SFSTORY: HMS Golden Lance #03 - The Fleeing

In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded. From this nothing came everything that followed. Not just the known universe, whichever one you happen to be sitting in as you read this, but all universes. All alternate universes, or alternative universes, or alterverses, or altiverses, or whatever you might call them. A collection of them. A multiverse, if you will. A multiverse arrayed in a massive hypersphere. A hypersphere constantly expanding, growing ever more impossibly larger with every passing instant.

All realities are here, somewhere. All times are here, somewhen. Any place imaginable. Any time imaginable. Any person imaginable. Any situation imaginable.

Imagine a well-shielded, well-equipped, long-range research vessel, some twenty light-minutes away from the former location of a temporal, dimensional, and spacial anomaly, shuddering under the sustained blaster fire of several larger ships. Imagine a mortal born of a race of immortals, a human from a little-known planet called Earth, and a former streetwise servant of Heaven, all onboard that vessel. Imagine, indeed, the current situation of our heroes.

Go ahead. Imagine. I dare you. Aw, c'mon. Please?

Time Agent 357 (retired) swore. He swore at great length. He swore against many different things. He swore in several different languages. He swore to such an extent that, as he entered the bridge of the unnamed research vessel, his curses distorted the very fabric of the local space/time/spam continuum to such an extent that the paint actually peeled off the walls. This did not affect the functioning of the primary viewscreen, which showed that he was surrounded by half a dozen ships, each much larger than the one he was currently in. 357 took manual control of the helm and sent the ship on a spiraling evasive course designed to gave the enemy's targeting computers a stomach ache. It did, at least for the moment.

Doctor Bing Von Spleen, owner and nominal captain of the vessel, bravely strode onto the bridge to take control of the situation, if one defines the word "bravely" as screaming in panic, "strode" as in being bodily carried by Omegas, and "control" as having absolutely no idea of what he needed to do. Spleen was just that kind of guy.

"Omegas!" shouted 357, finally in his element after two chapters of inactivity. "Get to a gun turret and see if you can hold them off long enough for me to warp us out of here! Doctor Spleen! Get to the communications system and see if you can call for help!" The enemy's targeting computers had finally figured out the evasive course, so 357 switched to spelling out curse words with the ship's exhaust. Omegas began poking buttons at random trying to locate the weapons system.

"Um, little problem with that," apologized Spleen. "This is purely a research vessel and has no armaments." He staggered a little as the enemy's blasters found a weak spot in the shields. "Also, we can't call for help, as the younger version of me is also active in this area of space/time/spam. He gets wind that I was here, when I plainly don't remember that, and it'll cause a temporal paradox. I might just cease to exist. Omegas, too, I think."

"Paradox, smaradox," teased Omegas, apparently not at all concerned about the possibility of altering the timestream and erasing his entire zillion-year existance. Irritated that he was not going to get to fire the nonexistent guns, he amused himself by launching probe drones at the attacking ships, which banked off to avoid them, thinking that the harmless probes were weapons of some kind.

357 angrily snapped off an alarm which he assumed was telling him that he was about to get his butt vaporized out from under him, which he already knew. He muttered under his breath, wishing that he was aboard his old ship, the HMS Golden Lance, which he missed terribly and felt could have handled this situation with ease. He missed his ship's computer, the VAL 9000, which probably could have handled the situation without him. Most of all, however, he missed his retirement, which never seemed to last very long before he was dragged into messes like this again. Seeing that Omegas' probes had distracted the enemy, he straightened out the course and hoped that the shields would hold long enough for the navicomputer to do whatever it was that it thought it needed to do.

It did not occur to 357 that he had absolutely no idea what the navicomputer thought it needed to do.

After several subjective lifetimes, it did, however, do it. The ship's main engines, powered by a standard ABPSARI (Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-Integrator), told space and time to get bent. Space and time obliged. The research ship just disappeared. Onboard the six attacking ships, targeting computers decided that ships don't just disappear, and sniffed around for other targets. They found them, and happily opened fire. Four of the ships managed to destroy each other before things were brought back under control. The remaining ships licked their wounds and began scanning for Spam residue, the only way to track an ABPSARI-powered ship.

