Heretical Edge

A/N - This is the start of a very special (not that sort of very special, I promise no anti-drug PSA) set of Patreon snippets, a full 12 thousand words divided between three separate chapters to show what the previous timeline of this universe, prior to Flick time traveling, actually looked like.

Equivalent Earth Date - March 14, 2072

A staccato burst of rapid violet lasers cut through the endless black of deep space, far beyond any planet or visible sign of habitation. The source of those shots, a sleek one-person craft just barely over thirty-five feet long, with most of that taken up by engines, swooped into view. The ship was shaped like a slightly off-centered arrowhead. A human of the twenty-first century Earth, seeing the ship from the top, might say it was shaped like the Starfleet insignia from Star Trek. It was gold in color, with a pitchblack cockpit canopy. The lasers were projected from a pair of small cannons at the front of the vessel. They were generally recessed slightly within the hull, but could extend outward a foot or so in order to rotate to track targets at much greater angles.

That flurry of purple lasers cut through what looked like empty space before seeming to impact an invisible structure. It was partially revealed momentarily, just for a split second each time a shot struck home, enough to expose what looked like a large pipe shape. The structure was over a hundred feet in diameter and, judging by how much continued to be briefly illuminated as the vessel flew along it while firing, clearly stretched back for quite a distance. The starfighter traveled over ten kilometers, firing more or less consistently throughout, and continued to hit the invisible pipe. With each shot, thick clouds of colorful red and blue gas could be seen leaking out into space.

Finally, after doing that much damage in its attack run, the vessel launched a glowing red ball from a slot that opened up directly between the two cannons, at the tip of the arrowhead shape. The energy orb flew down and forward, colliding with that same invisible structure before exploding. The ship itself pulled up hard to escape the worst of it, but was still buffeted heavily by the sheer force of the missile. Which only became even more powerful as the explosion hit the leaking gas that had been forced out of the invisible pipe by the earlier shots. There was a very brief, almost frozen moment where the universe seemed to hold its breath. Then the vessel kicked in its boosters, sending four-foot long plumes of what looked like blue-white flame out of its twin thrusters on the back of the ship. It was sent rocketing upward, its pilot pushed hard into their seat from the force of the maneuver. An instant later, the gas caught, and the light from that explosion seemed to illuminate the entire quadrant of space. Even with their quick boost, the fighter was still caught by the edges of that and went tumbling wildly for several seconds.

Finally, it righted itself. Well, for a given definition of righted. The ship was actually, relatively speaking when compared to its previous orientation, upside down. Which meant little to nothing in space, but still. It had oriented that way so its pilot could raise their head and look toward the spot where that explosion had been. The structure they had been shooting at wasn't invisible any more. It was finally fully revealed. Or at least what was left of it was. It was a space station.

At one time, the place had looked like a massive octahedron, a full thousand feet tall and wide from tip to tip. The giant pipe had extended off one of those 'lower' sides and reached off through what looked like empty space. Now, almost half of that pipe had been blown wide open to reveal the scorched, shattered interior where the colorful gas had previously been flowing. It was damage that continued up into that lower right side of the octahedron, blowing that entire section apart to reveal the interior of the station beyond. Part of that interior was being sucked out into the empty vacuum of space. Dozens of beings of all shapes and sizes, along with furniture, tools, even food were suddenly drifting. There would have been many more than that, but the station's interior emergency walls had managed to slam shut quickly, closing off the rest of the place and its inhabitants from the destroyed portion. All of those still alive in the remaining sections were no doubt being subjected to deafening sirens and blinding lights from the alarms.

In other words, there was absolutely no point to trying to be subtle or stealthy at the moment. Surprise had been the best tactic going into this, hitting the station before anyone within had a chance to react to the fact that their secret facility had been located. Now the pilot had to keep pushing that advantage. They had to keep hitting these people hard to keep the bastards reeling so they couldn't regroup in time to stop what was coming. Because if they had a chance to fight back, if they caught their breath for even a moment and actually managed to deploy the full might of their defenses, this entire effort would be for nothing. It would fade like a puff of smoke.

And all hope for some measure of actual, true freedom in this fallen universe would go with it.

