Tin Tom!
I race back down the dark hallway with the purple glow and turn back into the room. The women are still frantically trying to rip the room apart while Tin Tom blinks like crazy. “Pacify yourselves, breeding aged earthling women,” he shouts out over the screaming and tearing of metal. “This is not the actions required to attach yourself to the good graces of your new fearless leader, Rsordan!”
A woman with orange hair nearly runs into me as I rush over to him. “Tin Tom,” I yell, bending down in front of him. “We need your help.”
His lights are flashing as he turns to me with a small screen that I assume is his face. “Tom is occupied at the moment. He is busy calming all of the earthling women down.”
A stick-thin girl screams as she runs past us, throwing herself against the wall. She bounces off like a tennis ball hitting a brick wall.
“Yeah, you’re doing a great job,” I say, pulling him towards the hallway, “but I still need your help.”
Tin Tom resists, locking his wheels in place. “Tom’s main function is to ease the distress of interplanetary travel. He must remain in the holding bay.”
I could try to drag him all the way there but I think of a better idea. “Tin Tom,” I say with a gasp. “There’s a woman in the cockpit who is extremely agitated.”
He unlocks his wheels and blinks his lights rapidly. “Preventing agitation is one of Tom’s core functions. Show me where this agitated earthling is and Tom will soothe her into tranquility.”
“Come with me,” I shout as I spring up and race down the hallway with the tin piece of crap following me closely. If our only hope of getting home lies with this crappy Halloween costume than we’re screwed.
“I got him,” I say as I rush into the cockpit. Mandy is standing as close to the wall as she can with a pale face. If she got any closer to the wall she’d be absorbed into it.
“Great,” Rolanda says, still at the controls, “because I can’t figure any of these squiggly lines out.”
The buttons on the lit-up dashboard are covered with alien writing. It looks like a toddler scribbled all over them.
Tin Tom lights up, blinking like a defective Christmas tree when he sees the three aliens lying on the floor. “You have incapacitated the pilots of this spaceship,” he says, his crackling voice higher than normal. “That was very rude.”
“Get us home,” Rolanda snaps at him. “Now!”
Tin Tom beeps once. “We are headed home,” he says. “The beloved Emperor Rsordan’s new palace is your new home.”
“Our old home!” she snaps, looking like she’s about to show us Tin Tom’s insides. “Earth! Now!”
He just blinks. “We are headed to the Europa galaxy to-”
“Avery,” Rolanda hisses. “Close the door.”
I hit the red button that’s out of Tin Tom’s reach and the doors slam shut.
Tin Tom spins from me to Rolanda and then back to me. “That was inappropriate.”
Rolanda slams her fist onto the dashboard with a crash. “You want to see inappropriate?” she asks, standing up with her broad shoulders thrust back and her hands clenched into fists. The thick vein in her neck looks like it’s about to pop.
“How’s this for inappropriate?” She grabs the slumped body of the praying mantis-like alien and smashes his head onto the dashboard over and over again.
“Yes,” Tin Tom says, blinking as he watches. “That is very inappropriate as well.”
Rolanda smashes the bug’s head into the control panel one more time and the cockpit lights up in a red glow. A warning alarm triggers and Mandy screams. I turn around and she has her eyes squeezed closed with her hands over her ears.
Alien clicking sounds come on over the speakers and Rolanda drops the pilot that she’s holding in her hands. He slides to the floor looking deader than dead.
“What’s going on?” she asks, stepping towards Tin Tom. He glides away from her on his wheels and bumps into the closed door. Her muscular arms are flexed as she grabs him. “What. Is. Happening?”
Tin Tom blinks. “The anti-matter compressor is broken,” he says. “Interplanetary travel has been rendered incapacitated. I told you that was inappropriate.”
Rolanda leaps at the robot and I jump between them. “Easy. Easy!” I quickly spit out with my palms up. “I know you want to kill him but he’s the only one who can get us home. We need him.”
“I don’t want to kill him,” she says, glaring down at the robot. “I want to rewire him and turn him into a toilet.”
Tin Tom just blinks.
“Tom,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. “Can you please take us home?”
“Beyond the bounds of possibility,” he says. “The anti-matter compressor is broken.”
I’m afraid to ask the next question because I’m terrified of the answer. “Can you fix it?”
“Yes,” he says and all three of us take a sigh of relief. “It can be repaired with a flortine reducer.”
“Great,” I say, feeling lighter than I have since this whole thing started. “Where can we find it?”