by JK Stone
“Do you know if he preferred the winter or summer?” Terrah asked softly.
“I believe he said the winter,” The AI replied.
Terrah sighed and said, “Alright, we’ll do that at our earliest convenience then.”
A few minutes later the AI stated, “My programming is fully functional again. Would you like me to begin the bonding procedure now?”
Terrah had to chuckle to herself, she was told the stories about the others bonding experiences and expected more of an argument. This AI seemed amiable and accepting.
Smiling Terrah said, “Yes, that sounds good— her statement was cut short when with what felt like a jolt of electricity, Terrah blacked out once again.
Chapter Eleven
Terrah was having the strangest of dreams. She would arrive at a disaster and then systematically she would watch as events reversed themselves. All of the dreams were variations of the theme until the final one.
The final dream began with the arrival at a frozen over Earth, and then the feeling of intense pain as her body was thrown into the wall. This was followed by the slow healing process in an inky darkness, after which there was a lot of talking.
Terrah could feel the trepidation rising and with a start, she sat bolt upright and looking around she noted that she was in her bedroom aboard her ship. Startled at how she got there, she called out, “Hello?” A moment later she heard the most astoundingly masculine voice she had ever heard say her name.
“How are you feeling today Terrah?”
Terrah wasn’t sure why, but the thought had just crossed her mind that this man’s voice could talk her clothes off in a hot minute if he put any effort into it. There was a smokey sensual quality to it, and shaking her head to pull herself back to reality Terrah had a sneaking suspicion who the voice belonged to, but she said, “I am doing fine. Do I know you?” she asked.
The voice let out a slight chuckle and replied, “Yes, I am the Artificial Intelligence. I have yet to be given a name, my past names have been… … … this is an oddity, I seem to be unable to tell you what any of my prior names were.”
Terrah heard his voice from behind her, so she smiled warmly and turned around. She knew what name she would pick. Ever since she was a young girl she dreamt of her perfect man, she knew everything about him, his size, facial features, and hair and eye colors.
Terrah had friends in the military who told her that if she was waiting for all of those in a single man with that name, then she would never find anyone, but it never seemed to bother her that she had not found him yet.
She looked up into his scorching hot gaze and said, “Doran!” before she once again lost her bid for consciousness.
*****
“What happened?” Terrah asked in confusion as she sat up to find that she was in the medical unit.
The AI smiled down at her and said, “You gave me my name and passed out.”
Terrah thought he looked a bit smug about it and she schooled her features, then looking him over once again; she knew exactly what name she’d chosen. “Is Doran alright with you?” she asked.
His smile widened and he said, “It is a wonderful name, thank you.”
Terrah blushed a bit and said, “You’re welcome.”
She looked around and didn’t remember being brought to the medical unit and asked, “How long was I unconscious?”
Doran’s expression turned serious and he stated, “This time you were unconscious for fifteen minutes. The first time, however, you were unconscious for twenty-seven hours. I was becoming very concerned, because none of my prior bonding processes ever took that long.”
Terrah couldn’t believe what he’d just said, so she asked him to confirm it, and after he did, she asked, “Did my family or anyone come over to check on me?”
Doran looked at Terrah in obvious confusion and then he said, “Nobody can get on this ship without authorization. There were attempts to contact you over the communications, but I did not know if they were authorized, so I blocked their transmissions. That is how I knew your name,” he ended with a warm smile.
Terrah started to panic, her sisters, hell all of her family would be worried after not being able to contact her for that long. Terrah looked at Doran and said, “You can unblock the transmissions now, they were my family trying to check on my wellbeing.”
“I have unblocked the transmissions, but we will be too far out of range by now to receive live communications if they were on Daregon.”
Terrah’s panic rose further, and she asked, “Why are we too far away?”
Doran smiled and said, “When you fell unconscious, I followed your last command.”
Terrah closed her eyes a moment trying to figure out what she could have said and asked, “and what was that command?”
Doran cracked a warm smile as he recited, “You said, ‘Alright, we will do that at our earliest convenience.’ We will be at Terra in six hours,” Doran said happily.
Terrah groaned then she activated the communications in her suit. “Hello, Jason, can you hear me?” she called out.
“Terrah, are you alright? We lost contact with you and saw your ship was headed for Earth. Do you need any assistance?” Jason said sounding haggard.
Terrah sighed and said, “No. It was just a misunderstanding. I can explain it all later. At the moment we’re headed to Earth to settle the prior commander’s remains. Do you want me to head to Abnearu from there?”
Jason was speaking in the background then he replied, “Yes that’ll be fine, we’re decreasing our speed, we all set course to follow your ship once we realized you had gone. You still have quite a bit of a head start on us though and depending on your stay on Earth, you may still get to Abnearu before us. Your sisters are chomping at the bit to see you, and Pops, well let’s just say he let his feelings be known as well.”
Terrah chuckled and said, “I can imagine, could you tell them the archway is open and they can come over at any time?”
“Alise already told them, and they’re on their way as we speak,” Jason said with obvious relief and a bit of humor in his voice.
