When a weight is lifted from one's sore shoulders after a tumultuous situation and an extended period of time, it can be quite liberating. It can feel like finally lowering one's arms after holding up a muddy, collapsing ceiling for a spell. It can feel like seeing clean sunshine after a yearlong storm of raining mud. It can feel like stretching one's legs after driving for four hundred hours...in the mud.

These comparisons make sense to those that have been liberated from a great burden after a long time, because it takes them back to a more relaxing time when that burden didn't exist (and there was considerably less mud). They have a comparison. They had past relief to dream about.

Aye didn't know how to feel. There was never a time when he didn't have the burden, until now. He had nothing to compare it to. His father had been in pursuit of him in one way or another from infancy. He had learned how to hide before he had learned how to use the potty.

He floated about in the doldrums of space by himself. Again.

No extremely-claustrophobic-spacesuit this time. Instead he reclined in a comfy, and slightly less claustrophobic escape pod. He wondered why it had needed a comfy seat if it belonged to a robot with a tank-like tread who couldn't sit down and take advantage of its overly-plush cushioning. The truth is that it had been built when his father was humanoid, but this didn't occur to Aye. His father had always been an ugly hate machine to him.

He didn't feel like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders; he felt hollow. He felt numb. He stared blankly out the window at the beginning of a war.

He turned on the radio. He calmly watched the Shiv, countless Vexian warships, the Lyme Node prison, the Bad News Bearer, fleets of Node Guardships, a nondescript hunk of space garbage, and the flickering Garax ship as it left for greener pastures. They all came and went from view, while he listened to a Vexian signal play 1980's pre-mall Earth Brit-pop hits. Such music had just reached Vex 4. They always had been a little behind on the most recent trends.

It was like watching someone else play the most complicated, insane and hopeless video game. He watched without an ounce of concern for his own well-being or any amount of fear. Just the hollowness. Hollowness with a soundtrack by XTC, Thomas Dolby and The Thompson Twins.

~~~

On the flight deck of the Shiv, Potto sat across from the Aye clone, trying to decide if he could make the relationship work. Moments before, Knutt had reported that the Zophricaties Lab had blown up, and that there was a ninety-eight per cent chance that the original Aye went up with it. In an attempt to cheer up the Quarol, Knutt had recommended that, in his heart, he replace Aye with the clone.

"He has some of the same memories!" she told him.

"He doesn't even look the same. He looks like he's melted," Potto sulked. It felt like he had been given raw parsnips when he had asked for warm cookies.

"Well, he might like some of the same foods, anyway. He can't be any more of a dickhead than before..." she assured.

"I haaaaave the drink now? I haaaave the sex now?" the Aye clone asked.

"I want my Aye," Potto sadly told Knutt, quickly realizing that this may have hurt the clone's feelings. "No offence, I'm sure you are very nice. You look like you'd be good at...um..." Potto started to say to the clone, but trailed off. He honestly couldn't think of anything this impostor looked like he'd be good at.

He was also feeling quite guilty. He had been in such a hurry that he had grabbed the wrong Aye on his way back to the Garax ship.

"I killed him, didn't I?" he quietly asked Knutt.

"Well yeah, I guess you did!" Knutt said in a chipper manner, hoping her tone would express a positive attitude. Maybe he just needed a kick start.

"We haaaave the sex now?" the clone asked Potto, with an unsettling vocal fry.

"No, not right now," Potto answered glumly, not having listened to the question in the first place.

The Garax had left and Teeg was loading eager-to-be-helpful Potto clones into torpedo launchers. They understood directions better than Potto ever had, but had his knack for not complaining in the face of dangerous stupidity. She didn't realize the ship even had torpedo launchers until Knutt suggested it. They hadn't been used in many years and were filled with many easily shooed spiders, but still worked regardless of dusty arachnids.

Upon approaching Vexian warships, she fired the clones. The clones then used their space suit thrusters to get closer to the ships, climb onto their outer hulls, and board them through their emergency airlocks.

It took two clones and the element of surprise to take over each small fighter ship. Some had Vexian authorities, some had Jorge Jorge Jorge clones. None, however, were expecting to be boarded by flying Quarols with laser pistols, wrenches, forks, or any other weapon they could find on the Shiv before departing.

Within the hour they had eight new ally ships to help them, and not a moment too soon.

"Uh-oh..." Knutt sighed. "I sense a Node Guard ship approaching. A big one. The Bad News Bearer. I believe it is General Kendra Eppie's ship."

"Shit!" Teeg shouted out loud.

"Shit!" Gekko shouted telepathically.

"Shit!" Clory shouted in her own mind to no one in particular.

"Uh-oh..." Knutt repeated. "And from the other direction an entire Lyme Node prison is heading our way. Seems we're in the middle of a 'oh-you've-got-to-be-fucking-kidding' sandwich."

"Shit!" Gekko said out loud for the first time in her life.

