Cosmic Jabberwocky

Chapter 3: The Vorpal Blade Goes Snicker-Snack

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

God, I hate zero gravity. And it didn't help having my head jammed into something like a glass jar, although that was better than sucking vacuum. My stomach churned, squeezing globs of foul-tasting bile into my throat, despite taking enough anti-nausea medicine to calm a volcano.

"So what's the next step, Jack?" I asked.

Jack existed now as a voice coming from a cylindrical quantum processor module connected to my space suit controls. At least I didn't have to see his face. He answered, "We get on the Invincible through the aft waste disposal port. Just have to wait until it opens."

Oh, great... We enter the beast through its anus when it takes a dump.

As Alice had predicted, we watched the Invincible blast our ship, the Bandersnatch, into space confetti, fortunately after we had bailed out. Per Jack's plan, we nonchalantly flew our ship around the gigantic starship while feigning communication problems as Jabberwock tried to hail us. In a sensor dead zone just behind the Invincible, Alice and I had abandoned ship in our stylish form-fitting gray spacesuits, tethered together with a long flat strap.

There's no going back now.

Alice came up to me with a smile far too sly for the present state of my digestive system. "Let's dance!"

"Let's not."

With hands on my shoulder, she pulsed a maneuvering thruster, spinning us around in the dark cosmos, grinning all the while.

Why is she doing this? She knew what this did to me.

The movements induced a dizzying vertigo and renewed queasiness. "Stop!" I begged. "I really don't want to barf in my helmet."

Alice narrowed her eyes. "Would serve you right for standing me up."

Oh, so that's what this is about.

"Geez Alice, get over it!" I grumbled. "That was weeks ago. Besides, I called and canceled beforehand, something came up."

"Yeah, like five minutes before so you could go play games with those degenerates--"

"Enough!" Jack bellowed through the com. "Pathetic--" A string of static ended his outburst.

"Jack? Are you there?" I turned back to Alice. "Must be the bandwidth issues again. Or his sparkling personality is incompatible with logic circuits." Ahead on the aft section of the massive starship, a round port stood out with a diameter almost twice my height. Pointing, I said, "There's the Invincible asshole, err, I mean waste disposal port."

Alice slapped her visor. "God, I'm gonna need therapy when this is over."

We waited by the port. And then we waited some more. Eventually Alice asked, "So when will it open?"

I shrugged. "Hell if I know. Maybe we have to say 'open sesame' or something."

As if by command, the metal diaphragm of the iris type door rotated, creating an expanding round opening. I fired the suit thrusters, moving to the opening and guiding Alice with me. At the threshold, I held up a hand. "We need to let the crap come out first."