by Grant Fausey
Jake glared at her. Everything leading up to this moment was a lie, so why should he believe any of this, without reservation?
“We’re here to find out who, or what it is and stop them,” said Brennan. Jake glimpsed over at the corporate suit; the big man was on the move, heading for Krydal. If the corporate liaison was right, they were in greater danger than he ever imagined. Getting back to his spaceship was more important than ever.
“You’re a part of it,” Krydal told him. “You always have been. That’s why I came to you and Rooka.” Brennan confirmed the corporate liaison’s story.
“We know this is where the first runners crossed the threshold into the past,” said the administrator. “We intend to follow their trail back in time, make adjustments to the timeline where and when we can, and preserve our way of life; otherwise, the future won’t be here for any of us, when we return.”
“It’s our mission,” said Krydal. “My mission. We’re no longer the people we once were.”
Jake glared at her, stunned by her transformation. There was a sense of conviction in her voice, so he dug in his heels ready for whatever was to come. The dark shape of the inter-dimensional warship blocked out the sun. Lethal. Its weapons deployed in full confidence, it underside flickering with electrical discharges that spiraled around the craft’s engines just above the survey team. The twin forward hover motors resounded in a concussion of wind that reinforced the machine’s readiness to do battle. Four members of the survey team teleported away immediately, countering the added weight of their supremacy over all things military.
“It is an honor to serve with you warrior of the light,” said Krydal taking the pilot by the arm. Jake caught Rooka’s little rat-faced grin. His trusted companion stood erect among his peers, transformed; his entire physiology changed, altered to the demeanor of an advanced soldier of the corporate elite. He too was an ITOL warrior.
Jake watched Rooka decomposed in a stream of energy teleporting him from the surface in a moment of silence. The gunship twisted and contorted, echoing with strained metal in response to the distortion produced by the temporal wave corridor. The warship lumbered forward, reconfiguring for transit. Its gunports slid shut, retracting into the main hull as they sealed a rush of compressed air and heated exhaust.
“Firehawk,” ordered Krydal Starr. “Transmit and detonate.”
The vehicle’s main drive flared to life, spiraling into flight mode. A burst of white light erupted from the back of the vehicle in an expulsion of sheer horsepower that collapsed in upon itself at the exact moment of detonation, winking the craft out of existence.
TWENTY-NINE: Remembering the Past
• • •
Jake looked beyond the present to remember the past. He was clear of the breach, on the far side of the convergence; his beloved Krydal Starr at his side, only now she was a blonde, not a brunette. It felt real, as if he was standing on the beach in the cool waters of the Pacific, the sensation of sandy grit between his toes. The warmth of her body was against his; yet, it was only a glimpse of another reality. The momentary flash of an alternate existence that dissipated quickly, revealing both his inadequacy and the truth behind the intoxicating woman of his desire.
The heavens swirled into sunset, dimming into an uncertain future, only to be replaced by the taste of wine on his lips, the scent of musk in the air; the insatiable feelings of love swelling in the pit of his stomach. Finally, he realized he was living in two places at the same time. His affection rekindled, only to be lost again to the ids of time. The temporal explosion ripped through the mining rig in a wave of distortion that shattered the surface of Sodin in a whirlwind of flying dust and debris that circumvented the moon with the force of a hurricane. The towers rippled in the distortion, torn loose from the support pylons, only to topple under the extreme pressure of the detonation. The structure twisted and contorted into a hulk of splintered metal, carried aloft in a host of broken couplings and finger-sized shards of flying rock. Sodin as it was, no longer existed.
