The Space_Time Displacement Conundrum Read online

  "Understood, sir. But the ship's self-preservation mode has overridden all other protocols."

  Quasar nodded. As long as this confounded countdown was frozen at one second, the self-preservation mode would undoubtedly assume the ship's captain still wanted it to auto-destruct, even though he'd already made repeated attempts to disable said auto-destruct.

  "Protocols including disabling the auto-destruct which caused the self-preservation program to activate itself in the first place?"

  Davis blinked at him. "Uh, yes." She sounded uncertain, but then his meaning registered. "That appears to be the problem exactly, sir. Until the program perceives no threat to the ship, it will keep us locked out."

  The captain strummed his clean-shaven chin—a wonder of space-time displacement: he hadn't needed to shave since this strange misadventure began. But then again, he was currently inhabiting a younger version of himself who had, undoubtedly, already shaved this morning. "How to convince the program that we mean it no harm—not anymore, anyway." Quasar frowned. "I never actually planned on blowing up the ship, of course. It was just a diversionary tactic designed to give us some breathing room with the Goobalobs."

  "Have you told her that?"

  Quasar swiveled around to face the wide-eyed helmsman who'd spoken. "Explain yourself."

  Elliott unfolded his lanky frame from behind his console and stood awkwardly, shuffling his feet. He had the look of a Gamer about him, perfectly content with never seeing sunlight again as long as he could rack up a few million kill shots in his latest download.

  "The ship, sir. Have you explained to her that she's no longer in danger? That you don't plan to blow her up? Because I think that would go a long way in patching things up between you two."

  Now it was the captain's turn to blink. "What?"

  "Not a bad idea, sir," Davis added. "And probably worth a try."

  Quasar spun round to face her. "Have you both lost your minds? There's no way to communicate with the ship!" Again, the other members of the bridge crew cast wary glances his way. He quickly turned his frown upside down and flashed a broad smile, forcing a hearty laugh. "I mean really, if there were, don't you think I would know about it?"

  Elliott pointed hesitantly to the intercom button on the captain's armrest. "You could make an all call, sir." He shrugged his bony shoulders like a vulture roosting. "Maybe she'll be listening."

  It was the most ridiculous thing Quasar had ever heard. But what other options did he have? Helm control was the priority, and right now they were completely locked out by the ship's computer.

  He switched on the intercom.

  Episode 33: Lines of Communication

  Captain Quasar cleared his throat. He could feel the eyes of every member of his bridge crew fixed on him in the dense silence.

  "Attention all decks, this is the captain speaking. As you know, we were recently fired upon by a Goobalob vessel which now sits less than a kilometer off our port side. During the heated interchange that followed, I activated the ship's auto-destruct sequence. But believe me when I tell you, it was never my intent to destroy the Effervescent Magnitude. I only wished to drive the Goobalob vessel back, and in the end, we succeeded in doing so." He paused.

  Helmsman Elliott nodded as if to assure him he was on the right track and that there was more to tell. "Talk to her," he whispered, staring with those wide, eager eyes of his. "Tell her how you feel."

  Quasar clenched his jaw; the muscle twitched. "I repeat: it was never my intention to destroy the ship. Only to frighten off our adversary. I—" He swallowed. "I love this ship. She is a great and mighty star cruiser, and we are destined for many glorious adventures together. This I know for a fact." Until the Carpethrian near-lightspeed cold fusion reactor blew up the Magnitude, of course; but perhaps now there was time to keep that from ever happening. "We belong to the Effervescent Magnitude, and she belongs to us. You are her crew, and I am her captain." He rose from his chair with his arms spread wide. "We are nothing without each other."

  The bridge erupted in applause, and the captain nodded. It had come upon him suddenly during his soliloquy that he did in fact have a strong sense of attachment to this ship, and if it was true, although he sincerely doubted it, that the Magnitude could in fact hear what he'd said, then he hoped she knew he'd meant every word.

  Switching off the intercom, Quasar strode to Lieutenant Davis's post. "Anything?"

  She consulted her console where she'd been monitoring the self-preservation mode's program as it ran autonomously throughout the ship's subsystems. "No change, sir."

