The Valteran Ascension (A Paradox of Time Book 1)

by Mara Amberly

  Chapter 12

  December 1935 – Aboard the Equinox, Asteroid Belt, Milky Way Galaxy

  There was a bright flash as the Equinox left fifth-space and temporal energy crackled over the hull of the ship. Both Eric and Cora saw it through the view screen as the ship shuddered, even with its inertial dampeners set at maximum.

  “Is it supposed to do that?” Cora asked, her voice edgy.

  “It is,” he said, reassuring her. “It’s just like the portals back on earth, only larger and a little more complicated. We’ll be fine.”

  He thought they would be, but he wasn’t entirely sure. The Equinox was old now and time travel put stress on the hull, but the shields were holding and the ship was faring well. He still had no idea what would trigger the alien device, but it seemed safer taking it with them to dispose of, rather than leaving it on Earth for some poor bastard to stumble across.

  The lightning dissipated and the view screen image was replaced by a dark sky dotted with stars, and far closer, debris.

  They were both strapped into their seats again, but Cora leaned forward to get a closer look.

  “Are those asteroids?”

  “They are. Millions of them. Maybe even billions, if you count the small ones.”

  “Amazing.”

  She smiled at him, no doubt wrapping her mind around the immensity of it, as Eric was. “Did you just pluck that number out of the air?”

  Eric grinned, “Yeah probably. I know there are millions, but I couldn’t tell you how many. We’ll need one of the larger ones,” he explained.

  Eric scanned the area, eventually settling on the second-largest asteroid in the asteroid belt. Among humanity, it was named Vesta, after the Roman goddess of home and hearth. It was ironic considering just how far they were from home.

  “How are we going to go about this?” Cora asked him.

  “I’m setting my sights on Vesta. We can eject the device on a collision course with the surface. If that doesn’t set it off, I can fire on it. It shouldn’t do any harm out here,” he said, though he once again wondered about the timeline.

  “Should I put it in the airlock then?” Cora asked.

  “I think you should let me do it,” Eric replied. “There’s no telling what effect it’ll have on you and I’m not sure how safe it is.”

  He knew, the sooner they got it off the ship safely, the better.

  “That’s alright, I’ll stay here,” Cora told him.

  Eric nodded and pulled the ship’s speed back until it was doing little more than drifting toward Vesta.

  “Don’t touch anything. I mean that!” he said, unbuckling his straps, before leaving for the cargo bay.

  Cora eyed him curiously as he left.

  “He doesn’t want me to touch anything,” she murmured to herself, as she tapped several things randomly yet very lightly, and sunk back into her seat.

  There was a myriad of strange buttons, gauges and levers. She didn’t have a clue what most of them did, except for one she’d learned submerged the ship and caused it to rise to the surface when it was in the water. As far as she could tell, it might affect some kind of ballast.

  As she waited for Eric in the cockpit, she noticed one of the buttons began flashing red. She wondered what that could relate to. Red was bad, wasn’t it? Maybe it was just meant to get the pilot’s attention. It was the colour of blood and very expensive dye, or it had been in her own day. She’d been pleasantly surprised when she and Eric went shopping in Salisbury and found some hard-to-get items there.

  The light stopped flashing and she wondered if it related to something Eric was doing. He arrived back less than a minute later.

  “Did you touch anything?” he asked as he climbed back into his seat, leaving the strap off.

  “You mean like that flashing red button?” Cora asked, wondering what he’d make of it.

  “Yes, like that and you didn’t press it, did you?”

  “No,” she replied. “Should I have?”

  “Oh no, absolutely not,” Eric exclaimed. “We’d be dead if you had.”

  “What?” she asked, shocked. “Oh, you’re joking aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  Cora shook her head slightly and turned back to the view screen.

  There were words for men who acted like that; words that she, as a lady, chose not to use.

  Eric chuckled, but he soon caught on that Cora didn’t share the joke.

  “I need to get the ship into position now before we vent the airlock.”

  Eric re-calculated the trajectory and very carefully steered the ship until it sat at the correct coordinates. It took them around half an hour until they were ready to proceed.

  “This button here opens the airlock,” Eric explained. “When you see the red light lit like it was earlier, it means the door is open between the airlock and the ship. We need that sealed because the last thing we want is to vent the ship’s atmosphere.”

  Cora nodded. “I understand.”

  She also understood better now what would happen if the ship’s atmosphere was vented to space.

  “There are safety mechanisms in place to lock down the inner airlock door in the event of a breach, but if you’re pressing those buttons, take care. This ship’s old and full of surprises.”

  “I’m not going to do anything foolish Eric; not if I can help it.”

  “Alright,” Eric said. “I’m releasing an observation probe… now.”

  It was just a small camera that would transmit a closer view of the impact.

  “I’m releasing the alien object: 3… 2… 1.”

  He opened the airlock, and when a blue light flashed on the console, he knew the object was away.

  “Thirty seconds to the target area,” he said, his voice concealing his nervousness. “I’m sealing the hatch.”

