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He peered over the control console, at the interplanetary equivalent of a radar set. The dots approached slowly. He gritted his teeth, pounding his fist against the screen. They had prepared for everything...except this. Such cowardly tactics he had not counted on. It was terrorism. And yet now they were caught completely by surprise.

"What is it, captain?" Garry asked.

Sergei ground his teeth. "The Americans," he mumbled underneath his breath, if he had actually breathed to say that.

America, that peaceful nation with all its grand talk of peace and liberty. What a joke. America's reign of terror began in 2010, when the president Obama and his whiteshirts completely eliminated the House through violent means. The Communist party of America became the ruling party, and all opposition paid in blood. Obama immediately withdrew America from every single international organization, a prelude to the forced annexation of Canada. With the motto "from pole to pole", he soon had all of North and South America united under the stars and stripes. Meanwhile, the rest of the world watched, terrified and helpless. Any nuclear engagement with America was bound to result in world destruction, and so both sides held back from nuclear warfare, although the stockpiles have long been cut down since the Reykjavik conference of 2009.

Alas, Russia was the only superpower that could withstand the power of the American army and its nuclear arsenal. Sergei smiled at the thought. The 2012 invasion of Britain, a massive amphibious invasion across the Atlantic with half the airforce, navy, just over thirteen hundred divisions of men and backed up by non-nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles made the Normandy invasion a mere pinprick. All of Europe was eliminated within forty-two weeks. But the Americans knew that the Russia, for the time being, was impenetrable. So they stopped. Where the iron curtain used to be now descended the titanium curtain, cutting the globe into half. America was halfway to world domination. And the great waiting game began.

It became apparent in 2015 that the resources of the Earth can no longer sustain the world. And both Russia and America turned to the same sole orbiting natural satellite of the Earth: the moon. The cold war now also took place on the moon, as the respective countries seized lands and set up defensive barriers guarding their own chunk of moon. If the moon was not instrumental in the trajectory of the Earth's orbit or did not have any important effect on the biological systems of the Earth, it would have likely been blown apart; but as it stands, it remains intact. Space travel to the moon was perfected; shuttles went in armed convoys, and the space equivalent of battleships, frigates, and carriers were created.

But as terrifying as the leadership was, America was divided internally. And in the summer of 2020, seven months ago, the second American Civil War broke out. But they were not going to invade America. Sergei knew that. His nation was a peace-loving one, quite unlike their barbaric adversary, and this civil war can only weaken the Americans, much to the benefit of the Russians. As the Prime Minister Mikhail Talivich said, an invasion while the enemy is sedated is a cowardly tactic. They would wait calmly, supplying the orangeshirts and supporting them in their attack against the tyrant Obama. And with the Americans struggling on Earth, the Russians had a free hand to conquer space. And here they were, inside the Z1 shuttle, bounded for Mars.

The Z1 was a marvel of engineering, but at the same time it was highly experimental. A large carrier-like shuttle, smaller ships and fighters could take off from the large shuttle. Utilizing a combination of nuclear and solar power, it overcame the restrictions of the smaller ships--a lack of fuel. The smaller ships exhaust their main supplies of fuel to leave Earth, rendering them rather unmanoeuvrable in space, travelling in unchangeable velocities until the need to land comes. Whereas the Z1 was free to accelerate and turn. However, no ship of such large proportions has ever been built, and the Z1 is mostly a research craft, armed with only four phasers that mostly function to blast apart obstacles such as asteroids.

For fear of American attacks on the Z1, the shuttle was escorted by a massive convoy in the beginning of its journey. They felt secure seeing the massive fleet around them, but at the same time thought it superfluous; after all, the Americans were way behind in space technology and were too wrapped up in their civil war to deal with Russian conquests. And a few million kilometres away from the moon, the fleet turned back as they had limited fuel. Z1 cruised on towards the boundaries of explored space, where no spacecraft had ever gone before. Sergei was filled with excitement. The Americans may be the first to land a man on the moon, but they will soon have a man on Mars.

Some worries arose a few days ago, when the intelligence reported that the Americans have launched a fleet of nearly a hundred small fighter spacecraft from the moon. But the Russians ignored it. The Americans couldn't possibly intercept Z1, they said. Such small spacecraft couldn't possibly carry enough fuel to do so. But slightly disturbed, Sergei received instructions from Earth to accelerate. They couldn't do it, Sergei thought. Flying to where they were now in tiny crafts was suicide. They would run out of fuel to turn around, and eventually they would run out of oxygen or freeze to death in the desolate vacuum of space.

But now they approach. Sergei watched the dots. They must be travelling at nearly a hundredth the speed of light. He knew what they were going to do. They had no plans of a round-trip flight back to Earth; they were simply going to try and hijack the Z1 and carry on to Mars. It was on the level of the former Japanese kamikaze pilots; they had simply carried as much fuel as they possibly could, and exhausted it completely upon leaving the Earth, travelling as fast as they possibly could, give or take a tiny bit of fuel to finally manoeuvre and land on the Z1.

The radio crackled. "Attention Z1. This is the American fighter space fleet division aleph-null. Open your landing docks, or we'll open fire on the ship." The voice faded out into static. Garry shifted in his chair, staring out into space.

