After returning the Vnezemnoid, code named Agent Hulio to Primordial Earth, Karl decided to take his time traveling home to planet Cavia. His skiff was idling at a slow speed of 2,188,484.94 kilometres per second or roughly 7.3 times the speed of light. This wasn’t entirely accurate as the skiff itself was actually stationary. It was resting perfectly still. The skiff’s warp-wave engine was distorting the fabric of space-time around the ivory white fuselage at 7.3 times the speed of light.

  Karl sat in his pilot’s chair in the cockpit. The chair resembled a purple coloured, crescent shaped bean bag floating in the air. His prehensile hind paws were busy operating the touch pad controls while his forepaws held a hard-light holographic tablet. Karl scrolled through the images of his multiple mates and thousands of offspring, deleting images of his 27th mate - the one who sent him a series of angry messages ending with the final text, informing him that she ran off with his brother Angus. Karl was also deleting images of Angus.

  Angus, Mr Big Shot, famous Federation fighter pilot, ace extraordinaire, now retired with full Federation veteran pension and benefits.

  Angus, Mr Big Shot, built the Centenary Plover with his own bare prehensile paws instead of simply using AI to design it and then run the blueprints through a quantum field forge. No, Mr Big Shot had to take it upon himself to pawcraft the ship like some kind of oversized Bentley.

  Centenary Plover - fastest starship to be registered with the Cavian Department of Pan Cosmic Transport…

  Angus Mono, smuggler, criminal and burglar of reproductive companions.

  Angus Mono, one bad, treacherous brother.

  He contemplated searching the omninet for a passive aggressive meme and posting it on his profile on the social media network Tick-Tock-YouTwitFace. However, his common sense kicked in. The last thing he needed was for acquaintances, work colleagues, friends and family to think he was a neurotic toss who couldn’t control his emotions. After all, semi-aquatic guinea pigs were polyamorous horn bags.

  It was common for males and females to have 30 to 40 mates. However, it was social decorum to notify existing mates that an additional mate had been chosen prior to entering into the new mating relationship. To choose a new mate and to engage in mating without notifying existing mates incited hurt feelings, anger and jealousy. For Semi-Aquatic guinea pigs, to keep mating with a newly selected mate a secret until after mating occurred, was just plain wrong.

  Hence why Karl was idling at 2,188,484.94 kilometres per second in the interstellar medium just outside the Sol star system’s Oort cloud. He was processing his feelings of hurt, anger and jealousy and wasn’t in a hurry to activate the skiff’s bulkverse jump engine and travel relatively instantly, back to his homeworld.

  However, Karl's melancholy was interrupted when long range sensors detected a cloaked flotilla approaching the Sol star system. Unusual, thought Karl as he thought deactivated his hard-light holographic tablet. It disappeared as it dissipated into the quantum field. The code for recreating the tablet from the quantum field was simultaneously updated on his personal partition in the skiff’s code storage unit. Karl focused his complete attention to the data streaming across his cockpit display.

  He didn’t like what he saw. It was five ships consisting of four corvettes escorting a larger vessel. It was a frigate. The cloak signature matched Minger technology. It didn’t take long for Karl to conclude the frigate was cloaking itself and the corvettes. Not only that, but the flotilla was also riding a warp wave generated by the frigate. This doesn’t make sense, considered Karl. Unless … the corvettes lacked cloaking capability and warp-wave generation technology?

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  At the risk of being discovered, he performed a more invasive scan. The data flowed onto his display, including confirmation that he hadn’t yet been detected. He read the data, and a sickening feeling rose from his fluffy belly. The frigate was indeed Minger but the corvettes were Daemon Shih Tzu, one of the most thuggish species to curse the pan cosmos. The corvettes were upgraded with dodgy Minger temporal travel tech but not warp wave engines.

  The Daemon Shih Tzus lacked temporal travel technology and yet here they were in the early 21st century, escorting a Minger frigate. Also, since the scan confirmed the corvettes lacked warp-wave technology, Karl deduced the ships came from the era of the Sol star system blockade. Daemon Shih Tzu ships from this time period used hyper relativistic rocket engines to punch through the light speed barrier. This did of course, defy the laws of physics. However, the Daemon Shih Tzus were an anarchistic species who totally disregarded every law imaginable, including the physical ones.

  Karl turned his attention to the frigate.

  Mingers, cringed Karl in disgust. They were vile, putrid and decadent creatures. Unlike the Daemon Shih Tzus, Mingers possessed crude and unreliable temporal travel and dangerously ineffective bulkverse jump capability. The Federation heavily sanctioned Mingers and on several occasions, were compelled to destroy Minger hive worlds to deter their aggression and subterfuge.

  Why are they here? Why are they working with the Daemon Shih Tzus and why in this time period? How is it even possible that they are this close to Primordial Earth during this time period? Anything other than a ship with Federation, Primordial Earth Protectorate or the Commonwealth of Human Posterity signatures would be instantly obliterated.

  Karl pondered all of this while performing diagnostic scans on Sol’s armada of sentry weapons platforms, positioned throughout the solar system by the Federation for this particular time period. He was profoundly disturbed by the results of the scans. Why in the name of his holy fuggliness, was the entire Sol Defence System offline? How can this be? Only the Federation and the Primordial Earth Protectorate had access to the system. What for all the carrots on Cavia was going on?

  It was then that Karl was filled with dread as an epiphany slapped him in the snout like a shin kick from Kickboxer’s Tong Po. He looked at the star date, back on Primordial Earth, in 5 hours and 31 minutes time, an experimental deep space vessel would launch from a space facility in China. This would be an unauthorised launch as the vessel would contain 60 mating pairs of the first generation of Semi-Aquatic Guinea Pigs who escaped from a biomedical facility. The facility was researching nootropic drugs to treat dementia. The vessel was altered by the first generation prior to launch. Such was the intellectual might of the Semi-Aquatic Guinea Pigs that they invented warp-wave technology while altering the crude human vessel as it sat on the launch pad.

  True story [thumbs up].

  By Bloke the Bulldog’s stainless steel scrote, realised Karl in sudden alarm, these douche bags are attempting to sabotage the launch! There wasn’t enough time to alert the Federation, the flotilla passed through the Oort Cloud and was traversing the Kuiper Belt. By the time it reached Jupiter, the space facility in China on Primordial Earth would be within striking range of the Minger frigate.

  He had to act fast, the future of his species, his family, his friends and thousands of his offspring was in jeopardy. Without the formation of the Intergalactic Federation of Semi-Aquatic Guinea Pigs, bullies like the Mingers and Daemon Shih Tzus would cause havoc and widespread genocide across countless worlds in the pan cosmos.

  "Oh no, not on my watch!" roared Karl, “you shall not pass!”

  Without hesitation, he activated the skiff’s military mode, unleashing a torrent of molecular nanobots from the nanotech module. Karl controlled the nanobots with his thoughts, the bots morphed the vessel into its combat configuration.

  He thought activated a ‘heroic playlist’ from the Pan Cosmic Music Cloud, roared from the skiff’s surround sound system. He dropped the clutch, hit the pedal to the floor and sped towards the flotilla, red lining the warp-wave engine in his wake.