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Why is visiting or being visited by an alternate reality always considered a bad thing? This is the fourth tale in my F.S.S. Radiant Moon series. The first can be read here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/23903304/
This is a submission to the Thursday Prompt writing group. Combining the prompts ‘possible’ and ‘dependent.’
Check out the group's user page here: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/thursdayprompt/
Other stories generated from the first prompt are located here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/24654767/
And the second here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/24726409/
This story has headed my FurAffinity page as a Featured Story
--SERIES INDEX--
Pan-Dimensional Poker Night
By: Dankedonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/
Lt. Cmdr. Fu-Jinn Huang meandered through the Radiant Moon’s corridors, expertly bounding a ping pong ball atop a blue paddle. Until suddenly a furry black hand yanked it out of the air. Bringing it before a mischievous face.
“Your winning stroke ends today!” Chief Engineer Brewer grinned. The Black Ferret’s own paddle contained within a leather case.
The Siamese Cat grinned back. Cobalt blue eyes gleaming within a sable mask of face-fur. “We shall see…” He easily caught the ball when it was tossed back his way. The pair walked jovially down to Recreation Hall 3. Wherein lay their usual table. Chatting along the way about their plans for an upcoming -- and slightly overdue -- shore leave while the ship harbored in for repairs, their jovial conversation came to a sudden halt when the Rec Room door did not automatically part ways for them.
“Door, open,” instructed the Cat.
“Access Denied,” stated the starship computer.
Huang’s ears flattened. His didn’t like it one bit when machines told him ‘no’ without cause. “Access denied? What do you mean access denied? Here I come trying to have a bit of fun with a coworker and you tell me ‘access denied’? Is there some official event going on that I wasn’t made aware of?”
“Negative,” replied the computer.
“Reserved by Junior Lieutenant Eileen Halloran,” Brewer noted, leaning in towards the room’s control panel.
“The stellar cartographer?” Huang asked. As the ship’s lead pilot and Second Officer, Huang made a point of knowing everyone in Astrometrics. What he didn’t know was how someone got away with such an odd breach of protocol. “Junior officers can’t reserve an entire rec-hall!”
“Where would you be without me?” asked the Ferret as he slipped open the panel to engage in a bit of manual override.
“Still sipping champagne with those lovely lady Persian Blues, I imagine,” Fu-Jinn sighed wistfully. “But I’ll settle for being on the other side of this door. No, don’t bother.” The Cat simply ordered the computer to open the door, using his access codes as leverage.
“Well, sure, if you want to take all the fun out of… What? The? Hell?” The busy room now laid out before them was almost entirely filled with poker tables. Seated at each, or milling about in a spectator’s area, were copies upon copies upon copies of the Pony named Halloran. Of all sorts of dress and, many in peculiar variants of the Corefleet uniforms. And a few bits of cybernetic gear here and there.
“OH HIIIII!” twenty or more of the strawberry roan gave her usual greeting in unison.
“Oh, dear,” muttered another. “I’m the one you’ll be wanting, Commander. Halloran-Prime.”
“Relatively speaking,” giggled a doppelgänger from her table. One whose outfit resembled that of the Corefleet Diplomatic Corps.
“Yes, thank you. I know how this works.” Huang strode towards his junior officer. Ear twitching with irritation. Tail stiff with authority. He knew full well the lower deck’s regarded him as the resident hard-ass, and in moments such as these he found that reputation to be very useful in getting . “Explain yourself. Now.”
The curvaceous Connemara left her seat, standing to attention. In addition to her the usual accoutrements of a Corefleet science-department uniform, she was wearing a ‘nametag’ that bore no name. Rather, a graphic representation of an erratic waveform. The Cat had been through enough inter-dimensional bullshit in his years logging flight-time in deep space to recognize a quantum signature when he saw one. Huang really, really hated temporal mechanics. Even more than uncooperative computers.
