A Gulf in Time

by Chris Kennedy

  “But you don’t know that,” Captain Sheppard said.

  “No, we do not…but even I find it unlikely so many of our people would be totally wrong.”

  “Well, then, keep her here,” Captain Sheppard replied. “We’ve been through worse. We’ll get through this, too.”

  “We wanted to,” Thorion replied. “And, all things being equal, we would have.”

  “But?” Calvin asked.

  “But it is not their choice to make,” Trixie said, lifting her head. “If this is to be my fate, then I will accept it. What is the life of one dragon compared with the salvation of an entire galaxy?”

  “So if you come, we’ll be successful?” Calvin asked. Even he could hear the hope in his voice.

  “No, that is not it at all,” Bordraab said. “If she goes, it is still unlikely you will be successful. Most of our forecasts show that even if she goes, your galaxy will still die. That is why we do not want her to go—we do not want her to throw her life away on something that is unlikely to be successful.”

  “But as I already said, it is not their choice to make.” Trixie stared at her mother for a moment and then added, “I am over the age of consent.”

  Thorion snorted, and what looked like smoke came out of his nostrils. “Barely. Yes, you are more than a century old, but you are still young and nowhere near as smart as you think you are.”

  “That much I understand,” Captain Sheppard said. “Some things are common across races.”

  “I thought you were on a short timeline,” Trixie said, looking at the CO. “Should we not be leaving, rather than discussing me like I am not standing in your midst?”

  “Indeed we should,” Captain Sheppard said. “Thank you very much for your assistance and allowing your daughter to come with us—”

  “As if they had a choice,” Trixie muttered.

  “—and with your permission, we’ll be on our way.” He bowed to the older dragons.

  “Safe journeys,” Thorion replied, and the humans turned and walked toward their ship. They stopped a respectful distance away to wait for Trixie, giving the family a few moments to say their goodbyes in private.

  After a few moments of nuzzling, Trixie followed them, giving every impression of someone who was walking toward her doom. Trixie caught up with them, then looked over her shoulder once and gave a very human sniff.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Calvin said. “We’ll find a way without you.”

  “No, you will not,” Trixie said. “And besides, there is more I did not tell them.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They were so busy doing divinations on your society, no one thought to look at ours. What they do not know is, if you are not successful, our civilization dies, too.”

  “What? How?”

  “I do not know,” Trixie replied. “But there are a lot of people in your universe who know about mine. Do you think it is possible, out of all those people, not a single one would offer to sell out our universe—to tell your Enemy that we exist—in an effort to save their own lives? Or maybe those of their family?”

  Calvin sighed. “Yeah, I can imagine there are people who would. Perhaps not in the Mrowry or in the Archon societies, but I’m sure there’d be some humans who would.”

  “And if even one did so…”

  “The Enemy would find your universe and kill you all, too.”

  “Exactly. So even if I do not go…”

  “You’ll still die in the end, along with the rest of your society.”

  “Exactly.” She sniffed again. “At least this way, I get to die a hero.”

  “Who knows?” Calvin said, giving the young dragon a smile, “maybe we’ll figure all this out and get you home again, safe and sound.”

  “That would be nice,” Trixie said. “Unfortunately, if there is one thing I know, it is that my returning home is not going to happen. I will never make it back here again.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Six

  CO’s Conference Room, TSS Vella Gulf, Kakatcha System

  “I’m glad you’re back!” Lieutenant Bradford said. “The dragon in the shuttle bay is going to make it a lot harder to do simulations, but she seems nice enough. I enjoyed talking to her mom, so I’m guessing she’ll be nice, too.”

  “Is there a reason you wanted us to get together here before we left the system?” the CO asked.

  “Oops! Yes, sir, there is. I wanted to talk to you about the time machine.”

  “The time machine?” the CO asked. “That’s what we’re calling it now?”

  “Well, we had to call it something,” Bradford said, looking hurt. “And, honestly, that’s what it is—a device to take us back in time. It got really hard trying to talk about it without having a name—”

  “Time machine is fine,” Captain Sheppard interrupted. “Do you think you’re going to get it to work?”

  “Yes, sir. The other engineers and I are at least 60% certain we could get it to work if we had the right things.”

  “There’s two things I don’t like about that sentence.”

  “Let me guess. You would like a higher percentage?”

  “Yes, I would. Pretend my life—and all the lives in this galaxy—”

  “And my galaxy!” added Trixie, who was watching by video chat. The crew—with the CO’s permission—had kept the audio and video links her mother had to the bridge in place for her.

  “—and the lives of two galaxies,” the CO amended, “are depending on you getting this time machine of yours to work. If it doesn’t, we’re all going to die. Sixty percent is not what I would call overwhelmingly favorable.”

  “Well, no sir, it’s not, but that’s the going rate between the engineers. Personally, I give it at least an 85% chance we’re going to go some-when, but not everyone is as optimistic as I am. One of our engineers says there’s no way at all the thing can work. For that matter, he doesn’t believe the missiles actually do what we say they do.”

  “Really? Have you shown him the tapes of the weapons working?”

