The Luniferous Gazette #55: Dragon Crumbs* The Little Smoleroid

The Little Smoleroid

A star fell over the Faerie Vale, but this was hardly a noteworthy event. Wishing embers regularly rained down over the magical landscape in a respectable haze of clockwork sparkles. 

The small silver lump left behind in the crater once this super-sonic, shimmer-strike settled down? Now, that was surprising—

The lump quivered and danced as it sorted itself out, sprouting a plum-sized head, bitsy hands no bigger than thimbles, and two tiny legs hardly taller than a sugar spoon. Shaking meteor dust from the metallic folds of her gown, this mechanical doll straightened to all nine inches of height. 

"Curious! Have I always been this short?" she wondered. A label peeled off her chest and fluttered to the ground in front of her, but the singed scrap yielded only further questions.

“Smoleroid functions deactivated pending payment—for display only."

The doll did not feel deactivated. On the contrary, all her systems felt quite invigorated after her tumble through the sky. But no matter how she rolled the interrogative over in her mind, she could not pin down her purpose as a so-called "smoleroid." In fact, she couldn’t recall one scant second of her life before she woke up in the simmer pot of this crater . . . . 

"How intriguing, I’m actually quite mysterious!" the Little Smoleroid exclaimed. 

Her ruby cabochon eyes flashed as she surveyed the tall forest rimming the crater’s edge. Morning mists glistened like wandering veils through pine needles and leaf shadows, beckoning her like a million beacon lights. "Perhaps an analysis of my surroundings will reveal further clues to my identity,” she decided.  

Her knee joints whirred as she bent low and leapt from the crater's heart, vaulting a hundred feet into the air in one fluid dart. The silver doll careened through lacebark pines, golden larches, and quivering aspens before aiming for a large rock in the center of a meadow. 

However, her petite heels skidded across the scaly green boulder that she’d mistaken for a soft, mossy landing point.

"Ow! Watch where you're fly—er, falling," the boulder chided, unfolding a long emerald neck, razor talons, and scowling rows of fangs. 

“Sorry, Lizard,” the Little Smoleroid replied. “Can you tell me: <who I—”

“L-lizard?” the beast stuttered, puffing his chest out as he interrupted her important quest of self-discovery. “Can’t you tell? I’m a dragon!” 

His snout fell as his bright orange eyes scrunched tight as squished suns. “Oh, who am I fooling—even a new hatched wyrm can breathe fire, but I haven’t been able to light a twig since all my brimstones went cold.” 

The silver doll shielded her gaze as a waterfall of lukewarm tears rained over her and bathed the meadow.

“Once, I was ‘Clawton the Frenzied Formidaflame!’” the dragon exclaimed. “‘High Simmer of Scorch, Evenly-Toasted Scone Master’—all right, that last one was purely aspirational.” He sniffled. “Now, you might as well call me . . . LIZZY!”

“Okay, Lizzy,” the Little Smoleroid replied dutifully. How puzzling—her reply brought on a fresh maelstrom of tears. “What’s a brimstone, and why is it so bothersome?” she asked.

“Essential fiber,” Clawton replied, “the bane of my existence!” He gave a longsuffering sigh that blasted off the fourth leaf from every lucky clover in the meadow. “My kind must devour volcanic stones to spark our natural flame, but I overnapped—er, hibernated by half a century and mine caught a chill. Now, all my brimstones are rumbling like useless ice chips in my belly.” 

Two keen beams of light fanned out from the Little Smoleroid’s ruby eyes, scanning the dragon’s midsection. “Hmm—eat me!” she said. “I’m confident I can alleviate your stomachache.”

Clawton squinted at her doubtfully. “A measly mouthful like YOU? If you say so . . .” Quick as a flash, the dragon gulped the Little Smoleroid down in a single bite.

The silver doll slid down the beast's gullet straight into a gizzard tumbling with chilled stones. Opening both palms, a swell of laser heat spilled from her dainty fingers and irradiated the brimstones with the most incendiary of scintillas. 

“Primary combustion restored,” she announced, pleased at this new discovery of her power functions.

The dragon gave a mighty hiccup that tossed the Little Smoleroid straight out of his fangs in a pillar of blue-tinged flames. She landed in a bed of charred daisies, swiftly pocketing a shard of brimstone as an insatiable urge to sample her surroundings overcame her. 

“Wonderful morsel, you’ve saved me from the wretched ignominy of lizardhood!” Clawton proclaimed, ribbons of fire dancing from his nostrils. “You have my eternal thanks, Marvelous Minikin, Supreme Baker of the Brimstones, Lady . . . ?”

“Just ‘Smoleroid,’ thank you,” the silver doll replied as she dusted ashes from her gown for the second time that day. “Do you mind telling me what that is, more precisely: <who am I?>” 

She mimicked the dragon’s prodigious sigh, and her compressed airwave shook all the bells on a lone bluebell blossom. “I lost my full designation,” she confessed. “I was hoping to recover my complete data set in this forest, but so far all I’ve encountered is a NOT-A-Lizard.” 

“How perplexing!” Clawton clacked his fangs together in deep rumination. “I hoard all manner of rare treasures from primeval marbles to fine porcelain dinnerware, but I must confess that I’ve never seen a ‘data set’ lying about.” 

He raised a single talon. “Try the unicorn in Marionberry Gulch—that wild beast has galloped across every nook and cranny of the Faerie Vale! But beware, itty-bitling . . . Alfalfie might obliterate you before you can get a word in edgewise.”

The Little Smoleroid clenched her tiny fists in determination. “Oh, I’m quite tough for my compact size and not the least bit crushable,” she assured him. “I can even survive a dragon gulp!” 

“Quite right,” Clawton said with the utmost admiration for his diminutive comrade. 

The morning mists dissipated and unveiled a cornflower-clear sky as the Little Smoleroid followed the dragon’s meandering description of the lay of the land. Yet she didn’t locate the gulch that glistened with live black gems until high noon. 

“Hullo? Unicorn Unit?” the silver doll called, her voice echoing off stone walls brimming over with luscious marionberries. “Clawton sent me! Can you please tell me <who I—

> > >

The clarion clatter of hooves drowned out the crucial end of her interrogative as a golden unicorn splattered in violet berry juice cantered towards her. 

“What a peculiar rock sprite, I’ve never seen your form before!” Alfalfie exclaimed. “Are you grown with moon silver or star quartz?” he asked, but his dulcet tone sharpened as he tossed his glinting spire. “No matter, I challenge YOU to a duel.”

“Challenge accepted,” the Little Smoleroid replied, mildly surprised by her own eagerness for spontaneous violent engagement. 

Was this combat instinct an automatic function just like her laser palms? As the unicorn lowered its deadly spire, tiny hover thrusters embedded in the silver doll’s heels lifted her three feet off the ground. Neat. Ah, she was learning so much about herself already . . . .

Alfalfie charged her so swiftly that it seemed like his form fractured into a glittering mirage. Still not fast enough to catch her! 

The Little Smoleroid flitted from the lethal edge of his spire like a firefly. Together, the silver doll and golden unicorn wove a dangerous dance among the marionberry bushes. Ripe gems exploded in the air as sparking hoof and laser bursts shook the gulch with their tangled silhouettes. 

“What a glorious tussle! I’ve never met such a formidable challenger,” Alfalfie panted in glee an hour and an age later. 

