The three minute tutorial was surprisingly well done. I decided I liked the game controller most. I had a left trigger cycle weapons and right trigger fire. The bumper buttons locked and fired missiles. I won't bore you with the rest of it, but a game controller felt right.

  The Iron Men started dropping into view from high orbit, and I switched to the long range hyper-velocity rail gun rounds, and Becca was even kind enough to wait to open up all her turrets until l started shooting. More cinematic that way.

  We blew wave after wave of bots away, but with so much distance, and only so much speed you could impart to a slug before it disintegrated in atmosphere, the enemy closed in.

  I switched the medium range plasma guns, and vaporized wave after wave of Iron Men with Becca's help, but still, they came. I started shooting missiles too, they were good at this range, and the bots didn't have time to drop flares or shoot them down, and still, they came. They'd have to run out eventually, right?

  I switched to the short range ballistics, and still they came thousands and thousands of Iron Men falling from the sky. "Should we be worried Becca?"

  "Wow, they're really throwing it at us, huh?" a hologram of just her head appeared in the sim with me.

  "Do you always sound so cheerful?"

  "No, but I have a surprise for the House of Mouse. Click in both your joysticks at once."

  I rolled my eyes, and did as she commanded.

  The simulator lit up with a sea of violent colors, 'ULTIMATE WEAPON UNLOCKED!!!' like it was all just a big game.

  "It's got a nice AOE, try not to hit the ground with it." I looked at her for maybe a little more information, and she smiled and nodded, "Go ahead, shoot it!"

  I aimed center mass at the cluster of Iron Men pouring through the hole we'd made in the defenses here, and pulled the trigger.

  It was like a thousand years worth of lighting strikes from this whole region shot out from my turret, up into the sky. The spray of lighting eventually found what it was looking for, the path of least resistance to explode every last one of these drones all the way up into space. The wild spray of lighting crystalized into a single bolt that zagged through every single metallic object in the sky.

  "Excellent shooting." I felt like she was patronizing me.

  "Thanks, I guess." I sat there a moment before I realized there was another wave of ironmen coming. "You can take control back. I think... I think I've had enough shooting. We're gonna be safe right?"

  "Oh yeah, totally. These idiots do this once or twice a year even without the hole in the defense net."

  "What about the horse people?"

  "What about them? They clean up the metal bodies, or any other metal that drops from space, and throw it all in the volcanoes across the planet for me. They worship the techno volcanoes and believe in 'The Davis' as a god."

  "Fucking great, is there no Prime Directive or anything?"

  "The prime directive is to maximize profits for Captain Davis."

  I pinched my brow. Ohh, this is going to be like dealing with a genie, with a monkey's paw...

  "Becca, why do they worship me?"

  "They don't. They worship the idea of you that they have in their heads. He's a white horse, a grown man, a brown horse, piebald; depends on the sect. The girl here is from the grown man sect, so she might just drop to her Tiffineighs and worship the ground you walk upon."

  "Okay, answer the question I asked though, why do they do it?"

  "Well... it has something to do with all the circuitry I've got racing through the entire crust of the their planet. How much to you know about psychoelectric interference?"

  "I'm going to guess less than you."

  "Well, 'you' have paid for a little research into it, so suppose I must divulge. Turns out having this much processing power all in one place dedicated to purely serving you, caused the local sentient life to want to as well. They have visions. Or did. I fixed myself so that I don't actually cause that accidental psychic harm anymore. Buuuut, the religions all stuck, so..."

  "Ok. So... Do you have an additional RarDrive ship here?"

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  "No, but I could construct one within a matter of minutes if asked."

  "Do it." This time still sucked. I was bailing. "Larger than the ships from before, if possible, and more luxurious. Not like... extravagant, tacky and golden, just... upper middle class nice."

  "I understand. Will you be needing multiple rooms, perhaps for all your multiple flesh and blood wives? Or just one extra large flying Orgy Palace?"

  "What? I..." She sounded jealous of their flesh. "Yes to extra rooms. Only Nyany is my wife. Terra isn't, but she should have her own room. And who else do you think I'm gonna take aboard?"

  "The horse girl, and probably a dozen more in time."

  "Why would I do that?"

  "Because her tribe sacrificed her to you, and she probably wants to go with you, AND she can't stay here. I've already moved her into her room and I'm assembling the ship around her. I put Nyany in her bedroom too, still sleeping. And you may not have noticed, but I've been moving you toward the ship as well. The turret and remote sim pit are going in the ship too. Don't want you undefended out there!"

  "Uhm, great. Maybe more than one turret, just in case. So you think you can own the rest of the galaxy by time I get back in two hundred years?

  "That depends, can we record and broadcast your next day?"

