Galaxy Cruise: The Maiden Voyage Read online

  The bespectacled man cleared his throat. “I think we can all agree that our diversity is our strength.” He gave a nervous smile. “But perhaps we should get back to the issue at hand.”

  “Willijer’s right,” Kersa said. “We’re ignoring the American in the room.”

  Leo’s face flushed hot, as if a bright spotlight had been turned on him. He shifted his bony butt on the uncomfortable planter. “Oh, um. Yeah. I dunno.” He shrugged. “I mean, I personally wouldn’t wear it, but if the apron makes Varlowe happy, more power to her, right?”

  The board members all glared at him, speechless.

  “It’s talking,” Skardon said. “Why is it talking?”

  Leo blinked. “I’m sorry, I thought you wanted my opinion.” His gaze twitched across the scowling faces. “Um, as the American in the room?”

  “It’s a figure of speech, you rube,” Kersa snapped. “It means there’s a disgusting, unpleasant, hairy issue that we’re all pretending not to notice.”

  “Ah,” Leo said. “That’s, uh… well, rude, honestly.”

  Kersa stood and snatched the presentation remote out of Willijer’s hand. He staggered back with a cowardly squeak and returned to his seat. The hospitality chair’s brow lowered angrily as she addressed the room. “While it is true that the Waylade Tour Fleet’s fortunes have been declining for years, our losses accelerate from a gradual downward trend to a precipitous drop at one key juncture.”

  She pointed to the spot where the falling red line made a sharp kink between a horizontal slope and a near vertical freefall. Kersa’s eyes locked on Varlowe as she squeezed the remote. A timeline of events overlaid the graph—one balanced right on the cliff of the plunging line.

  Varlowe Waylade assumes control of WTF Cruises.

  “Your father’s body was barely cold before our cash flow all but vaporized.” Kersa glared at Varlowe. “As his heir and successor, the board demands you explain why.”

  Varlowe crossed to the window with an enigmatic smile. “Okay, so when I took charge I may have diverted a few discretionary funds.”

  “Diverted a few…” Skardon said incredulously. He banged a fist on the table and thrust a finger toward the screen. “This is a full annihilation of operational capital! Since your father passed we’ve been running cruises on shoestring budgets! All because of you!” He turned his rage to Willijer. “You’re the accountant! How could you not know this was happening?”

  Willijer fidgeted and stared into his lap. “It’s not that I didn’t know. It’s just that Ms. Waylade instructed me to…” He licked his dry lips. “Make certain investments.”

  “Investments my orange arze!” Kersa roared. “This woman has been embezzling from us since the moment she became president!”

  Varlowe giggled. “Well, the claws are out today, aren’t they?” She shook her head. “My great grandfather founded this company. WTF Cruises is my family legacy. I haven’t been sabotaging the business. I’ve been investing in its future.”

  Skardon gave her a skeptical squint. “So I presume this siphoning of funds is a prelude to your surprise announcement of a network of new spaceports?”

  “It is not,” Varlowe said flatly. “I told you, expansion isn’t the answer. The stars have set on the Ba’lux Empire. We can’t expect to survive by continuing to cram our stuffy old culture down the galaxy’s throat. Our customers yearn to experience new cultures and explore new ideas.”

  Kersa’s jaw tightened. “And what ‘new ideas’ are we exploring, pray tell?”

  A coy grin spread on Varlowe’s face. “Well, that’s the American in the room, isn’t it?”

  Skardon blinked. “What is?”

  “He is.” Varlowe pointed to Leo. “As I said, he’s the key to all of this.”

  Leo noticed everyone looking at him and startled to attention. “What, me?”

  “Of course.” Varlowe sauntered toward him. “My plan for putting the fleet back on top is deeply inspired by my spirituality.” She rested two fingers on the mermaid logo on her chest. “I have heard the call. I have seen the future. I have tasted the pumpkin spice.”

  Leo blinked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Then let me explain.” Varlowe put a hand on Leo’s shoulder and turned to the executive board with a beaming smile. “As the first step in my recovery plan, I am proud to appoint Leo MacGavin, hero of the Jaynkee Spacedock, as Waylade Tour Fleet’s newest captain!”

