Four minutes 26 seconds to impact.

The stiletto heel dug into Roy's cheek. From this angle, the only encouraging thing was the skin of her bare leg past the knee-high, faux-leather boot, stretching up to the shadowy nether regions of her, well, nether regions.

Not that he wanted to go there.

An asteroid field would be safer to navigate and probably more welcoming. But the view was nice. If this was the last thing he would ever see, hey, you took what you could get.

She drew the pull chain on the stuffed crow that was perched on her shoulder.

"Smash the patriarchy!" the thing croaked.

"What were you saying about the last coordinates you programmed in the computer? You were on a rescue mission and not headed for an up close encounter with a large moon?" she asked. "If only there was some way you could make me believe you."

"I swear—"

"Tut, tut. Don't swear, honey-bumpkins, it ruins your adorable, nerdy image."

She whipped out a 3R8 from a holster on her back. And pointed it at his nose. The warning light from the console flickered in the crow's glass eye.

Thirty-eight Standard Hours previously

Farah blushed and tucked a loose strand of dark brown hair behind her ear. She had two triangular notches in the top cartilage. Once upon a time, she had been a thief. Twice, actually. But Roy didn't give a flying flowchart. Her primer code was etched in silver on the disk she passed him over the bar. This was the first time a woman gave him her coordinates, which sounded about as pathetic as it actually was.

The first twenty-five years of life were spent in his mother's basement until he was recruited for off-planet Terra programming support with an all-male regiment for another three. There was no one to date but the bots or other guys, but no one special—biological or virtual—caught Roy's interest.

Two days back on Metradon and he was going on a date. With a real live woman. He swallowed nervously. "Sure, I'd love to. What time should I pick you up?"

"Twenty S.H. I'll be waiting."

Sixteen Standard Hours Previously

"What do you mean she was collected? She had a job, she was an honest bar-tend. The government can't round up innocent people and ship them off to the mines!" Roy ran a hand through his hair, or what was left of it. His twenty-eighth birthday was not kind to his hairline.

"Yeah, buddy, where you been? Your mom's basement? A pretty girl like that isn't going to the mines. No, they round up batches and pack them like cattle on cargo ships for whatever hell-hole needs more women. That's what keeps the government in place. Happy campers on the outskirts, scared rats at home." Farrah's former neighbor lit up an Ecrivain special, the newest fashion in fake cigs. Hologram smoke rings puffed from his mouth. "If she owed you money, you can kiss it goodbye."

Roy pivoted. His girl, or the girl who might one day be his girl, especially if he could save her from forced labor and an arranged marriage with the scum they shipped to work in the newly Terra-formed planets, needed a hero.

And he had just spent the last twenty some years practicing how to infiltrate government issue data bases in all their many forms. He was the hero she needed.

Fifteen Standard Hours Previously

The ship would launch in twenty-six minutes 12 seconds. He swiped his genera-disk over the read to erase the search and reset the security. The next officer checking the dock schedule wouldn't see a thing. Gathering intel was easy—getting on her ship would be tricky.

It would be hella easier to cause a major malfunction and keep them on Metradon

Fourteen Standard Hours Thirty-Two Minutes Previously

Well, that didn't go exactly as planned.

The cuffs around his wrists pinched painfully. The two guards marching him towards the brig were sweaty, beefy, stiff-jacketed and trigger happy. Like they were selected from an intergalactic security guard catalogue.

And rough. He had to hope they were up to snuff when it came to prisoner's rights and didn't try to violate anything. Especially anything connected to his body. They tossed him through a port and with a hiss, the prison room was sealed.

At least he was alone. "What about the cuffs?" he yelled.

"I can take care of the cuffs, for a favor," whispered his cell mate in a 'dang, that's a creepy voice and where the hell is it coming from' kind of way.

Roy put his back to the wall, com panel at his shoulder. It would be sealed from in here. "What kind of favor?"

"Can you get us out of here?" the guy asked.

"Does the new ration rum taste like liquid fire?"

His new best friend promptly picked the lock on the cuffs and Roy then hacked the com panel.

Eleven Standard Hours Five Minutes Previously

The vessel had shot into space right after Roy was arrested trying to program a massive malfunction into its engine, so the whole rescue mission was a change of plans. It was now play it by ear. It was a 'grab the seat of your pants and try not to run down the hallways screaming' endeavor.

Because the ship was filled with not only hot women for hard labor and arranged marriages, but it had an entire level of the deadliest viruses known to the government being shipped to an off-terra research and development site. Because apparently the development for the end of carbon-based life forms was good for business.