Doran furrowed his brows in apparent confusion, then asked, “Who are you speaking to? I am not detecting an open communications link. And we are nowhere near your family, so how will they get here?”
Realizing Doran didn’t hear the full exchange between her and Jason, Terrah explained about the communications link in the suit she was wearing, then she stood up and said, “and as for how they will get here, I’ll show you.” She felt a strong pull to take Doran’s hand and she led him down the corridor into the engine room.
*****
Doran stood there looking from the archway to the three identical women standing before him. The only difference he could note between them was in their hair style and clothing. Other than that, they could have been the same person, and he was not sure what to make of it.
Hearing Terrah converse one-sided was baffling at first, but once she explained that the suits had communications built into them, he could understand why he was unable to hear it. The archway in the engine room, however, had him flummoxed, because there had never been a passage on or off the ship in that room before, and the women who just appeared, threw him for a loop.
Doran only vaguely recalled the women speaking and taking ahold of his hand, and he looked down to see one of the women was shaking it. Doran shook himself out of his musings and said, “I am sorry, I do not mean to be rude, I am just a bit overwhelmed at the moment.”
Terrah smiled warmly up at him and said, “I can relate to that. The last few months have been very confusing for me as well.”
Looking into Terrah’s brilliant blue eyes Doran’s body began to react strangely, and peering at her questioningly, she continued speaking.
“It’s a long story, I can tell it to you after we finish up on Earth.”
“But we are headed to Terra,” Doran said as the confusion was building.
Terrah smiled warmly u
p at him and said, “Earth is the name we call Terra now.”
Doran nodded in understanding and said, “We will need to contact Baelac’s mother once we arrive. She will want to oversee the funeral pyre and say her farewell.”
Terrah had peered between her sisters and they were looking questioningly in her direction. Terrah shrugged back in their direction, apparently speaking in some sort of gestural language that Doran was unable to understand, and he waited for Terrah to explain.
A moment later Terrah looked back at Doran with what seemed to be hesitation, and she asked him, “Where would we find Baelac’s mother?”
“Once we arrive we can request a private audience with her. She’s the High Chancellor Arbitratrix of the Ennead at Lantis,” Doran stated assuredly.
Terrah looked back at her sisters with what appeared to be concern in her expression and Doran wondered what was wrong.
“Could you give us some time so I can explain the situation to him?” Terrah had asked of her sisters.
Her sisters didn’t look happy about it but they agreed, and once Saleria and Vellia were off of the ship, Terrah turned to him and said, “I think we need to discuss a few things before we arrive at Earth.”
Looking down, Doran noticed Terrah had taken ahold of his hand like she did when she led him into the Engine room. He didn’t know why, but her contact with him seemed to put him at ease. Terrah led him to the second level and once there, they had a seat on the couch and he waited to hear what was troubling Terrah.
“Where to begin… I guess we should start with these TDS ships. Do you have any recollection of a man called Khepri-Atum-Ra?”
Doran recalled very well who he was, even after all the time that had passed and he replied, “Yes, Khepri-Atum-Ra chairs the ninth seat on the Lantin Ennead.”
Terrah nodded and continued, “Well, he and his family conspired to take command of one of these ships.”
Doran nodded and said, “I remember when my first commander Ventus received the news about that, Khepri’s great granddaughter Enyali had married and killed King Atlas’s youngest son, and she was brought before the Ennead for trial, then she was executed for murdering Hyais.”
Terrah furrowed her brows, and Doran was wondering what she was thinking. This bonding was strange, he should have been able to glean all of this information from her memories, but something was amiss. He began yet another diagnostic and listened intently as Terrah continued to explain.
“That was where the scheming began, but not where the treachery ended, however. It was discovered recently that Khepri-Atum-Ra didn’t actually execute Enyali. It was, in fact, a cloned corpse that had been transported into the sun.
“Enyali’s family spent thousands of years attempting to reactivate the binding disk in Enyali’s head, I don’t know exactly how long ago it was, but their family set a trap and captured the commander of TDS 5, his name was Baelentus. Enyali with the assistance of her family removed Baelentus’s neural processor and manually integrated it into Enyali’s binding disk. Then she took command of TDS 5.”
Doran had a strange feeling that seemed to be overwhelming him, his mind was drifting and his body felt as though its internal blood pressure had increased to an almost painful point. He was having difficulties breathing and he could hear it as his heart beat actually pulsed in his ears, then a great desire to find and eliminate that family line popped into his head.
Doran’s first commander Ventus had grown up with Hyais, and they were the best of friends as children as well as young adults. It had been Hyais who talked Ventus into trying to become a commander, and when he heard of Hyais’s death, it hit him hard, and somehow the memory of Ventus’s anguish seemed to surface within Doran. These ships were meant to protect, but somehow Doran felt that family had no intention of performing the duties set for them by the Imortum.
Terrah must have seen Doran was not amused at hearing all of this because she had just sat quietly staring at him. He managed to get his anger and thoughts in check, and said, “I am sorry, please continue.”
