The shuttle could sit fifteen, but with the recent bio disaster on Blue Dot, planetary transit and galactic cruises had been struggling to book at even half capacity. Counting the A.I. holographic overly sexed Japanese cartoon character piloting the craft, four were aboard tonight’s corporate charter to Tatooine.
Of the four, only one would manage to make it all six lightyears of travel without vomiting. Unsurprisingly it was the pilot who kept it all down, being a cartoon hologram and all. Before the advent of “G-Monster”, a semi-legal amphetamine developed by Pfizer Intercorp, humans used to black out around five G’s. Now they just puke.
“Gravity just wants to keep you down. G-Monster keeps you UP!”
Now humans hurtle through space pepped out of their gourds fully conscious of the physical trauma that 8.5k G’s hammers their tender meaty bodies with.
Pretty solid drug for the Pfizer folks though. Only side effect of G-Monster was an irresistible nausea.
It has been said that vomiting in zero G’s is more of an art than a science. Even with most modern rockhoppers being equipped with vacuum sealed face bags, the key remains in affixing it to one’s face prior to the expulsion. And hence, the art lies in knowing how early to affix. Of the three who felt their bellies bubble, two properly bagged their faces.
That left Geraldine Potts with the pleasure of introducing her lunch to her fellow travelers, before they even knew her name.
*SPLURT*
Out flowed an undulating lava lamp blob stream of liquid lunch.
It was actually quite beautiful, Geraldine thought to herself. She’d only ever seen boring water float in zero G’s, and that was back home on Blue Dot when she was just a girl in physics class. This was textured and colorful. This was COOL!
“Hey guys! I’m Gerry!”
She’d lost her lunch, not her manners.
“It’s really nice to meet you. I’m so super sorry for the mess! Gosh, these bags sure are tricky, aren’t they? Anyhow I guess now’s as good a time as any to give you the full pickle on your amazing honeymoon vacation on planet…”
She pulled out a large binder of tree paper, now quite illegal to harvest, from her fold-a-space sack and began rifling through its pages. As she ripped through, her head swiveled and angled making her silver spiked hair twitch and wiggle like a cockatoo crown.
“…Tatooine!”
She finished and looked up feeling quite pleased with herself.
The two now vomit covered passengers looked at each other as if to decide if murder was on the table. Before they could galvanize their urge into action, the pilot *popped* into existence before them with a schoolgirly giggle.
“Tee hee! Uh oh! Sōji shimasu! I’ll clean!”
With a *chime* the cartoon manifested several mechanized arms. One began spritzing, one began wiping, and a third waved a vacuum wand behind her inhaling the bulbous lava blobs still dancing in open space. In seconds the two would-be-killers were sparkling clean. The one whose jumpsuit read “ACE” was even the beneficiary of a beard trim and mustache wax. The one with death still in her eyes received a misty blast of some perfume as the pilot popped back out of existence to resume flying the craft at 1.6 billion miles per hour.
“…Oh my god. Is that Dust Daisy you’re wearing? OMG, I LOVE DUST DAISY! I’m wearing it too right now. See? SMELL!”
Geraldine thrust her wrist across the aisle nearly punching Miss Death Stare in the face.
“I grew up on Mars you know. Dust Daisy is our “planetary flower”. I just love it. Can’t get enough OF it. Heheh. Plus it reminds me of home. Not that Mars is HOME home. Blue Dot was my first home really…
She paused. She twitched like a bird again looking confused.
“…Hmmm. No, that’s not Dust Daisy. I don’t know what that is. But I like it! If you find out what it is, let me know ok? Greeeaaaat!”
The murder gaze had reappeared on the faces of the other two.
“Ok. So. Where was I. Oh ya…CONGRATZ YOU TWO! Marriage is a BIG deal! But not as big a deal as….A HONEYMOON! WOOWEEOO!!!”
“Stop.”
Ace held his hand up.
“Please, for your sake, stop talking.”
Geraldine froze, arms still outstretched in congratulations.
