Chapter 76: Fixing What’s Broken

Max POV:

As Sheila and I were diligently finishing up building our last control circuit, that we had to do from scratch, I was really hoping this time we would be successful.

You see, while the computer was very helpful showing us where each of our ‘earth-found’ electrical components fit onto the circuit board, it became obvious that not all of our components were rated the same as the Shallocks’, designers of the ship, were familiar with.

We had to physically check each transistor, resistor, diode and other components with our multimeter to ensure they would integrate properly with the parts we had on board the ship.

Now, after three full days of fiddling around with this thing, and un-soldering and re-soldering, countless components, we quickly installed this jury-rigged circuit board for a test.

While Peter, Amy and JB had hung around, watching us and keeping us company, Lonnie and Maggie got busy doing maintenance on different parts of the ship so we could get underway as soon as Sheila and I finished.

After re-firing up the computer, we were all holding our breath while it went through its entire checklist of the ship’s systems. When it said that all systems were now fully functional a huge sigh of relief when up, along with many cheers. We programmed in our first destination, which was the planet with all the Trilithium crystals readily available.

This leg of the trip was covering more than 2/3 of the distance back to Earth. And, was going to take us nearly 3 months to complete.

As a group, we all decided to travel at hyper-warp factor eight in order to conserve fuel. Mostly because, it wasn’t a given that we wouldn’t possibly have to find and / or dig for these crystals ourselves. I knew, from being on the bridge of Rufchaad’s ship, that when their crew first got to this planet, they found these crystal literally lying on the ground.

So, I was hopeful it would be the same for us!

Three months later...

As we approached our destination planet, I was disheartened when the computer informed us there were no living beings on the entire planet. I knew we hadn’t been gone long enough for the Gromoriks to have mined out this planet yet.

Remembering that the air wasn’t all that breathable, JB, Lonnie and I put on three of the re-breathers we had before we opened the outside airlock and proceeded down the ladder to the ground.

We were overjoyed when we saw virtually thousands of these crystals just scattered across the ground. I told everyone I was halfway expecting it, even though, with the Gromorik’s absence, I’d begun once again fearing that besides having been transported to a far different place in space, it didn’t bode well to where we might be in relation to our previous place in time.

Not wanting to take any chances, we decided to completely fill three large crates with all the crystals we could easily get our hands on. We were even able to be picky, only choosing the ones that were the exact size we wanted.

If nothing else, now we could really drop the hammer as far as the rest of our trip was concerned! We had enough crystals to last us over 200 years!

Since the Penance Planet, at maximum hyper warp, was less than a day away, we headed there, just to check it out and hopefully give us some idea just how far we might’ve moved in time.

Before we even landed, we checked my old island for any intelligent lifeforms. But, found none! So, we cruised over Port Loma. I know mine wasn’t the only heart that sank when we discovered there weren’t any buildings of any kind to be found. Even worse, there weren’t even any humanoid inhabitants in the entire area! After explaining to everyone that when Lonnie and I were last here the natives of this planet were only advanced as far as our 12 to 13^th centuries, a stunned silence fell upon everyone on the ship.

When I explained that the Triloks had undoubtedly seeded this planet with humanoids most likely prior to that time, a sense of true fear and melancholy set upon all of us.

I knew that there was another planet near our path to earth that had inhabitants that were five or six centuries further advanced than here. However, at this stage there was no point in diverting our path to Earth even for that.

So, after replacing our crystal, we plotted a direct, two-legged course to Earth. We decided to press our speed to hyper-warp factor 9, as that would get us to Earth in slightly over a month.

This was going to feel like the longest month any of us had ever lived!

Unlike my last trip along this path, no one seemed to be in the mood to engage in any sexual activities. We all took turns piloting the ship just in case we ran across anything strange. We even refrained from using our cloaking device, actually hoping we might encounter a Trilok or even Gromorik spaceship.

We did have our shields on maximum, however, because that was necessary when using hyper-warp.

The instant our ship automatically pulled us out of hyper-warp at the end of our journey, that being just short of Earth’s moon, we put all of our scanners on maximum.

At one third impulse power, it only took a few minutes for us to assume orbit above the Earth.

Our scanners showed a complete absence of any satellites or even radio transmissions of any kind. Deep down, none of us were very surprised by this. We had over a month to prepare ourselves for this eventuality.

Now, however, we needed to try and discover just how far back we had gone in time.

When our scanners informed us that there was human, intelligent life on the planet, we all knew that at least we hadn’t gone back into prehistoric times. With this in mind, we headed over to Europe in hopes of narrowing our timeline down even further. We decided to engage our cloaking device since we were planning on doing low-level visual observations and didn’t want to cause any unnecessary fears amongst the natives.

