Universe Protection Unit was a very grand title, with grand implications. The listener might picture an elite team of heroes, moving from planet to planet and taking on such threats as dimensional portals, alien megalomaniacs, spacetime vortexes, or cosmic strings. It sounded like the stuff of legends. The reality, of course, was not nearly so exciting.
"Mission Log, Star Date 5853," Buzz Lightyear said into his wrist recorder. "The team and I are heading back to HQ, after our third false alarm in a row..."
"Does anybody actually listen to those?" asked Darby from somewhere in the back of the ship.
"I do," Izzy offered. "After Grandma Alicia died, Dad and I listened to her mission logs for hours, just to hear her voice."
Darby snorted. "Okay, so does anybody listen to them while you're alive?"
"The idea is to record things as they happen in case you need to refresh your memory later," Buzz informed the elderly soldier. He cleared his throat. "What the people of Harris A-113 believed to be a rogue black hole..."
"I don't like recording logs on computer memory," Mo remarked. "What if something happens like you get hit by lightning, and your suit computer gets wiped?"
"You weren't hit by lightning," said Darby. "You tripped on a broken pipe and fell against the flux coil. If Sox hadn't been able to reboot your suit, we'd have had to leave you there."
"It had the same result," Mo replied, and clicked his pen out of its holder on his suit's vambrace. "I much prefer to write things down on paper."
"I like audio," Izzy decided. "It means nobody has to worry about whether they can read your handwriting."
"Was that directed at me?" asked Darby, whose penmanship was so bad the rest of the team still weren't sure whether that was her first or last name.
"No. It was a general observation."
"I feel like it was directed at me," Darby muttered.
"As I was saying," Buzz said loudly. "What the colonists believed to be a rogue black hole was, in fact, nothing more than..."
The console began to beep.
Buzz groaned. "Now what?" He reached out and pressed the button. "Lightyear, UPU."
Commander Lightyear, came the distant, crackly voice of Burnside. We've had another distress call, this one from 82 Eridani.
"And what is it this time?" Buzz asked.
They say they're under attack by an unknown enemy of alien origin, Burnside said. Requesting help immediately.
Sox entered the data, and the console brought up a holographic map of nearby space, with the relevant system highlighted. "82 Eridani is less than an hour away if we time the jump right, Commander," the cat said.
Those people might need help... but something deep down in Buzz' gut told him this was just another round of nonsense. When he looked around at the others, he could see that none of them wanted to answer another call, either. Izzy was in the middle of a sigh, and Mo was leaning back in his seat staring at the ceiling. Darby had folded her arms across her chest with a scowl on her face. On the other hand, they couldn't just ignore it, not when there was even the faintest possibility of a real threat.
Buzz made a decision. "Right," he said. "I'll go check it out." He rose from the pilot's seat and stretched, raising his arms above his head and hearing his shoulders crack. "Captain Hawthorne, take the controls. I'll meet you guys back at HQ."
Izzy turned in her seat to watch him pass. "You're going by yourself?"
"This is a very safe part of space, Hawthorne," said Buzz. "We're not even ten parsecs from Earth. Odds are it's another false alarm." Even if it wasn't, people seemed to love calling Space Rangers for anything and everything that could have been handled by another institution.
"What if it's not?" Izzy insisted.
"Then I'll call for backup. For now, something tells me that Sox and I will be more than enough."
"If you say so." She held out a finger doubtfully. "To infinity?"
"No, just 82 Eridani," Buzz replied.
He climbed into the minishuttle and did up his restraining harness, then got Sox settled in his port on the console. The autopilot beeped and flickered to life.
Greetings Commander Lightyear.
"Hi, IVAN. Set a course for the colony at 82 Eridani, would you?" Buzz checked that the canopy locks were engaged, then separated from the main vessel. As the minishuttle drifted away, he caught sight of Izzy watching him through the ship's front windscreen. Buzz gave her a thumbs-up, and got one in return, then rotated the minishuttle away to face the velvet blackness of deep space.
