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Science Fiction Fantasy / SF Novel / eBook
Those Who Live Forever
Death Of A Warrior
Torcysolica was a medium sized planet, millions of light-years away in the Andromeda galaxy, its star unseen from our Earthly viewpoint, smothered by dark matter of the Universe. Its atmosphere very similar to that of the Earth, 72% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and its life forms essentially carbon based.
It was the late afternoon of what can be described as a typical spring day, for it was warm, humid, and misty. You could almost believe the location to be the edge of a forest on a mountainside in Serean on the planet Kensisi. A strong breeze blew from the west, bowing flowers like an unarguable master, as they themselves flourished in pink, red, and blue blossom. A dense cover of trees portrayed a green carpet whichever direction one turned. Almost, that is, until you looked south. On doing so, the realization that this was the planet Kensisi vanished from the mind. The wildlife, or lack of it, was another dead giveaway.
One percent of animal matter at this point in time was sulfur based, and will reduce in the following 3.5 million years (19.8 million Earth years) to 43 million millionths of a percent, because under such planetary conditions sulfur finds itself unable to form the complex structures indicative of intelligent life. The only reason sulfur organisms existed in such large proportions near the planet's beginning was the volcanic activity some two thousand three hundred kilometers to the north. Many of that area's lakes were filled with hot sulfuric acid, including Lake Gussa, the largest on the planet, four hundred and thirty three kilometers long and two hundred kilometers wide at its extreme points. Five rivers flowed into it, about four billion cubic meters per day.
Torcysolica orbits an O-type star called Solica at a distance of three hundred million kilometers. Solica is eight times as hot as the sun, which enables the distance to support life for the evolution of intelligence, the DNA of which did not develop on this planet. In a few hours time, an event is to take place that introduced this DNA, the complexity of which out-evolved local organic material.
Just over a light-year away, off towards the center of the galaxy, a battle was in progress. Like all wars, there was a good side and a bad side, which is which being a matter of interpretation or personal bias. Two strike craft were heading in this direction at a velocity that would raise an Earthly eyebrow. The pursuer is the bad guy, Group Defender T.T. Teckachi, born and bred for this particular situation. Pplathanchees did not at all like Zeta Leader Frodge 'Strafer' Reeport, who was considered to be the most annoying, lucky, persistent Yccarry that had ever graced his own planet. Pplathanchees were dog like people, having very obtrusive, strong jaws. Over time they evolved into bipeds with two hands and two feet, much like humans, except one and a half times as large. Yccarries are, on the other hand, very similar to humans in shape and size, brought on by their evolving under similar conditions.
Have you ever stopped and pondered at how vast the Universe is and how it began? This question has confused many a nation and began many a war. Each nation and nation within nation standing by its own beliefs. The Universe has seen a great number of advanced civilizations rise and fall. On all occasions it was, and will be, time travel that supplied or will supply scientists with the answers to their questions. Experimentation showed that time machines, if kept in the same space, were unable to go back further in time than the split second they were switched on. They were only able to go forward. More problems surfaced when time machines did not return from their hundred million year trips into the future. Trying smaller time distances gave an answer to the problem. Relelejebo’s (a professor of sciences from the planet Plopeasle) famous analogy will help to explain this reason. Take two flepons (furry mammals not too dissimilar to panthers, that live and breed in the damp forests in the southern mountains on his own planet) and stick them in a time machine about twice the size of a standard dustbin and send them forward in time. The female flepon is in one corner and the male flepon is in another. When they get to their destination they change places and go back in time. Assuming the box occupies the same space going to and fro, the female flepon will be in the same space going back in time as the male flepon was going forward and vice versa. This is impossible. The machine is prevented from going back in time by the basic laws of our universe. Taking this one step further down to the microscopic level, two molecules of oxygen will be in different positions on going back in time, hence stopping the machine for the same reason. Therefore, unless a space can be found where there is no matter present prior to the time machine, time travel will be impossible. Our universe is filled with a large number of particles, but if the time machine is made small enough, it will eventually get back, stopping temporarily when it hits a particle in its space prior to its present time to move into an adjacent space in order to continue on its journey until it hits another particle or it gets to its destination. The bigger the machine, the larger the space it occupies and hence the greater the chance of it being stopped by a particle in its space in a prior time.
