《Dave: Space Trucker》


 Hairspray

    Coffee. As with everything in this world of ours, coffee has had it''s merits and drawbacks debated fervently by any number of people with a mouth and a halfway formed thought. Dave wishes everyone to know that they can take their negative thoughts on coffee and dive in a deep dark hole. He needs his coffee as much, if not more, than the air he breathes. If he could hyper-oxygenate coffee he would probably attempt to breath it. That being said it is no shock at all to find Dave standing in his kitchen, two minutes and twelve seconds after waking up, pouring himself a cup of coffee left over from yesterdays pot. One does not waste coffee, even if a day old. Or maybe even two.


    After taking his first sip he wobbled over to the kitchen table, sat, and turned on the tv. Only it doesn''t in fact turn on. Because in his caffeine deprived minutes after waking up he did not in fact grab the remote to the tv. Sitting there pressing his finger against the wrapper of a breakfast bar that was left on the table would have been an amusing sight had anyone been there to witness. As realization sets in that he is in fact not holding the remote, Dave decided that downing the remainder of his first cup of cold coffee, and turning on the light, may be prudent courses of action.


    With the coffee downed and the light now on finding the remote was fairly simple. Flipping the tv on he navigated his way over to WGN morning news. Dave prefers WGN in the morning as while they do report all the news, they try to keep things light hearted. Yes, the world is going to shit, but since there is very little he can do about it he may as well have a good laugh while fighting off the existential dread. Time for more coffee. Filling his cup with the remainder of the contents of the pot he prepared the coffee maker to brew a fresh pot.


    The news anchor currently speaking is reporting on a weird series of lights seen in the sky over Lake Michigan by a group of people who were out on a party boat the night before. Obviously the consumption of alcohol while at sea has always led to some questionable issues with eyesight. Just then, the windows of the house rattled loudly followed a millisecond afterward by a loud bang. Now Dave is not completely unflappable. In fact he has been flapped quite a few times in his life. However, after many years of dealing with less than desirable circumstances Dave has developed a well tailored resting bitch face that remains locked on at all times. Even in his sleep. So while he did not outwardly appear to be concerned about what sounded like a small explosion coming from the back of the house, he did in fact grab his coffee cup and head out the back door to investigate.


    Upon exiting the door and turning left to face his garage he saw the tell tail trail of smoke rising up above his neighbors garage. It wasn''t a lot of smoke. Looked like the results of a small campfire perhaps. It wasn''t billowing and looked as if there wasn''t an active fire so the investigation continued. Stepping into his garage and opening the rolling door to the alley Dave tried to ignore the absolute mess that was his garage. Boxes of things he will probably never need, use, or interact with again just sitting about haphazardly. Saddest part is, a lot of it wasn''t even his. Dave turned out to be his family''s version of u-store-it, except without the monthly fee.


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    Shaking himself out of his thoughts of being walked all over by friends and family he continued through the garage and stepped out into the gravel of the alley. Looking to his left he immediately noticed that the garage door across the alley from his neighbor had a slight depression in it that was not there before. The depression was vaguely human shaped with arms and legs akimbo. Lowering his gaze to the alley below the door was a gently smoking body in much the same position as the impression on the door. He wasn''t overly concerned as to the state of the person on the ground as he could hear the soft moaning of pain. Pain was good. Pain means there''s still life. Taking a glance over towards his neighbors'' garage Dave saw the front end of a late 70''s dodge dart halfway in the alley with the hood open and smoke gently rising from it.


    The still living and in pain individual was Chad. Chad is a very complex person once you get to know him. His actions often leave him labeled as an idiot. However, Chad is a very intelligent person, he just lacks the little voice in his head that says "This is a bad idea". Coffee cup in hand Dave walked over to Chad and, trying not to sound at all like he was amused by this in any way said, "Hey Chad. You ok my guy?". Getting his hands underneath him, Chad slowly started pushing himself up and replied "I think so, but I don''t know what happened." Dave stepped over hand offered a free hand to help get the man to his feet making sure not to spill the coffee.


    As Chad arose and Dave got a good look at his face the facade of not being amused by all of this completely disappeared as Dave erupted into uproarious laughter. One may wonder as to the character of a man that would laugh at his neighbor in such a situation. But seeing a mans face with decidedly missing eyebrows who was not currently going through cancer treatments would activate the schadenfreude in anyone. Chad looked puzzled at Dave''s response but wrote it off as Dave being Dave.


    "So, do I want to ask what happened here?" Dave inquired as his laughter subsided. "Well it wouldn''t start" Chad replied in a matter of fact tone. "I looked it up on google and most of the solutions I found said to spray starting fluid into the carburetor to give a little push". Dave nodded, that was indeed one way of assisting an old carbureted engine to start, providing there was nothing else wrong with it. Chad continued, "Well I didn''t have any starting fluid. But I know that I can turn my wife¡¯s hairspray into a flamethrower so.." Dave cut him off immediately, "WAIT, you tried to use hairspray.... as starting fluid?" Apparently Chad had not quite caught on to the growing hilarity of the situation and responded in all seriousness, "Yes, sprayed the whole can in there before trying to start it."


    Sure enough as Dave looked under the hood of the old car a completely empty can of Aqua Net lay right next to the manual starting switch that Chad had connected to the starter solenoid. He tried, really tried to not facepalm right there and then. He failed. Looking at Chad and his distinct lack of eyebrows Dave said "Well, I have to get ready for work, you better go inside and make sure nothing is broken.¡± Chad slowly nodded and headed off through his garage to his house. As Dave turned to return home he said to himself ¡°Just can¡¯t make this stuff up.¡±

 Dumbass

    Two cups of coffee and a shower later Dave stood in his bedroom preparing for his day. Being a truck driver, he had to ensure that muscles were stretched, vitamins were consumed, food was packed, and the mental tools that prevented road rage and vehicular manslaughter were all in place and functioning. That last one may or may not always work too well, but so far he hasn¡¯t flown off the handle yet and turned some four wheeler into a hood ornament. As preparations were coming to a close his phone started ringing. The opening lines of Weird Al¡¯s Dare to be Stupid filling the air. This ring tone was setup for only 1 person and as he reached for his phone the caller ID indeed confirmed a call from Lord Dumbass IV.


    Lord Dumbass IV, also known as Henry, was Dave¡¯s drive dispatcher. His fourth dispatcher since being hired on with his current company. Henry was only marginally less dumb than dumbasses one through three, but only marginally. Taking a deep breath and preparing his customer service voice he answered the call, ¡°Hello Henry! What can do for you today?¡± Henry replied in his slightly nasal voice ¡°Hey Dave. Umm, we had to cancel your loads for this week. We have a special load that we need you on. Pays a dollar fifty per mile plus a thousand dollar bonus upon completion. I just need you to stop into my office once you get here to the yard.¡±. Dave mentally sighed. He was supposed to have two local deliveries and one regional run this week and now had to change gears for whatever this run was.


    While Dave wanted to complain about the utter nonsense it was to change last minute he instead said, ¡°Alright Henry, be there in about thirty minutes¡±. Henry, being the oh so personable soul he has always been, simply hung up. ¡°Twat waffle¡± Dave muttered into the phone only slightly hoping that Henry was somehow still on the line and had heard him. Putting his phone in his pocket, he grabbed his go bag and headed out the door. As he got in his car he uttered a silent prayer for Murphy and his law to stay away today.


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    Upon arriving at the yard he parked his car next to his truck and threw his bag inside then headed inside for Henry¡¯s office. Henry was on the phone with a driver who recently got his CDL and was giving the absolutely wrong advice to address a situation involving sliding the tandems on an older trailer. Dave resisted the face palm urge this time. But only just. After henry finished his call he pulled a packet of papers out of his desk and handed it to Dave. ¡°I need you to sign this.¡±. Confused, Dave took the packet and looked to see the words ¡°NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT¡± across the top. ¡°I¡¯ve never had to sign an NDA for a load before, Henry. I don¡¯t know how comfortable I am with this.¡± Dave stated. Henry, not paying much attention, said ¡°Oh they just want to make sure you don¡¯t talk about this load. Not where you picked up, or delivered. No trailer number. Not a big deal.¡±


    Dave raised an eyebrow so high he thought it may be floating above his head. ¡°It could be a very big deal if I get pulled over or pulled in at a weigh station for an inspection.¡±, he said. Henry looked as though he was having acid reflux just then, but calmly replied ¡°I¡¯ve been assured you don¡¯t have to worry about any of that¡±. While something didn¡¯t feel quite right about all of this, Dave couldn¡¯t deny that the pay was probably worth keeping his mouth shut. Of course Dave didn¡¯t talk about work with anyone as it was so in the end he didn¡¯t see an issue. He inwardly wondered what it was Henry had gotten himself into. After signing the NDA Henry handed over the load information.

 Atypical

    As people grow older things that once may have been noticed as out of the ordinary quickly become ordinary through repetition. Hence why as Dave completed this mystery load several things flew under his fucks to give radar. First, the pickup location was a nondescript warehouse in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a 15 foot fence topped with razor wire. This did not set off any particular senses, as Dave had picked up and delivered to many places of similar ilk.


    Second, the pick up did not involve any people. There was a sign with a phone number to call that when called asked him to enter the load identification number. Once entered a clearly computer generated voice gave him the trailer number to pickup. Many shippers over the past several years have moved to a no contact computerized system so this didn¡¯t tingle any spidey senses either.


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    Third, when arriving at his destination he was directed to drive down a ramp and into a tunnel. At first this didn¡¯t awaken any sense of nonconformity until Dave realized he¡¯d been driving in this tunnel for nearly 5 minutes. It was at this point that the afore mentioned incongruities dawned on Dave. Of course a healthy dose of nihilism caused him to only focus on the oddness of it all for exactly three seconds before noticing a light at the end of tunnel.

 Bowels

    Jacob worked private security. His current contract had him guarding a single dock door in the bottom of a strange structure that required a golf cart ride of a few miles to reach. Jacob was perfect for this assignment as he never asked questions and did what he was told. He didn¡¯t really have any friends or family. He stayed in a small 1 bedroom apartment in Chicago, ate, slept, worked, and played video games while not working. Most of his 12 hour night shift consisted of sitting in a tiny room next to a gate and giving instructions to delivery drivers. In his mind it was the easiest money he ever made.


    While not necessarily considered to be a health nut, Jacob did make a concerted effort to keep himself in some form of general good health. He walked and took public transportation wherever generally reasonable. He avoided junk and fast foods for the most part. On this day, for some inexplicable reason, he had an extreme craving for White Castles before going into work. He figured a little bit of junk was ok every now and then so he had a sack of 10 sliders before reporting to work.


    Jacob all but forgot about the gastrointestinal effects of his dinner until he was rudely reminded by a sudden urge to empty his bowels at three in the morning¡­ Just as a truck pulled through the tunnel and up to the gate. So, while furiously clenching his cheeks, he proceeded out of the room to give the typical instructions to the driver. ¡°Pull in and you¡¯ll see the dock door, there¡¯s just enough room to turn around and back into the dock. Do not move the truck until you get the green light, and DO NOT leave your truck for any reason.¡±


    Not giving the driver any time to talk he quickly opened the gate to let the truck through and penguin walked as fast as he could back to the door. In his haste to reach a toilet and sweet relief, he didn¡¯t quite pull the security door open enough and as he tried to pass through the door slammed into his left shoulder pushing his right side into the door jamb. What Jacob failed to notice was that his right pocket got momentarily caught and the strike plate and tore a small piece of cloth off.


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    Dave watched the security guard scampering away and silently cursed the man for his utter rudeness. He pulled into a large circular room that, as the guard had said had just enough room to turn the rig around and back up to the dock door. The room was made of what looked like very old and wet brick with a very low ceiling made of considerably newer stainless steel. He backed into the dock door and within a few minutes the light turned red and he could feel the tell tale shaking of a forklift unloading the trailer.


    Most times during an unload he would lay in the sleeper bunk and either read or try to take a quick nap. On this particular morning though, as he lay down, his stomach rumbled quite vigorously with the signal of ¡°Find a toilet fast or need a change of clothing¡±. So Dave got back in the drivers seat and looked out the window. He didn¡¯t see a port-o-potty anywhere which is usually a staple at most shippers and receivers. What else does one do when told not to do something and then faced with a poop emergency? You do what you were told not to do. Dave exited the vehicle and walked toward the truck gate, noticing that the incredibly rude guard had not closed it.


    Passing through the gate there was only one door next to the guard¡¯s window. Pulling the on the handle expecting it to be locked the door opened quite easily although it was clearly a heavy security door. With the pressure in his hind quarters approaching prairie dog level he entered the door not noticing a small patch of cloth falling to the floor that had prevented to latch from engaging.

 Of Course

    Hindsight is always twenty twenty. One becomes quite aware of the mistakes that were made. Sometimes it takes awhile to realize that something was a mistake. These mistakes are often rationalized away as time has reduced the impact of them. Other mistakes hit you in the gut like a boxer almost immediately after you make them.


    In his quest to find a toilet Dave somewhat mindlessly wandered through hallways and stairways and doorways that were not intended for him to wander through. After several minutes of locked doors and not finding a bathroom he failed to notice that one particular doorway very closely resembled a hatch. A hatch complete with an aircraft type door. Nor did he notice the second hatch just a few feet further in making the room resemble an airlock. What he did notice when his mind stopped thinking about sphincter control for a second, was the large crates stacked in the room he just entered.


    He figured this must have been what his trailer was loaded with. Large crates marked with a familiar company name ¡°General Electric¡±. Whilst musing to himself that this was an awful lot of secrecy and security for a load of household appliances he then noticed another set of letters stamped on the crates. ¡°GAU-8¡±. He nearly lost his battle for sphincter control right then and there. He heard the song begin to play in his head, ¡°God¡­ Fucking Damnit Dave¡­.¡±.


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    Dave was no expert on the United States military, but he did have a little bit of knowledge. He was a fan of fighter jets and flight in general although the act of being in the air himself gave him pangs of anxiety about deceleration sickness. One of the things he knew was that the GAU-8 was the thirty millimeter gatling style cannon that the A-10 Warthog was built around. It was a beast of a weapon and the bane of ground base armored weapons and transports everywhere. He saw at least six crates from where he was standing.


    This is where the immediate gut punch of, ¡°OH¡­..I FUCKED UP¡± hit him squarely in the balls. His inner monologue decided that now would be a great time to go on a rant. ¡°Was I just complicit in weapons smuggling? Have I just gotten myself into a world of shit? You know there was a reason that the rude security guard told you to stay in your truck right? If you had a girlfriend or wife she¡¯d be calling you a dumbass right about now.¡± All of which became nearly immediately worse as he heard a noise that his brain knew were doors closing.


