by J. Naomi Ay
"Well, some days he acts like who he is while on others, he can turn himself into someone else. A lot of people think he's not who he is at all, but something entirely different."
"What about your mother?" Trudy prodded curiously, while Rent scraped his plate clean with the back of his fork.
"She's fairly normal, although kind of paranoid, because people like to watch everything she does. That’s why she always carries a loaded gun. She also gets into a lot of fights with my dad. At least once a day, they're threatening to kill each other. He won't hurt her though. In fact, she's probably the only person alive that he won't hurt, except for my niece.”
"And your brother?"
"Oh, my brother is a recovering alcoholic who has just returned from an extended time away. His daughter is by a woman who he doesn't remember, but was married to one of our cousins before they were killed."
Trudy smiled and laughed a little because she thought Rent was joking about all this. On top of being gorgeous and smart, he was incredibly funny. She would miss him while he was on vacation and count every minute until he returned, at which time she hoped to advance their relationship a whole lot further.
The next day while Trudy was sitting at her desk gazing fondly at Rent's unoccupied chair, her boss came by with a request that she attend a meeting at SdK Rozari.
"You'll need to meet with your counterpart there to coordinate asset inventories. I'd like you to work on that inter-company transfer pricing issue that was the subject of that memo I sent you last week."
"Great!" Trudy cried for she had never traveled before on the company dime and was looking forward to visiting the Mother Planet.
In fact, Trudy decided to spend the weekend taking a tour. She'd visit historic sites, the formerly domed cities, and the post-nuclear ruins. As Trudy rang SdK Travel to book her ticket, she recalled that Rent would be staying there, as well. Perhaps, they could get together for lunch, or maybe even dinner.
Later that afternoon when Trudy's travel itinerary arrived, she was pleasantly surprised to discover she'd be flying in First Class. There was a Winter-Summer special or a Fall-Spring fling going on, so it cost the company the same as putting her in coach.
Chapter 8
When Commander Sam Psfa-a-a-whatever received his summons to the Imperial Palace, his first response was to panic.
"What do they want with me?" He asked Captain Kinar, who then sent his query up the chain of command.
"They want you to fly the Imperial Family's spaceplane," Kinar informed him later. "They're all going on a vacation to Rozari."
Sam wondered why they had selected him just to shuttle the Family that short distance. There were plenty of pilots among the Imperial staff. Why call in a SpaceNavy commander who was seventeen light years away patrolling a sector in the outer banks of the Empire?
"Just do it," Kinar advised. "And, it's not like you have a choice. Consider it a compliment on your piloting skills. There are plenty who would give their right arm to have the trust of the Family."
"Oh, I'll do it," Sam agreed, but under his breath, he started to swear. "Fricking, fricking, why does it have to be me? Fricking, fricking, I'm going to die." Sam was sure his number was up, although he hadn't a clue why it would be his turn. He just knew with certainty, his luck had finally run out, and his trip home would be in a box. "Fricking, fricking, I hate the Imperial Family."
Actually, Sam didn't mind the Empress Katie. In fact, he liked her in that maternal, Empress, sort of way. After all, she had always been a great friend of his Uncle Zem, who considered her his captain still today. Rent and Sara were okay from what little Sam knew of them. Sam was still angry with Steve over a history too long to list, but that's not what bothered him most of all.
The problem was, the Emperor would be aboard. This thought chilled Sam's bones to their very core. It made him doubt his piloting abilities, and his competency in operating the plane. Even though he had logged thousands of flight hours in his career, Sam was certain he would crash the plane and die. Everyone else would walk off, but Sam would be carried in a bag upon a stretcher.
Sam saw this in his mind with such certitude, he thought he might even be clairvoyant. Although, Sam had never been intuitive before, he felt as if he could mark the calendar with the date of his funeral, which incidentally, was going to be held on Talas a week from Tuesday.
