I like both my voice and my job, so it was really a blessing landing this gig, although it’s one of the most boring jobs I’ve ever held down. Don’t get me wrong; Gregor, a traveling salesman just last week went to Centuri 2 and turned into a roach the next morning. There are salt mines across the system where, if you step on the wrong fissure, not only will you lose your foot, you’ll grow a fin. On your cornea.
So to say that my job is boring doesn’t really do it justice. My job isn’t just boring; it’s safe. I can’t really get impaled by a space bug or get shot by a Siberian sniper (unless I really, really wanted to). I pretty much just make a singular announcement every day.
“Will all passengers please proceed to their sleep capsules?”
I tend to repeat that once ever three or four minutes for about six or eight minutes and then I go lie down. I’m on the company payroll; it’s a pretty sweet gig. The ship I work on is transport only. We used to have a gun on top, but during a close landing, it was scraped off and no one has really bothered to replace it. We sold the ammunition to some kids one day and actually turned a profit. However, there is a skylight now. But that’s not really a problem. I just don’t understand why people would want to stare into the vasty nothingness of space.
Most trips last two weeks. Not enough to require any kind of cryo sleep, but enough to hire a guy to make the sleep announcements. I tend to read magazines, watch and write short films, and doodle in my spare time. Which is a lot. The eight minutes of actual work that I do is just that; work. I still have the other twenty three hours and fifty-two minutes of non-work to contend with.
I actually tried reading “War and Peace,” but that book should have been called “War and Whining.”
I realize I’m taking up a whole bunch of space on my logistics report, but I feel it’s important to document everything, starting at the beginning of the trip.
The shuttle, Madonna, was heading from E-2 to M-3; estimated travel time eight days, standard. The captain was sleeping in his cabin, I was doodling on the ceiling of my loft. The chef was probably having sex with the navigator, a wonderful Azarican with a body that just won’t quit (because it’s really just a big energy mass) which he had been doing for several trips now, despite the fact that he had a wife with three sexual orifices back on E-2. But hey, I’m not acting jealous or anything.
I brought a companion on my trip; “LightBug,” a holo-deck series from a way long time ago when people were still paid to be other people for entertainment. The show had been pulled mid season, but they managed to get the holo-deck tapes out in an expedient process, during which the company that cancelled the show was set on fire and hurled from a cliff by a giant beetle-bug. The company had been warned about the infestation in the area, but it’s rumored that they sat in their offices with their fingers in their ears going, “Blah-de-blah, I’m not listening,” all day and letting chimps pick their show line-ups.
It’s been discovered since then that that’s actually a quite effective way to get high rating shows on your network, in case your interested. I couldn’t afford a chimp on my salary, though.
The fifth day of the trip, I was watching “LightBug” in my cabin when something shook the ship. It’s odd when that happens; despite what they’ll tell you, there’s not a lot in space that will shake the ship short of a meteor or some kind of plasmonic-alien form, which haven’t been discovered yet (they’re just highly speculated upon; like Global Warming, but with even less evidence).
I had suspected a meteor, so I quickly switched to the security feed from my bunk. The bridge had been completely sealed off, but the picture was devastating. It appears that the captain, the first mate, the commander, the lieutenant commander, the lieutenant, the lieutenant junior grade, and several of the ensigns had been sitting around for a game of musical charades, the bastard love-child of charades and Monopoly. While they were sitting, a meteor entered the bridge, closing the bay doors and the solar wind-shield. But the meteorite piece - according to the incredibly hilarious video footage I found on the mainframe – bounced through the captain’s head into the first mate’s head, into the neck of the commander, through the neck into the lung of the lieutenant commander, into the lieutenants foot where it shot through the top of his head, bouncing off of the ceiling into the mouth of the lieutenant junior grade, who in an attempt to thwart the meteor had been firing his side-arm into the ensign’s.
It’s when you look at footage as devastating as this that two words enter your mind.
