Ben’or frowned. “You don’t seem that worried.”
“Oh, she’s done this before. Turned up on the ship, no less. Only found her when it was too late to take her back.” Arlene stood up with her hands now on her hips. She took a breath, her voice lower now. “You know,” she said slowly, “I wouldn’t put it past her to pull the same stunt again.”
She pulled up her wrist holo and started typing.
Ben’or watched. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the base.”
The call connected. “Hey, Paige. Bad news. Anne has gone missing. Yes, again. I think she may be trying to get on board one of the ships so that she can come with us…”
There was a pause as Arlene listened to the other side of the call.
“Yeah. That’s a good idea. Tell me… did Brock end up finding a way to stop her from melting herself out of the camera images?”
Ben’or’s eyes widened as he watched Arlene. He caught her eye. She shook her head at him as she listened.
Then she sighed. “Ok. We’ll give it half an hour before we come back up. Goodness knows how she could have pulled this one off. Although… wanna put a tracker on the other pod we had down here? Yeah, I’ll wait.”
Arlene wiped her hand over her graying skin. Her eyes showed how exhausted she was feeling now. “They’re tracking the other pod. The one we’d left down here. Won’t take a second.”
Ben’or nodded, perching on a nearby chair at the dining table, an expression of deep concern in his eyes.
“Yes, yes, I’m here,” Arlene pipped up again. “Oh, well that kinda narrows it down. Yes, ok. We’ll stay here for the time being then. Keep me posted? Thanks, Paige.”
She disconnected the call and closed the holoscreen, before slumping back down onto the sofa and covering her eyes with her hands.
“What’s happened?” Ben’or asked gently.
Arlene took a deep breath. “By the sounds of it, it’s most likely that she’s headed up to the base. That pod is back on Emma’s holodeck, so we can guess she’s back there. Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Well, it turns out the Zhyn transporter also went back out to rejoin the fleet. So it’s possible she hitched a ride on that.”
Ben’or chuckled. “Well, she is quite the adventurer.”
“You have no idea.”
Ben’or smiled. “So, what’s the plan?”
Arlene sank back into the sofa she had perched on. “Paige suggested we hang here for now and try and get some rest. She’ll see if she’s on the base or any of the ships, and if they don’t locate her they’ll let us know and we can head on up to help. But she was keen that we take advantage of the downtime we have before we have to go.”
Ben’or grinned. “Is she now? Well, in that case…” He wandered over to the wine rack and pulled off a bottle. “I think it would be irresponsible to ignore her suggestion.”
Arlene shook her head smiling. “You’re right. I’m sure Anne is fine. I’ll get some glasses,” she added getting up with a seemingly renewed energy now.
Safehouse, Gaitune-67
Giles was on his way out of the kitchen, mocha in hand, when he felt his wrist buzzing. Careful not to spill his mocha he glanced down and saw it was a group message from Oz.
ALL PERSONNEL BE ALERT. ANNE MISSING AND ASSUMED ON BASE.
…
…
…
YES. AGAIN.
Giles exhaled strongly, shifted the antigrav mug into his other hand, and then scrolled down the rest of the message to read the details of what they knew. Then he hit to connect a voice call with Oz.
“Hey, Oz.”
“What’s up G-man?” Oz replied through Giles’s audio implant.
“Anne, by the sounds of it. Is anyone checking the ships?” he asked, recalling the last time she had disappeared, and thoroughly embarrassed him by stowing away on The Scamp Princess.
“Yes. Crash and Brock are down there already. They’re going to check The Empress just as soon as they’ve finished what they’re working on.”
Giles nodded grimly. “Ok. I’ll head down there and give them a hand.”
“Ok thanks, Giles. I’ll let them know.”
“Sure. Anything I can do to help.” He turned around with his freshly brewed mocha and headed back into the kitchen. No point in trying to carry it around with him. He’d have to warm it up later.
He placed the mug down next to the machine, and reluctantly turned and headed out again. Crossing the open plan common area through to the foyer he stopped suddenly and listened.
There was a faint muffled whimpering sound, like someone trying not to be heard.
His brow furrowed as he listened more closely.
“Neechie?” he called gently.
Nothing.
Then a sniff.
“Hello?” he called, spinning around 360 degrees to try and figure out where the sound was coming from.
There were a shuffle and a thunk. He glanced all around him trying to figure out where the movement was coming from.
“Anne? Is that you?” he called.
No answer. And then another faint thunk. He looked up. There was an air duct.
“Anne?” he called again. “Are you in the air duct?”
He waited, straining his ears. “Maybe,” a little voice replied.
Giles stood up straight and stopped craning his neck. “Anne. Are you ok?”
No answer. Then another sniff.
“You’re crying?”
“Maybe,” the muffled voice replied again.
Giles’s tone shifted. “Anne. For goodness sake. You’ve got the whole team looking for you.” He tapped on his holo to alert Oz, then he softened his voice. “How did you get in there anyway?”
“Through the vent behind the common room.”
