Dip$h!+s in space: Season 2

Chapter 21 "Pineapple Robots"

Captain Lawg stared down a milar pouch of food rations as if someone was going to blink first and lose a bet. He slowly moved it towards his mouth as the crew leaned in close to see if he would die. He bit into the soft, almost tender rubbery substance that its packagers had molded into a moist bar before pressure sealing it. He took a bite as Duffy gasped slightly.

"Sorry." she whispered. Lawg took the bite, chewed twice, paused, chewed again as he made a face of utter confusion.

"Any good?" asked Marley.

"kinda tastes like tuna fish, but...more of a dessert fish?" he said suppressing his gag reflex and refusing to swallow.

"Oh god, that's horrible." gasped Duffy.

"I can't decide where this was intended to be food. It does have food in it, of some merit. The combination suggests human minds were not the ones designing this." Lawg said as he decided weather starvation or desert-fish was preferable and he didn't seem set on either.

"I'll try mine." Duffy said opening her can and dipping the fork in. "Oh yea, that is cat food...super sure that's cat food." she said tasting it. "You wanna trade?" she asked Lawg, who mulled it over for a few seconds and wasn't really sure.

"What kind of cat-food?" he asked. Marley opened his rations with a vacuum-sealed hiss.

"Gross, I got beef-" he said barely getting the F sound out before Lawg and Duffy tackled him, hollering out various forms of threats and choice words. They crawled frantically away with their halves as Marley peeled himself off the floor. "Yea thanks, didn't want that anyway, so I'll take the dessert fish I guess. That's the closest to not-meat so far. So Menace...what did you get?" he asked. He looked over and she was roughly chewing the milar pouch to bits, spitting out the crinkled parts as she horked down the edible contents.

"They world may never know." Lawg nodded. "How's your nuts?" he asked Vee, who was sitting calmly.

"Inefficient, but tolerable." she replied, spitting out a shiny steel nut and popping a rusty one in her mouth.

"So you only eat rust. Bet that get's boring." Marley said striking up conversation.

"I think technically she just eats the iron, the bugs breathe by chewing rust and separating the oxygen from the iron." Duffy informed. Everyone looked surprised. "What?" I read!" she objected.

"Too bad we have taste buds." sighed Lawg. "Welp...that's the food rations from that haul. Did we get anything of usefulness?" he added as Marley flipped through the inventory sheet.

"2 EVA suits, pretty basic fit's anyone type. Couple of crates of Brandy, 4 bottles of something called Soy Milk, and a left tennis shoe."

"Well at least you all will live on in my memory." Lawg said solemnly as he grabbed a bottle and shuffled to the cargo bay.

"Lucky." chuckled Marley.

"Shoe." nodded Menace.

Marley finished dragging out the last crate as Duffy welded up the damaged bulkhead.

"Well, we don't have Light-speed, but we have thrusters, and with any luck someone will pick up the SOS transponder.

"Guess we just wait...conserve resources." He sighed. Duffy finished her arc and smacked the pipe to make sure it was solid.

"Hand me another rod." she asked.

"You ever notice how every planet and species has alcohol?" Marley noted.