SFSTORY: HMS Golden Lance #25 - Date with an Angle

Previously on SFSTORY...

=The HMS Golden Lance and her crew have been trapped inside an unknown and unknowable temporal, dimensional, and spacial anomaly for the last 150 years. We've escaped, but we are being pulled back in!=

"Time Agent 357, I rescued you and Omegas because I need your help. My experimental ABPSARII has been stolen."

"The Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator Mark II is a miniature interdimensional and time travel device combined with a highly efficient search engine. It can grant literally any wish."

"One by one, all universes will fall before the awesome might of my ABPSARII! I, Greez Hyperiok, will rule supreme over the multiverse."

"The ring is a combination of god-like alien power, ancient magic, ultramodern superscience, and a few components that Ralph had picked up at the local Radio Shack."

=I'm afraid it's even worse than that. Time Agent 357 is being erased byte by byte from SFSTORY history!=

"NEKKID 69 reporting for duty!"

"I may just be a musty old copy of an Author, but I'm not without power. And I've made sure you're stuck here with me!"

=Sensors indicate that the entire milliverse just exploded!=

"Time Agent 357 is dead. Nothing can stop me now!"

And now, on SFSTORY...

The HMS Golden Lance (which was actually a pleasant shade of blue) rocketed through time and space in a way which was actually more interdimensional convergence than rocketry. But, never one to mess with a good metaphor, flames and smoke poured from her aft section anyway. Inside, her crew sat at a briefing table.

Time Agent 357 sat at the head of said table. Mortal offspring of immortal parents, he was simply very difficult to kill. He was one of the Time Police's greatest agents, even though he'd spent most of his career trying to retire. Celebrated Champion of Truth, Justice, and the Ability to Consume Large Amounts of Alcohol in a Single Sitting, he was perversely stone cold sober at the moment, having not had a drink in nearly seven minutes. A pair of battered headphones hung from his neck, ready to remind him of his life's story should he start to fade from history again.

To his right was Omegas, former omnipotent and streetwise servant of Heaven and current semi-potent pain in the neck. His eyes glowed red with (un)holy power, visibly so no matter how thick and cheap his sunglasses, though he tended towards thin and expensive ones. He was at that moment buffing his nails and looking entirely too cool and composed for anyone's peace of mind.

At the foot of the table was acclaimed Spamologist Doctor Bing Von Spleen of Earth. Spleen was the inventor of the Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator, an accident with which had propelled him into SFSTORY many years earlier. He was quite ready to retire, though younger versions of himself were still adventuring.

Continuing around, one found the Giant Space Weasel of Anthrax V, but you can call him Ralph. Ralph was actually a friendly, easy-going weaseloid from Leibowitz IV and an accomplished ukulele player in his own right. Normally a cheerful if timid type, he was currently polishing his Least Great Ring of Unholy Power and vying with Omegas in both the 'cool' and 'composed' departments.

Rounding out the group was the pleasently rounded Diana Dark, seated to 357's immediate left. A sweet, innocent girl from Chicago, or at least as sweet and innocent as anyone from Chicago could be, she was transported into SFSTORY by an explosion caused by the interaction of Cheez-Whiz and beer. She had been partner (professionally) to Time Agent 386, 357's nephew and heir to his Time Agent heritage, until 386 disappeared in a storyline which has not yet been explored by this Author. Now she was partner (personally) to Time Agent 357.

=We've reached our destination,= announced a sexy if annoyingly nasal voice from the overhead quadrophonic speakers. This belonged to the VAL9000 computer, the heart, soul, brain, and gall bladder of the HMS Golden Lance for which this serial is named. =Scanning...=

"We've been scanning for hours," rumbled Omegas in his trademark (and trademarked) basso profundo voice. "Like, when do we, you know, get some action?"

"This is the last one," Diana snapped back.