It was disheartening when we discovered the lack of any substantial buildings in either England or the European continent. The only thing we observed were crude huts. There were no paved roads of any kind and the only form of transportation, besides walking, were the occasional men on horseback.

Then, we decided to head to what we all believed to be the Arab nations and Jerusalem. Sheila told us that from what she’d seen so far, we appeared to be at least a couple centuries BC.

At this point, JB told us it was time to try something much more desperate.

He steered us back toward the North American continent. We decided to land on a deserted piece of land that was probably 20 miles or so west of what would be Miami someday. We decided to shut our spaceship down, but leaving our cloaking device activated.

JB told us he would be back as soon as he possibly could.

I think we all knew what our fearless leader was going to do so we just sat tight for now.

JB POV:

Based on Sheila’s observations, I was keeping my fingers crossed as I teleported into the fifth dimension.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I found myself in what I knew to be Ibera’s portal room. Just like I had seen before, there were thousands of what looked like TV screens, that I knew were portals to all the different worlds, realities and times.

However, there were not nearly as many as I’d seen recently.

I was startled out of my wits when a very gruff voice addressed me, “Who are you, and how did you get here!?”

I couldn’t contain my smile when I recognized Zeus as being the owner of that voice. “Well, my name is JB and I’m one of your Catalysts!”

I guess the old guy must’ve developed his sense of humor sometime in the future.

He came back, gruffly, with, “That’s impossible! I only have three catalysts at the moment, and I certainly would remember you, seeing the way that you are dressed!”

I put my hands up. “Let me explain! Of course you wouldn’t remember me, since you won’t actually be making me your catalyst for a very long time into the future. You see, I’m from the year 1988 AD!

“Seven friends of mine and I were flying our starship when we were attacked by a group of aliens known as Bargantuans. To make a long story short, similar to the way you and your people happened to come to this planet, our starship was subjected to radiation that caused our hyper-warp drive to malfunction, sending us to an entirely different part of this galaxy and sending us back what we believe to be at least 2000 years into the past! We are hoping, sir, that you might help us somehow try and return to our century!?”

I had to stifle a laugh as his eyes grew as big as baseballs and for the first time let out a very short chuckle. “Young man, would you mind telling me just who told you how it was we came to this planet?”

“It was this very sweet lady named Ibera. She had a place in this dimension that my friends and I often visited her at.” I chuckled, “I was actually hoping to appear in her section, if you get my meaning?”

His eyebrows furled, “That’s impossible! I haven’t given her permission to invite any of my catalysts to come here! I haven’t even instructed any of my catalysts on how to get here! I was planning, at some point in the future, of assigning Ibera the duty of manning my portal area, but never to invite anyone to come here to visit her! However, since I feel you are telling me the truth, I must assume that I will be softening that stance sometime in the future?”

I was nodding and grinning at him, “That is correct sir. And might I say, a finer lady I have never met! Oh, and by the way, I have also met one of your spaceship pilots by the name of Lars, who during my time, was piloting a spaceship called the Songbird.”

Now he was chuckling and shaking his head in amazement, or amusement? “You say your name is JB?”

I nodded before he continued. “Well, JB, you have certainly made this day one of the most interesting I have had since we have been on this planet! Because, I know you have been telling me nothing but the truth, I will tell you that my people and I have only been on your planet for approximately 130 of your years. Since I have yet to travel into the future of this planet, I must confess to not knowing exactly what year this might be, on your calendar or timeline. My best scientists and I haven’t figured out yet exactly how our timeline may or may not match up to this one. Tell me, what did we tell you happened to our planet?”

“I was told you and your crew were attempting to fly into a mechanical wormhole when your sun went supernova! I don’t remember all the particulars, but I was told that because of the massive burst of gamma radiation, it caused your wormhole to wildly malfunction, sending you billions of light-years away from your home planet, Chaemara or Flormuvia, your galaxy!”

That brought a smile to his face as he nodded his head, “That is correct, my son. I’m sorry for being so rude to you earlier, but you must admit, you caught me entirely by surprise! Please, let’s both have a seat so we can be comfortable and talk about your predicament in a bit more detail?”

I shouldn’t have been surprised when suddenly we were both sitting on chairs in what was similar to what I always found in Ibera’s area. Then, I remembered my friends would be anxiously awaiting my return.

So I asked, “Tell me, is the time dilation factor between this area and the ground the same or different?”

He grinned, “As you must already know, the time on the ground, as you put it, moves at a far slower rate than it does here. I’ve only been on the ground a few times...”

