Taking in a deep breath, the Swabbie decided that discretion would be the better part of valor at this point and the old saying, live and let live was the best ideal to live by. It was the worst kept secret on the ship that most people didn’t like him, no matter how hard he might have tried to be friendly with others; not only was he one of the very few humans on the ship with the exception of the Captain and the Pilot, he was also the youngest member onboard by about six years, with the pilot being the next. Combining those two facts together made the xenophobic aliens aboard the ship just cringe, thinking he was just another smart mouthed human with dreams of making it big and that he was too good for their little trading business. For the most part, they were right.
“I could be back home right now, enjoying a steak dinner with the family, while going through school and getting a degree in biology like mom always wanted me to get; but no, I had to listen to my father’s bullshit and become an intergalactic tramp, with little food in his stomach and no money in his pockets. So this is all my damn fault for not thinking that my mother knew what she was talking about and listening to my dad. I mean for fuck’s sake, the man had to defer to mom on just about everything that happened on the farm, the guy couldn’t even figure out how to feed the chickens properly without mom’s help and I expected him to know about the mysteries of the universe!?” The Swabbie slapped his face, pressing the warm, rough flesh of his palms directly into the center of his face and grumbled a bit more about his decision. Feeling the callouses that had built up around the start of the fingers and all across them from years of hard manual labor; the male just plopped the mop back down into the bucket and began his chore.
It was no easy task cleaning up after a Gulgadon, Swabbie knew this after so many run ins with the creature that everyone on the ship called, Rorsh, the only Gulgadon that he had ever met and one that couldn’t seem to understand the fact that he left snail trails wherever he went without his traveling pad. Yet, the Swabbie could never get into a fight with the creature, simply because fighting a blob of jelly was exactly what it sounded like, the creature would get a free massage and the attacker would get nothing but gunk all over their skin and bodies in addition to being too tired to do anything for the next hour or so. Grasping the mop and thinking about the numerous ways he could kill that slimy son of bitch, Swabbie just pulled out the dripping tendrils of white from his bucket and pressed it down into the purple ooze that now coated the floor. Almost in second, the gunk was cementing his mop to the floor making it nearly impossible to push it across the region without putting all of his strength into it. Not only that but as soon as got small segment picked up from the ground, the ooze just spread itself thinner and reconnected into a single solid unit.
“Fan-fucking-tastic, someone has been feeding Rorsh grux beans again.” The Swabbie muttered as he moved back to his cleaning supplied dropping the mop into the dirty water again and watched as the soapy water dissolved the disconnected bits of slime off of the tip. Shaking his head, he tried to figure out just who the hell would be stupid enough to give the blob of glop grux beans. The tiny almost pea-sized beans were bluish-pink in color and had the oddity of tasting like a sugar coated piece of asparagus crossed with a hint of lime, yet they also had the curious effect of causing bodily fluids to increase in viscosity. For this obvious reason they have been marked as unhealthy for most species consumption, namely for the effect on the blood, those that do survive indigestion have to deal with pissing a slushy afterwards. Considering that the Gulgadon race didn’t have any blood, but rather their entire bodies were made up of a semi-liquid, they could safely ingest the beans; however, their entire bodies would turn into a borderline molasses construct and any gunk they left behind would have that same viscosity.
Realizing that he would never finish this job on time with just pure brute strength, the Swabbie rubbed his face once more; smelling the putrid scent of Gulgadon waste on his hands, as it seems the gunk wasn’t the only thing Rorsh had left behind. “I’m going to kill that fucking ball of purple shit when I get my hands on him!” Swabbie muttered to himself as stepped around the goop, knowing that even with his anti/super friction boots on, the goop would act like cement and he would be stuck there until someone came along to help him out, unless he somehow reached his water bucket and poured it onto his feet, which was a stretch in itself if it would work or not. Breathing out a small sigh, he found his mindset slowly shifting more and more towards a kind of depression; so many months out in space and all he had to show for it was cleaning up after some of the most disgusting creatures in the universe. Nothing was forbidden here, at least in terms of degrading the poor Swabbie by making him clean up mess after mess caused by the crew members; he was sick of it and it was about time to do something, but that would be a discussion to have with the captain later, not right now. There was work to be done.
