“Clark?” she squeaked. “What happened?”
“It’s me, Maddy,” Clark said, knowing he was the only one she let call her by that name. “Let’s sit down.”
He took her hand and led her back to the bench she’d been sitting at. “I have so much to tell you, and it’s going to sound a little crazy.”
“Are you really him?” She reached for her purse, perhaps thinking to call her husband who would be in Washington right then. He took her hand in his, and nodded.
“It’s me, the Clark you know, but older. Your husband… well me, is in Washington where he told you he is. This is going to be hard to believe. Earth is invaded. Ships come from far away… slave races of an evil sentient star, and they almost destroy us. Our sun on some level protected us, but by doing so, sacrificed itself. The project your husband is now working on, the secret one… is the UEF and FCF working on building hundreds of massive colony ships which we use to branch off to other worlds, and save humanity.” He stopped, knowing he was giving too much too fast.
Madeline was in shock; her face had gone ghost white. “Wait, what happens? Why are you here, then?”
Clark was almost surprised by how quickly she recovered from the news and how her always overly intelligent brain comprehended that something must have gone wrong for him to be back.
He’d considered this part over and over during the past couple years at the colony, as he sat in the station above the strange planet, working tirelessly on the wormhole generator. Looking into her eyes, he knew he had no choice but to tell the whole truth.
“It was a mess. The riots were spreading. So many people were being left behind, and they knew the lottery the UEF kept spouting about was a glorified joke. They brought who they wanted to before random selections, and even those were never random. Most people were never considered; the top ten percent after the shoe-ins were then placed under a lottery. Word got out.” Madeline held his hand, and looked deep into his eyes as he went on. “They ripped down the fence, and had guns. The drones were there to protect, and when you went back for your pack, the people surrounded you. The drones opened fire, and you didn’t make it.” He choked on his words. “They pulled me to the ship and I left. I left you there on the ground in a pile of other bodies. They dragged me from you,” he said, breaking down once again. She held him close, and he felt how much he’d missed her through every bone in his body. “I never gave up on us.”
Pulling free she held his face in her hands. “How did you ever make it back to me?”
“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said, seeing a few ships fly overhead. His gut was telling him it was time to go.
“To where?” she asked, standing when he did.
“To our ship, then to our new home, New Skarsgaard,” he said.
“New Skars…wait, I can’t leave Clark. I can’t just leave my life here!”
All the worry this would happen rushed into Clark, and he felt light-headed. He had to convince her. He needed her. “Your husband will be fine. I lived, and traveled through time to give you a new life. Maddy, I’m so sorry for all the times I took you for granted. I focused so much on my stupid career trying to climb the UEF ladder that I never gave you the love you deserved.”
“Oh Clark, I knew you were driven when I married you. For the most part, I’m happy.” She stopped, and looked at him closely. “You’ve always allowed me to do my own thing, too. I just wish we could spend more time together.”
“We can,” he said quietly.
She shook her head. “Maybe I can change what happens, save the world.”
“But it’s already happened. Don’t you see?” he asked. “Just come with me to the ship. I’ll show you images of my new home. Decide for yourself.” Another FCF patrol crossed the sky above them, and though Clark doubted they would have an inkling of who he was, their presence put an unease in his mind.
“You’ve been through so much. My Clark has never had that look that I see in your eyes.” She held his hand as they walked to the transport pods. “It’s a sadness like none I’ve ever witnessed.”
This hurt him, but he understood. “I’m your Clark, too.”
“I know… this is all just so complicated.”
An automated taxi pod arrived and Clark wondered if it was the same one that had brought him there. They headed back down the road, and Clark felt a fool for not even asking Madeline if she wanted to stop at home and grab some things. But he knew that would be presumptuous, and they could always do that if she decided to go along with him.
As they approached the vessel’s landing pad, he knew something was wrong. Sirens were going off in the distance, and though it was the middle of the day, a massive flare erupted from the sun, slowly cascading from high in the sky, eastward toward the outer solar system. It was huge.
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. When was he?
“What’s the date? What’s the date?” he asked.
She told him, and it had to be wrong.
“This can’t be. I was sure I had it right.” He must have screwed up the wormhole. He’d come back to invasion day. Of all the odds, this was his bad luck.
An officer arrived on an air-bike, sirens blasting. “Sir, we need all ships brought to Washington now,” he said, scanning the ship with a handheld tablet. “This must be some sort of glitch; this ship is already there.” He stepped back, hand lowering to his side. He scanned Clark and Madeline. “And you, Mr. Thompson, have just been flown to Glory by the Admiral’s orders.”
Clark pushed the worry aside, and exuded every bit of snooty United Earth Foundation Ambassador he had in him. “And just who in the hell do you think you are? Flying over here while we’re being attacked, and questioning why I’m here? Do you think I don’t know Blair asked for me? Do you think I don’t know about the impeding attacks? Get the hell out of my face, son, before I get you thrown into the front end of Carter Hayes’ squadron where the heaviest action will undoubtedly be!”
