by Drew Wagar
The ship was rock steady, the Eclipse appeared to be resting on an invisible surface. There were no shadows, nothing to give a sense of scale. The light seemed to have no source, but was simply present, as if it was emitted uniformly by whatever it was they were resting on.
Rebecca looked up and out. “Whoa. This is weird.”
There was complete uniformity, no sky, no ground, no visible horizon. It was similar to the feeling she’d once had whilst flying through the atmosphere of a gas giant, only she got the strong sense she was looking at a great distance rather than a few short metres.
She put her foot out, testing the ground. It seemed able to support her weight, though she could see nothing under her feet. Gingerly she stepped out of the airlock.
She winced. “Ow!”
“What’s the matter?” Jim said with alarm, preparing to pull her back inside.
Rebecca was looking down at her bare feet. “It’s cold!”
Jim sighed. Rebecca stepped further away from the ship and turned around.
“ Incredible!” she said, looking around at the exterior of her ship. The Eclipse looked faintly ridiculous, perched in the middle of nothingness. “Are we inside the moon? Or somewhere else? Are you coming?”
Jim joined her, and then bent down to touch the ground, it was cold, like marble, but with no texture. There was no visual feedback that he’d touched anything, no give in the surface at all. He tried shining the glo on it at close range, and got the vague impression that it was some kind of translucent material, but he couldn’t analyse it further. He opened up the portascan and tried to take a reading. It showed nothing but the hull of the Eclipse immediately beside him.
“You getting anything?” Rebecca asked.
“Nothing. I can’t get a reading on this at all. Let’s walk around.”
“Be careful though, I don’t trust this… whatever it is!”
They stepped around the outside of the ship, holding on to it as a precaution. Jim got a new-found appreciation for how big Rebecca’s ship actually was. It took them a while to navigate around to the rear.
Smoke was pouring from one of the primary engines, the dark fumes drifting straight upwards into the air, there was not a breath of wind. Here and there external panels were buckled, cracked and blackened, particularly where they surmised the accelerated plasma had struck the ship.
“My poor ship!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Look how banged up it is now! I think I’m going to be in the market for something new… ”
Jim didn’t respond, he was looking ahead.
They had come around to the Eclipse’s starboard side. In front of them was another ship.
It was the Falchion.
It too had smoke drifting from it, the forward hull had received the brunt of Rebecca’s attack. It also appeared to be resting on the strange white surface. Jim judged it to be about three hundred metres away. It wasn’t resting on its undercarriage as would be normal, like their ship it was still in flight configuration, as if it had been arrested in mid flight.
In the case of the Imperial Courier, that meant its nacelles were extended. Normally this would have caused a structural collapse under a gravity field of this strength, but the Imperial Courier appeared to be supported somehow.
Rebecca joined him, her knife in her hand, looking around carefully.
“No sign of Zerz, and the ship looks as dead as ours. Where did he go?”
Jim edged out beyond the Eclipse’s starboard quarter. Rebecca saw his mouth drop open and she hurried to look.
Away, at a distance impossible to gauge due to the strange environment, a beam of intense energy was rising vertically from the ‘ground’. Significantly brighter than its immediate surroundings, it slowly faded into obscurity as it rose. It looked like a pillar of light. Other than that, there was nothing else visible.
“What is that?” Rebecca breathed.
“Raxxla,” Jim said in awe.
“Are we going to have a look then?” she said, ever practical.
“ I suggest we check the Falchion first, I don’t fancy having Zerz creep up behind us.”
Rebecca looked nervously at the gap between the two ships. “If you think so.”
Jim gingerly began to walk out towards the Falchion, cautiously at first, but with increasing confidence as it became clear that the ‘floor’ continued to support their weight. It wasn’t like ice, as there was plenty of grip. Picking up their pace they reached the Falchion after a couple of minutes.
