by M. D. Cooper
“Ah yes,” he nodded, “But weren’t you…”
“The purple is a new addition, sir.” Katra said, taking the posture of a poised soldier. Yorick stood at her side, lazily watching the proceedings.
“So you are not Solayan?”
“Human, sir.”
“Good, good…” he repeated. This time, he dug into his pocket, taking out what appeared to be a thin gold tube. He handed it to Yorick, who plugged it into his pocket computer. “You’ll see it’s all there. 1.7 million credits. In full.”
“Wow, Havi,” said Jesi, feeling suddenly cold. “Full price? You didn’t even try to haggle. This isn’t like you. You must really want this gem.”
“Let’s just say I’m… feeling rather generous, today,” he replied, running his tongue along his very dry lips. Jesi felt every muscle in her body tense. Something was odd about all this.
“He’s good for it, Captain,” said Yorick, “the credits are genuine. All accounted for.”
“Good, good,” he said once again, “now may I have the gem?”
“I guess our deal is complete.” Jesi caressed the stone one more time, letting out a heavy sigh. It was time to let her baby go: they grew up so fast. “You may take the amulet.”
“Finally!” Havier’s eyes gleamed with the same sparkle as the stone. He reached out to take the gem, cradling it in his large green hands. A grin spread across his face.
“I call upon thee, oh great Beb-Sha-Na!” he called, lifting the stone to the ceiling, “I call upon thee, to grant me the power of the gods! Give me my rightful might so that I may fight with the strength of a thousand men!”
“What the froz are you doing?”
The man continued his chanting, but nothing was happening. No response to his summons: no thunder or lightning, no heavenly voice, nothing. Just a creepy green man chanting to the ceiling of a space station with a rather large stone in his hands. Jesi let out another sigh in a long line of sighs.
“Come on crew, we got what we needed, let’s get out of here,” she said, sadly, feeling like a traitor leaving the stone here in the hands of a madman. She had grown fond of the amulet, attached to it, even, in the hours since it had been brought to her ship. “I’m not one for goodbyes.”
“Not so fast!” said Havier, putting the stone under his arm for safekeeping. “I was hoping to do this with ultimate power at my disposal, but that will just have to wait. Guards! Seize them!”
Before any of them could act, Havier’s men grabbed Jesi’s hands and pinned them behind her back. She grunted, trying to fight them off, but she didn’t have the muscle. They had come out of nowhere. A glance over her shoulder told her Yorick and Katra (and by extension, Marcus) were in the same predicament.
“What is the meaning of this?” she spat. “You have your gem, now let us go!”
“You’ll be free to go in a moment,” he sniggered, “It’s miss Katra we want.”
“Katra?” Jesi spun her head around, only to see Katra looking just as shocked as she felt. “And who are we?”
“That would be us, Captain Jesipax.”
A human woman strode into the room, her silver jumpsuit casting shimmering prisms on the wall. If she spoke the language of color, then it warned Jesi that she was just as dangerous as Katra, maybe even more so – with black latex boots that ran all the way up her thighs, and the matching gloves that rose far past her elbows, this woman was either a CEO or a sparkly dominatrix. Maybe both.
“It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person,” she said, bowing low. This caught Jesi by surprise; more so than her appearance at all. “We’ve spoken so much over the phone. How is my Beyoncé doing?”
At once, the captain understood.
“Miss Vale,” she stammered. “President and CEO of FunCorp.”
“And the owner of Super-freaky funland dark-side death-zone powered by Mnm… the planet formerly known as Earth.”
“Yes, I know who you are.” Jesi rolled her eyes in a wide circle. “I thought we were done with negotiations? For having saved your planet from total invasion, you let us keep our ship, and you voided our contracts with you. I think that’s more than a fair deal on your part.”
“That’s when we thought you had only stolen a ship,” Vale snarled, her lip curling up like a frustrated Jadaran. “Not when we saw that you stole other merchandise you didn’t register with customs.”
“Other merchandise? What other merchandise?”
