Part 2

  “It doesn’t make sense. There is nothing in space to compress in order to make sound waves.” She said looking irritated despite being now in a warm cargo bay, green tape binding her wrists.

  “They heard it, didn’t they? And now we are warm and sitting on a crate of cargo instead of frozen to death. Things work out of you just let the flow take you.”

  “The flow didn’t take us…pirates took us. We are captive on a pirate ship, how is this a good thing?” she whispered angrily.

  “Well, warm and tied up is better than freezing and not tied up. They have food somewhere so you might not starve now or have to eat those horrible meat tubes. And we were going to run out of oxygen soon, so alive beats dead. Think of this as a stroke of luck. Chafee’s are naturally lucky.”

  “I will kill you if they don’t kill us first.” She muttered as the doors opened and a short, fat alien stood proudly wielding a rather bazooka-esque weapon. He was armored from head to toe and spoke through a voice modulator to sound more menacing. 2 pair of rabbit ears hung on either side of his mask, like something out of a horror movie.

  “Um, so can we stop off at a fuel-stop and get a shower?” William asked the alien.

  “Name and rank.” He barked.

  “Captain William Lawg of the Starship Tast-E-Chill. This is my copilot…um, I never did ask your name did I?” he muttered.

  “Uka.” She said rolling her eyes.

  “Is this a military vessel or waste disposal?” it asked.

  “Neither. It’s a mobile Earth-museum currently, but it used to be a frozen food storage ship.” Lawg grinned.

  “What kind of food?” it asked.

  “Mostly frozen dairy and sugar bars. They are amazing. I found lots of small ships carrying them. Probably easy to store since you just open a window and the back stays pretty cold. There were some bags of incents in a sealed container under the seat with some paper and lighters but I traded them for light bulbs to some cargo hauler. Sucker gave me 18 bulbs for about an ounce of incense.” He bragged

  “Weaponry?” it asked angrily in a low throaty voice.

  “I had a pistol but that’s gone now. Otherwise nothing.” He admitted.

  “What happened to the dairy bars?” it asked.

  “I ate them already, all except a box of bubblegum sherbet. I just tossed that out the airlock with the wrappers, believe me you aren’t missing anything.”

  “So you two are alone…no weapons, no food, no cargo and no fuel?” it asked.

  “No fuel?” asked Uka, looking alarmed.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mention it before cuz we would die of air-loss way before we ran out of fuel.” He assured. The alien hung his head and drooped its ears.

  “Maaan. I suck at this job.” He mumbled, looking very sad. He tossed the weapon aside.

  “HEY! Careful with that thing.” hollered William.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not dangerous. It just blows warm air. I tried to fix it but I don’t think it was ever really a weapon.” He said flopping down and removing his menacing face mask to show a much less menacing chubby-cheeked bunny face under it.

  “So you don’t have any weapons either?” asked Uka.

  “Nope. Just a few crates of something called Coffee liquor. It tastes horrible and I nearly died trying to drink a bottle of it. Otherwise all I have are these dried, inedible bags of old meat.” He said kicking a crate. Uka tore open a bag and began mowing frantically, looking downright blissful in the process.

  “You do realize that is made from dead aliens and packed in toxic salt right?” it said hesitantly.

  “It’s delicious, just spiced meat that has been preserved.” She said chewing harshly.

  “Yea…I said that… Dead aliens and salt.” He said shuffling his feet. “You must be really starving. Have you eaten anything in months?” he asked.

  “She ate 3 hours ago.” said William, trying a piece. “I have to admit, if we soaked this in water and warmed it up this would basically just be pepper-steak.” He shrugged

  “Wait…you guys normally eat meat? You two are carnivores?” it said grabbing the leaf blower and shouldering it.

  “Relax, I’m a boozaterrian mostly, we aren’t gonna eat you. That thing just blows warm air anyway. You just told that part.”

  “Maybe I just have to turn the safety off, this could be a warning mode.” He bluffed.

