Starfaring Adventures

  CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW QUASAR:

  STARFARING ADVENTURES

  Short Stories

  Milo James Fowler

  www.milojamesfowler.com

  Contents:

  The Carpethrian Call of the Wild

  The Fastest Thumbs on Zeta Colony Four

  The Popularity Contest on Goobalox Five

  The Coliseum of Queen Kronikthalia

  The Pestiferous Pirates of Narvana 6

  The Momentous First Date

  The Bandits on Consortium Moon Prime

  The Deep Space Identity Crisis

  The Most Insidious of Computer Viruses

  Captain Quasar vs. the Flashback

  Captain Quasar vs. the Computer

  Captain Quasar vs. the Tax Collector

  Captain Quasar vs. the Space Invaders

  Captain Quasar vs. the Nap

  The Runaway Train on Zeta Moon 3

  The Kolarii Kidnappers

  Episode 1: The 'If-Only' Elixir

  Episode 2: The Entity Known As Steve

  Episode 3: Where Few Dare to Travel

  Episode 4: In the Line of Fire

  Episode 5: Troublesome Interlopers

  Author's Notes

  The Carpethrian Call of the Wild

  "It's time," Hank grunted at the helm of the Effervescent Magnitude as the gorgeous star cruiser hurtled through deep space.

  "Already?" Captain Bartholomew Quasar's brow wrinkled. He glanced at his favorite Carpethrian helmsman who didn't resemble a man at all. Hank looked more like a drunk orangutan or an overweight sloth suffering from irritable bowel syndrome. "Didn't we make a stop six months ago?"

  Hank turned in his swivel chair. "In Earth time, yes sir. But Carpethria's years are much shorter."

  "So it's been over a year since your last…" Quasar cleared his throat, leaning back in his deluxe-model captain's chair. "Mating season?"

  Bill snickered.

  "What are you doing on the bridge, Bill?" Quasar snapped.

  "Uh…" The goofy smile dropped from Bill's face.

  "Go back to engineering where you belong. Seriously. Whoever heard of a ship's engineer hanging around the bridge all day and snickering at inappropriate moments. Go on, get out of here, or I'll demote you back to janitor!"

  Hanging his head, Bill left the bridge.

  "The same goes for anybody else within earshot." Captain Quasar's steely-eyed gaze swept across his bridge crew. They stared back at him silently. "This is no laughing matter. Our dear helmsman must return to his home world, and we'll make sure he gets there. Or…he will, rather. He is our helmsman, after all."

  "Captain."

  Startled, Quasar drew back from his first officer who had a habit of appearing at his elbow without warning.

  "Yes, Commander?"

  "Permission to speak freely, sir."

  "Always." He gave her a dashing smile which, as usual, did nothing to alleviate the stoic expression on her olive-toned features. Perhaps someday she would appreciate his blond, blue-eyed charm. Opposites were said to attract, after all.

  "Sir, we cannot continue to reverse course every six months." She kept her voice low. "There is a galaxy out there for us to explore, and we can't do that if we're tethered by this Carpethrian's…needs."

  "Humph," said Hank. Like most Carpethrians, he had exceptional hearing—despite the fact that both his ears were hidden beneath copious amounts of shaggy fur.

  "What do you suggest, then?" Quasar lowered his voice as well. "That we ignore his reproductive cycle? He's apt to become surly."

  "I doubt we would really notice a difference, sir."

  "Humph."

  "Perhaps we should continue this discussion in the conference room, Commander." Before Quasar and Wan could excuse themselves from the bridge, the intercom button on the captain's armrest lit up. Quasar punched it with a thumb. "Yes?"

  "Bill here," said the ship's engineer. "Just wanted to let you know I made it safely down to the engineering deck. Didn't want you to worry about me or anything."

  Quasar palmed his forehead.

  "Oh, and one other thing," Bill continued. "The reactor could really use a tune-up. So if we're already headed to Carpethria anyway, maybe we could have them take a look at it. You know, since they're the ones who installed it and everything."

