Time and Time Again

Cola sat down on the edge of the palette the Monks had laid out for her and, yawning, rubbed her eyes. The thoughts of the long few days travel behind her and a difficult time ahead of her clouded her mind. She felt nervous about her upcoming trip with the White Rabbit. She needed to get to know him as he appeared to be an important part of the jigsaw, but she couldn't help feeling that he was a little cold and his thoughts seemed to be far away, his voice only returning to the here and now when he was addressed. Phump seemed to get on with him; so did Mike the mouse. Cola was insisting to herself that she gave Madison the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

She swung her legs up onto the palette and lay down. She triggered the implants and pulled up the next chapter of Herbert's life. Maybe the answers would come to her as she reviewed these archives. Maybe if they ever started to make sense.

---*---

I took the credit-chit back off the man in front of me and reviewed the balance.

"This is more than I expected." I said, slightly confused.

"The cargo was delivered especially quickly and we decided that a bonus would be in order." the other said, "However we would be interested in offering you and your crew a permanent run."

So, that's where we were heading. I had to nip that in the bud.

"Well, I'm afraid we're fully booked for the foreseeable; and we'd like to keep our independence." I looked him in the eyes. This was tricky because he had three. "I'd like to return the extra."

I felt a sharp pain in the ankle. Seated next to me, Vestock whistled tunelessly, looking at nothing in particular. Luckily, for my ankles, our patron was generous.

"No, no," he said, "Keep the bonus." he wrung his hands together as we spoke, "Just keep us in mind as a source of income should you have a prolonged gap in your schedule." He stood up, realised his glass was still half-full and emptied it in one swig. "Thank you for your work." He continued, "We look forward to having your cargo holds available to us again." He turned and trotted out on his hooves.

As soon as he was out of earshot Vestock turned to me, "We'll never make miyonaires if you keep offering to give people their money back."

This has already happened three times - we have had a very successful few months and the larger shippers all seem to want to keep us on a retainer and force us to work for them only. I think we've been a little too fast a few times and the clever ones want to get inside our ship and see what we've got that makes us cut a week off most people's delivery times.

That ain't gonna happen any time soon.

I shrugged at Vestock, "None of them have taken their bonus' back as yet. They all know we're open to offers and I'm going to keep them at arms length." He grunted an acknowledgement as I continued, "We're getting a good reputation here as the fastest medium-volume couriers in the sector." It was time for me to drain my drink, "And when the cargo hold expansion is finished we'll be able to ramp up a notch from just medium-volume.

"It seems strange to be surface bound for a whole week here." Vestock said as we both stood to leave, "We've hardly stayed still since we got back to known space."

"That's why we can afford to relax; get some improvements to the ship." I finished my glass, "And have a decent drink or two."

We were still doing business in bars; arranging cargoes and destinations, but the quality of the bar had risen over the last few months. We nearly didn't survive the first week; we're still not sure when the first week actually was.

---*---

I think it was five months ago.

"Wakey-Wakey!" The ship called us, "We're back near enough to home to get a subspace signal!"

I rolled over on my bunk; turned the gravity through ninety degrees and stepped out into the corridor. Richard was running a neutron-depolariser over the floor as I stepped out. "We're running high again." he said, explaining his chore. Not sure I understood exactly what the neutron-depolariser did; but the ship had to be swept every few weeks or else, um, something bad happened. Vestock called over the comms "I've got the news!"

"Great," I said, trotting to the mess hall, "pipe it through to me will you. I'll be in the mess."

"Um, er." the ship broke in, "I'd rather you all came to the bridge." It sounded confused. Confused ships worry me, "There's a small problem."

We squeezed into the bridge. All of my crew. Even Malcolm had come, although he was playing with a ball of string and singing some ditty about "lunch" again. I was beginning to lose hope that we'd be able to rid him of the nano that had turned his logic-centres to mush.

"Hokay then Ship." I asked, "What's this problem."

"Well," It began hesitantly, "Its just that the journey took longer than I expected."

"Er, I beg to differ," Kurl said, "You told us it would take six months." His eyes looked vacant for a second as he checked his implants, " And that was just under 179 days ago."

"Um," The ship continued, "Well for us its been six months." It paused, "But there seems to be some sort of relativistic interference when you fly long distance Third-Quantum translations."

"Which means?"

"Well, I'm not sure how it happened," The ship was having an elongated beat around the bush. I just hoped that there wasn't anything nasty in the copse, "But its been two years for everyone else."

"Everyone else?"

"The people in the rest of the universe." Then the ship was off, "This shouldn't happen - when you Translate you aren't travelling through an Einsteinium space and so you're not actually travelling fast and so you shouldn't be affected by relativity.

"But we seem to have..."

I sat back in my, the captain's, chair. "Will this happen every time we translate?"

"I don't think so." The ship responded, "Because the initial tests we did before we left wouldn't have worked. And when I translated into that building to rescue our good colleague there..."

Kurl grunted a "Thanks"

"So if it happened every time then I'd think I'd have noticed then.

"As long as we keep our journeys short we can still utilise Q3; just don't ask me to take you half-way round the galaxy again."