  The board collectively emitted a wet, savage noise, somewhere between a gasp and a roar. Leo’s mouth went slack and his cheeks tingled as all the blood ran out of his head. “What? No! I don’t want to be a captain! I just want to go home!”

  “This is absurd!” Kersa barked. “That ridiculous creature cannot command a ship!”

  “I totally can’t!” Leo agreed. “I can’t even command a karaoke lounge!”

  “We have traditions!” Skardon bellowed. “We have standards! Can you even imagine this pathetic mammalian criminal sitting on the command throne of a proud Ba’lux vessel?”

  “I cannot,” Varlowe admitted. “Someone like Leo would be utterly out of place at the helm of any ship in our fleet. A square peg in a round hole. Completely unacceptable.” She smiled. “And that’s why I’ve been investing in our future.”

  “So you keep saying,” Kersa growled. “Explain yourself.”

  “Gladly.” Varlowe gave Leo’s flushed cheek a pat with her palm and strolled across the room, savoring the spotlight. “Much like Leo’s brave ancestors, who left their tiny planet seeking a better life in the stars, we too must leave behind the comfort of what was in order to embrace the promise of what is yet to be.” She stood with her back to the window, framed in the dull blue shine of the world below. “The Americans have a phrase that embodies their spirit of independence. Their noble conviction that anyone can achieve their dreams through persistence and hard work. Words that symbolize their belief that everyone, regardless of lineage or circumstance, has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And today, I bring this notion to the Waylade Tour Fleet.” Varlowe’s voice turned reverent as she placed one hand on her apron’s logo and swept the other toward the window. “Members of the board, I present to you our new flagship, the Americano Grande.”

  A hush fell over the room as an enormous vessel silently sailed past the panoramic windows. The pointed bow of its hull glinted in the starlight, defiantly unlike any ship the Jaynkee Spacedock had ever seen. Unlike any ship any spacedock had ever seen. The board members just stared, gape mouthed, unable to form their thoughts into words. Leo said what everyone was thinking.

  “It’s a boat.”

  It was a boat. There was no other way to put it. From its elongated hydrodynamic hull to its forty-two stacked decks of stateroom windows, to the swimming pools and sun chairs arranged on its open decks, it appeared to be a twentieth-century cruise ship plucked straight from the oceans of Earth. But in space. And on a massive scale. Four enormous clusters of ion-fusion engines clung to its haunches in art-deco pods, emitting a cool blue glow as it made a stately orbit of the dock.

  Varlowe put an arm around Leo’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. “What do you think?”

  Leo just stared in slack disbelief. “It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

  At the table, Kersa managed to croak out the words caught in her throat. “This… this is your ‘investment’? This is what you wasted our entire budget on? This…” She pointed at the window, trembling with rage. “This?”

  The WTF Americano Grande slowly came to rest beside the Opulera and fired its mooring beams at the dock’s bollard ports. A purple vein throbbed in the goose egg on Skardon’s cranium as he looked up at the vessel dwarfing the Ba’lux ship.

  “Waylade, your behavior has always been erratic, but this is beyond the pale.” His voice was low and cold, a layer of ice over a barely contained lava flow of fury. He turned to the oth
ers. “The blatant misappropriation of funds to construct this monstrosity in secret, without the knowledge or consent of the executive board, is not just a step too far, it is a narcissistic, ill-conceived abomination.” He rose from his chair to his full, towering height. “Due to her wildly reckless performance and refusal to act in the company’s best interest, I move that Varlowe Waylade be removed from the board of WTF Cruises immediately.”

  “Seconded,” Kersa said without hesitation. She and Skardon turned to Willijer. He flinched and pulled a tabloyd from his pocket, unfolding the paper-thin screen to its full legal-pad size.

