The Time Ender

by Debra Chapoton

  I SPACED OUT then, literally and figuratively. Maybe it was an aftereffect from the pechan poison, but I had a vision. Not an entirely new one. Very déjà vu. I saw myself back on Earth, tripping off the school bus and falling to my knees. Clear as glass. I spotted individual snowflakes drifting down and melting into the slush that seeped between my fingers. I sensed three pea-sized pebbles between my left knee and the wet concrete of my driveway. The scent of diesel exhaust tempered the cold air. Then I left that planet and instantly became an observer on another. I saw Coreg and Marcum on Klaqin, clearly running along an oily floor in a super large hangar. They entered separate ships—I recognized them as the Galaxer, bulky and bi-colored, and the Intimidator, sleek and powerful and of a single color to match the bluest heaven—and then they flew to Earth to find me. I heard their clamoring dialogue, understood Marcum’s oath, felt the jolt of disconnecting ships.

  Why I was having this distinct and vibrant vision was inexplicable. Maybe I was having one of my episodes and this time, because I was on Klaqin, or rather above it, I could go deeper into the parapsychology of it.

  The ships veered off in different directions and the vision ended like a movie: cue the black screen. A new show began: I experienced Marcum’s search for me on Earth as if I were him! I stood in his Klaqin flight boots and shivered in the November wind. I looked into my own house from the darkened backyard, icy snow softly pinging my scalp, but it was Marcum’s scalp, not mine. I sensed his fearless strength and calm curiosity as he watched me. I saw myself move with proficient confidence toward the sliding glass door. I knew, through his perception, that my physical strength appeared astounding to him. But seen in this strange view, I recognized that in opening the door to him I had stepped out of my comfort zone. What seemed a compassionate, though out of character, moment had been a reaction to his nearness. In this reliving of the past I felt his body quivering. I knew his heart rate increased.

  I was quite aware of his yearning. For me. There was an invisible yet palpable connection in that cold, dark instant before I yelled to him to come inside. I discerned the bond between us—knew it in my heart.

  Another end of scene blackout.

  Then a quick scene: our kiss from his point of view. Too weird. My heart and head and soul tumbled violently around the gentle kiss. I was him. I was me. I was us. Time stretched. Time stopped. It was no time at all.

  The vision ended and I opened my eyes—didn’t know I’d closed them—and saw everyone’s odd looks. Holy crap, I was on the Fighter Five with several sets of eyes frowning at me. My lips were puckered and my head was tilted. Alex had released my hand and both my arms were floating as if I were hugging an invisible suitor.

  Double crap … so embarrassed.

  Humiliated on two planets now.

  I pulled my arms to my sides and nodded my head so my hair would drift forward and cover my face.

  Alex sneaked his hand over mine and hummed three notes. Then, because he’s the best friend ever, he said, “There, did you guys get that? Selina’s acting that out ’cause she doesn’t know all the Klaqin words yet. She means, uh, she’s trying to propose a solution. Like, uh, we should embrace this situation, kiss up to the enemy and, uh, you know, meet with them.”

  Best save ever. I love this guy. If only he could dispel the lingering effect of that remembered kiss … oh, that would make my present anxiety less … anxious. I nodded my head in vigorous agreement and sneaked a glance at Marcum.

  My heart fluttered.

  Whoa.

  Cue the curtain. Right now.

  Marcum lifted his boot from the divot and stomped it back, turning his face away. Did I catch a smirk?

  We flew in silence to what Makril whispered were the Edges. During the flight I reviewed every event I’d had on this awful planet trying to shake the force of those visions. “Hey,” I finally said, “am I still sold to the Gleezhians?”

  Marcum scanned the girls’ faces before nodding slightly. Renzen’s eyes widened and it looked like she had something to say, but she kept quiet.

  “You know,” I said, growing bolder, “you promised to hide me away and keep me safe. I’ve been anything but safe.” What I wanted to ask was whose side was he on?

  “I am sooo sorry.” He said “so” like it was “sue” and that reminded me of the accent he had when we first met. Seemed like a century ago.

  “You were supposed to fight first and then come get me. What happened?”

