“Hang on,” Brock interrupted again. “I thought earth was destroyed?”
Giles nodded. “It was,” he replied simply. “Pretty much, at least.”
Pieter frowned, confused. “Well hang on, was this before or after it was destroyed then?”
“After,” Giles confirmed. “The vampire survived being blown up by a nuke - apparently. I never did get the full story from him. He’s not the most talky-talky of people.”
Brock and Pieter looked at each other, processing this new intel and trying to slot it into what they’d each learned in the limited time allocated to human history back on Estaria. Brock immediately jumped to the question they were both thinking. “Well hang on then… how old are you?”
Giles grinned and glanced over in Sean’s direction. “That’s classified. Right Sean?”
Sean grunted from behind his beer bottle. “Right.”
Brock shook his head, knowing full-well the game that Sean had been playing with them, not telling him how old he really was.
Pieter was still enthralled by the discourse. “So then what happened on Earth?”
“Well… let’s just say that during a swash-buckling adventure,” Giles revealed glibly. “I ended up helping the team who was responsible for finding and assembling a Sacred Clan’s ship left over from when the Empress kicked their asses the first time before she left Earth.”
There was a hush amongst the team. All movement stopped. What Giles was talking about was legendary — so legendary that not one of them really knew the details of what had happened.
Giles waved his hand ironically, now looking uncomfortable at all the attention he was suddenly receiving, despite this being his main driver normally. “Only… well, you don’t need the details. But let’s just say there was an artifact on board that everyone else thought was just junk.”
Molly regarded him carefully. “But you didn’t?” she emphasized, pressing him for as much information as she could glean.
“Exactly,” Giles agreed, smiling at the recognition that Molly had bestowed upon him. “Though I was still a young buck by Federation standards, I had already done my share of book-worming and adventuring, and I knew that it must have some significance. Although what the sacred clan was doing with it we’ll probably never know,” he mused as his thoughts drifted momentarily.
He pulled his attention back to the task in hand. “Anyway, it turned out it was some kind of talisman, likely originating on the planet itself from the crude scans we could do with the onboard material analysis at the time. And this was the talisman Sean and I retrieved on Teshov.”
Molly nodded. “So the Estarian Elders didn’t entrust you with it?” she asked rather skeptical of him once again.
Giles’s eyes looked concerned. “No no,” he protested. “It’s not like that. Yes, they entrusted it to me, but several decades after I’d given it to them for safe keeping. You see, it turns out that this talisman had certain… magical properties.”
Brock raised his eyebrows, looking skeptical and a little anxious at the same time. Paige and Maya were wide-eyed, hanging on Giles’s every word.
Molly looked blankly. “What do you mean… ‘magical properties’?”
Giles nodded at Arlene. “That’s not my area. Arlene? Want to take this one?” he suggested.
Arlene nodded, stretching her legs out in front of her for a moment, and then putting her palms together between her knees as she leaned forward and pulled her legs back in and stretching her back. “I guess the easiest way to describe it is that all things have a power to them. A property, like entropy. Or temperature,” she explained. “Some objects, or places, or people, have more of this power than others. Like Neechie…” she added, the sphinx having just at that moment come into the middle of the group and was sitting directly in front of her between the mocha table and her feet.
Paige and Maya seemed to be getting more and more excited at what they were hearing.
Arlene continued. “Some places have a ground energy, too, meaning that it is easier to manifest certain things in that place than others. Estaria has a slightly higher power than most planets, and that’s why they have such a high incidence of their ancestors having been able to ascend and realm-walk.”
Brock’s eyes were also wide now, and he was looking around anxiously as if afraid of ghosts appearing behind him.
Arlene brought the conversation back to the talisman. “And sometimes objects have so much power that someone who is attuned can pull energy from it, and use it to move things around in this realm.”
Molly frowned. “Move things around? Like telekinesis?”
Arlene tilted her head from side to side. “Yes and no. I was talking more about making things happen, or transmuting matter or energy into one form of another.”
Molly frowned. “Give me the science,” she asked without any real energy on the request.
“Well,” Arlene explained, “It’s kind of like this. Your brain emits certain frequencies, depending on the thoughts you think. But for those who have total control and awareness of the frequencies they have, they can use this to resonate with, and affect, matter in the physical world.” She smiled. “I just prefer to call it magic because not everyone can do it!” She winked playfully.
Molly bobbed her head, contemplating what Arlene had just told her. It fit perfectly with what she had been teaching her all those months ago out in the deserted landscape of the asteroid.
Arlene chuckled to herself. “Anyway,” she added, “It comes in handy now and again. Especially on missions with this one,” she added, nodding her head in Giles’s direction.
Giles took that as a cue to continue with the story. “Quite,” he agreed dutifully. “So this talisman had power, and I had learned enough to be able to feel it. Not straight away, but after a while of having it in my possession. So when I met the Estarian elders sometime later I explained this to them, and they suggested they look after it. I for one was happy to not have it with me when I was doing my gallivanting. Way too easy to get into all kinds of trouble I didn’t know how to get myself out of.”
