Pew! Pew! - Bad versus Worse

by M. D. Cooper

  “Come on, this would be so much easier if you just gave in, and took me back,” he argued, as she turned on the piping hot water and let the stream hit her face. It sizzled as it hit the goo, but she was pleased when the dreaded stuff ran down the drain.

  “I need time, Marcus,” she said, grabbing the shampoo and running it through her hair. She was glad for the real shower: Yorick was constantly bragging about his full submersion chamber, like something out of Star Wars, and it sounded awful. Podulk’s showering habits involved him exposing himself to the void of space freezing off the barnacles that sometimes grew on his skin, which didn’t sound much better.

  “Time for what?” he asked. He took her hand in his own, and suddenly she was standing in the shower, holding hands with herself. “Darling, we always wanted to be together forever. This is perfect. I don’t understand why you’ve just… cast me aside.”

  “I haven’t done that,” she said, ripping her hand back. She needed to get this purple off her skin, but it wasn’t coming off. She rubbed harder on the skin of her belly. “Have you seen me gallivanting with other men? Huh?”

  “But you like Yorick. There’s no denying that.”

  “I’m attracted to him, sure. Have you seen him? We’re stuck on this ship 24/7. Out of the three men on the Beyoncé, one’s a gay android, and the other is an asexual alien. Yorick’s attractive.”

  “And I’m here too.”

  “But I can’t see you.”

  “But I’m here. Stop ignoring me!”

  “I can’t ignore you! You’re literally in my head! I wish I could ignore you!”

  She grabbed the bar of soap and really dug into the skin of her arm, rubbing until it burned. The lather came up purple, but the skin didn’t seem to be getting any lighter.

  “Why won’t you love me? Is it because you love him?”

  “Read my mind, Marcus – I don’t love him.”

  “But why…”

  “Marcus, shut up, I think we have bigger problems.”

  She stepped out of the shower, shutting off the water and letting the steam roll off of her. Even before the mirrors cleared, she could see in the fog the color of her reflection.

  “What is it?” he asked, “why do you keep changing the subject?”

  “Because,” she replied, wiping her hand across the mirror. “Because, Marcus, we’re purple now.”

  Chapter 2: Getting some Gold Green for Some Purple Silver

  Jesipax

  On the bridge of a quiet ship, the tiny captain sat with her feet propped up on the dashboard, cradling today’s haul in her arms, a caring mother to her precious treasure. She stroked the metal serpent’s spiraling body, enjoying the cold that danced on her fingertips. This is what success felt like.

  “You are quiet tonight, Captain,” remarked Podulk.

  “Oh? I didn’t think you cared, dude,” she said, annoyed that the alien had ripped her from her moment of bliss. “You’re not usually the talking type.”

  “It was simply a remark, captain.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  She rolled her eyes, returning her gaze to the sparkle of her treasure. It would be hard to part with it – though not so hard once she was given the massive fortune the gem was worth.

  Jesi was enjoying all the perks of being a pirate captain: the treasure, the gold (even if said gold was mostly digital these days), the freedom. The one thing she didn’t have was beginning to weigh on her, though.

  She had been through puberty twice before; one in her first body, and once again in the child she had been placed in after some tragic accident she could no longer remember. What she could remember were the raging hormones, the anger, the constant frustration. It hadn’t been any easier the second time around, and it wouldn’t be the third.

  Having a centuries old mind, trapped in the body of a pre-pubescent girl, was horrendous torture. Jesi remembered the days when she could command hordes of men and women to join her in days of erotic fun, making a mess of moral standards and challenging the universe on what the human body was physically capable of. But now, now the only men she attracted were ones that were undeniably disgusting.

  Jesi was a pirate captain. She wasn’t used to hearing the word no. Hearing it come from herself was a tragedy.