The Firehawk had barely crossed the threshold, when the shockwave struck the vehicle’s rear powerplant with enough force to immolate a destructive nuclear blast. Patton felt the meld of energy as it struck the ship; his first thoughts were of survival, preventing the sheer frenzy of their annihilation. Electrical arcs raced across the surface of the flight deck, jumping from one grid plate to the next, striking everything from the instrument panels to the main junction couplings holding the ship together. Even the wire-harnesses popped fused circuits, blinding the crew to the primordial ooze of the most inhospitable place in the galaxy. The vessel underwent enormous punishment, reaching far beyond the tiny vehicle’s tolerance levels for wave corridor transit. They had passed between the tidal forces of nature and the boundaries of the universe; nevertheless, the Firehawk was a mighty ship, built to withstand the stress and strain of corridor travel and emerge triumphantly on the other side with little more than a strained bolt or buckled deck plate. However, her passengers were a different story. While their relationship was between machine and the commuters that kept the warship on course, man was subject to the changing currents of the matter stream. The essence of their soul, living light strained with wave distortion and the expanding boundaries of one universe, leaped from one dimension into the next.
“Commander!” yelled Krydal. The corporate liaison took her place at Patton’s side, trying to help as the others transmitted aboard. The survey team scattered across the deck, dodging barking fuses and arcs of electricity as they slipped into their respective positions. Hudson Warner gazed down from the cockpit behind Jake, acknowledging him from where he sat in the flight deck. Rooka snickered.
“You look pretty good for a dead man.”
“Good to have you back aboard too, Mister Rooka,” said the flight engineer with a wink. “Symbiont is active, Commander. But not yet engaged,” said the flight officer. The commander nodded then cracked his knuckles pressing his fingers hard against the computer terminal keyboard in order to enter a coded sequence. The elaborate transition from normal space to temporal travel had gone as planned, but the aftermath had taken its toll on the gunship. It was all part of an elaborate plan outside the parameters of the squad’s control like the crash of the Chariot.
“Welcome aboard the Firehawk,” Patton told the hauler captain. Jake acknowledged the commander, dodging the electrical sparks as he stepped off the transit grid onto the operations platform.
“Lieutenant …” interrupted Patton testing the delicate connection between the corporate liaison and the hauler captain. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing, Krydal.” He said staring her in the eye. If things got out of control, she would have to do her duty without hesitation: Kill the hauler captain before his symbiont took possession.
“What if he pops a fuse?” he whispered. “You gonna take care of him?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she said quietly. The survival of the future was at stake, and it was far too important to let anyone interfere with what the mission was all about. “The mission comes first. We’re all expendable, right Commander?
“Even a knight?” Patton stepped away, returning to his duties on the bridge. Krydal sighed. She had gotten her point across. “Thought so …” said the commander taking her at her word. He was just confirming what he already knew. Krydal looked back at the freighter pilot, a schoolgirl crush. The temperamental pilot was there to stay. Patton wouldn’t have to bring it up again. Krydal Starr had already fanned the flame of love and lost.
“You okay?” she asked Jake. The pilot grabbed a hold of the nearest handrail and steadied himself. “We’ll be through it in a moment,” the corporate liaison summarized, trying to reassure the freighter captain he had nothing to worry about. The Firehawk had traversed the transit corridor at high velocity, just ahead of the shockwave.
“Old man,” said the ghost in his head. The pilot shot a look at Krydal. She hadn’t heard the symbiont’s voice, but the
uncertainty in his eyes said something she couldn’t dismiss.
“Where are we?” he asked. “What is this thing?”
“Wave corridor transit vehicle,” answered Patton before Krydal had the chance to respond.
Jake backed up a step against the railing, leaning solidly against the base of the wall in order for the commander to pass in front of him as he stepped into the forward compartment. Patton took his position at the edge of the transit grid within a finger’s reach of a stabilizer bar. There wasn’t much point in discussing his abduction; he was obviously here to stay. Besides, he had decided he’d better keep a cool head. Better not rustle the natives, but he did want to know where he was going.
