Skylar Holmes: The Last Hope

1. TIME FOR CRIME

SKYLAR HOLMES AND her bonded shapeshifter scampered through the darkened barely-lit starship Faraway's Main Cargo Bay, taking care to keep to one side out of sight of the Main Cargo Bay door window. They were heading for the eight huge alien property trunks lined neatly along a slightly raised rectangular platform in the dark recesses of the bay. Framed photos of former starship Faraway captains hung high in the gloom along the walls giving the impression they were watching the duo's intrusion with foreboding eyes.

"Quietly does it, Piron!" warned a nonchalantly scampering Skylar in a cautious undertone down over her shoulder. "We'll soon be getting a close view of the alien trunks."

"Speak for yourself!" complained Skylar's bonded shapeshifter sarcastically. Piron, a futuristic counterpart of her father's Dr Watson, was currently in the form of a black panther that allowed the darkness to disguise him adequately even if Skylar herself seemed to throw caution with a sail on it to the wind. In Skylar's defence, she at least had dark-brown skin—though, unfortunately, her snow-white Afro was a bit of a giveaway. "There aren't many creatures that can pad along on all fours as stealthily as a black panther can. And I've shapeshifted into the stealthiest black panther imaginable."

Skylar simply responded with a quiet chuckle.

After snaking through some scattered titanium crates and scurrying along a short corridor formed between some packed storage racks, Skylar and Piron at last got their first good look at the alien property trunks resting silently on their low rectangular platform. A few protruding metal and shiny hard plastic property boxes stacked high inside the open trunks reflected what little light there was in the bay, and short trunk ladders hung down invitingly awaiting the property collection crew—or a couple of thieving intruders.

"Great," said a relieved Skylar, drawing herself and Piron to a halt still out of sight of the Main Cargo Bay door window, "as we saw with my Main Cargo Bay security camera hack, the trunks are still open."

"It's definitely great," said Piron, "especially as your appended security camera loop hack showing an empty Main Cargo Bay will keep us safe, unless we're spied through the Main Cargo Bay door window or some unscheduled crew decide to flood into the Main Cargo Bay."

"Keep calm, why don't you, sir?" said Skylar reassuringly, slipping out her pocket watch from the inside pocket of her standard pale-blue starship Faraway uniform jacket. She deftly flicked open the silver pocket watch's covering flap with her thumb, and eyed keenly the ornate watch face. "We're a few minutes early for the optimal theft time. No one will be viewing the Main Cargo Bay through its door window. In fact, no one will be in the corridor outside to even look through the window."

"I don't know why you insist on keeping such an ancient timepiece on your person. It can't even display today's date, let alone the menus of the Faraway's canteens."

"But that's precisely the point. This pocket watch is completely mechanical with absolutely no electronics or anything approaching technology. Which means, it is invisible to technological surveillance. And I don't think that it's correct to call it ancient when it's only three years old. I got it for my thirteenth birthday."

"Yes, but your thirteenth birthday was January 6th, 1907. And that's over 2,000 years ago. So from that point of view, not only is your pocket watch ancient, but so are you. Anachronistic you, and your anachronistic timepiece: a double act sent forwards in time to challenge us all."

"You can talk—you're not even in the same universe, let alone the same timeline. Anyway, you know what they say, Piron. Time is relative."

"True. And time can never be stationary. It waits for no living creature. So maybe we should just get on with this theft. We've waited two years to commit it. And we don't even know if we're really supposed to be doing it."

"That is not quite correct, big black kitty. We are supposed to be doing it, of that I am certain. We just don't know exactly why we have to do it, and how we should use the items we steal. Remember, this is only a minor crime in a culture where crime is non-existent that we need to commit in order to solve a major crime, or at least solve some sort of mystery."

"Yes, I stand on all fours fully corrected. I've never doubted your deductive reasoning. After all, you are the daughter of the father of such reasoning. I just want it to be over."

"You've waited two years. What's another two minutes? Honestly, Piron, for nature's ultimate master of disguise, the shapeshifter doth worry too much, methinks." Skylar gave Piron an assuring wink.

"Talking like your ancient father again?"

"No. Even more ancient than that. I'm making a dog's dinner out of a line from Hamlet by Shakespeare."

"'Dog's dinner'? That's a new one on me."

"Shush now, I've got it all under control. This isn't some spur of the moment burglary. Granted the preparation time was minutes; but, well, you're well-disguised, and I'm ... somewhat intellectual for my years." Skylar gave Piron a knowing cheeky grin.

"Mocking your father's intellectual arrogance as usual, I see."

"Definitely. It makes me feel at home—or should I say, at Holmes. My father couldn't help being arrogance personified. I'm afraid that's the way men were back in England's Victorian and Edwardian eras. The leaders were all men that were alpha wolves. Their male followers were timid sheep. The women were simply the mechanism for birthing the tragic wolves and sheep. And there were rarely any shepherds to steer this misdirected misogyny through the carnage."

"But how would someone of your abilities get to blossom in such a male-dominated primitive culture? I can't believe a creature like you with such great abilities and confidence in oneself could fail to blossom."

"Other than being in line for the throne, by taking a leaf out of your genetic book, Piron."

"Huh?"

"I would have to shapeshift, in a manner of speaking, into a male. Great women used that trick frequently. Ask the triumphant triumvirate literary Bronte sisters Anne, Charlotte and Emily. They had to do with being the triumphant triumvirate literary Bell brothers Acton, Currer and Ellis. The initial letters of their pseudonyms shows they hoped one day history would give them the recognition they deserved if they couldn't receive it in their lifetimes, which basically they never did."

"You humans were a funny lot in your past. Two genders of a single species regarding each other as two different species, each alien to the other."

"Yes, and to emphasise your point, my self-education informs me that by 1992 humanity through the work of John Gray's Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus at least began to realise it—if subtly doing nothing about it except exploiting the bizarre situation further. An exacerbation of exasperation, so to speak."

"Humanity's early stupid sexism slowed down their development significantly," said Piron, shaking his panther shapeshifted head disparagingly.

"Yes it did," agreed Skylar. "Silly olden day men. You know, my father was born when the last of the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, was still alive, though she only had a year and three months left to live."

"It must be time by now," said Piron, impatiently pawing at one of Skylar's boots.

Skylar took one last look at her pocket watch before flipping shut the covering flap and slipping it back into the inside pocket of her starship jacket. "It is." She took one last glance back at the Main Cargo Bay door window ...

Seeing no one, she said with a dash of dramatic conspiratorial air, "Follow me, Piron old chap. Time for crime!"

______________

I hope you enjoyed this Chapter. I welcome any votes, comments or constructive criticisms (style, spelling, grammar and punctuation errors).

T. J. P. CAMPBELL.