Excerpt: Nyven

Somewhere in the dairylands of Wisconsin, a little brown cow was enjoying a midnight snack of synthesized corn and soy product. She often took pleasure in waking during the night to watch the fireflies dance around the trees just beyond the cow shelter while listening to the crickets chirp and the sleeping cows cut cheese. Chewing slowly and contentedly, she daydreamed of her future: green pastures, cool breezes, and one of those fabulous bells around her neck.; ah, such freedom!

With a thunderous CRACK!, the roof of the cow shelter was suddenly in a million pieces, which then swirled upward as if caught in a tremendous tornado. The cows erupted into a cacophony of terrified and confused moos, frantically stumbling about in their pens. After a brief moment of chaos, the cows were bathed in a pale green light, and the air began to vibrate with a brain-numbing buzz. The cows fell silent, as if in a state of hypnosis.

Gravity paused for a moment, became rather indecisive, then abruptly and conclusively chose to head in the opposite direction. Several dozen cows found themselves falling upward, surrounded by a whirlwind of corrugated steel, metal bars, corn meal, huge clumps of soil, and cowpies.

For a few seconds, they all fell toward the source of the pale green light, and then, in an instant, the light was gone, and gravity, realizing that it was being irrational, instantly about-faced and went on about its usual business as though nothing was the matter. The cows, and everything else that had come along for the ride, fell only a few feet, landing against a cold and metallic floor.

“Cargo hatch: sealed! Yay!” rejoiced the on-board computer, in its usual jubilant tone. Research had shown that installing very upbeat and positive voice modules throughout the fleet yielded higher performance from both cargo and military vessels across the board.

Nyven rubbed his three-fingered hands together, gazing anxiously at a blinking readout on the console:

PURGING SUPERFLUOUS MATERIALS! YAY!
PURGE COMPLETE! YAY!
SCANNING AND SORTING! YAY!

“Twenty-five hundred. Please. Twenty-five hundred,” Nyven thought to himself, both his hearts racing. The sounds of heavy machinery revving and clanking filtered up from the cargo bay. The readout suddenly glowed green:

SCAN COMPLETE! YAY!
NEW BOVINE SPECIMENS COLLECTED: 56! YAY!
TOTAL BOVINE SPECIMENS NOW ON BOARD: 2,512! YAAAAY!

Nyven let out a sigh of relief and rubbed his hand around on his head. Reaching forward, he flipped a switch. A crackled voice buzzed out of speakers in the console:

“This is Control.”

“This is, uh, Carrier Two-Seven-Eight-Six. I’ve, um, met the quota and I’m heading home,” Nyven said, timidly.

“Copy that. Carrier Two-Seven-Eight-Six, you are clear to return.”

The speakers went silent. Nyven was relieved; he had been terribly afraid that, somehow, he was bound to screw up this mission, yet he had completed his tasks without the slightest error. Now all that was left was the ten-minute flight back to the mothership. Easy.

A satisfied smile swept across Nyven’s face. He took the flight controls into his hands, reoriented the ship, and pressed forward on the thruster. As the vessel slid upward through the atmosphere, Nyven reached toward the cupholder for his can of root beer. He unscrewed the lid, put the can to his lips, threw his head back, attempted to swallow, and failed.

Nyven’s throat wasn’t quite ready for the liquid. Fizzy, carbonated beverage went sloshing down his tracheas, burning all the way. He panicked, gagged, and coughed, fumbling the soda can, which spilled forward all over the console. The console, in turn (which generally preferred to remain dry), responded by erupting into a shower of sparks. A klaxon alarm began screaming into the cockpit, accompanied by the on-board computer’s chipper voice. “Critical malfunction! Yay!” it announced, over and over again.

Nyven, still coughing and sputtering wildly, frantically undid his harness and leapt from the pilots’ seat to get away from the crescendoing fireworks display being put forth by the console. He pressed himself up against the rear of the cockpit and felt for the door switch. Finding it, he slammed his fist onto it, which promptly did nothing at all. “Door systems are malfunctioning! Yay!” proclaimed the computer. Panic was welling up inside Nyven’s chest.

“Cloaking systems are malfunctioning! Yay!”

“Computer?” Nyven called out.

“Why yes, Nyven, how can I help you?” the computer asked excitedly, as giant fireballs exploded upward from the flight controls.

“I need to get out of the cockpit!”

“A door at the rear of the cockpit has been provided for maximum efficiency in entering and exiting. Yay!”

“It’s jammed!” Nyven pleaded.

“Door systems are malfunctioning! Yay!”

The cockpit was beginning to fill with smoke. Nyven, trying to see through the haze, desperately searched for anything that might be of assistance; perhaps he might be able to pry the doors open with something. Suddenly, the ship lurched hard and he was on the floor.

“Stabilization systems are malfunctioning! Yay!”

The ship began to roll and tumble, throwing anything that wasn’t bolted down around like loose change in a drier. Muffled moos began emanating from the aft end of the ship.

“Propulsion systems are malfunctioning! Yay!”

The ship’s hull groaned as physics went about their business. Nyven was more scared than he’d ever been. The flashes, the smoke, the spinning, the noises, the repeated collisions with solid objects: it was all too much.

“Coolant systems are malfunctioning! We’re about to explode! Yay!”

“This is it,” Nyven thought. “This is the end.”

For a moment, time seemed to grow lethargic, as if it were procrastinating before pushing forward toward some point of significance. Nyven’s mind drifted through thoughts of his parents, thoughts of various friends from throughout his schooling, thoughts of things he had wished to accomplish in his lifetime, and thoughts of meeting the great Mahbee after death. Life after death was, as he had been told many times, infinitely more amazing than this one; why was he so afraid to die? He was absolutely petrified with the thought of it.

For a moment, the universe stopped, falling dark and silent as the port-side generator imploded, as if it were pulling the fabric of space-time into itself. Then it let go, plucking the universe like a guitar string. Hard.

Nyven was instantly everywhere and nowhere at once, bathed in light and sound more intense than is conceivable. Some instances of Nyven vomited, others didn’t, and others still became rubber ducks momentarily. As space and time stumbled around, trying to make sense of itself, Nyvens converged into Nyven, and things sort of began to make a bit of sense again.

The port side of his craft was gone, and Nyven was falling out of what was left of the cockpit. Above him, the starboard half of the vessel was flailing about, its thruster firing erratically, while the computer squealed with glee. Below him, thousands of cows were plummeting toward the earth, legs and udders flailing about. Before he blacked out, his last thoughts were: “I don’t want to die. Please, Mahbee, don’t let me die.”