by M. D. Cooper
Morticia sighed over their comms, “Please, don’t call me that.”
“Then…hic….we will fly out of the dock, charge our weapons, and rescue Captain Spectacular while…hic…simultaneously stopping the giant bug armada?”
Jones flashed him two gun signs with his hands that morphed into two thumbs up. “Bingo.”
“And how, exactly, do you…hic…plan on distracting the officers on duty at Dock 286?”
“By giving them the thing we love most in the universe.” Jones’s lips curled into a snarl. “Paperwork.”
****
When Jones walked into Dock 286’s front office, he whistled. Not a regular little ditty, but a really happy one. Being that dock officers had no real joy in life, the joyous little tune would really get under their skin. They spent their lives tethered to a job planet-side, pushing paperwork that allowed pilots to go off-world. Everyone knew that dock officers were actually pilots that hadn’t been able to pass the flight exam.
This was really going to push their buttons. Truth be told, Jones couldn’t wait.
Inside the office, Jones had a good view of the Barnburner. Sure, it was smaller than all the other ships around it, and maybe it was banged up a little bit—even a little charred in places—but Jim loved his ship. And he’d do anything for it.
Whistling his little ditty, he placed a giant cardboard box onto the petty officer’s desk. “Good afternoon,” Jones said loudly.
The little man in his black uniform and matching cap sat in his chair, gazing down at his keyboard. When he looked up, his eyes opened wide with a start. “What’s all this? Who are you?”
“Captain Jim Jones of the Barnburner. That’s a tug ship, in case you didn’t know, and we work with Captain Spectacular.” Jim pointed his hand like a gun at the deck officer while simultaneously winking and making a click-click noise with his tongue.
“The Barnburner?” The officer repeated and began to type something.
Jones winced. “You really shouldn’t do look-ups in your system. I mean, you’re not going to find the Barnburner. She was marked as ‘decommissioned’ for some reason.”
“Hmm,” the officer said. “It says here that you’ve been decommissioned. Few years back.”
Wasn’t that just what he said? Off in the distance, he saw Macy and Stephen rushed toward the Barnburner to get to work. So far, so good.
“True,” Jones said even though it pained him to do so. “But here’s the thing, we were in the service of Captain Spectacular for a few years, and I never once filed a single piece paperwork.” Jim tapped the top of the box.
As the words began to sink into the dock officer’s head, he grew pasty white and rose from his seat. “So, you would like to file…”
“All of this paperwork, yup. Needs to be filed I’m afraid.” Jones removed the top of the box, and threw it into the corner of the room, knocking over a fake plastic plant. He pulled out a single piece of paper. “Stardate 8267.12, the Barnburner came in for an emergency docking procedure because its food replicator wasn’t working. States here, it only spat out ice cubes. Now, it’s only spitting out kale. I’m not entirely sure that’s an improvement.”
The dock officer handed Jim a pen and blinked his eyes. “I don’t think kale ever counts as an improvement.”
“Exactly.” Jones scrawled his signature on the paper and then handed it over to the deck officer, who rubber-stamped it and stuck it into his arcane filing system. Drawers, papers, folders—shouldn’t have that have been upgraded centuries ago when space travel became the norm? Bureaucracy, Jones hated it. “Do you think anyone will ever come and read these papers?”
The deck officer shook his head. “Nope.”
“It makes you wonder why even bother going through all this.”
“Yup.” The dock officer sighed with a worn out look of depression settling into his eyes. Just what Jones wanted to see.
Jones picked up the next piece of paper. “Requisition request. We requested a quieter coffee maker so it wouldn’t disturb our AI. Request was denied and so we requested a new AI instead. Which only made her cry, and she disabled our red alert system in response. Then we put in a request for a new red alert system, and we got a refurbished model. Do you know what the refurbished model does?”
The deck officer shook his head.
“It beeps softly. Do you know how urgent a soft beep sounds? Not urgent at all.”
