The Space_Time Displacement Conundrum Read online

  Captain Quasar was left alone—truly alone for the first time in what seemed like years. He kept expecting Steve to make a reappearance, but the old wizard was apparently gone for good. He'd had his fun at Quasar's expense, and the captain had been given the chance he'd wanted to change the past. But the non-temporal entity had been right: now was all that Quasar really had, and there was more than enough right here, right now, to keep him plenty busy.

  Lank and the pirates wouldn't be happy about the turn of events, stuck outside in their cramped transport pods. Then there was Asteria on the Formidable Grace to contend with. And of course, the evil "emperor" Zhan. For any mere mortal, it would have been far too much.

  But this was Captain Bartholomew Quasar, hero of the United World Space Command. Nothing could faze him.

  Asteria had been kidding about carrying his child, hadn't she?

  Episode 74: Son of Quasar

  Captain Quasar had not intended their first conversation in—how long had it been?—to be broadcast on the viewscreen in front of his crew, but by the time he'd reached the bridge, having climbed up multiple ladders through multiple decks, the captain had found himself slightly out of breath. Clutching his knees as he gathered himself, he'd gasped, "Conference room," and turned to take the incoming call in private. However, Commander Wan had misunderstood, and now Asteria's bold visage consumed the entire screen on the fore wall.

  "Barty!" she cried in delight. No woman in all his life had ever looked happier to see him.

  "Greetings." He rose to his fullest height, gulping down air and forcing himself to appear well-composed. "We meet again, it would seem."

  "Oh Barty, always so formal." She released a deep, hearty laugh. "I've got somebody here for you to meet."

  Conference room! he mouthed at his first officer, but her attention was riveted on the screen.

  The camera on Asteria's side of things shifted its perspective down along her muscular and well-endowed torso to a blond, blue-eyed, strapping young lad outfitted in a similar form-fitting blue uniform. The kid looked to be at least five Earth years old, and he stared into the camera with dumb fascination.

  "Say hi to your daddy, Barty Junior!" Asteria crooned.

  The bridge quaked as if struck by Arachnoid cutting lasers, but the Effervescent Magnitude was not under attack. It was Quasar's knees that had given out. He caught himself against the side of his captain's chair as the little tyke on the screen waved with the help of his mother.

  "Has Lank hailed us?" Quasar's voice came feebly in the uncomfortable silence as every officer on the bridge did their best to look busy while casting quick, curious glances at the captain. "You know what? Let's hail him." He punched one of the buttons on his armrest and cleared his throat. "All right, Lank. The jig is up."

  The image of Barty Junior and his mother's bust line suddenly shifted to the left side of the viewscreen as Lank's indignant image appeared on the right.

  "What have you done with my cousin?" Lank growled, scowling with his good eye. "I demand to speak to Hank!"

  "Say hello to Hank, Barty Junior," Asteria's voice came from the other half of the screen. "He's a big, fuzzy wuzzy bear!"

  "Humph." Hank kept his eyes on the helm display. "Coordinates laid in, sir."

  "Hank—you're all right!" Lank's relief appeared to be genuine. "What went wrong, Cousin? Why are you chained to that chair again?"

  "I'm not chained."

  "It was a metaphor!"

  "Hank is here of his own free will," Quasar said.

  "Let my cousin speak for himself!" Lank roared.

  "Oooh, he's a grumpy fuzzy-wuzzy!" Asteria gasped, and little Barty Junior giggled, picking his nose. "Maybe he needs to go big potty!"

  "Who are they?" Lank demanded. "Why am I on a split-screen?"

  "I'd like to know why myself." Asteria's camera returned to her face in time to capture her stern expression. "This is something of an event, Barty. It's not every day you meet your son for the first time."

  "We're in the middle of a situation here—"

  "How can I help?" Her eyes brightened instantly. "As I told you a while back via hologram, I'm the captain of the Formidable Grace now, so you just show me where to point my Incinerator cannons, and POOF! No more grouchy fuzzy-wuzzy!"

  "I'm sure that won't be necessary."

  "Who is she, Captain? Your ex-wife?" Lank guffawed.

  "If only." Asteria winked.