“Field promotion!”
Temporary, yes. But since I technically out-ranked the chef and the mechanic was a robot, I was it. I was the captain.
The alarm klaxons began to blare as the video finished buffering (Damn Real-Player holo-decks), so I watched the footage as I ran down the hallway to wake up the passengers. They were all groggy, but most of them still very attractive all things considered. They stood in the hallway, staring at each other in their nighties, wondering exactly what the hell was going on.
I heard the footfalls echo through the hall, coming from the kitchen. I sighed; the boots hitting the ground were of a combat nature, ringing through my ears. I slid my “LightBug” tapes down into my pocket further, sighing as the chef rounded the corner.
“Dude, did you see what happened?”
“Hell yes I saw what happened. Do you know what that means?”
He scratched his head. The passengers had no idea what it meant and I was about to blow their minds.
“It means I’m the new captain!”
One of the passengers, a Reverend, I’ve found (from the dossier) to try and question me. “You’re the captain? What about the real captain?”
“Dead.”
“What about the first mate?”
“Deader.”
“Commander?”
“As dead as the other two, if not more so.”
“The lieutenant commander or the lieutenant?”
“One of them is dead.”
“The other alive?”
“No. The other ceased to exist due to meteorite piece. Let me just tell you, sir, I’m completely in charge of the situation.”
The chef, A.I Bob moved forward. “Really now, I don’t think you’re a suitable captain.”
“Please, A. I Bob. We all know the order of command and the Madonna’s code. ‘In the event that everyone else on staff is disabled, the command is passed down the he who makes announcements for bedtime.’ I read it the other night.”
“That’s not fair! Those rules are old and archaic, set in stone back when the announcement-maker was a job that only went to retired captains!”
“Well bitch all you want about archaic rules. As long as I’m the captain, we follow the code. And the code says I’m captain, so I guess we’re following the code then, aren’t we?”
Faced with a problem of insurmountable logic, A.I Bob fell back into the ranks of the helpless passengers.
“As many of you have heard from our exchange, all of the personnel on board are dead. I am now the captain; we have been struck by a meteor!”
A voice piped up from the back, emanating from a little girl whom I wanted very badly to punch. Emma. “What about the gun on the ship? Isn’t there supposed to be a gun that you use to shoot meteors?”
“Yes, well, it was scraped off one time.”
“A lot of bloody help that did us.”
I sighed. If any of the dissention spilling out of the little girl reached into the hearts and minds of the passengers, I wouldn’t be able to get them off the ship. “Okay, first rule as captain; if you’re British, you can’t speak or else I get to punch you in the face.”
Emma piped up from the back, “But –“
The sound of the crowd parting so I could get a clear shot in was very similar to metal being dragged on metal. “If you don’t stop speaking, I’m going to put the first rule into effect. I have no qualms about –“
“Sir!”
I ran forward, fist raised. It connected with her nose. The other passengers gasped, some recoiling in horror.
“Please, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that people from planet Britannia retain child-like appearances for many, many years. That’s why the young seem so smart!” They seemed placated. “A. I Bob, why don’t you carry the girl?” He shrugged and slung her over one shoulder, her pigtails bouncing on his chest.
“We have to get off of this ship; the integrity of the hull has been compromised… So… We have about an hour before we all die. Luckily, there are more than enough escape pods, so…”
The Reverend moved forward. “Did the ship capsize?”
I stared at him, looking into his steely eyes, trying to discern whether or not he was joking. “We’re in space, sir. That’s not really relevant.”
“Are you sure? We could be in for quite the Madonna adventure if it were true.”
“No, no sir. In space, directionality on a ship like this isn’t really important. So long as the gravity drive doesn’t fail, we’ll all be on our feet.”
“Oh. Well…” He stepped back, falling into line with the ten other passengers.
“So, let’s get to the escape deck, shall we? I have an episode of ‘LightBug’ to play on the escape pod screen!”