“All that’s on one piece of paper?”
“Nah.” Jim flipped paper around so the deck officer could see that the paper was indeed blank. “I just needed to keep you here until we were able to free the Barnburner from your spaceboot. Now that’s done, I don’t need to stay here and talk to you anymore.”
The dock officer blinked his eyes. “The Barnburner’s been decommissioned—”
Jim really couldn’t take hearing that anymore. He held up the piece of paper and punched his fist clear through it and into the dock officer’s nose. The way it crunched, followed by the man hitting the wall and then folding to the ground like an accordion, was a sight that Jim found extremely satisfying.
He only wished he could do it again. So, he helped the dock officer back up to his feet and did it again. “Hate to be you, buddy. Hate to be you.”
****
It was good to be back on the bridge of the Barnburner. Jones took his seat to the left of the pilot and flicked all the appropriate switches and gizmos until the lights started to flash. Jones had no idea what they did, or what they meant, but he knew flashing was a good sign. It was when the alarms started going off that you really had to worry. “Are the engines warm?”
Morticia answered. “As warm and bubbly as engines get. I really don’t like being here.”
Jones could appreciate the sentiment. “Then let’s give her everything she’s got.”
“I can’t believe we’re actually getting away with this,” Macy said. The engines purred and Macy had a clear grip on the controls. The way she finessed the Barnburner’s joystick was enough to bring any man’s heart rate dangerously high.
“I can’t believe we get away with anything,” Stephen said from his communications station.
“Well…” Jones cleared his throat and sent his security code clearance through to the bay doors.
Except it wasn’t working, and they were getting closer. That was going to be a problem.
“Mort, talk to that set of doors, won’t you? We have to get through.”
“I really don’t like talking to doors. They’re shifty.”
Jones and Macy exchanged a glance. “Shifty as they are, if you don’t convince them to open, you’ll be smeared all over the front of them. That’s no way to spend the next few hours until someone scrapes you off.”
“Good point. Got it.”
“Any readings on the Starlight yet?” Jones asked.
“Not yet, Cap. But there was chatter that General Fudd left the party early, with cargo in tow,” Stephen said.
“Spectacular,” Jones snarled.
“We’ll find them, Captain.”
Just what Jones wanted to hear. But the last thing he wanted to see filling the viewscreen were those bay doors. They were getting awfully close now, and Macy was gritting her teeth, preparing for the worst.
They had to get those doors open. “Mort!” Jones called out urgently.
“Working on it,” Morticia said. “I’m almost there, but it’s hard to negotiate with something that wants nothing other than to slide open, then closed, then open…”
“We get it, Mort!” Jones held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut, peering at the doors as the proximity alarm started to sound. Then, despite all the odds, the doors went from red to green and slowly started to pull open. The space was small and narrow. Jones wasn’t sure if they’d make it through.
“Hang on tight!” Macy twisted the controls to the side and Jones braced himself on the navigation panel in front of him as the Barnburner rotated to fit through the narrow
space.
He nearly fell right out of his seat. Damn, what he wouldn’t give to have a working seatbelt one of these days. And a working gyro for the artificial gravity. One more thing to add to the repair list…
They cleared the dock and flew out into space, barely clipping away, and Macy hooted and hollered. “Woohoo! Don’t do that every day, do you?”
“Thank goodness for small favors,” Mort said.
Time to do what they set out to do. “Stephen, we really are going to need a location on the Starlight.”
Stephen held his ear as if a communication was coming through, something he did a lot when he wanted to ignore Jones. This time, however, it seemed legit. “Captain seems the Starlight is hailing us.”
So, General Fudd knew the Barnburner was on the case. Probably was scared, too. Jones stood, with his chest puffed out and pulled his leather jacket into place. “Patch them through.”
