When Time Folded

by Robyn Blaber (November 2021)

Captain Zinara Altynai brushed herself in the mirror in her quarters on Misik Prime. Her ringworld, the third homeworld of the Misik to bear the name Misk Prime, circled a white-dwarf star inherited from the Andromeda galaxy. The world slowly rotated treating the inhabitants below to the long since obsolete measure of one Earth gravity.

Zinara’s tribe was the Misik, a race of highly evolved humans who bore several very decidedly feline features. These included a coat of fur that covered most of her body, a tail, and retractable claws on her hind legs. The similarities did not end there. Her ears were forward swept and her eyes were incredibly sensitive in dark light. Zinara was, by any measure, a predator.

As a military captain, Zinara was tasked with no less heady an occupation than defending the galaxy. This sense of purpose, which was borne by all Misik, precluded the possibility that their tribe would disappear into the apparent meaninglessness of transcendence. Her tribe, now a galaxy-spanning civilization, was dedicated to protecting those who chose to stay in the physical world, regardless of the threats this world posed.

Among the various threats to life and liberty in the galaxy, three principal threats loomed over the inhabitants of this newly formed amalgam of a galaxy. The first and most easy to foresee of these threats came in the form of cosmic chaos. Rogue matter from the galactic collision remained ever-present.

An inhabited system might find itself in the path of anything from a giant asteroid to something as colossal as a traveling black hole. These modern civilizations had to keep a constant watch on the skies for natural threats. While inconvenient, the Misik and most other galactic civilizations were able to escape such terrors as they often had long advanced warnings. They also had the means to evacuate and when they did not, they had the ever-vigilant Misik to assist.

The second greatest threat to any galactic civilization were those which tribes would bring upon themselves. Poor decisions or plain bad luck might leave an entire people facing a cataclysmic environmental disaster. In this case, the onset of the disaster might occur too quickly for outside help to arrive. A timely response might involve some emergency geoengineering, terraforming, or in the worst of cases, total evacuation.

The third most common threat to any galactic civilization was the dominant galactic civilization; the Garis. This lately come species of humanoids, for reasons unknown, had chosen to adopt canine traits. With elongated snouts, heightened senses of smell, and the ability to achieve great speed on all fours, they were no more imposing individually than a family pet.

Collectively, they were not an endearing tribe at all. Their government, a complicated and delicately balanced organization, was tailor-made for conquest. They divided their government into three primary branches. Each of these branches of government increased the Garis’ propensity to conquer, hold and occupy the territory of others.

The more lupine members of their race, known as the Ustemdik, were often the instigators and any war. Their politics, routinely hawkish, had them constantly in a state of preparation for an upcoming conflict. Their every government institution was run with a military hierarchy and measured with military efficiency.

Unsurprisingly, the Ustemdik formed every branch of the Garis military. They supplied everyone from the starship captains, fighter pilots, and gunnery chiefs to the cooks and deck sweepers. Other Garis with a propensity for the adventure and glory of being on the front lines were routinely turned away. The Ustemdik that no one else would understand their love of battle, not even their own kind, but slightly removed.

In contrast to the wolf-like Ustemdik, were the box-snouted Beybitsilik were the peacekeepers of Garis society. They would routinely make up emergency first-responder teams of any Garis colony or occupied territory. They had a natural compassion for those in peril and would selflessly enter into harm's way to defend anyone in their charge, even non-Garis.

While the Beybitsilik would vote against any conflict proposed by the Ustemdik, they would participate in the conflicts once they had begun. Their natural territorial instincts made them the perfect occupational force. While naturally resented by the civilizations the Garis had conquered, the Beybitsilik drive to keep the occupied territories safe and peaceful for both the occupiers and the occupied was exemplary.

The third branch of the Garis government was perhaps the most frightening, particularly to the Misik. These were the Akimsilik. This variety of Garis sported vulpine features and by human aesthetic standards, appeared to be somewhat adorable. Their narrow snouts, bushy tails, and playful mannerisms did nothing to indicate the propensity for totalitarianism within.

The Akimsilik were the administrative class of the Garis. They held the balance of power, the third vote on whether the Garis would enter into a new conflict or stay home to prepare. Once a territory was occupied and safe for a Garis to walk the streets, the Akimsilik would descend.

