The Hunt for Reduk Topa

by Barry J. Hutchison

  They’d given him a glass of water after that Hovercam had malfunctioned and he’d been forced to do a reshoot of his frantic scrabble through the Belchpits, but that had been hours ago and he’d been through hell since then.

  He clattered against the doorway and spun into the next room, almost tripping over a pile of metal scaffolding poles.

  This room was more of a work in progress than the last one, and a DecoDroid turned at the sound of him entering, spraying a mist of magnolia paint onto the floor before it could deactivate its nozzle.

  The DecoDroid had been painting the lower part of the wall when the Grumptch had entered, and so it was currently short and squat. It became shorter and squatter still when a four-foot long section of scaffolding slammed down onto its domed head, rupturing its TumTanks and glugging gallons of paint onto the floor.

  The Grumptch splashed through the paint, immediately regretting what he’d done. The DecoDroid almost certainly wasn’t going to hurt him—although, you could never tell what surprises the network had set up—and now he was going to leave a trail of footprints for Plasmoid to follow.

  Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He could imagine what the Host’s narration would be saying right now, could practically hear the laughter of the studio audience. This would definitely end up in his Highlights Reel. Hell, it’d probably go viral.

  There were two doors leading out of the room, both closed. He picked one at random and splashed through the puddle of paint toward it.

  Maybe he could use the paint to his advantage, somehow. Maybe he could set a false trail and lead Plasmoid into a trap. He had a weapon now, crude as it was. Maybe, just maybe, he had a fighting chance.

  He opened the door. The mouth of a cannon was waiting for him.

  Plasmoid’s teeth glowed golden in the darkness beyond.

  “Wait. Please. No.”

  “This execution is sponsored by Ringclean Fresh Wipes,” Plasmoid announced. “Smell the freshness. Feel the freshness. Taste the freshness.”

  And then, she fired.

  Thirteen

  Cal stood with his back to the screen as he addressed the rest of the crew. Once the kitchen had been cleaned up (a bit) and his chair dried off (a bit), he’d gathered everyone together to fill them in on what he and Loren had discovered.

  Several minutes of bickering and accusation-flinging had followed, mostly between Mech, Miz, and Tyrra. During this, Cal had slipped unnoticed out into the corridor, collected Mech’s homemade musical instrument, the Blufflebag, from the cyborg’s room, and then returned to the bridge and blasted noise out of it until everyone shut the fonk up.

  “It ain’t supposed to sound like that,” Mech had gone to great lengths to point out. “He’s just playing it wrong.”

  “They’re space bagpipes. That’s exactly what they’re supposed to sound like, Mech. Face it, you birthed a monster,” Cal said, unceremoniously dumping the collection of pipes, sacks, and bellows on the cyborg’s console. “Now, everyone listen up. We have a problem.”

  “Willful arsonism, sir?” enquired Kevin.

  “No, not that,” Cal said. Miz was fixated on her claws and so didn’t notice him looking at her. Tyrra did, but just stared back with her big black eyes until he looked away again. “I mean another problem. It turns out that warp disks are expensive. Like, crazy expensive.”

  “Of course they’re expensive,” said Mech.

  “But, like, wow expensive,” said Cal. “What the fonk are they made of, angel’s tears?”

  “Condensed sun plasma,” said Mech.

  Cal clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Yeah, that actually does sound like an expensive thing,” he conceded. “But, I mean, Jesus. They’re the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of credits. Each! That’s not even for, like, a pack of five. That’s for one warp disk. There’s no way we can afford one.”

  “How much we got?” Mech asked.

  “Just over six hundred credits,” said Cal.

  “What about that sandwich you bought?” asked Loren. She was sitting behind her console, her arms crossed over her chest. Her expression was cool, and bordering on cold.

  “OK, fine. Just under six hundred credits,” Cal corrected. “Also, if you get the chance, there’s this cute little space deli on the corner where they do this amazing…”

  He caught the looks the others were giving him.

  “Know what? Forget it. We have just under six hundred credits. Plus forty dollars I found in an old pair of pants.”

