Awake

by Viola Grace

  Kali has kept an open mind but now that a dead universe has moved into her body she is having second thoughts.

  Kaliana has lived as a relay in a tank, processing data streams and having her personal thoughts as her own. When blowing her tank open is her last resort, Kali chooses death over whatever the kidnappers had planned. If she is going, she will take as many of them with her as she can.

  Odin has been a Nameless since the Orb chose the second generation and his duty is to retrieve the body of the Host. Her act of bravery touches him but when she floats out into space he has seconds to act.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Awake

  Copyright © 2012 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-77111-245-1

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books

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  Awake

  A Terran Times Tale

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Through the layers of liquid that protected her, Kali felt her station rock. The staff on the relay station sounded the alarm, and her tank was separated from the station itself.

  Six weeks of nutrients surrounded her as she floated in her home, and her mind left its role as relay for high-priority transmissions. Whoever was attacking her was going to have to deal with the automated systems, and if they failed, Kali was ready to take over.

  Changing her links to let her manipulate the interior’s systems took seconds, but it was still too late to save the maintenance staff of Lor station.

  Kali brought the interior guns to bear on the foreign bodies and blasted away. The speakers translated shouting, cursing and cries from those who were struck. With every surge of new attackers, her targeting refined and more died.

  The outer sensors showed her data that she could not believe. Raider ships surrounded her.

  The Alliance had installed a defensive cannon, but it had not yet been integrated with her systems. It was dependent on staffers on the station to manoeuvre it, and they were all dead.

  Kali wished that she could scream when her system feedback started to go dark. Fear ripped through her body and pooled in her mind. All she had was her wiring to the outside world, and as her impulses were turned back on her, she was trapped in her own mind for the first time since she had joined the Alliance.

  Kali bit her lip and slowly lifted her hands to press them against the interior of her tank. The pressure of the plexi against her palms reassured her that she had not yet entered the afterlife.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on thinking about her friends, family and her entrance into the Alliance.

  Kaliana Borning had never felt right, never fit in with her life back on Earth. Her thoughts were always her own and her mind still as a pool. This was a situation that few of her romantic entanglements could handle. They always wanted her to be thinking about them but that was just not what she had in mind.

  Part of her mind was dormant. She knew it, and the staff at the Volunteer centre had confirmed it. She was a perfect candidate for a position as a relay, and after some cursory training and a short stint as a receptionist at the Alliance information centre, she was placed in the tank and encased on Lor station.

  Kali had made friends on the station, and support staff rotated on a six-month basis while she remained in the tank with only her handlers for company.

  She used her training to keep her mind calm, but she still opened her eyes wide when the tank shifted suddenly.

  Lights streamed toward her, and she slowly covered her eyes. The people around her were large blurs, but they seemed intent on moving her tank somewhere. In the grip of shadows, she tried to remain calm but her heart started to pound heavily.

  * * * *

  “The life signs are going berserk. Our little prize is upset.” Foros grinned at the readouts rippling through his monitor.

  “What about that mist? Where is the leak in the atmospheric systems?”

  Foros scowled at his commander. “There is no leak. All of the systems are secure. Whatever that mist is, it isn’t from the station.”

  “Fine. Get going. We need to have her delivered before we can collect the bounty.” The commander crossed his arm.

  “As you wish, but how are you going to handle the tank connections?” Foros started pushing as the other men paused.

  “What?”

  “There are connections from her tank to the outside world for both the oxygen she needs and power for her nutrient pumps.”

  “I thought her tank was self-sustaining.”

  “It is, but not for eternity. We will need to find an Alliance-compatible connection.” Foros looked at the woman suspended in a tangle of wires and tubes. She was pale, her head was the standard shaved scalp of other tanked employees, but there was a sad expression in her dark blue eyes that part of him felt badly for her. Fortunately, it was a very small part.

  With bumps, jolts and a lot of grunting, they got her tank to the open area outside the docking fittings.

  The ground was hidden beneath a thick mass of mist.

  The woman in the tank stopped hiding her eyes, and as she looked around her, panic filled her features. She thrashed and fought the walls of the tank, pounding from within and causing the men around Foros to laugh.

  He had a premonition of ill and backed away from the tank.

  The woman thrashed around, reached up and hauled on something in the top of her tank. A light blinked around the edge of the base, and Foros took the better part of valour. He ran for it and hid in a sealed room, waiting as he heard an explosion that rocked the station followed by the distinct noise of decompression.

  * * * *

  It was anticlimactic to say that they were not going to take her alive, but Kali knew that wherever they were taking her, she wanted no part of it.

