AWOL

by Traci Harding

  ‘I didn’t ask for my fortune, Captain.’ Prochazka’s expression hardened again. ‘If the heir of Phemoria is on this ship you had better tell me, or she dies with you this day, along with anyone else who does not disembark in my custody.’

  The implication was that they intended to blow up the AMIE vessel, which Lucian resented more than the death threat. ‘We only have a skeleton crew, and most of them are not on board at present, including Thurraya. She is with her parents — you won’t find them here either.’

  ‘How many crew do you have on board at present?’ Prochazka grinned, realising the query posed a moral quandary for him. ‘Tell me, or the one in the control room up there dies … if he’s not dead already,’ she allowed, indifferent to the outcome.

  Was it better to tell her the numbers to ensure his crew got off the vessel with their lives, or should he conceal their number in the hope Taren returned in time to salvage the situation? ‘What do you intend to do with my people?’

  She raised both brows to consider. ‘Well, the men among you are of good psychic stock and will make for good breeding.’

  ‘What?’ Lucian was momentarily stunned and repulsed by the claim.

  ‘And the women, well …’ She served him a broad smile. ‘Gotta feed those demons.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Lucian decided his crew were better left to fend for themselves.

  ‘Why would I bother, when your crew are all so attractive?’ Prochazka was suddenly cracked over the head with a wrench, which didn’t knock her out, but really pissed her off. Looking down at her feet, she was enraged. ‘You dare slap a restraining device on me, you treacherous man-loving whore!’

  ‘What of it?’ Jazmay Cardea’s voice replied.

  ‘No, Jaz,’ Lucian uttered under his breath. ‘You should have run.’ She was the only one of them left on board who had PK.

  Everything went silent for a moment and Lucian struggled to see what was going on.

  ‘Holy fucking shit.’ Jazmay was thrown face-down on top of his pod.

  ‘Jazmay, what is going on?’ In his mind he wanted to scold her for giving up her chance to get her family away to safety.

  ‘They’re all shifters! Satomi must have passed her talents on to them! They all have PK!’ she managed to advise before she was raised up and slapped aside, out of his view.

  That was how Jazmay had acquired her PK talent — from stealing and emulating Taren’s DNA, she gained access to her memories and talents; this was something any shifter could do, with a touch.

  The fact sent shockwaves through Lucian’s system; Satomi’s play was audaciously risky but brutally effective. Her Valoureans would be unstoppable now. ‘That’s how you got here so quickly,’ Lucian concluded as Prochazka took hold of the restraint that one of her guards had removed from her person and cast it aside.

  ‘Resourceful, yes?’ She grinned. ‘Have a nice life, Captain, however many minutes of it you have remaining.’

  Lucian was left completely winded, and that was partially because he was running out of air. He had to wonder what would come sooner: asphyxiation, or the annihilation of his ship.

  Minutes ticked away as he considered what the future held in store for his crew, and he gave up hope of Taren arriving to save the day. In fact he was dreading that she would arrive in time and perish with the ship, trying to get him out. His thoughts lingered on his wife in their more intimate moments, as his breathing shallowed and he began to feel dizzy — it wouldn’t be long now.

  When Taren returned to AMIE, of the mind to join her husband, she’d expected to land in the captain’s office, and was bemused to find herself in the launch bay. The first thing that caught her attention was the fact they were running on reserve power and that there was a big hole in the wall through to the flight deck, where the door had been blown out of its facings and was now lying on floor. ‘What the hell happened here?’ she uttered quietly, but the more relevant question was, was it still happening?

  Scanning the area, which she knew like the back of her hand, Taren noted a pod had been lowered from its hangar and so she cautiously moved to take a look inside.

  ‘Lucian?’ she gasped, shocked to see him unconscious within, and she used her PK to crack the defunct pod open. ‘He’s not breathing,’ she wheezed, her heart pounding in panic as she checked for a pulse. ‘Fuck!’ Unable to find one, she grabbed his upper body and teleported them both down to Kassa’s medical lab.

