Patrick G. Cox
"Out of time" is a story about three young men dragged by a freak accident from the early nineteenth century into the high tech world of the twenty-third. They are transported through time from the gundeck of the 74 gun ship of the line HMS Spartan and into the hangar decks of the huge new starship NECS Vanguard. They must now come to terms not only with the change of time, but with the gap in their understanding of the universe, science and technology - and do this in the midst of a power struggle between those who seek to take over the governments of the free world and those in the political process who through their own corruption and self interest seek to allow this - and those who must prevent it. The Fleet of starships and its dedicated crews must fight to save the freedom of their peoples - and of the aliens enslaved in the service of the plotters. The three are both a target for corrupt bureaucrats and scientists and a key factor in the frustration of these plans.
Harry Heron, Ferghal O'Connor and Danny Gunn are taken out of their time and plunged head first into another where they find they have as much to contribute as they have to learn.
Patrick Cox was born in Cape Town in 1946 and grew up in a small city on the East Cape coast called East London. He has long had a fascination with both the sea and ships and the world of science fiction and space travel. Educated at Selborne Primary and College in East London, he worked in commerce and industry before joining the Fire Service in South Africa. In 1988 he and his family moved to the UK where he continued his fire service career finally retiring from the service in 2006. He is a published technical author and regular speaker at conferences in his field of expertise. He has ventured into fiction for his own pleasure as much as anything else. While his career has been focused on dealing with emergencies and in trying to prevent them, his interests have ranged far beyond the technical and include a love of history, especially naval history, science, the exploration of space and some simpler pursuits such as painting and simply reading a good book. Among his favourite authors are such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Douglas Reeman, C S Forrester and Terry Pratchett, with whom he shares the view that writing is the most fun one can have on one’s own.
A Reader in the Church of England, he has a deep faith and is active in the work and life of the Parish he serves. Possessed of a quirky sense of humour, working with and to the civil services of two different countries he has also developed a deep cynicism about the entire process of government, both political and bureaucratic. He subscribes to the view that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Each generation simply has to deal with the mess left by the last and hope they aren’t making it any worse.
The characters in this book, while not intended to represent real people, are, in some instances, modelled on friends and family both living and dead. They will know who they are. The hero carries the name of his Grandfather who was fifteen when he ran away to fight in the trenches in WWI.
The Vanguard lurched as if some huge force had wrenched the hull in two directions as she crossed the gate’s event horizon. In the Captain’s Control Centre alarms sounded as several things happened at once.
Darkness gave way to light, a brief glimpse of a huge open space, of things falling about them – and then a sharp drop as Harry, Ferghal and the boy Danny dropped some five feet to a hard deck and blackness engulfed Harry yet again!
The Captain called up the mimic readouts for the alarms on his personal display screen, noticing as he did so that he seemed to be struggling under increased gravitation. With an effort he overcame these and read the readouts grimly, noting that the operators at the various stations in the Centre were already dealing with their own sections. Swiftly the alarms began to fall silent and the readouts began to return to more normal levels. One caught his eye; it showed that there were now personnel in Compartment Two-Two-Three Alpha Oscar Charlie – and a quick glance at the visual scan link for the compartment showed three sprawled figures, one of them small and childlike, where one of the larger items of Dr Grüneland’s equipment had been. Nearby lay a pile of shattered timbers and what looked like part of a cannon. He keyed his comlink, “Master at Arms, Security team and Damage Control Party to Two-Two-Three Alpha Oscar Charlie on the double. We may have casualties!” He heard the acknowledgement and then keyed his link again as the gravitational drag seemed to increase!
Aft of the Hangar decks and deep among the cavernous machinery spaces in the Engineering Control Centre, Commander Allison felt the shudder as the ship passed through the Event Horizon, then turned her attention to her read out screens and control desk. Alarms lit up on the Engineering Control boards as the generating turbines ran away, unloading power through any open circuit. At their consoles the Engineering staff worked frantically to uncouple, reroute or shut down some of the over supply to the various systems. Commander Allison watched grimly as slowly the alarms went silent, readouts returned to normal and she could feel confident that her team was once more in full control of their machinery. Although she was not given to swearing, she certainly felt like giving vent to her opinion as she saw where the power draw had suddenly been shut off! Her comlink bleeped.
“Allison”, she snapped.
“Captain here, we seem to be a little heavy on gravity in the Control Centre, I’d appreciate it if you could drop it back to something like normal!”
“Yes sir,” she replied, a wicked grin suddenly lighting up her face, “One moment please,” she glanced across at the control station where three of her senior Technical Warrant Officers were engaged in what appeared to be a game of complicated chess on the panel before them, “Warrant Clarke, the Control Centre seems to be heavy on gravity, is there a problem?”
“We’re trying to balance it out now Commander,” came the reply, the Warrant Officer not even looking up from his task, “they have two point two-five G at the moment but it’s coming down as fast as we can, there’s worse in Decks Five and Six at Frames Ten to One Five Zero where we have four G at present.”
“Very good, keep on it,” replied the Commander, well aware of the tricky nature of what the three were doing, to the comlink she said, “We’ll have your gravity level back to normal as soon as possible sir, should be down to one G in a couple of minutes. We do have some strange readouts from the hangar area, all the equipment that was coupled to our power supply seems to have gone off the board with the exception of some low power items still drawing in the peripheral areas to the target zone. I’d like to send a Tec Team to check the damage.”
“Do that, the Science Team will be on its way as soon as we can get out of a seat easily here – and assuming the transport shuttles are working!”
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