Dennis took off running down the hall with no clue to where he was going. All he knew was that he was inside some alien ship and that he had to find Cassidy. Periodically he would stop and read the signs on the doors and walls but without a reference point, his efforts were worthless. How was he going to find Cassidy in a ship that he knew nothing about. His first instinct was to find an alien and ask them where she was. His second instinct was to find an alien and force them to tell her where she was but picking aliens at random might not work as most probably had no clue to where she was. There had to be a way.
For the next hour, Dennis walked the halls looking in rooms and trying to fit in. His clothes stuck out like a sore thumb so most of the aliens he came across he had to kill by smashing their marshmallow heads in with this fist leaving a long trail behind him. He knew it would be fairly soon before they found him if he didn’t find Cassidy first, and then what was he going to do if he did find her? It wasn’t like they were going to land the ship and let them off just because he asked.
“Who are you?” Dennis heard from behind. He spun around to see a short woman dressed in the same uniform the rest of the aliens were wearing.
“Nobody,” Dennis replied realizing his answer wouldn’t get him anywhere with her.”
“What are you doing out here?” she asked. “I’m looking for Cassidy, have you seen her?”
“The woman in the infirmary? Yes, I’ve seen her,” the alien woman replied to his amazement.
“Where is she?”
“I’ll take you to her,” the alien woman replied. “That’s ok, you can’t point.”
“You can’t get there without a key code, do you have a key code?” she asked. “No, but you can write one down for me.”
Dennis paused for a second to get him mind straight. ‘I’m sorry, I’m in a bit of a rush and I’m really stressed out right now.”
“Then let me take you to her,” the alien said again.
“Why would you do that?” Dennis asked. “You’re going to set me up and get me captured again.”
“You know what? Not all of us are alike you know. I have my own thoughts and ideas. I don’t like what they do around here and I don’t make any bones about it. Heck, I’m willing to get you off this thing if you want. I’d love to see those assholes in charge get a taste of their own medicine.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you? I’ve never met you before.”
“Don’t, I wouldn’t if I were you. Trust has to be earned, not given away lightly. In your situation, the only reasonable thing to do would be to go find her on your own. Do what your instinct tells you to do. “
“I will,” Dennis said walking away from the alien woman. He kept an eye on her as he moved away to make sure she didn’t do anything to jeopardize his mission to find Cassidy and get them off the ship. She didn’t move for a while and then stepped out of the hallway into one of the rooms.
Dennis moved quickly, scanning all around looking for any sign of Cassidy. He needed a break and wasn’t getting anywhere. Now his frustration was turning to anger and his thoughts went from rescue to punishment. Taking a deep breath, he leaned back against the wall and tried to clear his mind and think of a way to figure out where Cassidy was in this huge floating silver football. Then an idea came to him. Maybe if he caused a fire, or some other sort of emergency, it would flush her location out. But then he realized that escaping from his handlers was an emergency of sorts and nobody seemed to care all that much anyway.
“May I help you?” a voice asked.
Dennis looked to his right and saw a tall silver humanoid robot standing in the hall looking at him.
“Yeah, I’m looking for a woman,” Dennis replied. “What is her name?” the machine asked.
“Cassidy Rayne,” Dennis replied without thinking.
“Cassidy Rayne is currently being housed in the medical infirmary on level six. Would you like me to take you to her?”
Dennis was starting to think that maybe these guys weren’t as bad as he thought in the first place. Now he was feeling a bit guilty for turning that last guy into a smashed up marshmallow.” “Yes, take me to her,” Dennis replied.
“Follow me,” the robot said and turned and walked down the hallway. Dennis followed close and kept an eye out for anyone who might be
watching.
“What is this place?” Dennis asked.
“No, I mean this ship, what is it?” “You are aboard the cruise ship xoo5.” “Cruise ship? Like in vacation cruise ship?”
“Yes, are you enjoying your cruise?” the robot asked.
“Actually no, you motherfuckers captured us in mid-flight. What kind of cruise ship does that?”
“We were short on passengers, it’s our way of filling empty cabins.” “If that’s the case, why the anal probe?”
“Oh, that has nothing to do with us that was probably some unruly passengers. Would you like to lodge a complaint to the main office?”
“Now I’m really fucked up, are you saying that I can get off this anytime I want?”
“No, you have to wait for an approved port of call,” the robot replied. “When is the next approved stop?” Dennis asked.
“Mars,” the robot replied and kept walking. “Who runs this fucked up ship?”
“Mars cruise lines LLC.”
“Can I speak to the captain?” Dennis asked pissed.
“No one speaks directly to the captain. He isn’t on the ship anyway, they run the ship from a control center on Mars.”
“Stop for a second,” Dennis demanded. “Then who is in charge on this ship right now?”
The robot stopped and turned to face Dennis. “There is no one in charge. The operations are all controlled back on Mars.”
“Do you have police? Security? I want somebody to do something about those assholes with the anal probe!”
“If you want to lodge a complaint, you can. The situation will be dealt with according to our policy and procedures.”
“Tell you what, for now get me to Cassidy, I’ll deal with those fuckers later.”
“As you wish,” the robot replied and turned back to leading Dennis to Cassidy.
“Out of curiosity, how do you plan to get me to pay for a trip I didn’t ask for? And isn’t this considered kidnapping?”
“Not on Mars it isn’t, we have a whole different set of laws.” “I see, that’s pretty warped.”
“I’m not paying you a fucking dime, not for stealing me out of the sky.” “If you don’t pay, we will get our money anyway, that’s not an issue.” The robot stopped at an elevator and pushed the up button.
“From whom?” Dennis asked.
“We’ll grind you up and feed you to the other passengers.” “That is hostage taking, or extortion.”
