AWOL

by Traci Harding

  ‘Sure,’ she agreed, appearing happy to help. ‘What did you do … threaten her with death?’

  ‘I merely pointed out that you are just trying to pull your weight,’ Taren advised diplomatically. ‘But, she did ask that the weather control centre remain off-limits.’

  Jalila flushed red at the request. ‘I can’t believe it, she mentioned the shirts.’

  Taren wasn’t a very good liar, so she nodded.

  ‘Whose shirts?’ Kalayna had to know the gossip. ‘Ringbalin’s?’ she guessed.

  Jalila’s grin, as guilty as sin, confirmed it. ‘It was just a little whiff, seriously,’ she explained, thinking Ayliscia was being childish. ‘I just wanted to feel some of that energy, that’s all.’

  ‘I used to do that with Telmo’s shirts,’ Kalayna confessed, with a chuckle. ‘When he was around to wear them. All his scent has worn off them now.’ She pouted mournfully, and Jalila sympathised, pulling a sad face.

  ‘I’ve done it too.’ Taren raised a hand to confess, and then seeing the shock on both women’s faces she added, ‘To my husband’s shirts, obviously, not Ringbalin’s.’

  Upon hearing this both women relaxed.

  ‘So what’s the big deal?’ Kalayna wondered. ‘Unless … Ayliscia has a thing for Ringbalin too! Does she?’ Both women were wide-eyed as they looked to Taren for an answer.

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Taren waived all comment. ‘Once I wanted to fix everyone else’s relationships, but now I’m older and wiser, I just stay focused on my own.’

  ‘I thought Ayliscia was just holding a grudge from our good old days,’ Jalila commented to Kalayna, as the girl was more interested. ‘But now I see there could be more to it.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Taren threw her hands up and backed out of the speculation. ‘I’ll see you both at dinner.’ She made a quick exit.

  That was the last thing on her to do list today, but before Taren went and found her husband to commence date night part two, she felt compelled to pop back to the House of Vidor on Sermetica and thank Trance for his wee bit of interference in her personal affairs. He’d been completely right on calling her out on her judgemental streak and she now felt like a complete heel for thinking him to be self-serving and a pain in the butt, for clearly he was neither.

  Taren had never seen the House of Vidor on Sermetica in its entirety, gardens and all, but for the next few hours, she scoured the entire house, in search of its custodian, but Trance was nowhere to be found. Trance was the only live-in servant of the house, and as it was the wee hours of the morning on Sermetica, there were no house staff in attendance to query about his movements. Still, she had a very bad feeling about his disappearance, and she took her suspicions straight to Lucian.

  ‘He’s missing!’ she fretted, having explained where she had been for the past few hours.

  ‘He could have just gone out,’ Lucian reasoned. ‘Or run off somewhere to lay low for a while.’

  ‘Well he is a cautious fellow.’ Taren thought that more likely. ‘But what if Prochazka —’

  ‘Throwing around allegations is really not going to help your truce any,’ he warned.

  ‘Maybe I should just teleport to him rather than to his home, and check he is okay?’ Taren wanted to believe that option so badly.

  ‘And what if the Phemorians have him in a psychic containment cell?’ Lucian knew why she hadn’t tried that already. ‘Like it or not, when Trance opted off this crew he ceased to be our responsibility.’

  ‘Then why do I still feel responsible?’ she appealed, collapsing herself against Lucian for a hug.

  ‘Because you feel responsible for everything.’ He kissed her forehead and rested his head against hers. ‘But you’re not. Everyone chooses their own path; you have to let them walk it. Even if there are dire consequences to pay; those lessons are meant to be learned — you can’t judge fate, you can’t stop consequence.’ He had second thoughts about that last statement. ‘Well, not for everyone, all the time.’

  ‘Is there nothing to be done then?’ She’d managed to get a whole crew out of a Phemorian prison, but Lucian was right, the Phemorians would not be happy to be accused, or to catch her sneaking around in their prison complex again.

  ‘All we can do, as with everything else at present, is keep our eyes and ears open, and wait.’

