TEMPORAL FLUX: Paradox

March 15th, 2676, 11:15pm - Moon

          "What do you know of the ancient Mayans, Six?" asked Director Talon, the overseer of the Temporal Enforcement Bureau, an agency that existed for the purpose of protecting the time line from any and all incursions or phenomena that would disrupt it.
          An older man with grey hair and light brown eyes, he was someone that didn't believe in nonsense and ran a tight ship, but was well-respect by all who served under him over the course of several decades. Sitting behind his reinforced glass desk, he looked across to the man sitting before him in another chair, his best temporal agent for many years, and also someone he considered a friend.
          "Mmm, not too much." replied Six, a man in his late thirties, with short blond hair and striking green eyes. He had been with the TEB since he was twenty years old, and had worked his way up through the ranks to become the lead agent assigned to most of the missions that came about. 
          "I know that the Mayans up and disappeared near the end of the Ninth Century, and that their concept of time as well as their hieroglyphs have been research extensively for quite some time." he explained, tugging down on his navy blue tunic to straighten it somewhat as he leaned back in the chair a little.
          "Indeed." replied Talon. "There is an archaeological dig going on right now just outside of the ruins of Copan, in Honduras. The lead there, a Doctor Adele Benstrom has found evidence of extraterrestrials there, as well as something else she didn't want to talk about unless someone from here was sent down to meet with her."
          Six raised an eyebrow. "Any ideas?" he wondered.
          Talon shook his head. "No, but it must be important for her to have contacted me like this and asked for someone."
          Six nodded. "Okay. When do I leave?"
          "This afternoon. Hammer is finishing a new type of scanner in his lab and wants to bring with him down to Earth for testing."
          Six stroked his clean, shaven chin for a moment. "Hammer is coming along? This is definitely an event in itself!" he mentioned with a grin,
          Talon let out a very rare chuckle. "Yes, this is true. Hammer is usually quite preoccupied with things here on the Moon, but it is what it is."
          Six considered the trip with Hammer coming along, and looked forward to it. An android that was designed and built to handle the engineering department at the TEB and everything it entailed, he was both intelligent and humourous, and a valuable member of the Bureau that was always indispensible when it came to solving problems.
          "Very well then." replied Six. "I'll finish up my reports from the previous day, get something to eat, and then head down to Earth. I'll let you know when Hammer and I are ready to depart, sir."
          Talon only nodded, as Six got up from the chair, and exited the spartan office, intrigued by his latest mission.

March 15th, 2676, 13:05pm - Moon

          The sleek temporal shuttle sat on a landing pad in the hangar all by itself, it's pleasing lines and aerodynamic nose pleasing to look at. Two pylons that doubled as stabilizer wings jutted out from the middle to rear of the upper hull and curved down almost at right angles about four meters from the shuttle. The pylons were thick and contained most of the engines, streamlining the craft nicely.
          At the rear of the shuttle, a ramp extended down from the open hatch so that pilots and/or crew could enter and exit. Standing to the left of the ramp and holding a device that resembled a large scanner of some sort was Hammer. His navy blue and silver form looked almost like a human wearing a jumpsuit uniform, except for his bright white eyes that glowed but contained no pupils or irises, and his bald head that seemed more metallic than anything else.
          Engrossed in his new invention, Hammer didn't notice Agent Six walking up to the shuttle and joining him and staring down at the scanner.
          "Looks neat." said Six with a chuckle.
          Momentarily startled, Hammer's eyes glowed a little brighter once he looked up and pondered his long-time friend and colleague.
          "Always the joker, eh? Let's get this show on the road!"
          Six motioned to the ramp. "In a hurry, I see."
          Hammer held up the scanner. "I want to test this out! And, I don't often go on missions with you hotshots, so I believe it will be fun!"
          "Fun for who?" asked Six rhetorically, before hurrying up the ramp and into the shuttle before Hammer had a chance to retort. He made his way to the cockpit, and took a seat in the left pilot's chair before going through pre-flight checks and activating the shuttle's engines after closing the rear hatch.
          Hammer took the seat to his right, and strapped himself in. 
          "What do we expect to find down there, anyways?" he queried.
          Six looked a little perplexed. "Not too sure. Doctor Benstrom apparently won't tell us until we are face to face."
          Hammer stroked his chin. "Very secretive indeed. Well, either way, my new scanner should figure it all out for us regardless." 
          Six grinned and finished his pre-flight checks, and increased power to the hover thrusters, before keying in the activation sequence for the hangar bay doors. An alarm klaxon went off in the hangar, giving any personnel present a warning that the doors were about to open. 
          "Let's go!"
          Once the doors were open enough for the shuttle to pass through, Six pushed the joystick on the control colum forward, the small ship's engines responding to manuever through the blue glow of the force shield, and out into the blackness of space that wrapped around the Moon. 
          Hammer smiled, then watched as the shuttle cleared the Moon. He noticed another shuttle hanging in space off to starboard, and looked at it with some confusion.
          "Why is one of our shuttles just floating out there?"
          "I believe that shuttle is unmanned, and being guided remotely to run some tests, if I remember correctly." replied Six. "Something to do with temporal thresholds."
          Hammer shrugged. "I guess. Thought those tests were all done. Oh well, let's get on to Earth now!"

