Cracking Open a Cold One

  As the Prince of Denmark observed long ago, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Unwarily, he neglected to mention hell, perhaps because he had an iambic pentameter to maintain. Nonetheless, the remark holds true of all three locales; and when the citizens of one sphere unveil themselves in another, drama rarely fails to result.

My name, friend, is Friar Clump. I live and work in the asteroid town of Lindisfarne, deep in the glimmering reaches of Sagittarius B2. And if ever you’ve harbored a doubt about the Lord’s goodness, I refute it thus: that seraphic expanse is made up of billions of gallons of Space Alcohol. My brother monks and I harvest this bounty and prayerfully refine it into beer for all the peoples of the cosmos. And because truth is greater than humility, I cannot conceal from you that our blessed brew, though made of earthly stuff, is to be counted among the elixirs of paradise.

I was aboard a good ship called the Long Haul, accompanying a delivery to my beloved friends at Dill’s Deep-Space Diner, on the Enoch Station, in the Kenoma System, far away from home. Kenoma lies in a guttering galaxy, and colonies are sparse. When our reserves grew low, we had to stop at an unmanned fueling station orbiting a small, barren moon. Being a rather inexperienced traveler, I left my cabin and headed for the bridge to watch the process.

“Hullo, padre,” said Captain Adriana Kingsford, a tall, greying woman of staunch character.

“Good evening, Captain. Permission to enter the bridge?”

“Granted. We’re just stopping to refuel.”

“Yes, I gathered. Are those the pumps?”

“Yup. Take about half an hour. We’ll be at Enoch by morningtide.”

“Lovely, thank you.”

A thunk went through the deck as the fueling rods grappled onto us. Ernest Beauregard, the first mate, glanced at the captain and gave a silent nod, presumably to indicate that all was proceeding as it ought.

“All right, Bo, you’ve got the conn,” she said. “I’m gonna go check on the—what the hell is that?”

I jumped at her tone and stared at her finger. Then, following her gaze, I saw a bizarrely beautiful woman in a red dress stepping out from the station onto the nearest fuel rod. For the merest sliver of a moment, I didn’t understand the captain’s reaction. And then it registered on me that the lady in red was walking, unsuited, through the ghastly dark of outer space.

We stood open-mouthed as the woman pushed gently off the fuel rod and came wafting like a red zephyr toward the Long Haul’s hull. Could she be an angel, I wondered? But there was—there was something in her smile. Something other than heavenly.

The voice of Kayla Southerly, our mechanic, crackled on the intercom, and I jumped again. “Cap’n? Are y’all seein’ this?”

“I dunno what I’m seeing, Kay.”

Then Ernest pointed. “Captain.”

A pale thin man and a second woman were now gliding across the rods as well. An eerie dread coiled within me, and I nearly yelped out, “Away! Get us away!”

“Can’t uncouple from a dock while you’re shipping fuel, padre. Not unless the system recognizes an emergency.”

“We’re being boarded! Surely—”

“Not according to this reading,” Ernest said grimly. “They don’t scan as life forms.”

“Robots, Bo?”

“No ma’am. System’d recognize robot boarders as a threat.”

From the intercom: “Oh my goblins, they’re spooks! We’re gettin’ boarded by spooks!”

“Calm down, Kay, they can’t get inside. And oh yeah, there’s no such thing as spooks.”

The two newcomers were heading for the airlock. The woman in red reached the ship and, like some ghoulish arachnid, began to crawl across the hull toward the viewscreen.

“She got weapons?” the captain asked tightly.

Ernest shook his head.­­

“Then we sit tight. Let her scratch at the window all she wants.”

The red lady splayed herself across the viewscreen with a cruel and crimson smile. As we stood watching her long dark hair float languidly about her, she focused her gaze on Ernest. He gazed back for a long moment, and the fear and confusion seemed to leave him. Then, suddenly, he jerked forward and slapped a button on the console.

“Bo!” the captain howled.

Before I could wonder what fresh horror was upon us, the ship’s computer spoke: “Stand by for airlock ingress.”

Ernest blinked and frowned. “What—what just—”

“You let the damned things inside, is what just happened. Now prepare to receive hostiles!”

“I—yes, ma’am.” He shook off his daze and opened a compartment in the bulkhead, producing two photon rifles for himself and the captain.

“Stay here, padre!” she shouted, and the two of them dashed from the bridge.

I obeyed for a moment, chewing on her chance phrase: “damned things.” The men of science have found and forged many wonders since Our Lord arrived in the stable; but the natural world dwells cheek by jowl with the spirit realm, no less now than in the day of that Grand Miracle when heaven trod the dust of earth. I glanced up at the viewscreen, where the red lady was still grinning down at me, and then I clutched my crucifix and sprinted from the bridge.

