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The uniform itched. No one in the cast ever talks about that. It itched, it was too warm, and there was at least one safety pin digging into my back. On the other hand, it was an actual Galaxy Quest uniform, I was on the actual Galaxy Quest set, and I was about to shake hands with the actual Tommy Webber. So I didn’t particularly mind.
“Hey, looking good!” Tommy smiled broadly as he shook my hand. “You just come from Wardrobe?”
The PA who had been assigned to show me around the set nodded, staring distractedly down at her cell phone. “Yep, she’s good to go.”
“Admiral, huh?” Tommy asked, taking in the formal dress uniform that Wardrobe had stuffed me into, complete with the asymmetric neckline and a rack of shiny medals. “Man, maybe I should have entered that raffle, then I could finally make it past Lieutenant.”
I laughed, and the PA chuckled politely, eyes still on her phone.
“Maybe,” I said. “But at least Lieutenants get to fly the ship. I just get to stand in the back of a conference room at NSEA Central Command.”
Tom made a horrified face. “Your walk-on scene isn’t even on the ship?! What kind of fundraiser are we running?”
“I’m just happy to be here,” I reassured him. “I’m not trying to break into Hollywood stardom, or anything. I’m just a big fan.” That last part was kind of obvious, I guess. I mean, who else would enter a raffle to win a walk-on, non-speaking role in a movie from a thirty-year-old sci-fi franchise?
“Well, we’re big fans of big fans, here.” Tommy said, glancing at the PA. “Look, Marcia, why don’t I take over the tour? You’re probably pretty busy, but the cast is just having lunch right now. I could introduce her to the gang, maybe show her the bridge set, and you can get back to work.”
I could feel my eyes widen at the idea of getting to see the ship— or, the set of the ship, anyway— but Marcia was even happier.
“Oh, thank you, Tom. I don’t mind showing her around...” At this she turned to me, patting my arm. “Honestly, you’re no bother. But the AD is freaking out and no one can find the script coordinator—”
“It’s no problem, really!” Tom assured her, and she was gone so fast that I could almost see the cartoon puff of dust she left behind.
I suddenly felt self-conscious, left alone with a member of the original cast. Be cool be cool be cool, I reminded myself unhelpfully. “You’re sure it’s no trouble… um, Mr. Webber?”
“Please, call me Tom!” he said, leading me through the winding hallways of the studio. “Or Tommy, if you’re feeling nostalgic. It took me until the second movie to get them to start listing me as ‘Tom Webber’ in the credits. I mean, I’m in my damn forties! I know I still have the same boyish good looks as when I started this gig…” At this, he pulled an angelic face with wide, childlike eyes, making me giggle. “...But you can’t be ‘Child Star, Tommy Webber’ forever. That’s no way to woo the ladies.” That made me laugh even harder; Tom Webber had been married to his husband for thirteen years.
He’d soothed my nerves, but the adrenaline spiked again when we stopped in front of a door with a hastily scrawled “Cast Lunchroom” sign on it. Tom paused dramatically.
“Okay, couple of quick things. Jason’s a hugger; it’s something we’ve all just come to accept about him. Alexander is as grumpy as you’ve heard, but he has a soft spot for fans, especially if you can reference any of his earlier, fancier stage work. Fred is smarter than he looks, and Guy is as dumb as he sounds. And Gwen…”
“We can hear you, Tommy!” came a shout from the other side of the door. Tom rolled his eyes and opened the door. “Hi, everyone!” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I’d like you to meet our walk-on raffle winner! She’ll be joining us for the NSEA Central Command scene later today, and I offered to show her around.”
And there they were: the original cast of Galaxy Quest, in the flesh. In uniform, no less! Alexander Dane was even wearing his Lazarus makeup, although the Cup O’ Noodles he was digging into admittedly ruined the effect. Alexander and the rest of the cast were lounging around a large folding table, half-finished meals strewn in front of them. At the far end of the table— at the head of the table, in fact— sat Jason Nesmith himself.
Jason stood as we entered and strode over to us, Gwen right behind him. As he loomed, I braced myself for a hug. I’ve known “he’s a hugger” types before, and they all exude the same recognizable energy when they approach you. But instead, as he neared hugging distance, Jason paused and tentatively reached out for a handshake.
“Hi, I’m Jason Nesmith,” he said unnecessarily, shaking my hand. “...Would you like a hug?”
“Um, sure,” I said, and over Jason’s shoulder I saw Gwen beaming.
“Jason’s been learning about bodily autonomy and consent,” Gwen explained once Jason released me from a quick bear hug. She shook my hand warmly.
“Everyone has the right to decide what happens to their body,” Jason said seriously. “And men have to do our part to improve the experience of working in Hollywood for everyone.”
“Of course, I’ve been telling him how hard it is to be a woman in this business for years,” Gwen muttered to me as Jason led us over to the table. “But apparently it takes a hashtag for him to actually pay attention…”
“And this is the rest of the crew,” Jason announced, encompassing the room and its occupants with a broad sweep of his arm. “The bald one’s Alexander Dane—”
“I have hair under this ridiculous rubber cap, Jason, as you well know,” Alexander growled.
“...And that’s Fred and Jane Kwan, joined at the hip as always,” Jason continued without pause. Fred waved a hand, fingers coated in Doritos dust. His wife and fellow cast member Jane— Does she not age? I wondered. She looks exactly the same as her first appearance on the show— nodded and smiled shyly. “And you’ve met Gwen, and Tommy, I see.”