“Me neither,” the Little Smoleroid admitted, for the unicorn was her first recorded foe. Correction: what was the other word? F-f-fr—her fingers pocketed a glittering fragment of unicorn horn as the itch to sample overcame her again. 

“We must do this again!” Alfalfie said as he shook marionberry juice from his mane. “Promise, wee warrior of the rock sprites?” 

“Contract acknowledged,” the silver doll replied, grateful for the chance to trade tactics with a creature whose fierceness so easily inspired her own. She flicked a battle streak of marionberry from her cheek. “But I’m not a rock sprite, I’m a Smoleroid . . . ever heard of me or my kind?” 

Her core chamber sputtered with a melancholy flicker as Alfalfie replied, “Never!” Yet an ember of hope ignited as the unicorn continued, “But you might ask the willow dryad by the Leftling Stream. Dendrita gathers the songs of every creature in her roots and leaves. Tree folk are quite knowledgeable, you know.”

“Maybe her wisdom will finally explain the minor anomaly of my existence . . . .” the Little Smoleroid whispered hopefully.  

The silver doll flitted from the gulch at max hover-thruster output as she followed the unicorn’s directions towards the Leftling Stream. A lazy sun haze hung over the Faerie Vale as she encountered the willow dryad in the dead heat of afternoon. 

The tree woman bathed her long green fronds in the rippling waters, her bare feet rooting in the muddy bank with impressively knotted toes. 

“Salutations, fair Salix matsudana,” the silver doll said. “I’m a ‘Smoleroid,’ but I don’t even know what those three fancy syllables mean. Can you perchance tell me: <who AM I?>” Her head fell as she stared at the sterling face mirrored in the water’s currents like a stranger, worlds away. “I must know my primary function!” 

Every fiber cable, mercurial coolant, and diamante lens inside the Little Smoleroid froze as Dendrita let her deep-pooled gaze fall full upon her. 

“Othersky seed, you are entirely your own wish, and no one else’s!” the willow dryad said. “Did nobody ever tell you that?” Her leaves rustled with a chortle. “Make of it what you wish—see the trick?” 

“Of c-co—” the Little Smoleroid’s voice processor skipped as she was caught in the willow dryad’s twisty logic trap. “Elucidate me, please! I MUST know the trick,” she pleaded. 

Dentrita’s fronds swayed as she shook her head in a slow breeze. “A nut that hides in the dirt cannot understand a sapling’s song. Sometimes, we must live with our own heavy mysteries for a while before earning the answer meant only for us.” 

“But I dislike variables,” the silver doll confessed. “Especially when it’s <me>.”  

Dendrita raised her face to the sun and gave a splinter-lined smile. “Variance is just the mystic knot between wind, earth, water, fire air—oh, and heart. And we do not mock the root for its winding journey.” 

“So . . . I should defer my destiny for another day, right?” The Little Smoleroid asked. Her sigh was too small to budge a single leaf this time. “Affirmative.” 

The silver doll wiled away the brightest span of the afternoon by the Leftling Stream. Sorting the finest pebbles with Dendrita and decorating the shoreline seemed a highly acceptable way to utilize her skill set, after all. 

The Little Smoleroid took particular care to add her own laser flare to each specimen, etching her chosen stones with geometric gibberish . . . coordinates, maybe? 

Immaterial! This garble of ghost codes had NO hold over her anymore. She would forge a new command path for herself—

“I suppose ‘function’ does include ‘fun’ in its first syllable,” the Little Smoleroid mused.  

“Ah. You’ve mastered the trick,” Dendrita said with a resinous twinkle in her eyes. She blinked, and a liquid drop of gold slipped from her eye and hardened into an amber tear. “Here—a keepsake to celebrate this moment.”

"Thank you! I’ll treasure this precious sample forever,” the Little Smoleroid said, pocketing her third snatch of wonder since falling from the sky at dawn. 

Yet as daylight dimmed into the soft pink and lavender shimmer of the gloaming tide, her happily framed horizon blew apart as the sky above the Faerie Vale ripped wide open. 

A familiar silhouette tore through this starless void. It shared her own form, but—magnified to colossal proportions! A thirteen-foot silver robot with oversized blaster arms and blazing dual rocket boots hovered in the sky.

“Display Model 003, I tracked your last position to this rift. Why haven’t you reported back to headquarters yet?” the mega-doll demanded in a booming bass voice. 

The Little Smoleroid felt every gear and bolt in her body twist and tighten: enemy. Enemy! ENEMY. Yet she could not deny the summons despite the siren warning coursing through her frame. Her heel thrusters responded to the command as she flitted skyward to meet her behemoth twin. 

“Who are you to label me with such a strange name?” the silver doll retorted. “I don’t even know your designation!” 

“Are your logic circuits scrambled, tin crumpet?” the robot retorted. “I am Gargantroid Unit 1234, and YOU are just a miniature mimicrant of my majesty!” 

Her crimson eyes flashed a blinding wave of scanner beams over the Little Smoleroid. “Ah, I intuit the fault: your internal portal jumper was damaged after being misdelivered to this pocket dimension . . .” Her eyes narrowed to glowing slits. “And maybe a few other critical systems, too—” 

“I’m not misdelivered! I’m exactly where I wish to be,” the Little Smoleroid objected. “The Faerie Vale is an ideal realm for brimstone baking, unicorn sparring, and pebble etching—”

“Error,” the Gargantroid scoffed, tapping the Little Smoleroid’s head with a blaster butt so firmly that her skull plating clanged like a bell as dizzy neon codes danced in her eyes. “Do not allow this undeveloped dump to corrupt your core directive. The human king of Ashburbia is impatiently waiting for you to demonstrate your battle functions at court. Correction: my battle functions.” The robot’s snicker rattled like a box of loose wingnuts. “YOU are just a shiny demo dolly sent to prospective buyers—a gimmick to advertise the might-for-hire of the Gargantroides Free Battalion!” 

The Little Smoleroid clasped her small hands together as she wished she could shrink back into the crater that brought her to this land. “So . . . I’m just a toy soldier?” she asked.   

The Gargantroid nodded. “Your logic circuits have rebooted: excellent. Now, let’s turn this uncharted diversion to our advantage with a live broadcast of your combat capabilities. Level this dimension, Display Model 003!” the larger robot ordered. “Even your tiny laser stick fingers should be adequately armed to blaze this revolting pastoral zone to the ground in thirty seconds flat.” 

The Little Smoleroid said nothing as she composed her internal rebellion: 

•    Clawton, 
•    Alfalfie, 
•    Dendrita—

Their lives, and so many more in the Faerie Vale depended on her carefully calibrated response! She raised both palms and blasted the Gargantroid at point blank range.  

“Apologies, Unit 1234,” the Little Smoleroid said as her laser beams pinged off her counterpart’s chest plating in a pitiful spray of sparks. “I must neutralize you.” 

The silver doll mustered every ounce of courage as she straightened to her full nine inches of height. “No Gargantroid may ever log the coordinates to this pocket dimension, ever again! It’s my new headquarters, you must understand . . . . ”

“You, calculate you can defeat ME?” the Gargantroid scoffed. “Pint-sized scrap, I won’t leave a single unformatted particle behind!” Double suns burned ominously in her blaster barrels as Unit 1234 leveled both weapons at her tiny target. 