Doctor Spleen and Time Agent 357 each started to add something, but everyone suddenly shut up when Ralph held forward his weaseloid paw and allowed a tiny spark of energy to "BUZZAP!" from his ring. In the ensuing silence, Ralph went back to cleaning his whiskers.

For a cheerful, carefree rodent, Diana thought to herself, Ralph sure is pushing his weight around lately.

=Scan completed,= stated the computer.

"Analysis, Val," 357 requested.

=The temporal degeneration which was erasing Time Agent 357 from history has stopped. History has, in fact, started reasserting itself and is repairing the damage. Within a matter of months, all will be as it was and 357 will be safe again.=

In the mean time, 357 thought, I'm never going to be far away from this CD player containing a narrative version of my life's story.

"What now?" Diana asked, always willing to do anything to move a storyline along as long as it did not involve (much) public nudity.

"Vacation?" suggested Omegas half jokingly.

"Power consolidation?" suggested Ralph half seriously.

"Retirement?" suggested Spleen half asleep.

"None of the above," stated 357 flatly in a tone so forcefull that only someone with a fully accredited Bachelor of Heroic Deeds (from Interstellar University, Home of the Fighting Cephalopods... GO PODS!) could use it. "We're going to do the job we set out to do in the first place. We're going to track down renegade Time Agent Greez Hyperiok, take back Doctor Spleen's Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator Mark II, and *then* retire."

"How?" someone (it's not important just who) asked.

"I have a plan..."

The shape of a Maudlin-class time cruiser hung in space. From the tip of her ultra-relativistic bow to the base of her mega-dimensional stern, she gleamed in sparkling perfection. The ship's name was emblazened proudly across her spotless hull. Work crews, which had been swarming around her, entered through numerous hatches.

The last worker, actually an inspector, gave the hull a final once over, then headed to a hatch himself. Just before entering, he reached into his tool pouch and removed a small ball peen hammer. Gently, he tapped a single ding into the ship's aft hull plating...

Just below the ship's name: HMS Dentless.

On the bridge, a greenish-skinned alien turned slightly blue, then turned his primary pair of eyes to his captain. "Work crews announce that the cometary dust has been cleaned from the hull, Captain."

"Thank you, Fizz," responded Captain Morgen, he of heroic chin cleft.

"That's 'Fim,' sir." Not quite audible sigh. "And the Astrogation crew reports that by overloading their sensors and inventing twelve new types of technology, as you ordered, they have tracked down Greez Hyperiok's location. Incidentally, he's exactly where Time Central said he would be today."

"Good!" affirmed Morgen. "Set course, maximum speed!"

A chorus of "Aye, aye!" echoed around the bridge, mostly drowing out the occasional "Up yours!"

"You have a plan, sir," Fim asked hopefully.

"Of course I have a plan. What did you expect?" Morgen snorted.

"Honestly, sir? I expected you would go charging in personally and in defiance of all regulations and common sense, guns blazing, and hope for some kind of last-minute miracle to save the day."

Captain Morgen looked at his first officer suspiciously. "How did you guess my plan?"

Fim sighed, then blinked his eyes in twos and threes in sequence around his head until he'd gotten all of them at least three times. For some reason, this didn't calm him as it usually did.

Dijon Mu'tard stood on the bridge 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.

Dijon medium-sized, human-looking male being wearing impossibly expensive but utterly ridiculous-looking clothes, taupe sports jacket over mauve trousers, and currently was idly scratching his name into the arm of the command chair. Someday, he sighed. Then sighed again when several figures entered the bridge.

One was renegade Time Agent Greez Hyperiok, power-mad dictator to Dijon's chief flunky. The second was NEKKID 69, a battlebot whose holographic disguise was that of an attractive female humanoid tightly garbed in leather and chains. Some of those chains, however, led to a pack of snapping, yapping animals of some kind. Dijon noted that it was all NEKKID 69 could do to keep the animals from pouncing on Greez. These were, Dijon decided, Greez's latest collection of 'pets' whom he had trained to obey him and only him. Anterean killer marmosets or some such nonsense.