March 15th, 2676, 13:15pm - Earth, Honduras

          Having landed the shuttle on a raised landing pad just north of the Copan ruins, Six and Hammer wandered to the main pyramid and poked around, exactly where Doctor Benstorm had left instructions to meet and discuss her findings. Six had never been here before, and marvelled at how well the ancient structures had held up over millenia.
          'A sight to behold.'
          Hammer was busy configuring his new device, and oblivious to the historical ruins were all around him and their significance. Six turned to his android friend to say something, when he saw a woman wearing a khaki-coloured tunic and slacks walk up. Her hair was long and blonde, with streaks of grey, and she wore a synthetic boonie hat of the same colour that had a special scanning visor attached to the underside, but was flipped up enough so that she could see.
          Surmising she was in her mid-forties yet still quite attractive, Six outstretched his right arm for a handshake.
          "Doctor Benstrom?"
          The woman nodded, her silver eyes something he had never seen before, as she took his hand and shook it firmly.
          "Yes. Call me Adele." she replied with a slight smile. "Agent Six, I presume?"
          Six grinned. "Yes, and this is Hammer, our technical and engineering expert." he said, motioning to the android who had finally looked up.
          "Greetings, Doctor." said the android, before giving a slight bow.
          Dr. Benstrom did a slight bow back, and started to explain to her two visitors why she had requested their presence.
          "Follow me, please. What I want to show you is just to the east of the ruins, in a large field that we have been studying next to the Copan River."
          As they walked, Six looked to Hammer, who shrugged at not knowing anything else as of yet, and then back to the doctor.
          "Anything you can tell us right now?" he asked of her.
          Doctor Benstrom shook her head slightly. "Not really, because in this case, seeing is believing, and words won't do it justice whatsoever."
          Their curiosity peaked now, both Six and Hammer kept pace with the doctor and didn't say anything else right away, with both of them trying to individually figure out what exactly was going on, and what might lie ahead. After passing through a brief patch of thin jungle, they emerged into the short grass of the massive field, and could see the river not far to the right of them.
          Doctor Benstrom motioned to a temporary command centre and structure that had been set up right at the dig, with massive transparent shields covering the dig area and everything that contained. She led them into the centre of the site, right to the edge of a large pit where something was visible in the dirt. Upon coming to a halt and looking down into the pit, Six and hammer were shocked to see the sight of a damaged wing pylon from a TEB shuttle jutting out from the ground!

