THE GALAXYMBION ODYSSEY

Temperatures that could reach fifty-seven thermons demanded tyres made of something more robust than regular plastics or rubbers – a highly compressed elastic mineral treated with crystalline thermalite and, of course, shell-matrixed. Other hazards had been addressed; insulating glaze was lacquered onto all paintwork and windows were shatter-proof toughened, made with filter-tinted non-expanding poly-silicate. The vehicle’s unique cushion dampener suspension was primed by reactive cells filled with high viscosity oil coolant that could not evaporate even in a vacuum. The combi-truck’s wheels were gargantuan and lowered on external axles to accommodate their massive tyres. Each cabin segment had three angle-adjustable wishbone axles holding its six independently sprung wheels. Wheels which reacted completely autonomously to each rock, dip, crevice or ledge encountered, whilst keeping their cabin gyroscopically even and cushioned from discomfort with powerful R.E.D impact reducers.

Over this discordant, rock-strewn landscape, dry and harsh with almost no water, combi-trucks had to survive and protect their crew and passengers from an unforgiving ‘A’ class sun. There were other natural hazards here, and Mirek preferred not to dwell upon them. Surface radiation levels required protective shield suits to be worn in the open air, where the special inner vehicle linings could not keep living matter safe. Even with such protection it was impossible to survive safely outside a combi-truck for more than two perchrons. The Bruise, as it was called locally, had the harshest environment on Thesa X, or any other Galaxymbion world. Caldigar, their driver, sat next to Mirek, puffing on his usual aromatic plant root which smouldered gently. He always said it helped protect against the radiation, and Mirek should try it. From the suffocating aroma Mirek thought otherwise.

“Ground patrol to Central, we are approaching meteor coordinates. Registering substantial temporal instabilities; micro-photon fracturing, sequential displacement +2981. Permission to proceed and investigate.”

“Ground patrol, this is central. Halt at one hundred millirecules and proceed on anti-grav scooters. An Aldebaran 5 is on rendezvous trajectory and will provide aerial scans of all electromagnetic and sub-nuclear wavelengths as directed by you. Repeat, you must approach that meteor with caution. Confirm.”

“Confirm. We are proceeding as directed. Defence profile 7. Ground patrol closing communication now.” Caldigar turned to his Kolda-rian assistant. “What do you make of this, off-world?”

“I told you this is no meteor; you Thesa-Xians won’t listen to me. It is far more dangerous than rocky space debris, and I think we should approach it on something more substantial than anti-grav scooters. Anyway, I don’t know why I bother wasting my breath with you people; I might as well try to talk sense to a Ledaran. How long till we disembark? All I can see is a plume of smoke in a confounded heat haze. So many rocks and boulders here, it’s a wonder anyone finds anything to eat on Thesa X.”

Caldigar crinkled his nose – his version of laughter – and waved his arm toward the cabin’s rear. “Ledaran, eh? I’ll ignore such an insult, seeing as you are our guest and have helped us a great deal. We’ll arrive at the impact sight in a few lapses, so hurry up and get the excavation team suited up or we’ll be there before you are ready. I don’t want to hang around The Bruise like an idiot. The chime will sound when we stop. Oh, and be careful out there, off-world.”

Mirek smiled and disappeared into the umbilical passage, closing the hatch behind him. In the umbilical it was easier to feel the terrain they were rumbling over; cushion dampeners and impact reducers did not work outside the cabins. Crossing the short umbilical was like trying to walk a tightrope during an earthquake. Despite the miniscule distance it took several lapses to finally reach the next hatch, open it and negotiate the rim to get into the second cabin. He picked up several bruises in this manoeuvre.

Once inside though, he and three others quickly donned their thermo-suits and activated the auto seals on their plastiglass helmets. Now they were ready to brave that external hell called The Bruise. Their chime sounded, followed by several cushioned thumps as their combi-truck’s oil-draulics lowered their cabins and extended ramps to the ground. Their external hatch opened, flooding their cabin with intense light. Mirek led them forward. A similar ramp from cabin three was discharging two other suited figures with a motorised porter into which five anti-grav scooters had been loaded.

“Okay, here we go. Our sentry drones,” Mirek began, whilst letting three small metallic spheres fly from his palm, “will map out the impact crater site and lead us round the best way. Follow me. Don’t touch anything there until our drones have confirmed it is safe to do so. We go in slowly, use anti-fire foam if necessary. Check all systems and equipment, send me status positives every five lapses direct to my monitor and status negatives immediately. Any problems with comm links, extinguishers or scooters we need to fix before going in?” Five lights went blue, so he climbed onto his scooter and powered up. “Let’s roll,” he said as soft hums chorused from their five anti-gravs.