"Stay!" commanded Greez forcefully, not noticing that his pets were still making every effort to pounce at him. NEKKID tied the animals to a sturdy conduit a safe distance away. The animals, Dijon noticed, did not make any attempt to attack NEKKID. Of course, a few did seem to have broken teeth, missing limbs, and other injuries. Perhaps they had already tried it.

"Report!" Greez commanded Dijon, just as forcefully. Greez had also attended Interstellar University (GO PODS!).

Dijon snapped to a rough approximation of what he probably thought was a proper military stance. "We've arrived at altiverse 414ANGLE. And as near as I can tell, it has nothing to do with angles and received its name simply so the Author could make a bad pun in the title."

"Be that as it may," Greez stated, "it's next on our list to be conquered, enslaved, and used to fuel our unstoppable war effort. Isn't that right, NEKKID?"

"Of course, my liege," answered NEKKID in a perfectly normal voice, and not the funny ASCII-delimited speech used by most intelligent machines in SFSTORY.

Greez opened his mouth to go on, but stopped when a nearby control panel started emitting various beeps, buzzes, and noxious odors. "Say that again."

More beeps, buzzes, and the odors got worse, if possible.

"Impossible," Greez muttered, almost under his breath.

"Uh, Greez? Mind filling us in?" Dijon asked.

"This fool of a ship's computer is trying to tell me that the HMS Golden Lance just entered this star system. We all know that the ship was destroyed with all hands lost when we detonated a mine contain 10 gallons of New Coke and 7up. The resulting cola/uncola reaction destroyed all matter within..."

More beeps, buzzes, odors, and some obscene hand gestures.

"Doubly impossible!" Greez shouted. "Now it says that a time cruiser, the HMS Dentless, has entered this star system from the other side and her captain is challenging me to teleport down to the nearest planet to engage him in personal combat."

"The nearest planet is a gas giant with roughly 40 times standard gravity," NEKKID put in helpfully. "Tell him to go first."

Greez answered by going into a ten-minute long rant, frothing at the mouth and chewing scenery in a melodramatic, B-movie kind of way. Dijon and NEKKID waited for him to run down. The HMSes Golden Lance and Dentless, in the mean time, had closed the distance and had begun firing on the S.S. You Are About To Die, whose defensive screens easily turned aside their attacks.

"...and now they have the nerve to fire on me!" Greez finally finished. "That does it! Ready one of our super-secret, ultra- destructive, unstoppable doomsday killing thingies and target the Golden Lance. Fire when ready. Then destroy the Dentless."

"Um, Greez?" Dijon piped up. "I would be negligent in my duties as your toady if I did not point out that all our super-secret, ultra-destructive, unstoppable doomsday killing thingies have horrendously long charging times. S.S. You Are About To Die has regular primary, secondary, and even tertiary weapons which could destroy both ships before you could blink. We've also got some fourth-level weapons, though I can't remember what they're called. How does that go? Primary, secondary, tertiary...."

In their control room, the crew of the HMS Golden Lance waited with worms in their mouths.

Um, I mean, they had bait on their breath.

I mean... Never mind.

=Sensors show that some kind of super-secret, ultra-destructive, unstoppable doomsday killing thingie is charging on the S.S. You Are About To Die,= announced the ship's VAL9000 computer and MP3 player. =It appears to be aimed towards us.=

"Nice to know they've finally noticed us," Omegas grumbled. He had been in charge of the attack, and he was thoroughly disgruntled by the fact that he had yet to cause any damage whatsoever.

Time Agent 357 stood, smoothed his retro-futuristic silver jumpsuit, adjusted his captain hat to a slightly more rakish angle, smiled at his girlfriend Diana, and sat back down as he realized that he had no place to go. "Ready back there, Doctor Spleen?"

