CHAPTER 1
Seven passengers on the interstellar transport ship Raptor in transit from here to there have been notified by the ship’s computer that Captain Darcy has been incapacitated. Leaving them to fend for themselves while he recovers in a medical pod. This is their story.
Beef Lightspeed woke up horny. The flashing red “incoming message” light on the cabin console was shining through his eyelids and brought back the memory of his favourite spacebar, Bonerz, scene of countless sexy adventures.
He rolled over onto his belly, activating the integral SuckeeThing in his space pajamas when the ship’s computer spoke, repeating the message and putting him right off his stroke. “Emergency - Chain of Command error - The Captain is incapacitated in the Medbay. Emergency - Chain of Command error - The Captain is incapacitated in the Medbay.”
“It looks like your morning tug will have to wait” Beef told his reflection as he hacked the ship’s navigation system and unpacked his sexiest uniform from his spacecase. “this ship needs a pilot”
Chardonnay Cunninglinguist was a paradox. An Explorer who hated travel. She loved being on strange new worlds, meeting aliens and seeing if their mating habits aligned with her anatomy but she hated all the time spent in transit. Sure, Hyperjump technology had shrunk the galaxy and there still might be opportunities to meet people on a ship but these days the Consortium was so itchy about rebels and space captains so obsessed with hijacking that just getting onto a ship was its own saga and passengers were rarely allowed to roam. Travel in the interstellar cruise liners was cheaper but the routes weren’t exactly good territory for Explorers and there was little chance of meeting anything new in the stimulation or penetration line.
She’d told the Raptor’s Captain Darcy that she’d know her destination when she saw it and gave him enough money to stay on board for several jumps. When asked about the other passengers he shrugged and told her that most passengers stayed in their cabins to maintain their privacy and he advised her to do the same.
Five jumps into her voyage she was reviewing the food synthesiser’s history file and noticed that since the Raptor’s last stop, cabin 12's occupant had been making exotic foodstuffs unknown to Chardonnay. A tingle of excitement. Could there be an Alien on board? A sexy Alien perhaps?
But how to get to cabin 12 when the Captain won’t allow passengers to roam the ship?
Her console light blinked with an urgent message...
Ian, Alien Envoy and career Diplomat only ever really wanted to be Captain of a Spaceship. A lifetime spent watching every space drama, space love story, space adventure, space documentary and military space history had driven this desire into his hearts. He wanted it with all his being. Unfortunately for Ian, Envoy was his caste, occupation, inheritance and obligation. On his planet, all jobs were predetermined. Every direct ancestor of Ian’s had been an Envoy. Every hatchling, suckling and dingaling that descended from Ian would be an Envoy. Ian ached to break the shackles of his destiny and spent as much time in spaceships as he could, being near Space Captains and observing them. He imagined scenarios where he would be called upon to "become the Captain". He knew what he had to do and where he had to be if that day ever came.
Ian had diplomatically suggested that he be assigned the cabin closest to the Armoury.
“You’re in Cabin 12 Envoy” Darcy said as he handed over the key card.
When the Raptor’s computer told Ian that the Captain had been incapacitated he realised Fate wanted Ian to fulfil his dream. Ian leapt from his chair, hiked up his ceremonial robes (Envoy’s are always on duty) and ran as fast as he could out of his cabin.
Dr Feelwood was on his first vacation for over ten years. Not so much a vacation as an enforced period of absence. Despite degrees from some of the best medical schools in the galaxy he’d got a reputation as being a bit of a butcher. His patient death/survival ratio was not what is should be for a doctor in the 39th century. Perhaps that was because Feelwood saw himself as a field surgeon who liked getting his hands dirty, not one of these spotless quacks who let their computers and robots do all the work. For Feelwood, medicine was a discipline to solve problems using instinct and experiment. Nothing was going to persuade him otherwise. He’d taken passage in the Raptor after being abandoned by his employer “Space Adventure Tours for Kids”. A misunderstanding about vaccinations that had led to an unfortunate outcome for a large tour group. Maybe a break from work would help change his luck and give him time to catch up on some reading. He did love a mystery story and the galaxy was full of them.
Naturally when he found out the Captain was in trouble, he went to the Infirmary to help out.
DELTA ECHO ECHO PAPA - 6th Iteration - Android Explorer
DEEP6 to species that communicate in English
DEEP to friends
The 6th iteration of the DEEP series was not your typical android. State of the Art hardware upgrades meant that 6 was the most capable of the series but five lifetimes of memories, experiences and centuries-old machine learning algorithms had made DEEP6 significantly more emotional than its ancestors and most other androids. If DEEP6 had a heart and a sleeve, people would say “there’s an Android that wears its heart on its sleeve”. If DEEP6 had motives, people would say “that Android’s motives are transparent”. DEEP6 displayed a lot of information on its surface all the time. Consisting mostly of nanites, DEEP6 could take on almost any form with any appearance but defaulted to a medium sized humanoid with words, colours, pictures and shapes being displayed on its skin at all times in an apparently involuntary display of its inner thoughts and feelings. Imagine a shop mannequin with a with skin like a cuttlefish and no filter.
Brimming with emotions, desires and needs that have to be gratified at all times and in all ways could be considered a problem but for DEEP6 most experiences have already been catalogued and recorded by DEEPs 1 to 5. This tempered the desire for experience with the stoic knowledge that new experiences were harder to find and one day there would be no new feelings to feel. DEEP6 didn’t know what was going to happen on that day and in a way that would be a new experience in itself. So DEEP6 just keeps moving and looking and exploring to see what the Universe has on offer. When the ship notified DEEP6 that the Captain was incapacitated it shrugged (DEEP 1,2 and 5 had all experienced something similar and nothing much new had been learned since the first instance) and went to the bridge to access the sensor array and see if there was anything more promising nearby.
If Janet Fromaccountz had friends they might describe her as very competent but a little on the square side. Janet likes to be in control. Or rather Janet doesn’t like things to be out of control. She doesn’t necessarily want be the one to make the big decisions but she knows the people who do make the big decisions need to be confident in Janet, her abilities and her determination for everything to be just right for the big decision to be made properly. Janet’s motto is “There is a place for everything and everything has its place”. Janet was alarmed when the computer told her that nice Captain Darcy was incapacitated but she was confident that the medbay would look after him until he woke up. She also knew it was her responsibility to prevent chaos taking over the ship before the Captain did wake up. She knew the tools she’d need to do that and where she’d find them.
When Janet got to the Armoury she was surprised to see an alien dressed for a party kick the door and scuttle down the corridor towards the bridge. She wondered what the alien was up to as she unlocked the Armoury door, scanned the weapons on display and grabbed the smallest fuchsia coloured item in the room. Health and Safety regulations specify that munitions are colour coded according to action and purpose and Janet was very familiar with all manner of H&S legislation so she had some idea what she had taken. Also fuchsia is her second favourite colour.
Don’t mess with Fuckface. People who mess with Fuckface get their faces fucked by Fuckface and not in a good way. Don’t mess with Fuckface. That is all.
When Fuckface heard that the Captain was sleeping on the job he knew the Captain was fucking with him. No one fucks with Fuckface and gets away with it. Fuckface went to the Infirmary to sort the Captain the fuck out.