Several of the tables kept right on playing, albeit slower and quieter, while their Prime representative spoke her case. “Well, sirs, I had this little get-together worked out for Far Star Station. But when I heard getting there would be delayed a few hours by the incident with the rogue merchant ship, I did a bit of horse-trading, pardon the expression, for visitors passes to the ship.” Her posture at last showed a bit for contrition. “I’ll be a while paying off my favors. But I couldn’t ask so many furs to alter their shore leave plans at the last minute! I’m sure you can imagine these things aren’t exactly easy to plan.”
“Not exactly cheap from a communication standpoint, either, hmmm?” Brewer seemed more interest in how she-slash-they pulled this off than why.
“It’s not much different from any other FLT signal, sir,” she answered. “If you know how to finesse the subspace interlinks.” Several Hallorans in Engineering garb coughed suspiciously. “I worked within my energy allowance, and some of the other ladies carried on the chain on their end. Chief Bouvier has been alerted I’m having visitors aboard. The Transport Chief logged every arrival. Everything’s perfectly above board.”
“I feel I’m in danger of being technobabbled,” Brewer noted. Apparently satisfied, the Engineer left his friend to mill about the crowd.
But Huang’s hackles were still tossed up by the strangeness of it all. “Really? Fifty-odd unvetted ‘visitors’ from out of nowhere is no big concern?”
“Technically, we’re family.” A Halloran wearing JAG colors stepped away from the spectator’s box. “We only do these little soirees in realities were court precedents have granted familial rights to teleporter clones and quantum doubles.” She added with dour tones, “Sadly, that leaves me out from hosting.”
This, at last, was something the Second Officer could accept. They were all going by the book at least. Huang liked going by the book.
However, Brewer’s curiosity had turned to suspicion. His black-masked gaze fell upon a woman for one table over whose ‘uniform’ was little more than a color-coded bikini accented by a golden waist sash. “She’s from the universe full of psychotic doppelgangers we keep bumping into, isn’t she?” he sneered. Reflectively reaching to his belt for a sidearm that wasn’t there. If anyone had reason to pick a fight with someone from that universe, it was he.
This Halloran leaned into the back of her chair once she heard her ears burning. Crossing her thickly-naked hands, not quite hooves, in a way that made her bountiful bosom even more overt. “Nah, sugar. I’m from the fun universe. She’s from the evil universe.”
‘Sleazy’ Halloran pointed three tables over to a Pony with tank-top uniform that displayed a dagger-sharp service insignia and one deeply scarred right bicep. ‘Evil’ Halloran wasn’t taking her eyes off her opponents to address the superior officers. “I just started a tour on my Revenant Moon last week. You got nothin’ on me.”
“I might just be able to find a few things,” he snarled.
Evil Halloran bristled. “I left my knives in the teleporter room lockup. But I don’t need ‘em.” The mares at her table started hedging away.
“If I may,” Diplomat Halloran clopped up from her chair and back into the conversation, seeking to intercept a fight. “Just think of us as just any other visiting ‘aliens’ you may have on the ship at any given week. Weird and special in our own way, just like the places we come from.”
“True!” Halloran Prime pointed clear across the room to the spectator’s section. Where the various Hallorans’ attentions were divided by the dressing down of one of their won, by the games in play, by their own conversations. “For example, he’s from a reality where everyone’s the opposite sex.”
Mister Halloran simply gave a thumbs-up and a cheesy smile.
She pointed next to a woman with a cybernetic eye and arm of distinctly insectoid nature, then stated, “She’s from a Concordance that got assimilated by the Dronn.”
“We got better!” Twin antenna rose in victory alongside this woman’s boisterous arms. “Sort of.”
Halloran Prime had to look about for a moment to find her next example. “She’s from a reality where furkind evolution took a different track.” The mare motioned towards a truly alien creature. One who looked like a shaved Chimpanzee only with a less pronounced muzzle, smaller ears, and a pile of reddish-gold hair coiled atop of her pale-skinned head. The color of which was a match for the other Hallorans’ manes. Other than jade eyes, and a curvy build, she had nothing in common with the other Hallorans.
