Time Ship (Book One): A Time Travel Romantic Adventure: The ideal Beach Book for reading on Holiday!

by IAN C. P. IRVINE

  Mick's eyes lit up. "...right in the middle of the Hunraken Cauldron!"

  Derek jumped up and walked over to the wall of video screens, punching a few numbers on the virtual keyboard on the screen. "Let's look at the videos once again..."

  A few seconds later they were both scrutinizing reruns of the satellite video images which showed the moment the eyewall collapsed at the center of Hurricane Josephine and when the other three superstorms pushed through, crushing the column of space at the epicenter and focusing the energy of the most powerful multi-megastorm ever recorded into a focal area from which it could not escape.

  Once again they saw the area around the center of the new megastorm begin to shimmer and glow as a myriad of tiny pulses of light sparkled in the area around the collision center.

  "Any second now..."Derek said excitedly, his hand outstretched towards the screen, waiting to point at the image the moment the strange pulse of light flashed at the heart of the storm. "...There! There, it is! Wow...do you think..."

  "Wait,...hang on a second...remember, there were two flashes... Let's see the second....THERE! That one! What is that one? What was that second wave of light that flashed and spread outwards from the center?"

  They quickly replayed the video sequence again, zooming into the picture and enlarging it as large as possible, straining to see any more detail that could tell them more.

  Twenty minutes later the floor was covered with high-definition color photographs that they had printed off and were studying on their knees.

  On one of the images, taken just before the eyewall collapsed, they were sure they could see the tiny, dark outline of Stormchaser 3 flying across the eye of the hurricane. The next images showed the area now covered by the storm clouds as they smashed into each other from the different directions. A few images later in the sequence of photographs laid out on the floor, they examined the position where the first pulse of light was seen by the satellite and realised that on a line of forecasted trajectory of the flying Lockhead WP-3D Orion aircraft it was almost directly ahead of where Stormchaser 3 had last been seen. The Orion had been flying straight towards it!

  The second pulse of light that had appeared and spread out as a wave had started from a different position in space, somewhere behind and slightly to the south of where the first pulse had been recorded. From their reckoning, they related to two separate events, ...whatever they were.

  Mick stood up and walked over to the water fountain, pouring himself a plastic cup full of cool refreshing water, before he said what both of them were thinking but not voicing aloud.

  "Derek, what exactly were we expecting to happen? We were looking for a Hunraken Vortex... hoping for a Hunraken Vortex to be created. And stupidly, we sent an airplane into the area to search for it! Idiots! Your theory predicted that any physical matter caught in the Hunraken Cauldron would either be ripped apart and transformed into plasma or flipped to other dimensional coordinates where the e-pressure was lower. Well, I think we just saw the latter happen. Stormchaser 3 flew right into the Hunraken Cauldron and was pushed out of this world into some other point in space and time..."

  Derek stood up and walked back over to the screen bank on the wall, his back turned to Mick.

  "I know what you're saying. We both know it. Fuck...I think I just killed eleven people. I just sent Kate and ten other people through a Hunraken Vortex! They're gone. Probably dead. And it's all my fault!"

  .

  --------------------

  .

  Of the two Lockheed WC-130s from the United States Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron that had been loaned to the Bush Center, one had already returned to base. The second had been ordered to fly back over the area where the four superstorms had collided just over thirty minutes before: the crew had been twenty minutes into the flight home when an order had come directly from the Pentagon instructing them to return to the collision area.

  Colonel Brian Patterson had been monitoring the events taking place over the Atlantic with great interest. It was his money that covered the cost for over half of the Bush Center to be built, and although he had begun to wonder if the money had been well spent, at last it seemed that his investment may have paid off: their military satellites had shown that Stormchaser 3 had disappeared and was now nowhere to be seen. Which gave him great hope that after almost a decade of failure, the seemingly impossible had just happened.

  Colonel Brian Patterson, or Professor Patterson, as his other title from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology alluded to, was an intelligent man who did not believe in fairies, wizards or ghosts, but who did believe in the miracles that could be performed from the proper application of the laws of physics and mathematics.

  It was Colonel Patterson that had seen the potential of the work that Professor Derek Martin had done, and had then realised just what it could mean. His secretive Research and Development department buried deep in the hills in Colorado, had already spent billions conducting research into finding a way of making teleportation a reality, before Professor Martin had even published his thesis.

  The research that his department was conducting was based on a completely different concept, and quite frankly, in theory it was more likely to succeed, but what made Professor Martin's ideas of interest to Colonel Patterson, was his proposal that in order to harness the power necessary to make teleportation possible, you would have to find a power source in nature that could unleash the required energy on such a large scale. Until now, their approach had been to start building a very large nuclear power station from which eventually, enormous amounts of power could be switched into their laboratories to enable them to conduct their experiments.

  Interestingly, as Professor Martin had explained in his thesis, whereas mankind would really struggle to create such power themselves, Mother Nature routinely could and did. Such power was frequently collected from the sun by the waters of the Earth's oceans, stored and then released into its atmospheric system through a simple, natural process called a 'Hurricane'.