          Waving his scanner near to the shuttle's exposed wing, Hammer took as many readings as he could, before reporting back to Six and Dr. Benstrom, who were both looking on with interest.
          "Tritanium composite hull, and the engines have the TEB signature, even if they've been offline for some time." he explained. "Definitely one of ours."
          Six raised an eyebrow and look perplexed. "Okay, but I don't understand why it's here, buried. It looks like it's been here for some time."
          Hammer kept scanning, while Doctor Benstrom looked to Six. "It's been here quite a while, from what we can tell." she mentioned.
          Six pondered the doctor for a moment. "How long is quite a while exactly? Years? Decades even?"
          Before she could answer, Hammer spoke up again. "Six, according to my scanner, this shuttle has been here for almost two millenia!"
          Six was stunned, and he again looked to the doctor, who nodded slightly before answering him. "Our scientists have dated it to around the Ninth Century."
          Hammer's scanner beeped, with the android nodding in agreement silently as he continued to interpret the data he had been presented by his new device.
          Six looked down at the shuttle, visibly confused. 
          "This isn't possible. As far as I know, there was no temporal incursion that far back that could account for this."
          Benstrom pointed at the futuristic ship. "And yet, there it is, along with some other things we found close to it as well."
          Hammer stopped scanning and looked to the doctor. "There's more?" he asked of her, his white eyes glowing brighter than normal.
          Benstrom confirmed that there was. "Yes, some other objects in an adjacent pit that look extraterrestrial in origin. Come take a look."
          As the doctor started to head off to the left of the pit, Hammer and Six looked to each other with surprise before falling in behind her to see what else had been found in the ground near the shuttle. Moments later, they came upon two rounded, metallic-looking purple panels that looked to be almost the size of the shuttle each, containing what looked to be battle damage and carbon scoring from weapons fire of unknown origin.
          Hammer walked close to where the panels were propped up, and scanned them with his new creation as best he could. Almost immediately, the scanner's small screen showed evidence of an unknown alloy, but little else.
          "These things are not of this world, and don't conform to Earth technology." he explained. "I'll need to take a sample of this back to my lab for further testing."
          Doctor Benstorm walked over to a scientific device, and removed something the size of dinner plate from it and handed it to Hammer. It was of the same material as the large panels, but was much smaller.
          "Let us know what you find." she said.
          "We'll be back, Doctor." said Six. 

March 15th, 2676, 18:05pm - Moon

          Talon peered down at the metallic shard on the table scanner and frowned, not happy at what he had been shown and told about upon Six's return to the TEB with Hammer and a recovered piece of alien technology. There were more questions than answers all of a sudden, which bothered him immensely.
          "This all doesn't seem possible." said Talon aloud. "There's no record of a mission going that far back and/or using a temporal shuttle, and no evidence of any alien contact with that time period either. None of this makes any sense!"
          Hammer continued to run tests, and finally motioned to the director to come look at something he was working on. The shard was secured in a device that looked like a large lighted box, a scan ray passing back and forth every so often. Hammer pointed towards a screen on the wall above.
          "Circuitry, and more advanced than anything I've seen." he said, with Director Talon looking on intently.
          "What does it do?" asked Talon, curiously.
          Hammer increased the magnification on the screen. "It's complex technology, and resembles something that can either change colour on command, or disappear from view entirely. Like a cloaking field or something similar."
          Talon raised an eyebrow.
          'Great,' he thought. 'Alien technology than can also cloak itself, even though we still don't know what it came from or belongs to....'
          "Could it be from a ship?" he asked of the android.
          Hammer shrugged. "Possibly. I need more time to analyze it and see what else I can find out. I'll get Six to help me on this one."
          Talon nodded his acknlowledgement. "Very well. As soon as you have something, please let me know. I want this solved quickly." he said, before turning and hurrying out of the lab and into the corridor. Hammer turned his attention back to the vidscreen and looked over the complex pattern of circuitry. 
          "Interesting." he muttered, constantly going over the data that his instruments were giving him on the alien technology. The more he looked at the object, the more he gave thought to the larger panels that he had seen on Earth. To him, the panels resembled layers of the outer skin of a spacecraft of some kind, but the smaller piece was more of a mystery to him right now.
          'Part of another panel perhaps? Hmm....'
          The more he thought about, the more Hammer wondered how the TEB shuttle fit into the whole equation. Could one of their temporal shuttles have somehow gone back in time and crashed, and if so, what did the alien technology have to do with any of it?
          "Clearly this is going to take a bit more time." he remarked aloud. With that, he resolved to work harder, and to also summon Six to get the agent's thoughts on everything they had learned about the situation thus far.

