A Thread of Time: Firesetter, Book 1 (3 page)

Chapter 4

Lance

My first year in the Allied SpaceForce
aboard the Starship S/S Tornado was fairly uneventful if you consider spending
six months of it in the sickbay stuck in a bed.  I was waylaid fairly quickly
by an attack of the space sickness which left most of my muscles unable to
move.  The only muscles that responded to any stimuli from my brain were those
in my face, my heart and lungs, and the ones controlling my left pinkie
finger.  Unfortunately, while these muscles generally worked, there were times
when even they simply chose to go to sleep, leaving me as productive as a
zucchini on a stretcher. 

“It’s because of your previous nerve
injuries,” the ship’s doc decided after studying the monitor above my head even
though it always showed the same numbers and lines.  “You were never fully
recovered from that.  You should have been screened out of space duty at your
intake physical.  You should have been assigned to guarding the fence at a
landbase back on Earth.”

I would have responded, if I could have. 
I would have told him about my galaxy-wide quest and shown him the ancient coin
from the distant empire, but that moment was one of those times when my mouth
randomly chose not to work.  In fact, instead of talking I went into a
coma-like state.

“Ah well, you’re here now and we’ll have
to deal with it.”  The doc sighed, doing his best to return me to
consciousness. 

When I was alive again, but just barely,
the doc summoned a nurse to my side. 

“Nurse Moosy, this spaceman is your sole
responsibility.  Consider him your personal patient.  See that he’s well taken
care of, and maybe, he’ll survive so we can kick him out of SpaceForce.”

Nurse Moosy nearly killed me, while at the
same time, she was the only reason I was determined to make it through.  This
was because each morning, I awoke to the vision of her three, blue-skinned
boobs hovering over my face. 

She didn’t do this on purpose, or so I
thought.  It was just the way she adjusted my meds, or took the readings from
the monitor over my head.  Each morning this alone caused my reluctant heart to
jolt into action, which was followed only minutes later by a full cardiac
arrest.

My heart wasn’t the only organ that
enjoyed her attention.  When she changed my bedding or adjusted my catheter,
other dormant parts of my body rose from the dead. 

Nurse Moosy would giggle and blush, her
pale blue face turning a shade of lavender with scattered lilac splotches,
something I found incredibly attractive.

“Naughty spaceman,” she’d say and waggle a
finger in my direction.

“Mrr murf hamum,” or something like that,
I’d usually respond.

After several weeks in a nearly vegetative
state, enjoying Nurse Moosy’s attention from only inside my head, my body began
to awaken and recover.

“Marry me,” I declared to Nurse Moosy as
she studied my blood pressure on the first morning when I could speak.

“Silly spaceman,” she replied.  “I don’t
know you well enough yet.”

“You know every inch of my body and then
some.”

“I will go on a date when you are no
longer my patient.”

“Mrr murf hamum,” or something like that,
I mumbled, as she had stuck a probe in my mouth.

I reported back to duty and returned to my
quarters, a tiny bunk in an even tinier cabin shared with three other guys. 
Borf was an enormous Andorian, who took up twice as much space as my other
roommates, Wen and Noodnick.  Noodnick definitely wasn't human, but what he
was, I hadn’t a clue, and frankly, wasn’t too keen on finding out. 

“You’re back,” Wen proclaimed, greeting me
with a sort-of hug, even though I had met him only once before on the day I had
come aboard.  Wen had said he was human, and granted he looked like it, but
there was something off about him, too, something that made me think he was
also something else.  “You are recovered, Lancelot?”

“It’s just Lance, and yes, thanks for
asking.”

“Shut up!” Borf roared.  “I’m trying to
sleep.”

Noodnick didn’t say anything, which I
guess was par for the course.  According to Wen, the dude never spoke, or if he
did, it wasn’t audible to our ears.