Within moments, the view screen changed from the bleak darkness of space to the shiny, silver bridge of the Starlight. Everything about it was sterile and impersonal. But, boy, was it cutting-edge. It was just so damn clean and tidy, plus the curve of the navigation screens made Jones want to reach through and stroke them.
In the center of all that, General Fudd sat in his command chair. He might’ve been a distinguished older gentleman with salt and pepper hair, but he also wore smirk that told Jones everything he needed to know. Fudd assumed he was going to win and the Barnburner was going to lose.
Jones didn’t like those odds, but he was a betting man. True, he usually lost but he hoped things would be different this time. All the chips, and other gambling metaphors, were going on the table.
“The Barnburner, is it?” General Fudd smiled. “How quaint. It appears your ship, if you can even call it that, could barely achieve lift off. Maybe you should go back to burning barns.”
Jones didn’t appreciate his type of humor, and Morticia agreed, “I really don’t appreciate his type of humor, Jim.”
He raised hand to quiet her. “Seems like you left the party in a big hurry, General. Did you even take your goodie bag? I heard there were some candied almonds.”
“Lollipops in the shape of Spectacular’s head,” Macy corrected.
“I had my fill of the party, thank you. And yes, I did manage to take a goodie bag. It was quite large.”
Jones smirked. “It’s not polite to brag about the size of one’s goodie bag.”
Macy gave him a sideways glance. “Really?” she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.
Jones raised his eyebrows at her. He was winging this; didn’t she know that?
“I actually think he’s correct,” Morticia said. “Bragging about one’s goody bag…”
“Oh, shut up!” the general said with a laugh. “I know you know that I know what you know about what I’m up to, so I don’t see any reason in pretending any longer. But I can offer you a deal, if you’re willing to play ball.”
“I’m not athletic, sorry,” Jones said.
“Well, get sporty, because if you don’t, the Starlight will circle back and blow you to pieces. A tug such as the Barnburner doesn’t have any shields, and in case you haven’t noticed, the Starlight is a capital vessel. You won’t stand a chance. I’ll give you five minutes to think about it, but when I next signal you, I’m going to expect an answer.”
General Fudd leaned forward, and with that, the screen reverted back to a view of space.
Jones noticed that they were approaching Uranus. As Stephen and Macy both stared at Jones, there was only one thing he could think of to say.
“Anybody want some kale for their last meal?”
Chapter Six: Sauvé and Spectacular
When Captain Spectacular awoke in the brig, he had a headache. How had he allowed this to happen? Caught by some unseen assailant? It wasn’t as though he had just rolled off the turnip ship the other day. In fact, he had never even been on a turnip ship.
Mostly, he commanded starships. An entire planet hung on his every word and action. He was an experienced officer and fighter. He could sense danger all around. So how was it he had managed to be knocked out?
They didn’t call him Captain Spectacular for nothing. True, it was his last name and had been given it to him by his mother and father, but not everyone could say they were spectacular and mean it like he could.
With a long sigh, Captain Spectacular rose from the bed and headed over to the cell bars. One, working them with his hands proved that they were definitely real; and two, he wasn’t dreaming. He had been captured when he hadn’t even been on a mission. Getting captured in the final hour only to make a daring beat-the-clock escape was normal, but this was going to be hard to come back from. A consultation with his PR rep was definitely in order.
The sound of footsteps approaching put Captain Spectacular on full alert. His chest puffed out and he placed his hands on his hips as he waited his captor to appear. Instead, when he saw his old buddy General Fudd approaching, he relaxed. “General! Surprising to see you, but I sure am glad.”
Fudd smirked with a chortle. “Not as good as it is to see you. I can’t wait to wipe that self-righteous smile off your face, Spectacular.”
What? That certainly didn’t sound like his old friend.
“C’mon, stop joking around and let me out of here. Is there a camera?” Captain Spectacular smiled at the wall, just in case. “Or maybe someone wants my autograph? Just this once, I promise, okay?”