Murmurs of dissention. But I was the captain; they can’t really argue with me.
A.I Bob and I talked about the best course to go through to get to the escape pod; yes, I was the captain, and I was probably the best captain this ship had ever seen, but the point still remained that there was a destination to get to and I had no idea how to get there. He suggested we move through the galley, through the kitchen, past the bridge, down past the engine compartment, the crew quarters, down a ladder and to the escape bay.
There was a schematic on the wall that was flashing, a red arrow marking the most efficient way to the escape bay; through the kitchen. There was a door in the back that led straight to the largest pod; one that would house all of us.
“Honestly, A.I Bob, how can you not know the escape pod is right through your kitchen?”
“Because,” he said as we entered the dining hall, “I’ve been banging a purely energy sentient being the entire trip. Plus, it’s not built into my A.I construct.”
“Wait, you’re a robot?”
“Are you kidding? I’m not built to detect such low levels of sarcasm.”
“I just assumed ‘A.I’ was some kind of military name.”
“It is. ‘Annihilation Interface Blood Bot.’ We’re designed to drain the blood out of you with a corkscrew. And cook. After the last galactic war, we were kind of decommissioned… We use our blood draining skills to open wine bottles now and our cooking skills to cook.”
I was shocked for about all of half a second before I realized it didn’t really matter if he was a robot or not; he was carrying an unconscious child and doing a lot of the bitch work, plus, he hadn’t gone crazy about any kind of mission or anything, so he was alright in my book.
We walked past the tables, when the ship rumbled again. I pulled up my holo-deck and watched as another meteor slammed through the hull, hitting one of the switches on the far wall. I looked over at the unconscious Brit, and punched her again to ensure she wouldn’t have anything snappy to say (or have anything to remember) in case she woke up.
The switch was the grav-switch, which I assumed was broken as hell because we all plummeted up to the ceiling. The group all sighed, landing on various ceiling fixtures. Yes, the floor was now the ceiling.
I motioned for the group to follow me, on top of the hanging light fixtures, until we reached the far wall. A.I Bob and I used the little girl to wedge the door open on the ceiling and began pulling people up, into the kitchen. It was a mess, but there was a method to it; all the shelves had fallen up, keeping their contents more or less the same, but upside down.
It was like walking through a regular kitchen, but with ten mumbling, bruised assholes following me. We reached the far side, and opened the door, once again using the girl to prop the doors. A.I Bob began helping people up, one at a time, to the pod room, escorting each person into the largest pod.
The Reverend cornered me before I could get pulled up.
“Haven’t you ever heard the captain goes down with the ship?”
“What? You mean we have to adhere to an old archaic set of rules?”
“Yup.”
I sighed. He was right. My two favorite words entered my mind…
“Hey, sir, field promotion! You’re captain now!”
He tried jumping up to A.I Bob, but his constructs wouldn’t allow the captain to not go down with the ship. Before he could tag me, I hit him in the back of the head with a pizza paddle. “Mutiny!”
A.I Bob helped me up, and put me in the pod. It softly ejected from the ship, an egg to the beautiful womb of outer space (minus the blood) and we all sat back, sighing and somewhat satisfied with the events of the night.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the second an escape pod launched, an emergency beacon was set off. Now, let’s watch an episode of ‘LightBug’ and go to sleep.”
There was general groaning, and some snoring.
We were picked up by the Mephistopheles early in the morning. A crew of nurses rushed into the pod, examining each person. When Amelia, the most attractive female nurse of the bunch rushed into the cabin, she immediately ran to me and my captain’s aura.
“Oh, my! You’re alright!”
“Hell yeah, baby. You want to make out?”
She nodded. “After, do you have any episodes of ‘LightBug?’”
I reached into my pockets for the tapes, but they were missing. I watched as each of the ten passengers were pulled from the pod, cursing the solitary thief. I vowed I would have my revenge.
