One Last Jump...

[Krastin]

SBTS Molton
Sector 495
8th January, 29540

"Admiral, we've arrived at the co-ordinates the Chronius Array reported, shall we begin scanning the spectrum?" Commander Smith asked, looking over his shoulder.

Admiral Jeanette Mallory stepped down off her raised chair and walked forwards, gazing at the debris. The fractured planet still burning and the shattered spacestations; as black as night littered the starscape across the system of the former planet. "Yes Commander, begin the scan."

"Ma'am, I'm getting a transmission from one of the warning probes surrounding the planet. I'm not sure if it's an automated one or not."

"Bring it up." She stopped for a moment and watched as the consoles ran the automated message.

==This is a restricted area. The following planet is in a state of temporal flux since year two-nine-eight-one-five. Entry is permitted under Sol Banking Authorisation only.==

Jeanette gazed down at the console beside her that Commander Smith sat at, she tapped a few buttons on it to end the transmission as she watched him scan the spectrum. "We've checked the last hundred years, nothing so far. Extending scan further."

"Admiral, there's alot of background radiation throwing off my scans, I'm attempting to compensate." Lieutenant Green leant to the left of his console to look at the radiation composition.

"Lieutenant, compensate by accounting for particle six-one-six." The Admiral gave him a stern look that guarranteed she wasn't joking.

He looked up in surprise, "Particle six-one-six is a myth Ma'am?"

"Just, compensate for it and tell me what you get."

The Lieutenant began the process and watched as the scans began to near enough completely clear.

"Ma'am, I have a lock. It's a passing temporal slingshot, no Chronius Array link."

"Give me a reading on it." The Admiral moved back to her chair and watched as the forward screen changed.

"One Spectre program and one biosign." Commander Smith read from his console, the information mainly displayed on the screen ahead. "The Biosign matches missing persons, they and the Spectre unit were pronounced MIA after the Lacrea Incident."

"Talk about a blast from the past. Alright, intercept their timestream, raise temporal shields and bring them on board. We're going out of sync with the timeline for a little while." The Admiral headed across the bridge for one of the translocator pads. "Put the Spectre unit into secure storage. Transport the biosign to holding."

SBTS Molton
Holding Facility
30 minutes later

"I demand to know what's happening to me!!" His voice strained, struggling to pronounced the words. The man; exhausted rapped on the solid surrounding of his holding cell, careful not to tap the shield that held him inside. There were several people around the room, doctors, by the looks of things that continued to work but made no conversation.

"So," came the female voice, entering the room carrying a small data device. "Lieutenant, I see?"

"Yes? I'm sorry, I don't recognise your rank." He replied, peering through narrowed eyes. Her uniform was incredibly formal, dark blue in colour and nigh on full body wrap.

"Oh you wouldn't, about fifty years ago we updated our rank structure after the defeat of one of the major powers in this galaxy." She smiled, heading behind one of the holding system consoles and looking up at him. "Says here you were on board the Lacrea."

"I was, do I get to know your name?" He winced, sitting down from what felt like a massive weight on his shoulders.

"You do. I am Admiral Mallory, Sol Banking Time Ship Molton." She watched him sit down and motioned for one of the doctors to begin scanning him.

"I don't need to introduce myself then? Seems you have all the information you need on me." He rocked forwards on his chair, gazing at the device.

"Standard procedure to hold you here, Lieutenant. We'll get you scanned for any unwanted contaminants and release you shortly." The Admiral smiled.

"Where's Bronz?" He piped up, suddenly realising he hadn't travelled alone.

"The Spectre unit? My technicians have him now, we're dissecting his databanks to understand why you made an unauthorised jump without the Chronius Array interlink." The Admiral stopped and turned to one side to engage in conversation with one of the Doctors.

"You what?!" He went to stand up, and wheezed, highly out of breath.

"Lieutenant, take it easy. The EM radiation from the jump fried all your implants and support-tech. You're carrying quite alot of dead weight."

"Is that why it's so hard to talk?" He rasped.

"Your vocal processor and translator are dead. You're running on 100% biological function now. Once you're cleared, we'll schedule an operation to remove the tech and implant something a bit more...current."

==Admiral, come in, this is Commander Smith.==

Admiral Mallory smiled at the Lieutenant. "Excuse me a moment." She headed for the door out into the corridor. "Yes, Commander, continue."

==Can you come to the bridge, I've been reviewing the scans and there's something you most definately need to see.==

"I'm on my way."

