"Perhaps a few words would suffice, sir. We're on a tight schedule."
Since when had there ever been anything resembling a schedule in one of Quasar's dreams? Something wasn't quite right here.
The last thing he knew for certain was that he'd been aboard the Magnitude. There had been some sort of problem with the near-lightspeed cold fusion reactor, and he'd seen Hank disappear—
"Thank you," he heard someone say above the noise of the crowd, and then realized he'd been the one to say it. "Thank you!" He stepped forward onto the front section of the stage designed to project his voice out toward the audience, all five hundred of them. "You're too kind, really." He raised his hands in the universal stop-clapping-and-shut-up gesture as cordially as possible. "This is a momentous day, not only for the crew of the Effervescent Magnitude and her captain, but for humankind. For it is today that we venture into the void, which is space, that great unknown expanse beyond our small corner of the galaxy. And—"
He broke off, catching sight of someone in the back of the assembly who had no business being there. Because in fact he hadn't been there at the launch party for the Effervescent Magnitude's maiden voyage. Captain Quasar and his intrepid crew hadn't even stumbled upon the fellow's planet until years later—if he could be considered a fellow. From what Quasar recalled, Steve was more of a noncorporeal gaseous entity who chose to manifest himself in the form of a wizened old man with an oaken staff. But there he stood in the back of the hall, staff and all, looking as wizardly as ever.
The audience had been hanging on the captain's every word, and he'd been off to a great start, but now as he faltered, they squinted up their eyes and leaned forward as if to coax the words from him with their collective will.
"And we'll do our best to make you proud!" Quasar started the applause himself as he descended the front steps of the stage and graced the throngs with high-fives, making his way with purpose to the back of the room.
"Captain?" Commander Wan trailed behind, shouldering her way through the masses.
Quasar bobbed and weaved, losing sight of Steve only to catch a glimpse and then lose him again. As in most dreams, the captain found that his legs couldn't move quite as fast as he wanted them to, and the swarms of adoring fans in his way kept multiplying, oblivious to the determined look on his face.
"Excuse us, please," Wan said on her captain's behalf, even though it was evident she had no idea what was going on. Usually, he would bask for hours in the glow of the fawning United World populace. He was something of a hero on Earth, after all. It wasn't like him to shove past his fans with little more than a genial grunt, his gaze fixed on a point at the opposite end of the hall.
Quasar realized this even as he knew he could do nothing to change his course, feeling as though he were seeing himself from the outside-in. As he relived this moment, he found himself perceiving everything as if for the first time, as though he hovered over his own shoulder.
He knew one thing for certain: the entity known as Steve didn't belong here at this moment in the past—or in Quasar's dream, for that matter. Either way, Steve had some explaining to do.
Episode 3: Where Few Dare to Travel
"What's the meaning of this?" Captain Quasar said, breaking through the throngs of adoring fans and leaving Commander Wan to keep them occupied while he approached the entity known as Steve, lurking in the only shadows to be found in the expansive hall. Odd, but true.
"Good to see you too, Captain. You're looking well." Steve leaned on his oaken staff and smiled with grandfatherly twinkles in his grey eyes. "Though I must say, I'm as surprised to find myself here as you are."
Quasar blinked. "Right. So why are you?"
Steve shrugged his hunched shoulders. "If I had to guess, maybe you inhaled a little quartz dust when you visited my planet, and in so doing, you've managed to bring part of me with you wherever you go."
"I haven't gone anywhere. I'm sound asleep in my quarters!"
Steve chuckled at that. "No, you're standing here with me. I'm looking right at you!"
The captain blew out a sigh. "Let me assure you, I am dreaming. It's elaborate, I must say—I mean, I haven't thought back on this day in years." He turned to take in the scene before him, the hundreds of officials and ambassadors who'd come to see him off. Quasar found his eyes smarting with nostalgia. "We had no idea what lay ahead of us, what the galaxy had in store. We were filled with wide-eyed wonder, like children staring into the sun."