One by one, stars lined up in the display, their designations popping into place next to them. Preparing jump, said IVAN.
"Sox, what can you tell me about the planet?" Buzz asked, going methodically through the final system checks.
"82 Eridani has a stellar classificiation fo G6V, and hosts a system of six planets and a dust disk," said Sox. "The region is considered metal-poor, unsuitable for mining or other industry, so the economy of the colonized worlds is largely agrarian. The major settlement is called For Andrews, after the commander of the original colony mission."
"Fort Andrews." The word 'fort' struck Buzz as an odd choice, but maybe he'd find out when he got there. "Is that where the distress call came from?" The engines whined as they powered up.
"Uncertain. The call was sent from the derelict colony ship, but that original location has been abandoned for some time. I recommend starting at Fort Andrews anyway, as that is where you are most likely to find information," Sox added.
"Copy that," said Buzz. "And... here we go!"
The whine of the engines rose in tone to a high-pitched ringing, and the stars turned to streaks around them as he made the hyperspace jump. When this was done properly the pilot would only lose days or weeks relative to the outside universe rather than months or years. Having a properly purified and manufactured crystal, rather than one improvised from impure bases using equipment from a damaged ship, helped a lot. When the minishuttle popped back into normal space above the planet a few moments later, the first thing Buzz did was call back to HQ.
"Hawthorne," he said. "Lightyear. Safe and sound."
"Buzz! Good to hear!" Izzy replied. "We got in yesterday morning and we've been waiting to hear from you." Her voice became muffled as she turned away from the radio. "That's one day, four hours, and... Mo! You were off by eighteen minutes!"
"Ha! My closest yet!" Mo's Kiwi accent came back.
"I'm going to land and question the locals," Buzz said. "I'll let you know what I find. Lightyear out."
Many colonized worlds, including Buzz' new home at T'Kani Prime, had one side permanently turned towards their star so that 'noon' and 'midnight' were not times of day but locations on the surface. 82 Eridani was a relative rarity, in that it was far enough from its sun to have a proper diurnal cycle like Earth's. According to the information Sox had brought up, this was bout twenty-five point six hours, which humans could easily adjust to. Buzz adjusted the minishuttle's attitude to bring the planet into view out the canopy window, and saw a serene-looking blue globe sporting a single giant continent and multiple archipelagos, all decked out in mountains, deserts, and forests. There was no sign of an alien invasion happening. In fact, there was very little sign that the world was inhabited at all.
"The climate in the interior of the continent is extremely arid," Sox noted, "and very little lives there. The people live in the mountains and grasslands closer to the coasts. Fort Andrews is here," a holographic display laid itself over the view, and a flashing dot appeared to mark the spot. "And the colony ship, known as Landing, is here."
There was a fair distance between the two locations. "Why did the colonists have to travel so far from their landing site?" Buzz wanted to know.
Sox' head rotated briefly as he searched the records. "A sudden seismic event caused the local water table to shift," he said. "The original site was no longer hospitable."
"All right, we're landing," Buzz said.
He plotted a course that would take them around the planet once before coming smoothly in to Fort Andrews from the east, catching up with the planet's rotation for a gentle stop. The cooling system began to rumble as they entered the atmosphere, and the air outside turned dull red as friction heated it to glowing. The ocean rolled by below at an ever-increasing pace, shock waves passing over its surface from the shuttle's sonic boom.
They passed through a bank of clouds and came out again, just eight kilometres above the coastline. The beach passed by, then a range of mountains that faded into foothills, and finally rolling prairie. Here they were finally near enough to see evidence of habitation: neat square fields represented farms, cut through with the silvery slash of a maglev line. A red and silver train was speeding along this, but they soon left that behind, and in a valley with a broad, slow river winding through it, they approached the settlement of Fort Andrews.