  The sight of her friend Harri dead on the ground with a gun in her hands had triggered Kali’s final surge of energy. She thrashed around and reached up to start the explosive release at the base of her tank.

  Escape was her goal even though her limbs were too weak to help her in her flight. She pulled at the wires that ran through her body, trying to release the bonds that made her helpless.

  Instinct was taking over and urging her to run. She answered it the only way she could, she tried to agree with it and help it along.

  When her tank base exploded the bits of the charge that did not blow the legs off the Raiders buffeted her.

  Kali coughed, gasped and vomited fluid for a moment before she heard an ominous creaking. Warily, she turned her head and watched the metal surrounding the airlock flex and twist.

  She coughed again and let out a strangled, “Whoops,” before the airlock surrendered to the damage from the blast and blew her, the moaning Raiders and the dead of Lor station out into space.

 
Naked, wired and floating, she didn’t die immediately. Her body curled into a foetal ball, and she waited for death as her first few breaths on the station became her last.

  Glowing mist surged toward her as everything went dark, and her last thought was, How can there be mist without atmosphere?

  Chapter Two

  Odin wrapped himself around her and transported them both Home. He reformed into a bipedal shape and waited. The medical staff came running to the drop site, but he held up his hand. “We will need Xeric for this. Can you summon him?”

  One assistant flickered and disappeared while the others took his burden from him.

  Odin sighed, “She is a Relay, and her body won’t stay awake unless there is healing involved. There is a lot of trauma in her form.”

  The medical staff swarmed around her, and Odin watched from the sidelines.

  Ravikka appeared, and Xeric was at her side, a towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Are you sure she is the one?” Ravikka’s voice was low but clear.

  Odin nodded. “I am sure. She rerouted most of the systems through her mind in seconds, and then, she made a final bid for freedom that cost her her life. She is the one I was assigned to retrieve.”

  “She is so pale.” There was concern in her tone.

  “She is, but I think it has been quite some time since she was acquainted with starlight.” He watched with worry.

  Kaliana’s body was so frail, a delicate web that held her most magnificent mind. Her mind was what the Orb of Time had sent him after.

  In the thousand images of Kali, from this point on, they showed her with rippling red hair and a lush figure. How the Orb was going to achieve that in a body that was now outside the time stream was beyond him.

  What was more curious to him was the images where her pale ivory skin was transformed into dark space and starlight. He knew that it did not simply extend to her eyes, because in many of those images, she was in his arms, and they were tangled in an embrace.

  He had never thought that a mate waited for him beyond life, but here she was, and the medical staff was trying to get her started again.

  “Odin, get over here and hold her shoulders and pour the energy of the Orb into her.” Xeric’s voice was testy, but Odin answered the request.

  He moved around to Kaliana’s head and placed his hands on her pale, thin shoulders. Holes permeated her body, and Xeric was slowly healing them one by one.

  “I have healed her lungs. Start her now.”

  Odin gathered the energy of the Orb. He was shocked by the wave of power that answered his call and poured out the hands that he had taken on for the occasion.

  Nishan animorphs were not bound to anything other than their most dispersed form. The mist that he became was his greatest protection and greatest vulnerability. In his life, he was burned to death in a riot, and the flames kept him from escaping.

  The waves of power went far beyond what he had anticipated for the occasion, and the body under his hands began to take on the characteristics of the images sent to him by the Orb.

  Her hair began to grow, a rich red that spread in waves until it pooled on the ground beneath the table. Her breasts curved to fulfill the promise of her wide ribcage and the bones that were visible under her skin faded as her shape became one that he knew most bipedal beings would favour.

  Full breasts, a narrow waist and wide hips combined with a long waterfall of hair made her an ideal in all respects. Red hair was a little too noticeable for a standard Nameless.

  She inhaled sharply, coughing up liquid from her lungs. The medical staff quickly turned her on her side and then left them alone.

  Xeric sealed the last of her ports, bowed and returned to the mate he had no doubt left in the shower.

  Ravikka inclined her head. “She will need a meal and an explanation, but the Council of Seven is waiting for her. We have been waiting a very, very long time.”

  Ravikka disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Odin to deal with the naked and confused woman.

  “Welcome Home, Kaliana.” He kept his voice low and quiet.

  She blinked up at him with eyes that were a pure blue, the same blue as the skies of his home. He felt wistful for a moment because he knew that soon those eyes would be black and full of stars. For now, he enjoyed the view.

  * * * *

  Kali tried to speak, but it took her three attempts before more than a cough or a squeak would come out. “Who are you?”

