Cal’s eyes flicked from the ceiling to the screen and back again. “Kevin, can I assume that you did mute the microphone before you said all that, yes?”
“You may go ahead and assume what you like, sir,” Kevin replied, after a pause.
Cal pinched the bridge of his nose. “OK, so you didn’t mute the microphone.”
“No, sir,” Kevin admitted.
“You think maybe you should have?”
“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, sir.”
“Want things!” the monstrosity on screen babbled, dribbling a thick gray liquid down its hideous chin. “Or blow up. BOOM!”
“OK, one second. Be right with you,” Cal said, then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Kevin, mute the microphone.”
“Very good, sir.” There was a soft bleep. “Done.”
Cal creaked around in his chair. “OK. We need a plan. We have no weapons, no shields… Any thoughts?”
“We could ram him, sir,” Kevin suggested.
Cal looked up. “Would that work?”
“Almost certainly,” Kevin confirmed. “Although, we would also be destroyed.”
“Jesus, Kevin,” Cal muttered. “OK, let’s put that one on the back burner for now.”
He clicked his fingers and sat up straighter in his chair. “Wait. Got it. What if we use Mech?”
“What if we use Mech for what?” Mech demanded, looking up from where he was trying to reattach his arm.
“To shoot. You could stand on the roof and just, you know, fire at him with your arm guns,” Cal said.
“That’s the dumbest idea I ever heard,” Mech grunted.
“What, worse than Kevin’s kamikaze run?” said Cal.
“Fine. Second dumbest,” said Mech. “Even if I wasn’t down one arm, my cannons ain’t gonna put a dent in that ship’s shields.”
“Are we sure it even has shields?” Cal asked. “I’m pretty sure it’s held together by string. Hell, we could probably open a window and toss something at it, and that’d be enough.”
“Or we could, like, let whatever that thing is board us,” Miz suggested.
“What?” Cal spluttered. “Have you lost your mind? You heard it. It wants our things.”
“But there’s, like…” Miz counted quietly. “Six of us, and one of it.”
“But what a one,” said Cal. “Look at it. I don’t want that on the ship. I don’t even want it in the same galaxy!”
“It might be our best chance,” said Loren. “Let it come aboard, then take care of it when it gets here. I don’t see many other options.”
Cal groaned. “Fine. Let’s do that idea. We’ll tell him to come over and get our things, then kick the shizz out of him when he arrives. Well, you can kick the shizz out of him, I don’t want to touch him, or even necessarily be in the same room.”
He glanced from crewmate to crewmate. “We all agreed?”
“Works for me,” Mech said, crunching his arm back into his shoulder socket. It stayed there, but stuck out at an awkward angle.
“It was, like, my idea, so…” was all Miz had to say on the matter.
“I will best the beast personally,” added Tyrra from her seat up the back.
“You’ve done quite enough besting for one day, young lady,” Cal told her. “We still have to discuss what you did to Nutmuck.”
“That wasn’t his name,” Mech intoned.
“Whatever. The point is, you’re on thin ice, missy. You and me? We’re going to have words.”
“I will kill you with my bare hands,” Tyrra warned.
“That may be, but I’ll come back to life, and then you’ll be grounded, so we’ll see who has the last laugh,” Cal said. He eyeballed her sternly for a moment, then jiggled his chair back around so he was facing front.
On screen, the thing was ranting in silence.
“What’s he saying?” Cal asked. “Why can’t we…?”
A thought struck him. A terrible thought.
No.
No, surely not.
Cal looked up.
“Kevin?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You know when I said to mute the microphone?”
“I recall sir, yes.”
“Whose microphone did you mute?”
There was a pause. It was quite a lengthy pause, as if all the participants in the conversation were being hit by the same dawning sense of realization and dread.
“Sorry, sir, whose…?”
“You heard me, Kevin,” Cal said. He ground his teeth together. “It was his, wasn’t it? You muted his microphone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not ours.”
“No, sir.”
Cal buried his face in his hands, let out a primal-sounding roar of frustration, then sat up suddenly. “OK, turn him back on. Let me talk to him. Or it. Whatever the fonk it is.”
