Time Crime Redemption

(Picture Credit - Cyberspace by Compute Scotland)

In “Time Crime” our heroes Dave and Pete went back in time and prevented the inhabitants of planet Bellia from utterly destroying themselves. But on returning to their present, they find that the Bellians have decimated Earth! What next for the crew of Earth Space-Timeship “Leeds”?

“Where the Hell am I?” yelled General Jim White.

Minutes earlier Jim had taken himself to the “Gents” to have a think. The Operations Room was bouncing mad. Of all things an alien fleet of spacecraft was heading frighteningly fast towards Earth. They had tried to radio them but with no reply. Would this be the prophesied First Contact or annihilation for Earth? What sort of history was about to take place?

Everyone was clamouring for a “first strike”! Right now John had the “say”, but how long could he afford to insist on patience?

Yet now, bizarrely he appeared to be sitting in the cabin of a spaceship. No aliens to be seen, however, just three humans like himself.

Jim (Again): “What the **** is going on?”

“Relax Jim,” replied Dave Smethurst, in a re-assuring tone, “Nothing to worry about.”

Jim: “Answer the fracking question!”

Pete: “I’m Pete Smith, and that’s Dave Smethurst. We fly the Space-Timeship ‘Leeds’. We have brought you 95 years into your future.”

John: “And I’m John Wilde. When these two found me, I was living in a nuclear wasteland, caused by the bloody Bellians!”

Dave: “The Bellians are those aliens you have just encountered. As things stand, Sir, you will soon attack them and get wiped out by their superior armoury. Twenty years from now we will find John here, living in a nuclear wasteland.

But here’s the rub Sir. We have since discovered that the Bellians are completely benign. They had trouble tuning in to your radio frequencies. If you can but wait another fifteen minutes then you will make First Contact.

I implore you to just wait patiently and all will be well.”

After some more discussion the General agreed to delay any action. They put him back in the Gents from which he re-emerged and took the operational reins again. It was very difficult to keep control of everything, but he succeeded. Sure enough, the Bellians came through over the radio. The rest soon became history.

Another mission accomplished, Dave and Pete took John Wilde back “home”. Of course he was delighted to see that everything was now “normal”. Dave and Pete stayed with John for a couple of weeks to help him settle in to a new life. John had not met many people in his original life, but all those he had met were still alive. Many more were alive too. When they left John, he was very happy and grateful.

So they boarded ship again and headed home.

Dave: “Earth approach!” 

Pete: “Thank God! It looks back to normal.”

As the ship made its approach to their base, Pete began to daydream. He was looking forward to seeing Amanda Evans again. Pete really fancied her and loved to picture the girl at her station in the base Control Room.

Minutes later they walked into that very Control Room. All restored on this timeline. 

But no Amanda!

Pete: “Where is Amanda?”

Base Commander Tucker: “Who?”

Authoritative voice: “Exactly! Her she is!”

Suddenly the Control Room wall sort of melted, and through this new gap walked three officials of some sort, followed by about twenty people, including Amanda.

The Voice: “I’m Team Leader Varg of the Time Police. (He pointed to those behind him). And these are the people you obliterated with your unprofessional meddling! Yes, these! They never existed in this time line!”

Dave: “Sir, we can only apologise. I see what you mean.”

Varg: “Well, luckily for you we can integrate all of these individuals into this line. You two, come with me!”

Dave and Pete were ushered through the gap in the wall, and led into another timeship. They “took off”.

Varg: “Right, when you get home, I promise you will find all as it should be. But you two must promise me one thing in return...”

Dave: “I know, Sir. Don’t interfere again!”

Varg: “Exactly. We have inserted a monitoring device into your craft. Any further violation and we will know instantly. Oh, and Pete, your Amanda will be restored in full as before.”

Pete: “That’s great. There isn’t a better Communications Officer!”

Varg (nodded): “Of course, good sir.”

Varg winked at Dave.

