Nelson cast his pen down on his log, resolute that he was not going to take any more of this lunacy. In fact, the next bizarre being that darkened his door was not going to get the benefit of any benevolence, they were going to get blasted with everything in Nelson’s arsenal. It didn’t help Nelson’s mood that he had just completed that thought when a bright flash went off right in front of his desk. Blinded for a moment, Nelson angrily rubbed his eyes, wondering what had been dropped in his lap now. When he drew his hand from his eyes, he almost clapped it right back over them. In front of his desk now stood three green, triple eyed aliens with a single antenna wavering on top of each of their heads. They each wore a blue jumpsuit with a ringed planet emblem on it and stood about waist high.
“Time/space displacement unit functions perfectly,” they all chorused happily.
“What the devil...” Nelson began to bluster. Nine eyes all turned to look at him intently.
“Ooooh! Admiral Harriman Nelson!” they intoned reverently together. They knew who he was. That did nothing to improve his current temper. Usually that meant he was about to be kidnapped or threatened in some manner. “Greetings. We come in peace.”
“Who the hell are you?” Nelson stormed, rising from his seat.
“No time to explain.”
“You’re in terrible danger.”
“Come with us.” The three little green men spoke as if they had rehearsed the lines so that they could speak one after another without pause. That was almost more eerie than when they spoke together. Still, they weren’t suckering him into anything.
“I’m not going anywhere, but you are,” Nelson said, reaching forward toward the intercom. He was going to put these beings into the brig under armed guard as quickly as possible.
“No time!” they chorused again, then another bright flash blinded him. When Nelson’s vision cleared, he found himself in a laboratory. It was large and looked futuristic, but in almost a cartoonish way. Rather than being impressed, Nelson wished he had his gun so he could shoot something, or someone, especially when he heard his captors pipe up, “Welcome to Star Command!”
“How dare you say that after kidnapping me?” Nelson demanded in totally aggravation.
“No, not kidnap. Rescue. From Zurg.” They said that final word with such loathing that Nelson almost shuddered.
“Who the devil is this Zurg and what would he want with me?” Nelson asked despite himself. He shook his head, then waved a hand up in frustration. “Never mind. Just bring me back to my boat!”
“No can do!” came a gruff voice from behind him. Nelson turned to see a man entering the lab. He looked human enough, but Nelson knew that looks could be deceiving. The man looked to be in his fifties, had a metal peg leg, a purple cowl covering the back of his head, a handlebar mustache, and was wearing a white spacesuit with a blue, winged emblem on its broad chest. “Sorry, Admiral Nelson, but if our intelligence is correct, Zurg wants you and your sub so that he can destroy Star Command.”
Nelson wanted to throttle someone. He’d sworn off random silly events like this! Weren’t the Fates listening? Or were they thumbing their noses as him? “Who are you? Who is this Zurg? And what in heaven’s name do I have to do with any of you people?” he stormed, clenching his hands into fists.
The man moved into the room. “I’m Commander Nebula, the leader of Star Command. We’re the good guys. Evil Emperor Zurg, well, the name kind of says it all.” Nebula didn’t speak so much as declare. Everything that passed his lips was loud and full of conviction. “Our intelligence team uncovered Zurg’s latest plan, which entailed his going back in time to Earth and specifically your submarine. He intended to sink the Seaview because doing so would somehow stop Star Command from ever being formed.”
This news did nothing to improve Nelson’s mood. The Seaview and her crew were in danger and he could do nothing to help them. “And how did your kidnapping me stop that?” Nelson questioned.
“Actually... it didn’t,” Nebula admitted a tad sheepishly, then he reared up and shouted, “But Zurg also intended to snatch you! He wanted to turn you into one of his Brainpods so that you’d be forced to use your scientific knowledge for him and we weren’t about to let that happen! And you don’t need to worry about your sub. I sent my best team out to make sure that nothing happens to it. Trust me, the Seaview is in good hands.”