But this is an accident report. I stubbed my toe leaving the pod, so… I guess I could contact my insurance company about that or something, because I don’t want the nail to be ingrown or anything.
I will find that thief.
I think it might be that British girl.
So to say that my job is boring doesn’t really do it justice. My job isn’t just boring; it’s safe. I can’t really get impaled by a space bug or get shot by a Siberian sniper (unless I really, really wanted to). I pretty much just make a singular announcement every day.
“Will all passengers please proceed to their sleep capsules?”
I tend to repeat that once ever three or four minutes for about six or eight minutes and then I go lie down. I’m on the company payroll; it’s a pretty sweet gig. The ship I work on is transport only. We used to have a gun on top, but during a close landing, it was scraped off and no one has really bothered to replace it. We sold the ammunition to some kids one day and actually turned a profit. However, there is a skylight now. But that’s not really a problem. I just don’t understand why people would want to stare into the vasty nothingness of space.
Most trips last two weeks. Not enough to require any kind of cryo sleep, but enough to hire a guy to make the sleep announcements. I tend to read magazines, watch and write short films, and doodle in my spare time. Which is a lot. The eight minutes of actual work that I do is just that; work. I still have the other twenty three hours and fifty-two minutes of non-work to contend with.
I actually tried reading “War and Peace,” but that book should have been called “War and Whining.”
I realize I’m taking up a whole bunch of space on my logistics report, but I feel it’s important to document everything, starting at the beginning of the trip.
The shuttle, Madonna, was heading from E-2 to M-3; estimated travel time eight days, standard. The captain was sleeping in his cabin, I was doodling on the ceiling of my loft. The chef was probably having sex with the navigator, a wonderful Azarican with a body that just won’t quit (because it’s really just a big energy mass) which he had been doing for several trips now, despite the fact that he had a wife with three sexual orifices back on E-2. But hey, I’m not acting jealous or anything.
I brought a companion on my trip; “LightBug,” a holo-deck series from a way long time ago when people were still paid to be other people for entertainment. The show had been pulled mid season, but they managed to get the holo-deck tapes out in an expedient process, during which the company that cancelled the show was set on fire and hurled from a cliff by a giant beetle-bug. The company had been warned about the infestation in the area, but it’s rumored that they sat in their offices with their fingers in their ears going, “Blah-de-blah, I’m not listening,” all day and letting chimps pick their show line-ups.
It’s been discovered since then that that’s actually a quite effective way to get high rating shows on your network, in case your interested. I couldn’t afford a chimp on my salary, though.
The fifth day of the trip, I was watching “LightBug” in my cabin when something shook the ship. It’s odd when that happens; despite what they’ll tell you, there’s not a lot in space that will shake the ship short of a meteor or some kind of plasmonic-alien form, which haven’t been discovered yet (they’re just highly speculated upon; like Global Warming, but with even less evidence).
I had suspected a meteor, so I quickly switched to the security feed from my bunk. The bridge had been completely sealed off, but the picture was devastating. It appears that the captain, the first mate, the commander, the lieutenant commander, the lieutenant, the lieutenant junior grade, and several of the ensigns had been sitting around for a game of musical charades, the bastard love-child of charades and Monopoly. While they were sitting, a meteor entered the bridge, closing the bay doors and the solar wind-shield. But the meteorite piece - according to the incredibly hilarious video footage I found on the mainframe – bounced through the captain’s head into the first mate’s head, into the neck of the commander, through the neck into the lung of the lieutenant commander, into the lieutenants foot where it shot through the top of his head, bouncing off of the ceiling into the mouth of the lieutenant junior grade, who in an attempt to thwart the meteor had been firing his side-arm into the ensign’s.
It’s when you look at footage as devastating as this that two words enter your mind.
“Field promotion!”
Temporary, yes. But since I technically out-ranked the chef and the mechanic was a robot, I was it. I was the captain.
