Miss Planet Earth Read online

  “Wow,” she said.

  “It’s… beautiful,” Yorick’s eyes sparkled like the gems before him. They were heavy with water, thick with tears. His life’s work had been accomplished. The lost treasure of Atlanta had been found. “So beautiful…”

  “Right, not dead,” Jesi continued. “Come up here – now. We’ve got company.”

  “Company?”

  Yorick ripped his eyes from the crown. His hands had been reaching to take it, but they snapped back to his sides before touching even the fur of the rim.

  “What kind of company?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Jesi said, letting out a heavy sigh of annoyance. “The big spaceship kind. There’s a lot of them. They’ve got it in their heads they’re going to board me. So, you might want to hurry. Oh! And don’t you dare forget to drop off my gems. And – Owaitt, get him! Ack!”

  The line fizzled and went dead. Before another second could pass, Yorick grabbed the box of treasure from the counter, leaped over the sneeze guard, and dashed through the dark terminal, leaping over the dead littering the ground.

  Katra put the crown upon her head. She hadn’t worn a crown since she had been crowned Miss Universe. That was, of course, before the actual Universe came to visit them.

  The crown felt so right, that in a second, it brought back every memory of this place. She was Miss Earth. And she was damn well going to protect her planet.

  Chapter 8

  Only the most recent in a long line of alien invasions

  By the time they reached the control tower, the sky above their little exit hole was filled with ships of every size.

  Massive, gray leviathans that sent thunder rumbling through the heavens blocked out most of the light, making it look as if the sky were about to storm. Yorick clutched his bounty against his chest.

  “Froz,” was all that he could say.

  Katra reached up to readjust her crown, giving herself time to think. Her degree in marketing really wasn’t helping right now. Not to mention she wasn’t quite sure what was happening in the first place.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, staring up at the sky hole.

  “Apparently, Super-freaky funland dark-side death-zone powered by MnM is being invaded,” said Yorick.

  “Ah,” said Katra, her heart dropping. “By whom, exactly?”

  “Not sure,” he replied. “Podulk?”

  “By spaceships, sir.”

  “Whose spaceships?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Thanks for the insight, Podulk, my good friend,” the former captain muttered.

  “And what about Jesi? Or Owaitt?” Katra urged.

  “Probably dead.”

  As if to punctuate his sentence with some extra tension and drama, the sky went entirely dark as a ship flew low above the sky hole. A ladder fell right down in front of them, slamming the floor with the metallic crash.

  “Get in, losers,” shouted Jesi from above, “and bring those frozzing jewels, will you?”

  “Or, you know, she’ll have dismembered anyone who boarded her ship.” Yorick shrugged, but his grin was so wide Katra could practically see the relief flooding out of him. “After you?”

  Katra climbed hastily up the ladder as Yorick and Podulk tossed the treasure into one of the blue backpacks. Owaitt awaited them at the top of the ladder, looking gleeful. A massive smear of black tar covered half of his face.

  “Oh, hello,” he said, “are you our guests? I have tea ready for you. Anybody up for a bit of fun?”

  “Thanks, Owaitt,” Katra breathed in relief. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Oh, yes, all very exciting,” said the android. “You see, we were invaded by…”

  And with that, his eyes went dull, and he toppled over, at a loss for words.

  Katra leaned over and turned him back on as her companions made it into the ship. Owaitt powered up, getting slowly back on his feet, making eye contact with everyone as Podulk reeled up the ladder.

  “Hello,” he said, smiling broadly. “I am O-8, your personal service droid. How may—”

  “Katra, Yorick, and Podulk,” Katra counted off, pointing to everyone in turn. “Our captain is Jesi, You just defended her from some unknown assailants. Is she alright? Do you know where she is?”

  “I apologize for any and all inconvenience my absence may have caused and must excuse my current lapse of memory. I simply do not recall. What is my purpose so that I may get back to my station at once? I am here, after all, to please man.”

  “Don’t waste your words,” the queen pushed past him. “I’ll find her myself.”