The man shrunk a good three inches, and stepped back apologetically. “We need to go now, Maddy,” he urged.
There they stood on a massive concrete slab in the middle of a warm Kentucky day, the sun had just sealed its fate, and Earth was about to be half destroyed. Pandemonium would follow.
She ran alongside him, her fears pouring out of her beautiful face in a grimace and tears. Her home was about to be destroyed, and Clark had come with a mad tale of time-travel. He couldn’t imagine what toll that took on her.
The loading ramp lowered for them, and they crossed over the small area in a few strides heading into the small vessel. Madeline looked around, breathing heavily, and Clark realized it had been years since the younger him had taken her anywhere on an FCF ship. The last time was their honeymoon, when they’d headed on a cryo-trip to Saturn’s moon. Now those same moons were about to become the base for a mass-exodus of the colony vessel process.
“Welcome aboard, First Officer Thompson,” he said and saluted her. She laughed aloud and his heart melted. He still couldn’t believe she was there with him, on that ship, and they could go back to their new home. A safe world.
“Aye aye, Captain.” She laughed again, but he could see the reservations in her face. Her life was there; her real husband was, too.
Clark hesitated, almost asking her if she really wanted to do it, but held back and lifted the ship into the air. Soon they were heading through the atmosphere into the darkness of space, Earth behind him for the last time in his life.
“Clark, we’ll be okay then?” Madeline asked, eyes wide as they soared on their plasma drives.
“We’ll be better than okay, Maddy. We’ll be together.”
The space around Earth was filling up, ships everywhere, and Clark knew he had to get out of there or be somehow trapped in the coming storm. FCF war vessels loomed nearby and he scooted under them, ignoring the messages coming through his comm-system.
A ship roared by, and he recognized it as Glory, the very same ship his
other self was on at that moment. He felt goosebumps race across his body at the paradox, and it only urged him to accelerate the drive.
They traveled that way for an hour, until space was nothing but a calm black vacuum. They talked back and forth about things, mostly Clark filling her in on the war, and then the colony trip. He skipped over his loneliness, and told her about setting up the terraforming machines on a breathable planet. It really only needed a nudge to get the atmosphere to accept them, but not hurt any local wildlife. He described in detail the plant life, which she would be the most interested in, since she came from a long line of green thumbs. He couldn’t wait to show her the trees there. Some of them were three hundred feet tall with roots just as long, and he could almost picture her face light up at the sight of its grandeur.
“I think that’s far enough out of the way. We should have a clear path now,” he said, showing her the wormhole generator screen. She’d taken intro physics at the University of Kentucky as well, so she grasped most of the concepts with ease, though her field of study was botany. The day she told him she was to be a professor at UK was one of the best days of his life.
The generator vibrated gently outside of their ship, being towed around like a trailer in space. Worried about the error he’d made getting to the past, he triple checked his figures before starting the wormhole up, and when it began to appear, they both laughed, and hugged.
“I just have to send a probe through first, and then we are good to go, if all the signs are accurate on the other side. Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes,” he said, and she stood closer and kissed him. It had been so many years for him, but he felt the familiarity and kissed her back passionately. In a minute the wormhole was forgotten, and their clothes were in piles on the bridge floor.
Soon Clark lay on the deck, with Madeline’s head resting on his chest.
“Clark, I love you. I’m so glad you came for me. I thought this,” she waved her hand between the two of them, “would feel strange, but it felt just right.”
And it had.
Alarms blared and Clark jumped to his feet to see red ship icons appearing on the tablet before him. “Where the hell are those coming from?” He zoomed through his viewscreen and figured it out quickly. Wormholes were opening in the distance, ships entering Sol through them. “I should have known! We were flanked from both sides by the enemy and a plasma ship…” He was cut off at the sight of the massive solar-flaring triangle ship entering space near them. It was huge and coming directly in line to his wormhole.
“We have to go now!” Clark yelled.
“What about the probe? You didn’t test it yet!” Madeline shouted back, while trying to toss her clothing back on.
He didn’t wait, just fired the plasma drive up and rushed to the opening. Klaxons shrieked, as the huge ship was on a collision course with them. Everything slowed and Clark breathed as they flew at full speed. Five… breath… four… breath… three… breath… two… one. The ship was in his viewscreen and it looked like he was about to collide with a star, when they passed through the wormhole. He cut it off seconds later, and whooped as his sensors showed it closing with no ships following him through.
“Hot damn, we did it!” He spun her around and they celebrated being alive, and together. Until he remembered he was naked. He’d have to leave that part out when he told the guys back at the colony.
Zooming in on the image of the sun, he saw it was much dimmer, like the sun he’d seen when he first arrived in-system. He was confident he was in the right time.
The displacement drive was charging and the coordinates were set, and once fully clothed again, Clark and his wife had dinner together at the table, eating travel rations that were almost as tasty as her old home cooking. He felt like they were on a date again, and he even found some jazz to play on the vessel’s speakers while they finished up the last of their bites.
