A Flight of Onesimus

By Stephen W. Killiam

A Flight of Onesimus is a top notch action adventure with a unique premise. This novel is the heroic story of a father and daughter from an alternate universe who find themselves stranded on Earth in September 2001. The first three chapters of the book are devoted to explaining how the alternate universe of Commander Davis was formed. This fascinating backstory involves a rogue scientist whose attempt at time travel creates a timeline split in 1601. From that point forward, two universes evolve separately until they intersect again four hundred years later with the arrival of Commander Davis and his daughter Michelle-Michele.

The commander and his daughter are slaves in bondage to serve an interstellar smuggler on his spaceship. This ship is severely damaged in battle, accidentally jumps across the boundary between the two universes, and crashes in the desert Southwest. After the crash landing, father and daughter are forced by their master to split up and search for the spare parts that can repair his ship. Their destinations are the wrecks of the two other fighters involved in the battle that forced their landing on to this alien world. On their journeys, they each meet a partner who pledges to help with their mission; a local teenager and a mysterious woman who calls herself the Guardian of the Timeline. Together with their new allies, the commander and his daughter battle an array of forces determined to stop them:

the United States military a top secret organization looking for travelers from other dimensions vicious criminals from their own universe.

The action takes the reader from the desert of Texas to the top of the World Trade Center and beyond as our heroes fight to return to their master before a catastrophic timeline split destroys one universe or the other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465317339

Stephen W. Killiam

Stephen W. Killam grew up in Massachusetts, graduated from Texas A&M in 1985, and currently lives near Chicago. He is married to Annette and together they have raised four wonderful children. Stephen is the creator of the Hundred Worlds universe and the author of the Guardians of the Timeline sci-fi adventure series.

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Copyright © 2009 by Stephen W. Killam.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL

CHAPTER 2

THE TWO SHIPWRECKS

CHAPTER 3

LANDFALL

CHAPTER 4

THREE FELL TO EARTH

CHAPTER 5

PLANNING THE EXPEDITION

CHAPTER 6

MICHELLE-MICHELE’S JOURNEY BEGINS

CHAPTER 7

UNEXPECTED COMPLICATIONS

CHAPTER 8

ENCOUNTER WITH THE COMMANDER

CHAPTER 9

A MAN MAKES HIS PLANS . . . .

CHAPTER 10

GROUND ZERO

CHAPTER 11

ONESIMUS RETURNS

CHAPTER 12

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

EPILOGUE

NEW BEGINNINGS

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my wife, Annette, and our four children: Sean, Jon, Tory, and Ben. Each of you encouraged and supported me as I completed my first novel. The heroic attributes of the main characters were inspired by the best in each of you.

CHAPTER 1

PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL

10:00 A.M., SEPTEMBER 8, 2001, PILGRIM’S CRATER, NEW EARTH

Although Carlos and Elizabeth had grown up quite near their world’s most famous historical site, they had never come close to seeing this many people in one place at one time. Today, it was the focus of more activity than they could ever have imagined. The annual Pilgrims’ Landing Day celebration always drew large crowds, and they were used to seeing visitors from other places standing in awe of the location that they had called home for all of their seventeen years. Carlos usually stayed away from the site on those days. He preferred to visit during really bad weather, when he could be as alone as possible. Sometimes he would have fifteen minutes by himself looking over the site where the most important event in history took place before another visitor would come and interrupt him. Because today was the quadcentennial, visitors were packed shoulder to shoulder as they made their way to the landing site. Carlos fought to keep Elizabeth as close to him as possible as the anxious crowd shuffled to the peak that overlooked the site. He felt irritated that all these visitors were crowding his special place, and he felt frustrated that people kept trying to squeeze in between him and his sister. She was just ten months younger than he was; they were very close, and he was very protective of her.

Why can’t they just watch it from home? he wondered aloud. Yet despite his frustration and irritation, he had to admit that he was just like everyone else who was here; he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see the celebration live, to be able to say years from now, I was there. Elizabeth held his wrist so tightly that her grip was cutting off his circulation. However, there was so much pressure around him he was oblivious to the pain. People stepped on others’ feet, banged knees, and elbowed one another in the ribs as they fought for position before the show began. As Carlos reached the crest, he forced a gap between him and the man just ahead of him, allowing Elizabeth the room she needed to get in front of him. She pried herself out from between two other teenage girls and squeezed into place. Since she was three inches shorter than her brother, he was able to settle in and watch over her shoulder while guarding her from the crowd by placing his arms securely around her body. As he locked his wrists, an enormous six-sided video screen descended from the sky and settled directly above the crater. Each screen was at least one thousand feet square. Carlos laughed and said, That’s a seventeen-thousand diagonal, sis.

