by S E Zbasnik
“And it’s not even my crowning day!” Orn shouted as he walked through the door into the mess.
“Finally, I thought you got lost,” Variel said as if everything were back to normal. Maybe it was because it had to be.
“I nearly did. There are these big dumb guys in blue coats clogging up all the walkways. And apparently someone went and exploded so many maintenance shafts there’s talk of potential decompression.”
Ferra shrugged her shoulders and opened her eyes wide in a mock of “who me?” Her voice raised into a girlish register as she said, “Crazy things happen on a space station for NCs.”
“Orn, when you’re ready, get us the hell out of here,” Variel said, her head gesturing to the bridge. She called to her crazed computer, who spent most of the excitement growing bored, “WEST, call up our map.”
“We do not have time for such trivialities.”
“WEST, do you know how most kings are deposed? With an axe, now call it up.” The computer’s face over the sink was replaced with scrawls of data, each name ending in a string of nine numbers. Variel searched through and found Whisper. With a flick of her finger she deleted it from the maps, effectively erasing it from the Elation’s flight path.
“So long, Whisper,” Orn said, “along with Samudra, and that orc planet, and Virginand, and that one where you mooned all the priests, Cap.”
Variel smiled at her pilot still hanging around the edges in case he missed anything good, “One day you’ll do something worse, and then I’ll never shut up about it.”
“Not bloody likely,” Orn muttered, remembering the terrified faces of the poor holy creatures as they scrambled to bleach their eyes, “When this is over, is there anywhere in the universe we’ll be allowed back to visit?”
“Get your ass in the pilot’s seat and let’s go find out.”
THE END