I was a little worried about this, "You say you don't know why this happened?" The ship made a sad, Bloop-noise in response, "I take it you will try to find out what's going on?"

"I'll try." The ship sounded quite unhappy about the thing. I wasn't that cheerful about the rest of the universe ageing at a different rate to me.

I thought I'd change the subject, "I thought you said we had a News-Feed?"

The ship grunted an affirmative and kicked a holo-newsreader up.

"Now in the twenty-second month of the Fader offensive we are not seeing any sign of the new Hegemony's expanse rate slowing, are we Bob?"

Another newsreader's face came on, "No we're not Gerry. Fader has over 100 worlds under his control and when we say Control we mean it."

"Yes, Bob. Not one ship has come out from an occupied world, except to join Fader's fleet and subdue another planet."

"Yes, Gerry. The problem you and I have is that the shape of Fader's Hegemony isn't a nice smooth sphere - its more like a one-hundred pointed star going off in all directions; so even the best military analysts of the free worlds cannot predict what world is next."

They showed a graphic of a galaxy map, which zoomed on on our quadrant; there you could see, quite clearly a pink, amorphous blob. An arrow pointed at this saying "Fader Hegemony". A gasp escaped from more than one mouth in the room.

"We should call Fader up." Richard suggested, "He's got to have some decent paying work if he's got that powerful."

I paused the news and rounded on Richard, "No way are we going to work for that maniac." I pointed at the map, "He's started to enslave the galaxy for Bug's sake!"

Richard shrugged, "I just thought he's be able to pay well."

I looked round the rest of the crew, "We are not working for that bunny again." I said slowly as I turned, "No way. No matter what."

Most of the crew acknowledged me; Malcolm was singing "Lunch will set us free" in the corner. I sat down again and un-paused the news program.

"Well Bob, I don't think the galaxy has seen anything like this since the Omega Expansion."

"Well, that sends a shudder up my spinal columns, how about you Gerry?"

The other newsreader nodded. "We've got here the latest broadcast from the man himself - to help our viewers decide what they think of this new power."

"Lets see it then Gerry."

The newsreaders faded out and the frighteningly familiar face of Fader came though; he was in a busy office that appeared to be done up like a Roman Emperor's chambers. Well, to me; not sure what the others thought.

People of various species pottered behind him as he spoke.

"Yet another world has decided to join our Hegemony. We applaud the decision by the free people of Hagristadia to accept a place in our defence forces and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship."

I paused the picture and pointed behind Fader. One of the potterers had turned round.

"Gilchrist isn't Fader?" The figure was unmistakably a black rabbit. I'd remember that face anywhere.

The crew were silent, "There's two of them?" I asked. Kurl shrugged, Vestock put an "I dunno" face on. I looked at Richard.

"Well, of course." He said, "No one ever said they were the same person did they?"

---*---

We'd discovered that Gort was well outside Fader's sphere (or multi-faceted gem) of influence, so we made all haste there (except we didn't go as fast as we could have... In case we ended up a hundred years in the future!).

We took a charter to ferry some cargo. Then another one a week later. Even not using the Q3 drives to their fullest we could still beat any other ship on as little as a three-day run.

We started to get a reputation for delivering the goods fast and complete. We can definitely out run anything pirate ships have. We probably can't outrun anyone with an interdiction-cruiser but you never know.

Vestock and I were just leaving the bar when the patrons started shouting - the barman turned the volume up on the newsreader.

"I repeat - a large fleet has been detected entering the Gort system. This looks like its time, Ladies, Gentlemen and Nons, Fader is on the way!"

We could just hear the newsreader continuing "We implore everyone not to panic and..." The rest of his words were drowned out as the bar erupted in a panic.

On our feet already we got out of the door and headed for the ship. I tried to call the crew up on comms but the channels were flooded; whether the system was overloaded because of panicking people or whether Fader had seeded the atmosphere with jammers first I couldn't tell. I hoped everyone had the same idea as me.

Everyone had the same idea as me.

I mean everyone on the planet had the same idea as me. Every single sentient life-form was trying to get to a spaceship and we had to fight our way through a rather hostile crowd. As I reached the dock I realised that the only reason we'd been allowed through is that the ship was surrounded by scaffolding - the cargo-hold enlargement was, or until fifteen minute sago at least, a major piece of work and the ship looked un-flyable.

The ship hadn't lowered the ramp. This pleased me. We clambered up a ladder onto the top deck and let ourselves in through a ceiling air-lock hatch.

I called to the ship as we entered, "Where is everyone and when can we get out of here?"

I heard voices call me over the intra-ship comms; and I breathed a sigh of relief when I counted that everyone was here.

"Its going to take a good fifteen minutes to get the hull airtight and space worthy." She ship told me. I was surprised, "I'll have to shut off the entire cargo hold and half the lower-decks. But I can do it."

"Have we got a ETA for Fader's feet?" I asked. There was no reply. "Anyone?"

Kurl's voice came over the comms to me, just to me, "Somewhere between ten and twenty minutes away."

I swore as I reached the bridge. "Ship, do you need any help?" A no-bloop responded.

