“You mean, there’s a link between what she can do . . . and what Molly is exploring . . . and—”
“The Empress,” Arlene interjected. “Exactly. If my suspicions are correct.”
Giles’s face contorted as his mind churned. He was silent for several moments, before he looked back to Arlene. When he did, his eyes were bright. “Well, this is indeed fascinating!”
Arlene sighed and sat back. “You don’t get it. If anyone else is monitoring that dimension, they can potentially track her.”
Giles thought back to his friends who’d gone trekking through the universe. “Well, I only know of a handful of people with that skill. The Empress, Michael, and well, Barnabas.”
Arlene peered at him over her glass. “Well, let’s just hope they’re the only ones. It’s a big ol’ universe out there, and not everything is as friendly as Bethany Anne.”
Giles stopped and smirked. “You’re being ironic right? You didn’t just call Bethany Anne friendly?”
Arlene plonked her empty glass down. “She is when she’s on your side. That’s the point.”
“That woman scared the bejeebers out of me when I was a kid.”
“That woman has a lot to answer for, for sure . . . but that’s not my point. The point is, Anne is like a telephone line, and we don’t know who she might be inadvertently calling.”
“Speaking of calling,” Giles said, quickly changing the subject again, “why didn’t you call me? I said specifically to use the ether channel if you needed to. That was precisely why I had dad rewire our holos.”
Arlene kept her expression blank. “I didn’t need you.”
Giles raised one eyebrow as he pretended to study the hieroglyphics on the bottle. “Didn’t look like that from my position. In fact, it looked like you were about to get your ass handed to you by a Mech or two.”
“I had everything under control. And besides, one of those Mechs coming after me was you!”
“And a bloody good job, else goodness only knows what might’ve happened.”
“Well, we’ll never know now . . .” She finished her drink and placed the glass back on the table. “Tea . . . tea would be good right about now,” she concluded, getting up.
“Well, er . . . anyway. I’m glad you’re ok,” Giles added, closing the subject and hopefully regaining some of the favor he may’ve lost in giving her the call-for-back-up talk.
“Me, too. And, er . . . thanks.”
Giles grinned, getting up. “You’re welcome,” he replied in the cockiest tone he could muster, as he left the kitchen.
Arlene rolled her eyes, well aware of how he was going to be retelling the story to the others when he got the chance.
“By the way . . .” Giles appeared around the kitchen door again, “good suggestion for Bill. He told me about your talk and how you’re gonna show him round Estaria. Maybe get him a gig at the university. The guy is psyched!” Giles put both his thumbs up with a cheesy grin.
Arlene’s face dropped as the kettle boiled. She ignored it. “What, you mean . . . what’s he said to you . . .?” she called after him.
But Giles was already down the corridor, heading up to the cockpit.
Dammit, she cursed to herself. Point, Kurns . . . whichever way you look at it.
Aboard the Scamp Princess, leaving Mallifrax-8 orbit
Anne and Scamp were deep in conversation as Giles trotted up the steps to the cockpit. He ambled in and plonked himself down in the pilot’s seat, casually peering over Anne’s shoulder at the console displays. “What’cha working on?”
Anne closed the screens, denying him visibility. “What are the talismans for?” she asked abruptly.
Giles sat up, taken aback by her sudden question. “Erm, I’m not entirely sure yet. Why?”
“Because I’d like to know before we go and collect the other one.”
“Hang on . . .” Giles hit the comm in his ear. “Arlene, you’re going to want to hear this. Yep. Cockpit.”
Giles held his finger up keeping Anne silent for a few moments until Arlene arrived. She strode in, half expecting to have been called up on some bullshit banter. “What’s going on?”
“Anne has something to share with us.” He dropped his finger. “Go ahead . . .”
Anne played with her fingers nervously. “Ok. Well. I think I’ve discovered something. And I think I’m ready to share what I know and the location of the talisman I told you about in the beginning . . . I just want to know . . . what are they for? And what are your intentions?”
Giles looked sheepish. He glanced up in Arlene’s direction. “This is starting to sound like an interrogation your dad gave me back in the day.”
Arlene ignored the comment from when they’d started dating and focused on Anne. Her face softened. She pulled up a console chair. “We think the talismans hold some kind of information about how our different races ended up scattered about the universe. Giles has some theories about it . . . about a path and how we’re all lots of experiments. But it’s all speculation right now.”
Anne’s mind flicked back and forth as she actively processed the new information.
Arlene continued. “You see, the two I’ve been looking at seem to hold data in the form of DNA molecules. But it’s not like it’s anything we recognize as a DNA sequence . . . but it could’ve just been that it’s not something we recognize. We also don’t know anything about the material they’re made of, but we do know that the technology to produce them is far beyond anything we know about in the Federation.”
Anne bobbed her head, then turned to her holoscreens, pulling them up. “Ok, well I may be able to help with some of that,” she said quietly. She took a long breath. “Scamp was kind enough to show me some of your research notes.” She watched Arlene for a reaction. “I hope you don’t mind,” she added quickly.