  Meanwhile, her ship was a mess of love triangles, ones she could not take part in. Katra and Yorick had definite chemistry, despite how much Jesi hated to admit it. She found Yorick to be quite the dashing man, to put it politely. But Katra’s ex-fiancé wasn’t making anything easy on that front.

  If it wasn’t for him being trapped in Katra’s body, Jesi didn’t want Marcus on her ship at all. While the former pageant queen was adapting quite nicely to the distant future, he was reluctant and awfully backwards. The two of them didn’t belong together, and it was such a shame to see her dragged down by such a rabid complainer.

  Other than the drama between those three, Jesi, Podulk, and Owaitt had fallen into a dry platonic friendship, if you could call it that. Podulk seemed incapable of any emotion, and the only reason Owaitt could speak to her at all was because they had hacked into his brain. The android could technically help her with her little problem, but he was programmed to service the other sex, so once again she was left up horny creek with no paddle.

  With absolutely no sexual tension between the three, a camaraderie had formed. They worked rather well together, and neither men ever questioned her command. Jesi was left free to deal with only one major malfunction on the ship, and that was the duo trio.

  “Tarowin Station within hailing distance, Captain,” said Podulk.

  “Ah, good,” she said, taking her feet off the dashboard. “Request a landing permit. I’m calling up Havier.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  She punched the man’s coordinates into the ship’s control, putting the com piece in her ear and leaning back into the plush black velvet. He picked up after a single hail.

  “Jesipax, you’re late.” His massive face appeared overlaid on their screen, green skin enhanced by the stars out the window behind him. His twenty eyes took up most of his forehead, making it impossible to tell what mood he was in.

  “Early, you might find, Havi,” she grinned, “good to see you, man. Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

  “Did you get the amulet?”

  “Come on, Havi, why always so frozzing prissy?” The girl scoffed. “How’s the weather on Sta-Tar?”

  “It’s a space station, we don’t have weather.”

  “Will this make you more open to some small talk?”

  Jesi lifted the gemstone off her lap, making sure it hit the light just right. The beautiful thing shimmered, reflecting light all around the bridge. She could see every single one of those eyes go wide with awe. Got him.

  “You found it!” the man clapped with glee, “not too much trouble, I hope?”

  “Well, you do realize it’s quite larger than you initially said. When you said amulet, I thought you meant something one could easily wear around one’s neck – not carry with both hands at all times.”

  “Oh, the deity it once belonged to was very large. It was an amulet to them.”

  “Havi,” Jesi’s heart fell. “Havi. We didn’t just steal jewelry from a god, did we?”

  “A god no one had heard from in a thousand years,” he replied, “but come on, don’t worry, will you? I’ll take it off your hands, anyway.”

  “You’d better.” Jesi didn’t like going into a heist without knowing all the information first, and missing something as integral as the amulet’s past owner was worrying. More than worrying – who had she asked to do research again?

  “We have docking permits,” Podulk announced, “bringing us into the hangar now.”

  “See you in a minute, Havi,” Jesi said, forcing a smile. “get ready to see the most gorgeous treasure you’ll ever have the pleasure of fencing.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  The screen w
ent blank, and Jesi fell back against her chair, frustrated to say the least. She turned to Podulk, who was watching his screen dutifully.

  “Which one of you were supposed to write the report on historical context?” she asked, keeping her anger at bay.

  “That would be… Yorick, Captain.”

  “That son of a… I’ll be right back. Man the helm; try to find us some good parking, will you?”

  “That is the plan, captain.”

  Sometimes the alien’s emotionless responses annoyed her to no end. She wanted to bitch with him about how annoying Yorick was becoming, a waltzing pretty-boy with more good looks than skill. He was still annoyed at her for having taken over his command, and she was sure this was another one of his tiny tricks to usurp her.

  Jesi stormed out of the bridge, ponytail flailing behind her as she marched down the corridors of her ship, clutching the amulet tight to her chest. She made her way through the break room, which was still sorely lacking in any real kitchen appliances, and currently a space to toss broken things from past missions. The corner by the water cooler was stacked with a broken wooden rabbit – some attempt from Katra to recreate a trap from her home planet, but hadn’t even made it out the front door.

