by M. D. Cooper
“Chosen one, come to me!” Beb-Sha-Na kept saying in Katra’s own head. “I wish you no harm! Come to me!”
But still, Katra refused. She stood her ground, or more accurately, her air, as her feet hadn’t touched the ground in quite a while now. She had always wanted to fly: but now that she actually had her opportunity, she was stuck drifting with a terrifying cat in her arms.
“Mraaaaw!” the cat screeched.
“I have no idea what you’re saying!”
“Meee-raaaw!”
“That’s not helping!”
The cat only clung his claws deeper into Katra’s chest. She sighed, clutching the cat for comfort. Its awkward purring made her slightly worried as to how the little ball of fluff was interpreting the cuddle, but she didn’t want to think about it. In any case, she had bigger problems on her mind.
Around her there was chaos. The giant turtle-bear-(and now)lizard was squirming in the sky, trying to fend off Katra’s attack of mini sharks. Creating them, and controlling them, was becoming tasking on Katra’s part, and her drift was dipping. Below her, monster sloths were ripping the land to shreds. The ones Katra saw were easy enough to blow up – which was admittedly fun, in a disgusting way – but she could do nothing for the rest of the continent, let alone the rest of the world.
She had to focus on Beb-Sha-Na. Kill her, kill it, before it took the planet Katra had once called home.
Katra hadn’t even noticed she was glowing, until the cat hid its face in her chest. The force of what she was attempting was so massive, she was actually creating light with every exertion. As she glowed brighter, she rose higher, getting nearer and nearer to Beb-Sha-Na.
“Come on, don’t be that way!” said the deity, sounding… pouty? “I just want to talk!”
Katra didn’t reply – not that she knew how, anyways. She continued to rise, hoping that she had equipped the people of earth sufficiently to fight back. Owaitt’s own transformer getup was one of many upgrades she had doled up. She had also given Vale a robot T-rex, and Yorick his own Ironman suit. They were the best she could conjure up on such short notice.
She felt as if her brain were on overdrive, hotter than the sun. She wanted to let her head just explode already, but she had to hang on – she was the only line of defense between Beb-Sha-Na and the universe.
“Fine, if you’re going to be this way…”
Beb-Sha-Na’s words were the last thing in Katra’s mind before the universe twisted and warped. She fell into a hard metal chair, an old white table appearing before her, quickly filling with tea cakes and mugs. The world around her had changed dramatically from the orange skies of Earth to something out of a picture book, an enchanted garden of green and pretty flowers emerging around her.
And, sitting across the table, an elegant woman in a white floral gown was pouring tea.
“Milk and sugar?” she asked, putting the cup down.
“Uh… sugar?” Katra replied, quickly searching around for any sign of Nub-Nub. The poor beast was sitting in a basket with a bonnet on its head. Katra couldn’t tell if he was indignant or terrified – then again, he was a cat.
“Isn’t this much better?” asked the stranger, handing Katra the cute little teacup. Katra took it, then dropped it in shock as spiders climbed out of the rim. “Damn it! I’m so rusty! This is why I need you!”
Katra’s eyes widened as the shattered mug on the ground faded out of existence. It was only then that she understood who sat before her, who was controlling this illusory world.
“Beb-Sha-Na.”
“In the flesh – sort of,” said the deity, laughing. Her giant white hat trembled with her every move. “It is so nice to finally meet you in person. Thank you for waking me, dear.”
“I woke you?”
“You touched my amulet, silly,” she said, taking a sip of her own tea. A new mug appeared in front of Katra, full to the brim. She reached down to take a sip, but as the liquid touched her mouth, it turned to steam. “This is just an illusion, my dear. Nothing here will have any true constancy.”
“Then why are we… here?” she asked, “why are we here in the first place? What the hell do you want from me?”
“Hush, hush, no need to be so touchy. The answer to your questions is the same one: I need you to make me some coffee.”
“What?”
Of all the things. Of all the answers in the universe Beb-Sha-Na could have given, asking for a coffee was probably the one Katra least expected. Even Nub-Nub stopped his pouting for a second, looking less sullen and a little bit surprised, if cat could look surprised without leaping in the air.
“A cup of coffee,” the goddess replied, “be a dear and conjure me one? Something hot and really, really strong. I need my powers back, if we are to take over the universe together.”
“Oh, right, that,” Katra sputtered, “you really want us to…”
“Make the mortals cower, and fall to their knees, of course!”
Beb-Sha-Na crushed her teacup in her hand, glass shards flying all around. Katra shuddered. This was the opposite of what she signed up for.
“But why… why me?” she asked, her voice barely a squeak.
“Speak up, child, if you’re to be my mouthpiece, I’ll need more conviction from you. Right now, it doesn’t sound like you can make anyone kneel before you. Such a shame. But it’s quite simple: my amulet deemed you worthy.”
“And what consists of being worthy, exactly?”
“I can’t remember how I programmed the thing! Something in your genetic markup. Sorry, it’s been a few millennia, and my mind’s a little foggy. Can you make me that coffee? And make it a strong one. Remember, we have a universe to take to heel.”
