Story Snacks: A Collection of Bite-Sized Ideas

Nihilistic Love, Baby

The Re-Re-Renaissance was cruising through deep space, its course set for the Council of Galaxies. Its esteemed passengers largely consisted of diplomats from every conceivable corner of the Known Universe, and with every light-year the ship advanced, they got progressively more smashed. 

For them, this was a celebratory prelude to negotiation, in which some old cephalopod would raise his glass toward the expansive cosmos beyond the lounge's windows, swirling with Essence of Stardust, and begin a downhill spiral of debauchery which sent the young captain Cato Klein's fingers drumming incessantly against his control panel and made his eyebrows twitch with every suspicious BANG.

The being with the most important job in times like these was puny Earthling Ava Klein, who wasn't convinced that her work was of any substance, but was objectively proved wrong when the immaculate, glossy silver of the ship's interior was inevitably coated with multi-colored slime, strewn with shards of glass, and when the sickly-saccharine scent of stale Stardust permeated the thick air.

So, once the distinguished guests were all snoring, Ava got to work with the sanitation droids, tapping the side of the red spectacles she loathed so she could observe every microbe of filth and eradicate it. 

She maneuvered carefully around the unconscious, taking special care to avoid the whiskers of the Taegran prime minister, who was nuzzling his orange, furry cheek into the prized golden bust of the Re-Re-Renaissance's first captain, Shamus Bixby. His was the brilliant mind that coined the name Renaissance—which would've stuck had the ship not been nearly obliterated by an oncoming comet.

As far as Ava was concerned, the Universe was short-changing her. She'd always pictured being a pilot like her brother, but, three bum years of school on Earth and some extensive IQ tests later, it was determined by the experts that any ship under her command would be at a 'tactical disadvantage'. 

Ava chalked it up to her superiors' prejudice against humans and their lackluster physical capacity, and practiced flying in secret in her bunk after curfew. What Ava treasured most of all were the hit boyband Galactic 7 and the human television smash-hit Star Trek, so now, she was basically an ace.

Her prowess was put to the test when the comatose silence was thrown into chaos. 

Apparently, two officials were still awake in the corridor and suitably drunk, and their pleasant chitchat in a language Ava could barely understand transformed into a heated argument. Their voices managed to wake up most of the other passengers, and the intergalactic equivalent of a barfight ensued. The Taegan prime minister charged into the cockpit wielding Bixby's bust, and the poor captain, at his wits end, surged from his seat and full-out tackled him, unaware that the ship was hurtling toward an asteroid belt.

Seeing her brother fall, Ava sprung into action, her blood turning to liquid steel as she gripped the controls, channeling her years of preparation and, consequently, overriding the ship's autopilot.

It didn't go well. Each time an asteroid struck the ship, it groaned in protest. Ava's fingers flew across the controls, her tongue sticking slightly out of the corner of her mouth in concentration, but she was worsening matters with each keystroke. The screeches of diplomats made her head pound, and before she knew it, the ship was on a crash course with a rock double its size. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced for impact. But none came, only a sudden, familiar tenor voice reached her. She turned.

And there was Requiem, founding member of the boy band Galactic 7. He towered over her, head nearly brushing the cockpit's low ceiling, his eyes glowing a brighter green than any hologram could capture, his coiffed hair dark as the infinite void of space. She could tell he was calm because his complexion was a balmy blue, no hints of frantic purple or raging red. 

Ava was so entranced that she barely noticed that he'd begun singing a soaring rendition of the group's biggest hit, "Nihilistic Love, Baby", that with each chorus turned the asteroids in their path to shimmering dust. By the end of the song the whole belt was reduced to a fine powder, and all Ava could do was stare at him, slack-jawed. Her brother hadn't even mentioned he was a passenger, nor had she seen him mingle with the others.

Before she knew what hit her, Requiem flicked her on the forehead and gave her a measured stare. "You're not good at flying," he said softly. Then he retreated quietly back to his bunk. 

Ava fainted.

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