Kevin Scott Feldman
Chapter 1: What’s That?
When: Sometime in the Distant Future, in a time period pretty Far Out from whatever was the peculiar moment in time in which you have endeavored to read this story.
Where: Somewhere in the Thurman Solar System.
“What’s that?” The tall, Irish, red-headed lanky Ig said to his brownish-green, three-eyed, portly alien friend, Oook.
Both beings had the extreme pleasure of serving as the Chief Engineer & General Maintenance Crew onboard the MAACP A Class War Craft, Tantra. The spaceship had managed to drop out of its hyperspace coordinates into an asteroid field, and was currently suffering from a barrage of heavy strikes.
In the bowels of the Spaceship Tantra, the gold winged beast’s creaky metal innards shook from a rhythm of hits punching the hull of the ship. Ig, the thirty year old, red-headed, pasty skinned, human mechanic, and, Oook, the rotund, three-eyed Garangarlan engineer grabbed onto anything that would keep them upright, steadying themselves through the rattling of the spaceship.
Oook garbled something alien and unintelligible out of his alien face at his friend, Ig.
“Fark, I wish you’d speak english, I can never understand what you’re saying," Ig replied to Oook’s nonsensical alien garbling.
Oook gave him an exasperated look and pointed at the hull above.
“How does that help? What does the ceiling have to do with anything?” Ig facetiously asked Oook.
Suddenly, a loud booming voice came over the Tantra’s intercom and said, “Captain Johnson Jackson here, we dropped out of hyperspace missing our space-time navigational coordinates. Most likely because Lt. Farcus is a boob.”
Lt. Frankie Farcus meagerly protested in the background, “Am not, you just don’t listen to—“
The Captain interrupted him and yelled, “Anyway, brace for —“
SMASH.
A large violent strike shook the Tantra throwing Ig and Oook to the floor.
Back on the intercom, the Captain’s voice returned, “That. Yeah that was a big one, you might want to strap in.”
“I think we should get out of here," Ig said to Oook. Ig looked around and found that Oook had already fled the scene leaving him behind.
“Shite, shite, shite, shite," Ig exclaimed running at full speed to the Bay Lifts after Oook.
One of the two elevator Lifts was inoperable because Ig and Oook hadn’t been able to fix it. The other Lift was currently occupied by Oook, sweeping the alien away to safety.
Not remembering that he hadn’t fixed the broken Lift, Ig frantically hit the button to activate the Lift, only to find that nothing happened. The Tantra lurched forward from the impact of another forceful hit. The powerful strike launched Ig in the air, forcefully landing his slender body onto the metal floor of the craft.
Ig, weary from the fall, summoned himself to his feet. He pulled out a small computer-like device from his sleeve.
“Computer, I need you to open Lift 2," Ig said into his sleeve.
The Tantra Computer responded over the loud speaker in her mothering female voice, “Lift 2 is broken, why would you want to open it?”
Ig angrily interrupted the computer and said, “Goddam it, Computer, we’re under attack. I think its pretty obvious don’t you.”
The Tantra Computer responded to Ig’s protestations in her mothering manner, “Of course, Opening Lift 2."
The second elevator door finally opened revealing the inner workings of the Gravo-Fusion Assault Class Tantra. The cavernous elevator lift pierced straight through the Ship’s gravity-well to the Captain’s nest above.
“Ig, my darling, how are you going to navigate the Gravity Core?” The Tantra Computer asked curiously in its gentle mothering way.
Ig activated a button on his plain blue engineer clothes. The action turned his workmen’s clothes into a space-ready suit equipped with a flight pack. He pushed a button on his sleeve that activated the flight pack.
He floated into the Lift and sped off, ascending up through the shaft towards the Captain’s deck. Speeding towards the Captain’s deck, Ig caught up to Oook’s Lift, ceremoniously delivering Oook the finger as he passed him bye.
BOOM.