Roy tip-toed quite a bit and stole the ID cards and matching suits to five different security level officers. When no one expected any foul-play, it was incredibly easy to lift random clothes and badges. People left that stuff in every resting cell.

Then Roy found a lonely console station.

He introduced himself to the ship's computer, and altered the programmed course by just the right number of degrees to miss their target and send them straight to the Rhone, a happy little planet where the ship could refuel. He would make sure the ship never lifted off again.

Nine Standard Hours Fifty-One Minutes Previously

Not only were there viruses that melted your brain until it oozed out your nose on level eight, but the computer (she was unusually chipper) informed him there was a goat in the kitchen scheduled to be the captain's dinner within the next two Standard Hours.

"Not on my watch," muttered Roy.

"I'm sorry, but I don't seem to have you scheduled for patrol duties, E-Deck Officer Johnson," the computer said.

He marched straight towards the kitchen, got lost three times and hid in a closet while actual officers passed on the way to Mess-Hall. At the kitchen, he swiped his card to register as Second Navigator Kip.

Nine Standard Hours Twelve Minutes Previously

Roy saved the baby goat.

Officially, Second Navigator Kip pardoned baby goat, an illegal meal on Metradon.

If Farrah didn't appreciate a man who saved baby animals, he really didn't know what else he could do to win her love. On the practical side, the hull was stuffed with single women.

Seven Standard Hours Eleven Minutes Previously

The real Second Navigator Kip was forced to walk the plank without a space-suit for misplacing the Captain's dinner.

Three Standard Hours Forty-Three Minutes Previously

While Roy got some shut-eye, his new best friend from the brig stole his stolen Second Navigator Kip uniform and badge, decided to cheat at cards in the Mess-Hall, was retaken to the brig, interrogated and forced to walk the plank.

Roy's new baby goat ate his Uni-Pass that was his best hope in continuing to hack the system and avoid detection. They had to hide under the floor panels in a smuggling compartment the very friendly computer told him about when he logged in as Third Tech Officer Holden.

Twenty-Seven Minutes Previously

As the ship veered undetected off course of its intended destination, the incoming alarm sounded.

"What's going on?" Roy whispered into the make-shift com panel he had rigged to the wires under the floor.

"Oh, dear, looks like we have unexpected company. We've been hooked by Rotgerian Freedom Activists. Odds are roughly 30% deaths and 70% enslavement for all human passengers on The Infinite."

"What percentage of the population on board is currently imprisoned?"

"Hmm. Let me think. I would say 70%. In fact, all the females," she said. "Would you like some calming music for the coming slaughter?"

"No."

Six Minutes 4 Seconds Previously

Well, that didn't go exactly as planned.

The course he had programmed had let them straight into the arms of the most despicable outlaws in the galaxy. That would be his luck. And he thought saving Farrah from the mines of Terra-5 was hard work. Everyone was gone. Or dead. Or a strange mix of both, since the Rotgerians liked to take trophies.

Roy crouched in the smoking bridge, blood that had splattered the ceiling dripped on the floor next to him. A pretty useless mini-Tagger was in a pile of guts. A severed leg was under the Captain's chair.

"Computer, can I have that calming music now?"

"Of course you can. Let me know if there is anything else I can do."

He had a busted, blasted, useless cargo ship full of dead bodies, a baby goat and a laboratory's worth of killer viruses. None of those things would help him rescue the woman of his dreams. In fact, so far he had only made her bad situation worse.

But he was the only hero she had left.

"All right, computer, set coordinates for the nearest Rotgerian trade-post that is not in the trajectory of the craft that just handed our asses to us on a platter."

"You got it!" she chirped. "That's a 'can-do attitude' if I ever saw one...oh, wait." A warning blared. "Whoa, we've got another incoming, but I don't recognize this space craft."

Roy stirred himself to action and ran for the nearest stash of weapons. A blinding blow to his head toppled him. He clutched his head and scrambled for the bridge to close the ports. Half standing, he turned.

"Hi. I'm Lily." A woman in a black mini-skirt smashed her Electro in his stomach.

He doubled over and then fell on his ass.

A black boot in his face stopped him. Gorgeous thigh distracted him, and he could have sworn there was a black thong panty half hidden in the shadows of a mini-skirt.

"Die ye landlubber scum!" croaked a mechanical voice.

Three Minutes Twenty Seconds to Impact

"If you are going to shoot him, then have done with it already. I'm tired of smelling his man-pits from ten feet away."

"It looks like there are only three more minutes until we hit that moon. I want to thank you all for choosing to ride The Infinity today. If only there had been more time to get to know you," the computer said.

