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by Lee Goldberg

  "We're trapped," Mr. Snork said.

  "There's always options, Mr. Snork." The Captain opened a channel to engineering deck. "Mr. Glerp, redirect all power to propulsion and prepare for ultra-light speed."

  "I can't, sir," Glerp replied. "The grapnel beam has neutralized our nitrozine power cells. We're powerless."

  "As long as we have our humanity, we'll never be powerless." Captain Pierce clicked off the communicator. "Dr. Kelvin, if we convert our deflector shields into reflector shields, I think we can—"

  "You're all alone, Goddard," a voice said.

  The Captain looked up. A humanoid alien stood in front of the main view screen, wearing a Confederation Captain's uniform. And he was right, the crew had disappeared! The bridge was empty, except for him and the alien.

  Somehow, Captain Pierce always knew it would come to this. A face-to-face confrontation with evil, the fate of the universe hanging in the balance.

  "It's just you and me," Charlie said.

  "I may be just one man, but standing behind me are the millions of creatures on the hundreds of worlds that make up the Confederation of Aligned Planets. That's what this insignia on my chest stands for, buster. I'll die on their behalf before I'll surrender to your tyranny."

  "Is that why you killed Chad Shaw and Leigh Dickson?"

  "You can steal our faces, copy our ships, but there's one thing you can never replicate, our indomitable human spirit."

  Charlie understood it all now. So simple, so crazy, so very sad. Outside, he could hear the police cars and fire engines coming around the corner. Any moment now, the officers would come in.

  "It's over now, Goddard." Charlie said. "The police are here. Let's go."

  "You've got a lot to learn about the human race. Initiating self destruct sequence," Captain Pierce pressed the button on a garage door remote. "Now."

  Captain Pierce unhitched his seat belt and stood up, defiant, the remote control in his hand. "Anyone tries to board or leave this ship, and the magnetic containment field around the fusion core will fail. An instant later, the ship will explode, taking your vessels along with it."

  Charlie sighed. "We aren't in outer space, and this isn't a starship."

  "And I suppose this isn't a galaxy-class fusion core reactor," the Captain lifted the top off the helm console, revealing a compartment packed full of dynamite, surrounded by blinking Christmas lights.

  Charlie also saw a bag of nails, a sack of ball-bearings, three Neil Diamond CDs, a couple bottles of lighter fluid, a box of Grape Nuts, and the innards of a garage door opener.

  "I haven't seen many fusion cores reactors like this," Charlie said.

  "I had the Chief Engineer rig this one up especially for me. Anyone opens a door now, or if I press this remote, the ship explodes."

  "What do you hope to gain by blowing up the ship?"

  "It's not what I gain," the Captain said, "it's what you lose. I won't let the flagship of the Confederation fall into alien hands."

  "And I can't let you kill any more people," Charlie reached into the console, unscrewed a Christmas light, and tossed it across the room. "I've disarmed it."

  The Captain glared at Charlie in shock. "You said you'd never seen a reactor like this."

  "I lied," Charlie shifted his gaze past the Captain and yelled, "Come on in, boys."

  Captain Pierce turned to look and Charlie leaped into the main view screen. As Charlie crashed through the plate glass window, Captain Pierce screamed in fury and pressed his remote.

  The house exploded like a popcorn kernel, the walls bursting out and lifting the entire structure into the air.

  The blast sent Charlie cartwheeling through the air. He smacked against the sheet metal roof of the carport and toppled into the weeds, where he was impaled on a rusted umbrella stand.

  The first thing he was aware of was agony, and that made him happy. It meant he was still alive. When he opened his eyes, and blinked away the blood, he saw the bloody umbrella stand poking through his stomach. And beyond that, all he saw was flames.

  And then he saw something else, a naked figure rising out of the ground, skin smoking, hair ablaze.

  The fire had seared the clothes off Melvah's body, and burned away most of her skin, but she didn't care. She only wanted one thing. She lifted the shovel above her blazing head and marched towards Charlie, impaled and helpless in the flaming weeds.

