Timed Out

“Captain? Captain! What is up with you?” A pair of arms shook me back into reality. I rubbed my eyes and looked up to see the concerned face of my copilot, Jackson. “Hey, you alright?”

I blinked a few times. “Sorry.” I laughed. “I must’ve spaced out.” I grabbed a bottle in the middle of the table we were sitting at, and poured the clear fluid that was inside into two tall glasses.

Jackson grabbed one of the glasses and held it up. “Well,” He smiled. “If you forgot, today is the 10th year of us flying together.”

I smiled as well and lifted my glass to his. “Of course I remembered that! Who do you think I am?”

“Yeah, I’m just messing with you.” Jackson tapped his glass to mine in a light clink, and then downed his drink in a single gulp. I followed suit and then placed the now empty glass on the table. Soft music was being played from speakers overhead. It was oddly relaxing. Jackson sighed and leaned back in his chair. “This is nice.” I nodded in agreement. “I wish we could take more breaks like this. Some small part of me wants to be trapped in this moment forever… I think.” Jackson laughed once again but then seemed to lose focus.

I shook my head in mock disappointment. “Looks like you’re not in it today either.” I poked him in the forehead. “Jackson!” His foggy eyes quickly returned to their original sharpness.

“Ugh..” He seemed mad at himself. “Sorry, it’s just that I swear I’ve seen that waiter somewhere!” He pointed past the left side of my head. I turned around and saw a human wearing a purple dress shirt and black pants.

“Hey- you’re right!” I was struck with a really funny case of deja vu. “Y’know, I think he used to work at another restaurant that was near the Crab Nebula. It’s cool seeing another human way out here in Andromeda though.”

“I think you’re right. And yeah, humans tend to stick to The Milky Way.” Jackson smirked. “Want another round?” He asked, gesturing to our glasses. I nodded and filled them again. We quickly drank the bubbly fluid and kept helping ourselves to more of it until we were full. It was quite addicting, although there was no alcohol in any of it. “I might as well get this out now, before we wait another 10 years,” Jackson looked directly at me. “It has been more than an honor to travel the universe with you.”

“I’m no celebrity, don’t be honored. But it has been nothing but pleasant traveling with you.” I grinned. Jackson grinned back, then stood up and walked over to my side of the table. He tugged on my arm and motioned towards the exit.

“We should probably get going, we got money to make and galaxies to explore.”

I nodded solemnly and followed Jackson out of the restaurant. We walked down the streets of the small town the humble restaurant resided in. We both knew that this would be the only normal day that we would have in a really long time. “Are you sure you want to go back to the ship right now?” I asked. “The night’s still young, we could go get dessert, we could go look at the cool things that there are to see here-”

“I get it, you want this to last forever like I do. But we’ve got stuff to take care of.”

I sighed. “That’s true.”

Jackson looked to the left, then stopped walking. As I turned towards him to see what he was doing, he looked at me and pointed to the place he was looking at before. “There’s a bakery right over there if you want to check it out.” I nodded happily and Jackson laughed. It was funny to see him laugh so much tonight, our missions were usually too stressful to ever to have much of a sense of humor. The large weight on our shoulders seemed to be temporarily lifted as we ran towards the bakery.

-o-

I woke up with a start, Jackson shaking my shoulders, yelling in my ear. “Wake up! Captain, wake up! The authorities are coming, they know we’re here!” I shot out of my bed in a panic and sprinted to the pilot seat of our ship, The Stargazer. Jackson sat down in the copilot seat and immediately activated the launching sequence. Small thrusters at the bottom of the ship roared to life, slowly lifting us into the air. Once we were high enough, we could activate the antimatter stores without destroying the ship. I impatiently tapped my fingers on the dashboard. Jackson coughed. It took about two minutes of waiting before Jackson pressed a button that threw antimatter at ordinary matter in a chamber at the back of the ship, and explosions that could end worlds propelled the ship away from the planet and away from the solar system in a few seconds. Jackson exhaled loudly and pulled up a hologram of a map. “Where should we go now?”

“I don’t know, we never really came up with any plans for the next day…”

Jackson searched through the map a little longer. “Ah, there’s a planet of alien colonists about 16 parsecs south from here, we could make that our, eh- temporary residence if you catch my drift.”

“Taking over an entire planet is risky. What if the authorities catch us?”

“It’s perfectly legal to take over another nation if it’s by military force.”

I sighed. “How long do you think we’ll be staying?”

Jackson started to activate the ship’s warp drive. “As long as we need. We’d only need less than a month to get enough units to last us awhile.” I heard the same generator turn on, but instead of throwing matter opposites at each other, particles inside of the capsule started to bounce around, their acceleration increasing, reaching speeds faster than the speed of light. It took less than a minute before the space in front of The Stargazer seemed to rip open, the colonist planet could be seen through the tear. I pushed forward on the spaceship’s throttle, guiding the spaceship through the warp, which soon closed once we made it through. A small light on the ship’s control panel started blinking, Jackson pressed a button that revealed a hologram of an alien figure, which started speaking in tongues that Jackson and I could not understand. Luckily, the ship was equipped with a translator that I turned on promptly.