“And I’m Guy Fleegman,” came a voice behind me. Sure enough, the Protector ’s security chief was taking some Tupperware out of a microwave. He set his food on the table, wiped a hand on his uniform trousers, and stuck it out for a shake. “Original cast member. I know a lot of people think I joined in The Journey Continues, but I was actually a guest star in Episode 81—”
“She knows, Guy,” Tom said, pulling out a chair for me to sit as the rest of the cast took their seats again. “You bring it up at every convention… You have been to a convention, right?” he asked, turning to me.
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” I said, “I actually went to some of the first conventions, in the nineties. I was just a kid, but—”
“You weren’t at QuestCon 18, were you?” Alexander asked suddenly.
“In 1999?” Gwen added.
“Um, no, I only went to the East Coast cons,” I said, confused. “This is actually my first time in California. Why, was that a good one?”
“Yeah,” Fred smiled dreamily, squeezing Jane’s hand. “That was a good one.”
“Uh, so you like conventions, huh?” Jason said awkwardly. “What do you like to do there? Do you cosplay?”
Holy shit, Jason Nesmith knows what cosplay is. I guess that’s not too surprising, given that the man’s probably spent most of his life at conventions, but it was still pretty funny to hear the word “cosplay” come out of Commander Peter Quincy Taggart’s mouth.
“No, I have some friends who are really into it, but I’m a little too shy to dress up,” I said, tugging at the sleeves of my admiral’s uniform. “This is the first time I’ve worn a costume since I went trick-or-treating as a kid, actually.”
“You wear it well, Admiral,” Alexander said, so dryly that I had no idea whether I was being complimented or mocked. I caught Tom’s eye and he just shrugged.
“Um, thank you?”
“So, no cosplay competitions,” Jason said. “What’s your favorite part of a con, then? The exhibit hall? Actor Q&A’s?”
“That’s Jason’s favorite part,” Gwen teased.
“Actually, I really like the panels?” I said. “Just a bunch of fans in a room, talking about the science behind Galaxy Quest, or analyzing the themes of each episode…” I trailed off, embarrassed, then ashamed of my embarrassment. These guys had been in science fiction longer than I’d been alive. Surely they wouldn’t judge me for my nerdy obsession with their decades-old TV show?
“Plus there's all the fanfic panels,” Fred added, and I blushed. Visibly.
“Why, Admiral,” Tom teased gently. “Do you write fanfiction?”
Gwen patted my arm. “You're in good company,” she reassured me. “Brandon Long wrote fanfiction when he was a kid.”
“He still does,” Alexander said. “He just gets paid for it now.”
I grinned. Of course I knew that Brandon Long wrote fanfic. He’s fandom’s Cinderella story. He’d been a nerdy sci-fi fan in the nineties, back when nerdiness wasn’t quite cool yet, and then grew up to be the head writer for three Galaxy Quest spinoffs, not to mention the executive producer of Galaxy Quest 8: Trek to the Stars, the movie we were all here to shoot.
“I love fanfiction!” Jason said. “I remember I used to read the ‘zines in the exhibit hall at cons between appearances, back in the day. But it’s all online now, right? Like, fanfiction dot com or something like that?”
“The good stuff’s on the Archive these days,” Fred said. I glanced at Fred suspiciously. For years, it had been rumored that one of the best-known Galaxy Quest fanfic writers, SpacedOut420, was actually Fred Kwan himself. No one had ever directly asked them online, because fanfic writers use pseudonyms for a reason, and an actor like Fred Kwan probably had more reasons than most to want to keep his tentacled-aliens-erotica-writing hobby under wraps. It was good tentacled-aliens erotica, though. Clearly written by someone who deeply loved the show and the characters.
“Do you write any of that slash fiction?” Alexander asked suddenly, and I froze.
“Ummmm…” I said, because yes, I did, and yes, most of it was about his character, which was actually really awkward, now that I was sitting in a room with him.
“Don’t worry, he’s not asking because he’s a homophobe,” Tom said. “Alexander officiated my wedding.”
“And I did a superb job,” Alexander assured me. “No, my problem with slash fanfiction is that you extracanonical authors can’t seem to stop writing stories about Doctor Lazarus snogging his commanding officer.”
Jason perked up at the mention of his character. “Really?” he asked. “That was definitely the most popular theme of the stories I read back in the eighties and nineties. Nice to hear that we’ve kept our starring roles, all these years later.”
“Hey, uh, what about me? I mean, Roc?” Guy interrupted. “I bet there’s a lot of stories about Roc Ingersol, right? I always felt like he had a lot of backstory left to explore.”
“No, it’s not nice to hear, Jason,” Alexander continued, ignoring Guy. “It’s completely out of character. Not only would Lazarus never violate fraternization regulations, not to mention his own religious oaths, but he’d never fall for a walking action figure who would be unable keep up with him intellectually!”
“Actually, there’s a lot of subtext in the later seasons that indicates a growing emotional bond between—” Fred started, and then the world froze.
I honestly wasn’t surprised when my vision began to smear, my stomach dropped, and my head felt like it was floating away from my body. Look at it from my perspective— First, I’d won a raffle, after never winning so much as a game of bingo in my entire life. Then I got flown first-class to Los Angeles, dressed in an NSEA admiral’s uniform, and was introduced to the cast of my favorite television show. Who then started arguing about canon support for slash pairings. If you were me, wouldn’t you think you were dreaming? So when the world started to come apart, I figured I was just waking up.
