Quick warning: my stories tend to be a hit or miss, love it or hate it.
Written March 21, 2011
Title: Out of Time: Budget Cuts
Thomas Princeton emptied his pockets and put all of his personal effects into a small plastic bin. He then walked past a weapons detector and was cleared.
"Thank you, Mr. Princeton," said one of the guards. "Your personal belongings will be returned to you at the end of your visit." His things were placed in a locker marked 13B.
Princeton was escorted through two more checkpoints and then started walked past rows and rows of prisoners. Finally, he reached over to prison cell 5562.
The guard lowered the forcefield, and allowed Princeton to join the prisoner. Although the two had feelings for each other, they did not hug and kept their distance. Princeton had been responsible for her imprisonment.
"Have then been treating you okay?" he asked.
"I guess so. I don't expect much pampering here."
The prisoner's birth name was Megan, but her criminal nickname was Demonica. She and her twin sister Jenny, also known as Malicia, were a team that the authorities called the Twin Mistresses of Evil. Princeton didn't find the two to be irredeemably evil. They liked to steal things, but they weren't dangerous. Still, Princeton was a lawman, and he had to bring them in.
"I'm sorry I couldn't change for you, Tom," said Megan. She seemed on the verge of tears. "I just can't change for anyone."
"I know," said Princeton. He knew that Megan had tried to give up her criminal impulses, but in the end, it was a part of her.
They talked for about half an hour. She was doing okay in her cell. She was bored for the most part. The prison had a small assortment of video clips to watch and books to read through. For one hour a day, she was allowed exercise. She also had two half hour breaks with her sister in the cafeteria for meals. Although her sister's cell was next to hers, they couldn't talk as the cells were soundproof. Megan was glad that visiting privileges were recently granted to her. Though, she was only allowed one visitor every three months.
The guard walked over to the forcefield and notified Princeton that time was up. Princeton walked over to the forcefield it dropped. Princeton walked over the threshold and turned around to face Megan. Megan put her hand on Princeton's chest, and Princeton held onto her hand for several seconds.
"Sir," said the guard. "I'm afraid I have to put the forcefield back up."
Megan backed away and removed her hand from Princeton's chest. Princeton let go of her hand, and the forcefield came back up as the two hands separated. Princeton kept eye contact for several more seconds before hearing another prisoner scream his name.
"Proton!"
Princeton hadn't heard that name in a while. Up until very recently, Princeton was a member of the Space Navy's special operations division for interplanetary criminal containment. His operations callsign had been Proton. He wondered who was trying to get his attention. He was personally responsible for putting many of the galaxy's worst criminals in prison, so there would be many possibilities. It also didn't quite make sense as the cells were supposed to be soundproof. Princeton figured one of the guards must've allowed the prisoner to get his attention.
Princeton walked past a handful of other prison cells before reaching the cell of the screamer. Next to Megan was her twin sister Jenny. The next cell belonged to Arachnia, queen of the spider people. She was born as Kathryn. The spider people were a gang of assassins. One of their more common tactics was the use of spider venom, which is how the gang got their name. It was their signature calling card.
Finally, next to Arachnia's prison cell was the cell that belonged to Doctor Chaotica. This fine criminal was the ruler of Planet X and the self-proclaimed ruler of the cosmos. He had tried many times with far-fetched schemes to conquer the planet Earth. In reality, planet X was one of the two moons of Mars, which most humans called Phobos.
Surprisingly, Princeton found that the prisoner inside Chaotica's cell wasn't the evil doctor at all. Standing on the other side of the forcefield was an eyeglasses wearing bald male wearing a suit and tie. It was the President of Earth. He looked annoyed.
"Get me out of here, Proton," said the prisoner.
"My, what happened here?" asked a pleasantly surprised Princeton in a quizzical voice.
"Obviously, there has been some type of mistake. I woke up this morning in this cell. I'm not sure what happened."
"How did you get here?"
"Captain Proton. I just told you I don't know what happened."
"Well, I'm no longer Captain Proton. Thanks mainly to you and your recent budget cuts. What was it exactly that you said? That we all had to share sacrifice and that you had to cut the Space Navy's budget in half?"
"The Earth government was running out of money. I had no choice!"
"Well, I don't know how I can help you. Obviously, I no longer have any authority in the navy or over the division of prisons."