Sam packed his kit and sent a note to his wife to inform her of the mission he was about to undertake. Then, he boarded a commercial flight at a spacebase on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy. On his trip to the Capital Planet, he wrote out his last testament and will. Of course, his wife, Joanne would inherit all their communal property, although he authorized the setting up of trusts for both their kids. Sam wished for Rory to attend the Imperial SpaceNavy Academy and Carolie to go to medical school. He included a note to Joanne encouraging her to remarry.
Having set his wishes down by pen on paper, Sam relaxed in his seat to watch an in-flight movie. It was a story about a Luminerian woman who was having an affair with Bagmagian man. Sam watched it with interest and thought it wasn't half bad. In fact, one of the last things that Commander Sam Psfa-a-a-whatever did was to leave a rating for the flick on movie review site.
"It's a true representation of the challenges in a cross-species relationship," he wrote. "The acting was good, and the music was very nice. I'm going to give it three and a half stars with the recommendation that my wife, Joanne watches it when she has finished mourning my death. It will help her to remember all the good times that we had. I hope when you see this, Joanne, you'll think of me."
Joanne Psfa-a-a-whatever was expecting her cousin, RJ, to join her for dinner that night. RJ's husband was working, and Joanne's was traveling in space. Joanne's daughter, Carolie had a date with a boy and her son, Rory was attending a Turko Tiger's game with Grandpa Taner and Uncle Zem.
Joanne had made a big salad since she and RJ were both on a diet. She also served some sourdough rolls that were fat-free. The women shared a bottle of Zinfandel and a piece of chocolate cake while they laughed about old times back on Earth.
"Let's watch a movie," RJ suggested, after dessert. It wasn't very late, and she didn't feel like heading home just yet. "I've been meaning to see that one about the inter-species couple. I've heard it's very good, especially the bedroom scene."
"Really?" Joanne responded with surprise, for she had heard exactly the opposite opinion. That bedroom scene was gross and too shocking for most to watch.
"Reviewers can be very fickle," RJ said. "I'm willing to give it a try."
Sitting down on the sofa, Joanne flicked on the vid. She pulled up her favorite review site and queried the movie.
"You know, some people absolutely love one thing which others violently hate. It's the same for books, or anything that you buy."
"Let's read what people say," RJ suggested as the women perused the recent ratings. "Hey, what's this one that posted just yesterday? Three and a half stars by Sam Psfa-a-a-? I hope my wife, Joanne watches it after she's finished mourning my death."
"What?!?" Joanne bolted from her seat. "Sam?" She screamed at the top of her lungs. "Sam is on the Imperial Starship Queen of Rozari. It's impossible for him to be dead!"
"Let's call Taner," RJ suggested, keeping her calm. No sense getting all excited if this was some kind of mistake. RJ switched the vid to ring the Duke of Turko. Within an hour, Taner was home and making calls to his Palace connections. He spoke to Lords Eberly and Garing who checked with their under-under staff to discover that Sam was piloting the Imperial Spaceplane.
"Everything is fine," Taner assured Joanne while reporting this information. "Sam's going to Rozari, and then, he'll stop by here for a visit on his way back to deep space."
"No, something's not right," Joanne insisted. "He would never have written that review if he thought he was going to come home safe and sound. I've got to go to Rozari, Taner. I've got to see Sam for myself."
Taner was ne
ver one to argue with his daughter who, like her mother had done, would debate her point until Taner eventually caved in. He proceeded to book Joanne a ticket on Capital Starlines to Rozari taking advantage of the Winter-Summer special or Fall-Spring fling. Taner selected a seat in First Class, briefly considering whether or not he wanted to go along. In hindsight, he probably should have, but then, Taner wasn't the clairvoyant one.
Joanne had a window seat in the second row next to a girl with limp brown hair and enormous green eyes.
"I'm Trudy." The girl held out her hand as Joanne turned her back in the seat. She hated traveling next to strangers who did nothing but talk.
Trudy tried to start a conversation a few more times. She was inordinately excited about flying to Rozari. She loved every minute of the flight and was looking forward to her hotel, as well as the many restaurants she could experience while on per diem.
