by Gabriel Just
strut, I see a spear. Where you see a little cargo container, I see a little cargo container that can be used to hit things with. You understand? Arm yourselves!”
While most of the scientists were rather suspicious, Kip immediately followed his captain’s advice and broke a small pipe from the wall of the vessel. Also Flinton thought it might be a good idea to grab some kind of weapon, ideally before Peppita does. Even Grongl grabbed a sharp piece of debris and after that all the other scientists followed his example.
“Good work, everyone!” Peppita congratulated her new crew. “I can’t tell you what we will find on the planet, but it does not matter. Giant lizards, exploding spiders or flesh eating caterpillars. Our strategy will always be the same. We will not be afraid. We will show our strength. We will fight for our survival the moment this capsule lands.”
Peppita went ahead and positioned herself in front of the airlock, raising her weapon. “Wait for it… wait for it… wait for it.” Timing had never been Peppita’s strength and so she had to spend the next seven minutes telling her people to “wait for it” until the capsule finally reached the planet’s surface. The airlock quickly opened and sunlight blinded Peppita completely. However, this didn’t diminish her determination and she rushed outside, ferociously swinging her weapon, not knowing what awaits her and her comrades on this strange and unforgiving planet.
Only slowly Peppita’s eyes adapted to the new environment. When she finally was able to see again, her furious assault stopped immediately. She just stood there, confused, slowly lowering her weapon and finally dropping it to the ground. “What…?” she whispered to herself.
Directly in front of her was a small, female Piki, dressed in a spotless lab coat, surrounded by other scientists.
“Welcome, welcome,” she said and smiled happily while she reached for Peppita’s hand and shook it dearly. “You must be the new arrivals. Nice to meet you. I am Professor Borobi, I’m in charge of greeting new arrivals. I hope you had a pleasant journey. You must be hungry. Come along, we prepared a feast in dining hall C. We can answer all your questions there.”
“Feast? Dining hall?” Peppita stumbled, utterly confused. “We were supposed to fight for our survival here. What happened?”
“Survival?” Professor Borobi asked. “Oh yes, I remember. That’s true, the first days were rough on this uninhabited planet. But once we got the generator and the food printers running, it became much more pleasant. Come now everyone, let us eat.”
Professor Borobi lead the group of scientists to the entrance of a big building. Inside was a giant table with food and drink for everyone. “Go ahead, eat!” Borobi encouraged everyone. “Enjoy your meal while I go over some of the administrative procedures. Feel free to ask questions at any time. The first order of business is finding you quarters. There are several designs available, the most popular among them being the forest suite, the mountain view room or the lakeside apartment. If you do not find a free room in the housing areas or want a completely different design you can use one of our architectrons. On average it takes them about 8 minutes to build a new house from scratch, so just be patient. Once you have a room to stay I am sure you are looking forward to doing some research. I will give you a complete list of all the institutes that are available here.”
“I have a question!” Grongl spoke up. “You would not by any chance have an institute for theoretical search for intelligent life outside of Hilbert Space, would you?”
“Of course we have,” Borobi answered. “Several actually. And if you want to found another one - that’s no problem at all. There is enough space here for everyone, the architectrons can build laboratories, meeting halls and everything else you wish for.”
“That sounds amazing. The pirates really provide all of this? I didn’t think they would care that much.”
“Well, they do not. Actually, they provided nothing of the luxuries we have now. But we are scientists after all, so we were able to build a generator out of scrap and parts from the landing pods we arrived in. After we had power, it was a simple task to build a matter printer. And with a good matter printer and enough energy you can basically build everything, even architectrons. So this remote planet became a scientific paradise. Nobody disturbs us here, there is enough room for everyone and we can work in peace.”
“And it doesn’t bother you at all that you are owned by pirates. Like slaves?” Peppita shouted.
“Slaves? Not at all,” Borobi answered. “Slaves must do what their masters tell them to do. We are more like… pets. Free-range pets. Admiral Beex protects us and even brings us new colleagues to work with on a regular basis. In all the time I’ve been on this planet there was nobody who had a problem with the way things are here. Naturally, because everything is perfect.”