  Quasar clapped both hands over his face and squeezed his temples, blowing out a sigh. "Listen, people. We have greater matters to attend to at present." He faced his bridge crew. "Yes, that could very well be my son. Captain Asteria stole some of my DNA when she kidnapped me and brought me aboard her ship. Apparently, from what she's told me, Amazonian women have extremely short gestation periods." Quasar glanced back at the viewscreen. "And their children obviously grow at an exponential rate."

  "Only until puberty," she said with a monstrous grin. "Which should be in a couple days or so."

  Again, Quasar felt the Magnitude quake but realized it was only his knees. He dropped into his deluxe-model captain's chair to steady himself.

  "As for Hank's cousin, Lank—he planned to commandeer our vessel as well as the Formidable Grace. We have two of his crew incapacitated and on their way to the brig, and the remainder of his forces pose no foreseeable threat, being contained in harmless transport pods."

  "That's where you'd be wrong, Captain." With a sinister gleam in his eye, Lank produced a detonator exactly like the one Markus had on his person. "I flip this switch, and that pod in your bay goes BOOM, taking out the side of your vessel." He snickered. "How's that for a reversal?"

  "Oh, he's a naughty fuzzy-wuzzy!" Asteria gasped. Her son echoed the sentiment, crying, "Naughty fuzzy-wuzzy!"

  Lank seethed, baring his fangs. "You will open those bay doors, and you won't provide any resistance to my crew. We'll assume command of both your vessels, and if you play your cards right, we might let you stay on board as janitors or something. What do you say?"

  Quasar narrowed his heroic gaze.

  "Look at Daddy," Asteria whispered, lifting the lad to face the camera. "Isn't he heroic?"

  "We already have a janitor," Captain Quasar said. "And his name is Bill." Punching another button on his armrest, Quasar said, "Bill, this is the captain."

  "Oh, hey, Captain. How are things going?"

  "Open the door to bay four, Bill."

  "Uh…"

  Quasar understood the man's trepidation. After all, bay four held the annihilation bot they'd taken from Earth.

  And it wasn't exactly housebroken.

  Episode 75: The Makings of a Fleet

  "How do you expect us to dock in that bay? There's no room!" Lank growled indignantly.

  "Do you see what we have in there?" Quasar raised an eyebrow.

  Lank cursed in Carpethrian, garbled through the translation program. "Why would you carry a giant statue—?"

  "That's no statue. It's one of Zhan's annihilation bots." Quasar smiled at the stunned expression on Lank's furry face. "We picked it up back on Earth. That janitor I mentioned, Bill, is in charge of it. We like to think of it as his pet project." Quasar's smile vanished, replaced by a stern scowl. "But you even think about blowing a hole in the side of my ship, and we'll detonate that bot. Its power cell would not only destroy the Magnitude, but everything else in a hundred kilometer radius—including a big chunk of your planet—or what's left of it."

  Lank's good eye blinked once. Then he crushed his detonator in defeat, raining its mangled pieces out of sight. "I'd heard the rumors, but I had no idea they were true."

  "Rumors?"

  Lank swallowed. "About starship captains from Earth—"

  "It's true," Hank spoke up. "They all blow up their ships. It got so bad Space Command had to install a self-preservation program on this vessel to keep its captain from doing so in the heat of battle."

  "Oh?" Lank's eye lit up.

  "We had it disabled
," Quasar emphasized.

  "Oh."

  "Hello? Remember me? The mother of your child?" Asteria peered into the camera, filling her side of the viewscreen with her wide, chiseled features and bright emerald eyes.

  "Right." Quasar faced her. "Captain Asteria, I have a proposition to make—"

  "Yes!" she cried, ecstatic. "The answer is yes, Barty! Always and forever!"

  "So you agree to join my fleet to track down the infamous 'emperor' Zhan?" He raised an eyebrow. "Excellent. Glad to have you on our side."

  Briefly deflated, she perked up instantly at the concept of a fleet. "But I'm afraid it's just me and junior at present. I had to k-i-l-l," she spelled out the word, covering Barty Junior's ears, "the rest of my crew in order to seize command. It was a real b-l-o-o-d-b-a-t-h, let me tell you!"

  "Fleet?" Lank sneered. "You've got a few more ships in your pocket? Because I'm only seeing a couple here."

