. He’d never fuck Andy in real life of course; that would be the end of the band. He was also kind of afraid of her, and, more than anything, he was afraid he would disappoint her.

  He finally came (with Andy riding him cowgirl and the ginger cop grinding her crotch into his mouth) and took a long piss into the drain. As he dried off and started to get his wits about him, he couldn’t help but recall how he got into this mess.

  * * *

  In the GUAP, your day began with a song, which sounds nice until you hear the song. Like it did every morning at 9 a.m., the Anthem of the Galactic Union (Thank your lucky stars/You were born free/In the best place you’ll ever be/The GUAP) jolted Tombstone from his sleep, followed by the news: “This week a record amount of helium-3 was extracted from the lunar mines of G-22-4. President Osco Silvos personally awarded workers there with the Order of Labor, 3rd Class”; then “The people of the Eagle Nebula have called on President Osco Silvos to send military assistance in their struggle against the Coalition of Free Star Systems. The president is expected to show his support for a referendum on independence in a speech later today and call for an end to CFSS aggression”; and, finally, “President Osco Silvos has met with the governors of Carina–Sagittarius, reprimanding them for not properly enforcing anticorruption laws,” all delivered in a sultry alto by the patriotic and sexy anchorwoman Vildana Dianae.

  It was the familiar pain, like he had been shot in the head and the bullet was lodged just behind and to the left of his left eye. He lit a cigarette and tried to remember last night, but it was all fragmentary flashes of memories: doing shots in a bar . . . stumbling to his room . . . stopping to buy a bottle of vodka . . . talking to somebody . . . a girl? . . . Suddenly a figure shot up from under the covers and ran into the bathroom, where it vomited into the toilet. Just managing to keep his cigarette from falling into his lap, Tombstone, discovering himself completely unclothed, stood up and walked slowly toward the door, peering in. She had purple marbled skin and a prehensile tail and was on her knees, coughing and gagging into the steel john. Shit. I got drunk and fucked an alien.

  There was a half-empty bottle of vodka next to the bed. He took a long swig and sat down. After a few minutes, she came out and, ignoring Wolfram, marched into the kitchen and put her head into the freezer, letting out a moan. Not sure what to do, he followed her.

  “Hello?”

  She groaned.

  “What’s your name?”

  She said something, but he couldn’t make it out.

  “I’m sorry?”

  She brought her head from the freezer and said, “Liona,” wiping her mouth. It was a Lathe. He’d never been this close to one, and she was actually kind of striking: hairless skin, colored brilliantly and intricately as a supernova remnant, and crystalline eyes with a tint of the lightest blue. They were supposedly not very intelligent and had a tendency for violence.

  “Hi, Liona. Do you remember what happened last night?” He spoke slowly with an exaggerated calmness.

  She stared at him angrily for a moment and slammed the freezer door shut. Great, now I’ve pissed off a Lathe. Liona went to the bed and, starting to cry, gathered her clothes. She got dressed clumsily and walked to the door, finally turning to him.

  “Do I remember what happened? Do I remember? It was the best night of my life, Tombstone. You fucking asshole.” Then there was an awkward half second as she waited for the door to open before storming out.

  * * *

  He was looking for work on a rural starstation orbiting a red dwarf and had a meeting later that day with the administrator of a pub. While he sat at the bar waiting for the interview, the house band started setting up. Whoever they were, their singer was gorgeous.

  “Mr. Wolfram?” He turned to see a female bioborg. “Follow me please.”

  She led him down a hall to a small and cluttered room bathed in reddish light from the station’s sun through a tiny window. The manager sat behind her desk reading her computer, not even looking up when Tombstone entered.

  He unpacked his instrument and played a single chord. “Wait, you play the accordion?” She finally looked at him.

  “I was awarded People’s Artist of the Galactic Union.”

  “You want to start a fucking riot? I don’t care how good you are. You can’t play the accordion in front of a bunch of drunk people. You’ll get yourself killed.”

  So he went back to the bar and sulked over a beer, watching the soundcheck. The band was mediocre, playing standards, but when the vocalist started to sing, the hair on Tombstone’s neck stood up. “Who is that?” he asked rhetorically, but the bartender heard him and answered: “That is Andromeda Mayday.”

  When they finished and she left the stage, Tombstone called out, “Hey, Andy!” She approached him warily.

  “Do I know you?”

  He handed her a beer. “Look, you sing better than anybody I heard in a long time. Your band though, they ain’t great. I’m the best accordionist in Scutum–Centaurus, and I got my own songs, good ones. You can make a few credits here and there playing covers in starstation dive bars, or you and me can find ourselves some actual musicians and start a real band, get some airplay, maybe even get on TV.” He had been practicing saying this for fifteen minutes.

  She took a sip and looked at him for a moment. “Let’s hear some of those ‘good ones.’” A lot of cocky musicians had tried to poach her. They made lots of promises, but mostly they wanted to get into her pants.

