A Gulf in Time

by Chris Kennedy

  “Yes, I saw it. Happily, they are paid for out of the cartel’s funds, not my own, and this defeat will not go on my record, but on the records of the individual commanding officers. You can let their ships continue on into the abyss, if you want.”

  “What?” the CO asked. “They mean so little to you that you wouldn’t even try to rescue them?”

  “They are not my greegeekos, and this is not my rudgarst.”

  “Greegeekos? Rudgarst?” the CO asked. “Those words didn’t translate.”

  “A greegeeko is a large lizard that can be trained to perform tricks. It is often used in rudgarsts, which are spectacles for the masses.”

  “Not my monkeys; not my circus,” the DSO muttered.

  The CO nodded. “Well that’s not the way I was brought up when I was young. I don’t know how many people are on those ships, but I’m not going to let them all die, cold and alone.” He stared into the proprietor’s eyes, and his voice was as full of menace as he could make it. “I am going to rescue them, and then I am going to get my people back from you. And if they’ve been harmed in any way, you’re going to find out what a dragon looks like on the inside.”

  He cut the transmission.

  “Would you really feed him to me?” Trixie asked. “He is quite a disagreeable man. I think he would cause me an upset stomach.”

  “No, I don’t think I’d actually feed him to you,” the CO said, “no matter how much I might want to.”

  “What is the difference between feeding him to me and shooting him through the head with a laser? He is equally dead, both ways.”

  The CO’s brows knit as he tried to decide how to explain the difference. “Well, shooting him through the head is a little more humane, I guess. He wouldn’t suffer as much.”

  “But it sounded like the object was for him to suffer. Was that not what you were threatening him with? Was that not the point of the threat?”

  “Yes, it was,” Captain Sheppard said, “but I really don’t intend for him to suffer; that’s not how we act. We might threaten someone with it, but I wouldn’t actually do it.”

  “I am confused,” Trixie asked. “Will they not figure that out after a while, though? If you do not actually make someone suffer periodically—not that I am saying I want to eat him, because I do not—but if you do not do that, will the threat not lose its ability to frighten anyone anymore?”

  The CO smiled, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “Yes, you run the risk of that happening, but I’m hoping the proprietor doesn’t know me well enough to suspect I don’t mean it.”

  “You humans are strange,” Trixie said. “How you accomplish anything when you never mean what you say is beyond me.” There was a pause, then she added, “Regardless of whether I need to eat him or not—which I can make as painful or as pain-free as needed—at least let me lick him once or twice so you can have some idea of what he intends.”

  The CO’s smile grew. “I think that can be arranged.”

  “What do you intend to do about the three frigates?” Calvin asked.

  “I intend to recover them and bring them back,” the CO said. “I hope they’d do the same for me if our positions were reversed.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “Well, I’m going to have the helmsman bring us close to the frigates,” the CO replied. “How you’re going to recover the frigates…well, that’s up to you.”

  * * *

  Shuttle 01, Approaching Mineral Cartel Ship, Jangeth System

  “Ouch,” Lieutenant ‘Sal’ Sooolliessess said as he got his first look at the Mineral Cartel frigate. “Those missiles do take a bite out of a ship.”

  “Yeah,” Calvin said, looking over the pilot’s shoulder. He could see rounded off sections indicative of two “bites” where the missiles had exploded and removed spherical sections of the aft portion of the ship. “Just be glad we figured out how to stop them, or that would have been us.”

  “I miss the good old days,” said Lieutenant Erika ‘Jones’ Smith, the WSO. “Back before we knew any of this—” she waved her hand at the frigate, “—stuff existed.”

  “You’d rather give up flying space fighters and go back to flying F-18s off a wet-navy aircraft carrier?” Calvin asked.

  “Oh, hell no. Sir,” she added. “I love being in space and flying space fighters. This whole alternate universe and time travel stuff, though…that I could probably do without.”

