The Ranger stood on the bridge of the strange spacecraft, at the captain’s central console, flanked on either side by Cyril and Nemesis. The two were seated on curved guest benches, gawking at the fantastic technology surrounding them. They were fascinated by the unmanned bridge officers’ consoles that glowed like neon and whose computer displays resembled miniature thunderstorms. But their eyes were drawn back, again and again, to the floor-to-ceiling displays like picture windows that showed the stone walls of their prison.

“All you need to know for now,” said the Ranger to his companions, “is that in the far future there will be a time-war where military spacecraft are armed with weaponized time machines. Humanity will be fighting their time-traveling enemy not only to win space battles, but to preserve humanity’s existence in history.”

The Ranger glanced at Sr. Mary Margaret. “You wondered before what kind of vessel this is. It’s called a time-ship,” he said, “a time-cruiser to be precise. Cruisers are especially versatile. It’s space and time travel capable, of course; has force field armor and asynchronous stealth mode defenses; is compact but heavily armed; and can be configured for various mission profiles.” Then he smiled mischievously and added, “It’s blazing fast, too.”

Nemesis and Cyril laughed. It’s always good to interject a few jokes into a dry lecture.

“A time-cruiser is maximally crewed by eight human and three engineering units,” the Ranger said, sharing knowledge he seemingly plucked from the aether. “Under duress, such as our situation now, it can operate with three crew and one unit; or in an emergency, one skeleton crew or engineer.”

The suspense was more than Sr. Mary Margaret could bear. “How do you know all this?” she asked emphatically. A few months ago, the Ranger was a tragic patient who could barely remember what happened to him the day before, let alone the events surrounding him being bushwhacked. Now he was reciting the tech manual for a space vehicle the likes of which no one had ever seen before. And which, if the Ranger was to be believed, could not only travel through space, but time too. How could she possibly explain all this to the Cardinal, she wondered, when she couldn’t fully explain it to herself?

Before the Ranger could answer, Edgar called the bridge from engineering below decks. For the benefit of his companions, the Ranger made a gesture over his captain’s console that routed the telepathic call onto an audio channel. “Mr. Reed,” said Edgar’s voice, seemingly coming from near each listener’s ear, “the ship is still waking from hibernation and not all systems are operational. However, terrestrial engines, basic sensors, force field armor, and one canon are available.”

“What about stealth mode capability?” the Ranger said, anxiously.

“Coming online now,” Edgar replied, followed by a series of trills and beeps from recalcitrant hardware protesting being awakened. At last, Edgar said, “Stealth mode is fully operational.”

The Ranger didn’t say another word, but raised his arms like a symphony conductor alerting the orchestra to pay close attention, and then turned his palms upward. There were no sounds or vibrations on the bridge to indicate that the cruiser’s engines were engaged. The only indication was when Sr. Nemesis saw through the bridge’s floor-to-ceiling displays that the cave walls were rushing closer and she gasped. 

“We’re moving?” Dr. Cyril said, as he also looked at the exterior view. Confirming his observation, he cried, “We’re moving!” Quickly followed by him shouting, “What are you doing? Stop! We’re going to crash!”

As a craggy cave wall raced forward to smash the point of the arrowhead-shaped time-ship, the Ranger calmly thought a thought. “We’ll be all right, Doctor,” he said. “Both of you wondered how I planned to escape. This is how.” 

Abruptly, the display wall’s view of enormous stones charging forward to a collision was replaced by jet blackness marked by a three-dimensional grid of glowing navigation lines streaming past. “Stealth mode shifts us a fraction of a second into the future. While we’re shifted, we’re invisible and intangible, and won’t interact with matter in our proper space-time unless we reach out with time-based sensors or tractor beams.”

“Which means we won’t crash into the mountain. We’ll just pass through it like a ghost,” murmured Sr. Nemesis, realizing the strategic advantages of such a defense. If a vehicle was equipped with stealth mode, it could sneak up on an unwary target and then appear out of nowhere and attack. Now where had she encountered something like that? she mockingly asked herself.

As soon as Sr. Nemesis finished her thought, the blank view changed to the desert landscape around Mt. Kuala Laredo. “We just flew through a solid, rock mountain,” she said, exhaling a long sigh. “That was a cute trick. You’ll have to teach it to me sometime.”

“Deal,” said the Ranger. 

Then the display-wall superimposed a long-range view of a fat military spacecraft with two gunships strapped to its upper flight deck. “That’s a time-littoral combat ship; a corvette. I suspect it was shifted and hiding from view until it had to synchronize with normal space-time to recover its damaged gunship.”

“You suspect?” said Dr. Cyril, incredulously. “There’s no doubt that’s the same gunship that attacked us. Just look at its damage pattern! That combat ship sent an armed airplane to kill us.” If Walking Sticks have an emotion equivalent to human anger and outrage, then Dr. Cyril was feeling it. “What are we going to do about it?”

The Ranger’s face morphed into that of Baz Reed, the relentless lawman. “Nemesis, you’re the trained tactician” said Baz, “what do you think of ‘turnabout is fair play’?” The nun didn’t say a word, but instead smiled a wolfish smile.


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