AWOL Read online

  ‘When it’s done,’ Zeven stipulated and she nodded. ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ he was quick to appeal.

  ‘No,’ Aurora agreed, holding her rumbling belly. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  Zeven nodded and smiled in appreciation as Aurora departed.

  ‘Okay.’ He gathered his thoughts as he dressed and shoved some personal effects in a bag along with his workstation. ‘Done.’ He looked to his reflection in the mirror and took a moment to appreciate all he’d been through to deliver his consciousness back to this body.

  Being shorter than most blokes didn’t bother Zeven any more. He’d been fanatical about body building in his teens, but now he realised the body was only a vehicle — and an imaginary one at that; influence over reality lay entirely in one’s intention. The soul that was a conduit to the mind had ultimately chosen the manifestation he was employing, and with good reason; what the vessel looked like mattered little. Still, he hadn’t entirely shed his ego; he was still grateful that his vehicle was once again young, agile and good looking.

  ‘You ready for this?’ It was a rhetorical question, meant to strengthen his nerve, as now he was here, he really didn’t have any choice but to follow through with his directive. Hence, he pulled out his communicator and put through a request for Taren to meet him in the pod bay.

  ‘Why the pod bay?’ Taren called out from the centre of the huge spacecraft hangar in Module F.

  ‘Up here,’ Zeven announced through the launch bay intercom, to draw her attention to where he was in the control deck.

  Taren looked up to the command centre that overlooked the launch bay area, and with a questioning frown, proceeded to the stairs that led up there.

  It was great to see Taren tromping about in her old body; he’d rather missed this personification of her. He may have been a married man, and Taren’s cousin, but before he’d discovered this and wed his dream girl, he’d had a crush on Dr Lennox. As a half-caste Phemorian she was a stunning beauty — tall, slender, graceful — who had inherited her mother’s exotic mauve-grey eyes and her commanding nature. Her long blonde hair was flying in the breeze as she strode towards the control deck stairs, although blonde was not her natural hair colour, she was a brunette, like both her parents. As much as Zeven had once hated to admit it, their relationship was more like siblings than lovers — and since he’d married Aurora he’d been happy to settle with being Taren’s cousin.

  ‘I’ve got a wee bit on my mind today.’ Taren made her entrance. ‘I really don’t need one of your little dramas right now.’

  Zeven was affronted. ‘That’s unfortunate.’ He sat forward in his seat and held out a paper printout to her.

  ‘What’s this?’ Taren impatiently took the note from him and read it aloud. ‘“On mission to Phemoria include Amie Gervaise in Anselm’s escort.” Why?’ Taren looked to Zeven.

  ‘Because you’ll need her,’ he advised, sitting back in his chair again. ‘Keep reading.’

  Taren’s frown deepened as she looked back to the note. ‘“When Mythric retrieves the body of Satomi from Sermetica, he must take Swithin. Kassa Madri will go anyway, and it is very important that she does.”’

  Taren’s expression was, as predicted, a little pissed. ‘How do you know this will happen?’

  ‘Keep reading,’ he strongly suggested.

  ‘“Kalayna and Telmo activated the inter-system gateway to the Oceane system, two days ago—’” Taren gasped and looked to him, but Zeven merely redirected her back to his missive. ‘“They are about to be exposed by the Maladaan Secret Service, you need to get them out.”’ Her words trailed off and Taren was apparently too stunned by the implications to be furious.

  ‘Today is the last day they are going to be alone in that station,’ he explained. ‘By nightfall, ships will be lining up to enter the Oceane system, and the last thing we need is anyone from Maladaan discovering Oceane and the mysterious gaseous energy there.’