  “Yeah,” Calvin agreed. I was a lot happier before I pushed the stupid button, too; at least that isn’t on your conscience. “See if you can set us down there,” he said, pointing. “It looks like there’s an access hatch there.”

  “You got it, sir,” Sal said. He began maneuvering the shuttle to match the frigate’s velocity and tumbling spin. “Things may get a bit…weird…as we get close. You’re probably going to want to sit down for this.”

  “You got it,” Calvin said, hoping the other ships would be easier. He worked his way to the back of the shuttle and took his seat. “Hold on, everyone,” he said. “This may get colorful.”

  “I hope you don’t mean the kind of colorful where people throw up and spray-paint the inside of the shuttle,” Master Chief said.

  Calvin smiled as several of the faces he could see—newbies, all—suddenly took on a rather greenish tint. “Unfortunately that’s exactly what I meant. The ship is tumbling, so they’re going to try to match the spin, but they may have to do some maneuvering up close.”

  Calvin sat, buckled in, and closed his eyes as the motion started. While flying a fighter, looking out at the horizon always calmed any sort of nausea issues he had. While riding, though, it was easier to close his eyes and pretend he was on a roller coaster. It also helped to turn down the volume on his speakers when someone started throwing up. While the artificial gravity system nulled out the worst of it, some of the back and forth motion, especially once they got in close, was somewhat violent and outside the normal dampening limits of the system, allowing it to bleed through.

  Eventually there was a clang and a slam, which the artificial gravity system was unable to counter, and they were aboard.

  “Ramp coming down,” Master Chief called. “And turn on your magnetic boots,” he added. “If the ship’s out of control, their gravity system is probably shot, too.”

  Calvin opened his eyes to find Master Chief already out of his seat and dropping the ramp, while simultaneously laughing at the trooper who’d thrown up. “You’re going to clean that up later,” he told Corporal Kevin Walsh.

  Calvin knew the smell couldn’t get into his closed breathing system, but that didn’t keep him from thinking he smelled the patch on the deck of the shuttle as he went past it.

  He turned on his boots as he got to the back of the shuttle and followed the last trooper out of the shuttle. He could feel his stomach float as he left the area where the shuttle’s systems provided gravity and his insides went into free-float.

  “Spread out,” Master Chief commed. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done a combat deployment. Dantone, take Weinert and his fire team over to that hatch and see if you can get it open. Have his folks cover you. Good Twin, your fire team has lookout duties. Make sure no one pops out to attack us or the shuttle. It’s a long ass walk home.”

  “Looks like someone’s on the other side of the hatch,” Dantone commed. “I can see a light moving. Yep, there’s someone there.”

  “Are they hostile?” Calvin asked as he made his way over.

  “I don’t think so,” Dantone replied. “He isn’t armed and just waved at me. I think he’s going to open the hatch for us.”

  “Stay alert,” Master Chief instructed. “Their intentions may be different than they seem.”

  “I know I’d want to get off my busted ship if I got hit with a couple of those missiles,” Corporal Viebey said. “I’d do whatever I could to help anyone who dropped by.”

  “Yeah, that’s at least what you’d want them to think,�
� Master Chief said, “right up until you killed the people who showed up so you could commandeer their shuttle as a means of escape.”

  “Oh,” Viebey said. “Yeah, I guess that’s possible, too.”

  “Hatch is open,” Dantone said. “The interior looks like an airlock. I’ll go first.” He leaned in and walked down the wall to stand inside the open space beyond the hatch. After a couple of seconds, the hatch started closing. “Damn thing’s small, and there’s only enough room for me. If I’m not back in ten minutes, bring me more ammo.”

  Calvin waited impatiently with the rest of the Space Force for what seemed like hours but his mission clock showed was only five minutes. Just as he was sure he couldn’t wait any longer—he was more used to doing things than letting someone else do them for him—the hatch opened again, and Dantone came out.

