SFSTORY: HMS Golden Lance #14 - Well, That Didn't Work

The Temporal Teleporter Terminal of the HMS Golden Lance powered up and received a transmission. Three beings, more or less humanoid, materialized on the platform and looked around in confusion. They looked quite out of place in their garishly-colored uniforms.

One of the beings sucked in his gut and discretely reached to the back of head to adjust his toupe'. Ignoring the quiet snickers coming from the being on his left, he snapped an order. "Report!"

The snickering being responded immediately. "I ain't got no idee what that dadblamed contraption done did to us this time. We shudda took a shuttle. I been tellin' y'all for years that these things are dangerous. There ain't no tellin' where it dumped us. We're probably stranded here! And other thing..."

The third being quietly snuck up behind the second. He reached out and grabbed the second at the junction of his neck and shoulder. The complaining being's eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to the floor in a boneless heap.

In the welcome silence, the third being spoke. "I believe we have been transported into an alternate reality. This is no doubt a result of the ion storm we recently encountered."

"Oh, well," said the first. "These things can't be helped."

"On the contrary," responded the third. "As I recall, our course would not have taken us within six lightyears of the storm. It was your decision to take us through the heart of it. 'We can't be afraid of a little bad weather,' I think were your exact words."

The first looked only slightly uncomfortable and quickly found a way to change the subject. "Someone's coming. Get us out of here!"

The third looked the Temporal Teleporter Terminal control panel over. "This device is almost completely without power. However, I believe I can 'jumpstart' it. Stand by."

A few moments later, the trio disappeared. A moment after that, the teetering form of Doctor Bing Von Spleen entered. "I thought you said there were intruders in here."

=I must have been mistaken. Perhaps I misread the internal sensors. Right now, they're saying we just had some kind of "Cheesy Cameo Crossover Event."=

Val hmmphed as only a woman can do.

The Temporal Teleporter Terminal powered up and received another transmission. This transmission contained a Time Agent known only as 357, a former immortal known only as Omegas, a Giant Space Weasel known only as Ralph, and an Earth female known only as Diana Dark. They were accompanied by several large crates of food, spare parts, and toiletries which they had just picked up on the trading post asteroid which the ship was orbiting.

=Did everything go all right down there?= asked the elderly voice of Spleen, currently trapped in the ship's computer.

"Yes," answered 357, currently trapped in the body of Diana Dark. "Everything went smoothly. Why do you ask?"

=I don't know. I just got the funny idea that things didn't work out, that's all.=

"He's been reading the chapter headings again," explained the VAL 9000 computer, currently trapped in the body of Spleen.

"Never mind that!" slobbered Omegas. He meant to hiss it menacingly, but was still having trouble speaking from inside Ralph's weaseloid body. "Let's get the ship powered up and out of here!"

Everyone agreed that this was a good suggestion and immediately began doing so. Everyone was so busy that nobody noticed the small waste disposal cannister with an Interstellar Huddle of Waffles logo pasted to the side zooming by outside the ship. Nor did they notice it fade out of sight as if teleported.

In a nearby alterverse, a waste disposal cannister with an IHOW logo materialized on a teleporter platform. A medium-sized, human-looking male being wearing impossibly expensive but utterly ridiculous-looking clothes, taupe sports jacket over mauve trousers, climbed out. His name was Dijon Mu'tard, former agent of darkness and currently toady for a power-mad dictator. He wasn't exactly sure where he was, but anyplace was fine with him as long as it was far away from said power- mad dictator, renegade Time Agent Greez Hyperiok.

"Dijon Mu'tard, report!" ordered renegade Time Agent Greez Hyperiok.

Dijon turned around and saw that he was standing in the control room of the S.S. You Are About To Die, which looked to be made of modeling clay and pipe cleaners and designed by a small child. This belied the fact that the ship was quite possibly the most powerful destructive force ever known to sentient life. Or, at the very least, the most destructive force known to Dijon Mu'tard, who used to hang around with black holes and singularities, so he had some idea of what he spoke.

"Um," ummed Dijon, stalling for time. "Mission accomplished?"

Greez looked as if he would have had a conniption had he remembered how to spell it. "Accomplished? You call this accomplished?" He paused to shake a handful of printout at Dijon. "This is utter failure! I'm going to have to take you to an alterverse where we are both immortal just to have enough time to punish you properly!"

"Hey!" said Dijon, allowing an indignant feeling to temporarily give him the illusion of bravery as he faced Greez face to, well, chest. "I did exactly what you told me to do! It's not my fault your plan was hopelessly complex!"

"The plan was simple! All you had to do was use your cover as a cook at the Interstellar Huddle of Waffles to put specific poisons into specific dishes, thereby killing all our enemies. You messed up."