“Don’t play dumb, captain. The crown jewels! They were our property, and you took them off planet and sold them without making us aware of that fact.”
Froz. How they knew, Jesi had no idea. She had managed to keep the treasure of Earth a secret so they could fence them slowly over time, and avoid just such a conflict. Obviously part of her plan must not have been as foolproof as she had hoped.
“You didn’t even know they were real,” she hissed, “heck, you didn’t even notice them missing for a month!”
“I could steal your kidney in a way you would never tell it was gone at all,” said Vale. “but I’m sure once you noticed you needed it, you’d sure want it back.”
“Still, those jewels were ours, fair and square: finders keepers, losers weepers. Deal with it.”
“We require the financial equivalent returned in full, Ms. Jesipax.”
“Ah, so it’s no longer captain, is it?” Jesi fought against her restraints, but the man’s arms were too tight. “Plus, we have the money. Let us get back to the ship and we’ll work this out, ok?”
She really wasn’t liking the look of the metal stick in Vale’s hand, a tiny barbed thing that looked awfully fun in the worst ways possible. She shuddered.
“We do not want the money. We require the woman you call Katra Zorento.”
“Katra? Why on earth would you want her?”
“Because,” Vale rolled her eyes, “due to some ironclad paperwork the Tagriffians drew up while legally invading the planet, Miss Katra is the official queen of Earth. This means returning her to the custody of FunCorp is more valuable now than ever.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“I will only ask this once, Jesipax – where is Katra Zorento?”
Jesi forced her eyes to stay fixed on Vale, even though she desperately wanted to share a glance with Katra and laugh at their good fortune. Vale was looking for a human, and right at this instant, Katra looked anything but. To Vale, Katra was just a random Solayan.
“She’s there, Mistress Vale,” said Havi, pointing at Katra. Ah, the moment was good while it lasted. “She might be purple, but that is Katra Zorento.”
“Thanks, Ash Hat!” Katra snapped. She continued to struggle against her restraints, standing more of a chance than Jesi did of breaking free.
“Ah, Miss Zorento! Miss Planet Earth. At last we…”
But Katra evidently wasn’t listening, as she was busy slamming her leg into the shin of her captor. Before he could react, she had snapped her head upwards, colliding into his chin. It could not have been pleasant for either of them, but the man’s pained shout was enough to show that Katra’s skull slam had the desired effect.
The desired effect of being totally badass.
With the combined pain of a split shin and a slammed chin, the poor security guard didn’t know what hit him. Katra wrenched her arms free and grabbed his arm instead, throwing him right over her shoulder, tossing the man’s full weight against Vale. All this, she did with only her left arm and leg, taking full advantage of her half of the purple body.
“Froz yes! Get it, girl!” Jesi said with glee. Taking advantage of the room’s stunned silence, before the shock could register with them, she wiggled her hands free of her own captor, spun on her heels, and brought her right hook square into his family jewels. He muffled a scream, falling to his knees – the perfect height for Jesi to clap her hands over his ears and blow out his ear drums. Now that, that made him scream.
Yorick was finally getting a clue, but hi
s captor was too, holding on tighter. Jesi reached for the crying guard’s weapon and fired a nice clean blast into the grunt holding back her first mate. But she couldn’t focus on him – she needed to get her priorities straight.
Using the confusion to her advantage, she dashed towards the massive desk, launching herself over it. Her small frame slid along the polished top, scatting papers everywhere, delivering her with extra momentum right into Havier’s stomach. He let out a breath so large he must have puked up his lungs.
Meanwhile, Katra was demolishing the guards with the full force of a thousand storms. As adorable as she looked while entirely purple, she was a tornado of pain. A guard had managed to get a nice punch in right into the kidneys, but she responded in kind, her face a mask of concentration.
Vale had shoved off the guard that had collided with her, slapping him awake and reminding him very verbally that he needed to get that woman! Jesi was pleased: Vale was only there for Katra, but Jesi was only here for the gold.
“Give me the amulet, Havi!” She screeched, standing on the desk to give herself the advantage, “I have the high ground!”
