BOB's Bar (Tales From The Multiverse Book 2)

by Jay Allan

  Bethany Anne smirked. “Or, this is a story of a practice run you cooked up, and New Cebu was never in danger?”

  Kelsey threw Bethany Anne a look before turning back to Beth. “So, what happened after that? Did you get to the wedding?”

  “Sort of,” Beth said with a wry grin. “I mean, I got there. The Tala was damaged, and I had to get it on the ground. Before I passed out, I told Tala to land at the coordinates I previously gave her. It took a couple of hours to come back around, but I landed outside of Malapascua about forty minutes before the cavalry arrived in-system. I was out the entire time. G-shot charged a heavy price, and I was going to need two weeks to recover. I woke up when my canopy opened and Mercy and Rocky looked in.

  “‘Satan’s balls, girl, where the hell have you been?’ Mercy asked me. I managed to croak out something about two crystal ships and G-shot, and she got the rest to pull me out of the Tala and sat me on the ground. My mother gave me a glass of melon, which felt wonderful going down my parched throat.

  “‘Sorry I missed your wedding,’ I said.

  “‘You haven’t missed anything. We delayed it because we didn’t know where you were. You were on your way, but then you weren’t, and I couldn’t raise you. We were worried sick. But never mind about that. We need to get you to the hospital. Is anyone coming for you?’”

  “‘I expect the Stingers will get here in an hour, maybe less. They’ll know where I landed.’

  “Mercy, wedding dress and all, leaned into the cockpit, ass and legs hanging out, and I could hear her reporting in. I just relaxed, happy to have someone else taking over. She popped back out and told me the CO himself had led three flights into the system, and a flight would be on the ground in a little over an hour. She sat down and wrapped her arms around me.

  “‘I’d never have forgiven myself if you had gotten yourself killed on my wedding day, Beth,’ she said.

  “‘You know me. I’m tougher than that. Besides, it’s not your wedding day yet.’

  “‘Don’t worry about that. Now, we’ve got to get you taken care of.’

  “‘We’ve got an hour.’

  “‘What do you mean?” she asked me.

  “‘Jeeze, you can be dense sometimes, Mercy. And I’m the one who’s brain is muddled from the G-shot. Rocky, are the guests still gathered at the church?’

  “‘Most of them. Some are in the square drinking. Some are here,’ my brother said, waving a hand at the ten or so people standing around.

  “‘Well, I’d think it is obvious. I don’t think I’m up to a walk to the church, so if you want me to be your maid of honor, you’d better get everyone here, and within the next hour. If you don’t mind not using the church, that is.’

  “There was dead silence for a moment before my mom went into overdrive, running around like a chicken with its head cut off to get everyone moving. Her son was getting married, and her oldest daughter only had an hour. Nothing was going to get in her way. I drifted in and out, but fifteen minutes later, everyone was gathered around the Tala for the ceremony. We finished, with Mercy and Rocky married, just as four Wasps, led by the CO, landed.”

  “What happened with the brass? You did break a bunch of rules, and you said he was pissed,” Cain asked.

  “Not much the brass could do. I’d saved a world, after all.” She pointed to the top ribbon on her chest. “Gave me the Order of Honor, only the third living recipient. And I was the Navy’s first ace in two hundred years. Someone went back and approved my leave to make it all above ground. They digitally fixed the images released to the media so I wasn’t wearing a bridesmaid gown. Can’t have a hero wearing that while she goes to war, don’t you know.” She used only a moderate tone of sarcasm for “hero.”

  “I’m not sure what half the things you were talking about are,” Ridge said, “but I know what it’s like to get awards and recognition you don’t feel you deserve. I also know a thing or two about dresses now. I agree with your media that it’s hard to be heroic in them.”

  “So how was the wedding, if you don’t count being loopy,” Bethany Anne asked.

  “I don’t rightly remember. I was pretty out of it. At the time, most of the wedding party just thought I was drunk. I don’t remember lots of that next week, and if it weren’t for the holo, I’d had thought I’d dreamed it all in a G-shot-induced fantasy.”

