The best word you could use to describe Randal would be lucky. Whether he was winning the lottery or getting hit by a car, he never had an average day. He certainly had an awful lot of luck, both good and bad. One of the greatest examples of his luck was the day that Randal became the victim of a small malfunction in a piece of alien technology. It would turn out to be one of the luckiest days of his life.

The origin of Randal’s problems was the theory of Equal Matter Displacement. The theory of Equal Matter Displacement is a widely debunked theory that states if something materializes somewhere, an equal amount of matter needs to be displaced to make room for this new matter. This theory is of course entirely untrue, but that didn’t stop a minor species from the Triangulum galaxy from using it as the basis for their teleportation based faster-than-light travel. This is all extremely relevant when you understand that the first time these aliens visited earth, the big chunk of atmosphere they launched into space to make room for their space-ship just so happened to be the big chunk of atmosphere that our protagonist, Randal Elliot, happened to be walking through at that very moment. Randal soon discovered first hand how patently unpleasant being launched into space is, and quickly died of asphyxiation.

Now, in most cases, the death of the protagonist by asphyxiation is a good indication that the story is over, so it must come to almost as big a surprise to you, the reader, as it came to Randal when he woke up.

Randal opened his eyes and let out a small groan. He quickly closed them again. He decided to wait for his brain to catch up with him before he started overloading it with images of things that didn’t exist. Eventually, the room stopped spinning and Randal decided to give consciousness another go. Upon seeing what he saw before for a second time, this time with his brain able to interpret the images, Randal decided that the best course of action would be to scream.

“Well, I guess he’s up,” said a blue-haired woman.

The blue-haired woman, who Randal didn’t recognize and under the circumstance that was a small mercy, was not the reason he screamed. Nor was the presence of her companion, a 7-foot-tall creature that looked like an Elephant learned to walk on its hind legs and, for an encore, shot itself in the face with an ugly gun. Nor was it the fact that Randal was naked, strapped to a table, and covered in electrodes. Randal screamed because he had just regained his memory, and the last thing he remembered was being blasted into outer-space and dying from asphyxiation. Once he was done screaming about that, he realized his current situation and gave that a good scream too.

“You about done?” asked the blue-haired woman.

“Sorry,” said Randal, “I’ve been having a bad day. I thought I was dead for a while there.”

“Well that’s understandable,” said the woman, “You were dead for a while there.”

“What? How…I really was dead?” asked Randal.

“Well not in any serious way. Asphyxiation I believe. And against all known laws of science, your body was perfectly preserved in the vacuum of space. Really aside from being dead you were fit as a fiddle,” said the blue-haired woman.

“I was dead?” asked Randal.

“You were dead. You’re fine now,” said the woman.

“But… I was dead?” asked Randal.

“Don’t be so morbid. You’re fine. Would you like some clothes?”

“I was resurrected…” replied Randal distantly.

“You’re being overdramatic. Here, put some pants on,” the woman said, throwing Randal his jeans. They landed on his chest.

“I’m strapped to the table,” said Randal after a moment.

“Oh yeah. You kept twitching when we were bringing you back to life. Really complicated the process.”

The woman undid his straps.

“There. Now put your pants on or so help me I’ll launch you back into space and you can see how long it takes you to be picked up by another passing Good Samaritan.”

For all Randal knew, it was a sincere threat. His body’s disinclination to do anything but say “I was dead?” and look around wide-eyed was outweighed by his brain’s desire not to be blown into space. He sat up and put on his pants.

“How… how long exactly was I dead?” asked Randal.

“I was just going to ask you the same thing,” said the woman “We don’t see many humans around here. Not since Earth 9 was destroyed.”

Randal, who was still grieving over his own death, was really unprepared to deal with the destruction of his home planet and the death of everyone he cared about, so his brain did what the human brain always does when given information too big for it to handle: it sent a message to his mouth telling it to repeat what it just heard.