So, with another burst from the small fighter's thrusters, the pilot sent their vessel right past all those drifting, dying figures and into the destroyed section of that station. They could see all the devastation that had been left behind from that explosion. They saw what had once been living areas, corridors, and laboratories, all of them ruined, broken, and exposed to vacuum. It was a chilling sight, but the pilot pushed any regret for all of that out of their mind. Instead, they focused on maneuvering their ship right up against that emergency wall that had slammed down to cut the rest of the station off from this broken portion. The ship turned relatively sideways before planting itself, its twin ski-shaped landing struts extending and magnetizing to the metal there. And just like that, the small, nimble fighter was quite firmly attached to the wall.

Without wasting any time, the pilot hit a quick series of buttons on their console. Immediately, a circular metal tube extended from directly under their cockpit to press against the wall. There was a loud sound of screaming, tortured metal as a hole was cut into it. Then the seat lowered itself through that tube, twisting and flattening in the process so the pilot could fall right out of it and shoot through the hole in what turned out to be the side of that wall before landing in a crouch inside the station. They stayed in that position for a moment, looking both ways through a long corridor. Seconds after arriving, the blaring alarms and bright flashing red lights were shut off, leaving the place eerily silent. Someone with authority had clearly decided that everyone was already aware of the situation, and the distracting alarms were just causing far more trouble than help by that point.

Within this wide, plain white corridor, the pilot stood out. They were a clearly humanoid figure wearing a dark blue, somewhat baggy flightsuit with no apparent insignia or logo, but plenty of pockets and pouches. Their head was covered by a matching helmet with black visor, and they wore dark gloves and boots. A small pistol was in the holster at their side before they drew it.

Straightening up after assuring themself that they weren't immediately being set upon by enemies revealed the figure to be just a couple inches or so shy of six feet in height, and built rather slimly. Beyond that, nothing specific about their appearance could be determined with the baggy suit. Basically, they were an average humanoid with two legs, two arms, and one head.

Within that helmet, a holographic map appeared on the pilot's heads-up display, showing them exactly where to go. They followed it immediately, pivoting on one heel to race down the hall. Behind them, the sound of rapidly approaching heavy footsteps could be heard, accompanied by noisily readied weapons and shouted orders about being certain to take the intruder alive to be thoroughly interrogated by someone known as the Teacher, lest whoever was careless enough to actually kill them wind up being the subject of a harsh interrogation themselves.

Upon reaching the spot where the pilot had entered, the security team skidded to a halt and stared at the hole in the wall, with the inverted cockpit seat and the interior of the fighter visible beyond. There were nine members of this team, each of them very different in shape and size. They varied between three and eight feet tall, possessed anywhere from four to ten limbs, and were just generally very different all around. Their only real similarities were the fact that they all wore bright red metal combat armor, and each had at least two obvious cybernetic implants.

The apparent leader of the group, a four foot tall, two legged figure with visible blue reptilian scales and a head that would be reminiscent of a crocodile, stepped over to the hole. Half of his snout and the right side of his face were metal. The cybernetic eye on that side whirred a bit noisily while extending forward a bit to examine the cockpit of that ship through the tube a bit more closely. As he did so, a grunt of uncertainty escaped him. "That's odd," he murmured, "it almost looks like that--" Cutting himself off, he turned to the others and began snapping rapid orders, telling them to find this intruder and take them alive no matter what it took. There was something very dangerous going on, and he sure wasn't going to be the one who let it happen.

Leaving two of the nine members of his team behind to keep watch on the hole and parked ship beyond until the tech people could examine it for traps so the thing could be thoroughly taken apart, the security leader and the remaining six took off once more. They had come from one way and hadn't seen any intruders, leaving only one direction their quarry could have gone. And with any luck, the security measures, including automated turrets along with random emergency doors, would be slowing the pilot down enough for this group to catch up and end this attack.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Meanwhile, the intruding pilot themself had continued down the hallway in that direction at a full sprint. As they ran, the thick sealed doors that should have cut them off from the rest of the station and at least slowed them down simply slid open for them instead, one after another. The turrets and other defensive measures likewise refused to even activate or track them. The occupants of the station might have seen this person as an unwelcome guest, but as far as the automated security seemed to be concerned, they might as well have owned the whole place.

