Episode One: Lights, Camera, Impact!, Page 2

at least not in any significant way. True, there was that one time when she accidentally teleported Space into the middle of a war zone on the other side of Siphania, rather than in that planet's capital like she was supposed to, but at least it had never teleported any of them inside out.

  Yet, she thought as her body rematerialized onto the surface of Magna 5. Best not to think too deeply about that.

  She shook her head and looked around at her surroundings. She found herself standing in a large, sandy canyon that, if everything had gone according to plan, was right in the center of the Barren Isle. A thick, natural rock bridge above her head that spanned the length of the canyon confirmed that for her.

  Galaxy again checked the air supply of her spacesuit. It was at one hundred percent and would likely last two weeks if she was smart about it (though she doubted she would be on this planet for two weeks). She needed it because Magna 5 had little breathable air and what little air it did have was full of sand, smoke, ash, or sometimes all three, among other equally lethal substances. That was also why she wore a helmet made of polycarbonate that would hopefully protect her head in the event she fell from a high place or was somehow attacked.

  She also checked her gravity boots. These would allow her to walk across Magna 5 with little difficulty. This was good because Magna 5's gravity was a lot different from that of Earth's or any other planet in the Universal Alliance. It was heavier, for one thing, but her gravity boots would save her from being crushed. She made a mental note never to remove them while here.

  Her suit's internal thermometer told her that the surface of Magna 5 was hot, at least two hundred degrees Celsius, probably hotter the further down south. She was quite glad that her suit came equipped with personal cooling systems. She hated the heat.

  Then she took a closer look at her surroundings.

  The Barren Isle was indeed barren. She saw no animals, no plants, nothing but rock and sand in the canyon, and that just barely. There were certainly no rock monsters, a thought that made Galaxy chuckle.

  Space has got the biggest imagination in the universe, Galaxy thought as she took a step forward to test her gravity boots. Rock monsters. Please.

  Galaxy spent the next few hours scouring the canyon for rocks. She found igneous, granite, rough rock, and a variety of other species of stone, some more common than others, but she figured she could get a good price for all of them on the market. She packed whatever she could fit into her rock-carrying bag, which quickly filled up with her findings as the day progressed.

  By the time Magna 5's small sun was setting, Galaxy had gathered at least thirty pounds of rocks. She messaged Space, telling him to teleport the rocks up to the ship and to deposit them in the cargo bay, and watched as the bag disappeared before her very eyes. Ten minutes later, the bag rematerialized and she grabbed it and hooked its strap over her right shoulder.

  By now, however, Galaxy was tired. Despite the suit's cooling systems, she was hot and sweaty, and with the sun nearly setting, she needed to find a good place to sleep for the night. While there were no wild animals on Magna 5 that could harm her, Galaxy was aware of large sandstorms that sometimes appeared during the night. How the sandstorms worked, no one knew, as the winds on Magna 5 were not strong enough to make them, but they did exist and to date had claimed the lives of ten unlucky explorers who had been unable to find shelter in time.

  Luckily for Galaxy, she found a small cave, its entranced sheltered by a large boulder, in the canyon. She instinctively checked it to make sure that it was uninhabited, which it was, and set up camp without much trouble. Her camp was simple; an expandable tent made of rubber and plastic, complete with a sleeping bag, and capable of handling the sandstorms should it become necessary.

  Galaxy crawled into the tent and lay down on top of the sleeping bag, too exhausted from her work during the day to actually get into the sleeping bag—that, and the spacesuit, for all its practicality, was really uncomfortable to sleep in and she didn't think she'd get any sleep.

  That is, until she awoke with a start the next morning at the sound of a woman screaming just outside her cave. The sound was so sudden and so disorienting that Galaxy at first thought she was still dreaming, but when she saw the first signs of daylight through the flaps of her tent, she realized it was morning. And that she had to find out who was screaming.

  Scrambling to her feet, Galaxy removed her laser gun from her holster (her intuition—what Space would call her 'space explorer sense'—told her that there might be trouble) and ran out of the cave. She peered around the boulder to see what was going on.

