SoylentNews

Awake
        I woke up about quarter after seven, and Destiny was already up and had coffee started. "Hungry?" She asked.
        "Yeah, I am. Did we even eat dinner last night? Did you tell the robots to start breakfast?"
        "No, I wanted to try something new for breakfast and wanted to see what you wanted to eat first. You know I'm a history buff, well, I found a really old recipe in the computer called a ‘breakfast horse shoe’. They used to have them in the twentieth and twenty first centuries in a city in the American midwest."
        "A horse shoe? That doesn't sound too appetizing, What's in it?" I asked.
        "Well, the recipe I found calls for ham or pork sausage, but turkey or beef or chicken or almost any kind of meat will do. It's a piece of toast covered with cheese, with meat on the cheese, more cheese on the meat, scrambled eggs on the cheesy meat, cheese on that, hash browns on that and more cheese on top of the hash browns."
        "Sounds cheesy," I said. "Sure, I'll try one."
        We took a long, fun shower together while the robots made horse shoes, and I only had enough time to finish half of it, but I had to go to work.
        That horse shoe was pretty good. The recipe was so old I was surprised it was in the database, but Destiny probably brought her own history database along. She really likes history, and she's getting me interested in it.
        No shower yet today, I was going to need one when I was done with inspections anyway.
        All of the readouts were okay in the pilot room, except for that I probably wouldn't be able to inspect those hundred and twenty two engines that I still hadn't been able to get to because of all the nastiness blocking the halls, and number seventeen was of course still not working and it was one of the ones I couldn't get to. That didn't really matter, though, because I'd be damned if I was going to light it again, even if the robots could fix it without melting.
        Maybe the maids had paths cleared out by now so I could inspect the rest, they'd made lots of progress when I was down there yesterday.
        No way was I going to inspect cargo today no matter what that damned book says, that would have been crazy fucking stupid dangerous. Some of the dropheads might be low on drops and there's no way I'm inspecting a monster's pen. Fuck that God damned book, I wasn't going to do it.
        I went to inspect the sick bay first. Tammy was still in a coma, and I was worried. What were the droppers going to do when they woke up?
        The maids had indeed jettisoned a lot more of the gross, nasty mess and I was able to get through the halls and inspect almost all the engines this morning, although there was still a hell of a lot of stinking gore and I still couldn't get to the generator or two engines.
        There was a different robot working on seventeen, with a smashed up robot next to it, probably damaged in the excitement. Damn it, I wanted that damned engine dead. I unplugged it, took a lead off of the battery that powered the robot and plugged it back in, hoping another damned robot wouldn't reconnect the battery. Anyway, I trudged back up those damned stairs. As I was climbing stairs I foned the computer and told it to "alert me when Doctor Winters regains consciousness." The stupid computers, they only understand military nerd talk. I took my filthy boots off at the landing at the top of the stairs, it was still really gross down there. I took my shower when I got home.
        Destiny and me had roast beef sandwiches and fried potatoes and salad for lunch. I was starved, I'd only had time for half my breakfast and that was probably my first full real meal since yesterday morning. I don't think we ate that pizza we ordered for lunch the day before.
        While we were eating, the alarm went off; Tammy was awake. Thank God! Both of us took off at a run toward the sick bay. I told the robots not to clear the table, if I didn't the stupid things would throw the rest of my lunch away.
        She was sitting up on the medic with the oxygen mask still on her face and the needle still in her arm. She was taking the mask off, looking a little groggy. "The droppers!" she said, her speech a little slurred.
        "I know," Destiny said. "Tell me where the drops are and lay back down, you had a serious concussion. You've been out for two days and we're worried about the droppers."
        "You two can't handle them," she said.
        "We have to," I replied. "you can't."
        "You could overdose them!"
        "Better than underdosing," I said.
        "Not much. Look, John, there is a trunk in my quarters with a false bottom, the drops are in there. They're in small bottles and there are plenty. Just put one bottle in each addict's quarters when you do inspection and I'll adjust dosage later when the gurney lets me go."
        "Okay," I said. "What do I do if one is starting to go through withdrawal?"
        "Drop the bottle and run like hell!"
        That seemed logical to me. Hell, opening the door and just tossing a bottle in seemed even more logical, these girls were freaky scary without drops. Scarier than Destiny's old gray horror movies, even.
        "We'll be back when we're done," Destiny said.