Terrah nodded. “From what I was told, there was an incident at Lantis a little over fifteen thousand linear years ago. Khepri-Atum-Ra and his family encouraged one of the nearby tribes to sabotage the particle accelerator at Lantis. TDS 1 had been charging in orbit at the time, and they had been summoned down to Lantis for some reason or another. The AI was supposed to accompany the commander down because there was going to be a surprise in store for it as well, but they needed to recharge for their upcoming mission, and the AI remained onboard.
“Soon after the commander transported to Lantis, a blast erupted that caused the cities destruction.”
Terrah then explained how the AI discovered who had orchestrated the disaster at Lantis, but that they had disappeared before they could be brought to justice.
“Was Atlas still the commander of TDS 3? Why didn’t he prevent it?” Doran had asked.
“Atlas was still the commander at the time, and he did attempt to rectify the disaster, but Enyali had placed a time-phased explosive at Lantis, and when Atlas arrived to prevent the blast, he was caught in a secondary explosion moments after transporting to Lantis. From what the AI of TDS 5 told everyone, once the TPE detonated, it caused a temporal rift that tore Lantis apart.”
“You are in contact with that AI? So, I take it Enyali is no longer in command of TDS 5?” Doran asked hopefully.
“You’re correct. My brothers removed her from command only a couple of weeks ago. My brother Jerren is now the commander of that ship,” Terrah had said with a smile.
Doran was shocked and asked, “How did they accomplish that?”
Terrah explained about Jerren and Justin’s death in a nonlinear timeline, and how TDS 1’s commander was mortally wounded and retrieved her brother Jason to be the new commander of TDS 1. Then how they rescued Justin and Jerren, restarted TDS 3, chased down TDS 5 and set a trap for them, followed by how Jerren took over TDS 5, and then finally finding her while looking for dark matter bombs that were on Earth.
Chapter Twelve
Doran seemed to be taking the destruction of Lantis as well as could be expected. But when Terrah got to explaining why they were headed to Abnearu after they finished on Earth, Doran’s eyes widened and shot to hers upon hearing Horuisis’s name.
“Horuisis is there?” Doran asked with a severe look.
Terrah looked at Doran with concern and thought over what she was told then she explained, “We don’t know for sure if he is or isn’t there. After my brothers performed the geomagnetic pulse on Serqalin and retrieved the dark matter bombs from orbit, an energy wave sent them in all directions. But they believe Horuisis would have retreated to Abnearu because Sethis and his sister-wife are purported to be there along with another armada of ships.”
Doran was obviously confused about something, and a moment later he stated, “I am unfamiliar with Serqalin or Abnearu, where are they located?”
“Alise told me Serqalin was once called Traelos,” Terrah noticed when she said Alise’s name Doran’s gaze became unfocused, then a moment later he shook his head and seemed to focus on her again, and she continued, “As for Abnearu, I don’t know about that planet, other than what I’ve told you already.”
Terrah brought it up on a display saying, “this is Abnearu,” and she pointed at the map.
Doran seemed to be thinking something over if the concentrated look on his face was any indication. Terrah gave him a moment, and before long Doran said, “I know Traelos. And that other planet was once called Saleria. So, we are hoping to find Horuisis at Abnearu as well?”
Terrah was stunned and she wondered, why didn’t they tell us Saleria had the same name as the planet they were headed to?
Terrah had grown up always being teased about being named ‘Earth’, but it never bothered her. Her standby retorts ranged from informing them that her name had an ‘H’ at the end, to ‘Well I guess the planet belongs to me then’.
Chuckling
to herself, Terrah made a mental note to let Saleria in on it. This time, it was Terrah’s turn to be lost in the conversation. She made out the last few words and said, “Yes, I believe that’s the plan.”
Terrah thought about Doran’s reaction to hearing Horuisis’s name and asked, “I noticed a little hostility at hearing Horuisis’s name, what’s that about?”
Doran frowned and said, “Horuisis and Baelac knew each other growing up. Baelac did not like him, mainly because he and his family were dishonorable and untrustworthy, but Horuisis’s great grandfather was on the Lantin Ennead. So, when Horuisis contacted us and said he needed to speak about a matter of great urgency, we went to Terra to meet him.
“Baelac called for his sister Krysali to be there as well, as she was next in line to take over for her mother as the High Chancellor Arbitratrix. We had just arrived and as always with a pyramids generator nearby we connected to top off the charge.
“We were recharging the ship and were on the Observation level, I had just uploaded into the binding disk when a massive ship arrived and rammed us off of the beam. Our ship shut down, but because I was in the disk, I remained online. Within seconds everything went black and in the next few minutes we must have crashed because Baelac’s body was thrown against the wall, and he was knocked unconscious. I attempted to perform a transport, but just as I activated the process, the ship’s power failed completely.”
Terrah shuddered a bit and figured that the dream or memory she had seen while passed out must’ve been from that event, and hesitantly she asked, “Is that when Baelac died?”
Doran shook his head sadly and said, “No, he recovered from those injuries. Should he have died in the crash, it would have been far kinder to him.”
Terrah shivered at Doran’s tone, and she asked, “Why do you say that?”