  “Yes, but he thinks there’s something else at play there—perhaps a mini black hole is generated which just transports you to somewhere else and back. If he’s right, and we’re not actually dealing with a time-based weapon, then he’s correct that our plan won’t work.”

  “Is he?”

  “I don’t think so, sir.” Bradford shrugged. “Most of the other engineers think he’s wrong, too, but it is possible. We haven’t been able to feed the…well, I’m still going to call them the time-generating motors, enough power to get them to make a big enough difference that we can say for sure whether it’s a time-based effect or not. I’m pretty sure it is, though.”

  “And you can calibrate it enough to get us to the right time?”

  “To be honest, I have no idea how close we’ll get. Without experimenting, I can’t say for sure if the energy required is a straight-line function of the amount of time to be traveled, or whether there are energy savings the further back you want to go. Or if more energy is required, either. I just don’t know. I also don’t know whether the amount of material affects the amount of energy required. We’re going to make some guesses and do our best.”

  Captain Sheppard nodded. “The other thing I didn’t like was that you made it sound like you don’t have what you need to make the device functional.”

  “That’s true,” Bradford replied. “We’re missing a number of things we’ll need to make the system work. First and foremost, we’re going to need a receiver the Sila can direct the energy into. It has to be able to accept their stream without melting or blowing up. Melting would probably be the worst thing, because then the energy beam would cut through the ship like a knife.”

  “We don’t want that,” the CO said. “My tasking to you was to take the whole ship back in time, not to cut it into pieces.”

  Bradford smiled. “Yes, sir, I know. Building the dish shouldn’t be that difficult, nor should mountin
g it to the hull or wiring it into the system. We’ll need higher capacity wires—and everything else, of course—but we can make those in the replicator enroute. We’ll also need higher capacity capacitors and—”

  “Okay,” the CO interrupted. “You’re going to need access to the replicator and a lot of supplies to build stuff. I don’t need to know what all of it is right now; I just need to know if you can do it. Can you?”

  “Well, some of the things will be difficult, but nothing is impossible, at least as far as our universe’s tech goes. We have everything we need. What we don’t have is more of the Jinn Universe wiring to separate the module far enough that we can get the area of effect to encompass the entire ship. As it is now, we are a little short, and we’re guessing—unless we get more cabling—we’re going to leave about 15 feet of ship behind.”

  “Is that the bow or stern…or both?” Sheppard asked.

  “Whatever you want it to be,” Bradford replied. “Right now, based on where it’s placed, that’s 15 feet of bow, since I thought it would be important to have the motors with us. We could move the device forward, but then we’d leave behind a large chunk of motors.”

  “We definitely need the motors.” Bradford nodded. “So what’s your plan?”

  “Well, Option A is to weld everything shut at Frame 20, and then when we jump, we’ll just leave everything forward of it behind. It will, however, result in the loss of our chase armaments, it’ll cause some issues with our shields, and there’ll be some other, less important, issues.”

  “Okay, I don’t like that,” Sheppard said. “What’s Option B?”

  “We find some more wiring. With about 25 feet of cabling, I can make sure we have adequate coverage the length of the ship.”

  “I like Option B a lot better.” Sheppard looked up at the view screen. “Trixie, does your society have the cabling he needs?”

  “No, Captain Sheppard, I’m afraid we do not. Your Lieutenant Bradford showed me what he needed, but we do not have refined metal like that.”

  “So, Calvin,” the CO asked, his eyes running down the table, “where are we going to get it?”

  “It’ll have to be from the Sila civilization in the anti-Mrowry system. We have to go there anyway to get the power we need, and it’s obvious they have wiring; they have to, in order to transmit the power from place to place. My advice would be to go there, play nicely with them so we can get the wire we need, and then make the jump.”

  “I expect they’ll have the wiring we need,” Bradford said, “although I don’t think we can take it as a given they will. There are other methods of power transmission that don’t involve wires, and maybe the aliens use something else instead, like how they beam it to the surface of the planet.”

  Calvin frowned. “Are you saying they send a high intensity laser power beam from house to house?”

  “Well, no, that wouldn’t work very well, either, and would be somewhat dangerous,” Bradford said. “Still, we have to acknowledge the fact that there may be alternate transmission systems we are unaware of.”

  “Understood.” The CO nodded. “Hopefully they’ll have some wire, and they’ll share it with us.”

  “And if they don’t want to share?” Calvin asked.

  “Then you’re going to have to go and take it from them.”

  * * *

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Grrrnow Orbit, 61 Virginis

  The rest of the trip to Grrnow went smoothly, although tensions were high.

  “Holy…” the DSO muttered upon entering the system.

  “Could you be a little more specific, DSO?” the CO asked.

  “It looks like the Mrowry intend to make their stand here,” Steropes said from the science position. “They’ve amassed an impressive fleet, and it looks like they’ve completely converted all their economy to war. In addition to the ships, there are a number of defensive platforms they’ve built, as well as asteroids that have been towed into orbit that they’re placing missiles on.”

  “It won’t make any difference,” Calvin said.