        There was a melee in the commons. I locked the door and gave them nitrogen instead of air while Destiny tossed bottles into all the rooms. Then I went in after they passed out and put a drop in each one's eye. Their eyes were all pretty bloodshot but nowhere near monster red yet.
        I hope Tammy's better soon, she's pretty busted up, damn them whores. We're lost without Tammy. The medic's readout said she'd had a very severe concussion, dislocated shoulder and a few broken ribs. At least she was awake now and the medic read "condition fair".
        I should have let the robots clear the table, lunch was way past by now so when we were done we ate dinner... huh? Steak, potato, and salad. I hadn't hardly touched my salad at lunch. Huh? How the hell am I supposed to know what kind of damned potato, potatoes are potatoes as far as I'm concerned. The robots cooked them, anyway.
        We had a bottle of wine to go along with it, but this time we only drank one bottle, then watched another Rawhide together, then a really, really dumb movie about California beaches from the nineteen sixties that we turned off after fifteen minutes and finished the Star Wars movie. I was surprised, this one wasn't as funny but it was still pretty good.
        It was still early and the bottle was only half gone, so Destiny put on that old prison movie. Halfway through it she said yeah, that was from the book she was reading and "this one follows the book pretty close except it was Popeye fucking Olive Oyl in the book" and that they'd left a chapter or two out in the movie. She added "Except for the flies coming out of the big black prisoner's mouth, and the scene where the guy gets burned up, and the magic shit I thought it was good, even if it wasn't a hologram."
        Then we put old music on and cuddled a long while and went to bed.

Next: Captures

Injury
        We both woke up around seven, still cuddled up on the couch. We'd been asleep for fifteen hours on that thing. We cuddled a little while more, then Destiny started coffee while I took care of the ship's air and corrected the course, since I was sleeping when the generator came back online.
        We took another shower together after drinking a little coffee and she told the cook to make pancakes and sausage, and we watched the news while breakfast was cooking. That robot makes pretty good pancakes. The sausage is pretty good, too, but my mom could do better.
        There was nothing new on the news except Venus and pirates, and pirates sure weren't new to me. More people on the Venus station were dead and the rest weren't expected to live. That must be one nasty disease!
        There was some sort of scandal where some politician was caught having financial connections to the pirates, was impeached, charged with violation of banking laws and bribery, fined, and put on probation.
        I'd have shot the God damned son of a bitch, or at least put him in prison. Fucking bastard was a God damned traitor. The pirates they'd caught on Earth earlier had all been sentenced to prison, which is what led up to the politician's arrest; his pirate friends had ratted him out in hope of lighter sentences.
        At eight I checked the readings, which of course was fine because I'd just been in there an hour earlier. Then I did inspections. The monsters were all sleeping, even the German woman, and everything was fine upstairs.
        I had to check the engines and generators but could only check half the engines and only the starboard generator because all the hallways halfway from port to starboard were completely clogged with body parts; I couldn't check the port side engines or the busted generator.
        It would take the maids weeks to clean up all the blood. They'd still be working on it when we got to Mars. God, but it was a nasty mess down there, and it was starting to stink really bad. You couldn't smell it upstairs, thank God, but going downstairs made me want to throw up. And it looked as disgusting as it smelled.
        I took off my bloody boots at the top of the stairs and put on the shoes I'd worn there. I was going to need another shower.
        There was a commotion in the commons on the way back to our quarters; Sparkle was in there and obviously low on drops. Dangerously low. Tammy came walking quickly up.
        "So you’re going to visit Sparkle?" I asked her.
        "Are you fucking crazy, John? Of course I am! I must not have been clear in my book. If one of these women runs completely out of drops, we’re all dead. Really. Trust me on this, this is my main field of study."
        "They knocked you on your ass and stole your drops the last time."
        "It was... well, a gamble. It paid off, I got knocked out but how many pirates died?"
        My phone rang; it was Sandy, a chubby red haired girl, wanting to know why the maid didn’t show up. Of course, they were all in the engine and generator rooms, cleaning up blood and guts and the nasty stuff that's inside guts. It really stunk bad, worse than when Billie blew herself up. Most sickening mess I've ever seen, or smelled.
        I told her they were only coming half as often because of the sickening mess downstairs, and hung it up... where did that phrase "hang up" come from? And answered Tammy.
        "From what I can tell, thousands."
        "Where are all the bodies?"
