The promise of eternity lures fragile souls to hell and back;
Despite the great uncertainty, they venture out into the black
To Kronos’ very cradle, bound by seven gleaming rings
(According to the fable—that’s how one hears about these things).
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When all are in alignment, a gate in time will open wide;
The traveller’s assignment—to synchronize with heavenly tides
And venture on to vistas and eons far beyond his ken
With dinosaurs, ballistas, or lifts to space and back again.
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Adventurers from every age cross paths at Kronos openings:
A chronicler, a lonely sage, a cyborg with magnetic wings.
Von Neumann probes build graphene roads and atriums for all to meet,
Swap knowledge in forgotten codes, admire their motley space-borne fleet:
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Ceramic Atlantean Clams, Greek disks of whirling bronze,
Pyramid-launched golden rams, great spheres of hexagons,
Winged chariots and diamond pods glisten side by side
With monuments to would-be gods who got it wrong and died.
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Space Force vets with epaulettes and an Egyptian scribe
Share pranks they played on their cadets, beers and friendly jibes.
The nexus knows a language that’s understood by all,
So everyone can manage to converse in those great halls.
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This gateway turned oasis, where everyone is free,
Becomes the catastasis of time travel’s history.
From within it takes a year for those rings to align,
While outside that weird sphere rush thirty years of time.
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As New Kronos Day is nigh, fond farewells are said and heard;
Lone vessels launch into the sky to head back to the world:
Some going home, some aiming for a very different age,
When all of human life is at a very different stage.
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A wizened cyborg sits across from energetic youths,
Sharing pearls of wisdom and deep scientific truths.
“I brought you here to show you all the worth of your ideas,
And how they’ll shape the world in the next few hundred years.
“Full-flow staged combustion is a goal to work towards,
Like alternating current, it offers great rewards,
Or medical advances and machines for powered flight,
And those that take advantage of different kinds of light.
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“Don’t just focus on technology, but build up culture, too;
No brutal ideology, but what is beautiful and true;
Without a firm foundation, all our science comes to nought,
So implore your given nation to be noble in its thoughts,
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“Since the bitter scourge of envy longs to drag us to our deaths,
Tearing at each other with our ragged final breaths.
Stand strong in faith and mercy, and treasure every life;
Don’t give in to bullies and don’t revel in their strife.”
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The rings align, the gate admits a stream of battle drones.
“The replicants of Barnard’s Star!” The cyborg deeply groans.
“I thought we had destroyed them all in battle ten years back,
It seems a sleeper cell survived and snuck through to attack!
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“My ship will send a virus so they can’t tell friend from foe—
As they feast upon each other, we can land a knockout blow.”
His eyes flicker, then he pales. “These drones’ core systems are immune—
We must destroy them quickly, or this hallowed place is doomed.”
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A scarab vessel by the rings is swamped and then devoured;
Turned into more of those vile things, more ships are overpowered,
Adding to the deadly swarm as panic starts to spread;
“Fire every weapon platform, or we will all be dead!”
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Greek fire is hurled across the void, lightning and crystal splines.
“Activate the battle droids and gravitonic mines!”
They’re held in place in clusters to make for easy prey,
Then smashed by bunker busters that the Space Force sends their way.
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A second wave of drones arrives, and skirts around the mines,
Engaging powerful EM drives, they flood the battle lines;
Trident warheads shatter foes, strange nets ensnare and drain,
Yet still there seems no end of drones that break then charge again.
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They begin the fight outnumbered more than twelve to one,
The fallen deconstructed and rebuilt as hostile guns;
Skillful pilots decimate the swarms they can engage,
But weight of numbers seals the fates of heroes of their age.
Drones clamp onto the station, and burrow through its skin,
The Time Gate Association are now all sent scrambling
To deal with decompression and many deadly threats;
Some by their calm expression show they’re not afraid of death.
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A pre-Aztec super soldier, his arms bedecked with runes,
Rips fifteen drones asunder before he is consumed.
Fine art and noble sculptures from every age of man
Are torn down by those vultures in their horrifying plan
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To rend and build more of themselves like locusts on the plain,
Floors burn with a revolting smell as they burst through again.
Some alloys stand up better to their vaporizing beams,
While others melt like butter with accompanying screams.
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The landing bay is torn to shreds, the foyer’s overrun,
The station’s floors and walls are being transformed by the ton,
Smart missiles buy some precious time and shatter the first wave,
But still more come to turn these halls into an open grave.
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The cyborg sees another wave punch yet another hole,
And knows the single-minded horde is too close to its goal.
The three men hunched beside him have horror in their eyes;
He points to a hatch denied them by the weight of hostile fire,
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Then grabs a dull sphere from his hip and it begins to hum,
“You’ll have to help me to my ship after I throw this bomb;
We won’t have long, be brave and strong, my vessel will revive me,
Then we can thwart this vile throng, with you three there beside me.”
