Unidentified Funny Objects 7, page 3
Esther is married, a mother of two, grandmother of two, harbors cats, and lives in Connecticut. She has a fondness for bittersweet chocolate, graphic novels, manga, travel, and jewelry. There is no truth to the rumor that her family motto is "Oooooh, SHINY!"
Her super-power is the ability to winnow her bookshelves without whining about it. Much.
Chad Versus the Rebel Alliance
Shane Halbach
Chad sorted through his closet. He pushed past a yellow muscle shirt, a red tee that said, “Rebel Scum” (ironically, of course), and finally settled on a deep blue shirt that said, “Here Comes the Storm!” The blue looked good with his blond crew cut, and it was tight enough to show off his abs.
In other words, perfect.
His door slid aside and he stepped into the gunmetal gray corridor. Across the hall, Chad stepped out of his door. He was wearing the same shirt.
“Nice shirt, bro!” said Chad, and they fist bumped. All up and down the hall, Chads were stepping into the corridor, fist bumping, and walking toward the mission room. Every single one of them was wearing the blue shirt.
The room was already half full by the time Chad arrived. He moved toward an empty chair.
Chad grabbed him from behind.
“Nice hair, bro!” he said, ruffling it.
“Come on, bro, not the hair!” Chad cried in fake distress. That got a big laugh.
“Alright you clones, settle down,” said Commander Grimsby. “Let’s get these assignments handed out. A, B, D, and E squads, get suited up; you’ve got ‘standing around in formation in the main hangar’ duty.”
There were groans from most of the assembled Chads.
“Oh come on, it’s not so bad. You could be storming some swamp planet or something.”
“He’s got a point,” said some Chad, and the groans turned into fist bumps.
“What about us, boss?” asked Chad.
“C squad? Get suited up, you’re storming a swamp planet.”
The number of groans was smaller, but more dedicated.
“Let’s get going!” roared Commander Grimsby. “Those swamps aren’t going to storm themselves! Those hangars aren’t going to, uh . . . have people standing around in them by themselves!”
Chad hopped up from his chair and moved toward his locker. Swamp duty again. He thought longingly of standing around on the hangar deck all day.
Someone really had it in for C squad.
Chad lined up at the door of the drop ship. To call it a ship was a bit optimistic: it was basically a tin can that could hold up against the vacuum of space just long enough to fall through the atmosphere and release all the Chads packed inside like sardines. It couldn’t even get back into orbit; they’d send another ship to retrieve any Chads who survived the attack, assuming there were any. Past experience said there probably wouldn’t be.
In fact, you’d have to be crazy to even climb into the thing. Chad nodded to Left Chad and Right Chad, then prepared to board.
“Hey, Commander?” called a Chad further down the line. “Can we get a bathroom break first?”
“Why didn’t you go before you got your armor on?”
“I didn’t have to go then.”
Commander Grimsby sighed.
“How many of you need to use the bathroom?”
All the Chads raised their hands.
“Power it down,” called the Commander, defeated. “We’ll try again in five.”
He looked around at the Troopers, hopping on one foot and trying to remove their armor. He sighed again.
“Better make it fifteen.”
Chad leaned out from behind a tree and returned fire with his heavy blaster. Things were not going well.
The rebels had somehow broken through the perimeter, he had swamp water filling his armor as high as his thighs, and there was some kind of adorable lizard-natives pelting him with rocks.
“Yo, boss?” he radioed in. “I think these rebels are going to escape.”
“That’s impossible!” Commander Grimsby radioed back. “There were at least twice as many of you as there were of them. We had them completely surrounded! The only way they could possibly escape is if they somehow befriended the notoriously fickle natives, overpowered an entire squad of heavily armored shock troops, and even then it would take a harebrained scheme with a million-to-one odds—"
“Yeah, well, I think I’m the only one left, so you might want to—"
Chad was hit over the head with a log wielded by a notoriously fickle native.
Chad woke up, laid out flat on his back in a strange hangar. His helmet and blaster were gone, but the rest of his armor was intact. It sloshed as he sat up.
“Commander?” he called out uncertainly. He could tell by the vibrations that they were under power, possibly in hyperspace, but the hangar had a decidedly . . . nonstandard look to it.
Access panels were missing, revealing frayed cables, spliced and patched together, and there were blaster score-marks that hadn’t been scrubbed clean. In fact, the walls weren’t gunmetal gray, but some sort of muted green.
It was unlike anything Chad had experienced before; it gave him vertigo.
“Well, well, well, look who’s awake,” drawled a man, coming into the hangar. He had a blaster slung low on his hip and a toothpick hanging on his lower lip. Behind him came a woman with dark skin and a bandolier of knives.
“Rebel scum,” said Chad (not ironically).
“That’s right,” said the man. “Rebel scum, who currently have you imprisoned on their ship.”
Chad sloshed to his feet.
“You got anything to eat, bro? I’m starving. And I’d love to get out of this swamp juice. I can almost feel the parasites swimming around in here.”
