Battle for Time Read online

  SpaceFed StarShips series.

  Book 9 of 9

  Battle for Time

  A Novel by Gerry A. Saunders

  Cover art by Gerry A. Saunders

  © Copyright 2019 Gerry A. Saunders

  No part of this publication can be copied or transmitted

  in any form, without the authorization in writing of the author.

  My exciting, action-packed SpaceFed StarShips saga is one continuous story over 9 books.

  Book 9 is the Finale and follows on from Book 8.

  Acknowledgments

  All the characters in this book are fictitious. And any resemblance to organizations or real persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  While I have made every effort in making this novel as technically accurate as possible, some stretch of the imagination gives plausibility to achievements that could be the norm by the year 2330.

  About the Book

  An exciting, action-packed SpaceFed Series Finale.

  Which follows on from Book Eight.

  In book 8, the Galactic Empire tried to fight the growing mental powers pitted against it. But Mankind’s quest for supremacy abruptly ends, as the Varon’s bogus ‘Timeline’ correction for the human-race shatters everything the alliance has worked for.

  Now, the Galactic Empire is gone. Can our intrepid six save the day?

  It seems not, as they are flung back into an apparently backward 2300.

  With no Time shaft, and little hope of getting off the Earth. The six survivors struggle to find a way to outwit the now dominate race, the Varons...

  Other Books by this Author

  SpaceFed StarShips Trilogy.

  Book 1. Battles at Zeta Reticuli.

  Book 2. Battle for Delta Pavonis.

  Book 3. An Alliance at Kepler.

  SpaceFed StarShips Series.

  Book 4. Death of Time.

  Book 5. Acarea. A Triumph or Disaster.

  Book 6. The Garoden War. Part 1. Into the Fire.

  Book 7. The Garoden War. Part 2. Military Gamble.

  Book 8. Galactic War. (Up Time, Down).

  Book 9. Battle for Time.

  The Definitive StarShips Trilogy in one book.

  http://www.spacefedbooks.com

  Content

  SpaceFed StarShips series.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Book

  Other Books by this Author

  Content

  Prologue.

  Epilogue from Book 8.

  The Varons afterthoughts.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter36

  Chapter 37

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Other Books by this Author

  Prologue.

  Sacrifice

  T - fifty Minutes

  All six of them felt a tingling sensation as the Time Ship’s large field generators shut down, and the ship silently settled on one of the large berths.

  They were now in 2725 and at the heart of Delta’s Temporal Anchor.

  Frank found it strange at first, as his mind appeared to be seeing multiple images of itself, so he asked Anton what was going on.

  “That’s a normal reaction Frank, the ship’s flux is still linked to the Time-shaft,” Anton explained.

  Once everyone’s minds had adjusted, Charlotte took temporary control of the group.

  “Just remember to follow me. If we’re stopped, leave it to me to sort. Not even a whisper until we’re inside the Time crystal’s control center,” Charlotte reminded them.

  “Yes, and don’t forget that there are security droids and guards throughout the passageways who will try to kill you on sight,” Anton added.

  “Once we step outside the ship, we’ll have a maximum of forty minutes to shut down the Time-crystal, before the guards change over,” he warned.

  Gerry took a small pencil-like object from his pocket. “This might be useful against a droid,” he suggested.

  “What good do you think that’ll do,” Cindy asked.

  “I found it on Ronin. It’s a needle gun,” Gerry informed them.

  “Okay, but if it does work, don’t hit a wall whatever you do. That’ll set off every alarm in this part of Delta,” Anton pointed out.

  “Just be careful with it, Gerry,” Charlotte said, reinforcing Anton’s statement.

  “Understood. So that’s out, then,” Gerry agreed, sighing.

  Charlotte checked the time on her wrist pad against the ship’s time. Then, after an agonizing two minutes of waiting, she jumped into action. “Time to go, Anton.”

  Anton opened the ship’s airlock and stepped outside, then seeing there was no opposition beckoned the others out.

  Charlotte headed for a dimly lit opening and signaled the others to follow her into a short corridor leading to the control chamber.

  Within a few minutes, all of them had reached the access door into the control chamber without incident.

  Charlotte tapped a code into the access panel, and the door slid open. A light automatically lit as they all trooped in, then the door closed.

  “Disable the external entry pad,” Gerry prompted her.

  “Okay.”

  They studied the large chamber and noted that it was sparsely furnished. The chamber’s walls, floor, and ceiling were all a medium gray in color, and it was hard to decide what material they were made of.

