Lost In Time

“Stand down Commander, that’s an order!” Colonel Salva roared through Commander Nia’s broken earpiece. His voice was a sharp, shrilly and agitated bawl that thumped against Nia’s eardrums hard. She didn’t say a thing; she waited unwaveringly, afforded a brisk risky pause and considered all her possible responses. None of them would be plausible, at least not in the round head of a hard-ass, five-star, super superior officer (half a dozen levels superior). So without giving it much thought she chose the harder way out, mute herself away. This wasn’t the typical junior officer behavior in the Galactic Federation, but there’s always a first. Besides, her AI Interface which boosted her neural function by over a thousand percent ran an algorithm and gave her a prediction in real time. There was nothing to say.

“You are disobeying a direct order from a senior officer commander; you understand the ramifications?” Salva came again, this time louder, urgent and on edge (damn, was he closer to the comm unit?). She treated him another wave of stale silence. She knew he’d fume, froth and throw some more threats on to the already growing pile.

“This is mutiny Commander, lese majesty, reckless …” Threats like those.

‘Actually it would be high treason, not just treason Mr. Colonel, try reading your field manual…sir.’ She thought to herself amusedly, simulating the lookalike of a response she’d never give then twitched her mouth to wipe away the wry smirk that was starting to build on her luscious lips.

Officer profile log:

 Year 5142 AD, Nia Sia, Commander in the Sagittarius Sect of the Cosmic Battalion, the Defense arm of the Galactic Federation, serial no. 9182_73645_IXV, First Officer of the USS Palmer 3, a heavy armor destroyer.

Having received the latest system update, Palmer 3 was by far the most formidable spaceship in the entire Federation. It wasn’t just faster than anything sublight in the galaxy; it was the swiftest, most loaded and had a cloak mechanism. Its avionics and the payload module were off the charts. Nia wouldn’t have been prouder to be the second in command on a bird so divine, until the weight of the galaxy sifted through the ranks and landed smack-dab on her shoulders. That was a couple of light days back.

The human race had maneuvered through the stormy millennia, survived self-destruction through hellish nuclear wars, narrowly escaped with the earth intact through an asteroid maelstrom thrust earth’s way by their cosmic guardian angel, Jupiter, and lived through a few hundred potential extinction level events over the centuries to the fifty-second century. They were now a Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale, and had set up shop all over the Milky Way. The Sagittarius Sect was actually located somewhere in the spiral Carina-Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way. The Cosmic Battalion had sentinels based all over the galaxy, The Cygnus-Orion Platoon being the mightiest since it was closest to home.

Earth was now a fortress, with geospatial satellites interconnected to form a laser web that shielded earth from threats like stray comets, space junk and cloaked enemy vessels. Population had leveled down to about five billion, with about eight times that number out there among the stars. The virus of life had actually infested the galaxy; space shuttles were in business between colonies, and business was burning.

Nia had worked her way up the ranks, from an amateur cadet in Federation School back in Hawaii Cosmopolitan to Space Camps on Mars to a junior officer aboard several space stations around the Solar system. Base Io was actually the most enthralling and adventurous; it was also where she met Captain Walter- the man who was literally the answer to her prayers. Their voyage had led her here, a step closer to the center of the barred galaxy. She had worked side by side with him, grown fond of him by the day and cherished every little moment they shared aboard Palmer 3. Captain Walter was actually the reason she was committing high treason.

About five light days back, Palmer 3 had been on patrol towards the outer edge of the Carina Constellation. Telemetry sensors read normal; a boring day aboard the humongous patrol ship. The crew was having dinner, only essential personnel hung back on the bridge. The serene, orange glow of Epsilon Carinae painted the stellar horizon.

“Permission to enter thy sacred quarters captain…?” Nia had intoned melodiously from the doorway to the ready room.

“No you may not test my patience O ancient one.” The captain’s heavy timbre echoed from behind a shelf. Smiling cordially, she welcomed herself to a cushy settee. Being best of friends, they could afford the informality. It was almost mystical really, like yin had found yang among the stars.

The captain, big, burly, rugged and authoritative, came out holding an expensive bottle of champagne- sparkling in the natural light sifting through the windows. Radiation shields had been modified to allow in a portion of visible light in the spectrum, now the crew could have a minute to sunbathe and bask.

“Care to drink on the job Number One?” He loved calling her that, it suited her.

“Why else would I be here?” She had said jovially, returning the affectionate gaze. He had shared a toast with her, his glass clinking slightly against hers in some good-old-fashioned cheers. In some solar days they actually didn’t have a minute to spare, which was ridiculous considering there was all the time in space. However, things like physically inspecting all the eight decks, taking reports from commanders from each wing and presenting them to the captain were tedious for Nia. For the captain addressing all the issues in the reports were exhausting to the bone. He also checked in regularly with Base Command and handled impromptu problems with drive engines, artificial gravity simulators and life support. It was a full-time job, so a treasured moment like this one never lasted.