  What made Professor Martin's theories additionally interesting to the U.S. Defense Department, was the possibility that as well as explaining a possible way to transport matter from one point to another, it also alluded to the just as real possibility of travelling from one point in time to another, either back, forward, or sideways!

  Whereas, only twenty years ago most scientists would never have seriously entertained the possibility that time travel could actually happen, breakthroughs in physics and mathematics now described several ways in which, under specific circumstances, time travel could actually take place. Although few would ever admit to it, Governments and scientists the world over, were now spending billions of dollars each year in pursuit of realizing this dream.

  In one of his laboratories in Colorado, Colonel Patterson himself had over sixty scientists dedicated to this task.

  In addition he funded several external projects that also showed potential, and he kept a very keen eye on their failures...and successes.

  Such was in his interest in Professor Martin's endeavors that behind the scenes he had negotiated on his behalf to have resources in the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron made available to Professor Martin whenever needed. In addition for this experiment he had also secretly placed several members of his scientific team in NOAA: one was aboard Stormchaser 2, and another aboard Stormchaser 3.

  Each knew the risks they ran, but were nevertheless committed to their tasks.

  And should any experiment ever prove successful, and transportation through space or time through a Hunraken Vortex was ever achieved, his agents were fully trained as to what they must do, in the name of the United States of America.

  Until now, this had been an eventuality that Colonel Patterson had never dared to let himself believe could happen.

  Yet, rerunning the video footage of what had occurred over the Atlantic, and listening to the commentary that was coming back live by radio from the Lo
ckheed WC-130 over the now peaceful 'storm-area', the hairs were beginning to rise on Colonel Martin's neck.

  There was no sign of Stormchaser 3.

  The indestructible military transponder that one of his agents had smuggled aboard the research airplane had stopped transmitting at twenty-nine minutes and forty-four seconds past midnight: the exact same moment the satellites had recorded the light pulse from the position where the transponder had last transmitted from.

  NOAA had already requested for help from the US Navy to redirect some sea craft to the area to look for any signs of wreckage, but deep down, Colonel Patterson knew that they would find nothing, simply because there was nothing there to find.

  Exactly where Stormchaser 3 now was, he had no idea. But he knew it was not anywhere in the Atlantic...or in this time frame.

  Colonel Patterson was convinced they had just witnessed the impossible: the formation of a Hunraken Vortex.

  At last, after all these years, Step 1 of the Rainbow2 project had been completed. An aircraft had been transported through space and time, and thanks to his advanced planning, it was carrying a member of the U.S. military.

  Colonel Patterson was not an overtly religious man, but for the first time in years he said a silent prayer: he prayed that the crew of Stormchaser 3 had survived, and that his agent aboard would soon be able to complete the top secret task she had been sworn to complete on the other side of the vortex.

  Chapter 9

  The Sea Dancer

  Captain McGregor's Pirate Ship

  Sunday Evening

  In the shadow of the Black Rock

  1699

  The Sea Dancer, the Royal Thistle and the Eagle lay at anchor in the lee of the volcano at Black Rock Island.

  Captain Rob had ordered Mr Bones to come aboard the Sea Dancer from the Thistle to inspect some men who had begun to feel out of shapes, and then, and definitely most anticipated of all, a measure of grog had been issued to all Able Bodied Seamen in his pirate fleet to celebrate the success of the day.

  Afterwards, Captain McGregor had summoned the Captains from the other ships to his cabin to drink some claret and toast the success of the day, …as well as to say a few words about the Albatross. He did not want to simply forget the loss of its crew without a word of remembrance.

  Although most other pirate captains in the Caribbean would simply accept a lost ship without so much as by or a leave, James Silver had noticed there was quite a lot about Captain Rob that was different and made him stand out from any of the other pirate captains he knew. Begrudgingly he admired the man's education and many of his mannerisms, but increasingly he was become more suspicious of the true identity of Captain Rob McGregor, and who he really was.

  As the first light of dawn crept over Puerto Bello de la Cruz earlier that morning, Captain Rob had led his men to repel the attack of Captain Kidd's men by advancing on them with progressive lines of disciplined musket fire: 'Advance....Kneel, ...raise....FIRE!' he had calmly shouted at his men in the thick of battle, guiding them in a maneuver they had practiced repeatedly on the deck of the Sea Dancer at sea.

  James Silver had watched the whole episode, and marveled at it. Yet, at the same time, he knew that this betrayed something about Captain Rob's past that he could not yet easily discern. Where had the Captain that the men loved so much learned such things? He was not like any pirate that James Silver or any of the other men knew, that much was certain.

  Silver had once questioned the Captain about his past over a glass of claret, inquiring as to whether he had ever had any military training, or spent time in His Majesty's Forces, but McGregor had denied it. It would have been simple enough to have said 'yes', and then explain his way out of it, but he had not. The truth was that many pirates had spent time in the English navy after being pressed into service and then later escaping. It was nothing to be ashamed off.

  Yet, McGregor denied it.

