SFSTORY: HMS Golden Lance #11 - We're Saved! (Maybe)

A short, short time ago in an alterverse not all that far away, the HMS Golden Lance hung dead in space, slightly off kilter. True, there is really no up or down in space, but still, the ship did appear to hang at an odd angle. This effect was heightened by the bits of hull plating that were breaking loose and drifting away, and by the various types of gases which were leaking in a few places.

There were also, of course, the dozens of shiny, rodent-sized escape pods being jettisoned at regular intervals.

Inside the ship, people and things floated about quite aimlessly, the synthetic gravity apparently having failed at some point. The ship's speakers emitted random squawks of white, pink, and mauve (with just the slightest touch of taupe) noise, which is a polite way of saying that it sounded like the ship was having a prolonged and quite painful release of intestinal gases.

Ralph, the Giant Space Weasel of Anthrax V, sprung to his feet. As he was under a table, this resulted in his head hitting the underside of said table. "Ouch! Gaddamim! Stupich muckerfugging bable!" he exclaimed, not at all his usual cheerful self.

Omegas, formerly all-powerful and currently mostly-annoying, likewise sprung to his feet. Omegas was not under a table, and instead hit his head on the ceiling tiles, causing him to bounce back toward the center of the control room. He reflexively gestured with his arms and somehow brought himself to a gentle stop, feet firmly planted on the deck plates. "I say," he said cheerfully, "superpowers, even at these low levels, certainly have their advantages." He calmly strode towards the controls while Ralph, floating in mid-air with arms and legs flailing wildly, tried repeatedly to bite him.

=I seem to be regaining control,= announced the overhead speakers, sounding suspicously like Doctor Bing Von Spleen, even though one could plainly see Spleen floating in the corner quiety retching. =Synthetic gravity will be restored in five, four, three...=

Everything in the ship dropped suddenly to the deck plates as the synthetic gravity cut back on. Everything except Omegas, who stood in the center of the control room, a bemused expression on his darkly handsome face. Ralph scurried around muttering to himself.

=...two...=

Time Agent 357 (retired) and Diana Dark (of Earth) untangled their arms and legs. 357 quickly stood and began walking, and just as quickly lost his balance and did a half-gainer into the nearest wall. Diana also stood, but then swayed wildly, arms pinwheeling in a very amusing manner, until she fell forward, landing flat on her face. Well, she would have landed flat on her face if not for her rather large and shapely, um, attributes.

Diana climbed unsteadily back to her feet. "Stupid place to put a center of gravity," she muttered to herself, slapping at the aforementioned attributes.

"Hey, careful with those!" exclaimed 357.

"Graffle frezzing mugger nachi flargle!" slavered Ralph.

=Okay, I think I've got this figured out,= announced the overhead speakers. =Let's have a roll call. Time Agent 357!=

"Here," said the body of Diana Dark, still adjusting her attributes.

=Diana Dark!=

"Over here," said the body of Time Agent 357.

=Ralph!=

"Right here, Doctor," said the body of Omegas.

=Omegas!=

"Slah do yum geb dese blips do flerk?" said the body of Ralph.

=Val!=

"Over here, trapped in this stinking meat suit!" said the body of Doctor Bing Von Spleen.

=And I, the intellect of Doctor Bing Von Spleen, appear to be inside the ship's VAL 9000 computer. Interesting.=

"What happened?" asked 357. Uh, Diana. Omegas?

=To escape from Greez Hyperiok's attack, we put 37 cents in change, a used subspaceway token, a button, and some pocket lint into an ABPSARI (or Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator Mark I) and activated it. In addition to the desired effect of escaping from Greez's attack, the ABPSARI also switched our bodies around. I'm having very little trouble adjusting because, luckily, I modelled the VAL 9000 computer's neural circuitry after my own brain.=

The body of Doctor Spleen stood up. "I seem to be adjusting quickly, as well," said Val in a nasal voice only slightly more annoying than Spleen's normal crothety old man rasp. "Though I do appear to have soiled myself."

=Um, actually, I did that when Greez first attacked.=

"Well, what do the rest of us do?" said the rest of them in unison, except for Omegas in Ralph's body, who bit his lip during the "well" and spent the rest of the sentence spitting out blood.

=Assignments: Ralph, teach Omegas how to properly speak in your body or we'll never understand a word he says. Val, get my body cleaned up, then lay it down for a nap; I was tired and cranky before all this started. 357, quit pawing at Diana's attributes and check our fuel cells; I'm getting some funny readings. Diana, go with him in case he needs any heavy lifting. I'm going to figure out how to operate the navicomputer from the inside and calculate exactly where we are.=

Everyone went about their assigned duties. Walking toward the fuel cells, Diana briefly saw the world briefly go dark around her, almost as if the body she was in (which was 357's) had faded out of existance and then just as quickly returned. Behind her, 357 felt the body he was in (which was Diana's) recover from a stumble he didn't remember taking, almost as if his intellect had faded out of existance and then just as quickly returned. Both shrugged off the experience as not their problem and continued on their merry little ways.

=Status!= demanded Spleen, when they all met in the briefing room a short while later.

"We completely out of Spam and all other food-related fuels," reported 357. "All we have are the so-called conventional fuels, which limit us to moving around at a few thousand times the speed of light in this alterverse, with maybe some limited time travel."

"So we're stuck in this particular alternate universe?" asked Ralph.