  “Stop stressing out, you will find food, meanwhile this won’t go to waste with her on board. You can drop us off somewhere and we won’t hurt you. Everything is fine. The universe provides.” He said kicking back.

  “The universe isn’t providing me shit!” the creature snapped. “Two weeks with just a 5 day ration pack, and my navigation went offline so I can’t even find a planet with food. I find one ship and they don’t have food either. And I don’t even know how to use the showers!!!” he yelled, kicking the crate again.

  “Why don’t you know how to use the showers on your own ship?” he asked.

  “Because this isn’t my ship!! I was a janitor on a 5-man crew. Me, 3 bounty hunters and a cook. I was hoping to get my warrior roots and experience and become a bounty hunter too but the first bounty we found tricked us. I got suited up to help them and next thing I know they flew away and left me on this old prisoner transport shuttle. I don’t even know how to fly this thing, I just yelled at the voice control till it started moving. I’m gonna die in here.” He said slumping.

  “Most navigation’s are voice activated.” Pointed out William.

  “It’s a Bongo brand Galaxy Positioning Satellite navigator and the language has been stuck on Dyrellian. I can’t speak Dyrellian and my communicator doesn’t have the right adapter to charge. You’d think they would all use the same adapter but no, 47 different plugs and mine is an older operating system.” the bunny complained.

  “Did you try hitting it really hard, sometimes that works? Maybe turn the GPS off and back on again.” He suggested.

  “What good is turning it off…” he said switching it off dramatically. “And right back on again?” he finished, flipping it on dramatically. The light turned green.

  “Welcome to Bongo, please select your planetary language.” said a pleasant female voice.

  "GGGGHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” screamed the alien, smacking its face into the screen and dropping to his knees in frustration.

  “I wouldn’t touch the screen with my face, you never know who else has used it and some species have their genitals on their face…I’m just saying you could get beard-ball-lice.” William whispered to Uka.

  “Two weeks…I could have caught up to the other bounty hunters…all I had to do was flip the switch back and forth. Now I’m gonna die because I drifted out of the trade rout-range and I have no food and a gun that just gently blows air for NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER!!” he said, practically melting into the floor with exhaustion.

  “We have navigation charts, we could just pool resources and go. I have a nav system but it hasn’t been updated in forever. A hundred credits a year for updates…it’s just robbery. I could have paid 400 for lifetime updates but who has that just in their pocket to blow on navigational charts?” he scoffed as if giving pearls of wisdom.

  “You’re right…were saved. We can just take my stuff to your ship and tow this Junker to the next planet! I am going to live!!” it triumphantly cheered.

  His look of triumph was now a look of confusion and utter dismay.

  “Are you shitting me?” he asked, staring at the 8 foot hole in the top of the dining room section, covered only with canvas sheets and an obscene amount of green packaging tape.

  “It’s tougher than it looks.” assured William.

  “Oh really…because it looks like 15 or 20 layers of adhesive tape where the towing anchor should be. You are missing a vital section of your ship and you decided that the deadly vacuum of space was adequately separated from your fleshy body by plastic and sticky resin, less then the thickness of my pants. How are you two not dead? The radiation alone in some sectors would kill you in hours, what is insulating the ship?” he asked.

  “Well, we have been using blankets and huddling by the woodstove. I’m immune to radiation and I guess Uka was just fortunate to only be on here for a short time and in a sector with low radiation. Chafee’s are known for good luck.” He assured.

  “You are flying a ship through the least survivable conditions scientifically possible, with a condom for a roof. I could jam my paw through that if I wanted.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “I definitely wouldn’t try that. That’s the only thing separating us from space.” reminded William Lawg, philosopher. The alien put his face in his paws and shook his head.

  “Maybe the radiation HAS accumulated in your brain.” He sighed to himself.

  “Okay, let me be perfectly clear. I am not going to be living under that for any more then the time it takes to briskly run from one sealed section to another. That is the scariest thing I have ever spent this long looking at.” He insisted.