It didn’t take them long to find the open airlock in the forward hull, just below the bridge. The Falchion appeared to be as dead as the Eclipse. None of the running lights were on, the interior lights were out, and no sounds could be heard.
Cautiously they searched through the interior of the ship, it appeared to have been abandoned. The Falchion reeked of smoke, it had been extensively damaged in the fire fight. Rebecca saw, with grim satisfaction, that the splendour of the staterooms had been shattered beyond repair.
“It appears the same thing happened to Zerz,” Jim said. “I wonder where he’s gone?”
“Raxxla. Where else? Come on.”
Rebecca turned aside, heading towards the heart of the ship.
“Where are you going?” Jim inquired.
“I need something,” Rebecca said, quickly walking towards the witchdrive core.
“What can you possibly… ”
Jim followed her into the core. She was crouched down, looking for something near the alignment system. Jim could see a dark splatter of blood on the far wall.
She was prepared to die for me. That tells me all I need to know…
“Here we go!” Rebecca said brightly, holding something up. “Shoes! I’m not walking all the way over there freezing my feet off!”
She promptly began bashing the shoes against the alignment system, snapping off the high heels and deliberately knocking two of the alignment rods out. They clattered to the floor.
“Oh, shame,” she said, with a pout. “Knocked his alignment out again.”
“You’re incorrigible,” Jim said with a grin as she put the shoes on.
Afterwards neither Rebecca nor Jim were able to recall how long it took them to walk across the featureless landscape. It was like walking in a blizzard, but without the uncomfortable precipitation. Their eyes were constantly trying to find reference points and being denied them. It was bewildering and disorienting. Jim began to see strange shapes hovering in his vision, the result of cellular debris floating around inside his eyes. The lack of anything else for a reference point made them distracting.
For a long while the light ahead of them appeared unaltered, and, had it not been for the Eclipse and the Falchion slowly receding behind them, they would have started to wonder if they weren’t on some absurd cosmic treadmill.
Slowly the light in front of them began to grow larger and more brilliant. As they approached they were conscious of a sound, or perhaps more a vibration, a pulsating rhythmic thrumming that seemed to be associated with the beam of the light.
That too was taking on a form of its own. They could now perceive movement in the beam, pulses of brightness moving downwards towards the ground.
There was an overwhelming sensation of power, they could even feel a static charge building up in the air around them, Rebecca’s hair began to float around her head.
They began to perceive that there was a dip in the landscape, a depression or bowl from which the light was issuing. They could just make out the curve of the opposite side, a slightly brighter whiteness than their immediate surroundings.
Almost before they realised it they had reached the edge of the bowl. A quick glance over their shoulders showed that the Falchion and the Eclipse were only about half a kilometre behind them.
Rebecca and Jim shielded their eyes and looked in.
The bowl was more like an amphitheatre, around a hundred metres in diameter, with a set of perfectly contoured ridges running concentrically around its inte
rior, getting smaller each time like a set of stairs, or perhaps a row of seats. The rings were cut at intervals with deep channels arranged like a series of spokes radiating out from the centre. Each channel was around ten metres wide through which rushed a bright blue form of energy, akin to a witchspace flux, or perhaps a Q-Bomb. It almost looked like gushing water, swiftly travelling away from the centre. Jim counted eight such channels.
What are these for?
At the point of convergence there was a mesmerising sight. It was a globe of whirling energy, perhaps five metres across, appearing to be the source of the eight spiralling energy streams. The enormous beam of light that they had first seen appeared to be feeding the globe.
Jim squinted. He couldn’t be sure, but he almost felt that he saw short-lived images of planets and stars, perhaps even ships within the spinning carousel of light.
Is this a machine of some kind? Or is this it? Is this Raxxla?
“What is it?” Rebecca whispered, looking completely bewildered.
Jim had no answer for her.
They both slowly stepped down into the amphitheatre, dazzled by the energies flowing around them.
