The Light-Field (41 page)

‘Okay, how are we going to do this?' Aurora asked, eager to be of service, but at the same time wary of the destination of the journey she was about to take.

Since she had been recruited and trained by Anselm and the Sermetic secret service, Aurora had developed her Power beyond simple remote viewing. She now had full astral projection capability. This meant she could not only seek out a target and view them from a distance, she could project her light-body to their location. This allowed her to explore environments she might not otherwise have been able or willing to take her physical form into, and her target was usually none the wiser. In this case, however, Aurora could not find Khalid or his ship directly, as he had them shielded by his dark forces. They had to use a few psychic backdoors to penetrate his defences.

‘Zeven, Lucian and myself all know what the officers' lounge of the
Insurrecto
looks like,' Taren began. ‘But Khalid will not be keeping Kalayna and Telmo there —'

‘You need me to locate them on the ship.' Aurora got her drift.

‘That would be good,' Taren concurred. ‘The longer it takes us to locate them, the more chance Khalid has of whisking them away somewhere else. Once he realises we can find his ship, he'll modify it until it is unrecognisable and hide our targets with dark amulets. Then we'll have no chance of finding them.'

‘So this could be our only shot at this?' Yasper summarised, and Taren nodded to concur.

‘There is a good chance Khalid's ghosts will spot my astral form.' Aurora was concerned about that.

‘The amount of light we exude is blinding to them and quite repulsive,' Taren assured her. ‘So whilst they will be able to see your light, they won't be able to tolerate getting too close.'

‘You think?'

‘That's the theory. But one thing is certain — the more you fear Khalid's ghost crew, the more power you give them.'

‘Got you.' Aurora took a deep breath, and gave a nod to confirm she was ready.

‘I'll get Leal,' Taren began, as he was the telepath on duty this morning, ‘to transfer an image of the officers' lounge —'

‘Cleant of debris,' Zeven suggested. ‘Khalid has cleant house a bit since we've been there, as the bones we found at Dead Man Downs attest.'

‘Good call.' Taren imagined the scary remains out of her mental image as she stepped up to Leal, who placed a hand upon her forehead to take a snapshot of her mental picture.

‘Okay.' Leal turned to Aurora, who was seated at the end of the conference table; everyone else present was too hyped up to sit still. ‘Are you ready?' He took a seat near her.

Aurora nodded and Leal placed his palm over Aurora's forehead to telepathically imprint the image on her psyche.

‘Can I speak with you a second?' Zeven sidled up to Taren to quietly ask.

‘Now?'

‘I think I have information that is import —'

‘I really need to focus to do this.' Aurora shot a displeased look in Zeven's direction.

‘Please?' he persisted, and Taren relented.

‘Start without us,' Taren instructed Aurora, Leal, Yasper and Lucian. ‘Can we borrow your office?'

Lucian gave Zeven a look that implied he'd better not be mucking about. ‘What's mine is yours.' The captain smiled at his wife.

 

‘What is so urgent?' Taren wanted to know, as soon as the door was closed.

‘This is the first time you are going to meet Telmo Dacre in this time line, right?' Zeven verified.

‘Well, yes,' Taren concurred.

‘Back on Kila, Telmo told me and Ringbalin that he had already foreseen meeting you in some alternative future reality,' he outlined. ‘This was an instance in which he had yet to meet you and knew you by reputation only.'

‘Why didn't you tell me this before?' Taren was rather startled and excited by the news. ‘That would seem to indicate that we do find them.'

‘Yeah.' Zeven wasn't as excited about what came next. ‘It might be a good idea to leave the captain at home on this one.'

‘Why so?' Taren was immediately wary.

‘Because, Telmo claimed that the first thing you did, after apologising for being in a rush, was …' Zeven paused, looking worried.

Taren raised both brows, eager to get to the punch line.

‘You kissed him,' Zeven concluded and Taren was immediately enraged.