March, year 998 - Copan, Earth

          The main temple sat empty amongst the sunset, the night sky starting to make it's presence known with shining stars, and even the Moon itself. With no light emnating anywhere from the ground, the outline of the Milky Way qas quite visible, and what a sight it was to behold, had anyone been around to see it.
          Crickets chriping their night song and small animals running from under patches of jungle and brush were the only living things that were present, with no humans at all anywhere near the area. The night was so quiet, that one could hear the water rushing around rocks and sandbars on the nearby river if he or she listened intently.
          As the sky continued to darken after the sun had finally gone down, something strange began to happen high up in the sky. A brilliant flash of shimmering silver light suddenly appeared way above the city of Copan, with a purple object of unknown origin emerge from it and speed downwards, missing the city as it hurtled towards an open area past the jungle at immense speeds.
          A massive explosion signified that it had crashed into the ground. Animals ran in all directions to get away from the fire and noise, but it wasn't over yet. A purple craft also emerged over the city, and also made a dive towards the field, before pulling up at the last possible second, grazing the ground near where the first craft had crashed. Two pieces of the oval-shaped craft broke off at this point and hit the ground, before it managed to gain altitude and disappeared into the night sky almost as fast as it had appeared.
          Fire raged around the crash site for hours until burning itself out, taking some of the long grass and foilage with it. Fortunately, the light breeze present had pushed the fire towards the river bank, and not the jungle near the city.
          Animals started to arrive back in the field after the fire had gone out, having gotten over their fear and paranoia, which had been replaced by curiosity. The smouldering wreckage didn't keep their attention for long, as the local fauna scattered and left when they had figured out there was nothing for them at the site.
          Quiet returned to Copan, and an eerie one at that.
          The next day, as the sun rose over the land, a wind kicked up and started to cover the wreckage with any and all loose dirt and debris that may be around, a start of things to come for the site, which would eventually be lost to time. No humans came to investigate or find out what had happened, an oddity due to the heavy population in the area. The Mayans were known to have extensive settlements in the area, but the site remained quiet and untouched moving forward.
          Where was everyone? What had caused their disappearance? And, what had fallen from the sky and created a maelstrom? These questions were not ones that could be answered quickly by any means.

March 15th, 2676, 21:00pm - Moon

          Six stared at the data on the screen from Hammer's recent scans of the object, and was at a loss for words.
          "I'm not sure what to say." he mentioned. "I've never seenn anything like it at all, which only extends this mystery."
          Hammer milled about the lab, moving from his workstation to the screen, and then over to another computer terminal which was showing animations based on an extrapolation that he had programmed.
          "The only thing that makes sense is that it's from the skin of a ship." he repled. "But, we don't know what kind of ship, or where it's from, or even who it belongs to. Certainly not anything made by humans."
          Six walked over to the computer terminal, watched the animation, then looked to Hammer with a frown.
          "Great. So basically, we don't have anything."
          Hammer shrugged. "No, other than the fact that the circuitry is a sophisticated cloaking device of alien origin. That's it."
          Six raised an eyebrow and pondered this for a moment. For centuries, there had been much evidence on extraterrestrials visiting Earth and trying to find ways to communicate with humans, but they had always been visible, albeit confusing. For an alien UFO to be cloaked and visit Earth, this could all be interpreted in different ways.
          "I'm at a loss right now." he said. "I'll notify Director Talon and--"
          He was cut off in mid-sentence by a comm signal that had been routed to the lab from the command centre.
          "Agent Six, this is command and control." said a woman's voice that h recognized as Lieutenant Tessa Rand, the TEB's communications officer, as well as Six's love interest and companion.
          "Six here. Go ahead."
          "One of our shuttles just disappeared from Moon orbit suddenly." explained Rand, calmly and without emotion.
          "It was being controlled remotely, noted a collision, then disappeared completely from orbit. We're not sure if the temporal drive was used or not." she explained. 
          Six nodded. "Very well. I'm already with Hammer in the lab. I'll confer with him and run some scans of the area. Tell Director Talon to standby for the time being while we investigate this."
          "Acknowledged. Command and control out."
          After the comm channel was cut, Six looked to Hammer, who looked surprised.
          "That was the shuttle I saw when we left for Earth!" he exclaimed. "This day keeps getting more odd by the minute...."