  "You don't want to do that," Charlie croaked.

  "Fuck you," she rasped, and swung at his head.

  In the same instant, he reached into the weeds, whipped up the red-hot Magnum and emptied it into her, sending her skittering backward in a windstorm of bullets that dropped her right back into her grave.

  And then the pain went away, and so did everything else.

  EPILOGUE

  Alamogordo Scripts Divorce

  HOLLYWOOD- Mandy Alamogordo filed for divorce from her husband of 25 years, screenwriter Nick Alamogordo, citing "irreconcilable differences."

  She will keep custody of their three children, their Marin County estate, and Newport Beach vacation home. Sources say she will also receive a one-time payment of $25 million, in addition to an undisclosed monthly alimony and child support payment.

  Nick Alamogordo, currently scripting Cop Another Feel, was unavailable for comment...

  Selleck Conquers 'Planet,' Shari Beds Herself

  HOLLYWOOD - Tom Selleck has been signed to play producer Eddie Planet in One Man's Justice: The Ordeal of Eddie Planet, the UBC docudrama based on the notorious Beyond the Beyond murders.

  Selleck joins William Shatner as Guy Goddard, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Melvah, Tea Leoni as Zita, and Treat Williams as superagent Clive Odett in the two-hour MOW, which goes into production next month in Vancouver under director Anson Costo.

  Meanwhile, HBO has confirmed that actress Shari Planet will play herself in Bed of Blood, a "tragic, erotic love story" based on her best-selling book.

  Bed of Blood will chronicle her doomed affair with Beyond the Beyond creator Conrad Stipe (Sam Sheppard), his accidental death during lovemaking, and her inspirational recovery from nipple reconstruction surgery. Harry Dean Stanton will have a cameo role as Eddie Planet.

  'Beyond' Goes Beyond, 'Saddlesore' Rides Again

  HOLLYWOOD - As expected, The Big Network has ordered 44 more episodes of Beyond the Beyond, guaranteeing that the sci-fi smash will remain on the network for at least two more seasons.

  The renewal of Beyond the Beyond, which virtually created the upstart network, was tied to a full-season commitment to executive producer Eddie Planet for another series, a revival of his classic western Saddlesore.

  "Eddie will apply to Saddlesore the same winning formula that made Beyond the Beyond a hit," promised Big president Kimberly Woodrell. "If anyone understands the 90s sensibility, it's Eddie Planet."

  Planet says Saddlesore will feature a "hot, dynamic, young cast and an edgy, Tarantino-esque feel" and credited The Company for negotiating "a very creative deal that benefits all concerned."

  The entire Beyond the Beyond cast will return, though Jaleel White (Capt. Pierce), Terry Bloss (Mr. Snork), and Spring Dano (Dr. Kelvin) are all considering feature film roles for the spring production hiatus.

  President Makes Example of The Company

  HOLLYWOOD - The President of the United States wants to make an example of the unusual business practices at The Company, which he called "unlike any work environment I have ever imagined."

  "Corporate America needs to examine what's going on here," the President said. "We can all learn a lesson from this."

  Specifically, the President cited the agency's "innovative incentive program" that rewards employees with vacation days for each day of community service. Volunteerism among employees is made possible by flexible work hours that allow agents to toil "whenever they feel they can be most productive."

  During a tour of the Company's new, San Fernando Valley offices, the President visited the agency's on-site day ca
re center, full-service gymnasium, and enjoyed one of the daily, catered lunches.

  "I'm proud, and surprised, that what we're doing here has impressed the President," said Company topper Alison Sweeney. "But what we're doing is really very simple. We're treating our co-workers like people, not just employees. What's the point in going to work each day if it can't be fun and, at the same time, enhance the community we live in?"

  * * * * * *

  It wasn't easy getting the shot of rock singer Sissy Marshak grieving over her miscarriage. It was like planning an assassination.

  Buddy Schlitz bribed a nurse to find out what room Sissy was in. Sixth floor, UCLA Medical Center, south side. There was no way he was gonna get in the hospital, or even in the parking lot. So what he did was, he found a dentist office on the corner of Gayley and Wilshire that had an unobstructed view of her window.