        "The robots jettisoned them. Lots of them, anyway, there are an awful lot still downstairs. Now they’re all little bitty comets, except the ones that haven't been cleaned up yet. But there's still one hell of a mess down there in the engine and generator rooms and it isn't even all the way cleaned up upstairs, here."
        My fone rang again; a heavy German accent asking about the maids.
        I hung up the fone after telling her and wondered again why we said "hung up", and why the damned thing was called a fone. But then, why is an apple called an apple? Why are robots called robots? I'm called John because that's the name my parents gave me. I should go to college. Maybe I should read, like Wild Bill and Destiny does.
        I got on the PA and informed them that maids would only be there every other day for the duration of the trip because they would all be busy in the engine and generator rooms. I went the rest of the way back home and took a shower.
        While a pizza was cooking we watched another Star Wars movie because the first one was so funny, but we only got to see twenty minutes or so before an alarm went off: Injury to passenger.
        "Pause it and come on," I said, hurrying to the door. "Tammy's hurt." I talked to the fone. "Where is Tamatha Winters?"
        It said "Cargo eighty seven."
        "Is she alone?"
        "Affirmative." Damned computers.
        "Is a medic on the way?"
        "Medic en route." Why did this thing type "en route"? Why not in route? I ain't French.
        "Where's Sparkle?"
        "Unable to process order or question, please rephrase." God damned piece of shit computer! Who programs these damned things, anyway?
        "Where, is, Sparkle?" I repeated.
        "The term ‘sparkle’ does not exist in the database except as a dictionary entry."
        Shit. "Destiny, what’s Sparkle’s real name?"
        "I don’t know."
        Shit. "What are you going to do?" she asked.
        "I don't know," I said, and then I had an idea. I'd done this before. "Computer, when I say so I want you to replace all air except here and the sick bay with nitrogen and inform me when everyone in, uh," damned computers, "the affected areas are asl... uh, unconscious."
        "Affirmative," it said. Stupid computer. I could find Sparkle's picture in the computer but it would take too long to go through two hundred pictures.
        "Is doctor Winters in sick bay?"
        "Affirmative."
        Damned computers. "Condition?" I asked.
        "Critical," it said, and Destiny got pale. I probably got pale, too. There was no way Destiny and me could handle those dropheads without Tammy.
        I decided to look for Sparkle before knocking all of the droppers out; I don't want to damage cargo, let alone hurt people.
        It only took a few minutes to find her; she was in the commons noisily attacking the two Thai girls who had the same names. I thought it looked like she wanted to eat them, as in take them apart and swallow their flesh like a cannibal or a lion or a wolf or something, and her eyes weren't even all the way red yet. Her eyes were still really scary, though. The gruesome picture of the generators and all along the halls by the engines haunted me; it looked like some of the remaining flesh had been partially eaten. There were even bones with teeth marks on them. Nasty. But the two Thai girls were holding their own; I didn't know it but both were excellent at martial arts; Lek told me later they practiced Thai kickboxing. I have no idea how they got hooked on drops. They were easy to tell apart, now that one of them had started wearing clothes.
        I had the computer shut the door and flood it with nitrogen and hoped Sparkle passed out before the Thai girls did. When they did I had two medics bring the Thai girls out and I cuffed Sparkle, wrists and ankles. Then I went to Tammy's quarters in search of drops; angel tears were all that was going to save all of our lives now.
        I looked everywhere. She'd hid them real good, because I couldn't find them after looking for an hour and a half, so I called Destiny. She didn't know where she kept them, either.
        Shit. We were all dead.
        Maybe not. I'd had Lek, the Thai girl who talked kind of all right and knocked me out (I think, I'm not sure) but was acting human these days who I'd had took to sick bay. The other Thai girl hadn't been injured but the one that talks good was still unconscious and sporting a black eye. If Sparkle didn't get her drug she was going to die horribly and if she wasn't chained down we were all going to die horribly, and maybe even if she was chained down we'd still all die horribly.
        I went to the sick bay to see Tammy and Lek, hoping Tammy was going to live. Her medic said she was stable, but she still wasn't awake. I guess stable is better than critical, which is what she was before, but I ain't no doctor. The whole side of her face was purple.
        Destiny was there. "John," she said, "Shit, what are we going to do?"
        "I don't know," I said. "If Lek wakes up maybe we can save Sparkle and if Tammy wakes up maybe we can save everybody, but without those drops we're all dead."
