Astro-Nuts

by Logan Hunder

  “I just don’t get it, Tim,” She prefaced as she searched for the words. “You are not a stupid man. But I can’t even begin to wrap my head around everything that just happened. Everything you just did. It’s like you were deliberately trying to make the worst possible decisions. I just—I don’t know.”

  She ended her turn with a dismissive wave, that unofficial but universal bit of sign language that directly translated to “I’m not even gonna bother.”

  “That’s it?!” Whisper jumped back into the fray. “After all this?! He totally screwed us and you’re not even gonna yell?!”

  “That’s enough out of you.” Kim responded, unflapped by the demands. “I am angry. But we are a responsible married couple who plays nice until we have privacy, and then we yell at each other. Like civilized people.”

  “I really can’t picture him yelling at you.” Donald said from his spot on the floor.

  “He doesn’t. He usually just hits me with a pillow or something until I stop. I’ve yelled at him about that too.”

  Cox got to his feet. Riddled with contempt and agitation as they were, the gaggle couldn’t help but quiet when he did. With fingers intertwined behind his back, he strolled through the hold, the very same way he would do on the bridge. He came to a stop by one of the space rocks. He traced a steady hand along its curvature, really milking this moment of authority for all it was worth.

  “How long has it been?” He finally spoke.

  Eyebrows were raised, coughs were coughed, but none of them in the form of an answer.

  “Since we got thrown in here, I mean.” The disgraced captain amended. “It’s been a little while, right? I shoulda looked at my watch when we came in. I guess I was just caught up in the excitement.”

  “It’s been about an hour, Tim.” His wife said flatly. “Give or take.”

  “Good, good.” He rubbed his hands together and gave her a smile. “Should be plenty of time then!”

  “ . . . For what?” Willy was the first to ask.

  “For him to think he’s won, Mister Padilla! It’s all part of the plan.”

  Donald snorted.

  “The plan. You ‘planned’ to get held hostage in your own ship after going out like a bitch in front of your whole crew?”

  “I play to my strengths, Donny!”

  There was a slight pause as he realized what he just implied, but he opted to carry on rather than address it.

  “I’m a people person! Kindness is my nature. I spread my wings wide and give shelter to anyone who wants some, doesn’t matter who they are! But just because I believe in people, don’t think for one second that ol’ Coxy is fine to be kicked around. No, sir!”

  Donald looked around at the room and those who were in it.

  “ . . . So, what do you call this then?”

  “Picture the scene!” Cox carried on. “You’re stranded alone aboard an alien vessel. No directions, no weapons, no way to know up from down! Then would ya look at that, there’s a guy with this big gun standing right there in front of you!”

  “So literally what just happened to us earlier?”

  “Exactly! What do you do?”

  Now the others were getting involved. Hands rested on chins, nails scratched at scalps, and one by one tentative answers were shared.

  “Bum rush ’em?” Willy threw in half-heartedly.

  “No plans that involve getting my crew shot, Mister Padilla!”

  “Run away.” Whisper suggested like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Not a bad idea at all, Miss Wang! And I wouldn’t have been offended by any of you if you did. But I can’t keep you guys under my wings if I’m flapping ’em away!”

  “So what’s the answer you’re looking for here?” Donald grumbled. “Talk to them?”

  “You’re close, Donny!” He pounded his hand into his fist and grinned like an idiot. “You gotta find out what they want!”

  “And what if they wanna kill you?”

  “Well then, you hope you got a coupla guys like Mister Padilla over here!”

  Willy chuckled like someone who didn’t understand but still wanted to feel included.

  “Now, I’m not saying I’m an expert or anything, but who doesn’t like being offered what they want before they even know they want it, huh? They start to think ‘Well hey, look at this guy! Maybe I should keep him around; see what else he’s got! Not the type of guy I feel like shooting in the face at all. Maybe I’ll even let his crew keep living too. Y’know, as an act of good faith or something . . .’”

