Page 30 of Time Traveling Space Bastards

T he couch in Baxter’s apartment was terrible. I could have left and slept in my quarters in Big Daddy, but now that I knew my brother was close, I didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to stop the holy texts from ever making it to our planet, but he was a curious kid once.

He would want to know what the last texts said and how they ended up on our planet seven thousand years ago, even if he wanted to stop them from coming. I’d already worked it out, even if there was still a lot I hadn’t figured out. Valtens would have to deal with it unless he wanted me to leave him on this planet.

My back was killing me when I woke up. Omi was a better fighter than I was, but she decided to sleep in Big Daddy so he could tell her if there was anyone lurking outside her building who shouldn’t be. I made my time machine sentient, and I didn’t regret it, but he seemed to cooperate better with women than men, so I stayed in the apartment.

Omi and Enix came back really early with their arms laden with food. They really picked a variety. Enix chose things he saw me eating in the palace and Omi picked street food. It was a decent representation of our planet. After the last disaster trying to cook from her kitchen, I didn’t want to risk it again.

Torrek came out before Baxter and was sulking.

“She wanted to bathe and refused to let me wash her.”

“Well, yes,” Enix said. “She’s very independent. You can’t take that away from her. If she likes something, she’ll let you do it. Baxter might like that, just not right now. You can’t sulk or make her feel bad or I’ll hit you.”

Huh. Some Enix were programmed with all fighting styles. Torrek had been teaching ours to fight, but he didn’t like it much. The only being on our planet who could probably match a Saki in a fight was an Enix who hadn’t been programmed to feel pain. Torrek knew that. He also knew Enix was right.

“No need. This is all just new to me. It’s intense. She’s more chaotic than a Sileat. One minute, she’s terrified we aren’t going to be able to save her and the next, she’s sure she’s going to find her killer and punch him in the dick. I was nervous about traveling to a new planet in a new galaxy. She’s not scared at all. She can’t wait to leave this one behind.”

And we all wanted to take her. I could get her a place, but I still didn’t know what to do with her. If she was just Baxter Holmes, the human we fancied enough to take back with us, she’d be fine. She would only be in danger if someone connected her to the Devouring Mother.

But I couldn’t focus on fixing the future of my planet until I figured out the present on this one. And we needed to start with finding my brother. Baxter came out from her shower and as much as Torrek was trying to hide it, he was still pouting she wouldn’t let him wash her and she noticed right away and knew.

“If you washed me, I was going to get horny. We were going to have shower sex instead of finding Valtens and we’re on a time crunch. But yes to all the shower sex if I don’t die.”

There was an answer. Some version of us had already done this and no version of me would have let that happen to Baxter or Torrek. I needed to save her, but I needed to know when to come back and save her. I was missing something.

“Big Daddy programmed the coordinates to Valtens’s machine into my chip before I walked over. I know how to get there.”

“Quick question, am I going to get arrested for treason on your planet when we get there if I punch him in the dick when we find him?”

“Yes. He’s that kind of man. And I don’t think we’ll find him in the time machine. If he’s figured out the exchange rate between Nova Credits and money on this planet, he will have bought himself what passed for a palace in this city.”

“This is a fishing town. There aren’t palaces here.”

“Whatever is close. If he’s going to be stuck here for fifteen years, he’s going to get himself set up comfortably and try to find people to adore him.”

“Which no one is going to do if they don’t know he’s a prince,” Omi pointed out.

“How far is it? I’ve got a car, but it’s ancient and a hatchback, so it’s not going to fit all of you. We could probably squeeze it in, but my soulmate is massive,” she said, pinching Torrek’s ass. “I can call a rideshare if no one gets weird. Weirder than me, that is.”

“It’s slightly over ten clicks,” Omi said.

“America won’t even use the metric system, so I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s seven miles,” Enix said.

“Rideshare. I’m not walking that, and we should only use Big Daddy when we need to go back in time or people might notice.”

Which was a good idea. I was faster than everyone here, but I couldn’t carry them with me if I ran it. I didn’t want to approach Valtens if he was around without the others. He might have left his Enix to defend it.

It was time to face my brother.