Doctor Spleen, poised to slam an extra-large serving of processed meat-like food product into the auxillary fuel intake of the ship's Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator, signaled ready.

"Go!"

"Where'd they go?" screamed Greez Hyperiok, grabbing Dijon by the lapels and shaking him violently.

"They... appear... to... have... gone... inter... dimension... al..."

"Follow them!" Greez commanded, shoving Dijon towards the nearest control panel. "Immediately!"

"Of course, sir," Dijon answered. "Just as soon as extrapolate their course to make sure that they're not leading us into a..."

"What part of 'immediately' did you not understand?"

Gulp. "Yes, sir."

"Where'd they go?" screamed Captain Morgen, grabbing Fim by the lapels and shaking him violently.

"They... appear... to... have... gone... inter... dimension... al..."

"Follow them!" Morgen commanded, shoving Fim towards the nearest control panel. "Immediately!"

"Of course, sir," Fim answered. "Just as soon as extrapolate their course to make sure that they're not leading us into a..."

"What part of 'immediately' did you not understand?"

Gulp. "Yes, sir."

All three ships appeared in high orbit around a planet. How do I best describe this planet? Imagine a planet untouched by human hands, or the hands of any (other) intelligent species. Imagine a planet where the creatures of nature live in harmony and cooperation. Imagine a planet where the most difficult decision involves on which side of the bed you want to have sex with your beautiful, insatiable partner.

Now, forget all that and imagine the Planet of the Supermarkets. Every square inch covered with grocery stores, strip malls, factory outlets, and those little kiosks which promise to sell every product ever known to man (or alien) but never seem to be open.

Power production on all three ships simply ceased. Such was the power of the Planet of the Supermarkets. Fresh batteries may be found in Aisle 3. Have A Nice Day.

The HMS Dentless, farthest out from the planet, began drifting off into space. Captain Morgen, floating helplessly through the ship as the synthetic gravity failed, screamed for his crew to stop laughing at him and perform some kind of engineering miracle.

The S.S. You Are About To Die, closest to the planet, shuddered as emergency generators kicked in. Operating on a slightly different frequency than the main engines, they managed to create enough power to keep the ship from spiraling into the atmosphere, but no more.

The HMS Golden Lance, mid-range from the planet and shielded from direct view by a convenient asteroid, kicked over to pre-rigged secondary generators and maintained almost normal functioning. The crew began prepairing for an attack. "Automated hoppers are dumping Britney Spears CD's into the furnace as fast as it can take them," Doctor Bing Von Spleen reported.

"Target Greez's ship," ordered Time Agent 357.

"We don't have long before the planet attacks," Diana said, flipping buttons and pressing switches. "They'll target us first because we still have power."

"You mean," Omegas suggested, "because we have defeated the planet's Zipper-Locked^tm protective field, their primary means of defense against attack and means of locking in freshness, that they will consider our very presense an act of agression and respond accordingly?"

Diana sighed. "No, I mean that by entering this place in a vehicle which can leave under its own power, we've deprived them of their usual fee for valet parking."

Diana had barely finished speaking when the VAL9000 computer announced missiles being fired from the planet's surface. Said computer also announced an intruder alert.

"Intruder alert?" all organic beings simultaneously asked.

A viewscreen flickered to life. It showed an attractive female humanoid dressed in leather and chains in the aft cargo bay. Well, technically, she was only half in the aft cargo bay, clawing her way through a hole she had already clawed through the hull, pulling herself in despite the gale-force winds caused by the cargo bay's atmosphere's sudden decision to exit the ship.

=Internal defenses are operating at only 20% efficiency due to our power situation,= VAL9000 reported. =I'm not even slowing her down.=

"Somebody go stop her," 357 ordered. "I've got to destroy the S.S. You Are About To Die while we still have a chance."

Diana, Spleen, Ralph, and Omegas left the control room at a gallop while 357 and VAL continued calculating firing solutions.

