Will Save the Galaxy for Food

by Yahtzee Croshaw

  Will Save the Galaxy for Food © 2017 Yahtzee Croshaw. Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental.

  Zero Punctuation is a trademark of Themis Group, Inc. Used with permission.

  Cover design by David Nestelle

  Cover illustration by E. M. Gist

  Published by Dark Horse Books

  A division of Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

  10956 SE Main Street

  Milwaukie, OR 97222

  DarkHorse.com

  International Licensing: (503) 905-2377

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Croshaw, Yahtzee, author. | Gist, E. M., illustrator.

  Title: Will save the galaxy for food / Yahtzee Croshaw ; illustrated by EM

  Gist.

  Description: Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Books, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016045698 | ISBN 9781506701653 (paperback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Science fiction. | Humorous fiction. | BISAC: FICTION /

  Science Fiction / Adventure. | FICTION / Science Fiction / General.

  Classification: LCC PR9619.4.C735 W55 2017 | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016045698

  Special thanks to Daniel Chabon, Cardner Clark, and Annie Gullion

  First edition: February 2017

  ISBN 978-1-50670-165-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Neil Hankerson Executive Vice President • Tom Weddle Chief Financial Officer • Randy Stradley Vice President of Publishing • Matt Parkinson Vice President of Marketing • David Scroggy Vice President of Product Development • Dale LaFountain Vice President of Information Technology • Cara Niece Vice President of Production and Scheduling • Nick McWhorter Vice President of Media Licensing • Mark Bernardi Vice President of Digital and Book Trade Sales • Ken Lizzi General Counsel • Dave Marshall Editor in Chief • Davey Estrada Editorial Director • Scott Allie Executive Senior Editor • Chris Warner Senior Books Editor • Cary Grazzini Director of Specialty Projects • Lia Ribacchi Art Director • Vanessa Todd Director of Print Purchasing • Matt Dryer Director of Digital Art and Prepress • Sarah Robertson Director of Product Sales • Michael Gombos Director of International Publishing and Licensing

  Chapter 1

  I mashed the button to open the port-side observation shutters just as day broke on the planet below. An orange crescent slashed brilliantly across the blackness, and the sleeping world was gradually unveiled, the rising sunlight spreading like glittering marmalade across the toast of God.

  “The planet Cantrabargid,” I announced. “Homeworld of the Zuviron people. A proud and noble warrior race. When I aided their struggle against the enslaved cyborg army of the Malmind, I watched their fighting men sweep across the plains like a rolling storm cloud. The clash of sword on cybernetic implant was deafening, all night and into morning, until the fields were ankle deep in blood and transmission fluid. For it was their very future that they were fighting for that day.”

  “Bor-ing,” said the cabin intercom, in a voice several years shy of doint descent. All the remaining air in my lungs left in an irritated blast.

  “Ronald!” continued the intercom, in an older voice. “It is not boring! Sit up straight!”

  “I’m booooored,” said young Ronald. I could faintly hear expensive trainers rhythmically kicking part of my ship’s interior. “I wanna go back to Luny Land.”

  “Come on, Ronald,” said a new, tired, female voice. “We’ve had your holiday; it’s our turn now. Don’t spoil it for your father.”

  “Yes, stop spoiling it for your mother!” said the father. “Look! Just think of all the millions of years of history below you.”

  “It’s just a planeeet,” whined Ronald. “It’s just an orange planet in lots of space. I’ve seen space.”

  “It’s . . . not terribly interesting, is it, dear,” said the mother.

  “You haven’t seen space! Not real space!” said the intercom’s increasingly flustered adult male voice. “This is space from the Golden Age of star piloting, you know. You won’t see any of this if you only ever use those bloody teleport holes.”

  “It’s just blaaack,” said Ronald.

  “But we could have seen it just as well from the observatory, dear,” said the mother. “And we wouldn’t be paying fifty euroyen an hour to someone who, frankly, I find very suspect.”

