by Kord Stone
Calia and Justin had relayed their findings to the others and cemented their plans. Once they were clear of any danger in orbit of Serqalin, they would collect the bombs, escort them through Jason’s ship and secure them in the open spaces they had found on Jason’s side of the Void storage. They scanned for the best time to travel to, in order to perform the reset and found a time when the planet was least protected. It appeared as if the people of Serqalin began mass-producing explosives about one hundred years earlier, so they took their ship to a year before they started seeding the space with weapons. The planet was still enshrouded with ships seemingly interlocked like a massive metal shield. They analyzed the geomagnetic field and compensated to make their pulse reach the outermost ships, then they sat waiting for Jason’s ship to come back from Earth and get into place.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Justin?”Jason’s voice sounded over his communications.
“Yes, what’s up?”
“Alise just informed us TDS 1 will be arriving at Earth in six minutes. If you want to come over and see the approach, you might want to hurry.”
Justin looked over to Calia who smirked and said, “Go ahead, it is not as if we have anything else to do until they get back.”
“That sounds good. I’ll be there in a moment,” he stated enthusiastically.
She let out a titter. “It is not like you have not been there in years.”
Justin smiled and replied, “You’re right, but the last time I was there I didn’t have the chance to see it or say goodbye when I left. So now I can get a good look to remember for a while. Besides, I’ve never seen Earth from space except in pictures.”
She smiled and said, “I never really understood the draw to a single planet or city. Atlas was obsessed with Lantis and would visit every couple hundred years. He even visited Lantis after Anukan died, and they took Lantis to Earth.”
He looked at her a bit puzzled. “Who is Anukan?”
She let out a laugh and replied. “Anukan is not a person. It was the planet Atlas found and colonized with the Lantin people after Lanna’s atmosphere degraded. Anukan became uninhabitable, and Atlas’s heir had to find a new planet to move their civilization to, and that planet ended up being Earth. I can give you a history lesson later. You are going to miss the approach to Earth if you dally. I am going to remain on TDS 3. If you need anything I am linked to your life monitor now.”
He stood, then smiling warmly at her he said, “That sounds good. I’ll take you up on the history lesson when I get back. See you in a few.”
Alise was talking with Jerren and Jason. Their voices were coming from the control room and Justin made his way to them.
“Keep watching the monitor. You cannot see it yet but when you do it will be interesting.” Alise looked around and signaled to him. “Come over here and watch the monitor.” She pointed to a spot next to Jerren.
Justin stood there a few minutes and was about to ask when Earth would appear when suddenly the little dot they were looking for appeared and a second later it filled the screen. He stood there disoriented a second before a wave of what he could only describe as pain mixed with fear and misery forced him to his knees. It was so strong he almost vomited, and he couldn’t get up. The pain was palpable and he just managed to get a connection to his ship and cried out, “Help.”
Calia was going back over the data again. She wanted to make sure there were no mistakes this time. She did not want to have a repeat of the dark matter bomb incident, and she had just brought up detailed scans from the void storage when Justin’s plea for help sounded. She dropped what she was doing and headed to the master control room. Once inside, she made it to the TDS 1 console and checked the system status.
She performed a quick scan but found nothing wrong so she turned and rushed into TDS 1. She made it one step in before she tripped over Justin’s body. On her way down, she became overwhelmed with myriad emotions. She hit the floor and lay there for what felt like an agonizingly torturous minute before the feelings began to fade, then she was bombarded by them once again, but a few minutes later they faded enough for her to focus on her surroundings.
She managed to lift her head and looked over to find Justin was holding her hand, “What happened?”
Justin was sweating and trembling. “I don’t know. We just arrived at Earth and I was flooded with emotions. I called for help and managed to crawl back to here.”
Her mind began to clear. “Where are the others?”
He pointed to the control room. “In there.” She began to pull away to stand and he said, “Don’t break contact. I did once and the wave hit me again.”
She nodded and said, “It must be like we did in our ship, kind of sharing the emotions. We need to get in there. If we join all of us, we might be able to minimize the effects. Are you still feeling it? I cannot seem to block it all the way.”
Justin nodded. “The emotions and voices are still there, but at least I can concentrate now.” Justin helped her to her feet, and they made it into the control room.
They found Alise, Jason and Jerren writhing on the floor in apparent misery. They rushed to their sides and put Alise’s hand into Jason’s and Jason’s other hand into Jerren’s. Then Justin took Jerren’s other hand and he nodded for Calia to grab Alise’s.
She took Alise’s hand and the moment the circuit was complete they felt a sudden surge of energy course throughout them. They closed their eyes and focused on calming down and suppressing their emotional state. The energy began to flow, and slowly the emotional bombardment became balanced.
It could have been a minute, hours or days that passed, Calia was not sure. She opened her eyes to find she was still holding on to Justin’s hand and he was holding Jerren’s.
He asked her, “How are you feeling?”
Her body was still trembling but she replied, “Much better now.” She shook Alise’s hand, “Alise, wake up!”
