Well, that's it for me. I guess I've had a good life. I got to travel the galaxy (sorta anyway: the main exciting sights I saw were the many different angles of the plasma grill – seeing as how everything there was to see was blasted to bits before we moved on to the next target). I got to meet interesting people (basically the other miserable cooks who were sweating and slaving in the kitchen pit with me, and who, like me, hated all aspects of the job as well as each other since we'd been working with zero personal space for too long).
No really, I did meet people on our rare shore leaves when we were resupplying on planet Pointlessly Nowhere (and they hated us too, probably because we were associated to someone who had killed their relative or exterminated their favorite plant). Ok, so I got to do memorable things... like be creative with making the same soup, sauce, or stew every day with the limited selection of spices I had, and was challenged with life-threatening decisions about whether I should use fine or coarse salt, or be daring and put two table spoons of pepper instead the tried-and-true mandated one and a quarter.
I shook my head and brought myself back to the dimly-lit gloom of the steel-walled cell I had spent the night in. They must have given me uppers in the water to keep me from killing myself prematurely, and now they were wearing off. I wasted my life. I didn't quite get how I meandered through my last decade of life to here, but maybe if I squinted hard enough, I could see through the haze of mind-numbing distractions consisting of drugs, booze, games and girls.
It's the system. The system is too fucked up and it screws people like me. I was never given any opportunities that would make my brilliant talents flourish like they could have. That was it. Damned system. And my folks. It was their fault. I was traumatized by their normal everyday activities that were too mundane to nurture my fragile, needy soul. Speaking of which, I should send a message to my mom about my imminent death. I couldn't think of what to say though. Hey, ma. Sorry we haven't chatted in the last five years, but thought you'd like to know that I'm about to die soon because I mishandled some pasta. Maybe I'll leave it ambiguous instead. She'll think I died some kind of heroic death defending the crew wielding my trusty ladle and the amazing power of my spices.
I probably should have done something constructive and meaningful with the last few hours of my life. Maybe go through phases of panic, wring my hands, scream, pound at the door, beg, plead, blame everyone else, attempt to bribe my out, and then finally come to peace with my pathetic life, become philosophical and wise, and even journal something deep and profound that someone will find later and marvel at the deep fount of insights I, Tim, had at the end of my life.
Instead, I had slept. Like a baby. It was great. It was probably the best sleep I could remember in a long time, in spite of my having slept in my sodden kitchen clothes on the cell's hard metal pallet. When I eventually did shake off the sleep in what I assumed to be the early afternoon of the next day, I felt strangely calm, refreshed and even contented enough to stare blankly at the wall.
At some point in my placid daze, the cell door opened and two troopers motioned me to get up and follow them. No one talked to me. No point talking to a dead man. I wondered how they were going to execute me. If they were kind, it might be a blaster shot to the head. That was quick. However, I imagined they considered that a “good” death, like the bullshit “warrior's” death they preferred (as if any death would be good when you were about to face it), which was too good for a lowly cook. Maybe electrocution? That was unlikely too, as it would use too much power that could be used for repairs. Maybe they'll depressurize an airlock around me and watch my head explode all over the floor. Probably too messy. Someone would have to clean my bits of brain up, and that would be wasted labor and non cost-efficient. Well, they could always shove me out the airlock so I'd freeze somewhere in the dark of space and they'd have nothing to do afterwards; I'd just end up a frozen corpse floating around in the space and surrounded by a thin halo of crystalized blood coming out of my ears. Yep, I'll bet that's how I'll die.
I hadn't yet come to terms with my death when I was brought to a stop in front of a nondescript grey door. As I fought down the futile urge to scream in a high-pitched feminine voice and attempt to run away, a part of my brain wondered why the fleet interior designers didn't bother taking a tiny modicum of effort to liven the place up beyond the bleak, omni-present grey that covered everything. It might be nice to color-code things a bit so that you could figure out where you were; I couldn't tell you how many times I got lost on ships with everything looking the same. Maybe a nice royal blue for the officer's area, or a chipper sunny yellow for the mess hall, or a fierce martial red for the command room... or, a grim morbid black for the execution room. I guess it was too late to drop those thoughts into the suggestion box. Curse my poorly-timed creativity. I imagined my brain was fighting for its last gasp of life as Death lay beyond the grey door.