Nelson was about to launch into another argument when the door behind Nebula opened and a large, semicircular desk floated swiftly in and launched a pen at Nebula, swiveling so that a stack of papers was directly before him. “Blast it, this is not a good time! We’re in the middle of a mission here!” Nebula thundered at the desk, which retreated a bit. It didn’t go far, bouncing so that the stack of papers ruffled, plainly planning to wait around until they got signed. “Paperwork! Does it follow you around like this too?” Nebula asked. Nelson finally clapped a hand over his face, praying that this team that Nebula had sent to the Seaview wasn’t half as looney as the beings he’d met so far.
* * *
Captain Lee Crane was standing in the Control Room of the Seaview, glad to be on the uninjured list. It had been another one of those missions and usually that spelled disaster for his health and general well being. Poor Patterson hadn’t been so lucky and would be going on sick leave for a little while when they made port. Lee shook his head as he thought about it. If there was anyone on the boat who had a bigger target on his back than Lee, it was Patterson. At least everything was quiet now, Lee thought, and they would be in Santa Barbara in a few days, so Pat, indeed all the crew, could get some much deserved rest.
No sooner than that thought passed through Lee’s head than a light glared out from the nose of the boat, temporarily blinding Lee and most probably everyone else in the vicinity, and a deep, evil laugh filled the Control Room. “Good day, crewmen of the submarine Seaview. Please, don’t get up. You’ll be falling down dead shortly in any case. Hornets, attack!”
Lee pretty much willed his vision clear, only to wish it weren’t. Golden, heavily armed robots were swarming through some sort of portal in the nose to the Seaview. To one side of the portal loomed an imposing figure with a horned helmet, grimly smiling yellow ‘teeth,’ and glaring red eyes. Before Lee could react to any of this, someone flipped over Lee’s head, landed in front of him, then shouted, “Forget it, Zurg. Evil doesn’t win today!” This man was wearing a white spacesuit with a purple cowl and he pointed an arm at the approaching hostiles, a lazar lancing out from his wrist at the robots and cutting them to ribbons before they could fire a shot. Crewman, understandably, began to hit the deck and scuttle out of the way.
“Lightyear! Wonderful! When I sink this sub, I can send you to the bottom with it,” the big, evil looking guy replied gleefully. “A double doee!”
Lee didn’t get much past ‘sink this sub.’ No one, not even some weird alien, was sinking the Seaview while he was still alive and able to do something about it. What, exactly, he was going to do was another matter, because lazars were flashing around the Control Room, igniting panels, destroying systems, throwing the Seaview into convulsions. Lee dove for the now unmanned helm, managing to right the ship for a moment, only to have a lazar sizzle through the collar of his shirt, barely missing his neck. The heat was enough to make Lee crouch as much as he could and still keep control of the boat. One of the robots came at him, firing as it approached, and Lee figured he was done for.
“Get down!” came a woman’s shout and another white suited figure came speeding at him. Lee expected to be slammed to the deck, but he never felt the impact. Instead, somehow, he found himself gliding down and into the access way beneath the Control Room. Only when he reached the floor did he seem to grow solid again. He looked up to see an attractive red haired, blue-faced girl standing over him.
“You’re another alien! What do you want with my boat?” Lee demanded angrily as he lurched to his feet.
“I’m Space Ranger Mira Nova and I’m trying to save this vessel,” she replied, then activated a jet pack and flew right back through the ceiling. Something had stabilized the Seaview, so at least Lee wasn’t getting tossed around. He only wished that he knew what the devil was going on as he started back to the Control Room.
* * *
Chief Sharkey was in the Missile Room helping with some repairs that had been necessary after their last mission. Riley was next to him, plugging away at another shorted panel, or Sharkey would have thought him somehow responsible for the bright flash that went off behind them. “Hey, hey! Never fear! The heroes have arrived!” came an unfamiliar, jaunty voice. It had a strange metallic twang to it and Sharkey turned full around to see what was going on now. What he saw made him freeze in his tracks for a moment. There in the middle of the room, stood a small robot and a big, orange... something.
