TSJ #36, Chapter 5: Frozen

A LOOK OF HORROR appeared on Bud’s face as the now-frozen guard vanished! The edges of the room turned black and crumbled away, replaced by utter nothingness. It was as if the entire universe had suddenly shrunk to a tiny sphere not much bigger than the kronolator. Bud jumped back when he saw how close he was to the edge of reality.

Bud turned to Tom. “What just happened? Please tell me you didn’t–”

Tom laughed. “Don’t worry, Bud. You should know better than that! The Challenger doesn’t even have a hyperdrive, remember? Tom III may have to worry about a zero-five, but the worst thing that could happen to us is the drive failing to do anything at all. The kronolator works on an entirely different principle. I was just giving the guard something to think about in case my plan failed.”

“That’s right!” Bud said. “I’d forgotten. So what happened? Why did the universe just disappear?”

“It’s still there, flyboy. I’ll give you a clue: did you notice that the guard froze just before he disappeared?”

When Bud nodded, Tom continued. “The reason he stopped moving is not because time stopped. It’s because, in this small zone, time is moving at an incredibly rapid pace. I’ve created a localized area where time is flowing much faster than normal. I thought that would give us a tactical advantage over the Kranjovians.”

“I still don’t get it,” Bud replied. “What have you done to the kronolator? For a minute there I thought you had completely lost it.”

“It’s actually quite simple! You see, my kronolator enables us to travel faster-than-light by manipulating the flow of time. I’ve simply tweaked it a bit so that, instead of acting on the entire ship, it’s only creating a tiny field that just barely extends to the edges of this room. Inside that field time is flowing much, much faster than it is outside the field.”

“Ok,” Bud said slowly. “So it sounds like we’re just moving really, really fast. But tell me something. What would happen if I tried to step outside the field?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” Tom confessed. “If half of your body was inside the field and the other half was outside, it’s possible that you might get torn apart. I haven’t done any experiments so I don’t really know. But it’s probably best to avoid the edges of the room, just to be safe.”

“And that must be the edge,” Bud said, gesturing toward the region of utter blackness. “Why does it look like that?”

“It’s hard to say,” Tom admitted. “We’re exploring new territory here. It may be because the light rays from outside the field are having trouble making their way through the boundary between this time zone and that time zone. I’d have to perform some experiments before I could say anything with certainty. It could also be a flaw in the time field itself.”

Bud nodded. “So what do we do now, genius boy?”

“We take advantage of our superior situation!” Tom replied. “From this room I can control pretty much every system on board, including the Transmittaton. Now all we need to do is use it to transport all the Kranjovians to a holding cell.”

“Can we really do that from inside the time field?” Bud asked dubiously.

“I think so,” Tom said confidently. “After all, electronics work at the speed of light. Even though time is going quite slowly in the ‘real world’, we can still send the Transmittaton commands and receive a response fairly quickly. The unit’s sensors should tell us where the Kranjovians are hiding.”

“But what about their guns?” Bud asked. “How are you going to disarm them?”

“That’s a little trickier, but it’s also possible,” Tom replied. “Do you remember smelling strawberries just before we passed out?”

Bud shook his head. “All I remember is the world going back and waking up to find General Hotshot standing there.”

Tom grinned. “Well, the way the Kranjovians took over the ship was by gassing us with a non-toxic but highly effective potion. I happen to be familiar with that particular formula, and what worked on us will work on them.”

“I like it!” Bud exclaimed. “Give ’em a taste of their own medicine. But why not just gas them first?”

“Because I don’t have any of the gas on hand,” Tom replied. “I’ve got to make some up first, and I just don’t think General Volnas will let me use my solartron for a couple hours. So I’ll round ’em up, then suspend them in time while I work on the gas. Once the gas is ready I’ll use it, take their weapons, lock them up, and head home.”

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” Bud said enthusiastically.

As it turned out, the plan took far longer to carry out than Tom had anticipated. He had no trouble locking onto the Kranjovians, but the actual transportation process did not happen at lightspeed. It took forty painful minutes to transport each soldier to the holding cell. Transporting all of the soldiers took many hours. But Tom and Bud persevered, and after what seemed like an eternity they finally cleared the ship and placed all of the Kranjovians into a single room on the far side of the ship.

Once the soldiers were safely isolated Tom adjusted the kronolator’s field to allow them access to the rest of the ship. He was careful to not extend it far enough to reach the room where the prisoners were being held. Tom and Bud then quickly made their way to the laboratory, where Tom got to work.

“Do we really have a solartron on board?” Bud asked, as Tom browsed through beakers of chemicals.

“We do, but I’m not going to use it today,” Tom replied. “First, we’re orbiting Neptune, and the amount of sunlight we get out here is practically zero. It would take a really, really long time to produce enough matter to make the knockout gas – especially with time slowed down! So I’m switching over to Plan B.”

“Which is?” Bud asked.

“Making a knockout gas with the chemicals I happen to have on hand,” Tom explained.

Bud nodded, and Tom went to work. An hour later Tom stepped back, satisfied. “This should do it,” he said, holding up a small green pellet.

“How do we know if it will work?” Bud asked.

“We test it, and see,” Tom replied. He handed Bud a communicator and the gas pellet. “Here’s how this will work. I’ll go down to the kronolator while you head off to the holding cell. Once you’re in place I’ll extend the time field just enough to allow you to open the door. Once you’ve opened the door and tossed in the gas pellet I’ll shut off the time field entirely. If the gas doesn’t work you’ll hear a lot of commotion. Just let me know and I’ll freeze them again, and we’ll switch to a different gas.”

“What if the kronolator fails to re-engage?” Bud asked.

“Then we lock the door and run for our lives,” Tom quipped.

Bud grinned. “Whatever you say, skipper!”

To Tom’s immense gratification, the plan worked well. The gas rendered all of the Kranjovians unconscious and Bud confiscated their weapons. After securing the door Tom dropped the time-distortion field and headed to the bridge. The Challenger was soon on its way home.

“I can’t believe the Kranjovians actually brought their spaceship into our shuttlecraft bay after they took over our ship,” Bud remarked. “What would they have done if we’d had a shuttle in there? The only reason it was empty was because that’s where our space friends stored the shuttle they used to reach the Space Legion’s base.”

“They probably would have just left it floating around Neptune,” Tom remarked. “Or maybe had a pilot fly it back home. What amazes me is that they were actually able to make it all the way out here to Neptune! It must have taken them weeks to make the trip, if not longer. They were really dedicated, Bud.”

“And soon they’ll be dedicated to a federal prison,” Bud replied. “It couldn’t have happened to a better group of people. Say, speaking of our space friends, aren’t we stranding them out here?”

“Not really,” Tom replied. “They’re pretty busy right now and aren’t eager to return home. When they’re ready to go back to Mars I’ll just send the Cosmotron Express after them.”

“Sounds good,” Bud replied. “Say, speaking of that, isn’t the kronolator still in pieces? How are we going to get home?”

“By the repelatrons,” Tom explained. “It’ll take longer, but we’ll still get there! Besides, the flight will give me the time I need to work on my claytronic stones. The kronolator is the piece I’ve been missing all along!”

“How is that?” Bud asked.

Tom grinned. “The whole problem with my replicating stones is that it takes so long for them to morph. But the kronolator changes all that. After all, if I can manipulate the flow of time, then time is no longer a factor! Everything changes.” Tom paused for a moment as he considered the possibilities. “There’s only one other thing I wish I could get the kronolator to do.”

“What’s that?” Bud asked.

“Reverse the flow of time,” Tom replied.