BAZZY

Captain Coe's Vacation

By Jay Agnello

Copyright 2011

Chapter 1: An Hour Later

An Hour Later:

Musky- muggy.
The milky air was tougher to breath.
The luggage handles, slippery with sweat.
Captain Coe looked at his hairy feet in his sandals and nudged Kias, “I should shave those. Don't you think?”
Kias snickered in disbelief. “Come on now. Elves don't shave their feet. You know that. That's for Earthlings and Pinthlings, and Andromeda folks,” said his long time friend, devoted assistant, and logistics coordinator.
Coe leaned into a dyspeptic sighed. His shirt was beginning to stick to his chest..
A prism split down through sliver windows into the dome of the Wombert-Trans-Galaxy-Express-Station.
The massive head of an aquatic Wombert specie, sculpted from the rare green marmellite meteor stone, arched its fish-like face high into the atrium, with a fountain of blue nebula water spraying from the blow-hole.
“I've got some human in me. You don't think the club will care do you?”
The Captain stood in a line five bodies wide, packed with traveling aliens. The multifarious bunch was strange, almost wacky, though most were vertebrates, and their appearance was mainly of retired couples, and families. Very few species had motivation to travel to the LX System, also the Milky Way, for anything other than vacation.
“Did you pack your solar cream?” asked Kias, like a father, or mother more like.
Coe sneered. “Kias, we've been to nine galaxies and I've never had to use that stuff. Why would I...”
Before the Captain could finish, Kias had smeared a handful of the green frosting down forehead and cheeks. “There!” he said. “Now you won't get star blisters.”
A sonorous voice reverberated across the station,“All Szarglopians report to level 15 for mandatory vaccinations.”
“That stuff stinks! You got some in my mouth.” Coe griped. He sneered. As he wiped the bitter goo off his tongue, his eyes became entranced with a striking and pleasing vision. It was the smooth, curvy, and creamy legs of a female in front of him. He followed the enticing line of her Achilles heel, up the back of her calf, where the glossy highlight seemed to follow along with him. He continued up the back of the thigh, and relished on her voluptuous hind-quarters that provoked the creeping of a grin from the corner of his mouth. He was hypnotized by the smooth skin and crevice from her tailbone, until Kias popped him in the rib with his elbow. When Coe looked up, the face of the female was staring directly at him, her head turned 180 degrees on the neck like a barn owl. She had seven eyes like a spider, a scaly forehead, and whiskers that draped down like fu-man-chu. She smiled at Coe with a hefty yellow grill.

An hour later:

Finally, at the ticket booth, there was some confusion about their route. Coe, with his elbows propped on the counter, patiently endured a volley of frustration that transpired from both Kias, and a frail, decrepit, big-nosed alien behind the desk. The argument went on-and-on, and Coe became sorely disengaged, until he was tapped on the shoulder. He looked over at an intimidating and Goliath alien. It was something like a crocodile, known as a Nimbus Monitor. Years ago, the elves of Galoo were at war with this strange nation, but here the creature was wearing a bright red floral vacation shirt. One that was almost identical to Captain Coe's. He was urging the Captain to take a picture of him with his family. Coe reluctantly agreed and made an effort to figure out the Nimbus camera and its strange design. It was made for the fingers of a Nimbus Monitor and had strange curvatures, and multiple grips.
The scaly beast fussed with Coe's hands on the device, and complained in his own bizarre language. His voracious temperament began to match that of the escalating argument at the booth, and Coe sensed a headache coming on, when unexpectedly, a large powdery explosion and flash erupted from the camera.
Coe choked a little, waving the smoke from his face. The strange posing lizard family stood like statues, stunned from the light, with charcoaled faces.
Kias waved to Coe. “C'mon. Let's go! We've got our tickets. Let's hurry before they screw something else up!”
Coe politely placed the camera into the hand of the paralyzed Nimbus Monitor, and scampered off to catch up with Kias.

An Hour Later:

Kias and Coe now stood at a security gate that filtered bodies through like big Wombert livestock.
A stickman, in a plastic spacesuit, tapped on a sign with a diagram. The instruction was to remove shirt and shoes, and place them on a conveyor.
Coe exhaled with subtle fury and carried out the procedure. He felt foolish standing around with herds of half-naked aliens staring at him.
The stickman escorted him onto a platform where a large cylindrical scanning device rotated around his body.
“Is that it?” Coe asked.
The stickman waved him onto a moving pathway that carried him along. A row of tiny alien inspectors peeped over a wall just eye level to his waste. Coe covered his crotch and backside, extremely irritated.
“Are we done yet!”

