Tanner James, one of the dual protagonists in The Stories Stars Tell, is on a journey in the story he feels ill-equipped to take (and I can’t say much more without giving away spoilers). I asked him to spend the next two weeks with us as a guest. I’d hoped for a podcast style interview, but he indicated he wasn’t really in a mental space to talk. However, he agreed to share some of his *Star Stories. I’m delighted to share one of those here today.
*background: Tanner and his older brother Rory used to tell one another “Star Stories” when they were little. This is a very important part of Tanner’s life. There’s more information on my Instagram Page (@cl.walters) today and an excerpt from The Stories Stars Tell that explains it.
Star Story No. 15: The Bro Code Crew
By Tanner James
The stretch of space didn’t intimidate Teejay, but he was an idiot and didn’t know any better. The reality was that he’d been on an abandoned spaceship and couldn’t see the stretch with honest eyes. Instead, he was full of himself and the tip of his nose provided a comprehensive view. He was born on the ship, had lived there his entire life, and the rest of the crew had either died off, or departed at random spaceports and never returned forgetting that Teejay was even on board. So, Teejay was alone trying to run the ship himself with the computer named Mirus. The disembodied computer suggested a crew as a means to keep the ship performing at optimal condition. While Teejay was pretty self-important due to having existed for 15 cycles, and because he didn’t know any better, he figured it might be time to help him with the unwieldy spacecraft (not because he was lonely).
Teejay piloted the ship with the help of Mirus into the AlphaBen system and ported at Garax. It was there he found a crew: Gipper, Joriah, and Defcon. The first one he discovered was Gipper, who’d been drinking the kool-aid at a bar on the port where lowlifes, like Teejay suspected he was, went. They hit it off after hitting one another to determine who was the most manly though both were only 15 cycles. It was a tie.
Next came Joriah who smiled a lot, but he was a pretty good wingman, and good with a gun, which he proved when the barkeep chased Gipper and Teejay through the port yelling that he hadn’t gotten paid. Joriah defended them with his gun, but Teejay figured they better drop in the credits so they weren’t wanted by the Garax Station police. He wasn’t willing to get sent off to the ZIP (Zenadoo Interplanetary Penitentiary). He paid the man.
As it turned out, Joriah had been outside a Copulation Station when he and Gipper had run past too intimidated to go inside to see what all the chatter was about. Alien creatures and such selling skin. Teejay—as a way of paying Joriah’s good deed forward—offered to be the first, to test out and risk his (young) manly goods to make sure everything was safe. Relatively speaking, it was safe, and actually kind of mind altering, but he didn’t allow himself to think beyond the surface of the experience since that wasn’t what dudes like Teejay did, or so he figured. He didn’t have Mirus to ask since the computer was stuck in the ship. Teejay returned to the walkway physically unscathed and smiling.
This was how Defcon—which wasn’t his real name and was really a play on the fact that Defcon was the furthest from anything annihilating— found the three of them. He’d wandered past the Copulation Station without any intent to enter just meandering about existing, and found the three of them standing outside discussing the merits of things like swapping skin a little too loudly like fools. Teejay had just returned from his libation in the world of skin trading and was getting ready to send the others inside. Defcon accidentally bumped into Gipper, who was always ready to trade fists, but Defcon just smiled and held up his hands in peace. Turned out he was something of a diplomat which Teejay figured would be a good addition to his spaceship crew. With nothing better to do, Defcon agreed to join the crew with little more than an explanation of what they were doing. Defcon smiled, clapped Gipper on the back and that was that.
Teejay sent them into the Copulation Station before leaving Garax.
With a crew assembled and satiated after their time spent in the CS, they boarded Teejay’s spaceship.
“What’s the mission?” Joriah asked as they walked onto the empty bridge.
Gipper smirked and flopped into the Captain’s chair which Teejay didn’t mind since he’d been captaining the ship alone for too long and willingly stepped away from the responsibility. He twirled about in the chair, spinning in place. “To visit every Copulation Station in the twenty-six systems and drink the kool-aid.”
Defcon smiled (mostly because that’s what he did) and offered the following comment: “That might get you diseased.”
“Medicine.” Gipper stopped and shook his head as if to reconnect to his head still spinning. He always had an answer for everything.
Defcon just continued smiling because that’s what he did.
Teejay, happy to not be alone any longer, nodded. “We’ll start with the AlphaBen system then. Mirus, set a course for the Andrus Spacestation.”
And that was how the Bro Code Crew aboard the CS Spacecraft 15 came to be.