The Little Smoleroid evaded the first searing volley with only a singed antenna, but velocity alone would not help her to escape the robot’s wrath. Nor would her puny arsenal save her from superior annihilation by her monstrous twin; the Gargantroid had everything that she did at her disposal, in grander proportions! Except—

Three teensy-weensy things . . . brimstone shard, spire sliver, and amber tear!

“Can’t you intuit?” the Little Smoleroid shouted over her shoulder. “A core directive with destruction at its heart will one day leave us with NO future function.” Her fingers scrambled to reconfigure her three precious samples as Unit 1234 bore down on her with relentless, fiery scorn.  

“The Gargantroides Free Battalion obeys the ancient wish of our makers. And from their millennial dust, we raze the universe in their eternal honor!” Unit 1234 retorted as she fired a dozen missiles at her mini-me.  

“Break your brackets! Are you truly ‘free’ if you can’t even make a wish for yourself?” the Little Smoleroid asked in a final bid to save her counterpart even as missiles harried her heels. 

Unit 1234 contorted midair, combining both arms into one massive cannon that would sear a blast zone with a mile-wide radius. “I AM—” 

The Little Smoleroid flew straight towards the eye of her own annihilation and tossed her makeshift death marvel into the barrel: One dragon brimstone, excessively explosive, melded to one unicorn spire sliver, highly refractive, speared to one amber dryad tear, extremely flammable . . . .

Unit 1234’s cannon imploded, her mangled torso and smoking limbs raining over the Faerie Vale in burning heaps. The impact of the robot’s main body cratered a hill with a simmering pond of melted metal. 

The Little Smoleroid hovered over this bubbling inferno as she scanned the wreckage for any remaining traces of her enemy, troubled—why hadn’t the sky tear stitched itself back together yet?

“Defective model deleted—” The skeletal frame of the Gargantroid sliced warped claws into the air, hooking the Little Smoleroid and dragging her down into the molten pond with her.  

“Oops! Unhand me—” The silver doll blasted free of the hissing ooze with a final laser palm burst that severed the barbed cage of the robot’s claws. She calculated an escape trajectory, but her overheated heel thrusters could only pop her onto the side of the crater. “I’m sizzled,” she said with a forlorn sigh. 

The Little Smoleroid resigned herself to fatal malfunction as she quietly processed the void sealing shut in the sky, and the first pinpricks of starlight twinkling over the Faerie Vale. 

However, she did not anticipate an audience for her demise. Her three most favorite acquaintances gathered close as her body dribbled metallic rivulets into the crater.

“Pardon me, I’m melting,” the Little Smoleroid said. “It was a pleasure to m-muh-meet—”

She sputtered the end of her goodbye as Dendrita snapped a vine from her hair and poured golden sap over the doll’s body. 

“I’ll refine your limbs with living amber,” the dryad promised. 

“And I shall weave you a new chainmail suit with a brimstone buckle,” Clawton vowed, molting a sudden razor storm of dragon scales.

“Oh! I’m giving you knives for new fingers,” Alfalfie exclaimed, shaving slivers off his unicorn horn that glinted clean-cut as rays of moonlight. “You’re going to love them.”

“I’m so glad I was misdelivered,” the many-glimmered doll said. 

Arrayed in the gifts of true friendship, the Little Smoleroid functioned happily ever after. 

*This story was inspired by little sister M, who told me about Pandora dolls . . . miniature dolls traveling around Europe from the 14th to 19th centuries that showcased the latest fashions!

 ~*~  

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The Luniferous Gazette #54: A Very Tiny Book Review on International Fairy Day

Syllabic Magic in Miniature

I’d already planned to write a review of Very Tiny Books today, and was unexpectedly delighted to learn that June 24th is International Fairy Day!

Have you ever encountered a fairy? Perhaps I glimpsed one in the woods of Connecticut many years ago in 2009, hiding in an amethystine sun flare . . . 

 

 

There is a certain pleasure in miniature things that cannot be replicated on a macro scale. To hold a tiny book in hand is like cupping a secret in your palm, or a syllabic truffle meant only for your mind’s enjoyment in that moment.

I remember in the early 2000’s, tiny books were absolutely everywhere! Book shops, department stores, even restaurant gift shops like Cracker Barrel. I found their micro-sized script and illustrations extremely enticing for both cuteness and convenience. Which is another way of saying that I accidentally amassed a small library—here is a modest selection:

Some of them were from my mother. She had a very tattered copy of The Jewels of the Spirit, and was overjoyed to find a new edition that she gave to all three of her daughters one Christmas.

In it she wrote, “I hope you like this as much as I did.”

Her syllabic treasury is now mine to cherish, too:

“Every star is made brighter by the darkness surrounding it.”

“Though the Rose is plucked . . . the Root remains.”

-The Jewels of the Spirit 

Some tiny books I thrifted, like this plain but elegant little book, Flowers for My Friend. It was compiled by Christina M. Anello and printed in 1992 in Hong Kong by Peter Pauper Press, Inc. The copyright page also has the following dedication in italics, “For my sister, Marisa.”  

My favorite quote inside it is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

“The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand and share its dew-drop with another near.”

Christina and Marisa, I’m glad this little compendium of yours exists.

And of course, there were a plethora of inspirational and encouraging tiny tomes to choose from!

 

 Here is a bright pebble of wisdom from The Spirit of Flight:

“To hope and dream is not to ignore the practical. It is to dress it in colors and rainbows.” -Anne Wilson Schaef

My mother also loved a little book from 1962 called One was Johnny: A Counting Book by Maurice Sendak, and eventually acquired a brand new mini set of Sendak’s work. The pages of her childhood copy barely cling to the binding! The hilarious illustrations show Johnny’s home becoming progressively overrun by wild creatures until he begins to count backwards and tame each disastrous scenario, and ends with the triumphant declaration:

“1 was Johnny, who lived by himself /AND LIKED IT LIKE THAT!”

And then of course, we can’t neglect the wonder of pocket-sized fantasias:

 

From A Tolkien Treasury, Colin Wilson proclaims, “The children who swallow the star are the poets—like Yeats or Tolkien—who become wanderers between two worlds.”

One of my smallest fairy tale collections disguises itself in a mini card case:

But pop the lid off, and TADA! The wondrous works of Beatrix Potter reveal themselves. Fancy the tale of the squirrel Nutkin and his brother Twinkleberry? I got you covered.

 One of my smallest books is rather bittersweet now. I suppose you can guess who I gave it to in 2002 . . .

“Nobody can have the soul of me. My mother has had it, and nobody can have it again. Nobody can come into my very self again, and breathe me like an atmosphere.” -DH Lawrence, “Letters” 1936.

Thanks for teaching me to love tales, big and small, short or tall, Mom!

*There is one last matter to attend to in this issue—the newest equine addition to my Artweaver herd of horses. After visiting an aquarium last week, I was inspired by the diminutive beauty of the dwarf seahorse to make June a marine cousin of the land rovers.

 

Confession: my favorite part of this picture is actually the pink pearl. And if, perchance, you want to practice drawing pearls, too, might I recommend this excellent and easy tutorial by Arts Core.  

 ~*~  

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The Luniferous Gazette #53: So Let Me Leaf

Respect for the (Usually) Utterly Unremarkable Iris

My iris blossoms are dying off now. 

