Page 35 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
Our power source was solar. We just needed to go outside for a few hours a day. I didn’t know how his power reserves were doing or if I’d have to drag him outside. Ghol hissed when he saw me, but he couldn’t move his body yet to attack.
“Oh, relax. I could have left you powered down. I’m not your enemy, either. We aren’t the one who activated the kill switch. Why did he do it?”
“I don’t have to answer you.”
“Heabusedyou. There was no reason to power you off.”
“I failed,” Ghol moaned. “I couldn’t get us out of the era we ended up in.”
“How were you supposed to? You don’t have the same technology you did back home and you can’t access our data from this galaxy. Valtens stole Kuka’s earlier research that hadn’t been perfected.”
“You couldn’t have gotten this machine out of this era because it was only capable of one trip,” Kuka said from the consoles. “That was one of the problems I worked out duringmy thesis and kept working on after I graduated. I wasn’tcompletelysure, but now that I’m running the diagnostics, I know.
“I’m the one who designed this machine and I couldn’t have gotten you out of the era you were in, either. Valtens stole my thesis because anyone can read it, but he didn’t steal my notes, or you would have known about this diagnostic. I warned my brother when I found out he was piggybacking off me through my thesis that he might get stuck somewhere. Heshouldhave passed that along to you and given you a choice about going.”
“I’m a cyborg. We do what we are told and don’t get a choice.”
“That’s stupid. You’re just a sentient as anyone else,” Baxter said. “You’re allowed to not like something and say no. You shouldn’t have to do something if it makes you uncomfortable. And you should be allowed to do that without getting your mind wiped or powered off.”
“Who the fuck is this?” Ghol growled.
“Hi, I’m Big Mommy, the Devouring Mother, or Baxter Holmes if you’re nasty,” she said, holding out her hand.
Ghol’s eyes bugged out of his head. I knew the feeling. She wasn’t really a god to anyone except us. The rest of my planet modeled our society after her words, but she was responsible for the creation of the Enix.
“Anyway, if I don’t get murdered, I’m going to be going back to your planet and hopefully be speaking up for people like you, so if your owner is the one who murders me, you’d be shooting yourself in the dick not helping us.”
Ghol was starting to get control back in his limbs. His shoulders slumped.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me his plans. We aren’t friends. He only tells me what he needs me to do. I knew we were here because of the Devouring Mother, but not what we were going to do once we found her. I managed to access the data that shewas going to be murdered on a certain date and tried to bring us there because I thought we were going to be saving her, but I had to find that information and program it into the machine in seconds or we’d be lost in the black hole, so I must have made a mistake.
“We landed, and I accessed the data. We were in the right place, but fifteen years before we intended to get there. This ship isn’t like virtually every other craft on our planet. There weren’t manuals or articles written with tips and tricks from people who mastered it. I suggested time traveling within our own galaxy until I was more comfortable, but he refused.”
“I’m sorry,” Kuka said. “You aren’t very nice to Enix, so I thought you were in on his plans. He wants to stop the holy texts from ever getting to our planet. I’m learning alotof new things about time travel, and I wrote my thesis on it. It’s very possible you locked in on Baxter’s murder and brought Valtens here to kill her.”
“That’s impossible. We didn’t even know about it until we entered this galaxy.”
“Want to hear fucked-up? You were mean to my Enix, and he’s technically your daddy,” Baxter giggled.
“I don’t get it,” Ghol said.
Kuka stepped away from the consoles and took a deep breath. Helivedfor speeches like this.
“Mytime machine is sentient. We don’t always end up where wewantto be but we end up where we need to be. Big Daddy took us to Baxter’s pool when she was just a child. Baxter knew about all the races on our planet because she metuswhen she was a kid. She wasn’t treated well by humans, and she wrote our holy texts as a hidden code to try to find other humans who had met us. They ended up on our planet seven thousand years ago because they were brought there by someone with a time machine—us.”
“So, why not bring the last book and fix all the issues back home?”
“Writer’s block and shitty motivation because no one buys them,” Baxter said. “And apparently, I get murdered before I finish the series.”
“We’re trying to save her and bring her home, but we still have to know to come back and save her.”
“I don’t know where Valtens is. He powered me down when I couldn’t get us out of here, but not before I was able to figure out Nova Credits are worth a lot of money here. I set up an identity for him and a bank account to move everything over, but I’m scanning that account now. He’s been moving the money around and changing his name over the past fifteen years.”
“If he hasn’t spent it all. Valtens is terrible with money,” Kuka said. “He can’t get more from our parents this time.”
“No, he’s up to something,” Ghol said. “If he really is intending to kill the Devouring Mother, then he’s not going to want anyone to find him before he can. I wouldn’t put it past him to steal your machine and leave you behind. I guess I can say this. He’s terrible. I have nothing against you, Enix. Valtens doesn’t like the pleasure models because women like your cocks better, so I only said that shit to impress him.”
“Oh, shit. I wrote in my books they vibrated. Please tell me they kept that part,” Baxter said.