To Buzz' surprise, the town showed no sign of a landing strip or indeed of anything resembling a spacefield at all. Sox had described it as 'agrarian', but it was shocking just how primitive the place looked. Rather than showing the familiar shine of plasmetal alloys, buildings had been put together out of locally obtained plant material. The roads weren't even paved, but that didn't seem to matter because the people had evidently eschewed motor vehicles. A few small hoverdevices were being used to pull cards and unload cargo from another maglev train, this one steaming in a station – but there were also pack animals, actual animals that did things like void their wastes in the middle of the road. Buzz, who hadn't seen a living domestic animal in years, was astonished.
"What a way to live," he observed as they circled.
"The locals believe it is good for you," said Sox.
"Aren't they worried about diseases? I mean, that horse just..."
"The population's vaccines are up to date. They say that 'eating the occasional peck of dirt' keeps the immune system strong."
For all that, though, there was at least one thing in the town that was not primitive at all. There was a wall around Fort Andrews that at first glance was nothing more than propped-up logs, but a scan of it showed a sophisticated electrified grid, and seismic sensors embedded in the earth outside. The walls were reinforced with titanium infusion, and the gates had huge magnetic locks. Topping off the defences was a force dome roof. Fort Andrews was indeed very much a fortress – nobody was going to enter without permission, and it was impossible to sneak up.
A voice crackled over Buzz' radio. Unidentified small craft, state your name and business.
"This is Buzz Lightyear of Star Command," said Buzz. "Responding to your distress call."
Star Command? You don't waste time! The voice was relieved. Let me just lower the grid so you can land.
The air wavered below Buzz as if from heat, and blue lights blinked off along the walls. Buzz lowered the minishuttle to a tidy landing in the town square. He couldn't see a control tower or any other obvious place for the voice on the radio to be coming from, so he just held up a thumb to let whoever it was know he was finished. It must have worked, because he saw the air wobble again as the force field snapped back into place.
"All right, Sox. Let's meet the locals." He opened the hatch and climbed out.
People had kept their distance while the minishuttle landed, but now they were coming closer for a better look. Their clothes were mostly loose fabric, designed to breathe in hot water, and it was terribly hot. It was a bit hard to believe they were a full hundred and forty million kilometres from the star, it shone with such ferocity. Everyone had hats on, and a significant number of people were carrying firearms. Were they afraid Buzz was a threat? He decided to keep his helmet closed for the moment.
"Greetings, Citizens," he said. "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. This is my robot assistant and technician, Sox. Can you direct us to the person or persons who made the distress call?"
A small, thin man with sandy-brown hair and a handlebar moustache made his way to the front of the crowd, straightening his bolo tie. "I'm Mayor Andrews. I sent the sheriff to Landing to transmit the call – they'll be back any day now. May I humbly welcome you to Fort Andrews, named for my distinguished grandfather?"
"Pleasure to meet you, Mayor." Buzz hopped down from the shuttle and shook the man's hand. "What's the trouble around here?" He still didn't see any alien invaders, but the security measures around the town suggested that something was going on.
"Come on in out of the sun, I'll tell you all about it," the Mayor said. "We can talk in Barbie's." He offered a hand to Sox, who sniffed it and then rubbed his head on it as a greeting.
'Barbie's' was a saloon. Buzz had been in taverns and pubs and other variously-named drinking establishments before, but this place was putting some effort into being very definitely a saloon. It had the batwing doors, the pool and card tables, and even the skull of some horned beast mounted on the wall above the bar. People stared at Buzz as the Mayor escorted him inside, and felt again a definite unease. He was out of place here, and he knew it. Going forward in time was not new to him, but this felt like going back to an ancient and barbaric age. He glanced at the guns in the holsters, and wondered what they fired.
"What can I get you, Mayor?" the woman behind the bar asked as Andrews settled down on a stool. She was quite tall and blonde, and where many other people wore greys and browns, her fringed blouse was brilliant bubble-gum pink.
