Free Recycled by Selina Rosen Page A

fucked up, but I'll live," Drewcila grumbled as she helped him shove another piece of ship out of her lap. She slapped his hands away and undid her own seat belt. "I hurt in places I didn't know I had."
     
    She checked her console and found all her screens blank. She looked around at her crew, counting heads, and found that they were all shaken but not stirred. She laughed, clapped her hands together, and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Wow! What a dick on a baby!"
     
    "I believe that is the queen's way of showing her joy that we have all lived through our ordeal," Jurak interpreted for the crew.
     
    "I am a fucking genius!" She laughed, took the silly hat—which turned out to be chartreuse with a red propeller on top—off her head, kissed it, and then stuffed it down deep into the pocket of her coveralls."Yet another Qwah theory tested and proven."
     
    She stood up and almost fell over. The ship was swaying to and fro, which could mean only one thing. They were floating on the surface of the lake."All right, people, as much as I'm sure you'd all like to stand around and sing my praises, I have no idea how long this sucker can float or how deep this lake is, so I suggest we get our happy little asses out of this crate before we have to find out."
     
     
     
    It wasn't as easy as it sounded. It took them a good thirty minutes to locate the escape hatch and figure out how to open it, and then they couldn't find the inflatable life raft. None of the crew had thought it was particularly important to go through the safety manual and run through emergency drills since Drewcila didn't seem worried about it. Apparently they had come to the conclusion that since she didn't seem at all worried about going through the manual and running them through the drills, that there must be little or no chance that this ship would meet with an accident. After all, Drewcila Qwah was their queen, and more important than that in this particular instance, she was a much more experienced space traveler than any of them were. They'd all assumed that if it had been important, she would have done it.
     
    Drewcila, for her part, assumed the idiots knew how to run the ship they'd been crewed on, and it never dawned on her that she might ought to take the time to run through the safety manual or go through the drills. Van Gar had suggested it once, and she'd wound up screaming at him that he was an old lady, and that they had better things to do with their time. Then she'd easily talked him into an incredibly twisted act which included sugar and zero G.
     
    The thought of it made her smile and momentarily forget the chaos all around her. That is until one of her panicked crewmen ran into her. She shoved him roughly, slamming him into a wall as she addressed her crew.
     
    "All right you panty-waisted rejects, listen up . . ." she hadn't really thought past that, and they were now all silent staring at her expectantly, which was a lot of pressure since she really didn't have anything to follow that up with. She didn't really have anyone to blame but herself. But that didn't stop her trying."This is all your fault! What sort of a crew considers itself space worthy, and doesn't even take the time to read the emergency manual? I'm very busy being queen and running the corporation and all. I can't be expected to do such a piddly-assed thing as read manuals and mollycoddle you bunch of titty-sucking babies through a bunch of silly-assed drills . . ." Towards the back of the group Jurak was excitedly waving his hand in the air."What . . . what the hell is it, Jurak? Do you know where the raft is?"
     
    He looked more than a little defeated."No . . . I was just wondering if we were supposed to address you as Queen or Captain now?"
     
    Drewcila pulled at her hair and jumped up and down."Gods! I'm completely, astoundingly, surrounded by morons. Our ship has crashed and we're sinking in a fucking lake, and you're such idiots that you don't even