u/Philoforte

The appended story is the first of a science fiction serial that is still ongoing. All you need to do is click the "Nights in Transit (sci-fi)" tab below the title to access the other instalments. They are all numbered (not necessarily ordered) and should be read in sequence.

It follows the adventures of Elias Fontaneau and Princess Fatima Binti Mustafa through a cosmos of space opera mishaps and encounters of the weirdest kind, strange humanoids and space cults. It contains moderate adult themes.

I bow to Sultan Mustafa, feeling awkward. He sits on his throne with his chin resting on a finger, resplendent in shimmering white and gold silks. The throneroom is shaded with holographic courtiers, making it appear less spacious. Princess Salimah stands beside her father to greet us.

"Welcome back, Fatima," Salimah says, advancing to hug her big sister.

Fatima returns the embrace coolly. I feel like this entire encounter is staged, and we are all performers according to script, made worse by the memory of what Sultan Mustafa had done to the wayward Fatima.

Fatima points at the Sultan and says, "That is not our father."

"Trust you to be so perceptive," Salimah says. "An A.I. android now sits on the throne to replace our late father."

"What?" Fatima exclaims. "Father has passed!"

"Not quite so recently," Salimah says. "Where have you been?"

Don't answer that question because something is wrong. Fatima doesn't. I suspect Salimah has hijacked the succession of crown princess Fatima by replacing her departed father with A.I. under her control.

"We're not fussed about the new arrangement," I say, "so long his Highness will intercede to gain us clemency for the shoot out at the Congress World Library."

"That has already been done," the fake Sultan replies.

"Thank you, sire," I say. "If you please, we must retire to our chambers to rest after our long and eventful trip here."

"Be my guest, and do not be so concerned with my ascension to godly primacy," he says. "I have been sanctioned by the Prophet to stand in God's stead on Earth. My words are holy edict replacing all former scripture. You may exalt my Holy Presence as the One All Consuming Deity."

I could not flee to our chambers fast enough. The A.I. Sultan has been mistakenly allowed to write its own script, now veering into heresy.

"We got what we want," Fatima says, "Let's just get out of here."

I laugh. "There's nowhere to go. Your replacement father rules the planet."

As Princess Fatima flops on a large cushion in the spacious antechamber in exasperation, Princess Salimah walks in.

"Your chambers are a cyber void free of any cyber eyes for your privacy," Salimah says, "allowing us to speak freely."

"You total bitch!" Fatima says. "What have you done?"

"I'm sorry, but it's not too late if your cyber fiend boyfriend can disable our fa ... the A.I. Sultan," Salimah says, looking at me.

Oh dear, my reputation precedes me, especially after the Congress World Library episode.

Salimah draws out a small hidden laptop from the skirts of her voluminous gown and hands it to me. It must be the only cyber connected device in an otherwise cyber free zone.

Joining Fatima on the cushion, I simply message Fargon, "Need a hack of Sultanate of Oman A.I. like you did to steal all that data for the chip in Fatima's palm. You owe us."

Sure enough, the grateful Fargon sends us a set of decryption keys supposedly removed from all his devices. Of course, he'd hide chips in other clones unseen by Oman's spies.

I hack the A.I. Sultan and rescript him.

We finally take our leave of the Sultanate, but not without revisiting the throneroom for a farewell.

"Goodbye Elias and my dear Fatima," the newly rigged A.I. Sultan says, "Forgive my former madness. Buddha's smile. Maitreya walks unseen, yet the willow bends. Your doubt is the gate, my knowing, just wind. Words rise, words fall. What is nailed? The moon on the water ... was never there. Better to laugh, better to drink tea."

Both princesses glare at me.

I grin.

Princess Fatima and I leave Holirowd for Earth to formalise relations with the Sultan. We need her father's intercession as the secret King of Earth to gain us clemency after the shoot out at the Congress World Library.

Having quit as a prisoner transport officer, I've had to give up the prisoner transport vessel, forcing us to travel in a star cruiser. Still loaded after our pillage of funds despite paying Fargon off, we can afford to fly first class.

We are no longer strapped to our seats when the space hostess arrives with a trolley bearing glasses of orange juice. Uniformed in blue and white, she places a glass on my tray table with shaking hands. The smile on her face is forced. She places a glass before the princess. Fatima looks at me with puzzlement.

I nod. The star cruiser must be in some kind of situation, but I hear no abnormal sounds, and the flight remains smooth.

"Is there a Fight Marshall on board?" I ask the hostess.

