Kai walked up to them, “How come you guys changed our course?” he asked Taylor.
You idiot, she scolded herself. She had completely forgotten to tell them about the intermission with Carlos.
“Carlos talked to us,” Taylor said. “He told us the black holes were destabilizing even more. So we don’t have to go check up on the validity of the whole destabilizing thing.”
“Where did he re-route us to then?”
She told them all about the abnormal radiation at the center of the galaxy, the Palace of Being, the map, and how they had to go to Eonia to get it.
At the end of the whole explanation Kai looked pretty stunned, and Chris looked as she usually did, literally emotionless.
“Wow,” Kai said, his voice quiet. “I didn’t think things would go this way.”
“So now we’ve got to find this temple,” Taylor said.
“But I thought you said the Temple of Time has never been located before?”
“Yeah, but Q has something we can use to find it.”
“Let’s go get him then.”
“No we can’t,” Taylor stopped him.
“What?” he asked. “We can’t? What do you mean we can’t?”
Taylor sighed, “You guys go back to the deck and get ready to leave hyperspace. We should reach the planet in a few minutes. I’ll go get Q.”
“Ummm….okay?” he said.
“Let’s go,” Chris dragged him off.
Taylor walked back to the bunks and looked at Q. He didn’t seem to have fallen asleep again, but he was still sitting in the same position. She didn’t know what had scared him, but it seemed to have affected him gravely.
She hated to do this but she was going to have to ignore how he felt and prioritize the mission.
“Hey Q?” She walked over to him.
He lifted his head a bit.
“We’re going to need you to help us find the location of the Temple of Time. We’ll be landing soon remember?”
He got up without any hesitation, “I’ll come,” his voice sounding stronger than before.
“Great,” she smiled and the two of them walked to the deck.
Kai was already in the pilot’s seat, “Finally the lord has come,” he chuckled. “We leave hyperspace in ten minutes. And from there the planet is only fifteen minutes away. You’re going to have to help us with the location of the temple once we reach the planet’s orbit.”
Q nodded.
“Hey, did you hear any screaming earlier on?” Chris asked.
Taylor could see him tense up. She hoped no one else picked on the vibe he was giving.
“No. I didn’t hear anything at all,” he said.
“Oh,” Chris said and went back to staring at the view screen.
She sighed with relief. That could have gone much worse.
They passed the rest of the time in silence until Kai asked everyone to get ready for the hyperspace jump.
“This is the first time I’m doing this exit-jump, so you guys should all strap in, just in case. Oh and is Elizabeth secure as well?”
Chris’ eyes lit up, “She isn’t.”
“You’ve got a little more than a minute to get her strapped in.”
“I’m going,” Q charged out the deck.
That left everyone puzzled for a while.
“Maybe he’s faster than you?” Kai suggested.
“He probably is, but he has no clue how to secure her does he?”
“We’ll just have to let him know,” Kai said.
He cleared his throat and spoke into his control console, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. Would a certain Q pay attention to this announcement please? Once you head into the infirmary, you’ll be able to secure her using the controls on the screen. It’s pretty straightforward, you have forty seconds left.”
“Wait, if it’s controlled by a software system, shouldn’t the pilot have total control over it as well?” Chris asked.
Kai stared at her blankly, and then spoke into the console again.
“Would Q come back? Immediately. Turns out we can secure Elizabeth without your help.”
He tapped on his screen a few times, “She’s secure,” he said. “And we’ve got ten seconds to the jump.”
Q ran in, his breathing heavy and irregular.
“Get in quick,” Taylor told him.
He sat down on a free seat and secured himself to it.
“We’re here, guys,” Kai said.
The ship jerked strongly. Taylor was sure that if she had not been secure she’d have flown straight into the view screen, and probably crashed through it too.
A huge planet just randomly appeared out of nowhere. It looked much like Earth, with green, blue and brown all over it. The only difference was that this planet was much larger than Earth and there was more land than water.
Kai turned to Taylor, “Are you sure you didn’t put us on the wrong course?” he asked “Because that looks a lot like Earth.”
“That’s Eonia all right,” Q said.
“How do you know?” Kai laughed. “You didn’t even know about S.P.A.C.E until three days ago.”
“Wave mapping.”
“What?”
“I can apparently use the waves that pass through me to construct a kind of 3D map of the universe. So as long as something emits a wave and the wave reaches me, I can add it to the map. I call it Q-maps” he chuckled at the name.
They all remained silent, probably out of astonishment.
He went on, “This planet is definitely not Earth. The continents are much different. As for the Temple of time, you’ll have to get me a little closer to find that place. I’ve realized that the closer the target, the stronger the waves it emits will be and the better the detail I can get on my map.”
“Give me a minute,” Kai said.
The ship started to tilt a bit and its speed increased.
“I’m putting us in the closest orbit possible. Any closer and we’d crash land. How long do you need for your map to figure things out?”
