2 Minutes to Midnight (21 page)

princess amon and

the rift pilots

"The rift trapped Princess Amon and her
ship." The advisor said.
"We'll have to get her out of there before we're all destroyed!"
Replied Sturgis.

Gage was searching planets
in the Nebulon system in search of the Amulet of Hoeth in order to
rescue Princess Amon from her peril, with no success. His onboard
computer contained only a relative location for the relic, and it
was somewhere on one of fifteen planets. Time was short, and
Princess Amon would soon die, taking the rest of his galaxy with
her if he could not dislodge her ship
The
Aquarius
from a time rift. Other, more
veteran rift pilots were sent before him to find the amulet. Five
out of fifty had returned alive. The others were lost when their
craft were destroyed by vorgon raiders, so Gage's success was
crucial to the survival of his people, and the princess.
The vorgon, an insipid sallow skinned race of humanoids hailing
from the Rigel sector traveled the cosmos conquering planets, and
feeding on any unsuspecting victims that cross their demented path.
Long ago, the vorgon had been punished by the intergalactic court
for war crimes against nine planets. They were stripped of their
technology by The Judge, and had been banished to the dark planet,
Griel. Griel's sun dimmed long ago, and as the last planet in her
solar system, the effect for Griel was permanent twilight. Without
sunlight to farm, they ate the weak and elderly. The vorgon
struggle for survival further twisted their minds, and had it not
been for a pirate colony investigating Griel to mine minerals, the
vorgon would have died out. Fate was not so kind, and as the
pirates were landing, their ships were captured, the passengers
were stored in meat lockers for food, and the vorgon were free once
more.
Humanity and their ambition to see the stars had helped to create
the dire situation they now faced. The human space race began with
the Nazi scientists shortly after World War II. Given amnesty, and
smuggled out of Germany by the Red Cross, during Operation
Paperclip, Germany's greatest minds continued their work on rocket
technology, and human controlled spacecraft. The decades after
World War II gave the United States a strategic advantage in the
space race with Russia, and with the work of men like Wernher Von
Braun, space travel became more than just science fiction. In 1952,
NASA completed construction on the first operational star gate, and
that was when humans first traveled back to Mars.
While inventing the better war machine, the unacknowledged special
access projects had also developed vehicles for long distance space
travel using wave technology. When the star gate was completed,
NASA used it for transporting humans and supplies to Mars for
research, but colonization soon followed, and then Martian cities.
In the year 2127 quantum time travel was rediscovered after
millions of years of burial on the red planet by the Deep Space
Exploration Consortium, DSEC.
Archaeologists discovered high technology remnants on the surface,
and as they dug further down, they found more advanced tech, and
intact artifacts of Martian society. The Martian understanding of
technology and the cosmos was older and far more advanced than that
of Earth. Many universities and private sector knew more than they
would release to the general public, and the field of archaeology
did more in the twentieth century on Earth to prevent information
from reaching the public than any other time in human history.
Decades after the first dinosaur bones were found, archaeology
became a closed society where only a very few knew the truth, and
they bound each other to secrecy. That had been then.
When Gage was a cadet he had toured the pyramid with his mentor and
commanding officer, Captain Bill Sturgis. He remembered their
conversation like it was yesterday.
"The Ministry of the Interior uncovered some very interesting
technology in the pyramids, and ziggurat's. It was all buried
beneath red dirt for millions of years. Almost as if it had been
waiting for us to find it." Sturgis said. They were deep inside the
pyramid in the primary time travel station.
"From what I've seen, the Martians were not much different than us.
They have a striking similarity to humans." Gage said.
"That's correct, and like humans, Martians documented everything
and kept it all catalogued in a vault underground: movies, blue
prints, and hundreds of thousands of books detailing every aspect
of their society."
"Did the Ministry ever find out what happened to them?" Gage
asked.
"It would seem that they had a cataclysmic nuclear war that
devastated the planet. It forced the remaining people to flee to
earth." Gage looked at Sturgis with wide eyes, Sturgis smiled
wryly. "The machine you see now was discovered after excavating
down about a hundred feet through rocks and rubble to the pyramid’s
entrance."