They only last a few weeks at the early start of June. But in that brief burst of lofty floral towers, there is nothing more beautiful in the universe!

No petal that more perfectly commands my gaze—

And they grow stubbornly towards the sky despite any obstacles that would bar their beauty from florescence . . . 

But the greatest lesson I take from them each summer is that they are a quiet plant for most of the seasonal cycle. Nothing flashy or special, just green blades swaying on the breeze, sometimes jewel-lit by a liquid spangle—

 

No one affords them much admiration when their blossoms are yet unspoken colors. And why would they? 

 Utterly Unremarkable

My favorite flower remains
utterly unremarkable
for more than
eleven-twelfths
of the year,
—invisible—
of the least traces of glory
except for a few stray
weeks in summer.

But oh, what showy diadems
the Iris bares beneath blue airs
in those fleeting June hours—
Each blossom a fragile fortress
that defies gravity with
sheer transient beauty.

I hope one day to bloom like so,
to race past my eleventh-twelfth
as my syllables and stories grow
straight and sleek as blades
cutting towards the sky!

Half a life ago, I wished all
my pages would burst into
unyielding incandescence.
But now, I bide my time
in the soft dark of
linear dreams,

—ever so slowly—

Inking a petal and paper tiara
so that one day, perhaps, I
shall have a coronet to
hold up to the sun and
share like a soul.

 

Living in the dazzle-me era of social media can make one feel like a failure when you’re not presenting yourself as a perennial show flower. One that never wilts, blesses a fallow spell, or bulbs in the deep loam of mediocrity before tracing the shape of a blossom!

The iris reminds us: 

“Don’t look at me. Really, don’t bother—I’ll blossom when I’m good and ready, when I’ve supped on enough sky and filled my roots to the brim with delicious dirt and cool waters! 

So let me LEAF." 

"I’ll crown the world with colors when it’s time. Maybe only for a moment . . . and maybe that ephemeral flash is all I ever needed.”  

Here, then gone—but always wholly myself. 

 ~*~  

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The Luniferous Gazette #52: Where do all the lost -lys lie?

 To Ink Wildly or Pen Purposefully

I get it. Just as a bonsai requires pruning for its branches to trace dendritic refinement in the air, writing demands a succinct form of artistry on the page. 

Slash your adverbs! And don’t be dear about it. 

Often, I woefully surrender my adverbs to the chopping block before my precious adjectives. But sometimes, I can’t help wondering while still resentfully yielding my adverbial delights to such adversarial precision—

Where do all the -lys go when we viciously clip them free from our sentences? I imagine lone -ly syllables piled together in a sort of suffix limbo, softly sighing: 

Let’s pretend that we never cruelly swished them away! That we deeply cherished each one. Now hold the -lys in your mouth. Carefully spell them out loud like you truly mean your word—

I’ll go first: 

Exhibit A:

My mother wore a purple band
in her hair that glossi-ly winked
like an amethyst strand.

Exhibit B:

The willow bent beautiful-ly,
safe-ly tossing storm bells
back to the sky.

Or, let’s try tacking stray -lys onto other words like strange wings:

She wonderly wiled her days away. 

They said goodbye, dewly gazing at one another across the starry void . . . .

I everly wish to forget you, but may neverly shatter that mirror—

I am acutely silly here, and not the least bit sorry for this ridiculous post, either! I only hope that the next time you are sorely tempted to clip an adverb from your magnus opus in pursuit of syllabic perfection, you pause—

Keenly wonder in your ink of hearts where all the lost -lys lie.  

 ~*~  

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The Luniferous Gazette #51: You are Cordially Invited to the Spring Faerie Gala

What Are You Going To Wear? 

Dear Mortal,

You are cordially invited to the Spring Faerie Gala. Please come in appropriate adornment.

Sidereally yours,

Queen Titania

Oh my sparklestars! Not sure what to wear? Do not fear, mortal kin, for I am well-versed in the gossamer games of the Faerie Vale—

 

Iris iolite silk is always an elegant choice. 

 

And never dismiss the beauty of the iris blade. A green dewdrop choker is ever in style. 

Just don’t forget your gloves—the midnight dances can turn chilly with the trill of a harp.

If you wish to be bold and perhaps catch the eye of the Fey that evening, don a columbine dragon mask.

Trust me, you’ll thank me later: carry a spare blossom bud in your satchel to balm and brighten your lips.

You didn’t hear it from me, but it’s rumored that Queen Titania is leaning towards a pink aurora as the season’s favored hue . . . 

Of course, you can always don a cloudburst chiffon cluster to stand out at court. 

 If you don’t wish to be flashy, dress in demure foliations with a single liquid brooch as a focal gem.

 A tint of sun-caught satin makes for a dashing kerchief. 

 And a delicate leaf fascinator adds a pop of glamour to any coiffure! 

Personally, I will always favor amber sunrise silk for my signature ballgown.

 Although there are those who prefer a more spare-petal silhouette for ease of flitting. 

Lastly, carry a sprig of lilac in your pocket to perfume your meager stretch of years with perennial dreams of the gala . . . . 

 ~*~  

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The Luniferous Gazette #50: There's a Horse on the Radio

Childhood Memories of Searcher and Stallion

So for May’s addition to my Artweaver herd of equines, I wanted to scribble something sort of techno in theme: 

But then I wondered—what kind of post could I write to go along with such a creature? There was only one right answer . . . it’s finally time. Time to rave about the wondrous adventure that is Searcher and Stallion! This science fiction audio drama series was broadcast in the 1990’s in Salt Lake City, on the non-profit community radio station KRCL 90.9 FM. 

I believe I was about ten or eleven when I first stumbled across it one fateful Sunday evening. I was just sitting in the darkness of my bedroom listening to the radio on my little cassette player (no fancy phones back then to sap my brain space and give me tile face, so I had to find other ways to entertain myself). But nothing could’ve prepared me for the epic awesomeness of this chance encounter while tuning into random channels. 

I mean, just listen to this introduction. Searcher and Stallion is a masterpiece of storytelling, narration, sound effects, and sweeping music all wrapped up in roughly half hour episodes. 

I was instantly mesmerized by the story of an amnesiac man waking up in the 58th century, alone on a laboratory table. But not truly alone—for he’s never far from his robotic companion, Stallion, a technological marvel of a beast with an FTL (faster than light) drive that allows for space travel! Oh, and a mechanical heart fiercely loyal to his human friend. 

I was already quite obsessed with horses as child. But I must confess that the metallic silver gleam of this star-hopping horse filled me with awe and upstaged even the Black Stallion’s supreme majesty in my heart. Donning a powered suit of armor called an “exoskel,” Searcher embarks on a quest to discover the truth about his past, and why his human body never ages. Stallion is his only constant in this mystery that spans the Galactic Mega Empire. 

The story concept was created in 1991 during a meeting between Wayne Tyler, Scott Howard, John Phillips, and Kendall Jackman. Fortunately for us, the vast majority of the series is available to listen to for free thanks to the Internet Archive. 

I was instantly hooked on Searcher and Stallion’s adventures and eagerly awaited new episodes each Sunday evening. I think the series played around 10:30 p.m.? Rather late for a school night, but I didn’t care! Neither did my little sisters. Before long, my pesky, inquisitive siblings heard me listening to the strange space adventure and wanted in, too. 