  Quasar raised an eyebrow at Commander Wan. She hesitated before giving him a slow nod, the resignation in her eyes clear to see.

  "Set a course to your home world, Hank ol' buddy," Quasar ordered.

  "Yes sir." With something akin to a spring in his movements, Hank swept his four very hairy arms across the helm console, setting coordinates for Carpethria.

  "Captain," Wan said, "if this is their annual mating season, wouldn't it stand to reason the Carpethrian engineers would be…otherwise occupied? Unable to work on our ship's reactor?"

  "We'll make it a quickie." Quasar gave her a wink. "In and out. Wham-bam, thank you alien friends. Won't keep them long at all. And I'm sure Hank won't keep us docked longer than necessary while he fulfills his duties. Providing for the continuation of his species. Progeny, and whatnot. Didn't take him very long last time, from what I recall."

  "Humph."

  Quasar's intercom lit up again. "Really, Bill?"

  "Uh-about the reactor, Captain…" Bill cleared his throat. "It might need maintenance a little sooner than I thought."

  Crimson warning lights flashed along the perimeter of the bridge as the ship screeched and shuddered to an abrupt halt. Quasar pounded his armrest with a fist.

  "Maybe if you spent more of your time in engineering—!"

  "I think I can fix it," Bill replied as languidly as ever. "Just might take us a bit. To sort things out, you know. Get the ship ship-shape." He snickered at his little pun.

  "How long?" Quasar glanced at Hank. The Carpethrian gripped his console, staring into the void of space via the ship's main viewscreen.

  "No more than a day or two."

  "Get on it." Quasar leapt from his chair. "Hank, you're with me."

  "Captain?" Wan and Hank said in unison.

  "You have the bridge, Number Wan," Quasar said with another wink. She pressed her lips into a firm line at the ridiculous moniker. "Hank and I are taking a little trip."

  "Where, sir?" Hank lumbered after the captain.

  "To Carpethria, of course."

  "But the reactor—"

  "We'll take a transport pod."

  "Captain." Commander Wan stepped forward with a hand on his chair. "It will take you nearly two days to reach Carpethria. By the time the reactor is up and running again—"

  "We'll already be there." Quasar flashed a winning smile. "Beats sitting around here for forty-eight hours, eh Hank?"

  The Carpethrian shrugged his superior set of shoulders noncommittally, but his movements were quicker than usual.

  "Have a transport pod ready and waiting for us, Commander," Quasar said. "There's not a minute to waste."

  Hank was not one to express his feelings verbally—besides the occasional humph—so it came as no surprise when the Carpethrian failed to thank Quasar while they drifted away from the Magnitude's starboard launch bay in a cramped transport pod and set course for Carpethria at full impulse power. What did surprise the captain was when Hank cleared one of his throats, giving his voice an oddly harmonic quality, and muttered,

  "You didn't have to come along, sir."

  "It's my pleasure. You think I'd rather be stuck dead in the water, so to speak? No thanks. These boots were made for walking." Quasar nodded toward his feet, propped up on his side of the navigation console, leaving all of the actual navigating to Hank. "Besides, I seem to recall that I rather enjoyed my last visit to you
r home world, and I—"

  "I rigged the reactor, sir."

  "Come again?" Quasar's boots dropped to the deck as he faced his helmsman.

  "I was hoping you'd send me alone this time."

  "You broke my ship?"

  "I'm sorry, sir. But it had to be done. "

  Quasar's mouth hung open. "Why?"

  "I'm-uh…a little embarrassed about this."

  This? What was this? Certainly the act of procreation itself could not be cause for the Carpethrian's shame. In the captain's experience, there was nothing more glorious in the galaxy than coitus—besides perhaps the Zerubular Nebula with a fresh halo of cosmic dust.

  "I don't understand. I thought you'd managed to get busy every time we dropped you off for a little procreation recreation."

  Hank grumbled into his fur.

  "You do have a mate, I trust."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And offspring? Little fuzzy-wuzzies?"

  "Two dozen, at last count."

  Again, Quasar found his mouth hanging open. "Then what's the problem?"

