by Tom Sadira
Charlie dove between the flanking Felonians, but something caught on his jacket collar and held him in place.
“You’re our ticket back to the Starseed. You’re not leaving my sight,” growled Helwyr. Blue fire raged in his eye. “And, yes, my men are correct. Thanks to all the pungent schwag you imbibed last night, you’ve become a living, breathing biorepulsor. You need a good scrub.”
Charlie gripped his staff. He wasn’t going to be able to get away. His friends were on their own. He’d failed them. And to add insult to injury, he was about to get violated by a trio of psychotic cat turds.
Helwyr threw his head back and cackled. He shoved a leather pouch at Charlie and looked at his men.
“If Captain Hong would rather pass on a Felonian tongue lashing—and only the Great Leonid knows why anyone would—make sure he applies that to every inch of his body.”
Charlie sniffed at the open valve. Fumes jabbed deep into his sinuses like rusty icepicks. He retched and held the pouch away from his face.
“What the hell is this, man?”
“Fermented moose urine. Extremely rare, incredibly expensive, and as you discovered, painfully odorous. Perfect for covering up the stench of your cannabis—and for drawing him to us.”
“Dude, I’m not rubbing moose urine all over myself. No way! Forget it.”
“You heard him, boys. He prefers your ‘dirty mouth sponges’, as he so rudely put it. Remember, ape skin is somewhat fragile, and I’d prefer to return him to his ship in good health, so be gentle.”
“Uh, on second thought…” Charlie, summoning his best fake smile, hugged the pouch and backed away. “A little fermented urine never hurt anyone, right?”
14
The last thing Swarm remembered was deciding not to fall asleep. Sure, he’d walked most of the day on an empty stomach. Sure, he’d been roughed up by a thuggish fleabag. But none of that mattered. As the Starseed’s Chief of Security, his duty was to protect his crew and captain—even if the latter was a brainless, obstinate ape who deserved to be spaced and replaced.
After Helwyr had run off into the night, the nervous Felonians decided to take shifts watching over the campsite while the rest of the party slept. Swarm offered to take one, but their quartet of growls made it clear they wanted no help. He’d dealt with their type before—brutes of tiny intellect who argue with their fists. A direct approach would only rile them up, so instead he decided to play it cool. He lay down next to his crewmates and pretended to doze off. Even though his eyes were closed and his body still, his antennae stood at full attention. He’d stay up all night if he had to, ready to defend himself and his crew at the first sign of danger.
Then, bewildered and groggy—and utterly pissed—he woke up at the bottom of a pitgrub trap.
Smooth move, Bugbrain.
Swarm wrestled with the emotions that accompany failure: disbelief, then disappointment, and finally, dread. As soon as he subdued one spectre of self-pity, two more would ambush him. Each new opponent was louder, and nastier, and more determined to drag him down into the abyss of despair.
Falling asleep was loathsome and weak, for sure, but not unfathomable. Not after the day he’d had. Not after the week he’d had. And not after a couple hits from the captain’s blunt—which, he would never admit, was frighteningly potent.
Captain? Hmph. That ape doesn’t seem qualified to feed the cloggers, let alone lead the Starseed.
Since that stoner arrived, the Starseed has been in constant peril. She’s been trapped in a Reptilian laser net. Her Captain was killed. She was overrun by giant mutant pests, her THC Core was nearly shattered, and—as Swarm suffered first hand—her morphic resonance field was distorted.
Maybe that was why he’d fallen asleep—he was still recovering from his recent morphic troubles. Still, how the hell had he not woken up as he was picked up from the campsite, carried away across the forest, and deposited into a hole the size of a small swimming pool?
He checked his antennae. They were working fine, as sensitive as ever. Being only 273 years old—barely middle-aged for his species—he doubted his Final Molt had begun. Could it be that after just a handful of years on the Starseed, his decades of combat training had finally begun to erode?
All the screwing around and getting high must be taking its toll. Smegging hell, I’m losing my edge! Before long I’ll be as soft as Squishy here.
He turned his attention to the string of drool yo-yoing from the corner of Axolotl’s mouth. With every breath came a tremendous Nommosian snore that shook loose crumbs of dirt from the damp soil walls. Swarm imagined every predator within a five-mile radius stampeding toward them, ready to duke it out for a taste of the little guy.