These scooters were powerful yet nimble, ideal for cautious approach or quick getaway. Since Thesa X had experienced its monumental cataclysm all transports had been fitted with additional filters to sift out atmospheric volcanic ash and convert it into fuel. Energy wipers removed powdery air-borne films that collected on their hulls, visors and windshields. In the jagged distance violent mountains stabbed at sick yellow sky, cutting into a cruel horizon. Ahead of Mirek the drones floated slowly, guiding his team around a sheer rock-face with their lights. Before them stretched the charred sea of an impact crater, so Mirek powered down his scooter and stepped onto sandy ground. The team copied. “Start taking full spectrum readings. I want a very clear picture of what we have here, absolutely everything. Analyse down to the microphoton, don’t leave us any surprises.” He pushed a new set of commands into his console and the drones set off into the smouldering pit.

A voice drifted into his plastiglass helmet. It was Arlzoi Keshra, their chief expeditionary scientist. “Radiation levels are surprisingly lower here than normal. The probes are detecting an alloy mass of various metals, some plastics, paints, thermal tiling, sub-cutaneous circuitry. Low level energy readings despite high temperatures due to rapid atmospheric descent. The object definitely seems to be a small vessel, rather backward in design and technology, and it has taken some heavy damage. We need to get coolant foam on it now otherwise anything alive inside it won’t be for much longer.”

“Are there life signs?”

“Indeterminate and weak, though readings could be artificially low because of heat distortion plus whatever is inside might not be instantly recognisable as life to our sensors.”

“Okay. Shar and Tral, come to the edge and dowse that thing with coolant foam. We’ll wait until the readings calm down a bit before taking our next step. Keep checking your readings everyone. Arlzoi, can you analyse the scorched ground around the crater perimeter? We may pick up some useful information about our visitor’s impact point and initial trajectory.”

Arlzoi bent down on one knee, scraped up some scorched sand and poured it onto his scanner’s plate. “Carbon, Aluminium, graphite, Rubidium, Tantalum. Nothing remarkable. Central are always sending us out on these little expeditions that prove to be amazingly unhelpful to everyone. Wait a moment, we have microscopic traces of pure Capriccite, a psi-focusing mineral native only to the Seppra-Sarkron bi-planetary system and the Caldian astral region. What the hell is it doing out here?”

“That’s odd. Scan sub-nucleonic for source indications. Analyse the time signature of that material and compare it with this whole area and whatever our drones are looking at under the foam.”

“Of course, Mirek. Causality signature of the scorched sand is +5 whilst the Capriccite is -215. Curiously this displacement is increasing in both directions. The sand is aging too rapidly, and its entropy is accelerating, whilst the Capriccite is getting younger.”

“Drop it quick! And the scanner! Back away from the scorched region onto normal sand. Tral, Shar, back away from the precipice now, and quickly! That’s enough foam. Keep analysing scans for any changes and remain vigilant; you may be in danger.”

“Temporal displacement here is haywire,” Parjujatan announced over headphones. “Probes are sending insane data now.”

“Yes, I see it on my scanner’s interface,” Mirek said, almost to himself. “Causality displacement is increasing exponentially in proximity to whatever crashed. Definitely an artificial mechanism down there. Temperature decreasing; temporal displacement + 2934 on object’s surface and climbing steadily; now + 2977.”

Suddenly a shattering volume buzzed through all headphones, causing Mirek and his team to stagger backwards, swaying with dizziness. He turned his communicator off to kill this ear-piercing noise before it permanently damaged his ears. Regaining his balance, he helped his colleagues do the same. He was not happy about losing intercom connection. Great plumes of blue and purple energy were spraying geyser-like from the pit, overloading their suits’ visor filtration screens. Reduced to sign language he showed them a mime of writing. They understood what he meant and he began typing a message on his scanner pad. ‘Remain where you are until this energy discharge subsides.’ Everyone typed and sent affirmatives back to him. At last the energy sprays stopped, just as suddenly as they had begun.

‘I will do a flyover,’ Mirek typed, powering up his scooter. ‘Everyone else stay back. If anything happens to me return to the combi-truck.’ He loaded and primed his energy rifle, thumbed his scooter’s guidance control and hovered forward to the edge. Beneath its patchy foam overcoat a gleaming chrome hulk shone with reflected sunlight, in stark contrast to its crater’s seared walls. ‘So far, so good,’ he typed. ‘Smooth surfaces, metallic like polished chrome. Chemical spectroscopy confirms chrome vanadium alloy. Temperature cooling rapidly, just forty thermons now. Temporal displacement + 3149 and continuing to climb. Faint life signs inside, and... heavens, Ledaran music. Carl Orff, Carmina Burana. What in cosmos is going on? Programming drones to proceed inside and evaluate source.’

