Time Jumpers Episode 4: Cygnus Rift

By Philip Bosshardt

First Time Displacement Battery has a new mission, assigned by Commandstar. Assist 2nd TD in setting up a new Time Twister on a strange moon in the Gliese 876 system, a mangled potato of a world called Outtawhack. The moon orbits a planet called Landfall, home to a number of Uman settlements. Nearby is a strange temporal anomaly called Cygnus Rift. And 2nd TD’s commander, one Captain Felicia Andorra, happens to be a Coethi spy.
Captain Dringoth sends three of his time jumpers to assist. But when the new Time Twister is tested, it causes the Rift to erupt and throw the Battery into a new time stream. In this future time, Landfall is heavily populated and Outtawhack is headed for impact on the planet.
The time jumpers must now race against time, continuing eruptions from the Rift and the inexorable laws of gravity to stop Outtawhack from impacting Landfall and killing millions. Complicating their efforts is Andorra, who has a mission of seeing that the Twister is ultimately destroyed, permitting the enemy Coethi to move unobstructed into this sector of Alliance space.
But in order to succeed, the time jumpers must cannibalize their own ship to shield their work from the Rift. If they succeed, Landfall will be spared but they will be trapped in this time stream. If they fail, millions may die.
Fourth episode in the Time Jumpers serial.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Bosshardt
• Release date: May 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781370102808

Philip Bosshardt

Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a large company that makes products everyone uses...just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He’s been happily married for over 20 years. He’s also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3-4 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Keeshond dog named Kelsey.For details on his series Tales of the Quantum Corps, visit his blog at qcorpstimes.blogspot.com or his website at http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt.

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Time Jumpers

Episode 4: Cygnus Rift

Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

Copyright 2019 Philip Bosshardt

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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A few words about this series….

Time Jumpersis a series of 20,000-30,000-word episodes detailing the adventures of Ultrarch-Jump Captain Monthan Dringoth and his crew and their experiences as time jumpers with the Time Guard.

Each episode will be about 40-60 pages, approximately 25,000 words in length.

A new episode will be available and uploaded every 4 weeks.

There will be 12 episodes. The story will be completely serialized in about 12 months.

Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc.

The main plotline: Time Guard must defeat the enemy Coethi and stop their efforts to disrupt or eliminate Uman settlements in the Galactic Inner Spiral and Lower Halo sectors of Uman space.

Uploads will be made towww.smashwords.comon approximately the schedule below:

Episode # Title Approximate Upload Date

‘Marooned in Voidtime’ February 1, 2019

‘Keaton’s World’ March 1, 2019

‘A Small Navigation Error’ April 15, 2019

‘Cygnus Rift’ May 3, 2019

‘The Time Guard’ May 31, 2019

‘First Light Corridor June 28, 2019

‘Hapsh’m and the First Coethi Encounter’ August 2, 2019

‘OperationGalactic Hammer’August 30, 2019

‘Byrd’s Draconis’ September 27, 2019

‘First Jump Squadron’ November 1, 2019

‘Planck Time’ November 29, 2019

‘The Time Twister’ January 3, 2020

Chapter 1: Outtawhack

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asks, I know not.

St. Augustine of Hippo

Time Stream: T-001

T-date: T-06-22-2814 CE

Monthan Dringoth was sobered by the damage the Twister had done when 1st TD had aimed it down into the Hollows of Gibbons’ Grotto. When he and Nathan Golich entered The Lucky Dinar deep in the Tenderloin district of Gibbstown and ordered a round of cold ones from the auto-bar, they were also deep in discussion about how Time Guard would respond to such a pyrrhic victory at Sturdivant. Sure, the Coethi had been driven off, for the time being, but at what cost?

M’Bela and Yang were there, too, along with Acth:On’e. Only URME remained at the ship, still running down stubborn glitches in Cygnus’ collapser circuitry.

Dringoth was buying.

Golich slurped some frost around the top of his mug. Dringoth pressed a thumb into the servbot’s head slot to pay off the round.