“Very good, sir.”
The audio from the other ship rushed back in.
“—tricks! I not fall for them! I not get things, you not get keep things!”
“Hey, easy, pal. Easy,” Cal soothed. “Whatever you think you just heard, I can assure you it was all just a misunderstanding. No one is trying to trick you. We’re just going to hand over our things…” His eyes went to the little inset image of the enemy ship in the top right corner of the screen. “…aaaand, he’s shooting again.”
Loren’s hands flew to the controls. She jerked a stick, twisted a twisty thing, and kicked down on a pedal all at the same time. The Untitled bucked.
The Untitled stuttered.
“Uh, honey?” said Cal. “There’s a torpedo. There’s a big torpedo.”
“I know!” Loren barked. She untwisted then retwisted the twisty thing, pumped the pedal a few times, then flipped open a panel and flicked a series of switches inside.
“And, it’s just that we don’t have shields…”
“I know! Impulse thrusters have misfired.”
“Well, can you unmisfire them in the next five seconds?” Cal yelped, pushing himself further back into his chair on the off-chance that this would somehow buy them more time. The little square window that showed the live feed from the front camera was almost filled with fiery red now. An impact was coming, and it was coming soon.
“Ugh. Great. We’re totally dead,” Miz complained.
“Loren!”
“Got it!”
The ship jerked into life, then dipped just as the torpedo rocketed past. Something at the back of the ship went clank as it snapped off. Cal hoped it was nothing too important. The fact that they weren’t currently being sucked out into space told him it was something they could live without for now, even if only on a temporary basis.
“Nicely done,” said Cal. His chair groaned with relief when he stopped forcing himself back against it.
“We ain’t outta trouble yet,” Mech said. “It’s looping around.”
“What the fonk is it with these things?” Cal demanded. “Since when did torpedoes…?”
He made a frantic zig-zagging motion in the air with a finger.
“How is that suddenly a thing?”
There was a crunch as Loren shifted a stick on the control panel. “Ah, fonk it. Everyone hold on,” she warned.
“You’re flying. We always hold on,” said Miz, not looking up.
Jabbing her console, Loren switched the screen windows so the ugly-ass ship took up the majority of it, relegating its monstrous pilot to the smaller inset box.
The Untitled gave a lurch as Loren kicked the pedal and wedged the thrust control into a full forward lock.
“Kamikaze it is, then,” said Kevin. “Excellent idea. And, may I say, it’s been lovely knowing you all.”
“What the fonk are you doing?” Mech demanded.
“I mean, some more so than others,” Kevin continued. “And, I suppose, it wasn’t all plain sailing. We didn’t always see eye to eye.”
“Loren? Honey?” asked Cal. “You’re going to crash into the ship.
”
“Some of you were positively annoying, in fact…”
“You’re going to crash our ship into that other ship,” Cal said, as if the addition of a few extra words would help draw her attention to some of the more problematic elements of the situation.
“I wanted to scream, sometimes,” said Kevin. “I swear, one time I almost ejected you all into space. But I’m glad I didn’t, because I subsequently became rather fond of you all.”
“Loren!” Mech shouted.
“Well, not ‘all,’” said Kevin.
“Honey?”
“Or ‘fond,’ exactly.”
Cal threw himself back in his chair and braced himself. Mech leaned over and grabbed both sides of his console, his feet magnetizing themselves to the floor as the monstrosity of a ship grew to fill the screen.
“What’s a word that’s somewhere between ‘fond’ and ‘tolerate’?” Kevin asked.
And then, just when the ship was close enough that Cal could see the pilot through the dirty windshield, the Untitled dived, narrowly avoiding the torpedo that came screaming up behind it.
In the top right corner of the screen, the creature’s eyes widened.
A split-second later, the feed went dark, and a shockwave slammed into the Untitled, shaking it violently and forcing Loren to fight to bring the ship back under control.
Once she had, she half-turned and looked back over her shoulder, an eyebrow raised.
“I, uh, I knew that’s what you were doing,” said Mech, straightening.