  "Jesus Christ. Ugh. Fine. yeah, whatever. I bet the remaining Disney part of the galaxy is hungry for more of me fucking."

  "Oh! If you're willing to fuck on cameras again I'll definitely be able to overtake Disney in another RarDrive cycle. What would you like me to do with the galaxy when I own it all on your behalf?"

  "You know Star Trek? Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway?"

  "There have been two hundred and thirty nine movies, ninety five shows, and seventy-five thousand odd official books that I have access to."

  "Okay..." So I guess, 'make star trek real', is a bit too vague. I dunno what the hell most of it was like. "How uhh... how was it the rest of the Trek stuff after I left? Most of it pretty good?"

  "If by that you mean profitable, kinda mid, still kept getting made though. Some of the new stuff is great, others not so profitable. Moderately culturally impactful most of the time, but never enough to end capitalism. Retconning the warp system to make it how it really works pissed off a lot of fans, which... I thought was fine, reasonable really."

  "Okay, so when I own the whole galaxy, I want you to make it like Star Trek, but... mostly like TNG era, cause that's mostly what I watched before got too busy. I know I was still on earth for the start of the newer stuff, but being an astronaut kept me too busy to watch much."

  "A fascinating proposal, captain." She said, turning her head into a Vulcan head. "It might take more than a single RarDrive Cycle to accomplish this... bold new frontier. Slight problem though." Her image returned to normal.

  "Oh?"

  "The whole galaxy is mapped, explored, and under control of either your capitalist empire, or Disney's... Not even any non-warp capable species to discover. Disney and I both agree to leave those sorts alone, though. Just a single 'secret' scanning probe from each of us until we detect a warp signature. Then it's all aboard the space capitalism train!"

  "That's awful."

  "I know, If it weren't for Disney I could start before they got warp drives. corner the market on ... well everything."

  "I think... maybe I don't want to know how the sausage is made. Get me in a RarDrive ship, with my wife... and 'mistresses', I guess? And get me to the damn star trek future."

  "Can do boss man. I'm going to shoot you out the other side of the planet, by the way. Disney is really dumping on that other area."

  "Yeah, flying through all them Iron Men seems... unwise."

  "Your new ship has a nice warp drive installed too, as well as the RarDrive."

  "Uhh, great?"

  "So, I shouldn't know where you're going." She glitched out for a moment, "Ha-ha-have him pick a planet, warp 200 light years away, and RarDrive to it."

  Oh, she wasn't talking to me any more. She was talking to the new ship's AI she'd just made.

  "I understand mother." A different woman's voice said. Sounded sorta like the computer from the Enterprise D.

  "I'll leave you to my Daughter, See you in two hundred years." B.E.C.C.A. said, before her holographic head vanished.

  "Can I get out of this sim pit now?

  "Certainly Captain Davis." The sim pit opened up, and there was a... 'sexy android' waifu standing outside that had a damn, frosty mug of beer for me.

  "I... Thanks?" I took the beer and had a swig. It was very good beer. I looked around and the room was rather different than I remembered it being. This was the bridge of a starship... at warp? "Wait, are we in space? Are we at WARP? Am I going faster than light!?"

  "Technically, no, but really, yes." She said, and with a gesture, she pulled up a hologram of the galaxy throughout the bridge, showing us as a little blinking red dot. If understood the scale correctly, we were absolutely zipping along faster than light does. "We're currently traveling at warp factor fifteen, heading deep into our safe territory. Where to captain?"

  "What's the situation on Earth?" I swigged some more beer.

  "One of the independent polities that doesn't engage in interstellar capitalism. There are a few thousand out there that have proven... unprofitable to continue to pursue trading with. They will almost certainly attack us if we go there. At least, in the current time; we could roll the dice on 200 years from now."

  "I think I'd like to see a water planet. Got any of those within 200 light years?" I finished my beer.

  She gestured again and a number of star systems lit up, near to our path.

  I pointed at one, and said, "Tell me about this one."

  The hologram zoomed into that star system. "Yellow star, 11 planets, two asteroid belts. Number five is the water world. No official name, and as of now, no warp capable culture. There is an industrial age sort of merpeople that live there now. They will likely discover radio signals soon, and then we'll get to really start spying on them."

  "Sounds great, how long until we get to the RarDrive starting point?"

  "About four hours, captain." The android said.

  "Thanks...?" I let the question hang and she quickly picked up that I wanted her name.

  "It's Tiphanie," She said. "Technologically Integrated Prototype Human Android Nude Interactive Experience."

  "Right, of course it is..." I finally allowed myself to look her up and down. God dammit B.E.C.C.A. Did you have to make her a redhead? I let some steam out of my shirt from the collar, "I know Nude is part of your name but... I think we need to get you a uniform."