TSJ #36, Chapter 4: Zero-Five

TOM SWIFT JR felt himself slowly regaining consciousness. His head was throbbing and he realized he was lying on the floor. He opened his eyes and wearily sat up. Over in the far corner of the room he saw that Bud was beginning to stir.

“What happened?” Bud asked groggily.

A voice behind them thundered to life. “You have been defeated by the mighty nation of Kranjovia! Bow down and tremble, weaklings.”

Tom weakly stood up and turned around. He and his friend were still in the kronolator room, but it was now filled with soldiers wearing the signature brown-and-gold uniform of the Kranjovian Army. In front of them was a proud man whose chest was covered with ribbons and metals.

“Wow,” Tom said, surprised. “Kranjovians! I was expecting the Brungarians. I haven’t seen you guys in a while.”

“The Brungarians had a scheduling conflict,” Bud quipped. “Somebody else had to step up and be the evil villain.”

“Silence, you insolent dogs!” the general barked. “I am General Volnas, supreme commander of the mighty starship Predator. You are now our prisoner, Swift! And you will do whatever we say, or there will be consequences to you and your pitiful crew. Grievous consequences!”

“Tell you what,” Bud said. “Since this is your first offense in a long time we’ll go easy on you. If you agree to surrender now we won’t press charges – we’ll just let you go and say this was all a big misunderstanding. But if you don’t then we’re going to have to get rough, and you don’t want that.”

General Volnas burst out laughing. “Your assistant has lost his mind, Swift! There are thirty powerful Kranjovian soldiers on board this pitiful ship, and all of them are armed with deadly weapons. You, on the other hand, do not even have a single handgun! In fact, you are so breathtakingly stupid that this ship isn’t even armed. Truly, you Americans are as dumb as rocks.”

“Only the weak need guns,” Bud replied. “C’mon! Surely you guys know your own history? Don’t you remember what happened when Ivor Bronich went after Tom’s atomic earth blaster? Or maybe you remember that unfortunate time when you guys tried to steal the the space cache we’d recovered with our subocean geotron. You guys don’t stand a chance! Tom Swift is so amazing that he could take on the entire Kranjovian Army with half his brain tied behind his back, just to make it fair.”

“Silence!” the general screamed. “You will learn respect, young moron, or you will soon be dead!”

Bud yawned. “Been there, done that. What else have you got?”

“Bud,” Tom said warningly. He turned to the general. “So what evil villainy are you up to this time? You had better not have harmed my crew, because if you have–”

“Enough!” General Volnas shouted. “It is you who is the villain, young Swift. The Kranjovian Army is appalled by your racism. You have refused to share your kronolator technology with the citizens of our great empire. I have come to teach you manners and liberate this knowledge so that all might enjoy its benefits.”

“You mean you want to steal Tom’s invention so you can ruthlessly oppress other star systems,” Bud replied.

General Volnas smiled. “We prefer to see it as spreading the truth of Kranjovia to other, less fortunate planets. There are so many worlds that need us to look after them.”

“That explains why your own citizens would rather die trying to escape Kranjovia than stay there,” Bud remarked.

“Look, you guys have got it all wrong,” Tom replied. “I can understand your interest in the kronolator, but as you can see it’s not exactly in working order! I’ve spent weeks trying to repair it – that’s the whole reason I came out here, as you must know. Surely you can see that this machine is far from being in working order.”

The general scowled. “But the Cosmotron Express left days ago! Surely you must not think me so stupid as to believe you would let her return to Earth while this ship was still helpless.”

“I didn’t say the Challenger was stranded,” Tom replied. “We can still return to Earth using its repelatron drive. But the kronolator is ruined. Look at it – it’s in pieces all over the floor!”

“Then you will fix it!” General Volnas stared at Tom intently. “I will give you 24 hours to fix this ship, Swift. If you fail then I will shoot your moronic assistant – and if that does not persuade you then I’ll find other friends of yours to shoot. All of your men on this ship have been captured, and they would make most excellent targets – especially the loud-mouthed fat one from Texas. His shirts are an offense to humanity.”

The general walked to the door, and then turned around to look at Tom. “You have twenty-four hours, Swift. Not a minute more! Do not play games with me.”

After finishing his tirade the general and his troops marched out of the room. He left two guards outside the door and stationed another one inside the room. All three guards were heavily armed.

Bud looked at Tom quizzically. “So what now?” he asked in a low voice.

