Time Crossers 01: The Final Six Days

by Agster, Joe

  “Okay you guys back there, we are now accelerating to the asteroid’s speed, at 1.2 G’s. I’m going to reorient the passenger area to go vertical, so you guys can stand up if needed.”

  Captain Jason issues the command to commence rendezvous speed and immediately they feel the thrust. With the acceleration they now have a sense of gravity, albeit a bit stronger than on Earth, as they stand sideways, their feet toward the back of the ship. They look straight up to see the crew firmly strapped in, piloting the ship like normal.

  After about ninety minutes the acceleration abates, as they have reached thirty kilometers per second to match the asteroid’s current orbital velocity. As weightlessness slowly returns, they reorient back to normal, floating back to their seats to strap in for the rendezvous maneuver. As the minutes tick by in anticipation, Friend and Cassie can do nothing but stare at the void of space, with Earth in the far distance.

  Then suddenly they see it through the left side and front window. For all the time Friend has spent trying to divert or destroy it, he comes face to face with the asteroid in all its glory. The giant breadth of it catches up to them, momentarily passing until the ship’s speed stabilizes with it. The mighty 1.5-kilometer, siliceous rock looks like a humongous bastard of a potato. The asteroid rotates slowly, and based on what Max had told him, takes a week to complete one full rotation. For such a large object there is no roar as it passes, no sound or warning despite its increasing proximity. Cassie reminds Friend that it is space, that there is no sound.

  As they get close to the sun-side on the right, it radiates a bright white and yellow glow. Along the top there are clear markings of a facility. Some lights that adorn the landing platform are still functional after all these years. It is a flat ship pad with a large yellow X, and based on their approach, it seems to be the ships target. They watch over the next few minutes as the X grows larger, until it can no longer be seen from the side windows.

  “Deploy the anchor cables!” the captain orders.

  By the looks of it there are four large metallic hooks burrowed into the asteroid, allowing the ship’s cables to make contact and hook into those. The three of them secure them one by one, starting with the front, then back, then side hooks. Once they are secure the ship retracts them, pulling it closer to the asteroid until it stops, and the ship is firmly secured to the asteroid’s surface.

  Icedragon Landing Pod

  The ship’s console powers down as the captain orders Friend and Cassie to suit back up. Tania comes around and secures their helmets and checks their oxygen supply, insuring it is stabilized correctly. Both of them test breathe through the apparatus, and after a minute or two of getting used to their crisp air, they are ready to go.

  Captain Jason issues his directives from his helmet, heard through the radio inside. “Now listen you two, this isn’t like walking around town. We need to stay tethered down, or else you’ll float off into space. Follow my lead, and don’t move until I command you to do so. Rian will stay with the ship. Understood?”

  They both nod slowly as they follow his lead. Tania is toward the rear as the four of them enter the airlock chamber of the ship. She instructs everyone to activate their helmet flashlights. She then grabs the large tether cable and hooks it to a giant steel structure just inside the door to the outside. Captain Jason moves to the front, and in one more confirmation as everyone thumbs up, opens the door.

  Friend can feel the coldness of space through his suit as he exits to the outside, firmly grabbing the tether cable as it remains looped through a hook in his suit.

  “Cassie, you ok?”

  “Yeah, just trying to live in this moment.”

  The facility entrance is up ahead, about eighty meters. It is a large hole in the asteroid, about a meter wide, with several red lights circumscribing it as they flicker every few seconds. It’s hard to see what else it entails but it is painted red all nearby, with the word “Command” emblazoned around it. He looks straight ahead and sees Earth is center left of them. From their vantage point it appears to be the size of the moon, both looking like tiny marbles perfectly stationary in space.

  As they inch forward along the cable, Jason in front, then Friend, Cassie, and Tania, Friend can feel himself bouncing in every possible direction. He now understands that without the cables he could be bouncing upward by now.