“We run a family business, we have bills to pay like everyone else and require a positive cash flow.”
“You treat me more like a cow than a passenger. I’m not livestock!” Dennis yelled as they stepped onto the elevator.
“Then pay up,” the robot said. The doors shut and the two rose up in the elevator shaft to level six. Upon arriving, the door opened and the two stepped out.
“What am I supposed to pay you with? I only have twelve dollars in my wallet.”
“We don’t want your cash, we require something much more valuable.” “What is more valuable than cash?” Dennis asked.
“On Mars, we are poor on minerals. We require massive amounts of Calcium”
“Calcium? Like what teeth are made of?” “Yes.”
“Go mine some limestone, it’s filled with Calcium,” Dennis replied. “Really?” the robot asked.
“You didn’t know that? You come from Mars and don’t do your basic geology?”
“No, we figured we’d just get it out of your bones.”
“You want me to pay you with my bones? What kind of fucked up idea is that?”
“We wouldn’t extract the calcium until you die silly,” the robot replied. Until then you could fly around the universe for free.
“I want out of here, I want you to take me and Cassidy and put us both back on the ground where we were going in the first place.”
“Sorry, we have too many unfilled cabins at this time. Maybe next trip.”
At the end of the hall in a room marked “212” Cassidy sat in a chair by an open door watching television. She had no idea she was aboard an alien ship from Mars. Dennis approached and walked past the robot who was escorting him. “Cassidy,” Dennis said getting her attention. She looked at him as he entered her room with a smile on her face. The robot got a door slammed in its face.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Long story, we need to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible.” “Where are we? In a hospital?” she asked.
“No, we’re onboard a spaceship flying to Mars.” Dennis replied expecting Cassidy to question the comment. She didn’t.
“What are we going to do? I don’t want to go to Mars, they don’t have any air up there.”
“Not sure, I have to find a way to land this thing so we can get off,” Dennis replied.
“Can we run it into an iceberg like the Titanic?”
“We’re thirty thousand feet in the air, there are no icebergs that tall,” Dennis snapped.
“No, but there are other things that are. Like mountains, and airplanes.”
“Yeah, but I’m not in the captain’s chair, heck, I don’t even know where the captain’s chair is on this thing. I don’t know the front from the back. There isn’t a window to be found.”
“Let’s ask someone,” Cassidy stated. The simplicity of it stunned Dennis.
“These are some friendly fuckers I’ll say that, but I don’t feel
comfortable asking anyone questions. Plus that robot told me this thing is run by remote control.”
“Then find the signal and modify it so you can land and get us out of here.”
“If I could find the signal, how the fuck would I know how to change it to do anything? I’m not an electrical engineer or a fucking alien.”
“Fine, be that way, we can get used to living here, and it’s not so bad.” “Did you forget? You’re a porn star. Who’s going to ogle over your naked body up here? They don’t give a fuck about tits or pussy.”
“How do you know? Did you ask them? I bet they have tits and pussies too.”
“I’m sure they do, and looking at yours would be for them like looking at a baboons ass in the zoo.”
“Lots of men like animal sex, don’t discount my idea.”
Just then the floor shook and both Dennis and Cassidy were knocked off balance into a wall. “What was that?” Dennis asked crawling back to his feet. Then the walls shook again and the whole floor tipped a few degrees to one side and stayed that way.
“I’m scared,” Cassidy said holding herself still against the wall.
“Something happened on this ship, a motor blew out, a blown gasket, something.”
Then a repeating siren cut through the air and lights began to flash. In a second a voice came over an intercom and said, “Warning, the ship is under fire and has been hit, everyone brace for impact, now!”
“What do we do?” Cassidy asked in a panic.
“Get on the ground!” Dennis yelled as he hit the floor.
Again the warning repeated and the sirens and lights continued to screech and flash. Quickly the halls filled with panicked aliens running from place to place in a fury.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Dennis said and both of them got back up and followed the first alien that ran by. It didn’t take long for them to reach some sort of escape portal and jump in after the alien.
“Where is this going?” Dennis asked the alien.
Without saying a word, the alien pressed a sequence of buttons, the door slammed shut and the pod ejected into the air away from the mother ship. Dennis and Cassidy watched as the huge silver football grew smaller and smaller in the window and they fell quickly towards the ground below.
“Hit the brakes!” Cassidy yelled watching the ground come closer and closer through the opposite window. And without a sound, the pod slowed on its own and began to hover over the ground. Then touch down gently. “That wasn’t too bad,” Cassidy added, then saw the mother ship pop open like a kernel of popcorn and fall to the ground a few hundred yards away. It was like the Hindenburg without the flames.
“Holy fuck, we could have been on that!” Dennis said with his jaw on the floor.
The alien didn’t seem to be affected at all. Almost robot like. “Are you a robot?” Dennis asked.
The alien looked at him and said, “No, why do you ask?”
“Your entire world just exploded and most of your people just died, did you see that?”
The alien punched a few buttons on the side of the pod and shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t like most of those assholes anyway.”
“You don’t have any family onboard?” Dennis asked.
“I was grown in a pot and raised by two very uninteresting scientists. I could care less. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to see the real world.”
“Do you know where we are?” Cassidy asked.
“Somewhere over Kansas, close to Topeka,” the alien replied. “I don’t care where the fuck we are,” Dennis said, “Now I have a
chance to get the hell out of here and get back on my own planet. Open the door E.T.”
The alien pressed a button and the door opened. “There you go,” the alien said motioning for the two to exit.
Cassidy and Dennis ran out of the escape pod and away from the mother ship as fast as they could. Then the mother ship exploded again and filled the sky with debris and smoke.