Rebecca was staring into the globe. “I can see planets!” she exclaimed. “Look! Tionisla! I’m sure of it, look there’s the graveyard… Hey! It’s gone!”
“And Lave! There! Onrira… ” Jim said, moving his head to follow the swiftly changing images.
“Strangely compelling isn’t it?” said a voice. “To step in there, and lose yourself in another world?”
Jim and Rebecca whirled around. Zerz stepped out from behind the globe.
“We’ve caught you now,” Jim said, calmly levelling his laser at him. “Now it’s our turn.”
“Didn’t I kill you?” Zerz asked, with a wry grin.
“I got better,” Jim gestured with the laser.
“Indeed,” Zerz shrugged. “Unless you have a power source that I don’t know about, you’ll find your weapons are as powerless as your ship.”
Jim squeezed the firing stud on his laser. Nothing happened.
Zerz studied Rebecca’s face with a frown. “You’re looking surprisingly well.”
“No thanks to you!” Rebecca said, drawing her knife. “My turn to dish out scars!”
“You can’t beat me in a fight,” Zerz commented drily.
“We’ll see about that… ” Rebecca started, before Jim caught her by the shoulder, shaking his head.
Zerz backed away cautiously and turned his attention to the spinning globe, studying it intently. “Have you figured it out yet, Jim?”
Jim looked back at the whirling globe of energy. “The fabled portal of Raxxla.”
Zerz looked disappointed. “That much is obvious.”
Jim took out his portascan again, attempting to take a reading. “It’s off the scale, but it reads as a witchspace flux.”
Rebecca saw new images flashing in the maelstrom of light and energy. Images of Oresrati, Tianve, a Coriolis station, the battle against the Thargoids over Lave, a Boa class cruiser with an escort of tatty ships…
“It’s reading my mind!” she whispered, not paying attention to Jim or Zerz, but staring into the globe, one arm outstretched. “Jim, I can see my family’s ship!”
She took a step forward, a scant metre from the boundary of the globe.
Jim grabbed her. “Rebecca, you don’t know what that will do to you! Suppose it drops you into a vacuum on the other side!”
Zerz was nodding sagely. “She’s right though, Jim. Whoever built this designed it to react to thought. Step through there and you’ll be … somewhere else. You just need discipline to manipulate it.”
Built it?
Zerz focused on the globe. The whirling of the energy noticeably diminished. The image of the Boa was swept aside to be replaced by what appeared to be a large conference hall, filled with delegates. Jim recognised the many historic flags of the Far Colonies. The clothing of the delegates looked needlessly extravagant and ridiculously impractical. The decoration of the hall itself seemed baroque and over-styled.
“The signing of the charter of the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds,” Zerz said grandly.
“But that was in… .” Rebecca said, trying to remember her edu-classes.
“2696,” Jim finished for her.
“Over four hundred years ago,” Zerz nodded. “Or this… ”
The images whirled again, before settling on a half-completed Coriolis station.
“The first ever station, operational around Lave in 2752.”
The images moved again, a view of octagonal Thargoid vessels devastating a planetary surface.
“The first Thargoid invasion in 2851.”
Jim was astonished, but quickly gathered his thoughts. “You can visualise places and events that have been, but… ”
“You can’t for events yet to transpire?” Zerz seemed amused. “You can ask it questions Jim, if you understand the language.”
The images changed. A pitched battle, ships of every type involved in a fire fight; space stations of city size proportions dwarfing even the mighty Torus station of Jim’s home planet; the emblem of Galcop emblazoned on a flag, going up in flames; a man wearing the Galcop Presidential regalia, signing some kind of declaration whilst under armed guard.
How does he know how to do this?
“3174,” Zerz said, his voice low. “Galcop is rescinded.”
“How do you know all this, you haven’t had the time… ” Rebecca started to say.
Zerz threw his head back and laughed. “How can you be so obtuse! This is a time machine!”
