One in Twelve Thousandth Percent

Chapter 16:

A few minutes later, we come upon the colony. Though, not even minutes after that, does a sentry spot us and start shooting. Kaz puts her hand up and suddenly this invisible force is repelling the gunfire. Cannon and his team begin to return fire. One of them clips the sentry and the shooting stops. I point to a spot behind a large rock. "Kaz, pull over here. Let's hide the ATV and get inside before that sentry alerts others."

When we get inside, we ditch the suits and place the salvaged parts on top of the pile. Annabelle activates the tracker on her suit and moments later the whole pile is gone. As we advance through the compound, clearing rooms, we come across what looks like a lab full of scientists. We crouch below the large windows. I look at Annabelle. "Whatcha say, Belle? Want to see what they're up to?" She nods happily.

I point to the lab, then countdown. We suddenly storm the lab. Scientists are scared everywhere. One reaches for a button on the wall, but Misaki points her pistol at him. "I'd reconsider that if you plan to keep that hand." He stops and puts his hands in his pocket. "Good idea, everyone, hands in your pockets." I say in response to that.

"Hello, folks. We really mean you all no harm, regardless of what this looks like. See, we're looking for something and we think it's somewhere within this compound." One scientist frowns. "What could we possibly have in this compound?" Looking through stuff, Annabelle says "Well, we need some replacement parts for our FTL drive."

One scientist that's standing near me squints closely. "Wait a minute. I know who you are. You're that Space Pirate, 'Crazy Kay'. You're wanted in several galaxies." Stunned, I look at him. "Space Pirate?" I look at the girls. "Shit, this is bad. In this timeline, I'm a wanted Space Pirate. Wasn't expecting that one."

Another scientist looks at me. "Yeah, you're right. It is her but something seems off. She's missing the scar across her right eye. And she's obviously not dressed right."

I stand back and lower my pistol. "Hey, I'm no Space Pirate, we're just looking for parts so we can get back to our own timeline."

"Wait, your own timeline? FTL drive?" The first scientist looks at Annabelle. "Oh, you're the one who helped invent the FTL drive. Why are you with the Space Pirate?" Annabelle looks confused. "Huh?"

"Yeah, you're the head scientist at the research station on Venus. Last we knew, you were researching a way to catch 'Crazy Kay' because she keeps slipping through your fingers."

"Why would I be trying to catch Kaylin? We're best friends." Annabelle shakes her head. Another scientist points to Kazumi. "Maybe you had been in the past or in your timeline. But that ended because she's supposed to be dead. On a mission, 'Crazy Kay' chose to maximize her loot, but that decision came at the cost of your sister's life. You never forgave her and have been trying to catch her ever since."

We all stood there in shock. "What? I would never..." I can barely speak. Misaki puts her hand on my shoulder. "Hon, remember, we're in a different timeline as well as several years in the future. So many things are different than they are in our line."

The second scientist cocks her head. "You say you're from a different timeline?" I look at her and shrug as Annabelle says "Yeah, the FTL drive has a 0.00012% chance to drop the jumper into a different timeline. We got attacked during our first jump and the drive got damaged right at initialization and it dropped us here."

"0.00012%? Those were the odds back when the drive was first created. Those are now 0.00000011%. Over time, you fine tuned the FTL drive's precision attribute to reduce that chance even further. I guess this makes sense."

The first one looks around. "Yeah, she has no recollection of anything, no eye scar, Doctor Bray is with her, and these two are still alive." Misaki turns. "Wait...I'm also dead in this timeline?" He nods. "Yeah. You were with her at the time. But no one really knows exactly what happened."