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He hurls the EMP grenade into the swarm of drones,
As it detonates, he feels a burning in his bones.
His machine half’s augmentations now only slow him down,
While all drones in the station fall and clatter to the ground.
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All the lights go dark, there’s just a luminescent glow
From the lichens in the park, all planted just for show.
Distant crashes indicate more drones are on the way,
The four negotiate the debris to the small hatchway.
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Two support their cyborg friend on shoulders young and strong,
It opens up and they descend to where his bones belong.
The airlock quickly cycles, they clamber through and stare
At the bizarre technologies for which they weren’t prepared.
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“No time for that,” he sternly warns and reaches for his seat,
The chair lights up, the cold air warms, the ship makes its retreat.
He flinches as his body’s functions start to come online,
“Once they control that junction, they can go back in time,
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Scour the earth before it can resist their horde of thralls,
And wipe out all our ancestors, so we never rise at all.
Their inhuman tenacity will be the end of man.”
Now back at full capacity, the cyborg shares his plan:
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“This place is lost, that much is clear, but mankind we can save
By turning this whole nexus here into their fiery grave.
I have transferred the guidance of the time gate to this ship;
With a little bit of science we can open up a rift
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And use the gate to siphon white-hot plasma from the sun—
An event horizon from which none of them can run.
This ship’s ablative shielding grants us seconds to break free
Through that fire unyielding, so with perfect timing we
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Could also make it back to Earth to warn the people there
Of the replicants’ rebirth so they can prepare,
And turn the tables on the fiends that built and sent that horde
So their world instead will be conquered by the sword.”
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The ship fires bursts of EMP to knock out nearby drones,
With luck the rest will not perceive them through the clouds of stone.
“The swarm’s attention seems to be still on the central dome;
With luck we have a chance to flee and reach our precious home.”
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A piercing electronic shriek ends thoughts of staying unseen,
A cloud of drones begins to streak towards them in a stream.
EMPs just blunt the lance and barely slow its pace,
They have a very meagre chance to win this sudden, deadly race.
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“Each man to an escape pod! If just one can make it through,
And get the warning out, by God, salvation is in view.
Each pod contains a message with all the facts we know,
So they can learn the lesson that we realised too slow.”
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“Ten seconds till the rift erupts, brace yourselves and hold!”
Then a great noise interrupts him that makes their blood run cold
Disintegration beams project across the deadly void;
Too many paths that intersect, too many to avoid,
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The starboard engine breaks apart with an almighty crash,
They’re thrown into a brutal spin and all their hopes are dashed.
The cyborg steadies their trajectory, then scowls at the news:
His escape pod’s fuselage is jammed in its launch tube.
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“What’s one less bleak escape route?” he comments with a grin,
Then fires the pod’s jets for their thrust and they break through the rim.
They’re catapulted through curved space as plasma rushes past,
Boiling off ceramic plates and burning drones to dust.
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The heat is indescribable, the turbulence insane,
Space unrecognizable when they emerge again.
A pearl of stellar gas is where the cradle used to be,
The rings are now a disc of shattered rock and mixed debris.
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No drones appear beside them, but before they celebrate
The ship is hurtled sideways at a truly startling rate.
A residual time vortex pulls them tumbling through the years;
The ship’s computer then projects just when they’ll reappear.
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“If we can judge this right, you’re going back to your own times.
Your pods should make earthfall alright—avoid a life of crime,
Encourage all your peers to learn and grow in righteousness;
That way the people can discern and overcome this mess.
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Inspire your fellow man to honour truths all men have known
Since humanity began with strength to stand up on his own.
Leave a legacy of virtue that others can enhance
So in that dreadful rendezvous, the Earth will stand a chance.”
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One by one the pods eject at intervals so planned
That each could redirect the world as history demands:
“Elon, build your fleet of rockets by 2035,
Nikola, your power sockets will help the world to thrive.”
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I hope da Vinci makes it back to 1643,
His mind will be a mighty boost to our world’s history.
With no pod for himself, the cyborg rides the vortex out,
Guides the ship on down toward land veiled with heavy clouds.
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It lands and sinks into a bog, he rescues what he can,
Builds a home of sturdy logs and sets about his plan:
He fabricates some sweeping robes and artificial skin
To cover up his quantum nodes and help him to blend in,
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Then copies out great literature from his stored memories
And sets out on a long search for a beneficiary.
Short-sighted peasants step aside in fear as he goes by,
Nobles’ power-hungry pride makes him groan and sigh.
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Wearied by his failures, he plans where next to explore,
Then notices a fair lad through his semi-open door.
The boy admires the library, “You are a man of learning.”
At last a man with eyes to see. “Yes. You may call me… Merlin.”