March 16th, 2676, 09:00am - Moon  

          "What have you got?" asked Director Talon, having hurridely entered the briefing room and sat down in the first of five rows of four seats that faced a vidscreen. Agent Six and Hammer were both to the right of the screen, standing before a slim computer console that controlled everything.
          "Well sir, not a lot at this point." started Six, turning to the screen. "The data from the shuttle suggests that as the shuttle was powering up it's temporal drive for another in a series of tests, something hit it on it's port side. The collision set off a power surge that made the shuttle engage into a time jump."
          Talon considered this information for a moment before replying, his brow suddenly furrowed now.
          "So, where did the shuttle go?"
          Six looked to Hammer, whose blank white eyes dimmed a bit.
          "Copan, Honduras. It's what we went to see yesterday, partially buried."
          A look of surprise could be seen on the director's face.
          "Are you certain of this?" he queried.
          "Yes sir," started Hammer. "We matched the registry number of the shuttle found on Earth as well as the residual power signature. Both are a match."
          The director didn't know what to say for several moments, trying to come to terms with everything that he had just been told, and how it all related. Never before in the history of the TEB had anything like this happened, but it was something that needed to be solved sooner rather than later.
          "Very well." said Talon quietly. "I would think at this point it would be prudent to pay Copan another visit and try and get that shuttle out of the ground as soon as possible to figure out what happened, and why."
          Six and Hammer both nodded in acknowledgement. 
          "Keep me advised." mentioned Talon, who got out of his chair, straightened his dark grey tunic, and left the briefing room. Six looked to Hammer, and went wide-eyed for a moment before saying anything.
          "I guess we're going to be pulling that shuttle out of the ground." 
          Hammer nodded. "Indeed. Should be interesting to see how intact it is after all that time down there, and whether or not we can get inside and bring the onboard computer back online for some answers."
          Six turned the computer console off, before the two of them also left the briefing room to go find equipment for their return trip to Earth.
          "I'm going to get my temporal suit, and will meet you in the hangar bay in one hour. We'll need a cargo shuttle, I'm assuming?"
          "Yes." replied Hammer. "I'll round up my own equipment as well. See you in one hour in the hangar bay."

March 16th, 2676, 12:27pm - Earth, Honduras

          Once the ramp had landed on the ground with a dull thud, Six walked down it and onto the field, the dig site with the shuttle and unknown objects adjacent to where the cargo shuttle had landed. He wore his temporal suit, but carried the helmet under his left arm, not needing it just yet. Hammer emerged from the rear of the shuttle a moment later, carrying some equipment that would be used to connect to the crashed shuttle's computer when it was free of the ground.
          Doctor Benstrom was there waiting, and walked up to Six.
          "Most of your shuttle is free from dirt and debris now." she mentioned. "We're using antigrav squares to move it out of the pit carefully."
          Six nodded. "Very well. Once Hammer has all his equipment ready to go, we'll open the shuttle and venture inside."
          Adele Benstrom motioned for Six to follow her, and then turned and headed towards the dig. A few minutes later, they arrived at the now-empty pit where the damaged shuttle had sat for millennia. To the left of the pit out in the open and away from the protective shield was the TEB ship, missing part of it's port stabilizer pylon and showing a massive scrape mark along that side of it's hull.
          The shuttle was otherwise in remarkably good shape, aside from the dirt and corrosion that had happened over it's time stuck in the ground.
          Six looked to the rear of the ship, and saw Hammer setting up a device that stood on a small tripod. He used a small, handheld transmitter to pop a small door next to the shuttle's rear hatch, and connected the device on the tripod via a long set of wires with a particular interface.
          Within a few moments of tapping the control console on top of the tripod, the shuttle's rear hatch suddenly cracked open, creaking as the upper door raised and the ramp lowered itself, albeit rather slowly.
          Six put his helmet down on the short grass, and took his plasma stun gun (PSG) out of it's hip holster and charged it, making sure the weapon was ready before he walked over to the ramp. Pointing his weapon forward and motioning to Hammer to stay back, Six hurried inside, but was relieved to see nothing waiting for him. The ship's interior was dusty and smelled of stale air, with some of the computer screens flickering or not working at all in their current state.
          Hammer came up the ramp carrying his tripod computer, and set it up in the rear of the shuttle to connect to the onboard systems, while Six entered the small cockpit and looked about. The forward windows were cracked, and the pilot's controls on both sides were covered in thick dust. Without warning, all the computer screens and consoles came to back to life in an instant, with the familiar hum of the shuttle's power systems now present to break up the silence.
          "Shuttle is back on line, for the most part." said Hammer from the rear. "Engines however, are shot and need extensive repairs."
          Six accessed the onboard telemetry files. "Let's see what you know...."

