General Kendra Eppie didn't become "The Node's right-hand-man" (an odd description as the Node didn't have a conventional "hand", and when he did have one, he was a leftie) overnight. It took so many years that The Node couldn't even remember how it had happened.

He hadn't been looking for a general for his army of Node Guards, nor was Eppie ever officially appointed to the role of general. He had merely started calling himself that.

The Node himself, actually thought "General" was his first name, and that Ken was a bland nickname school chums called him back when he was but a young lad on whatever planet he was from that no longer existed. It was as if Eppie had always just been there.

Eppie did remember, however. He remembered every detail of his life and wrote every triviality, every encounter, and even every dream into his journal. A journal he was hoping to publish one day under the title "This Is Why I Hate You! – A Very Long Memoir".

There were never issues with trust between them, either. Eppie had given himself to The Node completely. He took great pride in his loyalty.

When he was finally rescued by guards and untied from the chair, he didn't think there would be any issues. Even when the huge complex that was once Lyme Node's prison (and was now a very large, and very fast spaceship) rumbled away from its concrete footing, he didn't think his loyalty would be questioned. Even with the earthquake it caused, every ship alarm going off and the clock on every microwave oven resetting itself to a flashing 12:00 for over two-thousand blocks.

The Node, however, was still reeling over Vrume T'cha T'cha's betrayal, and his feelings, as sickening as they were, were hurt. His grotesquely humungous (but extremely fragile) ego was damaged. When Eppie came in to see him, he was already at a boiling point.

"You! You are in on this! You conspired with the traitor T'cha T'cha!" The Node yelled, jarring Eppie so badly that the General's back started spasming.

"What? What? I—What?? Eppie twisted, stammered and spat.

"Don't play idiot with me, General Eppie. If your real name is, in fact, General. I will fillet you alive! Not another word!!"

They both stared at each other for what seemed an eternity.

"Ok fine! Say another word! But make it a good word!!!" The Node shouted, electronically amplifying his voice through the PA system in his armoured suit.

"I looooooathe Vrume T'cha T'cha. I don't even like saying his ridiculous name! T'cha T'cha. T'cha T'cha. Vruuuuuuuuuuume T'cha T'cha...sounds like the name of the entire rhythm section of a band only people who vacation on cruise ships listen to. The name T'cha T'cha is like chicken kababs being hammered into my ear drums! The name T'cha--"

"WHY DO YOU KEEP SAYING IT THEN??" The Node interrupted so loudly it felt like chicken kababs were being hammered into Eppie's ears.

"Just making a point, sir. It would seem there are traitors everywhere, and you are so very wise to question, but I assure you I am as loyal as loyal can possibly be. I am so loyal that I barely exist as a separate person!"

"And?"

"Aaaaand...?"

"You said I was wise. What else am I??"

"Uh. Intelligent? So very intelligent. Smartest thing in the universe!"

"And?"

"Gorgeous?"

"There it is. Ok. This is how you are going to prove yourself. You are going to head up a battalion of as many guard war ships as we can spare, and you are going to go and blow that prison to space dust. I want them all dead. Then you are going to capture the Quarol and bring him home to me. If you don't complete this mission, don't bother coming home."

"Yes, Your Wise, Intelligent Gorgeousness!"

Eppie was shaken to the core. The Node doubted his loyalty. His loyalty! And only one man was to blame. As he left the planet in his deadly (but also extremely speedy) ship The Bad News Bearer, with an enormous fleet of Node Guard war ships, he announced that anyone even mumbling the name Vrume T'cha T'cha in his presence would be shot before they got to the second T'cha.

~~~

Emperor Reginald Zophricaties had not only been the name of that megalomaniacal inventor of the Life Core, The Master Cloner and many death rays and doomsday devices, but he had also invented the Pretty Pet pet hair vacuum. Without it the waxy Vexian grub hounds were almost impossible to groom. As tribute, many owners of such dogs on Vex 4 named their grub hounds after him. The Donut family had three hounds and their names were Emperor, Reg and Zed-Kate.

As Clover sat hiding in a thicket of long grass at the base of a billboard, watching as Potto and Aye crossed over to the fuelling station, she noticed that her new canine companion was wearing a tag. The name "Reg" was poorly engraved on it.

Clover was happily surprised to see Aye. She was just about to run out and join them as they approached a ship belonging to the Garax (she had been around long enough to be one of the few to know of the Garax), when a second ship landed across from it to fuel.

It was K'ween's ship. She stopped herself and held Reg's collar. She would be better off briefly waiting and offering up an element of surprise if they needed rescuing.

"Can I call you Reggie?" she whispered to the dog.

The dog let a muffled and jowly "Rooooff" which Clover took as "No".

~~~

When Pannick landed the K'rown at the Vexian fuelling station she hadn't expected anything out of the ordinary. She thought she would fuel the ship, check the water supply, top up the K'rown's flotsam grease and jetsam oil, and off they would go. But things were about to get a little extraordinary.

K'ween returned to the deck wearing the eyepatch of the now deceased Blankton she had just (consensually) sexually destroyed. She was very angry and quite drunk.

