Cloaked

I don’t like traveling in a cloaked vessel. It’s like being a ghost and having no control.

I’m an ensign on a Space Force vessel from Earth. A lot of my fellow crew members aren’t human and the tech and spec on this ship is borrowed from a hundred systems. It’s a pretty heady experience for a race that just joined the Corporation of Planets fifteen years ago. I’ve been on the ship for almost a year now.

We’re explored, terraformed, battled, lost crew members, gained crew members, contributed to the Galactic Library with our exploits, and been worthy of note to the powers that be. Several commendations and medals have been bestowed on this crew. We’re not the best but we’re definitely pulling more than our weight.

Right now, we’re on route to Corcarroway 5 with a load of plague cure. Time is of the essence but the quickest ‘straight-line’ course is through a patch of space inhabited by a spacefaring race that hasn’t quite reached the quota of light-drives for an invite to the Planet Corp and its Space Force wing. They don’t know we exist and we don’t want to set off a panic or a timely premature first contact scenario.

So we have to fly dark.

Flying cloaked sounded pretty cool to me until I actually did it.

You see, not only the ship disappears. I disappear. The controls disappear. Everything onboard the ship disappears. All spectrums. I can see the stars warp and stretch around me as we tesseract through the the NearLight dimension but I can’t see my hands. I can’t see my body or the helm controls in front of me. I can’t see any walls. I can’t see the floor or the ceiling. Just the fathomless eternal dimension streaking and folding all around us.

Even if I blink, I can’t see my eyelids. Traveling like this for more than a few days can drive some species (like humans) insane. Sleeping with one’s eyes open doesn’t come naturally to us.

Luckily, it’s just seven more hours and then we can uncloak back in PC space again.

Seven hours of staring into warpspace while the AI does its preprogrammed best to keep us on course because we can’t touch the controls.

My eyes don’t dry out but it feels like they should. I have to feel for my own body to scratch an itch even though it looks like I should be able to see just fine. I can hear the ship and the crew around me but I can’t see them.

I do my best to try to ignore my entire field of vision. With no visual reference, I can’t tell if the smeared stars are right under my feet or light years away. The illusion is disconcerting.

I try to relax but I’m looking forward to decloaking and getting on with this mission.

I wonder if anyone would notice if I got naked?




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The Pirate Dentist

And there it is: his horrifying pirate’s mouth opening wide. A ridged, wet, pink pit yawns impressively in my dentist’s chair. It’s a foul abyss from which almost all teeth have fled, ringed with a crunchy bush of wiry hair that could sand a deck with its crust. His jaw hinges open like a snake as he tips his head back. His pink vulnerability is a symbol of trust given solely to stop the agony.

It’s such a site of carnage that I feel swallowed, my own interest magnifying the fissures and decay until I feel as if I’m sticking my head into the mouth of a dying, ancient, stinking lion. A nearly-visible cloud of foul gas warmly lounges up in a mushroom cloud of exhalation. Even with the ammonia paste smeared under my nostrils, my nose hairs try to recede. My eyes water. I’m used to it by now but on a scale of ten, this is at least an 8.

I should never have moved to the port to be a dentist. The idea was to retire in the country. To maybe move to a place where there wasn’t much competition and eke out a small, peaceful living in my old age. I looked at a few maps and this small seaside town seemed ideal. My inquiries revealed no dentists at all. I could maybe be moderately middle-class by pulling a few teeth and handing out pamphlets on proper dental care.

But in the last two years, I’ve found out exactly why there are no dentists here. I’m stumbled into a lucrative and dangerous career.

It’s because of pirates.

This town is a stop for pirates. They come from three oceans to whore and piss and spend and carouse and relax. There are problem twenty or thirty pirates in town at any time, swelling seasonally to a few hundred.

It’s tradition, I’m told. A famous pirate once stopped here and went on to a legendary victory against the authorities. As a result, no pirates misses a chance to pull into port here and hope that a little luck rubs off. They’re a superstitious bunch of sailors.