The Tantra suffered another powerful strike, this time slowing Oook’s Lift down to a stop. The massive hit felt bigger than the others, and abruptly caused the Lift to halt in its tracks. Sulking, Oook activated his space suit and flight pack, and flew off after Ig through the ceiling of the elevator.
Oook caught up to his human friend within a few seconds.
Ig greeted him and said, “Hello there boyo, should’ve stayed with me instead of leaving me picking my arse."
Oook activated a button on his sleeve and mumbled something in his alien tongue. A British male voice leapt out of Oook’s sleeve, and repeated inside Ig’s helmet, “You would’ve done the same Ig, if you had the same idea."
“I wish you’d change the voice on that thing, like maybe to American or something. You know, according to Earth’s history, the Irish and the English have been at war with each other for centuries,” Ig said to Oook.
Oook gargled something unintelligible and his sleeve spoke again, resonating inside Ig’s helmet, “It all sounds the same to me."
That was a lie.
Oook had intentionally chosen the English accent to rouse Ig.
Ig laughed and replied, “Yeah, you’re telling me, at least you can understand me."
Oook gargled a response.
Ig interrupted Oook’s sleeve, before he could finish his thought and said, “Yeah, I know I can’t understand your language because, we, humans, only use 10% of our brain capacity. Not everybody can be as smart as you Oook."
Ig loved hanging out with Oook because he never felt like the weird one. When in reality, most humans would probably have preferred Oook’s alien company to Ig’s constant yammering.
Ig and Oook arrived simultaneously at the Captain’s Deck, and readied themselves to enter into the relative safety of the perch when the doors to the deck refused to open.
“Huh, I thought we bloody fixed the buggers yesterday?” Ig asked Oook.
Oook’s sleeve-voice responded, “We did, I don’t think that’s what’s keeping us out."
Ig activated his com link and said, “Computer, could you please open the doors to the Captain’s deck."
“I wouldn’t do that right now, if I were you," the Computer responded.
Ig finally lost his temper at the Computer, and said, “Damn it computer, I asked nicely, just do what I say!”
He sarcastically looked at Oook and said, “What’s the worse that could happen, right?”
“Right away," the Computer responded and capitulated.
The doors opened.
No more Captain’s Deck.
No more pilot controls.
Just the vast space and a deserted uninhabitable Beta 5 planet in the distance. Blue and big in the background, the gigantic planet cast a terrifying back drop on the remnant’s of the Captain’s star deck, which now was set a drift in space, presumably destroyed by one of the large asteroids that hit the ship.
Both Ig and Oook floated out of the now static drifting Tantra using their Flight Packs. Both beings had more than enough oxygen to survive for several days in the vastness of Space, so they took their time ingesting their new reality.
“I think given the circumstances, we should both agree, that I’m the Captain from here on out," Ig said to Oook.
“What’s that?” The British voice replied from Oook’s sleeve.
“Because I’m a faster thinker then you. Its about mental acuity, and some of us are blessed, others not so much. Its not about brain capacity like you always blather on about," Ig said to Oook.
Ig made a hand gesture of quotes around the words “brain capacity” just to emphasize his point of his own greatness to Oook.
“You, Captain?” Oook’s sleeve replied
“Yeah, that’s right,” Ig said to Oook.
Oook laughed in his deep alien laugh, and his British male voice from his sleeve laughed, and the Tantra Computer laughed, laughing in chorus at the preposterousness of the proposition: Ig was Captain.
Oook left Ig alone, laughing as he exited the star deck. He continued to repeat the phrase, “Ig’s Captain," to himself, each time laughing at the thought of the idea.
Ig bowed his head in anger and hovered alone on what was the remnants of the Captain’s Star Deck, to contemplate his next move as the newly self-appointed Captain of the Tantra.
“I don’t care what that dumb alien thinks, I’m going to fark this universe up the arse as Captain of the Tantra,” Ig said out loud to himself.
The Computer responded, “Ig, was that a question or are you talking to yourself again?”
“Captain,” Ig replied to the Computer. “You forgot to say Captain.”