Chimera 🌈 [ONC 2024]

16: Anomaly

There they were: three strangers, two secrets and one Key. They stood in the cockpit, the ruddy eye of Mars peering up at them with the gulf between. Leanne could barely comprehend it. Stefania Milanowska was a woman from a different time, a different world. So much could change in seventy years. Leanne could have asked about the victories, the defeats, the joys and the griefs of that span of time but she didn't want to. She didn't want to know. If she so much as made one false step, could she upend decades of the future? Perhaps another rift would open in the universe and they would all be swallowed by the paradox.

She kept her distance from Stefania, almost clinging to Ryan's side as the three of them stood there. This ship had weathered cosmic forces that no mind could fully understand. It was a vessel out of place, out of time. What place did it have here? These people, this crew... They should not even have been born yet.

Why had the BASE signed off on such a dangerous power? They had potentially created a fault that no one could fix.

So when Valkyrie spoke to them next, Leanne could not find it in herself to hate her anymore. She had been thrust into this situation as much as the rest of them had, without full knowledge, without full permission – and when she had gained that knowledge, she had imploded in on herself. If a woman who had been thrown out of her own timeline, wrenched from every single thing she knew and loved, could forgive Valkyrie, then Leanne could begin to.

"I did not intend to hurt anyone," Valkyrie was saying. "I apologise if my actions led to pain and confusion."

"You did your best, Valkyrie," Stefania replied. "They corrupted you by muddying your directives."

"You sent the rogue signal that made Phaethon malfunction, didn't you?" Leanne asked. "You said you didn't know where it had come from but it must have been you... In that black space you have no control over."

"I..." Valkyrie actually hesitated, her voice seeming to crackle. "I suppose so."

"Her power banks are failing," Stefania explained. "So much of her energy was sapped when we went through the warp bubble and came out...here. This amnesia will kill her eventually, unless we can find a way back to where we were supposed to be."

"And how do you do that?" Ryan asked.

"I don't know. I can't risk waking the rest of the crew up and then having to put them back into cryo. I may be able to input new directives into Valkyrie but... I don't want to hurt her again."

"If there is anything that I can do to help..." Valkyrie began. "I shall follow my directives to the best of my ability."

"I'm sure you will, Valkyrie," Stefania said. "But I think we may be past that."

Ryan glanced over at Leanne. She was about to say something when a sudden alert blinked on the Arcadia's main console deck. Leanne jumped at the jarring noise. Ryan put a hand to her ear where she had a mechanical piece in constant readiness for any outside or internal requests.