  He was pacing now, hunched over and eyes darting wildly. He was also squinting for some reason. Absurd as the display was, that may have been the very reason his crew found it so captivating.

  “ . . . Next thing you know I got him exactly where I want him. He thinks he’s won, y’see! He thinks I’m afraid of him. He thinks I can’t and won’t do anything to get in his way now! Best of all: he . . . thinks . . . I’m . . . stupid!”

  The pregnant pause following that bombshell lingered for long enough that it became clear it wasn’t going to birth a follow up statement on its own. The conflicting emotions of amusement and contempt at their captain’s antics amongst the crew steadily melted into a uniform worry by the rant’s conclusion. It was becoming increasingly likely that this defeat at the hands of a space terrorist may very well have caused their captain to lose his marbles.

  “Okay . . .” Kim humoured him. “So, what are you going to do then?”

  Cox grinned.

  “You mean ‘What are we gonna do?’ Well to quote the old philosopher, Snider: ‘We’re not gonna take it anymore.’ Now that his guard is probably down, I think we should go get the jump on him and ask him to leave.”

  “But how, Tim? He locked us in our own cargo hold.”

  “Or did you plan for him to do that too?” Donald added sarcastically.

  “I did, actually!” He walked over to a grate embedded into one of the walls and gave it a light rap. “When I had the Jefferson built, I spent a few million extra space-dollars having a padded, soundproofed, person-sized ventilation system installed just in case anything like this ever happened!”

  He nodded at Whisper with a smile.

  “Would the ‘worst captain ever’ have thought to do that?!”

  She blinked.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Oh.”

  “A good captain would have spent that money on an AI defense system or something.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” He breathed to no one in particular as he busied himself with the grate. “Who wants to be that guy waiting around for a robot to save his crew for him?”

  He stopped his fiddling. For the first time, the smile on his face faded away and was replaced by something more . . . flustered.

  “Aw jeez, I forgot about Whatshername down in engineering! D’you think she’s okay?”

  Kim uncrossed her arms.

  “You should go check on her.”

  “That’s the Kim I remember!” He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Alright, guys, we’re still in this! Just hold on while I go find her, then we’ll discuss battle plans! Alright? Alright.”

  He grabbed the grate and tried to tear it from the wall. First it was a half-hearted tug as he underestimated the structural integrity. Then he introduced both hands, followed by a foot against the wall, and erratic jerky motions narrated by feeble grunts of exertion. Every failed yank hurt his pride more than his fingers.

  “Heh, least I know the screws work. Good thing my watch has a laser built into it!”

  Couple zaps, couple taps, and the plan was back underway. It took a few hops to finally get into the vent, but once inside, it was roomy and well lit, as any self-respecting stealth tunnel ought to be. The signposts indicating which passage led where were also a nice touch. Before long he was nothing but a pair of departing soles to the observing members of the group. Kim took extra care to verify he had indeed vanished before she enacted a
scheme of her own.

  “Whisper, Donald, come with me.”

  Without even looking at them, she hopped into the vent on her first try and made quick work of the first passage.

  “We don’t have a lot of time, guys,” her voice echoed from within. “Let’s go.”

  Being locked inside a metal room full of rocks, it wasn’t like they had anything better to do. Whisper trotted on over and, after receiving a boost from Donald, followed her commander into the abyss. Donald took a few tries as well, but before long, also had himself hoisted in. Then came Willy. Standing on tiptoe, he peered down the rabbit hole that had swallowed his only friends on the ship.

  “Hey, can I come too?” His hoarse voice queried the ductwork.

  “No, no you stay here.” The ductwork answered in the form of Kim’s voice. “Wait for your captain to come back . . . or something . . .

  On hands and knees, they scampered through the ship’s respiratory system. Each new step announced their location like a herald does for kings and/or whimsical sitcom characters during episodes where they come into a large amount of money. With the amount of racket each step made, it didn’t seem implausible that the entire system was made of gongs.

