Fresh Frontier

“BRACE FOR IMPACT!!” hollered Lieutenant Blaze.

The ship shook violently as several consoles inexplicably exploded; their unfortunate operators sent tumbling across the deck dramatically. The air smelt of burning chemicals and the blaring of alarms made it hard to hear what was being said unless it was shouted.

“WHAT ARE YOUR ORDERS COMMANDER?! SHIELDS ARE AT JUST 40%. WE CAN’T HOLD OUT MUCH LONGER.”

Commander Nova Apollo-Jones, Supreme Admiral of the 7^th Solar Fleet, hero of the United Alliance of Civilized Planets, saviour of the proud people of Glorpo-Three, honorary member of the council of universal intellects , recipient of an unprecedented four ultimate-platinum-medals awarded for ludicrous bravery in the face of comical odds, rumoured chosen one who it’s said will bring peace the galaxy and rid it of tyranny once and for all, sighed dejectedly and rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know, Blaze. Is there an asteroid field we can flee into?”

 “NO SIR!”

“Is there a planet we can do some sort of slingshot maneuver around?”

“NO PLANETS NEARBY, SIR!”

“Well meet me halfway, why am I the one who always has to come up with these ideas?”

“SIR??”

“Oh, never mind. What if we fired all our torpedo things at once? Would that do anything?”

“YOU MEAN SYCHRONISE THEIR IMPACTS IN JUST SUCH A WAY THIS IT KNOCKS OUT THEIR SHIELDS FOR A FEW VITAL MOMENTS, ALLOWING US TO STRIKE??”

“Yeah sure, do that.”

“THAT’S BRILLIANT SIR! AND IT JUST MIGHT WORK, IT’LL TAKE SOME TIME BUT I THINK THIS OLD SHIP’S GOT SOME LIFE IN HER YET. EH SIR?”

“Yeah, yeah, sounds good. I’ll be in my quarters, sounds like you’ve got it from here.”

The door made a satisfying wooshing noise as it closed behind him. Commander Nova slumped onto his couch. He could hear the alarms still blaring but thankfully they were dulled in here. He’d had to get the engineers to remove all the flashing red lights from his room. They’d been perplexed at why someone wouldn’t want strobing lights to go with their noise and explosions.

Nova was bored and was increasingly unable to even feign interest in the ‘adventures’ that seemed to crop up on a near weekly basis. They were always being attacked by some mysterious foe that would seem to be winning right up until the crew figured out some techy solution, then all that would be left to do was to pause, stare meaningfully at the enemy ship and say “fire” with some real gravitas. Nova was swimming in gravitas.

When he’d first started out, a lowly cadet, some twenty years ago it had all felt new and exciting. Exotic locations, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, cracking wise with his sardonic but respectful number two. Somewhere along the way though it had all become routine, he couldn’t quite remember what it was all supposed to be about. Sure, galactic piece sounded nice but that didn’t seem to be on the horizon anytime soon, and besides, then what? The only thing more mundane that the current starship dogfight they were in was when they were investigating strange natural phenomenon. Invariably they’d get trapped and weird stuff would start happening until he rescued them all (again!) through some stunning act of character-building insight. It’s all in our heads, we have to fly into the force pulling us towards it, we’re moving backwards in time, that kind of thing.

Enough already, he thought to himself. He looked around the walls of his quarters, everywhere there were tokens and trophies of his many successes. All of them worthless trinkets in his eyes, except one.

It didn’t look like much, a small solid cylinder that fit comfortably into the hand. It was heavier than it looked, and while it appeared to be one continuous piece, when you held it you could feel a small button protruding from one end. You could press it with your thumb easily……..Nova was holding the cylinder now and his thumb hovered over the button.