As it floated in midair, the din of innumerable voices began to fill the valley with a crescendo of conversations as everyone fought to carry on their own discussions about the show that was about to begin. It was almost impossible to hear the person next to you in the cacophony created by the spectators. Carlos could feel the anticipation of the crowd. The media had done an excellent job of keeping the details of the presentation secret. All anyone knew was that all of the biggest tri-v stars had been brought together to create a dramatic recreation of the events that had resulted in the colonization of their world, a story that had been told in many different ways over the years. The media had promised to make this four-hundred-year anniversary the most memorable spectacle ever. All the citizens would be watching this presentation as they celebrated the quadcentennial throughout the colonized worlds. Millions had traveled to New Earth to watch the broadcast from the crater where the pilgrims had landed. As the first images were transmitted to the video screens floating over the crater, the noise of the crowd changed to a hush and then to silence. The show was about to begin. Each of the six floating video screens came to life and flashed a date from the future. Carlos and all the others watching knew that this special date was not only in the future, but also in their past.

JULY 12, 2969

John Sanchez Smyth paced frantically in his cabin, fully aware of the physical manifestations of stress which could not be ignored. He kept wiping his sweating palms on the legs of his jumpsuit and prayed for his heart rate to return to normal. Although he had made plenty of big decisions during his life, he had never learned how to deal with stress very well. He certainly wasn’t handling it well this morning. His pounding heart was causing him to reconsider an opportunity to become a part of history and immortalize his name. He could not discern if his anxiety was due simply to the magnitude of the risk involved or his conscience screaming at him to avoid the peril.

Peter Stone was having no such problem. He calmly packed his mounted doctoral degree into a gleaming alloy chest emblazoned with his initials and family seal. The diploma fit neatly on top of the other pictures and awards that gave testimony to a long and distinguished scientific career. Pride welled up inside of him as he carefully placed each treasure into the box. His anticipation of making history created a warm sense of excitement in his soul which he carefully held in check to prevent him from making a critical error during his final preparation for destiny.

Maria Mesaverde was neither calm nor panicked. She had spent the morning weighing the pros and cons of Peter’s offer and had reached a final decision which brought peace to her soul. She had decided to stay behind and was experiencing the overwhelming sense of peace she always received once she set her course of action. She knew that John would be having a very difficult time with his final decision and was making her way hastily to his cabin to help him deal with the anxiety she was sure was burdening him. Maria reached out her hand and pressed the door chime as she spun around the corner of the passageway leading to John’s door. The chime sounded and John jerked around toward the entry as the door’s camera focused on Maria’s face. As her image became clear on John’s cabin-view screen, he breathed a sigh of relief that this was a visit from a trusted ally and spoke to the door for it to open. Maria darted into the room and gave John a brief hug pressing her head against his before separating and looking him straight in the eye. As John focused on her determined stare, she pursed her lips and then blurted out, Boo! John jumped back in shock as Maria rolled her eyes and added, Would you please relax?

John spoke to the view screen and it presented the image of the hangar bay of the space station. John pointed to the screen with a shaking finger and said, They are preparing to launch in fifteen minutes, don’t you realize what this means? His panic confirmed to Maria that she had done the right thing in visiting John at this moment.

Stone closed the latch on his alloy box and pressed his thumb onto the lock to seal its precious contents. He activated the box’s flotation device causing it to rise from the desk he had packed it on. As he headed out of his cabin, the box obediently followed him down the corridor to the hangar bay. He was having more of a challenge containing his excitement with every pace. He entered the elevator and as the door closed he thought of all of his colleagues who were in the midst of determining their destiny. He wondered who would join him in his glorious pursuit of history and who would cave in to mediocrity. As the doors opened, Stone saw the culmination of his life’s work before him. An egg-shaped silver spacecraft hung poised in front of the hangar bay door separated from the stars ahead by an invisible force field. As he stood in awe of his accomplishment, a trusted associate approached him quietly, touched him lightly on the arm, and whispered, We are ready.

John and Maria watched in silence as Stone and his companion entered the craft. Just as Maria was preparing to break the uneasiness, John took a deep breath and said, I can’t be a part of this. She expected to have to draw his opinion out of him one sentence at a time; however, her old friend surprised her by releasing a constant stream of thoughts as carefully prepared as a defense attorney’s closing argument in a murder case. If Stone is right and I do not go, then I will miss the opportunity to be a part of history. But if the temporal catastrophe theorists are right, then if he launches that ship we will all cease to exist. I have decided not to go, and I have decided to try to stop him. I cannot sit still while he splits the timeline. I am going to break my vow of secrecy and call the security team.

As John spoke to establish a voice link with the station security team, Maria wondered if it was her presence that helped him to make this final decision. As she prepared to let John know that she agreed with him, the cabin suddenly went pitch black. Together they watched the glow of the view screen grow dim as the sound of air handling motors winding down left them both in an eerie silence.

Although Stone was brimming with nervous anticipation he spoke with an icy calm to demonstrate to his followers that he was in total control. We are leaving ten minutes early. The true believers are already here. Those who are not are deciding to turn against us. Next he barked out an order. We launch in five minutes.

John and Maria both stated the obvious at exactly the same time, He cut the power.