  He was about to break into a string of curses, but the communication device in his collar chirped with his first officer's voice: "A rousing speech, Captain."

  "Thank you," he glowered, leaning on the railing besides the weapons officer. "Report."

  "The transport pod is nearly ready. The torpedoes' detonation codes have been routed to the bridge."

  Lieutenant Davis nodded. She now had control of the plasma torpedoes via her console.

  Commander Wan continued, "Give me five more minutes down here to establish remote navigation. And I would suggest hailing the Goo-blobs. If they open fire upon the transport pod before we're clear—"

  "Understood." The captain deactivated the device with a jerk of his head and strode to his chair. "Hail them."

  With another nod, Davis opened a channel.

  "Goobalob vessel, this is Captain Bartholomew Quasar."

  The viewscreen displayed the hideous, myriad-eyed creature the bridge crew was by now quite familiar with. "We know who you are. Where is your explosion?"

  "About that." The captain frowned slightly. "We need to send a repair crew to our ship's port side. An external malfunction, brought on by our recent fire fight with you, has rendered our auto-destruct sequence impotent. We are currently readying a pod to carry our workers to the site of our present technical difficulty. Please bear with us."

  For the first time, the Goobalob narrowed most of the eyes it used to peer at the captain around the glowing red 1. "You would not be attempting to deceive us again."

  Quasar held up his hands. "Believe me when I say I want this explosion just as much as you do."

  A strange gurgling sound escaped from the Goobalob's mouth-orifice. The translation program was unable to decipher it. "You Earthlings are very strange creatures." The transmission ended, and the screen returned to an exterior view of the alien vessel.

  "We're ready, Captain," Wan's voice reported from his collar.

  "Helm control?" He cast a hopeful glance in Elliott's direction.

  The helmsman pressed his long, clumsy fingers against the console but to no avail. He shook his head, on the verge of tears.

  "Release the pod," Quasar ordered. "Davis, prepare to detonate."

  She nodded, swallowing.

  The captain raised his voice, just in case the Effervescent Magnitude itself were listening in on the situation. "Of course, if we detonate the torpedoes in that transport pod before we're well out of range, we'll succeed only in blowing ourselves up." Would the Magnitude's self-preservation program release helm control now? She would be a fool not to.

  Quasar glanced back at Davis. She shook her head. They were still locked out.

  "If we can't get out of here," he enunciated each word loudly, "then we are going to explode."

  "Captain—" Lieutenant Davis did not sound happy. "I've lost control of the detonation sequence." She pressed her console. "I can't activate the torpedoes on that pod."

  "What?" Quasar reeled to face her. "How is that possible?"

  "The ship, sir." Elliott slumped like a deflating balloon. "She's protecting herself. Again."

  "Gah!" The captain raised his fists, shaking them at the ceiling.

  "Captain—" said Commander Wan from his collar, and she didn't sound happy either. "Remote navigation is not responding. We've lost control of the transport pod."

  Things were officially going from bad to worse. The
pod appeared on the screen, but it was not heading around to the port side for fabricated repairs. Instead, it was headed straight for the Goobalob vessel on an obvious collision course.

  Quasar pointed at the viewscreen. "Quick—lock on with a tractor beam!"

  Davis cursed under her breath. "Controls are not responding, Captain. It's not just the helm. Weapons, tractor array—we're locked out of everything!"

  "She's taking charge of the situation," Elliott mused, nodding in wonder. "The ship becomes the captain."

  Quasar really wanted to kick him in the face.

  Episode 34: Out of Control

  "Hail the Goobalob vessel!" Captain Quasar shouted, his eyes fixed on the ticking bomb floating away from the Effervescent Magnitude like a boat cut adrift, yet with a mind all its own. He glanced back at Lieutenant Davis who nodded once the comm channel was established. Apparently the Magnitude had no issue with him communicating with the Goobalobs. He took a moment to steady himself. He had to remain calm, no matter what. "It appears that our technical difficulty is much worse than we thought."

  The Goobalob's face reappeared on the screen looking as unimpressed as ever. "So there will be no explosion? Very well. Prepare to be boarded."