But it didn’t stop. My hands and feet went numb and stars streaked past my vision, and it lasted long enough for me to wonder if I was passing out. I’d passed out in gym class once, at ten years old, after oversleeping and skipping breakfast. This felt a little like that, except without the refreshing blankness at the end. Instead, when it was over, I was sitting at the table again, surrounded by the cast. Only it was a different table, and the cast looked as sick as I felt.
“Ah, shit,” Tom said, putting his head down on the table, which was long, sleek, glass-topped, and much sturdier than the folding plastic table we’d been sitting at a moment ago. The flimsy metal folding chairs had been replaced with the cushioned black swivel chairs you might find in an office. The room was roughly the same size, but the walls were covered with softly lit panels, and the door looked just like— just like the fancy sliding doors on the Protector! Were we on set?
“Aren’t we getting a bit old for this, Jason?” Alexander groaned.
“What, this is my fault?” Jason’s mock outrage sounded strained, and he ran a shaky hand over his face. My stomach and head were both still spinning in opposite directions, and it looked like everyone else— except maybe Fred and Jane— were suffering the same queasiness. Had there been an earthquake? I’d never felt one, but earthquakes were common in Southern California, right? There could have been an earthquake that knocked us all into a different part of the set… Yeah, that made no sense.
“It’s always your fault, Jason,” Alexander snapped. “It’s always been your fault.”
“Not the time, gentlemen,” Gwen said loudly. She tilted her head in my direction. “We have company.”
Suddenly, all eyes were on me. “What,” I said, glad to hear my voice was steady, “is happening.”
“All right, everybody,” Jason said firmly, standing up. “Let’s get to it.”
Pale and shaky as they were, everyone snapped into action. Jason pulled a prop communicator from his pocket and started fiddling with it. Gwen tapped a button and a screen lit up on the surface of the table in front of her. Guy started flitting around the room, glancing under a chair here, tapping on a wall panel there. Tom and Alexander both approached me slowly from different sides of the table, hands up like I was a frightened animal they were trying not to spook.
“We know this is pretty strange,” Tom said. “But you’re safe, and you’ll start to feel better in a couple of minutes. I’m going to talk you through a breathing exercise to help you steady yourself, and then Alexander is going to explain exactly what’s going on.”
The fact that everyone else in the room seemed to know what was happening wasn’t entirely reassuring. Maybe I’d been abducted? Some kind of Hollywood cult initiation? Or something?
“Okay, let’s start with a deep breath in,” Tom said in a gentle, soothing voice.
Behind him, Jason was talking into his communicator prop, which was talking back. Did their props have built-in walkie-talkies? That was cool.
“Sorry, Brandon,” Jason was saying. “I know we’re on a tight schedule with the studio—”
“It’s fine,” Brandon Long’s tinny voice said from the communicator. He sounded just like he does on the DVD commentaries. “I’ll tell them you guys got food poisoning or something. Any idea how long the mission will last?”
“Okay, now deep breath out,” Tom said, and I exhaled, trying to relax into my chair and settle my jangling nerves while simultaneously eavesdropping on Jason and Brandon.
“No, we’re still in Recovery,” Jason said. “But listen, Brandon, we’ve got a problem, here. One too many crew members.”
“Uh-oh,” Brandon said. “Did they pick up an extra again?”
“Worse!”
“Oh god, not a director??”
“No, a walk-on! The winner of that raffle!”
“Okay, now I want you to look around the room and tell me five things you can see,” Tom said. I recognized this as an anti-anxiety technique that my brother uses to calm his panic attacks.
“Table,” I said. Fred and Jane, both looking completely unfazed and relaxed compared to the rest of us, had produced a pitcher and a bunch of glasses out of nowhere and were pouring drinks. “Screen.” Gwen had pulled up some kind of text file on the table screen in front of her. It looked like… mission logs? “Chair. Door. Guy Fleegman, doing… something.”
Alexander and Tom glanced over at Guy, who had picked up a chair, flipped it over, and was shaking it like he expected coins to fall out.
“He’s doing a ‘security sweep’,” Alexander sighed. “Feel free to ignore him; I always do.”
“Okay, great job,” Tom told me. “Now four things you can hear.”
Mostly what I could hear was Jason trying unsuccessfully to have a tactfully quiet conversation with Brandon.
“Well, I’m worried!” Jason whispered loudly. “I’m saying she’s a fan, not an actor! She’s not used to playing a role, or improvising in weird new scenarios. She’s just a fanfic writer!”
“Wait, did you say fanfic? Why didn’t you say so?” Brandon said. “She’ll be fine, I’m sure. She’s probably better qualified for this than half the actors in Hollywood. Look, I gotta go call the studio. Check in after your debrief with the Thermians.”
Tom followed my gaze. “Ah, I guess you can hear that.”
Gwen rolled her eyes. “Jason doesn’t have a volume setting lower than ‘stage whisper’.”
By then, my hands had stopped shaking, and Jane handed me a glass of what turned out to be Coke. The sweet, bubbly taste chased away the last of the surreal, dreamy feeling in my head.
“Feeling better?” Tom asked, and I nodded. “Okay, Alexander, you’re up.”
Alexander sat himself directly in front of me, holding my gaze. “This is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for,” he intoned. “The role of a lifetime. A test of your acting skills that will stretch you—”
“She’s a fan, not an actor!” Gwen said in a pitch-perfect imitation of Jason’s earlier strained whisper.
Alexander threw up his hands. “I don’t know why you people make me do this every time, if you’re just going to criticize my performance!”