‘Screaming serrated vengeance,’ Parjujatan typed. ‘Ledaran, you say? Isn’t that one of those barbaric planets we are told from birth to avoid at all costs?’

‘That’s the one, my friend. Our drones are making a closer internal inspection. Feeding image through now; looks like some symbols written on the hull. Anyone know Ledaran script?’

‘I studied it a little at science academy,’ Arlzoi Keshra typed. ‘I think it says NASA Star Vessel Novacosm, Landing Module. NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration in their language. What the hell is it doing here on Thesa X and since when did a backward hellhole like Ledara accomplish manned interstellar travel?’

Mirek guided his scooter back to good sand and set down once more. ‘Okay, we need a consensus on direct visual survey. Thoughts, anyone?’

‘It does generate the strangest readings and emanations. Perhaps it is something from Ledara’s future?’ Parjujatan typed. “If so I recommend extreme caution, especially considering its causality displacement and the psi-mineral from Seppra-Sarkron.’

‘Turn your intercoms on again when your ears have stopped ringing. Keep scanning, everyone, and tell me straight away if you pick up anything else out of place. Did anyone manage to get some meaningful analysis on those energy geysers?’

Arlzoi began typing; ‘nearest guess is concentrated temporal lightning. Energy readings were off scale. Not sure - - - - ’

Mirek turned to look at the scientist, who had fallen backward and was lying in an uncomfortable heap. ‘Are you okay?’ he typed, expecting only that this was a minor trip.

‘No. Terrible pain in feet, going numb. What is it, sir?’

Mirek stepped forward and noticed his scanner pad display “foreign matter contamination” as he approached Arlzoi. Another message from the scientist: ‘legs, creeping up my legs. Numb and sharp like needles in my bones. Temperature and pulse soaring. Stay back, sir. Stay back, all of you. Some parasite, extreme danger!’

Mirek pointed his rifle at the stricken scientist. ‘Everyone: keep back,’ he typed. ‘Be ready to shoot Arlzoi if necessary.’

The scientist’s legs were swelling and ripping open his suit, revealing tattered clothing and pulsating white plasma flesh. What had been two legs were merging into a single trunk and Arlzoi’s face had become a mask of extreme agony and terror. He sent a typed message of desperation; ‘KILL ME PLEASE. CANNOT STAND THIS AGONY.’ The swelling white flesh was now at his waist. Mirek fired and the scientist slumped, his clothes and suit material continuing to rip open as the biological transformation proceeded unhindered.

‘Everyone, maximum setting now!’ Mirek typed. Five rifle muzzles pointed at Arlzoi, five beams of radiant photons sliced into the body. Their target’s thermo-suit continued to shred from within and the plastiglass helmet filled with white. Glass shattered, spilling expanding white matter onto the ground. ‘Fire at it again, broad coverage,’ Mirek ordered. Beams sliced out once more, trying to carve the grotesque apparition up or vaporise it. The team paused to see if their fire had been effective. White pulp oozed slowly away from the tattered thermo-suit, then solidified and turned grey, crumbling into ash. ‘Okay, get back to the combi-truck, all of you. Now.’

The team members obeyed, mounting their scooters and gliding away. Mirek continued to stare at the outlying frozen grey powder that had once been part of Arlzoi, checking for any movement or other change. The remaining white ooze that his colleague had become self-ignited and also crumbled into powder like magnesium. Mirek carefully looked over the precipice into the abyss. There was no sign of the drones and no data coming in from them anymore. He found something obscure yet familiar about the strange parasite that had attacked Arlzoi; Mirek had sensed identical emanations from within the crashed vessel. The music coming from it had now changed to Mahler Symphony No 10. He decided that only one solution lay before him; to jump into the pit and see for himself.

With his new strengths acquired on Elvakay and, knowing that Weethis had sent him to Thesa X two orbits ago for a very good reason, he was confident of being able to deal with whatever he encountered down there. He jumped, landing a short distance from the foam-covered object. Concentrating his mind on what appeared to be a hatchway, he found a locking mechanism and exerted the correct force needed to open it. A heavy oblong metal door fell away from the hull and dropped to the ground. Obviously not supposed to do that, although it is Ledaran, he thought to himself. Probably used too much force. A muffled voice rang out from his earphones over some residual static; it sounded like Caldigar, so he typed a message back, hoping the interference would not affect its broadcast.