Katra considered this for a moment. On the one hand, it would mean betraying the entirety of the universe. She would have unfathomable power, be a goddess herself. And the only thing stopping her were stupid ethics. What good was it, believing that you had to put others before herself? That’s what she had done, thirteen thousand years ago, when she had allowed herself to be sealed in a cryogenic chamber and shot off into space, never to see her friends or family again, just for the good of her planet.
So maybe, just once, she could have this for herself. Maybe she could feel true power for one glorious moment.
But then again, it meant annihilating her friends. Letting Jesi blow up, and Yorick… She thought about the past month. While it had been far from perfect, she had still never been happier – even with Marcus living in half her brain. She had friends, adventure, excitement. She had freedom.
Not to mention that the amulet would make her implode in the not too distant future.
She had a decision to make: which did Katra value most? Life, or power?
“Then… here,” she said demurely. Katra put every ounce of remaining energy into the cup. She focused on the mug, on the drink, even on the spoon that would sit inside. She made the best smelling coffee in the universe. Full bodied, well roasted, like heaven in a cup. It appeared before Beb-Sha-Na in a puff of smoke and steam, making the goddess clap.
“Well well, look who has a flare for the dramatic! Maybe you won’t be so bad after all.” She took a sip, her eyes rolling back into her head. “Splendid, splendid! The perfect thing to wake me up after my long slumber. Let me finish it, and we’ll get started right away.”
Katra nodded, but it didn’t take long for the poison to take effect. In just a few seconds, Beb-Sha-Na collapsed on the table. Her face fell flat into the tray of little tea-cakes, covering the goddess’s face with crumbs.
Instantly, the entire illusion collapsed. Katra found herself once again back on earth, in the middle of the bloody battlefield, Nub-Nub in hand. The amulet felt cold against her skin, and, putting the cat on the ground, she found it was easy now to take it off. She tossed it aside, finally free of the thing.
The gigantic form of Beb-Sha-Na in the sky yawned loudly – now a combination of turtle, bear, lizard, and what appeared to be a koa
la – and folded in on itself like a collapsing star. Like a bubble it burst, a blip in existence.
A massive wind rose up, and the sloths were sucked into the blip, along with the sharks, the robots, and a very sullen T-rex. The wind snapped to a stop, and Katra’s skin turned a back a violent shade of purple.
The corpses that now littered the floor were only the employees of FunCorp, and their allies. Jesi came rushing out of the underbrush, coughing, her tiny child frame struggling to carry the bulk of all of her guns. Owaitt followed her out, looking a little dazed and confused.
“Aw, Froz,” said Marcus, from somewhere in the back of her head.
Froz indeed.
“What did you do?” he asked, using her own lips.
“She… she put Beb-Sha-Na back to sleep!” Vale cheered, wiping a tear from her eye. She grinned at Katra as she joined the assembling group. “Astonishing. Well done, Katra!”
“But everything went back to the way it was,” said Jesi, scoffing, her child body obviously not to her liking.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” asked Vale.
“Not for everyone,” said Marcus.
“Ah, well, at least we’re no worse off,” said Yorick, meeting Katra’s gaze, then dropping his eyes sullenly. “Oh! Podulk!”
He smiled as he ran off to chase his friend, who had emerged unscathed from the underbrush. It seemed the entire team had survived the encounter. Nub-Nub climbed up on Vale’s shoulder, and she gave him an appreciative pat on the head.
“Does this mean we’re even?” asked Jesi, “we won’t be hearing from FunCorp any time soon?”
“Unless we want to legally hire you,” Vale responded, “It doesn’t look like there’s much of the staff left. And we’re going to need all the help we can get if we mean to keep Beb-Sha-Na, and others like her, asleep.”
“Well, if the pay is fair – and by fair, I mean, extremely good - we’ll think about it,” she said sullenly. “Until then, I think it would be quite fair if you left us well alone.”
“Sounds more than fair. Katra, the universe is in your debt.”
“Great,” said Katra, “Fantastic. Maybe the universe could figure out how to get this cheating ash hole out of my head, for starters.”
“What?” said Marcus.
“You heard me! We share memories, you idiot. I didn’t give you a body so you could froz your way through the crew five minutes afterwards! And with my captain! Jesi, what the hell? We’ll talk later. It’s over Marcus, you hear me? Over.”
“But, Katra…” he sputtered, with the feeble amount of lips he could control. “Sugar bear!”
“Vale, seriously, if you can find a way for him to get out of my head, please do,” said Katra, “then you can tell the universe we’re even.”
Until then, she would have to settle for purple skin, a child for a captain, her planet in ruins, no more powers, and her cheating ex living inside her head. But Katra had just saved the universe, and no one could take that away from her.
And with that, she and her crew returned to the Beyoncé, pretending the whole misadventure hadn’t happened, and hoping it never would again. Maybe next they’d go to a spa: what could possibly go wrong there?
THE END
— — —
Want to read more by S.E. Anderson?
Starstruck
She could barely look after herself. Now, she’s looking after the entire planet.
