Havok Bringer

I slept for eight hours; the bed was amazing. I’m sure it was some sort of futuristic mattress. It completely molded to me and the temperature fluctuated with my body temperature. “I guess there are benefits to being the captain of a spaceship,” I shrugged as I sat up.

I jumped out of bed and headed for that amazing shower again. Give me a break, I hadn’t had access to a shower and hot water for three years.

“Hey Elvis, the bed was great, but is there any way we can get blankets?” I asked curiously, “it’s kind of an Earth thing,” I followed up.

“Elvis make best blanket ever for Captain!” Elvis said excitedly.

“Thanks, Buddy, I appreciate it,” I replied.

I took a shower that was obscenely long then hopped out and threw on another uniform.

“Hey Elvis, can you throw in a few pairs of underwear with that blanket?” I added.

“Yes, Elvis will make sure Captain's testicles are tightly secured so that he will kill better!” Elvis responded.

“Uhh, okay, thanks again,” I said.

After getting dressed, I stepped out of my quarters and decided it was time to sit down and have a one-on-one with Tiff before we went to the galley. She and I had spent most of the last day together running and fighting for our lives yet I knew very little about her and I needed to get to know her more. On top of that, I saw nothing wrong with forming a bit of a tighter bond with her; purely professional bonds of course.

I stood outside her quarters and pressed the page button on the right side of the door. “Come in,” she quickly replied.

As I walked in, I saw her sitting cross-legged on her bed staring out the porthole at the small planet below. She seemed like the weight of the world was resting on her shoulders.

“Hey Tiff, I wondered if we could talk and get to know each other a little more,” I said as I sat down on the edge of the bed. “I wanted to let you know that I appreciate everything you did during the tutorial. I would be dead for sure right now if you hadn’t been there,” I said as I looked down at the ground. “I know you said you aren’t here by choice, and that your fate is tied to mine, and I want you to know that I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen and I surely never meant to bring other people into this,” I said.

“Andrew, listen,” she said, still staring out the window, “you seem like a good person. You had to make a decision with little knowledge of what effects that decision would have on you moving forward,” she said as she turned around and faced me. "You are not at fault here, this wasn’t your choice, and now, just like me, you are trying to make the best of that decision but there is a lot here that you don’t know. There are entities involved in this that could atomize your entire planet in seconds. Your planet represents resources and free labor, that’s it.” She seemed to be getting more anxious as she spoke. “There is no safety for your planet until they become a part of the galactic federation and that can't happen if someone from your planet doesn’t claim the Right of Reaping. The odds of that happening are infinitesimal. That doesn’t mean it is impossible though. I will do everything in my power to make sure you succeed, unfortunately, my power has been greatly diminished by system protocols. It’s a byproduct of being separated from my true body,” she explained.

“Why are you separated from your true body?” I asked, “wouldn’t you be more helpful as a guardian if you had your full capabilities?"

“That is why I’m separated, Andrew. The Universal Council will offer just enough help to make it seem like the playing field is level but it's not; not even close,” she stood up and faced the porthole again. “That tutorial is not a good reflection of what the rest of the dungeon will be. Level 1 will be exponentially more difficult especially at your current level. You have some interesting gear now, but Andrew, you don’t understand, it will be insanely difficult to pass Level 1.”

“So, if you had your true body, you would have your full power?” I asked, "so why don’t we just get it?”

“You don’t understand what you're saying, Andrew; it's not that easy. My true body is in a secure quantum AI storage facility. It's guarded, heavily guarded.”

She walked up to me as I stood up, “Participants are meant to complete the tutorial and start making their way to Level 1. You will generally get 30 days to make your way to the Level 1 world and begin preparation. Participants will arrive in advance and start fortifying their locations so they can defend and survive. You aren’t meant to know about my location, much less to try and breach a secure AI storage base. It just doesn’t happen,” she said.

“Look, as far as I’m concerned, I’m winging this whole thing. The first thing we need to do is get with Elvis and see if he can plot a course to the Level 1 planet. Once we know how long it will take, we can decide if we have time to get to your true body. If we have the time, I think it's worth considering,” I turned to walk to the door. “Look Tiff, you saved my life today. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t offer to return the favor? You said we're probably going to die anyway, right? So why not go out with a bang? The Council wants us to fall in line and do this thing their way. I say fuck The Council; we do things differently in Texas,” I looked back at her, “let’s go eat then I'm going to figure out how to use this suit to ram my fist right up The Council's ass!”

“The Council isn’t a person, it’s hundreds of representatives from different galaxies,” Tiff said smiling.

“Too bad I only have two fists then,” I shrugged.

As we walked up to the outside of the galley, I heard music blaring from outside the door. “Ugh, shit, what is it now?” I asked as I rubbed my temples.

As I walked into the galley I stopped and just took in the scene before me.

“Because I’m fat,

I’m fat,

come on (really really fat)”

was blaring through the PA. The damn Weird Al Yankovic song. CJ was literally fighting an A-Ganger for a tray of food while another ran into his foot repeatedly. Elvis was laughing, “NUB is fat, he no need food, he need to pass PT test,” he said.

CJ was livid, completely livid. “I will gut you, you fucking overgrown toaster!” CJ said as he tried to pull a tray of what looked like meatloaf from the A-Ganger. “I swear to God, I don’t know where on this ship they are, but I will find your mechanical nuts and beat them with the biggest hammer I can find on this dump of a ship.”

“Ship not dump. Dump is what happened when NUB's mom went into labor with him!” Elvis responded, obviously escalating the situation.

“Jesus guys!” I shouted, “what the hell is happening in here?” I asked as I waded into the chaos.

“The damn AI has it out for me, Andy!” CJ said.

“NUB refers to Captain as Captain, not Andy!” Elvis growled as the weird Al song continued to blare.

“Elvis, for God's sake, turn that song off and please call off your A-Gangers. CJ is a part of this crew now and deserves the respect that comes with that,” I said exasperatedly.

“CJ, please for the sake of everything that our friendship is built on, don’t, I repeat DO NOT piss off the advanced supercomputer that knows how to fly this ship. Please find a way to make this relationship work.”

“Now, how do we get food?” I asked as I walked up to CJ. He was finally wrestling away control of his food from the A-Ganger as it retreated back into the bulkhead.

“Fuck you, Roomba!” CJ said as he flipped the A-Ganger the bird.

“It's easy. There is a panel on the wall over there with two buttons. One says Food and one says Other. Push the Food button and say what you want. It can make anything, it can even make food from your favorite restaurants, and it tastes exactly like it would at the restaurant. It's the best thing ever!” He said excitedly walking over to show me the machine.

“I assume the button that says Other is for drinks; that’s what I got out of it,” he said.

I walked up to the panel and pushed the Other button.

“Please describe the desired item,” a computerized voice said.

"Hmm, I have an idea," I said to myself as CJ walked toward an empty table with his tray.

“Electronic Nicotine Vaping Device,” I replied.

CJ dropped his food tray and started running and screaming, “I will suck you off if that thing makes a vape!”

I reached down and picked up the small vaping device.

“I'll pass on the sucking off. Just use this to stay calm and make friends with the damn AI so we don’t die in the middle of space,” I said.

Tiff walked up, “You guys have some serious issues,” she said with a wry smile, “can we get some food now?”