“Perfect?” Peppita asked. “I admit you might be free here. And protected. And that you have enough food and water and living space and basically everything else. And that you can do the thing you like most, all day long, in exactly the way you like. It may be even true that this planet is a paradise, but… but…” Peppita had to think hard about any downsides of such an existence. “But what if I don’t want to live like that? What if don’t want security and eternal happiness. I need adventure and action. Fighting and running for my life. Can I get this here?”
“I… I suppose not.”
“Then I don’t have a reason to stay. Come on, we are leaving.”
“I… I am not coming with you.” Grongl said. “I am sorry, but I think I really like it here. I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything, but it might be best if I stayed here.”
Peppita looked at him in shock. “Are you… are you serious? After all we’ve been through? I know at times I might have been a little bit harsh to you, but deep down… I think I would really miss you.”
“I understand. I would miss you too. It’s just, I was a scientist my whole life and this-”
“Wait,” Peppita interrupted. “A scientist? Sorry, I thought you were Flinton. And obviously my ship does not work well without an engineer, so I would miss him. But you are an entirely different matter. Why should I even care if you stay? Do what you want. Flinton, Kip, we are leaving!”
The three quickly found their way back to the remains of the landing pod they arrived in.
“Was it really necessary to rush off immediately?” Kip asked. “We could have waited until after the feast.”
“Nonsense! A dramatic exit is very important. Otherwise people don’t take you seriously. It’s not my fault that you waited for the others to begin eating. Take a leaf out of Flinton’s book; he started eating the moment the first edible thing was within his reach. Anyway, we can eat when we are back on our ship; I do not intend to stay here very long.”
“And how do you suppose we leave this planet?” Flinton asked. “Even if we manage to escape, I doubt the pirates will let us go.”
“That’s the least of our problems,” Peppita responded. “The difficult part will be getting the Blasting Beetle back.”
“You want back your ship?” Kip asked, afraid of Peppita’s ambitions. “But why? We have the schematics, we can simply request the same ship at any autoyard. It will be basically the same.”
“No way!” Peppita shouted. “I want my ship back. Not a ship that is ‘basically’ the same. I want the Blasting Beetle. I want the main airlock to squeak and I want those strange chirping noises whenever we fly in reverse. I want the starboard landing gear to be slightly shorter than the port one. And I want every single scratch, bump and crack in the hull, exactly the way it was. I want back the Blasting Beetle!”
“But captain, wouldn’t it be much simpler to-” Kip tried to persuade her unsuccessfully.
“No buts! We recapture the Blasting Beetle and that’s that. Captain’s decision.”
Flinton thought about saying something, but quickly decided it would be pointless. Instead he just nodded, smiled and hoped that Peppita’s plan was something more elaborate than getting captur
ed on purpose.
“I already have a plan,” Peppita exclaimed with a proud expression on her face.
“Is it getting captured again?” Flinton asked sarcastically.
“No! Well, not really. I mean, it is quite possible. But trust me, it is way better than the last plan. And it’s not like you have a say in it anyway. So just do as you are told. Kip! We need a way to get off of this rock. Find an autoyard and build a vessel there. If you want you can use the schematics of the Blasting Beetle.”
“I am not sure if there is an autoyard on this planet,” Kip whispered. “I don’t think the scientists here are in need of a lot of ships.”
“Whatever,” Peppita said. “If there is no autoyard here, then just use one of the architectrons to build one. The scientists said we can use them to build whatever we want. Well, that’s more or less what they said. Now go!”
Kip stuttered a few indecipherable words, followed by a loud and clear, “Yes, Captain Peppita!”
“And Flinton!” Peppita continued her orders while handing Flinton a piece of paper. “I need you to find these three substances. It might be difficult to get them from an ordinary matter printer, since two of those need a special clearance, because they are incredibly dangerous. But this time it is really important that you get them. It’s not just to keep you occupied, I