Tom picked up the wiring diagrams for the kronolator and stared at them intently. Several minutes went by. “Tom?” Bud asked. “I hate to interrupt, but we’re in a tight spot here. What’s our next move? How do we–”

“Hold on,” Tom replied. “Just give me a minute.” He removed a pencil from his pocket and began making changes to the diagram. Bud watched in silence.

“Go ahead and get started,” Tom said at last. “This is a bit complicated. We’re going to need to work together on this.”

“Sure, genius boy, not a problem. But what am I supposed to do? I missed the part where you told me your master plan.”

Tom gestured toward a power coupling that was partially reassembled. “You can start by putting that back together. None of this is going to work until we’ve got power. Once you finish that, go ahead and put it back on the main unit. I’ll make the final calibrations after the basic work is done. We can proceed from there.”

For the next few hours Bud worked alone while Tom feverishly worked over the diagrams. At last he sighed, put away his pencil, and shook his head. “I just don’t know,” he said at last. “This is going to be a bit interesting, chum.”

“In a good way?” Bud asked in a low voice, eying the guard loitering near the door.

“I don’t really have all the parts I’d like,” Tom explained. “I wasn’t expecting on running into a hard deadline, and I don’t really have the time to do this. The ride could get a bit bumpy.”

“You mean we’re going to give General Hotshot what he wants?” Bud asked, surprised. “We’re actually going to fix the kronolator?”

“Unless you want to get shot,” Tom replied. “I think those guns have real bullets in them.”

“Not really,” Bud replied. “I’m no genius, but I have a feeling that getting shot may be hazardous to my health.”

“Then let’s get this done. He does have the rest of the crew held hostage, you know. A lot of lives are in danger and we don’t have a lot of options. The general wants a working kronolator, so let’s give him one.”

“If you say so,” Bud said dubiously.

Over the rest of the day the two teenagers worked feverishly on the giant machine, staying up far into the night. Bud was surprised at the number of wiring changes Tom made. He could tell that the young inventor was not happy, but he didn’t ask any questions. He had a feeling that even if Tom had been able to speak freely, Bud wasn’t going to like the answers.

The next morning a fresh guard came to take the place of the one that had watched them through the night. General Volnas accompanied him to see their progress. He was not pleased. “What is this?” he thundered, as he saw partially-built components scattered all over the floor. “Do you take me for a fool, Swift? Or do you simply not understand the gravity of the situation?”

“We’re a bit tired,” Bud explained. “And we could use a good breakfast, too. I don’t suppose you’d consider letting Chow rustle us up some food, would you?”

“You can eat and sleep after you finish repairing this monstrosity,” the general snapped. “In fact, should you fail to complete this task then you will sleep the eternal sleep of death! Your pitiful efforts to stall for time bore me.”

“You don’t understand,” Tom protested. “The kronolator is a very delicate instrument that uses a terrific amount of power to warp time itself. If we do something wrong it could easily kill all of us when it engages! We could even end up with a zero-five on our hands.”

“I am not interested in your inane babble,” General Volnas replied coldly. “You have until this afternoon to finish. Not a moment longer!”

With that, the general stormed out of the room, leaving a guard behind.

“What now, skipper?” Bud asked, as soon as the general had left.

The young inventor yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Only one thing to do, fly boy. Hand me that flux capacitor, will you?”

Bud looked around, puzzled. “You mean this?” he asked, picking an odd-shaped bit of circuitry off the ground.

“That’ll do,” Tom replied. He quickly snapped it in place and then nodded with satisfaction. He walked over to the control panel and placed his hand on the master switch. He then called to the guard. “Hey, do you know what a zero-five is?”

The guard by the door shook his head. “I do not care about you or your machine, you stupid American. I am just here to shoot you if you try to leave.”

“It’s a really a fascinating condition,” Tom explained. “You see, sometimes when a ship engages its warp drive it doesn’t quite work. Instead of cleanly entering hyperspace the ship only makes it partway through. Believe it or not that actually happened to the Arabian Prince – you can still see its ghost image out past Jupiter! As best I can tell that ship is spread across many dimensions but isn’t fully manifested in any of them. Its passengers are forever stuck in time.”

“I care not,” the guard snarled.

Tom shrugged. “All right! Then I’ll just go ahead and engage the drive. After all, what could go wrong?”

The guard’s eyes grew wide as Tom flipped the switch. He opened his mouth to scream an order but the kronolator instantly surged to life! The machine engaged with a massive jolt of energy, filling the room with a brilliant white light. The guard froze, unable to finish his sentence. He remained stuck in time, locked in the motion of attempting to stop Tom.