"The usual, Barbie," the Mayor replied.
She nodded. "And for you, Mr..." she glanced at Buzz' chest. "Lightyear?"
"Soda," said Buzz. "Kiwi, if you have it."
Barbie looked him over with her eyebrows raised and her lips – her lipstick was also bright pink – twisted in contemplation. "I'll get you a tonic water," she decided.
Buzz looked over his shoulder. A game of billiards had been going on when he'd entered, but that had stopped now and the women playing – both of them muscular and sporting multiple tattoos – were watching him. A group who'd been playing cards had likewise laid them down to stare at this strange newcomer, and all up and down the bar more people were watching.
"You don't see a lot of strangers here," Buzz observed.
"Not really," the Mayor agreed. "Since we abandoned Landing after the earthquake, it's a lot of trouble to get on or off world."
That made sense. "You take the whole 'frontier world' thing pretty seriously, don't you?"
The Mayor chuckled. "Well, colonies are encouraged to develop their own cultures," he said, "and Grandpa had a thing about the Old West on Earth. Obsessed with it as a kid. I've still got some of the old cowboy toys he brought with him. It was something he started for fun, and after a couple of generations it's just gotten to be the way we do things. We don't think much about what it looks like to outsiders."
Barbie put the drinks down in front of them. The Mayor's was a dark amber liquid. Buzz' was fizzy and transparent. He opened his helmet and picked up the glass to try it, and discovered that it was definitely not kiwi-flavoured. What it was he had no idea, but it was shockingly bitter and he barely managed to swallow without choking. Barbie covered her mouth with one hand to hide a snicker.
"Sox," Buzz whispered, showing the glass to the cat who was perched on the next stool. "What's in this?"
Sox scanned it. "Carbonated water and quinine. Don't drink it too fast. Side effects can include headache, tinnitus, sweating, and heart palpitations. Metabolic half-life is eight to fourteen hours." His head rotated towards the Mayor. "Mayor Andrews, are you aware that your glass contains ethyl alcohol? It's a nervous system depressant and a known carcinogen."
"I certainly hope it does," said the Mayor calmly, downing half the glass.
Buzz set his tonic water down. This was a distraction – it was time to talk business. "Your sheriff's distress call said you were being invaded," he said.
"That's what we assume," the Mayor nodded. He struck a match and set fire to a narrow cylinder, which burned with no flame but produced a line of foul-smelling smoke. It was difficult for Buzz to contain his surprise when the man then put the non-lit end of this in his mouth and sucked on it. Was that kind of herbal medicine, maybe? "This planet has no indigenous sentient life, but the monsters we're seeing are clearly under somebody's control. And they don't look like anything that evolves all by itself, not on any planet."
"How so?" asked Buzz.
The sound of a commotion outside made everybody turn their heads, and a moment later, the unauthorized access alarm went off on Buzz' suit. He stood up.
"Somebody's messing with my ship," he said. "If you'll excuse me..."
The saloon doors flew open and a man burst in. "Mayor!" he called out. "It's Mad Dr. Porkchop!"
The Mayor went pale. People all over the room got to their feet and pulled out weapons. Buzz didn't know who 'Mad Dr. Porkchop' was, but it didn't take a genius to figure it it was some local villain, or to connect that with the alarm from the ship. He left his glass behind and ran out the door.
The minishuttle was still sitting where he'd left it, but the canopy had been forced open and somebody was inside pulling the dashboard apart, trying to hotwire the engine. Buzz climbed up on the wing and grabbed the intruder by the collar, only to let out a holler of surprise at what he saw.
The creature he had by the scruff was roughly man-shaped, but had a hunched back and a great deal of bristly brown fur. Its face sported a piglike snout and a pair of white tusks sticking out of the mouth, and its thick fingers ended in structures that looked more like hooves than nails. In spite of which, it was dressed in a stained white shirt, black vest, and bowler hat, and had another little smouldering cylinder hanging out of the corner of its mouth.