  17

  BACK TO THE FUTURE

  The hut on Oceane was the only place Mythric felt at peace these days, and he and Vadik had been permanently stationed here for some time now. All the men and women on the crew had families or wives to be with and jobs to do on board AMIE. Mythric, as a strategist, was not of much use at this time, nor did he have anything better to do, with his family all missing and his wife repeatedly refusing his requests for an audience.

  So much time had elapsed since Zeven’s disappearance and Satomi’s coup on Phemoria that Mythric’s hope of seeing any of them again waned with each passing month. This vigil they kept on Oceane may have been a farce, but being in the light of Azazèl-mindos-coomradorchi and being battered by its constant rainbow storm, was the only thing that kept him sane, patient, buoyant.

  It had been daylight for a couple of hours and Vadik was resting, so Mythric stripped off his shirt and walked down to sit on the stairs in the warm rain and have his morning shower. Same as every day, the temperature was warm, the rain was constant, the view was unaltered. Or was it?

  Mythric noted the colour orange springing from the rocks yonder, which stood out against the deep grey shale and deep green of the huge tundrell plants that thrived here. ‘What is that?’ Through the rain it was difficult to tell, so he jumped in the water and waded over to the site of the anomaly.

  Upon closer inspection Mythric found what he thought were little, round, orange, sponge-like flowers, multiplying between a crevice in the rock. The further out into the light and rain they were positioned, the bigger they were blooming — or perhaps expanding was a better word, as they absorbed more water. He nudged the largest of these with his finger, and two little black eyes popped open and they ogled one another.

  ‘Whoa! You’re not a flower.’

  Although it was cleverly disguised as one — complete with a little lime green tuft upon the top of its bright orange body, which made it appear rather cute. Whatever they were, they weren’t growing out of the rock; they were crawling out, and spreading themselves over the surface.

  ‘Where did you come from?’ Mythric peered down into the crevice — perhaps there was a whole subterranean world on Oceane that they had never even considered? Between the mass of migrating sponge-slugs, down deep where one would expect to see darkness, he was surprised to see light! And that light appeared to be growing more intense the longer he looked.

  The ground under foot began to rumble and as he staggered back a few paces, Mythric witnessed light shoot out of the gap in the rock in thin white streams. This burst made the ground rumble even harder and the light was succeeded by an electric blue light-filled ooze that began to gush from the rock like lava and pour into the water. As the glowing substance moved towards him, Mythric didn’t wait to see what happened next. He high-tailed it back to the hut to wake his fellow crew mate and ensure he wasn’t dreaming this.

  ‘This is it!’ Vadik was already up on the verandah by the time Mythric reached it.

  ‘Are you sure?’ It hadn’t occurred to Mythric that this was the event they’d been waiting for.

  ‘Damn sure.’ Vadik’s eyes were glued to the expanding light phenomenon. ‘I have mastery over all four elements, and that —’ he pointed to the bright blue ooze spreading through the water and cutting through the air like cracks in rock ‘— is the only element I don’t control: ether.’

  The etheric matter tore through reality causing ruptures of light so intense the men had to shield their eyes. A hurricane-force wind exploded outwards from the centre of the disturbance, blowing Mythric and Vadik off their feet and back into the hut, before the roof collapsed on top of
them.

  ‘We need to get out of here!’ Mythric yelled to Vadik, from whom he’d been separated by roof debris.

  The hut itself was swaying on its footings and felt like it would collapse at any moment, but then the rumbling of the ground ceased. All was quiet for a moment, before the damage done to the hut suddenly righted itself and Mythric found himself seated against the back wall. ‘You okay?’

  Vadik peeled himself off the floor not far away. ‘I could have done without being beamed on the skull.’ The big guy rubbed his head.

  ‘Hello! Anyone home?’

  The call came from outside and had both men on their feet and back on the verandah in a heartbeat.

  ‘Greetings!’ Zeven announced his return with good cheer as he scaled the stairs to join them, with Telmo, Khalid, Aurora and Thurraya in tow.

  ‘Bob!’ Vadik waved, as Mythric raced towards Zeven and crash-hugged him straight back into the water.

  ‘Greetings?’ Mythric emphasised as they both surfaced to face each other. ‘It’s been three fucking years!’

