The threatening howl of an alien wind was broken only by brief pops of static, as the external shielding of the fortress struggled to overcome the jammers. Rusty waited for a gap in the shield’s rapidly narrowing field of effect, then jumped through. He hit the ground hard, but managed to tuck and roll with some small degree of success. Standing quickly, Rusty patted three different areas of his person. Now secure in the knowledge that his booze was safe, he took off into the alien night.

Rusty was not usually the type to abandon his post. He may have turned to soldiering merely because he was a drunk with no useful skills, but he was fiercely patriotic. This took an extra especially large amount of doublethink, owing to some of the paradoxes associated with a supposedly anarchist anti-state having an army and, frankly, an empire. The army itself had all but dropped the pretense of being a defense force, but they still never ran out of new reasons why the invasions were necessary for the safety of the Divided State of the Anarcho-Capitalist Americas, and Rusty ate it up with a spoon.

But one thing that Rusty wasn’t was stupid. He was just intellectually lazy. War had looked so glamorous on paper, but Rusty quickly learned the downside of being shot at all day. The Oonagoora hadn’t seemed like they’d be able to put up a real fight, but that’s when they somehow started jamming the shields. Suddenly bows and arrows were deadly again, and the modern soldiers were ill-prepared against weapons that didn’t fire bolts of light. So Rusty got himself and all the liquor he could conceal about his person out of there.

* * * 

“This is great. This is way better than stumbling around time blind,” said Randal. He was impressed with the new toys that had been given to him and Mint by beings from beyond time. In response to his desire to find Rusty, atom-sized machines built what could only be described as a Rusty-Finder out of atmosphere, dirt and dead skin cells.

Randal clicked the only button on the Rusty-Finder. An electric arrow lit up on the display, pointing in the direction of Rusty. The distance to Rusty (1.9 kilometers, 1.2 miles, 2.6 gnarls, 70 trillion f’l’rtxs’s) blipped beside it, updating itself in real time.

Mint, who had been enamored of the incredibly advanced technology initially, had grown more conservative as the results of her subconscious desires being made manifest seemed to slip further and further from her control.

“What is going on? The caveman is in love with the dangerous new technology. Aren’t you usually afraid of consequences? What happened to that?” Mint muttered.

“I’m worried about the consequences of time travel. I can’t prevent my own birth with these nanoassemblers.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” said Mint.

* * * 

Three motion detectors lit up in Rusty’s helmet. He hadn’t survived the war this long by using discretion when choosing targets. He fired off a fourth of a clip worth of energy in the rough direction indicated by his ancient tech. There was an explosion of bright energy, and the familiar crackle of an energy shield igniting atmosphere.

“Hey,” came a woman’s voice from the darkness “Fuck you too asshole!”

A barrage of laser fire soon followed, forcing Rusty to take cover behind one of the remaining unvaporized trees. These were no crybaby savages fighting for their home. These were real soldiers.

The smell of burnt atmosphere lingered as both sides waited for the other to make a move. At length Rusty called out.

“Um, sorry ‘bout that. I thought you were someone else.”

* * * 

“Is that Rusty?” whispered Randal.

The entire display of the Rusty-Finder lit up with the word YES.

“Yep, it’s Rusty alright,” said Randal, a little louder.

“HEY!” yelled Mint “What’s the big idea shooting me? I haven’t done anything to you yet from your perspective.”

“Well if I knew that I would end up meeting you and not just leaving your carcasses for whatever horrible scavengers this insane planet’s bastard god cooked up, I never would have shot. It was nothing personal,” said Rusty, walking into view dropping his rifle. There was no sense further antagonizing these people until he had something he could kill them with.

“How come your shields aren’t being jammed?”

“Because ours weren’t made by bashing rocks together,” replied Mint “There are more ways to stop lasers than just pumping raw energy into one of the ambient electro-phlistogen fields, and all of them unjammable. You guys brought a knife to a space-battle.”

“Don’t take it personally,” said Randal “She thinks everything is primitive beyond belief. She’s the temporal equivalent of an American tourist.”

“Then it was you!” yelled Rusty “You were the ones jamming our shields. You’re the reason the savages have been killing us by the hundreds!”

