It was a dark and stormy nebula.
    Suddenly, an energy beam sizzled through space.   A woman screamed, but no one heard her.

    Meanwhile, on a clone farm in the Hercules Cluster, a young girl was growing up.   She was fast, fast on the draw.   Her name was Nebula MacLeod.   She drew her blaster and fired.
    "Nice shot, Neb, girl," her Paw drawled.
    "Thanks, Paw," she said, blowing ozone away from the business-end of the blaster.
    "You killed Maw, though," the old man added.
    "Got her clean through the chest," the girl countered.   She was a feisty little creature with flaming red hair and mysterious green eyes.
    "Got t'give ye that," Paw admitted.
    "Well, I'm off to the Academy," she said as she waved good-bye.   She climbed into the family floater and revved the fusion engine.
    "Good-bye, Neb, honey," Paw said.   "Get good grades."

    Four years later, Nebula stood in line with other cadets to receive her commission.   She was now Nebula MacLeod, Ensign, United Worlds Space Navy.
    "I've been assigned as military attaché to the Earth embassy on the Yawangi home planet!" burbled Ensign Dick Limpett, Nebula's academy chum these last four years.
    "What kind of candy-ass assignment is that?" Nebula sneered.   "We're going to be at war with the Yawangi in less than a month.   Haven't you been getting the news downloads?"
    "It's the kind of assignment deserving of a cadet who graduated first in his class," Limpett sniffed.   "What did you draw, Miss 'Most Likely to Contract an Alien STD'?  Duty at a prophylactic station?"
    "I drew carrier duty, Dick," Nebula said proudly.   "I'll be aboard the Emperor George W. Bush."
    "Wow," Dick breathed, quite impressed in spite of himself.   "That's great, Neb!   Congratulations!"
    Nebula looked around, searching the crowd.
    "Looking for your pal Professor Darkley?" Limpett asked airily.   "He's not here.   Rumor is he resigned from the Academy."
    Nebula scowled.   Her favorite teacher.
    "Oh, well," Dick said with mock cheer.   "He's probably holed up somewhere working on his whacky theories.   Probably safer for him that way, and for all of us."
    Nebula reached down and not-so-gently cupped his testicles in her hand.   "Keep a tight scrotum, Dickie-bird," she said.

    Space lit up like a Christmas tree.   The Yawangi attacked.
    A great space battle raged.   Flashes, fireballs, streaks of energy.   Whaff!!   Woosh!!!   Zzzzzzssst!!!!
    Suddenly, a mu-meson torpedo struck the Emperor George W. Bush.   The ship began to break apart, jagged pieces tumbling, tumbling . . .
    "The bridge has been hit," the chief said.   "You're the last officer left alive."
    "Me?" Nebula said incredulously.   "I'm just the rest room and morale officer!"
    "Good enough," growled the grizzled chief.   "You have the conn!"
    "Okay, then.   Turn this ship around and head for the Storm Cloud."
    "The Storm Cloud!" the chief exclaimed with dismay.   "That's an ion storm vortex.   We'll never get out of there."
    "Follow my orders," Nebula threatened, waving her blaster, "or I'll have you clapped in the brig and court-martialed six ways from Arcturus!"
    "Look, I love butch women, but no one's fool enough to enter the Cloud!   No one but crazy Professor Darkley, the one who was thrown out of the Academy for insubordination."
    "He's an old friend of mine," Nebula said.   "He's working on a super weapon that just might win this war!"
    "But he's dangerously crazy!" the chief said, his eyes filled with fear.   "Criminally insane!"
    "He's a cute old pussycat.   He taught me everything I know about space warfare.   And a lot of other stuff.   Lock in those coordinates!"
    "Yes, ma'am!   By the way, did I ever show you my mink handcuffs?"