“Ugh. That was actually almost cool,” Miz begrudgingly admitted.
“Thank you, Miz,” said Loren.
“I said almost. Don’t milk it.”
“Holy shizz, that was awesome,” said Cal. He laughed with relief. “You did the, like, zoom, and then the torpedo… Holy shizz. That was awesome.”
Loren smiled and tapped a finger to her forehead in salute, then remembered she was still annoyed and turned to face front again.
“Sorry, Kevin,” Cal said, looking up. “Were you saying something?”
“I forget, sir. I’m sure it was nothing important,” Kevin replied. “And, if it was, I’ve accidentally deleted the recording, so I’m afraid we’ll never know.”
Cal nodded, shrugged, then looked around at the others. “Any idea what the fonk that was? Besides the thing that lived under my bed when I was six, I mean.”
“I’ve searched the databases, sir, and it appears to have been a Mfluargh.”
“A what?”
“A Mfluargh, sir.”
“A Mmflarg?”
“No. A Mfluargh.”
“Mumflurg?”
“Mfluargh.”
“That’s what I said. Mumflurg.”
“Mflauargh.”
“You’re saying ‘Mumflurg.’ You’re just saying ‘Mumflurg’ at me, and that’s what I just said.”
Cal turned. “He’s saying ‘Mumflurg,’ right? Everyone else is hearing ‘Mumflurg’? It’s not just me.”
“You’re saying ‘Mumflurg,’ sir,” said Kevin. “I’m saying Mfluargh.”
Cal’s lips moved silently as he tried to sound this out.
“Mumflurg?” he ventured. “Wait, no, that’s the same thing I was saying in the first place.”
“Does it really fonking matter what they’re called?” asked Mech. “What the fonk are they?”
“They’re a rather unpleasant species, sir,” said Kevin.
Cal shrugged. “Well, bang go all those ‘never judge a book by its cover’ arguments.”
“According to reports they are even less amiable than their appearance would suggest, sir,” Kevin explained. “If such a thing can be believed.”
“How do they travel?” asked Mech.
“In a shizzy spaceship made out of toaster ovens,” said Cal. “You saw that thing.”
“I meant do they travel alone or in groups?” said Mech. “Because if it’s in groups, we may have a problem.”
“Fonk. You think there might be more of them out there?” asked Cal, dropping his voice to a whisper.
Loren consulted her screen. “Doesn’t look like it. I’m not picking anything up.”
“You didn’t pick up the first one until it was shooting at us,” Cal pointed out.
“I was kind of busy flying us out of the atmosphere,” Loren snipped back. “Miz is supposed to watch for approaching ships.”
Miz scowled. “What? Since when?” she demanded. “I mean, like, how am I supposed to do that? I don’t have any screens, or whatever.”
“It’s under your leg,” Mech told her.
Miz looked at where her leg was draped over her arm rest, tutted with annoyance, then shifted it a fraction of an inch.
“Oh, that screen,” she said, briefly regarding the little square of glass built into the chair. “Yeah, I don’t look at that.”
She readjusted herself again, covering the display.
“Could you maybe look at it in future?” Loren asked.
“You’re not the boss of me,” Miz countered.
“Alone, sir,” said Kevin.
Everyone looked up.
“Huh?” Cal asked.
“They travel alone.”
“The Mumflurgs?”
“Mfluarghs, sir. Yes. They are quite a solitary species.”
“Can you blame them?” asked Cal. “Imagine hanging out with one of those guys all day.”
“However, they are exceptionally loyal to one another, and have a relentless thirst for revenge.”
Cal looked up. “I have a feeling you’re telling me this for a reason.”
“Indeed, sir,” Kevin confirmed. “Just before we blew it up, the Mfluargh sent out a series of long-range signals. It couldn’t possibly have expected help to arrive in time to save it, so I doubt they were distress signals.”
“What, then?” asked Loren.
“Calls for vengeance, I suspect, ma’am. A plea for others of his species track us down and enact some horrible revenge upon our persons.”