  Jesi sat in the break room, sipping an ornate pink drink with her feet up on the lunch table.

  “So? You got my treasure?” the girl gloated, “I see you’ve picked out your share already. Who died and made you queen?”

  “You be the captain, I be the motherfrozzing queen,” said Katra. “I’ve waited thirteen thousand years for my crown. At least let me have this moment.”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever.” The girl dropped her feet from the table as the man, droid, and alien entered. She noted the massive box, wringing her hands together in anticipation. “Is that my treasure? Gimme gimme!”

  Yorick said nothing as he tossed the bag on the table. The girl tore at it like a lion to an antelope’s carcass. She ripped the fabric open, her eyes growing wide and bright as she took in the gemstones and jewelry.

  “My precious!” she screamed, flinging herself onto the table. She rolled on the pile, laughing like a hyena as the entire crew watched. It had to have been painful, but she made no other sound than maniacal laughter. “Rich, Rich, Rich!”

  “You’ve got something on your pants,” Katra pointed out, transfixed by the big black smear. Her arms and face were assaulted by the blotches.

  “Whatever.” The girl sat up on her pile. “Great work, crew. Now let’s get away from this Gob-forsaken place. I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”

  “Erm,” Yorick stammered, “isn’t it going to be a little hard to leave?”

  “Why?”

  “Alien invasion and all?”

  “Oh, right, that,” said Jesi, hopping off the table. “Well, I was thinking we could hide out in that lost airport of Atlanta of yours. Just for a little while, until this invasion blows over. And then we’ll go and spend our money.”

  “So Earth is actually being invaded, then?” asked Katra. There wasn’t exactly a window in there to check.

  “Yeah, by these assholes.” Jesi kicked her foot at a body under the table. A large, monstrous looking being lay crumpled at her feet, its entire body covered by a hard black shell. The face, if it even was a face, looked a little like a cockroach being forced to sit still for a school photo – pudgy skin stuffed into a helmet with coils and wires that squeezed everything in place.

  And the body was sliced cleanly in two.

  “What is that?” asked Yorick, leaning down near the face. “Podulk, have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “It is a Tagriffian, former captain,” the alien said.

  Yorick seemed surprised. “You know this thing?”

  “They are, as the now-captain says, assholes, sir.”

  “Yeah, but how do you know them?”

  “We share a binary star system with them,” the alien said as if it were the most natural thing in the universe. “They are, as you say, not cool.”

  “Right. And what are they doing here?”

  “Invading, it would appear, sir.”

  “But why invade Earth?” asked Katra, “or the planet-formerly-known-as-Earth? It’s nothing but an escape game planet now.”

  “One could assume their timing is not a coincidence,” said Podulk. “I mean to say, that the fact they arrived shortly after we did might be an indication of their intentions.”

  “They want my treasure?” Jesi pulled the gems towards her with a large scoop of her tiny arms. “No. Hell, no.”


  “That, or the airport of Atlanta,” said Podulk.

  “Or they want Katra,” said Yorick.

  Katra looked up at Yorick, then realized all eyes were on her. She took a trembling step back.

  “What? Me?” she scoffed. “Why me?”

  “You are the oldest living thing in the universe,” he continued, his eyes wide in bewilderment. “Maybe they want you for the same reason I wanted you – to ask you a question about the Earth-that-was.”

  Katra’s heart swelled at those words – Yorick, wanting her – but then it fell once again. She crossed her arms over her chest, seeking to warm herself.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. It was heavy, what with the crown and all. “They probably want the jewels. They must have followed us somehow.”

  “Or they just want the planet,” said Owaitt.

  Four sets of eyes turned to stare at him. The droid, who had been quietly, patiently waiting his turn in the corner, beamed at the opportunity to speak.

  “Maybe this is nothing more than an invasion?” he said. “Maybe the fact that we are here has nothing to do with their arrival. Maybe they want the planet because it has high-ranking members of the Order on it right now. I am not used to talking for so long, why isn’t anyone interrupting me?”

