Andrew the puddle rolls his eyes at Alejandro's reaction, "Actually I'm feeling ok except I can't seem to move my arms and legs ... must be broken."


Andrew looks sartled, "A what?! An amoeba? What the heck are you talking about?" Andrew tries to lift his head and manages to get a peek at the large puddle that is him, "Aw crap, you've got to be kidding me." Andrew slumps, his form squishing a bit as he stops trying to look at himself.

"OK, ok, somebody get me into a bucket or something? God knows how long it's going to take me to figure this out and the rest of you must have better things to do than stare at me on the floor in the puddle."

Morgan goes in search of something useful. He comes back after a few minutes with a large mop bucket. "Not very impressive accomodations, but its the best I could find that would hold you." He tries to figure a way to scoop Andrew into the bucket and with the help of the others eventually manages it, keeping the face on top.

"Hey! ... watch it! That tickles ... Woah ...MMMPPHAahhh ok well it's not very comfortable but it'll do for now." Andrew looks up out of the large bucket, "Now if only I could figure out how I made a my face form. Man! It seems like I got beat with the short end of the nova stick!"

Steve says reassuringly,

"Lots of novas have an alternate form. After you get a bit more control, or run out of juice, you should be able to shift back human."

After the excitement is over everyone gets back to what they were doing before. Loading gold, silver and platinum into one of Lorean's cargo bays. It takes a about 4 hours to get everything you are seeking and completely load up.

As you get the last of the loot onboard, Lorean speaks to the novas over the link. "Please come to the bridge. I have made an interesting observation that you may wish to be aware of." She also included Andrew and Alejandro in the summons.

You make your way to the bridge, after a few moments, Morgan has Andrew in tow. Once you arrive still a bit sweaty from your efforts, Lorean brings up a holographic image of the solar system. "I have found something disturbing druing my scan of this timeline." The display zooms in on first one point then another, and another and another. At each zoom point you see an asteroid. Lorean time lapses the image, and highlights the trajectory of the asteriods, each of which is heading straight for Earth.

"I calculate that there is almost no chance that more than one asteriod would be in perfect earth crossing trejectory at one time like this. These objects are not in some kind of orbit that will take them across earth's path. They are each heading straight for earth. Also, they will hit at 5 year intervals exactly. I believe there is no conclusion I can reach other than that they have been deliberately aimed and sent toward earth. The asteriods are weapons meant for the destruction of the planet. I believe this type of weapon is called a 'mass driver'." Her face appears in place of the hologram. "It should be safe to assume that the first asteriod that hit earth and caused it to be in its current state was also deliberately targeted."

Steve says,

"The xenophobes. Lorean, do you sense any other ships in this solar system, and would you? When is the next impact due?"

"We must stop them." Omar laments. "There are still survivors down there, and they must be given a chance at survival."

Omar was highly agitated. "Lorien, can you locate the source of this 'mass driver'?"

After several seconds, Omar's eyes light up at a possibility. "Lorien, can you take us back to before the first asteroid hit? Or even before it was launched?"

Lorean responds, "I can take you back to that time. I must point out however that I do not have much by way of offensive armaments. If this is the same group of Xenophobes that attacked before in your own timeline, I am not equal to their fleet like my predecessor was."

Andrew holds up a hand to interject into the conversation, "Hey look at that!" He exclaims seeing the hand and arm rise out of the bucket.

"Must be some kind of subconcious thing ... anyway I feel I should point out that if we travel back in time to alter this timeline we risk causing paradox. By preventing the holocaust which has already taken place we will not have the option of robbing Fort Knox and Alejandro and I will not have erupted ...

"Not, I should add, that that would be entirely bad seeing as how I am being carried about in a bucket right now, but I think you get my point. We are no intertwined with this earth's timeline and as such are subject to any paradox cause by disruptions within."

Andrew looks at his new hand and arm and tries to lever himself up out of the bucket. Finding this impossible he proceeds to poke himself in the goo, "Lorean have you finished the tests I asked for?"

Lorean relpies, "As you requested I scanned your "body" and have determined that your mass appears to be in flux at the moment. The semi-gelantenous portion of your body appears to be comprised of over 90% undifferentiated cells.