  After about ten meters Jason loops the tether cable through the first of what seems to be hundreds of hooking posts in the ground for such a purpose. They are thick steel metallic posts, colored yellow and gray, sticking about a half meter out of the ground. He continues to move forward slowly, about a meter per jump until they make it to the next post. For all the hopping and tethering, like rock climbing a steep cliff sideways, they eventually make it to the facility entrance as the glows of the red lights grow brighter. Everyone is being extra careful, staying low and not letting go. A few more pulls of the tether and they finally reach the shaft.

  At the facility entrance they discover the hole is more of a walled square, with a ladder to descend. One by one they pull themselves downward, the Captain in front. Despite their headlights the hole is dark and spooky, and none are sure of how long or what to expect at the bottom.

  As each of them cling to the ladder rungs, climbing downward, the rock formations become more treacherous. They finally reach what appears to be the ground floor, a wider area than the tight confines of the vertical shaft. One by one they touch down, where they are greeted by a large, heavy titanium door. The Captain studies the door and eventually finds the switch that lights up in a dim red color as soon as he puts his hands near it. He hits the main button, and it goes from dim lit to a bright flashing red. Through the window they can see it is an airlock chamber that is being prepared. After about fifteen seconds or so the light turns green. He pushes the switch and the door opens.

  They all enter carefully, then Jason hits a similar switch from the inside that causes the door to firmly close. The pressurization activates inside the dimly lit chamber, its walls silver and white, with another dark gray door in front of them. After about thirty seconds, the switch for inner door turns green and they hit it to enter.

  They enter what appears to be a short hallway, walled by the natural rocky composition of the asteroid. Without gravity, they all continue to float about, pushing themselves forward. About thirty meters down the corridor they finally see it: a large room that appears to be the command center. It is encased by a large steel wall with a double glass door as its entrance.

  They push the switch to open the double doors and they enter. The room is also scarcely lit, just like the corridor, with minimal lighting highlighting the mossy green colored ceiling. The back wall is covered entirely with glass panes, stretching end to end and from floor to ceiling. More glass panes extend along the side walls. Toward the middle of the room is a table structure, with buttons and instruments, with the shiny silver Icedragon emblem fixated in the center. Based on the looks of it a control panel console.

  After a moment to study the room, Cassie finally asks, “Can we take our helmets off?”

  Tania replies as she looks at her wrist computer, “Pressure is good.”

  Cassie removes her helmet and gazes at the large control panel that sits in the middle of the room, as she bounces toward it. Her eyes light up at the awe of the large glass screens along the walls and the consoles tucked underneath. On the console is a giant white button that as she touches it causes the system to boot up.

  The entirety of the large glass screens light up. They show the front view of the asteroid’s current path in its orbit, overlaid by various readouts of operations, camera video at various locations on the surface of the asteroid, temperature, spin rate, sun’s location, and mining status. Another screen projects from the console, a holographic one that provides direct control of over everything. She then notices on this projection a large menu on the called “gravity.” Without delay she touches it to activate it. On the screen it displays
diagnostics about the current state of gravity on the asteroid, with an option to turn it on, peaking her fascination.

  The computer voice then queries, “Would you like to turn on artificial gravity?”

  The captain nervously barks out to wait, but she is just too intrigued. Artificial gravity? He ponders if they can trust such a system. It hasn’t been turned on in who knows how long, and through his understanding of it, not something to be simply played with.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” she fearlessly asks, unable to control her enthusiasm. She then taps the “yes” button in the hologram, and soon after a humming sounds vibrates from the floor. The system screen reports 5%, then 10%. In this moment they can feel themselves slowly being pulled downward. The feeling actually invigorates her. She drags her finger along the holographic slider, bringing it all the way to 50%.

  “Maximum gravity now set,” the female computer voice confirms. The artificial gravity is now one half of Earth, allowing them to walk about freely.

  The captain checks in with his first officer. “Rian, come in.”