“Earth was destroyed?” asked Randal’s mouth.

The woman just stared at Randal for a second.

“How long have you been dead?” she asked.

Randal’s brain still hadn’t decided what it was going to do so it stalled for time.

“I was just on Earth a moment ago.”

“I’m afraid you weren’t. If by Earth you mean the original Earth… I mean that planet has been dust for thousands of years.”

For all Randal knew, it was morning. He still hadn’t had his coffee. He wasn’t going to play games with this woman.

“So I’ve been dead for at least as long as the Earth has been destroyed, which is at the very least a millennia, but I was just brought back to life by yourself and your elephant monster. Well I guess my first question is: do you have any coffee?”

The woman laughed.

“There hasn’t been coffee since Earth 5.”

Randal decided that since there was no way he was going to like the answers; he would just stop asking questions. He used this time to put his shirt on. Had he known he would have been dying and making a first impression to aliens thousands of years in the future, he probably would have opted not to wear his “Take me drunk, I’m home” T-shirt.

“I’m sorry,” said the woman after Randal was awkwardly silent for a while “I guess I shouldn’t have expected that you’d know about the extinction of coffee… it’s just so weird meeting another human after so long.”

“So you’ve met other humans?”

The woman gave Randal a nasty look.

“I am a human.”

Randal had never mistaken someone’s species before. He mixed genders up once or twice, but he would always get species bang on. He imagined that he might have insulted his host, and considering she did bring him back to life and everything, he tried to do some damage control.

“Well… that is… you look like a human. You really do. It’s just that I’ve never… Your hair is blue and there is a metal thing on the side of your face…” he stammered.

“All right, let’s start over shall we? Hello, my name is Mint,” said the woman whose name was Mint, extending her hand to shake.

“Your name is Mint? That’s an odd name,” said Randal.

“You’ve been dead for thousands of years, and you think my name is weird?”

“If I focus on anything else around me I fear I will go mad.”

“Well then why don’t you introduce yourself? That should spare you a few more moments of sanity,” said Mint.

 “My name’s… Randal,” said Randal, who had to think about it for a moment, “Randal Elliot.”

They shook hands.

“And the elephant?” asked Randal.

“He’s my pet… sort of. You either need a trunk or a complicated trumpet-like instrument to pronounce his name,” said Mint.

“But he is an elephant then?” asked Randal, who was focusing on the most mundane aspect of the conversation in an attempt to ground himself.

“He’s a space elephant,” corrected Mint.

“Space elephant?” asked Randal.

“Well he’s an elephant isn’t he? Only he lives in space. Plus he walks upright. I don’t know how, and I don’t speak enough elephant to ask him.”

“You speak elephant?”

“I could ask for directions if I underwent a complicated voice modification procedure, but other than that not really.”

“And he understands English?”

“Not a word of it. I don’t even know what he’s doing here. He was on the ship when I found it, and like I said I haven’t been in a position to ask him what he’s doing here.”

“I’m sorry; I’m not handling things very well. Can we talk about something that’s not wholly impossible for a few moments so I can collect myself?”

“Sure,” said Mint, who had no idea what was so impossible about her sort-of pet space elephant.

Randal thought for a moment. He really couldn’t think of any good topics of mundane conversation. He and Mint had no mutual friends, and from inside the space ship he had no idea what the weather was like, plus if he thought about the weather too hard he would have to deal with the fact that there really is no weather on earth anymore because there isn’t an earth and that would have bothered him rather a lot.

“Um… do you speak any French?” Randal finally offered, assuming wrongly that it was a safe topic.

“French is a dead language. Hasn’t been a France since Earth 3. Oh wait, sorry. We were trying to take your mind off of it…” replied Mint.

“Well it’s not your fault. I should have known better than to keep asking questions if I’m not going to like the answers,” said Randal.

“Would it make you feel better if I found something really old that you might recognize?”

