by M. D. Cooper
***
I don’t know how Greta has done it, but the secondary loading bay has become a holiday wonderland.
Twinkling lights provide just the right amount of light in a room festooned with a hodgepodge of decorations so bizarre that it’s somehow harmonious.
Porters expertly work the room with trays of drinks. Pinky’s provided everything from basic party punch to what she calls a Wham Bam Slammer. I haven’t tasted one because I need to remain alert, but it smells like pine and gin.
I don’t think I’d want one of those anyway.
Instead, I accept a cup of non-alcoholic punch as I wander the room. People are having a wonderful time. Most have dressed up in colorful clothes and some dance at the end of the loading bay that’s been miraculously transformed into a dance floor. It has strobe lights and everything.
Greta is amazing. It’s only been two hours since I whacked that blagrook.
Did you think I wasn’t going to bring that up as much as possible? Because I am.
Anyway, my real job is to keep an eye out for anything weird, either from the guests or anything else. As a group, we figured that if anything weird was going to happen, I’d be the one to detect it.
I’m at one with embracing the reality of my…well, let’s call it a nonconformity. What makes me a little nervous, though, is that Nana’s a Kenny, too, under that cybernetic gear, and she’s the critical bit in this plan. I’m not sure how much of the redshirt bad luck she still has, and it’s a real question mark in this venture.
Greta promised me this would all work, though. Some people believe in angels or flying reindeer or talking wheels of cheese, but I believe in Greta Saltz. I’m putting everything in her hands because she is my miracle.
I sidle by Nana, who’s being aggressively cyborg. Whenever someone walks into the zone she’s protecting, she reaches for them and starts saying a lot of things about assimilation and joining the union.
It’s working great. Nobody is going into the target zone.
“How’s it going, Nana?”
“Fine, Charlie. I’m having fun. Best party I’ve been to in a while.”
I think she’s serious. “Does it ever bother you when people are afraid of you or if they say mean things about you being a cyborg?”
“Nah. When you’re as old as I am, you see how little all that matters.”
“I hope I get to be that old. Without becoming a cyborg. No offense.”
“You will, I think,” she says. “You’ve got Pinky and Greta. You really lucked out. I’m not surprised, either. Of all my grandkids, you were always my favorite.”
“Really?” I’m completely surprised to hear that.
“Well, no. But several have met their natural fate, and Benny always stole from me. So you weren’t always my favorite, but you’re my favorite now.”
“Oh. Well, I guess that’s still kind of good.”
“Sure it is!” she insists. “Life is for the living and we, my boy, are living.”
“We are.”
“I was talking to Gus, and he tells me he’s been thinking of retiring on Mebdar IV.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Is he still upset? I thought he’d be doing better now, with the elevator fixed.”
“I don’t know. I think apologizing to Pinky broke something in him, even though she went easy on him, in my opinion. She didn’t even hit him. But he’s not sure if he wants to keep dealing with customer complaints and all the hassles of pleasing people. So I thought I might check out the Mebdarian system with him. He tells me there’s a wicked canasta community there. I could really clean up.”
“Are you sure a retirement planet won’t be too boring for you?” I can’t imagine her there.
“I’m not sure. But I can take a little vacation. Try it out. See if it fits.”
“Sure, that makes sense. I could take a look at it with you, if you like.” Though it’s been nice having her on board, now that she’s stopped breaking into my cabin and trying to assimilate me, she won’t be happy here long-term. I’d like to see her find someplace she really likes.
She pats my cheek. “Such a good boy.”
She tilts her head to the side. “I hear them. Stay alert, boy. It’s about to go down.”
“Right.” I feel awkward, but I kind of want to hug her. Just in case things don’t go according to plan.
Nana rolls her eyes at me. “I’m not gonna die! Get out of here!”
Okay, so much for that. I get out of the danger zone. I look up at the hatch above, where Pinky has put a bolus of blood from the medbay to make sure that none of the blagrooks can resist.
Greta’s voice comes over the intercom. “Hi, everyone, and thank you for coming to our holiday celebration. We are so touched that you’ve chosen us to take you to your loved ones during this time of togetherness. Right now, we’re going to do the traditional Cringaloo countdown, which signifies the end of one season and the beginning of the next. If you’d like to join in, feel free, and it’s customary to celebrate by hugging someone or throwing confetti. But do whatever you’re comfortable with. Happy Cringaloo!”
I don’t know what this Cringaloo is, but it seems a lot like a New Year’s celebration to me, which made it perfect for our plan.
Greta remains at the microphone and begins counting down. “Ten…nine…eight…”
I look around, but don’t see Pinky. I know she’s there, though. Somewhere.
