Battle for Time Page 15

  “We won’t stay hidden for long, Anton,” Charlotte cautioned, having noted that the general traffic and activity in the area, was pretty much the same as it had been earlier in the Garoden war.

  “I know. But the search matrix has to be in normal space to function.”

  Susanna, remembering how badly Charlotte’s children had treated her before, wanted to ask Charlotte what her real thoughts were regarding her children.

  “Charlotte, I know we went over this touchy subject before. So, do you still want to keep your children now that you and Anton are a couple?”

  Charlotte turned and looked at Susanna while trying her best to hold back her desire to lay one on her.

  “Of course, we want to keep them. Anton and I agreed that they will both act better towards me if we make sure they can’t have any more brain cell injections.”

  “Oh, okay, that’s fine then.”

  “What about your three brats,” Charlotte couldn’t resist snapping back, more like a wind-up than an expression of hatred.

  “Here we go again,” Frank uttered in exasperation. “Remember that I’m the father of both of your children… So, stop bickering, and bloody well play nice,” he snapped, which shut both of them up.

  A short time later, everyone felt the sudden and familiar sensations that caused their bodies to feel as if they were being stretched and pulled apart.

  Then, it was over, and the Timeship was traveling through the newly generated wormhole and towards Andromeda.

  “Christ, Anton, you could have warned us,” Cindy grumbled.

  “I didn’t have time to warn you, once the matrix had the coordinates, and an unknown ship locked onto us.”

  So, Gerry replayed their last moments in normal space, to find out what had happened.

  “Okay, so it was the cruiser, Vanguard… She must have been doing her rounds while the Battleship Roosevelt stayed on station to protect Earth,” Gerry surmised.

  “Well, we’re safe for now,” Anton stated. as he checked the update time for transit from Earth to Andromeda, which was some 740 light-years distant. “Right, it looks like six days to the first jump exit. Then another five days to meet up with Andromeda,” Anton finished.

  “Geeze, more time wasted, Anton,” Cindy grumbled.

  “Sorry,” he apologized.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to take a break and get something to eat,” Cindy said, getting up from her inertia-damping seat. “Are you coming, Gerry?”

  “Damn right, I am,” he replied and followed her out to the food replicators.

  “All of us might as well go,” Anton said after checking the auto flight system was clear, and that he wasn’t going to be needed until the first exit.

  During their passage, to intercept Andromeda at the right moment Downtime when they would need to act. They decided that they would, after all, try to resolve the outstanding issues that had occurred in the past. And which needed to be altered to ensure the success of Frank’s plan.

  But they knew it wasn’t going to be easy, getting everyone to agree. So put Frank in charge of the proceedings.

  “OK, we will take things in the following order,” Frank stated.

  “Number one, we have to decide how to empty Charlotte’s brain cell injector, without her knowing, at the time.

  Number two, decide how we are going to modify the Replicator on Andromeda, which was being used at the time, to replicate injectors and brain cells.

  Then. Number three. Agree on how we are going to remove Tamar and his ships,” Frank stated. Then thought for a while before speaking again.

  “Then, the final issues are. One, how can we get everyone back to their preferred location in Time.

  Two, to find a way for everyone to merge with their counterpart.”

  Frank stopped speaking and looked at everyone questioningly, and they nodded approval.

  “Okay, Frank, number one Charlotte’s injector. Well, you and Charlotte know the best point in time to safely accomplish both,” Gerry said.

  “And neither of you two can take part, in case there’s an unforeseen reaction, like some type of Parallax issue,” Anton pointed out.

  “I know there’s an optical access port near the bottom of the replicators for the service droids,” Frank volunteered.

  “Okay, that’ll make the job a bit easier,” Gerry remarked.

  “So, Charlotte, try to think back to when the injector wasn’t physically on you,” Cindy encouraged.

  “Well, we can dismiss the StarShip Neutron. Because, at that time, Andromeda wasn’t present. So, it has to be when we were both on Andromeda… Yes, that has to be it. I can recall it as if it were yesterday. Frank was standing in front of me in my cabin, and both of us wanted it badly,” Charlotte said, grinning at Susanna.

  “I can remember unclipping the chill-out suit the Garodens had given me, then slowly pulling it down over my body to the floor. Susanna, you should have seen Frank drooling, then he dropped his suit, and we were both naked, and boy, did we go at it,” Charlotte said, cruelly teasing Susanna.

  “You must have been born nasty, Charlotte,” Susanna muttered.

  “And she’s jealous,” Frank interjected, trying to defend Susanna.

  “So, Charlotte, where did you put your suit while you were screwing Frank?” Susanna snapped back.

  “We both kicked them out of the way.”

  “And the part used injector?”

  “It was in my suit pocket. I remember that we laid on the bed, enjoying the moment for about fifteen minutes before we took an ISO shower. Aah, and Frank took his shower before me,” Charlotte stated.

  “Then we dressed and got some food. We were both pretty hungry after our exertions,” Charlotte couldn’t resist adding. And Susanna shot a nasty look at her.

  Ignoring this, Gerry said, “So, that’s the only point in time where we can empty the injector, then place a special code in Andromeda’s brain-cell replicator to limit the number of injectors she can replicate,” Gerry finished.

