carrier on its side. About midway along, the hull angled up thirty degrees, as if the ship builders hadn't built her straight. At its midpoint, right where the ship "bent," was a circular bulge. I had the thought in my head that it was some flat, mechanical snake swallowing an apple. At the front of the ship, one at the top and one at the bottom, the hull extended outward; two pylons, like fork prongs. It was a bizarre looking ship. Along the side, the name was painted. I zoomed in to read it. UES Saturnus.
"Interesting name, sir," I muttered, louder than I had intended.
"Oh?" the admiral replied with a smirk.
"Saturnus," I said, pointing to the picture screen. "Latin for Saturn. The Greeks called him Kronos." I shook my head. "Sorry, sir. Lieutenant Forres, whom you were talking to earlier, he's into that stuff. On a really long, boring flight a couple of years ago, he gave us the history of the universe according to the Greeks and Romans."
The admiral smirked again. "Go on," he said quietly.
"Um, well, Saturn was the father of Jupiter, or Zeus. Zeus became ruler of Olympus by overthrowing his father. He imprisoned Saturn and the rest of the Titans. Well, most of them, at least for a while, I think. I dunno. David's the guy to talk about this stuff, really."
"Keep going, captain," the admiral was watching my mind work, putting the pieces together. I tried to connect the name of the ship, Saturnus, with the name of the project to which it was obviously connected. Project Pocket-watch. It took me a minute.
I went on. "Zeus eventually released a few of the titans."
"Such as Saturnus," the admiral chimed in.
I nodded. "Yes, sir. He released Saturnus from his prison, and made him ruler of some island or another. Saturnus, Kronos in Greek, is where we get our word 'chronology' from. He was the master of time. Zeus released him because he ultimately understood that he couldn't control time himself, so he put Saturnus where he could keep an eye on him, and control time that way."
The admiral tapped his left forefinger to his temple. "And there you have it."
"Excuse me, sir?" I caught my breath, held it. "Wait, what? No way."
The admiral gestured to the hand-pad. "Scroll to the next image."
I did. The picture was replaced with a schematic of the ship. At its center, at that mid-ship bulge, was a bizarre contraption around which the entire ship was obviously designed. I was nowhere near good enough with anything so highly technical to really understand what I was looking at.
"Some sort of new jump drive?" I asked, already knowing that wasn't it. Still, it was better than what I had the feeling I was about to be told, which made no sense at all. Even my squeak-through pass of high school physics told me that much.
"A jump drive? No, that would hardly fit in with our little story about the gods," Bishop replied dryly. "Put bluntly, it is a time machine."
I can only imagine what the expression on my face was like. It was probably just as bizarre as what came out of my mouth, something one does not usually say to an admiral.
"What the fuck?"
CHAPTER 2
"Okay," I called out loudly, struggling to be heard over the laughter. "Quiet down, guys. We have to get through this. We're skids up in an hour."
David, Raj, and Kyle tried to stifle their laughter, though their smirks stuck around. They were as dismissive as I had been two hours earlier. Their grins were only half-seen in the dim light, but I knew they were there. The small officers mess was darkened, the holographic image of the Saturnus slowly turning through the air, hovering above the small palm-projector sitting on the polished metal dining table. Admiral Bishop stood across the table from us, his face flickering with the light of the holographic projection.
We sat in the comfy, leather-bound chairs that surrounded the table. Though I was permitted to eat here, I had never bothered. I never ate in the officers mess, no matter where I was stationed, except on formal occasions where my presence was required. Normally I ate with my team. Whatever we did, we did together. Since arriving here, we had chosen to eat in the main mess hall, and generally during off hours. Being here felt slightly odd. It was as though I were trespassing in enemy territory. I was used to that, but I wasn't weighed down with fifty pounds of combat gear. I felt naked without it.
When Raj and Kyle finally stopped chuckling, David clearing his throat to try and focus himself and his buddies, Admiral Bishop moved to continue. The silence in the room held for a moment, as Bishop examined us, his eyes testing our resolve. He wanted my squad because we were good at what we did, but I wondered if their laughter had given him a reason to reconsider. Had we grown too cocky? Were we too jaded to buy into the mission? I wondered that myself, but just for a moment. It had taken me a few minutes to get the idea straight in my head, and my guys weren't any slower.
"As I was saying," the admiral said with a look that balanced neutral and scolding, "the Saturnus is an experimental ship, top to bottom. To accommodate the central core, which is where the wormhole generator is located, they had to dump the standard jump-capable ship design and start from scratch. There is very little on this ship that is not state of the art."
"Sir?" David called out, raising his hand. He was straddling his chair, left arm draped over the backing. His brow was furrowed, his dark brown eyes looking to the holographic Saturnus, not the admiral. He was too focused to look Bishop in the eye, as he should when addressing an admiral. I didn't call him on it. Protocol was fine. Getting the job done was better.
"Sergeant Forres?" the admiral prompted.
Without looking up from the Saturnus, hovering as it did three feet above the table, David went on. "Sir, if you're serious, if this really is a time machine, how have you compensated for the energy issues? I mean, normal wormhole generation takes enough power on its own. How does the Saturnus generate the kind of power it would take to be that precise?"
"In truth," Admiral Bishop replied, "I do not know all of the engineering details. Even if I did," he said, shaking his head, "I would not pass them on to you. You are not being sent to power the ship up. I need you to shut it down."
David just shook his head. "Sir, I'm not a naval engineer. I'm a combat technician. I did a six month tour on a destroyer, because that's part of the training, but other than some tinkering, I have no expertise with things like this. This is all way over my head."
"You seem pretty clear headed to me, Sergeant," the admiral responded. "You are asking all the right questions."
"David doesn't know something?" Kyle muttered. "Someone write down the date."
David simply waved him off. "Okay, yeah, I get it. I'm a know-it-all, fine. I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, as everyone likes to say. That's all true, but sir, that's simply not the same as having the training to deal with something like this. We need to take along someone who knows the ship, or at the very least, a naval engineer who has some basic level of ship operations training. I don't have that, sir."
Bishop shook his head. "I cannot allow it." He pointed to the ship. "The Saturnus is so sensitive, I cannot allow anyone outside the project near it. The only reason the UES Grover is being allowed to tow