“Because the whole thing is more convincing in your accent,” Tom said. “Go ahead, we’ll stop nitpicking.”
Alexander took a deep breath, then drew himself up again, turning back to me with a considering look. “A fan, huh?”
After a moment, I realized it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “Um, yes?”
He cocked his head, thinking. “Is it just Galaxy Quest? Do you watch other science fiction? The good stuff, I mean. Doctor Who?”
I nodded.
“Ah, excellent,” he smiled approvingly. “Okay, look. If the Doctor landed his TARDIS in your back garden and asked you to go with him, would you do it?”
“Of course,” I said.
“That’s what’s happening right now,” he said. “This is not a set. This is a spaceship, in space, designed based on the Protector from the show.”
I looked around the room, unconvinced. The rest of the cast were staring at me, gauging my reaction. Was this a joke? Some kind of hazing for new cast members, and they wanted to give me the full experience for my tiny walk-on role?
“So, you’re trying to tell me that you guys are… actually your characters?” I asked, trying to figure out what the game was.
Alexander shook his head. “No, no. The characters are fictional. But a group of, er, aliens, called the Thermians, saw the show back when it originally aired and… misinterpreted it. You see, the Thermians have no concept of fiction, or even of untruth, so when they saw the show—”
“Oh my god,” I said. This was a great story. “They thought it was real!”
“Um, yes, exactly,” Alexander shrugged at Tom, apparently surprised that I had caught on so quickly. “The Thermians, not knowing any better, reproduced the technology they saw on the show. They struggled with operating the equipment, though, so they came to the experts for help.” He paused expectantly.
“Oh! You guys! They thought you were the actual crew!”
“Indeed,” Alexander said drily. “After we… provided our assistance, the Thermians returned us to Earth, unaware of their misunderstanding. Every so often, they request our assistance again, and we attempt to reward their trust in us with the best performances we can muster.” This last comment was accompanied by a sidelong glance at Guy Fleegman, who was still officiously pacing the room.
“That’s fantastic!” I said.
“Uh, it is?” Tom asked cautiously.
“Yeah! Is that, like, the plot for Galaxy Quest 9? I didn’t know they were working on it yet.”
Alexander rolled his eyes and Tom slumped in his chair.
“Perhaps I can be of some assistance,” Jane said quietly, appearing at my elbow. Alexander waved a hand at her in a “go on” gesture.
“This is always my favorite part,” Fred said, rolling up a chair.
“I am a Thermian,” Jane told me. “I will now power down my appearance generator, which conceals my natural form with this human-form projection. Please do not be alarmed.”
A split-second later, there was an alien standing in front of me. An octopus-alien, as tall as a man, with writhing tentacles and slick, mottled skin. But before I could leapt out of my chair and run for the door, I noticed its eyes. Large, blue, and intelligent, they were studying me carefully.
“Please remain calm,” the alien-octopus said, and I knew that she was Jane. In fact, she was somehow more Jane than she had been a moment ago, as a pale, unsettlingly beautiful human who had half of the fandom convinced she’d had work done to stay so youthful over the decades.
“Okay,” I said, still trying to ignore the part of my brain screaming at me to run away, run away! “It’s… nice to meet you?”
Jane chuckled, a pleasing, if squishy, sound. “It is nice to meet you, as well,” she said, reaching out a tentacle to gently stroke the back of my hand.
“Okay,” I said again, turning back to Alexander and Tom. “Okay.”
Tom, I realized, had his arms out, ready to catch me if I fainted, or freaked out, or tried to run away. I put up a hand to reassure him that my freak-out was entirely internal.
“Okay, this is real.” My brain was slowly catching up, replaying Alexander’s fanciful story in the new context of not-so-fanciful. “This is real, we’re in space.”
“That’s right,” Alexander said patiently. “We’re in space.”
“We’re in space, there are aliens... nice aliens? I mean, you seem nice,” I told Jane politely. Fred was leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. Cheek? One of her side-tentacles, anyway. The sight was a little too bizarre for me to take in just then, so I turned back to Alexander. “And you said you guys were helping them, so…”
“Yes,” Jason said from across the room. “The Thermians are nice aliens.”
I ignored the implication of other, not-so-nice aliens for the moment. One thing at a time. “There are nice aliens, you guys pretend to be the crew sometimes to help them, and we’re in space.”
“Very good,” Alexander said, making me feel like a star pupil. I paused, still thinking, still catching up, and the cast waited for a reaction.
“This makes,” I said, “SO MUCH SENSE.”
“Pardon me?” Alexander asked.
“This explains everything! Everyone always talks about how committed to your characters you all are, like you’re a bunch of method actors or something. I mean, sure, you—” I pointed at Alexander. “—started studying martial arts and Eastern philosophy, but that’s not the weirdest thing an actor’s ever done for a part, I guess. And you—” now I pointed at Tom, “—got your pilot’s license, but that’s a normal rich-guy, Hollywood thing to do.”
“But you —” and here I turned to Gwen, who looked startled. “taught yourself computer programming while filming The Journey Continues? Started a nationwide nonprofit to teach girls how to code? What’s that about? And everybody knows Fleegman’s a conspiracy theorist—” Guy grinned, clearly pleased to be included. “—who’s always tracking UFO sightings and alien abduction reports.”
Jason was shaking his head. “So much for keeping our extraterrestrial activities quiet, guys,” he said. “She’s been here for ten minutes, and she’s already put it all together. None of you have heard of a secret identity?”
