To Boldly Go
The Century Comet Starfighter belonging to Lady Madeleine Smith-Harrington was a wonder. Light-years beyond anything 21st century Earth had created. It had teleporters, replicators ,a cloaking device, an array of weaponry that could disintegrate a small moon or fry the atmosphere clean off a planet…. and yet, with all that, it lacked something incredibly basic. A bathroom.
“So much for boldly going where no one has gone before,” Madeleine Prime observed. She had started thinking of herself in that way to distinguish herself from her alternate versions.
“I apologize,” Lady Smith-Harrington said, “but the Century Comet was designed for short-range combat, not five year expeditions. Therefore, it was believed that restroom facilities were illogical.”
“Well, that sucks,” Mad Maddie said. ‘Cause I gotta go. Like, bad.”
“Can’t you do it in the teleporter pad and beam the, er, waste off into space?” Madeleine Prime suggested.
“I beg your pardon?” Lady Smith-Harrington looked positively scandalized. “It’s a teleporter, not a toilet!”
Princess Madeleine of the Grey Castle chimed in then, with a questioning tone. The Century Comet had its own translation matrix. Her words came out as “Verily, why are we not arrived at the place that will take me back to my own land? We must return there at once! The Prince Patrick is in great peril!”
“I am attempting to find an appropriate set of hyper-drive coordinates suitable for creating an Einstein-Selvik bridge that will take us into your reality,” Lady Smith-Harrington patiently explained.
Madeleine Prime wondered how that would sound translated into the princess’s Latin. By the confused look on her face, it seemed she understood about as much of that as Madeleine Prime did herself. “Zounds,” the princess said. “I like this not. If I but knew the proper spell, I would have magicked myself back to my own world and left you to your own devices. Alas, the only magic I can conjure are these blasts of flame.”
“It’s not magic, it’s…. oh, never mind.” It occurred to Madeleine Prime that maybe, on the princess’s world, her abilities were magical. Why not?
Mad Maddie was starting to edge onto the teleporter pads. She might have made it too, but at that moment the ship’s computer wirped alarmingly. Lady Smith-Harrington’s eyes went wide. “There is another one of us.”
“You’re kidding,” Madeleine Prime said.
“I kid you not. I instructed the computer to scan the planet for life signs genetically identical to our own. It appears it has located one. The reading is…odd somehow.”
“Well, beam her up here,” Madeleine Prime said resignedly. “Might as well get all of me together.”
Mad Maddie swore under her breath. Apparently she would not be able to use the teleporter as a bathroom after all.
The teleporters had a difficult time locking on to the life sign. Lights flashed and blared, and the ship’s computer squalled in protest. “Perhaps you should increase the power?” Madeleine Prime suggested.
“I am giving her all she has!” Lady Smith-Harrington snapped. “What next, shall I reverse the polarity?”
At that moment, the teleporters finally got hold. There was a flash and a flare of energies, and yet another Gaseous Girl materialized on the ship.
“Oh, super,” she said, looking around in glee at the ship. “This is fantastic.”
“Hi there,” Madeleine Prime said. “I’m Madeleine, so’s she, so’s you, so’s everyone else. What’s your variation?”
The new arrival giggled. “I’m evil.”�� She proved how evil she was by a sudden burst of fire. In a slight failure of engineering, the teleporter pads were located within sight of the Century Comet’s engine room. Evil Madeleine’s blast sliced through the engine room door and shot into the warp core.
Klaxons blared over their heads. “Hey, that was fun!” Evil Madeleine exclaimed in delight. “What’ll we do next?”�� Mad Maddie, settled that question by walloping the woman over the head so that she fell unconscious on the teleporter pad.
Lady Smith-Harrington leaped to the controls. Her face went white with alarm. “The warp core’s breaching. Within seconds it will melt down into a catastrophic explosion.”
“Great,” Madeleine Prime said. “I get to die. Again. I’m getting tired of this.”
The princess drew herself up. “If we are to perish, then I must say; it would be my honor to do so in your company. Across the worlds, we are the same person. It seems appropriate that we end our road together.”
Mad Maddie sniffled. “Ain’t it the truth.”
“Quite,” said Lady Smith-Harrington.
This story was written for Grammar Ghoul Press and the Mutant 750 challenge.�� You might have noticed a bit of a Trek flare to this latest tale of Gaseous Girl. I, like many others, was very sad to hear of the passing of Leonard Nimoy. I don’t know whether he would’ve appreciated a homage in a story of gaseously-powered superheroines, but then, he was the man who sang the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. Maybe he would have. You never know.