He knew there would be no way to stop it. They were exposed, unarmed, and had no means of escape. The only bright side was that if a vrill plucked them from the hole and ripped their throats out, they’d be spared the slow, agonizing death offered by thousands of tiny pitgrub mouths.
Things hadn’t looked this grim since the temporal rift tore through the Silica system and gobbled up his ship. One moment, Swarm had been leading a fleet of thirty cruisers to victory over the Gribbon invaders. The next, he was adrift in a busted escape pod, circling the event horizon of a black hole, a million years in the past. By the end of the third week—out of food and out of hope—he’d pounded on the porthole and screamed, “WHAT THE SMEG ARE YOU WAITING FOR? SPAGHETTIFY ME, MOTHERFUCKER!”
Like so many others who’d found themselves destined to die alone in the vacuum of space, the Starseed happened by and rescued him. He was grateful to be alive, of course, yet the realization that he’d never be reunited with the Hive was almost unbearable. Megamorphic beings rely on the macro, the colony, as much as they rely on the micro, the meetles. The more it sunk in that he was separated from his people by the impenetrable expanse of spacetime, the more he fantasized about hopping into a transit pod and setting its autopilot for the heart of the nearest star.
Squishy was instrumental in alleviating that pain. He’d welcomed the bulky insectoid with open arms, inviting him into his house, his family, and eventually, the crew. Before he knew what was happening, Swarm felt like he belonged. The Starseed wasn’t his Hive—not by a long shot—but it would do nicely as a home away from home.
Since then, they’d seen some shit together. Saved each other’s lives countless times. “Brother from another mother,” Axo would sometimes call him, bobbing his dreads and flashing that big, wet grin.
That’s it!
Swarm shook off the shadows and rose to his feet.
We’re getting the smeg out of here.
“Wake up, Squishy! You don’t want to miss all the fun, do you?” He nudged Axo with his foot. “Come on, wake up!”
Axolotl slurped back the drool, smacked his lips, and blinked his eyes open.
“Mornin’, dude. Where the hell are we? Are those stars, yo?” He shoved a pair of knuckles underneath his goggles and rubbed.
“Huh? Oh, right. It’s about time they arrived,” rattled Swarm, pulling the drowsy Nommosian to his feet. “Let me get you up to speed. Those little, glowing points of light aren’t stars—they’re pitgrubs. We’re in a pitgrub hole. I figure we’ve got a couple minutes to find a way out of here before we end up like that poor basher from yesterday. Any questions?”
“No.” Axo slumped, eyeing the luminescent grubs wiggling through the walls of their prison. “Sally and the wogs will not be happy, yo.”
“Don’t look so defeated, Squishy! We’ve gotten out of worse situations. Remember that week we were stranded on Regula Theta?”
“I remember, yo. To this day, just the thought of snotfruit makes me wanna ralph…”
“There’ll be plenty of time for ralphing once we’re safely out of the food chain.” Swarm clapped both pairs of claws together. “So?”
“So what, yo?”
“C’mon, put those locks to work. How do we get out?”
Axolotl sized up th
e dirt walls. “Well, how are your wings doing?”
“They’re fucked.” Swarm winced as he opened his dented elytra, exposing two torn wings. “That fleabag really did a number on them.”
“Okay, what if you climb onto my shoulders? Maybe you could reach the top, and then—”
“It’s too high.” Swarm kicked at a pitgrub. “What else you got?”
Axo’s goggles lit up. “That’s it! You know what they say: If the walls of your pitgrub deathtrap are too high, you gotta rise to the occasion!”
“Who the hell says that?”
“Uh, I do.” He grinned wide and plucked a slender brown cylinder from his dreadlocks. “Charlie hooked me up with a spare. Ready to blast off?”
“You sure that’s a good idea, Squishy?”
“Oh come on, Bugbrain! We gotta get creative. We gotta think outside-the-pit, ya know? Besides,” he paused to puff the ember to life. “If this really is the end, I can’t think of a better way to spend my last few breaths.”