"Why have we stopped?" she demanded.

"Fuel. Water," Pannick answered cautiously. She was now worrying about K'ween's plans again, and whether they would see the end of the Barbohdeans. She was also worrying about K'ween's sanity.

"You don't stop unless I say to stop!" she slur-screamed. "I am K'ween! I am your queen! Soon I will be the galaxy's queen! No one does anything without asking me!"

"My apologies. I figured this was the only fuel stop for --"

"You figure nothing! You are nothing!"

Pannick had only occasionally seen this side of K'ween. K'ween was a fierce and strong leader. K'ween was a good leader. Or had been.

Perhaps it was a mixture of the Pyst-like poison from Potto, the promise of riches and power as reward for his capture, and the betrayal of Teeg that was scrambling her brain. And perhaps the addition of more than a little flubbfruit wine was lighting a very short fuse.

"Do I have your permission to continue fuelling, Your Excellency?" Pannick said coldly.

"Yes. Get out there. I don't want to see your face right now." K'ween barked back.

Pannick left the ship and hooked the fuelling line up to the K'rown. She waited as fuel gushed through the hose. A peculiar ship caught her eye. It was like nothing she had ever seen. It had smooth contours and monochromatic colours that made any edges and corners very hard to make out. She caught herself staring at it, trying to make out those edges.

She jumped with a startle upon seeing the Quarol and the Topher searching its underside for an entrance. She didn't move right away. It was as if she were under the ship's spell.

The spell broke with an idea. An idea the ship itself helped her to realize.

She calmly finished fuelling. She calmly disconnected the fuel line. She calmly went back into the ship. She calmly bypassed the bridge where K'ween was yelling at another crew member for breathing too loudly. She calmly went to K'ween's chamber, grabbed K'ween's favourite laser rifle, took the battery cell out of it, and returned to the bridge with it.

"Your Highness. I have spotted the Quarol and the Topher. Here. At the fuelling station," she said (again, calmly). "I thought you might like the honour of capturing them yourself."

K'ween raced towards the monitor screen. She checked the security cameras attached to the outside of the ship. Sure enough, her bounty wandered around a strange looking ship like a couple of idiots.

"I took the liberty of getting your weapon ready," Pannick said as she handed K'ween the laser rifle.

K'ween smiled a wicked smile. The wicked smile of a hunter who had just cornered her prey. She rushed off the ship.

As soon as she was outside, the hatch closed behind her. She barely noticed; she was focused on Potto. The ship started to power up. This startled her and she yelled an almost unintelligible "What's going on?" into her communication watch.

"I am taking over this ship. You are no longer fit to lead us. I am sorry," Pannick's voice came back.

"Traitor! Mutineer!!" K'ween shrieked, loud enough for Potto and Aye to hear.

"I will follow Teeg now. You should have listened to her."

The K'rown lifted off the ground, leaving K'ween in a drunk tantrum, trying to fire the dead rifle at her ship as her crew left her behind on a planet of used bungalows.

~~~

Working as a fuel station attendant was a good first job. As a Vexian teen, it provided important work experience, familiarization with almost every alien species, and responsible money management. Working for Vex 4 Fuel was an essential stepping stone on the satisfying journey to owning one's own bungalow.

On most days it was simply a matter of showing up on time (in a semi-clean uniform) and working the cash register. On occasion it meant restocking the jetsam oil, hosing down the fuel pumps after a gross Sammolite had touched them, and on rarer occasion, escaping your kiosk if it happened to blow up.

Prick Tendril was lucky. It had not been his side of the station that had blown up. He was relieved to see his fellow fuel attendant (Fig London) on the explosion side escape, but was a bit miffed that Fig had been taken away by ambulance as she was his ride home.

He was also lucky to see a Garax ship. He had never seen one before, and that was rare. As rare as anyone ever seeing a Garax ship, which is why he was lucky. The ship had given him an idea, as was always the case with any close proximity to the Garax.

He wasn't a very complicated young man. This idea was merely to restock the jetsam oil.

When the large and fierce looking Flettocean woman angrily crashed through the kiosk doors wearing full (and intimidatingly sexy) warrior armour, he got the idea to give her anything she wanted. She wanted a battery cell for her rifle. He handed one over from a stock of various battery cells behind his counter realizing instantly that this was in fact a very bad idea.

Luckily, she was in a rush and didn't seem to have the time to murder him. He had a new idea. He called his boss, quit, and started the long walk home.

~~~

By the time K'ween had her laser rifle charged up, not only was the K'rown long gone, but the Garax ship (with Potto and Aye) was gone as well. She screamed loudly and started shooting haphazardly. Shots whizzed by the young attendant as he made his way across a nearby parking lot, following an odd trail of destruction he hadn't noticed before, into the nearby suburbs.

A shot whizzed by Clover and her new friend Reg. Reg didn't like this. He charged.

Worried the next shot wouldn't be haphazard at all, but focused on an attacking grub hound, Clover took off after him. K'ween now had two targets running towards her. She took aim at the hound first. The shot was fired and would have hit the dog cleanly between the eyes if K'ween had have been sober, and even a hair less enraged. It instead grazed Clover's leg. She fell.