  Rika leaned forward. “Holo? Can we see it?”

  “I don’t carry it around.”

  “Okay, now I’m calling bullshit.” Rika shook her head, fixing Beth with a level stare. “You were at a wedding of your brother and your best friend. You have it.”

  She looked around the table, hesitant. Finally, she nodded, and said, “You have to remember, I was out of it, and I was wearing that gown. I don’t look good.”

  She reached into her thigh pocket and pulled out a tablet, unrolled it, opened the images file, and whispered a password. She looked at it, grimaced, and turned the tablet so the others could see.

  There were several intakes of breath as the group took it in. The Tala was prominent in the photo, with the wedding party arrayed in front of it. The bride and groom, looking lovely, were in the middle. The best man and the groomsmen, some male, some female, were lined up beside the groom. Beth was standing beside the bride, with a line of bridesmaids, all in the orange gowns, stretching out. Everyone in the holo had smiles, except for Beth. She looked like death warmed over, a zombie in a dress that was... The best that could be said was that it was merely hideous.

  “Okay,” Bethany Anne smiled, “nobody would be caught dead in that dress for a practical joke. Totally believe you.”

  “Ooh, I see what you mean about the dress. You look like a pumpkin with legs,” Amanda commented.

  “Yeah, that’s me. The Pumpkin Ace.”

  Interlude

  The rest of the humans laughed at Floribeth’s comment, although BOB wasn’t exactly sure why. Its self-programmed humor analog saw nothing funny about being a pumpkin. Humans were humans, and a pumpkin was a modified fruit. A pepo, common in this tributary of the Multiverse. They were not and could not be one and the same.

  The humans turned to one another, drifting away again. The last human left to speak, Charline, seemed lost in her thoughts, her mind a million kilometers away.

  The construct was at the leading edge of technology, but organic minds were flawed. They could not be relied upon to react to simple stimuli. The humans were drifting again, losing the imperative the construct was broadcasting. BOB had to step in.

  “May I get everyone a last call before your last companion regales you with her tale?”

  “One more for me,” Kelsey confirmed.

  “Grab me another growler.” Rika paused to wink at Amanda. “And another plate of nachos. No, make that a to-go container.”

  “I’ll grab my growler another time, thanks,” Amanda answered with a laugh. “Charline, last but not least. You’ve got your work cut out for you, I think.”

  “Last call” caught the attention of most of the humans, some of whom downed their drinks and held out their glasses. BOB looked expectantly at Charline first to ensure she was ready to speak.

  The Galaxy’s Biggest Fish Story

  By Kevin McLaughlin

  Charline sipped her cider, pacing herself. It was easy enough to see that many of the others around the table had ‘enhancements’ that would let them drink her under said table in a heartbeat. Not that she was against getting trashed in the right crowd—and this group seemed to fit the bill—but she didn’t want to embarrass herself. At least, not too early in the night.

  There was a lull in the conversation. She realized everyone was looking at her.

  “Oh! My turn for a story?” Charline asked.

  “That’s right, blondie. Make it a good one,” Amanda replied with a smile.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got a whopper. Biggest damned fish you ever saw,” Charline told them.

  “Oh, lying fish stories, I should
have brought Michael along to hear this one.” Bethany Anne said, then continued with an upraised eyebrow, “My husband. He goes after large creatures to test himself. I swear some of his stories are complete bullshit.”

  “No, really. This isn’t your usual big-fish tale,” Charline assured them. She took another sip. “In fact, this fish was big enough to swallow the whole bar we’re sitting in without chewing.”

  The dead silence and rapt attention told her she had her audience hooked with that line. Charline grinned as she took another sip, letting the anticipation build. If there was one thing she’d learned in her brief stint as a military leader, it was that warriors everywhere appreciated a good “no shit, there I was” story. It seemed to be a universal constant.

  “It was the first official mission for Earth’s Armor Regiment. Well, at the time it was an Armor platoon. We were still building, training up a bunch of raw newbies to fight in battle armor.”