Those occupied, expecting the worst, would be disappointed. The humiliation of their occupation would remain, but the Akimsilik did not rule as expected in their dystopian fears. The Akimsilik were administrators with a single-minded mission to extract tribute, also known as taxes, in support of their occupiers.

The best way for them to provide the maximum amount of tribute was to have a well administered and smoothly running society. This often meant that the Akimsilik would start to create grand infrastructure projects, giving purpose to cultures suffering from stagnation and jobs to those cultures suffering from a poorly run economy. Occupied territories soon enjoyed greater wealth, better health, more advanced technology, and a host of other benefits previously unknown to them.

As their societies improved, on the whole, they soon forgot that they were occupied. At least, they could not be bothered to complain in any real way. The longer the occupation, the less likely the notion of ‘breaking free’ became. Would-be rebels with previously unimagined prosperity and security rarely rebelled. Once conquered, few people ever escaped the administration of the Garis.

As Zinara strode down the corridor, the universe paid her little fanfare, even though she was one of the rarest creatures in the galaxy. Seventeen times she had met the Garis in battle, sixteen times more than most. She had fought them while in a small fighter, on the bridge of a capital class jumpship, in the trenches of an open battlefield, undercover in urban subterfuge. Every time her instincts and her luck proved superior to her Garis foes.

To her and her Misik people, there was no such thing as a benevolent occupation. Slavery was slavery and she would not rest until it was excised from the galaxy. Nor would her people and nor would those she had helped to liberate. She had been debriefed with information that might affect the war with the Garis. It might affect every surviving species. She approached the double door with crisp determination.

Zinara let herself into the assembly of the Misik High Council of Extrasolar Activity. The meeting was just as it was coming to order. It was a rare circumstance in which the participants had arrived up to communicate with the Council in person. Councilor Ailana Yerik was first to address the group, first sniffing at the air to better sense the mood of her audience. “Greetings to the council and honored guests,” she meowed.

“Our deep space probes, always turned rimward in our tumultuous mixture of a galaxy have recently been pointing coreward.”

The audience made gestures and noises of surprise. “There have been unexpected, perhaps I might even use the word inconceivable phenomenon detected near the core.” Councilor Yerik continued.

“We have detected the presence of minds on a rogue planet adrift near the galactic core. We do not know how these minds are being kept alive. We do not know precisely the race that might own these minds, but we do know this. If we have detected them, then the Garis have detected them. There are millions of minds there.”

“How can this be? This is impossible. Life so close to the core could not survive.” This and other such vocal exclamations burst from the gathered Misik.

“Unless these previously unknown minds have sprouted from the ground with knowledge of the Garis, they will soon be thralls of those very same Garis unless we act quickly.”

Councilor Yerik bowed her head as a holographic projector continued to display the evidence of the discovery. As galactic star charts whirled about, the group was treated to tactical information revealing both Misik and Garis strongholds nearest to the core. The crowd speculated pointing at the charts and speaking in hushed tones to one another.

“The prognosis is bleak, my friends.” Councilor Yerik warned as the audience hushed. “Misik Prime is our closest real base, while the Garis have several thrall states and outposts between us and this new world.”

“We are too late! We can not possibly get there in time.” Councilor Kuan Yeskendir interjected. The elderly councilman had over a millennium of experience in confronting the Garis and did not mince words in council. “This colony is too small for us to squander our resources and it is out of our reach in any case. Let us leave them to their fates with the Garis and move on to matters within our ability to make a change.”

“Councilor Yeskendir,” Yerik answered, holding up her hand to hush the crowd. “Your good advice is most welcome, but there is more to this strange happenstance that you might wish to know.”

The crowd hushed itself in anticipation.

“The sensors detected one or more ylem sources on the planet. Some of them are in active use.” She said.

“Impossible!” The crowd roared, with Councilor Yeskendir leading the roar. “Surely any ylem source in the region is simply ejecta from the galactic collision. We have a long history of false positives of this very kind. Leave the minds at the core to their fate.”

“Both short and long-range detectors confirm that a ylem source has been in active use on this rogue planet. Several dozen unique signatures were detected. There is a correlation between the activity of the minds and the use of ylem. These are not sensor errors, Councilor Yeskendir. Someone is building something at the core.”

Councilor Yerik looked to the crowd and the rest of the Council before finally settling her gaze on Councilor Yeskendir. “I have taken the liberty of proposing a course of action,” she said as she turned her head toward Zinara. “Captain Altynai, will you take the floor?”