‘I what?' Was Zeven trying to make waves here, or was he serious? ‘If you're bullshitting —'

Zeven forced a smiled and shook his head. ‘I knew you'd immediately jump to that conclusion … and then you'd ask me why I didn't tell you sooner? Besides I did mention it to you, right before we left AMIE in Kila's universe.'

Taren dwelt on this, but couldn't recall.

‘I'm
serious
,' Zeven insisted. ‘Do you think I want to screw with Kalayna's life, or Telmo's for that matter?'

‘No.' Taren realised what a rash judgement that had been, but she wasn't used to Zeven being responsible. ‘I'm sorry —'

‘I know you're under pressure.' He waved it off.

‘Did Telmo say why I kissed him?' Taren rolled with the information.

‘He said your kiss woke him up to his Power,' Zeven advised. ‘And we both know that we can do that,
now
, but at the time Telmo made this prediction, we did not have that ability. That's why I figured that the information could be important.'

Taren took a deep breath and nodded before she gave a huge exhale. ‘Telmo was more in touch with his super-conscious on Kila, and if that's a prediction it spat forward, who am I to argue?' She looked to Zeven, her eyes pleading to be reassured that she could trust him on this.

‘Come on,' Zeven appealed again. ‘You know me well enough to know that I wouldn't lie about something like this!' Zeven was still overzealous these days, but he was not mischievous.

‘It might be best not to take Lucian on this one anyway — he's too easily recognisable. Plus he cannot make himself invisible without our aid, and I'm going to need to be focused on covering my own arse.' Taren wasn't going to make a drama out of this. ‘Still, without Lucian, we can't see the invisible bastards coming. They can't hurt us, as our Juju protects us. It's Kalayna and Telmo, I'm worried about.'

‘We'd better be real quick then,' said Zeven.

 

As they re-entered the conference room, everyone raised a finger to their lips in warning and they crept back inside.

The top half of Aurora's body was laid over the table, like she had fallen asleep during the meeting. Leal had a hand on her shoulder and was monitoring her astral movements telepathically, whilst quietly relaying her situation to the captain.

‘Rory doesn't usually shake like that,' Zeven noted.

‘It's unusually cold inside the vessel,' Leal advised. ‘There is dark mist everywhere, and it's like trying to see through a muddy windscreen, but Aurora is not perturbed.'

 

In her astral form Aurora was not affected by the elements, so when she projected her subtle body elsewhere, temperature was not usually a factor. In the officers' lounge of the
Insurrecto
, however, she was painfully aware of how cold the atmosphere around her was and that was very disconcerting. A dark mist filled the inside of the craft, obscuring her visibility as well, and she felt these shadows were the source of the extreme cold.

In the distance, Aurora could hear Leal relaying her movements to the rest of the crew. It was comforting to hear his voice and have his hand upon her shoulder, as it made her feel she wasn't alone. As she moved out of the officers' lounge and into the corridor, the dark mist cleared out of her path as she moved, however, remained closed around her at a distance, which proved Taren's theory was correct.

‘
The shadows are keeping their distance. She's moving down the corridor toward some signage
…' Aurora heard Leal say.

She was in luck — there was a floor plan of the
Insurrecto
on the wall.
Probably for the benefit of the officers staggering drunk out of the bar, just in case they couldn't remember where they were going,
she thought to amuse herself, as she looked it over.

I've always found a floor plan helpful after a heavy night out,
Leal thought her back, and Aurora smiled inside, as she spotted the technology labs on the floor plan.

‘The labs are two floors below.' Leal conveyed what he saw to the others.

Going down,
Aurora mentally warned Leal, as she spun around and floated down two levels.

‘Whoa.' Leal clearly felt woozy, as the event felt rather like being in a spinning elevator going down very fast.

Sorry.
Aurora came to a standstill to get her bearings. She was in another corridor, which was exactly where she had expected to land.

In the direction she faced there were several doors before the corridor turned a corner. As she spun around to face the other direction, Aurora spied a large glassed-off room at the end, where the lights were on.
I've found it.

‘
She's approaching the lab now
…' Leal relayed.