  Tombstone, who really wanted to get into her pants, grabbed his button box. “Follow me.”

  Osco’s Story

  President Silvos was a pragmatist. He didn’t actually care if people used obscenities or had sex with aliens; he had a harem of Lathe concubines himself—oh, the things they can do with their tails! He just needed some kind of galactic idea the people could get behind so that even if their life expectancies or salaries were the lowest in the galaxy, they could tell themselves “at least our culture is pure.”

  It’s important for people to think they are better than others.

  The scars of the Civil War, both psychological and physical, were fresh in the minds of his subjects, and there was still much rebuilding to do. In the meantime, he needed to unite them against a common enemy: xenosexuals, Lathe terrorists, the Qbik, the Coalition of Free Star Systems, or, better yet, all three working in tandem to destroy the traditional values of the Galactic Union. Any way to keep them preoccupied from the squalor they lived in and the corruption they dealt with every day from bureaucrats and the police.

  Silvos was alone, staring out the window of his presidential office into the darkness of space, when General Tauros rang at the door. Moving only his lips, he gave the command and it opened.

  “Sir, we have news from a clone. We think it’s headed toward the Qbik.”

  Without giving away any emotion, the president of the Galactic Union turned his head toward the officer, remaining silent. His interest had been piqued.

  “There was an attack on a space mansion near the Saber Nebula. Our troops were attempting to arrest a drug smuggler, but there was an explosion. The clone seems to have boarded the smuggler’s ship and took off soon after the attack. We’ve temporarily lost track of it, but we’ve sent reconnaissance scouts to the area to find the signal.”

  “What makes you think it’s traveling to the Qbik?”

  “The smuggler was Vint Carabine, highly suspected of being a Qbik agent. If we’re correct . . .”

  The clone program was Silvos’s most successful project. The best spy is the spy that doesn’t know it’s a spy. Raised in orphanages and trained in the arts and sciences, the genetically engineered o
peratives were indistinguishable from natural Humans, but they were sent out into the galaxy to find and befriend dissidents, drug addicts, and intellectuals, and their coordinates could be monitored from stations throughout the GUAP. When in range, their eyes and ears unwittingly transmitted everything they saw and heard to the Ministry of Benevolence. They were used to infiltrate terrorist cells, opposition groups, and cartels.

  “Good. Convene a meeting of ministers. Collect all the information we have already received from the clone and send it to me.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Alone again, the president turned on his holoviewer. Vildana Dianae was hosting a special documentary on extracting resources from planetoids. He turned the sound off and watched her hypnotic eyes. The good news about the clone made him restless. Soon, Armonde, you’ll be mining helium-3 on an asteroid in the Correctional Sector.

  He needed to fuck.

  “Call Vildana.” As her communicator rang, there was an incoming call from the Ministry of Benevolence.

  “Hey, sexy. I was just thinking how much I wanted a big presidential cock in my ass. . . .”

  “Hello, Vildana. Uh, let me put you on hold for a second.” He answered the other line.

  “Mr. President, there has been an attack on GR-57-3.”

  Silvos went numb.

  “Mr. President?”

  He walked to his desk before his knees gave out.

  “How bad?”

  “They set off an atmospheric nuclear bomb. No survivors, nothing left.”

  GR-57-3 was the Galactic Union’s pilot attempt to create a sustainable planet with a breathable atmosphere and warm climate. Sivos’s plans to genuinely improve the Union depended on the revenue growth and prestige it would bring. If they could pull it off, people from all over the galaxy would beg to move to the GUAP.

  “Who?”

  “Intelligence indicates the Lathe Underground.”

  “The Lathe Underground?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “WHERE THE FUCK DID THOSE FUCKING PURPLE TAILED CUNT STAINS GET A NUCLEAR FUCKING BOMB?”

  Two hundred years earlier, the Dynasty had given Earth an ultimatum: join us or die. In the middle of a thousand-year worldwide drought and seeing no reason to continue its sorry existence as a shadow of its former self, Earth chose the latter and was unceremoniously blown into very tiny pieces, which soon became collector’s items for homesick Earthlings who happened to be off-planet that Wednesday. One such rock made its way through various auctions and black-market antique dealers into Osco’s possession, where its new job was to keep papers from being blown off his desk. There was no wind and very little paper on a spaceship, so this task was boring even for a rock. Now it would suffer yet another indignity as rage engulfed its owner and he threw it impotently at his window before turning over his desk and punching the wall.

  Finally, shoulders slumped, he massaged his right hand and looked blankly at the floor. “Armonde.”

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  “Who was responsible for security on GR-57-3?”

  “General Caelyne.”

  “Put him and his entire family into an airlock and eject them into space.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Every single Lathe will be arrested. If any resist, kill them. I will oversee their interrogations myself.” His mind was kicking into logistics mode. “We’ll need a larger dungeon. Convert a starstation. We will ship the Lathes there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With intense focus, Silvos started working on the blueprints for his torture chamber.

  “Will there be anything el—” The president cut off the line.