He started saying before I cut him off grinning, “Because ... this planets UV light rays and gravity are vastly higher than your old planet, am I right?”

That made him laugh, “You are correct again, JB. I must say, the more I talk to you the more I find you to be one of the most interesting people I have met on this planet! I hope you don’t mind ... but, I’ve been reading yours and if you would like to summon your friends to join us, I would certainly like to meet the rest of your crew!”

When I closed my eyes and began summoning my crew to join us, which they were more than happy to do, Zeus was just shaking his head, “Now, my new friend, you really surprised me! How is it you are able to telepathically summon your friends, while being in a different dimension? Even my people cannot do that at this time!”

I chuckled, “That guy, Lars, gave us these special little pills that we swallowed, then made love with each other and somehow or another that wildly increased our telepathic abilities. Not to mention a few other really cool things!”

That made Zeus scrunch his eyes closed and really start chuckling. “I must summon Lars and ask him about that. As you’ve probably guessed, he obviously hasn’t invented those yet!”

Just then, the rest of my crew materialized behind me. I introduced Zeus to all of them, reminding my friends that he was the one who had given me my catalyst abilities.

Then, he excused himself for a second before quickly reappearing with a somewhat younger looking Ibera.

The Ibera that we were familiar with looked to be in her early to mid 40’s as opposed to this one, who didn’t look to be a day over 27! And, this Ibera appeared to be very timid and unsure of herself in juxtaposition to the Ibera that we all knew and loved.

Zeus had a good memory as he introduced each of us to Ibera before telling her, “Ibera, I have made my decision as far as your new duty station. According to these people, they tell me that in their time, you were in charge of our portal area. And, they told me they are all quite fond of you!”

Now Ibera looked to be flabbergasted before she squeaked out, “But sir, I have never met these people! How is it they could know me?”

“It’s simple my dear, you must have miss-heard me tell you that these people are from our distant future! A year they call 1988 AD. Since we’re still not sure what other Earth people call our current place in time, I can only assume, based on what JB has told me, they have traveled back in time well over 3000 of their years!”

Sheila grinned, “If you’ll excuse me for interrupting, based on my knowledge of Earth’s history, this appears to be nearly 1200 to 1300 years before the birth of Christ. Since that apparently is still some time into the future, my best estimate is that we have in deed traveled backwards nearly 3000 years into the past.”

Zeus grinned, “Well, if you know this Christ’s full name, maybe we can use a portal to determine exactly how many years from now he appears?”

I grinned shaking my head, “Everyone called him Jesus Christ, however, since he is believed to be a deity of some kind, you, Miss Ibera, told us your portal was unable to lock on to him?”

When Ibera looked at Zeus incredulously, Zeus began laughing, “I see I chose my catalyst, JB, wisely! He is correct. Perhaps you know another name that we could tie into this timeline?”

I was about to answer him when I noticed Ibera blushing. When I asked if she was all right she giggled for the first time. “Several of us have been learning about all of our portals. I am surprised to hear what I just learned about yesterday! Since you seem to be so well-informed, I wonder if it is possible to simply search for someone you know that lives in your timeline? If I remember correctly, the portal will then show us what year that is, and how many years that is from now!”

That made Zeus laugh, “That is a good idea, Ibera. The only problem I foresee with that would be if somehow or another Earth had more than one timeline, or what we call a reality?”

Now it was my turn to groan, “Aaargh! I forgot all about different realities! I can’t remember if ours was the 1968th or 1967^th reality?”

I swear, it looked like Zeus’s eyes were about to pop out! “Oh my word! According to our portals we’re only on Earth’s second reality! JB, are you telling me that in your time there are that many different realities... here on Earth!?”

I nodded my head while biting my inner cheek, “I’m afraid so. And not wanting to point any fingers, it seems that many of your catalysts were given the ability to move forward and backwards in time, psychically? And they are the ones that accidentally or unknowingly created all those alternate realities or timelines! It seems some of the, how should I put it, less than honorable catalysts had the idea that they could go back in time, and change things and that those changes would help them out in their current time. As you most likely know, if you go back in time and change anything of significance, you create an alternate reality!”

Now it was Zeus who was groaning before saying, almost apologetically, “I can see I’m going to have to pay much more attention to who I make a catalyst in the future! That or I must reconsider giving them the power to move back and forth through time!?”

I chuckled to myself before saying, “That’s probably a good idea, however, I don’t believe you started doing that until right around the time that you made me a catalyst! I know a few catalysts and only two of them, that I know of, have the ability to travel through time.”

I was surprised when Ibera said, “Zeus, sir, if what we learned about yesterday is true, I’m afraid that you’ll have to continue giving your catalysts the ability to move in time, otherwise, it’s probable, that our lost spaceship crew’s reality may never come into existence!?”

