Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space)

by Catherine Lundoff

  This summer was going to be awesome.

  This was going horribly.

  She had landed fine, but her ship was lost somewhere out in the forest of an alternate Earth, one where the states and geography didn’t match up with what she remembered from this version of Earth. Her escape pod was busted beyond recognition. Her crew was dead.

  But at least Jack Hurwitz seemed nice enough.

  Jack led her through a hallway to a room cluttered with manuals, vaguely recognizable circuit boards, and multiple computer towers. Jack tiptoed through the mess to a table in the back and waved her through. “Be careful,” he said. “My dad sort of likes his mess where it is.”

  He fished through the jumble of wires on the desk and held up a squid-like cable. It had a port to connect to the wall—Rosa recognized the AC out—and six different kinds of tablet interface dongles. “See if any of these work,” Jack said. “I mean, it’s probably like, stone-age-y compared to what you’ve got from wherever you’re from.”

  Rosa looked at him. Jack was a pretty disheveled looking guy, now that she thought about it. Bushy brown hair in need of a cut, a shirt that was too baggy, pants with holes in the knees and calves. He had none of Don Schaeder’s intentionally terrifying look. There didn’t seem to be anything intentional about Jack at all.

  But he helped her find an outlet and plug in her glass screen. It blinked gold, on and off. When it showed a solid gold color, Rosa ran her finger along the glass, then flicked it up into the center of the room. The map exploded all around them. It was a wirework—no buildings or specific locations—of the general area, with X and Y-axis coordinates on the edges. Jack spun around, watching the wirework rotate and calibrate itself to the size of the room.

  Rosa held her hands out and twisted them. The map responded, spinning with her movements and soon there were three silver dots hovering in the air.

  “This one is us,” Rosa explained, pointing to the one furthest from the other two. Then at another dot: “This is the Treasure I was tracking, so this one...”

  “That’s your ship, right?”

  “Right.” Rosa touched the point for the ship. Coordinates wrote themselves into the map. “You need to take me there.”

  “Hold on. Nobody said anything about driving you around.”

  Great. Now she had to actually be a pirate.

  Rosa closed the map. “Here’s the deal, Jack. I’m from an alternate Earth,” she started. “Don Schaeder is the captain of the ship I was on. Pirates like us travel to different realities and steal the core of territories scattered around the planet’s surface. That’s the treasure. We keep taking more territory cores until the planet is drained. Then we go back to our Earth and sell them to the highest bidder, and half the time, they end up destroying the treasure to make something else. That means the dimension that treasure is from dies. If you don’t take me to my ship, right now, Don Schaeder will kill everything you know. I won’t let him do it, but I need you to work with me.”

  Jack didn’t fall over. He didn’t even react. In fact, for such an easygoing guy, his silence was worrying.

  “Fine. Do it your way, then.” Rosa reached for her weapon.

  That seemed to wake him up. Jack rolled his eyes and held a hand up. “I’ll take you, don’t trip out. Jeez. Let a guy process dimension pirates for a second, would you?” He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I mean...that’s a pretty neat story.”

  “It’s not a story.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard you and I saw the map and everything. Let me get my dad’s keys. Just tell me where to turn, yeah?”

  Jack’s parents’ car was old enough that the stereo didn’t have an aux port, but at least the engine went fast. He pulled out of the driveway and started for the highway. Rosa directed him out past civilization and to the forest.

  “Hey,” Jack asked. “Question.”

  “Ask it.”

  “When I get you to your ship, what happens then?”

  “We’ll find a way to jump-start the ship, and then I’ll fly to the treasure’s coordinates.”

  “See, that right there. That’s what bugs me. You’re still gonna take the...what were you calling it, treasure? Won’t that kill everyone here, anyway?”

  “I don’t plan to sell it. Or let it be harmed in any way.”

  “So…you’re just going to hide it?”

  “Protect it, actually.”

  Jack clicked his tongue. “Huh.”

  “You don’t trust me, do you?”

  “Not in the forty-five minutes since you crash-landed in my parent’s backyard, not really.”

  Rosa spoke slowly. “There are a lot of Earths, but this one is mine. It’s my responsibility.”

