Anachron

A Trip through Time

Finally, it was time for the Anachron to deploy.  Our first wormhole would take us back about a year into the past.  Even though we would be sticking to interstellar space to avoid incident, it would still be safer for the mission to travel back through time first.  This is because humans had controlled more territory in the past.  We would be travelling through human territory in the past, which was Markadian territory in the future.

The captain and both subcaptains were all on the bridge for this historic occasion.  To be honest though, it was quite unremarkable.  We had all travelled through wormholes before, and this one looked just like any other.  In fact, if we hadn't already known, then we couldn't even have guessed the significance.

After the jump, though, that's when the real work began.  In any trip, the first jump is always the easiest, because you already know where you are.  After the jump, you know where you're supposed to be, but you never quite hit that spot exactly.  The other end of a wormhole is always a few light years away from where it's supposed to be.  Over the course of an entire trip, this can accumulate quite a bit, especially because starting a light year away doesn't just mean you end up a light year away.  There are all kinds of gravity effects that would draw the ship off course if the calculations aren't re-done with the new, correct location.

I went back to my quarters for a few hours until my shift.  When it was my turn to be in charge, I sent a message down to the navigation department.  That's right, the Anachron had a whole department of navigators.  On most ships, this job would be handled by just a few people, and this one had an entire department for it.

"This is navigation."

"Subcaptain Davis here."

"Yes, Sir."

"How far off course are we from the first jump?"

"We aren't, Sir.  The deviation is normal.  In fact, we've almost nailed it down and are just about ready to begin recalculating for the next jump."

"I'm sure we're not lost, but I'm just curious about the deviation."

"Oh, is that all?  Just a moment."

There was a pause on the other end while he looked up the information.

"According to our latest calculations, we overshot our target by 27 days."

Even I had to shake my head.  I had asked the question in the past and gotten answers like "twelve lightyears".  After a short jump, like the final approach into a solar system, the error might be a few gigameters.  Honestly, this was the first time I'd heard the deviation expressed in days.  I should have expected it, though.  After all, we were travelling through time, not just space.

"Sir, are you still there?"

"Oh, yes, I'm still here.  I just had to think about that for a moment.  Thank you.  Bridge, out."

Because of the time factor, our navigators had their work cut out for them on this mission.  Ordinarily, the task of reestablishing the location would be pretty simple.  Most of the stars would be near their correct positions, so a navigator only has to spot the difference, figure out how far off course, and feed that all into the computer.  In fact, the computer did most of the work.  Usually, the navigator was just there to add that little bit of human intuition.  On the Anachron, though, we didn't just miss our target by distance, but time as well.  The navigators would have to figure out when we were, instead of just where we were.

I spent the next several hours polling the departments for their status.  There was really little else to do, considering we were deep in interstellar space.  Being that it was a year earlier in the war, we also were now far behind the front lines.  That made our surroundings even more desolate.  That was good for our mission, but bad for morale.  Much of the crew would be sitting on their thumbs while they waited for us to arrive at Markad.