This bizarre entity was not nearly so startled to see Buzz as he was to see it, and in the split second it took him to gather his wits and process what he was looking at, it wound up and punched him in the face. He rolled off the wing of the shuttle and landed in the dirt at the Mayor's feet.
"Porkchop!" Andrews exclaimed. "How did you get in?"
The pig-man sneered and got back to work on the minishuttle. "I could remind you that I'm an evil genius who's been watching you for weeks, and now knows every tiny weakness in your pathetic defences," it said, "but you let the grid down ten minutes ago so this tin can could land, and I just climbed the wall!"
Sox trotted between the Mayor's leg to give Buzz a quick medical scan. "You have minor contusions," he announced, "and your nose is bleeding."
Buzz wiped it on the back of his glove, leaving a smear of red on the white fabric. "Stay there, Sox," he ordered. With a determined scowl, he closed his helmet and climbed up on the shuttle again.
He might have been too late, though. Porkchop was a strange-looking creature, but he clearly knew his way around a spacecraft. The canopy was closing, and Buzz tried to get his fingers into the gap before it could close and seal but he was not successful. Hammering on the polyplex wasn't going to do any good – that stuff was engineered to take a small meteor without breaking. He was going to have to find some other way to stop the thief, and quickly. The engines were already starting to hum.
The first thing he thought of was the fuel cell. If he could get that out, the ship wouldn't be going anywhere. He just had to get it before they flew too high, so that one or both of them wouldn't be killed when the minishuttle hit the ground. Buzz might be able to fly out with the suit thrusters, but he was sure the Mayor would prefer the pig alive to be arrested. He swung himself down to the starboard side and held on by one of the maintenance handles.
The hover engines started to glow blue, and the ship lifted gently off the ground. Buzz' feet were dangling in the air for a moment until he braced them against the hull, now vibrating in time with the engines. It made his teeth chatter as he reached for the containment handle.
The ship began to move forward, but not with the sudden burst of speed Buzz expected. Instead, it glided gently over the rooftops before turning to face back towards the saloon. Of course, Buzz thought: if he just took off, they'd smash into the force field. How was Porkchop planning to...
With a screech of feedback, the ship's PA system came on. "Andrews!" the pig's voice bellowed over it. "Lower the perimeter!"
"Why should I?" Andrews demanded, cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling to be heard. "Then you'll get away!"
"Because it'll stop me from doing this!" said Porkchop.
Buzz heard the weapons start to hum. "Everybody, run!" he shouted down to the townspeople.
The crowd scattered, and Porkchop pulled the trigger, raining laser pulses down on the saloon. Windows shattered and wood burst into flames, and soon the whole building was engulfed by fire.
"Take down the perimeter!" the pig roared, "or it'll be the town hall next!"
Buzz gritted his teeth, rearranged his feet, and flipped open the fuel cell chamber.
That would make an alarm go off in the cockpit, and sure enough, with the PA still on the sound filled the air. The pig cursed and turned to look, but it was not a flexible creature – its head sat on the front of its shoulders without a real neck to connect the two. Porkchop had to stand in his seat and swivel his entire torso to spot Buzz reaching to grab the fuel cell.
The pig swore again, sat back down, and pulled on the throttle.
The minishuttle swung around and began flying in circles. All Buzz could do was cling on as hard as he could, knowing if that if lost his grip there was not nearly enough altitude for his suit wings to glide safely to the ground. It seemed to go on and on, although it was probably no more than thirty seconds, before the pig stopped and got up to check again if Buzz were still hanging on.
That was his chance. He opened his eyes and reached for the handle again.
Porkchop muttered something obscene and sat down again to keep trying. After flying a wide circle around the town, he put the minishuttle into an aileron roll. Once again, Buzz had to put all his effort into hanging on with both hands, concentrating on not throwing up. He'd only been sick in his helmet once, as a cadet still new to microgravity, and it had been such a terrible experience he'd vowed never to let himself do it again.