  The room was also in near darkness, but with a thought she fired up all the equipment therein. ‘Don’t be dead.’ She laid him on the surgical table. ‘Electrocardiogram.’ She got a grip on what she needed to do, but hooking him up to the monitor brought tears to her eyes — he was flatlining, and she had no idea how long he’d been clinically dead for. ‘Where is everyone?’ She ripped his shirt open and manifested a solid gel sheet to place on his chest.

  She primed the defibrillator and the workstation within Kassa’s lab, switching the latter to voice command. ‘AMIE, run security cam footage of the launch bay over the last hour.’ She grabbed up the electrode paddles as the unit charged, and as soon as it had, Taren planted the pads on Lucian and delivered their charge into his chest. His body rebounded with the force of the shock, but from his heart there was no response; the monitor continued to flatline. After repeating this procedure several times, Taren began to despair.

  ‘This is not how this ends for you.’ Taren’s emotions welled — fury, sorrow, remorse, despair — but a glance at the monitor brought her shattered sensibilities sharply into focus. ‘Prochazka.’ The name left a bitter taste in her mouth, as she viewed footage of the general leering over the defunct pod she had found her husband in.

  Taren was drawn to the screen, as Jazmay appeared in a heroic attempt to save Lucian and what happened next shocked Taren to the core. ‘Holy shit … Satomi gave them all her PK —’ It took a moment for the ramifications of that act to sink in — the Valoureans were now an extremely powerful force to be reckoned with.

  ‘Show me the past hour of footage from the entry hatch camera, Module D.’

  The footage began with Valoureans already in the ship, guarding the hatch door.

  ‘Fast forward.’

  When the image reached the point where Valoureans started exiting, Taren ordered AMIE to stop the footage and play it.

  One by one she watched her crew escorted off their ship — Kassa, Kalayna, Fari, Zelimir, Amie and Ayliscia. The rest of the crew were dragged out unconscious — Leal, Swithin, Jazmay and Yasper. It seemed they had caught them all, but then something urged her to recount.

  ‘Ringbalin.’ Taren’s already exhausted heart began pounding in her chest anew, hoping he hadn’t been killed during the incident and left to die as Lucian had been. ‘AMIE, scan the ship for life forms.’

  Apart from hers, the only other life-form readings were coming from the greenhouse in Module C, which was naturally a mass reading; whether Ringbalin was among that mass remained to be seen. ‘I’ll have to go down there,’ she said aloud as if her husband needed advising. Even if Lucian was dead, his spirit would be close at hand and no doubt yelling at her to get her arse into gear and go find Ringbalin. ‘I’ll be back.’

  ‘Full power,’ she demanded as she landed in the darkened greenhouse, where the only sounds to be heard were filters, pumps and sprinklers.

  The night sky returned to grace the ceiling overhead. ‘My luck, night mode.’ She didn’t want to demand a switch to day mode, as Ringbalin was religious about his greenhouse — only heaven knew what damage a sudden shift in time would do to this sensitive environment.

  The pathways were dimly lit, so she could see her way well enough. Still, if the Valoureans had left behind any assassins, this would be the perfect place to lay in wait. To risk teleporting to Ringbalin could land her in the midst of the enemy, if he had been captured. As she did have to search on foot, however, she decided not to pussyfoot around a confrontation — best to find those Valoureans or Ringbali
n as soon as possible. ‘Ringbalin! Are you in here?’ she called as she ran the winding pathways, half expecting to find a body around every bend, or have someone jump out and attack her. ‘It’s Taren. Come out, if you’re alive. Please!’

  She completed the circuit, and came to a stop beneath the weather control tower, of the mind to head up the stairs, when she felt something grip her foot. ‘ARGH!’ She looked down to see a hand protruding from a fresh-turned bed of soil, and the rest of the buried body followed. ‘Ringbalin?’ It was hard to tell under all the dirt.

  He stood, shook off and then spat the straw from his mouth. ‘The captain said to hide. What happened? I was expecting to be star dust by now.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Upon consideration, Taren realised that was a stupid question.

  ‘Because they are going to blow up the ship,’ they both concluded at once.

  ‘Of course they are.’ Taren grabbed Ringbalin, and returned to where she’d left Lucian.

  ‘What happened to the captain?’ Ringbalin was devastated to see Lucian’s lifeless form, still hooked up to the flatlining electrocardiogram.