The device had been gifted to him by the grateful people of Malamarnock, he couldn’t even remember any more what he’d saved them from but it must have been something pretty bad. It was called a DNA-Instructed-Consciousness-Portal. Nova hadn’t even tried to grasp the science of it but the gist was that somewhere across all the universes and realities beyond our perception there was someone with the exact same DNA as you, down to the very last nucleotide. The odds of nature just fluking into creating an exact copy of any one person were insanely small, but there was an insane number of universes filled with an insane amount of individuals, so in the end it was all quite sane.

While the science of the device was impenetrable the effect was very easy to perceive. If he pressed down on the button his consciousness would instantly leave this universe and he would find himself in the body of his parallel universe identical twin. The whole process was completely painless and the only shred of existence that came with you was the portal device which was still in your hand. Nova knew this because he had pressed the button before, dozens of times.

He knew all about his alternative universe self and the world he inhabited. His name was Greg, and he lived in a shared abode called a ‘flat’ with two other adult males named Mark, and Paul. To procure resources in this world Greg has to regularly leave his residence and journey to one of many green and yellow structures where he performs the role of “Sandwich Artist” for hours at a time. The tasks he is faced with in this artistic role are extremely challenging and Nova regularly fails them. In the words of Faz, the supervising artist, Greg/ Nova is a “twat” of legendary proportions and “incapable of making a decent sandwich if his life depended on it.”

The trials and tribulations of Greg’s extraordinary life invigorate Nova and make him feel alive again. Just when he thought there were no more worlds to conquer, along comes a foot long Chicken Teriyaki, no tomato’s, extra green pepper.

There are other challenges Greg faces as well, sometimes Mark and Paul inform him that its time to “go down the pub” because the “footy” is on. When this happens they escort him to a vendor of diluted poisons and proceed to gradually collectively incapacitate themselves while shouting at a shared entertainment device. Nova knows it sounds ridiculous, but he must admit he enjoys the general revelry even if he still doesn’t quite understand the cause for celebration. Nobody salutes him and nobody seems to expect Greg to save the day. The morning after these evenings is not so pleasant though, that’s when he usually decides to press the button again and return home.

Time seems to keep moving while he’s “away” and when he returns nothing seems to be amiss or have suffered due to his absence. As far as he can tell the version of himself he leaves behind carries on in his stead dealing with the banality of intergalactic conflicts and discoveries. So why shouldn’t he press the button and have another break from the usual? He might finally solve the mystery of why the fridge has that weird smell but only every other day. Mark had previously suggested that the next time Paul drinks himself unconscious they shave his eyebrows off as a humorous jape. Nova chuckled to himself, he would very much like to see that, Mark’s ingenious comedic stylings never failed to amuse.

Besides, everything was under control here. The below deck nerds would whip up some last-minute solution, just like always. Then he’d have to tell everyone what a great job they did and create some Commander’s log account about what happened, like anyone is even interested in space battles. He’d just nip off for a little jaunt, a couple of nights, a week at the most, and then he’d come back reinvigorated and ready for the sapping boredom of making first contact with newly discovered life.

**CLICK**

“Oh my god, it’s happening again!” Greg exclaimed. He found himself, not for the first time, in what he recognised as Commander Nova’s quarters on the Class M2 Starship Emphatic.

This was happening more and more often and for longer stretches of time. The first time he entertained the idea that he had died, then later maybe that he was having a full psychotic break. He spent at least a month worrying that he could have some sort of horrible brain tumor, especially as he was losing whole chunks of time outside of these vivid hallucinations that he couldn’t account for.

He didn’t worry about that kind of thing anymore though, he just enjoyed the thrill. If his brain wanted to send him on longer and longer fantastical trips that was fine with him. It beat making sandwiches that’s for sure.

He assumed what he felt was an appropriate commander’s posture and disposition, then strode purposefully to the deck.

“Lieutenant Blaze, status update.”

“WE’RE READY CAPTAINS, THE TOPREDOS ARE PRIMED BUT WE’LL ONLY GET ONE SHOT AT THIS SIR!”

“When have we ever needed more my old friend?” he asked with a wink. He paused for a dramatic three seconds, and gazed out at the enemy ship amongst the stars. “Fire.”