An Hour Later:

They now stood with their luggage on a freeway-sized elevator, packed with Jupra-Rogs. It ascended into a vast glass tube that seemed to be suspended over the planet Jupra-Tor-Ting-Soss, a planet that some considered the dark blue twin of Jupiter. A serene, generic, instrumental song echoed through the globular shaft, as they rode upward toward the terminal docks. The orange glare of a nearby star illuminated the cool cosmic venue with afternoon shadows. A soothing drift of fresh filtered oxygen hissed in from the floor panels, and for the first time on this adventure, Coe began to feel like he was on vacation.
Kias looked down and smiled with his old wrinkly eyes at an adorable young alien girl.
Her eyes were like bowling balls and even reflected the constellations outside.
Coe glanced down and noticed the girl at knee level in front of him. There was slobber dangling from her lip. She held onto her mother's finger, gazing up at Coe, mesmerized by his foreign elf/human appearance.
Kias Glaboo loved the little creature and waved with charm, tickling his fingers in the air.
Coe just stood glaring with an untrustworthy disposition.
The sweet little thing pushed one of her fingers deep into her flaring nostril. She dug around as if she were trying to scratch her brain, and then found what she was looking for. When she pulled her finger out, a large knobby and flaky bright blue booger gooped out on the end with a thick glossy string of wet mucus oozing to the floor.
She exchanged a wondrous expression with Coe.
Coe shook his head with disapproval.
She looked at the booger, then back at Coe.
The Captain's face froze in suspension-of-disbelief.
She wiped the gooey glob right onto Coe's shirt. Ironically, the booger matched some of the blue leaflets in the design.
Coe gazed forward as they continued to escalate, repressing his frustration in silence, with every fiber of his being.

An Hour Later:

Now the Captian dozed off in the terminal, while Kias went over the remaining passports and documents.
It was an indulgent catnap on a great soft pillow. The noise and madness of the bustling station seemed to wash away in his fuzzy subconscious heaven. He saw himself sailing on a boat with his father, in the realm of a great earthly harbor, of a great glassy metropolis. Seagulls and other aquatic species of Earth, that seemed strange and extra-galoostrial to him, followed his vessel into a blazing plasma sunset. It felt as though he were there. The gusts and breezes flowed through his long red bushy beard, and soft thick dreadlocks. But the peaceful sail and sleep began to dissolve abruptly, as the waves of the sea became large and rolling. The captain tried to steer the vessel toward the city, but became overwhelmed with the turbulence. He found himself waking up on the bulky cushion that was now writhing and jiggling beneath him. Coe scooped up the pillow and pulled it closer to his face, trying to adjust and recreate the blissful slumber he had achieved, but when he lifted his head and wiped the slobber from his mouth, he made a grave discovery. The pillow was not actually a pillow at all, but the giant gelatinous boob of a female Jupra-Rog. She looked at him with her beady eyes, and her wavy frog-like mouth was stretched in an expression of shock and awe. Her husband, who was only a quarter of her size, leaped from his seat and began shouting strange alien expletives at the Captain.
Kias pulled on Coe's shirt, urging him to hurry to the terminal. They were being summoned by one of the spaceflight attendants.
Coe looked over his shoulder with a foggy glare at the angry Jupra Rog couple, as he scurried away with Kias, still trying to digest the reality of the experience.

An Hour Later:

Finally, detaching from the dock of the Wombert-Trans-Galaxy-Express-Station, Kias and Coe were on their way to the LX system to meet another consort of space-elves that were given time off and per diem for up to 150 days- Galoo time, an equivalent of one Earth year. Coe looked out the window and relished every second of the station becoming smaller in the distance. He looked over at Kias with a smile of exhilaration and gratification. “Thanks for getting us out of there, Old Glaboo. You know how much I can't stand space stations.”
“Logistics are my specialty,” said Kias, smiling back. “Here. You'll need some more of this.” He reached over and wiped another load of green frosting onto the Captain's face.
Coe put on his sunglasses, laid his head back, grinned wide, and simpered in defeat.