  Marcum’s expression drooped. It looked pathetic as he confessed, “Not a single plan I’ve had has gone right. Not one.” His eyes darted to each of us and then back to the screen. “You’d probably be safer with Coreg, but I can’t bring myself to trust him. He’ll find a way to get out of the farming region and probably meet us at the worst battle, knowing him.” He paused and brought the ship to the ground. A perfect and smooth landing. My stomach unknotted.

  “It’ll be cold here,” he said. His casual comment made my throat clamp shut with a sudden unexpectedness. Out of nowhere I felt the cold, crisp November air of my neighborhood woods where Marcum’s ship had been parked. I swear I smelled the scent of winter approaching. The vivid memory blossomed into a tremendous longing for home, so powerful that I felt the ghost of my pathetic existence in that less hostile world—social faux paus and homework and seizures—and I actually thought for a moment that if I squeezed my eyes tightly enough I’d open them to the language lab or the desk in my room or even a resurrected snowy tree fort in the woods.

  “Cold,” I muttered, trying to ground myself back into this reality, stomach knots and all.

  The girls filed out and Alex and I were left alone with Marcum for a moment. Frosty air was rushing in, but I had more to say. “Did you get things figured out? You told me, when we were on the Intimidator, that you’d come get me when you’d worked out a few things. Well?”

  “Yes, we will find two Gleezhian ships hidden here. But with the contingent of Earth ships, a thousand, we don’t need to use them as I’d planned.” He looked down at Coreg’s boots. I did too.

  “Because we don’t have Coreg, right?” Alex said. “But I can still fly one of them, you the other. Maybe we don’t need a pacer on both ships. They can link together, right? I can pace them both.”

  “Maybe,” Marcum said, “but the Earth ships won’t know an enemy ship from a friendly one.” He jumped out and we followed.

  The girls had located one of the ships and were brushing snow off the side hunting for the entrance. Marcum helped them and when they got it open he stopped time again. The cold didn’t bother us then and he was able to teach all of us, even me, how to fly a Gleezhian starship. After we found the second ship he assigned two girls, ones I didn’t know, to remain with each ship and wait for his orders. Evidently he was going ahead with his plan regardless of the drawbacks. I was pretty impressed that the two girls obeyed him and stayed behind alone.

  “Okay,” Marcum said, once we were airborne again, “time to do your thing, Alex. Pace us toward the second moon. We’ll rendezvous with Nate and work out an alternate plan. Your dad probably has a better one than mine.”

  I was super excited that I would see faces from home. I sat on my hands to keep reminding myself not to work against Alex’s pacing.

  ***

  AT LEAST FIFTY ships flew in a disorderly pattern. Selina and Alex recognized that such a formation made it next to impossible for an enemy to use the sort of attack procedure Alex had been so successful at in his first Gleezhian encounter. His father had witnessed that attack and apparently learned from his son. He now applied this necessary defensive arrangement as he led the Earth contingent toward Klaqin’s second moon.

  “Hover and link with the first ship,” Marcum commanded. He spoke into his thumb ring to commence recording his six hundred sixty eighth entry.

  “Hope this works. Maybe Selina should slow things down,” Alex said.

  “No need,” Marcum started to say and he and Selina finished the s
tatement together, “the bio-metals are brothers.” He smiled at Selina as they spoke the same words at the same time. She dropped her eyes and mumbled a phrase he didn’t know.

  The procedure to secure the Earth vessel to the Fighter Five went more smoothly than Alex expected. He was first to greet his father when Nate climbed through and stood in the limited space, nodding to Selina and Marcum and raising his eyebrows at the remaining Klaqin females on board. His greeting with Marcum barely included eye contact before Marcum slipped past him to slide into the other ship.

  “Mr. Rimmon, is my dad with you?” Selina kept an eye on the linking tunnel behind him.

  “Not on my ship, but he and your mom and Buddy are on the last transport.”

  “And Alex’s mom?”

  Nate took a small step toward Alex. “Sorry, son, your mother decided to stay behind. She was too frightened.”

  “I understand.”

