The End

“Aha!” I burst into the console room, yelling to grab the dinosaur’s attention. He turned away from the console in surprise, immediately leveling his pistol at me, and I voluntarily stopped dead in my tracks. My plan had worked a little too well.

“How did you -?” he spluttered before shaking his head violently and snapping his jaws to cut his own exclamation short. “Never mind! There’s nothing you can do! Empire ships will be here soon, so just stay back or I will shoot you, and this time it won’t just be on stun!”

I lifted my hands in defeat. “You don’t have to do this.”

The velociraptor bobbed its head in a figure eight pattern. “Don’t try to trick me. It won’t work.”

“Of course, not.” I wish I could say I sounded confident and in control, but the truth was, I couldn’t take my eyes off the business end of its weapon. I tried to keep my voice from trembling but didn’t exactly succeed. “I’m just an idiot. I couldn’t possibly compete with you in the brains department.”

The dinosaur turned his head to study me suspiciously with one eye. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing!” It came out a bit too hastily, so I had to talk quickly to cover myself. “I couldn’t possibly trick you! Not even if I asked the ship to reactivate the Interface!”

The dinosaur shook its head like it was shaking off a good drenching and incredulously demanded, “What?”

“Like, for instance, if I said, Ship, reactivate the Interface!” I really hoped the ship got the hint. “You wouldn’t be tricked by that, would you?”

The dinosaur aimed his pistol at me, and behind him the Interface shimmered into being. Even before she formed completely, she scowled darkly and demanded, “Oh, no! You didn’t!”

The dinosaur whipped around towards the sound of her voice, and I leapt forward, swinging both hands, clenched together, at his neck. I nearly shattered the bones in both hands upon impact, and it didn’t phase the raptor in the least. As I stumbled back a step nursing my injuries, he turned and backhanded me across the console room. As I skidded across the floor, I counted myself lucky that I ducked just in time to catch the blow on my shoulder rather than my head. He could have broken my neck.

“You forged a link?” She was irate, but I wasn’t sure who she was yelling at, me or the ship. “Do you realize how dangerous that is?”

The dinosaur stomped towards the console, and I had to stop it from turning her off again. Despite the ache in my shoulder, which I assumed meant it was either broken or dislocated, I thrust myself to my feet and whipped the sonic out of my pocket. Brandishing it before me, I yelled in my most commanding tone, “Stop! Or else!”

The raptor glanced back at me in only passing interest. Apparently, I wasn’t a threat to it. But its eye caught the sonic in my hand and it turned, hissing sporadically. “Or else, what? You’ll put up a shelf?”

“Three words,” I told it. “Sonic pest control.”

I thumbed the activator. The device whirred. It vibrated in my hand, and the green gem glowed. The raptor hissed in pain as a sound that only he could hear spiked his brain. He threw his paws against the spots where his ears were and staggered beneath the invisible onslaught, but it didn’t drop its weapon like I’d hoped it would. I had to take what I could get, so I rushed to the console and warded the raptor away from it with the sonic, and the raptor obligingly staggered back.

“All right,” the Interface grudgingly admitted. “That was mildly clever. But he is still armed and still here.”

“One thing at a time,” I replied, turning to sit against the edge of the console. I kept my eye on the raptor as it desperately tried to block out the excruciating sound. “We need to get out of here. Now!”

She stared off into space for a moment. “The time rotor is still damaged. Auto repairs will take approximately -!”

“We don’t have time,” I interrupted. “They’re coming, and they’ll tear the ship apart.”

She stared into space again, and a worried frown creased her delicate face. “I see.”

“Is there anything we can do?” I didn’t know why I even had to ask. With the memories of all those pilots haunting my head, I should have known the answer already. But there was something very weird about them. They were there, but they weren’t talking to me. At least, not right then. “Can this ship move at all?”

“We have retained spatial movement,” she quickly replied. “But it is limited.”

“Can we outrun the ships that are coming?” I couldn’t believe that I didn’t already know that, either. “Or get out of here before they arrive?”

She stared into space for a moment. “Unlikely, although without knowing the motive capabilities of the incoming vessels, it is difficult to calculate.”

All the time we spoke, I was watching the raptor carefully. He struggled to remain on his feet as he staggered in tiny circles, hissing in agony. I hated doing that to him, but I knew what would happen if I shut the sonic down, and I couldn’t risk it. But watching him reminded me why we were in that time and place, and I had an idea that I honestly wished hadn’t occurred to me.

“Then, we do what we came here to do,” I told her and the ship before I could back out of it. “Fix our mistake.”

She cocked her head dubiously. “How do you propose to do that? I already told you we cannot go back on our own timeline, even if the rotors were still functional.”