“It might…”

*          *          *

Randal was slightly less than impressed with the distinctly alien looking shoe-horn Mint had with her when she returned from looking for something Randal would recognize. The shoe-horn was one of the most complex machines he had ever seen, and he soon came to understand that it was actually a small robot that took your shoes off for you. It also played music and could fly.

“Okay so now that you’re a little more grounded, I’ll catch you up on what’s going on,” began Mint “The Space Elephant, whose name is for the most part unpronounceable, and myself consist of the entirety of the crew of the spaceship Serendipity, which by happy coincidence found your very dead body drifting along in space. We had no idea how you got there, but brought you on board anyway because you looked human. The computer scanned you, and found out that you weren’t seriously dead, so it injected you with microscopic robots that jump started you back to life.”

All things considered, Randal took all this news fairly well. He took it an awful lot better than his discovery of the extinction of the coffee bean.

“All right,” he said “So… what now?”

Mint hadn’t thought about that. She really hadn’t thought much further than “wouldn’t it be keen if we brought this man back to life”.

“I don’t really know,” said Mint.

“I mean, you can’t take me home, you said Earth was gone.”

“Earth’s one though nine. The whole lot of them.”

“I don’t suppose there’s an Earth 10 out there somewhere?” asked Randal.

“Nope. Earth 9 was the last Earth,” replied Mint.

“So where do all the humans live now?”

“Randal, I don’t think you understand. Earth 9 was destroyed. There are no more humans.”

“What are you talking about? What about you, you said you were a human.”

“I am. And so are you. And we’re it.”

“So we are the last humans left alive?”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Asking a question, then parroting my answer back to me as another question.”

“Fine, then… I just- is there somewhere I can lay down for a while?”

“You’ve had thousands of years to sleep, for now you can-”

Mint didn’t get to finish her sentence. She was too busy being tossed about like a rag doll. A strange piercing noise rang in Randal’s ears as the ship shook like it was coming apart. The strange noise soon passed, and Randal found himself sprawled across the floor, a few centimeters from having been squashed by a Space Elephant.

“What the hell was that?” asked Randal from his new position sprawled on the ground.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” said Mint, getting up and racing to the cockpit.

The cockpit was a good ways away from the medical bay/laundry room where Randal and the Space Elephant still were. Randal hadn’t the slightest inclination what was the proper course of action in a situation like this. The realization that he had no idea what to do started a whole new train of thought for Randal which lead him to the belief that he probably didn’t know the correct course of action in any given situation anymore. It was thousands of years in the future and he couldn’t even operate a shoehorn. It was sort of liberating. If there was no way for him to know the correct course of action, there was no reason for him not to do whatever it occurred to him to do. He was free to act entirely on whim.

Randal’s first whim was to stand up. His second whim was to scratch the back of his neck. That’s around when he ran out of whims and went back to worrying. 

We now interrupt the story to bring you: Nine Easy Ways to Destroy a Planet Much Like Earth

The Earth, or a very similar replacement planet of the same name, has been destroyed nine times in nine different ways. The specific means by which the Earths were destroyed are as follows:

The Earth itself was destroyed in a nuclear war over the last piece of land that wasn’t radioactive. Luckily, about half the population of the humanity lived off-world. These people banded together and colonized a new planet, naming it New Earth.

New Earth (Earth 2) was destroyed when self-replicating microscopic sized robots accidentally started self-replicating over and over until they had consumed the entire planet’s resources making copies of themselves.

Earth 3 was destroyed by a chain reaction that resulted from an extremely loud clap.

Earth 4 was destroyed after a human named Rusty D. Warpsmith got really drunk at an intergalactic pub one night and got into an argument with the prince of a species that had an empire spanning several dimensions. The prince told Rusty that he could destroy his puny planet and everyone on it, to which Rusty replied “prove it.”

Earth 5 was destroyed in an orbital mining accident.