          "After going through the data that's present in the shuttle's databanks, it looks as if the shuttle was hit by an unknown cloaked craft before its systems went haywire and a temporal jump ocurred." explained Six over the comm.
          "The unknown craft decloaked for zero point three seconds, enough for the shuttle's scanners to note an oval-shaped craft with unfamiliar propulsion. The shuttle's computers went off-line about a half-hour after the crash landing."
          There was a momentary silence, before Director Talon responded.
          "Interesting. How would you like to proceed?" he asked of his agent.
          "Well," started Six. "The crashed shuttle should be taken back to headquarters for repair and such, but there's still the matter of the unknown ship, the strange panels found here in the ground with the shuttle, and why this all happened in the first place. I honestly think I should initiate a temporal jump to just before the shuttle crashed."
          "To what end?" wondered Talon.
          "To see what it was that happened here, and why." replied Six. "It's really the only logical course of action right now."
          Another momentary silence occurred, before Talon reluctantly agreed. "Very well, program your temporal coordinates, and prepare for a temporal jump. We'll monitor you from here, and keep a comm channel open once you've made it your jump."
          "Understood. Six out."
          He closed the channel by pressing a button on the control panel located on his suit's left forearm, and went to get his helmet. After picking it up and putting it on, the light blue face visor lit up, the helmet now connected to the suit's power system. A heads-up display appeared on the visor as he tapped his arm controls and put in the temporal coordinates for the jump he was about to initate.
          Doctor Benstrom walked up to him, and looked up and down at his suit, trying to figure out how it worked.
          "Where are you going now?" she asked, curious.
          "Not where, but when." replied Six. "I'm going to initiate a temporal jump, and go to the year Nine-ninety eight. It's the only way to figure out what happened."
          The doctor's eyes went wide at the mention of time travel. She had heard of the TEB a while back, but never knew much about their operations, let alone witnessed any kind of time travel event herself.
          Six moved about two meters away from the doctor, then looked to Hammer. The android stood on the crashed shuttle's ramp and only nodded slightly.
          Six gave a thumbs up, then readied himself for the jump. "Computer, initiate temporal jump, at a five second count."
          The computer counted down five seconds, before a shimmering burst of red energy enveloped him and removed him from view, disappearing completely seconds later itself with a couple of small flashes of light.
          Doctor Benstrom stood there, in complete awe.

