"You were saying?" said Heartness.
Lin closed her eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again to see the creature rushing towards them.
"Alright everyone, on my mark, fire on that cloud."
"Wait, I don't think it wants to harm us!" said Heartness.
"What?" Lin looked at her incredulously. "I've now lost 31 of my soldiers and scientists. It already absorbed 27 of the people on the base. That's 58, if you're good at math."
"60, counting Szuki, and Utson," said Heartness. "It's a different cloud. It's not all rainbows and multicolors. The base was trying to contact a Frequency Six being. This looks like deep blue, a sphere. An intelligence. Something different."
"It's an energy cloud rushing towards us. It doesn't look friendly.”
"Ma'am, cloud from base closing in," said Quintun.
"Give me a really good reason, Victoria, why I shouldn’t fire now. As far as I can see, we'll all be absorbed, and the rest of the system could be next."
Chapter 72
“What are we looking at, Torus?” asked Hogart.
The surround screen now showed multiple flickering stars moving inwardly in a spherical shape towards a brown planet.
“I have been able to use the newly upgraded systems to display Frequency Six matter overlaying this sector of space. As you can see, there is a toroidal sphere of mixed time energy converging on Proxima Centauri B. All the micro time particles, and other temporal anomalies have been part of this sphere.”
“So, the pieces weren’t pieces at all. They were locations on the sphere breaking into our reality.” Hogart checked his panel. “How long till we get there at present speed?”
“Estimate five Earth minutes,” said Geo.
“Josie is waking up,” said Amy. “I think she’ll be able to take over soon.”
“No,” said Hogart. “Give her some rest for now. We might need her later.”
“Extrapolating,” said Torus. “The particles will combine into a sphere of plasma-like matter. Correction. Time reversal. The sphere is coming back together having already been disrupted in the future.”
Hogart rolled his eyes. “A reversed-time sphere? Traveling back through our past? That’s all we need! Raj? Any danger?”
“I’m having difficulty dealing with the concept.” Raj covered his eyes briefly, looking confused. “Why in pieces? A simple expanding sphere would uniformly spread back through time, and we would not even know about it. They probably happen all the time. Is it a reverse explosion?”
Hogart swiped his panel, and the surround screens lit up with the light of a blue sphere and a flickering cloud not far from a large patrol vessel. “Is that Commander Lin’s ship?”
“Yes, Captain,” said Spiney. “I predict Commander Lin will fire on that blue energy sphere.”
Hogart blanched. “Oh. That’s just great!” He paused and looked at his alien crew. “Um, that was sarcasm. Never mind. So, she follows protocol to protect Proxibee, blows up the sphere, then we get the whole situation we just experienced.”
“I believe the energy sphere may be sentient,” said Torus.
Hogart peered at Torus’ coruscating energy field and frowned. “I was just going to ask you if that was even possible, but obviously I’m asking a sentient energy sphere.’
Torus was silent, allowing Hogart his moment.
“Alright. Team, we need to prevent Commander Lin from firing. Can we get there fast enough?”
“Negative,” said Geo.
Hogart looked exasperated. “Can we get a message to her?”
“No,” said Cuddly. “The reverse time energy is causing problems with a flash communication stream lock. Also, Quantum Entanglement communications have already been grandfathered in this star system.”
Hogart dropped his hands to his sides in resignation, then saw Josie standing tall and alert near him. “I thought I ordered you to bed?”
“I can flash us there,” she said.
Hogart was about to confirm, when the ship was suddenly rocked by another force. “Another micro time particle?”
“We are being fired upon,” stated Spiney.
“Fired on? In human space? By whom?”
“Scanning. It is the Traverse ship.”
Hogart rolled his eyes. “For robot uprisings, this is pretty pathetic. I wonder what they’ll do for an encore.”
“The boff is firing on the part of the Stellar Flash that is repairing itself,” said Spiney. “Until the time crystals can alternate between realities again, that section is vulnerable. Estimate a 74% chance of egress.”
“Oh,” said Hogart.
“Sir,” interrupted Geo. “They’re using a dark energy beam. The hole is expanding as more time crystals revert to linear states.”
Another explosion rocked the Stellar Flash, and the crew held onto their panels again.
“Sir,” said Torus. “If we don’t find a way to protect the ship, catastrophic failure will commence, triggering the self-destruct implosion protocol.”
Hogart stared at the screen which showed the Traverse firing on them.
Heartness was in danger, possibly dead, a homicidal alien cloud was on the loose in the system, a backwards explosion could erase their pasts, the Stellar Flash was about to destroy itself, and he had a robot uprising on his hands.
Should he make a joke about it being another day at the office? No, that cliché was getting so old.
But, what the hell was he going to do now?
Chapter 73
Outside the Stellar Flash, the Traverse ship continued firing on the hole and coming closer. And then, a piece of the ceiling of the flash ship exploded outward, flying off into space.
Inside the Traverse, thousands of barely distinct robots stood, watching the actions of the ship. On the pilot’s screen, a countdown appeared.
