A Hurricane Tonight

Bucket-list cosplay: Priss from Bubble Gum Crisis. I will have to commission the services of someone skilled in vacuforming or get really good with the craft foam. (Also invest in some good corsetry…)

“Ether Flier Lavender”

– another in the ‘Sidequest’ series of fiction fragments –

“We’re travelers of luck – We sail the seas of space – Just to try, and make a buck – LA-VEN-DER!!”

Picture if you will a cross between Space Battleship Yamato, Yellow Submarine, and Firefly: a bizarre ship crewed by four misfits with extraordinary skills. Outcasts from their peoples, they take any jobs they find in hopes of surviving and even sometimes turning a profit. Their madcap – and sometimes harrowing – adventures have become legend.

Our Crew
  • Jahmest Wecyi: owner and captain of the cargo ship “Lavender Oboe”. Looks like a classic Grey alien with short prehensile tentacles corn-rowed along their skull. Jamest is prone to making nonsensical statements under stress, or just when they’re in the mood.
  • “Nearly Mad” Mike NinetyFive: “Nearly” to his friends. Mike is an aurapilot whose glitch also makes him invisible and often nearly intangible. He dyes his hair and wears sunglasses and lipstick to help friends locate his face. He rides the ether filaments better than any other pilot in or out of the Forty-One Worlds… but then they all say that, don’t they.
  • Probosca: A lightly-furred, rotund being with a protruding nose, short stumpy legs, no obvious neck, and a single large eye. Her race has a remarkably sensitive, directional sense of smell, which is believed to work in tandem with the eye to provide depth perception and peripheral senses.
  • Zeesuf: This being’s body shape is unknown, as it is covered with dense, blunt spines revealing only wide eyes, a small nose, and mouth. The spines work as the legs of a millipede to carry Zeesuf over even difficult terrain and can grasp and manipulate objects. The spines are capable of great dexterity and delicate touch, making zir a perfect choice for engineer.
The “Lavender Oboe”
  • It is definitely lavender, but bears no obvious resemblance to an oboe, which doesn’t surprise considering Wecyi named it. It is a tall, narrow ship with a bridge section at the top of a pyramidal superstructure, upon which are mounted a complex array of sensors.
  • Beginning perhaps a third of the way from the bow, two bulbous cargo pods are permanently attached flush with the ship: booster engines fill the aft section of these pods.
  • The crystalline filament drive sits shrouded at the very rear of the ship, with three large radiator fins that also serve as auxiliary steering in atmosphere. The ship is covered with an abnormal amount of cargo and equipment hatches, not all of which anyone remembers how to open.
  • At the very front, there is a curious hole filled with power and data conduits. Clearly, it is a socket for some powerful device. The crew refuses to discuss it under any circumstances.

 

Catch the all-new adventures of the Lavender and her crew, 17 episodes per binge-able season on the “Infotainer” subscription frequency!