Mission Orion: The Travel through Time

Chapter 8 | Time Warp

The day had finally come. We were making the final preparations for entering into the time warp. "Reneesh, how are your fuel cells looking?" I asked him. "Everything is fine, Captain." He replied. "All crew, we are one hour out from the time warp, mark." I announced. Everything seemed to be going according to the plan for now. For one hour, we made sure that all the systems were in place and were working properly without any sort of glitches. Time warp was a delicate piece of technology and one small error could have implicating consequences. All of us were given a lot of training on how to initiate the time warp protocol and were also acquainted with the equipment used. We beamed back our final message to Earth. Once we were in the other system, we would be able to receive messages from Earth, but would not be able to transmit them.

"All crew, please wear your spacesuits in case of depressurization." I announced. All of us made our way to the space suits room and were in our suits in no time.  "Orion Five, how are your systems looking?" I asked, sitting down on my seat. "All clear." Reneesh replied. "We just received a message from Earth. We are good to go." I informed Reneesh. "Well then, everything looks clear." Reneesh replied. I looked to my right to see the mighty Uranus. "People, take a good look at Uranus. Chances are we would not be seeing it for a very long time." I said.

"Initiating Time Warp Protocol in five...four...three...two...one... Time Warp Protocol initiated."

We felt the engine vibrating and a hum filled the ship. "Orion Four, Time Warp Protocol has been initiated. Time Warp Engine Capacity at twenty-seven percent." Reneesh said. I looked at the screen beside me, our Time Warp Engine was at thirty-eight percent capacity.

"All crew, return and strap yourselves to your seats. This will be a rough ride." I announced. The Time Warp Engine Capacity was now almost at seventy-three percent. "Cut power to the main engines." I ordered. The ship was now vibrating the there was a roaring sound from the back of the ship, where the time warp engines were located.

"Time Warp Engine Power at one-hundred percent. Please set co-ordinates." The computer announced. "Anna, set coordinates for the Xandion System." I ordered. "Location has been set, Rithvik." Anna said. "Orion Five, are you ready?" I asked. "All systems green. Coordinates have been set, we are good to go." Reneesh replied. I placed my palm on the thrust control and wrapped my fingers around the control module.

"Time Warp in five...four...three...two...one..."

All of us jolted back into our seats as the ship lurched forward. The stars were now like long strips of light as the ship traveled through space and time.  I could see the fourth dimension unfolding in front of me. The long strips of light turned into a something more colorful. We were now in a tunnel of light moving at speeds we could not imagine. None of the control worked and all the computers were showing some sort of an error. "None of the systems other than the Time Warp related systems work beyond the third dimension." Konrad informed me. "Anna, how are we looking?" I asked her. "All systems are holding up. We seem to be on course." She replied. I looked out of the bridge and it was a beautiful sight. "Captain, we seem to be deviating from our course." Anna said. "What the hell? That is not supposed to happen." I replied, tensed. Any small deviation in the course could land us in several thousand lightyears away from where we were supposed to be and the Time Warp Engines were designed to be used only twice. Once for going to the Xandion System and the second time for returning back to the Solar System.  We simply could not use it a third time. "Konrad, any chance this is a computer issue?" I asked him. "No, Captain. All the systems are working properly." He replied. "Rithvik, we are really deviating from our course. This part of the universe is not mapped yet. We are in uncharted territories." She replied. "This cannot be happening." I muttered. We were helpless. There was nothing we could do about what can only be called a crisis. "There is no way we can track Orion Five, is there?" I asked. "No Captain, we cannot track anything when in Time Warp." Konrad replied. "And there is no way we can drop out of the Time Warp. It is too risky to be an option. We could end up in the middle of a star, or in a collision course to a planet. The possibilities are endless." Anna continued. "This is something we didn't prepare for." I said.  The tension was building up rapidly inside of me. "We should be dropping out of the Time Warp in two minutes." Konrad said. "Captain, we are moving deeper into the uncharted territories. We know nothing about the systems present here. The galaxy we are passing through right now is not on any known database from any of the erstwhile Space Agencies." Anna said. "The only thing we can do is wait for the time warp to end and figure out what the hell went wrong with it." I replied. "Do you think the other ships went off course as well?" Konrad asked me. "I don't think so. If Orion Three went off course, then Leo would surely remember it happening, right?" I replied. "Rithvik, medical tests show that Leo does not remember anything after Orion Three entered Time Warp. His memory took a hit due to the trauma and also due to many months of Cryo Sleep. He only remembers bits and pieces and his memory is really choppy. I found this during the medical examination but he made me promise to not tell anybody about this." Anna said. "And you kept something like this from me? The Captain?" I asked Anna. "I am sorry, Rithvik. But he made me promise. All his other body functions were fine. Memory was the only part which was affected." Anna said. "We will continue this conversation another day." I said. "So, there is now a possibility that the other ships went off course. Probably ended up in the wrong system. Explains the attacks." I said. "Rithvik, the Time Warp is ending." Konrad said. Suddenly, the ship stopped and the light show had ended. We were in the middle of nowhere.