"Get word out to the commissioner! Tell him I'm trapped here!"
"Why don't you tell him yourself?" asked Princeton. "Get one of the guards to relay a message to their boss."
"They don't recognize me!" screamed the frantic prisoner.
"Oh, that's right. Another victim of your budget cuts were human prison guards. I guess these robo-guards are just as good, eh? Better, in fact."
"Once again, my government was short on money. My comptroller general was aching for cuts, as was Earth's council members. I was told robo-guards would be more cost efficient. One would have the strength of ten men, in the off chance that a prisoner broke free. The guards wouldn't even require sleep."
"And look how that turned out. Chaotica not only found some way to break out of this place, he found a way to put you in. The guy's quite the evil genius."
Princeton now turned to the cell next to Chaotica's. This cell was supposed to house Chaotica's top lieutenant, Lonzak. Instead, there was what appeared to be an alien in the cell.
"Guard, can I please talk with that prisoner," requested Princeton.
The android guard did not lower the forcefield, but allowed sound to go through in both directions.
"Sir, may I ask your name?" said Princeton.
"Carlos," said the man. He had very pale white skin, dark black hair slicked back, and yellow eyes.
"Can you tell me who you are?" asked Princeton.
"I'm visiting from South America," said Carlos. "I just arrived here to meet a friend, Dixon Hill. He's a field agent at the New York branch of the FBI. Am I being held at immigration and customs at the airport? I don't seem to recall what happened after disembarking from my flight."
The FBI. Princeton hadn't heard of that acronym in a long time.
"Carlos, what year is it?" asked Princeton.
"Why, it's 1932, of course."
Carlos was a hundred and twenty years off, roughly.
Princeton turned back to speak with the President.
"Well, whatever Chaotica did, I'm guessing it had something to do with time travel."
"Right," said the president.
"I'll be sure to tell your super-genius comptroller general that you love your android prison guards."
"Proton!" exclaimed an annoyed president. "Of course when we made the plans to automate many of the government functions, I wanted androids that were loyal to me. Not ones that hate me!"
"You see, Mr. President. That's the problem with artificial intelligence. It doesn't hate you. Nor does it love you. It is what it is programmed to be. And somehow, Chaotica got these androids programmed to think you are him. I'll see if I can get a meeting with the warden. Hang tight."
"Thank you Proton. I won't forget this."
Hippocrates Noah sat down and tried to grasp what just happened.
"You'll just let me have the planet?" he asked.
"Yes, it's yours," said a crazily dressed man who had just brought Noah and his compatriots about a hundred years into the future.
"Why?" asked Noah.
"I've been trying to conquer that blasted planet for years," admitted Chaotica. "Years! It's driving me mad. I think the only way for me to stop obsessing about it is if someone else destroys the damn thing. Then I can move on to my plans for Mercury and Mars."
"Why don't you just destroy it yourself?"
"I have tried. There's a man whose aviator callsign is Proton; he foils me at every turn! He often appears one step ahead of me. It's as if he can read my mind. But you, you're someone different."
Dr. Hippocrates Noah believed that the world was too chaotic and a new beginning was necessary. He intended to kill all of the Earth's population, save for those at his mountain retreat on the slope of Mount Everest, where he would gather the most brilliant scientists, engineers and skilled artists from around the world. Noah's plan was the flood the earth. Back in 1964, his original plan was still in the development phases. Thus far, his idea had involved sending small fleets of ships armed with super-lasers to the north pole and the south pole. Once there, the lasers would melt both polar ice caps, thus causing a rise in the Earth's sea levels and massive flooding significant to flood everywhere except a few high points of the highest mountains.
The only problem Noah had run into thus far was that his plans were not quick acting enough. Once any lasers were operational, the governments of the world would surely know about it and stop the operation almost immediately. Noah's plan required continuous laser operation for months.
Being kidnapped into the future brought new possibilities for Noah. For one thing, the lasers of the future were more developed and much more powerful. However, he would still need at least a week's worth of time. But another technology could run alongside the lasers. Noah discovered that sometime ago, scientists had invented something called a tractor beam. His plan now diverted a couple of his laser shooting ships to be outfitted with tractor beams. These ships would wait until the timing was right, when a few giant asteroids were scheduled to miss hitting Earth by a small margin. The tractor beams would alter the flight paths of these asteroids and rain them down toward Antarctica, melting the southern polar ice caps while lasers were stationed at the north pole to melt that ice cap. The speed with which the oceans would rise would be too fast for anyone to compensate. Noah would live on an ocean world.
