Within the asteroid, Flora realized there was an illuminated light button on her padscreen. With a press, the ship’s lights gleamed brightly, illuminating the hole. Flora flew close and slow so she could twist and turn inside the asteroid’s maze-like pathway. Everything went smoothly until the cavern opened up and the light of the ship focused on the center of the asteroid. Bits of melted metal hung around towards the bottom, floating in green lava. “Ugh, sweet creator! What is that smell?” Aya exclaimed, pinching her nose.

Flora turned the ship to focus towards a large throbbing grey glob that hung from the ceiling. The blob had 16 chambers, each which pulsated and secreted a sticky white pus.

“Ladies, I’ll have you know that being a strapping space traveling aristocrat makes me privy to certain knowledge,” Taylor said nervously. “And this ‘asteroid’ we flew into, is actually an Asterzoid, a giant creature that eats metal. And particularly loves spaceships.”

Aya looked down at the melted metal and her face turned as green as the lava that ingested them. She buried her face in her hands again. “I guess this is how we die.”

“Nonsense sweetheart,” Flora said. “We’ll just fly out of here.

As soon as Flora spoke, the holes around the center chamber closed like passages of blood being clotted. The center organ began to fire some of the sticky white substance directly at the ship. Flora squeaked and quickly swiveled the ship away. “It has us where it wants us and I don’t think it wants us to go. Not unlike many of the women I’ve encountered,” Taylor said, making his eyebrows do a wave.

Flora piloted the ship around and around the center stomach as it slung its white sticky globs like a spider shooting a web at its prey. The lava below began to rise along the dark sloped walls of the stomach. Flora pivoted around the slung webs until she realized there was another weapon on her ship. On the control panel there was a thunderbolt shaped icon. Quickly, she stretched and pressed it.

A blast of electricity came out of the ship’s cannons ripping and crackling through the air with a startling intensity.

“Whoa,” Flora said, “How about I try this?”

She dodged another blast of sticky whiteness, and fired a blast of blue electricity right into the creature’s core.

It began to roar, groan and shake. The pit below began to bubble over. The monster writhed from the outside, before shaking and letting out a large gurgling sound. Slowly the blocked tunnels unclotted and Flora saw this as an opportunity to fly through one. The green lava from the backed-up stomach began to flow through the same passage and Flora could no longer take her time. She flew with the speediest precision she had ever used, flying dangerously to close to the boiling floor before steering toward the exit way to the starry sky.

Slowly, the monster’s teeth began to close around the exit. They were sharp and rocky, ready to impale their prey. Flora hit the acceleration at full throttle and moved faster and faster until the teeth were nearly sandwiched between the Blue Thunder. Flora could hear the sound of scraping, but they were clearly on their way out. The Blue Thunder emerged just as the green bile exploded from the Asterzoid’s mouth. They sped faster and faster away from the asteroid field until the field itself was nothing but small dots in the background of their adventure.

Taylor stuck his tongue at the long gone beast. “Remember this pain and indigestion next time you think of eating someone again, you stupid rock.

With a smile he leaned over a cowering Aya’s shoulder. “Hey good piloting, Sunflower. It’ll be a while before you reach my expertise but this was a nice first outing.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Flora said with a big grin, “What do you think, Aya?”

Aya’s face had now turned blue after she saw the beast spewing and eating its own vomit. She quickly sat up, before vomiting in between her legs.

“Not my ship.” Taylor cried.

“Wow look at that,” Flora said, calling attention away from Aya’s puking session.

Before them stood a planetoid blanketed in tall metallic towers protruding from the steel ground. The whole planet was coated in the same grey metal casting all over it. On the tops of the long metal buildings were fresh coats of thick snow that fell from dark clouds shrouding parts of the planetoid. One of the tallest, most castle=like buildings read in bold glamorous, yellow and green writing, ‘The Electra Company.’”

“I never thought I’d say this, considering that I fled this place for reasons I won’t share,” Taylor said to everyone. “But it feels so good to be home.”

The ship soared into the snowy atmosphere, navigating past tall skyscrapers and other ships similar to the Blue Thunder. They were pale and tall with yellow domes on the top, making the snow slide off the roofs and into the chilly wind. They shimmered all the more brilliantly against the natural background of grey clouds. Even Aya who was still reeling managed to pull herself out of her sickness and fear to admire them.

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Flora had long since ceded the controls to the autopilot who took them home, and it led them to a large landing pad that jutted out of a see-through glass penthouse with a sloping roof and dark shaded windows. Taylor’s face with his trademark smirk and a light showing of sparkling white teeth marked the landing pad. As the ship landed Flora asked with great curiosity,

“I do ask, Mr. Jerkface, why do you want your ship to land on your face?”

Taylor’s face quickly made the same expression as his smug launchpad. “I’ll just say, when I have a ship full of ladies, I much prefer the term ‘sit’ instead of ‘land.’”

He stared at Flora and made his eyebrows do a wiggle that made her look away since it resembled the caterpillars on her home planetoid and she didn’t want the memory of their cuteness tarnished by Taylor’s face.

