“Get away Iseabail, run for your life!” John shouted, distracting the woman who first swung to face him and then around to confront Iseabail.
“Stand down, Siabhra!” Iseabail commanded in a loud clear voice and shook what had appeared to be a mace. It instantly extended into a five-foot-long pole, with a large conical head at one end. Iseabail lowered the pole so that it was pointing at the woman. “Stand down! This assassination is forbidden by Imperial edict!”
“On who’s authority?” the woman asked.
“Mine, as the Morrigan in Waiting!” Iseabail answered.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Earth Orbit, The Fianna Command Deltoid,
Kate had gone with Morann and Conn to the teleportation chamber at Abbot’s House.
“Where are you taking me to, Morann?” Kate had asked
“To the Command Deltoid of the Acting Ceannaire of the Fianna,” Morann answered as they stepped into the chamber.
“I’ve never teleported before, Morann,” Kate said nervously. “I’ve not even been on a Deltoid before, or in outer space.”
“You will be fine, Kate,” Morann assured her, but that hardly allayed Kate’s fears. To tell the truth, Kate had only ever flown once before, a short flight from England to France and that had terrified her and so she’d never flown again. Morann saw Kate’s fear and put a comforting hand on Kate’s arm. “Truly, Kate, you will be fine,” she reassured her.
The next moment, a beam of light passed over Kate. She felt a slight jolt and a tingling sensation and then she was in a different teleportation chamber. A man with cropped bright purple hair, with crimson streaks in it, who was wearing an emerald green uniform, with a green and gold symbol on it, stepped forward to greet them. Kate was sure that she’d seen the symbol on the man’s uniform before. Then she remembered to her surprise that she’d seen it once in Ireland, when she had gone there on holiday, as a child, with her family. She thought that the symbol was called a Trinity Knot, but what was it doing on the uniform of someone in a Fianna Deltoid?
“Good to see you Morann and you too Conn, and this must be the Badhbh in Waiting,” the man said turning to Kate and giving a little bow. “I’m Bran, Fleet Commander of the Fianna and captain of the ‘Beagalltach’, the Fianna Command Deltoid. This is Sceolan,” Bran introduced a tall, broad shouldered man with brown hair and a bushy brown beard, standing behind him, who Kate hadn’t noticed. “He’s the second-in-command of the Fianna and my superior officer and he’s also a Varn descendant too, but I don’t hold that against him, or his boring beard.”
“Yes, and Bran’s a rather eccentric android, but I don’t hold that against him either,” Sceolan said good humouredly. “Come on, Bran, you’ve made the necessary introductions, let’s get back to the bridge.”
Bran and Sceolan led the way, walking down a long corridor until they came to its end, where two seven-feet tall, scary looking, large black robots guarded a door. Kate thought that they wouldn’t be the kind of robot that you’d want to mess with. They looked very menacing and closely scrutinized Kate before stepping aside, so that they could all pass through the door into the large chamber beyond. Kate gasped with surprise as they entered it.
At the end of the chamber was a semi-circular window, easily twenty feet across and about twelve feet high. Looking through it, Kate could see the moon and stars and below them the Earth. It looked so near to them, that Kate thought that if she could reach her hand outside the Deltoid, she could touch it. Kate eventually managed to tear her eyes away from the views and looked all around the bridge, which she realised must be at the front of the Deltoid. High tech chairs, similar to what Kate supposed the pilot of a plane might sit in, were arranged in two semi-circular rows. The first row had seven seats, none of which were occupied, until Sceolan sat down in one of them on the left-hand side. Bran went to sit in the centre chair on the second row, with Conn taking the chair on his left-hand side. Morann took the last chair to the left of Sceolan. She moved her right hand in a sort of sideways sweeping motion and a holographic screen appeared in front of her.