Noah gave a list to Chaotica of the things he would need, and the personnel he would require. Chaotica informed him that he would have those resources within the next few days. The two evil geniuses, both PhDs, laugh maniacally at their image of the near future.
Dr. Chaotica was a brilliant scientist, but he was far from perfect. When he invented his time machine, he had some trouble calibrating it at first. While he was aiming to take Dr. Noah from 1964, the first person Chaotica took from the past was a person named Durango from the year 1881 in the days of the American wild west. During Chaotica's second attempt, he brought back a person named Carlos from the year 1932. Only on Chaotica's third attempt was he able to zero in on the right year, 1964. Third time's the charm. At that point, he began bringing back scores of people whom Dr. Noah had already transported to his mountain retreat in the Himalayas.
One small detail which Chaotica's men did not notice was that Chaotica's time machine brought back not just one person from the 1932 time period. There was a second one. However, before Chaotica could be notified of this, he had already started bring back people from 1964. As a result, FBI agent Dixon Hill, from 1932, was mixed in with people from Dr. Noah's compound. Nobody seemed to notice much. A suit from the 1930s looked very much like one from the 1960s. Chaotica's men easily picked out Carlos because of his unique skin tone, and Durango from her attire. Chaotica's men decided to let him believe that only one person was brought back from 1932, so as to not get in trouble with an angry boss.
With Durango and Carlos brought to Chaotica's lab, Chaotica used his recently invented teleporter device to free two of his men. Carlos took the place of his former top lieutenant, Lonzak. Of course, Chaotica's new top lieutenant was Dorzak, who had freed Chaotica from prison in the first place. He also added the cherry on top by replacing his ruler with Earth's President.
Thomas Princeton left the main prison hall and was escorted by the android guards to meet with the prison's warden, Gerard Jameson.
"Proton, please, take a seat," offered the warden.
"Thank you, sir."
The two of them exchanged pleasantries before Princeton jumped to the point and explained that there were at least two prisoners in D wing that had been broken out and replaced. Of special importance was that the President of Earth had somehow been imprisoned.
Although the warden was displeased, he did not look as surprised as Princeton thought he would be.
"Tom, there's something I'd like you to see. Or, more appropriately, someone."
The warden asked his android guards to bring in Chaotica's robot minion, whom he called Satan's robot. A few seconds later, the guards brought in a female human.
"What's this?" asked Princeton.
"I'm not sure. The guards seem to think this woman is a robot," said the warden. "We had Chaotica's robot down in the science lab to see if it could be re-programmed. Two of my best computer scientists were working on it. Overnight, the robot had somehow switched places with this woman."
Dixon Hill studied the vast room that he was in. He watched the others mill about. Some of them seemed bewildered, but for the most part, none of them panicked. He was approached by a woman with short red hair.
"I don't recall meeting you," she said with a thick Russian accent. "Are you one of the scientists?"
Hill shook his head no. "Special Agent Dixon Hill, FBI."
The woman seemed intrigued. She wasn't quite sure what to make of this development.
"Were you planted here to monitor Noah?" she asked, in a very low whisper.
"I don't know who Noah is. I don't know what's happening here. One second I'm walking out of the airport with my friend Carlos. The next second, I'm here, with a woman dressed as a cowboy. A few seconds later, all of you arrived."
"I see," said the red-headed woman. She was trying to decide whether she could trust Hill. She decided she could. Regardless, even if she wasn't sure, she would need help.
"That man up there," she pointed to Dr. Noah, "is Dr. Hippocrates Noah. He is intent on flooding the planet and thus creating a small society of elites up here in the high mountains."
Hill continued to listen for several minutes as the woman explained Noah's background and the mission she was on to thwart his scheme.
"And may I ask who you are?" said Hill.
"My name is Anastasia Komananov," she said. "I'm a colonel with the KGB."
"I see," said Hill. He was slightly confused. He had been told that only Russian males had last names that ended in the letters "ov" and that female last names ended in the letters "ova." He decided to ignore that for now.
"See those two men Dr. Noah is speaking with right now?" asked Anastasia.