“Oh?” asked the man, sarcastically. “Is that how we could expect to be treated if we were captured by one of your goon squads?”
“Uh, yeah? That’s literally, like, the first thing we’d do. Imperial Code of War dictates prisoners should be fed. It doesn’t specify about the swamp juice, but—"
The man interrupted, “Well Rebel Code dictates that the first thing I should do is punch your face in.”
“Well your mom dictates that the first thing I should do is—"
The man’s face went red and he tried to rush Chad, but the woman grabbed his arm and held him back.
“Come on, Shaw, we need him for our plan to work. Besides, you started it.”
Chad beamed at her.
“Jada, you have got to be kidding me! You are not taking the side of . . . of one of those things over me!”
“I’m not taking his side, I’m just saying, let’s be calm here.”
Shaw shook his arm out of her grasp. “I am calm.”
“If you were any less calm,” said Jada, “you’d be an Antalusian Hyperbeast.”
“Ooooh,” said Chad. “Hey Shaw, what’s your bay number?”
“My ‘bay number’? What are you talking about, clone?”
“Your sick bay number. I want to visit you in the burn pod.”
Chad laughed uproariously.
“Get it? ‘Cause you got burned, bro! Up top!”
He raised his hand for a high five.
Shaw looked at Chad’s outstretched hand in disgust, then spun on his heel, leaving through the portal on the far wall.
“Come on, bro, don’t leave me hanging!” Chad called after him, hand still upraised. He turned to Jada.
Jada hesitated for a moment, then gave him a quick high five before running to catch up with Shaw.
Chad brought a tray filled with a mountain of food over to the table and sat next to Shaw.
“Hey, could we get the thermostat up a few degrees, bro? I’m freezing.”
Shaw ground his teeth. “It’s not cold in here; you literally ripped the sleeves off of that shirt.”
Chad flexed his arms.
“Hey, suns out, guns out, baby!” He pointed out the porthole into space. “Suns. Everywhere.”
“Wait a minute,” said Shaw, “is that my shirt?”
“Probably. It’s ugly enough.”
Chad held his hand out for a fist bump, but Shaw just looked at him.
“Good one, bro. Thanks, bro,” Chad muttered under his breath.
Jada sat down next to Shaw.
“So look, you guys seem nice enough and all, but I gotta ask: what’s with the rebel thing? I mean, you got a whole ship to yourselves, which is cool I guess, but that’s not a lot to trade for living your life on the fringe, running from one swamp planet to the next. And let’s be honest, your ship is old and kind of smells.”
Shaw started in hotly, “The Celestial Albatross only started smelling since you—"
Jada cut him off.
“Chad, stand up.”
Chad stood up.
“Now, why did you stand up?"
“Uh, because you told me to?”
“But why did you stand up? Why did you listen to me?”
“Not following you here, bro.”
“Let me try this a different way. Why do you think they decided to base the entire clone army, thousands and thousands of copies, on you in particular?”
Chad grinned. “Oh, that’s easy, the Commander tells us all the time. Out of the entire human race, I’m the smartest, strongest, meanest hombre this galaxy has ever seen. My quick reflexes,” he ducked and dodged, “make me the best pilot in the universe, and when I take aim,” he pointed his fingers like a gun around the room, “I never miss my mark.” He pretended to holster his fingers at his side.
Shaw snorted. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
Chad looked confused. “Don’t you?”
“You clones are the worst shots in the universe! You couldn’t hit the equatorial line of a planet. Any one of our pilots can shoot down twenty of you without breaking a sweat. You are the single most inept fighter in the galaxy.”
“You, sir, are off my Life Day card list,” said Chad, but he couldn’t hide the slump in his shoulders. “But wait a minute, that doesn’t make any sense. If I’m as bad as you say, why would the Imperials make thousands and thousands of me?” His back straightened again. “Spoilers: they wouldn’t. I’m the best soldier, and you know it.”
“He didn’t say you were the worst solider, Chad, he said you were a bad shot and a bad pilot. But you’re right: there is one thing that you do better than anyone else. Something that makes you a good soldier, and something that the Imperials prize above everything else.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“Sit down, Chad.”
Chad sat down.
Jada softened her voice.
“You follow orders.”
“Hey,” said Chad, “since we’re apparently going to be on this ship for a while, I was looking around for the gym. Where is it?”
“We don’t have a gym,” said Shaw. “Maybe try the library instead?”
“So like, lift books or something?”
“How about reading one?”
Chad broke out in laughter but then trailed off as nobody else joined in. In dawning horror he asked, “Wait, were you serious?”
Jada cleared her throat and looked away.
Chad shook his head.
Chad knocked on Jada’s door.
“Come in,” she called.
The room was totally different from the rest of the ship. Little touches personalized the room, almost like the walls were Jada, and the shelves were Jada, and the desk was Jada. Everything was nonstandard. Chad had never seen anything like it.
“Jada . . . are you happy?”
She closed the book she was reading.
“Well, an evil galactic empire blew up my entire planet and killed nearly everybody I ever cared about, so no, I guess I can’t say that I am.”