Said person simply waved meekly and went back to hiding her face behind her cards.
Prime wasn’t done. “And she’s from one where… well... The biggest difference us we can work out is we took different colts to the Sadie Hawkins Dance our first Year at Corefleet Academy.
“Some realities are more spectacular than others,” said a Halloran who was raking in a big win. “But hey, we’re harmless.”
“Unless you’ve got a few chips to wager!” This comment from a visibly pregnant Halloran was met with much laughter.
Halloran Prime joined in on same. It was Brewer’s irksome look that stopped her short. But she stood her ground, testing it with her hoof. “I get that you both see your occasional brushes with other timelines as weird, unpleasant crisis that you have to deal with and get through. But for me, for us, it’s just… normal. I, we, grew up on a colony world that was covered in temporal schisms left behind by some ancient precursors’ malfunctioning toys. If another one of me wasn’t popping up on my yard, I was popping into theirs. It was weird, and scary, and it never really stopped even after I left. I handled it the way I thought a Corefleet officer was supposed to do. Like my father was doing on the Stellar Winds. I reached out my paw and made friends.”
More applause. With its end left the last of Huang’s reservations. Well, enough of them to allow this game to continue. He nodded to Halloran Prime. Returning the nod, she returned to her game, followed in short order by the Diplomat.
“I’m not going to do anything to hurt her,” Evil Halloran told Brewer. “Truce?”
“I’m escorting you back to the telepad personally,” he answered. “But I’ll see where this all goes first.” To the room in general, he said, “So someone might as well deal me in.”
“Can’t you tell this is a tournament?” Huang answered, waving to a couple empty tables in a far corner. With a good bit of his cheer back in his eyes. (Which he had no intention of taking completely off the one roan.) “We’re a bit late to buy in. We came to play table tennis anyway, so help me set up the table.”
--SERIES INDEX--
This is a submission to the Thursday Prompt writing group. Combining the prompts ‘possible’ and ‘dependent.’
Check out the group's user page here: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/thursdayprompt/
Other stories generated from the first prompt are located here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/24654767/
And the second here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/24726409/
This story has headed my FurAffinity page as a Featured Story
--SERIES INDEX--
Pan-Dimensional Poker Night
By: Dankedonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/
Lt. Cmdr. Fu-Jinn Huang meandered through the Radiant Moon’s corridors, expertly bounding a ping pong ball atop a blue paddle. Until suddenly a furry black hand yanked it out of the air. Bringing it before a mischievous face.
“Your winning stroke ends today!” Chief Engineer Brewer grinned. The Black Ferret’s own paddle contained within a leather case.
The Siamese Cat grinned back. Cobalt blue eyes gleaming within a sable mask of face-fur. “We shall see…” He easily caught the ball when it was tossed back his way. The pair walked jovially down to Recreation Hall 3. Wherein lay their usual table. Chatting along the way about their plans for an upcoming -- and slightly overdue -- shore leave while the ship harbored in for repairs, their jovial conversation came to a sudden halt when the Rec Room door did not automatically part ways for them.
“Door, open,” instructed the Cat.
“Access Denied,” stated the starship computer.
Huang’s ears flattened. His didn’t like it one bit when machines told him ‘no’ without cause. “Access denied? What do you mean access denied? Here I come trying to have a bit of fun with a coworker and you tell me ‘access denied’? Is there some official event going on that I wasn’t made aware of?”
“Negative,” replied the computer.
“Reserved by Junior Lieutenant Eileen Halloran,” Brewer noted, leaning in towards the room’s control panel.
“The stellar cartographer?” Huang asked. As the ship’s lead pilot and Second Officer, Huang made a point of knowing everyone in Astrometrics. What he didn’t know was how someone got away with such an odd breach of protocol. “Junior officers can’t reserve an entire rec-hall!”
