1

            Cardy piloted the Nova-2 as Robot-2 sat in the passenger seat, through open space and was becoming noticeably disgruntled.  “I hate these damn scouting missions,” he said as he clicked a couple of switches and made a hard left.

            “I do apologize Corporal Cardy,” said Robot.

            “Why are you apologizing?  It’s not your fault that Hanson is a douchebag and chose me because he’s losing his girlfriend to Rizzo,” explained Cardy.

            “Ex-girlfriend.  He should not be dating a crew member anyway,” Robot said.

            “I know but you have to admit that it is fun watching him lose his mind over this,” Cardy giggled.  “What are we looking for again?”

            “A dimension quasar.  It’s like a shiny black hole that can transport you to anywhere, anytime and any dimension.  Scanners reported one in this area and we need confirmation before the Napoleon Giant can pass through.”

            “A dimension quasar,” Cardy said mockingly.  Robot got up and headed for the back of the Nova.  “What does one look like again?” asked Cardy, shouting from the cockpit.

            “Like a shiny black hole,” Robot answered.

            “So…like this?”

            Robot peered into the cockpit and saw a silver swirly thing approaching the ship.  “Yes, like that,” Robot replied as the Nova-2 was sucked into the dimension quasar and disappeared.

*          *          *

            Rizzo lit the two candles and quickly blew the match out.  “Do you really think you should be lighting a match in compressed, recycled air?” asked Haylie, watching her brother getting the dinner he cooked ready.

            “It’s perfectly safe.  We’re not going to explode,” Rizzo said.

            “So are you and Sanchez going to get your groove on?” asked Haylie, hopping up on a small counter to sit down.

            “Probably not, Haylie.  Look, as much as I would love to discuss my coital actions with my younger sister, I have to get dressed and finish the dessert,” Rizzo pushed Haylie off the counter and ushered her out of the room.  “I will see you tomorrow, sis.”  And Rizzo slammed the door.

            He stood in front of the door and looked around at everything.  He began muttering and whispering to himself as he dashed through the room, straightening things up.  Rizzo undressed and put on a nice blue suit with a tie.  He did one final go-around then there was a knock on the door.

            Rizzo opened the door to Maria Sanchez who was standing in a glittering blue dress with her hair up instead of in the usual ponytail.  “Am I late?” she asked.

            “Of course not.  You’re right on time,” Rizzo smiled and invited Sanchez inside.  She looked in amazement at the cleaned-up quarters, dimmed lights and the two lit candles.  Rizzo carefully ushered Sanchez over to the table and pulled out her chair.  “Now, I will be right back with salad and something to drink.  Is champagne all right?”

            Sanchez briefly nodded.

            Rizzo went to the bank and grabbed a bottle of champagne.  He went back to the table, poured a couple glasses then sat the bottle in an ice bucket.  Rizzo returned to the back, grabbed the two plates of salad from the fridge and came back to the table.  “Por vous,” said Rizzo as he sat the plate down in front of Sanchez.

            “This is so nice.  You didn’t have to go through all this trouble Leroy,” Sanchez said.

            “I wanted to.  You’re worth it,” Rizzo smiled.

            Sanchez blushed then began eating her salad.

*          *          *

            Haylie entered her room and saw her message light flashing.  “Play message,” she said.

            Major Eric Hanson’s face appeared on-screen and began to speak.  “Hello, this is Major Hanson and you have been selected, along with Captain Fielding and myself to go through the storage deck and classify everything.  I expect to see you at 0700 hours.  Good night,” and the image clicked off.

Chapter Two

            The storage deck was the second largest deck on the Napoleon Giant next to the console deck.  Haylie, Fielding and Hanson all met at the entrance of the storage deck.  “All right,” Hanson began, “everything in here is given a ‘G-Number’.  A number with a ‘G’ at the beginning to help organize it.  What we are here to do is make sure all ‘G-numbers’ are correct and see how many of each thing we have.  I have split the lists out evenly and doing this shouldn’t take more than a week.”

            “A week?” Haylie shrieked.

            Hanson began handing out stacks of paper to Fielding and Haylie.  The list was separated into three stacks of 150.  Hanson entered the entrance code and the three of them entered the storage deck.  Fielding headed to the G1s, Haylie to G3 and Hanson to G2.  Hanson quickly turned around and yelled, “Meet back here at 01200 and we’ll break for lunch.”

            Haylie looked at the list which started at G300101.  She began going through the G300101s and counting them all.  As she neared the end of her counting the G300101s, she heard Hanson cuss then holler for her and Fielding.

            “What is it, Hanson?” asked Fielding.