  “So, what are you saying?” asked Miz, flicking her eyes up. “We don’t have enough?”

  Kevin made a throat clearing sound. “Perhaps if someone had paid a little more attention in math class, they’d be able to figure that out for themselves…”

  “No, we don’t have enough,” said Cal. “Not even close. That’s problem number one.”

  “We got another problem?” Mech groaned. He shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course we do. What now?”

  “They don’t take credits. Not officially,” said Cal. “The sandwich guy did because, well…”

  “You started crying,” Loren said.

  “I pretended to start crying,” Cal said, apparently quite proud of this fact. “Guilt tripped the shizz out of him until he caved. It was pretty awesome.”

  “I’ve never wanted you more,” said Loren.

  Cal blinked in surprise. “Seriously?”

  Loren shook her head and flashed him a deeply sarcastic look. “No.”

  “Oh. Damn. Thought I was onto something,” he said. “Anyway, I think he just wanted us to leave so he could get back to the TV. They are fonking obsessed with that thing on this planet.”

  He smiled wistfully. “Still. Great sandwich. Little heavy on the purple stuff, but otherwise highly recommended.”

  The expression on Mech’s face snapped Cal out of his sandwich-inspired daze. “Right. Sorry. What was I saying?”

  “They don’t take credits.”

  “Yes. That’s right. They use something called Vajacox.”

  Loren sighed. “Viacoin.”

  Cal shot her a frown. “Seriously? The whole time in that store, I kept calling it Vajacox.”

  “I know,” said Loren.

  “Why didn’t you correct me?”

  “I did. A bunch of times,” Loren told him. “So did the salesman. Again, a bunch of times. You just kept saying ‘Vajacox.’”

  A crease appeared above Cal’s nose. He blinked slowly.

  “And it isn’t Vajacox,” Loren explained.

  “Right. OK.”

  “It’s Viacoin.”

  “I’ve got it now,” said Cal, tapping the side of his head. “It’s locked in.”

  Mech, who had been impatient enough at the beginning of the conversation and been growing more so over the past few minutes, butted in.

  “So, basically, we ain’t got any money?”

  “Right. Yes. That’s it in a nutshell. We ain’t got any money,” Cal said. “And no money means no warp disk. And no warp disk means—”

  “We’re fonked,” said Mech.

  “Exactamundo.”

  Cal clapped his hands once and rubbed them together, beaming broadly at the crew. “So, brainstorm time. We need a warp disk. We have zero money. Thoughts?”

  Miz was the first to state the obvious.

  “We could just, like, steal one.”

  “Excellent suggestion, Miz. Great work,” Cal enthused. “Mech, write that down. ‘Steal one.’ Write that down.”

  Mech mimed scribbling in the palm of his hand.

  “Hilarious,” said Cal. “Actually write it down.”

  “On what?” asked Mech. “I ain’t got a motherfonking notepad.”

  “Forget it. Kevin, can you write the ideas down?”

  “Very good, sir,” Kevin said. The screen changed from showing a view of the landing bay to showing a slide full of mind-bending formulae. “Would you like me to express it in the form of a mathema
tical equation, sir?”

  “Could you express it in the form of words?”

  “I suppose so, sir,” said Kevin. “It’s just, I did invest quite a lot of effort in—”

  “Great! Write it in words, then,” Cal said, cutting the objection short.

  There was a tut, a sigh, and then all the text on screen was cleared.

  A moment later, the words: “Stael One,” appeared.

  Another moment after that, they backspaced to fix the typo in the first word, then were typed out again.

  “Happy, sir?”

  “Perfect, Kevin. Thanks,” said Cal. “Only, maybe do bullet points. You know, like a little dot before each thing? It just makes it easier to follow.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  The text indented as a little percentage symbol appeared in front of the first line.

  “Wait, no, that’s not it,” Kevin said.

  The percentage sign vanished, then came back again.

  Cal raised a finger. “That’s—”

  “The same one, yes, sir, I’m aware of that,” Kevin replied. The symbol was deleted again, leaving only a blinking cursor. “One moment. I know it’s in here somewhere…”

  There was a protracted silence. Cal’s boots creaked as he shifted his weight.

