Planet Nine Affair

Chapter 2. Decision

Chapter 2. Decision.

Flip managed to get the spaceship in orbit around Planet Nine, which was eight times the mass of Earth and had a dark blue atmosphere that looked more like a frozen ball of dark blue glop with a few white streaks circling around it. It has a semi-major axis of 400 AU and an orbital inclination of 16 degrees, which makes it the odd ball of the Solar system, essentially suggesting that it formed around another star that's long gone.

Since it was not very reflective, the Earth-sized object orbiting it was difficult to see, simply casting a dim shadow as if it were a specter.

"I'm having a devil of a time trying to discern the portal," Janice complained as she peered into an eyepiece connected to the main telescope. I don't see any way to illuminate it."

"Did you try beaming a light at it?" James asked.

"Yes, but it won't return a reflection."

"Maybe we should try sending a science probe to it."

"That might work, but there's a possibility it would simply disappear into it."

"Well, we might be able to get some sensor readings before it did."

"Okay," she said before turning to Flop. "Launch a class-2 probe but try to avoid letting it fall into the portal."

Flop obeyed and the crew watched the small probe approach the totally black object. The data that was being sent back was very strange.

"This doesn't make sense." Leonard declared. "The clock on that probe is running backwards."

James squinted at him. "That's odd. Why would it do that?"

"The only way it could happen is if time in the portal is running very slow compared to our time. That would only happen if it were near a black hole."

"That's not a black hole," Janice argued. "If it were, the probe would have already entered the event horizon."

"I think we're dealing with an unknown phenomenon," James said.

"I'm not getting anything back from the probe," Leonard said. "It's gone."

"Maybe this is a small black hole," James said.

"It would be tearing up the planet if it were," Leonard replied.

"There's something weird about this object," Janice said. "When the probe entered it, I saw what look like a spinning effect. That could indicate that this is an object that's rotating very fast." She typed a command into the telescopic system. What she saw caused her to gasp. "Something's wrong!"

"Oh my God!" Leonard exclaimed. "Our clocks are running backwards!"

"Back us out of here!" James yelled.

Flip entered the command to break out of orbit, but the engines were struggling to accomplish it. After several scary moments, the ship slowly moved away.

"How could that happen?" Leonard asked, still breathing hard. "This isn't a black hole."

"I think that the probe caused whatever it is to become active," James said. "We're dealing with an unknown, maybe an alien invention."

"That's just great," Leonard said, his excitement slowly subsiding. "We're faced with an alien contraption we know nothing about."

"There's no way we can examine it," James replied. "If it's a worm hole, we could end up in some far-flung location in the galaxy."

"Our clock is still running backwards," Flip announced.

"Move us further away from it," James ordered.

Flip nodded and entered the commands to move away. As their ship did, their clock slowed running backwards in relation to the distance from the portal. Once they were several thousand kilometers away, their clocks began to run forward again.

"Well, it appears that this mission is finished," James said. "We can't deal with something like this without knowing what's happening."

"I agree," Janice said. "The clock reversal put us several months back in time."

"That's crazy!" Leonard exclaimed. "If that were true, we would have sensed it."

"That's assuming that our internal time is the same as the cosmic time. This situation must be equivalent to what would occur if we were just outside a black hole's event horizon. We wouldn't experience any change even though our time would be very slow compared to time away from the black hole, which would put us back compared to normal time because of time dilation."

"I don't think it would be as extensive at this is," James said. "We've been thrown back several months in what seemed like minutes."

"Yes," she said. "This is much more severe. We're not quite sure how this happened. However, no one has experienced a time portal until now."

James sighed. "I'm not sure what we can do now. If we return to Earth, we'll be out of place in the past."

"There's nowhere else to go," Leonard said. "We don't have a way to reverse the time change."

James stared at him for a moment before turning to Flip. "Plot us a course back to Earth."

"I am unable to locate Earth," Flop replied in his unemotional vocal manner.

James squinted at him. "What do you mean?"

"Earth is no longer discernable in the main telescopic array," Flop answered.

James turned to Janice. "Is that possible?"

She entered commands in the telescopic array display and after several minutes, she had a response. "He's right. It's no longer visible."

"Does that mean it's no longer there?"

"I don't think that's the case. I think it's being blocked by something else."

"What?"

"It could be Jupiter. Yes, I believe it is Jupiter. Remember that we're out of sync with time. Planet Nine and us are no longer at perihelion."

"Shit! That means it'll take us a lot longer to get back to Earth." He turned to Leonard. "Will we have enough resources to do that?"

"I think so, but I won't know for sure until I check the physical reserves."

The situation was tense but there was nothing they could do to reverse what had happened, and a complete analysis of the phenomenon was not possible because of the danger. The crew had nowhere to go but back to Earth.