by JK Stone
“There were Annunaki refugee’s living on the planet when they arrived, the Annunaki never named the planet, and not knowing the planet’s prior name the Lantin’s named it after them. The planet is now known as Anukan, or at least it was before TDS 4 was lost.”
Doran then looked over at Vellia and said, “You, Vellia, are named after a hidden or veiled star, which was called Solis Vellia. Although, how a star could be hidden Gallos never discovered,” Doran said with a smile.
Jason looked troubled about something and asked, “What about my brothers and I, are there any celestial locations with our names?”
Doran frowned. “Not that I know of… One moment.”
Terrah watched as Doran closed his eyes apparently searching for any planets or stellar bodies that related.
About two minutes later Doran opened his eyes and said, “I have searched our database, and there is nothing in Gallos’s memories regarding those names associated with any celestial bodies.”
Jason stood and with him Justin and Jerren as well.
“Could you excuse us a moment?” Jason asked, and the three of them went into the corner and began whispering animatedly. Jerren and Justin kept shaking their heads then a moment later with a nod they turned and took their seats. Jason looked at Doran and asked, “What about the names Kordula, Koronis, and Kormori?”
Terrah could feel the confusion emanating from Doran, and he looked at Jason in apparent astonishment asking, “How do you know those three names?”
Jason looked a bit put out and asked, “What do you know?”
Terrah noticed Alise and Calia looking at each other oddly, and Terrah was about to ask what was up when Doran drew her attention.
“They were three large stellar Voids that joined to become a massive one. They were rumored to be the last battlegrounds of a universal war between the Imortum and a race called the Nefastus,” Doran explained.
Jerren spoke a moment later. “The Forbidden ones?” he asked.
“That is one translation. Throughout the universe, we found many translations: criminal, banished, evil, facticius, forbidden, leus and wicked, were amongst them,” Doran stated in the languages of the civilizations they were discovered in.
Jerren seemed to daze off as Doran recited the names and openly shivered then he said, “Damn, that has not happened to me in a long time.”
“What?” Terrah asked.
“Just the old wife’s tale about people walking on your grave,” Jerren replied.
Terrah could feel Doran’s confusion at Jerren’s statement, and she was about to explain it to him. But Jerren must’ve seen his confusion as well because he explained what he meant by his comment.
“It’s what you would say if you had a feeling of impending death. A few of those names elicited the same images that popped into my head when Inola shouted that she gave us the authority to render judgments, just before we executed Anubisis. They were not pleasant.”
Doran nodded in apparent understanding, and Terrah asked Jason, “So how did you know those names?”
Jason looked between his brothers who nodded, and Jason replied, “We know them because they are us… our father named us Jason, Jerren, and Justin after our mother died. Our mother had insisted on us being named Kordula, Koronis, and Kormori.”
Jason gestured to each of them in turn and he continued, “Our father felt those names weren’t suitable for first names, but he did put those names down on our birth certificates as our middle names. Inola used to call us by those names all the time, but after our ninth birthday, we refused to use them again, and I don’t even remember why.”
Jason looked from Jerren to Justin, then asked, “Do either of you?” they shook their heads and Jason continued, “I don’t even recall thinking about the name until you said Kor’lise nebula, then it popped into my head.”
Terrah wanted to laugh at the sensations she felt pouring from Doran, it was as if he was fascinated by all of the similarities.
Doran seemed to clear his head a moment, and then he said, “The Kor’lise nebula runs along the Kordula portion of the void.”
Saleria spoke a moment later, asking, “So you think I’m supposed to be the commander of TDS 2 if we can dislodge it from that other ship?”
Jason nodded and said, “After hearing all of this, I’d be surprised if it didn’t allow you to bond with that ship. Justin and Jerren’s ships were reacquired at the locations the AI’s were named after. Are you still willing to give it a try?”
Saleria laughed softly and said, “Yes, somehow I think Inola would yell at me if I had said no, and her voice packs a punch.”
Jason looked cryptically at Jerren and gave him a nod.
A moment later Jerren said, “Inola’s voice has been getting weaker. We,” Jerren gestured around the table. “Have talked and come to the conclusion that Inola is trying to hold something off. That along with helping us from time to time is taking its toll on her, and that is why this is all happening now. I think she’s running out of time. I think we all are.”
Terrah sat there in silence for a few minutes contemplating the ramifications when Alise asked, “Were we going to offer the Ambrose to Pops?”
Terrah smiled at the thought, and then said, “I don’t think it will work on him like it did with us. I don’t think he has a triple helix DNA strand to replicate.”
“It turned our ship made bodies into real ones with triple helix DNA, so it should work on him,” Calia said.
Terrah looked at Calia a moment, and it struck her that they may not know, so she said, “But the ship made body had a triple helix DNA strand already.”
Alise looked at her in confusion, and Terrah asked Alise, “Did you ever perform a medical scan of your body before the transformation?”
