The Andromeda Effect: Stellar Flash Book Two
by Neil A. Hogan
Chapter 3
Hogart felt the rough vines whip away from his arms as the tree-like Floran released him, then his legs gave way and he fell forward, knees dropping into the soft mulch of the forest-like ground.
Definitely outside. But where?
“What the hell?” he began, before a rough branch slapped him stingingly in the face, scratching his cheek.
He was glad Florans weren’t poisonous.
What had happened? How was he here? He had just sent a thought to his flash band to take him to the Stellar Flash ship to begin their next mission, and what seemed like moments later he was groggily coming to his senses on an obviously alien world. He was sure the address had been right.
He had to get back, and quickly reached to slap his flash band hard to activate the emergency return, but it had somehow been removed. Impossible. If they could remove a flash band easily, what else could they do?
He grimaced in realization. Now he had to escape the hard way. But he had to work out where he was first. A quick glance at the stars above suggested somewhere far away from the Solar System, and Saturn Space Station X-1a.
A large bush in front of him scuttled aside like a centipede, root-legs moving synchronously, to reveal the orchid-mouths and eyes-on-stems face of the Floran’s Central Influencer, Csrekrsk, standing behind it.
Hogart groaned inwardly. He should have known. Now he knew he was on the other side of the galaxy, right in the heart of Floran-occupied space. Their technology must be much more advanced than he had thought. Interrupting a relocation flash mid-jump? Not something humans could do yet.
He was about to speak when he recognized that she had yet to even acknowledge his existence. Most undiplomatic. What had he done to upset the Florans?
“What have I done to upset the Florans?”
The Influencer unfurled a frond, swiping it across a plant beside her that seemed to have metallic attachments. Hogart surmised that it had to be one of their less conscious biomechanoids – electronic implants running on its biological energy.
A bubble of luminescent gas wafted from its leaves and expanded above it, forming a three-dimensional image of a galaxy. Hogart recognized it instantly. Messier 31, also known as the Andromeda Galaxy.
Hogart raised his eyebrows. It can’t be a coincidence. He hadn’t been debriefed about his mission yet but one thing he knew was the location.
Though, just to make it harder, it had been listed for journalists as mission NGC 224.
Obviously, it had still been too obvious.
Influencer Csrekrsk looked at him and pointed up at the galaxy with a frond. “One of Terra’s recent records.”
“No pleasantries, then?” Hogart carefully struggled to his feet to get a closer look, then jerked back as the image expanded, zooming fast into a blue star. He grimaced as the fiery image spread outward, his face becoming almost enveloped by the bright light.
He didn’t like blue stars. Hottest visible things in the universe. He shook just thinking about it. If he got out of this, he would remind himself to avoid any blue star missions in future.
He ran a shaking hand through his dark-brown hair and looked at the Floran, trying to work out her motive for grabbing him. “Well, Influencer, I’m impressed with your greenware, but I’m not entirely sure why I’m here.”
Csrekrsk hissed, spouting pollen into the air from her three sets of petal lips as her translator pushed out the words. “Typical impatience from a Doper.”
“And, if you’re going to call me something, at least categorize me as human. I can’t believe you’ve labeled every entity that has ever evolved on my planet after their dopamine systems.”
Csrekrsk ignored him, uncurling a second frond, and slightly turning the image of the blue star with it. Another flick, and the hologram zoomed into what looked like specks in orbit. An asteroid, a comet… and something else.
Hogart gasped.
Impossible.
There was no way it could be there. “But… the light from NGC 224 is over 2 million years old!”
“And yet, the evidence is there, for all to see.”
It was too incredible for him to take in. No humans had ever gone that far back into deep time. There was no way his ship, the Stellar Flash, could be orbiting a star 2.5 million years ago. “I don’t know what to say to you, Csrekrsk. We have no record.”
Csrekrsk angrily sliced a frond through the image. “This IS your record, Doper. We obtained it from your Secret Services. This proves you have been interfering in our history.”
