Howard Leeds surveyed his enormous orbital death station, remembering his struggle to save up for the down payment, and his anxiety when he first heard from the building inspector that there was a slight defect in the foundation that he may have to hire someone to patch. Those days were long behind him now. A few trips to Home Depot, some potted plants, and an army of android prepubescent servant wenches dressed like maids and programmed to compete in gladiatorial combat had changed everything.
Beneath his observation box, in the greased stainless steel, concave Pit of Reckoning, his robots rollerskated in circles around the perimeter, flashing their weaponry and occasionally their boobs. Yes, this was the life. He'd have something to watch, at least until the next celebrity trial. Damn, he got a kick out of those, too.
In the locker room adjacent to the arena, I was informed that I would be armed only with a toothpick, chewing gum, and a piece of zinc. The battle would be a MacGyver Challenge, where I had to destroy twelve killer droids wearing plastic Vicki the Robot faces and wielding jagged blades that would be the wet dream of any Highlander fan. Asked if I had any final requests before meeting my fate, I said yes, and requested not to fight and instead to be freed immediately. The guards looked at each other in confusion. Apparently no one had asked this before.
"Well, it is her last request, so I guess we do have to honor it," one said.
"But if we honor it, then she lives and it isn't her last request, so we don't have to honor it," the other argued.
"But maybe she'll live anyway and defeat the robots. Then it wouldn't have been her final request, either!"
"Then it's safe to ignore! The only way we'd be in trouble for not granting it would be if she died in the arena."
"But that's the most likely outcome!"
It was decided that we would arrange for arbitration, but we couldn't agree on the number of arbitrators, their nicknames, their sexual orientation, the type of sandwiches they could eat while discussing the case, and whether or not to televise the proceedings as part of a pay-per-view package. The deliberations lasted for several weeks, during which time I was sequestered aboard the station, living down the hall from Howard and sharing a communal bathroom with him. Showering with the man who ordered my ritual execution for his own spectacle was awkward at best, although who can resist shower sex? Not I.
"Oh Katrina," moaned Howard, about halfway through the act, "you've really got me in a lather!"
"That was horrible," I told him. "Really, you've totally killed the mood and my Stockholm Syndrome." I pushed him aside and began to rinse.
"Sorry," he said. "It's just that I don't get many living women up here and I don't get a chance to practice my dirty talk. Not that I need to! I can swear like a sailor after I've had a couple boxes of Cracker Jacks... What are you looking at? I'm not impotent!"
Three appeals later, I left Outpost Omicron a free woman. On the way out, I bought a little stuffed Vicki from the gift shop. One-Eyed Jack, happy with his new position as color commentator for the jousts, opted to stay aboard and have wacky hijinks. I suspect he secretly hoped for his own spin-off series of novels, but this was not to be the case.
"Goodbye, Jack," I said. "I wish I could stay here and take Howard hostage, using him as bait to draw out his wicked master Sergio and finally stage the showdown that will win me back my kingdom from his evil clutches, but then what would I do afterwards? Knit?"
"Girl, you got an ass that won't quit," Jack said, oblivious to the conversation.
"Live for an acceptable amount of time, and be financially sound," I told him, and entered the escape pod, sealing the door tightly with caulk and letting it cure for ten to fifteen minutes. Then I turned the ignition key. The engine stalled. Jack pushed on the pod for a while before offering me a jump.
As Outpost Omicron, the Big O, grew smaller in the pod window and spiraled out of sight, I looked back upon my adventures there. "Damn, that was anticlimactic," I thought to myself. But nevermind. New, bolder, saucier exploits awaited me as soon as I arrived on my home planet. I wondered if I had paid my cable bill for this month, and remembered I had dry cleaning to pick up down at the Laundromat. Yes, bold, saucy adventures indeed!
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