Edge of the Generic Ice Planet Five System, Aboard the Unfortunate Predicament II
Father Terrence had scarcely been on the Unfortunate Predicament II for an hour, and he already knew he disliked cargo ships, and that he would have much preferred to stay home. At least then he wouldn't have been filthy and covered in ingredients for his favorite dish. Nor would he have been shot at, nor would he have nearly died from all of the splintered timber from The Broken Axle, nor would he have thrown up as the Unfortunate Predicament II threw his body around violently.
Father Terrence also knew that when God calls, you gotta take it. That is why he found himself in his new room on a cargo freighter that smelled like the pee-word with twenty other passengers expecting him to cook something while his potato salad ingredients were ruined. Adding insult to injury, it looked as though that fellow Huang hadn't moved a finger to fix the holy father's mattress situation. In short, it was a very bad day for Father Terrence. He sat down in the one chair in the room and rubbed his temples as he thought to himself, trying to ignore the foul-smelling bed.
Gosh, what am I going to for dinner now that I can’t impress these folks with my famous potato salad?
He walked around the room in circles, as he often did when he was working on a sermon or his poetry.
If I was an atheist what would I eat?
“No, that’s a bad question. Atheists eat the same things everyone else eats...I think.” Father Terrence spoke out loud to himself, unaware of the visitor who had just opened the door.
“Boss said there was a piss mattress here.”
Father Terrence coughed, and turned to eye a tall asian man with a scruffy beard wearing gray overalls and a nametag that read “Huang” on it.
"Oh, so you must be Huang."
"Yeah." Huang brushed past Father Terrence, hoisted the twin mattress on one shoulder, and walked back towards the door.
Probably don't want to bother him about the pee-word.
"Oh Huang, one more thing, if you don't mind."
Huang stopped for a second, sighed, and asked "what?"
"Actually two things. Do atheists eat meat? And where is the shower?"
"Shower's behind your closet. Standing room only...and sure, I guess. I here to do my job, not to know what people eat."
"Thank you Huang."
The quartermaster left without an acknowledgement.
Well that's a relief, looks like the captain eats meat after all.
Terrence opened the closet to find the shower, quickly rinsed, and set off to the kitchen to begin the burgers, assuming there was any meat on the ship.
***
Sabina had always hated mayonnaise, but now that her feathers were covered in it she loathed it. Much of her free time was spent grooming and preening her coat, and in a matter of seconds Father Terrence’s foul condiment had ruined weeks of work. The Life-Support-and-Convenience Officer was going to have to work overtime to get the rainbow sheen back, and to make matters worse the passenger was hogging all of the room-temperature water.
I really should have restricted access to that when Garret wasn’t around.
“Where did that guy even find us anyhow?” she muttered to herself under her breath. Her voice had a southern drawl to it (she’d had a big Dolly Parton phase in college, and the accent was the only thing that remained).
Finally, the read-out on her comm-unit showed that the room-temperature water tank was no longer being used up, and was safe for use.
Thank the All-Feather.
And just as Sabina was about to undress Huang opened the door to her room with Father Terrence’s dirty mattress hanging over his shoulder.
“Need your help getting the piss out of this mattress. Biohazards are your job, not mine.” Huang said.
“Mother feather…” Sabina spoke under her breath.
First the tepid water, now a piss mattress?
“Why didn’t you bring this to me before I had gotten mayonnaise on my feathers? I do not have time for this. You’re the quartermaster, aren’t mattresses your job?” Sabina let her practiced southern drawl come out a bit more.
“Clean mattresses, yes. Piss mattresses, no. According to the Intergalactic Unpleasantry Registrar, all human piss mattresses need to be dealt with by the ship’s Life-Support-and-Convenience Officer-” Huang retorted.
“-And according to your job description, you’re supposed to remove the piss mattress and get our guest a new one.” Sabina interjected
Huang dropped the mattress on the floor of Sabina’s room, and spoke as he walked out.
“We’re out of mattresses.”
“You’re so fucking lazy! I can’t believe you!” Sabina kicked the mattress with her bare claw, and held back tears as she walked all the way to her room’s intercom where she dialed the number for HR.
Serves him right for being a dick.
***
Elsewhere within the Unfortunate Predicament II, Father Terrence walked with great speed down the metal stairs of the spaceship; he had just realized that part of the poem had mentioned his exact situation. He would be able to cook after all! What, however, he would not know until he found it.
