Ryan Time Read online

  ALSO BY CRAIG A. ROBERTSON

  BOOKS IN THE RYANVERSE:

  THE FOREVER SERIES (2016)

  THE FOREVER LIFE, BOOK 1

  THE FOREVER ENEMY, BOOK 2

  THE FOREVER FIGHT, BOOK 3

  THE FOREVER QUEST, BOOK 4

  THE FOREVER ALLIANCE, BOOK 5

  THE FOREVER PEACE, BOOK 6

  THE GALAXY ON FIRE SERIES (2017)

  EMBERS, BOOK 1

  FLAMES, BOOK 2

  FIRESTORM, BOOK 3

  FIRES OF HELL, BOOK 4

  DRAGON FIRE, BOOK 5

  ASHES, BOOK 6

  RISE OF ANCIENT GODS SERIES (2018)

  RETURN OF THE ANCIENT GODS,Book 1

  RAGE OF THE ANCIENT GODS, Book 2

  TORMENT OF THE ANCIENT GODS, Book 3

  WRATH OF THE ANCIENT GODS, Book 4

  FURY OF THE ANCIENT GODS, Book 5

  FALL OF THE ANCIENT GODS, Book 6

  TIME WARS LAST FOREVER SERIES:

  RYAN TIME, Book 1

  STAND-ALONE NOVELS:

  ROAD TRIPS IN SPACE SERIES (2019):

  THE GALAXY ACCORDING TO GIDEON, Book 1

  THE EARTH ACCORDING TO GIDEON, Book 2 (Due in late 2019)

  OLDER NOVELS

  THE CORPORATE VIRUS (2016)

  TIME DIVING (2013)

  THE INNERgLOW EFFECT (2010)

  WRITE NOW! The Prisoner of NaNoWriMo (2009)

  ANON TIME (2009)

  RYAN TIME

  TIME WARS LAST FOREVER SERIES, BOOK 1

  by Craig Robertson

  This Is A Bad Time To Be Jon Ryan. It's A Worse Time To Cross Him.

  Imagine-It Publishing

  El Dorado Hills, CA

  Copyright 2019 Craig Robertson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from the author.

  ISBN: 978-1-7331137-4-8 (Print)

  978-1-7331137-3-1 (E-Book)

  Cover design by Alexandre

  http://www.designbookcover.pt/en/

  Editing by Michael R. Blanche

  Formatting services by Polgarus Studio

  http://www.polgarusstudio.com

  Beta reading help by Charlie "The Bagpiper” Pitts

  First Edition 2019

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the memory of a friend I miss dearly, Jenny Low Chang. We attended class at San Francisco State University, back in 1977. She was such a joy, such a wonder. She died horrifically. This world was diminished by of your loss, Jenny. You deserved so very much better.

  Table of Contents

  PRELUDE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  Glossary

  And Now A Word from Your Author

  PRELUDE

  Fat and happy, happy and fat, that's me. Well, not fat, since I can eat like twenty thousand calories an hour and not gain weight. Android, here. Duh. But, I am figuratively fat, and literally happy. What? It's been ninety-eight years, hasn't it, since the last ancient god turned to dust—thank you very much. Unlamented, the lot of them. I imagine even my two buddies back in Godville, Wul and Queeheg, have moved on to the next square in the game of life.

  And no new threats. Yeah, I'm entering retirement. What have I—we—been up to? A lot of nothing. And, I have to say, it sure doesn't feel correct, to me. But, you knew that, right? #fighterpilotforever, here. Let's see. Me, I fished until there wasn't a fish in the lake or the slightest inclination in me to find a new body of water to waste time voiding of all piscine life. I hiked through three pair of boots, camped in every idyllic, alpine spot in the cosmos, and even tried my hand at bridge. No, seriously, bridge. I roped a group of Kaljaxians into playing with me. It turns out, that, due to some tragic flaw in their DNA, they instantly became intoxicated with the game. It spread like an STD in boot camp. But, I hate the game, as well as sucking at it. I actually deleted all knowledge of its impenetrable rules from my systems. In fact, the only thing I did not flush was this vitriolic reminder that I hate bridge and do not go there.