The general leaned against the bars and gave Spectacular a level stare. “I can’t wait to tell you what is about to happen. I’ve been planning this for a long time. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be friends with Captain Spectacular? Even a simple thing like a tennis game is turned into a global event.”
Captain Spectacular scowled. “It’s not my fault the tennis balls were really bombs. I saved the galaxy that day.”
General Fudd sighed. “Just like you do every day. Does it ever bore you?”
Bored being a hero? “Never.” Captain Spectacular smiled and even in the dim light of the brig, his teeth gleamed and sparkled.
“Well, never mind. I’ve just come to tell you that I’ve betrayed Earth, and you, blah blah blah, I’m turning them over to The Hive. Soon, Earth will be swarming with giant bees.”
Captain Spectacular’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t! You might have a grudge against how amazing I am, but you can’t harm the people of Earth because of it. Sacrifice me if you will but—”
“Oh, shut up,” General Fudd spat. “If you were half as good as you think you are, you wouldn’t just have the pathetic crew of the Barnburner as the only ones coming rescue you.”
Captain Spectacular’s eyebrows knit together. “The who?”
General Fudd shrugged. “Beats me. Horrible little ship. I’d never heard of them before, but they told someone who told someone who told someone that they worked as your tug.”
Funny. Captain Spectacular didn’t remember any tugs. “The Barn Thrower?”
“The Barnburner.”
“The Flame Thrower?”
The general shook his head. “Still the Barnburner.”
“Huh.” Captain Spectacular shook his head. “Can’t say it rings any bells.”
“Typical. All the tugs these days are filled with liars.”
“Tell me about it.” Captain Spectacular sighed. “It’s hard to find an honest captain these days.”
“Even harder to find an honest general.”
Wasn’t that the truth? “But I’ve worked with a lot of ships. A lot of good men. I’m sure any one of them would risk their lives to rescue me. Not that I’m going to need it.”
General Fudd laughed, but then sucked in his breath as the ship suddenly jolted forward. Moments later, the hall flashed red. “What the hell was that?”
“My rescue. The people of Earth did not disappoint, General Fudd. I think you will find that if you stand with giant space bugs, you get swatted, squished, raided
like the bug that you are.”
“Enough with the bug metaphors, Captain Spectacular! I get it.”
“Exterminated.”
“Stop it.” Fudd pointed his finger at Spectacular. “Not another word out of you!” He stomped down the hall, probably on his way to the bridge.
Spectacular shook the bars of his cell, looking for a way out. He had to get free. There was no way he would be rescued by the crew of a ship called the Bunsen Burner. Then, he spotted it—the key ring hanging from a little hook on the other side of the room. A plan started to form in his mind, and when the young, gorgeous Ensign Henson came into view wearing her pink, spandex workout clothes, he knew exactly what he needed to do.
He smiled and leaned on the bars. “Heeeey…”
Chapter Seven: Oops
“What the hell was that?” Jones asked as he gripped the navigation pane.
“Sorry!” Macy grimaced. “I saw the Starlight come up on my viewscreen and I’m afraid I panicked!”
“You hit the wrong button?” Stephen asked.
“Yup. I fired lasers directly at their engines.”
Stephen sucked in his breath. “Ouch.”
“They have shields,” Morticia said. “It didn’t actually penetrate anything.”
“I was actually talking about us,” Stephen said. “Or what’s going to happen when they return fire.”
“Nothing,” Jones said. “Because they’re not going to return fire.”
Macy sized him up. “Even for you, that’s a pretty strong case of denial.” Her eyes darted to her panel and she read over the instruments. “The Starlight is turning about. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re going to attack this ship.”
“Attack us? We’re just a tug!” Stephen said.
“Hail them!” When his comm officer didn’t answer, Jones gave the order again, loudly. “Hail them, Stephen!”
“Aye, sir. Hailing the Starlight.” After a moment, Stephen pushed a few blinking buttons on his console. “Patching them through.”