CHAPTER 6

Yasmine's trip to the National Resource Center is not too far. Her appointment with the paleontologist Dr. Rachel Adams should clear the air on discoveries a planet away. Adams is familiar with the excavation sites on Mars. Though she has no idea about what kind of dinosaur fossils the Martian colonists have been uncovering. Yasmine accompanies her for a stroll through the exhibit where figures of ancient reptile specimens roam the artificial plains of Earth's once unravished foliage.

"I think you'd like an explanation of all of this," Dr. Adams says to her. She is right. The Martian colonists seem to have awakened some ancient relic of advanced scientific repute. The only problem is they have no explanation for it.

Yasmine laughs softly, quieting her voice as if they are in a library. "You'd be right about that. This is new to me, unexpected."

"Surely," Adams speaks without restraint. Her voice echoes through the distant halls. "Well, these monolithic bones represent Earth's earliest creatures, cold-blooded, of course. But you, what you have are identical remains with Martian colonists. I, I don't know how I can ever reconcile that with the notion of empirical historical data."

Their walk stops near a skeleton of a T-Rex, and now that they are facing each other she can give her a piece of her mind. "I think I should offer you some advice," she says.

"Dr. Adams."

"Rachel, call me Rachel, please. I don't know if this is some mindless stunt, or what have you. But Ellis has no idea what he's gotten himself into. These things are for the scientifically minded, not business. Do you understand? He is sort of like, the one who wants to sell the lemonade and not make it."

"I can't say that I disagree with you." Yasmine treads lightly, though understands that Bartram is still committed to scientific discovery despite his business acumen.

"However," Rachel admonishes, "you need to be aware that this has dire consequences. He sent you here for what, to scour for information as if I'm some oracle. Do you think I have any idea how dinosaurs got on Mars?"

Yasmine remains still.

"Now he probably has no idea what we're doing here, does he? Tell him that whatever problem he's gotten himself into will work itself out. It always does, he got himself into this mess I'm sure he'll find his way out of it." Dr. Adams stands firm. "Do call to let me know the aftermath of this latest calamity." Adams' haste to remove herself from the situation expresses the increase in discomfort.

Yasmine is not keen to let the discussion end so abruptly. "Hold on, let me show you some pictures. How about these?" She removes a bundle of images, snapshots from the Martian colonists. Adams reluctantly joins her side before taking them for herself, snatching the photos from her grip to turn a back on a former reluctance.

Her eyes peruse disjointed dinosaur bones, fragments of familiar species dispersed among the crimson soil of a deserted Mars. In one distinct picture, something strikes her as peculiar, where some artifact peaks from a sunken piece of soil.

"What is it?" Yasmine asks.

Dr. Adams moves from her side to a nearby post where bright lighting from a model skeleton is lit from above. The image shows a metallic black structure standing in the foreground protruding from the excavation soil that is tinted crimson red from fresh shoveling. The colonists are moving right toward it.

"This, here," Adams points to it. "A structure peaking from the soil. Not to mention the fact that there are the remnants of shrapnel from an explosion of some kind."

Unsure what to make of it, Adams lifts a hand to her chin in contemplation, motioning languishing eyes at Yasmine.

"I tell you what, go ahead and get me a relay on this thing, ask the colonists. It has a certain impression about it that concerns me. They should probably feel the same, but perhaps the distraction of these fossils has their foremost attention. As you can probably imagine."

Adams hastily hands back the images, now eager to wash herself of some unseen corruption. "The thing about reptiles is that they're cold-blooded creatures. And this Martian soil is an odd place to have even harbored such life in the first place knowing the differences. That's the thing that's so concerning. The most likely scenario is that they were transported there."

"I will explore everything," Yasmine says.

On Mars, the group of colonists continues their excavation. Not to be outdone by Dr. Adams' observation, the lead scout notices the same structure, only this time a few feet closer than before, a metallic black structure, peeking from the soil. The thick husk of a metallic artifact is densely packed into the crimson-dyed soil, rooted in place. The group of colonists made sure not to leave a single square inch unexamined where the piles of bones surrounding the metal plank were uncovered.

Several of them scour the area around the cinder block—a solid rectangular figure thrust deep through layers of crust. It looks like some sort of storehouse of computing data, the cinder block of a computer's shield covering inner components. The colonists contemplate how they may be able to remove it with the tools at their disposal.

The lead scout speaks to the others through a speaker system that is transmitted across helmet headsets. The golden hue of their visor screens manipulates the color of the colonists' eyes underneath. Washed-out suits in white appear flat and flimsy next to the solid structure that has dust lining its metallic exterior.

"Alright, who has the jackhammer?" a member asks.

"Okay, let's see our options first. We want to retain the structural integrity of whatever this is."

"However," another ranger's reply turns sour. "Does any of this shit matter at this point? Who knows how many years, all alone on this dust bowl and you're concerned about structural integrity? I say beat it to the bloody pulp and see how many licks it takes."