“What? No. We just got here. We were looking for you,” said Mint, a little taken aback “We don’t have time to run around jamming shields whenever we feel like it. We’re trying to break ourselves out of a bunch of psychic bug’s zoo.”

“Really? You don’t look it,” said Rusty.

“The plan is complex and involves time travel, but technically it hasn’t been successful yet,” Mint tried to explain.

“Also there’s a pretty good chance that if we screw it up it’ll destroy the universe,” Randal added.

“Yeah so that’s why we need to give you a spaceship,” said Mint.

Rusty’s pupils practically turned to dollar signs.

“I agree. Everything you just said made perfect sense. Where’s the ship?” 

* * *

Serendipity floated on the air like water. Inside, Rusty blew as hard as he could at the controls. A huge cloud of dusty engulfed the bridge, sending its three occupants into a fit of coughs.

“Yeah it’s been here for a few hundred years. We stashed it on the planet then traveled forward in time to meet you. It’s all very complicated, all you need to know is,” Mint waved her hand over an area directly in front of the pilot’s chair. The air her hand passed through lit up with an eerie light.

“The upgraded controls are right here. Just put your hands in this area, and the computer will read your tiny mind and create controls that even you could understand.”

“Oh no. Ain’t no computer goin’ be reading my mind. I’ll use these real controls.”

“Fine,” said Mint, crossing her arms “Do you want to know how the viewscreen works, or are you afraid it’ll steal your soul?”

“Let’s just go,” said Randal “He didn’t exactly seem to be an expert at flying this thing when we met him before… or I guess later on. Anyway, I don’t think he needs you to give him flying lessons.”

“Yeah,” said Rusty, in between swigs from one of his many flasks. He had the slurry confidence of someone who’d forgotten what sober felt like.

“Fine, let’s go,” said Mint. 

* * *

Serendipity took off straight up and faded away into the night sky. On the planet below, Randal and Mint stood watching it fly away.

“I’m glad that asshole gets lynched,” said Mint. She stopped speaking suddenly, and held her hand out to silence Randal. In one fluid movement she drew her weapon and pointed it at the darkness. The bushes rustled.

Startled, Randal reached for his vaporizer in three different places before his hand brushed his holster. Panicked, Randal reefed the gun out with all his might, depressing the trigger and sending beams of concentrated heat scattering. The sight of his involuntary light show made Randal emit a yell that bordered on screaming.

“Calm yourself dead-eye,” Mint snapped.

A few flaming leaves fell from the sky where Randal fired wildly. They burnt themselves out before touching the ground.

“As you can clearly see from my friend’s little display we’re heavily armed. What you don’t know yet is that we’re also protected by what are, for the purposes of this discussion, impenetrable shields. We’re not looking for a fight, but we’ll sure the space-hell end one,” said Mint. She squeezed the trigger of her weapon slightly so that it created the telltale little powering up noise she liked.

Exactly 180 degrees from where Mint was pointing her weapon, a small group of hunter gatherers emerged. Their leafy hair and natural colored clothing made an effective camouflage without the need for light-bending.

Mint spun around, and the tribals fell to their knees.

“Forgive us oh great war spirits, we humbly beg forgiveness,” pleaded the leader of the hunters, a priest “For we mistook you for the enemy. Please accept Graxityl as a sacrifice. Graxityl!”

The man who was apparently Graxityl stood, and the two men nearest him raised their spears.

“Wait, wait, its okay. We don’t need a sacrifice. It’s all cool,” Mint stuttered.

“Yeah we’re merciful gods,” chimed in Randal, not helping.

“You’re not helping,” hissed Mint “We’re not gods.”

“Oh I get it,” said the priest “It’s a test. Rakary! Telushe! Get on with the sacrifice.”

Graxityl stood back up and made a hand signal at his soon-to-be-killers that struck Randal as reminiscent of a thumbs-up.

“No. Just stop. No killing,” yelled Mint.

The Oonagoora stared at her blankly.

“It’s… it’s a trick right?” asked Graxityl.

“Now I’m confused,” said the priest “I don’t understand what we’re supposed to kill.”

“Maybe the gods don’t want us to kill each-other,” offered one of the women “Maybe they want us to kill ourselves!”

“Alright, you heard the lady,” said the priest “Everyone spear yourself.”

“Nobody spear yourself,” said Mint “We’re not gods and we don’t want a sacrifice.”