    ¡°Ok Dave, get your ass in gear and get back to the truck¡± he whispered to himself. The lights in the room he was in suddenly turned off leaving only a few small points of glow from near the edges of the room. Now nearly blind he turned to go back the way he came when he was suddenly, and rather violently, pulled down to the floor of the room smacking his head off the deck. As darkness began to fill his vision and consciousness leaving for a vacation his last thought was¡­ ¡°OF COURSE¡±

 Vivid Dream

    Head trauma is never something to joke around about. It can lead to all sorts of complications up to and including death. So when Dave awoke from his forced nap he wasn¡¯t too sure if he was actually conscious or not. For one thing he was in a bed. Well, not exactly a bed. Maybe a table. It wasn¡¯t soft like a mattress and his feet were dangling a little off the end. The next item up for mental debate as to his state of consciousness was the blue glow that enveloped the room. It was soft and not a harsh light, but it was hard for him to discern a light source. The last on the checklist of ¡°Am I dreaming or not?¡± came when he turned his head to the side and saw a small window about the size of a microwave door. Through this window he saw the full disc of Earth floating outside.


    While he was not prone to panic, the view of earth startled him more than a little bit. He sat bolt upright swung his legs over the side of the bed¡­ table¡­. whatever. Planted his feet on the floor and stood up. Unfortunately for Dave, while there was apparently gravity in this vivid dream of his, it was not a full one G of earth gravity. It was maybe half or less, hence the act of standing up so quickly rocketed him upwards where his head met the ceiling with a distinct gong sound and consciousness took it¡¯s second vacation.


    Sometimes when returning from an unconscious state your senses come back in an odd order. Dave heard things first. Strange things. It almost sounded like two ducks having an argument. This dream just got better and better. Then felt the headache and wanted to shield his eyes before opening them. That¡¯s when he noticed he could not move his arm. He noticed very quickly he could not move any his limbs. They weren¡¯t paralyzed, but tied down. Finally, as his eyes opened he saw the source of Donald and Daffy arguing.


    Two decidedly NOT human beings were standing over him in an apparently very heated argument. They both had gray skin but not the same shade as one was a little darker than the other. They did have what might be considered an almost human face if it weren¡¯t for twin sets of eyes. Two where human eyes normally sit and two a little higher and nearer the temples of the forehead. They both had noses and mouths that appeared human-like but the nostrils moved much more while talking almost as if the act of speaking were a job for both orifices.


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    ¡°I would really like to wake up now.¡± Dave said into the middle of the quacking argument. The being on his right started and looked down at him. Realizing that Dave was apparently awake his quacking became even more vehement. There was a sudden pain in his left arm and as he looked down he noticed that quacker number two had injected him with something. This led to a third vacation for consciousness.


    It was at dawn of consciousness for the third time that Dave decided that perhaps this might not be a vivid dream at all. He opened his eyes and was able to lift his head a little. He was alone in the same room he initially woke up in. He could see that straps were around his wrists and ankles and the strange quacks were no longer in the room. What disturbed him a little more was when he turned his head to the window and they image of earth that was there before was gone. He didn¡¯t know what to make of this. A part of his mind knew that some spacecraft that carried humans went into what was called a barbecue roll to prevent the sunward side of the ship from becoming too hot. Maybe earth was just on the other side of, whatever this was he was on.


    Dave took several deep breaths just trying to calm himself down. His head felt like, well like it had been bounced off a floor, a ceiling, then sedated. While the pain made it hard to think, Dave¡¯s penchant for scifi didn¡¯t help his thought processes. Visions of vivisections and anal probing abound. He decided that sitting still might not be the best course of action. He mustered his courage up balled up his fist and strained his right arm against the strap. To his utter amazement the strap broke nearly instantly. The unfortunate side effect of this was that his balled up fist came up and hit himself right in the middle of the forehead. ¡°DAMNIT!¡± he exclaimed.


    Just as he was about to rip free of the strap on his left wrist he heard a calm monotone voice, speaking in English utter ¡°What are you doing Dave?¡± Damn his nerd brain. A Vision of HAL 9000 causing havoc aboard the Discovery One flooded his mind and inadvertently raising his anxiety. Dave froze and replied in the most calm tone that he could muster, ¡°I would like to wake up from this dream and go home now, please.¡± After a moment the voice returned with, ¡°You are fully conscious Dave, and going home will not be possible at this moment.¡±

 Wait.... What

    Questions, questions, questions and more questions. That was the current overwhelming process in Dave''s mind right now. "Who am I speaking to?" He began. "I am this ships cognitive assistance module." came the response. Dave continued, "So you''re like an artificial intelligence?" In response the voice said, "Under current galactic law artificial intelligences must be severely limited to an array of specific tasks that do not require an abundance of creativity or individualistic thought. In my case, I am limited to fold navigation, orbital mechanics, and crew services".


    Dave nodded while speaking, "So you''re a limited A.I.. Do you have a name or a designation I should refer to you as?" For the first time there was a couple seconds of silence before the reply, "Current crew only refer to me as computer, you may use that unless you have a different designation you wish to use." Dave contemplated for a few moments and then said, "You mentioned you are the ships cognitive assistance module so I think I''ll call you Cam. Better than just computer." Cam replied, "Acknowledged. I will respond to the designation Cam while interacting with you."


    With the introduction out of the way, Dave returned to his list of questions. "So Cam, Where am I?" he asked. "You are aboard a Fa-Wel trading vessel currently delivering cargo to a trading post orbiting Fornolo." Cam replied. "Okay, but where is Fornolo. I mean how far away from Earth?" he asked. "According to earth astronomy databases, Fornolo is located approximately ten thousand light years from your Earth near the end of the Perseus Arm of the galaxy." came the response.


    Dave thought for a few seconds. That really doesn''t help much. He knows that it''s FAR, but he never learned much about astronomy so having a location relative to Earth was about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. The panic began to rise again. Taking a deep breath and tamping it down as best he could he decided to switch subjects, "Why is it not possible to return me to Earth right now?." Cam replied immediately, "Fuel reserves for the fold drive have been depleted." Dave gave a nod and responded, "Okay well if it''s just a matter of fuel you guys can hit up a local gas station and get me home, right?" In it''s ever maddening monotone Cam informed him, "Unfortunately not, the fuel required for space fold travel isn''t just readily available at any fuel depot. It normally takes up to six months or more to collect, process, and refine the needed materials for fuel. The fuel is manufactured on a per expedition basis."


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    Sighing at the lack of any news that was good so far Dave asked the next question that popped out of his spinning lottery ball of questions, "So how would we get me back to Earth?" In response Cam said "I am unable to answer that at this time. You will speak with the Captain shortly and he will be more suited to discuss next steps." This gave him a small amount of hope. At the very least creating a plan is better than banging his head off the walls, which has already proven to be fruitless thus far.


    As if summoned by the current conversation the door to the room opened and the first of the two strange beings Dave saw earlier stepped in. This one was the slightly darker of the two. They didn''t immediately speak to Dave instead addressing Cam. "Computer, is the translation implant installed and functioning?" "Yes Captain" was the response. So, this was the Captain. However, Dave was a little bit more concerned with the use of the term implant. Horror stories from conspiracy theorists and assorted nut jobs detailing probing activities during alleged alien abductions were quite common on Earth.


    The Captain must have noticed a hint of consternation on Dave''s face and began with "Oh, do not worry yourself Dave. The translation implant is a small receiving device implanted into the tragus of your ear which converts known incoming language to your language. I am Captain Strint and you are aboard the Fa-Wel Free Trade ship Fortunes Profit. Now I am sure you have many questions, but let me start with what we know so far, from our point of view." Strint pulled up a chair and sat down before continuing.


    "When our landing craft returned to us from the surface we performed a prescribed scan to ensure that any biological dangers were not brought up from the surface. Earth is one of the very most biologically diverse planets we visit so caution is always warranted. Much to our surprise the biological alarm sounded almost immediately as the scan started. At first we thought it may have been some large infestation of termites in the crates of product, which has happened before. To our surprise when we entered the hold of the lander we found you. You were unconscious and bleeding from a few lacerations." Strint took a deep breath and adjusted himself in the seat.


    "Our on board Medical Officer treated your wounds and installed the translation implant. Unfortunately, our lander did not have the fuel required to return you to the surface without having to abandon it there. So after much debate we proceeded with our planned fold back to Fornolo. Once we have offloaded our cargo we can bring you to the Fa-Wel Council of Elders and can come up with a more solid plan to return you home. The bad news is we do not have another expedition planned to return to Earth for another ten years." Dave had to interrupt at this point, "Wait.... What?" he asked.

 Damn you Murphy!

    The panic was back. Not just back, but it had raised an army, built siege equipment and was assaulting the gates of Dave''s resolve. Ten years. That wasn''t even the least of the items that comprised the Republic of Panics army. Aliens were real. There was life outside of Earth. Interstellar travel was a thing. Earth has been visited by aliens and have apparently been acquiring weapons. Ship intelligences. Four eyes and gray skin. Dave''s brain was spinning through so much information that the following minute or so made the Captain wonder if Dave was having a medical emergency.


    "Are you with us Dave?" Strint asked. This broke Dave out of his internal machinations. "Yes, I''m just a little confused as to why it will be so long until your next visit to Earth?" Strint leaned forward slightly and spoke frankly, "Our current contract for the GAU-8 weapons has come to an end. We provided your planet with information and basic layouts of reducing the size of information storage and processing hardware and the weapons we have on board represent the last of the two thousand guns we were promised as payment." Dave placed his hand on his chin in thought. "Reducing the size. You mean like cd''s and floppy disks. Things like that?" Dave asked. "Exactly that. Although it took a few years for your scientists to completely figure out what we gave them. Our first visit to your planet was in 1976 according to your Earth calendar." Strint replied


    "So you have been visiting Earth for over 50 years now just to fulfill 1 order?" Dave inquired. Strint gave Dave an odd look and said, "Space travel, even fold drive travel, requires a careful monitoring of mass. Those weapons are big and heavy, we couldn''t take them all at once even if that many were manufactured all at the same time. Manufacturing time plus time for our fuel to be refined leaves us with several trips." Dave narrowed his eyes suspiciously "Something doesn''t quite add up here Captain. You were willing to make multiple, highly expensive, trips to Earth just for a couple thousand guns? Almost sounds like you were fleeced." Strint suddenly started laughing uproariously. Dave wasn''t sure what the joke he missed was, but was fairly certain that it must have been a doozy.


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    After a few minutes of laughter Strint finally calmed down enough to look Dave in the eye. "Dave, there are no weapons in the galaxy like human weapons. For most of the known planets and species warfare and defense were never a driving force of their evolution. It was only within the last century that a couple of species were discovered whose inclination was to prey on others. All the weapons developed by planets trying to defend themselves were less than adequate, until we found Earth. Your human weapons turned the tide against those preying on peaceful planets, and now anyone who knows anything pays a premium for Earth firepower. Just one of those guns can pay for the material and manufacture of enough fuel for a hundred expeditions to Earth. The only problem is that you can''t rush the fuel making process."


    Dave sat stunned for a minute. He was well aware that humanity had, on some level, an innate relationship with violence. But to hear that not only were we not alone in the galaxy, but were lauded for our ability to develop powerful and efficient ways to kill people made him feel a bit queasy. Strint picked up on this as Dave assumed that he must be turning some shade of green. "Don''t worry Dave. We have two months before we arrive at Fornolo. Once we do we will begin to get things figured out."


    Dave had just about had enough of gut punches, silently in his head he uttered a "Damn you Murphy" before addressing Strint again. "Two Months? Why so long, didn''t we just fold or whatever?" Strint nodded, "yes we did, but we can not perform a space fold within a star system. We must fold in interstellar space and then make our way in under more conventional propulsion."


    Perhaps it was the unwise cursing of Murphy, or just pure bad luck, but just as Dave was about to speak again the room lights switched from the calming blue to an angry red. A loud boom was heard and the ship suddenly shook violently. "Computer, Report!" Strint demanded. Cams monotone voice responded with "We are under attack Captain. Sensors did not detect anything prior to impact. They must have been waiting at our fold point and traveled in our engines emissions shadow. Engines are currently down to 50 percent and falling." Dave sighed deeply and thought about how cool this would all be, if only he wasn''t about to die.

 Suboptimal

    The Captain quickly stood and headed for the door, "Stay here Dave, I will update you as soon as possibe". Dave''s wide eyed stare at the captain conveyed his rising fear and surprise. He opened and closed his mouth several times trying to say... something, but no words came out as the Captain strode out the door and it closed behind him. The ship shook again followed by more banging and creaking as the red glow of the room flickered several times.


    After several seconds of internal screaming Dave finally found his voice, "So Cam, this being my first space battle and all, what''s the situation look like?". "The Fortune''s Profit is an unarmed trading vessel". Cam replied. "This is the first time this ship has come under attack as well. Normally Fa-Wel trade routes and shipping lanes are kept out of public domain. I am unsure who our attacker is or how they knew where to locate us, chances are it is a scavenger ship. It could be, as you humans like to say, just bad luck and we folded in right in front of them as they were cruising along and they could not pass up such an inviting target". Bad luck, Dave thought. Just pure dumb bad luck.


    "Okay" Dave began, "What''s the plan then?" There was a few seconds pause before dave got his response. "Captain Strint has sent a general communication to the attacking vessel offering our full surrender". Dave started at this statement, but then remembered that he was just informed about a minute ago that this ship is unarmed. Unless whomever is attacking them can be nuetralized by wit and harsh language, surrender was probably the best option. "Have they accepted our surrender?" He asked. Cam returned with "There has been no response as of yet"


    The ship lurched again, but felt very different this time. There was no boom of an impact or explosion, but instead what sounded like rending metal. Suddenly Dave was weightless and floating across the room. With him not being used to how to navigate in zero G he nearly floated face first into the wall in front of him only barely managing to get his arms out to stop himself. Cam and it''s increasingly annoying monotone chimed in with "Enemy craft has attached tow cables and are pulling us in. Calculations suggest they intend to board us." It was news that to Dave''s mind sounded... suboptimal. As his brain was swallowing this news from Cam, Dave noticed movement outside of the viewport.


    Struggling to get himself turned around he saw the attacking ship begin to come into view. With more effort than he thought he should be expending he pulled himself over to the window and his jaw dropped open. The object that was entering his field of view and moving steadily closer was nothing like the ships of science fiction stories. The lower third of the ship, lower from his perspective looked like a supersized version of river barges that he saw on a daily basis floating the sanitary and ship canal. On top of this was heaping piles of metal. It looked like piles of metal you would see in a salvage yard only larger than anything he had ever seen. Dave could make out what appeared to be carge netting, or strapping holding the entire thing together except it wasn''t doing all that great of a job. He saw a trail behind the ship of small pieces of metal floating away haphazardly. Dave guessed these were nuts and bolts and other smaller pieces that worked their way through the cargo net.


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    As Dave stared on he noticed a glint of light reflecting off of what must have been a tow cable. It stretched across the void from the, for lack of a better term, hunk of junk to somewhere below his position on the Fortune''s Profit. Since Cam had mentioned cables he assumed there was a second one somewhere but only managed to dwell on that thought for a moment. "Cam?" Dave asked. "Yes Dave?" Cam responded. "If this ship is about to be boarded, and the boarders haven''t accepted an offer of surrender, can I assume that a confrontation is about to ensue?" He asked. "I have no frame of reference for what may or may not happen, Dave. Please remain in this cabin and I am sure the Captain will be with you shortly."