  “Are we really gonna sneak up on anybody like this?” Donald asked between huffs and puffs. “It sounds like I’m wearing pans as knee pads.”

  “It’s fine, Donald.” His superior responded from further up the tunnel. “I was there when he had this ship built. The soundproofing in here is solid; nobody will hear a thing. I always did wonder why he had it built, though.”

  They proceeded along in single file, reaching a fork and taking a left. Head down because of his height, Donald bonked it at the junction before following suit.

  “Okay seriously, how did he afford all this stuff? This ship must have cost a fortune.”

  The disinterested tone of Kim’s voice betrayed her lack of desire to answer.

  “His family made some smart investments.”

  “Ohhhhh,” the quiet pilot said. “So that’s why you’re with him.”

  “Whisper, don’t think I won’t kick you right in the face.”

  The rest of the trip was a subdued trek—if you didn’t count the fact they banged along like an orchestra performing a timpani concerto. Each of them took it in turn to survey passing rooms through one-way glass panels designed to look like boring Walmart art from the other side. With each empty room they happened upon, Kim grew more and more worried that her husband would find the intruder before she did. Or worse, the intruder would find him. Or worse yet, nobody would find anybody, and Tim would return to the cargo hold, only to realize they were gone and do something stupid.

  But alas, her fears were averted when she spied her face reflected back at her on the shiny head of that grunting oaf making himself a mayo sandwich in the kitchen of her husband’s ship. He must wax the hell outta that thing. She could even see the lettuce in her teeth. She should probably take care of that before the epic fight that was about to happen. Or maybe she should leave it in as a distraction. Then again, how much of a distraction could it really be? But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she should be employing any potential advantage, no matter how small. All this procrastinating probably wasn’t a very good sign.

  “Why did we stop?” Whisper asked from behind in her increasingly annoying voice.

  “’Cause I dropped my contact, Whisper. . . . Why do you think we stopped!?” She rolled sideways into a kneeling position and addressed her reluctant backup. “Alright look, we’re only going to have one shot at this. I would have done it earlier, but I didn’t want Tim to try and interfere. Whoever this guy is, he’s obviously not an amateur. In fact, I’m not gonna lie to you, this might hurt. But just remember there’s three of us and only one of him. If we all work together then I think we can do this! I hope you guys are ready. Let’s kick this bastard off our ship.”

  Both of them blinked back at her. Donald raised a pudgy finger.

  “I think you got something in your teeth.”

  Kim pursed her pouty lips shut and grumbled through her clenched pearly whites. Tongue stealthily massaging her teeth, she shifted once more off of her legs so she could tuck her knees in and front kick the panel off the wall and into the room. With a crash louder than any of their cymbal-like footsteps, it flew into the room, narrowly missing the pasty headed hijacker. It instead slammed into the cupboards. She was hoping that it would maybe give the old goat a heart attack and save everybody a lot of trouble. But no, he just looked at it the way a cat looks at a toy that its owner paid way too much for.

  She leapt from the vent and landed standing tall.

  “Surprise, motherfu—!”

  Mister Nobody turned around and examined her through half-closed eyes. He didn’t respond; he just stared while chewing with his mouth open like a cow. Kim shuffled uncomfortably. After a few moments passed, she slowly raised a pair of fists.

  “Alright . . . guess we’re not talking, and just getting this over with then.”

  “Getting what over with?” The old man asked through a mouthful of bread.

  “Uh . . . Taking you out and taking the ship back?”

  “Taking me out?”

  Kim lowered her fists and spread her arms in frustration.

  “Really? You really have no clue what’s happening here? I’ve come to fight you, moron. Kick your ass off my ship and get on with my life.”

  Mister Nobody swallowed the food in his mouth and set his unfinished sandwich down.

  “You’re here to fight me?” He asked. “For the ship? What are we, Vikings?”

  “It’s not like you’re gonna leave if I just ask you to!”

  He pondered this for a moment, perhaps even if only to buy enough time for another bite of his sandwich.

