Time Jumpers Episode 12: The Time Twister

By Philip Bosshardt

The crew of Cygnus has fled the Coethi homeworld across time streams and come to a world they have seen before...the ocean planet Storm, third world in the Sigma Albeth system. The Coethi are moving in force through this system; they’re still around despite the time jumpers’ belief that the sun of their homeworld had destroyed them in the distant past. But the crew has a bigger problem as they touch down on a windswept island...Evelyn M’Bela is dead.
In the very midst of a memorial service for their fallen comrade, the time jumpers are interrupted by the appearance of two Seomish on the beach. They sense that M’Bela may still be alive and through awkward translations, offer to take M’Bela’s body to a place of healing, called the Pillars of Shooki. Eventually, Captain Dringoth relents and assigns Alicia Yang to go with her.
What follows is one of the most extraordinary adventures the time jumpers have ever faced. The healing process involves letting M’Bela be ‘swallowed’ by a dragon-like beast called a seamother. Inside the beast, M’Bela regains consciousness but must fight for her life to scramble out of the creature. In time, she succeeds but when she and Yang are taken back to the island, they find themselves in the midst of a skirmish between the crew of Cygnus and the Seomish, who are desperately trying to stop the operation of the repaired Time Twister, the sound of which is devastating their world.
Only a desperate and startling tactic by newly-revived M’Bela stops the skirmish. An uneasy truce develops which is interrupted by a trio of jumpships coming to their rescue. The time jumpers’ commanding officer is among their rescuers. TACTRON congratulates Dringoth on sweeping Coethi out of the system for there is now no evidence they were ever there; perhaps their original time stream was disrupted, as Dringoth tried to do. Negotiations with the Seomish follow and a sort of modus vivendi is worked out...the Twister will be repaired, then powered down and safed in sleep mode, to be attended by a new crew to be assigned.
As the time jumpers depart Storm, there is every hope that more cultural visits will follow and relations between the Seomish and the Umans formalized. But after the jumpships have left, the Seomish discover that the Coethi bots that once infected Evelyn M’Bela’s head have survived. And now they are replicating like crazy.
Final episode in the Time Jumpers serial.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Bosshardt
• Release date: Jan 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463375945

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 12: The Time Twister

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 Jumpers is 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 to www.smashwords.com on 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: Uneasy is the head that wears a crown…

"If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

William Shakespeare

Storm

Kinlok Island

Time Stream T-001 (2814 CE)

T-date: 001-01-22

Jumpship Cygnus was gone, obliterated into non-existence when her singularity core collapsed on the other side of the star-sun Sigma Albeth B. First Time Displacement Battery hunkered down on a windswept spit of land called Kinlok Island, until the last of the quantum decoherence waves had washed through the system. When it was all over, the ocean world Storm was still there and Sigma Albeth was still there, but she was mortally wounded.

Acth:On’e figured she had maybe a few years, maybe less, before the Chandrasekhar Limit would be reached and the final detonation sequence began.

But the crew had bigger problems to deal with. Evelyn M’Bela had been swarmed by Coethi bots on the Coethi homeworld Horus and the infestation had penetrated her brain. An emergency insert of URME bots into Queenie’s head had been done but the Bugs were fast and clever and the result was bad, real bad.

M’Bela had died right in front of their eyes.

Now 1st TD had a grim and sober duty and they had all gathered down on the wind-swept beach, sleet flecking their eyes amid crashing surf, with the Body Dispersal Shroud containing the remains of M’Bela to conduct a memorial service.

Dringoth had done these before and it was never easy. We’re doing this one by the book, he told them up at the control shack.

That means FADMR? Golich asked.

Dringoth nodded. "Time Guard procedure TG88-1717, Field-ANAD Disposal of Mortal Remains. URME has already inserted the disassembly swarm in the shroud." The para-human swarm entity could never have survived in blustery conditions down on the island’s narrow beach, so Alicia Yang carried him in a containment capsule on her belt.

They had littered the burial shroud down to a small sandy promontory overlooking thundering waves, barely ten meters above the hiss and spray of the surf. After the memorial service was performed by the Captain, Yang would trigger the dispersal process. Inside the shroud, barebones ANAD nanobots originally configured by URME would rapidly disassemble M’Bela’s mortal remains as swell as the shroud. As a final act, once the disassembly was done, the crew would take turns shoveling the ground residue off the promontory and into the ocean.

And that would be that.

Dringoth cleared his throat. God, I hate this, he told himself but he didn’t say that. Queenie deserved better, but then the same thing could be said of any time jumper, or for that matter any soldier. Maybe it was enough she had died in battle, fighting the Bugs that had been threatening Umans for decades. A soldier’s death, with all the glory that came with it.

Dringoth spoke out in as clear a voice as he could muster. Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister departed, and we commit her remains to the deep; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself—

Dringoth’s words—he had memorized them the night before, straight from the Service of Committal procedure in the manual—were suddenly interrupted by a commotion.

Hey, Captain…what the hell is that?

What’s what?

"That."

Beyond the surf line off the tiny beach, a creature had just emerged from the waves, a seemingly bipedal creature, covered in what looked like armored plating, shuffling and trudging through the waves toward them. Behind it, a second creature, somewhat smaller, also had emerged and had joined the first one.

Must be that dinner we had last night, said Golich. His hands reached for the beamer on his web belt and he withdrew the weapon and flipped off the safety, automatically. Acth:On’e did the same.

What the hell are they?

The creatures reached the end of the water and struggled for footing in the loose sand. Their outer skin resembled suits of some kind. But their heads, if they had heads, were invisible behind the upper part of their suits.

"Stay back! Stay back…they’re still coming—get back there!"

Then Alicia Yang recognized them. Captain, they’re Sea People…like we encountered before on Storm. Don’t shoot…hold your fire.

Dringoth was skeptical, still fondling his own weapon. Sea People?

They call themselves Seomish. Remember, Captain…the last time we were here. I actually took a trip with them.

Dringoth did remember. You went AWOL. We almost left you behind.

Yang was already scrambling down off the promontory onto the beach. Captain, I know these creatures— Cautiously she approached.

Yang, get back! That’s an order!

But the DPS tech ignored Dringoth and moved carefully, step by step toward the glistening, armored creatures. I think they recognize me…. She held out her hand…now she was just five meters away, now, shuffling sand, four meters…three meters.

Alicia, watch out!

The taller creature had extended its own hand. She could hear the faint whir of motors operating and remembered the suits were called mobilitors, suits that contained a watery environment inside, allowing the creatures to survive and move