March, year 998 - Copan, Earth

          The main temple sat empty amongst the sunset, the night sky starting to make it's presence known with shining stars, and even the Moon itself. With no light emnating anywhere from the ground, the outline of the Milky Way qas quite visible, and what a sight it was to behold, had anyone been around to see it.
          Crickets chriping their night song and small animals running from under patches of jungle and brush were the only living things that were present, with no humans at all anywhere near the area. The night was so quiet, that one could hear the water rushing around rocks and sandbars on the nearby river if he or she listened intently.
          As the sky continued to darken after the sun had finally gone down, something strange began to happen high up in the sky. A brilliant flash of shimmering silver light suddenly appeared way above the city of Copan, with a purple object of unknown origin emerge from it and speed downwards, missing the city as it hurtled towards an open area past the jungle at immense speeds.
          A massive explosion signified that it had crashed into the ground. Animals ran in all directions to get away from the fire and noise, but it wasn't over yet. A purple craft also emerged over the city, and also made a dive towards the field, before pulling up at the last possible second, grazing the ground near where the first craft had crashed. Two pieces of the oval-shaped craft broke off at this point and hit the ground, before it managed to gain altitude and disappeared into the night sky almost as fast as it had appeared.
          Six stood nearby in complete silence, watching the event unfold while using his suit's shroud technology to mask him from view. Fires raged around the crash site, burning the grass and foliage nearby. Luckily, he had arrived about fifteen minutes before the actual event took place, and managed to record everything, 
          "Computer, is it safe to approach the crashed vehicle?"
          A soft female voice responded in kind. "Negative. Temporal distortion field is active. Current radius is fifteen meters."
          Six raised an eyebrow inside his helmet and thought for a moment. If the shuttle was causing the temporal field, it would have ended once the ship emerged from it's own temporal jump. 
          'That active field means I can't approach that ship, nor put out the fires or interfere in any way.' he thought to himself. 'A field that strong would suggest that this event might just be part of the timeline.'
          Six opened a channel to headquarters, and was about to speak, when something else happened out of nowhere. A quick flash of light brought an oval spaceship - much like the one he had seen whent he event happened - overhead. It slowed to a hover, and descended carefully to the ground next to the crash site. It was more than twice the size of the shuttle, and it had three legs that extended from it's belly to help it land.
          "This is Talon, go ahead Six." said the director over the comm.
          "Stand by, sir. No time to explain...."

          A hatch opened in the leading edge of the oval craft, a thin ramp extending to let something walk out onto the field. A bright light was followed by a single being with a head and a body, covered in a red flowing suit of some sort, and a red spherical helmet. The being didn't seem to have arms or legs, and looked to hover itself down the ramp and onto the grass.
          Taking a huge risk, Six walked closer to the being and it's ship, before deactivating his shroud and rasing his hands into the air. The alien was temporarily startled, but stopped all of its forward movement and didn't move at all, more than likely surprised at seeing something other than itself.
          Six amplified the speakers in his helmet, and spoke softly and carefully.
          "My name is Six." he said. "I come in peace to learn about this crash that involved one of my organization's crafts."
          Moments passed without a response, and Six wasn't even sure if he had been understood. Still, he kept his hands up, and made no attempt to reach for a weapon or anything on his person out of good faith. Without warning, the alien responded in what seemed like forced English with a robotic tone about it.
          "You. Do not. Belong here."
          Six agreed. "No, I do not. I come from the future. This ship you see here, crashed, is from our time but was found in the past. I was sent to investigate."
          "This. Is. Yours?"
          "Yes," replied Six. "From the future."
          There was another silence for a minute. "We. Understand. It was. Ours that. Collided with. This ship in what. You call the. Future."
          Six noticed their language skills were getting better at communicating, so he waited a few moments before responding.
          "Why did the collision happen, and why did your people come to this time and place? To see the ruins?"
          The alien responded more coherently this time. "We are from a distant place. We came long ago to your world. This place held parts of us, as did the people. That were here for a long time. Some came back with us to our world, some left this place forever."
          Six was awed at what he was hearing, the open comm channel in his helmet capturing everything as well. 
          "And the collision in the future?"
          The alien's red spherical helmet head bobbed for a brief moment.
          "One of our ships. It was leaving this time, and went to the future to study your world in that time. Collision was an accident. But...now a 'paradox' in your timeline. We...apologize for this."

