Captain Bartholomew Quasar: The Space-Time Displacement Conundrum Read online

  A full-frame image of a brawny, dark-haired, green-eyed woman consumed the viewscreen, her large, white teeth—as bright as the captain's own—bared with irritation. "Who are you to speak to me?" her voice boomed, and Quasar recognized it instantly. She was Asteria's commanding officer. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been wearing a pressure suit and pounding furiously against the door of that cargo hold Asteria had locked her in. "We demand to know what you are doing in Amazonian space!"

  The captain put on his most dashing smile and strode toward the viewscreen empty-handed—a peaceful gesture, he hoped. "We appear to have lost our way. Allow me to introduce myself—"

  "Silence!" she roared, and the bridge crew of the Magnitude could easily count forty-eight of her teeth on the screen. "You will speak when I give you permission to do so, and only when I have given you such permission. Do you understand? Or is your little brain too befuddled to comprehend the words coming out of my mouth?"

  If he'd been honest, Quasar would have had to admit a certain amount of befuddlement, but he knew better. He had to remain in control of the situation; being ship's captain demanded nothing less. And he could not allow this large alien to dress him down verbally in front of his own crew.

  "I apologize. I meant no disrespect—"

  "And yet you continue to dishonor me with your voice!" Her eyes were wide enough now to show flecks of black floating in her emerald irises. "Do you not know your place?"

  If Captain Quasar remembered correctly, that would be hooked up to some kind of receptacle on an Amazonian sperm farm. Apparently, these women liked their men to be seen and not heard. Or maybe not even seen at all.

  "Where is your captain? I demand to speak with her now!"

  Quasar raised an eyebrow and pointed to his chest. The woman cursed in a language the ship's translation program couldn't decipher.

  "What abominable planet are you from, where a man would be in charge of an entire star cruiser?"

  Quasar cocked his head to one side and mimed talking with his hand, as if it were a puppet.

  "Speak!" she boomed.

  "Very well. This is the Effervescent Magnitude, an Earth ship, and I am her captain—"

  "How dare you refer to a mere vessel in such terms! Your impudence knows no bounds! Prepare to be boarded."

  "I don't think so." Quasar turned to Hank and leaned over the helm controls. "Get us the hell out of here."

  Hank grunted. "The reactor coils are shot, Captain. We're not going anywhere."

  "By edict of the Amazonian Tertiary Command, you and your vessel have trespassed into our space, and we hereby claim possession of all salvage rights and to all personnel. Your women will serve this ship, and your men will be transported to the nearest farm for immediate inculcation and inclusion in our reproductive program. Resistance is out of the question." And with that, the Amazonians powered up their tractor beam and latched onto the Effervescent Magnitude before Hank could fire up anything.

  Quasar clenched his fists as the enemy ship advanced with its docking bridge extending and unfurling, ready to couple.

  "Captain?" Commander Wan took an uncertain step from her post. "Torpedoes are at the ready."

  It seemed that blowing away the enemy was always an option. But even if Quasar wanted to take out just the Amazonians' tractor beam, he wasn't willing to risk it. Not after what had happened with that Goobalob transport recently. Or not so recently. It felt recent, but the confrontation with the Goobalob toll collectors had occurred over five hundred years in the past!

  Five centuries. It was hard to imagine. How had Earth changed in the interim? How many United World vessels now cruised about the galaxy? Had scientists discovered a cure for the common cold?

  "Do not think to fire upon us," the Amazonian warned. "Our tractor beam holds you motionless. If you were to arm a torpedo, it would never leave its tube!"

  And the Magnitude would blow itself up. Again.

  "Perhaps we can talk this over," Quasar suggested.

  "You talk too much!" The viewscreen went dark.

  And at the same moment, the captain felt another tug on his entire body, not unlike the one he'd experienced while in limbo, although much less intense. He reeled to face his first officer as his own hands flickered before his eyes—as if he were a hologram and the transmission was on the fritz.

  "Captain!" Wan charged toward him.

