A few minutes later, they reached planetary orbit.
But everything was… wrong.
Because Terra and Luna were… intact.
The planet—blue and calm.
Its moon—not blown to shit,
looking like no cosmic war had ever happened 900 years ago.
Phoenix, surprised—for the first time in his existence:
“Hm… that is strange.
Very strange.”
Blindy was already hysterical:
“WHAT’S STRANGE, RUST BUCKET?!
TALK NORMAL!
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!”
Phoenix, quietly, without panic:
“Captain…
it’s as if Terra has been put on silent mode.”
Blindy panicked, his hysteria shooting straight into I’m about to pass out levels.
“WHA—WHAAAAAT?!
WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN—”
Phoenix continued with clinical calm:
“It means, Captain,
I detect no radio signals.
No technological noise.
No stations.
No pulses of civilization.”
Blindy howled:
“OH NO—no—no-no-no!
HUMANS—THEY—THEY FINALLY WIPED EACH OTHER OUT!
THAT’S IT—THAT’S IT!
WE—WE’RE EXTINCT—AND—
AND THERE’S NO ONE LEFT—
TO EVEN PUT US IN THE RED BOOK—
THAT’S—THAT’S IT!
THE END—
THE END OF HUM—”
Phoenix cut him off:
“Wait.
If that were the case, we would see debris.
Thousands of fragments.
Signs of war.
Radiation on orbit.
But… nothing.”
He paused for a second, then:
“Look at Luna.
It is intact.
Not covered in colonies.
No domes.
Empty.
Like… ancient.”
And then finished:
“And Sol…
0.00004% brighter than expected.
As if… younger.”
Zeros snapped his gaze upward:
“PHOENIX. DID YOU. FUCKING. MAKE A TIME JUMP?”
A short pause. Phoenix, quietly—almost embarrassed:
“Uh…
There is… a possibility.
Microscopic… around… 98.99%.”
Blindy could barely breathe:
“WE—WE’RE IN THE PAST?!
HOW FAR—HOW FAR BACK?!
HOW FAR, FUCK?!”
Phoenix, still completely calm:
“Calculations will take time.
But I’m afraid we entered hyperspace in the year 3479…
and exited… most likely somewhere between the 8th and 1st centuries BCE.”
And then Blindy, pale as death:
“Holy shit…
we got—
we got slapped through time—
back to mommy Terra—
fucking FOUR THOUSAND YEARS—
AGO—
BEFORE JESUS—THE GOD HIMSELF—
WE NEED TO—
WE NEED TO GO BACK—
BACK TO THE FUTURE—!”
Zeros, calm as ever:
“No panic.
To go back to the future… shit… to our time,
we need the exact date. Right?”
Phoenix, like a professor-scientist:
“Correct.
And with an error margin no greater than one hour—not a year.
Otherwise the deviation could throw us hundreds—maybe thousands—of years off.
And we might end up in a future that hasn’t even happened for us yet.
Wouldn’t be ideal to drop out of hyper inside some cosmic bullshit—like a neutron star or a black hole.
We actually got lucky this time.
Because everything is moving,
even when it looks like nothing is moving.
You follow me, gentlemen?”
Blindy covered his face with both hands, trying to calm down:
“NO—RUSTY.
I DON’T—
I DON’T FOLLOW SHIT.”
Zeros said calmly:
“Alright.
Drop the ship to the troposphere. I’m going down.
I’ll figure out the century or the year. Then I’ll be back.”
Phoenix asked shortly:
“Where?”
Zeros answered just as shortly:
“Don’t give a fuck,
I’ll be quick. In and out.
No reason for us to walk around in the past
and mess with the timeline.”