  Marcum returned, clucked his tongue and took the conversation into Klaqin so all on board would understand. “Sir, the latching will hold. It is good to see you. I am sorry for stealing the Fighter Five, but it was fortunate I came ahead. I rescued Alex and Selina, discovered the rebellion plans, trained a host of competent females, and honed my skill of space specific time stoppages.”

  “It’s all right. We’re just sorry it took us nearly two years to catch up to you.”

  “Two years? And that’s after the eight months Marcum lived there?” Selina’s eyes went round. It was incomprehensible that she had seen Marcum and her family a few days ago and yet so much time had passed on Earth. She turned to Alex and whispered, “We’d be part way through college by now.”

  Alex bent closer and made a face at her. “Maybe we’ve discovered the fountain of youth. If only we could bottle it.”

  Nate nodded toward the screen. “Well, Marcum, maybe you better apply that time stopping now. It looks like we have the attention of a slew of Parallaxers and a host of Gleezhians. Both sides will think our ships, our Liberators, are the enemy.”

  All eyes fixed on the upper screen where readouts indicated twenty-one Gleezhian ships one moon away and dozens of Parallaxers, small maneuverable Klaqin fighter ships, ascending from the planet and heading toward them. Things were aiming to get ugly.

  “Alex,” Marcum shouted, “pace! I’ll take us to the optimum coordinates and contact our Special Commanders. Nate, you get back into your ship. We’ll stay connected.”

  A stream of freezer charges immobilized several of the Liberators that had escorted Nate’s ship. The remaining inexperienced Earth corps fought back against both Gleezhians and Klaqins. Those not annihilated aimed indiscriminately before Marcum effected an escape for the Fighter Five and its latching. The fight that ensued was devastating for all sides.

  Then more than nine hundred Liberators made their appearance.

  ***

  WITH HIS EARS red and twitching, Marcum hollered at Alex and me to pace and bend alternately while he and Renzen manned the weaponry. It was awesome and at the same time it wasn’t. The feel of the whole thing was surreal and knowing that my mom and Buddy would enter the battle when their ship reached this area had me frightened down to my toenails. I knew we were scoring better than the Gleezhians, but a lot of Parallaxers and Liberators kept disappearing and that meant lives lost, but I couldn’t think about that now.

  When the two Gleezhian ships that came up from the Klaqin Edges flew at our side I thought Marcum was an idiot for allowing the brave girls to fly enemy ships. They probably looked like they were attacking us. The poor girls were vaporized before he could give a quick explanation in English over the comm. More dreadful things to blank out.

  I gritted my teeth and pushed all thoughts of peace and love out of my mind. I grunted out hashtags with words like revenge, payback and retaliation. Die you monstrous Gleezhians! I took my turn at manipulating time down to its slowest rhythm so Marcum and Renzen could take careful aim. She had the control seat while he did his weapon releases from the standing pilot position. I watched a bead of sweat meander down Renzen’s temple and cheek and follow the line of her jaw before sliding straight down her neck. It met the fabric of her uniform and darkened the material. The bio-material drank it in and the color returned to normal. But not Renzen’s face; its attractive blue tone had lightened to icy white and remained that way as she readied several shots.

  Marcum looked to her and when she nodded back I released my bending and let Alex take over. The pacing came at us in a rush, quite exhilarating, and Marcum and Renzen got off a series of remarkably well-aimed freezer charges, lasers and high voltage rockets

  Both screens recorded their successes in colorful sequence.

  Marcum piloted us out toward the next set of incoming fighter ships and as soon as we were within range we repeated the slow-aim-pace-shoot cycle, succeeding without taking on any electrified debris.

  When a squad of twenty-one Gleezhian ships raced in close before I could start bending time I thought we’d get hit for sure.

  And then hundreds more ships from Earth arrived. That was a turning point in the battle because the Gleezhians retreated. Strangely, not one Parallaxer or Liberator chased after them. Marcum’s instructions were ultimately understood and the Parallaxers stopped shooting at the Earth ships which had miraculously avoided being hit by either side. When they had disappeared from our screens it hadn’t been because they were obliterated but because they had used their stealth programs.

  I heard Mr. Rimmon’s voice through the comm as he commanded the Liberators to hold off firing their micro-beams.

  We took a moment to breathe.