Earth 6 was destroyed when it collided with an Earth 6 from a parallel dimension made entirely out of anti-matter. The anti-matter Earth 6 was brought into our dimension by two scientists who had a $20 bet over whether or not it existed.

Earth 7 was assassinated.

Earth 8 was atomized by a supervillain in order to lure a hero into his trap.

Earth 9 was destroyed by a species called the Nater-Nids, using a device called the Quark ray. They did this so that their intergalactic Zoo would have the only two humans in existence. Unaccustomed to human biology as they were, they were unaware of the fact that 90 years is really old for a human, and their new specimens died several weeks later.

The only human that survived the destruction of Earth 9 was a single human female who whose spaceship had serendipitously run out of gas just before it reached the planet. By the time she got someone to tow her home, Earth 9 had already been destroyed. 

* * *

Mint made a mad dash for the cockpit of Serendipity, and in her haste almost lost her balance, finally managing to catch the side of the pilot’s seat and turning the momentum into a clean swing. Swiveling the chair around as she braced herself against it, she sat down in one clean movement making it look like it had been her intention all long, much in the same way a cat would. Mint placed her fingers on an imaginary keyboard, causing a non-imaginary one made of light to appear under them with a snap of static. She quickly went through the formalities of verifying that the thing that was attacking her ship was what she knew it had to be. The imaginary keys played an ethereal tune as Mint frantically typed.

The readings from the internal scanners blinked a bluish color directly into her head. Mint’s mind associated colors with everything, and it was far easier for the ship to communicate to her using them instead of words. Plus, the ship was second-hand, and English wasn’t its first language.

“Shit,” said Mint, as though she hadn’t guessed what the problem was. That particular bluish color indicated psychic activity of the type and power only common to one species, and she happened to know a few reasons why members of said species might have an interest in the abduction of her crew. Well, her anyway. Probably the idiot Randal too, they’d want a matching pair.

The species that Mint now knew for certain were attacking the Serendipity was known as the Nater-Nids. Nater-Nids are one of those species whose very existence raises several questions about just what kind of a sick bastard God must be to have created them. The ancient ancestors of the Nater-Nids were superficially similar to the ants that were found on Earths 1, and 6 through 8 inclusive. The Nater-Nids are, from an evolutionary standpoint, what happens when every member of a species has their own personal army. Had the Nater-Nids any blood or any streets, you can bet the former would have been running into the latter at fairly consistent intervals. The Nater-Nids became sapient as hives, not individuals. All the minds of the individual little bugs combined to create a single entity that was only slightly more intelligent than a typical NASCAR fan.

Here’s where the theological debate over God being a jerk comes in: the result of such a large group of brains working in unison is fact that every Nater-Nid hive-mind is a powerful psychic. Now, all this psychic energy created by thousands of minds working as one can do some impressive things, especially on a planet that didn’t have any scientist-types to tell everyone just exactly why they can’t. In fact, they’re all more than capable of rewriting their molecular structure so that all of the bugs come together to form something roughly the size of a human. Actually, they’re capable of rewriting their molecular structure so that all of the bugs come together to form anything roughly the size of a human. Oh, and they can fly through space just by thinking about it.

So what did these shape-shifting space-fairing slightly-dim psychic-insects want with Mint and Randal? If you were paying attention you should probably have a good guess as to what the answer is by now. On the Nater-Nids homeworld there is a Zoo. Arguably it’s the best Zoo in the universe, and certainly the one with the most aggressive advertising campaign saying as much. Many of its specimens are the last of their kind, mostly because the rest of their kind were killed by the Nater-Nids to make their particular specimen that much more special. They went to a lot of trouble to destroy Earth 9, and they sure weren’t going to let their exhibit be ruined by some blue-haired girl who was inconveniently attached to freedom.