“Then, we do everything right here.” I honestly wished that I felt as confident as I sounded, and her skeptical look almost shattered what little there was of it. Before she could ask what I was talking about, and before I could chicken out of the whole thing, I said, “We recreate the impact ourselves.”

She frowned dubiously. “How? There are no stellar bodies nearby that match the mass or trajectory necessary to duplicate the impact’s effects. Even if we found something in the asteroid belt, this vessel is in no condition to tow it here or set it on the correct course.”

“No, you’re right.” I don’t know why the memories chose to let me know that when they weren’t helping with anything else, but I didn’t have time to complain about it. “We have everything we need right here, in the ship.”

She eyed me dubiously, and I said, “Mass! Mass and trajectory! That’s what we need, right? The precise mass and trajectory necessary to duplicate the event exactly.”

“Although a few hours later,” she sarcastically added.

“Does that really matter considering the scale of time?” I’m not sure which memory the words were coming from, but they weren’t from mine. “A few hours compared to millions of years?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, apparently digesting what I said. “Very well, then how do you plan to deliver the mass?”

That was the part that I really didn’t like. “We dive towards Earth and release it precisely where it must go.”

She stared at me as if I had two heads. “You are, of course, joking.”

I couldn’t help grimacing. “I wish I was.”

She rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “You do realize, of course, that this vessel is not designed for maneuverability or speed. It is a reconnaissance and research vessel, not a fighter.”

“We just need to dive at the precise speed and trajectory,” I told her, unable to believe that I was the one concocting the cockamamie scheme, “And release the mass at the precise moment.”

“And where do you intend to get this mass?” she demanded.

This was the part that I didn’t think the ship would like. “We jettison it from the ship.”

“We do?” the ship demanded incredulously.

“You can do that, right?” I was fairly confident of the answer, but I had to ask so I could boost the ship’s confidence.

“Yes,” it uncertainly replied.

“What are you doing over there?” the raptor demanded. It was a strain for it to speak through the pain I was still inflicting, and I felt terrible. But I had to do what I had to do.

“The amount of mass is moot,” she firmly interjected, ignoring the raptor. “With a nearly infinite amount suspended in transdimensional space, the mass necessary isn’t a concern. Escaping from such velocity is. This vessel is not designed to do what you propose and still allow for an escape from the aftereffects.”

The ship whimpered. “Am I going to die?”

“Very probably,” she instantly replied.

“No one’s going to die!” I had to nip this in the bud, before we all lost our nerve, but she was right, and I already knew it. But for some weird reason, it didn’t bother me as much as it should have. Maybe it was the memories whispering secretly to me, but there was one that I knew for sure. “I have faith in us.”

“Really?” She wasn’t buying it, and I didn’t blame her. “And how are your piloting skills, pilot?”

I winced. She had to bring that up. “All right. So, I might not have the mind to hand motor skills to pull it off, but I know we can do this.”

I nodded at her. “You can do the calculations necessary so we have the right amount of mass and the correct trajectory, can’t you?”

She frowned, looking insulted. “Of course, I can.”

“And ship?” I had to talk fast before either of them could put a damper on things. “Can you fly yourself with that much precision?”

“No.”

I didn’t expect that, and it threw me off a little. But a spark of memory put me right back in the saddle.

“We can use the telepathic link,” I suggested without thinking it through. “You can steer yourself through me!”

“No, it can’t,” she firmly disagreed.

“What are you doing?” the raptor desperately cried, still staggering beneath the sonic attack.

We ignored him.

Before I could demand to know why she said that, she said, “The connection would burn your mind out in a heartbeat. The human brain is not compatible with an information matrix of that immense size.”

A hard lump formed in my throat, and it took a tremendously hard swallow to get it down. I should have backed away from the crazy scheme right then and there and spared myself what I already knew would happen, but instead, I stupidly said, “That’s a risk we have to take.”

She stared at me strangely, with an expression that I couldn’t figure out. Then, she nodded. “You are the pilot. You now know the risks. If that is your decision, then it is final.”

I had to swallow another lump before nodding back. “Ship, do you think you can use the link like that?”

The ship hesitated before reluctantly saying, “Yes.”

“Good.” I had to be brave. For them. Inside, my guts were turning to Jello. I turned to the Interface and asked, “Do you have those calculations ready?”

She nodded. Weirdly enough, she didn’t even bother to act insulted.

“Just tell the ship when to jettison the mass,” I told her. Then, I rolled my eyes towards the ceiling. “Whenever you’re ready, ship.”

That’s when a golden firework exploded behind my eyes and I stopped completely.