You are sitting in the pilot's chair of the starship Andromeda, on the edge of the Protherus star system, getting ready to make a Light Space Jump to your freighter's next destination. You hear a sound, like someone gasping in surprise, and look up from your console. Your co-pilot, Karl, is looking intently at his console, and doesn't seem to have heard anything unusual. You must have imagined the sound, for you and Karl are the only two people aboard this starship.

"Jump calculations are complete," Karl says to you, sitting in the co-pilots seat beside yours.

Before you, the transparent plasglass windows of the cockpit provide a view of the stars. Space stretches on infinitely before you. Directly in the middle of your foreward view, a star shines brighter than the others - it is your destination, the closest star to the star system you are currently in.

"Preparing to Jump to Light Space," you say, mentally going through your pre-jump checklist, as you press buttons and flick switches to the correct settings. You feel the ship beginning to vibrate as the interstellar propulsion system powers up, ready to activate.

"Activating LSJD," you say, pressing the final button. There is the usual flash of white light, and...

You not Quite Right

You are sitting in your pilot's chair, in the cockpit of the Andromeda, and something is not quite right. Outside the windows, the darkness of space is gone, there is only light. You raise your arm to cover your eyes, but as you do, the light pales. Instead of searing your eyes like a thousand suns, the endless expanse of white outside the windows gives off a soft light, like looking at a white plaster wall that someone is shining a torch on.

As your eyes adjust to this strange phenomena, you hear a gasping, gurgling sound from behind you. Glancing to one side, you see the strangest thing. The right hand half of the cockpit is stretched out before and behind you. Your co-pilot, his chair and console, are now lines and blobs of horizontal colour, stretching through the room in streaks, like a motion-blurred, time-lapse photograph!

Your head goes dizzy as your eyes and brain try to make sense of what it is you are seeing, then suddenly the strange warping of space stops, and the entire cockpit looks normal and whole once more. However, your co-pilot, his body restored to its correct physical form, sags forward in his chair, held up by his chest-crossing seatbelt buckle. Blood trickles from the corners of his mouth as his head drops forward, staring sightlessly down at his console.

Outside the ship, the pale light - the endless expanse of whiteness instead of the blackness of space - tells you that something is horribly wrong here.

You examine Karl's body.

You move from your console, over to beside your co-pilot. You lift up his head so you can look in his eyes. His head, fully illuminated by the pale light shining in through the windows, stares back at you, seeing nothing. You release him, letting his head drop back down again.

Looking at his jumpsuit, you examine the body-monitoring device built into the suit. The device is supposed to monitor life signs, as well as the surrounding environment, and it tells you that his heart has stopped. Karl is clearly dead.

You bring up a ship damage report on your console, and try to find out what is wrong with the ship.

Sitting in your chair, you bring up the ship status display, and look for signs of damage. For a moment you just look at the screen, unable to believe what it is saying. According to the screen, nothing exists behind the ship's cockpit. The rest of the ship is simply gone... vanished... non-existant!

'How can that be?' you think to yourself. After all, the power generators at the rear of the ship must exist, because all the computer systems and life support within the cockpit is functioning just as it always does. The rest of the ship MUST exist!

Frustrated, you turn off the status display.

You check the ship's sensors, and see what it can detect.

You look at the ship's sensor screen. It shows your ship in the middle of the screen, but shows no signs of planets or stars in the vicinity. In fact, it shows nothing at all, in any direction. You look out the window again, at the vast expanse of whiteness that seems to stretch out endlessly in every direction. There's nothing out there but pale, white light.

What is this place? Is this Light Space, the other dimension, that ships pass through when they jump? Did your ship somehow become stuck in this dimension, half-way through the jump procedure? If so, how are you supposed to get out?

You open the cockpit door, and look into the central passageway.

Feeling a little uncertain as to what you might find, you nervously walk to the rear of the cockpit, and press the door release button. The rear door slides open and...

The central passageway that runs from the cockpit, through the ship, to the cargo bay at the rear, looks exactly as it always does. Lights in the ceiling illuminate the steel passage. Metal grating panels on the floor allow access to various wires and cables that run through the ship, beneath your feet. Door hatches are set into the passage walls at different points along its length, leading to various rooms aboard the ship. Far at the other end, you see a large hatch, that opens into the cargo bay at the other end of the starship.

Everything looks completely - suddenly there is a shearing of light and form, as a section of wall about half way down the passage blurs outwards into the passage, in an array of colourful streaking lines - then suddenly flattens out again to look like a normal section of wall once more. Perhaps things aren't as completely normal as they seem...

You say a short prayer that the motion blurring phenomena won't happen anywhere near you.

You start walking down the passageway.