Justin did the same with Jerren, and after a few minutes of calling to get them to wake, Alise spoke. “What happened?”
Justin shook his head and said, “I’ve no idea.”
Calia had a good idea of what it was, and it just dawned on her why they would be suffering from it. She said, “Multiphasic neural associations…if I had to make a guess. The ambrose we ate must have altered us to be more in tune with them.” She saw Alise was about to pull free. “Do not let go! You will get hit with the wave again if you do.” This seemed to get Alise’s full attention and she tightened her grip.
They called for Jason and Jerren to wake and a minute later, they both opened their eyes. Jerren spoke first. “What the hell was that?”
Justin replied, “Some kind of neural thing. Don’t let go of Jason’s or my hands.”
They each assisted the others to a sitting position and Jason shook his head, “Damn…that was the worst that it has ever been.”
Calia looked at him in shock. “You have felt that before?”
“Yes, several times in fact. They were the same voices I heard before,” he explained. “I’m not sure if Justin told you about my captivity?”
She nodded and he continued.
“Well after my captors implemented their torture with electricity, I began hearing the voices. They were controlled by medications after I was rescued, but when I returned to Earth the last time, I heard them more clearly. I just attributed them to not being medicated, but now I think you’re correct about the ambrose. I had eaten the ambrose just before returning to Earth to prevent the event horizon, and the voices were never as clear as they were then…well until this time. There is a major difference this time though.”
Calia looked at Jason questioningly and he continued.
“It was much stronger, and I could communicate with them this time.”
Alise asked, “Who did you talk to?”
Jason replied, “I think he said his name was Ansili…Nutuin—”
Alise sucked in a swift breath.
Calia v
aguely recognized the name and was about to ask about him, when Justin beat her to it.
“Who is he?”
Alise looked directly at Justin and said, “Ansili Nutuin was the commander of this ship before Elgon. He was caught in the explosion at Lantis. He should be dead,” she stated.
“Are you sure it was not an old memory replaying?” Alise asked as she looked to Jason.
Jason shook his head and explained, “I was hit with the wave and felt like I was being held down by it. A few minutes before I woke I felt the pressure lift and I heard the voices. It took a few shouts from me to get them to quiet down and that’s when Ansili introduced himself and asked for help… If the voices are really the people of Lantis, they seem to think what is happening to them just occurred.”
Alise looked pale and about to cry. “I knew there was a temporal component to the explosion but they should have all been killed. If they are continually reliving that moment…that would be true torture.”
Jason said, “You told me when we first met that there was training to help control multiphasic neural associations. How do we do it?”
Alise closed her eyes a moment, apparently researching it, then she relayed the instructions she found. She told them she thought it would take a bit of practice, and they decided it would be best to attempt breaking free one at a time when each of them felt ready. It took a good hour of practicing with a few hiccups, but eventually they all managed to suppress the wave that had overwhelmed them.
Once Jerren had managed to throw it off completely Alise said, “We should collect our supplies and get back to Serqalin. I cannot think of a way to help the Lantins at the moment, so we should stick to the plan and come back to this problem afterward, agreed?”
The group nodded reluctantly in acceptance and looking to Justin, Alise asked, “Is there anything you need us to get while we are here?”
Justin thought about it a moment and stated, “Not really. When are we in time?”
Jerren answered, “It’s twenty days before we rescued Jason from Iraq, why?”
A thought came to Justin and he turned to Jason. “You were talking with Inola back then, right?”
Jason nodded. “Yes.”
“If she’s in the area, maybe we can ask her what this is all about—” Justin’s hands shot to his head as he fell to his knees. It felt as though his head were about to explode as he heard, “NOT YET!” in Inola’s voice.
Justin looked around the room to the others and saw they too were holding their heads in pain. “Never mind,” he choked out, “I guess we will have to wait until she’s ready to tell us.” With watery eyes he said, “I’m not going to ask that again.”
Jerren let out what sounded like a pained chuckle and said, “At least we know we’re going in the right direction.”
Justin asked, “Why do you say that?”
He grimaced a moment then replied, “Apparently Inola has a plan, and I’m now quite positive she would have let us know if we were screwing it up.”
This statement drew a raised brow from Justin. Jerren had a point, and that, more than anything else, set him at ease a bit.
Alise said, “Okay, we might as well get this going then.” She input a command and continued, “There, the probe is at the base you indicated. Where to now?”
Jerren gave Alise the directions and she maneuvered the probe through the base and into the secured vault where their weapons along with other high-security items were stored.
“There…turn to the right.” A second later, they saw the rack where the EVAs were stored. “Take the first three. They have the fewest glitches.” After they were transported aboard the ship Jerren said, “All right, now we need to go to the motor pool. Head back out the way we came in…”
They acquired two floor jacks and several rolls of military grade utility tape, and once Alise had it all onboard, Jerren chuckled. “The military is always losing items. I know they were bewildered as to how the EVAs were there on the surveillance cameras one second and gone the next. They thought someone hacked the video feed and broke in, but they couldn’t understand why they didn’t take any of the weaponry.”