Zinara slow-blinked at the councilor then set her gaze on the council and strode toward the council floor. A susurration wove through the chamber as she waved away the floating star charts and began to speak.

“Council members and guests,” she began. “I have been tasked with the execution of this vital mission. Many of you have already noted that we are too far from the rogue planet to arrive before the Garis. This is true.”

The susurration of the crowd grew to a loud murmuring and Zinara continued. “This mission remains vital, however, because its failure will have far-reaching consequences for the Misik people and the entire galaxy.”

Councilor Yeskendir stood up to object to this bold statement amidst an abundance of gasps. With military precise timing, Zinara spoke just ahead of him, keeping him silent.

“Several ylem sources have been detected on the planet. My briefing indicates sixty-four unique signatures. Sixty,” she paused for dramatic effect. “Four. For the past two millennia, our greatest advantage over the Garis has been our possession of a single ylem source.”

Councilor Yeskendir could no longer contain himself. “With so much of this ylem, these unknown people on this rogue planet will surely be able to defend themselves from the Garis, who yet to believe that ylem can exist outside of a singularity.”

“I am a soldier, Councilor Yeskendir, not a gambler. We know nothing of the people who have established themselves on this distant planet. Perhaps you are correct, but if you are not. If you are even partially incorrect, the Garis in possession of these ylem sources will be unstoppable. They will be able to thwart any military force put against them. They will be able to destroy entire star systems whose inhabitants will not bow to their form of ‘administration’.”

As the crowd considered this the murmuring quieted to a hush. “For the gamblers in the council, they should also consider that this new ylem wielding race is not benign. Perhaps they will destroy the Garis who approach. With such advanced technology at their disposal, perhaps they will sweep the galaxy of everyone but themselves.”

“Once again, Captain Altynai,” Councilor Yeskendir bellowed. “You have demonstrated the folly of this mission. On the one hand, you will charge into a trap laid by the conquering Garis. On the other hand, you will charge into a trap laid by these victorious aliens. There is no probable outcome where we meet with success.”

“Councilor Yeskendir,” Zinara said. “I will remind you that I am not a gambler.”

Zinara waved at the holo, summoning up a large space station. “I have devised a mission plan where I will make transit to the rogue world via light-fold. The craft, a colony-class orbital station. Rather than colonists, I will bring a skeletal crew. I’ll need personnel sufficient to make repairs, operate the ship through battle scenarios, and set up quarters for landfall.”

The crowd hushed as Zinara continued. “The orbital station will be sizeable enough to handle spaceborne encounters with the Garis. In lieu of the colonists, I’ll take 100,000 combat automatons of various configurations to engage the Garis if ground forces are present. A force of this magnitude will grant an extremely high probability of success should a Garis force manage to escape our orbital and achieve planetfall.”

As though on queue, Councilor Yeskendir, objected. “And if you pop into this planet’s orbit with the Garis laying in wait, you, your ship, your crew, and your combat robots will be blown to atoms before you can meow ‘Hello!’”

The murmuring of the crowd once again began to grow.

“Councilor Yeskendir,” said Zinara, not changing her tone in the slightest. “May I continue?”

Zinara pulled a small glowing tablet out of a pouch in her uniform and held it aloft on the palm of one hand, her claws keeping the device just clear of touching her skin.

“To accomplish our mission with the highest probability of success, we will employ our lone ylem source. We will use the energy from the device in our light-fold drive to simultaneously perform a time-fold.”

“Time-fold? Time fold!” The crowd simultaneously queried and gasped.

“Time-fold will enable us to arrive at the planet as much as 1000 years before the Garis. This will give us ample time to meet the new inhabitants and prepare them for the inevitable Garis onslaught, assisted by me, the crew, and our cadre of battle automatons. If we can accomplish a successful time-fold, the Garis will never be able to muster the resources to master this world.”

Councilor Yeskendir rose to his feet once more. The crowd hushed to hear what new objection he’d raise to this outlandish plan.

“If I understand what is at stake here,” recited the Councilor. “You wish to take a capitol ship and one of Misik’s most valuable and powerful artifacts. You will use that artifact to make a risk-laden journey to the rogue world, but back in time one thousand years. There you will lay in wait for the Garis while teaching the locals on a rogue world to fight space wolves?”