"You think you're dreaming?" Steve chortled into his beard as if he knew something he wasn't sharing.
Quasar scowled at him. "I haven't thought about you in months. It makes no sense why you'd be here, of all people."
"Believe me, Captain, I don't understand it any more than you do. But I'm here now, and so are you. And the sooner you come to grips with it, the sooner you'll be able to figure out what to do about it." Without warning, Steve whacked Quasar on the crown of his head with the oaken staff, causing the captain to cry out at the unexpected blow. "Still think you're dreaming?"
Rubbing his sore head, where an unsightly bump would undoubtedly spring forth, Quasar raised a fist at the wizardly entity and shouted, "Who the hell do you think you are? Barging into my dream and—"
"Captain." Commander Wan's grip on his arm was firm but polite, as was her tone. "The media are recording you, sir."
He faced her with eyes blazing. "They're not really there!" Shocked gasps erupted from the audience, but it didn't matter. None of this was real—except for the pain throbbing under his skull. "Do you remember this guy?" He jerked a thumb at Steve.
"Who?" She frowned quizzically at the wall.
Steve wasn't there anymore. He had conveniently disappeared—or had become invisible. His powers weren't exactly easy to fathom.
"Never mind." Quasar squeezed his temples and rubbed between his eyes. "Of course you wouldn't remember. We haven't gone there yet."
"Sir?" She released his arm.
"The Epsilon Seven Star Cluster." He winked at her. "Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you. But it's quite a story." He couldn't resist. "You see, there's this massive gaseous entity that guards the planet, and it's able to take physical form by scanning the mind of whoever sets foot on the surface. It determines the form it should take based on the person's preconceived concepts of wisdom and authority. For you, perhaps it would take the form of a United World prime minister. As for me, apparently I have an unreasonable tendency to believe anything spoken by an elderly man with an oaken staff. So that's how the gas manifests itself." As an afterthought, he added, "And his name is Steve."
Commander Wan blinked up at him. "We're scheduled to leave space dock in less than an hour, sir." Her subtext was clear enough: Don't you think it's a little late in the game to suffer a complete mental breakdown? "The delegates would like to present you with a token of their appreciation."
"Right." That much he remembered, and he decided that perhaps the best way to wake himself up would be to play-act the scene through to its natural conclusion.
So he returned to the stage with great leaps and bounds for show, much to the appreciation and renewed applause of the audience. The Prime Minister herself awaited him there, along with her senior staff and other high-ranking officials from both the military and scientific communities. The launch of the Effervescent Magnitude was a joint venture on their part. Together, they had managed to create a vessel able to explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy and protect Earth's interests in the process.
"To Captain Bartholomew Quasar and his crew," the Prime Minister began, smiling broadly and winking at Quasar, who nodded to Commander Wan and his bridge officers standing in the front row of the audience. He recognized Dr. Yune and his weapons officer, yet there was no sign of Hank. It was odd to relive a time when the very hairy biped hadn't been acting helmsman. Quasar had difficulty remembering what life had been like without him. "With our deepest appreciation and respect," the Prime Minister continued, "may you explore
where few have dared to travel, and may you serve Earth and its people in all you do. The future of our world depends on your success, Captain Quasar, and we know there is no one else more capable of seeing this mission to its end than you."
Quasar nodded at the word end, hoping it would launch him back to reality—one involving the search for a certain If Only elixir and a crew that was steadily disappearing, one member at a time.
Episode 4: In the Line of Fire
Captain Quasar closed his eyes briefly with what he hoped passed for an expression of humility in the face of the Prime Minister's high praise, but when he opened them again, he found that he was no longer in the United World Hall of Heroes.
Instead, he found himself cringing bleary-eyed in the hazy residue of multiple heat ray blasts, crouching behind a freight container in an unfamiliar ship's cargo hold. Beside him, Hank ducked low and growled in disgust.