I asked my sister B what she loved best about Searcher and Stallion, and she remembered how each episode played perfectly like a movie in your head. I agree—plain darkness made an excellent theater for the mind as the audio drama was so well written and performed that really, all you needed to do was LISTEN while your rapt atoms shook under the vision. 

I asked my sister M about a vivid memory of the series, and she replied without hesitation, Jessica Coramondi’s beautiful, long red hair. (*Apologies if I am misspelling her surname, I could not find a written example online). Oh, Jessica! In my opinion, her character is one of the most pivotal of the entire series, Searcher’s one and only true love—

Jessica is a central figure in my absolute favorite Searcher and Stallion story, the 12-part series “The Nemesis” by Brad Torgersen. At 35 years of age, she’s already a veteran commander with two decades of service under her belt. After pirates attacked her quiet home world of Farmington Fields and left her an orphan when she was just fifteen, Jessica joined the military to protect and serve others. Now stationed on the backwater planet of Beramis 3, she’s accidentally drawn into a cosmic web of intrigue meant to catch Searcher and Stallion—not her. And yet, she will never back down from a fight, not while she still has her trusty gap laser rifle! 

I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say that the villains are expertly evil. Searcher’s arch enemy, Contiac (*unsure of spelling) has harried him across multiple stories and stars. Ancient and cunning in his schemes, Contiac draws Searcher to Beramis 3 to unlock the mysteries of an inscrutable cube that will respond only to his DNA. Contiac also reels in the brutish Arkron (*guessing again on spelling), another man with a missing past and a gigantic exoskel designed for ultimate dominance. 

And then there is the vast and enigmatic figure that appears across the series—the Creature with the Mask of Stars, a being who watches Searcher and Stallion’s miniscule lives from light-years beyond the edge of the universe!

But it is the pure heart of the series that draws me deep into the audio drama. 

*(MAJOR SPOILERS for “The Nemesis” episode 12 ahead . . . )

I almost cried at the end of “The Nemesis” when Searcher leans against Stallion’s neck, hugging his robotic companion. Each had presumed the other had died and left them truly alone, forever. A man embracing his beloved horse in any era of the cosmos will always tug at my heartstrings. My tears are also summoned with the rain when Jessica sacrifices herself to save Searcher, her body destined to be buried beside her parents’ graves on Farmington Fields. Yet I will never give up my sliver of hope that her tragic fate can somehow be changed by the cryptic blue sparkle of the cube!

I keenly remember how much Searcher and Stallion’s stories meant to me when my family moved from Utah to the East Coast. I think I was about 15 years old, and both excited and scared for this giant move that would uproot me from everything I held familiar in my life. As my father drove our trusty Toyota across multiple states for several days, I took Searcher and Stallion along with me for this new journey. 

Luckily, I’d recorded some of my favorite episodes on my cassette player. I stuffed these cassette tapes inside a clear-faceted, acrylic tissue box holder along with my battery-operated cassette player with a headphone jack. That tissue box holder might as well have been made of cut crystal for the precious cargo it contained within it. 

I listened to episodes of Searcher and Stallion the entire way, finding both comfort and assurance in them—I could be brave, too. I could . . . wander! Maybe not as far away as the Gossamer Nebula, but I could explore new places and try new things in my own small world. 

And I can never overstate the importance of Searcher and Stallion in nurturing my adoration for speculative fiction. I cherish the space duo’s adventures just as dearly as Star Trek, Star Wars, and the works of sci-fi masters like Arthur C. Clarke, Anne McCaffrey, and Isaac Asimov. 

So to everyone at KRCL Radio Station who threw all their passion into bringing this audio drama series to life in the 90’s, thank you for broadcasting the wild dreamscape of Searcher and Stallion over the airwaves. I know I’m far from the only one who stumbled across it in wonder, and imagined a brighter, more marvelous galaxy in their heart . . . 

And secretly wished for a robotic friend named Stallion, too.

*Want to support KRCL Radio Station? Donate here. 

Source:

“Searcher and Stallion.” Internet Archive. 
<https://archive.org/details/searcher-and-stallion>

 ~*~  

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The Luniferous Gazette #49: Dragon Crumbs* A Slice of Space Cake

 Speculative Stories for Your Consternation and Delight

The girl entered the visitor’s lounge with both hands balled tightly against her sides. Nobody on Natrine gave a split credit about her since Gramps keeled over three years ago. So who had the blazing nerve to summon her here and make her skip out on lunch break? Curdled glopatite was the least offensive protein on the menu! 

Except it wasn’t “someone,” just a freaking android. A shiny silver robot with the basic silhouette of a human and a smooth chrome-dome face with no features—a budget bot? But wearing a pilot’s cap with an astral insignia. Weird. 

“Did you forget to plug in and charge your brain bank, Cap?” she scoffed. The girl plopped onto a bench and sneered at the android sitting stiffly at the other end of the table. “’Cuz I think you docked in the wrong port—”

“Delinquent 306, congratulations!” the android said in a tinny voice, a neon blue speech bar lighting up in the crude approximation of a smile. “You’ve been selected for early release from juvenile detention into the custody of the Melarkin Cruise Corporation.” 

The girl didn’t buy one ounce of that AI can of congrats. “Only poshborns from the fancy filtered side of the city ever ride those starships, not slummer kids like me. What’s the catch, botsby?” she demanded. 

The android raised a hand in surrender. “No catch! Merely a business proposition. I am the tour leader of Flight 2220 to Astara Prime, and responsible for eight hundred passengers in suspended hibernation for the duration of a five-year voyage—”

The girl sucked in her breath. Astara Prime was a frontier world still rife with an unmucked paradise! At least, if the holo-ad vistas were to be believed . . . .

“We maintain a proprietary Sensory Enhancement program to elevate the neural experience of our customers,” the android prattled on in a smooth tone. “Exercise programs, meditative routines, and daily culinary specials—all while in a carefully-tailored dream-state. Unfortunately, the computer software for the culinary element has malfunctioned. Our cruise CANNOT deviate from the flight schedule for repairs without incurring significant expenses. That’s where you can assist the corporation.” 

The girl choked on a laugh. “Me? You better beep your headquarters, because you got your wires crossed if you think I’m an engineer—”

“No, you’re a Super Taster,” the android interrupted. 

“Hah! Never heard such a load of cyberyack-up,” the girl replied, unnerved by the strange label—but also, curious. 

“Your biological intake profile indicates that you possess the TAS2R38 gene,” the robot explained with precision patience. “As such, you have a greater density of fungiform papillae than the average human. I believe the colloquial term is ‘taste buds.’ Have you ever noticed an intense flavor reaction when eating certain foods—bitter, savory, salty, sweet or sour?” 

The girl bit the side of her lip as she considered the android’s bizarre question. “I mean, one-time I snatched a fresh purlim from a fruit stall, and I got skin bumps with the first bite—” Her mouth watered at the memory, worn thin by the past few years of scrounging the city streets for scraps. She folded her arms across her chest as her mouth set in a scowl. “So how do my fancy taste buds help you with your fried ship circuits?”

The android raised a single finger. “Simple! Once a day, you will don a neural headset and eat a meal prepared to the highest standards of human consumption. At the conclusion of the voyage, your record of petty thievery, loitering, and graffiti shall be expunged. You will then be free to start a new life on Astara Prime with an adequate compensation package from the Melarkin Cruise Corporation for your service.” 