You were lucky, Golich announced. Nobody’s ever done that before…gone through Time’s Peak. What was it like?

Yang closed her eyes, sipping at her own drink, twirling the little parasol between her fingers. Like being swept up in one of K-World’s sandstorms inside a barrel. You can’t see anything. You’re getting bounced and battered around—

Dringoth added, We were both pretty much knocked out. I opened my eyes once and nearly vomited. It was like watching a million vids at super high speed…none of your senses can make anything out of what’s happening.

And you still wound up in T-4487…what are the odds of that?

It wasn’t the same worldline, Yang corrected him.

Yeah, Dringoth said, watching the door as another jumpship crew came in, arguing and laughing out loud. Where we wound up, I had died and we lost the Battle of Gibbons’ Grotto. K-World was a wasteland. Had a hell of a time convincing our rescuers who we were.

"Scorpio," said Acth:On’e. His lips were covered with beer frost, which he licked with his tongue.

She was on sector patrol along that worldline, picket duty outside the Peak. Captain was a gruff fellow named Valesquez…real Time Guard boy scout, that one. Everything by the book. He was a couple of years ahead of me at the Academy. Once we managed to establish our bona fides, it was nothing but investigations and bureaucracy and brass covering their asses from then on. Once she got permission to jump back to T-001, I was never so glad to get home in my whole life.

Me, too, Yang admitted. Never thought of K-World as paradise until after I went barrel-rolling through Time’s Peak.

The talk stopped when a third jumpship crew swaggered into the Dinar, most of them hammered into slobbering, stumbling semi-comatose jellybags. The din briefly subsided across the bar as Capricorn’s crew and Gemini’s crew encountered each other along the edge of the bar. Then a jumper from the ‘Corn saw Dringoth and Golich and blinked his watery eyes in disbelief.

"Well, I’ll be a Telitorian birdsnake…that’s looks like a bunch of pukes from Cygnus over there. Hey, Velho, check out that bunch of Cygnoids…" he spat a wad of something blue, probably chewed khat…the leaf was everywhere in the Tenderloin, can’t say I ever laid eyes on a sorrier bunch of jumpers than them—

Golich stiffened and was about to rise to face this troglodyte, but Dringoth laid a firm hand on his elbow.

Not now, Commander. Take it easy. Cornies are just blowing off steam.

But, Captain, I—

Save it for a better time. They’re not the enemy. We’re all on the same team here.

Dringoth had hoped the Capricorn and Gemini jumpers would cancel each other out, focus on boasting and cursing and insulting each other and leave the rest of them alone. But when a Gemini crewman sauntered over, sloshing his drink on half the patrons as he came up, Dringoth knew that was a forlorn hope.

The time jumper from Gemini was short, but stocky, a bull of a man with a thick ropy neck and slurred, heavily accented words. His jump suit had a name patch that read something like Kizim somethingorother. He was grinning like a skeleton’s rictus and his bald head shone from the overhead lights.

Cyg…nus…eh? he got out thickly. His drink sloshed on Golich’s shoulder. The commander bit his lip, sucked in a breath and tried to ignore the intruder. Heard she was being re-routed.

Oh, muttered Acth:On’e, over the top of his mug. How’s that?

Kizim laughed and drooled at the same time. You din’t hear…Guard reassigned that old garbage scow to escort duty…other side of Landfall. Escorting other buckets right to the scrapyard.

Oh, said Golich, his shoulders tightening for what he knew was bound to come. Where’d you hear that piece of crap?

Kizim’s face scrunched up into a mixture of pain and laughter. "Ever’body knows it. Cygnus ain’t nothin’ but a bucket of rivets flying in loose formation. Couldn’t even aim that Twister thing right, blew off half of Gibbons, I heard. Go see for yourself, Goldilocks."

