Stellar Objects

Chapter 11: Kitchen Diaries

Tez nearly gagged at the state of the galley.

He'd been homeless for most of his life, shuttled and shunted between refugee moons, slave camps, and mineral mines, but he had never seen such disrespect for the preparation of food. The counter tops were filthy, the utensils were rusty, and simmering on the stovetop was a liquid that smelled foul and, upon bringing it to his lips, tasted even worse.

To quote the Egyptian, he thought, this will not do.

From the eye in the back of his skull, he noticed the brat sitting down on a of the bench as if it was a thrown.

"Tez is here to work," he said. "And so are you."

"I am the sole—"

"Heir to an empire that enslaved Tez's kind before it got enslaved by The Enemy," he reminded him. "You're stuck; a slave now. Just like Tez."
"I am nothing like you, Martian," Rys spat. "For starters, I can refer to myself in the first person, a grammatical skill that seems to elude you."

The Egyptian was correct. Tez was not permitted to call himself "I" until he reached the age of ascension and chose a gender. Tez was born male, but had until nineteen cycles around the sun to decide on male, female, or neutral. It was a decision every Martian made under the watch of a mentor. Tez, however, alone and enslaved, had nobody to guide him. He was on his own, confused and overwhelmed with just three sun cycles to go. He was terrified of choosing wrong, but even more scared of not feeling a pull in any direction.

"Remember what the Captain says?" asked Tez. "The master says you clean or Tez gets to cook you."

"You'd never!"

Tez turned around to examine Rys with his fore eyes. The Egyptian was small, but had enough muscle to provide for a small feast.

"First, Tez would marinate you in a sweet glaze of Yechtarian honey and your own blood. Then, Tez would roast you in your own juices – Tez could make a good gravy too – and serve your limbs as a starter, and give the Captain and his companion a rack of each of your ribs. It would be magnificent!"

"You're disgusting!" barked Rys, backing away.

"You might be right," mused Tez. "The Yechtarian honey would be too sweet. Tez thinks a savoury flavour would be ideal."

Rys stood up and surveyed the filthy room. He shifted a bench under the table, and then another. "Is this," he began, "how you...clean?"

Tez found a broom cupboard that didn't contain a single broom, but did have old rags, some semi-ancient cleaning chemicals, and a dead rat that Tez briefly considered using as an ingredient. He grabbed the rags and chemicals – he decided to leave the rat in its final resting place – and shoved them into Rys' reluctant hands.

"On your knees," ordered Tez. "You scrub with hands, back and forth until the floor is clean."

"I do not take orders from the likes of you," the sole heir scoffed.

Tez smiled. He was annoyed at this snobby slave, but relished the fact that he could get such an easy rise out of him. "Tez could grill you on the fusion reactor; that would ensure your skin would be crispy."

The Egyptian boy fell to his knees, clutched the rags. Tez poured the solvent on the cloth, and some onto the floor, and showed Rys how to move the cloth back and forth over the filthy metal

With just a few scrubs, the brown floor revealed itself as silvery grey.

"That's it," Tez said. "Scrub down this entire area until you could eat off it."

"I would never!"

Tez turned back to the counter, determined to rearrange the tools of his trade. He kept his rear eyeball trained on Rys, who was at least trying. Tez mused, just loud enough for Rys to hear, "or a stir fry is always nice."

*

Shelly Carpace had the watch.

Her job was to invigilate the quadrant, monitoring the space traffic to watch for anything suspicious or untoward. She stood at her station on the bridge, she always stood, and flicked her eyes around the five glass pads assembled at chest-height. She clocked a freighter leaving Earth, with a valid registration and cargo manifest, and ignored it. She noticed a fleet of fighter crafts, looping in formation, and crossed referenced with the Navy's training schedule. She confirmed they were a legitimate training exercise and dismissed the formation as legal and thus uninteresting to her.

But one of her screens beeped. There was an unidentified craft, getting close at high speed.

"Captain," she said, without even thinking. "We may have company."

The Ghandi emitted a standard Perimetre Patrol signal, warning ships to keep their distance. Most Patrol ships were heavily armed, but the Ghandi had been bare of weapons for months. Of course, there was no way this fast-approaching craft would know this. It was coming in hard, either unaware or unconcerned of the damage a Patrol vessel could legally inflict on any interloper.

"Give me eyes," said Captain Nayar. "I want to see who's coming to dinner."

With one tap on the glass pad, the main monitor displayed a Frankenstein's monster of a ship. It was a hodgepodge of parts, welded together from pieces of other ships. Shelly noticed at a Galactic Navy booster on the aft, and a lifeboat with Galactic Coast Guard markings. This was a scavenger ship. Shelly knew that meant pirates or smugglers. Either way, trouble was about to cross their path.

"Shall we move to intercept?" asked Shelly, but not really asking.

"Do not engage, lieutenant," the Captain ordered.

"But sir, that ship's got Navy property, which is illegal—"

"I know the law," Nayar replied. "And I also know we're low on fuel, short on food, and have no crew to run this boat. It's just you and me, and something tells me an invalid and a cop are no match for whatever's about to storm our barn."

"You're not an invalid, Captain," she said. Shelly hated when Nitin referred to his injury as debilitating. She had no time for self pity, especially from a man born into so much wealth and now carrying so much responsibility.

"I'm in the chair, I pick the label," he snapped back. "But right now, we play it cool and see what this ghusēṛanēvālā wants."

Shelly caught sight of a blast of light from the monstrous ship. Suddenly, the Ghandi shook. Shelly's head smashed through two of the glass pads, shattering them with a loud crack. She reached out to stop herself from falling, but the momentum was too strong.

The ship was under attack and Shelly was on the floor, covered in shards of glass.

Rough translation of ghusēṛanēvālā: unwelcome guest / intruder.