The Abyss of Time

Chapter One

     "So, Sam. Ready to make history?"

     Captain Jonathon Dhlomo lowered himself into the command chair. Around them, the other members of the Operations crew carried on with their checklists, making sure that the great ship was ready for departure. Glowing screens flashed with technical data, and commands tapped onto touch screens were acknowledged by polite sounding beeps. The atmosphere was one of order and efficiency. Everything was exactly as it should be.

     "Ready as I'll ever be," replied Samuel Miller, his Exec. He turned in his swivel chair to look at him while keeping one eye on his own display. Nothing but green across the board. Good. With the whole world watching, he didn't want to be the one responsible for an embarrassing delay.

     Captain Dhlono looked at the timer, patiently counting itself down in the corner of the main command overview screen. Fifty eight minutes. Outside the ship, the gate segments were charging themselves up. Graviton capacitors being filled with the exotic particles that would, in just under an hour, launch the ship across lightyears of space to another star. The first time that a ship this size had made such a journey.

     "That polaron surge sort itself out?" the Captain asked.

     "Turned out to be one of the baffle plates," his Executive officer replied. "Just like I thought. Out of alignment by five nanometers. Andy turned a screw and the surge went away, just like that. We didn't even have to pause the countdown."

     "I hope Andy wasn't too upset with you, offering your five credits on his area of expertise."

     "Well, I turned out to be right so he couldn't complain too much. The same thing kept happening back in the war. Damned baffle plates were always slipping out of place." He rubbed his arm as if it was suddenly paining him.

     "The difference being that our baffle plates weigh over a ton each," said the Captain. "Good. I'm glad that's sorted. I'm as nervous as a nun at a cyborg convention. I keep expecting something to go wrong. When everything goes as smoothly as this, it worries me."

     "You sure it's not just stage fright?" said Miller with a wicked grin. "Your budding showbiz career?"

     "You know, as Captain I'm authorised to delegate that responsibility to you."

     "They wouldn't want to talk to me. I don't have your rugged good looks."

     "But you're the war hero. You could tell them some of your war stories."

     "They're twelve years old. They'd probably enjoy them way too much. You know what bloodthirsty buggers kids are. No, it's got to be you. Who knows. This time next year, you could be a big movie star. An action hero, perhaps."

     "In just under an hour we're going to be twelve light years away, with no way to get home."

     "Not too late to get off. We're still docked to the dry dock. You could be in Hollywood by the end of the day."

     "What, and miss surprising the pioneers? Imagine their surprise when we pop up right next to their planet." The Captain suddenly grew serious. "They thought they would never see another human face. Never have another conversation without a twelve year time lag. I want to see what kind of person would volunteer for something like that. You think they've gone batty by now? Twenty years of just the twenty of them, all alone on an empty planet."

     "Maybe we should have told them we were coming. So they could prepare. We've been planning this mission for twenty years after all. They could have known we were coming for eight years by now."