"Anna, where are we?" I asked, taking off my suit. Suddenly, I saw a flash to our right and Orion Five appeared. "Well, at least we are lost together." Konrad muttered. "Orion Five, do you copy?" I asked. "For heavens' sake, what the hell happened?" Reneesh shouted back. "I have no idea, Reneesh." I replied. "Anna, where are we?" I asked. "Nowhere. There literally is nothing out here. As I told you before, this part of the universe has not been mapped." She replied. Suddenly, all the systems shut down and the emergency lights kicked in. "Reneesh, are you there?" I asked. There was no response. Slowly, some of the systems struggled and came back up. "Rithvik, do you see that?" Anna asked. "See what?" I replied. "There seems to be some sort of light from behind us." She said. She was right. Something luminous was behind us. "Are the cameras up?" I asked Konrad. "Cameras are down." He replied. I look out of the bridge at Orion Five. They seemed to have lost power too. The glass on the bridge of Orion Five reflected some of the light being emitted. "What is happening here?" I said, slamming my fist into the wall. Suddenly, the master alarm went off. "Well, at least the alarm systems are working." Konrad said. "Rithvik, we are being pulled backward." Anna said. "What do you mean? Are our main engines online?" I asked her. "I mean we are being pulled backward. Whatever is behind us is pulling us near it." Anna replied. "Konrad, initiate emergency thrusters. Bring the main engine back online and full thrust forward." I ordered. "Rithvik, all the systems are back online. The cameras are not able to focus. There is too much light from behind us." Konrad said. And sure enough, the lights came back on. "Reneesh, can you see anything behind us?" I asked. After a moment, Reneesh replied. "Rithvik, this is weird, man. It seems to be a hole with light swirling around it. No, not a hole, it is a sphere. Shit... Rithvik, that is a wormhole." Reneesh replied. That took a minute to sink in. We were being dragged into a wormhole. "Reneesh, full thrust forward." I said. "We will not be able to escape its' gravity. The engines cannot go to full capacity." Anna said. "All crew, put your suits on and strap in. This is not good." I ordered as I scrambled my way back to my seat.

Soon, both the ships were almost at the mouth of the wormhole. "Konrad turn our ship around one eight degrees." I ordered. I asked Orion Five to do the same. Whatever was at the other end of the wormhole could be hostile. "Activate the weapons systems." I ordered. Anna looked at me for a second before carrying out the task. As we turned around, the wormhole was now in full view. It was like a sphere and had yellow and white light dancing around each other. As we got closer to the wormhole our systems went offline again. And suddenly, we were in the same tunnel of light we were in before, but this was way more turbulent. I look out of the bridge and was awed at the sight. It seemed as if the fire and the ice turned into one. Stars turned into small spheres of light and struck our hull. The light and the darkness seemed to blend into one. The ship shook violently but it managed to hold itself together. I grabbed my seat with but my hands in anxiousness. "Anna, do you have any idea where we are heading?" I asked her. "The navigation system flipped, Rithvik. The system has crashed." She replied. All the alarms we could think off went off.

"Critical failure." The computer warned. "Konrad, what is this?" I asked him. "As Anna said, the system has crashed, Captain. Nothing is working. All the alarms seem to be malfunctioning." He replied. Suddenly, the light show stopped. "The systems are coming back up one by one." Konrad informed me. Soon, Orion Five appeared next to us. "Anna, where are we now? Are we still in uncharted territories?" I asked her. I looked out of the bridge and I found myself looking at a star, very much different from ours, but it was very much similar to another star we knew. I knew where we were before Anna told me. "We are in the Xandion System, Captain." She replied, puzzled. I took a glance at the date and sure enough, my worst fears had come true.

The date was 21/09/6500. 

We had travelled 4351 years in a minute.

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