“Come and sit between Morann and myself, Kate,” Sceolan told her, indicating the seat between them. Kate noticed that the chairs on the second row, several of which were occupied, all had consoles in front of them displaying holographic screens, which the occupants of the chairs were peering at. A woman, possibly in her early forties with plaited strawberry blonde hair, sitting to the immediate right of Bran, saw Kate looking at her and smiled back at her. Conn had taken a seat by a rather handsome man with crew cut black hair, beside whom sat a strikingly attractive woman possibly in her mid-thirties with long classic red hair tied in a ponytail.
“Are the Acting Ceannaire and his guests ready for pick up yet, Bobdall?” Sceolan turned his head slightly to address the woman with plaited strawberry blonde hair.
“Not received the call yet, Sceolan, but I’m expecting it at any time now,” she answered, and Kate was sure that she detected a slight southern Irish accent, in the woman’s speech.
“What about our second pick up, Darragh? Any problems there?” Sceolan asked.
“Well, we’ll have to make the time transfer soon, or the Nemhain’s command ship might just beat us to them and we don’t want Hoskens and his crew falling into the Nemhain’s hands, Sceolan,” the handsome man sitting by Conn replied.
“No, we don’t want that. Are we ready to initiate the time transfer once the Acting Ceannaire is back on board?” Sceolan questioned. Several people answered in the affirmative. It was up to the Acting Ceannaire now, Sceolan thought, let’s hope he wasn’t going to be too long.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, England
Morag looked long and hard at the young woman who was claiming that she was the Morrigan in Waiting. There was certainly a resemblance to the Morrigan, Morag thought, sifting back through the memories that she had of her. Of course, those memories dated back thousands of years and were contained on the memory chip implanted into Morag’s brain. She was far too young to have memories of the Morrigan herself and those she had, had been passed down over the centuries that the Aos Si had been on Earth. Then something happened, that finally convinced Morag that the young woman was who she said she was. Suddenly on the young woman’s right shoulder a crow materialized and then on her left shoulder, another one appeared. Both of the crows were far bigger than those native to Earth and had purple eyes and gold rings studded with gems on both of their legs. The crow on the right shoulder of the young woman claiming to be the Morrigan in Waiting, was smaller than the one on the left, Morag saw.
“Fea!” Morag said the sacred crow’s name aloud. The larger crow Morag knew would be Anann, the female crow’s mate. Only the Morrigan, or the Morrigan in Waiting, were blessed with the companionship of the two sacred crows of the Aos SI. Morag put her weapons back into their holsters, dropped onto one knee and then touched her forehead to the ground. She remained in the position of obeisance, until the Morrigan’s in Waiting’s voice rang out again.
“Arise, Siabhra,” Iseabail commanded her. Morag stood up. “These are not your enemies,” Iseabail then told her indicating in turn, John and his father. “Whoever gave you the commission to assassinate them, is an enemy of mine who will be dealt with at the appropriate time.” Iseabail then turned to address John’s father. “Your suspicions were correct then, Oisin.”
“It seems so, Iseabail,” John’s father replied, walking over to where Terry’s body lay and then knelt down beside it, taking Terry’s head in his hands to look at it. Then he turned to look at John.
“You need to see this, son,” he told him.
“I’d rather not,” John replied, but walked over to his father all the same. Then he gasped in surprise. From the gaping hole in Terry’s head, blue sparks were flying, and John could now clearly see that Terry’s brain was encased in a fine mesh of what appeared to be some kind of metal. The sparks were emanating from some sort of large micro-chip embed
ded in Terry’s brain.
“It’s Carazium,” John’s father told him, pointing to the fine mesh. “It’s a metal which is only found in the Andromeda galaxy. Terry was a cyborg, John, part man, part machine. The real Terry Penhellick, or Terry Jackson as he was more commonly known, died in 1960, when he and your grandfather, well your maternal grandfather, John Trevaskis Senior, were murdered by the Andromedan assassin, who’s now impersonating him.”
“He was a cyborg?” John heard King’s incredulous voice and half-turning saw the former special branch man was clutching his arm where Terry had shot him, blood seeping through his fingers. John’s father also turned., then spoke into his communicator, which looked similar to a mobile phone but had the capacity to communicate from a planet’s surface to a Deltoid far out in space.