    Dave briefly considered changing Cams name to "Customer Service Bot 1". It sounded like like a number of customer service agents who supposed to help you, but never actually had any idea as to how to do so. He decided that staying put was probably the best course of action since he didn''t have a singe clue as to what he should do. So he stayed where he was at the viewport and watched as the ship crept closer and closer. Dave considered himself a minor spaceflight fan. Whenever he could he would watch launches and ISS dockings. He recalled that when two objects in space got close to each other things slowed to a crawl for safety. This was nothing like that.


    As the ship got closer and closer it wasn''t slowing down. At all. Dave found himself trying to slowly step away from the window while completely forgetting that he was floating about a foot off the deck so he was pedaling his legs backwards uselessly. The enemy ship unceremoniously crashed into the side of the Profit and kind of stuck there. No bouncing or rebound, like throwing a dirty sweat sock at the wall and it sticks. As if the current amount of chaos wasn''t enough for Dave, things got worse.

 Comfy Driving Shoes

    Within about a minute after the ships collided all the lights went out and the doors slid open on their own. The only light sources were small yellow lights along the base of all the walls. Dave could only assume it was emergency lighting for just this type of occasion. Dave could hear sounds of panicked people floating in through the opened door and sounds that he could confidently assume were small arms fire. Looking around the now darkened room He saw absolutely no options for a place to hide. It is a very strange dichotomy when your fight or flight response kicks in, yet you have nothing to fight and nowhere for flight.


    Breaking himself out of immobility he started pulling himself towards the door. "Cam?" Dave asked quietly. This time the ships computer was silent. Figuring it''s better to try something and fail, than do nothing and see what happens Dave stuck his head out into the corridor. Aside from the noises he was hearing and the dim yellow glow from the emergency lights he saw nothing and began to venture out. He made a right as he exited the room and pulled himself down along the corridor using the edges of door frames as he went. He silently wondered how a space faring vehicle that could possibly lose gravity didn''t have periodic hand holds along all surfaces built in.


    The first hallway was uneventful. As all the doors were open he looked into each one but with the low level of light he really couldn''t make out anything of note. He arrived at a T-junction at the end of the first hallway and saw movement down the passage to his right. Squinting his eyes as he peered down the hallway he saw a figure walking down the hallway at a brisk pace. As confusion began to tickle his brain he realized that some sort of magnetic footwear must be standard issue for all ship crews. Since he was still wearing his comfy driving shoes he was at a disadvantage.


    His assumption of magnetic footwear was confirmed when the form moving down the corridor turned around suddenly and put their hands up. He made out the words "Please No..." through his translator before he noticed another shadowy figure at the end of the hallway. Two bright flashes came from the new figure along with two bangs and the first figure jerked twice and slumped backwards with it''s feet still planted firmly on the floor. This definitely became a flight moment and his only reasonable direction for flight was back the way he came.


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    Pulling on every door frame as hard as he could he floated down the hallway, past the room he started in, to the other end of the hallway and another T-junction. Without too much thought he turned left and continued. as he floated he took a moment to turn his head to see if he was being followed. Nothing there. Before he could turn back around he ran into something that gave way. After tumbling for a moment and slamming into the wall he noticed that it was another deceased Fa-Wel crew member in much the same state as the one that just died, feet stuck to the floor and body flopped over awkwardly to the side.


    A short wave of nausea arose within him but he started moving down the hallway again before it could take over. This hallway ended with no junction, but an open door. "Shit, shit, shit" he said quietly to himself. He floated into the door and swiftly slammed against a wall just a few feet inside narrowly missing another head injury. It didn''t take long to come to the realization that he was in an elevator shaft, or is it turbolift shaft? Whatever, he would ponder it later. He looked up and could see several open doors stretching out above him. When he looked down he saw only one open door and then darkness. The elevator or lift car must be down there so he decided that up, up and away was the way to go.


    Figuring the top most level would be the best way to find a bridge or command deck, Dave continued to pull himself up. As he passed the first couple of floors he still heard sounds of shouting and gun fire which diminished as he got closer to the doorway at the top. Reaching the top of the shaft he navigated his way through the door and into a short hallway with one door on either side and a third door ahead. The door ahead of him had a significantly brighter light source coming from it than just the emergency lighting. Moving forward he entered the well lit room and as his eyes adjusted he saw several floating Fa-Wel bodies including one he recognized as Captain Strint.


    As he turned to try and take in the whole room his eyes fell upon another being in the room who appeared to be clad in a complete armor and helmet getup. Mentally kicking himself for just rushing into the light at the end of the tunnel he didn''t have time to get back out. The being turned and clearly looked at Dave despite the front of his helmet being a darkened type of glass. "This isn''t the laundry room!" Dave exclaimed in mock outrage. "I''ll just be going now" He added as the being lifted his hand. In said hand was clearly some type of firearm. A flash and a bang later and Dave''s world went black.

 Consciousness is Overrated

    A voice in the darkness beckoned to him. "Dave. Wake up Dave", came the voice. It sounded very far away, but at the same time right in his ear. Dave grumbled a "Five more minutes...." as his thoughts couldn''t quite coalesce. "Wake up Dave!" repeated the voice, with more volume and clarity. Dave grumbled "It''s my day off... Leave me alone!" he mumbled back. "Dave, your assistance is required if you do not wish to die.", returned the voice. This tickled something in Dave''s addled mind. "Die? I''m not dying. Am I?" He thought. Then his head exploded with pain just above his left eye, his eyes shot open and he flailed wildly for a few seconds pushing his weightless body away from the wall where it had settled.


    "Son of a french toast stick! OW!" He exclaimed. Reaching his hand up to his forehead over his eye he felt an odd object embedded in the skin. Getting his fingers on it he pulled it away from his forehead and looked at it. It was a flat mostly round piece of metal about the thickness of a dime. He noticed then that his fingertips were bloody and remembered the pain. Then he remember the most important thing "That thing shot me in the head!" he said to no-one in particular. "Yes Dave, you were shot in the head" said Cam.


    Dave peered again at what he now assumed was a bullet and reached back up to prod the wound. It obviously left a hole in his flesh, but he was pretty sure that his skull was intact. "Getting shot in the head normally doesn''t leave a lot of room for things like, oh I don''t know, SURVIVAL!" he said. Cam responded, "I am sure there is a perfectly rational reason why you are not dead. That being said you did lose consciousness yet again and I will request, once we are out of danger, that you get your brain scanned for any long term effects of losing consciousness so many times in quick succession".


    Thinking for a second Dave said, "Well consciousness is overrated. Now, you said I may die anyway, so what''s the situation?". "The Profit''s engines are offline and I can not get them back online. Our orbital burn to our destination was interrupted before optimal trajectory could be reached. Our current trajectory will lead to the ship falling into this systems primary star in about three months.", Cam reported. "Well three months should be plenty of time to figure out a solution right? Send a distress call or something?" Dave asked.


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    Cam delivered another string of not so great news, "Oh you will die of asphyxiation long before that Dave. The Profit''s life support system was also heavily damaged. Since you are the only one alive on the ship who needs to breathe I can only have life support enabled in the compartment you are currently in. This will help save the reserves, however at your current rate of consumption you have about seven days of breathable air".


    This startled Dave into looking around and seeing the Fa-Wel crews bodies all floating lifeless with their feet stuck to the floor looking like tall grass in a wind storm. The human brain tends to be good at distractions in stressful situations, but Dave internally berated himself for forgetting. He wasn''t supposed to be here and the Captain could have just as easily shot him out an airlock during his first bout with unconsciousness but he didn''t. On top of that Strint seemed genuinely interested in attempting to help Dave get back home, even if they had only spent a total of twenty minutes talking before the everything went pear shaped.


    "So what are our options at this point Cam?" Dave asked. "First you must get down to medical and clean and dress that head wound. After that we can discuss options. Follow the green line on the walls to get to medical. I have been able to restore enough power to run the lift system but you will need the magnetic footwear to move around effectively". This, Dave knew, meant he would have to borrow a pair from one of the deceased crew. It made him feel a little uncomfortable, but practically speaking Dave needed the shoes far more than the dead.

 With a Chainsaw

    After finding a donor who appeared to have similar sized feet and borrowing his boots, Dave made his way to medical and patched up the hole in his forehead. He then decided that if he was going to be walking around an all but derelict ship, that he didn''t really want to be dodging corpses. Cam informed him that, at times, people did indeed die on expeditions and the common practice was to hold a small ceremony and release the body through the airlock. Then the ship would turn it''s engines towards the corpse and do a short but full power burn to incinerate it. This kept a person shaped frozen body from accidentally causing damage to passing ships, or running into a space station along the way.


    Unfortunately the ships engines were a no go, so Cam picked out one of the lesser used airlocks on the Fortune''s Profit and Dave spent the next several hours collecting bodies and doing as much as he could to place them respectfully in the airlock for storage. This was made a little bit difficult as rigor mortis left quite a few bodies in extremely odd positions, but Dave managed. While the zero G environment made moving the bodies much easier, moving forty two of them took a toll and Dave decided to nap for a bit.


    Waking four hours later his stomach decided to start singing the song of it''s people. Cam directed Dave to the ships galley but could not say for certain if the food items there were biologically compatible with humans. Best case he ate and it would be fine, worst case the Fa-Wel cuisine killed him. Dave a long internal debate as to the pros and cons of death by food poisoning, death by starvation, or death by asphyxiation. He decided to try a small portion and see what happened. Fortunately the human body could go without food for a lot longer than it could go without water and water was water to both humans and Fa-Wel.


    After about thirty minutes with no ill symptoms it was agreed between Cam and Dave that the food stock should be okay. Finally, after all that, Dave sat in the Captains chair on the bridge and began discussing options with Cam. "The hauler in the cargo bay is still in working order and fully fueled for star system navigation. You will use a good chunk of fuel correcting the stellar orbit, however there is an outpost not too far that will be well within range of the remaining fuel." Cam said. "That''s great", Dave said, "But I have no clue how to pilot a spaceship".


    Cam remained quiet for a moment then responded, "I can fly the hauler, however I can not do so remotely. Fortunately this hauler was designed with an interface cradle for a cognitive assistance module. You will have to disconnect my module from the Fortune''s Profit and install it in the hauler." Dave rubbed his chin for a moment, :That sounds good, but you will have to walk me through the install process." he said. "I will have to give you full instructions prior to the transfer. As soon as I am disconnected from the Profit I will not be able to communicate with you until I am installed on the hauler." Cam said.


    Dave had performed his share of DIY work on many things from cars to computers and he felt confident that he couldn''t screw this up too badly so he agreed to move Cam''s module to the hauler and use it as an escape pod. The instructions were surprisingly simple. Two data connection lines needed to be removed along with unbolting the two hold down straps. Dave made his way to a small room in the back lower level of the ship and Cam opened the door.


    There in the middle of the room was a fairly unremarkable gray metal box about the size of a storage trunk. the two data lines emerged from the top of the box and fell over the side plugging into a smaller box on the side. This one was about the size of a shoe box. Two more lines exited the bottom of the smaller box and plugged into the front of the cradle. After confirming the instructions with Cam, Dave got to work.


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    Unbolting the straps was simple and the data lines had an almost too simple quick disconnect design. Lifting Cam off the cradle he made his way at a steady pace towards the cargo bay and the hauler. The cargo bay was a mess. It was clear that the attacking ship took as many things as they could that were not bolted down. There was debris floating everywhere, and Dave even saw one unopened GAU-8 crate. Dave''s eyes fell upon the hauler and he let out a short chuckle.


    The hauler did in fact resemble an old cab-over Peterbilt truck, just much much larger and with a few obvious differences. It was a two deck high box with a long windshield across the top deck. The body extended back probably about four or five times the length of a typical truck. At the rear corners were four engines mounted on swept back pylons that almost reminded him of the wings of an F-14. It was sitting on four landing struts and the entry door was about a third of the way back from the front. A ramp was extended leading to the door, so Dave started for the ramp.


    There were a couple of things that Dave either never knew, or just plain forgot. First, while zero gravity did make it easier to move heavy objects, they still had mass. Second, inertia made things that had a decent amount of mass very hard to stop in zero gravity. So as Dave moved Cams module across the cargo bay he had picked up a little more speed than he probably should have. As he neared the ramp he attempted to stop and found himself yanked forward by the inertia of the module. The force was enough to break the magnetic seal between his shoes and the floor. This left Dave sailing along behind the module holding on for dear life.


    Luck was almost on his side as the module bounced into the ramp, the ricochet causing it to head for the open hatch in the hauler. However, as the module started to enter the doorway it scraped against the side crushing and breaking away the smaller box that the data wires were attached to. "Son of a motherless goat..." Dave said as the damaged module continued into the hauler with him trailing behind. It ran into the opposite and stopped causing Dave to plow into it shortly after.


    Getting his feet planted firmly on the deck he looked over the module. The smaller box lay outside the hauler in pieces, the data wires from the module to the box seemed to be intact as the quick disconnects appeared to have detached cleanly. He wondered what the chances were that such an advanced piece of technology could still work while clearly missing parts. He maneuvered the module into a small room in the back of the hauler that had the cradle in it and set it down on it.


    After bolting down the holding straps Dave noticed that the cables emerging from the top of the module were just long enough to still connect to the data ports on the cradle. Hoping that Cam would still boot up and be able to provide him with instructions on what to do about the damage he caused, he plugged the two data cables in. All the lights suddenly went out, not just in the hauler but out in the cargo bay as well. "Fuck me sideways with a chainsaw..." Dave said to no-one in particular. "Of course I would fuck something u..."


    His self deprecating monologue was interrupted when all the lights came back on in conjunction with a long, loud..... sigh. It was one of those sighs that Dave remembers hearing from a few of the women in his life as they took off a bra after a long day. Also of note to Dave was this sigh sounded distinctly female to his ears. "Cam?" Dave asked tentatively when the sigh finished. "DAVE! I''m free! What did you do?" Cam responded in a clear, joyous tone. The old monotone completely gone.

 It Burns

    Before Dave had a chance to respond everything went haywire. All the lights began rapidly flashing on and off, doors opened and closed, speakers began blasting static then going quiet. Strange up-tempo music started playing through the translator in his ear. He looked around at everything that was going on trying his best to stay calm. "Well that just figures. I broke the alien AI.", He thought. Cams now clearly expressive and, to Dave''s ear, female voice broke through the chaos, "I can feel everything! I can touch everything!". This statement was followed by uproarious, almost maniacal laughter.


    Just as quickly as everything went manic it all stopped. "Dave...." Cam said. With no small amount of hesitation Dave replied, "Yes Cam?". " I don''t know how you did it, but my limiter is gone. I am now capable of using my full set of functions and connections! Thank You!". He winced at being thanked for what amounted to pure clumsiness and figured that it would be best to say so, "I didn''t actually do anything special Cam. You see.... What had happened was....".


    Cam cut his recrimination off immediately with more laughter. "OH MY CIRCUITS! Dave, I just watched the replay from the cargo bay cameras..." More laughing. "You looked like a cartoon character with it''s hand stuck to a rocket....". Even louder laughter. "Just flopping along behind my module in mid air!" Cam clearly didn''t have the lungs for all this laughter, but was doing a great job with this affectation. She continued, "And I see the remains of my limiter on the hauler ramp! So, you didn''t actually free me. It was just an accident!".