~~~

It was very important to Eppie that he not know the names of any of the Node Guards. Ever.

One had once told him his name many years back, and he had the guard executed on the spot. It wasn't that he wanted this anonymity to keep him from getting emotionally attached to any of his seemingly disposable army brigade; he just hated the awkward embarrassment of not remembering a name at a later date...and Frunctuous Vambistion Chasfirmly Grottomuffin (and that was just his first name) was a name he knew he would never get right, no matter how hard he tried. Easier just to shoot the problem.

Upon hearing of Frunctuous Vambistion Chasfirmly Grottomuffin Smith's execution, no other Node Guard had ever attempted to introduce themselves to Eppie again. They didn't even introduce themselves to each other, just in case.

Eppie sat at the helm of his tremendous warship feeling safe and secure. Aside from The Node's own ship, The Bad News Bearer was the most powerful ship in the galaxy. It hadn't had any trouble following the Lyme Node prison (and Vrume T'cha T'cha). The only thing that could hurt his beloved ship would have to occur within the ship itself...and no Guard would dare cross General Kendra Eppie. Most of them (if not all of them) would rather cross a hungry, well-armed bear.

Realizing they could never outrun the Node ship; the prison ship had turned to fight. It had gone so very, very fast but still could not shake Eppie. Both ships were so fast that a trip that would've normally taken any other ship a month (like the trip to the Vex System) only took days. And these had been stressful days for Vrume.

The two humongous ships faced each other, ready to have one last winner-take-all showdown, when both, almost simultaneously, noticed the tiny Shiv model ship between them.

"Oh no..." Vrume muttered from the prison ship.

"Oh yeeeeah!" Eppie cheered from the Node warship.

~~~

Teeg stood frozen in front of her console on the deck of the Shiv. She was silent. She felt as if she could not make a sound without having both of the giant ships on either side of them fire at her. No one else made a sound either. Not even the Aye clone who was busy trying to figure out how to open up a yogurt cup.

A crackle came over the radio, followed by a voice filled with worry.

"This is Vrume T'cha T'cha. I am captain of the Lyme Node prison ship...which sounded less bananas in my head. I know you have no reason to trust me, but we are your friends. That Node ship you see out there? That is General Kendra Eppie, and he will stop at nothing to destroy us both."

Teeg was relieved to hear that they had an ally, but anxious upon hearing the rest of it.

"We hear you, Vrume T'cha T'cha. What do you want us to do?" Teeg hated asking for help, but this was an extreme situation.

"I wish I knew," Vrume continued. "There is a fleet of Guard ships behind it as well. Maybe they don't see you. Maybe they are so focused on us that they haven't noticed you..."

"I have an idea..." Teeg told him as a half-baked idea started to emerge from the oven of her mind, still a tad raw and doughy.

She turned to Gekko. "We do the same thing we did to the Vexian ships, but on a grander scale. Get every last Potto clone ready, we're firing them all at Eppie. Hell...even suit up this Aye clone. Fire him at them as well.

"Get a schematic on that warship, Knutt. I want to know every airlock, every port. Every possible entry that a living being can get through. Their shields will only work against the resistance of firepower, not a tiny Quarol copy in a spacesuit."

"Can do," Knutt replied. Within minutes, and luckily before Eppie had the chance to fire upon them, every last clone on the ship was fired at every last airlock, port and entry Knutt's sensors had discovered.

From aboard the Bad News Bearer, Eppie raised an eyebrow. "What are they up to?"

He hadn't already fired at them because he was a narcissistic sociopath with an ego bigger than a planet, and he had been trying to come up with a villainous pre-victory speech. He wanted to have some really choice final words, a last great insult that would be felt for generations and go down in history as the greatest burn of all time. He was drawing a blank, however, and this was giving his adversaries some much needed time.

"They have fired something at us, sir," said an anonymous Guard.

"What? I didn't see anything. What did they fire at us?"

"Uh. Guys."

"Guys??"

"Yeah. Just a buncha guys," the Guard mumbled.

"Ah, to hell with it. I can't think of anything good. Just blow them all up," Eppie sneered. He was really disappointed in himself, but was trying not to show it. Perhaps he would think of something good later and just report back that he had said it (after murdering all his crew so that no one could tell on him).

Before his ship could blow the Shiv out of existence, it was hit by firepower from another ship that appeared from behind Vrume's prison ship. It wasn't sufficient firepower to do any real damage to the Bad News Bearer...but it got their attention and stalled them further.

It was the K'rown.