Golich stood up abruptly, knocking over his half-empty mug. "And I suppose Gemini’s the marvel of the universe…you know, pal— Golich leaned close to Kizim’s face, right into a miasma of khat breath and bleary eyes—…you know what they say about Gemini?"

Eh? No…what’s that?

Golich chuckled a low guttural chuckle. I hear that old scum dredger’s nothing but the bastard offspring of an infernal liaison…two diseased arachtyls from K-World, both covered with canker sores, got to humping it and spat out a smoking pile of crap with a vague resemblance to a jumpship. Guard was so impressed, they stuck a name on it and commissioned it into the fleet…Gemini…the Twins, get it, stinko?

Kizim blinked hard. The swing, when it came was off the mark but managed to clip Golich on the ear. And then, like the proverbial butterfly who flapped its wings and created a hurricane, the brawl was on.

Dringoth never really knew who threw the first punch. But before he could even get to his feet, the entire front bar of the Lucky Dinar was a maelstrom of flying fists and falling bodies and chairs crashing and tables collapsing and bots beeping and glass shattering and beer everywhere.

Kizim and Golich were in a wrestling match in no time, first on top of the table, then on the floor, rolling in khat leaf and butts and ashes and slick patches of drink spill. Golich was taller and rangier, but Kizim was stronger, a bull fighting a giraffe, Evelyn M’Bela would later describe it.

Golich landed a few solid punches, but Kizim seemed impervious to everything and just butted like a bull, again and again, right into the commander’s chest, knocking the wind out of him every time.

Acth:On’e rose to come to his crewmate’s defense but soon found himself enveloped in the arms of another Cornie, trying to strangle him from behind. M’Bela landed a side kick right in the privates of a third Cornie and Alicia Yang was soon crouched herself on top of nearby table, hands in strike position, slashing and chopping at anyone who came near.

Dringoth took a few shoves from hands unseen, shoved back and burrowed his way to the bar, where he hand-motioned the auto-bar for another round of Lick and slurped it carefully, even sitting up on the bar, lifting his legs, when more bodies came crashing by.

It took Time Guard police half an hour to get everything calmed down.

Most of the crew spent a blurry, dreary night in lockup at Gibbstown Base, and after all the investigations and interviews and fines and warnings, Cygnus’ crew was released to the custody of Dringoth, himself on probation, and they left the adjutant’s quarters on base by the sight of a blood-red dawnlight from Sturdivant, the sun just coming up and filtering through the haze of a distant sandstorm out in the Dunes beyond.

TACTRON A, the commander of 1st Jump Battalion, on whose recognizance they had all been released, made sure to give his sternest lecture to his wayward jumpers as they left the adjutant office, all of them wearing wrist monitors to make sure they didn’t succumb to temptation again until the case could be adjudicated.

Nobody leaves Gibbstown without written permission, TACTRON was saying in his electronic sing-song lilt. And be at Eternal Patrol Gardens at 0900 hours this morning.

Golich’s head still hurt and his chest was black and blue from a cascade of head butts. Sir, Eternal Patrol…couldn’t we just—

No, you cannot go back to your quarters and sleep this off. There’s a memorial ceremony, an official Time of Remembrance at Planck Field this morning. We honor those lost in the Battle of Gibbons Grotto. Go back and get cleaned up. Full dress blues and blacks, too.

With that, TACTRON wheeled about and strolled down a pebbled walkway to the Ops Center, a glass cube two blocks away. He chose not to acknowledge the grumbles and curses that issued from behind him, though Dringoth knew the Battalion C/O could surely hear a leaf drop from ten kilometers with those super-sensitive audio receivers he liked to call ears.

The crew stumbled in morose silence back to their quarters, Yang, M’Bela and Acth:On’e to C Barracks, Dringoth and Golich to Officers Quarters Novotny Hall.

The biggest challenge was going to be slipping into their dress uniforms without falling asleep, standing up. Maybe swallowing a few stims would help.

Planck Field was the Guard’s parade and review grounds, on the outskirts of Gibbstown, but with a clear view of the Big Spleen, as