The commander motioned with his hand, summoning him forward. Jake responded with a slight smile of acceptance and stepped off the deployment grid. The floor turned translucent under his feet, and the pilot stepped back, a little freaked by the event, giving the holographic map space to open. The emitter powered up, quickly corrected to form the spherical shape of the Threat Board. Patton traced the amber grid lines with a finger to where they intersected the circumferential edge of the global coordinate system. A second finger crossed the timeline, adjusting the symbols until alternating shapes of a triangle inside a square took its place, appearing within a circle. Each element of the projection widened to show a possible destination, until finally, a single planetary outline ratcheted outward along an orbital plane, enlarging to show the image of a world surrounded by three moons of various size and shape. Each celestial body was immediately identified by both its name and its coordinates; the latter interlocking its position along the interchange.
Nilana passed through the device, her image fluttering in the matrix, shaken by the wake of distortion produced within her aura. Jake twitched, feeling her run her fingers along the back of his arm. The sensation was exciting, her touch enough to make him sweat.
“Saddle up people,” ordered the commander. “Twenty seconds.”
Rooka took his place next to the hauler captain. Jake glanced over at him, anything but ready for temporal insertion. By his calculations, they would emerge at a time when Sodin occupied the same space as its mysterious benefactor. In essence, he would be in two places at the same time, but in different universes.
Nilana snickered, the interior of the Firehawk had plenty of magnetic deck plating, which coursed an electrical fields she could feel pulsing through her body like intimate fingers on a hot date. Jake felt the energy circulating through her veins as she cuddled to him. They were twenty seconds from insertion, but it made no difference. The entity was unaffected by either time or space, existing outside of the space-time continuum. Hundreds of existences, as many lifetimes; thousands of generations stored within the tiny nanocapacitors grabbed at Jake holding him dear to her heart, but it was superficial. She never intended to let go.
“Symbiont engaged,” she told the hauler captain; her words drowned out by the rattle of a proximity alarm. The gunship rose from the depths of the abyss, passing through the waves of temporal distortion to emerge in a droplet of energy at the threshold of the interchange. The weathered machine reconfigured for travel in normal space and shifted to flight mode. Jake held on tight to the railing, his fingers wrapped around the metallic rod with the grip of a bear. The warship pivoted sharply, coming to a new course. The floor vanished revealing a fractured world of floating island landmasses carved into huge chunks of chiseled stone dotted with great craters. The world transformed, drawn together around the Sodin moon in a reversal of time and space that brought the planet back from the brink of destruction to a point of conjunction, where it was once again reformulated into a lush green globe.
“The Myatek/Sodin interchange,” said Krydal. “The demise of what was once paradise, again thrives in the heyday of its own birthright. “Krydal glanced at the captain, her body flooded with anticipation. She felt alive with a sense of excitement, but Jake was not so impressed. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He was glued to the viewport window, staring out the side of the flight deck at a rich world, flourishing with vegetation, great oceans, and a thriving civilization, all of which, coalesced into one solid mass, reformulated in the reality of its own existence. The gunship rotated its engines, forcing out a burst of heated exhaust from each of its six multidirectional hover motors and lingered on station for a long moment. The world reformulated to its previous existence, each wave of temporal distortion moving backward in time to reveal the universe rescinding around it.
“Whoa,” said the freighter pilot. “It’s so beautiful. Have I been here before?” Nilana smiled at him, looking deep into his mind as she revealed her love for him. She had deceived him long enough. The wayward pilot was truly baffled by the turmoil brewing within him, but felt compelled to welcome the adventure of a lifetime with open arms. He would have to deal with his feelings of mistrust, later.
THIRTY: Rescue Mission
• • •
The symbiont watched from the sidelines hiding in the shadowy patterns of an evolving past, while listening for the single shot of a plasma rifle that never came. Only silence prevailed. Commander Patton was certain his mandate didn’t cover removal of spybots, but that was what was required of him when he found Krydal and the rest of the survey team at the mercy of a horde of luminescent biomechanical creatures. His mission was to engage any incursion along the temporal conjunction and assess its potential danger to the timeline and eliminate it if necessary. It was a long shot, considering the spybots were not an ITOL design. The Firehawk’s weaponry had no problem eliminating the rash of spidery-shaped intruders. The six-legged contraptions were nothing more than trespassers; it didn’t matter which of the parallel universes they came from, only that they existed. The ITOL assessed the situation routinely, as if they already knew the outcome.
