“We’re clearly traveled backwards in time this time,” said Mint, matter-of-factly, “I remember hearing that the Space Mall used to be a military deep-space research station. Plus all this junk looks ancient. I mean, look at this thing,” she tapped the glass behind which a tie-dye lava lamp was bubbling.

Randal looked, as though he would glean even the slightest morsel of information from looking at the bizarre device. It didn’t look ancient to him.

“They’re siphoning off energy from Warpspace. Good job guys, maybe tomorrow you could get to work on that wheel everyone’s been brainstorming about.”

“You really need to get over this, yes technology is less advanced in the past,” said Randal.

“It’s just so ostentatious,” said Mint, turning so Randal couldn’t see her blush.

* * * 

On a monitor, a mile deeper into the space station, two men watched Mint blush on a large monitor hanging stationary in the air. Smaller screens hovered around it, displaying other sections of the ship.

“Where could they have come from?” asked the first man. He was standing over the other man, hovering really. It was clearly not his office they were in.

“We’re in the process of a deep scan through the entire station, but I have to say I doubt we’re going to find anything. Those two seem to have just appeared out of thin air,” replied the other man, who was seated in front of the screen.

“They very well might, what I want to know is who they are and how they did it.”

“The female would appear to be from an advanced society. She recognized the warp reactor and scoffed at it. Plus she has metal thing on the side of her face.”

“Yes, thanks. Very detailed. She has a metal thing. As opposed to what? A ceramic goo-gaw?”

“You’re the scientist, you tell me. I’m just the watcher, and what I see is a metal thing.” 

“Well keep watching. Don’t miss a thing, but don’t contact me again unless it’s an emergency. I’ve come too far to let a couple of religious fanatics destroy my work.”

“Religious fanatics?” the Watcher had been under the impression he understood the conversation up until that point.

“Well who else would want to sabotage progress? My work is going to revolutionize the known universe, and those superstitious neo-luddites can’t stand it. Every step forward science takes is another step backwards their personified weather and talking juju bushes have to take, and they know it.”

“You think those two are luddites?”

“Well no, obviously. They’re scientifically advanced. That means they’re saboteurs, hired by luddites. They would need incredibly advanced saboteurs for them to understand my work enough to destroy it.”

“You can tell all this from 5 minutes of video?”

“To the scientific mind, my boy, time is irrelevant. I was able to sum them up the moment I lay eyes on them. Using science. Now keep an eye on the saboteurs and don’t bother me again. My work is too important to humanity, nay, to all sapient life!”

The scientist waved his arms in the air as he spoke these last words, and marched out the door. An energy field surrounding the door tore the scientist into a quattuorvigintillion pieces, blasted the scientist bits through micro-wormholes and into his lab, where it reassembled him with 99.72% accuracy.

“Alright, stop what you’re doing. We’re going to run the first full test of the system,” the Scientist barked at his assistant.

“But we’re not finished all the simulations. Isn’t this taking an unnecessary risk?”

“My boy, you are mired in 9:00 a.m. thinking. It is now almost half past noon, and the paradigm have changed. There are highly advanced fanatical luddite saboteurs on the loose, and we no longer have the luxury of safety. My work is too important. Science demands that we begin the experiment as soon as I’ve finished making a few last second modifications. For science.” 

* * *

Randal eyed the swirling colors of the Warp-something-gadget suspiciously.

“So if all this technology is so archaic, why don’t we time jump again?”

“I don’t think we should push our luck, who knows where we’d end up. I’m sure I can Macguyver a decent scanner out of some of the equipment here,” said Mint.

“Macguyver? You know about Macguyver?”

“Oh yeah, lots of ancient religions survived to my time. When I was a kid we used to sacrifice rubber bands at his temple whenever we built go-rockets.”

Randal rejected the beginnings of five different sentences before he settled on saying nothing. He closed his gaping mouth. A cloud of nothing passed by the window and drifted into starry space. If Randal had had microscopes for eyes, he’d have noticed the cloud of imperceptible machines passing by on their way to New Earth. 