On that note, the whole ship suddenly went on red alert, alarms going haywire while sirens flickered through the dimly lit hallways. A sonorous treble boomed through every room, urging all personnel to man their battle stations. Nia glanced at Walter then resignedly rose, placing her half-full champagne glass onto a pixelated virtual table. Walter grabbed his silver captain’s emblem and pattered heavily after her.

They stepped out of a next-level intelligent elevator to find a full bridge. Junior officers were called to attention as the mighty captain soldiered majestically towards his throne. After the retina scan, the DNA identification and the fingerprint scan at the side of his seat, the red lasers around the seat vanished, granting him access.

“I appreciate the response time from everyone, Commander Hitler, report.” He spoke calmly like it was just another Tuesday evening in the office.

Hitler, the Science Officer, already had a diagnosis of their situation.

“Sensors are detecting a massive EM field disturbance which is flashing in and out of sensor range.” Hitler spoke science.

“That’s a commendable observation Science Officer; you wanna maybe explain why my ship is on red alert?” Yeah Captain Walter always did that.

Hitler lived up to his scientific prowess. He spoke a lot of future science which the captain told him to explain since he had forgotten to bring his Hitler Dictionary.

“The disturbance didn’t only blink in and out of radar, which by the way kept confusing our long-range sensors, every time it registered on the sensors it had gotten closer. Judging by its size and trajectory I have an algorithm telling me we are right in the middle of its path” Hitler expounded elaborately.

“Zulu full reverse impulse engines and halt, shields up, full power. And ready the FTL drive just in case we need to jump.” He spoke to literally everyone aboard the ship. Zulu was the helmsman, short, pretty, deft and the most experienced navigation officer in this part of the galaxy. She had drafted a stellar map of the spiral Sagittarius arm with some heaven-touched accuracy. A number of platoons in the Palmer series had eyes on her, Palmer 3 was lucky to have her.

 “When was the last signature?” Walter queried. Space was not a good place for surprises, because everything you encounter usually tries to kill you. They were over eight light days away from Base and the nearest Federation vessel was a few double-figures light hours away. It wasn’t a good time.

“About four minutes…now, it’s back and it is…here!” Hitler’s voice trailed as he looked up worriedly. Suddenly, the massive ship shuddered vigorously before balancing. The orange tinge outside the wide windows was overshadowed by something baleful, like a huge bird looming over their heads- its wings spread out. It beat Palmer 3 in size by over eighteen times, and the way it slithered unnoticeably in space gave everyone creeps.

“What the heck is that sitting on my ship?” Captain Walter was on edge. No one had any answers, not even the veteran Master Astrophysicist on the bridge.

“Captain I can’t tell anything more than it gives a powerful electromagnetic field.” That was Hitler, shrugging resignedly.

“Captain they are scanning us!” Alita, the Comms master reported, her breath sharp. The captain rose, his huge figure overshadowing everyone else around.

“Give me something!” The bridge was on fire, ignited by an enemy vessel no one could see, and fanned by the captain. They had had a dozen alien encounters on their journey through the universe. So far the Federation had discovered about eighteen alien species, some horrendous, some hideous, some beyond description. None of them had had technology this advanced. Most were just a Type I civilization, a few Type II, the humans were actually more advanced. This encounter right here, if it turned out to be an alien encounter, was by far the most threatening.

“I can confirm the presence of an energy field encasing us captain.” Nia had said. She had been a Science Officer before becoming a First Officer. So she was just letting everyone know she could still read the instruments right. “Besides that we cannot read anything else, it’s like the blank shadow of Jupiter in the eye of an X-ray ocular lens.” She added.

“We can’t send a Sos; too much interference.” Alita reported. Walter gave it a thought then looked up and spoke loudly through the ship-wide comm channel.

“Attention all crew members. We may have encountered a potentially hostile enemy vessel. So strap in and brace for an emergency jump. Black Alert!” He intoned urgently. He then sat back into his magnificent chair and activated his laser belt. The ship transformed from a red to grey glow.

“Engineering how is the FTL Drive coming?” He asked through the comm link.

“Captain, this is Engineering, FTL Drive is good for go.” A deep voice came through from the West Wing.

“Good, Zulu, are we ready to jump?” He redirected his muzzle to Navigation.

“Aye Captain, USS Palmer 3 jumping in pѐnde, tѐsera, trіa, dіo…” The ship suddenly shook, creaking as a tremor whooshed through it. A deafening silence befell the place, shortly before everything went black and blank.

Faint-yellow emergency lights twinkled intermittently as alarms set the whole place on a frenzy. Multiple decks reported system failure and critical system overload. The onboard computer had shut down power to all the main decks to avoid a short circuit. It took a minute to reboot. Almost everything was malfunctioning. The superior enemy vessel was gone and they hadn’t moved an inch.