Arlene nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it is a little like walking around with a target on your back,” she confirmed.
Giles chuckled. “Yeah, all was safe until I got involved with a woman who was ruthless and cruel and would stop at noth-”
“Alright. Alright!” Arlene interrupted him. “You don’t need to lay it on so thick!”
“Hang on,” Molly interjected looking at Arlene with her eyes wide and horrified. “YOU were the woman?” she asked.
Arlene rolled her eyes at herself. “We were young and reckless. He makes it sound like I was an evil sorcerer or something.”
Giles leaned over in a low voice and whispered in the direction of Joel and Pieter. “Oh, she totally was.”
Arlene gave him a stern look.
Giles straightened up again. “Yeah, okay, we’ll skip that bit about how you tried to kill me to get your hands on it,” he said.
The rest of the team could barely believe what they were hearing.
Joel chirped up, looking at Arlene. “Is that true?”.
Arlene nodded. “Yep.”
Giles waved his hand dismissively. “All water under the bridge now. Anyway, the rest,” he said now looking at Molly, “of what I told you about the elders, and how they were killed and having to find another hiding place for the talisman, is all accurate.”
Molly nodded, pushing her bottom lip out contemplating the information.
Giles pulled his lips to one side. “Are we good?”
Molly shrugged. “Sure,” she said simply. “You’re right. It wasn’t relevant to anything we needed to know at the time and it doesn’t change anything.”
Giles’s face relaxed and his shoulders dropped about two inches. “Good,” he said, smiling now. “So,” he continued, turning back to his story, “when we started putting all this data together I started wondering if there were other talismans, like the one
I’d found on the ship. And the six sections on it looked awfully like constellations as seen from areas like Earth, Estaria and the original planet of the Zhyn Empire - Zhyn.”
He made eye contact with each member of his enraptured audience as he spoke. “That, together with the uncanny DNA similarities between the Estarians and the Zhyn made me wonder if there weren’t some other association between them. So, while I was in prison that other captive we rescued shared with me a nursery rhyme about the Moons of Orn. It got me wondering if that was where the Zhyn talisman might be hiding, and when Arlene checked the constellations on the talisman - taking into account the 100,000-year lag time - it looked like that could very well have been the constellations looking from the Moons of Orn, back into space as seen from Earth, in the Pan Galaxy, pointing back in the direction of this spot.” He paused for breath, his excitement at his string of discoveries getting the better of him.
Brock screwed his face up. “You mean these two sets of regressed constellations both point to the same area of space, as viewed from these points?”
Giles nodded. “Seems more than just a coincidence.”
Oz piped up over the base intercom. “I can run the probability of that being a coincidence if you like.”
Giles chuckled. “No need, thanks Oz. Though very kind of you to offer. We understand it is astronomically low… and then if you factor in the rest of my theory, I think we can safely say we’re onto something.”
Oz laughed too, clearly enjoying the whole team being together and being a part of things. “As you wish,” he conceded, the audio channel going quiet again.
“So, after you guys kindly saved my life from that infernal hole,” Giles continued, “Arlene and I were pretty sure that our next stop should be the Moons of Orn. And when the General gave us the go ahead it was deemed to be of utmost importance to the Federation and we just had to scarper.”
Molly nodded. “Seems reasonable,” she agreed.
Joel looked at her, amazed. “How can you not be even a little bit hurt that he didn’t say goodbye?”
Molly shrugged. “He had a job to do,” she said blankly.
Joel eyed her carefully as the conversation moved on. He could sense that there was a chance her cool exterior and analytical assessment was still just her protection mechanism for keeping people at a distance. He just hoped that she hadn’t reverted. He didn’t know what might have gone on between her and Giles, but he sensed there was a commonality that the pair shared… both being outsiders, and both being too smart for their own good.
Brock was enthralled. “So what happened next?”
CHAPTER TWO
Gaitune-67, Safe House
“So there we were, having got special permission for a ship with Gate technology. I can probably count on one hand the number of times the General has given me access to such tech… and never before without a special forces Federation escort.”
Arlene bobbed her head as Giles explained the situation. “Just goes to show how much he thinks this talisman might be a threat to the Federation,” she added in.
“Either that,” Sean added, “or an opportunity for us.”
Giles pulled his lips to one side. It wasn’t something he hadn’t considered before, but he liked to think more of Lance. “In any case,” he continued, “there we were, Arlene and I, on our way to the Zhyn Empire.”
Aboard the Scamp Princess, Koin Star System
“Adjusting course for Kurilia,” Scamp announced.
Arlene looked up at Giles from her console. “Kurilia?” she queried.
Giles’s attention was elsewhere. “Huh?” he grunted absently.
“We’re going to Kurilia?” Arlene clarified.
“Yeah,” Giles responded, pressing buttons on his console and cross-checking the reference coordinates he had been working on. “We’re going to ask someone for permission.”
“Permission? For what?” Arlene’s blue complexion glinted in the dim light of the cockpit, accentuating her expression of confusion.
Giles still didn’t look round. “For visiting the Moons of Orn on our quest,” he told her.