Omegas, whose idea of tactics was simply to overwhelm his opponent with overwhelming force, attempted to overwhelm his opponent with overwhelming force. Had he still been an all-powerful streetwise servant of Heaven, or even still a mostly-powerful streetwise servant of Hell^tm, this attack might have succeeded.

No one was quite sure what his attack was, as it blew out all the recording and monitoring devices in that section of the ship. Diana suspected that it was unsuccessful, however. She suspected that when Omegas came crashing through the wall of her quarters and continued on through the next wall over. She saw 357 look up in surprise as Omegas landed in a smoking heap at his feet.

This was, she decided, not good. Diana grabbed the rest of her weapons and went off to join the battle. She caught up with the intruder in the hallway outside the control room. The intruder was wearing Ralph wrapped around her neck like a huge weaseloid feather boa. According to an announcement from the overhead speakers, Doctor Spleen had done his best and was retreating back to the control room.

The intruder bounced off the wall and seemed to be taking a long time to get her bearings.

She was also talking to herself.

"NEKKID 69 reporting in, sir," she said. "I have disposed to the god-like alien Omegas and the Giant Space Weasel of Anthrax V. Doctor Spleen has retreated but turned out to be much more dangerous than I had anticipated. He blinded me with spam."

A pause.

"No, sir. I am fully shielded against the reality-altering properties of SPAM (Sickening, Putrid, Artificial Meat). What Spleen did was post my email address in several Uselessnet discussion groups. I'm getting so many high priority advertisements for free herbal Viagra and breast enhancement creams that I can't clear them fast enough. The pop-up windows are obscuring my visual sensors."

Ka-bong!

"And now the annoying human female is hitting me over the head with a stick. Please stand by."

Ka-bong!

Vision finally clearing, NEKKID 69 faced off against Diana Dark. The two women appeared to have roughly the same height, weight, muscular development, bra size, and taste in clothing. All throughout the entire multiverse, overweight and slightly drunk men in bars cast uneasy glances at their mud wrestling pits, somehow certain that they were missing something they would have sacrificed vital parts of their anatomy to see.

"I am NEKKID 69," said NEKKID 69 by way of introduction, incidentally firing off a laser blast that would have burned a hole through Diana's midsection had she not backflipped out of its path. "Networked Electronic Killing and Kamikaze Infiltration Device."

"Diana Dark," replied her opponent, swinging another blow with her staff at the robot's head. It was a blow which would have no doubt killed any organic opponent and perhaps even decapitated many lesser mechanical ones. It merely knocked around NEKKID's holographic projector, allowing her mechanical endoskeleton to show through in a few places.

"You see that you can't harm me," NEKKID explained. "I am a robot."

"We'll see about that," Diana replied. "I am from Chicago."

32 seconds later, NEKKID stepped into the control room. She was walking with a pronounced limp, curls of smoke curled from some of her more sensitive external sensors, and one arm hung loose. She dropped Diana and Ralph into a heap on top of the moaning Omegas. Doctor Spleen cringed in a corner. 357 looked up distractedly.

"Resistant to the (un)holy power of god-like aliens?" he asked in a conversational tone.

NEKKID admitted that she was, taking a step forward.

"And I hear fully shielded against the reality-altering properties of SPAM (Sickening, Putrid, Artificial Meat)?"

NEKKID simply nodded, taking another step.

"And proficient in hand-to-hand combat?"

NEKKID said nothing, but took yet another step.

"Ever fight in the Temporal Wars?"

NEKKID 69 stopped short. "Pardon?"

"Though not," 357 said. With that, he calmly drew his favorite sidearm, the telechronal displacement pistol, and equally calmly blew the battlebot's programming a few million years into the future. Devoid of a controlling intelligence, the battlebot chasis crashed to the floor.