The alarm klaxons began to blare as the video finished buffering (Damn Real-Player holo-decks), so I watched the footage as I ran down the hallway to wake up the passengers. They were all groggy, but most of them still very attractive all things considered. They stood in the hallway, staring at each other in their nighties, wondering exactly what the hell was going on.
I heard the footfalls echo through the hall, coming from the kitchen. I sighed; the boots hitting the ground were of a combat nature, ringing through my ears. I slid my “LightBug” tapes down into my pocket further, sighing as the chef rounded the corner.
“Dude, did you see what happened?”
“Hell yes I saw what happened. Do you know what that means?”
He scratched his head. The passengers had no idea what it meant and I was about to blow their minds.
“It means I’m the new captain!”
One of the passengers, a Reverend, I’ve found (from the dossier) to try and question me. “You’re the captain? What about the real captain?”
“Dead.”
“What about the first mate?”
“Deader.”
“Commander?”
“As dead as the other two, if not more so.”
“The lieutenant commander or the lieutenant?”
“One of them is dead.”
“The other alive?”
“No. The other ceased to exist due to meteorite piece. Let me just tell you, sir, I’m completely in charge of the situation.”
The chef, A.I Bob moved forward. “Really now, I don’t think you’re a suitable captain.”
“Please, A. I Bob. We all know the order of command and the Madonna’s code. ‘In the event that everyone else on staff is disabled, the command is passed down the he who makes announcements for bedtime.’ I read it the other night.”
“That’s not fair! Those rules are old and archaic, set in stone back when the announcement-maker was a job that only went to retired captains!”
“Well bitch all you want about archaic rules. As long as I’m the captain, we follow the code. And the code says I’m captain, so I guess we’re following the code then, aren’t we?”
Faced with a problem of insurmountable logic, A.I Bob fell back into the ranks of the helpless passengers.
“As many of you have heard from our exchange, all of the personnel on board are dead. I am now the captain; we have been struck by a meteor!”
A voice piped up from the back, emanating from a little girl whom I wanted very badly to punch. Emma. “What about the gun on the ship? Isn’t there supposed to be a gun that you use to shoot meteors?”
“Yes, well, it was scraped off one time.”
“A lot of bloody help that did us.”
I sighed. If any of the dissention spilling out of the little girl reached into the hearts and minds of the passengers, I wouldn’t be able to get them off the ship. “Okay, first rule as captain; if you’re British, you can’t speak or else I get to punch you in the face.”
Emma piped up from the back, “But –“
The sound of the crowd parting so I could get a clear shot in was very similar to metal being dragged on metal. “If you don’t stop speaking, I’m going to put the first rule into effect. I have no qualms about –“
“Sir!”
I ran forward, fist raised. It connected with her nose. The other passengers gasped, some recoiling in horror.
“Please, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that people from planet Britannia retain child-like appearances for many, many years. That’s why the young seem so smart!” They seemed placated. “A. I Bob, why don’t you carry the girl?” He shrugged and slung her over one shoulder, her pigtails bouncing on his chest.
“We have to get off of this ship; the integrity of the hull has been compromised… So… We have about an hour before we all die. Luckily, there are more than enough escape pods, so…”
The Reverend moved forward. “Did the ship capsize?”
I stared at him, looking into his steely eyes, trying to discern whether or not he was joking. “We’re in space, sir. That’s not really relevant.”
“Are you sure? We could be in for quite the Madonna adventure if it were true.”
“No, no sir. In space, directionality on a ship like this isn’t really important. So long as the gravity drive doesn’t fail, we’ll all be on our feet.”
“Oh. Well…” He stepped back, falling into line with the ten other passengers.
“So, let’s get to the escape deck, shall we? I have an episode of ‘LightBug’ to play on the escape pod screen!”
Murmurs of dissention. But I was the captain; they can’t really argue with me.
