Will Save the Galaxy for Food

by Yahtzee Croshaw

Someone had told me once that the shutters weren’t there for safety purposes, but rather because quantum tunneling refuses to work when anyone’s observing it, and no one really knows why.

He looked furtively left and right, as if we were exchanging classified information in a darkened car park, then leaned closer. “Is it true about Jacques McKeown?” I leaned in too. “It is. He really does rape dogs. He can’t help it; it’s an impulse. I’ve never seen one get away from him in time.” He shook his head earnestly. “I mean, is it true that all the pilots secretly know who he is but they’ve made a pact not to tell?” I was bored with this. I blew out my cheeks. “Kid, if that was true, Jacques McKeown wouldn’t be writing books. Because I and all my colleagues would be shoving them all up his arse with the rest of his trac. Now do me a favor: go forth and multiply.”

And they doubly wouldn’t be big on the illegal modification my gun had. Originally it had had two settings: Stun and Kill. These had proved inadequate against the ridiculously well-armored skin of monsters from particularly rough planets, so I’d found a way to tinker with the built-in limitations. The dial now had a third setting, labeled with the handwritten words “Solve All Immediate Problems.”

If there was anything about this ship that was like a cat, it was its willingness to do as it was told.

I always pictured her settling down with some kind of filing cabinet with a dildo strapped to the top.

Warden took on that very specific tense posture unique to upper-middle-class white people being called out on saying something politically incorrect.

“I can’t believe there was ever a war fought here,” said Jemima in a breathy voice, drinking it all in. “It’s so peaceful.” “Yeah, that’s how you can tell that there was a war fought here, Jemima,” I said.

I looked at her questioningly, and she jiggled her tablet in response. Ply knows how she had been able to hold on to that thing all this time. It was probably because it was the closest thing she had to a soul.

It spoke with a rather alarming voice that sounded like a death metal singer had given up his career to spend the rest of his life chain-smoking in a public bathroom.

My brain had thrown itself onto a mattress in a sulk, curled up, and was refusing to respond. I screwed my eyes up tight and opened them again, a technique that has never, ever worked in the entire history of man.

It was trundling up to top speed like a rickshaw driver ten years past optimal retirement age. Of course, the Platinum God of Whale Sharks moved like a rickshaw driver twenty years past prime that had managed to run himself over with his own vehicle,

The dragon went back to sleep a bit at a time, lulled by the sweet music of bureaucracy.

As the saying goes, a star pilot’s flight jacket has no stains, only stories.

It was almost exactly like being caught in a depressurization event. I opened my eyes to find them watering. I was alive, still in the ballroom, and caught in a depressurization event.

Angelo sent one last shot into the silence, like he was putting a signature on it, or shaking off the last drop at the urinal.

Now I felt like a dumbfounded hobbit watching his friend refusing to throw that plying ring into Mount Doom.

a hero only has one job, and that’s to make himself unnecessary.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry; I forgot you boys are new to working with me. Well, just for future reference, questioning my orders usually results in those orders getting carved into your scalp. Okay? So let’s try that again. Leave us.”