Nothing was like it was back at home, he was just another Swabbie, some kid to be pushed around and treated like absolute shit, because his job was to clean shit. Mud was his name now and no one, not the pilot nor the Captain, probably his only two friends, bothered to call him by his real name; hell, it had been so long that he could hardly recall the last time he had heard it. Probably when he was putting in to the unemployment office about a year ago; stepping over the purple gunk, he could only think how it felt to be standing in that long line, aliens and species he had never seen before, most of them looking desperately ahead towards the other alien just standing behind a little booth. The creature with six different heads, all spinning around, five resting while one did the work, then switching off in sleep cycles; the beings twenty arms filing and shifting through work as quickly as possible, Swabbie wasn’t even able to keep up with the pace of its movements as it finally looked at him and stamped him down onto the trading vessel’s crew, it was the only job he was suited for that had an opening. At that point, he was pushed out of the room and sat down on a bus with all the other unemployed and they were carted off to their respective jobs.
Snapping back to reality, he found himself looking at the janitorial closet; it would seem that he had just automatically walked to this place in his daze. Sighing softly, the Swabbie punched in the code to open the metallic doors watching them slide open and create a portal into the cramped room full of cleaning supplies. Around the corners he could see bottles of cleaning enhancers, special soaps, toilet paper and paper towels; he could even see a few traps for any little critter that managed to get aboard the ship while they were docked, space cockroaches were the last thing that anyone wanted to have on their ship. Shaking his head, he just chuckled a little bit before reaching up to the top shelf, pulling down a large green soap bottle before pacing around the room and pulling down a surgical mask and placing it over his face. As soon as he was finished, he walked back over to the start of the mess where his mop was situated, then found himself turning his face away from the green liquid as he squeezed the bottle sending some of the liquid flying through the air over the mess.
Globules of the green semi-liquid shot out through the air about five feet, falling straight down and splashed into Gulgadon goop and the chain reaction began. Purple and green mixed violently, growing upward as the green penetrated the purple and shot forward, light being created as a massive bubble of the gunk rose up, then plopped back down onto the ground, the purple mess acting like a sentient being as it withered away, creating small tendrils that were rising upwards, moving like fingers trying to grasp what remained of their life before fading into nothing. Swabbie didn’t think anything of this as he moved down the line, spraying the substance known as ‘Atomic Waste Remover’, he never really understood the name, seeing as the stuff wasn’t radioactive, but he did know that it worked for removing ANYTHING off of the ground. Checking down at the gunk on the floor after finishing spraying down the entire hallway, he noted that he was done about half of the bottle of the liquid and that there was now a distinct clearing on the ground which meant that the stuff would be easy enough to get up now.
Humming to himself now, he went about cleaning the floor, running the mop across it in long strokes and keeping up with his actions and the time as he maneuvered through the purple slop. It didn’t take long for him to end up halfway through the mess and insanely bored; however, he knew he had to finish, then rinse the floors down before waxing them once again. Small beads of sweat were building up as some bits of gunk were requiring more elbow grease than others and he had already been at work for longer than he could recall, he was getting exhausted. Finally, a final sweep pushed the last of the Gulgadon waste up from the floor, leaving the place now wet and in serious need of some fresh air. “I swear if anyone ruins these floors again after I clean them, I’m going to throttle them.” Shaking his head, he leaned down to look at his mop, noting there was still a large bit of the Gulgadon gunk stick down from it; shrugging his shoulders, he figured he might take a sample down to one of the analysis rooms and have them try to synthesize something that would make the floors resistant to it. Using the flat of his hand, he merely scrapped it down into a mason jar he retrieved from the closet before pocketing it and going back to work.
“I hate this part.” Swabbie mumbled as he found himself starring down at the now clear floors, finding himself using a new mop to whip it down and pick up any stray bits of dirt that had managed to collect there. It was a tedious and time consuming job that had him checking every nook and cranny of the place until he was turning red faced and his knees were beginning to creek from having to go up and down between the floor and back up to get the mop. Grumbling to himself, he found this, aside from cleaning the toilets, to be the worst job on the ship; hell he would have rather cooked for all the scaly, smily, fur-covered and just plain weird creatures on this ship rather than do this, he probably would have gotten more respect for it as well.