“We are the Calor Resistencia. We ask that you state your purpose with our colony.”

“Greetings Calor Resistencia. I am Jackson of the Homo Sapiens Sapiens species. We only wish to help your colony.”

“We will always accept assistance from a friendly species. However, in what way would you like to benefit our colony?”

“I see that you are very close to this system’s star, we would like to terraform your planet so you may no longer live under a barrier.”

“We are resistant to the heat, but our atmosphere is thin and our grounds are barren. We can live safely under a protective shield, but this shield is expensive and always needs repairs. Will you be able to fix these issues?”

“Of course.” Jackson looked over to me and shook his head. “We will start shortly, you may have to wait so we can set up our tools.” Jackson shook his head again.

“We send our many thanks to you, Jackson. Calor Resistencia sends their benedictions.” Jackson pressed the same button he used before and turned the communications off.

“We have to take this place over before they notify their home planet. This will be easy enough, I’ve dealt with these guys before. I just don’t know when…” Jackson was left scratching his head.

“That’s fine. You got the deactivation blast ready?” The deactivation blast was very important, dropping this bomb will deactivate all sources of power on the planet, electricity based or not.

“Yep. And as I was going to say before, these guys are pretty benign. They don’t even have the proper weaponry to fight back.”

“That’s good. Hey, what did they mean by ‘resistant to the heat?’” I asked.

“Oh, these guys have an extremely tough epidermis that is constantly excreting a heat retardant that can withstand temperatures likewise of the ones on this planet. Really useful stuff if I say so myself. Glad they sell it on the black space market.”

“What?”

“Nevermind.” I shrugged and released the deactivation blast on the colony. The planet seemed to shut down as all the lights from the colony flickered off, and radio signals came to an abrupt stop. Jackson smiled. “Let’s get our bounty.” Jackson put up a shield around the ship to protect us from the heat, and I steered it towards the planet’s surface, landing a short distance away from the only city on the planet, far enough away to not activate the defense mechanisms that have probably been put in place. I walked to the back of the cockpit and grabbed two small discs of metal on my way to the The Stargazer’s exit. Jackson followed me, and I handed him one of the discs. We placed them on our chests, and a transparent barrier went up around both of our bodies, these barriers will protect us from the extreme temperatures and the oxygen-barren atmosphere. I lowered the ship’s doors and stepped out onto the dry, rocky soil. The sun was unbelievably bright, Jackson shielded his eyes as he exited the ship and the doors closed behind him. He had a blaster holstered on his belt and had a bag slung around his shoulders that contained other supplies necessary to this mission. He tossed a second blaster to me and I gripped it tight in my hands as we advanced towards the alien colony, you could hear loud cries of hysteria coming from the colony due to the lack of power. Many were probably dying, as the shield around their colony protecting them from the weak atmosphere was now gone. We reached the high walls of the colony in a couple minutes, and 3 figures came out to meet us. They were all sporting brown cloaks that concealed their faces, and were also wearing the same discs that protected them from the harsh environment around us. They lowered their hoods to reveal three of the Calor Resistencia members. There appeared to be two males and a female, one of which I recognized as the one that greeted us from the communications panel earlier. Each of them held a small device up to their mouth as the female spoke.

“We apologize for this inconvenience to your terraforming routine. As we said before, our city is very expensive and hard to keep tidy.” I figured out right away the devices allowed their speech to be translated into English, and most likely English to their language.

“Oh, It’s not a problem at all.” I said, an edge creeping into my tone. “Get on your knees.”

“Pardon?” The female said this, confused. The other two aliens looked at each other the same way.

“Did I stutter?” I said. “Get on your knees.” Jackson pulled his blaster out of his belt and pointed it at the extraterrestrials. They complied, fear in their eyes. I leaned towards the group. “So, what are your duties here at the colony?”

“I-I’m the leader here. These two are my guards.” The female said, gesturing towards the other two, who had their heads lowered in dread.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“I am Honorable Umlilo. Yes- yes I am, that’s my title.” Umlilo says this breathily and in a stressed out tone.

“Alright, Umlilo. Since we run the show now, tell me how many guards you need.” I sneer. Umilo looks down in defeat as her guards look up in consternation before both are shot in the head by Jackson.

Umlilo sighs sadly and stands. “I’ll lead you to the city hall. Follow me.”

Jackson and I looked at each other and shook our heads. I grabbed Umlilo’s arm. “I don’t think so. We’ve seen generic colonies like your own. We know where the city center is. Nice try.” Umlilo whimpered and let herself be dragged through the roads of the city. Surviving citizens looked on in horror. We were about to reach the city center when one of the opposing aliens broke towards us, fists raised and mouth opened in a guttural scream. Jackson hit him with a barrage of multiple gunshots before he could even make it near us. Most of the citizens scattered away, murmuring frightfully. But the rest just stood there, with their chests puffed out and their feet glued in place.

Come on, shoot me- you awful, wretched being.

If hate is the only thing you will ever receive, you might as well use it to motivate yourself.