  AMIE’s discovery of this ‘gaseous energy’, which proved to be more of an ‘entity’, was exactly what had started this entire inter-universal, time-hopping crusade. This entity was a very powerful evolutionary architect, working its magic on the virgin planet Oceane — named thus as it was primarily an ocean planet. But beneath where the gaseous entity was concentrated, plant life had taken root in the muddy stone terrain. AMIE had taken a sample of this gas, unaware that even separated from its mass the portion was energetically joined to its source. Initial tests on the sample indicated that just this small amount of the gas had an unlimited potential to generate power — but this observation proved false, for the sample was simply draining power from its original mass. This was discovered too late to prevent part of their sample being stolen and transported back to Maladaan. When the huge entity detached itself from Oceane and shifted universes to tend its next assignment, it dragged with it anything attached to itself — the entire planet of Maladaan had vanished from this universe. This disaster had been reworked by the timekeepers and prevented; their arch nemesis had been dragged into the universe parallel instead. Thus began their last mission criss-crossing universes, which Zeven had only just completed.

  ‘Either you’ve become a prophet, or you’ve pulled a time-shift without me,’ Taren surmised.

  Zeven winced. ‘I’m not a prophet.’

  But Taren was not amused. ‘We promised —’

  ‘No, you promised.’ Zeven was quick to stomp on that protest. ‘One week before D-day, your memory of our last mission will return and then you’ll know why I am doing this.’

  ‘Our last mission was to rescue my father from Khalid, five years ago!’ She wasn’t following.

  Zeven shook his head. ‘We went back to the universe parallel to warn Rhun about the threat to Kila, just like you promised him you would.’

  ‘I’ve already done that?’ Taren was boggled.

  ‘It turned out to be a little more complicated than previously thought,’ he appraised. ‘But in the end, yes.’ Zeven served her a friendly wink. ‘You can cross that wish off your bucket list.’

  Clearly, Taren wasn’t sure if she should be sceptical, joyful, or angry. ‘Is this why I sent you back?’ She referred to the note in her hand.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Those notes are just to cover what role I played in those events, so I can be otherwise detained.’

  ‘Doing what, exactly?’

  ‘I can’t say.’ He stood. ‘But I know you trust me. And if you don’t, well … you’ll figure it out soon enough.’

  ‘Figure what out?’ Taren grabbed his arm to prevent him using his psychic ability to teleport himself anywhere without her. ‘Oh!’ Zeven clicked his fingers as he recollected. ‘Another thing. Get a big piece of Juju into the centre of AMIE; Khalid knows what the interior looks like. A long time before you recruited her, Amie Gervaise sent him the fly-through graphic that Lucian made when he was first selling the project. And we stuck to that design —’

  ‘But Khalid is locked up in a psychic prison.’ Taren was sounding increasingly more alarmed.

  ‘Just saying.’ Zeven shrugged. ‘It would be a good precaution.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Taren asked, indignant.

  ‘Not, under any circumstances, should you or anyone from AMIE come after me.’ He reached up under his left sleeve and removed the armband that contained the Juju stone of protection that all the timekeepers wore.

  Taren was immediately panicked by the gesture, for the Juju stone prevented the timekeepers being found by other psychics. The amulet was infused with the essence of their soul source, which guided them via intuitive means and prevented them from being identified by the MSS photon camera.

  This camera was an evil piece of technology used to identify psychics on the one planet that still held them in contempt. Sadly, the condemning camera had been devised by using stolen blueprints of one of Taren’s inventions, a device that measured the photon count of all living things.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Taren lost he
r official tone and let Zeven go as he placed his protective amulet in her hand.

  ‘Mind it for me,’ Zeven suggested. ‘Where I am going, I won’t need it.’

  ‘Are you going to Oceane?’ Taren quizzed, knowing that was the only other safe place where a timekeeper could hide without a Juju stone, as that was where the stones had originated from.

  ‘A good guess,’ he awarded. ‘But no.’

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘It’s not important.’

  ‘Zeven?’ Her tone demanded an answer.

  He was not thrilled about disobeying his timekeeper. ‘You know how much this project and the timekeepers mean to me. I would never do anything that would jeopardise what you’ve built here.’

  ‘Of course I know that, without question,’ Taren agreed. ‘But … how long will you be gone? What am I to tell the rest of the crew … your wife?’

  ‘Tell them the truth.’