  "I'm not allowed to see them, because I do not serve aboard a Carpethrian vessel. Our young are not taught that humans exist until they are of age. To learn about you…hairless creatures…would terrify them. No offense."

  "None taken. Speaking for myself, I'm not entirely hairless." Quasar drew himself up to his fullest height. "Well then, this isn't the mission I signed up for, but it appears your offspring are about to receive an early education. To Carpethria we go, my very hairy friend. With all haste!"

  Nearly two days later, during which time the Captain had either dozed or recounted action-packed tales of his glory days as a United World soldier, Hank managed to steer the transport pod to its destination. The planet Carpethria was a giant hazel marble with a swirling misty atmosphere, its people xenophobic and uninterested in off-world affairs. Once upon a time, Carpethria had reached out into the void with a radio signal and found a planet, Earth, with the mineral resources they lacked, and they'd been allies ever since. They weren't as close as brothers, though; more like stand-offish second cousins.

  "A true garden of Eden," Quasar mused as Hank took the transport pod down through the upper atmosphere. The fog eventually cleared to reveal breathtaking vistas of the planet's lush jungles, flora growing as large as it hadn't on Earth since prehistoric times. "I can't believe it's recovered so fast. When evil Emperor Zhan destroyed—"

  "Sir?"

  "Wait. Never mind." Quasar cringed sheepishly. "Alternate timeline." He cleared his throat. "Don't we have to hail them, announce our approach?"

  "Unnecessary, Captain. Carpethrian freighter protocols will disguise our engine signature. We should be able to land without incident."

  "Resourceful." Quasar appraised his helmsman. Obviously, Hank had put a lot of thought into this mission. "So let me see if I understand the situation. Every time we've carted you back here, it really had nothing to do with your mating season?"

  "Correct."

  "You were…just trying to visit your offspring?"

  "Yes, Captain."

  "Who stopped you?"

  "Their mother, sir. She can be a...very formidable obstacle."

  "I see." He didn't. From personal experience, Captain Quasar knew Hank to be quite the formidable adversary himself. Every Carpethrian was trained in the art of hand-to-hand-to-hand-to-hand combat, and Hank excelled at the use of blades as well as pulse weapons. Even unarmed, his surly presence was enough to grant him a wide berth aboard the Effervescent Magnitude.

  "Perhaps it would be best if you…" Hank weighed his words as he maneuvered the pod toward a sheer cliff strung with rope-like vines. "Stayed on board, sir."

  "I'll do no such thing. If it's my fault you can't see your own offspring, then I'll be the one to set things straight with their mother. What's her name, by the way? Mrs. Hank?" Quasar chuckled to himself.

  The truth was, Hank wasn't even Hank's name. The captain's translation device, sewn into the collar of his uniform, was the best Earth had to offer, but it hadn't experienced enough alien dialects firsthand to be without error. Its syntax and semantics were still limited by the sum total of Earth's human languages, and the Carpethrian tongue seemed to be made up entirely of Neanderthal-like monosyllables and deep-throated noises most humans would deem impolite, if not impossible to emulate. So Mrs. Hank's name was translated as:

  "Shank," Hank muttered.

  "Very well. I will have a conversation with Mrs. Shank and convince her it is in the best interest of her two-dozen-or-so young that they be allowed to meet their father. She will see reason, of course." Quasar glanced over at Hank, whose posture was more hunched-over than usual. "If you don't mind my asking, why is it that hairless creatures such as myself would inspire fear in Carpethrian youngsters?"

  "If my people fear anything, it's baldness."

  Quasar laughed out loud and slapped his knee before he realized Hank wasn't kidding.

  The transport pod banked as it approached a cave hollowed into the cliff-face. Quasar gripped his armrests and cracked one eye open as Hank steered them straight for it.

  "Done this before, I take it?"

  Hank nodded, all four of his hands moving across the console, managing thrust, yaw, and pitch. The pod floated deep into the black cave without incident and touched down, thrumming as Hank powered off the engine.