The frustration of the frustrated ranger begins to simmer from hours of exhausting labor. "Let's get this over with." The irritated colonist scours a nearby heap of loose tools to speed up the process, intent on doing it all by himself. The group disperses to collect what they can and call it a day at their campsite, aside from the lone ranger intent on leveling the massive object without any assistance. It only takes a few seconds of relentless pounding to cause a disturbance.

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As everyone else heads away from the excavation site, the lone ranger begins a process that will put the entire outpost in danger if he continues this stunt. In the distance, the vexed group engages in much-needed conversation, where their heavy breaths leave a rhythm of condensing fog on the inside of their visors. When they hear an out-of-place noise crackle loudly through thick helmets, that is when the peril outside rears itself.

A horrendous scream jars them from their complacency at the end of a long day. When they turn around to meet the sound, the sight of that same restless ranger being struck with the heavy force from the black slab shocks them. Rising from the soil with a fast pace, the grinding object rumbles the ground beneath them as it churns, before letting loose a thick beam that strikes the ranger's back. Finally reaching a standstill, most of the crew runs back toward the site hoping to save their comrade.

Their running stampede is buoyed by their specially designed suits with gravity-assisted leggings and boots. Every step recoils in fast jabs above a faulty Martian soil, and less than the dense atmosphere. The colonists' awkward running form through the hindrance of astronaut suits is even more pronounced along an imbalanced surface. The fastest of them reach the scout who lays motionless on his back. Under his spacesuit is bruised skin pierced with the fractured bones from the rapid fall. Through the tinted visor, his eyes waver in and out of view as he struggles to keep conscious. His eyelids are heavy, and his vision blurs. Another assisting ranger holds his head after leaving far flinging dust behind in encrusted footmarks. They have trouble bringing him back to attention.

"Stay with us, stay with us." The hit that he sustained is worse than they thought and the jackhammer lays even further from this spot. Hearing more yells, the two scouts huddled to the ground strain themselves when they look back at the structure.

The group of colonists back-step cautiously when it begins to activate itself.

"Shit! It's sentient, the thing is moving. Get out of here, we've got to get out of here!"

Slow to do so, the colonists are not the only ones experiencing this disturbance. What they have unwittingly done is awaken an ancient trap set by The Concord billions of years ago, since they last contacted with life on Mars. Little did they know that the then microbes would turn out to be live cultures on Earth after the dwarf planet collision.

In the war across the Wall, Concord research spacecraft had flung the dinosaur remains from the bellies of starships over this same spot. The payload had to be dropped to reduce weight. Most of these remains are the result of clinical testing being done on dinosaur specimens. The Concord was a master of abduction. These are the remnants of the ancient battle, left to decay as dust blows over cavernous bones.

Presently, the starship Nemesis of The Concord sits in a dark corridor of space and gets an alert to the threat percolating across parallel universes. It has been a long time since the detection system's warning sirens were activated. The Armada's leading Captain, Gereon, is more than a thousand years old now due to advanced genetic alterations. Waiting for the alert system to go off reminds him that they have been developing a new planet-killer. Any semblance of life must be destroyed for them to retain supremacy, and the offspring of Yhemlen civilization stands in their way. What the Martian colonists do not know, is that the human world they live in is an alternate timeline of Earth following a reptilian extinction. It did not have to happen that way, and time is converging so that it opens new alternate paths in the space-time-continuum.

The black structure towers high above them once erected straight up without extended beams to support it below, standing more than ten feet tall and having a significant width as well. The seemingly creaseless exterior reveals hidden compartments that open for the colonists to see. Enamored by the sight of the transformation, caution becomes as fleeting as the sand beneath their feet, almost like quicksand as it fails to hold them up straight. The colonists use much effort to stay standing, cradling their palms on the soft ground, looking for anything solid to hold on to as gusts of wind blows across their bodies.

They watch helplessly as two adjacent posts protrude from the side of the structure and anchors themselves as pillars in the soil, in a succession of moves, the two posts turn down and make pivot holes that hold up the rest of the metallic structure. The computing ability is evident enough by flickering lights that react to abrupt movements. The top of a cylindrical bulge shows a clear bubble where coils of advanced, electrical circuitry begin to activate in a pulsating array of colors that the colonists gawk at.

One of the women's timely squeals breaks the stillness. "Maybe we should continue to back up, guys. Guys!" the ranger yells. "Whoa! I think that's one artifact too many."

The colonists are immediately taken by a bright flash of light that startles them from a distance and is forced to change their focus. The immediate alarm causes their hearts to beat frantically, some tumble to the ground in cover and use their large helmet and padding as a shield. They are expecting an explosion, but nothing violent happens.

The bright light that appeared finally ruptures clouds in the sky above in a solid beam of laser light, calling to someone indefinite. The broken atmosphere of hazy Martian clouds leaves a cylindrical ring, hued of blue and a faint rainbow against the tainted Martian atmosphere where a gaseous vapor disperses through the debris of dust and wind leaving a hazy cover.