Arlene shook her head, far more distracted by what she saw on the screen. “Those look like the composition of the molecules of the talisman material . . . but those aren’t my models.”
Anne pointed to the screen. “No, that’s right. These are the molecular models that I got from the mining labs. On Mallifrax.”
Arlene opened her mouth to say something and then stopped herself, parsing the information she’d just heard. She paused. “You mean to say the talismans are made of etheriam?”
Anne nodded.
Giles slapped his leg. “Bloody hell, Anne! That’s fantastic. What a breakthrough!” He went to hug her in exuberance, but she pulled back with a look of disdain only possible from teenagers.
“Sorry, sorry . . .” he said, completely embarrassed. He put his fist out, and she bumped it quite happily. “Guess I need to work on my ‘cool’.”
“Yes,” she confirmed simply.
Arlene sniggered while simultaneously marveling at the connection Anne had made. “I must say, this is . . . extraordinary.”
Giles rocked back on his chair, regarding the images on the console screens. “So what does this mean?” he pondered.
Arlene pulled her hair out of her face and held it on the top of her head as if it was going to allow her to see more clearly. “I suppose it means that we now know what the talismans are made of and that . . . well, they’re designed as data storage units that will last a very long time.”
Anne nodded, confirming her research had uncovered the same thing.
Arlene dropped her hair and relaxed back in her seat. “These findings may also suggest that the civilization that was here before may well have been involved. They could potentially even have created the talismans.”
Giles frowned. “Well, that temple looked like they may’ve had some advanced building technology. But what about the complete absence of any living people from that race? What species were they even? Do we know?”
Anne shrugged. “Yeah, and what happened to them?”
Arlene pursed her lips. “I suppose we should probably do another scan of the planet before we get too far away. Scamp?”
&nbs
p; “Already on it,” Scamp responded over the intercomm.
“Thanks.” Arlene tapped her finger on her lips, thinking.
Giles tapped his finger, too, only on the side of the console. Anne’s eyes flicked from one to the other. “Aren’t there other places that mine etheriam, too, though?”
Arlene’s eyes opened wide as if impressed by Anne’s point. Her finger moved from her lips to point at Anne. “Good!” she said. “Scamp . . .”
“Cross-reference any other planets in our known database to see which others potentially have etheriam and/or etheriam-mining operations, either now or ever in the whole of recorded history? On it.”
Arlene turned her head to Giles. “I think you and I are probably redundant right about now.”
“Hmmm,” Giles agreed absently, his thoughts off in his own world.
“Does this help though?” Anne ventured. “With understanding what the talismans are for?”
Arlene glanced back to Anne. “It certainly will . . . when we figure out what the implications are. If we know who created them and where, we may be able to join the dots as to what they’re for.”
Anne nodded sharply once. “Ok, well then, there’s going to be one more you can add into the equation then. The one from Estaria. My uncle gave it to me several years ago . . . when he found out about my . . . er . . . abilities. He said that I was the best one to look after it.”
Giles had returned from his daydream and was paying close attention to Anne’s information.
“I was scared to tell anyone about it,” she continued, “because those people were after me. Specifically, the old guy that seemed to be in charge of the convent where I was being held.”
Arlene frowned, not wanting to interrupt, but knowing she was being caught up on only part of the story. “Go on,” she said gently.
“Anyway,” Anne carried on, “I hid it at the convent. Just before they grabbed me.”
Giles leaned forward. “The men that took you to the ship where Molly’s team picked you up?”
She nodded. “I don’t think they saw what I was doing out in the dark. They didn’t talk about it, and I think they would’ve when they thought I was knocked out. They didn’t seem that bright.” Anne’s eyes drifted off as if she were remembering.
Bill appeared at the door. He smiled at her kindly, then realized that he’d walked in on something.
Arlene beckoned him in. “It’s ok,” she told him. “Anne’s made a breakthrough in our investigation.”
He mouthed the word oh, before sitting down at one of the console chairs near the back of the cockpit.
All attention was turned back to Anne. “So anyway, Scamp helped me with some details. The old guy isn’t around the convent anymore. We found a news report saying that he was dead. Under suspicious circumstances. Probably from the guys who he was kidnapping me for . . . Anyway, we can go there and dig it up now. And add it to your research.”
Arlene cocked her head to hear better. “Dig it up?”
“Yeah, I buried it.”
Arlene burst out laughing.
“What?” Anne asked defensively, bewildered.
“You buried a several-thousand-year-old relic? In the ground?”
Anne tilted her head back and regarded Arlene with a distinct look of sarcasm normally used by comics on the standup shows she’d been watching with Scamp. “I don’t see how that’s any different from what your fancy civilizations have been doing. And you’re the ones who’ve been running around the galaxy digging them up from all kinds of places, as Scamp tells me!” She wiggled her finger playfully between Arlene and Giles.