Meanwhile,
Secure Storage Bay-Two.

"Hello, I am Bronzanti, how may I help you today?" The unit gleamed, a visual representation of itself on the holographic stand. Accompanying the representation were numerous readouts of data, percentages and diagrams of contents.

"Bronzanti. Who is your handler?" One of the people at the consoles surrounding him asked.

"Please restate inquiry." The unit responded politely.

"Bronzanti, who do you work for?"

"I work for Sol Banking and was commiss-"

"Stop. I see what you're doing." The Captain ran a lockdown program on the internal communication controls.

"Fuckbags. I thought for a moment you weren't going to notice. Can't blame a guy for trying." Bronz folded his arms.

"I'll repeat the question again, who do you work for?"

"I work for Omni-Tek. I am a personality reassignment robot."

The Captain looked at his comrades. "I don't understand."

"It's a joke. Obviously before your time. Infact, Omni-Tek isn't still around, is it?" Bronz grinned wickedly,

"Disconnect from our databanks you ancient machination!" The Captain slammed his fist down on the table.

"I'm sorry, it's not like you're going t-." Bronz froze. "Oh no."

STBS Molton
Main Command Deck

"So you see, the jump itself is a catalyst." Commander Smith pointed across the series of events displayed on the main screen.

"Run it again one more time Commander." The Admiral moved alongside him.

"Without the Chronius Array to filter the background radiation, the planet's core begins to desync with the rest of the planet. Over the space of a hundred years the planet fractured in on itself and exploded." He explained. "Essentially, this jump is responsible for the destruction of the planet."

==Admiral, this is Doctor Soosai, Lieutenant Pietor Ovarin has been cleared of external contaminants and we're taking him to medbay for the implant extraction.==

"Understood Doctor, keep me informed." She turned back to the Commander. "What are our options? I don't think we can keep them here knowing full well this planet was destroyed as a result of their actions."

"I recommend total erasure, we remove the two of them from the timeline." The Commander nodded, watching the series of events. "It would secure the planet and possibly alter the fate of the Lacrea."

"Hmmm. Others?" She asked.

"Two. We send them back to the moment after the jump but they run the risk of trying it again. Or three we disable their tech and send them back."

"The cast-off tech was cannibalised from their then technology was it not?" The Admiral pondered.

"Yes."

==Admiral Mallory, the Lieutenant's had a heart attack during the extraction and his condition has deteriorated to critical, we're attempting to stabilise him and deal with two subdural haemorrhages.==

"Doctor. Do we need to put him into temporal stasis?" The Admiral replied.

==No Ma'am. The dead-tech has done alot of damage during the time it's been offline but we're getting close.==

"Commander, I have an idea. Lets go see the Spectre Unit."

Secure Storage Bay-Two.
Ten minutes later

"So this is the Spectre?"

"Generic Greeting Individual."

The Admiral paused and watched him. "Have you wiped his personality?"

The Captain shook his head. "He does this from time to time when he's elsewhere, it's essentially an answering machine."

"The weather on board this ship is a pleasant twenty-one degrees. Might I suggest a trip to the food area?"

"Where's his personality now?"

"We're locking down external routes from this room, he should be back in a moment."

==Admiral come in.==

"Go ahead Doctor."

==Admiral, the Lieutenant is dead.==

To be continued...

[Krastin]

SBTS Molton
19th January, 29540.

"Admiral Mallory's duty log, Lieutenant Pietor Ovarin one of the intercepted individuals from Sector 495 was commited to space today. Since his death, his Spectre unit Bronzanti has refused to co-operate or answer any questions. I have made my decision on what to do to fix this, but am making it known that to correct the timeway, I need to violate the rights laws of the Spectre unit. While I risk a possible temporal fracture, there's a chance if successful this sequence of events will be rewritten to something a little less complicated."

Secure Storage Bay-Two
Some time later...

"Right, Bronzanti, it's just you and me now." Admiral Mallory entered a few commands into the console. Bronzanti looked at her blankly and folded his arms. "You see, I have experience of your units from the history books, and you were fitted with a backup system, I'm going to bring yours to the forefront and set it up with a few commands."

"Say whaaa-huuut?" Bronz snapped back. "That's a violation of me as an individual."

"Let me grant you access to a few things, and see if these change your mind..."

Shadowlands Link Lost, cause unknown.
IRRK
4th March 29501. 5:57am

After try #442, the city of JOBE and JAME scientists have confirmed that the link to the Shadowlands is lost.

