The Scars of The Passed

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Looking through the window of what was left of our ships, I was deafened by these screams, blinded by the sight my own face staring back at me, maimed by the movement of my own body howling back at me, imploring me to explain why I had killed me. I lay there, watching my own self die. Watching my future self die with the knowledge that one day I may be on the other side of the emptiness between our ships, staring back at the younger version of me, wondering why I had killed me. Would I remember this moment from my perspective or will I change too much to clearly understand my current decisions, my current eudaimonic ennui?

It hadn’t always been this way. I hadn’t always been so cynical and destructive. Looking at my now lifeless corpse, I recognised the future version I had killed off had carried that childish optimism to his grave. I had lost mine many years ago.

I didn’t want to admit to myself that this future version of me had turned away from me earlier sometime. He had to be closer to me than that. He had known exactly where to be to get the jump on me, ambushing me through the hidden diversion that Dr Alfonso Maltadese’s burning cruiser created for him, for me. He had that information. The information that I had sought to steal Maltadese’s research before leaving the old dog to rot in space. He knew when and where. No one else had that knowledge.

No one but me could have known that. Could it be that I, at some point in my future or even in my past for that matter, I had betrayed my own journey and released that seditious information against my own self? Surely not.

He had known exactly where and when to be though. That is how he got the jump on me. That is how he was able to disable most of my ship with only a few well-placed shots. He just blasted through my ship, I was rendered helpless to defend myself, only able to run, to flee from a fight I did not see coming.

He must have thought he had me. Thankfully, some sort of fate intervened. Even though I didn’t see the first attack coming, by chance or dumb luck, I did see the second. As I was trying to push what was left of my ship away from this traitorous version of me, a chill ran down my spine by the sudden absence of blasts deafeningly destroying my ship. I turned to see crewmembers battling a fire and caught a slight glimpse of him, of me.

I couldn’t believe the sight of him: me, teletransporting onto the hallway to the bridge. The shiny black shoes of mine were what I noticed first. Shoes that I never wore as I didn’t really like them, they had been sitting in the bottom at the back of my cupboard for years. I only ever wore them when they were the only option, when my other shoes had worn out or something. Whenever I did wear them, I reminded myself of a friend and neighbour I used to know many years ago. Jim, or maybe Kym was his name. He wore that type of shoe. I didn’t really like him. He was ever the self-serving intellectual. He would make decisions and use people in a way profitable to him, but mean-spirited to anyone else reviewing the situation. I would never have made decisions like he did. I didn’t like that a pair of shoes could sway my confidence in my belief in this point so strongly. Why would me wearing those shoes change my personality and identity so much? It seemed impossible, a stupid thing to believe. Even so, I chose not to wear those shoes just to be sure, but also chose not to throw them out because that would be silly. That would be admitting that there is some truth to me making selfish decisions at times.

Then I saw those purple slacks that hung in my cupboard above the shoes. I had not worn them in many years. They were too small. I hadn’t thrown them out as I believed I would fit back into them one day. And here he was, I was, wearing them. They didn’t look good. No amount of time running and cycling and dieting and whatevering could return my lower half to times before decades of sloth and beer. They made me look like that divorced friend, cheated on by lovers and by life itself out of such a mediocre existence that being able to fit into pants one wears as a teenager could in some way make up for.

The realisation of what he was doing hit me coldly and rationally. The arrogance of this guy to leave his ship in the middle of a battle, to teletransport himself onto my defenceless ship as both ships where traveling faster than four parsecs an hour. He must truly be desperate, or insane.

“All stop!” I yelled to the con.

“But sir?” queried ensign Jasmine.

“Do it now!”

The ship came to a shuddering stop. The future, arrogant version of me, with his Kym shoes and purple pants was sent hurtling off into open space as his figure materialised fully.

His ship came to a total stop as well, started blasting us again while desperately searching for its captain. This would take them some time, time that he didn’t have much left of. He was adrift in space, screaming without sound.

We all looked on, wondering if he would be returned to his ship in time. How long can a person stand in space, without protection, oxygen, heat or anything? Surely not very long. My crew were fascinated. The surety of imminent fiery death had been replaced by an empathetic fascination of the suffocating silence of our enemy and creator of this narrowly avoided fiery death.

Most of my ship’s systems were unresponsive. Navigation and propulsion were online. Shields and targeting were down. If his ship found him in time, they would have to lower their shields to rescue him. I wonder if they were as arrogant as he was. Would they believe us to not be a threat due to the damage they had done in their cowardly ambush? We hadn’t hit them more than a few times, probably not doing anything too damaging.

They had found him. They dropped their shields to rescue him, or his corpse. Transportation devices were still online.

“Ensign Rika, please transport three warheads directly to that ship’s engine bay” I ordered.

Ensign Rika, previously fascinated by watching an older version of her captain slowly die, sprung to life at that command, happy to be part of a simple, yet effective response to us being attacked so cowardly.

No sooner had Rika punched in the directives to her station than a ripping shriek tore through the other ship, slapping it down like the cold hand of fate. It broke into four bigger pieces and thousands of little ones, the biggest one being thrown straight at us, like the universe presenting us with an answer to a question we had not asked and had not understood.

So, there I was, staring into the mostly lifeless version of myself. Watching him die and all his hopes return to the vast emptiness of space.

An alert came through. “Well done, but you must leave immediately”.

While I was keen to assess the damage to my ship, and perhaps go fossicking for clues and trinkets on his ship, I obeyed the request. It had been right every time.

A loud rumble rocked the ship, like a donkey in metal pants was dry humping a yacht. I looked up. I smelled that faint, familiar smell of burning power as the timeline before me perished. The destruction to my ship completely disappearing before my eyes, injuries on crewmen vanishing. I had seen this happen eleven times before: first that sound, that rumble bringing on a faint smell of burning metal, burning power and then all the chaos in front of me starting to lose focus, waiver and then finally fade into nothing but the shooting pain running down the scar on my left cheek.

Eleven times this pain had knocked me to my knees. Eleven times I had been helpless to its wrath. Eleven times I grew in confidence that I could beat it. Eleven times I knew I couldn’t.

I cannot remember the first time I heard this pain knocked me to my helplessness. The scar came from that first time, I think. That is the time that I need to find, to understand how I changed away from where I should be, or when I should be. The timeline that represents who I am was taken from me by something, someone as yet unknown to me. I try to see who it is but the face is too blurry. The more I try to focus on him, the more his image slips away; like his likeness is mocking my memory. Then he looks like me. Like my father, an older version of me, but at the same time not kin…cold and sinister.