Just how much more of this can you take?

Content Warnings:  Threats, Guns, Gun Shot Wounds, Ableism, Irresponsible Flying, Fear of Air Crash, Mortal Despair, Unpleasant Depiction of an Unhoused Person and Drug Addicts, Billionairism, Low-Key Sexism, Sexual Nerdry, Racial Awkwardness, a Disabled Child Feeling Loss.

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CENTENNIAL HILLS CONTINUES

by Bébé Mélange

“I heard you’re takin’ us back to Earth.”  Shammy took up the co-pilot seat in Pep’s Millennium Falcon.

“That’s right, Shammy.  But I’d love it if you stayed with us.  I did a little research about Eliza and yourself, found you don’t have a lot of connection to people there.  I did that because I wanted you to enjoy this adventure with us.  And yes, we could definitely use your skills as well.”

His eyes were on the starscape.  The sun looked different with no atmosphere in the way, only the glare reduction of the heavy window.  “Good lord, we’re really out here.”

“I know.  Isn’t it amazing?”

“I don’t know.  I like ta think my family would miss rich Uncle Shammy.”

The idea he was rich seemed absurd to Pep.  His relations must have been poor indeed.  “They might.  But you now have a chance to see things and do things no human ever has before.  Every man has a thrill of discovery in his heart.  I imagine Eliza’s is overwhelmed by neurosis or fear.  Where is yours, my friend?”

He seemed earnest, to Shammy – even appealing.  “That’s pretty sharp of you, sir.  I just might stay, but I want ta help Eliza.  When you come in to land, I’m gonna let her know.”

“Good man, Shammy.  I’m glad to hear it.  You should go relax a few.  I want to take in the sights a bit more, in case earthly entanglements prevent me from coming right back.  And send Scuzz back for me, will you?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Pep to my friends, my friend.”

“Pep.”  Pimp.  “heehee.”

Shammy went out, and shortly Scuzz came in, dragging her heels.  But she gripped the walls in shock when she looked out the window.

“What are you doing, honey?”

“What the general expects the least.  Taking us back to Vegas.”

He was heading toward Earth at alarming speed.  A second after he finished saying Vegas, the planet completely filled the window.

“Huh?”

“Don’t let our other passengers know just yet.  I’d like you to head back to the ramp.  According to the exosensors, there’s one chunk of alien technology left there I’d like to get my hands on.  Radio me if it’s more than you can handle, or just grab it and let me know when you’re back onboard.  OK?”

“Ugh.  Why me?”

“Good reasons, babe.  I would not impose upon you like this if it was not strictly essential.”

“I guess.”  She did not kiss him goodbye.  Time for lame errands.  She was surprised at her sense of relief on turning away from the massive rock rushing toward the ship.  Are you a scaredy cat?

 

Tmai had come up with a pictograph to show cycles of day and night, and various other symbols to illustrate their plan.  They used the whiteboard to explain the following concepts, and were fairly confident they were properly understood:  They didn’t know where the ship was, but they wanted to find it.  They needed to lay low for a few days and would do so in Kirsten and Olivia’s home, if permitted.  And when they were ready, they would head out in search of the crash site.

Melvin agreed to help with that part of the job, since Kirsten didn’t have the right wheels for it, and had a more demanding job besides.  For her part, Olivia volunteered to try to learn Ainavian signs.

Snar had come into the main run of the lobby to watch the proceedings more easily, but did so from a distance, sitting on a chair of stiff, cracked leather and half vanished into the shadows.  They didn’t follow everything, their head awhirl with grim possibilities.

To them it was like Tmai was a few paces back from their own misadventures.  The captain had hooked up with a group of three questionable locals – seemingly friendly – but hadn’t been dragged through the wringer by them just yet.  They thought about the gun.  It was on the belt, dangling over a crude utility rack of some kind.

Snar had a power now, if they chose to avail theirself of it – the power of physical threat.  They could start waving that thing around, tell Tmai to fall in line and help them escape from all of these creepy aliens.  But their body was weak, full of structural faults.  One false move and they’d be losing fluids again, shocked unconscious, or crippled.  At least, they resolved, they’d insist on continuing to wear the belt.

There was a sudden clapping noise on the ceiling.  Everybody turned to stare.  An irregular black object wiggled there, then started creeping toward the kitchen with a scraping noise.

