Chapter 6: Back to the Beginning

When one is in an impossible situation, don't panic. There is always an answer, even if you can't see it until it's almost too late. Admiral Sue Lin Class notes on the 'impossible mission'.

Gray Leader felt the impact. In a panicked voice, he called for a hyperspace escape jump. It would prove to be the biggest error of his newly shortened life.

A Gray Flagship exploded in the screen showing the aft view from the palace ship, even as the UFP Hammer's nova beam collapsed the Palace ship's shields. Then the Nova beam started to melt the hull.

The Grey Leader could see it for himself. His large black eyes were good for more than just seeing in low light conditions. The front of his ship, his glorious palace ship was turning red. It was heating up, and soon it would melt away destroying his dream ship.

Leader reacted in the cowardly way he always did. He screamed out his order to escape.

"Hyper Jump! Now!" he ordered the crew. "Get us out of here before it's to late!" he added, even as the shimmer of energy formed to the ships front.

The hyperspace window opened, and the giant Palace ship moved into it. The hyperspace window offered Gray Leader and his ship hope, as the ship proceeded. The moments passed like hours for Gray Leader and his ship's crew. The shields to the main ship had been breached, and the forward hull of the ship was glowing red from the nova beam's heat. The hull was within mere moments of complete failure, when the ship entered hyperspace. The leader formed the most satisfying of grins as his ship made its way though the gateway. They had done it. They had survived yet another of the cursed humans treacherous new weapons.

As relief washed over the leaders emotion, the unthinkable began to happen. A titanic explosion breached the forward hull without any warning.

"What was that?" Gray Leader screamed.

The sensor officer cried out, "It's mined, they mined hyperspace around this planet. Were doomed, all doomed!" the hysterical voice of one that sees his death coming cried out unchecked.

A second explosion struck the ship knocking every Gray to the deck.

Immediately, the self-replication mines started to re-replicate to replace the two exploded ones. The transporter beams of the mines reach out to claim their first source of silver. This time it was the chief engineer that became the victim. He barely had time to realize what was happening, when the third mine exploded directly outside the hull from him. He was vaporized in the explosion; mercifully ending his life before all the silver had been removed from his body.

The replication process continued.

The palace ship's captain screamed out a string of orders when the leader failed to do so himself.

The Palisade, as Gray Leader called it, separated from the remainder of the ship. Essentially, it served as a giant lifeboat, but it lacked hyperspace engines. The Palisade dropped from hyperspace even as the mines finished off the main ship in a series of now unseen explosions.

Grey Leader looked out just in time to see a photon strike the rear of the palisade. The lifeboat jerked and started to spin. His stomach heaved in objection to the centrifugal forces now at play on his body. Still, he stared at the main view screen on his bridge.

There was a new ship out there. It was a huge ship. It was much bigger than any ship he had ever dreamed could exist. It appeared in flashes on the screen as the Palisade spun round and round.

Then the power died, and he was crushed into his throne chair as the palisade lost its inertial dampeners. He waited for his death. In his last moments of life, he had finally achieved acceptance of the inevitable.

His life dragged on for what seemed an eternity. Then he felt the transport beam moving him from were he was to... To the last place he ever wanted to see again. The horror of his impending death was all to familiar to him.

He tried to scream out, "No! Anything but this!", as the darkness reached out to claim him.

He felt his body pulled and twisted. He was distorted in ways that no living creature could began to understand. Then the heat of eternal nothingness was upon him.

Jim looked at his view screen as he saw the Palisade drop out of hyperspace. He was almost smiling when the impact of two large antimatter explosions rocked his ship.

"Where did whose shots come from?" He asked

"The flagship to starboard, Sir," came the reply.

"All phasers! Fire on it."

Then the view screen changed its view to their new target. A moment later, the crescent glow around the flagship collapsed. The force of energy released from the flagship, flared their screen white. So much of the target ship had been converted to energy, that the plasma lashing out rocked the Hammer.

Jim said, "Next target?"

"The only ship in range is the Gray Leader."

"Sir, his remaining ship is weaponless," came the call from the scanning station.

"Target the engines then, I don't want him getting too far away."

A single photon launched out of the ship. The entire bridge watched as the ball of photon light intersected with what appeared to be the ships engines. The explosion was not that big. But it was big enough. The Palisade's rear erupted in a ball of plasma flames. The ship's pitch twisted 190 degrees, even as it started to spin on an unstable axis. Jim couldn't believe the rate of spin the ship was going though. He looked away from the screen in hopes that he wouldn't lose his last meal.

The entire system was flashing with balls of plasma. One by one, the remaining Gray ships winked out of existence. There were hundreds of Ostra ships, and several Sodiskina ships that joined them. Several Federation vessels had taken some damage, even as the war was grinding down to a halt.