~~~

Aye was getting hungry. The hollow feeling had reached his stomach. He looked around for a sandwich straw, but only found a box of crackers that was possibly older than he was. He tried to take a bite of one but it instantly disappeared into a puff of stale flour dust and mould spores.

He had been deep in thought and hadn't noticed that he had drifted near the very large Node warship. Like a tyrannosaurus rex standing next to a booklouse, it hadn't noticed him either.

As he absentmindedly turned more "crackers" into mould smoke, he was abruptly startled by a strange figure smacking into the front window of his pod like a raindrop on a windshield. He leaned in so that his face was only a thick sheet of high-temperature quartz glass away from the space-suited man.

It was Potto! Well, it was a Potto,

This Potto waved at him with a huge smile as more Pottos-in-spacesuits zipped by him. The clone on his pod slipped off, fired some thrusters, and joined the rest. They were all headed for the Node warship.

As Howard Jones played on over his pod radio, he sat back to enjoy the show.

~~

Teeg started to laugh.

"What could possibly be funny about this situation?" Gekko asked her brain.

"What's funny? An accumulation of woe is funny. We are about to be blown out of existence by an indestructible ship belonging to the actual ruler of the known universe. We are also being hunted down by ships filled with Vexian police and bizarre Kancorian copies. We just fired over sixty actual people, armed with kitchen utensils, at that indestructible ship after obtaining them from a race of ideas. Our only ally is a flying prison. And just as I was thinking 'how could this get any worse?'...K'ween shows up, betrayed and wanting revenge. I almost dare it to get worse! I almost dare it to get more ridiculous!" she chortled.

Gekko did not laugh. Clory did not laugh. Potto laughed, but only because Teeg was laughing and he thought he was supposed to. Teeg stopped laughing.

"But what's curious," she continued, "Why would she attack the Node ship?"

They watched as the K'rown fired at it (and not them!) a second and third time.

The communicator crackled to life again.

"Teeg! This is Pannick! Let's get you out of there!"

"Where is K'ween? She doesn't want us dead??"

"K'ween is no longer on board. She is no longer in charge. I am. And I am here for you, sister."

Teeg started laughing again, but for better reasons than before. "The flying prison behind me is on our side!" she informed Pannick.