"They've got us pinned down!" Quasar heard himself state the obvious. Bulkhead rivets above him melted, oozing down the steel interior, releasing spurts of air pressure into the vacuum of space beyond. "We won't make it out alive!"
"Humph," grunted Hank.
"That's all you have to say?" He returned fire over the freight container, then frowned at the gun in his hand. He'd been unarmed on stage with the Prime Minister. When had there been a chance to grab a pulse pistol? Or to change his attire, for that matter? He no longer wore his dress uniform. But then again, this was the way with dreams, he supposed. Things just sort of happened without a whole lot of forethought. Like what came out of his mouth next: "You honestly want that grunt to be your last word?" It was as though his body was on autopilot; his mind was just along for the ride.
Hank reloaded a clip of pulse-rounds into a Cody 52 with two hands and gripped a loaded atom rifle with his other pair. "I don't plan on dying with you again." He fired a volley at their adversaries, hidden behind large freight canisters that flashed and fizzled with every blast.
"You're not referring to—" Quasar cursed at the helmsman's slow nod. "Well, how was I supposed to know cold fusion reactors were unreliable?"
"Humph." Translation: It was common knowledge on Carpethria.
Quasar ducked as another ray singed the air above him. "So we died. Big deal. We're here to fight another day!"
Captain Quasar frowned at his own words. This moment in time—unlike the scene on the stage in the Hall of Heroes—was different. He didn't know what was going on now; he had no idea where they were or what circumstances had brought them here. Had the cold fusion reactor actually gone kaput and killed everyone on board?
Hank muttered something under his breath, garbled by his unique pair of throats that sometimes gave his voice an oddly harmonic quality. "No black hole to save our butts this time."
Quasar stared at his very hairy helmsman. Taking a great deal of effort, he forced his mouth to frame the words: "Explain yourself." It felt like he was moving through thick gel. His voice had slowed to a deep, sluggish moan, but the question came out clearly enough, and with a quizzical look, Hank paused for the sake of a little exposition.
Apparently, when the experimental cold fusion reactor aboard the Magnitude had imploded and torn a massive hole in space-time, they'd found themselves on the other side of the galaxy in the grip of a black hole, which had fortuitously put everything back together again— the ship, the entire crew complement, even the rip in space-time—thanks to an intense gravity well. The reactor, however, remained inoperable.
Now the Magnitude had to run on impulse power until they reached the nearest starbase for repairs. There would be no chance of another space-time disaster as long as they avoided near-lightspeed travel like a pimply plague.
But here and now, with these rivets melting and the air pressure decreasing, it wouldn't be long until they started losing their eyeballs—always the first to go in a situation like this.
"So what do you suggest?" Quasar fired a few more rounds at no target in particular.
Hank eyed him for a moment. "Sure you're okay, sir? You get bumped on the head or something?"
"I'm fine," he forced out.
Hank shrugged his superior set of shoulders. "We're running short on ammo."
"Then we'll fight them hand to hand!" Whoever they are, the captain mused.
"We'll be a bloody mess on the bulkhead. Those rivets are dissolving with every blast."
"I was hoping you hadn't noticed that." Another heat ray sent the captain diving to the floor.
"Humph." Hank's fur started to reach laterally toward the wall as it buckled with the increased suction. "You could answer for what you've done, and maybe they'll let us live."
"I didn't do anything!" Not that he could remember, anyway. When would he wake up from this confounded dream? It was beginning to frustrate the heck out of him.
"Humph." Hank nodded toward their adversaries who obviously disagreed. "They should've known better than to think they could hold us in their brig."
Quasar blinked as the situation became clearer. At least he was beginning to understand what was going on. "Then it serves them right that we escaped."
"And look where it got us."
Quasar released some sort of strangled battle cry, more out of frustration than anything else, and emptied the last of his rounds.
"Another," he demanded, thrusting an open palm toward Hank.