        Lek stirred a little. "Give her time," Destiny said. "Let her wake up."
        But she was already sitting up on the medic, ripping off the oxygen mask. "Sparkle need drops! She be animal! She no have drops she die! We all die!"
        "I know," I said. "But we don't have any. Do you have some?"
        "I no want be animal and dealer hurt real bad," she said, glancing at Tammy. "All I got is all I got!"
        "You're lucid," Destiny said. What the hell does lucid mean? "If Tammy dies we're all dead, you can see that. Now we're trying to save Sparkle. We don't want anyone going through withdrawal. How much would it take to save Sparkle and how much do you have?"
        "I no have enough," she said. "I be animal before I get to Mars."
        I got mean; this was one of those God damned times I really hate, when I had to be an asshole just to keep people from dying.
        "Lek, what you got is what you got unless you're willing to share. And you know what you got won't get you all the way to Mars, we'll all be dead first. I'll tie you up and let you die from withdrawal if you won't help Sparkle."
        "You would not do that!"
        "Watch me, bitch. My job is getting all of us to Mars alive, or at least as many of us as possible. Now where are your God damned drops and how much does Sparkle need?"
        She pulled out a bottle, one of the kinds with a dropper for a cap. "She only need one drop now, only in one eye, give rest back, okay? I no want be animal."
        "Thank you," I said, "I'll give you your bottle back. I know that's why you want to go to Mars. You don't want to be a dropper."
        "I want be human again," she said. "I not dropper, I drophead. I no want be animal. I hope Tammy wake up or we all dead."
        Yeah, me too.
        We would be okay if Tammy woke up in time, but she was still in a coma when it was time for bed. At least the medic's readout had said her "condition was upgraded to fair".

Next: Awake

Nitrous
        I pulled out my fone and called the fleet commander who I was amazingly boss of and told him about our little power problem, then asked the computer what the robots were doing about repairs. Or tried to, anyway.
        "Computer, what is the, uh... status of..." and the God damned machine interrupted me, of course. Who programs this junk anyway?
        "All cargo unconscious except specimen in commons area. Danger to cargo."
        "Computer," I told the piece of shit, "God damn it, how much oxygen will keep them alive and asl... uh, unconscious without damaging them?"
        "The percentage is..."
        "Add it, you piece of shit!" Yeah, getting pissed at a machine is really smart, ain't it? But I really needed sleep. "Computer. Where are them fucking robots?"
        The stupid thing replied "Robots have no sex and do not engage in..."
        Jesus. "Computer, where are the..."
        A robot carrying oxygen bottles and masks came in, the door opening quickly, it entering quickly, and the doors closing really damned fast. I thought nitrogen was harmless? It turned out that the nitrogen wouldn't hurt us but monsters would; they were all outside the commons trying to get in to kill us and eat us. We would have been dead if we'd tried to get to the houseboat.
        We got to work making the vampires and werewolves and frankensteins and whatever the hell kind of other monsters these damned dropheads were back into humans, or something not really all that different from humans, again. Some had some pretty bad cuts, we gave them their drops first and then medics took them to sick bay to treat them. I ordered the computer to put normal air in sick bay.
        Poor broads. I really feel sorry for them. I hope Destiny's charity that Tammy works for can help them, it sure looked like she was getting results from Lek. Lek was wearing clothes and acting like a respectable lady, although her eyes were usually a little bloodshot and she wasn't smiling much, especially for someone who came from the Land of Smiles.
        That God damned stupid fucking computer must suck at arithmetic, because I barely got the last drop in the last monster's eye when she started waking up. Scared the shit out of me, how would you feel if you were putting eye drops in Dracula's eye and he started to wake up? Especially if he had scary red eyes like a mad dropper? Christ, I almost had a coronary!
        Now I had to see what the hell was wrong with that damned generator and do a full inspection of the engines. Shit. Well, it wasn't as bad as that Saturn run when all the engines blew out, at least I had plenty of full batteries and all but one engine was working.
        You guys know, of course, that you can only run fifty eight engines on batteries. That's only point twenty five gravities and usually not even much, I don't know how Bill managed more but he's a nerd that reads a lot of technical manuals. The whores ain't gonna like it one little bit. And if more pirates come... I mean, we ain't that near to Mars yet, we have a while. I'm just glad I have that fleet. And its commander said I was in charge! Wow, I ain't never been in charge of nothing but machinery before.