Chad sighed in relief and sat on her bed.
“I am so glad to hear you say that, because I feel exactly the same way! Being on this ship is the worst thing that ever happened to me. And I say that as a person who has stormed a lot of swamp planets.
“It’s just like . . . I’m always alone! When you’re feeling down, there’s nobody to fist bump you. I have all this time to . . . to think. It’s awful! I even read a book!”
He shuddered at the memory.
“Yeah, that’s basically the same as what I said,” Jada said dryly.
“I know!” wailed Chad. He was on the verge of tears.
Jada sat next to him on the bed.
“Shaw hates you, you know.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to miss.”
“Do you know why?”
“Of course I do. Because he’s a dick.”
“It’s because when he looks at you, he sees all the Chads who’ve stormed the places he loves, who shot his friends, and burned down their cities. But when I look at you, I see a tool used by the Empire. It’s not you who did those things, it was the Empire.
“But I’m just as wrong as he is. Neither one of us really sees you Chad. Who are you? What do you really want?”
She put her hand on his face.
Chad struggled to formulate an answer to her question. What did he want? He had never thought about it before; he had never thought about any of it before. He had never really even thought about himself as an independent entity.
Shaw burst through the door and froze, taking in their position. Jada quickly dropped her hand and looked away.
“We’re just coming out of hyperspace now.” His voice dripped with malice. “If I’m not interrupting anything . . .”
“You’re not,” said Jada, jumping to her feet. She moved to stand next to Shaw.
Shaw drew his blaster and pointed it at Chad.
“You. You’re with me. To the bridge.”
Glumly, Chad got up and walked toward the fore of the ship.
“Okay, we’re coming out of hyperspace now,” said Jada. “As soon as we do, we’ll be contacted by the Capitol defense troops. You’ll give them the clearances that will let us dock with the Mothership.”
Shaw motioned the barrel of his blaster at Chad.
“Any kind of signal or sign that you’re doing anything other than following our orders, and I blast you. No hesitation.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll follow orders. That’s what I do,” said Chad bitterly.
The com chirped the second they dropped into regular space.
“Unidentified ship entering restricted space, this is the Imperial Starbase Mothership. Identify yourself immediately or you will be destroyed.”
Jada and Shaw were so tense they practically vibrated. Slowly, Chad leaned over the mic and said, “’Sup, bro.”
The voice on the com lighted up immediately.
“Hey Chad, what’s up? I thought I smelled something as soon as that hunk of junk you’re in popped on the radar!”
Chad couldn’t help but smile. Felt good to be back among civilization again.
Jada pulled Chad away from the microphone before he could transmit any kind of signal.
“Hold on,” said Shaw, “the Imperial clearance code is, ‘What’s up, bro?’”
“Well, not the way you say it,” said Chad.
Shaw threw up his hands.
“Okay, so now what?” asked Chad. “You’re going to dock with the Mothership, and then what? I march you out and pretend you’re prisoners?”
“No one would fall for that, that’s the oldest trick in the book,” scoffed Shaw. “They’d see through us in about thirty seconds.”
“Okay, so what are we doing then? You do realize there’s more Troopers on Mothership than anywhere else in the galaxy? You’re outnumbered, like, literally a million to one.” He looked dubiously at Shaw. “One and a half.”
“You are not doing anything,” said Shaw. “Your part in this is over. We’ll take it from here.”
He pointed the blaster at Chad. Jada looked away.
“Harsh, bro. Just one question, though: how are you going to get out of here without me?”
“We’re not,” said Jada, continuing to avoid his eyes. Chad looked to Shaw. Unlike Jada, Shaw held his gaze, but his eyes were tight.
“Come on, you guys are rebels! This is where you come up with some half-baked scheme with ridiculous odds to—"
“Not this time,” said Jada softly.
Chad was angry.
“So you’re just going to blow yourselves up? What’s the point? Even if you defeat the Imperial army, you won’t be around to see it!”
Jada shook her head.
“Chad, our cause is an idea. Sometimes . . . sometimes it takes a grand gesture to spread that idea to more people. Infect them with the idea of rebelling. If blowing ourselves up infects a whole generation with the idea of rebelling, it’s worth more than anything Shaw or I could do if we were alive.”
“But why can’t you do both? Infect and survive?” Chad grunted in frustration. “It’s like you’re not even trying here. Keep me alive and on the ship, do what you have to do, and I fly us out of here. Piece of cake.”
Shaw laughed, but it was not the usual, malice-filled, mocking laugh Chad was used to.
“Are you joining the cause now? An Imperial clone, telling us how to be rebels!”
“Might as well keep me alive, that’s all I’m saying. You can always blast me later.”
“What do you say, Jada? All those explosives can be set on a timer. Want to roll the dice one more time?”
Shaw’s eyes were shining with a light that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“He’s just playing you to save his own skin, you know,” said Jada. “Buying time.”
“I know; for the first time I almost respect him.” Shaw frowned. “Come to think of it, have you ever seen a clone care about his own skin before?”