  And the apple of my eye, and the blow torch of my love life, Sapale? How was she faring, with time on her hands? Marvelously, of course. I asked her most every morning, Are you bored, yet? And every morning I asked her, she gave me the same reply. No. You're in my way. I need to be somewhere. And no boredom sex is going to happen. You need that cure, then you just fix it, yourself, once I'm gone.

  Yes, she could be a bit testy, a tad pushy, but, she was my girl—forever.

  Basically, she set out to re-rebuild Azsuram. After having forged it from nothing, originally, the Adamant destroyed it. She resurrected it. Then the Cleinoids did their best, which was damn good. Now she was determined to make it better than ever. And she did. It took twenty five years, but the civilization was hitting on all cylinders and purring like a Shelby Mustang. She, never letting idle time creep into her ordered life, then fixed her home world of Kaljax, whether it liked it or not. That took a mere twenty years. Then, she decided she would “work with the local governments” of several Kaljaxian colonies. Yeah, she “wanted to help them keep on pace” in their recoveries or growth. Had any of those colonies asked for her thoughtful input? Funny you should ask. Not a single one had. But, did any voice rise from the crowd, and ask her to visit as a tourist, not a savior? No. A person that stupid surely has yet to be born.

  Toño? Bored. I only have to tell you one episode to have you nodding your head in agreement. Like, maybe forty years ago, he came to me and asked if Sapale wanted to have any more children. No, seriously. He informed me that he'd given some thought to the subject, and had mocked-up some preliminary systems to do just that. Why, I asked him, was he pitching me on the notion? I wasn't the one getting preggers. He looked wounded, but said nothing. A couple days later, he stopped by to inform me he had pitched Sapale. I declared it was a wonder he was still vertical. He agreed, without adding any colorful descriptions of how her disapproval manifested itself. To this day I don't know, because, if I asked, that would confirm I knew about the escapade, and I'd get one of the same as Doc had. No thanks. I'm good.

  So, please say it with me, sing it if you like. What happens when life's good and everything is peachy? Right. Badness happens. Guess what? I came to that realization two billion years ago. And nothing's come up. No potentate has desired to push out his or her borders, no strange life forms have appeared and said boo, and no door-to-door death merchants have come a'calling. So, now I wake up every morning bored, with nothing I want to do, and I'm disappointed no shit has hit a single fan. I'm getting bored of not having the bottom drop out.

  Just what I needed, after all my saving and fighting. Boredom, squared.

  There's no justice in this life. You may quote me on that. In fact, please do.

  ONE

  Sachiko Jones sat, impatie
ntly, at the control panel of one very big machine. She was controlling the largest optical telescope on Earth. It worked in concert with three gravitational wave arrays. She sat there, impatience oozing from every pore, because her life plans were six months behind schedule. That anxiety, borne of redlining herself in all matters and endeavors, was a constant part of her being, and was, of course, nothing new. Year four into her PhD program, it was going well enough. Better than could be expected, she was repeatedly told by everyone who knew her. But her meteoric progress, to date, was threatening to slow to that of the norm, that of typical graduate students. That would never do.

  Success in academics was like riding a big wave in Waimea Bay. The surfer who caught the big one and rode it to shore, won. The ones who face planted in the sand with a ton of water on their backs, did not. If she did the best research as a Ph.D. candidate, she might just get a Hubble Fellowship. With that feather in her cap, she'd have a reasonably good shot at a tenure-track professorship at a top university. The others, those who'd greeted the beach face-first, would not. They'd be lucky to get part time gigs at junior colleges, teaching general science classes to inattentive kids, a lot of whom would never even finish college. It was kill or be eaten in the academic world, and nobody was eating this astrophysicist.