"Would you like some French pastry?" she asks. "Our souffle is a bit dead."

"To what extent?" I ask.

"Like totally," she says.

She's too afraid to offer plain speech, so we're in a hijack situation, and the hijackers have ears in first class. And of course, the Flight Marshall is dead, like totally.

Two burly men enter the sparsely seated first class, their weapons concealed. It's too bad that our own weapons are in luggage compartments.

When the men are close enough, I leap out off my seat, head butting one of them. I grab the other in a headlock, squeezing him with my enhanced strength until he is as unconscious as the other hijacker.

"Thank you! Thank you!" the air hostess says, almost weeping with relief.

My vision blurs, and the room wobbles. Shaking my head, I find myself strapped to my seat next to the princess. The space hostess enters with a trolley of orange juice.

"They have a time displacement weapon," Princess Fatima says.

"No," I say, checking my watch. "We have not slipped backward in time. They have rigged the ship with a Paradox Event Sequencer."

"What's that?" she asks.

"It's quantum," I say. " We are inside an expanded Schrödinger's box. The way forward is always the way backward. Event sequences are always paradoxical. The way out of this box is to always act counter to your motives. I acted consistently with what we needed, so the sequence repeats."

The nervous hostess delivers us the glasses of juice. I grab the trolley to prevent her from removing it and its supply of orange juice glasses.

"We hate orange juice," I tell her. She nods and leaves.

Two burly hijackers enter first class, again with their weapons concealed.

I unstrap myself and wheel the trolley to them. Picking up a glass, I ask in the kindest possible way, "Can I offer you some juice?"

"We're not thirsty," the nearest man growls.

"I demand that you don't drink it," I say, lifting the glass to my lips.

The man reaches forth, takes the glass from me, and gulps down the juice.

"I swear that was really orange juice and not a deadly poison," I plead and beg.

The man's face turns ruddy. Apoplectic, he splutters and gags as his throat expands. Turning blue, he faints, hitting the floor with unintended vehemence.

"You bastard!" the other man says, reaching into his suit and drawing out a blaster.

"Please shoot me immediately," I command.

The man freezes, unable to pull the trigger.

"I beg you to shoot me and not yourself," I say.

The man turns the blaster to point at his own chest, struggling to battle against his paradoxical forced inclination. Beads of sweat pour from his high forehead as he grunts with effort.

"Please, I beg you to value your own life and shoot me at once," I say, spreading my arms as an offering of personal sacrifice.

The man pulls the trigger, blowing a hole in his chest.

I return to my seat to wait for authorities to arrive and defuse the Paradox Event Sequencer. I'm so glad the princess remained in her seat, having the forbearance not to interfere.

"I trust you," she says.

"Don't," I command.

In an ethical universe, there must be an endpoint in which everyone wins and everyone wins equally, including those who have died and those who have played the villain. After all, everyone is equally deserving regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and species. An ethical universe must be a universe of infinite second chances.

So how do we arrive at such a point in a world where people hoard rather than share and greed, selfishness and elitism are invisible?

The followers of Mithras believed that he would return in a salvific capacity. The Aztecs and Incas believed their god Quetzalcoatl or Viracocha would return. Christians believe Jesus will come again and according to an Islamic sect, a secret imam is likely to bring succour by making a show. The Bahai's believe a new messenger will arrive at the next dispensation. In Hinduism, Krishna promises to return in an age of inequity. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Bodhisattva Maitreya is expected. The answer lies here. Everyone comes back.

To assume only one such being returns because he is the sole object of our worship according to our personal religion is elitist.

Why can't Osiris, Ahura Mazda, Kali, Thor, Loki, Neptune, Pluto, Kuan Yin and company all come back? We can even consider them transmorgrifications of Archangels. An ancient artefact depicts the goddess Asherah with wings. This predates Christian iconography. Perhaps the reason Hindu gods have four arms is that the two above are wings. What is Azrael, the angel of death, but another version of Pluto? Vishnu, the universal dreamer, is depicted sleeping on the Ananta Serpent, with his wife Laxmi at his feet. Osiris is depicted similarly in repose on the crocodile Sebek with Isis at his feet. Each version of the same archetype can make a comeback.

Why not complete syncretism instead of exclusive religion? Why wouldn't an ethical universe be fair and cater to everyone's mythic expectations? Why can't every religion's deity make a comeback? Why can't everyone take a win? An ethical universe must be fair. What is ethics but fairness? Why must one religion triumph to the exclusion of the rest? Exclusivity is elitism. Exclusivity is war.

