Lords & Ladies of the M'Verse: An Ooorah Anthology

Day 27 - 5thBeastieBoy's The Adventures of Captain Rem: Space Trucker!

The Adventures of Captain Rem: Space Trucker!

by 5thBeastieBoy 

No, no, no, no, no, no...

"No!" Rem hurled a pillow at the source, but it did nothing to deter the blaring klaxon from wailing its warning. He sat up in bed, pressing his palms to his face doing his best to wake himself from the fog of sleep.

"Alright, dammit. I hear you. Hold your fucking horses." He was speaking to himself. Not that it mattered, no one would hear him over the constant clanging of the alarm.

His disheveled looked portrayed more than just the outer appearance of exhaustion. His hair, greasy and unkempt. His face, tired and pale, covered in scruff. Internally, Rem felt worn down mentally. Physically he was fit, more than one would expect from a truck jockey. But it belied the true fatigue that hammered him into the slumber he was just rudely awoken from.

Rem didn't expect to be so worn out. He miscalculated the mental toll making a shipping run that the government would deem illegal would take on him. "Smuggler" is what the Intergalactic Government would brand him as. He hated that term. Almost as much as he hated the fact that he had to take a job smuggling goods for the rebel faction in the first place. I'm a space trucker, dammit! he would curse at times in the past when approached with smuggling opportunities. Hauling legally across the galaxy was all he wanted to do. But that was no longer the case. Government regulations were making it harder each year to find honest work.

Now someone had taken interest in his space hauler. Prospects for an easy run were not looking good.

He managed to pull himself out of bed and shuffle his way over to the auxiliary control station located across the living quarters. Rem's "office" was anything but; just a desk littered by mounds of papers stacked all over the place. Organized chaos he would joke, if there were anyone to joke with.

Rem moved a stack of old shipping orders out of the way and pressed a key that silenced klaxon. He could feel the noise still reverberating through his skull as the ship's alert system went silent. He grimaced at the thought of how long the damn noise would continue to buzz in his ears. He keyed another control to bring up the source of all the commotion.

He snapped to attention immediately, any residual haze from his sleep quickly dissipated, when the control station alerted him that he, or more precisely his ship, was being flagged down by an Interstellar Law Enforcement cruiser. The intruder was designated as part of the Cargo/Shipping Division. Any hope Rem had for a clean and clear run to the Freedom Movement's outpost was lost.

A light blinked indicating the ILE was hailing him. Rem connected the call and smiled upon seeing the officer's face on the screen. A respite from his worries, however brief it may be, invigorated the space trucker.

"Lieutenant Brax," Rem opened with mock cheer. "What brings you and your goons to this side of the system?" His opening repartee would signal to anyone else listening on the ILE cruiser that Rem and the lieutenant had some sort of history together.

The officer was dressed in his official blues and had a clean look about him, contrasting Rem in every single way. "Rem," he stated and then paused to take in what he was looking at. "Dammit, Rem. Are you naked?" he asked incredulously. The officer's face began to flush with embarrassment.

Rem smirked and stepped back a few feet so the cam would show that he was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts with red hearts dotting the design. "I have boots on, too, if you want to see them."