  “Okay. So, we’ll have fifteen minutes to do both. That’s plenty of time in stretched time-mode,” Anton stated.

  “Okay,” Frank said. “Who’s going to empty the injector?”

  “I’ll empty the injector,” Cindy volunteered. “Then Susanna won’t see Charlotte and Frank together.”

  “Thanks, Cindy,” Susanna said with relief showing on her face.

  “Okay, number two is a bit easier. But you’ll have to do it, Gerry. You’re the only person capable of reprogramming Andromeda’s Injector Replication unit,” Susanna stated.

  “That’s fine with me. I can write a covert command line that Andromeda won’t be able to detect. And there are plenty of optical interface gadgets I can utilize, to match the security protocols, on the fly.”

  “Now for number three,” Frank started to say when Anton interrupted him.

  “I know we’ve been over your basic plan to end this Temporal disaster, Frank. But we need to feel confident that you can pull off what appears to be a dangerous solution to the Varon problem,” Anton voiced, wanting more detail on how Frank’s plan had any chance of working.

  “Understood, Anton. But It can only be a brief outline of the plan. However, this is what I am sure of,” Frank replied, then started to outline the plan.

  “First, both Earth and the Galactic’s intelligence agencies now know about the Varons and have already delivered a devastating blow on them…

  Second, we’ve already agreed on this part of the plan by changing how the brain-cell injections are distributed.

  And limiting the number of injections, which we’ve also agreed on. Will address the conflicts between our children,” Frank replied, then paused for a moment.

  “Now, we come to the most dangerous part… I know for sure that the red colored Temporal lens I destroyed on the Varon wreck, is the same as the two I saw embedded in the wall of Tamar’s ship… Carn said that the Techno Clan ships were in a p
rotected Temporal buffer. And, that when everything has finally stabilized, his ship’s Matrix will find us.”

  “But won’t we need the Clan’s temporal buffer technology before that,” Susanna asked.

  “No, Sues. As long as we carry the Varon discs with us, we should be immune to Temporal changes. As we are now… So, I intend to board Tamar’s ship using the Transmit and Assembler unit that Ronin deliberately placed here. Then I’ll destroy the source behind the Lens units, and bingo, Tamar’s crowd will disappear.”

  On hearing all of this, there was total silence for a moment.

  “So, you think it’s gonna be that easy,” Anton finally uttered and almost burst into laughter on hearing Frank’s simplistic and slightly ludicrous plan.

  “I know, I’ve got to plan it properly. And I may need someone like Charlotte to keep the bugger’s away while I’m taking the Lenses out of action. But I’m sure that this is the only way to get rid of the Varon threat.”

  “And what will the rest of us be doing?” Cindy asked.

  “Praying that I’m right,” Frank calmly stated.

  Chapter 32

  Andromeda

  Anton slowly and carefully moved the Timeship, which had been partly residing in sub-space, close enough Downtime to Andromeda, to activate Time-stretch.

  While Frank, Susanna, and Charlotte were seated at the predictor’s stations, busily shifting the colored discs around on the virtual display to keep the white Disc covered, thus holding the Time-ship and Andromeda in sync.

  Then, Anton released the temporal drone, which immediately phased into subspace then drifted across and into Andromeda’s hull.

  Once inside the ship, the drone’s video-link activated, enabling Frank, Charlotte, and Susanna to see, via their predictor stations sub-monitors, precisely what Anton and the drone could see in real-time.

  Anton’s light touch on the drone’s remote-control safely moved the drone into Charlotte’s cabin. But they were all disappointed to see that Charlotte’s counterpart was on her own, and still waiting for Frank to join her.

  “Anton, move Uptime slowly until I tell you to stop,” Charlotte directed him.

  Thirty seconds Uptime and Frank’s counterpart was seen entering the cabin.

  “Stay in real-time, Anton,” Charlotte urged.

  Anton did, while his finger hovered over the Time-stretch tab.

  Frank was now standing in front of Charlotte, and they saw him watching as Charlotte unclipped her chill-out suit and slid it down over her body to the floor, then stepped out of it and kicked it away from her.

  Susanna’s obvious annoyance at being able to see Charlotte naked in front of Frank, caused Anton to intervene.

  “Keep your minds on the job, or we’ll lose sync,” he warned Susanna and Charlotte.

  OK, they both muttered.

  “Now! Anton,” Charlotte suddenly exclaimed.

  Anton hit the Timeship’s ‘stretched time-mode tab, and the ship phased for a split second, while the Dumbbell’s time field generators groaned as they drew masses of power then started to expand Time.

  The scene froze for a second, then Andromeda was physically next to the Timeship, and locked in sync.

  Meanwhile, Gerry and Cindy were standing at the inner airlock, waiting for the transfer tube to be created.

  A second or so later, “Transfer tube established,” Anton informed them.

  Seconds later, the phasable drone opened Andromeda’s inner and outer airlocks. Gerry and Cindy waited a moment for the green-colored Air-Tight light to illuminate, thus signaling that there wasn’t any air escaping around the transfer tube force-field seal. Then they both hurried through and went their separate ways to complete their designated tasks.