"I did not mess up!" shouted Dijon. "I put the radioactive isotopes in the Holy Manna, knowing it was the only way to short out the powers and end the life of Omegas, given that immortal body of his. Rat poison for the ferret chow that Ralph ordered. A special neural parasite for Time Agent 357. Simple chemical elements for Dark and Spleen, them both being human. Except for Spleen remaining on the ship, everything went exactly as planned."

Greez gestured to the ship's controls, which read his hand movements and turned on the viewscreen. It showed the HMS Golden Lance powering up and blasting itself into another dimension. "If that's the case, then tell me why they're not dead yet, and why they're in good enough shape to repair their ship and escape."

"Um."

"I thought so. New plan! Listen closely!"

"I look forward to getting our old bodies back," said Ralph as he stored supplies in the hold. His own body would have been hard pressed to even lift the boxes, but Omegas had muscles to burn.

"Not that I'm arguing with you," answered Omegas, "but why?"

"Nothing tastes right in your body," explained Ralph. "My ferret chow tasted like rat poison."

"Well, even if it was poisoned, it wouldn't affect my body," said Omegas with a hint of pride. Well, with a whole bottle of pride. "Unlike yours, which can't even handle a simple dish of Holy Manna without rumbling like an old dishwasher."

"I get some stomach grumblings sometime when I eat certain radioactive isotopes. Your food was probably contaminated."

Diana Dark and 357 looked at each other, and decided without saying a word that they wouldn't mention their own stomach and head aches, since neither seemed serious and were in fact getting better.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" 357 asked Diana.

Diana thought a second. "Only if you're thinking that somebody with very specific knowledge of our physiologies just tried a complicated poisoning scheme which, had it been successful, would have killed us all without a trace of foul play, and which only failed because we had all recently switched bodies. Is that what you were thinking?"

"Well, actually," hemmed and hawed 357. "I was thinking that while Omegas and Ralph were busy with the supplies, we might slip off to my quarters for a little quiet time together." He smiled hopefully.

Diana stared coldly at 357 for a full 30 seconds before breaking into a warm grin. "I thought you'd never ask," she said, almost drukenly. Then she sobered. "I'd be all squicked out trying anything now, but once we get back into our own bodies, I'll give you 'quiet time' that will have you begging for mercy. Deal?"

"Deal." They walked off together to the control room, grinning much more sincerely than Omegas would ever manage. The VAL 9000 computer, stuck in Spleen's body, noted their entrance but decided not to say anything about their goofy expressions.

"Wipe those goofy expressions of your faces," she snapped, "and check these figures for me."

"What's this?" asked Diana as she read over 357's shoulder, which 357 would normally have considered a shooting offense.

"A 'random walk' through alterverses," answered 357. "It's designed to make it as hard as possible for Hyperiok and his ABPSARII (or Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator Mark II) to find us. It will take us randomly through every possible alternate universe that exists, with a few exceptions."

"Why the exceptions?"

Spleen answered from the overhead speakers. =We want to avoid any alterverse where our power sources will not function, or where conditions are so hostile that our ship will be instantly destroyed, or any other place like that.=

"And these few alterverses down here on the bottom?"

=Those are places where my younger (well, middle-aged) self is still adventuring. I don't want to show up and meet myself, since I don't remember meeting an older version of me back then, particularly not one that's trapped inside a computer. It was bad enough being kidnapped by a bagel intent on avenging the wrong done to 'its kind' at the Breaking of the Fast at the Dawn of the Universe, whatever the needlewarping hell that was...=

The VAL 9000 gently turned down the volume. "He's been getting like that more and more. I don't think he's adjusting quite as well as he thinks he is, or maybe he's just more senile than I thought. We've got to get him back into his own body."

"I've got my own reasons for wanting to hurry that along," 357 said. "Is that what this second page of figures is for?"

"Yes," answered VAL. "I think those are alterverses where we at least have a chance of reversing the body switch problem, finding your lost nephew (Time Agent 386), or discovering interesting plot points. I've put those at a slightly higher probability than the others."

"Which makes it more likely that Hyperiok will find us, but also makes it more likely that we'll actually accomplish something worthwhile," put in Diana.

"Exactly," said VAL, scratching idly at Spleen's crotch.

"Right," decided 357. "Let's do it!"

"We're already doing it, darling," said Diana. "We're just filling you in so you can pretend you're still in charge."

Why are women so condenscending?
What is 'it' and why do men always say to do 'it'?
What do these questions have to do with this chapter?

Well, nothing, but I needed something to set up a line where I could tell you to tune in to the next exciting episode of... SFSTORY!

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