Disbelief turned to action as John headed to his doorway. It opened automatically in response to the loss of power and emergency lighting brought a glow to the corridor outside. John felt the need to explain his decision to Maria in part to reaffirm to himself that he was doing the right thing. He ran down the corridor as she caught up to him and came alongside. For the last two days I haven’t slept. I have been going over the temporal displacement theories. The pace of their jog forced John to speak in short bursts. The Academy is right. Any journey backwards . . . in time . . . will create a new universe—a split in the . . . timeline. If the split occurs . . . in a crucial event . . . the current timeline—that’s ours, Maria—will cease to exist. If you stop a war . . . or change its outcome, you change lives. If you change lives, you alter . . . the destiny . . . the placement . . . of certain atoms. The atoms in my brain . . . or in my left hand . . . they were all somewhere . . . else before I was born—in another person . . . or in a tree . . . or something else. If something changes . . . and I don’t get them, I die. The further back . . . you go in time . . . the greater chance . . . of killing an ancestor. It only takes one or two . . . before the entire race . . . is affected . . . and then we are gone. John slid on the floor and crashed into the closed elevator doors. Maria caught him in her arms as he bounced back from the collision. I’m okay, he said before she had a chance to ask.

We have to get to the hangar bay, Maria responded. The only way down there now is to climb the emergency ladder.

John was one step ahead of her.

I know. It is over here. You go first.

As she began her descent, she picked up describing John’s evaluation of his theory where he left off. Since she was in better shape, she was able to speak in full sentences as she climbed. Any interaction in the past creates the potential for different destinies of matter. If you alter those destinies and create a second timeline, then the atoms in the original will move to the location that matches that one in the split. Even a small disruption could change lives, and changing lives changes the destiny of atoms. Altering the course of a river a thousand years ago could change the future of a community and affect who settles there, who marries, who is born—

Although John was out of breath, he interjected, Once you . . . alter births . . . it’s all over. As Maria let go of the final rung and dropped to the floor, she contemplated the thought of trillions of atoms being ripped out of their current locations and instantaneously hurled across space. She stepped to the side as John fell down beside her. As he landed, a blaring alarm rang throughout the hangar bay, giving warning that the ship was launching in two minutes.

I am too late, John cried.

Inside the ship, Stone watched John and Maria exit the ladder tube and guessed their thoughts. You’re too late. he said to himself. He shifted his eyes from the exterior view screen to the monitor relaying video from the engine room. One of the technicians was scrambling to complete a task. Stone realized that the man was making last-minute calculations for the total mass of the ship, including passengers, and that he had forced him to do it in ten minutes less than originally planned. He had better get it right in ninety seconds, he mused.

Maria grabbed John by the arm and tugged him into the safety of a hangar bay corridor. You may think you are too late, but I am right on time, she said.

What are you talking about? John blurted out.

She grabbed him by the shoulders, tossed her hair back, and calmly said, As the gravity displacement engineer, it is my responsibility to calculate the ship’s mass prior to launch. Without me on board, Dr. Lee will have to do it. Last night, after I decided I was not going to participate in this experiment, I altered the mass calculation program. There is no way he will be able to tell. John looked past her determined face to see the ship begin moving toward the hangar bay door.

Stone commanded his view screen to give him a view of the ship from the outside so that he could watch it exit the hangar bay. He smiled as the nose of the ship penetrated the force field and broke into open space. As he watched the length of the hull pass through the barrier between the hangar and the vacuum outside it, his crew began entering his cabin. After the force field closed on the tip of the ship’s tail, he spun around to face them. After a long pause, he asked, I know that Smyth and Mesaverde have chosen the path of cowards. Where are Drs. Lee, Singh, Wong, and the Whitestones?

A tall man in the back answered, Lee is in engineering finishing the mass calculation, the others are not on board.

As he finished his sentence, Dr. Lee skidded into the cabin totally out of breath. Stone glanced at his watch, fixed his eyes on Lee, and said, You are just in time, doctor. Then he wiped a small tear from his left eye and cleared his throat. Were you all successful in your assignments? he asked the group. Everyone nodded, except the exhausted Dr. Lee who first raised a hand and then raised his head to stare back at Stone.

Lee spoke slowly. I discerned something fishy about the mass calculation, he reported.

Stone wiped a small tear from his other eye and then glared at Lee. Fishy? You are dealing with physics, Dr. Lee, numbers and hard science. I have grown tired of your discernment. He let the last word roll out of his mouth slowly as if he was carefully spitting out lukewarm food. I am about to make history. I do not have time for your discernment. Did you calculate our mass or not?

Beaten down, Dr. Lee changed his tone and replied matter-of-factly, It is done.

Stone raised his voice an octave and addressed the team assembled before him. Yes, I am making history, and each of you is going to be a part of it. The others who came before me were only great explorers who discovered new places. Christopher Columbus braved the uncharted sea to discover a new continent. Neil Armstrong set foot on Earth’s moon, and Juan Hu set foot on the planet Mars inspiring generations of space travelers. Vlad Sosa led the first community of terraformers to colonize a planet outside of the Sol system. And Xi Lee mustered the courage to break the conventional theories of time and space, becoming the first person to navigate through the hyperspace and return home. Yet all of these men were a just a part of history. I will surpass them all by making history. Today you will join me as I lead us back in time, and I will become the greatest explorer our universe has ever known. After basking in the moment,