  “Yes, well, regarding the, uh… project…” He glanced out the window at the glittering ocean liner. “I don’t disagree that the plans should have been submitted to the board for a full review before they were passed on to the construct-o-bots for execution, but according to our charter…” He held up his device, showing a dense block of text. “It is within the president’s discretionary purview to initiate confidential projects using company resources as he, she, ze, or bu deems appropriate without due process or transparency.”

  Skardon fixed him in a lethal glare. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

  Willijer shrank and adjusted his spectacles. “I’m saying that technically Ms. Waylade hasn’t broken any rules. Her actions, though questionable, were within her rights and I can’t, in good conscience as a member of this board, vote to remove her.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s still two to one,” Kersa said. She turned to Varlowe. “Pack up your office, Waylade. You’re out.”

  “I think not,” Varlowe said dismissively. “Because I vote in favor of myself.”

  “You don’t get a vote in your own dismissal!” Skardon barked.

  “Actually…” Willijer swiped at the text on his tabloyd. “It says here she does.”

  Kersa dropped her face in her palms. “Gah! Who wrote this stupid charter?”

  “It appears we require a tiebreaker vote,” Skardon noted. “What say you?”

  All eyes turned to the corner of the room. Leo shrank back against the potted palm and stammered. “Well, Varlowe seems nice, and I do feel that among all of you she’s the least likely to murder me. So I vote in favor of her staying in charge.”

  “Nobody cares what you think!” Kersa snapped.

  Leo blinked. “But you…”

  “I was referring to our emeritus board member,” Skardon said. “The sage we call upon to guide us in times like these with her infinite wisdom and fair judgment.” He turned to the ancient woman slouched in her wheelchair. “Should Varlowe Waylade maintain control of this company despite her obvious contempt for its board, or should she be removed and replaced by the current vice-president?” He gave the elder a conspiratorial grin. “The choice is yours and yours alone. How do you vote on this matter?”

  The old woman blinked the milky domes of her eyes and shook her head. After a long moment she spoke with a voice like a mummy farting dust.

  “In all my years as a part of this board, I’ve never seen such an audacious display of ego. For the president to go over the heads of those meant to steward this company is not only reckless, it’s completely mad.”

  Her breath rattled in her chest as she stared Varlowe down. Varlowe’s face remained confidently impassive, but her fingers picked nervously at the arms of her chair. Skardon’s grin pulled tight in eager anticipation. The old woman continued.

  “You know who else they used to call mad? Her great grandfather, with his crazy idea to put a Ba’lux pleasure palace in a decommissioned battleship and sail it around the galaxy. Even in splendor, who would want to leave Ba’luxi Prime to slum it on the lesser worlds? People thought he was absolutely loopy.” She waved a withered hand at Varlowe. “People think this one is loopy too. And she just might be. Or she might be a visionary like her great granddad. Who’s to say if she’s qualified to lead us? Who’s… to… say?”

  Her words trailed off until they were nothing but a troubling rattle in her lungs. Impatience crinkled Skardon’s brow. “You are. That’s literally what we’re asking you to do here.”

  The elder fingered the control on the arm of her chair and it creaked and wearily rolled to the window. She gazed out at the gleaming new vessel. The space ocean liner looked proud despite all reason, like a baby that had just loaded its diaper in a public pool. She snuffed through her nose slits. “I want to see how this thing plays out.”

  Willijer gasped. Kersa growled. Skardon choked out words. “I’m sorry… what?”

  The old woman turned her chair to face the board. “The kid thinks this monstrosity is the coming thing. What if she’s right?”

  “I assure you, she is not,” Kersa said.

  “But what if she is?” A sly grin spread across the elder’s wrinkled face as she gestured at the window. “If this new ship is a success, old man Waylade’s great granddaughter will have proven herself a visionary worthy of her lineage. If it’s a disaster, her incompetence will be indisputable. I reserve my judgment until the facts are in.”

  Panic tightened Skardon’s voice. “You’re not seriously suggesting we send this… embarrassment on a maiden voyage!”

  “I am,” the old woman nodded. “Put it on the next Simishi Riviera cruise.”

  “But… we can’t!”

  “We can, and we will,” she said defiantly.

  Skardon’s shoulders slumped. “But Mom!”