Everyone is a shining star. Everyone wins.

If you defeat someone in tennis (or any other sport) on countless occasions, can you have the compassion and mercy to cease to try to win? Just pat the ball back in a friendly exchange, simply playing for fun and artistry, thereby giving the other player a chance if that player is good enough?

You are not insulting the other player because you are genuinely playing, but having dropped cutthroat intensity. It's not life and death. You've taken the edge off, making the outcome unclear. You're simply doing it for fun without the need to crush that person over and over again.

Of course, some people are hopeless at tennis, but what if the other player is good enough but not quite?

Is there a case for compassion and mercy in sport? The ball is in your court. Your call.

She knelt in the highlands

To say her grace

Cool meadowy hills

Vast empty sky

Infinite solace

Out of the Sun

An angel descends

Speaking a prophecy

Be vigilant, make haste

With the man of humanity

There cometh a false king

Folk will not tell them apart

Sparking chaos and war

Only you, child

Can tell true from false

Identify the real devil

And he will give up the ghost

You are the key

To arrival of Heavenly host

Hide in the shadows child

Bide thy time

It will preserve thy life

False king comes with a knife

Be still in faith

Your innocence will suffice

With winsome smile

And childlike guile

You're invisible

Disguise

I'm trapped at the turnpike

Between Ernie and Fred

In backseat of Lee's Cadillac

Mike in front lights up a joint

It's laced with acid

We tell him to stop

Green fumes are acrid

Filling the car

Oh dear

Ineffable presence

Something is here

Body feels like distilled spirits

Cold fumes rise off skin

Coolness in my core

Sparks pooling within

Mind expanding

Seeing afar

To the ends of Creation

Omit not a star

Thor approaches

Tara and Co. in train

Holy smoke

They are all coming

Everyone's hero

Everyone wins

Demigods as archangels

Extra arms for wings

Coalescing out of dust

Holy folk in trust

Kingdom is coming

Heaven will last

When all this wears off

We'll give Mike a spray

He'll have to pay

Despite making my day

She knelt in the highlands

To say her grace

Cool meadowy hills

Vast empty sky

Infinite solace

Out of the Sun

An angel descends

Speaking a prophecy

Be vigilant, make haste

With the man of humanity

There cometh a false king

Folk will not tell them apart

Sparking chaos and war

Only you, child

Can tell true from false

Identify the real devil

And he will give up the ghost

You are the key

To arrival of Heavenly host

Hide in the shadows child

Bide thy time

It will preserve thy life

False king comes with a knife

Be still in faith

Your innocence will suffice

With winsome smile

And childlike guile

You're invisible

Disguise

I'm trapped at the turnpike

Between Ernie and Fred

In backseat of Lee's Cadillac

Mike in front lights up a joint

It's laced with acid

We tell him to stop

Green fumes are acrid

Filling the car

Oh dear

Ineffable presence

Something is here

Body feels like distilled spirits

Cold fumes rise off skin

Coolness in my core

Sparks pooling within

Mind expanding

Seeing afar

To the ends of Creation

Omit not a star

Thor approaches

Tara and Co. in train

Holy smoke

They are all coming

Everyone's hero

Everyone wins

Demigods as archangels

Extra arms for wings

Coalescing out of dust

Holy folk in trust

Kingdom is coming

Heaven will last

When all this wears off

We'll give Mike a spray

He'll have to pay

Despite making my day

The ball hits the sweetspot

Strings resonant with song

Follow through a clean motion

But the ball is long

Facing breakpoint

I blow into my hand

If I miss this serve

The game will end

I imagine the worst

Conjurations of doom

How can I serve

Amid this gloom

Let's bounce the ball

And whisper Amen

Just don't think

Where this ball will land

Empty my mind totally

This is Zen

Nothing to pray for

No thought no plan

No fear of fate

Take what becomes

No cause to debate

Second serve in a whirl

It lands in a curl

Breaking away with spin

Beyond reach to win

Had been his matchpoint

I can't help but grin

Flukes don't matter

Blame it on the djinn

I knew her as Connie, connoisseur of fine dining and wine. Elegant of voice, she devoured every second of my enchanted time. By the second hour of the date, I needed her badly. Give me a contact, an address to save. She laughed in floating notes, tailing into a giggle, and gave me the address of Connie Continental.

She departed in the dark, but I needed to see her again. I went to that address, a shop front clinic. The secretary inside laughed when I requested to see Connie.