Jason appeared to have been working on something of his own while they were watching the supply retrieval. Letting out a sigh he said, “Okay, I’m done. Do we have anything else before we head back?”
An idea popped into Justin’s head, and he hoped it would not elicit a response from Inola. “Alise, could you send a probe to look into Area 51? We know there’s another ship there, and it would be nice to know what condition it’s in.” He looked to Jerren and said, “Who knows? We might be able to get it up and running as well.”
Alise nodded and said, “The probe is on the way.” She looked to Jerren. “You said you were there before? I will need you to point out the location of the elevator you were in.”
The probe entered the building through the elevator door and proceeded down the shaft. The image began to flicker. Alise frantically began tapping on the console. “Something is wrong, I am losing control, the probe is losing power, and I am receiving a strange signal variant from it.” She hit another button and the probe went offline.
Jason asked, “What happened to the probe?”
Alise looked flushed as she said, “I destroyed it. Someone was attempting to access the programming… I have never had anyone even know my probes were in the area before, let alone try to take control of them.” She looked toward Calia. “Have you ever had this happen?”
Justin could tell Calia was concerned, and he wondered if the countermeasures Jason had spoken of were in play there.
Calia sighed. “Only once, a very long time ago but my probe was in phase. I do not understand how they even knew your probe was there. It was out of phase.”
Calia looked nervously around and said, “I think it is time to get back to our ship.” She looked to Justin and jokingly said, “You have played with your friends long enough. It is time to come home.” She grasped Justin’s hand and led him off with a chuckle.
Jason let out a whip crack sound and laughed behind him.
Justin looked over his shoulder as he was being led away and shouted, “Like you’re not!” He laughed even louder as he saw his brother’s face turn beet-red.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Justin and Calia went back and forth between the two ships several times over the next three days. Calia and Alise linked the probes TDS 1 had dropped on their way to Earth together, which allowed TDS 3 to see the effects of the reset firsthand, albeit with a five-minute delay.
Calia positioned TDS 3 over Serqalin’s northern pole and implemented the GMP through the planet’s geomagnetic field, then waited to see the results from the time TDS 1 was in. The planet went dark with the pulse, as did all of the ships in orbit around it. Calia had located the origins of most of the ships surrounding the planet, and sent messages to those worlds letting them know where their ships could be found, then waited the remainder of the five minutes for the image to make it to TDS 1, then through the master control room and finally come up on their screen. All but one ship had disappeared along with the bombs.
A moment later ten ships were back and Jason called over to them, “How is that possible?”
Calia said, “One minute.” She adjusted her probe forward in time and fifty-seven years later she stopped. “They regrouped. The longer we wait, the more resources they will be able to gather. We will have to pulse them again. I did not see the explosives back around the planet though, just the ships.”
Jason could be heard sighing. “Okay, Alise wants to get closer and if any ships are there after the next pulse we’ll be in a position to take them out.”
Calia responded, “That sounds good. Let me know when you are ready.”
A minute later Alise called over and informed Calia that they would approach Serqalin from the south and be ready if any ships remained.
Jerren called out, “TDS 5 just entered orbit of Serqalin in Jason’s time jus
t after the pulse occurred, and they’re in a TD of positive .75 if that helps.”
Calia had an idea and hurried to ask, “Jerren, where are they located in orbit?”
“Near the planet’s equator, on the dark side of the planet at the moment,” Jerren replied.
Calia smiled to herself as a plan came to her. “I think we should rock them a little bit, Alise. Do you know what I mean?”
Alise chuckled over the communications. “I think so. Do you want me on the southern pole?”
Calia said, “Yes, but I am going to pulse where I am first to thin out any ships. Then we will come to your time and we will both pulse. Me from negative .25 TD to positive 1.75 TD, and you from positive 1.75 TD to negative .25 TD and back. Then move out of range of the rebounding pulse in opposite directions from the poles. We do not want our pulses to extend to the dark matter mines, but the focal point of the GMP will be in TDS 5’s TD phase. How does that sound?”
“That sounds good. We will be in position. One second…there do you see the countdown clock?” Alise asked.
Calia laughed. “Perfect…pulse on zero then.”
Calia performed her pulse and transmission as before, then shot ahead to the same time TDS 1 and TDS 5 were in. They did not bother with the scans after Calia’s last pulse and when the timer went off they just performed a double pulse from opposite planetary poles. There was a massive brightening of the lighting in TDS 3, and Calia moved their ship out of range of the rebounding GMP wave.
Jerren’s voice came over the communications a moment later. “Damn, that got his attention and threw him for a loop. TDS 5’s systems went haywire. As soon as he stopped the ship from spinning, he set course out of the system very fast. Another ship made it through the pulses though. It is on the opposite side of the planet. I think it was TDS 2. When you GMPed the planet, that ship’s wall went active then shut down again. However, the bombs are in the open now. I’ll be over there in a second.”