  The Beyoncé was not an arts and crafts vessel. It was a pirate ship, and she didn’t want to host another staff meeting to remind people.

  She turned the corner into the living quarters, passing her room (the biggest and most luxurious, it was her right after all), and already hearing a voice arguing with itself. Katra was having another spat with her mind’s roommate.

  “Fault? Fault? What does it matter whose fault it is? It’s not going away!”

  “Look, I’m just saying, if I had been in control, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “We would have had to fight our way through them one way or another, it’s not like either of us knew this would happen!”

  Jesi slammed her fist against their door.

  “Look, I know you two can talk telepathically,” she shouted, “so can you please have this spat inside your own head? It’s so frozzing annoying!”

  The door flew open, and there stood Katra, wearing not a stitch of clothing, dripping on the floor.

  “Katra?”

  “Yes?”

  “You look different. Do something to your hair?”

  Katra sighed, exasperated. She walked away from the door, leaving it open, and Jesi realized she had inadvertently walked her way into couples counseling again.

  Froz.

  The pageant queen put on a towel, covering her purple breasts. That’s when it hit Jesi – that’s what had changed. The woman was purple! Everything was purple, everything from the skin to the lips, even the hair, a shade of purple darker than the rest of her body. It was striking against the white towel, and none of it was wiping off on the fabric.

  “Know anything about this?” asked Katra, gesturing to her body.

  “No,” she shook her head, “does this have to do with the Kablusians you just completely decimated?”

  “I think it’s their blood,” she said, dropping her head into her hands and falling into the couch. “Froz. How will I go unnoticed now? Not much of a thief if I’m frozzing purple!”

  Jesi was not one to show affection. She could tell Katra needed someone to be there for her now, someone to tell her it was going to be alright, that she was going to be normal again someday. But Jesi couldn’t lie so easily.

  Well, she could, she just didn’t want to.

  “It’s ok, Katra, I know a lot of people who are purple!”

  “You do?” Katra looked up, uncertain. “No joke?”

  “There’s entire races of people who are purple,” she assured her. “There, don’t cry… you might get it all over your couch.”

  “Froz!” she hissed. “This can’t be happening!”

  “Captain, we are docking…”

  Podulk’s voice was strikingly loud against the woman’s quiet sobs, making them jump. Jesi shook her head slowly. She did not have time for this…

  “Get dressed, Katra,” she said, “and don’t worry. I think the purple looks really good on you.”

  “You mean it?”

  She met Jesi’s gaze – well, one of her eyes did. The other one rolled around obviously annoyed. Katra’s face looked like that of a stroke victim most days, one half having ticks the other one had never seen before.

  She needed to get Marcus out of Katra. He was holding the woman back, and at this rate Jesi would have no crew cohesion. She couldn’t have Katra, her most devoted fighter, lose her mind.

  “Yeah, whatever, of course,” she said, brushing it off, “But listen, I didn’t come back here to give you a pep talk. I was looking for Yorrick.”

  “And why would he be in here?” Katra growled. Not Katra – Marcus.

  “In this general direction, chill. Did you know the amulet was going to be this big? That’s something he probably should have told us. His concentration seems to be elsewhere.”

  “Tell me about it,” Marcus said, through Katra’s voice.

  “In any case, this thing will be out of our hands very soon. I need you both as backup when we do the handover. Can I count on you to keep it together that long?”

  Katra nodded. Good. At least both minds were in agreement.

  “Good. It should be simple: we’ve dealt with Havier before, and he knows you. Certainly not purple, but he wouldn’t cause us any harm. But I’ll still need you on lookout. We’re leaving Owaitt and Podulk on the ship, in case we need a hasty escape.”