"Which Connie?" she asked. "We are a clinic for designer bodies, and Connie Continental is the designer template. Thousands of women have entered our morph chambers of cosmetic reconstruction. Then, they've undertaken personality refinement courses to become the perfect Connie Continental."

Wait one second. How on earth am I going to find the One? The Connie Continental at the Efferton Hotel restaurant midnight tryst?

"Look, sir," she said. "Our records can't track any of these Connie twins. There's no way to tell one from another. Why would it matter?"

Oh yes, it does. Yet what kind of woman would lose who she was for the perfect body and face, and a winsome personality few men could turn down? Silly question? But at the end of the process, she's a wired doll, having lost her identity.

Ask yourself, Connie, who are You?

Keitha paraglided onto the rooftop of Arlarven Flats. She stripped off the harness to her paraglider. Hooking a line from her belt to a chimney, she abseiled two storeys to rest on a ledge before a curtained window. Attaching a suction glass cutter to the window, she removed a circle of glass, reached in, and unlatched the window.

Swinging into the room, she encountered her quarry at his desk. Fabian Hausser raised his hands to show he was unarmed as she drew out her Magnum and trained it on his chest.

"I knew the black ops would come for me immediately," he said, getting to his feet and stepping around his desk. "You have execution orders to take me down, but as you can see, I am unarmed, and I am not resisting. Yet you don't know why you have to shoot me. Don't you want to know?"

Keitha had already paused longer than she should, but how could this amiable man be such a deadly threat to national security?

"Go on," she said.

"I hacked the Pentagon and discovered that all the nuclear silos, supposedly filled with ICBMs with active nuclear warheads, contain only dummy missiles," he said. "You see, nuclear war is completely unfeasable because it leads to mutual assured destruction. To avoid a nuclear accident, our noble country is secretly not weaponized.

"Of course, if the secret I have on my laptop were known, our country would be at the mercy of global nuclear powers. So shoot me as you must and take the laptop, but who is going to shoot you?"

"You're lying!" Keitha snarled and shot him through the chest at point blank range.

She grabbed his laptop from the desk, exited the window, and abseiled to the ground.

Fabian hadn't lied to her. Now, she had to copy the contents of the laptop and secret the copy in a hidden online vault, time coded to be sent to the media, a sequence she would abort if no one knew she knew. Was there really safety in blackmail until she was sure she was safe?

"... but who is going to shoot you?"

If her next kill order was to take herself out, what would she do? Killer conundrum. She was getting out of this profession and joining the armed forces for front-line duty, a nice, safe, cushy job.

Served another ace

I'm about to thrash Byron

For the twentieth time

But I've had enough

Don't I have compassion?

An once of mercy?

I simply pat the ball into play

Not an ace

The exchange is brief

I'm only patting the ball over

Byron slaps a winner

Then another one

He picks up at once

That I don't care to win

I'm showing kindness

After former blindness

So he pats the ball back

A leisurely exchange

Suddenly, it's fun

No longer cutthroat

Not life and death

No cursing or grunting

No smashing of racquet

No nervous cough

Hitting the ball cleanly is sweet

Retrieving a hard shot is neat

Deft dropshots are such a treat

Single-handed backhand

Sliced with side spin

Elegance of lost art

Topspin lob with placement

Awkward smash awry

And we laugh

Byron nets

It's double fault

Game, set, and match

I won again

But I could not care less

Grins all around

This world is a mess

After all our frantic adventures to repay Fargon, we deserve a vacation. We sun ourselves on the beach of the vacation planet Holirowd.

While the beach is idyllic with vast stretch of fine sand, perfect waves for my surfboard, and unpopulated this early in the morning, I find myself unable to fully relax on my beach towel. Perhaps the problem is Princess Fatima lying beside me in a Brazilian bikini. I dread to think that agents of Oman are able to view her remotely right now.

A team of what appear to be lifeguards in red swimsuits, four women and three men, run along the beach to where we are. They cannot be real lifeguards. Their bodies are chiselled perfection, tans so perfect as to appear tonally applied. Their faces appear to be those of front cover models. What confirms my suspicion is the pale man following them with a digital camera.

As the team of faux lifeguards mill beside us in chatter, flexing and stretching their supple physiques, the pale man lowers his camera and hails us.

"Welcome to Holirowd, space vacationers!" he says. "I am Jason Astrada, director of the Baywachen Institute for Personal Reinvisioning."