"Just leave me at it," the ship said, "And keep an eye on the fleet."

A map of the system was projected in the front of the bridge with a nice large yellow "You Are Here" arrow and a rather large number of pink dots coming in fast from all sides. They must have translated as close to the planet as they could.

I sat down in the captain's chair and tried to sigh in relief. But the encroaching pink mass was nothing I could find relief about. I clicked some outside views up so we could see what was happening.

Pandemonium. Gort was a major port and a good thirty percent of the people on the planet at any one time were in transit; this meant there were always a lot of ships here - but not enough to take the whole population away in the face of an invading fleet.

I could see ships taking off all over and a maddening mass of rioting people converging on anything resembling a working ship. Luckily we didn't look space worthy.

The problem is we didn't look space worthy. Which is quite worrying when you have an invasion fleet blowing down your necks.

I turned my attention to the fleet and started to manipulate the images in front of us.

There were a large number of small, fast craft ahead of the bulk of the fleet, and the rest seemed to be surrounding thirty-odd strange-shaped vessels. Then I realised that they were big transmitters - he would put those round the planet and then bathe it in his subdual ray. Malcolm was the only one who would have a chance of keeping his sanity once those were turned on. Anyone caught driving a non-automatic vessel of any sort was likely to crash and burn; they would be too caught up worshipping Fader to worry about such things as height and velocity.

"Any time now?" I asked the ship as I could see the first pink dots arrive in orbit.

A non-commitant bloop answered. I didn't want to push it. I also didn't want to still be here when those transmitters were turned on.

A voice came over the external comms - It was Fader broadcasting to the planet:

"People of Gort your attention please!" I'm not sure the 'please' was necessary at this point in time, "We are now surrounding you with our fighter craft, ready to protect our capital ships. You are at this moment in time a conquered planet and all ships are under orders to stay on the ground. For you own safety do NOT ATTEMPT TO LEAVE THE PLANET"

The voice started to repeat, then there was an explosion in the sky.

Kurl was monitoring the airspace, "They just took out a trader in flight."

"Any time soon?" I said to the ceiling again.

"We're surrounded." Kurl said with a rather despondent voice. "Do you think Fader will give us easy jobs? Seeing as how we're 'old friends' and all that?"

"Not sure he cares much about 'old friends'" I responded.

"READY!" The ship called.

"We'll get blown to bits!" Vestock shouted.

"HOLD ON!" The ship called out, "THIS COULD BE A little ROUGH!"

I felt the intestinal-twisting that always accompanied a translation.

All around us turned black.

I took a while to understand what had happened - We'd translated from within a planet's gravity well. This was not supposed to be possible.

"That went as well as could be expected." The ship said. I heard a retching sound from behind me as Vestock threw up. I looked back at him; he seemed okay. Then I thought of Malcolm - he wouldn't have had a chance to be put into stasis.

I jumped up and made for the door, "Where are we then TB?" I asked, and "Where's Malcolm?"

"Easy one first: Malcolm is the mess hall." I raced towards the hall - I was worried - there were some sharp implements there and, if Malcolm was anything like the last time he'd flown when not in a stasis field he'd be self-mutilating in seconds.

When I got to Malcolm he was under the main table, banging his head against the bottom. I put my paws between his head and the table and then, wrapped my arms around him and tried to sooth him down.

---*---

I'd seen to Malcolm's bumps and bruises, sedated him and seen him into his cabin. Everyone else met in the bridge.

"So: TB." I addressed the ship. "Where are we?"

"Where is easy." The ship said, "Or rather, we're exactly where I predicted we'd end up." It paused, I seemed to think that it's improvements has given it too-large a sense of drama, "The first interesting thing is when we are.

"The translation took us five minutes.

"The rest of the galaxy experienced six months."

The crew swore. In a variety of tongues.

"We went that far?" I asked.

"No, not really, I just took us far enough way so that we'd be out of Fader's influence. Translating from a planet's surface isn't something anyone does one a regular basis, you understand. But we managed it." He sounded very pleased with himself, "However I didn't bank on us being gone six months - so there was the possibility that he'd have expanded to include this cloud I aimed for."

"Cloud?" Kurl asked, but I had a better question:

"Was?"

"Its over." The ship said. "I'll show you the news in a bit, but the gist is that the rest of the free galaxy attacked using remote ships and, well, Fader's Hegemony is no more."

I sat down with a thump. "Well that was a good six months."

"They've got Fader and are putting him on trial now." The ship said. "And, er, it doesn't look good."

"Damn right." I said with some feeling.

"Er, Maybe." The ship said. "But I'm not sure the verdict is going to please you."

"Huh?"

"The public are pushing for an Omega-Verdict."

"Huh?"

"Where the entire species is obliterated rather than suffer another force like that again."

I felt a deep fear in my belly. "We're the same." I said quietly, "We're the same species." I looked round at my crew. "They're going to obliterate my species." I suddenly felt very cold. "Just because of one bad bunny."

"Funny you should say 'one'," the ship added, "But I don't think they have both of them. I mean I think they don't have Gilchrist; just Fader."

My stomach churned. I swore and put my head down.

"We've got to find Gilchrist." I said.