  "We're starting small. For now, it's the Effervescent Magnitude and the Formidable Grace. We'll add new members as the opportunity arises. If we plan on confronting the man responsible for Earth and Carpethria's destruction, we'll need all the help we can get."

  "We'll help Daddy get the bad man, won't we?" Asteria cooed into Barty Junior's ear, causing him to giggle.

  "Good luck with that," Lank grunted.

  "Cousin," Hank spoke up. "Why not join us?"

  Lank's eye narrowed. "Your crusade sounds like a suicide mission. No thanks."

  "What you have on Carpethria is so much better?"

  Other than a weary sigh, Lank had no response to that.

  "I could use a crew," Asteria said. "It's been kind of tough running a ship this size while nursing and all." She happened to be doing so at present, with Barty Junior gulping away voraciously.

  Quasar couldn't help but be proud of the little fellow. A lad after his own heart.

  "But if you or your thugs dare to cross me, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, I'll s-l-a-y you without a second thought!" she added.

  Captain Quasar grinned at that—and at the stunned look on Lank's face. Was Asteria growing on him? Perhaps. She seemed to have that effect on people.

  "Then it's settled," Quasar said. "Our first stop: Narvana 6, where we shall track down Zhan's provider of addictive substances and find out where the rogue lies in hiding."

  "Slug chewer," Lank muttered.

  "How's that?"

  "Zhan's addiction. He favors the Goobalox tunneling worm, known for its hallucinogenic properties. Kind of an acquired taste." Lank belched and rubbed his furry belly. "Never much cared for it myself."

  Quasar had experienced more than enough hallucinations over the past few days to last a lifetime, and he still half-expected Steve to show up at any moment with some sort of sarcastic aside. But no, he was back on his own non-temporal planet, never to be seen again—a fact which filled the captain with as much elation as not. Maybe someday the two of them would meet again. He just hoped it wasn't anytime soon. Wizards were best in small doses, after all.

  With Lank and his pirates safely aboard the Formidable Grace, Hank shared the coordinates to Narvana 6, and both vessels made straightway for that nest of space trash with as much haste as their reactors could muster. Once they reached the planet—no more than a dark moon hidden from the light of the nearest star by a thick asteroid field—Captain Quasar had Hank take him to the surface in a transport pod. (Thanks to Bill the Janitor, they no longer had to worry about any explosives left by Markus.)

  "I never would have shot you," Hank said as he touched them down in a desolate valley two klicks south of a settlement where Lank assured them the Hermo slug-dealer conducted its business.

  "How's that?" Quasar pulled on a hooded cloak to hide his uniform.

  "Back at Lank's place." Hank powered down the engines and swiveled to face the captain. "Just wanted you to know that."

  Quasar nodded with half a grin. "Never doubted you for a second," he lied.

  "Humph."

  "Keep the motor running." Quasar released the hatch. "Not literally, of course. Just be prepared to high-tail it out of here as soon as I have what we came for."

  "Understood."

  Tugging the hood over his head, Quasar climbed out of the pod and took a quick survey of his surroundings, which was fairly difficult in the blinding black that met his gaze. Strapping on a pair of night-vision goggles to augment his vision, he stared in horror.

  Headed his way across the rugged terrain was a horde of slobbering Arachnoids!

  Episode 76: Business Worth Discussing

  "Take us up!" Quasar shouted to Hank as he ducked back into the pod.

  "Captain—look." The very hairy helmsman pointed beyond the starboard porthole.

  The Arachnoids, thirty or so in number, were chasing a tall, spindly, avocado-colored humanoid whose long legs devoured the barren landscape by leaps and bounds, widening the gap between itself and the vicious spider-creatures with every stride.

  "Captain Quasar, I presume?" the humanoid called in a reedy voice. "Lank said I might find you here."

  "Be ready to take off at a moment's notice, Hank." Quasar climbed halfway out of the hatch and raised his voice to welcome the stranger. "I wasn't told you had so many friends."

  "They think I cheated them." The Hermo shrugged, and as it approached, Quasar could see plainly despite the creature's scanty coverings a bouncing pair of rotund mammary glands as well as swinging male genitalia of sizeable proportions.

