Timestorm | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Timestorm | Previous Challenge Entry
By Art Westefeld
10/12/17
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The crew of the U.E.S. Testament were no strangers to the unusual. Thus, when a temporal storm appeared in their path, they didn’t panic at all. Captain Noble, who was keenly aware of the need to bring much needed supplies to Earth Colony 6, asked the operations officer, “Jayde, how much time would we lose if we tried to go around this storm? If we decide to barrel through it, will we make it?”

The green skinned woman answered after a second of consulting her neural networks, “We would lose 2.8654 days if we circumnavigated this storm.”

Then she contacted her husband, the chief engineer, and relayed the captain’s second question. After he consulted his computer in engineering, he responded, “Captain, I can’t recommend that we enter the storm’s center, but by my calculations, if we ride the edge of the phenomenon, we’d lose less than three quarters of a day. That’s got to be better than losing the ship and the supplies.

Captain Noble made her decision, and with a silent prayer for God’s mercy on the colony and the ship, she ordered Jayde to skirt the edge of the ‘timestorm’.

With an immediacy that even took the synthezoid crew off guard, the ship veered off course towards the center of the storm, and the crew began to respond to the time effects. Most moved extra slowly, but some moved with near lightning speed. No one’s action could pull the Testament from its course to the vortex. Captain Noble called to the bridge officers at large, “Report. What are we going to find at the storm’s center?”

Jayde turned in her chair and spoke to the captain, her words sounding to Noble like she was speaking through thick honey. “Therrre arre noooo recordssss offff anyyyy Earthhhh shipppp goingggg throughhhh whatttt weeeee arrre goingggg throughhhhhhh.”

Then an instant later, the Testament found itself in clear space, as if the storm vanished around them in the moment after Jayde gave her report. Noble called for status reports, and the most shocking came from Jayde. “We are four-hundred and thirty-six light years away from our last position! According to my stellar readings, we have also jumped several days into the past.”

Noble, in rare display of frustration, slammed her fist against the arm of her chair. Working to keep the annoyance from her voice, she asked Jayde, "Where exactly are we?"

The synthezoid woman’s voice came as close as it ever came to expressing shock. “Captain, we are closer to Earth Colony 6 by several hundred light years, but we need to reverse course to get there!”

Captain Noble failed to understand how being dragged four days into the past could have altered the location of her ship, but the extra time to deliver the supplies was a gift horse she wasn’t going to look in the mouth. “So turn the ship in the right direction, Jayde, and proceed at maximum safe speed.”

The ship’s usual maximum safe speed was hyper-light six, but Chief Engineer McDonal reported that the engines were damaged, and they could do only hyper-light two. Noble reflected that this must be how old-time mariners felt when a terrestrial storm damaged their ship. She asked Jayde for an ETA, and was shocked that even at one third of their top cruising speed, they’d only be 12 hours later than the anticipated arrival.

Noble ordered the communications officer to radio ahead and inform them of the new ETA. Then she commanded Jayde to put together a report with the coordinates of the storm’s current location, and forward it to Command and Admiral Prince.

Later, during the ship’s evening, Captain Noble read her devotional, ironically from Job 38, about Job’s scolding by God, and its several references to storms. Ironic, she thought, that God would lead me to this passage after my ship weathered a storm and came out well. Her eyes traveled to the wall of her cabin, where she had hung a wall hanging made by her mother with the text of Romans 8:28, and thanked God again for safety, and the fact that she'd be able to deliver the supplies almost on schedule to aid the colonists caught up in a planet-wide storm. It was said to be a storm of biblical proportions, but Noble reflected that it was nothing compared to what she and her crew had traveled through to get to them.

She closed her Bible and murmured, “Amen.”

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