The Space_Time Displacement Conundrum Read online

  No response.

  "Captain," Commander Wan pointed at the viewscreen, their window to the world, as a projectile launched itself from the command center and pierced the sky, leaving a thick tail of smoke.

  "The escape pod," Quasar muttered. "He's left us to fend for ourselves."

  Then something unexpected happened: missile silos creaked open in the scarred earth, iron hatches yawning as rockets poked their noses upward like weasels sniffing the air after a long internment.

  "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Quasar grinned.

  "Humph," replied Hank.

  In a matter of minutes, the captain had utilized the tractor beam to haul each of the missiles into the cargo bays of the Effervescent Magnitude where the ship's engineers and best weapons tech officers immediately went to work modifying, transporting, and loading the rockets into the ship's empty torpedo tubes.

  "Captain," said Commander Wan, her eyes darting across her console. "Before Bill left his post, he triggered silos across the continent—"

  "How many rockets are we looking at?" Captain Quasar glanced back at her.

  "Hundreds—and all viable, as long as those robots don't get to them first."

  Quasar grinned. "Then let's not keep them waiting. We've got a planet to rescue."

  She couldn't help asking, "For whom, sir?"

  Captain Quasar glared at his first officer for the fourth time in half as many hours. "It's the principle of the thing, dammit!"

  It took some doing, but the crew of the Magnitude were more than up to the challenge. With the captain's steady hand at the tractor beam and the engineers retrofitting the rockets as makeshift torpedoes, they managed to get the job done, wiping the earth clean of every annihilation bot they came across. Granted, hundreds of the robots succeeded in breaking apart a continent or two and sinking the pieces into the sea, but the oceans of the world ultimately aided in the machines' demise, drowning them with elaborate sparks and fizzles as they drifted out of sight.

  So thanks to the undying devotion of Captain Quasar and company, the dastardly plans of one Emperor Zhan—whoever he was—were thwarted with extreme prejudice, and Earth found itself ultimately saved, albeit nothing at all like its younger self. As Hank steered the ship on one more flyover to make sure all of the bots had been destroyed, the captain stroked his clean-shaven chin and narrowed his heroic gaze at the destruction.

  "If only," he murmured.

  Now, more than ever, he longed for a way to reach the mysterious Opsanus Tau Prime and drink from their magical elixir, to then travel back through time and keep Earth from ever seeing such horrific ruin. He'd been whipping back and forth through time plenty as of late, yet he hadn't known why. Now it occurred to him: It no longer mattered why. What mattered was saving the earth from destruction before it was too late. The next time he was in the past, he would have to make that a priority.

  Then something else dawned on him: Had he already drunk the magical elixir? Is that why he was moving around through time? But if he had, wouldn't he remember reaching Opsanus Tau Prime? Such an experience would have surely been memorable.

  Something worth pondering. He nodded to himself.

  Limping back into orbit with major blast damage and exhaust venting from every pore to swirl around like a death shroud, the Effervescent Magnitude encountered the escape pod of Bill the Janitor, which Quasar promptly tractor-beamed into a cargo hold.

  "We did it," the captain said with pride, escorting a disheveled, grizzled, and stinky fellow from his cramped quarters to gaze out a wide portside window at the earth's glory. "We saved the planet!"

  Bill nodded, a lanky scarecrow of a man, twitching as he dragged his feet in a stiff, awkward gait. "Looks that way."

  Quasar couldn't understand the man's less-than-enthusiastic demeanor. "We've done it! The bots are destroyed!"

  "Yeah." Bill sniffed and ran a stained sleeve across his bulbous nose, glancing out through transparent plasticon at the earth. "Guess I'm out of a job now."

  "You're failing to see the big picture here—"

  "No, I get it. You're the hero. You saved the day." Bill shrugged. "So now what? You got some plan to keep the Sea Nukembers at bay?"

  "Sea-what?"