Swarm snatched the blunt and filled his lungs.
He’s lying. That sonofabitch could jump out of here in a heartbeat. But he won’t leave me behind.
He spewed a stream of white smoke across the advancing grubs and considered how lucky he was to be able to call Axolotl his friend.
“So, Squishy, has Captain Hong’s magnum dopus conjured up any bright ideas yet?”
“We got an idea,” a voice called from somewhere over the edge of the pit. Axo and Swarm shared a look before tilting their heads upward. “Toss that spliff up here, and we’ll consider tossing this down to you.”
A furry blue arm appeared over the edge of the rim holding a familiar object. Swarm’s heart leapt from the pit and soared across the sky—before a tiny prick on his ankle caused it to plummet back into the hole. He grunted and stomped on a group of pitgrubs that gathered around his feet.
“A smegging biorepulsor!” he cried. “You dirty fleabags! You leave us to die, and now you taunt us?”
Nipzi’s shit-eating grin appeared beside the arm. “Better hand it over, toad! Time’s running out.”
Axo plunged the blunt between his lips, expanded his lungs as far as they’d go, and leered up at their captor.
In one seamless motion he spat out the blunt and fired a turquoise lightning bolt from his mouth. Once his sticky tongue had wrapped around Nipzi’s wrist, he reared his head back hard. The Felonian’s face turned white as he began sliding over the rim.
Swarm rattled with laughter. “Way to think outside the pit, Squishy!”
15
“Tell me again why we haven’t started going up the mountain yet?” Charlie said, flinging a rock at a nearby tree.
His lips were dry and cracked. His stomach rumbled, but he tried his best to ignore it. Every time he imagined forking a chunk of steaming chocolate moosemeat into his mouth, he’d suddenly catch a whiff of the brown crust that covered his body. Hunger—even the intense, primitive kind born from starvation—was no match for fermented urine.
“He knows we’re after him,” Helwyr said as he ran his nose along the top of a mossy boulder. He touched his tongue to the rock and smacked his lips thoughtfully. “He’s a tricky devil. More than once he’s tried to fake a path upward, but he always doubles back and continues this way.”
“How long is this gonna take, man? Our friends are back there in the forest. They might need our help.”
“They’re fine. Fyz and Nipzi are formidable trackers. I have no doubt they’ve collected your crew and are on their way here now.”
“But we’ve been zigzagging along the base of the goddamn mountains all afternoon. How the hell will they ever find us?”
“Captain, a blind basher with a sinus infection could follow your stench,” Helwyr said as he pounced atop an adjacent boulder and sniffed the air.
“Okay, whatever.” Charlie squirmed. “But unless you want me to add the smell of my own urine to the mix, I need to stop for a piss.”
“Not a chance, ape!” Shmek shoved him from behind. “Shut your mouth and keep moving.”
Helwyr held up a hand. “You have two minutes, Captain. Find a tree and take care of your business. And don’t wander too far—you never know what might be tracking us.” He motioned for his men to join him. “Shmek, Rhys, time for a quick lesson. As we’ve discussed, our moose shares its territory with the elusive, and deadly, sabertooth slug. Let me show you how to use its slime residue to determine its proximity.”
Charlie walked to the treeline and chose a tree to mark. He set his staff against its trunk. Reaching down to unzip his pants, he found his fly was already wide open.
Dammit, Charlie.
He whipped out his firehose, aimed it at the base of the tree, and relaxed. Valves disengaged. Pressure swelled. Just as the first drop was about to escape, there came a rough scurrying from above. In an instant, all the tension returned. Charlie flinched and covered his head.
After realizing he hadn’t been mauled by some terrible Vos Praedean beast, he cautiously peeked around his forearm. Clinging to the bark, just a foot or two above his head, was a small, furry critter. Charlie thought the thing resembled a four-eyed, chubby-cheeked, tailless squirrel with a short tube hanging from where its nose or mouth should have been. It looked him up and down, exuding the same intelligent curiosity he’d seen in adorable miniature monkeys back on Earth. Not only did it seem harmless, it seemed like something he might want to bring back to the Starseed as a pet.
Charlie smiled and slowly offered his hand.
