"I'll say one thing about this planet," stated Kira as he looked around him. "I think it needs another couple hundred thousand years to fix itself."
Kira, Nige and Benton had arrived on this uncharted planet in the Kelvan's home galaxy a little over three hours ago. The air on the planet was thin and stale to say the least. Fortunately, they had brought along a complement of environmental suits in order to brave the unknown elements that existed on this identical replica of the Iconians' gateway in their own Galaxy.
"If it wasn't for the barrier that was provided by the neutrino emissions of the gateway this portion of the planet would have been stripped clean by the wave of radiation that destroyed the remainder of this galaxy," stated Benton as he busied himself with assembling the subspace transponder that would signal the Kelvans in this galaxy once they had transported back in time.
"How much longer do you need, Kira?" asked Nige as he tried to contain his impatience with the situation. Unlike Benton, whose part in this mission was crucial, i.e. setting up the transponder, communicating with the Kelvans, and trying to secure them transport once they arrived at their final destination, Nige was solely there to monitor Kira as he transported them back in time.
With a wry smile on his face that told Nige he understood his motivation, Kira responded in a calm, quiet voice. "Not much longer."
For some reason, ever since the three had arrived, each of them had been speaking very little if at all while they were in the chamber; and even when they needed to speak to each other they only managed low, quiet tones. The mood in this chamber was solemn at best. Kira couldn't help but wonder what this place looked like in its heyday. If they succeeded, Kira could see his wish fulfilled. The Iconian society may still have existed during the time that they were trying to transport back to. Kira wondered how the Iconians had managed to travel not only throughout one galaxy, but also through two of them. Maffei I was a considerable distance away from the Milky Way, but the gateway had managed to take them there without any problems. The gateway system must have been larger than anyone knew.
Arousing himself from his thoughts, Kira straightened his posture and stretched out the muscles in his back. He had managed to absorb quite a lot of energy while they were on this planet entombed in the gate room, and now it was time to start the process of opening a temporal rift.
"Nige, Benton, I'm ready to begin."
*Finally* thought Nige as he quickly searched about for his tricorder in order to monitor Kira's vital signs for any sign of trouble during the process.
Never having witnessed Kira use this particular ability, Benton looked at Kira and Nige and asked, "What do we do?"
"You two will need to stand as close to me as you can. When I begin the process of opening the temporal rift a lot of debris might be kicked up. The last time I did this on a planet surface it wasn't a simple walk through a vortex; it was more like being pulled through a tidal wave by the merest thread."
"Sounds lovely," said Benton in response to the unnerving and quizzical explanation that the Commander had given to his question.
"Hopefully, I'll be able to control the vortex a bit better now that I'm more comfortable with my abilities. Still, even I would urge caution, as I've never attempted something this far-reaching."
Kira paused a moment to take one last look around him before walking over to the nearby gateway and placing his hand on the machine. All around them the already-dim lights in the room began to grow dimmer than they were. A thin blue phosphorescent layer began to show up around Kira's form that seemed to be growing in intensity and brightness.
"Hold on to me," ordered Kira as he continued absorbing enough energy from the gateway to begin to form the vortex.
Against their better instincts, both Nige and Benton took firm grips on each of Kira's shoulders and planted their feet firmly in the ground they were standing upon. Strangely enough, the blue energy field that was surrounding Kira crept up each of their arms and then progressed to engulf all three of them within a matter of moments.
"Kira...," said Nige in a worried tone.
"It's okay, Tyran," said Kira in a reassuring, yet concentrated tone. "I need to envelop both of you in my bioelectric field in order to take us out of temporal phase."
Nige found the sensation of being enveloped in hundreds of terawatts of energy a bit unnerving, yet he didn't seem to feel any different while he was within Kira's field. He looked down at his tricorder to make sure that Kira was doing okay, and found that it was momentarily useless. Its own energy reserves were being drained by Kira at the same time as the gateway, just in a much smaller scale. Kira probably wasn't even aware that he was doing it.
As he looked up from his tricorder he was greeted by a disturbing, yet awe inspiring sight: a black and purple swirling cloud was forming a couple of meters away from the officers. Every once in a while, short bursts of blue-white energy bolts skirted across the edges of the cloud, causing it to expand bit by bit. Nige looked over at Kira's face to see if he could discern what was happening to him by his expression. Fortunately, Kira seemed quite calm at the moment; yes, he was in deep concentration, but he didn't look as though he was in any pain or extreme effort.
Nige brought back his attention to the forming temporal vortex, which had expanded to almost a meter in diameter while he was looking at Kira. He could almost see through to the other side of the disturbance if he concentrated hard enough. But for some reason he couldn't discern any specific shapes through the swirling cloud of energy. But, after a few more moments, he could begin to see more clearly through the haze, as the vortex managed to continue growing at a slow but steady rate. In a few more moments it would be large enough for the three of them to go through it.
"Give me a few more seconds," said Kira, as he strove to keep his mind concentrated on enlarging the opening in time.
Nige was startled back to reality by the words of his long time friend. He realized that he had been mesmerized by the vortex and had forgotten to look at anything else around him for an unknown length of time. Kira was definitely showing signs of mental and physical strain now. His brow was damp with sweat, his eyes were tightly shut, and his jaw was clenched in a look of pure concentration. The Iconian gateway had long ago stopped functioning as a transportation system. Every once in awhile it would try to lock on to another gateway in its network, only to hold the image for a brief second before shutting down again. With a loud pop, the system was drained of its remaining power.
Kira finally opened his eyes to survey the scene before him. The vortex was stable at the moment, but it wouldn't be for long. Through the exhaustion he blinked his eyes and shook his head. He stood a little taller only for a brief moment and moved his arms to hold on to Nige and Benton tightly about their shoulders.
"Hurry!" was the only word that he could manage to say, as he quickly motioned them to gather their supplies and start walking toward the vortex.
Without letting go of Kira, Benton reached down and picked up the transponder near his frame and held it close to him. Nige, taking his cue from Benton picked up the three packs beside him that belonged to Kira, Benton and him and also held them tight to his chest in preparation for the journey through time.
Kira was getting tired, as could be evidenced by the rapidly decreasing protective field that was dissipating around their bodies. Nige noticed this and shouted to Benton over the din of noise that was starting to rise from the vortex. "Hold him! We're going to have to carry him in!"
Benton nodded his understanding and moved to support Kira's weight between him and Nige. As the two officers carried the third between them, they hurried across the room as quickly as possible, fighting a large wind that was beginning to swirl around the disturbance.
Not wasting any time, the three stepped up to the vortex and collectively walked into the event horizon, bracing themselves for whatever might come. As soon as they had touched the edge of the disturbance, an unseen force violently pushed them forward and drew them through it. In a flash of light, energy and deafening noise the three crewmen were blasted through time. Within the briefest moment they all landed in a heap in the gate room that looked the same, yet different.
There were people in the gate room that they landed in. This Nige was sure of, because even though he was temporarily knocked senseless by the voyage, he didn't stay so for very long. He was tired for some reason. No..., more than tired. Even more than exhausted. Just as he felt himself slipping back into a comfortable unconsciousness, he felt strong hands lift him up from the heap that he helped form with Kira and Lieutenant Benton. He tried to open his eyes, and succeeded for the briefest of seconds before he blacked out again. He saw the face of a very beautiful creature before him whose eyes he could have stared into for an eternity. Those eyes conveyed a deep concern for his well being behind their stare. With this final image burned in his memory, Tyran felt his body go limp and his mind lull off into a comfortable state of unconsciousness.