"The solid portions, your face and presumably now you arm, are still nearly 75% undifferentiated. Further your entire body is suffused with quantum and seems to be in a state of flux as I noted before."

Andrew thinks about it for a moment, "Hey do any of you guys remember what you were thinking at the moment of your eruption? Does the quantum awakening takes it's cues from the concious thoughts as well as the unconcious survival instinct?"

Lorean listens to Andrew's comments and after responding to his question she adds, "I am still learning, but I do not believe a paradox will result from going back and interfering in this timeline's past. Your personal continuity will not be affected, nor will the precious metals suddenly disappear from our hold. This timeline will not disappear or be altered by what we do in the past. A new branch will exist with the changes you make."


(Made correction to time theory.)

"Not exactly," interjects Cody.

"According to Lorean, timelines are effectively "fixed." We can indeed travel back in this timeline, and we could indeed prevent the asteroids from hitting. However this time and its events will remain unchanged save for what we have done, while we are here..."
He lets that sink in for a moment. "Rather than preventing what we are seeing now, we will have merely created a new branching timeline with different events. I've been trying to impress upon you all, the futility of trying to go back in time to "fix" things. Lorean has already made it clear that's not how it works. If we want to do something that's actually productive we should learn more aboout the forces behind the attack."

"Also, Lorean, I am a bit dismayed at both you nd the Cruisers lack of armament. I think we should go somewhere where you can be properly outfitted sometime soon..."

As interesting as this conversation about time-travel is, Alejandro takes a hand to his head and complains.

"Ai!...Sorry, but anyone got an aspirin? I feel a bad migrane coming up. Must be all the stress..."

He begins rubbing his forehead and winces in pain.

"Ah! Mierda! It's really starting to hurt...ouch! Like a damn nail inside my brain!"

Morgan looks at Alejandro and shakes his head sadly, "I wish I could heal you of the headache, but it is a natural part of your node growing which is what will allow you to channel quantum. We have some meds that might help a little, but even the best we have won't make an eruption headache go away."

Steve says with amused sympathy,

"You're immune to aspirin now. Sometimes the standard nova immunities are a pain. There’s something that will help a bit, but you are in for a pain filled week or two. On the other hand, all of us went through it and it’s a fair trade for becoming a demi-god. Think of it as hazing.”Steve says,

"Agreed. But if the hostile ships aren't still around, we might be able to divert or destroy the asteriods. And refitting the ship may take more money than even we have on hand."

"Lorean, how long do we have before the first of those things hit?"

Lorean responds, "It will be just over two and one half years before the asteriod hits."

"Well I guess that's one advantage to being an amorphous blob of undifferentiated tissue!" Andrew pipes up cheerfully, "My brain, node, and all the other goodies are evenly spread out throughout my mass now I guess, kinda cool actually..."

Andrew tries to reach out with his left arm and tap Morgan's arm. Much to his suprise a tendril of his body extends upward and forms into another arm and taps Morgan's hand. Well looks like maybe I was trying too hard, or maybe my body and mind are getting used to their new configurations

Andrew awkwardly puts both hands on the edge of the pail and begins to level himself up out of the bucket. As he does his body begins to take shape and soon Andrew's upper body is sticking out of the top of the pail, from he waist down he his still the same amorphus liquid but from the waist up he looks much as he did before.

Andrew stops, "Oh ... umm ... crap ... it would appear my cloths are ... missing?" he conjectures as he sits there on the floor. Andrew screws up his face for a moment, "Great how the heck do I deal with this?... Umm ...Somebody wanna get me a towel?"

Omar gives Andrew an amused look. "I had the luck of having my clothes grow with me the night of my eruption. Afterward, I had to wait until I was out of power before I shrank back to my normal size. My head also hurt afterward, but it was not that bad." He lowers his head, recalling an unpleasant memory. "I sort of built a tolerance to pain after Saddam's kid Qusay, tortured me some years before. So my post eruption headache seemed mild in comparison."

"Eventually, you and Alejandro will gain some control of your abilities. As Morgan said, there are certain drugs which can help. Right now, though, I suggest you two get some rest."