  I’d had enough. “This is your captain speaking,” I said, in my bored-­professional voice. “All passengers, please be informed that the cabin intercom is two-way if you haven’t pressed the Disable Speaker button.”

  Promptly, the speaker made a scratchy little thumping noise. “Oh, well done, Janice,” said the father’s voice. “What on earth must he think of us now?”

  “I do find it very suspect that he didn’t mention that earlier,” sniffed Janice.

  “Give him a break. You know it’s been tough for star pilots since quantum tunneling. Leave the rest of your sandwich under the seat. He’ll probably still eat that.”

  “This is your captain speaking again,” I added. “All passengers, please be informed that the button is a bit sticky and you need to press it quite hard.”

  The following silence was eventually broken by a cry of “I’M BOOOR—,” cut off by another, louder thump.

  I swung my feet up onto the control panel and leaned back. The heel of my shoe knocked the self-destruct lever. Not that it mattered; it hadn’t been working since at least last year, when I’d been in a rather dark mood and given it a try.

  I stared sullenly at the now fully illuminated Cantrabargid through the forward viewing port, a strong taste of bitterness pooling in the back of my mouth. Doints, I thought. Plying tourist doints. And Prince Ronald, the tracciest little bracket of Dointland. Him I hated most of all, because he’d realized in five seconds what had taken me a month of post-war R&R: that Cantrabargid was a very boring planet. Yeah, it livened up when you were fighting alongside the spearhead of a major battle for the freedom of the people, but once freed, those people were awful conversationalists. If it wasn’t about swords, they just didn’t want to know.

  After a token orbit around the planet—long enough to milk my hourly rate as much as I could—I set a return course for the trebuchet gate that led back to the solar system. I took my usual route back through the asteroid belt, in the hopes that a bit of close dodging and weaving would give my passengers the excitement they craved, or at least shut them up. The autonav would prevent any actual collision. Ostensibly. It was past warranty, and I had resolved not to think about it.

  We turned, placing the light of Cantrabargid’s larger sun behind us. It was then, as I did a close sweep across a large asteroid, that I noticed that my ship appeared to have two shadows. I gave my sensor unit a kick, causing it to briefly whir into life and display a blip on the screen. The atmosphere in the cockpit became a lot less boring very fast. The blip had a pirate signature. And it was closing in.

  I threw myself upright, took the control stick in one hand, and palmed the intercom button with the other. “Attention passengers!” I said urgently. “We are being engaged by a pirate vessel. There is no need to panic. The doors to the passenger cabi
n have been sealed. Remain inside and brace yourselves for evasive action.”

  After about a quarter second of bracing time I slammed the control stick to the left, banking toward the asteroid, and took momentary pleasure in the distant sound of a ten-year-old body being thrown from a seat. The pirate ship was prepared for this, and its boosters came on.

  I could see it in the rear view. A smaller vessel, a standard sort of interstellar clipper modified for aggression and spray-painted with colorful imagery like a biker’s sleeve tattoo. Along with the usual assortment of highly illegal weaponry, the pirates had attached a great many cosmetic spikes and fins that didn’t do much more than give me a slight aerodynamic advantage.

  I’d have to make the most of it. I sped toward the asteroid with the front thrusters simmering, firing them at the last second before impact and making a hard ninety-degree turn. But the pirates weren’t falling for that old trick, and pursued me across the rocky surface.

  They hadn’t fired. Not even a warning shot. Even bullets have value, and you might not need to waste one if your target is on full thrusters ten feet away from uneven terrain. The pirate ship made little feints in my direction, trying to make me flinch myself to death. But I knew they wouldn’t risk an actual collision.

  So I feinted back, to call their bluff, and they withdrew just far enough for me to make my move. I pitched my ship until her left nacelle was practically scraping the ground, then reached up and pulled the special lever on the autonav. The one set up to fire off a complicated series of programmed movements designed to closely resemble a ship careening out of control.