        Tammy called. "John, we need nitrous oxide, a precise amount, in the atmosphere. The computer said I don't have the clearance to accomplish it."
        "Give me a minute," I said, and hung up. Hung? Up?
        "Computer," I ordered the fone, "add whatever Doctor Winters asks for to the atmosphere." What the hell is nitrous oxide and why did Tammy want it? I called her back. "You're getting your nitr, uh... whatever. What the hell is it and why does it need to be in the atmosphere?"
        "Nitrous oxide. Laughing gas. It will calm the droppers down and they won't mind the low gravity much at all."
        "Will it affect us?" I asked.
        "Of course it will," she answered. "What, you think it's something that only affects droppers?"
        "Well, I'd hoped so. What will it do? Look, Tammy, if I can't think straight we might die. It's bad enough with me being so damned tired and sleepy, I already can't think very straight."
        "I've seen you drunk on wine!" she said.
        "Not when there were pirates after us and running on batteries and with another hailstorm coming that we'd been past if our only working generator hadn't broke and when I'm in charge of a God damned fleet and I ain't never been in charge of nothing before. Captains may not have to know as much as they did when they had to go to college, but we got to know when it's okay to drink and when beer will kill you. And this is one of those times. I can't get intoxicated!"
        Intoxicated. Them two is rubbing off on me. "I can't be breathing laughing gas. It could kill us all. Because right now I need what little brain I have left."
        The computer interrupted with an alarm. "Meteor shower ahead".
        She thought a second... maybe not even that long. "Get an oxygen generation belt from sick bay and breathe from that. Your thought processes may even be clearer depending on how much nitrous you ingest."
        "I what? ‘In jest’? What's funny got to do with it?"
        "Breathe. Drink. Eat. With this it’s just breathe. Keep the oxygen mask on and you should be okay."
        "Okay," I said, and told the computer to flood the pilot room and my quarters and Tammy's quarters and engines and generators with normal air, with Tammy's laughing gas mixture in the rest of the boat, and then I went to the pilot room to steer around the space rain.
        After driving for fifteen or twenty minutes, by hand, no less, and I almost never do that even though I did fighting all those God damned pirates, but I had to because I was on batteries, I was around the rocks. I clipped the bottle of oxygen to my belt that a robot had brought, and put on the mask. I had to see if the robots were having any luck with the generator, and I still had a hell of a lot of engines to inspect down there.
        There were a hundred giggling, naked women in the commons. I guessed Tammy and Destiny were in my cabin where air was normal and they wouldn’t get stoned, and that Tammy had been generous with drops. She sure knew what she was doing.
        I went back down the five damned flights of stairs to the starboard generator. God, but it was a nasty, stinking, bloody mess down there, so many body parts piled in the hallway I wasn't going to be able to inspect half the engines or the other generator. Where were the damned robots? I pulled out my fone. "Computer," I said, "why aren’t there any robots working on the generator?"
        It replied "Repair machinery is removing parts from the port generator that were not damaged when the generator incinerated." I wondered how the hell they got there past the stinking mess.
        "Can they fix it?"
        "Negative."
        "Why not?"
        "We are lacking a replacement pressure regulator. Port generator pressure regulator was incinerated."
        Damn. "Okay, computer, How long is it going to take to replace everything except the regulator?"
        "Between one and three hours."
        It sounded like time for a movie, I thought, so tired that I forgot how badly I needed to sleep. I inspected the engines and was amazed that there wasn't anything wrong with any of them after what I'd put them through. At least, the ones I could get to, bodies and parts of bodies were piled three or four meters high. I started back to my quarters, but stopped when I had an idea. I called my "second in command"; heh, how about that? Anyway, I asked Ramos "Does anybody in this fleet have a spare pressure regulator that will work on my generator?"
        The answer was a "yes"; one of the boats could shut down a generator and remove the regulator, whatever the hell a "pressure regulator" is, dock, and my robots would install it. Of course I had to get paper from the company, but we had three hours. I sent paper to the company and went home. I called Ramos again and told him to to dock and supply when the paperwork came in.
        I left my bloody boots on the landing and walked home in my stocking feet.
        We didn't even bother with dinner, we just took a shower together and then sat on the couch cuddling to Clapton. This had been one hell of a long, trying day. In fact, today had been several days long. At least tomorrow we would have normal air and better gravity.
        We both fell asleep on the couch, cuddled up together.