Nana’s poised for action.
“Five…four…”
I hope this works. I hold my breath.
“Two…one! Happy Cringaloo!”
The hatch above opens, raining blagrooks like confetti down toward Nana. She hits the containment panel and clear walls snap into place around her.
Everyone’s hugging and throwing confetti and it’s really hard to hear or see, but my attention doesn’t waver from Nana grabbing onto a floor hitch as the air lock opens.
She’s wrenched off her feet as the blagrooks go flying into space. It only takes ten seconds, but it feels like forever, watching her hang on with her body being sucked toward the great abyss.
Then the air lock closes and Pinky drops down from the hatch, helping Nana up.
A piece of confetti hits me in the eye because of course it did, but I barely notice.
It worked.
I hurry over to Nana and Pinky. “Was that all of them? Are you sure?”
“Yep,” Pinky says. “They flock together. There’s no way any of them could resist all this. They’re really stupid.”
“Well, they’re dead now.”
“Actually, no.” Pinky shakes her head. “They can do fine in space. They join together into a bunch and just float. Guarantee you they’ll make it to Abundance.”
“The junk mail planet?”
“That’s the one.”
I feel good about this poetic justice. “Are you okay, Nana?”
She smiles. “Just fine. My back cracked while I was hanging on, and fixed a joint that’s been creaky for ages. I feel great! Now, where’s that Gus? I wanted to talk to him about our trip to Mebdar IV.”
“Nana Rose is hanging out with Gus now?” Pinky purses her lips thoughtfully.
“I think they’re going to tear up the canasta circuit or something. Does this mean you’ll be nicer to Gus?”
Pinky shrugs. “He apologized, so we’re as good as we ever were. But if Nana Rose likes him, there must be something worthwhile about him.”
“I guess so. I want her to be happy.” I look around the room at all the happy, celebratory people. “I can’t believe we pulled this off.”
Pinky smiles.
I’m a little surprised. Pinky doesn’t smile much.
“It’s been a good year,” she says. “We’ve had some great adventures, and I got to hunt blagrooks twice and become a movie star.”
She pats my shoulder. “Thanks, Charlie.”
“Why are you thanking me?”
“Because none of it would have happened
if you hadn’t come aboard. Let’s keep having fun, huh?”
I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”
“I can.” She hitches her thumb at the dance floor. “See you later.”
I turn, and Greta’s there. Smiling and radiant, and looking like the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
“You arranged an amazing party,” I say. “I can’t believe you managed this in two hours.”
She laughs. “It took a little work, but I think it worked out.”
“You’ve made the perfect holiday.”
“Have I?”
“Pinky got to whack blagrooks, and Nana got to save the day in a way that redshirts never do. She’s probably going to tear up the canasta circuit on Mebdar IV, too. I was worried about getting them presents, but what could I give them that could top that?”
Greta laughs. “I’ve been trying to figure out the right presents for everyone, too, but nothing seemed right. Especially for you. It’s not like you care about owning a lot of things.”
“In my cabin?” I joke. “Where would I put it?”
“I think I just thought of the perfect thing for us to give each other, though.” Her eyes sparkle.
Not literally. I mean, her skin does literally luminesce, but her eyes aren’t actually metallic or anything. I’m speaking figuratively.
“Blagrook-beating gumdrop bats?” I guess.
She giggles. “No. Look.” She points up.
Mistletoe.
“You found tree fungus,” I say, in the stupidest response any guy has ever had.
“I was hoping we could do that Earth tradition you were telling me about.” Her glow increases, and I realize she’s blushing.
Hesitantly, not quite believing this is happening, I put my arms around her. She steps closer and puts her hands on my shoulders.
Then the most magical thing that has ever happened in my whole life happens.
The holidays aren’t about things we buy for one another. They’re about being with the people who matter, sharing our hearts, and making the moments count.
And, maybe, just a little bit of blagrook bashing.
Because I really did smash that one. You saw it.
THE END
— — —
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Voyage of the Space Bastard
By Andrew Lawston
Joth Krantor has a desperate plan to restore his family’s fortunes. An evil plan.
Joth Krantor, last scion of the Krantor-Huang Corporation which controlled interstellar travel before the development of hyperspace drives, has a desperate plan to restore the family’s fortunes. An evil plan.
From the stone forests of Borthokk to the forgotten depths of industrial asteroids, and through the unfathomable realm of hyperspace, he leads a rag-tag army of the forgotten Frag Prince Bouffard’s super-soldiers on one final voyage. The Voyage… of the Space Bastard.
