Page 230 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

230

Possibly Fatal Discovery

J ahzara Zedd

“Fuckers! Fuckers!”

I’m glad I’m in this soundproofed room near the bridge of the ship. I wouldn’t want my staff to hear me lose my temper. Not that I haven’t screamed at them in the past. That’s a daily occurrence. I just don’t want them to know I miscalculated so badly.

My comm buzzes, and without looking, I know it’s my boss. My gaze flicks to the bottom right of my screen and I see the area where viewers were buying Mayhem Packages so fast the digital numbers were flying only a few minutes ago. The spinning has all but stopped. In fact, they are reversing. Orders are being canceled.

I promised our viewers mayhem, sex, and blood, and what I’m giving them is all the excitement of a party in a high school gymnasium.

I thought for certain the males would go at each other in deadly clashes. Instead, they all look like lovesick schoolboys.

My comm buzzes again. I’m a powerful female who is now rich in her own right. I’m not powerful enough to ignore my boss.

“Gorjan,” I say, my mouth stretched in its widest smile.

“Bad numbers!” The gelatinous piece of shit says. “Bad. No good. Fix!”

“Yes, Sir. I know just the thing. This was my plan all along. I was just about to fill the ship with nitrous oxide, Sir. My deep research into this species tells me nitrous oxide causes their aggression rates to fly through the roof. Look!” I say, pointing to one of my keyboards. “I was just pulling up the program to release the gas.”

“Do not tell. Do! Or else,” he says, then terminates the comm.

Stars above, how does someone with the intelligence of a piece of glaprod shit wind up at the helm of the galaxy’s biggest network?

Well, Jahzara, I say to myself, how did I wind up as one of its most highly paid employees when I made such a terrible miscalculation?

The line I gave him about nitrous oxide was purely plucked out of my ass. I have no ideas about how to make this better. How was I to know an entire ship of aroused Xenons who hadn’t been laid in almost two thousand years would wake up and want to play nice with the females I provided? It defies belief.

I need to incentivize them. Tell them I’ll start picking them off with hidden drone laser rifles if they don’t have sex within 15 minutes. That should get the dial rolling faster again.

“Attention,” I announce when the viewers are watching a commercial for a magical product that makes pounds fall off by simply ingesting one pill a day. “You will commence having intercourse with the nearest person of the opposite sex or I will instruct my drones to begin firing into the crowd in 15 minutes.”

When I set the timer, I take a moment to review my plan of action. I must admit, it’s hard to think straight as I wonder just what Gorjan Kaygen meant when he said, “or else.”

A’Dar

For the first time, it’s me and me alone in charge of a ship full of people. Thousands of them are depending upon me to not only keep them safe, but make them happy.

“Do you think she really has drones armed with laser rifles?” Maya asks as she lifts her head from my chest to look into my eyes, her expression filled with worry.

“Computer. Are there any arms on board other than those from the pirate ship and Xenon military issue?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Enumerate.”

“Two Almerang ketong shock rifles in the captain’s closet. He brought them on board at your last stop before entering this sector. Personal laser pistols in cabins 4121, 5216, and 13422. Two laser pistols and two laser rifles in the janitorial closet two doors from the bridge on the leeward side.”

“Show me surveillance of that janitorial closet.”

No one is more surprised than me when the vid screen shows that heinous TGN announcer Jahzara Zedd in what is unmistakably our janitorial closet.

“Minimize vid feed to the bottom tenth of the screen.” The last thing I need is for her to see we’re surveilling her as her screens scroll through the mayhem.

“That bitch!” Maya seethes. “She’s here? On board this ship? Hiding? What did she think would happen when we found her?”

I guess there is one person more surprised than me at Zedd’s whereabouts—Maya.

There are far more than four guns in that room. The floor is littered with Xenon arms. Only four of the weapons are hers. At this point, only the four she brought on board are functional.

“She came in before any of us came out of stasis, before you females initially came on board,” I say as I put the pieces together. When the ship’s computer said it needed an upgrade, I think it was confessing to neglecting to wake me when Zedd came aboard. I stifle my fury when I realize this might work to our advantage.

I look again, instructing the camera to pan to every corner of the room. She’s in there alone, alright. And unless Mel’Kan fixes the pulse damage, she’s one female with four working weapons against a ship full of Xenon warriors.

For the first time in days, no, for the first time in almost two millennia, I’m feeling optimistic, perhaps even a little gleeful, as I imagine exactly how good it will feel to end the female who has tortured so many.