Chapter 1, Rude Awakenings

 

 

 

The corsair moved swiftly through the warm Caribbean waters closing the gap on its latest helpless victim, the HMS Benzinger.   “Steady...steady...almost there...steady, boys, just a few more-”

 “Steady boys, wait until to we’re up long side her before we open fire”, said the gallant and dashing Captain Turner aboard his pirate ship. “Aye captain, we’ll be awaitin your orders”, answered his crew with determined enthusiasm. 

 

 

A blinding light and loud piercing noise shattered the illusion of the Dreamscape forcing Turner back to his miserable reality and the aggravating pounding in his head that felt a lot like all the guns in his fantasy pirate ship going off at once. He grabbed the headset and threw it across the cabin. He learn long ago that sometimes willful and unnecessary destruction went along just fine with the extreme crankiness he experienced with all of his hangovers. This, of course, never helped in stopping the pain but it did give him a small sense of satisfaction in seeing the device shatter into a million pieces. He also knew that this feeling wasn't going to last and he had to take what small victories he could win.

 

“What the hell was in that”, he muttered groggily to himself (or, thought he did) as he attempted to assessed the damage, both physical and psychological, from Twisted’s latest space born distilled concoction. He was mostly concerned about the general workings his nervous system since most of his brain, and outlying areas, were on the verge of saying, “to hell with it” and just shut down for the duration of the hang over. Unfortunately that was not to be. Turner became annoyingly aware that the blinding light and piercing noise were not caused by some malfunction in his Dreamscape device (nor any other hallucinogenic side effect), but from a piece of irritating technology. That violator was, of course, the Holographic Communicator. And in spite of what he had expected, it was busily and noisily and blindingly fully functional this unpleasant morning. Two things slowly began to filter through ephemeral awareness. The first was that it demanded his full attention. The second was that this generally was not a good thing.

 

“The holocom”, he said this time making sure that he did “say it” rather than “thought it” even though thinking at this point was very highly subjective. A statement of the obvious followed (more as reassurance to himself that he was speaking aloud), “this is not good”. In actuality, what he had managed to articulate was, “Daaaaaaaooooooluuuuuuuuu K’m. Dis not good”. Since everything was very highly subjective, being able to able to say anything at all was good thing. 

 

In spite of the nausea, headache, vertigo, the annoying uncontrollable muscle spasms in the his left side of his body, the non-stop drooling from the right side of his mouth and a whole host of other bodily misfunctions, he got up from his bunk, staggered across of his 3 meter by 2 and-a-half meter cabin (to Turner it might as well had been 2 and-a-half Kilo-meters and he counted the effort as another victory) and painfully activated the device. As the image resolved itself on the small circular plate on his small rectangular desk into a small 6 centimeter holographic figure, the pounding in his head (which wasn‘t small and was, as a matter of fact growing worst) got a lot worst. It was Lieutenant-Commander Pomeroy (the “Hemorrhoid”) Benzinger, Executive Officer of the MMS (Manufacturer Merchant Ship) Sisyphus (“sissy fuss”). The feelings of accomplishment he had earlier experienced had decided to go south along with what was left in his lower gastric organs. 

 

“Turner! Your presence is required on the bridge immediately!”

The statement was a needed instantaneous shock to his system. Enough reality began to glean that its effect was to jumpstart parts of his cerebral cortex into a functioning mode. The big plus in this was that now those parts of his brain that had to go to work could go to work and could do it very, very quickly. This, of course, did annoy those parts of the brain that had to go to work because they noticed that the other non-working parts of the brain were still on vacation and could care less if they returned.

 

“Well, hello and good morning to you, Benzinger.” Turner knew that even in his nearly crippled state he had the X-O contractually over the barrel. It was his down turn and he couldn’t legally be called upon to work. Even if the ship was hopelessly crippled, split in two, and on fire while diving uncontrollably into the event horizon of a massive black hole, the union contract specifically stated that, “you cannot infringe upon a personnel’s break time for what any reason”. Turner also knew that it irritated Benzinger immensely when his full title as exec wasn’t used. 

 

He smiled inside (mostly because he still didn’t have enough full control of his facial muscles to smile on the outside) as he judged by the rising crimson on Benzinger’s cheeks that he had scored a direct hit. Another small victory, true, but a good pre-emptive strike. He continued his insubordinate act with, “And what do I owe the great unpleasantness this morning and, may I add, as of 16:00 hours yesterday I started, and continue to be on, my RPT (rotational personal time) as specified by contract benefits clause in section 3-12, paragraph 46 and, I quote, ‘whereas such employees will have a rest period of no less then 8 hours for every 72 hours of alternating, or continuous, engagement of assigned duties’. Unquote.”