  Hank cursed in Carpethrian. He too was flickering, as if someone were attempting to magically remove him from the bridge.

  "We shall return!" Quasar shouted, but his voice sounded like it came from kilometers away.

  And from the look in his first officer's eyes, he could tell she didn't believe he'd be able to stay true to his word.

  Episode 20: Trapped

  Captain Quasar had every intention of returning to the Effervescent Magnitude, but in the space-time where he found himself, there were other things to consider. Such as the very tall and very shapely woman who reclined in the nude upon her massive bed and regarded him with an alluring yet powerful gaze.

  He recognized her immediately, even without her clothing: it was Asteria. Yet she appeared to be at a disadvantage. From her perspective, this was their first meeting, as it was for him as well, chronologically speaking. But time for him hadn't been moving chronologically as of late, and he couldn't help but think back to their most recent encounter, when he'd left her standing outside the Magnitude's airlock.

  "Where am I?" The captain darted a glance hither and thither. The two of them appeared to be alone.

  "Isn't it obvious?" She slid toward him like a slick serpent across the slippery satin sheets, crossing her legs and toying with a lock of her long, black hair. "You're in my quarters." She patted the scarlet bedding beside her. "Come and sit down. You're looking a little tense, my Captain."

  Quasar prided himself on being something of a god among the opposite sex. He couldn't help it really; they were just attracted beyond reason to his masculine magnetism, incredible good looks, and dashing chivalry. It didn't matter if she was human or alien, every female he had encountered to-date found him irresistible. But Asteria was unlike any female he had ever met.

  She was easily three and a half meters tall, with the shoulders and biceps of a champion weightlifter and the thighs to match, her skin tanned and oiled, her muscles rippling as she slithered her legs against one another. Certainly, her gorgeous eyes and flowing tresses and broad, inviting lips stirred the captain in all ways carnal, so much so that he almost tossed caution to the proverbial wind and threw himself at her. But he could not forget the way she'd held him like a ventriloquist's dummy not long ago, and the thought of being crushed by her naked body upon that enormous bed was enough to make him keep his distance.

  "Tense? No." He attempted to chuckle as a sign of his confidence, but it came awkwardly. "I am merely curious about how I came to be here. In your quarters. With you. Like this."

  She smiled, baring a set of teeth as large and beautiful as her commanding officer's. "I couldn't let you be taken to the farms. You're not like the men on our world." She gazed upon him with blatant admiration. "You've got real spirit, speaking up the way you do. And your body…" She licked her lips as she ran her gaze down his uniform. "You sure don't look like any man I've seen before. How about you take off those clothes and join me for a little fun." Again she patted the bed, winking broadly.

  Physically, he was no match for her; this he knew without a doubt. Therefore, the only other option left to him was to overwhelm her with his intellect.

  "There were two of us taken from my ship. My helmsman—where is he?"

  She wrinkled her nose and lip simultaneously. "That walking carpet? He's in the brig. I realized mid-transport my mistake and sent him there."

  "Your mistake." He raised an eyebrow at her. "So you decided to go against your commanding officer's wishes. Why?"

  One bare leg rocked on the knee of the other, a tantalizing gesture if not for the gargantuan muscles. "As
I said, you're like no other man I've ever seen. And it's not without precedent for an officer rising up through the ranks to have her own manservant while aboard ship."

  "But I'm a captain, remember. That's my ship out there, and I intend to return to it."

  She shrugged her boulder-shoulders. "Maybe we can work something out. You give me what I want, and I'll see what I can do about getting you back to your ship."

  Quasar swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "Reactor coils," he managed. Was he actually planning to go through with this?

  "How's that?"

  "My ship requires a new set of reactor coils. We're dead in the water without them, as the colloquialism goes. You wouldn't happen to have a few extra on board?"

  She pursed her lips, eyeing him seductively. "We just might." She reached out with her big toe the size of a pickle and brushed it up his leg. "Enough talk. Get that uniform off." Her tone was serious, as was the look in her eyes. "Show me what you've got, Captain."