  "Well done." Quasar wiped the perspiration off his palms. "Hold on now." He frowned as Hank retrieved a pulse pistol from the emergency compartment and tucked it into the middle of his fur flab. "We're not expecting that sort of trouble, are we?"

  "You brought yours?"

  "Always." Quasar tapped the Cody 52 Special holstered at his side. "But—"

  "Just a precaution." Hank heaved himself out of his seat and lumbered toward the ladder. With the ease of a lanky primate, he hauled his girth up the rungs and popped the roof hatch.

  Quasar stayed close behind. The last thing he wanted was to be locked inside. Would Hank do such a thing? Quasar didn't think so, but he wouldn't have thought Hank capable of breaking his ship, either. Anything, it seemed, was possible.

  "Who goes there?" roared a husky voice that echoed throughout the impenetrable darkness. "I didn't order anything! You better not be one of those cave-to-cave salesmen. I'll kick your ass off the cliff!"

  "Afternoon, Shank," said Hank, dropping from the pod and landing on his feet.

  "You again?" she snorted. "Didn't get the hint last time? Thought I made myself crystal clear."

  Quasar squinted, peering into the darkness, but he couldn't make out her form. The exterior light at the mouth of the cave was useless this far inside.

  "How dare you bring that here?" she bellowed.

  "Hello." Quasar raised a hand and smiled, assuming she referred to him. But in the dark, his dashing display of pearly whites went unnoticed.

  "What is the meaning of this, Hank?" Shank demanded. "Have you completely lost what's left of your mind? First you abandon your people to serve aboard a human vessel, you disappear for years, then you return and think all will be forgiven!"

  "Perhaps we can shed a little light on the situation." Quasar leaned through the transport pod's open hatch and gave a voice command for the vessel's external lights to come online. When they did, the darkness scattered, hovering only in shadows at the far corners. There stood Shank, just as hairy and short as Hank, but with at least half a dozen blind young clinging to her chest, squirming as they rooted for her breasts. It took some doing to find the nipples amongst so much fur, but they managed it with admirable aplomb.

  "What are you looking at?" Shank snarled.

  "Uh…" Quasar blinked. "There you go, ol' buddy. Your little rascals. How about you say hello, pat them on the heads, and we'll be on our way?"

  Hank stood within arms' reach of his mate. At first glance, they looked identical—except for the nursing youngsters adding more girth to Shank's torso.

  "I don't have much time,"
he grunted. "This is my last chance."

  "If imprinting was so important to you, then you wouldn't have left us. You want them to know who their father is? You should've stayed here where you belong!"

  "I have a job to do. They need me."

  "And we don't? You've really got your priorities straight," she sneered.

  "So, where are the other little guys?" Quasar dropped from the pod and clapped his hands together. "Can't wait to meet them."

  Shank wrapped all four of her arms around her young sucklings, shielding them protectively. "Get back into your vessel, human."

  Quasar attempted another dashing smile now that the lights were on. It still had no effect.

  "Listen," he said. "I can see you're unhappy with Hank, and you have every right to be. Absentee fathers are the scum of the universe, of course. No offense." He patted Hank on his right superior shoulder.

  "Humph."

  "I take full responsibility for taking Hank off-world. Once upon a time, you see, my star cruiser, the Effervescent Magnitude, was docked at your illustrious shipyards while your esteemed engineers installed a cold fusion near-lightspeed reactor. More trouble than it was worth, truth be told, but that's beside the point. What matters is that we were set upon by Arachnoid bounty hunters, and Hank—"

  "Shut your hairless mouth," Shank snapped. "He decided to remain aboard your ship. Nobody forced him to. But he can't have it both ways." She backed up a step. "Hank's had four years to change his mind, but now it's too late. They'll never know who their true father is. They'll only know who I say he is."

  "Lank?" Hank grunted.

  "Lank…" Quasar stage-whispered.

  "My cousin. Always had a thing for Shank."

  "If he's the first male they see when they open their eyes…so be it," she said. She chuckled a deep, hearty chuckle. "Course, he's got only one eye to look back at them with, but at least it'll be an eye that's here where it should be. Not gallivanting around the universe with a bunch of furless freaks!"