After an incident with a hot-air balloon causes college-dropout Sally Webber to lose her job, she sets off to find direction in her life. Crashing into a teleporting alien, however, is not on her to-do list.
Now she’s on the run from TV-drama-loving aliens, and things are just getting started. Zander won’t stop reeling her into life-or-death situations to save her planet, as he waits for his laser-wielding sister to search the universe for him. Though Sally isn’t quite sure if he wants to save Earth from annihilation, or just quell his curiosity of all things human.
On top of this, she’s got to find lost alien emissaries, as well as a job, and stop the planet from getting incinerated in the process. But with Zander as her roommate, what could possibly go wrong?
Bolide Publishing Limited
Followed by the hilarious sequel, ALIENATION.
Reach for the Stars:
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About the Author
S.E. Anderson can’t ever tell you where she’s from. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because it inevitably leads to a confusing conversation where she goes over where she was born (England) where she grew up (France) and where her family is from (USA) and it tends to make things very complicated.
She’s lived pretty much her entire life in the South of France, except for a brief stint where she moved to Washington DC, or the eighty years she spent as a queen of Narnia before coming back home five minutes after she had left. Currently, she goes to university in Marseille, where she’s studying Physics and aiming for a career in Astrophysics.
When she’s not writing, or trying to science, she’s either reading, designing, crafting, or attempting to speak with various woodland creatures in an attempt to get them to do household chores for her. She could also be gaming, or pretending she’s not watching anything on Netflix.
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Delta Team: 4 – A Fool’s Gotta Feed
by M. D. Cooper
BAMF Just wants things on the Van to get back to normal. Slim chance of that ever happening….
With the Disknee World finally in their engine wash, the crew of the Van hopes to get back to normal—as much as they ever can. But with Lashes’ transformation by the Fairly Goodmothers into the ancient vampire Jujubilee, they need to stop for blood. And fast.
As if that weren’t enough, a certain artifact has been left on the ship, forgotten when the crew made their hasty departure from Neverevereverland Station. An artifact that will change one of the crew forever.
PREVIOUSLY ON DELTA TEAM
Cue the music.
In 8913, a crack military unit was court-martialed and sent to a maximum-security prison for stealing the general’s cookie recipes. Colonel Ramsey and his team promptly escaped and fled the core systems.
Today they serve as soldiers of fortune, or whatever else will make them a buck.
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, then maybe you can hire the Delta Team.
OK, now that we have that out of the way….
A lot has changed since the Delta Team’s early missions. A visit to the Disknee World—what should have been little more than an innocuous stopover—has changed everything for them.
Mysterious tech has transformed Lashes, the team’s infiltration specialist, into a vampire known as Jujubilee™ (though she goes by ‘Vampy’). Stick, the team’s pilot, has also been transmogrified; she is now The CatWoman™ (the team prefers to call her ‘Kitty’). Additionally, the colonel’s trademark carrot has become golden and always regenerates—and no one seems to know, or even care, why. Finally, when their ship was stolen by dwarves, Girl—the vessel’s AI—was given an upgrade that changed her personality (for the better).
But now their sojourn on the Disknee World is over; summarily ended after an attack on the Red Queen’s card soldiers, and a final confrontation with Kong.
Thus far, BAMF (the muscle) has been unaffected by the Disknee World’s advanced tech (which some might call magic). But a strange artifact left on the ship by the dwarves might just change that.
We rejoin the team on the Van’s bridge as the ship departs Neverevereverland Station after their hasty departure from the Disknee World.
COOLING OFF
BAMF looked at the two women with her on the bridge and shook her head.
Now that stick was The CatWoman—which really wasn’t much of a difference from her usual dominatrix getup—she was somehow even more ridiculous than before.
And Lashes…she used to be the normal one, barring the weird stuff she could do with her skin. Now she was some sort of superhero vampire. And not just a pretend, wannabe vampire—a real vampire who needed to feed on blood no less.
Sometimes BAMF wished she’d requested a transfer before that final mission had landed them all together.
“What!?” BAMF roared.
“We saw the pink stripe already,” Ramsey said with a grin as he gnawed on his golden carrot.
Has it had always been golden? Where does the colonel source golden carrots?
BAMF shook off her questions, and took a step toward one of the ship AI’s optics, raising a finger menacingly. “Girl, what do you mean ‘what the dwarves did to me’? Were there dwarves on my ship? I think I can smell them!”
“That’s just the thousand liters of cleaning products I used on the Van. I know that smells unfamiliar to you, but I don’t know how you could mistake it for dwarves. Once I get the bathrooms tidied and the laundry caught up, we’re keeping this place spic and span! I’m sick of the mess you all leave everywhere.”
BAMF wondered why Girl had switched to using the audible systems. She almost never used them with the crew. She was also yelling. BAMF couldn’t remember ever having heard Girl yell before.
“You OK, Girl?” Lashes—or Vampy, whatever her name was now—asked.
“Yes…no.” Girl replied after a moment. “Look, a lot went on for me while you were gone. It all started with the dwarves switching out our cooling vanes.”