“You ruined everything!” was all he could reply, a spoiled brat whose second favorite clown had been hired for his party. “All you had to do was let Katra go!”
“And lose the only member of my crew who can beat the froz out of the galaxy? Hell no! Now give me that amulet!”
“I paid for it!”
“And then you turned me in to FunCorp. Just… just give me the frozzing amulet!”
“Never!”
Jesi reached forward to grab the amulet, catching it by the tail of the silver dragon, giving it a sharp tug to loosen it from Havier’s grasp. But once again, she had forgotten that while her mind was centuries old and remembered crushing skulls with bare hands, her own body wasn’t even able to make it through the day without nap time yet.
Still, she was stronger than most, and managed to hold her own. Havier pulled; she pulled back. It was the slowest and most boring game of tug of war in the universe, and that’s including the ongoing, 50 century tug of war match between the people of Eros IV and their own ocean.
All the while, behind Jesi, the entire office was in shambles. Katra and Yorick were back to back, which was making Marcus shout obscenities, and Katra shout right back. The guards were not done taking a beating, and Vale was standing with her back against the wall, more perplexed than anything else, flexing a black plastic finger as she fought back the urge to get in and fight. The only thing stopping her was the amusement she was getting from watching the dual personalities of Katra squirm.
“Ok, this has gone on long enough,” said Jesi, finally. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a button grenade, flicking a thumb to start it. “Here, catch!”
She tossed it at Havier, his instinct overruling intelligence as his hands let go of the massive amulet to catch the button. Jesi would never forget the look on his face as he realized what he had done, and what he had caught. It was a beautiful look of ‘Oh Shit’ combined with the knowledge that he had been bested by a tween.
Jesi found herself ripped up, up and away, pulled along by the momentum of the amulet as it went sailing out of Havier’s hands. She flew backwards over the room, the amulet spinning, shining…
And then, the unthinkable happened. As she sailed through the air, the massive gem somehow slipped out of the serpent, hitting the wall and shattering into a million little pieces. But before Jesi could scream, she collided with Katra, falling right into her arms and winding her – amazingly without knocking her down.
“The amulet!” She cried, but there was no time to mourn. The gemstone was gone. Even Havier was screaming, but that might have had something to do with his hands having been blown clear off.
Movement in her hand cut the cry short. The metal snake was… unraveling, somehow, twisting and turning out of its original form. In less than a second, it had made itself as lose as a real snake, slithering up Katra’s arm and around her neck.
“What the froz?” Katra stammered. But the snake stopped there, quite comfortable wrapped up the arm and neck of this purple badass beauty. “What the absolute frozzing froz?”
“Um, could everybody stop fighting for a minute?” Vale stammered, stepping out of her corner for the first time since the fight began. “I think we have company.”
Chapter 3: The Return of Space Pig Whale Thing
Katra
Katra Zorento’s day just kept getting worse. Never mind turning purple; barely an hour later she seemed to have been claimed by a creepy metal snake, and a giant pig had appeared in the void of space outside the window.
“What… is that?” asked Vale, stepping forward in awe. Katra would have taken the stunned paralysis of everyone in the room as an opportunity to subdue the vile woman, but right now her hands were full: quite literally, as she was still holding Jesi in her arms.
“Put me down,” the latter hissed, “I want to see!”
“Uh, sure,” Katra mumbled, opening her arms and letting the captain tumble out. She was so riveted by the floating fleshy pink body that she couldn’t do anything else anyways.
“Beb-Sha-Na!” Havier cried, rushing to the window with his flayed hands in the air. “Beb-Sha-Na! You did answer my cry!”
But this Beb-Sha-Na thing didn’t seem to pay any attention to him. Instead, it was looking intently at Katra, staring into her very soul.
Katra was beginning to realize that her feet had now left the floor. Somehow, she was drifting upwards, being lifted towards the ceiling by some unseen force. Her body was being reeled in by the mysterious being outside the window, and she was absolutely helpless, unable to stop it even if she tried.