Zeus grinned, patting Ibera on the shoulder, “You are correct my dear. And now I am certain the job to man our portal area is all yours! Congratulations!”

Then he looked at us, “Now, Miss Sheila, since you seem to be the historian of this bunch have you any ideas as to who we should follow or find?”

Sheila nodded, “Yes, try Mary Magdalene. She was present, according to biblical record, when Jesus Christ died on the cross. And, since our time is more commonly called 1988 A.D., insinuating, ‘After the Death of Christ’, if we can get the time between now and when Christ died that will give us what we need to know!”

Amy was shaking her head, “Ummm, Sheila, you are wrong about that! Most scholars assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC, and that Jesus’ preaching began around AD 27–29 and lasted one to three years. They calculate the death of Jesus as having taken place between AD 30 and 36.”

Sheila grinned at Amy, “I KNOW that, my cute little sister! And, now that you mentioned it, perhaps we should locate Nero, instead? Because, the exact dates of Jesus’ death will only narrow it down to a span of 6 years, Nero’s moving of the 65 AD Olympic games to 67AD is better for us to calculate from!?”

We all went over to the portal and Zeus let Sheila take command. It didn’t take her long before the portal showed us exactly when Nero participated in the 67AD Olympic Games! And it was some 1356 years into the future.

So, we had to go 3344 years forward from our present time.

Then, Zeus told us that, if we wanted, he could give all of us the ability to time travel.

We all looked at each other, knowing that if we took him up on his offer, we would have to leave our starship here. And, even cloaked, it wouldn’t still be cloaked 3000 years from now.

Since none of us liked that particular idea, I asked, “Zeus, Sir, would it be possible to create something like a wormhole that we can fly our ship into?”

Zeus groaned, “I suppose it might be possible, but it would require reprogramming the device that we use to only ... transport you in time as opposed to distance. Perhaps I should summon my man Lars to come and assist us? I will also summon our best engineer, Nathan, who was part of the team that invented the thing!” He chuckled, “I don’t suppose any of you know anything about creating mechanical wormholes?”

I was surprised when Peter slowly put his hand up, with a slight grin on his face. “Sir, I just happen to know a little bit about that.”

Even Zeus looked surprised, “And, may I ask, just how is it you came about your knowledge?”

Peter looked conflicted, “Um, well, sir, if it’s all the same to you I would rather not say? See, I was given this spell like thing and told if I ever told anyone about where I obtained this information, I would instantly forget everything!”

Zeus gave him an amused look before acquiescing to Peter’s request.

I had to fight back a chuckle, knowing where said information probably came from!

And, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that our loving, sweet Ibera was undoubtedly that person. NOW, I was really hoping that, unlike the information she gave me, which left out some key parts, she had hopefully given him in its entirety!

When everyone had gathered, Zeus started, “Nathan, Lars, I have consented to having you help our friends try and return to their own time by, hopefully, reprogramming our mechanical wormhole device to transport them forward in time, as opposed to from one place in the universe to another. Since we all know that our current wormholes use and compress both time and space I feel there is a distinct possibility that this could be accomplished. Just make sure you save our original programming so our device can be returned to its normal state. Okay?”

Nathan nodded, “Of course! I was going to make a few copies of the formula anyway, since it may be faster to modify at least parts of our existing formula.”

I had no idea that for the next two months of our current time we would spend nearly 18 hours a day, every day, reworking and tweaking this damn formula!

During that time both Nathan and Lars warned us that we needed to make sure we ended up in the, hopefully near, future of our current timeline. Because, if we ended up even one minute in the past of the time of our ship being exposed to the nuclear explosions, we would be creating a major paradox!

We all agreed and when not working directly on the formula, Sheila began refining the exact amount of time we needed to go forward. Thankfully, we felt fairly good that Sheila’s method of determining when 67 A.D. occurred was correct. During that time, she queried the portal about a few other events that she was sure of, just to make sure her calculations were correct.

It was very disheartening that, when she went more than 1000 years A.D. she began noticing that there were changes between our timeline and this one, the only one that Zeus assured us was the original.

We were all hoping that this was due to some of his earlier catalysts having done exactly what I had warned him about. There was even much discussion before we began feeling comfortable that if we indeed hadn’t changed anything here in the past that somehow or another we would return to our own reality.

Because, while testing her theory, she checked out May, 1988 in this, the original reality, and found that only Maggie, Sheila, Amy, Peter and I existed! Lonnie and Max did not!