Sergei angrily turned. "Quick. Call for reinforcements," he commanded. Garry nodded and turned to the radio. Two light-minutes they were from the Earth, meaning that every radio message they send, they will only receive a response four minutes later. And Garry spoke. "Help. The Americans are trailing us. We need reinforcements." And he stopped. What hope was there? Two light-minutes from the Earth, nothing could help them. They were essentially stranded on an island empty-handed with a bunch of thugs with assault rifles. They can only run, but they were slowly being caught up. The Z1, while capable of enormous speeds, accelerated with agonizing slowness.

The crew was in a panic. Sergei considered their options. They could comply and open up the docks, whereupon the Americans would board the Z1. Seeing the savages they were, they would have no hope of surviving and will likely be shot by the American phasers. Whereas if they refused, they would likely perish in the Z1, but it would not fall into the hands of the Americans, who would also die in their expired fighter crafts. The decision was not difficult.

"Nobody open the landing dock!" Sergei shouted to the crew. "The Americans will not set foot inside this shuttle!"

Garry bent over the radio. The message finally came. "Our ships will not make it in time. The only weapons we have now are our interplanetary ballistic missiles now. Can you not fend them off with your phasers? The Americans are not to take over the Z1 under any circumstances!"

Sergei and Garry looked at each other. They were vastly outnumbered; only one Russian ship was in the reserve landing dock, an unarmed exploration vessel capable of holding the entire crew. "What about the interplanetary ballistic missiles?" Garry asked.

Sergei shook his head. "Oh those will kill the Americans alright...and completely destroy the Z1."

"But we cannot save the Z1 anyhow," Garry said dejectedly. "Either it is destroyed or the Americans will take it. Unless we escape from the Z1 somehow and have it destroyed..."

Sergei crinkled his brow. That sounded like a good idea. "Yeah...and we can have it destroyed with the missiles." He rubbed his hands together. "Those damn Americans. They may destroy the Z1, but they will go down with it." He turned to the crew. "Everybody into the exploration craft in the reserve landing dock. We are escaping."

Some crewmembers protested, but Sergei stood firmly. "We have no other choice. Go!" This imperious command none of his subordinates dare defied, and everybody hurriedly left the control room.

Sergei glanced at the relativistically adjusted atomic clock aboard the Z1. An hour past midnight in the glorious city of Moscow right now, March 28, 2021. He shook his head. The Z1 will not be around in a few hours. He did some quick figuring. At their current velocities, the Americans will surely catch up in an hour and a half; they cannot escape too early as the aleph-null division will not yet have run out of fuel, and they will likely be shot by the fighters. The plan materialized quickly. They will lock every single door in the ship, and escape via the craft. This will give them enough time to escape as the Americans make their way through the Z1 (as it is more than 200m in length, not to mention all the locked doors impeding their progress). When they will finally make it to the control room, it will be too late. Yes. Sergei rubbed his hands together. The Z1 will not go down in vain. America's largest and most feared kamikaze space crew will be eliminated. And all this will take place in two hours.

He took the radio speaker and spoke the commands confidently. "This is the Z1 captain. In exactly two hours, 0300 time in the capital Moscow, send two missiles on a direct collision course with the Z1. But do not worry. The Z1 will not be filled with Russian lives in two hours."

The reply came in five minutes: "We have received your message. At 0300 time in Moscow, two missiles will be delivered."

Sergei nodded to Garry. Walking over to the control panel, he shut off all lights in the Z1 and deployed smoke bombs in every single corridor--anything to stall the Americans once they make it inside the Z1. He hovered his hand over the big orange button, hesitating, but finally pressed it. The main landing dock opened. Garry still did not believe it, that after all these years of hard work, the Z1 would be destroyed by their own missiles. They quickly made their way to the exploration craft in the reserve dock. There was not much they can do now, but wait.

At three o'clock ante meridiem, the commander-in-charge of the main control station in Moscow pressed the button. The button that will send a signal to the nearest Russian geosynchronous satellite, relaying it to the moon, where the two of the most fearful weapons ever known to man will be launched.

The time was two hours after midnight on the clocks of the Z1, synchronized to the glorious capital of Moscow. The crew all sat in the craft, waiting for Sergei to take off. The numbers on the clock increased, one by one. Sergei sat there, sweaty hands gripping the controls, an emotionless face staring into infinity; and yet inside he was filled with both ecstasy and anger. In an hour. An hour...sixty minutes. Thirty-six hundred seconds. That was how much time the Americans, and the Z1, had yet to exist. He shifted his hand over the engine starter, but then moved it away. It was not yet time. Five more minutes. Then they will take off.

They did not; the Z1 was gone after five minutes, the crew vaporizing with it...

*signal received-- from Z1 to earth--Z1 destroyed at 0305 time in the glorious capital of Moscow*

And nobody will ever know what trick Chronos has played on us this time.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

...and THIS is why daylight saving time sucks. Alas, we can only think what wonderous things Sergei and his crew would have accomplished, had the evil curse of the daylight saving time not come to fruition! Any sentient being with a blood-pumping organ sometimes associated with emotion would come to agree that daylight saving time, that wicked beast, is the very predecessor of every evil there is on this planet! Yet people support it; and this is only because they themselves are possessed by the flames of evil themselves! And so, I appeal to the rational ones among you, the ones with any feeling left in your souls...please! Dispel this pestilence of doom among us!