Alise shook her head and replied, “Not this body. I did on many occasions in the past. The only scans I did on this body were after the bonding, and the attack that blasted me out of Jason’s binding disk. But that was just a diagnostic on the neural transfer rates, Why?”
Terrah looked over at Doran then back to Alise. “After Doran, uh… passed out, he hit his head. He had a laceration and was unconscious, so I put him in the medical unit. I did a full medical scan and found he had a concussion as well, so I performed a medical repair. While I was waiting for him to wake, I examined the scan and noticed he had a single triple helix DNA strand in his pituitary gland as well.”
Doran was listening to the discussion in fascination. He had imagined becoming alive a few times over thousands of years, but he always passed the thoughts off as whimsical fantasies. He thought about what it might be like to go from ship to ship or leave the ships altogether in his own body, and a pleasant sensation momentarily engulfed him.
Then Doran remembered how his last commander as well as the other commanders had died, and that feeling of fancy fled him quickly. The group had continued their discussion as he drifted in thought, and then he heard his name and refocused on the conversation. “What?” he asked.
Everyone in the room laughed then Terrah took Doran’s hand and said, “They asked if you were going to eat the Ambrose and go through the transformation.”
Doran peered around the table and said, “Ah… I am undecided at the moment. I think I will have to discuss it with Terrah.”
“Good answer,” Justin said, then he added, “Here’s another helpful piece of useful information, always tell Terrah what you’re planning on doing if there’s any danger involved.”
Calia smiled then said, “And you’d better not forget it.”
The group laughed and Doran figured it was a joke amongst them, so he just smiled and nodded, then they spent the next hour working on several strategies to cover different scenarios they could encounter at Abnearu. After ironing out a few potentials scenarios, they adjourned the meeting until TDS 1 was close enough to receive the data from the probe Alise had locked onto the ships that had attacked TDS 3 when Justin first tried to recharge his ship.
Doran felt confusion emanating from Terrah, and looking at her he saw she had a strange look cross her face as she was staring at one of her sisters, and then she said apparently to the group at large, “No, I made the promise, and I need to do this myself.”
Terrah peered around the table, and then she said, “I think you’re all supposed to take a day or two off to relax.”
Terrah looked over at Justin and said, “I was just told that you made a promise to take Calia off of the ship, and there’s a window of a couple of days for you all to relax.”
Justin looked over at Calia and she shook her head apparently indicating it hadn’t been her, and then Justin asked, “Who told you that?”
Terrah Just raised a quizzical looking brow at Justin and Doran wanted to laugh when Justin just said, “Oh, her… well, it looks like we have a couple of days off then.”
Turning toward Calia Justin smiled and asked, “A promise is a promise, how does—
“NO!” Calia immediately snapped out.
Doran had no idea what that was about, but several of the others must have because Alise, Justin, Jerren, and Jason burst into laughter.
A moment later Justin said, “Alright, no skydiving then. How does sunbathing on a tropical island sound to you? Although we’ll have to be phased with our glowing eyes, they will definitely draw unwanted attention.”
Calia agreed, and Jason spoke once again, “Well Terrah, let us know when you’re finished and we can set off for Abnearu then, and if you need our help don’t hesitate to ask.”
Terrah nodded, and Doran was saying goodbye when Alise and Calia embraced him at the same time. In a flash, Doran began seeing images that he did not recognize, but felt were familiar. Jumping back in shock he exclaimed, “What was that?” at the same time as Alise and Calia did.
Doran drifted off trying to place the images he saw and just vaguely noticed Alise was speaking.
Alise looked flustered as she said, “I don’t know, I just saw flashes of memories that I have no recollection of.”
“It was a little like when we made contact on your ship but more intense this time,” Calia stated as she peered to her left and asked, “Eneria, could you do me a favor?” Eneria nodded and approached.
“That feeling we get from embracing seems to get more focused and intense with multiple contacts,” Calia said, then she looked to Alise then to Doran asking, “Could we try that again, with all four of us? I want to see what happens.”
Doran was willing to give it a try, something about the flashes of imagery gave him a sense of urgency and a need to help, but help what? He nodded in agreement and all at once they embraced in a group hug.
Doran was confused, he had witnessed events from within a binding disk before, but this was different. He had never been able to feel the grass beneath his feet as the blades slid between his toes, and he was able to smell a sweet aroma wafting on the breeze as the rays of the dual suns above warmed his body.
Doran soon realized that he was in the mind of someone who was playing with a couple of dozen children in a grassy area. They were having fun playing a levitation game, and the exhilaration of the moment filled him one moment then the next he was flying backward when something ignited nearby and everything went dark.
A few minutes later Doran or the child he was seeing the events through, seemed to wake up and was standing and crying, and Doran could feel the fear, pain, and confusion as the child surveyed the area for his friends.
Looking around the child was only able to find a few of them. They all ran to each other and were huddled together, and looking upward he saw one ship after the other flying through the sky raining fire down on their planet.