“Oh my god!,” Kirsten yelped.

“What the..?  It’s Smar’s belt!,” Melvin said.

Olivia grabbed Kirsten’s thigh, not understanding.

Tmai almost dropped the pen, but then thought better of it.  They slapped the table to get everyone’s attention again, then circled the flying saucer on the whiteboard.  Then they hustled over to the belt and pulled it down from the ceiling.

“What is it, G-use?  What is it?,” Olivia signed, finally breaking from her mother’s side.

Tmai just shook their head and headed toward the back door.  They gestured for Snar to come along.  Everybody was on their feet, in motion.

Olivia’s heart sank fast.  It was like the first time Goose had gone out the back door, and she had a feeling this time it would be for real.  She hustled to keep up with her.

Outside the little building, Tmai held the belt with all their strength.  It was being pulled by a very large piece of Ainavian metal, where it hadn’t been before.  That meant an independently moving mass had entered range.  It had to be an Ainavian ship, but a rescue made no sense at all.  They were beyond range of any kind of emergency monitoring system when the ship failed.

The four people behind Tmai stopped when they did, and followed their gaze to the stars.  Tmai was holding the belt near arm’s length as it tried to tug itself into the sky.  Then it appeared – a strangely shaped spacecraft, similarly sized to Tmai’s own, coming down fast but also rapidly decelerating.

The ship went nose up fifty feet away from them, then rotated its aft to face the crowd, and gently alit.  The rear hatch lowered as a ramp, and a backlit humanoid figure stood there, arms folded across its chest.

Tmai pulled the belt down under their arms and walked toward the ship, trying to focus, to make sense of the vessel and its crew.  Kirsten kept a death grip on Olivia’s hand as they all followed up to the ship.  Melvin helped Snar stay upright as they came along, stumbling and scared.

On the ramp was a young lady, dressed like a native culturally appropriating hippie.  “Hey!,” she yelled.  “Does one of you have some alien technology on you?”

Kirsten said, “Scuzz?  Scuzz?”

“Oh god, a fan?”

Melvin said, “Chnai has this belt thing.  How much you want for it?”

“Scuzz, how do you have a spaceship?  Do you know Smar and Tmai?”

“Is that these guys?”

Tmai came up to the ramp and peered past the Earthling curiously.  They had no idea how this strange ship was possible.

The earthling waved them in.  “Get in loser, we’re going shopping.”

They turned away, back to their followers.  They signed to Snar, “Looks like this is our ride, doctor.  I don’t get it, but we have to take this.  Come on.”

“Give me the gun, captain, or at the very least, be ready to use it yourself.”

“Actually, I’m in full agreement on that.”

“Aww,” Scuzz said, “The aliens are deaf?  That’s so cute.”

Kirsten said, “Are you going to take them away now?  Will they be OK?”

“Yeah, I figure, why not?  I didn’t expect to see them, but we got a spaceship, so, like, whatever.”

Kirsten turned to Olivia, who was already crying quietly – just running at the eyes.  She signed, “This is it, baby.  You have to say goodbye to Tmai now.”

Tmai strapped the belt to their waist, then turned to Olivia and Kirsten.  They kneeled to embrace Olivia as she staggered in.  The juvenile creature was more powerful than they looked, but Ainavians have both durability and flexibility in their tissues, so Tmai wasn’t too uncomfortable.

Melvin said, “Aww,” and clapped.  Scuzz joined in the clapping.  “So sweet!,” she said.  Kirsten held herself and quietly shed a tear.  Snar slumped and stared abjectly.  The clappers realized that wasn’t going to be a thing and dropped it.

Tmai gently pushed Olivia back to signing distance.  Olivia fired off some sad stuff Tmai didn’t understand, and they thought about what they could say, if anything.  The situation had been emotionally taxing.  But Olivia figured out something to say, tentatively reaching for Tmai’s hands.

They clasped hands, as Tmai had done with Snar, and rested their heads together.  The bony little head of the alien pressed uncomfortably into Tmai’s cerebral space, making their senses swim.  They felt the little creature’s hand bones and saltwater skin in their grasp, smelled their oily face, and felt a lot of sympathy.

