Minerva: An Alicia Jones Novel 06

by D. L. Harrison

  I was still half convinced my best friend was still better looking in that thing, but didn’t even bother to say so. Neither of us would ever admit the other was right. Still, they pulled out all the stops, and it took a couple of hours before I was ready.

  Kristi smiled, “You look beautiful Alicia, Bill might just pass out when he sees you.”

  I grinned, “I hope not, I have plans for him later.”

  My sister giggled naughtily, and my mother looked scandalized, but I was pretty sure she was mostly faking that because it was expected. Soul reading kind of gave away that she wanted to giggle too.

  Kristi nodded, “He needs to be conscious to say his vows as well.”

  “True. And everything’s ready for tomorrow?”

  We planned to spend the night at the station, in our suite, and then head to Athiren in the morning.

  Kristi sighed, “Stop worrying. I talked to Jeran himself, and outside of a dinner he’s going to make sure you’re left alone and given privacy for the week.”

  I nodded, “Best maid of honor, ever.”

  She winked, “Let’s get you married, before Bill comes to his senses and runs for it.”

  Tina snorted, “You two argue and tease like a married couple.”

  Kristi and I looked at each other in mock horror, and then laughed.

  “Roommates for five years does that.”

  Kristi nodded, “It does indeed.”

  I stared into the mirror, they really had done an amazing job on me. I was fairly cute, more than that really, if I threw out the modesty and was honest with myself. But the way I looked now all I could think of was that I couldn’t wait until Bill saw me.

  “Yes it does, thanks again,” I gave them all a hug, and we headed toward the park…

  The next few hours passed in a happy daze. I was probably the happiest I’d been in my life, ever. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes as long as I lived, as he watched my father walk me to him and give me away. He was obviously smitten with me, and so in love. While I could only see those feelings, not feel them myself, they still affected my own, making them flower and open further.

  It was overwhelming.

  It wasn’t until we exchanged vows that I really understood why a minister, reverend, or judge was necessary. My mind wasn’t exactly at its best, and to my embarrassment Al had to step in and save me by reminding me of a couple of lines before the rest rushed back to my mind. Thank goodness I had the implants which let him do so without alerting anyone else to my predicament. After a while my face actually started to hurt, I was smiling so much.

  It wasn’t that big of a wedding, just our families, Nora, Senna, Nadia, Karen and her husband, Caroline, and a few other scientists who decided to crash, but it was all mine.

  It was perfect.

  If Bill minded his friends couldn’t come, he didn’t show it, or even feel it that I could tell that day.

  Afterwards we had a reception in a separate room in the restaurant that was decorated with flowers from five different worlds, yet seemed to go together harmoniously. The food was excellent, and Jenna turned out to be our hostess and brought out all our food.

  When the night was over, we went back to our suite for our wedding night.

  Karen had arranged to have all my stuff moved during the wedding itself, and my old suite was once again empty and available for someone else. It was actually a pleasant surprise, I’d planned to do that myself after our honeymoon, but she’d made that unnecessary.

  The wedding night? Well, that was even better…

  I got up the next morning, and headed for the bathroom when Bill said, “I am one luck guy, she is gorgeous and I get to wake up to her for the rest of our lives.”

  I turned around, of course we were still naked at the time, and stuck my head back out of the bathroom door, “Who are you talking to?”

  He got a confused look on his face, and I read that same honest confusion in his soul, “I didn’t say anything.”

  I frowned, “Weird, I thought I heard you say something.”

  I shook my head and got in the shower.

  Barely a minute later I heard Bill say clear as day, “We should most definitely conserve water,” in drawling voice. When I looked out of the shower stall, he wasn’t even in the room. A second later he moseyed in and joined me in the shower.

  Then I got a really bad feeling. The feeling he hadn’t said that either. At least, not aloud.

  At that point, I got distracted, as newlyweds often do, and shelved the thought in the back of my mind. Later, when we were dressed, it all came rushing back and I sighed.