  ‘That you’ve gone AWOL, and I have no idea why?’ Taren was clearly frustrated.

  Zeven screwed up his nose and considered. ‘If you are going to stop anyone coming after me, you’d better lie.’

  ‘I am always lying for you!’ Taren threw her hands up in frustration; and it was true, she had been forced to cover for him quite a few times in their long association, especially where her husband — the captain of the AMIE vessel — was concerned.

  ‘Well, that’s because I’m always risking my arse for you and this project!’ he reminded her.

  Taren ceased protesting and rethought her approach. ‘Why can’t you just tell me?’

  ‘Because you have to focus on that list!’ He clutched the hand in which Taren held the printout. ‘All of this is just as important, and is going to make for one hell of a long work day, especially without me to assist. What I have to do cannot wait, and will take some of the heat off all of this.’ He let her go. ‘Are we clear?’

  Taren, still perturbed, nodded.

  ‘Wish me luck then?’

  ‘Since when do you need it?’ She held her perturbed mood, and folded her arms, not wanting to condone his stance.

  ‘Okay then.’ He picked up a bag containing his personal workstation, and other personal effects. ‘Just remember whose side I am on.’ He closed his eyes to focus on teleporting himself elsewhere.

  ‘Take care of yourself, Starman.’

  The genuine concern in Taren’s voice was reassuring — she was onside, for now. It was too late to respond, as his physical form was already shifting location to his desired target area, hundreds and thousands of light-years away, on Sermetica.

  2

  GRAN MAI’S LIBRARY

  The family library in the House of Vidor was very grand to Zeven’s mind. How many words were contained within this huge double storey room? Not that he really cared to find out; he’d never been much of a scholar when it came to anything that wasn’t vehicle or weapon related.

  Bookshelves rose from the floor on three walls, through a mezzanine level and all the way to the roof of the second storey. In addition, tall bookcases ran the length of the room to form several aisles. On the only wall that was not paved in books were tall, slender feature windows in intervals, in front of which were lounges or desks. To one end of the massive room, where you entered, were other lounges and study desks that were out of the direct sunlight. Zeven stood amidst these, admiring a huge tiled mosaic inset in the polished stone floor. This depicted a feather quill crossed by a sword — the insignia of the Sermetic royal Houses of Anselm and Vidor.

  Zeven knew very little of his heritage — being born into the royal lines of this nation was a precarious affair. The royal families of Sermetica were refugees of the psychic uprising on Phemoria that had struck the fear of Powers into the USS for hundreds of years. A report of a supernatural spirit force protecting the queens of Phemoria arose shortly after the female rebellion there had seen every male Phemorian banished to Sermetica. This unnatural force was known as the Phemoray and their advent served to cast a shadow of doubt over speculation that psychic power was inherent in the Sermetic royal line. The royals of Sermetica had, of course, denied this supposition fervently, insisting that the Phemoray were the sole source of the Phemorians’ supernatural power. Still, it was widely suspected that the Sermetic royal lines were merely hiding their psychic potential, which indeed they were. Many Sermetic royals had resorted to placing their children in foster homes and disguising their identities for their own safety. Zeven and Taren had been two such children. As the first offspring of Sermetic and Phemorian inter-breeding for centuries, they were more pure blood than most royal progeny who, only decades ago, would have been considered a threat to humanity and thus hunted and restrained. Zeven was glad not to be entirely ignorant of who he really was any more, but like his father he was in no hurry to come out of hiding, not even for so great an inheritance as he was standing in at present. They had found a better way to serve their people and their deeds had seen psychic ill will lax on Phemoria, Sermetica and Frujia. These three planets would soon unite to protect those with the Powers; all Zeven had to do was not screw up.

  It was morning here in Heavensgate, the capital of Sermetica, which was one of many floating cities that hovered high above the desert wasteland of the mining planet, where temperatures were cooler. Skylights in the ceiling allowed additional natural light into the library, through which Zeven now wandered, turning circles as he went. On one of the desks between windows, he spotted a workstation that was a relic from before he was born!