Zinara was about to answer, but this time Councilor Yeskendir’s timing won out. Holding up a single digit he continued. “Let me finish. During this time, you will ensure that the ylem sources are safe from Garis paws, I assume through their destruction or other safekeeping. All while keeping the Garis well away from this immensity of power, you’ll ensure that the rogue world is protected and safe from future Garis incursions? Have I understood this plan correctly?”

Waiting for the final objection, Zinara rose to her feet and made a slow-blink salute. “Yes Councilor,” she said. “That is the plan with the highest probability of success.”

“Captain Zinara Altynai, you have met the Garis toe-to-toe as it were on the battlefield is that correct?” Said Councilor Yeskendir.

“Yes, sir,” replied Zinara.

“I understand that you’ve seen combat with the Garis directly sixteen times,” he noted.

“Seventeen, sir,” she said.

“Ahh, seventeen. I stand corrected. Twelve decorations... four for Extreme Bravery in the Face of the Enemy. You have a knack for getting under the fur of the Garis, don’t you,” he said, presumably rounding to a point.

“I believe so, sir,” she said, still standing at attention.

“Well, I for one, don’t like the Garis. None of us do, but I despise them more deeply than most. If I could snap my fingers and rid the universe of these… these creatures, I would snap away until my fingers bled.” He paused. “You want to take one of our most valuable capital ships, crewed by one of our most capable and experienced soldiers, supplied with one of our most precious artifacts, and cast the lot a thousand years back in time to prepare for a single battle against unknown odds?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. For the first time, her voice sounded meek.

“Well, Captain Zinara Altynai, despite my own misgivings, I fear that I have no choice but to endorse this plan,” he said looking out the council chair. “I hereby move that the Council endorse the rescue plan of Captain Altynai for the protection or possible evacuation of this rogue planet.”

Councilor Yerik had already slumped in her chair expecting the defeat of the plan. She was quick to rise. “I second!” She exclaimed, nearly shouting.

Time stood still for Zinara as she watched the council go through the motions of their conciliatory antics. She had worked hard on the details of the plan and even made some rehearsals for the presentation, but she had kept the plan abstract to herself the whole time. She had committed herself to perform a time-fold, but only as an idea. No one in living memory had actually attempted such a feat.

The Council cast their votes and save a couple of holdouts the vote was unanimous. She was going to be time-folding. Her mind swirled as the Council congratulated one another, and of course, every one of them, even the dissenters, was beholden to her. Zinara was the finest arrow in the Misik quiver, and they had voted to shoot her straight into the heart of the Garis.

It stands to reason that anyone planning to time-travel should be able to take their time. This was not the case, however, as time-folding required a lot of care if the time-traveler wished to end up on the same time current from which they left. A missed step could result in a number of differing and tragic outcomes which could include the entire disappearance of the traveler.

The miracle of light-fold worked in the spatial dimensions. A single dimension was presented with a singularity. The same singularity, through quantum entanglement, would be placed elsewhere. The here and elsewhere would fold upon one another and a traveler would need only to travel near, but not into the singularity to find themselves bound to the other side of the fold. The phenomenon was given the nickname light-fold because a signal made up of photons was the first to make the voyage.

Time-fold technology required a great deal longer to understand. The difficulty is that the human brain has an easy time imagining multiple spatial dimensions. Clever humans could even visualize four and five-dimensional models. The notion of multi-dimensional time, originally posited by prehistoric humans of the first nuclear age, was never fully understood.

To construct a time-fold, one would need the mass equivalent to several million suns, on the order of a supermassive black hole. Much like the phenomenon of light-fold, quantum entanglement is put to work creating a matching singularity on the same plane of the various time dimensions. The plane, folded as the traveler approaches, does not require the traveler to enter the singularity. Rather the traveler finds themself adhered to the same timeline, but in a different location.

What can go wrong? So many things. To begin, the time-traveled individual, now existing twice on all but one of the many time dimensions, should ideally remain a great distance away from their other-self. A half a galaxy or more is recommended, fooling the matter into this extra round of super-positioning for which it did not volunteer. After traversing a time-fold, a traveler folded to a nearby frame of time will find that his two selves theoretically use the same matter to exist.

In practice, when small time-folds were first attempted, it was discovered that the proximity of two selves would try to merge. The results were disastrous and often horrific. For the two living things to remain living, it was learned that the chance of a problem was far less likely if the travelers were either very far apart in time, or very far apart in distance: ideally, both.