"Most definitley. I believe my thought at the time was "Get out of my fucking head!" while barely keeping a bullet out of my skull. The first publicly known Nova eruption was of a fireman named Randal Portman. He saved a burning bus full of children by absorbing the fire's energy into his body. In a stroke of "creative genius", he was dubbed "The Fireman," and later went on to become President of the United States...go figure..."

"You know, that's not a bad idea Steve. If we are concerned about resources, we could always set ourselves up as the head of a nation. I imagine we coyuld clean up quite a number of poltical regimes. Or perhaps we could visit ancinet civilizations. Something tells me Omar would get a kick out of that...We could go to the ancient mayans, or egyptians, and teach the early tribes how to build pyramids..."

Andrew spies a jacket on one of the chairs nearby and tries to reach it. He finds that he comes up just a few inches short and tries to lean further out of the bucket to get it. Much to his suprise he finds his arm lengthens such that he is able to grab the jacket. He wraps it around his waist and pulls himself the rest of the way out of the bucket.

"Well it feels nice to be standing on my own two feet again," Andrew says. "I'd best get back to my quarters and put some cloths on. Incidentally what is our next move from here?"

Steve says,

"You and Alejandro spend the next couple of weeks learning how to control your powers. Not falling into a puddle at awkward times, maybe even how to turn off your node and go human."

"As for the Asteroids, I think we do nothing about them for now. I don’t even want to get close to those things right now, if there’s anything more to them, we don’t have the tools to deal with it. Two and a half years is far more time than we need. This world has lots of resources already gathered for us. We'll take some of them, go get a refit, then come back here a few hours after we left and do some target practicing.”

“Assuming we’re alone here, I thought we’d try to locate some of the bigger diamond stores and harvest them. Maybe find the famous DeBeers warehouse in South Africa.”

“Lorean, how confident are we that we’re the only ship around?”

"Why exactly would I want to do that?" Andrew asks, a look of mild confusion on his face, "Now that I think I have gotten a handle on not being a puddle this should be awesome..."

For the second time today Steve is momentarily dumfounded, but this time he recovers quickly enough to respond,

“Well… good. You’ve already learned an important part about being a nova. The quantum genii gives us one wish… so be happy what you wished for.”

Lorean's image speaks, "I do not detect any other ships within the solar system. It is likely that after their first asteriod hit and destroyed earths technological infrastructure, they simply aimed three more asteriods at the planet and left, confident that nothing could prevent them from finishing the job."

Steve says,

“Thank you Lorean, that’s what I was hoping to hear. Well, let’s tell the crew what’s happened. Lorean, please relay this:”

”Attention everyone: This is Steve speaking. About a half hour ago we had an incident inside the vault, and crew members Andrew Murphy and Alejandro Riso erupted and became novas. Their exact powers are a little unclear. Andrew can apparently transform into gelatin. Alejandro shows evidence of enhanced strength. Right now their control can be expected to be somewhat shaky so please be careful around them for a while.”

Andrew goes to his quarters and dresses before returning to the command deck. On his way back he stops by the lab and sets up some experiments to run while he is away, analysis of the molecular structure of his latest batch of polymer matrix, the same of the Eufiber sample, and few other activity/reactivity tests, etc. He then heads back to command. On his way back he gets Steve's message through the internal communicator.

Andrew re-enter's the bridge and takes a seat at one of the scanning consoles and begins to look over the data of the scans he asked Lorean to do for him earlier. He turns back to Steve after a while, "You know I'm not certain that my power is turning into goo, I think maybe that is some other side effect of my eruption. I think the generalization of my cellular organization is simply a modification of my body.

"Lorean had said that my arm was still 75% undifferentiated, I'm guessing only the exterior cells, forming skin, and some level of structural support to take the place of bones.

"I'm not certain if it is a power outright or a side effect of my changed body but I seem to be able to, at the very least, manipulate the shape of my body and apparently it's mass as well. I'm not bigger or smaller than I was before but not an hour ago my volume and mass were such that Morgan could carry me about in a pail without effort."

Andrew realizes he has been monologing and stops, a little embarassed, "I've some more experiments to try ..."