The rest of the cast rolled their eyes while I gave him a contemplative look.
“Are the Thermians refugees?” I asked, and Jason paled.
“What?”
“The Thermians,” I repeated. “Are they refugees? Like, from a space war or something?”
“Yes, but how—?”
“Your charity,” I said. “Quest For A Home? You started it in the early 2000s, and practically every Galaxy Quest con and fundraiser since then has raised money for it. Hell, I’m here because I bought a Quest For A Home raffle ticket. The fandom’s never been able to figure out why refugee aid is such a big deal for you and the rest of the Galaxy Quest actors. It’s not like it ties into any big storylines on the show.”
Jason looked embarrassed, but Gwen just laughed.
“I told you it was a little on the nose, Jason,” she teased.
But I was still catching up. “Wait, all of the Galaxy Quest actors have been involved in Quest For A Home. From all the series. Are they all in on—” I waved my hand at the room. “—all this?”
Jason shrugged. “Well, the Thermians really liked the new shows. And we had a hard time explaining to them why the crew of the NSEA Protector could help them but the crew of the NSEA Wayfarer couldn’t. They kept grabbing new casts after the first season or two of each series.”
“We finally convinced them that if they ‘borrowed’ any crew members they hadn’t worked with before, they needed to include a veteran at the same time,” Gwen explained. “That’s what this room is for, actually. The Thermians are giving us a few minutes for our ‘fragile human anatomies’ to recover from the beaming technology, but we also use the time to debrief any new cast members.”
“Huh,” I said. “So that’s why the filming schedules for these shows have always been so messed up. You guys keep getting actually abducted by aliens.”
“You know, back in the day,” Alexander commented idly. “Fans didn’t obsess over shooting schedules. They didn’t even know about shooting schedules. They just appreciated the stories they were given.”
“So who else knows about this?” I asked, ignoring him. “The military? The UN?”
Jason looked sheepish. “You know, we keep meaning to tell someone about it, and then it just slips our minds. You know how flighty us Hollywood types are. We’ll get around to it.”
“Look, we’re not the Men in Black,” Tom said. “If you want to tell someone when you get back home, we’re not going to come after you or anything. But probably no one will believe you, and your friends and family will think you’re crazy.”
I shook my head. “No, my friends would definitely believe me. But don’t worry, I understand the value of keeping this hush-hush, especially for the Thermians’ sake. I’ve seen E.T. And, like, every other science fiction story about humans meeting aliens. If sci-fi writers— and actors— don’t trust the government to handle this kind of thing well, who am I to argue?”
“Personally, I’m most worried about the network trying to monetize it somehow,” Gwen muttered.
“Wait, but what about Galaxy Quest: Starbase Twelve?” I asked. “It was straight-up cancelled in the middle of the second season, even though the ratings were great. Was it the Thermians? Oh god, none of the actors every showed up in other shows or movies. What happened to them??”
“Ugh, Starbase Twelve,” Jason groaned. “Talk about a bunch of divas.”
“They’re fine,” Gwen assured me. “They just liked the ship that the Thermians gave them so much that they just decided not to come back.”
“They’re out exploring the galaxy right now, actually,” Tom said.
“Okay…” That sounded reasonable, I guess. But of course, if the Starbase Twelve cast had been killed by some sort of space monster, and these guys were just lying to me to make me feel better, how would I know the difference? “But what about—”
The door whoosed open and in stepped a man who looked a lot like Jane, who had by now shifted back to her human form.
“Hello, my good friends!” the man drawled in a strange, awkward accent.
“Hi, Mathesar,” Jason said warmly, giving the man a hug.
A few other Thermians trickled into the room, greeting different member of the cast and filling in the empty chairs around the table. About half the Thermians were wearing their human disguises, while the other half were au natural, tentacles and all. The room briefly filled with friendly chatter until Mathesar caught a glimpse of me and startled.
“Oh, Admiral!” he said, standing from the chair he had settled into next to Jason. “I must deeply apologize, we did not realize that we had inadvertently transported a member of NSEA Central Command along with the crew of the Protector.”
“Um, that’s all right,” I said, wanting to reassure the Thermian. Sure, he was a tentacled alien disguised (poorly) as a human, who had abducted me to his spaceship, but he also just seemed really… nice? “I don’t mind, happy to be here.”
“Nonetheless, we try to avoid transporting humans without their prior permission. Commander Taggart has been teaching us about the importance of ‘consent’ in your culture.” Jason beamed as Mathesar continued, “We can return you to Earth immediately if you like, Admiral…?” He waved his arm in a surprisingly recognizable gesture of “Didn’t catch your name?”
Reader, I cannot exactly explain to you what happened next. There I was, dressed as an NSEA admiral, surrounded by the cast of Galaxy Quest , who had, when the Thermians entered, become the cast of the Protector in the blink of an eye. Alexander’s boredom-bordering-on-disdain had been replaced by Dr. Lazarus’ solemn dignity. Guy had stopped manically pacing the room and was standing in Chief Ingersol’s usual pose of watchful alertness. Jason sat taller in his chair, and the rest of the crew seemed to orient themselves around him, as if he were an anchor, the center of their orbit. I was living inside the show. Inside the stories I had been writing since childhood. So when the friendly alien asked my name? Yeah, I told him my pen name.
The crew looked confused, but the Thermians gasped. Or at least, they made a sound that could be approximately described as a gasp. Like someone had described a human gasp to them and they were doing their best.
“The Historian??” One of the other Thermians asked.
I blinked at them. “You’ve… heard of me?”