  There was a lot about his Captain that Silver admired, which frustrated him, because that made it harder for Silver to dislike the man, and dislike him he did.

  One day James Silver would seize his chance and take command, but until that day came, he would ensure that he learned as much from his master as he could.

  The three Captains sat around the mahogany table in the center of McGregor's room, laughing and retelling tales of the day's activities in Puerto Bello de La Cruz, and each boasting of the prizes that their men had discovered and captured, and which now lay securely in their holds.

  Each Captain had been down to study and marvel at the booty stored in each of the other's holds. Now all they could think of was making it safely back to their hidden harbor that lay amongst the islands off the southern tip of Florida, where they would resupply their ships and split the treasure! Each man in McGregor's fleet was going to be rich beyond their wildest dreams!

  They had toasted the Captain of the Albatross and his men who had been lost that day, and were just about to receive another glass of claret poured by the hand of their Captain into their goblets, when a loud peel of thunder cracked almost directly above them.

  "Ye Gods!" shouted Captain Wainright of the Thistle. "That caught me off guard!"

  "Me too," exclaimed Captain Jones of the Eagle. "I was a mind that the storm had passed. That sounded mighty like it's back, to me!"

  The men stood up and walked up the ladders to the quarterdeck where they appraised the heavens and were dismayed to discover that the storm was rolling back on top of them again, but this time looking far darker and more ominous than before.

  As they each quickly finished their goblets of claret, the first drops of rain began to land on the decks.

  Within minutes it had become a deluge, accompanied by lightning, thunder and a driving wind that scared Rob, such was the speed with which it materialized and the ferocity by which it bit.

  With swift instructions to weigh anchor and follow him around the island in search of calmer seas and deeper water, Captain Rob dismissed his Captains and sent them back to their ships.

  When they had dropped anchor several hours before, the sun had been shining, morale was high, and the future looked wonderful.

  Yet, in the space of two hours the world had become a very different place: as each second passed by, the strength of the winds continued to grow and increase, the relatively calm sea of two hours before had vanished, and in its stead soon rose tall mountainous waves whose peaks stood thirty or forty feet above the deep troughs that they left behind.

  The speed and ferocity with which the storm returned, caught them all off guard. The wind was also playing tricks on them, one moment coming in strong 100 mph gusts one moment from the north, and then the next from the west or east.

  Whereas the Sea Dancer and the Eagle had successfully made it to deep waters and away from island, the Thistle had not been so lucky.

  As it had turned and started to follow the Eagle, a train of unusually large waves had picked up the Thistle and pushed it too close to the island, where some jagged rocks hidden just beneath the surface had ripped its belly out.

  The others were powerless to help, and were not able to turn around and even consider looking for survivors.

  By thirty minutes past the seventh hour, the Royal Thistle had been lost, smashed to smithereens on the rocks and sunk with all hands, and all its treasure.

  Captain Rob McGregor watched it go down, and swore loudly.

  He had now lost two ships in less than twenty hours.

  Cursing, he realised that they had been premature in celebrating the success of the mission.

  .

  --------------------

  Sunday

  8.30 p.m.

  As the events of the next few hours transpired, Captain Rob McGregor's luck went from bad to worse. He had never known a day like it in all his life. It had started that morning with such promise and success, but then progressively turned itself into the second worst day of his life. A day of hell.

  It was as if the
ir raid on Puerto Bello de la Cruz had been an attack on the devil himself, and now Beelzebub was exacting his revenge. Slowly and painfully.

  At 8.00 p.m. Captain Rob had watched as the third ship in his fleet, the Eagle, had been capsized by a train of large waves and then sunk before his eyes, with all hands and another quarter of the treasure.

  Almost immediately afterwards, Captain Rob had heard the devil himself laughing in the stormy winds, and then the topsail of the rear mast had ripped from top to bottom leaving them wallowing hopelessly in the fiercest storm that anyone in the world had ever witnessed.

  Hailstones, lightning, and even snow started to rain down on them from above, driven by unimaginably strong winds that would have ripped any remaining sails off, had the Sea Dancer still got any on its masts.

  And just when Rob was convinced that the weather could not deteriorate any further, the storm got worse.

  Gusting winds, faster and more powerful that anything he had ever experienced before, began to rake across the ocean, and the lightning and thunder intensified until the dark night around them was almost as bright as day.

  Waves the size of mountains began to run in front of them, leaving gaping holes in their wake that the Sea Dancer fell and crashed down into, before being mercifully picked up and spat back out onto the next wave behind it.

  No longer did the Sea Dancer dance across the ocean. Instead, inside the hull of the great ship, men were bailing water with any utensil they could find, fighting with every ounce of energy they had to scoop out seawater and rain, and trying to keep their vessel afloat and stop it from joining the others from their fleet in Davey Jones' Locker.

  Hour after hour the men fought against what began to seem the inevitable and soon they tired, ...and with the tiredness and fatigue came talk of a curse.

  "It's all Captain Rob's fault. It were his idea to attack Captain Kidd and to steal his treasure. And now Captain Kidd has asked the devil himself to find and destroy us. We're doomed!"