  “I’m happy to report the crew of the Mineral Cartel Security Ship Platinum hereby surrenders to us and will cheerfully do whatever the hell we tell them to, if we would but tow them back to the nearest station.”

  “Anything?” Bad Twin asked. “Dude, I can think of—”

  “Shut up, Gordon,” Master Chief said, cutting him off. “Was there anything else?”

  “Yeah. They’d like whatever help we can give them to get their systems going again. The last hit killed their emergency generator, and they have no power or life support in the ship. Oh, and Commander Hobbs, you’re not going to believe it when you see them.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s a surprise, sir, but it’s not a bad one.”

  “All right,” Master Chief said. “If they don’t have life support, it’s going to be getting cold and hard to breathe over there. Dantone, you and Weinert get the generator off the shuttle and get it set up. Let’s go, people! We’ve still got one more ship to get to today, and they ain’t paying us by the hour!”

  Calvin nodded, knowing Master Chief would get everything set up, and he began walking toward the hatch. One of the troopers intercepted him at the hatch.

  “Sorry, sir, but I’ll go first,” Corporal Fenn said. “Master Chief’s orders. You don’t go in there alone, regardless of what Gunny Dantone says.”

  Calvin thought about sending the trooper back, but realized Fenn was far more scared of Master Chief than himself. All Calvin could do was demote him; Master Chief could make his life completely miserable. “Fine,” he said, sighing, and waved a hand at the airlock. “You go first.”

  He followed the corporal into the airlock and saw there was enough room for two normal humans, even though the cyborg had filled up most of the space with his bulk. Calvin looked around for the controls, but a flash of motion caught his eye. Calvin turned to look and blinked in astonishment. From behind the mask of a spacesuit, the being’s flashlight revealed a face that had two pupil-less eyes that appeared to be a solid light blue. It tapped on the glass of the viewport with a four-taloned claw—though Calvin couldn’t hear it in the vacuum—then pointed to Calvin and Fenn and nodded.

  Calvin nodded back, unsure of what to do, then the hatch began to shut above him. The alien in the view port didn’t seem worried or nervous, but Calvin readied his laser rifle anyway as the sounds of air coming into the space could be heard after a few moments. Fenn already had his out and ready; although he pointed the muzzle toward the deck, it was aimed at the deck just in front of the door behind which the alien stood. It wouldn’t take much more than a twitch to have the rifle in firing position. Fenn turned sideways and slid past Calvin so he’d be the first out the door and subtly pushed Calvin back behind him, cutting off his view of the alien in the view port. Fenn had just taken up position in the center of the doorway when the door opened; his rifle jumped to his shoulder, and he cleared both sides of the passageway.

  Whether because Dantone had told them to or it was just their custom, the five aliens raised their hands over their heads. All were in what looked like space suits. Despite the somewhat bulky nature of those suits, though, their figures stood out to Calvin as they moved, and he could see their arms and legs were jointed the wrong way. He shook his head, unsure of how it had happened, but he was aware of one thing—the aliens looked exactly like the Sila from the Jinn Universe back up on Calvin’s end of the timeline.

  How is that possible? he wondered in awe. The more they shuffled around, the more he realized it was more than possible; they looked—and acted—just like the Sila he’d come in contact with.

  He shook his head to clear it. “Who’s in charge here?” he asked over his speakers.

  “I am,” one of the four-taloned individuals said. “I am Administrator Rife, the person in charge of the Mineral Cartel Security Ship Platinum. These are my managers. Thank you very much for coming to our assistance.”

  “I’m Lieutenant Commander Hobbs,” Calvin said. “And you’re welcome. The proprietor here wasn’t going to come after you.”

  “Well, we are certainly happy you decided to disobey his orders and come after us, although there will be demons to pay when we get back.”

  “We don’t work for the Mineral Cartel,” Calvin said. “In fact, we don’t work for any of the cartels.”