The hairy helmsman had just slapped an atom clip into his rifle. "That was the last one," he apologized.
"Already? Gah! Give it here." Tugging the bulky weapon from Hank's left hands, Quasar cracked the charger bolt and fired up both barrels. "Let's see how they like it hot," he growled.
Hank's eyes widened upon hearing the rifle's high-pitched thrum. "Captain, you're not considering—"
"It's our only shot at getting out of here alive."
"But a surge blast will—"
A surge blast? Was Captain Quasar's dream-self out of his freaking mind?
Episode 5: Troublesome Interlopers
"Captain Quasar, lay down your weapons!" boomed a voice imbued with authority. "Or our heat rays will take out the wall behind you. Without pressure suits, your remains will splatter across the exterior buffer panel. Please spare us the disgusting task of scraping them off."
"What about them?" Quasar said to Hank. "Won't they explode, too?"
Hank shook his head. "They're wearing suits."
"Gah!" Quasar cried.
"Should we take that as your last word?" replied the voice of authority.
Quasar tossed the whining rifle out into the open, and it slid across the floor, spinning end to end. Hank covered his face with all four hairy hands and grumbled, "Not again." But the rifle didn't explode in an all-devouring ball of light.
Quasar's dream-self winked at the Carpethrian helmsman and raised both arms high. "Don't shoot!"
He stepped out into the middle of the cargo bay where a steel grate in the ceiling allowed light to filter down from the deck above. All around him loomed plasticon freight containers impervious to heat rays and pulse rounds. Beads of perspiration rose on the captain's tanned brow; his eyes darted toward the discarded atom rifle beyond his grasp. Its piercing note held the moment.
A pair of heavy, faux-leather boots stomped into view, landing with resounding clunks. Above them at mid-calf began the slick, skintight material of a blue pressure suit molded to hard-muscled legs and thighs, a tight abdomen, massive mammary mounds, biceps and triceps straining against the suit's snakeskin-like fibers, and shoulders that reminded Quasar of a bioengineered bull he'd once seen in a ring on Nuevo Spain Delta. Above the shoulders (towering over three meters), a transparent helmet protected the fiercest, most gorgeous face Quasar had ever seen.
"Hey there," he said with a dashing smile. He'd often dreamed of women such as this, so seeing one now didn't faze him.
The tall woman was not impressed by his display of pearly whites. And she had company. Out from behind two other freight containers came four gian
t women, each sporting a matching pressure suit and wielding a massive Incinerator-type weapon, twice the size of the atom rifle vibrating on the floor.
"Ladies." The captain made a slight bow, smile intact.
"Silence!" commanded the first woman, completely in charge of the situation. "You have offended us enough with your presence, let alone your coquettish wiles!"
Captain Quasar had no response to that.
"You there!" the woman roared, her gaze twitching toward Hank's hiding place. "Show yourself, or this one dies!"
With all four hands empty and directed toward the ceiling, Hank emerged, shuffling his very hairy feet to join the captain.
The other women snickered. "What are they?"
"This one is a man," said the commander, her lip curled back in disgust as she pointed her Incinerator toward the captain's groin.
"Hey now," Quasar squirmed.
"And this—" The commander frowned at Hank. "What are you exactly? Some sort of walking carpet?" The other women guffawed.
"Behold—!" Quasar exclaimed, gesturing toward the whining rifle on the floor just as it reached a fevered pitch of no return. He expected it to blow a hole in the floor, dropping them to the deck below. Instead, the whine fizzled to a low blurp, and there was no impressive blast. His shoulders slumped. "This is the helmsman of my ship, the Effervescent Magnitude. Speaking of which, I believe it's high time we said our goodbyes, ladies, and—"
The butt end of an Incinerator smashed into his solid jaw, and he staggered backward in pain and surprise. He'd experienced plenty of fisticuffs in dreams before, but they'd never hurt like this.
"Watch your language," scolded the commander.
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