  The progress on gamma ray bursts she'd made, initially, was stellar. But that had been mostly setting up who she'd work with, and the submission of well-funded grants. Up to that point, she hadn't made a single scientific breakthrough, insight, or discovery. That would never do. If force of will was enough …

  A yellow alarm light flashed. Sachiko flew to the screen and pulled up the measurements it indicated might be changing. There it was. A tiny set of gravity waves from the Alabama detectors. Might be nothing, just colliding black holes, or something else she could care less about. She turned to another screen. Sure enough, right on time the Zurich detectors recorded the same waves. Excellent. The signal was real. But what she had was preliminary. All she knew was that something was possibly happening in the northern sky.

  “Mars 1,” she called in a steady tone to the Martian research station, “this is Earth 1. I have a small gravity oscillation on both detectors. Please confirm and triangulate.”

  Five minutes for the message to travel to Mars, and the same time lag for their reply. She hated time lags. They meant delays. More wasted time. More anxiety trying to fill her worry-tank to the brim. She refreshed the screens and rolled up her sweater sleeves. Then she waited. Grrr.

  Ten minutes later came a response. “Earth 1, this is Mars 1. Hi, Sachiko, nice to hear your voice. It's as lonely as you might expect up here.”

  Why did Tank always have to make nice when there was work to be done? He did that every time she contacted him. There were twelve others on the base who weren't on duty. Why was it always Tank that she interacted with? He could chit chat with those others, whenever he wanted. He had a career. So he could be lax. She tried to calm herself. Deep breaths.

  “Yeah, I copy the gravity wavelets. I'm attaching my readings. Looks like the source is probably in Andromeda, but I'll let you work it out for yourself. Hey, I'm just an engineer all by himself—”

  She stopped listening and spun to the keyboard. More verbal TLTR updates from the Lonely Hearts Club of Mars, she didn't need.

  In a minute she'd confirmed the signal was from …

  Three red lights went off. She stared at them transfixed. That had never happened. She snapped out of her trance, quickly enough. Two gravimetric alarms and one gamma detection. She pounded the keys wildly, a woman possessed. The eight meter telescope swung to the coordinates she'd identified earlier. Then she checked the readings that were storming in. The gravity waves were big. No, they were huge. She didn't recognize the pattern off the top of her head, either. The gamma burst was, well it was huge, too. Many orders of magnitude larger than any recorded.

  Hot damn, she had a big fish on the line. Sachiko pumped her fists in the air for no one at all to see. Breakthrough, I own you, she shouted out loud. Oorah.

  Zurich confirmed the gravity disturbances. Same location as before. She refined the coordinate prediction as quickly as she could. The Andromeda galaxy. Bingo. Whatever was happening was coming from the M 31 galaxy itself. That was close, cosmically speaking.

  Sachiko started to tremble. Enough gamma rays at that close a range could be lethal to life on Earth. She struggled to put that out of her mind. No time. She had data to lock down. If Earth was going to fry, she sure as hell couldn't do thing one to save it.

  “Mars 1, I'm getting a massive signal from M 31, probably the central region. Can you confirm?”

  Five minutes out, and who knew how long a Tank-delay? The man had no sense of urgency. None. Zero.

  That lag period went by in a flash however. Sachiko was busy triple checking and adjusting. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the radio sounded off. “Shaky, you're not kidding. I see the gravity waves. They're ginormous. I don't have a visual. It's just past planet dawn, here. Sorry, kiddo. I'm trying to see what my teeny-tiny radio telescope can detect. I'll holler at you if I get anything.”

  Nitwit, flashed angrily in her head. Uncharitable? You bet. But she needed Speedy Gonzales, not some cowboy with his dusty boots up on the table.