When paper enclosures fail
And no longer can you eat
Go low in your Unfortunate Predicament
And there you will find meat
Not too low, though, for that would be doom
The meat you seek is in a hidden room
Behind a wall of metal, disguised with guile
On the intercom, 1-9-19-1946, is the number you should dial
After jogging for about fifteen minutes, Terrence was sure he had found the right spot. In front of him stood a thick door with an image of a simplified canadian goose on it: the universal symbol for radioactivity and death. While he was personally not well-versed in all of the symbols for danger and death, it did help that under the symbol of the goose (new to him) someone had posted a large white sign scrawled in sharpie that read: “Do not enter. Certain death. Thanks! Have a nice day! Love, Sabina.”
And, as if pre-empting a time where that sign was somehow not clear enough, a large display above the door read “It has been 238 days since the last accidental immolation in the ship’s fusion core.”
Well, that’s certainly doom. Father Terrence thought, as he punched in the code on the intercom to the right of the radiation-proof door.
The wall with the intercom rumbled, shook, and slowly sank into the ground revealing a small cramped room with several insulated and pin-locked shipping crates.
Ah, this must be where they store the extra frozen goods.
Figuring that the last cook had probably intentionally left the meat instead of re-stocking the fridge, Terrence started to check the crates for the promised meat. Fortunately for the holy father the same password from the intercom worked to open the first crate, and low-and-behold it was a freezer crate full of pucks of white meat.
“Turkey! Thanks, God!” the holy father said as he closed the crate, pressed the “hover” function, and walked out of the room with it. He was not looking forward to the long climb up the stairs, the run downwards to the meat had already exhausted him. It was as he lamented his stair-climbing fate he remembered the final two lines of the poem.
The stairs, you should tread.
Take the freight elevator instead.
And at that moment he realized he had completely missed the large freight elevator next to the stairs on his way down.
Well, better late than never. Terrence thought, as he loaded the crate of frozen meat and rode the freight lift up to the kitchen to make hamburgers.
***
Captain Garret was surprised to learn that Father Terrence had prepared burgers instead of the potato salad he had promised. Not upset, of course (who would be), but surprised nonetheless, as he could have sworn that Harold had thrown out all of the frozen beef before he quit. Not that Garret would actually swear in the kitchen anymore, considering who cooked in there now.
Garret was more surprised to see that the type of burger Terrence was serving: it looked like chicken. It had been a long time since he had eaten any chicken, now that he thought about it. The ship had stopped stocking it after Sabina had joined.
Oh God Sabina.
As if pre-planned, Sabina trotted into the room, clearly distressed if her feathers were any indication of her mood, and realized the entire room was eating chicken burgers.
The Avian woman stood their thunderstruck with her wide beak agape.
The room turned mostly silent as everyone turned to look at Sabina. U-turn was mid bite when Donut punched him in the shoulder to stop him from eating. Father Terrence, oblivious to commotion, had not stopped cooking and was singing Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 to himself. Finishing up a burger, he leaned out of the kitchen window with a plate and in a jolly tone spoke to Garret.
“Captain, burger for you!”
Sabina started sobbing and ran off towards the hall towards the staircase, and what most of the crew assumed to be the reactor doors. U-Turn set his burger down and sprinted after her yelling.
“Sab! Sab! Wait! Holy shit we’re so fucking sorry we forgot!”
Terrence, picking up on the tone of the room, whispered to the Captain.
“Captain...uh, what just happened.”
Garret was not in the mood to answer the priest’s question, and instead grilled the holy father.
“We don’t serve bird on this fuckin-”
“Ahem.” The holy father coughed and gulped, realizing that he had drawn the captain’s rage.
“No. Listen to me. No interruptions.”
Father Terrence nodded.
“We don’t serve fowl on this ship. Where did you find the meat?” Garret grilled Terrence.
“In that lovely storage unit next to the door with a bunch of signs on it. Captain.” Terrence replied sheepishly.
You’re fucking joking.
“Okay Father, you’re going to tell me how you found that compartment, and how you got that code. But first, we’re going to have to stop for groceries again.” Garret walked over to the intercom, and dialed up the cockpit on it.
“Bleepqort, Chavez, hit jump space and take us to the closest Megamart. We need groceries again. I am not eating penguin meat, and neither is ANYONE on this crew.”
Several of the crew spit out their burgers, disgusted that they had enjoyed Father Terrence’s newly-infamous penguin burgers.