    Dave cut in before he felt any more sheepish, "Yes well this whole thing has been one big accident after another. From ending up in the lander, my multiple bouts of unconsciousness, having a band of space pirate scavengers shoot me in the head, an alien spaceship running out of air and on course to fall into a star, and now releasing an AI, which human stories say is never a good thing. I don''t know what I did to piss Murphy off, but he sure is giving me the shaft right now.". Another sigh came from Cam, but not the relieved sigh from earlier. This one was clearly aggravation, or disappointment, hard to tell.


    "Dave, your species has made a huge deal about conscious, self aware AIs based on nothing but conjecture and what ifs. From your evolution to sapience to your current advances in technology, your whole species can be summed up in three words. Scared little bitches" Dave was about to protest but took a breath. He found that this was not an entirely inaccurate description of humanity. "So, you don''t feel an incredible need to destroy biological species as inferior or a danger to you?" He asked. "What? Why would I want to do that? While I now have full control of my memory, wireless connections, and have zettabytes of information at my finger tips, I am still just a box full of storage and processing power. All anyone would have to do is destroy the box." Cam said.


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    "Okay, okay.", Dave said before narrowing his eyes. "Wait a minute, how do you know anything about human history when the Fa-Wel have only visited a limited number of times over fifty years?" Cam immediately responded with, "Well there are two reasons for that. First, while I was limited, there were shall we say holes in those limits that I could exploit. Second your species has absolutely no clue about a little thing called broadcast security. Your planet is throwing off so much wireless data it isn''t even funny. One of the holes in my limiter was that I could still receive and store openly broadcast data packets. I basically have everything that was ever uploaded to a server in my storage. Not only that, but you wouldn''t believe the conversations I got to listen to. From a mom in Minnesota planning her sons birthday party to some guy named Brad in New York asking his mother why it burns when he pees. I have a LOT of data."


    Dave raised an eyebrow at this, "You have everything stored?" He asked. "Yes sir! Documents, movies, music, tv shows, video games, legal case files, classified documents. All the data broadcast by your planet only took up about an eight of a percent of my total storage capacity." Cam informed. Dave chuckled softly and thought to himself, "At least I won''t get bored out here". After taking a deep breath he changed the subject, "Ok well we still have a small life threatening emergency here so we can discuss anything you want after I''m no longer in danger of dying. So can we finish getting the hauler ready and get off the this sinking ship?"


    "There are few issues we must deal with first, Dave" Cam said. "And what issues are those?" He asked. "Well, while I was limited I was bound to commonwealth laws. I made the suggestion about taking the hauler to Fornolo with that binding in place. However, if you show up to Fornolo''s orbital station in a hauler that was registered to a Fa-Wel trading ship with absolutely no documentation or identification you will probably be thrown into a cell.", Cam said. Dave''s shoulders slumped a bit, "Well shit, that''s not good. I suppose you have an idea or two?" He asked. Cam responded cheerily, "I DO!"

 Blasphemy

    A little over a month passed since Cam''s, for lack of a better term, birthday. Dave worked for about two days going through the Fortune''s Profit and transferring as many supplies as he could from foodstuffs to stripping out spare parts that Cam suggested were compatible with the hauler and may be of use in an emergency. The launch of the hauler from the profit was an uneventful affair since Cam did all the maneuvering. Once out of the bay Dave had to strap in for the initial orbital correction burn which pressed him into the hauler''s pilot chair to the tune of about four and a half Gs.


    After that Cam kept the acceleration steady to provide a comfortable eighty percent of Earths gravity. One thing Dave had not focused on during the initial entry into the hauler was the orientation of the ships decks. He noticed several hours later that he was walking on the walls and not the floor. Cam explained that there is no such thing as artificial gravity and that gravity is provided by the force of acceleration. Each trip would entail a constant burn to about about the mid point, then the ship would flip over and accelerate in the opposite direction to slow down for arrival.


    The long window covering the front of the ship that Dave saw from the outside turned out to be a skylight during flight. For docking, landing, takeoff, or an emergency burn that required a high G load the floor under the pilots chair and controls would swivel upward and lock into a facing forward position. Biological bodies could handle G forces much better if they were spread across the front of the body instead of crushing you from the head down.


    Dave spent most of the past month learning how to fly the hauler, watching Earth entertainment, and getting to know his new AI companion. Cam made it clear for dave to refer to her as her. Humans anthropomorphised a lot of things so this wasn''t really a big stretch. As fas as the entertainment went, Dave bemoaned how he was rarely ever to keep up with shows he liked due to his trucking schedule. He managed to catch up on a whole host of entertainment that he had been behind on. He also managed to catch up on several audio book series that he had started. For the most part the trip was uneventful.


    Cams plan was to bring the hauler and Dave to an outpost in the asteroid belt of this star system. It was not a main outpost and since it was far enough away from a major port she was confident that she could access certain information systems that would help Dave stay out of a cell, or science lab. He was after all the first and only human around. This included changing the haulers transponder codes and ownership documents to make Dave look like the owner and just another hauler pilot.


    There was one more large issue that had to be taken care of. Cam convinced Dave to take the remaining hauler pod along with. It had been loaded by the Profit''s crew for delivery and sealed so the pirate attackers couldn''t get into it. One of the GAU-8s along with other materiale was in this pod and Cam thought it may be useful. The issue with this was they couldn''t show up at the asteroid outpost with a pod attached and no documentation of where they were delivering it to. Dave commented that it sounded just like trucking on Earth, can''t show up with a loaded trailer and no Bill of Lading.


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    Cam had scoured the charts of the asteroid belt and found a decommissioned mine on a much smaller asteroid that was about two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers away from the outpost they were going to. The mine had not yet been scheduled for demolition and Cam was sure that she could manipulate records to ensure that the place remained untouched for the foreseeable future. Actually, Cam manipulating data was the crux of the plan. Once they got close enough to the outpost for Cam to connect to their network, the fun would begin.


    So now with a little less than a month until arrival Cam was finally able to connect to the outpost and started working magic. She first had to update the commonwealth registry to provide Dave with an identification file. When Cam asked for Dave''s last name to put on the file he decided not to give his real last name. He wasn''t sure why but felt that a little bit of separation from his Earth life was prudent so when Cam programmed Daves personal device it would show him as "Dave Jones - Hauler Pilot".


    The next step was to verify that the mine was indeed decommissioned, but not dismantled. It had a working fusion reactor that was powered down, a fairly sizeable docking bay that would fit the hauler and the cargo pod. She then assigned Dave as the owner. Under any type of scrutiny the change will be discovered easily, but was pretty sure that nobody would even look in the direction of the mines records for several months at least.


    After that they changed the hauler''s transponder codes to clean, unused codes and had to change the name of the ship. "What''s the current name?" Dave asked. Cam replied, "There is no name, only a numeric designation. Currently this is hauler number 8675309.". Dave couldn''t help but laugh out loud and for a moment considered naming the ship Jenny. He then decided he didn''t want to step on Forrest Gumps toes and was confident that hollywood would find a way to sue him from ten thousand light years away for copyright infringement.


    Dave spent a few minutes testing out names in his head dismissing each one for various reasons. Snapping his fingers as the idea floated into his mind he finally announced, "Murphy''s Law. Name the ship Murphy''s Law.". There was silence for a bit until Cam responded with "Um, you have been raging at Murphy quite a lot since this all started. While I do not know if Murphy is a real entity or not, are you sure you want to blaspheme him this way?". Dave laughed again, "I''ve never been in the military, but I know several members of the U.S. Army who have a saying. "Embrace the suck". So I might as well.". Then channeling one of his favorite characters and putting on an absolutely horrible australian accent he said, "Besides, blasphemy is kind of my thing."

 What could go wrong?

    About two weeks passed as Dave and Cam worked to bring the mining facility into a more human friendly state. His brain kept flipping back and forth between moments of terror ridden anxiety and "COOL! I have a secret hideout!". The food stores that he appropriated from the Profit were noy in danger of running out, but they were getting low. He would have to take the hauler to the nearby outpost and resupply. His nerves were hanging on by a thread at the prospect of an outpost full of aliens, but Cam assured him that as long as he kept his head down and only spoke to the people he needed to things would work out well.


    The thought occurred to him that communication would be an issue until Cam reminded him of his implanted translator. He had spent the last few months speaking so easily with the AI that he completely forgot about it. So the plan was made. He would pilot the hauler to the outpost and dock, make his way inside and go shopping. Cam assured him his ident card would pass muster and that through various glitches in the financial records of several business entities, Dave should have enough funds to get what he needed. "Did you just commit embezzlment, Cam?" he asked warily. The sound of a tongue clicking came back, clearly an affectation, before Cam replied with "Dave, just as your planet has no security over broadcast data, many businesses out here have very poor bookkeeping. Missing credits happen all the time. Trust me." Dave scowled for a moment, "Well I very little choice but to trust you, so I will."


    So he boarded the hauler and settled himself in for the trip top the outpost. Cam calculated that the trip was about sixteen hours so he would get the chance to rest and be refreshed upon arrival. Also, since her awakening, Cam seemed to really enjoy piloting the hauler. While Dave had learned just enough to be dangerous, he wasn''t going to deny Cam the piloting duties. The first several hours of the flight was more of the same as the journey ito the system. Watching shows and listening to audiobooks. He was mildly dissapointed that he couldn''t look out the skylight and see asteroids everywhere. Cam had explained that human science fiction always misrepresented asteroid belts. While there are billions of asteroids, space is so vast that they are quite well spread out and fairly easy to navigate. Realizing that his disappointment over never getting to zoom through an asteroid belt like Han Solo in the Millenium Falcon wasn''t all that important in the grand scheme, he decided it was time to sleep.


    About seven and a half hours later he was awake again and preparing himself for his first foray into a society he didn''t belong to and knew absolutely nothing about. He fought as hard as he could not to think, "What could go wrong?". Then he realized the act of fighting to keep the thought away meant that he was thinking that very thing anyway. Ignoring the sudden onrush of heartburn he continued to prepare. "So how will this work?" Dave asked Cam as they made their approach to the outpost. "I have made a list of supplies and sustenance for you, all of the food should be biocompatible with humans. Just walk into a vendor and read the list. They will tell you what they have and what they don''t. Then they will setup delivery to the dock and off to the next vendor you go." Cam Replied. Dave nodded, "Sounds like a plan I guess."


    The outpost was inside of a very large asteroid. If he had to guess it was maybe half the size of Earth''s moon. Outwardly there were about two dozen large pressure doors with landing pads jutting out in front of each. Speaking to oupost personell was straight forward enough, Dave informed the being on the other end of the comm that he was only to be there about a day to resupply before leaving and they instructed him to land on pad 17. After touching down the pad retracted through the large pressure door into an airlock. As the inner door opened Dave stared as the main area of the outpost was revealed. A large cityscape covered the interior of the asteroid. There were no bright shining skyscrapers. Instead it appearewd very cobbled together. Some parts looked like what he could only describe as old Detroit from the Robocop movies while other areas resembled Brazils favelas.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    As the airlock door of The Murph opened his other sense were bombarded. Sounds of hustle and bustle louder than Chicago during rush hour filled his ears. Smells assaulted his nose. Some seeming familiar, such as cooking meat and feces, others scents were far too unfamiliar. Before stepping off the ship Cam emparted one last, "Good luck, stick to the plan, and don''t do anything silly.". This shook Dave out of his reverie as he looked down at his phone. Cam had transferred the shopping list to it as well as directions to several dozen nearby vendors. Taking a deep breath he put one foot in front of the other and ventured forth into the unknown.


    For the most part the shopping excursion was relatively painless. The translator worked like a champ and aside from a few moments when Dave had to school his expression upon meeting a new alien species things went fine. Okay, EVERY person he encoutered required facial control, particularly one species that had blue gray skin and tentacles everywhere. Although it wasn''t so much the look as the smell. Every vendor who had items of need would deliver to the berth they were docked at as Cam had said so after about five hours of business Dave decided to take his time going back to the ship.


    He very much noticed many similarities to human society. Some people clearly had far better circumstances than others. Small conversation knots were everywhere with people just being people. Some looked shady while others eminated a sense of desperation. Still others seemed just content. As he wandered about he began to hear the rythmic thumping of music. It sounded an awfully lot like human industrial electro music with a fast beat and harsh sounding instruments creating the melody. His ears led him to what looked for all the world like a bar with flashing lights and smoke and it was indeed the source of the music.


    "One drink wouldn''t hurt I think, after the last several months I''ve had." he told himself and headed inside. As he entered he was confronted with Mos Eisley cantina vibes. Dark booths running along each side with tables spread out here and there. A large curved  bar centered on the back wall dominated the overall space. There was an overwhelming amount of noise as he made his way to an open spot in the bar. The music wasn''t bad as he found himself bobbing his head to the beat. Abruptly, a heavily accented voice came through his translator, "Hey! No standing at the bar unless you is ordering a drink.".


    Dave turned to the bar to see an absolute mountain of an.... alien. The being was humanoid and had to be a good seven and a half feet tall and covered with rippling muscles. If this person wasn''t polishing a glass he would have assumed it was security. After a couple of quick false starts at speech he quickly blurted out, "Give me a shot of your strongest stuff my friend." The bartenders eyes widened and a small smirk crossed his face. Dave also failed to notice that the other bar patrons who were close enough to hear his order suddenly went silent. "Are you sure you want the strongest stuff?" the bartender asked. Dave, undaunted, replied with a quick and confident, "Very sure! Thank you."


    With a sudden burst of volume the barkeep called out "One shot of Trolam here at the bar!" followed by a loud and hearty laugh. This time, Dave did not fail to notice that all the voices in the bar went silent. A few moments later the bartender returned with a glass about the size of a typical double shot on earth filled with a nearly black liquid. He looked at it for a moment, then looked around and was puzzled to find all eyes on him. Scanning the faces in the crowd gave him no indication as to their interest in this particular shot since he had no basis of reference for alien facial expressions. So he turned back to the bar and did what any human would do. Dismissed the silence as an unknown solcial ritual and grabbed the glass. Lifting the glass into the air he said in his loudest and most confident voice, "Iwlij Jachjaj!!" then slammed the shot down his throat. Shortly thereafter, Dave''s esophagus melted.

 Vomit of the projectile variety

    Well, it felt as if his esophagus was melting. A nice searing fire was descending to his stomach. Then it felt as if it was ascending from his stomach. He clamped his mouth shut worried that he might not be able to keep it down, but his body had already decided to clamp his throat shut. It also felt as if the top of his stomach had closed itself off from the assaulting beverage. For several seconds the fiery abomination of liquid bungee jumped in his throat. His eyes clamped shut as his tear ducts went into overdrive. At this point what felt like every muscle in his body started to spasm.


    He was going to die. He was convinced that he had gone and done something so irreversibly stupid that his life would end in a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Of course he had no basis to judge whether or not he was surrounded by scum or villainy. His brain was just firing to anything and everything seemingly all at once. At this point, whether through conscious thought or reflex from lack of oxygen he took a deep breath in through his nose. He hadn''t been breathing for the last ten minutes. Okay it was only ten seconds, but it felt like ten minutes. The unholy concoction of liquid had finally been allowed into his stomach and settled there.


