Temporal Suicide

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the words: Needle, Chain and Fly

Temporal Suicide

The needle-ship popped into existence thirty-five years before it left.

Well, the easy part is over, thought Colonel Chuck Brandon.

He knew that fire-control radars were locking onto him as he circled Earth, bleeding off speed before diving down into the lower atmosphere. His on-board computer knew the path of each hunter-killer missile before it was launched to intercept him. It knew because all of this had happened dozens of times before; each time ending with the ship being destroyed by a missile that he’d fired at himself – thirty-five years earlier.

His mission was simple: Kill himself before he was able to father the man that eventually pushed the button that started World War Three; a war that seemed to be proving Einstein was right when he said the fourth world war would be fought with sticks and stones.

If Einstein was right, the future Brandon would cease to exist once he killed himself; a sort of double suicide.

So far, every attempt to break the chain of events leading to the birth of his son had failed. However, each failure became a part of history. Brandon had been sent back with the knowledge of each failure. This enabled him to fly his ship closer and closer with each attempt; dodging missiles easily because history told him where they would be.

The last attempt had been close. He still had the scars incurred when the strange ship from the future had fired a phased-beam that cut through his position like butter. Only luck had saved him that time.

This time, Brandon hoped that luck would be on his “future” side as he avoided one missile after another.

With his target in sight, Brandon triggered the beam.

His last thought: Einstein can’t always be right. Maybe the Time Paradox was wron. . .

Word Count 300