  “Well, yeah, no,” he said with his mouth full. “So your next best idea is to . . . punch me in the head until I leave?”

  “Well no, I, uh . . . I mean, yeah I was gonna punch you . . . Sometimes in the head . . . But then eventually you’d . . . I dunno! Why are you making this weird? You obviously know what I’m getting at!”

  The old man shrugged.

  So there they were, standing in the middle of the Jefferson’s galley. Mister Nobody leaned on the counter next to the remnants of the wall art, still munching away. Every now and then one of them coughed. Kim stood up straight, keeping her hands clenched but letting them fall to her sides. Of all the hurdles she expected to deal with, goading the interloper into a fight was not one she had anticipated. He didn’t seem to regard her as a threat at all. She wasn’t sure whether to be happy or angry about that.

  “You know you got something in your teeth, right?” He asked, voice still muffled by mastication.

  Kim snatched a mug out of the steam cleaner and hurled it at his face. He narrowly managed to duck out of the way, nearly dropping his food as he did. It shattered against a wall behind him. His mouth fell open just the slightest bit when he turned to look at it, but his face soon returned to being just as exasperated as ever.

  “You really wanna do this . . . ?” He asked.

  Kim grabbed another mug.

  “My husband’s not here to save you this time!” She barked as she let fly.

  He deftly caught it and set it on the counter.

  “Shouldn’t I be the one saying that to you?”

  He let out a sigh as Kim grabbed mug number three.

  “Nobody ever wants to try passive resistance anymore . . .”

  Before she had even loosed it, he bent forward and tore into a sprint. The airborne mug flew high and would have struck home were it not for his bowed shoulders. He drove his right one into Kim’s midsection, knocking her airborne a few feet backward into the wall. Brown hair went in all directions as her back slammed against it and she bounced off into a kneeling position. Tears in her eyes, she looked up at him.

  “Ah . . .” She wheezed. “How . . . How could you do that to me!? Do you feel big, hittin
g a woman?”

  Mister Nobody responded with a left kick that knocked her onto her side. Perpetual frown unchanged, he squinted down at her.

  “You were chuckin’ mugs at an old man’s head, lady. I don’t think either one of us can claim the moral high ground here.”

  The waterworks stopped and her glib expression returned.

  “Fair enough.”

  She grabbed a saucepan from a nearby cupboard and bashed it into his foot. Growling and cursing, he wrapped his arms around his knee and proceeded to hop around in pain. The dance of discomfort was just erratic enough to avoid Kim’s wild wailing at his other foot. She smashed the pan repeatedly against the floor like a game of whack-a-mole until the hijacker’s pain subsided just enough to let go of his knee and slam it into her forehead.

  Knocked backwards yet again, but this time maintaining control, Kim quickly rolled to her feet and whipped the saucepan at him. He obviously wasn’t expecting this one, given the way he made no attempt to stop it besides a wide-eyed and slack-jawed gawp. But it’s tough to aim a throw in such a stressful situation, so it missed his unorthodox defense by a large margin.

  Luckily, it nailed him square in the crotch instead.

  His knees buckled, but, in a feat of superhuman strength, he managed to prevent their crumbling by sheer force of will. Albeit briefly. They couldn’t hope to handle both the full-system shutdown that nut shots induced and also the full weight of Donald jumping out of the vent and landing on top of him. The pair landed on the floor, bad guy chin first and good guy at an angle that sent him rolling across the floor.

  With the match now turned into one of the handicapped variety, Mister Nobody began to take it a bit more seriously. He dismantled the uncoordinated swings from the doughy coms officer with relative ease, occasionally getting him into an armbar or wristlock, but always being dislodged before doing any damage when Kim would come flying at him with a knee or elbow. Eventually he’d land a swing and knock her away, but her small stature was well compensated for by her wily fighting style. It was like dealing with a particularly ornery Pomeranian. Her feet stomped at his shins, her fists clobbered at his kidneys, she even sunk her teeth into his arm.