"Yes. One of them looks a little… unique," said Hill.
"The one you are referring to is Monsieur Duchamps. He is French. He is Dr. Noah's second in command. The other man is Falcon. He is Dr. Noah's operations chief."
Anastasia Komananov and Dixon Hill further brainstormed a plan to bring down Dr. Noah's operation. Anastasia brought Professor Honey Bare into the conversation. Professor Bare was one of the world's foremost experts with laser systems. Although recruited by Dr. Noah, she was Anastasia's inside person spying on Noah's operations. She was also able to bring in Anastasia under the guise that she was one of Bare's highly skilled research assistants.
The President of Earth sat down in his office at the South Pole. It was ridiculously cold. He hated the fact that his offices were isolated down here with perhaps a few American and European scientific research stations on the continent but several hundred miles away.
When the world Earth government was first established, many of the nations insisted that the President should not be based in any of existing nations. The only two places the various nations of Earth could agree on was either the North Pole, or the South Pole. The South was chosen because many of the nations thought the north would be too influenced by the historically powerhouse nation-states of Russia and the United States.
"Thank you for getting me released," said the President.
"No sweat," said Princeton. "You should thank Warden Jameson. He's the one who authorized your parole. On condition of good behavior, that is," said Princeton with a smirk.
An older gentleman walked into the president's office. It was Director Thomas Devereaux, head of central intelligence.
"Mr. President, I believe we have information on what Doctor Chaotica has been up to."
"Please proceed."
The intelligence director explained that he had just been contacted by someone who snuck into the Chaotica compound, and invited him into the president's office.
"Kincaid!" said a surprised Princeton.
Buster Kincaid was a former junior lieutenant in Earth's Space Navy. He and Princeton had been close friends. Kincaid's official responsibilities were typically back in the lab. He was never sent into the field, although he yearned for a field assignment. Princeton had told his friend that he would try to get him assigned into the field, maybe even alongside him. In the meantime, Kincaid also spent his spare time devising quirky weapons or other equipment for use on Proton's missions. Kincaid, along with the Space Navy's special operations team 22 to which he was attached, was decommissioned a few months ago by order of the President. The Space Navy's special ops division was cut down 15 teams. After being laid off from the Space Navy, Kincaid became an investigative reporter and decided to go undercover into a criminal organization. As luck would have it, that criminal organization was the one that helped tag the President with a tracer which Chaotica's aide Dorzak used to teleport the President into the maximum security prison. This got Kincaid close enough to Chaotica to discover his plans.
"Time is of the essence, gentlemen," said Director Devereaux. He allowed Kincaid to explain what happened with the time travel machine, and how Dr. Noah planned to flood the planet.
The President gasped in horror. Though, it was more of a selfish reflex. Here he was happy to have gotten out of prison and back to his office, and now Dr. Noah, some guy from the 1960s, was going to hurl a couple of asteroids right on top of him.
"We have three hours until this happens," stated Kincaid.
That threw the President into a quasi-panic.
"There are three ships involved. One was is already in station in the waters near the North Pole. That one is called the Starbuck Maru, and it should be taken care of. The captain of the vessel is only playing along with the plan, and once his men can overpower Noah's men onboard, he can safely deactivate the laser weapons platforms near the North Pole."
"Do you think the crew can pull it off?" asked Princeton.
"I think so. The vessel captain also found out that there are two security agents mixed in undercover in Noah's laser-manning team. An agent from the FBI and one from the KGB. They should be of significant help."
"So we take out the tractor beam ship, and we're good," said an excited Princeton, ready to get back into action.
"There are two ships heading our way. Earth's Ocean Navy is going to take out the first ship. But they are currently stretched too thin, due to recent budget cuts," said Kincaid, as he gave a cold stare to the President. The President returned with a look of "it's not my fault!"
"There aren't any Navy ships that can reach the second ship in time. We'll have to take it out," continued Kincaid. "It's called the Ahab Maru. We should be able to hover-copter onto the ship within the hour if we leave now. It's a good thing the President's office is so close to Noah's intended target."
Good for Princeton and Kincaid, but the President still disliked it.
"Great, now go and do your jobs!" said the President.
Princeton and Kincaid seemed a little annoyed.
"Oh… right," said the President. Princeton and Kincaid had lost their jobs. At least, their Space Navy ones. "I'm re-instating you both right this instant!"