  "No—you don't understand. The transport pod headed your way—it's out of control—and it's on a collision course with your ship!"

  The Goobalob's slimy mouth orifice sagged. "I am sure we are more than a match for one of your mere transport pods." The creature shifted awkwardly, half a dozen of its eyes glancing back over where a shoulder may have been. "Destroy the pod," it ordered one of its subordinates.

  "Wait—!" Captain Quasar lurched toward the viewscreen, knowing the pod was still too close to the Magnitude. If it detonated now, it would take out Quasar and his entire crew.

  But the Goobalob vessel had already fired.

  All was lost. Quasar's frame tensed, awaiting the shockwave that would hit the Magnitude in milliseconds. All this traveling back and forth through time—what was the use? Its purpose? Obviously none at all. In attempting to rewrite the past, Captain Bartholomew Quasar had succeeded only in erasing himself from the timeline, and his crew complement of 1,491 souls as well. He cursed, wishing now that he'd destroyed the Goobalob vessel in the first place. That's what he'd done the first time around, and things hadn't turned out so bad, had they?

  Quasar cracked open an eye upon hearing a round of gasps from his bridge crew.

  "Did you see that?" Elliott pointed, as wide-eyed as ever. "It dodged their Incinerator ray like—like a running back or something!"

  The captain stared. Somehow, the transport pod had indeed evaded the Goobalob shot and now continued on course—but at double-speed.

  "I didn't think those pods were that maneuverable," Lieutenant Davis murmured.

  "They're not," Quasar replied, dumbfounded.

  "Not when a human's at the helm." Elliott shook his head in wonder. "The Magnitude sure is one helluva pilot!"

  The rear door to the bridge swished open, and Commander Wan entered at a brisk trot. "Captain, I'm sorry—"

  "It's out of our hands now." As was just about every other control aboard ship at present. He remained riveted to the viewscreen, watching the scene play out before them. The Goobalob vessel fired again and again, but the little transport pod full of armed torpedoes dodged every blast, advancing on its target.

  "She's going to blow them up for us," Elliott stated the obvious. "The Effervescent Magnitude protects her own!"

  "Permission to speak freely is revoked, Helmsman." Quasar cast him a withering glare, turning to face his first officer as she approached. "What do you make of it?"

  Commander Wan stood close beside him, the crown of her shoulder-length raven hair passing just above his shoulder. "The ship's preservation mode has to be the culprit, sir. There's no other logical explanation."

  Quasar nodded, clenching his jaw. "The minute we reach Carpethria, I'm having that program deleted," he hissed. "It's my role as captain to safeguard the lives aboard this ship. I don't need the ship itself stepping in to lend a hand."

  If in fact that's what she was doing. All signs pointed to it, but he couldn't bring himself to believe the Magnitude was acting alone. More likely than not, Steve had something to do with it. Yet again, the captain found himself blaming the gaseous hallucination for the inexplicable—which there was plenty enough of lately.

  The Goobalob returned to the viewscreen. "How is your transport pod avoiding our heat rays? No vessel can do what your pod is doing. It is mathematically inconceivable!" For the first time, the gelatinous creature sounded close to irate.

  "Here's the thing," Quasar began, opening his hands in apology. "We're not in control of it. Truth be told, we don't know what's controlling it—only that it's dangerous. Very dangerous. So dangerous that you would be wise to power up your engines and get out of here as fast as you possibly can. A pod that size won't be able to follow you for long—"

  "We do not care if it follows us. We care that it can evade our every shot!"

  Commander Wan stepped forward. "You would be wise to follow Captain Quasar's advice. I personally saw to the installation of five high-yield plasma torpedoes aboard that transport pod. If it gets close enough to your ship and detonates, your vessel and all aboard will be lost."

  Most of the Goobalob's eyes widened instantly. "You would send a—" The rest was lost in translation, followed by silence. Then: "—Trojan Horse to meet us?" The translation program's lag time was evidence that it too had somehow been affected by the Magnitude's mutiny.

  "I'm afraid you left us little choice." Quasar crossed his muscular arms and leaned back on the heels of his boots. "Now it is up to you to save yourselves. Leave now, before that pod blows you to bits."

