CHAPTER 12

The Concord's new planet-killer awaits activation by starship Nemesis's Captain, Gereon. Before they can finally implement their new strategic plan, a committee will convene at the Mirai station with elder council members of the Grey Order. Technological research has not had this much interest since the advent of nuclear physics centuries. Now, it is nanotechnology that is going to turn the tide. Something so powerful as nanotechnology may wipe out more than they expect if left uncontrolled. They cannot risk interfering with the cosmic web too much, or else they will disrupt the communication channels. If it is a total cataclysm that they are after, then that's what they're going to get.

With the help of the light bridge portal, Gereon uses their image spectrometer to map coordinates of star systems, plotting a course to the past. At the base camp near the Fortress Shield being constructed, he sends out the alert that all crew and troops need to board the starship Nemesis before they depart for another mission. The Martian colonists that are in tow remain chained inside their jail cell.

What they don't know is that the fellow squadron members from Alon Blane's Syndicate crew are readying to take their rebellion further; they want to overtake the starship Nemesis and pirate the teleportation technology that they promised Remold. If it weren't for their immediate capture, Alon and his partners may have been able to board Nemesis themselves at the loading dock. Its swooping Q-thrusters that engulf the rear in elliptical rings are hard to miss. Though as Alon takes solace in knowing, it isn't over just yet. He's going to have one more chance at making things right when his rescuers arrive.

Gereon walks along the slender corridor before coming to a stop when the barricade closes with a firm thud behind him. The large screen displays the Earth in a digitized recreation, and an approximate date millions of years ago, displayed with infrared spectrometry after they travel to a star system that's light-years away. Gereon presses the appropriate switch to key an image that pinpoints where Nemesis will navigate through the light bridge portal. It will make an interdimensional pull, making a quantum leap past the Yhemlen timeline, going further down in evolutionary history.

The Martian colonists see him walk by their cell briskly. Gereon glides along the hallway using his slender Grey frame.

"Where are you taking us?" one of the captives screams from the cell.

Gereon straps himself in beside his son Jasper. "I'm prepared to meet our Neanderthal ancestors, what do you say?"

"Sure thing," Jasper says telepathically through the cockpit's frequency band.

The forced quantum drive propels them forward when power is directed to Q-thrusters. The Nemesis moves away from the magnetic rings where they are tethered by polarizing forces. Moving in an open area of space before reaching the moon, Gereon charts the fastest course through the light bridge. The Q-thruster rings target its lasers in rays of light from the rear of the ship. As the Nemesis moves forward, the light bridge portal ahead of them opens the wave of a course light-years away in streaks of green and blue.

"Are we coming back?" Jasper asks.

"Of course, we should, but what does it matter? We're warriors and warriors always find their way back."

Gereon turns from him, and they proceed with a flash of light, returning the course to meet a prehistoric Earth. "We must get the colonists from their cells," Jasper says.

"Not until we get their filth off the planet, first," Gereon says. The colonists are a threat to security, and The Concord cannot risk another breach.

"Madame Ria," Gereon mentions his daughter with regret. He cannot detect her signature anywhere on the spacecraft.

"She's not here, she stayed at the low orbit station with the construction workers, but she left your medicinal packets, the ones from Plebeian, as well as fast-acting gels to repair minor scrapes and bruises quickly." Jasper reminds him.

The Yhemlen have other plans, and now that Xavier Moth wants to continue his tracking of humans across alternate timelines, starship Nemesis and crew must remain careful how they proceed, cautious not to destroy themselves in the process. Gereon's uncontrollable coughing is starting to worry Jasper when he discovers a serration along the back of his father's neck.

"You've been cut," he tells him.

Captain Gereon puts a hand to his neck in acknowledgment. "The gash has been there; I want to give it a chance for regeneration. There's no need for worry," he assures him. "So long as we're able to use our preliminary tactics successfully and get you back safely."