Patton glanced back at the team; searched his recollection of the preceding hours, looking for some sort of explanation. The team had teleported to the surface of the Sodin moon just before a ten plus magnitude explosion ripped a tear in the delicate balance of the conjunction, sending a wave of temporal distortion across the crash site. An old world chariot off a Dragon Wing class freighter had his attention. Something had changed about the wreckage. He had assessed the danger a thousand times before, but this time he scouted the immediate area for any sign of the future’s demise. The past was fragile: Always under attack. This was no different. The mission remained unchanged, his query inconclusive. Someone was going to die, he was certain of it. An intruder was altering the outcome of an event for some damn minuscule meeting, which would alter the fate of an entire world.
“All right, people,” said the squad leader as the team hit the ground. “We’re on a search and destroy operation. I want a routine sweep of the temporal zone.” The team acknowledged him and immediately took up flanking positions. They knew Patton’s orders were specific, intercept and eliminate any intruder. That meant he had a fifty-fifty chance of success. Maybe more, if the trespasser didn’t know he was coming. Every encounter had the potential for disaster as well as success. Patton figured at the very least, he had the opportunity to set things straight. But this time, he had traveled across the Myatek/Sodin interchange, returning to the heyday of the Sodin mining operation. The planet rig was in full operation and Brennan was anything but accommodating. The corporate suit wanted to take action, before the temporal device terra-formed them all out of existence.
The young warrior looked up to see the faint shape of the planet rig in the sky then dropped over the side, hitting the lower level of the main street bazaar like a master gymnast. She scanned the immediate area with a wide-eye, on the hunt, in stealth mode, completely invisible. Her enhanced vision adapted quickly, but the treetop metropolis provided more than adequate cover for any intruder. “This place is a bust, Commander,” said the corporate liaison. “Readings are off the scale. Whoever these people were, they’re long gone.”
“Feels like we’ve crossed these paths
before,” said the officer. Krydal went wide-eyed with excitement, remembering the words as clearly as if she had just said them herself. Her lips mimicked the command. Indigo, she thought. It was always, Indigo. The bounty hunter was remarkably illusive.
“There’s nothing more we can do here,” said Patton. Krydal agreed with the commander, as he crouched down next to her taking in the sights. Myatek was a place of wonder, the perfect vacation spot. He would have to remember the coordinates next time he had a little rest and relaxation coming. But it would have to be quick; the destruction of Myatek was inevitable. It had already occurred.
“Patton to Firehawk,” said the commander, adjusting his communications link; his ears filled with static. The officer tapped his earpiece. Krydal slipped back from public view. “Something’s different,” he told her. “They’ve already changed history, I can feel it.”
Crimson lingered in the shadows under the platform, watching her younger constituent from across the boundary. Her pulse raced, fluttering as she recognized the trio. Patton was right. The terra-forming device had already detonated in the future, the explosion altering her previous existence; her reality conforming to the reconstituted validity of her new reality. That was why she could never find a thread of her previous incarnation, or that illusive hint of the past, which so desperately consumed her with a passion to return to her point of origin. She existed in both places, a victim of her own making, uncertain of her place in the new universe. Still, she existed, even though her past had been erased.
Krydal felt uneasy in her own skin, seeing herself in two places at the same time. She was in the right place. Patton found her magnificent. Very much the girl next store, subtle with a hint of the quintessential woman he so loved. But more important; he trusted her. Crimson recorded the moment for posterity. If the universe so much as hiccupped, she would detect it. Seeing her former self in the wake of the temporal incursion, bringing to light her recollection of the occurrences she could only hope to remember, as they played tricks on her memory, for they had yet to happen.