Taking a few steps forward he stood in the hatch looking into a dark interior. Red emergency lights flickered inside, occasionally illuminating several internal constructs which looked badly broken. There appeared to be no normal reserve interior lighting in this contraption, though it could be one of many failed systems. He turned his visor illuminators on and looked around. It was certainly a backward vessel, almost prehistoric, and difficult to reconcile with the future of any world. Up ahead were two sitting crucibles mounted on sturdy supports. The music appeared to be coming from four square boxes affixed high on the walls at almost equal distances. Mirek activated his helmet recorder to film what he saw.

Treading very carefully he ventured toward the crucibles, convinced that this vessel’s crew of two must be dead; apart from the music there was no sound and sparks from broken electronics were the only movement. The chairs appeared to have some form of swivel mechanism, currently locked for flight and landing. Reaching out with his mind he unlocked those fixing bolts and slowly swung the chairs round. Seared, disfigured faces looked back at him through broken glass, yet their clothing was unharmed and their spacesuits intact. One of them had lost so much flesh it was possible to see bone under its face. The other occupant was smaller, possibly a female. Running a scanner up and down both occupants produced some strange readings, the like of which he had not seen since…

Kytonia! The lightning prison Weethis and his Brethren used to contain Syhe Alderhin had given off similar readings, as had the glowsnakes themselves, and those peculiar orange-grey boulders and rubber moss outcroppings. He quickly compared this with readings from the parasite that had attacked Arlzoi. It was identical, causing Mirek to step back immediately and raise the muzzle of his rifle. Neither action was sufficient to prevent a fully-grown serpent of white flesh rise unexpectedly from the female’s charred remains and launch itself at Mirek’s mid-section in a blur of movement. He fell back, feeling as though being cut in two.

Caldigar had had enough. He told those who had returned to remain inside the combi-truck and allow him about forty lapses before calling in the Aldebaran 5 for backup. He buckled himself into combat armour with a jet pack and took off quickly in the direction of the crash. He did not have to go far though before seeing his Kolda-rian friend. “Emergency,” he called over his intercom. “Aldebaran 5, we have an injured crewman down here at my coordinates.” He steered himself to the ground and cut his jets. Mirek appeared to be alive though his environmental suit was ripped open at his lower torso and some form of white parasite had attached itself there. Caldigar neither saw any movement nor heard any sound as a second white serpentine launched itself whip-like from behind nearby rocks, piercing the back of his suit helmet and diving into his spinal cord.

From its airborne position the Aldebaran 5’s pilot saw this horrific spectacle and, panicking that an outbreak of alien contaminant would further ravage Thesa X, dipped the Aldebaran’s cone and fired at Caldigar’s location. A piercing laser barrage hit the area, sufficient to obliterate boulders, Arlzoi’s remains, Mirek, Caldigar, the alien spacecraft and sterilise the whole crater.

2770/2019

Seventeen orbits earlier, around four decorbs after Ambassador Uexin Gurss’s eventful trip to Kolda-ra; Thesa X, a beautiful, lush, green planet in the ZANTH quadrant. Its moon, Sirantiga, also a beautiful bluish-green sphere, had been settled as a temporary colony by Thesa-Xians for several millennia. Its gravity being low meant a maximum stay of six decorbs, during which a strict regimen of vital exercises had to be maintained. Thus, its population was ever changing; citizens on holiday, students on study projects, research scientists, athletes and astronauts in training, spiritual adepts in meditative isolation and families grieving lost relatives went there. Occasionally artists, poets and musicians could be found on Sirantiga, seeking creative inspiration in its unique landscapes.

Monitor stations at the solar perimeter kept the entire Thesa-Xian system safe from attack. Except from time itself; there was no adequate defence against temporal disasters yet. On the rev that became known as ‘Time’s Punch’ space erupted violently and suddenly within three Calebrins of Sirantiga’s surface, spewing out a contorted mass of planetary debris. Within moments Sirantiga’s gravitation attracted these enormous fragments to itself, seriously disturbing its gravitational trajectory and atmosphere. Many vessels managed to escape, before impacts occurred, and Thesa X mobilised rescue vessels immediately. Planetary Congress activated a network of protective satellites to vaporise emerging fragments, and erected protective barriers around both world and moon. Then the unthinkable happened. A chunk of planet-sized matter bitten out of some destroyed world poked through the rift. Valiant attempts were made to break it into harmless pieces, however it was too near to allow sufficient time.