  “I’m sure I saw it yesterday.”

  “Know what? Forget it. It doesn’t—”

  “Wait, I have it, sir,” said Kevin. “The problem was that I wasn’t holding Shift.”

  A percentage symbol appeared before the first line.

  “Great. Nailed it,” said Cal, giving the ceiling a thumbs-up. He turned to the crew, all smiles, his eyes pleading with them to say nothing. “OK, first idea down, and it’s only taken five minutes. We are on fire!”

  The sprinkler above his chair activated, drizzling water onto the towels he’d spread across it.

  “Not literally on fire, Kevin.”

  The sprinkler stopped.

  Cal did his best to keep his smile going. “OK, so… anything else? Anyone else have any other suggestions?”

  There was a thoughtful silence from the crew.

  “Anything at all?” Cal asked, snapping his fingers a few times as if this would somehow provide the extra motivation they needed. “Come on, there are no bad ideas.”

  “Well—” Kevin began.

  “Except whatever Kevin was about to say,” said Cal. “There are no bad ideas except that. So, come on. Hit me. What have you got?”

  “I think ‘steal one’ pretty much covers all our available options,” said Mech.

  Loren shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You don’t know what?” asked Mech.

  “Basic flying skills?” Miz guessed.

  “Ha! Bested!” said Tyrra, and she and Miz both pointed to each other without looking.

  “I don’t know if we should steal one,” Loren said. “Do we really want to go down that route? Do we really want to become, you know, criminals?”

  Cal raised an eyebrow. “You do know what ship you’re on, yes? You have been paying attention for these last six months? We’re already criminals. Like, a hundred times over.”

  “No, I know we were technically criminals,” Loren said. “I mean, not me so much, but you were all…”

  She cleared her throat and decided to take a slightly different approach.

  “Whatever. The point is, we were criminals back there. Back in Zertex space. We aren’t criminals here. Nobody knows us in this sector. It’s a fresh start. Do we really want to blow that on the first planet we land on?”

  “I mean… I don’t know,” said Cal. He looked around at the others. “Do we?”

  “Works for me,” said Miz.

  “We could have lives here,” Loren said. “Maybe not this planet, but this system, or this sector.”

  “We have lives,” Cal pointed out.

  “But real lives,” said Loren.

  Cal ran the words through his head a few times, trying to process them. “You mean off the ship?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” said Loren. “I’m not saying right away, just… I don’t know. One day. Maybe.”

  “Get off this damn ship and never have to see you fonks again for the rest of my life? OK, now I’m interested,” said Mech. His hydraulics whirred as he turned to Loren. “So, if we ain’t gonna steal one, what do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know,” Loren admitted. “I mean, I guess we could always…”

  “Don’t say it,” Cal pleaded. “Don’t you dare say it.”

  “…get jobs.”

  A silence fell, heavy and oppressive.

  “I know I said there were no bad ideas, honey,” said Cal, his voice quiet. “But you didn’t need to take that as some kind of personal challenge. We’re not getting jobs.”

  Loren tilted her head back and folded her arms. “Why not, honey?”

  “Well… because!” said Cal.

  “Because…?”

  “Because it’s not what we do! I’m a dashing space captain. You’re my loyal yet ragtag crew of loveable misfits. Plus Tyrra. We can’t get jobs.”

  “Yeah, Loren. Like, I can’t believe you’re even suggesting that,” Miz scowled. “You suck.”

  “I guess it ain’t a terrible idea,” said Mech. “There’s gotta be jobs we could do.”

  “Seriously? You’re actually considering this?” asked Cal.

  “An honest day’s work never hurt no one,” Mech said.

  “Oh, yeah? Tell that to Great Uncle Charlie,” Cal said.

  Mech frowned. “Who the fonk is Great Uncle Charlie?”

  “My mom’s uncle. Or, I don’t know, like a weird friend of the family. I have no idea. The point is, he died. At work,” Cal said. He rocked back on his heels, his point proven. “So bang goes your theory!”

  “What did he do?” asked Loren.