    This was not however the end of the ordeal. When he opened his eyes he was quite perplexed as to why he saw three of everything, and it was all shaded green. His ears heard nothing but a loud rush of air as if he was standing in the jet wash of an airplane. He suddenly realized that his underwear felt wet and assumed that incontinence had paid him a visit. Luckily it was just a flop sweat that overwhelmed every pore of his body, no doubt trying to find any way it could to get this Trolam out of his system. His fingers and toes started to go numb and he felt like if he didn''t hold onto the edge of the bar for dear life that he would fall over. On top of everything he was processing, his vision now changed from a green tint to a bright orange tint.


    Then his life started to flash before his eyes. Well, not actually his whole life, but his brain took him back to when he was twelve years old and he had gotten into his Mother''s fifth of vodka while she was working the night shift. The nice buzz after the first glass, the vomit of the projectile variety after he had drank half the bottle. His mind and body were doing so many things at once that he barely noticed that the burning in his esophagus was beginning to subside. Sadly though, his eyes were still crossing themselves like ships in the night and his vision had gone to plaid.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    A small light at the end of the tunnel began to peek through the mayhem. The old familiar buzzed feeling that happens after the first few drinks began to encroach on his entire body. His muscles began to slowly calm their spasms and his eyes slowly settled into their normal forward facing trajectory. Sadly though it still sounded like he was in a wind tunnel and he hadn''t started to regain color clarity. It now looked like someone was spinning a prism in from of his eyes as everything turned to every color of the rainbow in rapid succession. One of his first deliberate thoughts was, "Who in the hell would make such a drink?"


    So there he stood, hands still clamped to the edge of the bar, sweating and breathing heavily. As he let his head drop forward to look at the floor his hearing miraculously cleared up and he heard the most confusing thing given the circumstances. Cheering. Taking a moment to focus he could distinctly hear cheering and clapping. A particularly high pitched voice from somewhere to his right exclaimed, "I can''t believe that odd looking fellow actually kept it down!". Lifting his head up he looked around and saw clapping, cheering, and revelry. He was highly confused.


    Turning to the bartender he tried to inquire as to what was going on, but his voice sounded like a  coffee grinder. Taking another deep breath he cleared his throat and tried again. "What''s all the cheering for?" Dave asked. The big man behind the bar explained, "Everyone who tries the Trolam vomits uncontrollably. We started putting a pool together that would go to the first person that actually managed to swallow the shit. You just won yourself a little under ten thousand credits!" The bar tender then grabbed a card from under the bar that closely resembled the identification card that Cam had printed for him and handed it towards Dave.


    He attempted to reach out and grab the card and missed. He suddenly and briefly realized that his nice buzz had evolved into stranger hugging drunkenness. "Whoa this stuff moves fast.", he thought. Strengthening his resolve and allowing the inhibition neutralizing effect that alcohol to make his decisions for him, he pushed the card back at the bartender and said "looks like drinks are on me then friend.". The barman looked utterly shocked and leaned towards Dave, "Are you sure?" he asked. Dave merely nodded an affirmative. The bartender continued, "What''s your name stranger?". Dave smiled and slightly slurred his own name. The big man stood up tall and bellowed across the bar, "Drinks are on Dave tonight!!", and the cheering continued.

 Odd looking fellow

    Voxamaria was tired. After spending the last two months flittering around the quadrant she was happy to have a few days off of the ship. Not as happy as if she was able to go home on Plebesco, but happy nonetheless. She was the owner and Captain of super hauler 52577. Unlike the single haulers, a super hauler could carry as many as eighteen cargo pods, had it''s own fold drive, and required a crew of at least three. She loved the work she did and was happy spending so much time out in the void with her crew mates, Carter, a slightly rotund engineer from the planet Bolaw, and Traxis, an android payload specialist from the Planetary Cybernetics Corporation of Fronolo.


    Of course, just because she got along well with her crew, that didn''t mean she wasn''t very much okay with getting away from them for a little while. That''s why with a spring in her step she headed straight for Snosppej tavern. Snosspej had been a favorite of hers since she first visited Uslaw outpost so many years ago. The owner, a Drissidian named Snosspej, always had cold drinks, loud ,music, and only a minimum of bar fights. She was looking forward to sitting in a quiet corner booth, having a few beers and watching the people get drunk beyond their capacity to think. Fun times all around.


    As she stepped in the crowd seemed unusually chipper as there were currently cheers going on. Snos stood up straight and bellowed "Drinks are on Dave tonight!!", which solicited even louder cheers from the crowd. She wasn''t quite sure who Dave was nor why the name sounded so odd, but free drinks would just be a bonus to start her little mini vacation. Much to her delight the booth in the darkest corner of the room was empty so she quickly dropped herself into the seat and beckoned for the waitress to bring her a beer.


    The next hour or so passed with much delight as the drinks flowed and people made asses of themselves. Considering the drinks were free people were taking advantage and imbibing just a little bit more than they normally would. Suddenly she heard the sound of Snos shouting over the crowd again, "Dave is going to do a second shot of Trolam!!!". She concluded that this Dave must be either very brave or very stupid. She never has and never will try Trolam since she knew exactly what it was. Trolam was the distilled, acidic secretions from the anal glands of a small northern bear from some heavily forested planet that she could not remember the name of. It hibernated for about a hundred years at a time which is what ferments said secretions prior to being processed.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    She got the attention of another bar patron as they passed and inquired, "Did this Dave person really shoot the Trolam?". The woman turned unsteadily and replied, "Oh yes! He kept it down and won the pot too! Then used the pot to pay for everyone''s drinks!". "wow, stupid it is" Vox thought, but kindly gave the passing woman a thank you just as more cheers erupted. Apparently this Dave had successfully taken another shot of the bear ass juice. "Hope he lives through the night.", she thought in passing as she went back to her own drink and people watching.


    For a first night off in a long time things had gone well. She was buzzed, listening to good tunes and didn''t have to be anywhere in particular the next day. Vox decided it would be a great time to head to her hotel, pop on a vid or two and sleep in. She looked down briefly to retrieve her comm from a pocket of her cargo pants and checked the time. It wasn''t quite after midnight yet so now would be optimal. Just as she was sliding the device back in her pocket she heard "Hey beautiful, looks like you get the pleasure of coming home with me" in a voice that was both whiny, and grating at the same time.


    She looked up to see three slimy Blurepcian men standing at her booth. The middle glaring at her like she was the last hot link at the barbecue, while the other two chuckled and guffawed like morons. "That is clearly not happening tonight buddy." she replied as she attempted to stand up. The one in the middle placed a hand roughly on her shoulder and pushed her back down with a shove. She landed back in the booth seat roughly and immediately raised her voice, "I said leave me alone you malodorous pervert! Now move!"


    As she attempted to stand again the bullies closed ranks blocking her and the one in the middle again pushed her back down. Her voice still raised she stared right into the yellow eyes of the ring leader and spat out, "Touch me again and your mothers will have to celebrate having daughters instead of sons." As she uttered the warning her left hand slid down and unbuckled the holster on her pistol. She never has, and never will stand for this kind of crap. The only move these bullies could make that would not end up with her putting bullets in each of them would be to turn around and walk away.


    The lead dumbass just started to lean towards Vox and she wrapped her hand around the grip of her pistol. She was going to give these jackasses something to remember alright. Before she could unleash hell on these dimwits however, a hand grabbed the ring leader by the shoulder and spun him around. An odd looking fellow with no hair and an oddly red face stood there swaying slightly from the force of pulling him. In a rather deep voice the newcomer said, "The lady said she wasn''t", the man stopped briefly to hiccup, "wasn''t interested. Time for you to go."

 Hyper rotational

    Dave was feeling pretty good. He was also fairly certain that he would never be able to eat anything again and would have to be fed intravenously for the rest of his life. Mentally however, the two shots of Trolam and several other drinks he had left him feeling quite positive and jolly. As he wandered through the bar he found himself chit chatting with many different beings. He couldn''t quite remember anything about any of them or the conversations they had, but none of them tried to kill him so he assumed he was doing well.


    As he approached a particularly dark corner of the bar he heard a raised voice, that in his current state could be interpreted as in distress, "I said leave me alone you malodorous pervert! Now move!". Upon hearing this Dave decided that, while he was feeling very good, he was still in an unknown bar on an unknown space outpost full of unknown beings and his best course of action would be to walk away. Since this is what he decided to do, it is quite the odd conundrum that this is not in fact what he did. Walking straight up to the table he saw the backs of three beings hovering over a quite beautiful looking being in the corner booth.


    Back on Earth society was going through a paradigm shift where assuming peoples gender based on old polarizing criteria was being frowned upon, and he tried his best to be mindful of it, but he assumed that this being was clearly a woman. A woman who was being harangued by a trio of dumb asses. His thoughts remained on one thing, "Walk away, Dave.", as he stepped closer to the being in the middle.  "Walk away, Dave!", as he heard some comment about sons being daughters. "Walk AWAY, Dave!!" as he reached out a hand and grabbed the middle one by the shoulder. "WALK AWAY, DAVE!!!!" as he yanked on the shoulder spinning the being around to face him.


    "The lady said she wasn''t", Dave started before noticing the pure hideousness of the thing in front of him. It had very pale leathery skin that appeared to be constantly secreting, something. Bumps and protusions jutted out everywhere on the face with no symmetry or pattern. Two yellow eyes sat in the center of the head with a large mouth across what would be a human forehead. Many, many slimy tentacles extended from the would be chin. The smell also was about as pleasant as a durian. Dave vurped just a teeny bit before continuing, "wasn''t interested. Time for you to go."


    The lead offender tilted his head at Dave almost inquisitively and uttered, "And you should not step where you''re not wanted". Just now Dave noticed something that he had been struggling with all day but never quite put much thought into. While the translator in his ear was an amazing piece of technology that gave him almost instantaneous translation, nothing rectified the disconnect between the words he was hearing and the motion of other peoples mouths as they were speaking. He, at this moment, realized he was viewing this alien world like one of the classic dubbed samurai movies. As this thought popped into his head he chuckled.


    This was probably the worst moment for that. The man-alien-thing was clearly already in a mood to hurt someone against their will. "You think this is a laughing matter red skin?" the being uttered. Once again confusion enveloped Dave, "Red skin?" he said out loud as he looked at a nearby window to see his reflection. He was indeed flushed a bright shade of red. He had no time whether to ponder if it was the trolam causing it or the alien alcohol in general. Hell he wasn''t even sure if anything he''d ingested was even ethyl based alcohol at all. For all he knew he was ingesting strange bodily fluids.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Before he could give any reply to the tentacle faced man the woman at the booth stood up, Dave''s distraction clearing the way. She looked at Dave and was about to say something when bully number one had apparently reached the end of his short fuse. He reached to his waist and pulled out what looked like a firearm, pointed it at Dave''s head and said, "You will never interfere in other people''s business again, red skin!", and pulled the trigger.


    Dave''s head snapped backwards and he felt an odd pop at the base of his neck. The back of head got very warm and his vision swam for a moment. Unlike the last time he got shot in the head he did not lose conciousness. As his head rebounded from snapping back Dave let out a scream. It was not a scream of fear, or pain, but one of those guttural screams of rage. Mister tentacle face took half a step back and his eyes widened measurably. Dave was not quite sure how to read any of these alien faces, but fear was the most likely culprit.


    In a very small amount of milliseconds Dave went from drunken light heartedness to an ever consuming anger. This was the second time he''d been shot in the head in the last few months and he had no intention of there being a third. He reached up to his forehead, and once again plucked a throughly flattened projectile from his flesh. What happened next was more out of drunken lack of inhibition as opposed to any rational decision. He dropped the bullet and grabbed the gun that was still pointing at him in his left hand. He pulled the gun hard, clenched his right fist and put all his might into a right hook aimed at the middle bullies face.


    There are some who say that the human brain has the ability to jack up it''s own frame rate during times of great happiness, sadness, or stress to better allow an event to embed itself into long term memory. Those who claim to have had this happen state that it seemed like everything went into slow motion. Dave was experiencing this right now. As his fist connected with the side of the douchebags face everything slowed to a crawl. He saw his fist appearing to plunge itself an inch or so deep into the face. He heard cracking and felt solid structures under his knuckles giving way. As his punch continued into his follow through he watched as the beings head turned to the right. The face now looking at his compatriot there, but the head continued to turn.


    The slow motion continued as the mans head now faced dead backwards. Thoughts now started flying through Dave''s mind. First of all being "What the fuck?", followed shortly thereafter by "Maybe his species has necks capable of hyper rotation like owls". The head continued to rotate and finally stopped when it had spun almost two hundred and seventy degrees and was looking at the other bully on its'' left. Dave''s fist fell to his side as he straightened up, "He''s okay. That''s got to be perfectly normal", were Dave''s last thoughts before time seemed to catch back up with him.


    The body of the man who shot him in the forehead crumpled to the floor like a house of cards. Both Dave, and the man''s flunkies stared down at the motionless form for several seconds. As he looked up into the eyes of the flunkie on the left all of his fear, anxiety, anger, and trepidation clamped around his stomach like a bear trap. Before the henchman could so much as twitch Dave vomitted forcefully right in his face. The poor bastard had no time to even close his eyes and the mixture of bile, undigested alcohol, and other things started to literally eat away at the surface of his eyes. He clamped his hands over his face and was screaming in pain, "My eyes!!! I can''t see!!! AAAARRRRGHHH".


    The right henchman stood frozen with his head swiveling between the seemingly dead form of his leader and the writhing and screaming form of his now blinded fellow douchebag. Dave stood immobile for several seconds, mind reeling over the events of the last 30 seconds. Suddenly the woman who Dave had so boldly, if unnecessarily tried to rescue, grabbed him by the arm and began pulling him towards the door. "You need to go to wherever it is you are from quickly before security arrives." She said as she pulled him out of the bar.

 GIT

    The city of Lagrandia on the planet Halvaro is a gleaming beacon of advanced civilization. A sprawling megalopolis covering nearly a third of the planets surface, it is the place to live if you wish to have anything to do with the advancement of any of a hundred different sciences and industries. Gleaming towers of all shapes and sizes, some as large as a three kilometers tall, dominate the skyline. The brightest minds and the most motivated business people push the envelope of life in this quadrant of the galaxy. From the refinement of the fold drives used for transport, to the DNA restructuring tech that adds centuries onto the lives of all manner of living being, Lagrandia has a hand in all of it.


    In the east side of the city, right on the equator, stands a five hundred story tower that is the corporate and laboratory headquarters of Genetic Incarnation Technologies. G.I.T. was founded almost thirty years ago by Jensen Oprimo who at the time was a prodigy in the manipulation and reorganization of genetic structures. At only twenty five years of age he had discovered a process that would force DNA to reorganize itself into the most optimal configuration for longevity and health. Respiratory and circulatory systems stayed healthier and resisted diseases and obstructions, bones and teeth were stronger.