Zinara knew that she and her crew could only return to Misik Prime after the time that the mission had begun. From the point of view of the observers, they might only be away a few minutes. For the crew, they would have to live, or sleep in stasis some thousand years at least a quarter galaxy-width away from her home.

The consequences of returning too soon would be dire. Even information about their other selves transmitted across the galactic divide might cause her, her crew, or the entire ship to start breaking up into its individual subatomic parts. The sooner she could outfit the ship to leave for the rogue planet, the better. She immediately took to the task of outfitting her new charge.

The Jumak was the largest colony-class orbital in the Misik naval fleet. It had a multi-purpose class design and could serve as either a lifeboat, to rescue an evacuating colony from a distressed planet, or as a colonization ship, designed to terraform a new home for its inhabitants. Its size alone made it formidable. Ellipsoidal in shape, it measured just over 10 kilometers in length and 5 kilometers in diameter at its center.

The Jumak’s center housed two internal rotating rings, some 15 kilometers around and each a kilometer wide. These rings would rotate counter to one another, providing artificial gravity for anyone standing on the interior surface of either ring. The counter-rotation was a safeguard against requiring the ship to compensate for the incipient rotation that would be caused by a single ring.

The rings provided living quarters and habitat for as many as fifty thousand inhabitants at one time. Much of the rest of the ship was dedicated to the storage of colonization equipment, including colonists who would typically wait out long periods in space in deep sleep. The array of deep-sleep chambers was a near-endless spectacle to the eye. The Jumak boasted sufficient facilities to sleep upward of one hundred million colonists or evacuees at one time.

The Jumak’s amidship engineering bay housed two massive light-fold drives, both capable of time-fold with the ylem power source. The forward engineering bay was dedicated to planetfall, containing dozens of fighter craft, and over a thousand shuttles capable of entering and exiting the gravity well of a planet. The aft engineering bay housed several large interplanetary engines. While a light-fold could take travelers to a distant star system, these beastly drives would move the Jumak between planets by far safer and more conventional means.

To protect itself from external attack, the outer hull was marbled with laser, missile, and projectile turrets. Most of these turrets were designed for the removal of asteroids and other space debris to protect the orbital from being savaged by natural phenomena. The gun emplacements, if used against an enemy with hostile intent, transformed the orbital into a massively offensive unit, capable of striking. Only something as significantly armed as a capitol-class battleship (of similar technological capability) would be able to stand up to an assault from the orbital for more than a moment.

Zinara would not be bringing millions of Misik with her on this journey, however. Because of the dangers of the proposed time-fold, she had also decided to bring the smallest crew possible to successfully complete the mission. Her experience on the battlefield and in stellar combat had earned her friends and acquaintances at the pinnacles of their fields.

She thumbed a device to fill in her crew selections. The list of volunteers was impressively large. For her Orbital tactical officer, she chose Commander Mahigul Toishybek, who she affectionately referred to as “Toshy”. She had fought alongside him in her first engagement with the Garis as a fighter pilot.

Zinara and Toshy were among few of the survivors of that disastrous encounter that ultimately spelled the end for the second planet to be known as Misik Prime. Toishybek would have easily made the rank of Admiral by now, but he declined several promotions in order to stay closer to the battle. He wanted to be where the enemy was, in part to unleash his personal rage against them, but also to set an example for others. The example he set as a leader and warrior had undoubtedly saved thousands, possibly tens of thousands of Misik lives.

She checked off her important roster, deciding they could choose their own staff. For terraforming and engineering, Commander Nuriya Irada of the rimward expansion zone. Her experience would be invaluable. For a ground assault coordinator, no one on her list was better than Irada at building a livable environment from nothing than her… at least no one on the books.

Medical officer, Lt. Commander Asylkhan Suyek, junior, but with a lot of xenobiology on her profile; check. Logistics officer, Commander Ablay Aksa, a walking calculator; check. Navigation and astrophysics officer, Lt. Commander Gulaiym Juldiz; check. So far, so good.

Finally, she would need someone to command the ground forces. This was a tactical position where the commander would work with thousands, and sometimes 10’s of thousands of AI to perform one or more military objectives. To perform this role, an individual would have undergone several augmentations to their cognitive abilities, from a genetically expanded cerebral cortex to bio-mechanical memory and computational implants.

She perused her tablet. Surprisingly, there were a few candidates to choose from, but the name Zaure Masina caught her attention. General Masina, who Zinara remembered as Major Masina was such an engineered creature. She had served as air support for Major Masina in a ground mission near the dying red dwarf star known as Kepler.

