Mortal Protection Services Chapter 46: XI.SI: Sudden, but Inevitable

XI.SI: Sudden, but Inevitable Dilt Bifferent Aboard the CSS SAMWISE, inside the hyperspace shunt "Faster faster faster! Can't we open it up any faster?" In retrospect, I was not handling the kids being out there fighting the scourge well. Amanda had come to the bridge, Molly too. The ship's counselor called them both to help manage me, since I was beyond the help of the mild telepathic powers of a Zorbellian, or words of reason from non-spouses. "Honey, it is opening as fast as it can." Molly chittered, their translator box making the human sounds for the benefit of the rest of the bridge. "It opened WAY faster when the kids went through." I replied, petulantly. "And there was Mafdet hair rubbed all over all the whole station that time. We've got no Mafdet fur, we open slower." Amanda put her hand in mine, "Besides, she showed us the most important places to make upgrades, and we're already several minutes faster than before." "Ohhh Jims and Jameses..." Taking my grandfather's and his father's name in vain was was gaian AND terran custom... but I'm not really sure they knew about J.A.M.E.Ses, just that James was Jim. "But did you see the size of that scourge mass!? One Vaggigablast isn't going to be enough to kill it all." I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up all at once, like marines at attention. "It'll be fine." I recognized that voice... "The PMS students are sending a fleet to help." I spun around and there was a shimmering yellow square sizzling in the air. It held a window into what looked like an awfully familiar office. "Dad!?" "Abstainer is fine. Dad works, I suppose, but then that means I should call Jim 'Dad'..." He visibly shuddered with that notion, "and I dunno if I really want to do that." Next to him was a sort of mild tentacle horror of a woman, "Hey Great Aunt Jia... How're martians?" "Fractious and stupid, like every other sapient culture that's come from Sol. Same as the saurians on your evolution planet before you simians evolved there." She sighed, and looked at dad, "Are you sure we shouldn't throw our support behind the Squizgidgit, or the Tarn?" "The TARN?" Dad scoffed. "Might as well just do it all ourselves and let the MPS Jameses come down on us hard afterward. Fuck the Tarn. And double fuck the Squizgidgit, nine-eyed bastards. The current Solians are the way. They're already all riled up and pissed off and fighting it. They're even sorta winning here and there too. We're backing them." "Lovely. Glad the family's just as dysfunctional at all levels," I said. "You wanna go back to that part about a fleet?" "Right! I'll get there." Dad said, "There's a lot to discuss. First of all, your great aunt Jia is here to help, and all of hyperspace is kinda falling apart." She waved a tentacle arm at me from behind dad, "Hello Dilt, nice to actually meet you. I've watched your entire mortal life up to this morning in replay, twice." That was mildly unsettling. "Anyhoo, the new fleet, allow me to explain. I was handed the whole primitive machine studies campus when Jim... Did his vanishing act; bopping down into realspace only to go and make himself a hyperspace shunt. So I had the campus attached to my office, and Luke went out there when he was here visiting. Made some friends with the local hyperspace minds. The kid was driving me up the fuckin' walls, Dilt, I had to let him run around." "Well Dad, he is my son... you know, I think that apple didn't fall far from the tree, nor me from you, so blame yourself for that." "Yeah uhh, about that. Plenty to be blamed for already." He sighed, and I saw myself reflected in the man in the hyperspace window, explaining some fuck-up I did to Molly and Amanda... "So he maybe sorta kinda learned about dinosaurs, instantly fell in love with them, and asked the PMS students to make him a fleet of dino ships behind my back..." I opened my mouth to speak, but the words weren't quite ready, so Dad quickly tacked on, "Which they did make, and are currently deliverin