Weekend Special Short Tales California 2.3 Chapter 1

 

1.

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted
She got the Mercedes Benz, uh
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys
That she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget

Songwriters: Glenn Lewis Frey / Don Felder / Donald Hugh Henley

Hotel California lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group

 

That was my recollection before I was jolted from my deep hibernation in the hibernation pod by the ship’s system. It was given the protocol to wake me up on several conditions like we are going to collide or crashed, or there was a major malfunction like the poop system was not working. I was joking about that. We don’t poop when we are in the pod for we had it all done before we get in. The crews used to say ‘get cleared there or end up the douche bagged’.

I won’t want that but waking up from the hibernation felt like I was douche once too many times.

“I am up, Tiffany.” I addressed the ship by that name. The designation was to read as Model TF99-9 but I called it by name and addressed her as a bitch too when I was in the mood. It can’t be helped for I am a bitch by reputation.

And my name is Tiffany.

Bitch Navigator was what the crew called me.

There are five of us; organic beings and two mechanical droids in our huge interstellar ship. We are not haulers, or we are but we haul corpses back to the Fleet Command for the proper burial. I know it sounded corny like when I was handling the sewage plants at Felix Five stations, everyone called me Shit Engineer. I don’t mind as it came with a good credits package and housing with sauna facilities. I would have stayed on but my space-faring needs hit me like a dry orgasm. I quit and joined the trade ship of hauling containers but the competition was stiff which I was not able to produce. I had then moved my ship to haul corpses.

It was not that bad doing the final voyage for the dead, as the war at the Empire Frontiers was piling on the dead warriors, and the enacted Burial Act 2345 required the corpses in whole or part to be retrieved from the battle sites. It was to provide them a warrior sent-off instead of being left to the coldness of space. Well, there were credits to be earned and it was a thankless task.

I got myself a hauler ship designated Mercedes design but the Ship Engineer called it Benz after his name. He is an organic freak with meticulous care for his tasks. He is also a huge Aryan; he claimed to be one of from that descent with the blonde streak of hair shaved in the front to leave the rear length trailing to his back. His other feature was his right arm was bionic attached arm after he lost his organic one to the war he was fighting in as the ranks with the Space Marines. He gave up the fighting and took to the maintenance of the ship’s workings from the main thrusters to the cabling of the coolants and the water heater for the baths in the Communal Chamber. He had kept the ‘Mercedes’ at its near perfect condition considering the ship had reached its twenty calendar year of space flight time. We have exceeded the maximum fifteen years of service but Benz had the way to convince the Inspectors to turn a blind eye on the calendar years with his flair of displaying the good condition of the engines and the warp core. I had to admit we have no major breakdowns yet.

The two crews of mine responsible for the hearse carrier; we got to name the long container that housed the two hundred odd corpses each and the hundred-odd parts recovered. We hauled five of these in our tow then, fully packed and sealed in the one thousand feet in length container. The dead bodies were kept in pods of three feet width and eight feet in length with their identification of the deceased and arranged on the racks in the container. We needed no refrigeration for the space void outside was past the freezing point, and without an atmosphere, there was no decay. The dead were mostly the deceased warriors of the Empire in the war. It was not like the Empire was losing the war but we do have many battles and many warriors died. Their corpses were recovered from the battlefields and filled into the pods before it was collected into the container for deportation to their home planet for the final ceremony. The Ship could pull five times the load. I did wonder on the other side how they handle their deaths. I could do both sides we are after all neutral parties but I was told that the other side left their corpses on the battlefield as a symbol of sacrifice.

The two crews in charge of the containers were the twins Hagar and Hagen. Both sweet boys of the Norwegian best, and like their forefathers, they are good at handling the dead. They still believed in Valhalla and ensure the dead are preserved well in their assigned compartments.

Then there is the last member; Hirohito of Eastern descent, who is called the Captain not by rank but was the Captain of the ship. Well, if it suits me I will rattle him as Hirohito. I am the major share owner of the Mercedes while Hirohito Sato held a smaller share. He argued for the Captain rank and I gave in. I then went for the rank of the navigator. Hirohito aka the Captain was a tall guy with a muscular frame and wielded the sharp blade which he claimed was his ancestors. His other rank was the System Engineer. He was different from Benz for his responsibility was Tiffany. If there were intimidate connection, you could say he was doing the foreplay on Tiffany most times. He was always tweaking her system.

Then there are my two other bits of help, the droids codenamed Huginn and Muninn. They are from the Raven series’ designed for ship repairs with the twin triple tentacles on their narrow frame and the elongated neck to the headpiece and the double antennas. The droids measured at man’s length but they moved using the spidery movements which were how they moved around, or on two lower limbs like us the Earthlings. It was a design issue by their designers.

As for myself, I am a dark-skinned African female standing tall at over six feet five and held two credentials; one of automated machine and the other was a chemical analyst. I wore my hair braided to the shoulder and kept my slim frame with constant martial workouts. I held the Masters’ certification for my fighting skills. But I held zero scores on my love life. My last lover ditched me for the Martian. She claimed I was too twisted. The crew called me behind my back ‘Charon’ from the Greek ancient tales for I do navigate to the sectors where I can find the corpses.

Together we made the crews for the Mercedes TF99-9 the Hearse Transporter 10.