  "It'll take a while for the sunlight to reach them down in the ocean—that's where Emperor Zhan dumped a bunch before he left. They make those annihilation bots look like kids' stuff. Instead of lasers, they're each armed with multiple megaton warheads. And they're solar-powered, too…but ironically not very Earth-friendly."

  "Gah!" Quasar threw up his hands. "What did this Zhan fellow have against our planet?"

  Bill offered another shrug. "He always said if he couldn't have it, then nobody would."

  Captain Quasar clenched his jaw until the muscle twitched. "The ultimate villain," he mused.

  "Uh, he's been dead for a while now—"

  "Regardless," the captain retorted, "there appears to be only one way to foil him."

  The remains of those sixty thousand annihilation bots would make a good start. As well as anything else the crew of the Effervescent Magnitude could locate down on the surface, suck up with the tractor beam, and drag out into space before the sun's light was able to pierce the ocean depths.

  Quasar jabbed the wall-mounted intercom. "Number Wan."

  "Yes, Captain?" his first officer replied.

  "Looks like we've got a new sun barrier to build."

  Episode 43: Signals Through Space

  The Effervescent Magnitude was in no condition to face the Sea Nukembers left by the evil Emperor Zahn. For one thing, the complement of torpedoes had been depleted. But Captain Quasar knew there was no such thing as a no-win situation.

  There was still some time, after all, before the solar-powered machines of mass destruction were activated deep beneath Earth's oceans. The Nukembers would have to be destroyed eventually, and they'd have to be removed from the Pacific and the Atlantic and all the other bodies of water where Emperor Zhan had buried them.

  For now, however, rebuilding the sun barrier was the top priority, and Quasar put his best man on the job—Bill the Janitor—with Commander Wan supervising as project manager.

  "We'll need repairs soon, Captain." Hank shook his head as he monitored the display on his console. "We took a lot of heavy damage."

  Clenching and releasing his right fist, Quasar leaned forward in his deluxe-model captain's chair and gazed at the viewscreen on the fore wall. Already, Bill and his crew at the controls of the ship's tractor beam array had managed to recreate nearly ten percent of Earth's solar shield. Being able to construct it from space, instead of the surface, seemed to make the end result even better than before, with barely a seam visible between the remains of the massive annihilation bots and whatever else Bill had managed to scavenge from the surface.

  "We'll need to locate that Zhan fellow as well," Quasar mused, narrowing his gaze.

  Hank half-turned to glance back at the captain. "It's been five centuries—"

  "Then we'll find his grave. And we'll each take turns spitting on it." Quasar rose from his chair and crossed his thick-muscled arms, straining the fibers of his burgundy and black uniform. "Someone will answer for this atrocity. I don't care if it's his great-great-great-grandchildren!"

  Hank blinked. "And the Magnitude?"

  "Of course." The captain sighed. "We can't very well allow the descendants of an evil villain to see us in this condition. They might think they can take advantage of us. No, we'll need to get everything back in tip-top shape so we're a force to be reckoned with once again." He faced his helmsman. "Plot a course to the nearest star base."

  A flicker of emotion passed through the very hairy helmsman's eyes. "With Titan Colony gone… that would be Carpethria, sir."

  "Ah yes, your home world." And where the Magnitude had received its cold fusion near-lightspeed reactor. Wouldn't those Carpethrian engineers like to know the damned thing had blown up the entire ship and its crew! But of cours
e, Quasar would not tell them about that. For if he did, he would have to explain the black hole that put everything back together again, and the more he thought about it, the less sense it made to him. He could only imagine what the Carpethrians—a very no-nonsense race of humanoids—would think of him. "It's been a while since we—" Quasar cleared his throat. "Since you came aboard."

  Hank didn't respond. Not even a humph escaped his twin sets of vocal chords. He faced his console as all four of his hands laid in the coordinates with a deliberate familiarity.

  Captain Quasar looked away, half-expecting the confounded time travel to kick in at that moment and whisk him back to the first time he had visited the planet Carpethria. That's where he'd left his younger self, after all, following the Magnitude's confrontation with those Goobalob toll collectors and the unintended explosion of their vessel. Would he return to that point on the timeline soon? Or was he bound to remain here and now in the present—plus two years?