“Indeed, Admiral,” Mathesar said. “We have read and studied many of Earth’s written historical documents. But we have not yet had the honor of meeting a human Historian.”
“You’ve read,” I gulped, “my fanfiction.”
“Oh, yeah,” Fred said dreamily. “I think I’ve read some of your stuff, too. It’s great!”
For a moment, I was more pleased that SpacedOut420 had read and liked my stuff than that a bunch of actual aliens had.
“Um, Mathesar,” Jason interrupted. “You guys can catch up with our Historian later. Can you tell us why you brought us out here, first? Remember how we explained last time about human aging, how we’re getting a little old to go on field missions?”
“Yes, of course, Commander,” Mathesar said. “I suspect that despite your human’s premature aging, you and your crew would be more than a match for any challenge, in space or on-planet! But today we simply require your diplomatic skills. You see, the Bouboan Federation and the Kikikiri Empire have been at war for many generations, but they recently agreed to enter peace negotiations, mediated by the Thermians as a neutral third party. However, we have had much difficulty due to their deep mistrust for each other and their long history of…”
As he launched into a lecture, he touched a button on the table, and the back wall of the room lit up with a large screen. It was the best-looking piece of exposition I’d ever seen. There were star charts showing the territories of each civilization, a timeline of important events in their history going back at least three thousand years, bulleted lists of each species’ environmental requirements, and head-to-tail images of both a Bouboan and a Kikikiri. They both looked like your typical “fearsome warrior race” from the show: the Bouboans were mammalian, with fanged grins and bulging muscles under a thick layer of fur. The Kikikiri looked like walking lizards, covered in slick iridescent scales. As Malthesar continued lecturing us about the political and economic conflicts between the two governments, I wondered which of the two would win in a knock-down-drag-out fight. The Bouboan’s teeth were hard to ignore, but the Kikikiri probably had better reach with those claws.
This sort of idle speculation was probably why no one wanted me to handle the diplomatic negotiations.
Before I knew it, the briefing was over, and the Thermians and humans started rising from their chairs. I hoped someone on our side had paid attention.
“Uh, were any of you paying attention to that?” Jason asked, as quietly as he could manage, as we filed out of the room into the corridor.
“Yeah, the uh, fuzzy ones think the scaly ones assassinated their queen, like, a million years ago,” Fred explained helpfully.
“Three thousand seven hundred twenty-three point two years, by the Kikikiri Standard Calendar,” Jane added.
“Right.” Jason eyed the Thermians nervously. “And they want us to…?”
Gwen sighed. “They’re trying to negotiate a ceasefire at their border. Neither side trusts the other not to break the ceasefire first, so you need to—”
“Excuse me, Admiral,” a Thermian said, tugging me away from the rest of the crew by my elbow. I turned, and saw a small gaggle of Thermians staring at me in awe, large eyes blinking at me above writhing masses of tentacles. The Thermian who had commandeered me pulled himself up to his full height. “I am Balalob, Lead Philosopher of Xenohistory. These are some of my colleagues. We would be remiss if we did not take this opportunity to ask you to settle a few key questions in our field.”
“Oh, uh, sure,” I replied.
“One of the central debates in xenohistory philosophy surrounds the Narrative Conflict Question,” Balabob continued. “For example, you have personally documented several missions completed by the Protectorcrew while also recording their apparently simultaneous careers as ‘baristas’ on Earth.”
Uh-oh. I tried to catch the eye of one of the crew members walking ahead of me down the corridor, but they were all still trying to catch Jason up on interplanetary politics. How was I supposed to explain fanfic AUs to people who didn’t even understand the concept of fiction?
“The contradictions between these historical documents have puzzled philosophers, but I believe they can be explained using the ‘many-worlds’ theorem postulated by our physicists, concerning the existence of parallel universes. My colleague, however,” Balalob waved a dismissive tentacle at the Thermian standing next to him. “Villequad, here, advocates for the so-called Metaphor Theory, which makes the ridiculous claim that certain human historical documents use a symbolic narrative structure to document events.”
“Yes,” said Villequad, elbowing in front of him despite her lack of elbows. “My research group proposes that just as humans use multiple languages for communication, your historical documents also encode data using different symbological systems. The ‘coffeeshop’ you describe in your document, ‘Steam and Sugar’, for example, is meant to be interpreted as the Protector itself, rather than an actual beverage dispensary.”
She stared at me expectantly.
“Um, well, that’s not exactly it.” I wished I had read more of those fandom studies papers that were always showing up on my feeds. “The stories I write are not about… actual events. Like, as far as I know, Ja— Commander Taggart has never worked as a barista. But ‘Steam and Sugar’ wasn’t describing an actual space mission using some kind of coffee-based code, either.”
I wouldn’t have thought I could interpret “bafflement” on an octopus’s face, but it turns out it’s a pretty obvious emotion on most species. The Thermian philosophers cocked their heads as one, like a group of puppies confronted with an unexpected new sound.
“So your documents are ‘un-true’?” Villequad said. “But... they’re historical documents!”
“No, no, of course they’re true!” I tried to remember how I’d explained this to my dad when he’d asked why I wrote stories about TV shows. “The core of them is true. Look, think of it this way. The crew of the Protector cares about each other, right?” I gestured at the crew, ahead of us.
The Thermians nodded, a gesture that they must have picked up from humans because that did not look natural on creatures without necks.