The priest of the tribals squinted hard at Mint.

“You’re not making any sense your holiness,” he said finally.  

* * *

The native aliens lead Randal and Mint through nearly imperceptible jungle paths, a route that involved climbing trees and wading through streams. Finally they come to the native’s village. The villagers had bend and shaped young saplings and other plants until their natural growth formed the bulk of the village’s buildings. The natural camouflage of the village served to heighten the contrast of the one piece of modern technology. In what might well have been the center of town, for neither Randal nor Mint could determine just exactly how much of their surroundings constituted the town, was a sleek black rectangle as long as four men, the top of which was covered in blood and gore. Mint stepped closer to examine it.

“Of course,” said the priest “The Gods wanted us to wait until we could make the sacrifice on the Altar of the Gods. Truly your divine wisdom has saved us from blaspheming against you. Graxityl!”

Graxityl rushed forward and jumped onto the slab before lying down.

“Okay, I have had just about enough of this,” said Mint “If all these people understand is supernatural power, I’ll give them a God.”

The nanobots inside Mint’s My First Time Travel Kit ejected themselves and surrounded her. Responding to her mental command, they spun bits of atmosphere and pollen into wool atoms, which it rubbed against each other vigorously.

“There will be no killing in my name!” she boomed, before releasing the charge as an arc of lightning. The blast crashed into a tall tree which burst into flames. The nanobots quickly put out the fire, and Mint put on a real show of waving her hands while they did so to make it look like magic.

The Oonagoora screamed then quickly bowed as one. Mint felt a twinge of embarrassment. She swallowed it.

“I am no God of War, and you shall spill no more blood in my name. Although my mercy is great, my wrath is infinite. You will be given no more warnings.”

“I agree,” said Randal, attempting to sound powerful.

“Yes, yes, we understand of mighty God. Thy will be done!” groveled the priest. The others held their bows, petrified with fear.

“Alright then,” said Mint.

With that, the two travelers disappeared in a puff of time.

* * * 

“They already think we’re gods, if we don’t go back and plant the seed that makes them think we’re gods who knows what the implications could be. The entirety of space-time could be at stake,” argued Randal.

“You’re talking out of your ass, you don’t know thing one about space-time.”

“Well what about Rusty? If we don’t give them a jammer who knows how much of his timeline could be altered, and since we just gave him the ship-”

“Okay alright we’ll go scare the natives 50 years ago. You know you’re pretty tightly wound for a caveman.” 

* * *

In the days before magick, life was blissful. The Oonagoora tribes were content killing each other in small, manageable wars over territory, women and relative genital sizes. Life was kept in balance. Then the demons came, down from the stars, and began their great apocalyptic war. They fought with spears of light, and their monstrous god protected them from harm. The Oonagoora were slaughtered in great numbers, and life spiraled out of control.

The Oonagoora soon ceased fighting, and hid themselves away from the demons. The demons constructed a giant temple to their alien god, which protected them from any attack the Oonagoora could muster.

But the Oonagoora were a proud people. They created their own gods, gods of war and conquest, gods of victory. And the prayers were answered, the new gods of Oonagoora appeared in blinding sunlight. Min-ta, the goddess of warfare, and Ran-dal the god of victory. They brought with them divine magicks and summoned an altar from the Earth. The altar had the power to defeat the demons magick, but the gods spoke in riddles. They warned against using the altar for sacrifices. But the priests cracked their divine code, and the sacrifices began to much rejoicing. Once again the Oonagooran spears kissed flesh, and the demons were driven back to hide in their great temple.

And the gods came a second time, down from the heavens to answer the prayers of the Oonagoora. The used their magicks to conjure skyfire and strike down the unworthy. Again they spoke in riddles which puzzled the minds of the Oonagoora. But when they had gone, the priests divined the answer using magick herbs, and the sacrifices began anew tenfold. And life was once again in balance. 

* * *

“Okay, next stop Twee’noch to pick up Serendipity after Rusty gets horribly murdered. This plan is finally starting to come together,” said Mint. She tried to shoot tiny fireworks from his fingertips, but only a few impotent sparks flew.

A thought entered her head that was not her own.

“Empty? Oh come on, from making one laser-jammer? Some enlightened energy being he turned out to be.”