Since Gereon has grown sick, Plebeian's molecular transistors aren't going to be half as effective. The stress of age and a lack of adequate blood circulation leave him in a bind where the Martian desert appears like a better place for him to regrow the supply. A place where the carbonated atmosphere may allow sulfur to take its effect, like the power stones embedded in their spacesuits to have more potent, stronger effects. Like any drug, its effects are diminishing.

"We can stay inside the spacecraft at our basecamp on Mars as a pitstop. The dinosaur fossils along with the interdimensional positioning system are still there in pristine condition. Get the troopers!" Jasper calls. Gereon releases the metal gateway in the Nemesis spacecraft that houses the armed squadron. "The medicinal extract will be hard to find, but once we make contact there, we'll be halfway to finding the location."

On Old World Earth, an extinct plant contains the rare chemical compound that Plebeian uses to regenerate health and dampen the damage of wounds, along with the graphene, a plant compound is used to heal Gereon. Though there is something else lurking within the starship's hull before they can get there. While Alon Blane and the other five striker pilots awaited trial, a group of undetected Syndicate bandits boarded the empty entryway where troopers are housed in the hull of the Nemesis. Remold detected the strikers idle at the loading dock and had them make another return trip to the Grey Order station after picking them up on Earth. Remold refueled the strikers before takeoff. During the raid, they went unobserved and situated themselves within a concealed compartment inside the starship Nemesis.

The ship penetrates the Earth's atmosphere, revealing a lush landscape unmarred by time and human civilization. The striking flash of light and plasma bright as many suns shines through luminous clouds before leaving a dark shade beneath starship Nemesis, finally hovering to a successful landing in open field millions of years ago. Miles of land in Middle Asia is wide open, and the air that blows beckons for Gereon's crew to exit after descending through the atmosphere.

Before they can activate the appropriate switches, Gereon and his Grey Order crew are assaulted by Syndicate bandits who managed to hide in a secure backroom aboard the Nemesis. The vagabond group wastes no time slitting throats and dodging bullets before an armistice ensues to save lives. The Nemesis's cockpit was bombarded with plasma pulses from handheld guns and the power scared the Syndicate, who do not have the same experience with them. When the Syndicate was able to withdraw from the trooper cabin, an electromagnetic force field allowed them to withstand powerful shots fired back at them, evading gushes of splattering blood and dismembered limbs. But unlike the Greys, they could not hold their telepathic control for long.

The starship Nemesis crew can hardly believe it, but their entire operation may be compromised forever if they can't get the spacecraft back to the low orbit station safely. Just as Gereon begins to initiate his power, the surge is halted by a Syndicate member in a telekinetic choke that short-circuits the Grey Order uniform. Making things worse, a vagabond is holding a Martian colonist hostage. It looks like they'll be taking her, and the rest, as ransom. It was easy to open the door from outside.

With the plasma gun to her head, he declares that she'll be dead if Gereon doesn't follow orders, but Gereon insists on fighting. These pirates aboard the Nemesis aren't connected to the cosmic web consciousness like they are. These sorts of kidnappings have happened before, on other starships. When they first began to war against the Yhemlen strikers from Pangea would try to sabotage their air raids the same way.

The Syndicate assassins move closer to Gereon and his co-pilots, still covered in a weak, pulsating electromagnetic force field. Most of the troopers are already dead, those left are badly maimed.

"I'll shoot," the bandit says, making sure that everyone is aware of their hostility; the survivors hold on for dear life by pleading for help. They don't want to die.

The Syndicate members hold steady and will not rest until the Martian colonists are theirs. As Gereon and Jasper stand before them, the standoff reaches a head when the rebels recognize they won't be able to take over the starship completely. The longer they wait the more they allow The Concord and Gereon to retaliate. Luckily for them, they were able to complete the mission Alon Blane started. It is up to them to finish it. Cleverly, they managed to disengage the Grey Order emergency alarms.