A moment later a tall figure approached and standing in the middle of them extended a shield to cover them, and with a flash of light Doran had been ejected from the vision.
Doran took in a deep breath trying to calm down and barked out, “Where was that? We need to help them!”
Everyone else gathered around and asked what they saw.
Each of them explained what they had witnessed and Jason asked, “Is there anything we can do to help?”
Alise was shaking her head and wiped her eyes in an apparent attempt to clear the moisture. Then she said, “No, I remember seeing Inola in Andel’s memory, and it was she who saved the children, but there was a massive battle and those ships that were buried in Anukan and Area 51, they were the same as the ones attacking the planet. I think Inola was showing us what had happened, so we know what to expect. If Inola had to run from them, and we know how powerful she was, then those two ships that escaped are going to be a major problem for us.”
“What do we know about those battleships?” Terrah asked.
Calia began her explanation of what they knew or thought they knew about the battleships from Anukan and Area 51, but it wasn’t much and once she finished everyone stood there taking it all in.
After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Terrah sighed and said, “We need to locate and help Baelac’s sister, then we can get back on track. I’ll let all of you know when we’re ready to head out.”
Doran went with the group as far as the inner corridor, and when Terrah escorted her family into the engine room, he headed for the control room to try to figure out what he had just witnessed.
Chapter Sixteen
Terrah watched as the last members of her family left the ship. Sighing she turned to locate Doran and found that he was in the control room. Terrah could feel he was concerned about something and she set out to ease his discomfort.
Entering the control room Terrah found Doran sitting at the Weapons console looking over the many different functions. She approached him, took the seat in front of the Mission prep console, and gently glided it to rest next to his seat.
“You look as if something is troubling you, is there anything I can do?” Terrah asked.
Doran shook his head. “I am not sure. When Calia was talking earlier she said those battleships were newer than these ships and that they were Imortum ships as well. My concern is that they may be more advanced, and even with our weapons, we may be outmatched. If that is the case, we will have to think of a different way to defeat them.”
Doran ran his hands through his hair and said, “They killed children… children that were just playing and having fun. I have seen it more times than I can remember, but I have never understood how or why anyone would do that.”
Terrah could feel Doran’s emotional state at recalling his vision, and she realized while he was telling all of them about his symptoms what they meant. His physical symptoms were caused by attraction, but he had never felt them before. So, of course, he would have thought he was malfunctioning with all of these new experiences. Terrah wanted to get his mind off of the vision he had and asked, “So, what did you think of everyone?”
Doran must have seen what she was doing, because he smiled warmly at her and chuckled saying, “They are nice, but I do believe they think I am simple minded for not reasoning out what had happened on my own though.”
Terrah took Doran’s hand and said, “I don’t think that, and neither do they. It was understandable. You’d never been exposed to that kind of stimuli before and I didn’t help much by throwing myself at you. I’m sorry.”
Doran looked at her with a crestfallen expression and Terrah hurried to clarify what she’d said. “I meant I’m sorry you were overwhelmed. I’m not sorry for what we did,” she stated emphatically.
Doran appeared to be relieved, and Terrah turned her focus on her promise. “About Krysali, why would Baelac think you would know how to find her?” she asked.
Doran shrugged. “I do not know. As I told you before, the last thing I knew of her was that
she was going to meet us at Terra. We had a probe scanning the planet just moments before we lost power. If we could locate the probe we might be able to see if she ever showed up.”
Terrah nodded and asked, “How do we locate the probe?”
Doran seemed to think about it a moment, then said, “With this ship being powered down so long, there is no telling where it could be. The probe was in a positive point two five TD, so if we set another probe out in the same phase and have it perform an ascending spherical grid search, then we may be able to locate it that way, but it would take a while. If we use multiple probes, we should be able to complete the scan in a few hours.”
“Alright, launch as many probes as you need,” Terrah nodded and said.
Doran smiled at her and she stood beside him. “Will you come with me?” she asked.
Doran launched several probes, and after setting their tasks he stood and Terrah pulled him closer. Terrah closed her eyes and focused on transporting them, and the next moment they were in the bedroom.
*****
“What… How? … How did you do that?” Doran asked sounding astounded.
Terrah chuckled and instructed him on the procedure.
Doran smiled and said, “I never knew we could transport within the ship like that. I thought it was limited to transporting into and out of Decontamination or directly into medical. This will be helpful for you. I can already do it but only because the ship provides a body for me to project into.”
Terrah smiled and said, “Eneria told me about it a few days ago. Then she taught me how to transport myself and others within the ship.”
Doran looked around and Terrah could feel he was nervous, and she could see the fleeting worry that crossed his face when he finally realized where they were.
Smiling warmly, Terrah said, “I just want to talk for the moment.”
Terrah led Doran to the corner chairs and took a seat. He sat beside her and she asked, “Why are you hesitant about eating the Ambrose?”
Terrah had felt Doran’s trepidation when they had asked him, and she wanted to know if she could help in any way.