  I clung to the seat of the control chair with all my available limbs as the ship pitched and barrel rolled. Something large and fleshy thudded against the wall dividing the cockpit from the passenger cabin. Red lights flickered across every readout, and the tortured engines were making every loose panel on the ship vibrate with a rattling scream. The ship’s movement described a wide arc, almost completing half an orbit around the asteroid, until I broke line of sight with the pirates.

  I shoved the second lever, and a colossal bang rang out from the ship’s rear as the luggage compartment depressurized at the exact same moment that the rear thrusters belched a cosmetic ball of fire.

  A credulous person, which thankfully most pirates are, would assume that my ship had crashed into the rock and been destroyed. They would be surprised, probably exchange a high-five, then leisurely come around to loot the wreckage. That would buy me enough time to quietly move out of sight. They’d notice my absence, realize my ruse and assume that I’d escaped, angrily leaving the scene with half-hearted ideas of pursuit. Meanwhile, I’d be in silent mode, hugging the far side of the asteroid and waiting for the engine to cool.

  I let myself relax, and hit the cabin intercom again. “Crisis averted, every­one,” I reported. “I managed to shake them off with some fancy flying. Not, I’m afraid, without loss, because I did have to jettison the luggage compartment to make a quicker escape. I’ll put you in touch with my insurance company, but you should just be glad we weren’t captured. Seriously, these pirates . . . I’d tell you some stories, but kids are present. Anyway, we’ll wait a few minutes for the engines to cool, then head back to Ritsuko. Hope it’ll be a tour to remember.”

  I’d made the speech plenty of times, but it was always exhausting. I counted a full minute, enjoying a silent moment to myself before the inevitable next step. Then I leaned toward the external communicator, which was quietly chirping the reedy electronic version of “La Cucaracha” I’d chosen for a ringtone, and hit Receive Call.

  “Heeeey, English!” came a heavily accented voice.

  “Mark,” I identified aloud. “Where’s your brother?”

  “I’m here too English!” came a virtually identical voice from slightly farther away. “Nice performance. Greatest show off Earth, yah?”

  Den and Mark. Not actually brothers, and those weren’t their real names; they were just inordinately proud of having been born in the minuscule Danish immigrant community in Ritsuko City. I say community; it was one maisonette above a bakery.

  “What the hell, guys?” I said. “You did me two weeks ago. I’m going to get a reputation.”

  “Not our fault you’re keeping using the same routes, English.”

  “Whatever. You pick up the luggage?”

  “Yah. She’s a slim picker, though. How much they paying you?”

  “Two licorice allsorts and a kick in the doints. ’Cos I’m obviously going to just tell you that, aren’t I, you grabby brackets.”

  “Calm down, English. You could just take them hostage, yah? Cross the Black. Make the smart career change.”

  “Oh, sure. ’Cos life’s so much better now you’ve crossed the Black, isn’t it? Living off scavenge and straight to jail if you ever touch down. How’s the dog-food diet?”

  “As we are keeping saying, English, the labels fell off the cans. And we only ate five or six. Tasted better than the bumholes of tourists, which are the staple of your diet is my point. Ciaoing for now.”

  “Wait.” I rubbed my eyes. “Seriously, guys, could you please just lay off me for a while? I can’t afford trac like this every plying fortnight.”

  “Hey! We’re making it more exciting for your cash cows in there. If you finding us such repellant company you could find some other planets to be reminiscing about. We don’t have to be performing these little skits for you, you know. There’s other work out here we can be getting it on with.”

  I wasn’t sure what they meant by other work, but I didn’t care enough. “Yeah, whatever. Denmark wasn’t even a real country, you plystains. It was just Germany’s little hat.”

  They’d already hung up. I slumped back, basking in that familiar defeated feeling. Finding different locations to reminisce about was easier said than done. Like most star pilots, I had more than a couple, but Cantrabargid’s system was in convenient flying range and my fuel budget couldn’t—

  “Captain?” said the cabin intercom.