Nater-Nids, as it was already pointed out, aren’t terribly smart. It wasn’t very likely that they would be able to find Mint if she was trying not to be found. So it was a stroke of abject luck that a convoy of Nater-Nids on their way to destroy all life on the planet Graesmear Minor happened to notice the Serendipity floating all alone in space, while Mint was busy explaining current events concerning the state (or specifically, lack thereof) of the many Earths to recently-brought-back-to-life people.

It was so lucky in fact, that it set off all sorts of alarm bells in Randal’s brain. Having never been on a spaceship before, he couldn’t be certain if the ground shaking and the walls emitting sparks as though the fuse was a distant memory was normal spaceship activity, but he had a nagging voice in the back of his mind that said it might be his luck flaring up again. It was his investigation into this matter that led him to the cockpit of the ship.

Randal peered into the cramped space. Mint was sitting in a large chair staring intensely at something that wasn’t there, and touch-typing in the air. It bothered Randal that he wasn’t more bothered by this. The ship was rocked by another… well whatever was rocking it.

“So, uh, any idea what’s doing that?” asked Randal.

“Space bugs,” said Mint, as though that were an answer.

“I see,” said Randal “So, uh, anything you want me to do?”

“Stop asking questions,” replied Mint, still not looking up from the nothing.

“Okay,” said Randal.

“Or talking,” said Mint, not paying enough attention to truly be annoyed.

Randal turned around to get out of the way, just as the ship was hit with another, particularly powerful psychic bug attack. Randal was knocked to the ground, a vantage point from which he could clearly see a bunch of what appeared to be ants with wings pouring into the room from a broken pipe on the ceiling. The bugs swirled around into a giant central mass that seemed to be stitching itself together into something not entirely unlike the self-portrait of a six-year-old human. Mint wasn’t paying enough attention to anything that wasn’t the empty space she seemed fascinated by to notice.

“There’s, um,” said Randal, who couldn’t quite find the words to adequately describe what he was seeing, “Something. Something here that you really should see. It’s some sort of… thing… that you should see. Right away.”

Mint stopped typing.

“Does it have a spear?” asked Mint without turning to look.

“What?” replied Randal.

“Does. It have. A spear?” she repeated.

The creepy looking sort-of-human bug thing, now that it had fully finished building itself, did indeed appear to have a spear. It gestured towards it for Randal’s benefit.

“Yes it does,” said Randal.

“Then duck,” said Mint.

“Huh?” asked Randal, not ducking.

Mint spun around in her chair, and there was a loud pop followed by a crackling noise. Flesh sizzled and the smell of bleach creeped into the room. Mint was sitting in her chair, holding a smoking gun. The bug thing was sprawled on the floor with a giant hole in its face-part, a hole that was rapidly filling with more bugs. Randal was standing and pissed right off. Mint read it on his face.

“I told you to duck, that’s more courtesy than I would extend to most people in a me-or-them type situation. The guy had a Quark spear, it was a necessary risk.”

“A Quark spear? What’s so special about a spear?”

“Nothing, other than being surrounded by an energy field capable of reducing you to your component theoretical particles with a single graze across your finger.”

“Yeah but a spear? They can’t build some terrifying space guns that do that?”

“They can and do. They just don’t fire them onboard spaceships so that they don’t blow a hole in the hull if they miss and kill everyone.”

Randal was satisfied with that response, until he remember what just happened.

“Well, how does your gun work then? How do you keep from blow a hole in the hull?”

“I never miss,” said Mint.

“Wait, what? No! What are you the hero from an action movie? Don’t shoot that thing on the ship if you could kill us all.”

“I told you I don’t miss. Have you ever seen me miss?”

“I’ve only ever seen you fire one shot!”

“Yeah, so as far as you know I’m still batting 1000.”

Baseball still existed in living memory, that was something Randal decided.

She walked over to the Nater-Nid “corpse”. It was intact once more, albeit a bit smaller than it used to be. Mint kicked its spear away from its hand, and pointed her weapon at it.