 

Turner had long ago put to memory every section, paragraph, and clause of the Space Workers and Tech Specialist Union Contract. It was so integrated into his being, along with the ability to generate bullshit, that it came instinctively. He also knew that Benzinger had never read the contract and had to take Turner’s word for it (especially since Benzinger’s copy of the Space Workers and Tech Specialist Union Contract was hopelessly encrypted and he was too proud to ask for help).

 

What came next was wholly unexpected and could have driven Turner into a catatonic state if he hadn’t enough presence of mind, as tenuous as it was, to handle the brunt of it. 

 

“It’s 1200 hours and you’re late”, said the diminutive figure which, by the way, wasn’t really all that much taller then the real thing.

 

That statement slowly filtered down into his consciousness and jabbed him annoyingly like a white, hot poker into his skull. He hated when Benzinger scored a point. It irritated him more when the X-O was right, it really was 1200 hours. The pain in his head that had progressively gotten worst reached a new level of definition. Whether this was due to Benzinger’s remark, or the residual effect of last night’s self inflicted assault on his psyche, it didn’t really matter. What did matter was that he had some how lost track of the last twelve- scratch that, sixteen hours and this put him at a great disadvantage. He also knew that whenever this sort of thing happened the consequences were never good. Having no memory of what he was the direct, or indirect, cause of meant he couldn’t lie about it. Any falsehood he could manufacture would obviously not match the existing facts and he would be caught in that lie. He had no alternative but to give, as painfully as it was, ground to Benzinger and take his defeat graciously. 

 

“I suggest that you make yourself presentable and get to the bridge a-sap”. That was “a-sap”, not A-S-A-P, and it was Benzinger’s favorite word. “The Captain wants to see you about something of some import . For your sake, you better hope it has nothing to do with you or that no good team of thugs you are in charge of in that den of thieves you dare to a call a maintenance department”.

 

“Oh great, now Lars wants to see me,” Turner thought to himself hoping THAT wasn’t aloud.

 

“I’ll be waiting and counting every minute you are late. And by the way, I will be deducting every one of those minutes you are not present from your pay”, he said with a unwholesome smile. “Executive Officer of the MMS Sisyphus Lieutenant-Commander Pomeroy Benzinger, out”, and with a feral smile, Benzinger faded. Turner let out a belch and tasted bile welling up. 

 

“D****t! What the hell happen.” He knew that what ever it was he had to find out- and do it quickly.

And with that, Turner painfully got up and got ready.

 

 

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A brief historical interlude while Turner gathers himself. For most of its history, humankind had spent millions of years in a very unhealthy and dysfunctional relationship with its birth mother, the planet Earth. Even in the beginning, with ‘Mom’ trying to repeatedly kill off her offspring (well, how would you like it if they called YOU ‘dirt‘?) and then later, with ‘junior’ messing in matricidal tendencies in the 20th to 21st centuries, you could see plainly that this relationship was doomed to eventual failure. A solution had to be found before someone really got hurt. After much reconciliation, quite a bit of open talk, a lot of shouting and yelling and punching, more reconciliation, more talk, some deep heart felt, warm fuzzy, hands clasped and singing, and a lot of tree hugging it was finally decided by both sides that it would best to just part company and cut their losses.

 

Since the Earth really wasn’t planning to go anywhere (relatively speaking) for several more billion of years it only made sense that it would be best for both parties if mankind just left. Human beings, for their part, thought that the arrangement was a bunch of rubbish and that they could have gotten a better deal if they had a better lawyer. Still, “junior” couldn‘t wait to get the keys to the car and drive off not caring who got the house and the furniture. As for the details in this emancipation agreement? Well, that would be hammered out later and this time with better lawyers. So, the Great Space Race began. Later historians were to wonder why it was called a race since the objective was never clearly defined and it all seem needlessly aimless. At one point it was believed that maybe it was because it was time to get away as quickly as possible before Earth changed her mind. Those same historians also favored the notion that the settlement mankind had worked out with the planet Earth was just and fair and quickly found themselves out of favor among the general population. They were also quickly publicly executed.

 

At first, a small number of humans sent expensive and highly sophisticated robotic equipment out into the outer regions of unknown space. After losing several of these machines at a great financial loss, it was decided that it would be better to send inexpensive and totally unsophisticated people instead. One advantage to sending people in the place of robots was that since the whole business of space exploration was to get people off the planet there would be no real need to bring them back. They also figured that with a growing population of 7 billion they could stand to lose a few in the process and still be far ahead. In no time at all there were colonies established on other worlds and it was thought, all in all, a general success. Mankind would at times become nostalgic about the Earth, but not very often and only after not calling for several months and having missed more then a few family re-unions. 

 

 

Author's Note

Work in progress, the chapter continues further and I will add more soon.