“With a planet this big I don’t think the waves on the other side will be strong enough to just pass through the planet, and the ones that do would be too weak to help me out. So if I get to see opposite sides of the planet I should be able to figure things out.”
Kai stared at him, “Dude, you’re acting like you’ve been doing this for years.”
“Ummm….I’m sorry?”
“No, no. I don’t mean it in an offensive way. It’s just….amazing that you seem perfectly at ease in here.”
“I guess the whole ‘you’re a sorcerer’ gave me some more confidence,” he said. “Plus this map thing is super fun.”
“Lucky idiot,” he pouted. “Why do you get all the good stuff?”
“Ah,” Kai said. “We’re almost in optimum position. You can start your mapping thing if you can.”
Q nodded and closed his eyes.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Half hour went by and Q still didn’t open his eyes.
“Maybe he fell asleep?” Kai whispered. He walked towards Q. “Should I poke him?”
“NO,” Taylor and Chris said in unison.
“Just a bit,” he said. “We don’t even know if he’s awake or not.”
“I’ll just prod his arm and see if he moves,” Kai took his hand closer to Q’s forearm.
Q screamed out, and threw himself onto the floor.
Taylor rushed to him and held him down.
Another nightmare, she thought.
“Umm...could you guys let me go?”
This wasn’t a nightmare. He was awake, and fine in fact. What in the world happened then?
“The waves this temple is emitting are really strong,” he said. “Made my brain feel like it was being fried.”
That was where the screaming came from, Taylor thought.
“Anyway,” he said. “I couldn’t get any precise location, but I’ve got it accurate to
maybe within a mile or so.”
He used the HPS and pointed to a certain region of the planet. “It could be anywhere within that circle. A mile in diameter.”
“A mile is good enough. We should be able to pinpoint the temple’s location from the air.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy,” Taylor said. “This temple has never been found before. There has to be some other factor at play here. If it were that easy it would have been found before.”
“Way to spoil the fun,” Kai said.
“I’m just trying to be cautious.”
“I get it I get it. Anyway, strap up guys, I’m taking her in.”
***
They were a few minutes into descent went Kai noticed something had gone wrong.
The Orion wasn’t responding to him anymore.
“Guys,” he said. “I think I’ve lost power.”
The level-A beast jerked roughly as though something had hit it hard.
“What’s going on?” Taylor asked.
“Magnetic ore,” Q said.
“What?”
“The spot the temple was built on could be magnetized completely. There’s probably massive amounts of high grade magnetic ores under the surface. The magnetic fields probably scattered the radiation waves from the temple. That’s why I was getting a blur. It fits all the scenarios.”
It make sense, Kai thought.
“That means we can’t control the engines as well,” Taylor realized. “The magnetic lines would mess with your ship’s inner wiring, and by extension, most of the vital systems. This is why no one has found the temple. Any ship that came close to it probably started malfunctioning because of the ore.”
“We’ve got two minutes to landing,” Kai said. “Less talking, more thinking.”
“Do we have any manual thrusters?” Q asked.
“In this age and time? No way. Everything is controlled only through the panel.”
His face suddenly morphed into an expression of confusion.
“What’s wrong?” Taylor asked.
“I just regained control of the ship.”
“I just used my map,” Q said, his eyes wide. “A part of the blur became clearer, which means the magnetic ores disappeared. Not all of it, but a sizable chunk of it is missing from one small spot. As long as you stay right above the empty spot we should be fine.”
Kai immediately activated the thrusters, lowering their speed and bring them into a stable descent.
“How could that much of magnetic ore move in so short a time?” Chris asked.
“I have no clue.”
“You’re welcome guys,” a voice said from behind them.
Elizabeth joined them, a monkey-cap around her head with her hair tucked in, and dark glasses over her eyes.
“Elizabeth! You’re okay!” Chris said.
Kai realized the cap and glasses must have been to protect parts of her body from the low energy radiation exposure during scans.
“Wait, how did you even get out of the infirmary?” Chris asked.
“Broke through.”
“You broke through the securing?”
“You call that securing? You should use thicker metal cuffs.”
“What do you mean we’re welcome?” Taylor picked up on what she’d said.
“Ah,” Elizabeth said. “I never told you guys what my Elementa was did I?”
Everyone waited with baited breath, though Kai could already guess what she was about to say.
“Earth,” she said. “I can control the ground, to a certain extent.”
“Certain extent? You just moved a huge piece of it,” Chris said. “That’s inhuman. That’s-”
Kai noticed both her and Taylor’s eyes go wide, while Elizabeth seemed amused that they’d finally realized something.
Taylor struggled to speak, “So, you have mage-like powers now.”
“Yup. Got into NOVA.”
“What?” Q and Kai asked in unison.
Go figure. We never know any of this stuff, he thought.
An excited Taylor tried explaining it to them, “So all of our wave skills exist because we think of the world in waves right? And since any matter can be a wave, a person is also a wave right? That means if our wave got stronger we could technically get a more powerful version of us. That’s what happened to her. Her wave’s grown much stronger than before. So now she’s in her NOVA form.”
