Captain Calvert - "Step in time" part 1

Who: Captain Jed Calvert
Where: Blue Dwarf, McDonalds
When: As Rosette and Andy are on the Pink Dwarf
Captain Jed Calvert sat alone in the MacDonalds restaurant on the
Promenade. With almost the entire crew gone, he'd had to forage for
his own food. He chomped into a warmed-up beefburger he had found
under the counter.
As he chewed the grisly meat, he peered through the window and
remarked how empty the ship was now. Occasionally he would catch
glimpses of people darting about scavenging for food as he was doing.
These were probably homeless people or stowaways that you wouldn't
normally see mixed in amongst the normal crew.
Jed had become used to always ordering someone to perform a menial
task on his behalf. For the simple task of using the microwave to
heat his burger, he had hunted around half the ship to find Efof to
force him to do it for him, until he realised it would actually now
be easier to do it himself. He'd mashed the buttons on the microwave
and hoped for the best.
There was a flash of light and an advanced being was suddenly sat
across the table from him.
"Have you calmed down?" She asked him.
Jed continued chewing and just stared into the glowing blonde woman's
eyes, hoping to intimidate her. His hands were still burned from
their last encounter. It felt like a week had passed by the time Jed
had finished chewing. He swallowed the tough meat.
"Alright, I hope you learned your lesson. Don't touch me okay." Said
the glowing woman. Her voice was as melodic as always, but it
currently wasn't impressing the Captain. "I don't want to sound
boastful or anything but I'm actually an advanced life-form."
Jed laughed suddenly, then stopped, his face dropping again into a
deathly glare. "Ah'm sorry missy. But you don't look so special to
me. You're a real hottie, no mistakin'. But there ain't nothing about
yer that's so out of this world."
"Oh yeah?" She said.
"Yer." Said Jed.
The woman looked around the room as if thinking of something to say
next. "Okay. I can see the past, present and future. Something really
important is about the happen and you'll make a bunch of decisions
that will split the universe down two separate paths." she paused to
see if Jed was paying attention. He just continued to glare.
"I can see them all."
"All whut?"
"All the possibilities. Everything we ever do will change this
universe." She picked up a ketchup sachet and threw it behind
her. "In this universe I threw that ketchup. There's another universe
where I didn't."
Jed sighed and folded his arms. "This sounds like science sheet.
Hurry up an' give me the bottom line so ah can go down some more
whiskey."
"You've got some of your crew on the Pink Dwarf right now committing
acts of sabotage..."
"Damn straight."
"...against a fellow JMC ship."
"They started it."
"Yes... but... what you're doing is turning on the entire JMC, the
Space Corps and Earth. Your crew won't be able to go home or they'll
be arrested."
Jed shrugged. "They'll have a choice."
"Of course they do. But you'll persuade them that the JMC is a
corrupt organisation and they'll want to stay with you. You give a
speech to your crew and you actually manage to get most of them to
stay with you. They become criminals."
"Ah'm that influential?" Jed asked, surprised.
"Yes. Just like Hitler, Bin Ladin and Saddam."
Jed grinned.
The blonde woman saw his amusement and put her face in her
hands. "You're not getting it! This is not a good thing!" She held
out her hand. "Here." she said. "I'll show you."
Jed backed away, but the seat was bolted to the ground so he just
leaned. "No way am I touching you missy."
"I'll not hurt you. Just trust me." she said.
"Why? All you've told me could be a pack o' lies. The only thing ah
know fer sure is that if ah touch you, it hurts and mah stomach's too
shaken to drink for at least thirty minutes."
"Trust me." she repeated.
Jed shook his head. "Goddam it!" he shouted and gripped her hand
firmly.
Everything changed. The universe spun around them and Jed felt more
nauseous than that time he sobered up once. He clasped his eyes shut.
A piercing noise rang his eardrums, and when it subsided, it was
replaced by the bustle of people around him.
He opened his eyes and he was still in McDonalds. But it was
different. It was full of people. Jed looked closer and realised it
wasn't actually McDonalds at all, but some cheap kebab shop. "Woah
woah woah, what happened?" he asked.
"You're on the Blue Dwarf, one year in the future." The woman told
him. "You turned the ship renegade. It's now a pirate ship on the run
from the Space Corps, you keep the ship going by robbing transport
ships and exploiting alien races. The McDonalds chain didn't want to
be associated with such rebels."
Jed grinned.
"Stop grinning! This is bad. Look." She pointed towards the
Promenade, where there seemed to be hundreds of homeless people in
dirty sleeping bags huddled together. "That's the crew." she said.
"But they have gorram quarters." said the Captain. "Why don't they go
there?"
"All the battles with the Space Corps have damaged a lot of the rooms
near the exterior of the ship, meaning that a lot of people have
nowhere to live."
Jed shrugged his shoulders with no sympathy. "Ah'm sure it's
temporary. I'd find people somewhere to stay, even if it's bunkin'
with the hookers."
"Oh there's plenty of those around." Said the woman.
Jed's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"
"With no JMC regulations, you decide to employ several hundred women
of loose morales and turn the Blue Dwarf into the galaxy's largest
floating brothel."
Jed nodded in satisfaction with himself. "Good way to make money." he
said.
The woman glared at him. "And spread sexually transmitted diseases
across half the galaxy!"
Jed shrugged again. "Only if they pay extra."
The woman had been leading him down the Promenade but now she stopped
and turned to face him. "Has nothing I've showed you here put you
off?"
"I think I'm doing pretty well for myself." Said Jed. He walked a few
steps and pointed down to 'Parrotts bar and Casino'. It had large
florescent lettering outside.
"I bet I'm sat somewhere in there with a big fat cigar in my mouth
counting my huge piles of dollarpounds." he said.
The woman looked at the tacky casino. "Yes. You are." She admitted.
"With a beautiful girl?"
She hung her head. "Two."
"Yahoo!" said the cowboy Captain. He ran off to the bar to meet
himself.
<To be continued>