  Cindy quickly reached Charlotte’s cabin, stepped into the room, and found herself in what appeared to be a slow-motion scene, where the movement of the actors was barely visible.

  Cindy picked up Charlotte’s garment, quickly searched both pockets, then pulled the injector out of the right-side pocket, and dropped the garment on the floor. Then twisted the unit’s small end cap and waited for a few seconds while the injector unit warmed up, and a green glow appeared at the other end of the unit, indicating the brain enhancer cells were ready to be injected. With three green dots showing one of the four doses had been used.

  “Perfect,” Cindy muttered and emptied the three unused doses into the ISO shower’s drain, where they would eventually be deconstructed.

  “Done,” she stated, then went back and put the now empty injector into Charlotte’s pocket. Then, she dropped the suit on the floor, as close as possible to where she had found it and looked around before leaving for the airlock.

  Meanwhile, Gerry had successfully gained access to the replicator unit through its optical service port. And after a few attempts to match the interface, successfully uploaded his covert command line, then saved the new file.

  Once satisfied that Andromeda would be unaware of the hidden file, he left the replicator and joined Cindy at the airlock.

  As soon as Cindy, Gerry, and the drone were back on the Timeship and the airlocks on both ships had closed, Anton collapsed the transfer tube then slowly reversed the stretched time, back to normal time.

  “We’re done,” Anton said as the Timeship, which was still partially in subspace, backed away from Andromeda.

  “That was fun,” Gerry remarked as he sat down next to Anton.

  “For you, maybe,” Charlotte grumbled as they all sat back in their Inertia damping seats.

  “You should stop going on at Susanna and grow-up,” Anton sternly said, directing his verbal attack at Charlotte.

  “Wow, that’s a first,” Susanna said and grinned.

  But Charlotte was taken aback by her partner Anton’s outburst.

  “Are we ready to move on?” Anton then asked.

  “Yes, let’s get moving,” Frank urged.

  Anton set the secondary matrix for Earth’s 2313 Time shaft exit and hit the execute tab.

  The Timeship immediately exited subspace, took a moment to re-align. Then warped space to create its wormhole and vanished into it.

  Just for a second, Frank managed to see his present and future time in precognitive double-vision, once again, as the Timeship warped space. And he was pleased to note that there wasn’t anything to worry him.

  Now, the Timeship would take eleven-days to get back to Earth’s Time shaft exit point in 2313.

  Then it would immediately move Uptime and confront the Varon, Tamar’s, ships in 2330. With the time-shaft transit taking just seven hours twenty-nine minutes.

  Chapter 33

  The Spur

  The ship exited the Time shaft in 2330, in normal space. Then set the exit point as Earth 2330.

  Everyone stayed in their seats, fully expecting they would have to quickly jump again. But the ship’s primary matrix color unexpectedly changed to bright green, as the monitor screen indicated that an existing time-spur could be used.

  “That’s strange,” Anton remarked as he studied the accompanying data, and spur’s history.

  “What does it mean, Anton?” Frank asked. Then checked his own future. But his precognitive double-vision was the same, with nothing to cause him alarm.

  “We’re safe for another four minutes,” he advised Anton.

  “Good. But this time-spur means that we, or someone else, has been through here before,” Anton replied.

  “Hell. Does that mean that we could be in some sort of time-loop?” Gerry asked.

  “I don’t think so. If we were, then the ship would know and have a reference to it,” Anton added while feeling unsure if he should even use the spur.

  “Ronin,” Frank suddenly heard himself say, not knowing why he said it.

  “Frank’s right. Ronin was brought here from 2620. So, a spur must have been generated to pick Gerry up,” Charlotte ventured.

  “Yea. Then Ronin picked us up, via the spur. Then jumped to meet Tamar,” Susanna sta
ted, feeling sure that Frank was right.

  “So, it must be safe to use the spur to reduce the transit time to Tamar’s ship,” a relieved feeling Anton stated.

  “Makes sense, Anton,” Cindy agreed. “And it’ll take days off our transit time.”

  “Okay. I’ll set the spur’s end, as our exit point,” Anton agreed.

  Anton programmed the primary matrix to use the spur’s exit as their target, then tapped, Execute.

  The Timeship hunted for the correct entry point into the spur. Then, as it matched the interface protocol, everything flickered for a moment before returning to normal.

  “We’re in the spur,” Anton confirmed as the Timer now indicated the Time-Shaft transit would take eight hours twenty-three minutes.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but this is wearing me out. Let’s take a break while we can,” Susanna suggested, standing up.

  “You’re right, Sues,” Frank replied, and the others agreed, so they all got up and headed for the communal lounge. Once there, they each dialed up a synthesized meal from the food replicators then sat down to eat at the holographic dining table.

  It didn’t take long for everyone to finish eating and clear the table. Then dial-up the drinks, and go back to the holo table, which had by now automatically morphed into comfortable chairs.

  Gerry sat quietly, drinking with the others while running over in his mind the time element details required to ensure they arrived at Tamar’s ship at the right point in time.