Joanne, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck, so she pulled up the tiny privacy screen that separated the two chairs. She tried to nap for a little while, but her stomach churned with anxiety as Joanne ate her dinner and flipped on the in-flight movie. Naturally, it was that flick about the Luminerian woman and the Bagmagian guy. Joanne watched it just to see why Sam had rated it three and a half stars.
"Oh, I've seen that." Trudy peered over the screen at Joanne's seatback vid. "Can you imagine falling in love with someone who wasn't the same species?"
Joanne was about to snap something nasty along the lines of, "My husband is a green Talasian and I don't give a shit what anyone thinks." Instead, she held her tongue and smiled nicely at the girl.
"Thank you for your opinion, now will you leave me the hell alone?"
Trudy apologized profusely uncertain why the woman had taken such offense. She was only trying to be friendly and polite. Turning in her seat, Trudy began to stare out the window at the stars, while Joanne continued to watch the film, thinking it wasn't all that bad. In fact, she liked it more than she thought she would. The plot was a little hard to follow and the music overly loud, but the cinematography was very good and the acting bordered on great. The bedroom scene brought tears to Joanne's eyes as she was reminded of the first time she and Sam had gone to bed. Being a cross-species couple, there were challenges that same-species couples just couldn't understand. For that reason alone, when it was finished, Joanne rated the movie a four.
Unfortunately, while Joanne was dozing later in the flight, and Trudy was playing Angry Birds upon her tablet, a huge dust storm blew into the sector and blocked their spaceplane's path. Although the pilots tried changing vectors, the storm was far too large. They couldn't go over, under or around it as the storm's force was very intense and its track too broad to make continued travel safe. The Capital Starline's plane had no choice but to do what all the other spaceplanes had done, which was to divert their course to Spacebase 41-B.
Chapter 9
By the time Jerry, Michael and Lester disembarked the Dariun Starlines spaceplane, Spacebase 41-B was already in turmoil. The spacebase was over crowded with delayed and detoured flights, and the oxygen generating system was having trouble keeping up. The lights were dim or flickering, and the heat oscillated off and on.
"Is this the way it's supposed to be in here, Jer?" Lester mumbled. "It's like a cold, dark cave. I'm getting claustrophobic."
"Take deep breaths, Les. Spacebases can have outages periodically. It's nothing to worry about." Jerry kept his voice calm and steady, not even hinting any concern, although deep in the center of his gut, he knew something was horribly wrong.
"I hope the Radisson Hotel is better than this," Les continued, stepping over a man sprawled out upon the floor. "They should have lights. Right, Jer? Don't they always say they'll leave the light on for you? I take that literally, you know. I expect the lights to be working when I get there." Les's voice took on a frantic pitch. Even in the dark, Jerry could see that Les was pale and getting sweaty.
"You know, that's a good idea, Les," Jerry suggested, a cheery smile in his voice. “Let's head over there and see about our rooms. Afterward, we'll have a nice dinner and a drink. I bet there's even a football game that we can watch. Just consider this an extra day of vacation in a place you've never been. It's all in how you look at things, Les. This could be fun.”
Lester looked less than convinced, while Michael frowned as a family of rainbow Icthyoidian tourists rushed by, their fins dripping water all over the floor. Jerry continued to nod and smile even though he knew his big speech was entirely a lie. An overcrowded spacebase in the center of a freak storm portended nothing good. As it turned out, the situation only worsened, for the hotels were over booked with little space.
“Could you possibly room together?” the android attendant asked. “All I've got left is one non-smoking with two double beds, and a shared bath.”
“We'll take it,” Jerry said, even as Michael cried, “No, we won't.”
“You can sleep on a bench in the mall, Michael.” Jerry shrugged, and pocketed the room key.
Joanne couldn't believe her rotten luck. Here, she was stuck on a spacebase without even a room to herself.
"You'll need a roommate," the android had said. “Both the Holiday Inn and the Radisson are completely sold out for singles.”
"Well, how in the hell am I supposed to find one? I'm not going to ask every stranger in this terminal."