Following the course laid out on their helmet screen, the intruder raced through the maze of corridors. They had never set foot in the facility, but the holographic display ensured they didn't get lost. It also warned them of where several other security teams were either set up or on their way through, routing them around those areas. The cameras that should have told those teams exactly where the pilot was simply didn't work. Every last one of them through the whole facility had shut themselves down. The same went for motion detectors and everything else that should have given the people within this place the pilot's exact location at all times.

After taking a lift, which shouldn't even have been operating at all, and certainly shouldn't have allowed this stranger to use it during the middle of an emergency lockdown, the pilot emerged into a science lab about ten floors above where they had started, close to the top of the station. The room within was almost two hundred feet wide and half that long, full of dozens of tables with various tools, instruments, glass vials, microscopes, and the like laid out along them. The walls were hidden behind large, floor to ceiling glass coolers that were filled with specimen jars. At the far end of the room, opposite the lift, was an enormous, eight-foot wide vault door with two very deadly turrets on either side, a camera at the top taking in the rest of the room, and a small hole right in the middle that was just wide and deep enough for a person to put their hand into.

The dozen or so scientists within the room, each of different species (yet all also with obvious cybernetic implants just like the security team) were completely taken aback by the arrival of this intruder. Yes, they knew something was going on, obviously. They were aware that the station, which should have been completely secret and impossible to find here in the middle of deep space, was under attack and that part of it had been blown away. They knew many of their colleagues were dead in that moment. But they had never in their wildest imaginations believed that this intruder would be able to get this far. The invader should have been cornered, trapped, and captured long before now. How had they even managed to make the lift work for them?

One of the scientists recovered from their surprise quickly enough to step toward the alarm panel on the edge of a nearby table. But before he could reach for it, the pilot aimed their pistol that way and fired once. A bright purple beam cut right through the other figure, instantly disintegrating him, leaving little more than a scorch mark on the floor and part of the cooler behind where he had been standing, along with drifting ash and a very foul stench of burned flesh. It was enough to convince the remaining scientists not to try anything else like that. They all went completely still before raising their hands in surrender. After all, they weren't fighters.

Any expression the intruder might have had at seeing the rest of the scientists surrender right after the first was disintegrated was hidden behind that helmet. Their body language gave away nothing. They simply stood there with the raised pistol for a moment before speaking, their voice electronically distorted to the point that it would have been utterly unrecognizable even if these scientists had worked with them every day of their lives. "All of you get back to the other wall."

There was only a brief moment of hesitation before they did as ordered. Each of the remaining scientists exchanged quick, uncertain glances as they moved to line up against the coolers there, opposite the side where their companion had been killed. One of them, a tall figure who stood a full nine feet but was rather skinny, with light pink skin and large, bulbous green eyes, spoke up. "You should really be using this time to escape. They'll track you down. And when they do, you won't like what happens." Faced with a set of intense glares from the rest of her coworkers, she quickly added, "That's not a threat, just an observation. They will hurt you."

The pilot seemed to consider her briefly, a long moment of silence stretching out before they spoke in a voice that was somehow flat despite still being electronically distorted. "They will try."

From there, the figure simply walked past the assembled scientists, moving to that vault door. On the way, they spoke again. "Doctor Kellen, input your voice authorization code. The real one, not the one that calls security to this room. You have three seconds to comply or I will remove two limbs. One will be yours, the other will be one of your coworkers' chosen at random. That will continue every three seconds." Their head turned that way, the black, featureless visor like an endless void staring right through all of the suddenly very alarmed scientists. "One, two--"

Doctor Kellen, a small, furry figure in a loose white lab coat who looked a bit like a humanoid version of what would, on some far distant planet in some far distant time be called a chinchilla, quickly spoke up. "Entrance authorization Kellen, code kaya duol meph seken." He paused, holding up both hands in a silent plea toward the pilot to indicate he was still complying, each of the four fingers on his right hand raising as though to show he was counting as part of the process. Then he continued. "Access Kellen mein vil photon." One more brief pause, then, "Xih."