You step out of the cockpit and into the passageway. As you move through the doorway, you feel a strange sensation, like stepping through a thin wall of water.

You turn around.

Having felt like you stepped through an invisible wall, you turn around to look at the doorway you just came through. The doorway looks as empty as before, the air is clear and invisible as always. However, looking back through the doorway into the cockpit, you can't help but gasp.

Outside the cockpit windows, you see space! Black space! Dotted with stars! You're back in normal space again! In fact... it would seem the ship is exactly where it was before it tried to jump - as you can see the single bright star in the middle of the window, the star you were going to jump to. Then you gasp again, blinking your eyes to be sure you can believe what you are seeing - for there are two people in the cockpit!

On the right sits Karl, your co-pilot, running jump calculations through the computer, and on the left is... it's you! You are in there, sitting in the pilot's chair, preparing the ship for jump! How is that possible?

You rush back into the cockpit!

As you rush through the doorway, out of the passageway, and back into the cockpit, you feel the strange sensation again, the slight pressure against your body, as if you are passing through a thin wall of water. As your face passes through, the scene before your eyes changes!

Karl's body lies dead in his chair, as you had left him, and your chair is empty again. Outside the windows is the shining expanse of pale, white light. What the heck is happening on your ship? It's almost as if... Yes, it's as if the cockpit and the passageway existed in two different places... Or rather, two different times!

The passage outside the cockpit was somehow before the jump took place, and here in the cockpit is somehow at the current time frame... Actually, you would only be guessing that you were in the current time frame - how would you even know what was the past. For all you know, the cockpit could be somewhere in the distant future, or - or who knows what?

You start walking down the passageway, again.

You step out of the cockpit and into the passageway. As you move through the doorway, you feel a strange sensation, like stepping through a thin wall of water....

You turn around, again.

Having felt like you stepped through an invisible wall, you turn around to look at the doorway you just came through. This time, you are prepared for what you see - outside the cockpit windows, you see space again, and both Karl and yourself are sitting in the cockpit chairs. You feel certain that if you tried to step into that cockpit, you would end up back in your version of the cockpit, surrounded by white space.

You continue down the passageway

You decide to continue down the passageway. A few metres along, you reach door hatches on both sides of the passage. One is your sleeping quarters, the other is Karl's. An image of his dead face, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth, flashes before your eyes. You take a deep breath, and calm yourself. You know you will need to keep a level head if you are going to get out of this alive.

You open the door to your sleeping quarters.

You press the door release button on the wall, and the door to your sleeping quarters slides open. Through the doorway, things look normal. Your bunk is up against one wall, the covers thrown aside - why make a bed if you're the only one who's going to look at it, or use it? Against another wall is a desk unit, with a few personal odds and ends inside and on top of it. A closet containing your clothing is up against a third wall.

The lights are on, and you don't see any strange blurring, bending or stretching of the universe.

You go inside your sleeping quarters.

You step through the doorway, and instantly feel that sensation again - the feeling of walking through an invisible wall, like passing through a sheet of water. Your sleeping quarters are now quite different to how they had looked an instant ago...

Firstly, the bed is made. You can't remember ever having made your bed. Secondly, and more disturbingly to you, the sheets are bright pink with little white bunny rabbits on them!

You suddenly hear footsteps behind you, and spin around to see a woman wearing a pilot's uniform, standing in the passageway, outside the room. She looks up from a clipboard she was reading, and her jaw drops as she sees you looking back at her. You can see the cogs turning inside her mind, as she tries to find words to say, and her first instinct is to shout, "Get the hell out of my sleeping quarters!"

You quickly step back out into the passageway!

Blushing furiously, and stunned at whatever is happening - for only yourself and Karl were supposed to be aboard the starship - you step out into the passageway.

As you do, you feel yourself passing through an invisible wall again, and an odd thing happens - as your eyes pass through the wall, she vanishes from in front of you. As you stand in the passageway, looking about, she is nowhere to be seen. Looking back into the sleeping quarters, you see your sleeping quarters, with your personal belongings, and your unmade bed!

The woman in uniform is nowhere to be seen! How very, very strange.

You slowly step back into your quarters.

Taking a deep breath, you step back through the doorway. As you pass the invisible wall again, you see the room, once more, clean and tidy, with pink bedsheets. Now though, the woman is inside the room with you. She is in the middle of the room, with her back to you. The clipboard lies where she dropped it on the floor, and she has drawn a pistol. She looks left and right, examining her sleeping quarters, holding the gun carefully, ready to fire.

You say "Please, don't shoot! I'm unarmed!"

"Please, don't shoot! I'm unarmed!" you say, as she swivels quickly to face you, pointing her gun in your face.

"Who are you? What are you doing on my ship?" she demands.