  “Hey did you guys turn on the gravity? I definitely felt it pull down suddenly. A warning would have been nice.”

  Captain Jason turns to Cassie, “Before you do anything brash like that again, check with me first.”

  “I’m sorry captain. The idea of artificial gravity is so, pun intending, captivating! When I was in high school we learned about this, how once they discovered gravitational waves thirty or so years ago, they were able to study the graviton particle. But why only 50%?”

  He gasps in nervousness, “It’s too dangerous. You have to remember at the site of the graviton accelerator, gravity is so strong it will cause the asteroid to implode.”

  “Right, the inverse square law,” Cassie remarks, remembering those physics classes.

  Cassie returns to the console to study it in detail, Friend watching with interest. She whizzes through the various screens, unable to locate anything about the nuclear weapon arsenal, not even a diagnostic screen.

  “Friend, are you sure about this?” she asks frustratingly.

  “Yes. He said it was a secret screen.” he replies.

  She continues to look, turning her attention on the console instead of the screen. Through the light up keyboard she is able to open a command window, so she can type text commands.

  > grep weapon

  0 items found

  > grep menu

  menu.exe

  > menu ?

  Her face lights up at the discovery at the command, giving her the set of options she can use with the menu command. She is now able to launch the menu from the command line by its name.

  > menu self-terminate

  The self-terminate menu opens, showing a diagram of the nuclear weapons and their status. There are 112 of them, buried in various points. She runs a diagnostic and it determines three are inactive for one reason or another, perhaps the coldness of space or old age rendered them useless. But the other 109 are active and ready. Along the bottom of the screen is bright red button to enter the actual detonator interface.

  Jason, elated by Cassie’s technical prowess speaks up, “Okay let’s blow this thing up and head home!”

  “Wait, no,” Friend responds, as Cassie is aware of why. Jason is perplexed then angry at his words.

  “What do you mean ‘no’!?” Jason aggressively cries out, as Tania also looks on in utter confusion. “Every second we waste will mean more devastation.”

  “Detonating the bombs was never the plan,” Friend explains as he looks at Jason and Tania both.

  “Are you crazy? We didn’t come here for nothing. We have families down there!” Jason, boiling over, grabs Friend and slams him up against the wall, his taller frame trying to intimidate him. Friend knows that at any moment he can take him down, but remains pacified as they simply don’t understand his reasoning. He looks over at Cassie, but there is a sense she is even questioning Friend’s motives as she thinks about her friends, her family, all hoping for a miracle. But she sees through the thick fog of her emotions to finally speak up.

  “Friend’s right. We cannot do this now. Should I tell him why?” she speaks as he nods in affirmation.

  “Let me. Jason, I can travel through space and time. The purpose of coming here was to establish a point of reference, so I can teleport back here.”

  Jason briefly lets him go, then in a rage grabs him even further, and as he has Friend pinned tightly against the wall. Friend opts not to fight back, to let his adrenaline rush play out for a few more moments until he tires. Then, just as Jason attempts to throw a punch, Friend catches the fist in midair. After a quick struggle, they vanish.

  Friend momentarily loses his balance as they are back in the hangar bay where they started, where he first laid eyes on the Ionic X3. Jason looks around in bewilderment as the sudden change in location keeps him disoriented, like a lost puppy.

  “Thank you Jason. As you can see, I can now teleport to and from the asteroid.” Friend mentions before disappearing. He reappears about forty seconds later with Tania and Rian.

  “You three are now safe, back on Earth,” he explains. “Go to your families now. You have fulfilled your mission. Let Cassie and I take it from here.”

  “Wait!” Jason calls out. “I’m sorry for pushing you. But I don’t know why you are doing this. Why you would let billions die.”

  “I’m not. Everything that is about to transpire will eventually be undone. Trust me,” Friend replies, before disappearing.

  The rush he feels in nonspace back toward the asteroid is strange and powerful, but after a second or two, he returns to the control room where he is greeted by a preoccupied Cassie.

