Chapter 66: Chapter 66

Maya “Okay, well someone’s got to work out how to move this ship,” said Ke simply, as if it really were that easy, moving a massive ship when no-one had even flown an aeroplane, let alone a spaceship who’s knobs were adorned in unfamiliar and untranslatable glyphs.

“Yeah, we could just fly it into the nearest sun, that’s if we can get it moving.” Les’s sarcasm was nasty, he’d never been like that before. Maya remembered when her Les had had a stomach bug, they had called him the jolly green giant since he was still smiling despite the green hue of his face.

“There’s got to be some reason why we can’t travel, or visit the astral plane,” Xhisara said in her usual diplomatic way. Maya thought that were she a man, either Les or Ke might have slogged her by then. Her wonderful ability to state the obvious was driving everyone crazy.

“I just can’t understand how both of you have lost your powers. This just doesn’t make sense. Never in my five hundred years...” Joe’s voice trailed off, another captain obvious. Maya wanted to scream at all of them to stop being such damned idiots and come up with something useful, but stopped herself short, knowing it would do no good.

She resumed her pacing up the length of the mess hall, wracking her brains of all the things that could prevent their bodies or souls leaving the ship.

“There’s another one of those damned bugs!” cried Joe, jumping up and running into the adjoining kitchen far more sprightly than Maya would have thought possible given the age he looked, let alone the age he was.

Joe returned soon after with what looked like a plastic food container, and rounded on the bug.

Leaping over to it, Maya put her foot in front of it, forcing the iridescent slug like creature to glide onto her foot. She then hopped over to the table, kicked her leg up, and plopped it onto the table for all to see.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Xhisara said in awe, looking closely at it.

“Well, thank you Captain Obvious!” Maya just couldn’t help herself.

It was kind of a bluish colour, but metallic and shone in all the colours of the rainbow under the bright lights of the hall. Its movement resembled a slug more than anything, as it appeared to possess no limbs.

Somehow it was familiar, but Maya could not place where. Somewhere, rattling around her brain was an iridescent slug.

“Don’t touch it,” said Ke. “I’ve watched too many sci-fi shows to trust this thing doesn’t have teeth...” He gave it a wary sideways look.

Maya couldn’t help but agree with him, and shared the wary glare.

Xhisara immediately began poking it with a large black spoon, but it only recoiled from the touch.

“So we’ve got a bug infestation and we can’t get off the ship. Nice. I’ll just go and give Rob a hug to make myself feel better, oh hang on, something’s missing from that equation!” Les slung his seat away from the table where it hit a wall with a resounding metal bang, stalking off in the direction his quarters were in.

The chair clattered to the floor, finding complete silence in the room. Les’s self-destruct program had been activated and was only growing in intensity.

Not wanting to hear Xhisara’s truisms or Joe’s equally useless retorts, Maya got up and went for a walk around the ship, in the opposite direction of Les.

She saw more bugs in her peripheral vision as she stomped around the ship at high speed and largely in circles, ultimately reaching the proverbial brick wall of cargo bay A, and its missing suit.

Maya stood looking at the clear units holding the suits, and the empty unit where Ka’s suit should have been.

.

. She wasn’t sure that she hadn’t already embarked upon that road.

She walked towards the suits, past the empty chest in the centre of the room. Her breath caught in her throat and she wheeled around to look at the chest that had not been empty the last time she had witnessed it. In fact, the chest had been full of iridescent bluish glass things.

She went over to the chest and looked inside to find it completely empty, no sign of the objects that were there before.

Confused, she wondered why there was this empty box, how the chest had got there, why anyone had put it there, and how were they to turn the bugs to glass again? she had no idea what they were to do, but she doubted it was good.

On instinct, Maya tried to engulf to the mess hall but failed miserably, so set off at a run, seeing more of the bugs on the way.

“They were glass! In the crate!” she screamed, between gasps for air, while hurtling into the mess hall. “The bugs! Were glass! In the crate in the cargo hold!”

Ke, Joe and Xhisara turned to her and looked at her like she’d gone mad.

“What, what and what again?” asked Ke, looking truly beautiful with his dark eyes shining in the overhead light. A brief moment later, Maya remembered that he was not Ka.

Furious with herself for mixing them up, she stared at the floor. Slower this time, she explained the empty crate and her recognition of the glass/bugs.

“The chest was full of glass things that looked exactly like the bugs but glass. Now they are gone from the chest and moving all over the ship,” explained Maya slowly, still looking at the floor.

“Right,” said Ke, heading off to the kitchen, followed closely by Joe. They returned with more plastic containers, this time with lids. “Let’s get the bastards. We need something to do. Who dares get Les?”

“I will,” Joe grabbed a few containers. “We’ll do the B wing. Wish us luck!” and with that, he strode out the door, needing to get away from the mad women.

, thought Maya.

.

Maya grabbed a couple of containers, their lids, and the large black spoon off the table before heading back to the A wing alone.

Bug hunting was easier than she had anticipated since they really were everywhere. What she wasn’t expecting was what happened when two bugs met. She dropped the second in with the first, expecting them to be good little room mates. What she didn’t expect, was for them to turn into mini statues on contact.

She shook the box only to hear the glass like things clinking together. They had returned to the same state in which she had originally found them in cargo bay A. She ran back up the corridor, the things clanging together without chipping or breaking.

“Xhisara!” she shouted, running towards her. Xhisara stood there smiling serenely, before picking up a tub of clinking statuesque bugs.

“Yeah,” she said. “Ours do it too.”

“Right,” Maya stared at her. “Do Joe and Les know?”

“Yes, they beat you here,” Ke replied, kicking another into the box as they all watched it solidify on contact with the others.

“Right then, back to my end.” Maya went back the way she came, to grab the spoon for more bug collecting. It was good to be up to something, even though she had no idea what that really was, or would lead to.