  ‘Get with the times, Gran!’ He noted there was no other technology to be seen — all this money and the House of Vidor didn’t even have a decent workstation! ‘Just an index file of some description would be helpful.’ Maybe that’s what the old system was for? ‘It’ll probably take ten hours to boot up!’ Zeven exaggerated, turning his attention back to the bookshelves to his other side. ‘How do I find one little prophecy among this lot?’

  He’d never seen the document in question, so he couldn’t just make it appear, or will himself to it; in fact, the truth was he didn’t even know if the prophecy in question had actually ever been put to paper. Zeven desired to check the exact wording of the prophecy — as any such claim was open to interpretation. What he did know was what the prophecy was about, and maybe that was enough to see his psychic intent fulfilled?

  ‘The prophecy of Zaman Vidor!’ Zeven held out a hand in command, expecting the text in question to speed from its location and into his grasp; unfortunately that wish did not manifest. ‘So does that mean I lack the power to locate it, or does that mean it does not exist?’ He gave a heavy sigh as he considered, but a thud at the far end of the room drew his attention — he suspected a book had fallen from a shelf. Yet, as he moved to investigate, the sound repeated again and again.

  Beyond the long aisles, at the far end of the library, there was an open cavity in the wall of books. In this annex was a heavyset door and from behind this, the thudding sound persisted, like something continually ramming against the inside in an attempt to break through. The door had security coded locks, which Zeven overrode with his psychokinesis, otherwise known as PK — the lock clicked off, the door slid aside and out flew a large volume that Zeven was quick to catch with both hands.

  ‘Holy crap, Gran Mai!’ Zeven grumbled upon impact; he’d not expected the text to be so heavy. Closer inspection revealed this was more a coffer than a book. The item had its own security measures — several spinning numerical locks, attached to an ornate metal device that wound around the treasure box like an impenetrable prison.

  ‘I should have expected nothing less from my great-gran.’

  The Duchess Maiara Vidor had been precognitive, as Taren was, and thus saw everything coming, perhaps even this event now transpiring five years after her death? The grand old dame was also a prophetess.

  Prophecy differed from precognition in that the oracle slipped into a trance state, and instead of seeing glimpses of the future which could be
recalled afterward, would begin spouting prophecy, none of which would be recalled by the oracle after the event. Someone must have been with Maiara when she had made the prophecy about her grandson, or otherwise no one would have known about it, not even Maiara.

  Zeven’s hope was that it had been recorded word for word for posterity. For as much as Zeven respected his grandmother’s great gifts, he had a hunch that she had misinterpreted her own prophecy in this instance. For he knew things about their nemesis that his grandmother did not. Maiara had raised Khalid through his formative years, suspecting there was something not quite right about the child, and even when his treachery was apparent, she had been hesitant to believe he was to blame. Maybe she’d had an inkling of what Zeven now knew to be true?

  The words embossed in the lid of the coffer were in the old Sermetic tongue, which Zeven had never learned. But what he had discovered during his last mission was that the soul mind to which all the timekeepers were connected granted them the ability to understand all languages — at least it had in the two universes they’d inhabited before this. So rather than blow off the inscription as something incomprehensible, Zeven carried the weighty coffer over to a table where he could set it down and study it more closely.

  As he read the words, ‘Asa fide Vidor es minto gesta nata ciphis,’ in his mind, the content was decrypted into his own modern dialect and he knew the meaning. ‘Any true descendant of mine needs no code.’ Zeven had a chuckle at his grandmother’s reasoning. ‘Too true.’

  With a wave of his hand over the mechanism Zeven set the locks spinning, whereupon each stopped at a different glyph and released its ornately fashioned metal arms. The bindings coiled away into the coffer casing — like twisting vines being dragged from a tree — and the coffer opened by itself.

  Inside was a memory card, which being over twenty years old was no longer in use and would not connect to his workstation. ‘Damn! Hang on … Maiara is not behind the times, she is always ahead!’ He grabbed the card and headed back to the old workstation he’d spotted earlier.