  “Well it’s either that or in the cargo freezer that has no roof panels at all, or the engine room. They’re about the same temperature and if you close the door there is no air circulation. The ducts were re-purposed a few months ago.” William shrugged.

  “For what? What could you possibly have a need for that would be more important than ventilation in a spacecraft?” asked the alien.

  William beamed proudly as he unveiled his creation and the others sunk with a look of utter disbelief and disappointment.

  “It’s called a hot-tub.” He grinned.

  "It’s a huge bath-tub.” said the alien.

  “No, it’s a hot-tub, filled with hot water that bubbles and it re-circulates through these nozzles. A bath tub just sits there. This has massage jets and temperature control and mood lighting and it holds up to 5 humanoids…preferably 4 of them female and one of them being me.” he informed.

  “So…like a human mating chamber?” it asked.

  “Well, no not…I mean you could get in the mood and get the party started in this beast but the action would have to go elsewhere after a point. This is a re-circulating vat of fluids…it’s a good idea to keep those fluids limited to water and cleaning chemicals.” He protested.

  “So you cant mate in it…you don’t bathe in it and the water just goes back in the same tub repeatedly…you can’t drink the water because of the cleaning chemicals…what is the purpose of this device?” it asked.

  “For chilling out, relaxing. You have a good soak, let the jets ease tension and set a vibe of carefree fun. Lubricates the social setting and gets people talking and sharing.” He defended.

  “I thought your species was about ten percent alcohol by volume…how much additional relaxation is needed to have a conversation?” it said, looking unimpressed.

  “You…” he said pointing his finger. “You just, it’s a traditional thing. Earth-heritage. This bad-boy is a piece of history.”

  “It’s a piece of something for sure.” chimed Uka.

  “Wait…Earth?” asked the alien.

  “Yea. My ancestors lived there, this is a piece of Earth history preserved and made functional. Kings and presidents would sign treaties in these things. Vladimir Pudding and King Arthur probably signed the Ten Declarations of the Commandments in one of these.” He recited. “Maybe this exact one, you never know!” barked Lawg.

  “I have always wanted to study Earth history, I thought it was a myth. Didn’t its inhabitants create a black-hole underground and rip the planet it in half or something.”

  “Yea, but that’s a different…don’t worry about it.” he waved.

  "It makes sense now that the same species that decided to build a planet killing device inside their own planet would decide to replace an inch thick steel and carbon fiber panel with tape. I think I understand why they died now.” he said solemnly.

  “Hey, humans were adventurous and brave. No, we didn’t always think things out but we took risks and we bravely explored the unknown!” he protested further.

  “Kinda like isolating the most destructive particles in existence and shooting them into one another at the speed of light in a big tube right under one of their populated cities? Did you even have a backup planet terraformed yet in case it went the way it went?” he asked.

  “No, I think the space program was already scrapped by then.” William said looking ashamed.

  “Well, at last you saved one ship full of ancient artifacts.” He said with a grim sadness.

  “There is a lot more of this, I just don’t have the funding or the materials to gather my museum together.” He nodded with a slight wink to hint.

  “We can pool our resources and turn the ship into a mobile museum; you can have my ship for materials. This is great. We can park on top of the missing roof and use it as a docking bay for small ships” said the alien, extending a paw to shake.

  “UrMarlmertader.” It said. William looked over at Uka for translation.

  “I think I may have suffered a minor eardrum rupture.” He said trying to pop his jaw.

  “It’s my name.” he added.

  “How about just Marley for short?” he suggested.

  “Okay, but I get to call you Lawg.” He insisted. They shook on it and as a friendship was being forged in the fires of ignorance and frivolousity, Uka’s feeling of imminent doom was returning and now she believed her life would end not in the presents of one moron…but two of a kind.

