This was in response to my own prompt. There were a few pics to go with it.
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You can find part 1 here:
Time, in all it’s relative and undeniably certain glory, marching on relentlessly without any thought of wavering or stopping off to admire the view or take in some local cultural hotspots, was something the Great Galactic Mining Company did not at all care for. It was inconvenient at best, and if the accounting department are to be believed – and they would assure you with the dangerous end of an inappropriately large and pointy laser pistol that they are – that it is very bad for business.
All those commodities, traversing the vastness of space, with a thousand worlds eagerly awaiting their arrival just didn’t make financial sense. The inhabitants of ten thousand galaxies wanted their shimmering and exotic animal skin boots, or necklaces of sparkling jewels from the bowels of an exploding volcano in a star system a thousand light years away. They wanted them, and they wanted them now.
The company had spent a hundred years, and the lifelong careers of many more astral engineers on attempting to speed up the whole affair, but so vast were the distances that the accountants declared that something else was going to have be done because this just would not do.
So they worked out how to bend time instead. It didn’t take long apparently, not relatively at least. A small team of Physicists got cracking one Monday after a leisurely breakfast, spent 27 years unlocking the secrets of the universe, and with the technology they had created were able to have a couple of quick ones at the pub at lunchtime, and be mostly done by Monday afternoon. A bit of paperwork needed to be finished, but nothing that would get in the way of declaring it a complete success and would anyone like to head back to the pub for a celebratory drink.
The Great Galactic Mining Company declared it a breakthrough for the ages, though the accounts department did decline the overtime request on the basis of the relative time passing being mere hours, though as appreciation did agree to pay for the celebratory drinks if someone had kept the receipts and put in a claim in triplicate.
The Physicists declared themselves too smart for their own good and indeed went back to the pub.
Armitage knew nothing of any of this of course, and had he then he might understand to some degree at least why at this precise moment every molecule in his body was being disassembled, as was the Mining Frigate Vix III, rotting whale carcasses and all. When it reassembled thirty seconds later, three years previously, he remained none the wiser but did feel wholly more queasy. He looked at his hand in front of his face, and it blurred and seemed to move in slow motion. The Mining Frigate Vix III groaned and clanged as her reassembled and settled back into orbit.
Armitage took a deep breath and steadied himself against cold metal wall surrounding the portal, closing his eyes. After a few moments he reopened them and looked outside.
“Oh,” he said to himself, mind racing as he looked down upon a world of wispy, gaseous purple clouds, towering snow covered mountains and glistening, pristine, concrete and glass buildings for as far as the eye could see. “That’s not right,” he reminded himself and he slumped back against the rotting whale bones, head spinning.
A loudspeaker crackled into life somewhere overhead. A serious voice barked out. “Docking initiated, orbital descent commencing in ten. Offload sequences stacked, all hands to their stations. All hands to their stations”
Armitage felt uncomfortable.
The tone softened as it continued.
“On behalf of the captain and crew, thank you for time travelling with the GGMC, and welcome to Corvidian V. The weather landside is a balmy 47, the drinks are cold, and the locals are hot.”
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Oh, and you can do what you want with the images. They are all AI generated so no issues with copyright.
Afterwards 