The drum solo that kicked off Van Halen's 'Hot for Teacher' came over the tinny speakers and Armitage Shanks found his feet involuntarily tapping upon the metallic floor.

He lit a cigarette and broke out the air drums, a musical instrument of which he was an absolute master, and pounded them harder than the hooker he'd picked up at the last fuel stop.

It seemed so long ago, but then again when one was flying solo on a cargo vessel several years into deep space, a monotonous run broken only by the infrequent privately owned space stations and refuelling rigs, everything seemed so long ago and very, very far away.

"Oi!" he shouted out, annoyed that the vessel's computer system had taken it upon itself to stop the track just before it was halfway through. That annoyance dissipated quickly though, when Armitage realised the reason for the abrupt halt to one of his favourite pieces of classical music, was a sounding alarm.

"Ah," he said, quietly, pausing only to puff heavily upon the cigarette. "Bugger."

***

Armitage Shanks acknowledged the alarm, his thumbprint upon an electronic pad situated to the right of the central console saw to that, and then he shut down all non-essential systems which meant only life support and the vessel's thrusters were active, however he was still able to access the ship's computer system, and he did so.

"Well... that can't be right," he mumbled, before using the still-burning embers of his cigarette to light another. Then, with the tab hanging limply from the corner of his mouth, hey keyed the command sequence once more.

The result was odd and annoying in equal measure for the result was the same.

"Fucking thing must be on the fritz."

That was what Armitage Shanks hoped, anyway, because if the vessel's computer system was not suffering some kind of glitch then the ship had somehow travelled forwards in time by, and this was something he would have to check and double-check when he managed to locate a calculator, twenty-six billion years.

Whilst he could not locate a calculator, Armitage Shanks did manage to find a lump hammer with which he proceeded to whack into the side of the computer until the screen fizzed.

"Much more effective than Ctrl-Alt-Delete," he said with a grin, but when the screen fizzed back to life and displayed the same information, Armitage sighed rather heavily.

He rebooted all of the non-essential systems he had previously disabled and commanded the computer to search for something, anything, out in the big wide Universe, that might possibly allude to its current state.

Much to Armitage Shanks' surprise, it was only a matter of seconds before what very much appeared to be a live feed showed on his screen.

"...and in other news, the Intergalactic Federation of Cosmic Outliers has claimed responsibility for yet another attack on the Milkomedan capital. Galactic leaders have publicly condemned the attack which took three hundred and seven thousand two hundred and eighteen lives this morning, when a cold fusion bomb was detonated in a busy shopping centre.

"Here at Channel 819 News, our thoughts go out to all of those affected by the tragedy. Now, sports!"

Armitage shook his head rigorously, then pinched himself to ensure he was not dreaming.

The newsreader appeared to be human. Sure, his face was slightly longer than Armitage might have expected, just as his eyes were larger and more pronounced but there was no doubt about it in Armitage's mind. He was human, which meant humanity had somehow managed to survive for an awfully long time and despite the best efforts of certain organisations, it seemed, was showing no signs of slowing down.

At that point the channel changed to Intergalactic Geographic. Apparently they were showing a documentary depicting all of the wars in which humanity had been involved, and there were certainly some doozies that made the Great Wars of the twentieth century look like schoolyard scuffles.

"You see it was at this point, some seventeen billion years ago, that humanity very nearly wiped itself out.

"During the final stages of the colonisation of Milkomeda several factions arose, each claiming their undeniable rights to these new worlds and planets but then, as every schoolchild knows, our saviours came in the form of aggressors, the first of many alien races we have since encountered and not the only ones to seek our demise.

"But we fought them on the beaches, we fought them on planets and moons. We fought them, in one case, to the very event horizon of a supermassive black hole. And then when they were on the run humanity united and we took the fight to them.

"With freshly developed technology we sent them running back to their home galaxy and sent every single star therein to a state of hypernova.

"This is why, to this day, we are the strongest, most feared race in the Known Universe."

Again, Armitage shook his head and lit a cigarette as the screen fizzed again though when any kind of image returned, it was of a woman's head set against a sort of grey, corrugated background.

"Unknown vessel. You have entered Milkomedan Airspace without giving proper authorisation. Identify yourself immediately, lest you be destroyed."

The woman was not really much to look at, if Armitage was any judge, and he really was beginning to hope that everything going on actually was a dream, that he would wake up any moment with drool dripping from his chin, a discarded pizza box on the floor beside his chair and Van Halen still playing on the stereo.

"I, erm..."

"Unknown vessel this is your last warning. There is a fusion missile en route to your current coordinates. If you do not identify yourself within five seconds, I will not have time to disarm the device and alter its course."

"Well, bugger..."

Because there really was not much else to say, was there?