Zeros stood at the navigation terminal.
Blindy was still coughing his lungs out, one hand pressed against the hull wall, growling like something invisible had its hands wrapped around his throat.
“Fuck… I HATE METHANE!
Feels like Doce himself personally farted straight into my mouth.
I can’t get rid of the smell.
Or the taste.
Rusty, you piece of shit,
why didn’t you stop me?!”
Phoenix answered in a dead-serious tone—
that same flat, neutral voice usually reserved for emergency brain shutdown protocols.
The voice flickered with a slight techno-pause,
like it was switching channel modulation:
“Captain, FIRST OF ALL.
Methane has no smell.”
His voice dropped lower,
bass frequencies slightly boosted—
“explaining to idiots” mode:
“These are impurities.
Hydrogen sulfide,
organic residue,
and volcanic gases.”
He ran a quick digital sample,
and a faint synthetic overtone slipped into his voice,
like he just spun up an air analysis:
“Now that—yes.
That smells like something ‘farted’ into your mouth.”
Silence, filled with the statistical whisper of sensors.
“It’s fortunate that Zeros and I do not perceive smell the way you organics do.
For us, chemical composition
is simply numbers and data.”
Then his voice snapped back to cold, official.
A faint metallic edge crept into the end of the sentence—
his tactile “processor exhale”:
“And next time…
I could increase the shield voltage
so you get ELECTROCUTED.”
His voice went perfectly flat,
like a surgical instrument:
“Would you prefer that option?
You appear to lack basic cognitive function by default.”
Another micro-pause.
“By the way, there’s whiskey in your cabin.
Drink it, for fuck sake,
and stop acting like a child.”
Without transition, smoothly,
he switched to Zeros:
“I am waiting for a hyperspace jump coordinate.”
Zeros thought for a picosecond
and gave a short nod:
“Then let’s contact Madeline.
Find out where to dump the cargo…”
Phoenix reported, as communication channels began lighting up across the terminal.
“Connection established.”
And suddenly, on the navigation display,
instead of the galactic map—
a new hologram ignited.
Full height, stepping out into view—
Madeline Crooks, Queen of Quince™,
and beside her—Bob Hatch, almost-king of Macrohard™.
Blindy, who had already been halfway to his cabin,
froze like a deer in headlights,
straightened up, sucked in his gut,
and slowly walked back toward Zeros,
like he was hoping for a camera angle labeled “I ain’t involved.”
The connection was fully established.
And the first thing Zeros and Blindy saw—
Madeline wasn’t even looking at them.
She held a glass of expensive liquor,
animatedly telling something
to someone else beyond the hologram—
some extremely important galactic asshole,
so important the projection couldn’t even render him.
Next to her, Bob Hatch stood,
lazily wrapped around her waist,
laughing at some joke,
completely unaware
that two beings were watching them—
beings who, just minutes ago, had birthed a mini-star
and wiped out an entire species of predators.
For fifteen long seconds,
no one on the line realized the connection had been established.
The hologram streamed:
- Bob’s delighted laughter;
- The clink of Madeline‘s glass;
- The way she nudged his shoulder;
- Some off-screen voice saying:
“…and I told her, darling, to optimize our P&L, we need to consider a hostile takeover of the household budget. We’re talking a full workforce reduction—cut the dead weight, the low-performing assets. Then we pivot to something lean, scalable, cost-effective. Think AI, baby.”
Zeros and Blindy just stood there quietly,
like two regular workers who accidentally slipped into a gala reception of galactic billionaires.
Blindy ran his tongue over dry lips,
caught the lingering taste of rotten eggs mixed with volcanic sludge,
grimaced like his soul was trying to crawl out of him,
and finally snapped, barking into the channel:
“FUCK—I forgot the whiskey—!
While they’re bullshittin’,
I’m gonna chug it real quick—!
Dick-droid, wait for me!”
The phrase was so loud,
so violently out of place,
that Madeline Crooks,
the royal Queen of Quince™,
cut off mid-sentence,
blinked, turned toward the holographic window—
and for the first time noticed
that two idiots had been on the line for a full minute.
Her eyes went completely empty for a split second—
that exact microsecond when a person realizes: “fuck.”
She shoved the glass aside,
elbowed Bob out of frame,
and, voice cracking,
almost shouted:
“I’LL CALL BACK MYSELF!”
The connection cut instantly.
The hologram died so abruptly
Blindy didn’t even finish his thought about whiskey.
Zeros clenched his fist, already about to say his signature—“I HATE EVERYONE!”
—when the connection suddenly came back.
This time, the holographic background was different—
the holo-feed sat on a table, noise was gone,
and it was clear Madeline had stepped into another room…
But unfortunately, Bob was still there,
hovering nearby like a drunk billionaire satellite.
He glanced at Blindy—
who was still stuck on the thought “I’ll chug it quick”,
but now had no idea if he was even allowed to move anymore.
Bob smiled into the lens like he was about to sell them three solar systems:
“My dear,
this is… the long-lost bastard son… uh…
Johanna ‘Johnny’ Rockfeeller VIII™.“
Zeros and Blindy exchanged a synchronized glance.
Same thing in both their eyes. Blindy muttered out loud:
“Oh fuuuuck… we’re caught.”
Madeline instantly pulled a mask over her face—
“gentle, loving, almost-angelic woman.”
A soft tilt of the head…
a charming smile…
a syrup-sweet voice that could make even neural networks choke.
She turned to Bob:
“My love…
why don’t you go mingle with the guests?
I’ll just take care of something quickly…
and I’ll be right back to you. Alright, darling?”
Bob melted into a pleased smile,
his rich shoulders relaxing.
“Of course, dear. Of course.”
He leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips.
And right then, Blindy opened his mouth—
like he was about to say something—
then froze. nope And threw up.
No one understood exactly why:
maybe his body finally gave up on the Erebos atmosphere;
maybe his mind couldn’t handle the visual assault of luxurious rich-people love;
maybe both.
The sound was wet, heavy, disgustingly ceremonial.
Bob froze for a second…
Then burst out laughing—
the kind of laugh only people that rich can have,
where even their 123 accountants don’t know exactly how much money they own.
He waved it off and walked out of the room,
leaving behind a trail of expensive perfume
and emotional damage to the Z-P-N-E-S 2.0 crew.
The moment the door shut,
Madeline dropped the mask instantly.
Her face snapped back to its true form:
cold, calculated, sharp as a blade.
Phoenix managed only a short, sharp:
“CAPTAIN. THAT IS DISGUSTING.”
Like it wasn’t an AI speaking,
but a human who had just remembered they actually had a sense of smell.
Immediately, underfoot, mini cleaning bots began to buzz,
shooting out from the floor panels.
They chirped busily,
bumped into each other,
and started collecting Blindy’s fresh “organic waste.”
From the ceiling, fans kicked in with a low hum—
Phoenix had activated
“emergency biological odor dispersion mode”,
because otherwise, the system might’ve automatically scheduled a murder.