Abian’s first luggage case, empty, traversed Pitlaxian customs without incident, despite some confused Pitlaxian antennae flutters. Abian’s second case, however, initiated an all-station evacuation alarm.

 

“You’re the worst smuggler ever,” a Pitlaxian customs agent chittered through the translator.

 

“My first time,” Abian admitted.

 

Inside the second case the agent found an armed miniature thermonuclear warhead.

 

“Not a very good terrorist either,” another Pitlaxian agent said.

 

“I prefer freedom fighter,” Abian said. He opened his palm to reveal a deadman’s activator.

 

The Pitlaxian agents skittered further back, vestigial wings vibrating in agitation.

 

* * *

 

The station commander, a new sub-queen given the bright mauve striations radiating across her shiny black carapace, insisted on confronting the upstart human herself. Her massive warrior-drone guards, their threat-thrumming reverberating menace, obeyed reluctantly. It would be their heads the queen snipped off if anything happened to her latest favorite daughter. The sub-queen emitted more command pheromones into the air to ensure continued compliance. So unfortunate that the nettlesome humans were not influenced by such biochemistry, but actually needed verbal, or even physical, convincing. Regardless, she had ingested all the Pitlaxian treatises on control and subjugation. The orderliness of her station would be restored. Her path to spawning her own hive would not be jeopardized.

 

“We’ve controlled your puny planet for over a thousand years. If you blow up my station, we’ll just build another and the reprisals we shall mete upon your world…”

 

“Yes, yes,” Abian said distractedly, waggling the warhead activator in her general direction. With his other hand he tapped a button on his empty case. It unfolded and expanded into a square pad with blinking lights on each corner.

 

“What’s that, human?” the sub-queen asked.

 

“Chronal-anchor beacon,” Abian said. Checking his chronometer, he muttered, “And right about…now.”

 

Nothing happened.

 

The seconds ticked by, dragging into minutes. The sub-queen patiently checked the progress of the station’s evacuation. None of her subordinates dared move without her command. Abian, on the other hand, rechecked his chronometer repeatedly, until he finally broke the silence.

 

“Well, I’m embarrassed. I thought I had everything calculated correctly. Putting theory into practice is certainly more nerve-wracking than I anticipated. Especially Sun Tzu – a little outside my usual wheelhouse. Much harder than calculating eleven-dimensional spacetime trajectories through inverse chronal manifolds. I may have to blow a big hole in your shiny new station after…”

 

A glowing ovoid machine materialized on the pad. Abian waved his arms like a giddy child. The warrior-drones’ thrumming intensified. They raised their disruptor rifles.

 

“And what’s that?” asked the sub-queen, while sending a request for data on Sun Tzu.

 

“Time machine.”

 

“Impossible!” The sub-queen’s wings flared emphatic negation.

 

“Given it arrived from when I sent it two days ago, I beg to differ. More temporal drift than anticipated, but I can compensate for that.”

 

Abian, relieved to be back on track, tapped icons on the ovoid’s control panel. He looked up.

 

“What’s the diameter of this station, commander?”

 

The sub-queen hesitated, deciding if there was any harm in answering. Still no update on warhead neutralization preparations. Stringing him along a little longer was, she concluded, acceptable. “Six tlatim.”

 

Abian murmured some more, “So 2.43 kilometers; let’s call it 2.5 to be safe.”

 

“What are you doing now, human?”

 

“Adjusting the size of the temporal displacement field and inputting new temporal coordinates.”

 

Unenlightened, the sub-queen tried a different approach. “What’s your objective, human — steal a ship to flee to Unincorporated Space? Extort better conditions below on the planet? Appeal again to the Galactic Council?”

 

“Nothing like that — I’m stealing your station.”

 

The few remaining Pitlaxian agents just twittered their maxillae. Someone’s pheromone sac emitted a cloud that the Pitlaxians would interpret as profound amusement. To Abian it merely smelled like spoiled eggs. Even the drones’ thrumming stuttered as if they were snickering. The sub-queen, unwilling to let her growing unease at the human’s oddness show, merely twitched her antennae slightly.

 

“You are the strangest terrorist your kind has ever sent.”

 

“Actually, the identification I used to get this far is accurate, commander. I’m a physicist. I was scheduled to present a paper on abstract temporal mechanics at a symposium on Tau Ceti IV — fully approved by the Pitlaxian Science Directorate.” Abian tapped a final icon on the ovoid, which began to hum. “I’ve merely opted for a more practical demonstration of my results. Quite thrilling actually.”

 

The awaited message and the requested data flashed on the holographic projections streaming past the sub-queen’s left ommatidia group. Sun Tzu— ancient Earth military theorist. Irrelevant, she decided, since the human’s ‘practical demonstration’ of the impossible would never happen. She snapped her mandibles decisively.

 

“No more of your foolishness, Professor Abian Charmicheal, of Oxford University, Department of Physics. For caution’s sake, all non-essential Pitlaxian personnel and all Galactic Union citizens have been evacuated. But our portable containment generators are now placed and activated. Even if you detonate your device, it will only damage this small section of the station. Surrender, and only you and the rest of your matriarch’s line need be expunged.”

 

“Are you sure you and your minions don’t want to leave the blast zone?” Abian asked. He brandished the activator again.

 

The Pitlaxians just raised their disruptor rifles higher.

 

“Suit yourselves.”

 

Abian began to insert earplugs.

 

“What are those for?”

 

“One moment, please.”

 

Finished, Abian released the button on the activator, which did not detonate the warhead, but instead emitted a piercing sonic howl, knocking all the Pitlaxians within a 200-meter radius unconscious.

 

“Preparation for deploying a sonic weapon,” Abian answered the now unconscious sub-queen. He manually disarmed the warhead and then checked his chronometer again.

 

“And right about… now.”

 

Everything within a 2.5 km diameter sphere vanished.

 

* * *

 

One thousand and seventy-seven years earlier, the first Pitlaxian battlecruisers to find Earth were surprised to find a structure, whose majestic curves reminded them of their own architecture back home, orbiting the human homeworld. They never stood a chance against the state-of-the-art, heavily-armed, human-controlled Pitlaxian command station.