  “I’m talking to Holly, our AI ,about something like this—special armor that can survive a wide range of attacks. Is that what you’re talking about?” Major Cain asked.

  “I’ve been within kissing distance of a half-dozen tac-nuke detonations,” Rika told him with a knowing smile. “And I’m an itty-bitty mech. You should see what the K1Rs can handle.”

  “Picture a twelve-foot tall robot, except it’s a suit that you climb into. Now hook it up to a variety of weapon systems. That’s what our Armor is, more or less,” Charline replied. “Which is why we were a stupid pick for this particular mission, and I said so before we were dropped off. Why send one-ton mechs to a planet that is over ninety-nine percent water?”

  “Yeah, sounds like a K1R—although they don’t climb in and out,” Rika said.

  “You couldn’t talk them out of it?” Cain grimaced.

  “No. Brass wanted to play with their new toy, so they sent us to Cyan to see if we could reconnect with the local sentients. Which happened to be colonies of telepathic slug-critters who rode around on various fish like floating cities,” Charline said, grimacing at the memory. The slugs were just creepy.

  “Yuk, sounds gross,” Amanda commented.

  “The best part of the whole thing? The locals were supposed to be friendly. The other aliens in the neighborhood were nominal allies as well. To avoid diplomatic incidents, we were sent down to the planet with only non-lethal weapons. Rubber bullets and smoke grenades,” Charline added.

  She leaned back in her seat, taking a breath. The story was funny in retrospect, but it hadn’t been much fun at the time. She’d fought tooth and nail, first to get her people off the mission entirely, then to at least have access to decent weapons when it became clear option one wasn’t going to fly. No dice, though.

  “I got the brass to agree to have a second team in orbit, armed properly. Took a little convincing,” Charline said.

  “Mistakes are never likely to happen until you aren’t prepared, then it is a damned requirement it will happen.” Bethany Anne commented. “I didn’t like the ‘no weapons’ rules, so I outlawed them in the Empire. Sorry, I’m holding up the story.”

  “Alpha Team got dropped onto Cyan’s biggest land-mass basically unarmed, for all intents and purposes. Once we were down, our first step was to find one of the little colony critters to set up communications, but there were none to be found near the shore. I led the team into the water, wading out a couple of miles to where the water was growing darker. Fish were plentiful there, but still no sign of the critters. It didn’t make sense. The last time we were out there, the place was full of them. Teaming with fish covered with little slugs. Something had changed.”

  “We figured out what it was pretty quick, though.” Charline grinned. “All of a sudden our sonar systems started giving us the mother of all pings, and it was coming our way. I didn’t like the sound of that at all, so we started back toward shore.”

  “Which was miles away,” Floribeth interjected.

  “Yup. I realized pretty quickly we weren’t going to make it out of the water before whatever it was reached us,” Charline said. “Radioed our ship in orbit. They got a good bead on the thing and were ready to drop a bunch of railgun rounds on it, but then they realized it was a colony fish. A collection of the critters we’d been sent to contact.”

  “We stopped running at that point. This was why we were there. Something still didn’t feel right, though, so I had half the team continue toward shore at a walk, while Corporal Anderson and I remained in place to greet our nominal friends.” She paused, looking around.

  These people were warriors. Shit, some of them had been fighting for hundreds of years, from what she’d heard. What the hell was she even doing here, telling them a whale of a tale? But no, she reminded herself. Whatever the reason she was in this bar, the barkeep said she’d earned her seat. Time to get to the good part of this story.

  “The colony fish didn’t slow down as it approached. A few hundred meters before it reached us, we got hit by a huge school of other fish. All sizes: big ones, small ones… Tons of the damned things. They knocked out our sensors. Anderson went over on his side from the multiple impacts. They were more colony fish swimming like hell to get away from the big one. It was chasing them.”

  “We didn’t have time to react,” she went on. “The behemoth was on top of us before we knew it, scooping up us along with a bunch of the smaller colony fish. One moment, all I could see was this huge black maw dotted with teeth the size of my Armor. The next, I was sucked inside.”

