For the Thrill of the Blunt

by Tom Sadira

  “From what we’ve heard over the past few days, you’re somewhat of a predator already,” Helwyr said. “Your name has been on everyone’s lips. You single-handedly destroyed a forcefield that was trapping the Starseed in Earth’s orbit. You courageously battled a mite invasion. The Starseed suffered a great loss when we lost Captain Major Tom. He was a true hero and a great leader. Despite our loss, it seems he was replaced by someone equally capable of leading, and protecting, the Starseed.”

  “Courageous?” A grin lifted his bloodshot eyes. “Yeah, man, that’s right! That was pretty courageous!”

  “Duuuuude! You totally ripped my arm off!” Axolotl smiled and bobbed his head. After a swipe from Swarm, he straightened up and renewed his unconvincing attempt at appearing serious.

  “Thank you for your sacrifice, Lieutenant Axolotl.” Helwyr nodded gracefully.

  “Aww, it was nothing, yo! The Starseed totally enhanced my natural ability to regenerate, as you can see.” Axo waved his fully-restored webbed hand through the air.

  “Impressive.” Helwyr looked intently up at the stars. “I believe the Starseed is within close proximity of the Gevaar system. Unless there’s anything else you need,” he paused to scan Charlie’s pack and the mountain of gear teetering in his red wagon, “we should begin our descent to Vos Praeda immediately. I’ve chosen a site that will allow us a few hours to set up camp before nightfall.”

  He stepped aside and swung a paw toward the massive, seed-shaped transit pod. Like the pod Charlie and Captain Tom had flown in, this one had no lights, no engines, and no other exterior features. It was just a double-decker-bus-sized cannabis seed.

  Charlie looked uneasily at the giant seed, then back to Helwyr.

  “Gentlemen, would you please demonstrate to our captain how to board this pod?”

  The feline humanoid standing directly next to Helwyr spat out the piece of straw he’d been chewing on and smiled. “See you on the inside, Cap!”

  He swung his corded arms upward toward the curved side of the pod and jumped. Instead of his hands making contact with a solid object they passed right through the hull as if moving inside a liquid. The rest of the slender feline creature was pulled up quickly and vanished. In unison, the remaining feline companions jumped and were pulled inside.

  A moment later, the hull rippled and their grinning feline faces pushed through.

  “Hop on in! She’s all ready to go!”

  “Let’s go, Captain.” Axo gave Charlie a wet slap on the shoulder, winked through one large goggle lense, and jumped. A second later, he too had vanished behind the liquid hull.

  “Come on,” Swarm growled. “Let’s get this over with.” In a flash, he leapt and was gone.

  Charlie looked at Helwyr, then back at the pod.

  “Alright, here I go…” He jumped, but the loaded backpack was so heavy he missed the side of the pod by a couple feet. He jumped again. Again, the pack weighed him down.

  “Allow me to give you a hand, Captain.”

  Without any sign of strain or discomfort, Helwyr’s big blue arm flung Charlie and his enormous backpack up into the side of the transit pod.

  6

  Charlie woke to the gentle soughing of leaves. A breeze brushed his cheek. Grass tickled his neck.

  He opened his eyes. A vast aquamarine sky dappled with wispy lavender clouds stretched out above him. A rhythmic clanking of metal on metal came from somewhere nearby.

  “Have a pleasant rest, Captain?” Helwyr’s voice called. “Take a look around, but stay close to the pod.”

  A pleasant rest?

  What am I, a toddler?

  Kirk never napped! I’m not sure Picard even needed sleep at all.

  Charlie sat up and struggled to recall how the hell he could have fallen asleep on his very first mission to an alien planet.

  After the big cat dude had tossed him into the transit pod like a ragdoll, Charlie and his crew settled into the main compartment. Once the pod was free of the Starseed and Helwyr set their course, the Felonians had disappeared into the cargo hold to finish preparing the gear. Swarm sat watching the stars while his antennae twitched and fretted. Axolotl meandered aimlessly around the room, nibbling on the tips of his webbed fingers and mumbling to himself about wogs and mates and responsibility.

