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Captain Jenkins, veteran of the Parliamentary Alliance, pressed the receive button on his remote activated videophone. "Sir," "Captain, good to see you," "Thank you Sir," "Yes, quite," "What can I do for you Sir?" "Well Captain, I was just making sure that you are alright," "I'm fine Sir," "Fine?" "Yes Sir," "Then tell me this, Captain. If you are, as you put it, 'fine', then give me another reason that you allowed the two Svensson girls escape," "I offer no explanation Sir. They disappeared into thin air," "Well that is not good enough, Captain. I am sending you reinforcements. Failure a second time is not an option. Do you understand?" "Yes Sir," "You had better," Trixi was shaken by this revelation taking place inside her head. The old man himself had said that he came from time four hundred years later than Trixi's own time. Despite her vast intelligence, Trixi could think of no sane reason how this could be. She decided to push it out of her mind, and lighting a cigarette, went in search of her friends. They were exactly where she last saw them, hanging around outside the ship. "Guys," Trixi shouted to them. "I have something to show you," "It had better be good," said Dan, miserably. "Who's pissed on your chips?" K asked. "What?" Dan asked, before realizing that he had heard exactly what K said to him. "Oh, no one. It's just been a pretty bad few days!" "Yeah, same for all of us. Get over it," said Pete. Dan scowled at the back of his head, as they all followed Trixi. "Do you see?" Trixi asked. "What are we looking for?" Replied J.D. "I can't tell you. Let your eyes unfocus, as if you're looking at one of those magic pictures," They all did so. "Holy ****," Dan was the first to see it. "It's beautiful, where did it come from?" "It's always been here," replied Trixi. Slowly, everyone else saw what Trixi and Dan saw, and were equally taken aback. The ship was magnificent, at least three times the size of their small vessel, with a name painted down the side. "The Reaper," Lemmy said out loud, as everyone else mouthed the name. Pete turned to Lemmy. "You know, you do chip in with a comment at the most unexpected of times," Lemmy grinned, and winked at Pete. Trixi noticed the wink, and laughed quietly to herself. "Alright guys, anything that we can take out of Europa Base, get it loaded. I want to be hitting the sky in an hour," Trixi ordered. "Who died and made you Captain?" asked Pete, shocked at the authoritative tone in which Trixi spoke. "The old man gave me the ship before he died, that makes me Captain," she replied. "The old man died?" said Pete, shocked for the second time in almost as many seconds. "Yes, he kind of, vanished I guess. One minute he was here, the next he was not," Trixi replied. "Now get going. Like I said, I want to hit the sky in an hour.
"Ma'am," was the general, mumbled reply.
Fifty five minutes later, they were loaded up. Dan was quite pleased with himself. He had raided the food stores and discovered what seemed to be an endless supply of pretty much everything. Having tied his dreadlocks so they weren't constantly in his face, he had set about the task of moving as much to the Reaper as possible. K was equally pleased, as she had found a huge arsenal of weaponry. All of this was now tucked away onboard the Reaper, ready for a rainy day.
"All set Ma'am," said J.D. He had adopted the pilot's chair for himself, and had just completed the pre-flight checks.
"Take her up then, nice and easy," Trixi replied. "How's K finding the engine room?"
"She says it's like nothing she's ever seen. The technology is incredible, and is apparently very user-friendly. She said that if all goes well she won't have to do a thing,"
"Well lets hope it stays that way," Trixi sighed. "Things are complicated enough as they are." She turned to Pete, who was sat at the Navcom. "Do we have a heading?"
"Yes Ma'am," replied Pete. "I thought we might take a swing round Earth, just to give them something to talk about, and then head for the constellation Vulpecula," Pete indicated this on the scanner. The Reaper was much more advanced than their old ship, as you would expect from a design four hundred years it's junior. The scanner was actually a 3-D projected image, hovering four feet in the air in front of the Navcom.
"Any particular reason?" Trixi asked, nodding.
"No Ma'am, it's just well where else are we going to go?"
"Fair enough," said Trixi. She thought it was probably for the best that she didn't tell anyone about the Black Hole Generator just yet.
Copyright 2007 Dan Greathead
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