1:4:10 Crait (Part 1)

Silence. She hadn’t spoken since. For that matter, she hadn’t woken up since either. She slept the sleep of the dead. Sam had tried everything to wake her again but it had no effect; she just slept. Deep and relaxed. After an hour or so, they decided it would be best to just leave her. All hands were needed elsewhere so they just let her sleep, the answers could wait.

She tumbled through her dreams. Endless worlds surrounding her as she fell through a completely imperceivable mess of lights and feelings until she was eventually caught by the sands of her past. It was warm and relaxing as the orange sands contoured and accommodated her perfectly as she dug in slightly. She didn’t want to move. She felt as though she had just finished running a marathon. A shot of adrenaline sparked up her back, instantly revitalising her. She sparked to her feet, frantically scouring her surroundings; it didn’t take much for her to work out where she was: Quatarr. Narrowing her eyes helped her to see under the blazing suns but, in doing so, she was able to see small imperfections in her environs. There was something off about where she was. Winds whipped the sand at her feet into tiny tornadoes which moved in perfect circles until they didn’t. After a metre or so of travel, they appeared to bounce off of seemingly nothing. Char crouched down to grab a handful of sand only to find her hand encased in her cannon. She remained there in stunned silence until she thought she heard something. A whisper on the wind. Using her free hand, Char grabbed up some sand and threw it against the invisible wall.
“Simulation.” She thought out loud. “End simulation.”
It had no effect and somehow, without trying further, she knew it never would. The whisper passed her by again, this time loud enough to follow. Ear first, she walked as silently as her combat gear would allow, listening. As she travelled, she could feel herself getting closer but still, somehow, the whisper remained at the same volume. She took a moment to get her bearings. She knew the route. Char looked down at her wrist. The text on the display made no sense. She looked away then back. Still nonsense but different this time. Third time and, while the text had changed again, it still made frighteningly little sense but it didn’t matter, she had a pretty good idea if when and where she was supposed to be. Out of the valley and the plane stretched before her. Each side snaked with trenches, littered with spent weapons and soldiers. A dome of light loomed overhead. The guns had fallen silent on both sides, the fighting was over for the day.

Something moved ahead. Something quick. As it ran, it kicked up a great deal of the nearby sand. The closer it came, the more recognisable it became as a humanoid; the details only became clearer. Whoever they were, they weren’t Quatarrian. They ran with the poise of a penguin with its arse on fire. The figure stopped just a metre ahead of her, wheezing and doubled over, catching their breath. After a moment, they wrenched themselves back up. Char looked at them. They were quite clearly not Quatarrian, they were far too pink. Their attire also didn’t scream local; black and blue hide jacked with polymer plating adorning their shoulders. A mop of orange hair draped across the right side of their face. That narrowed their identity down. Char could only recall one non-Quatarrian on the planet at that point and they weren’t on her side; not that she was on her side entirely either. The human came a step closer. She instinctively raised her cannon. It glowed with golden light as she tensed her hand and readied it to fire but the human didn’t seem bothered. They stood there, staring at one another; neither moving for the longest time. That was until the human took another step forward. Char clamped her free hand onto the cannon to stabilise it.
The human’s eyes glowed white. “Hello… Char…” Their speech was stilted and slow. “We… Know each other… Let… Me… Prove it…” They held out their hand.
Char back-pedalled but didn’t drop her weapon. “Who are you?”
“I’m Lore.” They spoke calmly and quietly. Again they raised their hand to her face. The light from their eyes was pouring from their fingertips. “You can trust me.”
For some reason, Char knew that she could. Lowering her cannon, she stepped forward and lowered her head. Contact. The light flowed through her and, as it did, memories of days not yet passed filled her mind. Subconscious and conscious mind flipped as Char’s waking mind was seemingly dragged into her dream world.
“Lore!” She jumped at them. “Is it really you?”
They nodded. “I don’t quite know how, I heard this whispering and then, it sort of just sorted itself out.”
“What’s sorted itself out?” Char looked around, confused at the detail of both her dream and the simulation within it.
“After Johned, I woke up here. It’s almost over but, it’s lasting longer than I remember.” Lore started. “I think it has something to do with us or at least me being here. Then I heard the whisper and it was like I was on auto-pilot. I needed to find you and touch you.”
“What have you done?” Char looked at her wrist. The display made sense. “Am I actually here?”
“I don’t think so. I think I’ve temporarily brought your consciousness back to this version of you to teach the present version of you about your power but I’m not sure.” There was a flicker of green across their iris. “You’ll be going back to wherever you came from in a moment.”
“Where and when are you, so we can come and get you?” Char looked around. “Oh. Okay, when are you?”
“The last day. I’ll stick around after the timeloop ends. You’ll know where I am.” Lore nodded. “I love you.” They leant in for a kiss. Char reciprocated. As she did, the white light left her body and so did she.

