Moron’s Guide to Surviving the Space Race
By Travis Holley
Copyright 2012 Travis Holley
ISBN: 9781301420988
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Cover Art License Notes
Image for cover art by Philcold, Royalty Free License purchased from dreamstime.com by Travis Holley
Table of Contents
Title and Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
About the Author
Prologue (or Epilogue)
Hi! My name’s John and it’s a pleasure to be introducing myself to you! I know what you’re thinking, why would the savior of the known universe talk to me? Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe but you’re important. You’re the reason I single handedly (well mostly) saved the universe. Also, the reason why Martha helped me publish all of my journals of how everything happened. Yup, you!
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. This is my story, even though I did have help you wouldn’t be sitting here today if I hadn’t made the single most important decision of my life when I was about twenty years old. And like every really good story, this one is all about a girl…
Her name is Gabriella, but we all called her Gabby for short at the Nevada State Orphanage in Las Vegas. I hadn’t seen her for two years when we met up at the bar over on Fifth. I should have known better than to think that a girl like her really cared about me at all but I’m a twenty year old man with the name John Q Public Nuisance Moron. Of course I didn’t know better.
Yeah, that’s really my name, no kidding. Everyone thought that the news got it wrong when the story came out about what we did, but nope they made sure they didn’t. It was just too ironic for the news crews to believe that a guy with my name could have saved anything.
Whoops, sorry, where was I? Oh, right, Gabby. Well, I had just finished up at the Las Vegas Bio-Electronics corporation offices and was having a drink when she blew in like a dust storm about to take over. And, when she saw me… Well, I guess you should probably read it for yourself since I already wrote it all down in my journals. Have fun with my stories, Galactic Citizen, and if we ever meet PLEASE just call me John. If I get one more person calling me…
Chapter One
“Moron? Mr. Moron himself? As I live and breathe!” Gabby screeched. God her voice could grate on the nerves when she pushed the octaves. Especially when I was halfway to sloshed since I had already procured a room for the night here.
“Gabby!” I answered, trying not to allow my frustration to show at the use of my last name. I had just spent two years with Doctors that called me nothing but Mr. Moron and was kind of tired of it. “Nice to see you!”
“Wow, you look good!” Gabby announced, flashing a brilliant white smile my way. I immediately blushed. What can I say, I have a thing for blondes. Especially ones that wore a thirty-four double D and smelled like the newest French perfume on the market.
“Thank you so much! But I have to say, Gabby, you grew up all buxom and beautiful yourself!” I answered her. There is something uniquely stimulating to a drunk man about a woman with a nearly perfect hourglass figure.
“Oh, you’re still such a charmer!” She squeaked, putting her hand on my arm gently and allowing it to linger there for a few moments longer than necessary. These things should have been my first clue that there was something screwy about this whole situation. A beautiful girl that didn’t deign to give me the time of day at the orphanage acting like we were the best of friends and attracted to me.
Yeah I know, I am a rather good looking man. But this girl is like belle of the ball beautiful. Something was up and I was a fool for not noticing it. But I’m male, give me a break.
“I have to warn you Gabby, I haven’t been in public for about two years. And I’m currently well on my way to ripped.” I informed her.
“You’ve been in prison? Oh my God, what did you do?” Gabby’s eyes were wide and her smile was wider. That should have been my third clue.
“No, not prison.” I remarked, laughing. “I signed up for an implant at Bio-Electronics. It’s free but you have to stay there for two years for tests and such.”
“Wow! Why did you do that?” She asked me, finger twirling in her hair and a look of awed interest plastered on her face. I admit, I fall for the interested girl routine every time. What guy doesn’t?
“They also pay you when it’s done.” I answered, pointing to the beer bottle I took a swig from. “Got enough money to get me set up.”
“That was really smart then!” Gabby said, moving in a little closer. “So, you working locally?”
“Naw, I haven’t really started looking yet. Just got out today.” I shook my head.
“Oh man, you need to meet Steve. He has this really awesome gig going and he’s looking for people.” Gabby remarked.
I have to admit, I hadn’t really been thinking about work much. Most of my days of the last month had been about nothing but getting out and enjoying freedom. I knew I had somewhere around twenty thousand credits sitting in an account that would last me at least six months. Plus Bio-Electronics actually employs the people they do experimental implants on and when I was done, they laid me off. So effectively I could draw unemployment for a while.
“What kind of work is it?” I asked, starting to get interested.
“Mining. They have this new planet that is extremely mineral rich and they are just now selling claims! Steve got into it really early so he already has everything set up, he just needs people to help him work his claim. They’re doing partnerships with all the new employees that are getting in at the ground floor. Really awesome money, you gotta meet this guy! He’s starting to get like mega rich.” Gabby explained, her hand artfully placed on my knee and she leaned in to make sure I understood that there was more being offered than just lots of money.
“Sure, I’d love to!” I informed her, smiling wide, the alcohol almost completely over ruling all of my good sense.
Gabby held my hand and led me out to her car that she had waiting in the parking lot. I was too tipsy to really understand anything that was happening anymore. I think maybe we were going to her place. I don’t know. This was going through my head as she punched up a location on the touch sensitive control panel for the hover car. I sat back, sometimes fading in and out of consciousness.
We stopped and I looked around blearily. We were in some minor commercial district of Las Vegas off the strip. “We at your place?” I asked, slurring.
“No, silly. I told you, Steve is about to send out a crew in a day or whatever. I’m taking you to meet him.” Gabby explained, her eyes set and focused, smile plastered on her face.