“Where would you be without me?” asked the Ferret as he slipped open the panel to engage in a bit of manual override.
“Still sipping champagne with those lovely lady Persian Blues, I imagine,” Fu-Jinn sighed wistfully. “But I’ll settle for being on the other side of this door. No, don’t bother.” The Cat simply ordered the computer to open the door, using his access codes as leverage.
“Well, sure, if you want to take all the fun out of… What? The? Hell?” The busy room now laid out before them was almost entirely filled with poker tables. Seated at each, or milling about in a spectator’s area, were copies upon copies upon copies of the Pony named Halloran. Of all sorts of dress and, many in peculiar variants of the Corefleet uniforms. And a few bits of cybernetic gear here and there.
“OH HIIIII!” twenty or more of the strawberry roan gave her usual greeting in unison.
“Oh, dear,” muttered another. “I’m the one you’ll be wanting, Commander. Halloran-Prime.”
“Relatively speaking,” giggled a doppelgänger from her table. One whose outfit resembled that of the Corefleet Diplomatic Corps.
“Yes, thank you. I know how this works.” Huang strode towards his junior officer. Ear twitching with irritation. Tail stiff with authority. He knew full well the lower deck’s regarded him as the resident hard-ass, and in moments such as these he found that reputation to be very useful in getting . “Explain yourself. Now.”
The curvaceous Connemara left her seat, standing to attention. In addition to her the usual accoutrements of a Corefleet science-department uniform, she was wearing a ‘nametag’ that bore no name. Rather, a graphic representation of an erratic waveform. The Cat had been through enough inter-dimensional bullshit in his years logging flight-time in deep space to recognize a quantum signature when he saw one. Huang really, really hated temporal mechanics. Even more than uncooperative computers.
Several of the tables kept right on playing, albeit slower and quieter, while their Prime representative spoke her case. “Well, sirs, I had this little get-together worked out for Far Star Station. But when I heard getting there would be delayed a few hours by the incident with the rogue merchant ship, I did a bit of horse-trading, pardon the expression, for visitors passes to the ship.” Her posture at last showed a bit for contrition. “I’ll be a while paying off my favors. But I couldn’t ask so many furs to alter their shore leave plans at the last minute! I’m sure you can imagine these things aren’t exactly easy to plan.”
“Not exactly cheap from a communication standpoint, either, hmmm?” Brewer seemed more interest in how she-slash-they pulled this off than why.
“It’s not much different from any other FLT signal, sir,” she answered. “If you know how to finesse the subspace interlinks.” Several Hallorans in Engineering garb coughed suspiciously. “I worked within my energy allowance, and some of the other ladies carried on the chain on their end. Chief Bouvier has been alerted I’m having visitors aboard. The Transport Chief logged every arrival. Everything’s perfectly above board.”
“I feel I’m in danger of being technobabbled,” Brewer noted. Apparently satisfied, the Engineer left his friend to mill about the crowd.
But Huang’s hackles were still tossed up by the strangeness of it all. “Really? Fifty-odd unvetted ‘visitors’ from out of nowhere is no big concern?”
“Technically, we’re family.” A Halloran wearing JAG colors stepped away from the spectator’s box. “We only do these little soirees in realities were court precedents have granted familial rights to teleporter clones and quantum doubles.” She added with dour tones, “Sadly, that leaves me out from hosting.”
This, at last, was something the Second Officer could accept. They were all going by the book at least. Huang liked going by the book.
However, Brewer’s curiosity had turned to suspicion. His black-masked gaze fell upon a woman for one table over whose ‘uniform’ was little more than a color-coded bikini accented by a golden waist sash. “She’s from the universe full of psychotic doppelgangers we keep bumping into, isn’t she?” he sneered. Reflectively reaching to his belt for a sidearm that wasn’t there. If anyone had reason to pick a fight with someone from that universe, it was he.