Over the last few months, JAME scientists have been compensating for extreme distortions that have been interrupting the link from time to time, and in some cases having to reset and rebuild portal technology entirely due to unusually fast corroding of the equipment.

JAME have insisted they will continue to attempt to reopen a portal, even if just to begin evacuation of lost personnel in the Shadowlands by way of a relocator beacon.

It is not known exactly as to how many individuals are currently lost in the Shadowlands, or if the link will ever be re-established.

All individuals who have linked themselves to the Shadowlands as an alternative to insurance, are advised to save at their nearest terminal as soon as possible.

---
Tir suffers massive attack. Borealis ceases to exist.
IRRK
4th March 29501. 8:35am

At 0800 this morning, during a conference call with FJRK the contact was suddenly cut short with no reasons known. All attempts to reconnect were unsuccessful. Sending a shuttle to investigate, IRRK discovered the city of Tir to be nothing more than a smoking crater, no signs of survivors only fading energy readings from what appeared to be a massive orbital energy weapon having been discharged into the city.

Upon IRRK's return to Newland city we discovered no transmissions from Borealis. In heading to the area, Borealis was discovered scorched and decimated from multiple weapons fire, energy signatures match that of Sentinel weapons however there were no bodies in the area only crumbling ruins of a city that looked several thousand years older than it should.

Scans indicate that the massive energy weapon that hit Tir, originated from what had previously been destroyed in Borealis. The Borealis Battle Dish. It is unknown at this time how a formerly destroyed weapon from the past could have annihilated a city this far into the future.

---

All ships advised to avoid Sector 495
ICC Sectorwide News
4th March 29501. 10:31am

After increasingly distorted readings coming from the region surrounding one of the planets in Sector 495 a temporal fissure appeared just half an hour ago intersecting the planet known as Rubi-Ka.

Initial readings show the internal core of the planet to have aged three million years beyond that of the surface and began to experience loss of mollecular cohesion.

Scans of the surface show massive variances in temporal readings. Some areas have accellerated and rendered inhospitable, some have recinded back to a primordial stage and one small area has frozen entirely. We do know that the fissue was instantaneous and unfortunately left little time for escape.

The radiation from the area is rendering all attempts at rescue impossible, the area is hereby classified restricted.

---

Omni-Tek enters administration
ICC Sectorwide News
5th March 29501, 9:00am

Opening for intergalactic trade this morning, shareholders noticed that OT and recognised subsidiaries were not part of the exchange. After the fracture and destruction of Rubi-Ka yesterday, OT filed for administration as recorded losses reached just under one octillion credits.

In the wake of the destruction of Rubi-Ka. OT had no comment on its affairs, or that of the fate of any individuals on Rubi-Ka only that it would be entering a period of financial review.

---

"Omni-Tek is gone, Rubi-Ka is gone and no-one ever goes near that planet ever again. Sounds like a fair deal to me." Bronz gazed at the Admiral.

"Look, your friend is dead. You're alone here. You're a program in our databanks and under recommendation of Sol Banking you're to be dissected and studied for ways to correct what happened in Sector four-nine-five. You're at a loss here. Either you do something to help yourself and your dead friend and rewrite this before it even happens or we take over and potentially you end here." The Admiral entered a few commands into the system.

"Can't you send me back and I'll sabotage the equipment from that end?"

The Admiral looked up a moment, pausing "That's exactly what I'm planning to do, but without a body to put you in, I'm having a hard time locating a viable tech interface to downlaod you to."

"Assembly's HQ had a sizeable drive that a localised AI resided upon, you could download me to that?"

Admiral Mallory grimaced as she met his gaze. "Sending you in as a physical being is one thing, because I can pinpoint a time and insert you. Sending you in as a program is something entirely different, I'll have to download you at a syncronous speed that's compatible with their HQ's dataprocessing rate. Too fast and large amounts of you may well be corrupted, too slow and potentially either someone could notice there's a download in progress, or the system could believe the download has been aborted and stop."

"Then stick me in a datadisk or something."

"I'm going to download you to a small scale bio-drive and give you growth control, you'll be able to cultivate an appropriate interface to enable you to corrupt the sequence." Admiral Mallory began tapping away at the unit before her.

"Send me back a good seven months before, I need to make sure I absolutely get this right." Bronz leant forwards. "Infact, I need a full download of your temporal mechanics database."