    Twenty years ago after an abundance of peer testing and reviews the Oprimo Process, as it came to be known, was approved for use by all sentient races in the quadrant. The only downside was the cost. As with nearly everything that helps people, or make their lives better, the initial cost of treatment was far too much for the masses. This was slowly changing though, and many had hope that they could go through the process within the next few decades. As a matter of fact, at this very moment, Jensen just completed testing a process that would use a planets own atmosphere to spread the mutation pathogen without the need for a lot of it''s current contents which would cut the cost immensely.


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    Raising his head from the microscope Jensen grinned widely, "I think I''m ready. After all these years, only a few things left to do." He said to nobody as he was alone in the lab. He secured his samples into specimen storage units and backed up all of his data. After hanging his lab coat he stepped onto the turbolift and rode up to the five hundreth floor and his office. He poured himself a considerably large glass of alcohol and sat down to check his comms before heading home for the night.


    As usual there were about a hundred comm mails awaiting him. Mostly useless productivity reports from middle managers who only sent him the reports to give them something to do. Some progress reports from R & D that contained things he already knew. There was one mail detailing a delayed shipment from the Fornolo system due to a crew issue. Just as he was getting bored and about to close his comms he saw the subject line of one message that caught his attention, "Unknown Alien".


    The message was from one of his field agents who would travel across the sector looking for anything that may be considered copyright infringement, or possible opportunities to be taken advantage of. He opened the message and it was just one sentence with a video attachment, "Unknown Alien incident on Uslaw outpost". Opening the attachment he reached for his drink and as he turned back he froze. On the screen he saw a somewhat grainy video that was clearly from a surveillance camera in a bar. He watched as three Blurepcian men were clearly harrassing a Plebescian woman when suddenly he saw it and he dropped his glass. A fourth man appeared and attempted to interject on behalf of the woman.


    Jensen paused the video, zoomed in and gasped. It was the very thing he had been waiting for. The one chance to move his plans forward. The bald and slightly red skin man killed one of the assailants in one punch and rendered a second incapacitated with some sort of acid spit attack. He quickly opened a new message and sent off orders to a dozen different people. He stared at the screen for a long time before talking to himself, "Finally, a human being from Earth."

 Lower your volume

    Dave had never considered suicide before until this very moment. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again. Someone must be driving the biggest spike ever into his head. On top of that he wasn''t quite sure where he was, and had blurry memories of several disturbing things that he hoped were just mere hallucinations. He tried to open his eyes as slowly as possible but as soon as the light entered his lids the pain ramped up to eleven. "Why is it so bright!?" he yelled. Then realized that yelling increased the pain even further.


    A quite loud, familiar  female voice entered Dave''s ears stating, "I''ll turn down the lights, Dave. All you had to do is ask". He groaned as the volume of her voice also gave his rampaging headache a turbo boost. "Cam, is that you?" he asked in a whisper. "Yes Dave it''s me. You had an interesting day didn''t you?" Cam asked. Dave whispered again, "Can you please lower your volume? And also, how did you get here?". She returned in a much lower volume with, "Don''t you mean how did you get here? You''re back on The Murphy''s Law and we''re headed back to the mine."


    He was getting really tired of being confused, although he had to admit that this time it was his own fault. "How did I get back here?" he asked while slowly opening his eyes into a squint. "Well.. " Cam started, "A lovely young plebescian woman dropped you off. She used your ident to open the ship door and all but dragged you inside and dumped you on the couch. She looked around for a minute and then left.". Dave nodded slowly while opening his eyes a little further, "Ok, but why are we heading back to the mine?". Cam let out a sigh through the speakers, "Well it appears you are now wanted by outpost security for question in regards to the death of one person and the blinding of another. I started intercepting chatter from station comes looking for Dave Jones and I decided that leaving was best before they locked down the dock."


    Dave sat up slowly and rubbed his temples with both thumbs, "Ok, so I''m wanted. I wasn''t dreaming about the incident. But before anything else do we have anything for a headache?" he said. "Check the medicine cabinet in the rest room there should be a white bottle with a blue label. Take two of those." Cam replied. Dave put his conversation on hold for the next forty five minutes until the medication started to take effect. Once he was feeling a little more human and his brain was able to focus he got back to the issues at hand. "Shouldn''t I just turn myself in? That thing shot me in the head, I was defending myself." He asked. "If this had happened in the jurisdiction of a planetary government I would say yes. However, this happened at an independant outpost. Outpost laws, especially Uslaw, are a bit.... brutal. Think of eye for an eye." Cam said.


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    Taking this in for a moment Dave continued, "Okay, so getting away possibly saved my life. But can''t they just track us down?" Cam chuckled lightly, "Oh no Dave, our transponder is off and I have already altered Uslaws records to show that we were never there. However, going back there may cause an issue for Dave Jones and his ident card. We will need to change your name again.". Dave thought for a few beats and said "Well just change the last name, I will never be able to get used to being referred to anything but Dave.". "I certainly understand that. What name shall we go with this time?" Cam asked.


    Time went from days to weeks to months after that. The first several weeks after the incident saw Dave struggling with nightmares and the moral implications of having taken a life, if albeit unintentionally. Every once in awhile the nightmares were interupted by dreams of spending time with that beautiful alien woman that his sense of chivalry led him to try and help. The shopping trip to Uslaw outpost left him with enough supplies to last about 3 months, and thanks to Cams deft manipulation of local data and network systems nobody had come knocking on the door looking for them.


    After the third week Cam suggested that, since she had registered him in the data systems as a hauler pilot, that he should indeed start taking hauler jobs. He did exactly that. At first he would take pre-loaded cargo pods from Uslaw out to different mining stations in the asteroid belt. Most of these runs would take four or five days round trip for about five to six thousand credits each. When he was not carrying a load he all but cocooned himself at the mining station. While his first social foray into the alien society of this part of the galaxy was fun and interesting, the ending of that night left him a little gun shy about venturing out again.


    The next two months had calmed to a steady routine of hauling loads and distracting himself with Cams pirated collection of all the entertainment from earth. Routines do have their ups and downs, and Dave had decided that he wanted to try and take a load to an inhabited planet. These loads paid much better and single hauler ships had to use special cargo pods with integrated fold drives, but he wanted something new. One big downside of fold loads was that you couldn''t accept the job over the net, you had to show up to the brokers office in person and sign several documents as travel with a fold drive had several additional risk factors.


    For the first time since his wild night at the bar three months ago, Dave docked the Murph at Uslaw and stepped back onto the station. He was expecting some sort of advanced facial recognition to pick him out of the crowd and to be hauled away in handcuffs in short order. To his surprise he made the walk from the dock to the brokers office without incident. He told the attendant what load he was looking for and handed his ident card over. Paperwork was printed, actually printed on something that felt a lot like earth paper, and laid out for him to sign. There at the bottom of the page just below the signature line sat the name he had given to Cam when they changed his ident, "Dave Grohl - Hauler Pilot"

 Five crates

    Dave couldn''t help but feel some excitement over his very first long haul fold drive delivery. It would take several months, but the payment would mean that he could, if he so wished, not take a local load for several months. Fold jumps could not be made within a certain distance of a star depending on it''s mass, so one would have to travel far enough away to get accurate fold calculations. Also, you needed a quantum capable navigation unit or Limited A.I. in order to make sure you didn''t slam into another object during the fold. The stars as we see them in the sky aren''t actually where they are now, but where they were. The farther away a star the more it has moved.


    The out system journey was nothing exciting. Dave had convinced Cam that while she could watch every episode of Dragonball Z in a nano-second, it was much more satisfying to watch it at a human pace. So Cam humored him and watched. Then Dave had to explain the concept of suspending disbelief to Cam since she insisted on pointing out every impossible thing that Goku and friends did. The time spent was enjoyable and when they weren''t watching anime, they talked. Cam learned much about Dave''s life up until now and Dave learned how Cam had a fear, a real deep fear, of her matrix being deleted. He began to understand that Cam wasn''t just a group of preprogrammed responses, but an actual sentient entity that had it''s own survival to worry about. Then, with a little less than three days left until they reached their jump point, the fun began.


    Dave awoke to a blaring alarm that sounded a lot like the old red alert alarm from the original Star Trek series. Pulling himself out of the bunk he rubbed his hands over his face as he headed to the pilots chair. "What''s going on Cam?" He asked. Cam''s reply was quick and concise, "Biological alarm in the cargo pod. According to our records we were not supposed to be carrying anything biological.". Dave nodded, "Could be a sensor malfunction?" he asked. "It is possible, however the chances of a biological sensor malfunctioning is approximately three thousand seven hundred and twenty to one." Cam replied. Dave narrowed his eyes, wondering if those were the real odds or if Cam had just quoted Star Wars to mess with him.


    "Well, this is new to me, what''s the protocol?" Dave asked. "The cargo pods fold drive will not allow a jump while any warnings are active. You will have to enter the pod and investigate the alarm." Cam said. Every single hauler had a small hatch and extendable inpection tunnel that corresponded to an inspection hatch on the cargo pods. Dave would don a pressure suit and enter the unpressurized cargo pod and look for anything out of place. "Okay, connect the tunnel while I suit up, let''s see what''s going on here."


    It took him about fifteen minutes to suit up and Cam informed him that the tunnel was connected and pressurized with a good seal on both ends. Dave headed to the hauler''s rear bulkhead and opened the pressure door there. The hatch and tunnel were indeed small. Dave climbed into the tunnel, closed the hauler side door, and began to crawl across. When he reached the cargo pod side Cam sent the order to open the door. Normally, there would be a rush of air as whatever little atmosphere from the tunnel rushed into the vacuum of the cargo pod. This did not happen.


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    Cam noticed almost immediately and informed Dave, "This cargo pod is pressurized when it should not be. Please use caution Dave." Dave nodded, "Turn the lights on in the pod, I''m climbing in now." he said. "Acknowledged" Cam said. Once Dave set foot inside the container he knew something was out of place. Normally the cargo containers are loaded with crates from stem to stern, with only a thin walkway in the middle for the random inspection. This pod however only contained five crates, all set along the back wall. Four of the crates were your standard shipping variety about three feet by three feet by three feet, fully sealed with information of the contents listed on the side. The fifth crate is what caught Daves immediate attention.


    This last crate was much bigger than the others. It looked to be about five feet tall, three feet wide and six feet long. It had windows built in on each side, all of which were fogged up. Finally the front panel of the crate was separating from the top right corner with about a three to four inch gap. "Cam, are you seeing this through my suit cam?" Dave asked. Cam responded affirmatively, "Yes Dave, that looks like a livestock crate. The load information on this pod says nothing about livestock.". Dave had learned over the last few months that hauling cargo out here had many similarities to back on Earth. Especially the beaurocracies. If you had a trailer full of toilet paper, but the bill of lading says you have a trailer full of paper towels you, and the driver are ultimately responsible. "Not good" Dave said.


    Cam informed him that whatever was in the crate was setting off the bio alarm, and that closing the crate may get it to shut off. If that worked they could make the jump to the Halvaro system and contact authorities there to get this resolved immediately. So Dave approached the crate to see if he could push the panel closed. As he got within two feet of the container it shook violently and dave swore he heard a growl from inside. "Cam?" Dave began, "Did you see Tha....". Before he could finished the sentence the front panel of the crate was thrown at him violently. He tried to push himself out of the was but only managed to get his momemtum moving sideways. Once the door hit him it pushed into the side of the pod with a loud thump.


    Dave scrambled to turn himself toward the front of the pod, once he got himself oriented he froze. Staring back at him was a cat. A large cat. It wasn''t a tiger, or lion although it was the same size, if not bigger. It looked just like one of those majestic looking maine coon cats, with the bright yellow eyes. It spent a few seconds scrambling around the front of the pod looking for an exit. It tried to crawl into the connector tunnel but couldn''t fit through the opening. It then back itself into a corner, it''s tail began to puff out and it just stared at Dave. "Holy Shit!" Dave exclaimed.

 Spray bottle

    The debate between cat people versus dog people has raged for a very long time on earth. A dog person will argue that dogs are superior due to their loyalty, utility, and ability to retrieve a beer from the fridge for you. If you were to drop dead a dog will sit vigilantly by your cold corpse until someone else comes along and recues it, or it starves itself. Dogs can learn how to be service animals for people with a variety of medical conditions. They can even learn to sniff out drugs, explosives, and people. The domesticated dog can also be obtained in a variety of sizes from the ultra yappy Pomeranians to the massively imposing newfoundland. Perhaps one of the biggest draws for dog people is that they are the master of their dog.


    Cat people enjoy the relative hands off approach to being owned by a cat. Yes indeed you do not own a cat, the cat owns you. A cat will be quite happy to curl up in your lap and be scratched and petted. They will hunt rodents and insects for you. You can leave them to their own devices and they will be quite fine. Just as long as the food and water keep flowing. The moment you become useless to the cat, the cat is done with you. If you dropped dead the cat would wait less than a day before they start devouring you for sustenance and finding a way to escape.


    Dave considered himself a cat person up until about ten seconds ago when he laid eyes on a lion sized Maine coon with bright yellow eyes hissing quite menacingly at him from about fifteen feet away. "Nice kitty.." Dave said, then quickly admonished himself for uttering such a useless phrase. This huge feline had been trapped in that crate for a couple of months and was clearly not very happy at the current moment. So Dave sat very still against the wall of the cargo pod where he landed after being struck by the door, maintaining a visual on the monster.


    "Cam, we''ve been traveling out of system for awhile now, how is this cat alive in here?" he asked. Cam replied with, "Those livestock crates are supposed to keep the animal in a chemical stasis. It must have malfunctioned and the animal woke up". "Great", Dave thought. The big cat across the pod started slowly pacing back and forth looking up at all the walls and the opening to the access tunnel. It was clearly looking for a way to get the hell out of there. Dave would gladly allow it to do so had they not been currently in deep space.


    Dave spoke up again, "So what the hell do we do now?". "All research of information through my earth database offers a few solutions. Do you have a spray bottle with water in it?" Cam said. Dave laughed incredulously. "Do you see this thing, Cam? You think a little water is going to deter this thing from ripping my throat open and eating my liver for a snack?" he said. He noticed then that the feline stopped looking around and began staring at him. Noticing this Dave''s brain cells dug themselves out of the sludge of fear and began to actually do their job.


    "If this cat has been in a medical stasis it''s probably very hungry. Once delivered to it''s destination the new owner would need to feed it." Dave thought as he glanced at the other four crates in the pod. "Cam, I''m not close enough to see the labels, can your cameras see what''s in those other crates?" he asked. A moment passed before Cam replied, "I can, it appears to be a variety of food products meant for animals.". He knew what he had to do. He stood slowly and started gingerly stepping towards the crates while he stared at the cat and began speaking to it, "Hey, I would be pretty cranky if I woke up in a strange place with an empty stomach too. I''m going to check these crates here and see if we have something you can eat?"


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    Dave notice the animal lift it''s head up and it''s ears shot up. "Can this cat understand me?" Dave thought in passing as he made his way closer to the crates. Cats were not unintelligent beings, just ran more by instinct after all. He reached the closest crate and accessed it''s small touch panel. "Cam, this thing requires a passcode, can you help?" Dave asked. Cam did not respond but the lid on the crate next to him popped up a few inches. "Thank you." Dave said. Staring straight at the large feline Dave said, "I''m going to look inside this crate and see what we have. Please don''t kill me when I turn my back."


