I doffed my white suit, sterilized my skin, and donned the night shirt hanging in the bathroom before collapsing on the couch. Worst cruise ever.
*
Two more deaths, attributed to the mutated rotavirus. We didn’t have nearly enough antiviral to fight it with, and we were running low on intravenous fluid. Dysentery is deadly because it causes hypovolemia, which leads to shock. Or an electrolyte imbalance that stops the heart. But our two Packars literally starved to death; because of diarrhea they couldn’t make the buffet. By the time we got to their cabins we found them collapsed on the floor between the bed and the head, hands outstretched, mouths agape. With help from four brawny Mindars from the Maintenance Department – and the Big Bertha hoist – we managed to fit them into the walk-in cooler, stacking them on top of Mr. and Mrs. Proud.
Gantry summoned me to the bridge. The computer doc supplied the stats – the number of reported cases, the medication prescribed and dispensed – but she wanted my opinion.
“What’s the situation, Skylar?”
“We’re running low on everything, including morphone. Morphone isn’t a cure but the Packars tolerate it well, and it relieves the symptoms, it slows down bowel motility. We’re nearly out of intravenous fluid replacement units. Frankly, it’s a disaster, ma’am.”
“The computer says this virus runs its course in an average of three to five days.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s what the computer says. But this is a mutant strain. We’ve had some recoveries but it’s too early to tell. Are you feeling ill, ma’am?”
“It’s nothing, I’m sure.” She smiled wanly, stifling a belch. “Probably just indigestion.”
“You’d better come with me to sick bay for a couple of tests.” I didn’t have the power to force her to come to sick bay; we weren’t a military operation. All I could do was to try to convince her. She listened.
In sick bay Doug drew a blood sample and fed it to Donald Doc who blinked and hummed as he analyzed it. Meanwhile, I checked Captain Gantry’s vital signs. Her blood pressure was high, which could be an initial reaction against the virus or it could just be the stress she’s under. “What do you think, Donald Doc?”
Our good doctor was silent on the issue. Indeed, he had crashed. Doug tried to reboot him, but no luck. Fuck! He called IT but the technician was out of commission with diarrhea, too weak to leave her cabin. I called support at the office back on Packar, but no one answered. Maybe because we weren’t even transmitting.
“Captain, you must allow me to administer the immune booster. It’s all we have left in the dispensary to give you.”
“Is it administered by mouth?” she asked hopefully.
“No, ma’am. It’s an inhaler.”
Gantry shrugged and allowed me to put the applicator up her left nostril.
“Breathe deep, Captain.”
Then I slipped her a packet of gorsh weed, an ancient remedy from my home planet. “Go to your quarters, ma’am and make yourself a pot of tea with this,” I whispered. “It’s not in the ship’s pharmacy, nor in the doctor’s formulary, but I swear by it.”
Gantry looked askance at the bag of dried herbs. “What is it?”
“Gorsh.”
“What’s gorsh?”
“A fungus, actually. A type of tree mold. I take it myself. And I haven’t gotten sick. Just a pinch in a liter of boiling water, let it steep for five minutes. Or, you can eat it, just like it is. It’s a little bitter, but the taste grows on you.” I didn’t tell her that gorsh is most effective and most pleasurable when smoked. Smoking of any substance was prohibited on board.
The captain opened the bag, poured out a handful and emptied it into her mouth, masticating thoughtfully, her large mandible a millstone. “It better work, Skylar. It better keep me healthy, because it tastes like shit.”
“It’ll work wonders, ma’am. Trust me; I’m a nurse.
I slept like the dead that night, until a sudden jar woke me. The ship shook and the blaring horn of a red alert inside my head, transmitted by the cochlear device, followed.
“All crew members report to muster stations immediately. This vessel is under attack. Report to muster stations immediately.”
Heart firing, I jumped out of bed and reached underneath for my Raymaster, clipping it onto my belt.
What chance do we have, I wondered, on this broken down, under-gunned, laid-low ship?
Doug met me in sick bay. “It’s the space pirates,” he said, confirming what I already suspected. “They’re cruising a beater, but packing heat for Armageddon.”