  “Because you might be right, droid,” said Jesi. “Right. Owaitt thinks boring invasion. Katra thinks they want the treasure. Podulk thinks they want the Airport. Yorick thinks they want Katra. And I think, whoever is right gets to be my right-hand man.”

  “What?” they all said, pretty much unanimously, all except for Owaitt, who suddenly got bedroom eyes.

  “Why would you think any of us could possibly want that?” stammered Yorick. “You want me dead!”

  “Yeah, but I need you to defend my treasure too,” she said. “And I’ll keep each and every one of you around as long as you are useful. Some of you are more useful than others: don’t be sad, it’s just a fact of life. So I’m offering a one time deal. Whoever wins gets a larger portion of the treasure too. So what do you think? Want to change those votes?”

  There was a murmur of agreement all around.

  “So it’s settled,” said Jesi, proudly.

  “But it doesn’t answer the question of what we’re going to do here,” Katra stammered. “We’re not going to go up and ask them what they want.”

  “Yeah, we are.” Jesi produced a small button from her pocket, showing it off proudly. “I massacred their entire away team. They’ve been hailing me for an hour now. Let’s see what they want.”

  Chapter 9

  Yaaas Queen!

  Fifteen years of pageantry never prepared Katra for this.

  The second they answered the call, the bridge erupted in shouts of “Queen, Queen, yass queen”. In the dark gloom of the windowless room, only the faces of the roaches on the screen produced light, and they were wailing, prostrating before her. Not even the audience of the Miss Universe pageant had been this adoring.

  “I guess that makes you our new first mate, First Mate Yorick,” said Jesi, her voice uncommonly ceremonial. She didn’t take her eyes of Katra. Nor did anyone else.

  “All hail, our queen!” said one of the Tagriffians, waving one of his many hands gracefully through the air. This was echoed by his entourage, who chanted “yass queen, yass queen, yass queen” adoringly behind him.

  Katra thought quite a few things in that instant.

  The first thing was that she was seriously underdressed to arrive in front of such an audience. Her clothes were still bloody from the pirate massacre and covered in dirt and dust from the Atlanta airport. This was no way to look like a queen.

  The second thing was that the leader of the Tagriffians looked quite a lot like a dung beetle she had once seen at the zoo.

  And the third thing was that she should probably say something.

  “Um, hi,” was what she went for. She kicked herself internally for the lameness of it.

  Once again, the Tagriffian ship went wild. Whooping and swooping and chattering through their oversized mandibles. Unlike the one in the break room (and the two on the floor behind her) they were not wearing their terrifying masks, which made them look even more bizarre than before. Katra tried not to gag at the sight of them.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” she said in her very best Miss Universe voice. “May I ask who you are?”

  “I am Zoinx,” said the biggest Tagriffian, pounding his chest so hard it should have shattered his shell. “I am the grand marquis of the Tagriffian fleet. We were here to pledge fealty to you, our honorable queen.”

  “To… me,” Katra said, trying not to make it sound like a question.

  “We anxiously awaited the results of the pageant, as you did, oh great queen,” Zoinx continued, “and as the other competitors were all mauled to death, it leaves you the victor by forfeit. While other planets shrugged off the results of the pageant, we patiently awaited your return, knowing our true queen would never let us down.”

  Ah. So, she did end up winning the pageant. It might have been by forfeit, but no one had bothered to tell her yet. Yay me, she thought. I won. Woop-dee-do.

  It wasn’t like anyone had thought to bring her flowers for this victory.

  “Thank you, oh great Zoinx,” she said, ad-libbing as best she could. Her hands were starting to tremble with fear, and she clutched her fist to try and keep them steady. Not very effectively.

  “We are at your command,” said the great Zoinx. “At your word, we will rescue you from the hands of your captors.”

  “Oh, no, these aren’t my captors!” She let out a forced laugh. “These are my… friends.”

