The Pampshifter: Chapter 3

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“GOOD MORNING, CPT. KING. THE SHIP HAS SUSTAINED DAMAGE TO THE LOADING BAY AND DOCKING AREA. VITALS OF ALL CREW MEMBERS ARE NORMAL. OXYGEN HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY REDUCED TO 70% CAPACITY. WHAT ARE YOUR ORDERS, CAPTAIN?”

Sitting in his sleep pod hunched over with a towel around his neck, Cpt. Ellis King stretched the skin on his face with his hand, still coming down from his lengthy stent in hypersleep. Sadly, he wasn’t lucky enough to sleep until their destination without something going wrong. “Well, we don’t have much of a choice. Begin preparations for an emergency manual repair,” he said, climbing to his feet and shaking off the sluggishness in his legs.

“Hey, Captain!”

Suddenly, Ellis’s attention was turned toward the other members of his crew who had all been rudely awakened from their space naps as well. Specifically, his attention landed squarely on Mason Peters, one of his ship’s two engineers. “Seeing as how this is an unplanned and unsanctioned stop on our journey, I don’t suppose additional compensation might be provided for our troubles,” he said, his tone light-hearted while the truth behind his shrewd eyes was anything but.

“Mason, shut the fuck up,” said Roland Finkle, the ship’s lead engineer, and Mason’s direct superior, playfully smacking him on the back of the head for good measure, “The damage is in the loading dock, right? We’ll have it fixed up in no time.”

“Negative, Roland. Stand by for now and wait for orders. I’m going to go see what Meg and Donnie have done to my ship,” said Ellis, briskly exiting the sleep chamber and making his way through the maze of corridors contained within the ship. For someone unfamiliar, it would be easy to get lost. For Ellis, though, who had been piloting this vessel for nearly two decades, this ship might as well have been another of his body’s appendages.

Entering the ship’s cockpit, Ellis shook his head in an exaggerated manner as he looked back and forth between his two underlings. “Alright, which of you broke my ship?” he said, turning his head to the side and scoffing as he caught Meg trying to slip away, “And where do you think you’re going?”

With the diaper that she was about to change herself into still in hand, Meg bashfully raised it up for Ellis to see. “I was just gonna…yeah…” she said, unable to bring herself to verbalize what she was about to do, especially to the only guy on the ship she actually had any respect for.

“Negative. You’re not going anywhere until I get a full report on what’s going on. Now sit,” said Ellis, pointing toward Meg’s chair at the comm station.

Not wanting to squish the mess in her pampers any further, Meg attempted to protest, “But-”

“That’s an order, Sampson,” said Ellis, not allowing Meg to get a word in edgewise whilst addressing her formally by her last name.

Lowering her head, Meg returned to her seat, wincing as the already mashed-up mush caked itself onto her buttocks yet again.

“Donnie, what happened?’ said Ellis, turning his attention to his second in command once Meg had finished following orders.

Clearing his throat, Donnie had already been typing up a report. He began to read off his screen verbatim, “Meg and I were sitting in the cockpit when a piece of debris struck the side of the ship. The debris was too small to show up on radar so this was a freak accident.” He deliberately left out the part where he and Meg ignored a call for help, praying that Ellis wouldn’t verify this information with Mother.

“So, let me get this straight. You both were sitting right here, in this cockpit that has windows that allow you to see in all directions, and neither one of you saw whatever piece of space garbage ran into my ship?” said Ellis, casting doubt on the finer details of Donnie’s overly simplistic story, “Now, were you both lying about being in the cockpit or do I need to pull up Mother’s video logs to verify what you’re saying for myself?”

Shrinking down in his seat, Donnie knew that it would be better to come clean now about slacking on the job than it would be for Ellis to discover on his own that he and Meg committed offenses worthy of being court-martialed. “Well…we may have stepped away momentarily…in my defense, Meg was still in here when I left to grab a coffee,” he said, tossing Meg under the bus without hesitation.

“Seriously, Donnie?” said Meg, staring daggers into the back of Donnie’s head as the heat of Ellis’s gaze fell on her. Not wanting to be the only one receiving her captain’s ire, she quickly attempted to drag Donnie down with her, “Donnie sits in the captain’s chair whenever you go into hypersleep.”

Dropping his jaw, Donnie was shocked that Meg would go for such a low blow. “The fuck, Meg?! You said you wouldn’t say anything!” he said, his face flushing slightly.

“That’s enough out of both of you!” shouted Ellis, silencing his crew instantly, “Since you both have clearly been neglecting your duties, I’m making the executive decision. The two of you will fix the ship. Both of you report to Roland so he can get you suited up.”

Leaping to their feet and meekly approaching Ellis, both Donnie and Meg had zero interest in performing the ship’s repairs. Not because it was difficult. Far from it, actually. It was utterly mindless work. “Captain, please. I assure you our…er- at least, my skills would be better utilized here in the cockpit,” said Donnie, hoping to wiggle his way out of his captain’s cruel punishment.

Sadly, Ellis’s mind was made up. “That’s an order, Lieutenant,” he said, taking a seat in the captain’s chair, “You two are dismissed.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

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