Canto 110 – Ship to Ship
It was the commander on the bridge of the Bregohelma who first spotted it as it came out of jump space.
“What the hell is that?” he complained in a nasally voice while looking out of a face that was not the face of a weasel, but that only obvious because DNA scans had proved he was human and he didn’t have a tail. He looked around the bridge for someone to give him an answer to his question. But almost everyone on bridge duty at that moment was an undead rot-warrior, a skeletal dead body reanimated with electronics and controlled by a computerized brain. And all of them, at that moment were still trying to compute how to get the answer out of “Hell” since that was where the commander had requested it from.
“That looks like a… dinosaur,” said Wormheart Toadsucker, who was only slightly less dead-looking and probably less intelligent than the rot warriors. “You know, like the ones on the planet Dionysus.”
“It can’t be one of those. It’s in space. It just appeared in far orbit around the planet.”
“You should have one of the smart ones scan it,” said Wormheart. “I need to go alert Admiral Tang.
“Okay, which of these mud-brains is a smart one?” The commander looked at every vacant-eyed face on the bridge and then started scanning himself. Amazing things began popping up on the scanner-screen report.
The red-armored admiral appeared on the bridge moments later with the boot-licker Wormheart groveling along behind him.
“So, what does it appear to be?” asked the admiral in his ultra-creepy modulated voice.
“Well, it’s a kind of starship like I have never seen before. The scanner computer can’t completely identify it. It seems to be some sort of alien artifact from the time of the Ancients.”
“Ah, that might explain the weird dinosaur shape. The Ancients were of so much higher a tech level than we are now that many of their relics seem totally inexplicable to us.”
“Yes, but this one has a primarily human crew. They are not even mostly Galtorrian/human fusions like you might expect. Just plain Earther types.”
“And it is coming towards us under power.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Are the shields up?”
“Um… they are now.” The commander quickly corrected his oversight.
“Find out what they want.”
As soon as the admiral commanded it, a visual appeared on the commo-screen. The Lizard Lady herself appeared in the middle of a bridge full of oddly-dressed human crewmen.
“Are you not an Imperial spy, Captain?” Admiral Tang asked, lowering his voice to basement levels of creepiness.
“I am. And I have stolen a flagship of the new fleet you will face if you try to invade the Outpost system of Tron Blastarr.”
“That is remarkable good work, um… what is your name?”
“I am an original Galtorrian, simply called Lizard Lady.”
“You will be remembered as a hero to the Imperium, Lizard Lady.”
“Ah, but the mission is not yet fully complete. We need to pull up to your ship and dock. This is Ancient technology, and we will need your brilliance to fully control it.”
“Very well… we should be able to…”
Suddenly another sleek spaceship of Ancient designed popped out of jump space directly beside the dinosaur-shaped ship. After a few moments in which no one had time to do another scan, the new, sleek ship disappeared once again.
“We are moving in to dock with you now, Admiral,” said the Lizard Lady as she gave orders quietly to her pilots and then swiftly left the bridge before Tang could ask her anything.
The dinosaur ship lurched forward and was approaching at an impossible docking speed.
“Shields on maximum! Back away from them fast,” ordered Tang, obviously sensing a trick. “Fire everything at that ship now!”
Lasers, plasma cannons, nuclear missiles, and Gauss cannons all fired at the incoming ship. It did not fire back. Instead it ignited and blew up in what would have been a spectacular fireball if it had blown up in an oxygen or hydrogen-rich atmosphere. The shock-wave nearly obliterated the Bregohelma as it was, but apparently it was too far distant for the resolution of the mission that the Lizard Lady had planned.
*****
Dr. Hooey’s time ship, the Star Wars, materialized in the Bregohelma’s cargo bay.
The door of the phone-booth-like thing opened and the Lizard Lady stepped out to confirm her present location.
“Is it the proper cargo bay?” asked Dr. Hooey from inside the time ship.
“It is,” she answered. “Now that we are in the proper place, we only need to move to the proper time.
“Very well. The time according to which of the prophecies?”
“Yes, according to all of them.” She stepped back into the time ship. It made its normal grinding sound, and promptly disappeared into the near future.
Catch a Falling Star 