The Thunderbird Order are of ancient origins. I would later learn that, as I climbed the ladder in Its spheres of sophistication. The leaping techniques I was learning and teaching the Cheshire crew predated even the existence of Earth, in all Her versions, by cosmic epochs.

This was not the organization that Cap had to deal with on a daily basis. The Universal Union (UU), though it self-proclaimed itself as the highest authority of 4th-dimensional reality, it possessed neither the experience, wisdom nor the seniority that divine orders like the Thunderbirds held. And the UU conducted their government of the known universe as such—short-sightedly and incomplete. Their legislation was ultimately limiting, as they fumbled through tagging all of what they perceived to be known reality. “Jack of All Trades, An Expert in None” was their unofficial motto. Sure, the oceans of their collective knowledge spanned across the farthest reaches of 3-dimensional space, but only dove an inch deep. Alternatively, Bill and crew’s in-depth investigations of the Earth versions, where Cheshire was in orbit, tapped into marrow inconceivable by the UU. This was ultimately limiting for Bill, the Cheshire crew, and Cap.

The morning the Captain had invited me into her wheelhouse, was interrupted by an official call.

“I reviewed your logs for the last two weeks,” Danny V. said over the video phone into the Captain’s quarters. “Why are you down 20% in tagging missions?”

He did not know it, but V. was alluding to the fact that our Captain was beginning to dissent from the UU’s vice grip on the Cheshire’s time. She had leapt with us last night and was awakened to possibility well beyond what the UU offered.

“Sorry, sir,” the Captain cleared her throat before answering. “My crew has been a little tired lately. Too many missions, back-to-back. I told them they could ease up a bit, but we can pick up pace, if the UU has taken notice.”

“They haven’t taken notice,” Danny V. rebutted. “I have taken notice. If you or your crew are engaged in extracurricular activities outside of your sanctioned civil service, I’ll have no choice but to report you to the UU Council. Let’s get these numbers up. OK?”

“Yes, yes, sir,” she said, reluctantly.

***

“I might be able to help,” I said, after Danny V. hung up from the videophone. The ominous presence of his giant, looming face projected on the large screen lingered as the set went dark.

The Captain had not even told me why she summoned me to her wheelhouse first thing that morning, but we were already onto more important matters.

“Oh, uh—,” I could tell the Captain had a lot on her mind. “Yeah, sorry for that interruption. I was just going to get a debrief from you on what kind of excursions you’ve been conducting, but maybe it would be better to show not tell. You think you can be more efficient than the Cheshire’s state-of-the-art dimension oscillating engine?”

“Only one way to find out,” I said without hesitation. “Take me on some tagging missions, and let’s see what we can do.”

The Captain could sense my confidence, but her training told her to tread with caution. I was still young after all. Though I had successfully demonstrated my abilities the night before, her wisdom of experience held onto some skepticism. And rightly so.

“Let’s start small, Bill,” she said. “I’m excited for what you’re potentially capable of, but we have zero margin for error with V on our backs. We’ll continue to run regularly programmed missions with the Cheshire stack. But, yes, let’s have you ride along. Sully’s back to his old pilot self, thank god. For now, I’ll let you observe and report back any potential for improvements.”

“Anything’s better than mopping,” I said.

We both chuckled. I don’t know if it was the accelerated aging I had endured from the excess of leaping those last months, but I could sense the Cap had more faith in me these days. Quite the 180 from my uninvited and abrupt entrance onto the Cheshire.

***

My ride-along missions with Sully and Joey Photo lasted all of one day. Relegated to the Cheshire’s “state of the art,” yet clunky tech had me bored. It just couldn’t compare to the categorically superior spaceship Earth, however ancient She may be.

“Another day, another dollar,” Sully said to nobody, piloting the ship into government sanctioned missions. “This has got to be the third tag today that commemorates some stuffy senator’s family tree. Seriously, what is the point of this shit?”

“Danny V. has made the trips boring to prove a point,” the Cap said in response to Sully’s frustration, from her chair on the bridge. “He’s reminding us that he’s in charge, and that we have to go on whatever mission he commands.”

Danny V. had piled onto the Cap’s backlog as punishment for her perceived incompetency. The rest of crew’s eyes were glazed over, going through the missions of the soulless trips. It was depressing to watch (which is probably why I only lasted one day… mopping the lower decks may have actually been better than this).

Kitty stared blankly into a digital time-space navigation map. Jacob and Gabe surfed monotonously through endless planets of the UU that all eventually bled together they were so similar. Guillermo chanted quietly in meditation. Ron and Rachael and Donna and Edward, ever the professional scientists, vigilantly monitored the ship’s systems for safe and efficient dimensional trips, however mundane their destinations. Their diligence was almost reassuring, until I remembered how humdrum our day-to-day was, compared to exciting nights. Keith’s wisecracks to keep spirits up went largely in vain. The Cheshire had become some floating space office. I had to get out.

“I think there’s some cleaning I forgot to do,” I said, as an excuse to leave the airless bridge.

The Captain perked up, at first a little surprised, but then remembered how depressing this must be to me, an accomplished leaper of my own accord. She nodded in approval.

I didn’t clean. I descended into my Drop, during the day this time. I had to formulate the antidote out of the Cheshire’s ill-fated occupation. Maybe there was a way to make leaps look like they came from the Cheshire, but were actually sparked from my burgeoning Thunderbird techniques that leveraged the ancient spaceship, Earth-Moon-Sun, I thought.

I leapt to the Equipment Room seeking counsel.

***

NEXT UP: One thing that the ancient Thunderbird technique could leverage was the leaping to many worlds at once. The clunky Cheshire was limited to one leap at a time, hence the drawn-out manual process. If Bill could acquire the upcoming mission log, he could string a series of tags on one leap, like a pair of scissors smoothly sheering through paper.

***