A once lush planet, now a ball of ice was irresistible to the Garis and the Misik intervened to prevent their occupation. Major Masina had operated nearly a million combat automatons during that operation, wiping the planet clean of any Garis who had slipped past the Garis navy. Her enhanced instincts were nearly prescient as she seemed to have advanced knowledge of every move the Garis made, check.

Though not necessarily counting as personnel, Zinara shopped her tablet for an AI. In the Misik navy and even civilian craft for that matter, an AI was an absolute necessity. The AI was an intellectual construct that was tasked to perform every shipboard operation imaginable, from running the ship’s functions, executing the light-fold and time-fold maneuvers, to maintaining every essential to mundane system from life support to the beverage machines.

Zinara put in a special request. Tomaris, her very first ship computer, was once responsible for little more than the maintenance of Zinara’s life support and her small Misik fighter craft. Tomaris’ intellect had grown to nearly inestimable proportions since that then. Identifying as female, for reasons only the AI herself could know, advanced from her humble beginning in tandem with her first pilot, Zinara. As the latter’s career advanced had earned her a promotion in the unofficial hierarchy of the Misik AIs.

From her very first combat mission, Tomaris had, while keeping Zinara alive to the best of her ability, made valuable leaps of cognitive understanding that made it easier to predict the actions of Garis pilots. She had taken the initiative to borrow memory from other parts of her humble fighter to create simulations of Garis tactics, and equally as importantly, Zinara’s instinctive reactions to them.

She shared this data with her fellow AI’s after surviving battle after battle and the insights became highly prized. As news of her successful research spread, more and more ship commanders desired Tomaris as part of their battle kit. Zinara, soon to sport numerous military decorations was similarly coveted. The two crossed paths regularly. Tomaris, both found themselves assigned to the bridges of larger and larger ships. In the higher echelons of command, it came to be considered unlucky to send one of the two veterans on a mission without the other.

Zinara’s request was granted and Tomaris immediately downloaded herself onto Zinara’s special tablet, the one containing the fabled ylem source. Zinara spent one final night on Misik Prime while Tomaris checked and rechecked her crew selections and inventory. When she woke, she took some time to bid farewell to friends and family, before boarding her shuttle for the Jumak.

Misik Prime, faded out of view behind her as the outline of the Jumak continued to grow. The ship was immense. The shuttle jinked around the bow to find the lone available bay and delivered Zinara to her new charge. A small team made up of her executive officers greeted her at the bay.

Commander Mahigul Toishybek stood in front of the group, saluting her. She quickly returned the salute and ran to him, giving him a hug. “Toshy!” she purred as emotions welled up within her.

Gathering herself, she took a step back and addressed the crew. “All right everyone. You’ve seen the briefing. No time like the present. Let’s get ourselves to the bridge and get this mission done. All of Misik Prime is expecting us to report back here in five minutes.”

The crew chuckled. For them, the mission could be a thousand years or more. Automatons gathered Zinara’s gear from the shuttle, scuttering this way and that, while she and the crew made for the ship’s bridge. The trip from engineering to the bridge was no less breathtaking, from the seemingly countless rows of shuttles in the hangar to the twin habitation zones in the ship’s interior. The scale of it all boggled the mind.

The bridge was essentially a circular conference room with six very comfortable looking chairs circled around a raised section of floor that would serve as the command holo. Images of tactical situations would dance about on the holo for individual view or that of the whole command team as needed. A slot in the holo accepted Zinara’s tablet, which she jammed in purposefully.

“Tomaris!” She demanded.

“Captain Altynai,” Tomaris replied. “I am actively sensing the ship. Ready for your instructions.”

“Are we ready, Tomaris?” Zinara asked.

“The selected crew is all aboard, Captain. Late changes in the engineering roster occurred due to illness, but not with any key personnel. All recommended mission materiel is aboard. Light-fold drives are operational. Time-fold drives are operational. The ship is battened down and ready for your order.”

Zinara looked around at her crew, who slow blinked toward her or simply nodded in anticipation. “You know the mission,” Tomaris. “Take us out.”

The bridge crew looked about at each other as their anticipation rose. Then, without a sound or a flash of light, Zinara, the Jumak, and all the crew and equipment; everything that they ever were or would ever be, simply ceased to exist.

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