            “Someone put three cases of G200105s in the stasis hold.  I’m going to override the damn thing and you can help me unload them.”  Hanson pushed some numbers on the keypad and the door slid open and the blue stasis field dissolved.  Hanson and Fielding went in first, followed by Haylie who gripped the door molding, accidentally hitting a button.  Haylie stepped fully into the room, three beeps were heard, then the door shut.  “What the hell…?” screamed Hanson as the blue stasis field went back up.

            The bodies of Hanson, Fielding and Haylie were frozen where they stood.  But the stasis hold works in strange ways.  The stasis hold protects the body from the ravages of time and scans the body for brain activity.  When brain activity is found, the stasis field places the brain in a state of limbo meaning that anyone in stasis can talk to another person in the same stasis.

            “What happened?” asked Haylie.

            “You turned on the stasis field, Rizzo!” Hanson shouted.

            “I didn’t mean to.  How long are we in here for?”

            “From as little as an hour to 1,000 years.  We don’t know from in here,” Hanson sighed.  “Well, there’s always someone coming in here so hopefully they’ll see us and override the field.”

            “In the meantime, we just float here while our bodies just stand there,” said Fielding.

            “A dimension quasar?” asked Rizzo, quickly looking at Sanchez then back to Colonel Bonaparte and Major Clark Etheridge.

            “Yes,” began Captain Xin Huang.  “A dimension quasar is kind of like a black hole.  The main difference is that a black hole cannot reproduce the material it takes in.  It essentially destroys.  A dimension quasar transports to another space and time.”

            “So Cardy and Robot could be anywhere in any dimension?” Rizzo simplified.

            “Yes,” answered Etheridge.

            “And since you two are friends of Cardy, we’re going to send you two and Gonzalez since he can actually trace Robot when you pass into the quasar,” Bonaparte said.

            “You’ll be taking the Nova-3,” Etheridge motioned for all to follow him.  “You’ll pass into the quasar and land approximately where they landed, then Gonzalez will be able to track Robot-2 to his location where you’ll hopefully also find Cardy.”

            Everyone wound up in the docking bay for the Novas.  Since the Nova-1 was lost on the ice planet Scotia, only Novas 2-5 were still intact.  “Suit up and everybody get on board,” Huang said.  Gonzalez started up the stairs into the Nova-3 as Rizzo and Sanchez pulled on the light blue Napoleon Giant jackets.

            “Etheridge will keep in constant contact with you and if you run into any troubles, do not hesitate to call,” Bonaparte said.  “And Godspeed, people.”

            Everyone boarded the Nova-3 and it lifted off and left out of the bay doors and into space.  Bonaparte and Huang turned around and saw Captain Lou Schayer running toward them.  “Colonel!  Colonel!  We just got something on the monitors that you really need to see,” Schayer panted.  “It’s a problem, Colonel.  A huge problem.”

            Bonaparte, Huang and Schayer arrived back at the monitoring station.  “What’s wrong?” Bonaparte asked.

            “For as long as I’ve been in space exploration, I have never seen one but heard about them and what they do.  I have also tracked every possible way around it but it’s too wide and we’re too big,” Schayer said.

            “What are you blathering about, Captain?” Bonaparte demanded.

            “In five hours, all life aboard the Napoleon Giant will be destroyed by a wormhole.”

Chapter Three

            Cardy sat at a table in a greasy-spoon type diner and watched in disgust as a woman sitting two tables down attempted to eat her food.  She picked up a nearly finished long john doughnut and held it up to her mouth and promptly regurgitated, unchewed and returned the “eaten” portions back onto the long john.  She did this two more times then began “undrinking” her coffee.  She sat her cup down and smiled at Cardy.  “Ereh stunhguod doog evah yeht,” she stated.

            Cardy faked a smile, nodded and waved.  “Flob-a-dob blib blob bleeb,” he responded.  Robot-2 came around the corner wearing a trench coat and a fedora.  “About time you got back.  What’s with the clothes?”

            “I’m a six foot tall robot.  I want to be inconspicuous.  Here’s your newspaper, sir.”  Robot-2 handed Cardy the paper which had a huge headline of:  Tolp Noitanissassa Gnirud Efil Ot Thguorb Tnediserp.

            “What the hell is wrong with this place?” Cardy asked.

            “It’s backwards, sir.  Everything’s backwards.  Take that headline for example:  ‘President Brought To Life During Assassination Plot’,” Robot continued reading.  “’Ethan McDurskey was able to jump over security tape and suck three bullets out of President McAllister while boarding Air Force One at Logan International Airport tomorrow.  McDurskey said that bringing the President to life was why God put him on this Earth.  McDurskey, 19, died in prison for the crime 75 year ago.’  What are we going to do?  This place is crazy!”

