Hadrian frowned. “Probably. If not with some other country or culture, then with itself. Like I said, a volatile time.”
“Hey look!” someone cried. “That chicken’s crossing the road!”
“Oh crap, where’s Tammy off to now? Come on, after it!”
“Oil smokers! Carcinogens, volatiles, heavy metals, oh my!”
Hadrian grasped one of Printlip’s hands and dragged the Belkri into the street. “Relax,” he said, “I’m sure these vehicles stop for chickens and people on foot—okay, maybe not—”
Brakes squealed, vehicles veered, collided with other vehicles and then a slew of alarms blared from all the others crowding up behind the collision. Tammy scampered out from the chaos unscathed and reached the other side, pausing to then wave everyone forward with one wing.
Interweaving between the steaming wrecks, shattered plastic, and spraying coolant, Hadrian led his team toward Tammy. “It’s fine now,” he said, “we’re almost there—”
“Carcinogens, volatiles—”
“Calm down, Doc, I’m sure this is breathable for the short time we’re here—”
A burly, bearded driver from one of the wrecked vehicles had exited via some kind of manual hatch and was now marching directly toward Hadrian.
“Fuckin’ geek shit-brained asshole, you’re about to get my fuckin’ fist in your face!”
“Allow me, sir,” said Nina Twice, stepping past Hadrian. Her hands a blur, she touched various places on the Seahawker’s body and he fell down in a heap, legs twitching spasmodically.
“Nice work,” Hadrian said, “but in the future, I’ll handle any disputes heading my way, Lieutenant. A flying drop kick would have done the job just as elegantly, don’t you think?”
“Yes sir. But sir, it is my responsibility as Security Oversight Officer to ensure the health and well-being of my commander, and all other crew members in the landing party.”
Another vehicle had arrived, this one with flashing blue and red lights, and two figures in blue uniforms emerged.
From another track a second vehicle with flashing lights appeared, out of which tumbled a team of medics who rushed over to surround the twitching man Nina had incapacitated.
“Sir,” said Sin-Dour, “the weapons on those two newcomers are real. Also, you will note that they are adorned in body armor and are radio-equipped and in constant communication with some central authority. I believe they may represent the local law enforcement agency.”
“Really? Well, they wouldn’t stand a chance against those Starship Troopers.”
“Those were fans in movie costumes, sir.”
“Exactly my point. Never mess with fans of anything, 2IC.”
“Sir, our arrival in this city coincides with something called a comicon.”
“Great, what’s that?”
“A social event where aficionados gather to celebrate mass media entertainment.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Well, sir, as far as I can tell, the venue provides an opportunity for the producers of that mass entertainment to co-opt genuine appreciation for their products with the sole aim of maximizing their profits.”
“I see. In other words, organized exploitation of innocent and enthusiastic people.”
“Yes sir.”
The local law enforcement officers had now threaded through the gathering crowd and were approaching, if somewhat cautiously.
“Fine,” Hadrian said, straightening his shirt. “Allow me to pull rank and get us out of this mess.” Then he paused and looked round. “Where’s Tammy?”
Beta said, “The holochicken continued onward down this path, sir. I believe I see a stretch of open water at the far end, presumably the ocean, where we will find krill. In the meantime, I feel I should point out that wearing a gazelle costume in order to observe a pride of lions constitutes an inadvisable disguise option for six out of seven people.”
“Look at all the pretty unicorns,” said Buck.
The officers halted five paces distant. One of them had taken note of Galk and now her hand settled on the holstered weapon at her belt as she muttered something to her partner. She then addressed Galk. “Sir, is that a firearm?”
Galk spat a brown stream into the gutter at the edge of the recessed avenue. “A firearm? Kinda.”
The other officer now grasped his partner’s arm. “This is all Comicon shit. You, with the baseball cap—all mock weapons are supposed to be taped.”
“With a strip of blue vinyl?”
“Exactly.”
Hadrian cleared his throat and then smiled. “We understand that, Local Law Enforcer. In fact, we were just on our way to register.”
“Ask him about the chicken!” demanded one of the now many onlookers. “It got loose and ran across the street! That’s what caused all the accidents!”