“Monster!” Riley filled in that blank and he grabbed Sharkey by the shirtsleeve and yanked him into cover behind the nearest group of torpedoes.
“Riley!” Sharkey complained, tugging himself free of the younger man’s grip.
“Helloooo! We’re from Star Command. We’re here to help,” came another voice. This one did not sound like it ought to be coming of an eight foot tall, at the least, orange monster, but that seemed to be the only possibility. “You know, XR, I think they’re afraid of us,” the voice said more softly, but still quite audibly.
“Oh, really. And what was your first clue? When one yelled ‘monster’ or when they ran to hide?”
“What monster?!” The voice was tinged with alarm.
“Booster, Booster, Booster. This is a very backward era. These people have probably never seen an alien before and you are a lot of alien to see.”
“Gee. Me? Scary? I couldn’t be scary if I tried.”
“Remember the bunzel harvest time incident?”
“Um... I thought we weren’t going to bring that up again.”
Sharkey didn’t know what the robot and big orange guy were, but they didn’t seem dangerous, so he was about to go out and confront them as to what they were doing on the Seaview when the boat pitched to one side. Sharkey barely caught himself before he would have slammed head first into the torpedo in front of him. “Whoa!” came a shout from the alien as the boat pitched back the other way. Sharkey felt the deck tremble with each step the creature took as it stumbled to one side and then the other as the boat continued to rock. He wondered if there were going to be potholes in deck before the day was done.
“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” came the robot’s voice. After just a few moments, the Seaview stabilized and Sharkey started out of his temporary cover.
“Chief!” Riley said in alarm, trying to draw him back.
Sharkey gave the surfer a look that made him back off. “Riley, you can either come with me or wait here, but I’m going to find out what those... those things are doing on the Seaview.”
Riley swallowed visibly, but said, “I’ll back you up, Chief.”
Sharkey gave him a nod and they moved out from behind the torpedoes. “Oh. Hi!” the big orange thing said brightly, smiling at them. The smile would have been far more reassuring if it didn’t have big, sharp looking teeth involved in it. “Now don’t be afraid. We’re here on a peaceful mission.”
“Yeah. And what would...” Sharkey started, then he realized that the little robot had attached a lead to the computer bank by the missiles. That was not good. If it had taken control of the computer, if it could take control of the missiles. Maybe these guys weren’t so friendly after all. “What’s your robot doing? This boat has a lot of classified information...”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m just trying to keep the place from rocking like it was. The old girl’s taken some damage and I’m helping her take control from manual systems that were affected,” the robot replied. He patted the bulkhead, cooing, “And you’re a great old gal, aren’t you?” He looked around at Sharkey and Riley and gave them a conspiratorial wink. “I like big, sturdy girls. They’re the best.” He wiggled metal eyebrows at the Chief and gave him a thumbs up, which only served to weird Sharkey out more than the robot talking like the Seaview was an actual woman.
Sharkey was about to ask the alien to make the robot disconnect itself from the Seaview’s computer, but he found the big creature giving him a sheepish grin and then an uncomfortable laugh when their eyes met. “That XR. Always kidding around. So...” The alien looked terribly uncomfortable, wringing his hands and twisting a foot behind himself as if he were a child. “I’m Booster... Uh... Space Ranger Booster... from Star Command, and we’re here to keep Zurg from taking over your ship.”
“Boat,” the Chief muttered, not knowing what to make of any of this. Sharkey glanced at Riley, who was still a little pale and was staring fixedly at Booster with an expression somewhere between distrust and terror. No help there, Sharkey decided, so he looked back to the big alien. “Okay. I’ll bite. What’s a Zurg and how is it going to take over the Seaview?”