“Where’s the rest of your party?” she asked.

“Transporting your ship to Niddia Prime while I distracted you,” said the Nater-Nid.
Mint didn’t have time to finish swearing before a billion minds all called out to hers at once, commanding that she sleep. Her mind caved to the peer pressure and did so. 

*  *  *

Mint woke up with a start. She only wasted enough time to blink once before she snapped to attention. She vaguely recognized where she was. It looked a bit like Earth 9 would have looked like if it had been build by people who had only read about Earth in Planetary Geographic. She stood up. She could feel the cheap Astroturf under her feet. Something clicked inside her head. Her feet were bare. Actually, her entire body was bare.

“A prophets-damned Zoo,” she said.

* * * 

Randal slowly began his blurry journey to consciousness. He groaned and held his head as he sat up. Blinking, he looked around. He appeared to be in a jungle made entirely out of plastic fishbowl plants. Really cold plastic fishbowl plants. Then he remembered he was in space. Then he remembered that he had been attacked by space-bugs. Then he realized he was naked. He wrinkled his brow.

“If someone asks me to take a test I haven’t studied for, then I’ll know for sure that this is a nightmare,” he said.

Randal glared at the fishbowl jungle. The place was uncomfortably new. It was in that obnoxious state of newness where the new thing seems cold and lifeless, like a house that’s too clean for people to actually live there. Also Randal was pretty sure real grass wasn’t quite so neon.

Randal stood all the way up. A few meters in front of him the fake plants abruptly stopped, and became real grass and a path. Randal shrugged and headed for the path. When he reached the edge of the Astroturf, he slammed his face into an invisible wall. He swore loudly and fell to the ground, clutching his nose.

“You can’t go further than the light-green Astroturf. The red stuff to the left, and the darker green to the right are different exhibits, you’ll hit a similar wall,” said Mint. She was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees.

Randal hadn’t noticed her, concealed by the imitation foliage as she was, and was startled by her voice.

“What?”

“We’re in a zoo. This is the Earth 9 exhibit,”

“What is this,” asked Randal, touching the invisible wall “a force-field?”

“It’s the collective will of billions of retarded bugs,” said Mint, as though that were an answer.

“I see,” said Randal.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Is it racist to hate space-bugs?” asked Randal.

“What’s racist?” answered Mint.

“Nevermind,” said Randal, who decided to hate them regardless.

Suddenly, the air seemed eerily calm. All the ambient noise seemed to have drained from the area. Randal looked over at Mint. She was frozen in one long moment of glaring at nothing. Randal was starting to feel uncomfortably lucky.

“Hello Randal,” said an entirely different, fully clothed, Randal.

Randal’s stared wide-eyed.

“I’m you from the future Randal,” said future Randal.

“I see,” said Randal.

“I know that you don’t consider that an answer, because when I was you and I was told by me what I’m telling you now, I didn’t either.”

“You’re not helping,” said Randal.

“Shut-up and listen. I have something important to tell you, and I have to say it exactly like how I heard it or else I could destroy the timeline for all I know.”

“Well take your time,” said Randal.

“Here,” said future Randal, removing an alien looking bracelet and throwing it to Randal.

“What’s this?” asked Randal.

“It’s a time machine. I have another one for Mint. You two are going to use them to escape from here.”

“We’re going to travel through time naked?”

“Gotcha covered,” said future Randal, taking off his backpack and handing it to his past counterpart,

“A set of clothes for both of you. You’ll have to remember to buy them before you come back here to do this when you’re me.”

“How do you even work this thing?” asked Randal, who was examining the bracelet.

“Can’t tell you, I never told myself when I was you, so if I told you now it could threaten the timeline or something. Here’s the other time-bracelet,” he said, throwing Randal a similar device “Once you have a plan of action for getting out of the Zoo, just come back to this spot at this point in time and tell the past version of yourself what I’m telling you now, and give him the time bracelets and the clothes.”