  Even though the half-blunt Charlie had just smoked had gotten him plenty stoned, he responded to his crew’s anxiety by lighting up another. Swarm refused it, adding coldly, “Each hit you dumbass stoners take will increase your chances of becoming lunch for some Vos Praedean beast.” Axo, on the other hand, snatched the blunt and took hurried, anxious puffs. Somewhere in the absolute stillness of space, between filling his lungs with smoke and gazing at the approaching blue-green orb, Charlie—the captain of the Starseed, the leader of this goddamn hunting party—must have dozed off.

  Dammit, Charlie!

  It got worse. After landing, someone—probably Helwyr, maybe Swarm—had carried him and set him down in the shadow of the transit pod. Like a sleeping toddler after a long drive home.

  Full of bitter self-loathing and profound embarrassment, Charlie resolved to start acting more like a starship captain and less like a goddamn child.

  That clanging of metal snapped him out of his self-pity. On the opposite side of the pod he saw the five Felonians, large rocks in hand, pacing around a pile of junk. Each feline face was twisted into an intense scowl as if the wreckage were a beast they’d just slain.

  These dudes look vicious, man, which makes them perfect for this job.

  Saliva flooded Charlie’s mouth as he pictured himself slicing into a bloody, grill-marked, chocolate moose steak. Nadia had described the sweet, tender texture of the meat as so mind-bendingly delicious that the few who’d tasted it had been driven permanently mad with delight.

  Everything she’d predicted had come true. Charlie was now closer than ever to getting Captain Major Tom’s Outernet history, which would help him find and finish the weapon he’d inherited. Once complete, he’d use it to defeat the Reptilians and free Earth—as well as hundreds of other planets. Then, another of her predictions would come true: he’d become a hero of galactic proportions. Bigger than Kirk and Picard combined.

  He patted himself down and realized he’d swapped his brown hoodie for a camouflage jacket.

  Fuck it. I spent enough time staring at the scrap of paper she gave me. Six neon blue petals. Scrawny, gnarled, black stem. Near the mountains.

  As he lifted his head to scan the horizon, Axolotl hopped into view, grinning wide and holding out a blunt stub.

  “Wakey, wakey, Captain! I saved the rest of this for you.”

  Charlie, still disgusted with himself, shook his head. Axo shrugged, plopped onto the grass beside him, and blew a few smoke rings into the air.

  The groggy captain rubbed his eyes and looked around. Immediately, it struck him just how un-alien this planet was. The air was breathable and cool. The sky was just a shade greener, and the clouds slightly more magenta, than Earth. The grass he sat on, while much bluer than any he’d seen before, felt identical to grass back home. He yanked a couple of blades and studied the clumps of dirt that clung to their spindly roots.

  The pod hovered silently just off the ground along the border between a meadow and a forest. The trees looked similar to the coniferous pines that Charlie had just spent the last year camping in. A ridge of gray, snow-capped mountains rose up behind a flock of crows that soared above the dense canopy. This wasn’t some dangerous alien world. This was just a slightly miscolored version of Colorado.

  “Did we get too high and take a detour to the Rocky Mountains, man?” he said, quickly shoving John Denver off the stage in his mind. “I thought you guys said this place was dangerous.”

  “Don’t judge a book by its cover, yo.” Axo’s smile faded, his huge eyes bulged inside his goggles, and his head swiveled almost a full 360 degrees. “This planet has a really high churn rate. Might not look like it at first, but Death is hidin
g around every corner.”

  Charlie stood, stretched his arms to the sky. “Are you kidding? I see pine trees. I see meadows. I see birds soaring.”

  “Birds? Ha!” Swarm growled. He dropped the four cases he’d been hauling and pointed to a flock of black things skimming the tops of the trees in the adjacent forest. “You mean those?”

  Charlie shielded his eyes and squinted. “Yeah, man. I mean, they look kinda bigger than normal birds, but still. What are they? Crows? Ravens?”

  Swarm reached into one of his cases and produced a short metal cylinder. He pulled it apart it until it was about two feet long, held one end up to his eye, and pointed the other end toward the black spots in the sky.

  “I’m not sure what a ‘crow’ is, Captain,” Swarm said as he passed the spyglass to Charlie, “but I doubt you had any of these back on Earth.”