          A strange light then lanced out from the alien's ship, and hit something that was near the crash site. A small, circular-shaped panel was near the TEB shuttle, and suddenly disappeared into thin air, before the light vanished as well.
          "We leave now, to go home." said the alien, turning to head back up it's ramp and into the oval-shaped ship.
          Six finally put his hands down and watched the alien in the red suit slowly hover back up the ramp, but stop at the top beign re-entering the craft, turning slightly back in the direction of the lone temporal agent.
          "Perhaps, one day. We will visit properly. Good bye."
          With that, the alien disappeared into his ship, the ramp sliding back into place and the hatch closing. It rose into the air without a lot of noise, and the three landing legs retracted back into the underside of the sleek, purple craft as it rose into the night sky and headed out into space.
          Six remembered his open comm channel, and spoke into it.
          "You guys get all of that?" he asked of headquarters.
          Talon responded a moment later, stunned. "Yes. Yes we did, and I'm at a loss for words. Finish up there, and then make the jump back to the present time. If this truly is a temporal paradox as it seems to be, then there is little more to be gained investigating it at this point. Talon out."
          Six programmed the coordinates for home into his forearm console, and prepared for a temporal jump back to the present day. 
          "Computer, engage temporal jump." he said. With that, he became enveloped in a field of shimmering red energy and light, before phasing out of view, well on his way back to the future, leaving the crash site and paradox behind.
          Fire raged around the crash site for hours until burning itself out, taking some of the long grass and foilage with it. Fortunately, the light breeze present had pushed the fire towards the river bank, and not the jungle near the city.
          Animals started to arrive back in the field after the fire had gone out, having gotten over their fear and paranoia, which had been replaced by curiosity. The smouldering wreckage didn't keep their attention for long, as the local fauna scattered and left when they had figured out there was nothing for them at the site.
          Quiet returned to Copan, and an eerie one at that.
          The next day, as the sun rose over the land, a wind kicked up and started to cover the wreckage with any and all loose dirt and debris that may be around, a start of things to come for the site, which would eventually be lost to time. No humans came to investigate or find out what had happened, an oddity due to the heavy population in the area. The Mayans were known to have extensive settlements in the area, but the site remained quiet and untouched moving forward.

March 16th, 2676, 19:27pm - Moon

          With the cargo shuttle and crashed shuttle back inside the hangar bay at TEB headquarters, as well as his debriefing with Talon being complete, Six finally managed to enjoy some relaxation, going over the events of the last couple of days in his mind while sitting at a table in the lounge, alone. An alien encounter, shuttle accident, and temporal paradox were not exactly something one would normally see all at the same time, but it had been both exciting and exhausting.
          Sipping a cup of tea while leaning back on the comfortable seat, Six pondered what the alien had said, and wondered how they had managed to visit the Mayan time period without anyone from the TEB knowing about it.
          'Their technology must be far superior to our own.' he thought.
          Before he could take another sip of his tea, the doors to the lounge slid open, revealing the familiar form of Hammer, who didn't normally visit the lounge. The android wandered over to Six and stood in front of the table with a grin.
          "There I was, bringing two shuttles back to base, when I heard of what you had found during your temporal jump." he said, amused. "Some of us toil in obscurity. day in day out, never getting to have any fun ay any time. But you always seem to manage."
          Six chuckled. "Just lucky, I suppose." he replied. "I couldn't have predicted that turn of events, nor contact with an alien species."
          "You're probably right." said Hammer. "On that note, I think we should spend more time together away from work that we normally would. I enjoyed out little mission, and do consider you to be a friend."
          Six nodded in acknowledgement. "Same here, but perhaps tomorrow? I'm waiting for Tessa to show up. I haven't spent much time with her in the last week due to our duty shifts changing a bit."
          Hammer's blank white eyes glowed as he smiled.
          "But of course. Come by the lab tomorrow, and we'll discuss some plans. Enjoy your evening, Six."
          With that, the head of the TEB's engineering and design division headed out of the lounge and back into the corridor, the doors swishing closed behind him. Six was left alone with his own thoughts again, but it didn't last long. Moments later, the doors to the lounge slid open again, admitting the strikingly beautiful form of Tessa Rand, her long red hair flowing past either side of her head, and her navy blue tunic hugging her svelte figure as she walked.
          "Hi." she said with a sincere smile, before sliding into the seat next to his and snuggling up to Six, dressed in his light gray jumpsuit for the evening. Tessa wrapped her arms around him and kissed him softly on his cheek.
          "I hear you have a rather interesting story to tell, and I'm all ears!" she said happily.
          "Well then, I guess I will tell you!" he replied, turning and kissing her on her lips before putting an arm around her as well, ready to spend the next several hours in her company, telling her all about his recent adventure, and all it's nuances.

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