“Okay,” said Randal, who was more than a bit overwhelmed.

“Alright, I’m going to start time again.”

Suddenly the air started to move. Sound returned. Mint’s glare was once again dynamic. The only difference was that Randal now had a backpack and two things he didn’t know how to operate.

“Where did you get those?” asked Mint, suddenly noticing Randal’s haul.

“My future self gave them to me,” said Randal, as though that was an answer.

“I see,” said Mint.

“There’s clothes for both of us in the backpack,” said Randal.

“Remind me to thank you later,” said Mint smiling. 

* * *

“Remind me to kick your ass later,” said Mint, looking down at the ugly pink skirt she was now wearing.

“Hey for all I know you pick it out. You can’t get mad at me for something that hasn’t happened yet,” argued Randal.

“So how do these things work?” asked Mint, holding up the wrist that she had her bracelet on.

“I didn’t say,” said Randal “But I’m going to guess the solitary button has something to do with it.”

“Smart ass,” said Mint, pressing the button. She disappeared with a loud pop.

Randal hadn’t expected this, and quickly pressed his own button, not wanting to be left behind. He disappeared with a like pop of equal volume.

Future Randal emerged from the blue palm-tree he was hiding behind.

“It’s okay to come out now Mint,” he yelled.

Mint stood up from her hiding spot in the back of the exhibit.

“I don’t see why I had to hide,” she said.

“You weren’t there when it happened to me-”

Mint cut him off “Yeah, yeah, it might disrupt the timeline or something. You think everything is going to disrupt the timeline. You’re like an old lady… an old time lady.”

“Well we’re back to your present now so I’ve got nothing to be an old time lady about anymore. Let’s just get out of here.”

Mint tossed Randal a small jar. He popped the top and poured a fat maggot out, which he stuck in his ear. He did his best not to seem utterly disgusted as it slimed its way to his brain. Beside him, Mint shaking her head, trying to get used to the presence of her own brain maggot.

“I just thought of something,” said Randal “Can these things become overwhelmed with so much psychic energy that they explode? Explode inside our heads?”

“I dunno,” said Mint “Looks like we’re going to find out.”

She stepped off of the Astroturf and calmly walked onto the path. Randal followed.

A high pitched alarm screeched. Randal and Mint covered their ears and ran. Just ahead of them, four Nater-Nid guards carrying spears blocked their path. Mint and Randal came to an abrupt halt.

“Uh-oh,” said Randal “Quark-Spears.”

Mint smiled.

“You ever wonder how such a technologically primitive a species could develop so powerful a weapon?” she asked.

“Psychic energy,” said Randal, also smiling, “So that would make them…”

“Just a bunch of bugs with pointy sticks,” said Mint, drawing her vaporizer.

If the Nater-Nid guards had bodies expertly designed enough to display an emotion, it would have been fear. 

* * *

On the other side of the planet, at a seized property auction, a humany-looking Nater-Nid with hair shaped like a top-hat was extolling the virtues of the starship Serendipity to a less than enthralled audience. The Nater-Nids have no use for space-ships and usually sell them for a song, ensuring that the audience contained a healthy mix of pirates and the immorally cheap. Suddenly, the ship on stage came to life with a sudden onset of noise and light. An ancient program buried within the computer banks of Serendipity brought the ship online. The audience watched as the ship flew itself away.

“That was #98 in your program,” said the Nater-Nid with top-hat shaped hair, “Just cross it out so you remember.” 

* * *

“I have to admit,” said Mint, as Serendipity came into view overhead, “For one of your plans, this was surprisingly unsuicidal.”

“That means a lot coming from you,” said Randal, sincerely.

The spaceship landed on the hole-ridden Nater-Nid guards, and the last two humans in existence walked up the boarding ramp.

“So where do you want to go?” asked Mint.

“You know what?” said Randal “I don’t really care.”