  ‘What!’ Zeven looked to Telmo, annoyed.

  ‘It’s not my fault how long the negotiations took,’ Telmo replied with a shrug.

  ‘What negotiations?’ Mythric queried, but Zeven was wading out of the water to talk with Telmo.

  ‘What if we’ve missed the mission?’ Zeven climbed the stairs to confront his advisor.

  ‘To what mission do you refer?’ Telmo raised both brows. ‘The one we executed from the universe parallel, you idiot!’ Zeven wiped the water from his eyes, annoyed.

  ‘It’s not going to happen,’ Telmo shrugged calmly, and as Zeven appeared unsure whether to be angry or perplexed, he expanded on the reply. ‘It’s already happened in the timeline we altered. That’s why I told you not to boast about it, or arrange any meetings you couldn’t fulfil … idiot!’

  ‘What? Really?’ Zeven frowned, as he tried to figure if Telmo was right or not.

  ‘And it’s a good thing too; we’ve got other fish to fry now.’ Telmo looked to Mythric who had scaled the stairs and was hugging his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. ‘Do we still have a crew?’

  ‘Thanks to Taren.’ Mythric had a scolding tone in his voice. His attention turned back to Zeven. ‘That was a hell of a situation you left her to deal with.’

  ‘Is everyone okay?’ Aurora requested to know.

  ‘All, but Zelimir,’ Mythric was sad to advise. ‘Prochazka killed him when she took the ship.’

  ‘How unfortunate.’ Aurora was deflated by the news. ‘That’s sad for Fari.’ Thurraya’s expression was woeful, but her little kitten popping its head out from inside her jacket made her smile again.

  ‘I didn’t leave …’ Zeven deflected his father’s implication, ‘I was swept away!’

  ‘My fault.’ Khalid raised a hand; he was still standing in the rain, apart from the family reunion.

  The sight of his most hated enemy, healthy and breathing, made Mythric’s stomach knot and the arm beneath his Juju stone ached in equal measure to his rising hatred. ‘It’s always your fault,’ he replied spitefully.

  For a moment there was silence, as everyone held their breath awaiting the inevitable clash.

  No matter how hard he tried, Mythric could not hold his anger here on Oceane, the truth always won out. ‘Except for in the last universe, when everything was my fault,’ Mythric admitted, releasing the ill will — the pain in his arm ebbing with it — as the frowns of his company melted into smiles of relief.

  ‘You remember?’ Zeven placed a hand on his father’s shoulder, pleased to hear it. ‘Then you know I’m right about Khalid?’

  Mythric nodded, though the fact was rather mournful to him now.

  ‘We’re going to fix this,’ Zeven assured him.

  ‘I don’t see how.’ Mythric wished he could believe that. ‘You don’t even know what we’re dealing with.’

  ‘So take me to Taren and let’s get it sorted out,’ Zeven suggested. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘On AMIE.’ Mythric grabbed Zeven before he could disappear. ‘But I would not go publicly announcing your return to anyone, as Prochazka may have planted a spy on board. Only the captain and Taren must know,’ he insisted. ‘Let me go ahead and find them; I can arrange for them to be somewhere alone to meet with you.’

  With a nod, Zeven concurred. ‘I’ll await your word.’

  It was a glorious day on Phemoria, the sky was mauve and clear, and the warm, dry weather felt to be settling in for its short season. But the lovely day and surrounds of the royal garden brought the Qusay little joy. All she could think about today, or any day, was the lack of progress she was making towards ending the curses she’d overthrown her sister to see destroyed. She was tired of wearing her sister’s persona, weary of waiting for a resolution, and missing the family who had betrayed her. Perhaps Prochazka and her niece were both wrong in thinking her son and his family would ever return from whence Khalid had led them, but wherever that was, every attempt to locate them had proved fruitless. They had to be hiding on Oceane somewhere, but be damned if Satomi was sending her finest warriors down onto that planet to be infected with her niece’s madness.