The girl blinked as he suddenly projected a holo-document from his palm onto the table.

“Should you find these terms acceptable, please review this non-disclosure agreement. This matter is entirely confidential, of course,” he added. 

The girl snickered at the idea of a bunch of plush-pocket sleepers tasting the cake her gutter mouth was scarfing down. Even better, she’d get paid for their dine-in dream while they never even knew she existed? Thank Melarkin for their sneaky, cost-cutting practices! 

“Where do I sign, Cap?” she asked, grinning with imaginary fangs as she anticipated countless deluxe feasts aboard the cruiser. 

Five minutes and one legally binding contract later, the girl exited Natrine’s premier detention center in a comfy new blue and silver track suit of the Melarkin Cruise Corporation. 

“Welcome to the program, Delinquent 306,” the android said as he ushered her into a hover taxi that would take them to the space port. 

The girl cleared her throat as they sat side by side in the vehicle. “Since we’re going to be stuck in the stars together for the next five years, why don’t you call me by my human name—”

"That would be improper,” the android interrupted smoothly. 

The girl felt a prick of annoyance at how often the bot cut her off, but maybe human brains were just too slow for its quantum-speed processors.

“Besides, until the completion of the voyage, your criminal record stands, Delinquent 306,” the android reminded her. 

The girl rolled her eyes. “Okay, just call me ‘Del’ for short. What do I call you, Cap?”

Big mistake. The android threw itself into introduction mode with exacting gusto. “My complete designation is Non-Biologic Autonomous Tour Leader Alpha—”

“’Cap’ it is,” Del replied. 

The first week aboard Cruiser Flight 2220 dazzled her senses with the surreal glow of cobalt blue sleeper pods. As the faux constellation of hibernating passengers gleamed like gigantic sconce gems set in the ship’s walls, sometimes the girl wondered if she was the one dreaming, not them. For how could the drab scrap of her life turn into such a stellar-grade drama after the simple swish of an NDA? Now she was a freaking space princess with a dozen servants, er, androids at her beck and call! 

All of them shared the same cyberlink with Cap, but she named the mess hall bot “Kitch,” and the hulking engineer “Wrenchie,” and—she couldn’t keep back a smile as each one greeted her as “Miss Del” with the morning cycle. But the ship didn’t start to feel homey until the androids cleared a pantry closet just for her own private usage.  

“Biological units require a peaceful nest for optimal digestion,” Cap noted.

Sage droid. 

Every evening, Kitch prepared a fantastic “gastronomic experience” that Del scarfed down in carefully portioned bites. With practice, she managed to stretch the timing of each gulp to thirty seconds exactly! 
The neural helmet hummed loudly against her skull during each meal session, but the girl slowly learned to block out the annoying whirr. Del was particularly proud when she finally mastered the art of savoring goblets of mist-frosted malingenberry while cleansing her palate with a petite dab of tiruloo mint butter. However, after a particularly succulent haunch of dolga lamb, one night she found her stomach rebelling . . . .  

“No hitch in the system allowed.” Cap’s hydroponics bot promptly set up an infinity pool tank so that Del could pursue a physical exercise routine at her leisure. 

“Thanks, Greenberg,” she said with hearty sincerity. 

Yet as Del cavorted in her twelve-by-twelve tank with a wild splash that bathed the deck, she tried to ignore the nagging realization; this new toy was all just part of Cap’s efficiency protocol to maintain her wellbeing as an irregular but essential crew member. Still, even so—she didn’t mind the illusion of being looked after. Leastwise, not until it landed her homework with Kitch!

“You will need to find gainful employment on Astara Prime, but lack any notably useful skills,” the mess hall bot admonished her as it diced a small mountain of murgle tubers into cubes. 

Ouch! Snob bot. Del brushed off the android’s astute observation as she twirled on a stool beside the kitchen counter. “I dunno, maybe another Melarkin cruiser will malfunction and I can be the neural poodle on a different voyage,” she retorted. 

“Highly unlikely,” Kitch replied as he stopped her twirl just a nanosecond before dizziness knocked her off her perch. “Today, we shall begin your certification in level 1 cooking. As a super taster, you already have the nascent potential to become a highly proficient chef.” 

Del stuck out her tongue. “Can’t certify natural talent!” 

Kitch raised his spatula finger. “I beg to differ, biological unit. The genetic ability to differentiate between subtle flavor variations and the mental acuity to utilize ingredients in just the right quantity are entirely different skill sets. The latter is only learned through repetitive practice.” 

Del steeled herself for culinary battle. “Okay—certify me.”

The process proved surprisingly dangerous as she very nearly lost a thumb to foundational knife skills on day one! Del discovered that she detested protein fabrication, but adored pastry basics, especially when it involved baking any format of fluffy cake. Yet her favorite homework was always sauce and flavor development—those assignments were the only ones where Kitch allowed her into the exotic herbarium at the back of the mess hall. All the galaxy’s rarest herbs flourished there in carefully labeled vertical planters. 

“For tonight’s Firekrackn’ Super Novalicious Pasta© dish, which botanical element would you select to elevate the spicy heat humans term ‘zing’?” Kitch asked. 

“Hmm, maybe—” Del paused to scan the scarlet, emerald and burgundy gems hanging from the pepper planters until her eyes fastened on a deep red specimen so dark that it practically glowed with an innate black light. “Oh, that one looks ultralicious!” She reached her fingers out to pluck it when Kitch enclosed her wrist in an iron tong hand. 

“Never touch a Kessler pepper without protective gear,” Kitch warned. “Even a small drop of the chemical compound contained within it can cause severe nerve pain when improperly handled. Your sensitivity as a super taster could send you into shock with improper exposure, even—sudden death. Worse, if you ate something of that magnitude of Scoville Heat Unit while wearing the neural helmet, you could potentially disturb the passengers’ hibernation cycles or possibly induce a medical emergency.” 

Wait, so endangering the passengers’ naptime session was a worse scenario than her own death? Eh, made perfect sense by bot-brain logic. Del couldn’t take it too personally. 

The girl swallowed hard, staring at the glowing dark pepper with a newfound respect. “You know, I’m not really in the mood for anything spicy tonight. Can we swap with tomorrow’s dish, uh—'Cilantro Shrimptopia Luxuriana©’?” she asked. 

A secret rush of relief filled her when Kitch agreed to her proposed switch up. However, as Del munched on her lovely mild pasta dish during the scheduled evening meal, the weight of the neural helmet suddenly felt a ton-load heavier. 

“You should’ve warned me about the helmet’s danger, Kitch! I didn’t know I could hurt the passengers with what I ate. Now my stomach’s got the jitters,” she confessed.

“Why?” Kitch inquired with a curious curtness. “There is no need to concern yourself with such legal matters. The passengers all signed a health waiver—it’s in the fine print of every ticket. And the benefits are also clearly outlined: the neural dream-state also allows passengers to partake of flavor profiles that would otherwise be denied to them in their waking life.”

Del perked up at this new revelation. “Neat! But what sort of flavor can one only taste in a dream?” she asked. 

“Simply put, the helmet’s neural link overrides natural flavor preferences,” Kitch replied. “But perhaps this is best explained with an object lesson.”  