Beta said, “Chickens were originally dinosaurs, until someone threw an asteroid at them. Despite their persistent survival in these small, truncated forms, chickens still do not know how to duck.”
Hadrian laughed. “Don’t mind it. There’s a glitch in its programming.”
“And that woman beat up that guy!” shouted another bystander.
“Oh, little old her?” Hadrian said, still laughing. “How ridiculous!”
As both Nina Twice and Sin-Dour turned sharply toward Hadrian he stepped closer and whispered, “This is an age of unadulterated patronizing bullshit regarding the ability of women. I am just adapting to the local attitudes. So play along, will you? Nina, look … incapable.”
“How do I do that?” she asked drily.
“Besides,” muttered Sin-Dour, “one of these Law Enforcers is a woman, so it can’t be as bad as you’re suggesting.”
“Well, of course that one is armed, probably advisable and recommended to all women in this time period. But all right. Let’s try another tack.” He turned back to the Local Law Enforcers. “The unconscious man was one of the pilots of these vehicles—none of which appear to have anti-collision protocols in their guidance systems. He exited his wreck intending violence, only to collapse into my compatriot’s arms. Our doctor here has diagnosed possible concussion, which no doubt will be confirmed by those medics over there.”
The two officers now eyed Printlip, who held up its Medical Pentracorder. “Mild concussion indeed! As well as temporary nerve trauma at seventeen locations upon his body. Full recovery expected, eventually.”
“Okay,” the male officer said, “now I’m impressed. You guys into robotics, too?”
“Oh give it up,” retorted his partner. “It’s a damned beach ball wearing clogs!”
“That talks through its asshole.”
After a moment, she grunted. “Okay, that’s a good trick, I admit. But still, all those waving arms and buggy eyes. I mean, who are they kidding?”
Printlip puffed up. “In my adult state I could crush you all and barely notice! Captain, I am deeply offended!”
“Get over it, Doc. It’s not my fault if they don’t think you’re real. Besides, isn’t it better this way?”
“The mission is krill!” cut in Buck. His face suddenly twisted. He fell to his knees, glaring up at the smoggy sky, and then screamed, “KRRILLLL!”
The crowd applauded.
“Don’t mind him,” Hadrian said, “he’s on LSD. We’re not here to steal your krill. I mean, why would we?”
Sin-Dour added, “We have no need for supplemental Omega-3, as our diets are already optimized for maximum nutritional balance.”
The female officer drew out a small flashlight and crouched opposite a weeping Buck DeFrank. She flashed the light into the Chief Engineer’s eyes, making him flinch and then grin. The officer straightened. “This guy’s on Cloud Nine, Chip. Should probably take a ride in the ambulance.”
“Oh he’ll be fine,” Hadrian assured her. “He was having visions long before the dose of LSD. Right, Doc?”
“Cognizance of alternate realities does not necessarily const
itute dysfunction,” Printlip said haughtily. “This officer is in my care and does not require hospitalization.”
Straightening, the female officer glanced again at Galk. “That’s a helluva mock-up,” she now said, eyeing the Concatenator attached to Galk’s belt. “Machined steel? Working parts? Can I see it please?”
Galk hesitated.
“Go on, Lieutenant,” said Hadrian.
Shrugging, the Combat Specialist disengaged the weapon and handed it over. “Don’t worry,” Galk said to her, “you can’t inadvertently discharge it, as the trigger is genetically locked and the onboard scanner can’t match your DNA to any of the approved Affiliation Officers in its databank.”
“Oh, very funny,” she said.
“It is a Mister Shrill Mark III Sonic Concatenator,” Galk said. “A highly specialized nonlethal pacification enforcer.”
The woman was grinning, but at the word “nonlethal” her smile faded. “Huh,” she said, handing it back.
The other officer said to Hadrian, “You crossed the street on a red light.”
“We did?”
“And what’s this about a pet chicken? What did it do, slip its leash?”
“Well,” said Hadrian, “I did see a chicken, earlier. And yes, it ran across the street ahead of us. As to its present whereabouts, I believe my associate, Beta, indicated that it proceeded down toward the waterfront.”