Suddenly I was hit by a searing blast of energy that dropped me to my knees, screaming. It only lasted a second, the intense pain, but it was an effective psychological weapon. Because you don’t want to get hit with it ever again. And then came the second wave of agony. Everybody aboard was feeling this and I wanted more than anything to run down to my cabin and comfort Jacques, but I couldn’t; I was required to remain at my battle station. I had to let the invisible nanny, my ship wife, handle my son’s pain and his terror.
After the two pain waves, our communicators started screaming with calls for help from passengers. Doug and I rushed to respond.
Like all passenger ships, Entitled was armed, but our weaponry was mostly for show. A joke, really. Omerion military surplus missiles, which nobody on board could fire worth a damn. Engineers, maintenance workers, and security guards were our gunners, certified in a six-hour in-service. No cruise ship or merchant vessel ever actually fought pirates; they just gave in to their outrageous demands. Just then we heard a whining noise as the weapons charged. At least something was working on this ship.
“This is your captain speaking. Crew, maintain emergency stations. We are under attack. Stand by for further orders. Passengers, do not panic but remain in your cabins. Lock your doors. The food stations are closed. You will find emergency rations in your cabins. Remain in your cabins until a uniformed crewmember gives you the all-clear.”
I knew I should’ve jumped ship on Jolieterre, on the last cruise. If I had, I’d be with Randy right now, we’d be drinking wine and watching the suns set, we’d be fucking each other blind. And Jacques, he’d be wading on the shore digging for sand crabs. Randy and Jacques, maybe they’d hit it off. Randy could teach him how to sail the boat. Then the nanny would put my boy to bed and Randy would take me to bed. Oh, what a life I could have.
*
The pirates had the upper hand and they knew it. The captain ordered the guns fired, but it was like throwing darts; our impotent missiles either missed their mark or made a pimple in the pirate ship’s hull before bouncing off and becoming driftwood in space. Gantry sent out a distress signal, hoping it would actually be transmitted and picked up by an allied watchdog –but that was a long shot. Common procedure was to give the pirates what they demanded. It was one of the risks of doing business in this sector of the galaxy.
Hacking our security system, the pirates sent a boarding party to the bridge, to negotiate a price for our release, keeping their battery of pain deliverers trained on our crippled ship.
There were eight boarders. Various species, including three humanoids, but desperate looking creatures all, with their low foreheads, their slack jaws, they leered at us, top-of-the-line convincers held at the ready. The leader was a short slug of a creature, with a large head. Sparkling silver threads of saliva hung pendulously from his orifice.
“You’re wasting your time,” Gantry said, coolly. “My ship is under quarantine, a mutant strain of deadly rotavirus. You’re putting your own lives at risk just standing there.” She had opened the communication channels so the crew could hear what was going on.
“We don’t care about your rotavirus,” the short one barked. “We want the good stuff. Your drugs. Hand them over or the navigator gets it.” He wrapped a slimy tentacle around the young Packar’s neck, pointing his convincer at h
is sweating head.
“The medications are under lock and key. I’ll have to call the nurse.”
“Do it, and make it quick.” The navigator’s eyes bulged as the pirate tightened his grip.
“Nurse Skylar to the bridge immediately,” Gantry summoned me via the cochlear communicator.
Knees shaking, breathing in gulps, I hurried down the corridor, my med kit bouncing against my hip. I felt for my raymaster in its holster beneath my breast. Wondered if I’d have the chance to use it. Waiting to be cleared to enter the bridge, I tried to compose myself.
The doors opened and I walked in.
“Nurse, take these assholes to sick bay and give them what they want.”
“We don’t have anything their species can get off on, ma’am.” All that remark got me was an excruciating blast of pain from the leader’s convincer.
“Stop wasting our time, Skeksian. We want your narcotics, your mood elevators, your sex enhancers, your pleasure center stimulants. Not for us, you idiot lizard, but to sell. It is profit we crave. And Captain, while the nurse gets the drugs, see to it your company deposits a million quid into our Interstellar account.”
The captain gave me a look. “Do something, Skylar,” she whispered between clenched teeth. If I wanted to redeem myself from the medical fiascos, now was my chance. All I had to do was thwart the pirates, save the ship, and make Captain Gantry look like a hero.