"Come with us, slowly." The Syndicate points their plasma guns in all directions. Oddly enough, the Martian colonists are satisfied by something else. For them, vagabonds are saving them from a worse calamity that awaits if they remain prisoners inside Gereon's starship.

"Go ahead, take them," Gereon emphasizes, noticing how pathetic they look with the bandits. "You're perfect for each other."

When the group of Martian colonists exits the cell, another Syndicate bandit takes the teleportation module snatched from the trooper lodge, along with all the other loose technology they can find, encasing a pile of it within a supercharged force field, reinforced by layers of plasma and electromagnetic pulses.

"We'll be back for everything else you owe us, soon enough."

Gereon calms himself, though that is taking more effort than it used to. "We don't owe you anything!" he proclaims.

In an instant, the Syndicate bandits make a clean getaway with their newest members. The teleportation module leaves an outline, a silhouette of everyone's body that departed. The crust forms quickly and falls to the floor as the cosmic internet rearranges the atoms. At the low orbit station, their bodies reform without complications. And thanks to the teleportation module they can transport themselves safely back to the Old World on Earth. Remold is happy to see new human faces, but Alon Blane must be saved before they can celebrate.

Standing to testify in court proceedings, the Council to the Grey Order will convene on whether to deploy battle squadrons in Pangaea. Gereon and Jasper must dispose of the bodies and droids inside the starship Nemesis—and do so quickly. The preliminary mission to reach Earth has been saved, but now that rebel forces are growing stronger each day, they will need to rethink how the Yhemlen metropolis will be taken without interference.

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Having the Nemesis hijacked by a group of Syndicate outlaws was never in Gereon's plans. Up to now, the Martian colonists proved little threat to them, but there's a chance that they'll be the Syndicate's largest asset in a rebellion against The Concord because they have more information from their parallel reality to help their fight. Plus, they want to return home as well.

With the Syndicate pirates gone, Jasper activates a signal for the Nemesis landing pad to open and lets the remaining automated droids out of the starship roam free. Most have fallen to lasers and plasma guns.

"We are going to dig, robots! I refuse to let Plebeian dictate to my demands. And I will not die, idly sitting by as I wither away to a horrible, slow death." Gereon is determined to find his ready supply of medicinal herbs and minerals. Meanwhile, the AI troopers set up a power drill to plow deep through the soil.

He walks against the wind, and where the mountains and hills rise and fall to snowy tips, the lack of life startles him.

"No, no stay there! Stay right there." Gereon begins a fast walk back through the open field, ascending to the main housing underneath where the frigid wind blows against his quick teleports. Traversing a few corners, he finally meets Jasper at the front lodging.

"You weren't alive then, but I was, you see. I was very much alive." Gereon points out the envy he has for his son's youth.

The medicinal extract that they are looking for is derived from a rare plant that made empires rich, and Yhemlen named it Gohholia, renowned for its psychedelic effects. Gereon used to take advantage of it, too. The mushroom-like plant once gave Captain Gereon a vivid memory of alternate realities, and it does, itself, appear everywhere as an interdimensional vegetable.

Furious chomping on bits of wood pine and a seeping sap add flavor to Gohholia pieces that would rise from the soil.

"Let's get the imaging spectrometer out and working," Captain Gereon says.

Jasper follows eagerly. "What do you think is the problem?"

"The problem... what do you see out there?" Gereon points toward the open expanse of land through the window. He continues to type the code into an augmented screen before initializing the module. The starship Nemesis can now map out all of Earth in a matter of seconds. There is a grave problem to contend with.

"Stop digging! That's it, I need all of you to stop your digging right now." Gereon yells.

Captain Gereon's fit of mania only confuses them when he runs out of Nemesis, raising his arm in a furious salute before leaving the droids in a force field bubble. He's successful in corralling the droids back in, running into the Nemesis spacecraft's open landing pad.

"There's a mistake in the timeline. Give me the final reading on the imaging spectrometer," Gereon demands in a fury.