A.I Bob and I talked about the best course to go through to get to the escape pod; yes, I was the captain, and I was probably the best captain this ship had ever seen, but the point still remained that there was a destination to get to and I had no idea how to get there. He suggested we move through the galley, through the kitchen, past the bridge, down past the engine compartment, the crew quarters, down a ladder and to the escape bay.
There was a schematic on the wall that was flashing, a red arrow marking the most efficient way to the escape bay; through the kitchen. There was a door in the back that led straight to the largest pod; one that would house all of us.
“Honestly, A.I Bob, how can you not know the escape pod is right through your kitchen?”
“Because,” he said as we entered the dining hall, “I’ve been banging a purely energy sentient being the entire trip. Plus, it’s not built into my A.I construct.”
“Wait, you’re a robot?”
“Are you kidding? I’m not built to detect such low levels of sarcasm.”
“I just assumed ‘A.I’ was some kind of military name.”
“It is. ‘Annihilation Interface Blood Bot.’ We’re designed to drain the blood out of you with a corkscrew. And cook. After the last galactic war, we were kind of decommissioned… We use our blood draining skills to open wine bottles now and our cooking skills to cook.”
I was shocked for about all of half a second before I realized it didn’t really matter if he was a robot or not; he was carrying an unconscious child and doing a lot of the bitch work, plus, he hadn’t gone crazy about any kind of mission or anything, so he was alright in my book.
We walked past the tables, when the ship rumbled again. I pulled up my holo-deck and watched as another meteor slammed through the hull, hitting one of the switches on the far wall. I looked over at the unconscious Brit, and punched her again to ensure she wouldn’t have anything snappy to say (or have anything to remember) in case she woke up.
The switch was the grav-switch, which I assumed was broken as hell because we all plummeted up to the ceiling. The group all sighed, landing on various ceiling fixtures. Yes, the floor was now the ceiling.
I motioned for the group to follow me, on top of the hanging light fixtures, until we reached the far wall. A.I Bob and I used the little girl to wedge the door open on the ceiling and began pulling people up, into the kitchen. It was a mess, but there was a method to it; all the shelves had fallen up, keeping their contents more or less the same, but upside down.
It was like walking through a regular kitchen, but with ten mumbling, bruised assholes following me. We reached the far side, and opened the door, once again using the girl to prop the doors. A.I Bob began helping people up, one at a time, to the pod room, escorting each person into the largest pod.
The Reverend cornered me before I could get pulled up.
“Haven’t you ever heard the captain goes down with the ship?”
“What? You mean we have to adhere to an old archaic set of rules?”
“Yup.”
I sighed. He was right. My two favorite words entered my mind…
“Hey, sir, field promotion! You’re captain now!”
He tried jumping up to A.I Bob, but his constructs wouldn’t allow the captain to not go down with the ship. Before he could tag me, I hit him in the back of the head with a pizza paddle. “Mutiny!”
A.I Bob helped me up, and put me in the pod. It softly ejected from the ship, an egg to the beautiful womb of outer space (minus the blood) and we all sat back, sighing and somewhat satisfied with the events of the night.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the second an escape pod launched, an emergency beacon was set off. Now, let’s watch an episode of ‘LightBug’ and go to sleep.”
There was general groaning, and some snoring.
We were picked up by the Mephistopheles early in the morning. A crew of nurses rushed into the pod, examining each person. When Amelia, the most attractive female nurse of the bunch rushed into the cabin, she immediately ran to me and my captain’s aura.
“Oh, my! You’re alright!”
“Hell yeah, baby. You want to make out?”
She nodded. “After, do you have any episodes of ‘LightBug?’”
I reached into my pockets for the tapes, but they were missing. I watched as each of the ten passengers were pulled from the pod, cursing the solitary thief. I vowed I would have my revenge.
But this is an accident report. I stubbed my toe leaving the pod, so… I guess I could contact my insurance company about that or something, because I don’t want the nail to be ingrown or anything.
I will find that thief.
I think it might be that British girl.
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