  “Understood, Captain,” said Katra. “Let me just put some clothes on.”

  The familiar clang of metal against metal told her that the ship had docket. Finally. They were just minutes away from massive amounts of gold, and the anticipation had Jesi tingling. It was about as close to excitement as she could get these days.

  Froz puberty. Again.

  “I’d say go with the silver,” said Jesi, pushing herself to her feet, still refusing to let go of her prize. “it’ll look great against your new skin.”

  “If you say so.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jesi had the gem hidden within an ordinary backpack, strung on her back as casually as could be. She looked, for all intents and purposes, like a little girl on her way to school – if her school was on an illegal black market station in space.

  Tarowin Station wasn’t all that large, by most standards these days, but Jesi still got a kick from seeing Katra react as if it was the coolest thing in the universe. And Tarowin was far from the sparkling stations where humans and alien lived in blissful harmony: no, this place was like the bottom of a sewer after the sewer had been bought out by interstellar investors who happened to be rats in lab coats. Scientific outposts that had been abandoned for one reason or another had been salvaged and stitched together, creating a massive hive where trade flourished away from the watchful eye of any government.

  Sure, you had to avoid some sections of it, where odd vials and test tubes had turned out to hold deadly plagues, viruses, or in one case, a self reproducing Hamster with an affinity for catching flies, which shut down the station entirely from time to just so they could toss out the bodies and clear up the mess. But other than that, this station was just the place to be: especially if you had large, very rare alien amulets to fence.

  Jesi kept a white flight suit on, a reminder to all who passed her that she was the captain of her own vessel. There were cues and symbols for everyone on this station, which is why she was glad Katra had followed her recommendation, and worn the silver uniform. Skin tight and rather revealing of the form underneath, the color shouted ‘get away. This woman is dangerous’. The purple skin only accentuated the shade, and the inhabitants of the Station gave Jesi and her crew a wide berth.

  Lagging behind was Yorick, lingering to check out stalls as they passed them. He was truly becoming more and more of a nuisance. Once Katra got Marcus out of her, she’d replace him as her number one
; but what to do to Yorick, when that time came? Would he accept the demotion, or would she have to dispose of him?

  Time would tell. For now, they have a mission to finish. No heist was complete until the item was out of their hands, hands that were now filled with cold hard cash.

  They made their way through the marketplace, avoiding getting sucked into the stalls. Gorgeous treasures gleamed from the tables, cool technologies next to ornate jewels and gems, things worth their weight in gold, and then some. Jesi sniggered at the thought of the treasure in her backpack.

  Havier’s establishment was clean and orderly, a welcome contrast to the rest of the station. As his men led Jesi’s crew through the thin corridors of his home, she couldn’t help but notice the minimalist furniture, and the abundance of natural plants. She would have to take some design ideas back to her ship: anything was better than the awful wooden rabbit in the break room.

  The fence’s office was just as neat as the rest of his home. The side wall was made entirely of glass, reflecting the immensity of space outside, stars speckling the universe and casting an eerie glow into the room. Large blue lamps provided the rest of the lighting. He sat behind his desk, making it look like he was intensely focused on his work, when Jesi knew he was waiting for them.

  “Jesipax, my dear!” he said, putting down his pen – ugh, so old fashioned- and looking up to meet her gaze. Sitting down, he was still taller than her. How she hated this limited body.

  “Havier, darling,” she replied.

  “I trust you have the amulet?”

  “Straight to business, I see!” she replied. She couldn’t blame him: she would be the same if the roles were reversed. She put the backpack down on the seat before her, unzipping the bag and retrieving the heavy gem. The blue lights gave it a beautiful glow, and it almost seemed to throb with the pulsing of her heart.

  “Good, good,” said Havier, reaching to touch it. Jesi pulled it away.

  “Havi, I trust you remember my crew, Katra and Yorick,” she said, keeping the gem out of his reach. There. Let him struggle.