  In the center of the canyon was a beautiful young Asian woman in a torn, purple dress that appeared to have been deliberately torn to show off her cleavage. She was lying on the ground, screaming and holding up her right hand to fend off what looked like a giant tentacled monster. Galaxy had never seen such a creature before. It looked like a cross between an octopus and a griffin. If anything, Galaxy thought it looked a lot like the pictures she used to draw as a kid, except this one was real and was clearly about to kill the woman.

  Galaxy didn't know what was going on, but she didn't think or question it further. She just stepped out from behind the boulder, aimed her gun at the octo-griffin thing, and said, “Hey, big, dumb, and ugly! How's about you take on someone who can actually fight?”

  The octo-griffin didn't even acknowledge her existence and neither did the Asian woman. That was when Galaxy remembered she was wearing a helmet and that sound didn't carry very well on Magna 5 due to its lack of air.

  So Galaxy aimed her gun at the octo-griffin's head and fired off a shot. She fully expected the laser to strike the monster's head and blow out its brains. That would probably get the Asian woman's clothes all covered with its brains, but at least she would be safe.

  Thus, Galaxy was surprised when the octo-griffin's head exploded in a burst of flame and metal. Immediately, the octo-griffin and the Asian woman vanished. In their place were two floating metal spheres; or rather, one floating metal sphere. The second one was lying on the sand, burnt and twisted and likely unrepairable.

  Dumbfounded, Galaxy lowered her gun and just stared at the orbs. “What the hell …?”

  Without warning, a small floating camera zoomed up to Galaxy's face. Startled, she almost shot it, but relaxed when she realized it was unarmed. She recognized it as a hover-cam, but what it was doing all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere, and who owned it, she had no idea.

  “Uh, hello?” said Galaxy, peering at the camera, which hovered before her like a ghost. “Anyone in there?”

  A message appeared on the inside of her helmet informing her that someone was trying to connect. It was not Space or Sparky, but an unknown caller, which made her hesitant about opening it, but she decided she was going to get to the bottom of this mystery, so she answered it.

  As soon as she answered it, the entire front of her helmet was filled with the large, red, pulsing face of a Doman, a slug-like species from the planet Doma. Though Galaxy had been aware that her suit could display face-to-face messages like this, the Doman's sudden appearance almost made her cut off the connection without thinking. Didn't help that she already had a strong aversion to Domans on principle.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, woman?” said the Doman, his voice magnified in her helmet for some reason. “You just wrecked thousands of digits of high-end, expensive equipment! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “What are you babbling about?” said Galaxy. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I am Zingfree Drifle,” said the Doman in his best impression of a jerk (at least, that was Galaxy's impression). “Director of the movie A Day on the Annulus and my biopic Zingfree, Come Home. Both, I might add, Galactic Award-winning films.”

  Zingfree's name clicked a memory in Galaxy's head. “I think I've heard of you before. A friend of mine is a big movie buff. Think he told me about your movies.”

  Zingfree smiled. “Oh? And what did he say
?”

  Galaxy now remembered exactly what Space had said about Zingfree's two movies. “He said that first one was overrated and that your biopic could be titled Zingfree is a Blowhard and it would not have been inaccurate.”

  To say that Zingfree was angry would be like saying that the Annulus was a huge, ring-shaped space habitat. “Your friend doesn't know anything about good films. I imagine he must like trash like Annulus Zombies. What garbage! What an insult to the noble art of motion pictures! It makes me sick just thinking about it!”

  Galaxy was just sick looking at his face. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Anyway, weren't you talking about how I destroyed your expensive equipment or something?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Zingfree, seemingly forgetting his hatred of cheap popcorn flicks. “You destroyed one of my holospheres. Those are incredibly expensive, the high-end ones going up into the millions of digits. These ones weren't particularly high-end—you see, I was aiming to recreate the look and feel of the Classic Era holofilms by using the cheapest holospheres I could find—but now you ruined it, ruined it all, and for no reason I can see other than you are a trigger-happy gunslinger.”

  “I thought the monster was real,” said Galaxy, not even pretending to be polite now. “How was I supposed to know it was a holosphere? It