Giles lifted his voice to the duct above him. “How about you come back down and we can talk?”
There was no answer, but he could hear a shuffling just a little further down the duct like she had begun moving.
He hit his holo. “Oz?”
“Yep.”
“I’ve found Anne. She’s with me. You can call off the search.”
“Ok. Good. Thank goodness for that. Arlene and Ben’or were about to mount a search too. I’ll let everyone know.”
“Thanks, Oz.”
The shuffling and thunking had become louder and moved along the duct into the open plan common area. Now the noise was sliding down the far wall, beyond the holoscreen and back sofa. Giles watched in anticipation before realizing that she was going to emerge from the vent somewhere on the other side. He rounded the common area to watch the dead space between there and the foyer. Sure enough, a few moments later a rather grubby and dusty-looking Estarian adolescent emerged from the vent. She dusted off her head and face, dropping big globs of dirt on the floor, then turned and bent down in front of the vent and replaced the cover she had kicked out of the way.
Giles stayed where he was so as not to crowd her. “So…” he said, by way of opening. “What’s going on?”
She turned around and her face was all smeared with dirt and tears.
She had tried to stop herself from crying as she crawled out, but now, another tear escaped from her left eye. “It’s all my fault. Arlene said this would happen. That I was a transmitter for something dangerous.”
Giles was by her side in an instant, wrapping his arms around her now. She didn’t try and stop him. In fact, for a change she moved in and leaned into the hug. “I’m sorry. I tried not to be bad. I didn’t want any of this to happen. I’m…”
“Hey. Hey. It’s not your fault. Not at all. Even if you were the antenna, you were only doing what we asked you to. And there is nothing bad about you. Your powers, your skills are incredible. They represent the next stage of Estarian evolution. You’re a shining example.”
“That just happens to ge
t us all killed,” she retorted. Her eyes were all screwed up and dirt streaked down her face.
“That would only be the case if those aliens are out to kill us… But I very much doubt they are. If my theories are correct these were the people who put us on these various planets. If anything, we think they’re looking forward to meeting us. Think about it…”
He peeled her off him so he could look at her. “If they were intent on killing us they could have done that already. They could have completely wiped us out at any point in history. Instead, they planted clues for us to go out and find them. They gave us the tools and information only when we had people with specific skills and abilities. Like you. Like Molly. Like Bethany Anne.
Anne’s crying had stopped, and now she was merely sniffing.
“Come on,” Giles said, standing up. “Let’s get you a tissue from the kitchen.” He took her hand and led her back through to the safe house kitchen.
“Remember,” he told her as they walked. “We went out looking for the talismans and put the puzzle together. We all made the decision to pursue this: Molly. Bethany Anne. Everyone was on board. You were just one small piece of the puzzle. And you did great.”
“But why?” Anne protested. “Why are they coming?”
Giles shrugged. “I’m not sure. To see what we’ve become probably. To help if they can. To let us in on their secrets… maybe.”
“So they’re definitely not coming to kill us?”
“I very much doubt it.”
Giles sat her down at the table in the kitchen and handed her some damp kitchen roll. He found a clean mug and started making her a hot drink from the machine, then he disappeared into the pantry for a moment. He returned with a big cheesy grin. “Marshmallows?”
Anne grinned and nodded silently.
Giles finished making the hot chocolate in silence, piled it up with marshmallows and dumped it in front of her.
“Now,” he said, gently but seriously, “a bunch of us are going off to check out this new fleet. Say hello and all. But I need you to stay here and look after Paige and Maya. They have a tendency to worry. And to drink too much. I need you here to stop them from doing that, and to reassure them when they get all… well, you know. You think you can do that for me?”
Anne thought for a moment. She didn’t have the energy to protest about being left behind. “Can I drink with them then?”
“Hell no. Unless you’re drinking water or tea.”
“That’s not fair!” she protested, her teenage will and spunk slowly returning.
“I know. Life is incredibly unfair. But the last thing they need is you drinking and not being able to control your powers. Eh?”
“Yeah. Ok. But when you and Arlene get back can I have a drink?”
Giles grinned and patted her shoulder. “When all this is over I’ll take you drinking myself,” he said, picking up his own mocha. “Well,” he added, tilting his head, “maybe we’ll start you off with a beer in a confined space where you can’t set anything on fire. Or surge the electricity. Or break anything.”
Anne sighed, and rolled her eyes, already looking more like her old self as she sipped her liquefied marshmallow drink with hot chocolate in it.
Giles stood watching her carefully, a new thought formulating in his mind.
Molly’s Conference Room, Safe House, Gaitune-67
Giles wandered back down the corridor from escorting Anne back to her room so she could get cleaned up and rest.
Something had been nagging at him about Anne. He wasn’t sure. It was still a theory… but if it was correct the implications could be dire.
He strode down the corridor, his boots squeaking against the polished floor. He thought briefly about how loudly they announced his arrival. But most of the crew were out on the base, making things ready for their departure the next morning. But then he noticed a light on in the conference room. Molly’s conference room.
And the door was slightly ajar.