  He pretended he had a killer cavity, got an appointment, and when they left him in the chair to develop his x-rays, he barricaded the door, set up his camera with a super telephoto lens, and got a great roll of film of Sissy sobbing in Milton Nero's arms.

  Yeah, Milton Nero, the married actor. Who would've guessed he was the father?

  That particular picture was worth $200,000 for Buddy Schlitz. There were lots of other big paydays in his career. The morgue photo of River Phoenix. An emaciated Dean Martin in the backseat of a limo. Christopher Reeve in his hospital bed. Marlon Brando weeping after his kid offed herself.

  Classic images, all of them.

  And now he was getting ready to click another one. Rumor was that Taylor Largo, the best-looking guy on television, the debonair secret agent in Diplomatic Immunity, had the big C and was getting chemo during the season hiatus.

  A shot of the glamour boy, looking bald, pasty, and haggard would be worth major green. So Buddy asked around, found out that Largo had rented a house deep in Topanga Canyon, far from any roads or prying eyes, to recuperate. It wasn't hard finding the house. Real estate agents had looser lips than a Hollywood Boulevard hooker. Buddy got some maps, did some figuring, and went on a four mile hike.

  He found a tall tree, climbed up top, and trained his lens on Largo's house, about two hundred yards away, across a deep ravine. All he had to do was wait for Largo to walk by a window, or take a sit-down in his hot-tub, and Buddy had another classic.

  Buddy had been up in the tree about ten minutes when he was startled by the sound of a chainsaw roaring to life.

  Buddy looked down and saw a man at the base of the tree, the chainsaw chewing into the bark and spitting out sawdust.

  "Stop!" Buddy yelled in terror.

  The man switched off the chainsaw. "Be glad to, Buddy. Just toss your camera into the ravine."

  "Fuck you," Buddy said. No way the guy was going to cut the tree down with him in it.

  The man yanked the cord on the chainsaw and started cutting into the tree again. Buddy held on tight. The tree groaned and swayed. Buddy screamed and threw his camera into the ravine.

  The camera hit a rock and smashed to pieces. The man shut down the chainsaw. "Very good, Buddy. Now take off all your clothes and throw them out of the tree."

  "C'mon," Buddy said. "That was a $2000 camera. Isn't that enough?"

  "You heard me, strip."

  Buddy peeled off his clothes and tossed them down. He clutched the tree like pale, hairless monkey. "Satisfied?"

  The man took an Instamatic camera out of his pocket and took a half dozen pictures. "Now I am. Have a nice walk back to the road."

  The man left, leaving Buddy in the tree. He'd only walked a short distance when his cell phone rang. The man answered it.

  "I saw the whole thing through my binoculars," Taylor Largo said. "He showed up, just like you said he would."

  "The key was making it a challenge for him," the man said. "Now you just concentrate on getting better."

  "Thank you," the actor said. "My privacy means a lot to me, especially now."

  "You don't have to thank me," Charlie Willis replied. "I'm just doing my job."

  THE END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lee Goldberg is a two-time Edgar Award nominee whose many TV writing and/or producing credits include Martial Law, SeaQuest, Diagnosis Murder, The Cosby Mysteries, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Nero Wolfe, Missing and Monk. He's also the author of The Walk, My Gun Has Bullets, Successful Television Writing, The Man With The Iron-On Badge and the Diagnosis Murder and Monk series of original mystery novels. As a TV development consultant, he's worked for production companies and broadcasters in Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America and is the co-founder of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.

  If you enjoyed DEAD SPACE, you might also like Lee Goldberg's widely acclaimed novel

  THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE

  Here's an excerpt:

  Chapter One

  I don't know if you've ever read John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books before. McGee is sort of a private eye who lives in Florida on a houseboat he won in a poker game. While solving mysteries, he helps a lot of ladies in distress. The way he helps them is by fucking their brains out and letting them cook his meals, do his laundry, and scrub the deck of his boat for a few weeks. These women, McGee calls them "wounded birds," are always very grateful that he does this for them.