  The CCD images from the eight meter were getting sharper. A cloud must have passed by earlier. She studied the galaxy. Nothing out of the ordinary. Tight spiral arms with that distinctive intensely bright center region. No signs of a supernova. She spun her chair to the gamma readings. The initial peak was dropping quickly. Damn. There might not be another and she hadn't seen anything unusual, only large. Nothing that would yield a lead article in Science magazine.

  Blessedly free of chatter, Tank had sent further gravimetrics. She recalculated the triangulation. There, definitely the dead center of the Andromeda galaxy. Whatever was happening was coming from there. Maybe the supermassive black hole at M 31's center was colliding with something equally big? She went back to the CCD images, coning in on the galactic core. Nothing for sure. Maybe a bright spot to one side …

  The gamma detector's audio alarms blared. Those had never come on. She jumped to that screen. Fifty orders of magnitude higher readings than the last one. Maybe more. The sensors were saturated. Sachiko never knew that was possible. Crap, crap, crap, she thought. This could be a crisis. Should she call the president? No, why would the White House believe her and not hang up? Crap.

  “Mars 1, the gamma signal just pegged redline. Please confirm. The source has to be the supermassive black hole right in the center of M 31. Please check for visual or radio confirmation.”

  She dropped the microphone she'd unconsciously grabbed. Her hands were trembling too fiercely and were too wet to hold on to the damn thing. She fidgeted with a few dials and tried to calm herself, again, by breathing deeply. Get a hold of yourself, she berated herself. You cannot fall apart. This is your shot, your career moment.

  “Tank,” she continued, “make sure you're recording everything. Focus all your instruments on the supermassive black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy. I know you can't get the massive gamma burst, but please make sure you get these gravity waves, They're the biggest I've ever seen. Confirm receipt please.”

  She leaned back against the wall and wrapped herself in her arms, rocking slowly. She lost track of time. Sachiko no longer saw the flashing lights or heard the alarms. She …

  *********

  “Ah, Shaky, are you alright? This is Ted, up here on Mars, you know? I'm looking at M 31, but I'm a little confused, honey? I think your signal was clear, but it sounded like you referred to the, and I quote, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy. And I'm looking there, but I'm seeing guess what? Nada. Nothing's going on in M 31 as far as I can tell. The gamma ray readings are off the scale small, not large, at least here on Mars.

  “Shaky, is this an astronomy joke? You know there is no supermassive black hole at the An
dromeda galaxy. It's hollow, empty, vacant, no one's home and the lights're off. It's always been like that. Please confirm your message and that you're not smokin' what I'm lacking up here. Ted out.”

  What was that idiot blithering about? Sachiko stomped her foot repeatedly on the floor in frustration, until it hurt. How could she perform scientific research when she was dependent on an ape like Ted for assistance? What the hell was he teasing her for? Could he be so bored he'd make up the fact she didn't know the center of M 31 was a complete void for a diameter of one hundred parsecs? It was that way in 1612 when Simon Marius first turned a telescope on the galaxy. Why the galaxy had a donut hole for a center was one of the most elusive questions in all of science. But she wasn't even working on M 31, that night. She was working on nothing, because that's what was happening, in both the skies, and in her career. Sachiko decided not to dignify Ted's practical joke with a response. She'd maybe mention it to Tank, though. Ted's immature behavior was getting out of bounds. As was his mindless blithering.

  TWO

  Being summoned to the dean's office was never a good thing. Invited, asked to pop by, or an appointment having been scheduled, sure. Sachiko didn't like the woman, but she was tolerable in tiny snippets. Alice Greyson was the very picture of an ambitious, politically determined, academic bitch. But Alice was obliged to give at least lip service to the encouragement of other women in science. Not that Alice's scientific contributions were more than footnotes. No, she published just the minimum to get promoted far enough that production numbers no longer mattered. Fortunately, for someone as non-threatening as Sachiko, Alice was outwardly a grand supporter. She read her correctly the very first time they'd met. Sachiko wanted the Nobel Prize, not her chair. She was allowed to live in Alice's academic zoo.