Deep Space Stag

“Are we ready to dock?”

“Yes, ma’am, Commander, ma’am!” the squad answered. And after a good 525,600 minutes in a craft with men who didn’t appreciate a de-gravitation shower enough to utilize it, journey’s end was about time. Stink of unwashed bodies was bad enough on Earth, but when the odor circulated and bounced back off the walls of the craft and wouldn’t die . . .

Arleta sighed. “’Yes, Commander’ will do,” she informed her subordinates.

Rapid tapping echoed through their little metal enclosure like fifth, sixth, seventh heartbeats. The flickering monitors all in use were like glaring eyes. One little man with a shiny bald head that had meant trouble when they traveled beside the sun glanced up from his monitor. “T minus sixty seconds till we enter Earth’s orbit, Commander.”

“Very well, Lieutenant Byron. Begin countdown.” Arleta slumped in her chair and enjoyed the rhythmic drone of her subordinates’ voices. Stars and meteors narrowly missed colliding with them but their stubborn vessel kept up her pace, just as she was born to. A silver blimp to the left of a swirl of space dust caught Arleta’s attention.

“Lieutenant Bronk, what was that, off starboard?”

Arleta waited as Bronk scrolled through system data. “USO. Unidentified space object, ma’am, uh, Commander.”

Too many of these lately. And they could mean trouble. “Is it in pursuit?” Arleta asks.

Bronk is bonking his keyboard with his stubby fingers again. After a minute he says, “can’t be sure ma’— Commander.”

“Keep an eye out, all of you.” But there was no need for that command, come five seconds later, countdown time: t minus thirty seconds . . . twenty-nine, twenty-eight.

There it was at bow, the USO, metallic silver feelers and all. It ground its six legs together the way people rub their hands before an exceptional meal. Its eyes glowed red. “This one’s taken stag beetle shape,” Arleta thinks aloud. She turns to her squad. “Are thrusters in preparation for Operation: Flight?”

“We can’t, Commander.” Vice-commander Hisami informed her, her only other female companion on this voyage through hell. Hisami was what some would have called a tomboy in a primitive era, here and today she was what she was: a woman. “We’re too close to Earth’s orbit. Accelerating would deplete our chances for a successful landing.”

“It’s that or get eaten,” Arleta said. “Care to quarrel odds when we’re in the beetle?”

“No time now!” Byron shouts. The beetle jets to them, is just on them with its cannons aimed and ready to sink them and gorge on their ship and her innards. Then it disappeared.

“Status on the USO?” Arleta asked.

“Eaten, Commander,” Vice-commander Hisami reported. “Our vessel got hungry.”

“I thought Kyrsta had already eaten, back when we passed all the satellites.”

“Still hungry I guess,” Bronk said. “I can empathize with that.”

Arleta laughed and patted her dashboard. “Good girl, Kyrsta, head on home. Just try not to let the extra weight slow you down.”