Secret of the Crystal - Omnibus Edition Books 1-3 (Time Travel Adventure)

by Larson, Brian K.

  Ghaia glared at Luanren, “Now look what you have done! You have made me miss the birth!”

  “Look what I have done?!” Luanren spat back, “If you had not started in, we would not have missed it!”

  “Now ladies, and I use that term loosely,” the doctor said holding his hypo up in the air, “don’t make me use this again.”

  “You would not dare!” Ghaia exclaimed.

  “I think he would” Luanren said staring at the doctor’s eyes.

  “I want everyone out!” Kate shouted.

  “I will stay with you and help you my dear” Luanren began.

  “No!” Kate said sternly, “Everyone, including you. This means the doctor and Jhahnahkan as well.”

  Jhahnahkan got up from the edge of the bed knowing she was serious, “Do you want me to take the child for a while?”

  Kate held her child tighter, “No, I will keep him at my side.”

  Everyone began to file over to the exit as the doctor showed them the way, “You too doctor.”

  “By all means ma’am.”

  “Wait,” Kate said sharply, “Ghaia will stay.”

  Ghaia smiled at Luanren and stepped back into the room gloating over her seemingly victory of being with this child before anyone else.

  “Are you sure Kate?” Jhahnahkan asked.

  “Yes, my love. I am quite sure,” Kate said smiling at Ghaia as she came back inside the medical bay.

  Jhahnahkan looked at Sam and they both shrugged and left the room and closed the door behind them leaving Ghaia, Kate and the newborn baby alone.

  “Now” Kate said continuing to smile at Ghaia, “Come closer.”

  Ghaia stepped over to the side of the bed and began to reach out to take the child in her arms when Kate reached up and grabbed her by the collar and pulled her close to her face.

  “Now you listen to me,” she said staring deep into her eyes, “I know what you did.”

  “Whatever are you talking about my dear?” Ghaia replied innocently.

  “You tried to infect me and Luanren with the Rune.”

  “I cannot be held responsible if this Rune was making me do these things.”

  “Nevertheless,” Kate said sternly pulling her closer by the collar, “You will stay away from me and my child.”

  “I thought we were one big happy...”

  “We are not family!” Kate interrupted, “We are the farthest thing from family, as far as this Touulug system is from the outer rim.”

  “Oh come now my dear.”

  Tightening her grip even more, Ghaia began to choke and cough slightly as her airway started to be squeezed.

  Kate spoke in an unusual deep foreboding voice, “You will not take this child from me! You will not interfere with Jhahnahkan’s mission. You will leave us!”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Don’t you?” Kate replied, “Then what is this all about that you will take my child and send him to the past to grow up?”

  “I have not done anything of the sort. See? Your child is still in your arms, and how about letting me hold him?”

  “Never!” Kate said in reply, “I don’t know how I know, or how you think you will get away with this, but I know you take my child from me. I just wanted you to know that I know it is you, and that I am watching you.”

  “Well,” Ghaia said struggling to get words out, “We shall see my dear, we shall see.”

  Loosening her grip on Ghaia, Kate ordered her to leave and send in Luanren.

  Ghaia stood upright and brushed off her clothes as if there was something on them that needed to be wiped off, turned and exited the room closing the door behind her.

  Luanren walked over to Ghaia as she exited the medical bay room, “Well? What did she tell you?”

  Ghaia returned a smile at Luanren as if nothing was wrong, “She said she never wanted to see you again my dear.”

  “She did not say that!” Luanren almost shouted back.

  “Well, if you do not think it is the truth, then why do you not go in and see for yourself?” Ghaia calmly replied.

  Luanren reached for the door and then stopped and looked at Ghaia. She lowered her arm and stepped away from the door and began to weep.

  “Well? Go on then, go in and see for yourself.” Ghaia almost demanded.

  Luanren turned and ran out of the corridor and away from everyone.

  “I knew she did not have it in her.” Ghaia scoffed just within Luanren’s earshot.

  Luanren stopped cold in her tracks, turned and faced her adversary, “I will show you!”

  Luanren ran to the door and entered the room and stepped up to Kate’s bed and was about to give her a piece of her mind when Kate softly spoke, “Luanren, my mother dear.”

  Luanren stopped and changed her demeanor and glanced back at the door that was closing behind her just in time to see Ghaia give her a wave.

  “Oh, that woman!” Luanren exclaimed softly.

  “What’s the matter Luanren?”

  “Ghaia told me you did not ever want to see me again.”

  “What?” Kate exclaimed almost waking her sleeping child, “That’s not what I asked her to tell you, I asked her to send you in. I want you to be the first one to hold little Uttarak.”

  Luanren began to weep as she picked up the child from the arms of his mother. She held him close to her and loved on him. The baby’s eyes opened and he looked up at his grandmother and cooed.

  “Oh, did you see that?” Luanren said in a small baby like voice, “He loves his grandmother.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he does.” Kate said turning to a more serious tone, “I call you my mother Luanren, and I mean it. I would have never sent you away.”

  “It’s that wretched woman! She would resort to doing anything if it would inflict pain and suffering on others.” Luanren said with a bad taste in her mouth.