  "Very well." His response caused a broad smile to spread across her lips, and he was instantly dazzled by her amazing teeth. She was an incredible specimen of womanhood, to be sure. If only her muscle mass had not outweighed his own ten to one, he might actually have anticipated this unexpected tryst with more eagerness. But as it was, he experienced something he hadn't known since he was a wee lad: fear.

  He stripped out of his uniform and laid it over the back of a chair as if these were the last moments he would ever see it. Asteria's murmurs of appreciation did little to settle his nerves.

  His eyes darted for any means of escape or anything he could use as a weapon, but his search proved unfruitful. The door lay on the opposite side of the bed. Everything in the room appeared to be made of satin cushions. He was trapped.

  "Come here, you delicious man!"

  He faced her as one would a firing squad.

  Episode 21: The Formidable Grace

  Captain Quasar could honestly say he had never been spooned in his life. Where romantic and passionate encounters were concerned, he was the alpha male, and his partners, be they human or otherwise, had always been equal or beyond his intellectual capabilities, but never surpassing his physical prowess. In other words, whilst in the bedroom, he had never been outmatched or upstaged in any way with regard to the strength of his broad shoulders and thick biceps.

  But now he found his chiseled physique dwarfed by the massive woman holding him curled against her abdomen like a teddy bear. All Quasar felt at the moment were her bulging, rippling muscles and slick, well-oiled skin smacking of lavender. He remained in the fetal position he'd assumed upon first contact, as she'd wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close.

  "Playing hard to get?" Asteria ran her long fingers across what she could reach of the captain's chest.

  "We, uh, hardly know one another." Had that stopped him before? Never.

  "I'm Asteria, second in command of the Formidable Grace. You are Bartholomew Quasar, captain of the Effervescent Magnitude. You see? We know each other." She gave him a crushing squeeze, and he cringed.

  "Glad to know someone was listening."

  She released a rich, hearty chuckle not unlike a gentle giant's. "Captain Luscenta's stuck in the past. We can't grow as a people if we're not open to new ideas." Her fingers traveled down from his bare shoulder along his right flank.

  He struggled to face her, but her hold on him precluded any movement. "Can't breathe," he gasped, remembering it had worked before when she'd held him like a ventriloquist in the airlock. But technically speaking, that moment hadn't happened yet. Confounded space-time travel!

  "Sorry." She eased her grip, and he slipped free to sit up beside her. "Oh, I can tell you're going to be a lot of fun." She grinned broadly, like a wild cat ready for the hunt.

  "If your captain finds out—"

  "She probably already has." Asteria winked. "I'm known around here for my peculiar appetites. Not everybody understands how much I need a man to satisfy me." She reached for him with a ravenous gleam in her eyes.

  He scooted backward. "Have you been with a human before?"

  She paused, regarding him closely. "Why do you ask?"

  He took that as a no. "Because if you had, you would know that our two species—human and Amazonian—are entirely incompatible. Sexually speaking, that is."

  Her gaze drifted down to his nether region. "From the looks of things, I'd say you're not only compatible but ready for launch, Captain." Another wink.

  He cleared his throat and positioned an arm across his lap. "Appearances can be deceiving, I assure you. Believe me when I say that if we, you and I, were to attempt to, uh, mate, the consequences could be—" He shuddered at the thought, for some reason imagining a nutcracker and the pulverized remains of a pair of chestnuts. "Catastrophic."

  "And you know this how exactly?" She narrowed her gaze. "Are you acquainted with somebody who's been with one of my kind?"

  Quasar frowned and nodded as if at some distant, tragic memory. "He was never the same again. Can't even walk, the poor guy, not without his nurse to put him in his hoverpod, just to give him some mobility, you know. Hover here, hover there. It's so sad."

  She squinted one eye at him. She wasn't buying it. "What's his name?"

  "Steve." It was the first thing that popped into Quasar's head. "Good ol' Steve bit off a little more than he could chew, and he paid the price."

  "How is it that we have no record of ever meeting a member of your species before?"