  He had no idea how big the explosion would be or if there would be one at all. He fired up the engines; the ship’s speed building as he roughly retraced his route.

  “If nothing happens, we can always come back.”

  It was all the explanation he needed and all he had time for, as he maxed out the ship’s speed. He could have activated a time jump, but it would be the same sort of reckless decision that led to his ship’s fracturing of space-time on Earth.

  Cora was watching the countdown and the camera feed. She might not have been an expert at her letters, she knew her numbers fairly well.

  “Three seconds, Eric. Two. One!”

  She waited and breathed in sharply. “I see a speck of light.”

  Eric turned back to the screen, frowning with concern. “That speck of light is growing fast.”

  The speck blossomed into a larger explosion. At first, it seemed almost like a flower on the surface of Vesta, and then it consumed the whole asteroid and kept on going.

  Eric quickly re-routed power from the heating system, but not so much they’d freeze to death. The extra power drove the ship’s speed past its usual maximum.

  Cora rushed back to her seat as she watched the whole view screen consumed by fire, and then the probe’s feed disappeared.

  “Eric, we need to get away from it,” she said, her hands shaking. “Fly faster.”

  “I’m flying as fast as I can, Cora,” he exclaimed.

  He channelled more energy from life support to engines, cutting off the air supply to the cargo bay. He could always reinstate that later, and in any case, the air in that compartment wasn’t going anywhere as long as the hull remained intact.

  He was angry at himself because he could’ve vented the artefact from a safer distance. He just didn’t expect it to be that bad!

  “Can we get a view of what’s behind us?” Cora asked, looking around her at the controls she didn’t know how to use.

  It only took Eric a moment to bring it up on the screen. The explosion was massive and it was on their heels.

  “It’s about twenty seconds behind us. The further we get, the weaker the blast wave wi
ll be when it hits us.”

  “What do you mean when? What about if, Eric?” she gasped.

  Smaller asteroids clattered off the ship’s shields, but Eric didn’t want to take the time to dodge them. Given the choice between weakening the shields and slowing down, he’d choose to gain some ground from the explosion.

  “I don’t want to die,” Cora whimpered.

  “We’re not going to die,” Eric said. “Not for a very long time.”

  It occurred to him that if he was wrong about that, she probably wouldn’t be able to hold him accountable.

  “I think if we were at the right angle when the blast wave hits us; if it does,” she said, glancing at Eric, “we ought to be able to minimise the damage. I can’t say I know much about ships such as yours – or any ships for that matter – but it makes sense.”

  “Smart girl,” Eric said, nodding. He would bear that in mind when the wave hit.

  “The shields have dropped to fifty percent,” he told her.

  Cora merely nodded, and she had questions, but now wasn’t the time to ask them. She strapped herself into her seat.

  “That explosion is huge,” Eric said, shaking his head. He was glad now that he hadn’t left the artefact on Earth. If the group who’d possessed it had more time to fiddle with it, they could’ve wrought massive devastation. Now he really wanted to know where they’d got it from.

  Earth had been there in his time, so perhaps if he hadn’t found it, the device would still be hidden somewhere on Earth like a ticking time bomb. If it absorbed enough energy, it could’ve become a planet killer. He decided to investigate when it was all over, provided he and Cora made it out of their predicament unscathed. And if he ever needed a giant bomb for any reason, he knew where to go back in time to get one.

  “The wave’s going to hit us. 3…”

  Eric strapped into his seat and prepared himself.

  “2… 1!”

  The ship turned at the last second, so its hull would suffer less stress from the oncoming wave. It lurched as it was hit by the wave, shoving Eric and Cora forward in their seats, even with the inertial dampeners at maximum. If they hadn’t had them, he and Cora would likely be nothing more than stains on the wall by now. He decided not to tell her because he didn’t want to spoil her perception of space flight any more than he already had.

  The ship creaked as though the hull was being bent by the wave’s force, and lights flashed all over the cockpit’s controls.

  Cora screamed, but there was nothing she could do.

  Eric dialled back the engines. There was no point moving faster now than they needed to. They were caught in the wave and it would be better to surf it until it crashed out, so long as there weren’t any large objects in the way.

  The shield was so overtaxed by the force of the wave that its protection was dropping like a stone. As the percentage fell through the twenties, he hoped and prayed they’d escape the blast before the shields collapsed.

  “C’mon girl,” he urged. “You’ve survived hundreds of years on Earth. You can’t give up now. Not when we’re almost home,” he said.

  The ship had no means to influence the wave, but it was as if someone ‘up there’ listened, and the wave diminished and dissolved, just as the shield capacity reached 2%.

  “Oh, that was close,” Eric groaned, as he turned to Cora. “See, I was sure it would be fine.”

  There was a single, loud crash as though something of size collided with the ship.

  Eric saw the shield capacity drop down to 1% and hang there.

  That was when he powered up the engines and got the hell out of there.

  Eric had the shields back up to 65% by the time they returned to Earth. The current year was 1935 as he’d jumped them ahead in time before arriving at Vesta. It was still way too early to warn the people at the Shenalon Antarctic Base about the change befalling Valtera. The last thing he wanted was an armed task force waiting for him or attempting to change his timeline because he’d given away his plans.