It was still very unlikely that they would win this fight with Eppie, but misery (and destruction) loves company.

~~~

Eppie was getting flustered. He was getting grumpy. He was getting downright pissy. He still knew he had the upper hand and did not fear failure, but the K'rown was going to slow things down. He needed a messenger to shoot, but his guards were all being very quiet. This was not their first tango with a miserably murderous Eppie.

"Oh fer the love of—just blow them all up. This is getting boring," he said dripping with tonal venom.

"Uh, sir?" said a messenger about to be shot. "Those guys from before?"

Eppie shot the guard before he could finish his thought. He looked to another. That guard quickly took the last one's post and continued. "They are now on the ship. They crawled in through ducts, air locks, and escape hatches."

Eppie shot this guard as well and turned to a third.

"Nope!" said the third guard, and shot himself.

The central flight deck doors opened and seventeen Quarols in spacesuits ran in. One shot at guards with a laser pistol, missing them all. Another was swinging a crow bar. One had a pillowcase full of cabbages and was lobbing them haphazardly. At least three had frying pans.

The guards fought back, but more clones were soon on the deck, shooting, swinging and lobbing. Eppie was hit in the back by a cabbage, which actually knocked a slipped disk back into place and temporarily cured his bad back. Eppie repaid the favour by shooting the Potto clone in the neck.

It was the overall chaos of this situation that was effective, rather than fire power. All over the ship, red-headed clones were confusing the Node Guards and slowing down the blowing up of the Shiv, the Lyme Node prison and the K'rown.

Eppie ducked down behind a console, awaiting his guards to put a stop to the madness.

"Whoever is not fighting off these morons and their vegetables, could you please fire at those ships out there??" he hollered.

~~~

Vrume T'cha T'cha was conflicted. If he left right at that moment (while the K'rown was distracting the Bad News Bearer), he could probably escape unfollowed by Eppie and his warship. He would be able to get to Hephmote and save every prisoner on his new "ship".

Or, he could stay and try to help save the two that were prophesized to destroy The Node. He had to make a decision and do it quickly.

There was only one way he could save them all and it meant probable death to himself.

He sighed heavily. "Okay. Get info from the Shiv on where the Quarol clones entered Eppie's ship. You're going to fire me at it as well," he said climbing into a much, much older spacesuit model. There were no sandwich straws. There were no thrusters. There was a very limited supply of oxygen, and a broken zipper. This was going to be awful.

"The second I am fired from the torpedo launch; you are to leave this sector at top speed. The secret coordinates have been loaded into the navigational system already on a zig-zag path. Only veer from this if you suspect you are being followed."

"Vrume, you can't!" pleaded Jev Flockman.

"It's impossible! You'll die!" cried Dak Flockman.

"We need you Vrume! We can't do this without you! Please don't do this!" Breva Flockman exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.

In this universe there is much gold. There are many jewels. There is hot coffee. There are coveted gift certificates from the mall planet. But sometimes, the best gift one can receive is a hug. This was the case with Vrume T'cha T'cha at this moment.

He had no use for gold, jewels or a free BigBigTerraMart shopping spree while sipping on a cappuccino. He needed a hug. The type of hug that he could melt into, revel in the warmth of, and feel really loved, appreciated and important.

Time was of the essence and he broke free of Breva's gift, wiping a tear from his tired eye and zipping up the suit as best he could.

"Thank you. You will make a fine leader if I do not return," he told the young woman. He gave her a wink and headed for the door, stopping for one last moment.

"Take care of each other," he added wagging a finger.

~~~

Teeg watched helplessly as the Lyme Node Prison ship flew off into the distance like an industrial comet. She felt dread. She felt abandoned. She did not know the whole story of how this ship entered her story, but without it, she feared she had finally reached her last chapter.

The K'rown was firing at the Bad News Bearer, doing very little damage. The Bad News Bearer started firing back, doing a great deal of damage.

Swarms of Vexian ships zipped about, firing at them. The eight clone-inhabited ships fired at those. There were casualties on both sides.

"Enough waiting to be killed," she soon declared. "Let's join this fight. We're not entirely helpless."

And just like that, the Shiv was weaving in and out, between the Vexian ships.

Pannick's voice crackled through the bridge of the Shiv.

"I think we bought you some time, sister," she said calmly as destruction could be heard crashing around her in the background.

"You did! You saved our lives, sister!" Teeg shouted back as she ran about the flight deck pushing buttons. "Now get out of there! The K'rown isn't going to be able to handle any more hits!"

"No. We go down fighting," she said. Gekko turned the Shiv to face the far-off K'rown. They watched as it still bravely fired upon Eppie's ship. "Now...don't let this be in vain. Save the universe, Teeg. Save the damn thing, okay?"

Teeg stopped what she was doing. Gekko stopped. Clory stopped. Potto continued to stop.

"Today I join my wife. Today I join my children. Today I join all those that they took from me," Pannick