On the command deck of the Excalibur, Captain Rolland Barron looked out through the viewscreen into the blackness of intergalactic space. "Any sign of the Avalon?"
"Nothing yet, sir," Sergeant Riona Namarra reported from her station. "You think something's wrong?"
Technical Sergeant Titus interjected. "They were just working on the Gate -signal transmission changes."
"How far off course could we be?" Riona asked.
"In theory the Gate should give us pin-point exit accuracy -that's why they built it. But if something was wrong..." Sergeant Titus paused in thought. "I suppose it depends on what went wrong. Could be a key error, calibration error."
"Worst case?" Captain Barron looked over to Titus.
Titus entered a calculation into his console. "Given the exit-point variability of the Delta hole: worst case scenario, we're more than ten thousand light years off course."
Low murmuring and whispers rose up from other crew on deck. If they were that far off course, they'd all be dead long before they reached the closest star. Their only hope would be stumbling on a drifting wormhole.
"Well then..." Rolland adjusted his uniform. "Avalon or not, we need to get to work. Riona -try to figure out where we are.
"Yes, sir."
"I also want to know if there's any known holes nearby. Figure out our fastest route to the Apex."
"On it."
"Titus, Keenan -I want the two of you to head to engineering and prep the probe array. We might have to go sweeping."
"Yes, sir." Titus and Keenan stood up from their stations and headed out of the command deck.
"Catrina." Rolland turned to the communications specialist. "Is there any way to contact the the Avalon?"
"I could work on establishing a Q-rad comm' link. But I'll need to know our location, and they'll have to be listening from the other side of the hole. If they already jumped I won't be able to signal them."
"Could they be trying to contact us?"
"I'm checking the channels -nothing yet. But if they knew our location, they would Q-rad us." Catrina's tone became more somber. "That either means they don't know where we are, or they jumped before trying their comms."
"Noted. Keep working on establishing comms."
"Yes, sir."
Rolland looked up to the rest of the crew, and spoke loudly. "The rest of you -you all know the situation. Try to make yourselves useful."
Erin Locke looked around the command deck. The crew were all busy at their stations. Through the viewscreen was nothing but blackness -it might just as well have been turned off. Erin's diplomatic skills were not useful here, in the endless void of empty space. She could only hope that the team of engineers and pilots on board could find their way home.
Erin walked over the Catrina's station, and peered over her shoulder to the console. Streams of data scrolled by. "Any luck?"
"Nothing yet."
"Do you mind if I ask a question?"
"Sure, shoot."
"How does the Q-Rad work?"
Catrina leaned back away from her console, taking a break from her efforts. "It's based on localized quantum distortions in space-time. It's kind of like tapping on a glass -you could send a message to someone if they were listening to the sound. Except instead of glass you've got subatomic particles, and Instead of tapping you're pumping distortions through space-time."
"So why can't we talk to the Avalon?"
"Well, I've been trying. Either they're not listening, or they've already jumped."
"And if they jumped, then we can't signal them?"
"Right. I can't tap the glass if I don't know where it is. You need space-time coordinates to direct the quantum distortions."
"Hmm..." Erin paused in thought. "Why not try contacting the Gate?"
Catrina scratched her head. "That's not a bad idea. I mean, we wouldn't normally try it. The Gate's inefficient for comms, and unreliable -because of the distortion created by the Tunneling-Drive. But it could work, in theory. It might be worth a try."
Captain Barron overheard their exchange, and walked over to the pair. "You've got an idea?"
"Yea," Catrina answered. "Well, Erin suggested we try establishing a Q-Rad with the Gate."
"That'll work?"
"Potentially -there's gonna be a ton of distortion from their T-Drive, so anything we send is gonna be a bit garbled. It'll be like shouting across a noisy room... But in theory, if our signal was strong enough they could detect the interference. We'd have to divert additional power through the Q-Rad. But we might be able to get a signal to them."
"Alright. Now we're talking. Do the prep'. Let engineering know you're gonna need the extra draw. See what they can do."
"On it."
Rolland turned to Sergeant Riona Namarra. "Any luck with our coordinates?"
"I think so, yea -give or take a few dozen lightyears. Status is updated. Working on pathing now."
"Great. Good work."
"Alright." Catrina swiveled her chair away from her console towards Captain Barron. "Good to go. What message am I sending them?"
"Send them our coordinates. If I'm not mistaken, they can use that to establish a solid comm-link -and then maybe put us in contact with the Avalon and let them know where we are."
"Sounds like a plan." Catrina swiveled back to her station. "Sending signal now. A hundred-fifty percent distortion." The console beeped. The crew waited anxiously.
"Any response?"
"Nothing yet."
"Should we boost signal strength?"
"Sure. Trying two-hundred percent." Catrina slid her index finger across the console. "Still nothing."
"Maybe they're not listening?"
"I don't think we're loud enough."
"How high can we push the Q-Rad signal?"
"I'd be worried about blowing the inverters if we went much higher."
"Two-hundred-fifty?"
Catrina shook her head. "I wouldn't want to risk it."
"Could they realistically detect a signal at two hundred percent distortion?"
"It's a long shot. They'd have to know what to look for."
"So we need some way to boost signal strength."
"Yea."
"Alright. Head to engineering -see what you can come up with."
"Yes, sir". Catrina stood and headed for the exit.
"How's the pathing coming along?" Rolland walked to Namarra's station.
"Something weird going on. Take a look." Riona pointed to the data on her console. "I triangulated our position based on the nearet galaxies. That's the milky way. That's Andromeda. That's the Triangulum Galaxy. We're somewhere around here. Just about exactly where we were supposed to be."
"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."
-------end of chapter------
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