"I'll need backup," said the re-instated Captain Proton.
"I just gave you Kincaid!" said the president. "I'm promoting him to full lieutenant and field agent."
Buster Kincaid smiled.
"I used to have a support team of a dozen!" said Proton.
"I don't have the budget!" said the President.
"I'll do it for free," said Durango. She was a part of a sheriff's posse in the past, which she simply joined for the excitement, not for pay.
"I will assist as well," said Carlos.
"Great!" said Proton. "Let's roll." Proton had wanted more, but he knew he was not going to get the President to budge.
Durango was impressed by the future. A hover-copter! Who would've imagined. Carlos was impressed too. He had been told that in the future, everyone would be driving flying cars. Entire meals would come in pill form. He was glad the planet did not fall into chaos and wind up being ruled by apes.
Captain Proton flew the aircraft to the Ahab Maru and was able to sneak alongside by skimming the waters. It was nighttime, and the crew on deck did not see the copter approaching.
Proton wanted to hand over the controls to Kincaid and sneak aboard the ship himself. But Kincaid insisted on going as well. He was a field agent, after all. And he thought Proton could use the help. Proton wound up handing the controls over to Carlos, who was a quick learner and flew the copter well. All he had to do was keep the copter alongside the Ahab Maru. Proton also took Durango onboard. It turns out she was a sharpshooter.
"It's over!" said Dixon Hill. The captain of the Starbuck Maru and his crew had overwhelmed Monsieur Duchamps and his men. They were led to the ship's cargo hold and guarded.
Hill and Komananov had boarded the laser platform and sabotaged it to explode just minutes before the timer was scheduled to have its three super-lasers start melting the polar ice cap. At first, they tried to simply shut down the lasers, but that was no use. They had to rig it to explode.
Captain Proton first snuck into the Ahab Maru's engineering section and disabled her engines. Perhaps preventing the ship from maneuvering into position might buy him some time. His next stop was the ship's tractor beam. The room was heavily guarded.
"You and Durango cover me and I'll get to the controls," whispered Proton.
Durango had never fired a laser rifle before. There was an interesting feel to it. She adjusted quickly. The firefight only lasted for about 20 seconds, but felt like an eternity. In the end, Kincaid and Durango were able to stun 10 guards. Impressive. Proton himself disabled another three guards on his run toward the tractor beam controls. He was able to shut down the machine.
Dixon Hill held onto a small iPad with a countdown clock ticking down. He had given the Starbuck Maru 15 minutes to get outside of the blast radius.
A couple of the ship's crew ran onto the ship's bridge, frantic.
"Captain!" said one of the crewmen. "Monsieur Duchamps has escaped!"
Down in the cargo hold, a few minutes ago, Duchamps had asked his captors whether it would be okay for him to smoke a cigar. He pretended that he was against Dr. Noah all along and was glad the plan would fail. After all, he was a proud Frenchman and did not wish to see all of France submerged underwater. He was allowed to smoke his cigar.
Duchamps had brought his cigar to his mouth, and asked one of his captors for a lighter. Neither of them had such a thing, as this was the future and most people no longer smoked. Duchamps pretended that he "found" a lighter in one of his pockets. He offered to show it to the crewmen, most of whom had never seen such a thing. Five of them gathered around, and as Duchamps put his cigar to his mouth, he blew out a knock-out agent in a fine dust cloud right into the faces of the crewmen. In the chaos, Duchamps was able to slip out of the cargo hold and eventually reached an all-weather lifeboat. He hoped he would make it in the freezing cold temperatures. The lifeboat was quite advanced. Duchamps was glad that in the future, these lifeboats were designed very well.
Then, another unpleasant development occurred. The small tablet computer's screen indicated that both the timer and the remote trigger were malfunctioning. They would have to return to the laser platform with another, hopefully functioning, trigger and then speed away.
"There's no time!" said the captain of the Starbuck Maru.
There wouldn't be enough time for the ship to return, set the charges, and then get out of range of the blast. The lasers would start firing into the ice sheet soon.
"I'll take the escape sub and return to manually detonate. You take this ship as far away as possible," said Hill.
The ship's captain agreed.
"I'm coming with you," said Professor Bare.
"No you're not."