  A rather adorable yawn sprawled over the face of our alien friend as they worked diligently to get the ship working. Captain Lawg was prepared for this sort of incident. With a few pipes and some hazardous welds, it almost looked stable. It took them 28 cans of flex-spray to fill the gaps of the two ships together with a nice screen-door-boat type seal, just like the energetic man in the commercial showed. A good bit of cargo canvas and some more Survival Green tape and the drafty soft-top canopy was stronger than ever. Marley was a hell of a welder for something furry and flammable, possibly the worst profession to have next to scavenging Earth-debris in a ship designed to keep cargo cold in space with a roof the equivalent of an umbrella, and questionable everything else. They sat down for a break and Uka decided to get some sleep while the others tinkered on the death-ship. Marley munched on a home-made marshmallow and admired his work.

  “You know…we may survive this.” He noted.

  “Of course we will. You’re flying with the Lawg-man. Nothing flies like a Lawg. Oh I’ve been meaning to ask you…what the hell are you anyway, some kind of space bunny?” he said tossing aside his scraped cracker remains.

  “The hell is a bunny?” he asked, scrunching his nose with his paw. “I’m a Delmarian.” He shrugged. William jumped a little.

  “You mean the thing everyone is terrified of? But your not remotely intimidating…are you a kid or something?” he asked.

  “A kid? I’m fifteen years old, almost middle age. I have a wife back home.”

  “She cute?” asked Lawg.

  “Nope.” He said without hesitation. “Why do you think I took a bounty job with my cousin Ferbis? I never fit in on my world. Delmarians are known for being warriors, we took over the Kneebler Empire in 6 cycles. But I’m not a fighter, I’d rather read and tinker.” He admitted.

  “Aren’t Delmarians supposed to have genitals on their face. I heard that somewhere recently.” William muttered.

  “Seriously? Why does everyone get that wrong? Do I look like I have genitals on my face? They’re TENTACLES not TESTICLES!! Why does everyone think these are scrotal bits? They’re sensory glands for picking up bio-electric activity.”

  “Geese, sorry. Didn’t mean to trigger the wrath of space-bunny. So what are those things on your head?” he asked.

  “Ears…everybody has ears.” He snipped.

  “Not everyone has 2 sets, and I mean the bumps in front of them.” he corrected.

  “Oh the stumps…right. Delmarians have antlers. Most of us trim them for space travel…makes getting on a helmet impossible otherwise.” He said sniffing the air. His ears stood up straight and parted to reveal a membrane between the sets. They quivered like he was picking up something.

  “What is that music?” he asked hearing the Ice-cream jingle.

  “Proximity alarm, we must be close to the debris field. I have the light speed drive set to favorites so it tells us when we arrived” William said, rushing to the front of the ship and hopping over the door of his convertible Fusion. He shifted into viewer-mode and began scanning for useful bits.

  “Amazing, so this is the Earth Debris.” Marley said, hopping into the passenger side and buckling up.

  “Location is a secret between the two of us historians.” He nodded.

  “Doesn’t your mate know too?” he asked.

  “My mate…the girl?” he asked.

  “I assumed she was. You look similar and are traveling together, alone. Plus you seem to hate each other. I can’t think of another good reason she would endanger herself in this ship if she isn’t a scavenger and she is your mate.”

  “We’re not even the same species.” William said looking slightly offended.

  “You humanoids all look alike to me. What is that thing?” he asked.

  “Part of an old apple store, not a fan of apples myself, they get freezerburnt and go bitter. Nothing valuable. Watch for frozen birds, they get stuck in the turbine and wreak havoc on your blades. At least they don’t attack you. I found part of a video file some time ago with some early humans firing frozen chickens into windshields. Apparently chickens were prone to attacking and penetrating your front glass. It must have been a real problem.” He noted.

  “That’s terrifying.” Marley said looking adorably mortified.

  “Yea, they just fly right at you and tear through the hull, engines, cockpit. The audio was ruined but the video was rather clear. Chickens were a serious threat to early space-travel vehicles. I’m sure they can’t get through a more modern craft, that front glass is 2 inches thick.” He assured, dodging a small rock.