  Taken aback for a moment, the captain did his best to maintain the composure befitting a UW Space Command officer. The galaxy was full of all kinds, after all. "I'm sure you'd like us to fly you out of this predicament."

  "That would be dandy!" The Hermo's large, bare feet pounded the dense ground as they came to a halt a few meters away from Quasar's pod. The Arachnoids, chittering and screeching with rage, would be upon them in a matter of seconds.

  Quasar narrowed his gaze. "Then you'd better know where to find Zhan."

  "Hey, if the price is right, anything's possible."

  "You don't appear to be in a position to negotiate."

  "Appearances can be deceiving."

  "Give me the coordinates, and we'll take you out of here."

  "If I give you the coordinates, my life's forfeit—Zhan will find me, have no doubt. Rescuing me from these spiders would just delay the inevitable. So you'd better have something else in mind."

  Quasar clenched his jaw. Then reaching into his cloak's deep inner pocket, he withdrew the data cube he'd won on Narvana 6 in a game of chance over five centuries ago. "How about the location of Opsanus Tau Prime, far-flung planet of mystery and home of the legendary If Only elixir?"

  "Captain?" Hank wondered.

  "I'll explain later," Quasar said, knowing Hank would be the only person he'd ever tell about his bizarre space-time displacement and the reason why he no longer wished to change the past. By trading this data cube for Zhan's location, Quasar would thereby keep his future self from ever drinking the elixir and, therefore, erase all of his attempts at altering the past. At least he believed such to be the case.

  Such paradoxes were best left to philosophers.

  "Opsanus Tau Prime? You don't say." The Hermo's gaunt green face stretched into a toothy grin. "Well then, sounds like we've got some business to discuss!"

  And discuss it they did, as soon as the Hermo launched itself through the open hatch and Quasar secured the airlock, giving Hank the order to vamoose. The transport pod lurched upward at full speed, much to the dismay of the enraged Arachnoid gang who roared in unison and fired their rifle-spears upward in a last-ditch attempt to ground their prey. The shots ricocheted off the hull, scraping and denting the plasteel plating but in no way affecting its flight. If a blast had managed to take out one of the thrusters, however, it would have been a different matter entirely. But according to the Hermo, these Arachnoids were severely drunk, and inebriated spiders were known for being off their aim.

  Upon reaching the Ef
fervescent Magnitude in orbit, the Hermo insisted on being taken to Lank's ship, since that was part of the deal it had struck with the Carpethrian pirate. When Quasar answered that Lank in fact had no ship, Asteria appeared in the corridor with Barty Junior on her curvaceous hip.

  "Say hi to Daddy!"

  Quasar's jaw nearly dropped to the floor. "What are you doing—?"

  "It's not good for little boys to grow up without their fathers." She shrugged her massive shoulders. "So I gave Lank the Formidable Grace." She winked at the Hermo who was as tall as she was but only a quarter of her girth. "Just give Lank the word, and he'll trans-phase you right over."

  With something between a bow and a graceful curtsy, the Hermo activated its collar communicator and vanished from sight.

  "I'll lay in our heading," Hank said, keeping his eyes to himself as he exited the transport bay with the coordinates he'd received for Zhan's home world.

  "You can't be here." Quasar gripped Asteria's bulging bicep. "It isn't seemly—there are no families aboard the Magnitude. We are on a journey of discovery and acquisition, and it's dangerous—"

  "Let me stop you right there, Hon. I'm sure you could come up with a plethora of reasons why you don't want us here, but none of that matters. This is your son—"

  "Not that I had any say in the matter!"

  She eyed him coyly. "I seem to remember giving you ample opportunity."

  An image of crushed chestnuts returned to his mind's eye. "Listen, I have a lot going on right now, and I don't really have time to play the role of father-figure to this—" He made the mistake of meeting the lad's wondering gaze. Already, the tyke seemed to have grown half a meter and looked to be close to ten Earth years old. Yet Asteria still held him like a toddler.

  "Dada?" Barty Junior babbled, snot oozing from both nostrils.

  "Come with me." He led them up through a series of ladders to the conference room adjacent to the bridge. "Please wait here. I'll come for you as soon as I can."

  Before the door slid shut, Asteria gave him a broad wink and said, "Don't be long, Barty. Mama's milk might run dry."