  “I need a few minutes in my lab, then we’ll go okay?”

  He frowned, but kissed me and sent me on my way.

  I caught another thought then, blushed a bit at its content, and fled toward my lab. Not that I minded those thoughts about me, not from my husband, on the contrary it was rather nice, but it was still startling.

  As soon as the door closed Al said, “Running scans.”

  It was okay that I hadn’t actually asked Al to do that out loud, he was supposed to be reading my mind, it was me that wasn’t supposed to be doing that sort of thing at all. I thought back to the Drenil laying my life and soul bare, what if something had changed, or it had awakened something in me that was always there below the surface? It had been about a week since the headaches had fully faded, maybe now my soul was really healed, and…

  I had no idea.

  But I could swear at one point in the shower, I could not only read his feelings, but I’d felt them as well. Not the whole time, but in that one moment where they had been very strong. I was guessing I was only getting his strongest thoughts, the things he had an urge to say but held back. I hadn’t heard a full internal monologue, but what if this, whatever it was, got even stronger?

  What did they do to me?

  Al said, “All scans are consistent with your last medical checkup. Your brain waves and brain activity have not appreciably changed.”

  I frowned in thought, that meant whatever it was, it was happening in my soul. So… my soul reader abilities got a boost somehow?

  “Unknown, but you are not imagining it. I have recorded your brainwaves at the times you believed to hear his voice, and they appeared similar to when he is truly speaking to you. If you were hallucinating or otherwise having a mental breakdown that wouldn’t be the case.”

  I cleared my throat, “Thanks Al,” I said through clenched teeth. Nice to know I wasn’t crazy.

  Then something not related popped into my head, perhaps an intuitive leap, or perhaps I was just crazy. But if I could read loud thoughts, then the Drenil probably didn’t have a spoken language at all. They were probably telepathic, which meant…

  “Al, do a subspace scan of me, as detailed as possible. Does any of the radiation leaving my body correlate to my brainwaves?”

  I was almost afraid of the answer. If it did, I could have Al read the minds of anyone, anywhere, at any time. I wouldn’t do it, it would be a huge violation, but if it was possible I’d have to hide it even better than I’d hid the rest. People would not be happy at all.

  I closed my eyes tightly as Al said, “Affirmative.”

  Crap. One more question, and I felt goosebumps go down my spine at the idea of it.

  “Al, you said the Drenil shield fluctuations had no communication pattern, have you ever tried to compare it to a brainwave pattern?”

  Because of course, that’s how a telepathic race would create long range communications. Some kind of tech that takes their brainwaves, and transmits them to all the other Drenil, everywhere, who had another machine that translated it back to real brain waves. After all, it’s how we did it with spoken words. From sounds, to signal, then back to sound.

  “Negative, I did not try that. One moment.”

  I held my breath, it took him three seconds.

  “Affirmative, but they are much more complex than a humanoid’s brain waves, and without con
text translation remains impossible.”

  I’d just made a major breakthrough, but couldn’t celebrate it, or even talk about it to anyone. I wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate it myself either, since I was worried about myself.

  I sighed, “For now it does, but at least we have a start. Not that it matters, I don’t think they’ll be back in this lifetime. We have plenty of time to learn how to talk to them before they come back.”

  I truly wasn’t sure what to do about my problem though. Do I tell Bill, my friends, and family that I can hear mind shouting now? Maybe it’s just a side effect that will go away? Perhaps I was sticking my head in the sand, but it was a possibility. Just as possible as the idea that it might get more powerful. I imagine I’d have to learn control it then, or I’d go crazy from all the thoughts around me.

  That one seemed obvious. I decided to wait a bit before telling my friends and family, and see which way it went first. Once I told them, that thought would always be in their head, and they’d wonder if I was reading their minds. Even if it did go away, there’d always be a part of them that would doubt it had.