The aerodynamic forces involved wouldn't let the shuttle keep rolling forever, but it could keep it up longer than Buzz could hold on. He needed time. Maybe if he could make the pig think he'd already fallen... he gritted his teeth and fired of his wrist laser. The first attempt was poorly timed and just pinged off the force field, but the second hit a building, taking out half a wall.
It seemed to work. The pig noticed and stopped rolling, allowing Buzz to take a few deep breaths and get his bearings as the minishuttle manoeuvred closer for a look at the damage. It appeared to be the sheriff's office. Buzz' shot had blasted the second floor open, revealing a debris-strewn bedroom. Good thing Mayor Andrews had said the sheriff was out of town...
Porkchop opened the canopy so he could stand up and survey the wreckage, looking for Buzz' body, then quickly closed it again as objects began to fly through the air towards it – the townsfolk, seeing the minishuttle had stopped, had come running and were now throwing things at the pig. Buzz had to keep ducking to avoid glass bottles, boots, and assorted brassicas as he reached again for the fuel cell handle.
At the last moment, the pig realized he was still there, and pulled the throttle back again. The minishuttle accelerated upwards. Buzz had no idea where Porkchop thought he was going, since the force field was still in place. Wherever it was, he never got there, because Buzz finally had a hold on the cell and was able to yank it out of its housing. The engines sputtered and died, and the craft seemed to hang motionless in the air for a moment before dropping like a stone on top of the already half-destroyed sheriff's office. Splinters went flying, glass shattered, and the whole building collapsed in a shower of plaster and wood.
Buzz was thrown off by the impact, but by some miracle he landed squarely on the remains of the sheriff's bed. It wasn't strong enough to take the blow and the frame immediately disintegrated, but that was enough to soften Buzz' landing. He lay there panting for a moment, then sat up and shook his head to get rid of the ringing in his ears.
The minishuttle had crashed stern-first, destroying the engines and leaving the nose up in the air. For a moment Buzz couldn't tell if the pig were still in there, with the canopy obscured by a layer of dust and debris. Then he saw something moving.
Buzz picked himself up and climbed up to knock on the polyplex. "Porkchop?" he asked, wiping away the dust.
Underneath, he found the pig with a black eye and a bloodied snout, glaring back at him.
"Come on out, Porkchop," said Buzz. "You're under arrest."
"Suck my bacon, Space Ranger!" Porkchop snarled. He spit out a broken tooth, and reached for the eject switch.
"Don't do that! You're not supposed to use it in..."
But it was too late. Buzz could only roll out of the way as Porkchop hit the button, and the eject system that was meant to put a few kilometres between a suited astronaut and an exploding vessel threw the pig a hundred metres into the air. The doppler effect made his terrified squeal drop sharply in pitch as he sailed over the town, ending in a splat when he hit the perimeter force field on the far side. There was no cartoonish squeegee noise as he slid down to land in the dust, but there should have been.
"... an atmosphere," Buzz finished, belatedly.
The minishuttle was a complete wreck. It might be possible to salvage enough of the comm unit to call the others to come get him, but Buzz knew it would never fly again. With a mutter of, "blast," he picked himself up and brushed dust and shards of glass off his suit, then rolled his shoulders and climbed out of the mess. If Porkchop were alive, he still needed arresting. If he wasn't... well, maybe the town could have a barbecue.
The front wall of the first floor was still standing up, with the door intact in the middle of it. Buzz opened it and stepped onto the porch, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
His eyes crossed for a moment, then he straightened them out and followed the weapon up to the person holding it. This was a tall, thin man in his late thirties, wearing a long brown coat, a battered brown hat, a yellow plaid shirt, and a red bandana around his neck. Gleaming on the lapel of the coat was a six-pointed sheriff's star. The man's brown eyes were fixed on Buzz' face.
"Reach for the sky," he ordered.
Buzz considered his options, and then did so.