* * *

“It’s based on a monument from Old Earth, only instead of four different faces carved into a mountain, it’ll be my face four times. The nanobots should probably finish the nanosculpting in a few nanoseconds, after that I’ll get them started on New Eden,” the scientist explained to his assistant, just to hear himself talk.

“You’re certain that this is going to work, Dr. Hill? It seems to me that the consequences of a miscalculation at this point-”

“I don’t need to hear anymore of your religious fanaticism. Either do your job or I’ll get someone with a more firm grasp of the literal and symbolic to do it for me!”

The assistant pressed the button that it was his job to press (the scientist being an “idea man” who didn’t have time to press his own buttons). The idle nanobots, having completed Mount Hillmore, once again buzzed with activity. They spread themselves over the entire planet and, over the course of 5 minutes, reduced it and everyone in it to a uniform grey sludge. 

* * *

The lights inside the space station became tinged with red as alarms sounded. The nanobots had obliterated New Earth and were on their way back to the space station, hungry for more.

“Uh-oh,” said Randal.

Mint was stuffing her pockets with tiny slips of metal from a drawer she had jimmied.

“Quick, Randal, grab as many of these as you can carry,” she breathed, frantically, still grabbing the slips by the handful.

“I think we need to go,” pleaded Randal, picking up on Mint’s panic and making it his own.

“First grab the unobtanium. After New Earth got dissolved by nanobots this stuff became unimaginably valuable.”

The station groaned as the nanobots that slipped through its shield began weakening its structural integrity. Panic grabbed Randal by the backs of his eyes. He grabbed Mint’s arm and pressed the button on both their time bracelets. The two fought briefly, upsetting their trip through time. Moments of Randal and Mint scuffling scattered throughout time, before they both fell over and landed some other time. 

* * *

“There’s no way antimatter exists in that quantity. The entire universe would have destroyed itself by now if that were true,” said a squat, balding scientist.

“No. It’s true. God’s love keeps the two separate. That’s why the entire universe hasn’t been destroyed. I could prove it to you too if I had the funding,” said another scientist with a hideous orange tie.

They both laughed.

“Yeah you only need about 10 grams of unobtainium. You might as well ask for a sun.”

At it was at that moment, both men swore to their graves as well as testified in court, that the infamous fighting ghosts of Jupiter Station appeared before them, and dropped a 10 gram slip of unobtainium at their feet, before disappearing.

The explosion that resulted when the anti-matter version of Earth 6 collided with the real Earth 6 destroyed 14% of the Milky Way Galaxy. 

* * *

It had taken over two years of precise calculation and targeting, but the mining laser had nearly been calibrated. What would have required an expensive suite of mining robots could now be performed by two different kinds of mathematicians and a laser specialist, in roughly the same timeframe.

“It’s almost time,” said the first mathematician “I’ve got goosebumps. If the slightest thing goes wrong…”

“Nothing is going to go wrong,” said the second mathematician, “We have the most advanced simulations humanity has ever developed. Every detail has been accounted for. The only X Factor is that ancient superstition about fighting ghosts, and if you believe that, you have no right to call yourself a hypercalculustition.”

“Oh. My. Juju Bush. I’ve got to get down to the laser focusing crystal!” the laser specialist yelled as he bolted from his station. The second mathematician ran over to his monitor, and thought he saw a man and a woman fighting, but they quickly turned transparent. Or maybe it had been a trick of the eye.

“Whatever Trevis thought he saw it’s gone now. The final calculations should be set, we should fire the laser now. If Trevis files some kind of grievance it could delay the project and we’d loose all our funding.”

“Okay, yeah. That sounds like a logical reason to go ahead,” said the first mathematician.

The laser powered up. Three beams were focused into one by a giant prismatic crystal and fired out, only to be redirected slightly by a 10 gram slip of unobtainium wedged into the beam’s path. The powerful ray of focused light cut a groove down half of Earth 6, setting about a series of seismic events that culminated in the destruction of the planet.