With that they were beamed straight back into the Control Room. Sure enough, everything was now as “it should be”. Just the small matter of explaining where they’d been recently and why.

Paul Butters

PS 5\5\14 - See a disadvantage with blogging here - you will read this before my earlier pieces in this series. (Unless you scroll down first). Oh well...

Time Crime

(Picture Credit - Cyberspace by Compute Scotland)

In “Discovery New Earth”, the crew of the United Nations of Earth Space-Timeship “Leeds” went back in time 300 years and found a planet which was a mirror-image of our 21^st Century Earth. But when they moved back to the present, they discovered a world decimated by a nuclear holocaust. So they went back to try to prevent this catastrophe...

Pilot Dave Smethurst frowned in concentration. They’d spent weeks here, 200 or so years in the past, flying over planet Bellia. Round about this time something had gone catastrophically wrong here. Some incident had caused all-out nuclear war and destroyed all Life on this world. If only they could prevent this thing occurring...

Dave: “Pete, we need a closer look! Bugger the risks.”

Pete Smith (Co-Pilot): “Yeh.”

Dave: “Let’s do it!”

The Space-timeship “Leeds” went into a steep dive. Sure enough, its scanners showed much more of the Bellian military activities.

Pete: “What the ****?”

Dave: “What’s happened to the cloaking?”

Pete: “**** knows!”

Voice over radio: “Woah! The b******s have got into our airspace! Launch interceptors!”

Another Voice: “Request Retaliation! Repeat, request retaliation!”

First voice: “They’ve ****ing disappeared! Must have some masking technology...”

Dave: “Let’s get outta here!”

Minutes later, Dave and Pete were safely in a high parking orbit, fully cloaked. But Dave was shaking his head. Below them, inter-continental missiles were weaving deadly webs, all over the planet.

Dave: “We caused it! If we hadn’t come back...”

Pete: “Is there anything we can do?”

Dave: “God knows.”

Two of our weeks earlier, Tarash Kran was supping a nice cool beer, watching the telly. He’d had a very boring day on Radar Duty. Soon he would complete this particular stint, and go onto something else. Being a Warrior was not all about death and glory, unfortunately.

There was a knock on the door. Absent mindedly Tarash went to answer. Outside were two military police officers. He didn’t recognise them, but we would: it was Dave and Pete! They asked to come in, and presently all three were sitting around a lounge-table, having a drink.

Dave: “You see, we’ve got this new plane, with a top-secret cloaking device...”

Pete (later): “... We can only target our missiles when the cloak is off, and this is the only way we can test targeting short of trying it on them.”

Dave: “All we want you to do is keep quiet about this!”

Two weeks later Tarash is watching his radar screen. Presently a line of blips appears.

Supervisor: “How’s it going, Tarash?”

Tarash: “Bloody boring Sir. Just commercial stuff as usual.”

Mission accomplished, Dave and Pete returned to their base on Earth. They smiled together about how they’d made that Bellian soldier neglect his duty and thus save his own planet from a holocaust. They felt so so smug as their ship cruised towards home. They would be heroes now. For, now all was peacefully quiet. 

No reply on the radio! As they homed in on headquarters they saw a devastated city. Hurriedly they landed, and began to search these new ruins. Presently they disturbed a tramp-like man who appeared to be scavenging. Their first challenge was to stop him from running away, but that done, they could talk.

Dave: (to man) “What’s happened here? We’ve been away a few days.”

Man: “What’s happened what? You’re the first people I’ve seen for about three years.”

Dave: “When was the city reduced to this?” (He swept his arm wide, indicating the view of mass-destruction).

Man: “Where the Hell have you been? The Bellians did this nearly a hundred years ago!”

Dave: “Oh! I see. Do you happen to know when you first met the Bellians?”

Man: “About twenty years before that, I think, so the stories go.”

Dave: “I think we need to talk, Sir.”