Oh no, he's a peddler for designer personas. Enter his morph chamber, then you will emerge the ideal human specimen with the regular features and the tonal perfection of these "lifeguards" parading for our benefit.

Next, he'll run you through affirmation drills in a Personality Modulation Cube to give you a persona to match. He can turn me into Charles Atlas for a million galactic creds. No, thank you. I'm already a Bio-enhanced man with engineered strength and that is enough.

"We're not I interested," I tell him.

"You don't have to be," he says. "You both look like you have already benefited from human engineering and I am breathless with admiration. I don't have to sell you my services and that's not why I'm here."

"Why are you here?" Princess Fatima asks, frowning.

I suddenly wish the princess had brought her Kudweister rifle, and I had my blaster. This is a setup. We are trapped and outnumbered. Jason is not going to allow us to leave without our acceptance of the nefarious offer he has for us.

"I want to buy the designer template for your bodies, to own the patent for your body types, and I'll pay you twenty million galactic credits," he offers.

I tense myself for high impact combat, as does the princess.

"No, no, no!" Alladin calls, striding up the beach to us, his holstered weapon visible through his traditional Arabic attire. He holds a digital tablet aloft with what appears to be a trademark certificate on-screen.

"I own the designer patent for the bodies of one Elias Fontaneau and one Princess Fatima Binti Mustafa of the Oman Sultanate," he declares, "and here is the proof."

Jason examines the certificate on the tablet screen with a sour face. Almost about to curse, he nods and slinks away. His sullen faced troop of fake lifeguards leave with him.

Alladin glares at the princess who covers herself with her towel. For once, I'm not going to argue with him.

Of course, no one can be allowed to patent the princess of Oman and future Queen of Earth, and no one under galactic law can patent me without my consent. Alladin's certificate of patent is fake, but Allah forgive, he had to protect his crown princess.

The only thing that needs to be real on this fantasy beach of designer people is Alladin's holstered gun.

"Actually, no," Princess Fatima says. "As your future queen, I command you, Alladin, to go away at once."

Giving her a curt bow, Alladin strode off in the direction she pointed.

Gargoyles on rooftop

Weathered into cats

He stands on the side street

As still as a bat

She strides up to him

Pleasant to chat

Her clothes shimmering

Loose shades of jade

Scent of Florentino

Brazenly unafraid

She prattles in floating notes

Entrancing him to sleep

Day turns to night

Florence in black and white

He is the blackness

Infinitely deep

The gate now open

His mansion a keep

She turns on her light

With uncanny sight

Not shuddering a fright

He's not what he seems

Vampyre in dreams

Goth painted lips

Figment of deathly kiss

Smoky mirror puppetry

As if sitting at her vanity

She touches her hair

He sees beauty rare

She catches his look

And laughs in a squeal

Squeaking with joy

A flood of well wishing

Gushing and gushing

Chirping a torrent

She can't even look at him

Squealing well wishes

Paroxysm of delight

Ecstatic plight

"Same to you," he says

We'll meet again one day

He walks away

Darling

Goodnight

Paying Fargon has hit a snag. Yes, we do have the money, but entering Fargon's cloning compound, we discover he has been kidnapped and a ransom demanded.

"The ransom demand is for Fargon's secret computer chip with its contents unencrypted," Alison Watts, Fargon's scientific colleague tells us.

"If that's all they want, just give to them," I say.

"Fargon hid the chip in one of his clones," Alison says, looking directly at Princess Fatima.

"You've got be joking," Princess Fatima says. "I think we should just walk out of here."

"The chip is inside your left palm," Alison said. "I can remove it painlessly."

Princess Fatima groans and offers her left palm to Dr Alison Watts. Injecting local anaesthesia and using a laser scalpel, Alison removes the tiny chip cleanly and applies a stitch from a robo-arm in the spacious white clinic.

"One problem remains," Alison says, this time looking meaningfully at me. "I can't decrypt the contents of this chip. I'm just a clone specialist."

"And I'm just a former cargo handler and former prisoner transport officer," I say.

Alison hands me the chip, and the princess pats me on the back.

"Just do it," Princess Fatima says.

"Men have an exaggerated perception of beauty in certain things," Alison quotes the standard Psychological Theory. "If it matters to you that you solved the rubik's cube in less than a minute, chess is crucial, and Archlinux is religion, you must be a man."

I allow them to lead me to Fargon's office. I don't even use Archlinux. I prefer Linux Mint Debian.