  Although, the range seemed fairly short still, about the distance I used to be able to soul read people from? Despite Al’s comment to the contrary, I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown, and used my abilities to calm myself by exercising control of my emotions. At least that didn’t work any different, it was as natural as breathing to lock all the stress down.

  I was supposed to be leaving in the house ship on my honeymoon, not hiding in my lab.

  Crap. Not even a day married and I was melting down.

  I took a deep breath and headed back to our suite, at a nice slow sedate walk…

  Chapter Fifteen

  I made it past three people without hearing a thing, so I was almost confident, but then I ran into Kristi.

  “Hi Alicia, what’s up,” at the same time I heard in my mind, “What the hell is she doing wandering around alone? Shouldn’t she be shacked up with her…” her thoughts went on.

  If anything, with Kristi it was even stronger, I followed her thoughts easily. I couldn’t read her mind thank goodness, not her memories I mean, but her current thoughts were all as clear as day.

  Every. Single. One.

  I wondered then if familiarity made a difference? Because this wasn’t confusing enough as it was apparently. I knew Bill pretty well, we’d grown up together, but as adults we’d only known each other for a couple of months.

  Kristi had been my best friend, roommate, and co-dependent for five years. I knew her soul better than I knew mine. And those three I’d passed in the hall earlier, that I didn’t get anything from, I didn’t really know them at all, outside of their names and scientific fields.

  So there seemed to be two components, how strong I was, which was obviously stronger since I woke up this morning, and I still wasn’t sure if it would fade or get worse. Then a second component, like my soul needed to learn other souls in order to tune into their frequency, or something.

  Or, could it be me? Maybe I’m reaching out subconsciously like the Drenil had reached out to me? I suppose that could be as well, maybe I just yearn to connect to those I’m close too. But I dismissed this second explanation almost immediately. I was very close to Bill at the moment, it had to be the familiarity thing, or at least, maybe a mix of both?

  I’d need to get a handle on it either way, and figure out if I could control it. I was afraid if I let it get worse before addressing it, it would be too late as I drowned in the minds around me.

  “Umm, fine, I just had to check my lab, we’re about to go, promise.”

  She tilted her head questioningly, “Okay… see you soon?”

  I frowned, realizing I’d just addressed her monologue of concerns, and not her words.

  “Definitely, see you in a week,” if I was still sane, otherwise I’d be in a rubber room somewhere.

  “She’s nuts, I hope it’s not that soul crap again,” Kristi grinned, “Have fun!” she said out loud and walked off down the hallway.

  It took me a minute, she’d said the second one out loud. The words were rude in her head, but she’d actually sounded worried. Her mind tone did I mean, if that makes sense? I also wanted to cry, because I actually felt how much she loved me like a sister. It was wrong, I felt like a peeping Tom of the mind. It was so much more intimate than merely reading, experiencing her emotion had been on a totally new level which was amazing but made me feel like a voyeur as well.

  At the same time, I was overwhelmed by just how close we were. Beyond friendship, beyond family… more like chosen family.

  I shook my head, and kept going toward the suite. I sighed when I got inside, and gave my husband a long kiss and a hug.

  My husband, that was a nice thought.

  He chuckled, “If you promise to do that every time we part, I won’t mind it so much.”

  I sighed rather contentedly as I drowned in his love for me, and then slowly I attempted to pull back, just like I would distance myself from an emotion I was having. I’d been controlling my own emotions since I was a child, surely this wouldn’t be that difficult. I just needed to extend my control to what I read from others.

  “Something wrong?” he asked as the hug went on for quite a while.

  It kind of worked, I could dim his feelings, push them in the background, but I could still feel them. And I would as long as I was less than twenty or thirty feet away.

  “No, just need a minute.”

  I felt him stiffen. Oops. The mind thing must work differently, because I’d heard his thought clearly while his emotions were just a whisper. He hadn’t asked that out loud.