Arlene frowned, turning in her antigrav chair to face Giles, who had his back to her sitting at his console at the front of the ship’s cockpit.
“Bit old-fashioned,” she commented.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But it’s all about honor and respect with these guys,” he explained, still engrossed in what he was doing.
“Hmm,” she grumped. “More like it’s all about covering your ass,” she muttered under her breath.
“That too,” he confessed. “ADAM, set up a meeting for us on the down low… we’re meeting with the Justicar himself.”
Arlene was intrigued. She got up out of her chair and ambled over to where Giles was working, perching on the console next to him to see his face as he spoke. “Why him specifically?” she asked.
Giles looked up at her, his hand mid-way to another button in the holo-display he was working on. “Well, the Emperor himself doesn’t handle these kind of trivial matters. It normally falls to some random official in his court, but given Molly’s diplomatic relations had gone so well in the past with him and the Justicar, ADAM reached out to them directly. Turns out the Emperor and Justicar had rather warmed to her… and by extension, humans in general.”
Arlene squinted one eye suspiciously. “And what about Estarians?”
Giles chortled quietly, his attention mostly back on his work.
“What?” Arlene pressed.
He smiled up at her briefly before turning back to the holo-console. “I don’t think they have any bad feelings towards you,” he said slowly.
“But?”
“But…” he continued, “I think they just have you down as a rather ugly version of themselves.”
Arlene looked horrified as she swiped at his nearest arm. Giles managed to lean back and dodge, still chuckling. “Don’t worry Arlene, I still think you’re cute!”
“Humpft,” she retorted, turning her attention back to her console and nursing her ego. “Ugly version… we’ll see about that!”
She stomped back to her console to continue her analysis of the constellations she had been working through.
It took a little time before they were finally within striking distance of Kurilia. Scamp piped up over the cockpit intercom. “Giles, Arlene, will you be wanting to land, or would you like to take the skylift down to the surface?”
Giles had just come back into the cockpit. “I’m not sure,” he said contemplating the two options. “Which is easiest?”
Scamp chuckled over the audio. “For who?” he asked cheekily.
Giles suddenly remembered why he had always had interesting relationship with AIs. “Let’s say for us,” he suggested.
Scamp’s chuckling subsided. “I’d say the skylift is the better option. You’d still need to meet with your official liaisons, but landing will take more time and lots more walking by my calculations.”
Giles smiled. “Ok. Skylift it is then,” he responded.
Scamp seemed to compute something else. “There is an additional variable to consider,” he added.
“What’s that then?” Giles asked.
“Well,” Scamp explained, “I understand from data shared by Emma that Molly and her crew would jump down onto the skylift platform as the ship passed by it in an off-kilter kind of geo-orbit.”
Arlene frowned. “Hang on, who is Emma?”
“The EI that runs Molly’s ship, the Empress,” Scamp explained.
“Ah,” Arlene murmured, allowing Scamp to continue.
Giles was considering the new information. “What do you mean, they would jump down” he asked.
“You know,” Scamp explained playfully, “tuck and roll style, down to the platform.”
“You’re kidding?” Giles asked, now contemplating if it were indeed possible for an EI to be running irony as some kind of uncontrolled sub-routine. “What speed was the ship passing at?�
�� he tried to clarify.
Scamp’s tone was giving nothing away on the irony front. “Maybe a couple of meters per second,” he responded matter-of-factly.
Giles glanced over at Arlene. Arlene was shaking her head. “No frikkin way!” she exclaimed, clearly taking Scamp’s suggestion as a serious one.
“I’m afraid,” Giles informed Scamp with a degree of relief in his voice now, “we’re going to have to go with the parking-up option. Sorry,” he added, his tone clearly not remorseful about his decision.
Scamp chuffed back over the intercom. “As you wish, Mr. Kurns. I’ll make preparations for entry into orbit and coordinate with their orbital control unit to dock.”
“Thank you Scamp,” Giles responded politely, while exchanging disbelieving looks with Arlene.
Scamp’s intercom clicked off.
“Did you believe that?” Giles exclaimed, still wondering if he had imagined what Scamp was suggesting.
Arlene was still shaking her head. “You mean that they just jumped? I can’t. I mean, what if they missed the platform? That would just be it for them, right?”
Giles thought for a moment. “It’s either a long way down, or a hell of a way to go from atmospheric exposure.”
Arlene shook her head, her expression suddenly much more serious than it had been. “Well, you’d know about that,” she muttered quietly.
Giles grinned. “Yeah, and I know how painful it is, with or without nanocytes to heal you.”
Arlene shuddered. “Ok. Conversation over. I don’t want to even think about it. Do you think we need suits to head down?”
Giles shook his head. “Probably not. But after this conversation, I’m putting one on anyway.”
Arlene’s mood seemed to shift and she grinned at him cheekily. “Seems like old age is making you more sound in the head.”
Giles glanced over at her as he headed back into the main area of the ship. “Seems like,” he agreed dryly.
Giles Kurns_Rogue Operator Page 2