  Charlie aimed the spyglass at the black things in the distance. A dozen blurry shapes gathered in a loose flock over the treetops, swooping this way and that, occasionally diving into the canopy. Slowly, he rotated the lense until the creatures snapped into focus.

  Swarm was right. Whatever the hell they were, they definitely weren’t crows.

  Their resemblance to Earth birds started, and ended, with their large wings covered in black feathers. Everything else about them was pure nightmare.

  It looked like their beaks had been torn off, and the gaping holes left behind filled with rusty, jagged needles. Raw, oily skin sagged as if they’d shaved their feathers with a spoon and then used boiling deep-fryer oil as an aftershave. Ravenous black eyes bulged from cavities on either side of their scorched heads. Saurian legs, covered with the same deep-fried skin, ended in enormous dagger-like talons. From such a distance it was hard to determine just how large they were, but after catching sight of one perched atop a tree, Charlie guessed they were about the size of a large human.

  He handed the spyglass back to Swarm and snatched the blunt stub from Axolotl.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, man. Those look like harpies from hell.”

  “Vrills. Easy to spot and dumb as rocks. As long as we stay alert, they shouldn’t pose a real threat,” Swarm said. “But keep in mind, Captain, they’re hardly the worst we can expect to encounter on this lovely planet you’ve brought us to.”

  “Hardly the worst? They look like a goddamn flock of demons, dude!”

  Swarm grunted and raised a pincer toward Charlie. “Did you think that hunting on Vos Praeda was going to be easy? Did you do any research on this place? Did you listen to your crew’s advice? No! Whatever happens down here is on your hands, Captain.” He picked up the cases and motioned to Axo. “Squishy, give me hand with these, will ya?”

  Charlie took a puff from the stub and shot daggers at Swarm’s back.

  What an insubordinate asshole! How dare he—

  “Commanding a crew is often the hardest part of leading.” A heavy blue paw rested on Charlie’s shoulder. “But it’s also the most critical. A captain worth his weight in fur needs to understand the value of any reward and the risk required to obtain it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained—isn’t that the basic idea upon which every civilization is founded upon?”

  Another metallic clang exploded behind them. One of his men pried the casing from a large box fan and tossed it aside.

  “Fans? Why would we need fans down here?”

  “Blades,” Helwyr corrected. He held up a bundle of polished wooden handles. “To combine with these in order to make axes. Then, from axes, we make bows, arrows, spears—essential survival tools in a place like this. As you know, weapons are not allowed on the Starseed or her transit pods. So, instead, we brought the materials to craft our own.”

  “We’re ready, Captain,” called one of the Felonians.

  Helwyr’s expression darkened. With a low growl he shouted back, “Fool! Charlie is the captain on this mission!”

  “Sorry, Captain—er, I mean, boss!”

  Helwyr turned back to Charlie. A row of fangs stretched out into a smile. “We’ll set up camp in this clearing. Tomorrow, we head into the forest, toward the mountains, in search of your chocolate moose.” Before he left, he added, “I placed the walking staff your mate gave you with the rest of the gear.”

  “Hey, no, she’s not my mate,” Charlie stammered. “I mean, not that I’m against the idea or anything. What’d you hear, man? Did she say something to you?”

  Helwyr walked away, not seeming to hear, and began distributing handles to his men.

  Zylvya…my mate? I wonder if that’s even possible, physically. I mean, does she even have—

  A sudden tension in his cargo pants interrupted the thought. To his relief, it was just his bladder screaming for attention.

  He scanned the area for a good place to piss. The only trees were those along the edge of the forest. No way in hell was he going to wander that far—he’d seen enough horror flicks to know what happens to idiots who stray from the group. Instead, he decided to piss into the expansive meadow that bordered the edge of the clearing. Just a dozen yards or so from the hunting party, he turned his back, unzipped his fly, and began emptying his firehose.

  As he pissed, he studied the waist-high stalks swaying in the breeze. Thick and golden and stretching out to the horizon, it looked like a wild wheat field.