  I sighed, and came clean, “It’s why I ran off to the lab. I started hearing thoughts this morning.”

  He blushed.

  I grinned, “Don’t worry, I like all of your thoughts husband.”

  He blushed harder.

  That was kind of fun, “Ready to go?”

  He frowned, “Just like that? Shouldn’t we see the doctor?”

  I shook my head, “That’s what I just did, sort of. Al ran a brain scan and brainwave comparison, I’m the same as I always was. I think it’s a side effect…” I went on to explain what I’d been thinking.

  I finished up, “So I don’t know if it’s permanent or not. So far I can already control the emotion part, because I’m practiced at it. It only works on people I know well too. Still, I’ll figure out the thought thing too, hopefully it will just wear off, like a drug’s side effect. Just let’s not tell anyone else, unless we think it’s here for good of course, then we’ll have to.”

  He snorted, “Alright, I suppose I can live with that. But you know I love your mind and personality just as much as your body right?”

  I giggled, “Yeah, but you have a lot less random thoughts about those. Still, I get that from the emotions, I know the difference between lust and love Bill. Even before now I could read it in you, I’ll never doubt you that way. Plus, your thoughts are kind of fun, I love that I… inspire that in you.”

  He smiled, “Alright, let’s go, but if it gets worse we’ll go to a doctor. Perhaps this is a known thing for the Knomen, which will be convenient as we’re going to Athiren.”

  I sighed, “Fine, let’s go before something else happens.”

  He frowned, “Now you’ve done it, talk about jinxing our honeymoon.”

  I snickered, that was ridiculous, and we headed out…

  We were just about out of the landing bay when Al said, “There is an incoming stealth ship from Earth of an unfamiliar configuration.”

  Bill snickered, “See, you totally jinxed us.”

  I sighed, it was absurd of course, but maybe he was right?

  “Al bring up a hologram of it please?”

  It looked big, he had it next to a hologram of a battlecruiser for size comparison, and it was actually a little bigger.

  “What can you tell me about it?”

  Al said,
“It appears to have over fifty dark energy reactors on board, my supposition from their positions in the hull is that they are large missiles, perhaps a little bigger than a Shield defense missile.”

  I frowned, that was incredibly dangerous, and stupid.

  “What would happen if one of those hit the station?”

  Al replied, “All matter would be annihilated, leaving just the dark energy. The subspace shields would protect the ship from the physical missile and dark energy, but most likely some of that dark energy would seriously harm the planet below after it went around ship. If they fired at the station, the missile would need to be destroyed several million miles before the station to ensure the planet’s safety.”

  Bill said, “My god, that’s crazy. Why would they build such a thing? Just to kill you?”

  I sighed, and nodded, “Most likely I’m their primary target. I’ve embarrassed them twice, and have the keys to their superiority. Generally world leaders don’t like feeling out of control. Still, this is insane, they’d be quarantined for doing such a thing if they were caught. I also doubt it’s just to kill me, they probably had a black ops program for a while now.”

  Bill shrugged, “Maybe they don’t know you can see them, after all, no one else can see stealth ships. Maybe they plan to pretend shock like the rest of the worlds, and let people assume it was an experiment gone wrong on the station.”

  I sighed and pouted, “You were right, I totally jinxed our honeymoon. Al, converge with that ship and follow it in. If they launch anything at the station take it out immediately without asking.”

  Al replied, “Understood, I would have anyway under world protection protocols.”

  I grunted and looked over, “Sorry, we might be delayed half a day or so.”

  Bill shrugged, “We do have this nice hot tub.”

  I grinned, never mind what I heard in his thoughts, except to say that following them was already getting easier, which also meant I could focus on finding a way to control that like I did my emotions. And being alone with him was a perfect time to try. So far nothing that I’d tried worked. With emotions I could just distance and muffle them. Thoughts were going to be different, because my normal approach wasn’t working at all.