“Commander Taggart always protects his crew, and he never gives up, no matter what," I continued. "Dr. Lazarus always wants to learn more about the deeper nature of the universe. Lieutenant Laredo loves to fly fast, Tech Sergeant Chen can fix anything, and Lieutenant Commander Madison can talk anyone— including a computer— into anything. Those things are all true, right?”
More bobbing heads.
“So when I write about Peter Quincy Taggart trying to keep his coffeeshop from closing, while Lazarus invents new blends and Chen fixes the espresso machine with a paperclip and a drinking straw, I’m explaining how these things would still be true about the crew even if they worked in a coffeeshop on Earth, instead of on the Protector in space. When my friends and I— the other Historians— write our stories, we’re doing it to celebrate what makes the Protectorcrew special, to remind each other why we love watching the show— the historical documents— so much.”
The Cocked Heads of Confusion returned, but I thought I saw a gleam of comprehension in Villequad’s large eyes.
“But—” Balalob began, but was interrupted as we reached our destination.
“We have reached the negotiations room!” Mathesar announced. “Commander Taggart, Lieutenant Commander Madison, please join me inside to wait for the Bouboan and Kikikiri leaders to arrive. The remainder of the crew may observe from the adjacent room, if they desire.”
Jason and Gwen followed Mathesar through a door while the rest of us were shuffled into the room next door. Inside, chairs were gathered around a large window providing a view into the conference room, a larger, more ceremonial version of the recovery room we’d started in. Jason and Gwen had taken their seats at the center of a long table stamped with the NSEA logo. Was my once-in-a-lifetime space adventure just going to be a series of hallways and office chairs?
“Two-way mirror,” Tom explained as he caught me looking at the window. “They can’t see us in here.”
“They have two-way glass, too?” I fast-forwarded through all the episodes in my head. “I don’t remember that being on the show.”
“They’ve seen cop shows, too,” Tom said. Then, at my alarmed look: “Don’t worry too much about about the implications of that. The Thermians don’t really get cop shows. Too much lying by the bad guys and the good guys.”
Guy took his standard Roc-Ingersol-guard-pose by the door while the rest of us settled into the chairs. Fred had somehow gotten his hands on a bowl of what looked like popcorn, except it was bright green. He munched happily as he kicked his feet up on the two-way glass. Jane smiled indulgently at him.
The doors to the conference room whooshed open as the alien leaders arrived. Simultaneously, we all noticed what Mathesar’s otherwise thorough briefing had left out: the fearsome Boaban and Kikikiri species were both about a foot tall.
Fortunately, Gwen and Jason were professionals. They kept a straight face as they stood, bowed, and gestured in greeting, following Mathesar’s lead. The aliens seated themselves in chairs at either end of the table, staring daggers at each other while Mathesar surreptitiously pressed a button on the table to raise their chairs, putting them at eye level with the humans.
In the observation room, “off-screen”, we lost it. Tom was rolling on the floor laughing. Fred has his nose pressed against the glass, cooing over the “adorable little lizard guy”. Even the Thermians in the room with us got the joke.
“They are amusingly small,” said Teb, Mathesar’s second-in-command.
Alexander grabbed the communicator that Mathesar had provided for us to communicate with Jason and Gwen via ear buds.
“Jason, I’ll give you twenty bucks if you pet the furry one,” he said.
Jason glanced at the mirror in Alexander’s general direction and twitched his head slightly side-to-side, his jaw clenching.
“I don’t know, man, check out his teeth,” Guy said. “Remember, it’s the little ones that are the most ferocious.” This put a damper on the crew’s mood instantly, like he’d triggered some kind of shared trauma.
It turned out that political negotiations are just as boring in space as they are on Earth. To me, anyway: Gwen seemed to be having a great time, listening carefully to each ambassador’s demands and then repeating them with subtle rephrasing to soften the initially derisive tone and make them sound more reasonable. Jason barely kept up, nodding gravely or murmuring “Hmmm” at the appropriate points as Gwen cued him. Teb brought us more Cokes, and Guy started to snore from where he’d curled up in the corner.
After the third hour, I really started to lose track of the plot. Even though the details were going over my head, I got the impression that the Bouboan Prince and the Kikikiri Vizier had hated each other since birth. Maybe even before that. There was clearly ancestral bad blood between the two, the kind where hatred and distrust are embedded at the cellular level. And yet…
I leaned in, elbows on my knees. The negotiations were taking a toll on everyone, it seemed. Jason was stifling a yawn as Gwen ran a hand through her hair, frustrated by a conversational roadblock. The Bouboan Prince stretched, the hem of his embroidered tunic lifting as he raised his arms, exposing a line of soft, downy fur along his belly. The Kikikiri Vizier stared at it, then glanced away.
A few minutes later, after the Bouboan Prince dropped a particularly witty insult about the mating habits of cold-blooded species, the Vizier actually laughed. He tried to turn it into a snarl, but the Bouboan and I had both caught it. The Prince cocked his head at him, amused, but the Vizier just huffed dismissively and changed the subject.
“Oh, my god,” I said. The rest of the crew in the observation room glanced up, happy to be distracted from their increasing boredom.
Guy jolted awake. “Whazz happening?” he mumbled.
Suddenly put on the spot, I hesitated, uncertain. But behind the two-way glass, the Vizier was clenching one clawed fist tightly on the arm of his chair, out of the Prince’s eyeline, even as he tried to affect a nonchalant air as he talked.
“I know what’s happening here,” I said, my confidence growing. “I know what to do.”
“What are you talking about?” Alexander said.
“The Kikikiri Vizier,” I pointed. “He’s into the Prince.”