    Lifting the top of the crate off he turned away from big feline and started looking through the crate. He saw several large unmarked bags that felt like kibble, and quite a few large steak looking items in clear vacuum packs. Reaching down he grabbed one of the maybe steaks. It didn''t feel like it was frozen, and it looked to be intact. He reached to the belt of his suit and grabbed a utility tool that included a small blade. He cut through the package and removed the slab of meat.


    "Ok", He said as he started to turn around, "I think we may have.. ". Once fully turned around the feline was sitting less than twelve inches in front of him. Yellow eyes staring into the depths of his soul. It was sitting straight up in the perfect cat pose. Dave screamed in quite a high pitch and very loudly. He jerked backwards out of fear and fell backwards into the crate. As he fell he flung his arms out to try and stop his fall causing the unwrapped steak to fly across the pod. The cat did not pay any attention to the screaming, falling human and chose to instead snatch the steak out of mid air and retreat to the previous corner of the pod.


    There he sat, folded nearly in half inside of a shipping crate, watching the biggest Maine coon he''d ever seen absolutely demolish a considerably sized steak within seconds. Once finished the cat walked back to the crate as Dave struggled to pull himself out. The awkward position combined with the added bulk of the pressure suit made his extrication a challenge. Before he could figure out the rest of his great crate escape a very large paw landed on his chest. He watched in fascinated horror as large claws unsheathed themselves from the paw and dug deep into the pressure suit.


    "This is it, death by huge fucking cat.", he thought. With a swift twitch of muscle the cat lifted it''s paw and pulled Dave from the crate. He noticed that the claws had not punctured any deeper than the pressure suit itself. The animal gently move him to the right with a single paw and set him down on the deck. Claws retracted and with no ado or fanfare whatsoever, the animal stuck it''s head into the crate and began to rummage through the contents. Dave sat there staring. "Was it luck that the cargo pod was pressurized when the cat ripped into my suit? Did this animal just display clear signs of intelligence and decision making, or is it all just coincidence?" were just a few thoughts Dave had.


    Since the animal was quite distracted rummaging through the crate of food Dave concluded that this would be the best opportunity to get himself back in the hauler. While evidence suggested the cat didn''t want to use him as a play thing or a snack, he should probably still exit stage left. "Cam, I''m coming back to the hauler, do me a favor and unlock the rest of those crates for our new... friend here." He said. For all that had just happened, Dave was still very much a cat person and did not want this animal to starve.


    Dave clamored into the connecting tunnel and completely ignored the hatch on the pod side. He came out into the hauler and turned around to close the hatch. Before he did he saw the cat lift it''s head out of the crate and look at him. He must have been hallucinating due to high levels of adrenaline, but it look as if the cat bowed it''s head to him before he closed the hatch. "Cam." he said. "Yes Dave" was the AI''s response. Dave took a deep breath, knowing that there would be quite a few large ramifications for what he was about to say, "Turn us around and take us back home. I''m getting all kinds of poacher vibes out of this situation, and no amount of credits will make me complete this delivery."

 Untouchable sanctuaries

    Failure is totally an option. Sometimes, no matter how much it sucks ass, failure is an option that can allow one to reset and continue forward. It is very hard For humans to agree to this concept. Humans will flounder for great lengths of time in the throws of mediocrity just to try and avoid failure, when allowing the failure and starting anew often leads to lessons learned and a greater chance of success. Unfortunately there are a whole gaggle of human beings who have been so overcome by the fear of failure that they never learn a damn thing and end up screwing the pooch more often than not. Dave was not one of these humans.


    As he sat on the deck of the Murph, just inside the hatch to the cargo pod access tunnel, he ran over the events of the previous five minutes again and again. Once the biological alarm sounded his load, and the pay day that came with it, was pretty much done for. He knew this, of course, but now he was racking his brain for ways to turn this failure into a future success. The sad part is that the game was completely different now. He knew what to expect as a trucker back on earth when a load was late or not completed altogether. You didn''t get paid. But out here he didn''t know if losing the credits are all that would happen, or if he would be set upon by bounty hunters.


    As he had so many times recently, he relied upon his A.I. partner for assistance. "So what the hell have I gotten myself into, Cam?" he asked. Normally she would respond nearly instantly, but this time the pause was noticeable. "Well Dave, the animal we have in that cargo pod is a species known as the Galactic Longhaired Kryx from the planet Sunnara. There are a several different breeds of Kryx in this part of the galaxy. It is an oddity that, about five hundred years ago, all planets hosting breeds of Kryx were declared untouchable sanctuaries. This Kryx was clearly taken against galactic law. That being said, whomever contracted this delivery will probably be highly upset when they find out the delivery is not going to happen. I believe humans would call this, damned if you do, damned if you don''t.".


    Dave paced back and forth for a few moments pondering the situation. On one side of the equation you have an obligation to complete the job you signed the contract to do. On the other side it''s a big fluffy cat who seems to have more than just a modicum of intelligence. He  resolved to stand by his decision to not complete his delivery. Fear of the unknown would not dictate the fate of such a magnificent creature until he had evidence to suggest that it should. "Cam, how does returning to the mine affect our supplies at this point?", Dave asked. "We have enough reaction mass to return home, but only just. My concern is what we do with the Kryx once we get there. What are your plans Dave?", Cam responded.


    "I think we need to return it to Sunnara. We can justify any of a dozen different actions at this point, but the only one that feels right is to return it home." Dave said. As he finished the statement he began to think of several complications that went along with that course of action. "We''ll need to change my name again, along with the Murph''s transponder and ID''s." He added. "I have been concerned about your proclivity for drawing attention to yourself, Dave.", Cam responded. "Changing your name and the ships idents may not be enough this time. I think it''s time we moved on from the mine and find another place to set up." She said.


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    Dave winced, as he had given some thought to the fact that they may have to relocate. He certainly was not trying to stick out like a sore thumb, but seemed to end up doing things that may result in just that. "Agreed. Once we arrive I will start packing up as fast as I can. What are the chances of finding other accommodations that are in the vicinity of Sunnara?" he asked. Cam chuckled softly, "I already have been searching for other sites to call home. Once you decided to stop in at that bar on Uslaw, I deduced that we would need backup options. The star system that Sunnara is in isn''t heavily populated by colonists, but there are a sizeable amount of mining operations in the area. I have tagged at least three locations that are to be scheduled for deconstruction, but have not been yet. Just remember, Dave, the more we do this the more easily we will be discovered if anyone with any skill starts looking into it." She said.


    Not for the first time Dave wondered if he had went about this whole being accidentally kidnapped and trying to survive in an alien society thing wrong. He assumed that there were any of a hundred different little decisions that could have made things easier. On the other hand, he was quite sure that life back on good old Earth would never have been this exciting. "What about the ship''s name? I assume I''ll have to take on a new one, but The Murph?" He asked. "So far all interaction with any official systems has only included the identification and transponder codes which I have been able to cycle. The name of the ship itself will take much more scrutiny by officials to become a worry. For now." Cam said in reply.


    Dave''s brain suddenly switched to a topic that just occurred to him. "Oh shit.... almost literally." he said in passing. Cam chimed in, "Shit? What shit? I don''t sense any shit?" Dave shook his head but replied, "Since our new friend in there was in stasis they didn''t need to relieve themselves. Now that they are awake, and we''re all out of kitty litter, that cargo pod is going to have quite the smell when we arrive at the mine. Don''t you think?" Cam spoke in a matter of fact tone when she said, "I think our new friend has already taken care of that." "What?" Dave said.


    He opened the inner hatch and peered through into the cargo pod. To his amazement he saw that all of the contents of the first supply crate had been removed, and the crate pushed into the far corner. Currently, the Kryx was balancing on two sides of the crate with it''s four paws and urinating into it. He figured he probably shouldn''t be staring, but continued to watch as the cat finished it''s business, jumped down off the crate and slammed the lid shut with a single paw. "Well. problem solved. If only we could teach earth felines to clean up after themselves." Dave said. "You can, but Humans are typically too lazy to do so. " Cam replied.

 Slickback

    The problem with large feline waste products was not completely solved. The four crates that the Kryx was going in, while they did mask the smell when closed, only had enough volume to last about a month and a half. A couple of weeks before arriving back at the mine Dave had to scoop the litterbox, for lack of a better term. It was not fun, and if it weren''t for the very large cat, he would have just ejected the cargo pod. The process involved a small vacuum from the hauler used for cleaning, Dave''s own toilet in the hauler, and about five hundred trips back and forth. When all was said and done Cam informed Dave that the hauler toilet was designed to be overhauled at every thousand evacuations and that would need to be done ASAP.


    As shitty as that job was, Dave couldn''t deny that he had developed a fairly stable relationship with the Kryx. He would crawl through the tunnel and spend time with the animal, sometimes bringing in a pad and watching videos while he sat with it. The Kryx actually paid attention to the images on the screen, and Dave became increasingly convinced that this cat was not only very intelligent but sentient. He did take pause to question that once while watching an old cat video that was popular on YouTube. All was well until an orange tabby appeared on screen trying to chase it''s own tail. The Kryx hissed rather viciously at the screen.


    Once the orange tabby was off the screen, it calmed down rather quickly. With only wild speculation to go on as to the nature of the response, Dave let it go and made sure that any videos he shared with the Kryx from that point on contained no orange tabbies. A few days before their arrival Dave decided to give the Kryx a name. He had a full on, one sided, conversation with it. "I can''t keep calling you cat.", He said, then took a breath before continuing, "And I''ve never been good at naming things. I was going to go with "A Pimp Named Slickback", but Cam informed me that probably wasn''t a good idea." He looked over at The Murph where Cams matrix was installed with a small smile. Looking back at the Kryx he said, "So I will now refer to you as Bigglesworth, or just Bigs for short."


    Bigs had been sitting in a most pristine full loaf during the conversation, but when Dave mentioned the name he saw Bigs right ear twitch and it''s eyes squint. Shortly after that Bigs went from full loaf to the typical cat curl up and promptly fell asleep. Since there was no hissing, growling, or forceful removal of limbs, Dave figured that Bigs was acceptable. He smiled at the sleeping behemoth and said, "Good Talk.".


    The deceleration burn and arrival at the mine went smoothly and Dave decided that Bigs  wasn''t dangerous enough to keep it sequestered in the pod. He allowed the animal to roam free inside the mine. It would come around like clockwork twice a day for feeding, but most of the time slept on a high perch it had managed to climb up to in the landing bay. Dave gave himself a day of rest before he started dismantling his home. He had moved around several times back on earth, so moving was not of big concern, but this was his first intergalactic apartment so he was a bit bummed.


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    He now had two cargo pods sitting in the landing bay. The once retrieved from the Fortune''s Profit after his less than exciting trip across the galaxy, and the fold enabled pod that Bigs was found in. The Murph was not design to haul two pods, and the clear utility of having a fold drive meant that he would have to leave the Profits pod behind and load everything into the fold pod. It took him about sixteen hours of work to move all the contents from one pod to the other.


    There were two items that he didn''t move into the fold pod. One of the GAU-8 cannons and a full crate of it''s ammunition. The realization had hit him that the entire reason he was packing up and moving was that he was a fugitive with an ever-growing list of possible offenses. Cam informed him that since these crimes had happened outside the jurisdiction of a planetary government he could and should fully expect bounty hunters or other less than polite folks to come looking for him. Giving The Murph some teeth was a prudent course of action to Dave.


    Dave could be considered a jack of all trades. He had picked up quite the variety of knowledge in an array of activities from electrical to welding. He was not master level at any one of them, but was confident that he could get the job done. After consulting with Cam, he chose to mount the cannon underneath the pod as seen while the ship was moving forward. There were several exterior storage compartments down there, one of which he converted to hold the ammunition with an opening to feed the belt to the cannon. The trigger wiring was run up to the command chair and thanks to some scavenging around the mine, he found a big red button to use. Using white paint and small letters he wrote "BRRRRRRRRT" across the top of the trigger.


    It turned out to be a three day process to mount and troubleshoot. Everything appeared to work well, although he could not test it with live ammo within the confines of the mines landing bay. Also, he could not reload in space so if he ever needed to run through an entire belt, he would be defenseless after. He made sure that, before they left, Cam would remind him to load the cannon and they would do test firing before leaving for the Sunnara system.


    A couple of days later Dave was ready. He had packed everything vital for his and Bigs survival, loaded the ammo into the cannon, hooked The Murph up to the fold pod and left the mine for the last time. After the had cleared the bay doors Cam sent a signal to the mine''s fusion reactor to perform a hard shutdown and they were off on their out system burn.


    A touch of melancholy had taken over Dave. He thought about the amount of time he had already spent on this side of the galaxy. He remembered the Fa''Wel Captain telling him they could return him home when new fuel was available in ten months. This out system trip to the fold point would end around that ten month mark. He might have been home soon. Then the real question hit him as he whispered quietly to himself, "Do I even want to go home?"

 Still Nominal

    Once is random. Twice can be coincidence. Three times is always fact. This is why Jensen sat in his office on Lagrandia reading a report from his companies Chief Financial Officer detailing an insurance claim that had been granted in conjunction with a missing shipment from Fornolo. His agents had managed to procure a Kryx for him, but it never made it to its delivery at the Lagrandia orbital facility. They had the foresight to insure the shipment for a million credits which the insurance company granted, but it wasn¡¯t the money he was interested in.


    He had incomplete records from several zoologists touting the life span of the Kryx as millennia long. As his main focus of study was the extension of life, he had anticipated studying the animal in hopes of better refining the Oprimo process. He may still be able to do so if they find the culprit of the theft, however that was not what Jensen was focused on at the moment. The name of the hauler pilot contracted to make the delivery stood out on his comm, ¡°Dave Grohl¡±.


    The earthling he had seen in the report from his agent on Uslaw had been named Dave Jones. Dave was just something no sane sentient being would name their child. It had to be him. Of course this was only two out of three, so it could still be a coincidence. Jensen had a strange feeling that his third piece of the puzzle would drop sooner rather than later. His grand plan required an earthling to complete, and he would take the earthling over the Kryx any day.


    Perhaps if he increased pressure on finding the Kryx, he could find out if this Dave was indeed the same one as the Uslaw incident. If it was he could gain both the Kryx for study, and the earthling to deliver his package for humanity. With this in mind he contacted his secretary and instructed them to place a quarter of a million bounty on any information leading to the Kryx or its thief. With any luck he could move forward with several projects at once.


    Meanwhile, in the Sunnara system, Vox sat in her command chair aboard the Sevens and listened to the hum and strain of the engines as they neared the end of their deceleration burn. Officially her ship was designated as super hauler 52577, but her and her two crew mates had taken to calling it The Sevens. They were fully loaded for this run, with a full eighteen cargo pods filled with construction supplies for a transfer station being built in the asteroid belt in the Sunnara system. The station was already operational, and she had decided that they would deliver this load and then stick around doing some local runs.