“Oh, Zurg’s not a what, he’s Evil Emperor Zurg of Planet Z,” Booster offered more enthusiastically.
“Emperor Zurg from Planet Z,” Sharkey repeated skeptically. This was beginning to sound like a bad B space movie.
“Evil Emperor Zurg,” XR corrected him. “Believe me, if you knew him, you wouldn’t leave that part out.”
Sharkey turned to face the robot, barking out, “Is he what damaged the boat? Had us rocking around before?”
“Yes, but don’t worry, Buzz and Mira are taking care of him,” Booster said quickly.
“Buzz? Mira? How many of you jokers are there?” Sharkey demanded in exasperation.
“Hey, hey. We’re the good guys,” XR tried to soothe him. “Save that for the wicked despot and his minions.”
“Minions?” Sharkey asked, then wished he hadn’t. The hatch to the corridor opened and some bigger, gold robots started in, opening fire with lazars as they came.
“Get down! I’ve got them,” Booster declared. He jumped up, his size shielding most of room, and returned fire. For a few, brief seconds, lazars flashed. Sharkey cringed, dreading each moment, waiting for a beam to slice into a missile or torpedo and blow them all to kingdom come or a rogue shot to punch through the hull and drown them. Booster knocked out the majority of the robots with some help from XR and then he pushed the remaining robots back into the passageway. He gave chase after them, only to stop dead at the hatchway, his bulk crammed in the frame. He grunted a few times, twitching this way and that, but he didn’t move significantly. “Uh, XR... I’m stuck! Help!”
Sharkey clapped a hand over his face. “Cripes,” he muttered to himself. He could only hope that whoever Buzz and Mira were, that they were a better organized than this Booster guy.
* * *
“Lee!” Chip shouted as the female alien somehow pulled him through the deck, then reappeared without him. He didn’t know how she’d done it, if Lee was hurt, or what the devil was going on with the sudden influx of spacemen and aliens. All he knew was that the Seaview was out of control and that if things didn’t change quickly, they were all dead. With that gloomy thought, the Seaview suddenly stabilized. Chip didn’t know how that happened, but he was grateful nonetheless.
“Curses!” the being known as Zurg fumed, letting a volley of shots off only to have them blocked by the spaceman. “Oh well, more than one way to sink a sub. Ta ta for now, Lightyear.” With that, jets ignited beneath the alien and he blasted off up the spiral stairway, his robots laying down covering fire long enough for him to make good his escape, but only barely. Lightyear and the female alien finished off the last of the robots moments later.
“I’m going after Zurg. Mira, hold this position!” Lightyear yelled as he ran to the nose and up the stairs.
Chip didn’t wait. He stormed up to Mira and grabbed her upper arm. When he did, he found that she was wearing some sort of body armor, but she turned to face him all the same. “Who are you people? What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Ah... um...” Mira started, seeming somewhat befuddled for the moment. “See, we’re from the future and I’m not supposed to say anything that can alter the past, so... sorry. I can’t really tell you anything.” Then she grimaced. “Darn! I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone anything!”
“Where’s the Skipper?” Kowalski asked.
Chip was about to warn him off, when Mira said, “Oh, he’s fine. I pulled him down one deck. I just didn’t want him to get hurt.”
“Look, this Zurg, what does he want?” Chip asked.
Mira considered the question, then shook her head, saying, “No, I can’t tell you that.”
“Is he human or another robot?” It was hard to tell by looking at him.
“Uh... Nope, can’t answer that either.”
“These robots, can we defend ourselves from them with our weapons?”
“Sorry.”
“Does the fact that you and your people are here to battle them mean that you have reports that you are what is required to make this turn out well?”
“Really, I can’t talk about any of that.”
Chip half turned from her, running a hand up through his hair and trying desperately to think of a question she would answer. He did not like being in the dark like this. “So, got a boyfriend?” Kowalski asked, giving her a big, friendly smile.