The pyramid they were in was the largest one next to the
tetrahedron, which was three miles tall, and had once been dubbed
Mount Sharp by early explorers from earth. The time machine at
first look seemed to be nothing more than two combined
crisscrossing rings with a large platform in the center. On the
platform was a large cylindrical cigar-shaped ship that could hold
over five hundred crewmembers. "After several years of trial and
error, and a few scientists’ deaths, we figured out how it all
worked and time travel began again. This platform is a jumping off
and safe return point." Sturgis said.
"So, how's it all work?" Gage asked.
"In the back of this ship is a room with a smaller set of rings and
fiber optic cables snaking their way in a network to the bridge.
They send wave frequency energy back and forth through the ship,
allowing the ship's hyper drive to match the frequency of two
interdimensional connecting points, and pass through. The internal
computer keeps the crew from becoming lost in time."
"What about the platform?"
"It's a jumping off point. The external magnetic rings begin to
rotate around the platform, creating a kind of magnetic storm, and
they interact with a power superconductor. Once enough magnetic
vibratory energy is created within the rings, the ship takes one
million light years and puts it behind her. The ship travels
interdimensionally without ever moving an inch. The warp drive
creates a hole that appears in space-time fabric that allows
anything on the platform to pass through. Humans are forbidden from
standing on or near the platform, because...accidents have occurred
in the past."
"Accidents, sir?"
"A member of the cleaning crew was accidently sent to a time
unknown when one of his partners dusted the engage button." Sturgis
explained. Gage winced.
"We later discovered that there are specific rules for how time
travel is to be conducted, but in their haste to play with the
great new toy, none of our predecessors discovered the rules until
those horrible rifts had been created."
"My dad used to talk about the rifts when I was a kid, but I never
really understood what he was talking about. I somehow got the
feeling that they're like black holes." Gage said.
"A rift is unlike a black hole. In a black hole, all parts of the
object entering the event horizon are sucked in and spit out on the
other end of the universe, and it may not even be your universe
where you end up. There are all manners of issues regarding black
holes, and the Martians documented them as well." Sturgis showed
Gage to the door leading up.
"The rift is a time anomaly caused when a traveler goes back to a
time where he or she actually existed. Time-space does not know how
to correct for the anomaly so a rip in
the
field
is created, and if any ship passing
by comes close enough to the rift, it's drawn into the
gravitational pull and caught in a repeating loop between this time
and the past. Subsequently, everyone on board the vessel is born,
grows, gets old and dies in one day and time, until the ship can be
removed from this rift. The Martian documents have stated that the
affect is a nightmare for the people experiencing the rift."
"Oh my god, that sounds awful, sir." Gage shook his head.
Sturgis nodded and led Gage up to the surface. That conversation
had been ten years ago and here they were again, this time dealing
with a crisis of enormous magnitude. Gage stood on the observation
platform looking out toward the tetrahedron, and at the many
passenger ships zipping around the enormous structure. The city
constructed below the tetrahedron was dwarfed by its enormity.
Gage, a privateer, now that he no longer followed her majesty’s
orders, had been summoned by Sturgis days before when he was on a
smash and grab of some royal Terellian jewels on the planet Jago.
The intergalactic court would soon be looking for him. Sturgis knew
of this, and of Gage’s recent activities as a thief and pirate. The
only way to keep his friend and former protégé out of jail would be
to get his help in saving their part of the galaxy.
"I know you're out of the Navy, and are no longer bound by the
officer corps, but we need your help." Sturgis said.
"I’m not helping you with anything. Those days are long gone,
Sturgis. I’m a private contractor now."
"You’re a pirate, and when the intergalactic court catches up to
you there will be nothing I can do to help. If I know what you’re
doing, you can be certain The Judge does."
"Like I said, what's the problem? How can I help?" Gage
grinned.
Gage stood five feet ten inches tall, wore a Van Dyke beard,
slicked back hair, had the wide shoulders of a linebacker, tapering
down to a slim waist, and with his holstered pistol, signature blue
jeans, and rock and roll T-shirts, he presented a rugged
masculinity. His irreverent style of dealing with others had
endeared him to just as many as he had repulsed. On a drinking
night he could be found face down on the table by two in the
morning, an empty bottle of good Scotch beside his head, and one of
his crew preparing to carry him back to the ship.
"A galleon travelling from planet Argon 5 to Reillos encountered
one of these rifts, and unfortunately for all of us, this
particular ship was carrying a Princess Amon. She’s an
interdimensional portal keeper, which means she can use telepathy
to open portals for personal travel from one time to
another."