My first day back on duty, I was assigned
to a place we affectionately referred to as the engineering dungeon.  There, I
was given a console to monitor.  Basically, I was to stand for eight hours and
look at lights and gauges: oil pressure, water temperature, voltage, hydraulic
pressure, engine temperature, hynautic pressure, and about forty other dials. 
If any one of them turned red, if a claxon sounded, or if I smelled smoke, I
was to push another set of buttons and immediately inform the bridge.

“Why isn’t this automated?” I asked my
sergeant.  “Don’t we have a computer that can monitor this?  Not that I’m complaining. 
I’ll do my job.  I was just wondering.  You know…”

The guy glared at me and told me to shut
up.

“It’s because of the old Empire,” Wen
informed me later when he met me for a burger in the ship’s cafeteria.  “They
used to supply the parts for our ships and since they’re no more, our parts are
no more, too.  Now, we have to do everything the old fashion way.”  Wen giggled
a little and gnawed his sandwich. 

“I thought the old Empire was our enemy?” 
I opened the bun on my own sandwich and studied the meat, which tasted
decidedly dull and looked decidedly weird.  “Is this hamburger or what?”

“Synthetic,” Wen replied.  “I think it’s
pretty good.”  Taking another bite, while offering to eat mine, he told me how
the old Empire was considered the Alliance’s nemesis, but was also our biggest
trading partner.  “They sustained both of our economies.”

“So, once they collapsed, they sent us
back to the dark ages with them?” I asked.

“More or less,” Wen nodded, looking
vaguely like a squirrel, or a chipmunk, or some other type of rodent.  “But, we
are still flying and they are not.  So, they are in the dark ages and we are
only in about the 21st century.”

“I’m not sure which was better.  They were
both pretty awful.”

Wen laughed and finished my sandwich,
enjoying it much more so than I ever would, while I picked at something that
was supposedly a dill pickle.

The next day, I got up my nerve and
decided to press Moosy for a date.  She was in my thoughts from the simulated
dawn to dusk, while her beautiful blue skin illuminated my dreams all night. 
During lunch, instead of eating with Wen again, I casually dropped by the
sickbay to ask her out. 

Unfortunately, Moosy was busy assisting
the doc with some guy who had a heart problem.  Even more unfortunate, when I
asked if I could leave her a note, the other nurse took out an enormous
hypodermic and informed me I was missing a few of the SpaceForce regulation
shots. 

After that, I left within a matter of
seconds.  Although both butt cheeks and arms were seriously in pain, that
didn’t stop me from running down the stairs back to my station.  It was a good
thing I did too, because just at that moment, the hydraulic system was glowing
bright red.  I arrived just in time to push my console buttons and sound the
alarm, which set a bunch of other guys into action.

My quick thinking and quick button pushing
pretty much saved the ship from disaster.  Even more impressive, it got my
sergeant to admit that I had done a good job.  He recommended me for an award. 
I got a commendation, a nice plaque with my name and a picture of the ship, as
well as a cash bonus, and a credit for two free dinners at the best little
steakhouse chain in space.

“Hey, why don’t I use it to take you out
to dinner when we arrive at the spacebase tomorrow,” I suggested to Moosy the
following week. 

I had taken to stalking the sickbay
whenever she came off duty.  I would wait for her to leave and then hand her a
little cartoon I had drawn in my boredom.

“Marry me,” I would scroll across the
bottom of a picture of a rabbit proposing to a blue carrot, or two blue birds
circling each other in flight, or once, a picture of a basket with two heads of
blue lettuce.

At the time, I thought these were great
ways to demonstrate my emotional state.  Looking back later, I realized I was
still recovering from a severe bout of space sickness.  My brain had to have
been severely traumatized to think that shit was romantic, or that my destiny
was marriage to a woman from Andorus II. 

“You are ill still,” Wen had concluded,
when he caught me doodling a pair of two blue snakes wound around and tied up
in a love knot.