Mira giggled a little, smiling coyly back, “Well, I am in the middle of a mission at the moment...”
“Kowalski!” Chip snarled. “Get back to your post!” Ski did so, with the appropriated abashed expression. “Look, how am I going to keep this boat afloat if you won’t tell me anything?”
Mira made a calming motion. “Don’t worry. We’re here to help.”
“How exactly.”
“I can’t say.”
Chip felt like screaming at someone, clenching his fists, when Lee came into the Control Room from behind them. “Chip, what’s going on? Where is the maniac that’s trying to sink the Seaview?”
“Which one?” Chip grumbled. “This one won’t tell me anything!”
“Zurg!” Lee shouted back at him. “The big guy in purple!”
“He went up...” Chip started, but Lee was already on the move.
Chip watched him speed off in the direction that Zurg and Lightyear had gone, Mira going after him, saying, “Wait! Wait! Zurg’s dangerous!” She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, probably because she had orders to guard the Control Room. Chip found that he had ceased to care. He sat down on the periscope island and put his face in his hands, shaking his head. He should have quit when the Lobsterman from space showed up.
* * *
“Look, I need to get back to the Seaview,” Nelson told the little green men surrounding him. They’d been polite, pleasant, very inquisitive, but not at all helpful. Nebula had vanished a while ago and no one gave any indication that he was going to return. Nelson didn’t know how long they planned to keep him here and he hadn’t been pleased that they’d moved him from the lab where he’d first appeared. He’d been asking too many questions about the small green aliens’ inventions, so they’d brought him to a rather nondescript meeting room to wait. Along the way, he’d seen a multitude of aliens and humans, all wearing variations on Nebula’s spacesuit. Star Command Rangers, Nelson gathered and he also knew he was on a space station, but that was all anyone seemed to want him to know.
It wasn’t that he was being treated poorly. Quite the opposite, in fact, the aliens had tried to see to his needs and had even brought him some fairly good food from somewhere called Cosmo’s. Nelson didn’t care, though. He had to get back to his boat and defend her from the threat she now faced.
“No,” the little green men intoned when he told them that for the tenth time. It was pretty much what he expected.
“You need to stay safe.”
“So that you can return to fulfill your destiny.”
Nelson’s brow knit. “You said that the destruction of Seaview would stop Star Command from being formed. Do I have something to do with it? Is that why you’re protecting me?”
The aliens looked at each other, then one stepped forward. “We really shouldn’t say, but no. It isn’t you.”
“You do a lot of important things.”
“Many, many important things.”
“But it isn’t your descendant that founds Star Command.”
Nelson considered the news, then looked at the aliens, raising an eyebrow. “Lee’s?”
“We can’t tell you!” they replied in unison, all of them ducking his gaze like a dance troop performing a complicated step.
“Well, how can I protect whoever it is if I don’t know who it is?” Nelson tried to reason with them.
“You don’t have to.”
“The future takes care of itself.”
“Well, most of the time.”
“Unless the future intrudes on the past.”
“Which is what Buzz is trying to fix.”
“As soon as he defeats Zurg, we’ll send you back.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Hmm,” Nelson muttered, rubbing his chin. They kept telling him not to worry, which was only serving to make him more tense. Now he had the added headache of protecting what seemed to be a fairly nice, albeit silly, future without enough information to do so. This possible future certainly beat the one where people went about collecting historical figures from the past. Here different races seemed to generally get along and try to support each other in promoting freedom and good will. Nelson let his eyes narrow and he began to plot how he would get what he wanted to know from his current hosts. Maybe by getting one alone, he thought. After all, they seemed to function well as a group, but perhaps not so well one on one.
“So,” Nelson said, drawing one of the aliens off to the far end of the room and lowering his voice to a conspiring tone. “Since it isn’t me or my Captain, perhaps one of my crew...”
“Admiral, really. We can’t tell you,” the little green man said, waving him to a halt.
“It might change the future if you did know,” another piped up from across the room.
