Season 1 Episode 02: The Pool

Yes, this space ship has a swimming pool. Why shouldn't it?

I’ll get him this time.

From her concealment behind a potted plant, Natalie could see the man she wanted tanning his muscles on a lounge chair, blocking the artificial sun with an open copy of The Spatial Times over his face. She looked around and couldn’t see any of his bodyguards, just other sunbathers and swimmers frolicking in the water in their various forms of playtime. For a fleeting moment, she entertained her own fantasy of joining them, swimming some laps, and maybe even playing some water polo...but she needed to get at this man first.

She pulled the court summons from the inside pocket of her suit and marched toward him. The final order she’d been assigned was for William Caravella, a rich slum lord who had been served papers many times before and knew how to evade. They already had a history, and under different circumstances, he would have bought her a drink to talk about old times. However, today, he knew she was working, and he knew whom to pay to keep “harassers” like her away from him. She’d been dragged away and locked up in the moldy, nether regions of the ship several times already.

“Maam,” she heard a deep voice behind her. She ignored it and walked faster.

“Excuse me, Ma’am,” the voice was accompanied by heavy footfalls. She jumped forward and yanked the newspaper away from William’s face.

“Mr. Caravella?” She said.

He sat up on one elbow, squinting under the bright overhead light, and smiled.

“Yes, Miss Smith?" He looked her over as two large, strong hands fell on her shoulders. "I'm disappointed you didn't dress for the pool area. Seeing you in a swimsuit before they carried you off would have been nice.”

Natalie tried to shrug out from under the hands and push the summons toward him.

Then her insides lurched upward, and her feet left the deck. Mr. Caravella started hovering also, his pool chair folding up underneath him. The hands on Natalie’s shoulders released her.

“How'd you do that?” She shouted.

Then, a wave of water from the pool hit them both, drenching her face and chest and shoving her away from Caravella.

“Oooo, you’ve got to be kidding me,” She gurgled, quite sure she looked ridiculous, half-soaked, flailing about, trying in vain to swim through the air. Alarms sounded, and she seemed to tumble. Then she realized it wasn’t her tumbling but the entire pool area. The fake sun spun around as pool water, swimmers, and sunbathers began to mix together toward the middle.

“Warning,” Natalie heard the intercom say. “Emergency Artificial Gravity engaging.”

She saw a spinning wall approach her from one side, then recognized it as the floor just before it hit her. Natalie’s back popped in a ripple like a zipper, but she couldn't tell through the pain whether it had been adjusted in or out.

She rolled onto her back to get off of her injured left shoulder just as a blob of what had to have been several hundred liters of pool water fell on top of her, forcing its way through her nose and mouth and filling her lungs. Natalie gasped and coughed, and rolling back over, she slid onto her hands and knees, ignoring the pain of the abrasive poolside flooring cutting into her skin. Coughing in spasms, she could only wretch water out of her in painful short bursts.

Her brain began to fog up in its losing battle for oxygen, so she pressed her forehead onto the pool floor, stuck her butt in the air, and slowly forced in the deepest breath of what she was certain to be her ebbing life. Then she exhaled long and hard...puking up a continuous stream of water.

“Proceed to escape pods,” Captain Trunketh’s voice crowded out the ringing in Natalie’s ears as she collapsed to the deck and rolled over again. “Please proceed to an escape pod assigned to your deck.”

She lay there for several minutes, sucking in and coughing out breath after breath of precious air, then got back on her hands and knees and looked around unsuccessfully for Mr. Caravella among the other sputtering people. She stuffed the soggy court summons back into her pocket.

“Whoever...got the bright idea...to put a SWIMMING POOL...on a SPACESHIP...should ROT IN HELL!” Natalie screamed between breaths as she scrambled to her feet and wobbled toward the door.