  “You got to play Jonah,” Amanda stated.

  “More like Pinocchio.” Charline laughed. “I got back to my feet once the water stopped swirling and flicked on my headlamps. It looked like I was inside a huge cavern, waist deep in water. Fish swam around my Armor. I looked around and spotted the way I’d come in. The whale had already closed his mouth, so all I saw there was a big wall of teeth.”

  “Then I looked the opposite way. The cavern narrowed toward the back. As my light shone, I saw the throat walls moving, undulating as they sucked down some of the fish unfortunate enough to be near the back of the mouth,” Charline said. “I took a few squishy steps closer to the teeth. I didn’t want to see if my Armor could withstand alien whale stomach acid.”

  Rika nodded vigorously. “I endorse avoiding stomach acid at all costs.”

  “I imagine that wasn’t in the design requirements for the mech suit.” BA temporized.

  “I found Corporal Anderson and got him back on his feet. He was freaking out. I’d been in some pretty strange places before, so being inside a whale’s stomach was just one more bit of weirdness. He didn’t take it as well,” Charline said.

  “One thing I agreed with him on: we needed to get out of there. Sooner or later the beast was going to open its mouth and suck in more water again. Then we’d get pushed back into the stomach whether we liked it or not,” Charline added.

  “Anderson said ‘I am not waiting here to die,’ and decided to take matters into his own hands. He opened up with both of his arm cannons. First, he fired at the teeth, but when it became apparent that wasn’t going to do anything, he shifted his aim to the roof of the mouth,” Charline said. “I tried to stop him. Didn’t think that was going to end well. Didn’t know just how bad it would go, though.”

  “Fear can make people do some stupid stuff,” Amanda remarked.

  “Before I could get to him, the whale reacted. The floor beneath our feet was squishy because it was a tongue. The tongue spasmed, throwing us both into the air. I extended the sword blade from my arm and dug into the gum line right at the base of the teeth,” Charline said. “Anderson wasn’t so lucky. The convulsive movement shoved most of the water, fish, and his mech into the back of the thing’s throat and down into its stomach.

  “Thing was, our radios still worked. Soon as things calmed down, I heard Anderson calling. ‘Colonel, I can’t move,’ he reported. ‘Hang on. I’ll try to get you out of this,’ I replied. I didn’t know how I was going to do t
hat. I could maybe cut my way to him with the sword, but there were so damned many fish between us that I didn’t know if that would work, or just get me sucked in, too.

  “I had to try, though. I stalked my way to the back of the tongue. Most of the water was out of the mouth by then, swallowed. A few fish still flopped around, and I could see the colony slugs on their backs. Why was a colony fish eating their own kind? I’d never heard of them doing that,” Charline said. “I reached the back of the mouth. The ‘hatch’ was closed, so to speak. The way down was blocked, so I extended my sword blade again and was about to start hacking my way in when Anderson came on his radio again. The seal on his suit was failing, he said. Then all at once, he stopped transmitting. The suit gave me telemetry on his vital signs, though, right up to the moment they stopped.

  “That answered the question of whether or not the suits could handle alien fish stomach acid.”

  “Pretty much all liquid is the bane of a mech’s existence.” Rika gave a knowing laugh .

  “I decided I needed more information. There was something strange about this whole mess. Unfortunately, there was only one way I was going to find out what I needed to know. I had to speak with the alien worms, and the only way I could do that was skin to worm contact,” Charline said. “It sucked. My Armor wasn’t much protection in that place, but popping the lid was even worse. I had an emergency oxygen mask to keep me breathing while I slid down and landed on the tongue with a squishy splash. Then I went over to the nearest flopping fish and knelt next to it, hand extended, and waited.”

  “They figured out what I was up to right away, and in no time I had a small swarm of volunteers climbing onto my hand. ‘No way are you all getting into my head,’ I told them aloud. Too many of the buggers can overwhelm a human mind the same way they control their colony fish. I left one on my hand and stuck the rest in a plastic bag, Seemed cruel to let them die inside the whale if I had even a shot at saving them.”