  Behind him, on the other side of the clearing, was a forest filled with demon birds—and god knew what else. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Swarm was right. Despite having access to virtually limitless information about the galaxy via the Outernet, he hadn’t spent one minute researching Vos Praeda. Whatever bad shit happened to his crew or the Felonians, if anyone got hurt, or maimed, or killed, it was on his hands.

  Dammit, Charlie.

  As he drained his bladder, he noticed one end of the sky was fading into a shade of deep teal. The clouds had become more violet than lavender as the glaring yellow sun descended over the treetops.

  Charlie didn’t notice the sudden rustling. He didn’t hear the low grunt. He didn’t see the flash of teeth or the whirl of brown fur coming at him. Somehow, he didn’t even feel the whoosh of something flying over his shoulder or hear the painful yelp that followed.

  By the time his stoned mind caught up to the action, a beast lay belly up in his stream of urine, twitching and taking its last, futile breaths. The monster’s face resembled a wolf in full snarl, ready to bite. Blood and brains oozed from the blade of a large hand axe that was buried deep into its skull. Extending beyond the gushing head was a long, multi-segmented body lined by a row of wolfish legs and sharp claws.

  He shook the last drops of piss from his rapidly shrinking penis—and made damn sure to zip up his fly—before turning around.

  Helwyr stood about twenty feet away, another axe in hand, poised to launch it toward the next beast who dare leap from the meadow.

  “Canipede,” he grunted. “One at a time, they’re not too bad. They move fast and low, and they’ve even been known to drop right out of the trees. Packs are what you need to watch out for. That was likely just a scout, sent to test their new prey while the rest watch from afar. You may want to step away from the field, Captain.”

  Charlie ran back to the hunting party. Axo’s mouth hung open, drool spilling over his wide lips. Swarm set one of his cases on the ground and popped it open.

  The dying canipede exhaled one final breath and stopped twitching. Suddenly, its corpse—from its snarling snout to the lifeless tail hanging from its last body segment—disintegrated into a greenish white cloud of smoke. The bloodstained axe, no longer wedged into a skull, fell with a soft thud to the grass. The greenish cloud wafted a few feet above the ground, swirled, and then shot upward into the sky.

  “What the hellhappened to it, man? Where’d it go?”

  “The carcass was auto-toked,” Helwyr explained, lowering his axe. “Rather than worrying about our kills down here, they’ll be transferred to the Starseed and preserved until we return. Allows us to stay focused o
n survival rather than processing and lugging around dozens of carcasses.”

  “Dozens? Uh, dude, I really just think we should bag the chocolate moose and get back to the—”

  “Brothers, first blood is mine!” Helwyr whirled around, his one good eye surging with excitement. The four smaller Felonians hooted and roared, their axes and fists high in the air. He spun back toward the meadow and let loose a terrible roar. “As stupid as those mongrels are, they’ve probably realized that another attack is unwise. Shall we find out? Captain, would you mind returning to the meadow? Or better yet, you, chubby frog man, go stand over there. Perhaps we could draw out a few more. I wouldn’t mind giving those curs another lesson.”

  “No need for that. Squishy, hold this.” Without waiting for a reply, Swarm tossed the open case into Axolotl’s arms. Inside were a half dozen small rods, each with a sharp spike at one end and a glass orb at the other. Swarm grabbed one and plunged it into the ground. Its glass orb flickered on and emitted a bright, reddish glow.

  “Whoa, you brought solar-powered garden lamps!” Charlie smiled. “Smart thinkin’, man!”

  Helwyr, breathing heavily, reached into the case, lifted one out, and held it close to his good eye.

  “No, ape.” Swarm caught himself and cleared his throat. “I mean, Captain. These are—”

  “Geobionic Repulsors. They convert the energy of a planet’s magnetic field into an ultra-low frequency vibration that repels all native life forms.” Helwyr growled and dropped the rod back into the case. “These are not permitted on the hunt.”

  Swarm’s voice took on a raspy growl of its own. “You may gamble with your own lives as you see fit, but as Chief of Security, I insist that the crew of the Starseed carry these at all times.”

  “Taking even one of these wretched devices with us will guarantee our failure.”

  “They’ll keep us safe and alive!”

  “That’s what you hired us for!”

  “I didn’t hire you! But I’d be interested in finding out who did.”