Punchline.

[Muzzy]

“Space bug is not my thing.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it.”
 
“That’s not something worth being knocked up on.”
 
“I bet it tastes like chicken.”
 
These two men, I thought, where people of stale and poor character. They chattered like machineguns going off just outside for a few hours now.
 
The content of the sexually charged discussion made it feel like an eternity.
 
To be fair, I had a curious fetish for mutant space bugs as much as these two mooks, assuming they existed. A common topic of whether alien life had populated the universe besides humanity, and what they would be like, was one commonly shared between those with the spacefaring dream. Though, once I realized that the topics were leapfrogging from one thing to another, my heart no longer raced and I became at ease with my back against the wall of this dark room.
 
I just listened, the unfortunate stowaway. It’s not like they were going anywhere, anytime soon.
 
“You’re a fucking bottom-feeder, Thomas.”
 
I chuckled silently to myself.
 
Those weren’t the words of the two guards outside. No, those were the words that burrowed into my memory and liked to reverberate every so often. Those were painful words I kept to heart as a sort of discipline, lest I fear becoming far more deplorable than a man.
 
Those were the last words Harrison gave me before I aired out his skull with a blaster.
 
Harrison was a snake. Harrison almost bit me. I got rid of Harrison.
 
That’s how it’s supposed to be, I think. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m clinging to mere threads in a ship full of people who’d identify me as trespasser and kill me.
 
Because that’s the plot. The plot, as ambiguous as it is, wouldn’t exist without these turn of events.
 
Being a so-called terrorist for my involvement in an unsavory organization is a risky, almost suicidal business. I conceded that when I took the job to secretly invade this government ship. The objectives were hazy, but it was a trading ship we were meant to commandeer as marauders.
 
A risky, almost suicidal business.
 
My buddy was Harrison. He was a dear, I thought at one point. A handsome man. Maybe I would be happier with myself if I hadn’t found him attempting to relinquish info. Maybe I would be happier with myself if he hadn’t taken a role as an EarthGov informant in the first place.
 
The plot wouldn’t exist, but I’d be happy instead of a protagonist.
 
Bah.
 
That’s no use now.
 
I had fled, and found myself stuck here. Not necessarily from a murder, so much as I fled into this job without considering that it was such an obvious trap not even a middle-schooler would fall for it.
Was it insan-?...
 
The doors slid open, the light from the ship’s gunmetal grey corridor spilling into my room. Two jackbooted security officials – hired thugs to act as cheap muscle fodder – swiftly stepped into my room.
 
One had his baton drawn.
 
The conversation was over.
 
I was struck across the head in an instant, and I crumpled onto my side, holding my aching temple.
 
Helpless.
 
It seems I had overshot how long I had to wait until they transported me to court a ship’s court, likely convicted of piracy and terrorism.
 
Sentenced to death.
 
I wish I didn’t have to be the punch-line of a joke.