Jay and Mack stood at the side of the large opening of the hangar, staring at all the black spaceships gathering up in the sky, grouping up in formation. Peacemaker ships from many hangars of all of the layers of the lower city were joining this flying convoy, getting ready to leave the planet's atmosphere. From up above, a much bigger spaceship joined them too.

“The Mothership!” Mack gasped. “They are sending the Femme Prime Battalion!”

“The what?”

“They are sort of like female peacemakers. Women who specialized in combat, they are elite soldiers. Some of their members even have special abilities!”

“Seriously? That's cool!”

“Goddamit, man!” the blonde gave Jay a disappointed look.

“What?”

“Where the hell is our operator?! Your friend!”

All the other ships left this hangar by now, except for the one that was going to be theirs, the Peacemaker MS35, as it was temporarily named.

“Hey, it's not my fault he fell asleep!” Jay argued. “I barely even know him anyway, I have only been here for three days.”

Mack clenched his fist, then sighed. “You are right, it's not your fault. I just really, really didn't wanna miss out on this mission. It's not every day that the femme primes are deployed, it would have been so cool to serve side by side with them. The archprincess too... imagine that something happened, and we saved her personally! Goddamit...”

“I'm sorry, dude,” Jay said.

“Eh, it's whatever. Let's drop off our stuff, I guess.”

The man began to resignedly walk towards their ship – they already put their weapons and spacesuits inside in preparation for their departure. Jay followed him, but then he heard footsteps from behind himself. A sweaty, heavy breathing Osborn appeared in the side of the hangar's opening, raising a palm as he noticed his squad mates, while leaning on his knees with his other hand.

“He is here, Mack!” the boy shouted after the blonde, who turned around at once.

“Dude, where have you been?!”

“Did you... get a... suit for me?” Osborn panted.

“Yea, we packed it in for you,” Jay nodded. Valentino sent him Osborn's size in text, so that they could be as ready for flying out as possible.

“What are we... waiting for, then? Get... get in!” the large man wheezed.

At that moment, they heard the futuristic sound of the engines of the spaceships outside. They were charging up, preparing to leave. With this many of them, the noise was rather loud, it echoed through the entire city. Suddenly, the whole hovering convoy got moving, and they disappeared in the sky in seconds. The ships left light, purplish tracks behind that quickly morphed into one big cloud.

“That was cool!” Jay cheered.

“It's too late...” Mack sighed.

“Don't give up yet! Move, guys, move!” Osborn started to jog towards their Peacemaker MS35. The other two exchanged a quick look before joining the large man.

They hurried straight to the front of the ship, to the semi-circle shaped command centre. Osborn sat down by the panels on a large swivel chair (Jay thought the seat is definitely bigger than its equivalent was on the ship he and Kate arrived on), pressed his finger against a screen, and the ship's system was on.

“It's still recognizing me, you see?”

“So our squad hasn't been disbanded yet...” Mack said with a cautiously hopeful expression.

Osborn cracked his knuckles and pressed some buttons, making a call. It was soon answered by a woman.

“Emergency contact line, how may I help?” Her voice was on speaker, so they could all hear it.

The large man cleared his throat. “I'm Osborn Farlow of the Peacemaker Squad MS35. Ma'am, I admit we were a bit late to our mission, but we are ready to fly out now.”

“You were late!” Mack corrected the operator quietly, but angrily. Osborn waved off the remark.

“You are ready to fly out now?” the female voice repeated the man's words in a surprised tone.

“Yes,” Osborn nodded.

“Hold on a moment...”

After about a minute of nervous waiting, the woman's voice returned, but only to excuse herself once again. While Mack started to walk back and forth in the room, Osborn pressed something, and an oval-shaped steering wheel came out of the control panels in front of him.

“You aren't switching off from autopilot, right?” the blonde asked.

“No, I just like to have this thing ready,” the large man replied, leaning on the wheel.

“Hmmm,” Mack continued circling around.

“Can I pilot a spaceship too?” asked Jay.

“If you wanna sit in this chair, you have to apply to be an operator, boy,” Osborn explained. “And if you have never done it, you have to do some training first.”

“Oh, okay.”

Finally, the female voice came back: “All right, you guys have permission to fly out. You can follow the convoy.”

“Fuck yes!” the blonde man stopped moving around and punched the air happily.

“Thank you, ma'am!” Osborn said, winking at his squad mates.

“Just make sure to follow the pre-programmed path, and catch up with the others at your destination.”

“Understood!”

“Good luck!” The woman hung up.

“You see? No need to lose our minds,” the operator turned around with his chair, looking quite pleased with himself.

“You did it, my man!” Mack cheered.

“Name's Osborn, by the way. And who are you?”

“I'm Mack Thomson, from the fifth layer.” They shook hands enthusiastically, then the large man turned to the console again.

“They are usually pretty damn strict about stuff like this,” the blonde glanced at Jay. “Honestly, I think we lucked out.”