“Enough of this crap,” the female officer said. “We’ve got jaywalking, abuse of controlled substances, unlicensed pets, and what appears to be a genuine handgun of unknown origin presumably unlicensed and without a permit. Let’s drag ’em all in, Chip. I know we’re supposed to go easy on all these nerds but to be honest, they creep me out.” She stepped close to Galk again. “Keep your hand away, will you, while I confiscate this toy of yours.”
“I have activated the DNA Encoder,” Galk said to her.
“Right, so now it’ll make phaser sounds?”
Galk put his fingers into his ears.
An instant later, Hadrian, Sin-Dour, and Nina Twice all did the same.
The woman plucked the Concatenator from Galk’s hip.
A sudden piercing scream—mercifully muted to Hadrian’s ears—made all the locals in sight wriggle and shudder, then drop to the ground, writhing with their hands over their ears.
“Oh,” added Galk as he retrieved the Concatenator from beside the floundering female officer, “I also made the grip the trigger.” He turned to Hadrian. “Sir, we have a few minutes in which to make our escape.”
Nodding, Hadrian said, “Good work.” He looked down at Printlip, who still had as many fingers jammed into as many apertures as possible. “You can unplug now, Doc.”
But the Belkri’s dozen eyes were shut.
Hadrian gave the alien a nudge. “Hey! It’s fine!”
Printlip cautiously opened its eyes, and then withdrew all of its fingers. “It is not yet time for me to seek a mate!”
“What?”
“Mating call! That weapon makes Belkri mating calls! A perfect match to when we rub up against each other! Oh, cruel Terrans!”
“Huh, remind me to never visit your planet on Date Night.”
“Of course not,” Printlip snapped. “You’d never survive the static discharges.”
“Wow,” said Hadrian, “you really are beach balls!” He turned to Galk. “You and Nina, collect Buck. Everyone, follow me.” He quickly set out. “Beta, you said Tammy went this way?”
“Yes sir, and no matter how tired you may be, used incontinence pads make poor pillows.”
Aboard the Willful Child …
Spark sat in the command chair. “Launch the missile!”
Sighing, Jocelyn Sticks said, “Yes sir. Missile, like, launched.”
“Now! After it! Hurry!”
The Willful Child surged forward.
“Prepare the Gravity Snare!”
“Gravity Snare deployed, Captain,” said Lieutenant Bitpartis from the Science Station.
“Catch it! Catch the missile before it strikes the moon! Hurry!”
“Missile captured,” Bitpartis said a moment later.
“Excellent!” Spark said. “Now, Helm, return us to our original position and prepare another missile for launch! Oh, this is so much fun! Spark could do this all day, every day, forever! Isn’t everyone having fun?”
“Sir,” said Bitpartis in a new tone, “someone has activated the Insisteon. They have displaced to the planet.”
“Someone ran away? Who? Who doesn’t love Spark anymore?”
“Uh, one moment, sir … oh no, it was Adjutant Lorrin Tighe, sir! She’s gone AWOL!”
“Oh no! Haddie will be mad at Spark! Disappointed in Spark! Haddie will hate Spark forevermore!” The robot’s head drooped. It clunked down from the chair and made its way in search of a corner in the round room of the bridge. After a few moments of fruitless examination, it halted. “Oh, look, nothing works anymore. Spark fails at everything!” Abruptly it collapsed onto the floor. “Spark wants to die.”
Jocelyn Sticks hesitated, then rose from her seat and walked over to Polaski at comms. “Better, like, inform the captain.”
Polaski wilted in his chair.
Sticks turned to Bitpartis. “Same coordinates as the original landing party?”
Bitpartis nodded.
“Hear that, Polaski? She’s gone down after the captain, and it won’t be for a peck on the cheek. So call him.”
“But … but Joss, it’s bad news!”
“Just do it— Hold on.” She went to the command chair and activated the comms. “Ship Computer? You there?”
After a long moment a male voice no one recognized said, “Does it matter? You haven’t called on me since we left our berth.”
“Well, like, duh! You were taken over by an AI from the future, okay?”