Colonists' gawking eyes from low plains look up at a stealthy spacecraft coming into view, slowly descending. Its aerodynamic lines are sharp even from a distance, and from the surface, a gleaming sun glistens along the sharp edges of the starship. Scared for their lives, the colonists make a run back to the camp. The injured ranger rises to their feet clumsily, limping across the rough terrain with an arm around his hip as assistance. Another takes a portable telescope, backpedaling often to see the craft's maneuvers to lower itself rapidly with thrusters to adjust power.

"It's getting closer!" she says. Before they reach their campsite, another laser beam beats them to it, enclosing the entire settlement with two cylindrical electromagnetic pulses that surround the spacecraft too, but it's mostly transparent. The colonists spot the electromagnetic field and stop immediately, unable to cross the barrier. It is a round force field, and the colonists are unable to penetrate its thick plasma-like matter after the laser engulfs the area.

Their campsite dissipates in a burst of flame into molten scrap, going from something to nothing in a matter of seconds when a vicious charge from the force field is unleashed. The immense heat inflames everything within its boundary, exploding and careening to a towering billow of smoke that fills the carcinogens already in the air. Coming to a standstill, the spacecraft hovers closer above the surface and moves directly above what was once their campsite.

This starship's captain, Gereon, has transported himself and a crew of two co-pilots using their image spectrometry to match the location. Three Grey Order co-pilots are enough to helm the Nemesis starship, as everything else is controlled by automated computers, only overridden by the sentience of Grey Order Overseers with telepathic ability. Once confirmed, a gravitational light bridge transported them to this very spot, light-years away in a parallel world. Gereon was quick to spot these settlers, and in a moment of recollection, remembered how important their original mission was, especially on Mars.

Its description: The atmosphere has sustained dramatic alterations due to extraterrestrial impacts of many types of large space objects. Humans, the species "Homo Sapiens," is moderate, to a severe threat.

The photon particles trapped in orbit around the starship Nemesis allow its crew to warp space and traverse time with ease, as advanced radiation fields, and computer processors, give them the ability to also rematerialize that matter in the cosmic web. The stars and planets light-years away are part of history, hundreds of thousands, millions, and even billions of years in the past, all in the form of light. Farther away from home, Grey Order starships like the Nemesis use image spectrometry and massive laser fields which take precise coordinates from those captured, condensed, and redirected particle rays to affect the gravity around them.

Picture and video data from many years ago give great directions for the superposition states of teleportation. The Nemesis makes portals that teleport and slip them into precise points in parallel realities. Even more multiwavelength spectrums of light are restructured in the form of cosmic codes which mirror and resimulate the same light particles as the were in the past, and the Grey Order's powerful cloud computers do the rest by selecting the right path. When they do, their bodies, and starship, get teleported to that very point in time and space.

When the Nemesis accurately navigates according to their maps, they can time-travel with relative comfort. Getting to 60 million years or further into the past only needs a light bridge through the cosmic web to reach galaxy coordinates 30 million light-years away, and return to Earth, another 30 million light-years, on a string of polarization.

But back in the world of Delphi Corp., the Martian colonists who are at death's doorstep begin having visions of their own, big hallucinations of the world in the twentieth century when World War II was at its height. The visions tell the story of these alien-like creatures, who up to now, have stayed away from humans. Telepathy is just the beginning of their worries.

This all comes after the Allies were pushed back from Nazi occupation during World War II in another thread of space-time, an alternate path in human evolution. At the Battle of Normandy off France's north coast, the seizure of that territory was subdued with a rapidly deployed Sarin gas. Unlike the traditional story, the United States and its Allies suffered a mighty loss during D-Day and would never fully recover from it. The deadly nerve agent had not been used much up until then, but the gas sufficiently debilitated the entire invasion and gave the Axis powers time to mobilize a counter-offensive.

This marked a beginning for rapid advances in exotic "wonder weapons," Wunderwaffen, that included rumored arsenals like direct-energy rays, antigravitational forces, and time travel mechanisms that would finally be unleashed in flying saucers and a Die Glocke bell machine. That plus biological engineering and the worldwide technological innovations of a never-ending war with the Third Reich who decried everything that was not pure went on. For a splintered moment Hitler's high-mindedness made him believe using the Die Glocke on the British Empire would further prove their scientific mastery, which it did. Yet before garnering the support of a worldwide Aryan resistance Hitler withdrew from the hoopla to offer a surprising resolution. The Nazis partitioned for peace. When the world declared international solitude before a nuclear holocaust dwarfed all the concentration camps combined, thousands of years in the course of human history were changed forever.

Even Madame Ria's French namesake is part of this sorted, alternate history of WWII when the German occupation of Paris was bolstered after D-Day at Normandy and concludes in a never-ending cold war for control. Later, Germany defended France from being overtaken by Soviet occupation. This effectively created another Entente Alliance or the L'Entente Concorde. The Entente Concord Agreement was a pact between principal territories of Germany, France, and Britain as a final treatise for peace. Whatever armistice had been taken up during the war was reinterpreted to cement Nazi control of the entire French territory.