  “How does a pirate have a responsibility? Unless piracy is like, a completely different thing than what I’m thinking,” Jack said. “Swashbuckling and all that.”

  Rosa relaxed back in her seat with a shrug and changed the subject. “Things look a lot different from the last time I was here,” she said. “Everything’s…greener. I’ll give it that.”

  They pulled out of the main road and came into a clearing. The downed ship had left a lot of burned branches and foliage in its wake. Jack just followed the trail.

  The ship had crashed in a ditch. Jack had clearly imagined something grander than what he was seeing: an inter-dimensional car wreck, with chunks of metal flung off and stuck in trees, and long plates of steel standing upright in the dirt. He parked the car before the ditch started to slope.

  “Wanna check out your ship?” he asked.

  They got out of the car and approached the wreck slowly. The ship was maybe four times larger than the escape pod with the same purple hull and same kind of thrusters.

  The back area—what would be the trunk in a car—was wide open. It was dark inside.

  They walked into the interior of the ship, Rosa feeling for handholds and a walkway, and Jack doing his best not to stumble and fall.

  “Just keep going straight back,” Rosa said confidently. The air smelled like smoke and iron. “I think it’s...it should be this button here,” she said.

  The cruiser came alive. Jack watched as the overhead lights came on to reveal a chair surrounded by computers and a large, open space in the frontmost part of the room. Holograms flickered, and Rosa stood in the middle of them, effortlessly touching the floating diagrams.

  “The ship is working,” Rosa said. There was an accusing tone. “It was dead before I used the escape pod. Someone must have done something to it. I should check the ship’s logs.”

  “I know what those are!” Jack shot a finger in the air. “Do you guys have a holodeck, too?”

  “A what?”

  He sighed. “Never mind.”

  Jack sat in the chair by the computers. He spun the chair once, just for kicks, then froze. There was another pirate in the doorway.

  “Holy shit,” Jack said.

  The pirate was taller and older than both of them. He was leaning on the doorframe, his gun trained at Rosa but his hand shook as he tried to keep it pointed at her. He must have taken a blow to the head, judging from all the blood on the hand he pressed to it.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” the pirate said.

  Rosa regarded him with a shrug. “Hello, Barnes. I see you survived. Did you want a bandage?”

  “Betrayin’ the Cap is a capital offense. You’ll be hanged for your actions, you hear me? And you’re giving me that map,” Barnes said.

  “We both know you can’t touch the treasure without Schaeder’s equipment unless you’re originally from its dimension. It’ll blow you apart,” Rosa said. “But go find the treasure yourself anyway. Have fun with that.”

  Barnes’ gaze darted to Jack.

  He changed targets. Jack’s hands went up and his body went stiff with fear.

  “He dies,” Barnes said. “The boy dies, or you give me that map.” The demand lingered in the still air. None one of them moved.

 
“Suit yourself,” Barnes said.

  There was a gunshot and Barnes fell forward, lifeless as his blood poured onto the floor. Behind him stood another teenager, this one with her hair in a conservative ponytail, wearing thick glasses, and holding a gun in her hand.

  Rosa’s hug was more of a tackle. “Goose!”

  “I’m alive,” Goose said, gasping . Rosa’s arms were around the girl’s neck, tight. “Though if you don’t let me go, I’m gonna get knocked out again.”

  “What happened? Tell me everything.”

  “I hid in the cargo load and sealed myself in a locker so I wouldn’t fly out the back when you did that nosedive thing,” Goose said. She held the gun out with her index finger and thumb and placed it on the ground gingerly. “At least, I think that’s what I did. Blacking out from choking sorta does a one-two on your memory.”

  Rosa winced. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Can I get a ‘sorry’ too?” Jack asked. “For, I don’t know, almost being shot?”

  Goose glanced over Rosa’s shoulder at Jack. “Is he from this Earth?” she asked.

  “I’m Jack,” he said, “and yeah, I’m from here.”

  “This is Goose,” Rosa told him. “She’s my navigator and first mate. Plus, she’s the finest mechanic I’ve ever met.”

  “She’s only exaggerating a little bit,” Goose added.