  My gaze flew to the speaker. The light was on. It had been on for some time. My blood froze over. Jagged chunks of ice dug into the walls of my heart.

  “Remember?” said the voice of Ronald’s mother nastily. “The button gets a little bit sticky?”

  Chapter 2

  The usual routine upon touching down in Ritsuko City Spaceport was to go out into the cabin, open the airlock, walk the passengers to the exit ramp, bow and scrape, try not to cringe too much, maybe recommend a few other star pilots to spread some of the good fortune around and hopefully earn a favor. On this occasion, that didn’t feel like a good idea.

  Instead, I stayed in the cockpit, hugging myself and staring at the ceiling, only remembering to remotely open the airlock after someone thumped the passenger-cabin wall and made an angry promise of legal action.

  I waited an amount of time long enough for the tourists to disembark and exit the landing bay, waited it a second time just in case, then recovered my frayed cardboard sign from the gap between my chair and the wall. I left the shuttle by the cockpit escape pod hatch, which led directly outside. The escape pod itself had been sold some time ago to pay off the safety inspector, which was probably ironic in some way.

  Halfway across the large and near-deserted landing bay I looked back at my ship, the Neverdie. At the sleek, streamlined chassis that had been beaten back into shape after a thousand close calls. At the weathered paint job, once brilliant red, now a dismal maroon. At the name that was probably also going to become ironic soon enough.

  Because even the best-case scenario was coming out of this looking rather toxic and threadbare. At worst, this was jail time. This was collaborating with pirates. Ritsuko City had a zero-tolerance policy on piracy. A law that had been put in place for the benefit of the city’s population of poor, victimized star pilots. More irony.

  As I passed through the old concourse, flanked by rows of abandoned stalls and restaurants, I formulated a courtroom d
efense under my breath. “No, you could hardly say I was collaborating with those two brackets who aren’t even sure what a Danish accent is supposed to sound like. It’s not like I told them I was going to be there. Most pirate shakedowns go like that. If they’re happy just to take the luggage, then a protracted fight doesn’t make sense to anyone. Pirates are reasonable people. Most of them used to be . . .”

  I stopped in my tracks as the thought came, and almost immediately despised myself for thinking it. Yes, most pirates used to be pilots. That fact forms the center of a slightly racist joke referencing Ritsuko City’s large population of Japanese speakers. And I could certainly have escaped justice indefinitely by crossing the Black. But I’d have to lose my last scrap of self-­respect, and in that case I would take up transvestite hooking before piracy. At least that would make for a less awkward conversation with Dad.

  The hum of distant crowds transitioned into the roar of close-by ones when I reached the checkin plaza, ducking under the velvet rope and Wrong Way sign. Out of ingrained habit I made for the newer wing of the spaceport, holding my cardboard sign tucked firmly under one arm.

  The newer concourse was crowded with more shops and businesses than the old one had ever enjoyed in its heyday and was illuminated at this time of the lunar day by the majestic display of the Earth, hovering in the sky directly above the magnificent curved glass ceiling. Directly in the middle of the floor was the statue of Ritsuko Saito, very deliberately placed to be the first sight of Ritsuko City, greeting its visitors with her cheerful permanent V sign. I took up my usual position leaning companionably on her pedestal.

  Style over function; that was the entire philosophy of the new concourse. The only part of it that served any practical purpose was at the far end, where the huge hallway terminated in a wide circular chamber with an ornate archway in the middle of the floor. A control booth was discreetly tucked away in the upper region of the far wall to distract as little as possible from the splendid artistry of the place.

  Absolutely none of which was being appreciated by the hefty number of star pilots present, leaning impatiently against every solid object. They were clad in the widest variety of jumpsuits, flight jackets, and metallic fabrics imaginable, in every color on the tarnished spectrum, and all held cardboard signs similar to my own. Most were human—the extrasolars almost all went back to their home systems after the Golden Age ended—but there was the occasional glimpse of green skin or tentacles among the crowd, the ones with no home to go back to.