“Well, Captain better appreciate this shit, I’ve had to clean this damn hall twice today and I sure as hell not doing it again.” That was all Swabbie had to say when he grasped the jar of floor wax, running the creamy white substance onto a rag and slowly beginning to rub it across the ground; the Captain had said he wanted the floors to be clean enough to eat off of and to be clear enough that one could see their reflection in them. That was exactly what the Swabbie was aiming for at this point; he was going to do the man proud and whatever happened next and whoever those visitors were, they were going to see what a damn good job he had down. It took another two hours, but when he finally finished, he found himself proud of the job he had done; the floor was now glistening in front of him and sweat was beading up on his brow, but the place was spotless and nothing was going to ruin it for him now. Turning around, he decided to inform the Captain that his job for the day was done, before returning to his private quarters to clean up and then head to the mess hall.
“I hope they’re serving that special soup again, I don’t know what’s in it, but I know that it’s damn good.” Stating this and being in good spirits for the first time that day, the Swabbie moved down the hall towards the front of the ship, getting about twelve feet away before the door opened in front of him; expecting it to just be someone knocking off for the night, he was more than surprised when he saw Faulkner standing in front of him; the massive, Ozwrick in front of him grinning in a curious fashion with all of his bottom teeth glinting over the top. All of them pointed outward with fang like tips forming, looking over the beast, he noticed that there was a red stain on the front of his shirt, running down his arm. “You really should learn to eat with some real table manners Faulkner, seems you spilled some tomato sauce or the chili all down the front of your chest.” At this point, the Swabbie just stood still, figuring that the weapon’s expert would just push him out of the way and to the ground again before stomping off to his room once again.
“It isssssssssn’t….foooood, booooooy.” One of the snakes said coming up from behind Faulkner’s head and hissing slowly, it and the others swaying back and forth as their tongues lapped at the air. Each of them taking in the scent of the Swabbie and tasting him; something he was more than used to them doing, but it felt awkward today, as if there was some sort of visible threat from it. Looking down at Faulkner’s hand, he noted that he was holding something, a mass of black connected to something skin colored. A queasy feeling began to fill his stomach as he looked at it, something was definitely off and his head began to swim; he had a sudden urge to run, not knowing what the hell was going on. Turning around slowly, the Swabbie began to move down the hall as fast his legs could muster, just having to get away from Faulkner, for a reason that he didn’t know. It suddenly hit him, the smell, it had been the scent of blood, rustic and sharp smelling, Faulkner had just killed something, but what if it had just been some pest or something? Why did he feel the urge to run?
The Swabbie’s legs continued to carry him for a moment, before he turned around, seeing Faulkner bending backwards, his hand holding onto the object like it was bowling ball before he sent it flying across the freshly polished floor; a massive swatch of red began to appear across the floor staining it before the object struck the Swabbie firmly in his legs, sending him toppling over and crashing to the ground, the object now pressed against his chest. Pain was searing through his legs and his arms which had taken the brunt of the impact, they would be bruised but luckily the fall hadn’t been enough to cause him any real damage. Still, his head was swimming as he tried to focus and found himself gripping the object and bringing it up to look at it. “OH HOLY SHIT!” He screamed as he tossed it away when he saw a pair of icy blue eyes staring back at him in the troughs of death; staring at it as it laid there on the floor, the Swabbie could only blink for a few seconds. It was the head of the Captain, cut clean from the rest of his body; which Faulkner had just used like a bowling ball to trip him up and leave blood stains across the floor. Laying on the ground, the male was utterly stunned by what he was looking at.
Blood kept dripping from the base of the neck, where long shreds of skin were torn haphazardly and teeth marks were apparent across it. Staring down at the Captain’s head, he couldn’t believe it, one of his only friends aboard the ship was dead and there was nothing he could do about it. Laying down, his fingers dipped down into the puddle of blood that had been left on the ground where he was situated and now staining not only his clothes, but also his skin. Half of his face was no stained red as he looked up at Faulkner approaching him, the male brandish a long Ionite Cutlass, a weapon that looked like a sword, but when cut delivered a borderline fatal amount of voltages to the victim. Knowing that Faulkner would torture him and seeing that his life would soon be at an end, the Swabbie crawled forward a little bit, until the imposing shadow of the Ozwrick’s blade and body found itself over him. That’s when he leaned over, blade hovering into the killing position before Faulkner spoke: “Any last words you useless piece of shit?”