"That's a handy ability. Does she ever teach anyone else how to do
that?"
"Well, if she does, she’s not teaching anything at the moment. When
she became trapped in the rift, the princess fell into a deep
sleep, and the power she controlled began to emanate in a green
wave of energy from her ship. This energy wave burned everyone on
the vessel alive within a nanosecond of being released, and the
only saving grace was that they didn't have to experience the cycle
of life on repeat." Sturgis explained.
Gage accepted the mission, in part to keep himself out of jail, but
mainly because his world would be destroyed if a resolution was not
found. Gage searched for months with little luck, and he could
sense time was running short.
Gage piloted a smaller delta class,
developed by DSEC for a crew of two, and she had her own warp
drive, allowing effortless passage through space-time. Princess
Amon's advisors informed DSEC that the Amulet of Hoeth could close
the rifts and save Gage's galaxy from untimely destruction, if they
could find it in time. The problem was that a pirate named Slim
McGee, a trusted friend of the princess, had absconded with the
amulet several years ago during a lover’s tryst, and it was not
seen since. Black market auctioneers knew to whom the amulet
belonged and would not touch it, but when questioned they claimed
ignorance to its whereabouts, which meant that Slim still had it.
The question on Gage’s mind was where the pirate could be. Gage had
been from one galaxy to another, and on a whim he decided to check
out a small green and yellow planet.
"This is Gage, of the starship
Trinity
. Does anyone read me?"
"This is Captain Slim McGee of the
Praetorian
, who is this, again?"
said an irritated voice.
"I said this is Gage of the vessel Trinity. I'm entering your
planet's atmosphere, Captain."
"You do, and I'll send two holocaust rockets your way,
friend."
"We need to talk. I'm not your enemy, Captain McGee. The DSEC and
most of this part of the galaxy needs your help." Gage said.
"This is a trick. You go back and tell princess Amon she's never
getting that amulet back. It was my mother's and her threats don't
scare me. This is a lover's quarrel pal, and you should exit stage
left."
"The princess is trapped in a space-time rift and if we don't get
the amulet to her advisors in time she's going to be ripped apart
along with a good deal of the solar system."
Long moments of silence followed and Gage began to worry that
holocaust rockets, whatever they were, would be careening toward
his tiny ship any minute.
"Come on down. Here are the coordinates for my palace." Slim said.
A little green light began to flash on his console.
Gage began his descent. The planet surface was quite pretty, and
reminded Gage of a Dr. Seuss book he had read as a child. There
were trees bent at every angle, displaying an amazing assortment of
multicolored plumage, and the ocean was so clear Gage could see to
the bottom. Gigantic multi-flippered monsters swam in beautiful
choreography to nature's song as bigger fish gobbled up smaller
ones. Ahead, Gage could see Slim’s palace, a gigantic yellow
fortress surrounded by cliffs on all sides but one.
"Just land er' on the roof, and I'll meet you out there." Slim
said.
A map of the castle appeared on his windshield along with a little
blinking red light. Gage touched it and the
Trinity
glided over, touching down
on the landing platform. Another ship a bit larger than Gage's was
parked beside
Trinity
. An elevator door opened up and out of it popped a tall man
wearing a black leather vest, and no shirt. The vest hung open,
exposing large pectoral muscles, six pack abs, and two sculpted,
muscular arms. Slim's jaw was chiseled stone with five o'clock
shadow peppering it and he looked like a model out of a men's
workout magazine. He held a pistol in his hand, and pointed it at
Gage.
"I don't want any trouble, Slim. I honestly just need your help,
and after this is over you can carry on your quarrel with the
princess, or come back here, or whatever. I don’t really
care."
"Gage, if this is a trick, you’re going in the ocean by way of
cliff dive."
"Look for yourself," said Gage.
Gage produced a small metal square from his pocket and clicked a
button on the side. A 3D replica of Princess Amon's ship caught in
a green web appeared, and beyond her vessel was a spreading emerald
wave of chaotic energy. The two could then see the princess laying
on the floor of her ship in a deep sleep.
"OK, I see your point. I’ll give you a hand, but you better fly
after. Be right back, I gotta’ grab the amulet." Slim said.
Slim disappeared back inside to get his amulet, and as the two were
about to take off in