"You're not the boss of me!" she said. "And anyway, you might need my expertise on the laser system's operations." She had been one of the lead scientists on the laser project. She felt it was her duty to help stop the weapon which she had been coerced to engineer.
Hill gave in to Bare's persistence. The two of them headed off in the ship's escape sub and went full speed ahead toward the laser platform.
Dr. Noah waited eagerly for a report from his team at the tractor beam room. When no report came, he grabbed his man Falcon and a couple of other guards. When Noah reached the room, he found that his men were lying on the floor unconscious. He called for more backup, but it would take half a minute for them to arrive. Noah knew he should've stationed 20 guards near the tractor beam room. He would've stationed 50 if he could fit them all in the area.
Then, he was ambushed by weapons fire. Noah's two guards were quickly taken out. Noah and Falcon were surrounded from three angles. Noah held up a gun in each hand. Falcon had one.
"Who are you?" asked Noah.
"Proton."
It was Chaotica's arch-nemesis.
The countdown clock on the tractor beam reached zero, then started counting upwards. The asteroids which Noah had planned to pull into the Earth's gravity now passed their closest point and started flying away.
"I guess that means we're done here," said Proton. He and his other two kept their lasers pointed at Noah and Falcon as they backed away from the tractor beam room. Noah's men would arrive any second now, and they wanted to make a quick escape.
When the three left the room, Noah angrily punched one of the walls of his ship.
"Thank you all for your heroism," said the President.
In a medal ceremony at United Earth Forces HQ, the President of Earth presented a dozen silver star medals to people instrumental in preventing Dr. Noah's plan from completion. He also posthumously awarded both purple hearts and silver stars to Agent Dixon Hill and Professor Honey Bare. Both individuals from the past were instrumental in destroying Dr. Noah's laser platform in the North Pole. Although the Ocean Navy would have eventually reached the platform after a few hours, enough damage would have been done to raise the sea levels several meters, engulfing many cities along various coastlines. The two had sacrificed their lives to ensure that the laser platform self-destructed before it could activate the super-lasers.
One of the President's aides wondered whether the professor's last name was pronounced "bah-ray." Apparently, no.
In a later ceremony, the president would award a few Navy commendation medals to special operations team 2, which succeeded in re-capturing Doctor Chaotica and his men. Tom Princeton himself had three such medals, including ones for previously capturing Chaotica and Arachnia.
To the President's dismay, Dr. Noah and his men were still at large.
At the medal awards dinner, Princeton was approached by Ocean Navy Lieutenant Commander Oliver Bishop III. He was one of the other silver star recipients. His team disabled Noah's third ship, Jonah Maru.
"Princeton," said Bishop.
"Bishop, yet another medal, eh?"
The two of them were close friends. They had flight training together. Space Navy ranks were slightly different from the Ocean Navy. For Space, the two ranks of Commander and Lieutenant Commander were taken out. It was thought they were too confusing. So Princeton's captain rank was the equivalent of Bishop's lieutenant commander rank.
"I can say the same for you," said Bishop. "Though, I'm always fascinated you've never received the Distinguished Flying Cross. You fly around a hell of a lot more than I do."
"Guess I'm just not as distinguished at that task as you are, good sir," said Princeton.
The two of them talked about their personal lives for a few minutes. It then turned to business.
"I heard about the budget cuts to the Space Navy," said Bishop. "Are you looking for a position somewhere?"
"I thought the Ocean Navy was budget crunched as well," said Princeton, with a bit of an inquiring tone.
"We are, but the Security Ministry just got funding for an expanded anti-piracy task force. I can put your name up for it if you'd like."
"Thanks for the offer," said Princeton. "I've always loved the oceans, but I love space more. Sorry, bro."
"Hey, no prob. We all have our preferences. You couldn't get me out into space if you dragged me," said Bishop, laughing.
The two of them parted and started mingling with the other guests at the awards dinner.
A minute later, the President flagged down Princeton.
"Mr. President, how are you this evening?" said a polite Princeton.
"Very well, yourself?"
"Not bad at all."
"I saw Bishop speaking with you, did he offer you a position with his team?"
"Not quite. A position with another task force: Anti-piracy."
"Oh, I know the admiral in charge of anti-piracy. She would never approve you. A very by the books kind of person."
"Great. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I turned it down, by the way."