  Something between a snort and a chortle erupted from the gelatinous creature. "We do not run from danger. We are Goobalob. You have not seen the last of us."

  The screen went dark, returning to the black void and the transport pod that suddenly went into high-speed, moving in a blur of riveted plasteel as it made straight for the Goobalob vessel's bow and burst into an enormous ball of blinding, all-devouring light.

  Episode 35: Blown to Smithereens

  Captain Quasar squinted, holding up a hand to shield his eyes. A few cries of shock and awe erupted from the bridge crew before the cold depths of space swallowed up the blast as if it had never occurred, leaving shards of debris from both the Magnitude's transport pod and the Goobalob vessel, blown to smithereens.

  "We now have helm control," Elliott announced in a subdued tone. His fingers traced the coordinates for Carpethrian space. "Course laid in, sir. Maximum speed?"

  Quasar remained silent, unable to formulate words as he stared at the destruction he had wrought. It looked exactly as it had the first time, years ago, when he had lived through this accident the first time. Only then, it hadn't been the ship acting autonomously that had destroyed the Goobalobs.

  "We have access to all systems ship-wide, sir," Lieutenant Davis reported from her post.

  The captain felt a hand on his arm and turned sharply to face his first officer.

  "There was nothing we could do to stop it." She paused. "We need to leave this area. There will undoubtedly be other Goo-blob ships on the way, and we do not want to be here when they arrive." Her almond-colored eyes held something he didn't remember seeing at this stage in their working relationship: concern. For him.

  Quasar nodded. "Onward." He slapped Elliott on the shoulder, sending him lurching against his console. "Fire up the engines."

  The Effervescent Magnitude powered up.

  Inhaling deeply and keeping his eyes to himself, the captain returned to his chair and flipped the intercom switch. "Attention all hands. This is Captain Quasar. Those of you with access to portside portholes may have noticed that the Goobalob vessel has been destroyed. Matters escalated beyond our control, due to certain technical difficulties. Many lives were lost on that ship." He paused.
"They may not have been as good-looking as me or some of you, but they were sentient beings, and now they are no more. Our torpedoes snuffed them out like so many candles, never to be lit again."

  The bridge crew listened with rapt attention. He could only assume the rest of the crew, wherever they were stationed all over the ship, were doing the same.

  "Let us not forget what happened here today, and let us never allow it to happen again. We remain on mission, and the planet Carpethria is our first stop. But let us now and forevermore be vigilant. No mission is worth the life of a ship and its crew—not our own, nor any other alien race we may meet on this journey into the black." He nodded to his bridge crew. "As you were." He switched off the intercom, and one by one, his crew returned to their duties.

  Quasar leaned back in his deluxe-model captain's chair and surveyed the streaks of light that cut through the void of space beyond a wide porthole. This was still the past, only now it was different from the past he remembered—yet the outcome of this incident remained the same, despite his efforts to change it. The Goobalob ship had been destroyed with all gelatinous hands on deck, and if history repeated itself, he knew there would be hell to pay.

  The cold fusion reactor was scheduled to be installed—Quasar remembered all too well being the one to insist upon it, once the United World Space Program learned of the Carpethrian technology. And after the incident with the Goobalobs, it had become a priority in order to increase the Magnitude's engine capacity and be able to outrun the wrath of the vengeful Goobalob Revenue Service.

  In the version of the past that Quasar remembered, the Goobalobs had enlisted hordes of mercenaries—starfaring pirates, no less—to hunt down the Magnitude and exact their revenge. The toll they'd originally demanded for Quasar's trip through their space increased exponentially due to the recompense required for the loss of a relatively new toll enforcer (their term for battleship) and its entire crew complement. Installing the near-lightspeed reactor had been the Magnitude's best bet at staying ahead of their adversaries, and it had worked well to a point—even as members of the crew started to vanish without warning, ending up in a limbo-like near-death experience that Captain Quasar hoped to avoid at all costs. Even though a black hole eventually brought his crew and the ship back to the land of the living, they ended up on the other side of the galaxy, five hundred years in the future.