  Directly in front of them, they could see the Time-Crystal, which stood on a one-meter doughnut-shaped control unit with the crystal being protected by a globe-shaped piece of transparent material. The height of the crystal was about one and a half times its diameter. It was faceted and showed signs where some material had been removed to obtain resonance.

  The Time-Crystal appeared to emit a yellow-orange radiance, while a faint mist could be seen above and below the crystal, denoting the center of the Up-Down time shaft.

  Anton quickly checked the interface between the crystal’s control unit, and the control console and matrix. “It’s the same interface as on the Time-ship,” he pointed out.

  “Good,” Gerry said as he sat down in the console controller’s seat.

  “That was too easy,” Cindy ventured.

  “It’s fine, Cindy,” Charlotte answered as she checked the time remaining. “Thirty-nine minutes, Gerry.”

  “Okay.”

  The control console was simply a rectangular unit, with an unadorned flat top, and all its operating functions being displayed above it, in virtual mode. Gerry studied the virtual screen’s content, menus, and input method for several minutes before he felt confident enough to access the system.

  Another five minutes passed with Gerry bringing-up various applications, and by-passing passwords when asked for them.

  “Twenty-six minutes Gerry,” Charlotte prompted.

  “I’m
ready to start, Charlotte,” Gerry said as he took the small disc-like object from his pocket that Tamar had given him and had insisted that he must use the algorithms it contained.

  Gerry held the object close to the virtual scanner.

  “Scan… Decode… Display…,” he ordered.

  Immediately, a set of equations was displayed on the virtual screen.

  Gerry sat, staring at the equations while carrying on a conversation with himself.

  After several minutes of editing, he copied a section then ordered, “Delete source material.” And the virtual display instantly returned to the menu option.

  “Quickly, give me all the discs that Tamar gave us,” Gerry urged them.

  They did so.

  “What’s wrong with Tamar’s info?” Frank asked as Gerry held each of them up to the scan area, one at a time, then installed his revised algorithm into the discs.

  “It seems that our chum Tamar’s addition would not only have made our discs plonk us all in different periods but would have erased the regression as well. So, basically wiping out the human race, including us,” Gerry finally told them.

  “Then you were right, Gerry. Tamar has a different agenda,” Susanna said.

  “Looks that way… But he was right about one thing. The human race will end if we don’t destroy the crystal,” Gerry stated.

  “Eighteen minutes, Gerry,” Charlotte told him.

  Gerry held Tamar’s disc-like object up to the interface again.

  “Copy new algorithm and create an open-access,” he ordered.

  That done, he handed Tamar’s object to Anton.

  “Anton, you must go back to the Time-Ship now and enter my algorithm into the ship’s matrix,” Gerry insisted.

  “You mean, I’ve got… What, just fifteen minutes to get back and install it,” Anton said as he took the object from Gerry.

  “It may be less.”

  “I’m coming with you, Anton,” Charlotte stated. “There’s nothing more I can do here.”

  “Go now then, both of you,” Frank urged.

  “Hurry up, and good luck if we don’t meet again,” Cindy added.

  Gerry continued to modify the shut-down sequence, then entered his modified algorithm into both the Matrix and Crystal’s control units.

  Frank, Susanna, and Cindy’s faces were beginning to show concern as they waited for Gerry to complete the task.

  It took another eleven minutes for Gerry to complete his attempt to shut the crystal down in the way he wanted.

  “Done,” Gerry exclaimed as he sat back, mentally exhausted.

  “Two minutes,” Susanna said, noting the countdown time now appearing on the virtual display.

  Suddenly, loud banging on the door startled them.

  “Guards,” Frank confirmed after sensing their mental make-up. “It’ll take them more than two minutes to gain entry,” Frank reassured them.

  “Shock-wave,” Lexington’s Lieutenant Harper warned as one of Garth’s Crillon ship’s warp-cores exploded.

  Their ships rocked violently as the shockwave passed through them, haphazardly sending wrecked ships, escape pods, and debris across the battle zone.

  By now, Commodore Bryant had sensed that Lord Garth and Lord Tara had gained the upper hand and were affecting the way Lexington and the other Navy ships functioned.

  “Incoming,” Lexington’s tactical AI warned.

  Lexington shuddered as another anti-matter bolt penetrated her already weakened protective shield and slammed into her hull.

  The bridge heaved and twisted as walls split apart, and molten metal surged through the cracks in her hull. While boiling vortexes of energy swirled through the Bridge, tearing the Lexington in two.

  T - Zero

  Then, there was nothing. Just empty space. It was as if the battle had never happened.

  The first significant Time Quake had passed, and both Ronin and a part of Delta had already vanished.