The President smiled, for a reason unknown to Princeton. He then introduced him a red-haired woman. Another silver star recipient from the ceremony.
"Captain Thomas Princeton, I'd like you to meet Colonel Anastasia Komananov."
"Pleased to meet you," she said with a very heavy Russian accent.
"Ms. Komananov is from the year 1964. She was a colonel in the Russian KGB intelligence service."
"I see," said a fascinated Princeton.
"Unfortunately, when special ops team 2 apprehended Doctor Chaotica, he had already destroyed his time travel device. Our scientists are working are recreating it from scratch, but it will take some time, if they ever figure it out at all."
"So I find that I am stuck here," said Komananov.
"I think you'll find it nice in the future," said Princeton. He knew she would probably miss her family and friends, but he tried to put a positive spin on it.
"Colonel, will you please excuse us," asked the President.
"Sure," she said. She walked away to let the two men speak in private.
"Captain Princeton, I am sorry I could not re-instate funding to the special operations teams which were cut in last round of layoffs. I tried to convince the council, but they said there was simply no need."
"I understand," said Princeton. "I guess in the end, it's a good thing that there aren't as many criminals out there that need to be apprehended these days. Well, with the exception of these random prison escapes."
"I think I have something else you'd be interested in," said the President.
"Go on," said Princeton, intrigued.
"When Team 2 secured Chaotica's Fortress of Doom on the moon Phobos, they found a rocketship in the end stages of completion. This ship was designed with faster than light engines and could theoretically take it outside of the solar system."
This was a drastic advance in technology. Thus far, human spaceflight had been confined to the solar system. In fact, humans hadn't even tried to reach Pluto yet. With the new advanced engines, human could attempt to explore other star systems.
"I want you to pilot the ship, Captain Proton," said a smiling President.
Tom Princeton was quite excited. "I'll do it!"
"Great," said the President. "I've also arranged for Lt. Kincaid to serve as your aide on your exploration mission."
"Sounds good," said Princeton.
Space Navy construction battalions were already studying Chaotica's scientists' engine schematics and hoping to duplicate the engines. Princeton was free to take the ship whenever he was ready.
"Also, another addition to your crew is Colonel Komananov, whom you just met. I've transferred her to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Even though she technically outranks you, you will command the rocketship."
"I thought the rocketship was only designed for a pilot and co-pilot," said Princeton. Thinking about it, he wasn't sure how he got that impression.
"Chaotica designed it for a crew of 9."
"I see."
"It can fly with just 2 though. The other 7 were mission specialists."
"Can I pick another 6?" asked Princeton.
"Sure," said the President. "But… I can't pay them a salary. Sorry. And, you'll decrease your supply strength. Food onboard would run out at three times the speed."
Princeton didn't like that, but he thought more crew would be helpful. He decided to attempt to recruit Carlos and Durango.
Over the next few days, Princeton discovered many of his friends had been re-instated into other various agencies. He was happy for them, of course. But he no longer had a pool to pick other crewmembers. He decided to fly with just 5.
One month later.
"Good luck, Captain Proton," said the President. "I envy your fantastic voyage into the final frontier."
"Thank you, Mr. President," said the young captain.
The President approved of Princeton's assigning Carlos and Durango to the mission. Neither of those two could return to their time either. Although he couldn't pay the two, they were both happy enough with the free room and board. The President also made them honorary members of Earth's forces. Carlos was given the rank Tech Sergeant and Durango was accepted as a Space Marine lance sergeant. She would serve as the captain's personal bodyguard.
Princeton decided to name the ship the Discovery.
At 1500 hours on a bright sunny day, the Discovery launched from Mars into the great unknown.
The names of the main characters are taken from Starfleet officer holodeck aliases. They are:
Tom Paris as Captain Proton
Harry Kim as Buster Kincaid
The Doctor as The President of Earth
Benjamin Sisko as Dr. Hippocrates Noah
Supporting characters include:
Jean-Luc Picard as Dixon Hill
Data as Carlos
Deanna Troi as Durango
Kira Nerys as Anastasia Komananov
Worf as Monsieur Duchamps
Jadzia Dax as Professor Honey Bare
Megan Delaney as Demonica
Cameos: (non-speaking)
Jenny Delaney as Malicia
Kathryn Janeway as Arachnia
Miles O'Brien as Falcon