  Cal flinched. “He was… in finance,” he said, then he sighed. “OK, I guess technically, he was a bank robber. A guard shot him eleven times in the chest. But the point still stands. Jobs are dangerous. We don’t want to get involved.”

  The screen behind him changed to display several hundred lines of text.

  “Would it help if I called up the local job listing board, sir?” Kevin asked.

  “No! No, don’t go there, Kevin,” Cal instructed.

  “He already has,” said Loren.

  “Damn it, Kevin!” Cal groaned, turning to the screen. “I mean it. We do not want to go down that… Wait. ‘Game show contestants’? That’s a job? How is that a job?” His eyes lit up with excitement. “I could do that job. I’d be great on a game show.”

  “Not enough legs, sir,” said Kevin.

  Some of the sheen left Cal’s eyes. “Huh?”

  “This particular opportunity is only open to members of species with four or more legs,” Kevin said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, it’s for a show called ‘We’ve All Got Four Legs,’ sir,” said Kevin. “Also, it states it quite plainly on the first line of the description.”

  “Right.”

  “In bold, sir.”

  “OK, I see.”

  “It says ‘Only open to—‘”

  “Yes, Kevin. I get it. Although, I still think it’s kind of fonking leggist,” said Cal.

  He pointed accusingly at the screen. “You see, Loren? You see how jobs screw you over? I could’ve been on TV, but no. Now I won’t be. That’s what jobs are like. That’s the kind of thing you’re trying to get us involved with.”

  “This one looks interesting,” said Mech, gazing up at the screen. “‘Wanted: Armed ships to provide support for negotiators attempting to end a long-standing trade federation blockade.”

  “No,” said Cal, emphatically shaking his head.

  “No?” Mech echoed.

  Cal continued to shake his head. “No. That has The Phantom Menace written all over it.”

  “What the fonk does tha
t mean?” asked Mech.

  “Just trust me. We don’t want to get involved. We’ll be up to our necks in earnest little blond kids and CGI Muppets before we can say ‘Jesus Christ, this movie sucks.’ No. We’re not touching it. I’d rather go back to doing dishes at Nana Joan’s,” Cal said.

  He exhaled slowly through his nose, breathing out some of his tension.

  “Fonking Midi-chlorians.”

  “Like, what about the next one?” asked Miz. “That one looks pretty cool.”

  Cal craned his neck to glare at her. “Et you, Mizette?” he asked, coming within a whisker of getting the phrase correct.

  Mech read the next listing aloud.

  “Experienced bounty hunters sought to carry out the capture and restraint of known terrorist, Professor Pheloneous Nushtuk. Must have experience of dealing with robots.”

  Cal wheeled around to face the screen. “OK, that sounds cool,” he admitted. “And we don’t just have experience of dealing with robots, one of us actually is a robot.”

  “Not a robot,” Mech grunted.

  Cal waved a hand. “We’ll put make-up on you. No one will be able to tell the difference.”

  Mech looked around at Loren. “Why is he putting make-up on me?”

  Loren could only shrug in response.

  “What have we got on this Nushtuk character, Kevin?” Cal asked.

  One-third of the screen was replaced by a black and white image of a long-necked figure with a shock of white hair.

  “Jesus, it’s like Albert Einstein boinked E.T.,” said Cal. “We can take out this guy. Right? No problem. What’s the pay?”

  “A hundred thousand, sir,” said Kevin.

  Cal spluttered and pointed to the weedy, weak-chinned face on the screen. “A hundred thousand?! For taking down that guy? We could just nuke his house from orbit, then go pick up the check.”

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the question, sir,” said Kevin. “They have stipulated that he must be brought in alive.”

  “That’ll make it more difficult,” Loren added.

  “Are you kidding me?” Cal snorted. “That guy? Midget Doc Brown? We’ll have him hogtied and spitting teeth by dinner time.”

  He spun back to face the crew. “Ignore everything I said earlier, jobs are awesome,” Cal declared. “Loren, fire up whatever’s left of the engines. Mech, space Skype whoever put this listing up and tell them we’re on it. Miz, Tyrra, try not to set anything on fire.”