This Halloran leaned into the back of her chair once she heard her ears burning. Crossing her thickly-naked hands, not quite hooves, in a way that made her bountiful bosom even more overt. “Nah, sugar. I’m from the fun universe. She’s from the evil universe.”
‘Sleazy’ Halloran pointed three tables over to a Pony with tank-top uniform that displayed a dagger-sharp service insignia and one deeply scarred right bicep. ‘Evil’ Halloran wasn’t taking her eyes off her opponents to address the superior officers. “I just started a tour on my Revenant Moon last week. You got nothin’ on me.”
“I might just be able to find a few things,” he snarled.
Evil Halloran bristled. “I left my knives in the teleporter room lockup. But I don’t need ‘em.” The mares at her table started hedging away.
“If I may,” Diplomat Halloran clopped up from her chair and back into the conversation, seeking to intercept a fight. “Just think of us as just any other visiting ‘aliens’ you may have on the ship at any given week. Weird and special in our own way, just like the places we come from.”
“True!” Halloran Prime pointed clear across the room to the spectator’s section. Where the various Hallorans’ attentions were divided by the dressing down of one of their won, by the games in play, by their own conversations. “For example, he’s from a reality where everyone’s the opposite sex.”
Mister Halloran simply gave a thumbs-up and a cheesy smile.
She pointed next to a woman with a cybernetic eye and arm of distinctly insectoid nature, then stated, “She’s from a Concordance that got assimilated by the Dronn.”
“We got better!” Twin antenna rose in victory alongside this woman’s boisterous arms. “Sort of.”
Halloran Prime had to look about for a moment to find her next example. “She’s from a reality where furkind evolution took a different track.” The mare motioned towards a truly alien creature. One who looked like a shaved Chimpanzee only with a less pronounced muzzle, smaller ears, and a pile of reddish-gold hair coiled atop of her pale-skinned head. The color of which was a match for the other Hallorans’ manes. Other than jade eyes, and a curvy build, she had nothing in common with the other Hallorans.
Said person simply waved meekly and went back to hiding her face behind her cards.
Prime wasn’t done. “And she’s from one where… well... The biggest difference us we can work out is we took different colts to the Sadie Hawkins Dance our first Year at Corefleet Academy.
“Some realities are more spectacular than others,” said a Halloran who was raking in a big win. “But hey, we’re harmless.”
“Unless you’ve got a few chips to wager!” This comment from a visibly pregnant Halloran was met with much laughter.
Halloran Prime joined in on same. It was Brewer’s irksome look that stopped her short. But she stood her ground, testing it with her hoof. “I get that you both see your occasional brushes with other timelines as weird, unpleasant crisis that you have to deal with and get through. But for me, for us, it’s just… normal. I, we, grew up on a colony world that was covered in temporal schisms left behind by some ancient precursors’ malfunctioning toys. If another one of me wasn’t popping up on my yard, I was popping into theirs. It was weird, and scary, and it never really stopped even after I left. I handled it the way I thought a Corefleet officer was supposed to do. Like my father was doing on the Stellar Winds. I reached out my paw and made friends.”
More applause. With its end left the last of Huang’s reservations. Well, enough of them to allow this game to continue. He nodded to Halloran Prime. Returning the nod, she returned to her game, followed in short order by the Diplomat.
“I’m not going to do anything to hurt her,” Evil Halloran told Brewer. “Truce?”
“I’m escorting you back to the telepad personally,” he answered. “But I’ll see where this all goes first.” To the room in general, he said, “So someone might as well deal me in.”
“Can’t you tell this is a tournament?” Huang answered, waving to a couple empty tables in a far corner. With a good bit of his cheer back in his eyes. (Which he had no intention of taking completely off the one roan.) “We’re a bit late to buy in. We came to play table tennis anyway, so help me set up the table.”
--SERIES INDEX--
Category Story / All
Species Pony
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 101.2 kB
http://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/.....maton-Universe - furry superhero universe, Crosstime Caper. The Paratemporal agent first shows up in part 2. The profile of the character is under Skydancer.
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