I forgot to send in a prompt for the Week 13 challenge at More Odds Than Ends, so I picked up a spare prompt: Space pizza delivery was worth the cost. This is just a short, silly little vignette of Jake and Serena, the planet-hopping archaeologists who occasionally wander through my head. Seriously, though, who wouldn’t spend an arm and a leg for pizza they’d been craving?
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Serena gazed through the viewport at the planet seemingly drifting below them. She could not WAIT to get down to the surface, check in to the beach hotel and grab a delicious pizza from the beachside bar. They had been living on the ship for almost two standard Earth years now. Yeah, yeah, there had been a few trips to planet surfaces for archaeological digs and yeah, she was still very interested in her and Jake’s research, but she really wanted to stay somewhere for more than a few weeks before heading back to the ship.
THIS stop was going to be for at least three months, and she COULD NOT WAIT. An arm wound around her waist, and she smiled at Jake as he moved up beside her.
“Looks beautiful,” he said.
“Yeah, it does. And I can almost taste the pizza we’re having for dinner tonight,” Serena answered.
“Um, yeah. About that…” Jake started.
“What? You don’t want their pizza? It’s amazing! You said so yourself!” Serena stared at her husband.
“I know, I know! And we’ll get pizza, but, um, not tonight.” Jake shuffled his feet and kept his eyes fixed on the blue and white planet below them.
“Okay. Spill. What’s going on?” Serena braced herself for bad news.
“Well, um, the, um, shuttle has an, um, issue, and it’s going to take a few days to fix. But we are getting planetside as soon as possible. I promise!” Jake finally looked at her.
“I’m not getting pizza for a few days?” Serena growled. “I’ve been waiting for this for two years. Two. Years.”
“I know, babe, I know. And I’ll make it up to you, I will,” Jake promised her.
“Fine. Just go make sure the shuttle is really getting fixed,” Serena muttered. She left her husband standing at the viewport and stalked back to the small crew quarters that had been turned into their shared office. She sat down at her desk with a huff and a slight feeling of betrayal. It wasn’t Jake’s fault that the shuttle had an “issue” whatever that might be, but still… he’d promised pizza tonight and now she wasn’t going to get it.
Shoving down her disappointment she woke up her tablet and started scrolling through the apps. She might as well get some work done. Less work equaled more beach time once they got downstairs, and more beach time was always a good thing.
Serena idly opened up her browser and found herself looking at tourist spots in the beach town they were going to be staying in. That reminded her to contact the hotel and change their reservations. She was finishing that task when the clerk she was chatting with mentioned that there was a new “space delivery” service for discerning customers who didn’t have the time to get planetside. That delivery service included food. The reservations clerk sent her the link.
Serena looked at the service’s page. Right at the top, front and center was the logo for the pizza place she’d been dreaming about. The delivery cost was insane. No way would Jake go for that.
But they weren’t staying at the hotel as long. And she’d just gotten a refund for four nights…
Serena ordered her pizza. Three actually since the delivery cost was so high, might as well stock up.
An hour later the ship’s comms alerted her to an incoming space drone. Remembering that Jake was working on the shuttle and that spacing him would be a very bad thing, Serena directed the drone to the cargo door.
Two of the three boxes were sitting on the counter in their small galley and Serena was at the pull-down table with the third box in front of her when Jake appeared in the galley entry.
“Um, babe? How did you get pizza?” he asked in a puzzled voice.
“Space Eats Delivery drone,” Serena answered around a mouthful of pizza.
“Space Eats… drone? What?” Jake looked extremely confused.
“Space pizza delivery is soooo worth the cost!” Serena smiled and picked up another slice.
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Image by marcos vega from Pixabay