  “We have a problem,” she announces, pointing toward a strange square hole in the console, about ten centimeters wide and long. Inside is a tiny metallic port, suggesting a computer component goes there. She continues, “We can only view the status of the warheads through the console. Beyond that, the actual detonation interface requires a control box. By the looks of it, it goes here.”

  Friend feels the sinking feeling as he comprehends this latest wrinkle. Len never said anything about a control box. There is no logic to this. Why would he leave out this key detail? “Perhaps it’s here somewhere.”

  “Did he say where it might be?” Cassie forcefully responds.

  “No, that’s what’s strange.” Friend answers, wondering if his secret failsafe plan has already been disrupted. It doesn’t seem likely though, considering that the menu and the detonation code prompt are still in place.

  They spend the next while looking everywhere in the control room, under the desk nearby, in the storage closets, but nothing. They then walk around the various quarters, offices, even kitchen, Cassie becoming frustrated with each lead coming up empty.

  “So he tells you about these failsafe bombs, but not how they work?”

  “He told me he had them installed before he was forced out as CEO.”

  Cassie speaks up, “I’ll bet the box isn’t even here. Think about it. Once Space Onyx took on new ownership, this esoteric and sinister Society probably hid the box somewhere. If anything, Prast and his cabal may have it in their possession, in their bunker. Can we go there now?”

  “Unfortunately, no. I don’t know where it is. I need at least a frame of reference of a place before I can teleport there.”

  Even if he could go there, the prospect of doing so would be far too dangerous. If they are caught, there may not even be a failsafe system to detonate in the next iteration. Len Wang may be killed in the process, perhaps in the past, and never even ascending to the role of CEO. Too much is at stake.

  “Let’s go back to the mansion,” Cassie suggests as an alternative. “Maybe Max and Al can help us.”

  They return to the mansion to find darkness, it being 3:30 on his watch, early in the morning on day five. Cassie is exhausted from all their space travel and would love to sleep, but she remin
ds herself she’s built for all-nighters. She contacts Fisher on his device to no avail. They decide that sleep is the best option, and get some much needed rest.

  A few hours into their sleep she is awoken by a phone call. Fisher reveals to her that they went to the bunker in east Texas, after Max returned to NASA and the ADS attempt failed. She explains they were up in the asteroid but have since returned to the mansion. As the conversation go on, she puts the call on speakerphone for Friend to hear the rest of the words.

  “Gustav Prast has indeed been connected from the beginning. They’ve been trying to use China as a scapegoat. From what I gather, they originally had a plan to ignite a full scale war between the US and China, making the asteroid look like a deliberate attack by the Chinese. They have also been manipulating the Global Space Council behind the scenes all along, purposefully hindering the development of the ADS.” Fisher momentarily breaks up before uttering, “We think the Society knew all along about the failsafe bombs. Can you blow it up?”

  “No, we need the detonator. It’s a small black box, about ten centimeters wide. Do you know of anything like that?” Cassie explains.

  Fisher pauses, “No, sorry. The Society must have it.”

  As the call ends, the both of them lament on this major setback.

  Day 6 – December 31, 23:50

  Icedragon Control Center

  They’ve been on the asteroid for several hours, and their quest to find the detonator box has been fruitless. Realizing the hours are ticking away as they are missing the grand New Year’s Eve party in Las Vegas, they decide to stay. There is something riveting, something inspiring, about being in an asteroid that is about to crash into Earth.

  She puts up the forward, zoomed-in view of the asteroid on the large monitors. The Earth is stunningly close now. So close if you watch close enough you can see the Earth rotate and grow bigger in the monitors as they draw closer at thirty kilometers per second. Over several minutes they watch Asia and the Pacific Ocean slowly shift right and into view, with North America perfectly set opposite of the sun. The moon is very close, off to the left, illuminated by the reflection of the sun’s rays.