Andrew reaches out to grab the drink from Steve who is at least six feet away, his arm begins to stretch and he is able to grab the cup from Steve. " ... Like that. I suspect that my physical form has become far more responsive to my mind. The trick will be figuring out how to do things. That time I merely reached for the cup, my arm grew to compensate for the distance between me and you. Which is to say that I did not think about making my arm longer ... it was more of a ... a reflex action if you will."

Andrew shrugs and turns back to his console reviewing the displays, he begins to enter data for further searches for specific chemical compounds and physical states of certain materials; diamonds, enriched uranium and plutonium, advanced materials like kevlar, and titanium alloys, etc. He begins working up a proposal on what they should take the time to retrieve and what kind of difficulty the retrieval will present.

Morgan looks at Steve, "Do you think you ought to mention that it is an amazing bit of luck that 2 out of 15 erupted, when only 1 out of 100,000 even have the potential? I'd hate to have to start healing people trying to make themselves erupt. Also, one of the things we ought to do is find out what kind of test exists to see if someone has the potential to become a nova and test the crew. That way we can keep the ones that don't have the potential from going on dangerous missions."

Lorean interjects, "Morgan, I have the records of such a test in my memory. However, even with all the resources of your world, the test was expensive and painful for the person being tested. I believe it could be improved on and made on board ship, but it would require someone with a great deal of expertise in medicine and research equipment."

"If it's all the same to I will go to my quarters and lie down. If you have any of those drugs you mentioned aboard I could use them."

Alejandro then walks wherever his quarters are, still holding his forehead. If after Steve's announcement any "normal" crewmember comes to ask him questions he dismissed everyone with a "Not now man! I Have a headache!"

Steve thinks to himself after hearing Andrew's talk, "Goo and perhaps enhanced intelligence. Everything seems so much more obvious now does it?"

Instead Steve says,

"Well, we have to tell them something. Saying something that's close to the truth is better than saying we don't know."

Steve says dryly,

“Yes, an amazing bit of luck. Welcome to my world. If the last six months have taught me anything, it’s having two, or three, or a dozen outrageously good breaks in a row doesn’t mean there isn’t another one coming in the next poker hand.”

Steve shrugs,

“I’ve no reason to believe this, but I think odds are good these won’t be the last eruptions among the crew. I think I’d better give a lecture to everyone to night on this subject… and the thing we’d better keep in mind is they will be trying to erupt, so we’d better suggest some outlets for this.”

Steve says,

“We can make the test, and maybe should, it might be useful at some point. But it’s not going to help our crew. I doubt anyone will willingly take it, or listen to us if they did. I’ve seen this a half dozen or so times. Very VERY few people wanted to be tested for Huntington’s when there was no treatment or cure. Like less than 10%. Ditto AIDS. Ditto others. No one wants to hear that they’ll never be a nova, and I’ve already admitted I don’t trust the predictive abilities of the test. They’ll need an outlet to try, I’ll give them a few.”Steve says,

"Ah... I didn't have any on me when they got me. Anyone else?"

Andrew looks up from his console, "I might be able to synthesize something if Lorean has data regarding the drug you are talking about. Otherwise nothing ... sorry."

Andrew looks to Cody and Steve, "Are these headaches normal? How long do they last? Seems my physiological changes granted me something else aside from a profound level of ... flexibility ..."

"My data suggests that the headaches average nearly a week in length. Although some have reported no headaches at all while others have been known to last as long as two weeks." Lorean continues, "I do have the medical data on the drugs, there are two versions of the drug however. One from Utopia sources one from an independent source."

Andrew presses a few final keys and sends his report to a handheld data unit which he passes to Steve, "This ought to indicate where and what kind of quantities we can expect for the other valuable materials worth salvaging. I'll be down in the lab ...

"Lorean please transfer all the data to the lab, I'll look it over there and start synthesizing the drugs..." Andrew will head down to the lab and begin to prepare the drugs which he hopes will help Alejandro.

Steve comments,

"The headaches are becaues his brain is changing. Part of it is growing and putting pressure on the rest. You don't have a brain as such, so it isn't experiencing increased pressure, so no headache. How much and how long the pain is depends on how big the node grows and how resistant to pain you are."

"Lorean, please let the crew know that we'll have a meeting about the new eruptions latter tonight. I'm sure they'll have questions and could use some advice."