  “Baby, you there?” The call had automatically switched back to Vildana. Her voice was playfully pouty.

  “Sorry, boo. I got work to do.”

  “But Osco, I’m horny.”

  “I know you are, kitten. I know.”

  Icy Lou

  Glistening with sweat, Andy leaned against the headboard and lit a cigarette. Her wig had come off at some point, and millimeter-long black stubble was already sprouting from her scalp. In between us, Boreon was already asleep. Lathes always pass out after sex.

  “Can I get one of those?” She pulled out a cigarette, put it in her mouth, and lit it, before handing it to me. We smoked in silence for a moment, until I couldn’t take the awkwardness of it all and nerded out.

  “Did you know ‘homosexual’ used to mean someone who was sexually attracted to members of their own sex? ‘Homo’ came from the Greek word for ‘same.’ Now, of course, we refer to the Latin ‘homo,’ which means ‘Human,’ so homosexuals are people attracted to Humans, as opposed to xenosexuals.” We obviously don’t need a word for same-sex attraction anymore because nobody cares what gender one is attracted to. I mean, we’re not barbarians.

  I looked around for something to ash in like an idiot before Andy handed me an empty beer bottle. That’s when Dewball rang me on my communicator.

  “Hey, Lou. We need you down here at the Control Deck ASAP.”

  “Fuck, D-ball, it’s my day off.”

  “You know I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important.” I was already putting my jumpsuit on. I kissed the still-sleeping Boreon on his cheek and patted Andy on her head. “You look dope bald.”

  * * *

  “Sorry to interrupt your orgy.” President Armonde greeted me.

  “It was a threesome, sir, not an orgy.”

  “Yeah, well, we got bad news.” I could see that. All the departmental bigwigs were there, looking grim. Holofeeds from various spy satellites were projected in the center of the Deck, and I saw what was worrying them right away. An armada of GUAP ships was heading straight for the Qbik.

  “How did they find us?”

  “We don’t know. We’re not a hundred percent sure they have. This could just be a coincidence.”

  “That’s not very likely though,” piped in the Secretary of Defense.

  “It will take them, what, three months?”

  “At these speeds, a matter of days. They must have upgraded their cruisers, because they are going much faster than we thought they could. They’re heavily armed. If they find us, we don’t stand a chance.”

  “But they still can’t see us.”

  The officials looked at each other uncomfortably. The president finally answered.

  “This move has taken us completely off guard. Right now we aren’t sure what their capabilities are. For all we know, there has been a security breach.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “We try to figure out how they fixated on our location and get ready for war.”

  Liona’s Story

  She was ashamed of her outburst. It wasn’t his fault. He was just a Human. They’re not like us. They weren’t all bad, but they were known to be not very intelligent and prone to violence. Just look at their governments.

  There was more to the Lathes’ desirability as lovers than their ability to stimulate your prostate with their tails. As an empath, she had shared a psychic bond with Tombstone ever since their liaison. He didn’t know it, but she could sense his emotions and locate him from any corner of the galaxy.

  When the explosion on the space mansion happened, it woke her up. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel his fear and the ghost of the wind that knocked him back. Unable to go back to sleep, Liona walked to the window of the small dormitory room she shared with fifty other Lathes and looked out at the stars. Something bad was about to happen.

  The migrant-labor dorm was on a rogue planet at the edge of the GUAP where they mined diamonds. There were few stars in the sky, but off in the distance another star was born. She peered at it curiously, and as it grew larger she realized it wasn’t a star at all.

  * * *

  By the time the troops from the Ministry of Benevolence came to arrest the Lathe miners, Liona had set the evacuation alarm, donned a space suit, and slipped out into the pitch-black eternal night.

  Icy Lo
u

  The ships were fearsome. They glided through space, sleek and black, hundreds of them, close enough now to be seen from Observation Deck A.

  “They look like death itself.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” I told Andy. “We’ll be fine.”

  “It’s coming from her.”

  I turned to see a man carrying a large phallic apparatus, which he had pointed at Andy. “Excuse me?”

  “The signal transmitting to the GUAP. It’s coming from her.”

  “Damn it, Andy.” Before she could react, I twisted her arms behind her back and had her in handcuffs. I called Dewball. “Arrest all the latest refugees and take them to Cellblock Omega. Have the president and Maxon meet me there.”

  “What the fuck, Lou?” she cried out in shock.

  * * *

  “Wait, she’s a robot? How the fuck did you miss this?” I shouted at Dr. Maxon.

  Cellblock Omega was the super-secret part of our detention center where we kept the most dangerous types. People for whom the Network didn’t work. People who couldn’t be controlled.

  “She’s not a robot. She’s a genetically engineered biological android, a clone. The tracking device isn’t inside her. She is the tracking device. It’s in her DNA. It emits transmissions through a dark-energy frequency. I had no idea that was even possible until we started going through all known signals emanating from the Qbik and couldn’t find anything. We had to think outside the box.”