  “Don’t ‘but Mom’ me, young man!” the elder snapped. “Any more sass out of you and I’ll take you over my knee and tan your orange hide right here in front of everyone!”

  Leo snorted back a surprised giggle. The others gave Skardon a pitying look, and he crossed his arms and sank into his chair without another word.

  Varlowe blinked as the ultimatum filtered through the tension. “Wait, are you saying that after four generations of building this line up from nothing, the Waylade family’s control of our own business is contingent on the success of a single cruise?”

  The old lady tipped her head. “It’s that simple. If your captain here can get a ship of happy customers to Ensenada Vega in seven days, you stay president. If you fail, my boy takes control of the company.”

  “Wow.” Varlowe cut a glance at Leo. “Looks like the stakes have been raised.”

  Leo nodded. “They have. For you. Honestly, I don’t really care either way.”

  “Fine! We’ll do it your way,” Skardon snapped. His wounded pride hardened into defiance. “We’ll entertain one final humiliation under Varlowe’s rule. But after her inevitable failure, I will melt that ship down and use its blasphemous hulk to build my first new spaceport!”

  He hammered a control pad, changing the screen to a map of the local system with markers on all the planned expansion sites. An icon blotted out the human settlement moon.

  “Wait. That’s Eaglehaven!” Leo gasped. “You’re building a spaceport on my home world?”

  Skardon gave him a disgusted snort. “Of course not. That would be absurd.”

  Leo exhaled. “Oh, good. For a second I thought—”

  “That’ll be a sewage dump.”

  “What?!” Leo choked.

  “Under my expansion plan, our cruise capacity will far exceed our waste-processing capacity. So we’ll need to turn this little moon into a storage facility for unprocessed poo slurry.”

  “Poo slurry?” Leo cried. “But that’s my home!”

  “Oh, calm yourself,” Kersa grumbled. “You rodents can still live there. We won’t need more than eighty percent of the surface.” She shrugged. “Plus the oceans.”

  Leo’s eyes bugged. “You can’t do that!”

  “I can do whatever I want,” Skardon said. “Once I become president of the company.”

  “Which you never will,” Varlowe said calmly. “Because the Americano Grande’s maiden voyage will be nothing short of spectacular. The most amazing cruise the galaxy has ever seen! Its captai
n will see to that.” She turned to Leo with a grin. “That is, if he accepts the job.”

  Leo looked out the window at the placid, blue-green gem of Eaglehaven. He looked at the version on the screen, blotted out by an icon of a smiling poo. He pinched his eyes.

  “Oh gahdamn it…”

  Chapter Three

  Leo spent the next three days in his little rented room on the Jaynkee Spacedock riding waves of despair and denial. After six months of grueling karaoke nights he had finally earned enough for a ticket back to Eaglehaven. But what was the point? In a week the whole planet would be neck deep in alien butt dumplings.

  So instead of buying a ticket, Leo bought a shot of hundred-proof methrum. Then another. And he had continued buying them until a steward from the Opulera showed up to peel him off the floor, scrub him down, and sober him up.

  Now he was slouched in a plush, luxurious seat on a private WTF shuttle, arms crossed and a grim expression on his face. He stared out the window, watching his home world grow ever smaller instead of larger. A slender orange hand gripped his arm, startling him out of his trance.

  Varlowe was beside him, wearing a sundress and a blue vest emblazoned with a big yellow smiley face and the words “We’re rolling back prices!” She gave him an excited squeeze and nodded out the window on her side of the shuttle. “There she is. Isn’t she just so beautiful?”

  The view blurred as they raced along the vast expanse of spacedock berths, filled with ships of every shape and size. A sleek craft like a cricket bat with wings. A rotating disc ringed with blocky engines. Collections of interlinked orbs. But one vessel stood out from the rest. The WTF Americano Grande looked like it had been cut-and-pasted into the scene from a time and place wholly unrelated to this reality. Looking at it, Leo could almost hear the lap of ocean waves and the squawk of phantom seagulls. But more than its design, the ship stood out because of its sheer, unyielding size.