“No funny business. You creatures think you can cruise through here like you own this quadrant. We’ve ruled this space forever. You don’t pass through without paying protection.”
“Extortion, you mean,” challenged the captain, and flinched in pain as a trigger-happy pirate blasted her with his convincer.
Gantry cried out, a blood-curdling scream. Her jowly face was pale and dotted with oily exudate. “Your brutality, your use of torture will not be tolerated. I’ve contacted Interstellar Defense and a destroyer is on its way. I’d advise you to leave while you can.”
The pirate leader sneered. “We’ll take our chances. We’re not going anywhere until we get the goods. You owe us. We want the drugs and we want the funds.” He motioned to three of his henchmen.
“My henchmen will escort you to your pharmaceuticals. Be quick about it, and no one gets hurt. If you linger, your captain and your navigator will suffer the worst pain imaginable before we obliterate them.”
“You’re crazy. We’ve got a mutated rotavirus aboard. Your kind is particularly susceptible. It could be fatal.”
The short one laughed. “We’re not afraid of a little shit.”
The tall one poked me in the back with the barrel of his convincer. “Shut up and take us to the dope or I’ll make you scream in agony before I turn you to dust.”
Fuck that. This job doesn’t pay near enough. I motioned for them to follow me out of the bridge and down the corridor. “We have to use the stairs. The transport system and the elevators are out of commission.”
“Some cruise ship this is,” the short one said. “Hey, nice skin, baby. You’re Skeksian, aren’t you?” He reached out to stroke my arm and I hissed, an involuntary defensive response. My skin turned smoking hot.
Burning his fingers, the pirate cursed me in his native tongue. Although our species are incompatible, I’m sure he was fantasizing some depraved sexual escapade.
“Back off!” My tongue slithered out, I couldn’t help it. The tip of it emits an anesthetic substance, an atavistic mechanism that my kind once used to paralyze our prey.
“Put your tongue away before I cut it off, you lascivious little reptile. Hand over your weapons.”
“I’m not armed,” I lied, turning my palms face up. “I’m a nurse. My job is to save life, not destroy it. And I’m not a reptile. I’m warm-blooded, I give birth to live young, I…”
He delivered a blast of pain to my genitals, both sets, that sent me to my knees. “Shut up and keep your hands where I can see them. Let’s go.”
I longed for my raymaster, beneath my breast. Wondered how I could reach it without being shot.
One of the thugs kicked the door open and we burst into the sick bay. The air reeked of foul liquid feces. Soiled sheets overflowed the hampers, trash spilled out of the receptacles, littering the floor. The cubicles were crammed with patients, two to a room. They all had diarrhea. Doug had intravenous lines delivering fluids, nourishment and electrolyte replacement. He looked up from inserting a rectal tube, his protective face mask covered with brown flecks.
“What a shit-hole!” The pirate’s one visible eye watered. “Get the dope and get it quick.”
“It takes two of us, my colleague and me, to open the door.”
“Give me the keys,” the one with the eye patch demanded, waving his convincer.
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said. “Besides electronic keys, the storage unit requires our retinal scans.”
“Well hurry up. And do something about the Packar stench, will ya?”
“I’m going to close the doors to the cubicles,” I said, trying to buy some time. “So don’t shoot me.”
“Close ‘em. Hurry up!”
Doug caught my eye and I knew he was going to try something, I didn’t know what. I had no choice but to trust him, to back his play.
“Oil of peppermint,” Doug said. “If you’ll allow me to open a vial, it should mask the smell while we get access to the drug dispenser. It’ll take a few minutes to override the system lock.”
The pirates were gagging. The smell was putrid indeed, but Doug and I were accustomed to it. Peppermint was an essential oil, an ancient Earth remedy with various uses. One was to purify the air. But too much oil of peppermint can be overpowering.
Doug cracked a small ampule, releasing a bit of the fresh clean scent, a complete contrast to the smell of fecal matter. He looked to them for approval, and the big one nodded. “Now get the goods.”