Paul Butters

Discovery New Earth

(Picture Credit - NASA (Apollo 17))

Having saved planet Verduna for alien invasion, the United Nations Earth Space-Timeship “Leeds” heads back towards Earth. Well not quite. Just 300 years and hundreds of light years out. But they’ve found a New Earth.

The United Nations Earth Space-Timeship Leeds was back in normal space. Well, relatively normal. Co-pilot Pete Smith frowned and scratched his head.

Pete: “We’re still about 900 light years from home, Dave.”

Dave Smethurst (Pilot): “Time?”

Pete: “Early twenty first century.”

Dave: “Not bad. We’re getting there.”

Pete: “Hey, she’s jumped us to another nice planet!”

Last time they’d “jumped” the two explorers had landed on an extremely distant paradise world called Verduna. Now they found themselves looking at yet another beautiful blue world. To be fair the ship’s computer was programmed to seek out such planets, but still, they felt very lucky. Especially as that computer was clearly faulty. Excitedly they headed for that planet.

Pete: “Cities!”

After a brief discussion they chose a city and flew down to it. Bearing in mind their recent encounter with hostile aliens on Verduna, they “cloaked” the ship long before they entered the atmosphere.

Soon they landed in a small park. Eagerly they donned casual, civilian clothes. Fingers crossed they would merge in here okay. Universal Translators were clipped on. All ready, they clambered to the ground, and made their way out of the park.

Dave: “Bloody hell! It’s a good, old-fashioned high street!”

Pete and Dave had visited our 21^st Century only a few weeks ago, for about a month. They had settled in quite easily and were very familiar with such an environment. This place was quite busy.

Pete: “They’re just like us!”

Dave: “Funny ears, look. Not sure about the hair either.”

Pete: “Superficial my dear boy.”

Dave: “Look at those bloody cars! Talk about coincidence.”

They paused at a great glass window and looked in.

Dave: “Frack me, it’s a MacDonald’s!”

Pete: “Could be a KFC or Burger King...”

Dave: “Point taken. Looks to me that human evolution is almost inevitable on these planets. And fast-food joints!”

Pete: “Well, I suppose we’re all made of hydrogen, carbon...all the same Chemistry Set.”

Dave: “Still uncanny though. Look, he’s walking some sort of dog.”

Pete: “And he’s a she! I think.”

Suddenly there was a loud commotion just down the street. Outside what was clearly a pub, some of the locals had started a fight!

Pete: “God, it is home from home!”

In the distance a siren had wailed to life.

Dave: “Better make ourselves scarce, Pete.”

So they backed away from the trouble-scene. Then they found gold: an internet cafe! They easily hacked into a computer there. Sure enough, their internet was just like ours had been in the 21^st century. They soon found that this planet was run by a handful of super powers, just like ours had been.

Pete: “Hey Dave, wonder if these people have reached the same level as us now?”

Dave: “Very likely. Only one way to find out.”

So they agreed to return to the ship. They carried out further repairs and adjustments to the navigation system. Then they tried a jump in time only, back to their “present”.

Pete: “It’s worked.”

Warning sirens shook the ship from stem to stern. Dave switched them off. They looked out. In horror. “The Leeds” was surrounded, quite evidently, by a post-apocalyptic landscape: ruins everywhere under a darkling sky. The ship microphones picked up a howling wind as a massive snow storm lashed their landing site. Their instruments showed a toxic, acid-laden atmosphere backed by very high levels of radiation.

Dave: “Let’s get outta here!”

Immediately they took off and entered a standard parking orbit. Sure enough, scanners confirmed their fears: the whole planet was devastated. It was very clear what had transpired.

Dave: “That city is on a new latitude! They must have tilted the whole bloody planet, the idiots!”

Pete: “Oh well, you can’t win ’em all.”

Dave: “Let’s go home.”

As the ship went into hyper time-space, Dave got to thinking. Can’t win them all? I wonder… 

Paul Butters