The baby goat licked his ear and began nibbling his hair. He tried to push it away, he really didn't have any hair to spare, but the boot crushed into his face harder.

"You might want to brace for impact, or try to secure one of our handy-dandy escape pods," the computer chirped to inform the trio. Well, it was a quarto if you counted the goat, but Roy didn't really count the goat. Only the people who either had guns or had guns pointed at them counted today. The computer, ever plucky, continued. "Would anyone like a hot cup of cocoa before the ship collides with Moon Altorista?"

"No thanks, hon," said Lily.

Apparently, it was Wanda's thigh he was currently admiring.

"Do you think he'll respect me after I let him touch my ankle and sneak a peek at my panties?" Wanda asked Lily. Except for the stuffed crow on Wanda's shoulder, they could have been sisters, or just kindred spirits in identical shining black mini-skirts and jet black hair and lipstick and eyeliner and jackets and boots, etc. Roy couldn't tell.

"He's a dude, why are you even asking me that question?" said Lily.

"You shouldn't do that, there are a lot of women who are depending on me to rescue them!" Roy said.

Black-lipstick sisters narrowed their eyes at him. He squirmed.

"You just delivered nearly 100 souls to the clutches of space-pirates. What kind of worthless scum does that make you?"

"It was an accident? And I'm trying to make it right."

"Kill him," said Lily.

"But he's cute," protested Wanda.

"Where's the rum gone?" asked the crow.

The baby goat belched.

"I really think my plan is the best plan so far," Roy said. He shifted, casually getting his arm close to the mini-Tagger no one else had noticed or bothered to consider as a weapon.

"Save your arguments for the one hundred women slaves you just gave to the Rotgerian Freedom Cabbages," said Lily with a sneer to make her momma proud.

"You don't understand—"

"Wait. You're right. You were supposed to deliver them to the Splinian mine colony on Terra 5, but out of the goodness of your heart, you thought a life of hard labor would be too much, so instead you donated them to the biggest prostitution ring in the galaxy. Let me guess. You're the good guy here."

"I wasn't supposed to deliver them to anyone, I stole this uniform. I'm the good guy, if you'll let me explain."

Two Minutes Three Seconds to Impact

"Hey, everyone, here's your friendly reminder," the computer interrupted, "impact in two minutes. If you have any last words, I'm all ears. Figuratively speaking."

Roy grabbed the goat and held it up as an animal shield. He lifted the mini-Tagger. "This baby goat's blood is on your hands if you leave me here to die. We have a minute and a half to save this ship's cargo so we can go save those women."

"But when exactly do you suffer horribly and die for being a sexist pig?"

"I'm not a sexist pig, and this goat deserves to live." Was he above hiding behind a goat to save his life? No. No, he was not.

"Cargo?" asked Wanda. She lifted her boot. "What's the cargo?"

"It's..." He paused. Was telling them he would threaten the extinction of human life in order to save his maybe-one-day girl-friend a good idea? "It's enough viruses to kill the galaxy, and I intend to bargain for the women with it."

One Minute and Nine Seconds to Impact

"Wickedly evil," cooed Wanda. "I like it. I kind of like you. With that goat, you are deliciously squeezable."

"Thanks."

"Sorry to go and on about this, but impact in one minute, people."

The three people glanced at each other, Electro humming, Tagger buzzing, and 3R8 blinking red.

"No, don't even think about it," Lily said. "We can't trust a word he says. Remember what happened the last time you trusted some random dude?"

"Ask the computer. Just ask her where we were going before you took the controls," Roy pleaded. His dignity was a distant memory. That moon was getting really big, really fast outside.

"Last set coordinates, coming up!" The computer rattled off the numbers, but all Roy could think about was that Farrah would never know he had at least managed to save a baby goat before exploding into the side of a moon.

"Well, shit. This complicates things. You were really going to set out to take down the entire Rotgerian shit-show alone?" Lily asked.

"Yeah. I was. But the odds would be better with the three of us. I mean, I don't know who you are or why you are here, but you rock. Really."

"I say, let the crow decide." Wanda put her hand on the pull string. Lily nodded. She pulled.

"Dogs of War, me hearties!" it cawed loudly.

Roy had no idea what that meant, but suddenly female arms were around him, hoisting and hugging. The black-clad damsels broke into song and he blushed at the refrain.

Thirty-One Seconds to Impact

"Computer! Turn your ass around and resume previous coordinates! We're off the smash the patriarchy!" Lily shouted.

"Turning now, and may I say what an excellent choice you're making?"

Roy hugged the goat. Well, that didn't go exactly as planned, but hell, heroes have to roll with the punches.

The End.