“Yeah….Faulkner…I JUST CLEANED THESE FUCKING FLOORS TWICE!” Spinning around while Faulkner had started to laugh, he threw the mason jar full of Gulgadon gunk directly into Faulkner’s face, the glass passing straight through the loops of his arms and shattering onto his face. In an instant, the goop had spread over the majority of his face, covering not only his eyes, but his nose as well; his immediate reaction was to drop the Ionite Cutlass dropping it to the ground, where the Swabbie had to roll out of the way to avoid it. Grasping the handle of the blade while Faulkner was still clawing at his eyes, frantically trying to get the purple ooze off his face, the Swabbie was pushing the cutlass directly into Faulkner’s chest, the snake’s hissing furiously as they tried to direct him.
“You idiot, he is over there, swing to the left!”
“No, no, you need to swing to the right!”
“Neither of you know what you are talking about just rush forward you moron.”
Yet, they were all silenced moments later by Faulkner’s own scream of agony as bursts of electricity began to pour through him, his muscles convulsing once before his arm came up and swung wildly, smashing into the side of the Swabbie’s face and sending him flying against the door to the rear of the ship. Just then, Faulkner tugged once more at the gunk, unable to get it off of him as the doors to the front opened once more, the pilot rushing out leading a large group of armed sailors with them; most of them chanting Faulkner’s name in concern before the pilot slid across the floor and between his legs, standing next to the Swabbie who was hurriedly trying to force the door open. “I take it you already know what happened?” He asked his friend, the pilot, who was now scrambling through the crack of the rear door alongside of the Swabbie.
“Yeah, Faulkner lead a mutiny and the Captain’s dead. Apparently we are on their hit list for being human and nothing else, so now we just need to get the fuck off this ship.”
“Agreed, we should head for the escape pods.” The swabbie stated simply as the pair stood looking at each other for a second as the Pilot began inputting codes to put the ship into lockdown, as if something had invaded the rear of the ship; forcing the doors in front of them to form electromagnetic bounds between each other, buying them some time while they made their escape. “So, we’ve just got to head to the escape pods right? But what the fuck do we do from there genius, neither of us has much money and we sure as hell can’t go diving into the depth of space with nothing but the clothes on our backs and our lives!”
The Pilot, a man by the name of Garrus Arkhum, stood looking down at the Swabbie, his short red hair hanging in a messy mop around his head as the brown of his eyes examined him closely; he was thinner and a little bit taller than the Swabbie, but outranked him severely, yet now wasn’t the time to pull rank. Rubbing his chin once, he recalled something the captain and said and spoke to the Swabbie as he grabbed his arm and rushed to the back of the ship. “Look, I heard the Captain say we are carrying a massive load of valuable cargo and amongst those is a storage of credits from some old guy that just passed away recently, while it might be illegal, we sure is hell could use the money right now; hell, if you are the type to always repay your debts, we can always find the family later and pay them back for ‘stealing’ the money. I’m sure they’d understand the position we’re in.”
“I suppose you’re right.” He replied as he found himself in front of the massive cargo hold, the Pilot instantly walking into the maze of boxes both marked and unmarked and shift around for the specific crate that he was looking for; the Swabbie meanwhile moved around a little bit through them, finding himself standing near one next to the escape pod as he thought he was hearing noises coming from the inside of it. Blinking for a moment, he pressed his ear against the side of the box; hearing sounds of muffled struggling and the labored breathing, it sounds humanoid whatever it was. Hovering over the box for a moment, he found his eyes growing wider as he heard beating against it and Garrus was still busy looking for the credit deposit. Curiosity got the better of him as he slowly pulled out a small pocket knife, pressing the blade down into the wood of the box and slicing it open at the hinges. Gravity locks slowly disengaged at the intrusion and the lid popped off with a quick ‘plop’ sending the top of it shooting up and to the side revealing the inside of it to him; his eyes immediately grew wide in amazement as he stared down at the contents.