First explorers were and always will be robots, as to travel one hundred years into the future and back takes an apparent life span on board the vessel of at least one hundred years with virtually all prototypes. New developments in energy conversions and Vortex Space Fields soon permit large crews to go forward many trillions of years and back in an apparent life span of four and a half minutes.
All current records show the Universe to still exist a googolplex years into the future.
Going backwards in time prior to the commissioning of time machines does not have to be treated with extreme care as a lot of people expect. Time machines cannot change history by being present in a space when that space should have been occupied by other matter. The matter and the time machine collide, the matter bouncing off in a different direction to where it should have been. Your whole planet may be stopped from evolving by one minor but not insignificant slip. The time machine is not invented and you do not go back in time. Confused? Well, the result is that, as in going into your future, the machine has to shift into an adjacent space before it can continue its journey into the past. If the machine passes into a space that will interfere with future proceedings leading up to it traveling back in time, the machine will stop. What is known in time traveling circles as the 'Pre-Culmination Complex' occurs, the machine stops dead in time as to go any further would lead to its non-existence, steps aside, and continues on its merry way in an adjacent space. For the same reason, the time traveler cannot himself / herself change his / her past as this will stop them from inventing the machine and going back in time to change their past.
Expeditions have gone back in time passed the beginning of the Universe. Evidence now shows that it was not created by some sort of God and that there are other Universes. Space has always existed, hosting every now and again, the explosive birth of new Pockets of Matter commonly referred to as Big Bangs.
Explorers often came (and will come) across many races spanning all space and time, even those that will develop out of present Quasars and from other Universes. There will be one race, the Nurghhs, who lose faith for being unable to find enough wax for the candles, let alone enough cake to fit them on, for a little girl's birthday celebration. She was born 5.654 billion years before the first ancestral Nurghh stepped into the Vumentol Ocean.
Upon the first release of the above news, religious nations immediately terminated themselves in long and bloody wars over who was going to run things, as the evidence showed God did not exist. On all of there trips, nobody ever did find a God. Non-religious nations had to war against religious neighbors who claimed martial law while God was not around. His followers claimed he was taking a long overdue summer holiday away from things. Even mayday calls did not get through. His followers claimed that if space had always existed, then a two week annual holiday, if God lived on average ninety six of his years, must be a relatively very long time indeed, considering how old the universe is and how old God must be. Wars ended as this news reached those who wanted to believe in his existence but frustrated those who thought it to be impersonal to pray to an answering machine. It was not until the college days of Bob Stewart, a twentieth century Surrey man, that living creatures were to have the next upset in accepted cosmology.
The most interesting of all time expeditions was proven to have been LSTY45T6, which was launched from GFYLJXIV and was considered lost. Some 3.5 billion years later, it appeared at the same point in space, in the middle of a medieval Sunday lunch the other side of a completely different galaxy. The first generation crew never managed to get home. The vessel was fully self-sufficient, but because the occupants had somehow changed their own history, they were unable to return. This seemed impossible due to the fact that their own planet was on the other side of another galaxy. The thousand year old siege ended when the planet was invaded by a race that needed its water, at which point the sub-nuclear engines rumbled and returned its occupants back to their own time. Nobody has ever discovered why this was so.
Dr Blervovultche, a very long time ago BC ET (Earth Time), published his thesis on 'Why Those Who Went Forward In Time Were Not Always The Same People Who Came Back'. Later, he published a similar, if not weaker paper on teleports.
***
'Damn,' thought Frodge as his strike craft rocked slightly. The electricity charge gauge dropped as the fuel cells shot out perpendicular to the ships trajectory. Only backup battery power was left. Frodge scanned his screens to see whether there was anywhere to land nearby. "Asteroids, asteroids, and more asteroids," he mumbled. Meanwhile T.T. Teckachi was closing fast. Frodge turned to avoid another near fatal shot. At the risk of draining his batteries too much, Frodge ramped up his radar. 'Great,' he thought. For at the limits of his range, at two o'clock, was a planet. Screens showed it to be habitable, so Frodge veered violently in the right direction. Seconds later he realized he should have gone left. T.T. nearly shot straight passed but soon recovered back onto Frodge's tail. Just as well Frodge had turned up the ships radar range, otherwise he would have rocketed straight passed without noticing the planet.
