Angels and Wormholes

Paradox

"So we're not off course at all?"

"Nope."

"That sounds like good news -what's the problem?"

"There's supposed to be a wormhole here -the next jump to the Apex. But it's missing."

"Maybe it drifted? It's supposed to be a pretty dynamic hole."

"Yea, it is. But this holes been fully mapped. It should be right here."

"So where is it?"

"I don't know. Something's not right."

"Alright. Keep at it."

"Permission to deploy the array? I'd like to scan the area -find out where our hole got to."

"Granted. Contact Titus and give him the specs for the sweep."

Riona turned back to her station, deftly inputting a series of commands.

Several minutes went by with no word from the Avalon.

Catrina's voice came through the communicator. "Sir, I'm down at engineering -Keenan's got an idea to boost the Q-Rad signal to the Gate."

Rolland pressed the button of his communicator. "I'm listening."

Keenan's voice came back. "We can combine the jammers with the Q-Rad to piggy-back the carrier signal straight through the hole to the Gate."

"How much signal strength will that buy us?"

"Effectively ten-thousand percent, or more. Just guessing. Anyways, we don't need to worry about the noise -they'll pick it up, for sure."

"How long will it take to you to rig that up?"

"Couple of minutes. It's a simple hack -we just gotta synch the output streams and feed the carrier signal instead of jamming noise."

"Great. Get it done."

"Yes, sir."

The crew on deck was hard at work at their stations. Riona's eyes tracked the incoming data from the sensor array as it scanned the surrounding space for the errant wormhole. Several minutes went by before Catrina's voice returned through the communicator.

"Sir, we're attempting to send the signal now. Output streams synched. Q-Rad active. Jammers online. Activating with carrier signal." There was a long pause. "No response."

"Maybe they didn't detect it?" Rolland suggested through the communicator.

"We just pumped a load of distortion upstream. Not enough to jam a t-drive, but enough to register on the calibrators. Someone noticed it, for sure."

"So why no response?"

"I guess they might've mistaken it for a technical problem, or maybe interference. They're not receiving through Q-Rad comms on the Gate. So, unless they manually decode the distortion, it's going to look like noise."

"Suggestions?"

"I'd say we pump a simple signal through so they know we're trying to talk. I can send a series of bursts through, spaced by prime numbers. They'll recognize the pattern -they'll know it's not just noise. Then I can drop our message in the next burst, and they should decode it."

"Alright."

"Sir?" Riona looked over Rolland from her station.

"Yes?"

"I think you should take a look at this."

"What's up?" Rolland walked over and leaned down to look closer at the data displayed Riona's console.

"I think I figured out where the hole went. Or where we went, I should say."

"What do you mean?"

Riona pointed to the wormhole trajectory -a twisting, zig-zagging path displayed on the console. "That's the wormholes path, according to our map. And here's where we found it. Exactly where it should be -except for the Q-coordinate."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, there's only two possibilities -either the hole is forty-seven minutes ahead of where it should be, or we're forty-seven minutes behind."

"Behind?"

"Yep. I think the Gate pushed us back through the Q plane."

"Back in time?"

Riona nodded. "Yup."

"Is that even possible?"

"Theoretically, yea. In practice. Well. Not yet. Unless we just did it."

"Okay. Let's say you're right. Then all we've got to do is sit here and wait until the Avalon shows up, right?"

"Assuming their jump goes as planned, yea. They should be showing up in-" Riona looked down to her console "-three or four minutes."

Rolland hit the communicator button. "Catrina, Keenan. Cut the signal for now."

Catrina's voice came back. "Alright. Done. What's up?"

"Just sit tight. We're gonna wait a few minutes."

"Sure thing."

The crew waited, eyes intently staring down at their consoles.

"One minute," Riona announced. There was almost complete silence on the deck, except for the intermittent beeping of consoles running scans and computations.

"Okay." Riona looked up from her station. "If I'm right, this is when we should've arrived. That means the Avalon should be showing up any minute now."

They waited in silent anticipation for nearly two minutes.

There was a brilliant, colourful flash on the viewscreen, and the Avalon appeared, forming out of a translucent wave of color. The ship now rested in front of them. A beeping on the deck of the Excalibur indicated a communication request from the Avalon.

"Open a channel," Rolland ordered.

The view of the Avalon was replaced by the smiling face of its Captain, Mary Lloyd. "Captain Rolland -is everything alright?"

Rolland looked quickly over his wide-eyed crew. "Yea. Everything's fine. Why?"

"The Gate detected a problem when they initiated the field -there was an anamolous energy surge, almost like someone was trying to jam the gate from the other side. They stabilized the exit-point by counteracting the distortion -but they were concerned it might've affected the jump."

"I'll run a ship diagnostic to make sure everything's alright."

"Good idea. Let us know when you're ready to jump to the Apex."

"Shouldn't be long".

Rolland closed the communications channel. Captain Lloyd's face disappeared from the viewscreen, which once again showed the Avalon, floating just beside them in the blackness of space.

"Catrina, Keenan?" Rolland activated the communicator for the engineering deck.

"Captain?" Keenan asked.

"I need the two of you to write a detailed log of your operations for the last fifty minutes. I think we might have just discovered time travel."


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