  To me, that's a perfect world.

  I wanted his life.

  This is the story of what I did to get it.

  My name is Harvey Mapes. I'm twenty-nine years old, six feet tall, and I'm in fair shape. I suppose I'd be better-looking if I exercised and stopped eating fast-food three times a day, but I won't, so I won't.

  I'm a security guard. My job is to sit in a little, Mediterranean-style stucco shack from midnight until eight a.m. six days a week, outside the fountains and gates of Bel Vista Estates, a private community of million-dollar-plus homes in the Spanish Hills area of Camarillo, California.

  The homes at Bel Vista Estates are built on a hillside above the farms of Pleasant Valley, the Ventura Freeway, and a really great outlet mall, about a quarter of the way between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. I say that so you can appreciate the kind of drive to work I have to make each night from my one-bedroom apartment in Northridge.

  There are worse jobs.

  Most of the time, I just sit there looking at my black and white monitor, which is split into quarters and shows me three different views of the gate and a wide angle of an intersection up the hill inside the community. I'm supposed to watch the intersection to see if people run the stop sign, and if they do, I'm supposed to write them a "courtesy ticket" when they come through the gate.

  I'd like to meet the asshole who came up with that.

  It's no courtesy to give one, and the folks who live here certainly don't think it's a courtesy to take one. Most of the time, they don't even stop to get it from me; they just laugh or flip me off or ignore me altogether.

  And why shouldn't they? It's not like I'm going to chase them down to the freeway or put a lien on their homes.

  Enforcement really isn't my job anyway. I'm there to give the illusion of security. I don't have a gun, a badge, or even a working stapler. If there's any real trouble, which there never is, I'm supposed to call my supervisor and he'll send a car out.

  The guys in the car, guys so inept and violent the police department wouldn't hire them, are the "armed response team" the company advertises. If I were a resident, I'd feel safer taking my chances with the robber, rapist, or ax murderer.

  I'm just the guy in the shack. The one who either waves you through and opens the gate, or stops you to see if you've got a pass. If you do, or if I get the homeowner on the phone and he says you're okay, then I jot your name and license number in my ledger, open the gate, and return to my reading.

  I do a lot of reading, which is the one big perk of the job and, truthfully, the reason I took it in the first place, back when I was
going to community college. Mostly I read paperback mysteries now, cheap stuff I get at used bookstores, and it's probably why I was so susceptible to his offer when it came.

  I guess on some level I wanted to be like the tough, self-assured, no-problem-getting-laid guys I read about. I conveniently forgot that in a typical book, those guys usually sustain at least one concussion, get shot at several times, and see a lot of people die.

  It was after midnight, but still early enough that I hadn't settled into a book yet, when Cyril Parkus drove up in his white Jaguar XJ8, the one with a forest of wood and a herd's worth of leather inside, and instead of going through the resident lane to wait for me to open the gate, he drove right up to my window.

  We're supposed to stand up when they do that, almost at attention, like we're soldiers or something, so I did. The people who live at Bel Vista Estates are quick to report you for the slightest infraction, especially one that might imply you aren't acknowledging their greatness, wealth, and power.

  Even just sitting in that car, Parkus exuded the kind of laid-back, relaxed charm that says to me: look how easy-going I am, it's because I'm rich and damn happy about it. He was in his mid-thirties, the kind of tanned, well-built, tennis-playing guy who subscribes to Esquire because he sees himself in every advertisement and it makes him feel good.

  In other words, he was the complete opposite of me.

  I'd see him leave for work every morning around six thirty or seven a.m., and it wasn't unusual for me to see him coming home so late. But he rarely stopped to talk to me, unless it was to leave a pass or get a package from me that his wife hadn't picked up during the previous shift. I'd only seen his wife, Lauren Parkus, once or twice, and when I did, it was late and she was in the passenger seat of his car, her face hidden in the shadows as he sped by.