"Well, if we can get the ship's time travel capabilities working, we can go back in time, change important historical events, then move forward in time along the new timeline of maximum probability, but that's very dangerous, time-consuming work. It's the way we used to do it back in the old days."

"So we need Spam," said Omegas from inside Ralph's body. "If I was in my own body, and in full command of my powers, I could simply teleport us to where some was."

=If you were in your own body and in full command of your powers,= Spleen snapped, =you'd simply teleport yourself out of here and leave us to die.=

"Doctor, you wound me," protested Omegas, placing a hand over Ralph's heart. Or rather, over where he thought Ralph's heart might be.

=Stuff it, Omegas. I'm detecting a star with planets a relatively short distance away from here. I suggest that we head there, buy supplies, make repairs, and run away to hide for a while.=

"I don't like running from a fight," said 357.

"Are you brave or foolhardy?" asked Diana.

"Neither. I prefer avoiding the fight altogether in the first place."

=Avoiding altogether is out of the question. Greez Hyperiok has my ABPSARII and with it he can find anything anyplace anytime, which includes us here now. It's just a matter of time.=

"So, what do we do?"

=There's a trading post on an asteroid in the star system I mentioned. I suggest we go there, buy or steal some Spam, and start a random walk through alterverses to make it as difficult as possible for Greez to find us. That should give us enough time to plan a counterattack.=

"Whoa!" said Omegas, preening Ralph's whiskers. "Who said anything about a counterattack? How do you counterattack someone who has ultimate power?" Omegas was, of course, refering to the ABPSARII, or Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator Mark II, which had the power to search through all alterverses and all time epochs until it found the person, place, item, or situation that the owner had requested. The ABPSARII was currently in the possession of Greez.

"Our being alive right now proves that it's not ultimate power," said Diana crossly, sounding even more cross as her voice came out in Time Agent 357's usual gravelly baritone. "The ABPSARII is obviously only as good as the person using it. We're not dead because our enemy, Greez Hyperiok, didn't know what to ask for."

Ralph, in a rumbling bass voice usually heard from Omegas, added "Obviously, Greez isn't the brightest bowling ball in the shed."

As our collection of adventurers were used to not understanding a single thing that came out of Ralph's mouth anyway, they simply ignored this comment and readied the ship, the HMS Golden Lance for which this serial is named, for its trip to the trading post asteroid.

Meanwhile, a very, very far distance away, in terms of time and universes and such, anyway, aboard a ship that looked like a bright two-year-old's attempt to model a warship out of clay and pipe cleaners, two beings were in deep discussion.

"Look, Greez, it's not that I'm ungrateful..." began one of them.

"Why, you ungrateful little worm!" said the other threateningly.

"Hey, I just said that it wasn't that I was ungrateful. See? This is me being grateful. I fully appreciate your springing me from that jail cell. I just have my reservations about this plan of yours. I think it's a little unnecessarily complex."

The speaker was a medium-sized, human-looking male being wearing impossibly expensive but utterly ridiculous-looking clothes, taupe sports jacket over mauve trousers. He went by the name of Dijon Mu'tard. Once, he had a pet black hole named Rick. Together, they were a cosmic threat of nearly unlimited power. Now, Dijon was a washed up has-been, a lackey for other supervillians.

"I won't have a washed up has-been lackey questioning the brilliance of my plans," said the other speaker. This was one Greez Hyperiok, renegade Time Agent and all-around bad egg.

"Well, you see," said Dijon hesitantly. He cleared his throat. "You see, Greez, it's just that you can just tell that ABPSARII that you want 357's head on a platter and it will give it to you. Why these convoluted schemes which actually give the heroes a chance to defeat you? When you've got cosmic power, use it!"

Greez sneered, which wasn't all that different an expression than the one he usually wore. "I suppose that's how you lost your pet black hole 'Dick?' By fully using this vaunted cosmic power."

"His name was Rick, and don't speak poorly of him. I was operating under the orders of Satan T. Lucifer Jones, Prince of Darkness and Duke of Smelly Feet, back when I was still a SAAL, or Satanic Agent At Large. I had guidelines I had to follow. These guidelines were put into place to insure that the heroes always had a chance. You, however, are not limited by such guidelines. Do something cosmic!"

Greez, taken aback by Dijon's outburst, considered his options for a full three seconds before completely forgetting everything that Dijon had said. "There's no fun in that. No drama. No style."

"Well, then I'm opting out. Where do I pick up my last check?"

Dijon stood defiantly staring at Greez. He continued to stand there defiantly until he realized that the ship's internal defense systems had armed and were all pointing in his general direction. He then decided that principles were much easier to stand for when you weren't going to get vaporized for having them.

"Glad to see that you've come to your senses," sneered Greez. "The ABPSARII has already located the HMS Golden Lance. For some reason they are without fuel and are heading towards a trading post that is located nearby. The ABPSARII has set up a very special store there, and is about to transport you there as well. Follow the plan as I've explained it to you exactly and our enemies will be destroyed."

"Okay," said Dijon, just before he was teleported away.

As Greez chuckled maniacly to himself, the closing credits rolled.

What is this plan that Greez has explained?
Will Dijon follow it exactly?
What is the crew of the HMS Golden Lance getting into?
When is the Sci-Fi channel going to show us new episodes?

For the answers to totally unrelated questions that have nothing to do with this week's story line, tune in next week, same SFSTORY time, same SFSTORY channel!

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