Page 9 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
“I’m not finishing school while the three of you go to another galaxy and meet the Devouring Mother. It’s shitty you even tried to do that.”
“Hi, I’m the Devouring Mother. I’m barely handling my shit and, apparently, I get murdered in two days. Want to get drunk and eat some forbidden donuts?”
I hadn’t even realized Baxter could understand all of that. Omi had always been way too smart for her own good. Enix hadn’t upgraded her chip to speak the language of this planet, but she was intelligent enough to hack into my fucking time machine and get it to upgrade it for her.
I was mad, but I was also impressed.
Omi just grinned.
“I don’t know what donuts are, but I like drunk.”
“No,” Torrek said. “You’re a mean drunk.”
“So am I,” Baxter said. “And as much as I like, and want to explore the alien sausage party, I never got to have many female friends because they either thought I was crazy or I couldn’t be honest. It’s not like you can take her home. If you get hurt, you’re going to need her. If I take you to a human doctor, you’re going to end up in a lab being experimented on and I don’t think it's like the movies with shady veterinarians.”
“She’s right,” Enix said. “I can access the data on how any medical care works, but I don’t actually have the programming to pull it off. Omi is in the real-life training part of her residency. She could probably spin this to count when we get home. How many doctors on our planet have observed other galaxies and humans?”
“Stop making her feel better about what she did.”
“I’m not programmed to make her feel better. I’m not programmed to make you feel better, either. I spoke in facts and logic,” Enix said.
And he was right, but Torrek was hyper-protective of his younger sister.
“You can’t change it any more than you can change my past,” Baxter said. “She’s here and you’ll probably need her. Why don’t you give me the tour and then we can eat. I’ve had a lot of Everclear and if I don’t eat, I’m either going to hit someone or fuck them. It’s just science.”
I smiled to myself. Baxter Holmes wasn’t anything like I was expecting, but I liked her.
Spaceships were cool, aliens were hot, and I was probably going to have to find a way to replace my illegal bottle of emergency Everclear because I was very, very shit-faced. Omi was hot, and I wasn’t even into women. That was also something I experimented with when I got free of the people back home. I was of the opinion you couldn’t know if you hated something until you tried it.
Which was why I was about to go to town on alien food from a 3D printer after I got my tour. I wasn’t going to be rude. Donuts were delicious, buttheymight think they were gross. They were still willing to try them.
Kuka was very proud of his time machine and he had every right to be.It was bigger on the inside.Something told me Kuka wouldn’t have the same reaction if I said that. It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough.
“My parents only gave my brother and me a set amount of money for the contest, so I had to focus on functionalityover luxury. We’ve got the control room, the kitchen, and the barracks. The barracks are just beds and some comfy chairs. The only entertainment we could bring was cards and books, but that’s enough.”
“The closet was pretty comfy and none of you found me,” Omi said.
Torrek snarled at her. Damn. He was sexy when he snarled. Maybe I shouldn’t have hit the Everclear again before we left. Kuka seemed to think this place was lacking, but it was pretty awesome.
“Listen, before everyone decided I was schizophrenic, my parents shipped me off to some wilderness bible camp to make me do hard labor until I stopped lying. Your barracks areloadsbetter than ours were. We had a pallet on the floor and there were bugs.”
“How old were you?” Torrek asked.
“Eight.”
“Child labor is legal on this planet?” Omi asked. “That’s barbaric.”
“It’s not anymore, and neither is slave labor unless they say you did something wrong, then it’s fine.”
“Eight-year-olds lie all the time,” Omi said. “When I was eight, I said the Devouring Mother came to me in a dream and revealed the final text was in her palace on the moon and only I could lead people there. I was full of shit and just wanted to go to the moon. No one sentenced me to hard labor.”
“I was actually telling the truth about the aliens and time machine that crashed in my pool.”
“Shit, really?” Omi said, punching Torrek in the stomach. He leaned over and wheezed. “What was that about?”
“How did you not just break your hand?” I demanded. “He’s very firm.”
Kuka started giggling.