  “It is Ghaia that I warned. I told her to stay away from my family.”

  “You are wise to keep your distance my child.”

  “I don’t know how I know this, but I know she is going to take my child from me.”

  “We will see to it that she does not then!” Luanren said with assurance.

  “That’s the problem,” Kate started to explain, “I don’t know if we can stop her.”

  “What do you mean my dear?”

  “It’s like I felt the future. I saw it in my mind and I know that it is real, merely by the evidence that has presented itself when Uttarak showed up on the scene.”

  “Yes, that is hard to repudiate.”

  “Do I let her take him from us or do I fight?”

  “That is something we will have to let destiny sort out. Just let whatever is going to happen, happen.”

  “I don’t know if I can when the time comes.”

  “But if you do not, you are afraid of what might happen to the timeline.”

  “Exactly,” Kate exclaimed, “That is why I will need your help.”

  * * *

  Karillian Flag Ship Zeroditha

  Year: 2983.9

  “I repeat. This is Portov, Captain of the Flag Ship Zeroditha of the Karillian Alliance. I am in search of Lanatek of the Ackturrian fleet.”

  “Sagrit, Captain of the Ackturrian fleet.” Sagrit answered as he looked over to first officer Torvon.

  “Captain Sagrit,” Portov said, “you must forgive me for this act of apparent hostility.”

  “You do have some explaining to do,” Sagrit replied in a bewildered tone, “Karillians were killed off by the Zelinites, they are all extinct. How is it you can claim to be Karillian?”

  “I think it would be best if you and your first officer join me onboard the Zeroditha.” Portov offered, “I think there is much we must discuss.”

  Sagrit leaned over to confer with Torvon, “Well, what do you think?”

  “Sir, I think we better take him up on his offer while the offer is on the table.”

  “Right, it does seem as i
f he has the upper hand at the moment.”

  Leaning again upright he addressed his captor, “Captain Portov, we will be happy to come aboard. Make preparations for our arrival.”

  “No need to make preparations,” Portov said as a vortex opened on the bridge of the Telenian, “Step through the tempest and all will be explained.”

  Sagrit again looked at Torvon and then back at the vortex. Torvon stood and motioned him along.

  “We are on our way.” Sagrit said as they entered the vortex.

  The two exited on the bridge of the Karillian ship. Portov was sitting in his command chair and had his full bridge team with security in place.

  Portov looked like a distinctive Karillian with their typical round blue eyes that are like two pools of water. He wore his fine, straight, and brown colored hair in a style that looked like a pair of wings. His physique was lean, but had a strong build with light-colored skin. Finally, he recognized their domed forehead and thin lips.

  “Yep,” Torvon said in Sagrit’s ear, “They are Karillian.”

  “All the way to their strange black and grey uniforms.” Sagrit replied.

  Portov stood and greeted the two men who were standing on an unfamiliar bridge deck. “I’m sure you both have a million questions.”

  The two looked at each other and nodded in acknowledgement.

  “Helm” Portov ordered, “Maintain this position. I will take my guests below and explain to them what is going on.”

  “Aye sir.” The Karillian helmsman answered.

  Portov escorted his guests with security detail off the bridge.

  “Tell me” Sagrit asked, “Why the armed guards? It is clear that you have the upper hand already.”

  “You will know the answers to all your questions soon.” Portov said as his demeanor changed from appearing like a gracious host to an officer over a prison detail.

  They entered a small room with a few chairs and not much more. The room was not lit very well. Sagrit and Torvon were seated at the far end of the room. The security officers sat at the end of the room by the exit while one stood outside the room. He closed and secured the door.

  Portov sat next to Sagrit and then addressed the two captives, “The only reason you and your ship are still alive is that I need to get the missing pieces to the puzzle that are before us.”

  “Ok,” Sagrit asked, “What puzzle are you referring to?”

  “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” Portov answered.

  “We are all ears.” Torvon added.

  “We were traveling back to Karillian when a Vortex opened before our ship and pulled us in. When we exited this vortex, we were in another time. We traveled to Karillia only to find our people were all killed, extinct, not even a slight trace of ever having any living organisms, of any kind. The last ship signature that we found had been in orbit was Ackturrian in nature.”

  “You are blaming Ackturrians for your destruction?” Torvon asked.

  “Yes” Portov answered coldly.

  “You must believe us when we say it was not Ackturrians that caused your destruction, rather the Zelinites,” Sagrit implied.

  “We did not see any sign of Zelinites, only Ackturrians. It had appeared to have happened long ago.” Portov said as he appeared to be grieving over their loss.

  “How is it you are able to open a vortex for us to transport to this ship?”

  “When we entered orbit around what once was Karillia I led a survey party to the surface.” Portov explained, “We were searching for the Karillian device we had created. We first thought that our people began with their time travel experiments and we somehow were caught in a rift and time altered around us. We soon learned that we were pulled to this time, a thousand years to our future.”

  “Did you find the device you were searching for?” Torvon asked.

  “Yes, we found the time travel device and it had not been activated. We had never succeeded with our experiments so this technology was locked away by my people.”

  “Until now” Sagrit commented.