  He still had a few rifts to seal, not to mention some places to return to as he’d promised himself, but the future should be safer and more stable now. He could venture somewhat ahead, and he decided to risk it. Sooner or later he’d have no choice but to visit Shenalon Base. If he was going to wire in a replacement drive core in the past to save his ship in its earlier time frame, he’d need the part first, because in his current time it was already spoken for. He was using it to power the ship.

  “That’s Earth from high above?” Cora asked as she lingered by the view screen. “I didn’t get a good look at it before when we were leaving. It’s beautiful.”

  It looked so much like an intricately-carved marble, somehow.

  “That’s Earth,” he confirmed. “About two hundred years into your future now. It looks a lot like that in the time you came from.”

  “Such a long time,” Cora replied, as she watched the view of the world below.

  So close and yet so far away.

  “It is, but we can go back when we need to. We should be careful, though. If we change the past, we might change the future.”

  “I’m not sure anyone should have that power,” Cora said, “and yet I’m glad you’re here and showing it to me. The rifts need to be closed.”

  Eric nodded. “They do, but first I’m going to take you to my people’s base in the Antarctic. They’re not expecting me, so I can’t count on a warm reception, but they should be accepting of it.”

  “Should?” Cora asked, wondering how accepting.

  “I doubt they’ll fire on us,” he replied with a lopsided grin.

  Cora grinned back, more confident than before.

  “There is something I would like to ask of you, Eric. It has occurred to me that I would like to learn to fly the ship. I know I wouldn’t learn overnight, but a time might come when you need someone who can. The more I can do, the more valuable I am to you, and the more I can help,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “I’ve been thinking about that too,” he admitted. “Ships aren’t supposed to be flown by anyone other than authorised pilots, which I am despite appearances. I could get in a lot of trouble if I let you fly it…”

  “It’s my understanding you’re in a lot of trouble already?” Cora asked.

  “I was getting to that,” he said. “Since I’m trying to save my world, I’m not going to let the rules get in the way of a goal like that if I decide to do something.”

  “And have you decided?” she asked with a hopeful smile.

  He shrugged but kept his smile to himself. “Not yet, but I’m considering it.”

  “As far as I understand it, you could use all the help you can get. If you got shot, who would fly the ship then? It seems like good sense to me.”

  “You make a good point. I’ll show you some things,” he replied and was thanked with a squeal from Cora.

  “I’m going to take us ahead in time another two-hundred years. You should get strapped in. I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen.”

  “What’s the future like that far ahead?” she asked. “The only thing I know to expect is ice and snow in Antarctica.”

  “I wish I could tell you it was beautiful, but the pollution on much of the Earth got out of hand. I suppose there will always be lovely places.”

  It was risky jumping that far ahead, but his instincts told him now was the time.

  The Equinox safely exited the time portal and took up a geosynchronous orbit over Antarctica. Eric had approached that jump with a thousand fears; as many or more for Cora than himself, and he was beyond relieved that they’d survived and the ship had made it through intact. They hadn’t encountered any problems, which exceeded his hopes when he undertook the journey.

  Eric started their descent, guiding the Equinox down towards the base at Earth’s southern pole. So much of the ice had melted compared to a hundred years before and underwater settlements were a new rage. The rich always sought out the more pristine o
f environments and transport no longer took as much time as it once had. Life had changed and yet in a thousand ways, it was still the same. Humans were still human after all and wanted many of the same things.

  Shenalon Base blended in with the environment so well that his people had long-maintained the secrecy of its presence. No ships came or went directly from the base. Eric followed the beacon to the cloaked landing area in the shadow of a mountainous peak on a large glacier.

  “I don’t see anything,” Cora admitted, as neither the view screen nor the view outside the window showed signs of their destination.

  “Believe me, it’s there,” Eric said, as he overlaid a grid with energy readings on the view screen.

  Cora’s eyes widened as she absorbed the new information.

  “Come in Shenalon Base,” Eric called over the comms.

  He used a secure military frequency, as he knew they wouldn’t be as detectable by other parties. Even after several attempts and alternative frequencies, there was no response.

  Eric brought the ship down toward the glacier; when it got close to the ground, they passed through the cloak and found a large runway with a docking area. His ship didn’t need much of the runway, so they set down close to the docks and he glided her into the bay. It was like a large, open hangar; one of a dozen or more.

  There was no air traffic control, only the computer allocated signal for the hangar. That was different because Eric remembered someone directing him to the bay during his last visit. Perhaps it was no longer necessary or the chosen approach if they could be detected by the infrastructure on the planet.

  Cora was the first to climb from her seat.

  “What are you doing?” Eric asked as he unstrapped himself from his seat.

  “Coming with you,” she replied, “in case you have any ideas about me staying behind.”

  “I’m not sure it’s safe,” he explained. “The people here might be displeased with me.”

  “It never is,” she replied wistfully. “Something tells me I need to come with you.”