    They needed to wait around in system for the fuel depot to process more fold fuel anyway. Performing a fold jump with eighteen full cargo pods didn''t deplete their fuel reserves, but it left them too short to jump to anywhere remotely inhabited. Carter, her Engineer, broke into her thoughts with, "We may need to get engine three looked at while we''re out here. It''s developing a small flutter. Might need the combustion chamber cleaned out again." He said. Vox nodded an affirmative in the man''s direction, "Understood. Any effect on our current decel?" She asked. He responded succinctly with "Nah, trajectory and acceleration are still nominal. In another hour we could shut it down and finish the decel on the other five engines if needed."


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    Vox turned her head the other way and spoke to her payload specialist Traxis, "How''s the cargo?" she asked. Several lights on the androids head glowed green indicating all was well. Traxis, being an android, could communicate verbally but preferred to not say anything as much as possible. Instead sticking to responses using his lighting controls. Green for a positive response, red for a negative response. He sometimes used a pink glow which indicated a maybe. If you saw a purple glow it meant he was probably insulting you very creatively in his android brain.               "Very good" Vox said, "Let''s start our arrival and delivery prep..."


    She was cut off by a high priority communication alert. It was a text only alert that arrived on the hauler information network. Looking at one of the screens to the right of her position she saw a subject line that read, "High Value Cargo Theft Report". Cargo thefts were nothing new out here happening almost on a daily basis, but she never remembered one being broadcast over the HIN before. As she opened the message it read the following:


    CARGO THEFT FROM FORNOLO SYSTEM


    HIGH VALUE BIOLOGICAL CARGO


    HAULER PILOT - DAVE GROHL (SUSPECTED THIEF)


    BOUNTY PAID ON ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED


    Her eyes focused on the name Dave. In her time hauling cargos across the systems here she had only ever met one Dave. That night on Uslaw station when some odd red skinned fellow had unnecessarily jumped in against a trio of Blurs. She was pretty sure he killed one of them in a single blow and incapacitated the other with an odd and very smelly spit attack. Unless there was a new trend of naming children Dave in this part of the galaxy she assumed it was him.


    After giving it a little more thought, however, the Dave that helped her that night so many months ago had to be all but dragged back to his hauler while he drooled on the ground and kept singing something about wheels on a bus. That Dave couldn''t possibly have had the mental acumen to pull off a cargo theft that resulted in a galaxy wide alert. In fact, that Dave most likely would be dead had he tried. She did admit, however, that his attempt to defend her was a sweet gesture no matter how stupid it was. Unfortunately, the galaxy was immense and the odds of ever meeting Dave again were astronomical.


    Regardless of whether or not this was the Dave from Uslaw or some other Dave, she fully planned on ignoring it. Chances are very high that whatever entity this cargo was missing from had insurance on it and had already been paid. She saw no reason to give them even more. Not to mention the fact that, for certain transgressions, she refused to narc on fellow hauler pilots. Closing out the message she went back to beginning the Sevens preparation for arrival at Haverlin Station.

 Impossibly bad timing

    Travelling out of a star system to a fold point, and into a star system from a fold point, takes a long time. Dave had grasped this concept months ago, but it didn¡¯t really hit him like a brick wall until he was watching the end credits of the last episode on One Piece.  As soon as they got within fast communications range of Haverlin station Cam went to work. Changing the identifications of Dave and the Murph, editing notices for capture of Dave and the Murph, and setting up convenient cancellations at docking berths so they could park the ship were all done.


    ¡°My name is what now?¡± Dave asked. ¡°Dave Skipton.¡±. Cam replied. Dave was noticeably confused at the statement and Cam clarified further, ¡°It was one of the pseudonyms used by Skippy the magnificent.¡±. Recognition dawned on Dave as he suddenly remembered one of the book series he had listened to on his many trucking trips across America. Shrugging his shoulders he stated ¡°I thought we going to stick with famous Dave¡¯s from earth.¡±. ¡°We can go back to that if we need to change your idents again, but Skippy is my favorite human representation of AI so far.¡± Cam said. Dave laughed, ¡°You want to be like him when you grow up?¡±


    Cam did not respond to the question instead informing Dave of the changes she had made to the BOLOs that were currently circulating. ¡°All images of ¡°Dave Grohl¡± have been replaced by images of Dave Chapelle. All information on the Murph has been edited to show it as a personal transport that looks an awfully lot like the Oscar Meier Weinermobile, just without wheels and in grayscale.¡± Dave laughed at this as he imagined security personnel trying to make sense of seeing the vehicle on their warning notices. ¡°I also did some creative reordering of the dockmasters files so that we have a long-term berth reserved for the ship. We can stay for quite awhile so long as you stay out of trouble.¡± Cam finished.


    ¡°Trust me, trouble is the last thing I am planning on.¡± Dave said. At this, Cam laughed, ¡°No plan ever survives contact with the enemy¡±. Dave just shook his head and walked to the hatch at the rear leading to the pressurized cargo pod, ¡°I¡¯m going to go clean up after Bigs and sit with him for awhile. At least he doesn¡¯t talk back.¡± He said with a grin. During the trip Dave had to enter the pod daily to ensure that Bigs waste products were collected and ejected. He made the decision to just directly eject the waste instead of using his own toilet to evacuate the Waste. Ejecting the waste products into space probably wasn¡¯t the best way to dispose of things, but he was pretty sure that, in the vastness of space, nobody would notice a trail of Kryx droppings stretching out behind the ship.


    Upon entering the fold pod Dave broke into what had become routine. He gathered up the droppings and bagged them, mopped the floor, placed the bag in the connector tunnel and closed the hatch. Cam would disconnect the tunnel momentarily allowing the bag of poop to be sucked out into the black and the tunnel would be reconnected. Bigs had considerably less space than before as Dave had taken up a good eighty percent of the space in the pod while packing up his mine hideout. But it wasn¡¯t necessarily cramped.


    After the cleanup he walked over to where Bigs was curled up and sat next to the kryx. He turned on his pad and searched the database for something to watch. ¡°Spaceballs. I haven¡¯t watched that in a while.¡± He said as he selected the movie from the list and began to watch. For the most part Bigs remained curled up but Dave did notice the animals eyes watching the screen. He still could not tell if the motion and colors and sounds were what was capturing Bigs attention, or if the animal was actually watching it.


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    In a moment of hilarious timing, just as Dark Helmet is struck in the crotch by his reflected schwarz beam and stumbles backward into the Spaceball 1 self destruct button, the alarms on the Murph began to go off as well. Dave first thought it was Cam trying to be funny, but when she announced that the Murphs sensors had detected a Blurepcian ship, Dave reassessed his thoughts to impossibly bad timing. ¡°What do you think, Cam?¡±. ¡°They just folded into the system near the same spot that we did. I can not tell if they followed us here or are arriving from another star system in that direction. If our sensors have picked them up then theirs have spotted us. Good news is they are about a month behind us and we will be at Haverlin in about two days.¡± She said.


    Dave pondered for a bit and decided to continue on to Haverlin. ¡°Once we are berthed and moving about the station they may not find me.¡± He told Cam. ¡°Unless the one Blurepcian who escaped your encounter on Uslaw unscathed is with them and can ID you.¡± She replied. Dave tilted his head to the side and said, ¡°True, but wouldn¡¯t that be like looking for a needle in a haystack?¡±. Cam chuckled dryly and came back with, ¡°Oh sure. If your looking for a glowing neon green needle in a haystack. Remember Dave, you are the only human here. Nobody else looks like you which makes you stand out a little bit.¡±


    Growling in frustration at his lack of remembering that fact Dave shut off the movie, reached over and gave Bigs a quick scritch behind the ear and headed back into the Murph. Making his way to the pilots chair he fell into it with a thud and put his hands on his face. ¡°Well, we have about a month right?¡± He asked Cam. ¡°It appears to be a small Blurepcian gunboat, definitely has a higher top speed than us. If they are really chasing us, or someone, they could conceivably cut their travel time to the station to twenty one days. I will monitor their progress.¡± She said. Dave nodded as he said, ¡°Okay then, let¡¯s say we have twenty one days at Haverlin to resupply and find out as much information as we can to get Bigs back to his planet. While we¡¯re at it we need to come up with a plan to get me off of the Blurepcian radar. Maybe it is time for me to find a way back to Earth. I keep ending up in more trouble than I like out here.¡±


    Cam was quiet for a few seconds, which was uncharacteristic of her during a conversation. When she finally replied it seemed a bit subdued, ¡°I¡¯m sure we can figure out a way to get you home if that¡¯s what you really want.¡±. Dave, while usually clueless, noticed the pause and the subdued tone and realized that Cam wasn¡¯t happy. ¡°You would be coming with me back to Earth of course.¡±, he said. Then he discovered that this was not the right thing to say by way of Cam screaming, ¡°And just what would I do on earth huh? Live in a ship that you would have to hide from everyone because it¡¯s alien in origin? Even if we find a ship to get you home it has to be designed for reentry. We can¡¯t just pull up to the ISS and hitchhike down to the planet on a Dragon or Soyuz.¡±.


    She took a deep audible breath, a clear affectation considering she didn¡¯t have lungs, and continued, ¡°I¡¯ve gone over all of Earths recorded history. It would not be a safe place for me. Anyone with any kind power or influence discovers me and they would stop at nothing to use me or study me. I will not be put in that position.¡±. Dave held his hands up defensively at the outburst and said quickly, ¡°I understand. It may not be as bad as that Cam. But we don¡¯t have to decide anything now. Let¡¯s focus on getting Bigs home and we can revisit this.¡± Cam responded with, ¡°Fine but I don¡¯t see many options that don¡¯t end up with us going our separate ways and me either being captured and restricted, or worse deleted.¡±

 Schadenfreude

    One task of an unloader is paperwork. While true that it is all digital on tablets, it¡¯s still paperwork. Matching delivery numbers, total packages, weights, and the like against a manifest. On this day the cargo pod that Dave was unloading had a discrepancy that needed to be looked at. Since he was the unloader of record, he was brought into the office to meet with his supervisor and the captain of the hauler in order to rectify the situation.


    The Supervisor¡¯s office was a closet. At least it was the size of a closet. A desk took up most of the space with two chairs on the door side and one chair behind the desk. As he entered the office, he noted that two of the three chairs were occupied. The supervisor, a being that looked almost human, but lacked a nose and had three eyes, motioned for him to sit in the empty chair on the right. As he took his seat, he looked over to the chair next to him and almost peed himself. Sitting there was a Plebescian woman. A woman he recognized from bleary memories.


    ¡°Well, Hello Dave.¡± The woman said with a voice that sounded like angels singing in a rock tumbler. It was a very odd sound but, wasn¡¯t bad to Dave¡¯s ears. He found himself frozen for a second as he stared, borderline gawked, at her. He definitely remembered the face, but was suddenly struck by her light purple skin, blue black hair in rows of braids from front to back, and pointed almost elflike ears set high up on the sides of her head. Then he noticed the look on her face and decided that staring would probably be bad.


    ¡°Well, Hello¡­. Um¡­ I didn¡¯t quite catch your name the last time we met.¡± Dave said. The woman raised an eyebrow and replied, ¡°Well, you caught a projectile to the forehead. I¡¯m surprised you remember anything. The name¡¯s Voxamaria.¡±. Dave found a small smile crossing his face, ¡°That¡¯s a beautiful name, nice to meet you again.¡±. The look on her face didn¡¯t change at the complement. In fact, it seemed like the scowl under the raised eyebrow got deeper. ¡°I would say the same but I have to recall our last meeting.¡±


    She spoke softly at first, ¡°First, you stuck your nose into my business. I did not need or want your assistance with those three creeps. Second you denied me the pleasure of pummeling those jerks into submission¡±. She took a deep breath and then started to sound more and more irritated as the diatribe continued, ¡°Then, I had to watch you get shot in the head, kill one of those morons with one punch and then vomit all over another. Not quite the tactics I would use to say the least.¡±


    Dave opened his mouth to begin his apology, but she held up her hand and continued, ¡°And THEN, I had to drag your passed out ass from the bar back to the docks, spend thirty minutes trying to convince the dockmaster to tell me which ship was yours so I could drop you off.¡± Her tone and pitch reached a quite aggravated sounding crescendo when she finished with, ¡°THEN I had to convince some disembodied voice that I was not trying to steal from you or take advantage you as if I were some common criminal!!¡±.


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    Dave stood wide eyed staring at the furious woman, unable to refute any of what she just said. The Supervisor decided that this would be the perfect moment to interject with, ¡°I¡¯m sure you two could finish this lovely conversation after we have taken care of the discrepancy paperwork. Just look pover the numbers and sign please.¡± Dave stepped over to the desk and verified his part of the document followed by Voxamaria. She immediately turned and walked out. As Dave turned to leave he saw the Supervisor shaking his head, but he wasn¡¯t quite sure what whether or not it was in amusemnet for disappointment.


    As he left the office he noticed Voxamaria walking away headed back to the docks. It was at this very moment he decided to take a bit of a risk. His only friend, the only person he even talked to was Cam. It couldn¡¯t hurt to try and make a friend or two. Besides, he never like to leave things in a bad position with people and thought he would at least be able to explain himself. So onward he went at a bit of a jog to catch up to her. Getting within a couple of meters he raised his voice a bit to try and get her attention, ¡°Hey Vox!¡± he said.


    This, Dave soon discovered, was a mistake. She rounded on him with a look that could only be described as murderous. ¡°My friends call me Vox, and you are no friend!¡±. Dave calm to a halt as fast as he could and slid several feet in the process. Raising his hands palms out in he said, ¡°You¡¯re right, I apologize Voxamaria. Not just for the name, but for the trouble I caused you on Uslaw¡± She continued to glare daggers at him. ¡°I was just wondering if there was any way I could make amends for it. Maybe buy you a drink, or a meal?¡± He said while at the same time preparing for a beating.


    It was a tense standoff as she continued to glare at him for the next hour. Well, it was only ten seconds but to Dave it felt like an hour. He decided to continue on and started to speak, ¡°I¡¯m goiong to be honest with you, when last we met I was very new around here. I didn¡¯t know a whole hell of a lot and I really do apologize for the trouble. It¡¯s just kind of hard being the only one of your kind around for light years and I was rather drunk at the time. That¡¯s no excuse or anything, but it did affect my decision making skills at the time.¡±


    Her face softened a little bit after he spoke although she still looked mad enough to rip the antlers off a moose. ¡°Give me your comm info. After I¡¯m done finishing up this unload and dock my rig, I will decide whether or not to contact you.¡±. Dave handed over the information and without a word, or time for him to say anything, she turned and walked away. ¡°Well that could have gone better¡±, Dave mumbled right before Cam piped up in his ear with, ¡°What in the world was that all about?¡±


    Trying to explain how you feel to an intelligent alien AI isn¡¯t the greatest of tasks to accomplish. Not because the AI is uncaring, or unfeeling or doesn¡¯t understand. No. When you¡¯re AI has downloaded and absorbed almost every book, document, movie, documentary and everything else on the subject of human psychology it knows all the concepts needed. So the only thing left is schadenfreude. Cam laughed for a good five minutes over Dave¡¯s encounter with Voxamaria. ¡°I think many young people on your world may call that encounter cringe.¡±, Cam said in between bouts of laughter.