Arlene couldn’t stop laughing. “Oh, my ancestors,” she chuckled, wiping a tear from her eye. “You have a very good point, Anne.”
“Scamp?” Arlene called, between breaths.
“Yes, Arlene.”
“I hear you’re disclosing confidential information about our missions?”
Scamp paused for a moment and then appeared on the screen in front of Giles. “Your mission logs are open to members of the crew. Anne is a valuable member of this crew.”
Giles was confounded. “Says who?” he inquired, more out of curiosity as to Scamp’s logic than anything else.
Arlene recognized immediately that he was testing Scamp for sentience.
Scamp’s image smiled at them. “Says me when she saved Arlene’s ass.”
Anne beamed and gently stroked the console Scamp’s face had appeared on, more to gloat at Arlene and Giles than for Scamp seeing what she was doing.
“Right,” agreed Giles, filing away the response for when he got back to Gaitune.
“So back to the issue of the talismans. This means we have the one from Earth which I picked up yonks ago . . .”
Bill chirped up from the back. “Yonks? That’s a technical term you use in space archeology?”
Arlene’s face remained perfectly straight. “It is,” she confirmed.
Giles continued. “Then one from the Zhyn people, we liberated from the Moons of Orn. Anne’s Estarian one . . . presumably Estarian anyway. And then the new Mallifrax one . . . which likely belonged to the civilization who inhabited the planet long before the Queegerts even knew this place existed.”
Arlene’s finger was over her lips. “I think once we have those scans done, I’m going to have a lot of work to do.”
“Analysis?” Giles asked.
Arlene nodded. “Yup. And lots of it.”
Giles grinned. “Well, that was never my strong point. Give me books or hands on experience . . . that’s my area.”
Arlene narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this your way of preemptively absolving yourself from any real work?”
Giles looked briefly offended. “No. Not at all. I just vote we stick to our strengths . . . and my strength once we get back to Estaria is going to be teaching.”
Right on cue, Bill shifted in his chair, putting his feet up on the console. He picked at his nails with a false air of confidence, knowing full well that his chum Giles had just set this opportunity up for him. “You know,” he began slowly and deliberately, “back in the day, before I’d made my billions, I was pretty good with analytical stuff and problem solving.” He tapped his head. “I have the brain for it, you see.”
Arlene dared not look at him directly for fear of giving him too much encouragement. “Well . . .” she huffed, “I suppose you and I are going to be busy then.”
Anne sniggered, watching the reaction between the pair and completely taking Arlene’s words out of context. Arlene tried to glare at her but found herself too amused by her reaction.
Bill, on the other hand, seemed rather chuffed. “Well, good then.”
Giles shook his head and pretended to poke at important buttons on his console. “Lord help me . . .” he muttered. “Scamp . . . whenever you’re done with that detailed scan, feel free to take us on our way via whichever route seems sensible.”
And with that, he got up from his chair and headed out of the cockpit. “In the meantime, I’m going for a drink . . . if Arlene has left any of my stash for me!”
Bill, hearing the word drink, perked up and dropped his feet to the floor. In an instant, he was up and following Giles. “I’m right behind you, G-man!”
Arlene looked at Anne and rolled her eyes. “Boys!” she exclaimed. “Ok, how about you and I look back through my notes and see if there’s anything else I’ve missed . . .”
Anne smiled, feeling like for the first time in her life, she belonged somewhere.
FINIS
Holo Transmission from OZ
Greetings of the day upon you.
Oz here.
Molly has asked me to be the liaison between her operation and your rather primitive earth communication methods.
I believe you call it email?
Still.
I am here to act as your interface. To help bridge the gap between the dopamine induced hits as you watch Molly through her trials and tribulations as she takes
on all manner of shenanigans.
If you’d like to receive such status updates, please go ahead and leave your holo/ email address here:
http://ellleighclarke.com/
As you might have gathered, this transmission will not just be coming through space between our two galaxies, but is also traveling back through time.
I will attempt to send you updates in chronological order but do be advised that occasionally gravitational optics will interfere (no pun intended!) with the sequencing of these packets.
An understanding of all things timey-whimey will be useful in such instances.
Additionally, if you have any feedback for Molly - or her team - do feel free to pass that on through me. All you need to do is hit reply to any of my messages.
I process every communication personally.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Oz
(on behalf of Molly, aka the lady- boss)
Sanguine Squadron 2.0
Gaitune-67,
Sark System,
Loop Galaxy
Author Notes - Ell Leigh Clarke
February 21, 2018
Thank yous
As always massive gratitude bombs go out to my collaborator MA. Without him, not only would this book not exist but it wouldn’t make it into your hands either.
Massive thanks must also go to Steve “Zen master” Campbell and the JIT team who work tirelessly to make sure that all slips are caught and corrected, the files are uploaded on time, and the sacrificial chickens and pepsi vats are in order for when the manuscript is released to the ‘Zon.
Giles Kurns_Rogue Instigator Page 19