“One for immediate medical evacuation, tagging him now,” John’s father said, and a beam of light shot from his communicator directly at King, slowly moving down his body, from King’s head to his feet.
“Understood,” John heard a female voice come from his father’s communicator and then the next moment King had vanished, teleported presumably to wherever his father had sent him.
John turned to face Iseabail.
“You’re the Morrigan in Waiting, Iseabail?” John who was quite perplexed by all that had just happened, managed to ask, before an elderly woman’s voice behind them enquired.
“Are you filming something for the BBC dear?”
John swung around to face the elderly lady and her husband, that he’d seen in the gardens earlier that afternoon.
“You’re very good dear. Some quite spectacular special effects,” she said. “I don’t know how you made that man disappear, it was very good, much better than that magician fellow, who’s always on the telly.”
“Is it an episode of Doctor Who, you’re filming?” the elderly man with her enquired. “I really like Doctor Who, don’t I Wendy.”
“Yes, Peter, you do,” the elderly lady said resignedly.
“Where are the cameras?” Peter then asked, looking all around. “I can’t see them.”
Just at that precise moment the drone that Conn had activated earlier that day to follow Terry, flew down and hovered a few feet above them. This looked like a normal drone that the Traffic Police used to monitor traffic on the roads, rather than one of Conn’s drones disguised as birds.
“Cameras are on the drone,” Iseabail announced walking up to them, Fea and Anann still perched on her shoulders. “New technology. Wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’ll be blowed! The miracles of modern science,” Peter exclaimed, as a small camera on the drone swung around and focused on him.
“I’m afraid though, that you really shouldn’t be seeing this,” John’s father told the couple and started to usher them back towards the Hall. “It’s for the Christmas special you see.”
Iseabail and John watched them walk back into the Hall, accompanied by his father. Morag meantime was standing guard over Terry’s body.
“Who commissioned you to kill Oisin and Terry, Siabhra?” Iseabail asked Morag.
“The Badhbh, Mona McBeolain, commissioned me to kill the cyborg, Morrigan in Waiting, and then I had a further commission to kill both the cyborg and Oisin, from William Geacher, an associate of John Trevaskis Senior.”
“He wasn’t an associate of my grandfather, he was his murderer,” John vehemently interrupted.
Morag swung around to face him.
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded to know.
“William Geacher, or his real name, JT, is an Andromedan assassin and an enemy of the Triumvirate and Mona McBeolain isn’t the Badhbh,” Iseabail told her. “We need to get out of here, John. Your father will follow us as soon as he returns from dealing with the old couple and you need to come with us too Siabhra. There is a lot to explain.”
“He’s not going to kill them, is he?” John anxiously asked.
“No, of course not,” Iseabail reassured him smiling. She really liked John. “He’ll just give them something to make them forget what happened. Three ready to teleport, ‘Beagalltach’,” Iseabail said into her communicator, which was fitted into the elaborate bracelet that she wore on her right wrist. The next moment the three of them had vanished.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Earth Orbit, The Fianna Command Deltoid, The Beagalltach
The next moment, John had felt the familiar sensation of teleportation and split seconds later, he found himself in a Deltoid’s teleportation chamber. As well as Iseabail, Morag and himself, the body of the cyborg that John had known as Terry had also been brought along, he saw as he looked around. The two crows were still perched on Iseabail’s shoulders with hardly a feather ruffled. One of the crows, the smaller one was watching him closely with its beady eyes. Suddenly it put his head close to Iseabail’s ear, as though it was whispering to her. Iseabail smiled. “Fea likes you, John and that’s a great compliment coming from her,” she told him. “Come on, we’d better go to the bridge.”
Just then the door to the teleportation chamber opened and Morann came in.
“Morann, what are you doing here?” John asked.
“Welcoming you and the Morrigan in Waiting, on board the ‘Beagalltach’,” Morann replied and turned to Iseabail. “Morrigan in Waiting,” Morann inclined her head in respect. “Sceolan and Bran, send their apologies, but they are rather busy at the present time.”