“See how you’d like it! And none of you did anything to get rid of it, either. Did any of you even give a moment’s thought about me? About how I felt? No! It was ‘Tammy can you do this?’ and ‘Tammy can you do that?’ and all the while, there I was, tied up and gagged and left in the corner of some closet, like last year’s desktop computer.”
“Look, we need to know, did Lorrin Tighe take a weapon with her when she displaced?”
“Little late to worry about that now, isn’t it? Besides, she can’t use it against a fellow Affiliation officer. Unless, of course, she accessed the weapon’s schematics and found a work-around that’ll let her do just that.”
“Like, hold on! How did she access those schematics?”
“She asked me nicely, that’s how.”
“What was the weapon?”
“A Spazcorps Mark IV Limb-Rend-A-Nater.”
“Oh, like, crap.” Sticks turned back to Polaski. “Inform the captain at once.”
“Listen to you,” retorted Polaski. “All Miss Officious.”
“That’s Ms. to you, Polaski, or more to the, duh, point, it’s Ma’am.”
Polaski slumped in his chair. “He’ll hate me.”
“You and Spark, right.”
From where Spark was lying there was a whimper.
Sticks settled into the command chair and hit a switch. “Captain’s log. So, like, there I was, at the Helm where I’m supposed to be, playing throw and retrieve with Mass-Strike Moonbuster Kinetic Missiles, and then it was, ‘What, displaced?’ and Spark, like, descended into … well … mechanical depression. And then, hey, it’s ‘Ship Computer, what did you just do,’ and it was, ‘Oh, that, well, that’s what you get for, like, ignoring me,’ and I was like … this, and then Polaski—”
“Long-range sensors have detected an unknown vessel entering the system!”
She swung in the chair to face Bitpartis. “Like, what? Really? No, I mean, really?”
“Ma’am, it seemed to emerge from a Temporal Flux.”
“A Temporal Flux? Darwin help us, a Temporal Flux!”
Bitpartis frowned at her. “Ma’am, you seem t
o be overreacting.” He drew a deep breath. “If this is proving too much for you, I am more than capable of—”
“No, you idiot,” said Sticks, “I wasn’t overreacting. I was overacting! Like, okay, it’s another ship from the future. For all we know, it’s another version of us, since we screwed up so badly the first time around. Or it’s some Temporal Agent chasing after us and maybe wanting their spy back. Or maybe they don’t even know we’re here and aren’t they in for a surprise!”
“Should I hail them?” Polaski asked.
“That, like, uh, depends. Hailed the captain yet?”
“I was working up to that, honest!”
Sticks hit the chair comms. “Lieutenant Eden to the bridge, like, yesterday! Polaski, go get that temporal spy—what was his name, Klinghanger?”
“But he’s still a baby!”
“Like, duh! I know that—go on! I’ll call the captain.”
Polaski rushed from the bridge.
Sticks hit the comms again. “Lieutenant Sweepy Brogan?”
“Survival of the fittest, sir. Darwin’s First Law of Evolution.”
“That you, Sweepy?”
“None other. Triumphant, surrounded by unconscious bodies, smoking a big fat stogie. What can I do for you?”
“The Adjutant’s gone down to the planet to kill the captain. She’s armed with a hacked Spazcorps Mark IV Limb-Rend-A-Nater.”
“The Mark IV? You said the Mark IV?”
“Like, yeah, I was sitting here, saying, like, that.”
“Good thing it wasn’t the Mark V. Okay, want me to displace down there after her?”
“Not yet. Just take your squad to the Insisteon Chamber and stand by. I’ll get back to you.”
“My squad? Can’t do. They’re incapacitated, but don’t worry. I’ll go solo. There’s a reason I’m Empress Shit of Turd Mountain.”
“Fine, like, whatever.”
“Helgoland Bight was mine, that’s all I’m saying.”
Jocelyn Sticks clicked off and then opened a new channel. “Captain? Lieutenant Sticks here, sir, in temporary command of the, like, Willful Child…”
Seahawk Nation, Earth …
Sighing, Hadrian clicked his comms device and then walked over to where the others were standing looking down at the murky water below the dock. Sin-Dour turned to him and said, “Sir, we have a problem.”