"So you head for that planet," barked T.T. Teckachi across space. "We shall see about that," he continued, and fired a couple more rounds, which Frodge decided were wise to avoid. It was too late for T.T. Teckachi though, because Frodge had already hit the atmosphere. Frodge only hoped the damaged hull would hold up to buffeting stresses. T.T. Teckachi was unable to aim for the same turbulent reasons.
Frodge's ship suddenly went quiet as it broke through the stratosphere and troposphere. One quick roll took him heading towards a rocky ravine. Only now did he realize that the planet was colored blue, green and brown. Vegetation flourished. Up there in space, his mind was too preoccupied to notice.
Frodge ducked into the ravine and quickly landed before the Pplathanchee noticed. After lifting the canopy, Frodge listened to silence. Wind whistled through the ravine and water splashed, but no animal made a sound. The place felt dead. At least his ship was well camouflaged where it was, half submerged. One look up the valley walls put him off climbing them completely. Two looks at the rushing water either side of him put Frodge back on it again. He needed food and shelter, and there was certainly neither of these down here. After removing his helmet and gloves for visibility and dexterity, Frodge began his long tasteless climb.
A good three hours later and Frodge found himself at the top. As he glanced over the crest, he swore at the sight that greeted him. T.T. Teckachi stood by his craft, leaning against it in wait. "I congratulate you Frodge 'Strafer' Reeport. It would have even taken me that long to ascend that cliff."
"I bet it would have," mumbled Frodge. Then in a stronger voice he said, "So why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?" He was thoroughly physically exhausted.
"And spoil my game?" T.T. bellowed as he moved away from his ship and pulled out a shining gold Tupoi crested saber from its holster. Frodge pulled his Shonto saber out of the straps that held it to his back, over his head, severing the air with a 'whoosh.'
T.T. Teckachi lunged forward, twiddling his saber as it caught Frodge's in an attempt to whip it out of the smaller creatures hand. Frodge held on tight and stepped to the left. This time T.T. Teckachi came in slashing his saber down rapidly three times to three shuffles. Frodge countered and swung his saber in an arc to slice at T.T.'s side. With a quick flick of the wrist, T.T. Teckachi brought his blade down to block his opponent's move, something he should not have done. Frodge knew from plenty of practice that the Pplathanchee's wrist, in this position, had a weakened hold on the blade. While shuffling forward, Frodge whipped his saber round and forced his opponent's hand to bend backwards, releasing its grip on the butt. T.T. Teckachi's weapon flew over the cliff and whistled as it dropped to the river below, taking a long time before piercing the surface. T.T. Teckachi's expression dropped. Years ago he had been beaten at a sport that was his national pastime and never by an alien. 'You should have killed the wimp when you had the chance,' he thought to himself.
Frodge raised his saber, with his left hand over the top of his right, on the butt, twisting his torso to maximize cutting power. The steel blade glistened in the sun, the sharp edge whistling through the air. T.T.'s eyes widened as the saber reached its peak above the Yccarry’s head.
Unexpectedly, Frodge spied a figure in the corner of his left eye. Upon shifting his gaze, he saw nobody there. Realizing his lapse in concentration, Frodge returned his attention back to the task in hand and his pulse jumped in horror, for T.T. Teckachi had, during the lapse in concentration, raised his blaster, which was now very inconveniently pointing in the direction of Reeport’s head. The saber was about to strike home when an intense beam of heat left the nozzle and hit the Yccarry's jaw, thrusting it through his windpipe and out the back of his neck in one red, smoldering jet. Needless to say, Frodge dropped to the ground.
As he fell, Frodge's mind screamed in pain. 'If the incompetent idiot,' he thought, 'had blown my brains out instead of shredding my jugular, I would not be dying such a slow death.' Images of Frodge's past flashed across his view as though a clever photographer had taken one frame from a million different cine films and spliced them together to produce one long epic. He relived his young days, college days, girlfriends, graduation, and military occupations of other planets. Everything up until that unearthly glow, all in a fraction of a second. All these images merged into a kaleidoscopic blur which twisted and swarmed around his head. Frodge's vision faded, hearing ceased, pain dispersed, and he entered blacker than black darkness he had not seen for a while. His body lay motionless except for running blood and rising smoke, surrounded by blue, red, and yellow flowers. Silence suddenly befell the slopes, only to be quickly broken by swirling, whistling winds. 'Hell,' he thought. 'Why do I have to die now?'