  Regardless, some sort of reminiscing was necessary. Captain Bartholomew Quasar didn't believe in living in the past, but at moments such as this, it was inevitable that his thoughts would drift back to that red letter day when the Effervescent Magnitude entered Carpethrian space as the first Earth vessel ever to do so in the history of the two planets' decades-long cooperative relationship, since Carpethrian radio signals had reached out and touched Earth long ago.

  They had believed for centuries that alien life existed in their corner of the galaxy, and for just as many centuries, scientists on Earth had believed the same. The difference between the two species was the fact that Carpethrian radio signals were stronger, so they reached Earth before Earth's could return the favor. And while Earth's signals were composed mainly of 20th century radio and television programs, the Carpethrians' were DNA sequences and chemical formulas. By the time Earth scientists were able to comprehend, analyze, and respond to the Carpethrian signals, more than a century had passed; but by then, humankind knew they weren't alone in the universe.

  Patiently, the Carpethrians had waited for human technology to evolve, and when they were eventually able to communicate in real time—from what Captain Quasar remembered, having learned his history well as a strapping young lad—the first Carpethrian words successfully translated into Earth's Common speech were: "Mineral deposits." The United World Prime Minister's had been: "Hello, Neighbor!"

  Captain Quasar shook his head and squeezed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes a moment. His thoughts had gotten away from him. He'd meant to flashback to when he'd met Hank for the very first time, under circumstances that had been far from pleasant, but instead his mind had slogged into exposition mode. He always hated it when that happened. A necessary evil at times, but not right now.

  The events which brought Hank to be sitting there as ship's helmsman were an ugly affair, and more than anything, Quasar did not want to relive them.

  But when he opened his eyes and saw Ensign Elliott seated at Hank's console, Captain Quasar knew he didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

  Episode 44: The Immutable Past

  "I'm speechless," Ensign Elliott proclaimed. He stared agape at the viewscreen as the planet Carpethria appeared, a splotchy hazel marble in the black void. "To think—we're the first humans ever to see another planet capable of supporting intelligent life." He shook his head slowly. "I don't know what to say…"

  Captain Quasar remembered this moment well enough. At the time, morale on board had been at an all-time high. They'd vanquished an alien enemy—the Goobalob vessel blown to smithereens—and now they were making first contact in person with a species Earth scientists had long speculated about. What would they look like? How would they behave?

  Quasar ran his hands down his face and blew out a sigh. He didn't feel like giving the profound speech he had shared once upon a time. He knew this was a momentous event for everyone else on the bridge, but he'd already lived through it. And truth be told, he didn't want to do so again.

  Because he knew certain members of his crew wouldn't survive.

  "You're in quite a predicament, Captain." Steve appeared with a grim expression on his wrinkled face, even after Quasar had told him in no uncertain terms to stop showing up without warning. But then again, this was the past, and Quasar had reprimanded the gaseous hallucination in the present, so maybe Steve was unaware of the captain's feelings regarding the matter.

  "You have the bridge." Quasar nodded to his first officer and strode toward the door to the conference room.

  "Sir?" Commander Wan looked confused. "Don't you want to announce—?"

  "I will. I, uh, just need to grab my notes." It wasn't uncommon for a ship's captain to have a speech prepared. Was it uncommon for Captain Quasar? Yes. He was a master of improvisation, after all.

  Wan nodded, but an uncertain look remained in her eyes.

  "Follow me," Quasar hissed between his teeth, barely audible, leading Steve through the door and locking it behind them. The conference room was dark and silent as the captain gathered his thoughts.

  "I know you don't like me popping in and out as I do," Steve began, proving that he did in fact recall receiving his reprimand. "But I believe this situation calls for it."

  "How so?" The captain crossed his arms and stared out the wide portholes along the ship's starboard side. Carpethria grew larger with every kilometer they advanced upon it, yet Quasar's eyes could not remain focused on its beauty. Instead, he kept glancing toward the stern of the Magnitude as if, at any moment, some sort of predator would rear its ugly head with lasers blasting.