I sit at Fargon's desk and insert the chip into the side slot of Fargon's desktop computer. Sure enough, the contents of the chip are encrypted, and running free open source encryption apps, I discover that the encryption signature comes from a virus. I groan. There's only one way to access the contents of this sort of thing.

I enter the Dark Web and the domain of Incognito, the author of this virus.

"I know you have the key to the Trump Putin virus," I message Incognito. "How much?"

The message in reply demands 6 million galactic credits, slightly more than what we owe Fargon. I look at Princess Fatima. She nods. We pay this; we owe Fargon nothing.

I transfer the credits and receive the Abaddon Key. I run the key. Data spills from Fargon's chip. Fargon had hacked the Sultanate of Oman's server to discover their devastating secret. The anonymous kidnappers can have it if I be the judge.

The Earth was destroyed by climate change and economic disaster due to wanton greed, culminating in nuclear catastrophe.

The present Earth is a perfect replica created by the Ahriman Confederation, terraformed precisely, and peopled with clones extracted from DNA remains on the former dead planet.

The Ahriman Federation runs our replica Earth from the Sultanate of Oman. Princess Fatima is heiress apparent because she has no brothers, and her only sister Salimah is younger.

Princess Fatima is the ruler of the Earth in waiting. No wonder she has been forgiven, and Alladin the Hassassin did not kill us on the Holobask Pleasure Planet.

Princess Fatima is effectively Queen of our Earth in waiting, her Highness and my Royal Majesty. SPEW.

Falling in a twirl

One wing broken

The other wing sword clipped

Orange and purple sky

Billowing with pillars of cloud

Lightning cracking all around

Glancing strike

One wing on fire

Line of white smoke

Smashing into rain cloud

Emerging covered in frost

Ice flaking off skin

Regrets? No

The entire fall is staged

I am the trickster

D'Arkangel of Eventide

Someone must play the scapegoat

Shunned and vilified

Cast out pariah

Fallen and forsaken

No such thing

In the domain of the Sky King

Everyone embraced

In irradiant caress

But someone has to suffer

The fall of ignominy

So be it

Shame me

Hate me

Vilify me

Fair game

Now look in the mirror

Do you like what you see?

Before I hit the ground

Hear my plea

What would you rather be?

The beauteous one

I am not he

Cursed begotten

Lilithrani

I am she

Falling in a twirl

One wing broken

The other wing sword clipped

Orange and purple sky

Billowing with pillars of cloud

Lightning cracking all around

Glancing strike

One wing on fire

Line of white smoke

Smashing into rain cloud

Emerging covered in frost

Ice flaking off skin

Regrets? No

The entire fall is staged

I am the trickster

D'Arkangel of Eventide

Someone must play the scapegoat

Shunned and vilified

Cast out pariah

Fallen and forsaken

No such thing

In the domain of the Sky King

Everyone embraced

In irradiant caress

But someone has to suffer

The fall of ignominy

So be it

Shame me

Hate me

Vilify me

Fair game

Now look in the mirror

Do you like what you see?

Before I hit the ground

Hear my plea

What would you rather be?

The beauteous one

I am not he

Cursed begotten

Lilithrani

I am she

She entered the forest

Seeking elixir of immortality

Silver ankh hanging from her throat

She found him sitting on a rock

Sinistral strum of his guitar

Black hair, dark eyes, pasty white

He knew the secret of what she sought

He pointed to the ankh

"That's an Egyptian Tao cross"

She hid her eyes

Covering her secret self

She told him what she wanted

Hadn't she?

Did he take her for a Joker?

The moon has two faces

She's the one facing

The other Cat faces away

Both seek the Horned Bat

Yes, here is the key

The secret is an apogee

If you can but see

One of two Dreamers

That she be

Ancient pedigree

Persephone

Bomb bay doors lowered

Prime ordnance

Guided Missiles

Residential complex

Men, women, and children

Fire Fire Fire

Mach Eleven reads on the dial

Impossible

Vision flares red

Flight suit burns with heat

Flash of light

Floating in vast blue space

Suspended in flight gear

Men, women, and children

Thoughts of Eunice

And my fatherless child

Tears spill and freeze

Caking and crumbling

Ice fragments in my flight mask

Solar flare

Glint of the Sun

Stentorian call

WHY

Just doing my job

Avoiding court martial

Innocent Sky Child

Wake up in traction

Ejected short of target

Hallucinating

Mission abort

Certified unfit to fly

Yeah! Cruise around town

Strobe on the floor

She twirls in her gown

I play the clown

Happy Days

Happy Days