TBC Publishing Pride Month Flash Fiction Challenge, 13 of 30

TBC Publishing Pride Month Flash Fiction Challenge, 13 of 30

Title: Kookumbear

Author: R. Scott Tyler

Genre: Fantasy

Word count (500 max): 497

It was midnight, Earth time, in one of their time zones, at least.

Did that mean Kookumbear should go to sleep? He could never organize time in space. He was originally from galaxy 92j.0ai and the planet Q. For the first 125 years of his existence, time meant something. Now? Nothing. Of course, he had a schedule—two, in fact. 

One that Space Control Alpha Commander Didly had given him. He was to look at numbers and record them (as if they weren’t all being recorded on the alpha level drives), adjust feeding apparatuses to the exact one-hundredth of a ml (he was sure there was a device that could do this better, a Quman), opens a value here and closes one there, adjusts (mostly looked at) target coordinates and estimates (confirms) arrival time, etc.

The second schedule was his own creation and much more interesting. Shortly after Kookumbear’s daily update with Didly (where he always confirmed that everything was going as designed, planned, coordinated, and run by the silicon mind feeding to and from the alpha-level memory drives), he conducted his own round of the ship, checking in on each of its deep-sleep inhabitants. 

He would review the updates on the dream states of the most handsome sleepers (most were from the planet G in galaxy 92j.0ai), occasionally going back to their dream mind recordings, which featured the raciest content (rocket racing in the planet’s standard gear, G-strings). At other times, he would study the subtle movements they made while sleeping. He experimented with tiny additions to their meal drips, resulting in some fascinating variations in their sleep patterns and dream states. 

After 16 months, 8 days,12 hours, and 17 minutes, Kookumbear’s favorite so far was passenger G158b. A male of his species (Kookumbear would also be considered a male of his own species), passenger G158b was his own mental and physical ideal for mating. Of course, he had also read G158b’s biography twice and thought they would get along ideally.

The schedule on which the passengers were to be awakened began 10 days later and started slowly, gradually increasing in intensity as the crew became fully awake and could assist with the transition from sleep to wakefulness. Kookumbear arranged his own schedule so that his time off, due to his solo operations throughout the long journey, began the day G158b was awake. He would be his helpful shadow, bringing him up to speed beyond the updates provided to the waking crew and passengers.

Ten days from now, he and G158b would be the only ones with a double occupancy sleeping chamber.

One day from now, Kookumbear would be so excited he couldn’t sleep.

The day finally arrived, and the first 10 sleeping passengers were awakened. Kookumbear proceeded with the schedule that Commander Didly had programmed for him. After the last item was confirmed complete, the first 10 passengers would be fully functional, albeit with a slight brain fog that would clear up within an hour.

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