            “There’s nothing we can do until someone finds us so we need to just blend in,” Cardy said.  “Maybe we can get a job or something.”

            “Here are some classifieds:  ‘CFO for high stock company.  The right person can go straight to the bottom.’”

            “Something low key,” Cardy replied.

            “’Diner owner requires dish dirtier,’” Robot continued scanning the page.  “The only other one we’d be qualified for is this car salesman one.”

            “Car salesman.  That doesn’t seem so bad…”

            Cardy happily gave a college student $75 to remove what was apparently his new old car from a salvage lot.  “Hcum yrev uoy knaht,” the kid said.

            “Mirsky-irsky,” said Cardy.

            “Emoclew er’ouy,” Robot answered.

            “Something about this doesn’t seem right,” Cardy sighed.

            Rizzo came out of the lake and walked up onto the shore.  “Well, the ship’s there but they’re not,” Rizzo stood in front of Sanchez and Gonzalez.

            “You’re dry,” Gonzalez pointed out.  Indeed, Rizzo was dry and everybody looked confused at Rizzo’s dryness.

            “Freaky,” Rizzo said.

            Rizzo, Sanchez and Gonzalez followed a path from a lake to a main road and began following it north.  Gonzalez pulled out Robot’s tracker and turned it on.  “This says that Robot is about sixty miles north of here.  We’re gonna need some transportation,” Gonzalez said.

            “There’s a guy with a van up ahead,” Rizzo pointed out.  They jogged down the road until arriving at the plain white van.  Rizzo walked up right behind the guy and spoke, “Excuse me, can you give us a ride?”

            “Nodrap?” replied the guy,

            “What?” Rizzo asked.  He quickly looked at Gonzalez and Sanchez then back at the guy.  “I’m sorry but we don’t speak Russian, do you speak English?”

            “Naissur uoy era, hsilgne keaps I,” the guy said.

            Gonzalez pushed in front of Rizzo.  “Let me try.  Ride-ski to city?” Gonzalez raised his voice and made a driving motion with his hands and pointed to the van.

            “Ni poh, erus.  Edir a deen uoy, ho,” and the guy lifted a thumb toward the back of the van.

            “Hey-hey-hey, we’re learning,” Rizzo and everybody went to the back of the van and Rizzo stopped dead in his tracks and pointed to the license plate.  “Hang on, look at this.  Odaroloc—it’s Colorado backwards.”

            “Yeah, looking around I don’t think this is Russia,” Sanchez said.  The three piled into the back of the van and the man began driving.  The van was noticeably traveling backwards.  “We’re moving backwards  The license plate, the van, Rizzo’s dryness.  We’re not in Russia, we’re in some different backwards reality!”

            They all took a moment for this to register.  “I can only imagine what Cardy and Robot are going through…” Rizzo sighed.

            The door opened to a gigantic condominium in the heart of Revned, Odaroloc.  Plush white furniture gathered in the front room and followed a wall into the living room.  Valuable pieces of art lined the walls as did thousands of dollars of electrical appliances.  Cardy tossed his keys onto a nearby coffee table, went to a closet and proceeded to take off his jacket and tie.  Moments after Cardy shut the closet door, Robot entered.  “Manford, I just came from Mocaiv and you won’t believe this!”

            “What?” Cardy smiled.

            “They want to cancel our series!  In fact, they have started production seven years in the future and will end next month,” Robot said as ecstatically as a robot could.

            “I knew being a comedy act would work out great!  Man, if only the Napoleon Giant crew could see us now.”

Chapter Four

            Bonaparte thought it best not to tell the crew.  He left a detailed log of what happened for Rizzo, Sanchez, Cardy, Gonzalez and Robot-2.  Nothing else was touched by the wormhole and the death was quick and painless.  No bodies, bones or blood was even left behind.  The wormhole conveniently turned all organic matter to ash.  Small, crystallized piles of ash.

            Meanwhile, in the storage deck, inside the stasis field, the unmoving bodies of Hanson, Haylie and Fielding stood untouched by time, space and the wormhole…

Chapter Five

            Rizzo looked up and down the hallway of Cardy and Robot’s condominium building.  “Are you sure they’re here?  This is way too nice, even by Robot’s standards,” Rizzo said.

            “The tracker for Robot’s homing beacon says that they are right inside this condo,” Gonzalez insisted and Sanchez knocked on the door.