A soft chime of acknowledgment filled the room, and the rest of the assembled scientists let out breaths of relief. Yet even as the small hole in the middle of that vault door lit up invitingly, Kellen gently and reluctantly pointed out, "You still won't be able to get through. The only thing my code does is start the process. It has to test your DNA now, and yours won't match any authorized subject." It was clear he rather anxiously hoped the pilot wasn't the type to shoot the messenger.

In response, the pilot simply walked to the vault door silently. While the entire group of scientists watched in mounting confusion and uncertainty, they took off one glove, revealing a humanoid, dark-skinned hand before sticking that hand into the hole. Their audience collectively flinched, waiting for the alarms to sound once more, and for the intruder's limb to be separated from their body. Instead, after several very tense seconds, there was another chime of acknowledgment. Then, to the utter bafflement of the onlookers, the pilot withdrew their completely intact hand while the vault door began to rumble open. The weight of the doors made the process achingly slow, but they were moving.

Doctor Kellen immediately, once he had recovered enough to speak, blurted a confused, "What? How, what did you do to the system? How did you-- you are-- how could you be in the system?"

The only response from the pilot was a brief, silent glance that way before they turned back and walked right through the opening in the vault door, disappearing from sight. Almost immediately, Kellen and the rest of the scientists dashed that way once they felt confident that they wouldn't be shot. Their urge for answers overwhelmed their senses of self-preservation in that moment. Crowding up to the open door, they stared into the chamber beyond. Most were just as curious to see that as they were to witness what the intruder was doing. Kellen was the only one amongst them who had ever been inside that mysterious place. It was far above their pay grade.

The chamber was quite a bit smaller than they would have expected. It was a square room, barely ten feet across and eight feet high. The walls, floor, and ceiling, rather bizarrely given the technological nature of the station, were all made of wood. In the exact middle of the small room was an oblong crystal shape, roughly circular and barely eight inches in diameter. It was floating silently while giving off just enough dim light to make the chamber visible. That was the only source of illumination in the place.

"What-- what is that?" one of the scientists couldn't help but murmur. They spoke in a hushed, barely audible tone, yet the words were perfectly audible against the total silence that had descended over the chamber. "There's supposed to be a doorway to another universe in here."

"Is that what the rumors say?" the pilot mused thoughtfully in that distorted voice. "Well, they're close. This place wasn't a doorway to another universe. It was a doorway through time, a way of traveling over a hundred million years with a single step. Then your emperor, Wreth, found it. He used it. He's been using it. He's been taking power from that rift for hundreds of thousands of years to keep himself alive, to make himself strong, using it to travel through time to set everything exactly the way he wants it to be. That's what this station has been taking, what it's been draining all this time, the heart of the rift. Now he's taken so much of it, drained so much from it, there's almost nothing left. Just this." They lifted a hand, moving it close to the small floating crystal. "It's nearly gone now. He's used and stripped away almost all of it, just like he does with everything else."

They turned, looking back at those scientists, expression still hidden behind the helmet. "He's been using the power from this rift to rule this universe for all that time, stamping out all competition, crushing any resistance. That stops now. Because there's still a little bit of power left in this." Their hand moved, taking hold of the orb. Immediately, small crackles of energy filled the room, like bursts of static electricity. The figure shuddered from the force of the power running through them, yet continued to grip the orb tightly. "This universe is wrong. I'm going to fix it. I'll make sure Wreth never comes through that rift to do any of that. I'll kill him in the past before he ever makes it here."

The figure touched a button on the side of the helmet, making the whole thing retract to reveal their face so they could gaze at the orb directly. It was a face that would have been considered stunningly beautiful by most species even considering the intricate pattern of tiny interlocking circular scars that adorned her the entire left side of her face. The scars were light blue and seemed to glow with some sort of inner power against her dark skin. The woman's black hair had been cut very short, and her eyes were deep pools of reddish-orange, like lava.

"And then this, all of it," the pilot announced, "will change." With that, the power pulsing off the orb reached a critical point, and with a loud, blinding burst, engulfed the pilot.

And just like that, the Seosten known as Sahveniah, Savvy to her friends, was catapulted back through the timeline.