“Hey there, little duder. It’s nice to finally run into something that’s not a violent asshole.”
The four-eyed squirrel sniffed Charlie’s fingers and scuttled a few inches closer. Charlie nodded toward his open palm.
“Go ahead and hop on. Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”
As if considering his offer, the creature’s pupils dilated and its head cocked. Drawing in a few quick breaths, its chest expanded to twice its previous size.
“Whoa. Neat trick, man! But what would a little fella like you need all that air for?”
As if to answer, the critter straightened its mouth tube and emitted a series of sharp whooshes. Before Charlie could register what was happening, pricks of pain stung his firehose and set his entire nervous system on fire.
“FUUUUCK!!!” howled Charlie. “It shot my dick, man! IT SHOT MY DICK!”
He dropped his hands to cover himself, but it was too late. The critter screeched victoriously and scurried up the tree.
Over his shoulder, Charlie heard the Felonians cackle and hoot. “Like we said earlier,” Shmek said, gasping for air and wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “Blovados only target small, weak prey.”
Charlie cupped his crotch until the initial shock wore off and the pain began to subside.
Poor Lil Charlie. You’ve screwed up plenty, but you didn’t deserve that.
He sighed and leaned his head against the tree. Afraid to assess the damage to his wounded firehose, he turned his focus toward relaxing his bladder. Finally, after several deep breaths, the pee came—and with it, relief.
Okay, dude. Enough is enough. There’s gotta be some way to escape these assholes, find your crew, and get the hell off this rock. Think, you goddamn stoner, think!
Charlie knew that if he could light one up—take a few puffs and let the wisdom of the plant world saturate his mind—he’d be able to find a way out of this mess. But Helwyr had made it clear that if he so much as reached for a blunt, Charlie would end up carrying it in his lower intestine.
His eyes fell on the staff. Zylvya had given it to him as a parting gift, as a tool to help him survive the trip—and all he’d done was twirl it around like a wannabe Bruce Lee. Maybe it was time for him to take her advice and figure the damn thing out.
He squinted at the leather wrapping and the rivets that bound it to the wood. Sunlight bounced off one and reflected the unmistakable outline of a drop of liquid.
; A drop of what? Water? Sulfuric acid? Fermented moose urine?
Only one way to find out.
He glanced over his shoulder at the Felonians. They were studying grayish moss that grew in patches along the side of a boulder.
Charlie pressed a thumb against the rivet. There was a subtle click, and then a burst of clear liquid hit him square in the eyes. As it dripped down his face, he lapped some up from his upper lip. It was the most refreshing water he’d ever tasted. After another quick peek at his captors, he adjusted the position of his face and pressed the button again. Cool, clean water streamed into his mouth.
Zee, you’re a goddamn genius!
As he drank, it dawned on him what a complete dumbass he’d been. He rotated the staff and studied the rivets more closely. Most of the shapes were hard to decipher, but a few seemed to make some sense: a flame, a bullseye, a pot leaf.
He pulled the staff closer. Something about the two concentric rings that encircled the pot leaf were vaguely familiar.
“Captain!” Helwyr called. “Put your wounded manhood away. It’s time to go.”
“Just finishing up, man,” Charlie hollered back.
As he shook his firehose, he suddenly remembered where he’d seen the symbol—it was the green metal disc he’d seen pinned to his crew’s chest.
A Chatter!
His ticket off this god-forsaken planet—away from Helwyr, his cronies, and all the savage beasts—had been in his hands the whole time. With one press of that rivet, he could have alerted Zylvya and Del to the mutiny. He could have summoned a fleet of transit pods to come pick them up. Hell, he could have ordered a goddamn pizza and side of chicken wings.
“Fuck me, I’m stupid…”
“If I have to come over there, Captain, I’ll be forced to pull you up the mountain by your—”
“Keep your loincloth on, man! I’m coming!” Charlie zipped up, grabbed the staff, and jogged toward the others.
Bide your time, dude. Be cool. The next chance you get, call for backup.
Helwyr led them around another bend at the base of the mountain. Charlie felt lighter than he had in days, revitalized by the realization that the nightmare was nearly over. All he needed was two minutes alone, out of earshot.