They pushed away from each other at last, nodded, then signed goodbye.  Kirsten took Olivia by the shoulders and started backing away from the ship.  Snar stepped in next to Tmai, to keep them from getting entangled with the locals again.

“Are we all done yet?,” asked Scuzz.  “Goodbye little girl, goodbye mom, goodbye Samoan guy.”

“Filipino.  Did she say your name was Scuzz, lady?”

“That’s right, bub.  Have a nice life, Planet Earth!”

Kirsten hardly knew what to say to the bizarre scene.  “Goodbye, Scuzz.”

Olivia and Tmai kept waving until the ramp folded up.

As soon as the aliens disappeared from sight, Olivia turned to grab her mom and express her misery physically.  At least this time there was no wailing.  She had a proper farewell to her magical friend.

Melvin walked over to them.  “Hey, Kirsten.  If I don’t talk to somebody about this night I’m gonna end up in a looney bin.  You got, like, facebook or somethin’?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, Melvin.  Let’s do that.  You can message me tonight if you want, but I might be  few days to get back.”

“Understood.”

They watched the UFO rise, and as it was ascending more slowly than it had dropped into their lives, they got a good look at it.  Melvin said, “Am I losing it, or is that the Star Wars spaceship?  Like Hand Solo’s?”

“Yeah.  That lady sings experimental synth pop.  She’s dating a billionaire – Pep Ambergris – so I guess he built his own Star Wars ship.”

“Damn.  I want that kinda money.”

They were all shushed by a hard wave of air as the ship abruptly swiveled and accelerated away.

“Maybe we’ll all end up in the looney bin.”

 

Nate slammed on the brakes when they saw the UFO.

Lita didn’t see it at first.  “What is it?  What now?”

Then it came into her field of view, out the windshield.  An unnaturally moving disk dotted with lights, though hard to make out details.  A bank of thrusters in the rear blasted white and it shot toward Vegas like a bolt.

“Oh my god,” she said.  “She got away.  She got away!  WOOO!”

“ET’s goin’ home, fuckin’ nice!,” Nate said.

Rennie said, “That’s beautiful, dude.  I love it when shit turns out alright.”

“God bless,” Lita said.

Nate put the stick back in drive.

 

When the ramp sealed behind them, Tmai’s attention was drawn by the sound, and they noticed something.  The metal above the hatch itself had the ultraviolet patterning of Ainavian metal.

Scuzz said, “I’m so sorry I don’t know your language guys, I– What’s the matter?”

Snar slapped the captain’s arm for attention and signed, “What’s going on?”

Tmai shook their head.  It couldn’t be.  They padded their hands along the hatch, along the wall.  They came to a seam on the wall from where metal had been sheared with industrial tools, and realized it was a support structure that had been removed.

Snar slapped their arm again.

Tmai finally said, “This is a chopped up Ainavian ship!  The aliens modified tech that’s waaay above their level.  This thing could be a very deadly problem waiting to happen.”

“Captain, that planet is no place for us.  I can’t even tell you what I’ve been through.  I’d rather die in space with these scrap-brained aliens than go back.”

“I don’t wanna die, doctor!  You can avail yourself of this weirdo’s hospitality, but I need to examine the damage, see what we can do about it.”

“Oh my god,” Scuzz said.  “You’re such chatterboxes.  Come on, come on.”

Snar followed her and Tmai reluctantly went along as well.

 

Pep turned his Falcon sideways and flew down the main drag in Las Vegas.  Behind him glass displays and tubes and bulbs of lighting rattled – some exploded – and anything loose, like papers and hats, flew into the air.

That’s right, plebs.  Pep Ambergris has a Millennium Falcon.  Explain that, General Tweed.

The fighter jets that had been patrolling the valley ever since he broke orbit were on him in a heartbeat, but it’s not like they could fire off missiles over a strip choked with tourists.

And when he rose out of that city of lights, he was too fast for the missiles to stand a chance.  He was gone.

 

Shammy saw Scuzz come back in with the aliens and he quickly scrambled to his feet.  “Hey, where’t you get those aliens?  I thought we were goin’ back to Earth.”

“We did.  I got some aliens there.”

“OK ma’am.  Are we just flyin’ somewhere else ta drop off Eliza?”

“Huh.  I dunno.  Did Pep say he was gonna do that?”