Hogart felt a diplomatic incident developing. The last thing they wanted was a war with the Florans. “I swear, my ship has never been there at that time. It’s an illusion, or maybe something from an alternate reality. We were planning to go to the Andromeda Galaxy, yes, but we weren’t planning to time travel!”
Csrekrsk stared at him for a few moments, and he began to feel sweat collect across the back of his neck. The Floran’s torture could be quite painful. Bamboo-like racks at high-speed. He swallowed, checked his mind-view system, and got ready to increase his pain-threshold level.
“Captran Huggut. Since the unfortunate regenderation of one of our trusted personnel by one of your ship’s crew not long ago, you may forgive me if I have trouble believing you. The Florans cannot trust the Dopers anymore. However, it is possible you may not understand time like we do. We charge guilt before and after the fact. Even if you have yet to commit the crime, you are still guilty. But you have similar laws when there is evidence of a potential crime, do you not?”
“But, even if I end up there in the future or past, whatever, what crime will I be guilty of committing?”
The Floran curled up her three fronds, and held them tight. Anger, or emphasizing importance? “Millions of years ago, we were the sole influencers of what you call the Andromeda Galaxy. Now there are only a thousand suns there that we can call home. We only have a vague memory of the great collapse. If you somehow influenced our past, we must influence your future. Equality across time must be maintained. You have a concept in your philosophy, yes? Karma?”
Hogart began getting a sinking feeling about this. There was no record of this in any of Earth’s agreements with the Florans. If Csrekrsk was revealing some great secret, she didn’t expect him to leave with it.
She leaned forward. “If you, or for that matter, any Dopers, began the Great Collapse…” Then she smashed a fist of frond onto the bush in front of her.
The gas image shut down, and Hogart heard loud rustling and scuttling coming closer.
The conversation was over.
Vines wrapped quickly around his arms and legs again, lifting him off the ground.
“Mulch him,” she said to the security vine. “And filter the calcium for me for later.” Then, as though for some invisible camera, “This is what we do to races that betray the Florans.”
Hogart was about to comment, when a branch snapped out of her side, and knocked the right side of his head, hard.
He felt his mind-view system activate to begin regenerating the damage, but the pain was enough for him to lose consciousness moments later.
His last thought was, at least he wouldn’t feel the body grinders.
As Hogart’s unconscious body was dragged away, a bush scuttled forward. “Influencer. Important news from Earth. It may change everything.”
Csrekrsk took the leaf, absorbing the information. This did change everything. She would have to speed things up. “Spray the recording, and activate temporal lab 42. I’m sure the humans will try to take him quickly”
The bush acknowledged, and scuttled away, then Csrekrsk crumpled the leaves in a fist of fronds, rose to her full nine feet and pushed herself through the nearest grass wall.
Gravity waves from Earth orbit meant her main plan hadn’t worked. Skrgypst had failed in her mission, and the Stellar Flash would not be, or could not be destroyed in the past.
But, with this news only appearing once the current quantum wave had collapsed, then her recent acquisition had a lot to do with it. It meant her secondary plan was already on the way to being successful.
If her secondary plan was working in the future, it was time to get started in the present.
Destiny awaited.
The Andromeda Effect. Stellar Flash Book Two by Neil A. Hogan
Now Available in Digital and Print
Sent back 2.5 million years in time to the Andromeda Galaxy to investigate why there’s a record of them having been there, the Stellar Flash crew encounter a creature so powerful that it has taken control of the entire galaxy by thought alone.
With most of the crew unconscious, Captain Jonathan Hogart is in a race against time to defeat the plant-planet, save the galaxy, and find a way to return to 2133.
But another force is attempting to take control, to use the power of the creature from the past to take over the Milky Way Galaxy in the present. And, for this, Hogart has no defense.
How is the creature controlling an entire galaxy?
Who has the technology to transmit the creature’s power from the past to the present?
And will the Stellar Flash crew and the Space Station team be able to save both galaxies?
Available now at –