Oh yeah, and nearly as bad as that, just when everyone felt we just about had the formula finalized, Nathan looked at Lars, then the rest of us and said, “Now, I feel that I must tell you that it would be wise to ‘aim for’ approximately 10 years or more into your future!”

Everyone gasped in frustration. Finally, I asked, “And why is that?”

Nathan sighed, “Because, I forgot to inform you that this formula could be off by as many as 8 years or more. And that’s because this device only has a 0.002 level of precision. And, since you’re going nearly 3350 years into the future that equals 6.7 years!”

As we all sighed, again, Peter went to the computer and pointed at a few steps, “Nathan, I believe that if we change this area in our calculations just a bit, it might drastically raise your level of precision?”

When Nathan, along with Sheila and Amy, quickly poured over Peter’s suggestion it was our little genius, Amy, who said, with a huge smile on her face, “YES! Yes! By adjusting the power output that your original formula represents, to what Peter just suggested, I do believe that will lower your imprecision rate to 0.0002!”

I couldn’t help but notice Peter giving me a wink and a knowing nod. He didn’t have to say a word because I knew exactly who had really given him that idea! And, best of all, at most we would now only have to aim for a little over half of the year past the time we originally disappeared! Even though most of us had hoped for even less than that, that was damn sure better than over a decade into the future!

Sheila, along with Amy looking over her shoulder returned to the portal to get an exact time, (years, months and days), that would put us eight months into the future from when we departed. We had all unanimously decided that was safer in the long run.

Soon, we were back in our ship while Lars and his crew were in theirs and we shot into space, deciding to start our trip fairly near to the moon.

When we saw the mechanical wormhole materialize in front of us we all crossed our fingers and went into it at 1/3 impulse power.

Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1988

Linda POV:

Unlike last year’s joyous feast, this year, only the parents were invited. Even our ‘construction’ family decided to spend some time with their own families.

It’s now been over three months and still, no word about our lost ‘Space Family’ which consists of Max, JB, Lonnie, Peter, Sheila, Maggie and Amy.

I miss Max so much that I cry at night sometimes. Little Maxine is now over 6 months old and seems to be bonding closer with Greg, Eddie and Darren than she ever had a chance to with Max. And, poor Wanda, Annie and Terri have it nearly as bad and the four of us have become the ‘missing husbands’ group. At least Terri has Tom who has filled in for JB, treating little Tony like his own.

I’m afraid that at some point Wanda and Annie may even request to go back to their Island.

As much as all the guys have been going out of their way to be part of their lives and remind them they are an important part of our Family, they seem to talk about missing Blaine, Steve and George more every day. I believe if it weren’t for Abby, Olivia and their ‘Posse’ always including their babies, AJ and Naomi Lynn, in their ‘Story Time’ and other activities they may have already asked to leave.

Or I should say, that’s what I was thinking before Greg called all of the adults in the family together about an hour before dinner was to be ready.

He’d already arranged for the grandparents to keep an eye on all of the children in their special play area.

He asked everyone to get something to drink and then to have a seat at the table. I knew something was going on just by the way he kept surreptitiously looking at Monte.

Once everyone was ready, he started, “I know these last few months haven’t exactly been the happiest we’ve ever had around here. And, while I don’t want to give out any false hope, everyone here needs to know something Monte and I just found out yesterday.”

Now everyone was on pins and needles.

We could tell Greg was nervous when he immediately pointed at Monte, “Would you like to take over from here, my friend?”

Monte sneered at him before trying to stifle a chuckle. “Yes, if you insist! Before I say too much, I need everyone to understand there is a lot I can’t tell you, only that Ibera has assured us, with 100 percent certainty, that our friends are all still alive! However, damn ... I don’t know how to put this...”

Suddenly, we all gasped when Ibera appeared right next to Monte.

And in person, not just a hologram!

She put her arm around her big lover, smiled up at him and then said, “I could feel that Willie was struggling with how to tell you what I told him. I am glad all the children and your parents are in a different room. Because, much of what you’re about to hear only a handful of people have ever been told!

“And that is, the very first person to ever teleport into our area of the fifth dimension was... JB!”

“But, but, I thought that Bob was the first person to ever visit you there?” I blurted out.

Ibera gave a small grin, nodded and said, “Linda, you are correct, but with the caveat that Bob was the first human to ever make love to me! And, really make me feel loved. Because, when JB teleported into the fifth dimension my people and I had only been on this planet for a little over 130 years! And, as some of you might know, we have been here now for over 3500 years!”

So many people gasped all at once I was afraid the kids and the parents may have heard it! I know I was probably not the only one in shock. A few seconds later it’s like most of us realized our friends had somehow traveled back in time, over 3000 years!