"You can room with me," the girl behind her offered. "I'm Trudy. I sat next to you on the flight?"
"Oh, right." Joanne frowned and considered her options, which were few. "Okay. Fine. I guess we don't have a choice."
Joanne took her voucher and stepped out of line. While waiting for Trudy to process her coupon, she checked her cell. In the last hour, she had tried Sam's phone no less than twenty times. Even when he was on a mission, he usually sent her an email or a text. His silence only seemed to confirm Joanne's suspicion that something terrible had happened to her husband.
At this moment, Joanne just didn't know what it was, and with this massive dust storm trapping her here, she didn't know how she would find out.
While Joanne and Trudy checked into their room, another spaceplane arrived, also diverted by the storm. This one was a Delta Line charter from Centipedian III, the crew and passengers of which were Centipedians.
Despite their average size at two-foot-four, their seven pairs of legs, and three sets of arms, the Centipedians were a highly intelligent creature. Their planet had been admitted into the Empire only the year before, and now package tours of the other Imperial stars were popular vacation trips. This group was going from the Capital Planet to Altaris and Andorus, followed by a two day beach party in the Darius system. Since their plane was the very last one to arrive, and all hotel rooms were taken with none to spare, their tour host quickly arranged for alternate accommodations.
Trudy was doing her best to be pleasant. She even considered that this little detour might be fun. The longer they were waylaid, the more vacation she would enjoy while all of it was on the company dime.
"I'm going to get a drink," Trudy announced after checking out the bed. It was firm enough, and the cover seemed reasonably clean. "Would you like to join me? I heard they've got a special for all the stranded passengers. Buy a mixed drink and get a free plate of wings. Order two drinks and you get sweet potato fries."
Joanne had just set down her cell again. While everything was fine at home with the kids, she still hadn't heard from Sam. Her stomach was tied in knots and in truth, she needed a drink, so the two women headed out to the Space Sailor's Bar.
From the bar's location on Deck 7, there normally was an amazing view of the planes arriving and departing the base's lower bay. Today, all they saw was the storm, which was a huge mass of ghostly fluorescent clouds, blotting out everything around them, including the stars.
While Joanne nursed a single martini, neat and dry, Trudy splurged on a strawberry margarita, salty and wet. Despite Joanne's monosyllabic responses and obvious disinteres
t in anything she said, Trudy's alcohol fueled tongue became abnormally loquacious.
"So, there's this guy at work." Trudy leaned across the table while nursing her second margarita, this time, a lime. "He's, like, the hottest guy I have ever seen. He looks just like the Imperial Princes, or that guy on that show about that island on the vid."
"Mhm," Joanne mumbled, clearly bored with the conversation, which did nothing to deter Trudy from her explanation.
While Joanne sighed and studied the clouds, Trudy described Rent's sandy blonde hair and his vacuous almond shaped blue eyes, which always seemed to be wondering where, or why he was. Joanne now found herself listening with half an ear, as Trudy moved on to her third drink.
"So, he said he's going to Rozari to stay at his family's summer house there, and our relationship is on hold until he gets back. When he does, he said he'll invite me over to his flat in Old Mishnah. I hope we like the same kind of shows. I mean, we like the same pizza and the same syrup in our coffee. We'll probably like the same movies, don't you think?"
"What?" Joanne sat up, suddenly alert. "He's going to his family's summer house in Rozari? You've got to be kidding me. Who has a summer house on Rozari? That planet is totally the pits. It's hot and dry and covered in post-nuclear dust."
"I know," Trudy sighed, "But, they say Takira-hahr isn't that bad, and his house is supposed to be somewhere near there on the coast."
Now, Joanne knew something funny was up. There was only one place worth staying in Takira-hahr, and that was the Imperial Estate with its miles of private sandy beaches. Years ago she had been there for Steven's wedding to Hannah.
"Where did you say you worked?" Joanne narrowed her eyes and studied the girl.
"SdK Aerospace," Trudy laughed drunkenly. "I've been telling you all about my co-worker, Rent."