  General Prochazka had been overseeing the development of bio-technology that would protect them from any such infection, and ground penetrating radar designed to detect Osmium, that would end this stalemate very soon. Intel received from the spy on board the AMIE vessel had also been very beneficial in preparing Tonissia’s defences for what Prochazka termed ‘the final assault’. Yes, they were fully aware that her niece had reconstructed the vessel Prochazka had destroyed — they had expected that she would. And as the captain had been restored to life, Satomi’s coup had come at little cost to the crew of AMIE — she could not say the same of herself, however. When all was said and done, her family’s friends and associates had little to hold against her; in fact, she imagined they would be thanking her in the end, for freeing them from the delusion spell Khalid had cast upon them all. Yet, time had caused her to doubt whether the opportunity to prove them wrong would ever, in fact, arise?

  In recent years it seemed AMIE had turned their attention and resources towards disrupting psychic exploitation and persecution on Maladaan. Of course there was no evidence to point to Taren Lennox and her crew as the perpetrators who had tampered with the photon detection system that the MSS had been using to identify psychics. But an unfortunate series of events that had evidenced faults in the devices and reproduction flaws that could not be identified or explained made it clear to Satomi that the AMIE crew were behind the problems. After all, the device had been illegally adapted from a photon chamber Taren Lennox had designed, and this wee spot of espionage was costing President Tallak the confidence of his people. The presidential office had tried to cover up the recent failures in his psychic defence system, but the truth of the matter had been leaked to the public, who were now forcing an early election on Maladaan that Tallak was expected to lose.

  The notion rousted a smile from Satomi. She may have resented her niece for the coup she had attempted to execute on Phemoria, but she did admire her dedication to the cause of psychic freedom in the USS; and Taren had managed to keep Sermetica minding its own affairs for the past three years and off Phemoria’s back. Phemoria certainly held no love for Maladaan, so Satomi felt in no way compelled to enlighten President Tallak to the source of his woes; but it was a nice ace of information to have up her sleeve should her niece try to cross her in future.

  Perhaps she was in a good mood after all.

  Her radiant surrounds were certainly helping lift her spirits; the fragrance of the garden was just divine — acquiring AMIE’s green-thumbed healer had been something of a coup in itself. Prochazka had certainly chosen her hostage wisely as the young gardener had not been one spot of bother during his entire stay with them.

  She stopped to observe him yonder, preparing a new garden bed, whistling to himself as he turned the soil and fertilised it w
ith mulch. He had pots of seedlings all lined up in rows, ready to plant in the bed he was preparing, and Satomi considered he was about the happiest person she’d ever seen.

  ‘You do very fine work, Mr Malachi.’ Her comment startled him, and when he saw her he dropped what he was doing and bowed deeply to her.

  ‘Thank you, Majesty.’

  ‘I did not mean to disrupt your productivity,’ she advised, whereupon he immediately retrieved his shovel and continued to turn the soil. ‘Do you miss your people and your garden in space?’

  Clearly Ringbalin considered this a loaded question, as he ticked his head to one side, to consider his answer. ‘I am happy doing what I can to aid the peace,’ he said, and then cracked a smile. ‘I’m just thankful you assigned me to the garden and not the seeding stables.’

  Satomi found his jest most amusing. ‘Seeding stables are a myth; I could hardly send you somewhere that does not exist.’

  Ringbalin stopped what he was doing, and served her a peculiar look. ‘Your Majesty shut them down?’ He appeared most delighted by his assumption.

  ‘I cannot shut down what does not exist,’ she scoffed, her amusement waning, as the young gardener appeared suddenly discomforted.

  ‘As you say, Majesty.’ Ringbalin bowed again and got back to work.

  A seed of panic planted in her gut. ‘Am I wrong?’ She appealed to him for correction.

  ‘It is not for me to advise you of what takes place in your own jurisdiction,’ Ringbalin was hesitant.

  ‘Tell me why you do not believe my assurance?’ She was now seriously concerned.

  ‘Because we rescued the men of our crew from a seeding stable three years ago.’ He squinted and shielded his eyes to look her in the face, and she could tell he was not lying.

  ‘I was never told of this.’ She gasped on the premise. ‘Spyridon too?’

  ‘I believe the Valoureans held him there for a time,’ Ringbalin was sorry to advise.