“Cool!” As the ship started to hover and make its way out of the hangar, the boy began to feel quite excited himself. His first space-mission was happening, after all.

“I don't think it was luck”, Osborn glanced at the other two over his shoulder. “I think it was because of him.”

“Me?” asked Jay, pointing a finger at himself.

“Oh yeah, I guess that explains it,” Mack agreed.

“Why?” the boy inquired. “Cause I'm from a different dimension?”

“They surely want you to fit in with us,” said the operator. “They didn't want your first mission to be cancelled, if they could help it. That's what Valentino predicted too.”

“Huh.”

They were now hovering high up in the air. The city itself was not visible from here, as the ship was facing the opposite direction, but Jay still walked to the windows and watched the grassland below, and the mountains on the horizon, until they entered the purplish cloud that the convoy left behind. Here, Osborn pulled on a lever, the engine began to charge up for several seconds, and suddenly, the ship launched itself forward.

“Wohooo!” Jay laughed. As the purple fog cleared around them, through the edge of the large windows, he could still see a bit of greenery beneath, but the landscape was getting farther and farther away by the second.

“That's the spirit!” Mack walked up to him and patted his shoulder. “Soon, we will land on planet Vessivia. You have never been on an alien planet, have you?”

“No, if Motherland doesn't count.”

“Don't worry, you will be in good hands with us!”

They fell silent for a while, just watching the outside world, while Osborn leaned back on his seat and relaxed. Eventually, the sky outside turned quite dark, it was a rather dramatic and sudden shift.

“So Mack! You are the type that goes on peacemaker missions often, aren't you?” the large man asked.

“I am. It's my favourite kind of job. I'm rather good at it, too!”

“I like to go out and about myself. The vastness of the multiverse really makes you feel alive, doesn't it?”

“Exactly!”

“And the sex afterwards...” the large man pinched his thumb and index finger together and kissed them. “Oh, here is the pathway!”

The ship did a sudden turn, facing a glittering, colorful circle – it was only visible from the right angle. They dove right in.

“This tube thing?” Jay was glued to the windows. “We are now jumping between dimensions, right?”

“Yep!” Osborn nodded.

“Oh man, I can't wait to see what kind of a celebration those lizards cooked up for us!” said Mack. “I'm sure it will be quite something.”

“I hope their cooking is good. Have you ever ate their food?” asked the operator.

“No,” the blonde replied. “Aren't they into live insects and stuff like that?”

“That's what I'm thinking too. But they surely made their research about us. They are making all this fuss for our sake, so there better be some edible food!”

“I guess we will have to see.”

“Here we are!”

The spaceship slowed down, and flew out through one of the many openings on this colorful multidimensional pathway. This time, they arrived straight on a planet, rather than outside of it. Below them was a vast jungle, above was an orange skyline with puffy white clouds. Jay barely had a couple of seconds to look around, when all of a sudden, there was a loud banging sound. He lost his balance and fell on all fours, his head almost knocked against Mack's, who also fell. The whole ship was rotating around quite quickly, the boy could see treetops appearing and disappearing through the windows.

“What the hell!” Osborn yelled, holding onto his seat for dear life. He stopped the spinning of his swivel chair with his feet, pulling on a lever to secure it in place, then grabbed the steering wheel. He managed to stabilize their ship, making it hover in place. They were now close to the ground, right next to a very tall, yellow tree.

“What was that?” Mack asked as he kneeled up.

Almost as a reply, a second banging noise was heard, but this one wasn't quite as loud, and it just slightly shook their ship.

Osborn looked up from the screen on the panels. “It's a spaceship, and not one of ours.”

“Shit. What are they doing?”

“It seems like they are breaching us. Bloody wankers!”

Jay's heart sank, and he kind of just froze in place. Is this seriously happening? An alien attack? So soon?

“The suits, we need to put them on!” Mack yelled, dashing towards the round table in the middle of the room. They left their bags there, but of course they all fell down in the impact – the guns and space-attires were scattered across the floor now. “Jay, help me pick this stuff up!”

The boy walked to his senior, leaned down, and mechanically grabbed a blaster pistol. “I don't want to die,” he muttered while he stared at it.

“Then put this thing on!” the blonde passed him one of the black space-suits. “Come on, man, hurry!”

It was rather hard to concentrate, but somehow some way, Jay managed to get ready. Osborn quickly sent out an SOS signal before joining the other two. They were standing side by side in their astronaut outfits (which by the way also gave them a degree of protection against a variety of light-weight weapons), facing the closed sliding door of the command centre with their helmets on, and blaster guns in hand. They could hear a screeching sound from somewhere down the spaceship, which Osborn thought was their attackers cutting through the outer layers. The sound then stopped, which probably meant those aliens were now getting on.

If I die here, that would be so stupid...

“Chin up, boy!” the large man said quietly. “Think about women, that will motivate you!”

“He is right!” Mack whispered.

Katherine... I'm so sorry!