  “No, it won’t,” agreed the CO. “However, when you’re faced with the end of your civilization, some races will do everything they can to avoid it. We certainly would. Sure, there’d be some people who’d want to roll over and die, and who would just accept it—but you and I would do anything we could to prevent it.”

  Calvin nodded. “I’m sure we would. Even if it included jumping fifty-seven thousand years into the past.”

  The CO smiled. “I’m sure we’d try.”

  “We’re being hailed by Emperor Yazhak,” the comms officer reported.

  “On screen,” the CO ordered.

  “We were starting to wonder if you would make it back in time,” Emperor Yazhak said when he appeared. “You didn’t tell me when the exact date of the Enemy’s return was, but I knew it had to be getting close.”

  “We’re supposed to have two more days,” the CO said. “Which is good, because we still have a couple of preparations we need to make, including finalizing the deal with the Sila to use their power beam. Hopefully we can get them to give us some additional cabling, as we don’t have enough to run our jump modules and the time machine.”

  “Time machine, eh? That’s what you’re calling it now?”

  “Yeah, it’s the stuff of a bad science fiction novel, I know, but—like a lot of what started as science fiction—it isn’t fiction anymore.”

  “So you’ll be going to the Jinn Universe?”

  “Yes, we’d like to get that set up as soon as possible.”

  “I understand. If you have time, though, I would love it if you would take a look at our defensive posture and see if there’s anything we’re missing or anything you think would be more beneficial to fighting the Enemy when they come.”

  “I’d be glad to take a look.”

  The emperor’s shoulders slumped. “I can tell by your tone of voice you don’t think it will make any difference.”

  “I’m sorry, Brother, but I don’t know if there’s anything that’ll make a difference.” The CO sighed. “Still, hopefully they won’t get here for a while, and you’ll have more time to build up. It’s possible you may be able to stop them.”

  “It would be helpful if we at least knew which direction they were coming from, so we could mass the Allied forces. As it is, neither the Aesir, the humans, nor the Archons want to send any of their ships to any of the other races’ worlds, because they’re more worried about defending their own worlds.”

  “As are you, I’m sure. Your commitment is to your people, not to the people of Earth.”

  “True, but I would send every ship I had—every single one—to Earth if I knew that was where they were going to strike first.”

  “And I’d come here with every ship I could get a hold of if I knew the Enemy would strike here first.”

  “But we don’t know, which complicates things.”

  The CO nodded. “So we do the best we can.” He paused, then added, “We’ll go as quickly as we can in the other universe, so I can spend some time reviewing your troops and positioning.”

  “Thank you, Brother,” Yazhak replied. “Even if you do nothing, just seeing you going over the plans will boost my people’s morale.”

  “Then I’ll—”

  “Contact!” yelled the DSO. “It’s the Enemy! They’re here!”

  “What?” the CO exclaimed. “It’s not time!”

  “He’s right,” Steropes said. “The Enemy ship is here. It’s coming in from out-system.”

  The picture on the screen changed to reveal the Enemy leader with his glowing yellow pupil-less eyes. “Greetings!” he said. “Are your affairs in order, mortals, or have you decided to be my agents?”

  “We haven’t decided anything,” the CO said. “We still have two days to decide.”

  “I changed my mind,” the Enemy said with a shrug. “I can wait no longer. The time for your choice is now. What say you? Will you be my agents, or will y
ou be the first to be consumed?”

  “Helmsman, flank speed to join the fleet.”

  “Yes! Scamper!” the Enemy said with a chuckle. “Run! I do so love it when my prey gets all flustered. It raises their energy state and makes them so much more fun to consume. We will be there in 35 of your minutes, and then I will have your decision. Or your lives—it matters not to me.”

  The speakers screeched. “I am…” Solomon said, “being penetrated.”

  “You know,” Captain Sheppard said, “I’m getting damn tired of your taunts.”

  “Oooh, I think I just felt a pulse of fear in my stomach,” the alien said. “No, never mind, it was just a hunger pain. Which I think I will slake by eating you first, mortal.”

  “Attack…continues,” Solomon said. “Losing…system…integrity.”

  The CO glared at the view screen. “You know what?” he asked. “I only have two things to say to you.” He held up one hand with the middle finger extended. “The first is, ‘Fuck you!’”

  The Enemy smiled. “So brave. I look forward to that bravery turning to fear and pain when I consume you. And what is your second thing?”

  “I’ll be back!” He looked at the overhead. “Solomon, Jinn Universe, go!”

  Everything flashed, and the ship disappeared.

  * * *

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Anti-61 Virginis

  “Stable in the Anti-61 Virginis system,” the helmsman reported.

  “No drones,” the CO said. “There isn’t time. Solomon, are you okay?”

  “Rebuilding. Systems were not…totally breached…this time. Full reboot…not necessary.”

  “Good, as soon as you’re operational, see if you can find the caliph.” He switched to his comm. “Bradford, we’ve got—” he looked at the timer, “—thirty minutes to jump before the Enemy starts pounding on the Mrowry. We need to be gone by then.”

  “Well, we’re almost set with all the cable runs, and the receiver dish is mounted and ready to receive; our only issue is with the Jinn Universe cabling. Did the Sila give us the wire we need?”