Aurora proceeded toward the lab, thrilled to see Kalayna in there, working closely with Telmo Dacre, whom she recognised from the news report.

The corridor rounded into another, which led along in front of the large glass lab, to the entrance doors further down. Aurora didn't need a door, however, and headed straight into the lab.

Out of the corridor before her, an agitated mass of ash moved into Aurora's path and formed a large angry face.

This brought Aurora to a grinding halt, just short of reaching her target.
Chironjivi?
She sent Leal her guess as the large head appeared to draw a deep breath. With its exhale, Aurora was blasted by a jet of freezing air that sent her toppling arse over head back up the corridor.

Abort, right now,
Leal advised.
You've got us close enough.

Aurora looked back in the direction she had come from to find the entity racing toward her, and the image of his evil face stunned her.

Then a sensation of pressure on her third eye that moved down her nose in a firm stroke, drew her away from the pending confrontation and back to her physical form.

 

‘
Ah!
' Aurora woke with a flinch, and sat up to find Leal's much friendlier face smiling back at her. ‘Did you get a good picture of the lab?'

Leal nodded, and smiled to commend her. ‘You did good.'

‘But our team is still going to have to get past Chironjivi to get to Kalayna and Telmo?'

‘That spook does not have any influence in the physical realm, unless he acquires an unprotected vessel,' Taren explained.

‘Then my brother and Kalayna are in big trouble!' Yasper realised.

‘Well, Chironjivi could have taken either one of them by now.' Taren wanted to set him at ease. ‘Maybe they are not yet powerful enough to be of interest to him?'

‘We should go.' Lucian could see no point in speculating further.

Taren shook her head. ‘No, you and Yasper should stay here for this one. Zeven and I can use invisibility if necessary. We want to avoid Khalid recognising any of us.'

Lucian looked curious — he wondered what Zeven had said to her in the office. ‘You're the boss.' He accepted her directive, but his words really cut Taren in this particular instance.

She regretted that she didn't have time to explain all her motives, as Leal stepped up to her to telepathically convey the image of the destination.

‘Copy that,' she confirmed when the impression became clear in her mind's eye. Then, retrieving the container Chironjivi had been released from off the conference table, Taren tucked it under her arm and joined Zeven, who took her hand. ‘Ready?'

‘Was I ever not?' He grinned.

‘Well, there was that time you showed up naked —' Lucian began.

‘Let's not go there,' Zevan objected, to his crewmates' amusement.

Taren focused on the picture of their destination, acquired by Aurora and Leal just now, and looked into the lab just ahead. She mentally homed in closer and envisaged landing on the other side of the glass. Instantly, the molecules of their bodies complied with her will and, reduced to photons, they were propelled forth through the light field to their target location.

 

Upon manifesting in the lab, Taren was excited to realise her little projection experiment had worked.

‘Oh my … Star —' Kalayna cheered when she saw him, but Zeven held a finger to his lips to stop her short of naming him.

‘I knew you'd come!' She ran and threw her arms about him.

Telmo was completely stunned to see his idol manifest out of nowhere before him. ‘For the love of science your —'

‘Shhh!' Taren held a finger to her lips to prevent him voicing his observation either.

‘I've read all of your work … and I mean all!'

Clearly, the young man was starstuck, so Taren smiled and grabbed the hand he held out to her — of the mind to teleport him straight back to AMIE. ‘I'm pleased to meet you, Mr Dacre, but we are a little pushed for time right now —' Taren felt a deep pang of fear and recognition shoot through her being and she waylaid her departure — this was exactly what Zeven had said she would say!

She looked to Zeven and a second wave of panic washed over her. She saw the soot rising from the floor all around Kalayna, who was holding him and noted Kalayna's hand slip up under Zeven's sleeve. Before Taren had a chance to warn him, Kalayna had ripped the armband off Zeven's arm. The second she had the Juju in hand, Kalayna backed up and the ash sprang from Kalayna's form onto Zeven's and vanished with him. Kalayna fell to the floor, woozy.