From No Tomorrow

The Mission

Dr. Haas-Vander hunched over his desk, examining the amulet. Around him stood the Ragyogas medical staff, all of whom felt grievously out of their depth, listening to the esteemed physicist speaking. On the couch in his quarters, Akyta, Elzbieta and Imre sat, shifting restlessly, anxiously awaiting some news but not daring to interrupt him.

Among the mumblings between the doctors, Akyta, Elzbieta and Imre heard mumblings of space-time and teleportation. Beyond this, the three understood none of what the professors said. Even in their anxiety, they soon drifted off to sleep.

"Should we wake them?" asked one of the nurses, seeing this.

"Let them sleep," decided Dr. Haas-Vander, charmed at the sight of the restless young fighters draped over the furniture. "They will have enough to worry about in the morning."

* * *

The next morning, Akyta awoke first, snapping to an upright position as soon as her eyes opened.

"Akyta?" addressed Elzbieta, awoken by her agitations. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Akyta assured, looking around. "I think I was just having another nightmare."

"But you aren't sure?" Elzbieta pursued.

"I never can tell," Akyta dismissed.

Before Elzbieta could reply to this, Imre groaned and shifted, then finally woke up.

"Good morning," he groggily bade, sitting slowly up and stretching his neck. "Where did the scientists go?"

Elzbieta examined the plethora of equipment that rested on the doctor's desk.

"They were up all night," she realized. "They could be asleep somewhere else."

Just as the trio exited the room, Dr. Haas-Vander appeared down the corridor, along with a noticeably reduced entourage of more confident-looking medics. Despite his visible exhaustion, he looked excited.

"You three will not believe what we've just found," he declared, catching up to them.

"Doctor!" Elzbieta acknowledged, "What is it? Have you found out what the necklace does?"

"We did," the doctor proudly proclaimed. "Have a seat and I'll explain."

Without another word, the three followed the doctor back into his quarters, while the medical staff all lurched away to get some sleep.

"You see," the doctor began, once on the elevator, "The delay between when you disappear and when you reappear changes according to the setting on the back of the device. These dials here are marked with units of time; just set them to the date and time of day when you want to reappear."

"So it just makes you disappear for a while?" Akyta summarized. "Then how did the Imperial move?"

"He didn't," simply answered Dr. Haas-Vander. "The spatial discrepancy was a result of the Antares itself moving beneath him. This should, by extension, mean that the planet's rotation would displace someone who used the device for any amount of time, but that does not seem to be the case."

"Could we use something like this to escape the Empire?" suggested Akyta, thinking practically.

"We don't believe so," answered the doctor. "Actually, we have even wilder theory- we think this device here is a time machine."

"A time machine?" repeated Elzbieta, incredulous.

"But that's impossible," rejected Imre.

"We were hesitant to believe this as well," granted the doctor. "But, we had already determined that the device did not simply render its user invisible- nor did it stop at intangibility. According to our tests, the subject does not age while they are gone. We performed a test involving an ice cube to prove this."