  It was expected that another two or three smaller quakes would happen at some point to complete the final reset.

  Frank put his arms around Susanna and Cindy, hugging them both tight. Then looked around, but couldn’t see, Gerry, Charlotte or Anton.

  The Alien’s red, fiery head floated closer.

  Although Frank knew the fiery head wasn’t really an Alien, just the manifestation of what they all recognized as the third Temporal Layer. Nevertheless, it did vaguely resemble a human skull in shape but lacked the typical features, even though it had two black dots that could be mistaken for eyes that seemed to be locked onto the three humans.

  Then Frank felt the Temporal Secondary Quake passing through them.

  Both Susanna and Cindy had a look of horror on their faces as they started to dissolve in Frank’s arms. Soon, there was nothing substantial enough for Frank to hold.

  Then, both Susanna and Cindy flickered a moment and were gone.

  The fiery Alien head drew even closer to Frank as Frank’s mind started to fragment.

  He hoped that they hadn’t all been played like puppets and that his, Susanna, and Charlotte’s lives had been worth something in the scheme of things.

  In his death throes, Frank was sure that the Alien winked at him. But that didn’t matter, as the last thoughts Frank had, as his body slowly disintegrated, was that the Axis worlds would never be the same again.

  Then Space was empty, apart from the fiery red Alien head. Even that eventually dispersed, and space was entirely empty.

  It was, as if Delta and the Human’s venture into space, had never happened.

  Supervisor Javon’s section had felt some Time-Quake buffering. And Javon knew that most of Delta had already gone and that the buffer around the predictor's stations would not protect them for much longer.

  The Delta Chamber had blamed him and Operator Charlotte for the disaster. But he knew who had caused the Timeline to revert to a time before Delta had started meddling in the past. Delta itself was to blame.

  The Chamber members should have realized why the human’s timeline didn’t exist beyond 2773. And why the Varons wanted and had managed to reset the human’s Timeline.

  After all, the humans were Delta’s ancestors. And humanity should have been allowed to develop naturally.

  Javon felt the buffers go, and his consciousness finally left him.

  The Varons said that they would keep an eye on the humans’ progress. But in reality, they would leave humanity to slowly die out.

  The ripple effects of the Time Quakes traveled as far Downtime as December 2108, on Earth.

  The News Flash lit up on the public information panels across the world.

  Humanity’s darkest hour.

  Reports are coming in that the Settler ship, Acarea, which four days ago commenced its long voyage to Procyon, 11.4 light-years away, has exploded.

  Telemetry has indicated sabotage. Optical observations have confirmed that the ship is in two pieces, and we understand that there cannot be any survivors.

  From Acarea control.

  The news flash would be repeated every thirty minutes for the next twelve hours.

  Judith Morante was confused. She was supposed to be at home preparing lunch, now. Her husband, Graham, was collecting their only child Candy from her grandparents and would be home in ten minutes.

  Yet here she was in an office on the twentieth floor of a government building, and standing at the window, looking down on the crowds congregating around a large public information panel far below.

  Then Judith realized that she was wearing a pale top with a V-shaped plunging neckline. While her tight skirt felt as if it would split open at any moment. Her shoes were in a color that matched her blue-green eyes. With her short coppery colored hair almost matching the color of her perfectly painted fingernails, and her full lips completing her female armory.

  However, Judith had no idea why she was standing in this room and dressed like…. Like, what?

  She was starting to feel uneasy. How did she
get here? She had no idea. Yet, here she was, standing in a room that looked familiar, but wasn’t.

  Then, another thought hit her. Like this room really was familiar to her. She also felt as if she might indeed be an assassin.

  “Never,” Judith muttered. She was one-hundred percent sure that she’d never killed a living soul, and there was no way she was an assassin.

  “Judith,” a man’s voice bellowed from the office across the corridor.

  “Coming,” she said without thinking and walked into his office.

  “Close the door and lock it,” the man ordered.

  The man, already dropping his trousers, was scruffy for a CO, and his body odor and greasy black hair made her shudder. All in all, he looked like a thoroughly unpleasant person. The name Tex came to her, she didn’t know why.

  Then, she suddenly glimpsed herself laying back over the edge of his desk, her feet touching the floor and him inside her.

  “No, No, No… Do it yourself… Pervert,” Judith snapped, turned and hurriedly started to unlock the door as she tried to get out of this frightening place, and go home.

  Then she found herself remembered a book she’d found but wasn’t sure where, or when. Somehow, she knew it was vital to a project called Acarea. But what on earth was that all about? She asked herself.