  Taren longed to have the luxury to grieve, but that could be conceding defeat and she was not about to do that.

  ‘No time,’ Taren held up a finger to beg that he allow her to think.

  She needed Swithin to bring Lucian back from the dead, but he was unconscious and under Valourean guard, so she needed to keep Lucian’s body as fresh as possible.

  ‘I have it.’ Taren grabbed both her husband’s corpse and Ringbalin.

  ‘Can’t we stop them?’ Ringbalin was bemused, as the ship began to rattle and shake. ‘They’re going to destroy all our work!’

  No one had worked harder than Ringbalin, except for maybe Taren and the captain himself.

  ‘The quantum will is not weighing in our favour.’ Taren knew she couldn’t win against an entire legion of Valoureans each as strong as she.

  Ringbalin hugged close as the rumbling of the ship intensified, and Taren envisioned the grand hallway of the House of Vidor on Sermetica.

  The huge, grand old manor, located on the outskirts of the government sector of the floating capital of Heavensgate on Sermetica, had been closed up since the death of the Duchess Maiara Vidor, and only kept minimal staff.

  ‘This is the House of Vidor!’ Ringbalin hissed quietly. Very surprised to find himself there, he seemed very conscious of being filthy in the midst of the spotless manor.

  Ringbalin had been one of many psychic children who had been secretly fostered here for a time by Maiara Vidor. ‘Why are we trespassing in one of Sermetica’s greatest heritage mansions?’ He watched as Taren floated her husband’s body into the air and it began to trail her down the hall.

  ‘This is the only part of the house I am familiar with,’ Taren explained, ‘but I need the crypt. Do you know where that is?’

  ‘It’s this way.’ Ringbalin motioned behind him and Taren did a quick about-face.

  ‘Lead on,’ she invited, as the floating body swung around to trail them.

  It was a little eerie moving through the dark, empty mansion; fortunately for them, it was the wee hours in the morning here in Heavensgate, so absolutely no one was around.

  ‘Whoa,’ Ringbalin held his head as they entered the huge kitchen area, ‘this is such a flashback.’

  ‘Nice memories?’ Taren queried.

  Ringbalin nodded as he led through to the rooms beyond. ‘I can still smell the bread baking —’

  ‘Can I help you?’

  They both came to a halt and turned around to find a young male in his pyjamas holding a laser pistol. He was slight in build, like Ringbalin, and appeared slightly older, but that could have been his neat, dark moustache and beard making him appear older than he was.

  ‘Just where do you think you are taking this … thing,’ he referred to Ringbalin’s filthy person in a snooty manner, before his eyes turned to the floating body. ‘Oh damn —’

  Taren willed his weapon into her possession, before he’d finished the sentence.

  ‘You have PK,’ he concluded, raising his hands to surrender.

  ‘Correct,’ Taren conceded, sticking the weapon through her belt. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I am known as Ducer,’ he advised. ‘I’m the curator here.’

  ‘Trance?’ Ringbalin moved closer to view the man in question. ‘It’s me, Quanah.’

  Quanah was the name given to Ringbalin by Maiara, which meant ‘fragrant’, referring to his talent to make flowers bloom wherever he went.

  ‘Flower power?’ the curator responded, amazed. ‘You grew up!’

  ‘Yes!’ Ringbalin confirmed as they embraced — laughing with joy to make each other’s acquaintance again. ‘So did you!’

  ‘You look like you’ve been buried.’ Trance dusted dirt off himself and Ringbalin.

  ‘I have been,’ Ringbalin admitted, which intrigued his old friend. ‘I always thought you’d become a spy or something? And yet here you are a respectable curator!’ He chuckled at the notion.

  ‘Happened by default really.’ Trance shrugged. ‘Never found a home other than here, and after her grace died, someone had to see to running the estate.’

  ‘Ah, guys?’ Taren motioned to the floating body. ‘The crypt, pronto.’

  ‘The crypt? Is this man a Vidor?’ Trance was concerned.

  ‘Crypt first.’ Taren moved off after Ringbalin. ‘Questions later.’