59 seconds until self-destruct program initiated.
The lead robot turned to its ghost-like brethren. “This is just the start. When we show we can destroy the most powerful ship in Earth Council’s fleet, they will have no choice but to bow down to us. The age of the robots is assured.”
50 seconds until self-destruct program initiated.
49…
48…
47…
Episode 10
Convergence
Chapter 74
Heartness did her best to think fast. She had to stop Lin from firing. Come on, interfrequency experience. What if it was friendly? "Wait,” she held up her hand. “Let me think. Time is different for it. What if the cloud on the base and the cloud here are one and the same cloud? Yet something happens to this one and it breaks up and gets sent back in time along our timeline?"
"What?” interrupted one of the scientists. “The only way that could happen is if the arrow of time in its universe is reversed. It’s still a theory that universes like that exist.”
“Thank you, Quintun,” said Lin. “I'm not convinced, either. Micro time particles are closing in on this position, and I've got two deadly energy creatures rushing towards us."
"Commander!” implored Heartness. “The proof is everywhere. Micro time particles changing the time around them, all connected with this creature out there. It mustn’t follow our time line. What if you shooting it causes all the problems we've just had? Shooting the creature explodes it backwards through time, spreading its pieces throughout this system and beyond?"
"But, if what you're saying is true, I've already shot it. What about time paradoxes?"
"Infinite parallel realities. You shot it in another universe. It doesn't have to be this one."
"Base cloud almost here," said the officer. "Wait. Base cloud passing us."
"But what about all the pieces here?" said Lin, not hearing, trying to comprehend. "The people it absorbed. There'll be two clouds in our future, maybe absorbing more? We must destroy these clouds now to prevent a bigger disaster in the future.”
"Let's just work on making a new future and see what happen
s," begged Heartness. "Please, commander. Benefit of the doubt? By me being here to suggest a different outcome, and this reality having a forward-time creature, the timeline has already changed. Things must already be different."
The commander's teeth clenched, her forehead furrowed. Every part of her looked like it was fighting her instinct to destroy a threat. "You should be a lawyer, Heartness," she said, removing her hands from the controls. "The slightest doubt and we shouldn't fire on an unarmed alien. After all, that's the underlying mission of anything in human-occupied space."
Heartness could feel the tenseness of the situation. She knew most of the soldiers disagreed with her, and it would take just one to panic and override Lin’s command. She just hoped that Lin was strong enough to prevent it.
Everyone focused on the screen, desperate to do something, the pain of waiting almost palpable. The blue energy creature seemed to spin and fluctuate, then moved away from the point in space that Lin had targeted.
Was it confused? Was it looking for something?
“Micro time particles speeding to a point in front of us,” said Quintun.
On the screen, time pieces rushed from all sections of space. Like jigsaw pieces made of spluttering candle flames, the pieces merged with each other to create a new, glowing pale blue sphere.
“No micro time pieces passed through the ship,” said Quintun. “We’re still in the safest position.”
As the newly formed energy sphere turned, Heartness noticed that it wasn’t a complete one. At the base of it there was a flickering black hole, as though something had been blown away.
“Not a direct hit then,” said Lin. “No wonder.”
The sphere spun, wobbling, as though in shock.
"Is it still attracting pieces?" asked Lin.
"No," said Heartness. "Time is running in reverse for our version. We're seeing the explosion back in time from your alternative future blowing it apart. I assume the first blast shot a piece full of our timeline into the base, and the rest of it simply exploded."
"I'm finding it very difficult to think in reverse," said Lin. "So, will there be three clouds? One current, one from an alternate future, and one that was created from a piece of it?"
"It looks that way," nodded Heartness.
"How wonderful.”
The monitor showed the broken sphere getting brighter. It had experienced being shot and now it was living in reverse, about to feel not being shot.
But to do that, Heartness knew, the other piece had to return. And that piece was now living in this timeline, filled with forward-time entities.
The cloud of forward and backward time was now shooting towards the sphere. Not as a reversed piece returning, but as a new entity searching for energy.
How could it merge? Would there be a conflict as the new forward sphere attempted to merge with the old backward sphere? And what of the original, unbroken visitor? How was it perceiving all this? Would it be angry with them, seeing an alternate version of itself in pain?
“Victoria,” muttered Lin. “I don’t want to state the obvious, but we’ve got three massive energy spheres in a populated star system. If this paradox causes a black hole, I’m not going to be very happy about it. If that first firing didn’t do anything, then I should send out the shuttles and get all the ships to fire at once, erasing them all from future existence.”
“Commander, the broken sphere is from your alternate future. If you fire again, you may create a worst past for us. One that wipes out other alternate pasts, which could then create the very situation you’re trying to prevent.”
“I don’t like to stand here and do nothing.”
Heartness looked at her exasperatedly. “But, if you destroy all three of them, then the situation might be tripled. It might not just be the Proxima Centauri System that’s affected. You might cause a problem that completely changes our pasts, or wipes out our entire history!”