  That was a snag. "I'm not surprised." Quasar slid off the side of the bed and stood beside his folded uniform, making no move to retrieve it—yet. "His Amazonian mate didn't fare much better, I'm afraid. Judging by what I've learned of your culture so far, I'm sure the last thing any Amazonian would want to spread around is the fact that a man was more than she could handle."

  Asteria smirked. "Believe me, Captain. I can handle you. And I want to handle you. So get your little heinie over here." She pivoted to reach for him with both hands, as large as any pair he'd ever seen on any creature anywhere.

  "I'm sure you could." He made no move to retreat, for something in his tone had given her pause. She halted, listening. "And I'm sure it would be glorious for the first few seconds. But that's when our DNA would interact, you see, and our union would quickly become the stuff of nightmares. Our genes are incompatible on a microscopic level, and when those things collide—nucleotides and neurons and—" He tried to remember as much physiology as he could, but came up short. "It's bad."

  She pursed her lips. "You still want those reactor coils for your ship?"

  Another snag. "We're not going anywhere without them."

  She pointed at the satin sheets next to her. "You get back in bed, and we'll see just how incompatible our nucleotides really are."

  Quasar swallowed. "You're willing to risk it?" He took a leap: "Shriveling to the size of a human woman?"

  "What?"

  He nodded with a sympathetic frown. "That's what happened to Steve's Amazonian mate. She's his nurse now. Is that how you see your future? Tucking me into my hoverpod and cleaning up after me as I smash into everything we own?"

  She blinked at him. "We?"

  Episode 22: DNA Incompatibility

  Quasar nodded. "Of course. This is no one night stand we're talking about. This is the rest of our lives, bound together by moral obligation, partners of tragic circumstance." He stepped toward her. "For if we go through with this, it's for as long as we both shall live."

  Asteria started shaking her head, recoiling at the thought. "That's a lot to consider. Give me a moment."

  "Take as long as you need." He fingered his uniform. "You don't mind if I—"

  "Go ahead." With a frown, she tugged the bedspread over herself in a rare display of modesty. "DNA incompatibility, huh?" She still didn't sound convinced.

  His pants and boots were already on—he'd wasted no time. "I never thought Steve's story would hold much import, besides the occasional dinner
party tale. If I ever cross his path again, I'll let him know his blunder saved both of our lives."

  She eyed him closely. "How far are you from your home world?"

  In time or space? He still couldn't quite believe the news that he and his crew had spent five centuries in that void where he and Steve the gaseous entity had discussed the concept of eternal limbo.

  "We don't know," he admitted, pulling on his form-fitting black undershirt.

  "But you're stuck out here—without our coils."

  He nodded. "Our reactor is kaput. We're stranded without your help."

  "You need me." A slow smile crept across her lips. "Admit it."

  Quasar met her gaze. "Your commander expressed a keen interest in seizing my vessel and enslaving my crew. The only way to keep that from happening is to get the hell out of here. And in order to do that, yes. I need your reactor coils."

  She leaned forward, and the satin coverlet slipped away from her. "You need me. Say it." A gleam of interest sparkled in her green eyes.

  He finished buttoning up his uniform. Smoothing down his close-cropped blond hair, he set his jaw, and the muscle twitched on command. "We need you, Asteria. You're our only hope."

  "No." She held up a carrot-sized index finger. "You need me."

  Captain Quasar had never needed anyone in all his life, but this didn't seem to be the moment to divulge such a thing. So with a grave sigh and a slow nod, he told her what she wanted to hear—and what happened to be the truth, coincidentally.

  "I need you."

  She let out a short, victorious whoop and leapt from the bed, stiff-arming him against the wall and pinning him there. "You'll have to hit me with something."

  "What?"

  Asteria reached for what appeared to be an obsidian sculpture of some kind on a shelf nearby. She hefted it in her hand. "This ought to work."

  "You don't mean—"

  "We've got to make it look real, Babe. Captain Luscenta knows you're here with me. There's nowhere else you would be. So if you're going to steal my gun and break your hairy buddy out of the brig, it's got to look like—"