'Jim the Time Guardian' appeared on the bridge just before 'Jim the President' ordered the destruction of the Gray leader's Palisade.

"I think this is about the time we did it," Jim the Time Guardian said.

Just then a new ship dropped out of inversion into midst of the of the battle.

The view screen showed its bulk to be the biggest ship anyone had ever before seen. It was cylindrical in shape, and over fifteen miles long. It was ten times larger than the largest federation ship even on the drawing boards.

"What the?" Jim the President got out.

Just then, the ship he was in stopped functioning. It wasn't just his ship, though, it was every ship in the in the entire system. The new ship had somehow disabled every ship present. This extended to the planets, as well. The entire system had just 'had the lights turned out', all at once.

"Palisade," Jim the Time Guardian said. "We are at the point of divergence."

"The what?" Jim the President asked.

"A paradox of realities. Basically, it is time for me and you to trade places, to break the time loop."

"What are you talking about?" Woe asked.

She was all too familiar with the concept of being trapped in a time loop. Every Time Guardian was. It was the one thing they feared the most. An eternity of repeating the same actions, the same choices. Her body shuddered at the very thought that they could be in one at this moment.

Jim the Time Guardian spoke softly to her.

"My love, it is simple. This is a ship of the ancient builders. They are here to take you back in time with them. It is time for your family to become the Adams and Eves of the human race."

"What the fuck?" Jim the President verbalized.

"Well, all except Glory, that is. She will stay with me for the moment. He paused as he thought of how to word his next statement. Then he spoke again.

"She needs to have a few modifications before she joins the rest of you," he said. Then he returned to the subject at hand. "It is time for me resume my place as President of the Federation. There is so much to do. I have had much time to consider my plans. I will also remain as the head of the Time Guardians."

Jim the President moaned, as "What next?" came out of his mouth.

He couldn't figure out why he was always leaving himself in the dark. It was a game he was growing tired of.

"Oh! You will have so much fun! I promise you. After all I have done it before, and you will do it again."

"No! My head hurts," Jim the President said.

Woe said, "This doesn't seem possible."

"Oh, I almost forgot," Jim the Time Guardian said.

He waved his hand as though he was removing something from her. In fact, he was. His mind reached into hers. There, inside her nanobots, was an instruction set. It was one that blocked her memories of who and what she actually was. He removed the blocking instructions from her bots.

Then Woe remembered. Boy, did she remember! Everything! She remembered her father was Jim that she was the first born to herself. That and oh so much more than that. She gasped in shock. How could she be her own mother?

"Woe? Are you OK?" Jim the President asked, looking at the expressions crossing her face.

"I... I am fine father. I just... oh my God! I just can't believe it's real."

"What? What's going on?" Jim the President asked, fearing that he really didn't want to know.

The Time Guardian Jim spoke again. "It's time my love. Don't question it, just let it go for now. I am sure we will solve this mystery some time in the future. Goodness knows we will have eternity to do it in.

With that Jim and his five human wives were transported to the bridge of the Guardian, His command's main ship.

"Greetings Most Exalted Friend," spoke Forthright, the Time Guardian President.

He looked much younger than when Jim the President had last seen him."

"What happens now?" Annette asked.

"Well, that's a simple question. You see the universe isn't safe for the likes of us Guardians, anymore. So we are going to escape into the past and... how did Jim put it? Oh, yes... expand, and grow out from there."

"The past?" Jennifer asked.

Terrie, April and Woe stood staring at the site before them. Of the five wives, at least Woe knew most of the story. She had already lived it.

"Come, let us depart, now. Lowsay, engage the warp drive."

The six humans looked at the front of the ship. There didn't seem to be a front. The view was as if the ship was open to the stars. As they stared in wonder, the ship accelerated to warp forty-nine.

Then Forthright said, "Open the hyper space window."

A hyperspace window opened before the ship. The ship entered it in a flash of light so brilliant, that it was as if a thousand stars had gone super nova at the same instant.

Then, everyone aboard felt the merging of their minds as if they were now of one mind. For a few moments each of them knew the thoughts of everyone else onboard the ship, not only did they know them. But they did so in the most intimate manner possible.

The humans felt the Guardian's strange existence, then their perspective shifted to the deepest thoughts of their spouse's lives. The bond formed in that moment, centered on Jim. He was the key to the whole experience. As the ship exited hyperspace, and then warp, the flash of light was just as brilliant.

All of the time travelers then returned to their own thoughts, inside of their own minds, and with their own agendas.

All except Jim.

He was just coming to grips with the new powers he had discovered within himself. The powers of his mind were more than he ever dreamed possible for mankind. So strong was his mind, that he feared ever using it on another person.