  She didn’t know how else to put it. The people around her, while close to being strangers, were the only people alive in the universe that she actually knew by name. Jesi, for all of her faults, defended her to no end. And Yorick, strange as he was, seemed as into her as she was into him. As for Owaitt and Podulk, they put up with her as much as she did them: if that wasn’t the definition of friendship, she didn’t know what was.

  She reached up to touch her crown, a heavy reminder of what she was. Miss Universe. Miss Earth. And apparently, the Yass Queen of the Tagriffian… empire?

  “They killed an entire battalion of Tagriffian soldiers,” said Zoinx, his voice turning cold. “They must die.”

  “They were protecting themselves!” she snapped. “And it wasn’t the entire crew it was…”

  Jesi shot her a look. Shmuz. Katra zipped her mouth shut.

  “Please. Leave them be. Let them live.”

  Zoinx looked back to a fellow Tagriffian, and together they conferred for a long minute. He returned looking smug.

  “Come with us, oh queen, and we shall let them live.”

  Katra’s throat clogged in an instant, and she choked on her own spit.

  “Oh, that makes things easy,” said Jesi. “Thanks, Katra.”

  “No way is she going over there!” interjected Yorick.

  “Shut up. This is the only way we’re getting off this planet alive!”

  “She’s not going there! She’s not! As your second in command, I…”

  “If you want to be second in command much longer, you’ll let this happen.” The girl scowled. “What will it be, first mate? The power you crave, or the woman you have the hots for?”

  “Katra, definitely Katra,” he said. “I mean what kind of question is that? Position versus an actual human life? No thanks. Don’t you dare send her over there alone.”

  “Fine then,” said Jesi, turning back to the console. “She won’t be going alone. Zoinx, you can have the queen, but you must take her attendant with her. In exchange, you must swear not to frozzing blow us up.”

  “Done,” said the marquis. “As they say in ancient Earth tongue, done dealio, neighborino!”

  Before Katra could say ‘no, they never said that’, a burst of white light enveloped her. Her body fizzled like a bottle of coca cola. When the light v
anished, she found herself on another ship, surrounded by brown, cockroach-like aliens, all clicking their mandibles in reverence.

  Her body tingled, and she fought back to the urge to throw up again. Froz, teleportation.

  “Blast them out of the sky,” said Zoinx, now right before her, with a flick of his fourth hand. Like they were not even worth a first-hand-flick.

  “What! No!” Katra shrieked, dashing forward. The crown, heavy, toppled off her head. “You can’t do that! You promised!”

  “That woman massacred twenty-three of my men,” hissed Zoinx, all reverence gone. “Blast them out of the sky, then take the planet. We shall claim it as our new homeland, and we shall call it… New Earth. In honor of our queen.”

  The Tagriffians cheered as Katra screamed. Before her very eyes, a burst of orange energy rushed towards their small ship, blasting it to pieces smaller than dust itself.

  Yorick’s arms were around her then, carefully placing the crown back upon her head. But she didn’t care about that anymore. She sobbed into his chest, lamenting the loss of the last people in the universe that she knew by name.

  “Take her to her cell,” said Zoinx, “and find a place for the attendant. We’ll need them intact once the planet is ours.” Yorick’s arms were pulled away, replaced by buggish limbs, and Katra struggled to get out.

  Marcus, where are you? Help me, help me. I can’t fight. I can’t…

  “No! I am your queen! I order you to…”

  “You’re the queen,” said Zoinx. “You’re not our queen. We need you as a power piece. With you here, on New Earth, the planet is ours, and so is the universe. With you in our grasp, we shall take the galaxy!”

  “You realize no one else cares that I am alive, right?” Katra spat, pulling at the many, many arms that held her back. “Nobody knows who I was. Everyone who knew me is dead. I’m a smudge in the annals of history. Having me gives you nothing.”

  Pain skyrocketed through her foot, and she realized Yorick had just stomped on her toes. She shut her mouth right then and there – if she wanted to stay alive, she had to appear useful.