“Oh gods, how long has it been on him?!”
“Hmm mrrph mrr!”
“Nah man, gotta pull it gently, you disconnect him rough, and those little tentacles kinda let out this bad voodoo chemical that–”
“Get it off of him now!”
Art wakes up to the feel of something slimy sitting on his messy hair and trilling softly like a calm, soothing lullaby. If that lullaby were for an alien. Or a symbiotic parasite that used dreams to grow stronger, and harmlessly detached after a restful night.
Art’s previous night had not been restful. His eyes are crusted shut and something is lodged in his mouth and down his throat. It doesn't feel that bad until–
“Pull!”
There's a shrilly screech and something is removed from the top of his head, with a few stinging slaps at his neck. That thing down his throat is pulled out forcibly and he gasps, eyes flying open past the gunk. He sees his best friend Mark Zespot holding onto the Barium Zarathaxis parasite that he knows belongs to his brother.
Mark is built like a linebacker with black hair and a thick beard. A space lumberjack, even, with twinkling blue eyes. The other person assisting his friend is Samantha Jackson, a petite dark-skinned woman with her hair tied back in a tight bun. She's cute, thin but catchy, and she's giving him a grimace.
“He's gonna throw up.”
“What happened–hurk.”
Art got three words out before the churn of cheap whiskey, and bad space meh-hi-coh food all came up at once, onto the floor of the cabin of his private space hauler. It drips down and splashes onto his shoes, and it's just not any more pleasant to look at as when it went in. Samantha lets out a shout of surprise, Mark simply shakes his head.
“Thank Christ the arti-grav is working on this rust bucket. I'll get some towels.” He takes that awful squid-like thing away, which is warbling angrily at Mark. “Hey, you weren't supposed to latch on, he had alcohol, you're not supposed to do that!” Mark scolds the little alien. Art sees it slap him with a tentacle while he's indisposed. The creature lets out a chirp of rebuke while Mark walks off. “Yeah, love you too, more than the ex-wife at least.”
“Art, you okay?” Samantha says softly as the last dry heave comes out. Art wipes his lips with his sleeve and groans.
Waking up to a little alien giving him a temporary LSD trip and being absolutely hungover is not a good start to the day, and he lets out another heave. “Art, are. You. Okay?”
“Aspirin. Med cabinet. And whiskey–” he starts to say, and she growls at him, soft brown eyes lit with fire.
“Oh no you don't, you idiot! You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes! I can't believe Mark let your jackass of a brother anywhere near you with that–that parasite of a pet he keeps!” She grabs a towel off the shower bay and wipes up the mess best she can, and Art lies back on the bed, groaning. His head is pounding and he's dying of thirst. “You need hydro and time to clean yourself up! We're due on New-New Mexico in three hours with cargo for the Newman company!” Art hiccups again, this little side-stop with his brother has been a bad idea.
Little pet alien bastard didn't even offer a cigarette. He still can't see straight. “Oh gods, how much did I drink?” Sam shows him the now empty bottle. He wipes the gunk out of his eyes, and there's slime in his hair that isn't coming out. “Shit. Did I drink all of that?”
“Well, your brother gave you most of it. Sniveling little creep, I know he did this on purpose! He wanted you to lose the delivery contract!” She fumes while getting a shower running. “Get sober. We’ll talk about your series of bad decisions later, they want inspections of the cargo and the captain present. That tripping feeling wearing off?”
“No,” he winces. She grabs an injector from the med cabinet and jabs him in the arm with a pale blue fluid, and he groans. He hates needles. Even as often as they needed them. Space was deadly to humans. Parasites, epidemics, fungi…everything on every planet wanted to kill their biology it seemed. Reality seems to flood back in after a few minutes, and his headache feels like a splintering of his brain.
“Shower. Now,” Samantha says sternly. He pulls his decently in shape body into the stall and latches it. No chance for a long shower, just enough to clean up with recycled water that's lukewarm at best. Someone left a ball of hair at the drain, clogging it. It's…kinda gross. And not human. Maybe a Vulpina?
Oh. I'm gonna kill him for this. The clarity helps him remember the night at the club. His smiling brother, brown hair neatly trimmed, green eyes, smooth weathered face, talking about stopping a rivalry. A rivalry he started in the first place. Art couldn't help it if he took a job as a respected cargo and logistics captain for space naval PMC’s and made bank. He always made deliveries. No bug, alien, space disaster or raiding pirate had ever caused a casualty on his ship, and that wasn't going to change.
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What did he dream about? He remembers being in jail, for a cosmic time prison–a thousand years in the blink of an eye. He remembers a woman in a…bee suit? And someone declaring themselves the narrator. What a trip. Ugh.