  “Yes, such a formidable beast would never think to aim for the flapping tape circle on top that ironically resembles a target.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Hey, here we go. You wanted food...forget the ration packs…I present to you the jackpot of debris.” He said veering towards a semi-trailer spinning adrift with a big red and white logo. He fired the grappling hook and began bracing. There was a hefty thud and they were locked in. footsteps approached softy, yet angrily.

  “What the Shit, Lawg?! You can’t warn me before you go ramming something?” said an angry Uka with her blue bed-hair frizzed.

  “Sorry, forgot you were sleeping. We found something good.” He said carefully manipulating the grappling arm to guide the debris chunks to the new cargo-bay.

  They stood in the cargo bay.

  “See? Gold-mine.” He said standing proudly with his foot on a pair of mangled vending machine.

  “So these metal crates have food in them?” asked Uka.

  “This one has liquids, the other has solid rations. They’re sealed pretty tight so most of the cans and packages are preserved.” He said as he pried the front off and with a tail-wiggle, Marley snagged the first can that fell out and began trying to bite it open.

  “Pull tab on top open the cans.” said William. There was a faint click and then a deep concussive detonation, bouncing Marley off the side wall and droplets of soda rained down on them.

  “Yea you gotta tap them for a minute while they warm up. The vacuum of space does weird shit to carbonated stuff. You wouldn’t think bubbles would pack that kind of force but, well, there you have it.” he casually said tapping the top of his can as Marley just laid there, sprawled out like a rag doll.

  “What is this stuff?” asked Uka.

  “Human Soda. Mostly sugar and caffeine, perfect chasers and packed with essential calories. The Cocaine Company developed it for a mixer in the early 1700’s. Very hard to get this stuff anywhere but the debris field is just loaded with them. As Captain, I call dibs on the red ones. Everything else is fair scavenge. He said grabbing a red can and putting it under his arm to warm. He walked to the nearby cabinet and dug around for a bottle of Cuban rum. He opened it and gave the can a few taps before slowly cracking it.

  “Best drink ever invented: Rum and Cola. They called this a Chupacabra.” He said proudly getting the mix just right and sipping it gently, noticing Marley still lying prone and his foot twitching.

  “Is he dead?” she asked.

  “Nah, he’s fine. Delmarians are tougher than they look.” He muttered, strolling to the closet to store his prizes.

  “Don’t they usually move a little bit?” she asked.

  “I dunno…I’m a historical scavenger not an alien medic. Try lightly kicking his chintacles.” He suggested.

  “Aren’t those genitalia?” she asked.

  “Nope, common mistake. Those are electronic scenting glands or something.”

  “That can’t be accurate.” She doubted, lightly poking him with her shoe. He groaned and opened his eyes.

  “Nope. He is alive.” she smiled.

  “Damn right I am!” he wheezed. “And you better not be thinking about eating me, even if I was dead. You carnivores are disgusting.” Marley yelled.

  “You just said Delmarians are warriors and you massacred the Kepler Empire or something.” William said enjoying his Cuban Libra, or whatever.

  “War is hell, man. A lot of people die, but eating the bodies is a totally different low.” He said snatching the soda from William, who opened it as he was preaching and handed it his direction. He swigged it down and let out a belch.

  “That is actually pretty good.” He admitted just before the lights went out. There was silence in the darkness as a sudden and quiet chuckle filled the cargo bay.

  “You guys can’t see in the dark can you?” asked Marley.

  “Come on, man. Don’t be a furry little dick, turn the light back on.” insisted William. The sound of furry feet patting away proceeded the awkward silence.

  “Blow me up with a beverage and then ask me to turn the lights back on.” He muttered leaving the cargo bay with his drink.

  “So…you like the soda?” he asked the darkness.

  “You set the kitchen light alarm to switch to the red lights that you forgot to replace… didn’t you?” Uka asked in the blackness, cracking open a soda.

  “Yep…Chupacabra?” he asked, holding out the bottle in whatever direction he assumed she was.

  “I hate you.” she muttered.