“Um, has anyone seen the captain?” Zulu brought the observation to everybody’s attention. Sure enough, darting eyes all over the bridge, Nia couldn’t see the captain. She tried reaching him through his comm link, it went unanswered. She ordered a ship-wide scan; there was no sign of him.

“Okay, let’s do a complete system check while we look for the captain.” Nia took charge, now that she was the acting Captain. They did, the reports were all similar- nothing was working. They were simply another space junk floating around in the dead zone. However, Hitler came with a very eerie report.

“We may not have moved an inch but we definitely moved. The chronometer says it has been about eight hours since our attempted jump to FTL.” He said. That was weird, because it had been only a couple of minutes. Either the chronometer- all chronometers on the ship were broken, or they had just traveled through time.

After an hour of thorough repair, they managed to get their beacon working. A Federation vessel had arrived about four hours later, and the Colonel of the Sagittarius Sect was among the entourage on the convoy. He also brought forensic experts with him to assess the situation. They did more or less what Nia’s officers had done and reported with a few more details.

Apparently the enemy vessel had Palmer 3 held in place with a tractor beam, and its attempted jump led to a system overload which in turn triggered emergency shutdown. A transporter window was witnessed just seconds after the attempt, and that was probably how the captain had been abducted. The Colonel was gracious enough to let Nia in on classified intelligence. He said the Federation had been aware of a suspected Type V Civilization located somewhere in an H II Region about three light days from Palmer 3’s current location. Details of their existence were fuzzy but from a rough sketch, they were on a Class M planet located inside a grid intersection of the fabric of space-time- an area where space-time portals were easily possible to create. Well, that was very… enlightening.

“All due respect Colonel but a heads-up would have been appreciated. You knew of the existence of a possibly hostile species and didn’t warn us when we set out to patrol the region.” Nia flared up.

“I’d apologize for that but it wouldn’t make a difference. What we need to do now is damage control. We will fall back to Base and convene with the High Council to see the way forward. You will remain Acting Captain for the meantime.” Said the Colonel.

“What about Captain Walter? We should all be out there looking for him!”

“I appreciate your concern Commander, what I don’t appreciate is your tone. I need you to keep it together and be a soldier. It would be reckless to throw Federation resources into a wild goose chase without any clear plan, possibly start a galactic war with a superior enemy. Do you understand Commander?” The Colonel’s tempo had been rising steadily, ending in a loud, commanding bawl.

Yeah she did. She understood. She understood that the Federation was willing to sacrifice a long-serving captain, her mentor, for fear of a war. She’d been trained to not leave any soldier behind; the colonel might be too old to remember. So she had waited till everything had cooled down then slid out of Palmer 3 with an FTL capable shuttle craft, the size of a small jet. That’s how she’d reached the H II Region and set out looking for this hidden planet. She’d lost contact with the threatening Colonel soon as she entered the cloud. She’d had time to contemplate on her foolhardy decision though, maybe the Colonel was right. Maybe she should turn back. The more she thought of it the faster she steered her bird; she was going to save the captain. She wasn’t afraid of danger, she was afraid of losing him.

By some kind of ethereal alignment of events, she picked on the Captain’s location beacon a couple of light hours into the cloud. She set sail for the place, wonder and awe getting the better of her. This was literally a whole new universe; she wondered how they had no knowledge of it.

Slowing down from a distance she sent a pulse of radio waves at the empty space where the captain supposedly was. There was definitely an earth-sized object, cloaked completely. Well, they were type V alright; cloaking a whole planet was still way beyond the human capability.

She switched into the cloak mode and descended into the planet. It was all covered in ocean when she entered, but she easily made the calculations and dove into the liquid, whatever it was. Below the ocean, a whole new world opened up, with alien designs and architecture taking a toll on her eyes. From down there the sky looked normal, blue. You wouldn’t suspect there was a whole hydrosphere suspended up there. Well, she’d found Walter- trying to escape as she had expected. The reunion was brief.

“Where’s everyone?” She had asked after a tight embrace. There was no one around.

“No idea; just woke up here with lots of machines scanning me.” Walter replied. Great, it was an AI world. That was a theory suggested in the early twenty-first century, that a civilization can reach a singularity where machines become the primary species. In this world, they were the only species. Well, that was a good adventure but they had to get outta here.

“Is that an ocean up there?” Walter asked curiously.

“I should be asking you that. Strap in, we gotta go. Man, this was unbelievably easy.” She said jovially then ignited the engines. Maybe these guys weren’t as intelligent as they thought.

The little bird shot up on a Faster-Than-Light mode. The next thing they knew they had hit the top of the tecnosphere and they were falling. The shuttle craft was damaged, the captain was unconscious and red alarms were blinking. Nia kept on drifting in and out of consciousness. From her upside-down position, her bleary eyes espied something on the chronometer. The year was 2019, and they were adrift in earth’s orbit! She cursed softly as she effortlessly let go of her consciousness. It turned darker and darker by the tick of the clock- the 2019 clock.