Moosy thought my notes were cute.  Either
that, or she was just being polite.  She would reply with her sweet little
giggle and a comment like, “Silly spaceman, you are so funny.”

“Funny?  Funny?!?” I’d cry aloud later in
my cabin.  “I’m in love and she thinks I’m joking.  Oh my heart!  How much can
it take?”

“Shut up, asshole,” Borf barked, showing
me a fist the size of basketball.  “Get back to sleep before I stuff you down
the garbage chute and laugh as your head explodes in space.”

I may have been foolishly in love, but
fortunately, I was not a fool, or so I thought, when Moosy agreed to meet me at
the steakhouse for lunch.

Spacebase 41-B was the largest base this
side of the intergalactic divide, which made it a regular destination for
Allied ships, both SpaceForce and commercial.  The base had a thriving shopping
mall and food court, as well as two hotels, theaters, and several bars.

On the lower levels, along with the
docking bays, there was a large repair and storage facility.  SpaceForce used
this port of call to replenish our ship's stores and stock, as well as take
care of any minor mechanical issues that might affect us before we headed into
deep space.  New crew were loaded, and old crew, whose contracts had expired,
were free to debark.  For some reason, those guys were always the first ones
off the ship.

For the rest of us, unless your poor soul
was specifically involved in the restocking process, or overseeing a repair,
those forty-eight hours meant shore leave, a time so special, so wonderful, so
liberating that it felt akin to a gift from the gods.

Walking off the Tornado with Wen that day,
I was feeling pretty chipper. I had completely recovered from my space
sickness, and had seven months of wages on my paycard, most of them earned
while laying on my back. I was as wealthy as I had ever been, and I had a lunch
date with a gorgeous woman, albeit one with blue skin and three boobs, which in
my mind, made her all that much better. The only dark cloud spoiling the
otherwise perfect view on my horizon, was the fact that I had to wear my
spandex SpaceForce uniform to the restaurant. Due to weightloss during my
illness, I didn't have any other clothes that still fit.

“So, where are we going?” Wen asked,
bouncing along beside me, his squirrely face all lit up like a lightbulb.

“I am going to have lunch at the
steakhouse with Moosy. I don't know what your plans are.”

“I will hang out with you,” he announced.
“I have no other plans.”

“Great,” I mumbled, not wanting to hurt
the guy's feelings, as frankly, other than Moosy, I had no friends aboard the
starship either. “But, you're on your own for lunch. Let's go find a bank.”

“Okay. I like banks,” Wen declared. “I
like all commerce.  Commerce is the engine of our economy.”

“Good Wen.”

I never understood how a spacebase of that
size, one that accommodated more than fifty thousand travelers coming and going
on a daily basis, didn't have a bank in the mall. There were cash machines
aplenty, none of which would do anything with my precious ancient Imperial coin
other than spit it back out.  There wasn't a real banker, or bank teller, or
even android teller alive enough to look at it and tell me if I was unknowingly
rich.

“Bummer,” Wen said after we had checked
ever shop and every kiosk on every floor of the base.

“I guess I'm stuck with it until the next
base,” I replied, pocketing it once again. “Maybe when we get closer to the old
empire, someone will know what it’s worth.  Let's go into that Kwikie-Mart and
see what they've got to eat.”

“We can buy Kwikie food there,” Wen cried
joyfully. “Kwikie-sticks and Kwikie-chips, Kwikie-crunch and Kwikie chocolate
cookies.”

“Good, Wen,” I said again, rounding the
corner and entering the mini-mart's gates.

A bell sounded somewhere in the back as
Wen immediately headed toward the junk food aisle. I was going to buy a box of
chocolates, figuring Moosy might enjoy nuts and chews. While deciding between a
two pound mixed assortment, or only dark caramels, the shop's bell dinged again
and two sets of footfalls made their way across the floor. This was followed by
what sounded like a happy squeal from the general direction of the cash
register.