Chapter 1: Prologue to History
As the end of empires went, the comeuppance of Krantor-Huang Corporation was not particularly dramatic. The Corporation had long controlled the lives of several trillion people, directly or indirectly, through their position as operators of the Wormery; an ancient network of stable wormholes whose nexus point the Krantor and Huang families had claimed quietly at the dawn of interstellar travel. At the time, all the other pioneers had been too busy sticking their flags into strange new resource-rich worlds to worry too much about how they were going to ship their new-found wealth back to Mother Earth.
Pretty soon, Krantor-Huang’s eye-watering tariffs had been grudgingly accepted as a simple fact of doing business beyond the Sol system. And when one system dug their heels in and refused to pay? A shiny-faced Krantor-Huang executive gave a bemused smile for the cameras and insisted that it was fine, no, really it was, Krantor-Huang was all about the free market and they hoped the system found great success and prosperity with their new interstellar transit solution.
And then, still wearing that faintly bemused smile, he’d reached out with one perfectly manicured fingernail, and flicked an icon on his holoscreen. The resulting supernova collapsed that system’s wormhole in less than ten minutes.
Even a few short months later, no one remembered the system’s name, but everyone remembered the moment their terminal was purged from the network charts. In the handful of messages that had come through before the wormhole had shut forever, there was talk of a generation ship preparing for the long trip back to the rest of civilisation. People assumed its arrival would herald a certain amount of laser-based discomfort for Krantor-Huang, but as it wouldn’t be arriving for at least another ten thousand years, the shiny faces maintained their bemused smiles and whacked an extra 3% on all tariffs to make up the lost revenue.
Krantor-Huang made few friends through their dominance, and when it was discovered that the docile whalesteroids that swam through the vacuum between galaxies with their vast maws hanging open, swallowing comets as though they were plankton… well, when it was discovered that they were the last mindless remnants of the starfarers who had constructed the Wormery in the first place… no one shed a tear for the intrepid capitalists when Ardmore the Great Psychic of Yarlon made mental contact with one of the leviathans, and was inexplicably handed the secret to conquering space and time with a hyperspace drive that could be comfortably installed on a starship the size of a large yacht. Hyperspace travel wasn’t quite as quick, safe, or precise as wormhole transit, but it was surprisingly cheap. The Krantor-Huang monopoly was ended at a stroke.
Krantor-Huang didn’t give up their control of space travel without a fight, of course. With their vast wealth, they didn’t so much steal a prototype hyperdrive as invade the planet on which it was constructed and commandeer it. They then tried to patent the technology and retain their monopoly through litigation.
The splintering of humanity into independent star systems with their own legal frameworks, a situation that Krantor-Huang had single-handedly created by ensuring all communication and cooperation was prohibitively expensive, came back to haunt them. Their lawyers would contact this or that far-flung shipyard, and quote patent numbers, and threaten to sue for mind-meltingly vast sums of money, only to meet the same faintly bemused smiles that they’d been so used to dishing out.
The Wormery’s traffic began to slow, and the corporation’s fortunes began to t
rickle away. The situation was accelerated when the adventurous warp pioneers began running into their first genuine aliens. It turned out there was a huge utopian trade federation of planets, just a few galaxies beyond the small sphere of space humanity had just begun exploring.
In a matter of months, the human race had shifted their perspective completely towards joining a wider union of life forms, and The Wormery was mothballed.
But there are always loose ends, and one of the loosest was Joth Krantor, last scion of the Krantor-Huang Corporation. He saw his prospects dwindle away to a mere life of extravagant luxury and decadent comfort, with none of the power he craved.
Well, he couldn't have that...
Chapter 2: Fear of a Frag Planet
The Space Bastard loomed over the tiny asteroid. The ship was so huge, and flying so low, that it became a matter of debate among the engineering team whether they were truly orbiting the airless rock, or whether it was orbiting them. It being particularly warm on the engineering decks that day, the debate quickly took a similar turn to most of the disagreements that occasionally flared up on the ship. A plasma ray-boosted bloodbath.
As Lokhnakh glumly mopped up the last ionised puddle that had once been a member of his department, Fabricomp whined about having to reclone the entire team for the third time that month.
Propping the mop up against a quantum pump, Lokhnakh emptied his blaster clip into the nagging speaker. Fat sparks belched over the rivet-riddled deck, but thankfully no more goo to mop.
Cleaning and personnel management finished for the day, the chief engineer turned his attention back to the holoscreens. He watched a stocky black figure stride across the asteroid’s rocky surface, and rolled his eyes as he heard the first sounds of an argument erupting on the security deck.
“Hurry up, Kran, they’re all going space crazy with nothing but rocks to blow up… and I can’t kill all of them.”