  Then, the two girls’ excitement faded. They leaned against the doorway edges.

  “So,” Goose said. “We’ve got the map to the treasure and I found some reserves to let the ship fly for another hour, at most. I mean, then the engine will have to be nearly rebuilt, but that’s the best I can get you...oh, and there’s an escape pod. For if we wanna run away again.”

  “I have a plan,” Rosa said. She added, “But I hate my plans.”

  “Most people do,” Goose said, then added, “but I’m not most people.”

  Rosa exhaled and ran her hands down her face. “We can’t just go get the treasure,” Rosa said. “Don Schaeder is waiting for us to lift off. He’ll follow me until I have it, and then...but he won’t shoot us down until we land because he doesn’t want me dead, and he won’t know we’re landing at the treasure point.” Rosa snapped her fingers once, twice, and then she turned to Jack, the urgency in her eyes threatening to electrify him. “How quickly can you drive?”

  When Jack first heard about treasure, he figured it would be something grand. Maybe a literal pot of gold, but also possibly an ancient crystal, or a magical key, or hell, a magical credit card, for all Jack knew. It was gonna be amazing.

  Sitting in a Starbucks on Main Street wasn’t what he had in mind. He sipped his grande coffee and did some math: three hours of his time, five bucks for the coffee, and some likely-PTSD-inducing run-ins with weapons. In exchange, he was helping a cute girl save the world.

  Not a bad deal, really.

  The clock on the wall struck the top of the hour, and right on time, Rosa and Goose kicked in the door and pointed their guns at everyone. “Stay where you are, and nobody gets a bullet,” Rosa announced. “I’m not here for money. Stay still.”

  Goose stayed near the door, her weapon trained on the manager. Rosa walked through the tables. “I need a volunteer.” A woman with her child on her lap let out a frightened sob. Rosa pointed the gun at Jack. “You. Up, on your feet. Now.”

  Jack was no actor—his F in Drama confirmed that—but he did his best to have a shaky walk, shifting eyes, and a trembling lower lip. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

  Rosa jabbed the gun in his back and they kept moving, walking behind the barista’s counter. The two college-aged employees backed away, their hands in the air. Rosa and Jack stopped in front of the register. Rosa took out the map screen and pressed it with her thumb. Instead of opening the wirework of coordinates, it sent up one beam of golden light, first to the ceiling, then shooting straight through the glass and down into the ground.

  The building shook, gently at first, then with a decided rumble. Porcelain mugs, thermoses, and displays hit the ground and shattered. The tile at Jack and Rosa’s feet cracked from the inside, lifting up like a welt, and finally shattering through the ground entirely. The gold beam lifted up a small gold object from the hole and held it hovering in the air.

  “That’s it,” Rosa sounded awed. But only for a moment.

  She prodded Jack with the gun. He took the flat golden treasure from the beam and held the warm metal in his hand.

  “Let’s move,” Rosa called. Goose nodded, still brandishing her weapon at the customers, as Rosa led Jack to the doors. He went outside first, followed by Rosa, and finally Goose went behind them.

  There were no cars in the intersection, thankfully because this needed to be dramatic.

  Goose turned her gun on Rosa.

  “Fork it over,” Goose said. Rosa kept her weapon at Jack but focused her attention on Goose. “Give it back now, and you get to live.”

  “Goose?” Rosa asked. She was a pretty lousy actor, too. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “That doesn’t belong to you. The map belongs to Don Schaeder. If you ask me, so does the treasure.”

  Rosa lowered her gun, eyes wide and arms open. “You’re not doing this. Tell me you’re not. Please.”

  “I will kill you, Rosa. Give it to me .”

  Goose could definitely sell it, Jack thought.

  “Goose, you’re not from this Earth,” Rosa said. “You can’t even touch it.”

  “No, but he can.” Goose nodded to Jack. “Give him to me.”

  “This is my home,” Rosa said. “Don’t let Don Schaeder destroy it. Not this dimension.”

  Goose did not relent. “Give it to me, or I’ll kill you, Rosa. I swear to God.”

  This was the part that Jack sincerely disagreed with.