Much to my surprise, the door opened up to the confines of a small windowless office dominated by a large, black, comfy-looking executive's chair and an imposing (also black) desk that was littered with blinking datapads. Pushing me in the room, the troopers sat me down on a tiny chair a fraction of the size of the desk and executive's chair, and left without even restraining me. I suppose it was possible for them to execute me in here, but they'd have to bludgeon me to death with those datapads. What a way to go.
A door from behind the desk opened up and a man walked in staring intently at a datapad and making entries as he muttered to himself – probably the owner of the office. He was wearing strange, glossy black, extra wide-brimmed fishing hat, and a get-up that looked more machine than... Oh, crap.
“Lord Vadah!” I said, snapping up from my chair, terrified out of my wits, and attempted a poor imitation of the chest-bonging salute that I saw the troopers do around their superiors.
Lord Vadah, fleet commander and right-hand man of the Emperor himself, took off his bulky ceremonial hat, and, responding with an irritated glance over his datapad, motioned with his hand for me to sit down as he grumbled, “Sir is fine.”
“Yes, sir!” I yelled out a little too loudly, as we both sat down.
A long moment of silence followed as Dorth Vadah, the very powerful and deadly man I threw noodles at, continued to pore over his datapad, occasionally picking another up from the table to furrow his brows and scowl, and simply immersed himself, for now, in his administrative work, rather than send me to a heretofore unimaginably grisly death. I wasn't fooled by the man's seeming officiousness. It was enough to see from his battle-wounds that had left him with robotic arms and a bulky respirator that he was no one to fuck around with.
Apparently, it all had to do with his crappy relationship skills. The story goes that he tried to meet up with his ex-wife to negotiate their divorce settlement, and the only neutral place where they hadn't argued on yet was a volcanically active planet (a real bad case of this-galaxy-isn't-big-enough -for-the-two-of-us); but, in their agitation, they didn't have the sense to bring gas masks, and, not surprisingly, she died from the fumes and he's been wearing a respirator ever since. No wonder he's angry at the galaxy.
Hell, I heard the guy was so ruthless that he blasted away a whole school of little kids; not because they had done anything, but because the kids happened to be the same size of some midget-alien that had pissed him off and he was being thorough. Who does that? The word around the fleet was that, when he really lost it, he'd leap at you and strangle you to death with his mechanical hands. Sure, he was a cripple, and you could bat the guy off, but, since he was the leader of the fleet and your boss, you had let him slowly cut off your wind tunnel with his prosthetic limbs. Shit, was that what he brought me here for? Oh, man. Give me the airlock! But, it was just noodles! It's not like I killed his wife or cut off his arms! Should I beg his forgiveness? Should I throw myself at his feet? Oh, shitshitshit...
“Tim Strodeclod, Cook second grade,” Vadah rasped from his chair, rousing me from my increasi
ng pit of despair. “Formerly posted on the battlestation Deeeeath Star. So you're one of the survivors, aren't you?”
I assented quietly, as he continued to scroll up and down his deck of datapads. More unnerving silence ensued. I started to wonder if I should say something or if I should let my mind wander and freak me out even more.
“Unbelievable!” Vadah spat as he threw his datapad on the desk in disgust, pointed a mechanical digit in my direction and glared at me with blood-shot eyes. I opted not to say anything. “Could you believe the media is running the idiotic story that the Rebels destroyed the Deeeeath Star?”
“Sir?” I replied, not particularly wanting to engage in conversation, as I imagined his hands of doom tightening around my throat.
“We gave them the lines to publish, and still they bought the Rebel story over ours,” Vadah cursed, throwing up his hands. “What fool would believe a single torpedo in an exhaust pipe could take out a whole battlestation? Where are their fact-checkers? Damned biased liberal media.”
“But, sir, didn't they destroy the Deeeeath Star?” I asked, perhaps unadvisedly, but somewhat perplexed. “That's what we all...”