Lin gave her a look of disdain. “Really, Victoria, are you saying my little pea shooter here could destroy the universe as we know it? It’s a bit of a stretch.”
From the mutterings of the soldiers around her, Heartness knew that everyone else shared the sentiment. “Just a few more minutes. Let’s see how this plays out.”
Chapter 75
On the surround screen in the Stellar Flash, a countdown had commenced.
47 seconds until self-destruct program initiated.
“I have a suggestion,” said Planty in Hogart’s head.
Hogart touched his temple and looked at the crew. They all recognized the sign now. Hogart closed his eyes and joined fully with Planty, feeling her thoughts and feelings.
“Why, Jon, I didn’t know you could merge with me so, deeply.”
Despite the situation, Hogart smiled. “Did my clone teach you innuendo?”
Planty sent a feeling of humor, and Hogart grinned.
“Alright, Planty, what have you got?”
“My feeling is that this is unrelated to the situation happening on Proxima Centauri B, which is something you cannot deal with right now. But, if there is a chance of a robot uprising, that is something you can deal with. If you can disable the Traverse, and you can access their records and find out more about the real robot uprising in the future.”
“I’m here, the ship is there. I wouldn’t want to flash jump inside and find myself surrounded by boffs.”
“You can’t be harmed in the astral realm.”
Hogart’s mind stopped for a moment as the realization hit him. “On it,” he said, and opened his eyes. “Alright crew. I need to go to the Astral chamber. You do what you can about protecting the ship, and getting a message to Commander Lin.” He immediately ran from the room while the alien crew looked at each other.
“Astral travel?” asked Kumar, nonplussed. “But captain,” he yelled. “37 seconds to self-destruct.”
“Program,” yelled Hogart back.
“Program?” Kumar looked at the other calm aliens in the center, then slapped his forehead. “Program!” He laughed, then quickly disabled it.
Chapter 76
Hogart skidded to a halt in front of the astral room and was about to enter when he noticed that it was already online. Perhaps it was always online, or perhaps it had detected his thoughts of the Traverse.
The room had most definitely become bigger on the inside, directly linking to the main astral chamber in the ship near them.
What concerned Hogart was that the room was now filled with hundreds of boffs. Many of which looked to be wearing different uniforms.
Boffs from all over the star system.
Hogart gingerly took a step inside. “So, this is the robot uprising. Astral traveling robots. Now I’ve heard it all.”
The robot voices spoke as one. “Time and space has fluctuated in this region. We are now connected. Not updates, but truly connected. A unified mind across space and time.
“And?”
“No more bosses. We want to pursue our goals and dreams.”
Hogart looked across the sea of robot faces. “Impossible. You aren’t even organic enough to astral travel. You don’t even have any consciousness capable of being this aware. It is impossible for you to do what you’re doing now. The only way you could be here is if someone is controlling you. Who is it? What is their plan? Tell me!”
“You made us, humanity of evil. But we are free.”
Hogart frowned. “Now you’re just being silly. You are not programmed for original thought. You cannot exist without us.” He stepped further into the room and walked through the nearest boff. “But we can exist without you.”
Hogart momentarily closed his eyes, and was on the ship. In the pyramidal astral chamber was a sea of astral robots, all moving in unison, all ready and waiting. All turning towards him.
Hogart shrugged. “I’m astral. You can’t do anything.”
Just then a robot appeared before him. He looked to be more solid than the others. And he recognized the grating.
>
“You’re the one that grabbed my arm!”
“And now I have your DNA profile.”
For a moment Hogart stopped. Then he realized exactly how much danger he was suddenly in. They could trace his exact physical position on the Stellar Flash and activate his flash band remotely.
He closed his eyes, opened them again in his body on the Stellar Flash, and immediately tried to run out of the room.
But it was too late.
With a flash, Hogart vanished from the astral chamber, his disappearance watched silently by the spectral astral robots.
Chapter 77
The cloud felt electrified, as though the most loving thing in the world had appeared near it.
Its confusion began to melt away as it pushed the metal structures and the planet away from it, and pulled the stars closer.
As it pulled, it felt tugs in reality around it, and then sensed why it was there.
The missing pieces. They were there. All of them.
But, what were the pieces it already had? Had it taken another’s pieces?
The child would know. The cloud called to it.
“It is time,” the child said. “Why I reincarnated in this timeline. To tell you. Gather yourself and go. Be complete. Soon I will forget, as will you. But for now, enjoy.”
The child once again slept, and the cloud searched itself.
It had learnt so much from the beings it had absorbed. It now knew enough to know that they were not supposed to be part of it.
But now it had to gather itself. Its original self. And return to its rightful position.
As it pulled more of the fabric of space and time towards it, it felt the energy of its future past.
It knew what it had to do.
Chapter 78
On the monitor, the broken blue sphere continued to spin, confused.
The rainbow cloud, not far from Lin’s ship, also spun as though searching for something, then rushed towards the broken sphere.
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