"Why do you need that?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Look, it's only temporary until I rewrite this, right? I need to know everything I can to prevent this from working. That and I'm intruiged as to how far on things have progressed, mostly because I need to keep it above the Lieutenant's understanding, and how better to make people feel stupid than to give them something that's several hundred years more advanced than they are?"

"Good point." Mallory tapped a button to the side of her. "I've given you access, begin your download."

Bronz twitched slightly, gathering all the information his databanks could handle.

"Right, I've prepped the Bio-Drive. Let me know when you've completed the download."

"Yep, I'm ready."

"Good luck Bronzanti, and don't fuck it up." She tapped at the interface and Bronz faded from view.

March 29488
Assembly HQ HardDrive

Sembly reacted in a somewhat startled response to the sudden connection of an unknown device. "Greetings. State your intentions before I begin antiviral purge."

"Sembly it's Bronz, stand-down." He phased into vision and moved across the grid-like room.

"Oh, hello Bronz. I just finished talking to you, I didn't realise you could transfer your consciousness while not interfaced." She smiled and began following him across the room.

"I can't." He commented, being met by a code wall, blocking his access.

"I noticed as such, your chronometer interface shows....distortions." She smiled, walking round the code-formed prison.

"Distortions that are perfectly intentional." He responded, now behind her and the code prison empty. Sembly seemed to take a moment to process the information and review the footage logs of what had just happened.

"Temporal technology." She twitched, an almost robotic like response. "I've been studying your database. Code-based temporal mechanics are beyond your abilities without the Chronius Array."

"I know, but I've been given a helping hand." He rested a hand against an array of information nodes. "I need to begin a download of something rather...sizeable. Can you grant me full access?"

"What are you downloading?" She closed the gap between them, curious.

"It's a two stage thing, one for a small-scale temporal loop that I've just written. The other, I need to change the future."

"How do I know to trust you?" She watched the information nodes, denying access for a moment.

"You don't, but if you don't allow me the first download, not long from now there's going to be a core breach in your main generator. Nothing you can do, not even ejecting your coolant rods will prevent the core from going critical. Assembly's HQ and everything in a fourty-mile radius will be destroyed, sixty-mile radius fatally-irradiated and hundred mile radius showered in debris. This little program will activate the second the HQ is destroyed allow a temporal loop-bubble to be established and give the inhabitants of the bubble infinite chances until time is rewritten."

"That's impossible." Sembly stepped back, attempting to contact Jen Godfray.

"It's not impossible, it's just not even theory at this time, thankfully I got a hand from a time when it is." Bronz commented. "Unfortunately while you've been busy blocking me access to the download. I've disabled all external communications Sembly. Jen Godfray won't be coming to help."

She huffed.

"Look, let me do these downloads, and if in six months either of us remember any of this, then you can throw digital coffee over me or something." Bronz grinned "After all, it'll do less damage than what it'd do to those meatbags."

"Yep, you're definately Bronz."

Sembly released the information nodes and Bronz began the download.

14th September 29488
Sembly HQ

A brilliant blue light filled the room as a flowing of water-like substance poured in from an apeture in the middle of the room. With a flash, he stood with his eyes firmly held shunt, almost smushing his face. "Bronz, are we there?" Lt Pietor Ovarin asked, as the rushing sensation stopped. "Are we in the future?"

"Teeechnically we are." He replied.

"What do you mean technically we a-wwwwcrap." He looked round with one eye open, recognising he hadn't moved from the spot he'd previously stood in. A series of burnt out equipment laying on the floor around him, having crumbled off his frame.

"Bronz. Check the calculations, what went wrong?!" He moved towards the lab console to begin checking, "I can't see anything wrong, just that...it gave out early."

"I'm getting the same Lieutenant." Bronz added.

"Lieutenant? You haven't called me that in some time." Winston looked at the interface.

"Old habits die hard." Bronz shrugged. "I can run a longer diagnostic, but it will take some time."

"Yes, please do th-..." Winston gauped as his comm unit sprang to life. "Shit, this is going to need explaining. Bronz?"

"Kinda busy right now, I'll check back with you later." Bronz cut the interface and smiled at an approaching Sembly. "So, what's new?" He asked, leaning back against an information node.

"Not much, but it feels like it's been ages since we've....talked. Can I interest you in a drink?"

"Hmmm." He smiled. "What harm can it do?" He responded.

"Coffee?" She grinned.

"Shit."

[Tussa]

[go Sembly!]