“Yes, damn it. That's the problem isn't it?” the Dark Lord said irritably, splaying his hands at me in exasperation. “Most of the crew believe that stupid story. There's no wonder I'm constantly getting complaints about low troop morale!”
“So, the Rebels didn't destroy the Deeeeath Star?” I asked cautiously.
“Of course not!” Vadah cried out. “How the hell does a single torpedo with a 20 kilometer range hit the centre of battlestation that's 160 kilometers wide??! Ridiculous. The Rebels didn't destroy the Deeeeath Star. With their discount, obsolete weapons, they could barely graze a battlestation with triple-plated metal shielding like ours.”
The fearsome Dark Lord slammed one fist on his desk and slapped his forehead with the other hand, as he continued, “No, we managed to destroy the Deeeeath Star ourselves. The Emperor was in such a rush to build it, we ended up having to cut corners everywhere, not to mention all the budget overruns I had to deal with... The cursed thing was constantly overheating and we never could run it for more than an hour – and that was with only one quarter of the systems running. It was no wonder our so-called “superweapon” blew up after its first real battle! It was miracle it even lasted as long as it did.”
I nodded in silence and tried to look sympathetic. Vadah's story fit with the Empire's general trend of relentless cost-cutting; all the datasphere seemed to talk about were the periodic fights the Emperor had with the Senate to increase the budget and keep the economy from collapsing. His burst of candidness decreased my nervousness slightly, but, on the other hand, it could give him more reason to wipe me out for knowing too much for my own good.
“How am I supposed to beat down the Rebellion if this is what I'm given?” demanded Vadah, waving at his datapads. “I need more troops! I need more ships! Ships that won't fall apart and that aren't rushed out of spacedock half-built on the cheap by a back-water planet willing to undercut our proper Empire corporations with their cheap slave-labor.”
I was starting to hope that I may be able to get out this thing alive after all. Maybe if Vadah is distracted enough by his problems, he'll forget about me...
“And you! You're the prime example of all my problems!”
I stiffened in my chair, and held on to my bowels for dear life. Here it comes, sweet Death I will know you too soon...
“Half my troops have PTSD and I'm supposed to win battles with that? Do you have any idea how many people died on the Deeeeath Star that day? It was a miracle you survived,” Vadah swore, and threw me a gloomy look. “You should have been sent to recovery not reassigned. Those useless droids will be the end of us. Our executives with their fancily tailored robes came up with them as a clever cost-cutting strategy. More efficient, more productivity, more results. So they claimed! I should never have agreed to it.” Suddenly, Vadah paused and stared at me intently, “So what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Sir?” I said, startled.
“You threw noodles into my face.”
“I'm sorry, sir.”
“You better be. I should execute you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But I'm not.”
“Sir?”
“Glad to hear that, aren't you?” Vadah grimaced at my astonished look. “That food fight you instigated lifted the morale of the crew in a way no amount of shoreleave, cheap booze and hookers could have done.”
“I'm glad, sir,” I replied, my relief at being able to retain my life slowly registering.
A huge sigh came out from Vadah, amplified by his respirator. “Yes. I'm sure you are. The reality is the troops should have started to take shifts recovering from the battle, but we didn't. I'm sending out orders for people to start their leaves immediately with a high priority on the trauma cases. And guess what?”
“Sir?”
“I'm sending you out on the first ship out. Pack your bags. You're leaving for Tattoo-ine at the end of the day,” Vadah said, suddenly sounding exhausted.
“Sir?! Thank you sir!” Wow! Tattoo-ine! It was the best retreat planet in the galaxy! I really was going to hit the sands and sun! Ever since it started being used for the Empire's main shore leave and recovery planet, the brothels and bars had really stepped up a notch. No more alien “ladies” whose half-compatible genitalia you had to make do with. Actual female humans! The first thing I was going to do was...
“And Tim.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Speak of this to anyone and I will strangle you to death. Dismissed.” Lord Vadah intoned, and turned his chair to face away from me.
“Yes, my Lord.”
CHAPTER 4