But life at sea is not kind to teeth. Scurvy loosens them, salt water corrodes them, poor hygiene browns them, thick coffee blackens them, rum perforates them, pipes yellow them, and if a pirate encounters sugar, it’s a force with more allure than gold.

Most every pirate I’ve met laughs at his missing limbs or eyes. He scoffs as he recounts the loss of them as if they were nuisances in the first place.

But as he talks, he winces and blinks back the agony of his teeth twisting bright through his jaw. The nerves are alive and singing with pain with every breath of cold air or splash of hot wine. Every steely-eyed jaw clench is an exercise in holding back a scream.

I have a lineup out the door on the busy days. I have four chairs in the waiting room. I have several assistants to help me now. They’re cabin boys I’ve taken in payment and offered to teach. It’s been a rescue in all cases. To call them hygienists would be to belittle the herculean task I’m training them to take on.

The clients pay me as they can. Sure, they offer galleons and doubloons. All manner of coin. But for those that can’t, they offer stolen livestock, liquor, art from far-off lands, strange antiques, exotic pets, and other plunder. I have been offered large sums to embark as an onboard dentist but I am not an oceangoing soul. I have seventeen standing offers of safe passage should I need a quick escape.

Safe passage. Quick escape. Offered with a knowing nod and a wink like I’m some sort of criminal laying low and hiding from the police.

There’s a reason I have tight security and seventeen parrots in cages around the shop. At this point, I’m somewhat of a power broker. I’ve passed messages on from pirate king to pirate king during extractions. My shop is neutral territory. Treaties have been signed in the back rooms between factions. I’ve changed the course of history, I’m sure. But I focus on the task at hand.

I’m quick with the pliers and generous with the anesthetic. Their thankfulness is sometime frightening to a peaceful man like me. To be embraced by a stinking, sinewy mountain with a beard and a hook for a hand is quite scary. But I’m a professional. I don’t flinch.

I make a brisk side business renting chairs to barbers that clip the pirates’ unkempt mops and thicket beards as they wait. I’ve had thoughts about bringing in some bloodletters and surgeons as well.

Lately, the real money has been coming from another avenue I’ve been exploring. I’ve been carving dentures for them. A pirate with a gleaming with smile is an oddity but the sight is becoming more common because of my shop.

I’ve been experimenting with different custom finishes. Metal, pearl, wood, abalone. Some designs like skulls or suits from playing cards. I recently made a jade set of teeth with an inlaid twisting dragon across the front. Also a gleaming set of tempered glass, green like the ocean herself. One set of polished copper that came together like the teeth of gears.

They’re quite popular. I’ve even had a slightly-damaged pair return to me as payment.

They come to me in pain and leave youthful. I have given confidence to monsters. I have given smiles back to sadistic adventures. I have given fangs back to tigers.

I’m making a killing and I’m scared to stop. If I ever pack up shop here, I’ll have to flee and remain disguised for the rest of my life to avoid the pirates hunting me down. If I accepted a post on one of their vessels, the others would hunt that ship down and abduct me. If any of them harmed me or killed me, they’d become a pariah to be destroyed on sight by the others.

I’m probably the safest man on the continent that isn’t royalty. But I can never leave.

I wonder if I’m slowly becoming a pirate myself. I did pierce my ears and one of the parrots has become accustomed to perching on my shoulder. I understand many of the subtle nuances and inflections of the word ‘arrr’.

I stop my musing and get back to work. Into the mouth of madness, as we say.

Four lonely, pitted, pus-yellow Stonehenge teeth gaze pathetically up at me from this stinking funnel of flesh. Liver spots and grey areas dot the inside of this gaping max. They’ll all have to come out.

This man can’t be more than 22. I wonder if he’s ever brushed his teeth in his life.

I break out the anesthetic and while he drinks himself to sleep, I talk to him about the options I have on offer for a brand new smile.




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