And trying wasn’t even an option right now.
Her body was being filled with a warmth, of some kind, and indefinable warmth. It trickled into her skin from where the snake was now raveled, flowing through her veins and making her feel… stronger, somehow. More alive. Even Marcus wasn’t bothering her as he had been: for the first time in a month, she felt in control.
“We have to go! Right now!” Shouted Vale, her voice somehow muffled. Katra didn’t care: all she wanted was for the feeling to continue, for the warmth to spread. She didn’t care that she was levitating towards a giant space pig.
Well, until that pig turned into a whale, that was.
“Why is there a white whale outside the window?” asked Yorick, standing beside Katra. Her feet were now high enough off the ground that they easily reached his elbows.
“Maybe it represents that power which limits and controls man?” said Jesi, “or it’s just some big space fish that would be worth its weight in gold in oil!”
“Who cares?” Vale snapped, “Run, you idiots! An ancient deity is at the window, rapturing your friend, and you’re going to discuss what it represents? Get out of here!”
“No! Beb-Sha-Na!” Havier was crying now, pink highlighter ink spilling from his eyes and running in streaks down the green skin of his. “Please! Why have you chosen her instead of me? How have I forsaken you?”
And with that, Havier turned into a gust of confetti, and was no more.
Someone screamed. Katra did not know, or care, who it was. Because now that good feeling was beginning to intensify, like flows of electricity running up and down her veins. She didn’t feel strong, she felt powerful, like she could do anything.
She lifted a finger high into the sky, surprised the snake moved along with her, like a coil of rope rather than a heavy hunk of metal.
Flash.
She stumbled to the ground, but it wasn’t the ground of the office. No, instead she had sand between her toes, and the heat of the sun shining down on her hot skin. She blinked the sunlight out of her eyes: this definitely wasn’t Tarowin Station. Tarowin Station didn’t have sand, fresh air, birds flying overhead. Tarowin Station didn’t have an ocean. Usually, Tarowin Station was just full of assholes who wanted your money.
“Wh
at the froz just happened back there?” Jesi was no longer wearing her captain’s white, but a hula skirt and lei. She crossed her small arms over her chest, glaring at Katra all with the anger of an entire angry mob.
Katra stared at her hands, long elegant fingers still stained with purple. But her clothes matched Jesi’s, as well as the rest of the crew’s. The entire crew, in fact: along with Jesi and Yorick on the beach – the latter in a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts – Owaitt and Podulk had also been summoned out of nowhere, forced into touristy vacation-wear, and plopped down on the beach alongside them.
“I think… I think I did this,” said Katra. The pulse of power in her veins has not diminished. Before the change of scenery, the mysterious Beb-Sha-Na had seemed to be trying to tell her something. Something too old for words.
Chosen One.
Froz.
“Let me guess,” said Jesi, tapping her foot against the pale white sand. “Havier wanted the amulet to re-awaken some really old godlike powers. But the amulet somehow chose you, the stupid deity he invoked appeared for real, and… and I fail to see how that means we all are on the beach now. Podulk, the flowers in your face tentacles look rather striking.”
The alien said nothing, only bowing gently.
“And why Hawaii, of all places?” asked Marcus.
Ah, Marcus was back. He hadn’t been confined to the back of her brain for too long, and already she was resenting the return of his company. Half of her mouth frowned.
“It’s not Hawaii, it’s Puerto Rico.”
“Still, we’re all dressed like… well, you know.”
“Shut up, let me think!” she snapped, and to her amazement, he stayed silent. “I don’t know what happened. One minute I felt like… like I was plugged right into an outlet… and the next, we’re here. I must have had a stray thought and… does that mean I can…?”
“Finish your sentences, or we can’t really help you,” said Yorick, laughing, despite the fact the smile hadn’t reached his eyes. The man was worried.
Instead of answering with words, Katra lifted her hand, focusing her attention on a lone palm tree in the distance. As she watched, the palm tree shimmered and shook, then disappeared into a cloud of leaves. Poof, and it was gone.