You say "Your ship? This is my ship, lady! These are my sleeping quarters!"

"What are you talking about? I've run this ship for six years, now!" she says incredulously, waving the gun about in front of you.

"The Andromeda has been under my command for twelve years," you growl back at her, "It was my father's ship before me, and I don't recall either him, or myself, selling it to anyone else!"

"The Andromeda wasn't your father's ship - it was my father's ship!" she shouts back at you, waving her gun some more. "And it was my grandfather's ship before him, and my great-grandfather's before him!"

Something crazy is going on, and your brain is hurting just trying to work it out. A suspicion is creeping into your mind. "My name is Michael Dobson," you tell her, hoping an introduction, and an attempt at being diplomatic, might stop her waving the gun in your face. If it accidentally went off...

Her jaw drops, "No, it can't be..." She shakes her head in disbelief, "No, that was just a crazy tale, just mad talk - none of it could be true!"

"None of what could be true?" you ask, not sure you like the sudden change in her.

"My... My grandfather's name was Michael... My name is... I'm Susan Dobson," she says, looking you up and down, and inspecting you properly for the first time. She lowers the gun, then drops it forgotten to the floor.

"You're saying you're my granddaughter? That's crazy! That's..." you realise that maybe it is not so crazy after all. Something has happened to your starship. What if something had happened half-way through the jump, and your ship was indeed stranded in the extra-dimension of Light Space. Who knows how your ship, or even you, might be affected. Could this location on your starship actually take you to another moment in time - somewhere into the future?

"Tell me, why would you think you were my granddaughter?" you ask, softly.

Her eyes glaze over, as she loses herself to memories, "My grandfather used to tell wild tales. No one really believed him, and by the time I was born, he wouldn't talk about it. My mother, though, she said that my grandfather was in a starship accident once. He used to say that he met people from the past and the future. Everyone thought he was crazy, but other than that, he was perfectly normal. People said that the starship accident did something to him, and that's why he would make those wild claims. People said he was just dreaming, or drunk. Once though, before he died, he asked me a strange question... 'Remember when we were aboard the Andromeda together?' he asked me. I guess if he was you, then this, here and now, is what he was talking about. He said he would never have made it back if it wasn't for me..."

"So, I obviously get out of here alive then," you say as much to yourself as to her. "Karl and I made a starship jump, but we didn't appear at our destination - I think I'm still trapped inside of Light Space somehow. Strange things are happening as I move about my ship. When I step through that doorway, I'm back aboard my version of the ship, and this is my sleeping quarters, but when I step back in here, it's your sleeping quarters - somewhere in the future..."

Suddenly the ship shudders, and you both grab hold of furniture so you don't fall over.

"What was that?" you both ask at the same time. Suddenly a warning klaxon blares through the ship.

"I've got to get to the bridge!" she shouts, forgetting about you and the whole 'mixed-up time' issue. She rushes out the door and down the passage. Instinctively you rush out the door to follow her, and suddenly pass through that invisible wall again. She vanishes from sight as you step into the passageway - and back into your own time.

You quickly go back into the sleeping quarters.

You quickly step back into your  - that is, her - sleeping quarters. You can barely make out voices in the distance, probably your granddaughter and her co-pilot talking in the cockpit. You wonder what is going on. Then you hear the ship's computer's voice saying "Intruder Alert! Closing All Doors!"

A light flashes above the door, and you realise that the ship's computer, in her future time era, is about to close and lock all the doors on her ship!

You stay inside your sleeping quarters.

You decide to stay put. The door slams shut, and clicks as the locking mechanism moves into place. You are now locked inside your granddaughter's sleeping quarters, at some point in the future... It feels weird, mostly because according to her, you died years ago. However, she said you made it out of the starship accident alive.

However... You know many people have tried to understand and hypothesise over how time travel works, and wether there is but one timeline, or many branching off, depending on people's actions. You wonder if it is certain that you will survive, or if perhaps you will die, and your granddaughter will never have existed. Just trying to work out how time works begins to give you a headache, so you decide to focus on the present.

The computer said there were intruders aboard. That must have been what the shuddering of the ship had been - a pirate's starship docking with the Andromeda. If pirates had come aboard, they would try to kill everyone, so they could steal the ship and its cargo.

As you realise that, you also realise that you are now locked inside a room, with no way out unless someone breaks in from the outside, or your granddaughter has the computer unlock and open the doors. Then you notice a gun on the floor - the pistol your granddaughter lost!

You can use it to protect yourself, however, you realise she must now be unarmed, and unable to defend herself against the pirates! If you hadn't appeared out of nowhere and surprised her, she would still have her gun! You curse yourself and the predicament you are in.

(Click on the gun to pick it up.)