            Cardy answered and it seemed to take him a while to realize who was standing outside his condo.  “You guys got here quick,” he exclaimed.

            “What the hell?  Do you live here?” Rizzo questioned as he pushed his way inside without being invited.  “This place is a palace!”

            “We got the simplest one in the home catalog,” Cardy said as Robot came out of the kitchen.

            “And what’s that smell?” Rizzo hoisted his nose into the air and sniffed.

            “Lobster,” Sanchez answered.

            “What do you guys do for a living?” Gonzalez asked.

            “We’re actor-comedians,” Robot said, pointing to a small photo gallery of his and Cardy’s life.  Rizzo, Sanchez and Gonzalez gathered around the pictures and looked at them.  One was of Cardy and Robot performing at a nightclub, another of them on The Tonight Show, a Hollywood Walk of Fame gathering and on the set of a movie.

            “Wait, you two have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and you made a movie?” Gonzalez asked.

            “Sure, you haven’t?” began Cardy.  “Wanna see my Oscar?” Cardy held up the famous statue given to the best performances in a movie.

            “So I guess you guys don’t want to leave and go back to the Giant?” asked Sanchez.

            “Why would we want to come back?  We’re stars, we’re famous.  We have a TV show, a hit movie and an ‘in’ with nearly every star in Hollywood,” Cardy revealed.

            “But everything’s backwards.  I’m 29 now, in 15 years I’ll be 14.  I’ll have to go through puberty again—backwards!  And I, for one, don’t necessarily want my testicles to ascend back into my body,” Rizzo said.

            “This place makes no sense, Robot,” said Gonzalez.

            “It’s our reality that makes no sense.  Here, there’s no death, disease, famine or war.  We’re dead, come to life and then go back inside our mother, who goes back inside her mother and so on until we’re all one glorious whole,” Cardy explained, smiling.

            “Cardy, if you stay here, you are the one glorious hole,” said Rizzo.

            “Okay, look at World War II for example:  Hitler will unkill himself, tear down the concentration camps—millions of Jews will come to life, he’ll liberate France and Poland and then prance off back to Austria,” Robot imagined.

            “Well, we can’t force you to come back with us but if you don’t you will be AWOL and subject to disciplinary actions,” Sanchez explained in a militaristic manner.  “You could also be severely ruining your lives in a way neither one of you could imagine.  Come on guys, let’s get back to the Giant,” Sanchez stood up and the others followed suit.

            “Could you give us a ride to where we landed the Nova-3?” asked Rizzo.

            Everyone gathered around underneath the Nova-3.  Rizzo or Sanchez didn’t want to leave without Cardy.  “Come on, guys, what would it take for you two to come with us?” asked Rizzo.

            “Captain Fielding,” Cardy replied.

            “Cardy, it was you that told me that everything happens for a reason.  It’s only four more months until our mission ends.  If you’re here, then you won’t be up there with her when we land back on Earth and you two are able to embrace once more.  Can you honestly say you want to miss that?” Rizzo asked.

Epilogue

            Rizzo, Sanchez, Cardy, Gonzalez and Robot walked through all the corridors of the Napoleon Giant and found nothing but the ashy remains of the crew.  “Something’s not right here,” Rizzo said.

            “Robot, plug into the ship’s computer and see if what happened is logged,” ordered Gonzalez.

            Robot plugged into the console and activated the video left behind.  Bonaparte came on the screen and began talking.  “Welcome back.  You four are the last surviving crew members of the Napoleon Giant.  What happened was that shortly after you left, the ship passed through a wormhole killing all organic matter.  It’s your job to guide the Giant back safely to and notify next of kin.  The Napoleon Giant had always had an admirable crew and this was no different.  Godspeed and good-bye,” and the video faded out.

            “They’re all dead…” Sanchez said.

            “Ana…” Cardy croaked.

            “Wait, there’s still life being detected in the stasis hold,” Robot exclaimed.

            All rushed down to the storage deck and Robot overrode the stasis field and Hanson, Haylie and Fielding all wobbly walked out.  “What happened?” asked Fielding.

            “The entire crew was wiped out but we were in another dimension and you were in stasis,” Rizzo explained.  “We’re the only survivors.”

            “I’m glad you’re safe, bro,” said Haylie.

            “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you,” replied Rizzo and the two embraced.

            “So what do we do now?” asked Hanson.

            “Continue floating until we reach Earth, I guess.  Robot can navigate for us,” Gonzalez said.

            The Rizzo siblings and Rizzo and Sanchez, Cardy and Fielding and Cardy and Sanchez all hugged as the Napoleon Giant drifted slowly and silently through space.