The medical room was far colder than Quatarr had been. Char’s mind raced at a kilometre a minute. She sat, bolt upright in her bed, eyes wide, trying to absorb and understand what had just happened to her. Memories she had thought forgotten or non-existent played on loop in her mind. Before whatever happened, she had only seen one part of the war, her betrayal and treasonous retreat but now, she remembered it all. All except the last day. It hit her all at once. Twenty-nine days of gore and blood. Twenty-nine days of learning about the horrors the Regenerator weapons could cause. Twenty-nine days of anger. She hadn’t realise her hand had completely crushed the assistance call button, her fingers were wrapped so tight around it their tips were turning red. Eventually, Sam returned. They came in and were almost immediately struck by the reason the call hadn’t gone through properly.
“You only need to tap the button. That’s a little too much.” Sam came in and rested his hand on her shoulder, sitting beside her. “What’s the matter?”
Char shrugged them away. “Lore. They went missing on Johned. I think they’re trapped in The Three Year Month.”
Sam chuckled. “You’ve probably just had a bit of a bad dream. No wonder…” Sam got back up. “Whenever or wherever you’ve been, it can’t of been easy for you to have gotten back. You were absolutely brimming with Tempora radiation. Blooming good thing you’re a Quatarrian it is.”
“Tempora? How long was I out?” She waggled her fingers and toes.
“Not long…” Sam watched her, confused. “Just over fourteen hours. You’re lucky, we’re almost there.” Sam activated a nearby screen and displayed their flight path. “We’ll be entering orbit in five minutes or so.”

The Occam’s Razor cut through the nebula’s gasses like a hot knife through butter. Johned was below them and The Slingshot was a stone’s throw away. As it came to rest, the ship’s scanners came to life.
“Strange.” Potts stared at the screen before inviting Truly over. “Get a look at that.”
“Is this current?” Truly tried remodulating the scanners but got the same result.
Potts nodded. “I’ve got us connected directly to The Slingshot’s internal scanners. Somehow, there’s nine life signs in there.”
“Have you scanned the rest of the campus yet?” Truly set to work doing exactly that just in case.
“No. You think there could be more?” Potts watched as three more life signs appeared on the map. “Looks like they’re trying to access the secondary controls.”
“Are the Amalgam active?” Truly flicked through her available data.
“They are…” Potts did the maths in their head. “About a third of them are at least.” They paused. “And they’re doing bugger all.”
“I’m sounding the alarm.” Trudy waited for them to give her a confirmatory nod before she hit the third big red button on her left. Suddenly, they were plunged into darkness. “Sorry, must have accidentally hit the panic switch. I honestly don’t know why you lot chose to have an array of big red buttons in the first place.”
If she could have seen them, she would have seen a look of disgusted disappointment. “They’re satisfying. Plus the alarm is literally the only labelled button on there.” Potts brought the power back online then pressed the alarm themselves, pushing the second big red button on Truly’s left.