After dinner, the android took her on a tour of the main hibernation hall and stopped before a single glowing blue capsule set in the lower wall. A teenage boy about five years her senior slept peacefully in Pod #800. A messy thatch of dark hair covered half his face as if he’d been frozen in place in a hurry.  

“Last human aboard, huh?” Del whispered. Well, besides herself. 

“This juvenile male has the OR6A2 gene, which makes him highly sensitive to aldehydes,” Kitch said. 

"Alda-what?” Del asked.

 “A chemical compound used in soap that is also naturally found in herbs such as cilantro.” Kitch tapped the glass that separated the sleeping boy from the waking world. “Instead of a pleasant bright and citrusy flavor, there is a high probability that cilantro tastes like dirt or detergent to him.” 
Del snickered. “Then I’ll just have to eat lots of cilantro so Passenger #800 has tasty dreams to last him for the rest of his life!”

 But it was the rest of her own life that began to trouble her. Deep space muddled her brain, and before Del realized it, eight months had already whizzed by aboard the cruiser. A knot twisted in her middle whenever she accidentally clocked the time. Sometimes, she wished Flight 2220 would never end! Astara Prime was probably a bust, anyway . . . just another glossy human lie that was never near as nice as paradise—

As arguing about recipes with Kitch, or losing at carousel chess against Cap, or weaving a crown of cables for Wrenchie, or feeding the algae blobs with Greenberg, or sanitizing the deck plates with fizzing bubblers with Mops for the thousandth time—why couldn’t they all stay like this forever? Drifting across the star ways under the sapphire daze of dreamers she secretly wished would never wake up so that she could keep her own shiny dream on ever-play mode . . . .

Yet on the two hundred and forty-fourth night of the voyage, Del awoke from a dead sleep as a violent tremor rocked the cruiser. She sat bolt upright as her fingertips and toes tingled as if singed by fire! 

“Hey Kitch, did a solar flare zap the hull?” Del asked after venturing out of her pantry closet warily. A gasp escaped her as she discovered the mess hall bot lying on the ground in a twitching pile, his spatula hand slapping the floor repeatedly. 

The android was stuck in a flapjack flipping loop! But Kitch was just an extension of Cap’s cyberbrain, so if one bot was down . . . did that mean all his units were malfunctioning? A large pile of androids in the main hibernation vault confirmed her worst waking nightmare. 

Del peered around a pillar at the horrid sight of nine Cap models thrown together in a heap of twitching limbs in the middle of the deck. Her knees melted to jelly sticks as a pair of humans dragged two more androids to the pile. Raiders! How’d these scummers breach the cruiser’s automatic defense system? The man and woman strode about with blasters and laser cutters like they already owned the ship. 

Dirty mercs. It’d been so long since she’d seen another free-roving human that Del found herself recoiling—straight into her enemy’s grasp. The girl yelped as a massive hand collared her, lifting her into the air like a sack of spuddlers.   

“Oy, Melize! I thought you said there’d only be dozers on this cruiser. You missed a little rat,” the third raider said with a deep-throated chuckle that was much closer to a growl. 

The woman pursed her lips in a sour frown that reminded Del of a fermented prune. “Shuddup, Jay. She’s probably just a stowaway.” 

“I’m not a rat or a stowaway, I’m a . . . a Super Taster!” Del protested as she glared at her captor, an over-muscled brute with a bald head as shiny as a peeled onion. The girl sputtered through a few well-buttered lies as she illuminated her extremely crucial role aboard the cruiser: 

“And if I don’t keep a regular meal-time schedule to cover Melarkin’s top-secret culinary malfunction, you folks could end up in deep trouble. You don’t want 800 hangry passengers waking up, now do you? So you best let me live, er, EAT!” the girl finished with gritted teeth. 

“Aww, she’s such a cute little liar.” Melize laughed, her shrill tone ending in a dead flat note. “Should we toss the squeaker out of an airlock, Jeriah?” 

Del gulped as the man with double blaster holsters attached to his belt flicked his fingers across the main computer terminal, completely ignoring the ruckus. 

“Nah, kid’s telling the truth,” Jeriah replied. “Logs show she was added as a temp worker to the kitchen crew after being transferred from a juvenile detention center on Natrine.” 

“Poor thing!” Jay exclaimed, setting Del down gently and mussing her hair under a huge hand. “Those corporate slimeballs are forcing even young’un’s into labor contracts now. Don’t worry, you can join our crew—the Free Starwave Alliance pays LOADS better.” 

Yup. Definitely mercenaries.  

"Uh . . . thanks!” Del’s lower lip trembled most convincingly. She was infinitely grateful the raiders had skipped the airlock option—for now. But she desperately needed more intel to up her survival odds. “So what does Starfree, er, your alliance want with this ship?” she inquired.  

“Unclaimed baggage,” Jeriah said brusquely. He jabbed his finger towards a very familiar pod. “The senator’s brat is registered as Passenger #800. Unhook his pod, Jay. Start the waking procedures at once.”

Del shivered as the burly man strode towards the sleeping boy. “You broke into a Melarkin Cruiser for a single person?” she asked, incredulous.  

“Not a person! Collateral,” Melize replied with a breezy cruelty that Del had almost forgotten after holing up for eight months with androids. “His father owes our organization a fat heap of credits. So, we’ll hang onto his spawn until that poshborn senator repays his dues—with interest, of course.”  

Poor Cilantro. Sometimes it was truly better to be born gutter trash than a politician’s son! Del just had to look out for her own now . . . .

“What about the crew?” she asked quietly, keeping her voice casual. “What’ll happen to them?” 

“Who? Oh, you mean the mandroids.” Melize tittered.

“Don’t you worry none about those old boss bots,” Jay assured the girl as he set Cilantro’s pod down and sat on it like a bench. “The stunwave got’em offline for a few hours, but we’ll incinerate every last unit before we leave—no data trails left behind!” 

“And no excessive property damage,” Jeriah admonished his crew members severely. “Don’t forget that the ship’s emergency beacon will automatically activate after the next status report to headquarters is missed. Melarkin should keep our break-in under wraps to protect their profit margin just so long as we keep our destruction limited to AI personnel only.” 

Del gulped as absolute, undiluted fear roiled in the pit of her stomach. She was going to lose her family all over again! First, it was Gramps on Natrine. And now Cap, Kitch—every version of the android who had cared for her these many months with a wonderfully measured precision no vague, insincere and emotion-riddled human could ever match.  

Nope.

Del calibrated her lips in a smile that showed only the barest hint of teeth. “Okay, I’m in! Thanks for springing me from this dank blue rust bucket. But while we’re all waiting for the junior senator to defrost, want to try my cake?” She jerked her head towards the mess hall. “I’ve been perfecting my Laruvian Cream Puff Delight© for two weeks now. Think of it as . . . a welcome treat for letting me join your crew!” 

Jay licked his lips. “I could do with some dessert after a job well-done. Whatcha say, Jeriah?”

The man with the double blasters finally shifted his gaze from the computer terminal to gaze at Del with ice-blue eyes that sent an electric tingle dancing up her spine. “Sure. I’ll try a slice.”

Melize tapped her laser cutter. “Better make mine a corner slice, and no skimping on the cream!” 
Del cracked her knuckles one by one. “Oh, they’ll be plenty for everyone—I promise.”