It was just too much responsibility. There was just too much that could go wrong. He vowed silently to himself to use these new powers as little as possible.

For a time, now in the distant past, everyone on the ship was silent.

Jim had a strange thought, just then. He could sense the presences. He recognized the connection a moment later. Then he mentally addressed the ship's AI directly.

'So, old friend, tell me something."

'I will if I can," the AI spoke to his mind.

'The flash of light we created to get here into the past... When will it reach Earth?"

"I calculate around thirty BC, by the Earth's Gregorian calendar of dating. Is that significant in some way?"

Jim smiled, 'You could say that, AI. You could say that."

Annette spoke into Jim's mind, 'This is amazing, and I can hear your every thought."

Jim smiled again, and then spoke aloud. "Forthright, would you please drop us onto the planet Eden?"

"Where is that?" Forthright asked in confusion.

"Alpha Centauri Secondus, my old friend, where else could it be?"

"Of course, surely I will do that for you, Lord. Will you be requiring anything else of us?"

"Just the AI, and a replicator."

"As you wish, Lord Jim."

Jim frowned at the title.

Then he shook he head and thought, 'I give up. For many people, it will seem that I am just about that, now."

'Oh no you don't," the five woman said. 'First you have to play Adam. We have so many children to bear."

Jim chuckled at them.

It was almost six standard earth hours later when the six of them beamed down to the surface of the planet. Jim looked into the sky, and saw the half crescent shape of Prime, riding high.

"Finally, I made it here. And it looks like I am going to enjoy the view."

Then he turned his attention to the landscape around him. They were on a rise. Just below them, a small creek snaked out over the rolling hills, and disappeared deep into the woods. Jim was smiling as the AI system and a building containing all that they needed, appeared next to them. He looked to his wives, and they looked back at him. Somehow this all seemed right and proper.

Then a shimmer appeared to their right. Glory had arrived.

"You didn't think I was going to stay away from the six of you for the next million years, did you?"

They stared at her, she was completely human now. The only reminder that she had ever been anything other than human, were the blue streaks of hair on her head.

She smile, "It will turn completely red over the next year. You said... oh, ah, excuse me... your 'other self' said I could join you until after I had been completely transformed into human form. The hair is already changed, except for the color. That will take a little time to do adjust."

"So you are completely human now?" Jim asked with just the slightest disappointment in his voice.

Glory giggled, "Yes, Lover. You are going to have to do all the moving when we make love from now on." The other wife's moaned their disappointment at this news. They had come to love what Glory could do with her ribbon member.

Then Glory said, "I did get McCoy to make 'this' about as long, however."

She stuck out her tongue. It was almost 8 inches long.

"Amazing" said Jim. Even as the wife's shuddered at the revelation of what Glory could do with that tongue.

"So now what do we do?" Glory asked.

"Well, it looks like we have a race to start creating," Jim said. Then he added "Thank God!"

The presence of a booming voice filled the sky, saying, "You're welcome. I hope you enjoy it."

Then the voice and the presence that accompanied it were gone.

Everyone was so shocked to hear and feel it, that no one moved or spoke for quite a while.

AI finally said, "Oh, forgive me, I had the sound system set too high."

"AI," Jim started to say something else. When AI said, "What? Do you think it is easy for me to impersonate god or something?"

Jim started to laugh, and then his wife's joined in. Final Jim got his breath and asked Glory "so what happened after we left?"

Glory mode changed to one of somber reflection.

"You killed the Gray's, every last one of them."

"I did, how did I do it?"

"Well, ah... well, you told me not to tell you the rest."

Jim smiled, "That's just like me, I seem to like leaving myself hanging like that. I guess I will have to wait a million years to find out."

Even as he said it, he realized that the shoe was now on the other foot. It would be him messing with himself from this point on. His smile deepened.

Then as Glory sighed in relief, Jim saw it in her mind. He saw all that had happened in the year that it took for Glory to get ready to join them. It was so strange, she didn't even have a clue that he was in her mind. But their he saw what happened after they had departed.

'Well' Jim thought, 'that will just have to do for the moment."

Then he spoke, "So who wants to get pregnant first?"

The response was a resounding "ME!", from all of them

"Daddy!" Frankie yelled as he ran onto the bridge and jumped into Jim's arms. Then he asked, "Did you miss me?"

Jim scooped his son up and planted a raspberry on his stomach much to Frankie's delight.

"Yes. I have missed doing that to you so very much."

Laughing and squirming, he said, "Oh, Dad, I love you so much."

Jim handed his son off to his wives. They too had missed their son very much. After all, million years or so is a long time to be away from someone you love.