Humans and Thermians alike stared blankly at me.
“The grumpy, scaly one is soft for the fuzzy one,” I explained slowly, pointing more emphatically.
In the conference room, the Prince was talking animatedly, but the Vizier was just staring at his mouth, clearly not taking in a word of it. He slowly licked his scaly lips.
“Ohhhh,” Guy said. “Yeah, I see it.”
“Classic enemies-to-lovers,” Fred agreed.
“Okay…” Alexander said skeptically. “And what do you propose we do about this interspecies crush?”
“Well, we need to get them to lower their defenses with each other. There’s too much distrust between their species, and it's overcoming their attraction right now.”
“Alien sex pollen?” Fred suggested.
Tom and Alexander stared at him blankly, but I just shook my head. “Nah, dubcon doesn’t seem like the right move here.”
“I’ve got it!” Guy said. “We convince them that they have to pretend to get married. Like in Episode 23 of The Journey Continues!”
“Um, good suggestion, but I’m not sure how we’d pull that off. We don’t even know whether they practice marriage. But I think you’re on the right track. Maybe something a little simpler.” I considered our options. “Teb, are the Prince and the Vizier staying on the ship? Like, after the negotiations are done for the day?”
Teb nodded his human-looking head stiffly. “We have offered to house both leaders onboard until the negotiations are complete. But we have not yet assigned their quarters. They came straight to the conference room from their shuttles when they arrived today.”
“Perfect!” I said. “Okay, here’s what you do. When you wrap up negotiations for the day, you tell them that you have limited space on board, and due to unforeseen circumstances, you don’t have enough rooms for everyone. The Prince and the Vizier will have to share a room.”
“And a bed!” Fred suggested.
“Right, excellent. And there’s only one bed.”
Tom laughed. “All right, that’s a good one. I see where you’re going with this.”
But Teb did not see where I was going with this.
“But we do have enough quarters for everyone,” he protested.
Alexander sighed. “Now you see what we have to deal with at these gigs,” he told me.
“Oh, right.” I clearly wasn’t going to make any progress explaining the idea of a “little white lie” to Teb. Not after my unsuccessful philosophy debate. “Okay, how about this? I need all of your rooms tonight. All but one. For my… historical work.”
Teb raised his eyebrows. “Why, certainly. It would be an honor to provide any resources you might need, Historian.”
“Thank you, Teb. I really appreciate it,” I told him. “And your other guests?”
“I will inform them that they will have to occupy the same quarters tonight,” Teb said, scurrying out of the room.
“Not bad, ‘Historian’,” Tom said.
I shrugged. “It’s worth a try. I figure it can’t make the situation worse.”
“Unless they kill each other in the night,” Alexander muttered.
“Nah,” Guy said, still watching the aliens in the conference room carefully. “She’s right, that lizard guy definitely has a thing for the furry, toothy guy. And I think it might be mutual.”
“Hmmm…” I said. “The lizard guy is cold-blooded, right?”
Alexander nodded. “Mathesar mentioned in the briefing that the Kikikiri are ectothermic.”
The crew stared at him.
“What? Am I the only one who bothers to study for my roles?”
“Fred, do you think you can get someone to turn down the temperature in the room that the Prince and Vizier will be using?” I asked.
“Oh, for sure,” Fred says. “My guys can definitely take care of that.”
“I can implement this plan immediately, if you wish,” Jane said, standing and giving Fred a quick kiss on the top of his head. “I believe I can predict the optimal temperature that will encourage the Kikikiri Vizier and the Bouboan Prince to ‘snuggle for warmth’.”
“Oh, uh, thanks, Jane,” I said.
“It is my pleasure to collaborate with such a talented writer,” she said, gliding out the door despite her awkward human legs.
“Hey, you two should hang out,” Fred told me. “She writes fic, too. She’s amazing. Look her up, she’s SpacedOut420. I helped her pick out the name.”
Before I could process that, Jason and Gwen entered the observation room with Mathesar. The negotiations had apparently adjourned for the evening, and Teb was on his way to show the alien leaders to their too-cold, solo-bedded room. Tom caught Jason and Gwen up on the plan.
“Not bad,” Gwen said approvingly. “But it sounds like you’re stuck here for the night, if we need to convince the Thermians to reserve all those rooms for you.”
I shrugged. “I don’t mind. I want to see how things turn out in the morning. Besides, it’s this or my hotel back in L.A., right? Maybe you guys can point me in the direction of a window or something so I can check out the view.”
Jason grinned. “I’ll do you one better,” he said. “You wanna see the bridge?”
The crew laughed as I gaped at him.
“Yeah, we’ve all been there,” Tom said.
“Whaddaya say, Mathesar?” Jason said, slapping the Thermian on the back. “Do you mind giving our Historian a little tour?”
“It would be a great privilege, Commander,” Mathesar said. “Admiral, while I do not yet fully understand your proposed solution for our diplomatic conflict, we are deeply grateful for your contribution towards galactic peace. You have already given us more than enough, but may I make one more request of you?”
“Of course!” I said, the words out of my mouth before my brain caught up enough to wonder what kind of favor an alien commander would ask of me.
“I know that this brief diplomatic mission is nothing compared to the extraordinary adventures of the Protector crew that you have already documented. But my people and I would be honored if you would be willing to write about us, and your visit here today.”
“Mathesar,” I told him, “It would be my pleasure!”
“Put it on the Archive!” Fred suggested. “I think they’d dig it.”
And so I did.