“I guessed that they would be, Morann,” Iseabail answered. “Morag is joining us for a while as there is much to explain to her.”
Morann nodded to Morag and then led the three of them out of the teleportation chamber.
“You know Morann?” John questioned, as he walked by Iseabail’s side, Morag trailing behind them.
“Of course, John. Since I was a child in fact.”
Morann turned her head to address him. “Obviously you now know that Terry was a cyborg. Oh, and by the way, Kate is safe and on board too. Conn and I brought her here.”
“Where is she?”
“On the bridge. I think she has overcome her fear of flying. In fact, I think that she is having the time of her life.”
“John,” John heard his father call his name and turning his head saw him striding towards him from the direction of the teleportation chamber. “I have a lot to tell you, and I’d like Kate to be present too, as what I’ve got to tell you also concerns her, who as yet I haven’t met. Is that ok with you?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“First however, we need to rescue some people from the Nemhain’s clutches,” John’s father told him. “Darragh, are we ready to initiate time transfer of Colonel Hoskens and his crew?” John’s father asked a man, who John saw was sitting next to Conn.
“Ready commander,” the man answered.
“Initiate time transfer,” John’s father ordered.
John was searching the room for Kate and saw her sitting next to where Morann had now seated herself. Kate saw him and smiled.
“Time transfer initiated,” Darragh advised.
“There they are, Oisin,” the man sitting the other side of Kate announced. Turning to look through the viewing portal at the front of the Deltoid, John saw that another Deltoid was now visible in the near distance.
“I see them, Sceolan. Bobdall, can we initiate teleportation from here?” John’s father asked.
“Yes, commander,” a woman with plaited strawberry blonde hair sitting in one of the chairs on the row behind Kate confirmed.
“Initiate pick up of the Colonel, Bobdall. Luacha, as soon as they’re all safely on board, make the Colonel’s ship disappear,” John’s father ordered.
“Will do,” a strikingly attractive woman with red hair, sitting on the row behind Kate and directly behind her, told him.
“Locking on to target now,” Bobdall announced a few minutes later. “Initiating teleport, now! They’re all safely on board, Oisin,” she informed him seconds later.
“Morann,
take a security detachment and receive the Colonel and his crew,” Sceolan ordered. “Bring the Colonel to my quarters and put the rest of his crew in the brig. They can stop there, until we’ve sorted things out. Okay with you, Oisin ?” he asked. John’s father nodded.
“As you command, Sceolan,” Morann said leaving her chair and exiting the bridge.
“I’ve got some things to do first John, and then I’ll meet with you and Kate,” John’s father told him, before leaving him to follow Morann off the bridge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
SATCU Deltoid, Earth Orbit
Tuesday 13th September 2005
Sam Hoskens and his crew of five were sitting in their seats on the bridge of their Deltoid, wondering how they were going to escape from the situation they had found themselves in. Suddenly, Sam’s display screen went blank and then a few moments later it came back on, but all the data on it had changed.
“What the F. . . !” Sam heard Master Sergeant Thompson exclaim.
Looking up from his screen, Sam’s attention was immediately drawn to where Thompson was looking, out through the semi-circular viewing panel at the front of the Deltoid. The six deltoids that had been confronting Hosken’s Deltoid were gone, but now a huge space craft was positioned directly in front of them. Sam’s parents had told him stories passed down through the ages, of the vast, inter-galactic travelling, spacecraft which had brought the first Aos Si settlers to Earth. This must be one of them, Sam thought. It was at least a hundred times bigger than the craft that they were on board. Before Sam had time to act, a beam of light suddenly swept over them all. Sam felt a strange tingling sensation and a slight jolt and realised that he was being teleported somewhere. The next moment he and his crew found themselves in the teleportation chamber of another ship. A woman was facing them and what looked like a squad of very large, menacing black robots.
“No harm will come to you,” Morann told them, “as long as you do as you are told. You are to come with me, Colonel Hoskens. As for your crew, they will be taken to a safe place, until we can determine your intentions.”
The Sol 3 Agenda Page 28