“And can you imagine the pressure it would put on the family in question.”
“Too much information can be bad.”
Nelson looked around the room, getting vexed. “Do you always finish each other’s thoughts?”
“Of course.”
“We are one.”
“We are united.”
“Ah!” Nelson understood. The aliens were connected by some sort of hive mind. As goofy as this future was, some things in it seemed like they could be very interesting indeed.
* * *
Lee ran up the corridor, hoping against hope that he knew the Seaview better than these invaders from the future so that he could catch up to them. That was the only way he could stop this lunacy before his boat got sunk. With people, and he used that term loosely, blasting lazars all over the place, it was lucky that they didn’t have a hull full of punctures already. With that unhappy thought, he began to hear sounds of a scuffle ahead of him.
He ran down a flight of stairs to come on Buzz Lightyear and Zurg wrestling each other in the corridor before him. Zurg’s big weapon lay smoldering at the foot of the stairs and Lee assumed that Buzz’s weapon had been similarly neutralized. He tried to find an opening to help the spaceman, but none presented itself.
“Give it up, Lightyear. I’m going to erase you and Star Command once and for all!” Zurg declared, flinging Buzz away from him. Buzz, however, spun in flight and hit the wall with his feet rather than his head, springing back at the big, purple menace, punching him across his grinning, helmeted head.
“Evil never wins, Zurg. When are you going to learn that?” Buzz bantered back. They fought for a few more moments, then a hapless crewman showed up behind them, attempted to get out of the way. He wasn’t quick enough and Zurg seized him, threw him at Buzz, then he fled up the corridor. Buzz wriggled himself free of the unconscious man as Lee raced up to them. “Quick! We have to stop that Evil Emperor!” Buzz said, leading the chase after Zurg.
“Does he have more weapons?” Lee questioned him as he took up the chase with him.
“Zurg’s evil mind is his most dangerous weapon,” Buzz cautioned him.
“So how do we stop him?” Lee demanded, getting frustrated.
“There is a time displacement unit on his left shoulder, Captain. I attached it, but didn’t get to activate it. One of us has to push the red button on the center of it before he completes his nefarious scheme and he’ll be transported back to his proper time,” Buzz informed him, then tossed a disc at Lee, who deftly caught it without breaking stride. “That’s a backup. Commander Nebula had the LGM’s make a spare just in case before sending my team on this mission. If he’s discovered and removed mine, I’ll keep him busy and you use it on him.”
“You’re the team leader?”
“Captain Buzz Lightyear. A genuine pleasure, Captain Crane, to make your acquaintance,” Lightyear responded with a nod and a crisp salute.
“You’re a Captain and you take orders from a Commander?” Lee asked, not understanding any of this.
“Fleet Commander Nebula is one of the finest officers ever to leader Star Command,” Buzz intoned reverently. “It is an honor to take orders from him.”
“Right,” Lee replied, wondering what the heck a Fleet Commander was. The future version of an Admiral? Lee decided that he really didn’t want to know. “And once we send him back to his proper time, how do we get rid of all his robots.”
“They’ll go with him,” Buzz replied as if it should be obvious. “In fact, everyone from the future was snap back when the device is activated.”
“How, exactly?”
“Well, you see, the device sets up a temporal... uh... When the vortex displaces Zurg... er... The LGMs said it would work and they’re never wrong.”
“LGM?”
“Little Green Men.”
“Little Green Men made a time displacement device,” Lee said, wondering if this guy was crazy.
“They’ve never failed us yet.”
“Uh huh.” Lee wondered if he could surface and evacuate the Seaview before these nutcases killed his entire crew.
“There!” They’d caught up to Zurg, who was attempting to shoulder a huge orange creature back through the Missile Room hatch, where it appeared to be tightly wedged. Lee felt a migraine coming on.
“Buzz! Help!” the creature shouted pathetically. The voice and the huge figure refused to match up in his mind and Lee was sure that he was going to need way more than two aspirins.