K'ween fired again, this time taking the time to aim properly. The shot did not hit Clover (or Reg for that matter). It hit a large piece of space garbage that had suddenly dropped down between them out of nowhere, taking on the brunt of the shot itself.

The shot didn't seem to damage the space garbage. So, K'ween shot some more. She shot a lot. The garbage was fine. It was one tough piece of unassuming debris.

On the Clover/Reg side of the garbage, a hatch opened and a twisted dark figure in a very wide brimmed black saturno hat gestured for her to get in. A voice inside her head said "It's okay. Don't be afraid. Go with him. Get into that garbage", but she couldn't get up. The shot may have merely grazed her, but it still gave her quite the immobilizing burn.

The mysterious figure ran out to help her. He picked her up with his ill-formed arms and carried her towards the hatch. He had just about made it when K'ween came around to their side of the heap. She shot three times, hitting the mysterious dark figure all three times. He fell.

Clover was close enough now to drag herself through the hatch. Reg lunged at K'ween before she could shoot again, knocking her onto the ground and sending the gun flying through the air.

Reg then ran back to help. Before K'ween could retrieve her laser rifle and shoot again, the large dog had instinctively dragged the mysterious figure onto the piece of garbage. The hatch closed and the garbage took off. This time it was a clump of space dreck that left a berserk K'ween behind.

~~~

If one were to take a stroll through a garbage dump, or perhaps Lyme Node's garbage moon of Roobos, and a hatch were to open up in a particularly innocuous heap of trash, one wouldn't expect the interior of that uninteresting pile to be fairly spacious and art deco.

Although feeling the stress of having been shot at and wounded, lying beside her mysterious, unconscious (also-wounded) would-be rescuer, and having a large grub hound licking her face while inside a piece of garbage flying through space, Clover couldn't help but marvel at the décor.

As the mysterious figure lay motionless next to her, she decided that this would probably be the best time to examine him and attempt to make him far less mysterious. His saturno hat lay beside him, his face was completely covered in wrapped scarves, goggles and some sort of respiratory mask covering his nose and mouth.

She lifted the goggles first. One of the man's eyes immediately slid out and dangled from its grotesquely scarred socket. There was barely enough socket to hold the other in as well.

He woke up, but before he was able to shove the eye back in and put the googles back on, she noticed something. The colour of that dangling eye.

She froze.

He sat up and examined his wounds. They looked bad to Clover, but to Vibloblblah Ooze, they were nothing compared to wounds of the past, and those wounds were nothing compared to how wounded his heart was. He slid up the wall and staggered towards a medical box. He took out a first-aid spray bottle. Before treating himself, he swaggered back to her and spritzed her burn. It instantly felt better.

He patted Reg on the head as he made his way to a chair in front of a huge console. Reg didn't seem to have any problem with Vibloblblah. Like most dogs, Reg was immune to ugly. He returned the pat with a joyous tail wag. Vibloblblah sat and attempted to spray his wounds, but reach was difficult with his crooked body.

Clover opened her mouth but words wouldn't come out.

She wanted so badly to get up and help him, but her body felt like it was made of heavy stone. He didn't speak either. She wasn't sure he could. Inside her head the entire universe was in a blender, spinning so fast she couldn't make sense of anything.

Sometimes a person's heart could be so broken that attempting to put it back together again broke everything else.

He kept his distance from her. He turned his back. His cerebral universe was blanketed in shame. He didn't want this to happen. He didn't want this to ever happen. He wanted to remain dead to her. He wanted to remain handsome and whole in her memories, not for her to see this hideous fun house mirror image of his former self. Perhaps it wasn't too late. Perhaps he could quietly return her to the Shiv and remain a mystery.

No.

The colour of his eye gave him away. No one in the universe had eyes the colour of Oain nebulae. No one else had eyes the colour of a beautiful wading pool of Hephmote sea water on a gorgeous Handsomian beach, teaming with neon life.

When she finally spoke, her voice came out like a frightened, breathy wheeze.

"Theodore...?"

Now it was his turn to lose the ability to move.

"No," he finally said, quietly crackling through his artificial voice box.

"No? Or not anymore?" she whispered.

"Does it matter?" he answered with a question.

"How can you ask me that?" she asked as she got to her feet.

"We need to forget--" he started, but he was cut off with her arms wrapping so tightly around him he could barely breathe. He didn't want to breathe. If this was his last moment alive, it would be the best one.

For that moment he was lost in her arms, but as pain shot out throughout his entire body, he was quickly reminded that he was not just wounded by K'ween's rifle, he was a wound. A walking, barely talking, wound. Inside and out.

This immense pain was bearable only because his entire body was in the claustrophobic-panic-state of not being physically able to cry when every ounce of him so badly wanted and needed to.

When his name had been Theodore, he had loved a woman named Clover. He had loved her more, perhaps, than anyone had ever loved another in all of time and space. And she had loved him right back.

In a moment of chaos, in what was to quickly become the most violent zone in the galaxy, two lovers were reunited. And in their embrace, time didn't dare budge an inch. It didn't dare.