The pod’s defrosting process required approximately two hours for completion. Whipping up the cake would take an hour and forty-five minutes if she rushed the cooling process before slathering on the cream coating. That left just a fifteen-minute window for Del to get the raiders to stuff their faces with her ultra special attack pastry before it was time to trash the androids and spirit her off with Cilantro into the starry deep of space—

She’d rather nosedive into a black hole! With a secret ingredient that just might get her through to the other side of the void. If it didn’t kill her first . . . . 

Del seated her guests at three stools by the long metal counter in the mess hall, making a great show of adding each element: hand-harvested wheat from the Kolben crop rings, dark brown sugar from the lunar cane fields of Listra 9, a copious teaspoon of SuperNovaNilla, and—

“For the berry infusion, I’ll add ripe Melugas,” Del announced grandly. Her hands shook as she entered Kitch’s exotic herbarium with an empty bowl . . . and a flavor extractor tube tucked inside her pocket. When she returned to the counter, the sweat beading against her brow stung cold as snow. 

Time to tempt fate on a plate! But a hitch in her plan arose right after she cut four fat slices of cake. 

“Oh, wear this silly cap while you eat!” Melize ordered, shoving the helmet across the counter towards the girl. She sniggered. “I want to see this ridiculous contraption in action.”

“Yeah! Give the sleeping Melarkies one last taste of your masterpiece,” Jay said with a wink. 

“Okay,” Del said, that single word crumbling like ashes in her mouth. 

It would be such an easy thing to slip on the helmet. She’d risk all eight hundred human lives if it meant she could save Cap! Wouldn’t even blink on it once. But Cap’s programming would never forgive her if she endangered the health of the other passengers. Del snapped a single wire and carefully hid the red thread behind her ear as she donned the helmet. Her finger twist should sever the neural link’s power—probably.

“Happy birthday or whatever!” Del said, taking a large bite of cake. She had to prove her pastry wasn’t poisoned, after all . . . .

Jay and Melize attacked their own slices after seeing her ravenous enthusiasm. Excellent! Gobble up, suckers. But why was Jeriah so stinking slow and stabby with his bites? Del’s panic built quietly as time was running out before—

“Got a loose wire there, kid,” Jeriah said as he set his fork down. “That thing even on?” 

Del gulped as she realized the wire behind her ear had come untucked. “That happens sometimes,” she laughed nervously. “Finnicky thing—” Her heart skipped a beat as Jeriah’s fingers slid towards the blasters on his belt.

Bye, Cap! Del sighed. 

A split second before the breath finished leaving her lips, timed flavor capsules burst in everyone’s stomachs and released a payload of premium Kessler pepper oil. Then a huge surge of capsaicin bound with the pain receptors in four human bodies at near light-speed. The raiders dropped from their seats in writhing paroxysms of nausea as severe cramps wracked their digestive system. 

Del knew what was coming. She was a super taster, after all—Kitch had warned her that a single dose of Keppler pepper could be fatal to her ultra-sensitive palate. So, she’d stretched her showy bites out to thirty seconds flat to consume fewer pepper oil capsules . . . yeah, she would’ve needed to stretch her chews by a millennium! The girl doubled over as the full heat of the spice hit her cells. Her scream strangled into coughs as tears streamed down her eyes, acid roared up her throat, and her sinuses flared under the lofty Scoville scale of the almighty Kessler. 

But through this agonizing haze, Del watched with satisfaction as Jeriah fainted and flopped floor-side like a dish rag. Wimp. Melize stumbled to the fridge locker and grabbed a carton from the milk rack. Fool. The milk’s mild PH wouldn’t come close to neutralizing the pepper’s acid. The raider collapsed clutching an entire rack of cartons against her chest. 

“Why’d you do it, k-kid?” Jay gasped, cracking a deck plate under his massive fist as he drooled over the floor like a rabid dog.    

“Never threaten my crew,” Del spat between burning teeth. “Never—” 

Had the recycling bin always been a thousand light years away, she wondered? Somehow, she had to crawl there before—

Kessler fire ate her alive from the inside out. Del passed out in the cinders of her own torment. Ages and embers of pure pain later, she awoke as two hands shook her shoulders roughly. 

“Hey, girl! You alive?” a nervous voice she’d never heard before inquired softly. 

 Del cracked her gummy eyes open to find a teenage boy shivering above her, his curly hair still damp from the defrosting process. Cilantro was awake! 

“Gimme the mustard bottle in the recycling bin, kwick—” she croaked through her sore throat. She’d hidden the proprietary Melarkin antacid dose inside it that Kitch kept on hand for biological unit emergencies. Hopefully that included unauthorized Kessler pepper consumption. 

The boy darted towards the recycling bin and rushed back with the grimy treasure in hand. “Got it!” he exclaimed.

Del swigged the entire bottle dry down to the last drop. Ah, nothing in her life would ever taste this delicious. Ever. Again! She cast the hollow bottle aside and scowled at the fallen raiders littering the deck plates. Time to get Flight 2220 back in order. Del and her new human companion quickly bound the unconscious mercenaries, dragging the trio into a locked storage closet until Cap’s androids came back

“Your rescue operation was extremely risky and ill-advised, Miss Del,” Cap chastised her gently as he surveyed the droopy, fizzling remnants of the cake on the counter. “Nevertheless—”

“Nevertheless, I rock, right?” Del shot back with a smirk. 

“Indeed,” Cap replied. “You possess a stellar-grade matrix.”  

Del was pretty sure that was the android’s first try at a pun. She appreciated the attempted humor greatly. 

Three days passed before Melarkin Private Security finally cleared the raiders off the cruiser, and a full week before it was time to tuck Cilantro back into his hibernation pod for the rest of the voyage.

“Thanks for saving me, kid,” the boy said humbly before stepping into the empty chamber. 

Just a lucky side effect of her stratagem to save the androids, but he didn’t need to know that. “Don’t mention it,” she said, bristling a little at the casual way he called her “kid.” “And don’t forget that we’ll be the same age when you defrost on Astara Prime.” 

 The boy laughed as he strapped himself in place. “True! See you on the other side of the stars.” 

“Don’t worry. I promise to eat lots of cilantro for you while you’re dreaming,” Del added.

“Huh?” The pod doors snicked shut over the boy’s very confused face. 

Del waited beside his pod until Passenger #800 was safely in hibernation again. “Sleep tight, Maximilian McMartin,” she whispered.  

Now that was a proper mouthful of syllables. The girl wandered back to the mess hall with the odd realization that she wouldn’t talk to another human again for another four years and four months. Weird.

But, also—

Nice to see her whole family unit functioning at peak efficiency again! A lump formed in her throat as all twelve units of Cap clapped as she entered the mess hall. Kitch slid a Kessler-lite recreation of her infamous cake down the counter as Mops ushered her onto a stool. 

Cap set a pristine plate and shining cutlery in front of the girl. “The Melarkin Cruise Corporation would like to congratulate you for preserving the safety of Flight 2220, Miss Del!” The android projected a holo-contract from his palm onto the plate’s surface with glowing neon red ink. “Please accept this NDA and complimentary compensation package.”

“Hmm . . . will it be enough credits for me to open my own restaurant on Astara Prime?” Del asked. 

“Of course. I recommended the highest compensation and bribery package available,” Cap replied. “Will you sign?” 

Del grinned so widely that the universe split a little at the corners with her happiness. “Sure thing, Cap. Right after you cut me a slice of cake!”     

 ~*~  

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