    "Say, Professor," Nebula said, "just how does this gadget of yours work?"
    "Huh?" Professor Darkley threw off the bed covers.   "Well, you just strap it on, and ..."
    "No, silly, I meant your super space warfare weapon.   The one that can win the war against the Yawangi."
    "Oh, the Smegmatron!   Well, it has to do with String Theory, quantum fluxes in the continuum, and the fact that when you turn your drink around and around, the little black piece of shmutz floating in it always stays on your side."
    "Doc, you have a knack for coalescing the vaporously conceptual," Nebula said.
    "And I'm dynamite in the sack.   Don't worry your pretty little head about it.   It'll work.   Just like this here prosthetic gizmo.   What with all my old man's problems, I wouldn't be able to pleasure you without it."
    "Prothesis is a wonderful example of applied science," Nebula said dreamily.
    "You bet your sweet bee-hind," the professor said.   "Speaking of which ..."   He rolled toward her.
    Nebula sat up hastily.   "We should finish retrofitting the ship.   The Yawangi fleet is heading for the Earth."
    "My dear, we have all the time in the universe.   Literally.   The Smegmatron, in addition to being a kick-ass secret weapon, is also a time machine!"
    "No kidding," Nebula marveled.  "That's super."
    "It might also be a dessert topping."
    Nebula reached under the bed.   "I think it rolled away . . . here it is."
    "I was wondering where the whipped cream got to."

    The Yawangi fleet, a vast armada of ships the size of planetoids, approached Earth menacingly.   The lead ship, the flagship SnuffStar, fired off an opening volley, just to test the range.   The planet Jupiter disappeared in a puff of plasma.
    "These guys aren't kidding," Professor Darkley mused as he watched the screen.
    "They aren't exactly known in the galaxy as zany cut-ups," Nebula told him.
    "What time is it?" Darkley asked.
    "You mean now?" Nebula temporized.
    Darkley frowned.   "Uh ... yeah. I guess.   Now, sure."
    "It's oh-three-hundred hours, yesterday."
    "Yesterday?   Have you been studying Zen or something?"
    "Are you forgetting this ship is now a time machine?"
    "Right.   Yesterday.   But we lost the battle yesterday.   I thought this was today."
    "We went back in time," Nebula reminded him.
    "Right!"   Darkley scratched his blue jaw.   "Now, let's see, subtracting twenty-four hours, four from three is minus one ... uh, hell, I never was good at math.  Computer!"
    "You're making a big mistake," the Computer said.
    "Goddam error messages," the professor said dyspeptically.
    "Let's engage the Smegmatron, Doc!"
      "Well, there's a problem.   I never mentioned it, but there's the chance of a side-effect."
    "What's that, Doc?"
    "The whole universe might blow apart into its component quarks.   Little squiggly bits of energy, like confetti, all over the goddam place."
    "What are the chances it will happen?"
    "Oh, 'bout fifty-fifty," Professor Darkley said.
    "Worth the risk," Nebula said evenly.
    "Yeah, why not.   Engage the Smegmatron!"

    It was a dark and frigid universe.   Little squiggly bits of energy squiggled in the darkness, trying to mate with other bits to make bites of matter.   It was hard to get together.
    Two bodiless entities floated in the nothingness.
    "Well, professor?" Nebula demanded.
    "Ooops," said Professor Darkley.   "There's a fly in the theoretical ointment somewhere."
    "You old fraud," Nebula scolded.
    "Hey, anybody can make a mistake.   Wait a minute, wait a minute ..."
    "What?"
    "I just thought of something.   The Smegmatron's action created this universe.   But quantum effects come in pairs.   The same action must also have created an anti-universe with opposite energy states!"
    "Are you saying that in some alternate universe, we won the battle?"
    "Absolutely.   We're fine.   We're probably celebrating right now."
    "That doesn't do us much good," Nebula said gloomily.
    "Don't worry, we won't exist much longer," the professor averred.   "We're just left-over vibrations in the ether.   We'll dissipate pretty soon.   The end is near.   And now I face the final curtain ..."   The professor began to sing in his best lounge-lizard voice.
    "The end isn't near enough," Nebula said grumpily.

    The band played The Green Hills of Earth.   Fighters in tight formation roared above the parade ground.   Shouts, victory speeches, banners flying, crowds cheering.
    Lieutenant Commander Nebula MacLeod was awarded the Magenta Star Cluster for bravery above and beyond the call of duty.
    She saluted the assembled admirals and swiveled around to display a perfect set of semi-globular buttocks.
    "That officer has assets we could use," one of the admirals said to another.   "Let's give her a ship to command."

THE END