He was about to walk past it when he hesitated. Then stopped dead.
Molly turned around from her normal seat, where she would have her back to the door to avoid distractions.
He should say something, he thought to himself. He should share his concerns before it was too late.
She smiled. She looked tired, like she had been working solidly. He moved toward the door. “Hey. You got a minute?” he asked gently.
“Sure,” she beamed. “Come on in.” She had been sitting on one leg, studying the data on several different holoscreens. Now with a visitor, she dropped her leg down and relaxed back in her chair as if welcoming the break.
Giles wandered around to the corner of the table and sat down, placing one arm on the table edge. “I’m… not sure how to tell you this Molly. But, I didn’t want to wait until it was too late.”
He searched her face for a reaction. Nothing. She was just listening patiently, from all he could tell.
“It’s Anne.” He paused. “I just found her hiding in a ventilation duct because she was worried it was her fault that The Ascension Race was coming this way.”
Molly frowned ever so slightly. “Well, it’s not her fault. But she was a part of it.”
Giles nodded and waved his hand, trying to get to the point. “Yes. I’ve tried to console her, and she’s ok for now. But while we were talking something occurred to me. How do the ARs know where to find us?”
Molly thought for a moment. And then smirked, with genuine humor.
Giles sat up, bewildered by her reaction. “What?”
“ARs? You’re going with that?”
“Well, in the absence of a better idea. You have something better?”
Molly tried to put her face straight, and not mock him. “No. No. We’ll go with ARs until something better comes up.”
Giles took a deep breath. “Anyway, my point… They seem to know where we are. But how?”
“Well, we’re assuming they remember where they dropped the samples that created the Estarians.”
“Well, then we’d expect for them to have folks showing up at all the sites where they made DNA drops. Like Earth. Like Zhyn…”
Molly frowned more deeply now. She shook her head. “No. We would have heard about it by now.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it begs the question; if they’re locked onto us… how are they finding us?”
“Well, we’re all together, apart from…”
“Bethany Anne and Michael. Yes. But we have no way of knowing where they are or what they’re facing.”
“True. Though if the ARs are able to track through the etheric I’m sure they’ll have a lock on them.”
Giles clicked his fingers. “Yes. If they’re tracking through the ether. However… Remember what Arlene said about the antenna…”
Molly’s mouth dropped open. She covered it with her hand. “You think they’re tracking Anne?”
Giles sighed, slowly, bobbing his head gently. “That was what had crossed my mind.”
Molly sat gazing at the table for a few moments.
“I don’t think she’s in danger,” Giles added. “If anything, I think she’s just the homing beacon to get them into the vicinity of the rest of us. They must understand that we’re a social species and will keep our own close by. And if we’re solving the puzzles and everything that was required of us in order to do that, they must be able to make certain assumptions about our desires to protect each other.”
Molly closed her eyes and shook her head. “I was so fixated on all the other moving parts… the trouble on Estaria, having to speak to these aliens… I completely missed it.”
Giles grinned his cockiest grin. “And that’s why you keep the A-team close!” He winked at her playfully.
She snorted lightly, amused. “It’s a good thing modesty doesn’t suit you, anyway.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Ok, so if this is the case, we want Anne with us on that ship
tomorrow. Not out here, telegraphing the location of the population.”
Giles took his glasses off and started cleaning them. “You don’t think as a precaution we should send her away? Like to another system? Or dead space or something?”
Molly frowned. “Why would we do that? Like you said, these guys aren’t looking to harm anyone, right? I just think our best bet is to have her with us… in case we need her to get their attention or communicate or something.”
“But just in case?”
“Are you doubting your theory now? Now that it comes down to Anne’s safety?”
“No, no… Not at all—”
“Besides, we’ve nothing else with gate technology so even if we did scoot her out of here we can’t get her far enough away.”
“Except we do have The Scamp Princess,” Giles added quietly.
“With a newly evolved AI, who needs more monitoring and is by no means battle-ready at this point.” Molly eyed him carefully. “Plus, if the AR’s technology is anything like what we have already seen, they will have already seen the signs of the civilizations.”
Giles bobbed his head and replaced his glasses. “Yeah. Right. I guess that’s a fair deduction. Besides, I’m sure Anne will be happier about not being left behind.”
There was a quiet in the room for a moment as the two brainiacs considered their options.
“You know… it’s still entirely possible they’re tracking yourself, Arlene and indeed Bethany Anne,” Giles reminded her.
Molly took her finger from her lips. “You’re right. I’ll warn the General. Have him get a message out… just in case.”
The pair talked some more, and decided to just have Anne come along without having to let the others know about the thoughts they’d been having about her role in it all. “After all,” Molly concluded, “it’s not as if we’ve any new evidence. This is all just conjecture at this point.”
“True. I’ll let Anne know she can come with us in the morning,” Giles agreed quietly.
Sean stood quietly outside the door, pressed against the wall, listening to every word. He’d been coming back from the kitchen in his socks and had seen Giles disappear in to talk with Molly.
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 221