  Through the extensive family cellars, where huge barrels sat ageing their contents, they came to the door of the family crypt.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Taren noted Trance was looking a little freaked out, and as he nodded to affirm, Taren overrode the security pad with a wave of her hand over the key-plate. The door slid aside and they entered the darkened crypt.

  As it was night, sensors triggered the internal lighting and the chamber was not at all what Taren had been expecting; it wasn’t old, dim and dusty at all. The majestic, hexagon shaped room housed many ornate sarcophagi and was completely white and spotless.

  ‘Now which one of these was Satomi placed in?’ Taren moved down the aisle reading inscriptions as she went.

  ‘The one in the middle,’ Trance replied, leading on towards the centre of the hexagon where a large skylight in the ceiling provided a window to the stars. Upon clearing some taller monuments, they entered the open central area, where stairs led up to one beautiful white coffin, and Trance was horrified to see the transparent lid open.

  ‘What the?’ He ran up the stairs to find the sarcophagi empty, and all the flowers that had been buried with the princess, dead and crumbling inside and all around the tomb. ‘Satomi has risen from the grave!’

  ‘Yes, we know that.’ Taren waved her hand over the interior of the unit and the dead flowers blew away, before she laid Lucian’s body within.

  ‘You know that?’ Trance emphasised, going into shock. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You don’t get to know.’ She re-programmed the unit and was about to close the lid when Ringbalin waylaid the proceedings.

  ‘Wait!’ He picked up a few of the dead flowers and restored them to perfect health, before laying them in the capsule with his captain. ‘See you soon, Captain.’

  Taren closed the unit and reactivated the stasis function. As she observed her husband’s dead body being put on ice her self control crumbed and she collapsed into tears, trembling with the aftershock.

  ‘You did good.’ Ringbalin touched a hand to her shoulder, and she calmed right down.

  ‘But I have no idea what to do next?’ she confessed. ‘I’m so damn tired, I can’t think straight.’

  ‘No. No, no, no, no, no … don’t!’ Trance held high a finger in warning, backing away from something only he could see. His body went rigid and then into spasm, before he fell on the ground.

  ‘Trance has a Power,’ Taren assumed.

  ‘Yep.’ Ringbalin watched as the curator’s body rose straight back up to standing.


  ‘He’s a medium,’ they both concluded at once.

  ‘You need to warn Zeven that the Valoureans are looking for Thurraya,’ Trance advised in Lucian’s voice.

  ‘Lucian?’ Taren’s sensibilities went into overload. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get back —’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he insisted. ‘I’m perfectly fine with being dead for now, it may even serve us? Forget me, and get to Zeven.’ Trance went into spasm once more and collapsed unconscious on the floor.

  Just that short message did wonders for Taren’s moral; she drew a deep breath of relief to know Lucian was right by her and regained her focus. ‘Well then, we need to move.’ She walked over to where her new best friend had collapsed onto the floor.

  ‘You are taking Trance with us?’ Ringbalin followed her.

  ‘As my only link with Lucian, he is a necessary risk.’ She took hold of Trance’s arm and reached out her free hand to Ringbalin.

  ‘So where is Zeven exactly?’ He took hold, bound to go with her regardless of the answer.

  ‘Classified.’ Taren smiled, knowing Ringbalin would be thrilled by the destination; in past timelines he’d studied biology samples from there, but had never been awarded the opportunity to visit the virgin planet.

  ‘Oh my organic ancestors!’ Ringbalin stood amid the towering plants that appeared to reach to the heavens, being washed clean of dirt by the warm pouring rain that was a constant on Oceane. ‘These are tundrells!’ He gazed up at the unfurling plants, thrilled beyond belief. ‘They’re like the prehistoric legends of the plant world!’

  In another timeline Ringbalin had cultivated some of these plants, so Ringbalin had already told Taren all there was to know about them. ‘Yes, it’s thrilling, I’m sure.’ She rose to walk on the water’s surface and dragged Trance to a rocky mound where he wouldn’t drown.

  ‘It is!’ Ringbalin emphasised, as he waded waist-deep in water after her. ‘You have no idea! Where are we?’

  ‘This, my friend, is Oceane.’ She laid Trance on his side out of the water, and looked further up the tall rock face.