  “Yes. Until now, indeed” Portov answered, “We decided to take the device and install it on the Zeroditha. What happened next surprised all of us.”

  “We are listening” Torvon said as he leaned forward intently.

  “We turned on the device and began to fire tachyons and flood the space before our ship. The vortex opened up before our ship once again and we moved ahead entering the space tempest. Apparently our first exposure to the vortex led us to experience the ability to commune with the time-helix, the fifth dimension. We learned the knowledge that our people sought for thousands of years with no success. Now we had entered this time axis. We decided to move along this time-helix axis for another thousand years before exiting. We were in the same position relative to Karillia, but this time our planet was thriving.”

  “Wait, Karillia was inhabited?” Sagrit asked with curiosity.

  “Yes” Portov replied, “It was the most amazing thing. We made contact with our people on the orbiting space station. They allowed us to dock, and since we were one big happy family of Karillians, they began ship upgrades. They replaced our armor plating, our engines and weapons systems as well as a new computer core. Our ship was enlarged to accommodate the landing bay that now is occupied by the Telenian.”

  “So you decided to come back to this time to find out what had happened?” Torvon asked.

  “We had learned that for some reason the time we entered, Karillians had not been destroyed. We only could surmise that some timeline shift had occurred, so we ventured back to this timeline only to discover our tachyon inducer burned out after the second use.”

  “That does not explain how you are able to open a vortex between ships.” Sagrit asked.

  “Before we left Karillia and ventured back to this time, we were approached by the Ackturrian ambassador. She gave me a crystal from Ackturra as a gesture of good will. She said she didn’t want us to think it was the Ackturrians that caused our demise, but the evidence still exists to the contrary when we came back to this time. So this small crystal fragment is what allows me limited access to opening a vortex. I have only used it a few times, but I find it to be most convenient.”

  “I see you did not believe this ambassador and you still came back seeking revenge,” Sagrit said.

  “Well, we see all the evidence before us,” Portov said convinced of their crimes.

  “We will lead you to Jhahnahkan. He will show you how wrong you are about our people,” Torvon added.

  “We really are not a bad people,” Sagrit began.

  Portov cut him off mid-sentence, “That remains to be seen. You will now answer our questions before we pass judgment on what we will do with you.”

  “Jhahnahkan will answer all your questions, let us set course for Ackturra so we can work this all out,” Torvon added.

  “Right” Portov said, “We’ll fly right into the nest of ships you have waiting for us. I think not.”

  “You do not understand what has happened,” Sagrit said.

  “We know enough, we have been observing the Ackturrian sector and it seems you are already in a civil war conflict.”

  “We were, but you do not know what has happened over the last few weeks.”

  “Enough of this!” Portov said losing his patients. “What were you and the Telenian doing in this sector of space, so close to the Zelinite home world?”

  “We were sent by Jhahnahkan to find out what is going on at the Zelinite home world,” Sagrit said, “I am actually captain of the Bane, but we were ordered to trade ships on this mission.”

  “It was designed to keep each of our factions from destroying each other’s ships,” Torvon said.

  “But what it ended up doing was attracting your ship,” Sagrit finished.

  “If you had not fired upon the other ship, we would not have thought the Ackturrians as hostile, but you proved us wrong.” Portov said.

  “There is much more at stake
than you know Portov,” Torvon said.

  “Take us to Ackturra, we will work this out,” Sagrit besought.

  “Let me confer with my ministers,” Portov said, “We will have an answer soon.”

  Portov and his security detail left and sealed the room making them prisoners.

  * * *

  Ackturrian Medical Bay

  Year: 2983.9

  “I will not!” Luanren nearly shouted.

  “Come on Luanren,” Kate urged, “You know that it will have to happen. You will have to step in and give him over if I fail to find the strength myself.”

  “We must tell Jhahnahkan of this at once.”

  “No! He must not know. If he finds out I conspired to give him up, he would resent me for all of eternity, and it sounds to me like Ackturrians all live a nice long life.”

  “I will not be a party to this!” Luanren said giving the child back to his mother, “I simply will not stand for it Kate.”

  Kate took the child and cuddled him close to her.

  “If you are so willing to give up, to allow this fate to continue, then why did you tell her to stay away?” Luanren quizzed.

  “It’s a mother’s instinct to protect her child. You should know that from experience.”

  Luanren backed up at the hurtful words that Kate said to her and turned slightly away to hide her face.

  “No, no,” Kate said, “That’s not what I meant. It came out wrong.”

  Luanren hid a tear streaking down her face from Kate, she acknowledged her daughter-in-law with a nod.

  “Luanren,” Kate nearly ordered, “turn before me.”

  She turned hesitantly and then showed her the emotion on her cheek as she faced Kate.

  “Listen to me. You know as well as I that things are going to change when this is over. We cannot interfere with this child being sent to the past. I know he will be alright, I know he will return to us, he has already. This is so hard.” She struggled to say. “This is why he was named Uttarak; his destiny is to save us.”

  “How do you know this?” Luanren asked.

  “I know it because I felt the future. I am trying to tell you I have somehow connected with it and I am seeing things as they unfold.”