“Is it irreversible?” Q asked.
“It’s permanent. She’ll never go back.”
“I always had geokinetic powers though,” Elizabeth said.
“Geo-what?”
“The power to move the ground. Manipulate it. I always had it, and used it to manipulate things like pebbles and sand, but now my NOVA form’s given me an extra oomph of power. I’ve got so much life energy now that I’ve become like a mage.”
“So becoming a NOVA makes you a mage?”
“In my case yes. I was already close to being a mage so it was easier for me. I don’t know if it’ll be the same for everyone else. Honestly I’ve only read of NOVA forms, this is my first time actually seeing one.”
Amidst the talking, Kai went ahead, put the Orion on auto, and stood from his seat, “We’re a minute to landing.”
“Perfect,” Elizabeth said. “Just enough time for my last surprise.”
“Oh please. No more surprises,” Q groaned.
She removed her cap and took off her sunglasses.
Locks of red hair flowed out from the confines of the cap and she looked at all of their faces, her eyes no longer brown, but a flaming red.
“Tadaaa,” she said.
“WHAT IN THE WORLD,” Q yelled out.
She laughed, “I’m sure you’re wondering what in the world happened to me.”
“I’d say a hair dye and contacts,” Kai said. “But I’m guessing that isn’t right.”
“Nope. The answer is more unbelievable than that,” she looked at Chris “I guess you’re the only one who noticed that I’m not human.”
“What?” Everyone but Chris yelled out.
“How come Chris knows?” Q complained.
“She did my check up right? There are a few body vitals only my species would have.”
“Which species would that be?” Taylor asked.
“Seraphian.”
Kai had no clue who that was, Taylor on the other hand, seemed to have heard of them.
Her eyes went wide, “The angelic tribe,” she said. “Then that would mean-”
“That coma thing from earlier? I didn’t faint. That was just the start of my maturing period.”
“Every Seraph matures around this age,” Chris continued. “It’s like puberty but instead of taking years, the transition takes just a few hours at most. A metamorphosis of sorts.”
Elizabeth smiled at them, as though she’d been waiting for this her whole life.
“And once this transition finishes,”
She turned her back to them.
The back of her T-shirt ripped open and out came two long, snow-white wings.
***
4-3
Q blinked a few times. He rubbed his eyes.
Nope. The wings were still there.
“OH MY GOD,” Kai yelled. He was clearly freaked out.
Elizabeth laughed, “Well, I guess you guys have never seen a Seraphian before?”
“Gee you think?” Kai asked.
“Pretty cool huh?”
Everyone was stunned at the sight of those wings.
They weren’t short, white wings like something a baby-cupid would have. There were really long, each wing stretching out to at least ten feet.
Can she even fly with something that big? Q thought.
He shuddered a bit at the sight of her new look. With her flame-red hair and eyes, Elizabeth looked like she would burn you to ruins if you got on her bad side.
“Alright, guys, we can catch up with Ms. Angel later on. We’re ready to land, and this time it’ll be s
mooth. But just in case, all of you suit up. If I lose control of the ship again you need to be prepared.”
“That’s a lot of confidence you’re riding on Kai,” Q laughed.
“Just do it,” he said.
A monotone cry of “Ethosien” rang through the deck.
The first thing Q noticed after he’d armed up was Elizabeth’s armor. It looked like it was fit for royalty. The blue and white armor didn’t have a shield or a sword. Instead there were two sharp daggers in sheaths on the sides of her calves.
Chris’s armor was pure artistry. It looked like fairies and pixies had weaved together leaves and pixie dust into a suit. It was just like the others, with angular cuts and sharp edges, but hers just glowed with a sort of mystic light. He felt calm in front of it, as though the suit were radiating a calming sensation.
“That suit makes you look so much like a fairy,” he said.
In the blink of an eye she had her crossbow at his throat, loaded and ready to fire.
“Don’t underestimate me, kid,” she said.
“Don’t you call me a kid. I’m fifteen,” he said.
“I’m fourteen,” Elizabeth said for no reason at all.
Q figured he might as well continue and turned to Kai “How old are you?” he asked.
“Fifteen as well,” he mumbled, as though disappointed he wasn’t older than all of them.
“So that makes Taylor the oldest.”
“I am so not taking care of you kids,” she laughed.
“Alright, guys. We’re on the ground,” Kai said.
“What?” Q asked.
“Yeah I underestimated myself. The landing was so smooth you didn’t even feel it.”
“Wow,” he laughed. “Hopefully things don’t go down downhill from here.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he chuckled and typed on the console. “Opening hatch.”
A characteristic hiss came from the door, and it slid open.
Eonia was now open for exploration.
***
The first thing Q noticed was that they were in the middle of a forest, in what seemed to be the middle of the night. The area around them was filled with large trees, vines and was completely devoid of any light.
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 18