The airlock had already irised shut behind the boarders. The pale man was standing in the hallway, leering at Ernest and Adriana, as I came up behind my shipmates. Of the woman there was no sign.

“. . . fully licensed ship of the Peace,” the captain was saying, her rifle and tone both level. “Just tell us what you want, and maybe we all walk away from this with our brains in our skulls.”

“Don’t worry, Captain,” the invader replied, and his voice was a razor in silk. “I promise you’ll want what we want.”

Then another hard sweet voice: “Look what I found!” The strange woman came sauntering back up the hallway with Kayla in her clutch. She was holding our stout mechanic up in the air with one hand, negligently, as if carrying a kitten by the scruff, and Kayla was frozen with terror. The woman opened her mouth wide, and her incisors began to grow and sharpen.

Adriana shouted, “Let her—” but Ernest had already opened fire. A blast of force hit the strange woman in the chest, and should have splattered her lungs all the way down the hall. But she and the pale man merely laughed. The woman lowered her fangs toward Kayla’s neck.

And then I moved. Or no, the One Whom I serve moved within me, and I had just enough will and grace to respond. Lunging forward with the cross held high, I roared in a voice far greater than my own, “Back, in the Name of Christ! Back, Satan, I command you!”

The invaders hissed like cats and cringed away, shielding their faces. Ernest darted forward, caught Kayla by the arm, and thrust her behind him. “Toldja they was spooks,” she stammered.

“Get to the escape pod, Kay,” Adriana ordered. “We’re right behind you.”

“Yes, Cap’n.”

She fled, and the three of us began to back away. The two boarders followed us as closely as they dared, snarling and spitting, their eyes now shot with blood and hate. Ernest and the captain stood at my right and my left, still aiming their useless weapons, as I brandished the blade of Christ and bellowed His words at our foes. “Get thee behind me, Satan! God the Father compels you! God the Son compels you! God the Holy Spirit compels you!”

As we passed a branch of the corridor, the pale man turned and sped off down another hall with the speed of a nightmare. The woman continued her slow, flinching advance, spasming forward to swipe at me with her lengthening claws as I jabbed with the crucifix like a cornered lion-tamer.

“Dammit,” Adriana muttered. “That guy’s gonna get around behind us. There’s no way we make it to the pod.”

We rounded a corner, and there he was. “Careful what you ask for, holy man,” he jeered. “You said you wanted Satan behind you.”

Adriana punched a button on the bulkhead, and a large metal door slid open to our left. “In here, padre. At least we can get our backs to a wall.”

As Ernest and I followed her into the room beyond, I realized it was the cargo bay. Off to one side were four huge pallets of Lindisfarne’s finest beer. On the other side, a single porthole gazed out upon the soundless majesty of the stars. At least it was a fitting last view of God’s Creation.

The creatures advanced, now grinning again, and we retreated slowly to the far bulkhead. My arm was tiring, and my will was beginning to waver. “Back!” I shouted again, but my voice cracked, and they laughed at me.

“You should have stuck to making beer, old man,” said the woman. “All you’ve done is work up our thirst.”

And the Light of Heaven dawned.

“Captain, shoot the beer!” I shouted.

“Say what?”

“Shoot the blessed beer!”

She and Ernest opened fire on the pallets. Wood and glass debris exploded all around us, and the precious brew deluged the cargo room. The two invaders shrieked, twisted, and burst into rampaging flames. We hit the deck, splashing into foamy head, as the cold creatures were fierily consumed.

Then, quiet. Flakes of ash came sifting down to settle into the hoppy pool around us. For a long moment, no one moved or spoke.

“Okay,” Adriana said finally. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”

“There’s still one of ’em clingin’ onto the ship,” Ernest said.

“Good. Once we make the Jump, she can float out there alone till the end of time. Just don’t make eye contact.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Captain, if I may? I believe it will still be some minutes before the system allows us to uncouple. Perhaps the best thing is for us to invite Ms. Southerly back to the cargo hold, and the four of us to investigate the wreckage for surviving bottles. It would be a shame if every drop went to waste.”

“Works for me, padre. Although considering it saved our lives, I wouldn’t exactly call it a waste.”

“Ah, but you haven’t tasted Lindisfarne brew.”

“Well.” She smiled, and the light came back into her eyes. “Let’s fix that.”

***

J.B. Toner studied Literature at Thomas More College and holds a black belt in Ohana Kilohana Kenpo-Jujitsu. He has published two novels, Whisper Music and The Shoreless Sea, along with numerous shorter works. Toner expounds upon grammar and bloodshed at instagram.com/jbtoner.z.