Ace began again, “I don’t know YOU, and I don’t know HER. And if it’s all the same to BOTH of you, I’d be just fine going right along not knowing NEITHER of you. My trip was designed to be brief and uncomplicated. I’m off to an awful start. However, I have no qualms in “fixing” the root of the complication if necessary. It’s starting to feel necessary. Is it necessary?”
He kept unblinking eye contact with to register the threat with the excitable bird person before him. Geraldine nodded and slowly leaned back against her seat folding her hands gingerly in her lap.
She was quiet for exactly five seconds.
“…Wait.”
Ace huffed.
“Soooo…you two AREN’T married?”
“No.”
This time it was the death stare woman speaking. She nonchalantly unbuckled her safety harness and floated upwards.
She motioned over her shoulder, “Never seen this guy in my life.”
She was gently pulling herself down the aisle toward the luggage lockers at the back of the shuttle. Geraldine started again:
“Soooo…whose honeymoon am I guiding?”
“Dunno lady, not my problem.” Said Ace. He was now unharnessing as well.
There was another beat of silence.
“Are you guys SURE you’re not married?”
“YES!” They replied in unison.
“…jeez…ok fine…then don’t enjoy this….this….”
Geraldine furiously began flipping through the paper binder again.
“…this beautiful sand dune hike…and and and 10-credit Mos Eisley drink ticket…and…scrap metal marketplace…barter discount? Yeaaa, this sounds like a weird honeymoon. I’m pretty sure there’s been a mistake. I DO apologize! On behalf of the Galactours Megafamily, I’d like to personally extend…”
“Shut up. Don’t apologize to me, just gimme that drink ticket.” The woman said as she glided back towards the seats. “You owe me that, puke bird.”
Ace chuckled. Geraldine looked hurt and palmed her wiggly hair spikes self-consciously.
Overhead a chime *chimed*, followed by the cartoon captain’s voice:
“Tee hee! Kon’nichiwa honorable passengers! Thank you one thousand for flying Bimbo Bread Interplanetary Super Ship! We will be landing mostly smoothly soon on the peaceful lucky sand planet, Tatooine. We hope you survive your stay. We are pleased to inform you that our calculations of your death risk are somehwat in your favor! Once more, we wish you many lucky blessings and be sure to fly Bimbo Super Ship again. Arigato and sayonara! Tee hee!”
The ship lurched and groaned as they hit the exosphere and the deceleration began. Geraldine frantically checked her harness and gripped her arm rests.
“Good idea” the woman shot Geraldine’s direction sarcastically noticing the panic. “These Von Schmidt shuttles are crap. We’ll probably burn to nothing in the thermosphere. Really glad my last memory will be of swimming in zero G bird vomit.”
But Geraldine wasn’t listening. She was thinking about Blue Dot. She had her hand in her pocket clutching a picture of her family. She was terrified at the thought of never seeing them again. It had been 15 years, maybe more. Gosh, Trillian must be so big by now…like all the way big…like as big as she’ll be…as in done growing big…wow…, she thought to herself.
This high-profile honeymoon guide gig was supposed to be Geraldine’s ticket to the easy life, the gravy ship. With the commission she was going to buy a top of the line Gazorpazorp Razorback Hyperfab Supership and zip all over the place. She could finally realize her dream of being a “blue-bird”, summering on Blue Dot with the Potts clan and wintering on Mars with her beetlewarg mouse-hog named “Shoe”.
But now she might die on atmospheric reentry on shitty, sandy Tatooine…not in a Hyperfab Supership, but in a Von SHIT rockhopper.
The irony: instead of giving the famous Lucy Von Schmidt herself a honeymoon the likes of which would be the envy of the known universe, she would be dying in one of her father’s tin cans…
*CRUNCH*
YOUR TURN:
This time anyone can throw in ideas for all three of the below jumping off points. You won’t know what I pick until chapter 2. ;-)
1.) Where did they crash?
2.) Was anyone injured, if so how?
3.) What do they see when they exit the ship?
WTF IS THIS BY THE WAY?
On 3/21/20 I crowdsourced the bones of a story from my friends on Facebook (find the thread in my profile, it’s fantastic). These are 100% their elements. You guys did me real good. Cheers to creative isolation and a bizarre interplanetary cross-fictional adventure!