Inside of the box was a woman, now slowly rising in her near naked form; her mouth gagged with a single white rag and her arms bound by several heavy chains and a gravity lock holding them down to the box; rising an eyebrow, the Swabbie leaned over, undoing the gravity lock from her arms and untangling the chains before pulling the gag from her mouth and letting it fall down over the long line of her slender neck. She was beautiful in every sense of the word, creamy white flesh showing good signs of health, despite being a little bit pale, long red hair falling down to the small of her back, while full plump lips puckered slightly. She was taking in gasps of air, causing the mounds of her rather large breasts to rise and fall relentlessly, each of them swelling outward into what looked like a double-d cup. Her clothes were tattered and torn, but managed to wrap around her and conceal all of the ‘bits’ in a single swatch of purple clothing, that was laced into a short skirt around her waist and falling to his knees, while it run up over her left shoulder and wrapped several times around her breasts before falling down over her side into a small tail. Opening her eyes for the first time, the Swabbie noted that they were completely black and were the only things that illustrated the fact she wasn’t human; that’s when he suddenly felt her lean forward, grabbing his face forceful. Cringing, he got ready to be decked by some woman who now had a vendetta against all men, but to his surprise and pleasure, her lips met his immediately.
The sweet taste of the alien’s lips caught him completely by surprise, the Swabbie only staring forward with his eyes wide open as he blinked a few times, then closed his eyes. Warmth spreading through his body as he felt her tongue invade his mouth and the supple flesh of her palms pressing into his cheeks; his mind turning to mush in the moment and was left wanting more as she pulled away, letting a trail of saliva connect their two tongues before putting hers back into her mouth. That’s when she spoke, regally towards her new savor, causing Garrus to lift his head up in confusion as he pulled open one box and found the credit stash. “Thank you Hero, my name is Tesla Oracon and I owe you my life as a debt for the deed you have committed. You most certainly have saved me from certain death or slavery and for that I can never thank you enough!” She clambered on happily as she moved around for a moment, looking toward Garrus who was walking over with the data tablet.
“Ok…so we just happened to stumble upon Tesla Oracon, the princess of Planet Yor’zvin and the next in line to rule. Well, we could certainly take her back home and collect the reward if you’d like, but Yor’zinians are bound by a code of honor stating that they must serve their saviors in anyway they desire, no matter how embarrassing or shameful it might be.” Tesla blinked slowly, batting long, dark eyelashes in surprise as she looked at the Pilot in confusion.
“It is rare that we see anyone who knows of our bylaws outside of the planet.”
“I have a lot of time to kill and time to read books.” Garrus responded quickly before noticing they had a fourth member of their little party approaching, the chef’s assistant, a young girl of about nineteen, whom had been orphaned some time ago; she was adopted by the Captain when she was only twelve and had been living on the ship since then. She was looking over the small group in a borderline panic, and it was obvious to all of them, aside from Tesla, that she knew what had just occurred moments ago. Her face was raw from crying and her short blonde hair, which just barely reached her shoulders was now in a messy pixie cut from where it looked like someone had tried to snap her neck by pulling on her hair. The Swabbie stood there calmly for a moment, slowly moving forward and wrapping his arms around the girl, they had been friends and occasionally talked to each other, but otherwise, he barely knew her. She was just the Captain’s daughter to him and he had no problem really admitting that. Blinking for a few moments, Garrus rolled his finger slightly and pointed to the escape pod before speaking.
“Look, Lily, we don’t have time to be crying right now, we need to get off this ship now and figure out what to do from there.”
The girl only sniffled a few times before looking up at The Swabbie and Garrus, nodding slowly. “I’ll do anything you guys tell me to do, just take me far away from here and help me to forget what just happened.” The Swabbie and Garrus both nodded before rushing into the escape pod with the two girls in tow, taking the time to fasten them down securely into the shock-absorbing seats, even placing the chest guard and stabilizers over them before Garrus punched the button that sent them hurtling into space with only minimal control of where they were going. Once that had happened, Garrus slowly passed the credit log over to the Swabbie, tapping the button and showing him just how much was there.
“Holy shit….this is almost twenty million credits Garrus!”
“Yeah I know and now you’ve got a choice to make kid. My services from here on out don’t come cheap and if you want me to help you, you damn well better make sure I get paid.” His voice was flat as he stared at him for a moment, the pair’s eyes connecting as the Swabbie’s teeth set onto edge; even in a crisis, Garrus was going to try to screw him.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Well, the way I see it kid, you don’t know how to fly a ship and finding another pilot out in the middle of space is gonna be awfully hard.” At that point, Garrus chuckled and began to break down the choices that the Swabbie could make, while he leaned forward smug in his own security as he handled the steering of the escape craft away from the Thespian.
A. Give Garrus all of the money and keep both of the girls.
