Space pizza
Captain Anti'za looked at his spaceship cat and then chuckled happily. Snark was sniffing the air around their kitchen and, meowed from time to time, obviously impatient. Thanks to his nifty air duct modifications, not only the mess hall, their entire ship would smell of the delicious and soon ready to leave the oven, pizza. The captain looked at his holo-list and checked each ingredient, ticking those he had not been able to procure before his crew left Earth. The terrifying loss of their mozzarella cheese reserves was attributed to his Ops officer's newly discovered addiction to... well, mozzarella. Lilly couldn't keep her little paws off the stasis pod where they kept it, and all attempts to protect the cheesy goodness were in vain. The experienced computer specialist simply hacked through any and all electronic locks that his XO attempted to bar her access to the dairy products storage with. He had to make due with what he had secretly kept in his own stasis pod - thankfully the bunny was still unawares of its existence.
The oven gently beeped and his PDA sounded the ready to eat alarm. All around the ship his crewmates were probably running towards the mess hall with their mouths watering. He grabbed the vacfoam gloves and muttered while standing before the five feet tall, multi-tray grav-oven:
"Upper door open first. Eject trays one to five."
The computerized marvel of spaceship kitchen appliance dutifully obeyed his command and Anit'za pulled the first tray out. Each of the ten trays had a square pizza in it, all made from different type of dough and covered with a variety of toppings. Obviously the most glorious of meats were prevalent, although there were two pizzas with simple veggies and cheese only. Quickly he gave the machine another order, while his hands sprinkled copious amounts of shredded cheese on top of the five, still remaining in the oven trays:
"Oven, activate force field food protection. Target the table and please, close the upper door."
Soon a gently humming, invisible layer of protection blanketed that part of their table where he had placed the five trays beforehand and Anit'za produced his pizza cutter from a nearby drawer. Before the man was even able to reach and start slicing his first tray full of white cheese and tomato sauce pizza, Mack's long, beefy arm snatched it from under his nose. Of course, the thinly layered force field was instantly nullified by his iron muscles. That, or their ops officer had already hacked the oven's force field protocols. He faked one of his best protests, face adorned with a mischievous, well-practiced smile:
"Hey! I am supposed to cut it fir..."
The space biker was already chomping off full piece sized bites and mumbled back at him, his mouth still full of piping hot pizza:
"Ofh hof pisaa so goof, noeh need to cuf if!"
He nodded, shrugged and then proceeded to cut the rest of the pizza. Not a minute had passed since the captain of IMS Starshatter did so, literally his entire crew basically assaulted the mess hall en masse. He gracefully dodged the first attack and danced back, behind the protection of his kitchen's top. The dexterous dzenta'rii even managed to snatch a piece of prosciutto pizza while he did so. For a couple of minutes the silence of their starship's mess hall was disturbed by multiple mouths chewing. Then the oven beeped again and suddenly everyone's plates were empty again. Wait, when did they even get plates?! The captain suspected that one of his crew had assumed the secret duty to supply everyone with a clean plate every morning. At least before the appropriate hour which they had set for lunch, all kitchen utensils, plates and cutlery were orderly arranged into the robot washer's bucket.
The next batch of heavy, overly cheesy and super meaty pizzas soon left the grav-oven. This time his crew, their hunger for food satiated to a degree, waited dutifully, each of them ogling the trays. This was Anit'za's intent to use all kinds of fresh ingredients and not only accentuate on the dough but also the meat. Sausage, steak, salami, cured meats or ham - everything was carefully picked from a dozen different suppliers on Earth and then meticulously arranged. The multiple layers of cheese released their tasty steam and while the captain cut each pizza in good sized pieces, his crew's mouths watered again. Before pushing the trays towards them on the kitchen top, the captain pulled one piece of each for himself and piled them on his plate.
"Well then, what are you waiting for - devour the space pizza while our starship's grav-plating is still on! Can you imagine the cheesy mess we'll be if it suddenly stops working?!"
Himself biting from a piece of Martian buffalo steak pizza, the captain let his memories fly. In his mind, Anit'za returned back to Italy and visited that tiny, roadside pizzeria, where his journey into the world of pizza began...
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