  "You plan to alter the past. Again." Steve watched the captain closely, leaning on his staff. "Even after the disaster with that Goobalob vessel. You're going to try to save them."

  Quasar clenched his jaw. "They're my crew."

  Steve nodded. "Obviously, I don't have all the details. This event occurred prior to your visiting my planet, so I'm a little blind when it comes to remembering exactly what happened here. But I do sense residual memories of regret that you carry and a desire to make things right. You want to undo what was done—" Steve halted mid-sentence, narrowing his gaze at the captain. "But only partially?"

  Quasar shot him a direct look. "Stay the hell out of my head, Gasman."

  "I can't believe this. You don't actually want to save them all?" Steve chuckled, shaking his head in mild shock. "Some hero you are. You're playing favorites!"

  Captain Quasar clenched his fists, reeling to face the hallucination head-on. "If you were corporeal right now, I'd—"

  "Let me guess," Steve continued, his tone disparaging. "That attractive little blonde—the weapons officer, Lieutenant Davis. She's the one you wish you had saved. But Ensign Elliott—"

  "Don't you dare say another word."

  Steve frowned slightly. "Why did you escort me in here, then, if not to have some sort of discussion?"

  The captain had no response to that. Perhaps he had hoped the wizardly entity would provide a sounding board of some type, like a holy man at a religious devotee's confessional. But Quasar now realized his error. Steve was a nuisance and nothing more.

  Silently, Quasar cursed the Noble Gases of the Epsilon Seven Star Cluster for digging into his mind and finding his irrational tendency to trust wise old sages with oaken staffs. The sooner he found a way to rid himself of the quartz dust's effects, the better.

  "My mistake." The captain strode toward the door.

  "Your mistake is believing you can change anything here." Steve's tone had taken on a serious edge. His eyes no longer held any disapproval, only pity. "Why not learn from your mistakes, Captain, instead of trying to erase them? You've already witnessed that it's quite impossible to make them disappear. What happened here will happen again, and there is nothing you can do about it."

  Quasar's nostril's flared as he turned to point a deliberate index finger at the hallucination. "Listen, you. I'm here for a reason. Right here, right now." He narrowed his heroic gaze. "We'll just see what
I can do!"

  The first item of business: making first contact with Carpethria and seeing what their doctors could do about removing the quartz dust from his cranium. But that was assuming, of course, that this younger version of himself even carried the dust; for on this timeline, he hadn't even met Steve yet. That certainly boggled the mind.

  The second item of business: keeping his crew alive during the violent encounter that loomed on the horizon.

  The third item: saving Earth before its ultimate demise centuries later at the hands of one Emperor Zhan.

  All in a day's work for Captain Bartholomew Quasar.

  Episode 45: Welcome to Carpethria

  Captain Quasar returned to the bridge with something akin to the weight of the world upon his shoulders. Certain members of his bridge crew, gazing in wonder at this alien world on the viewscreen, wouldn't be breathing in a matter of hours. How could he allow them to die? It was absurd even to consider it. Of course he would try to save them!

  "Oh Captain, isn't it a glorious sight to behold?" Enraptured by Carpethria in all its hazy hazel wonder, Ensign Elliott clasped his hands to his heart and smiled like a fool in love.

  Quasar sighed as he returned to his deluxe-model captain's chair, knowing he'd have to rescue the idiot at the helm. Steve was right: in his mind, Quasar had been weighing the consequences of playing favorites. Lieutenant Davis was an invaluable member of the bridge crew, despite her affinity for firing plasma torpedoes at the proverbial drop of a hat. She was an excellent officer who had advanced through the ranks honorably, and while he was reluctant to admit such a thing even to himself, Quasar had always considered her as a potential mate, should the timing be right—potentially when she was no longer under his command. The United World Space Program tended to look unfavorably upon subordinates coupling with their commanding officers.