Jasper opens the results. "Is this what you're talking about?" he says, pointing toward a blank screen.

Life on Earth is 90% reptile-based, the others are a dwindling number of mammals, and the imaging spectrometer sees no evidence of others evolving.

"This can't be right!" Gereon declares, holding onto his head in agony.

When Xavier Moth was appointed to track the volunteer scientists, Gereon knew the balance had been tipped in their favor, potentially altering alternate timelines if humans had crossed over. What he did not consider, however, was that the primate gene would get obliterated until those humans made it back home safely to their original Earth. Here, the reptilians continue to live on, but they do not see any large dinosaurs for miles... until a group of flying Rahonavis birds scream by overhead.

Jasper listens to the ruckus at the rear of the ship as the droids dejectedly reenter the Nemesis. Jasper thinks about the Martian colonists that were once chained inside their cells. The Grey Order should never have let them go.

"We should have never abducted them!" Jasper regrets, with a keen eye toward the empty cells.

Gereon marches to the Martians' empty holding cells as if they were still there, preparing to inflict a damaging accusation. "The humans have officially damned this entire operation," he says.

The blank stares of dinosaur heads on the wall of the Nemesis starship have a perplexed expression. They didn't know why, it just happened, mostly. The colonists avoided a similar fate and removed their hefty suits in favor of slim-fit shirts that are soaked in sweat from the heat, still lying on the cold floor.

"Sorry," one of the droids says facetiously. The automated response attempts to be sarcastic but hardly is through the buzzing voice.

Ignoring the comment, Gereon's almond-shaped eyes blink with countless thoughts. "We are going back further in the timeline." He looks longingly at the plethora of fossils besides them.

The bones trickled in every new millennium as they continued to make research trips closer and closer to the Yhemlen. Only this time, the Grey Order's new planet-killer will finally annihilate the Yhemlen for good. As the starship Nemesis hovers above a wave of grass beneath it, tall blades from the open plains send a roaring crescendo along the soil when the Nemesis takes off, leaving any roaming dinosaurs wailing in the distance to mimic the roar. In a final departing move, the Nemesis finally jets across the horizon.

Plotting another course ahead, Gereon tells Jasper to redirect their transit to Mars, rather than another light bridge portal move. Moving across the expanse of space. Mars doesn't take longer than half a minute with a short quantum warp. The black box anchor that they planted in the soil should still be there, and it is. But when they penetrate Mars' upper atmosphere, a barrage of shots fire against the Nemesis. The Yhemlen Overseers have taken over the planet for harvesting. This time was a close call.

"Mayday, mayday!" the automated voice of the intercom declares.

"Bad timing." Jasper maneuvers the Nemesis through oncoming projectiles. The electromagnetic force fields and strong Q-thrusters can deflect and shield the onslaught for awhile, but if the Nemesis is going to survive, they must counter the attack.

"Now, go, punch it!" Gereon straps himself in while the Nemesis slams forward toward an anchor star, light-years away.

"Plebeian would be proud of us," Captain Gereon says mockingly of themselves, yet another blunder to be proud of. He's unsuccessful in acquiring his medicinal extract, and the only thing keeping him from Old World drug peddlers is a thirst for power that circumvents trading regulations. When Gereon and the Nemesis leave Mars, they return to their timeline with nothing.

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Alon Blane stares at his face looking back at him, distorted in the reflection from a screen. The circuit board is not lit, and lines from the grid are dim along with the shallow crevices beside its handles. The podium ahead of Alon is raised from many magnetic pillars that are situated around a circular base, and below the magistrate's court is a dark void of emptiness. To be precise, the court and its judge float in space. In a floating fortress, The Concord holds an impromptu trial for Alon and his accomplices. To the small crowd's dismay, Alon and his fellow Syndicate members were held captive successfully by the security forces. The trial's judge has already been notified that Captain Gereon and his crew have been hijacked in addition to these trespassers.