“But… ”
“It’s quite obvious, if you have the capability to work it out,” another voice echoed from the opposite side of the globe. Rebecca and Jim turned to see Zerz, another Zerz, come walking around the perimeter.
He was older, greyer, more careworn, but bore the same implacable sense of purpose. He carried a svelte-looking weapon in his hand.
“My future self,” the original Zerz said, with a wry grin. “He has had plenty of time to study this phenomena. He proved quite enlightening. You’re not the only ones with assistance from the future.”
The older Zerz brought up the weapon.
“It’s satisfying to know I get to see you die now,” Zerz said, with great delight, “and then can look forward to performing the act myself in time to come… ”
Rebecca and Jim had backed away from the older Zerz, almost against the now quiescent globe; there was nowhere to run to.
“It’s been a long chase, but this is the end of your story,” the older Zerz intoned.
Jim’s brain was whirling with possibilities and outcomes. He recalled Iacob’s words…
You’ll need more time…
He grabbed Rebecca’s hand. She looked up at him in despair, and then frowned at the look on his face. He winked at her.
The older Zerz squeezed the trigger on his gun, as Jim dragged her backwards into the globe.
Rebecca screamed as colour and noise spun around her. She felt as if she had been sucked into a tornado, being lifted off the ground and thrown into oblivion. She was just becoming conscious that Jim’s hand still firmly held her own when she suddenly hit the ground hard.
She looked up, catching her breath. Jim was still beside her, they were just outside the spinning globe of energy, exactly where they had been before. She craned her head around. Both the younger and older Zerz had disappeared.
“What happened?” She asked, bewildered.
“It worked! My God! It worked!”
“What are you talking about? Where did they go?”
“They’re not here, at least, not yet!” Jim said, scrambling to his feet. “The globe was controlled by mental imagery, just imagine it and it would generate it for you. I imagined what the portal would look like, just before we arrived.”
“You mean?”
“This is ten minutes ago,” Jim nodded. “Look!”
Rebecca l
ooked across and saw an Imperial Courier sitting on ground about half a kilometre away. It was exactly where Zerz’ ship had been when they first arrived. It was Zerz’ ship.
“My brain is starting to hurt!” she cried. “So, are we here too, I mean, us in the past?”
“We’re there!” Jim pointed. Rebecca followed his direction and saw her Cobra Courier spiralling down towards the ground, in the grip of some strange energy effect. Just before it hit the ground the ship steadied, levelled out and settled gently.
“But… what do we do, Zerz is, I mean will… No! He has… .”
“We’ve got ten minutes to figure out what we’re going to do.”
“As long as Zerz is mine,” Rebecca said ruefully, “I don’t care!”
Rebecca and Jim had hidden themselves in one of the channels, and waited for Zerz to appear. It hadn’t taken long. Almost the moment he arrived, his older counterpart had also appeared from the sphere, much to his obvious surprise. He’d recovered quickly though, and they were deep in whispered conversation within moments. Rebecca and Jim couldn’t overhear what was being said. Then both the older and younger Zerz looked up in the direction of the Eclipse, and moved behind the energy globe.
Rebecca and Jim watched in amazement as their earlier selves appeared at the rim of the amphitheatre. They paused, the other Rebecca asking a question of Jim, before slowly and cautiously walking down towards the energy globe.
“This is so weird!” Rebecca whispered. “I just did that, didn’t I?”
Jim nodded. “We need to pick our moment precisely. When we catch up with where we were… ”
“So, when we walked down here before, we were hiding in here too? Lucky I didn’t look – it would have really freaked me out!”
“Shhhh!” Jim scolded.
“Does my hair really look like that from behind?”
Jim turned in amazement. “You’re worried about your hair at a time like this?”
The other Rebecca and Jim had now been confronted by the younger Zerz. Presently he was joined by the older version of himself, who aimed his weapon at them.
“Almost there… ” Jim whispered, straining to hear the conversation.