  Rosa pointed her own gun at Jack’s head and pulled the trigger.

  Then Rosa’s gun burst and shards of the wooden hilt and metal barrel flew, one chunk catching Jack in the eye and sending him to the ground howling in agony. Rosa fell beside him, cradling her hand and crying from the pain.

  Pain had not been part of the plan.

  The road behind them blurred, then re-focused. The purple ship of Don Schaeder, in its massive glory, hovered directly overhead. A shuttlecraft had landed in the street, its doors open.

  Standing in front of Jameson and another man who Rosa did not recognize, was none other than the captain himself, smoking gun in one hand, cigar in the other. His mechanical eyeball watched the scene, emotionless. “Ain’t this a sight for sore eyes,” Don Schaeder said. “Just the one. Ha!”

  Lifeless laughter from the crewmen filled the silence

  “Gwendolyn, dear,” he said. Goose cringed. “Staying loyal to her captain over his renegade daughter. I’m impressed.”

  “Thank you,” Goose said.

  “You’ll be rewarded soon enough,” he added. “Now, about that treasure.” He motioned for Jameson. The older man pulled Jack to his feet and dragged the bleeding boy to his feet. “Open your hand, boy,” Don Schaeder said.

  “Not on your life.”

  Don Schaeder sighed. “Young people these days.”

  He snapped his fingers. Jameson and the other crewmate took Jack by both arms and dragged him toward Don Schaeder. Jack’s legs scrambled and skidded on the pavement while his face dripped blood. Jameson took Jack’s hand and held it out, but he kept his fist closed.

  Jameson twisted Jack’s arm, not hard enough to break it, but enough to force Jack’s hand open. The Treasure fell from his palm and landed on the ground.

  “I’ll grab it, Cap,” Jameson said.

  Don Schaeder yelled, “You blithering idiot, don’t touch it—”

  It was too late. Jameson knelt down. The instant his hand touched the smooth surface of the gold piece, his body shone with the same golden light as the map, his skin illuminated from the inside.

  For an instant, it was beautiful. Then his body turned in on itself. A
golden black hole pulled his arms and legs and screaming mouth into itself and shut, just as fast as it had appeared. Then, he was gone.

  “I tried to tell him,” Don Schaeder remarked. He knelt down and studied the treasure for a moment. Then he picked it up, flipped it in the air with his thumb, and caught it in his grip.

  “That’s impossible,” Rosa said, her words slurring as her jaw hung. “You can’t be from here...you can’t.”

  “I’m just like you, dearest daughter of mine. I’m from this dimension, too.”

  “Stop.”

  “You never wondered why a pirate would kidnap you? Let me tell you, I like my job, but it gets lonely every once in a while. You want someone to talk to, and children are so young and impressionable.” Don Schaeder stared at her, making sure she felt the weight of his presence. “Someone took me away, too, you know. Showed me what the world—what all the worlds—had to offer. I like to think I did you a favor, raising you myself.”

  “I had a family!”

  “And I gave you who you are.”

  Rosa had a speech ready for the day when this happened. Things she had wanted to scream at him since she was a little girl. A lot of ‘how could you,’ maybe a ‘why this world,’ that sort of thing. But today, she could settle for brevity. “I am going to kill you.”

  Don Schaeder pursed his lips. “Good luck,” he said.

  Rosa pushed the button on the tablet hidden in her pocket.

  “That reminds me,” Don Schaeder said. He clicked the hammer back on his gun. “Gwendolyn? You’ve been a great friend to my daughter. Shame you thought betraying her would make me happy. A traitor only gets one reward, you know.”

  He took aim at Goose.

  Sudden strong winds kicked up around them, dizzying Don Schaeder’s crewman and blowing his robes up into his face. He lowered his gun and covered his face with his arm.

  Overhead, his ship exploded. Orange flames doused the violet craft, submerging the blue sky in jet-black smoke.

  “What the hell happened?” Don Schaeder barked, his booming voice almost lost in the noise of falling metal. He dropped a hand to his right side. His artificial eye changed color, shifting from the standard green to the same purple as his former ship. “Readouts...we were hit by an escape pod? What in hell’s name?!”