They exited a final group of test chambers and came face-to-face with the enormous double door behind which…the vast portal hissed open, and there she was. SC-80 felt an unexpected flood of emotion: he was again looking at his ship. His ship. And now that she was the agent of their salvation, he could not imagine how he ever thought her ugly. In person, the mishmash of original and replacement components was even more blatant and jarring, but it hardly mattered. At that moment, Deepstar Five looked like the most beautiful ship in the universe. Presumably there was little security risk inside a fortified laboratory…even the vessel's ramp was already down, as if waiting to welcome her returning crewmembers home. The Captain stopped and drew in a deep breath, feeling at least part of the terrible weight lift from his shoulders. We've made it this far. His radio crackled. "Best get moving, Captain. I won't be able to maintain control of internal security much longer. When you see Mr. Wonka, tell him what is happening out here in the world. We need you, all of you."
"We will," SC-80 replied. In fact, we would be telling Mr. Wonka about what happened here. The Captain tried hard not to think about the look on the Fuhrer's face, the idea almost making him laugh. He'll probably have us committed. He turned to 101. "Get on board and start her up, pilot."
"Yes, sir. I…" 101 stopped as he glanced back at the Captain, his voice trailing off, and SC-80 heard the unmistakable metallic click of a pistol behind his back. Feeling an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, he turned…to find Jonesy, gun raised but not quite pointed at any one member of the Deepstar crew.
"Jonesy?" the Doctor's voice was as even as ever but clearly baffled, the expression on his face suggesting that he doubted his own senses.
"What the hell are you doing here?" The Captain's voice was not friendly when it came. Several possibilities flashed through his mind…none of them good.
"I followed you," Jonesy said quietly, the expression on his face an intense but unreadable mix of emotions. "Sneakin' in wasn't so hard after all, as I found out. You wouldn't have needed that big clunky box…doin' it my way."
"Put the gun down, Jonesy," 101 said, returning his own weapon to its holster as both he and the Doctor stepped forward to stand beside the Captain. "Let's just talk now…not get excited or anything. What are you doing?"
"I can't let you do it," Jonesy said, his face anguished. He jerked his gun roughly in the direction of the ship. His voice was gentle but desperate. "I heard you talking, mate…the other day. Wouldn't be the first time, either. I don't know what to think…maybe all of you are crazy, maybe I am…maybe you're aliens, or maybe you really are from some other…" He did not finish the sentence. "But I pegged it, right from the moment I saw you chaps. I said to myself, 'There's somethin' strange about them, Jonesy'…and I was right. I've seen you walkin' around looking at regular, everyday things like you'd never seen them in your life before. So I had to know. I snuck into the base's infirmary, took a look at your medical records. You could tell all the stories you liked about plastic surgery, but I didn' believe a word of it…not really, not deep down. So I stuck my big snooper where it didn' belong, like usual, and I found for once I was right. You're clones, or something, and don't try to deny it!" His voice took on a sudden vehemence, and he shifted the gun wildly from one member of the Deepstar crew to the next. "And then you go talking about resetting the whole space-time continuum or whatever it is, makin' me and everyone else disappear so you can go back to someone you call 'the Fuhrer!' I hate to break it to you, chaps, but Fuhrer is hardly a term of endearment…not here, anyway…only man who ever wore the title was an evil bastard who liked to gas women and kids. So I don't presume to understand who or how or what the hell you are, but I'm not going to stand by and watch my world somehow get undone at the seams so that you can go back to whatever sodding dimension you're from!"
"Jonesy," 101 said gently, "you don't understand. It's not like that…"
"YOU'RE BLOODY WELL RIGHT I DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Jonesy roared, taking a step back from the Deepstar crew. "NOW I DON'T WANT ANY MORE LIES! TELL ME: WHERE DID YOU COME FROM AND WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"
"I think we'd all like to know the answer to that," a voice said mildly, and Jonesy instantly whirled, waving the gun in the direction of the unseen speaker. There was a movement…a flash, a ripple, a reflection from something that was at once there but not there…a glint of light cut the air, and Jonesy's throat magically split open of its own accord, blood pouring down over his chest. Jonesy's hand shot to his neck; he turned back toward the Deepstar crew and made an odd, high-pitched gurgle before collapsing, his face still arranged in a look of frank surprise. The air rippled, bent, and finally peeled back to reveal the forms of two men. Their faces were distinctive, known instantly from memory, as familiar to the Oompa-Loompas as the face of George Washington is to an American schoolchild. These were Vincent and Charles Chadworth, Vincent still wiping the blood from a long, curved knife while Charles held a pistol loosely by his side. The distortion in the air spread from the two brothers like a wave, additional forms materializing behind them one after another, spread in a semicircle around the nearer side of the hangar…soldiers, at least twenty of them, all identical in the gray uniforms and white body armor of Chadworth Industries Security Division. 101's gun snapped out of its holster; the soldiers might well have shot him then and there, had not Charles' free hand shot into the air and signaled them to hold their fire.