“Unhand that Ranger!” Buzz demanded, closing the gap between them.
“Buzz, is that you?” came another unfamiliar voice from the Missile Room. Another one, Lee thought, his headache getting worse by the second. He didn’t want to see what this one looked like. He just wanted all these crazy people off his boat.
Buzz engaged Zurg in another wrestling match. He saw him strain toward the Emperor’s shoulder, to no avail, but Lee didn’t wait for him to succeed or fail. He ran forward, slid in low, got right under the combatants. “Troublesome insect, meet my heel,” Zurg snarled, bringing up a jet bottomed foot. He would have stomped on Lee’s head, but Lee was too fast for him, raising the round unit swiftly up to meet the descending foot, pushing the activation button as it clicked onto Zurg’s foot. “No! Curse you Lee Crannnnnnne!” Zurg bellowed as he swiftly faded from view. Not only him, though, for, true to his word, Buzz and the big, orange creature vanished as well, Buzz giving Crane a grin and another salute as he faded away.
No sooner did they vanish than Admiral Nelson appeared before him. “Damn! I almost had them explaining crystalic fusion!” Nelson snarled, then seemed to notice who was standing in front of him. “Lee! Is the Seaview all right?”
“Admiral, how did you get here?” Lee asked, then he saw Sharkey and Riley giving them both puzzled looks from the Missile Room. “Chief, is there any damage in the Missile Room?”
“Uh... No, sir. Nothing new anyway,” the Chief replied. The poor man looked as confused as Lee felt, but Lee didn’t have time for confusion right now.
“We need a repair team in the Control Room for emergency repairs,” Lee told him. “And there’s a wounded man in corridor C. Have him brought to Sickbay on the double.”
“Yes, sir. Come on, Riley,” Sharkey said and the two men went off to attend to Lee’s orders.
“What happened here?” Nelson asked as they departed.
Lee shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure. We were invaded by some despot from the future and his robots and then some spacemen showed up... It all happened so quickly!”
Nelson stood there silently for a moment, thinking. “The Control Room can be repaired?” he asked finally.
“I think so, sir.”
“Good, then get us back underway to Santa Barbara as quickly as possible,” Nelson said, still looking to be deep in thought as he started to walk away.
“But Admiral, I’m not sure how to note this in the ship’s log. How should I...”
“Don’t Lee. Some things are better left unsaid,” Nelson told him just before vanishing from view. Lee wanted to argue the point, then thought about evil emperors, a dime store novel space hero, a girl who could pass through walls, big orange creatures, robot minions, and a invention of little green men saving the boat and decided that the Admiral was right. In fact, Lee decided that he was going to order the entire crew to forget this entire incident as swiftly as possible and threaten them with the brig if he ever heard another word about it.
* * *
“... And the redhead was ready to sample a little twentieth century male, if you know what I mean, but Mister Morton stepped in. Then she disappeared,” Kowalski explained to Patterson. It was four days later and they were walking to Kowalski’s car, Pat hobbling along on crutches. Ski had wanted to tell Pat about what had happened a lot earlier, but after the Skipper’s warning, then the look on Mister Morton’s face when he said that he supported it, he hadn’t dared. “She was a total babe.”
“A blue girl,” Patterson said, shaking his head. “Only you, Ski. So they were Space Rangers?”
“That’s what Riley said that the big orange guy in the Missile Room told him. From Star Command.”
Pat grinned. “Sounds like a comic book or something.”
“Actually, that new guy... Ted or Tim something... you know, the new guy.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. What about him?”
“He thinks all this Space Ranger and evil Emperor stuff would make a great cartoon.”
Pat grinned. “I thought he was going to revive Westerns.”
Ski laughed, shaking his head as they reached his car and he helped Pat in. “Yeah. A cowboy and a spaceman in a cartoon together. Now that I’d like to see!”
The End