  “Odin. I am one of the Nameless who reside here at Home and do the bidding of the Orb of Time. Would you care for some clothing?”

  The man was a standard warrior form for at least nine different races that she could think of. He didn’t have the feline features of a Wyoran or an Azon, the colouration of a Drai or the braids of a Kozue. Nothing about him was quite right. Most of the races that sprang to mind had fairly animalistic natures, but he didn’t match any of them precisely.

  “What are you?” Sitting up felt peculiar to Kali, as did having the medical bed under her. After being in a weightless state for years having anything touching her skin felt odd. “Where am I?”

  “You are Home. It is hard to explain. May I show you?” He held out his arms in a request for permission to lift her.

  She looked around, gauged the feeling in her feet and legs and nodded. “Please.” She held out her arms like a child, and he lifted her easily.

  He walked out of the room that resembled a medical bay crossed with a hotel room, and he carried her onto the balcony.

  “This is now your home.”

  She looked up and gasped. She was inside the swirling of stars. Nebulas twisted in the darkness, star systems spun happily and asteroids made their tireless journeys. Kali knew every star chart in the Alliance systems, and they were outside of any known space.

  “Where…”

  “We are between, between time and space, now and then, past and future. We will get you some clothing, and from there, a meal. Then, I will explain whatever you need to know.”

  She looked around her as he held her tight, but in a moment, they had gone from the balcony to a room with folk in a line and machines whirring away.

  A few folk turned to look at her, and she smiled. After living in a tank, she had no illusions of modesty. Being naked in a tube where she was visible on all sides had the effect of burning out all urges to hide.

  “How did my hair grow?” They were moving up in line, but she was eager for something that was not silence.

  “The Orb of Time provided me with enough energy to restore you to consciousness, and it brought your body back to health, including your hair. It is very pretty.” He smiled with sensual lips that caught her attention.

  She stared at him, willing him to speak. As she took in his pointed ears, smoky skin tone in a deep ashy grey and the swirling stars in his black eyes, she still could not place his species.

  “Why are you staring, Kaliana?”

  “Call me Kali. I was just trying to figure out what race you are. I keep drawing a blank.”

  He grinned, and those sensual lips twisted in an intriguing way. “Are you familiar with Nishans?”

  She was so shocked, she almost pushed out of his arms. His chest felt solid where her hand was pressed against him. “How can you be a gas cloud?”

  He chuckled. “A few of my people have exerted themselves to take a physical shape. We can hold it as long as necessary for tasks in the more physical areas of the Alliance. I was working as an Enforcer during the Piffca riots. I was knocked out, tied up and a fire was started around me before I could shift shape. Fire is not one of my favourite elements. It is the only one I cannot escape from.”

  She nodded. “That would tend to kill someone. So, that was you on the station, the mist that surrounded me?”

  “It was indeed my true form. I wrapped around you and transported you here.”

  “Why?”

  She watched as he puzzled how to answer her, but they were at the front
of the line, and she saw the selector screen. “Put me down so I can get scanned for size.”

  He chuckled and set her on her feet.

  Her hair was long enough to create a decent-sized cloak. Kali pursed her lips and selected a loose robe in lightweight black gauze. It would be easy on her sensitized skin and conceal everything decently.

  The computer chirped and whirred. A few seconds later, a box was set in front of her.

  Kali slipped on the robe and the robotic arm removed the empty box. “Thank you.”

  She pulled the length of hair out from under the robe and let it swing down her spine. “I think I am hungry, though I have no idea what the end result will be. My stomach hasn’t had to deal with food in quite some time.”

  He smiled and offered his arm. “Would you care to walk?”

  She bit her lip. “Is it close?”

  Odin’s laugh was amused. “When you are a Nameless, whole planets are only a few steps away. Yes, it is close.”

  When she realized that he answered her, she took his arm, and they were wrapped in light once again.

  Scents that she could only vaguely remember worked their way into her thoughts. “I am not sure about this. It normally takes weeks or months to get a Relay back on their feet.”

  “I will catch you if you should fall.”

  His words were encouraging, and as she took a tray with weak arms, she headed over to where the breakfasts of two dozen races were aligned in a buffet.

  Cream of wheat, honey, cream and some jam were her choices, and when she faltered on the way to the seats, he did indeed catch and support her. “Thank you.”

  His arms held his own tray, and she looked down to see a thick column of mist wrapped around her lower body and more mist wrapped around the tray.

  Odin settled her in her chair and left her for a moment, returning with a spoon for her.