Just as Doug and I were opening the unit, an unsuspecting housekeeper entered the sick bay and was blasted by one of the pirates. She fell to the deck, stunned or dead, I wasn’t sure which. That’s when Doug popped the ampule of peppermint into the atomizer and released it in a cloud of vapor. The pirates doubled over, eyes stinging, blinded, lungs wheezing from the volatile aromatic oil. We both drew our stunners and fired in tandem, dropping the pirates. One shot wildly as he went down, an old fashioned metal-cased bullet that ricocheted off the carbon fiber cabin wall and exploded an oxygen canister.
Doug and I quickly put on our pocket respirators and kicked aside their weapons. We wrangled the pirates into strait jackets, then Doug got the extinguisher and put out the flames caused by the explosion. Now the fire alarm was screaming, the red lights flashing, the sprinklers raining down. I grabbed the defibrillator and shocked the fallen housekeeper’s heart. She twitched, her eyes flickered open, and she gasped like a newborn. Too bad I couldn’t stick around to welcome her back to life.
Just then the entire ship was hit with a blast of neuron irritation waves selectively targeting passengers and crew. I doubled over in what felt like a labor contraction, the worst ever. Doug fell to his knees, moaning through clenched teeth.
“Breathe, Doug, breathe through the pain. Watch me – like this.” I coached him through the horrible abdominal cramp then helped him to his feet and we ran down the corridor, dodging room service trays, hearing the howls coming from the Packars inside their cabins. The fire alarm flashed red and blue and Ellie, the electronic dispatcher, crooned in her sultry voice, “Fire on sector sub-three. Passengers, please remain in your cabins and await further instructions. All employees to fire stations.”
Doug had a plan and I thought I knew what it was. We headed for the bridge. I had enough charge in my raymaster for maybe one more shot; I had to make it count. We stopped outside the service entrance. “We’ve got the drugs, Captain.”
The doors opened. Doug had a vacuum transport tube fi
lled with peppermint oil and as the pirate leader reached for it, Doug blasted him with his stunner. Following his lead, I took down the one holding a gun on the captain, then ducked behind the navigation console. My stunner was blinking a warning – it was almost out of juice. I set it on “vaporize” and aimed it at the alien who was firing randomly, spraying bullets like water. It weakened him just enough that he dropped his military issue flesh destroyer, which Captain Gantry snatched, rather nimbly, for her size.
“Watch out, Skylar!” Doug shouted, and I instinctively dropped to the floor. Doug’s raymaster still had plenty of juice. Set on destroy, he was a sight to see, a 25th century Rambo, annihilating pirates right and left. And then in through the door burst the first mate, the chief engineer and a security guard, like a posse, raymasters blazing.
“Hold your fire!” Gantry yelled. “Before you start killing each other.”
The pirates were done, obliterated, blood and innards splattered all over the bridge. A real housekeeping nightmare.
Just then a new blast of pain waves from the pirate ship seared through our bodies. I heard moans and cries from the officers as they fell.
“You’ll pay for the deaths of our comrades,” their captain vowed over the speaker system.
“Hold on, crew,” Gantry managed to say, through gritted teeth as the pain intensified.
“How would you rate your pain, ma’am? On a scale of one to ten.”
“Sixteen-point-four,” she gasped. “We need to buy some time. Interstellar destroyer is closing in. Must hold on.”
“Transport the drugs over immediately, or else!” The pirate’s threat was followed by another wave of agony. Can a being die of pain, I wondered?
Summoning all my resolve, all of my remaining strength, I fumbled through my kit for the gorsh, all of it, every last bit, and with my laser pen, lit it on fire, breathing deep the vapors, immediately easing my misery. Crawling over to Doug, prostrate on the floor, but still breathing, I took the vacuum tube out of his clenched fist. “Breathe deep, Doug,” I whispered.
“Pirate ship, this is Nurse Skylar aboard the cruise ship Entitled. I’ve got the drugs you request, but our transporter is down. You’ll have to beam them over yourself.” I placed the vacuum tube of peppermint oil on the transporter pad next to the chief engineer, slumped over his station. “Breathe deeply, sir,” I whispered, patting his shoulder gently. The bittersweet smell of burning gorsh filled the air, and the sound of coughing as crew members began to revive.