One of the aliens was physically apathetic and wrapped like a mummy, seemed to be in a daze.  The other was in a white dress and pink hoodie, frantically looking around, slapping at metal here and there.

“Hey, y’all speak English, by chance?”

“They’re deaf,” Scuzz said.  “They use sign language.  Isn’t that cute?”

“Dang.”

Eliza rolled off her bunk and gripped the edge of it to steady herself, looking at the aliens in horror.  “What in the hell is this?  What in the hell is this?”

Tmai had been slapping at the bulkheads near her and jumped in surprise when she came down.  They tried the calming palms-down gesture that had worked well with Olivia and Kirsten.  It didn’t work as well here.

Eliza said, “You got them from Earth.  Does that mean we’re on land?  That I can just walk out that back door?”

Scuzz said, “The ramp’s up.  I think we’re flying, but it’s hard to tell, isn’t it?”

The hoodie alien’s repeated calming gestures were just annoying Eliza.  “That thing is freaking me out!”  She hustled away from it and hid behind Shammy.  “Can somebody talk to Pep?  Can somebody get us the hell out of here?”

Scuzz said, “Fiiine, I’ll go talk to him,” and walked past Tmai to get to the cockpit.

Pep was racing along, stars wheeling around the view.  Again, it made her a little woozy, and she focused on his ear.  “Hey babe,” she said.  “I got your tech and you won’t believe what else.  It’s so great.  But, uh…”

“Yes, dear?”

“Eliza is fussing again.  She wants to get off.  Were we going to do another landing?”

“Ah.  I am most sorry both to her and to you and Shammy, because you’ll have to experience her reaction to a little betrayal on my part.”

“Excuse me?”

“Believe me, I’ve done my best to understand everything those two have studied, in figuring out how to work this technology.  But I’m not a hundred percent, and we are very likely to need their services – especially the farther we get from Earth.”

“So you marooned her, just like that!?”

“Shanghaied is the word, dear.”  He adjusted a few controls.  “Do you remember the simulator well enough?  You can keep an eye on things up here while I break the news myself.”

“Wow, OK, I can do that.”

He swiveled his chair and stood, kissed her lightly.  “Maybe later I can watch you do some spins in your Leia cosplay.  I might just have to rub one out, haha.”

“Mm, you are a scruffy-looking nerfherder.”

He lovingly caressed her side as she walked past to get in the pilot seat, then asked, “What else did you pick up down there?”

“Heeheehee, you’ll see.”

The path to the cockpit had one crook in it, and he got the answer as soon as he rounded that corner.  A Whitley Strieber-styled alien was there, in a dress and hoodie.  It looked at him with big black eyes and stepped back.  In the first moment, its palms were down – but then one balled into a fist and the other inched toward a utility belt.

Pep made a calming gesture of his own.  “Easy there, Communion.  We’ve got a lot to learn from each other.”

“Peeep?,” Eliza called from further back.  “Where are we going to land?”

“Does the alien speak English, by chance?”

“No,” said Shammy, “They don’t.”

Pep caught sight of the other alien now.  “I guess they had a rough time on Earth.”  He took a chance on provoking its aggression and walked past the hoodie alien, to face Eliza and Shammy.  “Eliza, the time has come for me to admit it.  I cannot let you go back to Earth just yet.”

“I’ll kill you!”  She tried to grab at him, but Shammy gently restrained her.  They were similarly sized, chubby tall and middle-aged, but Shammy had a bit more upper body strength to get that grip.

“Ma’am, that ain’t a good idea.”

“Eliza, it really isn’t.  We’re in space now.  Any act of violence could punch a hole in the Falcon, causing lethal decompression.  The fact is, I need both of your expertise, at least until I’ve learned enough to get by without you.  Or to communicate with the aliens, and make use of their knowledge.  But you understand, I can’t accomplish either of those things without more time.”

“Sleep with one eye open, O captain, my captain.”

“Walt Whitman, nice,” Ambergris said.  “Now,” he said, looking at Snar, “Let’s see what we all can learn from each other.”

Shammy looked at Eliza sympathetically, and she gave not much more than a tight-lipped glance to acknowledge that she didn’t blame him for the mess.  Pep would indeed be sleeping carefully.

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THUS ENDS ACT 2!  Earth was such an important part of the beginning of this story, what more could happen with the planet in our taillights?  Find out in two days…