Flora frowned. “Oh lord. Who’d want to do that?”

Aya quickly pressed the button opening the sliding glass cockpit and jumped out. She tumbled on the landing pad and began rolling on it. “Oh sweet stable ground, how I miss thee,” she cried before kissing it and rolling around on it.

Taylor chuckled to himself as Flora slapped her face. “You were saying, Miss Sunflower?”

All of a sudden, Aya turned blue and crossed her arms around her stomach before vomiting all over Taylor’s launchpad. Taylor cringed as Flora entered a giggle fit. “Whoa ok. I didn’t know she’d go that far. Aquan girls they sure are crazy.”

Both slid out of the cockpit and Flora ran to Aya’s aid. Aya was wiping the glowing blue vomit from her mouth, its color came from the glowing refined soul fruits she had a strict diet of. She grumbled as Flora crouched by her, rubbing her back. “Are you ok, love?”

“I’m just happy I’m out of that deathtrap,” Aya responded.

“It’s ok…I…” Flora stuttered before Aya cut in front of her again.

“All of that crazy flying, it was just too much for me.”

“I’m sorry. It was my first time flying,” Flora said, looking downward.

Aya shook her head. “Just, please, never again. That was too wild and unnerving.”

Aya got up and walked away from her friend. Flora tried her hardest to understand it wasn’t her who had upset Aya. Her friend was deathly traumatized of flying, she just kept telling herself, and that Aya didn’t mean it. Aya banged on the sliding glass door, a black windowed barricade between her and the warmth inside. Flora quickly ran along with the still-bound Taylor. “You sure lost a lot of manners along the way, Miss Aquan,” Taylor responded as he walked with his head slightly bent forward. “Haven’t you heard of voice activated doors?”

Aya didn’t stoop to arguing with Taylor; she just wanted to be away from the cold so she stepped aside. Taylor bent over to a small black box with a dark lined vocoder on it. “Hello sweetums, Daddy’s home,” Taylor said with a deep voice of mocking irony.

His personal way of talking to objects made both Flora and Aya cringe but they soon forgot when the door slid open with a robotic but feminine adult female voice. “Welcome home, daddy.”

Taylor strutted into his penthouse. The lights in the penthouse brightened the whole room and Aya and Flora could see the exact kind of living space this rogue resided in. There was three separate areas that commanded the attention of the newcomers. In the middle of a floor of slick polished metal, there was a cobalt colored hot tub, bubbling with warm water. Past it was a bar table of slick blue marble with a cabinet of beverages, special wines, liquors and fermented fruit drinks leaning against the window. Soft, orchestrated music sung by a chanteuse played over four cylindrical radio devices that surrounded the hot tub. It seemed to promote languishing in this bachelor pad in the most decadent ways. A large flat screen the size of the hot tub itself hung over the window flashing images as fluids of many colors swirled around in a hypnotic dance.

On a small pyramid like platform with two sets of stairs leading up to it was a large black bed. Its sheets of dark satin gave off a mysterious aura and like a dark veil, it disguised the many marks embedded in it. Masking things further was a heavy smell of flowers and burning scented candles. Behind it, built into the slick wooden wall, was a large tank of water filled with algae that formed a little forest. It twirled itself around a decorative sunken ship and a treasure chest. Nothing seemed to be in the tank, furthering Aya’s curiosity as to why it was there.

Aya didn’t think much of the tank after her first cursory thoughts. She didn’t think much of anything, because her head was in a complete mess and her heart felt tight in her chest after her ride through the brain exploding, black nightmare of space. She wanted nothing more than to just curl up in that big black bed and forget about everything until the morning dawned in the snowy city. She trudged up the steps ignoring Flora and Taylor’s words and collapsed on the bed.

“Well, I guess we’re not doing anything until tomorrow,” Flora said, trying her best to understand how her friends was acting.

“That’s my bed,” Taylor murmured, dumbfounded.

“Oh don’t worry,” Flora responded. “You’ll have a new bed tonight.”

“Really? Where?” Taylor asked, sounding fake excited.

Flora spread her hands apart and spoke with equally fake, country style enthusiasm. “The floor. And don’t worry, I’m going to stay up with you until you fall asleep so you’ll have plenty of company.”

Taylor laughed to himself. “Well, well Sunny flower, you’ll be up all night then. I’m a night person. I find it hard to sleep around beautiful ladies.”

“Don’t worry,” Flora responded with a purr. “We country girls have a special way to aid insomnia.”

“Oh do you?” said Taylor closing his eyes with a smile.

Flora walked past Taylor who didn’t notice she left. She reached and snatched up one of the cylindrical radios. Taylor spun around to see her but it was too late. She had already smashed the radio over his head, causing him to topple to the ground with a loud thud. She ran back out to the ship, leaving the door open, retrieved some rope and worked on tying Taylor’s legs up so he couldn’t move further. She then retired herself on a lounge couch by the hot tub, proud of herself and her space captain duties. For a while, she laid awake; she was still bothered that her best friend didn’t appreciate her more.