Turning back to his control panel, 357 typed in a firing sequence. A beam of pure destructive energy and Cheez-Whiz leapt from the HMS Golden Lance and sped towards the S.S. You Are About To Die.

Only to be turned aside at the last second by a forcefield.

"Very good shot, Agent 357," came the voice of Greez Hyperiok, whose image soon appeared on a convenient nearby monitor. "Fortunately, I was able to get to my ABPSARII in time to have it create a shield to block your famous Golden Lance energy beam."

"The Automatic Beet Peeler and Sub-Atomic Re-integrator Mark II that we've been searching for!" Time Agent 357 gushed, indicating the device Greez held, which less resembled a miniature interdimensional and time travel device combined with a highly efficient search engine and more resembled an antique computer keyboard.

"Yes," agreed Greez. "The prototype which I stole from Doctor Bing Von Spleen. Which I have been using to take over universe after universe. Which I will now use to make you my slave forever!"

357 helped the others to their feet, thinking furiously. Suddenly, the control room was deluged with a rain of hail-sized golfballs.

"Vuja De," said 357.

"What's that mean?" asked Diana Dark.

"It's an old Time Police expression. It means getting the feeling that nothing like this has ever happened before."

"Ah."

On the viewscreen, Greez was shaking the ABPSARII violently. "What's wrong with this thing."

Dijon took some readings. "The Zipper-Locked^tm protective field of the Planet of the Supermarkets is interfering with the ABPSARII's ability to process SPAM. If I read this right, it only has enough power to grant one more request. One. Uno. Single."

"Then what do I do?" Greez said, obviously to himself as he never listend to Dijon's advice, anyway. "I want to enslave Time Agent 357. Yet, if I do that, my ship will be destroyed by those missiles, which will impact in less than 60 seconds. I can't decide."

Dijon reached for the device. "Give it to me. I've got an idea which can save both you and the ship."

"Never!" Greez shouted. "I will never give up the ABPSARII. I will die first. I will... Hey, where the Hell^tm did it go?"

357, and everyone else, turned around at the sound of a soft "plop." The ABPSARII popped into existance and fell into Ralph's paws. His Least Great Ring of Power glowed brightly and then went dark.

"Great job, Ralph! You da weasel!" everyone shouted.

Greez raged and fumed on the screen. 357 called for his attention. "Greez, we've got enough power to teleport you and your crew to our brig before we kick in our Cheez-Whiz Interactive Drive and get out of here. Or you can die. You have 30 seconds to decide."

Greez fumed some more.

357 turned to his companions. "Well, that just about wraps up this adventure, all in a nice even 25 episodes. Another few minutes and... Ralph? Just what do you think you're doing with that?"

It was only then that everyone heard the pitter patter of little weaseloid paws on the keyboard of the ABPSARII. 357 reached for the device, but suddenly found that space and time were twisting around him. He passed out.

He realized that he was being shaken awake. "Hur-ree, mon amie. We must flee before eet iz too late!"

357 allowed himself be dragged to his feet by a group of small, furry beings. It was only after he was dumped inside an abandoned warehouse with Diana, Omegas, and Doctor Spleen that he got a good look at said small, furry beings.

They were weaseloids.

A particularly scruffy-looking one, although they all looked as if it had been months since their last flea-dip, waddled up to speak to them. He was wearing a shirt with horizontal red and white stripes. An eyepatch covered one eye. His whiskers curled at the ends. A ragged ear poked out from one side of his head. The other ear was covered by a red beret worn at a jaunty angle. He smiled a smile that was missing several teeth.

"Mes amies, fear not," he said. "You have just been rescued by zee Ferretine Underground Resistance!"

What the heck is zee Ferretine Underground Resistance?
What exactly did Ralph do with the ABPSARII?
Will the HMS Dentless be doomed to float powerless forever?
Do these pants make me look fat?

Jack be nimble. Jack be quick. Jack be sure to read the next exciting installment of... SFSTORY!

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