  The stink in the ship was overpowering. Worse than B.O. The walls of the Fighter Five oozed brown slime and Makril and the other girls mopped their sleeves against it and held back tears.

  “It’s over for now,” Marcum announced.

  A new voice came through the comm. I’d heard it before when we first entered Klaqin air space with Coreg on the Intimidator. It was First Commander Cotay, one of the more important leaders on the planet. Marcum spent several tense minutes stuttering out explanations and excuses while cringing at the terse orders he received. With my limited Klaqin vocabulary I understood that besides the Klaqin girls that were vaporized two Parallaxers had been lost with two Fourth Commanders on board.

  I really needed another moment to calm down. I stretched things out and concentrated on breathing slowly and clenching my teeth to stop them from chattering. I heard several revealing sounds during my time-bending interlude: deep clucks, slow knuckle pops, elongated inhalations and sniffles. I guess we all needed the extended time to soothe our nerves.

  ***

  WE FLEW TO the base where Marcum found us and where First Commander Cotay still was. I wasn’t too pleased. We were going in circles. Like a merry-go-round. Somebody get me off this thing.

  Since the ships were still latched together Alex slipped into the Liberator with his dad for a few minutes of catching up while we descended. The hundreds of other Earth ships circled around Klaqin and its moons, waiting for instructions. All I could think was that my mom and Buddy were up there somewhere with my dad.

  Marcum made a bumpy landing—maybe the ships were only step-brothers—and I watched both screens carefully. Commander Cotay wasn’t there to meet us and I hoped that doctor-dude that messed with my hand wouldn’t make an appearance either.

  Alex and his dad popped back in to our crowded cabin. There was a tense discussion in two languages before it was agreed that Alex would stay with us girls while Marcum and Mr. Rimmon conferred with Cotay. Before he got off the ship Marcum pressed his ring into the panel beneath the lower screen and told Renzen to assist Alex if we should need to suddenly join the Earth contingent that we left circling the second moon.

  A few minutes after they left us we all got silent and concentrated on the words that filtered through a small speaker under the lower screen. We didn’t get any visual data, but I could imagine from their conversa
tion that they were headed toward Cotay’s underground office.

  I heard Mr. Rimmon tell Marcum that he knew Cotay from his Academy days and that they didn’t get along. Alex raised his eyebrows at me and reached for my hand.

  The next thing we heard clearly were Cotay and Mr. Rimmon admitting they remembered one another.

  Something happened then. I suspect Marcum used his time-stopping because the sound was louder and their voices were raised as if he had suddenly resumed time:

  “What just happened, Marcum? How did I end up on the floor?”

  “It’s the TS theory.”

  “That crazy idea about time stopping?”

  “I can do it.”

  Suddenly Marcum and Mr. Rimmon stood in our midst. Obviously Marcum had shown him his power and then used it again to escape and here they were. I wondered what had happened during each time-stopping.

  Marcum stared a little too long at me. I got the impression he had some bad news.

  “What?”

  “I have made a deal.” Marcum paused while that sank in. Alex tensed up, the girls mimicked my frown and Mr. Rimmon stood shaking his head. “I’ve offered myself in exchange. Unfortunately Tratl, or rather Stetl-glet, the royal prince of Gleezhe, requires that I deliver you as well.”

  Cue the collective gasp.

  “No way.”

  Marcum was quick to respond. “Of course I will not allow it. I’ve left him with a promise that I’d deliver you, but I have a plan.”

  “Great,” Alex said. The fact that he was punching his fist into his palm said something else entirely. “You’re so good at plans.”

  “Alex, hear him out.” Mr. Rimmon lifted his hands, spread his fingers and moved them in slow calming waves. “Marcum lived with us quite a while. I know him pretty well. I trust him.”

  “So what’s your great plan?” Alex asked—in a much softer voice.

  “I promised him I would go to Gleezhe first, perform a planet-wide time stoppage during which they could build weapons and ships, and then they could come to Klaqin and collect Selina.”

  “That’s crazy. They can’t have her.” Alex looked toward his dad. I caught the look in his eyes and I felt super happy at his defense of me, but also super scared, because it sure didn’t sound like Marcum was on our side after all and I’d been having some awkward and strange feelings for him.