  “But that makes you…pirates?” Rife asked, worriedly. “Your soldier Dantone said we would be taken care of…”

  “You will be taken care of,” Calvin confirmed, “and you don’t have to worry; we aren’t pirates. In fact, we aren’t from around here, which is why we aren’t members of any of the cartels.”

  “If you are not in one of the cartels,” Rife said, “then you will be the enemy of all of them. It is only by having the protection of one that people are able to survive. Of course…having the protection of one cartel also means you will have the enmity of its rivals…but at least you will not be on everyone’s bad side.”

  Calvin shrugged, although he knew the gesture was probably lost on the aliens. “Well, if I were a betting man, I’d bet whichever cartel hates the Mineral Cartel will probably be our best friends after we’re done here.”

  “That would be the Mining Cartel,” Rife said. “They are our enemies.”

  “Well, I guess that’s out then,” Fenn muttered.

  “I’m sorry,” Rife said. “What was it he said?”

  “Nothing,” Calvin replied. “The Mining Cartel may not like us very much either.”

  “Although you have my heartfelt gratitude for coming to help us,” Rife said, “I get the feeling you do better on a personal level than at the cartel level.”

  Calvin chuckled. “I don’t know if I’d put it that way; I have a feeling Proprietor Zelph won’t be very friendly to us by the time we leave this system.”

  “I would kill him, then,” Rife said. The other aliens behind him nodded. “It is better to kill a cartel proprietor than leave him behind you. Unless you like having knives in your back, anyway.”

  “That point has been discussed, and I definitely see the merit of it,” Calvin said. “But ultimately, that’ll be up to my boss, Captain Sheppard.”

  “What rank does Captain Sheppard hold in your car—” Rife paused, then concluded, “—in your organization, whatever that may be?”

  “We’re in the military,” Calvin said, “and captain is his rank. His name is James Sheppard.”

  “I do not know what that ‘military’ thing is; it did not translate.”

  “A military is…well, at its most basic form, it’s an organized group of armed people who fight for their country.”

  “And what is this ‘country?’”

  “You don’t have countries?”

  “We may have them, but the word didn’t translate. If you could explain what one is, I would better know if we had them or not.”

  “Okay…um…a country is an area of a planet with its own government that rules over that area.”

  “You mean like a cartel?”

  “No, a planet would probably have a number of different countries. I think the one we came from had almost 200 before unifica
tion.”

  “So you have one country now that rules your planet?” Rife asked.

  “Yes…well, most of it, anyway. There’re still a few holdouts who didn’t want to join the planetary government.”

  “But mostly there is one force that rules your planet?”

  “Yes,” Calvin said, nodding. “That’s right.”

  “How is that different from having a cartel rule the planet? And why do you need an armed group of people to fight for your country if there is only one country? Who are they fighting?”

  “He’s got you there,” Corporal Fenn said.

  “You’re not helping, Fenn. Why don’t you go see how the generator’s coming?”

  “Master Chief would kill me if I left you, sir.”

  “I may kill you if you stay and don’t shut up.”

  “Noted, sir. Shutting up.”

  Rife cocked his head. “Is the purpose of the military to kill each other? Is that how you remove of dissidents in this country of yours?”

  “No!” Calvin exclaimed. “It’s nothing like that at all. Earth—our planet—has a military to protect us from other people who might come and try to attack us.”

  “So, let me get this straight. Your country is not part of a cartel, and you have an armed group that would keep the cartels from making you join one of them?”

  “Yes, that’s it!”

  “It sounds glorious,” Rife said. “I would very much like to go there.” The rest of his people nodded again. “I only have one more question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Does the emperor know about this planet of yours? I cannot imagine he would allow your planet to exist if he knew about it.”

  “No, he doesn’t know about it; we’re from a really long way away from here.”

  “What are you doing here, then?”

  “We’re looking for aid in a war against an enemy we have.”

  “Aid? Like you want the emperor to send forces to assist you?”

  “Yes, exactly!”

  “Why would you do that?”