"Are we live? Oh, good. Rigel Broadbottom here, bringing you another exciting episode of Untamed Universe."

"What's going on. Let me out of here!"

"As you'll remember from the last series, we found a spacial warp which led us to several previously uncharted planets. During one of those expeditions, we collected this lovely specimem here."

"Let me out of here and I'll give you specimen!"

"Our scientists were quite disappointed to learn that in spite of her extensive vocalizations, she is nothing more than a dumb animal. We were unable to communicate with her on any but the most basic level."

"What do you mean? You've spent months talking to me!"

"Ah, yes, lovely little Clara has spent quite a long time away from home. But that's all about to change..."

"The name's Chuck. Now let me out of here!"

"Today, we've rediscovered the planet where we captured her, and are ready to release her to rejoin the herd."

"What are you talking about? This doesn't look like Jersey."

"Ah, yes, here comes the other members of the herd. They do seem excited about the prospect of seeing Clara again."

"Herd? Those things look like wolves on acid!"

"We believe that these larger, more hirsute creatures are the male of the species. The largest one appears to have taken a special interest in our little Clara. Let's release her and see what happens."

"No! I don't want to dropped out of the cage. Help! Help!"

"Ah, beautiful. It looks like they've hit it off. The males seems to be engaged in some sort of symbolic biting game. We believe that it is a prelude to mating."

"Help! Oh, God! Help! Augh..."

"I see that Clara is releasing a great quantity of a reddish substance from her body and is lying very still. We believe that this signals her willingness to mate. We'd best leave these lovebirds alone. Once again, I'm Rigel Broadbottom, and this has been Untamed Universe."

In another area of time and space, a ship appeared. A nearby planet's gravitational field decided that ships don't just appear, and so ignored it. Which was a good thing because the occupants of said ship were in no condition to contemplate the subtleties of orbital mechanics. Or any other mechanics, for that matter.

Doctor Spleen was busy barfing his guts out. Time Agent 357 was upchucking. Omegas was just plain puking. Even the ship's systems seemed just slightly put out. Once recovered sufficiently to stand, Spleen programmed the ship to take them to a base which was in orbit around the planet. They staggered out of the ship and into the base.

"What the hell was that?" Omegas asked once he had regained some sense of dignity, or at least as much dignity as a former immortal in a very loud oversized Hawaiian shirt can have. He adjusted his sunglasses as he looked around. It looked like some kind of automated shipyard.

"Interdimensional feedback," Spleen answered as he led them deeper into the innards of the base, pausing only to hand a few floppy disks over to a passing robot of some kind. "We travelled to an alterverse very far, spamologically speaking, from the one we were in without passing through Netherspace or any of the alterverses in between. According to accepted theory, we should all be hazy clouds of ionized particles right now. Luckily, I know a few tricks. It just takes a lot of preparation and a carefully pre-mapped route." They eventually came to another briefing room.

"Meaning," 357 said as he found a chair, "that this base is where you were planning to take us all along."

"More or less," Spleen admitted as he and Omegas found seats as well. "This was all an elaborate plan to bring you back into a storyline."

"Needlewarp!" cursed 357. "Why can't anything ever be easy?"

"Easy?" asked Spleen. "You want easy? You were gone for nearly 10 years objective time. You were forgotten by the authors. You were lost to a world which annually celebrates your disappearance. You can't just open a door, walk into the room, and say 'Hi, there!' like nothing ever happened!"

Just then, the door opened. A figure walked into the room. "Hi, there!" it said, like nothing ever happened.

Two recently repaired ships scanned the heavens. They locked onto and sorted through a plethora of trails, looking for the one they wanted. Narrowing their choices down to a mere handful, they split up and moved off.

Who is the figure?
What are these ships?
What is this storyline of which Dr. Spleen speaks?
Why am I asking all these stupid questions that I have no intention of ever answering?

Find out next week, same SFtime, same SFchannel!

Copyright 2006 by Troy H. Cheek. Free to read, but please reprint only with permission.