“Gabby, I’m like drunk! I can’t meet a potential boss like this!” I exclaimed, beginning to get nervous. My weird-o-meter now pegged out.
“Trust me, you’re fine.” She soothed me and put her hand on my leg again. Her touch worked like a charm, quickly calming me and soothing my fears. “He doesn’t mind, honest.” I mumbled something in response that even I had a hard time understanding.
Gabby
dragged me out of the car and held onto my hand so tight I felt like it was in a vice. We hastily moved from the car into a building that looked like it was going through renovation. As we walked down the hall, she continued to make soothing sounds and gestures. I was halfway to unconscious at this point, all of the massive amounts of alcohol now catching up with me.
We entered into a really bright, newly furnished office through a shabby looking door. If I hadn’t been drunk the differences may have pushed me over the edge of just following along like a puppy. If I hadn’t been drunk.
“Gabby, you pathetically stupid girl!” A tall man in a cheap suit yelled from across the room. “What the hell are you thinking bringing someone here? God he stinks too! Where did you pick him up at, the brewery?”
“I got another one Steve, just like I promised!” Gabby pleaded. “Come on, you gotta! He’s an orphan like me, nobody’s gonna look for him.”
I reacted violently. Violently ill by throwing up on the floor. I heard what they were saying but none of it really made sense and Gabby jerking me around so much had finally set my stomach off.
“He puked on the damn carpet, God what kind of filth are you dragging into my office!?! You couldn’t take him to the dock?” Cheap suit Steve asked her. For a rich guy, he sure didn’t know how to spend money was all that was going through my head. Yes people, I know, drinking and overly eager women don’t mix well.
“You aren’t at the dock!” She screeched again. I moaned at the noise, it wasn’t helping my stomach at all. “Steve, you promised me more when I brought you another one.” Gabby had completely forgotten about me and was currently rubbing herself against Steve and pawing at him like a cat with a scratching post.
Steve tried to stay angry, but a small smile came out from under the frown. He dug into his pocket and handed a little bag of white powder to Gabby. “You’re right, I did promise you.” He purred, eyes roving her entire body hungrily. “Go back into my ‘Private’ office. I’ll be there in a moment while I get rid of this mess.”
Gabby’s eyes were fixed onto the little bag and a lust filled smile was now plastered onto her face. I’d seen that look before, she was hooked on Moondust. Moondust was a designer drug made from a fungus that grew on a moon of an uninhabitable planet within our arm of the Galaxy.
I was currently passed out, so I will go into a little bit of detail to get you where you need to be in understanding the situation that the human race found itself in. Back in the Eighteen hundreds, a Gold Miner who struck it mega rich in the California Gold Rush hired a team of scientists to get him to the moon. This guy was a serious Jules Verne fanatic. A few million dollars and a few years later, he found himself strapped into a rocket being propelled to the moon. Back then, a few million dollars was like what a billion dollars is today. This guy struck it rich.
The scientists all figured he was dead. I mean seriously, they had done an incredible amount of research and engineering but they all figured he was going to die. Albeit there were two hundred of the finest engineers of the times from all over the world participating, no one believed it was possible that he would ever come back. Boy were they surprised when six months later, a strange alien ship touched down and out walks the rich guy they figured was an idiot.
See, the Architects (I am referring to the alien species that built the Jump Gates and disappeared.) had left a small craft on the dark side of the moon. No one really knows how or why but somehow the craft had survived just as long as the Jump Gates which we date back twenty thousand years ago.
I know, I know, you are probably versed at least to the level of the common citizen of earth as to our history but you never know what’s going to happen to us so I’m putting this in here. Call Martha the pessimist, she told me to write it in.
So anyway, from that little ship’s database, which contained what the scientists referred to as a survival kit of information, we developed space travel. If you ever get a chance to go to Cape Canaveral Florida and see the space travel museum I highly recommend the exhibit on what all was contained in this survival kit. It literally had videos that taught whoever watched it how to take a fire, a pocket geological scanner, and some serious physical labor and use them to build a spaceship with a full communications suite and a nuclear fission power plant. They really wanted to make sure none of their pilots were ever stranded anywhere and if they were, could build a good life for themselves.
It was all very rudimentary for their race, but for us it was seriously on the cutting edge of technology. And the millionaire gave it to the entire world, for free. Within ten years, we were exploring our galaxy. From that point onward there never were any major wars. Skirmishes throughout the next one hundred fifty years until now were common, but we do our best as humans to keep it down to a minimum. And we colonized at least thirty different planets.
How that translates to Moondust is easy. Drug trafficking, human trafficking(which I am currently having a firsthand experience in), and many other sorts of illegal activity are still out there. You can’t keep a good bad guy down. There were interstellar trade laws, space treaties, and interstellar travel restrictions that basically wound up taking the place of our international trading and customs laws. When we found that the Klaxtons(a lizardlike alien species) and the Rakshasas(a catlike alien species) were both no longer functioning at the country level and were globally united we raced to catch up.
Within thirty years of the first launch of a spaceship built around the concept of that little survival guide, there were no more countries. There was only earth and humanity.
What do you get when you have organized crime access to all sorts of fun little toys out in space? You get drugs that would addict you so hard that you would literally do anything to get more. And they were relatively harmless. Drugs as addictive as opium and cocaine that don’t actually harm the body are rampant. Within six months of becoming a user, you no longer care about anything but where your next fix came from.
Table of Contents
Chapter Two