There was also a bunch of whiskey. Too much whiskey. And he usually kept a clean operation when on business. His brother's promise of mending fences had been too good to pass up, because it broke mum’s heart that they always fought, and Art accused his brother of being a scam artist and a thief. Many times, in fact.
He didn't like that it was true. He also didn't like some of the words he said. But he said them.
Reuben T. Speitz was a con artist who charmed his way to anyone, and Art should have known that he had an angle for trying to mend fences.
“Feeling better?” Samantha asks softly. “I'm glad I got on this rig at the last dock, or Mark would've left that thing on you.”
“Just get the ship ready for inspection.” She hands him aspirin over the curtain and he gulps it down with a swig of water. He doesn't care for a glass at the moment. Only a seething hatred of his brother and his conniving ways. Art's the one that makes bank, protects his crew from the hazards of space with steely nerves, and mom still favors Reuben.
Not after this.
“Let's just hope he didn't mess with anything else. If the cargo is compromised, we could get dinged on the contract.”
“If he did, I'll throw his ass out an airlock the next time I see him, family or not.” Art growls and tries to hide a shudder of pain. Scars cross his body from a couple close calls with pirates. Mark had patched him, and the other way around, on more than one occasion. It definitely helped to have good friends in the unfriendliness of space. “Go check the security logs and check the tamper flaps. Go do it now, I'll be alright.”
“Aye, cap.” He hears her shuffle out the room.
This shower has the worst water pressure ever. He's spending his next bonus check upgrading this rig to be more livable, living cheap is so over with now.
----------------------------------------
The headache fades just as they get into port, and Ronald Neuman, a cousin of the owners, checks the crates. Art is standing at attention with his crew on-hand, including Mark and Samantha. Barb and Chuck are also there, the former a red-haired vixen who is very flexible, and the latter is a burly muscleman who played the piano quite well at the mess hall during down time.
He grunts as a searing pain flares up--this hangover is the worst he's had, and his new vow is to never drink at port when cargo is still in transit. Or maybe ever again. Reuben, you drink the lowest tier swill of the entire cosmos. I hope your weak ass is as miserable as my toughened spacer body is right now.
The crew of the Celestial Horizon are a group of seasoned veterans, men and women loyal to the job, and the safety of the colonies. Their job, even if it isn't military, serves a vital role to keep supply lines going, and the Celestial Horizon has a reputation as an integral team. Recruits lined up at every dock. Many had to be turned away–too much help could actually be a hindrance, and he had to screen for security reasons. Mark and Samantha usually handled that, though he had the final say if he felt uneasy.
More than one pirate had tried to get on his ship and provide a way in for their peers. Art had thrown one out an airlock after he almost killed two of his crew, and he wished his death could have been more brutal than it was. The paperwork explaining that one had been distinctly annoying.
Art had dashed through the cargo bay, checking every tamper lock earlier, even after Sam said she checked them all. Protocol is to not open the security canisters unless under direct attack, and space colony provisions or personnel were at risk. Neuman is at least a by-the-numbers guy, Always followed the rules and never asked for a bribe, so that made business with him pleasant. Other places he had to be on guard. New-New Mexico is relatively safe, but there are still fringe elements and raiders present on the lower patrolled space lanes.
“Everything is in order. Except this one.” Neuman taps a cargo container that's the size of one you'd find on an old-world eighteen wheeler. “It's not on the roster.”
Art frowns. He's right. He didn't see it at port. “Sam, did we not log this? This wasn't at last port." More ominous are the ordinance markings on the side. No plasma cutter or incendiary munitions allowed nearby.
“No log, captain. Security from last port also was scrubbed per the normal retention period expiring,” she says curtly. Art winces, he’d been hung over as all hell, and his brother had taken his key access and put an extra container on board? It's the only explanation.
“Neuman, I have no idea what this is, but it shouldn't be on this ship. Sam, any other details on internal security? Get the port authority the logs, now.”
“Why?”
“Because something's in there that I would never carry.”
Explosives. Really illegal explosives. The kind that can crack a planet in half and make me a cautionary tale of an isekai'ed space captain.
Neuman snaps his fingers to the security detail. “Get it open. Art Speitz, until I know what's in this thing or how it got here, I have to hold the ship. Impoundment. You are to stay in port while security runs a check. I look forward to an explanation.”
Art tightens his fist. “Understood. Crew, prepare for a campout. I'll be talking to all of you. Mark, I want our most current roster. I want to know how this got here.”
His brother has gone too far this time. No one pulls this kind of dirty trick on him.