A resulting catastrophic impact with Sirantiga knocked the ailing moon off its newly tenuous orbit and sent it away at a tangent from Thesa X. However, the intruding piece of planet was knocked towards Thesa X’s surface. A race to save Sirantiga now became a race to save Thesa X. Planetary distress messages went out to Galaxymbion allies, sadly the nearest of them would take at least a perchron to arrive even at full speed. Reliant upon its own resources freight tugs were launched in an effort to push this incoming monster back out into space on a glancing trajectory, whilst defence cruisers chipped away at its outer surface to reduce its mass. Thesa X’s protective barrier could vaporise objects as large as fifty cubic millirecules; this bitten out chunk was hundreds of times more massive than that.

In the perchrons left before impact half of it was blasted off by the defence cruisers; the tugs slowed down its progress and provided significantly more time in which to continue reducing its mass and evacuate people from Thesa X’s vulnerable side to its safe hemisphere. The protective energy barrier was strengthened and tug crews remained at their work, knowing they would probably die yet determined to do everything they could to divert this threat. With the combination of tugs slowing and pushing whilst defence cruisers blasted away fragments, plus assistance later on from Thesa X’s two nearest Galaxymbion neighbours, most of this threat was diverted onto a less headlong course. It scraped the protective barrier, causing that to weaken as it fought something too big for it. About seven hundred cubic millirecules broke through the barrier and fell inside it to Thesa X’s surface. This is what created The Bruise.

Thirteen point two nine million people in total died in this catastrophe, either in the initial Sirantiga collision, the battle with that bitten-off planetary chunk of debris or as a result of Thesa-X’s surface impact and its aftermath. With Galaxymbion support and their own resources it would take Thesa-Xians more than a decade to recover their battered hemisphere recule by recule, decontaminating the biosphere, repopulating habitats with flora and fauna and rebuilding the environmental ecosystem. At the time of Mirek’s encounter with an out-of-time Ledaran vessel and its parasitic cargo, seventeen orbits later, only a small portion of Thesa X’s surface remained damaged enough to still be referred to as The Bruise. This was quarantined under a filtering dome and was only just visible from outside the atmosphere; visitors would hardly know that The Bruise had ever occurred. The area was off-limits to anyone except scientists and environmental rebuilders - like Caldigar and his team – who could spend only two phases inside the dome at a time. They were the pioneers treating radiated matter and investigating trouble-spots prior to ongoing environmental reclamation. They worked their way slowly inwards towards the dome’s centre.

Whether or not the deaths of Caldigar and Arlzoi, coupled with Mirek’s serious condition, could be added to that earlier toll was uncertain; if the Ledaran vessel had come through the same temporal rift, albeit emerging much later, then perhaps yes. However, no rift had been detected this time; the Ledaran vessel had just ‘appeared’ from nowhere inside Thesa X’s atmosphere, on a direct course for the remnant of The Bruise. Spontaneous chronological perturbations had been plaguing this galaxy for an entire decade, so no single incident was unique any more. Not even Mirek’s curious survival of a direct hit from an Aldebaran.

The comatose and seriously burned Mirek was sealed off in a hospital quarantine unit, reinforced with causal and gravitational force fields in case the parasite had some funny ideas of resurrecting itself. Everything that was needed in his care was carried out remotely by robot. Although his parasite was quiescent now, the combi-truck and Aldebaran 5 teams remembered only too well those fateful events a few revs ago, either from witnessing them directly or seeing footage of Arlzoi’s demise taken by helmet cameras. Mirek’s time signature was monitored for signs of degradation caused by the parasite, and it was in this situation that his historical origin was detected. His sub-nucleonic profile had been displaced approximately fifteen orbits positive and showed evidence of having experienced two separate previous dimensional shifts. Naturally Thesa-Xian scientists told Congress and Congress informed the Galaxymbion High Council; there was yet another anomaly in their system. The Kolda-rians offered to collect Mirek and return him home for treatment.

Therefore, it was not too surprising to hospital staff when a young Kolda-rian male casually walked into their visitor’s lobby and presented himself as a representative of his planet, there to take the Kolda-rian patient home. Duty staff were later asked why they permitted this stranger to enter quarantine. They could not even recall having questioned him or what his name was. Suffice to say, Mirek Taro – together with his parasite – disappeared along with the stranger. Still, it saved them from any concerns about that parasite getting loose and visiting yet more disaster upon Thesa X in its apparent search for raw molecular food. Wherever Mirek went certainly was not his own home; his disappearance from Thesa X was registered with Kolda-ra and the Galaxymbion High Council. He had not resumed, at least in this time frame, any communal presence on Kolda-ra.