The displacement drive announced it was ready to engage, and he triple checked the anchor in the Skarsgaard system, and hit the keys.
“Give us six years, and we’ll be home,” he said, squeezing her hand.
She looked nervous, but said with no tremors in her voice, “I look forward to it.”
*
Once again, Clark shook the blurry vision away and squinted at the dim lights. They’d made it back home, and he couldn’t have been happier. Turning to his side, he saw the cryo-tube beside him opening up and the lights coming on much like his. This was Madeline’s first trip being put under, and he hoped she took it better than his first one. He’d had a headache for weeks.
“Are you okay, Maddy?” he asked, concern heavy in his voice.
“Just a bit of a headache. Nothing some water and time won’t heal.” Her voice, while groggy, had an air of excitement in it.
Once out, they dressed in FCF uniforms and Clark checked their coordinates. Everything looked fine, and soon they were closing in on New Skarsgaard. Clark wasn’t sure what would happen, but he hoped O’Sullivan would keep the ambassador role, and he and Madeline could just live and be active members of the community and workforce.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said staring at the image of the planet through the viewscreen. The lush greens and blues were evident from their vantage point. Clark saw their continent, and zoomed the screens in to show her the colony.
“What the hell?” Clark gasped, looking for signs of their structures. “Was it a storm?” He tracked the area and could see no indication that any human had ever been down there. His chrono readings still showed a continuation of his first time from leaving, but that was only accurate to the ship’s timeline.
“I must have had the wrong parameters, just like when I folded time to Earth to get you.” Clark stood, thinking hard.
“Or it folded us into another dimension,” Madeline whispered.
It was possible, and Clark realized he’d been dealing in things he probably had no right to mess with, but he had managed to get his wife, and at that moment that was all that mattered.
“So do we go down and wait for them to show up?” he asked, imagining young Clark arriving to find old Clark with his thought-to-be dead wife. It wasn’t ideal.
“You said there were dozens of habitable colony planets, right? Let’s roll the dice and find the closest one. What’s another trip in cryo?” she asked, and he laughed and warmed at that.
“I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s go find our new home,” Clark said, and in an hour, they were back asleep and heading outward, into the space beyond.
Nathan Hystad Biography
Nathan is the Explorations series creator and editor, with ‘A Time and a Space’ marking his first full short story foray into the collections. He hails from Alberta, Canada, where he runs Woodbridge Press and works hard at writing his own books. His debut novel The Event, a modern day invasion SciFi Adventure, is being released early 2018. Sign up to his newsletter from his website link below for details!
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The Light of Distant Earth
By Tim C. Taylor
1
I could begin my story with Homo sapiens, my distant ancestors, spreading their relentless fingers of colonization over the virgin lands of an earlier Earth, one warming after an ice age.
Except they weren’t virgin lands those ancient explorers colonized. Someone had been there before.
Well, hominids. Not people, perhaps. At least not in the strictest sense, but some things don’t change. The same is true of Safe Haven, or whatever you choose to call this place.
We were here before you.
But it will be your destiny to thrive on the land we readied for you, just as those early people thrived on distant Earth.
Guess I’m rambling again. It’s the terminal meds. They’re keeping me going a little longer, until I’ve finished my final task, but they burn my concentration. Time is short. For me. I pray not for you.
So I’ll jump forward a million years from our distant ancestors.
Jump in space too, and welcome you to a moment on Haven-Three Colony on the edge of the Orion Spur, where we had been chased by a remorseless doom.
I could tell you the date and time, but it would mean nothing to you. It meant everything to us, though.
It was the day officially named Earth Death, but many of us called it Death Day One, because even then we knew a worse day would follow in a few decades.
Captain, I don’t wish to hurry you…
Yeah, yeah. Stop gassing and say what you have to while you still can. Okay, I got it. But in order for them to understand the horror of Earth Death, I first have to explain the Blight.
2
We fled Earth’s destruction in sorrow, but also hope.
I think we humans are at our best when faced with adversity, and what challenge could be worse than losing our home to the vengeful stellar being, Empyrean? Stubbornness drove us on as much as anger, desperation, and cold strategic planning. We had no choice. Empyrean forced us to grow, to spread ourselves amongst the stars or perish in the attempt.
We were the Haven Mission, the farthest flung of the First Contact Fleet. Out here, toward the tip of the local spiral arm, the stars are younger, and the youngest that were yet old enough to possess habitable planets were thought to be in the Cone Nebula. Perhaps here, the strategy teams had reasoned, the anger of the ancient stellar beings would carry less weight. All we wanted was to live with the stars in peace. At least, until we grew strong enough to demand their respect.
Hope breeds endemically amongst our species. We had scarcely begun our immense journey before many of us pointed to our destination at the rimward edge of the spiral arm, and looked to the gulf that lay beyond. If malign forces, still barely understood, had caused us to flee the Solar System, perhaps one day we would also be forced first from the arm and then the galaxy itself.
We did move far beyond our destination, but not in the way those dreamers imagined.
Explorations: Colony (Explorations Volume Four) Page 25