Cal clapped his hands on his thighs. “Great! We made a fun new enemy!” he said. “Yay us!”
He fired a fingergun off into space. “Maybe we should get out of here before they turn up.”
“Oh, I doubt they’ll be turning up anytime soon, sir,” said Kevin.
Cal wiped some imaginary sweat from his brow. “Well, that’s the best bit of news I’ve heard all day.”
“But they’re renowned for holding a grudge, sir. Famous for it, in fact. They’ll find us eventually. One way or another,” Kevin said. “I think we can safely say we haven’t heard the last of the Mfluargh.”
“You had to keep going and ruin the moment there, Kevin. You couldn’t just let it go,” Cal said.
“Apologies, sir,” said Kevin. “I shall be sure to leave you blissfully unaware in future.”
“Thank you. I’d appreciate that,” said Cal.
He settled himself in his chair. “Now, we have a job to do. People to see, boxes to deliver, all that jazz. Let’s plot a course for the Viaview station.”
He rubbed his forefinger and thumb together. “Daddy’s bringing home the Vajacox.”
He caught the looks from the others. “That sounded dirtier than it was meant to,” he admitted. “Let’s forget I said it.”
He pointed to the screen. “Now, let’s not keep the nice TV folks waiting, Loren. Onward!”
“Yes, captain,” said Loren, her voice icy cold. “Whatever you say.”
Nineteen
“Welcome to the Viaview Network Station Alpha. Our Vision, Your View. How may I direct your enquiry?”
The image on screen hadn’t changed to show the person talking, but Cal sat up straighter all the same. Some distance ahead of the Currently Untitled—Cal had no idea how much—a crystalline space station hung like a diamond against the reds, blues, and purples of space.
“This is Captain Cal Carver of the Currently Untitled,” he replied. “We have a delivery f
or, uh…”
“The Controller, sir,” said Kevin.
“We have a delivery for the Controller. Two crates from the planet Floomfle.”
Loren half-turned in her chair. “They’re not from the planet Floomfle.”
“They’re not?” asked Cal, dropping his voice to a whisper and leaning closer. “What was it called?”
“Tolgor,” Loren hissed. “One of Trogol’s moons.”
Cal sat back. “Sorry, my mistake. It’s from…”
His eyes crept back to Loren.
“Tolgor.”
“Tolgor,” said Cal. “Not the planet Floomfle. Which, uh, doesn’t exist. As far as we know.”
There was a pause, then the female voice returned.
“One moment, please.”
There was a soft buzz for a moment, and then muzak chimed from the speakers. Cal bobbed his head in time with it as they waited.
“Not calling it ‘the planet Floomfle’ seems like a missed opportunity on their part,” he said, after a while.
He tapped his toes and drummed his fingers on the arm rests.
“They should rebrand,” he mused. “I bet tourism would skyrocket.”
He knocked his knees together in time with the beat.
“It’s like, ‘Hey, want to go on vacation?’ ‘I don’t know, where to?’ ‘The moon of Tofu, or whatever?’ ‘Fonk, no! That sounds terrible.’ ‘You’re right. How about the planet Floomfle?’ ‘Hell, yes! With all the Floomfles?’ ‘Of course with all the Floomfles! It’s the planet Floomfle.’ ‘Count me in! I am there!’”
He looked around at the others. “You know what I mean?”
A tiny metal hammer flew across the room and cracked him on the back of the head.
“Ow! What the fon—?”
“Thank you for your patience,” said the voice from the speakers. “You may proceed to Gate Seven-Oh-Niner-Niner-Eight-Six.”
“Thank you,” Cal began.
“Four-Four-Echo-Niner-Seven…”
“Fonk. Pen. Someone get a pen,” Cal whispered.
“…Five-Oh-Three-Niner-Two.”
Cal smiled hopefully at the speaker. “Uh, could you possibly repeat—”
“Thank you for visiting Viaview. Our Vision, Your View. Have a great day.”
There was a click. Cal waited a moment.
“Hello?” he asked, but the only reply was the soft hiss of static. “Great,” he said, throwing his arms up. “Did anyone get that number?”
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