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Introduction:
Amy is a mute child with a powerful gift and a certainty that the future has been cancelled. Marielle is a beautiful revolutionary with a passion for mechanical men. Lydia is a five-thousand year-old ghost with a hunger for vengeance. And Earth has only got five minutes—REAL TIME—to live. Across twisted Time dimensions (and a universe with a flower garden) battles, schemes and twists unravel. This story is a satiric Science-Fiction drama, proudly exhibiting absolutely no respect whatsoever for politicians.
It describes the events which lead up to Earth’s death; a catastrophic annihilation, but a peculiar one, amost trivial. Because it unfolded in the most bizarre way, and no-one actually cared.
Only a bottle-blonde pop star could possibly bring it back to life.
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FULL SYNOPSIS:
When the Tsar and Tsarina Romanov were executed during the Russian revolution of 1918, the Tsarina Alexandra died only in so much as a physical way: her spirit lived to witness the brutality of her children’s' execution. Unable to find peace or rest within her fierce hatred, her spirit became lost in a timeless void, searching for any means by which she might exact revenge.
Over a century later, in the week of May Bank Holiday 2019, a convoy of Earth shuttles departed Cape Canaveral on a mission. Though there had been many previous missions, this expedition had a larger and more complex agenda. The fleet EXPLORER was to set up the first colonisation programme on Mars, and during its trip was also to photographically record the mysterious approach of a vast burning meteorite which had registered on Earth's farthest reaching scanners.
Shortly after launch the entire fleet EXPLORER disappeared from Houston's tracking system. Unbeknown to the avid watchers on Earth, the fleet had incredibly taken a 'wrong turning', and vanished into a spatial abyss.
Within the complex structure of the universe, there was a wholly reasonless and malignant force, which altered the navigation of the fleet for its own purposes. The fleet was sent spinning through a time warp...an anomaly later to be known as The Canal. Thus the 240 crew of EXPLORER wandered without volition into an altogether different form of galaxy than anything they had previously heard of. Fifteen years later they came upon their first planet sighting since leaving Earth. Lacking any alternative, they put down on this planet, and, in time, colonised it. They named it Excel, and it was soon governed by a new and naively optimistic order, one destined in five-thousand years to become Earth's biggest threat.
The furious spirit of Alexandra Romanov found a new home on this planet - it was an ideal situation from which she could plot her revenge.
After taking spiritual possession of an innocent young woman, Lydia Brinskof, Alexandra renamed herself 'the Tsarina, Empress Lydia Romanov', and in short time became the planet's overlord. Her autocracy was absolute and ruthless, and with the assistance of a mystic named Damellhine, Alexandra then restyled Excel to suit her own perverse tastes: effectively, she created a duplicate Russia. As for the murder of her children, her plan of vengeance was uncomplicated, merciless - to deflect the burning meteorite directly towards Earth. It was the only certain way she could utterly destroy the planet.
Excel itself was on the verge of rebellion. Chief amongst the Empress's enemies was the Shevik movement, which had fashioned itself on library data from Earth's history books. The Shevik's honorary leader - their figurehead - was none other than the Empress's eldest child, who despised Lydia's inhumane government. On learning that Lydia planned to destroy Earth, this thorn in Lydia's side knew that Earth must be warned of its impending doom.
Chased across Time dimensions by Excel's Starfleet, the fugitive has not only to avoid capture and execution, but must outrun the approaching meteorite. The fugitive also carries a unique computer disk which, once translated by an Earth computer, is the only hope for the planet's salvation.
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CHAPTER EXCERPT: by the story's narrator, Adelphi Galvuurt
When a mother loses a child in violent circumstances her anger and bitterness are impossible to measure. It goes beyond possible and becomes indeed feasible that those emotions may transcend her physical being, her mortal restrictions. Perhaps a mother whose baby is trapped beneath the wheels of a car is not at all surprised by her own strength, as desperation fires adrenaline through her and she lifts the car off her child as though it were made of nothing more substantial than a dream.
Yet her rage, if further provoked, could make such a feat insignificant.
A grieving mother is capable of much more, capable of ungodly miracles, of mocking the impossible. She may reach beyond her Earthly limitations and—if agonised by needles of malice—may mock the very universe itself.
So it was with Alexandra Romanov, Tsarina at the court of the Romanovs in the revolutionary days of Russia. Her children were murdered at the height of that revolution, and in response she shaped a universe into a tool of vengeance, a weapon of destruction.
Her motives need little justification.
It was July 1918 when she witnessed the murder of her children by the Bolsheviks. And then watched her own death—her spirit released from the bullet-ridden mess that had been her body. It may have been the will of God or the will of some devil which then transported Alexandra’s spirit through Time, through space, and into another universal dimension.
Yet there is no one to testify that it even really happened.
All that is understood to be fact is that a woman once known as Lydia Brinskof became the hateful, feared ruler of a new planet in that dimension. But where the link betwixt fact and fable becomes confused is in the claim—a legend so assertive that it might have been burned into a tablet of stone—that Lydia Brinskof’s power stemmed from the fountain of Alexandra Romanov’s hatred, and rose to supremacy from the moment at which the spirit of Alexandra possessed her.
If this is true it explains a lot—for Tsarina Alexandra Romanov was a spirit lusting with anger, with malice, and with an absolutely lurid desire for vengeance.
*
My name is Adelphi Galvuurt, a resident of the city of Archangel on that new planet which is now 5,000 years older and wiser. By the time this publication reaches you on Earth, you will have charted my home, Excel, on your star maps. This planet is situated in the region of lost space known as the Ulterior Dimension.
My dimension of Time and yours are separated by two things: a span of fifty centuries, and the 'miracle' of a bereaved mother's temper. This is the year 7020 and it is approaching Christmas, a time at which, perversely, I find myself quite comfortable, though still bone-deep ashamed of my misguided and cowardly duplicity in the events which are about to unfold. I play a small part in these events, but would like you to know that my chief role herein is as narrator and sneak. My narrative is unerringly facetious. My comedy whimsical. My prose promiscuous. But my motives as perfect as the guilt which inspired me.
On occasion I shall interrupt the narrative to offer Supplements, providing some detail of the birth and evolvement of this planet and this location of Time, neither of which would've been possible were it not for you, Mother Earth.
Typical, I suppose, in that tragic way, how you parented us, and we, the new order, tried our utmost to destroy you.
I have an excuse –
– we had an angry mother to rule us, and to make for us decisions that were cruel and irrevocable.
The tale is punctuated by contributions from Empress Lydia Brinskof-Romanov, who was our doyen, our unforgiving ruler. Here she allows me extracts from her personal journal, a diary written across five-thousand years. It explains much about the burden of hatred, and about the duty of vengeance.
The fortunes (or misfortunes) of Earth, Jupiter, and Excel are the cards which Fate dealt Lydia, and with which she opened her play for revenge.
Lydia –
Of course she is an amazing woman, an impossible woman, as unreal and as untouchable as the farthest star of any galaxy. She may be a god's miracle or a devil's fool. But above all things she is most certainly mad.
Along with further contributions which appear at intervals, her diary entries will show why certain impossible circumstances almost brought All Time to an end—
– because despite the best efforts of so many brave souls, this story describes the death of planet Earth, which happened in the week of May Bank Holiday 2019.
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