Some long, tense seconds later, they heard a voice from outside of the room. It was inaudible at first, but as it got closer and closer to them, they could eventually make out the words. “Hello? Is anyone here? I'm sorry about bumping into you!” It was a male voice.

“Is it a human?” Jay asked.

“Don't fall for it, they might be using a translator chip!” said the operator.

Suddenly, the door of the command centre slid up into the ceiling. Osborn and Mack immediately opened fire, Jay reluctantly followed their example.

“Hey! Please, stop that!” the intruder yelled. He had greyish-green skin, and he wore a brown, hooded robe. He was seemingly unarmed, but with every blast that got close to his body, a blue energy-barrier of sorts became momentarily visible around him, it was obviously blocking the incoming shots.

“He has a forcefield!” Mack yelled.

“I'm sorry about the accident!” the alien yelled back. “I didn't mean to... OUCH!”

The blaster pistol which hit the intruder on the head was thrown by Osborn. The alien's hood fell back, his reptilian face was fully revealed. He was grimacing with pain, but he still caught the pistol.

“That was unnecessary!” he complained, rubbing his forehead.

“Forcefields like that usually can't block physical attacks,” Mack commented to Jay quietly.

“Give my gun back, damn you!” Osborn bellowed, charging forward without hesitation. In his pitch black astronaut suit, the hulking man looked quite intimidating. He moved like an angry animal, and he was quite a bit bigger than the lizard guy, who seemed genuinely worried for a second. But then he stepped back, jumped to the side, and pressed something on the wall outside, closing the door right before Osborn's nose. The man paused for a moment, catching his breath, then he pressed the button on their side, to open the entrance. The door was sliding up into the ceiling... for about half a second, until the reptile pressed the other button outside again.

“Seriously?!” Osborn began to repeatedly push the button, to which the intruder replied in kind. The door was jerking back and forth, with about a knee-high gap at the bottom.

“Just... let me... explain myself!” the reptile begged.

“Guys, shouldn't we listen to him?” asked Jay.

“Yea, and let's not mess up the door,” Mack nodded.

The operator shrugged, stepped back from the button, and the door closed. “We are listening!” he yelled.

“It was just an accident!” they heard the slightly muffled voice of the alien from the other side of the wall. “You guys appeared before me without warning, I didn't expect it, that's why we collided. I really didn't mean to, I swear!”

“That's why you breached our ship?” Mack asked suspiciously.

“I was flying an old cargo ship, its communication system is not the most advanced, so I couldn't reach you. I came in to clarify things. Mainly.”

“You were driving a rundown cargo ship, but you somehow have a darn personal forcefield?” asked Osborn.

“Those two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive.”

The three peacemakers exchanged a look. “He doesn't seem like a bad guy to me,” Jay noted.

“I guess not,” Mack agreed hesitantly.

“Do you want something from us?” Osborn turned towards the closed door again.

“Well... the thing is, my engine just died in the impact. So if you guys could give me a ride...”

“Let me get this straight,” the operator continued. “You clash into us, invite yourself on our ship, and then ask us to give you a ride?”

“Uhm... yes?”

The large man burst out laughing. “You've got a lot of nerve! But it's okay, you can let us open the bloody door now!” He pressed the button again, and the sliding door disappeared in the ceiling.

The lizard stepped in front of them shyly, offering Osborn's blaster pistol with a clawy hand. The man grabbed it, and attached it to the side of his suit.

“So where are you going, Vessivian?” Mack asked.

“To the same place as you.”

“Damn! How can you talk?” Jay was eyeing up the alien with great wonder. He looked so real and lifelike!

The lizard man rolled up the long sleeve of his robe, and pointed at a little scratch on his scaly shoulder. “It's a translator chip.”

“Wow! So such things really exist?”

“Of course!”

“Hang on a moment!” Osborn stepped in front of the intruder and looked him straight in the eye. “How do you know where we are going, huh?”

“Uhm... I assume you are part of that convoy that was flying towards our capital, for the celebration. Isn't that right?”

“Were you tracking the convoy, by any chance? Were you following our kin?”

“I... I was. I suppose there is no hiding it now, but...”

The large operator caught the reptile's throat and pushed him against the wall.

“Wow, calm down, Osborn!” said Jay.

“He is a damned snake!”

“Just hear him out first, okay?” Mack put his hand on the large man's shoulder, who let go of the lizard man with a sigh.

“All right then, talk!”

The alien was inching away from Osborn, coughing, and raising a finger defensively. When he caught his breath, he straightened his back proudly, and spoke in a dramatic tone: “I'm afraid you guys won't understand, but I have no choice now. This alliance between your people and my people, it's a grave mistake. It must be prevented at all costs!”

---

From this point on, Cheesy Quirky Matriarchy is on hiatus indefinitely. As much as I find its concept to be amusing, it's kind of a difficult story to write, and in a way I'm more unsure about it than I was of my past stories. I might revisit it in the future, or I might not, only time will tell. Apologies for anyone who got invested, and thanks for reading!