My Crazy Hot Interstellar Affair

25. Wedding Planner Horrified Bridesmaid Clashes With Aesthetics

Andie soared upward in a translucent tube of energy, which floated into space with the grace of a ballet dancer. Inside, there was no sound, no burning, no reassembly of internal body parts, only a sense of deep calm.

Being inside the Priority One was so amazing that Andie could only conclude that the Amu, on top of being heartless, kidnappers, and scandal-loving sadists, must also be masochists. What other reason could there be for them to Wormhole when they had Priority One technology?

It would be like choosing to travel west by wagon train, enduring starvation, smallpox, cholera, and assorted vermin, while your toothless husband complains (in great detail) about his hemorrhoids, and your kids asking "are we there yet?" for six months.

Versus ...

Flying west in a private jet with a gourmet chef and a masseuse, while snuggled up in a king-sized bed with 1,000 thread-count Frette sheets artfully wrapped between the naked thighs of a Greek god.

Was there even a choice?

The splendor of Oliver's physique flashed into view. "Cut it out," Andie warned Bad Andie.

"Then stop wrecking my mojo with your chatter about toothless hemorrhoidal husbands. That's just disgusting."

"Fine. No more hemorrhoids."

"Oooh! Look at that. How pretty," said Bad Andie.

Below, the earth hung peacefully in the velvet of space, a flawless sphere, so beautiful, a visitor from afar might assume life on the surface to be similarly peaceful and beautiful. Must have been quite the shock for the aliens when they discovered three-year-old beauty queens, Bigfoot romance novels, deep fried butter and the color puce.

"I heard that about Bigfoot!" Bad Andie said.

"Too bad."

"Don't knock cryptid simian love until you've tried it!"

"Quiet!"

As the earth grew smaller, Andie ached for her home planet, puce, and deep fried butter notwithstanding. Would she ever get back? She realized she had given no thought to what she would do after rescuing Sterling. Her liberation plan appeared to be half-assed. Why had she not aimed for something a tad loftier like: find Sterling, return to earth, locate Luke Skywalker and his rebel forces, send them up to the mothership in a few X-wing fighters, a schematic of the Starship Magnificent's one senseless flaw (there always is one), and a couple of proton torpedoes?

The trip lasted an eternity, yet took no time at all. Andie's consciousness grew until it encompassed the entire universe in both space and time. She found herself untethered and able to float through space as if in a dream.

She witnessed the life cycle of a star from its birth, from a molecular cloud to its death as a white dwarf. Comets darted past. Earth's moon plunged into the Pacific. That gave Andie a tinge of regret. She was rather fond of the moon. And the Pacific.

The one thing she never saw on her journey was the Starship Magnificent. One moment she was gawking at the Pillars of Creation—vast shrouds of gasses in the Eagle Nebula—the next, her vision went dark and her muscles pressed against her bones as she passed through solid matter, most likely, the skin of the mothership.

A floor solidified under Andie's bare feet. A cold, damp, low-lying mist curled around her ankles—like a fog-effect in a music video. Andie almost choked on the fetid stench of too many roses—as if the U.S. supply of Valentine's bouquets all got sent to the same place. Organ music echoed in what must be a giant room, but Andie couldn't see anything because she was alone behind a white curtain. The headache-inducing loud music sounded kind of like Pomp and Circumstance, which wasn't the music she expected to hear in an alien spacecraft.